Average Games A Day July 21 - 28

by **Coleman** on Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:32 am

I did this because I wanted to know and thought it might imply what kind of maps we should be making (which it unfortunately does not). Since I did the work I see no reason why I can't share my findings in case other people are interested.

It may (debatable) reveal problems to those who view the data certain ways. I'll provide one example later.

Results (Name / Average Games A Day / Rank):

Code: Select all: Classic 1309.14 1 Doodle Earth 215.29 2 Luxembourg 186.14 3 Feudal War 178.29 4 Arms Race! 148.71 5 World 2.1 116.57 6 Peloponnesian War 113.57 7 British Isles 99.29 8 New World 84.14 9 Age Of Realms 2: Magic 77.14 10 Feudal Epic 53.29 11 England 52.29 12 Poker Club 50.57 13 Korea 49.57 14 American Civil War 48.43 15 Australia 45.00 16 Route 66 42.86 17 Europe 1914 41.29 18 Greater China 41.29 18 Age Of Realms 1: Might 40.43 20 Canada 39.71 21 WWII Poland 37.14 22 Madagascar 33.43 23 USA 32.29 24 Cyprus 31.57 25 Treasures Of Galapagos 29.71 26 Das Schloss 29.57 27 Waterloo 29.29 28 Imperium Romanum 27.29 29 Egypt: Nubia 25.14 30 King Of The Mountains 24.43 31 Africa 23.43 32 Age Of Realms 3: Ma... 22.43 33 Golfe Du Saint-Laurent 22.29 34 Alexander's Empire 22.29 34 Italy 22.14 36 San Francisco 22.14 36 Age of Merchants 22.00 38 Iberia 20.86 39 King's Court 20.14 40 USA West 20.00 41 France 19.86 42 Clandemonium 19.71 43 Midgard 19.71 43 San Marino 19.57 45 Eastern Hemisphere 19.43 46 Jamaica 18.71 47 Charleston 18.71 47 Napoleonic Europe 18.14 49 First Nations Americas 18.00 50 13 Colonies 17.71 51 Europa 17.00 52 Indochina 16.86 53 Japan 16.00 54 Texan Wars 15.86 55 BeNeLux 15.86 55 Europe 15.86 55 Flanders 1302 15.71 58 USA Rockies 15.57 59 Berlin 1961 15.57 59 Arctic 15.57 59 Middle East 15.57 59 WWII Europe 15.14 63 City Mogul 15.00 64 Dust Bowl 15.00 64 Caribbean Islands 15.00 64 Brazil 15.00 64 Nordic Countries 14.71 68 Austro-Hungarian Em... 14.57 69 Scotland 14.57 69 Portugal 14.57 69 8 Thoughts 14.43 72 Cairns Coral Coast 14.29 73 Pearl Harbor 14.14 74 Siege! 13.86 75 Poison Rome 13.71 76 Third Crusade 13.43 77 Celtic Nations 13.14 78 Monsters 13.14 78 Germany 13.14 78 Middle Ages 13.00 81 NYC 13.00 81 Cricket 12.71 83 Battle For Iraq! 12.71 83 D-Day: Omaha Beach! 12.71 83 Asia 12.71 83 Vancouver 12.29 87 Atlantis 12.14 88 North America 12.14 88 Circus Maximus 12.14 88 Iceland 12.00 91 Duck And Cover 11.86 92 Greenland 11.71 93 Baseball 11.57 94 USA Great Lakes 11.57 94 Montreal 11.57 94 Stalingrad 11.43 97 Balkan Peninsula 11.29 98 Lunar War 11.29 98 USA Southwest 11.14 100 Malta 11.00 101 Great Lakes 10.86 102 U.S. Senate 10.71 103 Hong Kong 10.71 103 USA Southeast 10.43 105 WWII Western Front 10.43 105 Oasis 10.29 107 Ireland 10.29 107 Antarctica 10.14 109 Fractured America 10.00 110 Castle Lands 9.71 111 CCU 9.57 112 Central America 9.43 113 USA New England 8.71 114 Ancient Greece 8.71 114 Crossword 8.57 116 Austerlitz 8.43 117 First Nations North A.. 8.43 117 Hive 8.14 119 Halloween Hollows 8.14 119 High Seas 8.14 119 Discworld 8.14 119 México 8.00 123 Macedonia 8.00 123 Supermax: Prison Riot! 7.86 125 France 1789 7.71 126 Tamriel 7.71 126 Egypt: Lower 7.29 128 Holy Roman Empire 7.14 129 Chinese Checkers 7.14 129 Woodboro 7.00 131 Soviet Union 7.00 131 Haiti 6.86 133 WWII Iwo Jima 6.86 133 Space 6.86 133 Wales 6.57 136 Gilgamesh 6.43 137 Indian Empire 6.43 137 Conquer 4 6.43 137 Rail USA 6.43 137 South America 6.29 141 Philippines 6.00 142 Oceania 5.86 143 Archipelago 5.86 143 WWII Gazala 5.71 145 Madness 5.71 145 Transsib 1914 5.57 147 Thailand 5.57 147 Chicago 5.57 147 Netherlands 5.57 147 Bamboo Jack 5.43 151 Mongol Empire 5.43 151 Forbidden City 5.29 153 First Nations South A.. 5.14 154 USApocalypse 5.00 155 Unification Italy 4.86 156 Triple Alliance 4.86 156 Operation Drug War 4.86 156 WWII Ardennes 4.86 156 Egypt: Valley Of The K. 4.86 156 WWII Australia 4.86 156 Northwest Passage 4.71 162 Cairns Metro 4.71 162 Rail Europe 4.71 162 South Africa 1885 4.57 165 Unification Germany 4.57 165 Land And Sea 4.29 167 The Citadel 4.29 167 Egypt: Upper 4.29 167 Solar System 4.29 167 Midkemdil 4.14 171 Puget Sound 4.00 172 Dawn Of Ages 3.71 173 WWI Ottoman Empire 3.71 173 WWII Eastern Front 3.71 173 Thyseneal 3.57 176 Conquer Man 3.43 177 Battle Of Actium 3.29 178 Rail Africa 3.00 179 Rail Australia 2.71 180 Orient Express 1883 2.57 181 Sydney Metro 2.43 182 Draknor - Level 1 2.43 182 Prohibition Chicago 2.00 184 Extreme Global Warming 2.00 184

