For whole "target audience" and mr. L Bernd

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

instead of bashing statistics, you might want to pick some data which supports your theories.

As far as I am aware there are no such statistics readily available - and I am not bashing statistics just indicating the usage of this specific statistic in the way that some seem to be trying to is flawed.

The simultaneous user statistic does have value, but not so much in the context it is trying to be exploited and certainly not in the way it is trying to be interpreted (IMO).

The simultaneous user statistic has much more relevance to us as players for multi-player games (e.g. Defiance, Rift, Dungeon Siege, and many others) as it gives a sense of when we are most likely to find players to play with or against.

This perhaps?
Or this?

Those are still temporal based statistics and do not give any indication of the real number of software licenses being used over the analysed period.

My original point still stands about the use of such statistics to try and justify your point of view... it is bad statistics.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@ mr. Roger

if you read what you write, so nothing matters: no reviews or statistics. Nothing matters except your belief that this is a good game. Do not you find it strange?

I will not debate your opinion on this, but I will say that I have seen a lot of use of good statistical data in the wrong way resulting in interpretations that portray what the analyser wants... this is bad statistical analysis and is often used as a dirty tactic to persuade someone that their point of view is the only right one.

Whether this game is good or bad in each of our own eyes is a personal thing. No reviewer or statistic is going to change whether you enjoy a game or not. As such there is no right or wrong opinion only personal opinion.

[rpek32]

As such there is no right or wrong opinion only personal opinion.

right opinion based on facts, wrong opinion based on feelings and misunderstanding of the situation

you said... bad statistics.
and good statistics is the statistics which approves your opinion?

and again. There is a fact: this data shows us, the game is not popular. (atleast users who play in ONLINE mode steam). So, its a fact, you cant challenge with it.

[piep]

Roger, stop bursting their bubbles please. I'm at the verge of awakening empathy towards argumentless haters.

[piep]

As such there is no right or wrong opinion only personal opinion.

right opinion based on facts, wrong opinion based on feelings and misunderstanding of the situation

you said... bad statistics.
and good statistics is the statistics which approves your opinion?

and again. There is a fact: this data shows us, the game is not popular. (atleast users who play in ONLINE mode steam). So, its a fact, you cant challenge with it.

WOW, after reading his simple argument you still didn't understand that good statistics can't be made at this point?

/speechless.

[rpek32]

/speechless.

i cant understand position of "target audience":

people said: game is bad (shows review of magazines)
TA: no! its all subjective opinions.( then, shows... nothing.)

Then TA start talk about statistics.

People (shows statistics): the game is bad.
TA: no! statistics is bad.

WTH with you, guys?

[CBJ]

This is yet another thread in danger of being cut short because one person thinks their opinion is the only valid one, entitling them to belittle anyone who disagrees with them. Cut it out.

[deu58]

And then perhaps there are players like me. I did not buy this game directly from Steam. I bought it in the US at Game Stop simply on a whim but of course it is still a Steam key activated game and you must down load the actual game from the Steam site. I started playing but things were to broken for me to have any immediate pleasure from the game as it was but like Roger I see great future potential in the game. I got involved in the beta patch tests but the results so far have been to slow for me. I am not saying the Devs are working to slow. It is just that there is so much work to be done that the optimization of the game is taking a lot of time. Then I found an X bundle at Steam for 40 US so I bought that. So Ego has made another 40 bucks off of me but this time I am happy at least so far. I am starting at game 1 Beyond the Frontier.

But that does not mean I have given up on Rebirth. In fact I have not given up at all. I am just waiting for it to be sufficiently patched to be actually playable in a manner that is acceptable to me. Now true the various forums are not teeming with such threads but I have seen a few threads from people here and there that mostly again like me are new to the game and looking for information on tactics and strategy for the older pre X 3 stuff because they have taken the same approach I have purchasing the X bundle at 40 bucks a pop thus numbers and statistics can be deceiving to just how bad of an overall financial hit Ego has actually taken and the company is doomed. Perhaps there has been a drop in Rebirth sales and stats but what about the older games? In a certain sense the disgruntled have been a great advertising tool for Ego because the Rebirth threads are chock full of glorious praise for the good ole days and how wonderful the old games are. So new players such as myself and even potential new future customers for Rebirth are saying to ourselves "Oh really?" Well lets go check out these wonderful older games while we wait for Ego to fix Rebirth.

