LAG and Server POPULATION a rational view

[Clemeit]

Certainly Concurrent player averages are important when it goes to people grouping and player world interaction such a open channel channel communication such as communication and advice.
However playing habits do vary, from the Heavy user to the pop on and play for a bit when it suits them in the little free time that they may have. the latter number you refer to are based on an average for total players, not those playing at the same time.

I'd suggest that concurrent player count is a much more important statistic than the total unique player count. Who cares that 1 million different people play the game if only 100 are on at any given time. This is why I believe that referring to the former is a better indication of how populated the game feels to the average observer, and subsequently the game's perceived overall health. It's also why I don't believe analysis of login data holds much meaning without knowing the correlation between logins and concurrent population.

[myliftkk_v2]

Certainly Concurrent player averages are important when it goes to people grouping and player world interaction such a open channel channel communication such as communication and advice.
However playing habits do vary, from the Heavy user to the pop on and play for a bit when it suits them in the little free time that they may have. the latter number you refer to are based on an average for total players, not those playing at the same time.

From a player standpoint, I'd suggest only concurrency matters. Whether or not one takes advantage of what opportunities that concurrency offers is a player by player choice. If one doesn't have it though, then many potential choices simply disappear. Since most MMOs actually rely on those choices being present to serve a not-insignificant portion of their population, having them disappear entirely from the list of opportunities is a net loss to all players.

Whether concurrency matters to SSG is wholly up to whether they choose that it matters as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator). They could be just as financially successful selling subs to 86,400 players who login in for exactly non-overlapping one sec on a server once a day, press daily dice, and then log out. But, we can theorize that very few of those "players" are doing anything more than "playing" a digital lottery.

One example not on your list. If one has ever sold anything in the AH/ASAH within the same play session, they've benefited from concurrency.

[Brutuscass]

From a player standpoint, I'd suggest only concurrency matters. Whether or not one takes advantage of what opportunities that concurrency offers is a player by player choice. If one doesn't have it though, then many potential choices simply disappear. Since most MMOs actually rely on those choices being present to serve a not-insignificant portion of their population, having them disappear entirely from the list of opportunities is a net loss to all players.

Whether concurrency matters to SSG is wholly up to whether they choose that it matters as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator). They could be just as financially successful selling subs to 86,400 players who login in for exactly non-overlapping one sec on a server once a day, press daily dice, and then log out. But, we can theorize that very few of those "players" are doing anything more than "playing" a digital lottery.

One example not on your list. If one has ever sold anything in the AH/ASAH within the same play session, they've benefited from concurrency.

I have no problem with you or anyone else concentrating on Concurrency rather than over all player numbers, the latter does effect the former, and so they are connected, but they should not be mixed up and incorrectly quoted.

As for my "list" I had not considered making a list just threw out a couple of examples, but as you mentioned the AH/ASAH I suppose a quick sale rather than waiting a cycle through of the player base as a benefited from concurrency, albeit a rather small one.

[myliftkk_v2]

This is why I'd suggest that concurrent player count is a much more important statistic than the total unique player count. Who cares that 1 million different people play the game if only 100 are on at any given time. This is why I believe that referring to the former is a better indication of how populated the game feels to the average observer, and subsequently the game's perceived overall health. It's also why I don't believe analysis of login data holds much meaning without knowing the correlation between logins and concurrent population.

The login data, while not really useful for divining game health, is useful for shining a light on questions of stability. If the login data was wildly unstable, it would be harder to draw useful inferences from the concurrent single point in time measurements. But, since the login data is highly stable on 5 of the eight servers, and pretty stable on 2 of the remaining three, it suggests that the dipstick method of measuring concurrency through the LFM panel should work fairly effectively. And those measurements have been pretty stable as we've seen borne out, so they do reinforce each other. We could try to better establish the correlation, but that's only useful for debunking high side arguments on player counts, and not for actually evaluating what potential decisions could best effect a primary metric by which players experience the game.

I think we can suggest that game health as defined by the game's participants is definitively related to players playing concurrently (which is not the same as playing together), as opposed to perceived. The game's owner could have all the money in the world, but if there are only 2 people ever playing the game at the same time, no player (who is the consumer to which is sold the opportunity to participate) would deem the game "healthy". Only a financier on Wall Street would because their interests are orthogonal to the player's.

[Brutuscass]

I'd suggest that concurrent player count is a much more important statistic than the total unique player count. Who cares that 1 million different people play the game if only 100 are on at any given time. This is why I believe that referring to the former is a better indication of how populated the game feels to the average observer, and subsequently the game's perceived overall health. It's also why I don't believe analysis of login data holds much meaning without knowing the correlation between logins and concurrent population.

And I never said that you didn't!

