Screenshots of Server Populations

Dracus

The purpose of this thread is to show screenshots of the server populations to provide a trend indication of PotBS.  This is not a scientific study as exact numbers cannot be proven (as well as distinguishing from Station Pass holders, Paid Subscribers and Trial Accounts).  If you would like to take part in this thread, please provide a screenshot or link of the server population with the time & date taken.

Please refrain from any debates in this thread.  If so desire to debate, then create a new thread and use this thread as the reference.   This is only expected to last for two months.

[Note: I do not have access to PotBS, nor do I intend to do so in the near future (I am currently engaged with another Independent Title) which is why I am not posting screenshots of PotBS.  I and others are interested in how well an independent company with a non-fantasy based title performs with the current market.]

 

Current Status:

Approximately 2 Weeks since launch (23JAN08).  Trend appears to be of Slow Growth.

23JAN08 - 1700 EST

AgtSmith





23JAN08 - 1717 EST

Mithrandolir





24JAN08 - 2237 EST

Hairysun





29JAN08 - 1315 CST

Shifty360





29JAN08 - 1735 CST

Shifty360





01FEB08 - 1745 EST

Binko





01FEB08 - 2100 EST

AgtSmith





02FEB08 - 1500 EST

Hairysun

If there are screenshots available for the days I missed, please make a post, and I'll update this one (just provide the link and time/date; no need to post the picture as this is to avoid redundancy).

 

---

 

Domenicus

My question, is: What is ´high´? 2k players?

AgtSmith

Low is up to ~150, moderate is up to ~250, heavy is up to ~350, and very heavy upwards of ~450. 

And FYI - these are per faction ratings so each server has 4 separate population counts.  Pirate and British are almost always most populated with the Spanish coming in third, France is extremely light on about all servers easily averaging around 50 or less on at a time.  Populations are getting better, at least at closer to prime times, but they are still pretty low overall and it is going to get worse when the first month runs out as like most MMOs allot of folks won't re-up.

RedwoodSap

WOW everything is light. Time to merge servers.

TheRPGPope

The only problem with the study is it shows alot of EST at 5PM, people just got home from work, and PST will still be at work.  Yes you have one at 5:45pm that is moderatly busy, but it's on friday people get off work early usally and it's the day to sit and relax right after work.  There are a few shots that show 10PM EST meaning Cali would just maybe getting on being at 6pm there time but most likely still enjoying dinner and long traffic hours.  Maybe get some 12am EST shots to see whats going on.  Because right now if you look all the EU servers are busy, because it's prime time for them.  A big number of any game alone is West Coast, and these kindof do not show west coast US.

Dracus

The pictures are of what others have shown.

To help prove or support your point in terms of population, post a screenshot.

 

Seeing it is mid-week, how about a picture of tonight?

And get ready for Friday and Saturday.

StealthBomb

Originally posted by Dracus


The purpose of this thread is to show screenshots of the server populations to provide a trend indication of PotBS.  This is not a scientific study as exact numbers cannot be proven (as well as distinguishing from Station Pass holders, Paid Subscribers and Trial Accounts).  If you would like to take part in this thread, please provide a screenshot or link of the server population with the time & date taken.
Please refrain from any debates in this thread.  If so desire to debate, then create a new thread and use this thread as the reference.   This is only expected to last for two months.
 

 

Here's a screenshot of the server populations. It is impossible to scientifically prove that "light", "medium", and "heavy" have any absolute meaning without knowing the total capacity and the thresholds for each stage. Therefore the only reasonably accurate measure you can make is to simply ask the game how many people are logged in at various times, which it will happily tell you, and then go from there. You can be extremely generous and double the peak figures provided by the game to account for off-peak players. But if you want to debate the legitimacy of the game's own, actual stats, please create a new thread to do so. In this thread let's just continue to monitor the population trends as revealed by the game's mechanics and continue to post screenshots showing real data provided by the game.

