No offense, but general discussion is supposed to be about... general discussion. That includes speculation. I'm not saying those figures are fact, but I am offering what information we do have.

Tell me about it. We have someone on Lord Adraas (RP server) calling himself 'Spiderman'. Which not only effects the RP side of things, but is also against the ToS, as it's a trademarked name.

I've edited the first post, to give the appropriate figures from the recent European article.

As much as I appreciate humour, I'd rather we try and keep to the topic in question. I'm interested to see people's thoughts, especially if they disagree with me, as it seems to affect quite a few people.

Were talking about concurrent players. There's definately likely to be a higher cap than 1200 on a server, but there's on average, around that amount on each server at any one time. Or at least that's what my maths show. Also in regards to the figuires, many have questioned the validity of them now due to time passing etc, and I agree, I'm guessing they are likely different now. I'd appreciate it, if we tried to keep the discussion focused on sharding, and population count across the board. I didn't make this post, to be some kind of anti-bioware slant, that I think a few people seem to be taking it. I'm actually just trying to offer some constructive criticism in regards to sharding, which makes big worlds (especially higher level worlds) feel lifeless, due to both sharding and a low population on these higher planets. I myself am a big fan of the game, I just think this aspect is a real problem, and will become much more apparent over the next few months, as people level up.

That's interesting, same server as me. Out of interest what level are you etc? My main problem is with the sharding itself, but certainly at the higher level planets your looking at 30 people if your lucky. On Voss yesterday during peak time, there were 13 people for example.

Yeah I remember that quote. Wondering whether it was just made to ease the community backlash back then. Ideally a 500 population cap per shard (between both factions) would be easier to deal with. But currently, it seems it's set at around 150-200 overall players (both factions) per instance.

The thing is, when your on planets which are much bigger 50 people isn't very many (at least in my experience). Also actually seeing players of the opposite faction is incredibly rare. I'm as far as Voss in-game and I've only seen 2 republic players, all the way up to level 45 (I'm Empire). I suppose one could argue this particular problem is due to faction imbalance, but I don't see much of my fellow imperials either.

Unfortunately, I think this is the case. Going to the fleet for example where you actually have a high population in one area, results in a pretty damaging effect on fps (at least for me).

Let's say we ignore the average I worked out. If we go off how players are feeling about sharding and population count on servers that are heavy/full, the majority of them (so far) in this thread seem to be having a similar issue with it, that I'm having.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting their by any means representational of every server, but that's the average from what we know about concurrent users and the amount of servers.

See... I don't really agree. I think the game is doing well at the moment. I just have a problem with the population cap and sharding used for servers. Which I do think (over time) may start to have a negative effect on players. Especially when players get more spread out during the next few months, in terms of level.

The thing is... my server's generally heavy or full most of the time. I'm also not just talking about population size, but sharding also.

Perhaps it's an issue of where players are at in the game. But currently, on planets like belsavis and Voss, your looking at around 4-20 players on planet. The thing is, your right, the game is great for solo play. Also when I hit max level, I'll be doing flashpoints, and quests with the rest of my guild, so the population won't bother me so much, and those at the end game is getting bigger, so they'll be a bigger population there. But if you see the cut off of player after tatooine currently, the world feel empty and life less. Even on the more populated planets, when instances of the planet become 'full' at around 75 as one person stated earlier, the world just seems incredibly under-populated. Especially when your on an RP server, where population and community are pretty important.

The thing is, WoW doesn't shard it's servers, so populations aren't capped per zone... and before every starts the whole WoW vs TOR thing, can we just move on from that, and actually just focus on this particular issue of TOR in this thread.

That's a tiny amount of players per planet your quoting, especially when you start to see the size of planets like Alderaan, Taris, Belsavis, Voss.

I really just miss being able to bump into the enemy on planets, or even people from your own side. I rarely meet anyone on my travels, and similarly I'm on a server that is full at times (Lord Adraas).

Sharding - this means when a population on one planet gets to a certain point, a second version of that planet is made. Which means planets on each server are restricted to somewhere between 150-200 players, and then they put any new people arriving to the planet in a second version of it.

I sometimes wonder if this game uses sharding, because it can't hand populations bigger than 100. I mean you only need to go to the fleet and you fps will have a massive drop. But the whole sharding concept seems absolutely stupid, espcially on planets higher level, where they are absolutely massive.

On my server at the moment, I felt like I was playing a lobby game like Diablo or LoL. Literally 13 people on Voss. Even lower level planets like Nar Shaddaa only have around 30 people, and my servers supposedly one of the biggest RP servers.

There are 251 servers with around 300,000 concurrent players. This equals an average of 1200 online on each server. That's essentially 600 players per faction. Generally half of this population is either on the fleet or drommund Kaas on my server. Meaning there's about 300 people spread across the 7 other worlds, PvP, flashpoints. Not only are server populations tiny at the moment, but the use of sharding on planets is bewildering. Most planets are bigger than zones you find in MMO's that don't use sharding. We get these massive beautifully realised worlds, with absolutely no one populating them. They need to increase population and get rid of sharding. Edit: Due to various comment's it seems the concurrent players figure was around 350,000. So that now makes almost 1400 players on average per server. Which would be around 700 players per side. (Which in fact doesn't take note of the faction imbalance). Here the link to the article - here Sidenote: Can we try and keep this discussion on topic. I'm a big fan of the game, but I do see this as an issue. Disclaimer: While I used data from the article, this is indeed speculation on the information from that site. As another poster pointed out. It is important to understand these figures are not necessarily fact, as bioware have not said whether or not the site in question is right. So I leave it up to you, to interpret those statistics and their factual merit.

251 server with 300,000 concurrent players = averagely 1200 online on each server. Then take into account BioWare's sharding of planets, and the get massive beautifully realised world, with absolutely no one populating them. They need to increase population and get rid of sharding.

It isn't just republic. They have such low population caps on servers, as well as instancing planets that there's literally no one around on this massive world they've created. Literally 13 people on Voss yesterday empire side, on a 'Heavy' server.

There seems to be just over 1000 people per server. The planets are split into instances. Until both the population cap is risen and they stop using instances, I'd say this is more like a lobby game, than an MMO.

I think it just appears in your quest log, when its available.