All Posts by LondonMagus

Originally posted by strategy

Originally posted by LondonMagus

Originally posted by strategy

Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Going down each week ?  Interesting, since last week it was at #13, then later in the week went to #11 and is now in the top 10 this week.

The XFire population of War is indeed going down each week in the last 5 weeks.

The last week was one of the steepest ever. 20% in one week (monday to monday)

Mo 28 Oct 28361 against Mo 03 Nov 22587. (that's 20.4%).

It is the trend that shows you something is terribly wrong. Not some days where there was a server break or a presidential elect (like yesterday). It is a trend showing in a program that constantly shows how much it is being played on a daily basis. Xfire is just that: people playing games with Xfire installed on the background. And a sample of 6000 is incredible high for the purpose it serves. It's NO social study of what these people will vote, eat, drink or have sex with. It shows which PC games in the WESTERN world are being played most and it shows the trend within the games.

http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

It's NO social study of what these people will vote, eat, drink or have sex with. It shows which PC games in the 'Xfire Microverse' are being played most and it shows the trend within the games.

A bit like looking at a 'Goldfish Bowl' really. 

Well this Xfire microuniverse has a sample of 6000+ !!!!!! War players, which as you would have learned in your study group is 10(!) times the number needed for a sample.

And AS the group is already defined - PC games - internet - installed program. This "microuniverse" has 10 times (!) more people than needed for a study top watch trends based on constant sampling.

When iq your THICK head finally going to grasp this fact ????????? 

I just love it when people with no real understanding of a subject try to use insults to win an argument.

I am not sure what 'study group' you are referring to, I purposefully avoid mentioning my professional background because I do not believe it is valid to try to use "I know better than you" to try to win an argument either, but since you ask I have worked in the field of lifestyle statistics & analysis for almost twenty years & understand fairly well about the hazards of survey bias.

It does not matter that you list 'PC Games - Internet - Installed Program' as it does not define a valid set of criteria for creating a balanced sample of the full MMO population, let alone those that play Warhammer.

It does not matter whether your sample is 6000 or 60000, if it is biased then the results are still unreliable.

It does not matter how many juvenile attempts you make at insulting me, these are the real facts!

It is quite amusing though but assuming you have one, don't give up your day job to become a comic. 

Edit.

P.S. I just realised after checking your profile, I've been working in statistics since before you were born!

Originally posted by strategy

Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Going down each week ?  Interesting, since last week it was at #13, then later in the week went to #11 and is now in the top 10 this week.

The XFire population of War is indeed going down each week in the last 5 weeks.

The last week was one of the steepest ever. 20% in one week (monday to monday)

Mo 28 Oct 28361 against Mo 03 Nov 22587. (that's 20.4%).

It is the trend that shows you something is terribly wrong. Not some days where there was a server break or a presidential elect (like yesterday). It is a trend showing in a program that constantly shows how much it is being played on a daily basis. Xfire is just that: people playing games with Xfire installed on the background. And a sample of 6000 is incredible high for the purpose it serves. It's NO social study of what these people will vote, eat, drink or have sex with. It shows which PC games in the WESTERN world are being played most and it shows the trend within the games.

http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

It's NO social study of what these people will vote, eat, drink or have sex with. It shows which PC games in the 'Xfire Microverse' are being played most and it shows the trend within the games.

A bit like looking at a 'Goldfish Bowl' really. 

Whilst it's nice to have new tricks every so often, I quite like the idea of abilities automatically upgrading with level rather than just gaining stock upgrades like 'Zap 1.1' to 'Zap 1.2' every few levels.

By the time I quit EQ2 I had a book full of redundant spells that were essentially just the same half dozen or so abilities repeated over & over again with slightly different names.

Compared to the 'planned obselescence' style of MMO abilities, WAR's system might feel a bit sparse but there isn't any difference really. Also when you do get some genuinely new ability, it is better appreciated.

Just my opinion of course. 

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Gregtheexcon

I find this amusing, these debates on x-fire users and blah blah blah, but im not here to debate anything other then a simple project I tried after seeing many off these threads. 

Heres what I did

I created charaters on half the servers (Made an order then a destro) and I asked about X-Fire until I got the firt 100 responses. (took 2 days but I got em)

The question I asked was how many people used X-Fire at the start but have turned it off. 

The first question I asked them was if they turned it off within the first few days that number was 

11-100

The amount that said they used it within the first month and urned it off were

27-100

Now granted, these numbers are random but so is X-Fire. But out of 100 X-Fire users that still play. 38 turn off X-Fire to play. Does not take a genious to figurre it out but thats 38 pct. So in turn if this figure is relevant, because its a random figure like X-Fire or Neilson,.

