LIES, DAMN LIES & STATISTICS

"BCamlost" started an interesting poll on the Codemaster forums a couple of days ago. The question was "What is the current level of the character you currently spend the majority of your LOTRO time playing? (i.e., NOT your 'main' if that main's retired, and not your 'alt' if you just happened to log it today for the first time in months . . .). One choice only please".

Of 201 players who responded by the morning of Sunday, a full 134 declare their principal character to be in the level 46-50 range, and there is good reason to believe that most of these are probably level 50. This amounts to 66.67% of the total; adding characters in the level 41-45 range, we find very nearly 80% of the respondents are above level 40. On the other hand, apparently less than 2% of the sample are under level 15. Does this mean that virtually no new players are joining the game? Of course not. As at least two players point out in the subsequent thread, what we have here is a good sampling of forum users, not of players as a whole. And as "Rem" sensibly notes, "Forums are a place where naturally long-time players hang out. This is not a representative cut through the player-base, it only shows what it shows - forum crowd tends to be high level".

So what conclusions can be derived from this poll? Essentially, that the hard core of dedicated players have (long since) hit the current experience cap, something that we probably knew already.

Full details on http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=273029&page=2&pp=10