The content in LOTRO becomes something less than desirable, and weeds out those who like to game a lot. As I did a study a while back for most LOTRO players, and the average player who LOVED the game played 1-2 hours at most.
First of all, you quite simply did not survey most LotRo players (200k people?). That's a lie and by association makes you a liar.
Secondly, I can refute your claim. Most of the people I play with, play for 20+ hours a week, so there, you're wrong on that front as well. I'll go further, many of them have been around since UO/EQ1, so they aren't casuals.
You've both wandered into a fuzzy area here.
Your personal experience of players playing 20+ hours a week is pretty meaningless, but so is Edge's "study" unless we can see some details. Precisely how did he conduct the study? Who was he conducting it for? What does he mean by "most" players and how did he measure their "love"?
I wouldn't go throwing around words like "liar" yet, but I would query the claim.
If it was the first questionable statement he'd made, I wouldn't have. But it isn't.
I can back up my claims, simply put, Openedge says that people DONT play more than 1-2 hours a day. I do, my Kin does and many of the people I interact with do.
He has been making these fraudulent claims for a long time (never backed up with fact, just HIS opinions). He has said the Lotro is a casual game and in the same sentence, tried to maintain that GW is complex and difficult.
He has every right to voice his opinions, but they have no basis in fact and he only comes here to try and stir the pot. If you go through his posts concerning this game, you will see exactly what I mean.
I can back up my claims, simply put, Openedge says that people DONT play more than 1-2 hours a day. I do, my Kin does and many of the people I interact with do.
No, he didn't. I'll grant his wording is a little vague and open to interpretation, but not the interpretation you've slapped on it.
As I did a study a while back for most LOTRO players, and the average player who LOVED the game played 1-2 hours at most.
Assuming he actually conducted a real study - this statement indicates that he identified a specific group of players within the population whose response to a question like "what is the longest time you will spend playing LOTRO for a single session?" and none of them answered more than 2 hours.
He may also have worded his statement badly and meant that on average, that specific group played for 2 hours at most.
I can see why you think he's said what you think he's said but he hasn't. You're making assumptions about the players whose responses he hasn't mentioned in his statement. He said "the average player who LOVED the game" not "all players".
I have degrees in research and statistics and I know this stuff. Reporting statistics to give a false impression - without actually telling a lie - is a widespread practice. Interpreting any statistic can be tricky.
Personally I'm dubious about this study he conducted, but you really don't have grounds to call him a liar just based on what we have.
I can back up my claims, simply put, Openedge says that people DONT play more than 1-2 hours a day. I do, my Kin does and many of the people I interact with do.
No, he didn't. I'll grant his wording is a little vague and open to interpretation, but not the interpretation you've slapped on it.
As I did a study a while back for most LOTRO players, and the average player who LOVED the game played 1-2 hours at most.
Assuming he actually conducted a real study - this statement indicates that he identified a specific group of players within the population whose response to a question like "what is the longest time you will spend playing LOTRO for a single session?" and none of them answered more than 2 hours.
He may also have worded his statement badly and meant that on average, that specific group played for 2 hours at most.
I can see why you think he's said what you think he's said but he hasn't. You're making assumptions about the players whose responses he hasn't mentioned in his statement. He said "the average player who LOVED the game" not "all players".
I have degrees in research and statistics and I know this stuff. Reporting statistics to give a false impression - without actually telling a lie - is a widespread practice. Interpreting any statistic can be tricky.
Personally I'm dubious about this study he conducted, but you really don't have grounds to call him a liar just based on what we have.
He just did a small poll here in this forum, and some people responded including myself.
Also Turbine is a private company and does not in any way, shape or form have to tell anyone about how the company is doing. Funcom on the other hand is a public company and must let shareholders know the ins and outs of how the company is doing.
****************************** Brandywine Global LFF chan "/joinchannel glff"
I can back up my claims, simply put, Openedge says that people DONT play more than 1-2 hours a day. I do, my Kin does and many of the people I interact with do.
No, he didn't. I'll grant his wording is a little vague and open to interpretation, but not the interpretation you've slapped on it.
As I did a study a while back for most LOTRO players, and the average player who LOVED the game played 1-2 hours at most.
Assuming he actually conducted a real study - this statement indicates that he identified a specific group of players within the population whose response to a question like "what is the longest time you will spend playing LOTRO for a single session?" and none of them answered more than 2 hours.
He may also have worded his statement badly and meant that on average, that specific group played for 2 hours at most.
I can see why you think he's said what you think he's said but he hasn't. You're making assumptions about the players whose responses he hasn't mentioned in his statement. He said "the average player who LOVED the game" not "all players".
I have degrees in research and statistics and I know this stuff. Reporting statistics to give a false impression - without actually telling a lie - is a widespread practice. Interpreting any statistic can be tricky.
Personally I'm dubious about this study he conducted, but you really don't have grounds to call him a liar just based on what we have.
Thanks for pointing this out...the wording is incorrect, and I apologize.
The words should be
I did a study a while back AND for most players, the average player (the word player could also be dropped here as well) for someone who LOVED the game was 1-2 hours.
In so many words, out of this study (which was conducted here, on the VN boards, on my blog, TTH, etc..a total of 6 forums and 2 blogs total) on a rough average of 680+ responses (it was 684 I believe, but I will have to go back to my data) the overall response proved to be 1-2 hours. Yet for games like WoW, Guild Wars, etc, the play time was considerably larger.
In so many words, a "casual" crowd was found to enjoy LOTRO quite a bit. And this was based on the small amount of answers I received.
It was never scientific, but really drove home the fact that more people take their time with LOTRO than other games. I NEVER stated all 200k, and we all know these types of studies will never gain the full subscriber ship.
But, as you can tell, my friends here would prefer to find even the smallest out of place word to make me look foolish, when a simple discussion and question would have sufficed to get the right answer.
Secondly, I can refute your claim. Most of the people I play with, play for 20+ hours a week, so there, you're wrong on that front as well. I'll go further, many of them have been around since UO/EQ1, so they aren't casuals.
As I already stated, my wording was incorrect, but I understand that you would prefer to attack than discuss, and I am sorry you must be that way.
For myself, I do still wish to discuss, and wish to question what the average player you play with (how many would that be first of all..5? 10? 3?) is doing for 20+ hours a week,
How many alts do YOU have? And how many hours do you play? And for that amount of time what exactly are you doing?
Are you in a guild? could you possibly show a screenshot of how large that guild is?
I really believe the reason so many people keep saying the servers seem so empty is that a "majority" (based on the small study I did) only play for short periods of time, as they have run out of content. This may also explain the phenomenon of the servers being only less than a 1/4 of the size of WoW
Yes, that is an opinion also. So, attacks of calling me a liar are really unnecessary. I believe you have been warned before about attacks, so lets keep it civil, and leave the name calling out
Secondly, I can refute your claim. Most of the people I play with, play for 20+ hours a week, so there, you're wrong on that front as well. I'll go further, many of them have been around since UO/EQ1, so they aren't casuals.
As I already stated, my wording was incorrect, but I understand that you would prefer to attack than discuss, and I am sorry you must be that way.
For myself, I do still wish to discuss, and wish to question what the average player you play with (how many would that be first of all..5? 10? 3?) is doing for 20+ hours a week,
How many alts do YOU have? And how many hours do you play? And for that amount of time what exactly are you doing?
Are you in a guild? could you possibly show a screenshot of how large that guild is?
I really believe the reason so many people keep saying the servers seem so empty is that a "majority" (based on the small study I did) only play for short periods of time, as they have run out of content. This may also explain the phenomenon of the servers being only less than a 1/4 of the size of WoW
Yes, that is an opinion also. So, attacks of calling me a liar are really unnecessary. I believe you have been warned before about attacks, so lets keep it civil, and leave the name calling out
thanks
We are on a forum, I go with what you write. You wrote (what sounded like) you had surveyed the entire Lotro community. I reacted to that. Now you're saying it was a mistake, OK, Ill give you the benefit of the doubt.
Secondly, I have attacked you before because sometimes I feel you are only here to cause trouble and others feel the same way. Many people have PM'd me in solidarity. However, those last few posts were not attacks, they were reactions to things YOU said.
Why is it so important for you to do "studies" on a game you don't play? What is your fascination with a game you constantly tell us you don't like? You do realise that it seems irrational, right? Maybe you should "study" a game you enjoy and play.
Now, back on topic.
I am in a Kin (Guild). This is my third Kin across three servers, 2 in Europe, 1 in USA because I recently moved back to the USA. I wont bother with the Euro servers because that was over 6 months ago and I have no idea whats happening on there so it would be unfair of me to speak of them.
The regular players (about 20 at the moment, but it is Summer), in my Kin on Nimrodel are definitely on at least 20 hours a week and most are on more than that. I have racked up around 14 hours since Monday morning for example.
