Originally posted by strangiato2112 Originally posted by SaunZOriginally posted by strangiato2112Originally posted by SaunZexact game populations can be derived from using the XFire database; humans just haven't discovered the correct algorithm to do so.Sz)
No, it can't. Unless you took a survey of every MMORPG player in ever single MMORPG to find out if they used xfire so you can find the exact percentage for each game, in which case you would know the counts without xfire.At a bare minimum you would have to run a model for every single MMORPG to try to determine what % of its players use xfire. its reasonable to believe a game like TERA has more than 5% of its players using xfire, whereas a game like EQ1 likely has less than 1/10 of a percent. And since we would be using models, the numbers wouldnt be exact. You probably could get a ballpark figure with 5-10% margin of error but it would take a long time to do all the studies necessary to set up models. "No it can't" or "you probably could"? come back when you can put a single thought together.your model idea is close but not how it was done... at least YOU are warm.Sz)You should probably drop the whole condescending routine, because you lack the basic comprehension of the English language to pull it off.
You said you could get an *exact* number. I said you can't, but could probably get a rough ballpark number. Exact isn't really a big vocabulary word, so maybe its the phrase 'ballpark' that's throwing you off? But even so the context of the sentence should clue you in to what it represents.
My suggestion is you stop posting before you embarrass yourself any further.
You would need information that XFire doesn't release for free, and probably the cooperation of the developer of the game you wanted to get numbers for. If nothing else, you'd need their cooperation to confirm that your model's numbers are some measure of reality. If you could secure the cooperation of the developer, why wouldn't you just get them to give you the numbers in the first place?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
XFire, alone, can't tell you everything - but it can be one piece of the puzzle that can help you get a pretty good (depends on your definition, I suppose) guess.
It should be very effective (in the shorter term) for identifying trends in populations - regardless of the game.
XFire, alone, can't tell you everything - but it can be one piece of the puzzle that can help you get a pretty good (depends on your definition, I suppose) guess.
It should be very effective (in the shorter term) for identifying trends in populations - regardless of the game.
On the contrary.
In the launching period every game will loose MUCH activity because of the following factors:
- 90% of all sales are done within the first weeks.
- Players play 10 hours a day sometimes for very popular games in these launching weeks.
- After X time the playing time will be much less (10 hours --->2-3 hours).
- The new sales will never cover the initial launching period.
The above means that EVERY new launched game will loose around 80% activity in just 1 to 3 months time.
Effectively giving the hate trolls the opportunity to scream: game is dying all over the place.
The bigger the launching sales numbers, the bigger the fall really.
I can't believe this thread is still pinned... such a waste of space. Xfire can only track Xfire users, which I highly doubt is a very diverse group of people. This forum itself can track gaming trends sans xfire much better. Is the OP a friend of the mods or something? I remember reading that he made this request and was granted it, but isn't it time we lay this thread to rest? No one is even using it...
Originally posted by madazz I can't believe this thread is still pinned... such a waste of space. Xfire can only track Xfire users, which I highly doubt is a very diverse group of people. This forum itself can track gaming trends sans xfire much better. Is the OP a friend of the mods or something? I remember reading that he made this request and was granted it, but isn't it time we lay this thread to rest? No one is even using it...
Working as intended.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by madazz Ahh okay... so we are to treat it as a piece of art... just something to look at but not contribute too.
I said, "working as intended" because people aren't ruining other threads with XFire arguments. Whether people are or are not talking about XFire at all is a secondary consideration.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by madazz Ahh okay... so we are to treat it as a piece of art... just something to look at but not contribute too.
I said, "working as intended" because people aren't ruining other threads with XFire arguments. Whether people are or are not talking about XFire at all is a secondary consideration.
I have been playing online games for better part of 20 years and have never installed xfire or a similar tool on any PC I have owned. On the other hand I know many who swear by it.
xfire users is a tainted sample so no you really can't use them for anything. It would be like polling rich white guys who they are going to vote for and saying that you had a valid poll for the entire population. Some games don't play nice with it so people turn it off when they play those ones, some games appeal to younger players and very few younger players use xfire etc.
Originally posted by MMOGamer71 I have been playing MMO's since Dark Age of Camelot and I know of NOONE that uses Xfire.
apps like xfire and raptr etc, are very limited in how they work, so they never really gained any popularity. They don't really add anything to a game, its not like they are useful like programs such as mumble, ventrilo or Teamspeak, now if those apps provided a graph of game useage then that would be different as the userbase is far more widespread, but even then there are many that don't use any form of voice comms, as hard to believe as that may be.
Xfire etc, are just apps that provide interesting talking points, but they don't really provide any kind of valid data even on gaming trends, the sample size is far too small and far too narrowly specialised to be in any sense meaningful.
Xfire is only used when fanbois find it useful to their cause or haters find it useful to their cause. Its not good for anything but to track your playing time that's all.
