What is the general consensus on server emptyness?

In my opinion that's what the forums are for. The problem is that a lot of people want to jump in and start playing as soon as possible rather than take the time to read the manual, do the tutorial, etc.

And I know that some people will try to argue that new players don't know about the forums, but I feel that's being insulting to them. Very few are MMO virgins, most are vets of other games, and even the ones that are completely new are probably more game savvy than I am after 6 years of playing MMO's.



It's always going to be a problem. However I think the bigger problem is that new players aren't used to how heavily instanced this game is. They expect it to be like most other MMO's where everyone has to stand around a spawn point and wait their turn to whack a target.



If a person can't appreciate irony, they should stay away from the internet.



But your side of the discussion is claiming those servers are empty. If they were truly empty where are all those people that defend their particular servers coming from? One would think that if the servers were truly empty the number of people complaining would outnumber the defenders, yet in 6 years that has never been the case.


Not trying to bash Billz numbers but they don't show anything of the sort. All they show is what he found using search the last time he was on Pinnacle at that specific moment. You can't draw any remotely accurate conclusions from a single use of the search feature.



I think I backhandedly implied that. (It was intended to be implied)

the jerks tend to gravitate to the heavily populated servers just because they can blend in with the crowds easier.

But I did admit that they have a lot of good players.



On this we disagree. But that's not a big deal it's just a difference in opinions.



You're darn right I did, but you are forgetting that I don't make that decision on the spur of the moment. I also said that I take the time to use the star/notes feature so I can keep track of them and if I see I made the occasional mistake I can correct it and take them off ignore.



Easier. New players do not camp silently at zone entrance spawn points, next to trainers, etc for hours at a time.

I think this sets the barrier too high. To know what server actually has enough players to sustain active teaming you should check the forums. We're not trying to make the experience difficult for new players, we're trying to make it as easy as possible. It would be much easier for the player to see on the sign in screen which servers have people than it would be to ask them to scour the forums. I think at this point we all have a duty to try and get new players engaged. You can't really prevent attrition so the future of this game basically rests on getting as many new players as possible. It wouldn't take much coding at all to change the server selection screen, especially if they already have code to get the numbers.

This doesn't change the fact that a new player will have much more opportunity to both see and play with other players on a busier server.

This is just anecdotal evidence. Can you provide me the number of people that have come to the defense of the low population servers as opposed to the number of people that have complained. This argument is purely the impression you've had colored with your like or dislike of certain servers. The only quantitative data we have is from Bill Z and it's quite telling.

He drew data from all the servers (I believe on page 15 of this thread). They clearly show disparity between the servers. Regardless, this is much better data than "people come to the defense of the low population servers." Frankly, there's no need to use words like slander or defense here but these servers aren't under attack. There's just the numbers and what objective decision can be made to improve the quality of life for those players that already play and those we want to play. I haven't suggested servers be merged, I've merely suggested that new players be made aware of population differences.


Which is great, but you've already put that player at an early disadvantage in my opinion. You've labeled them a certain way and now the onus is on the new player to reverse the shunning they have received from you. I do not believe that is healthy for a game with a declining population.

I did. When I was a newer player, and still today, if I'm building a character with alien powersets, I will often have the forum open in another window going through builds and deciding what power to take next. And if we accept your presumption that even new players will surf the forum, I don't find it hard to believe they might be doing so in-game. It would've been unfortunate had I done this on your server as you would've labeled me a certain way and I would've had to prove to you that I'm just here to play the game.

I understand that you like the small community of people that you've formed, but these tightly knit communities, I believe, are a barrier in getting newcomers immersed in the game, at least initially. Imagine if that new player was ignored by you and several other long timers on your server. How easy would it be for that new player to find teams and find a group of people they can play with consistently? Do you think they are better or worse off if they had joined a server with more people who are new like them or who aren't as tightly woven into the same small community? Although not a great analogy, I would liken it to switching high schools. It's better that you're with another new student on the first day than have to try to find a place among people who already have long established relationships. We're trying to make entry as easy as possible here.

