Originally posted by Dihoru And I see krakra is ignoring any posts which prove him wrong, gg old chap, cram you head up there harder.
I am ignoring people who don't know how statistics and polling work. Go read the basics in wikipedia and come back to us
Yes but in the meantime you are using a number that is a small slice of the whole and trying to claim it represents everyone. People can make any claim they want, you are certainly doing just that.
Let me explain to you and Dihorou why xfire is reliable: The people playing xfire are a group of people which doesn't change much over time (few people start and few stop using it, but the changes are small). This group is large enough to be statistically accurate(11k people are playing gw2 right now, many scientific polls are being done with 5k people or even less). So when you observe this group start playing a game and then changing to another game you can safely assume the general population is doing the same thing.
But you might say: How can WoW have 6k people on xfire and gw2 11k when we know that wow has 9 mil players and gw2 only ~2? Isn't that wrong?
The answer is: Don't look at the number of people playing. Look at how many hours they play, and look at the weekly changes of each game individually, look at the population shifts and trends.
Do you consider the people who use Xfire to be more hardcore gamers or more casual users?
It doesn't matter.
Xfire users represent a cross segement of players in the same way that official forum posters do.
A studio doesn't ask people if they're hardcore or not when they look on their forums to guage player opinion. They also use forum posts of far fewer then 11k people to judge things about their players.
It's supposed to be something like 1-2% of a games players actually visit the forums, yet developers use that incredibly small cross segement to find things out. If 200 people on a forum is enough to tell a studio something, why would you think that 11k people on Xfire isn't?
Also, the medication I take for my nerves was only tested on something like 500 people to determine the rate of side effects. You don't need large numbers to get statistically relevant information about stuff.
What he's getting at is that Xfire is not a representation of the playerbase accurately. If they want a true statistical analysis, you need to grab players from each catagory that play the game and watch their habits of play to make a hypothesis of the playerbase as a whole. The information on the drug was a random assortment of people who took either the placebo or the actual drug and then based off that formed a hypothesis.
Xfire is a program that has no correlation with GW2. You don't need it to play GW2, so it skews the results. The reason he asks about the hardcore gamers or casual, which I actually decided to not post about before, is the fact that a casual player is not likely to download this program, as it is not necessary to play. The hardcore gamers tend to play nonstop on release then tone it down and play less a few weeks in. It happens for every game.
People on forums provide feedback. Developers won't ask each and every player in game for their opinion on how to fix the game, so they put forums out to basically ask the question for them and then see the response from that.
Originally posted by Dihoru And I see krakra is ignoring any posts which prove him wrong, gg old chap, cram you head up there harder.
I am ignoring people who don't know how statistics and polling work. Go read the basics in wikipedia and come back to us
Yes but in the meantime you are using a number that is a small slice of the whole and trying to claim it represents everyone. People can make any claim they want, you are certainly doing just that.
Let me explain to you and Dihorou why xfire is reliable: The people playing xfire are a group of people which doesn't change much over time (few people start and few stop using it, but the changes are small). This group is large enough to be statistically accurate(11k people are playing gw2 right now, many scientific polls are being done with 5k people or even less). So when you observe this group start playing a game and then changing to another game you can safely assume the general population is doing the same thing.
But you might say: How can WoW have 6k people on xfire and gw2 11k when we know that wow has 9 mil players and gw2 only ~2? Isn't that wrong?
The answer is: Don't look at the number of people playing. Look at how many hours they play, and look at the weekly changes of each game individually, look at the population shifts and trends.
Do you consider the people who use Xfire to be more hardcore gamers or more casual users?
Good question. The numbers for yesterday say 50k hours for 12k players so they average ~4.3 hours. So I guess most are hardcore players.
3-5 hours a day or around 20 hours a week is considered casual play according to what I've seen said by many developers.
Really? I always thought casuals play a few hours per week or something. I guess people have different definitions of "casual".
Originally posted by Dihoru And I see krakra is ignoring any posts which prove him wrong, gg old chap, cram you head up there harder.
I am ignoring people who don't know how statistics and polling work. Go read the basics in wikipedia and come back to us
Yes but in the meantime you are using a number that is a small slice of the whole and trying to claim it represents everyone. People can make any claim they want, you are certainly doing just that.
Let me explain to you and Dihorou why xfire is reliable: The people playing xfire are a group of people which doesn't change much over time (few people start and few stop using it, but the changes are small). This group is large enough to be statistically accurate(11k people are playing gw2 right now, many scientific polls are being done with 5k people or even less). So when you observe this group start playing a game and then changing to another game you can safely assume the general population is doing the same thing.
