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.
Misinformation is dangerous. Do you have a source for your comments? I can most definitely refute it had anything to do with bandwidth...
We removed the online counter for the same reason we don't release exact registration numbers, it's viewed as a business metric
for now.
I know it's lame, but it's a double edge sword. Releasing the information is generally viewed one of two ways, positive or negative. Chances are we (PGI/IGP) view the numbers differently than you (players), because we understand better where the numbers should be, and why they are what they are. We can look at other indicators, like matches played, unique logins, MC sales, etc etc, and see positive trends where others would assume negative trends.
A good example is there was a massive spike of online players when we went OB followed by a quick drop and return to normal levels. We see this all the time when content is released. The trend however, is still one of steady average growth.
Looks something like this:
For those curious we had a record day on December 18th and continue to build week-over-week.