Jupiter hasn't "cleared the neighbourhood"; it has all these moons around it! Any planet with moons or rings isn't going to qualify.
Oh, but you may say, "Well, by clearing the neighborhood, we mean nothing else in a similar orbit; Jupiter's moons orbit Jupiter." Okay, that's a stretch, but the trojan asteroids share Jupiter's orbit. Jupiter certainly hasn't cleared out those!
The problem is they're saying if a "moon" is orbiting a barycenter that's not inside another planet, then it's not orbiting that planet and becomes a planet itself. For this reason, they argue Charon is a planet, rather than a moon.
The problem is that barycenter of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun is also outside the Sun. Therefore, by the same logic, Jupiter wouldn't be a planet.
The rovers, with their small parachute and airbag landing system, only work in very narrow range of Martian lattitudes, where the atmopshere is the thickest. In fact, data from Spirit and Opportunity indicate they almost landed too hard. These vehicles simply cannot be sent to the polar regions; they would crash.
Why not send a rover to the poles? Well, you could, but it would have to be a smaller one, with a different design. Other factors such as solar input and temperature are also quite different. Basically, the type of science we REALLY want to do at the poles, right now, doesn't require a rover... we've never landed there at all. If Mars Polar Lander had been a success, we might be looking at a polar rover now, but since it failed, we still need a (stationary) polar landing.
I recall there was also some conspiracy theories on the left that massive oil drilling in the ocean made underwater earthquakes (and thus tsunamis) more likely, since they were messing up natures delicate balance of internal pressures or other such nonsense. So in that way, Republicans were all responsible since they're all tired to Big Oil and don't Respect The Planet.
It's not just marketing information... NCSoft's own quarterly financial documents don't treat Guild Wars like they do other MMOGs; they don't track the same metrics for them. Many years back, a lot of players considered multiplayer Diablo 2 an MMO. Many game sites have mistakenly called Hellgate: London an MMO. Doesn't make them right.
>So, danger and tangible loss does not appeal to Americans. (With the exception of NASCAR and a >select few alternate forms of such sport like top-fuel dragracing.) This is inline with >generalized social characteristics of an American. In that, being so common for an American to >refuse to be held responsible and always trying to blame someone else, even for his own self- >enduced misfortune. This is very important to consider, becuase the fear of being held >responsible stems from the prospect of suffering consequences and in suffering, danger and loss >is implied.
Oh yes, this is why we've got THOUSANDS OF MEN AND WOMEN DYING IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. Because we're afraid of being held responsible. I'm sorry, when was the last time anyone in Europe (except the UK) stepped up to the plate? We had to help you guys out in the Balkans, too.
But thanks for reminding us just how fucking ungrateful most Europeans are. I'll be sure to remember this post the next time your country gets caught in next European war.
Guild Wars isn't on the list because 1. It's not a MMOG, according to its own developers, and 2. It doesn't charge a monthly fee, so it's impossible to compare it to subscription MMOGs. Counting the 2 million registered accounts is irrelevant, because only a fraction of those are actually playing the game regularly. By that standard, EQ and RuneScape would have millions of players, since everyone who ever played would get counted.
Now, you could, conceivable, count only the number of Guild Wars players who log in every month. Even though it's a free game, it would give you an idea of how many are actively playing. But NCSoft doesn't give out that data, and you'd have to get it for all the other games as well to make a fair comparison.
>A) That's now what I've seen for sale on Amazon, but nevertheless, >B) It would somehow doesn't add up with the next point:
My point wasn't that they didn't exist; they still do, I believe. But also that, if you haven't seen them, you can still buy SWG time throught the generic card.
>A) I don't know, if I got such a generic SOE card, SWG would be the last place I'd think of >using it. Between EQ, EQ2, and a few others, it's not like it _must_ be used for SWG, if it's >that universal. > >B) Also, someone who flat out doesn't play the game any more, I doubt they'd use that card at >all. So if we're talking active accounts, such mistakes are a lot less relevant.
Again, you're conflating two different things. Both generic and SWG cards are obviously used for SWG, so there could be a lot of people on those cards regardless of their perceived availability. And SWG specific cards would only be useful for SWG, which might inflate the number of SWG subs from people who got the card bought for them.