But you might say: How can WoW have 6k people on xfire and gw2 11k when we know that wow has 9 mil players and gw2 only ~2? Isn't that wrong?
The answer is: Don't look at the number of people playing. Look at how many hours they play, and look at the weekly changes of each game individually, look at the population shifts and trends.
Do you consider the people who use Xfire to be more hardcore gamers or more casual users?
Good question. The numbers for yesterday say 50k hours for 12k players so they average ~4.3 hours. So I guess most are hardcore players.
Hardcore = 4.3 h? pulling numbers out your behind again? I am classed as a medium range player (used to be short of professional level in Starcraft 2 actually) and before uni and RL got in the way gaming hours were 8+ h.
Thats a monday. Not a typical day for players to play anyway. I'd say the casual player would be about 2 hours on a monday if that. Thats speculation purely, but 4 hours is a tad bit high.
Originally posted by Dihoru And I see krakra is ignoring any posts which prove him wrong, gg old chap, cram you head up there harder.
I am ignoring people who don't know how statistics and polling work. Go read the basics in wikipedia and come back to us
Yes but in the meantime you are using a number that is a small slice of the whole and trying to claim it represents everyone. People can make any claim they want, you are certainly doing just that.
Let me explain to you and Dihorou why xfire is reliable: The people playing xfire are a group of people which doesn't change much over time (few people start and few stop using it, but the changes are small). This group is large enough to be statistically accurate(11k people are playing gw2 right now, many scientific polls are being done with 5k people or even less). So when you observe this group start playing a game and then changing to another game you can safely assume the general population is doing the same thing.
But you might say: How can WoW have 6k people on xfire and gw2 11k when we know that wow has 9 mil players and gw2 only ~2? Isn't that wrong?
The answer is: Don't look at the number of people playing. Look at how many hours they play, and look at the weekly changes of each game individually, look at the population shifts and trends.
Do you consider the people who use Xfire to be more hardcore gamers or more casual users?
Good question. The numbers for yesterday say 50k hours for 12k players so they average ~4.3 hours. So I guess most are hardcore players.
Hardcore = 4.3 h? pulling numbers out your behind again? I am classed as a medium range player (used to be short of professional level in Starcraft 2 actually) and before uni and RL got in the way gaming hours were 8+ h.
Thats a monday. Not a typical day for players to play anyway. I'd say the casual player would be about 2 hours on a monday if that. Thats speculation purely, but 4 hours is a tad bit high.
10-20 year olds 4 hours is a snack, 20-25 it is acceptable, 30+ it is normal. That's on average for an average abid gamer. Hardcore gamers are harder to pin down (some continue the lifestyle for their whole life taking on commentating roles, etc while others turn it into a hobby and focus on school, my case).
I am really puzzled about the point of this thread and what all the discussion is about. Everyone knew GW2 was going to have a big launch based on hype alone. Everyone, including 90% of the anti-GW2 crowd knew 3 weeks in GW2 would be going strong and have full servers. This is not news. How about we all agree GW2 is doing what was pretty expected by everyone and take say 2 months off from the subject and come back at the 90 day mark and we can discuss how GW2 is doing. Unless GW2 does something actually unexpected...say breaks 4M copies sold by xmas or servers all drop to low I really don't see what the news here is and why so many people seem bent on discussing it over and over. Like I said at the 90 day mark or at least 60 day mark is when it is time to start posts like GW2 is still going strong.
Originally posted by Dihoru And I see krakra is ignoring any posts which prove him wrong, gg old chap, cram you head up there harder.
I am ignoring people who don't know how statistics and polling work. Go read the basics in wikipedia and come back to us
Yes but in the meantime you are using a number that is a small slice of the whole and trying to claim it represents everyone. People can make any claim they want, you are certainly doing just that.
Let me explain to you and Dihorou why xfire is reliable: The people playing xfire are a group of people which doesn't change much over time (few people start and few stop using it, but the changes are small). This group is large enough to be statistically accurate(11k people are playing gw2 right now, many scientific polls are being done with 5k people or even less). So when you observe this group start playing a game and then changing to another game you can safely assume the general population is doing the same thing.
But you might say: How can WoW have 6k people on xfire and gw2 11k when we know that wow has 9 mil players and gw2 only ~2? Isn't that wrong?
