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The Jesters curves..
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Richard Hammond II
Doomheim
#21 - 2011-09-09 03:22:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Richard Hammond II
Joe D'Trader wrote:
This is where I remind people that we used to have 55K + on Sundays and 45K on Weekdays.


When that happens again I might try to eat a sock. Otherwise numbers in Eve are down.


Revelant for the slow



Post a vid if it happens I wanna see someone try an eat a sock O.o

Rented wrote:
RUSROG wrote:
And now for some constructive criticism:

LOUD NOISES.

*FRANTIC POINTING AT NUMBERS*

SCREAMING ABOUT GRAPHS.

YELLING ABOUT UNSUBS.

---

As long as EVE has players it will go on.

Does it have players? Yes.

Do you not like it? Get out.



Quoted for epic irony.


lol I see wut he tried to acheeve ther

Goons; infiltration at its best - first bob... now ccp itself. They dont realize you guys dot take this as "just a game". Bring it down guys, we're rooting for you.
Peter Powers
Terrorists of Dimensions
#22 - 2011-09-11 14:28:34 UTC
Somehow the new forums seem to have some weird anti-quote settings... so ill anwer a few things without splitting up the quotes too much, sorry for that



Tippia wrote:

No, it was posted on July 20…
(...)

29,841 ÷ 29,133 = 1.0243… → the former number is 2.43…% higher than the latter. This is properly rounded to 2.4%.
(...)

Quote:
lets make an assumption […] lets also assume he has two accounts
Why? With nothing to back it up, it won't lead you anywhere good. Especially since, no, two accounts per player is not the average. The best anyone has ever been able to guesstimate, it's somewhere in the region of 1⅓ per person. But more importantly, the number of accounts per person is entirely irrelevant to what you're calculating: each online character (and each subbed account, which is what you're trying to derive) is… well… one account. The number of players (and the number of accounts per player) is not a factor in determining the amount of money they earn. It could be one person owning all 350k or 700 people sharing them with one character slot each — the final amount of accounts and final earnings is the same.

you are confusing the post, on july 20th he posted some other curves, the one everyone talking about is the one from end august.

if you calculate growth you go from the base number, not from the result. so its 2.5

the number of accounts has relevance to get to the result, you have to account for people with multiple accounts not having them logged in at the same time.
and i stick with that 2 is a pretty low number, i dont know anyone who has only one account, and most people i know have 3 or more. personally i have 5. i think its pretty safe to say that the majority has at least two accounts, and the one accounters wont counter the ones with several accounts enough to get it below 2.


Tippia wrote:

Quote:
23 / 2 = 11.5 * 728 = 8372 * 2 = 16 744 new accounts * 17,49 USD
Ok… so not only are you assuming a completely unfounded number of playing hours per day, for a completely unfounded number of accounts per player, for a thoroughly unreasonable (and entirely irrelevant) global distribution of server load.

…and all of that to come back to the exact same number you had before: a 2.4% growth over a very long period of time. You get the same number because you use the same data as the basis for your calculation — a 2.4% growth in that number ends up as a 2.4% growth in the final result as well. Multiplication and division is funny that way…

serverload? i dont know where you get that from, the curves of jester are about average concurrent logged in users, and thats the basis to get to how many accounts are behind the difference. also its not about if growth is 2.5%, its about what that means.
what i dispute is the meaning that people like jester, mittani, seleene interprete from those numbers.

Tippia wrote:

Oh, and by the way, what you're doing here is assuming that the number of accounts can be calculated from the average number of online users… but you started out by saying that we can't do that, so your whole exercise is, according to you, pointless. So why all the number juggling?

to show how silly the interpretation is 'its a flat line'.

people are saying eve is dying since i started playing in 2006, while in fact its very much alive and growing.

