Seems not many are interested and two thirds of those interested don't use any of these tools so it might be said that they really are irrelevant, maybe in time this will change though.

I use xfire

Originally posted by Joarnaj

According to xfire.com they have 30k users playing WoW per day. Of course, you can't actually assume anything based on such a small sampling which is why we often come up with lousy estimates for elections and such, but it's still fun to run some numbers based on the statistics that are available. So even though 30k players per day do not represent all of the players on xfire who play WoW, I'm still going to use the 30k as if it were and say that of the 11.4 mil players in WoW, .26% of them are on xfire.

Assuming that .26% of people who play all games are on xfire (again not a safe assumption but it's all we have) we can make some rough estimates of game populations. Slightly off topic but it's in the same ballpark! =)

Top mmorpg's:

LoL: 12.3 million players

Minecraft: 1,045,000 players

APB Reloaded: 749,000 players (but declining rapidly)

Rift: 736,000 players

World of Tanks: 716,000 players

EVE: 715,000 players (I believe EVE's numbers are documented and are much lower? not sure...)

Aion: 621,000 players

LotRO: 569,000 players

Other games people like to talk about -

Age of Conan: 307,000 players

Runes of Magic: 263,000 players

Atlantica Online: 135,000 players

Allods: 113,000 players

DDO: 90,000 players

Warhammer: 43,000 players

CoX: 40,000 players

/end.off.topic

 

ps: I'm guessing that more people here at mmorpg utilize tracking than the average casual gamer. I also am not sure that steam should be included in the poll since it is required software for so many games now that people have it on their system unwillingly. I, on the other hand, tend to avoid steam games altogether because I don't want tracking software on my system.

 

edited for list clarity

 30k is a small sample?  What do you consider a large sample?  Also, what is your background in statistics?

I never use them.  What I play is my binness.

I used Xfire for a fairly long time until they were bought out and the updates stopped coming, at that point I went to Raptr since it allowed for me to not need to log into YIM, Xifre, and whatever other chat program I needed because there was no standard. 

It doesn't have the screenshot/video functionality of Xfire, but I don't mind to much, and if it's a Steam based game, then I can just take screenshots and videos with Steam anyhow.

just 1 all the time

xfire, also because i can configure it to also have my msn and gtalk list in there, so i can chat with gaming friends and real life friends on 1 chat client, as for game tracking meh fun to see how much time of my life im wasting. 

steam i only use it when i have to (play steam games) other than that steam is off. 

Well this little fact finding thread sure made no impact is this really the extent to how many people use these tools? It makes me feel that anyone that uses them for data mining is on the wrong track they really have no weight attached to them at all in the MMO community.

Originally posted by Calerxes

Well this little fact finding thread sure made no impact is this really the extent to how many people use these tools? It makes me feel that anyone that uses them for data mining is on the wrong track they really have no weight attached to them at all in the MMO community.

You're correct, they really don't. Apart from the ones that sell MMO's like Steam does I suppose.

MMO's 'clan' (guild / CORP) features are all pretty much fully built into the game its self. Where as for FPS players, this is uncommon. So these softwares can be used to create groups, one place for the clan to be at the same time, where they can see whose available, stay in contact and organise shit, use the free VoIP features (many less serious clans use steam VoIP rather than a Vent/TS3) etc.

In an MMO, this is very unneeded. But in an FPS, these tools are a massive help. And clans always pick a platform to use as the 'clan platform'.

I just use Steam because so many of my friends do. I use it as a messenger platform, for talking to my gaming mates.

Originally posted by Calerxes

Well this little fact finding thread sure made no impact is this really the extent to how many people use these tools? It makes me feel that anyone that uses them for data mining is on the wrong track they really have no weight attached to them at all in the MMO community.

 Have you ever noticed that when somebody uses xfire to numbers to show how a game is doing and how quickly they get attacked on these forums.

I would be for the most part most folks don't use them.   I know when the came out with the new overlord thing here I was like sorry no thanks.

These tools might be OK if your play fps games and need a place to meet your fellow teammates.

We got guild tools in the real games.

The main reason I dislike things like xfire is how the get into your system, and how the can be used to track you.  I don't want anybody tracking my gaming habits.

Specially in last 6 years i totally ignore all social aspects of internet game related or just social networks. I hate them for many reasons also privacy wise.

I got none and i love it:)

I use mIRC but not realy tracking device but chat im everyday on, for some project im working with others for Last 5 years thats all and visit forums.

Originally posted by erictlewis

Originally posted by Calerxes

Well this little fact finding thread sure made no impact is this really the extent to how many people use these tools? It makes me feel that anyone that uses them for data mining is on the wrong track they really have no weight attached to them at all in the MMO community.

 Have you ever noticed that when somebody uses xfire to numbers to show how a game is doing and how quickly they get attacked on these forums.

