Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[rda]

^^ I am not sure if you are asking me anything in your yelling. If you want to ask a question, please reformulate.

[Drekmar]

Out of all the people I've met both online or offline I think I hate you the most out of all of them. And that's saying something because I've met a lot of terrible people.

Put him into ingore, I did that to most people in this thread. Basically you will end up with marlamin thread.

[RippedLife]

I did say "I can do the same thing". We can agree to disagree, I guess! We can continue this discussion in private if you want, but I don't want to clog up the thread further with more off-topic than usual discussion.

"clog". ya this thread is popping off please no more off topic discussion. /s

also this is about as ontopic as it gets. legion didn't deliver from a sub-count POV and I speculate next expansion will have the same problems

[Smokinya]

^^ I am not sure if you are asking me anything in your yelling. If you want to ask a question, please reformulate.

Very typical don't even quote me so I have to physically look at the thread to see your reply.

You claim to know of these other better sources that can give a more accurate picture of things. Lets see these sources. Clearly you're insinuating you have access to them, take a screen cap and post it to imugr.

You also claimed to be doing statistical mathematics about 10ish pages back. Let me see your math. Post it. I want to see your math and all this analytical work that you've been doing.

[Marlamin]

OK. Let's agree to disagree.

(To be clear on what I think we disagree: You said that you can make a similar argument with charts for WoW not dying. I think you cannot make such an argument, at least not easily, you will really have to bend things and otherwise tryhard. It's the entire point that I didn't have to cherry pick anything and just went and landed with an argument in my hand 2 minutes after I formulated what it is I want to look at - and you had to specifically try different sites and in the end landed with two tiny ones which are good for nothing. Then again, since you don't disagree with a larger point of WoW declining, maybe it's just about Alexa - in which case I am telling you that (a) it's the same on better sources, and (b) it's largely the same across all big WoW sites = not a coincidence. It'd have been great if Blizzard's own web site was structured in a way that we could analyze different games separately, but it isn't.)

Welp, by that wall of text I guess we're still going. I'm disagreeing with being able to imply the popularity of a game community based on Alexa graphs of fansites that definitely have their own increasingly obvious issues for turning people away. In my personal opinion, MMOC has increasing quality issues both in content and forum quality (this discussion being a good example). WoWHead has had increasily bad advertisement issues the past few years. Blizzard has been getting better at things (and hiding things) WoWHead and MMOC were primarily being used for as well. I just think referring to the statistics is entirely useless.

I agree that it'd be nice if Blizzard gave us a way to get better stats as some of my projects are literally built around stats (see SteamDB), but alas.

"clog". ya this thread is popping off please no more off topic discussion. /s

also this is about as ontopic as it gets. legion didn't deliver from a sub-count POV and I speculate next expansion will have the same problems

Great speculation. 10/10.

Put him into ingore, I did that to most people in this thread. Basically you will end up with marlamin thread.

That sounds awful.

[Smokinya]

"clog". ya this thread is popping off please no more off topic discussion. /s

also this is about as ontopic as it gets. legion didn't deliver from a sub-count POV and I speculate next expansion will have the same problems

Look @rda I found another friend for you. It might be your first one ever. Individuals like you should be banned from the forums just to save us from the constant bitching. As soon as you claim a game is dead and continue to post on a fansite dedicated to the game you seem to hate so much it all but confirms that you're an addict.

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Put him into ingore, I did that to most people in this thread. Basically you will end up with marlamin thread.

Yeah I'll likely have to, I really didn't want to resort to that but here we are.

[RoshuanEU]

The only way to get this discussion back on track is by actually talking about on-topic things again (or just let it be until there is news again). I've been trying to get the discussion going again, but alas.

[killwithpwr]

Paying any attention to anything rda said is pretty fruitless.
No one should care though.

On topic...

I wonder if there will be anything more on PTR that will point to 8.0 things... Is there any way to know whats supposed to come with 7.3.5 other than the raid?

[RoshuanEU]

Paying any attention to anything rda said is pretty fruitless.
No one should care though.

On topic...

I wonder if there will be anything more on PTR that will point to 8.0 things... Is there any way to know whats supposed to come with 7.3.5 other than the raid?

