Originally posted by Cromica

This game will be a ghost town if 1.2 is not the best patch ever created.

There is one universal truth for MMOs:

There are no miracle patches.

You can ruin an MMO with one rotten patch, but you can never save one with a good patch.

Originally posted by GMan3

Fif 

    Keep in mind, I am not suggesting the population is not making a downward trend, but half baked data collection and figures based on it can supply only the worst possible information.  I had an old friend of mine check out this thread last night.  Math Major in college and currently working as a statistician for the last 20 years.  AFTER he got done laughing at the original source pages methods, he then had a rather rousing time with most of the armchair mathematician supports in this thread.  He then surprised me when he told me he plays the game as well and is seeing a drop in players, but the information gleaned from this "data" is so far off as to be useless.  Even went so far as to call it "Politician Statistics".  Ouch!    

This is going to shock you but... you having that friend is totally inconsequential. Unless your friend is willing to come into this thread and specify - in detail - WHY he laughed at the data collection methodology used, he may as well not exist. It is not a valid argument to say, "I know this guy who's qualified to do this stuff and he laughed so it must all be rubbish," unless that guy is willing to actually tell you why he laughed so that either you can, or he can, provide actually and credible feedback that we can swallow.

That in mind your entire refutal is drawn into question. It isn't credible and as such is easily dismissed. Until you're willing to specify you have very little weight in this debate.

Regarding the assertion that, "the data is collected from the three worst days of the week," I have this to say: strawman. Pure and simple. None of you have provided any data to weight your argument. You've just pulled a random "similar fact" out of the air and used it in an attempt to discredit the data collected and the information gleened from that data. If what you say is true, if those days are the weakest days, then prove it: use the same methodology to collect data on different days (or as valid methodology, at least), present it to us in the same way as the original data was presented and allow us to process it. The only reason I can think that you wouldn't do that is because you are either incapable of doing so (ergo you have no idea what you're talking about, which discredits you to the Nth degree) OR the data you've collected on the "best" days (as you claim) shows the same trend.

And regarding the, "it's not sustained data collection so it doesn't tell us anything," I can't really say anything. Sustained or not, it shows a trend that we can see based on the data collected. Whether it's sustained or not is neither here nor there. Having more data collected over a concerted period would, of course, strengthen the resulting information. I will appeal to the guy who collected the data to do another round of collection, which will put this little argument to bed.

There really isn't much else the detractors can say. The data is valid, the methodology is reasonable and the resutls speak for themselves. Combined with other data from Xfire, etc, as well as sales data, there is a clear indication that the population is shrinking. There's been no reasonable counterpoint made to disprove that, and the attempts to call into question the data collected have been weak and to no effect.

So feel free to provide reasonable counter arguments, or don't. That's the be all and end all of it.

They only do 6 planets and fleet so are missing other planets and people on personal ships, story zones, war zones, flashpoints and operations so anyone trying to use this data for anything is probably wasting their time.

The only people who know the population stats for servers is EA and they are not talking.

Reason for inaccuracy/lack of reliability:

-single handmade survey of some blogger

-collected data is about selected zones within the game, not all zones

-45 % representation of the collected data is projecting a single servers total distribution on all other server. In short a single survey is assumed to be representative for all other servers estimations of total population.

-longspread (3.5 hours) timeframe for single surveys, diluting the results about alleged peak concurrency with results far outside of peaktimes. Timestamps may be available but are not considered.

Likely reasons for missinterpretation (i.e. considering them as concurency peaks)

-not exactly during daily peakhours of MMORPGs, 6:30 - 10:00 is atleast half an hour too early and yes thats significant with a +-5-15% errormargin pulling "peak numbers" down. And yes here torstatus.com is fine as its all about realtive hikes. And on torstatus peaks are at highest during 9:00-9:30 instead of the suggested ~8:15-8:30. So take it as "close to peakhours" not as "peakhours".

-again longspread (3.5 hours) timeframe for single surveys even reaching outside peaktimes. Peaktimes vs surveystart at 6:30 can be off by another missed 15-25%. The average results of about 2.5-3.0 hours before and 0.5-1 hour after is of course also lower than the plain peakhour itself. I doubt even one respects any of this. So take it as "almost peakhours" not as "peak".

-surveys are done during workdays from Monday till Wednesday, not at weekends. its common sense and knowledge weekdays populations of games are weaker on activity than weekends. Asking for proof of that, is like asking for proof that many would prefer chocolate over spelt bread. Its almost childish, to insist on evidence for that one. So take it as weekdays results not as peakresults.

