Classic population

[Myth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rpxQwZUIQ0
1:09
The numbers are hard to read, but I see them ranging 1700-2200 per server.

[Cyrano]

Are you sure that isn't kunark era?

[Uaellaen]

6 minutes 4 "first of all i want to introduce the producer of EQ live and Scars of velious" yada yada ... not classic

[Uaellaen]

oh also 6:50 velious UI on big screen

[doacleric]

I remember that at peak time, servers could easily hit 2500 players. During the middle of the night, some servers went down to around 500 though. This was during kunark/velious era.

[Uaellaen]

yes, during kunark EQ peaked out high ... but before that the server population hasnt been that high, since alot of server "splits" occured in the classic era, due to new servers opening up ... thou as far as i can remember, in classic the server status didnt state the amount of players, it was introduced several months into the game, maybe even arround kunark (i cant remember ><) that it shows actual numbers ...

[Yinaltin]

yep uuaell is right . at classic , the servers only had the "UP" or "LOCKED" tag and not any population numbers behind the servernames :) but i do remember that solusek ro had about 2500 ppl online simultaneously ,too.
miss that auc crowd in gf :(

[mixxit]

started out at 1 and grew to 2500 so we are somewhere in between

[Shawk]

It's Velious, 1:09 shows Velious Registration at bottom, only did that after its release, even after registering and buying the game it still had that button.

The classic servers had about 1000 from what I remember (i was 13...)

What I do however remember, is that I never had no 100 ping like this server has.. I was always 250+ on Classic..

yep uuaell is right . at classic , the servers just got the "UP" or "LOCKED" tag and not had any population numbers behind the servernamen :) but i do rememer too that solusek ro had about 2500 ppl online simultaneously .
miss that auc crowd in gf :(

Haha I was there too, I loved Gfay as trade area..

[Vonblund]

I have a distant memory of the Nameless being around 700 players in October 1999 during Euro afternoon and primetime

[Breuce]

This sounds about right. I seem to remember (vaguely) a "cap" at around 1500 per server during classic, which was not really enforced but was considered a guildeline. Dunno if that was just based on averages from observation though, or if it was something the devs actually considered. So long ago that I can't remember.

Seem to be remembering seeing upwards of 3k+ at peaks sometimes during kunrak/velious on some servers during the hot times. We need some more playas! ;P

[mgellan]

Does anyone know what the technical infrastructure behind the live servers were? Just a app server and a database, or could they spread zones around multiple servers as well? Just htinking we might hit a hard limit since AFAIK the emu doesn't allow zone tasks to run on different machines since you only specify a port, not an IP.

This might limit the emu to much less than live player volumes...

Regards,
Mg

[bufferofnewbies]

Zones were spread across various servers also. They used to keep the low impact/high impact zone sets on different servers to minimize the load impact. Especially after the expansions, where the high end zones wouldnt even be entered for awhile. This wasn't their 'origional' design, but was incorporated very early on once they discovered the amount of folks actually playing.

I recall a few comments in Guide chat about how we needed to watch over some zones, since they swapped it to a different zone set to offset latency.

[razorz]

I also remember there being lines to get into camps like frenzied/lord and solb king/bats, etc.. you would sit at zone line and wait for someone to leave which could take hours. It was part of classic, but wasnt always fun.

It is cool to know there are that many people playing though

[toddfx]

I also remember there being lines to get into camps like frenzied/lord and solb king/bats, etc.. you would sit at zone line and wait for someone to leave which could take hours. It was part of classic, but wasnt always fun.

It is cool to know there are that many people playing though

The other day in a WC derv group, somebody asked "Do we have anybody on the list?" and I had to laugh out loud.

[razorz]

THAT IS CLASSIC! lol

[stormlord]

I played mar 99 - jun 99. I swear I remember seeing numbers for server population, but I can't be sued for being wrong. What I do know is that the zones were packed.

I wish I had made a video. You never know when a memory is worth keeping.

Somehow I lost all my screenshots. Or maybe I didn't get any. So sad I don't rememeber. But I do remember that when I played in 2001-02 I did take screenshots, but lost them!

