Guild Wars 2

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Absence of knowledge? Knowing the map technical limitations, the upper limit of concurrent players, the ascended gear grind panic, dead maps on many servers (I didn’t say all) aren’t knowledge? Astute people can apply sensibility to said knowledge and put pieces together themselves.

Except people can’t know how many people are in dungeons. They can’t know how many people are scattered around the world even.

The fact that people can server hop changes everything. I can be on three different servers in the same night.

It’s ALL just guesswork.

Guesswork with applied sensibility and knowledge of game’s limitation.
Sensibility such as:
Map cap.
PvP population is much smaller compared to PvE population.
Easymode casual player population is larger than “real gamers”.
Many players are ignorant of lfg tool AND guesting.

Like I said, you can still apply some common sense to get a reasonable “guesstimate” on the upper cap on the population and go from there. No need to think this is some impossible thing to guess.

You can apply what you believe to be a reasonable guestimate, nothing more. For example many people may run dungeons only in guilds (like me for example) and never use the LFG tool at all). With people swapping back and forth there really is no way to count.

I bounce around all over the place. I might be in a zone for five, ten minutes, then bounce to another zone, then get an inkling to do Tequatl with TTS, then jump into another server to catch an open Temple of Balathazar.

Map hopping makes it impossible to even guess. How many times do you count me? Where do you count me?

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Absence of knowledge? Knowing the map technical limitations, the upper limit of concurrent players, the ascended gear grind panic, dead maps on many servers (I didn’t say all) aren’t knowledge? Astute people can apply sensibility to said knowledge and put pieces together themselves.

Except people can’t know how many people are in dungeons. They can’t know how many people are scattered around the world even.

The fact that people can server hop changes everything. I can be on three different servers in the same night.

It’s ALL just guesswork.

Guesswork with applied sensibility and knowledge of game’s limitation.
Sensibility such as:
Map cap.
PvP population is much smaller compared to PvE population.
Easymode casual player population is larger than “real gamers”.
Many players are ignorant of lfg tool AND guesting.

Like I said, you can still apply some common sense to get a reasonable “guesstimate” on the upper cap on the population and go from there. No need to think this is some impossible thing to guess.

You can apply what you believe to be a reasonable guestimate, nothing more. For example many people may run dungeons only in guilds (like me for example) and never use the LFG tool at all). With people swapping back and forth there really is no way to count.

I bounce around all over the place. I might be in a zone for five, ten minutes, then bounce to another zone, then get an inkling to do Tequatl with TTS, then jump into another server to catch an open Temple of Balathazar.

Map hopping makes it impossible to even guess. How many times do you count me? Where do you count me?

Guesstimate doesn’t mean actually counting you as an individual.
In any case, you’ve just described one of the groups that is counted in the guesstimate: the world boss farm train.
Other groups include, eg.
LA afkers
Guild mission players
WvW
PvP (shared)
Very, very tiny portion of players on dead maps
Dungeon runners (shared)

Like I said, not impossible with applied sensibility.

Pointless thread = POINTLESS!

What number would satisfy your curiosity.. 1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111…….

or maybe… just perform the pull something out of a hat magic trick to keep yourself suitably entertained.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Absence of knowledge? Knowing the map technical limitations, the upper limit of concurrent players, the ascended gear grind panic, dead maps on many servers (I didn’t say all) aren’t knowledge? Astute people can apply sensibility to said knowledge and put pieces together themselves.

Except people can’t know how many people are in dungeons. They can’t know how many people are scattered around the world even.

The fact that people can server hop changes everything. I can be on three different servers in the same night.

It’s ALL just guesswork.

Guesswork with applied sensibility and knowledge of game’s limitation.
Sensibility such as:
Map cap.
PvP population is much smaller compared to PvE population.
Easymode casual player population is larger than “real gamers”.
Many players are ignorant of lfg tool AND guesting.

Like I said, you can still apply some common sense to get a reasonable “guesstimate” on the upper cap on the population and go from there. No need to think this is some impossible thing to guess.

