Xfire is a completely useless tool to measure the amount of players because the numbers are not statistically valid. Both the cross sectional data and the timeline data have pretty much all the errors you can run into using statistics.
Unless you have some knowledge, that I dont, about the users using XFire are more or less bias towards CO then I dont see how it is useless.
Why dont you specifically say what errors there is in the sample data that XFire has instead of just saying "pretty much all the errors". That just makes you sound like someone who is trying to sound like someone who knows alot about polls and statistics where in fact he has no knowledge except the buzz words.
Well for Day one of the headstart CO jumped up in xfire to 15th place for MMOs. It just passed AoC. 4583 xfire player hours played yesterday. I wonder how it will look when the game launches.
Duh. When a game is new people will play it a longer time. X-fire is counting hours players play.
Both Aoc and WAR was really high for the first few weeks, it means nothing.
If the game stays in top it is good of course but beating AoC isn't that impressive even if it will still be over it in 3 months.
Staying in the top 5 for longer than the first month however would be very impressing. Going fast up to 15 and then fall again wouldn't. We will just have to see and wait, but I don't think the superhero genre is that huge, it will compete with CoX and upcoming DCU.
Of course I believe that people prefer Sci-fi and fantasy and I could be wrong.
You can see two different things in the XFire data. You can see the absolute numbers and compare it to other games and that will give you a (rough) estimate on how well the game is faring compared to other games on XFire or you can look at the different numbers over time for the same game and see how quickly it is changing compared to other games.
The absolute numbers says less to me (because as you say fantasy is often more popular than super hero games) than does the change. AoC and WAR saw a dramatic negative change in the first few months but what is remarkable is that CO is showing a much steeper negative change which is alarming because it suggests that the relative rate of which people are leaving the game is higher than that of AoC and WAR.
This could be of other reasons than the game lacking longetivity, such as the release of Aion, but it could also mean simply that the game is shallow and has little content. I for example have played the game for only a bit over a week and at level 22 it is already starting to get repetetive and my alts have basically the same type of leveling which makes the replay value even less (except during the design).
Xfire is a completely useless tool to measure the amount of players because the numbers are not statistically valid. Both the cross sectional data and the timeline data have pretty much all the errors you can run into using statistics.
We've heard it a million times. If you don't believe the numbers then just move along. Nobody will try to convince you of anything if you can't see any value in the statistic.
Quoting Xfire numbers just prove you have absolutely no idea of statistics. Go to college a few years please.
uh I TAed a Statistics class in college and even tutored people.
Then you (should) know better. The sample is not random, not representative, and not uncorrelated. There is no direct cause-effect, you know anything about the population, and you have no idea of the margin of error. You have made an assumption that the numbers are representative without offering a single proof of this and then made a (gu)estimate of a game's population, which you know nothing about.
If you've been a TA and tutor without knowing this then shame on your profs and college for letting you as this is introductory knowledge in statistics.
You can make the assumption that people using XFire would be no different from people not using it (from gamer perspective). Why would you assume otherwise?
So it is correct that you dont really know the sampling error because, among other things, you dont know the biasness of the population in XFire but I dont see a reason to not assume that they would be more or less bias towards CO than other gamers. Do you?
But yeah its an assumption so the outcome is not scientific but that does not make it useless unless you actually know that the population is different (in which case it would be useless).
I mean we KNOW that WoW is a huge success and it is undisputed number one. Also there are many indications about Aion being a success (in the east) and it has high numbers in XFire aswell. So this proves that the data is certainly not 'useless' but rather a rough indication about how less a game is fairing. I would say it is more relevant for online gamers than non online gamers because non online gamers have no reason to connect to the net to play the game so they might be less inclined to get an online client tool.
Xfire is a completely useless tool to measure the amount of players because the numbers are not statistically valid. Both the cross sectional data and the timeline data have pretty much all the errors you can run into using statistics.
Unless you have some knowledge, that I dont, about the users using XFire are more or less bias towards CO then I dont see how it is useless.
Why dont you specifically say what errors there is in the sample data that XFire has instead of just saying "pretty much all the errors". That just makes you sound like someone who is trying to sound like someone who knows alot about polls and statistics where in fact he has no knowledge except the buzz words.
If you look at the list, there is mostly FPS, other multiplayer, and F2P MMO's. Some MMORPG's are on there, but I would contend that Xfire is not representative of the general MMORPG players. Maybe a subset, such as those which also play f2P or FPS games, or have a guild that use it. Most western players cough up money to use ventrilo or teamspeak in their guilds, and it is also likely that many xfire users are not in guilds (FPS) or asian players (F2P).
A basic statistical sampling rule says that the probability of being included in the sample must be strictly greater than 0. The probability that any random player is using Xfire might be 0 as some people (many in fact) denies installing the program. Therefore the statistics are not valid. In addition there is autocorrelation (covariance) between the games, which is hard to correct for. Also, people afk or alt+tab'ing their games (not playing) will get the hours the game runs for registered, without them actually being players. There is no correction for players deinstalling Xfire, but continuing playing. these are examples of skewness. Also, you don't know if Xfire is mostly registering people who play a little or a lot (kurtosis). This will make such a huge bias that the numbers will not become statistically significant unless you add an enourmous margin for error, plus/minus tens of thousands of percent. These are some of the errors, and you must know them if you want to prove a fact using Xfire.
I don't know much about polling, but my education is in economics and finance, which both use quite a bit of statistics (especially probability, regression, multivariate, and MA)
Well for Day one of the headstart CO jumped up in xfire to 15th place for MMOs. It just passed AoC. 4583 xfire player hours played yesterday. I wonder how it will look when the game launches.
Xfire measures a small percentage of the gaming community.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
I just did a rough count to see how many people are playing. I estimate around 8-9K not counting Monster Island or Lemura zones. I wouldn't expect that either of those zones would be as populated as canada or desert but even assuming they are that brings the numbers to maybe 12-13k. Subs are maybe 8-10 per player? So right now it looks like CO probably has around 100k-130k subs?
As a general rule 10x concurrent users is good for subs. But obviously that is super super rough estimate.
Several game developers have actually said that the number of players online during peak hours is roughly 20-25% of the total playerbase.
Obviously that will be higher during a games release though since everyone will be rushing to play the game as it is fresh and new. Just like you see population spikes during major content patches and even bigger during expansions.
Xifre sure has its problems. It doesn't conform to classroom rules of how statistics should be taken. Not "everyone" uses it and any number of other very valid arguments that it should not be taken seriously.
However, it was unexplainably accurate about warhammer, age of conan and even warcraft the last year or so. It is hard to dismiss xfire as useless when it has a fairly good track record of doing what people say it cannot do. Citing a valid reason for why something should not happen cannot change the fact that it did happen.
I have my doubts about how accurate it will be about a mostly pve game though as I believe xfire attracts more of a pvp crowd, but that is just speculation on my part.
Xfire is a completely useless tool to measure the amount of players because the numbers are not statistically valid. Both the cross sectional data and the timeline data have pretty much all the errors you can run into using statistics.
Unless you have some knowledge, that I dont, about the users using XFire are more or less bias towards CO then I dont see how it is useless.
Why dont you specifically say what errors there is in the sample data that XFire has instead of just saying "pretty much all the errors". That just makes you sound like someone who is trying to sound like someone who knows alot about polls and statistics where in fact he has no knowledge except the buzz words.
If you look at the list, there is mostly FPS, other multiplayer, and F2P MMO's. Some MMORPG's are on there, but I would contend that Xfire is not representative of the general MMORPG players. Maybe a subset, such as those which also play f2P or FPS games, or have a guild that use it. Most western players cough up money to use ventrilo or teamspeak in their guilds, and it is also likely that many xfire users are not in guilds (FPS) or asian players (F2P).