The answer is: Don't look at the number of people playing. Look at how many hours they play, and look at the weekly changes of each game individually, look at the population shifts and trends.
Do you consider the people who use Xfire to be more hardcore gamers or more casual users?
It doesn't matter.
Xfire users represent a cross segement of players in the same way that official forum posters do.
A studio doesn't ask people if they're hardcore or not when they look on their forums to guage player opinion. They also use forum posts of far fewer then 11k people to judge things about their players.
It's supposed to be something like 1-2% of a games players actually visit the forums, yet developers use that incredibly small cross segement to find things out. If 200 people on a forum is enough to tell a studio something, why would you think that 11k people on Xfire isn't?
Also, the medication I take for my nerves was only tested on something like 500 people to determine the rate of side effects. You don't need large numbers to get statistically relevant information about stuff.
What he's getting at is that Xfire is not a representation of the playerbase accurately. If they want a true statistical analysis, you need to grab players from each catagory that play the game and watch their habits of play to make a hypothesis of the playerbase as a whole. The information on the drug was a random assortment of people who took either the placebo or the actual drug and then based off that formed a hypothesis.
Xfire is a program that has no correlation with GW2. You don't need it to play GW2, so it skews the results. The reason he asks about the hardcore gamers or casual, which I actually decided to not post about before, is the fact that a casual player is not likely to download this program, as it is not necessary to play. The hardcore gamers tend to play nonstop on release then tone it down and play less a few weeks in. It happens for every game.
People on forums provide feedback. Developers won't ask each and every player in game for their opinion on how to fix the game, so they put forums out to basically ask the question for them and then see the response from that.
The idea is that it shows a trend.
I don't believe in the whole Xfire thing that much to be honest, but it is a good way to follow a trend in a game. if 100k people with Xfire start playing a game, and they continue playing for several months you'll see a trend among those players, if there is a dip you'll see it.
They are players. No matter how you slice it, you can not get around that simple fact. The started playing a game and they also run Xfire, are players of that game, and Xfire does allow for you to follow what they do and formulate a statistical trend based on those players. I'm trying to edit this, and I honestly have no idea what I was attempting to write. Totally baffled. This is what happens when your hands do what they want to do, and not what you wanted them to do.
You need time though. You don't give 500 people a pill once and then determine it's effects, you do it over the course of months. Likewise, Xfire trends need time to first level out, and then time to determine the actual trend.
A Xfire dip in the first month doesn't actually give a worthwhile trend, that's would actually be the leveling out period. After two or three months though can pretty much tell how things are going based on the Xfire numbers.
Margins of error would account for people forgetting to turn it on or peope who stop using it, but like any other statistical trend there is an obvious margin of error.
That margin of error is the only thing you can't determine with Xfire. You can't tell how many people just stopped using it, or if they stopped playing the game. The only way to know is if it was possible to track if a user moved from one game to another or if that user hasn't actually turned the program on before playing, and that info can't be got.
It has to be assumed, like with a lot of statistics, that that margin of error is small enough to not effect the observable trend. We can assume that with the length of time that the software has been available and used, and based on it's accuracy in judging prior games, that any trend here on out is accurate.
I don't like it because it's not controlled. That doesn't make it a bad way to judge trends though, because it has been accurate in the past. WoW is a great example. Before it was ever reported that they lost a million subs, Xfire indicated a trend that not as many people were playing, and it observed, reported, and coinsidentally denied. In the end, it was correct as blizzard reported the drop in players themselves.
I think it's a litte early to use Xfire numbers, but that doesn't mean that a month or two down the road it won't be a viable source of determining if people are staying with the game or not.
If 100k people were using Xfire at the start, and 3 months later only 20k are using it in the same game, that's a pretty clear indicator that 80k likely quit playing it. It can be assumed, with relative accuracy based on past examples, that 80k people didn't just stop using Xfire.
Yes, Xfire absolutely does give you a statistical trend of gamer habbits. It's one of the ponts of the program. It was specifically designed to track what games people play. You can't deny it because it's not official or because it's optional to use. it's in use, and by enough people at this point to see what's happening in a game.
Seriously, I can't fix this. Just awful. Believe me, it hurt me a lot more typing this out then it did for anyone to actually read it.
Combat it much more active and intesive then old time MMO´s. Thats why most people dont even read whats in the map chat. We´re busy playing the game and having a great time
This happens to me a lot. When I'm out doing events and exploring I get lost in the game and forget my chat box is there.
