Dammit, I submitted that story, and with better linkage, too.
According to http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7014 the scientists have not only detected methane, but also formaldehyde, which was measured at levels of 130 parts per billion. From the article:
He thinks that the gas is being produced by the oxidation of methane and estimates that 2.5 million tonnes of methane per year are needed to produce it. "I believe that until it is demonstrated that non-biological processes can produce this, possibly the only way to produce so much methane is life," he says. "My conclusion is there must be life in the soil of Mars."
Personally, I think there is a lot more writing out there than these guys read, so I hardly take their opinion very seriously. However, "Bow, Nigger" was certainly one of the best pieces I read last year.
Uranus and Neptune, while they are gas giants, are much smaller and much further out than Jupiter and Saturn. As a consequence of this, their formation was much different. Instead of balls of mostly gas with a rocky core (at least, Jupiter had one initially even if it doesn't anymore), they are primarily huge many-Earth sized balls of ice and rock, which accumulated very thick atmospheres.
They are probably a lot more like really big Titans than really small Jupiters. If they could be magically moved to the inner solar system, they would no doubt form huge oceans of water. But it would be difficult for such a planet to actually form that close to the sun in the first place with so much water.
No, I mentioned them specifically in my charts because I do have some data one them but they are still excluded from some of the charts. You can look at the other 120K+ chart to see L1 and L2.
For RO I only have Japan numbers, which are only a fraction of the total. L1 and L2 are excluded because:
1. They count subscribers in a different way. 2. They are so large, they'd take up most of the pie chart. 3. They are primarily Asian-market games. 4. There are several other large Asian games that aren't listed yet, which would make it very unfair to show L1 and L2 and not the others. 5. It's far more useful and interesting to most of my readers to have an idea of the market for North American & European MMOGs. While the data included is worldwide, for most of the MMOGs the number of Asian subscribers is limited; FFXI has maybe half of its subs in Japan; UO about 45%. So it still gives you a pretty good idea of their popularity. L1 & L2, on the other hand, are almost purely an Asian phenomenon.
Ideally, one would be able to break subscribers out by territory for each individual MMOG. Sadly, that's almost impossible; it's hard enough getting good data on subscriber numbers. So we have to live with the data as it is.
Despite the text to the contrary, there's no entry for Tabula Rasa in either part of the list.
They also list the expansions for AC1, AC2, and EQ1, which is hardly exhaustive. 2005 will likely see the release of more than one expansion for EQ1, expansions for DAoC, UO and WWIIOL, and possibly EQ2 and WoW. Not to mention several other Asian games that are likely to be released: A3, Fairyland, Hello Kitty, etc.
Bruce
Quoting Paul Sams: "That's one of the other things that I think is interesting about this product. It's really the only MMO that has an extremely long history, where there are millions and millions of people that are already dedicated to that franchise. They're already tied into the storylines, the characters and what have you, and as a result of that we think that we have a built in audience that is going to be interested in checking it out."
Umm, hello, McFly?!? How about a little game called ULTIMA ONLINE? Perhaps you've heard of it.
They were down several hours yesterday, but were back up again today. Game is very popular and seriously competeing with Lineage and Lineage II in time in the PC Baangs.
In addition they have a special-tiered "Builder's Program": (12) Month Prepay - Bronze Level Builders - $179.99 - You also get a special icon on the bulletin boards and a listing on the web site.
Silver Level Builders - $500 - You get all of the Bronze-level benefits, plus a special in-game Builder's Icon, plus your name on a bronze plaque on a bridge in the game.
Gold Leve Builders - $1000 - You get all of the Silver/Bronze benefits, plus a special in-game statue of yourself with a custom message placed in the game world.
Mark Jacobs has admitted they are lower, and the concurrency numbers are down over 30%, but exactly how many subscribers have left has yet to be quantified. The 250K number comes from the last press releases.
All of this is quite true. Still, I will admit 350K is nearly the lower end for WoW; in the analysis I state it could be as high as 600K. (EQII reportedly had 85% conversion, which is very high; apply the same to WoW and you'll get 500K.) Still, one would expect them to trumpet passing the 500K subscriber mark and claim they have passed EverQuest in size -- but they haven't. So it makes one wonder.
It's also important to note that many WoW boxes were bought as holiday gifts, and many were bought by Blizzard or Warcraft-specific fans who had never been willing to try a MMOG before. So it would not be unusual for the conversion rate to be lower because of these factors.
There's a good chance Blizzard will release another number for WoW later this month or in February, in which case the 350K figure might be more accurate for December.
IGDA has a pretty big presence every year at the Game Developer's Conference. Still, it's quite true that they don't have a huge amount of members. One of the reasons commonly cited for this was that the membership fee was so high, so this is a good first step.
Hey xeno, don't worry, you're not being an ass.:) The criticism I usually get is much more blunt; yours is actually reasonable!
However, I will point out a couple of things:
1. The numbers for Anarchy Online were also modified to more accurately reflect reality (hopefully). Eve Online was also updated, A Tale In the Desert finally got listed, and there were a couple of other minor changes. Also, I added a market share by genre breakdown.
