What server and hero or villain?
By
BBQ_Pork,
Posted on: 2010-08-06 14:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
The one at the very top is the one you were last on.
From there, the one at the very bottom is the most populated, sinking from the wieght of the population. (Usually Freedom)
The one second from the top is the least populated.
The green dot means percentage of capacity. With server hardware having been upgraded, capacity is higher, so yellow and red dots are harder to get to.
Typically:
Most: Freedom
2nd: Virtue
Next: Justice and Infinity.
Just remember Quality and Quantity are two different things and server merges are very bad.
Also: to help find teams, get on a global channel and use your LFT flag.
Also:
RE: Server Mergers:
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Why server consolidation is not a good idea. 1. Just because YOU like living in New York City doesn't mean I can't like Kansas. Yay, you love having huge lag spikes as you get near the black market/wentworths and a busy broadcast. Congrats. Enjoy Freedom. Some of us - many of which you will get replies from with this subject - like *low population* servers. If we *wanted* to be on Freedom, we'd *be* on Freedom. I have characters on Freedom. I rarely play them (and actually moved a character OFF of Freedom to finish leveling it to 50) because *I DON'T LIKE FREEDOM.* I dislike the banality of broadcast, the high percentage of *horrid* teams I've come across there, the lag around any gathering point- and I've got a decent connection and system. For much the same reason, I typically startin Galaxy City instead of Atlas Park - I don't *want* to log in to a costume contest with several 50s spamming powers and nonsense arguments in broadcast. Some of us *like* nice, quiet servers. 2, Kansas, part 2. In addition, servers have their own personalities. No, I don't mean that literally, there's no AI to worry about if you start hearing "Daisy, Daisy" over your speakers or headset. Freedom's a crowded mess. Virtue is the RP server. Pinnacle is the "Drunk" server. Others have specific communities, such as those from Australia/NZ, Europe, etc. 3. "I only saw one other person. World of Conancraft has eleventy billion!" So what? We don't run around camping spawn points in this game. People are in missions. People are spread across many zones. Search on a map or do a /whoall and you'll miss those in missions, as well as those who are, for whatever reason, on /hide. Your "search" there didn't give you a full picture, not in the least. I understand the "feel" of things being "not very populated," but take a good look around when you're in game. Typically, you don't really have a lot of visibility. Standing in steel canyon, there could be multiple, full 8 person groups surrounding you, and it's likely you'd never see them. We have buildings, walls, architecture, trees and more limiting our visibility. Yes, it can make you feel more alone... but that's rarely the case. Add to that that the population is spread between many, MANY zones, most quite large, and among two sides... well... 4. "I put up my LFT flag and nothing happened!" Learn to search. Don't just wait. Form a team yourself. 5. "I AM SPARTACUS!" No, not any more. Remember logging in and seeing all those slots? Everyone has those - some buy more than the base 12, you get an extra one each year, you could have a total of 36 on any server. Everyone does. Every one has a character with a unique name. Maybe not a *good* name, but a unique one. Every one has a character with a unique name. Maybe not a *good* name, but a unique one. Now merge servers. Suddenly, CoolBlasterDude from server 1 is getting merged with CoolBlasterDude from Server 2. Who gets to keep their name? Nobody has been able to answer this with any degree of satisfaction. Add a number? But I am NOT CoolBlasterGuy1. And what if the name's too long? Does the older character keep it? What if they're not as active? People are *VERY* attached to their names. They are, quite obviously, part of their character. 6. "This Is SPARTA!" Sorry, Sparta exists already. You are GenericSG 8734 287 9798. What else has a name? Supergroups. And I can *guarandamntee* that the same name is in use on multiple servers. Sometimes it's 'branches' of the same SG, sometimes it's coincidence. But with *everything* involved in an SG - from its identity and reputation on the server, to everything stored in the database about what it owns, what its base is like and such, this would be a disaster in the making. And no, auto merging them when the servers merge, even if they have room to, is not an option. This, of course, assumes that they *CAN* move supergroups as a unit. More than likely, it'd just be a mass character move, with bases, prestige, anything stored in bases and all SG affiliations just gone forever. 7. "I am... where'd Spartacus go?" Remember all those slots? Well, you start with 1/3 of the available ones. You can buy up to 36 total (24 on top of the ones you get initially.) Now, what do you suppose would happen if you merged two servers, and someone has, say, 20 characters on each? Not unusual. In fact, before those extra slots, I had *filled up* several servers. Do those characters just disappear? Do they move? Free move to another server sounds great, right... well, except you now kick them from their supergroup, remove them from their friends lists and more. This makes for angry and unhappy customers. Or rather, ex customers. 8. I will play where I damn well want to. And you can too. And that should be blunt enough. If I want a crowded server, I'll go to Freedom. If I want an RP server, I'll go to Virtue. I do NOT want to be shoved onto another server I *don't* like. If I wanted to go there, *I'd be there.