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xfire shows AoC numbers decreasing :(
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most people here agree that you cannot use xfire to compare how many players are playing which game, so it won't tell you how many subs aoc has.
The only thing you can use xfire numbers for is to see how much the same people play one game. The players that used xfire when aoc launched most likely still are using xfire so you can see how many of them are still playing aoc each day from the xfire numbers. around aoc launch the xfire users were counted to spend more than the double amount of hours in aoc than they do now.
This still doesn't mean that half of the players no longer plays aoc, one part of that loss is also caused by players that still play but spend a shorter time each day in aoc (everyone spends a lot time with a new game, and that time usually goes down a bit over time). So it would be wrong to say aoc allready lost 50% of its subs just cause the played hours in xfire dropped by that amount.
Also xfire numbers are just showing a trend gathered from a sample population that is probably big enough for statistical trending but the numbers that you get from the sample might still have a wide error margin. So even if you could say as an example that 35% of xfire players that bought aoc cancelled subscription allready it would probably have a statisticall 5-10% error added to it so that the rate of cancelled subscriptions after first month for whole aoc community might be somewhere between 25 and 45%.
most people here agree that you cannot use xfire to compare how many players are playing which game, so it won't tell you how many subs aoc has.
The only thing you can use xfire numbers for is to see how much the same people play one game. The players that used xfire when aoc launched most likely still are using xfire so you can see how many of them are still playing aoc each day from the xfire numbers. around aoc launch the xfire users were counted to spend more than the double amount of hours in aoc than they do now.
This still doesn't mean that half of the players no longer plays aoc, one part of that loss is also caused by players that still play but spend a shorter time each day in aoc (everyone spends a lot time with a new game, and that time usually goes down a bit over time). So it would be wrong to say aoc allready lost 50% of its subs just cause the played hours in xfire dropped by that amount.
Also xfire numbers are just showing a trend gathered from a sample population that is probably big enough for statistical trending but the numbers that you get from the sample might still have a wide error margin. So even if you could say as an example that 35% of xfire players that bought aoc cancelled subscription allready it would probably have a statisticall 5-10% error added to it so that the rate of cancelled subscriptions after first month for whole aoc community might be somewhere between 25 and 45%.
everything you said is correct but it still boils down to the game is tracking about 6K less hours from XFire users each week. Which would lead me to believe that the game is steadily losing players faster than it is gaining them through box sales. This was not a one time drop, it is a very consistent decline of around 6K to 8K a week.
I miss DAoC
The game is 11 on Amazon's best sellers in just over 6 weeks, and the gamecards, the biggest indicator of subscribers in this its first paid month, are 402nd. http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1215459016/ref=sr_pg_34?ie=UTF8&rs=229575&bbn=229575&rh=n%3A468642%2Cn%3A229575&page=34
Conan, the bell tolls for thee...
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." -Edmund Burke
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?"
(Psalm 94:16)
most people here agree that you cannot use xfire to compare how many players are playing which game, so it won't tell you how many subs aoc has.
The only thing you can use xfire numbers for is to see how much the same people play one game. The players that used xfire when aoc launched most likely still are using xfire so you can see how many of them are still playing aoc each day from the xfire numbers. around aoc launch the xfire users were counted to spend more than the double amount of hours in aoc than they do now.
This still doesn't mean that half of the players no longer plays aoc, one part of that loss is also caused by players that still play but spend a shorter time each day in aoc (everyone spends a lot time with a new game, and that time usually goes down a bit over time). So it would be wrong to say aoc allready lost 50% of its subs just cause the played hours in xfire dropped by that amount.
Also xfire numbers are just showing a trend gathered from a sample population that is probably big enough for statistical trending but the numbers that you get from the sample might still have a wide error margin. So even if you could say as an example that 35% of xfire players that bought aoc cancelled subscription allready it would probably have a statisticall 5-10% error added to it so that the rate of cancelled subscriptions after first month for whole aoc community might be somewhere between 25 and 45%.
everything you said is correct but it still boils down to the game is tracking about 6K less hours from XFire users each week. Which would lead me to believe that the game is steadily losing players faster than it is gaining them through box sales. This was not a one time drop, it is a very consistent decline of around 6K to 8K a week.
still one million user sold can mean that not all is active but will be in august when peopel are home from cabins.
im first not to jump at conclusions but for this matter it is clear that not all million use xfires either only a small friction
Oh my! It has increase the last few days! And today's higher than the same day last week!