This is my experience too, though I'm making a concerted effort to change that now. This is one of the most common complaints I see, but really I'm not intentionally ignoring people. There's just so much going on at once. Couple that with raidcall in my ears and guildees asking questions, and general/world chat are generally the least of my concern.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I don't know why people don't trust XFIRE, it's completely reliable, TSW and TERA are having trouble, thats seen on Xfire, WoW is losing players because of GW2 and Pandas soon, GW2 honeymoon is ending so people are playing less.
Xfire statistics show these things just fine. It's not 100% accurate, but it allows us to moniter a good chunk of the playerbase.
When did gaming become about monitoring the sub rates of games? Even though I'm sure some of you will lie and say you have stock in these companies, other than being a shareholder, spending your free time monitoring game numbers is pretty sad. Don't do it unless you log on and notice there is no one to play with(like TOR).
I don't know why people don't trust XFIRE, it's completely reliable, TSW and TERA are having trouble, thats seen on Xfire, WoW is losing players because of GW2 and Pandas soon, GW2 honeymoon is ending so people are playing less.
Xfire statistics show these things just fine. It's not 100% accurate, but it allows us to moniter a good chunk of the playerbase.
The problem is it isn't showing an accurate enough picture with all/most games which throws into doubt it's whole bloody point as a reliable source of information, the simplest example is EVE-Online, arguably one of the better sandbox games around, niche game, if you look at its user data it is completely off and I mean completely, 4000 users out of a registered 500000-600000+ userbase is not an accurate gauge and concurrent user levels have been the same for roughly 3 years now (+/- 1000 when expansions roll out/vacation time hits) yet Xfire is showing wild fluctuations which just aren't there in reality, that in itself casts doubt for me onto Xfire as a data gathering tool.
I don't know why people don't trust XFIRE, it's completely reliable, TSW and TERA are having trouble, thats seen on Xfire, WoW is losing players because of GW2 and Pandas soon, GW2 honeymoon is ending so people are playing less.
Xfire statistics show these things just fine. It's not 100% accurate, but it allows us to moniter a good chunk of the playerbase.
The problem is it isn't showing an accurate enough picture with all/most games which throws into doubt it's whole bloody point as a reliable source of information, the simplest example is EVE-Online, arguably one of the better sandbox games around, niche game, if you look at its user data it is completely off and I mean completely, 4000 users out of a registered 500000-600000+ userbase is not an accurate gauge and concurrent user levels have been the same for roughly 3 years now (+/- 1000 when expansions roll out/vacation time hits) yet Xfire is showing wild fluctuations which just aren't there in reality, that in itself casts doubt for me onto Xfire as a data gathering tool.
I thought Eve only had 300-350k subs not 500-600k, it that's what you're referring to.
And I see it as always being generally accurate in terms of playerbase, Xfire dictates TERA most likely has more active players than Rift and TSW has more than TERA and EVE has more than TSW and SWTOR has slighty more than Eve and WoW has more than SWTOR and currently GW2 has more than WoW.
When you play the games, check sub numbers, box sales, server statuses, etc, that list seems pretty accurate. Xfire or not.
I don't know why people don't trust XFIRE, it's completely reliable, TSW and TERA are having trouble, thats seen on Xfire, WoW is losing players because of GW2 and Pandas soon, GW2 honeymoon is ending so people are playing less.
Xfire statistics show these things just fine. It's not 100% accurate, but it allows us to moniter a good chunk of the playerbase.
I think calling Xfire stats a "good chunk of the playerbase" is not very accurate. It may have enough people to show general trends but nothing close to a good chunk of MMO players use Xfire. Kind of like how TV ratings are generated from boxes in %0.05 of the households with TVs. It may give you a general idea but it is nowhere near accurate.
LOL...the TV ratings are taken from like 5000 people. Thats WAY less than .05 from the millions of households. Then it can't decide if the set is on or if someone is watching it. Again these samples are used to determine billions of advertising dollars. The Xfire numbers are siginigant when you know anything about sampling or statistics. While it might be a bad way to determine total populations of a game it is a invaluable tool for seeing playing trends. Look at election polling as its no different.
Originally posted by Letsinod LOL...the TV ratings are taken from like 5000 people. Thats WAY less than .05 from the millions of households. Then it can't decide if the set is on or if someone is watching it. Again these samples are used to determine billions of advertising dollars. The Xfire numbers are siginigant when you know anything about sampling or statistics. While it might be a bad way to determine total populations of a game it is a invaluable tool for seeing playing trends. Look at election polling as its no different.
