Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Leucrotta

Originally posted by Zorndorf

(When calculating the approx. number I took Wow 5.5 M western pleyers, EVE 300K, and Lotro 180 K)

 

 

Bit wet finger work innit? WoW didnt release figures for almost a year.

Any recent official announcements on those figures?

 

You can only draw ONE line through 3 different points.... So no way one game or the other is being too promoted.

EVE announced recently they had 300K subs. Lotro has been very stable at around 170/180 K.

WOW didn't recently made very specific NA/EU subs. But the 3 points bring up the same numbers as I mentioned.

For WOW it fits too: 5.5 M western subs, the CEO of Acti/Blizzard stated 4.5 Million mainland Chinese affected by the non Wotlk publishing. The difference lays with Korean/taiwan servers (around 1.5M).

BTW last year the WOW mark would be around 5 M instead of 5.5 M.

XFIRE ALWAYS confirmed the figures in relation to a 3 way point check.

Do the calculations yourself on PLAYERS (not playing time) and the line you can trace on the 24/7 tool is very accurate (5% deviation is normal for stats).

A few (changing) million of Xfire players is such a huge sample you can trace any game with a decent representation. What's decent ? - normal tradionel polls speak of 1K. But tradtionel polls don't have 3 way on line check 24/7.

So Xfire is rght on top in 5% accuracy, IF the game doesn't block the ports, IF there is no promotion on the Xfire website and IF the game doesn't have downtime in servers.

So you have to view on a weekly basis how the interaction stacks up and you have a very accurate measuring tool for MMORPG's. Not ALL games of course (like non internet games).

But MMORPG ahave pretty much the same target. If ANYTHING can be said it is that Wow is even under represented , since its MAc players are not being traced .....

With at least 3 games as a reference stick. Simple matsh really.

 

You are mistaken on a whole array of levels. Sample SIZE is fine and solid. However, the BIAS and ERRORS in the sampling is massive, and makes you method completely useless to base any sort of conclusion on. You don't even bother to attempt to post a valid hypothesis, and much less disprove it.
 

And if you find statistics to be simple math.. Please do some multivariate regression analysis and come back to me..

Originally posted by Zorndorf

You can only draw ONE line through 3 different points.... So no way one game or the other is being too promoted.

EVE announced recently they had 300K subs. Lotro has been very stable at around 170/180 K.

WOW didn't recently made very specific NA/EU subs. But the 3 points bring up the same numbers as I mentioned.

For WOW it fits too: 5.5 M western subs, the CEO of Acti/Blizzard stated 4.5 Million mainland Chinese affected by the non Wotlk publishing. The difference lays with Korean/taiwan servers (around 1.5M).

BTW last year the WOW mark would be around 5 M instead of 5.5 M.

XFIRE ALWAYS confirmed the figures in relation to a 3 way point check.

Do the calculations yourself on PLAYERS (not playing time) and the line you can trace on the 24/7 tool is very accurate (5% deviation is normal for stats).

A few (changing) million of Xfire players is such a huge sample you can trace any game with a decent representation. What's decent ? - normal tradionel polls speak of 1K. But tradtionel polls don't have 3 way on line check 24/7.

So Xfire is rght on top in 5% accuracy, IF the game doesn't block the ports, IF there is no promotion on the Xfire website and IF the game doesn't have downtime in servers.

So you have to view on a weekly basis how the interaction stacks up and you have a very accurate measuring tool for MMORPG's. Not ALL games of course (like non internet games).

But MMORPG ahave pretty much the same target. If ANYTHING can be said it is that Wow is even under represented , since its MAc players are not being traced .....

With at least 3 games as a reference stick. Simple matsh really.

 

It's not that simple, Zondorf. You have two points you need for your "equation" but you are missing the third point. You have:

(A) the number of subscribers for 3 games (which I doubt is perfectly accurate but let's assume it is correct)

(B) the number of users playing those 3 games based on Xfire data

but you are missing:

(C) the percentage of players for each of those 3 games who actually use Xfire.

(C) is going to vary widely among those 3 games. WIthout (C), you cannot project with any accuracy the populations for any other games. Not only do you need to know (C) for the 3 games you are using for your 3 point check, you need to know (C) for the game you are trying to estimate the population for. And you have absolutely no way of determining what (C) is for any game.
 