Apparently the last boss of the new raid has secret (lore) info, I wonder if we get a special mythic phase or extra mythic boss).

[Marlamin]

I wonder if there will be anything more on PTR that will point to 8.0 things... Is there any way to know whats supposed to come with 7.3.5 other than the raid?

I'm primarily expecting class changes, raid fixes and some future proofing (BlizzCon pets if they're not in already, etc). Any additional stuff would be a welcome surprise. I'll definitely be analyzing the files more closely than compared to 7.3. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up on small area changes like 7.3.0's addition of the blacksmithing anvil areas.

EDIT: I would have totally picked up on it if it visible changed the minimap, but it didn't.

[rda]

Very typical don't even quote me so I have to physically look at the thread to see your reply.

You claim to know of these other better sources that can give a more accurate picture of things. Lets see these sources. Clearly you're insinuating you have access to them, take a screen cap and post it to imugr.

You also claimed to be doing statistical mathematics about 10ish pages back. Let me see your math. Post it. I want to see your math and all this analytical work that you've been doing.

I won't post any pictures from paid-for sources. They are paid-for for a reason. You can pay for them yourself if you want. If you don't know where to start, try Quantcast.

Regarding the statistics, as far as I remember we were talking about Warcraftrealms. You said that since the site asks to please upload more data because they don't have enough, then there is not enough data and the analysis of activity graphs based on Warcraftrealms is wrong. I replied that the site asks to please upload more data / don't have enough for a specific purpose - to maintain a reasonably accurate account of the distribution of players *on each realm* *by class and race*. And since I am using data for something much more coarse - to measure aggregate activity *on all realms put together* and *regardless of class and race*, that the amount of data is enough.

You wanted math showing why I think that the amount of data they have is enough for what I do. Fine, here is an example take:

Suppose we take the number of uploads that the developer of the site wants to have as our target. (He likely just put out the number of uploads out of feels, instead of math, but whatever, you want to believe his assessment, let's just assume it is entirely correct, it is faster that way.)

Let's estimate how much less data we need to get the same confidence intervals as him.

He wants to track the number per class and race combination. There are 107 such combinations shown on the site (there are actually more, but he didn't extend the UI to show DHs yet so let's err into your favor and keep this 107).

He wants to track the number per realm. That's another factor of 100 (in reality, probably something like 250 or so, but whatever, erring in your favor again).

He wants to analyze per-week and I am fine with per-quarter, that's another 12.

So our sample size can be sqrt(100*100*12) = 346 times smaller than his and we'd get the same confidence intervals he wanted to have.

Do you really think the site is not getting 1/346 of the uploads that the dev wanted in the first place? That's less than two uploads a year per realm. Yeah, we are getting that.

Happy to be of service.

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Look @rda I found another friend for you. It might be your first one ever. Individuals like you should be banned from the forums just to save us from the constant bitching. As soon as you claim a game is dead and continue to post on a fansite dedicated to the game you seem to hate so much it all but confirms that you're an addict.

If you read what I wrote you'd see that I just met a couple more such friends in other threads today. They were fanboys during WoD being very angry at everyone saying that the game has issues, just like you are now.

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In my personal opinion, MMOC has increasing quality issues both in content and forum quality (this discussion being a good example). WoWHead has had increasily bad advertisement issues the past few years.

By the way, it is almost certain that WoWHead got worse with ads *because* things were going down and the amount of money from the site started dropping significantly.

So, if we put two and two together, the decline of WoW as a game is *directly* responsible for worse experience on WoWHead. Yes, for real.

That's something for those saying things like "why does the number of subs even matter to you? play and have fun" - this is true, but just in general, when you get to details it is clearly visible that less subs = everything worse. Frequently noticeably worse. Including web sites.

[Marlamin]

By the way, it is almost certain that WoWHead got worse with ads *because* things were going down and the amount of money from the site started dropping significantly.

So, if we put two and two together, the decline of WoW as a game is *directly* responsible for worse experience on WoWHead. Yes, for real.

That's something for those saying things like "why does the number of subs even matter to you? play and have fun" - this is true, but just in general, when you get to details it is clearly visible that less subs = everything worse. Frequently noticeably worse. Including web sites.