Their is a difference though-
Xfire users "sign up" fopr Xfire so represent people who WANT to be "counted" where as Nielson is opurely a random statistic that is based on factors such as income, sex, members of family etc. (I was a nielson family)-
If nielson was set up like Xfire you would get people far more "passionite" about Television which really does not show a baseline average.
And it does know if the TV is on and who is watching (even guests) and if you do not continue to let it know you are viewing it logs you off after about 10 mins.
If Xfire was an actual statistical survey of the population it would be more reliable- Its not. people "sign up" and usually represent people with hgher tech knowledge than the average bear.
EDIT: Its apples and oranges. If Xfire was like nielson there would be a sample of everyone playing MMOs . Then it would be broken down by area/income bracket/members of family playing etc-
No sub for the game, so I don't really think it matters to much. However, I can't see a massive amount of people sticking with it for the long run. After almost a month I have to admit, game's pretty boring.
Not boring like pve isn't fun, or the combat isn't fun, but boring as in the game feels incredibly shallow and devoid of point. I'm mostly interested in the PvP, and I'm having an incredibly hard time finding the "competetive" part of it. Normally, when I think of something as competetive, there's usually something to compete for, I'm not seeing that here.
Exploration in GW2 isn't really exploring. Everything is pretty much laid out on the map, I have no feeling of exploring the world. When I explore I want to discover, and there's nothing to discover because of everything being pointed to on the map. You move to an area, it opens up, and then you move from point to point in order to complete the map; that's not exploring. Exploring means not knowing what you're going to find or where you're going to find it. This is honestly the thing that's bothering me most about the game. I followed the development and there was all this stuff about how explorers would love the game, that it rewards exploration, it doesn't. It rewardst he completionist.
What are vistas supposed to be? Puzzles? Some are platforming puzzules but a lot aren't. Are they supposed to be a point to find to be rewarded with spectactular views of the world? Not really, there are vistas on rocks and other nonsensecle places that don't really serve a point.
People complain about the dumbing down of MMO's. WoW put marks over the heads of quest givers and then they showed you on the map were to go to do the quest, and people bitched. My god, GW2 took it to an entire other level.
Not a bad game. Just not finding it to be a very interesting one. The fact that there is no subscription and it caters to the casual, softcore PvP crowd means it's going to always have plenty of people playing it. Just way to ultra casual for my taste though, and I have a feeling that an awful lot of people are going to find it the same way in the coming weeks.
Just kind of pointless, dull, and far to casual even for the typical MMOer. It's interesting too, the crafting, something I don't usually enjoy in themepark games, is by far the most hardcore, deep, explorative, and fun thing in the game. The rest of it, not so much.
Agree with a lot of what you say. For all the supposed exploration, there seems to be very little actually there. And each vista rewards you with experience for going to it. So not much exploring for exploring's sake if you're getting paid to visit each one.
As for the vistas, at least TOR gave me a reason to get those datacrons. I'm not so sure what the point is for these aside for map completion (and, of course XP).
The majority of complaints I see about the game is the lack of depth (something I agree on); I don't know how they plan any retaining players if people are complaining about this a month in.
When people say there is little exploration I have to think they are not playing the game much or trying to explore. While the important things are marked there is plenty to find by going to places yourself and actually exploring things.
People complain on day 1 of anything these days. People playing 200 hours in 3 weeks complaining they are bored are not the games concern anyway. Those are a small percentage who do the same thing in every game they play. Of no real concern.
Yeah?
How about you tell us exactly how many things aren't listed on the map to find. Cause one guy said "at least one".
One or two things doen't make exploration, and that's not what Anet was talking about when they said that they reward exploration.
Those non marked things are just bonus things to find, and do not represent exploration in GW2 as a whole.
How would I know the exact number? I would have to find every one by exploring. Or I could just do like you and dismiss anything that does not conform to my limited view.
If they are bonus things to find they are found by, EXPLORING. FFS thats what exploring is all about. You look like a hater when you act this way. No one takes people serious when they have a POV that requires your head to be in a dark and smelly place.
