Oh, for god's sake, just do the bloody count on 1-2 servers on a weekday evening and a weekend evening, is it that hard to do ingame or are you just afraid to admit you don't play LotrO anymore?
if you had ever played LoTRO you would know that the only way to do a count in LoTRO is to use the fellowing ( LFG) tool and that it only shows the players in that particular quest zone area. For example Bree town would be an area, Southern Bree Fields another, Nothern bree fields, Coomb , Chetwwod, Chetwood South and Chetwootd North all seperate, Brandy Hills, Barrow downs. I guess just in the Bree land there would be 10 to 15 quest zones, fortunatly the Lotro LFG tool is well desiged and flexible.
I caught you posting BS, give it up, you are just making whatever credibility you have suffer by bumping this thread.
As far as me playing LoTRO, I use my lifetime membership to the fullest, I have never denied I take breaks on occasion. In fact I just took a 4 or 5 week break but in the last week probably logged in 20 plus hours. Buying the lifetime membership at launch was the best 200 bucks I ever spent. Been through 2 complete system upgrades and 3 videocards since launch. LoTRO on the other hand has cost me less than two dollars a week including the expansions
Nice post Jackdog and yes a very good investment, Cyphers give it up you lost man have some pride.
Nice post Jackdog and yes a very good investment, Cyphers give it up you lost man have some pride.
LotRO will be the first, and probably last game I'll ever regret not getting a lifer sub for.
The lifetime sub for LoTRo was only $200.00????
yeah was $199 USD at release for the lifetime, and I think it was $30 for MoM, and $20 for Mirkwood . I have been playing 40 months for about 250 USD so it has cost me like $6.25 USD per month to date. Turbine has plans for the game through 2017 so even with expansions I will come out pretty good.
Nice post Jackdog and yes a very good investment, Cyphers give it up you lost man have some pride.
LotRO will be the first, and probably last game I'll ever regret not getting a lifer sub for.
The lifetime sub for LoTRo was only $200.00????
yeah was $199 USD at release for the lifetime, and I think it was $30 for MoM, and $20 for Mirkwood . I have been playing 40 months for about 250 USD so it has cost me like $6.25 USD per month to date. Turbine has plans for the game through 2017 so even with expansions I will come out pretty good.
Damn that was a good deal, wasn't the lifetime sub for STO around $400.00? Or so i've heard...
I beta tested LoTRO and wasn't that much into it at the time (I was deep into EQ2) so I forgo the chance of getting the lifetime sub. I also regret it as I have easily spent that on Subscription/expansion costs.
I would say that it and EQ2 were (for me) the most fleshed out PVE games on the market that I have played. Both I would go back to in the future(I'm actually going to give EQ2x a go). AoC suffered in that the world is too instanced (and thats saying something when you played EQ2)but does have some good quest chains. It also has the curse of one starting area that you just can't avoid. In the future(assuming there is one) I wish they would do more stuff like Ymir's Pass and less stuff like Khitai, which I detested to be honest.
My AoC sub is now cancelled(again) so I'm pretty much done posting in this forum. I think it would take a new direction(and probably a new game director)for me to look at this game again in the future.
Damn that was a good deal, wasn't the lifetime sub for STO around $400.00? Or so i've heard...
Dunno about STO, I am fairly sure Turbine was the first to offer a lifetime... us lifers got a ton of greif from the Vanguard fanboys which launched about the same time...he who laughs last of course
My next game looks like it will be Guild Wars II, but LoTRO will still be on my drive till the servers shut down
Damn that was a good deal, wasn't the lifetime sub for STO around $400.00? Or so i've heard...
Dunno about STO, I am fairly sure Turbine was the first to offer a lifetime... us lifers got a ton of greif from the Vanguard fanboys which launched about the same time...he who laughs last of course
My next game looks like it will be Guild Wars II, but LoTRO will still be on my drive till the servers shut down
STO and CO were 199 before launch. STO I think still offers a lifetime for 299 now with no perks. I don't know if CO still offers a lifetime.
These are the four games I play and enjoy the most. I like Vanguard too, but it still runs horrible on my PC. Miss the Psi and the bard.
Oh, for god's sake, just do the bloody count on 1-2 servers on a weekday evening and a weekend evening, is it that hard to do ingame or are you just afraid to admit you don't play LotrO anymore?
if you had ever played LoTRO you would know that the only way to do a count in LoTRO is to use the fellowing ( LFG) tool and that it only shows the players in that particular quest zone area. For example Bree town would be an area, Southern Bree Fields another, Nothern bree fields, Coomb , Chetwwod, Chetwood South and Chetwootd North all seperate, Brandy Hills, Barrow downs. I guess just in the Bree land there would be 10 to 15 quest zones, fortunatly the Lotro LFG tool is well desiged and flexible.