It is teh WoW killah! Srsly!
*dodge* ;-)
Ok Gishgeron I will tell ya and no I didn't think you were flaming me.
I wanted more involved melee combat, something without an auto attack that was more "reactionary". DAoC had a similar system, you would have certain moves that would only work after a block, dodge, etc. Melee combat in AoC is fast-paced and fun. If I keep spamming Upper Left (UL) attack, the mob starts defending the UL region. The combos really add to the fun as it's more than just click a hotkey and toon does its move. I click the combo and then have to press the right sequence of attack keys, which are clearly marked on the screen so you don't have to memorize everything. Not to mention if I swing my 2h sword from right to left, I hit all mobs from right to left if they are close enough.
Oh and there are Fatalities. Besides the obvious cool-factor (OMG did I just litterally rip this guy's head off), they give a short duration buff to you everytime you get one. There are spell fatalities too, if you don't care for melee types.
Mounts are more than just riding, you can use them in combat.
The tutorial area (Tortage) is well thought out and fully voiced over. If you can't get a quest done due to too many players, switch to night time which is solo play.
I've also read all the books, some by Howard some by others. So I got to finally interact in a virtual world that I been reading about for more than 20 years.
Now for what didn't live up to my hype....
Once you leave Tortage the voice overs disappear. I expect this was left out to get the game released and to reduce the install size. Voice data takes up a lot of space and the game was already a 30gb install. Hopefully, they will add optional voice pack downloads in the future.
I'd have to say pvp is a bit lacking. The videos showed people sacking other player's cities. Well problem is those cities have to be built first. Gathering isn't available til 20 and actual crafting isn't until 40.
Gathering is very hit and miss. There is no marker on your nav telling you a copper node is Thatta Way. You just have to wander around and hope you bump into a resource node. The nodes do regenerate, a tree will show "ash tree 50%" meaning you can get 5 hits on it before it's depleted. There is a resource zone, but it gets crowded quickly.
Hope that helped ya Gishgeron.
It does appear that AoC is maybe stablizing for this week. I've gotta say I'm impressed, I figured the game would be dropping like a rock.
---
Ethion
On the XFire stats rubbish ....
I use Xfire, I turn ot off for AOC as need every bit of system resources available for the game, I can image alot of others doing the same which makes XFire stats quite a bit unreliable, compared to he first couple of weeks when left it running
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Actually, yesterdays numbers (7-9-08) show times almost equal to the day that the game was down for 13 hours due to a bugged patch.
I am sorry, but I find that not so impressive.
What will be truly telling is todays patch, which should have had the PvP updates (based on the game directors wording in the newsletter they sent to all players), and the fact it is not in now, well Xfire is based on the FPS/PvP crowd....and I think it will take a turn for the worse.
So far they have dropped from 16000+ users on Xfire down to 7k+. Lets try some lotto here to make some guesses of just "How low can they go"
My guess after patch? 5000 or less
actually the sample size is easily large enough that the trends they are observing are very likely to be very very accurate.
actually the sample size is easily large enough that the trends they are observing are very likely to be very very accurate.
If anyone went to college and had math or business classes you no doubt heard of William E. Deming. Based on what Deming taught us, I would say that trend we're seeing on the x-fire website is a sample of the larger picture. AoC is loosing players very quickly.
Look beyond just the decline and compare it to other recent releases and popular MMOs.
LOTRO (est. 150.000 subscriptions) has 10.000+ hours played at peak. Its all time high was at #14.
EVE online with 250.000 subscribers has 13.000+ hours played at peak. Its all time high was at #12.
AoC still has 50.000+ hours played at peak. Its all time high was at #4.
