I got answer from the XFire mods about access to their XML interface. Unfourtunately it was a negative:

"We don't have that kind of API call set up. With that kind of data, I believe it's only something we'd want to share with partners and press releases."

So I guess the only way to create a historic database is doing it manually...

Originally posted by Yamota

I got answer from the XFire mods about access to their XML interface. Unfourtunately it was a negative:

"We don't have that kind of API call set up. With that kind of data, I believe it's only something we'd want to share with partners and press releases."

So I guess the only way to create a historic database is doing it manually...

Or semi-manually.  An old fashioned spider driven data scrape (grab the HTML, parse out the data, store) done discreetly could be interesting.  I'm guessing it would have to be done discreetly.

Originally posted by Yamota

 

no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think.

And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate.

If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

"At least its good for trendtracking [still unproven]"

"Official data [never cited] of many games indeed correlates with xfire!"

(Edit-: new one below scaled, same data, space scaled to closest rounded min/max.)

...but it so often fails so glaryingly obvious in confrontation of reality, whenever there actually is any evidence presented, not just implied to exist.. also nice inconsistent "xfire factor(s)" we got there.... inb4 half a year is "too short", while they make statements about targeted games long term trends 2 weeks after they launched.

"Its the best data we have [not that they have objective goals]", yet so so little effort to even understand how it works or simplest comprehenaiob of the data they cite,  so little effort find indipendent data to validate it (of rather lack of success to find any), but so much effort to withold and cover up the evidently proven and known flaws and inaccuracies in their methods and interpretations, so much effort to run away from them into new threads or now brushing them off as "off-topic", so much effort to twist and take them out of their context as it suits them, so much effort few even blatantly make up lies, so quickly jumping to abuse it, even to deny the rare official mostly still anecdotal data, when it does not fit their personal agenda, the same they keep claimg "always confirmed" their ignorant, uneducated and closeminded xfire speculation.

Now EvEs public stats was by most known as the best and probably the only "official trend" available and it only confirms their continued deliberate ignorance and denial, meant to defend "the best" excuse they found (as being biased in favour of their personal agenda) to excuse trashtalk or create basis for trashtalk about other games trough deliberate spread missinformation and halftruths.

I wonder where all that other "official data" that "always correlated with xfire" stays, considering there is next to no game besides EvE actually revealing its playeractivity and they didnt even bother about the irregularities of the most prominent one. Obviously you see why. You'd expect the burden of proof for credibility remains with those claiming it as proof for whatever they claim based of it. But they tend to be the least ones the contribute anything to the credence but more empty claims.

This closes in to the level of flat-young-earth believers protecting their "scientific" lies.

Originally posted by Amana

Originally posted by Yamota

 

no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think.

And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate.

If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times?

It is pointless and non-constructive. Like the post above me. Showing graphs and what not to try and prove that XFire is invalid where as no-one has said that XFire is proof of anything. They dont like XFire, for whatever reasons, and are trying to hijack threads trying to decipher something from the biggest player activity tool we got and saying over and over again that it is invalid.

What is the point of that? How is that constructive?

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Amana

Originally posted by Yamota

 

no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think.

And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate.

If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times?

It is pointless and non-constructive.

Your question was to use xfire as a pop. Estimation tool, and I believe we have obtained more than enough info to answer the question: NO. I am no expert, but it seems site trustworthiness, type of population, and the fact no one likes it used against there game.

Originally posted by KingJiggly

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Amana

Originally posted by Yamota

 

no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think.

And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate.

If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times?

It is pointless and non-constructive.

Your question was to use xfire as a pop. Estimation tool, and I believe we have obtained more than enough info to answer the question: NO. I am no expert, but it seems site trustworthiness, type of population, and the fact no one likes it used against there game.

No, there was no question. The aim was to use it as an estimation tool, not ask a bunch of amateur mathematicans if it is valid or not. It is like starting a thread and trying to get poll results for an election from the only tool available but when trying to do that get a bunch of people saying it is invalid over and over again without offering any alternatives.

That is the very definition of topic hijacking.

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Originally posted by Yamota

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Originally posted by KingJiggly

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Originally posted by Yamota

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Originally posted by Amana

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Originally posted by Yamota

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no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think. And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate. If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

---

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

---

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times? It is pointless and non-constructive.

---

Your question was to use xfire as a pop. Estimation tool, and I believe we have obtained more than enough info to answer the question: NO. I am no expert, but it seems site trustworthiness, type of population, and the fact no one likes it used against there game.

---

No, there was no question. The aim was to use it as an estimation tool, not ask a bunch of amateur mathematicans if it is valid or not. It is like starting a thread and trying to get poll results for an election from the only tool available but when trying to do that get a bunch of people saying it is invalid over and over again without offering any alternatives.

