Frequency (Hz) of Players and Population (Is it useful?)

HelpLuperza · 2014-01-25, 10:40 PM

Dear PS2 Community,

So way back in the spring/fall of 2013, I started look at Sirisian's population data, for scientific fun(*), I decided treat it like a wave and do definite Fourier transforms using my physics knowledge. The PS2 population did oscillate up and down (here old example). As I expected I found frequencies:

#. Frequency or period

.0418232 1/hr or every 23.96 hrs
.0060769 1/hr or every 6.96 days
.0084 - 0019 1/hr or ever 3.0 - 7.0 weeks

During December and January, I got more serious about the data analysis. To begin to eliminate all errors caused by "API down", I used professional software and smoothed the data (see picture below). As I worked I wondered, "what does this graph mean really mean?"

The new plot of frequency spectrum of all servers

Caption: Please comment on the plot below.

I am not an idiot. I know that mathematically these frequencies represent how fast the population levels repeat or are similar. It is a frequency spectrum of the PS2 population graphs. In other words, its frequencies corresponding to the periodic behavior of PS2's population if we assume there is cycle. For gosh sakes, two of the periods are very close 1 day or 1 week! Different frequencies means there is simple more than one way the population is changing up and down. Just like a person's singing voice is made of up more than one pitch but an entire timbre of pitches, the population data has more than one pitch or way of moving up and down.

However, I am not a demographer, sociology major, a community manager, or game developers. So I don't know if this graph is even useful to know. So I tweeted Luperza and Clegg about this:

https://twitter.com/n30sh4d0wderp/st...55171403276288
@PurrfectStorm @Arclegger @kidriotgun new frequency look at servers.. http://snag.gy/p7qDZ.jpg What do you think? Should I resolve errors?

I was trying to ask them, "Would it be useful for players or developers to know the frequency of change Server's population?" I have come to realize that way I explained it was slightly over their heads. Fourier transform and Spectrograms are hard. The concept of treating a population numbers like sound or light waves is a huge logical leap. However, I am going slowly going crazy questioning myself. So I would like to share with you all what I have done so far and to ask...

Would it be useful for players or developers to know the frequency of change Server's population? To know how fast population moves up and down?

________________
*P.S. Yes, I know I am such a nerd, for finding fun in hard math problems. >-<;

Frydac · 2014-02-16, 05:53 PM

As you pointed out, 2 frequencies seem to dominate the spectrum, the weekly cycle and the daily cylce. That does seem obvious as humans organize their lives following that timeframe.
If you would ask an average gamer or developer, in which cycles do you guess the population of any MMO will vary, they would probably give that answer.

Is it useful for the developers to know how the serverload varies? Probably.
Is it useful to know for a gamer when there are more or less ppl online? Probably.
But I'm convinced you don't need to Fourier transform the data to its frequency spectrum to know this..
So is that frequency analysis useful, I'm guessing: not really..