I have 3 x 50 Characters, I tend to play my hunter more than the others but my Minstrel gets a fair bit of use as well. I spend my time helping others in the Kin, adventuring, PvMPing and raiding.
Hope that helps, and in closing, Ill say this. Maybe you aren't the hater you seem to be, but again, you are on a forum and I hate to say it but that is how you are coming across (and not just to me). If I have misread you, then I apologise, but it is very hard to guage someones intentions over this medium.
S
PS : I cant give you pictures as I dont know if the other guys would appreciate that, but I can assure you I have no reason to lie and you are more than welcome to visit Nimrodel as we are almost always around.
I was on the Gladden server. I simply got tired of running around and rarely seeing other players except for in the big cities. Groups were simply Impossible to find and forget the storyline quests. Finding someone close to where you were was not possible. This was my experience in the game, and I dont keep odd hours.
So rather than showing that LoTRO fans are more casual than most MMO fans, the overall results of his "study" actually contradict his point. 1-3 hours a night seems to be pretty normal for an MMO player. Apart from that you can't really say much from his polls.
It's also unclear whether most of those were "1-3 hours on most nights, but more on the weekends" or "never more than 1-3 hours." I would suspect the former, but who knows.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I did a study a while back AND for most players, the average player (the word player could also be dropped here as well) for someone who LOVED the game was 1-2 hours. In so many words, out of this study (which was conducted here, on the VN boards, on my blog, TTH, etc..a total of 6 forums and 2 blogs total) on a rough average of 680+ responses (it was 684 I believe, but I will have to go back to my data) the overall response proved to be 1-2 hours. Yet for games like WoW, Guild Wars, etc, the play time was considerably larger. In so many words, a "casual" crowd was found to enjoy LOTRO quite a bit. And this was based on the small amount of answers I received.
That's pretty interesting. I'm still not sure you have the wording quite right, but can't tell without knowing how you worded the question and how you measured the responses.
But the basic gist seems quite clear - on average, LOTRO is played in shorter sessions than other mmos.
To address Sharky's 20+ hour a week friends... if they each played 3 hours a day and 7 days a week, they'd only be slightly above average according to Edge's results. The important thing with this kind of data is how different games compare, not the actual numbers. There's always measurement error with these things, but it would (all other things being equal) apply equally to all games, therefore comparisons between them can be made.
My own (bad) experience with WoW was that raids alone could chew up 20 hours a week so I don't find Edge's results at all unbelievable. To me, the time required for some activities in WoW crossed the line from fun into work very quickly. But given the game's popularity I seem to be in a minority on that score.
Those results are interesting - if LOTRO has a particular appeal to casual gamers, then Turbine would either want to spin their promotional material in this direction, or make gameplay changes to broaden appeal.
I did a study a while back AND for most players, the average player (the word player could also be dropped here as well) for someone who LOVED the game was 1-2 hours. In so many words, out of this study (which was conducted here, on the VN boards, on my blog, TTH, etc..a total of 6 forums and 2 blogs total) on a rough average of 680+ responses (it was 684 I believe, but I will have to go back to my data) the overall response proved to be 1-2 hours. Yet for games like WoW, Guild Wars, etc, the play time was considerably larger. In so many words, a "casual" crowd was found to enjoy LOTRO quite a bit. And this was based on the small amount of answers I received.
That's pretty interesting. I'm still not sure you have the wording quite right, but can't tell without knowing how you worded the question and how you measured the responses.
But the basic gist seems quite clear - on average, LOTRO is played in shorter sessions than other mmos.
you can see that the average hours played per night per respondant was roughly 3.9 hours (assuming that those that claim to play 24/7 actually only play 12 hours a day, assigning 1.5 hours to category 1, 5 hours to category 2, and 7 hours to category 3).
If you multiply that by 7, you come up with an average of 27 hours per week. That actually slightly higher than averages reported by those that have done real academic research on MMO usage patterns:
I haven't posted regarding LotRO in quite a while, but I found the vehemence exhibited in this thread quite intriguing (I am surprised anyone could actually get 'worked up' about LotRO at this late date).
The bottom line is that LotRO did not meet Turbine's expectations. I will repeat: LotRO did not meet Turbine's corporate expectations. President and CEO Jeff Anderson claimed early on that 1 million subscribers was the corporate goal for LotRO. He expressed an earnest desire to go head-to-head with WoW. Well, Mr. Anderson was fired in October 2007 in an overnight corporate shake-up. All references to his name and title were expunged and to date I am unsure if Turbine ever offered a press release regarding his swift departure (I am certain a fanboi or two will supply the necessary documentation if I am wrong) .
From my own experience (with nothing like the massive amount of 'factual' data supplied for or against LotRO in this thread), CEO's only get fired if they do not meet expectations. Now, I am sure that LotRo was not the only reason the memory of Mr. Anderson was totally removed from Turbine's corporate ledger (like the erasing of Pharoah Ankhenaton name and the defacing of his image off the pyramids): Dungeons and Dragons performed miserably for quite awhile, and let us not forget the debacle that was AC2; however, LotRO was, shall we say, the One Ring of all MMORPGs, and Anderson was Gollum falling into the fires of Mount Doom when it did not reach specified market saturation
200,000 to 400,000 subscribers for LotRO is what I have seen mentioned here and elsewhere, which seems fair and equitable, and those numbers would be considered a great success....before the advent of WoW; nowadays, however, that number is barely sufficient for a major online game, particularly with so many new competitors coming along to grab marketshare away from any and everyone (plus, gaming fans as a whole are a rather fickle and an attention-deficited lot).
I am not here to argue the merits or demerits of the game, per se, as I gave up on it long ago (and made my intentions clear at that time); however, I do find it amusing that Turbine totally scuttled MEO (Middle-earth Online), shrank its geographic footprint, removed many innovative features, and renamed the game LotRO, choosing instead to pursue the WoW market with similar game controls and graphic interface. They even ditched the motto "Come live in Middle-earth" for what one of their own designers described as "prove to everyone that you are a great hero and deserve great riches!" This, of course, goes against the very philosophy of Tolkien, but that's beside the point.
The point is, 200,000 to 400,000 players in this current business cycle is a niche game. It's too bad they didn't leave LotRO as MEO, because personally, I would have loved that niche game (I would add that might be the case for many thousands of others who either left the game or lost interest after MEO was canned, but I would be described as unfactual, and I hate to be unfactual). This ties into what Green13 was implying regarding LotRO's tedious reliance on the basic Lord of the Ring storyline, and not offering any tangible results for a players efforts (except the dubious satisfaction of knowing you've continuously slaughtered thousands of wargs, auroch, boars and orcs to reach level 50). I never felt at home in LotRO, although reading the books for many years I certainly feel I'm in Middle-earth.
Anyway, If you enjoy the game, keep playing. I won't try to persuade you otherwise (and as we all know, trying to persuade a fanboi against a game requires religious deprogramming and months in rehab). I just know in my heart that this current game is not what it could have been, and it is a sorry reflection of Middle-earth. Again, my opinion. Ah well, that's that.
If you take the numbers from Open's poll here, www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/190445/page/1 you can see that the average hours played per night per respondant was roughly 3.9 hours (assuming that those that claim to play 24/7 actually only play 12 hours a day, assigning 1.5 hours to category 1, 5 hours to category 2, and 7 hours to category 3). If you multiply that by 7, you come up with an average of 27 hours per week. That actually slightly higher than averages reported by those that have done real academic research on MMO usage patterns: www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001536.php You can see from their data that average playtimes of much over 24 hours a week are quite rare, and occur mainly among 17-22 year olds.
Unfortunately, as Open himself has admitted, his method of data collection wasn't what we'd call scientific. And that's fair enough for what he was doing. However, comparing his data to data in other studies is not something I'd do.
For example, there's an obvious sample bias. You'd expect that the folk who hang out on these forums are a little more hard-core, so it wouldn't be surprising if the respondents in Open's surveys all spent more time playing mmos than respondents in a survey with a more representative sample.
The best you can do with that data is make comparisons between different games, which is what he did. That's reasonably safe because the same kinds of problems (eg. sample bias) would apply equally to all of those games' results.
I have to admit I can't actually see the results for his surveys. The forum won't display them unless I vote, and I don't play any of those games and don't feel like polluting the results. Is there some trick to seeing them?
If we want to criticise Open's surveys, the thing I'd point to his his response choices. I think, eg. the 1-3 hour bracket is too broad, and there's no < 1 hour option. I think there'd be quite a difference between someone who plays for 1 hour a day and someone who plays for 3 - putting them both in the same category is going to hide potentially interesting results.
