Population in recent months

[Ungermax]

Howdy

It seems to me that in recent months there seems to be less active players. I'm on Thelanis, for quite a while I've kept tabs on how many people are online at a given time. When I am active on this game I log on most days, and almost every day that I'm on I have a look. It doesn't take long to get an estimate - Go to Who, make it display ten names, how many clicks on the sidebar til you are at the bottom (I know about ddoaudit but prefer to check the actual social panel itself).

Since last Hardcore pretty much. I have asked guildies and even though we have plenty of guildies on most the time the lfm is QUIET. Typically Thelanis would have between 250-400 people on when I checked, plus Anonymous of course. But in recent months it's rarely over 300.

So I wonder if people would vote here please, if you vote feel free to state which server you on and any thoughts etc.

 

[AMess]

I blame spring for the lower population, I guess folks are going outside and playing in the sun...sounds horrifying

the other side of this coin is a bunch of ppl are on and it causes more lag, so it's both a curse and a blessing.

 

[PurpleSerpent]

Howdy

It seems to me that in recent months there seems to be less active players. I'm on Thelanis, for quite a while I've kept tabs on how many people are online at a given time. When I am active on this game I log on most days, and almost every day that I'm on I have a look. It doesn't take long to get an estimate - Go to Who, make it display ten names, how many clicks on the sidebar til you are at the bottom (I know about ddoaudit but prefer to check the actual social panel itself).

Since last Hardcore pretty much. I have asked guildies and even though we have plenty of guildies on most the time the lfm is QUIET. Typically Thelanis would have between 250-400 people on when I checked, plus Anonymous of course. But in recent months it's rarely over 300.

So I wonder if people would vote here please, if you vote feel free to state which server you on and any thoughts etc.

This is a general long-term trend with DDO - player counts peak just after the summer expansion releases, gradually decline over the autumn and winter, reach a low point in roughly February (since very little content is typically added during December and January) and then start rising again with new updates. It's probably rising a bit more slowly this year than in typical years, since there have been some performance issues lately. Things are likely to start picking up again once either Update 68 comes out (depending on what's in that, as it's mostly been kept quiet so far) or Myth Drannor opens for pre-order.

(It'll be interesting to see how the lack of a Hardcore season this year and the new thing of having an interactive event in the autumn will affect things.)

 

[LurkingVeteran]

There is an external site that tries to track population over time. I don't know exactly how they do it and the absolute numbers may be off, but the relative trends should be somewhat reliable. According to this, Thelanis pop seems more or less constant with only a very slow decline over time: https://www.ddoaudit.com/servers/thelanis

 

[Livmo]

This screenie is from a few moments ago. I use this panel to track raids. Splashin' on other servers right now.

 

[Ungermax]

I blame spring for the lower population, I guess folks are going outside and playing in the sun...sounds horrifying

Cute Can I ask which server you're on out of interest, and which way did you vote if you did?

Looking again on ddoaudit, it shows a decline in numbers compared to last year at least on Thelanis. Heres some numbers from the weekly average population trend section comparing the first week of each month, Jan-April this year vs last year:

Jan 23 - 223

Feb 23 - 233

March 23 - 247

April 23 - 247


Jan 24 - 175

Feb 24 - 188

March 24 - 203

April 24 - 185

So a drop of 20-25% weekly average compared to last year. That is 1 in every 4 or 5 people you know, not logging in (if you're on Thelanis).

I'm not necessarily trying to prove a point or anything, just wanted to see if others feel it. I'll keep coming back to this game til the wheels come off but I have concerns, have for a while like many others. It ain't getting better.

I've been toying with the idea of moving to Orien, only reason I haven't already is someone has my name hahaha

 

[Airmaiden]

Population got a boost .......mostly because a lot of people have made "Alt" accounts and used the "Free" content code.....and are now logging on to get the monthly freebies.
What I have noticed is that there are little no groups running high reaper (R8-10). Looks to me like a lot of the people that use to put up groups for higher reaper have now left the game because there is no carrot for them!
No sense in grinding gear until after the level increase with the new pack.
No sense in running higher reaper because DDO has now stated that they will not be doing anything for the people that have 156+ reaper points!
Not too may people want to "Start a new toon".....or even start to "finish" the grind on some alts......running the same content over and over and over again!

Most of the LFM's that get list on my server are 1-2 people and NEVER fill!......a lot of them are for elite and or R1.

Enjoy the game while it lasts!

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

The game has been consistently moving from in-game grouping to discord grouping. Party chat is broke often and discord voice tools are just better. Most of my grouping is in discord, although lfms will go up to fill empty spots sometimes.

