Camelot is far from dead at the moment.

[Overdriven]

Just logged in. 2:34 PM GMT.

14,375 players online. Some servers hitting the 1.5k/1.8k mark.

Prydwen and Camlann the lowest servers. Pryd has over 700 people on it, and Camlann 500+ - This is still okay ;p

Will like to look at this later, since it's no where near prime time and some people have lives.

 

[Ctuchik]

that is mostly due to the WoW account creation pages were down most of the evening yesterday and i hear that ppl are still having problem creating a account

 

[Coldbeard]

lets hope the wow problems continue ..

mwhah xD

 

[gervaise]

Either those numbers are wrong or the following site is incorrect:

daoc.darkzone.net/region/eu/

This is a good source of information. Looking at the site for Saturday between 2.00 and 3.00 the number is about 5000. The peak number around 6.00pm was 14300 (touching 1600 briefly alittle later).

Frankly hard to believe that there were 14300 on at 2.34 GMT - lots of French and Germans would have to be staing up very late indeed. Conclusion: GoA glitch.

16000 peak = 20% decline. 14300 - wich it was mostly = 30% decline.
US numbers continued to fall for about 6 weeksd after launch.

Solution: clustering needed NOW. Chance of happening any time soon .... not good.

 

[Daedalus]

You seem to connect numbers even though there's no absolute relation. And you seem to get to a conclusion, even though you admit that the data might be flawed.

Looking at Prydwyn, there's only been a 227 drop since last friday. And guess what, that's only roughly 100 more than last week, before the WoW release. Some people have other things to do on their friday & saturday's, which is probably why those days show a lower number than the other days.

How about looking again in, let's say, a month?

 

[cHodAX]

You seem to connect numbers even though there's no absolute relation. And you seem to get to a conclusion, even though you admit that the data might be flawed.

Looking at Prydwyn, there's only been a 227 drop since last friday. And guess what, that's only roughly 100 more than last week, before the WoW release. Some people have other things to do on their friday & saturday's, which is probably why those days show a lower number than the other days.

How about looking again in, let's say, a month?

100% spot on, there is no way to make any kind of judgement based on a couple of days. We will know more in a month but 2 months will be better as the Catacombs release can then be factored in.

 

[Cadelin]

Frankly hard to believe that there were 14300 on at 2.34 GMT - lots of French and Germans would have to be staing up very late indeed. Conclusion: GoA glitch.

You will notice in the first post he said 2.34 PM GMT which is just after lunch time not middle of the night time.
Conclusion: :kissit:

 

[Chimaira]

Hopefully GoA speeds up. Newly patched in US and nothing close to cata yet on EU :<

 

[Penlid]

1.74B on US servers and im loving it

 

[Gorrion]

one good thing about players trying out wow is that it will very likely mean that there is 1 less buffbot in the game aswell.
It is still beyond me why buffs should have such range, that you can even now sail across the ocean to the other realm and still have you'r IM A NOOB buff's" going.
Is wow a buffbot heaven aswell ?

 

[enkor]

camlann is dead, sorry

 

[Helme]

"A fact: Buffbot players will never be more than RR1L1"

More like, unbuffbotted players will never be more then 1l1. I don't got a bot, and don't plan on getting one but I have nothing against buffbots myself, if I wanted I could get one just like every single one of the people thats playing, you dont need that little chocolade bit, that extra beer on the pub etc. to survive its just a question about what you think is most important.

And to stay on topic, no DAoC isn't dieing its far from dieing.

 

[Digitracker]

one good thing about players trying out wow is that it will very likely mean that there is 1 less buffbot in the game aswell.
It is still beyond me why buffs should have such range, that you can even now sail across the ocean to the other realm and still have you'r IM A NOOB buff's" going.
Is wow a buffbot heaven aswell ?

You are not allowed to have a buffbot. ie. having a 2nd character stuck to you AFK (Buffs are on timers).

