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Estimating current number of players using server population
Ginaz
Member RarePosts: 2,571
So, I made a post in the general discussion forum, asking which servers where listed as very heavy or heavy.
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/203068
The purpose was to get the number of servers with very heavy or heavy servers. I was hoping to get answers from people who still played the game. The numbers I got was pretty much what I was expecting. Out of 25 servers only 3, sometimes 5, are listed as very heavy or heavy on a regular basis. That leaves around 20 servers as medium, light or very light. Now I know that doesn't mean much on its own. No one really knows the numbers associated with the server loads. However, I think it can be reasonably estimated.
Lets assume that the most any swg server can have for population is 5000 people. Some people might think that the servers can hold more, but 5000 is pretty much the upper limit for most servers, esp. ones that are more than 5 years old. So, 5000 max on 3 to 5 servers. I think its fair to say that none of those servers is at 5000. So, being generous, lets say that each of the 3 heavy servers have an average of 3000 players. Thats 9000 people. Lets say the other 2 that are borderline heavy have 2000 people for a total of 13k between the 5 most populated servers. Now lets look at the rest. We have 20 servers that are medium or light/very light. Of the 2 that are medium, we'll say theres 1000 people on each. Now we're up to a total of 15k. Now we're down to the 18 that are light or very light. Since its generaly accepted that all those servers are basically dead, I think its safe to estimate that theres between 3000-5000 left on the 18 servers. That leaves us at a grand total of around 20k players.
Now, I know I'm going to get the usual suspects that will dispute the numbers. I realize theres no way of knowing for sure how many each server can hold, but I think 5000 is pretty reasonable number. Considering the average WoW server has around 2500 players.... www.warcraftrealms.com/activity.php ... I would say a 5000 max for the swg servers is realistic. If any of my calculations are off, blame my Grade 11, pity pass math skills. I think they're pretty close though.
Discuss.
BTW, I think I was being pretty generous with my estimates.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
Comments
I just checked again and this is what I found:
25 servers, 6 medium, 3 light , 16 very light.
I have seen no heavy servers today (but I don't check that often). I have not seen a very heavy server in years although I don't doubt that there have been some on occasion.
You pretty much forget about see any very heavy servers. This may only happen during a special event like a new publish or live event.
I just checked again and this is what I found:
25 servers, 6 medium, 3 light , 16 very light.
I have seen no heavy servers today (but I don't check that often). I have not seen a heavy server in years although I don't doubt that there have been some on occasion.
You pretty much forget about see any very heavy servers. This may only happen during a special event like a new publish or live event.
Like I said, I was being generous.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
The best way to get the server ratings (light, medium, etc) is to login, if you have an active account. If you go to the character creation screen that asks which server you want it lists the ratings for all servers. I would do this 4-5 times on Friday through Sunday (morning, noon, afternoon, night).
RED ALERT!!! Bria just went HEAVY... All 50 players must have logged on at the same time. Call the President!
The SOE server estimates are estimates and the labels mean NOTHING.
They can very easily manipulate "heavy" to mean four people are logged in.
What matters are numbers, not SOE's bogus labels.
SOE will NEVER release raw numbers.
The ONLY thing that counts is if you log in and see how many avatars are around.
We KNOW that there are far fewer at any given time now than there were prior to the NGE, let alone the CU. This is through very simple observation.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I totally agree. Back before the CU you could find people in any player city you went to (during the day, Intrepid server). There would be entertainers in the player city cantinas and people shopping in the malls. All mostly gone now.
Yep, this is 100% true.
OP, you cannot by any means of the imagination make a guestimation of population based on what the "Server load" is rated at by SOE. I remember seeing quite a few threads claiming SOE changed them because the medium that used to be listed was way more populated than the medium they were seeing then.
SOE can change those ratings to mean show whatever they want(if there code monkeys can figure out how that is). They could change heavy to mean 5 people, from which you would log on tomorrow and see every server as heavy(the fanbois would be all over this claiming the population was booming). The heavy-medium-light ratings me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
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Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
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Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
Yep, this is 100% true.
OP, you cannot by any means of the imagination make a guestimation of population based on what the "Server load" is rated at by SOE. I remember seeing quite a few threads claiming SOE changed them because the medium that used to be listed was way more populated than the medium they were seeing then.
SOE can change those ratings to mean show whatever they want(if there code monkeys can figure out how that is). They could change heavy to mean 5 people, from which you would log on tomorrow and see every server as heavy(the fanbois would be all over this claiming the population was booming). The heavy-medium-light ratings me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I wasn't basing it on what soe says the numbers are. I was using my own estimates based on the number of players an mmo server can hold. The average number of players on a WoW server is around 2500. The server I play on in WoW is listed as a medium population server, which means it probably has close to the average of 2500, which seems about right from my experience.