Nonsense. ALL the major MMORPGs are listed there, the reason that some less popular MMORPGs are not listed there is the same as why some less popular FPS games are not listed there. Because they are not popular enough.
Teamspeak and ventrilo is irrelevant to the issue at hand because the main function of XFire is to keep track on what games you play and for how long, not sending streamed audio over the net or keep track of your friends because there are alot of other programs that does it better.
A basic statistical sampling rule says that the probability of being included in the sample must be strictly greater than 0. The probability that any random player is using Xfire might be 0 as some people (many in fact) denies installing the program. Therefore the statistics are not valid.
Invalid in what sense? Many surveys are done with non-probability samples and all that says is that you cannot matematically be sure that the numbers are representative for the larger population. Xfire is not used for mathematical studies but only used for rough estimations. So you can say that the results (and the margin of error) are not mathematically proven but you cannot say that the survey is useless or invalid because many surveys are done with non-probability samples.
In addition there is autocorrelation (covariance) between the games, which is hard to correct for. Also, people afk or alt+tab'ing their games (not playing) will get the hours the game runs for registered, without them actually being players.
So? Again, this is not a scientifical, mathematical statistical study to be reported on a site but rather an indication of how things look for a certain game. It is an indication, not proof.
There is no correction for players deinstalling Xfire, but continuing playing. these are examples of skewness. Also, you don't know if Xfire is mostly registering people who play a little or a lot (kurtosis). This will make such a huge bias that the numbers will not become statistically significant unless you add an enourmous margin for error, plus/minus tens of thousands of percent. These are some of the errors, and you must know them if you want to prove a fact using Xfire.
I am not proving anything, I am claiming that XFire has a reasonably good indication on how well a game is fairing. The fact that it predicted many events that later showed to be facts (like the dramatic drop of subscribers for AoC and WAR and the explosion of asian players for Aion) shows that the data is not useless as you claim
I don't know much about polling, but my education is in economics and finance, which both use quite a bit of statistics (especially probability, regression, multivariate, and MA)
Yeah and that seems to be the problem. You are looking at it from a strictly scientific view and since it, obviously, does not reach the high standards needed for such studies then you are calling it "useless" where in fact XFire has proven that it has predicted many of the facts in the history of MMORPGs (like the sudden drop of players after NGE, that WoW is heads and shoulders above other MMORPGs, the dramatic loss of subscribers for AoC and WAR and so on).
So stop spouting statistical buzzwords and brag about your education. You are just embarrasing yourself. XFire has shown that it is good at determining trends but you cannot mathematically prove the results, that does not make it useless. Atleast not for me. For you? ok.
Actually xfire does voice and player tracking very well. I used xfire for voice chat as an alternative to ventrillo. I started using it when ventrillo server died and I wanted another voice chat. Ventrillo is nice because you done need any server you just setup a chat room and message your friends with the name and everyone joins. You can autojoin it to. It also integrated nicely with most games. The popups and interface for xfire will overlay on a full screen game without requiring task switching. And it has a nice feature to save screenshots, make videos of game play, and even stream live video while you play.
Another nice feature is it will automatically download patches for games you own in the background. If you play Peer to peer games it also registers IPs and makes game setup much easier.
So xfire does a lot more then monitor and report stats on what you are playing...
Actually xfire does voice and player tracking very well. I used xfire for voice chat as an alternative to ventrillo. I started using it when ventrillo server died and I wanted another voice chat. Ventrillo is nice because you done need any server you just setup a chat room and message your friends with the name and everyone joins. You can autojoin it to. It also integrated nicely with most games. The popups and interface for xfire will overlay on a full screen game without requiring task switching. And it has a nice feature to save screenshots, make videos of game play, and even stream live video while you play. Another nice feature is it will automatically download patches for games you own in the background. If you play Peer to peer games it also registers IPs and makes game setup much easier. So xfire does a lot more then monitor and report stats on what you are playing...
Did I say otherwise? I said the main function of XFire is to keep track of your gaming time and stats, that is why the tool was created in the first place and the main function still.
Xfire is not used for mathematical studies but only used for rough estimations. Exactly. Rough. Very, very rough. This is why I say, don't use it at all. So stop spouting statistical buzzwords and brag about your education. I believe you asked for my background for voicing my arguments, which is why I provied it. You are just embarrasing yourself. For arguing faulty facts..? Or is it because i disagree with you? XFire has shown that it is good at determining trends but you cannot mathematically prove the results, that does not make it useless. Atleast not for me. For you? ok. If you can't prove it, then they are not results. They are assumptions. Xfire can be used to determine the popularity of Xfire. Everything else is a stretch.
Debating the usefulness of xfire numbers is pointless. Some people see them as good indicators and some people think they are completely meaningless random numbers. I've been a follower of xfire stats for a long time and one thing I've learned is arguing about it is a waste of time. The data to prove anything definatively simply doesn't exist for anyone but the people that run xfire.
So it is best to just agree to disagree and move on. For some people the numbers are interesting and for others meaningless.
Debating the usefulness of xfire numbers is pointless. Some people see them as good indicators and some people think they are completely meaningless random numbers. I've been a follower of xfire stats for a long time and one thing I've learned is arguing about it is a waste of time. The data to prove anything definatively simply doesn't exist for anyone but the people that run xfire. So it is best to just agree to disagree and move on. For some people the numbers are interesting and for others meaningless.
Yes, agreed. The numbers cannot prove any results but nor can you say they are wrong. You can just say that the accuracy of the result is unknown.
Here is a possiblity I'd like to throw out there. Its purely speculation, but may still effect the Xfire results. A game that requires or encourages long hours, extended play sessions, harcore gamers, AFK-shops and other time consumers is going to have more Xfire gameplay hours per subscriber than a game designed for casual players who would only be logging in for an hour or two a day. What I am saying is that the Xfire gameplay hours may not be directly proportional to the number of subscribers.
Also, games that offer free play or different pay models (like WoW in China) may have very high hours, but lower income per hour. For example, I bet CO's 5000 hours of gameplay is making more income than Runes of Magic's 10000 hours.
I don't mean to say that as an excuse to have lower hours, but just that it may not provide the kinds of results that would indicate success.
Here is a possiblity I'd like to throw out there. Its purely speculation, but may still effect the Xfire results. A game that requires or encourages long hours, extended play sessions, harcore gamers, AFK-shops and other time consumers is going to have more Xfire gameplay hours per subscriber than a game designed for casual players who would only be logging in for an hour or two a day. What I am saying is that the Xfire gameplay hours may not be directly proportional to the number of subscribers.
Also, games that offer free play or different pay models (like WoW in China) may have very high hours, but lower income per hour. For example, I bet CO's 5000 hours of gameplay is making more income than Runes of Magic's 10000 hours.
I don't mean to say that as an excuse to have lower hours, but just that it may not provide the kinds of results that would indicate success.
The data in xfire is there to prove of disprove your theory. It shows hours played and number of players for each game. A year ago I did this comparison and found that there was a little variation game to game but not a huge amount. But again you can check the numbers. I think when I looked at it it was something like 3-4 hours played per user.
Here is a possiblity I'd like to throw out there. Its purely speculation, but may still effect the Xfire results. A game that requires or encourages long hours, extended play sessions, harcore gamers, AFK-shops and other time consumers is going to have more Xfire gameplay hours per subscriber than a game designed for casual players who would only be logging in for an hour or two a day. What I am saying is that the Xfire gameplay hours may not be directly proportional to the number of subscribers.