Originally posted by Zorndorf

I checked the stats today;

63.500 Xfire players were playing Wow yesterday, while War had 970 players....

That's a ratio of 65... to 1.

Do you guys remember when War had a 6 to 1 ratio when it launched?

That's a 10% of the original highest point ever (exactly one year ago).

(When calculating the approx. number I took Wow 5.5 M western pleyers, EVE 300K, and Lotro 180 K)

And so a ratio of 65 to 1 ... War has now around 80K active players. Indeed exactly 10% of the initial high 800K.

-----> For those STILL doubting Xfire: the current servers for War is 5EU/5NA. That's indeed a maximum capacity of 100K players, apparently filled at 80%.

The problem is that War has now less than 1K Xfire players, so the stats error rate will grow tremendously.

AoC is around 70K players at the moment.

And this bar graphs is a trend we saw ALL year.

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

Now the good: I predict the exact same trend with Aion. The only thing is Aion will not get to that 6 to 1 point at launch....

And then we will discuss things .... why ....

See you in 3 months.

Now the WOW killers ARE killed. "Heads will roll".

Nothing to brag about.  Most folks I know who play WOW are WISHING there would be something new and worthy to come out.  AION may not be it, but many hope for a new game.

Think of many WOW players as being addicted to MMO's, and like all addicts, will accept a "substitute" for what they really want in order to satisfy the cravings.  Like the alcoholic sometimes resorts to drinking mouthwash, the MMO addict settles for WOW.

 IMHO, Call of Duty 4 was such a DOOM killer it wasn't funny.

Originally posted by arctarus

We all already know that War is loosing subs left and right.

I dont what is the purpose of this thread, why does players like to see other games die and other devs lost their jobs?

 

 

It is WONDERFUL to see this shit-storm of WoW clones fail miserably. Maybe we can soon get back to progressing the genre in a direction where it can fulfill it's full potential - towards worlds instead of mere games.

Originally posted by Dkompoze

But you have to instal and log into xfire when playing games for it to count--- so what your saying is a program that probably less than half of the gaming population uses is an accurate thing to measure current population of certain games ????????   your for real ????? ---  are you a little slow or something---- so i guess i can go to logitech website and see how many people bought g-15 keyboards and that will also give me an accurate population count of a certain game to?

I like feeding trolls but his troll isnt as smart as most-- so i think im done feeding him-- have fun your little fantasy world troll

Do you have any clue about statistics? Do you think that when they give us viewer numbers of people watching each TV show, that they have been out counting every single viewer?

XFire can be used to observe general trends of developments. It cannot be used to predict total numbers of players. Some games have many x-fire users, some have little. Different demographics using the program to a different degree - therefore you can only see trends from it, not absolute numbers.

And IMO you cannot predict AION based on x-fire.

However, my personal belief on AION, is that it too will fail beating WoW on WoW's home turf - at least in the west.

Originally posted by Rasputin

It is WONDERFUL to see this shit-storm of WoW clones fail miserably. Maybe we can soon get back to progressing the genre in a direction where it can fulfill it's full potential - towards worlds instead of mere games.

Nah games >>>> worlds. I already have a life in a world. I just want to be entertained. Games are much better at that.

Originally posted by Redline65

Originally posted by Zorndorf

You can only draw ONE line through 3 different points.... So no way one game or the other is being too promoted.

EVE announced recently they had 300K subs. Lotro has been very stable at around 170/180 K.

WOW didn't recently made very specific NA/EU subs. But the 3 points bring up the same numbers as I mentioned.

For WOW it fits too: 5.5 M western subs, the CEO of Acti/Blizzard stated 4.5 Million mainland Chinese affected by the non Wotlk publishing. The difference lays with Korean/taiwan servers (around 1.5M).

BTW last year the WOW mark would be around 5 M instead of 5.5 M.

XFIRE ALWAYS confirmed the figures in relation to a 3 way point check.

Do the calculations yourself on PLAYERS (not playing time) and the line you can trace on the 24/7 tool is very accurate (5% deviation is normal for stats).

A few (changing) million of Xfire players is such a huge sample you can trace any game with a decent representation. What's decent ? - normal tradionel polls speak of 1K. But tradtionel polls don't have 3 way on line check 24/7.

