Population decline since velious release?

[JayDee]

There was a surge in players before velious. Some people even going as far as forecasting a 3,000 sustainable population once the expansion debuted. What I have seen is actually the opposite. I understand it is saturday morning right now, but the population is at 550 which seems low.

None of my friends have played since the first couple days to my understanding. I personally find myself in a precarious position where I can't conceivable raid (at least with expectations of receiving anything in return), can't camp sought after items like beads, can't complete quests like bfg.

Again, my group has taken a small break from the game entirely so I could basing this on the limited information I have, but I do get the impression that people are less enamored with the way velious launched.

[Messie]

Not sure if this is an attempt to be sarcastic, troll, or genuinely a post from someone who doesn't know server demographic / time zones..., but you're asking why the population isn't above 600 currently when it's 6:40 am EST currently and 3:40 am PST. You said yourself you're aware it's Saturday morning... Most of the people online on this hour are from Europe or other places around the world that are not the U.S. 550-600 online during the servers extreme off-peak hours is pretty nice. I'm proudly one of the 550-600 on around this time !

In fact...this time is great...the ONLY time frame in the day where you can go and find most camps uncontested, because most of the server population is asleep! So, enjoy it.

During peak hours the population still seems to be pretty high! Sure it may have dipped a few weeks after velious, but thats because many people have reset their schedules back to reality after taking a week off to nerd out on the lovely velious release.

[Messie]

Additionally, I have quite a few friends who play consistently around this hour and for the next few hours. I'm not sure what level and classes your toons are, but feel free to hit me up in game and if I don't have an alt or two that could group, I may be able to help you find some competent players in your level range! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Rooj]

I've been wanting to make this post myself. Earlier this year I think I saw the server get up to over 2000, maybe it was even closer to 2100. I was expecting even higher numbers once Velious launched, but like you, I'm seeing the opposite. I am sort of wondering if it has anything to do with SOE publicly acknowledging P99 a while back and giving us positive press, so a bunch of folks from Live came over to play who wanted to experience the olden days. But then they saw the forums and logged in to the game and saw how some players and even some staff behave (not bashing on the staff, you do what you do and how you want to, but a lot of the EQ type folk aren't into it - feels like there's a loss of forum activity as well :\) and were too turned off by it. It's certainly a shame because I'd love to see the population rise even higher, otherwise I'm afraid with the landmass having grown for us and the population spreading out, some older zones will have less activity and may become difficult to keep new players interested - just like what happened on Live.

And I certainly wouldn't mind if there were more people playing at 4 AM with me ;D

[Bboboo]

They all went to red serv....lol sorry I can't finish the joke.

[Verath]

It's summer man. It's nice out and summer is generally when people go on vacation.

Thought it was common knowledge that in MMOs population dips in the summer and rises in the winter.

[Doors]

Velious is a true neckbeard expansion.

Anything good you want from it will require massive amounts of time to be put in. People are def. excited for it but eventually reality sets in and the time requirements become unrealistic for most people.

[jaybone]

Need luclin and pop. Thanks

[Masakizt]

velious too little too late

[fishingme]

Probably as simple as so many people burnt themselves out on kunark only for velious to open up with a crap load of 60s farming everything in velious. It's the last planned classic expansion that will release on this server, the game is practically over in terms of progression. I'm just waiting for the hardcores to finally quit because they've burnt themselves out and have come to the realization they've just lost a ton of time.