Sorry if i repeat a point since i didn't read past page 3.....
Steam was promoted at one point by STO to bring in new players, HOWEVER, STO now promotes their own launcher, ARC. One would EXPECT steam to be losing players. As people find the game thru steam or other means then find out you only get 'free stuff' through the arc launcher and/or people like myself that ONLY use launchers for the free stuff then just use the game.exe. (Fairly easy to find and make a shortcut still no matter HOW you connected to the game.) Point is your statistics do show trends.. but your interpretation is not accounting for other factors.. IE how many steam users now use ARC? or the old launcher. IF steam is decreasing that would be WAI if ARC is increasing.
Can you even tell me what % of STO players use steam? Today, Last month? Last year? Drawing ANY conclusion from PART of the data when you can't even reasonably say what % of the data you have represents, then claiming its somehow a valid conclusion is amusing. Irrellavent, but amusing.
Kinda reminds me of my old Political Science Professor who was fond on analyzing "facts" trumpeted by certain politicians noting the mistatements and commenting:
Can you even tell me what % of STO players use steam? Today, Last month? Last year? Drawing ANY conclusion from PART of the data when you can't even reasonably say what % of the data you have represents, then claiming its somehow a valid conclusion is amusing. Irrellavent, but amusing.
Well of course it's just a conclusion ... what else would it be ... but the last 3 weeks are the only ones that really matter for DR ... (not from an overall yearly business standpoint, though ... which is what some people here seem to care about, mostly ... not sure why)
So it boils down to : Is the decline in players directly related to STO switching Launchers within the last 3 weeks ... well maybe to some degree, but I can't think of a reason why ~50% would suddenly change within these 3 weeks (stop playing via Steam) ... or are Steam Players just more disappointed with DR, than ARC Players for whatever reason, I can't think of :P .... maybe Killer bees ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
Well of course it's just a conclusion ... what else would it be ... but the last 3 weeks are the only ones that really matter for DR ... (not from an overall business standpoint, though ... which is what some people here seem to care about, mostly ... not sure why)
So it boils down to : Is the decline in players directly related to STO switching Launchers within the last 3 weeks ... well maybe to some degree, but I can't think of a reason why ~50% would suddenly change within these 3 weeks ... or are Steam Players just more disappointed with DR, than ARC Players for whatever reason, I can't think of :P ....
Its mostly just the fact that all that was done was make a few missions, throw in a few ships, a new rep, and a major crafting/skill point grind hoping it will be good enough. Then the reality sets in that people are not going to play something that is worse than before without actually expanding the game any. So then they start up a dilithium weekend, followed by a mirror universe event and a duty officer weekend. Then the numbers will show they have played all of that out and that they will have to do something new to survive because many of us stated over the past year that this DR/X2 would have to be something super special to keep ppl around with all that is broken and grinded out to death. So what they do is put massive grinds out and then break everything else and hope ppl still try to play roflmao.
It dose not matter from where the statistic is coming from. If the number is high enough, it will present to you a pattern that you can fallow. A pattern here is that there biggest and best expansion yet, is doing worse then LoR, much worse.
Granted, they are evidently doing something about it, but never the less i felt the need to point out that they need to snap out of it, and to do it fast.
It dose not matter from where the statistic is coming from. If the number is high enough, it will present to you a pattern that you can fallow. A pattern here is that there biggest and best expansion yet, is doing worse then LoR, much worse.
Granted, they are evidently doing something about it, but never the less i felt the need to point out that they need to snap out of it, and to do it fast.
The source can matter, especially if you want to make sure there is no selection bias that could affect the topic you wish to ask for. For example, using Steam as platform to figure out if people use Steam to play STO would create a bias.
But we're interested in player trends, e.g. if players tend to play more or less STO. And I don't see much compelling reason to say that Steam charts create a bias in that regard - It's not like Steam players are specifically targeted by changes in the game, or get more or less exposure to marketing (or bugs) than other player groups.
What I would dispute is your interpretation of the data - that it shows STO is somewhow doing poorly.
Average Players online has risen before Delta Rising, and continued to rise with Delta Rising, and even in the first few days of this month, there is not a sign of the average player count going down. The peak values have not gone down either.
