How are play time statistics calculated?

Note: Player activity statistics are now calculated, as of May 5th, 2020. They are currently displayed when you hover over your game within The Forge. Overall account statistics (as opposed to per-game statistics) are not yet displayed.

The Forge automatically includes its own module in every game it hosts. This module enables a user to access their assets library, and display the proper invitation link to the game owner. The module also gathers statistics on user play time to display to its users.

The Forge tracks each user’s total play time, as well as their play time in each individual game (a single Forge Game URL, not the world launched within) that they have joined. A heartbeat message is sent to the servers every 10 minutes to notify it of player activity.

A user is considered active during any specific minute if :

  • They move their mouse on the Foundry VTT window or,
  • Press a key on their keyboard within the Foundry VTT window.
  • The activity happens for more than 15 seconds or happens at least twice in a minute, with a 15 second interval between the two events.

If the player was active for at least one minute during the 10 minutes between each heartbeat, then the user is considered active in the game. If you have been inactive for less than 30 minutes, and then become active again, it will count that entire portion as having been active (i.e: you were waiting your turn in combat, or talking with the GM).
This means that if you don’t do anything while you’re role playing, or take a 15 minutes break in your game, it will still count all that time as active, as long as it was less than 30 minutes of inactivity.

Hopefully this makes tracking accurate for most people. It can’t be perfect, but if you have suggestions on how to make it better, feel free to comment.

1 Like