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Age of conan european servers concurrent population
Abriael
Member Posts: 129
Since funcom didn't release any data on accounts retained after the end of the first free month, i decided to gather some data myself (since at level 80 my free time suddenly inflated) not on total population, which would be absolutely impossible without official communication by Funcom, but on what really concerns us players, concurrent characters logged in each given server during primetime.
The data is only relative to european servers since i don't have access to the US ones, of course if you do, you're encouraged to make your own polling and compare.
Unfortunately Funcom made it quite difficult to gather this kind of data. The limit of characters available to each account is excessively low and for some absolutely obscure reason players lower than level 5 can't access the character search function. This means that polling each server takes around 15-20 minutes, and the character needs to be canceled imediately after to make room for the next.
The data you'll find in the charts below has been polled by creating a character in each european server of Age of Conan, reaching level 5 to access the search player function and doing a search for players of levels 1-80. The pages have been counted and multiplied by 50 (there are 50 characters per page in the list) and then the characters on the last pages have been manually counted and added to the total.
The polling was done between July the 1st and July the 3rd, 2008, in a timeframe included between 6.30 PM and 9 PM CET to make sure that the data is consistent enough.
Of course the statistical value of the data is debatable, but should give a pretty good idea of the number of characters logged in each server during primetime, to identify which servers have an high population and which turned into ghost towns. In any case you know how the data was gathered and when, so you're free to draw your own conclusions from them. Click the links below to see the table and charts.
Table with all the data by server
Chart with all the data by server
Server density chart
Ruleset density chart
As you can see from the table and the graphs there are some pretty evident conclusion to be made:
While there are a few servers that have an healthy population of over 2000 people there's only one that still surpasses the 3000 people online at the same time. the 36% of servers have a pretty average population between 1000 and 2000 concurrent players, that the ones that played lot of MMORPG will identify as pretty shaky (just to make an example that isn't the usual WoW, most Final Fantasy XI servers in the first couple years after the american release very rarely went below the 3000 players online during primetime).
The most discouraging data, though, comes from the very high percentage of servers that are plagued by a very low concurrent population (under 1000). They represent a whopping 44% of the total. Even more discouraging if we consider that the 16% of the servers (4) fail to reach 500 (actually they fail to reach even 300) people logged in at the same time: basically the gamers playing in 11 servers between the 25 available face a population problems that can make playing and finding people to actually do something quite a feat by Itself.
Total population isn't necessarily bad, with around 30000 up during primetime, but it's definately low if compared to how hyped the game was, and it's definately not nearly enough to fill all the servers enough to grant everyone a good gaming experience.
Draw your own conclusions, complete article available on my blog
Comments
Someone told me once that the number of player online at a certain time is around 12% of the total number of subscribers so using that as a standard that gives us about 269K subs in Europe.
Don't flame me asking for evidence of the 12% figure, I don't have it. Take what you want from my figures.
In fact the total number isn't that awful (even if from my experience it's more like 20-25% for primetime, but that's entirely debatable), it's just quite low compared to the hype they played. The problem in sight is that Funcom greatly overstimated their ability to retain accounts and attract new ones, and simply created too many unnecessary servers, leading to havig many servers with insufficent population.
Wheter the game is successful or not, if a sizeable percentage of the players suffer from lack of people to play with, we have a problem. I personally can't care the less about how much Funcom earns out of it. What I care about is that players in underpopulated servers aren't left there to rot because Funcom wants to avoid bad press.
We only need to wait for a few months to see the effect. If the pop remains low, than the players will start to ask for server merge, much like WoW.
RIP Orc Choppa
I've seen people say between 1 out of 8 players(12.5%) and 1 out 6(16.6%) players are online at any given night.
My personal guess is they have roughly 500K accounts and half are in EU so that 269K sounds about correct. The number is falling though and if it falls say another 25% the game is going to have issues with some dead servers for sure.
I would also keep an eye on the quarterly statements to stockholders.
MAGA
That's a pretty spurious way to gather accurate data. It also gives a lot of weight to those that are saying that the AoC negativity machine is being financed. Who in the world would go trough all of this trouble to gather "Evidence" without any empirical relevance unless they had Zero life, some sort of lame ass agenda, or was being paid? I vote for the latter, cause I know some obsessive Rage Nerds...and even they have better things to do than this.
