Originally posted by Zorvan Originally posted by Welles
Okay, maybe I'm reading it wrong, but all that packet tells me is what percentage of players are in each playfield, followed by what percentage of players are in each of the three factions. It doesn't provide the number of players on, though. Least not that I can see. Their is a mathematical formula devised long ago that can use this data to determine exact numbers. Problem though is the inventor was banned from ao long ago. I will endeavor to find if it still exists on some of the old message boards he frequented.
I was a hardcore AO player for a little over two years then on and off for another 6 months after LE. For me AO is still my fav mmo that i've played mainly because of the endless ways to creat your toon. Even end game there is lots of PvP and raids to keep yourself happy, though getting to end game can take a while lol. TBH the only reason im not still playin AO is because after LE, which was supposed to enhance pvp for the most part, the games pvp system became well lacking for me. The game started gettin called Alpha Online or Aimed shot Online because alphas became the sole force in pvp and fights became laughably short and some profs really were gimped while others were over powered by leaps and bounds. If FC were too fix the pvp system I would probably go back to AO and play the game that was more fun and more challenging than any other mmo i've played.
Okay, maybe I'm reading it wrong, but all that packet tells me is what percentage of players are in each playfield, followed by what percentage of players are in each of the three factions. It doesn't provide the number of players on, though. Least not that I can see.
Their is a mathematical formula devised long ago that can use this data to determine exact numbers. Problem though is the inventor was banned from ao long ago. I will endeavor to find if it still exists on some of the old message boards he frequented.
Bit off topic. But is this guy the same guy who tryed to inform Funcom of the serious security risk in AO. From what I gather he tryed to inform them privately and they blew him off, basiclly. So he went public with the security risk. And then got banned for it. I don't exactly want to go into details on it openly. Mianly because I don't know if the risk is still there or not, in some degree or another. If it is, he was on some other forums actively abotu a year ago. I just cant remember the name of them.
I did some quick digging I remeber running across the formula that was being used awhile back. But no luck in finding it yet. I will dig some more tomorrow. If i recall correctly tho didn't the formula that was being used for that have some estimated base numbers in it? So its acurracey was debated quite a bit if I recall correctly. I tended to believe the numbers tho that were given were far more reliable for active players than Auno.
Froobs or suscribers, who cares at all. When you start hitting past level 30 even, you'll notice that many people are suscribers. The in-game community is vividly there, wether you degrade it down to "they are all Froobs!" or not, people are playing, people are talking, the world isn't dead, and anyone past level 60 is gnereally a paying suscriber. Not to mention the fact that most cities are populated with at least 100 people at once, all level 180+ meaning they have been in the game for quite some time. AO is not hanging on by a thread.........and regardless of what you perceive as Funcoms motives, its a great time in Rubi-Ka, and everyone is there to chat and play. Its a better community then I've witnessed in games such as WoW or FFXI or Vanguard or SWG....check it out, download your free acount and go talk to some people. Don't look at statistics.
I am gonna take it a bit easy on you. Since I know you enjoy the game and your character lvl and experiance is a bit low. But i most definately disagree. What your describing is a poor way to make a judgment. As you, yourself said your a froob. And your highest character is lvl 60 ish or 70ish. When you have to wait sometimes for 6 hours +, even sometimes days to get Pen mission teams lately. Thats not healthy compared to a year ago.
So heres a few places froobs can go and relate to the numbers.
ToTw = Dead. Majority of the time theres hardly anyone outside of it. prime hours its pretty flooded still. but this was often not the case a year ago. It use to be jam packed at all hours of the day no matter where you lived. People pvping on their temple twinks. Players enjoying the dungeon. Sandworms constantly being dragged from the north. The Vanguard being dragged from the south. ToTw was so bloody populated and they recieved so many complaints that they threatened Action to be taken against trainers inside the temple and those dragging the clan guard and sandworms to the temple entrance.
