Actively played in X amount of time? Played to X level?
A MMO is nothing without an active community.
100% agree look at Vanguard grt game no player base to keep the servers pop at 25% or higher
I think you can't compare alganon and vanguard like that. Alganon is actually growing. They get updates, got advertised ect. While vanguard seems more to be on life support. When was the last time vanguard had a huge update? An I also can't remember when I saw the last vanguard ad. Active communities don't have to be huge to be good. Check wow's community, it is huge, but is in no way better then the lotro community for example. lotro's community is by far the best and most mature I ever came across in an mmo. Both vanguard and alganon have an active community, it's small but it's there otherwise these games would have been shutdown a long time ago. And how they calculate these numbers? no idea, ask Mr Smart, he is wandering around these boards.
Well said.
In my previous post (two posts above), I also explained how the numbers are calculated.
Calculating the numbers of "active" accounts is not rocket science; so I for one am a bit puzzled by some of the comments related to that. It is one thing to say "...whoa! you're lying", which I'm not; and another to say "..no way, how are you calculating that when I only see 10 people online at any one time?"; which I've already addressed I think.
For us an ACTIVE account follows this path:
1. Sign-up (web page)
2. Activated (from email sent from step 1)
3. Logged in (from step 2)
4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc
So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Whether or not 100K or even 15K people decide to play on the same day is irrelevant. I for one hope they don't because considering the current state of our server code (one of the major upgrades we are pondering after localization) if that were to happen, the server CPU would probably up and leave the server rack.
Even with niche games like Eve which have about 300K active accounts, you'd be hard pressed to see anywhere near those numbers online at any one time. As I type this, there are only 35K users logged into the servers. Regardless of how you look at it, no matter how large an MMO community is, the usage spikes up, low and everywhere in between over time.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living. If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead ...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
I created an account yesterday after receiving a free mount code in PCgamer mag and I must say the game is good. But...I ran into 2 other people the entire time I played last night. Is there a server that you could recommend that I could actually play with others? I created my toon on the first PVE server I saw...it started with an "A". Is the other PVE server population any better?
I created an account yesterday after receiving a free mount code in PCgamer mag and I must say the game is good. But...I ran into 2 other people the entire time I played last night. Is there a server that you could recommend that I could actually play with others? I created my toon on the first PVE server I saw...it started with an "A". Is the other PVE server population any better?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
It all depends on the time of day and the server that you choose. Our server pop spikes at the oddest times and that is due in part by the fact that we only have US servers and lag is a huge problem for some (depending on where you are connecting from) - but I'm working on that as we expand the game globally.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living. If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead ...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
I created an account yesterday after receiving a free mount code in PCgamer mag and I must say the game is good. But...I ran into 2 other people the entire time I played last night. Is there a server that you could recommend that I could actually play with others? I created my toon on the first PVE server I saw...it started with an "A". Is the other PVE server population any better?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
It all depends on the time of day and the server that you choose. Our server pop spikes at the oddest times and that is due in part by the fact that we only have US servers and lag is a huge problem for some (depending on where you are connecting from) - but I'm working on that as we expand the game globally.
After seeing that no one has posted on the general discussion forums today and after reading all of the posts in this thread, I think I will move on to another game.
I wanted to try this awhile back , but i couldn't ever get the game to download. I tried for 2 days then gave up.
Might go and retry again. Nice to see some solid effort from the devs to try and bring some life to this disaster piece.
I never played it , but facts are facts! Horrible launch , wow clone label , and plenty of bad reviews from the get go.
Never really felt it had a chance to survive honestly. I went through that crap with TCOS. The last days of TCOS you would see maybe 5 players online total.
Im willing to go back and give it another shot..cant hurt! its free!
Best case scenario - A game to play for a couple a months.
Worst case scenario - Still sux , Ragequit , uninstall.
tried this game..thought it was ok n that. bought the f2p upgrade kit played to think lvl 20. but i bounce around games so much that i dont play this game that much anymore. but truthfully only reason i gavem sum of my momey to helpem by. The little guys with the small player base n communities that yet manage to survive for years i feel deserve's sum of my money. btw Fallen Earth's playerbase is also small and atm i know of well over 13 MMO's most are f2p and sum are p2p that u dont see many on but are still updating and moving along. Grant it their not doin turbo modes on updates. but atleast their still doin them unlike most games
But so what if Alganon has 2 players on at the same time or 200. They ones that are enjoying the game enjoy it for the what it's worth to them, not because of who or how many are playing. So if you're playing a mmo based on that merit, you're playing for a really strange reason.