The only argument that could be made here is that Delta Rising seems to have less peak and slightly less average player count (LOR had about 5 % more average players and 36 % higher peak then DR) than Legacy of Romulus. But October is still the best month since June 2013.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Your statements are not entirely accurate and you are misrepresenting things in choosing points along an obvious continuum rather than examining the continuum as a whole. Now at least you are choosing two paired points, but for something of this nature the before and after need to be considered.
I think most can agree with this but it also depends on what monetary goals PWE places on Cryptic. We do not know if they are daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. What amount of profit and when it is to be generated by greatly influence at what scale to look at the Steam data.
If you have 1,800 Average players per day that means you have 657,000 player-days in the game over the year. The peaks and valleys do not matter as much as the total number.
Your math is correct, but you make a big assumption by looking at an overall "average" for this type of data. In addition, because we can all see it fluctuates greatly you need an error measurement. Your average needs to have a standard error or confidence interval. Also keep in mind this 657k player days does not equate to actual players. You want the number of individual players otherwise you are pseudoreplicating your results. The Steam chart does not give that fine of resolution and it would be better to smooth the entire thing out with say a daily, weekly, or monthly moving average.
Oct 2013 to Sept 2014 STO averaged 1,854 players per day.
Oct 2012 to Sept 2013 STO averaged 1,833 players per day.
This is an inappropriate way to look at this data, as I said above. Because it is a time-series, the months before and after are autocorrelated. Looking at just two static points with this type of data and not considering the before and after is incorrect and assumes there is no autocorrelation.
What that shows is that over those 2 years Steams players of STO have gone from 669,000 to 676,000. While there has been no major increase there is no major decrease either. For all the peaks and valleys, events and tragedy STO's played-days have stayed consistent on Steam.
This statement is incorrect. What you are showing is that two static paired points on the trendline are basically the same. This is because of the nature of the, a time-series. So your results are specific to Octobers because you assumed October is the representative month. If you choose other paired points on the line your results would differ. You can code months and ask questions: Are October's always low or high months? What months are highest? Weeks? etc... However, for a time-series like this it is better to examine multiple points along the line or the line as a whole for a trend.
If you believe Steam is an indicator of the game as a whole then we can say that STO has stayed consistent over those 2 years as well. No matter how much doom and gloom some want to spew on the forum.
Here your conclusion is false because of pseudoreplication, inappropriate sampling, and unaccounted for autocorrelation. Keep in mind your conclusion is relegated only to those two Octobers.
It is clear the overall trend of the game based on the number of Steam players (and you have to assume the Steam players are a representative subsample of the game) is that overall it is declining and is returning to pre-DR levels of Steam players. No hard numbers are needed to observe that trend and it can be quantified.
I don't know if this is any indication of the dwindling numbers but I am playing The Academy particle scanning event and there are 25 instances open, as that is just one map of many that seems pretty healthy to me and is certainly a lot more instances then the last time this event was running.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
The source can matter, especially if you want to make sure there is no selection bias that could affect the topic you wish to ask for. For example, using Steam as platform to figure out if people use Steam to play STO would create a bias.
But we're interested in player trends, e.g. if players tend to play more or less STO. And I don't see much compelling reason to say that Steam charts create a bias in that regard - It's not like Steam players are specifically targeted by changes in the game, or get more or less exposure to marketing (or bugs) than other player groups.
I can think of a few ways that the steam population is different, but I am unable to say if the difference matters in a significant way.
#1 in the priority 1 podcast 165 (last week, not this week), the two sto producers interviewed state that there is a significant number of sto players who don't play other games and may have never played computer games before. While I have no hard numbers for it, anecdotal evidence suggests few steam players have only one game installed and/or have never used a computer game before.
#2 from my understanding of their target demographics, those whom go to steam are more likely to be "gamers", Trekkie's who come to this game would not likely first search for a game platform like steam. They might if steam rereleased some of the classic games that don't run on modern computers, like elite force or armada (I think a friend mentioned a few of them are on steam actually), but for sto they are more likely to follow a link from the Vegas convention coverage or go straight to the pwe website.
Now, do either of these matter? Maybe. I suspect so. People who play multiple games are willing to hop away if one stops being fun. People who just want something trekish have no other current option unless they're willing to go for an older game. Someone whose never had exposure to MMOs or online games or consoles will not react the same way as someone who has a point of comparison. That could change behavior patterns if you have no idea things could be different and sometimes are.make it will certainly change your opinions depending if you are here for gameist reasons or theme park reasons.
