115 replies to this topic

[Moogles]

They won't bring it back because the numbers are lower than they were in closed beta; which is quite frankly embarrassing.
Their excuse was that the tiny counter took up too much bandwidth or something.

[Teralitha]

Moogles, on 20 December 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

They won't bring it back because the numbers are lower than they were in closed beta; which is quite frankly embarrassing.
Their excuse was that the tiny counter took up too much bandwidth or something.

It would use up bandwidth when you consider all the active accounts it was displaying it for.

Would be easier if they just had one place for on the main website rather than on the client.

Edited by Teralitha, 20 December 2012 - 01:37 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Moogles, on 20 December 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

They won't bring it back because the numbers are lower than they were in closed beta; which is quite frankly embarrassing.
Their excuse was that the tiny counter took up too much bandwidth or something.

yup; if the number was high theyd be splashing it on the mercs home page

[xRaeder]

Moogles, on 20 December 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

They won't bring it back because the numbers are lower than they were in closed beta; which is quite frankly embarrassing.
Their excuse was that the tiny counter took up too much bandwidth or something.

Then display it on the website?

[Sifright]

Teralitha, on 20 December 2012 - 01:36 PM, said:

It would use up bandwidth when you consider all the active accounts it was displaying it for.

Would be easier if they just had one place for on the main website rather than on the client.

Frankly that excuse is a bag of bull.

for it to use up that much bandwidth it would have to be CONSTANTLY polling. Even assuming a 32 bit value being pumped out for the client to display it couldn't be more than 16 bytes of data with some addressing information maybe what 60 bytes?

Unless they were polling the DB every 10th of a second there is no way that would have been any more than half a percent of their entire bandwidth load.

If they implemented it in a smart way in the first place it would only update once a minute any way which would remove any bandwidth concerns.

If eve online can some how manage it I'm sure MWO should be able to.

The only reason to not have it is because their player numbers are tiny and they want to hide it.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

I"m not sure why you think we should be privy to those numbers? It's not like you can move to the "other server" when the queue is full.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

I support this. For better or worse, I'd like to know how many people are online and whether that counter is going up or down over time. They shouldn't hide this from us. Hiding a decline is just shameful and unnecessary. I like to think they did it for bandwidth, but the amount of bandwidth it'd take to update that list once after every match/login or once per minute is moot. You tell me, how much money in bandwidth are you saving every month by cutting the extra packets for this counter out? I'd like to know.

[Sifright]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 20 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

I"m not sure why you think we should be privy to those numbers? It's not like you can move to the "other server" when the queue is full.

Hahahaha,

yea that why eve online has a player counter right? So we can move to the 'other server'

[Khobai]

Dont need an online counter to tell that youre the only person still playing the game.

[Gregore]

I have to agree, I pug and regularly see the same people, not all in the same class as me either.
If there were thousands of people playing now, you would not run into the same people 25% of the time.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Sifright, on 20 December 2012 - 01:50 PM, said:

Hahahaha,

yea that why eve online has a player counter right? So we can move to the 'other server'

Almost every game has some kind of counter. For MMOs it's effective at making you pick a Low pop realm instead of a cluttered one that laggs all to hell or has queue timers. Warcraft 3 from 2001 even has a counter when you login.

[Gallowglas]

Moogles, on 20 December 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

They won't bring it back because the numbers are lower than they were in closed beta; which is quite frankly embarrassing.
Their excuse was that the tiny counter took up too much bandwidth or something.

No, they won't bring it back because people just use any number they see as anecdotal evidence that OMG THE END IS NIGH instead of the use for which it was originally intended. Some of the responses here are ample evidence of that. Blizzard did the same thing for the same reasons with WoW.

Edited by Gallowglas, 20 December 2012 - 01:53 PM.

[Thorn Hallis]

Why is it important for you to know how many people are online? Besides conspiracy theories?

[Quinton]

I agree, and using the excuse of it takes up bandwith is just insulting to anyone with half a brain. If they are going to lie to us they should at least come up with a good lie rather than some half-assed excuse you can tear through in a second. Or better yet, tell us the truth! If we are supposed to be BETATESTING should'nt we know all the ins and outs so we can properly test things???

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Khobai, on 20 December 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

Dont need an online counter to tell that youre the only person still playing the game.

Ya, the only person... except those 15 other people in every match that also change between matches.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Thorn Hallis, on 20 December 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

Why is it important for you to know how many people are online? Besides conspiracy theories?

You asked a question then immediately answered it. +1.

Edited by Bluten, 20 December 2012 - 01:55 PM.

[Sifright]

Gallowglas, on 20 December 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

No, they won't bring it back because people just use any number they see as anecdotal evidence that OMG THE END IS NIGH instead of the use for which it was originally intended. Some of the responses here are ample evidence of that. Blizzard did the same thing for the same reasons with WoW.

would that be because player numbers are dropping?

It's hard to go the "END IS NIGH" if player numbers are increasing.

i'm seeing a logical disconnect there.

[Thorn Hallis]

der langsamere, on 20 December 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

um the lack of such a counter would itself BE a reason to exclaim that omg already you do realize.

So by that logic the lack of a chat lobby means the game is played by analphabets only.

[Sifright]

but yea the real proof is that when I play 8man games it can take upto 6-7 attempts to get a game.

If the player numbers were healthy that wouldn't be happening given how the match making system at the moment is any eight vs any eight which should be instant matches.

[Gallowglas]

Sifright, on 20 December 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

It's hard to go the "END IS NIGH" if player numbers are increasing.

For rational people, perhaps. However, every single forum troll uses their anecdotal evidence that because there are 100 fewer people on one night versus another that it means the game is dying. It happens all the time in WoW. The moment any sort of numbers are reported, idiots come out of the woodwork to prophesize doom. Heck, people were doing it almost immediately after they showed up in MWO. I'm sure some would legitimately use it for simple matchmaking informational purposes, but my guess is that a whole lot would just use it for the purposes I describe.