* If the server you're on isn't "busy" enough for you, you have two options that won't bother anyone else. (A) If it's low enough, reroll. You have a ton of character slots for a reason. (B) If you don't want to reroll, server transfers are available, and relatively cheap. They also finish fast - you should be up and running and being spammed to join someone's SG on the new server in a few minutes, in most instances. So YOU can go to the server of YOUR choice without screwing ME over. 9. "It'll free up server hardware for Freedom!" No, no it won't. Freedom, because of the load it tends to have, already has more resources dedicated to it than other servers. And ALL of the servers have been upgraded multiple times. The servers are not allocated exactly the same. The servers that handle less of a load have less dedicated to them. So this argument doesn't fly. 10. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Last but not least (at least until better points come along to be added,) server consolidation is widely viewed in the industry as an MMO going on life support. No, we don't have WoWs numbers (and you should actually pay attention to when and how they got those.) They're an abberation in the MMO industry. COH has had and does have a very successful, sustainable population even at its lowest points, so there's no economic need to combine anything. The flip side of that, of course, has been suggested above - you crowd people together, break up their SGs and friends lists, cause characters to go missing and poeple definitely *will* quit, both out of annoyance and a sense of "The game is almost dead!" In conclusion.... As stated before, when it comes to server consolidation... HELL NO. |
Okay. Busiest servers.
Freedom.
Virtue.
Display is now last server played on, then server load (not population) in ascending order.
As to merges. No.
Some people prefer to solo.
Some prefer lightly populated, lag-free servers.
Some prefer the community of a particular server.
Merges would cause massive problems due to unique-to-server naming for characters and supergroups.
There's a host of other reasons, but I'm thumb-typing on my crackberry.
*Now repaired from a real computer.*
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Additional notes:
1) Objective: An expansion will be released in just under two weeks (August 17), which will probably bring in at least a few more players, either completely new or returning.
2) Subjective: The attitude that "you can only get teams on Freedom or Virtue" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more people believe this, the more people flock there, and the more denuded the other servers become. For what it's worth (not much, I know), I haven't had trouble regularly finding full teams on other servers.
3) Neither: Regardless of where you choose to play, you might find it helpful to introduce yourself in your server's subforum and ask about what global chat channels are used for teaming. There are several on most servers, and they're a much faster, easier, and, these days, more common way of finding teams that just calling out in broadcast or hoping to get picked by someone searching for people in your level range.
"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"
Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers
A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"
OOOH sso when I picked a server for my FIRST char, it was the emptiest server...
PHEW
I was worried the game was dead, but if that was the lowest pop server... that's good.
Is blue side a lot more populated then red side?
I really do like stalkers more then scrappers, brutes more then tanks, corrupters more then blasters, dominators more then trollers and masterminds more then defenders.....
also, fine, I accept no server merging, though it does seem like an excessive amount of servers for the # of players.
I know not everyone wants the busiest server, but they could slash half their servers and likely still have those low pop servers you want
also, Why charge for character transfer? or even character renaming?
Does some dude actually need to sit there and reprogram it for you? no.... it's automated... and we're paying monthly fees already...
If I'm on a server, and it's dead, and I want to play on a fuller server, I should be allowed to.
I digress....
thanks for the help guys, I'll look around, probably on freedom, maybe virtue (how serious do the RP'ers take it?)
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Please read points #5, 6, and 7.|
Originally Posted by Ronin Oni
also, fine, I accept no server merging, though it does seem like an excessive amount of servers for the # of players.
I know not everyone wants the busiest server, but they could slash half their servers and likely still have those low pop servers you want |
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also, Why charge for character transfer? or even character renaming? Does some dude actually need to sit there and reprogram it for you? no.... it's automated... and we're paying monthly fees already... |
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| If I'm on a server, and it's dead, and I want to play on a fuller server, I should be allowed to. |
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I digress.... thanks for the help guys, I'll look around, probably on freedom, maybe virtue (how serious do the RP'ers take it?) |
You should really poke your head into the Global Channels, those are going to give you a better clue as to what people are doing.