Apparently I didn't make myself clear enough earlier. When I said at least one (one chest and one jumping puzzle), I meant that's all I've found so far. There may be more, I don't know, I haven't found them yet. I do know there are sites that have all of them that have been found....so far. Here's one http://www.gw2cartographers.com. I don't know everything that's on that site because I don't use it much (I'd rather find things on my own, usually) but it even shows jumping puzzles, etc.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Originally posted by Letsinod LOL...the TV ratings are taken from like 5000 people. Thats WAY less than .05 from the millions of households. Then it can't decide if the set is on or if someone is watching it. Again these samples are used to determine billions of advertising dollars. The Xfire numbers are siginigant when you know anything about sampling or statistics. While it might be a bad way to determine total populations of a game it is a invaluable tool for seeing playing trends. Look at election polling as its no different.
Their is a difference though-
Xfire users "sign up" fopr Xfire so represent people who WANT to be "counted" where as Nielson is opurely a random statistic that is based on factors such as income, sex, members of family etc. (I was a nielson family)-
If nielson was set up like Xfire you would get people far more "passionite" about Television which really does not show a baseline average.
And it does know if the TV is on and who is watching (even guests) and if you do not continue to let it know you are viewing it logs you off after about 10 mins.
If Xfire was an actual statistical survey of the population it would be more reliable- Its not. people "sign up" and usually represent people with hgher tech knowledge than the average bear.
EDIT: Its apples and oranges. If Xfire was like nielson there would be a sample of everyone playing MMOs . Then it would be broken down by area/income bracket/members of family playing etc-
Your right. I guess my point was the miniscule sampling size since thats what people were arguing again against. Either way, the whole thread has derailed.
only thing XFire is good for is watching for population trends in a game. I would never claim that game A has twice as many players as game B becasue it had twice the XFire numbers. You never know what percentage of a games players will be using XFIRE. Some games may have a higher proportion of users that do use XFire for voice or whatever. What you do know though is that the percentage that do use it with wahtever game is unlikly to change over a day, week, or months time so you can watch the trend within any game
btw Here are some apples to apples comparisons, all numbers are derived from XFire hours played on Tuesday 28 August to Tuesday 18 September. GW2 went from 81103 to 49726 or a decline of 39%, WoW went from 35806 to 19811 or a decline of 45%, SWToR went from 4569 to 2187 or a decline of 53%, LoTRO 2122 to 1766 a decline of 17%, TERA went from 1026 to 628 a decline of 39%, and Aion went from 4314 to 3248 or a decline of 25%.
Looks like pretty much all the MMO's took a hit when September rolled around, what a surprise..not
Oh and Gallup etc polls are taken with ssamples of a couple of thousand out of several hundred million so sample size is a moot argument
only thing XFire is good for is watching for population trends in a game. I would never claim that game A has twice as many players as game B becasue it had twice the XFire numbers. You never know what percentage of a games players will be using XFIRE. Some games may have a higher proportion of users that do use XFire for voice or whatever. What you do know though is that the percentage that do use it with wahtever game is unlikly to change over a day, week, or months time so you can watch the trend within any game
btw Here are some apples to apples comparisons, all numbers are derived from XFire hours played on Tuesday 28 August to Tuesday 18 September. GW2 went from 81103 to 49726 or a decline of 39%, WoW went from 35806 to 19811 or a decline of 45%, SWToR went from 4569 to 2187 or a decline of 53%, LoTRO 2122 to 1766 a decline of 17%, TERA went from 1026 to 628 a decline of 39%, and Aion went from 4314 to 3248 or a decline of 25%.
Looks like pretty much all the MMO's took a hit when September rolled around, what a surprise..not
Oh and Gallup etc polls are taken with ssamples of a couple of thousand out of several hundred million so sample size is a moot argument
That was my original point Xfire shows how games are trending but people here say it shows accurate data for a large portion of the people playing MMOS and it does not. Also to the person that said Nielson is way under 0.05% you are accurate. For 2009 Nielson had 25000 boxes not 5000 and there is an estimated 116M households with TV's so that would be 0.002% so my bad on the math. Xfire may be better then TV ratings but they both are total crap when determining playerbases.
Also the fact that Xfire is open for anyone who signs up for it would make it less accurate then something like a TV ratings because it will tailor to a specific type of MMO player(the type that would download a monitoring program) not the whole community while TV ratings at least try to account for all household types(and epic Fails imo).
Comments
What he's getting at is that Xfire is not a representation of the playerbase accurately. If they want a true statistical analysis, you need to grab players from each catagory that play the game and watch their habits of play to make a hypothesis of the playerbase as a whole. The information on the drug was a random assortment of people who took either the placebo or the actual drug and then based off that formed a hypothesis.
