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9 million would be hard to count, HOWEVER

delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081

We could all agree that 9 million active players would be physically hard to count even by a team of persistent, dedicated group of people trying to prove either way.  HOWEVER I for one don't believe 9 million is even close and that the numbers can be counted. Let me explain why :

A few years back I decided to do my own style of research on player counts for other mmos such as Everquest 2, Vanguard, and Dungeons and Dragons online. Sure they are much smaller populated mmos. Sure I did not get a 100% accurate count, but I'm sure I was within + / - 10%.

How :

Using the Social Panel > Who I had broken the list down to Level and Class as their would be a cut off of 49 players to do my count. Understanding that on a given time you would not have all active players on at the same time and this made it harder to get a full count. So I spent several days conducting my research. I would create a level one character on each faction for each server, and at different times and days. Prime time, 2 AM, mornings, along with other parameters that I can't remember.  I was obsessed with this, but It was many years ago.

In my findings, I found that the numbers were NOT EVEN CLOSE  to what people believed or what Developers were giving us. I had paperwork around my house as my proof for a long time, but as time went on it got lost and I forgot my actual numbers. I can say for fact that I was amazed at how low they really were.  Such as the simplest count (Vanguard) was only like 280 as to 5K like people were lead to believe. Everquest 2 was way lower also.

 

Now With this, and knowing the number of servers in WoW and knowing that many realms are very low population along with doing a count on at least one populated server in the game, I could safely say that they only have about 1 million. Sure this is a GUESS. But the numbers can be achieved if a team working hard did a count.

 

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Comments

  • DoogiehowserDoogiehowser Member Posts: 1,873
    Yes i will also believe the crazy guy with pen and papers scattered all over his place when it comes to official numbers of population in MMOS. Who wouldn't?

    "The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
    -Jesse Schell

    "Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
    -Luke McKinney

    image

  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081
    Originally posted by Doogiehowser
    Yes i will also believe the crazy guy with pen and papers scattered all over his place when it comes to official numbers of population in MMOS. Who wouldn't?

    Ok Doogie,

    Just looking around Stormwind at prime time, and running around different zones, and doing simple,fast Social panel checks for players in instances would you still think a populated server would REALLY have over 2K players.....If so Stormwind would be packed solid !

  • StrommStromm Member Posts: 243

    Define active players?

    If a player logs in for 30 minutes once a month are they considered active?

    If a player is not logging in at all but has an active subscription are they considered active?

    If a player is using a trial account are they considered active?

    More importantly why do you care? How does the total number of active players make any difference to your experience?

     

  • Alber_gamerAlber_gamer Member UncommonPosts: 588
    Don't feed the trolls.

    My opinion is my own. I respect all other opinions and views equally, but keep in mind that my opinion will always be the best for me. That's why it's my opinion.

  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081
    Originally posted by Stromm

    Define active players?

    If a player logs in for 30 minutes once a month are they considered active?

    If a player is not logging in at all but has an active subscription are they considered active?

    If a player is using a trial account are they considered active?

    More importantly why do you care? How does the total number of active players make any difference to your experience?

     

    My point, How does Blizzard define Active ?

  • cowheadcowhead Member UncommonPosts: 94
    You're paying for an account therefore its active would be my guess.
  • expressoexpresso Member UncommonPosts: 2,218
    Originally posted by delete5230
    Originally posted by Stromm

    Define active players?

    If a player logs in for 30 minutes once a month are they considered active?

    If a player is not logging in at all but has an active subscription are they considered active?

    If a player is using a trial account are they considered active?

    More importantly why do you care? How does the total number of active players make any difference to your experience?

     

    My point, How does Blizzard define Active ?

    for the 1,000,000'th time, this is included on any official blizzard press release in plan text the same size as the othet text, its not hidden it's there for any one with even the smallest brains to see.

     

    World of Warcraft’s Subscriber Definition

    World of Warcraft® subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.

  • expressoexpresso Member UncommonPosts: 2,218

    Time to beat down the OP

    So he created around 1000 characters (500 alliance 500 horde) as there are around 500 NA/EU servers

    He had to create 20 accounts (I assume trial accounts) to hold all these charcaters, as an account is limited 50 characters

    For three days he logged in 3 times per day to each account, lets do some math lets say it take 2 minutes to log into 1 account do a /who and record the number etc. that is 2000*3 minutes/day or 99 hours/day - all laws of the universe say thats in possible.