I caught you posting BS, give it up, you are just making whatever credibility you have suffer by bumping this thread.
Here you go: it was a fuck load of time and nuisance the 1st time I did the searching a while ago, it's a fuck load of time and nuisance the 2nd time I did the search, but I was pissed off enough to do it again.
To show that there are concurrent LotrO player numbers to be found, and that other LotrO players DID manage to do a concurrent players count in LotrO:
I don't know, but those figures make that comment of that other LotrO poster about his analysis of 1000-1200 players logged in for a medium population LotrO server not that strange or far off, even if the LotrO populations seem to have shrunk more in the meantime.
Methods to easily and quickly determine the numbers of LotrO players:
"It is easily possible to see all players not just your current region with the who command if you delete the region in the social panel. If there's 100 players, then narrow down the search by classes and levels, and sum it all up. This method however, doesn't count annonymous and monster players which might be additional 10-20% of the population."
"My modus for the samples is to restrict to a level range at a time, starting at 1-10. Make sure, the text filter field is blank (it defaults to the area you're in)! Then use the deselect all option in the pulldown menu for the classes, then consecutively select exactly one class and write down the number of players returned for that class and level range. Once I'm through with all 9 classes, I start over with level range 11-20 and so on, using the level ranges 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-59 and finally the level 60s. For the level 60 hunters/champions/minstrels and sometimes guardians, too, you then have to further filter by race and then sum up again.
With a bit of practice, this takes 7-8mins for one complete sample from a server, returning a 9x7 matrix of data."
And furthermore, don't start lying that I didn't find those other figures from another poster the 1st time I searched, or implying that I have never played LotrO, because it's slander. Frankly, people that accuse others of lying without proof just to win an argument disgust me.
I'm of a mind to resub to LotrO again and do the concurrent player counts myself, just to show up your arguments for the weak excuses they are.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Snapshots of player activity aren't a reliable source of information. Base your assumptions on crap data and the 'garbage in garbage out scenario' comes to mind. Have you taken into account all the other variables like holiday seasons in various regions with it being summer, releases of new MMO's type games like APB which might take away current players away for a while. There is a whole host of stuff you just can't figure into the equation, your snapshots are taken at probably the worse possible time for an MMO.
Lol. Sure, and some people also still believe that the world was created in 6 days.
The last batch of snapshots were taken over the period of a week on several timeframes, weekdays and weekend. Figures also show that there has been a significant decline from 2008, when servers had concurrent player numbers of 3000+ in the afternoon, while now server counts only 1.5-2 years later barely seemed to scrape past 1000. Heck, even on the lotro forums, where people refreshingly enough seem more mature and have more rational discussions than here, talked about how the number of players logged in has decreased a lot.
Tbh, I was surprised: in my mind still the figure of 1000-1200 for a medium populated LotrO server still stuck, but after the latest findings I think I have to adjust that image to 1000-1200 being common only for the high populated LotrO servers at their peak times, and medium populated LotrO servers currently only having something like 700-900 concurrent players at peak times.
But believe what you want to believe, I was merely replying on an unanswered question and providing information.
I wasn't making any judgement calls, I think LotrO is still a great game and will benefit of going F2P. This discusssion started when after I posted a neutral comment about player populations haters did their hate thing and repeatedly made false allegations that I'd made up those figures. In a sense those figures are incorrect, since more thorough searching point towards the LotrO concurrent player numbers to be consistently lower.
It's clear to me though that some people will always avoid sensible arguments and retreat into false accusations and sophisms when they don't like what they read.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
No mention of the US server numbers in that research. Brandywine is the big one in terms of population, followed by Landroval, the unofficial RP one.
What does any of this have to do with Age of Conan?
Not much.
It's because of this comment I made earlier in this thread as a reply on LotrO and AoC populations:
"I checked, with LotrO and AoC servers. A LotrO server medium to high amounted to concurrent users of 1000-1200, the AoC PvE server I played on had 1500+ concurrent users. No problems with lag or crashes or whatever while playing though."
Since haters of Funcom and Aoc couldn't stomach that comment, they went out of their way to 'prove' that I was lying.
As I'm disgusted to the bone because of such behaviour and cheap tricks, I went ahead and showed them concurrent player numbers as LotrO gamers themselves had managed to gather for several servers. Shrug.