3rdPartyEve.net - your catalogue for 3rd party applications
Peter Powers
Terrorists of Dimensions
#23 - 2011-09-11 14:39:30 UTC
Sturmwolke wrote:
Erhmm ... OP, rather than (trying to) debunk the irrelevant niggly bits in the graphs (which I'm seeing as pure sophistry), I'd like to see your entire analysis that can provide strong proofs and arguments that EVE isn't dying.
Lay it on the table and we'll see if it survives peer review Big smile

a) it is growing, despite a **** load of accounts who where banned, and despite all the whiners who claimed to be leaving after incarna
b) today's fleet battles compared to back in the days(tm) are much larger
c) CCP has not declared bancrupcy
d) i couldnt play a dead game now, could i?
e) there is no indication that eve is dying, the rumour made up by the community of whine, and fostered by misinterpretation of numbers by people like jester, mittani, riverini, seleene, and all the other people (The tabloid media of eve).

Ifly Uwalk wrote:
OP is so obviously a CCP alt. Sad

no, i am not.

Who i am:
http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=866
http://csm.evsco.net
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Contributor_name:Peter_Powers

3rdPartyEve.net - your catalogue for 3rd party applications
Jade Constantine
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
#24 - 2011-09-11 14:49:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Jade Constantine
Peter Powers wrote:

to show how silly the interpretation is 'its a flat line'. People are saying eve is dying since i started playing in 2006, while in fact its very much alive and growing.


I don't understand your motivation to say this really. You say the server is "alive" and growing when I have to tell you from the perspective of many and (certainly my own opinion) the server feels closer to "life support" than "alive and flourishing." Many corporations and alliances across eve are finding their membership is simply losing interest with the game and thats not just a natural ennui over time - its in specific reaction to 18 months+ of abandonment and neglect.

Are you really saying that you agree with CCP's recent policy in delivering virtually nothing for the core game experience and leaving past expansions unfinished and abandoned while putting their resources towards 2 non Eve products and the woefully poor Incarna CQ?

We haven't had a genuine expansion since Apocrypha and its fairly easy to compare what we get now with what we had before:

This is what an expansion looks like

This is what we got this summer

Incarna

Given subscription income is far higher than we provided to CCP back then and the company is 3x bigger how come we're expected to be content with an expansion thats a fraction of the size and complexity and makes up half its "content" by repackaging bug-fixes and balance tweaks as features.

Incarna has delivered nothing to improve this game for the majority of players. Its actively harmed the gameplay experience of many besides. This is reflected in the dead feeling of the game in space at the moment and general listless politics and community vibe.

Once again, I simply don't understand what you are trying to argue for in this thread. That everything is fine? That we've "never had it so good"? That CCP was right to foist a half-finished inefficient GPU-thrashing abortion of a CQ at the cost of our hanger functionality just so it could couple a one-room vanity display-case with the greedy-grubbing NeX rollout?

I mean seriously. What exactly are you defending here?

The True Knowledge is that nothing matters that does not matter to you, might does make right and power makes freedom
Krixtal Icefluxor
INLAND EMPIRE Galactic
#25 - 2011-09-11 14:54:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Krixtal Icefluxor
Welp, the numbers are down by ONE at least this afternoon (5 PM Pacific) when this NOW CANCELLED 19 month 28 Mill SkillPoint toon is offlined.

I will take a peek to see if The Door is still there with the Winter Expansion. My other 2 accounts expire on 9/25.

It would just be really really nice if I could undock my Tengu with it's modules actually on (YES after the 'Fix').

Really sloppy crap and it's time for me to go.

"He has mounted his hind-legs, and blown crass vapidities through the bowel of his neck."  - Ambrose Bierce on Oscar Wilde's Lecture in San Francisco 1882
Krixtal Icefluxor
INLAND EMPIRE Galactic
#26 - 2011-09-11 15:00:07 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:
[quote=Peter Powers]
to show how silly the interpretation is 'its a flat line'.

I mean seriously. What exactly are you defending here?



I've been wondering this the whole WAY through this thread.

BTW, the population last night (Saturday night Pacific Time) was around 23,500 at 9 PM and that USED to be well over 35,000 until Midnight Saturday.

Numbers are down down down. Have been for MONTHS.

These convuluted time-wasting 'fake math exercises' are ............................. b a f f l i n g.

