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."

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.

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.

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

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."

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

dont forget the farmer accounts

and etc etc

nobody wants to invest lots of time for a mmo game which fortune is uncertain.

please spare me the *the journey is what counts*

comments ..its part true but if you think so, go hiking or play one of those great singleplayer rpgs.

some great out there with more imersion then any mmorpg.

And thats why gamers check the server loads.

We just dont wanna put time into a game which lives on livesupport waiting for more players to come

Originally posted by 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."

That is just false, patently false.  2000 online would mean all four nations at very heavy and that has never happened for an instant let alone on any regular basis.  And 2000 at a minimum is also BS - the busiest servers have at best a light and a moderate and a couple heavy at peaks.  All servers are at best a couple lights and a couple moderates at off times.

FLS could kill half the servers tomorrow and still struggle to get the remaining 5 busy to all heavy at peak times at at off times they would still have half the nations at light populations.

So given all this data, I want to play on a server that has a large spread out population. I don't want to play on a server thats dominated by whoring pirates like Blackbeard. So any suggestions?

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Originally posted by Domenicus

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Originally posted by rashhero

So given all this data, I want to play on a server that has a large spread out population. I don't want to play on a server thats dominated by whoring pirates like Blackbeard. So any suggestions?

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Originally posted by rashhero

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Originally posted by Domenicus

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Originally posted by rashhero

So given all this data, I want to play on a server that has a large spread out population. I don't want to play on a server thats dominated by whoring pirates like Blackbeard. So any suggestions?

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I'd like an answer from someone a good bit less negative please.

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2000 people might not be "Very Heavy" as compared to other MMOs, but I think for the size of the PotBS world it is a good number. There is just 1 open sea, everything else besides towns is instanced. It takes about 30-45 minutes? to go from one end to the other depending on your currents and ship It's not a huge area so they needed to keep the numbers low.

Originally posted by Meltdown

2000 people might not be "Very Heavy" as compared to other MMOs, but I think for the size of the PotBS world it is a good number. There is just 1 open sea, everything else besides towns is instanced. It takes about 30-45 minutes? to go from one end to the other depending on your currents and ship It's not a huge area so they needed to keep the numbers low.

Originally posted by rashhero

 

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Originally posted by Domenicus

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Originally posted by rashhero

 

So given all this data, I want to play on a server that has a large spread out population. I don't want to play on a server thats dominated by whoring pirates like Blackbeard. So any suggestions?

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<Mod edit>

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I'd like an answer from someone a good bit less negative please.

 

As regards to the topic bear in mind that 2000 online on one sever can be equivalent to up to 10,000 subscribers for thet server because it's a known fact that only 25-30% maximum of subscribers are online at any given time.

Originally posted by DJXeon ...

because it's a known fact that only 25-30% maximum of subscribers are online at any given time.

 

I would be interested in seeing the source of that data please.

Not a flame - I am really interested in how the populations of Online Games vary vs time and day of the week.

Originally posted by Gyrus

 

Originally posted by DJXeon ...

because it's a known fact that only 25-30% maximum of subscribers are online at any given time.

 

 

 

I would be interested in seeing the source of that data please.

Not a flame - I am really interested in how the populations of Online Games vary vs time and day of the week.

I can't say the exact figure but FLS ops guy Gary Noten was workng on 20-25% online when they calculated the amount of servers needed.

[Quote Gary Noten] Step one is to take our expected subscriber counts. Let’s say that the multiplier for presales to subscribers is 2.00, and we are on track to get 50,000 presales units sold. This results in an expected subscriber count of 100,000.

Step two is to calculate expected peak concurrency. The multiplier here is different from game to game, but generally falls between 20% and 25%. So for this pretend calculation, we expect to have 20% of our subscriber base active at peak, resulting in a peak concurrency of 20,000 players.

