I been back in Eq2 for around a week and playin on guk almost all the gen chat that I see has bveen very friendly and helpful to ppl askin questions though i do not watch chat alot.Its def 100000x better than the wow server I play on where if someone asked a question it was always replied to by 10 ppl in a rude manner.
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
i played eq2 off and on from launch and ive been on a bunch of servers. started on najena and it was fun. quit came back to nagafen, it started ok. and as it grew it got really really bad. then moved to antonia bayle. people there were pretty snooty and stuck up and clashed with who i am so i moved to crushbone. met a lot of cool people, met a lot of douche bags. just most of the people there make eq2 a job not a hobby. every guild i was in demanded that all members grind out those city writ thingies for guild xp to get to guild lvl 80. you know how boring that crap is? super boring! so i quit again
Fascinating how I've been playing the game for 4 years with several different guilds on at least five different servers, and I've never had this kind of experience with any of them. Very interesting, don't you think?
I think you've either joined the wrong guild, you're making this up, or you're playing on a PvP server.
I agree with Darwa that people are the same everywhere, but would go one step further to say that certain game mechanics can bring out various behaviors in people. For example roleplay servers tend to be more friendly, but to much contested content can bring out the worst in people ala original everquest.
So, let me see if I am reading this right.......
There are more female gamers online in the 25-54 age bracket then male gamers, or is it more female toons online in the 25-54 age bracket?
Just wondering if the odds are that female toon I'm dealing is really a female player, or a 350 lb unemployed truck driver from St Louis named "Bubba"?
I found that if you really love EQ2 the community embraces you and if you are defiant towards it at all they dont like you...... It was hard to have meaningful discussions about the game because many thought the game was perfect in every way..... I also wasnt too fond of every guild I joined demanding that we use voice chat either.......The main problem that I had with EQ2 community was that it was very elitist......Coming from EQ1 I expected the community to be more friendly like the EQ1 community but it was far from it.
Lol im sorry m8, but the fact that you say that the EQ1 community was extremely helpful? .., hah. I played on vallon zek, and im sorry, but PvP brings out the worst in people. Everyone was guilded, everyone had their alliances in their guilds, everyone had their KoS lists, and their enemies, which made the game amazing, but yet, community was not exactly friendly.
And from what ive been told, Rallos Zek was even worse.
=]
And it all just went down the toilet when they merged all the pvp servers into " Zek " which is now run by one guild, and about 30 multiboxers.
The community needed a kick in the butt, but never got it .
And now to the EQ2 community topic, i played when EoF came out, and i NEVER had an issue with the community, all the guilds were extremely caring,helpful, and actually wanted you to stay with them without care of your skill level and or experience of the game. The only times i ever had issues was with the PvP and me getting stalked because some guy thought it was fun, but hey, it still was fun in a sense. But yeah, this whole topic is completely opinion based babble, everyone has a different experience, everyone has different friends/guilds.. no one has the SAME time in a MMORPG .. otherwise, that would just be a Single Player Game =/ ..
But yeah, i dunno, i like EQ2 , i like the Community, hence why im reinstalling.. well downloading this epic omfg download.
I even like WoW, and their community is nice on certain servers, and has gotten better when you are in dalaran, most of the shit talking has stopped, its just small servers such as Coilfang that have the /wrist sense of friendship.
Cant blame one community on one person, its a community remember?.. everyone contributes, so unless EVERY single person is a pos then guess what, you cant call the community horrid. Just that person.
They are the complete opposite of wow, they are older waaaaaaaay more conservative and generally untolerant of ppl they think will ruin thier game or attempt to challenge any view they have of thier "perfect" world. That said I played wow for a period of 4 months about 2 years ago so I am not a wow fanboy before you flame me. I used that just as an example of a generally accept "bad" community. In reality I believe eq 2's community is equally as bad in a different way.
"The demographic data suggested that the average EverQuest II player was, contrary to stereotype, healthier than the US average, and well-adjusted. The five per cent of players (who) used the game for role-playing, however, were described as 'psychologically much worse off than the regular player'."
