Horizon's status check?

[Fierce]

It has been awile since i've heard of any event updates, new material coming out and how the game is surviving. Why is there such a lack of communication?? Seems as if the number of players are dropping rapidly in-game. Why do you think something like this would happen? Does anyone know where the future of Horizons lies? And if so, is there a timeline?

[Kerech]

It has been awile since i've heard of any event updates, new material coming out and how the game is surviving. Why is there such a lack of communication?? Seems as if the number of players are dropping rapidly in-game. Why do you think something like this would happen? Does anyone know where the future of Horizons lies? And if so, is there a timeline?

Well, depending on who you talk to, back in July there were around 400 people online each night. Nowadays there are around 30-40, so we lost 360 people over 7 months... I'd say the timeline is looking pretty short at that rate

And don't expect to hear anything official in reply to this post. EII/PME has chosen not to talk to us players any more.

[Fierce]

then i suppose the next question would be when are the servers going down? Because they are not gonna want to keep shelling out money to keep those servers up if nobody is there to play on them!!

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

then i suppose the next question would be when are the servers going down? Because they are not gonna want to keep shelling out money to keep those servers up if nobody is there to play on them!!

EI's probably still making plenty of money off those still clinging to it all. As long as these people stay around, I see the game continuing to stagnate without updates for many months.

[Fierce]

Sad but true, With such a strong player pride within the game, just frustrating and disappointing i suppose

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

Sad but true, With such a strong player pride within the game, just frustrating and disappointing i suppose

I don't think anyone has been more right about anything before, ever.

[Drakarr]

Where did you get those numbers from, i've been keeping fairly good track

and just before the sale when subs seemed to be going up we were getting

about 80-100 during peak on Chaos (from about 3pm-9ish Pacific time).

Lately when i check we have anywhere from about 40-60, and when i do

a /who, a couple races at a time, I get slightly over double whats in MP.

Those numbers would of course not include those who choose to play invis.

The numbers above seem to be from a /who type count on a good day from

6 months ago to only a marketplace pop count on a mediocre day.

But if you go by my observations population has not KEPT dropping, it

droped quite sharply to appx. 30ish in MP during peak then rose to the 50ish

we are seeing now and has been fairly stable for a while. There was a drop

again to 30ish right after the server problem that # lasted for about a week

now its back up to 50ish.

[AA0]

uh, I think your numbers are way way off, during peak times Order would haveup to 80 or 90 people in market channel, chaos was 2.5 times the population of Order at one point..
Right now Order gets in the high teens.. sometimes 20 in market.

[Drakarr]

Chaos hit just barely over 100 a few times before the sale, I remember that

because it was commented on by several of us vets. It had not seen over

100 before that for a looong time. I think perhaps ORder may have more of

its pop in MP dunno never looked much at numbers there so I will take your

word for it. Alot in Chaos avoid MP because of the bickering that goes on in

there alot.

[Peaches]

Same with Order, a LOT do not even enter that room, due to the nastiness that occurs from time to time, more oft than not though. The ONLY folks that even have a clue of how many per server, is Ei, not players. Counting who is in market, is not an accurate way of giving info, so as far as I am concerned, its false info with an axe to grind, or something to prove.

[Drakarr]

Yes, very true on the MP count, a closer pop count is from a /who

and you have to do several filters doing a few races at a time, and even that

is just a roundabout # of ONLY CURRENT online due to people logging in/out. I was

never meaning to portray my observations as a total server population and

am sorry if it came across as such.

[Peaches]

Sorry, my post was right after yours, and wasn't intended as a direct response to your post. The thread in general.And, oh ya, there is no way of counting those that are invisible either. Some choose to do just that, go invisible I mean. Heh

[BKBanzai]

Well, depending on who you talk to, back in July there were around 400 people online each night. Nowadays there are around 30-40, so we lost 360 people over 7 months... I'd say the timeline is looking pretty short at that rate

Chaos Marketplace had about 80-90 max right before the sale during peak evening hours.

