Estimation of average concurrent logins (top servers)

[Scorpienne]

There's been a lot of jokes about the GW2 "Rapture" that is going to leave every other game on the planet a ghost town on the 28th of this month. /shrug We'll see what happens. I'll be here crunching the data so that we can at least be discussing something factual and trying to come up with good interpretations.

 

 

Paige

[Goretzu]

This just in - the sky is not falling... I repeat, the sky is NOT falling.

 

Here's the data from 07/30-08/13. The F2P sticky went up on 7/31. So that means that nearly all the data is from after the F2P announcement.

 

8/5/2012 34,173 average concurrent logins over the past 2 weeks.

8/13/2012 33,872 average concurrent logins over the past 2 weeks.

 

So that's like a 0.09% loss... which isn't a big deal to me. You interpret that however it works for you.

 

Here's an interesting trend. Since the start of the new monitoring project (6/27/2012) the PvE players as a percent of the population has held steady at 47-48%. The RP-PvP players have held steady at about 3.8%. The PvP players have dropped from 29% to 24.6% and the RP-PvE players have risen from 19.9% to 23.7%. Before long, if the trend continues, they might become the second most populous group of players.

 

The decrease in PvP players is most dramatic in the US East (-0.22ø) and US West (-0.13ø). To be fair, US East lost some PvE players too (-0.13ø). Furthermore, when you sum it up, the PvP servers have a loss of -0.60ø and RP-PvE has a gain of +0.18ø. That's the biggest gain in the last two weeks so *something* is going on that's attractive to the RP crowd.

 

Don't know why, but that's a pretty interesting trend!

 

Check the data out here and look at the "summary stats" tab.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aregkvys5QFodFJ2OWN5U0hwaVFBYWdqUUh1WmdZUFE#gid=44

 

OP is updated (or will be in a few minutes).

 

Paige

 

 

PvP is bad in SWTOR, there's no RvR, no OPvP. the warzones are buggy, the resolve system isn't fit for purpose and there is no real PvP progression.

 

I'd imagine it's that which is doing it, a lot of people know that left early left because the engine basically couldn't handle PvP over 15 v 15ish.

 

If Bioware want to hang on to their PvP players, never mind grow them, they have some serious work ahead of them.

[Veluthurk]

There's been a lot of jokes about the GW2 "Rapture" that is going to leave every other game on the planet a ghost town on the 28th of this month. /shrug We'll see what happens. I'll be here crunching the data so that we can at least be discussing something factual and trying to come up with good interpretations.

 

 

Paige

 

I think reality will fall short of the predictions, but I will be gone for at least a week or two giving it a run.

 

Due to the genre I think WoW has more to fear. However, I know ex WoW guildies who have voiced the opinion they have too much time invested to just walk away so it will be interesting to see what actually happens.

[Scorpienne]

Again... not a whole lot to report... more of the same. There was a very slight loss, not quite one percent.

 

Most of that loss in in PvP. Right now, RP-PvE and PvP are about tied with each other for # of people. It's entirely possible that next week RP-PvE will surpass PvP.

 

Here's what that looks like since the start of monitoring.

 

Date Logins Growth

6/27/2012 32,834

6/29/2012 34,310 4.5%

7/2/2012 35,383 3.1%

7/10/2012 35,160 -0.6%

7/16/2012 35,853 2.0%

7/23/2012 35,827 -0.1%

7/30/2012 34,490 -3.7%

8/5/2012 34,173 -0.9%

8/13/2012 33,872 -0.9%

8/21/2012 33,579 -0.9%

 

Other than that... the song remains the same.

 

Paige

[VulcanLogic]

I thought it was a little unusual having higher RP pops. In the other game, those are the low pop servers. Must be Bioware.

[Fornix]

I think reality will fall short of the predictions, but I will be gone for at least a week or two giving it a run.

 

Due to the genre I think WoW has more to fear. However, I know ex WoW guildies who have voiced the opinion they have too much time invested to just walk away so it will be interesting to see what actually happens.