Also, games that offer free play or different pay models (like WoW in China) may have very high hours, but lower income per hour. For example, I bet CO's 5000 hours of gameplay is making more income than Runes of Magic's 10000 hours.
I don't mean to say that as an excuse to have lower hours, but just that it may not provide the kinds of results that would indicate success.
The data in xfire is there to prove of disprove your theory. It shows hours played and number of players for each game. A year ago I did this comparison and found that there was a little variation game to game but not a huge amount. But again you can check the numbers. I think when I looked at it it was something like 3-4 hours played per user.
Thanks, I never noticed that it has the number of users. Here is a rundown of the minutes played per user per day.
Aion
451
WoW
320
Champions
267
Eve
263
DDO
211
There are probably numerous factors at play here.
People are more likely to play a game longer when its new
People play casual games like CO and DDO for shorter periods of time
Aion has extended queues and AFK shops that cause its numbers to not be representative of actual play time
Many WoW players have to commit to longer play sessions for raiding
I bet a lot of people log onto Eve just long enough to queue up some new skills
DDO dungeons are short and offer the player many chances to stop or take breaks
Games that have long travel times like WoW's wind riders build in natural breaks for the player (but those breaks are still counted by Xfire)
One purely subjective thing I've noticed about playing CO is that the doesn't offer as many breaks during gameplay as some games. Crafting is quick and easy, no long travel times, no downtime, short fights. It can cause some fatigue on long game sessions.
On the other hand, a game like WoW or Aion has loads of built in breaks with lots of long travel times, slower paced combat, and very drawn out crafting. Its less fatigueing which lets me play for longer than I normally would, but IMO its not as exciting either. It seems like the older I get the more I prefer the shorter but more action packed game sessions like I found in DDO and CO.
Debating the usefulness of xfire numbers is pointless. Some people see them as good indicators and some people think they are completely meaningless random numbers. I've been a follower of xfire stats for a long time and one thing I've learned is arguing about it is a waste of time. The data to prove anything definatively simply doesn't exist for anyone but the people that run xfire. So it is best to just agree to disagree and move on. For some people the numbers are interesting and for others meaningless.
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
Debating the usefulness of xfire numbers is pointless. Some people see them as good indicators and some people think they are completely meaningless random numbers. I've been a follower of xfire stats for a long time and one thing I've learned is arguing about it is a waste of time. The data to prove anything definatively simply doesn't exist for anyone but the people that run xfire. So it is best to just agree to disagree and move on. For some people the numbers are interesting and for others meaningless.
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
Ha nobody is manipulating anything. CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping. It is undeniable that they screwed up releasing the game too early, with too many bugs, incomplete content, and have had too many bad changes in various patches. Right now this is a train wreck and without a miracle they are going to drop into a tiny nich and be lucky to do better then CoX.
Now the next week or so as they hit the end of the first free month is going to be critical. I lost it for the game and left but if they don't fix things in the next week I'm sure they will also start loosing hard core fans...
Debating the usefulness of xfire numbers is pointless. Some people see them as good indicators and some people think they are completely meaningless random numbers. I've been a follower of xfire stats for a long time and one thing I've learned is arguing about it is a waste of time. The data to prove anything definatively simply doesn't exist for anyone but the people that run xfire. So it is best to just agree to disagree and move on. For some people the numbers are interesting and for others meaningless.
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
Ha nobody is manipulating anything. CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping. It is undeniable that they screwed up releasing the game too early, with too many bugs, incomplete content, and have had too many bad changes in various patches. Right now this is a train wreck and without a miracle they are going to drop into a tiny nich and be lucky to do better then CoX.
Now the next week or so as they hit the end of the first free month is going to be critical. I lost it for the game and left but if they don't fix things in the next week I'm sure they will also start loosing hard core fans...
I think everyone who plays superhero games knows that it is a niche market. Is the game failing? No! As long as the company is making money, the game isn't failing. I still see a lot of people online at peak and non-peak times (est) There has been a drop in the playerbase, but it hasn't been that significant. If the game can maintain the 100-125k playerbase, I think it will do well.
The game isn't perfect, and the devs have screwed up, but I'm interested to see where they are going. They have an update coming out in Oct that has a new powerset and some rather interesting content. They need to feel the content gaps at the levels 30+. That is main concern at this time. They have six months to prove to me that they can get their "stuff" together. We'll see what they do.
I think everyone who plays superhero games knows that it is a niche market. Is the game failing? No! As long as the company is making money, the game isn't failing. I still see a lot of people online at peak and non-peak times (est) There has been a drop in the playerbase, but it hasn't been that significant. If the game can maintain the 100-125k playerbase, I think it will do well.
The game isn't perfect, and the devs have screwed up, but I'm interested to see where they are going. They have an update coming out in Oct that has a new powerset and some rather interesting content. They need to feel the content gaps at the levels 30+. That is main concern at this time. They have six months to prove to me that they can get their "stuff" together. We'll see what they do.
p.s. I think X-Fire numbers are nonsense.
Superhero games are a niche but my fear is more about the survival of CO and more importantly cryptic. Not to be a doom and gloom person but I read somewhere that Atari had performance criteria around the game for cryptic. I think they wanted the game to have at least 100k subs. Now, I don't know what they would do if it has less then 100K subs...
Regardless of my rather negative ranting which is due in part to my disappointment and frustration. I generally try to be pretty balanced and objective. I'll say good things and bad things because I find every game has things I like and things I don't.
The game I'm really really drooling about is star trek online. In order for star trek online to happen and be good CO I think needs to do well, ie, make that 100k+ number. At the same time I'm hoping that Cryptic is learning that releasing a game too early is a very bad thing and that with Star Trek online they don't prematurely release. Course money pressures will impact that if CO isn't what it needs to be.
So when I see CO not doing well I'm pissed as hell at cryptic and maybe I'm loosing objectivity. I liked a number of things about CO but there are a lot of things that I think are just complete disasters. When I was in open beta and in the game I submitted well over 100 bug reports. I send messages with issues I saw talking about many things I do here.
In spite of this at around 32 the game really just wasn't fun. I had a big lack of quests and only lvl 35 quests, Content from the teens on was kinda a scrimp and scrap to make sure I did everything possible so I wouldn't be short later. I saw many people complaining about lack of content and posted that people needed to jump around and it would prevent content issues. On the main forums I tried to help people overcome content gaps. Then I get to MI and cryptic completely failed me. No matter how hard I wanted to say that it was ok it wasn't. MI was not finished or the guys in cryptic that were responsible for it seriously went to lunch. From 30-32 there was almost no content. From 30 you pretty much had to jump to 32 content and even there the content was sparse probably being barely enough to support you if you were even level. But even that I was willing to work though.
What finally pissed me off was the most god aweful mission/instance called bunker buster which is a nemisis mission. It was full of long cut scenes and full of bugs. I did it at least 8 times trying to work my way around each bug as I learned it only to be thwarted by yet another bug. Finally it just got to be too much and I rage quit, deleting the game from my computer. I don't do that kinda stuff normally and have never done that with any game...
Anyway, the issue is at peak it is unlikely they had more then 200k subs and I think that number is being REALLY generous. I did do a peak sub count at one point and used a typical peak/sub ratio and calculated that the subs were 125k at that time. Not 100% accurate for sure but probably good within +/- 20%. Since that time I've watched the people online playing and the numbers have gone down. It is kinda tricky because what you really need to watch is the number of instances. Thats what has decreased. At one time MI had 40 instances, the last time I played during peak it was in the 20s. MI had like only 5 instances so very few higher lvl people. The Supergroup I was in had maybe 30 people at peak and when I quit the active count was don't to maybe 7-8...