Originally posted by Phry Originally posted by MMOGamer71I have been playing MMO's since Dark Age of Camelot and I know of NOONE that uses Xfire.
apps like xfire and raptr etc, are very limited in how they work, so they never really gained any popularity. They don't really add anything to a game, its not like they are useful like programs such as mumble, ventrilo or Teamspeak, now if those apps provided a graph of game useage then that would be different as the userbase is far more widespread, but even then there are many that don't use any form of voice comms, as hard to believe as that may be.
Xfire etc, are just apps that provide interesting talking points, but they don't really provide any kind of valid data even on gaming trends, the sample size is far too small and far too narrowly specialised to be in any sense meaningful.
Not to mention the point of XFire and Raptr isn't tracking populations for the players to talk about. They are meant to be social networking websites for gamers, and the companies get to collect the information that is useful to the companies, none of which they tell the public and all of which they sell to developers.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Even if xfire was 100% accurate, would it not be hard to determine numbers still as we do not know the total number of MMO players?
We can see how many percent of their users play what game, but we would need at least one more valid data point, other then EVE, that we knew for sure to be correct.
If mmorpg.com had a built in "played" function, that were actually tied into all MMO's I bet we could get pretty damn close to the truth.
Still a bit skewed sample, but big enough and diverse enough that it would be fairly close.
Valve and Steam could probably produce estimates that were within a few percent of reality, not only for the games on their service.
It is not that xfire is to small a sample, but it is far from random and that makes it hard to extrapolate.
Asking 20000 completely random, ( yes, even grandma aged 80, in fact, you must include her ), americans what mmo's they play would give pretty precise numbers, because you know how many americans there are.
Would be valid for the US, and for a month or two tops.
20k would be, for almost any other survey, considered a huge sample, but considering how small the % of those are actual mmo players it might even be a bit small, but you get the idea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
X fire is good ... BUT .. as a tool to measure populations of a game ... NOT GOOD...
Statistical numbering requires an even distribution. If say 90% of X fire Users play Neverwinter the number is high, but if say 15% also play WOW .. it looks small. If you have 1000 players all using x fire .. the beakdown would be
900 Neverwinter
150 WOW
This would be like doing a TV rating system only based on Sony TV owners. Your Samling is incorrect to the number of players that are not using X fire.
Taking the same numbers again ... but this time 5000 people are on each server (I am using random numbers to illistrate a point)
5000 - 900 = 4100 not invluded in the statistic (x fire = 18% of the population)
5000 - 150 = 4850 not included in the statistic (x fire = 3% of the population)
Now for X fire to be what you say it should be ... everyone has to use it ... or at least 95% of all players.
If anyone is wondering who's fault it is that XFire showed up here at MMORPG.com, it's this thread, and this guy. I am reasonably sure this is the first X-Fire thread to show up on the forums.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Nadia i wish this site still had my posts from 2004
They are there, they just aren't linked to your profile. If you look at that guy's profile, it says he has no posts, but his post is there in the forums. You just have to go through the forums, page by page to find them.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Its simple: Any tool that has only a small audience that doesn't consist of the general populace in terms of having an equal number of members of all different preferences likes/dislikes is a completely flawed and unreliable tool. XFire isn't some popular thing, its actual population is low and I'm more then certain its population doesn't evenly label out a good majority of the population of players.
With that logic, you are saying that if I were to take a poll of say Fox News Viewers of their preferences of the Democratic Party Vs Republican Party, despite being a Republican propaganda machine, that the poll results will show a result that represents the general public, despite the fact its viewers are often republican favored, and as I believe last polled, consists primarily of the 68+ demographic. Its not going to be accurate at all.
Don't ressurect a thread that has 0 merit behind it and for those who use any relative though, is quite obviously a false statement that no one can remotely debate to be true.
Comments
"No it can't" or "you probably could"? come back when you can put a single thought together. your model idea is close but not how it was done... at least YOU are warm. Sz
You should probably drop the whole condescending routine, because you lack the basic comprehension of the English language to pull it off.
You said you could get an *exact* number. I said you can't, but could probably get a rough ballpark number. Exact isn't really a big vocabulary word, so maybe its the phrase 'ballpark' that's throwing you off? But even so the context of the sentence should clue you in to what it represents.
My suggestion is you stop posting before you embarrass yourself any further.
You would need information that XFire doesn't release for free, and probably the cooperation of the developer of the game you wanted to get numbers for. If nothing else, you'd need their cooperation to confirm that your model's numbers are some measure of reality. If you could secure the cooperation of the developer, why wouldn't you just get them to give you the numbers in the first place?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
XFire, alone, can't tell you everything - but it can be one piece of the puzzle that can help you get a pretty good (depends on your definition, I suppose) guess.
It should be very effective (in the shorter term) for identifying trends in populations - regardless of the game.
On the contrary.
In the launching period every game will loose MUCH activity because of the following factors:
- 90% of all sales are done within the first weeks.
