How come we have no red servers yet???
By
Accualt,
Posted on: 2005-11-01 20:08 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
From looking at the MMOG Chart we find that City Of Heroes is really giving ToonTown Online a run for their money, LOL. Look out WoW, they've got your number!
Look at the charts closely, I don't think the CoH numbers have been updated since spring or early summer of 2005. Those numbers are not up to date. The overall game population has been on a steady decline since Issue 5 went live.
I've always played primarily on Virtue, and since I have altitis I spend a lot of time in AP/Hollows/KR/SC and I've been playing since release AND I have not seen a bit difference in populations on Virtue during the last year. There was a drop off during the first 6 months but the population has seemed stable since then.
The server hits yellow every night, as it has been doing for a long time.
I don't know why the OP and perhaps a few others are trying to manufacture a problem here when there really isn't one, as far as I personally can tell.
[b]Virtue[/b]
Lady Mantis, Dark/empathy defender
Woman in Purdah, DM/regen scrapper
Gravity Monkey, Grav/kin controller
Stone Woman, Stone/stone tanker
Freyja Incarnate, Fire/invuln. tanker
Head Shrinker, Ill/FF controller
Blowup Doll, AR/dev blaster
Geek of Darkness, Dark/dark defender
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Look at the charts closely, I don't think the CoH numbers have been updated since spring or early summer of 2005. Those numbers are not up to date. The overall game population has been on a steady decline since Issue 5 went live.
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Actual evidence to back this up? Perhaps some numbers and not just "But people hate nerfs!" or "It feels like less people to me!"
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
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I don't know why the OP and perhaps a few others are trying to manufacture a problem here when there really isn't one, as far as I personally can tell.
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Because they are trying to get people to believe there are less players now thanks to nerfs. Even if they have to excuse the fact that the servers have been updated countless times to do it.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
Actually, Sir Bruce has a note up on his site explaining why he hasn't been updating ANY numbers (not just CoH) since about June.
Yes, Sir Bruce's stuff is now quite out of date -- not just for this game, but for all MMOs because he has not updated any of that recently.
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October 20, 2005
Yes, I am alive. Ive been completely out of action for the past few months, so Im afraid Ive been unable to update my research, or keep previous commitments, or answer all of my email enquiries. Im trying to get caught up this weekend, however, so apologies all around and I hope to have a new update out soon.
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[b]Virtue[/b]
Lady Mantis, Dark/empathy defender
Woman in Purdah, DM/regen scrapper
Gravity Monkey, Grav/kin controller
Stone Woman, Stone/stone tanker
Freyja Incarnate, Fire/invuln. tanker
Head Shrinker, Ill/FF controller
Blowup Doll, AR/dev blaster
Geek of Darkness, Dark/dark defender
What I love is when the unequivical quote from States (in my Sig) is dimisssed as spin.
Seems plenty busy in both cities to me.
BB was jumpin again tonight (triumph and Pinnacle)
<Edit> and again I state the subscirber numbers for Sept will be released on Friday.
Given State's attitude in this thread I doubt they are full of doom and gloom.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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Well, as I recall, the I5 release coincided with a 'free trial' promotion too; and because of that, for a week, I was seeing 1800+ on line right after I5 on Guardian. BUT, even then the numbers soon dropped back to 'normal' meaning (I assume) plenty of people tried the game but not a lot stayed.
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I guess I'm feeling masochistic today.
SirBruce's numbers are PAYING customers. NOT FREE TRIALS. You can e-mail him about how he gets his numbers and what not, but as far as I know, his source records ONLY paying accounts.
So, sorry, the free trial routine doesn't really hold water (not the first time I've read that either).
Also - another comment on discounted games - currently, City of Heroes is $29.99. Certain stores can run sales - like Lineage 2 is free with a Guild Wars purchase at a local chain.
