Brainstorming here: If a server has 20k active subscribers how many of those are on in any given night? I think 25% is a fair guess. That would put 5k on a server each night. Which happens to be the number the servers can accomodate. Seems like active subscribers might be between 75k and 90k, pretty close to my predictions. Of course I will acknowledge that the '25%' is simply a guess. If 50% or more of the active subscribers are playing each night, we'd drop down to 45k or so...but I can't imagine any game has a 50% active subscription playing each night. I don't think the 2k per server would make good business practice, I think they want these servers overloaded, close to the 5k to produce a 'full' illusion. That way, if game turns around they can use server releases as a psychological advertising. Is that shady? Or is that good business? Dunno, guess I'll have to see after they merge.
Had a nice long post with examples made up, and hit cancel instead of submit. I'm an idiot.
At any rate, there are several studies out at fan sites, for different servers, different days, different times. The commonly found average per server at prime playing hours is about 750-800. Unless only one in eight players are logged in, that makes the 75-90K number completely unbelievable- and points at a much more realistic 40K or so. Even go look around the affiliate sites, where traffic and interest have dropped 70-80% since release. That's a great indicator.
Even the official forum peaks at around 1800-2000 people. I'd guess a 1 of 20 figure would be fair for forum visits, and that again puts us around 40K -ish. Just too many things pointing that way to make any figure above 40,000 look or feel true.
If the 750 to 800 per night is accurate, then I capitulate and am willing to say I was wrong by almost 80k.
Not that I'm doubting you, but I have looked thru the fan sites and haven't found that info, if you can re-post a link, that'd be sweet.
I'll go digging later and see what I can find- I know there are/were threads for Florendyl, Woefeather, Flamehammer, and Gelenia at SV. I definitely remember a few from the PvP servers, too....meh, I'll look and see if I can find them. No promises, though, and it's still not solid proof either way
If the 750 to 800 per night is accurate, then I capitulate and am willing to say I was wrong by almost 80k. Not that I'm doubting you, but I have looked thru the fan sites and haven't found that info, if you can re-post a link, that'd be sweet.
Silky Venom has had a fair number of threads where people would calculate the number of players online at any given time. Here's one example:
LINK The Server Merge Plan for Vanguard. Hey Everyone, Here are the details on the server merge. We don’t have a firm date as we are still getting all the back-end details worked out. The intent is to have them done within the next three weeks. We will announce a date as soon as we have it. Please feel free to comment as I know you will. I will try and clear up questions as they arise. I realize that not everyone will be happy with all of the decisions, but I’m open to suggestions if someone presents a better idea and it’s something that is feasible for us to implement in time.
Servers * There will be 2 US PVE, 1 EU PVE, and 1 US PVP server.
o Thunderaxe, Woefeather, and Gulgrethor would merge into server A PVE
o Targonor, Hilsbury, and Shidreth would merge into sever B PVE
o Tharridon, Varking, and Frengrot would merge into sever C PVP FFA
o Gelenia and Infineum would merge into server D EU PVE
o For Florendyl we will be soliciting feedback via a poll and discussion as to whether or not the players think it should be merged.
1. We are open to considering the option of leaving it up with the understanding that the population is way under what it needs to be to be healthy but we wouldn’t recommend it.
* All existing servers will go away and everyone will be moved to new servers.
* We will post a poll so you can vote on the new server names.
* PVP players will be able to move to PVP OR PVE servers.
* PVE players will only be able to move to PVE servers.
* PVP rule set will be FFA.
Characters that have not chosen a server will be moved based on popularity of servers. * US characters moved this way will be on a US server.
* EU players moved will be on an EU server.
* PVP players will be moved to the new PVP server.
* Each character will get one free server move after the merge.
Character Naming * Characters name priority is based on
o First created, if also played within the last 30 days
o Last Played
* Those characters that have name collisions will be marked, and upon next login will have to choose a new name before that character can log in.
Housing * The price for the player’s plot is refunded to the player in coin.
* The resources used to generate the house are refunded to the player via the housing resource escrow.
* The current upkeep balance will be refunded to the character
* Fixtures and items in the house will be placed in the escrow.
Boats * Boats will be marked as needing to be named.
VGPlayers issues * We are still working out the specifics on this.
Corpses left in the world * All corpses will go away.
* Any items left on corpses will go to your escrow account.
* Exp on the corpse will be returned to you.
Mail * Any pending mail will be returned to sender.
Friends list * We are still working out the specifics on this.