If you take the numbers from Open's poll here, www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/190445/page/1 you can see that the average hours played per night per respondant was roughly 3.9 hours (assuming that those that claim to play 24/7 actually only play 12 hours a day, assigning 1.5 hours to category 1, 5 hours to category 2, and 7 hours to category 3). If you multiply that by 7, you come up with an average of 27 hours per week. That actually slightly higher than averages reported by those that have done real academic research on MMO usage patterns: www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001536.php You can see from their data that average playtimes of much over 24 hours a week are quite rare, and occur mainly among 17-22 year olds.
Unfortunately, as Open himself has admitted, his method of data collection wasn't what we'd call scientific. And that's fair enough for what he was doing. However, comparing his data to data in other studies is not something I'd do.
For example, there's an obvious sample bias. You'd expect that the folk who hang out on these forums are a little more hard-core, so it wouldn't be surprising if the respondents in Open's surveys all spent more time playing mmos than respondents in a survey with a more representative sample.
The best you can do with that data is make comparisons between different games, which is what he did. That's reasonably safe because the same kinds of problems (eg. sample bias) would apply equally to all of those games' results.
I have to admit I can't actually see the results for his surveys. The forum won't display them unless I vote, and I don't play any of those games and don't feel like polluting the results. Is there some trick to seeing them?
If we want to criticise Open's surveys, the thing I'd point to his his response choices. I think, eg. the 1-3 hour bracket is too broad, and there's no < 1 hour option. I think there'd be quite a difference between someone who plays for 1 hour a day and someone who plays for 3 - putting them both in the same category is going to hide potentially interesting results.
I was actually playing all of them off and on at the time because of the free time they gave us in EQ II over the summer. 1-3 hours per day was the most popular category in all three polls, with 39% of respondents going for it in WoW, 50% in LoTRO, and 70% in EQ II. Turn that on it's head and you have 50% of players playing for more than 28 hours a week in LoTRO, versus 60% in WoW and less than 30% in EQ II.
I doubt that those exact percentages would hold up to a bigger census. If I had to guess, I'd say that EQ II and LoTRO would roughly converge on time played with WoW haveing slightly higher times played due to slightly younger demographics, and thus a greater percentage of players in that 17-22 "hardcore" crowd I mentioned before (wild speculation, I will allow).
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
... I do find it amusing that Turbine totally scuttled MEO (Middle-earth Online), shrank its geographic footprint, removed many innovative features, and renamed the game LotRO, choosing instead to pursue the WoW market with similar game controls and graphic interface. They even ditched the motto "Come live in Middle-earth" for what one of their own designers described as "prove to everyone that you are a great hero and deserve great riches!" This, of course, goes against the very philosophy of Tolkien, but that's beside the point.
If their intention really was to pursue the WoW market, their choice to abandon MEO is difficult to comprehend. Setting LOTRO at the time they did effectively dictated:
no factions
no pvp
familiar story
The no factions and no pvp, in particular, ruled out any chance of them ever threatening WoW. Their vision for LOTRO including their now abandoned "layered-instancing" idea, always seemed to me like an ego-maniacal attempt to reinvent the wheel. Having the LOTR brand to work with wasn't enough for them - they wanted to create a genre-breaking mmo.
They succeeded in creating something unique, but... the result clearly doesn't have a broad appeal, even with the LOTR brand stamped on it. It's a bit sad for us LOTR fans but...
In terms of things Turbine can do now to boost numbers... I've expressed my own views on their need to fix up the layered-instancing misinformation. But I think what they really need to do by way of game changes is admit to themselves that they screwed up and move back towards established, popular mmo conventions.
For example, they could introduce an evil faction and pvp. The thing they'd need to ensure, is that they don't alienate the existing playerbase, so they'd want to implement it in such a way that gameplay on non-pvp servers would remain exactly as it is now.
If they did that, it would be an all-round win-win.
Of course if they don't ever escape their niche status, we might still see MEO one day. Disappointed SWG refugees probably collectively wet themselves last month when development of the rumoured KOTOR mmo was finally confirmed.
I was actually playing all of them off and on at the time because of the free time they gave us in EQ II over the summer. 1-3 hours per day was the most popular category in all three polls, with 39% of respondents going for it in WoW, 50% in LoTRO, and 70% in EQ II. Turn that on it's head and you have 50% of players playing for more than 28 hours a week in LoTRO, versus 60% in WoW and less than 30% in EQ II. I doubt that those exact percentages would hold up to a bigger census. If I had to guess, I'd say that EQ II and LoTRO would roughly converge on time played with WoW haveing slightly higher times played due to slightly younger demographics, and thus a greater percentage of players in that 17-22 "hardcore" crowd I mentioned before (wild speculation, I will allow).
The fact that 40-70% of respondents in each poll chose 1-3 hours means that, like I said in my previous post, the broad 1-3 option is probably hiding juicier results about casual gamers. The measurement device is a bit blunt.
The flipside to that is that even with this blunt instrument, Open found a 10% difference between WoW and LOTRO. It's not a huge difference, but it's big enough to be real.
Like I said earlier, exact percentages in this kind of survey are meaningless, which is why you can't compare them to other surveys. All you can do is make internal comparisons.
I was actually playing all of them off and on at the time because of the free time they gave us in EQ II over the summer. 1-3 hours per day was the most popular category in all three polls, with 39% of respondents going for it in WoW, 50% in LoTRO, and 70% in EQ II. Turn that on it's head and you have 50% of players playing for more than 28 hours a week in LoTRO, versus 60% in WoW and less than 30% in EQ II. I doubt that those exact percentages would hold up to a bigger census. If I had to guess, I'd say that EQ II and LoTRO would roughly converge on time played with WoW haveing slightly higher times played due to slightly younger demographics, and thus a greater percentage of players in that 17-22 "hardcore" crowd I mentioned before (wild speculation, I will allow).
The flipside to that is that even with this blunt instrument, Open found a 10% difference between WoW and LOTRO. It's not a huge difference, but it's big enough to be real.
No. he only had 13 respondents in his WoW poll (I should have mentioned N I expect). I actually scewed his results up by choosing option 2, which is how long I tend to play WoW when I do play. A chi squared test does not reject an expected of 50% (the LoTRO percentage) vs 39% (observed based on his results). It's not statistically significant.
Even assuming that his results reflect reality (which I agree they might in the WoW vs LoTRO comparison, for the reasons I stated), all that his polls show is that the average play time in LoTRO is middle of the road. Typical for an MMO, more than one polled, less than another.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Hehehe - yeah 13 is a bit on the teensy side. A nuclear explosion wouldn't be significant with an n that small :P
Didn't he say he had poll results from mmorpg.com forums, 2 blogs and another forum or two, with a total of 600 something responses? As I recall, he made his (possibly badly worded) statement based on all of those results. I don't think we can generalise from what seems to be a tiny subset of his sample to the whole thing.
So we're kinda back to where we started.... more details please Open?
Hehehe - yeah 13 is a bit on the teensy side. A nuclear explosion wouldn't be significant with an n that small :P Didn't he say he had poll results from mmorpg.com forums, 2 blogs and another forum or two, with a total of 600 something responses? As I recall, he made his (possibly badly worded) statement based on all of those results. I don't think we can generalise from what seems to be a tiny subset of his sample to the whole thing. So we're kinda back to where we started.... more details please Open?
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
LOTRO has always been designed and advertised as more of a casual players MMO. That is why many people who only play 1-3 per day enjoy it alot more. And why people who tend to be more hardcore get sick of it faster and complain of lack of content.
****************************** Brandywine Global LFF chan "/joinchannel glff"
Hehehe - yeah 13 is a bit on the teensy side. A nuclear explosion wouldn't be significant with an n that small :P Didn't he say he had poll results from mmorpg.com forums, 2 blogs and another forum or two, with a total of 600 something responses? As I recall, he made his (possibly badly worded) statement based on all of those results. I don't think we can generalise from what seems to be a tiny subset of his sample to the whole thing. So we're kinda back to where we started.... more details please Open?
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
Wow...this went much longer than I realized. (Guess I should not sleep)
Anyways, let me start with the basis of the poll.
I had noticed a lot of people stating they had not found any issues in Age of Conan. But, the people who kept saying this noted they played "Casually" and had not even hit max yet.
Most people who I had several discussions with (across several blogs, Bildo's Blog, MMO Gamers, etc.) noted their pleasure with the game, and were noted as PvE players, who played 10-12 hours a week at most. This got me thinking about playtime and the hardcore vs casual.
So, based on this, I started here with a general poll, which was not even about LOTRO to begin with. It was a general poll. I posted in the AoC, LOTRO, EQ2, Guild Wars and WoW forums. I chose these due to popularity, and we could have expanded it, but I was not going for anything "scientific"
The AoC poll was deleted thanks to a trolling mess that took place. So, I still focused on the other studies. The Guild Wars one was polluted due to someone thinking I was a gold seller (lol) and someone who wanted too much personal info.
