Originally posted by Darksand Well, maybe i just didn't look far enough during my quest of replacing SWG with another MMO. But why aren't there more real Sandbox MMo's out there?
It is such a shame since Ultima Online there has been so many games released which basically take the 'virtual world' concept and put it in the trash to build some multiplayer grinding game.
Eve online is a sandbox style of game but I don't know any others. Plus 26k players all logged on in the same world really makes Eve shine in the current 'sandbox' MMORPG market.
Originally posted by Fade saga of ryzom and EVE are the only sandbox mmos that come to mind. oh and to clarify on a previous statement: in SoR you level each skill (start off with 4: fight, magic, harvast, craft which then branch off at lvl 20 and branch off again at higher lvls) and when you gain a lvl in a skill you get skill points to buy abilities related to that skill.
I can't even attack someone when I wish to. I can't build my own home/base. SoR is a sandbox? I think not. Decent game but definately doesn't have much freedom.
UO is the only other "sandbox" out there right now. Believe it or not the only other game close to being a sandbox is Shadowbane (which happens to be free to play).
Eve online has more freedom than Ultima Online and is more like UO pre-Trammel.
Originally posted by Makane Originally posted by Elnator Originally posted by Darksand Originally posted by Elnator
clip
clip
WOW at 1 second of the night on a friday night there were 11k players online? Yes, I know all about that data. I saw it when it was originally posted and even have the URL to his website.
But.... What about the other 86,000 seconds of the day? There are 24 hours in a day. The average gamer plays between 2-3 hours. So if you multiply 11k out by 4 that's 44k players online over the course of the day (if those players play 6 hours a day, which they don't but I don't feel like trying to extrapolate the differences between peak time and non peak time since the person who took the snapshot didn't bother to get snapshots every 30 minutes or every hour which would have given a truer picture of the actual number of active players that day).
So, yeah.. 11k every 6 hours.... 4x11k = 44k Active players that Friday... as a rough educated guess. Looks like my number is pretty accurate, doncha think?
EDIT: What the heck, my wife isn't home yet (she's running late from work) so I'll do some basic statistical analysis (note: it's BASIC don't come throwing differential equations or trending at me, I don't feel like doing that crap and, as i said, the sample size cited by the above poster is too small to really do that, so we have to use educated guesswork)
So during peak time (roughly 5pm to 2am Eastern - a 9 hour stretch) 11k players are playing at any given point in time (Sample size cited above). Given the fact that your AVERAGE player plays between 2-3 hours a night that means we have roughly 33k unique players online during peak time.
Then at off hours suspect there's a 50-60% drop in number of players in the 3 hours prior and the 3 hours post peak... so another 10k total there (we're up to 43k players). Then during the rest of the day, Off peak, you probably have 10% of the rest of the population (10% of 43k is 4.3k) so roughly hmmm a total of 48k if we start trying to extrapolate based on educated guess.
As I said if the person who did the captures had taken snapshots at multiple times of the day the data would be more accurate. But as you can see above by using some well known 'norms' for MMORPG's you can extrapolate that there are roughly 40k ACTIVE players in the game. Which jibes with the number I gave.
Happy?
I'm a network engineer. One of my jobs is analyzing useage trends to identify when we need to increase bandwidth, server capacity or both on a 500,000 user network. So yeah... I do this crap daily. (Though our "peak" time is 7am to 4pm in each time zone since that's when folks are at work).
Pulling numbers out of thin air Elnator?
Sort of He's the one that decided to base the active number of players off a 1 second snapshot on 1 day of the year I was just using industry 'averages' to try to extrapolate that data out to prove a point Like I said, the sample size he cites is far far too small to use as any basis in fact. I'll stick with SirBruce's numbers and go with the "on average 1/4 of a game's players are actually actively playing". Which gives you a range of 40-60k players. Which is what people keep guessing as to how many folks are playing anyway... so it all works out fine
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Sig image Pending Still in: A couple Betas
Originally posted by Darksand Originally posted by Elnator
I suspect that you are correct, however. SWG's *active players* (not subscribers) are probably measured in the 40-60k range. Which is about right when you consider that, on average, about only 1/4-1/3 of an older game's subscribers are actually actively playing the game. Which would measure out to 120k to 240k subscribers.... which, oddly enough, jibes with SirBruces subscriber estimate. 180k falls right in the middle with a +/- 60k margin of error (which makes sense since his rating is a C)... I will say that I suspect the number is closer to 120k subs than to 240k subs though
Ehm where did u get the 40k-60k number? everybody here knows someone measured it on a friday night, and there where 11k people on all servers, including trial members, so i dont understand where u got those numbers, have i missed something? curious tho.
