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Seems like the game has peaked on XFire
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Maybe you mean it shows the trends of how many hours players that use XFire are putting into the game? Not very useful in the overall, but I guess you can AT LEAST count on that.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Do you have any links or screenshot to back those ridicilous statements? Because I have been following XFire for years and I have not seen those trends which you are speaking of.
I saw a 10-15% drop in played hours for both games the last year or so. So I have no idea where you are getting your numbers from.
My gaming blog
Shrug. Subs, active players, I doubt that however you look at it that those games were reduced to 20-50% of their total number of players in the past year or 2.Translation: I win because I can lookup definitions in a dictionary.
/yawn
XFire has been very reliable at showing relative popularity of games and associated trends. Any reason why SWTOR is so special that its XFire graph is suddenly not good enough?
Hmm, Xfire also showed a drop off for both Wow and EVE of 50% within a year and even 70-80% decrease in Xfire for both games for the past 2-2.5 years. Which would lead to the conclusion that WoW and EVE lost 50% of their playerbase the past year and even 70-80% of their subs in the past 2-2.5 years. Just saying -_-
So I'd suggest some more caution before just accepting without thinking any kinds of numbers and trends in any kind of tool. But to each their own ofc.Do you have any links or screenshot to back those ridicilous statements? Because I have been following XFire for years and I have not seen those trends which you are speaking of.
I saw a 10-15% drop in played hours for both games the last year or so. So I have no idea where you are getting your numbers from.
Ridiculous? Wow... nice accusations without doing your own factchecking. If you really kept track of Xfire, you'd know that my numbers didn't sound odd at all, but that both EVE and WoW hovered around double what they have now in Xfire player numbers less than a year ago, and even double that number 2-2.5 years ago. I mentioned those 2 games, because these reported their sub numbers which didn't see that deep a dive. So the gap between reality and what Xfire reported can be easier witnessed with games like that.
Again, I'm not saying that Xfire can't be handy for global trendspotting, just like other tools like WoW census or Steam or Raptr or shard status. But only if you use sharp observation and are aware of the flaws of each system, not when you just conclude and spout things from them without thinking at all.Unless you got some facts to support your statement then this is all about "he said, she said" discussion which leads nowhere.
I have followed XFire for the last 3-4 years and I have not seen those drastic drops you are mentioning. I did see a drop in WoW for about 10-15 % the last year and that coincidently was around the same time when Blizzard said they lost 1 million subs.
Same with Eve which again occured during the RMT and station walking fiasco. So for me that validated that XFire is indeed accurate for seeing trends.
My gaming blog
I mostly look at "Xfire users playing per day". But can't see history for that sadly, but I just go by memory. Still, the amount of hours played will go down when the amount of users go down aswell, so it works that way eventhough people play more hours when the games are new usually. Think there were over 11k Xfire users playing it in beginning of January, Feb. 6th was 7k so by that I draw the conclusion that they are losing players and quite alot of em.
Next chance to know for sure how many subscribers they have will probably be in May when EA has their next financial report. Sadly they don't have to show the numbers if they don't want to, so we may never hear numbers again. Not that you can compare with the numbers they so gladly gave now with 1.7mil since it was only 10d of people able to have cancelled their subs by then and included alot of recently sold copies.
Translation: I win because I can lookup definitions in a dictionary.
/yawn
XFire has been very reliable at showing relative popularity of games and associated trends. Any reason why SWTOR is so special that its XFire graph is suddenly not good enough?
No, XFire is just cr@p. It's "not good enough" for SWToR because it's not good enough for anything. Except, as I said, showing that XFire players are playing a game more or fewer hours. It doesn't even give you a graph of users who played the game.
I've even gone as far as saying you could look at XFire and say more or fewer people are playing a particular game, but even that's a stretch. What you can't do is say that there are 30% fewer people playing a game because there are 30% fewer hours being played on XFire. This is what the post that I responded to was saying.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Then I would screw the results in favour of the game with more downtime on weekends. I'd have to start taking total playing time from whole weeks to get any more accurate, and I don't have patience or need to count that.