Tara, One side tends to dominate her. Rarely any stiff competition over her. This is a dragon that drops some of the best mid lvl twink items ingame. Rk1 clan held onto her for how long. I will put it this way long enough that lately when the omnis took her over the clan pvp bot fell appart. Rk2 I am not to familiar with the end game poltics and players here. simply because i never spent alot of time on rk2 untill recent. But how long has omni had control over her? Again this is arguably a mob that drops some of the best items in game depending on what profession you are untill recent. And still considered the best 100- 150 ish twink items.
If you see this 100 180+ characters in Rome or Old Athen I want screens. If their in Borealis I still want screens (RK2). RK1 I would not agure with that statement. But thats not even close to healthy for rk1. Its probably fairer to say 100 150+'s. Mianly because 150 is a very popular pvp lvl. And when waiting for Battle Station fights people tend to go to Bor by the grid and gank. Not to mention this statement is not taking into consideration of al the dual accounters out there. Not froobs. But people having payed dual accounts in AO is a very common practice.
these 3 citys are the main hubs of the game, gathering ports. They use to be freaking flooded with people. Now on an average day you can stroll thru OA and see 30 or 40 people, maybe on rk2. Borealis tends to have a bit more since everyone hangs out there and pvp's by the grid while waiting on a BS. But far from a healthier state compared to a year ago. You wanna talk about SL gardens most tend to be in incomparably worse shape than any of the Rk citys. I dont care how much you enjoy the game or want to promote it. I dont care that you dont want to know about bugs and stuff like that. Spewing off dribble on a gaming forums thats blindely misaccurate is not fair to people who might be interrested in the game and know nothing about it.
Ao's a good game and solid, a bit dated but its still solid. It does have many issues and this reflects on the population size. Silirrion has taken over as the head guy, And as stated before by Zorvan he was the best thing to ever happen to Ao. I agree fully and anyone with an Ao experiance I am sure would agree as well. But i will not blindly turn my head in the other direction and forget the inactions by Funcom that were harmfull to the game over the past few years and drove away a considerable size of the playerbase who were strong and avid supporters of the game.
Silirrion has been earning my trust back towards Funcom since his promotion. But at a very slow rate. If they deliver this supposed new engine on time with the first release date they officially announce and not 2 years past the announced release date. He will have fully earned it back. FC has a pispoor track record with this game. And it should be one of the easier ones currently to keep a consistant flow of players interrested in.
This game is emptier and if not the fact of many Alts of one player it would be boring as hell. I kept teaming up with the same people till level 100 where they all stoped playing and was forced to buy expansions to team. Rimor server.
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
I just reactivated my account after a several year hiatus and it does look a lot more barren than I remember. There are still hot spots, they've just moved. Omni-Entertainment is empty, which saddens me, but people have migrated to hang around the Rome grid and whom-pah. The Temple of the Three Winds is still plenty active from what I saw of it. And I've gotten a few teams(I'm on atlantean) but they've all been for hecklers. Do people not do team missions anymore?
I have all the expansions except LE, so if I'm missing some kind of leveling hub or team, can somebody point me in the right direction? (I'm level 70 or so right now)
I'm not having much luck tracking down the formula or the program that was rumored to have been created to make its use easier. Many of the old websites are gone for good and even internet archive doesn't have them. It might not even be worth continuing the search for it now since funcom at this moment is in the process of upgrading all of ao's servers and this I would assume would conflict with anything based on data of the old server design.
One thing most people don't think about when it comes to game population is stability. An mmorpg is a 24/7 game and not meant to be played from 9am to 5pm. Ao's population has wild swings depending on when you play and can go from having many players online to none. Unlike many other games where there is enough players to balance population at all times of the day you can log into ao and not find a soul anywhere and other times be amazed at the numbers of players you see. I have often logged into old athens on rk2 in the middle of the night to find it a ghost town. People can make claims the game is loaded with players but when I would have time to actually play it and log in its dead. Most people aren't going to change their lives and schedules to revolve around a game because the population is so low you can only play at certain times of the day.
OK , I just deleted and gonna retype this post. I asked on the main forums what the zone percents stood for. Over all it really doesn't matter tbh. you can still find the current number of players online at any given time by simply. Logging into the game, going into a zone and counting the number of players there. Do not count players in shops , instances ect.