Xfire is a program that has no correlation with GW2. You don't need it to play GW2, so it skews the results. The reason he asks about the hardcore gamers or casual, which I actually decided to not post about before, is the fact that a casual player is not likely to download this program, as it is not necessary to play. The hardcore gamers tend to play nonstop on release then tone it down and play less a few weeks in. It happens for every game.
People on forums provide feedback. Developers won't ask each and every player in game for their opinion on how to fix the game, so they put forums out to basically ask the question for them and then see the response from that.
Really? I always thought casuals play a few hours per week or something. I guess people have different definitions of "casual".
edit: and as i closed the mmorpg.com tab this comment came up: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/105g4j/my_experience_to_level_80_a_casual_players_pov/c6akidw
Thats a monday. Not a typical day for players to play anyway. I'd say the casual player would be about 2 hours on a monday if that. Thats speculation purely, but 4 hours is a tad bit high.
10-20 year olds 4 hours is a snack, 20-25 it is acceptable, 30+ it is normal. That's on average for an average abid gamer. Hardcore gamers are harder to pin down (some continue the lifestyle for their whole life taking on commentating roles, etc while others turn it into a hobby and focus on school, my case).
Having not read the whoke Thread I still have got to laugh.
GW2 is "going strong"- Yeah, no shit. Its less than a month old and does not have a sub- I would certainly HOPE its going strong.
The idea is that it shows a trend.
I don't believe in the whole Xfire thing that much to be honest, but it is a good way to follow a trend in a game. if 100k people with Xfire start playing a game, and they continue playing for several months you'll see a trend among those players, if there is a dip you'll see it.
They are players. No matter how you slice it, you can not get around that simple fact. The started playing a game and they also run Xfire, are players of that game, and Xfire does allow for you to follow what they do and formulate a statistical trend based on those players. I'm trying to edit this, and I honestly have no idea what I was attempting to write. Totally baffled. This is what happens when your hands do what they want to do, and not what you wanted them to do.
You need time though. You don't give 500 people a pill once and then determine it's effects, you do it over the course of months. Likewise, Xfire trends need time to first level out, and then time to determine the actual trend.
A Xfire dip in the first month doesn't actually give a worthwhile trend, that's would actually be the leveling out period. After two or three months though can pretty much tell how things are going based on the Xfire numbers.
Margins of error would account for people forgetting to turn it on or peope who stop using it, but like any other statistical trend there is an obvious margin of error.
That margin of error is the only thing you can't determine with Xfire. You can't tell how many people just stopped using it, or if they stopped playing the game. The only way to know is if it was possible to track if a user moved from one game to another or if that user hasn't actually turned the program on before playing, and that info can't be got.
It has to be assumed, like with a lot of statistics, that that margin of error is small enough to not effect the observable trend. We can assume that with the length of time that the software has been available and used, and based on it's accuracy in judging prior games, that any trend here on out is accurate.
I don't like it because it's not controlled. That doesn't make it a bad way to judge trends though, because it has been accurate in the past. WoW is a great example. Before it was ever reported that they lost a million subs, Xfire indicated a trend that not as many people were playing, and it observed, reported, and coinsidentally denied. In the end, it was correct as blizzard reported the drop in players themselves.
I think it's a litte early to use Xfire numbers, but that doesn't mean that a month or two down the road it won't be a viable source of determining if people are staying with the game or not.
If 100k people were using Xfire at the start, and 3 months later only 20k are using it in the same game, that's a pretty clear indicator that 80k likely quit playing it. It can be assumed, with relative accuracy based on past examples, that 80k people didn't just stop using Xfire.
Yes, Xfire absolutely does give you a statistical trend of gamer habbits. It's one of the ponts of the program. It was specifically designed to track what games people play. You can't deny it because it's not official or because it's optional to use. it's in use, and by enough people at this point to see what's happening in a game.
Seriously, I can't fix this. Just awful. Believe me, it hurt me a lot more typing this out then it did for anyone to actually read it.
This is my experience too, though I'm making a concerted effort to change that now. This is one of the most common complaints I see, but really I'm not intentionally ignoring people. There's just so much going on at once. Couple that with raidcall in my ears and guildees asking questions, and general/world chat are generally the least of my concern.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I don't know why people don't trust XFIRE, it's completely reliable, TSW and TERA are having trouble, thats seen on Xfire, WoW is losing players because of GW2 and Pandas soon, GW2 honeymoon is ending so people are playing less.
