EVE pushes over the 60,000 peak concurrent user mark

You do realize the game is played on a single server across the world, you know, with different time zones and all?

Let's take this point by point.

1. Only 60k of 330k? EVE players are from all over the world, and different areas have different peak times. Obviously you can expect players from the UK to be logged on at different times than players in the central US. In fact, a major component of sov warfare is "timezone warfare". If your enemy is mostly European players, you hit them during the US peak hours. If 60k people are logged on, that doesn't mean that those are the only people who logged on that day. Different people were on earlier during the day.

The number of unique users who log in during a 24 hour period, is much larger than the peak concurrent users achieved during that period.

2. Login queues? Login queues actually have nothing to do with the total number of people currently logged on to TQ, it is dependant on the number of people currently using the same login server as you. When you open the client, you are assigned a login server (seemingly at random). If you encounter a queue, you can simply restart the client, and you should be assigned a new login server that can handle you without waiting. There is currently no hardcap on the number of simultaneous connections that TQ can take.

3. Why haven't we seen that many before? A combination of timezones, as mentioned in point 1, and the constant growth of the subscriber base. Assume that during US prime time, 20% of US subscribers log in. As the number of US subscribers grow, the number of logins during US prime will increase. Given that EVE has had near constant subscriber growth since launch, it's not surprising that PCU records are being broken regularly.

I hope this helps to clear things up.

I logged in when there was 59k users and I had no queue. And where the other 250k users are is easy to guess, since this is world wide some are probably sleeping, others might be working, giving it was a sunday some of them were probably outside with their family, the list goes on and on.

The login queues are tied into how many people are trying to log in at any one point and not the total population at the time. I have run into one queue in 3 months.

I don't really understand why this is so hard to believe. Any of their players can easily see how many people are currently logged on at any one time. I was not able to log on at that time so I did not have a chance to check but I know of plenty of others that did.

I guess what I don't really understand is why you think they are lying? The game is obviously getting larger year after year.

Do you honestly expect ANY MMO to have more than 20% of its subscriber base online at the same time? Just because EVE's one of the few MMOs that publishes accurate subscriber totals and PCUs doesn't mean that others get more than 20% of their subscribers online at any one time. We just don't have statistics like that from other games to compare EVE's numbers to.

The average MMO gamer will only play for only a few hours per day. Like everyone else, they have jobs, sleep and other things to do. Assuming an even distribution of login times during the day, statistically speaking the only way to get all 330,000 players to log in at the same time would be if all 330,000 played EVE constantly 24/7.

If the average person plays for 2 hours per day and the beginning of their play times are evenly distributed throughout the day, you'd only expect 27,500 of the total 330,000 to be logged in at any one time. If the average person plays for 3 hours per day, you'd expect 41,250 logged in at any one time.

What we see in EVE's server graphs is the effect of players' login times NOT being evenly distributed throughout the day. EVE has players from all around the world, with large numbers from the United Kingdom, the USA, european countries, Russia and others. The PCU tends to peak during the late UK/European evening (early USA evening) when both EU and american players tend to have time to play. A similar effect is seen during the weekends, particularly on Sundays when more people have free time to play.

I was waiting for the timezone thing to be thrown out. As i stated before the numbers shouldnt be given out, they counter claims put out by the media.

Events, because these "events" are just that, when people feel they need to justify their game and say "hey! lookee me" and perform a group hug.

The words are "Monthly averages" thats all anyone need concern themselves with, thats peaks AND valleys over a month, times the year, the number is well under 30k worldwide the majority of the time, timezones and all, everyone happy now?

Now get those graphs out and start trying to spin a reply up. I played all the way to the first dev hand in a cookie jar capture, 4 years worth. I simply cannot stomach numbers tossed around with proof to counter the claims out there also.

My podperson is still in that game, and i will bet it is counted as one of the "300k".

A simple test.........
Here is something that will prevent me from countering this inane argument everytime it appears, have CCP hold a worldwide Login over a 24 hour period, then, all ****unique**** login id's can be counted, i will even give the folks at CCP a break, if the number is even close to 270k i will bow to the fine folks at CCP and stop attacking windmills.

The gauntlet has been thrown down.......

