SOTA dev just said they have 255,000 registered players

blorpykins

There was a intense thread earlier in SOTA's forum where players were asking where all the players are.

It goes back a year when Seed Invest said there were 150K players, but then a few days ago Richard Garriott told eurogamer that they only had "thousands" of players monthly.  Now the dev that locked the thread said they have currently 255,000 players.  But when I check Steamcharts there are not even 200 people playing.  Can someone help explain?  I can't ask on the official forums, people are being banned for asking.

Slapshot1188

It's Wordsmithing.  It's just as meaningless as when developers talk about hundreds of thousands of forum accounts.  

So, I take it to mean that since inception they have had 255000 accounts created but of those just low single digits still play.

MaxBacon

Concurrently in-context will just total in-present of registered accounts, not concurrent players online at the same time. Obviously, only a few games in the world are able to achieve in-game concurrency numbers of that scale.

HobbitsWonTheWar

Yeah man I can explain. Its forum registrations not game sales. Google "shroud campaign stats" ya can see where they were gettin those numbers.  Actual game accounts was 68000 in may 2018 when they stopped releasing them.

Ya can register on the forums and be counted but not actually post unless you spend $5.

Steamcharts is countin how many are actually playin at any one time. About 100 to 200 these days out of a bit more than 68000 sold.

Big.Daddy.Samedi

Keep in mind this would also include trial accounts, the game could have been fun.... maybe.... kinda... but the cash shop/whales/developers killed it.

Wait I guess maybe it wasn't fun.

TiamatRoar

255,000 including trial accounts is insanely low, IIRC.  Even most garbage MMOs post more registered users than that because it's not too hard to get people to try your game compared to getting them to stick around.

Interitus

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The very quote you linked says "Since that time, our registered count has grown to (and is currently at) 255,000."   Registered, not players.  So they clearly meant people who registered on the forum.

DracSchnider

blorpykins said:

There was a intense thread earlier in SOTA's forum where players were asking where all the players are.

It goes back a year when Seed Invest said there were 150K players, but then a few days ago Richard Garriott told eurogamer that they only had "thousands" of players monthly.  Now the dev that locked the thread said they have currently 255,000 players.  But when I check Steamcharts there are not even 200 people playing.  Can someone help explain?  I can't ask on the official forums, people are being banned for asking.

If you look at what was stated she said the majority of the accounts were not on steam which has been mentioned over and over in a lot of the threads.  Most the players use the original launcher over steam.  


I quote from the article which you posted above:

"I spoke to Richard Garriott yesterday about it.

Firstly, "The majority of players don't play on Steam," he told me. "We are in the many thousands but not in the many tens of thousands of monthly active users at the moment. We'd be quite content with tens of thousands of monthly active users, and we're within shooting range of that."

"

JamesGoblin

blorpykins said:

There was a intense thread earlier in SOTA's forum where players were asking where all the players are.

It goes back a year when Seed Invest said there were 150K players, but then a few days ago Richard Garriott told eurogamer that they only had "thousands" of players monthly.  Now the dev that locked the thread said they have currently 255,000 players.  But when I check Steamcharts there are not even 200 people playing.  Can someone help explain?  I can't ask on the official forums, people are being banned for asking.

Heavy wordsmithing, as usual. Last time I remember people checking (I don't own the game), it was 96(!) concurrent players via Steam - that is with bots, multiple accounts and all that included; Nobody is playing that piece of...game.

There is couple light years of distance between that and quarter of a million, and even so PLAYERS should be replaced with ACCOUNTS in that sentence.

Now, it's possible that Richie is honest this time i.e. if you add every single player/bot/dual that logged in even just for a second during a full month (why not a year or a century?) you might end up in thousands - where similar games have millions.

DracSchnider

JamesGoblin said:

blorpykins said:

There was a intense thread earlier in SOTA's forum where players were asking where all the players are.

