Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by aesperus

Well logged in this morning just to check. (it's not prime time atm)

GW2 currently has:

11 full servers

12 heavy pop servers

1 medium pop server

(this is for NA of course)

I see threads complaining about the populations, but I'm honestly puzzled (unless you're playing on that 1 medium pop server, or maybe on a EU, in which case I don't know their numbers).

Furthermore, ingame we've been having daily epic WvW battles in all 4 zones, my guild has actually been growing and we've been doing more & more events as a guild. I still see PUGs for every dungeon (though Arah is admittedly harder to find groups for at times). Where is this mass exodus people seem to be implying? Cause from every angle I can look @ GW2 from, it still looks like a healthy, popular, thriving game.

As for twitch, I still see people streaming it, and many of the staple streamers are still there. (but again, I may just be following different people). All I can say is the people who were streaming, vlogging, & writting about GW2 pre-release are all still playing. Even some of the ones that bought MoP.

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

I hate to break this to you, but people tend to watch certain players, not games. 

Yeah, and a certain streamer was at 1.5k when he stopped GW2 and is now at 7k+ with WoW. Also most famous streamers left because they got bored. Is it coincidence?

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by aesperus

Well logged in this morning just to check. (it's not prime time atm)

GW2 currently has:

11 full servers

12 heavy pop servers

1 medium pop server

(this is for NA of course)

I see threads complaining about the populations, but I'm honestly puzzled (unless you're playing on that 1 medium pop server, or maybe on a EU, in which case I don't know their numbers).

Furthermore, ingame we've been having daily epic WvW battles in all 4 zones, my guild has actually been growing and we've been doing more & more events as a guild. I still see PUGs for every dungeon (though Arah is admittedly harder to find groups for at times). Where is this mass exodus people seem to be implying? Cause from every angle I can look @ GW2 from, it still looks like a healthy, popular, thriving game.

As for twitch, I still see people streaming it, and many of the staple streamers are still there. (but again, I may just be following different people). All I can say is the people who were streaming, vlogging, & writting about GW2 pre-release are all still playing. Even some of the ones that bought MoP.

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

I hate to break this to you, but people tend to watch certain players, not games. 

Yeah, and a certain streamer was at 1.5k when he stopped GW2 and is now at 7k+ with WoW. Also most famous streamers left because they got bored. Is it coincidence?

Maybe they just want to laugh at pandas.

Anyone using Xfire as evidense is an idiot.

A: There is no way to measure what % of players in any given game are using xfire at any moment.

B: Xfire measures hours played. By its nature WoW is a game people play for longer hours because the content is driven towards keeping people logged in for as long and as often as Blizz can convince them because time = money. You could have half the people using Xfire in WoW than GW2 but putting in four times as many hours doing 6 hour raids every other day, hours of dailies (the bane of my MMOG existence lol), grinding out crafting, you name it. GW2 by its nature is a game you play a few hours here and there.

That said, the game is anything but dying by the only reliable indication of activity, the servers themselves. Yes it is true that there isn't a concrete way to say how many players are required to reach x status. But we do know that server capacity has improved dramatically from launch and at the same time people aren't playing as many hours each time they log in (Anet stated specifically that around launch they were amazed at how many hours people were putting into the game each day). So while we don't have specific numbers, it is easy to hypothisize that a server at 'full' has several thousands of players, heavy a few thousand.. and so on.

As I write this, around 2:20 PM EST, mid-day on a friday, all US severs are Heavy accept one of the new ones. Kienang. By prime time tonight most will be full (meaning no new accounts can be created on them). So while some guilds (including my own small guild) are seeing smaller numbers of members logging on, the over-all population is still quite high.

As to guilds with less people logging on I personally can explain this easily. There are a lot of great games out right now and many of us are putting some of our limited gaming hours into those games instead of GW2. I personally still put in a few hours every few days of GW2, but I tend to be playing TL2, BL2, Dishonored and XCom: EU. Including GW2 it has been by far the best fall for gaming in years. Once the current 'season' of games slows down, I'll be picking up my hours in GW2 and fully expect to see my guild more populated then as well.

Originally posted by boxsnd

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

300 viewers, in the morning, on a weekday. GASP! It still doesn't change how all of the ingame servers are overcrowded (except for 1).

