Online Game Community Analysis Terminology
the_x5
the Xzianthian Join Date: 2004-03-02 Member: 27041Members, Constellation
the Xzianthian Join Date: 2004-03-02 Member: 27041Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">for your general knowledge</div> <!--QuoteBegin-Fangs@Natural Selection is Dead+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Fangs@Natural Selection is Dead)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yeah im not afraid to say whats on everyones lips. NS is dead <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
STOP! It is <span style='color:red'><b><i>not</i></b></span> dead, nor is TFC for that matter. I think we have different definitions on what makes a game dead.
<!--QuoteBegin-Dr. Annette Hjort Knudsen+ University of Copenhagen. translated.--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dr. Annette Hjort Knudsen @ University of Copenhagen. translated.)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->An online computer game's community's healthiness is determined by the net growth or loss of players. [...] Likewise the age of the community in question has been agreed upon by the majority of scholars and developers to be represented by a ratio of the new players to the older, more experienced players.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I go by that definition, as do most respectable developers. Now let me apply some examples:
for age:
A brand new game's players are all newbies. Therefore the ratio is 1:0. Eventually, with time the players become "experts" in how to play the game. This is a subjective term so the ratio is always an estimate from somebody's or some group's perspective. CS is a very old game. It hasn't only been out for many years but the ratio is more like 1:100 and TFC is about 1:32. (note: these are not my ratio's, these are the numbers about 50 gamers at the last LAN I went to agreed upon, 1:100 is insane if you think about it I think is is a bit too high myself. As I said it's subjective) NS is probably the youngest out of the top HL mods.
for health:
Now with that said health is determined by the net growth/loss of players. <span style='color:red'>NOT THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PLAYERS!!!</span> This is important to remember, a game community's <i>SIZE</i> is a measure of the number of players, not health. When you say CS is the #1 largest online game that is correct because it has the most players, has the largest size. No, health is simply how much the total size is growing or decaying. And it is net, meaning that if you have all the experienced players leaving and equivalent amount of new players are coming in then you have no net change, the game's health is the same. If have few new players by the experienced players are regulars then you can also have no net growth or loss.
Now currently NS is in a growth period. A game is often said to be "dying" when it is loosing players. A game is <u><b><i>only</i></b></u> "dead" when has been "dying" enough to the point where it's community size has reached zero. (this doesn't count the rare running of the game like a "Hey, you remember that old game Doom?" "Yeah let's play it for a few min.")
So in conclusion there are four attributes in analyzing an online computer game's community.<ul><li><b>SIZE:</b> the total population size fo the community and how much time each unique player spends playeing on average</li><li><b>AGE:</b> a ration of new players to experienced players</li><li><b>HEALTH:</b> the net growth/loss of players</li><li><b>QUALITY:</b> a subjective yet critically important factor analyzing how friendly, cool, openminded, fun,etc. the people in the community are</li></ul>Here's how I analyze the NS community as of right now using those four criteria. I'd love to see you all also rate NS using these four criteria.<ul><li><b>SIZE:</b> 947, 476, 38.738 million min/month; medium </li><li><b>AGE:</b> 1:19</li><li><b>HEALTH:</b> growth; +8.4% in last month (I think); has growing faster since Combat was introduced</li><li><b>QULAITY:</b> one of best communities in the world but has been steadily decaying at a slightly exponential rate beginning (yes) right about the time Combat was introduced. This is cause for much concern with the older NS fans.</li></ul>I hoped this has helped to educate the general public so you'll stop saying uninformed things like "this game is dead. blah blah blah..."
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>~edit: yes I know there's a blatant typo in the title I waiting for a mod to fix it because I can't please be patient~</span>
STOP! It is <span style='color:red'><b><i>not</i></b></span> dead, nor is TFC for that matter. I think we have different definitions on what makes a game dead.
