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On December 27 2023 10:01 tec27 wrote:
That number is "games in progress" (or perhaps "open lobbies", hard to say) it is not "games played since you last logged on" or anything else like that.
This data and the method you're using to collect it is really not that useful imo. #1 because Blizzard's service is quite weird as far as "regions" go because there are two layers of regions: the bnet launcher region and then the server choice within the game itself. I don't know how this affects these counts but it certainly affects things like friends lists and such (you can only friend people that are both on the same bnet launcher region AND ingame region), so it seems likely that it can affect user/game count as well. #2, as other people have stated, server population fluctuates greatly depending on time of day, day of the week, holidays, etc. so collecting a single data point once a day or once a week is not enough to get any kind of accurate count.
At best this data might be useful to compare against itself, but it's extremely prone to construing a local trend (e.g. BW is becoming less popular in Europe) to be a global one (e.g. BW is becoming less popular overall). Posting the raw numbers (which again, are meaningless) and not just the relationship between them also gives people the wrong idea (i.e. "there are only 1000 people playing BW these days!") which I think is a negative thing for the community in general.
So yeah, either make a better effort or this is doing more harm than good imo.
Oh, thank you very much.
English is not my native language and I may have misunderstood the translation.
You're probably right, yes. The phrase: “312 games played” means that right now, at the moment, this number of games are being played on the server (various types of UMS, 4x4, 1x1, etc.).
Information about how many games were played per day is not displayed.
Yes, you may be right about the numbers: ““Only 1000 people play BW today!”), which I consider a negative thing for the community as a whole.
But we all understand that our favorite game is already 25 years old. And here the old school 90%+ remains 
Well, about the decline in certain regions. I collect from different servers. It will be possible to look at each separately (I think most of them live there, what servers they play on).
But for now I collect it this way. Perhaps later there will be thoughts on how to improve the table.
Or one of the good people at tl.net will tell me what’s best and where it’s best to get it.
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Nice initiative!
I'd only suggest including a column with a day of the week so it will be easier to analyze it, as it's one of the driving factors for the people to be available and play. I bet there is a big discrepancy between the results for the weekdays and the weekends.
There might be better ways to approach this whole exercise but I think what you are doing is fine for the purpose. Some interesting numbers may come out of it. Thanks for doing this!
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China didn't have a private server? I think there were 5000 players at peak time.
possibly jindi can give more information
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I mean I just think it's very harmful to put this data out as you have. You are describing a measurement of what you think is the lowest point of the population each day (but you also haven't verified that this is even the case), have put some special meaning to the people that happen to be online at that point (that they're "the most dedicated", again, without any kind of test or verification of this hypothesis), and then have put out a table of numbers as the "popularity of BW". I don't see why the lowest point of population would ever be useful to know, it has no known relationship to the peak or average population, no known relationship to the number of weekly or monthly active users, it doesn't even have a known relationship to the number of human users! Maybe 90% of the users in your measurement are chat bots, we really can't know.
People in this very thread of come away from seeing your data saying they are "depressed", and I think it really sucks that you're making people depressed by collecting data in this bizarre way, and then publishing it without any of the context for them to understand that your data is not useful, and does not mean the things that you imply it does.
I will reiterate: I do not think you understand the data you are collecting, I do not think you are collecting it in a reasonable or useful way, and I think the way you are publishing it is harmful to the community. The underlying idea (to collect population data about the community) is fine, but collecting it in this way and publishing it as if it is an accurate measure of "popularity" is only going to make people feel negatively and play/participate/contribute less. If you cannot find a way to fix these issues, I think it would be better if you stop than risk further demotivating people.
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On December 28 2023 00:08 BlueStar wrote:
Nice initiative!
I'd only suggest including a column with a day of the week so it will be easier to analyze it, as it's one of the driving factors for the people to be available and play. I bet there is a big discrepancy between the results for the weekdays and the weekends.
There might be better ways to approach this whole exercise but I think what you are doing is fine for the purpose. Some interesting numbers may come out of it. Thanks for doing this!
Exactly, added column with a day of the week
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Good work Sonic! 
I need to say something in romanian for him , regarding the hour.. i'll put spoiler please
+ Show Spoiler +Ora 22 inseamna ca e ora 5 la ei in coreea ; poate ar trebui sa ne uitam mai devreme...
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Numbers Obtained From Battle.net That Have Unknown Relation to Popularity of Brood War (Table)
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keep in mind many very dedicated korean players are generally 25-45 years of age. they really cant afford to play at 5am with how korean work culture is. 5am korea time is literally the single worst time possible to get data from.
In addition, to many brood war is a spectator sport/esport.
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On December 28 2023 00:14 masoka82 wrote:
China didn't have a private server? I think there were 5000 players at peak time.
possibly jindi can give more information
There is an Asia server. Maybe China is also taken into account there. Or maybe not. So far, according to my observations, for about a week. The most on the Asia server was 1500 people at its peak. This is at 14:00 (pm) European time.
