Survey showing % of RP'ers on Gilgamesh vs. Balmung

[Obei Kinstar]

I just seen this on the beta forums, Ive seen similar ones like this but this one has many % and numbers broken down into a lot of categories.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AmHLBB8rZZaKdEJCRi1oa1lUQi1KNUQ0TGNXeFU1YkE&toomany=true#gid=3

 

The thing that caught my eye was the percentage of role-players on the different servers.

 

 

You can see on Gilgamesh 17% of the population are RP'ers

On Balmung 47% are RP'ers

 

There was a lot more people on Gilgamesh then Balmung, but at the same time a lot of Balmung players made char to rp on Gilgamesh for the beta.

 

It seems Balmung will be quite rounded out with it's playerbase, with some hardcore, casual, and rp.

 

 

 

Now this part here shows overall numbers for all worlds. You can see the average number of RP'ers is about 14%, that is fairly close to the % of RP'ers on Gilgamesh, which came in at 17%.

 

So it is safe to assume there will be more then average number of RP'ers on Gilgamesh but only slightly. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that there is 1.already a core of RP'ers established on Balmung, 2. there is no official RP server so people don't know about it, 3. it is fairly new info that Gilgamesh is the unofficial non-legacy RP server, and 4. there are multiple unofficial non-legacy rp servers with the beta forums having a small following on behemoth.

 

 

This final piece is very enlightening, showing the preferred race and classes from our rp crowd. Almost everyone will be a female miqote, with a few male midlanders, all other races are virtually extinct.

 

I'm really not very happy with the races, I was thinking about switching my char to a female keeper of the moon... I am definitly not going too now. I think I will just keep my char the way he is, but again my char is a hume midlander, the 3rd most popular. (in ffxi i was taru and hated being so small) So for ffxiv I just tried to model my character similar to how I look irl, i guess, generally speaking, I look like everyone else...lol

 

 

 

EDIT: decided to put this quote in here since it sums things up nicely

 

 

I think this is based off the survey discussed here.

 

While I think the overall thrust of the big effects are probably true (Balmung and Gilgamesh will have more RPers, Balmung's barrier to entry means it will have a particularly large percentage of RPers per capita, miqo'te females will be super-common  ), I agree that one should take this with between one and several grains of salt because...

 

• It's a self-selecting sample; people were asked to go to and fill out the survey as opposed to getting the survey (this produces a suppressing effect on those with weaker opinions)
  
• We don't know what the attrition rate was (who selected out of the survey?)
  
• The survey predominantly went out to Reddit and 4chan, biasing the results to be "a study of Redditors and some other people); we know Gilgamesh is Reddit's server
  
• The thread linked above indicated some methodological issues with multiple votes, and we're not sure how they got cleaned up
  

 

So -- it's interesting, but certainly not damning in any way. Both Gilgamesh and Balmung will be, I'm sure, great homes for RPers. 

[Gar]

I'm not sure what to make of these last tables. The total is 242.12%?

 

And I feel like some of these numbers might be a little high. Yes, Miqo'te females are the popular choice, but that seems a huge gap between them and everything else. Is everyone RPing a girl Miqo'te with an alt or two on the side to make it seem like there are actually other races to choose?

 

I'm curious about these job numbers, too. Gladiator/Paladin is waaaay higher than I thought it would be. I mean it'll get a decent percentage because its a tank class and there are less options for that role, so DPS classes will be more spread out percentage-wise. But damn. This makes me wonder if there are gonna be a bunch of homeless Paladins sitting around in shiny gear begging for a team.

 

My new image of FFXIV: A bunch of Female Miqo'te Paladins running around. 

[Teardrop]

 

I'm really not very happy with the races, I was thinking about switching my char to a female keeper of the moon... I am definitly not going too now. I think I will just keep my char the way he is, but again my char is a hume midlander, the 3rd most popular. (in ffxi i was taru and hated being so small) So for ffxiv I just tried to model my character similar to how I look irl, i guess, generally speaking, I look like everyone else...lol

 

I always wonder how often this thought process carries over to real life..."There are too many white people here in my home country of Sweden. I think I'll move to Uganda, where I'll stand out more."

 

A class glut is one thing, because it potentially effects one's actual mechanical gameplay experience, with the lessened ability to get into groups with a particular role, etc. But race really shouldn't matter to anyone else but the player it seems to me (especially in FFXIV, where any racial advantages are really negligible), so my suggestion is that one goes with what makes them happy to play. As you can see, the majority of everyone else seems to be doing just that

[K'nahli]

I don't understand these percentages at all.

[Obei Kinstar]

Yeah the last % numbers dont add up too 100%, they add up to 240% because they pulled the info from all the different worlds but you can still see the disparity. Or just simply divide by 2.4 for an estimation of the actual %.