"He has mounted his hind-legs, and blown crass vapidities through the bowel of his neck."  - Ambrose Bierce on Oscar Wilde's Lecture in San Francisco 1882
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#27 - 2011-09-11 15:06:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Peter Powers wrote:
if you calculate growth you go from the base number, not from the result. so its 2.5
Yes. That's why you do 29,841 ÷ 29,133 = 1.0243, which gives you the result 2.43% increase, which is properly rounded to 2.4%.

Or, just to test our result, using the age-old formula for what percentages actually mean (+n% ≡ ×(1+n/100)) we can see that a 2.43% increase to the base number 29,133 → 29,113×1.0243 = 29,840.9319 (≈29,841) which is what we were expecting. If you get any other result, you're doing it wrong, or you're trying to cheat the rounding.

Edit: actually, I see the problem. Sorry. I'm using 29,133, not 29,113 — do'h for numerical dyslexia Oops
Quote:
the number of accounts has relevance to get to the result, you have to account for people with multiple accounts not having them logged in at the same time.
Yes, but the number of accounts per person is still entirely irrelevant. An account is an account is an account. How many person own them on average has no effect on how the online number is translated into active accounts, and further into earnings for CCP. Regardless of the ownership, CCP gets paid.
Quote:
and i stick with that 2 is a pretty low number
That's your problem. You're using a non-representative sample. But since it's entirely irrelevant, if you choose to be wrong here, it doesn't matter anyway.
Quote:
serverload? i dont know where you get that from
From your dividing the day into arbitrary time slices that holds an average amount of people in them. That's what you're calculating: server load. This, in and of itself, should tell you something about how non-parsimonious your calculations are.

All you're doing is adding in a bunch of scaling factors based on absolutely nothing but your own unfounded guesswork, all to arrive at the conclusion that a 2.5% increase in average online users means a 2.5% increase in subscribers (and thus a 2.5% increase in income for CCP), even though you reject this kind of relationship from the very starts. So not only are you pointlessly jumping through a lot of hoops to arrive at something that we already know (2.5% incease = 2.5% increase), but you also reject your own results.

Your mathematical contortions might have mattered if you tried to argue that those average numbers are not comparable; that on average, play sessions per account are shorter, which brings the PCUs down; that people have shifted to more expensive subscription forms, so CCP's income isn't merely a 1:1 multiplier you can move from one end of the graph to the other; or a myriad of other factors that might mean your conversion factor at the beginning differs from the one at the end… but you do none of those. So the whole exercise is pointless since the results will be the same: a 2.5% increase yields a 2.5% increase.
Quote:
also its not about if growth is 2.5%, its about what that means. […] to show how silly the interpretation is 'its a flat line'.
What it means is that over almost three years, they're right back where they started: they now only have 2.5% more people online than they did to start with, and presumably, only 2.5% more people are paying them than what they did all those years ago.

It doesn't matter how much you spin it: 2.5% over 30 months is still flat as hell.
Razin
The Scope
#28 - 2011-09-11 18:54:29 UTC
Avon wrote:
Tippia wrote:
except that the subscription numbers have always shown a pretty darn strong correlation with the online numbers. Go find one of the graphs from back when they dared publish those numbers and superimpose them over the monthly averages…


Tippia, I agree with most of your post, but I think that the introduction of Incarna has had an impact on people logging in multiple accounts, which would probably have a noticable effect on the correlation to which you refer.

This argument doesn't work since the client has the option to turn off the loading of station environment.
Malken
Sleiipniir
#29 - 2011-09-11 18:59:40 UTC
summertime has always been the period when some people go on holidays and spend time in the sun.
it is also the time when the pathetic people screams as much as they can that the game is dying as there are low login numbers.... every year.
summer is also the time when CCP ships alot of crap in expansions as there are not so many there to complain about it as normally, they are getting a tan in a faraway land and getting drunk in thailand or something.



so this whole discussion based on numbers over the summer is silly.

