A few DCUO Population numbers

I said this a couple months ago and got reported to oblivion. I received a warning from a mod that said i was "Trolling". I said the game was starting to have way too many Micro Transactions it was starting to become P2W, oh boy did that upset some people.

https://steamdb.info/app/24200/graphs/

I found this site. Interesting thing about steam. It does record logins. Judging by this, Steam users do not drop below 1k logins per day.

Please note, this just represents people who play through steam on PC _ONLY_. This does not include stand alone client or PS3/4 access.

I pull this data too. The way I do it is I use the API Census Data to pull all characters that are above a certain CR. Then each day at a scheduled time I pull down the same query again and append a timestamp to the data. Then I can compare the hash string value from the Census data from the initial pull to each subsequent day. I can look at first of the month compared to last of the month, days of the week, update dates, dlc/episode drop dates, etc.

I haven't done much analysis of the data though just due to me not having much available free time, but I still pull the data.

Food for thought...

These population stats are based on number of CHARACTER logins.
I can't help wonder what percentage of them are people logging back in as a result of disconnections and simply changing to alternate characters.That would drive the REAL numbers down even lower.

Logins of the same character doesn't get recorded as multiple logins. The Hash field is per character save, and unless you're pulling down the data and storing it by the minute you would not know that someone logins in on a toon, logged out/disconnected, then logged back in on that same toon.

Since the data is shown by day I would guess it's pulled once per day.

Pretty much always log in with multiple toons.

Just when I trade items between toonsI can log in log out with half a dozen toons.

And I am sure that I am not alone.

So those numbers are even more depressing.

...and just dont know what to do next!.. I would add. This is imo one of the biggest problems of DCUO retaining new players and its been like that since forever. Even myself who played this game from F2P until Battle for Earth had to watch a vid on "How to gear up CR 1-70" when I returned to the game not to long ago. (Maybe its just me ) Broken low-lvl content after a poorly handled GU doesnt help the case much either ofc.
Imo what keeps this game alive (it still is) is a really die-hard yet small playerbase on which it also relies way to much.
At this point everyone that leaves the game really hurts (talking about PC side, dont know PS) and as it is inevitable that people leave you absolutely need to retain new players.
The whole concept of F2P is for the sole purpose to get new players into the game yet it is imo handled rather badly. Like which F2P games restrict content nowadays...It forces a decision upon new players (Is it really worth my money?) at a point when they might not be engaged enough with the game. Open up content to very lategame (and maybe extend while moving forward in DLCs) because thats where the game is played anyways. Offer them a discounted subscription during their first 30 days on the game to show them the great value it has (imo).
Add more payment options! There still not being any "DaybreakCards", PSC and so on seems like that money isnt even wanted. I get that whole "recurring-thing" but is it really needed? Seems outdated and its benefits should rather speak for itself (besides discount- doesnt really matter when I can play this month but cant/dont want the next one). Add incentives for those who sub recurringly or even per month subbed. (auras, sth).
Add incentives for veterans to play with new players like feats "I pugged X T3 raid with a group sub CR70" or even a mentor system other games already established long time ago.

Thanks for the info, Nekron.

But there is still the matter of alts logging in.
For example, as you can see below, I have a LOT of alts. I habitually login in all of them to add to my league's prestige with their base items and mainframe credits after Thursday's weekly reset. It averages somewhere between 7 and 8K prestige total for the 15 heroes alone.

It all boils down to lack of Veteran Appreciation. You guys are the one that keep this game afloat (I am just recently deciding if i should jump back in it), but they don't seem to realize that and the lack of daily logins should've well been a rude awakening. You can't keep milking your small but dedicated player base without giving them some sort of appreciation token (And no, i don't mean in December where everyone gets free Legendary. And come to think of it, that free month of Legendary doesn't even affect the loyal playerbase as they more than likely already have Legendary which covers them for the month.

DCUO population is definitely low compared to other MMOS. Even dying games like Raiderz seems to have more people online than DCUO USPC.

I got couple of my friends to play DCUO few months ago. They liked the game but didn't stick around much and found hard time to get into raid groups. This was before gu41 so they got squashed like bugs in PvP also which is fine and understandable. But their main argument was not being able to get into groups fast enough, they moved to other MMOs eventually.

New players not sticking around has more to do with the community than the game itself imo. They have so much catching up to do when they start new but no one wants to help and with low population numbers its not always possible to find good groups. Low cr = automatically kick by average dcuo populous.

When it's done poorly it can be manipulative but when done well some sort of aggregate reward goes a long way to having someone decide to login in a given week and once they are in realize they still have fun.

I maintained my sub even when I wasn't playing for the first few months of this year but it doesn't change that it was easier for me to not login and do something else, resulting in one less person to respond to queues, interact with leaguemates and so on. So at the end of the day those logins, while not as valuable as revenue, they still go a long way to keeping the game alive.

I would suggest a FTP as well as sub-based aggregate reward. Something where it cumulatively gets better as you login periodically (maybe weekly or semi-monthly) but resets if you go said period of time without logging in. Nothing crazy out of balance but for example some sort of furniture drop or a cumulative discount percentage on base rent. For example 5% cheaper for base mods each period capping at 50%. People would logon just to keep that 50%, there'd still need to be something for them to do but getting them on is a big part of the battle.

