On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 jhenders@... wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 24/00, RaceFace <bean@...> wrote:
> >
> > There was a poll on Everlore, I believe, and only 6% of the player base has
> > a character between 45-50. Some attention has to be given to high level
> > folks, but if that poll is accurate, they make up such a small portion of
> > the population that they shouldn't get ALL the attention.
>
> Brad has already stated publicly that the majority of their customers
> have mid level characters. He stated this when Paw was upgraded so you
> can take his "mid level" as someone suitable to play Paw. As Brad has
> direct access to the customer database, I think this provides a perfect
> example of the uselessness of web polls. The only thing that poll tells
> you is that 6% of the people who go to everlore and bothered to take the
> poll (and only voted once) have a 45+ character. I hope you can
> understand the difference.

Bear in mind that what you as a player see in the game is
going to be inaccurate too. When you take a random sample of
players you see in the game, there are two biases:

1. Your level. If you're high level, you're spending more
time in high level zones, and thus see mostly high level
people. If you're low level, you're spending more time in low
level zones, and thus see mostly low level people.

2. High level. How do you get to high level? By spending
lots of time playing the game. So whereas ten L20 players
might play a cumulative 40 hours a week, a single L50 player
might play 40 hours a week. The result is that you see this
L50 player online as often as you see the ten L20 players.
Or put another way, your perception is that there are as many
L50 players as there are L20 players - for every single L20
player you see, there is a L50 player online - when in fact
there are really 10 times as many L20 players.

I really don't think there are that many high level players
(L45+) in the game. They just have a greater presence because
they put more hours into the game. If we were paying for the
game by the hour, then they'd have clout proportional to their
playtime. But we're all paying a flat fee. I really hope
Verant knows what side their bread is buttered on. (And FWIW,
my main character is L45.)

--
John H. Kim
kim@...