Shard Population A Lie??

When I log in, the automated server message says roughly 550+ players are currently online....

This must be a joke... There is literally zero players hanging at major city bank hubs like Moonglow... I saw two players at the Skara Bank, and 4 at Brit West Bank (those 4 were two sets of macroer's...)

Why inflate the population number to such a degree... I can understand adding maybe 25-50 to the number to bolster morale and whatnot... but when your server has 25-50 players online, it's ridiculous to timestamp everyones login with a number that is 10-20x the actual player population...

I can't be the only one who notices this.. thoughts?

Ocllo yo.

Any relevance your point might of had is wiped away by the throwaway account.

Throw-away Account? I'm new ...

Good to see at least there is life on the forums... why do the cities feel so empty... where is everyone?

The numbers aren't inflated. This is a Fel server with thieves and PK's. Town is not as safe as you think if you wanna be afk.

People often idle in their houses to earn platinum (read new player guide for further info on this.)

Run around big housing areas and you will see people in their homes. The rest are in Ocllo or the land between town and home.

The player count isn't a lie, and here's a few reasons why it is what it is:

Outside of Ocllo where new players start and usually macro, this isn't a bank sitting shard. Most folks are out adventuring, crafting in homes, fishing on the seas, or macroing.

Players are encouraged to stay online, which earns them monthly platinum that can be used on the reward vendors. Since players can have 3 accounts, they could be leaving those characters logged in all the time, though not all do (Plenty of days where I do not).

The server rarely reboots, so folks can just stay online continually.

Feel free to hop on IRC if you'd like to chat more with the players here and if you have any other questions.

I wouldn't call it 'player count'. It's client count. So yeah, it's much less active players than 500+ at any given time.
But still, I dont believe the numbers are faked. You indeed have that much clients logged in, which becomes obvious when you run around on your tracker.

And the active players you might be searching don't hang out in cities, they farm, pvp, are on the oceans or the customized instances whatever. The real hangout spot to chat are the IRC channels. You definitely should join them and connect with the community. From then on, it's easy to find the other players and do stuff together.

About the really active player numbers: I would say it fluctuates between ~250 (US prime times) to ~50 (deep US nights, mainly Europeans and insomniacs playing). People just leave their toons logged in all the time --> welfare plat.

I agree with what's been said above. Also, gone is the day of trading at the bank, standing around spamming. Trading happens on the forums and IRC.

For the most part, the only people you'll see idling at the bank are new players without houses (who are protected by their Young status) and people macroing Peace or Hiding

Welcome to the best shard around.

.

or just divide it by 3.

then you'll get 'exact' population, cuz UOR allows 3 accounts per 1 person.

and we still got around 200 population. UOR is so active

I believe Chris has said that the average is about 1.5 characters per IP, so the actual number of players is much higher.

Just keep in mind, my playstyle, involves me avoiding everyone as much as possible. Im on 3 accounts 24/7 though. My town of choice is Occlo because thats where all the bank sitters go to show their hotness. My pvm area of choice, is one which will help me avoid any human contact.

If that fails, I gate out immediately and wait a while or just do something else to avoid further contact.

Events I become more of a social butterfly, thats about it though

we are all robots!!

Naughty little robots.

Ug... is it that time of the month again?

Perhaps we should take all of the threads like these and dump them in their own sub forum and direct all the new ones to it.

I idled at a bank once. Came back to someone trying to mace my blessed bear hat. Lesson learned.

Where the F you been? The beer cooler is empty!

Daddy's got the shakes and needs his medicine!

Jupiter was supposed to keep the ice chest stocked.