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Ghostland.
snowytechna
Member Posts: 185
I downloaded the trial and decided to give this game a go.....After 2 hours of wandering I couldnt find a single person, not a single one? Sigh.....Deleted the game.
Comments
You were probably on Spirit Isle or Skalkaar, the tutorial islands. People graduate from them pretty fast, hence you might not see anyone there.
That said, Istaria does have a small population. It's a niche game, it's not advertised, and it doesn't have boxes in stores. But doing what you've done creates a paradox: leaving the game due to low population inhibits the population's ability to grow.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
Speaking of population, what is the max population at peak times. If it is above 1.5k then I think I will give this game another go, It seemed pretty cool to me.
Considering how low the population is, why not combine the existing accounts onto one server, wipe the other one, and advertise heavily about a fresh world launch and attract a lot of new and old players alike?
Many of us are starving for an old school seamless MMOG, we just don't want to play on a 4 year old server.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I'd be surprised if the total playerbase was that big. At peak times there'd be what? 100-150'ish players online on Chaos? Fewer on Order, the smaller server.
It's been half a year since I last played but there were generally folk running around in the noob area. Maybe everyone inclined to take the free trial has done it already?
From memory... Istaria has a non-standard chat setup. If you're starting out and want some kind of interaction with others - and let's face it if you don't have that you may as well be playing an offline game - join the dragons channel.
You might also do well to visit the official forums and look through the guilds section to see who's recruiting. I have no idea whether you can join a guild or not while on the free trial, but if you could find a guild willing to take you in, it'd probably make a big difference.
If you're expecting to hook up with other players to party, that doesn't happen so often. Particularly for non-dragon players, their mutliclassing system encourages solo'ing. Most player interaction is guild based and revolves around gathering/crafting/building.
LOL -- could you imagine the dogfights over plots and lairs?!
No there are still people joining. I see new people all the time and even old timers showing back up from time to time. No it is not growing fast but I think it is more growing then dieing off. Last I heard the game was in the black and growing from a Dev.
Emissary of Istaria
LOL -- could you imagine the dogfights over plots and lairs?!
Well plots were one of the main problems originally because the game advertised that every player would have equal access to a personal plot. This wasn't true though, because there were different types of plots and fewer of the desirable type which as I recall were the ones that allowed merchant and trade buildings to be constructed. There were not enough of those available for every player on each server which created an uproar and a lot of dissatisfaction with the game back then. I would hope that this has been addressed by the new developers.
If it has then I don't see what the problem would be with merging the existing accounts for both servers onto one. Surely the so called RP server doesn't really RP more? That has never been my experience with any MMOG. If the developers want to grow their playerbase they have to offer a new launch start either with a fresh server, which obviously costs more money, or logically utilize an existing server, which they already own.
I never understood the plot shortage originally because there were huge tracts of land in Horizons that were underutilized and bare of anything including mobs.
Well my comment was made because I don't believe it ever was addressed. At least as of 6 months ago this was still an issue in that players could only own one plot/lair per account and it was definitely the case that not all plots/lairs were equally desirable.
Which really was stupid. It should have been the simplest thing in the world to throw in a few more portals to address the 'location' problem and it amazes me that they ever thought it was a good idea to create plots of such varying sizes with this system.
With the delays in moving the Unity people over, which delayed the plot reclamation, there's been a terrible shortage of plots/lairs - which are (if you can get a decent one) one of the game's better features.
They are going forward looking at plot sizes and resizing plots. AS to how they made the mistake of making such small plots, they are only human and thought they had valid reasons and uses for the smaller plots.
Emissary of Istaria
Plots belonging to lapsed subscribers will be reclaimed. Anyone not subbing, who'd like to keep their plot needs to resubscribe. The first preliminary headsup emails have gone out to ex-subscribers; ex-players should be sure their email address is currentif they care.
As Shadowmage mentioned, the plot sizes are being looked at as part of the reclamation. You can build on the smaller plots, but the larger buildings don't fit. The revision should help a lot.
The player base size is confidential; we do know there were more than 10K players, and it was growing well at the time of the disastrous sale. (Dragon lairs and other dragonlub had just been added. ) That growth made the sale attractive to the VC and the seller alike. Due to massive mismanagement, during the PMI/EI period, the subs fell. Now we know the "game is growing, and in the black". My own completely speculative guess is that the game's major shortfalls will be fixed before much marketing is done. With the billing fixed, plot reclamation almost done, Unity players migrated, and lag mitigated, I think that Vista is the sole outstanding issue; and of course that's being worked on. Requests for players' preferences for a revised or new launcher were just posted, as part of the Vista upgrade.
No one on. Hmmm. It is a big place, much the largest MMO land area at the time it was released. There are several chat channels that would help... Marketplace, Dragon, and depending on the server (and I forget the names) advice and new player channels.There is also a /who function that shows who else is on, their level, class, etc.
Order, the role playing server has fewer players than Chaos... I play on Order, and have never, even at the lowest point, seen 0 other players. (There are clearly more on now, including some of the old players from beta... )
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I would peg chaos at roughly 350 to 400 during peak
Order is about 300 based on samples taken a month back.
Thats what the numbers were during Tulga's peak. They dropped to under half that during PM whatever's reign. I really do not think the game will go past 400 peak for chaos.
Right now this is what happens with the game
new players join. These new players are usually refugee's from other games looking for something fresh to play. The game presents OK from levels 1 to 20. You will find new people leaving shortly after that. So there is an attrition rate there. Then you have old returning players coming back. You have a modest attrition rate there as well.
All being said and done the game had a massive influx after Vitrium acquired the game. Since then it has tapered out with small growth spurts. But its remaining pretty even right now.
The game seems to be doing ok for a small game. But it's going to appeal to a small crowd anyway. That seems to pay the bills at vitrium so its playerbase will have their sandbox for sometime to come.