This look very bad. EvE peaks around 40,000 online during peak playing time, and it is just a niche mmos. With only 30-32K in EU, then I think that AoC will be a niche market too..
Spoils of War - The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
Its a shame you didnt do this excersise before the month free.
It would have been interesting to see what the retention rate is.
As long as the retain enough accounts to keep developing the game , There really isn't anything bad about being in a niche market.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I agree....using his sample and his system, you could logically have a good ballpark retention figure now.
Also....I'm not so sure about that 12% that was given to us. It would seem to me that more than 12% would be on during primetime. Otherwise, we have to believe that the VAST majority of players are only logged in outside of primetime hours. 88% of players playing in the off hours? Nah...
I would say the 12% is more likely for the average play time. During primetime, I'd expect something closer to 30% of available subs online. I'm no math whiz, though, so I won't swear by it. It just seems a little off to me.
Personal attacks don't discount his findings. Besides, he said he did it because there isn't much to do at level 80. I don't think it gives any weight to those that are saying the AoC negativity machine is being financed, thats just silly and paranoid.
If you had something to say about the actual findings we might be interested, but the personal insults get you no where.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
In other words don't post unless you're on the hate train. His findings are discounted because a pie chart don't necessarily make it so. As far as silly and paranoid goes. The MMO industry is a multi Billion dollar entity Careers hang on what Joe Basement dweller says, and that my myopic friend is a marketable commodity which has been covered extensively on the net (here give this a read http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_62/363-I-m-Evil ) I myself was approached at Dragon Con last year and asked to shill for SOE, and if SOE does it you can bet your ass that the rest of them do it too. I was told that the best thing they have going for them is if anyone brings it up they can whip out the Grassy Gnoll/Tinfoil hat cards and it makes them bullet-proof…only more and more folks are finding out yeah this shit is going on.
If it was a matter of oh this game sucks I'm off to play WoW, that would be one thing, but what we are seeing here is a constant stream of negativity, that has all the ear marks of having been worked up by a marketing team.
In other words don't post unless you're on the hate train. His findings are discounted because a pie chart don't necessarily make it so. As far as silly and paranoid goes. The MMO industry is a multi Billion dollar entity Careers hang on what Joe Basement dweller says, and that my myopic friend is a marketable commodity which has been covered extensively on the net (here give this a read http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_62/363-I-m-Evil ) I myself was approached at Dragon Con last year and asked to shill for SOE, and if SOE does it you can bet your ass that the rest of them do it too. I was told that the best thing they have going for them is if anyone brings it up they can whip out the Grassy Gnoll/Tinfoil hat cards and it makes them bullet-proof…only more and more folks are finding out yeah this shit is going on.
If it was a matter of oh this game sucks I'm off to play WoW, that would be one thing, but what we are seeing here is a constant stream of negativity, that has all the ear marks of having been worked up by a marketing team.
No, he's saying don't post if you're just going to be an ass.
Here at Bitter tears central having an opinion other than Funcom sUxXz0rz is being an ass.
Here at Bitter tears central having an opinion other than Funcom sUxXz0rz is being an ass.
Yea play AoC like Todeswolf and stick it to the man !
Here at Bitter tears central having an opinion other than Funcom sUxXz0rz is being an ass.
no, its just you are an ass. it has nothing to do with what side you are on, you could be an anti-AoC ass and that wouldn't change the fact that... you are an ass.
He took the time to get some numbers, thats all he did. you on the other hand did NOTHING, so your answer to it is "you must be a loser because you did something". thats what makes you an ass.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
Interesting figures indeed. Definitely doesn't look great.
I think the amount of players will have dropped astronomically after everyones first free month ended.
With WAR, WotLK and the LOTRO Mines of Moria on the way AoC really has some tough competition and as much as I believe the game has "potential" i believe its population will continue to fall quite rapidly especially once we see the releases stated above.
If your accusations are true you are doing a great job at helping them.
Nothing makes you seem more like you're defending the undefensible by making unprovable accusations. Regardless of whether it happens or not.