One thing that is important to note is sometimes few players make MANY games on a particular map each day. New World for instance typically has 10-20 unique creators daily for this time period even though it has about 84 games made a day.

That and other factors means that this is in no way a popularity contest or implying that maps which see more play are better than maps that see less play (unless you think like the producers of American Idol but that's a different topic altogether).

Anyway, how does this reveal problems? Depends on what you consider a problem I suppose. Here are some things that struck me.

With the exception of Korea, which is seeing a bump for being new, the highest ranked map from 2010 onwards is Cyprus at 25, and no 2010 or later maps are in the top 10 (Korea is 14). I'm not going to try to say this means anything in particular, just something I couldn't help but notice.

If you total the average games a day by year (over the past 7 days) and then divide that by the total number of maps that were made that year it looks like this:

Code: Select all: 2011 16.10 2010 11.11 2009 18.05 2008 23.53 2007 23.39 2006 21.53 (not including classic)

While I found this way of displaying the information initially alarming it becomes less so because...

Some games that are ranked quite highly are farming maps. What does that mean? It means a high number of games are created by the same people with the intent of farming points. Many conquest style maps and small territory style maps become farming maps because simple rules not inherently apparent to a new player can put an experienced one way ahead. Also small territory maps see more play because they make for faster speed games. Incidentally while Arms Race is very popular, experienced players do make many a day to farm points from people who don't know the basic strategies that multiple plays make apparent.

Here are those same numbers with the farming maps removed:

Code: Select all: 2011 16.10 2010 11.11 2009 14.09 2008 14.11 2007 12.95 2006 21.53

There are other things that struck/bothered me (real quick that the number of maps released a year is on the decline at the present rate but that might not be a big deal) but I am getting tired so maybe another day.

If I were able I would have listed the unique creators of games per map per day but my script for that runs into several irreconcilable problems, at least for now.