>True, but that doesn't really add anything. You _can't_ play until you've selected one method >of payment. They'll start actually billing you after a month, yes, but you have to select one >before you connect at all. So if you've selected monthly payments, you _will_ be counted in >their number of monthly payment accounts. I.e., this particular case won't get added on top of >other accounts, but is just a subcategory of the others. They're already counted.
Not according to what I'm told about those two numbers. So, you may think they should be included in the 110K or 120K number, but they aren't, from what I've been told.
>As far as I'm concerned, that SA account is now purely for the EQ2 extras and, many months ago, >it used to be also for Planetside. Sony never actually got a cent extra for my copy of SWG >being activated under that plan. I.e., what I'm saying is that it can distort the numbers a >_lot_. There may be a pretty large number of accounts which are counted as "active SWG >accounts", but are "active" only by virtue of not costing anything to keep and being nigh- >impossible to deactivate.
And I'm saying that number can't be that large. Probably no more than 10% or so. And that the same could be said for "active WoW accounts" that are "active" only by virtue of someone who simply hasn't cancelled their account yet. We're talking about people who are paying for access in a given month, not how many people are actually active in a given month.
>Unique logins have nothing to do with it. This time it's not about people with multiple >accounts, but about people who, for all practical reasons, aren't either playing the game or >paying anything for it.
You misunderstand. "Unique logins" doesn't refer to multiple accounts It refers to the number of unique accounts that log in in a given month. In other words, people who ARE playing the game. I thought your point was that you didn't want to count people who were paying but not playing; e.g. certain SOE station subscribers.
>I.e., assuming that you are right about that number of accounts (though I sorta suspect it >might just have dropped more, but that's guesswork again), then the only explanation is that at >least half the accounts aren't actually played. Or not much. Which, I guess, is possible after >all.
Maybe you're not seeing all the servers? Or maybe there's a very large proportion of people who bought yearly subs and only quit within the past 12 months.
>Well... come to think of it, it may even make sense. I do remember that on the previous visit a >_lot_ of people I've talked to were just hanging around to see if Sony rolls back the NGE. (As >if that would ever actually happen.) Now that's not a scientific poll, nor even close, but, >still, it would be some explanation. If enough people are just waiting for a NGE rollbac
>Look, nothing personal or anything, but precisely _because_ I had read that analysis I'm >unconvinced.
Nothing personal on my end, either, but you kept saying things that just weren't true. So maybe you did read the analysis and I just didn't communicate them effectively enough.
>I'm sorry, but that's just looks funny to me. So 120,000 monthly paying accounts, plus 50,000 >_total_ Station Access accounts (most of which have no interest in SWG in any form or shape)... >leads you to a guess of 190,000? No offense, but... heh. Let's say _half_ the SA accounts had >anything to do with SWG (though even that's a _very_ generous over-estimate), that leaves >45,000 coming from some mysterious source. Game Cards? For SWG? Does any shop even still carry >those?
SOE has a generic game card that works for (almost) all of their games, including SWG.
>Or do so many people use their credit card on Amazon or Sony's own store to... avoid using >their credit card on Sony's station site? Do people buy each other game cards to an unpopular >game as gifts? Ranks just about up there with getting Daikatana as a gift. Or how does that add >up to such a large number?
Obviously, a lot of people do those things. I suspect some of it has to do with parents buying cards for their kids, thinking they still play that game they bought them last Christmas. A lot of people also flat out don't like regular monthly charges on their credit cards, so they prefer using the game cards.
You're also forgetting about people who are registering an account for the first time in a given month on their free month, and probably thousands of comped accounts.
>At any rate, it's just one big guesswork from 120,000 as the only known figure, to 190,000 as >plotted there. About 37% of the final number is simply pulled out of the hat.
The derived number was based upon the PREVOUSLY KNOWN ratio of total subscribers to the monthly number, and bracketed by SOE's own official statements. And, it's rated a C, so you're free to disbelieve it if you like. It doesn't follow that you should discount all the rest of the data points simply because you doubt the validity of one number which is clearly stated as a number you should fucking doubt in the first place.
>I could go on about how it doesn't correlate with the number of simultaneous connections, as >reported by the servers, and stuff like that, but that's already then my guesswork against >yours.
If you have a year-long record of simultaneous connections reported by the servers, feel free to provide them. I suspect they'll correlate fairly well. Remember, though, that very large gameplay changes in that time period have no doubt changed the average play time per subscribe. More importantly, connection numbers drop before subscriptions do; in other words, people stop playing before they cancel, and even if they cancel, a lot of people have subscription plans beyond 30 days, so they'll still look like they subbed long after they left the game. Heck, I was subscribed to SWG for 2 years, but I stopped playing after like 3 months.
