English Servers numbers - launch to start 2004

[gervaise]

Noticed a few threads / comments on Excal / Prydwin population numbers. I originally posted the following on Febrauary 26th for posterity. Enjoy.

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ToA has/is just going live in Europe.

The GoA Camelot Europe web site (usually)has server population numbers going back to July2002. The numbers are available by hour /day /week /month /year, by server and by language group and by total. There are graphs as well which I will mention later. (I will add however that GoA are running with a minimal home page at the moment whilst ToA registrations are being processed.)

There are 2 (standard) English servers: Excalibur and Prydwen. By way of a pre-ToA benchmark these are the peak monthly figures for Excal, Pryd and (Excal + Pryd).
In addition I looked at the daily (and some hourly) peak figures to assess the 'population trend.

Numbers:
Jul2002 Excal 2108, Pryd 1484, Ex+Pryd 3579 -
Aug2002 Excal 2303, Pryd 1615, Ex+Pryd 3890 UP
Sep2002 Excal 2309, Pryd 1613, Ex+Pryd 3846 DOWN
Oct2002 Excal 2312, Pryd 1710, Ex+Pryd 3896 UP
Nov2002 Excal 2439, Pryd 1716, Ex+Pryd 4133 LEVEL
Dec2002 Excal 2306, Pryd 1626, Ex+Pryd 3902 DOWN
Jan2003 Excal 2699, Pryd 2016, Ex+Pryd 4633 UP
Feb2003 Excal 2906, Pryd 2214, Ex+Pryd 5104 LEVEL
Mar2003 Excal 3000, Pryd 2223, Ex+Pryd 5196 LEVEL
Apr2003 Excal 3076, Pryd 2267, Ex+Pryd 5336 LEVEL
May2003 Excal 3055, Pryd 2188, Ex+Pryd 5200 DOWN
Jun2003 Excal 2636, Pryd 2346, Ex+Pryd 4706 DOWN
Jul2003 Excal 2784, Pryd 1968, Ex+Pryd 4607 LEVEL
Aug2003 Excal 2888, Pryd 2050, Ex+Pryd 4930 LEVEL
Sep2003 Excal 2731, Pryd 2023, Ex+Pryd 4694 LEVEL
Oct2003 Excal 2833, Pryd 2070, Ex+Pryd 4860 LEVEL
Nov2003 Excal 2818, Pryd 2021, Ex+Pryd 4813 LEVEL
Dec2003 Excal 2748, Pryd 1858, Ex+Pryd 4551 DOWN
Jan2004 Excal 2847, Pryd 2317, Ex+Pryd 4722 LEVEL

Notes:
1. The Excal peak figure for June2003 (of 3500) and the January 2004 peak figure for Pryd (of 2702) have been discounted as the other server was down (outliers in statistics speak). The next highest numbers have been used.
2. Data for all of January 2004 is not yet available.

Observations:
1. The release of SI (21Feb2003) in Europe boosted numbers initially by about 25%. Numbers fell back after 2-3 months leaving a net gain of c. 10%
2. After SI had 'settled down' population numbers remained remarkably static. Could be a) Same people or b) new subscribers = people leaving.
3. Christmas 2002 was good; Christmas 2003 no impact. (NB. Europe does not have Thanksgiving).
4. I looked at the French and German language servers. The above numbers were representative of the other servers.

* * * * * * * * *

If the numbers I have seen in the posts are accurate putting Excal at 2000 and Prydwin at 1000 (And I do not know) this would represent a huge drop over the course of 2004 to date.

 

[xxManiacxx]

Pryd is seldom over 1400ppl prime-time when I have looked.

1200-1400 is the most common numbers I see

Edit: This is after ToA was released

 

[Tilda]

The numbers arn't dropping, people are just making a mountain out of a molehill as half the population are on gorre.

Tilda

 

[Ovi1]

The numbers arn't dropping, people are just making a mountain out of a molehill as half the population are on gorre.

Tilda

Gorre is capped at 2000 people from all 12 servers. An average of 166 per server. Either Excal and Pryd are testing more than the other 10 servers, or the population is back down to the Jul 2002 figures.

Then if we realise that in Jul 2002 hardly anyone had a bot, now nearly everyone does the active population is significantly lower.

Would rather make amountain out of a molehill than make a molehill out of a mountain, at least I won't be let down if I'm wrong.

Numbers aside, Hib/Pryd certainly feels almost deserted a lot of the time. I certainly wouldn't describe it as a thriving community at the moment.

 

[cHodAX]

The numbers are dropping and have been fairly consistently for almost a year, this has been masked by the deluge of buffbot accounts. No one can deny that there are now far more buffbots around than a year ago and yet if anything the server population would have gone up if there was not a problem, the opposite has happend and even with Gorre factorerd in the English servers are still well down. That is not to say that it is a long term trend, perhaps many are just bored and waiting on NF, or away beta testing other games like many of my friends.

