Utopia Player/age Data

Hi blog, long time no see

I’ve been almost busy (not really) despite the very real pressure to deliver a proper thesis. At any rate, I’ve done some minor quantitative data gathering (something not common in my research field) and what I came up with so far is a breakdown of age length and player count per Utopian age (three months of gameplay) since the start of the game:

Age 1 – ? provinces – Nov ~3rd 1998 – Jan 10th 1999
Age 2 – ? provinces – Jan 12th 1999 – Mar 20th 1999
Age 3 – 39,993 provinces (WoU) – Mar 22nd 1999 – May 31st 1999
Age 4 – 35,238 provinces (WoU) – Jun 2nd 1999 – Aug 15th 1999
Age 5 – 45,604 provinces (WoU) – Aug 17th 1999 – Oct 30th 1999
Age 6 – 47,294 provinces (WoU) – Nov 1st 1999 – Jan 31st 2000
Age 7 – ? provinces – Feb 2nd 2000 – May 7th 2000
Age 8 – 51,664 provinces (WoU) – May 9th 2000 – Jul 28th 2000
Age 9 – 62,090 provinces (WoU+BF) – Jul 30th 2000 – Oct 24th 2000
Age 10 – 74,376 provinces (WoU+BF) – Oct 26th 2000 – Jan 29th 2001
Age 11 – 83,941 provinces (WoU+BF) – Feb 1st 2001 – Apr 15th 2001
Age 12 – 78,502 provinces (WoU+BF) – Apr 17th 2001 – Jul 23rd 2001
Age 13 – 86,229 provinces (WoU+BF) – Jul 25th 2001 – Oct 27th 2001
Age 14 – 83,343 provinces(WoU+BF) – Oct 29th 2001 – Jan 21st 2002
Age 15 – 91,113 provinces (WoL+BF) – Jan 23rd 2002 – Apr 28th 2002
Age 16 – 84,701 provinces (WoL+BF) – Apr 30th 2002 – Jul 14th 2002
Age 17 – 81,625 provinces (WoL+BF) – Jul 16th 2002 – Oct 19th 2002
Age 18 – 86,750 provinces (WoL+BF) – Oct 21st 2002 – Jan 12th 2003
Age 19 – 88,045 provinces (WoL+BF) – Jan 14th 2003 – Mar 23rd 2003
Age 20 – 87,535 provinces (WoL+BF) – Mar 25th 2003 – Jun 28th 2003
Age 21 – 79,872 provinces (WoL+BF) – Jun 30th 2003 – Sep 6th 2003
Age 22 – 73,503 provinces (WoL+BF) – Sep 8th 2003 – Dec 15th 2003
Age 23 – 70,359 provinces (WoL+BF) – Dec 17th 2003 – Mar 21st 2004
Age 24 – 62,730 provinces (WoL+BF) – Mar 23rd 2004 – Jun 19th 2004
Age 25 – 54,787 provinces (WoL+BF) – Jun 21st 2004 – Sep 26th 2004
Age 26 – 52,131 provinces (WoL+BF) – Sep 28th 2004 – Dec 30th 2004
Age 27 – 48,275 provinces (WoL+BF) – Jan 1st 2005 – Apr 4th 2005
Age 28 – 43,590 provinces (WoL+BF) – Apr 6th 2005 – Jul 2nd 2005
Age 29 – 39,812 provinces (WoL+BF) – Jul 4th 2005 – Oct 7th 2005
Age 30 – 35,436 provinces (WoL) – Oct 9th 2005 – Jan 16th 2006
Age 31 – 33,081 provinces (WoL) – Jan 18th 2006 – Apr 24th 2006
Age 32 – 31,872 provinces (WoL) – Apr 26th 2006 – Aug 3rd 2006
Age 33 – 27,980 provinces (WoL) – Aug 5th 2006 – Nov 19th 2006
Age 34 – 26,393 provinces (WoL) – Nov 21st 2006 – Mar 4th 2007
Age 35 – 27,313 provinces (WoL) (retrieved 28-3-2007) – Mar 6th 2007 – ?

I’ve personally been wondering about the impact of graphical MMOGs on the Utopian playerbase. Using MMOGCHART.com I haven’t been able to see a direct correlation between releases of popular MMORPGs (WoW makes no identifyable impact) and playerloss.

Anyway, just showing some results..

Thesis update

Alright, shit has been getting serious. I’m writing this down for myself as a reminder not to fuck up.

So i started this thread about my thesis subject in temple and the response has been creepily positive. Brother Green, the site administrator, seems excited to help out and the players are enthusiastically supporting (rather than mocking) the endeavour. Furthermore I received an 8/10 for my thesis proposal, which is not something I had expected. The teacher from the thesis proposal class seemed very interested and he’s confident I can pull it off. Then another guy who’s guiding my thesis seems very interested as well, was quick to agree to support it and said that my six years worth of experience in Utopia is something very rare and valuable and that it basically needs to be exploited or mined.

Then there’s Geert Lovink who seems positive about me trying to fuse the “free cooperation” concept from his pal Christoph Spehr with online gaming cooperative ventures.