All your 3rd party data shows is that GW2 is less popular than it was at launch (which is a given). It doesn't give any correlative data that can be extrapolated into a real statistic for the general player base.

Stating that there's less players now then at launch should be obvious. There have been ~ a dozen great games that came out recently. Some people are playing MoP, some torchlight 2, some borderlands 2, some dishonored, etc. etc. etc. Many of these people still also play GW2.

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by aesperus

Well logged in this morning just to check. (it's not prime time atm)

GW2 currently has:

11 full servers

12 heavy pop servers

1 medium pop server

(this is for NA of course)

I see threads complaining about the populations, but I'm honestly puzzled (unless you're playing on that 1 medium pop server, or maybe on a EU, in which case I don't know their numbers).

Furthermore, ingame we've been having daily epic WvW battles in all 4 zones, my guild has actually been growing and we've been doing more & more events as a guild. I still see PUGs for every dungeon (though Arah is admittedly harder to find groups for at times). Where is this mass exodus people seem to be implying? Cause from every angle I can look @ GW2 from, it still looks like a healthy, popular, thriving game.

As for twitch, I still see people streaming it, and many of the staple streamers are still there. (but again, I may just be following different people). All I can say is the people who were streaming, vlogging, & writting about GW2 pre-release are all still playing. Even some of the ones that bought MoP.

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

I hate to break this to you, but people tend to watch certain players, not games. 

Yeah, and a certain streamer was at 1.5k when he stopped GW2 and is now at 7k+ with WoW. Also most famous streamers left because they got bored. Is it coincidence?

Not really, more viewers means more money for them. It's their job. They will play whatever game nets them the most viewers at any given time.

BTW, you still haven't adressed why, if GW2 is dtying, all of the servers are at either full or high population.

Originally posted by boxsnd

 

That would be true if people were using xfire to "vote" for games. They aren't. They are using it for reasons unrelated to the statistics(to enhance their gaming experience and track their gaming time). Therefore it is a mostly random sample which is more or less accurate (and xfire has been proven right every time in the past)

Therein lies the rub. XFire does not enhance the GW2 gaming experience, and the game tracks my gaming time for me (See: /age command). Therefore, being dubbed useless and a waste of resources, XFire was uninstalled.

Originally posted by Amjoco

Originally posted by JackFrosty

Welcome to the MMO with new endgame.

People are leaving because they are bored it is that simple. People are going to give you other silly fanboy explanations, but the simple truth is people are bored wandering around looking for something to do when their is nothing besides 'exploring' etc.

So you just defined every single mmorpg.

It is up to the player to make a game a challenge, not just the design team. I have over 300 hours in GW2 and also started MoP last month and have a level 72 Pandaren Monk in WoW. 

I'm not sure why folks don't play a couple games at the same time so things don't get stagnent for them.

As for me, GW2 is the best game to come out since vanilla WoW. There are literally thousands of things to do after you hit level 80.

I'd love to hear about the thousand things you can do at max level... It's not near as great as you make it sound. You can grind for months to come up with the mats for the legendary, farm dungeons for curency to by new LOOKING armor, PvP, explore the entire map, or play the auction house... What am I missing? 

Don't get me wrong, I loved the game while I was leveling up but once I was done and explored everything it went severely stale. Couple that with how slow development seemed to be going and it's a game that I no longer can enjoy. I would much rather give $15 to Rift and get new content at least every month than wait and hope for something new in GW2.

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Logical? So you agree that GW2 currently has 75% of the population that WoW currently does, and once had over 160% of WoWs population? Because that's what the numbers are apparently trying to tell us.

 

"Logically".

No I don't agree. You are actually the main reason I said people don't know statistics ITT. You can't compare games that way because a different % of the population of GW2 might use xfire compared to WoW players. What you can do is compare loss of players each week (for example GW2 lost 55% of its player base in the last 40 days. how many did SWTOR lose in its first 40 days? how many will MoP lose? etc)

 

Hmm... how can I squeeze that number out of XFire? I see MoP has lost a fill third of its hours played in only two weeks, but can't seem to find historical numbers of players.

 

Oh, how does someone like me that uninstalled XFire but still plays GW2 fit in the equation?

The fact that you stopped doesn't change much when dealing with large numbers. The same thing probably happened to other GW2 or WoW players.

