Population

[Amadeous]

I've been reading the forums, scanning articles about CO, and watching several vids about it as well.
Just something I'd like to clarify is as of October 2009, how populated is the server?

I've seen some people saying "the game is becoming dead." But I'm not the type of person to take note for answer. So I come here to ask if the players of CO and what they think of the whole of CO.

More specifically, I'm waiting for the weekend trial event (the wait is killing me, I'm DYING to pay for it right now.)

The servers will probably be fuller since new players are all going to be mounded at the same time.
Regardless

How populated are the servers?
Will I be able to party easily?
Will I be able to walk into an area of a town and start talking to some random stranger? (Lol)

I mean, I enjoy a good MMO with the graphics, design, storyline...etc..etc...
But what truly gets me playing is the population and how many people play.

I may be ranting on and on, but its late at night.... and I haven't had a tea in like... ever.

I appreciate any insight, all I ask for is no trolling or fanboi's. Cause feeding them both is unhealthy.

Oh and, what would you rate the game out of 5? (Please state why.. i'd rather not read 10 comments saying its 10000/10 and finish the convo lmao)

[Xinra]

Originally Posted by Amadeous

I appreciate any insight, all I ask for is no trolling or fanboi's. Cause feeding them both is unhealthy.

It's kind of hard to avoid either one of these, but how are you going to tell the difference anyhow? Would a negative comment mean that the person ia a troll, and a positive comment mean they're a fanboi?

So here are the definite facts. The first month saw an amazing population of players, and the game was amazing social, interactive, and bustling with activity. Two months later and things have settled down to a slow steady pace. That's about as unbiased and troll/fanboi free as I can state it.

[RedneckTrek]

I honestly haven't noticed a huge difference. The population seems a little smaller when I play in the morning, in the USA, but in the evening everything is hopping. I doubt you'll have any trouble finding a team.

I won't try to rate the game, but I will tell you that I'm enjoying it a ton. Yes there are a few problems, but nothing that has made me feel like I'm ready to give up on it.

[Ninja_Pirate]

Originally Posted by Xinra

It's kind of hard to avoid either one of these, but how are you going to tell the difference anyhow? Would a negative comment mean that the person ia a troll, and a positive comment mean they're a fanboi?

I mock both fanbois and trolls equally.

What's that make me?



-np

[TheVedis]

the only info i can give as far as accuracy goes is this

normaly you can see 5k+ people online, but this does not reflect everyone online(cant see inside pvp or instances or many other hidden spots, only the main zones)
this also does not reflect every subscriber, and from what ive been able to tell, you are unable to see every instance of every zone when you pull up the change instance screen
which brings me to this
2 weeks ago, the sharding broke, and everyone got jammed into single instances of each zone....

we were seeing upwards of 10k people in MC alone, as well as 5k or so in the desert and canada, thats not counting other areas of the game
this was also relatively early in the afternoon....on a weekday, so a low % of americans were on, other countries, cant speak for them
but 20k visible poeple in 3 zones is alot on at 1 time, usualy ive heard, 10% of a games population can be on, on average at a time, so do the math


as for the rest

teaming still isnt at its greatest in the leveling sense, endgame instances(both of them) yes you need it, pvp, of course you wanna premade for that, theres also something coming in next month nemesis wise thats meant for teams, not for a single person.

talking to randoms? yeah ask the RPers about that

id personaly rate the game 3/5, with the potential to get 5/5 in time(no game has ever earned this from me yet to this day though)
i also rate FFXI as a 4/5 and wow as a 2/5 for comparison

[alkabeth]

Originally Posted by Amadeous

How populated are the servers?

Obviously this varies over time, but at 9:00 PM Pacific today there were about 2500 people in the 5 main areas (about 1/2 in MC). There are an unknown number of people in other places but any guess as to how many, is just a guess. My guess is that there are 50% more people active than are in the 5 main areas, but that is just a guess from my play style and how often I'm not in the main areas.

Each of those areas is broken up into an instance with no more than 100 people. Most had between 60 - 80.

There are a lot less people on than when the game started. This isn't surprising, but I am surprised by the smallness of the actual number of people in the main areas.

Now, I was surprised by how many people were playing on the test server during the Bloodmoon test. So maybe tons of people will be coming out of the woodwork for that event. I would think so.

Originally Posted by Amadeous

Will I be able to party easily?

Join one of the global chat channels designed for grouping (lfg is one of them) and you should have no problem finding a group for the 5 man missions. I've only seen one person fail to get a group and that was very late at night.

Originally Posted by Amadeous

Will I be able to walk into an area of a town and start talking to some random stranger?

You can, but realize that CO has mostly soloable content and it appears to me that most people play that content solo. For group chatting and such, I'd recommend checking out Super Groups.

