X-Fire Game: Raptr has left the building...

So it is, with glee, that I say goodbye today to Raptr.

Thanks to a new system in place this past week converting Raptr into a news style RSS feed service, data for games has been lost in the shuffle. But, as I said...happiness ensues. The numbers have been a thorn in my foot due to calculations showing oddities not matching the norm. Like when a game has anecdotal evidence, like free play time or trials and then having losses on Sunday, while Saturdays being higher in player counts; Raptr just fell apart.

So, using X-Fire's data, hopefully we can take time to discuss why games are changing in numbers. Better commentary on the state of the current MMO's should help us understand why the game is ranking where it is.

So, lets get to this weeks numbers. Previous rating comparisons are from 5/16/2011.

1. Rift - 2835 ( 3325 ↓ )
2. EvE Online - 2159 ( 2005 ↑ )
3. Aion - 2039 ( 1988 ↑ )
4. Lord of the Rings Online - 1623 ( 1800 ↓ )
5. Age of Conan - 402 ( 287 ↑ )
6. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 288 ( 277 ↑ )
7. Star Trek Online - 279 ( 327 ↓ )
8. Champions Online - 182 ( 217 ↓ )
9. Warhammer Online - 139 ( 133 ↑ )
10. Final Fantasy XIV - 119 ( 112 ↑ )
11. DC Universe - 32 ( 57 ↓ )

Lets start with our mover shaker award this week. 

Age of Conan takes a major jump and lands in the top 5 this week. Thanks to promotions about the movie tie ins, free account restoration for older players and the final piece of free to play coming down the pipe...AoC may just start to look good on the charts and become a winner.

Rift took a small plunge, but as has been happening...week by week Rift fluctuates. The numbers are still tops to make it our number 1 game.

EvE had some major movement in numbers this week. One report though is CCP is fighting a bot infestation, so not sure if the major jump is real. The fact they were at around 1900 last weekend is suspect. Still good to hold number 2.

Aion continues to climb. Patch 2.5 is here with the graphical upgrades, and reactivations were also key here. As a side note, I did get an email from Nvidia offering me a FREE copy of the game AND 15 days (odd, I know). So, not sure how many will try that offer.

Lord of the Rings Online has been showing some losses the last few X-Fire games, so not sure what is happening. Maybe the koolaid is wearing off? A recent update should have shown growth here, so it is confusing. Of course it could be a client issue, and the game runs like crap with X-Fire on...hard to say. I will continue to watch this one, as this has proven to be of interest.

Star Trek Online and Champions Online both fell. Wonder if this has anything to do with the news about Cryptic being flushed by Atari? We will continue to watch this and see if any repercussions are to be felt.

This weeks big loser is DC Universe. How SOE can even recover from the damage of their hacks is beyond me. I for example would never touch another of their products. But, people are odd...especially MMO players, so we will see if DCUO can recover.

*****

It was a holiday weekend, but seems numbers did not move that much. Overall steadiness in most titles, but a few surprises as well.

Lest we forget...the elephant in the room, lets see how Blizzards monkey on everyones back is doing.

World of Warcraft X-Fire chart May 30th - players  31,533 (33,787 ↓ )

That is a bit of a drop. Again, may be the weekend or is the behemoth finally showing signs? Hard to say. The fact growth was shown after the initial Rift launch, this may just be a holiday fluke.

Overall, our main games hold strong. Rift still rocking the new launch, Aion and Eve both growing and Age of Conan showing that it could still have life.

Can't wait to see how this all plays out over the summer.

Cheers for now.

The X-Fire Game: Trial (s) and Errors

What a great title for this weeks X-Fire game.

Trials due to Rift's push to be the best #2 MMO out there, and SOE's error and their progress to be the lowest dev on the totem pole.

The previous results we're comparing are from the weekend of 5/1/2011 - Lets see how the 2 weeks have changed.

