New updated sub numbers (Official)

[WereMops]

Sorry, but you don't understand your own numbers.

 

 

Your first calculation spreads the 4 hours per person out through a 24 hour cycle.

 

As I've repeatedly said that is not how it works.

 

 

 

You are calculating your "20 buses per hour", but ignoring that in rush hour your actually need 100 per hour and at 3 am need 1-0 per hour.

 

So like I said what you've calculated it meaningless (its right, in so far as the maths go, but it isn't showing what you think it does) in this context.

 

Server pop would have to be much higher than what you've stated to account for the average 4 hours played per player per day. That's just how it is.

 

Got my coffee now, let me go over my numbers again, I actually did make one mistake earlier, 24 divided by 4 isn't 8, changed the formula for easier overview, still the same numbers.

 

1700000 subs, 173 servers, 4 hours average, 24 hours in a day, 2 factions

 

subs / servers * 4 / number of hours / factions

1700000 / 173 = ~9826 accounts average per server per day

9826 * 4 = ~39304 player hours average per server per day

39304 / 24 = ~1638 average players per hour per server per hour (average based on 24 hours)

1638 / 2 = ~819 average players per hour per server per faction per hour (average based on 24 hours)

 

Based on this my earlier calculation is off by ~205 (due to getting 24/4 to be 8 instead of 6), but 819 players average per server, faction and hour is still a pretty low number needed, but (purely speculative) I'm guessing the average playtime at this point isn't 4 hours, more like 2-3 hours, which would put the needed average somewhere between 410-615.

 

Some servers will struggle to get close to these numbers even at peak hours while some servers are at or over this even at mostly off peak hours and double or triple the numbers at peak hours.

Edited March 9, 2012 by WereMops

[Blotter]

That would mean there should be a decent number of populated servers and there aren't.

 

US is almost all standard/light. Mine is standard and is a ghost town.

 

BUt there are. As I said, some report as many as 200+/- on fleet during prime time. That's likely Imp side, but it's a good number. The reality is, the vocal minority who are raging about having found themselves on an underpopulated server...they're the most vocal...which creates a false impression that it's everyone's experience.

[Trenter]

Well, the servers seem empty yes... but perhaps BioWare's intent to spread players around and the design of the world is having more an effect than they intended. It also _seems_ like the servers themselves have lower population caps. I know WoW's servers seem to hover around 25k characters, but these don't feel anywhere close to having that capacity. Who knows.

 

Your definition of empty? I play on a server, marked standard most of the time, and I don't think I've ever felt that the worlds were empty during my prime time sessions. anywhere between 20-70 players in each zone and never below 100-110 on the fleet. Except for the hubs in WoW it actually felt like the zones in that game were more empty.

[wifeaggro]

Good points guys, what will the next doom prophesy be?

 

Every one used so far has fallen flat.

 

It does make me wonder what the real motivation is for these hater posts. We're well past the free month so they have to actually be paying to contaminate the forums with thier doom and gloom posts. Why?

 

If they really hate the game so much why are they still here complaining about it? I've never been back to WoW since I decided to quit, and I didn't play out my game time either, when I decided to quit I cancelled my account and never looked back. What possible motivation can they have for sticking around?

 

Why are they still here?

 

Ive been a negative poster on the forums and im very vocal about what i dont like about this game. But ive never said it would be F2P or any non sense like that. even though i think the game is porrly designed largely a single player game with lobby features sold as an MMO. I thought that even if they had 60% burn off they would be highly profitable.

 

The reality is we will not have sub numbers until may when they have their qrtly conference call. The big picture looks bleak for MMO's in general if TOR is retaining 85% subs on a single player game with multiplayer options, shallow end game and a poorly optimized engine, lies about texture pacs and a very bad social hub. its not gonna bode well for the future of MMO's the days of adventure are gone.ther eis more community involvement here on the forums then in game.

[OldBenSmokin]

Tostatus is complete and utter garbage. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of statistics and 3rd grade algebra skills can understand that. And no, don't give me some carzy rationalization about "trending." It shows absolutely nothing.

 

Actually.. it's tells us alot. Trending always has. Anyone with any a rudimentary understanding of statistics and 3rd grade algebra(algebra? lol) skills can understand that... You just don't like what it illustrates.

Edited March 9, 2012 by OldBenSmokin

[Goretzu]

The game never had 2 million subscribers. It had 2 million sales, of which 1.7 million converted to subscriptions.

 

Fact: SWTOR had 1.7 million subscriptions at the end of January and the same number one month later.

 

Source: Electronic Arts 2012Q3 Quarterly Earnings Report.

 

 

 

Just to be clear.

 

According to what they've said they haven't retained 1.7 million subscribers, they've retained nearly 1.7 subscriptions.

 

That is they've lost subscriber, but the new sales (now 2.5+ mill in total) have more or less equalled it.

 

Which probably works out about right, if you assume a lot of people are still subbed but not playing much.

[Kryssprolls]

Its far too soon to predict anything.

