A heap of stats

[Dundee]

See Rule #4

[Brooke]

I just think there was way less competition.  No warthunder, world of tanks/planes/ships, Il2's

I don't think that's it.

Warthunder and World of Warplanes started 5 years after 2007.

What was causing the upward trend of 2000-2007?

The demise of Air Warrior might have added players to AH.  Air Warrior ended in December, 2001.  But there was already a strong uptrend in AH from 2000 to 2001.  Also, it would seem odd that a game that ended in 2001 would still be adding more players each year all the way out to 2007 to AH.

Just that Aces High was new?  I don't think it was that.  There were Air Warrior, Warbirds, and Fighter Ace, and even Il-2 Sturmovik, so the genre was not brand new and not without competition.

What changed in 2007-2008?

There was an economic crash.  But there was an economic crash in 2000 as well.

There was one dynamic in 2000-2007, and a switch flipped giving another dynamic in 2008+.  But what was that switch precisely in 2007/2008, and what was the driving dynamic 2000-2007?

[Vraciu]

4th chart down is the concerning one.   

Alarming even.

[The Fugitive]

What was causing the upward trend of 2000-2007?

The movie "Pearl Harbor" came out in 2001 

[Wiley]

The movie "Pearl Harbor" came out in 2001 

"Norbit" came out in 2007. 

Wiley.

[wil3ur]

I used to see advertisements on TV fairly regularly during that time. I can't remember the last time I saw an ad during a show about flight or WWII.  Also, starting with AH2 you needed an actual gaming system to play and it took me a couple years to save up for a gaming rig.  8v8 FTP arenas also went away during that time and the megahorde megasquad in missions were at their peak which killed a lot of the good old fashioned furballs and mass bomber missions in favor of 50 p38s at 20k augering in flatening bases because it's easier than actual combat.  It's what caused me to go solo in favor of finding my own fights and ways to grief the griefers. 


My observation anyways

[Lusche]

Can you do a similar chart for airplanes?

Seems the t34 85 should be perked more..

I was about to do one, but stopped halway through it. The planes at the top would be the very same already shown in "Top A2A killers", and the 'dominance' shown would not be anywhere as great as the one of the T34/85.

[Lusche]

and a switch flipped giving another dynamic in 2008+.  But what was that switch precisely in 2007/2008

I think there was no specific, singular switch that was flipped but a combination of a lot of issues.

[AAIK]

You dont need all those statistics to see the drop, just look at the bottom of the forum:

"Most Online Ever: 351 (April 02, 2008, 09:09:15 PM) ". <--- This was the moment before a whole heap of credit cards failed to charge (HT mentioned that once).

It was near the moment the economy exploded. That crash was much worse then the tech bubble of 01 because it was based around housing which effects practically everyone, even to this day.

[Lusche]

This is basically the same chart I posted in that other thread a few days ago. Scope was increased back to tour 12 (2001) and instead of hour played per capture it's now captures/hour for easier viewing:




And an updated chart about base capture modes:

[Skuzzy]

You dont need all those statistics to see the drop, just look at the bottom of the forum:

"Most Online Ever: 351 (April 02, 2008, 09:09:15 PM) ". <--- This was the moment before a whole heap of credit cards failed to charge (HT mentioned that once).

<snip>

Actually, that number was bogus due to spammers.  It took a long while to get that under control.

[AAIK]

You sure skuzzy? It works out about to around 7 times as many forum users concurrently. If we carry it over to the game, the number fits a well (to that timeline).

[Lusche]

You sure skuzzy? It works out about to around 7 times as many forum users concurrently. If we carry it over to the game, the number fits a well (to that timeline).

You can't use "most online" for that, as this represents a momentary peak in uses which can come from various reasons. Forum outrages because the game servers went down for an hour... the resulting peak in users online would (for example) very much depend on which time of the day this is happening.

And even equating things like posts per moth (or similar) with ingame activity is a dubious thing, because it will not take into account cultural changes - players may just been less interested in registering on a game forum these days.

Fortunately, ingame activities & number can be tracked easily without having to rely on the forum oracle 

[Skuzzy]

You sure skuzzy? It works out about to around 7 times as many forum users concurrently. If we carry it over to the game, the number fits a well (to that timeline).

Yes, as I was the one fighting them, I am very sure of where that came from.

Those peak numbers do not mean much of anything as they include guest, bots, and just about any attempt to open anything in SMF, even if it does not exist.

[Mister Fork]

Yes, as I was the one fighting them, I am very sure of where that came from.

Those peak numbers do not mean much of anything as they include guest, bots, and just about any attempt to open anything in SMF, even if it does not exist.

As a moderator of another forum, I can attest that spambots and paid spammers for a while were inundating and overwhelming standard defences for a bit.  Then we started using blacklists and whitelists and eventually an anti-spam service that bolted into the SMF software and the volume of spam we had to deal with went close to zero per month. We then put in other rules that made it very dissuading for the paid spammers to even bother by putting lists...but still...FML...it was a pain for a while.

That said, the stats are a little disconcerting with the slow and gradual drop... again, back to my point that maybe Aces High needs to add Aces Deep to the engine? Talk about a untapped market for MMO naval simulators...