You will not get what you want for christmas. You will not stick to your new years resolutions. Your parents will get divorced. Your best friend will sleep with your girlfriend. Your girlfriend will get pregnant with his kid. You will not marry your girlfriend. Your girlfriend will marry your best friend. You will not get invited to the wedding. You will get drunk at home alone and cry while eating an ice cream flavor you don't even like. Your dog will pee on your living room carpet. Your car will not start tomorrow morning. You will not get a promotion at work. You will lose your job. You will lose your house. Your car will fall off a cliff. Your cat is not your friend. Always be selling.
I back all of this up with my soul crushing lack of hope for the future, which itself is based off of my lack of hope for the future.
You will not get what you want for christmas. You will not stick to your new years resolutions. Your parents will get divorced. Your best friend will sleep with your girlfriend. Your girlfriend will get pregnant with his kid. You will not marry your girlfriend. Your girlfriend will marry your best friend. You will not get invited to the wedding. You will get drunk at home alone and cry while eating an ice cream flavor you don't even like. Your dog will pee on your living room carpet. Your car will not start tomorrow morning. You will not get a promotion at work. You will lose your job. You will lose your house. Your car will fall off a cliff. Your cat is not your friend. Always be selling.
Except that I do stick to my New Year's resolution (I only make the one - not to make any other resolutions), my parents never got divorced, my girlfriend never slept with my best friend, much less got pregnant by him, and I did marry her. I don't get drunk (it seems to be impossible - I go to sleep before I can even get buzzed), I'm not sure if there is a flavor of ice cream I don't like, I've never lost my house, and my car has never fallen off a cliff (although I did roll one off the side of I-15 back in '89 - someone hit my front quarter, I overcorrected, and the freeway there has six-inch-tall berms at the edge of the road).
My dog has peed on my living-room carpet (although I broke him of that over a year ago), my car is currently partially disassembled in the garage, I don't feel any particular urge to reassemble it since I've given up on working, and my cat is, I suppose, no less friendly to me than to anyone else, but she is in the final analysis a cat, so you did get a few there...
:biggrin:
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
And that reminds me of the end of my first marriage. In the space of a month, my wife left me, I lost my job, I lost my apartment, my truck broke down, and my dog died. And I don't even like country music!
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
You don't have to pay to use the costume creator... so just park a character next to the Tailor and log in when you want to use it?
Some of the things people say around here are really baffling...
Oh and I didn't even realize this was a negativity thread, here I thought the OP was all about hope and progress. Silly me ^_^
I never said I had to pay, I have a LTS. As others have realized, I meant an offline character creator. Furthermore, I forgot that irony is lost on many, my post was not meant to be taken literally. My point was that for many costume creation is more fun than actually playing the game. Try forming a group to run a lair or to attend a costume contest and see which has the bigger response.
Cervando, you kinda lost me here. You can use an empty character slot to access all of the costume creator functions and content without ever loading into the actual game. Do you mean an "offline" creator?
Yeah I did. But see above. However, every-time I come up with a new concept, I quickly tire of it once the boredom of repeating the same content over and over again sets in. Personally I hate power-leveling and would prefer to run missions rather than grind alerts as used to happen. So whilst I would love new zones and missions, I realize this is unlikely given the lack of developers and other resources. Vibora Bay was the swansong IMHO.
I think he means like what SPORE did for it's creator, it's a stand alone program for making looks and creatures. While that does sound kinda neat, I still like to community that I'm friends with and enjoy spending time with. So I'm the same boat as a lot of folks, the shine has worn off, and it's frustrating in how we've been treated, but the recent changes speak of a bit of renewed hope... a potential for the game again, just this time around we are jaded, so Cryptic (hopefully) will keep that in mind along the way.
Exactly. The only reason I have kept playing is because of the community, at least the good part of it. The Forumites especially are a great bunch of people. Thundrax aka Canadascott is one of them and also a designer of many Champions PnP modules. He is always suggesting great ideas and I just wish SOME of them were implemented.
We are lucky that some of the CO developers are so enthusiastic that they continue to improve the game in their spare time. Speaking to these guys and the many people who provide feedback to them only emphasizes how good this game could have been with the right resources, time and planning. The only thing I disagree with Scott is that in my opinion the game has been in maintenance mode for along time already.