<!--QuoteBegin-Dr. Annette Hjort Knudsen+ University of Copenhagen. translated.--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dr. Annette Hjort Knudsen @ University of Copenhagen. translated.)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->An online computer game's community's healthiness is determined by the net growth or loss of players. [...] Likewise the age of the community in question has been agreed upon by the majority of scholars and developers to be represented by a ratio of the new players to the older, more experienced players.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I go by that definition, as do most respectable developers. Now let me apply some examples:
for age:
A brand new game's players are all newbies. Therefore the ratio is 1:0. Eventually, with time the players become "experts" in how to play the game. This is a subjective term so the ratio is always an estimate from somebody's or some group's perspective. CS is a very old game. It hasn't only been out for many years but the ratio is more like 1:100 and TFC is about 1:32. (note: these are not my ratio's, these are the numbers about 50 gamers at the last LAN I went to agreed upon, 1:100 is insane if you think about it I think is is a bit too high myself. As I said it's subjective) NS is probably the youngest out of the top HL mods.
for health:
Now with that said health is determined by the net growth/loss of players. <span style='color:red'>NOT THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PLAYERS!!!</span> This is important to remember, a game community's <i>SIZE</i> is a measure of the number of players, not health. When you say CS is the #1 largest online game that is correct because it has the most players, has the largest size. No, health is simply how much the total size is growing or decaying. And it is net, meaning that if you have all the experienced players leaving and equivalent amount of new players are coming in then you have no net change, the game's health is the same. If have few new players by the experienced players are regulars then you can also have no net growth or loss.
Now currently NS is in a growth period. A game is often said to be "dying" when it is loosing players. A game is <u><b><i>only</i></b></u> "dead" when has been "dying" enough to the point where it's community size has reached zero. (this doesn't count the rare running of the game like a "Hey, you remember that old game Doom?" "Yeah let's play it for a few min.")
So in conclusion there are four attributes in analyzing an online computer game's community.<ul><li><b>SIZE:</b> the total population size fo the community and how much time each unique player spends playeing on average</li><li><b>AGE:</b> a ration of new players to experienced players</li><li><b>HEALTH:</b> the net growth/loss of players</li><li><b>QUALITY:</b> a subjective yet critically important factor analyzing how friendly, cool, openminded, fun,etc. the people in the community are</li></ul>Here's how I analyze the NS community as of right now using those four criteria. I'd love to see you all also rate NS using these four criteria.<ul><li><b>SIZE:</b> 947, 476, 38.738 million min/month; medium </li><li><b>AGE:</b> 1:19</li><li><b>HEALTH:</b> growth; +8.4% in last month (I think); has growing faster since Combat was introduced</li><li><b>QULAITY:</b> one of best communities in the world but has been steadily decaying at a slightly exponential rate beginning (yes) right about the time Combat was introduced. This is cause for much concern with the older NS fans.</li></ul>I hoped this has helped to educate the general public so you'll stop saying uninformed things like "this game is dead. blah blah blah..."
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>~edit: yes I know there's a blatant typo in the title I waiting for a mod to fix it because I can't please be patient~</span>
Comments
<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
...Oh, and as a side note / afterthought:
This isn't one of those "what to do about combat" or "why I like/dislike Combat threads." First person to derail the thread gets reported. Just a warning. If you want to add your own rating that's fine or discuss methods of analyzing a game community that's fine or even correct some of my numbers that's fine, but please, <i>please </i>stay on topic. This is an informative type of thread.
Thank you.
~edit~
Or correct some of my horrible typos >< <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
NS has always been a game with a fairly steep learning curve. As long as we have new members in our comunity we will have players who do supid things, so in a way, stupidity is a good thing. The problem isn't new players, its you guys being intolerant of them. Co isn't wrecking the game, you are just using it as a crutch to offcast your frustrations from your own intolerance to another easy target. The only negitive thing Co has ever done to the comunity, is caused controversy between its more established members, and in the end of the day that is really thier fault, and not the game mode's fault.
and x5, for the definition for health I would include the total number of players, but being consistantly over 1000, I would never consider this mod dead.