My reason for responding to this:

While there may certainly be a correlation between login data and actual concurrent player averages, it's difficult to judge exactly to what degree without full access to the latter. There are many reasons for players to login - daily dice, bank toons, alts, hopping on long enough to check for groups, etc. - and many of these logins don't result in any significant engagement - like posting groups, running content, and interacting with other players. The issue was discussed in such detail because some were using the login data provided by DDOracle to speculate that DDO has an active average player count of around 37,800. That's 4,200 per server. It doesn't take much investigatory work to realize the absurdity of that proposition.

Was the last bit where you seem to confuse overall players with concurrent.

And please can you take to time to provide the context for the methods used in your data collection and working, as people need more than pretty pictures unfortunately

[Brutuscass]

[IMG][/IMG] again about 301 players on the who's list, not including any marked as Anonymous

[myliftkk_v2]

[IMG][/IMG] again about 301 players on the who's list, not including any marked as Anonymous

Consider doing this for a week, maybe 2-4 times a day (roughly the same times each day) and seeing what the results hold.

This is obviously a weird week given the US holidays (which means 1 or 2 less workdays for a lot of folks), so it might be beneficial to do this the week after this one, and roughly we'd get a picture of a normal, weekly, non-Holiday denominated cycle. It would likely be the most accurate snapshot of concurrency that exists and one could extrapolate what options exists for DDO from there (magically conjuring swarms of new players is not in the spellbook).

[nokowi]

I think we can suggest that game health as defined by the game's participants is definitively related to players playing concurrently (which is not the same as playing together), as opposed to perceived. The game's owner could have all the money in the world, but if there are only 2 people ever playing the game at the same time, no player (who is the consumer to which is sold the opportunity to participate) would deem the game "healthy". Only a financier on Wall Street would because their interests are orthogonal to the player's.

I would argue the game needs about 2-3x as many concurrent players as it did 3 years ago to have the same "feel" of ability to go to what you want to do, or join something similar to what you want to do.

The reasons are more degrees of separation due to higher number of settings, the desire for a particular amount of rewards per time, and game design that discourages the use of public channels (larger power gaps that encourage private groups).

The bigger issue is that SSG keeps designing a game that makes it more and more difficult to meet your own preferences.

They have pretty much abandoned the casual player, designing new content that some players can't complete on normal, and designing power rewards that will further preclude this player base in the future. They said they wouldn't design class abilities around reaper, and they immediately started designing the game around reaper. The casual player gets their build hit every time SSG tries to manage power levels for the top reaper builds.

Someone at SSG has to have the capacity to make it a design goal to meet more preferences, instead of this bait and switch where players continue to play in the hopes that one day the game will be fun. It is unlikely to happen based on their current design process, and if it is not fun now, there is little reason to hang around.

SSG is not designing for more preferences. The result is lower player concurrency, and the problem is different than needing a server merge. The apparent need server merge is just the symptom of their design choices. Better design choices are needed before the cost/effort of a server merge will pay for itself.

[Clemeit]

Consider doing this for a week, maybe 2-4 times a day (roughly the same times each day) and seeing what the results hold.

I'll post my full findings on the 1st. I wanted to get an entire month's worth of data before posting more complete information.

[myliftkk_v2]

I would argue the game needs about 2-3x as many concurrent players as it did 3 years ago to have the same "feel" of ability to go to what you want to do, or join something similar to what you want to do.

The reasons are more degrees of separation due to higher number of settings, the desire for a particular amount of rewards per time, and game design that discourages the use of public channels (larger power gaps that encourage private groups).

The bigger issue is that SSG keeps designing a game that makes it more and more difficult to meet your own preferences.

They have pretty much abandoned the casual player, designing new content that some players can't complete on normal, and designing power rewards that will further preclude this player base in the future. They said they wouldn't design class abilities around reaper, and they immediately started designing the game around reaper. The casual player gets their build hit every time SSG tries to manage power levels for the top reaper builds.

Someone at SSG has to have the capacity to make it a design goal to meet more preferences, instead of this bait and switch where players continue to play in the hopes that one day the game will be fun. It is unlikely to happen based on their current design process, and if it is not fun now, there is little reason to hang around.

SSG is not designing for more preferences. The result is lower player concurrency, and the problem is different than needing a server merge. The apparent need server merge is just the symptom of their design choices. Better design choices are needed before the cost/effort of a server merge will pay for itself.

I wouldn't disagree that 3x is probably the target to aim for.

Because there are two games. The Reaper game and the non-Reaper game. It's the flaming trench that separates capable vets from new players with no-incentive to build a bridge.