I disagree. It is far more likely that the people that want to be social will seek out the forums as one of the tools to meet other players.


No it isn't. It's speculative at best. We don't have access to the proper information.


You don't get to tell other people how they feel.


Who said you did?



They get treated the same as everyone else. I shun everyone without prejudice. I simply use Notes to justify it, or to explain why they are the rare shining exceptions.

Ah. There's the difference. You believe the population is declining and I believe the population is healthy.

No, you didn't.

And with that statement you prove that you don't stand silently in one spot for 2 hours not doing anything. You had to move in order to level up. You can't get access to new powers unless you go around and earn experience. While you may choose to disagree, there is a huge difference between seeing a character in the same spot for two hours and is still level 1 and seeing a character in the same spot who was level 1 and then is level 3 then later still is level 5.


As I just explained above you have never been in any danger of being labeled in a certain way because you actually level your characters. RMTers that are standing around gathering names don't.

This is another topic where we disagree. I believe tightly knit communities are friendlier and more willing to show new people the ropes. Only people being rude and acting like jerks have to be concerned with offending everyone.

Fairly easy.

Ah. You are assuming my preferred server is low pop. I play mainly on Virtue, but I have characters on every server.

In my experience in those situations people are more likely to form an "us vs them" mentality. And if one of the pairing is accepted into a larger group and doesn't bring the other along, the one remaining can grow bitter and more antisocial.

My old gaming group used to see this happen all the time at the local game store between the groups of teens. There were the ones the were pure computer gamers, there were the CCG players, the role-players, The DDR players, and the War Hammer players.

Our gang, consisting mostly of military vets, went out of our way to keep the outcasts interested in gaming by inviting them into our games. The size of our group ebbed and flowed with the shifting tide of teen popularity but the kids new there was always an open spot where they were welcome.

Do you think that is more or less difficult than getting the information directly on the server selection page?

Less speculative than concluding that there is no problem because people from the low population servers claim there isn't.

Perhaps, but I think that if you feel threatened by the discussion then you are too emotionally involved in the process to make a logical determination. Ultimately, CoH does not live or die by your emotional or social attachment to your server and fellow players, they have to keep the lights on.

Given your strong opposition to my suggestion, I can only conclude that this is your implicit assumption. Do you really feel threatened merely by my suggestion that players see how many people are actually on a given server at the server selection screen?

And other players are supposed to feel confident that this behavior will make newcomers feel more welcome on your server if they just happened to choose it? Heaven forbid a new player accidentally chooses Freedom and has to endure rude tells instead of your server where they might be outright shunned.

Given the Q1 financial report, I feel it is safe to conclude that overall populations have declined.

Well, I guess you know more about my history with CoH than I do then.

How does this prove anything? Many times I would run a sewer run and go from 2 to 5 or 6 or 7 and then stand in AP for a few hours at the same level while appearing AFK. Is that really so hard to believe? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm merely pointing out that your rush to judgment might be seriously detrimental to new players when you don't know all the facts.

So you only /gignore level one players?

Or, heaven forbid, they stand in the same place for too long lest they suffer the long arm of your shunning.

It sounds like you are extremely helpful and friendly.

Yes, I'm sure it'd be very easy for someone who doesn't know anyone to find many teams after the small community has shunned them. Certainly, quite a bit easier than it would be on Freedom or Virtue, right?

Does this somehow preclude you from answering the question?

I'll repeat...

And yet, you've been far more open discussing your predilection to shun people than to go out of your way to find and help newcomers. Yet, I'm supposed to accept that people are better off going to your server than Freedom because people on Freedom are the jerks. At the very least, I'd like to think that newcomers could find friendly or mean people on all the servers, but on high population servers there'd just be more of them and thus a greater opportunity for the newcomer to find a community.

I believe it's less difficult. Whenever someone asks about which server has the most population on the forums, they get several helpful responses about the population, server personalities, and where they can go on the forums to meet people from whichever server they eventually decide on. You can't get that kind of fantastic response from the server selection page.

Ah completely dismissing anything anyone on a low pop server might say, and insulting the ones that speak up. Yeah that'll win people over to your point of view.