>And the real point is that I don't see much room for such guesswork -- either yours or mine -- >in a serious statistic.
Well, that's your problem. That's not how it works in the real world. EVERYTHING is guesswork -- after all these companies that do give out their numbers could be lying. Ever here of Enron? Billions of dollars are transacted every day around the world based on imprecise data. That's how markets work. Get over it.
>Are the other numbers ok? Heck if I know, because at that point I had no interest in >researching each and every one.
That's what the Reliability Ratings are for. Which, if you'd actually read the analysis as you claim, you'd understand. Or, you're just being thick-headed.
>No offense, but... by that logic, you should also include everyone who's bought
Damn, stupid slashdot formatting. Let's try this again:
>It's even worse than that.
It may be worse than that, but not for most of the reasons you gave.
>A lot of numbers are just wild guesses.
No, they aren't. The only "guesses" on the chart are the latest data points for SWG and DAoC, and those are based upons sourced statements from others that put the number within a known to be correct range. That leaves 99% of the rest of the data on the chart to be non-guesses.
>For example SOE brags something like "SWG is the third biggest multiplayer game!", but not by >what criterion or how it's counted or anything... and the guy then goes and guesses a number >between that of game number 2 and game number 4 in the charts. (Or rather between number 2 and >what would have been number 3 if we go by known figures or if Sony is lying.)
Subsequent conversations with Smedley explained by what criterion and how it was counted. So you're just flat wrong here.
>Frankly, I fail to see any point in charting something that's a collection of wild guesses,
I do too. Luckily, I don't do that... I chart real data points, with a couple of informed guesses, and no wild ones.
>and with the accuracy of being somewhere between 175,000 and 250,000. When you imagine that >guesswork margin around the graph, it could have pretty much any shape whatsoever. Allowing >for that huge margin of error, it could have actually gained players in the NGE. (Yeah, I know >it didn't, but the margin of error is high enough to allow even that. Just shows how utterly >useless that graph is.)
That doesn't make it useless at all. Did you even continue reading the analysis? Because I had an inside source providng me a related number for the same month that I could use to determine with some accuracy the total number of subscribers. Yes, you still wind up with a large margin of error, but enough to have high confidence it didn't actually gain players.
>Add the fact that you have no clue what Sony measured there (or _if_ it measured anything.) >Was it number of players? Number of accounts? Number of sold boxes? Simultaneous connections? >What? Did they include every single Station Access account, even if it doesn't actually play >SWG? Was that claim made during at the apex of some "try the game free for 7 days" campaign >and including the free accounts? Or what? Basically what's the point of graphing something if >you don't even know what that number means or how it was measured?
It was none of the above. It was total active subscribers, which includes those people currently able to play the game via station pass (but not all of them), as well as those currently on free time. Which is basically how almost every other data point on the charts is calculated. (Some choose not to count their currently active free accounts. Typically, this is never more than 10% of the total subscription base, so it's not a big issue. This is also discussed in the analysis.)
>And that's a general problem, not just a Sony one. Some games track players. (E.g., WoW counts >you only once even if you have multiple accounts.)
Who told you this? Because it's not true. WoW, or any other MMOG developer, has NO WAY of linking an account to a specific player. They might know what name you put on it, and they know the name on the credit card that's attached to it. That's it.
>Some track accounts. Some include every >single PC in an internet cafe in Korea, whether anyone actually plays the game on it or not. >(Internet cafe owners have to license each game for each PC, which for some games it's half >the revenue.) Etc.
None of the games I tracked include "every singled PC in an internet cafe in Korea", so your objections here are irrelevant. Again, what is tracked is current active subscribers. In a few cases where the data providing is a similar but somewhat diffe
>It's even worse than that.
It may be worse than that, but not for most of the reasons you gave.
>A lot of numbers are just wild guesses.
No, they aren't. The only "guesses" on the chart are the latest data points for SWG and DAoC, and those are based upons sourced statements from others that put the number within a known to be correct range. That leaves 99% of the rest of the data on the chart to be non-guesses.