Except that I do stick to my New Year's resolution (I only make the one - not to make any other resolutions), my parents never got divorced, my girlfriend never slept with my best friend, much less got pregnant by him, and I did marry her. I don't get drunk (it seems to be impossible - I go to sleep before I can even get buzzed), I'm not sure if there is a flavor of ice cream I don't like, I've never lost my house, and my car has never fallen off a cliff (although I did roll one off the side of I-15 back in '89 - someone hit my front quarter, I overcorrected, and the freeway there has six-inch-tall berms at the edge of the road).
My dog has peed on my living-room carpet (although I broke him of that over a year ago), my car is currently partially disassembled in the garage, I don't feel any particular urge to reassemble it since I've given up on working, and my cat is, I suppose, no less friendly to me than to anyone else, but she is in the final analysis a cat, so you did get a few there...
:biggrin:
Wait.... wait wait wait....
Are you saying that me feeling a lack of hope is not proof that bad things will happen?
wtf? I'm gonna need some charts and graphs to understand this.
I never said I had to pay, I have a LTS. As others have realized, I meant an offline character creator. Furthermore, I forgot that irony is lost on many, my post was not meant to be taken literally. My point was that for many costume creation is more fun than actually playing the game. Try forming a group to run a lair or to attend a costume contest and see which has the bigger response.
Please quote the person who said costume creation is not a big part of the game, I have a whole lot of disagree for them u3u
Nearly 2 million players have come and gone and aren't coming back.
Costume creation didn't mean squat to them, the masses have spoken.
I wouldn't have expected CO to have ever seen nearly 2 million based on my own experience.
Costume creation isn't enough to retain people on its own, but I can comfortably say the people still around find it to be one of the game's saving graces.
Steam currently has 65 Million players subscribed to their service.
Back in June 2011 there were over 12,000 logins to this game a day from Steam.
How many of those clients are playing Champions Online right now?
Steam Top 100 tells us its less than 503 players logged in to CO now and less than 903 players in the
last 48 hours, we know this because games with those values are on the chart where CO hasn't been
able to regain a spot at the bottom for over fifteen months.
Ill take this opportunity to say "Holy Crap DC Universe has fallen off the list!".
It looks like about 15,000 Steam players would rather be Batman than customize a costume.
Or, alternatively, maybe some of us think Steam sucks as a CO launcher, and don't use it. (I've never felt any compulsion to download it at all, actually.)
You're grabbing numbers out of the air, slapping them together willy-nilly, then pretending you have actual statistical data. It doesn't work like that.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Steam currently has 65 Million players subscribed to their service.Back in June 2011 there were over 12,000 logins to this game a day from Steam. How many of those clients are playing Champions Online right now?.
And this claim is easily disputed by the fact that the launcher download pre-Arc was made readily available on the official site with the big fat DOWNLOAD NOW! button without needing Steam. Are you going to account for those logins as well?
Also, adding CO as a third-party game using the launcher from the official site to Steam makes it recognized as a different game than the one provided officially by steam. Are you going to account for those Steam playtimes as well?
I have never used a third-party launcher. I generally only play one game at a time (sometimes two), and it makes more sense for someone like me to simply launch the game directly.
I've never used anything but CO's own launcher to play the game.
Same here. I tried using Steam for a while, but it was really annoying having to launch one program just to start another. That new Arc thing or whatever it's called really stinks too. Don't think I'll ever use anything other than the original launcher.
I don't launch the game through Steam... so go ahead and adjust those numbers.
The steam numbers got lower because at some point everybody found out the side effect of having steam running in the background while you play games. It's the reason why so many legitimately purchased copies of Skyrim use a cracked executable.
I don't launch the game through Steam... so go ahead and adjust those numbers.
The steam numbers got lower because at some point everybody found out the side effect of having steam running in the background while you play games. It's the reason why so many legitimately purchased copies of Skyrim use a cracked executable.
There are 15,302 players playing Skyrim through Steam right now at 3:20 AM Server time.
While in Champions there are ninety-nine players from level 1 to 30, twenty eight players from 31 to 39 and 'over hundred' level 40s. Total of 156 people in Millennium City.
There are 15,302 players playing Skyrim through Steam right now at 3:20 AM Server time.
While in Champions there are ninety-nine players from level 1 to 30, twenty eight players from 31 to 39 and 'over hundred' level 40s. Total of 156 people in Millennium City.