 

EDIT: the % of hardcore, casual, and rp will not add up to 100 either because you could select more then 1 option in the survey

 

also keep in mind these numbers are based on a minority of beta testers, but the numbers should still hold true for the most part

---

 

I'm really not very happy with the races, I was thinking about switching my char to a female keeper of the moon... I am definitly not going too now. I think I will just keep my char the way he is, but again my char is a hume midlander, the 3rd most popular. (in ffxi i was taru and hated being so small) So for ffxiv I just tried to model my character similar to how I look irl, i guess, generally speaking, I look like everyone else...lol

 

I always wonder how often this thought process carries over to real life..."There are too many white people here in my home country of Sweden.  I think I'll move to Uganda, where I'll stand out more."

 

A class glut is one thing, because it potentially effects one's actual mechanical gameplay experience, with the lessened ability to get into groups with a particular role, etc.  But race really shouldn't matter to anyone else but the player it seems to me (especially in FFXIV, where any racial advantages are really negligible), so my suggestion is that one goes with what makes them happy to play.  As you can see, the majority of everyone else seems to be doing just that

 

Ive always liked being different my entire life

 

maybe I will move to Uganda :thumbsup:

[Havoc Snow]

I never take any of these things seriously because they just don't account for the vast number of people actually playing the game. We know that there were about 1,000,000 registered users in beta, and even if we assume that a quite a few of these are not active, and some of them are multiple accounts registered to the same person, we still only see a tiny fraction of the total playerbase represented here in the survey, of nearly one million players only a few thousand actually respond, it sadly doesn't even represent 1% of everyone in game.

 

Regardless of all that though, looking purely at the numbers shown even though Balmung has a higher percentage than Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh still has more rolerplayers in general simply because there are more players who voted for it. It's around 140 Balmung to 180 Gilgamesh. Still, you compare the results of that survey to the results found on surveys taken here and you'd find the results to be the opposite, and in several other surveys I've seen on the beta forums the two servers often switch which is in the lead. It's just not possible to view these as accurate in any way.

 

Looking at the numbers, they basically represent less than .01% of the registered playerbase.

[K'nahli]

 

I'm really not very happy with the races, I was thinking about switching my char to a female keeper of the moon... I am definitly not going too now. I think I will just keep my char the way he is, but again my char is a hume midlander, the 3rd most popular. (in ffxi i was taru and hated being so small) So for ffxiv I just tried to model my character similar to how I look irl, i guess, generally speaking, I look like everyone else...lol

 

I always wonder how often this thought process carries over to real life..."There are too many white people here in my home country of Sweden.  I think I'll move to Uganda, where I'll stand out more."

 

A class glut is one thing, because it potentially effects one's actual mechanical gameplay experience, with the lessened ability to get into groups with a particular role, etc.  But race really shouldn't matter to anyone else but the player it seems to me (especially in FFXIV, where any racial advantages are really negligible), so my suggestion is that one goes with what makes them happy to play.  As you can see, the majority of everyone else seems to be doing just that

 

If I were to guess, I would say it's simply a matter of trying to make your character different from the norm. Not necessarily stand out, but interestingly unique and not just a slightly different clone of everyone around you.

 

EDIT: the % of hardcore, casual, and rp will not add up to 100 either because you could select more then 1 option in the survey

---

 

Ah, I see. Thank you for explaining that ^^

[Obei Kinstar]

I never take any of these things seriously because they just don't account for the vast number of people actually playing the game. We know that there were about 1,000,000 registered users in beta, and even if we assume that a quite a few of these are not active, and some of them are multiple accounts registered to the same person, we still only see a tiny fraction of the total playerbase represented here in the survey, of nearly one million players only a few thousand actually respond, it sadly doesn't even represent 1% of everyone in game.

 

Regardless of all that though, looking purely at the numbers shown even though Balmung has a higher percentage than Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh still has more rolerplayers in general simply because there are more players who voted for it. It's around 140 Balmung to 180 Gilgamesh. Still, you compare the results of that survey to the results found on surveys taken here and you'd find the results to be the opposite, and in several other surveys I've seen on the beta forums the two servers often switch which is in the lead. It's just not possible to view these as accurate in any way.

 

Looking at the numbers, they basically represent less than .01% of the registered playerbase.

 

1 million people registered for the beta, only a small fraction of that were accepted to participate. This def represents more then .1% of the playerbase

 

EDIT: also you say that surveys here show opposite results, thats probably due to the fact that everyone here is biased in that we all RP, this survey would draw more of an unbiased response since it has people participating from all different play styles, servers, and regions. Where the surveys done here are biased to a couple servers and all RP'ers.

[Asyria]

Coeurl has more than Gilgamesh? And Behemoth is the 4th lowest in RP? o_O

Oh well... surveys are surveys.

 

I'm kind of amused by Balmung being so evenly distributed, though.