The whole discussion is moot. But then again, so is the irrational hating. I've already given up on being surprised of the deep hatred and negativity that some posters here on mmorpg.com foster for months to years for a game or company. Apparently a normal, sensible debate seems to be an impossibility for some people. No matter, this can be fun too.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The whole discussion is moot. But then again, so is the irrational hating. I've already given up on being surprised of the deep hatred and negativity that some posters here on mmorpg.com foster for months to years for a game or company. Apparently a normal, sensible debate seems to be an impossibility for some people. No matter, this can be fun too.
My opinion they don't have some deep hatred for a game or company. I think they just like to play the forums. I think they could care less about the game, but more interested in seeing how much they can get a rise out of someone. I usually don't reply to the obvious ones.
As long as you're having fun though! It does make for good reading.
Oh I hate Funcom. They took a childhood hero of mine 'Conan' created a game that could be a world beater and the only reason it isn't is due to their neglect, poor marketing and naff customer service attitude. They have their priorities all wrong and if they focussed on performance/bug fixing AOC could be a different game with mass appeal. Instead it limps along as the poor relation of other more popular, but less technical, games. The failings of AOC are down to the failings of Funcom as a company. Yep I hate them with a passion and I wish they would sell AOC to somebody, or Funcom go bust and somebody buys it.
I could not care less one way or another, but allow me to apply high school statistics 101 concepts to see if your evidence is solid.
1) LOTRO has more servers. ( New york city has 8m people in one city but pennylvania has 12 million spread out) same concept as people in AoC congregate on a few servers.
2) LOTRO has more distribution of players....get real for one second over half of the EU AoC servers are dead, polish/russian, france, etc. Only Germany and EU have populations. Which is 7 servers and many of those are lower pop.
I don't know what you think I was saying but everybody knows LotrO has more servers and a larger population. The only thing I initially commented upon was that the populations on individual servers of AoC and LotrO weren't that much different. If you follow the link and read the comments of LotrO players you also find out that some of the LotrO servers I listed were considered to be the high(est) population servers.
I don't get hating, but at the same time, I don't get people promoting a very bad game. I could go on and on and we both know your data is pretty pointless...however...you mentioned "irrational hating"....my question is this- why have so many stopped playing AoC after the release of the expansion? Why has Funcom invested so little into AoC after release? and finaly, how will Funcom get the 40+ million it admitted to losing so far on AoC?
Lol. Really, Finaticd, you of all people don't get hating? From the moment you created your account here on mmorpg.com you've gone to great lengths to criticize and trash AoC and Funcom. I don't even know what MMO's you play, since all your 800+ posts are devoted to trashing AoC and FC. I know you yourself think you're on some sort of a mission, a crusade against Funcom that you perceive as an 'evil' that has to be destroyed and fought every step of the way.
Problem with haters - as much as with fanbois - is their total unwillingness to accept sensible arguments supporting the other side and their onesided focus on their side: haters keep on hammering and exploiting any negativity while doggedly refusing to acknowledge any positive point regarding a MMO, fanbois blindly refuse to admit any bad about 'their' game.
It makes a normal, reasonable discussion very hard, but for both haters and fanbois - and trolls, for that matter - a sensible, constructive debate isn't the name of the game, or their goal.
What I find amazing and only first encountered here is that people actually devote their time to keep visiting and ranting on the forums of a game they've long ago stopped playing let alone ever played much in the first place, sometimes even to the point that that's the only forumthreads they visit or post most in. Most people just move on.
It's what I did: all these MMO's people are calling 'fail' or bad - seems that almost all MMO's are considered fail in the eyes of some if they don't equal WoW's success or live up to the hype - I've played most of those, and enjoyed them all for what they offered. As soon as I didn't enjoy myself anymore or other things became more interesting, I just stopped playing and moved on.
Regarding the expansion, the reason is it simply wasn't enough. Bar a few exceptions for most MMO's the trend is that an expansion only spikes the population for a few months after which things start to settle down again.
Originally posted by GTwander
Originally posted by finaticd
~how will Funcom get the 40+ million it admitted to losing so far on AoC?
Bikini car washes. It is Norway after all, they export hot blondes due to surplus.
Cool, sign me up, hot blondes ftw!