>For example SOE brags something like "SWG is the third biggest multiplayer game!", but not by
>what criterion or how it's counted or anything... and the guy then goes and guesses a number
>between that of game number 2 and game number 4 in the charts. (Or rather between number 2 and
>what would have been number 3 if we go by known figures or if Sony is lying.)
Subsequent conversations with Smedley explained by what criterion and how it was counted. So you're just flat wrong here.
>Frankly, I fail to see any point in charting something that's a collection of wild guesses,
I do too. Luckily, I don't do that... I chart real data points, with a couple of informed guesses, and no wild ones.
>and with the accuracy of being somewhere between 175,000 and 250,000. When you imagine that
>guesswork margin around the graph, it could have pretty much any shape whatsoever. Allowing
>for that huge margin of error, it could have actually gained players in the NGE. (Yeah, I know
>it didn't, but the margin of error is high enough to allow even that. Just shows how utterly
>useless that graph is.)
That doesn't make it useless at all. Did you even continue reading the analysis? Because I had an inside source providng me a related number for the same month that I could use to determine with some accuracy the total number of subscribers. Yes, you still wind up with a large margin of error, but enough to have high confidence it didn't actually gain players.
>Add the fact that you have no clue what Sony measured there (or _if_ it measured anything.)
>Was it number of players? Number of accounts? Number of sold boxes? Simultaneous connections? >What? Did they include every single Station Access account, even if it doesn't actually play
>SWG? Was that claim made during at the apex of some "try the game free for 7 days" campaign
>and including the free accounts? Or what? Basically what's the point of graphing something if
>you don't even know what that number means or how it was measured?
It was none of the above. It was total active subscribers, which includes those people currently able to play the game via station pass (but not all of them), as well as those currently on free time. Which is basically how almost every other data point on the charts is calculated. (Some choose not to count their currently active free accounts. Typically, this is never more than 10% of the total subscription base, so it's not a big issue. This is also discussed in the analysis.)
>And that's a general problem, not just a Sony one. Some games track players. (E.g., WoW counts
>you only once even if you have multiple accounts.)
Who told you this? Because it's not true. WoW, or any other MMOG developer, has NO WAY of linking an account to a specific player. They might know what name you put on it, and they know the name on the credit card that's attached to it. That's it.
>Some track accounts. Some include every
>single PC in an internet cafe in Korea, whether anyone actually plays the game on it or not.
>(Internet cafe owners have to license each game for each PC, which for some games it's half
>the revenue.) Etc.
None of the games I tracked include "every singled PC in an internet cafe in Korea", so your objections here are irrelevant. Again, what is tracked is current active subscribers. In a few cases where the data providing is a similar but somewhat differently defined number, it is so noted in the analysis. In all of these cases, the numbers are as close to "apples to apples" comparisons as one can get; no "apples to oranges" comparisons of the typ
Maybe 7 million total registered users, but not all of those were active at the same time. And South Korea has a total population of 45-50 million, so 1 in 10 people playing Lineage is amazing but not impossible. The South Korean MMOG phenomenon had a lot of unique factors that caused it to grow so large, including an economic downturn that left a lot of young 20-something men without jobs, Internet access concentrated in urban centers, and a ban on console imports until recently.
Bruce
All of SOE's MMOG's got dropped to B (or less) since I'm now using inside sources rather than official statements for them. Hopefully I'll be able to get SOE to provide official guidance in the future.
For WoW, of the 6.6 million active subscribers worldwide, about 3.6 million of those are in China. Europe has over 1 million, and North America has between 1.5 and 2 million.
In the analysis for FFXI (nobody ever reads that), I discuss that fact that given the census figures, subscriber numbers could be as high as 700,000. But the more I guesstimate numbers to put on the chart, the more I get slammed for guesstimating.:)
NCSoft provides subscriber numbers for all of their games every 3 months. The figures for March, the last data points for L1 and L2, came out in May. You'll have to wait until August until you see an update on how they were doing as of June. (I was lucky to get interim updates for CoX and AA.)
Slashdot Mirror
Jupiter hasn't "cleared the neighbourhood"; it has all these moons around it! Any planet with moons or rings isn't going to qualify.
Oh, but you may say, "Well, by clearing the neighborhood, we mean nothing else in a similar orbit; Jupiter's moons orbit Jupiter." Okay, that's a stretch, but the trojan asteroids share Jupiter's orbit. Jupiter certainly hasn't cleared out those!
