Armageddon Statistics

[Melody]

So I was very bored and poked around and I saw this:

http://mudstats.com/Game/ArmageddonMUD.aspx

Now Gim is made obsolete!

[flurry]

That average number of players data can't be right. I wonder where it even came from. An average of 6 players one day, and 64 players two days later? 

[Lizzie]

It depends on how often and what time they check. But there have been a couple of days when the game was down for quite awhile. They're saying the average minimum, on any given day, was 6. And their average maximum, on any given day, was 63. If they were checking during the times when the day was down, and including all those ZEROs in their count, then yeah the final count's gonna be pretty low.

[Ourla]

Gimms will never be obsolete.

[flurry]

It depends on how often and what time they check. But there have been a couple of days when the game was down for quite awhile. They're saying the average minimum, on any given day, was 6. And their average maximum, on any given day, was 63. If they were checking during the times when the day was down, and including all those ZEROs in their count, then yeah the final count's gonna be pretty low.

I was looking at the graph on the upper right. I'm not sure how that could possibly be a daily "average" in any meaningful sense.

[Gimfalisette]

Average number of players connected is a nearly meaningless statistic.

[mansa]

Does our Diku codebase have special code to give to these people at Mudstats.com ?
ASK THE STAFF

[Gimfalisette]

Does our Diku codebase have special code to give to these people at Mudstats.com ?
ASK THE STAFF

It's just a "who" poll of the game, basically. All this particular number reflects is the in-game player population at a given point. Nothing special about it.

[Riev]

Its likely they only check a who status once a day, and use the average as that.

Besides, when we have over 200 unique accounts logging in, I can't imagine an average of 15 on any given day, unless Halaster initiated a new RPT.

[mansa]

Does our Diku codebase have special code to give to these people at Mudstats.com ?
ASK THE STAFF

It's just a "who" poll of the game, basically. All this particular number reflects is the in-game player population at a given point. Nothing special about it.

But, you need a character and an account to type 'Who'...

[Gimfalisette]

No, they probably poll hourly (or at minimum a few times per day), in order to get a daily average. Because you can't get a daily "average" without polling more than once per day. However, they do not poll more than once per hour--if they did, then they would show hourly average stats. If they are only polling once per hour, they can't average for the hour.

Doesn't really matter, since it's a meaningless statistic, as in it tells us nothing about the playerbase of the gameworld. A gameworld that had 0 players at 9 am but 100 players at 9 pm would average 50 players; a gameworld that had 25 people on at 9 am but 75 people on at 9 pm would also average 50 players; etc. If you are a person who plays at 9 am rather than 9 pm, which gameworld would you rather play on?

And, the statistic tells you nothing about how many unique characters that represents; one world could have 50 average players and 50 unique characters, while another had 50 average players and 10 unique characters. Again, which gameworld would you personally rather play on--the one where there are many more players who play for less time each day, or where there are fewer players who play for more time each day? (Answers will vary.)

But, you need a character and an account to type 'Who'...

I'm not saying they log in and type who. I'm saying it's the same data. You could, yourself, amass this dataset if you wanted to and had the time to do so. There's nothing special about this data.

[Greve]

They're saying the average minimum, on any given day, was 6

Considering that the game occasionally reaches literally zero players online during absolute off-peak, I think an average minimum of 6 sounds quite likely. It sits at less than 30 for something like two thirds of the day, and less than 20 all of the European morning and early afternoon.

[Xagon]

Off peak, there's always at least one.

> emote looks around, swimming in a sea of NPCs.