A Historical Timeline for Natural Selection

Sarisel

<div class="IPBDescription">our beloved HL mod</div>So I was looking through the Steam stats and realized that it would be interesting to look at how NS has been faring over the years. Although I could only retrieve data from 2004-2006 and also this month in March 2007, the results are still pretty interesting to analyze.

<img src="http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1554/timelineio7.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

Now, I am currently trying to contact somebody to get stats for 2006. However, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for what caused the peaks and drops.

Here are a few observations.

August 2004 - NS had the greatest popularity at this point. This was when the CPL summer event took place where NS was showcased. Also, beta 3.05 was soon to be released and there was a great deal of excitement about the game.

The drop in November 2004 was most likely due to the switching over of servers around the release and due to the release of Half-Life 2.

January 2005 - Christmas break

March 2005 - beta 3.0 was released. However, I don't understand the drop that followed in April (maybe servers switching over).

There's more...

Maverickk

I know it may not contribute a lot, but weren't forums and site down for like the majority of 2005? and into 06 some? There's always been a small trickle of new players, not to mention current players that may have not really tried updating since the main site was down (I know a small percentage but still some).

Cxwf

When looking at stats for the last 6 months or so, you have to remember to combine the stats for NS (official) and NS (beta), which show up as 2 different games on the stats list.

That might improve the graph a little bit, since the population has been split nearly 50/50 until just the last few weeks.

Sarisel

I actually have no data for the last 6 months at the moment. I am trying to get it. The graph shows mostly 2004 and 2005 data along with this month's data. You're right however in that the last point should be about 16 million hours instead of 12.

puzl

The steam stats can be very inaccurate too, when compared to live server lists and game-monitor.com. For example, steampowered.com has listed nsp as 89 players for a few days now, but I can't find that many people playing, no matter how I search ( serverspy, game-monitor, server list ).

This inaccuracy tends to work in both directions, so it is probably useful for analysing trends. If you are planning to collect a snapshot or automate it in some way, I would recommend using game-monitor.com. Also, it might be worth talking to the guys at game-monitor.com to see if they have a useful archive of their statistics.

Milo

I think it's time for Flayra to chime in and post again about how over 5000 people play NS.

Chocolate

Data like this makes me sad <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />.

Side note: I wonder if there is data from the earlier days of NS still floating around somewhere.

Sarisel

I'll ask if there is.

I have some data about 2006 from Onlinegamingzeitgeist (http://www.onlinegamingzeitgeist.com) thanks to Zeh, which I'm looking at right now. Over the past year, it looks like NS has been consistently below 800 players/day (averaged over a week) since January 2006. I'm going to see if I can get data for hours played and more info about accuracy before updating my graph or making more graphs.

F4tManMGS2

oooo somebody calculate an r-value! throw a p-value in there too! :-D

(I don't know if the data is that specific, but taking it version by version could be beneficial in an analysis)

Femme_Fatale

i have noticed that most regs i do know from way back in the days are slowly starting to reappear, i had a year off.
i came back before xmas,
now i start seeing more ppl i knew from back then before i went, coming back.

coris

<!--quoteo(post=1615622:date=Mar 19 2007, 07:03 PM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(puzl @ Mar 19 2007, 07:03 PM) [snapback]1615622[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
The steam stats can be very inaccurate too, when compared to live server lists and game-monitor.com. For example, steampowered.com has listed nsp as 89 players for a few days now, but I can't find that many people playing, no matter how I search ( serverspy, game-monitor, server list ).

This inaccuracy tends to work in both directions, so it is probably useful for analysing trends. If you are planning to collect a snapshot or automate it in some way, I would recommend using game-monitor.com. Also, it might be worth talking to the guys at game-monitor.com to see if they have a useful archive of their statistics.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do you know if game-monitor has some kind of API or such available? Would be useful for creating an automated graph that pulls out an RSS-feed and transforms the XML to graphs via flash or such.

puzl

No, I don't know if they do that. Perhaps the info is available for subscribers. I'd definitely subscribe if it was available. Although, I'm not sure about the accuracy of their stats too. I can't tell for sure if they count bots or not, which would be unfortunate if they did.

Anyway, over the last few days I've been comparing game-monitor.com and steampowered.com stats and they are very much out of skew with each other. Last night there were 270 people playing ns and 89 people playing nsp on steampowered.com. game-monitor.com showed 420 people playing ns and 9 people playing nsp. The server browser show about 370 people playing NS and 7 people playing nsp.

The protocols for querying the steam master servers and game servers are well documented and there are several accessible apis for it available. I think it makes most sense to write a custom NS activity monitor that gets the info directly.

Sarisel

Perhaps this is something that could be used for NS2 to get a better idea of how the game's popularity changes over time and as a consequence to events, such as patches, updates, media coverage, etc.

Firewater

I know for a fact that game monitor does not take into effect bots, which is good. They keep track of players actually connected to the game box, not virtual ones.

