I play on Landroval, what I understand has a relatively high population.  I get the sense that, even at primetime, there can't be more than 1000-2000 players on at the same.

Given these factors, how many active players can LoTRO possibly have?

Actually, it was rumored that LOTRO was close to 1 million subscribers at one point in time, but that was probably over a year ago.

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

Actually, it was rumored that LOTRO was close to 1 million subscribers at one point in time, but that was probably over a year ago.

Enjoy!

sorry LOTRO hasnt been out over a year.

Not counting free accounts, and not counting the lifetime subscribers who no longer really play, it is no more than 150,000.

A rule of thumb is that roughly 20% to 25% of your subscribers will be on at once during primetime, so this is the number you need to prepare for when it comes to servers.

Most game servers seem to be designed to hold 2,000 to 2,500 players at once during primetime, so each server holds around 10,000 subscribers total.

11 servers multiplied by 10,000 subscribers per server gives 110,000 subscribers. To give Turbine the benefit of the doubt I will say 150,000, tops. I feel it is quite a bit less, though.

Guesswork? Assumptions? You bet. But since Turbine never releases such numbers (only character numbers, which are useless since one person can make a zillion characters, and this counts free trials), guesswork is all we have.

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people bought the lifetime account, so a lot of money was made up front. If I remember correctly, it was around $200, which is over a year of subscription fees paid monthly.

I should note that the game is still quite successful, though. Even if they have exactly 100,000 subscribers they gross $1.5M per month. Sure, next to WoW it is nothing, but WoW is not a yardstick but an anomaly.

Aren't there also some more servers in Europe?

i wouldnt know if there are more servers for europe as Ive played with people from UK. or they sound like they are british and i live in NYC

Originally posted by nakuma

sorry LOTRO hasnt been out over a year.

Well, considering I haven't played any MMO's for almost 6 months now and the last game I was playing was WoW for about 3-4 months, I'm pretty sure LOTRO has been out for a close to a year since I probably played it for about 3 months after it first came out. So, 6+3+3 = 12 months. I am of course only guessing because I don't give a hoot about LOTRO, but it was stated that the game was over 900k subscribers in it's early stages.

The game launched april 24th 2007 if I am not mistaken.

The 1 mill number that was posted was 1 million CHRACTERS made. IE even level 1s, trial accounts, and deleted toons.

There are at least 7 European servers as well , run by Codemasters.

This obsession with the number of players in LOTRO is bordering on silly to downright pathetic.

Number of servers has less importance than it used to.  EVE Online has "one" server, or one world. That one server is actually a server cluster consisting of many servers.

LOTRO is no different.  Each of the 11 worlds (22 if you count Europe) are server clusters with many servers, perhaps as many as one per region. LOTRO doesn't use the same technology as EVE, but it most likely isn't using the older technology you'd find with WoW server clusters. 

LOTRO also appeals more to the casual player, so one LOTRO world may have a lot fewer players active at one time.

So LOTRO has somewhere around 250k subs, and about 500k subs worldwide.  This is in line with hints we've had from Turbine. This estimate also comes from a server cluster that can hold 25,000 subscriptions (better servers than WoW's 10k servers, but not as good as EVE's 50k servers), and at 10% (for casual players) simultaneous usage.

Having said that...who the f*** cares?

Originally posted by Cerion

This obsession with the number of players in LOTRO is bordering on silly to downright pathetic.

Couldn't agree more, for god sake fellas, give it up already 

Oh and btw, less of the sweeping generalisations please, I'm a founder and a lifetime subscriber who's still playing Sornin

Originally posted by rikilii

Given these factors, how many active players can LoTRO possibly have?

 

This question should really be stickied. 

Originally posted by Ahnilator

 

Wow such a lie. Check this site instead : http://mmogdata.voig.com/

 

 

Enjoy!

Why do people keep trotting out this Bullshit site? It has been proven time after time this guy basically pulls the numbers out of his ass. He has no clue what game has how many players, he regularly changes how he gets his numbers, and SOE proved that as far as thier numbers went for EQ II he didn't know what the hell he was talking about at the last fanfare. Yet fools still use this as gospel.