I would be for the most part most folks don't use them.   I know when the came out with the new overlord thing here I was like sorry no thanks.

A surprise for me is that there really hasn't been any support for their data mining properties but in specific MMO forums you see them used, as my op said, commonly to argue population figures so even the supporters of this must know at the back of their mind that its all really just guess work or they would be in this thread arguing the validity of using these tools for such purposes. My conclusion is and was suspected that they can show certain trends but really if you try to use them for specific numbers you really are fooling yourself.

Originally posted by waynejr2

Originally posted by Joarnaj

According to xfire.com they have 30k users playing WoW per day. Of course, you can't actually assume anything based on such a small sampling which is why we often come up with lousy estimates for elections and such, but it's still fun to run some numbers based on the statistics that are available. So even though 30k players per day do not represent all of the players on xfire who play WoW, I'm still going to use the 30k as if it were and say that of the 11.4 mil players in WoW, .26% of them are on xfire.

Assuming that .26% of people who play all games are on xfire (again not a safe assumption but it's all we have) we can make some rough estimates of game populations. Slightly off topic but it's in the same ballpark! =)

Top mmorpg's:

LoL: 12.3 million players

Minecraft: 1,045,000 players

APB Reloaded: 749,000 players (but declining rapidly)

Rift: 736,000 players

World of Tanks: 716,000 players

EVE: 715,000 players (I believe EVE's numbers are documented and are much lower? not sure...)

Aion: 621,000 players

LotRO: 569,000 players

Other games people like to talk about -

Age of Conan: 307,000 players

Runes of Magic: 263,000 players

Atlantica Online: 135,000 players

Allods: 113,000 players

DDO: 90,000 players

Warhammer: 43,000 players

CoX: 40,000 players

/end.off.topic

 

ps: I'm guessing that more people here at mmorpg utilize tracking than the average casual gamer. I also am not sure that steam should be included in the poll since it is required software for so many games now that people have it on their system unwillingly. I, on the other hand, tend to avoid steam games altogether because I don't want tracking software on my system.

 

edited for list clarity

 30k is a small sample?  What do you consider a large sample?  Also, what is your background in statistics?

 Probably none.

30k is not even the sample size, the sample size is somewhere around 1 mil if you count all x-fire users. 30k is only the sample size for WoW solely. Voting estimates are made with 1000 samples size. This is 1000000 sample size. The estimation based on x-fire is literally one thousand times more accurate than voting estimates, and voting estimates have accuracy of 95%.

11.4 mil is quite off for WoW tho (as it probably includes asian players, and assumably, these do not use x-fire at all - or in very small number), I would go with a reasonable number like 5-6 mil, which would then adjust the rest of games to something like this:

EVE 350k, Lotro 300k, Aion 300k, AoC 150k, DDO 50k, etc... which is imo, a solid estimation of the subscriber base of these games.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by waynejr2

Originally posted by Joarnaj

According to xfire.com they have 30k users playing WoW per day. Of course, you can't actually assume anything based on such a small sampling which is why we often come up with lousy estimates for elections and such, but it's still fun to run some numbers based on the statistics that are available. So even though 30k players per day do not represent all of the players on xfire who play WoW, I'm still going to use the 30k as if it were and say that of the 11.4 mil players in WoW, .26% of them are on xfire.

Assuming that .26% of people who play all games are on xfire (again not a safe assumption but it's all we have) we can make some rough estimates of game populations. Slightly off topic but it's in the same ballpark! =)

Top mmorpg's:

LoL: 12.3 million players

Minecraft: 1,045,000 players

APB Reloaded: 749,000 players (but declining rapidly)

Rift: 736,000 players

World of Tanks: 716,000 players

EVE: 715,000 players (I believe EVE's numbers are documented and are much lower? not sure...)

Aion: 621,000 players

LotRO: 569,000 players

Other games people like to talk about -

Age of Conan: 307,000 players

Runes of Magic: 263,000 players

Atlantica Online: 135,000 players

Allods: 113,000 players

DDO: 90,000 players

Warhammer: 43,000 players

CoX: 40,000 players

/end.off.topic

 

ps: I'm guessing that more people here at mmorpg utilize tracking than the average casual gamer. I also am not sure that steam should be included in the poll since it is required software for so many games now that people have it on their system unwillingly. I, on the other hand, tend to avoid steam games altogether because I don't want tracking software on my system.

 

edited for list clarity

 30k is a small sample?  What do you consider a large sample?  Also, what is your background in statistics?

 Probably none.

30k is not even the sample size, the sample size is somewhere around 1 mil if you count all x-fire users. 30k is only the sample size for WoW solely. Voting estimates are made with 1000 samples size. This is 1000000 sample size. The estimation based on x-fire is literally one thousand times more accurate than voting estimates, and voting estimates have accuracy of 95%.