Individually none of these indicators is conclusive but taken as a whole they tell a story. Now I know you don't buy xfire numbers but one thing xfire does pretty well historically is track ratios within a game. ie what the xfire community does within the greater individual game community tracks pretty closely. So when xfire shows that a games peak is 40% of what it was 2 weeks ago that is a pretty solid indicator that the people playing the game has dropped 40%.
So looking at the xfire numbers and the sub numbers I calculated awhile back I believe that CO is very likely right at 100k or even below on subs and the trend isn't encouraging and I expect another drop when the free month ends. The one thing I'm hoping is that they do get the xbox 360 release out. That should generate a good chunk of revenue and hopefully give them enough subs to survive. I'm just afraid that like AoC the xbox 360 release might have gotten dropped.
I want to see CO survive. Even though I'm done with the game I really want it to keep cryptic going so they can do a good job on star trek online. I'll also probably reactivate my CO account in a few months if it looks like they have cleaned up a lot of the issues.
Debating the usefulness of xfire numbers is pointless. Some people see them as good indicators and some people think they are completely meaningless random numbers. I've been a follower of xfire stats for a long time and one thing I've learned is arguing about it is a waste of time. The data to prove anything definatively simply doesn't exist for anyone but the people that run xfire. So it is best to just agree to disagree and move on. For some people the numbers are interesting and for others meaningless.
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
Ha nobody is manipulating anything. CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping. It is undeniable that they screwed up releasing the game too early, with too many bugs, incomplete content, and have had too many bad changes in various patches. Right now this is a train wreck and without a miracle they are going to drop into a tiny nich and be lucky to do better then CoX.
Now the next week or so as they hit the end of the first free month is going to be critical. I lost it for the game and left but if they don't fix things in the next week I'm sure they will also start loosing hard core fan
I think everyone who plays superhero games knows that it is a niche market. Is the game failing? No! As long as the company is making money, the game isn't failing. I still see a lot of people online at peak and non-peak times (est) There has been a drop in the playerbase, but it hasn't been that significant. If the game can maintain the 100-125k playerbase, I think it will do well.
The game isn't perfect, and the devs have screwed up, but I'm interested to see where they are going. They have an update coming out in Oct that has a new powerset and some rather interesting content. They need to feel the content gaps at the levels 30+. That is main concern at this time. They have six months to prove to me that they can get their "stuff" together. We'll see what they do.
p.s. I think X-Fire numbers are nonsense.
Superhero games are a niche but my fear is more about the survival of CO and more importantly cryptic. Not to be a doom and gloom person but I read somewhere that Atari had performance criteria around the game for cryptic. I think they wanted the game to have at least 100k subs. Now, I don't know what they would do if it has less then 100K subs...
Regardless of my rather negative ranting which is due in part to my disappointment and frustration. I generally try to be pretty balanced and objective. I'll say good things and bad things because I find every game has things I like and things I don't.
The game I'm really really drooling about is star trek online. In order for star trek online to happen and be good CO I think needs to do well, ie, make that 100k+ number. At the same time I'm hoping that Cryptic is learning that releasing a game too early is a very bad thing and that with Star Trek online they don't prematurely release. Course money pressures will impact that if CO isn't what it needs to be.
So when I see CO not doing well I'm pissed as hell at cryptic and maybe I'm loosing objectivity. I liked a number of things about CO but there are a lot of things that I think are just complete disasters. When I was in open beta and in the game I submitted well over 100 bug reports. I send messages with issues I saw talking about many things I do here.
In spite of this at around 32 the game really just wasn't fun. I had a big lack of quests and only lvl 35 quests, Content from the teens on was kinda a scrimp and scrap to make sure I did everything possible so I wouldn't be short later. I saw many people complaining about lack of content and posted that people needed to jump around and it would prevent content issues. On the main forums I tried to help people overcome content gaps. Then I get to MI and cryptic completely failed me. No matter how hard I wanted to say that it was ok it wasn't. MI was not finished or the guys in cryptic that were responsible for it seriously went to lunch. From 30-32 there was almost no content. From 30 you pretty much had to jump to 32 content and even there the content was sparse probably being barely enough to support you if you were even level. But even that I was willing to work though.
What finally pissed me off was the most god aweful mission/instance called bunker buster which is a nemisis mission. It was full of long cut scenes and full of bugs. I did it at least 8 times trying to work my way around each bug as I learned it only to be thwarted by yet another bug. Finally it just got to be too much and I rage quit, deleting the game from my computer. I don't do that kinda stuff normally and have never done that with any game...
Anyway, the issue is at peak it is unlikely they had more then 200k subs and I think that number is being REALLY generous. I did do a peak sub count at one point and used a typical peak/sub ratio and calculated that the subs were 125k at that time. Not 100% accurate for sure but probably good within +/- 20%. Since that time I've watched the people online playing and the numbers have gone down. It is kinda tricky because what you really need to watch is the number of instances. Thats what has decreased. At one time MI had 40 instances, the last time I played during peak it was in the 20s. MI had like only 5 instances so very few higher lvl people. The Supergroup I was in had maybe 30 people at peak and when I quit the active count was don't to maybe 7-8...
Individually none of these indicators is conclusive but taken as a whole they tell a story. Now I know you don't buy xfire numbers but one thing xfire does pretty well historically is track ratios within a game. ie what the xfire community does within the greater individual game community tracks pretty closely. So when xfire shows that a games peak is 40% of what it was 2 weeks ago that is a pretty solid indicator that the people playing the game has dropped 40%.
So looking at the xfire numbers and the sub numbers I calculated awhile back I believe that CO is very likely right at 100k or even below on subs and the trend isn't encouraging and I expect another drop when the free month ends. The one thing I'm hoping is that they do get the xbox 360 release out. That should generate a good chunk of revenue and hopefully give them enough subs to survive. I'm just afraid that like AoC the xbox 360 release might have gotten dropped.
I want to see CO survive. Even though I'm done with the game I really want it to keep cryptic going so they can do a good job on star trek online. I'll also probably reactivate my CO account in a few months if it looks like they have cleaned up a lot of the issues.
I did have a long response to your previous post but damm typing takes too long :P
Anyway i can understand your frustration, I too did hope for more from this game and it is lacking in several areas. Also it's an interesting point you make about how the success or failure of this title may have a knockon effect to STO, which will be an even tougher crowd to please.
I hope that the developers can switch this around, being a player with COH when these guys were in charge doesn't bode well, but I'm optimistic they've learnt something from that experience. Okay no evidence to support that theory more blind faith :P
I'm also hopefully it will survive, I'm subbing at the moment but still have my doubts long term. Oh well watch theis space i suppose
CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping.
WTF are you talking about Ethion? Just last Sunday there were over 20 instances of each major zone. That its about the same as I saw three weeks ago.
It was stated in an interview that CO needs about 100k subs to be considered a success. What evidence do you have that CO has under 100k subs? None I bet. I think you just decided one day that you don't like the game and are now pissed off or bored and decided to start telling people how CO is failing.
Its the norm for any MMOG to have a big first month and then settle down to the fanbase. There are thousands of people who buy every new MMOG, play it like mad for a few weeks, then stop and wait for the next release. There is nothing particularly wrong with that. Considering how many hours of gameplay those people got out of the game I don't see how anyone could have considered it a rip off or that the game failed to entertain them. Its nearly unanimous that people say the game is fun.
So the game isn't a financial failure, at least you can't claim that without being privy to sub numbers. Its not an entertainment failure because most people agree that the game is really fun to play. Its not a value failure because people are getting at least 80+ hours out of this measly $50.00. All it is is a failure to keep Ethion's attention.