 

[Draylor]

The numbers arn't dropping, people are just making a mountain out of a molehill as half the population are on gorre.

Not true. Besides Gorre only affects the last couple of weeks.

The numbers started showing a noticeable decrease earlier this year: which is surprisingly enough just when GOA removed the long term server population charts from their website.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

As has been said, come SI and even more for TOA, as far as real players are concerned, the numbers have dropped. I would estimate that since SI came along, 1/3rd are now BB or second accounts.

These figures also do not show the UK populus, which is dwarfed by the number of scandinavians and other euro countries, as well as Russia.
Advertising in the UK is grim, as is the supply of the game, more and more players enter shops liek Game and Woolworths among others to find a copy, to get the reply "wassat?". Part of decent advertising is shelf space in a gaming shop, fill a shelf and ppl will look, put on one copy and the spotty comic fanboi will put it to the back behind a copy of UO, as he leaves the shop.

Again I ask if there is anyone out there who works for one of these advertising outlets that could pump DAoC out to a better audience.

 

[GReaper]

Only started these graphs 3.5 weeks ago, but still:

Prydwen
Excalibur

Numbers have dropped slightly with Gorre, although its nothing dramatic.

 

[Draylor]

Interesting graphs.

Some of the numbers you try to track are rather meaningless (average number of players online over the whole day?), the maximum user count varies across the 3 graphs (surely it should be consistent?) so maybe these could use a little tweaking: but the numbers themselves are the important part.

Regardless it shows the numbers being down on this time last year as expected.

 

[Fana]

Well is it really so surprising that the population of a 3 year old game is droping? Its only natural that people want to try other games after such a long time (in game terms). This game will fail eventually, it wont go on forever and ever - but in my oppinion that day is still a couple of years off. Many people are waiting for other games, but many of those will come back to DAoC when the novelty of those games wear off. Not least when daoc has something new to offer (i.e. NF, then Catacombs, then the next thing etc). I fully expect to see an increase in pop in the first month or two after NF, then it likely will drop down to slightly above what we see today over the next few months, then decline some more in the time immedietly before Catacombs, then rise again when Cata goes live here. At the moment we are in a lull just before a new major change to the game.

That beeing said it is still a shame that the population *is* droping, when it could likely be maintained and/or increased with more commercials, and more time for this excellent game in the spotlight. I really hope that a big push in this departement will coincide with the 1.71 or 1.72 patches where the game gets alil easier for new players - that could really boost the population again.

Oh and if you want more people in the game, try to help a newbie or two if you see them. They need it and will likely wanna stay if they find a friendly community - the communty of today is pretty far from how open and friendly it was say a year ago.

 

[gervaise]

Interesting graphs.

Some of the numbers you try to track are rather meaningless (average number of players online over the whole day?), the maximum user count varies across the 3 graphs (surely it should be consistent?) so maybe these could use a little tweaking: but the numbers themselves are the important part.

Regardless it shows the numbers being down on this time last year as expected.

The numbers are very difficult to track but these are the sort of chart that GoA used to publish. The breakdowns went even further but you began to see trends. I spent some time going over the daily pictures before deciding that the numbers 'had a value' even if they didn't show the whole picture e.g. buffbots. Anticipating a post-ToA debate I decided to record some of the information .... I didn't expect GoA to remove the data when I did.

As mentioned I also checked over the French and German server population numbers and these revealed the same month by month trend for both server and total population.

What I realised after posting was that - if the German + French numbers of c. 18,000 are accurate then this is still true! European population earlier in the year was 32,000 maybe 35,000. I remember wondering in a thread whether European numbers were surpassing US numbers.

Keeping the numbers top level:
Start of year: 35,000 which 5,000 were UK so 30,000 French and German.
Now: 21,000 of which 3,000 UK 18,000 French and German.

This suggests that not only are UK numbers down c. 40% but that German+French numbers are down 40%.

Maybe the %drop in French population isn't exactly the same as the drop in the German population. Maybe there were only 25,000 French + German at the start of the year and the drop is only 25% It doesn't mask the fact that the numbers (+ income) is sharply down.

 

[Ovi1]

Knowing that the French and German populations are also down is actually a little comfort. Kind of have the feeling, "Thank god it isn't just us"

Given that I play on the lowest population realm on the lowest Population server (with the possible exception of Carnac I think...) it still doesn't look good for the life of the realm.