...and...
Welcome back to the game.
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So, you log in at mid day on a weekday when most people are at work, and at least some schools are back in session, in addition to it being a beautiful day outside (here in sunny california, at least), and you marvel that there aren't a lot of people on?|
Originally Posted by Ronin Oni
there was 1 AFKer, and that's it. so I log in today at lunch, 1 person again (at least solo running quests) |
Even so, I find it hard to believe that a search only turned up one other person, regardless of day, time, or server. You might have only seen one person "out in the world" on your server, but I assure you that there were many more than that on and playing.
The heavily instanced nature of the game means that most of the people who are on will not be visible to you as you travel through the zones, because they will actually be playing the game.
Even on servers like Triumph, often cited as the least populated server, I have no trouble finding a team when I want one, because I understand how to effectively use the Team Search tools. There are a few guides for how to find teams on the less populated servers. If you like your character on Victory or Triumph, and don't want to pay for a transfer, you might want to look into them. Introduce yourself on your server's board, and then join one of the server channels. These things will make your teaming much easier if you choose to remain in Smallville instead of moving to Metropolis.
New story arcs coming soon (ARC IDs will be aded when I finish the arc):
So, you want to join the Hellions? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
Sparks & Steel (level 5-20 Heroic arc)
and
So you want to join the Skulls? (level 1-14 Villainous arc)
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In fairness, there are MMOs that are bustling no matter what time of day you log on at - and at its peak CoH was among them. So if someone's been playing said games and hasn't been on CoH for a while it's not entirely unexpected that they then marvel at a low population, even off-peak. |
Originally Posted by Lightfoot
So, you log in at mid day on a weekday when most people are at work, and at least some schools are back in session, in addition to it being a beautiful day outside (here in sunny california, at least), and you marvel that there aren't a lot of people on?
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As to finding teams, if there's less than 10 visible players from 1-50 and even the more populated global channels for the server have less than 20 visible players, then even with the best use of the tools available it's not outside the realm of possibility that there's simply nobody online who wants to team just now.
@OP - if you tend to play off-peak at all, and prefer to team, I'd definitely go for Freedom or Virtue, and get on the global channels asap (I actually find Virtue's LFT/TF/Badge channels to be a lot busier than Freedoms, though maybe I'm just on the wrong Freedom channels). Even then redside can get pretty quiet at times, but there's usually at least *something* going on you can get in on if you're proactive about finding/forming teams. Also, I don't RP at all (beyond having a theme for my character and usually a backstory) but I've never found it to be an issue at all playing on Virtue; I don't really notice a difference between playing there and Freedom besides a slight increase in ((brackets around people's chat)).
Yah, I took a peek at Freedom Redside and I actually saw a few people.
When I was playing a couple years ago, there was CONSTANTLY 5-6 or more players near Kalinda at almost any time of day, and that was on some mid pop server ( I forget what I was playing on.. Pinnacle was one, there were a couple others I used)
Without a doubt, pop is down significantly.
Yes, I know all about instanced people, but I'm used to seeing 5-6 people just hanging out, and then there being 30-40 people running around in the slums doing instances.
Getting into a team was beyond easy... there was usually a group even standing outside an instance waiting for more people to just randomly show up (the good instances.... bank runs, etc)
I don't see why that is such a hard thing to admit really... the game pop is a fraction of what it was only 2 years ago.
Freedom looks like it will have enough people to play with though, even on redside, which is good. Ive been screwing around on a trial account just to see if I actually wanna re-activate my old account, and I think I will.
It's just kinda sad that it's not as heavily populated as it used to be. I remember my poor old laptop trying to draw 50+ players battling the aliens during the raids... so many light effects! heh, I would just stand there spamming my heals, buffs, and debuffs, and AOE attacks as it skipped 10 frames at a time lol
Virtue- Redside. Join the fun.
When I reactivate my acct I think I have some villians on Virtue actually...
I know I had a couple on Pinnacle (didn't play em much)
been a while so I really don't remember where they are.
I think I'm gonna keep with villains though... I've been tinkering with builds and I just like Villain AT's... everyone is a damage dealer.
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FYI with Going Rogue next week you can play Villain ATs 1-20 in Rogue Isles or Praetoria and at 20+ you can play them blueside as rogues or heroes.
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Originally Posted by Ronin Oni
When I reactivate my acct I think I have some villians on Virtue actually...