@ Fallenlords: I can understand that grudge, especially if someone's expectations were very high before launch. The biggest mistake they made though was releasing the game before it was really finished or complete. The launch was a mess up, too many bugs, stability issues and incomplete or missing features, that ruined it for a very large group especially since the preceding hype had raised expectations to the sky. As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and that first impression that was the launch was a bad one.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
No mention of the US server numbers in that research. Brandywine is the big one in terms of population, followed by Landroval, the unofficial RP one.
What does any of this have to do with Age of Conan?
Nothing at all, if you want to talk about the AoC population levels I think baby jesus would cry.
The Funcom haters will guess X, the Funcom arselickers will say Y. The truth will be in-between, and only Funcom know that. Even if they released this data, not too many would believe their figures. Since they have time and again proved themselves to be more than willing to be economical with the truth as and when it suits them.
No mention of the US server numbers in that research. Brandywine is the big one in terms of population, followed by Landroval, the unofficial RP one.
What does any of this have to do with Age of Conan?
Nothing at all, if you want to talk about the AoC population levels I think baby jesus would cry.
The Funcom haters will guess X, the Funcom arselickers will say Y. The truth will be in-between, and only Funcom know that. Even if they released this data, not too many would believe their figures. Since they have time and again proved themselves to be more than willing to be economical with the truth as and when it suits them.
But it's fun to speculate anyway. 50k tops.
Yes it is, i'd say at max it's 75k and slowly dropping.
"I checked, with LotrO and AoC servers. A LotrO server medium to high amounted to concurrent users of 1000-1200, the AoC PvE server I played on had 1500+ concurrent users. No problems with lag or crashes or whatever while playing though."
Since haters of Funcom and Aoc couldn't stomach that comment, they went out of their way to 'prove' that I was lying.
I am still waiting for you to show me the low/medium/high population meter, gauge, indicator, widget or whatefver you want to call it.
One thing you should remember is that AoC has went from 14 US servers at launch down to 4 at present after having had to merge twice to keep enough players per server to make it feel like a MMO rather than a single player RPG.
LoTRO still has all it's starting servers and is planning on adding more.
by the way though thanks for that link , that method does work and last night I counted a little over 700 players on Silverlode between 7 and 8 pm eastern time. Not bad for a summer Tuesday night at that time of day. I meant to do a recount around 10 to 11 but got sidetracked and when I got through with my group it was midnight and I logged and went to bed
one interesting statisitc is that when you look at google trends for the last 12 months LoTRO dominates AoC in web searches even though on the bottom of the graph AoC has had double or triple the number of news reference volume
No mention of the US server numbers in that research. Brandywine is the big one in terms of population, followed by Landroval, the unofficial RP one.
What does any of this have to do with Age of Conan?
Nothing at all, if you want to talk about the AoC population levels I think baby jesus would cry.
The Funcom haters will guess X, the Funcom arselickers will say Y. The truth will be in-between, and only Funcom know that. Even if they released this data, not too many would believe their figures. Since they have time and again proved themselves to be more than willing to be economical with the truth as and when it suits them.
But it's fun to speculate anyway. 50k tops.
Yes it is, i'd say at max it's 75k and slowly dropping.
Dropping even more now that Nastrandir have disbanded and multiple people have quit rather than change guilds. This leaves only Futilez, Telvanni and Night Watch on FURY [EU] - Even as the biggest pvp server Funcom has is haemorrhaging players at an alarming rate. I still see fanbois claiming pvp is fine, and the population is doing just great.
I'm afraid that what we have been saying for at LEAST a year has come to pass. AoC is now truly a pve-centric game. They have zero intention of addressing the multitude of pvp issues. They would rather keep the carebears happy, because they are easy to please. Just read how they slobber all over Silirrions fat arse when he introduces some new social clothing or a new type of fucking pet. Really makes me want to puke.
AoC will simply HAVE to go F2P. The game as it is with such a low playerbase cannot hope to survive. Especially not when so many people are waiting on GW2 and SWTOR for example.
I think you were being a bit generous at 75k. On reflection I think I was too even at 50k. They MUST seriously be losing cash hand over fist.
Regarding Google Trends. I could find VERY few games that AoC is beating. Not even Everquest 1 which was released in 1999. Apart from a small blip, when rotg was released.
No mention of the US server numbers in that research. Brandywine is the big one in terms of population, followed by Landroval, the unofficial RP one.
What does any of this have to do with Age of Conan?
Nothing at all, if you want to talk about the AoC population levels I think baby jesus would cry.
The Funcom haters will guess X, the Funcom arselickers will say Y. The truth will be in-between, and only Funcom know that. Even if they released this data, not too many would believe their figures. Since they have time and again proved themselves to be more than willing to be economical with the truth as and when it suits them.