We have also yet to go through the NF release, which lost quite a few players on the US servers. What is more annoying, GoA/mythic had the opportunity of going straight to 1.71 on the Eu servers, but wouldn't because that would admit they messed up 1.70 :/

 

[Esoteric]

People coming back to DAoC from other mmo's is a myth. Many folk who have spent 2 years or so in the game have the feeling of completion. They will move to WoW or EQ2 then onto the next lot thats if SOE or Blizzard screw up.

The only way I can see people coming back to DAoC is if a decent add-on is made (with good magazine reviews and advertising) and or GOA pull their fingers out with regards to additional servers.

Im out of the game I can't see myself returning, many of the people who made the game for me play little, don't play anymore or are moving to a new game.

The concepts of maintaining a player database are simple but can be hard to implement. It seems blizzard and SOE kinda of grab this with their new games. 1) Adverts for both EQ2 and WoW. Current in many of the UKs large gaming media magazines e.g December issue of PC format a two full page advert on the back of the frontcover. 2) Expand the game with add-ons i.e more content whilst listening to the community and by providing interesting new server types. 3) Customer service e.g ingame support for an mmo is almost essential.

GOA don't seem to advertise, they don't have ingame support, patch late and don't provide new servers that the community pine for.

Their cost of operation seems minimalistic from my point of view, this of course is in order to make larger profits. Pretty much like a cash cow, set it up, launch it, let WoM multiply sit on it till it dies.

A long term operation with a long term strategy would behave differently and I believe in the long run make more money which in my opinion are what WoW and SoE are trying to do.

DAoC was for me a great game but not anymore though some people probably do still enjoy it.

 

[Draylor]

The numbers are very difficult to track but these are the sort of chart that GoA used to publish

Yes they are. The major difference is that on the long-term charts GOA tracked the maximum user count for the day/week/month, your tracking the average throughout the period.

As a result your 'yearly' graph is of fairly limited use - IMHO at least.

 

[Tualatin]

ALOT of people are on camlann nowadays.. and still more people planning on making a start there..

Try to make some numbers, including camlann (and gorre), now.. after NF (byebye Gorre), and 2-3month after NF..

I think camlann will see a 10-20% increase where these ppl come from exca & pryd.. so a minor decrease there..

Dunno how the german & frenchies think about that tho

Ps. I'd make the numbers myself, if I had the time, which i don't have

 

[GReaper]

I've updated the graph output a bit (to please Draylor/gervaise ). The yearly graph shows the maximum users too. The code was mainly copied from some old UO shard graphs, however luckily for these graphs I am monitoring the maximum users.

I didn't bother showing the maximum for anything other than yearly graphs as they hardly varied from the average.

Hopefully they'll be a bit more useful now.

 

[Mad]

The only way I can see people coming back to DAoC is if a decent add-on is made (with good magazine reviews and advertising) and or GOA pull their fingers out with regards to additional servers.

GOA are adding a new Spanish server next spring (it's in last Friday's news). Hopefully GOA will market Catacombs properly in all EU countries, especially here in the UK.

 

[Flimgoblin]

catacombs is looking like a very good expansion for new players - with luck GOA will either give that useless UK distributor/advertiser the boot or kick them into being decent.

I remember seeing adverts in the cinemas (on billboards not the film trailers heh) for SI and stuff in magazines but there was nothing about ToA

 

[Ormorof]

i heard the catacombs classes will be more "self-sufficient" ie wont need a bot neccesarily, will this mean they are just going to be insanely overpowered or have health/power/end self regens? (my biggest gripe with DAoC, the downtime, argh! )

 

[Weylander]

Game unbalance, new people wandering around deserted zones, forums full of arguments, buffbots and lack of things to do are all part of the population going stale or down.
Had enough myself, and NF and Cats don't really make me want to stay.

 

[gervaise]

I think your graphs are excellent Greaper I was just agreeing that a) they are very much like the graphs that GoA used to publish and b) are hard to interpret. They do show trends though: both daily and weekly and - over a longer period - present info on the overall population. Great stuff; good job.

The reason I recorded the numbers earlier in the tear was to provide a solid base against which to compare any 'post-ToA' speculation. These graphs provide solid trend data and avoid the population is up / no its down type 'disagreements'.

Time will tell whether EQ2, SWG expansion, FFXI expansion, etc will pressure the PvE population. Guildwars, Lineage2 expansion, City of Villains the RvR population. (NCSoft announced November 4th that Lineage 2 launches in Germany this month on european time in November). Distribution arranged in other European countries for their titles as well, CoH etc). Then of course there is WoW.

I didn't expect the overall European numbers to drop so fast this year though - but to be honest I probably didn't give it that much thought. You just 'get to know' when the zone is dead and its time to move on because there is no one to group with or RvR against.

 

[gervaise]

/bump for Greapers link to his graphs and because I came across a post about numbers dropping as a result of WoW beta being launched. Graphs do indeed show a decline in recent days.