So what as the total number quit? Just add 38 pct of the X-Fires now, and you'll get the real people that have X-Fire. Still a drop. But its not as extreme as the X-Fire gods claim, well, the people relying on X-Fire

Just a simple test. A random 100 people. According to X-Fire fans, this should be just as relevant

People made the same assumptions about players turning it off in Age of Conan.  Just like they said "I don't use it, no one in my guild uses it, xfire isn't used by just MMO players" and any hundred other excuses.  While I am not completely sold on xfire and I'm pretty confident it isn't anywhere as close to a survey that was run like a college project. 

Despite all the talk about how a proper sample set should be taken and many other reasonings that all seem very valid in theory, xfire -for whatever reason- seems to be trending pretty accurately.  Anyone can see how accurate it was with Conan and it seems to be showing the same thing with Warhammer.  I bet xfire shows a big drop mid november and then a rise sometime after patch 1.1.

Can you look at xfire and see just how many people are playing or have left?  I doubt it.  Can you look at xfire along with sales charts, server mergers, huge changes in the state of the game address and other factors to see that the game was losing people?  I think so.

Sure there are plenty of reasons why xfire might be wrong or not conducted in a perfectly scientific method, but that is just as much speculation as saying it is perfectly accurate. 

A game that sells 1.2 to 1.5 million copies did not have to many servers at launch.  It just doesn't make sense considering the numbers that Mythic is tossing around.  750k accounts, 800k players? 

I used to disregard xifre as a nonfactor and think it still is in many cases, but seeing its performance with PvP centric MMOs I have given it some second thought.  

I had been trying avoid posting further on this 'Train Wreck' of a thread in the hope that it would just go away by itself, but it just seems to get worse.

Sure there are plenty of reasons why xfire might be wrong or not conducted in a perfectly scientific method, but that is just as much speculation as saying it is perfectly accurate. 

Originally posted by karat76

I hate raiding and I jhave never saw any soloer demand the same loot as raiders. Take wow for instance I have a job and kids so I have don't have the hours to put in to raid. Also I hope all the raiders who told me to lock my damn kids in their rooms so I could raid are sterile becasue they don't deserve kids. I don't want the same gear as raiders I don't worry about if my epeen is as big as theirs. I just have at most 3 hours on a couple nights a week to log on and if i don;t find a group then I just solo for awhile and chat with higher level friends. All I ask is to give me something at end game to do by myself or with a couple friends in the raid dungeons just so i can see the content. I don't care if you drop the loot quality just let me see the content and get a couple upgrades a step or 2 below raid level. Let raiders have their raids just give me an epic quest line that I can do by myself or with a couple friends thats leads to some cool looking gear and it doen't have to be raid quality just something to look forward to after an epic storyline.

Excellent post, raiding is far too time consuming & I just don't see the point of hammering away at a boss monster that has been made artificially super tough purely for the sake of requiring a raid to beat it.

I don't begrudge people that do enjoy raiding. if you have the time & like that sort of thing then good luck to you, but probably the majority of people only have at most a few hours at a time they can dedicate to any hobby, especially mid-week.

Grouping is fun & recently I have been enjoying PvP & RvR in Warhammer. I even rolled a healing class to help provide group balance as most people seem to prefer tanks, but my class is reasonably good at soloing too when I can't find a group so I get the best of both worlds.

A game with forced grouping & frequent raiding just isn't going to appeal to a mass market as people who might only have an hour or so to spend on a given night would find themselves alienated. Niche games can be harsh with their requirements, but not ones that aspire to larger audiences. As the big money is what most developers seem to be chasing after, happily the 'Solo Friendly' stuff is probably here to stay.

Just my opinion of course. 

Originally posted by LuckyCurse

I recently transferred my characters (21 Shadow Warrior, 20 Swordmaster, 8 Rune Priest) from Sea of Malice (a low/low pop server) to Magnus (now Med/Med). 

Before the Transfer

It wasn't easy to want to log in.  I enjoyed the game, but there just wasn't anyone around.  I wanted to go and pick a fight, but wandering aimlessly, looking for a shoulder to tap, produced few results.  I certainly had the feeling that leveling through open world PvP would not be an option.

...

After the Transfer

War is Everywhere.  No kidding.

...

Heaven.   And it hasn't let up in days.    

Conclusion

If you're on a low/low pop server, you're missing out on the game.  oRvR is where it is at, and the last few days of gaming have been the best that I have ever personally witnessed.  If you don't believe me, come to Magnus.  Go to any med/med server.   I blame Mythic for creating too many servers at open and ruining the experience for so many.  War SHOULD have been everywhere. But due to mismanagement, it was no where for so many.  This is a RvR game, and I see that now. I'm glad I hung in there, and I hope that some of you will come over and contribute to the fun -- in this game, the more the merrier.  It's so casual friendly, if you have the money you can easily carry this game as a second or third.  I highly recommend it.  