But it's fun to speculate anyway. 50k tops.
Yes it is, i'd say at max it's 75k and slowly dropping.
Dropping even more now that Nastrandir have disbanded and multiple people have quit rather than change guilds. This leaves only Futilez, Telvanni and Night Watch on FURY [EU] - Even as the biggest pvp server Funcom has is haemorrhaging players at an alarming rate. I still see fanbois claiming pvp is fine, and the population is doing just great.
I'm afraid that what we have been saying for at LEAST a year has come to pass. AoC is now truly a pve-centric game. They have zero intention of addressing the multitude of pvp issues. They would rather keep the carebears happy, because they are easy to please. Just read how they slobber all over Silirrions fat arse when he introduces some new social clothing or a new type of fucking pet. Really makes me want to puke.
AoC will simply HAVE to go F2P. The game as it is with such a low playerbase cannot hope to survive. Especially not when so many people are waiting on GW2 and SWTOR for example.
I think you were being a bit generous at 75k. On reflection I think I was too even at 50k. They MUST seriously be losing cash hand over fist.
I bet good ol' Craig thinks that the SWG NGE was a good sound business decision
I'm afraid that what we have been saying for at LEAST a year has come to pass. AoC is now truly a pve-centric game. They have zero intention of addressing the multitude of pvp issues. They would rather keep the carebears happy, because they are easy to please.
I think the PvP issue is more of a matter of "we can't" rather than they don't care. The raid issue to me sounds more like a case of database design or corruption and overall a good PvP game is ten times harder to design and be fun for the masses than a PvE game. Open world PvP in particular. Eve and DAoC were examples of how to do it right, WAR and AoC examples of how to do it wrong. LoTRO is how to miss a opportunity to do it right by not making a entire set of 1 to 65 content for the monster classes and having several areas of various levels set apart for PvP sort of like DAoC did.
AoC is in the 150k to 1 million sheet and is estimated to have around 115k subs.
My guess is that its losing significant numbers of players on the us and uk pvp servers.
The other pvp servers seem to small to have a big influence.
The pve servers should be less hurt from subscriber attrition but overal see declining numbers as well.
Also i guess the overall europe playerbase is slightly bigger than the us one and more loyal.
AoC will go down to the pre-rotgs numbers again and below that when the new aaa mmorpgs are released in the not so far future.
So as of now AoC will stay for many years to come with slowly decreasing numbers.
I am curious to see what FC will do to change this and revitalize their game...
Maybe they take AoC as testbed for the mechanics and the engine they use also in "The Secret World" while it still generates an amount of income.
Maybe even for a new businessmodel that is not based on a traditional subscription but innovative and fair f2p like model. But if they do so i wonder how it will work out bcs in its current state its not a perfect nor even a good fit for the f2p model so it may fail badly if executed in a haste and driving the loyal leftovers of its playerbase away...
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Comments
Nice post Jackdog and yes a very good investment, Cyphers give it up you lost man have some pride.
LotRO will be the first, and probably last game I'll ever regret not getting a lifer sub for.
The lifetime sub for LoTRo was only $200.00????
yeah was $199 USD at release for the lifetime, and I think it was $30 for MoM, and $20 for Mirkwood . I have been playing 40 months for about 250 USD so it has cost me like $6.25 USD per month to date. Turbine has plans for the game through 2017 so even with expansions I will come out pretty good.
I miss DAoC
Damn that was a good deal, wasn't the lifetime sub for STO around $400.00? Or so i've heard...
I beta tested LoTRO and wasn't that much into it at the time (I was deep into EQ2) so I forgo the chance of getting the lifetime sub. I also regret it as I have easily spent that on Subscription/expansion costs.
I would say that it and EQ2 were (for me) the most fleshed out PVE games on the market that I have played. Both I would go back to in the future(I'm actually going to give EQ2x a go). AoC suffered in that the world is too instanced (and thats saying something when you played EQ2)but does have some good quest chains. It also has the curse of one starting area that you just can't avoid. In the future(assuming there is one) I wish they would do more stuff like Ymir's Pass and less stuff like Khitai, which I detested to be honest.
My AoC sub is now cancelled(again) so I'm pretty much done posting in this forum. I think it would take a new direction(and probably a new game director)for me to look at this game again in the future.