    The above does not factor in the Asia and pacific regions.

    OP go troll some other game.

     

  • jimdandy26jimdandy26 Member Posts: 527
    Originally posted by expresso

    Time to beat down the OP

    So he created around 1000 characters (500 alliance 500 horde) as there are around 500 NA/EU servers

    He had to create 20 accounts (I assume trial accounts) to hold all these charcaters, as an account is limited 50 characters

    For three days he logged in 3 times per day to each account, lets do some math lets say it take 2 minutes to log into 1 account do a /who and record the number etc. that is 2000*3 minutes/day or 99 hours/day - all laws of the universe say thats in possible.

    The above does not factor in the Asia and pacific regions.

    OP go troll some other game.

     

    ^ This. Not to mention Eq2 has given many many terabytes of data to psychologists to breakdown.

    I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.

    To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.

  • DoogiehowserDoogiehowser Member Posts: 1,873
    Originally posted by expresso

    Time to beat down the OP

    So he created around 1000 characters (500 alliance 500 horde) as there are around 500 NA/EU servers

    He had to create 20 accounts (I assume trial accounts) to hold all these charcaters, as an account is limited 50 characters

    For three days he logged in 3 times per day to each account, lets do some math lets say it take 2 minutes to log into 1 account do a /who and record the number etc. that is 2000*3 minutes/day or 99 hours/day - all laws of the universe say thats in possible.

    The above does not factor in the Asia and pacific regions.

    OP go troll some other game.

     

    This...

    /end thread.

    "The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
    -Jesse Schell

    "Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
    -Luke McKinney

    image

  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004
    Originally posted by delete5230

    We could all agree that 9 million active players would be physically hard to count even by a team of persistent, dedicated group of people trying to prove either way.  HOWEVER I for one don't believe 9 million is even close and that the numbers can be counted. Let me explain why :

    A few years back I decided to do my own style of research on player counts for other mmos such as Everquest 2, Vanguard, and Dungeons and Dragons online. Sure they are much smaller populated mmos. Sure I did not get a 100% accurate count, but I'm sure I was within + / - 10%.

    How :

    Using the Social Panel > Who I had broken the list down to Level and Class as their would be a cut off of 49 players to do my count. Understanding that on a given time you would not have all active players on at the same time and this made it harder to get a full count. So I spent several days conducting my research. I would create a level one character on each faction for each server, and at different times and days. Prime time, 2 AM, mornings, along with other parameters that I can't remember.  I was obsessed with this, but It was many years ago.

    In my findings, I found that the numbers were NOT EVEN CLOSE  to what people believed or what Developers were giving us. I had paperwork around my house as my proof for a long time, but as time went on it got lost and I forgot my actual numbers. I can say for fact that I was amazed at how low they really were.  Such as the simplest count (Vanguard) was only like 280 as to 5K like people were lead to believe. Everquest 2 was way lower also.

     

    Now With this, and knowing the number of servers in WoW and knowing that many realms are very low population along with doing a count on at least one populated server in the game, I could safely say that they only have about 1 million. Sure this is a GUESS. But the numbers can be achieved if a team working hard did a count.

     

    even if you did somehow manage to gather significant data on player numbers at any particular time, it would be totally irrelevant. That you think it somehow has some bearing on subscription numbers is laughable, you might just as well gather the information from xfire and raptr etc. You just have to accept the fact that there is no direct corralation between player numbers and player subscriptions. Only game i know of that advertises current player numbers (not subscriptions) is Eve online, when you log in it shows how many players are logged into the server, which on any given day can be between 40-55k which obviously is far short of the number of total subscribed players. The whole premise your post is based on is fallacious, from incomplete data to things that can only be utter guesswork and wishful thinking, any point your trying to make is very shaky at best.image

  • expressoexpresso Member UncommonPosts: 2,218
    Originally posted by Phry

     

    even if you did somehow manage to gather significant data on player numbers at any particular time, it would be totally irrelevant. That you think it somehow has some bearing on subscription numbers is laughable, you might just as well gather the information from xfire and raptr etc. You just have to accept the fact that there is no direct corralation between player numbers and player subscriptions. Only game i know of that advertises current player numbers (not subscriptions) is Eve online, when you log in it shows how many players are logged into the server, which on any given day can be between 40-55k which obviously is far short of the number of total subscribed players. The whole premise your post is based on is fallacious, from incomplete data to things that can only be utter guesswork and wishful thinking, any point your trying to make is very shaky at best.image

    Battle.net shows the number players online, just took the below screenshot, though I am not sure if this includes WoW as WoW does not run on battle.net.