[Havoc Snow]

I never take any of these things seriously because they just don't account for the vast number of people actually playing the game. We know that there were about 1,000,000 registered users in beta, and even if we assume that a quite a few of these are not active, and some of them are multiple accounts registered to the same person, we still only see a tiny fraction of the total playerbase represented here in the survey, of nearly one million players only a few thousand actually respond, it sadly doesn't even represent 1% of everyone in game.

 

Regardless of all that though, looking purely at the numbers shown even though Balmung has a higher percentage than Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh still has more rolerplayers in general simply because there are more players who voted for it. It's around 140 Balmung to 180 Gilgamesh. Still, you compare the results of that survey to the results found on surveys taken here and you'd find the results to be the opposite, and in several other surveys I've seen on the beta forums the two servers often switch which is in the lead. It's just not possible to view these as accurate in any way.

 

Looking at the numbers, they basically represent less than .01% of the registered playerbase.

 

1 million people registered for the beta, only a small fraction of that were accepted to participate. This def represents more then .1% of the playerbase

 

EDIT: also you say that surveys here show opposite results, thats probably due to the fact that everyone here is biased in that we all RP, this survey would draw more of an unbiased response since it has people participating from all different play styles, servers, and regions. Where the surveys done here are biased to a couple servers and all RP'ers.

I was pretty sure Yoshida said something about there being over 900,000 players IN beta as of phase 3.

[Obei Kinstar]

I was pretty sure Yoshida said something about there being over 900,000 players IN beta as of phase 3.

 

I think you might have mis-read something, I have been following info fairly close and I never seen that.

 

Show me a link to that info and I will absolutely retract my statement

[Havoc Snow]

I was pretty sure Yoshida said something about there being over 900,000 players IN beta as of phase 3.

 

I think you might have mis-read something, I have been following info fairly close and I never seen that.

 

Show me a link to that info and I will absolutely retract my statement

I looked it up, and it looks like you were right. Seems like it was one million signups.

[Kylin]

I for one don't put much stock in polls that allow people to vote more than once. So this really doesn't mean anything to me, personally. Let alone polls posted on the lolbeta forums >.>;

[Eva]

I'm also not sure how accurate you could really regard this data either.  If they're using a cross-section of a community than they are making a lot of assumptions.  The link in the OP didn't work for me, and I'm unable to discern where the data came from for these figures.

 

And I don't recall casting any sort of vote on beta forums, so I don't think this factors me in, and I have to wonder how many others might not be represented here either.

 

I'm not putting much stock into these numbers.  Things will be much clearer in a month's time.

[FreelanceWizard]

I think this is based off the survey discussed here.

 

While I think the overall thrust of the big effects are probably true (Balmung and Gilgamesh will have more RPers, Balmung's barrier to entry means it will have a particularly large percentage of RPers per capita, miqo'te females will be super-common ), I agree that one should take this with between one and several grains of salt because...

 

• It's a self-selecting sample; people were asked to go to and fill out the survey as opposed to getting the survey (this produces a suppressing effect on those with weaker opinions)
  
• We don't know what the attrition rate was (who selected out of the survey?)
  
• The survey predominantly went out to Reddit and 4chan, biasing the results to be "a study of Redditors and some other people); we know Gilgamesh is Reddit's server
  
• The thread linked above indicated some methodological issues with multiple votes, and we're not sure how they got cleaned up
  

 

So -- it's interesting, but certainly not damning in any way. Both Gilgamesh and Balmung will be, I'm sure, great homes for RPers.

[AkhutaiAngura]

IMO, this should all be taken with a grain of salt. I know I didn't participate in the survey, and with the numbers being -so- small compared to what the 'real' numbers will be...

Like, the population numbers. 308 people said they'll be playing on Balmung, and 1040 said they'll be playing on Gilgamesh. That screams inaccurate data to me, because the survey has a large outlier in its statistics, and it seems like it would skew the data some.

 

But, meh. That's just me and what little I can remember from a stats class last semester.. I'll still take it with a grain of salt.

[Ruby]

I'm off the same mindset as most people here. I don't even remember seeing any survey about this on any site. So I find it very hard to believe that those numbers are accurate. How is it even possible to say that a player is either a hardcore, casual or roleplayer. Besides, a casual/hardcore roleplayer still can be a roleplayer. So all of this makes very little sense to me.

[Obei Kinstar]

I'm off the same mindset as most people here. I don't even remember seeing any survey about this on any site. So I find it very hard to believe that those numbers are accurate. How is it even possible to say that a player is either a hardcore, casual or roleplayer. Besides, a casual/hardcore roleplayer still can be a roleplayer. So all of this makes very little sense to me.

 

you could select casual, hardcore and roleplayer, so ultimately you could have selected all 3

 

IMO, this should all be taken with a grain of salt. I know I didn't participate in the survey, and with the numbers being -so- small compared to what the 'real' numbers will be...

