Too few updates?

[FuxieDK]

OK, this is it:

I logged on a horde toon on Steamweddle Cartel, purged the entire database and then ran CP.
Result was 651 new and 651 seen.. No real surprice that the numbers were the same as database was empty.
I logged on an alliance toon on same realm: 1200 new/seen.
Switched to Shadowsong server, logged on as Alliance: 1198 seen/new.
Finally, I switched to horde on same server: 561 seen/new.

Total of this is 651+1200+1198+561 = 3610 toons now in my database.
I uploaded the file to WarcraftRealms.com
Oct 31, 09 18:10:42 212 1231 Y

Why do I only get credit for 212+1231=1443 people then? It's less than half of those scanned..
The 212 are (supposedly) people that have gained level(s) and/or switched guild. The rest are just those that are the same level (as last census) and stayed in the same guild. But what happened to the last 2167 toons?

[1974ER]

Um... no... 212 new ones, 1231 with changes in level/guild, 2167 unchanged. And I might add that your result is very typical in my experience.

Besides, if one gets unlucky with timing and other submission makers... submitting 20000 characters could result in something like 50 new, 500 updated... Not very probable, but possible. I know... :/

If submissions worked the way you thought, Balgair, Kerebo and I would probably have update numbers exceeding 30 or 40 million, not 5 or 6.

EDIT (much later, Monday afternoon):

Just because I was curious, I wrote down a few numbers from the two submissions, which I made this Monday morning... due to time difference they are the two last on Sunday from WCR point of view.

532 kb file contained 2324 characters resulting in 217 new and 1092 updated.

362 kb file contained 715 characters resulting in 12 new and 155 updated.

I can also offer you one fairly obvious explonation to this... level 80s.

Most servers are fairly or extremely top heavy. Level 80 characters obviously can't level up anymore and most of them don't constantly change guilds either. = They aren't really updated that often. The only thing that changes for many of them is the date they were last seen.

And as far as I understand the system, the date change is not worthy of an "updated" tag, so to speak.

[Rollie]

Yeah, an update is defined as a level or guild change, not a last seen update.

[FuxieDK]

It that case, I utterly fail to see, how it's possible to reach 6M1 updates, in just under 1 year..

I'm creditted for 315K updates, in 18 months and I census 2 realms, both factions..
Yes, one of them are primary, but still.....
_________________
Doing census on various servers

[1974ER]

I'll try to tackle that question, since it seems mostly directed at me... Kerebo does not seem to be very active on forums and Balgair, as far as I know, has been fairly busy IRL. Also, they have been members longer than I have.

I'll be hitting one yaar as a member in a few days, on the 7th to be more precise. And yes, I have already blown the 6M updates mark. Now, let us look at how that is possible...

A year has 365 days, mostly... Reason 1: I have run censuses almost every single day since I became a member. I took a small break for Christmas and there have been a few other interruptions as well, some of them due to the site being down / malfunctioning.

Reason 2: I run censuses on number of factions that probably causes "a critical hit" to some readers. Yesterday could be called a fairly typical Monday. Wake up, run some censuses while eating breakfast, getting dressed and so on before going to work. Work, get back home, go swimming with my father, get a haircut at home with census up and running again. Run more censuses, read / write e-mails, eat and such... after about 23:30, make the final submission for the day and go to sleep.

Those 3 censuses that got time tags for yesterday consisted of 1,36; 2,35 and 1,78 MB of data. They contained info on 10351, 19636 and 14122 characters. And credited me as follows: 613 + 1728 + 412 new ones and 4224 + 8210 + 4042 updates.

Oops. I need to edit the rest in later, right now I have to get ready for work.

[FuxieDK]

Are you telling me, that your servers have 10-20K users online, on one faction?

With a census of 1200 people taking roughly 15 minutes, 20K will take forever...

[1974ER]

Just got back home... since you already posted, I will leave the previous as was, and write this instead of an edit.

No, seems I made a small logic error, I should have spoken of 3 submissions, not 3 censuses. And no, actually having 10-20k users online is impossible. I think Blizzard's hard cap is between 3000 and 4500 per faction, slightly depending on server hardware capabilities.

08:20:05 to 12:04:33 (or 16:20:05 to 20:04:33 my local time) was long enough to see 19636 characters yesterday, so it is hardly forever. Now to the main point: That single entry consisted, if my memory serves me right of: 1 French realm, Alliance side; 1 Spanish realm, both sides, 5 German realms, 2 of which were covered for both sides, the remaining 3 one-sided and... 10 English realms, 4 of which got coverage for both sides, the remaining 6 one-sided. Now, you might understand, why I was speaking of "a critical hit".

Counting overall (now including the 2 minor entries, which went in as Sunday night WCR time wise), I saw about 47000 characters (theoretically, in reality the number is much lower, since I am certain due to my censusing patterns that some characters were seen 5 times (and no, this does not mean updated 5 times, just that I saw them 5 times)) and racked about 2900 new ones and about 17600 updates.

Now back to reaching 6M updates... if we took 350 copies of yesterday (allowing for about 2 weeks worth of "days offline" in a year...) we would get... counts... 350 x 2900 = 1015000 new ones and 350 x 17600 = 6160000 updates.

As of right now, my figures stand 970575 new ones and 6153367 updates, with one submission not processed yet. In short, I am "way behind" on new ones and will probably break the theoretic number on updates very late today or tomorrow, depending on how certain real life factors affect things.

