Concerning Websites showing Server Population Graphs

[Kthx]

You can't tell exactpopulations with that system, but you can still see over all population trends with it.

 

That's exactly what he is saying. Only if the caps are not changing, can you make inferences about the population trends.

 

There is, however, one other factor. Let's assume for argument's sake that the population caps are fixed so that the server load graphs in fact reflect trends in the population. What they are showing then is the number of players that are logged on concurrently. This still doesn't really tell you what the population is, and much less what the subcription base is. A change could be explained by the number of players changing, but it could also be explained by changes in the duration spent online in a gaming session.

 

The cleanest data would be daily reporting of paid subscriptions, but devs consider this to be proprietary information that they simply will not report in a competitive marketplace.

[Bizwolf]

Graphs don't mean a thing. It's "what we see" that's the problem. It doesn't matter if they raised caps and there are no queues anymore. We get that.

 

The fact that a month ago we had 2 fleets and never below 200 people when there was one is the problem. Now there are times we have one fleet and 100 people in it. That means, since this is regular now, the population is dropping.

 

We used to have 4 illums, now 2 but one of them has 4 people in it. Excuse - people hate Illum, that's understandable.

 

The starter planets never had less than 150+, now 60 on a good day. Excuse - people have leveled their second alt through that zone already.

 

Queues to Warzones used to be instant. the only time it's instant now is when you get in a losing game. Before, you had to take breaks because it was so fast. Excuse - people are BM's so what's the point. True because we have 100's of those if not 1000's.

 

Queues from 1-49 however are instant and probably always will be so that's not an issue.

 

Getting groups for HM's for some people without big guild used to be a split second thing. My brother that just hit 50 has to sit for over an hour, sometimes more or just give up to get one done. Our guild would run him through everything but only 3 out of 40 members log in.

 

Some of the biggest guilds when you /who them used to have 50+ people on at times, you /who them now and you're lucky to see more than 5.

 

So, you don't need graphs, you don't need fake numbers from Bioware...you can see it with your own eye.

[Dwyer]

You know of Occam's Razor, I presume? The idea that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.

 

We could explain a million reasons around why those charts are wrong... but that, too is speculation and unlikely speculation.

 

I doubt BioWare every changed the threshold for what "heavy" or any other designation meant, even when adjusting the server caps. It would have been disingenuous and if they did it to hide population drops, well, that's another story all together. Safe to say that didn't happen.

 

The simplest explanation here is that there are less people playing less often than before.

 

To be fair, Occam's Razor refers to an explanation with the least amount of assumptions, not necessarily the least amount of explanation. The problem with using that here is the fact that the charts in reference are making several assumptions themselves, and the original post was in many ways debunking the validity of those assumptions. I agree that any speculation that server population is rising may not have any factual basis, but the same could be said of charts that are based on variables that have not been clearly defined and can and possibly have changed at undetermined intervals. In this case, while it may be more likely that these charts support a drop in population, shouldn't we really be asking why we're giving any credibility at all to these charts? Charts based on actual numbers would be extremely nice and it seems silly to base any assumptions on something as abstract and assumed as the ones in question.

[Dezzi]

Graphs don't mean a thing. It's "what we see" that's the problem. It doesn't matter if they raised caps and there are no queues anymore. We get that.

 

The fact that a month ago we had 2 fleets and never below 200 people when there was one is the problem. Now there are times we have one fleet and 100 people in it. That means, since this is regular now, the population is dropping.

 

We used to have 4 illums, now 2 but one of them has 4 people in it. Excuse - people hate Illum, that's understandable.

 

The starter planets never had less than 150+, now 60 on a good day. Excuse - people have leveled their second alt through that zone already.

 

Queues to Warzones used to be instant. the only time it's instant now is when you get in a losing game. Before, you had to take breaks because it was so fast. Excuse - people are BM's so what's the point. True because we have 100's of those if not 1000's.

 

Queues from 1-49 however are instant and probably always will be so that's not an issue.

 

Getting groups for HM's for some people without big guild used to be a split second thing. My brother that just hit 50 has to sit for over an hour, sometimes more or just give up to get one done. Our guild would run him through everything but only 3 out of 40 members log in.

 

Some of the biggest guilds when you /who them used to have 50+ people on at times, you /who them now and you're lucky to see more than 5.

 

So, you don't need graphs, you don't need fake numbers from Bioware...you can see it with your own eye.

 

Perception is definitely important. Regardless of the facts behind the curtain, if people feel like the game is empty, the game is empty.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Dezzi

[Dwyer]

Graphs don't mean a thing. It's "what we see" that's the problem. It doesn't matter if they raised caps and there are no queues anymore. We get that.

 

The fact that a month ago we had 2 fleets and never below 200 people when there was one is the problem. Now there are times we have one fleet and 100 people in it. That means, since this is regular now, the population is dropping.