It was pointed out that this XML probably does not count for those players in instances such as shops and what not. And that would be why the percentages for zones don't add up to 100%. So it doesn't really matter if those percents are server load or the percentage distribution of players ingame.
However if it is server load you can do this much easier out of game once you find the base percent. No answer as to which it is. But it makes more sense that its player distribution. If its distribution of online players you have to do this everytime your curious how many people are online. That XML also supposedly updates "roughly" every 5 minutes.
More of a morbid curiousity than anything at this point Tastee. Population size isn't an uncommon topic for an MMo.
Alot of this topic is specualtion from everyone based on appearances and not any true numbers other than mochart, Including myself. And peopel debate mmocharts credibility pretty often in other forums sections. So why not.
Welles posted a neat Xml thingy. That can possably give a nice snap shot of population count for any given servers for a given time frame. It would be neat just to see a statistical difference between prime and non prime hours of the game. I also think it would be kinda neat to take comparative numbers for a given server and watch them over time as the big updates progress and get released.
/ me looks forward to getting some numbers this weekend for Rimor.
A lot of factors involved here. It is summer so populations decline since there is more to do. New MMOs are being Beta tested. Many testers are players from other games. Some players take breaks and alternate games.
Bottom line is until the numbers decline to the point it is unprofitable, the game maker is going to keep the servers up and running.
numbers are things.. amounts are defined by numbers... why do we care "How" many play... just enjoy the game and analyze uneeded stats in your spare time.
I'd have to do some SERIOUS digging. But Gaute Godager said it several years back in an interview. It was when the game was about 2 years old. But now that I think more about it, I think he said 'recently broke 150k' not 250k. But I digress... Also, don't take mmogchart.com as 'fact'. That guys numbers are more guesswork then they are actual figures. I could sight a number of examples for you. The first of which being that, at it's peak, AO had far more then 60k players. Another would be Star Wars Galaxies numbers post-CU but pre-NGE. According to his charts, the population staid pretty much the same, before dropping with the NGE. Anyone who was playing after the CU could tell you there was an absolute boom of players. Servers that were borderline empty and screaming for 'consolidation' one month, were so heavily bogged down with players the next that the lag became a serious problem. The CU brought back a TUN of players, bought the ad campaign at the time brought in a lot more as well. To bad the NGE ruined it all. But none of that is shown on that website. Fact, now that I think about it, I've passed that guy info several times. Both with the SWG-CU thing, and the link to that interview where the then-lead dev of AO commented on their subscriber numbers. He didn't use either, couldn't tell you why. But a lot of his numbers come from educated guesses or 'other sources' lol. It's a nice website, but I wouldn't trust most of it.
Yea, his information on mmochart has been inaccurate on several games. Although he himself never claims to be 100% on key. Some people follow his information much too closely. I was with AO from its rocky launch up until early 2005, and I remember several articles coming out with them commenting on the number of subs AO had. It did peak at around 200k subs at one point, had a decline for awhile and then rose again for a bit. With the release of WoW and a lot of the new games, just like with any of the older games, numbers dropped again. At the moment, last I heard from anything close to offical, there were around 30-40k currently PAYING players, and many more on the froob accounts.
Comments
Their is a mathematical formula devised long ago that can use this data to determine exact numbers. Problem though is the inventor was banned from ao long ago. I will endeavor to find if it still exists on some of the old message boards he frequented.
I was a hardcore AO player for a little over two years then on and off for another 6 months after LE. For me AO is still my fav mmo that i've played mainly because of the endless ways to creat your toon. Even end game there is lots of PvP and raids to keep yourself happy, though getting to end game can take a while lol. TBH the only reason im not still playin AO is because after LE, which was supposed to enhance pvp for the most part, the games pvp system became well lacking for me. The game started gettin called Alpha Online or Aimed shot Online because alphas became the sole force in pvp and fights became laughably short and some profs really were gimped while others were over powered by leaps and bounds. If FC were too fix the pvp system I would probably go back to AO and play the game that was more fun and more challenging than any other mmo i've played.