I then moved to several other forums (the VN boards, Ten Ton Hammer, etc.)
Compiled all of my data and came up with a total of 685 responses. Out of this, I received 232 responses specifically for LOTRO (316 were WoW, and sundry others...seems the other games no one wants to discuss much). Out of this 161 responses noted they played 1-3 hours a day (and this skewed based on responses in the post, for example, some played maybe an hour a day and 4 or so on the weekends)
What I garnered from these responses is that the players still averaged between 10-20 hours based on overall discussion.
This is a wide margin. But, it also showed that people who were playing a smaller amount of hours enjoyed that game (again we cannot know how many skewed responses we may have had. As we all know..."Everyone Lies" according to House, and he is right.)
Based on these conclusions, I can note two important items...
People complain about their server not being populated, and this could be relevant to peoples playstyles (i.e: Weekends have higher play counts for these lower populated games), and these people maybe play during the week. Second, that the less time you play a game, the less chance you have of finding issues in the game, as you are not playing enough hours to really hit major bugs (for example OOM issues which takes time to build up). I also wondered about MMO experience if that had any forgone conclusions, but did not pursue that avenue.
But, something else that corroborates my information is to note how in games like WoW and LOTRO and people using Xfire. Look at WoWs charts and how there is a consistent graph across the board. Look at LOTRO (or EQ2, Age of Conan) we see a different view. Spikes across the board (of course we can see the spikes on WoW, showing the "downtime" days...lol). But, consistently we see LOTRO has larger populations on Sunday's. So does all the games actually, but the spike seems to be more prominent for LOTRO and AoC. (Of course it could also do with the smaller population using Xfire for those games...who knows)
I am nowhere near having the scientific amount of data based on players in the field like Daedalus, and never stated as much. The opinion I have based on the data I received in polls and Xfire data concludes in my mind that less time equals complaints of empty servers and less chance people will complain about issues in a game.
People can of course skew this to their own conclusions, as people overall always have an opinion of their own, and maybe YOU as a poster may have a different outcome.
What sucks the most is instead of discussing the topic at hand, we still have to have these pissing contests based on how someone has typed their words.
Didn't he say he had poll results from mmorpg.com forums, 2 blogs and another forum or two, with a total of 600 something responses? As I recall, he made his (possibly badly worded) statement based on all of those results.
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
That really isn't even remotely fair.
70 respondents + 13 for WoW and presumably a small number for EQII - that gives us about 1/6th of his entire sample. With 500+ responses completely unaccounted for, I don't think it's fair to assume that he hasn't polled about play styles in other mmos.
We should give him an opportunity to present the data he based his statement on. If it then turns out that he's mis- or over-interpreted those results, I'll join you in criticising his statement.
Hehehe - yeah 13 is a bit on the teensy side. A nuclear explosion wouldn't be significant with an n that small :P Didn't he say he had poll results from mmorpg.com forums, 2 blogs and another forum or two, with a total of 600 something responses? As I recall, he made his (possibly badly worded) statement based on all of those results. I don't think we can generalise from what seems to be a tiny subset of his sample to the whole thing. So we're kinda back to where we started.... more details please Open?
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
Wow...this went much longer than I realized. (Guess I should not sleep)
Anyways, let me start with the basis of the poll.
I had noticed a lot of people stating they had not found any issues in Age of Conan. But, the people who kept saying this noted they played "Casually" and had not even hit max yet.
Most people who I had several discussions with (across several blogs, Bildo's Blog, MMO Gamers, etc.) noted their pleasure with the game, and were noted as PvE players, who played 10-12 hours a week at most. This got me thinking about playtime and the hardcore vs casual.
So, based on this, I started here with a general poll, which was not even about LOTRO to begin with. It was a general poll. I posted in the AoC, LOTRO, EQ2, Guild Wars and WoW forums. I chose these due to popularity, and we could have expanded it, but I was not going for anything "scientific"
The AoC poll was deleted thanks to a trolling mess that took place. So, I still focused on the other studies. The Guild Wars one was polluted due to someone thinking I was a gold seller (lol) and someone who wanted too much personal info.
I then moved to several other forums (the VN boards, Ten Ton Hammer, etc.)
Compiled all of my data and came up with a total of 685 responses. Out of this, I received 232 responses specifically for LOTRO (316 were WoW, and sundry others...seems the other games no one wants to discuss much). Out of this 161 responses noted they played 1-3 hours a day (and this skewed based on responses in the post, for example, some played maybe an hour a day and 4 or so on the weekends)
What I garnered from these responses is that the players still averaged between 10-20 hours based on overall discussion.
This is a wide margin. But, it also showed that people who were playing a smaller amount of hours enjoyed that game (again we cannot know how many skewed responses we may have had. As we all know..."Everyone Lies" according to House, and he is right.)
Based on these conclusions, I can note two important items...
People complain about their server not being populated, and this could be relevant to peoples playstyles (i.e: Weekends have higher play counts for these lower populated games), and these people maybe play during the week. Second, that the less time you play a game, the less chance you have of finding issues in the game, as you are not playing enough hours to really hit major bugs (for example OOM issues which takes time to build up). I also wondered about MMO experience if that had any forgone conclusions, but did not pursue that avenue.
But, something else that corroborates my information is to note how in games like WoW and LOTRO and people using Xfire. Look at WoWs charts and how there is a consistent graph across the board. Look at LOTRO (or EQ2, Age of Conan) we see a different view. Spikes across the board (of course we can see the spikes on WoW, showing the "downtime" days...lol). But, consistently we see LOTRO has larger populations on Sunday's. So does all the games actually, but the spike seems to be more prominent for LOTRO and AoC. (Of course it could also do with the smaller population using Xfire for those games...who knows)
I am nowhere near having the scientific amount of data based on players in the field like Daedalus, and never stated as much. The opinion I have based on the data I received in polls and Xfire data concludes in my mind that less time equals complaints of empty servers and less chance people will complain about issues in a game.
People can of course skew this to their own conclusions, as people overall always have an opinion of their own, and maybe YOU as a poster may have a different outcome.
What sucks the most is instead of discussing the topic at hand, we still have to have these pissing contests based on how someone has typed their words.
Anyways, shall we go back to topic?
Thanks
This looks like back where we started to me.
You seem to have have little data on any MMOs besides WoW and LoTRO, and you either haven't reported your results for WoW here or you pooled both games in your poll (I honestly can't tell). Regardless comparing LoTRO to WoW alone doesn't really establish whether usage patterns in LoTRO are "normal" or not.
It really wouldn't surprise me if WoW users play a bit more on average more than LoTRO users, I assume it has a greater proportion of those 17-22 year old "hardcores" than LoTRO. However you've yet to even establish that.
As for the x-fire graphs, your own interpretation seems to be that EQ II, AoC, and LoTRO are all more similar to each other than WoW. Which would only tell us that WoW is a "weird" MMO while LoTRO is pretty typical. It certainly doesn't show that LoTRO players play less than is typical in most MMOs.
And as for the "Sunday spikes you mention" The EQ II graph
Which makes perfect sense. Usage patterns averaged over more players will generally look flatter.
Edit: there is a further issue with those graphs that just occurred to me. The Y axis always starts at zero. That will make spikes and dips in the most popular games look smaller then they are.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Originally posted by Openedge Compiled all of my data and came up with a total of 685 responses. Out of this, I received 232 responses specifically for LOTRO (316 were WoW, and sundry others...seems the other games no one wants to discuss much). Out of this 161 responses noted they played 1-3 hours a day (and this skewed based on responses in the post, for example, some played maybe an hour a day and 4 or so on the weekends) What sucks the most is instead of discussing the topic at hand, we still have to have these pissing contests based on how someone has typed their words.
You seem to have have little data on any MMOs besides WoW and LoTRO, and you either haven't reported your results for WoW here or you pooled both games in your poll (I honestly can't tell). Regardless comparing LoTRO to WoW alone doesn't really establish whether usage patterns in LoTRO are "normal" or not.
Given the topic of this thread, I don't think there's any problem with him only having data on WoW and LOTRO, especially with so few responses for the other mmos.
But I join you in confusion re data. Respondents:
WoW - 316
LOTRO - 232
Other mmos - 137
Number of players who nominated 1-3 hours per day:
WoW - ??
LOTRO - ??
This isn't a pissing contest Open. You've called on others in this thread to back up their claims with proof. You've just been asked to do the same.
No-one would expect Turbine to make any major decisions based on your data, but if your data suggests that LOTRO has more appeal to 'casual' gamers (as you have suggested) then that does inform discussion here.