Strange you would say that for a MMORPG. If there are only 2 people, you can't really form a group for a dungeon and how can you enjoy a MMORPG? Or if you are into pvp, you can't even have a 10 on 10 battle.
A large enough player base is a must for a enjoyable MMORPG. Otherwise, i would just go back and play Fallout 3 on my own.
Actively played in X amount of time? Played to X level?
A MMO is nothing without an active community.
100% agree look at Vanguard grt game no player base to keep the servers pop at 25% or higher
I think you can't compare alganon and vanguard like that. Alganon is actually growing. They get updates, got advertised ect. While vanguard seems more to be on life support. When was the last time vanguard had a huge update? An I also can't remember when I saw the last vanguard ad. Active communities don't have to be huge to be good. Check wow's community, it is huge, but is in no way better then the lotro community for example. lotro's community is by far the best and most mature I ever came across in an mmo. Both vanguard and alganon have an active community, it's small but it's there otherwise these games would have been shutdown a long time ago. And how they calculate these numbers? no idea, ask Mr Smart, he is wandering around these boards.
Well said.
In my previous post (two posts above), I also explained how the numbers are calculated.
Calculating the numbers of "active" accounts is not rocket science; so I for one am a bit puzzled by some of the comments related to that. It is one thing to say "...whoa! you're lying", which I'm not; and another to say "..no way, how are you calculating that when I only see 10 people online at any one time?"; which I've already addressed I think.
For us an ACTIVE account follows this path:
1. Sign-up (web page)
2. Activated (from email sent from step 1)
3. Logged in (from step 2)
4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc
So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Whether or not 100K or even 15K people decide to play on the same day is irrelevant. I for one hope they don't because considering the current state of our server code (one of the major upgrades we are pondering after localization) if that were to happen, the server CPU would probably up and leave the server rack.
Even with niche games like Eve which have about 300K active accounts, you'd be hard pressed to see anywhere near those numbers online at any one time. As I type this, there are only 35K users logged into the servers. Regardless of how you look at it, no matter how large an MMO community is, the usage spikes up, low and everywhere in between over time.
Strange you brought up Eve online. They routinely have thousand of people online at the same time and you have like 10. Care to comment. They have reached a peak concurrent players of like 50k. What is your peak?
I do realize that you don't count average online players (or peak) because that look bad on you. But this is a MMORPG, it makes a difference of how many other are playing at the same time. You can't even have a few dungeon groups for your online population and what is the point?
You are just counting people who have made characters and play for a min? Geez.
Thanks for the replies, Derek. Please note, I wasn't insinuating that you were lying. I was merely expressing surprise at the numbers. I also have a good understanding of ARPU vs., ARPPU. In fact, I've posted Raph's link before! My primary concern is that "active" means different things to different people, which is why I asked some of the questions I did. Sorry if I'm being persnickety, but my entire career is based on helping companies store, format and extract data in order to present it in a meaningful manner. Part of my "rl" job is to ask these types of questions of my clients. To be honest, you were much more forthcoming and detailed in your reply than I expected, which was refreshing.
Thanks for the replies, Derek. Please note, I wasn't insinuating that you were lying.
~Ripper
I know. And my comment was not directed at you at all. Sorry if it came across that way. I was speaking in terms of the other comments from people who are seemingly implying that I'm making stuff up.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living. If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead ...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
I guess DS has a different definition for ' active ' as everyone else in the world.. Really no chance for 100,000 active players in the usual sense. Maybe 100,000 people have logged onto the game over the last 12+ months ( even in the beta there werent that many people in the game ) but thats about it. To have 100,000 active users you would expect a few thousand playing at the same time at the very least.. Not 6 or 10.
As for Vanguard.. It has a much larger playerbase than Alganon still. Would probably be even larger if it went F2P. So thats another reason why you cant say " Alganon is growing and Vanguard isnt ".. One is f2p and the other is not.
After sticking with this game for a total of three days, I have discovered that at any given time that I logged in, there were no more than five people online in any zone that I entered...most of the time it was an average of two others besides me. The game isn't bad, but I am not going to devote any more time to a dead game. By the way...I was on Adrios server as Asharr faction. I figured the PCgamer free mount would have at least spiked things up a bit...but no it didn't.