I'm not going to praise or cast aspersions on the validity of the study, but I do find it interesting, and it does represent an attempt at making more of a scientific approach to assessing community behavior than the experiences of one person who may have only played on one server for a limited amount of time saying that the entire community made up of tens of thousands of people across multiple servers is something of which people need to be wary. I'd be much more leery of people making those types of generalized statements than I would of an entire game community.
I found that if you really love EQ2 the community embraces you and if you are defiant towards it at all they dont like you...... It was hard to have meaningful discussions about the game because many thought the game was perfect in every way..... I also wasnt too fond of every guild I joined demanding that we use voice chat either.......The main problem that I had with EQ2 community was that it was very elitist......Coming from EQ1 I expected the community to be more friendly like the EQ1 community but it was far from it.
See, the problem is that people don't want to hear you whining about how you don't like the game. If you have problems, then address them to the people who matter. The rest of us are there to actually play, not cater to people wanting to complain.
See, the thing is we've all heard it all before. Most of us have been playing MMO's for many years and we've heard all the complaints. Most of the complaints most people make are inherent problems in ALL MMO's, not just EQ2 and we are all tired of hearing it. If you have a legitimate problem, why are you talking to us it? Go tell the devs. And if you hate it that much, then why are you playing anyway?
Not every guild wants you to use voice chat. I belong to one guild who uses it (Guild name Order of the White Rose), I don't use it. I don't like voice chat because it makes it too personal. Part of the fun of the game is the anonymity and you can't have that if you hear each others voices. I don't play that character very often. My other guild does not use voice chat, nor ask that you do (guild name Respect).
Most guilds will not ever insist that you use voice chat and are fine with that so I have no idea who you were talking to.
The game isn' Elitist, we're just older and tired of hearing the moaning.
Just thought I would step out of lurk mode for a minute to kick that dead horse one more time. I have an inherent mistrust of polling data and conclusions as anyone with a background in statistics knows what a joke the phrase "numbers don't lie" is.
While I disagree with his conclusions, Daffod1ll has presented an articulate argument. Moreover his conclusions about 1.1 millionish out of 1.8 million wow players in the 25-54 bracket do actually match what that article claims if you parse out the different brackets and total numbers they claim.
I thought I would point out the not-so-obvious inconsistencies, apart from the previously mentioned problem of gamers not trusting having junk running in the background, and my life experience of not finding females massively outnumbering males in MMO's, even females who are most likely 300 lb truckers named Earl.
The article claims that Nielson program is installed on over 184,000 personal computers. Then it claims it tracked 4,648,004 unique female players in just the 25-54 age bracket. That's a LOT more than 184,000. Most guys I know don't have 28 twenty-something girls over playing solitaire on their computer-- and then there's the 20 or so matching guys needed to play solitaire on that same computer.
Even assuming this is installed on something like library computers or work computers, etc with multiple users, that kinda throws the numbers out the window as who in their right mind plays WoW on their work computer and keeps their job, or worse yet, trusts a public computer with their account name and password entries. No wonder there is so much solitaire.
Also thought I'd point out I'm impressed that in a sampling of 184,000 computers they managed to find 1.8 million WoW players in the US given the estimated U.S. players being so low. While the worldwide #'s are what 11 million? most of that is outside U.S. Sounds like they managed to track half the U.S. players with 184,000 computers- nice software, that.
Not trying to troll you, Daffod1ll, as your argument were well-reasoned, but you have to assume those numbers are true and accurately represent reality (which I don't).
A few things I'd like to clear up if I read your post correct.
The article didn't say females outnumber males, but it claims more female gamers than most would expect.
I don't think the software would differentiate between different wow accounts being logged in on the same computer. It would just track what programs are launched. I'm pretty sure there would be an uproar is the software was doing anything even remotely related to peeking at user names and passwords. I also don't think people are playing wow on shared public computers such as libraries, etc.