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility

Here you go, as you can easily see the number of users average is very slowly going up.

You sure are mad about a video game. Let's get some numbers.

http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/pdf/QEN_Q1-2009.pdf

As we can see from the graph on page 8, subscription numbers do occasionally dip. Obviously this would be impossible if they continued to count inactive subscriptions. As they have stated multiple times, the numbers given are for ACTIVE subscriptions only, so that's one paranoid delusion we can do away with.

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility

eve-offline provides a 3rd party server monitoring service, and gives handy graphs of concurrent users over time. The average is around 30k, peaking at 50-60k on weekends, and during US/Euro prime time.

http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/pdf/QEN_Q3-2009.pdf

Take a look at page 5, where it mentions that 16,258 pilots are flying hulks, representing 2.5% of all active ships in EVE. That translates into 650320 characters. My first link shows that there are an average of 2.5 characters per account, which gives us a total of 260128 accounts with active ships in Q3 2009. There's your number of active people.

Since there's nothing to suggest that CCP is lying about these numbers, I'd say the burden of proof is on you to prove your conspiracy theories.

Do you think all 11.5m WoW players are logged in right now?

Does a player in Moscow have the same hours as a player in Denver?

Dont provide links that prove my point folks, nuff said. Vote down if it makes your world feel more comfortable (grin). I have typed my piece. The challenge stands.

And mad Drew? I dont get mad at any game, i simply stop paying and dont sub to garbage. I point out misrepresentation of facts and poor design choices. The last time i checked typed words dont show emotion, do not presume to to guess what i think unless i post it, in doing so you may appear ignorant. If i feel the need to tell you i am mad i will do so, or some other colorful description when the need arises, and from my blogs you know i am not afraid to do so.

WoW has ~ 11 million subscribers. Do you believe they are ever online at the same time? At most it'll be around ~ 1 million.

WoW realms have a (n estimated) maximum of 2500 concurrent accounts online. There are around 1000 realms active at the moment (probably a little less). That means that *at most* there can only be 2,500,000 players online. Given the various realm populations and the spread over pretty much all timezones, at peak times the game will only have around ~1,000,000 players online. This is about 9% of the total subscriber base.



In other words: Having 18% of your total subscriber base logged in at the same time is damn impressive - Moreso when it's on the same realm.

Login queues only happen when a lot of people try to log in at the same time or when the cluster is unusually busy for whatever reason. They're (very) temporary, if they ever happen other than right after downtime.

@Graill

330k active subscriptions. This is in their company reports, it's not a "publicized" number. They have shareholders to keep happy, and falsifying those kind of reports isn't looked to kindly upon. An active subscription is an account which is currently active and payed for. If you haven't played in 4 years, your account is inactive and not counted.

Even if it was, and EVE only has 330k accounts ever made... That would make 60k of them online at the same time even more impressive. But i guess i'm just falling for trollbait.

Because lying about subscriber numbers is very serious business for important internet spaceships, obviously..

Conspiracy theories are fun, but futile. For more fun though may we present Jita Cam Commentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UrIJpNXR4k

Nice one, I lift my trolling hat for you, my friend.
Everytime there's a number about EVE mentioned this same argument pops up - and EVE players rush to rescue.

Never fails - rather amusing.

Wonder if it's boredom, stupidity or jealousy which drives these arguments. Each are viable options, I mean, it's occasionally fun to troll, the Internets house a lot of young/stupid people and having everyone in a MMO play on the same server is the only next-gen that's happened in the business. ;)

As to the login queues, I believe they weren't existing at the time. The people at my dorm had gathered to watch the tournament on a big screen, and when they flashed the record had been broken with around 58k in the "live from jita" stream all of us rushed off to login. I logged both my accounts in without sitting in any queue.

Nifty to see it broken though and I honestly wish all MMOs did this single server policy, I know that they can't because fantasy worlds are somewhat heavier to load than empty space and all, but it does wonders for the community when everyone is in the same world.

And the ques? Did you still have them?

The other day I logged in both my chars, one of my chars logged in immediately, the other was put in a queue. Just as the other people have been saying it is dependent on the log-in server you are put in and how many people are logging in through that same server.