Thanks for your time,

 LC

Very interesting indeed, thanks for posting.  

Originally posted by daeandor

Originally posted by LondonMagus

Actually, that's part of my point.  If those are accepted standards, then why can't Xfire be considered representative sample?

Try reading what I said & thinking about what you are saying a few more times & you might get the point.

Try not being an arrogant ass.  Go read up on the arguments against Neilsen and you will find them exactly the same as what people are talking about here.  The bottom line is that Neilsen is still considered acceptable by the industry.  Why should mmos be any different?

Try actually reading what people write before hurling insults at them, I didn't say that Nielsen wasn't acceptable, rather that it is obviously managed with far more respect for statistical principles than all the hysteria about Xfire on these forums.

The reason I posted earlier on this thread that there was already a better one that argued the points in much more detail was that both myself & others have already written huge walls of text explaining all the arguments there. 

Exactly how much patience are we supposed to have?

Originally posted by strategy

Originally posted by LondonMagus

Contrary to what several Xfire devotees have tried to claim this is not about pretending Warhammer is actually doing really well in spite of what Xfire numbers predict.

I like the game & wish it were doing better, but it is still early days yet & all new launches seem to get roasted nowadays. I admit it has a few problems, but don't agree they are insurmountable.

This argument is about the correct way to manage statistics, not whether Xfire seems to vaguely point in the right direction at least some of the time. 

Anecdotal evidence about occasions when Xfire numbers have followed the real trend are irrelevant & do not magically make it a perfect barometer for predicting future activity. 

Whilst there are mountains of statistical texts to back up the arguments against the reliability of Xfire data, all it's advocates seem to have are blag & bluster.

Read my post four posts earlier. This is ALL about stats and no denying this.
But you are ignoring always the same thing: your audiance in XFIRE IS already defined.

They are PC game players, on the internet, that INSTALLED Warhammer or AOC or any game you want to follow and it is a significant sample of a few thousand players (MORE than enough for the measurement), PLAYING games.

Meaning XFire - for ITS purpose - shows which games are being  played in the western world. This IS your sample.

What "other" elements do you want? ...Numbers of players.... Not what their hair color is, not what their religion is. Xfire is not there to predict the next president and HOW some social groups may view Obama.

XFire HAS already that predefined target group. The difference is you WANT to "protect" a certain game by posting every post above the last post and attacking a very good tool that actually protects players.

If it wasn't for Xfire, companies would still let you believe they had TONS of players who are no longer there on your servers. FunCon could STILL say they had zillions of players.

Be glad and don't be short sighted. The evidence is in front of your nose and for the sake of defending a game (you proved that in your last post), you sound much like that Iraqi fellow "no problems at all we are doing fine", "our servers are full", "we have 800 K players" and there is no problem.

Great. But reality is checking on your doorstep and each day you're becoming more and more greener in outfit.

I can understand your support for a particular game. I very well can understand you love it and play it. I can even understand you hate me for not liking certain aspects of your game, but please don't look like an Iraqi propaganda machine.

As I said blag & bluster, rather than answer the valid statistical points raised both on this thread & the other 'Xfire Controversy' one, you just attempt to discredit my argument by accusing me of purely trying to protect the game. 

I particularly liked the 'Iraqi propoganda machine' insult, most amusing but don't give up your day job.

Most of my comments on this subject have been purely in relation to statistical theory & whether I support the game is irelevant as that is how survey analysis works whether you like it or not.

As laughable as most of your insults are, your support of Xfire & evident dislike of Warhammer could be argued as to discredit you objectivity also.

The simple fact is though that Xfire is a biased sample for many reasons not just demographically & that its results are unreliable for the type of predictions that its fanatics constanty make. This doesn't mean that in hindsight it always has to be completly wrong, it just can't reliably predict the future.

I look forward to your next tirade of pointless abuse rather than statistical facts. 

Contrary to what several Xfire devotees have tried to claim this is not about pretending Warhammer is actually doing really well in spite of what Xfire numbers predict.

I like the game & wish it were doing better, but it is still early days yet & all new launches seem to get roasted nowadays. I admit it has a few problems, but don't agree they are insurmountable.

This argument is about the correct way to manage statistics, not whether Xfire seems to vaguely point in the right direction at least some of the time. 

Anecdotal evidence about occasions when Xfire numbers have followed the real trend are irrelevant & do not magically make it a perfect barometer for predicting future activity. 

Whilst there are mountains of statistical texts to back up the arguments against the reliability of Xfire data, all it's advocates seem to have are blag & bluster.