This is the same guy that was saying WoW had 7.5 Million subs when Blizzard was saying they only had Five million.  Does LOTRO have a million subs? No closer to 750K but this guys numbers are completely retarded.

Originally posted by Taniquetil

There are at least 7 European servers as well , run by Codemasters.

There are 11 servers in Europe, just like in the US.

[quote]Originally posted by Kayless
Oh and btw, less of the sweeping generalisations please, I'm a founder and a lifetime subscriber who's still playing Sornin [/b][/quote]

Learn to read...at least more closely.

I never said all founders were not playing anymore, I said my estimates excluded founders who no longer play. A founder not playing, in my opinion, should no longer count as a subscriber for the purposes of establishing the size of a player base.

That is why I also fairly noted at the bottom that Turbine made a lot of money up front, because of those founders. Smart business move, as I bet a lot of people who did plunk down the $200 will not play a year straight, and probably never a year total. Of course, some will, like yourself.

If people spent a little more time reading and less time trying to burn others, they would not need to pry their feet from their mouths so often.

Originally posted by rikilii

I play on Landroval, what I understand has a relatively high population.  I get the sense that, even at primetime, there can't be more than 1000-2000 players on at the same.

Given these factors, how many active players can LoTRO possibly have?

 

http://img523.imageshack.us/my.php?image=serversmw6.jpg

As you can see there are 11 Servers in Europe ( 4 German, 5 English and 2 French)

There even are 2 Japanese servers.

This makes 24 Servers worldwide

Originally posted by Sornin

[quote]Originally posted by Kayless
Oh and btw, less of the sweeping generalisations please, I'm a founder and a lifetime subscriber who's still playing Sornin [/b][/quote]

Learn to read...at least more closely.

I never said all founders were not playing anymore, I said my estimates excluded founders who no longer play. A founder not playing, in my opinion, should no longer count as a subscriber for the purposes of establishing the size of a player base.

That is why I also fairly noted at the bottom that Turbine made a lot of money up front, because of those founders. Smart business move, as I bet a lot of people who did plunk down the $200 will not play a year straight, and probably never a year total. Of course, some will, like yourself.

If people spent a little more time reading and less time trying to burn others, they would not need to pry their feet from their mouths so often.

It does not make any sence to what your saying, people that have liftime subs and are no longer playing sould not be counted as subs? Man those are the one that Turbine made the most profit from, ofcourse those sould be counted as subs, as well as the active lifetime subs, man 300$ for a lifetime sub sould be counted as a sub no mather what happens! even if thay are not playing at the current time.

Originally posted by sandage

Originally posted by Sornin

[quote]Originally posted by Kayless
Oh and btw, less of the sweeping generalisations please, I'm a founder and a lifetime subscriber who's still playing Sornin [/b][/quote]

Learn to read...at least more closely.

I never said all founders were not playing anymore, I said my estimates excluded founders who no longer play. A founder not playing, in my opinion, should no longer count as a subscriber for the purposes of establishing the size of a player base.

That is why I also fairly noted at the bottom that Turbine made a lot of money up front, because of those founders. Smart business move, as I bet a lot of people who did plunk down the $200 will not play a year straight, and probably never a year total. Of course, some will, like yourself.

If people spent a little more time reading and less time trying to burn others, they would not need to pry their feet from their mouths so often.

It does not make any sence to what your saying, people that have liftime subs and are no longer playing sould not be counted as subs? Man those are the one that Turbine made the most profit from, ofcourse those sould be counted as subs, as well as the active lifetime subs, man 300$ for a lifetime sub sould be counted as a sub no mather what happens! even if thay are not playing at the current time.

It's 200 for lifetime sub

And OF COURSE they should be counted.. the main reason that 99% of the lifetime subbers had for doing it in the first place was the fact that they could stop playing for any amount of time and come back later without any extra fee