I'm not the one claiming that any conclusion is based on any statistics. You and Anaiah are the ones making those claims. I'm challenging the claims and asking for proof that your data supports your conclusions. So far, I haven't seen you offer anything to prove that your data supports your conclusions.
I don't have to prove anything.
You make a claim, back it up. Not with statistics that don't explain the claim. You say Armageddon is failing to keep members, then show proof that the reason the members are leaving is due to Armageddon's failure, and not due to something else, or a combination of other things. I'm still not seeing that proof.
Well since you've continued invoking debate rules as if this is a debate, I've decided to behave as if this is a debate. You are now subject to the same rules you're pretending only apply to us. Also, unlike you and your collaborator/sock puppet, I learned debate formally, not from internet griefers. To cut down on redundancy I will write all of the logical fallacies you've committed in upper camel case (e.g. Words Look Like This). I also won't bother concealing my typing style for this post. I haven't done this on the GDB so there's nothing to compare it to.
You're welcome to correct your past behavior. We can then proceed in formal debate from that point on. There is a LOT of misbehavior, though. I'd apologize but it's your fault you did it.
If you instead continue to pretend the only people the rules apply to is everyone else, I'm just going to call you out on being a fraud with a sock puppet/collaborator, who keeps waffling and using double-standards to try to wear out people he disagrees with, because he lacks the wits to a factual argument with a factual counter argument. You will have proven this to be true:
You will have conceded this is not a debate by your refusal to conduct yourself as if you're in one.
There are dozens and dozens and dozens of people who signed up and never played at all, or played for a couple of hours and couldn't figure out how to auto-map and gave up, and kids whose moms caught them mudsexing and took their computer away, etc. etc.
Unsupported point. Also a Red Herring, as the reason for player loss is irrelevant to whether or not player loss is happening.
So, unless you have names and e-mail addresses and account names of every single person who has left Arm, and can tell us how long they were active members, and define "active" so we can understand your context, and then tell us how long ago they stopped playing, Anaiah, your data has no context and is therefore meaningless.
Unsupported point. You're also combining the Bandwagon Fallacy with Argument From Personal Incredulity. We neither need to provide you - nor a group who supposedly share your opinion - the additional data you've asked for to alleviate your doubts, in order for the data we have context or meaning. You've provided nothing to justify your doubts of the data outside of an implied high standard of accuracy, which is not proof the data is utterly useless.
You still haven't defined "veteran." Until you do that, and until you can check to make sure that your statement is true using that definition (by finding out WHO left, and whether or not they fit the criteria), your concluding statement has no merit and your numbers have no significance.
Equivocation. Even if the numbers do not support an argument about veteran retention, that does not mean there is no possible use for them.
I know they can have significance. But Anaiah made the claim that it is, specifically, veterans who are leaving.
Strawman Argument. Anaiah made two claims. One was that veterans were leaving and one that the claims of player retention were false or overstated. You have summarized her argument and left out one of the two claims. This is made worse by the fact the claim you left out was the one the data was significant to.
There've been several veterans who have actually /returned/ recently, who left awhile back. They won't be counted as "new accounts" because they're not new at all.
Unsupported point. This relies on the false presupposition that a veteran player will return to Arm under their old account instead of a new one. This is also possibly a lie, given that some people here who acknowledge they are vets also acknowledge registering new accounts and/or multies.
Bitter has already shown us that it suggests a gradual UPgrade curve. This is actually pretty significant, compared to the mudding world in general. The mud genre is fairly static, on a very gradual downgrade curve. Lots more muds, but not lots more players. The existing players are more spread out than they used to be. When the newer muds die, their players either revert to their previous muds, look for new ones, or stop mudding altogether. Arm actually attracts new players, albeit at a painfully low rate.
Every sentence except for the first and last one is an unsupported point.
Anaiah: I still think it's important to know what defines a "new player" before you can make a serious claim here.