What is the conclusion that is being lead to here?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
then some people have too much free time....
Taking downtimes into account would require more effort and I'm lazy?
Then I would screw the results in favour of the game with more downtime on weekends. I'd have to start taking total playing time from whole weeks to get any more accurate, and I don't have patience or need to count that.
What is the conclusion that is being lead to here?
Taking downtimes into account would require more effort and I'm lazy?
:-)
Let me clarify what I was asking. I was talking about the original table comparing the number of hours played in SW and WoW. What is the initial theory that spawned the table, and what's the conclusion based on the table's data?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Xfire players have gone down alot less than time played. Go back in this thread you will find me mentioning the 7777 xfire players per day figure, it was an odd number easy to remember. Now we are at a 6800 something number. I don't need no fancy graph, my memory is working just fine tyvm.
One thing i noticed though is the playtime graph getting bumpy, with spikes from friday through sunday. Thats obviously normal, but its strength varies depending on game and how new content is. Last weekend for example we saw almost twice the midweek numbers, thats not normal for either xfire or other gamers. To put things into perspective, spikes for WoW are about half as strong relative to population.
What that means? No idea but i found it curious enough, think about xfires application outside the xfire community what you want, but it should be atleast consistant within. That being said there is some decline in most MMOs on xfire atm, obviously SWTOR caused a global depression affecting other MMOs aswell. Its worse than i thought.
Translation: I win because I can lookup definitions in a dictionary.
/yawn
XFire has been very reliable at showing relative popularity of games and associated trends. Any reason why SWTOR is so special that its XFire graph is suddenly not good enough?
Hmm, Xfire also showed a drop off for both Wow and EVE of 50% within a year and even 70-80% decrease in Xfire for both games for the past 2-2.5 years. Which would lead to the conclusion that WoW and EVE lost 50% of their playerbase the past year and even 70-80% of their subs in the past 2-2.5 years. Just saying -_-
So I'd suggest some more caution before just accepting without thinking any kinds of numbers and trends in any kind of tool. But to each their own ofc.Do you have any links or screenshot to back those ridicilous statements? Because I have been following XFire for years and I have not seen those trends which you are speaking of.
I saw a 10-15% drop in played hours for both games the last year or so. So I have no idea where you are getting your numbers from.
Ridiculous? Wow... nice accusations without doing your own factchecking. If you really kept track of Xfire, you'd know that my numbers didn't sound odd at all, but that both EVE and WoW hovered around double what they have now in Xfire player numbers less than a year ago, and even double that number 2-2.5 years ago. I mentioned those 2 games, because these reported their sub numbers which didn't see that deep a dive. So the gap between reality and what Xfire reported can be easier witnessed with games like that.
Again, I'm not saying that Xfire can't be handy for global trendspotting, just like other tools like WoW census or Steam or Raptr or shard status. But only if you use sharp observation and are aware of the flaws of each system, not when you just conclude and spout things from them without thinking at all.Unless you got some facts to support your statement then this is all about "he said, she said" discussion which leads nowhere.
I have followed XFire for the last 3-4 years and I have not seen those drastic drops you are mentioning. I did see a drop in WoW for about 10-15 % the last year and that coincidently was around the same time when Blizzard said they lost 1 million subs.
Same with Eve which again occured during the RMT and station walking fiasco. So for me that validated that XFire is indeed accurate for seeing trends.
If you really have followed Xfire for the last 3-4 years, then you've been doing a crap job with it or you simply reboot your longterm memory every few months. 10-15% are you for real? I'm not gonna call you a liar straight out, but those figures are so much away from reality that they sound like a fraud -_-The REALITY (and not some made up story) was that the first months of 2011, WoW had a number of Xfire players hovering around 35k and above, compared with 16-18k now. That's less than 50% of what it had barely a year ago. EVE had around 2k players in Xfire around those times, compared to around 1.1k now. That's also around 50% less in a year, an Xfire trend that isn't reflected in subs or other tools that measure PCU or player hours.
