[Rhuarc]

Just for curiosities sake, I have been wondering how the average number of active players (at any given time) relates to the number of active player files.

If you have any numbers from your mud that you would care to share, consider;

1. the average number of online players
2. the number of active player files
3. what you consider to be an active player file (last logged in more than 30 days, 90, 180,etc).
4. if your player files are not account based (i.e. you might have one player who owns several active player files), how, if at all, have you accounted for that in your active player file count?

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Rhuarc Just for curiosities sake, I have been wondering how the average number of active players (at any given time) relates to the number of active player files. If you have any numbers from your mud that you would care to share, consider; 1. the average number of online players 2. the number of active player files 3. what you consider to be an active player file (last logged in more than 30 days, 90, 180,etc). 4. if your player files are not account based (i.e. you might have one player who owns several active player files), how, if at all, have you accounted for that in your active player file count?

Alas, vastly differing AFK policies make what it means to be an online player different from game to game. I've seen MUDs where the average online idle time (ie without entering a command) was over 26 minutes (and that was with a couple hundred players on....was a MUSH called Shangri-la that had no policy against AFKness) while in other MUDs there may not be a single player who has been idle for 26 minutes. For instance, in the aforementioned example, if you took out the idle players the game's online population would have dropped by about 60-70%.

--matt

[shadowfyr]

Yeah. The one where I play we had 50 logged in at a time, usually, then the system went down for several month (college was redoing their network and didn't give a frack about our single server). Then, when it went back up it was under new admin, who started cracking down on some people's cheating and fixing bugs (some of which where being used to cheat, even *after* the players where told not to do that). The end result is that now... average logged in is 15-20, with most of those at near the top levels, so idle until/unless something interesting happens. Say, 4-5 *active* players, with 10-16 idle for fairly long periods. Its rather sad and the few attempts to draw people into other activities has failed due to the chicken and egg problem. X features where never in game, so are not really supported, so its hard to play that way, but since its hard to play that way, not enough people do it, so we don't think there is much point in adding X. X being RP elements, player guilds, crafting, or other changes.

Just makes you want to bang your head against the wall some days.

[prof1515]

Further complicating matters are games where the staff also play. The H&S I used to play long, long ago had an average of about 50 players on most of the time. Of them, you'd see about 15-20 or so who were idle. When you looked of who was on, you'd see that 10 of the total were staff. Additionally, 10 others were the non-Imm characters of staff. So, out of the original 50 you'd see online, there were really only 20-25 who active players on most of the time (if that).

[Newworlds]

Oddly enough, I have been on muds that the who list is also made up of important NPC's.

A good method to determine who is really around on a game is to see who you interact with in the main town or locale. If no one is around to roleplay with even if the mud shows 200 players online, then it really isn't the mud you are looking for if you want player interaction.

On the other hand, if you only want sporatic interaction in the main city, but a HUGE world where you could be alone for hours, then the mud in question might be right for you.

The real question isn't "how many players are online" but really, "how many players can I interact with". Sometimes numerous players isn't the answer though, and as the thread "do you like small playerbase muds" talks about, sometimes it is more fun to "go it alone" in some games.

[Jazuela]

Originally Posted by Newworlds Oddly enough, I have been on muds that the who list is also made up of important NPC's. A good method to determine who is really around on a game is to see who you interact with in the main town or locale. If no one is around to roleplay with even if the mud shows 200 players online, then it really isn't the mud you are looking for if you want player interaction. On the other hand, if you only want sporatic interaction in the main city, but a HUGE world where you could be alone for hours, then the mud in question might be right for you. The real question isn't "how many players are online" but really, "how many players can I interact with". Sometimes numerous players isn't the answer though, and as the thread "do you like small playerbase muds" talks about, sometimes it is more fun to "go it alone" in some games.

Why must you tell the OP that he didn't really mean to ask the question he asked? The guy wants to know the average number of active players, vs. the average number of active player accounts, in various games. I'm sure he's intelligent enough that if he was actively seeking a game where he could interact with a certain number of characters, he would have asked that. Nowhere did he indicate or imply that he is looking to play any particular game. In fact he specified that his query was "just out of curiosity."

I have no answer to the OP, other than to return a query in his direction in line with previous responses here: Do you count "logged in but usually idle" as active in your request for data? Because that would certainly make a huge difference in the answer.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Jazuela Why must you tell the OP that he didn't really mean to ask the question he asked? The guy wants to know the average number of active players, vs. the average number of active player accounts, in various games. I'm sure he's intelligent enough that if he was actively seeking a game where he could interact with a certain number of characters, he would have asked that. Nowhere did he indicate or imply that he is looking to play any particular game. In fact he specified that his query was "just out of curiosity." I have no answer to the OP, other than to return a query in his direction in line with previous responses here: Do you count "logged in but usually idle" as active in your request for data? Because that would certainly make a huge difference in the answer.

I was actually responding to the subsequent posts not the originator. Your point is well taken and my post should have been a new thread or on a different thread.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by Rhuarc 1. the average number of online players 2. the number of active player files 3. what you consider to be an active player file (last logged in more than 30 days, 90, 180,etc). 4. if your player files are not account based (i.e. you might have one player who owns several active player files), how, if at all, have you accounted for that in your active player file count?

1: 0.0134
2: 3.0000
3: me, myself, and I
4: haven't given that much thought, but we're certainly having a blast.

[Rhuarc]

Originally Posted by Jazuela I have no answer to the OP, other than to return a query in his direction in line with previous responses here: Do you count "logged in but usually idle" as active in your request for data? Because that would certainly make a huge difference in the answer.

Well, I am actually trying to get a feel more for how the various admins calculate this data, rather than for specific numbers (though those are welcome).

I am currently writing a perl script to parse through my player files on a regular basis and report on certain data, one of those pieces of data is the number of 'active' player files. In this regard, I cannot monitor time spent AFk vs time spent logged in, at least, not until I add more information to our player files to facilitate that.

[snoozer]

At my favorite MUD, all players logged in are considered "active". We're a roleplaying MUD and don't support idling. If they do idle, they get booted after 15 minutes of inactivity.

Here's how we keep track of active accounts vs. total accounts: we keep records for the past 24 hours, the past week, the past month, and the past year. But we don't do much of anything with the data.

Here's the data from 7am EST.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accursed Lands
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the game right now, there are:
6 "unknown" characters you have yet to meet,
0 "known" characters you have already met,
4 "hidden" character who prefer not to advertise their presence, and
5 creators working on the world,
for a total of:
15 currently online.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Active accounts in last day: 52 Active accounts in last week: 104
Active accounts in last month: 204 Active accounts in last year: 1904
Registered emails: 4977
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Janda, the 18th of Halax, in the dead of winter of 405YT. 7/18/5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, by the way, we only allow one account per player (although some people try to cheat from time to time).