A year of DAoC graphs!

[GReaper]

http://daoc.darkzone.net/

The graphs have now been going for a year!

Some observations:

- The European population is quite stable and has been fairly consistent since April. The servers dropped quite badly during February and March for the WoW release, but the situation improved towards the end of March.
- The US population shows a steady decline after taking a major loss from the October/November WoW release. The launch of the classic servers did increase the population, but the steady decline is still there.
- The Spanish server was a complete waste of time. What will happen to a server which can't even reach 200 players?
- All Classic servers have dropped in population quite a bit. A drop from 3500 to 1500 is quite bad for Lamorak, Ector has halved in population. Gareth isn't doing too badly, would be nice to see the population stay at a stable 2500.
- Mordred is in need of help, as well as Gaheris.

My personal thoughts...

Mythic needs to stop creating so many different server types, they should concentrate on making the one true version of DAoC as good as possible. Was there really any point in a "classic" server which has Catacombs on it, with all the Darkness Rising abilities coming soon?

GOA being careful with the selection of new servers has worked well so far. A single classic server for all 3 languages may satisfy the need for classic without harming the rest of the population too much.

What are your thoughts on the past year of DAoC?

 

[Amanita]

That was an interesting read GR, thanks Your interpretation is pretty much in line with mine so I don't have anything else to add

 

[Wilburn]

what are the big holes in Prydwens year graph


wait

 

[Zedenz]

Looking good GR!

I agree with your comments on server types though, a PvE only server is nice for the pve types but the other ones are simply a waste of time. Classic or "DAoC but without TOA" as predicted by myself and probably many others, was a big let down to those who hailed it as the saviour of DAoC.

Just take a look at the Lamo graph lol, you could roll rocks down that slide.

Population (on Prydwen at least) seems fine to me

I tried to hand you some reputation points but it seems I already have done recently and must spread the "love" before awarding you reputation again.

Z

 

[Coldbeard]

Interesting read indeed, must say I would think there would be a much more clear decline in server numbers over time but at least prydwen has proved to be quite stabile, even looks like numbers increasing after the "little accident" if I read it right.

 

[Ctuchik]

even looks like numbers increasing after the "little accident" if I read it right.

yep, starting to pop up over the 1k mark again.

 

[Shike]

agree to a certain point but..

Classic if it was truly classic would have been quite nice.

I totally agree that they should focus on making the existing game as good as possible though, and I also wish that we euros could get our voices through more, atm the yanks have most to say about things and that is, quite frankly, really bad since a huge majority of the loudmouths over there lacks a brain.

All in all I'm quite sure of one thing, DAoC is dying in US, it doesnt have many years left in it anymore sadly, nomatter of what expansions Mythic release, people have lost their trust in the companys way of running the game I think. Sure they have taken some pretty good decisions but, also quite a few terrible ones aswell.

 

[acei]

Nice graphs. Good to see the server populations for EU being so stable. For US it looks like they've lost almost 10k users .

The Cumbria (Spanish) server is a complete and utter waste of resources the server on a daily basis has never breached 120 users. Yet they have to waste time translating each patch for that server.

 

[Thadius]

Just thinking, if Mythic finally quit on daoc, will goa still keep daoc up or will that go too?

 

[Gamah]

I had a dream last night that I tried to connect to Prydwen and I got a "Server Full" message ...

 

[Crookshanks]

Actually I think I can see a small increase trend in population for Prydwen since March (as much as the US is declinging anyway):
http://daoc.darkzone.net/server/eu/prydwen/

I hope Mythic put more effort into developments for the game. Having tried a few mmo's now, I have the impression the GOA team look after their customers better than others, some of which don't seem to give two hoots about rollbacks, character problems, game imbalances.

 

[old.windforce]

As i see what classic servers did to Mordred i can only cry over 1 comming to Europe and killing the one non-zerg server there is in Europe

According to people in guild who played classic it sucks donkeyballs

- ToA is replaced by even more mind numbing Darkspire raids
- Lack of cure nearsight and group cure disease makes certain set-ups more or less mandatory
- The lack of nifty ToA shit warps us back in the days of Dark Age of Tankalot (which might be not so bad)
- People who think RvR was shit will still think it is shit on classic
- English servers will suffer population loss, Camlann will drop to 200 people primetime and the really fun 8v8 in hib classic will never happen again

The population graphs really rox

 

[bottler]

if they made a classic server with si only

Classic,si and OF i would move there as my main server no dout.

Btw i also have a good suggestion to replace buffbot.

Why not let each have buffs like the vampiir do?
problem solved

 

[Awarkle]

Why not let each have buffs like the vampiir do?
problem solved

because some classes would become alot more powerful than others.

while other classes would seriously be at a disadvantage. (any of the classes that have self only improvment buffs) Buffsheering classes cant sheer vampiir type self buffs.

Vamps are tough but no way unkillable

 

[Svartmetall]

Mythic needs to stop creating so many different server types, they should concentrate on making the one true version of DAoC as good as possible.

/agree

"Classic" server is sillly, just fix the things with TOA that need fixing and move on. No need to muddy the waters.

 

[Esselinithia]

You say, Gaheris needs help, imho the ideal populatuion for gaheris is lower, since you don't have to meet people you can't contact. You can build groups, plan raids, get enough people, and unlike most servers, it shows some sign of recovery.

You say, EU population is stable, I say, it means, with 2 new languages added to the fold, with a new market, it looks stable. Even if the servers are small, their combined size is like size of prydwen. The promises of clustering, and also promises of classic servers got some people back in the fold, but as you noticed it is a temporary increase in player count. Also 1.78 is supposed to make a small population bump, which we should see.

 

[Gazon]

Mythic & GOA don't learn their lessons.

Classic servers Europe, as they did in US, will interest alot of players but an equal amount will not be interested at all, resulting in a split of the population and lower pops on existing servers.
Overall pop didn't increase. Only minimal amount of lasting new subscriptions.
In the US they could cluster everything into oblivion to compensate. In Europe, there's nothing more to cluster.

Newsflash: low pop isn't doing this game any good.

I would like to see the results of the official poll on the classic server. Alot of people interested, I'm sure. But I expect an equal amount screaming a bit fat NO just for this reason.

 

[GReaper]

Good point made by Esselinithia, the EU servers graph from mid-April and onwards includes the Spanish and Italian servers. Even if you reduce the overall EU figures by about 1,000 to compensate for this - the servers aren't doing too bad!