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RED SERVER = BAD! I'm glad for this, however....I'm really not seeing these players online States. I can LFG for days and never get a response. Cap Au Diable and Sharkhead Isle on Infinity were freaking empty. It was me, my lackey and I kid you not....2 other people. That's all I saw in Sharkhead. There was a few more people in Cap Au Diable, but not many. Yes I know people might be in missions....but still....zero broadcast traffic all day except for someone to say "OH #$&* I GOT KILLED BY SCRAPYARD'S GHOST!" And that was my lackey....
Regards,
Captain Head Explody
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RED SERVER = BAD! I'm glad for this, however....I'm really not seeing these players online States. I can LFG for days and never get a response. Cap Au Diable and Sharkhead Isle on Infinity were freaking empty. It was me, my lackey and I kid you not....2 other people. That's all I saw in Sharkhead. There was a few more people in Cap Au Diable, but not many. Yes I know people might be in missions....but still....zero broadcast traffic all day except for someone to say "OH #$&* I GOT KILLED BY SCRAPYARD'S GHOST!" And that was my lackey....
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Jeez, I just don't get this, I see plenty of people on Guardian, and it is always green. I never even have to look for teams, people are always sending invites. Today I had a little time to spare before work, so I thought it would be a good time to respec, after getting two invites, /hide.
I see you've got a level 22 Brute, not too many people are leveled that high yet, and aren't moving around higher level areas. The game has been retail for what 2 days? My SG has 61 people, most are in their low teens, high singles. And a large chunk joined during the 2 day head start.
Been playing since the end of COH beta, 3 level 50's and still not bored - in fact there is so much to do in game now I have trouble deciding who I want to play and what I want to do. Two of my level 50's are among my most played characters still and despite writing the arena off as unbalanced and not fun when it was first out I even love a bit of pvp now!
My sg is extremely active at present - this week we have had between 35-40 people online every evening in our SG CG and seen a good few people return to the game in recent months. As a Euro I play in off peak times and the servers are always green but there seems to be more people around and I get a lot of team requests/invites from pick ups as well.
I don't agree with ever decision made on the game and there are changes I want to see (please fix ice tanks and please give targeting drone a small damage buff) but since it's launch it's never been more fun!
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Ding! We've got a winner!
We substantively increased the number of CPU's in our servers to account for new players....We've hit new highs in active concurrent in the past 24 hours.
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How about adding a counter at the login screen that tells you how many concurrent users there are at that moment? The we can have "Woo hoo! We breached X Peak concurrent users!" parties and celebrations. Maybe even special events when a given number has been breached.
Coming to think of it, some more information to the community wouldn't be a bad thing either. Add sections called "in development" and "Sketches on napkins".
The "in development" section would have information on what is currently being worked on, when it's planned for release, if it's delayed etc. That way players could give some feedback to the ongoing project. I know some of the ppl on this board really got their wiring together and can add some "have you thought about what happened if I do this with that new power?" and perhaps we can avoid a few nerfs/buffs or perhaps even 9000 replies to a new "feature". Of course, only devs would be able to start a thread here.
The "sketches on napkins" section would be a great place to post ideas that haven't made it into development but are under investigation if they are at all possible or good/bad ideas. No promises made that things will make it into development or any timeplans. The feedback to the ideas at this stage would be a nice hint if it will make your customers happier or just sick and tired of the game and the users/players/customers would feel like they're a part of their favourite passtimes evolution.
These three suggestions (concurrent users and the 2 sections) would eliminate a whole lot of griefing in the form of "Why didn't you tell us about this?" and "You never listen to us, you don't care and stop telling us how to play the game" and "You just made it clear it's your game and we're just guests that should be happy to be here and now I'm gonna go play *insert different MMOG here*"
Oh, and while you're at it, hire a wicked Quality Assurance manager that got the power to halt everything unless he/she feels the patch is ready for release. 
Now I gotta go and do that work thing again... Thanks for reading.
Any and all spelling, grammar and logic errors are intentional so this post will blend seamlessly into the Internet
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Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here]!
