Mmmmm Data

[Brokkr]

There were also a handful of the other classes, which I took out.  The most populous being Gladiator class.

[mansa]

What is this one supposed to be showing, because it doesn't look accurate. You have craftsperson reflecting a "98", but every other class actually has more than it, with the exception of like, the 4 least popular classes.

It would probably make the most sense to have the chart reflect percentages instead of however you did it here, simply dividing the number of that class made by 741 to come up with the percentage.

I made a typo when I transpode the numbrs

new fart:




My takeaways:

Race:   Players choosing humans more.   That's pretty standard across most fantasy MMORPGs.   Compare that to D&D stats:  https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/

Classes: Fighting is more popular than crafting.  Again, compare that to D&D stats it's pretty similar.

Subclasses:  This is were things are more interesting.   Not surprised at Slipknife, but Grebber is high up on the 1 karma.  Interesting.  0 Karma - Surprised at Hunter, Linguist, and Thief.  I've never chose any of those subclasses!   2 Karma - Outdoorsman is top!  Wow.  I would of suspected one of the subclasses that gives advanced chopping or slashing.

Mansa's most surprising stat:  Custom Crafter is 5th chosen 0 karma subclass, and 6th overall!  5.6% of the 0 karma subclasses are this.

[Nao]

If we assume that only half of those new accounts created a PC (185.5)

Stop right there. In January, less than 26% of new accounts created an application. There is no reason to believe that these numbers doubled since january. Your entire guesstimation is off by a factor of 2.

And where is the estimation that there are roughly the same number of throwaway PCs coming from?

[Bogre]

I think Outdoorsman reflects Hunter popularity in that it's likely being picked by city/stealth classes to give some outdoors utility.

I actually am not surprised it's taken more often than the warrior subclasses, because if you're going to go for higher level combat skills it's pretty easy to just take a heavy combat guild. Of course, if those subclasses bump your starting weapon skill it might be useful. (don't know if this is the case for these subclasses, but in the past iirc you might get a bit higher start with subguild skills). Though there is certainly utility in rounding out weapon skills for the non-heavy-combat guilds, I think it's probably more common to go combat / utility sub than the other way around.


Gonna estimate that 5-10% of active characters, then, are magick subguilds, which doesn't seem too crazy. Looks like ~6% of created chars are magick subs, but I imagine those characters are much less likely to be throwaway, and obviously aren't new account's chars.

All in all, the breakdown seems pretty reasonable. I agree with Heade that the heavy mercantile folks will probably see less utilization than the other guilds.

I wonder if there will be settling in the future, though I would bet that for a durable amount of time people will be experimenting with class / sub mixes and thus will probably keep a good amount of variety in people's choices. And with the huge amount of choice (squeee!) there's a lot of cool options to try!

[Heade]

Stop right there. In January, less than 26% of new accounts created an application. There is no reason to believe that these numbers doubled since january. Your entire guesstimation is off by a factor of 2.

Ok. That was from a one time sample, showing percentage of new player accounts converted to character applications for a very limited period of time(1 month). The data that mansa often shows, shows that there are frequently large fluctuations in various statistics over time. Do we have further samples to draw from in order to establish an "average" conversion percentage, or has staff only ever released the one report? If we do, link them to me and I'll be happy to use that average to reconsider the numbers here.

I'm absolutely interested in seeing accurate figures. That's what I've been arguing for. So if my estimations are demonstrably off, I'd like to know that and adjust the figures accordingly. But I don't think the figures from 1 month around the holidays proves that. Let's look at a year of data and get the average conversion rate.

Or, better yet, let's get one important piece of data: Of ALL purely mundane PCs created during our sampling period, how many had less than a day played? Less than 3 days played? Less than 5 hours? The same for Karma PCs.

It'd also be nice to see how many were stored or killed in the same time period, vs. how many simply weren't played much. And how many player accounts were responsible for the creation of those 611 Mundane, 0 karma PCs. How about the same data for karma PCs?

We could use averages, even, if Brokkr didn't want to release class-specific playtimes for worry of identifying IC information of rarely played classes.

But this information is pretty important in drawing any real conclusions from the data that we have. Basically, the data we have so far could be very helpful, but only if we have further data that we may use to analyze it. Currently, it doesn't do a whole lot for us without the additional data points.

It's undeniable that any of these playtime statistics will push the number of mundanes actually played, way down. No one spends karma on throwaway PCs under the current system. No new players who don't play are apping Karma PCs. So the numbers can only be changed in one direction. Let's take an accurate look at just how far in that direction they change.

These playtime statistics could tell us how many of those mundane, non-karma PCs were "real" PCs, vs. newbies who didn't stick around, throwaways awaiting karma regen, or otherwise one-shot PCs people didn't actually want to keep, for whatever reason. To pretend that these things don't matter, or that they don't impact the IG environment that the class selections cultivate would be asinine.

I'm all for accurate data. So let's look at that. No reason to wear blinders, here, when it comes to incredibly relevant data.

[Vex]

I'd like to see the numbers, for how many of those mundane subs were utilized, by 0 day accounts.

Overall, I feel as though, there is something just not right about it, especially the elf numbers. There simply aren't enough elves around to be comparable to dwarves and half-elves, unless the number is, largely, made up of "throw away" elves, or new account elves, who never make it into the game / never log in more than a couple times.