So while we new players are buying and playing the older games and when Ego finally fixes up Rebirth even though it may no longer be the 50 dollar version all the the forums threads will change to how wonderful the fixed game is and guess what they just released a new DLC with all these cool features etc sales will go up, players playing the game stats will go up and many of the currently disgruntled old time X players who demanded their money back will buy the reduced price fixed version and the DLC saying Thank You Ego we always knew you could do it!

[dzhedzho]

instead of bashing statistics, you might want to pick some data which supports your theories.

As far as I am aware there are no such statistics readily available - and I am not bashing statistics just indicating the usage of this specific statistic in the way that some seem to be trying to is flawed.

The simultaneous user statistic does have value, but not so much in the context it is trying to be exploited and certainly not in the way it is trying to be interpreted (IMO).

The simultaneous user statistic has much more relevance to us as players for multi-player games (e.g. Defiance, Rift, Dungeon Siege, and many others) as it gives a sense of when we are most likely to find players to play with or against.

This perhaps?
Or this?

Those are still temporal based statistics and do not give any indication of the real number of software licenses being used over the analysed period.

My original point still stands about the use of such statistics to try and justify your point of view... it is bad statistics.

Your point was that people are busier on the holidays, and there are no statistics for that. You can pretty easy see the daily and the weekly peaks, the release peak etc. There is ton of information to be seen, including the total game-time played each day, which is a great indicator of desirability of a game.

It's nothing wrong with the data, It's rather your lack of understanding of what the data represents, and what to look for.
Edit: I'll give you a hint - look at the average, not the peak...

[Mountain_Puncher]

0% of what are considered professional reviewers reviewed this game favorably. 23% of the 1072 on metacritic gave the game a 10/10 but elaborate the game isn't good they just think the score should be higher.

I have the game, and think it is bad. It may be an opinion but it parallels with the overwhelming response that the game is not worth money.

Maybe some could say the sample size for the player statistic isn't large enough to make an inference, but coupled with the reviews it paints a pretty clear picture.

I'll quote myself since it got overlooked. I'm not a hater, I've been thoroughly critical of the game because I wanted it to be good. It isn't, and no amount of sticking my head in the sand will change that. The only reason I hang around the forums is because I'm looking to see what people are doing to get refunded.

If someone from egosoft would help me get a refund from steam, then I'd be gone

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...

Your point was that people are busier on the holidays, and there are no statistics for that. You can pretty easy see the daily and the weekly peaks, the release peak etc. There is ton of information to be seen, including the total game-time played each day, which is a great indicator of desirability of a game.

It's nothing wrong with the data, It's rather your lack of understanding of what the data represents, and what to look for.
Edit: I'll give you a hint - look at the average, not the peak...

The point was two fold, #1 it is a temporal statistic (thus time spent in-game by any given player is not accounted for - no. of used licenses is not indicated) and #2 even if it did indicate no. of used licenses there are MANY reasons why the expected typical X-game player would not be spending much if any time in game at this point in time (including but not limited to the festive season - e.g. state of bugs in game or waiting for specific updates).

There are a lot of people that have latched on to the temporal statistic primarily because Bernd highlighted the launch day simultaenious player counts but that just indicates a minimum number of people playing the game at any given time and there were at least some people like myself that had time-off around the launch time and probably used (or planned to use) a large portion of it checking out X-Rebirth.

Bernd was probably ill-advised to quote the statistic but as a rough indication of the level of interest in the game at launch it was perhaps a fair reference. In on-going terms, it is questionable as many players are probably limiting their time in game (impossible to assess properly from the statistic) for one reason or another - especially given the absence of sufficient automation in-game when compared with older X-games at the moment.

Either way, the statistic would not change the view of any given player who has either recently tried the game and still hates it or is still enjoying the game regardless of bugs.

In summary - generalised public/critic opinion of a game does not necessarily mean a game is good or bad in any given players eyes. A panned game can still be seen as ok (or better), and a lauded game can still be seen as poor (or worse) from any given player's point of view.

People should never feel pressured into changing their own opinion of a game/movie/book (or other creative item) in order to comply with (or dissent from) public opinion, but threads such as these seem to be intent on trying to do just that - or at least some of the individuals who think along similar lines to the OP's expressed opinion seem to be trying to ridicule any who publicly dissent from the OP's opinion.

[rpek32]

Fresh Review:

http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/x-rebir ... 0-6415614/

This sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed.