I don't know where you got your statistics or for that matter what game you are playing, but the servers I play on are becoming significantly less populated. I think your 50,000 number is about as worthless as the bits used to compose it.
I extremely doubt they will be even able to keep Eve numbers in this game, there is very little to do once you reach 80.
I know I won't be back once my subscription expires.
Look beyond just the decline and compare it to other recent releases and popular MMOs.
LOTRO (est. 150.000 subscriptions) has 10.000+ hours played at peak. Its all time high was at #14.
EVE online with 250.000 subscribers has 13.000+ hours played at peak. Its all time high was at #12.
AoC still has 50.000+ hours played at peak. Its all time high was at #4.
I don't know where you got your statistics or for that matter what game you are playing, but the servers I play on are becoming significantly less populated. I think your 50,000 number is about as worthless as the bits used to compose it.
I extremely doubt they will be even able to keep Eve numbers in this game, there is very little to do once you reach 80.
I know I won't be back once my subscription expires.
I think he wanted to show how the game HAS been stacked up. The overall numbers were from a listing that shows overall hours...
Look at the chart, and you can see in the past it has hit that high. It is now a over half of that for loss, and going down.
This coming weekend will be the real decision on if Funcom has totally failed. If those numbers keep going down, then it is a fail, and will only be in the same boat as LOTRO or worse...EQ2 or Vanguard.
Do you know how statistics are determined from surveys? You know, the ones you see on the news that says 45% people prefer this over that? Do you think the companies actually go out and talk to 100,000 people or 2 million people to reach those numbers? No, they take a sampling of people, and then based on the sample, apply it over a larger population. That is why there is a +/- margin to the percentages to take into account the discrepency sampling 1000 over 10,000 might have.
Based on what the other guy said, xfire is a good reflection of subscriber numbers for many of the latest mmorpgs. Bascilly it reflects a small group of xfire uses who play AoC but that small group reflects the entire AoC subscriber base. It's not 100% correct but probably pretty damn close to what the actual numbers are.
Plus Aoc was released in during a lull in the mmorpg market. WoW is out of content and nothing new has been our or is coming out. Thus AoC enjoyed the huge spotlight and the attention. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens when WotLK and Warhammer are released.
This is somewhat true but the sampling they do is not random but have a complex algorithm behind them. They look at different ages, sex, salary income etc and then they create a sampling population. Just using xfire and assume it is an accurate sample of the general AoC population is not a good way of creating an accurate poll. It could be if you are lucky but most likely it is not.
However, by looking at several sources, such as forums like this one, the rating the game is getting from various sites and people then it would appear that this game is failing quite badly. For me personally the massive instancing and the extreme leveling pace and add to that the many, many sources I have heard/read that says this game is no good has stopped me from buying the game.
Shame to see a Conan MMORPG be ruined like this.
My gaming blog
the numbers seem to have stabilized either :
(1) nothing but hard core fanbois left
(2) FC's had all their employees make a Xfire account and keep a character logged in 24 and 7 for spin
you decide
I miss DAoC
The people on the AoC forums are aware of XFire being used as a metric for the game, I'm sure Funcom is as well. It's very possible a lot of fans who haven't been using XFire have signed up to help boost the numbers.
The trend from this week through the next few weeks should give us some idea of the trends, but it still can't tell us much on overall numbers. It's just too hard to determine the proper coefficient.
I will say that Funcom changing the in game player search function to make it much harder for those with access to the game to take a census snap shot should be clear evidence that Funcom knows which way things are trending. Funny how they will prioritize coding changes to obfuscate player losses, while so many serious issues go unaddressed.
They are more about smoke and mirrors perception management than producing a quality product.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
actually the sample size is easily large enough that the trends they are observing are very likely to be very very accurate.
If anyone went to college and had math or business classes you no doubt heard of William E. Deming. Based on what Deming taught us, I would say that trend we're seeing on the x-fire website is a sample of the larger picture. AoC is loosing players very quickly.
I am no fan of the game, but actually Professor78 makes a good point.
