Server Population

[Molten Lava]

Does anyone know whta going on?? 4:39 PM today
English servers 1181+737 = 1918
German servers 1945+1625+1419+935 = 5924 (200% !! more)
French servers 1522+1358+434 = 3314 (70% more)

You are not gonna tell me that all the English players are playing at the US servers...are there just less Englisch people interested in the game? whats wrong here...I wanted to start an alt on pryd but as there were only 197 people online in hib last night (of which 20-30 under lvl 10) it's impossible to play there...time to merge the Pryd and Excal?

Dont tell me I have to buy an US account soon

 

[Flimgoblin]

4:39 pm = 5:39 pm in europe.

People who finish at work at 5 will be logging on around then..


Compare it at 5:39pm GMT for the british servers to 5:39 CET for the european servers.

 

[Solid]

DAoC was not advertised in UK in any way shape or form, and yes many UK players ARE playing in US, possibly upwards of 500, who knows. Also they are not UK servers, merely english langiuage servers, and so it implies DAoC was not aggressively marketted in other euro countries either (barring france and germany of course?)

what beats me is all other euro countries that dont prefer French or German as a language would expect to play on english language servers, and yet we still have a very poor population.

Maybe GOA HEAVIlLY advertised in France and Germany, remember Germans are gaming nutz, very high tech country

BTW you cannot merge the servers full stop, it cant be done

 

[old.windforce]

check any time you like, english servers are not very dense populated. And even then some area's are overcrowded (goblins in lyonesse, up to 5 or 6 groups of 8 people sometimes). I like my server being :sleeping: sometimes. Gives me change to do my lvl 40 epic without a sniper turning me into bloody mary.

 

[Xtro]

I played originally on US (I am english btw) and moved over when EU opened. I found that a) on US there are a LOT of english and euro's in general - especially on Bors, Merlin and Morgan Le Fay.

Some of us decided to give the EU a go (IMO a mistake but we didnt know what GOA would be like) and went for Midgard Prydwen. Amusingly enough English players are in the minority there as it seems most Brits went for Albion and most Scandinavians picked Midgard - Hibernia has always been a bit devoid of people on Pryd but it might have picked up I dunno.

So from being surrounded by 80% US players and 20% Euro/rest of world (which was pretty cool tbh) we went to 80% Scandinavian 20% Brits/Spanish etc . Tbh I couldnt care less as I've met great people on US AND EU and I dont care where they are from just as long as they are good people.

Anyway kinda going OT so - I think when Mythic opened US a hell of a lot of English speaking people (note I didnt say English) just imported the game from the States and played it back in Sep/Oct 2001 (cant remember exact date seems yrs ago) - didnt want to wait for the EU version which was still in beta.

Add to this the game has had practically zero advertising in the UK and it seems to be available by mail order only now. When I bought daoc GAME was full of copies, now I never see them.

All of this is IMO, hope it helps.

 

[Molten Lava]

Dutch

Well I'm Dutch for example and most people in my guild are scandinavian (maily Swedish and Danish)...there wasnt ANY advertisement in Holland either (havent even read anything about it in the major gaming-magazine) but I still I bought the game because I read on (english) game-sites....so I really dont know why so few English people play the game...

 

[erl]

What I've heard GOA launched a quite massive advertising campaign in germany/france, hence the difference in population between the english servers and german/fench.

 

[Xtro]

oh and on US my favourite xp group usually had an Israeli, a Swede, two Texans, a Welshman, a Japanese guy, a Scottish guy and me. This is what I missed most of all about US - the mix of people

 

[Molten Lava]

Time to buy US version

So its time to buy an US version then? especially with the PvP server is coming...as I can see in the US most people left the normal servers for PvP. I think I will NOT play PvP (Ok I will try it, but I dont think I will like it) so if the PvP server will be opened here...whats left of Excal and Pryd? 200 people max on peaks?

/em drinks another beer

 

[Xtro]

I think the best bet for you is to play where your friends play - EU or US whatever. If you have no friends then hmm maybe its time to give up PC games and go make some . j/k btw lol

 

[Alrindel]

Originally posted by erl
What I've heard GOA launched a quite massive advertising campaign in germany/france, hence the difference in population between the english servers and german/fench.

There was no advertising at all in France, I doubt there was much if any in Germany either.

Part of the discrepancy is because the game had poor distribution in the UK - there was some sort of exclusive deal with one chain of shops - that made the game hard to find and gave it a very low profile in the UK gaming community. In France the game was (and still is) available in just about every PC game store I have walked into.

The rest is a matter of convenience - it is convenient for French and German players to be able to pay in Euros and play in their native language. For the average UK player, the advantages of the US servers (frequent patches, in-game customer service, longer established community with friends possibly already playing there) may outweigh the advantages of the European servers (cheaper subscription, higher probability of a better internet connection, events, no time zone problem, playing with europeans).