I've noticed a lot of games doing this. Log in, a pop up happens and you get something that day and sometimes showing what you get the next day or if you do it a week. Or it is random, like "30% off one item" and stuff. Wouldn't mind seeing this happen. It pop up on your character select screen and you can hit okay and log into a character.

I am still waiting for the following comments:
" nah, the game is fine"
"dont worry the devs have something great in store for us"
" the game is good, it is not dying"
"not it summer, people would come back eventually"

After all those dying threads the facts had been brought up and see the reality
Many of us would like to see concrete information and content for the next months to see if it is worth anymore to spend money on this game.
Have many of you seen the open world is dead...... just a few players outside the bases it sad, it starting to become a ghost town

Nah, not sure what your implying, the game is fine. Trust me and don't worry, the devs have something great in store. They are working on crossplay and monthly releases! The game is in a good spot on the PS and it is not dying. Not going to have high log ins during summer with DCUO, happens every year, people will come back eventually.

mmm ok boy, keep dreaming it does not cost anything
The devs are not doing anything when it comes to attract new players to the game. Crossplay looooooool boy that was pushed back a while ago not further news since then. Content so the first we are going to have is bombshells what ist about it does not grab my attention at all. Happens every year, well this year it going down for sure, lol look at ESO and the other games currently and coming to the ps4 *COUGH* Batman: Arkham Knight.

Speaking just for myself I wouldn't want to engage with concrete information in threads where the rhetoric tends towards the dramatically over the top. I think this is why we used to see that sort of information come out on contexts such as SOE Live, as it would tend towards a more positive reception.

On the forums it seems like most announcements get met with at least a quarter or more of the respondents turning it into a complaint.

Is the population down? Quite possibly. Is the game dead? It's not dead til the lights go out.

Batman game isn't an MMO. People will leave to play it and will come back when done. lol ESO I understand is a game you have to like and it plays very much solo than an actual MMO. But I've no interest in playing it. If I wanted to play another MMO, it would be Tera, but only got so much time in a day. Real life an all. I choose to play the game that gives me joy.

I dont trust those numbers but for sure after each of new update where is any power rewamp (one power become beter then ather) i notice few of my friends stop playing so there is a chance after update 50 im gona stay alone here.
Nothing is constant in this game thats why so many ppl h8 this game and in my opinion thats the thing whats gona kill this game .
Maybe devs counts everquest next gona be hit of 2015 and they dont care about DCUO anymore well idk but its sad when u c all those ppl who was playing and have a good times with us in last 3 years now they left just becouse they dont like what happend with cliping or changes at pvp or never ending "mixing with powers" to be honest this mixing is nothing but carousel fraud i know i know u dont have to buy power respec token u can w8 half year till yours power get new rewamp so people again gona love u and they gona play with u coz u op again but only till next game update.Thats mega BS .
New epizodes not gona bring more people if devs never gona stop mixing with powers so its looks like the game is dieing so they wana pomp out ours money on BS like this or the game is fine thats why they dont care about veterans and counting on wave of fresh ppl who gona play till they figure out this mixing with power is BS .

You are very optimistic about this game good for you
Now let talk about the so called plans and their current states"

• Sidekick customization and New UI - Pushed back not further news since then
• Crossplay- pushed back not further news since then
• Serums- pushed back not further news since then
• Atomic- pushed back not further new since then
• Water announced as a question, but never planned

So what we have left to expect or wait : NOTHING! that why i suggest information about the next episodes or something

You don't have to be optimistic to look at the whole and say it's okay. Let's go down the list you have there. Since it's obvious, those were the things you were looking forward to. As there was a lot more you didn't mention, just those stuck with you I guess.

• The sidekick customization was announced that it was something they want to do, but not have started on AT ALL. I know, I was at the keynote in 2014 when it was talked about. I would assume that it would have came out AFTER the new UI, which I noticed you didn't seem to care about since you didn't mention it. Which would probably be the biggest let down if you had listed it. I know I was really bummed.
• Crossplay. Mepps posts they are still working on it. I don't know what the hold up is, my guess is legality. As merging the servers wouldn't be that hard to deal with. They did it back when they did the mega servers for each platform.
• Serums was obviously not received as well as they hoped. Especially when people found out that it was a tank power and Atomic was not. The fact players are NOW complaining about it not coming is amusing. When the ones they said it would be pushed back for is what everyone wanted. Communities.
• Was it pushed back? We don't know. They never listed an attempted time frame for new power releases after they split them out of DLCs.
• Water wasn't officially announced, but it kind of looks like it might replace Serums. Especially after how positive the new water effects were received in Happiness Home. Not a big deal. I think it's a good thing. Keeps players interested in what's coming out.

Really, the lack of the UI is the biggest problem, but it looks to me, that now that it is on indefinite status, they are releasing things that were waiting for it to build on. Have you noticed the new slice of life additions being added alongside the "horrible" (as the community puts it) game updates?

Optimistic? You have no idea what I am like. I was more bummed about the layoffs and changes to the loot system than what people were. You want to scare the community, layoff people. Have I seen anything that justifies my fears? No, actually. Things are not bad and a lot of things are being fixed. Overwriting powers, which, btw, is amazing. Finally a balance that is actually evening out. There is a lot going on. But players are too focused on losing the small circle of friends that they had, than seeing everything. Which is probably the biggest thing on population.

In the end, player retention seems to be the problem and they are addressing it.

Optimistic.