Guild names * We are still working out the specifics on this.
Market items * Items in the market will be returned via mail.
One to Two weeks prior to the consolidation, players will be able to type a slash command (MOVESERVER) that will select what server they want that character to reside on.
ROFLMAO
Yea right.. they cant even get mobs to stop turning invisible.
Hope those of you still playing are ready for everything you have in game to go POOF!
If the 750 to 800 per night is accurate, then I capitulate and am willing to say I was wrong by almost 80k. Not that I'm doubting you, but I have looked thru the fan sites and haven't found that info, if you can re-post a link, that'd be sweet.
Silky Venom has had a fair number of threads where people would calculate the number of players online at any given time. Here's one example:
I have no way of confirming how accurate this is- but using /who all 1 10 count, etc., for each level range on Florendyl (Yeah, I know, 10 AM EDT isn't prime time by any means )
1-10 67
11-20 89
21-30 102
31-40 63
41-50 38
Total- 359 players
Shidreth, 10:30 EDT-
43
58
60
76
69
306
Thunderaxe, 10:35 EDT-
57
76
84
90
90
397
For what it's worth. Yes, they need to drop to 3 or 4 servers, it's that simple.
Hmmm, i left Vanguard after my 1st initial month had played out that came with the purchase of the game. I was kinda hoping that they would fix all the problems it had and try to make it like the Pheonix (rise from the ash's). However, now i see this happen, it is obviously in a very bad state (even worse than i would have thought).
I reckon alot of the player base (including the ones asking us to stay) and defending VG have moved on. What with 2 weekends of double experiance (unheard of for a new release, especially in its first month) was damn right rediculous. The problems with game mechanics, broken quests (1 in 5 quests would work) ending up under the game world after portaling, dying and unable to get grave back because it had fallen through the world etc etc etc.
I left after i had, had enough, i have played early beta stage games that played better. It was obvious this game was totally not ready for a retail release, and that hurt this game severaly.
Still i was hoping things would get better for it, and was hoping to come back after 8mths of the game being out (earlier if i had gotten some good reports on things), alas all i heard was the game declining. Last bit of news was hearing of a max exodus of players leaving (of which i was told it was untrue), see'ing this thread kinda just proves things have gotten soo bad with this game i would be surprised if it even see's its first year out, especially with some new big named games due for release.
I wont say R.I.P Vanguard quite yet but its prospects do not look good, does it. It had some very good idea's and hopefully other games will pick up on this.
I don't play Vanguard, but in reading the posts here( I try to keep up with alot of MMO's, just incase I do decide to play them one day) I believe I saw a blog on Raph Koster's website( http://www.raphkoster.com ) that had a new chart of MMO subscriptions. I don't think it was MMOChart or what ever the other one is. This one was a new person trying to keep track. Anyway, I believe that chart had the subscriber base around 20k people.
I'm not trying to flame anyone here, nor am I trying to start arguments, I'm just posting what I saw for you folks to help clarify. Good luck to you all in the server merges.
The original guy who did mmorpgchart.com apparently stopped doing it, and when someone tried to take it over he either didn't answer or was not cooperative. So a new person is doing the same sort of thing on a different site. That's probably where Raph got his numbers.
Since SOE does not report their numbers, all the numbers on SOE games are based on deductive reasoning. I don't know what the new guy is doing but the original guy at mmorpgchart.com used to rate most of his SOE numbers as a "C" in quality -- best guess but not much data to back them up. I suspect the same is true for Vanguard. We know they sold about 200k boxes because Brad said it. We suspect they dropped to no more than 90k total subs in March because the anonymous "disgruntled SOE employee" said so in his interview, and the rest of what he said has been borne out as true (so he is believable). However, even he did not know for sure, because he was not in the accounts department. Rather he said he "had heard" that it was 90k. Again for those of us in game at the time, it sounded believable, but it's not iron clad. Since then, server activity has gone down even more, so the suspicion is the numbers are well below 90k, but how much? Nobody really knows.
Comments
I think 750-800 is being generous. The numbers I've seen at silky venom range around the 600-700 level now.
Subscription numbers are somewhere in the 20-40 k range.
SOE is not going down to 4 servers cramped full to maximum, they're giving themselves some room to grow i'm sure.
At any rate, there are several studies out at fan sites, for different servers, different days, different times. The commonly found average per server at prime playing hours is about 750-800. Unless only one in eight players are logged in, that makes the 75-90K number completely unbelievable- and points at a much more realistic 40K or so. Even go look around the affiliate sites, where traffic and interest have dropped 70-80% since release. That's a great indicator.