THE GOOD
Some impressive visual details

THE BAD
Frustratingly broken
Nonsensical dialogue, excruciatingly delivered
Monotonous buying and selling
Putrid interface
Irritating icon hunting
2
TERRIBLE

[Graaf]

The point was two fold, #1 it is a temporal statistic (thus time spent in-game by any given player is not accounted for - no. of used licenses is not indicated) and #2 even if it did indicate no. of used licenses there are MANY reasons why the expected typical X-game player would not be spending much if any time in game at this point in time (including but not limited to the festive season - e.g. state of bugs in game or waiting for specific updates).

Coincidently other games also suffer from this. Therefor statistics can be used as a comparison.

[dzhedzho]

You really missed my point didn't you? I also think a lot of people misread the data because they have an agenda. However my main point was, instead of dismissing the data you might want to explain it properly. Unfortunately you seem to misunderstand it as well.

First of all the statistics show the players behavior. They do not show the reason for said behavior.

The point was two fold, #1 it is a temporal statistic (thus time spent in-game by any given player is not accounted for - no. of used licenses is not indicated)

Statistics like this are used in traffic planning (especially public transport), logistics , service planning etc.

How to explain this to you. I'll try analogy. Say I got a pub with 100 seats.
In the first hour I have 30 customers, in the second I have 50, third 75 etc. This translates to my pub being 30% full, 75% 50%. With an average 52% seat utilization for the 3 hours in question. Is this useful information? I believe it is - even if it's temporal, even if I don't know if the original 30% was there 3 hours, or how many individual people passed through. So in a way the time is factored in.
Now if we compare the peaks and average between days we can see the weekly trend. In a case of a pub, we will have higher utilization on FRI-SAT. And we we have data for longer period, and compare data from different Fridays for example, if our pub utilization grows or decreases.
Now say we have 25% drop - what does that tell us? Either less people visit, or number is unchanged, but they spend less time.
The statistic tells us nothing about the reason's of a trend - we need extra information to explain it.

Steam 'trends' are pretty useful for assessing trends.
Look at AP stats
You can clearly see the effect of 2012 winter holiday (I guess thee was a sale)
You can also see the effect of the MAY 2013 steam sale coupled with the release of "shady business" + 106% growth of average players
You can also see it has gained players in September (pretty sure you can find out why), and around and after the release of XR.

And here you can see the effect of the effects of the December sales on FC3

and #2 even if it did indicate no. of used licenses there are MANY reasons why the expected typical X-game player would not be spending much if any time in game at this point in time (including but not limited to the festive season - e.g. state of bugs in game or waiting for specific updates).

Yes, and if we are to speculate on these we might want to mention them, because they likely contribute.

Players who used to play online started playing XR offline - doubtful
Players don't have time to play games at holiday season - while some might have less time, others have more. Steam holiday sales tend to shake up the play trends, with a lot of games making gains.
Players disliked the game and moved on, decided to wait.
XR served it's purpose, and either less people play, or people play it less.
People went to play something else for a while and will be back.

Bernd was probably ill-advised to quote the statistic but as a rough indication of the level of interest in the game at launch it was perhaps a fair reference.

Either way, the statistic would not change the view of any given player who has either recently tried the game and still hates it or is still enjoying the game regardless of bugs.

This is a fair assessment, I think most people would agree with this.

In summary - generalised public/critic opinion of a game does not necessarily mean a game is good or bad in any given players eyes. A panned game can still be seen as ok (or better), and a lauded game can still be seen as poor (or worse) from any given player's point of view.

Correct again, reviews and statistics show how other people feel about the game, not how you might feel. However reviews are valuable, if things what the reviewer liked/disliked coincide with your likes dislikes. In fact, it is completely possible that someone's favorite feature is your deal-breaker. In absence of a demo, this is the only way one can get more information prior to purchase. It is also good indication on how well a game is received, overall.

People should never feel pressured into changing their own opinion of a game/movie/book (or other creative item) in order to comply with (or dissent from) public opinion, but threads such as these seem to be intent on trying to do just that - or at least some of the individuals who think along similar lines to the OP's expressed opinion seem to be trying to ridicule any who publicly dissent from the OP's opinion.

I think you are guilty of this as well, in fact you are rather bent to prove that people who dislike the game are wrong, and they have no reason to do so, other than conform to public opinion. I think your exact term was

proverbial bleeting sheep-lemming hybrids

.