Well, let's just assume that his rationale is solid, I'm not so sure about the assumptions he's made. A fourth to a third or a game's subscribers? On what is this based, and does it take into account external forces like how many accounts per server you can have? (ie in old SWG, to have multiple characters on the same server, you needed multiple accounts - lots of old vets had several accounts, some as many as five or six - meaning that in old SWG less than 1/3 of the subscribers would be active)
Originally posted by Elnator Originally posted by fgetce Originally posted by ebenholt
Out of the 1 million boxes sold at that time I bet a lot of those 700k people that didn’t continue playing never had tried a MMO before so sure they wanted a “Star Warsy” experience. SOE isn’t wrong in that aspect.
Star Wars Galaxies never had 1 million subscribers. They had at its peak 300,000 subscribers. That statement about 1 million units sold is including the original boxed set, JTL and ROTW and the Total Experience combined.
Plus alot of people bought the original box set, than bought JTL and added it to their current account and than bought the Total Experience and added it to their current account to get the BARC speeder, right there are three box sets but only 1 subscriber account. Plus there are some people who got banned for exploits, cheating, ebaying, etc. and had to buy a new box set and start up a new account. All in all, SOE had about 300,000 subscribers at this games peak. As of now it is less than 100,000 (don't know the exact number).
And don't bother with MMORPGCHART.com that guy is just a guy, like you or me, with a site. He does not have any deep throats spilling their guts about their companys to him. He simply guesses when there isn't any official word from these gaming companies. Only once has SOE spouted about their SWG when it broke 300,000 and he posted it on his chart. Since than they have never announced their subscriber numbers, and now he is just guessing (and a very poor guess it is). They did anounce they sold 1 milion units, but like I said that number means nothing.
Nobody said that they had 1 million subscribers. They stated that 1 million people had bought the game. If you're going to correct him, at least do it correctly. And, I hate to break this to you, but SirBruce does have insider information on many of the games he is posting numbers for. His accuracy rating for SWG, however, is a C and he states why. Perhaps you should take the time to read his analysis instead of just looking at the purty charts and making assumptions on how he gets his information? He very clearly describes exactly how he obtains his data.
According to SirBruce's data (which has been proven to be quite accurate many times in the past so there's no real reason to doubt him) SWG has, currently, 190k subscribers. (people who have the game activated either individually or specifically activated on their AAP). How many are ACTIVE PLAYERS.... that's another story altogether... SirBruce reports subscribers... not active players.
You can 'assume' the numbers are below 100k all you want. SirBruce at least clearly states HOW he gets his data. While you are just pulling numbers out of thin air.
I suspect that you are correct, however. SWG's *active players* (not subscribers) are probably measured in the 40-60k range. Which is about right when you consider that, on average, about only 1/4-1/3 of an older game's subscribers are actually actively playing the game. Which would measure out to 120k to 240k subscribers.... which, oddly enough, jibes with SirBruces subscriber estimate. 180k falls right in the middle with a +/- 60k margin of error (which makes sense since his rating is a C)... I will say that I suspect the number is closer to 120k subs than to 240k subs though
Yes they did. Everyone assumes because SOE sold 1 million units this means 1 million people bought the game and tried it and quit. In fact, it is right there in the first post I quoted (no offense to the poster). They assumed out of the 1 million units sold 700,000 people tried it and quit. This is not true. What people seem to forget is that alot of gamers buy multiple accounts. In fact on this very forum there are players who own more than one account. You've got one guy buying 3 games, and than 3 expansions, another guy buys 1 game 1 expansion, and finally a guy who buys 2 games but one expansion. That right there is three people with 11 units among them. The acutal amount of people who bought SWG will never been known, that is why the anouncement said 1 million units sold and not 1 million people bought 1 million units. In the case of SWG, alot of people bought the total experience for one ore more of their accounts just for the barc speeder.
So you got 6 accounts, you buy 6 total experience units and add them to your previous 6 accounts. SOE subscriber numbers do not change, but their number of units sold increase by 6 thanks to one person
As for "SirBuce", don't hand me his stuff is accurate jargon. Let me show you something.