Argument From Personal Incredulity. No explanation is given, outside of
Lizzie's feelings, for why no serious claim can be made. This also ignores the fact the unique logins count can be used without knowing what the "new player" count specifically includes.
Anaiah: I still think it's important to know what defines a "new player" before you can make a serious claim here. It definitely looks like people drop off over time, but it's not a particularly swift drop.
It's also important to know what defines a "veteran" for the same reason.
Argument From Personal Incredulity again. Other serious claims can be made without clarifying one word for that one claim.
And, judging by the posts from /actual/ veteran players posting on the GDB, it looks like some veterans are returning to the game, thus skewing the numbers of "new" accounts to "dead" accounts.
Unsupported point. It is also Equivocation. Participation on the GDB (which is the unsupported part) does not require logging into the MUD.
So we have no reason to believe the following regarding new accounts:
1) All listed new accounts are continuing on to create characters and play the actual game.
2) All listed new accounts who do the above continue to play and do not log into their character once, get bored and quit.
3) All listed new accounts belong to a legitimate new user - None of these are the dozen or so dummy accounts I, and others, have no doubt made over the past few years for various reasons.
4) All listed new accounts belong to a legitimate new user - They aren't accounts created because naruto1999 forgot his password before he finished character creation, and they aren't veterans looking for a fresh start.
Maybe you've never been involved in a discussion before, but when you make a claim it's on you to back up that claim.
Sweeping Generalization / Ad-Hoc Reasoning. The second post implies the previous post successfully disqualified ALL of the proof previously given. This was done using a standard invented on the spot that all of the data must be verified with for any of the data to be considered to have fit that standard.
Alternately, the second post was an unsupported point, while the first post was just Argument From Personal Incredulity followed by 4 numbered counts of Appeal To Probability. Reader's choice.
Why, again, should I take the information provided and believe that there is player attrition taking place?
Argument From Personal Incredulity. Possibly another Appeal To Probability. If the information provided was taken as factual, it demonstrates player attrition is occurring somewhere, because it is mathematically impossible to come to another conclusion from the mismatch between new accounts and accounts being used. Unless this was an Appeal To Probability, in which case the assumption would be that all 9794 inactive accounts were duplicate accounts of active players solely because it's possible.
Your data is only as good as its source. Just the manner in which it was collected could seriously skew the numbers one way or another.
Appeal To Probability. Just because it could happen is not proof it did happen. It is also worth pointing out that no evidence has been presented regarding the manner of data collection, therefor no conclusion could be made about skewing.
For all we know, Nyr is fudging the numbers and things are worse than they appear here. Hell, because he wants to get voting up they could even be
better.
Unsupported point. Possibly an Irrelevant Appeal in there too (Appeal To Spite, directed at Nyr).
my entire post, only 5 lines of which used a reductio ad absurdum comparison to his logic to demonstrate its faultiness
Thank you for providing us all with an astounding example of a strawman argument.
Hasty Generalization. Also an unsupported point.
June is 4 weeks and 2 days long, and this year it started on a Sunday. Arm data counts weeks from Sunday through Saturday, so the last week of June, technically, doesn't count. It's only 2 days long; the other 5 days are July.
Red Herring. When a "week" occurred is irrelevant to aggregating data into information showing 1) trends over years and the entire lifetime of the data, where the displacement of 2 days becomes statistically irrelevant or 2) estimates that are openly stated as not being totally accurate.
Also just because you can make an account without connecting to the MUD, doesn't mean you can have a character submitted and approved the same day. Or even the same week.
Red Herring. Irrelevant for the same reason as the previous one.
Someone who got a new account last Saturday, might not have had an approved character to play until this Tuesday. That's two different weeks, and two different sets of data being counted, on just one player's account.
Red Herring. Irrelevant for the same reason as the previous two.
The data is interesting but it really honestly and truly has very little actual meaning, beyond the parameters of the data itself.
Unsupported point.