Originally posted by Openedge Compiled all of my data and came up with a total of 685 responses. Out of this, I received 232 responses specifically for LOTRO (316 were WoW, and sundry others...seems the other games no one wants to discuss much). Out of this 161 responses noted they played 1-3 hours a day (and this skewed based on responses in the post, for example, some played maybe an hour a day and 4 or so on the weekends) What sucks the most is instead of discussing the topic at hand, we still have to have these pissing contests based on how someone has typed their words.
You seem to have have little data on any MMOs besides WoW and LoTRO, and you either haven't reported your results for WoW here or you pooled both games in your poll (I honestly can't tell). Regardless comparing LoTRO to WoW alone doesn't really establish whether usage patterns in LoTRO are "normal" or not.
Given the topic of this thread, I don't think there's any problem with him only having data on WoW and LOTRO, especially with so few responses for the other mmos.
But I join you in confusion re data. Respondents:
WoW - 316
LOTRO - 232
Other mmos - 137
Number of players who nominated 1-3 hours per day:
WoW - ??
LOTRO - ??
This isn't a pissing contest Open. You've called on others in this thread to back up their claims with proof. You've just been asked to do the same.
No-one would expect Turbine to make any major decisions based on your data, but if your data suggests that LOTRO has more appeal to 'casual' gamers (as you have suggested) then that does inform discussion here.
Agreed. I meant the pissing contest based on several people taking my mis-spoken sentence and trying to use that to call me a liar is all. It was mistakenly written, and as such, I accept responsibility for stating the data incorrectly. I just wish others would do the same.
I have no issue sharing the data further
LOTRO - 232 Responses, 161 Reported 1-3 hours of usage, 58 reported 4 or more hours, and several skews of people saying either 6-8 or I had a few actually say 24/7
WoW - 316 Responses, 88 Responses of 1-3 hours, 145 responses of 4 or more, 67 Responses of 6-8 hours, and as you can tell, skewed people stating 24/7
EQ2 - Well, I got 10 responses from other forums
Guild Wars and Age of Conan got skewed here thanks to trolling and false answers, but I noted those in my total count of pollsters.
Guild Wars was the only one I had data from another location (VN boards) that stated that people play this game 2-6 hours a night (in so many words, not within my parameters), but said it will depend on how PvP is going...which is a telling sign.
As to Yeebo's comment on the spikes, I agree that EQ2 is in the same boat as LOTRO and AoC and Vanguard and Tabula Rasa. All low population games that show spikes on Sundays. I totally agree that a larger audience will show less of a spike. That is because of an even numbered audience playing at ALL times. If we could go back further on the chart we could see AoC for example when it first launched and had the huges number of hours (hitting #5 every day for a week) the numbers also did not vary. Why? New content, new game to play, PvP...but, new content is most telling. Now with people saying they hit 80 with nothing to do, and PvP is suck....AoC has lost a huge number of players.
LOTRO had hit #14 on the chart, yet now is down to 28-30 on the Xfire charts...why would that be...because the population is ok?
So, why though does a game like Guild Wars stay on the chart consistently with high populations and numbers? I think this goes back to the PvP argument. (Of course, being free helps also)
PvP and content for high levels are two issues games need to address. I still think this is why LOTRO is not a high population game.
Comments
First of all, you quite simply did not survey most LotRo players (200k people?). That's a lie and by association makes you a liar.
Secondly, I can refute your claim. Most of the people I play with, play for 20+ hours a week, so there, you're wrong on that front as well. I'll go further, many of them have been around since UO/EQ1, so they aren't casuals.
You've both wandered into a fuzzy area here.
Your personal experience of players playing 20+ hours a week is pretty meaningless, but so is Edge's "study" unless we can see some details. Precisely how did he conduct the study? Who was he conducting it for? What does he mean by "most" players and how did he measure their "love"?
I wouldn't go throwing around words like "liar" yet, but I would query the claim.
If it was the first questionable statement he'd made, I wouldn't have. But it isn't.
I can back up my claims, simply put, Openedge says that people DONT play more than 1-2 hours a day. I do, my Kin does and many of the people I interact with do.
He has been making these fraudulent claims for a long time (never backed up with fact, just HIS opinions). He has said the Lotro is a casual game and in the same sentence, tried to maintain that GW is complex and difficult.
He has every right to voice his opinions, but they have no basis in fact and he only comes here to try and stir the pot. If you go through his posts concerning this game, you will see exactly what I mean.
S
No, he didn't. I'll grant his wording is a little vague and open to interpretation, but not the interpretation you've slapped on it.
As I did a study a while back for most LOTRO players, and the average player who LOVED the game played 1-2 hours at most.
Assuming he actually conducted a real study - this statement indicates that he identified a specific group of players within the population whose response to a question like "what is the longest time you will spend playing LOTRO for a single session?" and none of them answered more than 2 hours.
He may also have worded his statement badly and meant that on average, that specific group played for 2 hours at most.
I can see why you think he's said what you think he's said but he hasn't. You're making assumptions about the players whose responses he hasn't mentioned in his statement. He said "the average player who LOVED the game" not "all players".
I have degrees in research and statistics and I know this stuff. Reporting statistics to give a false impression - without actually telling a lie - is a widespread practice. Interpreting any statistic can be tricky.
Personally I'm dubious about this study he conducted, but you really don't have grounds to call him a liar just based on what we have.
No, he didn't. I'll grant his wording is a little vague and open to interpretation, but not the interpretation you've slapped on it.
As I did a study a while back for most LOTRO players, and the average player who LOVED the game played 1-2 hours at most.
Assuming he actually conducted a real study - this statement indicates that he identified a specific group of players within the population whose response to a question like "what is the longest time you will spend playing LOTRO for a single session?" and none of them answered more than 2 hours.
He may also have worded his statement badly and meant that on average, that specific group played for 2 hours at most.
I can see why you think he's said what you think he's said but he hasn't. You're making assumptions about the players whose responses he hasn't mentioned in his statement. He said "the average player who LOVED the game" not "all players".
I have degrees in research and statistics and I know this stuff. Reporting statistics to give a false impression - without actually telling a lie - is a widespread practice. Interpreting any statistic can be tricky.
Personally I'm dubious about this study he conducted, but you really don't have grounds to call him a liar just based on what we have.
He just did a small poll here in this forum, and some people responded including myself.
Also Turbine is a private company and does not in any way, shape or form have to tell anyone about how the company is doing. Funcom on the other hand is a public company and must let shareholders know the ins and outs of how the company is doing.
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Brandywine Global LFF chan "/joinchannel glff"
No, he didn't. I'll grant his wording is a little vague and open to interpretation, but not the interpretation you've slapped on it.
As I did a study a while back for most LOTRO players, and the average player who LOVED the game played 1-2 hours at most.
Assuming he actually conducted a real study - this statement indicates that he identified a specific group of players within the population whose response to a question like "what is the longest time you will spend playing LOTRO for a single session?" and none of them answered more than 2 hours.
He may also have worded his statement badly and meant that on average, that specific group played for 2 hours at most.
I can see why you think he's said what you think he's said but he hasn't. You're making assumptions about the players whose responses he hasn't mentioned in his statement. He said "the average player who LOVED the game" not "all players".
I have degrees in research and statistics and I know this stuff. Reporting statistics to give a false impression - without actually telling a lie - is a widespread practice. Interpreting any statistic can be tricky.
Personally I'm dubious about this study he conducted, but you really don't have grounds to call him a liar just based on what we have.
Thanks for pointing this out...the wording is incorrect, and I apologize.
The words should be
I did a study a while back AND for most players, the average player (the word player could also be dropped here as well) for someone who LOVED the game was 1-2 hours.
In so many words, out of this study (which was conducted here, on the VN boards, on my blog, TTH, etc..a total of 6 forums and 2 blogs total) on a rough average of 680+ responses (it was 684 I believe, but I will have to go back to my data) the overall response proved to be 1-2 hours. Yet for games like WoW, Guild Wars, etc, the play time was considerably larger.
In so many words, a "casual" crowd was found to enjoy LOTRO quite a bit. And this was based on the small amount of answers I received.
It was never scientific, but really drove home the fact that more people take their time with LOTRO than other games. I NEVER stated all 200k, and we all know these types of studies will never gain the full subscriber ship.
But, as you can tell, my friends here would prefer to find even the smallest out of place word to make me look foolish, when a simple discussion and question would have sufficed to get the right answer.
Thanks for the heads up.
As I already stated, my wording was incorrect, but I understand that you would prefer to attack than discuss, and I am sorry you must be that way.
For myself, I do still wish to discuss, and wish to question what the average player you play with (how many would that be first of all..5? 10? 3?) is doing for 20+ hours a week,
How many alts do YOU have? And how many hours do you play? And for that amount of time what exactly are you doing?
Are you in a guild? could you possibly show a screenshot of how large that guild is?