So Xfire is rght on top in 5% accuracy, IF the game doesn't block the ports, IF there is no promotion on the Xfire website and IF the game doesn't have downtime in servers.

So you have to view on a weekly basis how the interaction stacks up and you have a very accurate measuring tool for MMORPG's. Not ALL games of course (like non internet games).

But MMORPG ahave pretty much the same target. If ANYTHING can be said it is that Wow is even under represented , since its MAc players are not being traced .....

With at least 3 games as a reference stick. Simple matsh really.

 

It's not that simple, Zondorf. You have two points you need for your "equation" but you are missing the third point. You have:

(A) the number of subscribers for 3 games (which I doubt is perfectly accurate but let's assume it is correct)

(B) the number of users playing those 3 games based on Xfire data

but you are missing:

(C) the percentage of players for each of those 3 games who actually use Xfire.

(C) is going to vary widely among those 3 games. WIthout (C), you cannot project with any accuracy the populations for any other games. Not only do you need to know (C) for the 3 games you are using for your 3 point check, you need to know (C) for the game you are trying to estimate the population for. And you have absolutely no way of determining what (C) is for any game.
 

Zorn is right on this one. You don't need C. Why ? Because you have D: the known subscriptions of some games.

If you calculate the ratios between the  3 games mentioned, You have a straight line between these games. Reread the post.

It simply means the percentage on average for each game on Xfire match the known subscription figures.

How does it work? Simply because the sample is a 24 hours tracking tool of enough random PC players on line working with Xfire.

You could argue that one game would be over or under represented, but that would give a distortion  out of line with what we know as a result. We know EVE is on 300.000 subscriptions and WOW was around 5.000.000 players. Including lotro it shows that that game has also 170.000 players. The 3 points of Xfire players of these games show and confirm these same ratios.

Else the figures could not match approx. their last known positions in subscriptions.

The big difference with on line samples and polls is that the samples on a 24 hour basis with rotating players are  more accurate than a single poll taken at any one time.

It's the same technique used with broadcasting  companies and they use it every day to calcualte how much a TV program is "worth" in publicty. Here you see samples of around 1.000 families for national coverage. They change the samples every few weeks. On Xfire the samples come from around 10.000.000 registred users, which is so huge, the results shown correspond with actual play of mmorpg's.

So within the field of mmorpg's it shows trends in a certain game and in relation to other mmorpg's. The reasons are  : a too huge random sampling and 24 hours changing samples.

The simple undeniable fact remains that it's unclear what percentage of each game uses Xfire. This fact alone makes the comparisson using xfire irrelevant. It's not accurate for any genre, if I look at todays popularity statistic, it says Call of Duty 2's multiplayer is played more than Counter Strike Source, which is incorrect.

Zorndorf also forgets one important fact about Aion: The game has already been release for a year in Korea and not only managed to keep it subscriber base: It managed to increase them. We already know the game has staying power.

There is no reason to expect this game to drop in subscribers anytime soon.

Originally posted by vickies

Originally posted by Redline65

Originally posted by Zorndorf

You can only draw ONE line through 3 different points.... So no way one game or the other is being too promoted.

EVE announced recently they had 300K subs. Lotro has been very stable at around 170/180 K.

WOW didn't recently made very specific NA/EU subs. But the 3 points bring up the same numbers as I mentioned.

For WOW it fits too: 5.5 M western subs, the CEO of Acti/Blizzard stated 4.5 Million mainland Chinese affected by the non Wotlk publishing. The difference lays with Korean/taiwan servers (around 1.5M).

BTW last year the WOW mark would be around 5 M instead of 5.5 M.

XFIRE ALWAYS confirmed the figures in relation to a 3 way point check.

Do the calculations yourself on PLAYERS (not playing time) and the line you can trace on the 24/7 tool is very accurate (5% deviation is normal for stats).

A few (changing) million of Xfire players is such a huge sample you can trace any game with a decent representation. What's decent ? - normal tradionel polls speak of 1K. But tradtionel polls don't have 3 way on line check 24/7.

So Xfire is rght on top in 5% accuracy, IF the game doesn't block the ports, IF there is no promotion on the Xfire website and IF the game doesn't have downtime in servers.