Originally posted by daeandor

Originally posted by LondonMagus

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Originally posted by daeandor

Xfire, Xfire, such a bunch of controversy it brings up here.

 

Here's the facts:

1.  Xfire currently has about 7.5k WAR players.

2.  7.5k is statistically significant for populations into the millions with a greater than 99% confidence level and less than 2% confidence interval.  See statistical significance and sample size calculator for easy understanding.

Take that information however you like.  The bottom line is that in evaluating trends in a game's usage, Xfire is statistically valid.  It's no different than the Nielsen Ratings for TV viewership, which is an extremely highly used statistical tool for the TV stations and cable providers.  Thier data is significantly more refined due to millions of dollars being poured into the study of their system, and about 80 years of Nielsen data, but the basic method is similar.

Excellent post. It amazes me that so many people are too stupid to understand this simple concept.

The size of  a sample is irrelevent in terms of calculating it's statistical relevance unless you can prove that it is representative of the population you are trying to analyse.

Xfire can be easily demonstrated to have heavy demographic biases not representative of the general gaming community, so it is not suitable  for this type of statistical prediction regardless of sample size.

If people working on the Nielson Ratings & Gallop Polls used such sloppy logic they would all be fired.

It amazes me that so many people are too stupid to understand simple statistical concepts.

Actually, that's part of my point.  If those are accepted standards, then why can't Xfire be considered representative sample?

Try reading what I said & thinking about what you are saying a few more times & you might get the point.

Originally posted by daeandor

Originally posted by Lasastard

There is an issue with sample bias here, though. While the number of xfire uses playing WAR is large enough to allow for statistical evaluation, one would need to assume that xfire users are a "random" or "unbiased" sample.

However, that I do doubt very much.

What kind of people are using Xfire? Now I am just assuming here - but I am almost certain that Xfire users as a group are NOT representative of the MMO player bases. I have played a lot of MMOs - and I have never used Xfire. Same goes for all the people I play with (afaik). So even though Xfire numbers are a large enough sample, I dont think they are a valid reference point due to sampling bias.

Wouldn't a person who uses Xfire, and is playing a mmorpg, be considered an mmorpg player?

But you are correct that samples are supposed to be random.  That is why I brought up Neilsen.  I would not call individuals who volunteer for the boxes as random.

I very much doubt that Nielsen hand out boxes to anyone who asks for them, they almost certainly select volunteers carefuly in order to try to achieve a balanced sample.

Conducting & analysing survey data is a lot more complicated than you seem to think.

Originally posted by daeandor

So basically, you guys are saying that if it were a truly random sample of dedicated mmorpg players only, it would be sufficient?  But you see, then the sampling is not random.  Random should include anyone who plays, and aren't people who are actually recording their playtime on Xfire part of the WAR population?  I know this is a semi-circular argument, but honestly I'm wondering why 8000 people, who actually play WAR are not representative of WAR players?

Try imagining this, if two newspapers release contradictory predictions of the Presidential Elections based on their own readership & with samples size of 100k each, which is correct?

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Originally posted by daeandor

Xfire, Xfire, such a bunch of controversy it brings up here.

 

Here's the facts:

1.  Xfire currently has about 7.5k WAR players.

2.  7.5k is statistically significant for populations into the millions with a greater than 99% confidence level and less than 2% confidence interval.  See statistical significance and sample size calculator for easy understanding.

Take that information however you like.  The bottom line is that in evaluating trends in a game's usage, Xfire is statistically valid.  It's no different than the Nielsen Ratings for TV viewership, which is an extremely highly used statistical tool for the TV stations and cable providers.  Thier data is significantly more refined due to millions of dollars being poured into the study of their system, and about 80 years of Nielsen data, but the basic method is similar.

Excellent post. It amazes me that so many people are too stupid to understand this simple concept.

The size of  a sample is irrelevent in terms of calculating it's statistical relevance unless you can prove that it is representative of the population you are trying to analyse.

Xfire can be easily demonstrated to have heavy demographic biases not representative of the general gaming community, so it is not suitable  for this type of statistical prediction regardless of sample size.

If people working on the Nielson Ratings & Gallop Polls used such sloppy logic they would all be fired.

It amazes me that so many people are too stupid to understand simple statistical concepts.

Why create yet another thread debating the irrelevance of Xfire when there is already a mammoth one devoted to precisely that.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/209183

Xfire statistics are biased & unreliable for quite a lot of reasons, but why have another thread debating this when there is already a mammoth thread devoted to just that.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/209183

Originally posted by Arcken 

So let me ask you this, if all you did was solo, then why play an MMO? Why not a single player RPG?

Single player RPG's are pathetically