 

For now, TOR has tremendous potential and updates are rolling fast. It would be very hard to tell what will the state of the game 1 year after it launched : it can well bring a lot of unheard of features to the MMO genre in the months to come, or fall short as a WoW clone in space.

 

Still, I saw many of our guildies leave and either go back to WoW or stop playing MMOs until better days. People expecting the degree of refinement that WoW got after 8 years or people who just prefer and heroic fantasy setting and gave TOR a try were quick to stop their subs.

But guildies who stayed on TOR are hooked and eager to test update 1.2.

 

When WoW launched it didn't even have battlegrounds and so many things that are now at the core of its gameplay were lacking. Expect the same kind of changes in TOR in the months, year to come.

 

It has a solid franchise, a huge community, an experienced game studio and big pockets: I don't see it turning Aion any time soon.

[Gohlar]

BUt there are. As I said, some report as many as 200+/- on fleet during prime time. That's likely Imp side, but it's a good number. The reality is, the vocal minority who are raging about having found themselves on an underpopulated server...they're the most vocal...which creates a false impression that it's everyone's experience.

 

You keep saying vocal minority, I don't think this is the case at all.

 

Besides, you are saying 1 out of 2 factions is already having a hard time playing. I have to reroll imp now too?

 

Honestly at a certain point it's hard not to see the 300lb gorilla in the room....

[Blotter]

Got my coffee now, let me go over my numbers again, I actually did make one mistake earlier, 24 divided by 4 isn't 8, changed the formula for easier overview, still the same numbers.

 

1700000 subs, 173 servers, 4 hours average, 24 hours in a day, 2 factions

 

subs / servers * 4 / number of hours / factions

1700000 / 173 = ~9826 accounts average per server

9826 * 4 = ~39304 player hours average per server

39304 / 24 = ~1638 average players per hour per server

1638 / 2 = ~819 average players per hour per server per faction

 

Based on this my earlier calculation is off by ~205 (due to getting 24/4 to be 8 instead of 6), but 819 players average per server, faction and hour is still a pretty low number needed, but (purely speculative) I'm guessing the average playtime at this point isn't 4 hours, more like 2-3 hours, which would put the needed average somewhere between 410-615.

 

Some servers will struggle to get close to these numbers even at peak hours while some servers are at or over this even at mostly off peak hours and double or triple the numbers at peak hours.

 

Why would you guess at the average play time when the people with the actual data have stated the average is 5 hours per day? Seriously...that's all tinfoil hat math. Some servers are way more populated than others. People who have found themselves on underpopulated servers are irate. We're not hearing from the peolpe on well populated servers because they're satisfied.

[JerokTalram]

Nope, sorry. Back on Feb 1st, EA specifically stated that about 300k-400k of the 1.7M were still in their first free month and had not fully subscribed (i.e., had not fully committed to playing) to become fully paying customers with a monthly or other periodic payment cycle. They now have done so according to this new release. That is good news. Nice try mischaracterizing it though in an attempt to gloss it over.

 

A sub is not a sub. They have different characteristics and the change in characteristics of the 1.7M to be almost all fully subscribed paying customers, as opposed to about 20% of them still being in their first free month, shows that people are staying, not leaving, and that they are getting new people to replace those who do leave. Don't like it or don't like the game? YOU can always leave. Make your statement that way...by cancelling and going away...instead of trying to ruin the forums with desperate pleas for everyone to feel as negatively as you do.

 

Just because they classified subs as recurring and not recurring doesn't change whether they are subs. The only reason they did that is to show to the investors that they were converting box sales in to recurring subscriptions.

[Blotter]

The reality is we will not have sub numbers until may when they have their qrtly conference call. .

 

He says in response to an EA/BW representative making a public statement about subscription numbers....one which can't be just blatant lying becuse it would expose the companies to charges of fraud, etc., by the shareholders.

[Goretzu]

Stop saying that nonsense. They are NOT 'not playing', or at least that is not the definite and only answer to the servers being less full with subscriptions staying equal.

 

The only real thing to see is that people are generally playing less. Less being anywhere between 1 second less each day, to not a single second anymore. It has nothing to do with people not playing anymore at all.

 

No matter how many times you repeat it, it doesn't make it more true nor definite.

 

 

 

They have to be not playing much, 1.7 million subs across the current number of servers means either there'd be many more on each server OR that people aren't playing an average of 4 hours a day (4 hours a week, or less, maybe).

 

You've be looking at each server needing a lot of player on at PT for it to be otherwise.

[Arkerus]

Good morning haters.

 

Where are the goal posts now?

 

Where have you pushed them to? GW2? Is that the new goal post?

[Blotter]

Just because they classified subs as recurring and not recurring doesn't change whether they are subs. The only reason they did that is to show to the investors that they were converting box sales in to recurring subscriptions.

 

What is hard for you to understand about the fact that 300k-400k people who had not yet decided to give EA permission to charge them a monthly or other periodic fee have now decided to do so? Why is that hard for you to wrap your head around? Nuance. Get some.

[Devlonir]

You can't average hours per day across a 24 hour period.

 

It just doesn't work like that.

 

It's not odd, it's just how it is!

