Concerning Websites showing Server Population Graphs

[Iboga]

GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR LOGIC! I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS! THIS GAME IS TERRIBADNESS INCARNATE! I HAVE NO LIFE AND COMPLAIN ON FORUMS ALL DAY ABOUT GAMES I DONT PLAY!

 

*Sarcasm off*

 

(But seriously, thanks for the informative and well worded post. I've tried to make similar points to people but tend to get the above argument.)

Edited February 24, 2012 by Iboga

[Emeda]

I'll tell you this much if the population was growing we would see numbers from Bioware or EA.

 

And this is why we will not see numbers from them.

 

They had to go to 14 million characters created as a way to imply that there are alot of people in the game.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Emeda

[GalacticKegger]

Yea, I guess I am.

 

It looks great on paper, your viewpoint. The sheer # of FPs outweigh vanilla lvl 60 dungons. But the questlines.. (Prison Break) that led to the those dungons.. that led to MC.. that led to finally downing Rag took much more time, coordination, and effort than it takes to clear all content here.

 

I get it, some people don't think that's a bad thing.... I do, but alot don't.

The 16-part questline that led to the Ony key was my fave ... there were definitely some long ones. Of note is how WoW (before nerfs) focused their epic questlines on getting players into dungeons. There are genuine class story quests but they are rare, though in vanilla (and through much of BC) the Lock and Paladin mount quest chains were truly epic. But after getting there it all became rinse and repeat.

 

TOR's quest focus is the opposite. Epic quest lines are centered around class stories that go through the entire game for all classes. There are quest chains that lead to heroics, flashpoints and ops, but they are about as focused as WoW's class quests.

 

I'm guessing if BW had wanted to do a WoW clone they'd have spent their $zillions on launching with 85 experience levels, three dozen flashpoints, a dozen operations, 13 tiers worth of operations gear and the same old click 'n go quest grind. Instead they chose the development of voiced NPC questgiver interaction with a sound library roughly the size of all the Star Wars movies combined.

 

Personally I like what they've done with it. If I want a WoW clone I'll just play WoW.

Edited February 25, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[PhantomKnight]

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.

 

This.

[foxxecho]

I've experienced fewer grouping opportunities as of late.

 

But I am kind of a D-Bag, and that's a pretty big variable.

 

Edited February 25, 2012 by foxxecho

[Spud_Kernow]

Seems to me that any data that is extrapolated from an unkown is unreliable, trends there might be, but if the value of what = heavy is constantly shifting because of the dynamic auto configuration thingie that keeps the server optimal then these graphs are comepletely pointless.

 

There are only 2 reliable data sources i see, one is the official number of current subs that only EA have the info on, and the other is my personal experience.

 

The latter allows me to from an opinion thats personal to me.

 

the number of subs will most proabaly drop after the iniital free time.first month subs expire but the real question is by how much.

 

If you are that confident that the number of subs is going up why not put your money where your mouths are and buy EA stocks? if the subs have gone up you will make a tidy profilt after their recent downturn.

 

Even then asking if the game is a success is right back to being a matter of opinion not only to us but the shareholders.

[Drewser]

This.

 

It has been pointed by different posters numerous times why he is incorrect.

[Kaelshi]

And this is why we will not see numbers from them.

 

They had to go to 14 million characters created as a way to imply that there are alot of people in the game.

 

you'e already said you categorically do not believe anything Bioware says. So even if BW was coming out every 2 weeks with detailed reports on an increase in subs and population, you would be on here calling them liars and screaming that the population was dropping and the game's going to die.

 

SWG sucked btw and you're the only one here who liked it, which says more about you than us.

[Kaelshi]

I dont need to see other stats on server population.

 

All I need, is to look at my own guild.

250 active players to begin with. Around 200 now.

Some dropout was expected.

 

But what concern me MUCH more is the ingame activity.

Out of around 200 members, we only see 15-40 online at the same time.

 

Our guild is 10 years old, with 400+ members in various mmo's.

And SWTOR average member activity is about half of what we have seen in any other mmo in the past 10 years.

 

Reason.

Lack of endgame content.

Once you raid operations, all other things to do is a waste of time.