The entire intention of me posting this information was to refute someone with a history of posting flat out lies claiming that wow was 90% 18 year olds when they self admitted to only playing wow for 3 weeks.
That aside, I thought that neilsen has a much deeper background in tracking, surveying and estimating populations based on their sampling data than anyone around these parts. It is basically what they do and all.
The 1.8 million us figure is fairly close to what blizzard detailed in a press release some time back. I forget the exact numbers right now, but it was somewhere around 2 million us, 2.5 europe (or the other way around) and the rest in Asia/rest of world. That was a 1 to 1.5 million subscribers ago though so maybe things have changed a bit, but their estimates look to measure up to blizzards claims.
I don't think the neilsen numbers are exact or undisputable, but they look pretty sound in an overall sense. Much more than most of the wild assumption people toss around on these forums. Most of the surveys and results I have ever read from anyone with a semblence of credibility suggest that mmo players for most of the popular games are much older than people would think.
I was mainly trying to caution against relying too much on numbers from a survey or sampling data as those numbers are not inherently "correct." Such numbers are easily skewed, intentionally, or simply by the nature of the sampling.
The first place I look is always, "How was the sampling done?". Normally, for example, for a poll, I would look to see if the questions were biased. Here, what just LEAPS out is that they sampled "only" 184,000 computers, while that seems like a large number, how on earth did they find 1.8 million WoW players signing into those 184,000 computers, or 5.4 million females aged 25-54 playing solitaire on those same computers? They don't claim they extrapolated those numbers from their sampling pool to the population at large, they claim they actually identified 5.4 million unique solitaire players. If they had extrapolated, then I would question how they extrapolated, and so on.
Before I hit that big neon sign of questionable results, I was really just looking for the more normal problems of sampling. For example, as others mentioned, if this is a voluntary program, then it is much more likely to be skewed to much older individuals who are either less tech-savvy and "click-happy" or are more patient and willing to try to contribute by taking the time to fill out surveys and install such bloatware on their computers. Honestly, who is more likely to click that checkbox to "Enhance the windows XP experience by sending feedback to microsoft about your computer usage habits"? -- You, me, my techie little brother? or my mom or grandmother whose best explanation when their computer explodes with viruses is "but it told me to click it" -- "what program?", "click what?" -- crickets
As I said, your arguments are well put and I agree that I don't think WoW is 90% 18 year olds. I do think that EQ2 "generally" has a more mature population, but there are emotional twits in every game (regardless of physical age), and I have seen many mature individuals I enjoyed playing with in WoW. I spent considerably more time in EQ2 but I have played both off and on since beta and enjoyed both.
I see a number of things I find questionable in the Nielson results and thus would not rely on them in any way. If it is a voluntary survey then the numbers are massively skewed by who would choose to volunteer, just like any survey. Numbers lie all the time.
I was mainly trying to caution against relying too much on numbers from a survey or sampling data as those numbers are not inherently "correct." Such numbers are easily skewed, intentionally, or simply by the nature of the sampling.
The first place I look is always, "How was the sampling done?". Normally, for example, for a poll, I would look to see if the questions were biased. Here, what just LEAPS out is that they sampled "only" 184,000 computers, while that seems like a large number, how on earth did they find 1.8 million WoW players signing into those 184,000 computers, or 5.4 million females aged 25-54 playing solitaire on those same computers? They don't claim they extrapolated those numbers from their sampling pool to the population at large, they claim they actually identified 5.4 million unique solitaire players. If they had extrapolated, then I would question how they extrapolated, and so on. Before I hit that big neon sign of questionable results, I was really just looking for the more normal problems of sampling. For example, as others mentioned, if this is a voluntary program, then it is much more likely to be skewed to much older individuals who are either less tech-savvy and "click-happy" or are more patient and willing to try to contribute by taking the time to fill out surveys and install such bloatware on their computers. Honestly, who is more likely to click that checkbox to "Enhance the windows XP experience by sending feedback to microsoft about your computer usage habits"? -- You, me, my techie little brother? or my mom or grandmother whose best explanation when their computer explodes with viruses is "but it told me to click it" -- "what program?", "click what?" -- crickets As I said, your arguments are well put and I agree that I don't think WoW is 90% 18 year olds. I do think that EQ2 "generally" has a more mature population, but there are emotional twits in every game (regardless of physical age), and I have seen many mature individuals I enjoyed playing with in WoW. I spent considerably more time in EQ2 but I have played both off and on since beta and enjoyed both. I see a number of things I find questionable in the Nielson results and thus would not rely on them in any way. If it is a voluntary survey then the numbers are massively skewed by who would choose to volunteer, just like any survey. Numbers lie all the time.