I receive emails with support regarding my thesis, and a lot of players volunteering for interviews.

Quite possibly Swirve.com, the company that created and hosts Utopia, will be willing to assist me as well…

—–

Rather than this project being solely for my own benefit (i.e. getting a Master’s degree) I seem to have gathered a sphere of people borderline hungering for this thesis. That means there’s a lot of pressure not to fuck up, and to produce something actually worthwhile, knowing that a lot of people will read it. Also, it seems the game has finally merged with my university work in a strange way – completing a decent thesis will probably boost my reputation somewhat in the community, and it’s not unlikely there will be in-game effects.

I better get to work, ffs :/

Ken Miller Debunking Intelligent Design

The following video shows a lecture by an American cell biologist named Kenneth Miller. He effectively and conclusively argues that Intelligent Design has no place whatsoever in science. If there are any religious people reading this (which I doubt)  and prepared to ignore it on the basis of the dude being another atheist blasphemer – take note that he is a practicing Roman Catholic, and that some priest/bischopish dude even blesses the lecture before it starts.

The length of the video is about two hours in total; the length of the lecture itself is one hour and ten minutes. I found it very informative and entertaining.

Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8937189243168103522

Richard Dawkins being more than awesome

Apparently, some sixteen years ago Richard Dawkins did a series of Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He talks about evolution and such to a large amount of children with funny hairdos. The fourth lecture (there are five) even features Douglas Adams! How neat is that.

Anyway, a bloke calling himself DrMontague has posted these lectures on YouTube. They are positively stunning, very entertaining and leave you with a sense of wonder about the world and the universe. Each lasts about an hour, but I can guarantee that they will capture your attention just as well as an intriguing film would. Many YouTubers rightfully comment that they wish every teacher would be like Dawkins.

Without further ado, here’s all the links:

Dawkins Lecture #1 – Waking Up In The Universe (1/7)
Dawkins Lecture #1 – Waking Up In The Universe (2/7)
Dawkins Lecture #1 – Waking Up In The Universe (3/7)
Dawkins Lecture #1 – Waking Up In The Universe (4/7)
Dawkins Lecture #1 – Waking Up In The Universe (5/7)
Dawkins Lecture #1 – Waking Up In The Universe (6/7)
Dawkins Lecture #1 – Waking Up In The Universe (7/7)

For the rest, read the whole post

Drugs are bad, mkay?

Just look at what it did to spiders!

(link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc)

Chris Bliss juggling to the beatles, and more…

Seems YouTube has my soul, and no blogpost can go without videos hosted within its premises.. Oh well.

No dancing or drawing this time, but juggling. I suck at it and I’m amazed at the basic art of keeping three balls airborn, but these guys just blow my mind. First up is a dude who can juggle to a Beatle tune:

Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SR0ExPWXAys

Then here’s a stylish dude named Steven Ragatz who does creepy things with a suitcase, a hat and some red balls:

Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8VeB7quFcM8

Finally, YouTube is all about You, according to Time Magazine, so here’s an impressive home-made juggling thing:

Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6lInIfc9k

Ok Go

Sweet dancin’

I saw this one some time ago:

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okZwbxi7p0A 

Then my memory got refreshed once I saw this other video:

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEYSlut0Iuc 

I’d say this shit is sufficiently awesome to warrant a posting

Art

Here’s three videos of three peculiar ways of committing art. The first one is an internet classic, sand animation:

Link:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=1eqDGogIZfE

Music could be Kitaro?  I wouldn’t know.. It’s sweet though.

Next up is, heh, how to draw a car in microsoft paint:

Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8aG3xmYVbTw

The last one is an amazingly beautiful spraypainted painting. I wouldn’t mind having this shit hang on my walls. And he does it in below 10 minutes, as well. Wah.

Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5092116675912812500 

…and hilarity ensued.

Time to lighten up a bit after my Dawkins spam. In an earlier post I had already posted an example of how funny shit is when actors themselves lose it in a comedy bit. Don’t we all love it when someone breaks character and can’t keep a stern look straight anymore!

I have here a sound clip from a radio program featuring a dude named DJ Super Snake who is on a mission to expose people that cheat.  In the program an Indian woman named Jasmine asks Snake’s help to find out if her husband is cheating on her. In the ensuing mayhem Snake completely loses it and can’t stop laughing – which for me is the funny bit about it.

And most people will probably already know this one – Richard Simmons on Whose Line Is It Anyway:

I don’t care much for stuff involving cheap homosexual jokes but the sheer glee of the hosts and the actors make this a memorable piece of comedy

Even more Richard Dawkins!

I can’t get enough of him, apparently. I’m feeling more self-righteous every minute I watch his stuff

Here’s a BBC documentary where Dawkins extensively argues his point about religion/faith being a dangerous, degenerate principle. He shows some disconcerting examples of the harm religion has been causing, of the indoctrination of children, of the cruelty of God and so on. It’s a lengthy watch – two times 48 minutes – but well worth the time if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

Link: http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-6169720917221820689

Link: http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-5752208690443739173