Their is a mathematical formula devised long ago that can use this data to determine exact numbers. Problem though is the inventor was banned from ao long ago. I will endeavor to find if it still exists on some of the old message boards he frequented.
Bit off topic. But is this guy the same guy who tryed to inform Funcom of the serious security risk in AO. From what I gather he tryed to inform them privately and they blew him off, basiclly. So he went public with the security risk. And then got banned for it. I don't exactly want to go into details on it openly. Mianly because I don't know if the risk is still there or not, in some degree or another. If it is, he was on some other forums actively abotu a year ago. I just cant remember the name of them.
I did some quick digging I remeber running across the formula that was being used awhile back. But no luck in finding it yet. I will dig some more tomorrow. If i recall correctly tho didn't the formula that was being used for that have some estimated base numbers in it? So its acurracey was debated quite a bit if I recall correctly. I tended to believe the numbers tho that were given were far more reliable for active players than Auno.
I am gonna take it a bit easy on you. Since I know you enjoy the game and your character lvl and experiance is a bit low. But i most definately disagree. What your describing is a poor way to make a judgment. As you, yourself said your a froob. And your highest character is lvl 60 ish or 70ish. When you have to wait sometimes for 6 hours +, even sometimes days to get Pen mission teams lately. Thats not healthy compared to a year ago.
So heres a few places froobs can go and relate to the numbers.
ToTw = Dead. Majority of the time theres hardly anyone outside of it. prime hours its pretty flooded still. but this was often not the case a year ago. It use to be jam packed at all hours of the day no matter where you lived. People pvping on their temple twinks. Players enjoying the dungeon. Sandworms constantly being dragged from the north. The Vanguard being dragged from the south. ToTw was so bloody populated and they recieved so many complaints that they threatened Action to be taken against trainers inside the temple and those dragging the clan guard and sandworms to the temple entrance.
Tara, One side tends to dominate her. Rarely any stiff competition over her. This is a dragon that drops some of the best mid lvl twink items ingame. Rk1 clan held onto her for how long. I will put it this way long enough that lately when the omnis took her over the clan pvp bot fell appart. Rk2 I am not to familiar with the end game poltics and players here. simply because i never spent alot of time on rk2 untill recent. But how long has omni had control over her? Again this is arguably a mob that drops some of the best items in game depending on what profession you are untill recent. And still considered the best 100- 150 ish twink items.
If you see this 100 180+ characters in Rome or Old Athen I want screens. If their in Borealis I still want screens (RK2). RK1 I would not agure with that statement. But thats not even close to healthy for rk1. Its probably fairer to say 100 150+'s. Mianly because 150 is a very popular pvp lvl. And when waiting for Battle Station fights people tend to go to Bor by the grid and gank. Not to mention this statement is not taking into consideration of al the dual accounters out there. Not froobs. But people having payed dual accounts in AO is a very common practice.
these 3 citys are the main hubs of the game, gathering ports. They use to be freaking flooded with people. Now on an average day you can stroll thru OA and see 30 or 40 people, maybe on rk2. Borealis tends to have a bit more since everyone hangs out there and pvp's by the grid while waiting on a BS. But far from a healthier state compared to a year ago. You wanna talk about SL gardens most tend to be in incomparably worse shape than any of the Rk citys. I dont care how much you enjoy the game or want to promote it. I dont care that you dont want to know about bugs and stuff like that. Spewing off dribble on a gaming forums thats blindely misaccurate is not fair to people who might be interrested in the game and know nothing about it.
Ao's a good game and solid, a bit dated but its still solid. It does have many issues and this reflects on the population size. Silirrion has taken over as the head guy, And as stated before by Zorvan he was the best thing to ever happen to Ao. I agree fully and anyone with an Ao experiance I am sure would agree as well. But i will not blindly turn my head in the other direction and forget the inactions by Funcom that were harmfull to the game over the past few years and drove away a considerable size of the playerbase who were strong and avid supporters of the game.
Silirrion has been earning my trust back towards Funcom since his promotion. But at a very slow rate. If they deliver this supposed new engine on time with the first release date they officially announce and not 2 years past the announced release date. He will have fully earned it back. FC has a pispoor track record with this game. And it should be one of the easier ones currently to keep a consistant flow of players interrested in.