- Players play 10 hours a day sometimes for very popular games in these launching weeks.
- After X time the playing time will be much less (10 hours --->2-3 hours).
- The new sales will never cover the initial launching period.
The above means that EVERY new launched game will loose around 80% activity in just 1 to 3 months time.
Effectively giving the hate trolls the opportunity to scream: game is dying all over the place.
The bigger the launching sales numbers, the bigger the fall really.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Working as intended.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I said, "working as intended" because people aren't ruining other threads with XFire arguments. Whether people are or are not talking about XFire at all is a secondary consideration.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Excellent perspective.
It's a useful tool to guesstimate, nothing more.
I have been playing online games for better part of 20 years and have never installed xfire or a similar tool on any PC I have owned. On the other hand I know many who swear by it.
xfire users is a tainted sample so no you really can't use them for anything. It would be like polling rich white guys who they are going to vote for and saying that you had a valid poll for the entire population. Some games don't play nice with it so people turn it off when they play those ones, some games appeal to younger players and very few younger players use xfire etc.
These numbers are utterly meaningless.
apps like xfire and raptr etc, are very limited in how they work, so they never really gained any popularity. They don't really add anything to a game, its not like they are useful like programs such as mumble, ventrilo or Teamspeak, now if those apps provided a graph of game useage then that would be different as the userbase is far more widespread, but even then there are many that don't use any form of voice comms, as hard to believe as that may be.
Xfire etc, are just apps that provide interesting talking points, but they don't really provide any kind of valid data even on gaming trends, the sample size is far too small and far too narrowly specialised to be in any sense meaningful.
Xfire etc, are just apps that provide interesting talking points, but they don't really provide any kind of valid data even on gaming trends, the sample size is far too small and far too narrowly specialised to be in any sense meaningful.
Not to mention the point of XFire and Raptr isn't tracking populations for the players to talk about. They are meant to be social networking websites for gamers, and the companies get to collect the information that is useful to the companies, none of which they tell the public and all of which they sell to developers.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Even if xfire was 100% accurate, would it not be hard to determine numbers still as we do not know the total number of MMO players?
We can see how many percent of their users play what game, but we would need at least one more valid data point, other then EVE, that we knew for sure to be correct.
If mmorpg.com had a built in "played" function, that were actually tied into all MMO's I bet we could get pretty damn close to the truth.
Still a bit skewed sample, but big enough and diverse enough that it would be fairly close.
Valve and Steam could probably produce estimates that were within a few percent of reality, not only for the games on their service.
It is not that xfire is to small a sample, but it is far from random and that makes it hard to extrapolate.
Asking 20000 completely random, ( yes, even grandma aged 80, in fact, you must include her ), americans what mmo's they play would give pretty precise numbers, because you know how many americans there are.
Would be valid for the US, and for a month or two tops.
20k would be, for almost any other survey, considered a huge sample, but considering how small the % of those are actual mmo players it might even be a bit small, but you get the idea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
X fire is good ... BUT .. as a tool to measure populations of a game ... NOT GOOD...
Statistical numbering requires an even distribution. If say 90% of X fire Users play Neverwinter the number is high, but if say 15% also play WOW .. it looks small. If you have 1000 players all using x fire .. the beakdown would be
900 Neverwinter
150 WOW
This would be like doing a TV rating system only based on Sony TV owners. Your Samling is incorrect to the number of players that are not using X fire.
Taking the same numbers again ... but this time 5000 people are on each server (I am using random numbers to illistrate a point)
5000 - 900 = 4100 not invluded in the statistic (x fire = 18% of the population)
5000 - 150 = 4850 not included in the statistic (x fire = 3% of the population)
Now for X fire to be what you say it should be ... everyone has to use it ... or at least 95% of all players.
Statisticaly ... not happening ...
If anyone is wondering who's fault it is that XFire showed up here at MMORPG.com, it's this thread, and this guy. I am reasonably sure this is the first X-Fire thread to show up on the forums.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
EQ2 fan sites
They are there, they just aren't linked to your profile. If you look at that guy's profile, it says he has no posts, but his post is there in the forums. You just have to go through the forums, page by page to find them.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
Its simple: Any tool that has only a small audience that doesn't consist of the general populace in terms of having an equal number of members of all different preferences likes/dislikes is a completely flawed and unreliable tool. XFire isn't some popular thing, its actual population is low and I'm more then certain its population doesn't evenly label out a good majority of the population of players.
With that logic, you are saying that if I were to take a poll of say Fox News Viewers of their preferences of the Democratic Party Vs Republican Party, despite being a Republican propaganda machine, that the poll results will show a result that represents the general public, despite the fact its viewers are often republican favored, and as I believe last polled, consists primarily of the 68+ demographic. Its not going to be accurate at all.
Don't ressurect a thread that has 0 merit behind it and for those who use any relative though, is quite obviously a false statement that no one can remotely debate to be true.