MMO gamers basically don't want to reroll new alts all the time. A few is fun, but you want to keep op playing with your Main char. And if that char hits the wall-of-nothing-to-do too quickly, then the player looses the interest in the game, becaue why play another Alt up to have no future with?

 

w

 

So what would be your explanation to someone who had the opposite experience of you? Say someone who s tarted a guild with a core of say 6 people. They did not advertise heavily but only invited people they went on heroics with and felt were not d-bags and seemed at least competent and by the end of the first month of recruitment they were up to 70 people? considering there was adds/rems joins/quits and no public advertising and there was 1000%+ increase in guild membership.

 

I make this suggestion to you. Bioware has constructed a game where the core audience is not the relatively small hardcore group of players who only care about raiding end-game content.

 

The first thing you listed was lack of end-game content(which funny enough there is more end-game content than most mmo's had at release the last 10 years...go check..you guys played them)

 

I can only guess - and feel free to correct me - that end-game content was clearly the most important to you and your friends. You guys leveled to 50 fairly quickly compared to most other people who are experiencing the rest of the content - class stories, pvp without leveling to 50 first, datacrons, codex entries, map exploration, bonus quests etc.

 

I am not judging your guild for having your particular goals and what makes games fun for you. You can have fun however you want - thats great! I don't play Modern Warfare or Battlefield whatever because FPS's are stupid(imo).

 

I'm just saying perhaps what you guys find important is not the market for this game and you are having an experience that is similar to other more hardcore players. You have to consider though that without any hard evidence we have no clue about population and it is entirely possible that your singular experience(and those of your fellow hardcore gamers) is the minority and not the majority.

[Yozbick]

I've been seeing people reference websites like torstatus and mmo junkies when attempting to argue server population points.... We just don't know based on the information these charts give us.

 

TLDNR = "These are not the droids you are looking for."

 

(Of course, those ARE the droids we're looking for, but... whatever makes you feel better.)

Edited February 25, 2012 by Yozbick

[Kaelshi]

TLDNR = "These are not the droids you are looking for."

 

(Of course, those ARE the droids we're looking for, but... whatever makes you feel better.)

 

and of course---those websites agree with every single thing I said. As one esteemed poster pointed out, I basically summarized their faq pages.

 

Interesting that some people are so intent on trying to tear this game down that they will tell the people running those websites, collecting the data, and ostensibly the ones who know most about it, that they are wrong about their own data.

 

interesting indeed.

[Yozbick]

and of course---those websites agree with every single thing I said. As one esteemed poster pointed out, I basically summarized their faq pages.

 

Interesting that some people are so intent on trying to tear this game down that they will tell the people running those websites, collecting the data, and ostensibly the ones who know most about it, that they are wrong about their own data.

 

interesting indeed.

 

Like I said, whatever makes you feel better. We'll see in a month or two.

 

Based on my guild, the PVPers on my server and "peak times" in Fleet (72 people at 10 p.m. last night) I tend to think population's going down on a daily basis. Those sites are showing the same thing, despite the necessary caveats.

 

Myself? I cancelled yesterday. If Bioware adds something new and interesting for Level 50s in the 23 days I have left on my subscription, I'll gladly rethink my cancellation. I find their lack of detail disturbing though.

Edited February 25, 2012 by Yozbick

[Kaelshi]

Like I said, whatever makes you feel better. We'll see in a month or two.

 

Based on my guild, the PVPers on my server and "peak times" in Fleet (72 people at 10 p.m. last night) I tend to think population's going down on a daily basis.

 

Myself? I cancelled yesterday. If they add something new and interesting for Level 50s in the 23 days I have left on my subscription, I'll gladly rethink my cancellation. I find their lack of detail disturbing though.

 

Thats nice for you. I have had the opposite experience.

 

However I've made no argument that the server population is going down or up. These websites are not seeded with data that makes them accurate enough to judge population trends.

 

So what I'm saying- you're still wrong about them even if you end up being right about the population.

[Yozbick]

Thats nice for you. I have had the opposite experience.

 

However I've made no argument that the server population is going down or up. These websites are not seeded with data that makes them accurate enough to judge population trends.

 

So what I'm saying- you're still wrong about them even if you end up being right about the population.