11.4 mil is quite off for WoW tho (as it probably includes asian players, and assumably, these do not use x-fire at all - or in very small number), I would go with a reasonable number like 5-6 mil, which would then adjust the rest of games to something like this:

EVE 350k, Lotro 300k, Aion 300k, AoC 150k, DDO 50k, etc... which is imo, a solid estimation of the subscriber base of these games.

That is a good point Thillian, I imagine that Xfire is not well known outside of western markets so gaging a percentage off of 12 milion does makes those numbers seem inflated though I feel the number for DDO is much higher than 50k same with AOC as that game is absolutely teeming with players due to the Freemium change. 

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by waynejr2

Originally posted by Joarnaj

According to xfire.com they have 30k users playing WoW per day. Of course, you can't actually assume anything based on such a small sampling which is why we often come up with lousy estimates for elections and such, but it's still fun to run some numbers based on the statistics that are available. So even though 30k players per day do not represent all of the players on xfire who play WoW, I'm still going to use the 30k as if it were and say that of the 11.4 mil players in WoW, .26% of them are on xfire.

Assuming that .26% of people who play all games are on xfire (again not a safe assumption but it's all we have) we can make some rough estimates of game populations. Slightly off topic but it's in the same ballpark! =)

Top mmorpg's:

LoL: 12.3 million players

Minecraft: 1,045,000 players

APB Reloaded: 749,000 players (but declining rapidly)

Rift: 736,000 players

World of Tanks: 716,000 players

EVE: 715,000 players (I believe EVE's numbers are documented and are much lower? not sure...)

Aion: 621,000 players

LotRO: 569,000 players

Other games people like to talk about -

Age of Conan: 307,000 players

Runes of Magic: 263,000 players

Atlantica Online: 135,000 players

Allods: 113,000 players

DDO: 90,000 players

Warhammer: 43,000 players

CoX: 40,000 players

/end.off.topic

 

ps: I'm guessing that more people here at mmorpg utilize tracking than the average casual gamer. I also am not sure that steam should be included in the poll since it is required software for so many games now that people have it on their system unwillingly. I, on the other hand, tend to avoid steam games altogether because I don't want tracking software on my system.

 

edited for list clarity

 30k is a small sample?  What do you consider a large sample?  Also, what is your background in statistics?

 Probably none.

30k is not even the sample size, the sample size is somewhere around 1 mil if you count all x-fire users. 30k is only the sample size for WoW solely. Voting estimates are made with 1000 samples size. This is 1000000 sample size. The estimation based on x-fire is literally one thousand times more accurate than voting estimates, and voting estimates have accuracy of 95%.

11.4 mil is quite off for WoW tho (as it probably includes asian players, and assumably, these do not use x-fire at all - or in very small number), I would go with a reasonable number like 5-6 mil, which would then adjust the rest of games to something like this:

EVE 350k, Lotro 300k, Aion 300k, AoC 150k, DDO 50k, etc... which is imo, a solid estimation of the subscriber base of these games.

 

That is a good point Thillian, I imagine that Xfire is not well known outside of western markets so gaging a percentage off of 12 milion does makes those numbers seem inflated though I feel the number for DDO is much higher than 50k same with AOC as that game is absolutely teeming with players due to the Freemium change. 

Xfire isnt really all that well known period.. not sure how those figures were obtained.. but.. given the source its no wonder they bear no resemblance to actual numbers..  CCP hasnt made a secret of its subscriber numbers, which stands at around 350k, with peak daily numbers of around 45-52,000   any estimate of WoW numbers, western players at least, would be extremely difficult as i doubt even a tenth of 1 percent of the players even know about Xfire, let alone use it..  The only online 'tool' thats likely to have any kind of numbers is probably steam.. and i doubt people even have it turned on most of the time.. at least.. i don't

I use Raptr.

I use none. I don't understand why anyone would need to. They do nothing except let other people know what you're playing, but why would they need to? I may be dating myself a bit, but I don't understand this world's current fixation on broadcasting one's every movement for the world to see, as if the world were even really interested in what you were doing in the first place.

As for talking to with friends, that's what ingame friend's lists are for. I use MSN outside of gaming, but when I'm in my game I don't really want my actions and immersion interrupted by people outside of the game wanting to tell me about their day while I'm in the middle of a boss fight. So that some of those tracking programs let you use messengers while in any game isn't particularly useful to me.

Maybe I'm just anti-social *shrug*

I dont use Xfire or any other things like that and from my experience huge majority of people I know dont use it either.

Sure there are few people that use this , mostly to be able to have a signature in forum with what they are playing, but 90% + ppl I know don't use any.

I really think they cannot be used as reliable statistic source.

XFire, Steam & Raptr. :)

I used XFire once, but it seemed pointless and annoying so I just uninstalled it within a week of downloading.