If you just stuck to the facts and tell us why the game is good and why the haters are wrong, you'd come across as the more reasoned and ultimately believable side in this exchange.
Here at Bitter tears central having an opinion other than Funcom sUxXz0rz is being an ass.
No, but throwing in quite silly and definately unproved accusations just because you're a fanboy doesn't exactly make you look well. I'm an AoC player, still active, despite the fact that the game isn't in good shape. If you took the time to give a look to my flickr account (which hosts the graphs i posted) before throwing in your unwarranted remarks, you'd notice that one of the biggest albums there is dedicated to AoC. You think I'd be spreading pictures on how good AoC looks graphically if i was paid to bash it? Some serious paranoia there I'd say.
Also, I doubt there's any need to pay anyone to spread AoC bashing, the game has so many problems and the developers acts so often ion such a senseless way that the bashing pretty much fuels itself.
This data simply raise awareness on a problem (lack of population on many servers) and requires a solution (server merging and such). If you played in a server with 600 people during primetime, you'll understand.
the 12% does not apply to europe. that average was made for the US where there is substancial time difference between areas (east and west coast for example). In europe the difference in time zones is rather small (average 1 hour) and as a result, it is more like 20 to 30% on prime time.
It's "Todeswulf", if your'e going to be smarmy at least get the spelling of my handle right....
what this all boils down to, is the Trolls and shills that are currently running this forum resort to idiocy like this whenever a logical counter view point is presented. MMORPG.com allows this when they are notorious for being heavy handed in all other areas of forum moderation. At the end of the day it makes this platform lose all credibility as a venue for a balanced media outlet, and it gives credence to the suggestion that what is taking place here is a well financed anti marketing campaign, which is unethical as hell.
It's "Todeswulf", if your'e going to be smarmy at least get the spelling of my handle right....
what this all boils down to, is the Trolls and shills that are currently running this forum resort to idiocy like this whenever a logical counter view point is presented. MMORPG.com allows this when they are notorious for being heavy handed in all other areas of forum moderation. At the end of the day it makes this platform lose all credibility as a venue for a balanced media outlet, and it gives credence to the suggestion that what is taking place here is a well financed anti marketing campaign, which is unethical as hell.
logical counter view point? I guess no one noticed it between your smarmy personal attacks and baseless accusations of being people being paid to bash AoC.
Bring something useful to the table instead of insults aimed at both posters and MMORPG.com itself and maybe people won't think you're an ass. I have yet to see you bring up anything logical or with a base in reality. You just insult people and claim that the only reason others don't agree with you is because they are being paid not to.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
Because I would not go to all of that trouble unless I am getting paid to do so, even if I did it would be shouted down by the shills that are controling this forum right now. I think the Mods need to take a hard look at what's going on here while the site still has some credibility left.
That makes sense, thanks man!
That would make the EU section a deal lower than the 292K someone gave us earlier. It would make it closer to 100K, which would place it on serious decline from the units sold over there. Granted, when added to the US number...they would still breach 200K (how much I cannot be sure...no such figure has been given to us yet) which would make them a healthy success.....but no where NEAR the 700-1,000K being virally marketed to us by fans.
In fact....the EU numbers (even when viewed as a wide ballpark) pretty much demand we accept that the game isn't even at 500K. Most likely not even at 400K either. I won't swear in on that, though. There is enough wiggle room for 400K to be possible depending on the US return. Next month, we can do this again to guess retention from that point.
Because I would not go to all of that trouble unless I am getting paid to do so, even if I did it would be shouted down by the shills that are controling this forum right now. I think the Mods need to take a hard look at what's going on here while the site still has some credibility left.
Seriously tode....you don't have a clue. MMO players are the kind of folk that will write up detailed spreadsheets about each and every class skill and location in a given game. Why in the hell is it so surprising that someone did something a simple as a "search function" to ballpark online players????
No one is paying for hate speech, aight. The very ideal is stupid, because hate is something you get for free. There are always armies of people who are up and ready to spill hate for any reason. Why in gods name would you pay for it? The only kind of marketing that gets paid for is supportive marketing, because its the only end of that spectrum that will find a need for financial encouragement. End of story. Bottom line.
You're a bloody tool, and its really silly to hear half of what comes out of your mouth at this point.