I really believe the reason so many people keep saying the servers seem so empty is that a "majority" (based on the small study I did) only play for short periods of time, as they have run out of content. This may also explain the phenomenon of the servers being only less than a 1/4 of the size of WoW
Yes, that is an opinion also. So, attacks of calling me a liar are really unnecessary. I believe you have been warned before about attacks, so lets keep it civil, and leave the name calling out
thanks
As I already stated, my wording was incorrect, but I understand that you would prefer to attack than discuss, and I am sorry you must be that way.
For myself, I do still wish to discuss, and wish to question what the average player you play with (how many would that be first of all..5? 10? 3?) is doing for 20+ hours a week,
How many alts do YOU have? And how many hours do you play? And for that amount of time what exactly are you doing?
Are you in a guild? could you possibly show a screenshot of how large that guild is?
I really believe the reason so many people keep saying the servers seem so empty is that a "majority" (based on the small study I did) only play for short periods of time, as they have run out of content. This may also explain the phenomenon of the servers being only less than a 1/4 of the size of WoW
Yes, that is an opinion also. So, attacks of calling me a liar are really unnecessary. I believe you have been warned before about attacks, so lets keep it civil, and leave the name calling out
thanks
We are on a forum, I go with what you write. You wrote (what sounded like) you had surveyed the entire Lotro community. I reacted to that. Now you're saying it was a mistake, OK, Ill give you the benefit of the doubt.
Secondly, I have attacked you before because sometimes I feel you are only here to cause trouble and others feel the same way. Many people have PM'd me in solidarity. However, those last few posts were not attacks, they were reactions to things YOU said.
Why is it so important for you to do "studies" on a game you don't play? What is your fascination with a game you constantly tell us you don't like? You do realise that it seems irrational, right? Maybe you should "study" a game you enjoy and play.
Now, back on topic.
I am in a Kin (Guild). This is my third Kin across three servers, 2 in Europe, 1 in USA because I recently moved back to the USA. I wont bother with the Euro servers because that was over 6 months ago and I have no idea whats happening on there so it would be unfair of me to speak of them.
The regular players (about 20 at the moment, but it is Summer), in my Kin on Nimrodel are definitely on at least 20 hours a week and most are on more than that. I have racked up around 14 hours since Monday morning for example.
I have 3 x 50 Characters, I tend to play my hunter more than the others but my Minstrel gets a fair bit of use as well. I spend my time helping others in the Kin, adventuring, PvMPing and raiding.
Hope that helps, and in closing, Ill say this. Maybe you aren't the hater you seem to be, but again, you are on a forum and I hate to say it but that is how you are coming across (and not just to me). If I have misread you, then I apologise, but it is very hard to guage someones intentions over this medium.
S
PS : I cant give you pictures as I dont know if the other guys would appreciate that, but I can assure you I have no reason to lie and you are more than welcome to visit Nimrodel as we are almost always around.
I was on the Gladden server. I simply got tired of running around and rarely seeing other players except for in the big cities. Groups were simply Impossible to find and forget the storyline quests. Finding someone close to where you were was not possible. This was my experience in the game, and I dont keep odd hours.
Current Games: WOW, EVE Online
I believe that this is the census that open is referring to:
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/190445/page/1
1-3 hours a night was the most popular category . . .
Just like in WoW
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2151069#2151069
and in EQ2
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2151081#2151081
So rather than showing that LoTRO fans are more casual than most MMO fans, the overall results of his "study" actually contradict his point. 1-3 hours a night seems to be pretty normal for an MMO player. Apart from that you can't really say much from his polls.
It's also unclear whether most of those were "1-3 hours on most nights, but more on the weekends" or "never more than 1-3 hours." I would suspect the former, but who knows.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
That's pretty interesting. I'm still not sure you have the wording quite right, but can't tell without knowing how you worded the question and how you measured the responses.
But the basic gist seems quite clear - on average, LOTRO is played in shorter sessions than other mmos.
To address Sharky's 20+ hour a week friends... if they each played 3 hours a day and 7 days a week, they'd only be slightly above average according to Edge's results. The important thing with this kind of data is how different games compare, not the actual numbers. There's always measurement error with these things, but it would (all other things being equal) apply equally to all games, therefore comparisons between them can be made.
My own (bad) experience with WoW was that raids alone could chew up 20 hours a week so I don't find Edge's results at all unbelievable. To me, the time required for some activities in WoW crossed the line from fun into work very quickly. But given the game's popularity I seem to be in a minority on that score.
Those results are interesting - if LOTRO has a particular appeal to casual gamers, then Turbine would either want to spin their promotional material in this direction, or make gameplay changes to broaden appeal.
That's pretty interesting. I'm still not sure you have the wording quite right, but can't tell without knowing how you worded the question and how you measured the responses.
But the basic gist seems quite clear - on average, LOTRO is played in shorter sessions than other mmos.
If you take the numbers from Open's poll here,
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/190445/page/1
you can see that the average hours played per night per respondant was roughly 3.9 hours (assuming that those that claim to play 24/7 actually only play 12 hours a day, assigning 1.5 hours to category 1, 5 hours to category 2, and 7 hours to category 3).
If you multiply that by 7, you come up with an average of 27 hours per week. That actually slightly higher than averages reported by those that have done real academic research on MMO usage patterns:
www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001536.php
You can see from their data that average playtimes of much over 24 hours a week are quite rare, and occur mainly among 17-22 year olds.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
I haven't posted regarding LotRO in quite a while, but I found the vehemence exhibited in this thread quite intriguing (I am surprised anyone could actually get 'worked up' about LotRO at this late date).
The bottom line is that LotRO did not meet Turbine's expectations. I will repeat: LotRO did not meet Turbine's corporate expectations. President and CEO Jeff Anderson claimed early on that 1 million subscribers was the corporate goal for LotRO. He expressed an earnest desire to go head-to-head with WoW. Well, Mr. Anderson was fired in October 2007 in an overnight corporate shake-up. All references to his name and title were expunged and to date I am unsure if Turbine ever offered a press release regarding his swift departure (I am certain a fanboi or two will supply the necessary documentation if I am wrong) .
From my own experience (with nothing like the massive amount of 'factual' data supplied for or against LotRO in this thread), CEO's only get fired if they do not meet expectations. Now, I am sure that LotRo was not the only reason the memory of Mr. Anderson was totally removed from Turbine's corporate ledger (like the erasing of Pharoah Ankhenaton name and the defacing of his image off the pyramids): Dungeons and Dragons performed miserably for quite awhile, and let us not forget the debacle that was AC2; however, LotRO was, shall we say, the One Ring of all MMORPGs, and Anderson was Gollum falling into the fires of Mount Doom when it did not reach specified market saturation
200,000 to 400,000 subscribers for LotRO is what I have seen mentioned here and elsewhere, which seems fair and equitable, and those numbers would be considered a great success....before the advent of WoW; nowadays, however, that number is barely sufficient for a major online game, particularly with so many new competitors coming along to grab marketshare away from any and everyone (plus, gaming fans as a whole are a rather fickle and an attention-deficited lot).
I am not here to argue the merits or demerits of the game, per se, as I gave up on it long ago (and made my intentions clear at that time); however, I do find it amusing that Turbine totally scuttled MEO (Middle-earth Online), shrank its geographic footprint, removed many innovative features, and renamed the game LotRO, choosing instead to pursue the WoW market with similar game controls and graphic interface. They even ditched the motto "Come live in Middle-earth" for what one of their own designers described as "prove to everyone that you are a great hero and deserve great riches!" This, of course, goes against the very philosophy of Tolkien, but that's beside the point.
The point is, 200,000 to 400,000 players in this current business cycle is a niche game. It's too bad they didn't leave LotRO as MEO, because personally, I would have loved that niche game (I would add that might be the case for many thousands of others who either left the game or lost interest after MEO was canned, but I would be described as unfactual, and I hate to be unfactual). This ties into what Green13 was implying regarding LotRO's tedious reliance on the basic Lord of the Ring storyline, and not offering any tangible results for a players efforts (except the dubious satisfaction of knowing you've continuously slaughtered thousands of wargs, auroch, boars and orcs to reach level 50). I never felt at home in LotRO, although reading the books for many years I certainly feel I'm in Middle-earth.
Anyway, If you enjoy the game, keep playing. I won't try to persuade you otherwise (and as we all know, trying to persuade a fanboi against a game requires religious deprogramming and months in rehab). I just know in my heart that this current game is not what it could have been, and it is a sorry reflection of Middle-earth. Again, my opinion. Ah well, that's that.
Morthoron the Moriquendi
Unfortunately, as Open himself has admitted, his method of data collection wasn't what we'd call scientific. And that's fair enough for what he was doing. However, comparing his data to data in other studies is not something I'd do.
For example, there's an obvious sample bias. You'd expect that the folk who hang out on these forums are a little more hard-core, so it wouldn't be surprising if the respondents in Open's surveys all spent more time playing mmos than respondents in a survey with a more representative sample.