2. The February/March update(s) should be a lot more informative. Meanwhile, a lot of people have been using my charts to argue EQ2 vs. WoW, and given that new numbers came out for both recently, the current interest level is quite high.
3. I used to update more infrequently; quarterly was about the average I was managing the past 2 years. But then people complained it was too long between updates! I've gotten some generous donations so I'm trying to give back to the community by updating more frequently.
Whether or not each new update deserves a monthly slashdot article, well, that's a legitimate question. I think the current interest is high enough to warrant it (I had no idea that the IDGA white paper would be coming out at the same time), but clearly I'm biased.
Having talked with Teppy about this, he notes that the "citizens" number does not include all subscribers, since there are many people who have accounts who have never bothered to make the characters on the citizens (mules, etc.). I've been unable to determine what the real number of "subscribers" are as of yet. Certainly the citizen number should be looked at as a lower bound for that number.
Most of the parts have a realistic MTBF much, much longer than 3 months. I suppose some of them might be overengineered, but remember they have to be tough enough to survive the rigors of launch, space, landing, etc. So sometimes if you build something tough enough to survive that, it's going to last a lot longer than 3 months on Mars, so just consider that a bonus.
The real "3 month life time" figure was simply based upon a calculation of how much dust the solar cells would accumulate, and thus how much power they would have in the winter the keep the vehicle warm during the nights, and how cold it would get on Mars during that time. It turns out that dust has accumulated less on Spirit than expected, that the dust on Opportunity was luckily mostly blown off by wind (but since them another dust storm has deposited some new dust on it), and the winter wasn't as cold as calculated -- which means the rovers had enough power, which means they didn't get cold enough for other parts to fail, which means they get to keep operating.
Bruce
Here's an excellent Java applet that can you can use to visually display the landing sites of various Martian probes (by default it only shows MER-A and B):
Slashdot Mirror
According to http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7014 the scientists have not only detected methane, but also formaldehyde, which was measured at levels of 130 parts per billion. From the article:
He thinks that the gas is being produced by the oxidation of methane and estimates that 2.5 million tonnes of methane per year are needed to produce it. "I believe that until it is demonstrated that non-biological processes can produce this, possibly the only way to produce so much methane is life," he says. "My conclusion is there must be life in the soil of Mars."
Bruce
>Since we are all individuals
I'm not!
Bruce
I think the correct verb is "slingshat".
Bruce
Personally, I think there is a lot more writing out there than these guys read, so I hardly take their opinion very seriously. However, "Bow, Nigger" was certainly one of the best pieces I read last year.
Bruce
Uranus and Neptune, while they are gas giants, are much smaller and much further out than Jupiter and Saturn. As a consequence of this, their formation was much different. Instead of balls of mostly gas with a rocky core (at least, Jupiter had one initially even if it doesn't anymore), they are primarily huge many-Earth sized balls of ice and rock, which accumulated very thick atmospheres.
They are probably a lot more like really big Titans than really small Jupiters. If they could be magically moved to the inner solar system, they would no doubt form huge oceans of water. But it would be difficult for such a planet to actually form that close to the sun in the first place with so much water.
Bruce
No, I mentioned them specifically in my charts because I do have some data one them but they are still excluded from some of the charts. You can look at the other 120K+ chart to see L1 and L2.
For RO I only have Japan numbers, which are only a fraction of the total. L1 and L2 are excluded because:
1. They count subscribers in a different way.
2. They are so large, they'd take up most of the pie chart.
3. They are primarily Asian-market games.
4. There are several other large Asian games that aren't listed yet, which would make it very unfair to show L1 and L2 and not the others.
5. It's far more useful and interesting to most of my readers to have an idea of the market for North American & European MMOGs. While the data included is worldwide, for most of the MMOGs the number of Asian subscribers is limited; FFXI has maybe half of its subs in Japan; UO about 45%. So it still gives you a pretty good idea of their popularity. L1 & L2, on the other hand, are almost purely an Asian phenomenon.
Ideally, one would be able to break subscribers out by territory for each individual MMOG. Sadly, that's almost impossible; it's hard enough getting good data on subscriber numbers. So we have to live with the data as it is.
Bruce
For those interested, I also wrote a review for Amazon that was accepted recently. It's mostly positive, but includes criticisms as well.
/ 1932111972?_encoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort_by =-SubmissionDate&n=283155
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews
Bruce
Despite the text to the contrary, there's no entry for Tabula Rasa in either part of the list. They also list the expansions for AC1, AC2, and EQ1, which is hardly exhaustive. 2005 will likely see the release of more than one expansion for EQ1, expansions for DAoC, UO and WWIIOL, and possibly EQ2 and WoW. Not to mention several other Asian games that are likely to be released: A3, Fairyland, Hello Kitty, etc. Bruce
Quoting Paul Sams:
"That's one of the other things that I think is interesting about this product. It's really the only MMO that has an extremely long history, where there are millions and millions of people that are already dedicated to that franchise. They're already tied into the storylines, the characters and what have you, and as a result of that we think that we have a built in audience that is going to be interested in checking it out."
Umm, hello, McFly?!? How about a little game called ULTIMA ONLINE? Perhaps you've heard of it.