1. Rift - 3325 ( 2973 ↑ )
2. EvE Online - 2005 ( 1928 ↑ )
3. Aion - 1988 ( 1929 ↑ )
4. Lord of the Rings Online - 1800 ( 1859 ↓ )
5. Star Trek Online - 327 ( 345 ↓ )
6. Age of Conan - 287 ( 280 ↑ )
7. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 277 ( 324 ↓ )
8. Champions Online - 217 ( 235 ↓ )
9. Warhammer Online - 133 ( 155 ↓ )
10. Final Fantasy XIV -112 ( 122 ↓ )
11. DC Universe -  57 ( 25 ↑ )

First off, nice job to Rift. The upswing this week is something most of the MMO's from the last few years have NOT been able to do. New content, new updates, new trials all add up to a game that is flourishing.

Looking at the graph for Rift, we can see the standard drop most MMO's experience. But, we also see a stabilization there. Then the upswing toward the end. Will see how this looks in two weeks.

Other games of note: EVE broke 2000. First time in a while. Aion over takes Lord of the Rings Online to become this weeks #3. Excitement must be building for Aion thanks to the paid transfer service and the upcoming patch 2.5 with major graphics enhancements and new content.

I really need to note here: Sub games are NOT dead, and Free to play, though a help to games suffering, is not the panacea of sub-dom some believe it to be. Just IMO.

Age of Conan has also moved up the charts. Major buzz is going on with this game, with the upcoming movie reboot, discussion of new land masses and overall satisfaction with the new engine changes. We will watch this one in the coming months.

SOE games are back, but of course, DC Universe still trails the bottom. But, note more players. I assume that free time is helping. Not going to help much when someones ID is stolen though. 

Overall quite a few games down this week.

****

1. Rift -  2366 ( 2394 ↓ ) players
2. EvE Online - 803 ( 1010 ↓ ) 
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 771 ( 766 ↑ )
4. Aion - 418 ( 530 ↓ )
5. Champions Online - 232 ( 192 ↑ )
6. DC Universe - 182 ( 136 ↑ )
7. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 167 ( 173 ↓ )
8. Final Fantasy XIV - 142 ( 191 ↓ )
9. Star Trek Online - 110 ( 96 ↑ )
10. Age of Conan - 83 ( 89 ↓ )
11. Warhammer Online - 56 ( 86 ↓ )

What drives me nuts right off the bat...Raptr has Rift with MORE players on a Saturday (2426)...I mean, WTH? Raptr and reliability of stats is really starting to irritate me. But, I will still post them....just expect me to bitch about them EVERY time also.

Ah well, lets take a look at what else is happening.

As we can see, Raptr still plays "Opposites" day of X-Fire with their stats. EVE and Aion are both down, yet LOTRO is up. Of note, like Rift, Aion is UP on Saturday...just down on Sunday, which has not been par for course for ANY game.

Champions is up? LOL. And look at how many slots DC Universe moved up. Interesting bunch of users, these Raptr players.

The biggest travesty here is Age of Conan. All anecdotal evidence points to a rise in activity, yet in Raptr it still runs at the bottom of the pack, with even a LOSS this week. Raptr is just not telling the full story here.

****

Before I forget, lets take a look at Blizzard and their beast of an MMO.

World of Warcraft X-Fire chart May 15th - players  33,787 (33,611 ↑ )

So, WoW is still on the rise back up. People just cannot let this game go, and it is truly sad to see no other game even has a chance.

Nuff' said here

****

So, some good numbers for several games, with Rift really showing it can hold on, and could be our number two game in MMO's for a while.

Raptr though is becoming suspect in tracking, and I am about ready to throw it out. It keeps having strikes against it in regards to how their numbers work. When games we know show anecdotal evidence of upswings, yet fall on Raptr...I have to question their systems. Time is ticking down for Raptr stats.

Until next time...Cheers.

X-Fire Game: The one week reprieve

So, I am back with another installment of our much loved (hated?) game of statistics (voodoo?) using our all time favorite (reviled?) tools...X-Fire and Raptr.

From this point, I will pull back reporting these to maybe every two weeks. This should allow us to see if any drastic changes are happening in the market...and lets me try and write a bit more "commentary" (arguments) on a regular basis.

Lets get started. First off, all data listed is from two weeks ago and will be versus this Sunday's numbers.