 

People will probably play GW2 for a few weeks till months, then either hop on to the next game, or head back to the MMO they have their time invested in. I don't really foresee GW2 as the title which will be the title many will play fulltime.

 

Instead, it'll be something to play during the maintenance times of SWTOR for example .

 

Next to that, interesting to see how relatively stable the SWTOR pop remains. Just a slight drop, however in a rather expected rate in between major patches if you ask me. Once 1.4 hits we'll probably see a good influx again.

[Cavell]

People will probably play GW2 for a few weeks till months, then either hop on to the next game, or head back to the MMO they have their time invested in. I don't really foresee GW2 as the title which will be the title many will play fulltime.

 

Instead, it'll be something to play during the maintenance times of SWTOR for example .

 

Next to that, interesting to see how relatively stable the SWTOR pop remains. Just a slight drop, however in a rather expected rate in between major patches if you ask me. Once 1.4 hits we'll probably see a good influx again.

 

"A slight drop" basically sums up this thread since it began. Taken as a whole, it's a long, long downward trend.

[islander]

Good grief. So since May 8, we've lost literally 2/3 of our players.

 

Nice tank job, Bioware. Just in case there was any doubt at all how much you've failed this game and it's player base.

 

Wonder what this will look like in a couple weeks, when post GW2 numbers come out.

[islander]

People will probably play GW2 for a few weeks till months, then either hop on to the next game, or head back to the MMO they have their time invested in. I don't really foresee GW2 as the title which will be the title many will play fulltime.

 

Instead, it'll be something to play during the maintenance times of SWTOR for example .

 

Next to that, interesting to see how relatively stable the SWTOR pop remains. Just a slight drop, however in a rather expected rate in between major patches if you ask me. Once 1.4 hits we'll probably see a good influx again.

 

I do question the mega-long term of GW2. A few months? Definitely no. I think it'll depend a lot on how fun and engaging the PvP is (all facets of it), as well as if the dynamic event system gets old, like Rift's did.

 

Then again, when you look at all the very basic things this MMO doesn't have, and everyone else does...

 

I see myself playing this part time going forward, but make no mistake - I'd have unsubbed if this wasn't Star Wars. Bioware has failed this community badly. Not even dual spec and here we are, 8 months in.

[Maltuvion]

Our guild, VII on Red Eclipse, just quit collectively for GW2. Not that it matters, but we were server #1 and EU #27 on EC HM and we're simply too tired to slug it out any longer. SWTOR has been a neverending list of empty, unfilfilled promises, shallow and easy content and generally a boring themepark-feel. From what we heard from our fellow colleagues on the server, only the mediocre guilds remain since they've 'only' farmed EC for 2-3 months. And before someone shouts "content locusts!", we only raid 2 days/week the first 3 weeks of content, then down to 1 day/week.

 

Not to derail the thread by the way; just elaborating on one of many reasons the downward spiral seems inexorable.

[Fornix]

"A slight drop" basically sums up this thread since it began. Taken as a whole, it's a long, long downward trend.

 

But the thing is, it's not. Simply look at the numbers:

 

6/27/2012 32,834

6/29/2012 34,310 4.5%

7/2/2012 35,383 3.1%

7/10/2012 35,160 -0.6%

7/16/2012 35,853 2.0%

7/23/2012 35,827 -0.1%

7/30/2012 34,490 -3.7%

8/5/2012 34,173 -0.9%

8/13/2012 33,872 -0.9%

8/21/2012 33,579 -0.9%

 

Since 1.3, we've been stable. Sure there has been a ongoing decrease in the months before that, but over the past 2 months little has happened. Heck, we're still even on a higher figure as what we were on at the 27th of June.