Originally posted by dsmart For us an ACTIVE account follows this path: 1. Sign-up (web page) 2. Activated (from email sent from step 1) 3. Logged in (from step 2) 4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Well, this actually means nothing. I'm probably counted as an active player because i made an account and tried the game for like 1 hour several months ago...
Useful metrics would be the peak and average concurrent users around the clock, THAT would be interesting to see.
There is a lot of difference in saying "we have 100k active accounts" and "100k accounts have been activated and logged at least once at some point in time"...
Those numbers are useful in calculating ARPU as long if they relate to the measurement period. If monthly ARPU is being calculated, for example, then sales would have to be calculated against accounts active within that month, not total accounts with some activity at some point. It has to be apples-to-apples. There's no incentive to simply use all accounts activated since the beginning of time when calculating ARPU within a short measurement period, because it was actually lower your ARPU.
At a high level, it's useful to see how many accounts have been registered and activated since a specific point-in-time, especially as they relate to a timeline of events and there are definitely significant events within the last year for Alganon.
At least it's not like SOE - I logged into my account last night and saw that I was listed as active for Free Realms, a game I haven't played in at least 6 months and Everquest II Extended, a game I'e literally NEVER played (much less installed), etc..
After sticking with this game for a total of three days, I have discovered that at any given time that I logged in, there were no more than five people online in any zone that I entered...most of the time it was an average of two others besides me. The game isn't bad, but I am not going to devote any more time to a dead game. By the way...I was on Adrios server as Asharr faction. I figured the PCgamer free mount would have at least spiked things up a bit...but no it didn't.
*This* is a lot more useful information than how many "active" accounts there are (in whatever definition DS used). Why? Because i wouldn't care less if the Alganon database has 1M accounts, all i care is whether i have someone to play with.
Yeah it can be spun in what ever fashion it wants to be. There is no way in the last 2 years has there been more then 100 players online at the same time on each server. I would love to see it proven different.
I was in the beta and stuck with the game througt the thick and thin. And the most I ever saw online from hitting the social button "that will tell you all that are online from level 1 to 50 on your faction" was 65 players. This was at the time that the game had a amazing community. Now it is at most a half dozen players from back then that still log on. Hell go look at the guilds that are left on the servers. Not a lot of those players logging on anymore.
There has been the odd night and day that the server hits a whopping 25 players online at once. But that is darn rare these days. And yes I got friends from the UK and North America that I talk to that log on at a regular basis and we all let one another know the players online for the day,week, month.
Sad through cause deep down there is a gem of a game that needs to be come out. But under the current leadership. I am afraid that will never happen. There are a great bunch of devs are QOL that do not get enough kudo's for the work they do. It is more focused around Smrt. Which is darn pathetic.
Wow clone the game may be, but so is everthing else it seems coming out these days for fantasy MMO.
100k "active" players that have created a account and logged on once...... maybe. But 100k active players that still log on from time to time. No bloody way.
4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc
So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Well, this actually means nothing. I'm probably counted as an active player because i made an account and tried the game for like 1 hour several months ago...
Useful metrics would be the peak and average concurrent users around the clock, THAT would be interesting to see.
There is a lot of difference in saying "we have 100k active accounts" and "100k accounts have been activated and logged at least once at some point in time"...
From the point of view of someone in Smart's position, not as much as you think. When he makes reports regarding the situation of the game, he is essentially being paid to make even bad news sound like good news. By the strictest definition in MMOs and other things, an active account is one that is not canceled, so therefore every account that is for a F2P game is active, even if you haven't played in years due to the fact that you never pay for it and therefore never have to cancel it. The possibility that 100k people made accounts is highly probable. However, the possibility that all100k are actively playing the game is, from what I have heard, highly improbable. Derek Smart did tell the truth when he said that "we have 100k active accounts", even if it wasn't the whole truth.
4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc
So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Well, this actually means nothing. I'm probably counted as an active player because i made an account and tried the game for like 1 hour several months ago...
Useful metrics would be the peak and average concurrent users around the clock, THAT would be interesting to see.
There is a lot of difference in saying "we have 100k active accounts" and "100k accounts have been activated and logged at least once at some point in time"...