Originally Posted by Amadeous

Oh and, what would you rate the game out of 5?

I'd give it a 2 1/2 and then subtract 1/2 for overall customer service and lack of communication by Cryptic to the player base. The core of the game is fun, but there is horrible play balance, there is no direction given to new players about how to not fail repeatedly, and there is (by Cryptic's own admission) large holes in the single content path that you use to level.

Once you have a handle on a play style that works, the game goes up to a 3 and is certainly worth playing through.
There are plenty of fun parts and tons of humor in the game.

Originally Posted by Amadeous

I appreciate any insight

1. Stay way from Martial Arts and Claws for your first framework. If you can't decide, go with munitions and blow stuff up.
2. Take flight or teleport as your travel power
3. Take the power Regeneration from the Supernatural framework when you reach level 8 and make sure you have dragged it to your power bar and increase its rank, the sooner the better.
4. If you find that you are dying often then you probably need to block more.
5. Read the mission text, it is very funny with lots of comedic references.

Doing that will keep you alive until you know what you should have done with the superstats and other powers. If you already know when to break the above rules, you don't need them and are probably either having fun or have hit level 40 and don't like alts.

There is a lot of fun to be had in this game if you know where to look and if Cryptic doesn't blow it.

[Mr.Funsocks]

People can make guesses about population, but really, they're just guesses. I'd estimate that there's about 60-100 thousand subscribers, 100 000 was what they were aiming for but I don't think it's that high. Most of the people claiming the game is "dying" are, to put it simply, stupid.

The reality is though, if all you're worried about is the community, the game would have to drop below about 5 000 subscribers before it was really noticable, because it's a single shard. Even if there's only 40 people logged on in each of the 5 main zones, that's still enough people to be populous, because there's never more than 100 people per zone, because it starts a new instance.

I'd rate the game 5/5 for potential, 3/5 or so for reality. If they keep their act together and don't make decisions that drive away the customer base, it'll be a splendid MMO, and they've been doing good so far. But, quite simply, it was a 3-4 month premature release. It's now about at the point where most "good" MMOs get released, but it'll be a month or two more before it's really where it SHOULD be at release, as most MMOs release way too early because of money concerns.

[Aesirgard]

Originally Posted by Ninja_Pirate

I mock both fanbois and trolls equally.
What's that make me?

A "moderate", which means you're loathed by both sides.

Welcome, fellow pariah.

[xrayzed]

Not much to add, other than to note I'm in broad agreement with most of the posters.

Champions Onlines shard system does indeed mean you're unlikely to end up in an area without other players. I did once spend quite a while trying to find an ally for a particularly tough mission, and finally bailed in favour of another character in another zone. That's rare.

Teaming isn't great at the moment, although it keeps getting better, and based the new patch looks as if it will add significant improvements. While teaming is getting better, soloing is usually faster - much faster. If leveling quickly isn't an issue for you, team away. It isn't hard to form a group, although they tend not to last long. More's the pity.

Overall 'd personally rate the game 3/5 at present, 4.5/5 for potential (I think there are a few fundamental design issues that are unfixable). I'd also suggest the game was about 2.5/5 only a month ago, but a number of changes tweaking content and powers have helped.

You probably won't notice some of the biggest problems for some time, such as thin content around Level 30+ or issues with Lemuria (AKA Lagmuria - guess why).

I'd second the suggestion to stay away from Martial Arts and Claws, and I'd add archery to that as well. They're playable, but harder.

Regen is still generally regarded as the best passive defence, although if you don't think it fits your characters concept it's not needed - but it is very handy. Still I get by fine with Invuln for my Might char, and Defiance for my Munitions/might hybrid. But my Lightning Reflexes Dual Blads char dies a lot.

Finally: I might only rate the game 3/5, but for personal enjoyment I'd put it on 4/5. Despite it's flaws I'm having an absolute blast. Much to my wife's annoyance ("Will you turn that stupid computer off...?")

[Chat]

Originally Posted by TheVedis

2 weeks ago, the sharding broke, and everyone got jammed into single instances of each zone....

we were seeing upwards of 10k people in MC alone, as well as 5k or so in the desert and canada, thats not counting other areas of the game
this was also relatively early in the afternoon....on a weekday, so a low % of americans were on, other countries, cant speak for them
but 20k visible poeple in 3 zones is alot on at 1 time, usualy ive heard, 10% of a games population can be on, on average at a time, so do the math

One moar time... The number was a visual bug.
Unless you count the - which would mean there was a -10000 people on at the same time... Which would have the same effect as dividing by zero.

So basically... The number they do nothing!
Well they did nothing when it broke.
Next person that mention it will get slapped by Chat.