It goes back a year when Seed Invest said there were 150K players, but then a few days ago Richard Garriott told eurogamer that they only had "thousands" of players monthly.  Now the dev that locked the thread said they have currently 255,000 players.  But when I check Steamcharts there are not even 200 people playing.  Can someone help explain?  I can't ask on the official forums, people are being banned for asking.

Heavy wordsmithing, as usual. Last time I remember people checking (I don't own the game), it was 96(!) concurrent players via Steam - that is with bots, multiple accounts and all that included; Nobody is playing that piece of...game.

There is couple light years of distance between that and quarter of a million, and even so PLAYERS should be replaced with ACCOUNTS in that sentence.

Now, it's possible that Richie is honest this time i.e. if you add every single player/bot/dual that logged in even just for a second during a full month (why not a year or a century?) you might end up in thousands - where similar games have millions.

There are more then 1000 people on the server at any given time this I know.

Fact.  the guild I am in has over 100 active players.  Fact, my friends lists has at any given time min 200 - 300 people on it and online.

Last weekend I was at an event with only 6 of our guild members attending out of the 100.  There was 120 players in the zone during the event.  This was not only an event but to test the server for large scale castle pvp sieges that are coming next patch. The devs also attacked the party with NPC's and boss mobs which all player fought with heavy particles in a heavy decorated metro player city to see how the FPS and server could handle.  I did not drop any frames on my laptop which is awesome. 

Here is a picture of just a few of the 120 people at the event.:



The game is not going anywhere, and is expanding every month.  The people that think otherwise don't play or simply just done like the game as its not what they want it to be.   Growth has been increasing every month for the last 5 months.  Not at the rate Port wants but its still going up.  Steam is not the main launcher for the game and never will be.  That said this will never be in the millions of player base but will attract larger numbers interested in the Ultima universe.

with EP2 already starting the stretch goals things are moving forward.  The team will grow again when the time to implement the goals comes just like that of EP1.   

I have already seen the new lands for EP2 which for all you UO people happens to have the serpent isles this is exciting. 

Slapshot1188

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

JamesGoblin

DracSchnider said:

JamesGoblin said:

blorpykins said:

There was a intense thread earlier in SOTA's forum where players were asking where all the players are.

It goes back a year when Seed Invest said there were 150K players, but then a few days ago Richard Garriott told eurogamer that they only had "thousands" of players monthly.  Now the dev that locked the thread said they have currently 255,000 players.  But when I check Steamcharts there are not even 200 people playing.  Can someone help explain?  I can't ask on the official forums, people are being banned for asking.

Heavy wordsmithing, as usual. Last time I remember people checking (I don't own the game), it was 96(!) concurrent players via Steam - that is with bots, multiple accounts and all that included; Nobody is playing that piece of...game.

There is couple light years of distance between that and quarter of a million, and even so PLAYERS should be replaced with ACCOUNTS in that sentence.

Now, it's possible that Richie is honest this time i.e. if you add every single player/bot/dual that logged in even just for a second during a full month (why not a year or a century?) you might end up in thousands - where similar games have millions.

There are more then 1000 people on the server at any given time this I know.

<snip>

The game...is expanding every month. 

Can you give any kind of source for the bolded parts, especially the "more than 1000"(!) one? Both statements contradicts (heavily!) every publicly available number so far; And I believe there is a very good reason (in fact, many reasons) SotA is hiding these like snake hides it's legs.

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

But of course!

DracSchnider

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

it was 120 people in the zone, I was there.  This was just as event was about to start.  what I am saying is that there are a lot more people then many think in the game. 

I play, the other guy did not.  I am there every day and been there for 2+ years and can tell you first hand that the numbers are there for min 1000 on server at any given time. 

I can also tell you that the world can look pretty empty because its all instanced zones as well because most people teleport around vs using the map to travel.  anyone that plays will agree on this.  Friends lists are huge as those are your teleport points.  the more you have the more you can quick travel until they do away with that... then we will see the map cluttered with all the players all the time.