That is the very definition of topic hijacking.

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Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by KingJiggly

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Amana

Originally posted by Yamota

 

no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think.

And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate.

If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times?

It is pointless and non-constructive.

Your question was to use xfire as a pop. Estimation tool, and I believe we have obtained more than enough info to answer the question: NO. I am no expert, but it seems site trustworthiness, type of population, and the fact no one likes it used against there game.

No, there was no question. The aim was to use it as an estimation tool, not ask a bunch of amateur mathematicans if it is valid or not. It is like starting a thread and trying to get poll results for an election from the only tool available but when trying to do that get a bunch of people saying it is invalid over and over again without offering any alternatives.

That is the very definition of topic hijacking.

Look. The only way your going to find an alternative is if the game companies tell you themselves. That is it any other way will be prodded to death by all comunities. 

Originally posted by lizardbones


Anyway to use XFire as a population estimation tool, there needs to be a process to follow in order to do so. If there's a process, it means that the results are going to get checked. In other words, discussing the validity of the source data and the process is part of discussing XFire as a population estimation tool.

 

The idea of this thread was to ignore that and jump back to their prevailed speculation as usual.

Except once again, but now in thought of help by the mods, effectively silencing contrary views and any threat of a rational discussion about the whole validty/bias/inaccuracies branding them as "offtopic" and "done", which otherwise only hurt their credibility. They painfully learned they cant handle doubt. So they go out all means to kill it at the root. Forbid talk about the premises. "Welcome back to the Dark Ages. Let us discuss how the geocentric earth system improves our all lives for the better and dare you talk about anything else than that!"

Mods obviously had something different in mind.

They are not interested into "the best data we can get", "validity" or "accuracy".  They just found xfire as an abusable set of data, which since more than half a decade turned biased to show "declining" trends. All enough already for their objectives. Its "the best" exploitable tool to justify and back your personal doomsday crusades against games you dislike, with your pseudo "calculations" and "statistical evidence", peppered with twist and assumptions feigned as facts.

Everything else is just a obvious farce. Never was to find reliable or concrete information about the state of any game. There's no dedication to accomplish that ever shown by their little group for years, nor to improve their methods, verify them (themself) or educate anyone about it. Its remains a mean  to continue spreading biased missinformation and cherrpicked halftruths again through deliberately withholding the vital information and on top of that an excuse to go further than that.

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Yamota

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Originally posted by KingJiggly

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Originally posted by Yamota

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Originally posted by Amana

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Originally posted by Yamota

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no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think. And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate. If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

---

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

---

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times? It is pointless and non-constructive.

---

Your question was to use xfire as a pop. Estimation tool, and I believe we have obtained more than enough info to answer the question: NO. I am no expert, but it seems site trustworthiness, type of population, and the fact no one likes it used against there game.

---

No, there was no question. The aim was to use it as an estimation tool, not ask a bunch of amateur mathematicans if it is valid or not. It is like starting a thread and trying to get poll results for an election from the only tool available but when trying to do that get a bunch of people saying it is invalid over and over again without offering any alternatives.

 

That is the very definition of topic hijacking.

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The Lords of MMORPG.com have spoken. When they said they would sticky a thread, it would be for the discussion of XFire. This includes discussion on the validity of XFire as a source of data. So pick one. Your thread becomes the sticky one, or it gets dropped in favor of another thread that gets to be the sticky one. Either way, all XFire discussion goes in that thread. They were pretty clear about this when they told everyone to quit it with the XFire stuff.

Anyway to use XFire as a population estimation tool, there needs to be a process to follow in order to do so. If there's a process, it means that the results are going to get checked. In other words, discussing the validity of the source data and the process is part of discussing XFire as a population estimation tool.

 

How can you hold several discussions about the same thing in the same thread? I dont get it. Either you discuss the validity of the tool, which there is no end, or you discuss how you can use it to get some data.

Those are two distincively different sub-topics. It is like creating a thread about MMORPGs and saying that everything regarding MMORPGs can be in this single thread. It would be a mess!

Originally posted by KingJiggly

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by KingJiggly

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Amana

Originally posted by Yamota

 

no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think.

And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate.

If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times?

It is pointless and non-constructive.

Your question was to use xfire as a pop. Estimation tool, and I believe we have obtained more than enough info to answer the question: NO. I am no expert, but it seems site trustworthiness, type of population, and the fact no one likes it used against there game.

No, there was no question. The aim was to use it as an estimation tool, not ask a bunch of amateur mathematicans if it is valid or not. It is like starting a thread and trying to get poll results for an election from the only tool available but when trying to do that get a bunch of people saying it is invalid over and over again without offering any alternatives.

That is the very definition of topic hijacking.

