Whats the games overall population like?

[MidnightShade]

I came from Vanguard and you all know how that game is right now, with the sever merges yet to happen, it is a wasteland(the world is huge so finding people in under popd servers is tough).  How is the general Eq2 pop?  Since I got the promo, i have seen a very strong pop on the newbie areas.  How is the rest of the game? Is there more people here now then when the game launched in 2004/05?(when I played eq2 last)  I did notice that most of the servers are all medium load, with 2 heavy and 1 light, is that a reflection that the game is very strong right now?  I am interested in anyones opinions on this. After coming from vanguard, I don't want to get to love this game again and have hardly anyone to quest with.  After the pop dropped in vanguard (and you could literally feel it drop, in atmosphere, and chat, people were not happy) the game got very boring.  I don't want to experience that here.  I do plan going back to VG, if they work the kinks out, add the content, and get those servers merged, but I am not holding my breath. 

[Calthine]

SOE doesn't release population stats, but honestly , it feels pretty well populated to me!

[DwarvesR]

<p>I've always felt that the population has been at least "decent."  Lately it's been feeling like it's been growing, not only in the lower levels but at the top end as well.  I'm seeing more and more unfamiliar names in the chat channels and setting up groups and raids.</p><p>So to me, at least anecdotally, the overal population is just fine.</p>

[othera1]

If you want to socialize and like pvp then nagafen is cool i play it and alot of people but all servers are pretty balanced i believe and i wanna know how many people play <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[ke'la]

<cite>MidnightShade wrote:</cite><blockquote>I came from Vanguard and you all know how that game is right now, with the sever merges yet to happen, it is a wasteland(the world is huge so finding people in under popd servers is tough).  How is the general Eq2 pop?  Since I got the promo, i have seen a very strong pop on the newbie areas.  How is the rest of the game? Is there more people here now then when the game launched in 2004/05?(when I played eq2 last)  I did notice that most of the servers are all medium load, with 2 heavy and 1 light, is that a reflection that the game is very strong right now?  I am interested in anyones opinions on this. After coming from vanguard, I don't want to get to love this game again and have hardly anyone to quest with.  After the pop dropped in vanguard (and you could literally feel it drop, in atmosphere, and chat, people were not happy) the game got very boring.  I don't want to experience that here.  I do plan going back to VG, if they work the kinks out, add the content, and get those servers merged, but I am not holding my breath.  </blockquote> The problem with judging by the newbe zones is with the exception of the Nearcry(where fae are born) wich is in Greater Faydwar, wich also contains Kelethin the new player areas are fairly segrigated from the rest of the game, especally the Newbe Isles for Qeyons and FP. Once you get out of there in into places like TS and such the amount of people you see will go up. The other issue is there is just a HUGE number of places people can go to lvl at any given time as such again while the numbers are good, its sometimes hard to find people as they are spead out all over the place. You see /ooc is only zone wide and as such if people are in a differant zone they can't see you talking. Thats why players and the devs have global channels such as the 1-10, 10-20 lfg channels.

[Garath]

<cite>MidnightShade wrote:</cite><blockquote>I came from Vanguard and you all know how that game is right now, with the sever merges yet to happen, it is a wasteland(the world is huge so finding people in under popd servers is tough).  How is the general Eq2 pop?  Since I got the promo, i have seen a very strong pop on the newbie areas.  How is the rest of the game? Is there more people here now then when the game launched in 2004/05?(when I played eq2 last)  I did notice that most of the servers are all medium load, with 2 heavy and 1 light, is that a reflection that the game is very strong right now?  I am interested in anyones opinions on this. After coming from vanguard, I don't want to get to love this game again and have hardly anyone to quest with.  After the pop dropped in vanguard (and you could literally feel it drop, in atmosphere, and chat, people were not happy) the game got very boring.  I don't want to experience that here.  I do plan going back to VG, if they work the kinks out, add the content, and get those servers merged, but I am not holding my breath.  </blockquote> I am a former Vanguard player as well. I probably quit earlier than you (couple months ago for me) but I will say even in the low levels, EQ2 feels more populated than Vanguard. I started a new character a week ago and have gotten to 30 so far. I will say that the lower levels (1-10) are devoid of people.. maybe 1 or two odd folk here and there but it only takes a couple hours to get to 10 - no surprise there. 10-20 is a little better but again, its a quick ride and grouping isn't really necessary for the most part. However, the later 20s I've been getting groups pretty easily and seeing more people in the dungeons and overland. Last night I was able to get a Varsoons group in a matter of minutes and had a great time working that dungeon. The benefit is the game is a lot more solo friendly than it once was and 1-20 shouldn't be too tough even if you have trouble getting groups. Besides that, the chats are pretty active and I see quite a few 60-70 folk around cities and passing through hub areas. My roommate has a couple 70s and is constantly raiding/grouping. Overall its not bad at all and getting better. I imagine when the next expansion hits it'll pick up even more. Either way, I've been having as much fun with EQ2 as I did with Vanguard (I liked it despite all its flaws). Its a more polished game and very fun.