So you have to view on a weekly basis how the interaction stacks up and you have a very accurate measuring tool for MMORPG's. Not ALL games of course (like non internet games).

But MMORPG ahave pretty much the same target. If ANYTHING can be said it is that Wow is even under represented , since its MAc players are not being traced .....

With at least 3 games as a reference stick. Simple matsh really.

 

It's not that simple, Zondorf. You have two points you need for your "equation" but you are missing the third point. You have:

(A) the number of subscribers for 3 games (which I doubt is perfectly accurate but let's assume it is correct)

(B) the number of users playing those 3 games based on Xfire data

but you are missing:

(C) the percentage of players for each of those 3 games who actually use Xfire.

(C) is going to vary widely among those 3 games. WIthout (C), you cannot project with any accuracy the populations for any other games. Not only do you need to know (C) for the 3 games you are using for your 3 point check, you need to know (C) for the game you are trying to estimate the population for. And you have absolutely no way of determining what (C) is for any game.
 

 

Zorn is right on this one. You don't need C. Why ? Because you have D: the known subscriptions of some games.

If you calculate the ratios between the  3 games mentioned, You have a straight line between these games. Reread the post.

It simply means the percentage on average for each game on Xfire match the known subscription figures.

How does it work? Simply because the sample is a 24 hours tracking tool of enough random PC players on line working with Xfire.

You could argue that one game would be over or under represented, but that would give a distortion  out of line with what we know as a result. We know EVE is on 300.000 subscriptions and WOW was around 5.000.000 players. Including lotro it shows that that game has also 170.000 players. The 3 points of Xfire players of these games show and confirm these same ratios.

Else the figures could not match approx. their last known positions in subscriptions.

The big difference with on line samples and polls is that the samples on a 24 hour basis with rotating players are  more accurate than a single poll taken at any one time.

It's the same technique used with broadcasting  companies and they use it every day to calcualte how much a TV program is "worth" in publicty. Here you see samples of around 1.000 families for national coverage. They change the samples every few weeks. On Xfire the samples come from around 10.000.000 registred users, which is so huge, the results shown correspond with actual play of mmorpg's.

So within the field of mmorpg's it shows trends in a certain game and in relation to other mmorpg's. The reasons are  : a too huge random sampling and 24 hours changing samples.

 

 

lol, this is always nice, the alternative account of Zorn, saing his main account's post is right =P

Originally posted by vickies

  Zorn is right on this one. You don't need C. Why ? Because you have D: the known subscriptions of some games.

You only know Eve, not lotr nor wow, to be accurate you need C

If you calculate the ratios between the  3 games mentioned, You have a straight line between these games. Reread the post.

you dont have a 3 way point you only know 1, Eve

It simply means the percentage on average for each game on Xfire match the known subscription figures.

You know the percentage of xfire users in WoW, EvE and Lotr? i sure dont and you still only know the subs of EvE not Lotr nor WoW

How does it work? Simply because the sample is a 24 hours tracking tool of enough random PC players on line working with Xfire.

dusnt work like that if the percentage of xfire users is higher in one game then the other

AS far as mouth to mouth goes the percentage of Xfire users can be drasticly higher in WoW coz it has a higher playerbase

You could argue that one game would be over or under represented, but that would give a distortion  out of line with what we know as a result. We know EVE is on 300.000 subscriptions and WOW was around 5.000.000 players. Including lotro it shows that that game has also 170.000 players. The 3 points of Xfire players of these games show and confirm these same ratios.

And as far i can find in this topic thats the only one you know, Eve, Blizzard didnt release any info for almost a year now, and lotr i never seen a claim of players

Else the figures could not match approx. their last known positions in subscriptions.

 

The big difference with on line samples and polls is that the samples on a 24 hour basis with rotating players are  more accurate than a single poll taken at any one time.

It's the same technique used with broadcasting  companies and they use it every day to calcualte how much a TV program is "worth" in publicty. Here you see samples of around 1.000 families for national coverage. They change the samples every few weeks. On Xfire the samples come from around 10.000.000 registred users, which is so huge, the results shown correspond with actual play of mmorpg's.