Dunno about STO, I am fairly sure Turbine was the first to offer a lifetime... us lifers got a ton of greif from the Vanguard fanboys which launched about the same time...he who laughs last of course
My next game looks like it will be Guild Wars II, but LoTRO will still be on my drive till the servers shut down
I miss DAoC
STO and CO were 199 before launch. STO I think still offers a lifetime for 299 now with no perks. I don't know if CO still offers a lifetime.
These are the four games I play and enjoy the most. I like Vanguard too, but it still runs horrible on my PC. Miss the Psi and the bard.
.. .... .- - . - .-. --- .-.. .-.. ... .-- .... --- .-. . .--. --- .-. - .-.-.-
--------------------------------------------------------
Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Here you go: it was a fuck load of time and nuisance the 1st time I did the searching a while ago, it's a fuck load of time and nuisance the 2nd time I did the search, but I was pissed off enough to do it again.
To show that there are concurrent LotrO player numbers to be found, and that other LotrO players DID manage to do a concurrent players count in LotrO:
=> date: 7/23/2008 source: US server populations
Firefoot: 2228 2:38 P.M.
Meneldor: 2567 2:48 P.M.
=> date: 12/21/2009 source: server populations
Levels Firefoot Meneldor
Totals 664 683 7:10 PM
=> date: 5/11/2009 source: EU server activity
Belegaer, Monday 05/09, 20:06-20:14 - 1812 online
Belegaer, Monday 05/09, 21:36-21:43 - 2408 online
Belegaer, Monday 05/09, 22:32-22:40 - 1350 online
=> date: 4/21/2010 source: server headcount
Gilrain 4/21, 20:30 - 449 online
Gilrain 4/21, 22:15 - 526 online
Snowbourn 4/21, 20:40 - 1102 online
Snowbourn 4/22, 21:42 - 1150 online
Snowbourn 4/23, 22:35 - 966 online
Eldar 4/21, 20:45 - 812 online
Eldar 4/22, 14:10 - 527 online
Eldar 4/22, 20:30 - 622 online
Eldar 4/22, 23:17 - 412 online
Evernight 4/21, 20:55 - 779 online
Evernight 4/25, 18:00 - 572 online
Morthond 4/21, 20:55 - 1321 online
Evernight 4/21, 22:30 - 814 online
Evernight 4/22, 13:55 - 321 online
Laurelin 4/21, 23:00 - 908 online
Laurelin 4/23, 13:40 - 301 online
Belegaer 4/22, 21:40 - 809 online
I don't know, but those figures make that comment of that other LotrO poster about his analysis of 1000-1200 players logged in for a medium population LotrO server not that strange or far off, even if the LotrO populations seem to have shrunk more in the meantime.
Methods to easily and quickly determine the numbers of LotrO players:
"It is easily possible to see all players not just your current region with the who command if you delete the region in the social panel. If there's 100 players, then narrow down the search by classes and levels, and sum it all up. This method however, doesn't count annonymous and monster players which might be additional 10-20% of the population."
"My modus for the samples is to restrict to a level range at a time, starting at 1-10. Make sure, the text filter field is blank (it defaults to the area you're in)! Then use the deselect all option in the pulldown menu for the classes, then consecutively select exactly one class and write down the number of players returned for that class and level range. Once I'm through with all 9 classes, I start over with level range 11-20 and so on, using the level ranges 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-59 and finally the level 60s. For the level 60 hunters/champions/minstrels and sometimes guardians, too, you then have to further filter by race and then sum up again.
With a bit of practice, this takes 7-8mins for one complete sample from a server, returning a 9x7 matrix of data."
And furthermore, don't start lying that I didn't find those other figures from another poster the 1st time I searched, or implying that I have never played LotrO, because it's slander. Frankly, people that accuse others of lying without proof just to win an argument disgust me.
I'm of a mind to resub to LotrO again and do the concurrent player counts myself, just to show up your arguments for the weak excuses they are.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Snapshots of player activity aren't a reliable source of information. Base your assumptions on crap data and the 'garbage in garbage out scenario' comes to mind. Have you taken into account all the other variables like holiday seasons in various regions with it being summer, releases of new MMO's type games like APB which might take away current players away for a while. There is a whole host of stuff you just can't figure into the equation, your snapshots are taken at probably the worse possible time for an MMO.
Lol. Sure, and some people also still believe that the world was created in 6 days.
The last batch of snapshots were taken over the period of a week on several timeframes, weekdays and weekend. Figures also show that there has been a significant decline from 2008, when servers had concurrent player numbers of 3000+ in the afternoon, while now server counts only 1.5-2 years later barely seemed to scrape past 1000. Heck, even on the lotro forums, where people refreshingly enough seem more mature and have more rational discussions than here, talked about how the number of players logged in has decreased a lot.