The player town I now live in went live R54 and now is full.  crafter town which went live R55 last patch has grown 76 people which is just down the way from our town.  

I posted the picture to make a point that even though many people talk population there is always people on in good numbers they just maybe tucked away in an instance that you are not.

for anyone not at this small event things look the same as every other day.

If you sat in Novia Market or one of the market player towns for 1 hour I bet you will see a hundred new faces come in and out of the instance in that short of a time span. 

Number are growing.

Amathe

I have 255,000 people trying to sell me viagra and penis enlargement. It's not making me rich. 

blorpykins

DracSchnider said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

I play, the other guy did not.  I am there every day and been there for 2+ years and can tell you first hand that the numbers are there for min 1000 on server at any given time. 

Number are growing.

I don't know you and therefore will not believe you unless you can produce proof.   How can you see anything on any servers?  The game is peer to peer, and Port doesn't show numbers.

Numbers are not growing.  Look at Steamcharts and you will see they are in aggressive decline since April.

DracSchnider

blorpykins said:

DracSchnider said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

I play, the other guy did not.  I am there every day and been there for 2+ years and can tell you first hand that the numbers are there for min 1000 on server at any given time. 

Number are growing.

I don't know you and therefore will not believe you unless you can produce proof.   How can you see anything on any servers?  The game is peer to peer, and Port doesn't show numbers.

Numbers are not growing.  Look at Steamcharts and you will see they are in aggressive decline since April.

I have around 60 friends in my list online as of 2pm.  I will update a capture of this.  my list has over 1000 friends on it.  in order to add a person to your friends list in game you must see them right click and add.  Given that we have 100 active people in our guild I can tell you we are not the largest guild in the game so there are more people then I have on my friends list.  Half the people at the event above are not in my friends list.  There are on average 250+ steam users on every hour in the game.

The website with the spreadsheet is here, and shows a lot of other games and data..
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...-precise-player-count-for-thousands-of-games/

However, what I found interesting was the number of players who have purchased SOTA via Steam: Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues 50,554 

This was from the Steam leak and taken form another post.

There are 255k player accounts of that only 50k form steam based on this information.

using even an estimate of 300 people per hour from steams 50k number and taking the 200k at same value per hour that is 1250 users / hour average. 

weekends are the best time to get numbers as all us working folk sitting at our desk not playing don't get on until weekends or evenings.  the majority of the numbers are weekends like all other games which is when it spikes up.

JamesGoblin

DracSchnider said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

it was 120 people in the zone, I was there.  This was just as event was about to start.  what I am saying is that there are a lot more people then many think in the game. 

I play, the other guy did not.  I am there every day and been there for 2+ years and can tell you first hand that the numbers are there for min 1000 on server at any given time. 

I can also tell you that the world can look pretty empty because its all instanced zones as well because most people teleport around vs using the map to travel.  anyone that plays will agree on this.  Friends lists are huge as those are your teleport points.  the more you have the more you can quick travel until they do away with that... then we will see the map cluttered with all the players all the time.

The player town I now live in went live R54 and now is full.  crafter town which went live R55 last patch has grown 76 people which is just down the way from our town.  

I posted the picture to make a point that even though many people talk population there is always people on in good numbers they just maybe tucked away in an instance that you are not.

for anyone not at this small event things look the same as every other day.

If you sat in Novia Market or one of the market player towns for 1 hour I bet you will see a hundred new faces come in and out of the instance in that short of a time span. 

Number are growing.

Do you understand that the (sourceless...) repetition of "trust me...trust me...", together with that clumsily handpicked screenshot, proves exactly the opposite of what you want us to believe?

Scot

HobbitsWonTheWar said:

Yeah man I can explain. Its forum registrations not game sales. Google "shroud campaign stats" ya can see where they were gettin those numbers.  Actual game accounts was 68000 in may 2018 when they stopped releasing them.

Ya can register on the forums and be counted but not actually post unless you spend $5.