The best you can do with that data is make comparisons between different games, which is what he did. That's reasonably safe because the same kinds of problems (eg. sample bias) would apply equally to all of those games' results.
I have to admit I can't actually see the results for his surveys. The forum won't display them unless I vote, and I don't play any of those games and don't feel like polluting the results. Is there some trick to seeing them?
If we want to criticise Open's surveys, the thing I'd point to his his response choices. I think, eg. the 1-3 hour bracket is too broad, and there's no < 1 hour option. I think there'd be quite a difference between someone who plays for 1 hour a day and someone who plays for 3 - putting them both in the same category is going to hide potentially interesting results.
Unfortunately, as Open himself has admitted, his method of data collection wasn't what we'd call scientific. And that's fair enough for what he was doing. However, comparing his data to data in other studies is not something I'd do.
For example, there's an obvious sample bias. You'd expect that the folk who hang out on these forums are a little more hard-core, so it wouldn't be surprising if the respondents in Open's surveys all spent more time playing mmos than respondents in a survey with a more representative sample.
The best you can do with that data is make comparisons between different games, which is what he did. That's reasonably safe because the same kinds of problems (eg. sample bias) would apply equally to all of those games' results.
I have to admit I can't actually see the results for his surveys. The forum won't display them unless I vote, and I don't play any of those games and don't feel like polluting the results. Is there some trick to seeing them?
If we want to criticise Open's surveys, the thing I'd point to his his response choices. I think, eg. the 1-3 hour bracket is too broad, and there's no < 1 hour option. I think there'd be quite a difference between someone who plays for 1 hour a day and someone who plays for 3 - putting them both in the same category is going to hide potentially interesting results.
I was actually playing all of them off and on at the time because of the free time they gave us in EQ II over the summer. 1-3 hours per day was the most popular category in all three polls, with 39% of respondents going for it in WoW, 50% in LoTRO, and 70% in EQ II. Turn that on it's head and you have 50% of players playing for more than 28 hours a week in LoTRO, versus 60% in WoW and less than 30% in EQ II.
I doubt that those exact percentages would hold up to a bigger census. If I had to guess, I'd say that EQ II and LoTRO would roughly converge on time played with WoW haveing slightly higher times played due to slightly younger demographics, and thus a greater percentage of players in that 17-22 "hardcore" crowd I mentioned before (wild speculation, I will allow).
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
If their intention really was to pursue the WoW market, their choice to abandon MEO is difficult to comprehend. Setting LOTRO at the time they did effectively dictated:
The no factions and no pvp, in particular, ruled out any chance of them ever threatening WoW. Their vision for LOTRO including their now abandoned "layered-instancing" idea, always seemed to me like an ego-maniacal attempt to reinvent the wheel. Having the LOTR brand to work with wasn't enough for them - they wanted to create a genre-breaking mmo.
They succeeded in creating something unique, but... the result clearly doesn't have a broad appeal, even with the LOTR brand stamped on it. It's a bit sad for us LOTR fans but...
In terms of things Turbine can do now to boost numbers... I've expressed my own views on their need to fix up the layered-instancing misinformation. But I think what they really need to do by way of game changes is admit to themselves that they screwed up and move back towards established, popular mmo conventions.
For example, they could introduce an evil faction and pvp. The thing they'd need to ensure, is that they don't alienate the existing playerbase, so they'd want to implement it in such a way that gameplay on non-pvp servers would remain exactly as it is now.
If they did that, it would be an all-round win-win.
Of course if they don't ever escape their niche status, we might still see MEO one day. Disappointed SWG refugees probably collectively wet themselves last month when development of the rumoured KOTOR mmo was finally confirmed.
The fact that 40-70% of respondents in each poll chose 1-3 hours means that, like I said in my previous post, the broad 1-3 option is probably hiding juicier results about casual gamers. The measurement device is a bit blunt.
The flipside to that is that even with this blunt instrument, Open found a 10% difference between WoW and LOTRO. It's not a huge difference, but it's big enough to be real.
Like I said earlier, exact percentages in this kind of survey are meaningless, which is why you can't compare them to other surveys. All you can do is make internal comparisons.
The flipside to that is that even with this blunt instrument, Open found a 10% difference between WoW and LOTRO. It's not a huge difference, but it's big enough to be real.
No. he only had 13 respondents in his WoW poll (I should have mentioned N I expect). I actually scewed his results up by choosing option 2, which is how long I tend to play WoW when I do play. A chi squared test does not reject an expected of 50% (the LoTRO percentage) vs 39% (observed based on his results). It's not statistically significant.
Even assuming that his results reflect reality (which I agree they might in the WoW vs LoTRO comparison, for the reasons I stated), all that his polls show is that the average play time in LoTRO is middle of the road. Typical for an MMO, more than one polled, less than another.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Hehehe - yeah 13 is a bit on the teensy side. A nuclear explosion wouldn't be significant with an n that small :P
Didn't he say he had poll results from mmorpg.com forums, 2 blogs and another forum or two, with a total of 600 something responses? As I recall, he made his (possibly badly worded) statement based on all of those results. I don't think we can generalise from what seems to be a tiny subset of his sample to the whole thing.
So we're kinda back to where we started.... more details please Open?
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
LOTRO has always been designed and advertised as more of a casual players MMO. That is why many people who only play 1-3 per day enjoy it alot more. And why people who tend to be more hardcore get sick of it faster and complain of lack of content.
******************************
Brandywine Global LFF chan "/joinchannel glff"
Character models put me off the game and the PVP sucks.
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
Wow...this went much longer than I realized. (Guess I should not sleep)
Anyways, let me start with the basis of the poll.
I had noticed a lot of people stating they had not found any issues in Age of Conan. But, the people who kept saying this noted they played "Casually" and had not even hit max yet.
Most people who I had several discussions with (across several blogs, Bildo's Blog, MMO Gamers, etc.) noted their pleasure with the game, and were noted as PvE players, who played 10-12 hours a week at most. This got me thinking about playtime and the hardcore vs casual.
So, based on this, I started here with a general poll, which was not even about LOTRO to begin with. It was a general poll. I posted in the AoC, LOTRO, EQ2, Guild Wars and WoW forums. I chose these due to popularity, and we could have expanded it, but I was not going for anything "scientific"
The AoC poll was deleted thanks to a trolling mess that took place. So, I still focused on the other studies. The Guild Wars one was polluted due to someone thinking I was a gold seller (lol) and someone who wanted too much personal info.
I then moved to several other forums (the VN boards, Ten Ton Hammer, etc.)
Compiled all of my data and came up with a total of 685 responses. Out of this, I received 232 responses specifically for LOTRO (316 were WoW, and sundry others...seems the other games no one wants to discuss much). Out of this 161 responses noted they played 1-3 hours a day (and this skewed based on responses in the post, for example, some played maybe an hour a day and 4 or so on the weekends)
What I garnered from these responses is that the players still averaged between 10-20 hours based on overall discussion.
This is a wide margin. But, it also showed that people who were playing a smaller amount of hours enjoyed that game (again we cannot know how many skewed responses we may have had. As we all know..."Everyone Lies" according to House, and he is right.)
Based on these conclusions, I can note two important items...
People complain about their server not being populated, and this could be relevant to peoples playstyles (i.e: Weekends have higher play counts for these lower populated games), and these people maybe play during the week. Second, that the less time you play a game, the less chance you have of finding issues in the game, as you are not playing enough hours to really hit major bugs (for example OOM issues which takes time to build up). I also wondered about MMO experience if that had any forgone conclusions, but did not pursue that avenue.
But, something else that corroborates my information is to note how in games like WoW and LOTRO and people using Xfire. Look at WoWs charts and how there is a consistent graph across the board. Look at LOTRO (or EQ2, Age of Conan) we see a different view. Spikes across the board (of course we can see the spikes on WoW, showing the "downtime" days...lol). But, consistently we see LOTRO has larger populations on Sunday's. So does all the games actually, but the spike seems to be more prominent for LOTRO and AoC. (Of course it could also do with the smaller population using Xfire for those games...who knows)
I am nowhere near having the scientific amount of data based on players in the field like Daedalus, and never stated as much. The opinion I have based on the data I received in polls and Xfire data concludes in my mind that less time equals complaints of empty servers and less chance people will complain about issues in a game.
People can of course skew this to their own conclusions, as people overall always have an opinion of their own, and maybe YOU as a poster may have a different outcome.
What sucks the most is instead of discussing the topic at hand, we still have to have these pissing contests based on how someone has typed their words.
Anyways, shall we go back to topic?
Thanks
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
That really isn't even remotely fair.
70 respondents + 13 for WoW and presumably a small number for EQII - that gives us about 1/6th of his entire sample. With 500+ responses completely unaccounted for, I don't think it's fair to assume that he hasn't polled about play styles in other mmos.