If I recall it correctly, a year or 1.5 before that, in the course of 2009, I can recall WoW having the amount of player hours of 400-500k compared to the roughly 200k of a year ago and the less than 100k from now. EVE the same, it had like 20k hours in Xfire daily in 2009 compared to 4k hours now, while at the same time the number of subs for EVE has increased since then, not decreased with 75%.
Let's reach 100 pages discussing if xFire is good or not guys.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
It doesn't matter that only a small percentage of players use XFire. It shows a downturn in that small percentage which has to be representative of something.
The fact that the figures fall in line with server stats and every other metric available to us, including word of mouth, you can't deny a huge number of people have already left the game.
The nail in the coffin for the naysayers will come when the next subscription is due. I fully expect numbers to be less than half of the original population.
I decided to give BW the benefit of the doubt last month and subbed. I regret that move and have now cancelled.
The problems this game has are not things that can be patched or fixed easily and I think people are beginning to realise this now, especially as more and more hit level 50.
Sad but true, the game is a poor mmo wannabe.
This thread should have gotten locked more so than the other one. It is has lost the plot for the most part, and who wants to wade through 93 pages?
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
I agree, my last post was meant for your thread but it was locked before I hit the button.
Wery Incompenently done to shut down the new thread..
It doesn't have to be indicative of anything more than XFire players are playing fewer hours of ToR.
The figures can't be inline with server numbers because the server 'numbers' are unknown.
There is no conclusion drawn from XFire that isn't done with a leap of faith or guessing. Other than XFire players are playing greater or fewer hours of a particular game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Exactly, don't use polling mechanisms unless they are accurate.
XFire is far from accurate.
I would give an educated guess and say less than a quarter of The Old Republic's player base even uses Xfire.
I'm surprised anyone still uses it anymore.
I would be amazed if its even 5% of the entire community in games. Xfire use peaked itself around 2009, I know I took it out around 2008.
The above poster is using yearly samples, which are not a good measure since yearly xfire users is in decline itself. But in short periods of time, it does strongly show trends. The sample is not hand picked, though it is not random either, but it is large enough to be highly accurate for trends. Just not specifics.
Xfire isn't the whole 'population' but it gives a general idea of the trend. Can it be considered an absolute means to judge how things are? No. So many 'charts' or 'statistics' are ever really complete, it just can show a general trend that can be somewhat of an indication, while not being an absolute indicator. Either way, I'll bet without ANY numbers before me the number has dropped. Its not because of the game (despite my belief that its not very good at all), but because the trends in anything new. Any new game loses people after the first 'bang' and will typically gain more after big updates.
Sry it took time to notice your post and answer.
My original intent was, that if I track only the absolute value of hours played on XFire, that number will be affected by holidays, seasons, possibly even weather, and changes in total XFire users. But those factors should have roughly similar effects on similar games, so if I take two roughly similar games from XFire and divide their numbers (SWTOR hours played divided by WoW hours played), the ratio I get will not be effected much by those factors.
Look at the 4th column of my table.
SWTOR vs. WoW time played on XFire:
DATE
SWTOR
WOW
SWTOR/WOW
Dec 24th
62k hours
79k hours
78%
Dec 31st
63k hours
72k hours
88%
Jan 7th
73k hours
102k hours
72%
Jan 14th
68k hours
101k hours
67%
Jan 21st
56k hours
96k hours
58%
Jan 28th
40k hours
98k hours
41%
Feb 4th
44k hours
82k hours
54%
Feb 11th
39k hours
89k hours
44%
I think that by dividing SWTOR hours played with WoW hours played, it should be possible to eliminate the changes in number of XFire users.
Of course most MMORPG.com users will not look beoynd the 3rd row, because those numbers that are thousands of hours look much cooler then percents.