Give it up, you have no idea how much a well done sample or survey can hold over giving very accurate statistics. People like you just want to argue for the sake of it, get a hobby please. No, games aren't hobbies.
I started playing on Crushbone and the community was notably poor. Talking with some people that seemed nice on that server revealed to me that the server was even notorious (at least to the people on the server) for having a fairly bad community. I decided to switch to Everfrost and it's pretty darn great there. I think it just depends on the server. Everfrost seems quality.
I take back what I said, after playing for a few months on Everfrost I found the community to be as bad as any other mmo with a poor community I had seen.
All of you guys complaining about the community need to stop beeing such a bunch of pussies.
You all complain about how the community isnt acting adult like...your not acting adult like. Somone says something that you dont like, so what get over it, the world aint gunna end.
Honestly both WoW and Eq2 have fine communities, it is certain chat channels (wow Barrens) (eq2 1-9) that have asinine comments, but its usually just in a joking manner, and i found that in both games if you really need help, the people are very helpful, of course if you fall into their stupid conversation, they eat you alive.
But for the love of god grow a pair and quit bitching about what people say, your like a bunch of high school cheerleaders its anoying!
I think you will find that younger people are more vocal than the older folks. Younger folks can act up online without getting repremanded for it. Older folks at least myself and others i know that play just ignore the nonsense and go about our gaming business. Six children can sound and seem like 60. So there are good people as well as squirrels in every game, the squirrels just chatter more.
I highly suggest reading this thread off the EQ2 boards because I think this thread relates in a remote way. It definitely relates on the subject of new player tolerance.
If you read on later in the thread you'll find confirmation the player mentioned to the group the mentoring tank was going to let the new player tank for experience. You'll find the rest of the group starting throwing a hissy fit when things weren't going perfect.
(Not believing the OP of that thread will be telling as well)
Luckily the new player has since logged in and is trying again. I say that's great.
Instead of being rude you just find a way to leave things alone softly if you're going to build a community. The community definitely needs new blood and not rejection.
No I don't play anymore and there are good people in EQ2 but the community is among other reasons why I left. The other reasons aren't the subject of this thread.
(I played on Najena, Mistmoore, Nagafen, and Befallen in that order. Mistmoore and Befallen definitely care alot about advancing towards raiding)
I think the EQII community as a whole is a pretty good one, I think the forums are probably a better place to see the helpful people. 1-9 chat is basically a global "barrens chat" (for those familiar with WoW), and should be treated as such. There will always be morons in games, and especially on large global channels.
The trick is to just put the offensive ones on ignore and carry on. It's easy to rationalize, "Oh I just won't let it get to me." and ignore them without actually ignore listing them, but trust me, it's like a breath of fresh air to just not even have to read their garbage. The good ol' 1-9, "Lololol WoW playing kiddies sux!" tripe gets old fast. You'll quickly find though, that it is generally just a couple of people causing waves in the chat channels. I have so far not had any problems having my genuine game related questions answered by polite players on channels in EQII.
Let me put it this way, I have played both EQII and WoW, I always turn off big chat channels in WoW so I don't have to bother with getting annoyed at people. In EQII I find there is enough helpful info on the chat channels that I keep them on, but I do actively ignore list people who are being offensive for attention. This is not to say either community is superior, just that they are different, and this is how I, as a player of both, cope. This method would likely work on WoW as well, but unfortunately the ignore list in WoW is quite small, so I typically don't bother.