Oh stop deflecting.
Account for the total number of players who do not launch the game using Steam or are using Arc.
Until then continue to dig yourself a bigger hole while those at the top point and laugh.
There are 15,302 players playing Skyrim through Steam right now at 3:20 AM Server time.
While in Champions there are ninety-nine players from level 1 to 30, twenty eight players from 31 to 39 and 'over hundred' level 40s. Total of 156 people in Millennium City.
Not everyone knows, I can guarantee you that there are probably ten times that number playing Skyrim not through steam, because they like it when their SKSE-based mods work and they prefer a game that doesn't stutter constantly
As far as the number of people running champs through steam, I am entirely comfortable with the idea that there are many people like me who don't see the need to launch steam so they can launch CO... because people like that seem sensible
adn the statistics on amount of players doesn't take into account people with more than one account
1. gold sellers, yes we had some to start with, I remember one form about a year and a half ago
2. farming accts
3. silver accts who don't want to pay for extra character slots
4. scammers- "it's on my other account and I can't mail it or it'll bind" MY favourite that one.
2 million accts
And can someone with Steam, answer this persons question, seems they've been on the receivng end of a useful bug and it's now fixed.
I don't launch the game through Steam... so go ahead and adjust those numbers.
The steam numbers got lower because at some point everybody found out the side effect of having steam running in the background while you play games. It's the reason why so many legitimately purchased copies of Skyrim use a cracked executable.
I don't even like to purchase games that require steam or 3rd party programs (cough cough Civ 5 - I know you can disable it after initial register...somehow, they make it difficult). Why do I want some middleman program running while I play my game?
Alright so I went and started up Steam(which I have for chatting with friends who use Steam) And I did not get hit with an obnoxious popup from the store telling me about all the latest hot deals! So yeah I guess you're right, I seem to remember this happening in the past... perhaps it was a feature that could be turned off and I simply turned it off, I don't really remember.
Anyway...yes, the store page and game advertisements on the store page are kind of the entire point of Steam.
They have ads that pop up also. I see them all the time on my computer after my boy is done playing Garry's Mod.
I've played Garry's Mod since 2005 and not once did I have a window popup after I've exited the game. I'm guessing that some setting concerning notifications was enabled for your son's Steam client.
They have ads that pop up also. I see them all the time on my computer after my boy is done playing Garry's Mod.
It only really does that after you've quit out of the game or when you start Steam up. It's usually when they've posted a sale on a game or one came out and even then it's not very often.
I've played Garry's Mod since 2005 and not once did I have a window popup after I've exited the game. I'm guessing that some setting concerning notifications was enabled for your son's Steam client.
I don't think it's directly related to that particular game, that's just what he plays most.
It only really does that after you've quit out of the game or when you start Steam up. It's usually when they've posted a sale on a game or one came out and even then it's not very often.
I wouldn't say it's not very often. I bought him the game a few months ago and see those things often enough.
It doesn't bother me seeing ads, but I've just seen them enough so that it's noticeable.
"Steam Update" window shows the days/mid-week/week-end/new big thing specials.
But the point is not what Steam does that you don't like or that you don't use steam.
65 million people use Steam. At 3AM in the morning we can count 15,000 people that payed at least $15 playing Skyrim in direct contradiction to the statement that 'everybody has figured out not to use Steam'.
Meanwhile 'everyone' of 65 million Steam users is not playing Champions Online
because we can count less than 300 players in Champions Online at the same hour by using the Champions Online in game search features.
Also you can go to the Steam Champions Online achievements page and see that only 14.6% of the players that ever logged in through Steam made it to Purple Reign. Remember in June 2011 we had 12,000 logins a day from Steam.
Maybe that's why Cryptic doesn't work with Steam so much anymore, maybe having those stats available is an huge embarrassment.
Okay, Next, I've tried this politely, but you've just brushed by it each time...
Who gives a crap about Steam?
There are, extrapolating from this thread alone, many users who don't use Steam, or don't use it to launch CO. Claiming that low numbers of Steam users logging into CO means that CO is dead is similar to claiming that since not many devoutly religious people frequent casinos, therefore Las Vegas is a ghost town. Your facts are not coordinated.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
"Steam Update" window shows the days/mid-week/week-end/new big thing specials.
But the point is not what Steam does that you don't like or that you don't use steam.