 

 

 

And it remains to be questioned how accurate the numbers from before that were in general, if we look at the following:

 

Date Estimated concurrent logins

5/8/2012 100,002

5/11/2012 95,859

5/14/2012 95,946

5/16/2012 85,995

5/18/2012 83,194

5/21/2012 76,255

5/23/2012 73,693

5/25/2012 72,203

5/28/2012 66,574

5/30/2012 66,323

6/1/2012 65,772

6/5/2012 63,243

6/6/2012 62,891

6/8/2012 62,601

6/11/2012 62,431

6/13/2012 62,923

6/18/2012 66,996

 

What we do see is that from late May even, the numbers have been pretty stable. What we then however notice is in one week suddenly 34k concurrent logins vanish? I say the numbers aren't trustworthy in that matter and whatever figure is the true figure, it remains stable.

 

So no, that downward trend? I'm not seeing it. I think we've reached a plateau and have been hanging on that for the past quarter of the year. Sure we're not growing yet, but we're not shrinking any further either.

[Scorpienne]

What we then however notice is in one week suddenly 34k concurrent logins vanish? I say the numbers aren't trustworthy in that matter and whatever figure is the true figure, it remains stable.

 

Fella, that *whole* thing was explaned to death. I quit counting the 191 origin servers that week because I cannot reliably estimate the population of a "light" server where the phi is rarely or never greater than 1. That means that I'm ignoring between maybe 0 and maybe 90,000 players. Check point 5C in the OP and the bright yellow TL;DR statement at the top.

 

Check out THIS thread (LINK HERE) for a beaten-like-a-dead-horse discussion of that line of reasoning.

 

If you think these numbers aren't trustworthy, show me where you think they're wrong and I'll happily alter the analysis if you find something I've misinterpreted or overlooked.

 

Paige

Edited August 21, 2012 by Scorpienne

[Valkirus]

But the thing is, it's not. Simply look at the numbers:

 

6/27/2012 32,834

6/29/2012 34,310 4.5%

7/2/2012 35,383 3.1%

7/10/2012 35,160 -0.6%

7/16/2012 35,853 2.0%

7/23/2012 35,827 -0.1%

7/30/2012 34,490 -3.7%

8/5/2012 34,173 -0.9%

8/13/2012 33,872 -0.9%

8/21/2012 33,579 -0.9%

 

Since 1.3, we've been stable. Sure there has been a ongoing decrease in the months before that, but over the past 2 months little has happened. Heck, we're still even on a higher figure as what we were on at the 27th of June.

 

 

 

The reason there are more logins now versus June 27th, is because of the transfers. Players who had not been playing much started to transfer and then begin to play more often after that date. But even that chart...shows a steady, but small decline each month in logins sence July 16th. And if what I have read is true...that is 10% of the players logon during a given time, that would mean the players playing now are in the 333 - 334k range. Far below what it was back in say Feb of this year. Personally I think the sub numbers are below the 500k even, now the 6 month subs are over.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Valkirus

[AshenK]

The reason there are more logins now versus June 27th, is because of the transfers. Players who had not been playing much started to transfer and then begin to play more often after that date. But even that chart...shows a steady, but small decline each month in logins sence July 16th. And if what I have read is true...that is 10% of the players logon during a given time, that would mean the players playing now are in the 333 - 334k range. Far below what it was back in say Feb of this year. Personally I think the sub numbers are below the 500k even, now the 6 month subs are over.

The game is under 200k that's my money.

 

GW2 is going to take about half of that. I'd say after a week or two more once word of mouth gets around about how great it is. I really don't see TOR at this point even making it to F2P. The Dev's are not talking anymore, there's no real plan other then saying "soon" about three times a day.

[Trenter]

The game is under 200k that's my money.

 

GW2 is going to take about half of that. I'd say after a week or two more once word of mouth gets around about how great it is. I really don't see TOR at this point even making it to F2P. The Dev's are not talking anymore, there's no real plan other then saying "soon" about three times a day.

 

Of course you're gonna bet on something completely unrealistic when you don't actually have anything to lose...

[Symbea]

The game is under 200k that's my money.

 

GW2 is going to take about half of that. I'd say after a week or two more once word of mouth gets around about how great it is. I really don't see TOR at this point even making it to F2P. The Dev's are not talking anymore, there's no real plan other then saying "soon" about three times a day.