Even the official forum peaks at around 1800-2000 people. I'd guess a 1 of 20 figure would be fair for forum visits, and that again puts us around 40K -ish. Just too many things pointing that way to make any figure above 40,000 look or feel true.
If the 750 to 800 per night is accurate, then I capitulate and am willing to say I was wrong by almost 80k.
Not that I'm doubting you, but I have looked thru the fan sites and haven't found that info, if you can re-post a link, that'd be sweet.
I'll go digging later and see what I can find- I know there are/were threads for Florendyl, Woefeather, Flamehammer, and Gelenia at SV. I definitely remember a few from the PvP servers, too....meh, I'll look and see if I can find them. No promises, though, and it's still not solid proof either wayBite me, Turbine.
Silky Venom has had a fair number of threads where people would calculate the number of players online at any given time. Here's one example:
www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php
Even according to people playing the game, the numbers have been in steady decline for weeks. Hence merging the servers down from 13 to 4.
ROFLMAO
Yea right.. they cant even get mobs to stop turning invisible.
Hope those of you still playing are ready for everything you have in game to go POOF!
Silky Venom has had a fair number of threads where people would calculate the number of players online at any given time. Here's one example:
www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php
Even according to people playing the game, the numbers have been in steady decline for weeks. Hence merging the servers down from 13 to 4.
This definately shows the downward trend. One last question, how are people deriving these numbers?
And thanks for the link
1-10 67
11-20 89
21-30 102
31-40 63
41-50 38
Total- 359 players
Shidreth, 10:30 EDT-
43
58
60
76
69
306
Thunderaxe, 10:35 EDT-
57
76
84
90
90
397
For what it's worth. Yes, they need to drop to 3 or 4 servers, it's that simple.
Bite me, Turbine.
Hmmm, i left Vanguard after my 1st initial month had played out that came with the purchase of the game. I was kinda hoping that they would fix all the problems it had and try to make it like the Pheonix (rise from the ash's). However, now i see this happen, it is obviously in a very bad state (even worse than i would have thought).
I reckon alot of the player base (including the ones asking us to stay) and defending VG have moved on. What with 2 weekends of double experiance (unheard of for a new release, especially in its first month) was damn right rediculous. The problems with game mechanics, broken quests (1 in 5 quests would work) ending up under the game world after portaling, dying and unable to get grave back because it had fallen through the world etc etc etc.
I left after i had, had enough, i have played early beta stage games that played better. It was obvious this game was totally not ready for a retail release, and that hurt this game severaly.
Still i was hoping things would get better for it, and was hoping to come back after 8mths of the game being out (earlier if i had gotten some good reports on things), alas all i heard was the game declining. Last bit of news was hearing of a max exodus of players leaving (of which i was told it was untrue), see'ing this thread kinda just proves things have gotten soo bad with this game i would be surprised if it even see's its first year out, especially with some new big named games due for release.
I wont say R.I.P Vanguard quite yet but its prospects do not look good, does it. It had some very good idea's and hopefully other games will pick up on this.
I don't play Vanguard, but in reading the posts here( I try to keep up with alot of MMO's, just incase I do decide to play them one day) I believe I saw a blog on Raph Koster's website( http://www.raphkoster.com ) that had a new chart of MMO subscriptions. I don't think it was MMOChart or what ever the other one is. This one was a new person trying to keep track. Anyway, I believe that chart had the subscriber base around 20k people.
I'm not trying to flame anyone here, nor am I trying to start arguments, I'm just posting what I saw for you folks to help clarify. Good luck to you all in the server merges.
Since SOE does not report their numbers, all the numbers on SOE games are based on deductive reasoning. I don't know what the new guy is doing but the original guy at mmorpgchart.com used to rate most of his SOE numbers as a "C" in quality -- best guess but not much data to back them up. I suspect the same is true for Vanguard. We know they sold about 200k boxes because Brad said it. We suspect they dropped to no more than 90k total subs in March because the anonymous "disgruntled SOE employee" said so in his interview, and the rest of what he said has been borne out as true (so he is believable). However, even he did not know for sure, because he was not in the accounts department. Rather he said he "had heard" that it was 90k. Again for those of us in game at the time, it sounded believable, but it's not iron clad. Since then, server activity has gone down even more, so the suspicion is the numbers are well below 90k, but how much? Nobody really knows.
C