You are the one getting defensive, so if anyone feels threatened it's you.

While I'm flattered that you seem to think that people on Virtue hold me in such high regard that they wait with baited breath for my opinion of any given new player, I fear I must burst your bubble. I'd say 99% of the population (plus or minus 1%) never knows I'm online let alone who I am.

No one has said that the population hasn't declined. That is the nature of all online games. Memberships fall and rise constantly for various reasons. You used the term declining which implies a constant loss. I used the term healthy which acknowledges that the population may currently be lower but I believe it's just the normal rise and fall for a 6 year old game that has paid off all it's outstanding debts and is still generating a decent profit.

I only know what you've posted, and you yourself said that the reason you find yourself standing at a place like the trainer for any length of time is when you are deciding what powers/build to choose.

I'm sorry but I find it hard to believe that it took you hours to choose 3 powers and assign 8 slots. Now I can believe it may have subjectively felt like hours, but that's different.

I find it funny that you accuse me of rushing to judgment while you are eager to do the same about the methods I use to make my decisions and that it happens with some regular frequency.

You also seem to be determined to overlook that when you check Info and notes you pull up things like bios, badges, global names. All of which can be used to determine if an account is an RMTer. It must be, in your own words, because you are emotionally involved and can't use logical reasoning.

RMTer's use free trials to gather info and send spam. They won't write bio's unless it's an advertisement for their website. They won't have account level badges like Destined One, V.I.P., or the Pocket D VIP Gold Club Member Accolade. Their globals are usually gibberish, sometimes something chinese, or some creative spelling variation of their website like Ga(you know who) dot com.

Again you are assuming that I have far more influence on other players than is in fact true. Whether or not I ignore someone has little effect on their game play.

I'm also quiet and polite in the game, and for some reason I can't fathom some people think I'm funny.

I see this must be explained to you again so I'll type it very slowly. The only people that get shunned by an entire community are the people that act like rude, obnoxious, jacktards.

The question wasn't valid. First, you used the term "several" Several means more than two or three but not many. It would take far more than a handfull of people ignoring someone to detrimentally affect their ability to find teams even on a low pop server. Second, you assumed my server was a low pop server.

Here was your original question in it's entirety.

Okay, I'm imagining this new player is being ignored by myself and several other longtimers on Virtue. It would still be fairly easy for them to find a team on my server even if they were being ignored. And since the only other server with a higher population is Freedom I do believe that they are far more likely to have an unpleasant experience on Freedom than they would on Virtue.

Actually I find the most unpleasant player experience I can have is to play on a lag ridden server. Screw the people, I want my toons to animate when they use their powers and not to have to notice a truck rubberbanding back and forth over the distance of a city block.


Edit: Crap! I just realized that I channeled Golden Girl there for a bit and threw up in my mouth a little...

And that is especially fun when a new issue is released, and the login queue Freedom has to deal with when the server gets grayed out.

That's not a measure of difficulty, that's a measure of utility.

I'm not dismissing anything. I'm separating data by quality, and I will always choose quantitative or qualitative. You have your anecdotal evidence, and I have mine. I can quite easily find people in the server subforums complaining about population. On the front pages...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=232047

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=228628

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=229054 you'll have to go down to post 11 on that one...

point being this was about a 2 minute search. You see how disputable qualitative data is?

I'd say I've remained rather objective. For the life of me, I can't see a reasonable argument as to why the devs *shouldn't* give players more information on the server selection page regarding server population.

I just found it amusing that you would tell people to stay away from Freedom because they were jerks while simultaneously displaying said behavior... albeit in a different way.

??? Maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

Which I can't think is that unusual which is why I'm not sure it's a good reason to /gignore someone. You have even started that you have been wrong more than once.

It is not unusual for me to spend hours on the forum, especially after IOs hit. Sometimes I read debates about powersets, builds, or even ones like these.

I didn't rush to judgment, and it was you that admitted that you've been wrong on more than one occasion. It's even more disturbing that you recommend people stay away from Freedom because they are jerks. It's a little hypocritical.