From the point of view of someone in Smart's position, not as much as you think. When he makes reports regarding the situation of the game, he is essentially being paid to make even bad news sound like good news. By the strictest definition in MMOs and other things, an active account is one that is not canceled, so therefore every account that is for a F2P game is active, even if you haven't played in years due to the fact that you never pay for it and therefore never have to cancel it. The possibility that 100k people made accounts is highly probable. However, the possibility that all100k are actively playing the game is, from what I have heard, highly improbable. Derek Smart did tell the truth when he said that "we have 100k active accounts", even if it wasn't the whole truth.
You're wrong. Period.
And if you actually READ what I wrote, you will see that we have various metrics. Even if we counted lifetime accounts, what exactly is the problem if we're happy with our numbers and metrics? Whether you have 10K or 100K active accounts, the only relevancy is in if you are actually making money. So it really doesn't matter if only 1K played the game in any one month. Nobody cares.
Seriously, is the math so hard to comprehend that people who just want to keep arguing for the sake of arguing are just willing to ignore common sense in favor of continued attacks and commentary which has no merit or basis of fact?
And no, I'm not paid to sell anything and apart from...argghh forget it, go read what I have already written. Or don't.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living. If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead ...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
For us an ACTIVE account follows this path: 1. Sign-up (web page) 2. Activated (from email sent from step 1) 3. Logged in (from step 2) 4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Well, this actually means nothing. I'm probably counted as an active player because i made an account and tried the game for like 1 hour several months ago... Useful metrics would be the peak and average concurrent users around the clock, THAT would be interesting to see. There is a lot of difference in saying "we have 100k active accounts" and "100k accounts have been activated and logged at least once at some point in time"...
From the point of view of someone in Smart's position, not as much as you think. When he makes reports regarding the situation of the game, he is essentially being paid to make even bad news sound like good news. By the strictest definition in MMOs and other things, an active account is one that is not canceled, so therefore every account that is for a F2P game is active, even if you haven't played in years due to the fact that you never pay for it and therefore never have to cancel it. The possibility that 100k people made accounts is highly probable. However, the possibility that all100k are actively playing the game is, from what I have heard, highly improbable. Derek Smart did tell the truth when he said that "we have 100k active accounts", even if it wasn't the whole truth.
You're wrong. Period. And if you actually READ what I wrote, you will see that we have various metrics. Even if we counted lifetime accounts, what exactly is the problem if we're happy with our numbers and metrics? Whether you have 10K or 100K active accounts, the only relevancy is in if you are actually making money. So it really doesn't matter if only 1K played the game in any one month. Nobody cares. Seriously, is the math so hard to comprehend that people who just want to keep arguing for the sake of arguing are just willing to ignore common sense in favor of continued attacks and commentary which has no merit or basis of fact? And no, I'm not paid to sell anything and apart from...argghh forget it, go read what I have already written. Or don't.
I know you're a game developer of some repute, but did you just stumble on to the internet or something?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc
So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Well, this actually means nothing. I'm probably counted as an active player because i made an account and tried the game for like 1 hour several months ago...
Useful metrics would be the peak and average concurrent users around the clock, THAT would be interesting to see.
There is a lot of difference in saying "we have 100k active accounts" and "100k accounts have been activated and logged at least once at some point in time"...
From the point of view of someone in Smart's position, not as much as you think. When he makes reports regarding the situation of the game, he is essentially being paid to make even bad news sound like good news. By the strictest definition in MMOs and other things, an active account is one that is not canceled, so therefore every account that is for a F2P game is active, even if you haven't played in years due to the fact that you never pay for it and therefore never have to cancel it. The possibility that 100k people made accounts is highly probable. However, the possibility that all100k are actively playing the game is, from what I have heard, highly improbable. Derek Smart did tell the truth when he said that "we have 100k active accounts", even if it wasn't the whole truth.
You're wrong. Period.
And if you actually READ what I wrote, you will see that we have various metrics. Even if we counted lifetime accounts, what exactly is the problem if we're happy with our numbers and metrics? Whether you have 10K or 100K active accounts, the only relevancy is in if you are actually making money. So it really doesn't matter if only 1K played the game in any one month. Nobody cares.
Seriously, is the math so hard to comprehend that people who just want to keep arguing for the sake of arguing are just willing to ignore common sense in favor of continued attacks and commentary which has no merit or basis of fact?