(KEY: Click the logos to understand what X-Fire or Raptr is. For the symbols...↓ Means the game had a loss; ↑ and the game is in green text, means it had more players. Thank you.)

1. Rift - 2973 ( 3982 ↓ )
2. EvE Online - 1928 ( 2017 ↑ )
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 1859 ( 1892 ↑ )
4. Aion - 1929 ( 1878 ↑ )
5. Star Trek Online - 345 ( 287 ↑ )
6. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 324 ( 326 ↓ )
7. Age of Conan - 280 ( 245 ↑ )
8. Champions Online - 235 ( ?? ↑ )
9. Warhammer Online - 155 ( 130 ↑ )
10. Final Fantasy XIV - 122 ( 131 ↓ )
11. DC Universe -  25 ( 41 ↓ )

So, as we can see here, Rift still has not found the floor. What will it's actual ceiling be?

We could look at how drastic this loss is and do this little bit of fun...

World of Warcraft X-Fire chart April 18th - players  33,611 (32,822 ↑ )

And of course find out where most everyone went.

Rift does still have a large lead over the number 2 game, and with patch 1.2 coming in less than 2 weeks, I expect my next report to see some added player action.

The rise of players in other games were minimal (except for a few stand outs)...

Aion had a big jump. I could look at this as the bonus of "paid transfers". I also think accounts were activated over the weekend too (I got an email about it). So, this may most likely be temporary. Or is this a sign that the game may hold a few new subs?

Star Trek rocked some nice numbers, with a great leap, making it our #5 game on the chart.

Several; other small triumphs was Warhammer, who has been patching their screw ups recently, Champions client was fixed and is reporting again (last report, CO was broken and reporting ZERO players) and Age of Conan also seeing some numbers increasing.

A pretty good week for the games considered failures by a contingent of players.

****

1. Rift -  2394 ( 2705 ↓ ) players
2. EvE Online - 1010 ( 967 ↑ ) 
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 766 ( 751 ↑ )
4. Aion - 530 ( 457 ↑ )
5. Champions Online - 192 ( 225 ↓ )
6. Final Fantasy XIV - 191 ( 152 ↑ )
7. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 173 ( 159 ↑ )
8. DC Universe - 136 ( 179 ↓ )
9. Star Trek Online - 96 ( 101 ↓ )
10. Age of Conan - 89 ( 94 ↑ )
11. Warhammer Online - 86 ( 84 ↑ )

And as is normally the case, Raptr tells us a different story.

Rift's drop is not as harsh as for X-Fire. And if we look around we can see where some of these players are heading to.

Of course, Raptr is also BIZARRO world, where Final Fantasy XIV...probably the worst rated MMO in a long time, has a huge jump. Oddities indeed.

The one thing we can always count on here is our top 4 though. Rift, EvE, LOTRO and Aion seem to hardly budge from their respective slots. Rift as we can see here has over double what EvE is showing and EvE is almost doubling Aion's numbers.

I think we can safely say that players having such an abundance of MMO's have more places to go and play around in to try various new worlds.

****

Whats clear here is the hold World of Warcraft has over it's player base. Hard to pull players out and into other MMO's. With the news that most of the newer MMO's coming down the pipe, specifically Star Wars, a noted WoW killer, being too much like WoW...where does this leave the genre?

This report is pretty much a statement on the sad affairs of our market. We have quite a few good games here, but WoW truly holds sway over all of this domain, and could color the future of every MMO until someone decides "Lets give up".

For now, players need to accept that the genre has been built, thanks to WoW ingenuity (/snicker) and that all MMO's to come will try their best to mimic it until they get one that has all 7 years of content, can be 100% polished and ready at launch with a whole new endgame that no one can describe, but REALLY want to be meaningful.

I'm out...

X-Fire Game: Whats the numbers there, Kenneth?

This past Sundays stats show just a glimmer in how our MMO's are progressing. Some major anomalies still exist though between what X-Fire says and how Raptr is tracking. Luckily, the combination of the two give us some great insight into how the various games are holding up.

Stay tuned, as I also look at progression of the Rift charts near the end. For now, lets see how our services are ranking the MMO's.

