WAR (Warhammer Online)

WAR has like 14000 gaming hour pr day. last week same day, gaming was like 21000... 50% higher. Mythic, it's time to prepare for another server merge:www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

That's certainly becoming a harsh graph, but it still only speaks for the Xfire community that plays/played WAR unfortunately ;)

5000 is still a whole 1%.

When you do polling to get a trend you ask 0.1% or less. Xfire might not be 100% accurate, but it's a clear indication of the general trend.

I hope they fix the game so it survives.

A moderator should delete this thread it's just going to cause a flame war

First, its not 50% but 33% lower. I know what you said was right, but it's a wrong depiction of the actual drop.

Also, the official retention rate is 72%+ after the free month

I agree the sampling is decent but there's still no way to guarantee this trend is reflected on the entire playerbase, it still remains a guestimation.

That said I'm one of the people who believe WAR is in the 300k-500k range tops.

Originally posted by Pheace 

That said I'm one of the people who believe WAR is in the 300k-500k range tops.

Yeah... it must be pretty close to those numbers if we consider that

1- They haven't announced 1 million consumer sales yet, they will say it when they do (please dont debate on this again)

2- They had 72+% retention rate after the first month, now its been 2 months so lets say 50% are left

My guess is 450k subs (including free month) as of right now

Originally posted by Pheace

That's certainly becoming a harsh graph, but it still only speaks for the Xfire community that plays/played WAR unfortunately ;)

With regards to Xfire stats being reliable:

Here in South Africa our national television broadcaster, the SABC, monitors the homes of +- 1500 random families in order to observe their viewing trends. From these trends, they determine what the entire country of 45 million + people will have broadcasted to them on TV. The key to this survey of sorts is that it is random and representative.

That is exactly what Xfire stats are. There is over 10 million registered Xfire users (albeit nowhere near this number of people actually use it on a regular basis). At any given time around 200 000 people are logged on. This is a random sample of gamers from all over the world. The trends observed between these gamers will in the majority of cases reflect the trend of gamers world-wide simply due to the keys to surveys I mentioned earlier - randomness and representativeness. 

When Age of Conan was released it jumped right up to the top 5 on Xfire, which reflected exactly what was happening in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people were logging hours in the game. When people started to notice population numbers decreasing, other people started to quote Xfire numbers as proof that the game was dying. There were long arguments between forumers (including myself) as to whether or not those stats were reliable. All I can say is that Age of Conan now sitting at number 51 on the Xfire games list. 

Xfire has continually proven that is it indeed reflective of the world community. World of Warcraft is still sitting at number 1 after all these years (though the other day a random burst of Call of Duty 4 allowed it to claim the top spot for a day). It is indeed a fact that the hardcore gamers will most likely be the gamers with Xfire accounts, but I think most of us will agree that casual gamers playing The Sims 2 won't be the gamers playing World of Warcraft on a regular basis, if at all. 

This is by no means set in stone, but from my opinion Xfire is reliable enough for it to activate warning sirens when large drops in hours between its users occur.

Oh no, not another 'Xfire must be accurate because it is based on a sample of 5000' thread.

It's only a few short weeks since the last twin stumbling behemoths finally died a lingering painful death.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/209183/page/1

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/210263/page/1

Like it or not, Xfire only accurately reflects or predicts the behaviour of it's own community. In terms of basic demographics it is easily shown to be an unrepresentative sample & therefore unreliable. It may or may not reflect trends shown in the main population for any given game, but that adds nothing to it's reliability.

This is about defending valid use of statistics not Warhammer, but the other two threads say it all. 

Originally posted by LondonMagus

Oh no, not another 'Xfire must be accurate because it is based on a sample of 5000' thread.

It's only a few short weeks since the last twin stumbling behemoths finally died a lingering painful death.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/209183/page/1

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/210263/page/1

Like it or not, Xfire only accurately reflects or predicts the behaviour of it's own community. In terms of basic demographics it is easily shown to be an unrepresentative sample & therefore unreliable. It may or may not reflect trends shown in the main population for any given game, but that adds nothing to it's reliability.

This is about defending valid use of statistics not Warhammer, but the other two threads say it all. 

How is Xfire an unrepresentative sample? There are users from all over the world. If said sample was not representative, how is it that Xfire stats match real-life trends, such as World of Warcraft claiming the top spot among the list of MMOs, Guild Wars being second, as mentioned Age of Conan being at rank 51 etc?

Also, the number of people playing the game rises and falls with each passing day. One day Xfire may state there are 5000 players, the next it may drop down to 3000. This stat is reflective of active plays, so over time this number will fall. It is therefore not fair to say that it's a sample of 5000 people playing the game. It is in fact a sample of all Xfire users. You can't discount the other 195 000 active users simply because they don't play the game. The point is that the game isn't managing to hone in those other 195 000 people quicker than it is losing the current (for arguments' sake) 5000 players.