Videogame statistics

I found following picture on the net. I’m just assuming the numbers are correct, or at least, as correct as you can expect from statistics.

Source: Online Education

Now I knew that consoles were selling more games than PC’s were doing, but I had never checked the actual numbers. I think it’s astonishing.

A few other stats also stand out in my opinion: the amount of women playing for example, but also the average age. I used to think it was kinda cool that my 40+ sister in law and my niece both had their own consoles and fought over the TV with my nephews, but it’s apparently not as unique as I suspected.

The WoW on console discussion has probably been held a million times before, and I don’t think that will ever work. It’s not like FPS games that just require a few little tweaks to work with a controller. This gameplay is completely different. I really can’t see myself heal with a controller for example, so I won’t raise that question.

The only thing I would’ve liked to see are the total amount of gamers, or a rough estimate. Just to get an idea how large percentage of gamers actually plays Warcraft, I’m getting the feeling it’s relatively small, even though I usually get the feeling everybody plays it. There are claims are that Warcraft has 11.5 subscribers, but then I also see claims that WotLK has only sold 4 million copies. While warcraftrealms has this number: 6,241,24I. I still don’t know how to interpret that, if they aren’t complete lies

Ouch! But /flex nonetheless :)

I got put in my place today, but I liked it!

The top guild of my realm was doing a ToC25 partial-pug-raid and needed another healer, so I happily accepted that job, of course. Finally, a good chance to compare myself against some of the best. Two weeks ago I already had the pleasure of tagging along with a run with a combination of the 3 runner up guilds, but I had no idea if those guys were just alts, or benched players. This time, I recognized the names, these were mostly core players.

So how did it go?

First, I’ll start with some excuses:

I DCed on the northrend beasts, while I already was the constant target of annoying snowbolds, so that fight I was mostly useless, when I returned my unitframes were broken, so I could only heal with the mouse-over chainheal macro I still had (see my Tidy Plates review), and that worked out to be terrible (still, nice I could do a real test!). I got hit by legion flames twice on Jaraxxus, if I wasn’t busy purging 8 stacks of buffs (no mage). Healers had white-ball duty on twin valkyr, which hurts me as shaman much more than those damn trees.

/excuses end

But excuses are silly!! My ego is just hurting a bit

Here’s some totals:

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Oucchh! My pride.. it... burnsss!!

Yes, I’m remaining anonymous and I’m keeping everyone else too. I’ve seen to much (guild) drama and I don’t feel the need to link me to my characters anyway. I like it this way.

UPDATE: Oops! This is kinda stupid to forget to mention. Me = shaman = blue

Noooo sir... I wasn't "meterwhoring".

I did get my chance on the final battle though:

The only fight with little running around, no dispelling, no interrupting. And I was at this position before phase 3, so no p3 “cheating”.

The run itself was a great run. Fast, clean, but what else could you expect? For these guys, this is like doing a daily heroic dungeon. Still, when you play with a group of good players there’s a difference, even compared to my old casual-hardcore guild. It’s like that little bit of casual had a big impact on general attitude. In this run everyone was ready, no slacking, no afking, no complaining, but still room for some joking. The whole run was fast and smooth, with only short breaks between fights, with just a little, but clear, information going back and forth. I loved it. It was also over before I realized it, no time wasted.

I didn’t get any drops, but I got what I really wanted: to compare myself. Numbers might not mean everything, but they definitely mean something. I’m already used to be high on the meters, but what did that mean in the past? Am I good, or is the rest just bad? Playing with players that are really good makes it mean a lot more. This druid is probably the best geared resto-druid on my server, and he’s definitely skilled. The other 2 druids were randoms just like me, but well geared also.

To get a better idea about the competition: this is the log from this guilds most recent ICC raid night, Sindragosa 25 HC, the druid is on top here also, so I couldn’t wish for a better reference. What I like is that the shaman in this log wasn’t much behind me (% wise). It’s a different fight, but it’s still some indication.

But now I want more!

I never wanted to be in a hardcore guild, simply because it requires a bit too much dedication, but finally meeting some competition feels good, really good. It makes me want to get better. In my former guild I was passing on upgrades in the end, because I was starting to feel bad about my scores and I got the feeling they were starting to demotivate the other players. But passing those items just caused me to lose my motivation. I don’t care a lot about gear, but I do care about some competition. I need it, that’s clear to me now.

Maybe I should keep my eyes open if there’s ever a spot opening up for a resto shaman. Or any healer, I’ve got them all anyway