    The only real measure of wow sub numbers we have at the moment is expansion sales and we know Mists sold 2.7million in the first week so has probably gone on to sell 3.5-4 million since, ofc that does not mean wow has 3-4 million active players in the EU/NA region right now.

    *Note that "About" number jumps in increments of 250,000 so it's more than 750,000 active on bnet right now, assuming it's rounding up probably closer to 850,000

  • tawesstawess Member EpicPosts: 4,227

    I hope this was not part of the OP's uni thesis...

     

    Any way as we know the biggest chunk of the 9 mill world wide comes fomr the asian market

     

    i think EU was something like a mill or two and the US a little above that. And of them perhaps you see 30-40% active at any given time.. Then you also have to take in to account things like if a patch just have been released, if it is the end of a patch cycle or even worse a expansion cycle, what time of the year it is and so on and so forth.

     

    I do not in any way shape or form doubt that WoW have 9 mil active accounts... But that says nothing about concurent players per region... And my bet is that those numbers have fluctuated greatly over the years and are most likley on a general decline. Why this does not reflect in the 9 mil above... Well have you ever forget to cancel a magazine subscription or an old rental deal. Or how about those monthly socks and underwear clubs... People forget to (or do not want to) cancel their sub even if they do not play any more. Heck i was subbed to EvE for a year after a stopped playing just because i forgot to cancel it. It was such a small sum and it got lost in the general buzz of stuff.

     

    That is why most places does not tell you the concurent user number (unless it is a positive number that work as marketing) and that is why the 9 mil subs are inpressive but might not have that much impact on your gaming expericne... a dead server is a dead server.

    This have been a good conversation

  • ArconaArcona Member UncommonPosts: 1,182
    Originally posted by Doogiehowser
    Yes i will also believe the crazy guy with pen and papers scattered all over his place when it comes to official numbers of population in MMOS. Who wouldn't?

    Why use pen and paper when the computer can log the number of subscribers?

    They could also just count their money :)

  • korent1991korent1991 Member UncommonPosts: 1,364
    Originally posted by expresso

    Time to beat down the OP

    So he created around 1000 characters (500 alliance 500 horde) as there are around 500 NA/EU servers

    He had to create 20 accounts (I assume trial accounts) to hold all these charcaters, as an account is limited 50 characters

    For three days he logged in 3 times per day to each account, lets do some math lets say it take 2 minutes to log into 1 account do a /who and record the number etc. that is 2000*3 minutes/day or 99 hours/day - all laws of the universe say thats in possible.

    The above does not factor in the Asia and pacific regions.

    OP go troll some other game.

     

    you should read the OP first....

    He never said he did the count himself, he said he's GUESSING a count based on his previous games count. He also said that if A TEAM of people would do a count it's possible to get real numbers. You didn't beat anyone yet.

    To the OP, I'm not really sure why it's relevant for us to know the exact number of players in wow or any game for that matter. If you can play it and find people to do group stuff with fairly quickly - it's good and healthy populated game.

    "Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
    -------------------------------

    image
  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081

    I'm not trying to defend or offend WoW as a game here. I'm simply stating that I don't believe 9 million players based on my findings using other mmos. Even so, If my evaluation of other games are not accurate they are not too far off. not 1/10th of what other developers,posters and players say.

    I never attempted to do total player counts of World of Warcraft as even if as low as one million would be very time consuming if not impossible to do by one person. However I did a player count on a very populated realm " Blackrock " and only the Alliance side less than a year ago and it was only a FEW HUNDRED at one prime time. It was not an in dept check. I did other simple checks on other servers ( not very involved ) and they were extreemly low.

     

    What I'm trying to say is that marketing, ALL marketing sque numbers to satisfy their marketing. Think of what 9 million is, You would see mass volumes of people if this were true, just by quick glance....Just think of what 1 million is 1,000 x 1,000 thats a lot of people and on my realms I had just not ever seen extreme large volumes to support that.

    People bring people, if marketing could use tricks to assume that they would.