Like, the population numbers. 308 people said they'll be playing on Balmung, and 1040 said they'll be playing on Gilgamesh. That screams inaccurate data to me, because the survey has a large outlier in its statistics, and it seems like it would skew the data some.

 

But, meh. That's just me and what little I can remember from a stats class last semester.. I'll still take it with a grain of salt.

 

If you looked at the servers during beta 3, there was way more ppl on gilgamesh then anyother server so I would say its fairly accurate representation of beta phase 3, of course not how it will be at launch

[Swift]

I hope it's not entirely accurate. D:

 

I expected that Miqo'te would be popular, but those numbers are kind of ridiculous.

 

Leviathan looks really lonely as far as roleplayers go, too. So hopefully these survey results are more along the lines of "This is the worst it could potentially be" than "this is how it actually is."

[Naunet]

I always wonder how often this thought process carries over to real life..."There are too many white people here in my home country of Sweden.  I think I'll move to Uganda, where I'll stand out more."

 

Eh, that's not really fair. Your real life race isn't exactly something you can pick and choose, but you can in a video game. The lack of racial diversity is a bit frustrating, because a lot of roleplayers are going to lose out on a good deal of cultural diversity in their roleplay - even with the range of backgrounds (from tribal to hermit to cosmopolitan to whatever) you can give a miqo'te.

 

So yeah, racial diversity definitely can and does affect one's roleplay - potentially in a negative way - so while of course it's important to pick whatever makes one happy, it also means that concerns like "There are way too many of Race X" are valid should one want to take them into account when making a decision.

[Zizirimu Yayarimu]

Don't kill me but...

 

 

Doesn't huge numbers of Miqote above everyone else sort of undermine the lore of the game itself?

 

Not saying that the survey is correct.

[FreelanceWizard]

You're correct that it does, since miqo'te are supposed to be relatively rare in Eorzea.

 

Ah, well. Players will be players; cat people will always be popular (and it doesn't help that they have good emotes and models), and we can't really control what concepts RPers will come up with and what they want to play.

[Teardrop]

I always wonder how often this thought process carries over to real life..."There are too many white people here in my home country of Sweden.  I think I'll move to Uganda, where I'll stand out more."

 

Eh, that's not really fair. Your real life race isn't exactly something you can pick and choose, but you can in a video game.

 

Naw, its fair...true, you can't chose your race, but you absolutely can choose your location, and that can effect the racial representation of those around you, and the diversity of your surroundings. Having lived in Korea for 4 years (and not being Asian) made me the almost the literal Hyur in a sea of Miqo'te That wasn't anything more than a bit of throwaway comment for fun about taking that thought process into real life, and was only applicable to the "real life" part, anyways :dodgy:

 

I would still say that, at least for me, my happiness with what I'm playing is going to outweigh any displeasure at what others won't be doing for me by making themselves a more diverse community racially. Can't really effect what others do, alas :dodgy:. You changing your own character to your "B" choice isn't going to make anyone else do the same, so the ability to run into more cultural diversity throughout the remainder of the player base won't be modified or enhanced by your unilateral choice. Given that others will play what they will, I stand by one playing what makes them happy and can relate to as being the way to go .

[Myxie Tryxle]

I can see one potentially massive source for error in this survey. What if whatever group did the survey posted it on Reddit or 4chan? It would certainly explain why Gilgamesh got 2-5 times as many responses as every other server on the survey.

 

Also, what about multiple submissions? I'm not putting much stock in these numbers.

---

Don't kill me but...

 

 

Doesn't huge numbers of Miqote above everyone else sort of undermine the lore of the game itself?

 

Not saying that the survey is correct.

 

I don't see this as being an issue, since players would make up just a small percent of the overall population of the world. Behind the scenes should be whole communities we don't see because the world has to be shrunk down to be playable from a game development perspective. It's not unreasonable to think that Ul'dah, Gridania, and Limsa would support a community of thousands of people. It is unreasonable in that building that sort of world would take a massive development effort in both time and money that would add little to nothing to the gameplay for the average player.

[Naunet]

Naw, its fair...true, you can't chose your race, but you absolutely can choose your location

 

*snips*

 

I stand by one playing what makes them happy and can relate to as being the way to go .

 

First - I suppose you can choose your location, if you happen to be secure enough financially that moving around wherever is feasible. It's often not really a choice a lot of people have the opportunity to make.

 

Second - Who's to say that the percent representation of a race isn't part of the choice that goes into what makes someone happy with their race? It's not like the two are mutually exclusive.

 

I'll be maining a Sun Seeker miqo'te and wouldn't change her for the world - mostly because it happens to be the only race where I could actually get the look I was going for (more mature/aged) and with animations that don't look freakishly girly. But I'll also be roleplaying a lalafel, an elezen, and a hyur, so... *shrug*