-its a single time survey not about trends at all. You'd need atleast two points to  start speculation about trends, now this is just one for each server. If you insist on argueing about "trends" you should atleast then name the at least the first datapoint you are based it on.

But I am shure our usual desperate and willfully ignorant doomsdaypreacher and hater will just hang themself up at "them numberz!", without even bothering to check out, nor understanding(but of course feigning great knowledge about statistics) what kind of "numberz" they are even looking at in first place, as long asthey can twist them to fit their agenda and will not just happily delude themself to feel "affirmed", but openly pretend and boast they where "proven right" "again" and spout these numbers far out of their context in future topics.

The hilarious part. Average population of PvE/RP was estimated at more than 900 per server at peaktime... which is about 60% (or potentially more) of the average of a certain overrated popular MMORPGs peaks (if we average the 6:30-10:00 result too for that game). Now do TORs surveys again with more tester at actual peaktimes and I am certain the average concurrency would likely be actually still "fine" or even better, even two weeks later.

Originally posted by Bardus

I've seen this before, the guy made a toon for both factions on each server and goes around to each planet or zone or whatever and takes a head count. It's accurate for the instant he does it in that zone but still leaves at LOT of room for speculation.

 

Originally posted by Sukiyaki

Reason for inaccuracy/lack of reliability:

-single handmade survey of some blogger

-collected data is about selected zones within the game, not all zones

-45 % representation of the collected data is projecting a single servers total distribution on all other server. In short a single survey is assumed to be representative for all other servers estimations of total population.

-longspread (3.5 hours) timeframe for single surveys, diluting the results about alleged peak concurrency with results far outside of peaktimes. Timestamps may be available but are not considered.

Likely reasons for missinterpretation (i.e. considering them as concurency peaks)

-not exactly during daily peakhours of MMORPGs, 6:30 - 10:00 is atleast half an hour too early and yes thats significant with a +-5-15% errormargin pulling "peak numbers" down. And yes here torstatus.com is fine as its all about realtive hikes. And on torstatus peaks are at highest during 9:00-9:30 instead of the suggested ~8:15-8:30. So take it as "close to peakhours" not as "peakhours".

-again longspread (3.5 hours) timeframe for single surveys even reaching outside peaktimes. Peaktimes vs surveystart at 6:30 can be off by another missed 15-25%. The average results of about 2.5-3.0 hours before and 0.5-1 hour after is of course also lower than the plain peakhour itself. I doubt even one respects any of this. So take it as "almost peakhours" not as "peak".

-surveys are done during workdays from Monday till Wednesday, not at weekends. its common sense and knowledge weekdays populations of games are weaker on activity than weekends. Asking for proof of that, is like asking for proof that many would prefer chocolate over spelt bread. Its almost childish, to insist on evidence for that one. So take it as weekdays results not as peakresults.

-its a single time survey not about trends at all. You'd need atleast two points to  start speculation about trends, now this is just one for each server. If you insist on argueing about "trends" you should atleast then name the at least the first datapoint you are based it on.

 

But I am shure our usual desperate and willfully ignorant doomsdaypreacher and hater will just hang themself up at "them numberz!", without even bothering to check out, nor understanding(but of course feigning great knowledge about statistics) what kind of "numberz" they are even looking at in first place, as long asthey can twist them to fit their agenda and will not just happily delude themself to feel "affirmed", but openly pretend and boast they where "proven right" "again" and spout these numbers far out of their context in future topics.

 

The hilarious part. Average population of PvE/RP was estimated at more than 900 per server at peaktime... which is about 60% (or potentially more) of the average of a certain overrated popular MMORPGs peaks (if we average the 6:30-10:00 result too for that game). Now do TORs surveys again with more tester at actual peaktimes and I am certain the average concurrency would likely be actually still "fine" or even better, even two weeks later.

I can see where you're coming from but at the same time all you're saying is your opinion of primetime is different then what you pointed out.While you may be closer to what I'd consider primetime,you've actually proven even more that the game is dropping like a brick I just tossed in a lake,unless you play during a specific 2:30-3:30 hr window!!

That is pretty lame if you ask me.I've read many many post's on their forums asking for merges or xfers,it's bad on many servers even during primetime.

Take a long look at the guys numbers and how a handful of servers look great,Then look at the numerous one's that are in the crapper.

It isn't rocket science.