Ultmia Online => Origin Everquest => SOE Asheron's Call => Turbine Dark Age of Camelot => Mythic Runescape => Jagex Ltd. Final Fantasy => Square Enix The Sims Online => Electronic Arts Star Wars Galaxies => SOE City of Heroes => NCSOFT City of villains => NCSOFT Everuqesut II => SOE World of Warcraft => Blizzards Lineage => NCSOFT Lineage II => NCSOFT Dungeons & Dragons => Turbine
Those are some of the games he "reports" on. Do you honsetly think your going to convince me that he's got spys and informants in all this companies sending him company data? I'm sorry but he doesn't. All his data is either based on public anouncement by those very same companies or there his personal opinion/guess. Period
I might believe there is one unscrupulous employee at one of those companies that will risk being fired and a possible civil suit by sending him, what is basically, private company info. But not all of the ones he reports on. so don't hand me this he's sources are accurate stuff. Anyone can falsify an email, post, IM, etc. or hold up a picture of themself with an employee and say he tells me things; this is not proof. The only thing that would convince me is a public anouncement by one of his sources that can be proved to be an employee of one of those companies (hiring record, employee id, record of termination of employment, department they worked, public anouncment by the CEO of the company, etc.) who had access to that data. Than I may give him credit. Until than he is just a guy with a site, like anyone else in the world.
Comments
It is such a shame since Ultima Online there has been so many games released which basically take the 'virtual world' concept and put it in the trash to build some multiplayer grinding game.
Eve online is a sandbox style of game but I don't know any others. Plus 26k players all logged on in the same world really makes Eve shine in the current 'sandbox' MMORPG market.
WOW at 1 second of the night on a friday night there were 11k players online? Yes, I know all about that data. I saw it when it was originally posted and even have the URL to his website.
But.... What about the other 86,000 seconds of the day? There are 24 hours in a day. The average gamer plays between 2-3 hours. So if you multiply 11k out by 4 that's 44k players online over the course of the day (if those players play 6 hours a day, which they don't but I don't feel like trying to extrapolate the differences between peak time and non peak time since the person who took the snapshot didn't bother to get snapshots every 30 minutes or every hour which would have given a truer picture of the actual number of active players that day).
So, yeah.. 11k every 6 hours.... 4x11k = 44k Active players that Friday... as a rough educated guess.
Looks like my number is pretty accurate, doncha think?
EDIT:
What the heck, my wife isn't home yet (she's running late from work) so I'll do some basic statistical analysis (note: it's BASIC don't come throwing differential equations or trending at me, I don't feel like doing that crap and, as i said, the sample size cited by the above poster is too small to really do that, so we have to use educated guesswork)
So during peak time (roughly 5pm to 2am Eastern - a 9 hour stretch) 11k players are playing at any given point in time (Sample size cited above). Given the fact that your AVERAGE player plays between 2-3 hours a night that means we have roughly 33k unique players online during peak time.
Then at off hours suspect there's a 50-60% drop in number of players in the 3 hours prior and the 3 hours post peak... so another 10k total there (we're up to 43k players). Then during the rest of the day, Off peak, you probably have 10% of the rest of the population (10% of 43k is 4.3k) so roughly hmmm a total of 48k if we start trying to extrapolate based on educated guess.
As I said if the person who did the captures had taken snapshots at multiple times of the day the data would be more accurate. But as you can see above by using some well known 'norms' for MMORPG's you can extrapolate that there are roughly 40k ACTIVE players in the game. Which jibes with the number I gave.
Happy?
I'm a network engineer. One of my jobs is analyzing useage trends to identify when we need to increase bandwidth, server capacity or both on a 500,000 user network. So yeah... I do this crap daily. (Though our "peak" time is 7am to 4pm in each time zone since that's when folks are at work).
Pulling numbers out of thin air Elnator?
Sort of
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Well, let's just assume that his rationale is solid, I'm not so sure about the assumptions he's made. A fourth to a third or a game's subscribers? On what is this based, and does it take into account external forces like how many accounts per server you can have? (ie in old SWG, to have multiple characters on the same server, you needed multiple accounts - lots of old vets had several accounts, some as many as five or six - meaning that in old SWG less than 1/3 of the subscribers would be active)
Star Wars Galaxies never had 1 million subscribers. They had at its peak 300,000 subscribers. That statement about 1 million units sold is including the original boxed set, JTL and ROTW and the Total Experience combined.