☻/ /▌ / \
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#30 - 2011-09-11 19:04:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Malken wrote:
summertime has always been the period when some people go on holidays and spend time in the sun.
No. Summertime has always been the period when people have more time over to play the game, and to enjoy the new release made.

The so-called summer dip is a myth grown out of people not actually looking at the numbers, and just assuming things instead. Th actual dip happens in the very late summer/early autumn as people go back to work or school. I.e. just about now.
Quote:
so this whole discussion based on numbers over the summer is silly.
…except that the summer numbers should have increased, as they always do, and that they shouldn't have dipped until very recently. Instead, they dipped far earlier than they should have, and (more tellingly) dipped just as a new expansion was released. Neither is normal for EVE.

Oh, and the discussion here isn't about the numbers over the summer — it's the numbers over nearly a three-year period.
Peter Powers
Terrorists of Dimensions
#31 - 2011-09-11 21:16:46 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:

(... stuff about comparing incarna to previous expansions ... )
I mean seriously. What exactly are you defending here?


you are indeed totally right with that aspect.
for once, i've been saying for YEARS that i dont need no walking in stations
and that the focus should be on spaceships - however the community of whine,
the same people making posts about how eve is dying now etc.
where the same ones that a year ago, half a year ago etc.
have been bitching about CCP not delivering walking in stations...

if i was to make any wishes about what should be done

we talk about supercap rebalance
(not the nerf everything to **** way that alot of people are crying for,
more in making shield / armor more even, and adding NEW SHIPS / Weapons
in roles that allow them to efficiently attack supercapitals).

we'd talk about adding PVP and PVE content (New Ships, new Modules,
more INTERACTIVE stuff todo)

but, well im not asked,
and this discussion here isn't about that, is it now?

3rdPartyEve.net - your catalogue for 3rd party applications
Mehrdad Kor-Azor
Doomheim
#32 - 2011-09-11 21:27:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Mehrdad Kor-Azor
Jade Constantine wrote:

We haven't had a genuine expansion since Apocrypha and its fairly easy to compare what we get now with what we had before:

This is what an expansion looks like

This is what we got this summer

Incarna



Now that you put them side-by-side it does look even worse than I thought it was....
Peter Powers
Terrorists of Dimensions
#33 - 2011-09-11 21:33:05 UTC
Tippia wrote:
It doesn't matter how much you spin it: 2.5% over 30 months is still flat as hell.

i prefer a healthy 2.5% over a boom of 25% with the associated problems on a setup thats not supposed to grow that fast ;)

3rdPartyEve.net - your catalogue for 3rd party applications
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#34 - 2011-09-11 21:59:18 UTC
The new staged releases model have hurt the wow factor of an expansion. To make it worse everyone in Iceland went on vacation when they needed to show results. That's a CCP problem.

As Carbon gets more and more complete I was hoping to see more content created. That has not been the case yet but I still have hope that once the Wis code stabalizes with all features. The devs will have free rain to use the new abilitys in new and interesting ways. Hopefully with a kick factor that will get us back to the player numbers the game once had. All these numbers will get comfused once the Japenesse client comes out.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
RUSROG
Avalanche.
#35 - 2011-09-12 04:29:54 UTC
Me again..

LINKAGE HERE!

LINKAGE THERE!

LINKAGE EVERY WHERE!

GRAPHS!

NUMBERS!

---

You guys are all mathematical geniuses, how come you are all still playing EVE?

Shouldn't you be analyzing the stock exchange - with all that brain power?
Richard Aiel
The Merchants of War
#36 - 2011-09-12 04:31:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Richard Aiel
Razin wrote:

This argument doesn't work since the client has the option to turn off the loading of station environment.


does it work if theyre planning on removing that button?
Cause they are

bah feeding the troll...
RUSROG wrote:
Me again..

LINKAGE HERE!

LINKAGE THERE!

LINKAGE EVERY WHERE!

GRAPHS!

NUMBERS!

---

You guys are all mathematical geniuses, how come you are all still playing EVE?

Shouldn't you be analyzing the stock exchange - with all that brain power?


