tl;dr version: Random dude watches server pops for 17 days. Shares some useless info with most likely inaccurate assumptions attached. Hi, Out of my own curiosity, I watched the population trends for the EQ1 servers from Feb 10th until my SSD crashed on my main computer on Feb 28th where I was also tracking it on an excel spread sheet that was lost. I figured I would share my very rough observations for anybody curious about which server busiest etc. While I agree if anybody wants to criticize how little this tells us, I also think that it's the best we have right now. I know when I was looking, I couldnt find anything more recent than Nov 2013, and even then it wasn't seemingly any more accurate. So below I'll post my "rankings" followed by some note-format observations. Again, hopefully this is useful for someone. If not, that's fine and it'll just quickly fall from the top of the forum. I was going to wait until I had a full month's data, but with the crash and the new server transfers announced, I figure this was a decent time. I tracked it by checking every hour I was awake. Often from my phone via the SOE Status page or the same thing from EQResource's website. Most data is from 9am-Midnight. I had several days of data up to 4am, and a few where I woke up at 5am. Ranking Chart. 1. Bristlebane and Cazic Thule 2. FV, Bert, E-Marr, Luclin, Rathe, Tunare, Xegony 3. Drinal, Povar 4. Vox, A-Bayle 5. Fippy, Vulak, Trak, Zek, Test, Beta (does this even count?) Notes: My actual spreadsheet had it much more broken down with those 5 spreads more closely separated, but to be a little less OCD about it, that's basically how the gaps were. I'll elaborate below. -If "Medium" server status is what SOE considers to be Optimal, then Drinal and Povar are perfectly balanced. Everything in categories 1 and 2 are overpopulated, and Bris and CT are extremely crowded. -Bris and CT are MUCH MUCH busier than the 7 servers in category 2. They are "High" nearly 50% of the time, and generally are the first and last to go back to "Med". I've never seen them "Low" except after a patch while people are getting their baz and guild lobby bots back up. -Bris is just slightly more busy than CT and currently holds the crown as busiest server. -FV surprisingly to me is the third busiest server. After checking hour after hour for 18 days, it became apparent. Although not by much. Really all those servers in category 2 are very close in population. FV is surpsing to me because it's the only server (with much of a population) to never have been merged. Also, wasn't it just a few years ago that they offered 1.5 exp and server transfers on to it to increase the population? My guess is that returning vets like to go there. -Drinal and Povar as mentioned earlier are 50/50 on balance. They are "high" as often as they are "low", with the majority of the time "Med" -Vox and AB are "mostly dead". Now before the people of that server quickly correct me. All I'm saying is that they are usually "Low" except during their prime time they hit "Med". I never saw either one hit "High" even at peek times on the weekend. AB's routine is almost exact. 10am-6pm (Eastern time zone) they hit Med. The rest is "low". Vox hits "Med" the same time all of category 2 and 3 finally go "High". The last category would have you believe that they all have the same server population or close. This is obviously much harder to differentiate. I will say that while running around on Vulak briefly that it seemed MUCH quieter and sparse than Fippy. -I never once saw any of category 5 go "Med". Not once. I had no idea that Fippy (and Vulak) we're so dead. Especially after I read in some thread about Fippy supporting 7 raid guilds or something. I am starting to believe that is basically Fippy's population. 7 raid guilds and some "other". My two guesses that I've posted before, is that if SOE has a very broad/rough range for their Low/Med/High status that they never change the variables too, and assuming SOE likes round numbers. Yes this is a lot of assuming... that their numbers are something like: Low - 0-500 or Low 0-750 Med - 500-1000 or Med 750-1500 High - 1001+ or High 1501+ Any questions just ask. I can't say enough that I realize how rough and potentially inaccurate this is, just wanted to share my observations. I also hope that SOE/Mods do not mind me sharing my research even though they do not want exact numbers known. Oh also, not to imply that people cancelled accounts or quit the game after SOE's AA autogrant, but the servers never were quite as busy after that patch. It was the first patch that came while I was tracking, so it might just have been people not yet resetting/relogging in their bazaar bots, but I did notice it. If people find this information extremely interesting. My computer will be back up this weekend, and I'll continue tracking it.
Just speculation about the auto-grant but might it be possible that with that you have a good segment of the population being able to slack off and not spending extra time every day grinding out some more AA's?
I really thought the servers were going to be really busy. When it didn't come, I thought for sure on the weekend. I was wrong it appears, but I thought a lot of people would have been like me and my buddy that were excited to try out there new "super-buffed" characters.
FV server census rarely drops to low because it has hundreds more 24/7 traders and buyers than any other server. FV now has 3 raiding guilds that have beaten all the CotF raids (Valhallah slacks on EGL updates). Only AB and Luclin have more who have reported progress to EGL. It's been 3 years since they added XP bonus and opened server transfers. Prior to CotF the last expansion that had 3 guilds on FV making any progress in the current expansion was DoN in 2005. CotF T1 is the first (part of an) expansion ever completed by more than 1 guild before a new (part of an) expansion comes out in the entire history of the server.
They added XP bonus and allowed server transfers, it just takes awhile for the changes to impact raiding. Krono increased the draw of the server but just transfers and XP bonus alone got the ball rolling. The next time someone tries to start a raiding guild on FV whether a clique that transfers from another server as a starting point or starts from people already on the server they now have 3 guilds to try to draw members from, massively more gear on the server from 3 raiding guilds and transfers than a slow pre-transfer and 1 raiding guild trickle to get tanks geared quickly by using plat or Krono and having some well geared tanks is by far the most important element to the success of a new guild. Krono make raiding on FV very appealing without even violating the EULA, very trivial to maintain multiple gold accounts with raid currency that just rots in a character window on other servers.