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Logical? So you agree that GW2 currently has 75% of the population that WoW currently does, and once had over 160% of WoWs population? Because that's what the numbers are apparently trying to tell us.

 

"Logically".

No I don't agree. You are actually the main reason I said people don't know statistics ITT. You can't compare games that way because a different % of the population of GW2 might use xfire compared to WoW players. What you can do is compare loss of players each week (for example GW2 lost 55% of its player base in the last 40 days. how many did SWTOR lose in its first 40 days? how many will MoP lose? etc)

 

Hmm... how can I squeeze that number out of XFire? I see MoP has lost a fill third of its hours played in only two weeks, but can't seem to find historical numbers of players.

 

Oh, how does someone like me that uninstalled XFire but still plays GW2 fit in the equation?

The fact that you stopped doesn't change much when dealing with large numbers. The same thing probably happened to other GW2 or WoW players.

So other players as well are probably uninstalling XFire since it has nothing to offer GW2 players, as you admit. How does this retain any validity then to XFire numbers again? It's artificially pushing the curve in a negative direction.

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by aesperus

Well logged in this morning just to check. (it's not prime time atm)

GW2 currently has:

11 full servers

12 heavy pop servers

1 medium pop server

(this is for NA of course)

I see threads complaining about the populations, but I'm honestly puzzled (unless you're playing on that 1 medium pop server, or maybe on a EU, in which case I don't know their numbers).

Furthermore, ingame we've been having daily epic WvW battles in all 4 zones, my guild has actually been growing and we've been doing more & more events as a guild. I still see PUGs for every dungeon (though Arah is admittedly harder to find groups for at times). Where is this mass exodus people seem to be implying? Cause from every angle I can look @ GW2 from, it still looks like a healthy, popular, thriving game.

As for twitch, I still see people streaming it, and many of the staple streamers are still there. (but again, I may just be following different people). All I can say is the people who were streaming, vlogging, & writting about GW2 pre-release are all still playing. Even some of the ones that bought MoP.

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

I hate to break this to you, but people tend to watch certain players, not games. 

Yeah, and a certain streamer was at 1.5k when he stopped GW2 and is now at 7k+ with WoW. Also most famous streamers left because they got bored. Is it coincidence?

Not really, more viewers means more money for them. It's their job. They will play whatever game nets them the most viewers at any given time.

BTW, you still haven't adressed why, if GW2 is dtying, all of the servers are at either full or high population.

 

What does High mean? Only arenanet knows. It could mean 20k players today and 10k players tomorrow. Also why is my server listed as Medium at primetime and also as medium at 7 am in the morning when it's actually completely empty? Does it track online players or how many played in the last x hours/days? We know nothing about those values, and we can't extract any valuable information. 

On a lighter note:

Here are the top-selling games in September:

Madden NFL 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PS Vita)
Borderlands 2 (360, PS3, PC)
FIFA Soccer 13 (360, PS3, PSV, Wii, 3DS, PSP)
New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
Guild Wars 2 (PC)
NHL 13 (360, PS3)
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (PC)
NCAA Football 13 (360, PS3)
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSV, PC)
Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by aesperus

Well logged in this morning just to check. (it's not prime time atm)

GW2 currently has:

11 full servers

12 heavy pop servers

1 medium pop server

(this is for NA of course)

I see threads complaining about the populations, but I'm honestly puzzled (unless you're playing on that 1 medium pop server, or maybe on a EU, in which case I don't know their numbers).

Furthermore, ingame we've been having daily epic WvW battles in all 4 zones, my guild has actually been growing and we've been doing more & more events as a guild. I still see PUGs for every dungeon (though Arah is admittedly harder to find groups for at times). Where is this mass exodus people seem to be implying? Cause from every angle I can look @ GW2 from, it still looks like a healthy, popular, thriving game.

As for twitch, I still see people streaming it, and many of the staple streamers are still there. (but again, I may just be following different people). All I can say is the people who were streaming, vlogging, & writting about GW2 pre-release are all still playing. Even some of the ones that bought MoP.

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

I hate to break this to you, but people tend to watch certain players, not games. 

Yeah, and a certain streamer was at 1.5k when he stopped GW2 and is now at 7k+ with WoW. Also most famous streamers left because they got bored. Is it coincidence?