     

    I've been doing KungFu for 21 years, I've seen times that we have 10 students and others that we had close to a hundred. When we have a hundred others see that and join, when low people don't join !

  • tawesstawess Member EpicPosts: 4,227

    Thing is OP you are getting concurent users mixed up with active accounts (often called users by marketing.. or even players.)

     

    Blizzard have never told us any real specific numbers on how many players are active at one time or another... That number is way way lower the the total.

     

    They only speak of active accounts... Even if they are called players from time to time. But as we know a lot of people have serveral accounts and other share a account between several people.

     

    So 9 mil only represent the total number of active accounts and outside of working in blizzards account dep you will never be able to "prove" this number right or wrong.

     

    But as you say with a big enough effort you might be able to get a good guesstimate of the number of users online at any given time.

    This have been a good conversation

  • ThaneThane Member EpicPosts: 3,534
    Originally posted by delete5230

    We could all agree that 9 million active players would be physically hard to count even by a team of persistent, dedicated group of people trying to prove either way.  HOWEVER I for one don't believe 9 million is even close and that the numbers can be counted. Let me explain why :

    A few years back I decided to do my own style of research on player counts for other mmos such as Everquest 2, Vanguard, and Dungeons and Dragons online. Sure they are much smaller populated mmos. Sure I did not get a 100% accurate count, but I'm sure I was within + / - 10%.

    How :

    Using the Social Panel > Who I had broken the list down to Level and Class as their would be a cut off of 49 players to do my count. Understanding that on a given time you would not have all active players on at the same time and this made it harder to get a full count. So I spent several days conducting my research. I would create a level one character on each faction for each server, and at different times and days. Prime time, 2 AM, mornings, along with other parameters that I can't remember.  I was obsessed with this, but It was many years ago.

    In my findings, I found that the numbers were NOT EVEN CLOSE  to what people believed or what Developers were giving us. I had paperwork around my house as my proof for a long time, but as time went on it got lost and I forgot my actual numbers. I can say for fact that I was amazed at how low they really were.  Such as the simplest count (Vanguard) was only like 280 as to 5K like people were lead to believe. Everquest 2 was way lower also.

     

    Now With this, and knowing the number of servers in WoW and knowing that many realms are very low population along with doing a count on at least one populated server in the game, I could safely say that they only have about 1 million. Sure this is a GUESS. But the numbers can be achieved if a team working hard did a count.

     

    no need to guess when you are admin.

     

    it's not like blizz is walking around and counting every player they see, that's what logs are for dude ^^

    "I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"

  • strangiato2112strangiato2112 Member CommonPosts: 1,538
    Originally posted by delete5230

    We could all agree that 9 million active players would be physically hard to count even by a team of persistent, dedicated group of people trying to prove either way.  HOWEVER I for one don't believe 9 million is even close and that the numbers can be counted. Let me explain why :

    A few years back I decided to do my own style of research on player counts for other mmos such as Everquest 2, Vanguard, and Dungeons and Dragons online. Sure they are much smaller populated mmos. Sure I did not get a 100% accurate count, but I'm sure I was within + / - 10%.

    How :

    Using the Social Panel > Who I had broken the list down to Level and Class as their would be a cut off of 49 players to do my count. Understanding that on a given time you would not have all active players on at the same time and this made it harder to get a full count. So I spent several days conducting my research. I would create a level one character on each faction for each server, and at different times and days. Prime time, 2 AM, mornings, along with other parameters that I can't remember.  I was obsessed with this, but It was many years ago.

    In my findings, I found that the numbers were NOT EVEN CLOSE  to what people believed or what Developers were giving us. I had paperwork around my house as my proof for a long time, but as time went on it got lost and I forgot my actual numbers. I can say for fact that I was amazed at how low they really were.  Such as the simplest count (Vanguard) was only like 280 as to 5K like people were lead to believe. Everquest 2 was way lower also.

     

    Now With this, and knowing the number of servers in WoW and knowing that many realms are very low population along with doing a count on at least one populated server in the game, I could safely say that they only have about 1 million. Sure this is a GUESS. But the numbers can be achieved if a team working hard did a count.

     

    Your method wont work with WoW because of the cross realm dungeons and raids, which afaik dont show up on who list..  Plus if you do a /who 90 class on my server, you will get a full list at all times anyway, so tough to know if its 50 or 150.  And then you need to know the ratio, which is different for each game, for concurrent users at time of your survey/subs

     

    Blizz's method is pretty simple:  anyone who paid money over the course of the month (or is on a multimonth sub) is considered active.  Which really makes logical sense.  And with logging and databases/spreadsheets Im sure they can give you an exact number.