 

We used to have 4 illums, now 2 but one of them has 4 people in it. Excuse - people hate Illum, that's understandable.

 

The starter planets never had less than 150+, now 60 on a good day. Excuse - people have leveled their second alt through that zone already.

 

Queues to Warzones used to be instant. the only time it's instant now is when you get in a losing game. Before, you had to take breaks because it was so fast. Excuse - people are BM's so what's the point. True because we have 100's of those if not 1000's.

 

Queues from 1-49 however are instant and probably always will be so that's not an issue.

 

Getting groups for HM's for some people without big guild used to be a split second thing. My brother that just hit 50 has to sit for over an hour, sometimes more or just give up to get one done. Our guild would run him through everything but only 3 out of 40 members log in.

 

Some of the biggest guilds when you /who them used to have 50+ people on at times, you /who them now and you're lucky to see more than 5.

 

So, you don't need graphs, you don't need fake numbers from Bioware...you can see it with your own eye.

 

 

A lot of anecdotal evidence here, but while I would still much rather have solid data from a large sampling, the amount of people complaining about this issue does support a drop in population. I'm not sure it isn't simply the release craze is over and we're not experience a lull in pop that will come back up over time. I know it is distinctly possible that the number of subs will increase while the pop at any given time will not increase at any form of a rapid rate. If only 5-10% of the pop is on at any given time (complete assumption) whereas just after release 20-25% may have been, it is still completely possible that the online population at any given time has no impact on the total subs. I can't prove that point, but just as much, there aren't enough variables taken in consideration for anyone to really make any semblance of an accurate judgement.

[SmokePants]

Population wouldn't be an issue if MMO's would abandon this lame "trapped in a fishbowl" system where your character is shackled to a single server. And I don't mean transfers, I mean being able to play your character anywhere you please at any time.

 

It would solve so many problems. I understand the downside of inhibiting community familiarity and accountability, but that can be mitigated by a "Footprint" system, whereby playing on a server builds up a footprint (similar to legacy), which grants benefits and incentivizes people to stick mostly to one server. And if that server starts going belly up, they can transfer the footprint at a diminished exchange rate to another server of their choosing.

 

I'll probably get blasted with "Not an MMO" rhetoric. At which I will chuckle and roll my eyes.

[AshenK]

That's nice Op however log into any server and guess what you will see? Less numbers on both sides and every week that number drops. And those sites are showing the facts the player base is leaving this game.

[Alavastre]

Population wouldn't be an issue if MMO's would abandon this lame "trapped in a fishbowl" system where your character is shackled to a single server. And I don't mean transfers, I mean being able to play your character anywhere you please at any time.

 

It would solve so many problems. I understand the downside of inhibiting community familiarity and accountability, but that can be mitigated by a "Footprint" system, whereby playing on a server builds up a footprint (similar to legacy), which grants benefits and incentivizes people to stick mostly to one server. And if that server starts going belly up, they can transfer the footprint at a diminished exchange rate to another server of their choosing.

 

I'll probably get blasted with "Not an MMO" rhetoric. At which I will chuckle and roll my eyes.

 

Not a bad idea. I like the looking to the future type of attitude you have. Though I wonder how hard it would actually be to code something like that. Besides, even in WoW server transfers, they never guaranteed that you would be made whole when going to the other side. So I don't know if this is viable with our current technology.

[Tarmi]

The conclusions just aren't true though.

 

 

You can't tell exact populations with that system, but you can still see over all population trends with it.

 

And from the trends extrapolate that into over all subs, at least in correlation, if not absolute terms.

 

 

 

 

Its almost impossible for subs to be going up long term IF server status is going down long term (unless an MMO company is constantly changing the server status levels), because that would be on par with inventing a perpetual motion machine (which I'm sure game companies would want to do in both cases if it were possible, of course ).

 

So saying that because you can't tell exact numbers therefore you can't tell anything is just patently false.

 

You are reading something into the server status that is not there.

 

Since you don't know what the cut off is for each group or if the cut off points ever change and the range is large the only changes you can read from server status are at the very gross level. You will notice in game changes of population long before you will be able to read anything usefull from server status.

 

If someone was interested in a meaningful value go take a count of the poeple on both space stations across all servers every day at the same time and trend that. It would be a hell of a lot more useful than tracking server status.

[Dwyer]

Population wouldn't be an issue if MMO's would abandon this lame "trapped in a fishbowl" system where your character is shackled to a single server. And I don't mean transfers, I mean being able to play your character anywhere you please at any time.

 

It would solve so many problems. I understand the downside of inhibiting community familiarity and accountability, but that can be mitigated by a "Footprint" system, whereby playing on a server builds up a footprint (similar to legacy), which grants benefits and incentivizes people to stick mostly to one server. And if that server starts going belly up, they can transfer the footprint at a diminished exchange rate to another server of their choosing.