We should give him an opportunity to present the data he based his statement on. If it then turns out that he's mis- or over-interpreted those results, I'll join you in criticising his statement.
In all fairness he did get around 70 respondants to his LoTRO poll here. The problem is that without polling about play styles in other MMOs using the same methods there is no frame of reference. Based on polling about Lotro alone, there is no way to say whether LoTRO players log more or less than other MMO players. And he didn't get enough respondants to his other polls to draw any real conclusions, save that most MMO players play 1-3 hours most nights.
Wow...this went much longer than I realized. (Guess I should not sleep)
Anyways, let me start with the basis of the poll.
I had noticed a lot of people stating they had not found any issues in Age of Conan. But, the people who kept saying this noted they played "Casually" and had not even hit max yet.
Most people who I had several discussions with (across several blogs, Bildo's Blog, MMO Gamers, etc.) noted their pleasure with the game, and were noted as PvE players, who played 10-12 hours a week at most. This got me thinking about playtime and the hardcore vs casual.
So, based on this, I started here with a general poll, which was not even about LOTRO to begin with. It was a general poll. I posted in the AoC, LOTRO, EQ2, Guild Wars and WoW forums. I chose these due to popularity, and we could have expanded it, but I was not going for anything "scientific"
The AoC poll was deleted thanks to a trolling mess that took place. So, I still focused on the other studies. The Guild Wars one was polluted due to someone thinking I was a gold seller (lol) and someone who wanted too much personal info.
I then moved to several other forums (the VN boards, Ten Ton Hammer, etc.)
Compiled all of my data and came up with a total of 685 responses. Out of this, I received 232 responses specifically for LOTRO (316 were WoW, and sundry others...seems the other games no one wants to discuss much). Out of this 161 responses noted they played 1-3 hours a day (and this skewed based on responses in the post, for example, some played maybe an hour a day and 4 or so on the weekends)
What I garnered from these responses is that the players still averaged between 10-20 hours based on overall discussion.
This is a wide margin. But, it also showed that people who were playing a smaller amount of hours enjoyed that game (again we cannot know how many skewed responses we may have had. As we all know..."Everyone Lies" according to House, and he is right.)
Based on these conclusions, I can note two important items...
People complain about their server not being populated, and this could be relevant to peoples playstyles (i.e: Weekends have higher play counts for these lower populated games), and these people maybe play during the week. Second, that the less time you play a game, the less chance you have of finding issues in the game, as you are not playing enough hours to really hit major bugs (for example OOM issues which takes time to build up). I also wondered about MMO experience if that had any forgone conclusions, but did not pursue that avenue.
But, something else that corroborates my information is to note how in games like WoW and LOTRO and people using Xfire. Look at WoWs charts and how there is a consistent graph across the board. Look at LOTRO (or EQ2, Age of Conan) we see a different view. Spikes across the board (of course we can see the spikes on WoW, showing the "downtime" days...lol). But, consistently we see LOTRO has larger populations on Sunday's. So does all the games actually, but the spike seems to be more prominent for LOTRO and AoC. (Of course it could also do with the smaller population using Xfire for those games...who knows)
I am nowhere near having the scientific amount of data based on players in the field like Daedalus, and never stated as much. The opinion I have based on the data I received in polls and Xfire data concludes in my mind that less time equals complaints of empty servers and less chance people will complain about issues in a game.
People can of course skew this to their own conclusions, as people overall always have an opinion of their own, and maybe YOU as a poster may have a different outcome.
What sucks the most is instead of discussing the topic at hand, we still have to have these pissing contests based on how someone has typed their words.
Anyways, shall we go back to topic?
Thanks
This looks like back where we started to me.
You seem to have have little data on any MMOs besides WoW and LoTRO, and you either haven't reported your results for WoW here or you pooled both games in your poll (I honestly can't tell). Regardless comparing LoTRO to WoW alone doesn't really establish whether usage patterns in LoTRO are "normal" or not.
It really wouldn't surprise me if WoW users play a bit more on average more than LoTRO users, I assume it has a greater proportion of those 17-22 year old "hardcores" than LoTRO. However you've yet to even establish that.
As for the x-fire graphs, your own interpretation seems to be that EQ II, AoC, and LoTRO are all more similar to each other than WoW. Which would only tell us that WoW is a "weird" MMO while LoTRO is pretty typical. It certainly doesn't show that LoTRO players play less than is typical in most MMOs.
And as for the "Sunday spikes you mention" The EQ II graph
www.xfire.com/games/eq2/EverQuest_II/
looks roughly as spiky to me as the LoTRO graph:
www.xfire.com/games/lotro/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Online_Shadows_of_Angmar/
Of course it seems to be a sampling issue more than anything.
In general the games with more X-fire users such as lineag II:
www.xfire.com/games/lineage2/Lineage_II/
are less "spiky" than the ones with fewer users:
www.xfire.com/games/eq/EverQuest/
www.xfire.com/games/heroo/Hero_Online/
Which makes perfect sense. Usage patterns averaged over more players will generally look flatter.
Edit: there is a further issue with those graphs that just occurred to me. The Y axis always starts at zero. That will make spikes and dips in the most popular games look smaller then they are.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
You seem to have have little data on any MMOs besides WoW and LoTRO, and you either haven't reported your results for WoW here or you pooled both games in your poll (I honestly can't tell). Regardless comparing LoTRO to WoW alone doesn't really establish whether usage patterns in LoTRO are "normal" or not.
Given the topic of this thread, I don't think there's any problem with him only having data on WoW and LOTRO, especially with so few responses for the other mmos.
But I join you in confusion re data. Respondents:
WoW - 316
LOTRO - 232
Other mmos - 137
Number of players who nominated 1-3 hours per day:
WoW - ??
LOTRO - ??
This isn't a pissing contest Open. You've called on others in this thread to back up their claims with proof. You've just been asked to do the same.
No-one would expect Turbine to make any major decisions based on your data, but if your data suggests that LOTRO has more appeal to 'casual' gamers (as you have suggested) then that does inform discussion here.
You seem to have have little data on any MMOs besides WoW and LoTRO, and you either haven't reported your results for WoW here or you pooled both games in your poll (I honestly can't tell). Regardless comparing LoTRO to WoW alone doesn't really establish whether usage patterns in LoTRO are "normal" or not.
Given the topic of this thread, I don't think there's any problem with him only having data on WoW and LOTRO, especially with so few responses for the other mmos.
But I join you in confusion re data. Respondents:
WoW - 316
LOTRO - 232
Other mmos - 137
Number of players who nominated 1-3 hours per day:
WoW - ??
LOTRO - ??
This isn't a pissing contest Open. You've called on others in this thread to back up their claims with proof. You've just been asked to do the same.
No-one would expect Turbine to make any major decisions based on your data, but if your data suggests that LOTRO has more appeal to 'casual' gamers (as you have suggested) then that does inform discussion here.
Agreed. I meant the pissing contest based on several people taking my mis-spoken sentence and trying to use that to call me a liar is all. It was mistakenly written, and as such, I accept responsibility for stating the data incorrectly. I just wish others would do the same.
I have no issue sharing the data further
LOTRO - 232 Responses, 161 Reported 1-3 hours of usage, 58 reported 4 or more hours, and several skews of people saying either 6-8 or I had a few actually say 24/7
WoW - 316 Responses, 88 Responses of 1-3 hours, 145 responses of 4 or more, 67 Responses of 6-8 hours, and as you can tell, skewed people stating 24/7
EQ2 - Well, I got 10 responses from other forums
Guild Wars and Age of Conan got skewed here thanks to trolling and false answers, but I noted those in my total count of pollsters.
Guild Wars was the only one I had data from another location (VN boards) that stated that people play this game 2-6 hours a night (in so many words, not within my parameters), but said it will depend on how PvP is going...which is a telling sign.
As to Yeebo's comment on the spikes, I agree that EQ2 is in the same boat as LOTRO and AoC and Vanguard and Tabula Rasa. All low population games that show spikes on Sundays. I totally agree that a larger audience will show less of a spike. That is because of an even numbered audience playing at ALL times. If we could go back further on the chart we could see AoC for example when it first launched and had the huges number of hours (hitting #5 every day for a week) the numbers also did not vary. Why? New content, new game to play, PvP...but, new content is most telling. Now with people saying they hit 80 with nothing to do, and PvP is suck....AoC has lost a huge number of players.
LOTRO had hit #14 on the chart, yet now is down to 28-30 on the Xfire charts...why would that be...because the population is ok?
So, why though does a game like Guild Wars stay on the chart consistently with high populations and numbers? I think this goes back to the PvP argument. (Of course, being free helps also)
PvP and content for high levels are two issues games need to address. I still think this is why LOTRO is not a high population game.
Thanks