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Server Population US/EU
Mirona
Member Posts: 3
Hi,
I'm playing the free trial on the European shard atm. Someone said the Market channel is the one with most people (as there is no world channel). There were roughly 40 to 50 people in market. Also I hardly see anyone when running around - ok I'm only in the lowest and easy to reach areas.
Maybe someone can tell me whether it is really that empty on the EU shard. How is it like on the US shards?
Anyone knows, whether there is a problem to play on an US server from Europe?
Thx
Comments
I play on Chaos and it seemed to me to be more people than on Order. But don't judge just by the market channel, you can do a /who and set no parameters to see how many people are on, although that cuts off at 50 I think so you cant really see just how many are on.
Try making a character on Chaos and judge for yourself if there is a lag problem. Also sign up at the community forums at www.Istaria.com lots more info there than here.
Once you get past the nooby areas there are more people. Try warping to the different cities. It's fun to see them for the first time plus you will see where people are hanging out.
If you do make a character on Chaos, add Darcul to friends. That's me
I am a nooby too but I know some stuff and will help if I can.
Lots of helpful people in this game, one of the reasons I love it.
It is true. Many European players have left Unity because of non-existent support from Game Network and moved to the North American shards.
I am often able to play late at night, 1am CET onwards. At 1am CET there are normally 40 people in the market channel. By 4am CET there are usually only 10 there.
On the few occasions I get to play around 8 to 10pm CET on the European shard, the market channel typically has 70 to 80 people in there. Doing a player search (/who) and restricting the query so that fewer than 50 results are returned at a time, then tallying up those results will yield a figure of around 230 players between 8 to 10pm CET. It's not very accurate though, because there could be loads of people who are invisible to the player search, I'm invisible except to friends so I'm yet another player who doesn't appear in the player search.
Itis very easy to do a population count in Horizons. You simply limit the range scan by level untill you get less than 50 players reported. Then you do another scan for the next range of levels and limit that one untill there is less than 50.. Keep doing scans untill you have done all levels and add up your totals.
Keep in mind you are +/- 15% based on hidden players. Most population counts are well under 200. At peak times they get just over 300.
Hmm. I hear a parrot. I thought I'd just described how to get a rather innacurate but rough idea of visible player count. As for those who are invisible, there's no way that you can place a percentage on that number. Many people go invisible for a number of reasons, in fact I would actually argue that for the majority of players I know, we all utilise the visibility lists to ensure that while remaining visible to friends, we are invisible to everyone else. Then when we make new friends we add them to the list of people who can see us when we're online.
Since you do not appear to like the game after reading your other posts here, am I right in presuming that you no longer play? If you do still play, then why try and marr the game? If you no longer play, then how can other people be sure that the numbers you are quoting are anywhere near accurate?
Maybe I should clarify that the number of people on a server are not really the important point. The interesting thing is how populated the areas are.
The towns I've seen so far are empty besides sometimes 2 people running through. Towns in Swg, Eq2, Wow or space stations in Eve are full of life and people going about their business.
I'm only looking at the Unity atm, so I wonder what the look/feel of the player population is on the US shards.
One thing I've noticed in Horizons is that that there is no central gethering area as there is in other games: in EQ, you have PoK and in CoH you have Atlas Park. I am not sure if a central spot ever happened in EQ2; there wasn't one when I played it. Thus the population is pretty spread out. Also some of the towns have always been more popular than others: right now Kion seems the most busy on Chaos. Kirasanct and Tazoon have always been empty, rather like the home towns in EQ.
In Horizons this spreading out of population is exacerbated by player-built machines close to resources, as well as some spots like wisp island and abandoned island that are very nicely set up for crafting purposes. If you go those places, you will find more people than you will find in towns. On chaos there is a slate field S of Mahagra with a player-built stoneworking shop just adjacent, and if you do slate work almost any time, day or night, you will find 3 or more others doing the same.
In a way, the marketchannel IS a "central gathering place."
Many games have actions you can perform pretty much anywhere providing you have the materials to hand. For example, grinding bones into bone powder for alchemy with a mortar and pestle, recycling junk into ammo with a recycling tool, sewing clothing up, repairing items with a repair tool. These are all examples from other games where it doesn't matter if you're out in the middle of nowhere or in a town. It also leads to 'townie' behaviour which is why you see towns populated in other games a lot moreso than in Horizons.
With Horizons, congregation tends to occur around the busiest consigners, with little other reason to visit towns since crafting normally occurs out near the resource fields, and adventuring only happens in towns during an attack by the withered aegis.
I would like to see some sort of 'townie' inspiring action that players can perform anywhere, but this would most likely involve something other than the typical crafting actions that townies perform in other games - mostly due to the reliance upon a nearby crafting machine.