I must agree that 1-9 chat is really bad in eq2, most of the bad crap comes from trial account and people get in the game and want hand holding or just there to talk trash. move on past level 20 and turn off 1-9 game gets better.
In my experiance I found that both WoW & EQ2 have alot of emos in them. Especially if your in the General world chat your going to meet alot of powergamers (People that take the game too seriously), and adults acting like kids on there.
All you have to say in EQ2 chat is ...
"World of Warcraft is a great game."
You will have 20 people whispering you calling you names, and how much of a worthless waste of space you are at that very moment and arguing amongst each other about wow for the next hour. I don't even like WoW, but it's always funny to see how nieve, and ignorant some people can really be in these games.
In my experiance I found that both WoW & EQ2 have alot of emos in them. Especially if your in the General world chat your going to meet alot of powergamers (People that take the game too seriously), and adults acting like kids on there. All you have to say in EQ2 chat is ... "World of Warcraft is a great game." You will have 20 people whispering you calling you names, and how much of a worthless waste of space you are at that very moment and arguing amongst each other about wow for the next hour. I don't even like WoW, but it's always funny to see how nieve, and ignorant some people can really be in these games.
To be fair, if you do that in other MMORPGs, you'll get called a whole slew of things. But yeah some EQ2 people are really immature, the server Nagafen is pretty much the hellhole of EQ2.
Currently playing: EverQuest II
Tried: EVE Online (will return someday), Final Fantasy XI (didn't like, sorry)
Comments
I been back in Eq2 for around a week and playin on guk almost all the gen chat that I see has bveen very friendly and helpful to ppl askin questions though i do not watch chat alot.Its def 100000x better than the wow server I play on where if someone asked a question it was always replied to by 10 ppl in a rude manner.
Daffid011, Thanks for taking the time to lay it out for people.
---
Ethion
*Mispost, please delete this.*
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
Fascinating how I've been playing the game for 4 years with several different guilds on at least five different servers, and I've never had this kind of experience with any of them. Very interesting, don't you think?
I think you've either joined the wrong guild, you're making this up, or you're playing on a PvP server.
to Sigamon:
if you do resub to EQ2 again
I recommend you ask the guild if grinding writs is required, before you join any guild
- will save you future aggravation
EQ2 fan sites
what server ?
EQ2 fan sites
what server ?
Sir, that is a troll. Do not feed the troll. If you do not feed the troll it will go back under its bridge.
So, let me see if I am reading this right.......
There are more female gamers online in the 25-54 age bracket then male gamers, or is it more female toons online in the 25-54 age bracket?
Just wondering if the odds are that female toon I'm dealing is really a female player, or a 350 lb unemployed truck driver from St Louis named "Bubba"?
I found that if you really love EQ2 the community embraces you and if you are defiant towards it at all they dont like you...... It was hard to have meaningful discussions about the game because many thought the game was perfect in every way..... I also wasnt too fond of every guild I joined demanding that we use voice chat either.......The main problem that I had with EQ2 community was that it was very elitist......Coming from EQ1 I expected the community to be more friendly like the EQ1 community but it was far from it.
Lol im sorry m8, but the fact that you say that the EQ1 community was extremely helpful? .., hah. I played on vallon zek, and im sorry, but PvP brings out the worst in people. Everyone was guilded, everyone had their alliances in their guilds, everyone had their KoS lists, and their enemies, which made the game amazing, but yet, community was not exactly friendly.
And from what ive been told, Rallos Zek was even worse.
=]
And it all just went down the toilet when they merged all the pvp servers into " Zek " which is now run by one guild, and about 30 multiboxers.
The community needed a kick in the butt, but never got it
.
And now to the EQ2 community topic, i played when EoF came out, and i NEVER had an issue with the community, all the guilds were extremely caring,helpful, and actually wanted you to stay with them without care of your skill level and or experience of the game. The only times i ever had issues was with the PvP and me getting stalked because some guy thought it was fun, but hey, it still was fun in a sense. But yeah, this whole topic is completely opinion based babble, everyone has a different experience, everyone has different friends/guilds.. no one has the SAME time in a MMORPG .. otherwise, that would just be a Single Player Game =/ ..