The non-Reaper game should frankly be sped up to 2x times the current speed. Get to 20 1.5-2x as fast on non-reaper versus reaper. Play less content getting there and cycling through again will seem less repetitive because of less quest overlap. 20 - 30 non-reaper should be sped up as well. It mitigates a lot of issues with new players joining the mix to speed those wheels. Allows for faster correction to build issue, allows quicker TR/RTR/ED replay, and most important allows questing choices to have less same same same same.

[myliftkk_v2]

I'll post my full findings on the 1st. I wanted to get an entire month's worth of data before posting more complete information.

Interested to see them.

[nokowi]

I wouldn't disagree that 3x is probably the target to aim for.

Because there are two games. The Reaper game and the non-Reaper game. It's the flaming trench that separates capable vets from new players with no-incentive to build a bridge.

The non-Reaper game should frankly be sped up to 2x times the current speed. Get to 20 1.5-2x as fast on non-reaper versus reaper. Play less content getting there and cycling through again will seem less repetitive because of less quest overlap. 20 - 30 non-reaper should be sped up as well. It mitigates a lot of issues with new players joining the mix to speed those wheels. Allows for faster correction to build issue, allows quicker TR/RTR/ED replay, and most important allows questing choices to have less same same same same.

I really appreciate all your thoughts here lately.

Their model was to push everyone into reaper by making the non reaper rewards there faster as well, so I doubt reversing this by a factor of 2 is on their agenda. Their model is based on letting those who are ahead (reaper) keep getting ahead faster, and they have really focused on monetizing this effort. This is what I call "painting themselves in a corner". Had they monetized making a better play experience, they would be more agile and be able to go in many design directions. I think it would be difficult for them to cancel out the huge power rewards people spent $1000+ dollars on over the last few years. The remaining player base is going to demand more of the same, and everyone else was largely chased away or has accepted that an inferior product is better than no product.

SSG picked their poison, and it was neglecting new/casual players by incentivising power rewards. It was dropping play styles to make raw power more important than intelligent play. It was picking winners and losers based on current sales rather than letting every build shine somewhere within the content. It was pushing people to play the best rewards per time build rather than what they enjoy.

If you want SSG to undo their basic design, this would only happen if they were to perform some analysis that tells them they are going in the wrong direction now. Lynnabel recently told us she won't be surprised if DDO stays open forever, so that tells you the devs think they are 100% going in the correct direction. They have had zero discussion with the player base that indicate any change in direction.

SSG hasn't actually been around that long, considering there was a buyout to continue DDO, with the expectation of profit. They seem to be happy with their profits, and their direction. Long term growth of player base does not seem to be one of their metrics. They are happy and are not concerned if their player base is happy, because they like their current sales. They feel they can stop supporting play styles, and as long as they completely marginalize those players (don't talk about stealth or respond to those with TR issues), they believe people will continue to shell out $700 for multiple sets of gold rolls.

They just aren't concerned about their player base. Zero indications in the last 3 years.

SSG was talking about server merges when they formed. Consider why they are silent about them now.

[Wizard1406]

Because there are two games. The Reaper game and the non-Reaper game. It's the flaming trench that separates capable vets from new players with no-incentive to build a bridge.

The non-Reaper game should frankly be sped up to 2x times the current speed.

While I think 2x is too much more xp, I never understood why reaper gives MORE character xp than elite.

Reaper is already double dipping character xp and reaper xp. If reaper didn't gave the absolute best leveling xp, reaper would be a challenge mode and farm at 30 mode (this is good, more at cap play).

So obviously this pushes everyone to Reaper. People who are weaker still or dislike reaper have trouble finding groups for lower difficulty and are often frustrated and leave or play less (and spend less) or solo only. They even made R1 harder (+4 to saves, harder reapers....)

I think a lot of people don't even bother posting LFMs for lower difficulties when doing a solo or guild low man run, because 90% of the time, no one is joining anyway unless maybe it's a quest with excellent loot or excellent xp that warrants a Reaper -> Elite repeat.

[Brutuscass]

Consider doing this for a week, maybe 2-4 times a day (roughly the same times each day) and seeing what the results hold.

This is obviously a weird week given the US holidays (which means 1 or 2 less workdays for a lot of folks), so it might be beneficial to do this the week after this one, and roughly we'd get a picture of a normal, weekly, non-Holiday denominated cycle. It would likely be the most accurate snapshot of concurrency that exists and one could extrapolate what options exists for DDO from there (magically conjuring swarms of new players is not in the spellbook).