Currently it's running about 36-50 during peak.

If you're combining Chaos and Order shards, then you're definitely not counting 1 of the shards in your population count.

Lot's of players don't even go into Marketplace, or that pop in only when they're looking to buy something.

I'd say your numbers are misrepresenting the current population counts.

[Kerech]

I haven't actually tried to count - I was just going by numbers I'd seen on other boards.

[Elspeth]

While the numbers that have been posted earlier can't be taken as absolute population numbers, all they show is a drastic reduction of those in the market channel or those who choose not to be invisible. However it is possible to draw conclusions from the trends and I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that the population of Chaos has havled in the last 6 months or so, most noticeably since the twin events of Vanguard launching and Choas's multi-day outage.

Regards

Elspeth

[Spartikus]

What nastiness could occur in the MP channel? I thought this was the most mature community in gaming?

Sersiouly though Peaches, Wether you choose to believe that xx% of players dont go into marketplace or whatehave you, the point of this discussion is the trend not the actual numbers..

Of course keep in mind that since the billing system doesnt work right players are still able to play with accounts that have been closed. Of the people I talk to ingame, several (actually a surprising number to me) are playing on accounts that are closed and have been for months / years.

[Steelclaw]

The ONLY folks that even have a clue of how many per server, is Ei, not players.

Actually, the players do have a clue. Check the "Current Population" column in the shard status on the login page. When was the last time any shard read something other than "Offline" or "Very Light"?

Yes, it changes based on population, no, I don't know what the thresholds are. But yes, I've seen Chaos change to something else (like "Light") during better days. :/

In addition, the maximum between the visible player count and size of the most populated chat channel is an indicator of a shard's population -- it means AT LEAST that many players are logged in. Example: Marketplace shows 35, /who shows 20. You know at least 35 people are logged in. Well... 34, because of the bot.

You could even be more thorough and go through each channel, do a /who on each occupant, and find out whether they're invisible or not. Add the invisible people to the visible ones, and the only ones you're missing out on are the ones who are invisible and aren't in a channel.

So yes, we do have an idea. No, it isn't a complete picture, however, it isn't necessary to get absolute numbers to conclude that not as many people are playing now as compared to before.

Besides, absolute numbers don't mean too much in this case. If you're sitting all alone in Bristugo and going "Wow, I wish there was someone to [insert social activity] with", the answer to the shard population is simple: Not high enough.

[Xante]

The only accurate population count in HZ is the one of Unity ( = 0 playing players )... however, Unity has a "waiting list" of players who would love to play again with their toons, just hoping for EI to give us that oppertunity soon again

[AA0]

Also, with the security problem that Arcat found a while ago, you could easily check how many were online, invisible or not, and the numbers were drasitcally reduced.
It is not at all difficult to look at trends of server populations. The number visible on Order doesn't even hit the 50 limits on a search, and no, everyone didn't decide to go invisible all of a sudden. As fewer and fewer people are around, those that used to not enter market do so in attempts at some contact with others, which I've noticed as well.

[MadDwarf]

do your own counts

the original dev team of Horizons saw fit to include a very handy very functional Who search which allows you to search by level class and race.

By tailoring your searchs in 10 level increments you can go all the way to 100 and get an extremely if not spot dead on count of the number of players visible at that moment. Given HZ's smaller population base you can add 20 percent to that number for invisibles to get a very accurate overall server count at that time.

Order has for months now allowed me to get away with just one search and hasen't maxed out the max 50 return. At odd times I have to use 2 searches.

Chaos takes a few more but thats only to nail down to level disbursement or in this case dragons to bipeds.

Before the sale Chaos actually took a few minutes to do a count on order as well.

But that of course only counts people that are playing. Horizons features plots which people aren't so willing to depart with. That gives any owner of HZ a boon in extra paying subs that aren't playing.