But yeah, i dunno, i like EQ2 , i like the Community, hence why im reinstalling.. well downloading this epic omfg download.
I even like WoW, and their community is nice on certain servers, and has gotten better when you are in dalaran, most of the shit talking has stopped, its just small servers such as Coilfang that have the /wrist sense of friendship.
Cant blame one community on one person, its a community remember?.. everyone contributes, so unless EVERY single person is a pos then guess what, you cant call the community horrid. Just that person.
PS - All mammals have nipples.
Get over it already.
Hmm, I haven't formed any opinions myself, but I do know that there's a study that was done of EQ2 using all the server logs. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/researchers-study-complete-eq2-server-logs
One quote I found interesting was at the end:
"The demographic data suggested that the average EverQuest II player was, contrary to stereotype, healthier than the US average, and well-adjusted. The five per cent of players (who) used the game for role-playing, however, were described as 'psychologically much worse off than the regular player'."
I'm not going to praise or cast aspersions on the validity of the study, but I do find it interesting, and it does represent an attempt at making more of a scientific approach to assessing community behavior than the experiences of one person who may have only played on one server for a limited amount of time saying that the entire community made up of tens of thousands of people across multiple servers is something of which people need to be wary. I'd be much more leery of people making those types of generalized statements than I would of an entire game community.
See, the problem is that people don't want to hear you whining about how you don't like the game. If you have problems, then address them to the people who matter. The rest of us are there to actually play, not cater to people wanting to complain.
See, the thing is we've all heard it all before. Most of us have been playing MMO's for many years and we've heard all the complaints. Most of the complaints most people make are inherent problems in ALL MMO's, not just EQ2 and we are all tired of hearing it. If you have a legitimate problem, why are you talking to us it? Go tell the devs. And if you hate it that much, then why are you playing anyway?
Not every guild wants you to use voice chat. I belong to one guild who uses it (Guild name Order of the White Rose), I don't use it. I don't like voice chat because it makes it too personal. Part of the fun of the game is the anonymity and you can't have that if you hear each others voices. I don't play that character very often. My other guild does not use voice chat, nor ask that you do (guild name Respect).
Most guilds will not ever insist that you use voice chat and are fine with that so I have no idea who you were talking to.
The game isn' Elitist, we're just older and tired of hearing the moaning.
The latest MMO’s out always have the youngest population, the population gets older as the youngsters with a one month attention span leave.
Crotchety old gits like me are what remain, or as in my case come back.
Seriously, I only really hear good things about the EQ2 community so one comment like the OP’s carries no weight.
Just thought I would step out of lurk mode for a minute to kick that dead horse one more time. I have an inherent mistrust of polling data and conclusions as anyone with a background in statistics knows what a joke the phrase "numbers don't lie" is.
While I disagree with his conclusions, Daffod1ll has presented an articulate argument. Moreover his conclusions about 1.1 millionish out of 1.8 million wow players in the 25-54 bracket do actually match what that article claims if you parse out the different brackets and total numbers they claim.
I thought I would point out the not-so-obvious inconsistencies, apart from the previously mentioned problem of gamers not trusting having junk running in the background, and my life experience of not finding females massively outnumbering males in MMO's, even females who are most likely 300 lb truckers named Earl.
The article claims that Nielson program is installed on over 184,000 personal computers. Then it claims it tracked 4,648,004 unique female players in just the 25-54 age bracket. That's a LOT more than 184,000. Most guys I know don't have 28 twenty-something girls over playing solitaire on their computer-- and then there's the 20 or so matching guys needed to play solitaire on that same computer.
Even assuming this is installed on something like library computers or work computers, etc with multiple users, that kinda throws the numbers out the window as who in their right mind plays WoW on their work computer and keeps their job, or worse yet, trusts a public computer with their account name and password entries. No wonder there is so much solitaire.
