JA vs. JK2 update (no flames please!)

[Kurgan]

Don't take this as spam, but since we seem to have a semi-weekly debate on which game is "better" just a little factoid for ya.

 

As of 11:20am CST (ish) here on Sunday, Aug 22, 2004:

 

JA: 556 servers, 1,417 players

 

JK2: 420 servers, 847 players

 

 

While numbers alone don't mean something is "better" or "worse" (after all, what game you enjoy is a matter of personal taste; and plenty of games put these numbers to shame out there, that alone doesn't mean these games are garbage either), that at least should be something to tell the people who are saying that JA sucks and "nobody plays it anymore" compared to JK2 (it also puts to shame those who have said over the years that JK2 is "dead").

 

Next month JA celebrates it's 1 year anniversary.

 

This is perhaps the biggest "discrepancy" between the number of players of these games that I've noticed since JA's first month or so, honestly, but then I'm not checking it every single day.

 

So play the game you enjoy, people, play both, play neither, it's all good!

[Master William]

If JA was the second JK game and JO the third, I think JO would have been more popular

[Spider AL]

If JA was the second JK game and JO the third, I think JO would have been more popular

 

And if Elvis had lived long enough to run for president, I think JO would have been shipped with a free inflatable banana in the box.

 

JO is great, JA is great. JK is great. We can each play what we like. End of line.

[Obi_Kwiet]

What's the chat room vs. play room ratio's for both though?

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Obi_Kwiet

What's the chat room vs. play room ratio's for both though?

 

There's absolutely no way to know, not without connecting to every single one of those servers and monitoring them constantly.

 

If you want to base it on admin mod use, then both games must be chat rooms (both use them more often than not). If you want to base it on sabers only use, then JK2 wins, because there are more sabers only servers in it than JA.

 

These stats are just based on the data that ASE spits out. I have no way of assessing the "quality" of any of these players or their servers.

 

My point is that both of these games are getting regular use, comparable to what they were nearly a year ago, and for the time being JA is outnumbering JK2 in terms of players and servers (this has fluctuated back and forth over the past year I admit, but at the time of my posting, JA was clearly ahead).

 

Originally posted by Master William

If JA was the second JK game and JO the third, I think JO would have been more popular

 

You'd have people complaining that so many moves were removed (since after all, some people like JA's saber system more than JK2's so those people would be mad). You'd have people whining that we lost Siege and PowerDuel in favor of KTY, Jedi Master and Holocron. Then you'd have people upset that SP was scaled back so much, with the removal of so many force powers, the removal of the customization, etc. and how the game is now shorter and the puzzles too hard. You'd have mod makers complaining that the game engine is now less flexible, removing so many elements from MP scenarios.

 

And on top of that you'd still have people complaining that JK2 actually has worse graphics than JA, when it should be a "revolutionary improvement" (people complain now that the graphics in JA look "dated" and should have been so much better than they were).

 

Who knows, but the numbers are interesting, you've gotta admit.

[Druid_Allanon]

Y'know, I'm tempted to go re-install JO and go around grip kicking some idiots. As far as I remember, kick is already in JO.

 

Damn... where's that CD?

[Crow_Nest]

LOL kurgan. You had me fooled for a second there, i thought you ment updates in meaning "Patches"

[Ace-_Ventura]

Originally posted by Kurgan

You'd have people complaining that so many moves were removed (since after all, some people like JA's saber system more than JK2's so those people would be mad). You'd have people whining that we lost Siege and PowerDuel in favor of KTY, Jedi Master and Holocron. Then you'd have people upset that SP was scaled back so much, with the removal of so many force powers, the removal of the customization, etc. and how the game is now shorter and the puzzles too hard. You'd have mod makers complaining that the game engine is now less flexible, removing so many elements from MP scenarios.

 

And on top of that you'd still have people complaining that JK2 actually has worse graphics than JA, when it should be a "revolutionary improvement" (people complain now that the graphics in JA look "dated" and should have been so much better than they were).

i would still prefer jk2

[-Zack-]

Originally posted by Master William

If JA was the second JK game and JO the third, I think JO would have been more popular

'

 

You are trying to say if JA would've been the 2nd JK game with all new modes and saber styles and then JO would've been the third JK game, with lesser modes and only 1 saber style, then JO would've been better?

[Master William]

no, just more popular, people tend to play sequels more

[Kurgan]

To update, so far all this week JA has lead in number of players and servers. In fact, at the high times it seems to have DOUBLE the number of players.

 

Not bad...

[Rad Blackrose]

Originally posted by Kurgan

since after all, some people like JA's saber system more than JK2's so those people would be mad

 

/insert dieing of laughter sound here

[Lathain Valtiel]

Originally posted by Rad Blackrose

/insert dieing of laughter sound here

 

*Follows suit, because it is my personal opinion that single saber by itself was the best system*

[Obi_Kwiet]

Well, thats simple really. The people useing JA have spent so much time chatting that they have even used the game to find out how mcuh it stinks. They just assume it's better but they've never tried it out.

[Alegis]

Originally posted by Kurgan

There's absolutely no way to know, not without connecting to every single one of those servers and monitoring them constantly.

Just filter the saber only FFA servers. There you got your chatrooms

[Ace-_Ventura]

Originally posted by Kurgan

To update, so far all this week JA has lead in number of players and servers. In fact, at the high times it seems to have DOUBLE the number of players.

 

Not bad...

does it means anything at all?

JKA at this moment: 542 servers, 1061 players, 290 server are using JA+ mod and 619 players are on it. well for me it means that there's only 252 servers and 442 players on JKA. it's nothing, even with ja+ server, compared to other games like CS or ET.