Chance-to-hit is determined by the formula: C = 0.5^((R-O)/F)^2 where C = chance to hit, R = target range, O = optimal for weapon, F = falloff increment
Effective_Refining_Yield = Min(Station_Equipment_Yield + (0.375 * (1 + (Refining_Skill_Level * 0.02)) * (1 + (Refining_Efficiency_Skill_Level * 0.04)) * (1 + (Ore_Specific_Processing_Skill_Level * 0.05))), 1.00)
Effective_Standing = Your_Standing + ((10 - Your_Standing) * (0.04 * (Connections_Skill_Level | Diplomacy_Skill_Level)))
equired_Amount = Round(Base_Amount * ((1 + (Default_Blueprint_Waste_Factor / (1 + Blueprint_Material_Level))) + (0.25 - (0.05 * Production_Efficiency_Skill_Level))), 0)
Invention_Chance = Base_Chance * (1 + (0.01 * Encryption_Skill_Level)) * (1 + ((Datacore_1_Skill_Level + Datacore_2_Skill_Level) * (0.1 / (5 - Meta_Level)))) * Decryptor_Modifier
Reverse_Chance = Base_Chance * (1 + (0.01 * Reverse_Engineering_Skill_Level)) * (1 + (0.1 * (Datacore_1_Skill_Level + Datacore_2_Skill_Level)))
Research_Points_Per_Day = Multiplier * ((1 + (Agent_Effective_Quality (45?) / 100)) * ((Your_Skill + Agent_Skill) ^ 2))
Skillpoints_At_Level = 250 * Skill_Rank * (32^((Skill_Level - 1) / 2))
Skillpoints_Per_Minute = Effective_Primary_Attribute + (Effective_Secondary_Attribute / 2)
Station_Take = Max((5 - (0.75 * Your_Standing)), 0)
[url]http://knol.google.com/k/chapter-i-ship-motion-in-eve-online?collectionId=2mdavnicxps8v.2#[/url]
I could go on but the point is
Yeah cause math totally isnt used in this game



at all

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r188/buddahcjcc/SOA-3-2.jpg
Xander Riggs
Slamtown Federation
#37 - 2011-09-12 04:53:14 UTC
Eve has died ever year I've been playing. Every expansion has been the expansion that will kill Eve. Every patch is the final straw that will break the camel's back. Every promise is a lie, and every suggestion is a promise, and no plan may ever change.

When the sky does finally fall, my ship will come down with it, and not a moment sooner.

"A man with a drone-boat has nothing but time on his hands."
Richard Aiel
The Merchants of War
#38 - 2011-09-12 04:59:13 UTC
Xander Riggs wrote:
Eve has died ever year I've been playing. Every expansion has been the expansion that will kill Eve. Every patch is the final straw that will break the camel's back. Every promise is a lie, and every suggestion is a promise, and no plan may ever change.

When the sky does finally fall, my ship will come down with it, and not a moment sooner.


EVE is a lie

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r188/buddahcjcc/SOA-3-2.jpg
Reiko Kimyo
Kawaii Neko Punk Band
#39 - 2011-09-12 05:30:47 UTC
I remain skeptical of the graphs. Its easy to take numbers and put them in a context that proves any point.

Id like to see the server activity chart along with charts of how other games are doing, as well as the overall economy. I think it would be more telling to say that 2.4% is flat if it mirrors the growth of other games/economy. Though 2.4% could be a decent growth if everything else were falling, and it would be a little dishonest to call it flat.

Basically, you cant just look at the EvE numbers alone and make a judgement. You have to look at outside scources that effect EvE as well. Until I see those numbers, i maintain that we are not seeing the whole story and are just being shown numbers out of context to prove a point.
Richard Aiel
The Merchants of War
#40 - 2011-09-12 05:33:51 UTC
I perfer looking at active logins when I log in. They are falling

OH NOES THE NUMBERZ ARE FALLING *runs around arms akimbo and avoids tripping over the cat*

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r188/buddahcjcc/SOA-3-2.jpg