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How Many People Are Playing At Once? Some Numbers...


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#1 kailii

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 03:32 PM

Howdy Mechwarriors!

Recently i tried to figure out how many lads are playing this game at once.
Based on a MM queue of 8% Lights and 41% Assaults (repeatable) and 16% Lights and 31% Assaults (repeatable) while playing an Assault and having to wait 3 minutes resp. 1.5 minutes i came up with these numbers:

The Lights define the waiting game assuming MM goes for 3/3/3/3 and does not give a valve.
So 16% of the Mechs required to start a game arrive every 90 seconds, or one every 30 seconds (that's per side).

According to PGI, a match takes 7 minutes on average. A new match is started once 24 players are assembled and the longest waiting time is for Light Mechs, 3*30=90 seconds.
So every 90 seconds a new game is started which takes 7 minutes to finish.
So the average number of players = 7*60 in seconds / 90 (time to start a match) = 4.67 matches at once * 24 players = 112 players gaming at any given time.

Of course this is wrong, as i only estimated the solo queue and left out loading times.

Now for official PGI numbers, points gathered playing the weekend event.
We have 133000 points over 31 hours, or 4290 per hour or 71 per minute.
Estimating 4.67 matches at once, this gives us 71/4.67= 15.3 points per match.

That's a bit high, i'd estimate Assault around 11 on average, Conquest around 16, and Skirmish at a solid 15. 11+16+15/3=14.

15.3 compared to 14 seems not much of a difference, but i left the Group queue out of my calculations completely.

Is it dead, Jim?

#2 kailii

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 03:50 PM

Oh, and just for the record:
My estimates at the lower end of the posting are completely wrong.
It's not 15.3 points per match, it's 15.3 points per minute.
I'd like to thank PGI for the official numbers...




There is a saying. Not quite as subtle when translated into english but nonetheless:
If one lies on you, you will not trust him from that time on whatever might happen.
And it's not even a sentient decision, it's just how it works out for both sides.


EDIT: No reply for almost an hour. Think i'd better call it a day and **** out of it completely. Now that's 111 compared to 112 you're up against. Feel happy!

Edited by kailii, 18 October 2014 - 04:03 PM.


#3 Divine Retribution

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 04:28 PM

Go-Go Gadget: Tinfoil Hat!

If it's 15.3 points per minute, and the average game takes 7 minutes, and just to throw out a number saying 15.3 points is the average points earned in a match, then it would have to be 7 matches running concurrently, all the time.

I'll wager the average number of points earned per match is around 11 based on my experience with how assault and conquest games typically end. That would make for around 9 games running at any given time (216 players).

If the typical player spends 2 hours in match (just over 17 matches of average length, doesn't include searching and mechlab) over the 3 day time period, with 9 games played every 7 minutes....

4,320 minutes (# of minutes in 3 days) / 7 (avg. game length) * 9 (number of concurrent games) * 24 (number of players in a match) / 120 (number of minutes I pulled out of the air as the average length of time someone plays over a weekend) = ~1,111 players over the weekend. But that's assuming the same number of people playing Saturday and Sunday as Friday.

On the other hand, the answer is 42. It has always been 42, is currently 42, and shall always be 42. Now that we have the answer: what was the question again? Oh right... No it doesn't seem to be dead.

Edited by Divine Retribution, 18 October 2014 - 04:31 PM.


#4 Thorqemada

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 04:45 PM

Both Conquest and Assault should be mostly won by the Scondary Goal of Team Destruction - my guess is that the average is below 15 Points per match and that only Skirmish is at full 15 Points - i would expect 13 or 14 Points per match at average.
We should have a few thousand players at the peak hours - Russ said in one post that the player activity is pretty stable over the years and in CB we had between 500 and 5000 concurrent Players depending on the timezone peak hours.

Imho PGI should have developed Solaris first as it seems to me a much smaller step in development compared to CW and maybe it would be helpful if MWO gets Tanks to ease in some Tank Players but that is another story bcs a half assed implementation would do nothing but hurt the game...

Edited by Thorqemada, 18 October 2014 - 04:46 PM.


#5 Saint Scarlett Johan

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 04:55 PM

During the solo tourney weekend, my first match placed my 264th in assault class for IS. If there were an equal number of players in each weight class, that'd be at least 2000 opted into the tourney while I was on. And this was later on a Friday night.

#6 Scratx

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 04:59 PM

Game isn't dead, I have no idea where you came up with those numbers (source for 133k claim? ) and trying to derive anything from the queue % other than "Oh my, there's a lot of heavies/assaults on the queue" is silly, at best.


Edit : Okay, found where the number came from.


Edit 2 : Erm, I just did my own numbers.

146330 current score. It's been 2 days since start, I think, assumed 48 hour period. (I honestly don't know how long it's actually been, this is basically worst case scenario)

Assuming that every match ends on average at 15 points (unrealistically high IMO, but let's roll with it).

Assuming that EACH MATCH COUNTS ONCE ONLY, and not PER PLAYER.

146330 / 15 = 9755,33 matches.

Let's find out how many per hour.

9755,33 / 48 = 203,23

Okay, that's not a small number. Now, based on these numbers, the best case scenario for average people playing per hour is

203,23 * 24 = 4877.66

Naturally this number does not take into account the fact that players will usually not play just a single match. However, I should also point out that 15 point average per match is unrealistically high, and that an average is just an average. There are low population valleys and then high population peaks.

The best we can get from this is a very rough estimate of how much playing is being done, not how many players are playing... some play more than others.

Edited by Scratx, 18 October 2014 - 05:18 PM.


#7 Thorqemada

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 05:14 PM

In the Tournaments some weightclasses have more than 2000 Players - when you start late with a low score match you can see more realistic numbers about that and obviously only a fraction of the plyerbase "Opts In".

#8 Chemie

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 05:23 PM

Russ said only 900 earned the 10MM CB reward a few weeks back.

I suspect numbers are around 20,000 active players over a typical weekend.

#9 Belorion

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 05:29 PM

Assuming your awful math is even partially correct. You left out several factors. Time between drops (switching mechs, changing load outs etc.); the fact MM tries to match ELO... etc.

There are currently 207 members viewing the forums. I find it highly improbable that there are more people with accounts reading the forums than are playing the game.

Also there are currently 29 people on my friends list that are on (25% of the number you claim are playing at one time). Considering that I usually don't run into people on my friend list in random pug drops...

I have a feeling you are off by at least a factor of 20.

#10 Greenjulius

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 05:29 PM

I believe in a 24 hour period we hit 110-130k. We will top out at 330-390k. Short of 450k sadly.

Edited by Greenjulius, 18 October 2014 - 05:30 PM.


#11 Koda Shy

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 05:32 PM

that's the 900 that could win as well, I played my butt off and could only get 2 matches that were victories that I scored enough,





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