Sheesh.
Bruce
Started charging on Monday.
They were down several hours yesterday, but were back up again today. Game is very popular and seriously competeing with Lineage and Lineage II in time in the PC Baangs.
Bruce
WWIIOL offers a variety of subscription plans for long-term customers:
(3) Month Prepay- $44.99
(6) Month Pre-pay- $64.99
(12) Month Prepay- $99.99
In addition they have a special-tiered "Builder's Program":
(12) Month Prepay - Bronze Level Builders - $179.99 - You also get a special icon on the bulletin boards and a listing on the web site.
Silver Level Builders - $500 - You get all of the Bronze-level benefits, plus a special in-game Builder's Icon, plus your name on a bronze plaque on a bridge in the game.
Gold Leve Builders - $1000 - You get all of the Silver/Bronze benefits, plus a special in-game statue of yourself with a custom message placed in the game world.
Bruce
If you read the Analysis section, you'll find more discussion of the Lineage numbers. But the short answer is, yes, it is very popular in Korea.
Bruce
Mark Jacobs has admitted they are lower, and the concurrency numbers are down over 30%, but exactly how many subscribers have left has yet to be quantified. The 250K number comes from the last press releases.
Bruce
I dunno if they are going to share their numbers or not. I hope so!
Bruce
I can't believe no ToonTown developer has slipped me numbers yet. :( Industry guesses are in the 30K - 50K range.
Bruce
All of this is quite true. Still, I will admit 350K is nearly the lower end for WoW; in the analysis I state it could be as high as 600K. (EQII reportedly had 85% conversion, which is very high; apply the same to WoW and you'll get 500K.) Still, one would expect them to trumpet passing the 500K subscriber mark and claim they have passed EverQuest in size -- but they haven't. So it makes one wonder.
It's also important to note that many WoW boxes were bought as holiday gifts, and many were bought by Blizzard or Warcraft-specific fans who had never been willing to try a MMOG before. So it would not be unusual for the conversion rate to be lower because of these factors.
There's a good chance Blizzard will release another number for WoW later this month or in February, in which case the 350K figure might be more accurate for December.
Bruce
IGDA has a pretty big presence every year at the Game Developer's Conference. Still, it's quite true that they don't have a huge amount of members. One of the reasons commonly cited for this was that the membership fee was so high, so this is a good first step.
Bruce
Hey xeno, don't worry, you're not being an ass. :) The criticism I usually get is much more blunt; yours is actually reasonable!
However, I will point out a couple of things:
1. The numbers for Anarchy Online were also modified to more accurately reflect reality (hopefully). Eve Online was also updated, A Tale In the Desert finally got listed, and there were a couple of other minor changes. Also, I added a market share by genre breakdown.
2. The February/March update(s) should be a lot more informative. Meanwhile, a lot of people have been using my charts to argue EQ2 vs. WoW, and given that new numbers came out for both recently, the current interest level is quite high.
3. I used to update more infrequently; quarterly was about the average I was managing the past 2 years. But then people complained it was too long between updates! I've gotten some generous donations so I'm trying to give back to the community by updating more frequently.
Whether or not each new update deserves a monthly slashdot article, well, that's a legitimate question. I think the current interest is high enough to warrant it (I had no idea that the IDGA white paper would be coming out at the same time), but clearly I'm biased.
Bruce
Okay, updated. :)
Bruce
Give me a few minutes and I'll have my January update online. :)
Bruce
http://www.mmogchart.com/
Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
Having talked with Teppy about this, he notes that the "citizens" number does not include all subscribers, since there are many people who have accounts who have never bothered to make the characters on the citizens (mules, etc.). I've been unable to determine what the real number of "subscribers" are as of yet. Certainly the citizen number should be looked at as a lower bound for that number.
Bruce
Most of the parts have a realistic MTBF much, much longer than 3 months. I suppose some of them might be overengineered, but remember they have to be tough enough to survive the rigors of launch, space, landing, etc. So sometimes if you build something tough enough to survive that, it's going to last a lot longer than 3 months on Mars, so just consider that a bonus. The real "3 month life time" figure was simply based upon a calculation of how much dust the solar cells would accumulate, and thus how much power they would have in the winter the keep the vehicle warm during the nights, and how cold it would get on Mars during that time. It turns out that dust has accumulated less on Spirit than expected, that the dust on Opportunity was luckily mostly blown off by wind (but since them another dust storm has deposited some new dust on it), and the winter wasn't as cold as calculated -- which means the rovers had enough power, which means they didn't get cold enough for other parts to fail, which means they get to keep operating. Bruce
Here's an excellent Java applet that can you can use to visually display the landing sites of various Martian probes (by default it only shows MER-A and B):
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/
Bruce
>Living in China, I can tell you that people in
>general are happier here, unless they are very
>poor.
So, rich people in China are happier than poor people.
>It seems to be that the richer you get, the less
>happy you get.
Wait, so rich people in China are LESS happy than the poor people?
>At least this has been the recent trend in the
>West, and there are signs of it also in booming
>China.
Wait, so in China, rich people were happier than poor people, but now that their richer, they're less happy?
Bruce