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June 18, 2005
Does guild size vary across server types?
Server Sample: RP (High), PvE (Medium), PvE (High)
Sampling Period: 6/2/2005 6:00 pm - 6/7/2005 3:00 am
Sampling Resolution: ~16 minutes
Parsing Method: The sample unit is each unique character. Each character was tracked across the server logs. Total playing time, lowest observed level, highest observed level, guild affiliation, and zones seen in were parsed.
Data Filter: Only characters who are in a guild.
Sample Size: 34,914 characters
From the parsed logs, we calculated the size of every observed guild. The size of a guild was defined as the number of different characters observed to have that guild tag over the sampling period (4 days and 9 hours). Thus, we were able to know the guild size of every character in the parsed data.
We ran an ANCOVA with Server as the independent variable, Guild Size as the dependent variable, and Lowest Observed Level as the covariate. The effect of Server was significant (p < .001, effect size = .05) and the Guild Size of each server was significantly different from each other (p's < .001).
See graph below for Guild Size by Server across Levels. Both PvE servers have larger guilds than the RP server. The high population PvE server has larger guilds than the medium population PvE server.
It is not clear however whether we're looking at a genuine difference between RP and PvE servers, or that guild size fluctuates among servers in general. Also, it could both be the case that server size affects guild size or that larger guilds prefer to migrate to certain serevr types. Hopefully, as we get more data from other servers, this will become more clear.
Posted at June 18, 2005 02:58 PM
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Comments
Are you going to include PvP servers in your research?
A lot more thrill for those of us on the PvP servers. Never know when an enemy is going to show up while you are busy doing something else.
I guess a slightly different type of player than the PvE.
Posted by: Koreeth at June 22, 2005 07:11 PM
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Posted by: Ian Frye at November 12, 2008 10:23 PM