I am a big fan of Champions, but after playing till my wrists got RSI for a month I am already looking at taking a break for a week or two. Its part of my normal cycle for any new MMOG, even WoW, EQ, UO, M59 they all get a little old after a few weeks and people need a break. It will give Cryptic some time to get that level 32 content from the test server to live. No sweat, I'm dying to play Risen anyway and it comes out on Friday.
CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping.
WTF are you talking about Ethion? Just last Sunday there were over 20 instances of each major zone. That its about the same as I saw three weeks ago.
Agreed, it seemed like there were plenty of people playing last night. I haven't noticed much of a drop off at all. It doesn't seem to be growing either, but its not new anymore.
If there is a drop off in players it will happen next week when the first month subs expire. It seems a bit premature to be talking DOOM yet.
CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping.
WTF are you talking about Ethion? Just last Sunday there were over 20 instances of each major zone. That its about the same as I saw three weeks ago.
It was stated in an interview that CO needs about 100k subs to be considered a success. What evidence do you have that CO has under 100k subs? None I bet. I think you just decided one day that you don't like the game and are now pissed off or bored and decided to start telling people how CO is failing.
Its the norm for any MMOG to have a big first month and then settle down to the fanbase. There are thousands of people who buy every new MMOG, play it like mad for a few weeks, then stop and wait for the next release. There is nothing particularly wrong with that. Considering how many hours of gameplay those people got out of the game I don't see how anyone could have considered it a rip off or that the game failed to entertain them. Its nearly unanimous that people say the game is fun.
So the game isn't a financial failure, at least you can't claim that without being privy to sub numbers. Its not an entertainment failure because most people agree that the game is really fun to play. Its not a value failure because people are getting at least 80+ hours out of this measly $50.00. All it is is a failure to keep Ethion's attention.
I am a big fan of Champions, but after playing till my wrists got RSI for a month I am already looking at taking a break for a week or two. Its part of my normal cycle for any new MMOG, even WoW, EQ, UO, M59 they all get a little old after a few weeks and people need a break. It will give Cryptic some time to get that level 32 content from the test server to live. No sweat, I'm dying to play Risen anyway and it comes out on Friday.
As I said there has been a drop in the people online. 2-3 weeks ago I counted the numbers online in each zone and while the numbers in an instance are similar what has changed is the number of instances. As you say there are around 20 instances no. 2-3 weeks ago there were 30-40 instances. The numbers per instances were similar.
Don't get me wrong there are still quite a lot of people playing, I'm just saying that the numbers playing are decreasing and the free play month hasn't run out and the sub numbers don't have a huge amount of headroom if they want to be considered a success, ie 100k subs. I'm assuming we can agree that 100k number wasn't meant to be just a first month number but rather a persistent number right?
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Unless you have some knowledge, that I dont, about the users using XFire are more or less bias towards CO then I dont see how it is useless.
Why dont you specifically say what errors there is in the sample data that XFire has instead of just saying "pretty much all the errors". That just makes you sound like someone who is trying to sound like someone who knows alot about polls and statistics where in fact he has no knowledge except the buzz words.
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Duh. When a game is new people will play it a longer time. X-fire is counting hours players play.
Both Aoc and WAR was really high for the first few weeks, it means nothing.
If the game stays in top it is good of course but beating AoC isn't that impressive even if it will still be over it in 3 months.
Staying in the top 5 for longer than the first month however would be very impressing. Going fast up to 15 and then fall again wouldn't. We will just have to see and wait, but I don't think the superhero genre is that huge, it will compete with CoX and upcoming DCU.
Of course I believe that people prefer Sci-fi and fantasy and I could be wrong.
You can see two different things in the XFire data. You can see the absolute numbers and compare it to other games and that will give you a (rough) estimate on how well the game is faring compared to other games on XFire or you can look at the different numbers over time for the same game and see how quickly it is changing compared to other games.
The absolute numbers says less to me (because as you say fantasy is often more popular than super hero games) than does the change. AoC and WAR saw a dramatic negative change in the first few months but what is remarkable is that CO is showing a much steeper negative change which is alarming because it suggests that the relative rate of which people are leaving the game is higher than that of AoC and WAR.
This could be of other reasons than the game lacking longetivity, such as the release of Aion, but it could also mean simply that the game is shallow and has little content. I for example have played the game for only a bit over a week and at level 22 it is already starting to get repetetive and my alts have basically the same type of leveling which makes the replay value even less (except during the design).
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We've heard it a million times. If you don't believe the numbers then just move along. Nobody will try to convince you of anything if you can't see any value in the statistic.
Quoting Xfire numbers just prove you have absolutely no idea of statistics. Go to college a few years please.
uh I TAed a Statistics class in college and even tutored people.
Then you (should) know better. The sample is not random, not representative, and not uncorrelated. There is no direct cause-effect, you know anything about the population, and you have no idea of the margin of error. You have made an assumption that the numbers are representative without offering a single proof of this and then made a (gu)estimate of a game's population, which you know nothing about.
If you've been a TA and tutor without knowing this then shame on your profs and college for letting you as this is introductory knowledge in statistics.
You can make the assumption that people using XFire would be no different from people not using it (from gamer perspective). Why would you assume otherwise?
So it is correct that you dont really know the sampling error because, among other things, you dont know the biasness of the population in XFire but I dont see a reason to not assume that they would be more or less bias towards CO than other gamers. Do you?
But yeah its an assumption so the outcome is not scientific but that does not make it useless unless you actually know that the population is different (in which case it would be useless).
I mean we KNOW that WoW is a huge success and it is undisputed number one. Also there are many indications about Aion being a success (in the east) and it has high numbers in XFire aswell. So this proves that the data is certainly not 'useless' but rather a rough indication about how less a game is fairing. I would say it is more relevant for online gamers than non online gamers because non online gamers have no reason to connect to the net to play the game so they might be less inclined to get an online client tool.
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Unless you have some knowledge, that I dont, about the users using XFire are more or less bias towards CO then I dont see how it is useless.
Why dont you specifically say what errors there is in the sample data that XFire has instead of just saying "pretty much all the errors". That just makes you sound like someone who is trying to sound like someone who knows alot about polls and statistics where in fact he has no knowledge except the buzz words.
If you look at the list, there is mostly FPS, other multiplayer, and F2P MMO's. Some MMORPG's are on there, but I would contend that Xfire is not representative of the general MMORPG players. Maybe a subset, such as those which also play f2P or FPS games, or have a guild that use it. Most western players cough up money to use ventrilo or teamspeak in their guilds, and it is also likely that many xfire users are not in guilds (FPS) or asian players (F2P).
A basic statistical sampling rule says that the probability of being included in the sample must be strictly greater than 0. The probability that any random player is using Xfire might be 0 as some people (many in fact) denies installing the program. Therefore the statistics are not valid. In addition there is autocorrelation (covariance) between the games, which is hard to correct for. Also, people afk or alt+tab'ing their games (not playing) will get the hours the game runs for registered, without them actually being players. There is no correction for players deinstalling Xfire, but continuing playing. these are examples of skewness. Also, you don't know if Xfire is mostly registering people who play a little or a lot (kurtosis). This will make such a huge bias that the numbers will not become statistically significant unless you add an enourmous margin for error, plus/minus tens of thousands of percent. These are some of the errors, and you must know them if you want to prove a fact using Xfire.
I don't know much about polling, but my education is in economics and finance, which both use quite a bit of statistics (especially probability, regression, multivariate, and MA)
Xfire measures a small percentage of the gaming community.