Generally I'd agree with your statement, however I'd like to point out another possible reason for these threads. Mainly to let know the developers, or ES management, and Bernd in particular, that their vision of X universe accessible to larger audience, seem to have failed, due to various reasons. I think that is pretty clear for them, and there is no further need to rub salt in the wound. But since a lot of concerns are not addressed, or even acknowledged, I understand why some people might feel differently.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Statistics like this are used in traffic planning (especially public transport), logistics , service planning etc.

Average/Peak temporal usage is not a valid statistic in this instance. Let's put my reasoning into a hard metaphorical example - thread counts as a measure of the level and effectiveness of multithreading of an application.

Depending on what the threads are doing and how long they are alive for you could surmise different statistics.

In the instance where a heavily threaded application is subject to a light workload and uses worker threads to process that load the average simultaneously active thread count may be very low and using this statistic may intimate that the application is barely multi-threaded. The same application with a heavy workload would indicate a different view. But both are possibly extreme cases. Now there is the average workload that may intimate something in-between the two but what is not indicated by such statistics is how many threads are actually created (their average life) nor what degree of useful work those threads are doing. Given that, we would also need to know one of two things as well, the average time of activity of the threads and/or the number of threads created/activated over the life of the game.

Moving away from the analogy, the average active user count over time is has been used to intimate a number of active users and thus the level of support for the game. Now the point is that we do not know from the statistic whether the average number of users are the same people over a given time period or a substantially greater number of people who simply are not spending much time in game.

[OT]As for the lemming-sheep hybrid comment, it was meant as a sarcastic joke and was taken well out of context resulting in moderator intervention eventually. Ok, the joke may have been taken the wrong way and there are some that seem to be easily offended by the type of humour because they feel hard done by in the first case. But let's not go around that loop again resulting in further offence being taken by either side. [/OT]

[steelgrey75]

dzhedzho - your wasting your time, in some aspects I think you will find Roger to be inflexible. He believes reviews need to be withheld until the games is "fixed", and that current scores are unfair. And now he will argue that statistics are meaningless also.

[TinkerToy]

It's not very common that a game's "critic score" and "player score" is vastly different on Metacritic.

It's not very common that almost every published review of a game gives it a score of less than 5 out of 10.


In truth, nobody can "disprove" the hypothesis that "most Rebirth players play offline". It's highly unlikely, but it's impossible to disprove.


We don't know how many copies were sold.
We don't know how many refunds were given.
We don't know how many players are still interested in playing.


All we do know is that the daily activity on Steam is steadily dropping. And that is most likely not a good sign.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

dzhedzho - your wasting your time, in some aspects I think you will find Roger to be inflexible. He believes reviews need to be withheld until the games is "fixed", and that current scores are unfair. And now he will argue that statistics are meaningless also.

Don't read too much into what I have said to date, you are wrong.

IMO - The nature of usage of the given statistics is invalid, the reviews are fair given the current state, but since the state of the game is well-known as being poor at this time the game probably deserves a second round of reviews from the same reviewers at a suitable point in time (e.g. when the game is truly ready).

The nature of usage of the statistics and reviews by the anti community is tantamount to harassment of those that actually like the game and/or believe it can succeed. (at least IMO)

Erratum #1: Fixed a grammatical error that was bugging me.

[steelgrey75]

Maybe they will review it at a later date, perhaps an expansion pack or something. The problems is though that of course the many bugs are mentioned in all the reviews, but they also single out a lot of the new things introduced to the game as being a problem. Granted statements made about these features are purely the opinion of the reviewer and not necessarily the views of everybody, but the new features are Bernds pride and joy. He crows about them on his videos and speaks about them in interviews, yet its those very features that have turned the game into a long drawn out affair. The removal of most automation for instance is what Bernd wants, he wants you to fly around constantly looking for trade offers, these are not likely to be changed in patches, they are a core design element to the game. So even if it was reviewed later, it may score higher due to more stability, but the game itself wouldnt be that much different than it is now.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

but the game itself wouldnt be that much different than it is now.

You are drawing conclusions here, ok that is your opinion - only time will tell if you are right.

I would say things I expect to not change significantly:-

• Mini-games through out (Highways/Smalltalk/Loot finding)
• Nature of trading
• Albion Skunk
• General approach to UI

Some of the things (not exhaustive list) I do expect to substantially improve (other than general bugs and performance):-

• Fleet control and associated AI
• Overall balance (subjective measure and no doubt there will be disagreement on this)
• Mappable player controls and functionality.

In summary, not the fundamental nature of gameplay but certainly game usability/playability.