Again, you're guessing things based on incomplete information. It could have been the increase of users using adblock, it could have been due to changes higher up, there could be a lot of reasons for that. All I can see is that they're still actively looking for new devs as of 2 weeks ago.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

This discussion really shouldn't be about "WOW IS DYING" It's not constructive but I'll say this before we change back to what it should be. There's too many variables to determine lack of activity on these websites.

[Maarius]

Back to some speculation...

I'm curious on what Blizzard puts the focus with the next expansion. Maybe instead of class-focus we'll get a ...race-focus..., since we had speculation about sub-races. Some new cities for all races would probably be too much to ask for, but I think it would be nice to get some race-specific armorsets and story/campaign.

Even though our journey probably leads us to the south sea, I doubt that we will live on big ships. I just can't imagine those being fun to hang around on.

[rda]

Again, you're guessing things based on incomplete information. It could have been the increase of users using adblock, it could have been due to changes higher up, there could be a lot of reasons for that. All I can see is that they're still actively looking for new devs as of 2 weeks ago.

Look, you are right that I don't have an owner of WoWHead in my Skype and so I can't ask him "mate, why did you crank it up on ads so much", but really, doesn't it get tiring to look at thing A suggesting that WoW is in bad shape and declining (but might be something else), thing B suggesting that WoW is in bad shape and declining, things C, D, E, ..... Z suggesting the same, and keep arguing that "technically", in some parallel Universe, WoW might actually be well and all other things might be happening for unrelated reasons?

I am not saying - look, WoWHead is down and has ads, and so this *definitely means* that WoW is going down. I am saying something much milder - look, WoWHead *also* seems to be down, as is MMOC, and the ads situation on WoWHead is / was very likely as bad as it is for the same reason.

I am not sure why you keep objecting. I would just say - yes, you might be right. (Although in the end you already said that you agree with the general point, so maybe I am pushing too hard.)

- - - Updated - - -

Back to some speculation...

I'm curious on what Blizzard puts the focus with the next expansion. Maybe instead of class-focus we'll get a ...race-focus..., since we had speculation about sub-races. Some new cities for all races would probably be too much to ask for, but I think it would be nice to get some race-specific armorsets and story/campaign.

I doubt this for the simple reason that focusing on subraces will divide content in the manner similar to focusing on classes / specs and this very clearly didn't work. Say, each race has two subraces. You want to have specialized content for each subrace. Well, that's a 26-way split. Quite similar to the 12-way / 36-way splits with classes and specs - which spread the content way too thin and failed heavily because of that. If we aren't talking about specialized content, then things are different and subraces might happen. Although why have them then - they wouldn't be a noticeable feature for most, it's just some more buttons in the looks department.

I think they might do a new class. Maybe even more than one new class. Together with MOBAing existing classes more. esport / bla bla bla / more session-based things / heavy nudges to have multiple, really multiple alts.

This is cheap. It is modern. And it creates quite a bit of longevity for session-based activities. (It might even work.)

[Smokinya]

I won't post any pictures from paid-for sources. They are paid-for for a reason. You can pay for them yourself if you want. If you don't know where to start, try Quantcast.

Regarding the statistics, as far as I remember we were talking about Warcraftrealms. You said that since the site asks to please upload more data because they don't have enough, then there is not enough data and the analysis of activity graphs based on Warcraftrealms is wrong. I replied that the site asks to please upload more data / don't have enough for a specific purpose - to maintain a reasonably accurate account of the distribution of players *on each realm* *by class and race*. And since I am using data for something much more coarse - to measure aggregate activity *on all realms put together* and *regardless of class and race*, that the amount of data is enough.

You wanted math showing why I think that the amount of data they have is enough for what I do. Fine, here is an example take:

Suppose we take the number of uploads that the developer of the site wants to have as our target. (He likely just put out the number of uploads out of feels, instead of math, but whatever, you want to believe his assessment, let's just assume it is entirely correct, it is faster that way.)

Let's estimate how much less data we need to get the same confidence intervals as him.

He wants to track the number per class and race combination. There are 107 such combinations shown on the site (there are actually more, but he didn't extend the UI to show DHs yet so let's err into your favor and keep this 107).

He wants to track the number per realm. That's another factor of 100 (in reality, probably something like 250 or so, but whatever, erring in your favor again).