65 million people use Steam. At 3AM in the morning we can count 15,000 people that payed at least $15 playing Skyrim in direct contradiction to the statement that 'everybody has figured out not to use Steam'.
Meanwhile 'everyone' of 65 million Steam users is not playing Champions Online
because we can count less than 300 players in Champions Online at the same hour by using the Champions Online in game search features.
Also you can go to the Steam Champions Online achievements page and see that only 14.6% of the players that ever logged in through Steam made it to Purple Reign. Remember in June 2011 we had 12,000 logins a day from Steam.
Maybe that's why Cryptic doesn't work with Steam so much anymore, maybe having those stats available is an huge embarrassment.
You've forced me to do this... but it has to be said. You're a bonehead.
You've forced me to do this... but it has to be said. You're a bonehead.
This post is brought to you by:
Villain-Mart, the only shopping franchise that caters to that diabolic need. This week at Villain-Mart, save 2 dollars on smoke machines when you shop with your CrimeCard and get buy-one-get-one-free on henchmen and scientists. Villain-Mart! You might be criminal, but our prices aren't!
You don't spend money. You can't understand where they are coming from.
You understand free to play don't you?
When Champions Online went free to play on Steam, there were only 12 million Steam users. Out of that number Steam brought 12,000 players a day to the game.
There were 17 zones of Millennium City.
It's three years later and Steam has grownto 65 million users.
While Champions Online has evaporated down to 5 partially full zones of Millennium City during the years biggest event.
If costume customization is the games only saving grace, as some imply, and millions of paying gamers are not seeking that, then the game is not going to attract paying gamers.
Likewise with a lot of other features and strategies that aren't pulling in gamers or keeping them in.
Steam provides us an idea of how popular certain content and games are.
It provides us with a perfect insight to what sales can do for a game.
For instance, The Secret World has a sale every couple weeks, and it gains 1,500 players on Steam during any given hour for a few days then it drops off the list.
This week those people paid $50 for the 'a years worth of new content' version.
Likewise we can watch the current number of players of games in the top 100 double or triple during and after a sale, like Killing Floor does every year.
That's a sale to 65 million players, not to the thousand or two that maybe log in to Champions during the three days they sell something for 20% off.
Oh and we can see what percentage of people that logged in through Steam got through certain content. That data is pretty consistent with what you'll find if you track some New Champions super groups. People mostly quit before level 10.
You don't spend money. You can't understand where they are coming from.
You understand free to play don't you?
When Champions Online went free to play on Steam, there were only 12 million Steam users. Out of that number Steam brought 12,000 players a day to the game.
There were 17 zones of Millennium City.
It's three years later and Steam has grownto 65 million users.
While Champions Online has evaporated down to 5 partially full zones of Millennium City during the years biggest event.
If costume customization is the games only saving grace, as some imply, and millions of paying gamers are not seeking that, then the game is not going to attract paying gamers.
Likewise with a lot of other features and strategies that aren't pulling in gamers or keeping them in.
Steam provides us an idea of how popular certain content and games are.
It provides us with a perfect insight to what sales can do for a game.
For instance, The Secret World has a sale every couple weeks, and it gains 1,500 players on Steam during any given hour for a few days then it drops off the list.
This week those people paid $50 for the 'a years worth of new content' version.
Likewise we can watch the current number of players of games in the top 100 double or triple during and after a sale, like Killing Floor does every year.
That's a sale to 65 million players, not to the thousand or two that maybe log in to Champions during the three days they sell something for 20% off.
Oh and we can see what percentage of people that logged in through Steam got through certain content. That data is pretty consistent with what you'll find if you track some New Champions super groups. People mostly quit before level 10.
What data? You mean the speculation you've been spewing so far and have yet to show some concrete evidence to back up?
This post is brought to you by:
Villain-Mart, the only shopping franchise that caters to that diabolic need. This week at Villain-Mart, save 2 dollars on smoke machines when you shop with your CrimeCard and get buy-one-get-one-free on henchmen and scientists. Villain-Mart! You might be criminal, but our prices aren't!
NOT EVERYONE USES STEAM. SOME OF US FIND IT INTRUSIVE AND UNNECESSARY. AVAILABLE DATA IN THIS THREAD TEND TO INDICATE THAT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO LAUNCH CO THROUGH STEAM MAY IN FACT BE FAR LOWER THAN THE NUMBER WHO DO NOT.
