Originally posted by Shadoed

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by krakra70

.

It doesn't matter if the decline is deccelerating or steady. What matters is that there is a decline already (not even 1 month after launch). Successful MMOs usually GROW in numbers for the first few years, then they peak and then they start losing players. 

 

stil have not answered the question. WoW had right at 49K players on Aug 26 2 days before GW2 release, yesterday it had 21K,. SWToR, LoTRO. and Aion are all also pretty much at the same pont they were at GW2's release. If people are abandoning GW2 in droves as you are claiming where are they going ? WoW lost almost 60% of it's XFire numbers with GW2's release and they don't seem to be going back

If you bothered to look at the support forums on X-fire (don't use it, but checked it out), the application stopped working for a lot of players of WoW when the Pandaria patch landed as it didn't recognise the 64bit client and those that couldn't be bothered to manually fix it are just not having hours logged, even those that have still don't have the client working in game apparently. Not some magical drop in players, not some mass migration in one day, simply a technical problem.

That being said, x-fire numbers are crap anyway, whether it is GW2's so called decline or WoW's. Of course GW2 hours played have dropped as people settle into their normal play routines after the initial rush, the same as Pandaria will see an initial boost and then tail off back to the norm again later on, it is just the nature of these things.

Number of players have also dropped from 17k+ (if I remember right) to 11.4k as of yesterday.

Originally posted by krakra70

Originally posted by Shadoed

If you bothered to look at the support forums on X-fire (don't use it, but checked it out), the application stopped working for a lot of players of WoW when the Pandaria patch landed as it didn't recognise the 64bit client and those that couldn't be bothered to manually fix it are just not having hours logged, even those that have still don't have the client working in game apparently. Not some magical drop in players, not some mass migration in one day, simply a technical problem.

That being said, x-fire numbers are crap anyway, whether it is GW2's so called decline or WoW's. Of course GW2 hours played have dropped as people settle into their normal play routines after the initial rush, the same as Pandaria will see an initial boost and then tail off back to the norm again later on, it is just the nature of these things.

Number of players have also dropped from 17k+ (if I remember right) to 11.4k as of yesterday.

Because more players prefer wednesday or something?

Listen, the numbers are useful for large trends (even if technical reason can mess them up). Looking on Wow players the last 3 or 6 months will actually tell you something, but the last 2 weeks nothing.

Maybe they are saving up for MOPs release or something, maybe they are bleeding players, or maybe the numbers are just wrong. 

As for GW2 the first 2 weeks will always have more logged hours for any game.

Comparing different game never have given the numbers they should have, some games have more Xfire users than others.

Yes, GW2 is doing well at the moment but that is the only conclusion we can get of these numbers. How well is hard to say, I do not know a single GW2 user who have Xfire, and none who plays Wow either.

Originally posted by Phry

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

the game has shown a steady decline on Xfire.. but.. if people are still queueing for W v W PvP, then i have to wonder how accurate that is.. although, the sample sizes are actually pretty small, so it might just indicate that Xfire users don't really stick to any one game for any length of time..

I have believed this for a long time now.  Xfire is largely used by game hopers who play a game for 20-40 hours than move on.  Lots of people play MMO's like single player games these days which is why box sales make up such a large portion of a MMO's revenue stream.

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

Best kid's game, maybe.

And you don't have the population statistics for GW2, the only evidence is that people are playing less than they did at launch.  That happens to every MMO.

WoW is kid's game while GW is supposed to appeal to adults?

Be careful since expressions like this will sooner or later discredit yourself. I mean you do realize that there are many...MANY adult people playing WoW, right.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by sr7olsniper

Actually you forgot, Stitch from Lilo Stich (azura), Tinker Bell wannabes (Sylvari) and Beasts from Beaty and the beast (Char). NOT to mention the cutscenes were obviously designed by disney, just look at the ending one for the personal story and  you even see the Magical kingdom. Gotta love the hipocresy of the GW2 crowd. 

We can at least spell.

But the MOP attack was over the top, all fantasy MMOs have silly parts.

/facepalm

Game-hoppers are a normal part of any MMO, including WoW.  As is the resulting population decline.  In a really successful game, though, it's not that there are no game hoppers, it's just that the success yields a constrant stream of new players, replacing the people leaving.  At least for the first few months, and even up to a year or two, if a game is popular enough.

That's where my concern lies.  It's not that some people are quitting GW2.  That's to be expected..  but I'm not seeing new players showing up, enough.  We've just got the typical launch surge, and that's it, like every other MMO (since WoW).  There's still time for that to turn around, but I don't know.  Despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews and word-of-mouth, the casual masses still doen't even seem to know the game exists.

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

Hey you WoW fan over there, you are hiding it very poorly you know. Have you checked the big shrink in numbers on Xfire there are for WoW's hours played starting on August 25th? Like they lost more than half, and still didn't recover from that over a month now. How would that be? Even with releasing the MoP update to the public right after GW2 release to counter it.

Let me tell you, it's when GW2 released. And yes WoW will rise again a bit with MoP, but it will also decline after the launch back to it's normal state, just like GW2 is declining now to find it's steady point of hours played. If you look to the chart then you should see that the fall is slowing down actually... but yeah. Fact is, WoW isn't king anymore, for the last month, if you look at Xfire numbers (and no other MMO has done that since WoW's release). We will see in 6 months when both MoP and GW2 aren't new any longer who's where then, and who's on top.

Mkay?

All I can do now is give credit to WoW for still currently being reasonably high on hours played, concidering it's such an old game. But even a WoW fan should give GW2 credit for what is has achieved already. GW2 is the most succesfull MMO launch since WoW, if you like it or not.

Originally posted by Ethos86

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

 

Hey you WoW fan over there, you are hiding it very poorly you know. Have you checked the big shrink in numbers on Xfire there are for WoW's hours played starting on August 25th? Like they lost more than half, and still didn't recover from that over a month now. How would that be? Even with releasing the MoP update to the public right after GW2 release to counter it.

Let me tell you, it's when GW2 released. And yes WoW will rise again a bit with MoP, but it will also decline after the launch back to it's normal state, just like GW2 is declining now to find it's steady point of hours played. If you look to the chart then you should see that the fall is slowing down actually... but yeah. Fact is, WoW isn't king anymore, for the last month, if you look at Xfire numbers (and no other MMO has done that since WoW's release). We will see in 6 months when both MoP and GW2 aren't new any longer who's where then, and who's on top.

Mkay?

All I can do now is give credit to WoW for still currently being reasonably high on hours played, concidering it's such an old game. But even a WoW fan should give GW2 credit for what is has achieved already. GW2 is the most succesfull MMO launch since WoW, if you like it or not.

For WoW, we can get more accurate indicators. I would wait for judging on the success of MoP until Blizz releases number of subscribers as at..lets say...31.12.2012.

The hours played in WoW now have to be the lowest they can get. I mean before the expansion, almost no guilds are raiding, there is no arena, no pvp rankings, no conquest points, nothing. My whole guild is completely inactive at the moment. The first day MoP hits, there will be 50 active people at least.

But I agree that WoW is declining on Xfire just like GW, so that both "camps" can be happy I believe. Pitty the fans of these games argue against each other so much.

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Here's the link:

http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

 

Right now 44k hours/week, comparing to 93k hours/week in peak

But still #3 for the last 14 days. But looking at gaming hours compared to LoL, it's now 1/3rd, while it was close to 2/3rd 2 weeks ago when GW2 held the #3 position.

I'm also wondering how GW2 will do after the 25th when MoP is released. I figure WoW will go up from it's current #5 position and even take over the #3 position GW2 now holds. But will GW2 then move to #4 or drop dramatically in hours played as well?

Originally posted by coretex666

Originally posted by Ethos86

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

 

Hey you WoW fan over there, you are hiding it very poorly you know. Have you checked the big shrink in numbers on Xfire there are for WoW's hours played starting on August 25th? Like they lost more than half, and still didn't recover from that over a month now. How would that be? Even with releasing the MoP update to the public right after GW2 release to counter it.