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Sorry Jack, but what you are saying simply doesn't match what I see when I log in. Back around I2/I3 you couldn't turn a corner without running into a group of heroes, you could throw together a TF in minutes.
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All that means is that more people used to streetsweep back in the day. I know I did. You'd grab a team, then just move from group to group in the streets. When you broadcast to put a TF together, heroes could hear you because they were outdoors.
These days, with the mission bonus and all, heroes are much, much more likely to be indoors.
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CoV seems to be awfully buggy and laggy right now. There was a lot of speculation in CoV beta whether it was ready for launch. I suppose they didn't quite get the stability and login issues worked out yet.
Apparently numerous bugs with contacts still exist too. A new one has cropped up, requiring us to log out after doing a newspaper mission in order to get into the next mission.
I'm getting tired of constantly jerking as I'm running around, just after two days of playing. Perhaps people are waiting for issues to be patched up a bit.
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I have experienced hardly no lag. The only lag area I have is right around zone entrys and at main base. And the newspaper missions I'm breezing through with no log out between. And this all since day one. My husbands computer on the other hand is more laggy and has more probs. Solution, do what I did. I recently bought a NVidia 6800 video card and upgraded to a gig of ram. Most of the problems people are having is not the game but their computer specs.
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Still,
"the servers are ghost towns" and "subscriptions are always UP, UP, UP" are not mutually exclusive.
OP could be playing at odd hours, or on a less-populated server, or folks are playing COV, or just HIDING from him because he's a jerk/idiot/noob/jackamuffin.
Things can feel "deserted" when they're actually quite busy. Its a skill in interior design, why not game design?
CoH, the first game that feels empty despite ever increasing population
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More people are on but a lot more people are soloing, When I look for teams in COH you get more people declining because they are soloing. When putting up a team a lot of people seem to be avoiding large teams like a plague when I send tells for teeam I usually get responses saying that they don't want in large teams. Small to medium size teams seems to be the new norm 8 man teams are not as attractive anymore.
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Sorry Jack, but what you are saying simply doesn't match what I see when I log in. Back around I2/I3 you couldn't turn a corner without running into a group of heroes, you could throw together a TF in minutes.
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All that means is that more people used to streetsweep back in the day. I know I did. You'd grab a team, then just move from group to group in the streets. When you broadcast to put a TF together, heroes could hear you because they were outdoors.
These days, with the mission bonus and all, heroes are much, much more likely to be indoors.
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exactly. I ran a search on both sides two days ago while playing (on Guardian)... most everyone who showed up on search in both sides (which was a fairly large number, by the way), showed their status as "in mission"
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Also - another comment on discounted games - currently, City of Heroes is $29.99. Certain stores can run sales - like Lineage 2 is free with a Guild Wars purchase at a local chain.
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Uh... Not at the largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart... They have been selling CoH for $19.96 for many months now.
I dont really care much about this conversation, actually agree with Statesman on this, but to say that CoH retails at $29.99 and blatantly ignore Wal-Mart, is well... You be the judge.
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More people are on but a lot more people are soloing, When I look for teams in COH you get more people declining because they are soloing. When putting up a team a lot of people seem to be avoiding large teams like a plague when I send tells for teeam I usually get responses saying that they don't want in large teams. Small to medium size teams seems to be the new norm 8 man teams are not as attractive anymore.
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Smalll teams are easier to control and pick up the slack on if someone is performing subpar. I've never been a huge fan of large teams except to start TFs because other players have the tendency to slow me down. Whether it be the occassional AFK or just not sure what is going on around them. This gets particularly bad with the graphics upgrade(LAG!!!) and multiple pets running around from MMs, Dominators, or Controllers on some especially cramped indoor missions.
Wal-Mart's prices aren't "retail" prices. That's actually Wal-Mart's biggest selling point and the reason it's so controversal with small stores and other chains that don't have the means to sell things so cheap. But Wal-Mart has been smart to set prices so low that people actually end up buying more from them in the longrun.