The fanboys typically respond to xfire stats by saying not enough people use it... and we'd be quite right to call them stupid for not realising that comparing the same sample (more or less) at one time to a later time.
However, Professor78 actually gives a reason why this sample may be clocking less hours other than through cancellations.
I do not think he is correct, but the logic of his argument cannot be faulted.
A lot hangs on how good the fugitive system/pvp update is when it's released. The biggest reason people leave at the moment is because of a lack of mid-range/high level content - if you actually reward people for spontaneous pvp hopefully it'll give people more to do inbetween (and during) the grind. Only time will tell.
xfire is more for clans/guilds so more for the active players, i think not many casual gamers use it and aoc has mostly casual gamers cause the diehards arent satisfied with it. but the conan ip and the gore keep the casuals
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
Someone also pointed out that Xfire may be turned off when playing AoC due to the game's high system requirements. As I said before, I don't use it so my 1 sub isn't being counted.
I did notice that the powergamers that raced to 80 are screaming about how bored they are. Not just on this site, but on others as well. I have zero sympathy for these people. Part of the fun, to me at least, in an MMO is the journey through the game. I started with a Necro (mage archtype) got him out of Tortage and did a few quests in Stygia. Then I made a cimmerian Barbarian and did some cimmerian quests. Went to an aquilonian Dark Templar 3rd time around and explored that area too. I'll admit I'm an explorer type player, I enjoy seeing the sights more than outleveling everyone around me.
"power gamers" "raced" man you must be slow. An hour or two a day since launch would do it. Glad you are still enjoying the sights but it dosen't take long to see them all really and certainly you don't have to be a power gamer. Personally I was done well under a month, I played long and hard that first holiday weekend (as I suspect many casuals did) then a couple of hours a day. That was ample time and fun while it lasted.
The reason people are bored is because there is no MMOrpg once you have 'seen the sights' pretty much zip nadda zilch. The 'experience' near the start is strong but as a MMO it needs more than polish, it needs a game to be designed and implemented.
If you have Xfire turned off then you won't participate in the sample. What can be said is that the trend amongst Xfire users is down.
When is the second months sub due? Guess thats the next milestone.
Whilst I agree that the Xfire numbers are decreasing & that it is indeed a fact, it still does not necessarily reflect a proportionate decrease in actual subscriber numbers.
Xfire is a 'niche interest' site that is not representative of the gaming community as a whole, in the same way as home computers running 'Linux' are not representative of the domestic home computer market.
Unless you can prove at least a correlation between Xfire subscribers & general AoC subscribers, these statistics don't mean a thing. There's no escaping that fact.
I am not trying to argue that AoC numbers haven't decreased. just that it is pointless to try to demonstrate it by quoting statistics from an unrepresentative community.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
Take the Hecatomb? TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.
Its a sample. You are looking at the trend within that sample. We are looking at Xfire users on launch and Xfire users now. So you are saying that Xfire users as a subset of the AoC community are not representative of the greater community as a whole? bullshit. You could use gingerheaded 25-30 year olds with amd processors. Perfectly acceptable for monitoring the migration out o the game. The 'demographic' of the sample really not that important in this instance unless you are really claiming that Xfire users are actuall more likely to cancel than other users thus squeueing the result.
Any straw poll here or on AoC's Forums directly mirrors the declining numbers on Xfire. While it is circumstantial evidence, it's still enough evidence to state that at least 2/3 of original purchasers have quit within 2 months of release.
Any game that loses 50% or greater of its subscribers in that short of a time frame must have serious flaws.
Waiting for the next thing
And we have to note, after Thursdays patch, no one can search the servers for players online anymore beyond a single page of 50.
Before a player could log in, type a minimum and maximum number for level (say 1-80) hit search, count the pages and get a total of players online.
The averages for servers for Funcom to make money (according to their criteria) was a 2500 to 3000+ player range. About 3 weeks ago, they were happily in that range.
Before they locked searching in Thursdays patch, the servers were averaging 2000 or less. Some were even in the 100's.
Wonder why Funcom felt the need to lock player searches (lol)