I wasn't defending soe, my point was to counter statements by certain people who make wild claims about swg's current population, either giving numbers that are way too high (like over 100k) or way too low (like 4k). And if you cared to read what I wrote you would see that I was being generous with the numbers.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
5000 is way over the actual numbers for heavy. Even during the pre-CU, when Bria was crashing due to overpopulation, 5000 was more than heavy. IIRC, pre-CU, 7500 was considered "Full" (down from the intial claim that the servers could hold up to 10, 000 players pre-release). The amount of players per label was reduced twice that SOE had admitted to (once after the free Bria to any other server transfers pre-CU, due to overpopulation, and once after some dismal prime time Friday night numbers were leaked post NGE), and likely a couple more times that they haven't. The pre-CU change was due to the servers not being able to handle as many people as they had thought the could, and the post NGE change was due to 'technical reasons'.
Only part of your post that may not be correct is the age of the Servers. It is very unlikely that any of the original servers are stil online. I change out our banks servers every 18 months, the users do not even realize the downtime. switchover is seemless. With SOE taking the servers down once or twice a week for the past 5 years and not replacinh the servers, which rthese days are not all that expensive would be unusual. they have been in the MMO business for many years and Im pretty positive they have a replacement plan in their SOP. AS far as the ammount of folks on servers, I do not think heavy is the same as it was back in our great pre-cu days. They have brought the number down to encourage folks looking for heavy server to join that server. Just my 2 Creds
People seem to be not understanding why I used the numbers I did. I purposefully overestimated to throw the fan boys a bone. I realize that the numbers may seem high but I think they're more accurate than a lot of the other numbers I've seen thrown out, like 100k or 150k for the high end and 4000 or 7000 on the low end. Persoanlly, I thik the actual number of players is closer to the 10k mark, with actual subs (taking into account that many people have multiple accounts) being between 25k and 30k.
Again, no one but soe knows for sure what the actual numbers are. However, a reasonable estimation can be made using basic knowledge about the limits of mmo technology and server loads.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
The problem is that the public server loads information has no meaning at all. SOE gets to decide what numbers trigger a report of "heavy" or "light". That's not transparent to us...we have no way to objectively evaluate what "heavy" means when SOE can use "heavy" to represent 2000 players or 20 players with a few keystrokes.
There's also the issue of how server loads can be affected by the speeding up of the game for the "starwarsy" feel that means that a high number of CPU cycles on the server during the NGE can be created by 1/10th the number of players as would have been needed during the preCU. This is wild ass guessing on my part, but the sped up NGE movement means more packets moving for the same action, which will increase server load per player.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
The problem is that the public server loads information has no meaning at all. SOE gets to decide what numbers trigger a report of "heavy" or "light". That's not transparent to us...we have no way to objectively evaluate what "heavy" means when SOE can use "heavy" to represent 2000 players or 20 players with a few keystrokes.
There's also the issue of how server loads can be affected by the speeding up of the game for the "starwarsy" feel that means that a high number of CPU cycles on the server during the NGE can be created by 1/10th the number of players as would have been needed during the preCU. This is wild ass guessing on my part, but the sped up NGE movement means more packets moving for the same action, which will increase server load per player.
You can disagree with what heavy, medium and light numbers represent . I'm not claiming to know what the numbers really are. However, a LOGICAL ESTIMATION can be made using basic knowledge of how the technology of mmo servers work regarding how many players it can hold. It doesn't matter what soe did or didn't do to rig the numbers, the technology for servers has limits on how many players it holds.
WoW has an average of 2500 people on their servers, which would probably be rated as medium. A server with that many people will appear to be fairly active. I know this because the server I play on is constantly rated as medium and is fairly busy at all times of the day. Since WoW is only a year or so younger than swg, the servers they use probably are capable of holding a similar number of players. So the numbers I used are probably as close as your going to get without actually knowing for sure. And I did mention that I was being generous, so I increased the numbers a bit accordingly.
Again, the reason I did this was to debunk any fan boy claim that swg's population is increasing and has a population of 50k, 100k or 150k (and to a lesser degree the angry "vet" claims that the population is around 5k). Even being generous with the numbers, the MOST that we can logically get is 20k. Thats still pretty freakin' sad and shows that swg isn't growing or improving its population like the fan boys are still claiming.
If anyone has a better formula for logically estimating swg's current population, then by all means share.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
About 20000 people are still in SWG if we substract all the holograms that leaves us with 2 players,Obraik and the guy that is payed to watch the servers.
I've only ever seen two servers listed as "Heavy". One was Bria, and I can't remember what the other one was.
The problem is that the public server loads information has no meaning at all. SOE gets to decide what numbers trigger a report of "heavy" or "light". That's not transparent to us...we have no way to objectively evaluate what "heavy" means when SOE can use "heavy" to represent 2000 players or 20 players with a few keystrokes.
