Server population census

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Zliz, Apr 8, 2013.

  1. Zliz Journeyman

    Hi all,
    In my hunt to determine a fresh server to roll on, I did a little census on the population of the Live servers. It is not precise at all, but should give a very rough idea of the population.

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    The ping is from Europe. All servers are equal except AB in that aspect. "Tutorial" is a count of /who all in the Tutorial zone, "NewPlayers" and "General" mean the population in the chat channels. "GL 90-100" is a /who 90 100 in the Guild Lobby. Time is GMT+1, so American afternoon and thus lower than you should expect when you log on during the American evening.

    The conclusion is that almost all servers are roughly equal, at least on paper, with a few exceptions:

    - Trakanon is stone dead. /who all returned 32 people, a third of them were in PoK. I was alone in the Guild Lobby.
    - Vox is buzzing with life at the low levels, but not much at the high end, and a weak bazaar. I changed the /who all 100's to 80-100 to get a bit more results.
    - FV has an amazing bazaar with a huge amounts of gear, lots of it at reasonable prices. Tons of fabled gear, regular old twink gear, raid gear and more. There were no Krono, but I saw several advertisements in chat for them.
    - Zek is low pop, although the /who all's are pointless since a lot of people are anon.
    - Kronos are typically 150-230k on the baz.

    What do you think? Any servers that you know stand out in spite of the numbers?
    Elricvonclief and Leerah like this.
  2. Axxius Augur

    You realize that 21:00 European time is middle of a day (a workday!) in North America? Now, if you looked at the servers other than AB at 21:00 US Eastern Time - then the picture would be far more accurate. Otherwise I don't see a point of comparing 1 server in its region's prime time to mid-work-day on the rest.
  3. code-zero Augur

    There are also a number of factors that will cause underreporting of /who such as /role and /anon among other things
  4. Pirouette Augur

    Interesting info, though I have to agree with Axxius. Just goes to confirm my theories about Trakanon though...that was not just an issue of primetime or not primetime, that server is just ALWAYS that dead. Not sure why it hasn't been merged yet.

    I will mention that Tunare was merged with two servers in the most recent merger - one of them being Mayong which was quite populated until its ruleset was removed. It wouldn't be far from accurate to say it's one of the most populated servers. I play on Tunare often and there is a healthy population here for certain. Kronos are about 200k over here, though baz prices show a far more inflated price than what people are really willing to sell them at.

    I've played on about 4 different servers and Tunare was the only one that had a successful open raid guild. The folks who run it are good at what they do and kind people in general. So that's one thing to consider too if you wanted an option to raid without commitment.
  5. Zliz Journeyman

    Of course, and you should view AB as an outlier in my sheet. Still, if you take all the American servers and compare those, I don't see why the relative population / bazaar item count should be more out of sync in the afternoon than during the evening? The same goes for /anon and /roleplay - it's fair to assume that besides Zek and maybe FV to a small degree, the same percentage of players will be anon or RP on all servers.

    This wasn't an attempt at seeing how populated the servers are in terms of player count, but how populated they are compared to eachother. But as mentioned, AB is an outlier.

    I can't really stay up until 3 in the night my time, but if someone else could do a similar census during the US evening, it would be neat.
  6. Shang Augur

    Neat data, even though the only thing anyone could feasibly deduce from this, is the fact that everyone knew - nobody plays on Trakanon.
    Calirian likes this.
  7. Tachyon Augur

    Our guild *is* Trakanon!

    It actually works well for a progression guild to be on a nearly unpopulated server.

    I'm a little surprised the Vox doesn't have an even larger overall population.
  8. Ronak Augur

    The only time a fairly (not completely, nothing is completely) accurate census was done was when EQPlayers was actually working, on the old forums. It proved too accurate, and was eventually removed, unfortunately.