While the steampowered stats maybe not be perfect, I honestly think it shows a clear trend in the playerbase of natural selection. It seems according to the statistics that with each new version, less and less people play it.

Whether the specific numbers are accurate we will never know. Are they in a reasonable margin of error, I think so.

puzl

I never claimed they weren't useful for trend analysis, but that they were not accurate for drawing conclusions about NS for any specific point in time. It is a huge difference to say that you are creating a community for a game with peak usage of about 500 players vs a game with peak usage of about 250 players. Of course, your focus on these stats will differ depending on whether you are looking to explain the past, or looking for opportunities for the future.

They do not have a reasonable margin of error. This is the specific point I made, I'd ignore the differences if they varied by +/- 5%, but I've seen it been out by 50%.

Sarisel

The variation in the stats could just be due to time delay. I look at player hours instead - that's supposed to be a more averaged value.

Multi

<img src="http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2142/07ministerxh3.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
NS has not been slowly dying for the past two years.

That_Annoying_Kid

There was the lack of forums for the long while.

What about the WON days as well? Do you have those stats?

Sarisel

There aren't that many stats around before the steampowered days.

hybridx

Also note the Australian NS community is currently dead, mainly due to clan inactivity and immaturity. (I know, I was a part)

the_x5

<!--quoteo(post=1617611:date=Mar 29 2007, 12:08 AM:name=hybridx)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hybridx @ Mar 29 2007, 12:08 AM) [snapback]1617611[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Also note the Australian NS community is currently dead, mainly due to clan inactivity and immaturity. (I know, I was a part) <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually there seems to be a new generation of Aussie kids who actually are trying to build something. They are just scattered and disregarded as kids, but there are a number of Aussie pubbers on the training servers these days.

kabab

2 things happened to NS

Version 3.0 killed large pub games with the horrible alien respawn rate totally made the large scale pub games crap which a lot of people really enjoyed..

And well Warcraft came out :/

Game seems to be picking up again though <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />

haymo

3.0 = steam, steam = not WON, WON = free HL, free HL = more players, steam = better platform for creating NS2 and a larger profit through it, and more publicity of it through steam, steam is eventually better, in the long run.

In January this year I stopped working on NSPlayer.net, the leading Australian community, along with the other admins. We proided tournaments and whatnot, but everyone just lost interest. These days we usually have 1 custom server, and one 20 slot pub classic server full of players. But the real competition just isnt there anymore.

Stardog

<!--quoteo(post=1615553:date=Mar 19 2007, 02:45 AM:name=Sarisel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sarisel @ Mar 19 2007, 02:45 AM) [snapback]1615553[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
So I was looking through the Steam stats and realized that it would be interesting to look at how NS has been faring over the years. Although I could only retrieve data from 2004-2006 and also this month in March 2007, the results are still pretty interesting to analyze.

<a href="http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1554/timelineio7.png" target="_blank">http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1554/timelineio7.png</a>

Now, I am currently trying to contact somebody to get stats for 2006. However, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for what caused the peaks and drops.

Here are a few observations.

August 2004 - NS had the greatest popularity at this point. This was when the CPL summer event took place where NS was showcased. Also, beta 3.05 was soon to be released and there was a great deal of excitement about the game.

The drop in November 2004 was most likely due to the switching over of servers around the release and due to the release of Half-Life 2.

January 2005 - Christmas break

March 2005 - beta 3.0 was released. However, I don't understand the drop that followed in April (maybe servers switching over).

There's more...
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's just no buzz about NS anymore. Nobody creates threads on gaming forums about it anymore. It's not as good as it used to be, otherwise people would be playing it.

KainTSA

<!--quoteo(post=1621509:date=Apr 17 2007, 01:15 PM:name=Stardog)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stardog @ Apr 17 2007, 01:15 PM) [snapback]1621509[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
There's just no buzz about NS anymore. Nobody creates threads on gaming forums about it anymore. It's not as good as it used to be, otherwise people would be playing it.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

You know, not many people play mario for the NES any more but that doesn't mean its not as good as it used to be. Games get old and eventually lose players, regardless of whether they get better or worse.

Stardog

<!--quoteo(post=1621512:date=Apr 17 2007, 12:43 PM:name=KainTSA)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KainTSA @ Apr 17 2007, 12:43 PM) [snapback]1621512[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
You know, not many people play mario for the NES any more but that doesn't mean its not as good as it used to be. Games get old and eventually lose players, regardless of whether they get better or worse.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But NS has been constantly updating. I don't even see threads saying "NS 3.0 is out!".

I haven't mentioned the word Natural Selection on gaming forums I visit, or tried to convince someone to try it out in a long time.

Prefix

A lot of old school players are coming back to ns.

Keeps the comp scene alive (Thank Christ) cant wait till source saves this series.

( Sadly though, the best euro player is leaving ns after the ENSL finals :<, along with the rest of nL )