 

[Phoebee-v-]

camlann is dead, sorry

Oh thats so sad when you still can make 50-100k rps on a nice evening....Far from dead imo :wub:

 

[enkor]

Oh thats so sad when you still can make 50-100k rps on a nice evening....Far from dead imo :wub:

yes because being able to camp toa with a fg and chain <the dominion> or something shows that the server is still alive... oh wait, no

 

[Minau]

acually, 600-650 players on Camlann is (wich it has been last 2-3 nites) 50-100 more then usuall.
Then add that maybe 80-90%(?) is PKing, id say Camlann is far from dead.

 

[enkor]

Then add that maybe 80-90%(?) is PKing, id say Camlann is far from dead.

do you actually play this server or?

 

[Belomar]

I am taking bets that this gervaise clown is a WoW Europe employee.

 

[Dreami]

Yesterday I checked around 21cet Excalibur had 1.5k players, pre-WOW it used to be 1.6k around 20cet or so.

 

[Danya]

You are not allowed to have a buffbot. ie. having a 2nd character stuck to you AFK (Buffs are on timers).

AFAIK there's nothing against having AFK players stuck to you. You aren't allowed to macro buffs though. And buffs are so spread that it's not worth running a second account.

 

[cHodAX]

I am taking bets that this gervaise clown is a WoW Europe employee.

Nope. He is a Prydwen player since start of retail, he is just very disenchanted with DAoC which is understandable.

 

[GReaper]

Far from dead, but the population has dropped quite badly.

http://daoc.darkzone.net/region/eu/

Monday 7th February had a peak of over 21,500, Monday 15th February has a peak of 16,702. Nearly a drop of 5,000 players.

 

[Syri]

Is wow a buffbot heaven aswell ?

nope, buffs are spread over all classes, so not one class has 'all' the buffs. and they're all on timers. so in other words, you would need 5 accounts, with the others all on auto follow, to be able to get all the buffs. oh, and they don't make anywhere near as much difference either, just a slight edge, rather than turning crappy chars into completely elite chars.

 

[Syri]

oh, and while we're on the subject of population, anyone remember when there were near 3000 players on excal? and hardly any of those were bots? ah, memories....

 

[Fana]

oh, and while we're on the subject of population, anyone remember when there were near 3000 players on excal? and hardly any of those were bots? ah, memories....

mmm... summer 2003...

 

[Coldbeard]

oh, and while we're on the subject of population, anyone remember when there were near 3000 players on excal? and hardly any of those were bots? ah, memories....

*sigh* yeah =/

 

[cHodAX]

http://daoc.darkzone.net/region/eu/

Down another almost 1000 players a week on average over the last 2 weeks and close to 6000 since the end of January, I am begining to wonder wether Catacombs is going to be able to make the required impact. Player numbers are now almost half what they were when DAoC was in it's prime 18 months ago, it really is a worrying trend.

 

[Shanaia]

all this is completely pointless .. we're still in the first (free I might add) month after the release of WoW .. and we're also in the month before a big add on ...

Those are 2 mayor factors that usually have a negative influence on the populations... both of which will largely be gone in about 6 or 8 weeks.

I keep repeating it ... look at our population in 2 or 3 months .. if it's still crap then I'll completely agree with you .. DAoC is dying ... but drawing conclusions from the current situation is like taking a temperature on the coldest day off the year on Hawai and then saying that Hawai should get rid of all it's beaches and change into a skiresort.

 

[cHodAX]

all this is completely pointless .. we're still in the first (free I might add) month after the release of WoW .. and we're also in the month before a big add on ...

Those are 2 mayor factors that usually have a negative influence on the populations... both of which will largely be gone in about 6 or 8 weeks.

I keep repeating it ... look at our population in 2 or 3 months .. if it's still crap then I'll completely agree with you .. DAoC is dying ... but drawing conclusions from the current situation is like taking a temperature on the coldest day off the year on Hawai and then saying that Hawai should get rid of all it's beaches and change into a skiresort.

Normally I would agree with you bud but bear this in mind, of those who have gone to play WoW how many have come back already or even come on here to say that WoW wasn't all they expected? The vast majority of those who left to play WoW are enjoying it very much and with the Battlegrounds expansion only a few months away I really can't see many people coming back, infact the opposite seems to be happening, more people are leaving daily and the figures show that quite clearly.