Plus alot of people bought the original box set, than bought JTL and added it to their current account and than bought the Total Experience and added it to their current account to get the BARC speeder, right there are three box sets but only 1 subscriber account. Plus there are some people who got banned for exploits, cheating, ebaying, etc. and had to buy a new box set and start up a new account. All in all, SOE had about 300,000 subscribers at this games peak. As of now it is less than 100,000 (don't know the exact number).
And don't bother with MMORPGCHART.com that guy is just a guy, like you or me, with a site. He does not have any deep throats spilling their guts about their companys to him. He simply guesses when there isn't any official word from these gaming companies. Only once has SOE spouted about their SWG when it broke 300,000 and he posted it on his chart. Since than they have never announced their subscriber numbers, and now he is just guessing (and a very poor guess it is). They did anounce they sold 1 milion units, but like I said that number means nothing.
Nobody said that they had 1 million subscribers. They stated that 1 million people had bought the game. If you're going to correct him, at least do it correctly. And, I hate to break this to you, but SirBruce does have insider information on many of the games he is posting numbers for. His accuracy rating for SWG, however, is a C and he states why. Perhaps you should take the time to read his analysis instead of just looking at the purty charts and making assumptions on how he gets his information? He very clearly describes exactly how he obtains his data.
According to SirBruce's data (which has been proven to be quite accurate many times in the past so there's no real reason to doubt him) SWG has, currently, 190k subscribers. (people who have the game activated either individually or specifically activated on their AAP). How many are ACTIVE PLAYERS.... that's another story altogether... SirBruce reports subscribers... not active players.
You can 'assume' the numbers are below 100k all you want. SirBruce at least clearly states HOW he gets his data. While you are just pulling numbers out of thin air.
I suspect that you are correct, however. SWG's *active players* (not subscribers) are probably measured in the 40-60k range. Which is about right when you consider that, on average, about only 1/4-1/3 of an older game's subscribers are actually actively playing the game. Which would measure out to 120k to 240k subscribers.... which, oddly enough, jibes with SirBruces subscriber estimate. 180k falls right in the middle with a +/- 60k margin of error (which makes sense since his rating is a C)... I will say that I suspect the number is closer to 120k subs than to 240k subs though
Yes they did. Everyone assumes because SOE sold 1 million units this means 1 million people bought the game and tried it and quit. In fact, it is right there in the first post I quoted (no offense to the poster). They assumed out of the 1 million units sold 700,000 people tried it and quit. This is not true. What people seem to forget is that alot of gamers buy multiple accounts. In fact on this very forum there are players who own more than one account. You've got one guy buying 3 games, and than 3 expansions, another guy buys 1 game 1 expansion, and finally a guy who buys 2 games but one expansion. That right there is three people with 11 units among them. The acutal amount of people who bought SWG will never been known, that is why the anouncement said 1 million units sold and not 1 million people bought 1 million units. In the case of SWG, alot of people bought the total experience for one ore more of their accounts just for the barc speeder.
So you got 6 accounts, you buy 6 total experience units and add them to your previous 6 accounts. SOE subscriber numbers do not change, but their number of units sold increase by 6 thanks to one person
As for "SirBuce", don't hand me his stuff is accurate jargon. Let me show you something.
Ultmia Online => Origin
Everquest => SOE
Asheron's Call => Turbine
Dark Age of Camelot => Mythic
Runescape => Jagex Ltd.
Final Fantasy => Square Enix
The Sims Online => Electronic Arts
Star Wars Galaxies => SOE
City of Heroes => NCSOFT
City of villains => NCSOFT
Everuqesut II => SOE
World of Warcraft => Blizzards
Lineage => NCSOFT
Lineage II => NCSOFT
Dungeons & Dragons => Turbine
Those are some of the games he "reports" on. Do you honsetly think your going to convince me that he's got spys and informants in all this companies sending him company data? I'm sorry but he doesn't. All his data is either based on public anouncement by those very same companies or there his personal opinion/guess. Period
I might believe there is one unscrupulous employee at one of those companies that will risk being fired and a possible civil suit by sending him, what is basically, private company info. But not all of the ones he reports on. so don't hand me this he's sources are accurate stuff. Anyone can falsify an email, post, IM, etc. or hold up a picture of themself with an employee and say he tells me things; this is not proof. The only thing that would convince me is a public anouncement by one of his sources that can be proved to be an employee of one of those companies (hiring record, employee id, record of termination of employment, department they worked, public anouncment by the CEO of the company, etc.) who had access to that data. Than I may give him credit. Until than he is just a guy with a site, like anyone else in the world.
The Internet, the ultimate bathroom wall.