New Feature added in for the EU server.  The quote from the creators from the site that I've been using for the numbers is below:

2010-01-29 (v1.3)
------------------
New feature: Activity

The scanning of player changes will be done 2 times per day.

An active player is:
--------------------
* Someone that increase/decrease in alignment
* New rank within a guild
* Someone that change guild
* Changes sex (Hey it might happen in the future, this is a sandbox after all!)
* Changes race
* New players that pops up in the scan

Only players that belong to a clan can be scanned.

A player that has 10 alignment, doesn't change guild, never goes up/down in rank within the guild, and never do any PvP will be considered unactive, since his/hers alignment will stay at 10, but he might login every day to craft or only kill red/orange players.

According to my findings though, a player that has less than +10 alignment, doesn't change guild, never goes up/down in rank within the guild, and never do any PvP but are still playing now and then will be considered active.

Why is the second player considered active and not the first one?

Well, what I've figured out is that when the server goes up every day, everyone will be having +10 alignment according to the server. But as soon as you login this will change and show your correct alignment. So if I scan the list 10-60min after the server goes up everyday and then I scan it again before the server goes down the script will tag everyone that logged in after the first scan and has less than 10 alignment as active players because their alignment has changed.

I'm considering tagging every player as Active if something changed within 30 days. Might change this value in the future though.

df.urme.com/updates.txt

I will be including the total for this new Feature in the EU numbers.

Update for 1/31/2010:

EU: = 12,210 (Weekly Increase of 41)

EU Active: = 1,418 (Baseline)*

NA: = 8,305 (Weekly Increase of 91)

Total: = 20,515 (Increase of 1,859 since 11/17/2009)

*See post above for note on how Actives are counted. 

Link to explanation: df.urme.com/updates.txt

 Good to see the game is gaining ground both in gameplay itself and population. 2010 can only be positive for DF with the upcoming changes. The are gaining slow and steady and thats better than peaks and valleys.

Update for 2/7/2010:

EU: = 12,292 (Weekly Increase of 82)

EU Active: = 1,846 (Weekly Increase of 428)

NA: = 8,193 (Weekly Decrease of 112)

NA Active: = 8,187 (Baseline)

Total: = 20,485 (Increase of 1,829 since 11/17/2009)

 I manually tabulated the clans this morning by copying/pasting from the clan journal into a spreadsheet. As of 10:00 MST (GMT-7), there were:

• 744 Clans on NA
• 8204 Clan members

My count is for ALL clan members, active or not, so it's the maximum possible number of currently subscribed clan members. Obviously, the actual count of currently subscribed clan members will be lower.

~Ripper

Update for 2/14/2010:

EU: = 12,341 (Weekly Increase of 49)

EU Active: = 2,156 (Weekly Increase of 310)

NA: = 8,379 (Weekly Increase of 186)

NA Active: = 2,597 (Baseline Reset)

Total: = 20,720 (Increase of 2,064 since 11/17/2009)

I am really thinking about buying Darkfall, but the only thing holding me back is populations on both servers.  Looking at your figures only 2k active players in the eu is really low for such as vast open game.  I used to play on Daoc a few years ago on the classic server, and really  trying to find any active players was near impossible, sitting in a BG all day hoping 1 or 2 people would show up, yes people did show up but it was so sparadic.  I actualyl like people talking in chat channels, so I just dont feel like im playing by myself.  Now daoc is probably very very very small compared to Darkfall, but with Darkfall world being so big, really only 2k active players playing? 

I really want to play this game,  if only the active playerbase was more.

Originally posted by Reccoo

I am really thinking about buying Darkfall, but the only thing holding me back is populations on both servers.  Looking at your figures only 2k active players in the eu is really low for such as vast open game.  I used to play on Daoc a few years ago on the classic server, and really  trying to find any active players was near impossible, sitting in a BG all day hoping 1 or 2 people would show up, yes people did show up but it was so sparadic.  I actualyl like people talking in chat channels, so I just dont feel like im playing by myself.  Now daoc is probably very very very small compared to Darkfall, but with Darkfall world being so big, really only 2k active players playing? 