Not really, more viewers means more money for them. It's their job. They will play whatever game nets them the most viewers at any given time.

BTW, you still haven't adressed why, if GW2 is dtying, all of the servers are at either full or high population.

 

What does High mean? Only arenanet knows. It could mean 20k players today and 10k players tomorrow. Also why is my server listed as Medium at primetime and also as medium at 7 am in the morning when it's actually completely empty? Does it track online players or how many played in the last x hours/days? We know nothing about those values, and we can't extract any valuable information. 

Please stop  - the game has still been throwing me into overflow servers when logging in daily. That means the main server is full and I can't get in until another player logs off. That means they are full.Pleople are still playing. You can argue all you want about how the game is dying, it is not. DEAL WITH IT.

From Gamesbeat - top selling for September 2012

• Madden NFL 13: EA (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS Vita)
• Borderlands 2: 2K Games (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
• FIFA Soccer 13: EA (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, 3DS, PSP)
• New Super Mario Bros. 2: 295,000 — Nintendo (3DS)
• Guild Wars 2: NCsoft (PC)
• NHL 13: EA (Xbox 360, PS3)
• World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria: Activision Blizzard (PC)
• NCAA Football 13: EA (Xbox 360, PS3)
• Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes: Warner Bros. Interactive (Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, DS, 3DS, PS Vita, PC)
• Battlefield 3: EA (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)


• Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/11/september-npds-borderlands-2-nearly-tops-best-seller-list-as-overall-sales-take-another-dive/#qi9IWbpL4UKkmMGH.99

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Logical? So you agree that GW2 currently has 75% of the population that WoW currently does, and once had over 160% of WoWs population? Because that's what the numbers are apparently trying to tell us.

 

"Logically".

No I don't agree. You are actually the main reason I said people don't know statistics ITT. You can't compare games that way because a different % of the population of GW2 might use xfire compared to WoW players. What you can do is compare loss of players each week (for example GW2 lost 55% of its player base in the last 40 days. how many did SWTOR lose in its first 40 days? how many will MoP lose? etc)

 

Hmm... how can I squeeze that number out of XFire? I see MoP has lost a fill third of its hours played in only two weeks, but can't seem to find historical numbers of players.

 

Oh, how does someone like me that uninstalled XFire but still plays GW2 fit in the equation?

The fact that you stopped doesn't change much when dealing with large numbers. The same thing probably happened to other GW2 or WoW players.

 

So other players as well are probably uninstalling XFire since it has nothing to offer GW2 players, as you admit. How does this retain any validity then to XFire numbers again? It's artificially pushing the curve in a negative direction.

The only users who might have thrown xfire off are fanboys who only installed  xfire to "vote" for gw2 at release, and quickly uninstalled it because they realized the ridiculousness of that action. A regular user wouldn't remove it because gw2 has the /age command (doesn't wow and most games have a similar command? /played i think?)

Originally posted by boxsnd

The only users who might have thrown xfire off are fanboys who only installed  xfire to "vote" for gw2 at release, and quickly uninstalled it because they realized the ridiculousness of that action. A regular user wouldn't remove it because gw2 has the /age command (doesn't wow and most games have a similar command? /played i think?)

Ugh...I don't remember. Haven't played WoW since right before Cataclysm came out. Anyone else recall? Heh... that was the day I stopped being a skritt, when I quit WoW.

But I gave XFire a try, admittedly because of all the fuss in the forums over it. Turned out to be a whole lot of not much and actually added nothing to the game.

Originally posted by Amjoco

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by aesperus

Well logged in this morning just to check. (it's not prime time atm)

GW2 currently has:

11 full servers

12 heavy pop servers

1 medium pop server

(this is for NA of course)

I see threads complaining about the populations, but I'm honestly puzzled (unless you're playing on that 1 medium pop server, or maybe on a EU, in which case I don't know their numbers).

Furthermore, ingame we've been having daily epic WvW battles in all 4 zones, my guild has actually been growing and we've been doing more & more events as a guild. I still see PUGs for every dungeon (though Arah is admittedly harder to find groups for at times). Where is this mass exodus people seem to be implying? Cause from every angle I can look @ GW2 from, it still looks like a healthy, popular, thriving game.