Steamcharts is countin how many are actually playin at any one time. About 100 to 200 these days out of a bit more than 68000 sold.

Hang on are you saying that even if you bought the game you have to pay $5 dollars to post on the forums; or are you saying that if you have not bought the game they charge you $5 to post on the forums? Either way that is outrageous.

Slapshot1188

DracSchnider said:

blorpykins said:

DracSchnider said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

I play, the other guy did not.  I am there every day and been there for 2+ years and can tell you first hand that the numbers are there for min 1000 on server at any given time. 

Number are growing.

I don't know you and therefore will not believe you unless you can produce proof.   How can you see anything on any servers?  The game is peer to peer, and Port doesn't show numbers.

Numbers are not growing.  Look at Steamcharts and you will see they are in aggressive decline since April.

I have around 60 friends in my list online as of 2pm.  I will update a capture of this.  my list has over 1000 friends on it.  in order to add a person to your friends list in game you must see them right click and add.  Given that we have 100 active people in our guild I can tell you we are not the largest guild in the game so there are more people then I have on my friends list.  Half the people at the event above are not in my friends list.  There are on average 250+ steam users on every hour in the game.

The website with the spreadsheet is here, and shows a lot of other games and data..
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...-precise-player-count-for-thousands-of-games/

However, what I found interesting was the number of players who have purchased SOTA via Steam: Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues 50,554 

This was from the Steam leak and taken form another post.

There are 255k player accounts of that only 50k form steam based on this information.

using even an estimate of 300 people per hour from steams 50k number and taking the 200k at same value per hour that is 1250 users / hour average. 

weekends are the best time to get numbers as all us working folk sitting at our desk not playing don't get on until weekends or evenings.  the majority of the numbers are weekends like all other games which is when it spikes up.

I can't even find SotA on the link you provided.  I suppose I have to DL the file and search for it.  I mean... if you can only muster 50k download on STEAM I think that just about says all you need to know.  Even Fluffy Creatures VS The World managed to get 265k...

I'm happy that you are enjoying yourself in the game.  As I have purchased Episodes 1-3, I hope you spend much more money and get many more people to join so that someday, maybe, there will be a game worthy of it's Ultima lineage.  That day, however, is not today.

DracSchnider

Scot said:

HobbitsWonTheWar said:

Yeah man I can explain. Its forum registrations not game sales. Google "shroud campaign stats" ya can see where they were gettin those numbers.  Actual game accounts was 68000 in may 2018 when they stopped releasing them.

Ya can register on the forums and be counted but not actually post unless you spend $5.

Steamcharts is countin how many are actually playin at any one time. About 100 to 200 these days out of a bit more than 68000 sold.

Hang on are you saying that even if you bought the game you have to pay $5 dollars to post on the forums; or are you saying that if you have not bought the game they charge you $5 to post on the forums? Either way that is outrageous.

If you bought the game you can post on the forums.  Account = forums.  Not sure where you are getting this $5.00 from?   $5 is all that is needed to get stretch goals from twitch.  that does not get you forum access and you are required to have an account to get the stretch rewards.

the forums are locked down to game players.  No bots, ads, non players posting garbage.   Its moderated as some have posted here.  If you post things constructively on what you dislike it stays in the forums.  If you however end up in arguments they will lock them after dev team responds.  And if you bash the dev team or get angry they wont tolerate it and will close the thread.  So basically the forums are play nice and be respectful well you post even if its something you didn't like from a change or stuff you hoped they would put in. 

LeFantome

DracSchnider said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

it was 120 people in the zone, I was there.  This was just as event was about to start.  what I am saying is that there are a lot more people then many think in the game. 

I play, the other guy did not.  I am there every day and been there for 2+ years and can tell you first hand that the numbers are there for min 1000 on server at any given time. 

I can also tell you that the world can look pretty empty because its all instanced zones as well because most people teleport around vs using the map to travel.  anyone that plays will agree on this.  Friends lists are huge as those are your teleport points.  the more you have the more you can quick travel until they do away with that... then we will see the map cluttered with all the players all the time.