100 people with new accounts and 150 players logged in means nothing more than 100 people with new accounts and 150 players logged in.
Sweeping Generalization and Red Herring. In regards to the former, just because the numbers can mean what you've said doesn't mean they always (or even frequently) mean what you said. In regards to the latter, given that this is a discussion of
shifts in player volume over time, it's completely irrelevant to try to bring up what
a single moment in time means by itself.
It doesn't mean anything else, because you don't know what goes into that data.
Unsupported point, which was attempted to be proved by a second unsupported point in lieu of evidence.
You say "the game has gained a net 77 players." You also use a negative to claim that the game is losing players. Either the game has gained players, or it hasn't. It can't be both, in a non-parallel universe.
False Dichotomy. A game can both gain players it doesn't currently have while simultaneously losing players it already has. In fact, if you define a "player" as anyone attempting to play a game, those are literally the only contexts a game can either gain or lose players under.
I am flat out saying that more than half the people who play currently did not play four years ago.
Unsupported point.
Point being: there are more players now than there were four years ago.
So here's where this gets interesting. Since you've repeatedly claimed the data @anaiah gathered and I compiled was meaningless, if you were correct, this would be an entirely unsupported point. If you were incorrect about our data being meaningless, this is merely unsupported because you've offered no evidence of Arm's population and claimed the only numbers that were presented were meaningless.
Clearly you have no skill in prob/stat.
Ad Hominem.
Your data doesn't prove anything.
Sweeping Generalization.
I don't have to prove you wrong
Shifting The Burden. In a debate, both sides have to take a stance and provide points the presenter supports by evidence. Furthermore, even if this weren't a debate, in which case your invocation of debate rules is the same blind stupidity of someone in a foreign country invoking the rights of their native country, you're still making arguments which it would be a double-standard to claim you don't also have a burden of proof for.
The importance of this data is - non-existent.
Unsupported point.
Compared to other muds (which is the only thing you -can- compare it to), we're doing very very well. So - if anything, the data proves that we're doing well.
Red Herring followed by another Red Herring. Referencing competition is irrelevant because the stances on Arm having poor player retention were supported with internal numbers, not a comparison to other MUDs. In addition, how successful Arm is compared to its competition is entirely irrelevant to the questions of 1) if Arm has internal problems and 2) the impact of those problems on player retention. As to the second Red Herring, the data does not include other MUDs, therefor it doesn't prove anything regarding other MUDs.
The importance of this data is - non-existent. So - if anything, the data proves that we're doing well. Compared to other muds (which is the only thing you -can- compare it to), we're doing very very well.
Self-contradiction. This is not a fallacy, it's just incompetent lying. If the data has no importance at all, you can't turn around and grant it importance by basing an argument on it. I refer to the lying as incompetent because the sentences you contradicted yourself with are all adjacent to each other, reducing the effort in spotting the self-contradiction to zero.
It doesn't prove that Nyr is an asshole
Strawman. Neither I nor anaiah (who you addressed this to) made this argument in regards to the data.
it doesn't prove that players are leaving in droves
This is actually just a bald-faced lie. No need to reference a logical fallacy. If the data is accurate, it puts Arm's ability to retain players at less than 1%. The only recognized unknown is the lifespan of those players lost/retained. While "leaving in droves" is slang, pretending that failing to keep 99 out of 100 people who showed interest in playing isn't "leaving in droves" is asinine.
it doesn't prove that Armageddon is headed for the shitheap of dead muds.
Strawman again, for the same reason as the last one.
It doesn't prove any of the doom and gloom Anaiah (and you, and several others on this forum) harp about.
Strawman again, for the same reason as the last one.
In reference to the posit that "Arm sucks" the data proves nothing.
Strawman again, for the same reason as the last one.
Edited to note: Nyr might very well be an asshole. Arm surely could be headed for the shit-heap. There might in fact be tons of doom and gloom. But that data doesn't prove it.