(UPDATE: To help those who do not understand what X-Fire or Raptr is, each logo is a link. Thank you.)

1. Rift - 4317 ( 4493 ↓ )
2. EvE Online - 2087 ( 1938 ↑ )
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 2042 ( 1959 ↑ )
4. Aion -1961 ( 1919 ↑ )
5. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 358 ( 371 ↓ )
6. Star Trek Online - 324 ( 318 ↑ )
7. Age of Conan - 274 ( 281 ↓ )
8. Champions Online - 245 ( 257 ↓ )
9. Warhammer Online - 163 ( 168 ↓ )
10. Final Fantasy XIV - 122 ( 119 ↑ )
11. DC Universe - 52 ( 58 ↓ )

If we really look at this chart, we can clearly see what happened here. As people left Rift (in small amounts, mind you), they started to go back to their old MMO's. But, with such a small drop for Rift, I can only assume that like other BIG MMO's (you know the one), the numbers fluctuate as one leaves, another starts.

Rift is still rocking our charts with over double the number of players for the main MMO's we have been tracking. If I had to take a stab at numbers right now, I would put Rift at about 600 to 800k players (subs?). I do this strictly on how many players we have heard EVE Online has (WIKI notes 300k players back in 2009, and I have seen growth on the X-Fire charts, so that could be closer to 400k now). Now, lets say I used my infamous calc system I have discussed in the PAST, I could see Rift having roughly 930k players (4317 x 215.5). Close to the 1 million mark I keep noting as the "success point" that MMO's need to be considered a viable market. Using that same calc gives EVE 450k (right on my money prediction ...). So, wonder what they REALLY have?

I tell you what... I will save that for a new post later in the week...

Basically, EVE, LOTRO and Aion are all back up this week. Why leave an MMO you have invested so much time into if you were not bored in the first place...right? Rift is definitely for those who like their MMO kinda like the other guys...but, have been fed up with how those other games have been run. I can see, just by looking at this chart, that these 3 games will be around a long time (PS: And to all the Aion haters...sorry, but Aion IS a success story, no matter how much YOU hate it.)

Most of the usual low end MMO's took dips this week. FFXIV had a slight tweak upward though, and is back to the numbers it was showing before Japanaquake 2011. I am happy they at least are keeping this dedicated crowd. But, really; it's still free...why wouldn't they?

We have a new loser this week. DC Universe. I expected this. I also expect more SOE Free to Play action...especially for something that cost them so much...they really need to deliver here. These numbers are not cutting it. Hope the PS3 version is at least keeping people.

****

1. Rift - 3176 ( 3448 ↓ ) players
2. EvE Online - 1006 ( 945 ↑ ) 
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 780 ( 847 ↓ )
4. Aion - 496 ( 525 ↓ )
5. Champions Online - 261 ( 253 ↑ )
6. DC Universe - 214 ( 191 ↑ )
7. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 140 ( 232 ↓ )
8. Final Fantasy XIV - 122 ( 136 ↓ )
9. Star Trek Online - 102 ( 114 ↓ )
10. Age of Conan - 83 ( 123 ↓ )
11. Warhammer Online - 71 ( 59 ↑ )

Lets just report this as we see it. Raptr really has no rhyme or reason...so, I am just gonna deliver their mess...LOL.

As we saw with X-Fire, EVE is back up...yet, LOTRO and Aion fall. Confusing indeed.

Champions is up? Yea. Weird. But, even weirder??? DC Universe cranking so high on these charts. I often wonder if the numbers from the PS3 mix in with these results. When I look at the PS3 results...it says 6 players. LOL.

DDO had a very nasty drop here, and I plan to watch this and see if it continues. X-Fires drop was minor and was to be expected due to nothing event wise going on. Why DDO would drop so far on Raptr is a mystery.

Pretty much drops across the board here. So, X-Fire shows more risers this week, while Raptr shows droppers. Yet, last week X-Fire showed drops, and Raptr showed risers...

So confusing. One can only assume either demographics or region with these services. Wish I could get more data out of them to find out.