[Balgair]

[gmmmpresser]

I to have been around for a while, and have got a few 'hits' on the board. While not as many as the above two guys/gals (?), it just takes a bit of dedication and hard work.

[1974ER]

I am male, though I feel a bit too old to be called a guy, which translates into something meaning someone about 12 to 21 or so in my native language... As for what it takes... mostly lots and lots of time... And, as an important note, large enough spread of servers. Someone censusing just 1 or 2 will need years to reach even 1M updates.

[Balgair]

Female here so the listing of both genders is correct And yeah it's the wide spread of servers that does it the most, particularly picking up the ones off the most wanted list, for a long time I was the only one in Europe doing mass censusing so I had my pick of low-update servers and got loads.
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EU-Draenor:
-- Sagart - Tairbh - Buinne - Eilnich - Ruire - Balgair - Dubh - Laidir - Rosad - Naomh --

[FuxieDK]

So... For 19K updates, you do 24x Census (if I can count)..

Do you even have time to play? A Census typically takes 5-15 minutes, but when you have to re-log for each Census, it doesn't leave much time for anything..

Or do you Census on a seperate machine where you make a new trail-key every 10 days?
_________________
Doing census on various servers

[1974ER]

I have only one machine and only one account... and censusing heavy days leave less time for play.. but for example last Sunday, I did about 40 quests (mostly the day of the dead ones, but a few others as well) total over quite a few of my characters and still got about 12500 updates for the whole day, if I counted correctly

On the other hand... I don't NEED to get 17600 updates (or even more) every day... Today I have been enjoying doing some BGs and achievements. My total updates will not grow too much today, but I don't really care. Being the current number 1 on top 10 updates is nice, but if Kerebo, Balgair or someone else passes me by, fine.

I see WCR as a huge co-operative effort. When the PvP realms did not yet allow characters on both sides, it was very nice to know that someone else does run an occasional census on Defias Brotherhood's Horde side as well as Scarshield Legion's Alliance side, where I did not and do not play. It is also why I often try hunt down the 0s... So that those who need information would have at least something, not just empty graphs. And yes, 1 census per month is not much... but it is better than nothing... besides, it would be extremely tricky (though theoretically possible) for me to run a bi-monthly census on each and every running EU server on both sides (1160 censuses per month). Luckily I don't have to...

Also, those 24 Censuses (can't bothered to recount again) provided me with about 19k characters seen, not 19k updates. Also, how long a census lasts is highly dependtant not only on server population, but also time of day... Censusing Silvermoon Horde at any time of day is not likely to take more than about 1 minute 10 s including login and logout. Running a census on say... Argent Dawn Alliance late Friday or Saturday evening might take 25+ minutes. Early mornings before work... I can cover about 20 factions in about an hour, but that will only net me about 500 to 1000 updates or so... Covering a similar number of factions late afternoon or evening... might take 4 to 6 hours, but net me with 8000+ updates.

Taking a break for now... might edit... or make a new post, if someone posts in between...

[1974ER]

Well, nobody else has posted, but since I took a lot longer break in writing here than I originally intended, I am making a new post instead of editing the old one.

One year has passed from my first ever submission here and the results look like this:

980,375 new ones (3rd on the all time top 10)
6,214,080 updates (1st on the all time top 10)
1 unprocessed submission

To be honest... When I started, I did not even dream of being this high on lists. In short, I am pretty happy with those figures.

[Balgair]

That's insanely good for one year, my stats are over 5 years and not as good (I'm slightly ahead on new characters but a fair bit behind on updates) - must take a heck of a lot of dedication to do so much in just one year!
_________________
EU-Draenor:
-- Sagart - Tairbh - Buinne - Eilnich - Ruire - Balgair - Dubh - Laidir - Rosad - Naomh --

[1974ER]

Well, it did require a lot of time.... but the good thing about census is that it is very self-sufficient. I can get a lot of things done and have census run on the background... Just switching realms and factions every now and then... as you are very well aware, running a census on a high population faction can easily take 25+ minutes during peak times. In that time one can accomplish quite a few things. In fact there is a census running on the background as I type these words here...

[Balgair]

Hehe very true, my problem is either playing the game on my main server, or not remembering to set censuses running in the background - I do have one running atm though Would like to reach that 6M mark soon

Btw, I remember you saying how you usually make your character names - do you happen to have a "Cenh" on Hellfire horde? I was logged in next to that character the other day,forget which race it was but orc or troll (was in Durotar), and wondered if it might be your character censusing since it was standing there not moving, like mine
_________________
EU-Draenor:
-- Sagart - Tairbh - Buinne - Eilnich - Ruire - Balgair - Dubh - Laidir - Rosad - Naomh --

[1974ER]

At your current monthly average rate per day... you should hit the 6M around 17-18th... that is, fairly soon.

I don't have a "permanent" alt on Hellfire, but... that might very well have been me, I think I did run a census there as well recently...

[gmmmpresser]

Spot the stationary Census+ taker

[Balgair]

I'd hope so but depends on how much I can play, I'm away every weekend this month I think, and that cuts a fair bit of potential censusing time out When I get a good evening's censusing in I'll get 10k+ updates, problem is finding that time!

May well have been you then, the day I saw that character was a day when it was on 0 updates, hence my having just created a character there also
_________________
EU-Draenor:
-- Sagart - Tairbh - Buinne - Eilnich - Ruire - Balgair - Dubh - Laidir - Rosad - Naomh --