Step three is to determine how many active players are supported by a single server. This is often an art vs a science, and is certainly so for us. Sometimes there are technical limitations, and other times the limitations are design side. For us, the key metrics in determining how many players we want to allow onto a server are ‘how vibrant does the economy feel’ and ‘how crowded does the open sea feel’ ... for this fake calculation, we’ll say 2,000 players per server.

Finally, we take the numbers from step two and three and figure out how many servers we need. If we have a peak concurrency of 20,000 players, and 2,000 players per server, we need ten servers to handle that load.

In Equation form, you could look at it as:

Subscriber Base * Concurrency Rate / Players Per Server = Servers Needed

or

100,000 * 20% / 2,000 = 10 [/Quote]

So i think we can say the the servers are on average half empty (or half full) with the spread across the 11 servers going from busy on the top three servers to low on the bottom three.

There you have it - they have capacity for up to 100.000 subscribers but are currently running on just under half that figure. (~35k+)

FLS are hopefull that populations will grow over time in the same way that Eve does. Currently by no means a disaster but could be better.

At present there are no plans for server merges & as one poster said Potbs seems to work well with low-medium populated servers.

In any event they should now be getting enough income coming in to continue development at full speed for a game that has lots of potential.

Originally posted by DJXeon

 

Originally posted by Gyrus

 

Originally posted by DJXeon ...

because it's a known fact that only 25-30% maximum of subscribers are online at any given time.

 

 

 

I would be interested in seeing the source of that data please.

Not a flame - I am really interested in how the populations of Online Games vary vs time and day of the week.

 

I can't say the exact figure but FLS ops guy Gary Noten was workng on 20-25% online when they calculated the amount of servers needed.

[Quote Gary Noten] Step one is to take our expected subscriber counts. Let’s say that the multiplier for presales to subscribers is 2.00, and we are on track to get 50,000 presales units sold. This results in an expected subscriber count of 100,000.

Step two is to calculate expected peak concurrency. The multiplier here is different from game to game, but generally falls between 20% and 25%. So for this pretend calculation, we expect to have 20% of our subscriber base active at peak, resulting in a peak concurrency of 20,000 players.

Step three is to determine how many active players are supported by a single server. This is often an art vs a science, and is certainly so for us. Sometimes there are technical limitations, and other times the limitations are design side. For us, the key metrics in determining how many players we want to allow onto a server are ‘how vibrant does the economy feel’ and ‘how crowded does the open sea feel’ ... for this fake calculation, we’ll say 2,000 players per server.

Finally, we take the numbers from step two and three and figure out how many servers we need. If we have a peak concurrency of 20,000 players, and 2,000 players per server, we need ten servers to handle that load.

In Equation form, you could look at it as:

Subscriber Base * Concurrency Rate / Players Per Server = Servers Needed

or

100,000 * 20% / 2,000 = 10 [/Quote]

So i think we can say the the servers are on average half empty (or half full) with the spread across the 11 servers going from busy on the top three servers to low on the bottom three.

There you have it - they have capacity for up to 100.000 subscribers but are currently running on just under half that figure. (~35k+)

FLS are hopefull that popultions will grow over time in the same way that Eve does. Currently by no means a disaster but could be better.

At present there are no plans for server merges & as one poster said Potbs seems to work well with low-medium populated servers.

The 20-25% is about peak time not at any time? While The FLS guys said so, did you mean literally at any  time initially?

Originally posted by Orphes

 

 

The 20-25% is about peak time not at any time? While The FLS guys said so, did you mean literally at any  time initially?

As you can see it's good enough populations but has plenty of room for improvement.

Raph Koster blogged that a prime time online populations was typically around 20% of a game total subscriber base.  A few other people have tossed around similar figures and back when EQ displayed number of players online for each server it matched up pretty well with their subscription press releases.

 It would only make sense that those number would be a higher percentage during the first month of a games launch as people are in the honeymoon phase and can't get enough.  That is just speculation though.

Its pretty much a rule of thumb to use the 20% or 1:5 ratio (20% of subscribers are active players, or take the number of active players and multiply by 5).  Granted there are variances per game, but that does give a good ball-park number.