I know I had a couple on Pinnacle (didn't play em much) been a while so I really don't remember where they are. I think I'm gonna keep with villains though... I've been tinkering with builds and I just like Villain AT's... everyone is a damage dealer. |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
I'd try Freedom, Virtue, Infinity, Champion, Pinnacle in the late afternoons EST and evenings as well for some decent teaming. Try to join some of the badge/teaming channels...I know BMT of Champion is a good one (you'll need an invite, try @Cobalt Azurean for that), Cozmic's Playground on Pinnacle is another. Use the search tool to find people and send out some tells.
Next week, GOing Rogue launches so you might want to make some alts in Praetoria on your server. That zone is sure to be populated by new and returning players oohing and aahing over the new stuff, then deciding to head to one of the standard zones.
While you are correct that population ingame has dropped, there are still teams to be found on all servers if you leave yourself open and use the team-building and search tools.
Welcome back!
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Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
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No there wasn't. The only time redside was that busy was right after it was released, which was 5 years ago. After the new wore off the redside population dropped off to a small fraction of the playerbase.|
Originally Posted by Ronin Oni
When I was playing a couple years ago, there was CONSTANTLY 5-6 or more players near Kalinda at almost any time of day, and that was on some mid pop server ( I forget what I was playing on.. Pinnacle was one, there were a couple others I used)
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| Without a doubt, pop is down significantly. |
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Yes, I know all about instanced people, but I'm used to seeing 5-6 people just hanging out, and then there being 30-40 people running around in the slums doing instances. Getting into a team was beyond easy... there was usually a group even standing outside an instance waiting for more people to just randomly show up (the good instances.... bank runs, etc) |
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| I don't see why that is such a hard thing to admit really... the game pop is a fraction of what it was only 2 years ago. |
Oh and just because someone like Lightfoot points out the reasons why you had a hard time finding people online, and offers helpful suggestions on how to find a team, does not mean that people are denying that the games population is lower than it was a few years ago.
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| Freedom looks like it will have enough people to play with though, even on redside, which is good. Ive been screwing around on a trial account just to see if I actually wanna re-activate my old account, and I think I will. |
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One important thing to remember as well, is that in the time you've been gone, QUITE A FEW new zones and areas have been introduced, that tend to spread the population around.|
Originally Posted by Ronin Oni
I don't see why that is such a hard thing to admit really... the game pop is a fraction of what it was only 2 years ago.
It's just kinda sad that it's not as heavily populated as it used to be. I |
Ouroboros, the Mission Architect, a revamped RWZ, the Midnighter's Club, Cimerora, the University, Wentworth's (the market), revamped Hollows & Faultline (with new missions/arcs), etc.
Not disagreeing that population may be down from what you remember, but at the same time, the population that IS online, is a bit more scattered.
well, the msr's are still pretty populated, join your server channel and find out when they are. I have noticed players being a bit more organized, but I kind of prefer it to the randomness of trying to luck into a mothership raid and finding out you only had 2 teams.
Now, can you point to any posts in this thread where people are denying that population is down? now your comments about them being "significantly" down or a fraction are a bit loaded, it is suggested by people looking at he last quarterly report that they are between 70-100 k. still lower than in the past, but compared to 08, not drastic. I have to confess as someone who played redside a lot in 08, I dont quite remember things ever being as busy as you are describing, the pattern seemed to filter in that redside population of a given server was at 50% or so of the heroside population. one thing you may not have noticed is that the super sidekicking system made finding a team significantly easier. teams can compose easier and dont have to wait around as long to set up a sk-exemp situation that doesn stick them with a useless teammate nor a exp crusher, so the only thing i can think that would have caused the difference is that now those guys who were waiting for a team now got in a team possibly with higher players because the faster arrest speed of higher level characters would lead to much faster leveling. but get on yoru global channel, that seems to be helpful for any server.
Hey, I used to play this game a couple years ago and loved it.
Best thing is character customization... hands down. No other game compares.
As such, I was VERY disapointed when I created a character, (villain) joined a server (picked the one on top... I remember the first server being the busiest... but they were all listed as 1 green dot) and.... nothing.... nobody.
there was 1 AFKer, and that's it.
so I log in today at lunch, 1 person again (at least solo running quests)
What server is the most populated, and is there a major pop difference between hero and villain? I tend to like villain powersets (everyone has offensive powers) but playing solo defeats the purpose of an MMO
so... what's going on?
Why don't they shut down half the servers or something? seems stupid to have a dozen nearly empty servers....
Grouping with randoms was easy and fast in 2008... if that's no longer common place, I fear I'll have to move on