****

Now, this week, I want to take a trip down memory lane...and do the Rift charts from Riftideas (riftideas.com). I had used these previously while we watched how servers progressed through time. I decided to get some relative charts from various prime time Sunday's for both the EU and US markets.

Lets see how this went.

3/27 - Germany 8PM

4/3 - Germany 8PM

4/10 - Germany 9PM

So, note the progression of the EU servers (Right hand side) as we went through the weeks. The start had quite a few full (queued) servers on 3/27. As time went on, less servers were queued, but then we noted, no low servers. Finally at this week, we have mostly medium and high servers, with just one queued now.

Some comments had been made about tweaking server sizes. But, I also wonder if players moved around and joined alternate servers? Hard to say. The one thing we can see most is that no server is low now...and that is kind of cool.

3/27 - USA 8:30PM EST

4/3 - USA 9PM EST

4/10 - USA 9PM EST

We can note the decline of the servers as time progressed. Quite a few noted as highs went to mediums. But, some swapping took place (I can look and immediately see one medium going to high). Again...new players joining, while old players leave...about a two to one drop (two leave; one enters).

The most disturbing part is how fast the EU servers went from a few lows to mostly lows at this off peak schedule. Alarming changes...but, maybe not unprecedented.

Keeping most of these servers will be the key to how well Rift is doing. If all servers can stay up or at least most with minimal merges, then Rift will be rocking.

****
So, as we come to a close, I just want to throw in the final World of Warcraft chart from X-Fire. Maybe I might check back in on them on a monthly basis, but this final number will be it.

World of Warcraft X-Fire chart April 10th - players  34,755 ( 34,325 ↑)

Once you go crack, it makes you whack and then you go back. So, yes people....players decided that old graphics and gameplay that calls for dedication (et, al; addiction) keeps em coming back. Anecdotally, a guildie in Rift noted to me that their friend REALLY wants to try Rift...but, they have so much time and money invested into WoW, they just can't do it.

And yet, that persons dedication could be all wiped out by just one hack or drive failure. SCARY.

But, as expected. Rift HAS made a dent, but, WoW will hold the crown for a long time to come. When it comes to MMO's...there is WoW...then there are the other guys who combined STILL don't have enough players to outdo WoW (unless your an Asian grinder....and that is a whole other story).

Next contender please...

The X-Fire Game: So, who is sticking around?

I think this is a great theme for todays posting. As we look at the games on the charts, while 30+ days wind down for a new MMO launch; who is going back to their old games? And who is sticking around for the newbie on the block?

A concern with todays numbers deals with the fact that Trion threw me a whiffle ball out of left field called a "Free Trial Weekend for Friends". So, when we look at todays chart, we get what should have been the Sunday where we should see the real stats for subs, taking us into...well, crap, what are the REAL numbers?

April 3rd was the renewal date for subs in the US market for Rift (not sure for EU due to their later starting date), but, Trion decided to do something no other MMO has done, and give all members codes to hand out to friends to try the game during it's 30 days free for buyers.

I guess all I can say is stay tuned, and hopefully NEXT week we will get some fun data to look at.

On with the show. (NOTE: Except for Rift, the numbers we'll be comparing are from two weeks ago, as last week was a special solo edition. This will be interesting to see how a weeks hiatus stacks the games on the charts).

1. Rift - 4493 ( 4730 ↓ )
2. EvE Online - 1938 ( 1988 ↓ )
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 1959 ( 1977 ↓ )
4. Aion -1919 ( 1948 ↓ )
5. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 371 ( 401 ↓ )
6. Star Trek Online - 318 ( 304 ↑ )
7. Age of Conan -  281 ( 275 ↑ )
8. Champions Online - 257 ( 304 ↓ )
9. Warhammer Online -  168 ( 164 ↑ )
10. DC Universe - 58 ( 75 ↓ )
11. Final Fantasy XIV - 119 ( 0 ↑ )

Well, lets see...

First up is Rift. A large drop. I expected this though. People's subs would expire, players would leave...so, it is inevitable. But, lets really look at these numbers carefully. Even with the drop, Rift still garners more than double the amount of players of the #2 MMO, EVE. That is nothing to sneeze at. But, of course, next week the "free trial" will be gone (I assume...Trion is a savvy marketer, and I think they deserve kudos for that), and then we may see some real stats.