I wouldn't dare attempt to dispute that Doug, nor have I any data after Feb 28th. I actually expected a lot of people would login just to check it out, also I figured some people may go gold just for the carrot at the end of the stick. It just didn't show up in the week or so after the patch. Also, I imagine it is commonplace for numbers to have to slowly build up after a patch forces everybody off. I know E-Marr had some downtime for a day that I saw and it took nearly 48 hours for it to get back to its normal population numbers. I will say that it appears EQ1's population is higher than EQ2 from what I tracked and that makes me happy in the since that I am not concerned EQ will be "next to go" anytime in the next 5 years. Even with EQN on the horizon.
We've had 6 "pending" updates dating back to 2/13...someone is slacking on the updates (Beimeith), but it isn't Valhallah.
Populations should improve greatly soon due to the heroic, level 85 characters. A zillion people suddenly all level 85, Max AA, and LFG should be fun!
Well two things, 1) think Fippys down to 4 endgame raid guilds (one of which just transferred over from Vulak) and 1 raiding guild thats a year or so behind and 2) yeah, progression servers always packed with endgame players and nothing else. There's nothing really going on on that server apart from raiding. Server population seems to have tanked in the past year, too. Check out the number of guilds in OOW-DoN etc versus now: http://fippykills.com/
Also wanna say that while im sure some will criticize your way of measuring, I think this is really interesting stuff thanks a bunch for doing this.
I've seen more people in old zones. More people looking for groups. Heck I even seen 3 open raids which was a first (non anniversary). So I would say it did its job and next with the Heroic Characters we may see even more.
I'll get back to tracking. I'm curious to track during this anniversary stuff, the heroic toons, and whenever the next server is created. We know it'll happen eventually.
I've wondered for a long time if other servers would adopt the FV rules if offered a chance. The against crowd usually says "Well transfer" but not wanting FV rules enough to leave friends isn't the same as not wanting FV rules. And I suspect that many people either created toons before FV existed, or never read/understood rules when picking a random server to start on.
Tradeable stuff could be OK, I suppose. In fact, if all the servers had tradeable stuff, I imagine they'd put more thought into it making it better for everyone. The anniversary 10-charge XP pots would have been nerfed log ago, for instance. Group gear would be improved to be more similar to raid gear. My biggest concern would be the 150% XP. That would suck. It wouldn't be as bad as double-XP weekends, but it would still be detrimental to enjoying the journey rather than the destination. My 2nd biggest concern would be that I could suddenly purchase raid-level foci which would make the group content I enjoy too easy, so group content would have to be made more difficult. The 3rd biggest concern would be class balance. While my Enchanter, and other casters can pick up whatever raid item is cheapest with the proper raid focus, a melee, or especially a tank, is going to want/need better stuff to maintain equivalency. The loss of Common language wouldn't be a big deal either way.
I have played on FV since 2001, so I'll take a stab at this. The biggest reason that FV turned around as a server was the open/free transfers they allowed awhile back that really infused the server with some much-needed bodies. Right before these transfers opened (around the UF era), the server was very much in dire straits. The population was extremely low, and I very rarely saw anyone else in end-game zones during underfoot, or any zone for that matter. There was wasnt near enough people to support more then one quality raiding guild. Now, there is a very healthy population for raiding guilds on the server to pull from. Secondly, and perhaps the biggest reason FV has 3 end-game raid guilds currently, is the difficulty of the COTF raids. At no point in EQ have raids been this easy (I would argue that SoD was even harder then the current COTF raids), and you don't need to be all that good to beat these raids anymore. Now, I'm not saying the raid guilds on FV aren't good, but overall these current crop of raids are so much more forgiving then any expansion raids I can remember. So, the free transfers to FV that really boosted the server population, coupled with the simple nature of raiding in current EQ, has in my opinion been the biggest two reasons that allowed multiple raid guilds to flourish on FV.
The main issue/benefit on FV for non-raiders is that item progression is really simple: farm augs/clicks. The best T1 CotF group melee weapons (4.5ish 1h ratio) are around T2 Alaris raid ratio (4.6ish 1h ratio) and many augs sell for more than T1 RoF raid weapons (5.4ish 1h ratio) and some augs sell for more than T3 RoF raid weapons (5.6ish 1h ratio). The Plane of War apparently has 7 augs/clicks, 200ish raiders can easily get a lot of plat to buy those for mains and alts. Some of the raiders will farm their own, some of the raiders are among the people who farm the most augs/clicks on the server but a bunch of those raiders will want to buy those augs/clicks. With 3 guilds farming CotF raids in the very foreseeable future an aug from Plane of War will sell for more than a T1 CotF raid weapon (6.0ish 1h ratio). If you don't raid, buy loot rights or play on FV you're unlikely to get a 6.0 1h ratio weapon before 2016. Keep in mind that this also means that group content won't be balanced around 6.0 1h ratio weapons until 2016. It's up to each person or group of friends to decide if that's a good or bad thing. In terms of raiding FV is the best raiding environment, always has been, always will be. The only issues are is FV so much of an advantage that it cheapens accomplishments, we have alts with Twincast clicks and no raid on the server ever did all the Xorbb raid achievements and raiders don't enjoy nearly the same OMG factor if they do on other servers. CotF raid focused pet can probably wow the peons on most servers, on FV every "serious" Mage saves up and has the exact same focus, currently it's around 3mil (~25k per Medal) and with around 20k new Medals on the server every week the price will continue to drop and "less serious" Mages will get the ear and then next month people will start upgrading to T2 Pet Ears and further increase the supply and decrease the price of T1 Pet Ears in Bazaar.
Interesting, when I played on Firiona Vie years ago - around 2004-2005, the population was terrible, and AB was considered to have a decent population. I played actively on both servers at the time and the difference was night and day (perhaps literally, being a European player).
