Interesting numbers....

shirlnt

It's my understanding that amongst the reward levels for the house pack-up event there is one for 100 houses.  Is this going to be a common reward or something rare?  Think about what it takes to get 100 houses.  Each account had 10 lots if I remember correctly.  When I first started playing, buildings took various amounts of lots so a player may have used up most of there lots on 1 building or may have had 10 different buildings.  At minimum, getting the 100 house reward would mean destroying the houses from 10 accounts.  Now, during the time I played regularly (starting May 2004 to November 2005), I'll admit there were buildings still in existence from people who no longer played the game but those would be from a time where it took more lots to put larger buildings so it would take a lot of accounts from that time to reach 100 packed buildings.

The message I get from SOE by their reward system is "we need to motivate our current players to 'pack-up' buildings from people who have not played in over a year at a minimal ratio of 1:10 accounts."  Either than or they don't think their current players will want to pack up houses so only a few will participate.  Thing with that theory is that while people may not be in a hurry to pack-up their home town causing the loss of certain benefits, there will probably be "enemies" who are more than happy to pack it up for them and, unlike base destruction, there is no way to stop someone else from packing up the home town.  Only places I see people needing much motivation to pack up would be "neutral" cities on property that people no longer care about (ex.: how much motivation is there to remove cities on Tat in order to create new cities since, other than cantinas and Krayts, it's now a noob planet).

ArcheusCross

Originally posted by shirlnt


It's my understanding that amongst the reward levels for the house pack-up event there is one for 100 houses.  Is this going to be a common reward or something rare?  Think about what it takes to get 100 houses.  Each account had 10 lots if I remember correctly.  When I first started playing, buildings took various amounts of lots so a player may have used up most of there lots on 1 building or may have had 10 different buildings.  At minimum, getting the 100 house reward would mean destroying the houses from 10 accounts.  Now, during the time I played regularly (starting May 2004 to November 2005), I'll admit there were buildings still in existence from people who no longer played the game but those would be from a time where it took more lots to put larger buildings so it would take a lot of accounts from that time to reach 100 packed buildings.
The message I get from SOE by their reward system is "we need to motivate our current players to 'pack-up' buildings from people who have not played in over a year at a minimal ratio of 1:10 accounts."  Either than or they don't think their current players will want to pack up houses so only a few will participate.  Thing with that theory is that while people may not be in a hurry to pack-up their home town causing the loss of certain benefits, there will probably be "enemies" who are more than happy to pack it up for them and, unlike base destruction, there is no way to stop someone else from packing up the home town.  Only places I see people needing much motivation to pack up would be "neutral" cities on property that people no longer care about (ex.: how much motivation is there to remove cities on Tat in order to create new cities since, other than cantinas and Krayts, it's now a noob planet).

Hmm I think I see what your getting a with the first paragraph. I think it would be interesting to see the total amount of houses destroyed per server. Then maybe do some math with that number to find out how many people truly left swg at the introduction of NGE. Quite an interesting thought.

SioBabble

On Ahazi, at least, there are hundreds of "abandoned" structures on each of the buildable planets.   I would guess that 75% of the buildings in most of the player cities are abandoned.  They're scattered all over the surface of each planet, both in player cities and outside them.  Even in the mountains of Corellia, Naboo, Tatooine, you'll find the occassional Jedi safe house hideaway far from "civilization".

I strongly suspect that there are at least four to five structures minimum, per account out there, sometimes more, sometimes less, based on the lots required and that, at least for me, I held back lots for tossing up harvesters on prime spawns of various harvestable resources.

There is a lot of space for buildings on any SWG buildable planet.

davvin

yeah i played SWG on Ahazi also, and i wouldn't be suprised if there's over 1000 abandoned buildings. i know several players in my old guild had multiple accounts--my brother and i each had multiple accounts also, and it wasn't uncommon to have 5-10 houses in our city per player (not account, but player). our city was such a maze to get in and out of, lol, it was funny watching the imps come to try to destroy our base and then get lost and go around in circles while trying to run away. so in order to keep the defensiveness of our city, we had to have enough houses and have them in the proper places.

miataka

A honest answer.