    EQPlayers hasn't been functional in a very long time, so we'll have to wait until it's fixed to get another fairly accurate census.
  9. Cakvala Augur

    Wonder if someone could develop a script to who all each server at a peak time of day to get a more accurate count of population, thank you for posting this!
  10. Crystilla Augur

    This looks great. Would be awesome to have this done 2 more times during the other key time spots just for reference sake. And doing a /general1 because most servers will have people in that - with 400 as the loose cap for general chat and you see even now many servers are in high 300's and low 400's in general itself. (Unless you combined both general and general1 and general2 even to check).
  11. Artemis-Entreri Augur

    Actually if you look again at the list Vox has the 2nd highest population. New players don't have access to general chat until after level 20 I believe. So you can take that (166) new players + (370) general = 536 players. Only just behind FV's 545 players, at the time that census was taken.

    Now I'm not claiming that Vox has the 2nd highest population overall, just saying that at the time of that census, it was the 2nd highest.

    All things considered, I do play on Vox, an the population there is quite nice. Never have a problem getting groups on any of my toons 94 Mag, 85 Rng, 81 Bst, 72 Ber, 69 Rog. I only wish I could take my characters I moved to FV back (95 Bst, 92 Nec, 90 Sk, 90 Rog), what a blackhole that server is lol...

    Oh well, live and learn. I'm just glad I picked Vox to reroll on. Has been a nice journey so far there.
  12. Warpiggs Augur

    Was nice when they had the number of people online on each server listed on the server select screen. They should bring that back.
  13. Mykaylla Augur

    I was actually going to say every hour.

    But then I thought about comparing days, because you have different raid schedules on different servers, too, so every hour for a week.... :eek:
    Tegila likes this.
  14. Leerah Augur

    SoE seems to run its own censuses. At some point, a GM comes in and illusions everyone. He comes back in a few hours and counts the number of illusions still there.
  15. iniari-TR Augur

    no. that's just a GM/guide having fun in the lobby.

    soe can easily tell how many players are on a server at any given time.

    im sure they track not only #of players on at time , as well as track how long each player has been logged in, and the activity logs of each player, for server usage and other data mining needed.
  16. Trajet D'Or Augur

    Trakanon - where everybody knows your name, can transfer off
    Test - where silver becomes gold, can't transfer off
    Zek - pvp, can transfer off
    Fippy, Vulak - no mercs for about a year at minimum, can't transfer off
    FV - can eventually get any gear, can't transfer off
    Vox - least high end grouping and raiding of any server not already listed, pretty sure you can transfer off

    AB - peak time and most raiding is during the work day in North America, desirable if you want lots of people and work US evenings or want lower population and play US evenings, can transfer off

    Other - rest are pretty much the same, Wreckers on Bertox is probably the most unique raiding option on any of the other servers which raids early morning in North America, can transfer off

    Other than Test, Fippy, Vulak, FV and possibly but I don't think so Vox unless having pizza for supper is something your consider a major purchase don't worry about it too much, try PvP or the private server and after 5 months of having a re-occurring subscription or after buying 2 gamecards or buying 1 gamecard on a double SC weekend you can be on a new server.

    Who you meet through grouping, possibly raiding or get to know through serverwide channels or other means will be by far the largest factor in where you will enjoy playing and every server has players that will make you hate and love the server that they are on.
  17. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    I like your idea for criteria on your census. Run the number at 5 or 6PM PST and it would be less skewed.

    I'm surprised that many people are in general chat. I've had that box clicked off from day 1 of it's implementation. I used to get annoyed at /gu banter in my old raid guild when I was trying to hunt lol
  18. Leerah Augur

    I would believe that theory except I see the GMs when they come back and they aren't passing out cookies. These guys are not guides.
  19. Kelefane Augur

    So, going by that, Bristlebane and Drinal are two of the most populated servers serverwide?
  20. Tegila Augur

    id say probably 7pm since thats after hte workday there and still during playtime on east coast, or check 5 7 9 PST. but yeah multiple days some servers have 95% of their raids on MWF others have nearly all on SUN/TU/TH others TU/TH/SAT, otehrs raid 5 or 6 days a week. etc. the only way to truly tell is to go make a toon on each at the time you plan on playing at and look around, who's talking waht are they talking about what guilds are available for waht you would be looking for, waht's in the baz both items and pricing, does it fit your needs. is it a server where kronos are 180k or one wehre hteyre over 300k? if you ask a question do you get smart remarks or do you get real responses. just asking about population shouldnt be a determining factor, but the server culture as well