Yup it certainly is a weird week, when you say the US holidays, you have me at a slight loss, I though that most of western Europe and North America shared this Holiday period, certainly here in the UK, we get very festive and from my years of living in Italy it's the same there too, a time for Family and friends getting together and over-consumption
Though here in the UK the Drinking part is greater than the eating, and in Italy it is definitely more about the eating and more a case of quality than quantity. so it is truly hard to say if the numbers go up or down, time off work, more Wa/ha/kidgro or being PC significant-other-half-gro

The reason for the span shots was more a case of example of a repeatable and simple method of checking on the players base that anyone can use, while awaiting complete reports from Clemeit, which I do hope will be more Scientific than my simple snap shot, glance.

Though my method is, or at least should be clear, it in no way claims more than what it is a snap shot of Thelanis at one moment. based on simple measurement with calipers of the slider bar dividing the total length of the side bar (in my case 32.5cm or 12 and 4/5 Inches, on a 42 inch flat screen and game res of 1920x1080) larger screens may get more accurate results.

using the command /loc in general chat supplies an in game time stamp so continuity can be demonstrated.

a full series of snap shots which could be used to provide a graph of any value would be a rather time consuming project, but at least the method is out there for other to replicate.

And that is the important part here, if there is not way of reproducing the results then those results will always be questionable.

we can await Clemeit's results, but please can we have the method?


EDIT I prob. need to say sorry to the rest of the world I forgot about Santa swapping the reindeer for roos, just got a tinnie in the back of my head to remind me

[Brutuscass]

I'll post my full findings on the 1st. I wanted to get an entire month's worth of data before posting more complete information.

I am happy to await your full results, however it is your method which would be much more useful, could you please share this with us?

[Brutuscass]

While we are waiting let me throw another log on the fire, to warm up those chestnut

Bear in mind that many if not most of the older players are playing the game from desk top and not via steam, but I was feeling a bit of a chill and at my age...

[IMG][/IMG]
https://steamcharts.com/app/206480#All

[Gniewomir]

While we are waiting let me throw another log on the fire, to warm up those chestnut

Bear in mind that many if not most of the older players are playing the game from desk top and not via steam, but I was feel a bit of a chill

https://steamcharts.com/app/206480#All

Honestly when i first saw steam charts i was a bit suprised. According to them population is extremly low (average 265 players means average 33 players per server and that means average 1 player on steam per each possible character level), but stable and that's suprising to me, As long as steam charts are quiet reliable source of stats i do not see obvious things that everyone could notice. For example 2016, datacenter migration. Entire month of lagging, few days of servers being offline, a lot of people claiming they'll leave the game, not many online cause of lags but still - there's no a slightest breakdown on this chart. I've got no idea how they collect the data.

[Kinerd]

It would make sense to blend this data, and we could further narrow the gates on max players and see what that tells us in theory:
...
Or, if we to turn back time and randomly log into any server and select any quest and difficulty there would be theoretically an ~87% less chance of there being a player there than there was 7 years ago.

The root problem is population growth is stagnant while world growth is not. DDO is a world where old systems or modules are never retired completely or cycled off and so dispersal of the existing stable population across a growing world leaving every player, whether their choice or not, more isolated than before (unless they themselves takes steps to counteract). Hence, the single-player game feel increasing while the social-player feel decreasing.

If everyone playing DDO were on the same page then grouping would never be a problem. Unfortunately, due to the shortsightedness of the developers they created a worst case scenario environment in which grouping is almost impossible even for players that desperately desire to group together. There are six key aspects of DDO that serve to actually prevent player grouping:

i thought these were two good posts. and to chime in with everyone else, appreciate the data being shared overall!

[Brutuscass]

Honestly when i first saw steam charts i was a bit suprised. According to them population is extremly low (average 265 players means average 33 players per server and that means average 1 player on steam per each possible character level), but stable and that's suprising to me, As long as steam charts are quiet reliable source of stats i do not see obvious things that everyone could notice. For example 2016, datacenter migration. Entire month of lagging, few days of servers being offline, a lot of people claiming they'll leave the game, not many online cause of lags but still - there's no a slightest breakdown on this chart. I've got no idea how they collect the data.

your not wrong about March 2016, if I am correct it was around the 16th, maybe their data includes log on attempts, steam can be a bit strange sometimes, I play a couple of games using it, mainly the Total war stuff.

[IMG][/IMG]

[Gaettusk]

your not wrong about March 2016, if I am correct it was around the 16th, maybe their data includes log on attempts, steam can be a bit strange sometimes, I play a couple of games using it, mainly the Total war stuff.

[IMG][/IMG]

More than likely they just track who shows as currently playing the game,as they have a current player stat. As with most MMOs on Steam, even if you have the launcher open and never log into the game, it will show you as playing the game via Steam. So if a bunch of people are trying to log on and cannot, it will still show them as playing. This also brings up the question of: "How many of those 250ish Steam DDO players are actually in-game and not just afk at launcher?"

And the Steamcharts site's data comes directly from Steam, but they're a third-party site