29 months...

[1974ER]

Since the forums have been quiet for days and 29 months have passed since I joined, I am going to post a few things...

A few days ago I bypassed (at least temporarily) Balgair's and Kerebo's combined update total of 13 731 874 and now stand at 13 789 407 updates.

Two days ago I broke the 2,2M new ones barrier. Postponer has broken 700k new ones barrier and Djambo has pushed Lohan75 back to position 10, where he is now in real danger of being pushed off the list again as FuxieDK isn't far behind. Hybuir is apparently taking a longer break too and has dropped out of all time top 11 of new ones.

EU server submissions have been gutted... almost everything I see on the most wanted lists is zero, zero, zero...

Monthly submission levels are pretty low too... it's only the 7th and I already have enough updates to place myself into top 5 of last month, if I exclude myself from position 1. I also have enough new ones to place myself into top 10 of last month (again excluding myself and assuming the 11th person on the list wasn't literally just a few entries behind the 10th).

Quite a few people I know no longer play WoW... and while Blizzard can affored to lose 500, 5000 or even 50000 people... WCR apparently can't really afford losing even 5 actives. Balgair and several others are apparently taking a break and since December I have been forced to cut down on my list of covered servers. FuxieDK, Postponer and many other "regulars" are getting such low results that they aren't in the current monthly top 10s....

I end my current thoughts with a plea, especially directed at the EU census users... Please, try to get at least a little more coverage for servers. Otherwise, I fear, WCR will be rendered useless to most people outside those few who play on realms that still have at least some data available.

[Balgair]

It goes to show how few people really cover the servers, just how much coverage has dropped. Real life has got in the way a bit but I'll try and run a few more soon, looks like a pretty hopeless task though.

[FuxieDK]

I have one reason for cutting down..

Running Census have become slow.. PAINFULLY SLOW.

I used to run Census on my laptop on trial accounts while I play on my stationary. Doing one server (both sides) takes 45-60 minutes, which means I can do no more than 4-6 servers per day..
Back in WotLK, it rarely took over 20 minutes, with same amount of people online.

On top of this, a 10 days trial account rarely exists for 10 days. Usually, they expire after 7 days, but I've even seen them expire after only 4 days. In January and February alone, I went through 11 trial accounts, where 6 should have been sufficient.

Creating new email, then create new battle.net account, validate battle.net account, creating new toons on several servers and configure AddOns on all of them times more and more time..

On top of this, whenever my GF wants to use the laptop, I have to stop running Census, as I can't hog both our PCs and leave her with nothing..

This basically means:
- I cover Shadowsong Horde extensively
- I cover Shadowsong Alliance once daily
- I cover Steamwheedle both sides sporadically

Sadly, but that's it.

[1974ER]

One interesting, slightly sad fact is that the EU realms suffer much more than the US ones. Looking at most wanted page seems to indicate that there has been very little change in US submission numbers. The lowest values still dance around 2-4 per faction.

As for the task... It's big and you certainly can't do it alone. My ability to assist is limited, though I may be able to do a little bit of rediversifying in the future. Funny thing is... the reverse of what you say is also true... IF we had just a couple of more very active people on the EU side, the numbers could recover rather rapidly.

As for the coverage drop... it's both flattering and intimidating to see how much impact just one or two people can have on the overall result.

EDIT:

45-60 minutes per realm, Fuxie? Even on low population realms? I suspect something else than Census is not running correctly on the laptop as I only see 30+ minutes on really big factions at peak times as the activity levels have gone down massively. Slightly off-peak and I can do BOTH sides of EU-Argent Dawn in about 30-35 minutes. And that realm has been long known for fairly high to very high population.

[FuxieDK]

There aren't that many TRUE Low Populated realms..
If horde is low, usually alliance is big (and vice versa).

The scan-time is pretty identical on both my laptop and my brand new i7 8GB machine that can do 60fps in a 25man raid with 140MB AddOns..

[1974ER]

Can you try a little test for me, Fuxie? Try running census (or two) on the Horde side of Scarshield Legion and / or Silvermoon and post your results, both elapsed time and number of characters detected. Thank you.

[FuxieDK]

Silvermoon-Horde. 159 toons, 1m13sec

[1974ER]

Thank you. That at least seems consistent with my results lately. Maybe you should try censusing only those realms that show as "low" even at peak times and if a side seems to take too long, switch to the other without finishing. That way you should be able to do at least a bit more than just 2 or 3 realms per day (if you want to, that is).

[FuxieDK]

The problem is... If I need to pay too much attention to the realms I census, then it's too much work for my taste..

I create a bunch os toons and census those realms until the trial runs out..
But when the trial sometimes only last 4 days, and I even have to pay attention to some of the census, so I don't get logged out during census due to being AFK, then it's more that I want to do..

[1974ER]

I fully understand. In ways, you are doing a lot more than I am, so I understand where you are coming from. Even if you do very little, literally EVERYTHING helps and is appreciated, not only by me, but everyone who can use the data you collect.