How much do you play in a week?

[Khazar Stoneblood]

This Poll is an excellent example of ALFA's tail wagging the dog. Honestly, using guesswork to create rules and limits is no substitute for knowing the facts. This poll was started because someone guessed that half of ALFAs players were in-game at least 40 hours a week while another guessed that it was simply wishful thinking. So far, the poll has shown that almost half of ALFA actually plays less than 10 hours a week while the clear majority play less than 20. That's dramatically different than the guess that was being used to argue for higher XP limits.

Actually, it shows that half of ALFA's FORUM MONKEYS play less than 10 hours a week... which makes sense because we are always here on the forums. The people who would be playing that amount are probably not spending time on the forums... because they are playing. Really, this MAY be like the telephone polling during the Truman/Dewey election that caused the times to report Dewey as the winner... not realizing the majority of the people in the US didn't have telephones and the majority of them voted Truman.

Maybe half the people in ALFA don't visit the message boards, and the majority of them play 60 hours a week.

[LBaeldeth]

Actually, it shows that half of ALFA's FORUM MONKEYS play less than 10 hours a week... which makes sense because we are always here on the forums.

Thank you.

[ayergo]

Hey Khazar... i'll have you know i am not a forum monkey!

I'm a winged forum monkey!!

In all seriousness, i think most of us on the forums are here because we're taking a break from work, but can't play.

[Khazar Stoneblood]

Probably right ayergo... though it begs the question why are we being payed?

But still, I definitely put in more than my 2 hours of gameplay in a week on the forums... which is somewhat sad when you think about it.

[McKennasDad]

Hmmm ... you don't have 0 as a choice.

[LBaeldeth]

As I recall, 0 is less than 10.

[Grand Fromage]

This Poll is an excellent example of ALFA's tail wagging the dog. Honestly, using guesswork to create rules and limits is no substitute for knowing the facts. This poll was started because someone guessed that half of ALFAs players were in-game at least 40 hours a week while another guessed that it was simply wishful thinking. So far, the poll has shown that almost half of ALFA actually plays less than 10 hours a week while the clear majority play less than 20. That's dramatically different than the guess that was being used to argue for higher XP limits.

Actually, it shows that half of ALFA's FORUM MONKEYS play less than 10 hours a week... which makes sense because we are always here on the forums. The people who would be playing that amount are probably not spending time on the forums... because they are playing. Really, this MAY be like the telephone polling during the Truman/Dewey election that caused the times to report Dewey as the winner... not realizing the majority of the people in the US didn't have telephones and the majority of them voted Truman.

Maybe half the people in ALFA don't visit the message boards, and the majority of them play 60 hours a week.

But wouldn't it also be logical to say that the people who play the most are the most active members, and the most active members are also on the forums? Really, when operating without a bit of anything resembling data you can make a logical argument for either, though I would say it's more likely that a forum sample is accurate than that, somehow, everyone who doesn't play much just happen to be the ones voting on the poll, and the rest of ALFA is VASTLY different than the people who voted here.

Let's take a US Gallup poll as an example. A typical one has 1000 participants. The US population is 295,734,134. Let's cut out the 0-14 range (I would cut out 0-18, but don't have that figure) and call the pollable, opinionated population 234,934,412. That gives us .0000042565% of the population represented in a typical Gallup poll. Yet, these polls are considered fairly accurate, with margins of error of 5% or less. You're telling me a poll here, that has a representation of closer to 30-50% of the ALFA "population", is wildly inaccurate while a poll with .0000042565% representation is considered accurate in the real world? I doubt it.

[MorbidKate]

Maybe half the people in ALFA don't visit the message boards, and the majority of them play 60 hours a week.

Fantasy talk that is. Majority of ALFAns do visit the forums and the overwhelming majority play less than 20 hours a week. There is no large number of hidden players who silently play 60 hours a week. I wish. We average what between 1 and 2 players per live server during most active hours and maybe max out about 3 on peak weekend hours.

Khondar said he was going off to get the 30+ he knew of that played 40+ hours to come vote but I guess he's having trouble reaching them. If you know of some, I invite you to reach out to them as well because I'd hate to loose the input of so many hard core players. GS listings however suggest they don't exist.

Kate

[LBaeldeth]

<snip> Gallup poll

Considered accurate because they take a random sample. However, as Khondar pointed out, the random sample in the Dewey-Truman election went wrong because many Americans at the time didn't have telephones to answer the poll question, and they voted for Truman. The same is happening here, where we have from 30% (Amar's estimate) to 50% (Khondar's estimate) of the population that doesn't typically stop by on the main forum - and as has been pointed out, people who use the forum frequently do so more often than they play the game.

What we have is the amount of time the forum users play. It is not a random sample like Gallup polls and because forum usage can impact on game time it can't be easily extrapolated to cover those who do not frequent the forums.

Khondar said he was going off to get the 30+ he knew of that played 40+ hours to come vote

When did he say that?

[EyeOfMyrkul]

When I was active player and unemployed I still only played about 20 - 25 hrs a week .....

[Grand Fromage]

and as has been pointed out, people who use the forum frequently do so more often than they play the game.

Really? I'd like to see your numbers. I would assume you'd have to choose a sample of forum users and track their amount of time on the forum, and then track their amount of time in the game and compare. Without that, though, this is a meaningless phrase which has been trumpeted over and over but not one shred of evidence for it has ever been posted in three years.

[Voersaa]

I voted 60+ and I hope it wont screw up any stats since I'm not active anymore.

The only person I´ve felt came close to rival me (at the time) was Aravilar and I have to say that I felt that he actually went beyond what I did. But then again he cheated and played on US time which is easy compared to being a Euro player:-P

[fade]

You were on all the freaking time ;p

[DMyles]

if you play a lot you are going to have to endure so much boring time without other players or a dm that you are going to inevitably check the main forum.

[Alaytes]

It really depends on the free time of the week and if I'm in an ALFAing mood. I'd estimate 10-20 when I'm playing steadily.