But I dunno if it really does matter. Just my speculation.
As people find the game thru steam or other means then find out you only get 'free stuff' through the arc launcher and/or people like myself that ONLY use launchers for the free stuff then just use the game.exe. (Fairly easy to find and make a shortcut still no matter HOW you connected to the game.) Point is your statistics do show trends.. but your interpretation is not accounting for other factors.. IE how many steam users now use ARC? or the old launcher. IF steam is decreasing that would be WAI if ARC is increasing.
Launching the STO game's executable outside of Steam will still open Steam. Many games through Steam work this way.
As for "free stuff" I created an ARC account and enter whatever key I have to and then close it out, as my stats will show I've had zero playtime through it.
Since they didn't offer anything free through ARC with this expansion, I have trouble seeing the motivation to download the client all over again instead of just using the one you already have installed.
Looks like to me the Average players is UP. Peak players too. Sure the gains might not be high because the gains that were received are stable, meaning people arent playing and leaving. Looking at past you see HIGH gains and low player numbers which shows lot of new people trying the game but not staying. I'd say the chart shows good numbers. For Steam players anyways.
I don't use Steam and I think there is a high population of people that connect to the game other ways. Arc, or no game launcher at all.
Looks like to me the Average players is UP. Peak players too. Sure the gains might not be high because the gains that were received are stable, meaning people arent playing and leaving. Looking at past you see HIGH gains and low player numbers which shows lot of new people trying the game but not staying. I'd say the chart shows good numbers. For Steam players anyways.
I don't use Steam and I think there is a high population of people that connect to the game other ways. Arc, or no game launcher at all.
Keep dreaming...stats are stats...wishes cannot change the true of the matter some have moved on already
Comments
Nope :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_methodology
Steam was promoted at one point by STO to bring in new players, HOWEVER, STO now promotes their own launcher, ARC. One would EXPECT steam to be losing players. As people find the game thru steam or other means then find out you only get 'free stuff' through the arc launcher and/or people like myself that ONLY use launchers for the free stuff then just use the game.exe. (Fairly easy to find and make a shortcut still no matter HOW you connected to the game.) Point is your statistics do show trends.. but your interpretation is not accounting for other factors.. IE how many steam users now use ARC? or the old launcher. IF steam is decreasing that would be WAI if ARC is increasing.
Can you even tell me what % of STO players use steam? Today, Last month? Last year? Drawing ANY conclusion from PART of the data when you can't even reasonably say what % of the data you have represents, then claiming its somehow a valid conclusion is amusing. Irrellavent, but amusing.
Kinda reminds me of my old Political Science Professor who was fond on analyzing "facts" trumpeted by certain politicians noting the mistatements and commenting:
Figures don't lie, but liars sure do figure.
Well of course it's just a conclusion ... what else would it be ... but the last 3 weeks are the only ones that really matter for DR ... (not from an overall yearly business standpoint, though ... which is what some people here seem to care about, mostly ... not sure why)
So it boils down to : Is the decline in players directly related to STO switching Launchers within the last 3 weeks ... well maybe to some degree, but I can't think of a reason why ~50% would suddenly change within these 3 weeks (stop playing via Steam) ... or are Steam Players just more disappointed with DR, than ARC Players for whatever reason, I can't think of :P .... maybe Killer bees ...
Its mostly just the fact that all that was done was make a few missions, throw in a few ships, a new rep, and a major crafting/skill point grind hoping it will be good enough. Then the reality sets in that people are not going to play something that is worse than before without actually expanding the game any. So then they start up a dilithium weekend, followed by a mirror universe event and a duty officer weekend. Then the numbers will show they have played all of that out and that they will have to do something new to survive because many of us stated over the past year that this DR/X2 would have to be something super special to keep ppl around with all that is broken and grinded out to death. So what they do is put massive grinds out and then break everything else and hope ppl still try to play roflmao.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics
It dose not matter from where the statistic is coming from. If the number is high enough, it will present to you a pattern that you can fallow. A pattern here is that there biggest and best expansion yet, is doing worse then LoR, much worse.
Granted, they are evidently doing something about it, but never the less i felt the need to point out that they need to snap out of it, and to do it fast.
