Enough is enough

[Arcon]

What evidence is there to support the idea that Abyssea was bad for the game?

You mentioned it, declining player numbers. I will reiterate again, that evidence is not proof. I feel that point slipped through my last post unnoticed, so I'll try to be more specific this time, and apologize in advance for the boring explanation. Evidence are facts that relate to the issue at hand, if they corroborate the hypothesis, then it's evidence for it, if they don't, then it's evidence against it. But either way, it's just an indication, and once it's been presented, it's up for interpretation. One interpretational argument against it would be the one you mentioned, that it's been the same way since the start (although mean people could ask you for evidence for that argument, but I'm not mean, so I won't). One interpretational argument for it would be that releasing expansions should always halt declining players at least for a while, whereas Abyssea did nothing to stop that. Evidence for that includes the fact that less than three months after the release of its third installment (less than one year after the first), the global numbers were down significantly and another server merge was announced. Now, again, that is up for interpretation. Would that have happened without Abyssea as well?

You get the idea, the evidence corroborating the hypothesis is there, whether it's correlated as well is up for debate. Yet, I can find no evidence for the contrary. Only personal reports of people, and those aren't facts. If the number of reports represented a significant majority, then it would be different (by that I mean of all the players), but only SE has the power to find that out, for example through another poll. Although at this point it would be hardly relevant, because it would be skewed towards people favoring Abyssea by default, as the people who were unpleased with it the most have quit already.

[Jaall]

You mentioned it, declining player numbers. I will reiterate again, that evidence is not proof. I feel that point slipped through my last post unnoticed, so I'll try to be more specific this time, and apologize in advance for the boring explanation. Evidence are facts that relate to the issue at hand, if they corroborate the hypothesis, then it's evidence for it, if they don't, then it's evidence against it. But either way, it's just an indication, and once it's been presented, it's up for interpretation. One interpretational argument against it would be the one you mentioned, that it's been the same way since the start (although mean people could ask you for evidence for that argument, but I'm not mean, so I won't). One interpretational argument for it would be that releasing expansions should always halt declining players at least for a while, whereas Abyssea did nothing to stop that. Evidence for that includes the fact that less than three months after the release of its third installment (less than one year after the first), the global numbers were down significantly and another server merge was announced. Now, again, that is up for interpretation. Would that have happened without Abyssea as well?

You get the idea, the evidence corroborating the hypothesis is there, whether it's correlated as well is up for debate. Yet, I can find no evidence for the contrary. Only personal reports of people, and those aren't facts. If the number of reports represented a significant majority, then it would be different (by that I mean of all the players), but only SE has the power to find that out, for example through another poll. Although at this point it would be hardly relevant, because it would be skewed towards people favoring Abyssea by default, as the people who were unpleased with it the most have quit already.

Um... wtf are you on about? I'm not quite sure who you're arguing against but the facts are these.... People are quitting, nobody knows why because SE haven't done a survey nor ask for one when you decide to leave. Abyssea is an expansion that changed how the game works. Due to the existence of a little thing called assumption, people assume that because Abyssea changed the game a lot, that's the cause for people leaving when in reality it could be an entirely different reason and most likely is. Also this post was about devs not listening.... since when did that involve Abyssea and since when did it become yet another Abyssea blaming session?

[Arcon]

Um... wtf are you on about? I'm not quite sure who you're arguing against [..]

Not you .

[Jaall]

I know it wasn't me I just don't see the point of arguing that with anyone.

[Yinnyth]

You mentioned it, declining player numbers.

What can and cannot be considered evidence is apparantly a hotly contested issue, and this seems to be one such case. I disagree that declining player numbers is evidence of Abyssea being bad for the game. Player numbers have been in decline for a long while now, regardless of hundreds of changes to the game. Unless you can somehow link the two together (such as providing numbers showing that the decline in population increased shortly after Abyssea), then this is not evidence, it's coincidence.

If a scientist wants to prove that McDonald's has led to a sizable population increase, he would be laughed at if his only piece of "evidence" was the total human population before and after McDonald's.

[Jaall]

If a scientist wants to prove that McDonald's has led to a sizable population increase, he would be laughed at if his only piece of "evidence" was the total human population before and after McDonald's.

Genuinely made me lol! You're spot on though, there's not enough evidence other than the population before and after Abyssea so it's merely coincidence and definitely not consequence. Just a shame people still blame anything and everything if its an easy target. Why don't people just accept that the populations declining, it's been slowly decreasing for years and isn't going to die anytime soon so stop worrying and stop blaming everything you can. Abyssea might be related to a number of people quitting but my speculation shows that actually most of the reason is other commitments or other games like I mentioned before and actually the few people who quit due to Abyssea were mainly just pushed over the edge by it and would have quit anyway.

[FrankReynolds]

If a scientist wants to prove that McDonald's has led to a sizable population increase, he would be laughed at if his only piece of "evidence" was the total human population before and after McDonald's.

Hah! I was going to make the same analogy.

On a side note, I was about to quit before abyssea came out, so I blame Abyssea for my continued antisocial behavior.

[Alhanelem]

I have to agree with the notion that killing 10000 colibri to level up/merit really isn't any different from what goes on in abyssea- the only real difference I see is that with the colibri, if you weren't a BRD or one of a few other jobs, you basically didn't get EXP at all. At least in abyssea, everyone can level up.

[Arcon]

Unless you can somehow link the two together (such as providing numbers showing that the decline in population increased shortly after Abyssea), then this is not evidence, it's coincidence.

If I could, I would have done so in the beginning. If I could, I also wouldn't have said that I couldn't. If I wanted to actually make that argument, I would have. The reason I haven't (and I'm not sure why you think that I did) is precisely because I lack that information. Also, evidence can be coincidence. That's decided after it is presented and does not stop it being evidence, it only makes that evidence irrelevant. That is decided after it was interpreted and discussed. But don't worry, I will not explain what evidence is again. If you didn't get it after three explanations, I doubt you'll get it after a fourth, even if it might stop you from making bad analogies.

I believe Abyssea was bad for the game, for a list of reasons, and not all of them were bad for me. I cannot prove any of them, which is why I didn't pretend to do so, although I have good arguments for all of them, but this is not the place to discuss it. If you wanna open a new Abyssea discussion thread, I'll be happy to present them.

If a scientist wants to prove that McDonald's has led to a sizable population increase, he would be laughed at if his only piece of "evidence" was the total human population before and after McDonald's.

By people like you, I'm sure. Other scientist would scoff at you for not listening to that guy's arguments, such as cities being merged shortly after a McDonald's restaurant opened in them, or the fact that fatty and unhealthy food becoming immensely popular should slow down the population growth, not accelerate it.

[Jaall]

(and I'm not sure why you think that I did)

Because you were trying so hard to argue every point he made using pointless definitions and dead end points. There would be absolutely no hard evidence with the McDonald example and even scientists would laugh at that because it is merely coincidence. If one mad scientist wanted to go and further prove that theory I'm sure the others would allow that but they would still think it's stupid. You're trying to win an argument when there is literally no real way you can because the facts are facts and all you have left is to define silly things and say "if" a lot, also you seem to have an undying hatred for Abyssea. If I may I'd like to suggest moving on, Abyssea is implemented, you can't turn back time. Most you can do is accept it and tbh the majority do accept it and the majority like it. You're fighting a losing battle here in a thread that has nothing to do with Abyssea anyway.