Ive helped debug mods with NO current active public servers in UT2004, and they're still cranking out patches and updates. (i.e. they're not dead either)
I really just would like to know what all the complaining is about though, since I can still play a high quality game pretty much whenever I want with mostly people who know what they're doing, if theres less players (not that there is) so what, you can still play the game and play at almost any skill, and most importantly <i>still have fun</i>.
Trying not to derail the thread
[off topic]
<!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> Please don't group me in with that. I'm exactly the opposite, always going out of my way to help newbies out and preaching to others the importance and long term rewards of being kind and helpful to newbies.
[/off topic]
Swiftspear, please rate the NS community using those four criteria. I'd love to see your analysis. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
NS has always been a game with a fairly steep learning curve. As long as we have new members in our comunity we will have players who do supid things, so in a way, stupidity is a good thing. The problem isn't new players, its you guys being intolerant of them. Co isn't wrecking the game, you are just using it as a crutch to offcast your frustrations from your own intolerance to another easy target. The only negitive thing Co has ever done to the comunity, is caused controversy between its more established members, and in the end of the day that is really thier fault, and not the game mode's fault. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The competitive players didn't band against Combat, they just refused to accept it as a competitive game. There were no #ihatecombat channels on IRC or any organizations whatsoever. UGL attempted to do a combat league but after matches were played where two teams just waited for the first kill, it was quickly seen that Combat was far inferior to Classic for competitive play.
Thus, the competitive community did not create the division any more than Alaska created the Bering Strait. It's just two different games, combat being the one that the competitive community has little interest in playing.
What competitive players DO use Combat for is target practice.
Additionally, I think the blather about competitive players not knowing how to have fun is just a matter of different personalities. For competitive players, a smoothly operating team of six is a lot of fun. For non-comp players, random ravaging on a server is fun. Your fun vs. our fun. Unfortunately, when our fun meets your fun, we tend to make your fun not very fun anymore.
Trying not to derail the thread
[off topic]
<!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> Please don't group me in with that. I'm exactly the opposite, always going out of my way to help newbies out and preaching to others the importance and long term rewards of being kind and helpful to newbies.
[/off topic]
Swiftspear, please rate the NS community using those four criteria. I'd love to see your analysis. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only thing I would dissagree with you on is your age (I would guess it is more around 1:6, but then NS by nature takes more time to master from nubness then CS or TFC do) and quality, which I already disscussed. I was never intending to group anyone with my statements X5. Not having fun playing combat isn't at all problematic, blaming co for the downfall of NS/ruining the comunity or anything else is the problem.
<!--QuoteBegin- hawthorne+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> ( hawthorne)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The competitive players didn't band against Combat, they just refused to accept it as a competitive game. There were no #ihatecombat channels on IRC or any organizations whatsoever. UGL attempted to do a combat league but after matches were played where two teams just waited for the first kill, it was quickly seen that Combat was far inferior to Classic for competitive play.
Thus, the competitive community did not create the division any more than Alaska created the Bering Strait. It's just two different games, combat being the one that the competitive community has little interest in playing.
What competitive players DO use Combat for is target practice.
Additionally, I think the blather about competitive players not knowing how to have fun is just a matter of different personalities. For competitive players, a smoothly operating team of six is a lot of fun. For non-comp players, random ravaging on a server is fun. Your fun vs. our fun. Unfortunately, when our fun meets your fun, we tend to make your fun not very fun anymore.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For the record I never attempted to gratify combat for compeditive games. It still strikes me as far more of a skills practice and fun little frag fest excercize then it is a compeditive game. The experiance system is too vital in combat, compeditive combat works about as well as compeditive diablo.
