February 2000
- datagram protocol design theory? (Question about multithreaded servers) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Library error J C Lawrence
- Semi-OT: Linux support in commercial MUDs? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- From the Apache Referrer logs J C Lawrence
- From the Apache Referrer logs Kris Van Hees
- good muds for ai programming? Robert Zubek
- good muds for ai programming? J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Phillip Lenhardt
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling cg@ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Phillip Lenhardt
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Event Scheduling Cynbe ru Taren
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Event Scheduling Cynbe ru Taren
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Event Scheduling Miroslav Silovic
- Event Scheduling Jp Calderone
- Event Scheduling Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Event Scheduling Miroslav Silovic
- Event Scheduling J C Lawrence
- Event Scheduling Cynbe ru Taren
- Event Scheduling Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- IO Speed Suggestions Christopher Kohnert
- IO Speed Suggestions J C Lawrence
- Couple of articles Koster, Raph
- Couple of articles Dr Richard A. Bartle
- OT: Soliciting advice from Canadians Alex Oren
- MUD Specific Building pages MichelleThompson
- MUD Specific Building pages J C Lawrence
- Embedding Python icecube@ihug.co.nz
- Embedding Python icecube@ihug.co.nz
- Embedding Python J C Lawrence
- Embedding Python Todd McKimmey
- Embedding Python Oliver Jowett
- Embedding Python Todd McKimmey
- ADMIN: List post rejections J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Kevin Littlejohn
- distributed objects Vijay Weasel Prabhakar
- distributed objects Brandon J. Rickman
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Koster, Raph
- distributed objects Vijay Weasel Prabhakar
- distributed objects David Bennett
- distributed objects Phillip Lenhardt
- distributed objects cjones@one.net
- distributed objects F. Randall Farmer
- distributed objects Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- distributed objects Kevin Littlejohn
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Gary Whitten
- distributed objects Balthazaar
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- distributed objects Eli Stevens {Grey}
- distributed objects Jon A. Lambert
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects J C Lawrence
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects Charles Hughes
- distributed objects Laurent Bossavit
- distributed objects Kevin Littlejohn
- distributed objects markm@caplet.com
- distributed objects KevinL
- Distributed Objects Justin Rogers
- Security J C Lawrence
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inquiry ) Sellers, Michael
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inquiry ) Matthew Mihaly
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inq uiry ) Sellers, Michael
- commercial muds and cable TV (was code base inq uiry ) Matthew Mihaly
- business models Matthew Mihaly
- business models Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- business models Vincent Archer
- business models Dave Rickey
- a shrinking pool of players? Johan J Ingles-le Nobel
- a shrinking pool of players? Matthew Mihaly
- a shrinking pool of players? Sellers, Michael
- a shrinking pool of players? Bryce Harrington
- a shrinking pool of players? Travis S. Casey
- a shrinking pool of players? PartyG2816@aol.com
- a shrinking pool of players? J C Lawrence
On Tue, 15 Feb 2000 21:11:30 EST
PartyG2816 <PartyG2816@aol.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 2/15/00 8:08:18 PM Central Standard Time,
> MSellers@maxis.com writes:
>>> it's between 10,000 and 200,000 at the extreme high end.
>>> Probably around 50K. Just a gross estimate, but I've run these
>>> numbers before and I think we tend to overestimate them.
> Heh, EQ alone can testify to the 50k mark...
There are too, mostly distinct populations under discussion here:
1) The players of (usually commercial) graphical MUDs.
2) The players of text based MUDs
The two populations do overlap, but not I'd guess to any significant
percentage. We also know that the population of #1 is over 100K
given UO's reported player base.
We don't have accurate figures for the total sum for #1 as that
figure is individually jealously guarded by AC, EQ, UO etc as
confidential marketting data, and the results of their several
(expensive) market surveys are, similarly, proprietary data. Ergo,
the numbers we get from Raph, Michael etc are, as they've said
several times filtered-for-public-conumption numbers (this is no
commentary on them, its a simple fact of working for a company whose
corporate interests they must represent). So, we do a lot of
educated guessing:
As for the number of players in #2, this gets much harder as there
are no direct tracking methods (eg paid accounts), and the mapping
of active player characters to human numbers is quite definitely
less than 1:1. Exactly what that ratio is, is unknown.
My own poorly educated guess for ##1 is somewhere approaching 200K
players.