 

How am I "wrong" about them? I merely said they show the same thing that my in-game experience indicates... a decline in population. (Hell, I was the only person in my entire guild playing last night, and we had a few dozen playing at launch).

 

You may argue that the sites aren't necessarily accurate. All I can say is that the declines their graphs show match my own experience (actually, showing only a 5 percent or so decline each week, they are a shade better than my personal experience).

 

If it makes you feel better to believe the game is doing great, by all means feel that way. I wish you well. It doesn't make me good to feel that the game's doing badly and people are leaving in droves (or just not playing), but that's been my honest experience.

[Kaelshi]

How am I "wrong" about them? I merely said they show the same thing that my in-game experience indicates... a decline in population. (Hell, I was the only person in my entire guild playing last night, and we had a few dozen playing at launch).

 

You may argue that the sites aren't necessarily accurate. All I can say is that the declines their graphs show match my own experience (actually, showing only a 5 percent or so decline each week, they are a shade better than my personal experience).

 

If it makes you feel better to believe the game is doing great, by all means feel that way. I wish you well. It doesn't make me good to feel that the game's doing badly and people are leaving in droves (or just not playing), but that's been my honest experience.

 

My post was solely about the data seeding of those websites. You suggested I was wrong about that.

 

Factually I am not wrong about them.

 

Again - I am making no argument on population gain/fall or the state of the game.

[Yozbick]

My post was solely about the data seeding of those websites. You suggested I was wrong about that.

 

Factually I am not wrong about them.

 

Again - I am making no argument on population gain/fall or the state of the game.

 

No. I suggested you were telling us to ignore them (i.e., "these are not the droids you are looking for.") Having used statistics myself -- and being well aware of the caveats one must use, even when one believes the data to be accurate -- I can only state that the graphs I see on those sites match my own experience.

 

Bottom line is that we're both on the forum during primetime on a weekend night instead of playing SWTOR. I'm here cause none of my guildmates are playing, the PVP queues have grown long, I'm on my third 50 and I'm too bored to level up again at the moment. I keep looking for some hope from Bioware that they are going to fix the game (but I so lack hope that I've arranged to pick up Skyrim from a friend this weekend.)

Edited February 25, 2012 by Yozbick

[Goretzu]

I think you are misunderstanding the OP, and the OP doesn't know enough about statistics to properly articulate what he really means.

 

Statistics is NOT about accuracy or reliability and most certainly not about presentation of facts. It never has been and never will be. It's about interpretation. Collection of data, and the analysis of that data. As an M&A specialist with experience on some of the largest and most high-profile deals (both buyside and sellside), I've had the joy and pleasure of picking apart all forms of "statistical data".

 

And these population "stats" are meaningless. The underlying data set is scewed beyond any measure of reliability. I would guess that the confidence interval of these graphs (don't know what that means? look it up) would be close to 33%. In the M&A world, we would tell the people who produced such a thing to come back after removing all data from December 20-January 3rd and then talk to us. The fact that they left those numbers in, shows that they don't care about skewing or something we call "confounding variables" or "Type 1" or "Type 2" errors.

 

The fact that we are here and trying to prove or dispprove hypothesis based on charts for which we don't even have the data set or can't control for various factors is just foolish.

 

My opinion: These charts are meaningless and should be dismissed.

 

 

I wouldn't try to publish a paper using this data, but equally that doesn't mean the data is meaningless.

 

It will likely show something that has a direct correlation to SWTOR subs (as it has with other games in the past with similar data).

 

 

 

 

Charts are based on data sets. Data sets can have outliers. There are rules for eliminating outliers so as to not render a chart practically useless. These charts have failed to do so.

 

Data sets can have outliers, yes, but again I ask you to tell me how data over holidays in a relative population data set is an outliers.

 

That data is not an "outlier", that doesn't mean outliers don't exists, just that holiday period data (or launch) is not an outlier.

 

 

 

Subscription numbers =/= population numbers. Not even close. EA won't even comment on population numbers as these are subjective and would not stand up to the rigor or scrutiny of Sarbanes-Oxley or SEC regulations. Subscription numbers = pulled straight from accounting numbers. Population numbers = affected by subjective factors.

