Some servers will always get a rather low population after the first free month is up. Even games that start to grow soon after release will have some servers with low population 1-3 months after release and some servers get more popular than others, all games will have some larger and some smaller servers.

I think OP should try to reroll on a different server and check out if it looks the same there.

But any game that sells that much the first week probably could close down a few servers, it is of course not unlikely that the game start to growand fill up those spaces again but it will take a while.

It is the usual problem: Either you open up loads of servers at launch or you will have to limit the sales the first week one way or another, neither is a perfect solution but few MMOs keeps more than 60% of the people buying a box, if in fact any.

Originally posted by mCalvert

I took advantage of the free play this weekend, and ive seen maybe 1 or 2 people at a time. Social only shows a few hundred people on and most at level 50. Which means its basically a solo game. Most of the rift, events I have been doing solo. Seems like a major flaw to the game. How are you supposed to fight back a world event, epic mobs, with only 10 people?

I too, took advantage of the free play trail of Rift. There were loads of people playing. That would be ridiculous of trion to merge servers when the game was just released. 

Lotham, guardian, level 1-15. ALl times of the day. I saw one person in the tutorial area the entire time, and almost no one in level 1-15 areas. Social shows a couple people near my level, chat rooms are silent. During beta you had to fight to complete quests or get to a rift before people killed. Now im alone fighting rifts. While Rift may have plenty of subs, there is a flaw in these type games that if you arent constantly bringing in new players, the few who do try it out have no one else to play with.

I haven't had any population issues, at least until around 3am last night (or this morrning) when I would only run in to 2-4 people at rift locations making it a bit more challenging. So from my perspective, I don't think it's time to merge servers. I'm also not above 20 yet, as someone else mentioned as when it goes downhill. I'm bummed to hear some people complaining about it already because I really like the impression I've had so far and hope I won't be playing an empty game above 20.

Over the past week I have leveled from 1-28 and I have seen tons of people the whole way through.  It may be the server/time issue.

Social currently shows.

1-5 - 8 people

5-10 - 20 people

10-15 - 20 people

Is that enough? All Im saying is this was my experience, that I feel alone.

Originally posted by Loke666

Some servers will always get a rather low population after the first free month is up. Even games that start to grow soon after release will have some servers with low population 1-3 months after release and some servers get more popular than others, all games will have some larger and some smaller servers.

I think OP should try to reroll on a different server and check out if it looks the same there.

But any game that sells that much the first week probably could close down a few servers, it is of course not unlikely that the game start to growand fill up those spaces again but it will take a while.

It is the usual problem: Either you open up loads of servers at launch or you will have to limit the sales the first week one way or another, neither is a perfect solution but few MMOs keeps more than 60% of the people buying a box, if in fact any.

 Ok, then maybe they should come up with a more dynamic system to force people together, like layers on a server that you can mover between instead of seperating people into differnt universes.

Originally posted by Zeblade

Yeah its really not in the starting areas. Its when you get to zones lvl 20 and up you find no one there. And like I have said before your always going to get some lame "its all fine" posed in forums yet INGAME you see it and read all about it. Going hours and days to do one 5 man dungeon tells it all. Yeah there are so many playing yet NONE want to do any of them? 

I am sure they will soon. LOL they had the what "freeweekend".. wow its only been 1month and they have that.. thats just sad and shows you how bad  RIFT is doing. Again people will POST its not bad yet INGAME..less people all the time.

Not for sure why having a free weekend would be bad, actually I think its a pretty good idea.  One that more gaming companies should do and probably will.   I told a couple of my friends and they did it and liked it, so want to buy the game.  I have issues with Rift, but the population isn't one of them.

The server populations are down quite a bit but you still see roughly half of the servers on high at prime time hours. If you play goofy hours it might be hard finding a server that works for you but that is just the nature of MMOs. If you play normal hours and really are having problems finding people just try another server because they aren't close to the point where they need to merge yet.

Rift is a game that functions best when just under the point where you have a queue.  It is the main way to have the big events happen instead of just having wimpy little events.  That said yes I do think each of the high-pop at primetime servers should be eating a med-pop server at primetime server.  Actually it says a lot about the game that I seem to care about it enough to give advice about it despite it nerfing my character to the point where I closed my account.  Very good game dashed on the rocks of class balance, conformity, and content gating.

For Reals?? I just got out of trail and ppl were complaining bout lag because of to many ppl on the server i was on. Odd topic.

Just proves again that sharding is dumb.

Originally posted by Isturi

For Reals?? I just got out of trail and ppl were complaining bout lag because of to many ppl on the server i was on. Odd topic.

Ofc its  not for real, the servers are still full of people... at least here in europe

I'm up to level 20 now and there's always been a decent amount of people around. Must be just the server the OP is on.

Is there a prize for the being the first to suggest a server merge in a new game? I just saw this in another mmo after 3 weeks and went through  server merges more than once in other mmo's but none ever happened quickly in the games history.

I had the same issue as op did, on eu server gaurdian side, newbie zone had an ok/good population but after 20 it was rare to meet other people. playd on 1 med server and i rerolled to a high server same thing. But i do think this is big issue with what faction you play on the shards. If you play def you might have a healthy pop while the guard side dont or the other way around.

I never did an population count, if i get the feeling im alone in a mmo i just leave em.

I have no doubt rift has an healthy population all in all so dont get me wrong, but i do think there is an issue with how they handle shards atm.

This is a game i plan the check out again down the road as the game itself was not bad

Originally posted by remyburke

http://www.riftgame.com/en/status/index.php

High and Medium server status across the board. My shard (Estrael) seems very healthy.

This link might explain the reason why you have different people having different population experiences and the shards showing mainly medium and high. Trion seem to have set the medium threshold quite low if these numbers are right, and I have no reason to believe they are wrong as I have used the same technique in other games myself. Many did say that opening shards instead of waiting out the queue times was a bad move and they seem to be right.

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?156373-quot-Medium-quot-pop-server-can-be-gt-1000-players

Cal.

After the first month this always happens in a MMO, hardly a newsflash story. It depends on the server, some may need to merge now. Mine does not, can't say if any others should. I am sure Trion are keeping an I on this.

Ya I think they added too many servers. It was okay for headstart, but they added like 6 more for official release. So while I'm sure headstart servers are healthy, I have doubts about others.

  I find this quite laughable, Its far too early for servers to merge. I find the game to be quite full at most times, there are always players at each rift to wreck mayhem. Perhaps that is only on the server I play on, maybe you joined a server that people are shunning.

A simple solution would be to create a character onto a high populated server, or wait until daytime at prime-times.