Post by mehtastic on Jan 8, 2020 17:52:58 GMT -5
Introduction
This is a continuation of my previous thread on weekly update trends. That thread covered login and new account data and the general motivations behind this project. Read it here:
Weekly Update Trends (2014 - 2019) Part 1: Player Numbers
This thread will cover character applications. Given that there are fewer conclusions to draw from this part of the data, the thread will probably be shorter in comparison to the first one. Still, I appreciate anyone who reads it and gives feedback on it in good faith.
Definitions
Though it may be obvious, we should still go into what we're analyzing exactly.
On the left-hand side, we have the summary of the number of character applications approved or rejected on a given week. Those numbers are summed up to come up with the total. On the right-hand side, there is a table of staff and how many applications they reviewed. A reviewed application is an application that is either approved or denied.
Other relevant definitions (such as the week/year format we're using to track data over time and other things you might see on charts) were explained in Part 1, so let's move forward.
Application Data
Despite one massive spike in particular, the total number of character applications processed per week appears to be on a downward trend. But because there are so many highs and lows, it's really hard to justify any particular trendline. I used the simplest trendline there is (a linear trend) and decided to look at averages per year to see if there was a broader yearly trend.
Averages seem pretty stable up until 2017, where applications take a steep drop. My guess is that it's related to the similar drop we noticed in the new player account averages per year in the first part of this series.
The accumulated total number of applications is 18,001 over six years. While the amount of applications submitted per year is dropping from around 3500 in 2014 to around 2000 in 2019, you can see that the trend is likely to result in thousands of applications being submitted in 2020.
This chart just splits the previous chart between approved and rejected applications. 13,291 applications were accepted over the past six years and 4,710 applications were rejected. Considering that there's no sign of applications stopping, there's also no sign of character approvals and rejections stopping. The overall trend for rejections is likely closer to leveling off because there are fewer new players joining the game, and thus the applications being presented to staff are of higher quality (and thus more likely to be approved) overall.
The percentage of approved applications compared to the total amount of submitted applications seems to be slightly on the rise, which also makes sense considering what we know about the decrease in new player numbers. As previously mentioned, it's likely that most of the applications being submitted are from players who know what an acceptable application looks like. That said, there are significant enough dips here and there that suggest a decent number of applications are still being rejected.
Workload-Related Trends
Another aspect of character applications I looked at was the overall workload staff members took on. There were 64 staff members on staff at some point between the start of 2014 and the end of 2019. Here is a chart showing how many applications each staff member processed:
I noticed that many staff members that we now consider long gone have still done more in total than current staff members - even those who were around for a relatively short amount of time, like Nergal and Cayuga, had done more than staff members who had been around longer. So I decided to look at average counts per week the staff member resolved character applications:
Many of the top application-processors on average are former staff. This suggests to me that a few staff members are primarily responsible for applications at any given time, but staff workload has been more evenly distributed over time as far as character applications go. As far as I know, this is not coordinated - it's probably just that staff who see the applications first process them first, just like it's always been. Still, there is quite a clear-cut difference in the amount of workload staff are taking on here. Considering that all character applications take about the same amount of effort to process, this is one of the better ways of measuring how evenly or unevenly staff workload is distributed. Staff members that have both a high average of resolved applications per week and a high total probably were more active staff members than staff members who meet only one or none of those criteria. Cayuga, Rahnevyn, Shalooonsh, Nergal, and Fehu are in the top 10 staff members in both charts, and only two of these (Shaloooonsh and Fehu) are current staff members. I have heard from both current and former staff members that workload is distributed pretty unevenly, so this is not surprising to see. As for what this tells us about the future, it really depends on how long the current staff stick around and continue approving character applications.
Conclusions
The fact that average applications per year took a nosedive over the past few years surprised me. It wasn't something I expected. I assume the combination of fewer new players and a larger portion of current players being veterans results in more long-lived characters, and thus fewer character applications. But it's hard to see whether that particular trend will continue or level off. The data from Part 1 shows there are some clear connections between the drop in average new accounts per year and the drop in average character applications per year, so I'm guessing that is the primary factor in the aforementioned nosedive.
I'm also concerned, but not surprised, by uneven staff workload on character applications. If just a few staff members are responsible for approving characters, their stylistic standards (or lack thereof) will primarily be the standard which new characters are compared to. Additionally, staff burnout is a real thing, as evidenced by the fact that many of the high-productivity staff have left the team.
The sheer fact that there were 64 different staff members over 6 years surprised me as well. It made me think about how many of these staff have left the game permanently, considering there are now 14 staff members (not counting builders), and how this might have affected my findings in Part 1 with respect to weekly logins.
I think it's safe to expect more noticeably long-lived characters in 2020 as well as fewer characters played by genuinely new players. Whether that's good or bad is for you to decide.
The next part (in a few days) will look at requests. I'm interested to see what conclusions we can draw about staff workload with respect to requests. I realize this part was not particularly exciting, but I think the data is useful to see in a graphical format.