Xfire statistics show these things just fine. It's not 100% accurate, but it allows us to moniter a good chunk of the playerbase.
The problem is it isn't showing an accurate enough picture with all/most games which throws into doubt it's whole bloody point as a reliable source of information, the simplest example is EVE-Online, arguably one of the better sandbox games around, niche game, if you look at its user data it is completely off and I mean completely, 4000 users out of a registered 500000-600000+ userbase is not an accurate gauge and concurrent user levels have been the same for roughly 3 years now (+/- 1000 when expansions roll out/vacation time hits) yet Xfire is showing wild fluctuations which just aren't there in reality, that in itself casts doubt for me onto Xfire as a data gathering tool.
I thought Eve only had 300-350k subs not 500-600k, it that's what you're referring to.
And I see it as always being generally accurate in terms of playerbase, Xfire dictates TERA most likely has more active players than Rift and TSW has more than TERA and EVE has more than TSW and SWTOR has slighty more than Eve and WoW has more than SWTOR and currently GW2 has more than WoW.
When you play the games, check sub numbers, box sales, server statuses, etc, that list seems pretty accurate. Xfire or not.
I think calling Xfire stats a "good chunk of the playerbase" is not very accurate. It may have enough people to show general trends but nothing close to a good chunk of MMO players use Xfire. Kind of like how TV ratings are generated from boxes in %0.05 of the households with TVs. It may give you a general idea but it is nowhere near accurate.
Their is a difference though-
Xfire users "sign up" fopr Xfire so represent people who WANT to be "counted" where as Nielson is opurely a random statistic that is based on factors such as income, sex, members of family etc. (I was a nielson family)-
If nielson was set up like Xfire you would get people far more "passionite" about Television which really does not show a baseline average.
And it does know if the TV is on and who is watching (even guests) and if you do not continue to let it know you are viewing it logs you off after about 10 mins.
If Xfire was an actual statistical survey of the population it would be more reliable- Its not. people "sign up" and usually represent people with hgher tech knowledge than the average bear.
EDIT: Its apples and oranges. If Xfire was like nielson there would be a sample of everyone playing MMOs . Then it would be broken down by area/income bracket/members of family playing etc-
Apparently I didn't make myself clear enough earlier. When I said at least one (one chest and one jumping puzzle), I meant that's all I've found so far. There may be more, I don't know, I haven't found them yet. I do know there are sites that have all of them that have been found....so far. Here's one http://www.gw2cartographers.com. I don't know everything that's on that site because I don't use it much (I'd rather find things on my own, usually) but it even shows jumping puzzles, etc.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
Your right. I guess my point was the miniscule sampling size since thats what people were arguing again against. Either way, the whole thread has derailed.
only thing XFire is good for is watching for population trends in a game. I would never claim that game A has twice as many players as game B becasue it had twice the XFire numbers. You never know what percentage of a games players will be using XFIRE. Some games may have a higher proportion of users that do use XFire for voice or whatever. What you do know though is that the percentage that do use it with wahtever game is unlikly to change over a day, week, or months time so you can watch the trend within any game
btw Here are some apples to apples comparisons, all numbers are derived from XFire hours played on Tuesday 28 August to Tuesday 18 September. GW2 went from 81103 to 49726 or a decline of 39%, WoW went from 35806 to 19811 or a decline of 45%, SWToR went from 4569 to 2187 or a decline of 53%, LoTRO 2122 to 1766 a decline of 17%, TERA went from 1026 to 628 a decline of 39%, and Aion went from 4314 to 3248 or a decline of 25%.
Looks like pretty much all the MMO's took a hit when September rolled around, what a surprise..not
Oh and Gallup etc polls are taken with ssamples of a couple of thousand out of several hundred million so sample size is a moot argument
I miss DAoC
That was my original point Xfire shows how games are trending but people here say it shows accurate data for a large portion of the people playing MMOS and it does not. Also to the person that said Nielson is way under 0.05% you are accurate. For 2009 Nielson had 25000 boxes not 5000 and there is an estimated 116M households with TV's so that would be 0.002% so my bad on the math. Xfire may be better then TV ratings but they both are total crap when determining playerbases.
Also the fact that Xfire is open for anyone who signs up for it would make it less accurate then something like a TV ratings because it will tailor to a specific type of MMO player(the type that would download a monitoring program) not the whole community while TV ratings at least try to account for all household types(and epic Fails imo).