[nilbog]

Originally, you could do a / all count

It would show you the total players on your server at the time.

[Zordana]

Originally, you could do a / all count

It would show you the total players on your server at the time.

tho this wasnt classic, was it? i dont remember any way to find out how many players were online :p

[nilbog]

This was most definitely classic... it was removed later.. about the time it showed more than 2000 results? Can't remember specifically, but I know I never saw more than 2000 with a / all count.

It would always show.

There are _____ players on Erollisi Marr.
and.. Countt chocula, the enchanter, if he happened to be online.

This was summer, 99.

[Zordana]

to say it the brittish way: this is most good, most good!

Quote: "Hey darling, we could have sexual intercorse." - "Yes, yes." - "But let's rather not."

[Landis]

Originally, you could do a / all count

It would show you the total players on your server at the time.
agreed i remember this.

i also thought there wasn't a limit on the number of players returned when you did something like / all unrest (at least if there was a limit it was 100 or more)

[chaple]

I dunno, I remember the population being around 800 on my server back in the day when they still showed actual numbers... can't be positive though.

[nilbog]

The 2000ish figure was from late Kunark or Velious.

You could / all count for a long time.

If I had to guess, prekunark figures were 1000-1500 online, tops. That is my guess though, hopefully we will find real figures somehow.

[Bruman]

This was most definitely classic... it was removed later.. about the time it showed more than 2000 results? Can't remember specifically, but I know I never saw more than 2000 with a / all count.

It would always show.

There are _____ players on Erollisi Marr.
and.. Countt chocula, the enchanter, if he happened to be online.

This was summer, 99.

I remember the exact same thing (even the same server!) but for total. Then a guy showed up who was named Total, and it would fuck it up.

[nilbog]

More about count..

2001
During a server downage, Ester the Tester came into the General Chat room. She was asked if, since the number of players is no longer displayed, the ability to do “/who all count” would be disabled. Much to my (and many other’s) suprise/disgust, she answered “yes.”http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qfwzvUxtTWkJ:brokentoys.org/page/137/%3Fp%3Dujfslhkhszib+%2B%22/who+all+count%22+%2Beverquest&cd=21&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

From 2008..

With "/who all count" you can check if there are 200+ or less players on a server. Numbers above 200 will be mapped to 200.
You can however do:
/who all 1 10 count - count all players between level 1 and 10
Or:
/who all cleric count - count all Clerics
For all levelranges or classes.
This way you can get numbers higher than 200, by adding the single results.
http://www.mpog.com/discussion2.cfm?thread=187032

So, I'd say it gave a current total player number prior to Luclin.

[vinx]

There are _____ players on Erollisi Marr.
and.. Countt chocula, the enchanter, if he happened to be online.



how did this guy manage to evade the name changers back then ;)

[Dac321]

Odd question, and probably asked before, but is there anyway to load up the original character screen?

[Myth]

Good question. I miss the old character select

[Thorjorkill]

Peak prime time numbers just before kunark were 6-800 across the board. Servers had a HARD time with 1400+ players, and would do nasty shit. I'm sure you all remember when a new server opened and you had 1500 players on and the server would die - for days on end.

[kariden]

1999-2000 servers would break 1200 and then they would open a new server to reduce the crashes caused by such a high population. Pre RoK it seemed that the game wanted servers to stay around 1k players at peak.
During server upgrades doing RoK days and then into SoV servers could and did hit as high as 1800 at peak times. Like one or two of the more popular servers even broke into 2100 range. More server splits to reduce population to ease the server load.
Of course you have to take into account the added zones and spread of players across all of the zones and all the level ranges.

Right now I see P99 at 2am EST on a friday night and it reminds me of early morning PST time when I would raid with euro players. At the average peak times it reminds me of most weekday evenings during pre RoK days.

[Taluvill]

I wonder if you delete the character selection files if it would load up the old ones as a default?

[Omnimorph]

to say it the brittish way: this is most good, most good!

Quote: "Hey darling, we could have sexual intercorse." - "Yes, yes." - "But let's rather not."

I'm english, and i've never heard someone say something is "most good". That's just stereotyping :/