Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Kosmos992k]

No retraction will be issued.

That's your privillege, I found it to be a fairly rude and insulting characterization of a long established poster on this forum. Your inability to muster a retraction speaks volumes.

[Enkidoh]

stuff

Firstly, I know I said I was bowing out of this thread, but I just want to make it clear that I am sorry if it seemed I was personally attacking anyone here on this forum (which was not my intent - I try to post on this forum by the simple ideal of 'attack the arguement, not the poster', but sometimes sadly that goes astray), my point was to question the validity of a player-created poll that was evidently only based on data from the Lodestone. My comment about being possibly hacking of course is now clearly not true so I am sorry for that insinuation and redact that (I completely forgot SE themselves allow direct linking of Lodestone data to be displayed on third party sites). However, my point still stands that this poll is not necessarily unbiased given the fact it is unofficial - as demonstrated by the comments of several posters on this forum there is clearly an ugly undercurrent at work that 'reads' certain numbers to grind an axe about the success of this game or not.

Of course it could then be argued that SE's own official censi are not necessarily unbiased either, as they too have an agenda to promote the game in a more positive light, but as the official census is taken directly from raw server data rather than player profiles on the Lodestone, it's clear where the accuracy would be.

As I mentioned before, each player of this game is different and has different goals in this game. One person might be obsessed with endgame and speedruns everything to get world-first clears with their FC. Another person might just like minion collecting. Another person might only be interested in farming or crafting items and has not really proceeded that far in the actual storyline. Another person might just be interested in glamour and finding the perfect outfit for their character. Each of these player archetypes and countless more are equally important to SE and equally important as statistics.

But the arguement being made by several people in this thread that is apparently derived from the numbers of this poll, suggests that is not the case, that it's all 'endgame or GTFO'. Hell, one person all but shouted that, that unless you're doing endgame you're not important to SE. I'm sorry, but how could I not be infuriated at this comment? (I know a cooler head should have prevailed here and that I should have just turned the other cheek, but I have a head cold at the moment and I'm finding myself more irritable than I usually am).

Anyway, again I am sorry for coming across as somewhat harsh in my earlier comments, but my point still stands. This game is not failing, despite whatever numbers players pull out of thin air to refute SE's numbers. It seems that some people here just want to see this game fail for whatever reason. Which saddens me gladly.

P.S. Thank you Kosmos for taking my side and standing up for me. My faith in this forum community is restored.

[Yurimi]

Wait, back up - because not everyone finished the 3.3 story the game is automatically 'dead'? You do realize not everyone has the expansion installed? Not to mention there has been a significant amount of new players entering the game who are nowhere even near the start of 3.0 let alone 3.3. Enough with the doomsaying already - it wore thin back when people were saying the game "was dead" even during launch when servers were overloaded with too many players trying to login, and now it just seems a worn out and tired argument.

Hells, where did this 'unofficial' census get it's information from? Not server info that's for sure save of taking info from the Lodestone which is usually inaccurate anyway due to how slowly it updates. A little reality is needed here.

EDIT: and it seems I have my answer:



You do realize that is totally inaccurate given the fact players can hide their achievements on the Lodestone from anyone but themselves? So if this 'census' can take that information even when it's locked for viewing shows that this is virtually hacking and thus is a violation of the ToS. And minions? Not everyone bothers actually using the minion items believe it or not (many players find them annoying), so again this is NOT a good way of getting an accurate snapshot of the game.

Maybe I'm just overthinking this though.

To be a bit more thorough on the way that the person gathers the info (if it is the same person who has done the last few and using the same method) it is done by scraping the lodestone with 2 passes.

Active is determined to be any CHARACTER (as it is impossible to determine account association at this time) above level 10 that has had any change at all to their lodestone profile between the previous unofficial census and either of the 2 passes through the PUBLICLY available lodestone data. This includes any new minions , mounts, a change of job, any gain of levels, any new achievments, or even a single change in gear. So in order to be listed as inactive you need to have not done anything at all since April (the last time they did this) making it a fairly accuracte gauge for the number of active characters. Keep in mind that this means that if someone were to have multiple characters that they are active on this would count as more than 1 therefor the active subs are less than the total of active characters (though I would say probably less than 10% of people have played actively on 2+ chracters so it should be within negligible amounts)

[AerisVII]

The majority of players I know that raid have an alt to run the raid twice. So I believe that the real number of people that cleared Midas savage is far less than those numbers.

[Ksenia]

The majority of players I know that raid have an alt to run the raid twice. So I believe that the real number of people that cleared Midas savage is far less than those numbers.

And myself and I am sure several others flagged this not only in time gated dungeons but with red script crafting and gathering. Are they going to gate content on the premise we all have 3 to 8 fully capped characters?

Atm I am pondering if it is really worth it to do this. On one hand I already have a lvl 60 alt stashed on Balmung that would be easily geared up, on the other one I am not sure I want to spend additional time and money on something I consider a design flaw - there are way too many timegates and lockouts

Yep and they don't resolve anything. The game is destined to implode at each expansion number patch.

[Vantol]

Wait, back up - because not everyone finished the 3.3 story the game is automatically 'dead'? You do realize not everyone has the expansion installed?

We are 1 year into expansion. If someone has it not bought/installed, this person brings no value to community -> his existance is irrelevant -> he can't be called "active player". Finishing story at least in 1 week of release is bare minimum to call someone "active". I would say capping tomestones each week until you get full set of patch gear is also requiered to be called active player. But this data is hard to track, so whatever.

Lodestone which is usually inaccurate anyway due to how slowly it updates

It updates info in a few hours, sometimes even less.

[Daemius]

blah blah gotta be in endgame to be active blah blah

Anyone paying a sub and doing so just to play LoV or hanging out in the GS playing minigames exclusively is still an active player. You don't have to be current on "endgame" content. That's the point of all the fluff content, if you don't want to raid you can do a million other things and still be considered part of the game. The game gets a lot more enjoyable when you realize that being on the bleeding edge of difficult content isn't necessary. I'm really enjoying just leveling all the jobs right now and seeing their stories

[Reinha]

We are 1 year into expansion. If someone has it not bought/installed, this person brings no value to community -> his existance is irrelevant -> he can't be called "active player". Finishing story at least in 1 week of release is bare minimum to call someone "active". I would say capping tomestones each week until you get full set of patch gear is also requiered to be called active player. But this data is hard to track, so whatever.

Two people leveling alt jobs, collecting glamour and doing GS stuff together are very much relevant to each other and actively using their subscription time. Amazing how the game doesn't revolve around you, your friends and your interests. The reason why all the people you know are end gamers is because you consider everyone else irrelevant and nonexistent. Birds of feather flock together, but not every bird is a jackdaw.

This information isn't official but its nice to look at it.

Ty for posting this. The numbers match what I thought of the state of the game. There is a drop in active characters now that we are nearing the end of an expansion. The numbers will probably shoot up before the next expansion like they usually do for MMOs. Still quite healthy numbers and nowhere near the death of this game.

[auren_23]

Not true, i haven't finished 3.3 story and i play every single day, i just like to take my time and do other stuff, not just rush though the story, hells I got to lvl 60 on my Paladin just by doing old Zeta weapon without touching a Heavensward area. Point being people play differently and like different things out of the game