Did I blather about compeditive players not having fun? I personally enjoy scrims and pugs tenfold over your average pub game. I HATE losing a game because of some nubs stupid mistake. That happens much less often in the compeditive environment. Really I had no intent on including compeditive players in the co hating clique with any of my statements at all. Compeditive players have thier own clique, and it generally doesn't include co hating as one of its favored actions.
lol, perfectly stated.
i would have to agree that the age of NS is a little low. there are 2 main learning curves to deal with in ns. this amplifies the age problem. the first curve is learning combat and the characteristics of the game. the second curve is learing classic well enough that you know all the in's and out's of classic. (how to beacon/phase rush, how to mc rush a locked hive). this second curve tends to be the biggest problem of age because people that have just gotten over the first curve, wont want to tackle another learning curve for a while, so they stick to combat. the second curve can also be trickier, because its a strategy-oriented curve. to succeed in combat, all you have to do is be able to kill enemies and one key structure. in classic, you have to be able to communicate with your team mates and make choices as to what to do next in order to win. this makes classic probably 3 times as complex as combat. and because of this, the second curve is that much harder to get over. i think that age should be considered as the number of people that have completed both curves, but that dramatically decreases the age ratio for ns.
i am very satisfied with the current state of ns. the quality, the size, the age, and the health. it's just that its hard to compare ns's age with other games due to it's limitations that i have just explained
That statement isn't true imo. I think you can link the introduction of CO to a lot of negative things in NS.
Also to X5, you've included CO in your figures, would be interesting to get the official figures for NS only, bet they're pretty crap. Which explains why people think NS is dying.
We're always being told that CO is a seperate game and stop whining about is effect on NS, let's have the stats for NS only then someone?
Please, go ahead and rate NS yourself in the same fashion I just demonstrated. I'd love to see how your analysis comes out so we can compare.
i.e. i believe if c.s had bhop it's playerbase would be in the very least, 1/6th of what it currently is.
this is probably because bunnyhopping, etc are really absurd, who, when they first got a FPS, thinks that they'd move faster if they jumped and strafed rather then holding +FORWARD?
Aside : I suspect not. Look through any CS forum, CS lost a huge number of players in attempting to add more 'realism' to the game.
Gamers, much like SysOps, are very 'holier than thou'. It's a psychological factor of beating an opponent (and thus proving your capability over them). They love to be the one who knows all the various sneaky tricks & turns you can pull, especially against players who don't know these same things.
Incidental : I've actually been noticing more & more flaming, namecalling etc recently, both from new & old players. It seems the old player behaviour that was stereotypical of NS is degrading, <b>and</b> a greater percentage of the newer players are either younger, or choosing to act in a younger fashion. NS did have quite a mature playerbase (going off my own experiences and time on here) relative to most FPS games, previously. Perhaps that is changing as well.
- Shockwave
Aside : I suspect not. Look through any CS forum, CS lost a huge number of players in attempting to add more 'realism' to the game.
Gamers, much like SysOps, are very 'holier than thou'. It's a psychological factor of beating an opponent (and thus proving your capability over them). They love to be the one who knows all the various sneaky tricks & turns you can pull, especially against players who don't know these same things.
Incidental : I've actually been noticing more & more flaming, namecalling etc recently, both from new & old players. It seems the old player behaviour that was stereotypical of NS is degrading, <b>and</b> a greater percentage of the newer players are either younger, or choosing to act in a younger fashion. NS did have quite a mature playerbase (going off my own experiences and time on here) relative to most FPS games, previously. Perhaps that is changing as well.
- Shockwave<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
well i can't say i read cs forums, in fact that sounds like tortute to me, but what kind of "realism" is this?
The thing that diffientriates bunnyhopping from say, quick switch on the AWP which allows faster re-fire, is that once you bunnyhop, your entire style of play, movement, EVERYTHING is redefined. The very first thing you notice about a good player in TFC/NS/whatever else is they're bunnyhopping (well, marines strafe jump or whatever.) This is really a bizarre thing to a new player, and when i first saw it, i just started jumping while i held forward, confused as hell. Instead, in CS, it's the ability to hit people, usally in the head. this makes sense and people know what to do.
I love bunnyhopping but i hate it's negative effects on a community and game development. Maybe FF can pull it off since they'll incorporate it into their game, and teach people how to do it.
I would say NS is far from dead... If anything its growing... some people just take it too close to heart.
*Idea*
why not have a blend of co and ns? same as ns except with levels? Probably was mentioned before so I applogise...
and i appoligise for this rant...