The state of the game...
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/351723460893999105/663480867489972236/a3a01ba.jpg december 2019 was the 2nd most profitable month in the last 3 years (maybe ever). Work your magic fellow foru...
Forum Discussion
@ScummerAntilles
Look, idiography is valid, and you can publish papers based on it, but you can't validly generalize from an idiographic subject (individual or group) to a larger population.
That's why you work hand in hand with the people who study demographics of the entire population to which you would like to generalize. You compare your cohort to the larger population and look at where your demographic variables differ from that of the total pop. then you crunch the numbers and analyze how your cumulative or average measurements would change if your cohort's demographics matched the general population. Only then can you truly, validly generalize.
I'm not doubting your ability to practice careful or systematic observation, but without weighting the cohort to match the population (or at the very, very least randomly sampling - which going only by your guild membership does not do) your conclusions are on quite shaky ground.
You **might** be right about the population at large. But it's also true that you might be wrong about the pop at large. It could be that there are more new players than ever and a larger percentage of new players are spending money than ever. It might be that these games have fairly natural lifespans where after two or three years people just start drifting away and looking for something new even if the game is good and healthy. In that case, your cohort might have actually lasted a bit longer than normal (which could be easily explained by your excellent efforts to run a good and helpful guild that therefore improves player experience) before hitting a wall in the last 6 months.
Now, I personally am having less fun in the game. I'm also playing more casually. I don't see how I can maintain my old level of play and still progress meaningfully quickly towards competence in LS Geo TB, and that's discouraging. But I can't play the Sith raid every time, and even if you play, the rewards of g12 salvage are woefully insufficient unless you're in the top 3, which requires not just active play but luck. I can finish first in HSTR (and have) but there are at least 2 people I can't outscore, and so if they are available and actively playing the raid for a max score, the best I can finish is 3rd, and I'm usually down around 5th.
All that means that my g12 toons can't progress to g13 with reasonable speed. It's discouraging. It's frustrating. It's not fun. So I get it. But I'm not an average player. I'm at 5M gp and with the exception of a single, continuous, 5-6 month break, I've been playing almost since the game started. It's now 3 years without a break for me, and with progress slowing I don't really know if I'll still be playing in another 6 months. Maybe, but maybe not. The failure to progress in new and interesting ways is making things a lot less fun.
But if I were only a year into the game? With so much content to look forward to trying? I might be having a lot MORE fun than actual-me had when starting this game 4 years ago.
In short, it's only a bout of hubris that would allow me to think that my experience was average. It's normal, in the sense that others are having it and I'm not a freak for experiencing this. But it's not average.
So, sure, tell us your observations. Write up an article about your guild experience if you want. I'm sure you can get it through peer review.
But let's not pretend that we know your experience generalizes across the game until we have some other studies with some other methodologies that support that conclusion.
Look, idiography is valid, and you can publish papers based on it, but you can't validly generalize from an idiographic subject (individual or group) to a larger population.
That's why you work hand in hand with the people who study demographics of the entire population to which you would like to generalize. You compare your cohort to the larger population and look at where your demographic variables differ from that of the total pop. then you crunch the numbers and analyze how your cumulative or average measurements would change if your cohort's demographics matched the general population. Only then can you truly, validly generalize.
I'm not doubting your ability to practice careful or systematic observation, but without weighting the cohort to match the population (or at the very, very least randomly sampling - which going only by your guild membership does not do) your conclusions are on quite shaky ground.
You **might** be right about the population at large. But it's also true that you might be wrong about the pop at large. It could be that there are more new players than ever and a larger percentage of new players are spending money than ever. It might be that these games have fairly natural lifespans where after two or three years people just start drifting away and looking for something new even if the game is good and healthy. In that case, your cohort might have actually lasted a bit longer than normal (which could be easily explained by your excellent efforts to run a good and helpful guild that therefore improves player experience) before hitting a wall in the last 6 months.
Now, I personally am having less fun in the game. I'm also playing more casually. I don't see how I can maintain my old level of play and still progress meaningfully quickly towards competence in LS Geo TB, and that's discouraging. But I can't play the Sith raid every time, and even if you play, the rewards of g12 salvage are woefully insufficient unless you're in the top 3, which requires not just active play but luck. I can finish first in HSTR (and have) but there are at least 2 people I can't outscore, and so if they are available and actively playing the raid for a max score, the best I can finish is 3rd, and I'm usually down around 5th.
All that means that my g12 toons can't progress to g13 with reasonable speed. It's discouraging. It's frustrating. It's not fun. So I get it. But I'm not an average player. I'm at 5M gp and with the exception of a single, continuous, 5-6 month break, I've been playing almost since the game started. It's now 3 years without a break for me, and with progress slowing I don't really know if I'll still be playing in another 6 months. Maybe, but maybe not. The failure to progress in new and interesting ways is making things a lot less fun.
But if I were only a year into the game? With so much content to look forward to trying? I might be having a lot MORE fun than actual-me had when starting this game 4 years ago.
In short, it's only a bout of hubris that would allow me to think that my experience was average. It's normal, in the sense that others are having it and I'm not a freak for experiencing this. But it's not average.
So, sure, tell us your observations. Write up an article about your guild experience if you want. I'm sure you can get it through peer review.
But let's not pretend that we know your experience generalizes across the game until we have some other studies with some other methodologies that support that conclusion.