Any other store, Best Buy, EB Games, Software Etc., CompUSA sells it for 29.99. I know because I was out looking for the DVD edition and only found the standard edition for 30 bucks.
Think of it this way: Best Buy has been known to sell CDs for 9.99 a lot as a draw to get customers into their store. While there, they hope the customer buys enough to offset the discounted prices. But that does not mean that the CD's retail price is now 9.99 because Best Buy sells it at that price. The Manufacturer's price will still be the same 16.99-19.99 CDs are priced at today.
Wal-Mart does this a lot with their video games, too, because to a lot of people Wal-Mart is their video game store. Look at their newspaper ads this week. They are selling Tony Hawk's Underground 2 for 19.99. That's not it's retail price, that's Wal-Mart's discounted price.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
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Well, as I recall, the I5 release coincided with a 'free trial' promotion too; and because of that, for a week, I was seeing 1800+ on line right after I5 on Guardian. BUT, even then the numbers soon dropped back to 'normal' meaning (I assume) plenty of people tried the game but not a lot stayed.
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I guess I'm feeling masochistic today.
SirBruce's numbers are PAYING customers. NOT FREE TRIALS. You can e-mail him about how he gets his numbers and what not, but as far as I know, his source records ONLY paying accounts.
So, sorry, the free trial routine doesn't really hold water (not the first time I've read that either).
Also - another comment on discounted games - currently, City of Heroes is $29.99. Certain stores can run sales - like Lineage 2 is free with a Guild Wars purchase at a local chain.
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RED SERVER = BAD! I'm glad for this, however....I'm really not seeing these players online States. I can LFG for days and never get a response. Cap Au Diable and Sharkhead Isle on Infinity were freaking empty. It was me, my lackey and I kid you not....2 other people. That's all I saw in Sharkhead. There was a few more people in Cap Au Diable, but not many. Yes I know people might be in missions....but still....zero broadcast traffic all day except for someone to say "OH #$&* I GOT KILLED BY SCRAPYARD'S GHOST!" And that was my lackey....
Regards,
Captain Head Explody
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Checked the numbers on Triumph last night at 9pm Central time--1684 unhidden players.
To the best of my knowledge, that's the highest numbers I've ever seen.
Keep in mind that Triumph *was* the second lowest population server prior to CoV coming out.
Those of you who are crying "ghost town" should just do a global search....easy as hell, just type /search and hit the search button.
You might even find a team that way, eh? Then you could be playing instead of vainly searching for a team.
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."
And that 1684 players tally doesn't even count all the corruptors that had to go on hide because of the endless stream of "R U H33L3R?" tells.
I didn't even get out of Mercy without at least 10 of them.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
3. WoW is newer. Guild Wars is a one-time fee. I doubt you'll ever see its price drop too much. Maybe when they come out with an expansion.
Eventually all games get marked down to 19.99 or lower by stores so they can make new shelf room for newer games. Which is why we'll probably see a CoH+CoV bundle sometime next year to give them both new release shelf time, like the CoH Special Edition did for CoH.
(Just to point out: that doesn't mean the "retail" price for the game has changed)
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
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After I5, some people were saying the same thing..."the game is a ghost town"...to which my reply was, "but we're gaining customers..." Naturally, my reply was dismissed.
And yet then good ole' SirBruce posted his MMP numbers - and City of Heroes was shown gaining subscribers. Odd, isn't it?
;-)
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Just wanted to comment that there seems to be a ton of people around in game and it's nice having servers that can handle their current loads and have room to expand.
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Checked the numbers on Triumph last night at 9pm Central time--1684 unhidden players.
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Virtue is peaking at around 2600 (yellow dot) which is about 1k more than we typically had.
9 Story Arcs in, at level 15, and I only have seen one bugged mission where the enemies disappear as soon as I target them.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast