Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

 

That is because that 1000 people were a representative sample, and representative isn't related to population sizes.

Imagine they only polled white people. or men, or women or 65+ or under 21.

They polled 5xx women, 4xx men, XX over 65, etc.

XFire is like polling 1 group.

 

Gamers

cmon bc, you know better.

Originally posted by Yakkin

Originally posted by Warband

Originally posted by Yakkin
"XFire is generally wrong unless it's my game, then it is the epitome of accuracy and everyone who says otherwise is an idiot" - What is really the case.

 Yeah it's flawed unless these people using it believe gw2 has a population equal to 60% of WoWs. Which I'm guessing is the opposite of what they're trying to get across which is that's falling terribly. I still lol that they're using hours played, gw2 has no monethly fee meaning people aren' obligated to play it all the time in comparison to p2p.

I was kind of applying this as a blanket statement towards ALL MMOs.

 Of course it's like VG Chartz, terrible source but people use it anyway when there's no others sources to suit there preference.

Originally posted by Warband

Originally posted by Yakkin

Originally posted by Warband

Originally posted by Yakkin
"XFire is generally wrong unless it's my game, then it is the epitome of accuracy and everyone who says otherwise is an idiot" - What is really the case.

 Yeah it's flawed unless these people using it believe gw2 has a population equal to 60% of WoWs. Which I'm guessing is the opposite of what they're trying to get across which is that's falling terribly. I still lol that they're using hours played, gw2 has no monethly fee meaning people aren' obligated to play it all the time in comparison to p2p.

I was kind of applying this as a blanket statement towards ALL MMOs.

 Of course it's like VG Chartz, terrible source but people use it anyway when there's no others sources to suit there preference.

I prefer the layoffs sources - seems quite reliable when something is wrong.

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by Warband

Originally posted by Yakkin

Originally posted by Warband

Originally posted by Yakkin
"XFire is generally wrong unless it's my game, then it is the epitome of accuracy and everyone who says otherwise is an idiot" - What is really the case.

 Yeah it's flawed unless these people using it believe gw2 has a population equal to 60% of WoWs. Which I'm guessing is the opposite of what they're trying to get across which is that's falling terribly. I still lol that they're using hours played, gw2 has no monethly fee meaning people aren' obligated to play it all the time in comparison to p2p.

I was kind of applying this as a blanket statement towards ALL MMOs.

 Of course it's like VG Chartz, terrible source but people use it anyway when there's no others sources to suit there preference.

I prefer the layoffs sources - seems quite reliable when something is wrong.

 TBF layoffs in business aren't don't neccesarily mean a company is doing badly since a company could be more profitable then ever and still lay people off. (usually because they're hierachy is quite bloatedwith a lot of positions that aren't need so to maxmise profit they lay them off) especially if contract based if they only want them for a specific project or part. Though if there's enough being layed off of the regular workforce then you tell something may be wrong.

If your talking about layed off people blabbing then your probably right.

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by nukempro

 

Xfire huh? So do you have the stats that show what percentage of the entire GW2 playerbase actually uses that? Personally I don't use it and I don't know anyone who does. Yet forum goers seem to hold it up like it's the holy grail of seeing how much people play MMO's.

Xfire shows a decline / incline of a portion of the playerbase across games.

Statistically speaking, it is large / good enough to be a 'random sample'.

XFire can be many things.

One thing XFire isn't is a random sample.

He didn't say that it is a random sample, he merely stated that it is sufficientely good to be used as if it was a random sample for analyzing decline/lncline. Note the difference.

I would not argue with xfire as backing me up. I don't think xfire numbers are accurate. My opinion comes from being on 5 different servers ET-HOD-SoS-EUROSFR-Kaineg with 1100 hours played. across 3 characters.

WvW an Spvp are dead game modes like I said only a handful of guilds are sticking around in hopes of some PvP love which is not comnig anytime soon. That being said most of the people left in gw2 are simply there because its the lesser of two evils atm. I myself find more competitve enjoyable pvp in League of legends. Gw2 is still the best alternative to WoW  but still not good enough. As soon as any other triple aaa mmo comes out the few powerhouse guilds left in the game will be leaving. ESO will finish off the (Small) wvw population Spvp is not going anywhere when there focus is cash shop items rather then balancing and fixing the game.

Gw2=PVE

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by nukempro

 

Xfire huh? So do you have the stats that show what percentage of the entire GW2 playerbase actually uses that? Personally I don't use it and I don't know anyone who does. Yet forum goers seem to hold it up like it's the holy grail of seeing how much people play MMO's.

Xfire shows a decline / incline of a portion of the playerbase across games.

Statistically speaking, it is large / good enough to be a 'random sample'.

XFire can be many things.

One thing XFire isn't is a random sample.

He didn't say that it is a random sample, he merely stated that it is sufficientely good to be used as if it was a random sample for analyzing decline/lncline. Not the difference.

I have a question.

Which one of the following games is dying?

Now question number 2.

WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.

Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.

So should we expect a loss of 2.5M is subs soon (60% of the 4M rumoured west subs)?

If not, does that mean XFire users are shrinking?

Are launch and special events/patchs peaks a good starting point to measure population decline or rise?

By the way large/good enough aren't characteristics of a random population.

Polling 1000 male gamers if they think female characters are oversexualized in games will be no different than polling 10000 male gamers, when the objective is what do gamers think about it.

Originally posted by Phry

Originally posted by Warband

Originally posted by Camaro68

Originally posted by sadeyx

hmm,  so far its sold exactly half as many copies as diablo3 did on the first day xD,  Which is a pretty good indicator,  leveling alts, item hunting and acheivments in D3 just seems to be far more gratuitous.

Guildwars2 is neither an MMO nor a standalonge RPG resulting in a game that isnt very very good at either.   Great if your a person who is deeply conflicted about these gamyplay styles but not me.   I rather play either a thorough-bred MMO or a thorough-bred RPG.

The only people in my friends list that still play it are just people determined to prove the game is as good as they convinced themselves it would be during the hype.

The reality is, it was fun for a month but now is the time to accept it will never be the wow-killer, will never live up to the hype and look for something else.

 

 

That's the best summation of GW2 I've seen so far.  It lacks the immediate appeal of Diablo while exuding none of the depth of a good MMORPG.

I wonder though when a developer takes a huge financial risk like this if the extra million box sales early on are better than longterm sub revenue.  Are they obligated to maintain the game when player retention isn't necessary?

Guild wars 1 started off around 1-2 million sales for the first game went on to sell 7 million. i'd say that was worth the risk. Unlike most games, this revenue model sells repectably over time rather than the vast majority at the begining. Wouldn't be surprised for gw2 to sell over 10 million in a fair few years from now over several exapnsion.

the trouble with those figures are that it includes all the expansions, which in turn means that progressively fewer players bought each expansion. How good or bad player retention has been with GW2 will only really be revealed when the next expansion is released. Though there is also the return factor, which also happens in WoW oddly enough, where lapsed players will return for an expansion release, at least for a little while. Sales of the original GW2 game though, unlikely to exceed 4m even if you take that over the next 10 years, chances are, except for maybe a few stragglers, anyone who wanted it, has probably got it by now. So like GW1 before it, further sales will probably be solely reliant on expansion packs, which means the existing GW2 owners.

 Those figures do include expansions, but they specifically related to independant accounts. Which meant either Prophecies, Factions or Nightfall, but not expansions applied to existing accounts. So yes, the game did grow. They actually sold more than that of all 3 games, but they didnt count players who had Prophecies and then added Factions and Nightfall, like pretty much all the players in my GW1 guild did.

Also, they still haven't had a significant discount sale of GW2. When they do their first $30 or $20 sale there could still be a large influx. Like TERA when they did the $5 sale.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by nukempro

 

Xfire huh? So do you have the stats that show what percentage of the entire GW2 playerbase actually uses that? Personally I don't use it and I don't know anyone who does. Yet forum goers seem to hold it up like it's the holy grail of seeing how much people play MMO's.

Xfire shows a decline / incline of a portion of the playerbase across games.

Statistically speaking, it is large / good enough to be a 'random sample'.

XFire can be many things.

One thing XFire isn't is a random sample.

He didn't say that it is a random sample, he merely stated that it is sufficientely good to be used as if it was a random sample for analyzing decline/lncline. Note the difference.

 Except its not sufficiently good to be used as if it were a random sample. If you tried to use Xfire as a random sample in a peer reviewed journal it would get ripped to shreds. Xfire is a very distinct subsection of the MMO community, game jumpers. The entire point of using Xfire is to keep in contact with friends on multiple games, something that a large portion of the MMO community has no need for. Therefore it is a very biased subsample of the MMO community and completely worthless as a random sample.

Here is what Xfire can tell you:

Xfire users are playing a game more or less.

Here is what it can't tell you:

How that relates to overall population.

Unless the game company provides data for the number of active players, where you could then form a correlation coefficient to see how strong the relationship between Xfire data and overall population is. But if the game company is providing that, Xfire is useless anyway. So its a catch 22.

Originally posted by xArsonistx

I would not argue with xfire as backing me up. I don't think xfire numbers are accurate. My opinion comes from being on 5 different servers ET-HOD-SoS-EUROSFR-Kaineg with 1100 hours played. across 3 characters.

WvW an Spvp are dead game modes like I said only a handful of guilds are sticking around in hopes of some PvP love which is not comnig anytime soon. That being said most of the people left in gw2 are simply there because its the lesser of two evils atm. I myself find more competitve enjoyable pvp in League of legends. Gw2 is still the best alternative to WoW  but still not good enough. As soon as any other triple aaa mmo comes out the few powerhouse guilds left in the game will be leaving. ESO will finish off the (Small) wvw population Spvp is not going anywhere when there focus is cash shop items rather then balancing and fixing the game.

Gw2=PVE

 

 Small WvW population? My server has queues to get into WvW every night. Clearly at least 2000 players on my server are still doing it regularly.

Also if you read the update notes, PvP changes are coming. sPvP is always busy and is my favourite part of the game. Its the most fun I have had in a MMO doing PvP ever. (GW1 was better granted, but that wasn't a MMO)

Definitely beats WoW areneas for challenge and fun when you have organised teams.  

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.

Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.

So should we expect a loss of 2.5M is subs soon (60% of the 4M rumoured west subs)?

I like that you did some research instead of just posting an uninformed opinion but yes, Blizzard did announce they had lost a million subs in July of last year:

Despite turning in a second quarter that outshone Wall Street's expectations, investors pushed shares of Activision Blizzard down more than 5% after the company said its "World of Warcraft" online game lost more than a million subscribers in the second quarter.

The world's largest video game company said Thursday that the number of "World of Warcraft" players fell to 9.1 million in the quarter ended June 30, down from 10.2 million at the end of the first quarter. The game commanded 12 million players at its peak in October 2010.

Originally posted by Chieftan

I like that you did some research instead of just posting an uninformed opinion but yes, Blizzard did announce they had lost a million subs in July of last year:

<div id="mod-a-body-first-para" mod-articletext"="">

Despite turning in a second quarter that outshone Wall Street's expectations, investors pushed shares of Activision Blizzard down more than 5% after the company said its "World of Warcraft" online game lost more than a million subscribers in the second quarter.

The world's largest video game company said Thursday that the number of "World of Warcraft" players fell to 9.1 million in the quarter ended June 30, down from 10.2 million at the end of the first quarter. The game commanded 12 million players at its peak in October 2010.

July was also the month EA announced F2P for SWTOR despite claiming to have over 500k subs.

 

Both games had shown a steep decline on xfire from January to June 2012.

 

To be fair I also thought xfire didn't prove anything either...until two very large businesses publically confirmed what xfire was showing.

XFire confirms trends within a game, and NOT hour played because hours played is meaningles, but how MANY individual players log into certain game each day.

And 2 games cannot be compared though XFire (for purpose of determining how many play x game based on y games data).

Again hours played is MEANINGLESS.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

Because PvE wise you can accomplish anything with a pug group? With little struggle.

The game gives new meaning to tank and spank (Yes...I know how that will bring down the mighty throws of the lemmings that somehow feel not having a trinity nullifies the concept) the likes I have never seen. Albeit exploration mode does involve a working brain to a degree. Story mode simply involves nothing more than a full group bashing into the foray besides a few selective encounters.

From a "PvE" perspective the game is seriously shallow. I would, however, differ far as PvP goes...

There hasnt been a "deep" PvE game yet. Its all sripted coreography.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

Isn't needed or remotely necessary for shit PvE wise.

I already said PvP wise the game shines. It is in regards to PvE the game is weak as fuck.

Just as any other MMO ever released.

Originally posted by BigAndShiny

FUN FACT:   Bioware was hiring for Austin (ie. SW:TOR development) until ***DAYS*** before the layoffs.

FUN FACT: no it didnt.

Originally posted by xArsonistx

All of the servers are more or less dead. Only 2 servers on NA an EU can barely fill WvW on a reset. 

Really? Bag of BS. Yesterday we had zergs still running at 5am. Gandara-Aurora Glade-Dzagonur matchup, epic battles all the way from reset on all BLs.

And i KNOW that AT LEAST 5 servers CAN fill up queues for WvWvW any day of the week.

Try harder.

Originally posted by Chieftan

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.

Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.

So should we expect a loss of 2.5M is subs soon (60% of the 4M rumoured west subs)?

I like that you did some research instead of just posting an uninformed opinion but yes, Blizzard did announce they had lost a million subs in July of last year:

<div id="mod-a-body-first-para" mod-articletext"="">

The world's largest video game company said Thursday that the number of "World of Warcraft" players fell to 9.1 million in the quarter ended June 30, down from 10.2 million at the end of the first quarter.

 

To be fair I also thought xfire didn't prove anything either...until two very large businesses publically confirmed what xfire was showing.

WOW claimed they were back to 10 million in Nov 2012

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120552-World-of-Warcraft-Subscriptions-Rise-to-10-Million

guess Xfire and Blizzard cant agree

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by nukempro

 

Xfire huh? So do you have the stats that show what percentage of the entire GW2 playerbase actually uses that? Personally I don't use it and I don't know anyone who does. Yet forum goers seem to hold it up like it's the holy grail of seeing how much people play MMO's.

Xfire shows a decline / incline of a portion of the playerbase across games.

Statistically speaking, it is large / good enough to be a 'random sample'.

XFire can be many things.

One thing XFire isn't is a random sample.

He didn't say that it is a random sample, he merely stated that it is sufficientely good to be used as if it was a random sample for analyzing decline/lncline. Not the difference.

I have a question.

Which one of the following games is dying?

Now question number 2.

WoW in January 2012 had 90K hours played.

Now WoW in January 2013 has 25K hours played.

So should we expect a loss of 2.5M is subs soon (60% of the 4M rumoured west subs)?

If not, does that mean XFire users are shrinking?

Are launch and special events/patchs peaks a good starting point to measure population decline or rise?

 

By the way large/good enough aren't characteristics of a random population.

Polling 1000 male gamers if they think female characters are oversexualized in games will be no different than polling 10000 male gamers, when the objective is what do gamers think about it.

Re-upload pics, resolution is too low.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Re-upload pics, resolution is too low.

click on the Xfire pics in the post -- they expand

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

(...)

By the way large/good enough aren't characteristics of a random population.

Polling 1000 male gamers if they think female characters are oversexualized in games will be no different than polling 10000 male gamers, when the objective is what do gamers think about it.

Quick comment: you can investigate whether or not male gamers are representative of males as a whole when it comes to opinion about oversexualizing in games, so if you once notice that male gamers are representative, you can be rather certain that next poll within a certain time frame focusing only on male gamers would reflect the opinions accuretely of males as a whole.

The key lies in knowing how well the smaller group represents the whole group;  just because the smaller group is not a random sample of the larger group, it does not necessarely mean that the smaller group does not represent the larger group acccuretely. Furthermore, the smaller group (even if not random) may represent the larger group well in certain aspects, but badly in other ones.

Originally posted by Warband

Guild Wars 2 has sold over 3 million copies since its August, according to an update on the MMO’s website from director Colin Johanson, who also outlined the team’s 2013 plans for the title starting with expanding and leveraging the achievement system.

 

http://www.vg247.com/2013/01/15/guild-wars-2-has-sold-over-3-million-copies-since-august-2013-content-plans-outlined/

 

So now that the game has sold 3 million, what are peoples opinions on it's relative success or dissapointments in comparison to recent themepark mmo's and people, still playing there views on the state of the game.

I beleive McDonalds also does a great trade.