 

Kill_trolls

That's taken from an official forum thread which is OK, but keep in mind some of those numbers have not been updated since launch (spanish server especially, and french one was somewhat updated recently).. etc etc. It's better than nothing though, but I would prefer screenshots here, and actualy numbers to be posted in that thread in the official forum (without trolling pls). And yes, as you said, some are not logged in at the same time, but also, some are buddy accounts.

Binko

Population is low. Read http://www.burningsea.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=13 it's around 6k - 7k. Thats very low for a MMO and a normal game if you ask me.

Maybe Bafucin was right about this game?

Second Life have around 40k people online all the time lol. Now thats funny!

 

 

Meltdown

Can we stop posting all these screenshots already, just pull a /whocount and get done with it. Hell a server you don't have a main on you can just make one character of each, log the time, log the /whocount and not force 3 minute load times on people lol.

 

Dracus

The /whocount only provides the data for one's faction and not the entire server.

The quickest method in determining the general amount of server populations is simply by a screenshot.

 

As the title reads, this thread is of screenshots.  Sorry for the load times, but in order to provide creditability to those who posted those screenshots, I will not tamper or improve the filesize to avoid possible perception of photo-editing.

StealthBomb

 

Originally posted by Kill_trolls


That's taken from an official forum thread which is OK, but keep in mind some of those numbers have not been updated since launch (spanish server especially, and french one was somewhat updated recently).. etc etc. It's better than nothing though, but I would prefer screenshots here, and actualy numbers to be posted in that thread in the official forum (without trolling pls). And yes, as you said, some are not logged in at the same time, but also, some are buddy accounts.

Fair enough. I just think a screenshot that shows colored words is misleading without providing some context for what those indicators really mean. Someone might look at a server that reads, "Heavy - Medium - Heavy - Medium" and think, gee, that server seems full. The reality however is that "heavy" here is quite a bit lighter than one might think. Combine that with the instancing of combat and missions and the experience you log on to is very different from what you may have thought you were going to get.

 

If the purpose of these forums is to discuss and inform, then all the information we have should be made available. Shots of the login screen alone don't provide real information because the population indicators are only relative measures. Tracking the /whocounts isn't perfect either but it does provide the context missing from the screenshots.

Bottom line, it's better to be in the ballpark than it is to be in the dark.

 

Danjak

These populations aren't accurate.  I play on Blackbeard, French side, and I haven't seen less than a hundred on except when I played until 4:00 am on a Tuesday night.  I've seen the French side go over 300 - and we're the lowest population group on the server.  On a good weekend night, the Blackbeard server itself has around 2,000 people at once.  No, that's not a ton of people, but the game feels FAR from empty. 

This game is a lot like EVE... and it looks like it's population is starting similarly as well.  It took EVE several years to build its population into what it is today - I'm confident POTBS will do the same.  Both games are niche games and were never intended to be "WoW-killers."  They were both developed at a fraction of the cost of other MMOGs and therefore can support the relatively smaller server sizes when compared to the big-dogs.  Another thing both games have in common - they're FUN.  But if you don't like EVE, chances are you won't like POTBS.  Different strokes for different folks.

Binko

Originally posted by Danjak


These populations aren't accurate.  I play on Blackbeard, French side, and I haven't seen less than a hundred on except when I played until 4:00 am on a Tuesday night.  I've seen the French side go over 300 - and we're the lowest population group on the server.  On a good weekend night, the Blackbeard server itself has around 2,000 people at once.  No, that's not a ton of people, but the game feels FAR from empty. 
This game is a lot like EVE... and it looks like it's population is starting similarly as well.  It took EVE several years to build its population into what it is today - I'm confident POTBS will do the same.  Both games are niche games and were never intended to be "WoW-killers."  They were both developed at a fraction of the cost of other MMOGs and therefore can support the relatively smaller server sizes when compared to the big-dogs.  Another thing both games have in common - they're FUN.  But if you don't like EVE, chances are you won't like POTBS.  Different strokes for different folks.

Pictures. No talk. Ok.

Meltdown

Originally posted by Dracus


The /whocount only provides the data for one's faction and not the entire server.
The quickest method in determining the general amount of server populations is simply by a screenshot.