Also thought I'd point out I'm impressed that in a sampling of 184,000 computers they managed to find 1.8 million WoW players in the US given the estimated U.S. players being so low. While the worldwide #'s are what 11 million? most of that is outside U.S. Sounds like they managed to track half the U.S. players with 184,000 computers- nice software, that.
Not trying to troll you, Daffod1ll, as your argument were well-reasoned, but you have to assume those numbers are true and accurately represent reality (which I don't).
/resume lurk
Thanks for the reply Cromwell1.
A few things I'd like to clear up if I read your post correct.
The article didn't say females outnumber males, but it claims more female gamers than most would expect.
I don't think the software would differentiate between different wow accounts being logged in on the same computer. It would just track what programs are launched. I'm pretty sure there would be an uproar is the software was doing anything even remotely related to peeking at user names and passwords. I also don't think people are playing wow on shared public computers such as libraries, etc.
The entire intention of me posting this information was to refute someone with a history of posting flat out lies claiming that wow was 90% 18 year olds when they self admitted to only playing wow for 3 weeks.
That aside, I thought that neilsen has a much deeper background in tracking, surveying and estimating populations based on their sampling data than anyone around these parts. It is basically what they do and all.
The 1.8 million us figure is fairly close to what blizzard detailed in a press release some time back. I forget the exact numbers right now, but it was somewhere around 2 million us, 2.5 europe (or the other way around) and the rest in Asia/rest of world. That was a 1 to 1.5 million subscribers ago though so maybe things have changed a bit, but their estimates look to measure up to blizzards claims.
I don't think the neilsen numbers are exact or undisputable, but they look pretty sound in an overall sense. Much more than most of the wild assumption people toss around on these forums. Most of the surveys and results I have ever read from anyone with a semblence of credibility suggest that mmo players for most of the popular games are much older than people would think.
Daffid011,
I was mainly trying to caution against relying too much on numbers from a survey or sampling data as those numbers are not inherently "correct." Such numbers are easily skewed, intentionally, or simply by the nature of the sampling.
The first place I look is always, "How was the sampling done?". Normally, for example, for a poll, I would look to see if the questions were biased. Here, what just LEAPS out is that they sampled "only" 184,000 computers, while that seems like a large number, how on earth did they find 1.8 million WoW players signing into those 184,000 computers, or 5.4 million females aged 25-54 playing solitaire on those same computers? They don't claim they extrapolated those numbers from their sampling pool to the population at large, they claim they actually identified 5.4 million unique solitaire players. If they had extrapolated, then I would question how they extrapolated, and so on.
Before I hit that big neon sign of questionable results, I was really just looking for the more normal problems of sampling. For example, as others mentioned, if this is a voluntary program, then it is much more likely to be skewed to much older individuals who are either less tech-savvy and "click-happy" or are more patient and willing to try to contribute by taking the time to fill out surveys and install such bloatware on their computers. Honestly, who is more likely to click that checkbox to "Enhance the windows XP experience by sending feedback to microsoft about your computer usage habits"? -- You, me, my techie little brother? or my mom or grandmother whose best explanation when their computer explodes with viruses is "but it told me to click it" -- "what program?", "click what?" -- crickets
As I said, your arguments are well put and I agree that I don't think WoW is 90% 18 year olds. I do think that EQ2 "generally" has a more mature population, but there are emotional twits in every game (regardless of physical age), and I have seen many mature individuals I enjoyed playing with in WoW. I spent considerably more time in EQ2 but I have played both off and on since beta and enjoyed both.
I see a number of things I find questionable in the Nielson results and thus would not rely on them in any way. If it is a voluntary survey then the numbers are massively skewed by who would choose to volunteer, just like any survey. Numbers lie all the time.
Give it up, you have no idea how much a well done sample or survey can hold over giving very accurate statistics. People like you just want to argue for the sake of it, get a hobby please. No, games aren't hobbies.