 

You think the game has lost an estimated 400k subscribers in a month despite these stats showing the drop has been very minimal and pretty much stable?

 

Well I'll happily take your money.

[Shingara]

More then 1 and less then a million, anything inbetween is guestimation. /thread.

[islander]

They said a couple weeks ago they were North of 500k. I believe that. They can't lie. They didn't give specifics though, I suspect it's because it's CLOSE to 500k. Like 600k.

 

If they actually had closer to a million, they'd give that number. 850k sounds better then "between 500k and a million". However, 550k does not.

 

How much will GW2 take away? We'll see - but I bet it's not quite as much as fanboys think. People like me will still goof around in this game part time. It's only 15 bucks. Still, my 6 hours a week playing here make me virtually invisible as far as keeping a healthy population goes.

 

My guess is they are going to start having primetime 'standard' servers in about a month.

Post merging. In fact, I bet Fatman (my server) will be one of the first. Then they are just going to have to merge down from 12 US servers to 6, and watch those bleed out over time, just like the current ones have.

 

server merges don't fix a second rate game that's still second rate 8 months after release. It's gotten this far based on IP alone.

Edited August 22, 2012 by islander

[islander]

3 of 9 east coast servers still at standard population - 8:25pm eastern time.

[Symbea]

3 of 9 east coast servers still at standard population - 8:25pm eastern time.

 

Seems to support Scorpienne's stats that PvP is decreasing. Good to see RP is reasonably popular though. Heavy RP servers is encouraging as they used to suffer.

[islander]

Seems to support Scorpienne's stats that PvP is decreasing. Good to see RP is reasonably popular though. Heavy RP servers is encouraging as they used to suffer.

 

It's going to drop like a rock in about a week, sadly.

[Divona]

I didnt belive torstatus when i opened today morning. That was with EU servers population. What just happened in just couple days. i know PVP servers are in decline for weeks now and are LIGHT most time but also all servers dropping except one The progenitor.

 

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/eu/stats click server stats.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Divona

[Skyzen]

These estimations are flawed. I have characters on both The Begeren Colony and The Harbinger. I re-rolled from Begeren to the Harbinger a few months ago when I felt Begeren was low population.

 

In any case, now that I play on both servers, the status of HEAVY is very different from one server to the other.

 

On The Harbinger we usually have 2 instances of the fleet going. If you do a /who with level rangers of 1-10, 11-20, etc... you will find significantly higher numbers on The Harbinger. Begeren can sometimes even display VERY HEAVY whereas The Harbinger, at that same time, will only be HEAVY. In comparison, there are only a little above 100 players on the Begeren fleet and two instances with one in the 240+ range on The Harbinger.

 

The population caps on the servers is vastly different so to extrapolate data form the estimations is flawed. To see for yourself, log into either of the two servers and do some /who's with level ranges.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Skyzen

[Scorpienne]

The population caps on the servers is vastly different so to extrapolate data form the estimations is flawed. To see for yourself, log into either of the two servers and do some /who's with level ranges.

 

I'm so glad you brought that up! That is, in fact, EXACTLY how we determined what each level band was. If you'll carefully review points 3 and 7 in the OP, you'll see the math.

 

We have 90+ measurements on the destination servers. LINK HERE. The data is there for you and everyone else to do independent analyses.

 

If you'd like to help out by doing surveys of your server, then that would be fabulous! More data only improves the numbers!

 

LINK TO SURVEY

 

 

Paige

[Cavell]

I'm so glad you brought that up! That is, in fact, EXACTLY how we determined what each level band was. If you'll carefully review points 3 and 7 in the OP, you'll see the math.

 

We have 90+ measurements on the destination servers. LINK HERE. The data is there for you and everyone else to do independent analyses.

 

If you'd like to help out by doing surveys of your server, then that would be fabulous! More data only improves the numbers!

 

LINK TO SURVEY

 

 

Paige

 

Still not going to refine the methodology to not undercount 50s, huh?