There's also the issue of how server loads can be affected by the speeding up of the game for the "starwarsy" feel that means that a high number of CPU cycles on the server during the NGE can be created by 1/10th the number of players as would have been needed during the preCU. This is wild ass guessing on my part, but the sped up NGE movement means more packets moving for the same action, which will increase server load per player.
You can disagree with what heavy, medium and light numbers represent . I'm not claiming to know what the numbers really are. However, a LOGICAL ESTIMATION can be made using basic knowledge of how the technology of mmo servers work regarding how many players it can hold. It doesn't matter what soe did or didn't do to rig the numbers, the technology for servers has limits on how many players it holds.
WoW has an average of 2500 people on their servers, which would probably be rated as medium. A server with that many people will appear to be fairly active. I know this because the server I play on is constantly rated as medium and is fairly busy at all times of the day. Since WoW is only a year or so younger than swg, the servers they use probably are capable of holding a similar number of players. So the numbers I used are probably as close as your going to get without actually knowing for sure. And I did mention that I was being generous, so I increased the numbers a bit accordingly.
Again, the reason I did this was to debunk any fan boy claim that swg's population is increasing and has a population of 50k, 100k or 150k (and to a lesser degree the angry "vet" claims that the population is around 5k). Even being generous with the numbers, the MOST that we can logically get is 20k. Thats still pretty freakin' sad and shows that swg isn't growing or improving its population like the fan boys are still claiming.
If anyone has a better formula for logically estimating swg's current population, then by all means share.
Logic and SOE/SWG should never be used in the same sentence. You can not logically deduce what the server population is by comparing the maximum possible server load with the servers current load rating (light, medium, etc).
Pretty sure it was announced/leaked sometime pre-cu that the max a server could hold was 3k...
Pretty sure it was announced/leaked sometime pre-cu that the max a server could hold was 3k...
Was that the pre-revised numbers or post revised numbers? They revised the numbers after offering free transfers from Bria due to overpopulation, becuase they found out their server load estimates were too high.
The pre-CU server load numbers were revised down on at least one more occasion, post NGE, so what constitutes "heavy", "medium", "light", etc., is smaller now than it was back then. By any estimation, SWG is not a healthy game.
Pretty sure it was announced/leaked sometime pre-cu that the max a server could hold was 3k...
Then my estimates would probably be a little lower. I was rounding up to give swg the benefit of the doubt. What do you think of my estimates, between 10k and 20k players with around 30k subs?
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
Pretty sure it was announced/leaked sometime pre-cu that the max a server could hold was 3k...
Then my estimates would probably be a little lower. I was rounding up to give swg the benefit of the doubt. What do you think of my estimates, between 10k and 20k players with around 30k subs?
I think this is a fairly reasonable estimate.
I think Obraik is pretty close to what the capacity of a max server is. After making that assumption it's easy to use logic to determine the number of players currently online. The only difficult part is trying to figure out the ratio of players logged in to players offline.
Yea even people with sub don't desire to log in to that crap, have 2 rl who wished to start again and made the error to resub, now they don't login anymore.
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Considering how old the game and codes is, 3K cap per server might be possible but unrealistic. I remember when the Jedi revamp for publish 8-9 was first put on TC, one of the devs logged into TC even said there was over 5K people logged on TC (and it showed either "very heavy" or "extremely heavy") but perhaps TC is different from the 25 live servers, but whatever, let's keep on speculating shall we? :P
i've been saying for months it was under 5k
another win for us vets what does this make it now? i lost count all i know is us vets are leading the devs and fanboi and fanbots by about 10 million wins.
what a great year the nge will go away soon. mccain will be our new leader and us vets will have more win.
Just about there. The original capacity was 3,500* (when numbers, not words were used for server populations), but there were server upgrades which bumped the total up some more. I do not remember the new number exactly, but I think it was 1,000. So ~4,500 is the top limit, unless there has been some new upgrades since.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
Just for clarity, we're talking about players playing the game and not total subscribers, correct?
Post I made the other day works in here too....
Here's the problem with the sub numbers debate the way it's usually played out on these forums. People say it's got a ridiculously low number, others try to counter that by saying it's got a ridiculously high number, both of those 2 types of posters here are probably wrong.
The only way that the numbers make any difference are when they impede the average player from getting the most out of the game, SOE have added group content exclusively now for 2 1/2 years, as a result you need a group to achieve anything in-game. Add in that they've made group dynamics work just like any other mmo by requiring the usual tank,healer,dps mix and that lessens your options when forming a group as well. It's clear that the numbers actively playing SWG aren't sufficient on most servers for people to get anything done, however unlike the speculation on subscriber numbers this can be proved. Proof enough is the fact that there's a multiple page thread requesting server mergers/population fixes at anytime on the front page of the gameplay discussion board. That's current subscribers airing their dissatisfaction that the playerbase is too small on most servers.
...The spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.