I take back what I said, after playing for a few months on Everfrost I found the community to be as bad as any other mmo with a poor community I had seen.
All of you guys complaining about the community need to stop beeing such a bunch of pussies.
You all complain about how the community isnt acting adult like...your not acting adult like. Somone says something that you dont like, so what get over it, the world aint gunna end.
Honestly both WoW and Eq2 have fine communities, it is certain chat channels (wow Barrens) (eq2 1-9) that have asinine comments, but its usually just in a joking manner, and i found that in both games if you really need help, the people are very helpful, of course if you fall into their stupid conversation, they eat you alive.
But for the love of god grow a pair and quit bitching about what people say, your like a bunch of high school cheerleaders its anoying!
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I think you will find that younger people are more vocal than the older folks. Younger folks can act up online without getting repremanded for it. Older folks at least myself and others i know that play just ignore the nonsense and go about our gaming business. Six children can sound and seem like 60. So there are good people as well as squirrels in every game, the squirrels just chatter more.
When a shiny MMO rots from the inside
I highly suggest reading this thread off the EQ2 boards because I think this thread relates in a remote way. It definitely relates on the subject of new player tolerance.
If you read on later in the thread you'll find confirmation the player mentioned to the group the mentoring tank was going to let the new player tank for experience. You'll find the rest of the group starting throwing a hissy fit when things weren't going perfect.
(Not believing the OP of that thread will be telling as well)
Luckily the new player has since logged in and is trying again. I say that's great.
Instead of being rude you just find a way to leave things alone softly if you're going to build a community. The community definitely needs new blood and not rejection.
No I don't play anymore and there are good people in EQ2 but the community is among other reasons why I left. The other reasons aren't the subject of this thread.
(I played on Najena, Mistmoore, Nagafen, and Befallen in that order. Mistmoore and Befallen definitely care alot about advancing towards raiding)
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Just to add my two cents.
I think the EQII community as a whole is a pretty good one, I think the forums are probably a better place to see the helpful people. 1-9 chat is basically a global "barrens chat" (for those familiar with WoW), and should be treated as such. There will always be morons in games, and especially on large global channels.
The trick is to just put the offensive ones on ignore and carry on. It's easy to rationalize, "Oh I just won't let it get to me." and ignore them without actually ignore listing them, but trust me, it's like a breath of fresh air to just not even have to read their garbage. The good ol' 1-9, "Lololol WoW playing kiddies sux!" tripe gets old fast. You'll quickly find though, that it is generally just a couple of people causing waves in the chat channels. I have so far not had any problems having my genuine game related questions answered by polite players on channels in EQII.
Let me put it this way, I have played both EQII and WoW, I always turn off big chat channels in WoW so I don't have to bother with getting annoyed at people. In EQII I find there is enough helpful info on the chat channels that I keep them on, but I do actively ignore list people who are being offensive for attention. This is not to say either community is superior, just that they are different, and this is how I, as a player of both, cope. This method would likely work on WoW as well, but unfortunately the ignore list in WoW is quite small, so I typically don't bother.
I must agree that 1-9 chat is really bad in eq2, most of the bad crap comes from trial account and people get in the game and want hand holding or just there to talk trash. move on past level 20 and turn off 1-9 game gets better.
In my experiance I found that both WoW & EQ2 have alot of emos in them. Especially if your in the General world chat your going to meet alot of powergamers (People that take the game too seriously), and adults acting like kids on there.
All you have to say in EQ2 chat is ...
"World of Warcraft is a great game."
You will have 20 people whispering you calling you names, and how much of a worthless waste of space you are at that very moment and arguing amongst each other about wow for the next hour. I don't even like WoW, but it's always funny to see how nieve, and ignorant some people can really be in these games.
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To be fair, if you do that in other MMORPGs, you'll get called a whole slew of things. But yeah some EQ2 people are really immature, the server Nagafen is pretty much the hellhole of EQ2.
Currently playing: EverQuest II
Tried: EVE Online (will return someday), Final Fantasy XI (didn't like, sorry)