...why was the Users Online feature removed from the beta UI? Give me one logical explanation that has a positive connotation behind the reasoning. No, seriously. I dare you to try. Good luck!
Might it have something to do with the fact that yesterday, on Saturday afternoon, I was launching but received a negative message "no game found" ? Perhaps the user numbers are not what they used to be. Back when I was playing Everquest (I) and the user numbers dropped, they removed the "users online" information from the servers as well.
Neither of those reasons are positive - one implies server/game instability, the other implies a community that has shrunk.
Perhaps to remake social feature functions. They may be trying to implement some sort of better system or maybe even lobbies for people to chat. The in-game chat system is pretty shitty atm and could use some serious updates. It may also have something to do with ui2.0. You didnt say anything about believing the answer so there it is.
Because there are so many users on MWO and it was growing exponentially with so many users. The number of digits for "Users Online" were too many. If the number of players reached 5 digits or more, the games of everyone online would simultaneously crash their clients. So, in hindsight, it's a good idea that PGI removed it before it became a problem.
Leon, none of those were logical explanations about the removal of Users Online from UI, though. On the other hand, [glow=yellow,2,300]Golden Dragon[/glow] wins a cookie:
Actually I'm fairly sure it was a business decision, as a rule the size of the player-base is what governs whether a game like this is successful, and even though we as a rule spend more money and time in-game, it's the figure that people will look at and judge this game by. At the moment that figure is not high enough, PGI has stated this as the reason they do not release the stats yet. If you could see who was online at any given time you could record the figures over time and use that as a basis to work out the size of the player-base. On top of that, it's a risk, if at any time the number of players drops below a certain number players will think " oh not many people on, I'll come back later" and empty servers kill games.
Verbosity actually came close to the answer I was looking for. To me the only way it flies at all with a positive spin on it, is if you consider that a User Online thing starts to influence when people play. Like, they'll see it at X-Y, and think, "na I'll just play tomorrow when there's X online!" and it's a self-fulfilling thing where the community kinda kills the '24/7' vibe of it and instead tries to play in group bursts. That'd suck. This already happens in every game, of course, but it can be exacerbated by access to the activity levels themselves. In other words, not allowing us to see it would help the community avoid burning themselves on active times so that way they play more naturally (when they want to). It's not much a positive outlook on it, but it's the only rational one I can come up with...
Not sure if your question is stemming from the NGNG podcast, but here's the corporate answer. Start at 24:16... http://www.nogutsnogalaxy.net/forum/index.php/topic,922.0.html
No it's not from that, but, nevertheless that's pretty neat, I'm glad to see that was brought up by the NGNG crew. I liked the exchange from Bombadil's standpoint, except for Bryan's complete bullshit response. It's our prerogative as a community if we want to misconstrue data to some sort of agenda or particular context, but denying that sort of information shows a lack of trust in the community... no transparency, further proved by Bryan's response when he basically says he doesn't trust the community to make sound judgments for themselves and collectively regarding said data. Sad, really. I don't blame them but I think I'll treat them with the same sort of skepticism from this point out. 2 days to go til launch, folx... also, on a personal tip, Bryan is completely unlistenable. Can't imagine being in a meeting with him rambling for longer than 15 mins or I'd pretty much shut down my ability to process the shit he's babbling on about monotonously.
Maybe they removed the numbers so we wouldn't be intimidated by the sheer number of enemies we have to face...could be. Myth
well, I agree with him less than 50% but there was more info in those 3 podcasts then all 46 ask the devs so that counts for something.