The player town I now live in went live R54 and now is full.  crafter town which went live R55 last patch has grown 76 people which is just down the way from our town.  

I posted the picture to make a point that even though many people talk population there is always people on in good numbers they just maybe tucked away in an instance that you are not.

for anyone not at this small event things look the same as every other day.

If you sat in Novia Market or one of the market player towns for 1 hour I bet you will see a hundred new faces come in and out of the instance in that short of a time span. 

Number are growing.

As always..
They dont have enough money to pay a full team, we are far from the 50 000 ACTIVE players needed to be lucrative. ( Darkstarr  words)
And don't tell me, every company does that after release.. Because SOTA is NOT completed yet. It's not done, it should not be even be released.
Go back to SOTA forum and ask for the numbers. Pls do it. 
If you do, I bet your post will be locked within a hour. 

They wont even do a Kickstarter for EP 2 because they know, they would get flamed like crazy and that would be really bad for them. So instead, they took back the stretchs goal of the initial campaign with less features to be add. ( cheap move )  I wonder why.. Oh maybe because they dont have the money for it? But why is that would you ask. Simple, they don't have enough players buying from their crap store.
Look, they don't have enough players playing the game. End of story.

You're number doesn't mean anything.  120? 76?  Lol.

DracSchnider

JamesGoblin said:

DracSchnider said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Screenshot of maybe 60 people including devs puts all concerns about the population to bed. 

it was 120 people in the zone, I was there.  This was just as event was about to start.  what I am saying is that there are a lot more people then many think in the game. 

I play, the other guy did not.  I am there every day and been there for 2+ years and can tell you first hand that the numbers are there for min 1000 on server at any given time. 

I can also tell you that the world can look pretty empty because its all instanced zones as well because most people teleport around vs using the map to travel.  anyone that plays will agree on this.  Friends lists are huge as those are your teleport points.  the more you have the more you can quick travel until they do away with that... then we will see the map cluttered with all the players all the time.

The player town I now live in went live R54 and now is full.  crafter town which went live R55 last patch has grown 76 people which is just down the way from our town.  

I posted the picture to make a point that even though many people talk population there is always people on in good numbers they just maybe tucked away in an instance that you are not.

for anyone not at this small event things look the same as every other day.

If you sat in Novia Market or one of the market player towns for 1 hour I bet you will see a hundred new faces come in and out of the instance in that short of a time span. 

Number are growing.

Do you understand that the (sourceless...) repetition of "trust me...trust me...", together with that clumsily handpicked screenshot, proves exactly the opposite of what you want us to believe?

Vs what the trolls in this forum that don't even play who spread information that is pre release?
That screen shot was from last week.  it was to show there are scenes in the instanced world of Novia that have players in it.  based on what you say I could probably post my friends list and you would tell me its a lie lol.  I don't expect anyone to believe anything in these forums which is why I repeat like others have here to try the game the trial is free and decide yourself.   Don't take my word or others in here who troll.  

But I will say a smart person would look through the forums and discover that out of the majority of the negative comments and posts they would find that most don't play the game even.  that the few that dislike enough to keep bashing only dislike a few elements (Real money transactions) or simply didn't like that then they paid for the game or kickstarted it, they had a different vision on what the game would be then what they got.  

you will also find that most the reviews were pre launch well in alpha/ beta before the content was in game. How can anyone base anything on something that was not finished?  That would be like saying my toast was not brown and crisp when I put it in the unplugged toaster there for this toaster is the worst I have ever used.  hehe that was to be funny, incase you don't like my humor

JamesGoblin

@DracSchnider Again, you said: "There are more than 1000 people on the server at any given time this I know."

I asked, and am asking again, a very simple question: How do you know it? Furthermore, a solid, direct source would be welcome.