Across the board, most Fantasy MMO's are down. Lord of the Rings, Aion, yet, two surprises. Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. Both are of course rolling along the bottom of the barrel here. But, AoC actually moved up in the ranks to overtake Champions Online, which has continued it's downward fall. WAR added a few back...I assume those who left for Rift, and saw it's PvP will never be RvR (even though forum posts pleaded for such a move by Trion).

Final Fantasy XIV is back, but lower than when it left. About 128 players were on the last time I did the report (about a month ago, since the Japan Earthquake). I am not sure how they can really recover, and FFXIV may be the new bottom feeder on our charts. Time will tell if any of the upcoming changes will affect populations.

***

1. Rift - 3448 ( 3430 ↑ ) players
2. EvE Online - 945 ( 958 ↓ ) 
3. Lord of the Rings Online - 847 ( 949 ↓ )
4. Aion - 525 ( 532 ↓ )
5. Champions Online - 253 ( 285 ↓ )
6. Dungeons & Dragons Online - 232 ( 296 ↓ )
7. DC Universe - 191 ( 212 ↓ )
8. Star Trek Online - 114 ( 113 ↑  )
9. Age of Conan - 123 ( 89 ↑ )
10. Warhammer Online - 59 ( 67 ↓ )
11. Final Fantasy XIV - 136 ( 0 ↓ )

Lets see what took place this weekend...

As I continue to state...Raptr is just odd right now in how games track here compared to X-Fire. But, in all honesty, as I continue to watch Raptr, I wonder if the continued fall of players in all games on X-Fire is due to the fact so many are leaving the service. Some may actually be coming to Raptr. All I know is Raptr never jives with X-Fire...but, hey, thats ok. Lets just check the stats, shall we?

Rift is actually up here. I assume this would be a by-product of that free time this weekend. Next week will be the kicker. But, as I keep saying, Rift numbers are exponentially higher than most other MMO's (besides that one behemoth). I still think Rift is riding success for now...and time will be the key if they can keep up their momentum.

Games continue to tumble here, except for Star Trek who released Foundry recently and if I am not mistaken, a new update. Age of Conan is also up. they have been in MMO news quite heavy the last couple of weeks thanks to an update to the game engine. The game just runs better and looks better for everyone. I expect this is translating well into more players. I hope they keep going and can put more work into this title.

FFXIV returns...but is down quite a bit. The last Raptr numbers was 178 players; so, down a bit. We will continue to watch this and see if these can go up. Raptr seems to like FFXIV much more than X-Fire (or Metacritic, or...any other number of MMO bloggers, websites, etc)

***

Now, whether the month of April has anything to do with changes on our charts (warmth has come, the ball of orange death is out and spring break cometh) or it is a true effect of the Rift in place in MMO land...most MMO's continue a downward move.

But, how does the monster in the room stack up this past week?

World of Warcraft X-Fire chart April 3rd - players 34,325 ( 34,976 ↓)

Hmm. Still a small step for mankind leaving behind the huge addiction known as WoW. But, it is happening. Now, again...this could be the X-Fire loss effect. But, to see a down note for WoW is pretty good. Not that I hate WoW, but for this market to move forward, we need to see people be willing to leave this game behind.

I hope this is true is all I can say.

And thats it for this weeks X-Fire game. Stay tuned, as (hopefully this time) next week should be the REAL stats and how Rift held up after the 30 days.

Cheers.

X-Fire Game: Solo Edition - Rift

With this past weekend being the crucial last weekend for the "30 day window" in Rift, I am dedicating this post to a very fun MMO.

Does everyone else think it is as fun?

First up, lets go ahead and preview the X-Fire and Raptr stats for Rift and do some comparisons to launch
week.

1. Rift -  4730 ( 4968 - LAUNCH )

The X-Fire data is actually from one week past launch...but, due to the broken stats reading, we missed the first day. How accurate this may be, I am unsure. But, I at least wanted some good comparison data.