And no, I'm not paid to sell anything and apart from...argghh forget it, go read what I have already written. Or don't.
Thank you for insinuating that I am an idiot. As you said yourself, name calling and personal attacks are a sign of weakness, and that is something you have just done. Congratulations by backing yourself into this corner.
Also, it isn't math that needs comprehending to come to this conclusion, its logic and human behavioral study. When I was writting up my resume, I was advised to "sell myself", to make me seem like I am better than I actually am by telling half truths. My advisor is an expert at this kind of stuff; they always said that when you present yourself, be it on a resume or a quarterly report on how a company (or in your case, a video game) is doing, always stretch the truth so that anything bad seems good, and that a glaring weakness isn't so glaring, yet everything that you say is still true.
And before you say anything, what I have just said is not an example of stretching the truth, so you will have to find a way of discrediting me and my advisor that is NOT a character assassination.
4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc
So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Well, this actually means nothing. I'm probably counted as an active player because i made an account and tried the game for like 1 hour several months ago...
Useful metrics would be the peak and average concurrent users around the clock, THAT would be interesting to see.
There is a lot of difference in saying "we have 100k active accounts" and "100k accounts have been activated and logged at least once at some point in time"...
From the point of view of someone in Smart's position, not as much as you think. When he makes reports regarding the situation of the game, he is essentially being paid to make even bad news sound like good news. By the strictest definition in MMOs and other things, an active account is one that is not canceled, so therefore every account that is for a F2P game is active, even if you haven't played in years due to the fact that you never pay for it and therefore never have to cancel it. The possibility that 100k people made accounts is highly probable. However, the possibility that all100k are actively playing the game is, from what I have heard, highly improbable. Derek Smart did tell the truth when he said that "we have 100k active accounts", even if it wasn't the whole truth.
You're wrong. Period.
And if you actually READ what I wrote, you will see that we have various metrics. Even if we counted lifetime accounts, what exactly is the problem if we're happy with our numbers and metrics? Whether you have 10K or 100K active accounts, the only relevancy is in if you are actually making money. So it really doesn't matter if only 1K played the game in any one month. Nobody cares.
Seriously, is the math so hard to comprehend that people who just want to keep arguing for the sake of arguing are just willing to ignore common sense in favor of continued attacks and commentary which has no merit or basis of fact?
And no, I'm not paid to sell anything and apart from...argghh forget it, go read what I have already written. Or don't.
Thank you for insinuating that I am an idiot. As you said yourself, name calling and personal attacks are a sign of weakness, and that is something you have just done. Congratulations by backing yourself into this corner.
I started typing up something, finished it, then just deleted it when it eventually hit me that you couldn't possibly be serious.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living. If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead ...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
Comments
Well said.
In my previous post (two posts above), I also explained how the numbers are calculated.
Calculating the numbers of "active" accounts is not rocket science; so I for one am a bit puzzled by some of the comments related to that. It is one thing to say "...whoa! you're lying", which I'm not; and another to say "..no way, how are you calculating that when I only see 10 people online at any one time?"; which I've already addressed I think.
For us an ACTIVE account follows this path:
1. Sign-up (web page)
2. Activated (from email sent from step 1)
3. Logged in (from step 2)
4. Played (from step 3) by character creation etc etc
So when I say that we're approaching 100K active accounts, that is exactly what it means.
Whether or not 100K or even 15K people decide to play on the same day is irrelevant. I for one hope they don't because considering the current state of our server code (one of the major upgrades we are pondering after localization) if that were to happen, the server CPU would probably up and leave the server rack.
Even with niche games like Eve which have about 300K active accounts, you'd be hard pressed to see anywhere near those numbers online at any one time. As I type this, there are only 35K users logged into the servers. Regardless of how you look at it, no matter how large an MMO community is, the usage spikes up, low and everywhere in between over time.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
I created an account yesterday after receiving a free mount code in PCgamer mag and I must say the game is good. But...I ran into 2 other people the entire time I played last night. Is there a server that you could recommend that I could actually play with others? I created my toon on the first PVE server I saw...it started with an "A". Is the other PVE server population any better?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
It all depends on the time of day and the server that you choose. Our server pop spikes at the oddest times and that is due in part by the fact that we only have US servers and lag is a huge problem for some (depending on where you are connecting from) - but I'm working on that as we expand the game globally.
Check here for more info.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
Thanks for the link.