Except...

1. You can create/delete characters of each faction on each server assuming you have an empty account (no one would want to delete their main). Between all the people here we could get all the data from all the servers during primetime lol.

2. The whole "Light" "Heavy" etc. system blows. Take the 4 possible values (Light, Medium, Heavy, Very Heavy), each with a +/- 200 value range (probably less/more)? And you could be off by 800 people... big difference.

Dracus

Again, the purpose of this thread is to check on the TREND.

DeadJester

I have to say this. who cares about the #s right now . I just started on Monday and its really fun to play and its refreshing to play a game like this. I hope this game last a long time.and yes I will play beyond the free month.p.s. I kinda get the fealing of the old SWG kinda. I hopw they keep working to make this game even better.

Hexcaliber

Medium is flagged at 200 players, heavy 300 players and very heavy over 400. Its easy to figure out just takes some patience logging in and doing /whocount at different times ,watching the population, log out back in etc If you want to do it yourselves just start logging in about an hour or two before a server starts to approach prime time for its intended loacale. It is possible that they anticipated different server loads and population flags are different on a per server basis, but unlikely.

If any server actually reached very heavy on all four nations it would indicate over 1600 players which is very low by todays server hardware standards and no server has yet hit heavy load across all four nations. Only two servers have any real population and that is Roberts (eu english) and backbeard (us). At peak these fluctuate beteween very heavy - heavy for british and pirates and low- medium for french Spanish, although Spain has reached heavy on both at weekend prime time.

Cereo

Heavy is 400 people? This game seems hardly an MMO. There should be a trend in MMOs to hold more and more people on one server, not less. And colors are not a very good indicator of a trends. Actual data and maybe an actual trend line would be better, and it would have to be over a longer time than a few days. Furthermore, if it goes to 180, to 210 and goes medium on a given day, does that really mean there is a positive trend for this game? Not really. It seems like most the servers have less than 100 people playing on it, hell you have have 64 players playing BF2 or other respectable shooters. Playing monthly for a server that holds double that on average seems like a waste of time.

And sorry buddy, when you are on a forum, that is what people do is debate. If you don't want debating, put your lackluster data on a website people can't comment on and delete any leads for people to contact you, otherwise you're going to get debates.

Orphes

Originally posted by Cereo


Heavy is 400 people? This game seems hardly an MMO. There should be a trend in MMOs to hold more and more people on one server, not less. And colors are not a very good indicator of a trends. Actual data and maybe an actual trend line would be better, and it would have to be over a longer time than a few days. Furthermore, if it goes to 180, to 210 and goes medium on a given day, does that really mean there is a positive trend for this game? Not really. It seems like most the servers have less than 100 people playing on it, hell you have have 64 players playing BF2 or other respectable shooters. Playing monthly for a server that holds double that on average seems like a waste of time.
And sorry buddy, when you are on a forum, that is what people do is debate. If you don't want debating, put your lackluster data on a website people can't comment on and delete any leads for people to contact you, otherwise you're going to get debates.

And buddy when you are on a forum with a shitload of information, try to read them. 4 nations, 4 different populations on a server.

And what is Massive in MMO. 1000,2000,3000 players, are they set to be concurrent player or does those that plays and, in this game, change the world while youre logged out counts aswell?

Danjak

Originally posted by Cereo


Heavy is 400 people? This game seems hardly an MMO. There should be a trend in MMOs to hold more and more people on one server, not less. And colors are not a very good indicator of a trends. Actual data and maybe an actual trend line would be better, and it would have to be over a longer time than a few days. Furthermore, if it goes to 180, to 210 and goes medium on a given day, does that really mean there is a positive trend for this game? Not really. It seems like most the servers have less than 100 people playing on it, hell you have have 64 players playing BF2 or other respectable shooters. Playing monthly for a server that holds double that on average seems like a waste of time.

