Posted by oldresorter on 9/23/2010 2:49:00 PM (view original):
great work as usual billy. Probably requires some thought b4 too many conclusions are made, I assume each time a world opened, the other worlds took a bit of a hit for example, plus freehd has d3 data skewed each time it opens and closed. Was the FSS introduced 3 years ago? That would be about 21-24 seasons ago in the old worlds, more like 33-36 seasons ago in worlds 8 thru 10, which would mean that worlds 9/10 opened after FSS was introduced - I can't remember if that is true or not - would be hard to blame FSS for any drops if 2 new worlds opened right after - i.e. without the backstory - the raw numbers sometimes can lie - LOL.
thanks! and i agree, we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions. but with the latest engine, it seems a lot of people are blaming it for the dropping of people - and there aren't many seasons for that, or other major events (like new worlds opening) so i think that would be a major factor if there was a drop. of course, it could be the changing of the seasons - but we could try to look at seasonal changes from years passed to gauge how much of an effect it had/has. its all a bunch of shoddy guess-work, but i think in a few months we will have enough data to see if the new engine is resulting in overall not much change compared to the numbers right before it, or if it is resulting in a good amount of attrition. also, i do think in general, ANY major change is going to push some people over the edge - when you are borderline not wanting to play, a lot of us will drag it out for a good 6 months or year or even longer, because we used to enjoy it so much. but once there is something new, and sort of just existing in the world of HD stops working (because you need to adapt or get left behind), it will almost certainly cause a good portion of the aforementioned people to quit. i think if we see one or two down ticks, that would be ok (because of what i just mentioned), but if we start to see a consistent stream of losses, then i think there is a problem.