Let me tell you, it's when GW2 released. And yes WoW will rise again a bit with MoP, but it will also decline after the launch back to it's normal state, just like GW2 is declining now to find it's steady point of hours played. If you look to the chart then you should see that the fall is slowing down actually... but yeah. Fact is, WoW isn't king anymore, for the last month, if you look at Xfire numbers (and no other MMO has done that since WoW's release). We will see in 6 months when both MoP and GW2 aren't new any longer who's where then, and who's on top.

Mkay?

All I can do now is give credit to WoW for still currently being reasonably high on hours played, concidering it's such an old game. But even a WoW fan should give GW2 credit for what is has achieved already. GW2 is the most succesfull MMO launch since WoW, if you like it or not.

For WoW, we can get more accurate indicators. I would wait for judging on the success of MoP until Blizz releases number of subscribers as at..lets say...31.12.2012.

The hours played in WoW now have to be the lowest they can get. I mean before the expansion, almost no guilds are raiding, there is no arena, no pvp rankings, no conquest points, nothing. My whole guild is completely inactive at the moment. The first day MoP hits, there will be 50 active people at least.

But I agree that WoW is declining on Xfire just like GW, so that both "camps" can be happy I believe. Pitty the fans of these games argue against each other so much.

I pitty it too. And I agree with your points, I'm not just a blind GW2 fan. Just felt like I needed to give some counterweight to the other guy's post.

Originally posted by Ethos86

Originally posted by coretex666

Originally posted by Ethos86

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

 

Hey you WoW fan over there, you are hiding it very poorly you know. Have you checked the big shrink in numbers on Xfire there are for WoW's hours played starting on August 25th? Like they lost more than half, and still didn't recover from that over a month now. How would that be? Even with releasing the MoP update to the public right after GW2 release to counter it.

Let me tell you, it's when GW2 released. And yes WoW will rise again a bit with MoP, but it will also decline after the launch back to it's normal state, just like GW2 is declining now to find it's steady point of hours played. If you look to the chart then you should see that the fall is slowing down actually... but yeah. Fact is, WoW isn't king anymore, for the last month, if you look at Xfire numbers (and no other MMO has done that since WoW's release). We will see in 6 months when both MoP and GW2 aren't new any longer who's where then, and who's on top.

Mkay?

All I can do now is give credit to WoW for still currently being reasonably high on hours played, concidering it's such an old game. But even a WoW fan should give GW2 credit for what is has achieved already. GW2 is the most succesfull MMO launch since WoW, if you like it or not.

For WoW, we can get more accurate indicators. I would wait for judging on the success of MoP until Blizz releases number of subscribers as at..lets say...31.12.2012.

The hours played in WoW now have to be the lowest they can get. I mean before the expansion, almost no guilds are raiding, there is no arena, no pvp rankings, no conquest points, nothing. My whole guild is completely inactive at the moment. The first day MoP hits, there will be 50 active people at least.

But I agree that WoW is declining on Xfire just like GW, so that both "camps" can be happy I believe. Pitty the fans of these games argue against each other so much.

I pitty it too. And I agree with your points, I'm not just a blind GW2 fan. Just felt like I needed to give some counterweight to the other guy's post.

I happen to be a WoW player since 2004, so I am obviously a fan. I am just not blind and hostile either...at least I hope :).

People need to understand what X-Fire numbers represent.

X-Fire numbers represent very accurately the X-Fire users preferences.

What we don't know is how  much X-fire users patterns mirror those of the non x-fire users.

For example, for X-fire users GW2 is more played than WoW (even taking in account the bug that x-fire already fixed) while for the rest of the world that isn't mirrored.

Then we have other factors.

GW2 launched during the summer hollidays - I was playing 12 hours a day during the first week, now I'm playing 4-6 during weekdays and 6+ during weekends.

If one looks at the peek numbers, both hours and players, we see a drop of hours played by player. from over 6 hours/day to 4.5hour/day.

There are some comments that say that other games numbers kept increasing after release.

Gw2 started with over 1 million players, though and reached at least 2 millions.

We are talking of an order of magnitude higher compared to pretty much every other new MMO release with the exception of SWTOR.

So we are talking of 30-50% of WoW population for the Europe/America market, so I don't know how much growth do people expect in 2 weeks.

