No it isn’t. If Lucas claims that noobs being ganked is the major cause of people leaving…a quite specific claim…then there ought to be at least some discernable data showing that the majority of noobs who leave are actually ganked. There’s nothing remotely complex about that.
Thus if one can find numerous cases of noobs leaving, or not logging in for weeks on end, with zero indication that they were ever ganked, then one has disproof of Lucas claims. Simple !
There already is CCP data ( shown in an earlier thread here ) showing that of 10,000 noobs, 9000 leave within the first week. As I already pointed out in a thread some months ago, there are only about 4,500 kills a week in the whole of highsec, for everyone including vets, and including kills by NPCs. ( Lowsec has about 40,000 kills per week and null has about 70,000 ). Only a small portion of those 4,500 in highsec will have been less than week old noobs.
So…9,000 noobs a week leave ( CCP’s own figures )…and we know at least 4,500 of those cannot have been ganked as there are only 4,500 kills a week in the whole of highsec. If you take into account the fact that half those 4,500 kills were by NPCs and a large portion of the rest will have been vets and other non-noob players…we are down to 9000 leaving and just a few hundred at most being noobs having any PvP contact.
There you have all the data you could possibly need to prove conclusively that the vast majority of noobs who leave cannot have left due to ganking. There simply aren’t enough kills ( let alone ganks ) per week to account for all the noob departures.
It is as simple as that. The number of noobs who leave is SO much larger than the number who could possibly have been ganked that even if there was a huge margin of error ( which there isn’t ) one can still definitively state that most noobs do not leave due to ganking.
Are the large fleet gankers on strike, all thats about are tornados ganker and some very small groups, all because they lost tether.
We still have our kill right hunts and abyssal protection but I think it’s time look for new areas to enforce our law and order.
It a shame two more play styles are going to disappear.
Let’s hope new opportunities become available, I have seen some gankers going after fw pilots the new faction ships seem to pull there interest.
We are going to have a try at hunting certain individuals as a group op, allows us to get good at tracking, scanning and then go for a kill, might extend this to criminal groups, we will see how things pan out
You are expected to prove that it is false beyond a shadow of doubt. Otherwise, Lucas wins by default. You would probably need to interview 1000 players that left the game in order to provide evidence. But even then, he would argue that your interview process was biased. Or he would argue that your sampling was biased, or that 1000 players proves nothing.
Meanwhile, Lucas can sit back in his chair an provide absolutely no evidence of any kind, just spurious sophistry.
The writing has been on the wall for a long time, its only the drop in numbers that has brought it to a head I believe.
Maybe we will all end up fighting in low sec or wars will be fixed, ganking I’m sure can still be used as a tool for attacking groups that hide in corps that can’t go to war, its what we plan to do
But I have done…using CCPs own figures. And we know how fond Lucas is of quoting CCP. The number of noobs who leave every week is SO much larger than the number who could possibly have been ganked in that week that we can quite definitively once and for all state that most noobs do not leave due to being ganked. It is simple maths. You cannot have had 9000 leave in a week due to ganking if only 100 of them were actually ganked !
That’s pretty much a tautology. Of course ganking affects player retention. Anything and everything in the game affects player retention. Even someone’s cat jumping on the keyboard affects player retention. Someone having trouble comprehending the game affects player retention too. Someone simply being bored affects player retention. I mean…10,001 things almost certainly affect player retention. Someone NOT being ganked likely affects player retention too !
Nowhere have I seen CCP state how much ganking affects player retention and what portion of new player loss is due to other factors. YOU scurrilously assume it is a huge portion, but nowhere have CCP said so.
And as I have pointed out above, other CCP data clearly shows that ganking cannot be a major percent of the cause…as there simply aren’t enough ganks per week to account for those 9000 leavers. At most we are talking a few percent of leavers.
What is more…even if CCP identified that 2 or 3 percent leave due to ganking, they have no idea whether a similar 2 or 3 percent, or more, might leave due to the game being more boring if ganking is nerfed. You cannot simply assume that removing ganking will lead to a corresponding 2 or 3 percent increase in players…or whatever the percent is.
Causality is always a tough thing to prove, outside of very controlled conditions, so I think both sides of this argument have little merit, at the present time.
Wave stats and numbers all you want to . . . just accept that CCP PROBABLY has access to better data about the game than you do and they have decided to go with the changes.
It isn’t about how much data you have - it is about how you use it. At this point I wouldn’t even trust CCP to deliver a pizza, much less innovate an MMO.
Lucas hasn’t claimed that ganking is the only reason new players leave. So finding examples of people that weren’t ganked, but probably left, isn’t proof that he’s wrong.
Nor can he prove he is right.
It’s an endless debate between different views, many of which may have some truth, but likely none of them are an absolute truth.
He has claimed its the biggest reason. He’s done so right here in this thread. I have provided definitive evidence, using CCPs own data, that it cannot be the biggest reason. So Lucas is most definitely wrong.
You yourself pointed out that 90% of players are gone within 7 days. That data was from CCP pointing out that out of 10,000 players, 9,000 are gone within a week. Given that less than 100 noobs are ganked every week…what more definitive mathematical proof can there be that ganking cannot be the major cause of noobs leaving ? Its so decisively against what Lucas says that it does not even warrant arguing over.
In fact…the 9,000 who leave every week is double the total amount killed in highsec every week for all reasons including vets in PvP, NPC kills, yada yada. Noobs are only a tiny fraction of the highsec kills every week.
You cant argue that the majority of noobs leave due to ganking…,if it can be definitevely shown that the majority of noobs cannot have been ganked !
I agree with you, but that is different to proving it. Pretty much, every time I look at different aspects I am interested in, the data shows that ganking is only a small impact on anything. As a result, I don’t think ganking is a major reason that players leave (new or not), but I can’t prove that.
At the end of the day, it only matters what CCP believe, whether they look at data or just think something makes logical sense. We can only adapt or die.