 

I really want to play this game,  if only the active playerbase was more.

Remember that these numbers are not 100% accurate, it doesn't count unclanned players and the active thing will probably need 2 more weeks to catch all slackers that has +10 alignment and doesn't kill any blues.

But I feel that 2-3.5k active players on EU is a pretty good guess.

But the activity isn't a problem really, sure you don't get as much open pvp as people want but I think the activity will increase during the next month or two, as long as AV keep patching the game and doesn't wait for a big "expansion" every 6th month.

Originally posted by Urme

Originally posted by Reccoo

I am really thinking about buying Darkfall, but the only thing holding me back is populations on both servers.  Looking at your figures only 2k active players in the eu is really low for such as vast open game.  I used to play on Daoc a few years ago on the classic server, and really  trying to find any active players was near impossible, sitting in a BG all day hoping 1 or 2 people would show up, yes people did show up but it was so sparadic.  I actualyl like people talking in chat channels, so I just dont feel like im playing by myself.  Now daoc is probably very very very small compared to Darkfall, but with Darkfall world being so big, really only 2k active players playing? 

 

I really want to play this game,  if only the active playerbase was more.

 

Remember that these numbers are not 100% accurate, it doesn't count unclanned players and the active thing will probably need 2 more weeks to catch all slackers that has +10 alignment and doesn't kill any blues.

But I feel that 2-3.5k active players on EU is a pretty good guess.

But the activity isn't a problem really, sure you don't get as much open pvp as people want but I think the activity will increase during the next month or two, as long as AV keep patching the game and doesn't wait for a big "expansion" every 6th month.

Are those  2 - 3.5k active members concurrent or total?   Also, why do you think the activity will increase?  Neither of the past two expansions nor the North American launch caused the numbers to surge.  Something huge would have to happen for us to see a major influx of players. in the near future.

I started up again about a week ago  and I've seen only a handful of players in or around the starting area I'm in.  Yes, most players are probably in clan cities or towns, but the absence of other players in the starting area tells me there's not that much new blood....

~Ripper

I don't think it will increase drastically, but what I ment was that it will probably be more than 2200 active accounts in the end of February, since the only real way to tag someone as active is if their alignment change or they change guild. And people with +10 alignment and are an Alfar only change alignment on other Alfars with positive alignment. So 2200 are a minimum of active characters, noone really knows how many that will never "get caught" in this activity scan.

I doubt we will ever see 10k+ active characters during a month though, if AV doesn't do something drastic when it comes to marketing like using Steam etc.

Originally posted by Urme

I don't think it will increase drastically, but what I ment was that it will probably be more than 2200 active accounts in the end of February, since the only real way to tag someone as active is if their alignment change or they change guild. And people with +10 alignment and are an Alfar only change alignment on other Alfars with positive alignment. So 2200 are a minimum of active characters, noone really knows how many that will never "get caught" in this activity scan.

I doubt we will ever see 10k+ active characters during a month though, if AV doesn't do something drastic when it comes to marketing like using Steam etc.

One other thing to remember...

The active tag (for now anyway) is once over a 30-day span.  Meaning that for a player to be tagged as active they only have to trigger one of the mechanisms once, and then they are assumed active for the next 30 days.  That seems pretty generous to me.  The mechanisms check for activity twice a day as well. 

Remember though, unclanned players are NOT included in active player scans.   Considering the emphasis put on joining a clan... is that a sizeable percentage?  I leave that for others to speculate.

Here is the text of what mechanisms trigger activity:

df.urme.com/updates.txt

"New feature: Activity

The scanning of player changes will be done 2 times per day.

An active player is:
--------------------
* Someone that increase/decrease in alignment
* New rank within a guild
* Someone that change guild
* Changes sex (Hey it might happen in the future, this is a sandbox after all!)
* Changes race
* New players that pops up in the scan

Only players that belong to a clan can be scanned.

A player that has 10 alignment, doesn't change guild, never goes up/down in rank within the guild, and never do any PvP will be considered unactive, since his/hers alignment will stay at 10, but he might login every day to craft or only kill red/orange players.