  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081
    Originally posted by strangiato2112
    Originally posted by delete5230

    We could all agree that 9 million active players would be physically hard to count even by a team of persistent, dedicated group of people trying to prove either way.  HOWEVER I for one don't believe 9 million is even close and that the numbers can be counted. Let me explain why :

    A few years back I decided to do my own style of research on player counts for other mmos such as Everquest 2, Vanguard, and Dungeons and Dragons online. Sure they are much smaller populated mmos. Sure I did not get a 100% accurate count, but I'm sure I was within + / - 10%.

    How :

    Using the Social Panel > Who I had broken the list down to Level and Class as their would be a cut off of 49 players to do my count. Understanding that on a given time you would not have all active players on at the same time and this made it harder to get a full count. So I spent several days conducting my research. I would create a level one character on each faction for each server, and at different times and days. Prime time, 2 AM, mornings, along with other parameters that I can't remember.  I was obsessed with this, but It was many years ago.

    In my findings, I found that the numbers were NOT EVEN CLOSE  to what people believed or what Developers were giving us. I had paperwork around my house as my proof for a long time, but as time went on it got lost and I forgot my actual numbers. I can say for fact that I was amazed at how low they really were.  Such as the simplest count (Vanguard) was only like 280 as to 5K like people were lead to believe. Everquest 2 was way lower also.

     

    Now With this, and knowing the number of servers in WoW and knowing that many realms are very low population along with doing a count on at least one populated server in the game, I could safely say that they only have about 1 million. Sure this is a GUESS. But the numbers can be achieved if a team working hard did a count.

     

    Your method wont work with WoW because of the cross realm dungeons and raids, which afaik dont show up on who list..  Plus if you do a /who 90 class on my server, you will get a full list at all times anyway, so tough to know if its 50 or 150.  And then you need to know the ratio, which is different for each game, for concurrent users at time of your survey/subs

     

    Blizz's method is pretty simple:  anyone who paid money over the course of the month (or is on a multimonth sub) is considered active.  Which really makes logical sense.  And with logging and databases/spreadsheets Im sure they can give you an exact number.

    Sorry you did not read very carefully.

    First, You do get a count of players on your server even if they are in a cross realm instance.

    Next, If you break searches in Who by class or even taking it a step deeper you can break it down to class and race, however I never had to go that far. I've never had to go beyond class break down for max level player counts. Never had I found more than 49 Warriors, 49 Warlocks, 49 Rogues and so on, at max level.

    Please read next time :)

     

  • PsychowPsychow Member Posts: 1,784

    So what the OP is saying is this whole World of Warcraft thing is a big lie / scam and people aren't really playing based on his scientific sampling efforts?

     

    Then does this mean the revenues, jobs, etc aren't real eaither? because if the subscribers aren't real...neither can the money...

  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081
    Originally posted by Psychow

    So what the OP is saying is this whole World of Warcraft thing is a big lie / scam and people aren't really playing based on his scientific sampling efforts?

     

    Then does this mean the revenues, jobs, etc aren't real eaither? because if the subscribers aren't real...neither can the money...

    No more of a big lie / scam than any other developer. The facade of 9 million brings others. Just a simple marketing trick. I would say    1 million.

  • hikaru77hikaru77 Member UncommonPosts: 1,123

    80-90% of the 9 mill are from the Asian Market. Thats the answer to everything about why WoW have 9 Subs. 

     

  • BeansnBreadBeansnBread Member EpicPosts: 7,254
    Originally posted by hikaru77

    80-90% of the 9 mill are from the Asian Market. Thats the answer to everything about why WoW have 9 Subs. 

     

    Source?

  • PsychowPsychow Member Posts: 1,784
    Originally posted by hikaru77

    80-90% of the 9 mill are from the Asian Market. Thats the answer to everything about why WoW have 9 Subs.  

     

    And Asains are bad. Right? Isn't that what people are implying when pointing out the Asain market numbers?

     

    WoW: We have 9.6 million subscribers!

     

    Racist Retard: Yeah, but hey are mostly Asaians. So they shouldn't count...

This discussion has been closed.