Yes people 'may' come back when they hit level 60 and get bored with the end game but the Battlegrounds expansion will more than likely overcome that hurdle. I can only speak for my friends and guildmates when I say that none of those that are playing WoW plan to come back for Catacombs, plenty of people are still playing DAoC purely because they want to try Catacombs but if the server figures continue to hemorrhage at the current rate how long will it be before even the diehards get sick of playing on servers that are only populated at 1/4 capacity? All I am doing is pointing out a worrying trend, I expected many people to leave initially but I didn't expect there to be such a large continual loss of players as seems to be the case, it isn't a trend that the U.S. servers experienced. They lost 10,000 off the daily average in the space of 2 weeks and then the server populations stabilised, all I am pointing out is that the E.U. now has an average of 16,000 and falling yet it still hasn't hit a plateau, I don't see how they can afford to lose many more and keep servers like Prydwen viable.

Oh and for the record I don't play WoW although I may do in the near future, I was going to give Catacombs a try but there is no way I coming back to play on a server with only 700 people on, Prydwen always felt quiet with 1500 and I would hate to see it with half that number so I guess I will wait and hope that the DAoC diehards are right.

 

[IainC]

Normally I would agree with you bud but bear this in mind, of those who have gone to play WoW how many have come back already or even come on here to say that WoW wasn't all they expected? The vast majority of those who left to play WoW are enjoying it very much and with the Battlegrounds expansion only a few months away I really can't see many people coming back, infact the opposite seems to be happening, more people are leaving daily and the figures show that quite clearly.

Yes people 'may' come back when they hit level 60 and get bored with the end game but the Battlegrounds expansion will more than likely overcome that hurdle. I can only speak for my friends and guildmates when I say that none of those that are playing WoW plan to come back for Catacombs, plenty of people are still playing DAoC purely because they want to try Catacombs but if the server figures continue to hemorrhage at the current rate how long will it be before even the diehards get sick of playing on servers that are only populated at 1/4 capacity? All I am doing is pointing out a worrying trend, I expected many people to leave initially but I didn't expect there to be such a large continual loss of players as seems to be the case, it isn't a trend that the U.S. servers experienced. They lost 10,000 off the daily average in the space of 2 weeks and then the server populations stabilised, all I am pointing out is that the E.U. now has an average of 16,000 and falling yet it still hasn't hit a plateau, I don't see how they can afford to lose many more and keep servers like Prydwen viable.

Oh and for the record I don't play WoW although I may do in the near future, I was going to give Catacombs a try but there is no way I coming back to play on a server with only 700 people on, Prydwen always felt quiet with 1500 and I would hate to see it with half that number so I guess I will wait and hope that the DAoC diehards are right.

It's not quite as bleak as you make it out to be. Many, many people are waiting for Catacombs to launch and we will see a large number of returnees coming back to the game to see what the new expansion is like. As well as this we are also expecting a significant number of brand new players to join.

Currently the servers are quiet in anticipation of this and as a result, those who like busy servers are staying away. It's a self-perpetuating situation. The servers are quiet so people take a break, this means less people on the servers and so the perception grows that the game is in decline. When Catacombs launches, there wil be a lot of people on the servers trying out the new expansion. Many of these will be the people who were concerned about server numbers, because the servers will be busier again, they are more likely to stay and the overall populations will rise again following the same argument as before only reversed.

This isn't just optimism. It's happened before every major expansion so far, there's been a lull just prior to launch and then a masive upswing in server populations following release. As Catacombs is probably the most eagerly awaited expansion for the game ever, I see no reason why this should be different even in the face of the increased competition we are facing. Add to this factor the huge upswing in marketing effort and much stronger distribution partnerships (I was in the meetings with the marketing, PR and distribution agencies, I know how much money and effort is being poured into this release) and I think it's far too early to write off DAoC just yet. There will be an impact from the new competitors but DAoC is still in a strong position which will get stronger after the release of Catacombs.