Originally posted by GTwander:
How are you an MMO? Or any of us for that matter?
I say we strike all users from the site for not being MMOs.
As a general rule 10x concurrent users is good for subs. But obviously that is super super rough estimate.
Several game developers have actually said that the number of players online during peak hours is roughly 20-25% of the total playerbase.
Obviously that will be higher during a games release though since everyone will be rushing to play the game as it is fresh and new. Just like you see population spikes during major content patches and even bigger during expansions.
Xifre sure has its problems. It doesn't conform to classroom rules of how statistics should be taken. Not "everyone" uses it and any number of other very valid arguments that it should not be taken seriously.
However, it was unexplainably accurate about warhammer, age of conan and even warcraft the last year or so. It is hard to dismiss xfire as useless when it has a fairly good track record of doing what people say it cannot do. Citing a valid reason for why something should not happen cannot change the fact that it did happen.
I have my doubts about how accurate it will be about a mostly pve game though as I believe xfire attracts more of a pvp crowd, but that is just speculation on my part.
Unless you have some knowledge, that I dont, about the users using XFire are more or less bias towards CO then I dont see how it is useless.
Why dont you specifically say what errors there is in the sample data that XFire has instead of just saying "pretty much all the errors". That just makes you sound like someone who is trying to sound like someone who knows alot about polls and statistics where in fact he has no knowledge except the buzz words.
If you look at the list, there is mostly FPS, other multiplayer, and F2P MMO's. Some MMORPG's are on there, but I would contend that Xfire is not representative of the general MMORPG players. Maybe a subset, such as those which also play f2P or FPS games, or have a guild that use it. Most western players cough up money to use ventrilo or teamspeak in their guilds, and it is also likely that many xfire users are not in guilds (FPS) or asian players (F2P).
Nonsense. ALL the major MMORPGs are listed there, the reason that some less popular MMORPGs are not listed there is the same as why some less popular FPS games are not listed there. Because they are not popular enough.
Teamspeak and ventrilo is irrelevant to the issue at hand because the main function of XFire is to keep track on what games you play and for how long, not sending streamed audio over the net or keep track of your friends because there are alot of other programs that does it better.
A basic statistical sampling rule says that the probability of being included in the sample must be strictly greater than 0. The probability that any random player is using Xfire might be 0 as some people (many in fact) denies installing the program. Therefore the statistics are not valid.
Invalid in what sense? Many surveys are done with non-probability samples and all that says is that you cannot matematically be sure that the numbers are representative for the larger population. Xfire is not used for mathematical studies but only used for rough estimations. So you can say that the results (and the margin of error) are not mathematically proven but you cannot say that the survey is useless or invalid because many surveys are done with non-probability samples.
In addition there is autocorrelation (covariance) between the games, which is hard to correct for. Also, people afk or alt+tab'ing their games (not playing) will get the hours the game runs for registered, without them actually being players.
So? Again, this is not a scientifical, mathematical statistical study to be reported on a site but rather an indication of how things look for a certain game. It is an indication, not proof.
There is no correction for players deinstalling Xfire, but continuing playing. these are examples of skewness. Also, you don't know if Xfire is mostly registering people who play a little or a lot (kurtosis). This will make such a huge bias that the numbers will not become statistically significant unless you add an enourmous margin for error, plus/minus tens of thousands of percent. These are some of the errors, and you must know them if you want to prove a fact using Xfire.
I am not proving anything, I am claiming that XFire has a reasonably good indication on how well a game is fairing. The fact that it predicted many events that later showed to be facts (like the dramatic drop of subscribers for AoC and WAR and the explosion of asian players for Aion) shows that the data is not useless as you claim
I don't know much about polling, but my education is in economics and finance, which both use quite a bit of statistics (especially probability, regression, multivariate, and MA)
Yeah and that seems to be the problem. You are looking at it from a strictly scientific view and since it, obviously, does not reach the high standards needed for such studies then you are calling it "useless" where in fact XFire has proven that it has predicted many of the facts in the history of MMORPGs (like the sudden drop of players after NGE, that WoW is heads and shoulders above other MMORPGs, the dramatic loss of subscribers for AoC and WAR and so on).
So stop spouting statistical buzzwords and brag about your education. You are just embarrasing yourself. XFire has shown that it is good at determining trends but you cannot mathematically prove the results, that does not make it useless. Atleast not for me. For you? ok.
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Actually xfire does voice and player tracking very well. I used xfire for voice chat as an alternative to ventrillo. I started using it when ventrillo server died and I wanted another voice chat. Ventrillo is nice because you done need any server you just setup a chat room and message your friends with the name and everyone joins. You can autojoin it to. It also integrated nicely with most games. The popups and interface for xfire will overlay on a full screen game without requiring task switching. And it has a nice feature to save screenshots, make videos of game play, and even stream live video while you play.
Another nice feature is it will automatically download patches for games you own in the background. If you play Peer to peer games it also registers IPs and makes game setup much easier.
So xfire does a lot more then monitor and report stats on what you are playing...
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Ethion
Did I say otherwise? I said the main function of XFire is to keep track of your gaming time and stats, that is why the tool was created in the first place and the main function still.
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Debating the usefulness of xfire numbers is pointless. Some people see them as good indicators and some people think they are completely meaningless random numbers. I've been a follower of xfire stats for a long time and one thing I've learned is arguing about it is a waste of time. The data to prove anything definatively simply doesn't exist for anyone but the people that run xfire.
So it is best to just agree to disagree and move on. For some people the numbers are interesting and for others meaningless.
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Ethion
Yes, agreed. The numbers cannot prove any results but nor can you say they are wrong. You can just say that the accuracy of the result is unknown.
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Here is a possiblity I'd like to throw out there. Its purely speculation, but may still effect the Xfire results. A game that requires or encourages long hours, extended play sessions, harcore gamers, AFK-shops and other time consumers is going to have more Xfire gameplay hours per subscriber than a game designed for casual players who would only be logging in for an hour or two a day. What I am saying is that the Xfire gameplay hours may not be directly proportional to the number of subscribers.
Also, games that offer free play or different pay models (like WoW in China) may have very high hours, but lower income per hour. For example, I bet CO's 5000 hours of gameplay is making more income than Runes of Magic's 10000 hours.
I don't mean to say that as an excuse to have lower hours, but just that it may not provide the kinds of results that would indicate success.
The data in xfire is there to prove of disprove your theory. It shows hours played and number of players for each game. A year ago I did this comparison and found that there was a little variation game to game but not a huge amount. But again you can check the numbers. I think when I looked at it it was something like 3-4 hours played per user.
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Ethion
The data in xfire is there to prove of disprove your theory. It shows hours played and number of players for each game. A year ago I did this comparison and found that there was a little variation game to game but not a huge amount. But again you can check the numbers. I think when I looked at it it was something like 3-4 hours played per user.
Thanks, I never noticed that it has the number of users. Here is a rundown of the minutes played per user per day.
There are probably numerous factors at play here.
One purely subjective thing I've noticed about playing CO is that the doesn't offer as many breaks during gameplay as some games. Crafting is quick and easy, no long travel times, no downtime, short fights. It can cause some fatigue on long game sessions.
On the other hand, a game like WoW or Aion has loads of built in breaks with lots of long travel times, slower paced combat, and very drawn out crafting. Its less fatigueing which lets me play for longer than I normally would, but IMO its not as exciting either. It seems like the older I get the more I prefer the shorter but more action packed game sessions like I found in DDO and CO.