 

I'll probably get blasted with "Not an MMO" rhetoric. At which I will chuckle and roll my eyes.

 

I actually agree with a fair bit of what you're saying here, although I'm not sure I am of the mindset that playing on one server/instanced zone needs to be rewarded. An empty feeling Server can definitely alter the feel of the game and creating new instances of an area dynamically at certain population thresholds seems to fix a lot of issues. I guess throwing everyone mixed in may change guild chemistry, however I don't really think it's anything that would have a real negative connotation. Game population is naturally going to fluctuate and eliminating servers while simply using dynamic instanced areas allows zones always to be as populated as possible while allowing people to choose an instance with their friends.

[Dwyer]

That's nice Op however log into any server and guess what you will see? Less numbers on both sides and every week that number drops. And those sites are showing the facts the player base is leaving this game.

 

Again, where is your actual evidence that subs are dropping? If the evidence is just that less people are on at a time, consider the fact that games naturally have huge populations logged on at release and afterwards at some point that simultaneously online population drops to a natural level. Give it time and if the population plummets over a lengthy period of time, then you might have something, but for now, making a judgement based on logged on population dropping a couple months after release just seems premature.

[Alavastre]

Not only premature, but also it was a definite outcome. Populations had no where to go but downward.

 

Also, comparing to WoW, my server didn't get really heavy there until WotLK. So, if the game is good, it will hold enough subs until more features become added, and then the MMO should grow later with more press and word of mouth.

[Goretzu]

What? There is not "months of data". We had a mid December launch. That rolled right into the holidays which will obviously create outlier points due to people's work/school schedules then we had the announcement that they have been playing with server cap limits in early Feb.

 

At best, we have about one month of data to go on so far, which shows a very slight decline from Jan 24 to today.

 

 

There's 10+ weeks of data so far from Live, nearly 3 months worth (nothing like 1 month worth).

 

Plenty to see general trends without any cap change and still enough to see some trends with 1 or maybe 2 cap changes.

 

 

If SWTOR is like most MMORPG it will have a big peak after launch and then severely tail off. It's too soon to see if that is the case, but it's not too soon to see downward trends (assuming the server caps aren't constantly shifted).

[Trenter]

That's nice Op however log into any server and guess what you will see? Less numbers on both sides and every week that number drops. And those sites are showing the facts the player base is leaving this game.

 

Exactly what proof do you have that the player base is leaving this game? And don't drag anything like "denial" into it. Proof only, if you would be so kind.

[Goretzu]

That's exactly what he is saying. Only if the caps are not changing, can you make inferences about the population trends.

 

There is, however, one other factor. Let's assume for argument's sake that the population caps are fixed so that the server load graphs in fact reflect trends in the population. What they are showing then is the number of players that are logged on concurrently. This still doesn't really tell you what the population is, and much less what the subcription base is. A change could be explained by the number of players changing, but it could also be explained by changes in the duration spent online in a gaming session.

 

The cleanest data would be daily reporting of paid subscriptions, but devs consider this to be proprietary information that they simply will not report in a competitive marketplace.

 

 

 

He's saying you can't tell anything (from what I can see), when in reality you can tell a lot so long as long as the caps aren't constantly changing.

 

If they are constantly changing then, yes, you can't tell anything.

 

However I've no idea of what legitimate reason Bioware would have for constantly changing server cap levels.

[Gstring]

BW have hacked your link, it doesnt work

[Goretzu]

You are reading something into the server status that is not there.

 

Since you don't know what the cut off is for each group or if the cut off points ever change and the range is large the only changes you can read from server status are at the very gross level. You will notice in game changes of population long before you will be able to read anything usefull from server status.

 

If someone was interested in a meaningful value go take a count of the poeple on both space stations across all servers every day at the same time and trend that. It would be a hell of a lot more useful than tracking server status.

 

 

 

It doesn't matter as everything is effected in the same way.

 

It would be impossible to detect minor changes you're right, but larger changes would be quite visible at this resolution.

 

Counting each server pop individually would, of course, be much, much better. But being better doesn't mean this system is worthless, just less accurate.

[Drewser]

There's 10+ weeks of data so far from Live, nearly 3 months worth (nothing like 1 month worth).

 

Plenty to see general trends without any cap change and still enough to see some trends with 1 or maybe 2 cap changes.

 

 

If SWTOR is like most MMORPG it will have a big peak after launch and then severely tail off. It's too soon to see if that is the case, but it's not too soon to see downward trends (assuming the server caps aren't constantly shifted).

 

Yes, it is for the reasons I stated. You have to toss the first 5 weeks simply due to the launch and holidays as statistical outliers.

 

Anything else would simply be a foolish interpretation of the graphs.