But you can't definitively determine, can you? You already admitted as such. By the way, I don't think I've ever given any of my alts a bio and there's nothing extraordinary about my global name. Although I have them now, there was a time when, just like you, I had no veteran badges (and there's not a whole lot pf badges to get running sewers in AP).

Did those people you ignored and later reversed share these same attributes?

However, a player who just purchased an MMORPG who ends up on a server with little MM might be disappointed. So while you and your community (or the community you are apparently defending) find these servers enjoyable because you all know each other and how to find each other, a new player may not. All I'm suggesting is that they are aware that certain servers have more population than others.


But it doesn't help that someone like yourself, involved in the community, shuns someone because they stood in the same place for too long.

It was a perfectly valid question. On a low population server with an admittedly tightly knit community, it means that, as far as you're concerned, they are not available for one of the few teams actually running. It also means that you are unavailable to them if they ever decide to actually be proactive and start their own. If you don't know the global channels, /sea can be very frustrating on low population servers. It's sometimes even frustrating on Freedom.

Although this may not be the case, it has little bearing on the debate.

Do you think this would be the case on Champion or Protector? I'm trying to ensure new players know which servers have high populations so if they are looking for a more massive experience, they know to at least start with Freedom or Virtue.

I don't really care how you feel about Freedom as this isn't a debate about which server is "better," it's about getting information to newcomers so they can make an informed decision and have a pleasant experience. I don't think we do ourselves any favors when they join a server where it'll be difficult to actually play with other players in their new MMORPG. As long as we can get population information to players, you can go into the Freedom subforum and make a sticky telling everyone what jerks we are for all I care. I'm just trying to get new players paying subscriptions so I can continue to keep playing.

We are still wasting time here, and have gotten a little off-topic. If we want to stay on topic then we can debate the merits of my suggestion... The server selection page should contain player population information so players can make a better informed decision.

Of course, people can disagree with you without feeling threatened or being emotionally involved.

Please define "healthy" vs. "declining".

In the years that sub numbers were reported, NCSoft showed loss of subs every quarter but one as I recall, and that was the release of CoV. It would be a logical assumption then that the downward trend would have continued in the period since NCSoft stopped reporting sub numbers, since there hasn't been anything released since that time that could be considered as groundbreaking game wise as CoV. Based on that alone it seems irrefutable that the population is in fact declining. It very likely is still in a healthy place as far as the industry is concerned, but how long will that be if they are losing the roughly 4%-5% subscriptions quarterly that has been reported in the past.

Whether anybody likes the idea or not, at some point server consolidation will have to be a consideration. We may be seeing that day sooner than we would all like, since I suspect that there is a lot more riding on GR than has been let on. It's fine to be supportive of our game and optimistic for the future, but we should also be realistic.

I think you seriously exaggerate the issue for new players. Your perception seems to be that lower population servers are full of cliques that shun new players and ignore them. My experience has been completely different. I see new players often on Protector. They don't seem to have any major problems finding out about global channels, joining TF's, forming teams, or whatever other problems you seem to think they have.

New players aren't shunned. They aren't ignored. They are welcomed. The Mentor Project, which has spread to all servers now, originally started on Protector as part of the New Player Council.

The so-called 'empty' zones are often exaggeration as well. While they might not be populated like the busy servers, every time I log on I see people in the normal popular hub locations: Atlas, Talos, Ouro, etc.

OK. It's a bad idea. It will only exacerbate the situation and drive more people to the crowded servers and away from the others. It will make lag worse on Freedom and Virtue and cause more lock-outs and longer queues during events and 2xp. Even more to the point, I'll suggest that the devs do not want to drive players to the busiest servers either. Look at how they intentionally arranged the server load screen so it displays lower load servers first.

Here's a counter-suggestion: Do what some other MMO's do. Lock out the most crowded servers to new players. Only existing players can make new characters there. All others are forced to go to other servers. That would balance out the population, alleviate the load issues on the busiest servers and increase population on other servers, which would, according to some here, be a good thing.

I explained how I define it in post #507.