As for the diversity of the community, my guild has members from the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Spain at the moment, and there are about 10 other countries represented just in Hib/Excal. I note with some amusement that I have an easier time communicating with them than I do with Americans on Mordred where the native language is allegedly English.

 

[Xtro]

Originally posted by Alrindel
I note with some amusement that I have an easier time communicating with them than I do with Americans on Mordred where the native language is allegedly English.

Lol aye Mordred has a large no. of 12 yr old l337 d00ds.

 

[Flimgoblin]

The concerns about population on Mordred will probably start to go away after the next patch...

Everyone has flocked to the PvP server to see the new toys... some people will like it more and stay, I imagine the majority will return to their old RvR servers when the next patch (more shiny things) comes out, sick of the griefing/not liking the play style.

There is actually quite a few non-RvR players out there... i.e. pure PvE... which is why they're canvasing opinion on opening a pure pve server where you can go to any realm.

 

[Xtro]

Originally posted by Fingoniel
There is actually quite a few non-RvR players out there... i.e. pure PvE... which is why they're canvasing opinion on opening a pure pve server where you can go to any realm.

Hmm double-edged sword there. I'll keep an eye on that thanks for the heads up.

 

[Alrindel]

Originally posted by Alrindel
There was no advertising at all in France, I doubt there was much if any in Germany either.

Whoops, I take it back. I was just looking on GOA's DAoC site in french and I saw a banner ad for this:

http://www.camelot-europe.com/fr/pub/oppcteam.php

A co-promotion between GOA and PC Team magazine, to be sold in every newsstand in France in the game magazine section, with lots of goodies (bunch of maps including Darkness Falls, the timetable for all updates and patches until 2003(!) tips on playing, RvR and crafting...) and 15 days of free playing "on a special server created for the occasion", it says.

Good idea, I hope it brings us some fresh meat, and let's hope they do something similar in Germany and the UK as well.

 

[erl]

I was just gonna post that I stand corrected in the advertising issue

Tried to look at that ad but it was in some weird language, didn't understand a single line. Maybe the evil tree huggers have been there again?

 

[Fafnir]

Well i found Daoc out from my brother in April/May, so i started to search for it in stores but found none here in sweden. But found it on Traditions webpage....

And only tiny ads in computer magz...

 

[Tenko]

In the UK there was a couple of articles in PC Zone including the review but thats it. On the availabilty front though I see no problem. I live in Machester and GAME, both Electronic Boutiques, HMV, Virgin and Game Station (all in the city centre) all have had copies since release.

I'd suggest GOA send a newer patched copy to PC Zone for an update review in their Online section.

 

[Meatballs]

they have done a updated review, but its of the american version, although above it says the distributor is wanadoo.

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

I think another factor is that DAOC is (I think) the first MMORPG to be fully translated and localised to other languages.

Whereas Brits and other English-speaking Europeans have the choice of playing DAOC, EQ, UO, AC, AO, etc., those that only speak (or only wish to speak) their native language are limited. As such there is a greater market.

I would also say that the UK press has had an impact on the growth of MMORPGs on the whole in the UK. MMORPGs are, I feel, portrayed as a strange place where geeks with beards, pretending to be Kobolds, hang out. There isn't a lot of 'cool' to the MMORPG scene in the UK, and I think that's at least partly down the the media. I don't think there's a 'champion' of MMORPG's in any of the major magazines (there are plenty of FPS and RTS advocates). The games themselves tend to get scores in the 75-85 range, smallish reviews and, therefore, little to no coverage at retail. When I went to buy DAOC at release I had to seek it out, a half-dozen lonely looking copies on a low shelf of my local GAME (the EB didn't seem to have any).

Most people I know won't really look at a game unless it's got a "Game of the Month" review score, or a lot of retail coverage, particularly when it's going to cost you a monthly suscription. Why buy DAOC when you can buy Morrowind?

Because of this there just aren't that many folks that have even tried a MMORPG. I don't see this changing until SWG is released and people see what makes MMORPGing so much fun.

 

[old.chesnor]

I guess this kind of game just isn't popular in the UK. All fans of MMORPG do or have played, it is very unlikely that fans of games of this genre will not have heard about it.

Most casual gamers just aren't interested. I tried to get my brother playing, he liked the concept and showed genuine interest. He rapidly gave up when I explained that to reach level 50 it would take him almost a year given the amount of time he games.

Also there is associated 'beardyness' with games such as these. I still get people in my old fps clan moaning at me cos I'm still playing that 'beardy rpg'. Not sure if this is an attitude that is in other countries (no way is there an equivalent insult to 'beardy rpg' in Japan, for example, given how popular RPGs are there) but who knows.