Broadcasting works because 100% of the viewers have a tele, unlike gamers where only a small group use xfire. let alone that half the world cant even get xfire

So within the field of mmorpg's it shows trends in a certain game and in relation to other mmorpg's. The reasons are  : a too huge random sampling and 24 hours changing samples.

Not saying it cant show a trend but claiming its airtight and accurate is another thing

 

 

xfire gets bashed so much, but xfire trends match very closely with various game promotions.

People love to post about xfire bias and why it's not reliable, but a common theme among these people is they always fail to provide any proof of this bias.

Originally posted by teiohFromSWG

xfire gets bashed so much, but xfire trends match very closely with various game promotions.

People love to post about xfire bias and why it's not reliable, but a common theme among these people is they always fail to provide any proof of this bias.

The burden of proof are not the ones who are skeptical about Xfire.

It's the people who claim "Xfire is accurate" that need to provide the proof it is actually accurate by posting the percentage of people using xfire in each game.

Originally posted by Gameloading

 

The burden of proof are not the ones who are skeptical about Xfire.

It's the people who claim "Xfire is accurate" that need to provide the proof it is actually accurate by posting the percentage of people using xfire in each game.

The burden of proof was given to you several times in this thread.

The percentage of people is spread out over all people that use a PC to play on line games through Xfire. There is no reason to doubt that in a changing sample this big (10.000.000), one game would be on average more represented than others.

There is no significant difference between the Xfire end results and the known subscriptions and relations between the games.

Compare the end results of the daily Xfire results with the subscriptions we do  know.  They all  match.

They all match on a daily basis.

The only guys who dismess these results are the ones whose games don't show high enough on the tables.

You know I always find it funny to see the xfire posts... I have been gaming since EQ1 beta... and have never used Xfire... not once.. Matter of fact none of my friends use it either..Actually in all my time gaming.. I have only met about 5 people that have even spoken about using it.

Originally posted by cybertrucker

You know I always find it funny to see the xfire posts... I have been gaming since EQ1 beta... and have never used Xfire... not once.. Matter of fact none of my friends use it either..Actually in all my time gaming.. I have only met about 5 people that have even spoken about using it.

The samples used for measuring TV audiances are mostly around 1000+ people.

You don't need to sample 20.000.000 people for the results.

Now Xfire has a changing sample of .... 10.000.000 registred users.

Go figure. And to the above: they sample game PC's on line. No need to distinguish between games. Because these games are played on .... these PC's.

That's you representative sample. You don't sample per channel. You sample the complete PC on line community on their PC's.

And with an enormous mass of PC players. I would say even a gigantic number that is being traced 24/24 hours.

 Or to spell it out for the simple minded ones: you see a sample of the PC's and PC's are not changed with each game.

Originally posted by vickies

The samples used for measuring TV audiances are mostly around 1000+ people.

You don't need to sample 20.000.000 people for the results.

Again the tv audiances all have a tv

100% tele for viewers

small group xfire users for gamers + not knowing what the % of users are playing

bad example

Originally posted by Leucrotta

Originally posted by vickies

The samples used for measuring TV audiances are mostly around 1000+ people.

You don't need to sample 20.000.000 people for the results.

 

Again the tv audiances all have a tv

100% tele for viewers

small group xfire users for gamers + not knowing what the % of users are playing

 

bad example

Everyone has access to a computer, just like everyone has a TV.  Besides, If you don't havce a Nielson box and you're not tracking your viewing times, you might as well NOT have a TV, because theres no way to track you.  No way to know if you ever turn it on actually.  No way for anyone to know a single thing about you.  Its all statistical guessing and it works.  WHats there to argue about here.   Xfire stats fotlow gaming trends.  Its a FACT.  Its right there in black and white.  Its been shown over and over again for those who actually want to look.

You people are like those who couldn't believe the earth was round until they saw a picture.  The when they saw a picture explaining it all,  they said it was fake or made up.   Then they saw a nice photo from space and that was fake too.  ..kind of like those who don't belive anyone walked on the moon, because THEY never did it, so It must not be true.  Following your logic, since you don't use Xfire, all its stats are false... so you never walked on the moon either.  Must be false right.

Most people aren't tracked in their viewing habbits but somehow those stats follow trends.  Most people don't use Xfire, but somehow those stats follow trends.  Take your head out of the sand and accept reality already.  Its already proved.  Theres nothing to debate anymore, unless you just call all of Xfire stats made up too?