As noted, "heavy" is 400 people on just ONE of the four factions of one of the many servers.  No servers have "less than 100 people playing on it."  For my server, at it's absolute worst, there are 1000 people playing at once.  At it's best, it's over 2,000 playing at once.  Plus, it's a persistent world where the actions of the players can have very real effects on the world through the capturing of ports.  That is the definition of a MMORPG and it is nothing like "BF2 or other respectable shooters."

Dracus

Actually I had expected that there would more debating than of screenshots (if any) for the following generalizations:

- Users who think PotBS is not doing well, are no longer playing PotBS.

- Users who think PotBS is a success will not post since the indicators are not high.

- Users in the middle, don't care.

- This is a public forum.

 

So for now (two weeks), the launch seems to be of a slow push, with some growth, unlike a heavy launch with a spike of growth.  Now will PotBS mirror Eve-Online's success of steady growth over time?  Sure its too early to tell, but it is interesting to see how it pans out.

Dr_Doom

Interesting thread. Sorry, I dont have any screenshots to contribute, which I realize is the purpose of this thread, but I wanted to dispell a few of the people who are complaining about the low numbers. As a 3 year EVE-Online player, the people who say it is starting small and will gain speed are likely correct. I can't guarantee this game will stick around, and grow, but seeing how most players are indicated its similarities to EVE, it must be noted that EVE 3 years ago was peaking at about 20k players simultaniously, whereas now it peaks at I believe just under 50k, with something along the lines of 200-300k subscribers. Give this game a chance, if the devs are smart and listen to the players (but not too much) then it should find its way into a niche market well.

Binko

What happen to all the people that say troll to every negativ post here?

Can't they press down the button Print Screen and take a picture of the servers? Or is something wrong?

 

Now I will get back "maybe they are playing the game you troll!"... hehe. =P

Binko

Originally posted by Dr_Doom


Interesting thread. Sorry, I dont have any screenshots to contribute, which I realize is the purpose of this thread, but I wanted to dispell a few of the people who are complaining about the low numbers. As a 3 year EVE-Online player, the people who say it is starting small and will gain speed are likely correct. I can't guarantee this game will stick around, and grow, but seeing how most players are indicated its similarities to EVE, it must be noted that EVE 3 years ago was peaking at about 20k players simultaniously, whereas now it peaks at I believe just under 50k, with something along the lines of 200-300k subscribers. Give this game a chance, if the devs are smart and listen to the players (but not too much) then it should find its way into a niche market well.

7k people online is low. And this forum is not that active (me and 5 more), same with other forums.

The PoTBS forum have same 10 people, all in love with the game and the Dev team. The rest say "I quit" or other negativ threads. It's going down, not up.

If you can't keep people after 30 days, then I don't think people will come back. Today we have a lot of games to pick.

After 5 years, you must be ready with your product. Avatar system is not that great and the Dev's know it. The economic system is not working that good. A system people where talking about the first week as the "best in MMO's"...

I don't see this game will grow much more. They had 5 years and people ask for more just after one week, plus they pick SOE to help them.

Just by having SOE at the side, will sink this ship.

"We are PAYING customers, not some beta testers.



By paying $15 or so per month AND $50+ for the package, the customers expect some quality."

daemon

Originally posted by Dr_Doom


Interesting thread. Sorry, I dont have any screenshots to contribute, which I realize is the purpose of this thread, but I wanted to dispell a few of the people who are complaining about the low numbers. As a 3 year EVE-Online player, the people who say it is starting small and will gain speed are likely correct. I can't guarantee this game will stick around, and grow, but seeing how most players are indicated its similarities to EVE, it must be noted that EVE 3 years ago was peaking at about 20k players simultaniously, whereas now it peaks at I believe just under 50k, with something along the lines of 200-300k subscribers. Give this game a chance, if the devs are smart and listen to the players (but not too much) then it should find its way into a niche market well.

From those 200-300k subscribers that EVE has.... alot of them pay 3 accounts (those being the very old/dedicated players); most of them pay 2 accounts (those making the big part of the subscriber base)

and the small part pay who pay 1 account (those being the new or the casual players).

So from those 200-300k subscribers theres only around 125-150k people actually playing the game