 

There will be a correlation, especially during the period when subs may only be for the first free month.

 

Again no one is saying there in any way to determine exact numbers, only saying that there will likely be something that matches the over all trend.

 

 

 

Yes it does. If we are not provided with the data set and the charts are skewed, our confidence interval (a statistical term) goes down. Charts are rated based on their confidence interval, among other hard factors. Confidence interval is a measure of reliability. When a chart is presented without the CI, or the data set, it can be misleading to people who don't know how to interpret the data.

 

When you're talking about how many people are on a server it cannot be skewed, there might be more people on during holidays, but that doesn't "skew" the data it simply changes it.

 

You're talking about something that doesn't exist here in this context.

 

 

 

No. Changing the data set can alter the confidence interval (measure of reliability). You should experiment on SPSS or whatever the statisticians use these days.

 

There is no confidance interval in a set like this (and I've no idea why you think you could), the numbers are exact within their limits (there is no possiblity of anomolus data).

 

It's like monitoring the Euro against Dollar exchange rate. RL influences it, but it is what it is (the reasons are what change).

 

 

 

Not if these charts are based on averages, which they are. Averages based on skewed data sets = fail.

 

Again the data isn't skewed. More people playing in the holiday just equals more people playing, that is SHOWN in the data, nothing is skewed by it apart from possible conclusions.

 

 

 

That's a hypothesis which you would have to prove using data sets, for which you and I don't have access to.

 

Just so we're clear about confidence interval - it basically says you could take the same assumptions you used to create a chart for a time frame, go to another time frame and collect data again, and you would get the same results/trend x% of the time. A good CI is 95%. So that would mean, you would need to be able to take these charts, replace the data with data from say March-April, and 95% of the time, you would get approximately the same results and/or trend. If that is NOT the case, then the chart is unreliable or the assumptions are flawed or the data set contains too many outliers or the people were lazy and didn't account for variables. Basically, the chart makers aren't sophisticated and you shouldn't make any interpretations based on the chart.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

Again it is possible that if long term server pops were down, that long term sub numbers could be going up.

 

Possible......... but extremely, extremely unlikely.

 

It would, like I have said, be the MMO equiverlent of the perpetual motion device.

[Goretzu]

Server pops change every minute: if you are paying for your virtual servers to autoscale to demand then they will change size frequently.

 

Just because you are unfamiliar with advances in the technology does not mean the technology does not exist. Just because you fail to grasp the implications does not mean they aren't there.

 

For myself I am done with you, as you are not being intellectually honest, nor are you bothering to read the material others have presented.

 

Your pretense at interest is fraudulent. You are not interested in fact, but effect.

 

 

 

If they are changing each servers caps constantly and independant then yes the data is meaningless, but in that case then the server caps themselves are utterly meaningless too.

 

Personally I suspect they are not doing what you claim and so the data is what it is.

[Goretzu]

Ah yes. If the caps are autoscaling all over the place then "High"could represent 2,000 yesterday, 1,000 today and 3,000 tomorrow. Auto-scaling masks the true mathmatical values behind it. Conversely static thresholds would be the accurate method for displaying actual population numbers (like fill lines on a measuring cup) and ultimately trends; but that appears to not be what BioWare wants. And those server status thresholds can be manually adjusted (there isn't much on the back end that can't be.) Which means a server can be made to look as populated or as unpopulated as they want by adjusting those thresholds. A nice and subliminal server population relocation tool when implemented properly.

 

 

 

If this is happening then yes, absolutely the data is utterly meaningless.

 

But so far this is pure conjecture as this would also make server caps utterly meaningless (on server could be showing "FULL" with 500 people on it, whilst another is showing "LIGHT" with 2000 people on it).

 

This would make it impossible for a player to determine the population of any server.

 

If that is what Bioware is doing, then yes it is meaningless.

 

I very much doubt this is what Bioware are doing however, because it would be simpilar just not to have any server state at all than an utterly meaningless one, and just maybe change the colour of the names they want people to roll on.

 

 

So whilst it's possible, occam's razor suggests it's probably not happening.

[Goretzu]

No, I am not. The measurement of age is entirely different than something like measuring a population.