Anyway, here is what I did, I may continue doing it (but probably won't continue posting it as becoming relied on for anything this regular isn't a good idea for me).

by **natty dread** on Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:46 am

Really interesting statistics. Thanks Coleman!

by **greenoaks** on Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:08 am

some interesting numbers coupled with poor analysis =D>

by **Coleman** on Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:22 am

greenoaks wrote:some interesting numbers coupled with poor analysis

Although I doubt you will respond, could you elaborate? I don't view analysis and opinions as the same so that may be the problem; I gave many opinions that you might not agree with.

by **koontz1973** on Fri Jul 29, 2011 3:36 am

Now all you need to do Coleman is to compile a list with mapmakers to see who makes the most played maps.

by **greenoaks** on Fri Jul 29, 2011 3:42 am

Coleman wrote:I did this because I wanted to know and thought it might imply what kind of maps we should be making (which it unfortunately does not).

you started with a good reason for the stats but jumped to an unfounded conclusion prior to any stats being seen by us

Coleman wrote:One thing that is important to note is sometimes few players make MANY games on a particular map each day. New World for instance typically has 10-20 unique creators daily for this time period even though it has about 84 games made a day.

That and other factors means that this is in no way a popularity contest or implying that maps which see more play are better than maps that see less play (unless you think like the producers of American Idol but that's a different topic altogether).

you do it again here. why bother to look at what type of maps people play if you are not interested in any result that differs from your opinion of good or bad.

Coleman wrote:With the exception of Korea, which is seeing a bump for being new, the highest ranked map from 2010 onwards is Cyprus at 25, and no 2010 or later maps are in the top 10 (Korea is 14). I'm not going to try to say this means anything in particular, just something I couldn't help but notice.

If you total the average games a day by year (over the past 7 days) and then divide that by the total number of maps that were made that year it looks like this:
Code: Select all
2011 16.10 2010 11.11 2009 18.05 2008 23.53 2007 23.39 2006 21.53 (not including classic)

While I found this way of displaying the information initially alarming it becomes less so because...

Some games that are ranked quite highly are farming maps. What does that mean? It means a high number of games are created by the same people with the intent of farming points. Many conquest style maps and small territory style maps become farming maps because simple rules not inherently apparent to a new player can put an experienced one way ahead. Also small territory maps see more play because they make for faster speed games. Incidentally while Arms Race is very popular, experienced players do make many a day to farm points from people who don't know the basic strategies that multiple plays make apparent.

Here are those same numbers with the farming maps removed:
Code: Select all
2011 16.10 2010 11.11 2009 14.09 2008 14.11 2007 12.95 2006 21.53

here you don't like the numbers so you remove enough maps to get the results you want.

it would appear that your opinion of what maps should be made is not supported by the stats on what maps people are playing so you ridicule the masses or remove their choices from the data.

so lets start again

Coleman wrote:I did this because I wanted to know and thought it might imply what kind of maps we should be making.

maps of the entire planet (Classic, Doodle, World 2.1) are ranked 1, 2 & 6. perhaps another earth map would be popular such as the oceans/land reversed map or one that utilises the larger map size now available. World 3.0 anyone?
maps with separated starting positions (Feudal War, Pelo War, New World, Realms 2, Feudal Epic, Realms 1) are ranked 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 & 20. clearly there is demand for this map type.
small maps that are great for speed games (Doodle & Luxemburg) are ranked 2 & 3. there is demand for this map type.

i am sure there are other similarities between some of the maps on the list that could be used as a guide for what might be popular. likewise what do the ones at the bottom have in common that it might be best to avoid.

by **Coleman** on Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:04 pm

To begin, if I was good enough at writing scripts to come up with the number of unique game creators per map per week we wouldn't be having this discussion at all because I would have just posted that.

I do appreciate your feedback though. It helps make me realize how I must come across and it's a little... err... not what I like. I could just blame it on the brain damage but my personality is intact (I think) so that isn't really fair. Anyways...

greenoaks wrote:you started with a good reason for the stats but jumped to an unfounded conclusion prior to any stats being seen by us

I was expecting to see very clear numbers in favor of specific types of gameplay but further investigation proved this to not be the case.

greenoaks wrote:you do it again here. why bother to look at what type of maps people play if you are not interested in any result that differs from your opinion of good or bad.

I am sorry that I implied I had an opinion before I presented the results. But clearly one person making 100 games a day is not the same as 30 people making 30 games a day. The number of games made being the sole measure of map popularity is thus flawed.

greenoaks wrote:here you don't like the numbers so you remove enough maps to get the results you want.

it would appear that your opinion of what maps should be made is not supported by the stats on what maps people are playing so you ridicule the masses or remove their choices from the data.