****

1. Rift -  3430 ( 3856 - LAUNCH )

The Raptr numbers are from the first Sunday of launch. This was to be it's 2nd busiest day, as the following week hit upward of 4000 players.

****

So, what do we see so far? The basic trend for most MMO's. The slow drop off from the players who found either Rift was not their game, or other concerns which have popped up (from security issues to the infamous "nerf after pay" patch).

But, when we look at this, we do note a VERY good retention rate as well. These numbers look pretty good, and if it can hold this spot after the 30 days are reached, then we will have a successful MMO.

Just to give a reference point, I looked back to find a previous top 5 X-Fire game and see how their numbers were...Warhammer Online.

2008

Launched in September of 2008, note the trend of the game as time progressed. The downward spiral was quite extreme. This is what we do NOT want to see in Rift. If you do, then we can add Rift to the pile of games that includes Age of Conan, WAR, and other non-starters that WoW eats for breakfast. (As another note on this little chart. See how many players there are? This gives an idea of how many people USE to use X-Fire in the past. Launch numbers had WAR at 12,000+ players per day back in 2008. So, not only did WAR fall, X-Fire has also lost a lot of users).

****
Moving on, I wanted to show how trends have been looking in Rift. Here are several views of the X-Fire and Raptr data.

This is the chart for Raptr. You can see the overall Metacritic score and how many hours have been played. But, what we want to see is the 7 day outlook scaling for time played. Big spikes are of course the weekend. But, note how there is a drop off. To be expected. The next 7 days will fix that...unless this falls even more, as players leave after the 30 days. What we WANT to see is this even out, and not drop massively.

Since we did not have complete data for Rift for X-Fire, there was a mass upsweep when they fixed how the X-Fire client read the games played hours. At that point though, we do see a steady view. I have noted in the past that Raptr seems weird to me at times, and can fluctuate freely, while X-Fire seems to hold steadier (unless there is an outage of the game or of course, players leave the game noted). 

Both of these will be good reference come next weekend.

Moving on...if you remember, we also were tracking a new site that had images of shard status. The chart gave us a single eyes view of how all servers were doing in specific time periods. Here are the final reports from Riftideas/Shardwatch.

This first chart is Sunday March 27th at 8PM in Germany. We have six servers with queues. But, we also have two at low. This is interesting, as we NEVER see low on the weekends on the US servers. So, this is an oddity.

Lets compare the first image I had for Germany and Shardwatch.

This was taken on March 13th. 7PM German time. Notice a difference? Right off the bat, no lows. Twelve queued servers also. Dang it was busy. Drop off of course IS to be expected, so, overall it was not massive. But, I see EU servers being the first to merge here.

Moving on to the US of A.

So, right off the bat, we see two things. Only one queued server. March 27th at 8:30 EST. I worry about this, as I had noted my own issues on Twitter this morning. Massive lag spikes leading to either DC's or being stuck not moving or anything...yet everything else around you was moving normally (characters, quest updates, etc.). Very Bizarre. That could lead to lowered servers.....maybe. Next, if we look at the EU servers, the number of low servers is quite large still.

What the heck, lets look at the older chart and see just how bad it makes this past weekend look.

Need I say more? Six queued servers down to one? This could be changes to queue sizes or population sizes...we do not know which. Again.....drop off is to be expected, but there is no way Rift can compete with World of Warcraft when we see charts like this. I would prefer they hold on to the number two position at least...

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We have a lot of data here. Most of it shows the common trend in most launched MMO's in the Age of WoW. 

Hard to keep players when a polished, long running title still exists.

Eventually most of these MMO's will syphon off players from WoW, but at what cost? This is not a cheap business...and I can only hope the box sales held up for Trion. With the normal issues that surround MMO's from security and gold sellers, lag and engine issues, broken quests and what not...Trion is a bit ahead in getting it fixed. Just is it good enough to keep them afloat?

BTW, here is your final Moment of Zen to help you understand what is happening with Rift.

World of Warcraft X-Fire chart March 27th - 34,976 players (36,248 ↓)

Yea....that feels good to see.