 

I will give you another example and if you don't get this, you are being willfully ignorant.

 

A baseball team is getting ready to make a long term order to stock and lock in prices for their concession stands. Which way is better to get an average number of attendees?

 

a) The first weekend of the season when they have a 3 game series with the Yankees. Weather was beautiful and the stands were packed attendance was 47k per game.

 

b) Wait until the end of the first month of the season when they had a variety of opponents, weather and it was not opening weekend? Average attendance 38k per game.

 

Even better is if they have years of history for attendance numbers, they will be able to more accurately predict what they will need.

 

But this whole analogy fails as it applies to SWTOR measurements because the stadium would use the same metric for measuring the attendees, whereas with SWTOR, the server statuses are not a consistent. It would work better if we knew the numbers for light, standard, etc were static and the same for each server.

 

 

 

Again though the data is not after an "average weekly number of players" over a "seaon" or whatever.

 

The whole point of the data is the change day by day, week by week, month by month and eventually year by year.

 

Now currently the data shows nothing about year by year, but it does day by day, week by week and month by month.

 

The data gets no more or less reliable. IF you were trying to find an average stadium attendance over a season THEN oyu'd have a point, but that is NOT what is being looked at or shown here.

 

 

What we're looking at (and for) is how many people attend the game on game 1, game 2, game 3, and seeing if that is going up or down over time. There is no average attendance over X period of time in this context as it would be utterly meaningless to what is being looked at.

 

Do you understand now?

[Tsillah]

Although I never take credentials seriously (how would we be able to confirm what you do for a living etc), I do feel the OP makes some good points.

 

I did wonder how these sites get their numbers and this makes sense to me.

 

With that, I also get annoyed with people who complain about their servers having such low population but never mention which server they are on.

 

Someone posted a link to torstatus and I looked at the numbers and most servers showed that they were quite stable and some had a small decline, even a few that had an increase over the last 60 days.

 

So not only do they quote information they don't understand, they don't even look properly to see that their conclusion isn't even supported by these sites.

[Goretzu]

 

Someone posted a link to torstatus and I looked at the numbers and most servers showed that they were quite stable and some had a small decline, even a few that had an increase over the last 60 days.

 

So not only do they quote information they don't understand, they don't even look properly to see that their conclusion isn't even supported by these sites.

 

 

Personally I'm wondering if server pops aren't picking up again recently (which can only be good for SWTOR). But then that's the point, data is data, and the trends will show what they will.

 

A lot of people in this thread seem to be heavily invested in politicising SWTOR pops (for reasons of thier own, I guess), not actually looking at what may be shown to be happening (up or down).

 

If it suddenly starts showing an upward trend, look to see all those arguing that this data is "meaningless" suddenly changing their tune.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Goretzu

[GalacticKegger]

Personally I'm wondering if server pops aren't picking up again recently (which can only be good for SWTOR). But then that's the point, data is data, and the trends will show what they will.

 

A lot of people in this thread seem to be heavily invested in politicising SWTOR pops (for reasons of thier own, I guess), not actually looking at what may be shown to be happening (up or down).

 

If it suddenly starts showing an upward trend, look to see all those arguing that this data is "meaningless" suddenly changing their tune.

Why would you say that? You think the TOR faithful are here to win arguments? Hell no. You people are arguing amongst yourselves. We could care less about your bunk server stats. We just want to be able to hang with our online community and not have to keep flagging moles, trolls and holes with nothing better to do than stalk a forum. Edited February 26, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Goretzu]

Why would you say that? You think the TOR faithful are here to win arguments. Hell no. You people are arguing amongst yourselves. We could care less about your bunk server stats. We just want to be able to hang with our online community and not have to keep flagging moles, trolls and holes with nothing better to do than stalk a forum.

 

I think you mean you couldn't care less.

 

However all I've said is correct, it just seems to be people that either don't understand or don't want to understand that are arguing (and by arguing I mean making some really strange reasoning and fallacious logic leaps).

 

Data is data and this data does likely show populations trends (up or down) unless BW are doing something that makes all server status states utterly meaningless.

[Esaru]

I don't need stat trackers to see that my server is dying. If you really think that this game is on anything other than a decline, you're deluded.