Neither is true, unfortunately. I do not care what the results are. The first set of data implied that the popularity of the newer maps was much lower then the older maps. The reality is a large group of the older maps contained the 1 person making 100s of games scenario. A fact you seem to have chosen to ignore, or maybe I didn't present it clearly enough. 1 person voting 100s of times for a person in american idol makes that person win, but it doesn't mean they were better than someone else getting less votes from more people. The loud and fanatically devoted do tend to obscure statistics, that should not be the case here.

greenoaks wrote:
Coleman wrote:I did this because I wanted to know and thought it might imply what kind of maps we should be making.

maps of the entire planet (Classic, Doodle, World 2.1) are ranked 1, 2 & 6. perhaps another earth map would be popular such as the oceans/land reversed map or one that utilises the larger map size now available. World 3.0 anyone?
maps with separated starting positions (Feudal War, Pelo War, New World, Realms 2, Feudal Epic, Realms 1) are ranked 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 & 20. clearly there is demand for this map type.
small maps that are great for speed games (Doodle & Luxemburg) are ranked 2 & 3. there is demand for this map type.

i am sure there are other similarities between some of the maps on the list that could be used as a guide for what might be popular. likewise what do the ones at the bottom have in common that it might be best to avoid.

I agree with the first bullet point (although one all world map is at the very bottom), and the last as well as your end comment. Unfortunately, the second only makes them seem popular for reasons I have stated over and over. I designed New World and I would love to be able to argue that it is the 9th most popular map. Unfortunately 2 or 3 people frequently make many games a day on it, that, to me, is not real popularity.

I personally (actual pure opinion time) have no interest designing any more conquest (separated starting position) style maps. Feudal War seems to be the only one that escapes most of the problem I am pointing out (although its numbers are somewhat boosted by it) and any attempt I made would only be a lame attempt at emulating that success.

by **DiM** on Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:16 pm

Coleman wrote: I designed New World and I would love to be able to argue that it is the 9th most popular map. Unfortunately 2 or 3 people frequently make many games a day on it, that, to me, is not real popularity.

actually it is popularity, just a different kind.

generally speaking we have 3 types:

1. maps that have lots of games made by lots of people
2. maps that have lots of games made by few people
3. maps that have few games made by few people

if new world fits in category 2 it is still more popular than the maps that fit in category 3.

by **Coleman** on Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:20 pm

DiM wrote:
Coleman wrote: I designed New World and I would love to be able to argue that it is the 9th most popular map. Unfortunately 2 or 3 people frequently make many games a day on it, that, to me, is not real popularity.

actually it is popularity, just a different kind.

generally speaking we have 3 types:

1. maps that have lots of games made by lots of people
2. maps that have lots of games made by few people
3. maps that have few games made by few people

if new world fits in category 2 it is still more popular than the maps that fit in category 3.

I do appreciate that response, and you are right, it is a form of popularity. I'm going to work on my scripts some more and see if I can get past the weird game number problem I am having because I want to know how many category 1 maps there are and what they are.

It might be that I just need to figure out which game number is the first game at the beginning of the time range I want to use, but they don't quite work like that. I could just accept that there is some % of error involved and just run the damn thing...

by **DiM** on Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:54 pm

also i've been wondering if popularity means quality and how exactly do we measure that?

in my opinion it doesn't. and the best example is doodle earth. there are 84756 games just for 8 players freestyle assassin. just for that specific gametype we have that insane amount of games. more than half of the maps ever created don't even have that many total games. considering the fact that most of those doodle games are over in less than a minute and are 99% decided by luck (drop/dice) i can clearly testify that popularity has nothing to do with strategy and quality. this is something i've been thinking even back in 2007 but i was told i'm wrong. back then i wanted to make a wheel of fortune map where basically it was all about luck. the foundry cried it's insane and nobody wants such games. the doodle russian roulette games prove me right... unfortunately.

anyway, i guess the best way to asses the quality of a map would be to see the number of games with some specific settings (that favour strategy over luck, 4-8 players,standard, chained/adjacent, no spoils, manual deployment) and starting from there to analyze other factors like how many people created those games, how many unique people joined them, and so on.