Originally posted by Josher

 

Everyone has access to a computer, just like everyone had a TV in 1949. 

Fixd

Originally posted by Zorndorf

I checked the stats today;

63.500 Xfire players were playing Wow yesterday, while War had 970 players....

That's a ratio of 65... to 1.

Do you guys remember when War had a 6 to 1 ratio when it launched?

That's a 10% of the original highest point ever (exactly one year ago).

(When calculating the approx. number I took Wow 5.5 M western pleyers, EVE 300K, and Lotro 180 K)

And so a ratio of 65 to 1 ... War has now around 80K active players. Indeed exactly 10% of the initial high 800K.

-----> For those STILL doubting Xfire: the current servers for War is 5EU/5NA. That's indeed a maximum capacity of 100K players, apparently filled at 80%.

The problem is that War has now less than 1K Xfire players, so the stats error rate will grow tremendously.

AoC is around 70K players at the moment.

And this bar graphs is a trend we saw ALL year.

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

Now the good: I predict the exact same trend with Aion. The only thing is Aion will not get to that 6 to 1 point at launch....

And then we will discuss things .... why ....

See you in 3 months.

Now the WOW killers ARE killed. "Heads will roll".

lol

are you serious?

Xfire is basicly crap man, I dont know not a single player that uses the Xfire I see you guys on MMORPG now and then (I use Xfire and its god) faried its just not true. Now do I agree with you about War and AoC I agree they are dead yes is it cuz they whent up against WoW no.

Why they hell are you kids looking for WoW killers or trying to debunk WoW killers what ever it is you are trying to do?

Aion is a solid game alredy proven in other markets, it will do well. War was FUBAR since the first time I saw it and AoC was incomplete and equaly FUBAR (mess up an MMO launch and you justed killed the game).

Will WoW die out yes all MMOs do and like all MMOs it will kill its self, only morons think some other game will kill it, only morons think it will kill other games. I dont know if you kids got that from the marketing morons or if its your own stupidity eeking out. But on a serious note why is you think there can be only 1 MMO? this is not Highlander for MMOs there can be and typicaly is more than one even before the MMO gamer population was so big we had 2 or 3 stable and succseful MMOs running at once.

Originally posted by Josher    call all of Xfire stats made up too?

Nothing wrong with the stats X fire shows, last time i checked xfire dusnt show current subs.

And calculating those with the xfire stats and calling them accurate that i do not believe no.

You can not use numbers from Xfire to gauge anything.  The TV ananology dosen't work here.  If they sample you then you watched the TV.  Xfire only samples who uses it.  While it might be a very general measuring stick its horribly inaccurate.  Point in case: EQ2 has less than half the AOC and WAR numbers?  EQ2 has quite the number of flourishing servers while the other two terds are dying a slow death.  Are you telling me AOC or WAR has DOUBLE the subs Eq2 does? 

Originally posted by vickies

Originally posted by Gameloading

 

The burden of proof are not the ones who are skeptical about Xfire.

It's the people who claim "Xfire is accurate" that need to provide the proof it is actually accurate by posting the percentage of people using xfire in each game.

 

The burden of proof was given to you several times in this thread.

The percentage of people is spread out over all people that use a PC to play on line games through Xfire. There is no reason to doubt that in a changing sample this big (10.000.000), one game would be on average more represented than others.

There is no significant difference between the Xfire end results and the known subscriptions and relations between the games.

Compare the end results of the daily Xfire results with the subscriptions we do  know.  They all  match.

They all match on a daily basis.

The only guys who dismess these results are the ones whose games don't show high enough on the tables.

 

Ofcourse there is plenty of reason to doubt some gamers are on average more represented on others.

First of all Xfire is provided with some games and not others. Also, Xfire offers features that may not be present in one game but are in others. On top of it all, the amounts don't stack up.

For instance, Call of Duty 2 played more than Counter Strike Source?
No.

Do you seriously believe not even twice as many people play Call of Duty 4 as Call of Duty 2?
It just doesn't hold up. You haven't provided any statistics that the numbers are accurate whatsoever.

Also, provide proof of your subscribtion numbers of Lotro and Warhammer.