Those are some hellishly long play times. I'm assuming this is from Sat of Sun or there are some really really hard core players
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Ethion
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
Ha nobody is manipulating anything. CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping. It is undeniable that they screwed up releasing the game too early, with too many bugs, incomplete content, and have had too many bad changes in various patches. Right now this is a train wreck and without a miracle they are going to drop into a tiny nich and be lucky to do better then CoX.
Now the next week or so as they hit the end of the first free month is going to be critical. I lost it for the game and left but if they don't fix things in the next week I'm sure they will also start loosing hard core fans...
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Ethion
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
Ha nobody is manipulating anything. CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping. It is undeniable that they screwed up releasing the game too early, with too many bugs, incomplete content, and have had too many bad changes in various patches. Right now this is a train wreck and without a miracle they are going to drop into a tiny nich and be lucky to do better then CoX.
Now the next week or so as they hit the end of the first free month is going to be critical. I lost it for the game and left but if they don't fix things in the next week I'm sure they will also start loosing hard core fans...
I think everyone who plays superhero games knows that it is a niche market. Is the game failing? No! As long as the company is making money, the game isn't failing. I still see a lot of people online at peak and non-peak times (est) There has been a drop in the playerbase, but it hasn't been that significant. If the game can maintain the 100-125k playerbase, I think it will do well.
The game isn't perfect, and the devs have screwed up, but I'm interested to see where they are going. They have an update coming out in Oct that has a new powerset and some rather interesting content. They need to feel the content gaps at the levels 30+. That is main concern at this time. They have six months to prove to me that they can get their "stuff" together. We'll see what they do.
p.s. I think X-Fire numbers are nonsense.
I think everyone who plays superhero games knows that it is a niche market. Is the game failing? No! As long as the company is making money, the game isn't failing. I still see a lot of people online at peak and non-peak times (est) There has been a drop in the playerbase, but it hasn't been that significant. If the game can maintain the 100-125k playerbase, I think it will do well.
The game isn't perfect, and the devs have screwed up, but I'm interested to see where they are going. They have an update coming out in Oct that has a new powerset and some rather interesting content. They need to feel the content gaps at the levels 30+. That is main concern at this time. They have six months to prove to me that they can get their "stuff" together. We'll see what they do.
p.s. I think X-Fire numbers are nonsense.
Superhero games are a niche but my fear is more about the survival of CO and more importantly cryptic. Not to be a doom and gloom person but I read somewhere that Atari had performance criteria around the game for cryptic. I think they wanted the game to have at least 100k subs. Now, I don't know what they would do if it has less then 100K subs...
Regardless of my rather negative ranting which is due in part to my disappointment and frustration. I generally try to be pretty balanced and objective. I'll say good things and bad things because I find every game has things I like and things I don't.
The game I'm really really drooling about is star trek online. In order for star trek online to happen and be good CO I think needs to do well, ie, make that 100k+ number. At the same time I'm hoping that Cryptic is learning that releasing a game too early is a very bad thing and that with Star Trek online they don't prematurely release. Course money pressures will impact that if CO isn't what it needs to be.
So when I see CO not doing well I'm pissed as hell at cryptic and maybe I'm loosing objectivity. I liked a number of things about CO but there are a lot of things that I think are just complete disasters. When I was in open beta and in the game I submitted well over 100 bug reports. I send messages with issues I saw talking about many things I do here.
In spite of this at around 32 the game really just wasn't fun. I had a big lack of quests and only lvl 35 quests, Content from the teens on was kinda a scrimp and scrap to make sure I did everything possible so I wouldn't be short later. I saw many people complaining about lack of content and posted that people needed to jump around and it would prevent content issues. On the main forums I tried to help people overcome content gaps. Then I get to MI and cryptic completely failed me. No matter how hard I wanted to say that it was ok it wasn't. MI was not finished or the guys in cryptic that were responsible for it seriously went to lunch. From 30-32 there was almost no content. From 30 you pretty much had to jump to 32 content and even there the content was sparse probably being barely enough to support you if you were even level. But even that I was willing to work though.
What finally pissed me off was the most god aweful mission/instance called bunker buster which is a nemisis mission. It was full of long cut scenes and full of bugs. I did it at least 8 times trying to work my way around each bug as I learned it only to be thwarted by yet another bug. Finally it just got to be too much and I rage quit, deleting the game from my computer. I don't do that kinda stuff normally and have never done that with any game...
Anyway, the issue is at peak it is unlikely they had more then 200k subs and I think that number is being REALLY generous. I did do a peak sub count at one point and used a typical peak/sub ratio and calculated that the subs were 125k at that time. Not 100% accurate for sure but probably good within +/- 20%. Since that time I've watched the people online playing and the numbers have gone down. It is kinda tricky because what you really need to watch is the number of instances. Thats what has decreased. At one time MI had 40 instances, the last time I played during peak it was in the 20s. MI had like only 5 instances so very few higher lvl people. The Supergroup I was in had maybe 30 people at peak and when I quit the active count was don't to maybe 7-8...
Individually none of these indicators is conclusive but taken as a whole they tell a story. Now I know you don't buy xfire numbers but one thing xfire does pretty well historically is track ratios within a game. ie what the xfire community does within the greater individual game community tracks pretty closely. So when xfire shows that a games peak is 40% of what it was 2 weeks ago that is a pretty solid indicator that the people playing the game has dropped 40%.
So looking at the xfire numbers and the sub numbers I calculated awhile back I believe that CO is very likely right at 100k or even below on subs and the trend isn't encouraging and I expect another drop when the free month ends. The one thing I'm hoping is that they do get the xbox 360 release out. That should generate a good chunk of revenue and hopefully give them enough subs to survive. I'm just afraid that like AoC the xbox 360 release might have gotten dropped.
I want to see CO survive. Even though I'm done with the game I really want it to keep cryptic going so they can do a good job on star trek online. I'll also probably reactivate my CO account in a few months if it looks like they have cleaned up a lot of the issues.
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Ethion
While Xfire is useful for seeing trends my problem with this entire post is that your manipulating data to serve your own bias that the game is failing. People will always, 'debate', the usefulness of numbers from a program, a small section of the community uses, as evidence for your tracker like daily posts about how the game is, 'failing' and, '...Cryptic are in major trouble', to paraphrase your early posts.
Ha nobody is manipulating anything. CO is failing, even before I canceled and stopped playing the numbers of people online were dropping. It is undeniable that they screwed up releasing the game too early, with too many bugs, incomplete content, and have had too many bad changes in various patches. Right now this is a train wreck and without a miracle they are going to drop into a tiny nich and be lucky to do better then CoX.
Now the next week or so as they hit the end of the first free month is going to be critical. I lost it for the game and left but if they don't fix things in the next week I'm sure they will also start loosing hard core fan
I think everyone who plays superhero games knows that it is a niche market. Is the game failing? No! As long as the company is making money, the game isn't failing. I still see a lot of people online at peak and non-peak times (est) There has been a drop in the playerbase, but it hasn't been that significant. If the game can maintain the 100-125k playerbase, I think it will do well.
The game isn't perfect, and the devs have screwed up, but I'm interested to see where they are going. They have an update coming out in Oct that has a new powerset and some rather interesting content. They need to feel the content gaps at the levels 30+. That is main concern at this time. They have six months to prove to me that they can get their "stuff" together. We'll see what they do.
p.s. I think X-Fire numbers are nonsense.
Superhero games are a niche but my fear is more about the survival of CO and more importantly cryptic. Not to be a doom and gloom person but I read somewhere that Atari had performance criteria around the game for cryptic. I think they wanted the game to have at least 100k subs. Now, I don't know what they would do if it has less then 100K subs...