Tbh, I was surprised: in my mind still the figure of 1000-1200 for a medium populated LotrO server still stuck, but after the latest findings I think I have to adjust that image to 1000-1200 being common only for the high populated LotrO servers at their peak times, and medium populated LotrO servers currently only having something like 700-900 concurrent players at peak times.
But believe what you want to believe, I was merely replying on an unanswered question and providing information.
I wasn't making any judgement calls, I think LotrO is still a great game and will benefit of going F2P. This discusssion started when after I posted a neutral comment about player populations haters did their hate thing and repeatedly made false allegations that I'd made up those figures. In a sense those figures are incorrect, since more thorough searching point towards the LotrO concurrent player numbers to be consistently lower.
It's clear to me though that some people will always avoid sensible arguments and retreat into false accusations and sophisms when they don't like what they read.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
No mention of the US server numbers in that research. Brandywine is the big one in terms of population, followed by Landroval, the unofficial RP one.
What does any of this have to do with Age of Conan?
Nothing at all, if you want to talk about the AoC population levels I think baby jesus would cry.
Not much.
It's because of this comment I made earlier in this thread as a reply on LotrO and AoC populations:
"I checked, with LotrO and AoC servers. A LotrO server medium to high amounted to concurrent users of 1000-1200, the AoC PvE server I played on had 1500+ concurrent users. No problems with lag or crashes or whatever while playing though."
Since haters of Funcom and Aoc couldn't stomach that comment, they went out of their way to 'prove' that I was lying.
As I'm disgusted to the bone because of such behaviour and cheap tricks, I went ahead and showed them concurrent player numbers as LotrO gamers themselves had managed to gather for several servers. Shrug.
The whole discussion is moot. But then again, so is the irrational hating. I've already given up on being surprised of the deep hatred and negativity that some posters here on mmorpg.com foster for months to years for a game or company. Apparently a normal, sensible debate seems to be an impossibility for some people. No matter, this can be fun too.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
My opinion they don't have some deep hatred for a game or company. I think they just like to play the forums. I think they could care less about the game, but more interested in seeing how much they can get a rise out of someone. I usually don't reply to the obvious ones.
As long as you're having fun though! It does make for good reading.
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Oh I hate Funcom. They took a childhood hero of mine 'Conan' created a game that could be a world beater and the only reason it isn't is due to their neglect, poor marketing and naff customer service attitude. They have their priorities all wrong and if they focussed on performance/bug fixing AOC could be a different game with mass appeal. Instead it limps along as the poor relation of other more popular, but less technical, games. The failings of AOC are down to the failings of Funcom as a company. Yep I hate them with a passion and I wish they would sell AOC to somebody, or Funcom go bust and somebody buys it.
Lol. Really, Finaticd, you of all people don't get hating? From the moment you created your account here on mmorpg.com you've gone to great lengths to criticize and trash AoC and Funcom. I don't even know what MMO's you play, since all your 800+ posts are devoted to trashing AoC and FC. I know you yourself think you're on some sort of a mission, a crusade against Funcom that you perceive as an 'evil' that has to be destroyed and fought every step of the way.
Problem with haters - as much as with fanbois - is their total unwillingness to accept sensible arguments supporting the other side and their onesided focus on their side: haters keep on hammering and exploiting any negativity while doggedly refusing to acknowledge any positive point regarding a MMO, fanbois blindly refuse to admit any bad about 'their' game.
It makes a normal, reasonable discussion very hard, but for both haters and fanbois - and trolls, for that matter - a sensible, constructive debate isn't the name of the game, or their goal.
What I find amazing and only first encountered here is that people actually devote their time to keep visiting and ranting on the forums of a game they've long ago stopped playing let alone ever played much in the first place, sometimes even to the point that that's the only forumthreads they visit or post most in. Most people just move on.
It's what I did: all these MMO's people are calling 'fail' or bad - seems that almost all MMO's are considered fail in the eyes of some if they don't equal WoW's success or live up to the hype - I've played most of those, and enjoyed them all for what they offered. As soon as I didn't enjoy myself anymore or other things became more interesting, I just stopped playing and moved on.
Regarding the expansion, the reason is it simply wasn't enough. Bar a few exceptions for most MMO's the trend is that an expansion only spikes the population for a few months after which things start to settle down again.
Cool, sign me up, hot blondes ftw!