You can apply what you believe to be a reasonable guestimate, nothing more. For example many people may run dungeons only in guilds (like me for example) and never use the LFG tool at all). With people swapping back and forth there really is no way to count.

I bounce around all over the place. I might be in a zone for five, ten minutes, then bounce to another zone, then get an inkling to do Tequatl with TTS, then jump into another server to catch an open Temple of Balathazar.

Map hopping makes it impossible to even guess. How many times do you count me? Where do you count me?

Guesstimate doesn’t mean actually counting you as an individual.
In any case, you’ve just described one of the groups that is counted in the guesstimate: the world boss farm train.
Other groups include, eg.
LA afkers
Guild mission players
WvW
PvP (shared)
Very, very tiny portion of players on dead maps
Dungeon runners (shared)

Like I said, not impossible with applied sensibility.

Vaine is right, its really impossible to make a reasonable guess, you mentioned factoring in the game limitation but we cannot really do that, for example I always though WvW maps had 500 player capacity, not because I wanted to be dishonest but because thats the number i saw in a number of interviews yet the link you gave me clearly proves that might have been the case one time during beta but its surely is not the case today. Not only that but we have no clue on what the real number is. 100 – 150 is an assumption based on what you might be seeing at that time. Even if we knew that for sure we dont know how many people are in the queue.

We dont know how many people guest, we dont know of players that play different content then the ones we play etc… Thing is these assumption are all based on perception and we generally trick our perception into seeing what we want to see. We can try being realistic as much as possible but inevitably we’ll try to skew the numbers towards our vision. Example I mentioned in my previous post that even in maps considered empty I still generally run into 2 – 5 people,I dont way point around, I enjoy walking to were I want to go .. how will someone who always way points perceive that same zone? chances are they’re going to waypoint for something specific, do whatever they want to do and waypoint out. If that specific content they do happens to be devoid of people at the time they’ll claim the zone is dead cause in their perception it is even though its not. I on the other hand saw those 2-5 people and estimate that odds these 2 – 5 people are just a subset of the actual players in the zone because obviously i wasnt everywhere all the time. So trying to be conservative I said probably there is 3x as much in reality. That might be a fair assessment or it might be me trying to see more players then there truly are, after all the 2 – 5 people was the only factual data, the 3x multiplier is just my opinion.

Then there is the time factor, I mean even if mid level zones are not very popular if a guild has a guild bounty there or trek or whatever thats 20 – 50 players right there. if they’re not doing a guild mission in that mid level zone though does it mean these players arent playing? no it means they’re somewhere else so with which group do you count them? You might say guild mission but thats just once a week deal for may 2 – 4 hrs is that all these players play per week? definitely not …

its impossible to come up with a good number thats not skewed one way or the other.

As many stated before: pointless. But to don’t make offtop, I’ll give answer on numbers I actually have SOME idea about, not just pull from my… you know where.

I’m playing on Gunnar’s Hold. Rank 11. Before EotM we had queues on all maps in prime time. 1 WvW map = something above 100 players (120?). 4 maps + ppl in OS = ~500 players. Not counting servers lower in ranking (and yes, they have queues too), it’s 11 servers with 500 players ONLY in WvW, NOT counting ones in queues (and I heard T1 queues are few hours long, meaning that’s even more than already on maps playing).
That means 5,5k players in WvW maps, only on 11 of 27 EU servers. Not counting ones in queues, on rest of servers or on NA servers. I belive, counting only players ON MAPS, in EU at prime time would give around 10k. Queues should double it.

Now add s/tPvP, wBosses, players doing map exploraton, afkers in LA, queens terrace and in all other cities, farmers, players doing LS, hunting achis, doing activities, dungeons (including guild/friend groups that don’t use LFG), fractals…

Impossible to count. If I really had to guess I’d bet money on it being 50k+ online at the same time in EU prime time at any day of week.

Extract all information from leaderboards – potential of 26k players (eliminate doubles).

Keep track of achievement points on a daily basis.

Extract all names from posts here on the board. Add them to your friends list if not on leaderboard, keep track of achievement points.