PS If you want us to compete in mumbo-jumbo math and wild speculations - I can do that, no problem; Tho I don't see much point

Slapshot1188

DracSchnider said:

That screen shot was from last week.  it was to show there are scenes in the instanced world of Novia that have players in it. 

Wow.. such a high bar you set.  Surely all is well!

blorpykins

DracSchnider said:

Numbers are not growing.  Look at Steamcharts and you will see they are in aggressive decline since April.

The website with the spreadsheet is here, and shows a lot of other games and data..
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...-precise-player-count-for-thousands-of-games/

However, what I found interesting was the number of players who have purchased SOTA via Steam: Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues 50,554 

This was from the Steam leak and taken form another post.

There are 255k player accounts of that only 50k form steam based on this information.

using even an estimate of 300 people per hour from steams 50k number and taking the 200k at same value per hour that is 1250 users / hour average. 

weekends are the best time to get numbers as all us working folk sitting at our desk not playing don't get on until weekends or evenings.  the majority of the numbers are weekends like all other games which is when it spikes up.

Game has been persistent for 2 years, of course you've seen 1000 in that amount of time, they sold almost 70,000 copies in five years, at least 1000 people logged in to look around since 2016.

This:

There are 255k player accounts of that only 50k form steam based on this information.

That is not correct.  As has been proven many times there are almost 255k forum accounts and people signed up for newsletters, but there are not even 70k total game accounts (aka: backers).  Check wayback to be sure.

This is all official stats from a month after game launched, in three months time since commercial launch maybe they sold a few more game codes but not many - they just had to lay off half their company.

blorpykins

DracSchnider said:

If you bought the game you can post on the forums.  Account = forums.  Not sure where you are getting this $5.00 from?   $5 is all that is needed to get stretch goals from twitch.  that does not get you forum access and you are required to have an account to get the stretch rewards.

the forums are locked down to game players.  No bots, ads, non players posting garbage.   Its moderated as some have posted here.  If you post things constructively on what you dislike it stays in the forums.  If you however end up in arguments they will lock them after dev team responds.  And if you bash the dev team or get angry they wont tolerate it and will close the thread.  So basically the forums are play nice and be respectful well you post even if its something you didn't like from a change or stuff you hoped they would put in. 

You don't have to buy the game to post in the forums, in fact for the first two years the forums were online they were free. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=51492

One of the ways we acted on these principles was to create and maintain public forums, open for the entire world to participate in, both viewing and posting. We reserved some areas of our forums for backers only, but we felt it was important there be a community forum where the dev team, backers, and non-backers could interact with each other, share ideas and opinions, collaborate, and brainstorm.

For two years, we’ve been able to keep our public forums freely open for both viewing and posting. Unfortunately, recent abuse of our public forums by spammers is forcing us to remove free posting privileges. Our volunteer forum moderators are drowning in the hordes of spam posts that have recently invaded our public forums. For the past couple of weeks, our web dev team (i.e. Tassilo Philipp) had to set aside higher priority game and web development tasks while he endeavored to close the holes the spammers are getting through.

We on the executive management team felt it was necessary to stop spending our backers pledge money on the endless efforts necessary to block spammers, and instead, stop them by making them pay to post. We’ve anguished over this decision for weeks, as it is a compromise of our principles, and we will suffer from the loss of ideas that often resulted from free sharing of opinions in our public forums. However, we believe this is the best course of action to take at this time.

Please know that we do not consider this a permanent situation. As our funds and team priorities allow, we will continue to revisit the integration of automated spam tools that may allow us to re-open our general forums for free public posting.

In the meantime, starting June 29, 2015, our General Forums will remain open for everyone to read, but you must be a backer to post. All existing backers (including Steam Early Access backers) will be able to post. Non-backers can purchase forum posting privileges with our new $5 Forum Posting Pledge, which can be upgraded to a full game pledge at any time. If you pledged through Kickstarter you will need to link your Kickstarter account for forum posting privileges.

Dallas Snell
COO/Founder/Portalarium