After seeing that no one has posted on the general discussion forums today and after reading all of the posts in this thread, I think I will move on to another game.
I like the MM aspect of an MMORPG.
I wanted to try this awhile back , but i couldn't ever get the game to download. I tried for 2 days then gave up.
Might go and retry again. Nice to see some solid effort from the devs to try and bring some life to this disaster piece.
I never played it , but facts are facts! Horrible launch , wow clone label , and plenty of bad reviews from the get go.
Never really felt it had a chance to survive honestly. I went through that crap with TCOS. The last days of TCOS you would see maybe 5 players online total.
Im willing to go back and give it another shot..cant hurt! its free!
Best case scenario - A game to play for a couple a months.
Worst case scenario - Still sux , Ragequit , uninstall.
intresting thread and great to see someone who actually has something to do with the game post - ty dsmart downloading now to take a look
Playing: FFXIV
Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic
Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
Interesting Fact - I own 27 Tarantula's
tried this game..thought it was ok n that. bought the f2p upgrade kit played to think lvl 20. but i bounce around games so much that i dont play this game that much anymore. but truthfully only reason i gavem sum of my momey to helpem by. The little guys with the small player base n communities that yet manage to survive for years i feel deserve's sum of my money. btw Fallen Earth's playerbase is also small and atm i know of well over 13 MMO's most are f2p and sum are p2p that u dont see many on but are still updating and moving along. Grant it their not doin turbo modes on updates. but atleast their still doin them unlike most games
Strange you would say that for a MMORPG. If there are only 2 people, you can't really form a group for a dungeon and how can you enjoy a MMORPG? Or if you are into pvp, you can't even have a 10 on 10 battle.
A large enough player base is a must for a enjoyable MMORPG. Otherwise, i would just go back and play Fallout 3 on my own.
Strange you brought up Eve online. They routinely have thousand of people online at the same time and you have like 10. Care to comment. They have reached a peak concurrent players of like 50k. What is your peak?
I do realize that you don't count average online players (or peak) because that look bad on you. But this is a MMORPG, it makes a difference of how many other are playing at the same time. You can't even have a few dungeon groups for your online population and what is the point?
You are just counting people who have made characters and play for a min? Geez.
Thanks for the replies, Derek. Please note, I wasn't insinuating that you were lying. I was merely expressing surprise at the numbers. I also have a good understanding of ARPU vs., ARPPU. In fact, I've posted Raph's link before! My primary concern is that "active" means different things to different people, which is why I asked some of the questions I did. Sorry if I'm being persnickety, but my entire career is based on helping companies store, format and extract data in order to present it in a meaningful manner. Part of my "rl" job is to ask these types of questions of my clients. To be honest, you were much more forthcoming and detailed in your reply than I expected, which was refreshing.
~Ripper
I know. And my comment was not directed at you at all. Sorry if it came across that way. I was speaking in terms of the other comments from people who are seemingly implying that I'm making stuff up.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
Ditto, doing the same right now.
http://www.entropiapartners.com/?r=22415
Can you let us know that how many people you see online at once? (also let us know the time of the day).
I am interested to know if the game has enough population to support some grouping & pvp.
I guess DS has a different definition for ' active ' as everyone else in the world.. Really no chance for 100,000 active players in the usual sense. Maybe 100,000 people have logged onto the game over the last 12+ months ( even in the beta there werent that many people in the game ) but thats about it. To have 100,000 active users you would expect a few thousand playing at the same time at the very least.. Not 6 or 10.
As for Vanguard.. It has a much larger playerbase than Alganon still. Would probably be even larger if it went F2P. So thats another reason why you cant say " Alganon is growing and Vanguard isnt ".. One is f2p and the other is not.
After sticking with this game for a total of three days, I have discovered that at any given time that I logged in, there were no more than five people online in any zone that I entered...most of the time it was an average of two others besides me. The game isn't bad, but I am not going to devote any more time to a dead game. By the way...I was on Adrios server as Asharr faction. I figured the PCgamer free mount would have at least spiked things up a bit...but no it didn't.
Well, this actually means nothing. I'm probably counted as an active player because i made an account and tried the game for like 1 hour several months ago...
Useful metrics would be the peak and average concurrent users around the clock, THAT would be interesting to see.
There is a lot of difference in saying "we have 100k active accounts" and "100k accounts have been activated and logged at least once at some point in time"...
