To comment on the following contributions to the VGAP4 universe, or if you would like to discuss the meanings and possible uses of the data gathered, please email me at scytale@sdr0.com
3rd party race for VGAP4, submitted early summer of 2001. Assigned race number 812.
Race Usage Graph (updated August 14th 2009)
Graph charting race usage on Drewhead's site, as percentages of total races currently in play.
Twice a month (middle and end) I count the total number of occurances of each race in all active games in active on Drewhead's hosting site. I count all races that are not NPCs, even if deceased. I started doing this in the middle of July, 2002.
Race Rankings (updated August 18th 2009)
Empirical ranking of the winning ability of all the planets races.
Each time a game ends on Drewhead's hosting site and I am able to determine the winner(s), a point score is awarded to the winning race(s). The points awarded are equal to (the total number of races in the game) / (the number of winners). Thus, in a game of five 3-player teams, all three of the races of the winning team receives 15/3 = 5 points. These points are then divided by the average percentage of playtime that race gets (same as the data in the Race Usage Graph) to normalize the points against how often a race is played. Thus a win for a rarely-played race counts more than a win for an often-played race.
Wins include any type of victory that happens on Drewhead's site. VPs, last man standing, special win conditions, everything. I include pretty much any game I can find out who the winner is.
This ranking system should NOT be used as proof that a race is unbalanced. The values are questionable at best. A number of factors such as player ability are not part of the calculation, and the total amount of data is small (statistically speaking).