I am playing more than I did a year ago, but others are playing less or taking a break. We will likely see a jump in population when the new race comes out with the pre-pack and people want to get their racial lifes completed before the xpac comes out.

I don't have trouble finding raids or high reaper groups, but I also rarely use the lfm system for that. If I happen to see a pug raid at a convenient time I will join the lfm, but it's a small % of my raiding.

Sarlona was fortunate to net gain players during the free server move window, even though some people did move to orien. We gained more than we lost. And those we gained seem to fit in with the friendly and helpful Sarlona culture.

A higher % of the population is running R10s now. It used to be well below 50 and now it's like 200 people on Sarlona that run R10s.

My experience is that raid groups fill slow in the afternoon US time and much faster evenings and weekends. I probably get 20 tells a week letting me know about raids - most are people I don't even know just letting me know an lfm is up. Sometimes I join, but usually I don't because I have something else going on.

I feel bad for the people that legitimatey earned a bunch of reaper xp above the 156 ap spend limit. While I agree with Cordovan there was never any promise to offer anything above 156, I think it would have been good for SSG to specifically state they had no intention to offer anything above 156 much earlier - I think they just wanted to keep their options open and not mislead anyone. I feel like that never really happened until Cordovan's recent live stream. Anyhow, I think it's a reasonable call although I think they should throw people a bone and give everyone that earned 156 reaper points by a certain date a unique cosmetic.

 

[Blaster]

At a financial presentation held last year by EG7, the parent company of SSG/Daybreak Games, they showed a population chart of the games under Daybreak's banner, and if you look at DDO you can see that the population spiked around the releases of new content and events like hardcore league. The chart shows January 2020 - May 2023, but I'm guessing the trend continued the remainder of 2023.

EG7 just released their yearly financial report for last year, and Daybreak did under-perform, but EG7 blamed that on content delays. Content is king in the current business model for EG7's non-first-party live service games/MMOs. The population may dip here and there, but as long as some form of content can be released throughout the year it will always cause a predicable spike in player numbers to balance things out. It's that predictability that keeps EG7's non-first-party live service games/MMOs alive and supported for the time being.

https://imgur.com/a/onHLVZG

 

[Xaxx]

*looks at recent forum activity*....
*looks at the recent patch notes for *changes*....
*looks at recent amounts of absolute server instability and general sh...stuffyness* ...
hmm I wonder.... *walks away whistling*

 

[Thar]

1) no new content that has new or exciting loot much different than what we have today
2) warming up so people are getting out of the house.
3) nerfs to many people's caster, ranged, and even minor nerfs to melee. why do we want to work harder than before... things should get easier over time.
4) better looking and rated games out there. why put up with nerfs and stagnant rewards when you could do something new.

 

[Jellytelly]

I. Anyhow, I think it's a reasonable call although I think they should throw people a bone and give everyone that earned 156 reaper points by a certain date a unique cosmetic.

I agree that they should offer some cosmetics above the 156 reaper points. I mean, how much work is that really for them? If they can spend all that time coming up with a crazy VIP 'login' program that keeps track of your current reward, I think they can spend some resources on some really cool cosmetics for the reaper crowd.

 

[Genkiba]

No sense in running higher reaper because DDO has now stated that they will not be doing anything for the people that have 156+ reaper points!

Do you know how many people have more than 156+ reaper points?

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

These problems don't exist on Orien.

 

[Aeromach]

Activity on Thelanis is slower... been generally declining for years.
Must really suck for people who can't solo R1, or prefer not to solo.

(I blame dungeon alert)

 

[Vox]

I agree that they should offer some cosmetics above the 156 reaper points. I mean, how much work is that really for them? If they can spend all that time coming up with a crazy VIP 'login' program that keeps track of your current reward, I think they can spend some resources on some really cool cosmetics for the reaper crowd.

They can't even be bothered to offer additional reaper wing colours despite years of players asking for them.

Do you really think they'll do new cosmetics for a finished system?

 

[cdbd3rd]

I use a different metric when I go server hopping. Stuff on the AH. There are a few servers where the AH is almost barren.

 

[Ungermax]

I use a different metric when I go server hopping. Stuff on the AH. There are a few servers where the AH is almost barren.

To be fair i forget the AH even exists most the time

 

[Dunspartacus]

Sample size of me, but spring is pretty busy with finals and end of term projects, so I definitely get a lot less free time to game around this time. Not sure how many college students play this game, but I'm guessing there are others in my boat which could bring seasonal numbers down at least a bit.

 

[Dandonk]

For me it seems the usual between-updates-slowdown, more or less. People are less interested in logging in since they mostly have what they want and are waiting for the new expansion so they can grind once again.

But the lag has been atrocious, for sure.