Mid and high level zones seem well populated.

Originally posted by Shadoed

 

If you bothered to look at the support forums on X-fire (don't use it, but checked it out), the application stopped working for a lot of players of WoW when the Pandaria patch landed as it didn't recognise the 64bit client and those that couldn't be bothered to manually fix it are just not having hours logged, even those that have still don't have the client working in game apparently. Not some magical drop in players, not some mass migration in one day, simply a technical problem.

 

kind of amazing that the breaking patch landed at the same time as GW2 launched.

Once again though trends are the key and since the last week of August when GW2 launched all of the top 5 western MMO's took a hit of between 25 and 60 percent. It is just not WoW that GW2 affected, SWToR, LoTRO, Aion, RIFT, TERA even EVE have all took a significant hit. People can't just cherry pick GW2's numbers and expect to be taken seriously, if you are going to look at the numbers look at all the numbers.

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

People need to understand what X-Fire numbers represent.

X-Fire numbers represent very accurately the X-Fire users preferences.

What we don't know is how  much X-fire users patterns mirror those of the non x-fire users.

For example, for X-fire users GW2 is more played than WoW (even taking in account the bug that x-fire already fixed) while for the rest of the world that isn't mirrored.

Then we have other factors.

GW2 launched during the summer hollidays - I was playing 12 hours a day during the first week, now I'm playing 4-6 during weekdays and 6+ during weekends.

 

If one looks at the peek numbers, both hours and players, we see a drop of hours played by player. from over 6 hours/day to 4.5hour/day.

 

There are some comments that say that other games numbers kept increasing after release.

Gw2 started with over 1 million players, though and reached at least 2 millions.

We are talking of an order of magnitude higher compared to pretty much every other new MMO release with the exception of SWTOR.

So we are talking of 30-50% of WoW population for the Europe/America market, so I don't know how much growth do people expect in 2 weeks.

Mid and high level zones seem well populated.

People need to understand the very basics of statistics. Xfire users are nothing more than a sample.

Originally posted by coretex666

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

People need to understand what X-Fire numbers represent.

X-Fire numbers represent very accurately the X-Fire users preferences.

What we don't know is how  much X-fire users patterns mirror those of the non x-fire users.

For example, for X-fire users GW2 is more played than WoW (even taking in account the bug that x-fire already fixed) while for the rest of the world that isn't mirrored.

Then we have other factors.

GW2 launched during the summer hollidays - I was playing 12 hours a day during the first week, now I'm playing 4-6 during weekdays and 6+ during weekends.

 

If one looks at the peek numbers, both hours and players, we see a drop of hours played by player. from over 6 hours/day to 4.5hour/day.

 

There are some comments that say that other games numbers kept increasing after release.

Gw2 started with over 1 million players, though and reached at least 2 millions.

We are talking of an order of magnitude higher compared to pretty much every other new MMO release with the exception of SWTOR.

So we are talking of 30-50% of WoW population for the Europe/America market, so I don't know how much growth do people expect in 2 weeks.

Mid and high level zones seem well populated.

People need to understand the very basics of statistics. Xfire users are nothing more than a sample.

They aren't a sample.

They are a group - videogamers that use x-fire.

A representative sample needs to take into account several groups (population subsets) and their proportion of the general population.

If I want to make a poll for the US elections, I need to poll 51% women and 49% men, I need to make sure I poll age groups accordingly, urban population, rural population, white, black, yellow, purple, what states, etc.

A valid sample would grab 1000 random GW2 buyers, 500/500 America/Europe, from different servers and monitor if they are still playing and how much they are playing.

This would be a valid representation.

For example, if X-fire was a valid sample, one would think there are more or at least the same amount of players playing GW2 as they are playing WoW (I'm talking users and not hours).

Now, chances are that if a game is in decline it will also be in decline in X-Fire. Percentages of drops on the other hand will be harder to correlate.

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

+1

Originally posted by coretex666.

People need to understand the very basics of statistics. Xfire users are nothing more than a sample.

They dont anyways.

I am still waiting for the Wow thread: "So this game have topped on Xfire" since every other game do have them, but every single thread that uses Xfire as single proof is flawed.