For #2 I suspect (sucked out of my thumb) that actual size of the
player base has grown in recent years, but that the churn rate is
massively higher than it used to be, and that players are, by the
percentages, much more fickle than they used to be.
-- Text MUD players don't play as much or for as long as they used
to, and the total length of a MUD player's life is shorter
(they cease playing MUDs sooner).
-- They carry significantly less attachment to the games they play
Translation: The pyramid is much broader and the bottom is violently
churning with players coming and leaving. The pyramid used to be
taller and narrower, of less total volume, but also of greater
_apparent_ stability.
Of course, I have no real numbers. This is just guess work and
thumb sucking.
--
J C Lawrence Home: claw@kanga.nu
----------(*) Other: coder@kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=-- - a shrinking pool of players? Sellers, Michael
- a shrinking pool of players? Sellers, Michael
- a shrinking pool of players? J C Lawrence
- a shrinking pool of players? PartyG2816@aol.com
- a shrinking pool of players? Ryan P.
- a shrinking pool of players? J C Lawrence
- a shrinking pool of players? Koster, Raph
- a shrinking pool of players? Matthew Mihaly
- a shrinking pool of players? Koster, Raph
- a shrinking pool of players? Chris Turner
- a shrinking pool of players? Matthew Mihaly
- a shrinking pool of players? Chris Turner
- a shrinking pool of players? Draymoor
- a shrinking pool of players? Koster, Raph
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Michael Hohensee
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Ted Milker
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications David Bennett
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Ted Milker
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications John Bertoglio
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Justin Rogers
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Eli Stevens {Grey}
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications John Bertoglio
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Koster, Raph
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Lo, Kam
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Justin Rogers
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Joel Dillon
- The Endeavour Map and MUD Applications Justin Rogers
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bryce Harrington
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bruce
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bryce Harrington
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bruce
- Next gen MUD wishlist J C Lawrence
- Next gen MUD wishlist Chris Jones
- Next gen MUD wishlist adam@treyarch.com
- Next gen MUD wishlist Sellers, Michael
- Next gen MUD wishlist adam@treyarch.com
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bruce
- Next gen MUD wishlist Bryce Harrington
- Codebase Ideas punitac@prodigy.net
- Codebase Ideas Bryce Harrington
- Codebase Ideas Aaron Mitchell
- OT: Money as motivator (was code base inquiry ) J C Lawrence
- OT: Money as motivator (was code base inquiry ) Matthew Mihaly
- Guide Applicant : Player Ratio Geoffrey A. MacDougall
- Guide Applicant : Player Ratio Matthew Mihaly
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #286 - 13 msgs Dr. Cat
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #286 - 13 msgs Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #286 - 13 msgs Koster, Raph
- voice vs. text Matthew Mihaly
- voice vs. text Justin Rogers
- voice vs. text John Bertoglio
- voice vs. text Lovecraft
- voice vs. text Lo, Kam
- voice vs. text Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client side prediction Koster, Raph
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client side prediction Justin Rogers
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client side prediction Koster, Raph
- Client side prediction Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Dynamic help files, was code base inquiry Richard Woolcock
- OpenSource licenses for game rules? J C Lawrence
- To all the devoted! (fwd) J C Lawrence
- Newbies Johan J Ingles-le Nobel
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #288 - 9 msgs Dr. Cat
- (fwd) Commercial-use Restrictions on Code Bases (was: help me find 100% free graphical mud) J C Lawrence
- (fwd) ADMIN: "A Classification Of Muds" [was 'In defence of stock muds...'] J C Lawrence
- Distribution Geir Harald Hansen
- player persistence Matthew Mihaly
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Derek Snider
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Justin Lockshaw
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Christopher Allen
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Matthew Mihaly
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Joe Andrieu
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Kristen L. Koster
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Richard A. Bartle
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 Bruce
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 David Bennett
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] GDC-2000 J C Lawrence
- [Off-topic] AAAI symposium (was: GDC-2000) Robert Zubek
- MSP Richard Ross
- Privateer-style mu*? Bobby Bailey
- Minimum community sizes Dan Root
- Minimum community sizes Koster, Raph
- Minimum community sizes Dan Root
- Minimum community sizes adam@treyarch.com
- Minimum community sizes Matthew Mihaly
- Minimum community sizes David Bennett
- Minimum community sizes Matthew Mihaly
- Pike codebase Daniel Podlejski
- chil@gate.net Joel Kelso