Raw, compressed numbers are nice to look at, but aren't in and of themselves especially useful data. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

[Heade]

Raw, compressed numbers are nice to look at, but aren't in and of themselves especially useful data. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Exactly! Glad to see someone finally getting what I'm saying.

[mansa]

What's the problem statement?  What's the rough idea that we have, that we want to prove with data?


This was my thoughts that I had:
"Are players decided to wait until their karma gets 'restored' before creating a new character.  Are they 'on break' until the timer runs out."
The last thread had 20 unique GDB accounts posting their opinion about it, out of a playerbase of approximately 200.  That's 10% of the playerbase talking about something, but they weren't all agreeing.   Is that enough to extrapolate and say most of the playerbase acts like the sample represented?

"Is there a lot of magick characters in the game?
Should we lower or increase the number of magickers we have?  Should karma be adjusted for them, either lower or higher?


"How many players are choosing a subclass that allows for mastercrafting?"
Is this a thing that players actually want to do, or is it just the voice of a few loud players?
55 out of 741 characters created (7.4%) had the ability to mastercraft (even though nobody choose master woodworker and master crafter)

[Synthesis]

Hunter is the most popular subclass because grinding critters is still the easiest way to increase your combat skills, and now few classes get the skinning skill, which gives you an excuse to go out and grind critters.

Even though jman skinning is complete trash.  That's just more justification for grinding harder, though.

[Dar]

Whoa. There I go, picking a class thinking will be unpopular, and it ended up being in top 5. Go figure.

[RogueGunslinger]

According to this there's as many elves as dwarves or half-elves. That surprises me.

[Heade]

According to this there's as many elves as dwarves or half-elves. That surprises me.

And that's not including delves.

[Delirium]

Eh, Analyst 101: Context is important when displaying data, so the more detail the better. With more in-depth data, your extrapolations are more likely to be accurate and thus you can better inform your strategies moving forward.

[Brokkr]

I deal with highly ambiguous and fluid data on a day to day basis.  You make the conclusions the data can support.

Context is important, but it isn't the actual data which gives you context.  Context is the stuff surrounding the data.  Like the fact that you can't currently regen karma without logging in a character. Not creating a character because you are waiting it out to be able to choose an ESG is pretty self defeating, because those options only get updated currently when you log in a character, not simply your account.

[Marauder Moe]

Surely that isn't by design...

[Heade]

Context is the stuff surrounding the data.  Like the fact that you can't currently regen karma without logging in a character. Not creating a character because you are waiting it out to be able to choose an ESG is pretty self defeating, because those options only get updated currently when you log in a character, not simply your account.

Which even further encourages apping a throwaway character you have no intention of playing. This is an example of why play time statistics before death/storage are important to these numbers.

[Miggy]

I deal with highly ambiguous and fluid data on a day to day basis.  You make the conclusions the data can support.

Context is important, but it isn't the actual data which gives you context.  Context is the stuff surrounding the data.  Like the fact that you can't currently regen karma without logging in a character. Not creating a character because you are waiting it out to be able to choose an ESG is pretty self defeating, because those options only get updated currently when you log in a character, not simply your account.

Can you elaborate on this please? So, if I'm currently dead, waiting for karma regen is not going to happen?

[Brokkr]

Yes and no?  You still regenerate your karma along the timeline.  It is just that the thing that looks at your account chargen options and refreshes them is tied to your character logging in.

I recognize this is not optimal, but until a way around the issue that caused things to be implemented this way is figured out, this is the way it is working.

[Heade]

Yes and no?  You still regenerate your karma along the timeline.  It is just that the thing that looks at your account chargen options and refreshes them is tied to your character logging in.

I recognize this is not optimal, but until a way around the issue that caused things to be implemented this way is figured out, this is the way it is working.

Just an idea, but could you make the game check the database against the timeline of karma regen on reboot? That way, while not ideal, it would still happen and update periodically without having to create a throwaway character to get your karma options.

[Bogre]

Presumeably the staff would restore your options if you had waited the requisite amount of time and you sent in a request until the issue is resolved.

[Eyeball]

Maybe we don't see elves because they're a bunch of sneaky bastards.

Or maybe they just tend to die faster but the people choosing to play them keep apping them.

[Delirium]

Maybe we don't see elves because they're a bunch of sneaky bastards.

"I don't see any elves!"

>scan
>look

*a very tall strange shadow is here*
*a tall strange shadow is here*
*a very tall and thick strange shadow is here*

"Oh. Nevermind."

>flee self

[Nao]

Maybe we don't see elves because they're a bunch of sneaky bastards.

Or maybe they just tend to die faster but the people choosing to play them keep apping them.

When I played a rinthi elf, the majority of them either never went to Allanak proper, or just went there for work or when they had to for other reasons. The majority of the time, they would be in the rinth. There were also a lot more celf PCs from the 'rinth than Southsiders.

[Dar]

my last celf survived for 2 rl years. Though I've taken multiple breaks throughout those years. But I can roughly say that in between those breaks, I easily knew 40-60 elves. Although maybe 30 lived beyond 2-3 days and maybe 20 lived longer then 5 days played.

[Heade]

my last celf survived for 2 rl years. Though I've taken multiple breaks throughout those years. But I can roughly say that in between those breaks, I easily knew 40-60 elves. Although maybe 30 lived beyond 2-3 days and maybe 20 lived longer then 5 days played.

Are you guestimating how many days played they have? Because I imagine people probably, by and large, have no clue how many days played my PCs have when they RP with them IG.

I expect that people would probably seriously underestimate my days played, quite often.