And subsequent to this, consider yourself ignored.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Maybe because you consider the number of steam users as an absolute number of people playing the game rather than a relative number before the 65 million users. Even if you don't consider the fact that CO is far more accessible through steam (games by category, wide population) and apply this relative number to a global population of PC gamers, CO is far behind most of steam available MMO (and you can easily assume behind the big -not steam avaiable- productions).
If you consider both information (the number of MC instances compared to F2P launch and relative number of steam users) you got a pretty good insight of where goes the CO population.
Maybe because you consider the number of steam users as an absolute number of people playing the game rather than a relative number before the 65 million users. Even if you don't consider the fact that CO is far more accessible through steam (games by category, wide population) and apply this relative number to a global population of PC gamers, CO is far behind most of steam available MMO (and you can easily assume behind the big -not steam avaiable- productions).
If you consider both information (the number of MC instances compared to F2P launch and relative number of steam users) you got a pretty good insight of where goes the CO population.
The number of instances isn't really information at all.
They don't account for player offline times and don't take into consideration that players can come from different timezones all over the world. What you get when you view zone instances is a snapshot at that particular time. That's it.
I'm finding more significant to count active players during major event than those whom uses to play. On UTC+1, from 8:00 to 22:00 I've counted from 4 to 5 MC instances. Feel free to complete the 10 hours I'm lacking.
I'm finding more significant to count active players during major event than those whom uses to play. On UTC+1, from 8:00 to 22:00 I've counted from 4 to 5 MC instances. Feel free to complete the 10 hours I'm lacking.
Have you accounted for active players who might have been in alert and AP instances at the time?
Have you accounted for players who:
- Are sleeping?
- Are working?
- Have to attend to an urgent, unexpected matter?
- Have to tend to other RL issues that temporarily take them away from the game?
I'm guessing not, and no, I'm not going to complete those 10 hours because I already know that this is bogus way to assess actual total active player numbers.
Of course, I've counted mostly on week-ends, vacations and on my days off. Seriously, I've been playing when most of the factor are in favor of the game, and still, the maximum I've seen is 6 instances on a sunday.
If you want a precise population state, it's to the server adminitrators of the game that you should ask. I'm not pretending to know, but at least I'm trying to use the information I can actually have without the datas I perhaps might enventually have maybe. Seriously, on an average week-end, if you ask why the population isn't more important and someone comes with "We have a lot of players but they are working/sleeping/attending unexpected mmatters/have other things to do."... Well, I think it speaks by itself.
Still the perceived population is low, and getting lower and lower since the F2P launch.
Comments
And you'll be drunk the day your mom gets out of prison, and you'll go to pick her up in the rain. But before you can get to the station in your pick-up truck, she'll get runned over by a damned old train. :biggrin:
That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
WARNING: Not An Actual Internet Reviewer
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My dog has peed on my living-room carpet (although I broke him of that over a year ago), my car is currently partially disassembled in the garage, I don't feel any particular urge to reassemble it since I've given up on working, and my cat is, I suppose, no less friendly to me than to anyone else, but she is in the final analysis a cat, so you did get a few there...
:biggrin:
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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I never said I had to pay, I have a LTS. As others have realized, I meant an offline character creator. Furthermore, I forgot that irony is lost on many, my post was not meant to be taken literally. My point was that for many costume creation is more fun than actually playing the game. Try forming a group to run a lair or to attend a costume contest and see which has the bigger response.
Yeah I did. But see above. However, every-time I come up with a new concept, I quickly tire of it once the boredom of repeating the same content over and over again sets in. Personally I hate power-leveling and would prefer to run missions rather than grind alerts as used to happen. So whilst I would love new zones and missions, I realize this is unlikely given the lack of developers and other resources. Vibora Bay was the swansong IMHO.
Exactly. The only reason I have kept playing is because of the community, at least the good part of it. The Forumites especially are a great bunch of people. Thundrax aka Canadascott is one of them and also a designer of many Champions PnP modules. He is always suggesting great ideas and I just wish SOME of them were implemented.
We are lucky that some of the CO developers are so enthusiastic that they continue to improve the game in their spare time. Speaking to these guys and the many people who provide feedback to them only emphasizes how good this game could have been with the right resources, time and planning. The only thing I disagree with Scott is that in my opinion the game has been in maintenance mode for along time already.