He wants to analyze per-week and I am fine with per-quarter, that's another 12.

So our sample size can be sqrt(100*100*12) = 346 times smaller than his and we'd get the same confidence intervals he wanted to have.

Do you really think the site is not getting 1/346 of the uploads that the dev wanted in the first place? That's less than two uploads a year per realm. Yeah, we are getting that.

Happy to be of service.

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If you read what I wrote you'd see that I just met a couple more such friends in other threads today. They were fanboys during WoD being very angry at everyone saying that the game has issues, just like you are now.

- - - Updated - - -



By the way, it is almost certain that WoWHead got worse with ads *because* things were going down and the amount of money from the site started dropping significantly.

So, if we put two and two together, the decline of WoW as a game is *directly* responsible for worse experience on WoWHead. Yes, for real.

That's something for those saying things like "why does the number of subs even matter to you? play and have fun" - this is true, but just in general, when you get to details it is clearly visible that less subs = everything worse. Frequently noticeably worse. Including web sites.

Again you're missing my point. You claimed that the number of unique characters could reflect subscription numbers. That's what I want to know.

I never said that Legion doesn't have issues. Every release of WoW has had issues. I know. I've been here since Day 1. Haven't left since. However despite Legions issues its one of the better expansions. Its okay if you disagree. Just don't be a jerk off about it.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Back to some speculation...

I'm curious on what Blizzard puts the focus with the next expansion. Maybe instead of class-focus we'll get a ...race-focus..., since we had speculation about sub-races. Some new cities for all races would probably be too much to ask for, but I think it would be nice to get some race-specific armorsets and story/campaign.

Even though our journey probably leads us to the south sea, I doubt that we will live on big ships. I just can't imagine those being fun to hang around on.

Race campaigns would be interesting but it still may suffer from the same problems Legion would have but not near as problematic. It's not that order hall campaigns were bad. It's mostly it took a lot out of the main content. I enjoyed the class campaigns, they were pretty good.

But an overall story seems better IMO but I don't know what Blizzard is thinking on the Order halls right now.

[rda]

Again you're missing my point. You claimed that the number of unique characters could reflect subscription numbers. That's what I want to know.

I never said that Legion doesn't have issues. Every release of WoW has had issues. I know. I've been here since Day 1. Haven't left since. However despite Legions issues its one of the better expansions. Its okay if you disagree. Just don't be a jerk off about it.

No, I didn't claim that.

What I claimed is that the activity graphs on Warcraftrealms accurately reflect activity on the realms. This is the central claim. This follows from the number of uploads - the graphs do reflect what is really going on in the game, the number of uploads is more than enough.

It is *then* that we can reason something like this: suppose at some point X when we *know* from Blizzard's sources that subs were, say 10 million, the activity levels were A. Then if at some point Y located at about the same place in the content delivery cycle the activity levels are A/5, it follows that the subs are, well, lower than 10 million. Not 10/5 = 2 million, we don't have that precision. But significantly, materially lower. And if you agree with this *qualitative* analysis - and there is no reason not to agree, although there are big caveats (and you can see that I am making pretty big reservations every step of the way, erring on the side that emphasizes the unknown) - then it is very easy to see that:

(a) the "cyclical" nature of the subs was nowhere to be seen prior to MoP, then the portion of people who sub for content and unsub right after started getting noticeable, and then it started dominating subs in WoD and continues dominating them in Legion,

(b) Legion is losing players in roughly the same proportion as WoD did,

etc, etc, etc.

[Jaylock]

Back to some speculation...

I'm curious on what Blizzard puts the focus with the next expansion. Maybe instead of class-focus we'll get a ...race-focus..., since we had speculation about sub-races. Some new cities for all races would probably be too much to ask for, but I think it would be nice to get some race-specific armorsets and story/campaign.

Even though our journey probably leads us to the south sea, I doubt that we will live on big ships. I just can't imagine those being fun to hang around on.

The next expansion will be similar to panda in that it will have 1 new class, and a new (or maybe a couple new) race(s).

It will be very south seas centric with themes of old gods, naga, azshara, and possibly a teaser about the void lords.

You heard it here first.

[Drekmar]

That sounds awful.

Nah, you bring actual info most of the time. I will pick that over flaming any time.