Those numbers are useful in calculating ARPU as long if they relate to the measurement period. If monthly ARPU is being calculated, for example, then sales would have to be calculated against accounts active within that month, not total accounts with some activity at some point. It has to be apples-to-apples. There's no incentive to simply use all accounts activated since the beginning of time when calculating ARPU within a short measurement period, because it was actually lower your ARPU.
At a high level, it's useful to see how many accounts have been registered and activated since a specific point-in-time, especially as they relate to a timeline of events and there are definitely significant events within the last year for Alganon.
At least it's not like SOE - I logged into my account last night and saw that I was listed as active for Free Realms, a game I haven't played in at least 6 months and Everquest II Extended, a game I'e literally NEVER played (much less installed), etc..
~Ripper
*This* is a lot more useful information than how many "active" accounts there are (in whatever definition DS used). Why? Because i wouldn't care less if the Alganon database has 1M accounts, all i care is whether i have someone to play with.
And these numbers seem pretty pathetic.
Yeah it can be spun in what ever fashion it wants to be. There is no way in the last 2 years has there been more then 100 players online at the same time on each server. I would love to see it proven different.
I was in the beta and stuck with the game througt the thick and thin. And the most I ever saw online from hitting the social button "that will tell you all that are online from level 1 to 50 on your faction" was 65 players. This was at the time that the game had a amazing community. Now it is at most a half dozen players from back then that still log on. Hell go look at the guilds that are left on the servers. Not a lot of those players logging on anymore.
There has been the odd night and day that the server hits a whopping 25 players online at once. But that is darn rare these days. And yes I got friends from the UK and North America that I talk to that log on at a regular basis and we all let one another know the players online for the day,week, month.
Sad through cause deep down there is a gem of a game that needs to be come out. But under the current leadership. I am afraid that will never happen. There are a great bunch of devs are QOL that do not get enough kudo's for the work they do. It is more focused around Smrt. Which is darn pathetic.
Wow clone the game may be, but so is everthing else it seems coming out these days for fantasy MMO.
100k "active" players that have created a account and logged on once...... maybe. But 100k active players that still log on from time to time. No bloody way.
From the point of view of someone in Smart's position, not as much as you think. When he makes reports regarding the situation of the game, he is essentially being paid to make even bad news sound like good news. By the strictest definition in MMOs and other things, an active account is one that is not canceled, so therefore every account that is for a F2P game is active, even if you haven't played in years due to the fact that you never pay for it and therefore never have to cancel it. The possibility that 100k people made accounts is highly probable. However, the possibility that all100k are actively playing the game is, from what I have heard, highly improbable. Derek Smart did tell the truth when he said that "we have 100k active accounts", even if it wasn't the whole truth.
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
You're wrong. Period.
And if you actually READ what I wrote, you will see that we have various metrics. Even if we counted lifetime accounts, what exactly is the problem if we're happy with our numbers and metrics? Whether you have 10K or 100K active accounts, the only relevancy is in if you are actually making money. So it really doesn't matter if only 1K played the game in any one month. Nobody cares.
Seriously, is the math so hard to comprehend that people who just want to keep arguing for the sake of arguing are just willing to ignore common sense in favor of continued attacks and commentary which has no merit or basis of fact?
And no, I'm not paid to sell anything and apart from...argghh forget it, go read what I have already written. Or don't.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
I know you're a game developer of some repute, but did you just stumble on to the internet or something?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Thank you for insinuating that I am an idiot. As you said yourself, name calling and personal attacks are a sign of weakness, and that is something you have just done. Congratulations by backing yourself into this corner.
Also, it isn't math that needs comprehending to come to this conclusion, its logic and human behavioral study. When I was writting up my resume, I was advised to "sell myself", to make me seem like I am better than I actually am by telling half truths. My advisor is an expert at this kind of stuff; they always said that when you present yourself, be it on a resume or a quarterly report on how a company (or in your case, a video game) is doing, always stretch the truth so that anything bad seems good, and that a glaring weakness isn't so glaring, yet everything that you say is still true.
And before you say anything, what I have just said is not an example of stretching the truth, so you will have to find a way of discrediting me and my advisor that is NOT a character assassination.
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
I started typing up something, finished it, then just deleted it when it eventually hit me that you couldn't possibly be serious.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
dsmart, do you play Alganon?