Wait.... wait wait wait....
Are you saying that me feeling a lack of hope is not proof that bad things will happen?
wtf? I'm gonna need some charts and graphs to understand this.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Please quote the person who said costume creation is not a big part of the game, I have a whole lot of disagree for them u3u
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Nearly 2 million players have come and gone and aren't coming back.
Costume creation didn't mean squat to them, the masses have spoken.
I disagree.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Its still here.
That is all.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
The nation is in peril.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I wouldn't have expected CO to have ever seen nearly 2 million based on my own experience.
Costume creation isn't enough to retain people on its own, but I can comfortably say the people still around find it to be one of the game's saving graces.
I smell some truth enhancement.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Steam currently has 65 Million players subscribed to their service.
Back in June 2011 there were over 12,000 logins to this game a day from Steam.
How many of those clients are playing Champions Online right now?
Steam Top 100 tells us its less than 503 players logged in to CO now and less than 903 players in the
last 48 hours, we know this because games with those values are on the chart where CO hasn't been
able to regain a spot at the bottom for over fifteen months.
Look at that Top 100 games played by 65 million players
How many rely on costume design to hold customers?
Ill take this opportunity to say "Holy Crap DC Universe has fallen off the list!".
It looks like about 15,000 Steam players would rather be Batman than customize a costume.
You're grabbing numbers out of the air, slapping them together willy-nilly, then pretending you have actual statistical data. It doesn't work like that.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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And this claim is easily disputed by the fact that the launcher download pre-Arc was made readily available on the official site with the big fat DOWNLOAD NOW! button without needing Steam. Are you going to account for those logins as well?
Also, adding CO as a third-party game using the launcher from the official site to Steam makes it recognized as a different game than the one provided officially by steam. Are you going to account for those Steam playtimes as well?
It's Xfire stats all over again!
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Same here. I tried using Steam for a while, but it was really annoying having to launch one program just to start another. That new Arc thing or whatever it's called really stinks too. Don't think I'll ever use anything other than the original launcher.
The steam numbers got lower because at some point everybody found out the side effect of having steam running in the background while you play games. It's the reason why so many legitimately purchased copies of Skyrim use a cracked executable.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
...................ditto.
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
There are 15,302 players playing Skyrim through Steam right now at 3:20 AM Server time.
While in Champions there are ninety-nine players from level 1 to 30, twenty eight players from 31 to 39 and 'over hundred' level 40s. Total of 156 people in Millennium City.
Oh stop deflecting.
Account for the total number of players who do not launch the game using Steam or are using Arc.
Until then continue to dig yourself a bigger hole while those at the top point and laugh.
Not everyone knows, I can guarantee you that there are probably ten times that number playing Skyrim not through steam, because they like it when their SKSE-based mods work and they prefer a game that doesn't stutter constantly
As far as the number of people running champs through steam, I am entirely comfortable with the idea that there are many people like me who don't see the need to launch steam so they can launch CO... because people like that seem sensible
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
adn the statistics on amount of players doesn't take into account people with more than one account
1. gold sellers, yes we had some to start with, I remember one form about a year and a half ago
2. farming accts
3. silver accts who don't want to pay for extra character slots
4. scammers- "it's on my other account and I can't mail it or it'll bind" MY favourite that one.
2 million accts
And can someone with Steam, answer this persons question, seems they've been on the receivng end of a useful bug and it's now fixed.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/9880/discussions/0/810939351170958182/
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I don't even like to purchase games that require steam or 3rd party programs (cough cough Civ 5 - I know you can disable it after initial register...somehow, they make it difficult). Why do I want some middleman program running while I play my game?
So they can bombard you with ads of course!
Yeah, I don't use third party launchers either...
Steam doesn't bombard anyone with ads, in or out of gameplay.
Unless you're talking about the store page, where game advertisements are kind of the point of it.
Anyway...yes, the store page and game advertisements on the store page are kind of the entire point of Steam.
They have ads that pop up also. I see them all the time on my computer after my boy is done playing Garry's Mod.
I've played Garry's Mod since 2005 and not once did I have a window popup after I've exited the game. I'm guessing that some setting concerning notifications was enabled for your son's Steam client.
It only really does that after you've quit out of the game or when you start Steam up. It's usually when they've posted a sale on a game or one came out and even then it's not very often.