@ Fallenlords: I can understand that grudge, especially if someone's expectations were very high before launch. The biggest mistake they made though was releasing the game before it was really finished or complete. The launch was a mess up, too many bugs, stability issues and incomplete or missing features, that ruined it for a very large group especially since the preceding hype had raised expectations to the sky. As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and that first impression that was the launch was a bad one.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The Funcom haters will guess X, the Funcom arselickers will say Y. The truth will be in-between, and only Funcom know that. Even if they released this data, not too many would believe their figures. Since they have time and again proved themselves to be more than willing to be economical with the truth as and when it suits them.
But it's fun to speculate anyway. 50k tops.
Tranca [RUS corp]
Yes it is, i'd say at max it's 75k and slowly dropping.
I am still waiting for you to show me the low/medium/high population meter, gauge, indicator, widget or whatefver you want to call it.
One thing you should remember is that AoC has went from 14 US servers at launch down to 4 at present after having had to merge twice to keep enough players per server to make it feel like a MMO rather than a single player RPG.
LoTRO still has all it's starting servers and is planning on adding more.
http://www.gamertell.com/gaming/comment/lord-of-the-rings-online-to-add-new-servers/
by the way though thanks for that link , that method does work and last night I counted a little over 700 players on Silverlode between 7 and 8 pm eastern time. Not bad for a summer Tuesday night at that time of day. I meant to do a recount around 10 to 11 but got sidetracked and when I got through with my group it was midnight and I logged and went to bed
one interesting statisitc is that when you look at google trends for the last 12 months LoTRO dominates AoC in web searches even though on the bottom of the graph AoC has had double or triple the number of news reference volume
http://www.google.com/trends?q=age+of+conan%2C+lotro&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0
I miss DAoC
Dropping even more now that Nastrandir have disbanded and multiple people have quit rather than change guilds. This leaves only Futilez, Telvanni and Night Watch on FURY [EU] - Even as the biggest pvp server Funcom has is haemorrhaging players at an alarming rate. I still see fanbois claiming pvp is fine, and the population is doing just great.
I'm afraid that what we have been saying for at LEAST a year has come to pass. AoC is now truly a pve-centric game. They have zero intention of addressing the multitude of pvp issues. They would rather keep the carebears happy, because they are easy to please. Just read how they slobber all over Silirrions fat arse when he introduces some new social clothing or a new type of fucking pet. Really makes me want to puke.
AoC will simply HAVE to go F2P. The game as it is with such a low playerbase cannot hope to survive. Especially not when so many people are waiting on GW2 and SWTOR for example.
I think you were being a bit generous at 75k. On reflection I think I was too even at 50k. They MUST seriously be losing cash hand over fist.
Regarding Google Trends. I could find VERY few games that AoC is beating. Not even Everquest 1 which was released in 1999. Apart from a small blip, when rotg was released.
Tranca [RUS corp]
I bet good ol' Craig thinks that the SWG NGE was a good sound business decision
I think the PvP issue is more of a matter of "we can't" rather than they don't care. The raid issue to me sounds more like a case of database design or corruption and overall a good PvP game is ten times harder to design and be fun for the masses than a PvE game. Open world PvP in particular. Eve and DAoC were examples of how to do it right, WAR and AoC examples of how to do it wrong. LoTRO is how to miss a opportunity to do it right by not making a entire set of 1 to 65 content for the monster classes and having several areas of various levels set apart for PvP sort of like DAoC did.
I miss DAoC
Some estimated AoC numbers as well as from other mmos:
http://www.mmodata.net/
AoC is in the 150k to 1 million sheet and is estimated to have around 115k subs.
My guess is that its losing significant numbers of players on the us and uk pvp servers.
The other pvp servers seem to small to have a big influence.
The pve servers should be less hurt from subscriber attrition but overal see declining numbers as well.
Also i guess the overall europe playerbase is slightly bigger than the us one and more loyal.
AoC will go down to the pre-rotgs numbers again and below that when the new aaa mmorpgs are released in the not so far future.
So as of now AoC will stay for many years to come with slowly decreasing numbers.
I am curious to see what FC will do to change this and revitalize their game...
Maybe they take AoC as testbed for the mechanics and the engine they use also in "The Secret World" while it still generates an amount of income.
Maybe even for a new businessmodel that is not based on a traditional subscription but innovative and fair f2p like model. But if they do so i wonder how it will work out bcs in its current state its not a perfect nor even a good fit for the f2p model so it may fail badly if executed in a haste and driving the loyal leftovers of its playerbase away...
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