The source can matter, especially if you want to make sure there is no selection bias that could affect the topic you wish to ask for. For example, using Steam as platform to figure out if people use Steam to play STO would create a bias.
But we're interested in player trends, e.g. if players tend to play more or less STO. And I don't see much compelling reason to say that Steam charts create a bias in that regard - It's not like Steam players are specifically targeted by changes in the game, or get more or less exposure to marketing (or bugs) than other player groups.
What I would dispute is your interpretation of the data - that it shows STO is somewhow doing poorly.
Average Players online has risen before Delta Rising, and continued to rise with Delta Rising, and even in the first few days of this month, there is not a sign of the average player count going down. The peak values have not gone down either.
The only argument that could be made here is that Delta Rising seems to have less peak and slightly less average player count (LOR had about 5 % more average players and 36 % higher peak then DR) than Legacy of Romulus. But October is still the best month since June 2013.
I think most can agree with this but it also depends on what monetary goals PWE places on Cryptic. We do not know if they are daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. What amount of profit and when it is to be generated by greatly influence at what scale to look at the Steam data.
Your math is correct, but you make a big assumption by looking at an overall "average" for this type of data. In addition, because we can all see it fluctuates greatly you need an error measurement. Your average needs to have a standard error or confidence interval. Also keep in mind this 657k player days does not equate to actual players. You want the number of individual players otherwise you are pseudoreplicating your results. The Steam chart does not give that fine of resolution and it would be better to smooth the entire thing out with say a daily, weekly, or monthly moving average.
This is an inappropriate way to look at this data, as I said above. Because it is a time-series, the months before and after are autocorrelated. Looking at just two static points with this type of data and not considering the before and after is incorrect and assumes there is no autocorrelation.
This statement is incorrect. What you are showing is that two static paired points on the trendline are basically the same. This is because of the nature of the, a time-series. So your results are specific to Octobers because you assumed October is the representative month. If you choose other paired points on the line your results would differ. You can code months and ask questions: Are October's always low or high months? What months are highest? Weeks? etc... However, for a time-series like this it is better to examine multiple points along the line or the line as a whole for a trend.
Here your conclusion is false because of pseudoreplication, inappropriate sampling, and unaccounted for autocorrelation. Keep in mind your conclusion is relegated only to those two Octobers.
It is clear the overall trend of the game based on the number of Steam players (and you have to assume the Steam players are a representative subsample of the game) is that overall it is declining and is returning to pre-DR levels of Steam players. No hard numbers are needed to observe that trend and it can be quantified.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
#1 in the priority 1 podcast 165 (last week, not this week), the two sto producers interviewed state that there is a significant number of sto players who don't play other games and may have never played computer games before. While I have no hard numbers for it, anecdotal evidence suggests few steam players have only one game installed and/or have never used a computer game before.
#2 from my understanding of their target demographics, those whom go to steam are more likely to be "gamers", Trekkie's who come to this game would not likely first search for a game platform like steam. They might if steam rereleased some of the classic games that don't run on modern computers, like elite force or armada (I think a friend mentioned a few of them are on steam actually), but for sto they are more likely to follow a link from the Vegas convention coverage or go straight to the pwe website.
Now, do either of these matter? Maybe. I suspect so. People who play multiple games are willing to hop away if one stops being fun. People who just want something trekish have no other current option unless they're willing to go for an older game. Someone whose never had exposure to MMOs or online games or consoles will not react the same way as someone who has a point of comparison. That could change behavior patterns if you have no idea things could be different and sometimes are.make it will certainly change your opinions depending if you are here for gameist reasons or theme park reasons.
But I dunno if it really does matter. Just my speculation.
Launching the STO game's executable outside of Steam will still open Steam. Many games through Steam work this way.
As for "free stuff" I created an ARC account and enter whatever key I have to and then close it out, as my stats will show I've had zero playtime through it.
Since they didn't offer anything free through ARC with this expansion, I have trouble seeing the motivation to download the client all over again instead of just using the one you already have installed.
Point is you're making terrible excuses.
Firesworn Nation (@rswfire) - https://www.firesworn.com
I don't use Steam and I think there is a high population of people that connect to the game other ways. Arc, or no game launcher at all.
Keep dreaming...stats are stats...wishes cannot change the true of the matter some have moved on already