I don't think it's directly related to that particular game, that's just what he plays most.
I wouldn't say it's not very often. I bought him the game a few months ago and see those things often enough.
It doesn't bother me seeing ads, but I've just seen them enough so that it's noticeable.
But the point is not what Steam does that you don't like or that you don't use steam.
65 million people use Steam. At 3AM in the morning we can count 15,000 people that payed at least $15 playing Skyrim in direct contradiction to the statement that 'everybody has figured out not to use Steam'.
Meanwhile 'everyone' of 65 million Steam users is not playing Champions Online
because we can count less than 300 players in Champions Online at the same hour by using the Champions Online in game search features.
Also you can go to the Steam Champions Online achievements page and see that only 14.6% of the players that ever logged in through Steam made it to Purple Reign. Remember in June 2011 we had 12,000 logins a day from Steam.
Maybe that's why Cryptic doesn't work with Steam so much anymore, maybe having those stats available is an huge embarrassment.
Who gives a crap about Steam?
There are, extrapolating from this thread alone, many users who don't use Steam, or don't use it to launch CO. Claiming that low numbers of Steam users logging into CO means that CO is dead is similar to claiming that since not many devoutly religious people frequent casinos, therefore Las Vegas is a ghost town. Your facts are not coordinated.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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You've forced me to do this... but it has to be said. You're a bonehead.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
65 million game players that spend money.
You don't spend money. You can't understand where they are coming from.
You understand free to play don't you?
When Champions Online went free to play on Steam, there were only 12 million Steam users. Out of that number Steam brought 12,000 players a day to the game.
There were 17 zones of Millennium City.
It's three years later and Steam has grownto 65 million users.
While Champions Online has evaporated down to 5 partially full zones of Millennium City during the years biggest event.
If costume customization is the games only saving grace, as some imply, and millions of paying gamers are not seeking that, then the game is not going to attract paying gamers.
Likewise with a lot of other features and strategies that aren't pulling in gamers or keeping them in.
Steam provides us an idea of how popular certain content and games are.
It provides us with a perfect insight to what sales can do for a game.
For instance, The Secret World has a sale every couple weeks, and it gains 1,500 players on Steam during any given hour for a few days then it drops off the list.
This week those people paid $50 for the 'a years worth of new content' version.
Likewise we can watch the current number of players of games in the top 100 double or triple during and after a sale, like Killing Floor does every year.
That's a sale to 65 million players, not to the thousand or two that maybe log in to Champions during the three days they sell something for 20% off.
Oh and we can see what percentage of people that logged in through Steam got through certain content. That data is pretty consistent with what you'll find if you track some New Champions super groups. People mostly quit before level 10.
What data? You mean the speculation you've been spewing so far and have yet to show some concrete evidence to back up?
YOU CAN SEE WHO LOGGED IN THROUGH STEAM.
NOT EVERYONE USES STEAM. SOME OF US FIND IT INTRUSIVE AND UNNECESSARY. AVAILABLE DATA IN THIS THREAD TEND TO INDICATE THAT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO LAUNCH CO THROUGH STEAM MAY IN FACT BE FAR LOWER THAN THE NUMBER WHO DO NOT.
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If you consider both information (the number of MC instances compared to F2P launch and relative number of steam users) you got a pretty good insight of where goes the CO population.
The number of instances isn't really information at all.
They don't account for player offline times and don't take into consideration that players can come from different timezones all over the world. What you get when you view zone instances is a snapshot at that particular time. That's it.
Have you accounted for active players who might have been in alert and AP instances at the time?
Have you accounted for players who:
- Are sleeping?
- Are working?
- Have to attend to an urgent, unexpected matter?
- Have to tend to other RL issues that temporarily take them away from the game?
I'm guessing not, and no, I'm not going to complete those 10 hours because I already know that this is bogus way to assess actual total active player numbers.
If you want a precise population state, it's to the server adminitrators of the game that you should ask. I'm not pretending to know, but at least I'm trying to use the information I can actually have without the datas I perhaps might enventually have maybe. Seriously, on an average week-end, if you ask why the population isn't more important and someone comes with "We have a lot of players but they are working/sleeping/attending unexpected mmatters/have other things to do."... Well, I think it speaks by itself.
Still the perceived population is low, and getting lower and lower since the F2P launch.