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Shadoed

 

If you bothered to look at the support forums on X-fire (don't use it, but checked it out), the application stopped working for a lot of players of WoW when the Pandaria patch landed as it didn't recognise the 64bit client and those that couldn't be bothered to manually fix it are just not having hours logged, even those that have still don't have the client working in game apparently. Not some magical drop in players, not some mass migration in one day, simply a technical problem.

 

kind of amazing that the breaking patch landed at the same time as GW2 launched.

Once again though trends are the key and since the last week of August when GW2 launched all of the top 5 western MMO's took a hit of between 25 and 60 percent. It is just not WoW that GW2 affected, SWToR, LoTRO, Aion, RIFT, TERA even EVE have all took a significant hit. People can't just cherry pick GW2's numbers and expect to be taken seriously, if you are going to look at the numbers look at all the numbers.

Seriously.....that is the line you want to take on this?

OK, fair enough, since the last week of August when GW2 launched WoW took a hit and dropped to a low of 15,781 hrs played, since then it has pulled back up to a high of 25,664 hrs played, but GW2 hit a high of 92,946, but has now settled at 44185. So since launch, GW2 has lost 53% of it's players and WoW has increased theirs by over 61%? (how is that for cherry picking figures)

The point is that we can all throw figures around to make a point, but do any of them actually mean anything when taken from a single, unreliable source? Well, no, of course they dont. I don't believe for one minute that GW2 has lost that many players as i don't think that WoW just suddenly lost 65% of it's player base overnight either because of the GW2 launch (for starters if there was that amount of mass migration from all MMO's, where is the 5, 6, 7Mill box sales to back it up?).

If you want to believe these figures, fine, that is your choice and i respect that, but don't expect everyone to put as much faith into them as you do. After all, 73.6% of statistics are just made up ;-)

Originally posted by Shadoed

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Shadoed

 

If you bothered to look at the support forums on X-fire (don't use it, but checked it out), the application stopped working for a lot of players of WoW when the Pandaria patch landed as it didn't recognise the 64bit client and those that couldn't be bothered to manually fix it are just not having hours logged, even those that have still don't have the client working in game apparently. Not some magical drop in players, not some mass migration in one day, simply a technical problem.

 

kind of amazing that the breaking patch landed at the same time as GW2 launched.

Once again though trends are the key and since the last week of August when GW2 launched all of the top 5 western MMO's took a hit of between 25 and 60 percent. It is just not WoW that GW2 affected, SWToR, LoTRO, Aion, RIFT, TERA even EVE have all took a significant hit. People can't just cherry pick GW2's numbers and expect to be taken seriously, if you are going to look at the numbers look at all the numbers.

Seriously.....that is the line you want to take on this?

OK, fair enough, since the last week of August when GW2 launched WoW took a hit and dropped to a low of 15,781 hrs played, since then it has pulled back up to a high of 25,664 hrs played, but GW2 hit a high of 92,946, but has now settled at 44185. So since launch, GW2 has lost 53% of it's players and WoW has increased theirs by over 61%? (how is that for cherry picking figures)

The point is that we can all throw figures around to make a point, but do any of them actually mean anything when taken from a single, unreliable source? Well, no, of course they dont. I don't believe for one minute that GW2 has lost that many players as i don't think that WoW just suddenly lost 65% of it's player base overnight either because of the GW2 launch (for starters if there was that amount of mass migration from all MMO's, where is the 5, 6, 7Mill box sales to back it up?).

If you want to believe these figures, fine, that is your choice and i respect that, but don't expect everyone to put as much faith into them as you do. After all, 73.6% of statistics are just made up ;-)

Charts is in hours played not # of players.

If I play 12 hours in 1 day and 6 hours in the next day, does that mean the game lost half of me?

Originally posted by krakra70
Just looking at the chart at http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2 it's easy to see that gw2's population is shrinking very quickly. And the best is yet to come (MoP).

its not the numbers of players its played hours

first weeks you leveled your character to 80 next week you go and pvp

leveling takes more time

if you want to know what happened with wow after gw2 realese

http://beta.xfire.com/games/wow

play time dropped by 20k/day