just for fun, with these settings (4-8 players,standard, chained/adjacent, no spoils, manual deployment) there are just 12 doodle games.
if we remove the manual deployment condition (which seems to be avoided by many) we still get a very low number of games. just 609.

by comparison north america has 15 and 649 despite having an overall number of games 10 times smaller than doodle.
so basically north america is a far more strategic map than doodle

by **Coleman** on Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:01 pm

DiM wrote:also i've been wondering if popularity means quality and how exactly do we measure that?

in my opinion it doesn't. and the best example is doodle earth. there are 84756 games just for 8 players freestyle assassin. just for that specific gametype we have that insane amount of games. more than half of the maps ever created don't even have that many total games. considering the fact that most of those doodle games are over in less than a minute and are 99% decided by luck (drop/dice) i can clearly testify that popularity has nothing to do with strategy and quality. this is something i've been thinking even back in 2007 but i was told i'm wrong. back then i wanted to make a wheel of fortune map where basically it was all about luck. the foundry cried it's insane and nobody wants such games. the doodle russian roulette games prove me right... unfortunately.

anyway, i guess the best way to asses the quality of a map would be to see the number of games with some specific settings (that favour strategy over luck, 4-8 players,standard, chained/adjacent, no spoils, manual deployment) and starting from there to analyze other factors like how many people created those games, how many unique people joined them, and so on.

just for fun, with these settings (4-8 players,standard, chained/adjacent, no spoils, manual deployment) there are just 12 doodle games.
if we remove the manual deployment condition (which seems to be avoided by many) we still get a very low number of games. just 609.

by comparison north america has 15 and 649 despite having an overall number of games 10 times smaller than doodle.
so basically north america is a far more strategic map than doodle

Assdoodles are popular, I say give the people what they want, even if it isn't necessarily something I would make or promote. If we accept your assumptions that those settings = strategic and strategic = better then we can say Doodle Earth is not a good map. Either way, there is no way to deny that many many people play Doodle Earth and that it must keep some people interested and enjoying the site which is really the whole point.

Anyway, the whole problem is I was trying to use statistics to measure an opinion, which is simply never going to work. Even if I do get my unique creators thing running it still might not show anything as useful as I wanted.

The most I can feel we can really take from this are which maps are category 3 and trying to figure out why. It would be worthwhile. While I personally loathe starting to tell new people their map has too many category 3 characteristics and base suggestions for change or stopping the project over it, frankly, it might not be the worst idea in the world.

What would be most interesting to me now is to see how many people play a map once and then never play it again, but that would be a nightmare to figure out and we could probably only guess as to why.

by **MarshalNey** on Wed Aug 03, 2011 11:59 pm

From my perspective, the right questions are being asked here, but as Coleman points out, unfortunately, the stats can't give even modestly reliable answers.

In representative politics, there seems to be a vested interest in asking the electorate for as little information as possible to select a winner (yes or not yes). There's no reason, however, for this site to emulate that idea when so much more is possible with relatively little trouble. Just playing a map or not playing a map isn't necessarily a very good way of gauging 'positive' popularity. For instance, while DiM is correct that a #2 style map is more popular than a #3, I would still argue that it might be less desirable- because farming often constitutes a negative experience for the player getting milked. In fact, it may be one of the principal factors in the desertion of a New Recruit.

There's a system in place for ranking players- time and again I've heard suggestions for a similar system for ranking maps. It would be nice to see, because then we could get the reasons (the publics ones, anyway) why maps get played (or not) and how they are perceived (strategic, good for team games, 'relax and kill stuff' kind of map, etc.)

-- Marshal Ney

by **DiM** on Thu Aug 04, 2011 6:01 am

MarshalNey wrote: because farming often constitutes a negative experience for the player getting milked. In fact, it may be one of the principal factors in the desertion of a New Recruit.

i might be wrong but i think new recruits can't be farmed anymore. i'm not sure but from what i heard they play unranked games at first and they can't join difficult maps.

by **natty dread** on Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:38 am

DiM wrote:
MarshalNey wrote: because farming often constitutes a negative experience for the player getting milked. In fact, it may be one of the principal factors in the desertion of a New Recruit.

i might be wrong but i think new recruits can't be farmed anymore. i'm not sure but from what i heard they play unranked games at first and they can't join difficult maps.

Not true.

Average Games A Day July 21 - 28

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