Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What mmo's currently have a population increase?
ragz45
Member UncommonPosts: 810
So I'm curious what MMO's are you playing atm that you notice a month to month population increase in? Whether it's through more people in citiies, more players to group with, or what have you. Since most companies don't release any kind of player retention metrics, these are the only notable things by which to measure this sort of thing.
We hear enough about what MMO's are bleeding players, so lets flip the table and go positive. What MMO's are retaining their players?
Comments
GW2 seemed to have reached a sort of plateau but ever since the last weekend (expansion announcement and 50% off) I've been seeing a lot of new players and some old ones returning, we'll see how it ends.
Heard that FFXIV is also growing or at least stabilized its population, haven't experienced it myself since I never played it.
From what I've heard SWTOR is doing good as well after turning F2P, it's on my "to try" list.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
GW2 has had a steady population for a while and these last couple of weeks have definitely caused an increase in pop from lowbie areas to Living Story areas.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
I'd say WoW's population increased.
Last time we were given the numbers it was an increase of 3 MILLION; 10M -> 13M.
SWTOR had a jump in numbers as well with the expansion launch.
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
yupp, specially after they released whats coming in the next update (including the B2P transition). A lot of new stuff coming. Im really tempted to get 1 month of sub right now to get some extra crowns when it goes B2P in march.
ALso, agreed with the other posters about GW2. Its been a lot more active lately. Megaservers also helped with that. THe game is 24/7 on very high pop.
There we go again. No proof, no data, no official stats to back it up. Before you quote me super data i will just save you time by saying no thanks.
There is absolutely no official info out there which shows or indicates that ESO has been growing 'steady' since launch. You really take us for fools don't you? there is not one single MMO other than WOW which had nothing but upward steady increase.
WoW had a huge drop in MoP, they were at 6.8 million at the tail end of that expansion.
So the 'nothing but upward steady increase' is factually false.
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
GW2 we don'y know since it has megaservers / instancing. Forums are busy but after the recent news you would expect that.
TESO we don't know since it uses megaservers - and after the recent news you would expect the forums to be busy.
SWTOR - hard to tell; although not classed as mrgaservers they are not small and there is a huge amount of instancing. And it to has had a recent topic of conversation with Revan.
Wow went from 6.8M to 10M+ (not 10 to 13) so it certainly had a rise; lots of fourm activity of course.
Eve - there is speculation given the lack of any recent announcements but again megaserver tech ....
I am seeing a pattern here .... we don't know.
Most MMOs that 'has an increase' is because they 'had a fall' before.
I can't think of a single MMO that always went up.
Technically one of those F2P ones will always go up since the account registered will always increase and people can't 'un-sub'.
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
After 10 years yes. ESO released less than a year ago. I was talkign in terms of first year or two which are most crucial in life of every MMO.
Yep it's really hard to tell with mega servers. I guess the best way we can gague it as players, is to ask. Does my game feel busy, populated, etc. Go play EQ2, DCUO, or any myrid of other non-megaserver tech MMO"s. You really get the feeling like it's a ghost town. My friend and I still play DCUO together on a semi regular basis, but we might run into one other person in a 3-4 hour night of playing, and I stress might.
Have you seen the size of EQ2? not saying it heavily populated but the game is enormous in land mass. And very top heavy. You can not gauge how healthy population is of old games like EQ2 or WOW on basis of how many players you see in lower levels.
Now if a game which released just a few months ago for example WS and is struggling to keep low and mid zones populated you have a point.
Is this what you are talking about?
http://esostats.com/
GW2's doesn't give as good as an indicator on WvW campaign population though
http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Well to be fair you can look at GW2s quartly report to get a decent idea on how things are trending. Since June of last year ESO has sold another 200k physical boxes. We all know the rate of digital downloads is many times the number of physical boxes. I think that's a decent indication of growth of growth.
200K physical boxes sold doesn't mean 200K retention rate. All popular MMOS had stellar sales at release, what matter is how many stayed.
Well for one, you need the esostats addon for it to track you. The addon offers no benefit at all to AvA. For two even with that during prime time you will see much different results. It could be a neat addon if it offered some more functionality so that people would use it.
From what I understand it tracks the campaign scores. Not individual scores. I don't think the idea is to give anyone a benefit inside the game, but a way to track campaign progress outside of the game.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Well, I'm offering sales data that points towards growth. Do you have any sales or retention data to support you assertion?
Why do you think i am questioning your statement of 'steady increase since release'? if i had any official data i would share it here rather than just speculations being passed off as facts.
Once again to repeat myself..number of boxes sold are no indicator of steady growth. Steady growth is measured in terms of how many of those people who bought the game continue to play and support the game.
If you don't have the official data bout the retention rate then you can not talk about 'steady growth'. You are the one who made this claim not me. Onus of proof is on you and not me.
Judging by my experience since beta, I'd say ffxiv is the most stable. Maybe slightly going up and down
One of these days I'm going to try that game out. I think they have a trial too.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Sales data only shows growth when the game first launches (when all sales are growth). Just look at WoW which has at times had great sales (compared to other games) yet was still in decline.
When games publish numbers we can then see if they are going up/down/flat. However, until that happens, the best data we have is from sites like SuperData, that aggregate data, and get some feedback from the publishers.
We can speculate that at times of activity (expansion, business model change, etc) that a game will have more player activity as well, but that does not necessarily mean a population increase, or game growth.