Bruce
The problem is they're saying if a "moon" is orbiting a barycenter that's not inside another planet, then it's not orbiting that planet and becomes a planet itself. For this reason, they argue Charon is a planet, rather than a moon.
The problem is that barycenter of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun is also outside the Sun. Therefore, by the same logic, Jupiter wouldn't be a planet.
Bruce
No, it's My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pumpkins. Didn't anyone else read Miss Pickerell?
Bruce
Which one is the evil twin?
The one with the goatee, of course!
Bruce
The rovers, with their small parachute and airbag landing system, only work in very narrow range of Martian lattitudes, where the atmopshere is the thickest. In fact, data from Spirit and Opportunity indicate they almost landed too hard. These vehicles simply cannot be sent to the polar regions; they would crash.
Why not send a rover to the poles? Well, you could, but it would have to be a smaller one, with a different design. Other factors such as solar input and temperature are also quite different. Basically, the type of science we REALLY want to do at the poles, right now, doesn't require a rover... we've never landed there at all. If Mars Polar Lander had been a success, we might be looking at a polar rover now, but since it failed, we still need a (stationary) polar landing.
Bruce
No, it's not true at all. Do the math yourself; some people still live too long and others not long enough.
And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them as you are not trusted by me.
Bruce
I recall there was also some conspiracy theories on the left that massive oil drilling in the ocean made underwater earthquakes (and thus tsunamis) more likely, since they were messing up natures delicate balance of internal pressures or other such nonsense. So in that way, Republicans were all responsible since they're all tired to Big Oil and don't Respect The Planet.
Bruce
But any way you slice it, it's not subscription, so you couldn't track it based on subs anyway. You'd have to use another metric.
Bruce
It's not just marketing information... NCSoft's own quarterly financial documents don't treat Guild Wars like they do other MMOGs; they don't track the same metrics for them. Many years back, a lot of players considered multiplayer Diablo 2 an MMO. Many game sites have mistakenly called Hellgate: London an MMO. Doesn't make them right.
Bruce
>So, danger and tangible loss does not appeal to Americans. (With the exception of NASCAR and a
>select few alternate forms of such sport like top-fuel dragracing.) This is inline with
>generalized social characteristics of an American. In that, being so common for an American to
>refuse to be held responsible and always trying to blame someone else, even for his own self-
>enduced misfortune. This is very important to consider, becuase the fear of being held
>responsible stems from the prospect of suffering consequences and in suffering, danger and loss
>is implied.
Oh yes, this is why we've got THOUSANDS OF MEN AND WOMEN DYING IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. Because we're afraid of being held responsible. I'm sorry, when was the last time anyone in Europe (except the UK) stepped up to the plate? We had to help you guys out in the Balkans, too.
But thanks for reminding us just how fucking ungrateful most Europeans are. I'll be sure to remember this post the next time your country gets caught in next European war.
Bruce
Guild Wars isn't on the list because 1. It's not a MMOG, according to its own developers, and 2. It doesn't charge a monthly fee, so it's impossible to compare it to subscription MMOGs. Counting the 2 million registered accounts is irrelevant, because only a fraction of those are actually playing the game regularly. By that standard, EQ and RuneScape would have millions of players, since everyone who ever played would get counted.
Now, you could, conceivable, count only the number of Guild Wars players who log in every month. Even though it's a free game, it would give you an idea of how many are actively playing. But NCSoft doesn't give out that data, and you'd have to get it for all the other games as well to make a fair comparison.
Bruce
>A) That's now what I've seen for sale on Amazon, but nevertheless,
>B) It would somehow doesn't add up with the next point:
My point wasn't that they didn't exist; they still do, I believe. But also that, if you haven't seen them, you can still buy SWG time throught the generic card.
>A) I don't know, if I got such a generic SOE card, SWG would be the last place I'd think of
>using it. Between EQ, EQ2, and a few others, it's not like it _must_ be used for SWG, if it's
>that universal.
>
>B) Also, someone who flat out doesn't play the game any more, I doubt they'd use that card at
>all. So if we're talking active accounts, such mistakes are a lot less relevant.
Again, you're conflating two different things. Both generic and SWG cards are obviously used for SWG, so there could be a lot of people on those cards regardless of their perceived availability. And SWG specific cards would only be useful for SWG, which might inflate the number of SWG subs from people who got the card bought for them.