This is a continuation of my previous thread on weekly update trends. That thread covered login and new account data and the general motivations behind this project. Read it here:
Weekly Update Trends (2014 - 2019) Part 1: Player Numbers
This thread will cover character applications. Given that there are fewer conclusions to draw from this part of the data, the thread will probably be shorter in comparison to the first one. Still, I appreciate anyone who reads it and gives feedback on it in good faith.
Definitions
Though it may be obvious, we should still go into what we're analyzing exactly.
On the left-hand side, we have the summary of the number of character applications approved or rejected on a given week. Those numbers are summed up to come up with the total. On the right-hand side, there is a table of staff and how many applications they reviewed. A reviewed application is an application that is either approved or denied.
Other relevant definitions (such as the week/year format we're using to track data over time and other things you might see on charts) were explained in Part 1, so let's move forward.
Application Data
Despite one massive spike in particular, the total number of character applications processed per week appears to be on a downward trend. But because there are so many highs and lows, it's really hard to justify any particular trendline. I used the simplest trendline there is (a linear trend) and decided to look at averages per year to see if there was a broader yearly trend.
Averages seem pretty stable up until 2017, where applications take a steep drop. My guess is that it's related to the similar drop we noticed in the new player account averages per year in the first part of this series.
The accumulated total number of applications is 18,001 over six years. While the amount of applications submitted per year is dropping from around 3500 in 2014 to around 2000 in 2019, you can see that the trend is likely to result in thousands of applications being submitted in 2020.
This chart just splits the previous chart between approved and rejected applications. 13,291 applications were accepted over the past six years and 4,710 applications were rejected. Considering that there's no sign of applications stopping, there's also no sign of character approvals and rejections stopping. The overall trend for rejections is likely closer to leveling off because there are fewer new players joining the game, and thus the applications being presented to staff are of higher quality (and thus more likely to be approved) overall.
The percentage of approved applications compared to the total amount of submitted applications seems to be slightly on the rise, which also makes sense considering what we know about the decrease in new player numbers. As previously mentioned, it's likely that most of the applications being submitted are from players who know what an acceptable application looks like. That said, there are significant enough dips here and there that suggest a decent number of applications are still being rejected.
Workload-Related Trends
Another aspect of character applications I looked at was the overall workload staff members took on. There were 64 staff members on staff at some point between the start of 2014 and the end of 2019. Here is a chart showing how many applications each staff member processed:
I noticed that many staff members that we now consider long gone have still done more in total than current staff members - even those who were around for a relatively short amount of time, like Nergal and Cayuga, had done more than staff members who had been around longer. So I decided to look at average counts per week the staff member resolved character applications:
Many of the top application-processors on average are former staff. This suggests to me that a few staff members are primarily responsible for applications at any given time, but staff workload has been more evenly distributed over time as far as character applications go. As far as I know, this is not coordinated - it's probably just that staff who see the applications first process them first, just like it's always been. Still, there is quite a clear-cut difference in the amount of workload staff are taking on here. Considering that all character applications take about the same amount of effort to process, this is one of the better ways of measuring how evenly or unevenly staff workload is distributed. Staff members that have both a high average of resolved applications per week and a high total probably were more active staff members than staff members who meet only one or none of those criteria. Cayuga, Rahnevyn, Shalooonsh, Nergal, and Fehu are in the top 10 staff members in both charts, and only two of these (Shaloooonsh and Fehu) are current staff members. I have heard from both current and former staff members that workload is distributed pretty unevenly, so this is not surprising to see. As for what this tells us about the future, it really depends on how long the current staff stick around and continue approving character applications.
Conclusions
The fact that average applications per year took a nosedive over the past few years surprised me. It wasn't something I expected. I assume the combination of fewer new players and a larger portion of current players being veterans results in more long-lived characters, and thus fewer character applications. But it's hard to see whether that particular trend will continue or level off. The data from Part 1 shows there are some clear connections between the drop in average new accounts per year and the drop in average character applications per year, so I'm guessing that is the primary factor in the aforementioned nosedive.
I'm also concerned, but not surprised, by uneven staff workload on character applications. If just a few staff members are responsible for approving characters, their stylistic standards (or lack thereof) will primarily be the standard which new characters are compared to. Additionally, staff burnout is a real thing, as evidenced by the fact that many of the high-productivity staff have left the team.
The sheer fact that there were 64 different staff members over 6 years surprised me as well. It made me think about how many of these staff have left the game permanently, considering there are now 14 staff members (not counting builders), and how this might have affected my findings in Part 1 with respect to weekly logins.
I think it's safe to expect more noticeably long-lived characters in 2020 as well as fewer characters played by genuinely new players. Whether that's good or bad is for you to decide.
The next part (in a few days) will look at requests. I'm interested to see what conclusions we can draw about staff workload with respect to requests. I realize this part was not particularly exciting, but I think the data is useful to see in a graphical format.
