hammarus

Suffice to say, no one but a Dev can give you accurate numbers with any certainty. Everyone posting that population is up down or stable is doing so based on conjecture and hearsay only, and thus are just guessing.

So, in my best guess, I would say the population is down by 25 percent. I guess that for every 1.5 new people brought into the game by the EoF marketing campaign, the game has lost 2 long term players.

Mezter Boricua

1) Devs don't care about how many lvl 70 raiding guild are pre server or about the lvl 70 people witch is 20% of the game.
2) For my expirience when i play a alt I can say that if they merges servers again is to provide players 60-down a grouping playable expirience of the game. At least in my server(Butcherblocks) it takes me like 30-40 min to setup a group for my alt.. and i send tells to everyone whitin lvl range not just lfgs

Lord Pantz

I'd be all about a merger that means they'd open up free transfers!!

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Devamani

I would agree with the 25% assumption... you could see it on many servers daily..

Gallenite

/debunk

Account numbers are actually up since EoF, not down.

What we did on the EQ2players site is clean off the characters of everyone who had been banned, but still had characters mirroring over. That number is most definitely way down as a result. Having those characters on the web just makes the site slower for no real benefit.

EU PvP is a separate issue that we're trying to get a workable solution for out there.

- Scott

LFG

Thank you very much for clearing that up. I personally was concerned about the merge rumor, and am very glad to hear there is no plan for a merge at this time. I think the populations are pretty healthy at this time, at least on the three different servers I've played on in the past few months.

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hammarus

Interesting. While I am happy you posted here, I am none-the-less curious. Care to share those numbers at this time?

LFG, Gallenite gives no direction, for or against server merges in his post. You could of course infer from a statement about populations growing that no mergers are currently planned, but that was not said explicitly.

I do believe there is a bit of a difference between statistical accounts( including those cancelled but subscriptions not yet expired), and characters actually played within the last week. While ancedotal evidence is not statistical evidence, it certainly indicates a perception. And we will never know the answer without SoE providing physical data to evaluate.

As an afterthought. What does clearing banned accounts off of EQ2players have to do with server merges?

LFG

In my reading of what he wrote, he commented on several different issues in this thread, and not just the "is SoE going to merge EQ2 servers" question. His most significant comment was to refute the suggestion made by a user that fewer people were now playing EQ2 than before EoF.

From asking qualifying questions at the first Summit in Las Vegas about what numbers SoE tracks to assess the health and use of its games, I know they track several different things. They track average play time per account, how many days the average user plays per week, how many hours per play session, and a lot of things in addition to just the number of active subscribers.

So when he says "account numbers" are up compared to before EoF, he means that more people are playing EQ2 now than before EoF, based on different measurements. It is clear to me, therefore, along with his /debunk comment, that he intended to debunk the rumor posted by the OP, and to say there are no plans in place to merge the EQ2 servers.

Think about it - why on Earth would they merge the servers if the number of players, and use times by those players was increasing, rather than declining? Also, he wouldn't have made a comment on this issue if any plans to merge were actually being considered. He especially wouldn't make a comment that could be considered misleading or be misconstrued and used against him in the future.

I've met this guy, and I can tell you first hand that he is honest, believable, and completely credible. He doesn't use words by mistake, he is definitely not careless with what he says. Say what you will about SoE in general, Smed in particular, anyone else, but I'm telling you that Gallenite is as honest as the day is long. He's also smart enough not to say anything untrue, because he knows what kind of future problems that could cause. You can believe what he says.

And my reading of what he said above, in the context of this thread, is that SoE is not planning any server merges in EQ2 at this time. He simply wouldn't have commented on this issue in a way that would lead a reasonable person to believe that if it wasn't the case, period.

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Devamani

They could not and would not say if they are losing players... Saying a game is in the decline officially would only promote the loss of players, knowing people are going elsewhere, the fact is x amount of players have gone to vanguard and elsewhere, and that outweighs the number of new players I will guarantee...

Lord Pantz

But you have to admit Gall "Free Transfer and Bonus XP Weekend" would be a great PR move after the wolfsbane miscommunication.

/nudge /nudge /wink /wink

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