Total depends on teh server you are on...  as Bria and intrepid and a few others had HUGE HUGE populations that left.



Tho there is a actual Cap on how many cities and lots each planet actually contained.... its ALOT.



so if you can get 1 reward, per 100 hourses, these items will not be rare as even the lowest pop servers from pre NGE had 100k characters easy. each having multiple buildings.



Id say that reward will eb REALLY common.

Chessack

I think what the OP is getting at is, for each "100 houses destroyed" award given out, that represents a minimum of 10 different accounts, because nobody could've had more than 10 houses on a single account. It may technically represent as many as 100 of course, but odds are it will be some number in between... exactly what, we won't know.



But, for example, suppose 100 of these awards are given out on Ahazi... that means it's at least 1,000 canceled/abandoned accounts. And I guess he was saying if you add the # of awards up across all servers, and then x those by 10, you will get a minimum estimate of the # of canceled accounts. Of course, that's accounts canceled since 2003, not since the NGE. So it's hard to know what it means.



The other thing is, if we can somehow find out what % of players got the 100 pack-up award vs. didn't, that will tell us how many players there are still active on each server (with some variance to account for the players who are active but can't be bothered to pack things up).



It's an interesting thesis, though my guess is that, like all other numbers, SOE will not reveal any of these values.



C

dirtyd77

Originally posted by shirlnt


It's my understanding that amongst the reward levels for the house pack-up event there is one for 100 houses.  Is this going to be a common reward or something rare?  Think about what it takes to get 100 houses.  Each account had 10 lots if I remember correctly.  When I first started playing, buildings took various amounts of lots so a player may have used up most of there lots on 1 building or may have had 10 different buildings.  At minimum, getting the 100 house reward would mean destroying the houses from 10 accounts.  Now, during the time I played regularly (starting May 2004 to November 2005), I'll admit there were buildings still in existence from people who no longer played the game but those would be from a time where it took more lots to put larger buildings so it would take a lot of accounts from that time to reach 100 packed buildings.
The message I get from SOE by their reward system is "we need to motivate our current players to 'pack-up' buildings from people who have not played in over a year at a minimal ratio of 1:10 accounts."  Either than or they don't think their current players will want to pack up houses so only a few will participate.  Thing with that theory is that while people may not be in a hurry to pack-up their home town causing the loss of certain benefits, there will probably be "enemies" who are more than happy to pack it up for them and, unlike base destruction, there is no way to stop someone else from packing up the home town.  Only places I see people needing much motivation to pack up would be "neutral" cities on property that people no longer care about (ex.: how much motivation is there to remove cities on Tat in order to create new cities since, other than cantinas and Krayts, it's now a noob planet).

Well for every single (1) house you blow up you get a point. These points are redeemable for rewards. 1pt gets you 1 reward. They have some really cool rewards. There are a couple of new paintings. New furniture also and a couple new Holo-pets.  You get a badge when you blow up 10 houses. You get another badge at 50 houses.

I would say that most people did not place single lot houses. I would say the majority of people had at least Medium house. Not to mention that  you can blow up harvestors & factories also..... 

neinnunb

Originally posted by shirlnt


Each account had 10 lots if I remember correctly.

Each character had 10 lots.  Small houses took up 2 lots so the maximum houses each character could have was 5 houses.  Many people left with the NGE before they opened up 2nd characters (doubling the amount of lots you could have by 2)  Many people also had a bunch of harvestors that each took up one lot.



Its hard to estimate, but I would say for every three to four houses that are demolished, its one account.

Originally posted by Chessack

I think what the OP is getting at is, for each "100 houses destroyed" award given out, that represents a minimum of 10 different accounts, because nobody could've had more than 10 houses on a single account.

Only if you played after the NGE could you have 10 houses per server/account unless you were a Jedi and already had the 2nd character.  A normal character before the NGE could only have 5 houses maximum.