 

Again, no matter how many times you keep saying this.. it doesn't make this more true either.

 

An average of 4 hours per day for each player IS taken by taking averages across a 24 hour period (you see, a day happens to be a 24 hour period). So people play, on average, 4 of those 24 hours. That means that, on average, people are NOT playing 20 hours per day. We also know that, on average, peek hours in an MMO are about 6-8 hours long. In this time, MOST players play the game, not all though.

 

In that time, you have the people that just log on for 15 minutes to see they find no Flashpoint group and leave to come back another day, as well as those players that have already been in the game for 7 hours and 45 minutes and decide to call it a day. You see, those two together already average... *drum rolls* 4 hours spent in that specific 24 hour period.

 

You see.. peek hours merely are the time when most people play.. not all. You cannot disregard the other 16-18 hours of a day just because they have less players in them. And there are enough people that play only on non-peek times because of how their life is scheduled.

 

You are making a logical mistake by disregarding non-peek hours and stating that people that do regard the actual 24 hour period as part of the 4 hour average per day are making a mistake. Just because people stop saying you are wrong, doesn't make your repeated mistake right.

 

PS. I do realize that an average means nothing more or less than an average though. Using an average for any kind of statistics is, in itself, a logical phallacy because the nature of averages means that the result is merely 1 of the possible outcomes.. and often not even the most likely one.

[Blotter]

Good morning haters.

 

Where are the goal posts now?

 

Where have you pushed them to? GW2? Is that the new goal post?

 

I'd say they pushed them where the sun don't shine but their heads are blocking the way.

[Jederix]

+1 for hitting the nail on the head. Unless rated WZ's improve the game a ton i know a ton of ppl that will be leaving. The game just gets plain boring and now that the casuals want to take any kind of incentive away from pvp..like armor well......

 

You don't know as many people as you think you do. Just saying.

[Blotter]

Actually.. it's tells us alot. Trending always has. Anyone with any a rudimentary understanding of statistics and 3rd grade algebra(algebra? lol) skills can understand that... You just don't like what it illustrates.

 

It doesn't show a trend. It can't. The underlying metrics are not standardized such that it can do so. As I said, either yuo undersstand the statistics and math, or you don't. You cannot graph the indcidence rate of a label such as "standard" or "heavy" when the definition of that label has been changing without first standardizing that underlying metric. Because NOBODY knows what the underlying metric is or how it has been changed over time, those labels cannot be standardized. As a result, all torstatus does is give you a record of what that label was over time, but cannot be trusted to provide any reliable measure of a trend in the underlying metric that label is supposed to indicate.

[JerokTalram]

Actually.. it's tells us alot. Trending always has. Anyone with any a rudimentary understanding of statistics and 3rd grade algebra(algebra? lol) skills can understand that... You just don't like what it illustrates.

 

You really should stop. It's been shown lots of times on this forum that Torstatus is not a reliable source of information. Trending or not.

[JerokTalram]

What is hard for you to understand about the fact that 300k-400k people who had not yet decided to give EA permission to charge them a monthly or other periodic fee have now decided to do so? Why is that hard for you to wrap your head around? Nuance. Get some.

 

THat's not what we were talking about. We were talking about the subs that were still in their first month and have given credit card information or a timecard because they can't play other wise.

[Blotter]

You keep saying vocal minority, I don't think this is the case at all.

 

Besides, you are saying 1 out of 2 factions is already having a hard time playing. I have to reroll imp now too?

 

Honestly at a certain point it's hard not to see the 300lb gorilla in the room....

 

1. Why would people on high population servers be on the forums complaining about low population?

 

2. I never said that.

 

3. The only 300lb gorilla in the room is the massive, pervasive problem ALL MMO's have with self-entitled infantile brats who turn their forums into complete cess pools of negativity, dire prophecy regarding the game's health and future and childish, tinfoil hatted temper tantrums and whining.

[adamqd]

I dont know what I hate more, the people who play the Game, or the people that come here and post (Haters and Fanbois)

 

This is why I dont enjoy the game, the people are so obnoxious. should of been a SPRPG. and kept SWG going.

Edited March 9, 2012 by adamqd

[RenegadeCarlyle]

It's called winter break... Almost everyone was either on vacation from school or from work. Thats why every server was nearly full at that time. DUH

[Blotter]

THat's not what we were talking about. We were talking about the subs that were still in their first month and have given credit card information or a timecard because they can't play other wise.

 

No. Yuo tried to counter my point that 300k-400k had fully subnscribed, changing the character of that 1.7M total in a good way...you tried to counter it by saying a sub is a sub so it doesn't matter because it was all the same anyway. It's not the same. The fact that a large chunk of people chose to continue subbing past their free month such that they are now on the periodic payment treadmill is a positive thing that bodes well for the health of the game and indicates a more positive market response than the haters want everyone to think. That's the very simple truth.

[Panzerbase]

1.7 million, ok so the game is in decline once you factor in Asia and the Aussie's, the fact they even had to state the number means pressure by the investors to do so, not a good sign.

 

Let's be honest here folks, where are these subs? Sure as hell ain't in game.