Look. The only way your going to find an alternative is if the game companies tell you themselves. That is it any other way will be prodded to death by all comunities. 

So I guess scientific polling does not exist then right? Not saying XFire is a scientific polling but obviously that concept exist but no-one has the funds nor the will to actually create one so we are stuck with imperfect tools like XFire.

Yeah sometimes life is like that, you cant get the perfect tool so you use whatever you got. Once I needed to hammer a nail but I did not have a hammer so I used the blunt end of a heavy screw driver to hammer it down.

But I cant do that right? Because it isn't a hammer...

Pragmatism over idealism. That is life instead of fiction.

Originally posted by XAPGames

Originally posted by Yamota

I got answer from the XFire mods about access to their XML interface. Unfourtunately it was a negative:

"We don't have that kind of API call set up. With that kind of data, I believe it's only something we'd want to share with partners and press releases."

So I guess the only way to create a historic database is doing it manually...

 

Or semi-manually.  An old fashioned spider driven data scrape (grab the HTML, parse out the data, store) done discreetly could be interesting.  I'm guessing it would have to be done discreetly.

 

Good idea! I use a Java automatic web test tool (Selenium) at my work and I could use the same to extract this data on a daily basis and store it in a MySQL database.

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Originally posted by Yamota

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Originally posted by lizardbones  

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Originally posted by Yamota

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Originally posted by KingJiggly

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Originally posted by Yamota

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Originally posted by Amana

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Originally posted by Yamota

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no, I dont agree with your assessment that it is not useful, I think it is. So I am going to use it, regardless of what you think. And the purpose of this thread was to use XFire as a population measurment tool. You dont find it accurate, great. Move on then. I dont need to move on because this thread is based on the assumption that XFire is accurate. If you want to debate that then start a thread discussing it and I will happily stay away from it.

---

This is the thread for discussion of XFire. It is relatively civil so far, but telling posters to go create their own or to go post elsewhere isn't in that spirit. What we don't want are 500 XFire argument threads. You wanted one, and it's here.

---

Well the reason I created the thread was not to create an endless discussion about its validity but rather to try and use the data to get some userbase data. How can you do that if it keep getting flooded by anti XFire people saying it is invalid a million times? It is pointless and non-constructive.

---

Your question was to use xfire as a pop. Estimation tool, and I believe we have obtained more than enough info to answer the question: NO. I am no expert, but it seems site trustworthiness, type of population, and the fact no one likes it used against there game.

---

No, there was no question. The aim was to use it as an estimation tool, not ask a bunch of amateur mathematicans if it is valid or not. It is like starting a thread and trying to get poll results for an election from the only tool available but when trying to do that get a bunch of people saying it is invalid over and over again without offering any alternatives.   That is the very definition of topic hijacking.

---

The Lords of MMORPG.com have spoken. When they said they would sticky a thread, it would be for the discussion of XFire. This includes discussion on the validity of XFire as a source of data. So pick one. Your thread becomes the sticky one, or it gets dropped in favor of another thread that gets to be the sticky one. Either way, all XFire discussion goes in that thread. They were pretty clear about this when they told everyone to quit it with the XFire stuff. Anyway to use XFire as a population estimation tool, there needs to be a process to follow in order to do so. If there's a process, it means that the results are going to get checked. In other words, discussing the validity of the source data and the process is part of discussing XFire as a population estimation tool.  

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How can you hold several discussions about the same thing in the same thread? I dont get it. Either you discuss the validity of the tool, which there is no end, or you discuss how you can use it to get some data.

Those are two distincively different sub-topics. It is like creating a thread about MMORPGs and saying that everything regarding MMORPGs can be in this single thread. It would be a mess!

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Originally posted by Yamota

 

The aim was to use it as an estimation tool, not ask a bunch of amateur mathematicans if it is valid or not. 

So you are a full fledged mathematician? People have entered this thread and shown that your aim/goal is not achievable. You are basically trying to make a pig fly using nothing but a pig and a toothpick. It ain't happening bud. Seriously, stats don't work that way and xfire is not a solution. Maybe its time to pack it up and look for another tool to estimate with?

I've played MMOs since the launch of SWG. I've used xfire maybe one or two times...  years and years ago.

Come to think of it, I don't know anyone that uses xfire...  and I have numerous gaming pals.

X-Fire is quite good for making estimations.
I turned out to me that its very accurate to show trends and predict player numbers quite well for the more popular games bcs with enough participants the error margin becomes irrelevant as the playerbase is mirrored in the X-Fire userbase almost excact.

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Originally posted by Thorqemada
X-Fire is quite good for making estimations.
I turned out to me that its very accurate to show trends and predict player numbers quite well for the more popular games bcs with enough participants the error margin becomes irrelevant as the playerbase is mirrored in the X-Fire userbase almost excact.

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