>True, but that doesn't really add anything. You _can't_ play until you've selected one method
>of payment. They'll start actually billing you after a month, yes, but you have to select one
>before you connect at all. So if you've selected monthly payments, you _will_ be counted in
>their number of monthly payment accounts. I.e., this particular case won't get added on top of
>other accounts, but is just a subcategory of the others. They're already counted.
Not according to what I'm told about those two numbers. So, you may think they should be included in the 110K or 120K number, but they aren't, from what I've been told.
>As far as I'm concerned, that SA account is now purely for the EQ2 extras and, many months ago,
>it used to be also for Planetside. Sony never actually got a cent extra for my copy of SWG
>being activated under that plan. I.e., what I'm saying is that it can distort the numbers a
>_lot_. There may be a pretty large number of accounts which are counted as "active SWG
>accounts", but are "active" only by virtue of not costing anything to keep and being nigh-
>impossible to deactivate.
And I'm saying that number can't be that large. Probably no more than 10% or so. And that the same could be said for "active WoW accounts" that are "active" only by virtue of someone who simply hasn't cancelled their account yet. We're talking about people who are paying for access in a given month, not how many people are actually active in a given month.
>Unique logins have nothing to do with it. This time it's not about people with multiple
>accounts, but about people who, for all practical reasons, aren't either playing the game or
>paying anything for it.
You misunderstand. "Unique logins" doesn't refer to multiple accounts It refers to the number of unique accounts that log in in a given month. In other words, people who ARE playing the game. I thought your point was that you didn't want to count people who were paying but not playing; e.g. certain SOE station subscribers.
>I.e., assuming that you are right about that number of accounts (though I sorta suspect it
>might just have dropped more, but that's guesswork again), then the only explanation is that at
>least half the accounts aren't actually played. Or not much. Which, I guess, is possible after
>all.
Maybe you're not seeing all the servers? Or maybe there's a very large proportion of people who bought yearly subs and only quit within the past 12 months.
>Well... come to think of it, it may even make sense. I do remember that on the previous visit a
>_lot_ of people I've talked to were just hanging around to see if Sony rolls back the NGE. (As
>if that would ever actually happen.) Now that's not a scientific poll, nor even close, but,
>still, it would be some explanation. If enough people are just waiting for a NGE rollbac
>Look, nothing personal or anything, but precisely _because_ I had read that analysis I'm
>unconvinced.
Nothing personal on my end, either, but you kept saying things that just weren't true. So maybe you did read the analysis and I just didn't communicate them effectively enough.
>I'm sorry, but that's just looks funny to me. So 120,000 monthly paying accounts, plus 50,000
>_total_ Station Access accounts (most of which have no interest in SWG in any form or shape)...
>leads you to a guess of 190,000? No offense, but... heh. Let's say _half_ the SA accounts had
>anything to do with SWG (though even that's a _very_ generous over-estimate), that leaves
>45,000 coming from some mysterious source. Game Cards? For SWG? Does any shop even still carry
>those?
SOE has a generic game card that works for (almost) all of their games, including SWG.
>Or do so many people use their credit card on Amazon or Sony's own store to... avoid using
>their credit card on Sony's station site? Do people buy each other game cards to an unpopular
>game as gifts? Ranks just about up there with getting Daikatana as a gift. Or how does that add
>up to such a large number?
Obviously, a lot of people do those things. I suspect some of it has to do with parents buying cards for their kids, thinking they still play that game they bought them last Christmas. A lot of people also flat out don't like regular monthly charges on their credit cards, so they prefer using the game cards.
You're also forgetting about people who are registering an account for the first time in a given month on their free month, and probably thousands of comped accounts.
>At any rate, it's just one big guesswork from 120,000 as the only known figure, to 190,000 as
>plotted there. About 37% of the final number is simply pulled out of the hat.
The derived number was based upon the PREVOUSLY KNOWN ratio of total subscribers to the monthly number, and bracketed by SOE's own official statements. And, it's rated a C, so you're free to disbelieve it if you like. It doesn't follow that you should discount all the rest of the data points simply because you doubt the validity of one number which is clearly stated as a number you should fucking doubt in the first place.
>I could go on about how it doesn't correlate with the number of simultaneous connections, as
>reported by the servers, and stuff like that, but that's already then my guesswork against
>yours.