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Korea has 30k every night...not sure what this post is about. misleading as heck.
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On December 28 2023 15:40 tec27 wrote:
I mean I just think it's very harmful to put this data out as you have. You are describing a measurement of what you think is the lowest point of the population each day (but you also haven't verified that this is even the case), have put some special meaning to the people that happen to be online at that point (that they're "the most dedicated", again, without any kind of test or verification of this hypothesis), and then have put out a table of numbers as the "popularity of BW". I don't see why the lowest point of population would ever be useful to know, it has no known relationship to the peak or average population, no known relationship to the number of weekly or monthly active users, it doesn't even have a known relationship to the number of human users! Maybe 90% of the users in your measurement are chat bots, we really can't know.
People in this very thread of come away from seeing your data saying they are "depressed", and I think it really sucks that you're making people depressed by collecting data in this bizarre way, and then publishing it without any of the context for them to understand that your data is not useful, and does not mean the things that you imply it does.
I will reiterate: I do not think you understand the data you are collecting, I do not think you are collecting it in a reasonable or useful way, and I think the way you are publishing it is harmful to the community. The underlying idea (to collect population data about the community) is fine, but collecting it in this way and publishing it as if it is an accurate measure of "popularity" is only going to make people feel negatively and play/participate/contribute less. If you cannot find a way to fix these issues, I think it would be better if you stop than risk further demotivating people.
Thank you very much for such a detailed and useful answer.
Yes, initially I most likely chose the wrong collection tactics.
I’ve now been collecting statistics for myself every hour for more than a week (well, except late at night0.) and I see that 22-00 is not always the minimum amount.
in a week it will be more or less clear.
The goal was the following: to track the popularity (by the number of players on the servers) of our favorite game. Take the minimum value.
OK let's see
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it's a testament to how great BW is that it has as much activity as it does professionally and casually 22 and a half years after 1.08 was released
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it would also be a good idea to track afreeca broodwar viewership numbers to get an idea of popularity.
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Personally I think this is a great idea!
One of the the most irritating things about BW is that Blizzard doesn't readily release numbers for its active users, games played, viewers etc.
This makes it incredibly difficult to track trends (e.g. how much of a positive boost did SCR release give, and when Blizzard's level of support dropped to its terrible rate, how much of an impact this may have had) and in my opinion actually fuels the daed game myth rather than help debunk it.
I for instance would like to know how SCR compares to AoE2 in numbers currently (a slightly newer game that has received tons of attention from Microsoft in the last 5years since they released AoE2:DE [e.g. remastered] and revitalized it completely) given that Microsoft bought AV-Blizzard and may in the future see if it's feasible to monetize BW again.
Basically I'd love stuff like this: https://steamcharts.com/app/813780 but for BW
While I understand tec27's issues with methodology and data collection, don't let that discourage you, rather ask for suggestions on how to improve the project. With that in mind, tec27 and others who are critical of this, it would be wonderful to offer constructive suggestions for fixing things and encouraging someone with an interest in BW.
Here is a simple suggestion to deal with a simple criticism:
Rename Popularity of SC:BW to SC:BW Active User/Games Played Data Collection
If you want to collect data at different time stamps, maybe look for volunteers who can collect data together with you and add it to your sheet. Alternatively it might be possible to reach out to the guy creating/running the 3v3 BGH UMS bot to see if the bot could automatically screenshot data or if it would be possible to setup your own bot to do so.
Everyone has their own passion project, enjoy what you're working on and learn from it
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Croatia9535 Posts
The best suggestion I could offer is that this task should be done by a bot. I don't know if there are any bots that are still working for SC:R out of the box (Stealthbot?), but the data should be collected automatically, every 5 minutes or something, and for all regions.
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On December 29 2023 06:05 prosatan wrote:Good work Sonic! I need to say something in romanian for him , regarding the hour.. i'll put spoiler please + Show Spoiler +Ora 22 inseamna ca e ora 5 la ei in coreea ; poate ar trebui sa ne uitam mai devreme...
yes, I know it's 5 am there. I'm still trying to collect the number of people on the servers at other times.
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On December 29 2023 09:51 Puosu wrote:
Numbers Obtained From Battle.net That Have Unknown Relation to Popularity of Brood War (Table)
Yes it is possible. Perhaps this can be called simply the number of more or less active players today.
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On December 30 2023 07:02 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
keep in mind many very dedicated korean players are generally 25-45 years of age. they really cant afford to play at 5am with how korean work culture is. 5am korea time is literally the single worst time possible to get data from.
In addition, to many brood war is a spectator sport/esport.
Thanks, yes, I agree.
I'll rethink the data collection a bit.
It's true, many people just watch but don't play.
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On January 01 2024 18:32 Lovethelord wrote:
Korea has 30k every night...not sure what this post is about. misleading as heck.
On January 01 2024 20:48 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:From a minute ago:
Yeah i know that. thx
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/zD3SIH3.png)