[Goretzu]

Yes, it is for the reasons I stated. You have to toss the first 5 weeks simply due to the launch and holidays as statistical outliers.

 

Anything else would simply be a foolish interpretation of the graphs.

 

 

 

The first 5 weeks are perfectly valid, in fact in this case they really help with determining any current trends.

 

Just because something is atypical doesn't mean it's invalid, in fact often just the opposite.

 

 

 

You can't just narrow a question (or data set) down to ignore things that don't fit as you'd like, that's terrible data collection, statistical practice and science!

Edited February 23, 2012 by Goretzu

[Triss]

Nice read. Though the link doesn't work!

[Spud_Kernow]

Lies and statistics are often mentioned in the same phrase for reason, neither can be trusted.

 

I believe trends can be seen, but i dont believe 3 months i nearly enough for a trend to classed as reliable either.

 

Common sense known ; Xmas launch + plus inevitable drop off after the free period = inconsistent figures. I certainly played much more then over the holidays than i do on a working week.

 

the best i can offer at this time is a hunch based on what i personally experienced. This is my truth and is in equal measure as valid as all your own truths are.

 

If BW have been altering the server caps to cook the books then they will get caught and frankly is so dumb i struggle to comprehend it.

 

there are still many milestones that will cause variations in these figures such as : the 3 and 6 month re sub milestones. The Asia launch, (yes i know we have lots of asian players, but there will still be some casuals that will buy the box on a passing whim, the majority do not read the forums.)

 

On other forums i have seen people use this data in a way that erronous to further their own agenda in the much loved forum PvP, as in used a wednesdays figure Vs a Saturday primetime.

 

The only statistic i trust is what my own eyes see, i take note of the station, and world populations, how long the PvP queues are and how many instances there are around the worlds. My only conclusion is that even if the subs are not dropping activity is. I havnt seen more than 1 instance anywhere for quite a while and my server is one of the more populated ones (EU Trask Ulgo).

 

only when the 3 month sub ends, and when the next EA quartlerly shareholder figures are released can even come close to getting some kind of accurate figure. (If you trust EA accountants lol) This added to 3rd party server metrics will give some kind of answer.

 

MY own personal opinion? There will be a sharp fall in subs at months 4 and 7 post launch but not enough to make this go F2P. This will be a successful MMO, in the sane vane that RIFT is, but it will never be the top dog. It is great at what it does well but its lifespan is short. The IP, and wide distribution will keep this game out there for a while yet. I wouldnt be suprised if there are server merges in about 4- 6 months.

 

Dont ask for SAUCE, i reiterate my own hunch and experience nothing more than that.

[Kthx]

The first 5 weeks are perfectly valid

 

Yes, the first five weeks vividly display what happens when you double the server caps.

[Atanasov]

Indeed, maybe the sky is not falling?

 

no def falling.

[Emeda]

Yes, the first five weeks vividly display what happens when you double the server caps.

 

Please show me anything that says they doubled server caps. They never doubled server caps and I have proof of it in Biowares own words.

 

The first five weeks show alot of people playing the game then after a short people not playing anymore.

 

You always say anyone who thinks the game is losing players has not given any proof but you will keep saying that they doubled the servers without any proof.

 

The site shows alot of activity in the first 2 weeks. Think everyone agrees the game was full in the first 2 weeks

 

The site shows a decline in activity that is still slowly declining which supports the people saying that once you hit 50 there isnt much to do and are quitting.

 

The site does not show where any server caps would have been increased or that more people are playing.

 

Its not 100% accurate but its close enough to show that less and less people are playing the game.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Emeda

[Pekish]

there is certainly a dropping in "nerd" population also called "rusher" or self proclamed "pro"

 

and the thing is that if you are a Nerd/Rusher/PRO the people u care/know and check 99% of the time only other other "nerd/rusher/pro" like you

 

So I suspect that for a player like that the feeling is of a popolation dropping fast

 

I have played 2 mounth I have 4 char at 25-29 and in my guild (no-one is lvl50 highest is 32) we actually grow costantly at least +3 people a day if not more

 

Now now if rushers are dropping like cherry this game will have a pretty good comunity soon ahhaha

 

anyway I doubt that rusher are the majority of the playerbase so a minority is dropping fast big deal.... that doesn't mean the game is losing people looking at my lvl experience the game keep gaining new player

 

Add this to the fact that this game is PVE based and who cry "the sky is falling" perhaps play on a PVP server (they will be the first to fall)

 

so the true is that there are so many different thing to keep in consideration

PVP or PVE player RUSHER/PRO or CASUAL/RP

 

I am sure the "rusher/pro PVP" population is dropping very fast, (thank god) they are the most annoying usually and the most close minded it's enough to say they see their friends drop and they think EVERYBODY is dropping.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Pekish