If you have a year-long record of simultaneous connections reported by the servers, feel free to provide them. I suspect they'll correlate fairly well. Remember, though, that very large gameplay changes in that time period have no doubt changed the average play time per subscribe. More importantly, connection numbers drop before subscriptions do; in other words, people stop playing before they cancel, and even if they cancel, a lot of people have subscription plans beyond 30 days, so they'll still look like they subbed long after they left the game. Heck, I was subscribed to SWG for 2 years, but I stopped playing after like 3 months.
>And the real point is that I don't see much room for such guesswork -- either yours or mine --
>in a serious statistic.
Well, that's your problem. That's not how it works in the real world. EVERYTHING is guesswork -- after all these companies that do give out their numbers could be lying. Ever here of Enron? Billions of dollars are transacted every day around the world based on imprecise data. That's how markets work. Get over it.
>Are the other numbers ok? Heck if I know, because at that point I had no interest in
>researching each and every one.
That's what the Reliability Ratings are for. Which, if you'd actually read the analysis as you claim, you'd understand. Or, you're just being thick-headed.
>No offense, but... by that logic, you should also include everyone who's bought
Damn, stupid slashdot formatting. Let's try this again:
>It's even worse than that.
It may be worse than that, but not for most of the reasons you gave.
>A lot of numbers are just wild guesses.
No, they aren't. The only "guesses" on the chart are the latest data points for SWG and DAoC, and those are based upons sourced statements from others that put the number within a known to be correct range. That leaves 99% of the rest of the data on the chart to be non-guesses.
>For example SOE brags something like "SWG is the third biggest multiplayer game!", but not by
>what criterion or how it's counted or anything... and the guy then goes and guesses a number
>between that of game number 2 and game number 4 in the charts. (Or rather between number 2 and
>what would have been number 3 if we go by known figures or if Sony is lying.)
Subsequent conversations with Smedley explained by what criterion and how it was counted. So you're just flat wrong here.
>Frankly, I fail to see any point in charting something that's a collection of wild guesses,
I do too. Luckily, I don't do that... I chart real data points, with a couple of informed guesses, and no wild ones.
>and with the accuracy of being somewhere between 175,000 and 250,000. When you imagine that
>guesswork margin around the graph, it could have pretty much any shape whatsoever. Allowing
>for that huge margin of error, it could have actually gained players in the NGE. (Yeah, I know
>it didn't, but the margin of error is high enough to allow even that. Just shows how utterly
>useless that graph is.)
That doesn't make it useless at all. Did you even continue reading the analysis? Because I had an inside source providng me a related number for the same month that I could use to determine with some accuracy the total number of subscribers. Yes, you still wind up with a large margin of error, but enough to have high confidence it didn't actually gain players.
>Add the fact that you have no clue what Sony measured there (or _if_ it measured anything.)
>Was it number of players? Number of accounts? Number of sold boxes? Simultaneous connections? >What? Did they include every single Station Access account, even if it doesn't actually play
>SWG? Was that claim made during at the apex of some "try the game free for 7 days" campaign
>and including the free accounts? Or what? Basically what's the point of graphing something if
>you don't even know what that number means or how it was measured?
It was none of the above. It was total active subscribers, which includes those people currently able to play the game via station pass (but not all of them), as well as those currently on free time. Which is basically how almost every other data point on the charts is calculated. (Some choose not to count their currently active free accounts. Typically, this is never more than 10% of the total subscription base, so it's not a big issue. This is also discussed in the analysis.)
>And that's a general problem, not just a Sony one. Some games track players. (E.g., WoW counts
>you only once even if you have multiple accounts.)
Who told you this? Because it's not true. WoW, or any other MMOG developer, has NO WAY of linking an account to a specific player. They might know what name you put on it, and they know the name on the credit card that's attached to it. That's it.
>Some track accounts. Some include every
>single PC in an internet cafe in Korea, whether anyone actually plays the game on it or not.
>(Internet cafe owners have to license each game for each PC, which for some games it's half
>the revenue.) Etc.