As for twitch, I still see people streaming it, and many of the staple streamers are still there. (but again, I may just be following different people). All I can say is the people who were streaming, vlogging, & writting about GW2 pre-release are all still playing. Even some of the ones that bought MoP.

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

First I find it disturbing you act as if you want to see the game fail.

Second all that matters is that the population is still striving like this, and like this;

If you can use twitch as a meter for population I can use facts for mine.

I am not ready to subscribe to the doom and gloom theory that GW2 is dying already. I log in and I see people. No, not nearly as many as the 1st 2 weeks, but there are people in all zones. Also,  there is no released information that tells us what GW2's populations are. There are samples. I will not argue how accurate or inaccurate they are. but they are samples. And in every case where there are measureable numbers, GW2 populations are in decline. Use Xfire, Raptr, I don't care. Do their numbers mean anything? Not of themselves, but historically speaking XFire has accurately represented the overall population's trends. You can check website traffic. Someone here posted them once. Links to show Internet traffic. GW2.com, guildhead.com, gw2db.com. Any site that has any popularity related to GW2 shows the exact same trend that Xfire shows. Every single measureale sourse says the exact same thing except for one. The one that all the fans use. This screenshot. So, what does this color coded math mean anyway? I like to use math with numbers. not colors. Yellow+Orange+Red=I-WIN! These are adjusted daily anyway. It's the only way ArenaNet has to control the flow of server transfers in order to try to keep a balanced population across servers. And I'll say this again. GW2's population is still healthy, but it is in decline.

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Logical? So you agree that GW2 currently has 75% of the population that WoW currently does, and once had over 160% of WoWs population? Because that's what the numbers are apparently trying to tell us.

 

"Logically".

No I don't agree. You are actually the main reason I said people don't know statistics ITT. You can't compare games that way because a different % of the population of GW2 might use xfire compared to WoW players. What you can do is compare loss of players each week (for example GW2 lost 55% of its player base in the last 40 days. how many did SWTOR lose in its first 40 days? how many will MoP lose? etc)

 

Hmm... how can I squeeze that number out of XFire? I see MoP has lost a fill third of its hours played in only two weeks, but can't seem to find historical numbers of players.

 

Oh, how does someone like me that uninstalled XFire but still plays GW2 fit in the equation?

The fact that you stopped doesn't change much when dealing with large numbers. The same thing probably happened to other GW2 or WoW players.

 

So other players as well are probably uninstalling XFire since it has nothing to offer GW2 players, as you admit. How does this retain any validity then to XFire numbers again? It's artificially pushing the curve in a negative direction.

The only users who might have thrown xfire off are fanboys who only installed  xfire to "vote" for gw2 at release, and quickly uninstalled it because they realized the ridiculousness of that action. A regular user wouldn't remove it because gw2 has the /age command (doesn't wow and most games have a similar command? /played i think?)

Please stop - Xfire issue is done - basically useless numbers used by naysayers of ANY GAME.

http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/41175/Global/

Read here  - GLOBAL SALES - GW2 is ranked 9 that includes XBox 360 games and PS3 games - this is BOX sales.

These are the only numbers we can really use currently. These don't count electronic sales, so it is probably more.

Originally posted by botrytis

Originally posted by bcbully
In 2 weeks GW2 will fall below Minecraft and diablo 3. A week after that it will fall below Starcraft, Arma 2, and Swtor, if this trend continues on Xfire. 

We have crossed this bridge many times - Xfire numbers are useless as it is a measure of Xfire users NOT All GW2 players.

 

Please understand that before you post.

 

I am in a guild on Gandara - we have 168 members and counting. That is not dying by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes we have crossed this bridge many times, and it is a self selected sample of guild wars 2 players, and thus is usefull for seeing trends in a game.  It is not useful for comparing the populations of games or for trying to figure out what the population of a game is.  For those two things, it is actually worse than useless and people can attempt to say that x game has more people than y game because of x-fire stats.  That is an unknowable using x-fire, but what is knowable, based on x-fire, is how the population trend is doing for a game.  

Really this back and forth with the legitimacy of XFire numbers is just going to get this thread closed.

I think Geezer is right a couple posts above.  And I think Box is right in some ways.  I also think other people are partly right too.  The fact I think we all can agree on is that this game still maintans a healthy population.  But it is most certainly in a decline.