According to my findings though, a player that has less than +10 alignment, doesn't change guild, never goes up/down in rank within the guild, and never do any PvP but are still playing now and then will be considered active.

Why is the second player considered active and not the first one?

Well, what I've figured out is that when the server goes up every day, everyone will be having +10 alignment according to the server. But as soon as you login this will change and show your correct alignment. So if I scan the list 10-60min after the server goes up everyday and then I scan it again before the server goes down the script will tag everyone that logged in after the first scan and has less than 10 alignment as active players because their alignment has changed.

I'm considering tagging every player as Active if something changed within 30 days. Might change this value in the future though."
 

Rank change won't trigger a player as active any longer on the EU scan though.

Yeah 30 days is very generous, not impossible it will be lowered in the future.

Update for: 2/21/2010

EU: = 12,344 (Weekly Increase of 3)

EU Active: = 2,347 (Weekly Increase of 191)

NA: = 8,497 (Weekly Increase of 118)

NA Active: = 3,991 (Weekly Increase of 1,394)

Total: = 20,841 (Increase of 2,185 since 11/17/2009)

It would be very nice if someone has the energy to do a weekly graph with both servers population so we can easily see the trend.

Update for: 2/28/2010

EU: = 12,452 (Weekly Increase of 108)

EU Active: = 2,226 (Weekly Decrease of 121)

NA: = 8,778 (Weekly Increase of 281)

NA Active: = 4,785 (Weekly Increase of 794)

Total: = 21,230 (Increase of 2,574 since 11/17/2009)

How come the US server says that the NEW clan has 297 members and 100% of them are active? surely that can't be right? the EU servers NEW guild is only at about 50% activity.

Originally posted by xzyax

Update for: 2/28/2010

EU: = 12,452 (Weekly Increase of 108)

EU Active: = 2,226 (Weekly Decrease of 121)

NA: = 8,778 (Weekly Increase of 281)

NA Active: = 4,785 (Weekly Increase of 794)

Total: = 21,230 (Increase of 2,574 since 11/17/2009)

As I understand it correctly, this shows only guilded players.
 

An additional survey or respective poll (on official forums), with a sample size of 400-500 and a single question: "are you in a guild at the moment or not" could show the real number of players.

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by xzyax

Update for: 2/28/2010

EU: = 12,452 (Weekly Increase of 108)

EU Active: = 2,226 (Weekly Decrease of 121)

NA: = 8,778 (Weekly Increase of 281)

NA Active: = 4,785 (Weekly Increase of 794)

Total: = 21,230 (Increase of 2,574 since 11/17/2009)

As I understand it correctly, this shows only guilded players.
 

An additional survey or respective poll (on official forums), with a sample size of 400-500 and a single question: "are you in a guild at the moment or not" could show the real number of players.

You are correct in that these numbers only count players in clans.

That being said... I don't think anyone would argue that the number one advice given to new and prospective players of DarkFall is:  Join a clan!  NOW!!!

One other point is that as I've shown in the table from the first post, there are quite a few counted in the clan list that are no longer subbed, or active.  The EU server is quite a bit more so than the NA server, but both have a fair number listed on the clan count that are no longer valid.

The numbers for those that are no longer subbed do indeed come down eventually (as shown in the table in the OP), but they do so very, very slowly.

So, the question becomes... do the inactives and un-subbed that are counted in the clan counts off-set those who are un-clanned?  From what I've seen and heard, I think they are close enough to give a pretty good indication of the overall population.

 Are the numbers exact?  

Nope, not by any stretch.  

Are the numbers as close as anyone is going to get without exact numbers from Aventurine?

 Yup. 

Update for 3/7/2010:

EU: = 12,541 (Weekly Increase of 89)
EU Active: = 2,243 (Weekly Increase of 17)

NA: = 9,081 (Weekly Increase of 303)
NA Active: = 4,865 (Weekly Increase of 80)

Total: = 21,622 (Increase of 2,966 since 11/17/2009)

Thats a pretty big difference in active players for NA-1, didn't think EU-1 had a lower population.