Visit every world, every day at different times, write down manually every account name that is not on your list yet, add to friends list if not on leaderboard, keep track of achievement points.

Do this for the next half year.

It’s possible to come up with a reasonable number (at least for one region), but it’s work.

Or (!) move to Seattle, lurk around the studio, bump into an employee, seduce him/her, buy lot’s of cookies, tickle the secret out of him/her. Might take half a year as well.

Or (!) apply for a job, get the job, find out … don’t tell anyone.

Soooo, since 42 is taken I take 420 000.

Galen Grey.4709:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Guesswork with applied sensibility and knowledge of game’s limitation.
Sensibility such as:
Map cap.
PvP population is much smaller compared to PvE population.
Easymode casual player population is larger than “real gamers”.
Many players are ignorant of lfg tool AND guesting.

Like I said, you can still apply some common sense to get a reasonable “guesstimate” on the upper cap on the population and go from there. No need to think this is some impossible thing to guess.

You can apply what you believe to be a reasonable guestimate, nothing more. For example many people may run dungeons only in guilds (like me for example) and never use the LFG tool at all). With people swapping back and forth there really is no way to count.

I bounce around all over the place. I might be in a zone for five, ten minutes, then bounce to another zone, then get an inkling to do Tequatl with TTS, then jump into another server to catch an open Temple of Balathazar.

Map hopping makes it impossible to even guess. How many times do you count me? Where do you count me?

Guesstimate doesn’t mean actually counting you as an individual.
In any case, you’ve just described one of the groups that is counted in the guesstimate: the world boss farm train.
Other groups include, eg.
LA afkers
Guild mission players
WvW
PvP (shared)
Very, very tiny portion of players on dead maps
Dungeon runners (shared)

Like I said, not impossible with applied sensibility.

Vaine is right, its really impossible to make a reasonable guess, you mentioned factoring in the game limitation but we cannot really do that, for example I always though WvW maps had 500 player capacity, not because I wanted to be dishonest but because thats the number i saw in a number of interviews yet the link you gave me clearly proves that might have been the case one time during beta but its surely is not the case today. Not only that but we have no clue on what the real number is. 100 – 150 is an assumption based on what you might be seeing at that time. Even if we knew that for sure we dont know how many people are in the queue.

We dont know how many people guest, we dont know of players that play different content then the ones we play etc… Thing is these assumption are all based on perception and we generally trick our perception into seeing what we want to see. We can try being realistic as much as possible but inevitably we’ll try to skew the numbers towards our vision. Example I mentioned in my previous post that even in maps considered empty I still generally run into 2 – 5 people,I dont way point around, I enjoy walking to were I want to go .. how will someone who always way points perceive that same zone? chances are they’re going to waypoint for something specific, do whatever they want to do and waypoint out. If that specific content they do happens to be devoid of people at the time they’ll claim the zone is dead cause in their perception it is even though its not. I on the other hand saw those 2-5 people and estimate that odds these 2 – 5 people are just a subset of the actual players in the zone because obviously i wasnt everywhere all the time. So trying to be conservative I said probably there is 3x as much in reality. That might be a fair assessment or it might be me trying to see more players then there truly are, after all the 2 – 5 people was the only factual data, the 3x multiplier is just my opinion.

Then there is the time factor, I mean even if mid level zones are not very popular if a guild has a guild bounty there or trek or whatever thats 20 – 50 players right there. if they’re not doing a guild mission in that mid level zone though does it mean these players arent playing? no it means they’re somewhere else so with which group do you count them? You might say guild mission but thats just once a week deal for may 2 – 4 hrs is that all these players play per week? definitely not …

its impossible to come up with a good number thats not skewed one way or the other.

The assumption is reasonable due to how a PvE map can begin to struggle at cap, so applying it to WvW where the server has skill lag when two zergs clash, the assumption is reasonable.
Regarding guild missions, apply a reasonable average since it’s only once a week per guild.