Strawman rehash triple-combo.
In 1997, AOL switched from hourly online fees for playing games, to flat-rate. At that point, Gemstone's player base climbed to around 10,000. Ten thousand accounts, with a max of 2000 logged in simutaneously. Two thousand players all logged in at the same time, as their max. Prior to that, their capacity was only 499, and prior to that, the game would often crash if there were more than 50 logged in or even attempting to log in.
Fast forward to today, and on TopMudsites, they've managed to get 216 votes from July 1 to today, July 12.
Equivocation, following a massive Red Herring. Logins aren't votes, and the unproven claims of the technical limits of Gemstone have nothing to do with arguments made about Arm's player retention given that no one has claimed crashes were driving off the playerbase.
A player is not going to have access to all of this data, for every time in the day, by typing "who". You have also asserted, without proof, that the source of the data is Nyr and that Nyr gathered player data by typing "who".
They're losing at a MUCH faster rate than Armageddon has ever lost, if you want to go there.
Unsupported point. Even if all of your previous comments were accurate, supported, and you had provided a means of verifying your information, none of it actually included player loss. You also have repeatedly asserted the data we're using is utterly meaningless and without context, which means you are once again contradicting your own claim out of convenience.
So then you are claiming that it's reasonable, and sane, and logical, and sensible, to compare Armageddon's "loss" of players, with Gemstone's loss of players. With Gemstone achieving a real actual number of loss, rather than just crunched numbers (10,000 during their heyday, vs. somewhat less than that presently, and 2,000 accounts logged in simutaneously during their heyday, vs. approximately 500 accounts logged in simutaneously)?
Unsupported point that, once again, requires you to contradict your previous claims the numbers had non-existent importance/meaning/context in order to use them to support something you're saying.
Gemstone is a COMMERCIAL game. It is the giant among commercial text games in the world. They profit monthly, their parent company, Simutronics, is a multi-million-dollar commercial entity of which Gemstone is their flagship operation.
You can't compare that to anything with regards to Armageddon, without looking like a total looney-tune.
Sweeping Generalization followed by Ad Hominem. The fact that one game is commercial and the other isn't is held up to claim every aspect of both games are completely different. This is followed by an underhanded insult; since Anaiah already compared the games, she is being discredited as crazy.
there has been a steady 200-300 players logging in every month for the past year. That's pretty impressive for a free mud, especially one that has been around, and has been free, since the 1990's.
Unsupported point.
It means there's no advertising budget to attract more players, and no investment into creating a big playerbase from the very beginning. That's something commercial games can do, that free games can't do.
Red Herring. The topic was retaining people who already found the game.
It is impressive that ANY free mud can have a steady playerbase of 200-300 people logging in at least once a month.
Argumentum ad nauseum and unsupported point.
They're not "failing to keep" 800 players. You don't know why 800 players are not playing Arm.
Red Herring. Not knowing why Arm failed to keep 800 players is irrelevant to if it happened.
There'd be nothing Arm could do to "keep" those players, therefore, they didn't "lose" them. They never captured them in the first place.
Equivocation. It is not necessary to "capture" someone in order to have them in your game and then fail to keep them there.
Then there are players who simply moved on in life. Marriage, graduation from school, career, children, finding new hobbies. One would *hope* that Armageddon couldn't do anything to convince people to not do those things
Appeal To Morality and also a Red Herring. Whether or not Arm should keep those people is irrelevant to if it did keep them.
You're injecting some weird kind of expectation of macabre, possibly unhealthy loyalty to a text game that just really shouldn't exist.
Strawman Argument. I've given no indication about how much weight I believe people should give to playing Arm.
Your use of the phrase "failing to keep" is the disturbing part, because you are assuming that Armageddon had an obligation to keep 800 players.
Strawman Argument. I've spoken to the loss as a sign of poor conversion of new players to returning players, not a failure to meet obligations.