This game is emptier and if not the fact of many Alts of one player it would be boring as hell. I kept teaming up with the same people till level 100 where they all stoped playing and was forced to buy expansions to team. Rimor server.
I just reactivated my account after a several year hiatus and it does look a lot more barren than I remember. There are still hot spots, they've just moved. Omni-Entertainment is empty, which saddens me, but people have migrated to hang around the Rome grid and whom-pah. The Temple of the Three Winds is still plenty active from what I saw of it. And I've gotten a few teams(I'm on atlantean) but they've all been for hecklers. Do people not do team missions anymore?
I have all the expansions except LE, so if I'm missing some kind of leveling hub or team, can somebody point me in the right direction? (I'm level 70 or so right now)
I'm not having much luck tracking down the formula or the program that was rumored to have been created to make its use easier. Many of the old websites are gone for good and even internet archive doesn't have them. It might not even be worth continuing the search for it now since funcom at this moment is in the process of upgrading all of ao's servers and this I would assume would conflict with anything based on data of the old server design.
One thing most people don't think about when it comes to game population is stability. An mmorpg is a 24/7 game and not meant to be played from 9am to 5pm. Ao's population has wild swings depending on when you play and can go from having many players online to none. Unlike many other games where there is enough players to balance population at all times of the day you can log into ao and not find a soul anywhere and other times be amazed at the numbers of players you see. I have often logged into old athens on rk2 in the middle of the night to find it a ghost town. People can make claims the game is loaded with players but when I would have time to actually play it and log in its dead. Most people aren't going to change their lives and schedules to revolve around a game because the population is so low you can only play at certain times of the day.
OK , I just deleted and gonna retype this post. I asked on the main forums what the zone percents stood for. Over all it really doesn't matter tbh. you can still find the current number of players online at any given time by simply. Logging into the game, going into a zone and counting the number of players there. Do not count players in shops , instances ect.
It was pointed out that this XML probably does not count for those players in instances such as shops and what not. And that would be why the percentages for zones don't add up to 100%. So it doesn't really matter if those percents are server load or the percentage distribution of players ingame.
However if it is server load you can do this much easier out of game once you find the base percent. No answer as to which it is. But it makes more sense that its player distribution. If its distribution of online players you have to do this everytime your curious how many people are online. That XML also supposedly updates "roughly" every 5 minutes.
Ao 4 life wooohaaa.
play ao or dont...
More of a morbid curiousity than anything at this point Tastee. Population size isn't an uncommon topic for an MMo.
Alot of this topic is specualtion from everyone based on appearances and not any true numbers other than mochart, Including myself. And peopel debate mmocharts credibility pretty often in other forums sections. So why not.
Welles posted a neat Xml thingy. That can possably give a nice snap shot of population count for any given servers for a given time frame. It would be neat just to see a statistical difference between prime and non prime hours of the game. I also think it would be kinda neat to take comparative numbers for a given server and watch them over time as the big updates progress and get released.
/ me looks forward to getting some numbers this weekend for Rimor.
So read it or don't.
A lot of factors involved here. It is summer so populations decline since there is more to do. New MMOs are being Beta tested. Many testers are players from other games. Some players take breaks and alternate games.
Bottom line is until the numbers decline to the point it is unprofitable, the game maker is going to keep the servers up and running.
numbers are things.. amounts are defined by numbers... why do we care "How" many play... just enjoy the game and analyze uneeded stats in your spare time.
Yea, his information on mmochart has been inaccurate on several games. Although he himself never claims to be 100% on key. Some people follow his information much too closely. I was with AO from its rocky launch up until early 2005, and I remember several articles coming out with them commenting on the number of subs AO had. It did peak at around 200k subs at one point, had a decline for awhile and then rose again for a bit. With the release of WoW and a lot of the new games, just like with any of the older games, numbers dropped again. At the moment, last I heard from anything close to offical, there were around 30-40k currently PAYING players, and many more on the froob accounts.