Larger population servers also form communities, there are just more of them. It's not so much that players are shunned on low population servers as much as it is about the fact that players will be more likely to find PuGs, communities, and mentors they enjoy and have something in common with.


I think this was ok when the overall population was larger, but I do not think this is a good idea now. When new players could choose even the least populated server and find zones full of other players this is a good idea. When players choose the least populated server and find the place nearly empty, this is a bad idea.

And I don't know why exacerbating the situation is a bad idea. If we believe that new players coming to the game would preferentially choose the most crowded server, do you really think it is a good idea to make their first choice the least crowded server, especially given the discrepancies in population. It's not like Freedom and Virtue have 40% or 50% more players, they have 300% or 400% more players. That is a drastically different experience, and given the shift that occurred during free server transfers and our presumption that new players would select the highly populated servers, apparently an experience that people prefer. If people join Freedom or Virtue and find the lag unbearable, the server selection screen would also tell them what servers have a low population. I'm just helping to give them the tools to make these decisions.

You could also run into the opposite problem in that there aren't enough new players coming to the game to have a drastic effect on individual server populations (there are 11, after all) and thus you cause them individually to come to the conclusion that no one is playing. Ironically enough, I could really only see this having a real effect if we limited the servers newcomers could join to one or two or reduced the sheer number of server options available.

And I've never suggested we force new players to do anything or onto a specific server. I've merely suggested we give them information that allows them to choose a server that best fits their playstyle. If that means more new people join Freedom and Virtue, so be it, it will be their choice.

Ah yes, I see.


Take a look at those quarterlies again Forbin. There has in fact been a fairly constant drop, not a rise and fall as you seem to think. As I mentioned, the only quarter that actually saw any significant rise was when CoV was released. It's been mostly all downhill before that and since. Still enough of a population so far to make it worth maintaining, but probably not for much longer if the downward trend of 4%-5% loss per quarter continues.

I'm not stating this to cry doom. Just pointing out the facts for the discussion.

I don't think that doom is my biggest problem with a constant downward spiral in population. Looking at the longterm, the drop in population will probably mean that we get less expansive updates and expansions as time goes on. I don't want GR to be the last major expansion/update of its kind simply because we no longer have the numbers to support it.

Just because the game can technically go on for a lot longer, does not mean that I want it just sit there not getting the attention and upgrades it needs to stay competitive and fresh.

In that sense, I think a lot more is riding on GR than people may think. If the people above the heads of the devs don't think that future content and expansions of the caliber that we are used to are worthwhile, then that won't be good for anybody.

Of course, maybe I have no idea how the internal structure of NCSoft works and there are lots of top execs who love COX to death. Not enough to invest in a decent advertising campaign, of course, but love anyway. Kind of like an indifferent, stalking-from-afar-but would-really-like-to-get-closer sort of love.

You forgot to mention the flood of "I can't play my game!!11!!1!eleventy-eleven!!111!!11!!!" threads with the inevitable "There are 10 other servers." responses.

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

I didn't think you were crying doom, I just don't think merging the servers will accomplish anything positive. The solution lies in improving/expanding the game and advertising to attract new players. Downsizing always sends the wrong message to the consumers.

Remember the one twit that was complaining about Freedom being over populated and demanded the devs shut down the other servers so Freedom would be even more overcrowded.

And following that bad idea there will be a rash of cancelled subscriptions when the people that lose their characters leave in disgust. Many players have characters on multiple servers and they won't fit on fewer servers unless the devs drastically increase the number of characters that can be kept on a server.

Then there will be the cancellations by players that see server consolidation as the death knell of a game, and the negative press on gaming sights that will inevitably report that CoH is dying which will drive away more potential customers.

If they can do it while keeping the global name invisible it might prevent people from cancelling their accounts.

Now this is the option I would prefer to see happen. Heck just announcing that they were working on a CoH2 would encourage people to stick around while the new games being worked on.

No, but I do remember the one that said NCsoft should offer a way to buy your way past the queue, and boot players if they don't have the "I bought my way to the front of the line." status.

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

I think I remember that one.