SioBabble

Merchant tents count as a structure, and they take up one lot.  I saw a lot of abandoned merchant tents when I was on the veteran trial a month back.

Small round Naboo houses are also one lot jobs, IIRC.

Tat, Corellia, and generic smalls are two lots.

Mediums and larges take up more, a large generic is five lots, as is a PA hall.

It's 10 lots per toon, so, yes, an elder Jedi in theory, if they didn't delete by accident or deliberately the unlock toon post NGE, and used lots on the NGE "second" toon, could have as many as 30 lots built on.

So it's not going to be easy to extrapolate lost account numbers from packed up structures.  A lot of variables to take into account.

Then you've got people with station access who still have "active" accounts but still have buildings around and they haven't bothered actually playing for years, but they're not "abandoned" because SOE still gets money for them.

ArcheusCross

Well then you take into play of how many houses people actually had. I personally only needed one. And my other lots were not uses. I was heavily a combat toon.



Soo you have that coming into play too. How many people used all those lots?

Talyn

I left SWG before JTL went live and back then if we didn't pay our maintenance fees, the house would eventually catch fire and burn down. (Learned that lesson the hard way *sigh*)

I'm guessing something changed so these houses can be left abandoned nearly indefinitely now?

If so, this is a good thing SOE is doing. I'd say bring back the maintenance decay (whatever it was called) and let that take care of the issue.

SioBabble

The main reason to have a house is storage.  Even combat toons needed places to put stuff.

A subset of storage is the "Look at all the cool stuff I have" reason...all that crap you could collect in the game...art, vet rewards, furniture...pure RP stuff, too.   House decoration still is a huge part of what makes SWG fun.

The secondary reason is to be a place to park a vendor, if you're a merchant.  If you're a crafter, you need storage and lots of it for all those resources needed to craft.

So crafting toons usually have multiple houses.  Alt crafting toons often create a need for combat mains to toss up additional houses.

My main toon has a generic large on Naboo, a Corellian small near Doaba Guerfel, and a food/chem factory originally used by my MD/MCM alt, and leftover lots for harvesters.

The MD/MCM toon had (by now it's been zapped, I'm sure) a medium Naboo, a medical facility, and a number of lots for harvesters.

The MBE/MChef toon had two houses, one for crafting and one for storage, another food/chem factory, and several lots free for harvesters.  My MChef's vendor was owned by another guildie as the MChef didn't have enough SP left over to train up the merchant line.  In addition, I had access to other factories for storage and manufacturing.  One of my friends had a equipment/weapon factory that I borrowed to store DNA!

The main has an unlock alt with a house on Naboo and a house on Tatooine (was used by guildies as a safe house near areas once roamed by krayts).

One of the reasons there are so many abandoned buildings is that some of the most fanatical players (with multiple accounts and therefore probably lots of structures) are the ones that gave up after the NGE went live.

SioBabble

Originally posted by Talyn


I left SWG before JTL went live and back then if we didn't pay our maintenance fees, the house would eventually catch fire and burn down. (Learned that lesson the hard way *sigh*)
I'm guessing something changed so these houses can be left abandoned nearly indefinitely now?
If so, this is a good thing SOE is doing. I'd say bring back the maintenance decay (whatever it was called) and let that take care of the issue.

Sometime after JTL they changed the rules on structure decay; the buildings didn't poof, but your bank account was tapped for the maintenance automattically, and if your bank account went dry, your structure was "condemmed" and you had to pay back maintenance to get access.  For a six month or so period after Hurricane Katrina they suspended maintenance altogether as a number of players had no way at all to access their accounts due to the devastation in the real world.

I think they eliminated structure decay to maintain a Potemekin village illusion of populated planets, with lots of structures associated with cancelled accounts.

infrared1

Lets do some real math here.



How many players can a single server hold at one time. 10-15k ? If each player placed 10 lots thats 100-150k buildings. We know that is not realistic. Is it?



Now if there are 1000 active players on that server that want to do house pack ups, with a limit of 5 buildings per day, thats 5000 buildings destroyed each day. it will take one player 20 days to hit the 100 goal. At this rate, what are the odds that someone will actually meet this goal. I would be surprised if anyone gets to 30. Lets do the math again. 1000 players 5 buildings per day over 6 days, thats 30k building in 6 days. Do the servers really have that many house to pack up?



Better question is, do you think that at that rate anyone can meet the goal of 100 if you are only limited to 5 per day?



Of course this whole thing relies on the amount of active players on that server. The server can only hold so much.



This is day 2 of the packup and i have packed up 7 buildings. I am having a lot of trouble finding more. I spent an hour flying around trying to locate abandon buildings. I only found 2 today, gave up trying to find more. I got bored.

Ycochal-int

the last date of loging onto a server was 4-2006 to have your houses ect. be destroyed.. I am sure many vets have gone back at lest once to see if they could play the game post-nge. (I paid for a month resub.... logged on once on my main (2- houses, g-hall and small generic) and tried to create a new char to learn the game. played for 4 hours out of the month i paid for....) the point is there maybe a few who tried the 14 day trial to bring vets back, so it will look like there are few houses to destroy thus there are players still here... thus showing the current players there is life here don't go ect. look at the whole picture... so they really want everything planet to look empty? no... i don't think so... this is to make the complainers happy about structures that have been in the way. but at the same time make them feel everything is on the upswing.... a $oe jedi mind trick...

miataka

Originally posted by infrared1

Lets do some real math here.



How many players can a single server hold at one time. 10-15k ? If each player placed 10 lots thats 100-150k buildings. We know that is not realistic. Is it?

hold at one time...about 30k...  characters created over all..I bet most servers had between 200k over the life span of the game,



there was alot of Jedi that unlocked and got to have a second character, there was alot of us that played on More then a few servers...



Infact my Log in screen had like 15 or so characters across 14 servers... yes 1 unlocked Jedi =p



each character had 10 lots... the rewards will be as common as Bantha's on Tatooine

infrared1

Originally posted by miataka

Originally posted by infrared1

Lets do some real math here.



How many players can a single server hold at one time. 10-15k ? If each player placed 10 lots thats 100-150k buildings. We know that is not realistic. Is it?

hold at one time...about 30k...  characters created over all..I bet most servers had between 200k over the life span of the game,



there was alot of Jedi that unlocked and got to have a second character, there was alot of us that played on More then a few servers...



Infact my Log in screen had like 15 or so characters across 14 servers... yes 1 unlocked Jedi =p



each character had 10 lots... the rewards will be as common as Bantha's on Tatooine Im try to realistic here. On one sevre? I played pre-CU and never ever did i see 30k on a server. It may have been able to hold that many but they didnt. I think you are missing what im saying. Most people have 2 toons now days on one server. if there are 1000 players doing pack ups ON ONE SERVER not multiple. You dont get the reward for the most pack ups over multiple characters and servers, just one.

Thats 2000 toons running around doing pack ups at 5 a day. That adds up very quickly. I dont feel there are enough abandon building to get anyone to the 100 mark over a 20 day period.

Kazara

Originally posted by infrared1

Lets do some real math here.



How many players can a single server hold at one time. 10-15k ? If each player placed 10 lots thats 100-150k buildings. We know that is not realistic. Is it?



Now if there are 1000 active players on that server that want to do house pack ups, with a limit of 5 buildings per day, thats 5000 buildings destroyed each day. it will take one player 20 days to hit the 100 goal. At this rate, what are the odds that someone will actually meet this goal. I would be surprised if anyone gets to 30. Lets do the math again. 1000 players 5 buildings per day over 6 days, thats 30k building in 6 days. Do the servers really have that many house to pack up?



Better question is, do you think that at that rate anyone can meet the goal of 100 if you are only limited to 5 per day?



Of course this whole thing relies on the amount of active players on that server. The server can only hold so much.



This is day 2 of the packup and i have packed up 7 buildings. I am having a lot of trouble finding more. I spent an hour flying around trying to locate abandon buildings. I only found 2 today, gave up trying to find more. I got bored.

The problem is also that many players utilize 2 -3 toons per account, per server all of which are packing up houses for a reward and/or badge. $OE has over estimated the amount of actual abandoned buildings that are actually flagged for this event.  I know it seemd like there were so many abandoned houses, but a lot of the remaining structures are not flagged. I, too,  will be surprised to see how many players (if any) actually get to 30. If stuctures are going to get flagged on a regular basis as they hit a specific abandonement time limit, then maybe, just maybe, over a l-o-o-o-o-ng period of time (if the game lasts that long) a player will hit the 100 goal. Then I must wonder who would really exert the effort looking for the rare abandoned structure? It will be just by chance to run into one and take it down....like the collection side game that is on its way.

Kylrathin

I think the existing devs have probably looked at what's out there, and determined there's a huge amount of buildings that meet the criteria of "abandoned", which is where they came up with their rewards of 10/100 demolished.  They wouldn't do that if there were only one or two people that would actually hit 100.  The bottom line is, there are a ton of structures left in the game from people who, like myself, have found the NGE to be severely lacking and have not logged on since April 2006.  If the rate of attrition was high enough that they devoted coding time to making a mini-game out of it, then it has to be a huge amount of people.



What I'm wondering now is, am I still going to get Chapter spam from SOE in RL email, considering everything I own is in my back pocket now?  Do they still care about trying to get vets interested in the game after doing this to them?  The location of my house, just outside Theed, was a prime spot that some NGEr will likely take pretty quickly.  I know many other people had awesome locations for houses that will probably get taken.  Not that it really matters anymore, just curious if they'll feel the need to market to vets as hard.

Obraik

In 2 days, Chilastra is almost already cleared out of Abandoned houses. At least I can't find anymore to get my 10 houses badge : Getting the 50 badge is probably not going to be possible for most this time round...

AveBethos

Originally posted by Obraik


In 2 days, Chilastra is almost already cleared out of Abandoned houses. At least I can't find anymore to get my 10 houses badge : Getting the 50 badge is probably not going to be possible for most this time round...

It's amazing!!!  SOE has turned it around!!!  I was logged on playing in May, less than 2 months ago and every server I tried out was DEAD.  Now there are endless thousands of players LOVING the NGE!

The SOE suits need raises!  A game went from DEAD to prosperous in a matter of 1.5 months!!!

Oh wait...  No there's not.  It's the same 10,000 knuckleheads running around with their extra accounts and toons hoping to get the incredible bonuses SOE is offering up to destroy what's left of the game when it was playable...

 

Squal'Zell

i don't think it means anything the number of packed houses with the number of accounts that left.

for i packed up my houses before i canceled.

also some may have 5 small houses others may have 1 guild hall placed down

and to top it all from my city at least, we asked people from other servers to put down houses that we would maintain.



the only prof we have that so many left is that the servers are empty, ghost towns and empty cantinas.

AfroPuff

Originally posted by Squal'Zell

i don't think it means anything the number of packed houses with the number of accounts that left.

for i packed up my houses before i canceled.

also some may have 5 small houses others may have 1 guild hall placed down

and to top it all from my city at least, we asked people from other servers to put down houses that we would maintain.



the only prof we have that so many left is that the servers are empty, ghost towns and empty cantinas.

I agree.  There's no way to extrapolate to the number of paid accounts based on just the number of structure demolition rewards given out.. There are too many unknowns.  How many structures per toon, on average?  How many accounts holders have multiple toons on their home sever?  How many account holders have multiple home servers?

Cozmic3

fyi   small naboo type 1 houses took 1 lot and tents took 1 lot...every other house took atleast 2.  So not alot of people are gonna have 10 small naboo houses or 10 tents lol.



coz

nevikt

Trying to mathematically calculate how many players left due to the nge, by the number of houses destroyed would take a huge stretch of the imagination.