None of the games I tracked include "every singled PC in an internet cafe in Korea", so your objections here are irrelevant. Again, what is tracked is current active subscribers. In a few cases where the data providing is a similar but somewhat diffe
>It's even worse than that. It may be worse than that, but not for most of the reasons you gave. >A lot of numbers are just wild guesses. No, they aren't. The only "guesses" on the chart are the latest data points for SWG and DAoC, and those are based upons sourced statements from others that put the number within a known to be correct range. That leaves 99% of the rest of the data on the chart to be non-guesses. >For example SOE brags something like "SWG is the third biggest multiplayer game!", but not by >what criterion or how it's counted or anything... and the guy then goes and guesses a number >between that of game number 2 and game number 4 in the charts. (Or rather between number 2 and >what would have been number 3 if we go by known figures or if Sony is lying.) Subsequent conversations with Smedley explained by what criterion and how it was counted. So you're just flat wrong here. >Frankly, I fail to see any point in charting something that's a collection of wild guesses, I do too. Luckily, I don't do that... I chart real data points, with a couple of informed guesses, and no wild ones. >and with the accuracy of being somewhere between 175,000 and 250,000. When you imagine that >guesswork margin around the graph, it could have pretty much any shape whatsoever. Allowing >for that huge margin of error, it could have actually gained players in the NGE. (Yeah, I know >it didn't, but the margin of error is high enough to allow even that. Just shows how utterly >useless that graph is.) That doesn't make it useless at all. Did you even continue reading the analysis? Because I had an inside source providng me a related number for the same month that I could use to determine with some accuracy the total number of subscribers. Yes, you still wind up with a large margin of error, but enough to have high confidence it didn't actually gain players. >Add the fact that you have no clue what Sony measured there (or _if_ it measured anything.) >Was it number of players? Number of accounts? Number of sold boxes? Simultaneous connections? >What? Did they include every single Station Access account, even if it doesn't actually play >SWG? Was that claim made during at the apex of some "try the game free for 7 days" campaign >and including the free accounts? Or what? Basically what's the point of graphing something if >you don't even know what that number means or how it was measured? It was none of the above. It was total active subscribers, which includes those people currently able to play the game via station pass (but not all of them), as well as those currently on free time. Which is basically how almost every other data point on the charts is calculated. (Some choose not to count their currently active free accounts. Typically, this is never more than 10% of the total subscription base, so it's not a big issue. This is also discussed in the analysis.) >And that's a general problem, not just a Sony one. Some games track players. (E.g., WoW counts >you only once even if you have multiple accounts.) Who told you this? Because it's not true. WoW, or any other MMOG developer, has NO WAY of linking an account to a specific player. They might know what name you put on it, and they know the name on the credit card that's attached to it. That's it. >Some track accounts. Some include every >single PC in an internet cafe in Korea, whether anyone actually plays the game on it or not. >(Internet cafe owners have to license each game for each PC, which for some games it's half >the revenue.) Etc. None of the games I tracked include "every singled PC in an internet cafe in Korea", so your objections here are irrelevant. Again, what is tracked is current active subscribers. In a few cases where the data providing is a similar but somewhat differently defined number, it is so noted in the analysis. In all of these cases, the numbers are as close to "apples to apples" comparisons as one can get; no "apples to oranges" comparisons of the typ
Maybe 7 million total registered users, but not all of those were active at the same time. And South Korea has a total population of 45-50 million, so 1 in 10 people playing Lineage is amazing but not impossible. The South Korean MMOG phenomenon had a lot of unique factors that caused it to grow so large, including an economic downturn that left a lot of young 20-something men without jobs, Internet access concentrated in urban centers, and a ban on console imports until recently. Bruce
The 4.3 million is total activated accounts over 12 months; only about 80 - 90% of those have been active in the past 30 days.
Bruce
All of SOE's MMOG's got dropped to B (or less) since I'm now using inside sources rather than official statements for them. Hopefully I'll be able to get SOE to provide official guidance in the future.
Bruce
Yes, it is. See my comment above about counting only the paying subscribers.
Bruce
Because I only count paying Second Life subscribers, not the free ones. Same goes for RuneScape and Puzzle Pirates.
Bruce
For WoW, of the 6.6 million active subscribers worldwide, about 3.6 million of those are in China. Europe has over 1 million, and North America has between 1.5 and 2 million.
Bruce
In the analysis for FFXI (nobody ever reads that), I discuss that fact that given the census figures, subscriber numbers could be as high as 700,000. But the more I guesstimate numbers to put on the chart, the more I get slammed for guesstimating. :)
Bruce
NCSoft provides subscriber numbers for all of their games every 3 months. The figures for March, the last data points for L1 and L2, came out in May. You'll have to wait until August until you see an update on how they were doing as of June. (I was lucky to get interim updates for CoX and AA.)
Bruce
One of the best uses of taxpayer money in federal government history.
Bruce