If people don’t want to research what ANet have said on their technical limits, and piece together other information, apply reasonable logic such as upper bound limits, typical player behavior, then I guess they can remain ignorant.

My guestimate is 700k-800k users that play at least one hour per week.

current peak concurrency is probably around 40-50k

There’s only one answer that is certain: disappointing.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

My guestimate is 700k-800k users that play at least one hour per week.

current peak concurrency is probably around 40-50k

40k may indeed be achievable if you put together NA and EU servers together, as EU has more servers then NA. 50k ? Thats really pushing it, something extreme would have to be going on that would make all current players log on to check it out as well as many people that have moved on from the game.

Though that would be at the extreme high times, very rare, more likely its around 25-35k on average days.

And trying to figure this out for EU is much harder, due to the timezone differences from London to Moscow and everything in between. So EU prime times are vastly different then NA prime time, not as consistant.

i dont know how many are playing but i knw its alot less then form start of gw2 end less then first 6 months of gw2.reason i read players left was due to every patch bein mostly temp stuff and living story making players pull there hair out .on player wrote he is up to his eye balls with living story lol.i like gw2 but after 1 year and 5 months no real new perm stuff but the fratcuals and they are bugged.just nerf patches and temp stuff and living story stuff every patch equaling boring.oh and the grind fest that at start they promised would never happen

I have long breaks in between my playtime when it comes to GW2 and every time I come back there seems to be less and less people, I play on Tarnished coast.

I don’t necessarily log in around new patches, so can’t be too sure that it’s people being funneled off into a single zone causing the rest of the world to be empty.

I really feel like it’s not doing so well when people complain about their servers population and are told to guest to Tarnished Coast. Tarnished Coast only seems to be good for Queensdale, new content and sometimes Cursed shores.

Its less then what the max of what ppl say but much higher then the lowest of want ppl say. Both ways there no way to prove any thing.

tonadius.7013:

can u guys tell me that what server that have many population in it?
between this server
( jade of quary, sanctum of rails, blackgate, Tarnished coast)

Black gate has the most and is full atm I think. Then jade quarry and sanctum of tall. Tarnished coast is probably next. Here, look at the rankings and they can usually tell you which are the highest populated. https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvwmain

anet says they have 465k

I’d guesstimate 300k~ peak concurrent users per day

Also, Chinese servers will be a closed system. No guesting/transferring there I believe. They have a different system due to local laws.

Considering JQ and BG have thousands of Chinese players already, I can safely assume that GW2 will be massively popular in China.

BlueZone.4236:

The assumption is reasonable due to how a PvE map can begin to struggle at cap, so applying it to WvW where the server has skill lag when two zergs clash, the assumption is reasonable.
Regarding guild missions, apply a reasonable average since it’s only once a week per guild.

If people don’t want to research what ANet have said on their technical limits, and piece together other information, apply reasonable logic such as upper bound limits, typical player behavior, then I guess they can remain ignorant.

Not saying its definitely not the case but from a technical point of view its very possible you cant apply the same model to both and I will tell you why. Gw2 is a non targeting MMO hence it has to send a lot of data to clients. Information on play position, attacks as well as every single projectile. Optimizations are done of course so my client will not receive data about someone outside a certain range. In WvW though many times its a ton of players battling out in the same area hence there the server will likely need to sync everyone which in turn means a lot more data traffic being sent and received. Lets keep in mind this is an exponential curve not linear. 4 players = 16 updates that need to be sent 5 players = 25 updates that need to be sent where as 100 players = 10k updates that need to be sent. This of course is multiplied per attack and per pet and per pet’s attack. This is further supported by the fact that if you dont join the zerg in WvW you dont get lag yet those players are still in the same instance. Its not the infrastructure that cant handle the load its the data pipes that get overwhelmed probably client side.

Also keep in mind if the 100 number for WvW is correct that would mean the map supports 300 people not 100. I dont think PvE maps go up that much player wise and it makes sense since PvE maps have a lot more NPCs then WvW does which also create their own kind of stress.

I dont think its accurate to measure PvE maps with a WvW measuring stick there are too many different variables involved.