[Druid_Allanon]

High amount of players don't mean a thing. The players playing JA now are mostly honor d00dz. I suggest you check out the INCREASE of the amount of players, that'll show how welcome JA is to players.

[Rumor]

would you guys just drop it already? a game doesn't have to be superior to have more players.

[iamtrip]

Lets not forget that jk2 is what 3 years older than JA?

 

If you took jk2 stats and figures at this stage (about a year after release), its a pretty dead cert that player numbers would be into their thousands (I remember jk2 player figures of 2500) and server numbers way above the figures of JA.

 

Lets not forget that JK2 is a 3-4 year old game and that after the abysmal facilities for competetive gaming in JA (especially for saber only), most of the competetive community left to try to join JA, realised it couldn't go anywhere and never went back to jk2.

 

Lets hope raven do a half decent job of quake4 because faith in that company has to be at an all time low.

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Rumor

would you guys just drop it already? a game doesn't have to be superior to have more players.

 

That's true and I agree. MMORPG's dwarf the numbers of any FPS anyway.

 

But I guess I'm just turning the tables a bit, 'cause for a long time JK2 apologists were ranting and raving that JA sucked etc because JK2 had more players for a time.

 

 

Saying all the JA players are "h0n0r d00dz" may have some merit, but then again, the same can probably be said for JK2 as well. Note how many of the JK2 servers are using admin mods and are sabers only or have most/all force powers disabled. Clearly its not like the h0n0rz guys are all hanging out in JA and only the serious players are in JK2 (or vice versa, I'd argue they both have signficant "h0n0rz" going on). I don't like it either, but that's reality...

 

Hey, and no need to mock what I said about some people liking JA sabers better than JK2. Even if you think those people are idiots, I've read their posts in black & white on these forums. Hard as it may seem to believe that somebody could disagree with your preference, it does happen. The same is true of people who like the Prequels better than the Classic Trilogy. Maybe they're "wrong," but they exist.

 

JA will be "1 year old" in less than a month. JK2 is roughly 2 years and 5 months old (not "3-4").

 

Again, no biggie there either, it's just that the JK2 apologists were claiming that all the JA players were leaving in droves to play JK2, the clearly superior game.

 

It also goes to show that the people who claim both games are "dead" are wrong. 2,000 players at any given time may not seem like much, but it's hardly 'nothing' as they seemed to be saying.

 

I'd say the fact that these are Star Wars games (and among the best Star Wars online games available, bar none) shows that they have a longer shelf life than your average FPS. LucasArts keeps their games on shelves for many years (even as "classics"). So people are out looking for a Star Wars game, they see it and they're in... It's much harder to find some generic FPS on shelves years later like that. So another plus in its favor.

 

And finally, I don't see why "faith in [Raven] has to be at an all time low." Why, just because some JK2 fans were disappointed that Jedi Academy wasn't as good as they had hoped?

 

Remember Raven has made hit after hit. They're a small company, so they wouldn't survive and get the contracts with big companies like ID and LucasArts if they didn't produce results. JA was hardly a flop. Soldier of Fortune II did well, etc. And before that Elite Force was game of the year 2000, etc. About their only failure I can see was Heretic II. The game got great reviews but only modest sales (IIRC). But I think the companies in the industry saw that this was just a marketing problem and not a lack of quality on their part (so they got lucky).

 

If nobody has faith in them they wouldn't be working on Quake IV, now would they?

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by iamtrip

Lets not forget that jk2 is what 3 years older than JA?

 

To clarify... JK2: March 27, 2002

JA: September 16, 2003

(so about 1 1/2 years between 'em)

 

If you took jk2 stats and figures at this stage (about a year after release), its a pretty dead cert that player numbers would be into their thousands (I remember jk2 player figures of 2500) and server numbers way above the figures of JA.

 

And at the height of its popularity JA surely had more than that too. The point is where they are at now. Obviously JK2 is still going strong, and JA happens to be more popular right now. I'm not saying that proves JA is a better game, only that this can't be used as evidence anymore that JA must be inferior due to lower numbers.

 

Lets not forget that JK2 is a 3-4 year old game

 

See above.

[Rumor]

Originally posted by Kurgan

That's true and I agree. MMORPG's dwarf the numbers of any FPS anyway.

 

But I guess I'm just turning the tables a bit, 'cause for a long time JK2 apologists were ranting and raving that JA sucked etc because JK2 had more players for a time.

 

well they are just a bunch of sackriders. ja sucked because of how dumbed down it was.

 

BUT

 

siege ****ing rules. i remember during the leak i went to a lan and we all played siege (20 ppl or so) on lan and had a blast. (low pings rule)

[Kurgan]

Correct me if I'm wrong too, but you guys loved the game back then, because that was before flip kicks were removed.

 

I remember banning you (and like 50 other people) for that whole incident on the forums too. While we all know what happened, let's not dwell on it... (see *rules*). Let bygones be bygones...

 

I'm also glad to see you agree that JA had merits beyond the saber fighting, that's something that so many people forget in these discussions. Kudos!

[Ace-_Ventura]

actually siege is no fun for me. looks like a beta for rtcw/rtcw:et

[JDKnite188]

Originally posted by Rumor

siege ****ing rules. i remember during the leak i went to a lan and we all played siege (20 ppl or so) on lan and had a blast. (low pings rule)

 

You should play Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It has objective-based gameplay, it's free, and it has 6 maps as opposed to JA's 3 siege maps.