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by botrytis

Originally posted by boxsnd

So many people in this thread who know nothing about statistics. 

 

How to correctly "read" xfire: GW2 started with 15k users there and is now at 6.8k (and still falling), which is a 55% drop. Therefore we can safely assume that if it sold 2.5 million, right now less than 1.2 mil are still active (and it will be less than 1 mil in about 2-3 weeks).

BUT - how many GW2 players use Xfire. What percentage is that population of TOTAL GW2 players? You don't know? Well those numbers don't mean anything then.

You can't assume that by the numbers - all you can assume is the number of Xfire players are not playing GW2 anymore.

 

Learn population statistics since that is what you are trying to use by quoting Xfire numbers.

 I think it's funny how many responses box's absolutely ridonkulous post has garnered...

I dunno, I think it might be the combination of first calling everyone an idiot, and then proceeding to say something monumentally stupid that people just can't resist replying to lol :).  Good tips for trolls in the future...

No. I get so many responses becuase what I'm saying is actually logical and it goes against everything fanboys believe in. They aren't arguing with me, but with their own logic.

Logical? So you agree that GW2 currently has 75% of the population that WoW currently does, and once had over 160% of WoWs population? Because that's what the numbers are apparently trying to tell us.

 

"Logically".

No I don't agree. You are actually the main reason I said people don't know statistics ITT. You can't compare games that way because a different % of the population of GW2 might use xfire compared to WoW players. What you can do is compare loss of players each week (for example GW2 lost 55% of its player base in the last 40 days. how many did SWTOR lose in its first 40 days? how many will MoP lose? etc)

xFire = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias therefore it is not a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_sample, it is also a very small sample size and thus very likely has a massive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error.

That would be true if people were using xfire to "vote" for games. They aren't. They are using it for reasons unrelated to the statistics(to enhance their gaming experience and track their gaming time). Therefore it is a mostly random sample which is more or less accurate (and xfire has been proven right every time in the past)

 Your premise and your conclusion have nothing to do with one another.

How would whether or not xFire users are "voting" for games have anything to do with the fundamental randomness of the sample???

The only fact is that XFire users are by definition self selected, and probably tend to be fairly hardcore gamers, and thus not representative of all gamers at large.  THAT has something to do with them not being a random sample.  Whether or not they vote has nothing to do with that.

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by AZHokie54

Originally posted by boxsnd

Originally posted by aesperus

Well logged in this morning just to check. (it's not prime time atm)

GW2 currently has:

11 full servers

12 heavy pop servers

1 medium pop server

(this is for NA of course)

I see threads complaining about the populations, but I'm honestly puzzled (unless you're playing on that 1 medium pop server, or maybe on a EU, in which case I don't know their numbers).

Furthermore, ingame we've been having daily epic WvW battles in all 4 zones, my guild has actually been growing and we've been doing more & more events as a guild. I still see PUGs for every dungeon (though Arah is admittedly harder to find groups for at times). Where is this mass exodus people seem to be implying? Cause from every angle I can look @ GW2 from, it still looks like a healthy, popular, thriving game.

As for twitch, I still see people streaming it, and many of the staple streamers are still there. (but again, I may just be following different people). All I can say is the people who were streaming, vlogging, & writting about GW2 pre-release are all still playing. Even some of the ones that bought MoP.

Right now as we speak GW2 has 300 viewers on twitch(it was constantly over 10k the first 2 weeks) while WoW is at 12k. 

I hate to break this to you, but people tend to watch certain players, not games. 

Yeah, and a certain streamer was at 1.5k when he stopped GW2 and is now at 7k+ with WoW. Also most famous streamers left because they got bored. Is it coincidence?

Not really, more viewers means more money for them. It's their job. They will play whatever game nets them the most viewers at any given time.

BTW, you still haven't adressed why, if GW2 is dtying, all of the servers are at either full or high population.

 

What does High mean? Only arenanet knows. It could mean 20k players today and 10k players tomorrow. Also why is my server listed as Medium at primetime and also as medium at 7 am in the morning when it's actually completely empty? Does it track online players or how many played in the last x hours/days? We know nothing about those values, and we can't extract any valuable information. 

I hope you don't really look like that. Your picture I mean.