Regardless of my rather negative ranting which is due in part to my disappointment and frustration. I generally try to be pretty balanced and objective. I'll say good things and bad things because I find every game has things I like and things I don't.
The game I'm really really drooling about is star trek online. In order for star trek online to happen and be good CO I think needs to do well, ie, make that 100k+ number. At the same time I'm hoping that Cryptic is learning that releasing a game too early is a very bad thing and that with Star Trek online they don't prematurely release. Course money pressures will impact that if CO isn't what it needs to be.
So when I see CO not doing well I'm pissed as hell at cryptic and maybe I'm loosing objectivity. I liked a number of things about CO but there are a lot of things that I think are just complete disasters. When I was in open beta and in the game I submitted well over 100 bug reports. I send messages with issues I saw talking about many things I do here.
In spite of this at around 32 the game really just wasn't fun. I had a big lack of quests and only lvl 35 quests, Content from the teens on was kinda a scrimp and scrap to make sure I did everything possible so I wouldn't be short later. I saw many people complaining about lack of content and posted that people needed to jump around and it would prevent content issues. On the main forums I tried to help people overcome content gaps. Then I get to MI and cryptic completely failed me. No matter how hard I wanted to say that it was ok it wasn't. MI was not finished or the guys in cryptic that were responsible for it seriously went to lunch. From 30-32 there was almost no content. From 30 you pretty much had to jump to 32 content and even there the content was sparse probably being barely enough to support you if you were even level. But even that I was willing to work though.
What finally pissed me off was the most god aweful mission/instance called bunker buster which is a nemisis mission. It was full of long cut scenes and full of bugs. I did it at least 8 times trying to work my way around each bug as I learned it only to be thwarted by yet another bug. Finally it just got to be too much and I rage quit, deleting the game from my computer. I don't do that kinda stuff normally and have never done that with any game...
Anyway, the issue is at peak it is unlikely they had more then 200k subs and I think that number is being REALLY generous. I did do a peak sub count at one point and used a typical peak/sub ratio and calculated that the subs were 125k at that time. Not 100% accurate for sure but probably good within +/- 20%. Since that time I've watched the people online playing and the numbers have gone down. It is kinda tricky because what you really need to watch is the number of instances. Thats what has decreased. At one time MI had 40 instances, the last time I played during peak it was in the 20s. MI had like only 5 instances so very few higher lvl people. The Supergroup I was in had maybe 30 people at peak and when I quit the active count was don't to maybe 7-8...
Individually none of these indicators is conclusive but taken as a whole they tell a story. Now I know you don't buy xfire numbers but one thing xfire does pretty well historically is track ratios within a game. ie what the xfire community does within the greater individual game community tracks pretty closely. So when xfire shows that a games peak is 40% of what it was 2 weeks ago that is a pretty solid indicator that the people playing the game has dropped 40%.
So looking at the xfire numbers and the sub numbers I calculated awhile back I believe that CO is very likely right at 100k or even below on subs and the trend isn't encouraging and I expect another drop when the free month ends. The one thing I'm hoping is that they do get the xbox 360 release out. That should generate a good chunk of revenue and hopefully give them enough subs to survive. I'm just afraid that like AoC the xbox 360 release might have gotten dropped.
I want to see CO survive. Even though I'm done with the game I really want it to keep cryptic going so they can do a good job on star trek online. I'll also probably reactivate my CO account in a few months if it looks like they have cleaned up a lot of the issues.
I did have a long response to your previous post but damm typing takes too long :P
Anyway i can understand your frustration, I too did hope for more from this game and it is lacking in several areas. Also it's an interesting point you make about how the success or failure of this title may have a knockon effect to STO, which will be an even tougher crowd to please.
I hope that the developers can switch this around, being a player with COH when these guys were in charge doesn't bode well, but I'm optimistic they've learnt something from that experience. Okay no evidence to support that theory more blind faith :P
I'm also hopefully it will survive, I'm subbing at the moment but still have my doubts long term. Oh well watch theis space i suppose
WTF are you talking about Ethion? Just last Sunday there were over 20 instances of each major zone. That its about the same as I saw three weeks ago.
It was stated in an interview that CO needs about 100k subs to be considered a success. What evidence do you have that CO has under 100k subs? None I bet. I think you just decided one day that you don't like the game and are now pissed off or bored and decided to start telling people how CO is failing.
Its the norm for any MMOG to have a big first month and then settle down to the fanbase. There are thousands of people who buy every new MMOG, play it like mad for a few weeks, then stop and wait for the next release. There is nothing particularly wrong with that. Considering how many hours of gameplay those people got out of the game I don't see how anyone could have considered it a rip off or that the game failed to entertain them. Its nearly unanimous that people say the game is fun.
So the game isn't a financial failure, at least you can't claim that without being privy to sub numbers. Its not an entertainment failure because most people agree that the game is really fun to play. Its not a value failure because people are getting at least 80+ hours out of this measly $50.00. All it is is a failure to keep Ethion's attention.
I am a big fan of Champions, but after playing till my wrists got RSI for a month I am already looking at taking a break for a week or two. Its part of my normal cycle for any new MMOG, even WoW, EQ, UO, M59 they all get a little old after a few weeks and people need a break. It will give Cryptic some time to get that level 32 content from the test server to live. No sweat, I'm dying to play Risen anyway and it comes out on Friday.
WTF are you talking about Ethion? Just last Sunday there were over 20 instances of each major zone. That its about the same as I saw three weeks ago.
Agreed, it seemed like there were plenty of people playing last night. I haven't noticed much of a drop off at all. It doesn't seem to be growing either, but its not new anymore.
If there is a drop off in players it will happen next week when the first month subs expire. It seems a bit premature to be talking DOOM yet.
WTF are you talking about Ethion? Just last Sunday there were over 20 instances of each major zone. That its about the same as I saw three weeks ago.
It was stated in an interview that CO needs about 100k subs to be considered a success. What evidence do you have that CO has under 100k subs? None I bet. I think you just decided one day that you don't like the game and are now pissed off or bored and decided to start telling people how CO is failing.
Its the norm for any MMOG to have a big first month and then settle down to the fanbase. There are thousands of people who buy every new MMOG, play it like mad for a few weeks, then stop and wait for the next release. There is nothing particularly wrong with that. Considering how many hours of gameplay those people got out of the game I don't see how anyone could have considered it a rip off or that the game failed to entertain them. Its nearly unanimous that people say the game is fun.
So the game isn't a financial failure, at least you can't claim that without being privy to sub numbers. Its not an entertainment failure because most people agree that the game is really fun to play. Its not a value failure because people are getting at least 80+ hours out of this measly $50.00. All it is is a failure to keep Ethion's attention.
I am a big fan of Champions, but after playing till my wrists got RSI for a month I am already looking at taking a break for a week or two. Its part of my normal cycle for any new MMOG, even WoW, EQ, UO, M59 they all get a little old after a few weeks and people need a break. It will give Cryptic some time to get that level 32 content from the test server to live. No sweat, I'm dying to play Risen anyway and it comes out on Friday.
As I said there has been a drop in the people online. 2-3 weeks ago I counted the numbers online in each zone and while the numbers in an instance are similar what has changed is the number of instances. As you say there are around 20 instances no. 2-3 weeks ago there were 30-40 instances. The numbers per instances were similar.
Don't get me wrong there are still quite a lot of people playing, I'm just saying that the numbers playing are decreasing and the free play month hasn't run out and the sub numbers don't have a huge amount of headroom if they want to be considered a success, ie 100k subs. I'm assuming we can agree that 100k number wasn't meant to be just a first month number but rather a persistent number right?
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Ethion