[MidnightShade]

Thanks everyone for the replies.  So far I am having a lot of fun. I have a Dark elf necro on Venekor(sp)(rp/pvp) in darklight forest at level 11.  And I was having a lot of fun there, except on Sunday during the day when the whole newbie area seemed filled with overpowered gank squads.  It seems they can kill me in one hit ,even if there only a level or 2 higher, thats not fun at all.   So I started a Kerra Shadowknight on Antonia Bayle(rp)  and am only level 5. I started that late last night, and even at 2:00am i seen more people then I seen in kojan continent on vanguard last month.  Venekor seems almost crowded with the gank squads.  I am having fun with the game, and having it for free til the 15th is very nice of SOE, that was a big shock getting that postcard in the mail.  I am also playing lotro, so I am probably going to stick to both games for now, and after the 15th is over I will either continue on both or quit one,  The game does look and feel well more polished then it did back in spring 2005!

[StoneySilen]

It's been estimated since SOE doesn't release the numbers that EQ2 was around 250k during EOF's launch and was growing due to EOF.  So I would guess 250-275k would be a guestimate.

[Ve]

<p>Sony and a lot of other game companies don't give population numbers because they would look tiny to that kid game World of Warcraft. I have no idea why that game is so popular. Well maybe, it's so [Removed for Content] simple. </p><p>You can interpolate some data from EQ2's character/player database website. For example; the server Nagafen has over 3,200 level 70 characters. I use level 70 because that is the level of player most likely to not have another level 70 character. This gives more accurate data for true number of "players". Granted there are other variables such as people that have quite the game and the character is dormant etc. I would suspect though if you have a level 70 on a PvP server chances are it's still active and not a second hand twink. Comparing Nagafens level 70 number (3,200+) to say EQ1's; where I was on the Tallon Zek / Sullon Zek PvP servers, the Nagafen number of max level characters is WAY higher. I doubt EQ1's Zek servers even had 1000 max level players each. Nagafen has 11,400 players level 40 to 70. Considering that level range eliminates most twinks and most "try and trash" characters, I would say that's quite a lot of players for a server. Nagafen is right up there with the healthiest of servers, including PvE. Venekor and Vox PvP servers pale in comparison. </p><p> I don't know why anyone new to this game would pick any other server besides Nagafen personally.</p>

[SpritRaja]

People would choose other servers because they don't like getting killed continuously by overpowered twinks in raid groups.

[Ve]

Saphira@Crushbone wrote: <blockquote>People would choose other servers because they don't like getting killed continuously by overpowered twinks in raid groups. </blockquote> Obviously a lot of people like it because the server is one of, if not the most, highly active servers these days. I simply don't know why someone would want to eliminate player versus player competition in an online game and limit your play against soley programmed computer characters.

[VizP]

I am almost certain there is a population boom occuring right now and this is due to a number of reasons. Firstly EQ2 has been gaining a very high rep in the MMO community for its gaming quality, secondly because there are many WoW MMO virgins and also LOTR players looking for 'more' AND Vanguard refugees looking for a decent MMO. And last but certaintly not least RoK expansion coming soon with lots of exciting additions (and the Legends of Norrath announcement only recently!). Antonia Bayle is so stressed at peak times now that it is starting to lag - the populationis completely thriving and I hear more and more people are on the other servers. Its basically a fantastic time to be playing the game!

[Ron]

Reason this game don't have more users? Even on a top of the line gaming PC it can't keep steady framerates. I thought that after 2 years+ of code-fixing it would run better by now....

[Pravius]

<cite>Ronox wrote:</cite><blockquote>Reason this game don't have more users? Even on a top of the line gaming PC it can't keep steady framerates. I thought that after 2 years+ of code-fixing it would run better by now.... </blockquote> Works fine for me and I would estimate about half a million other people....

[Ron]

Sure it works good for you, its your job to defend the crappy performance...

[Caligula]

I just purchased the game. I have a mid range system (athlon 4000+, 1.5gb ram, geforce 7200) and the game runs fine for me on balanced settings with some of the lighting and particle features turned up a bit. As for the population, the newbie areas seem to have a few newbies running around, the main towns always have a few characters of any level in each zone, and the surrounding areas aren't completely dead either. No different than WoW is nowadays around say Dun Morough/IF area or Elwynn/SW area on my med-high pop server.

[Fatkiddown]

<cite>Ronox wrote:</cite><blockquote>Reason this game don't have more users? Even on a top of the line gaming PC it can't keep steady framerates. I thought that after 2 years+ of code-fixing it would run better by now.... </blockquote>Completely untrue statement above.  You cannot however expect your moms run of the mill Dell with intel GMA graphics or Geforce 5200 to have good framerates.  A good starting point for a system is 2GB of ram, if you have the ram it makes a big difference.  geforce 6600/radeon x800 or better will give you decent framerates if you set your graphics options properly.   What you don't want to do however is set it to Extreme and expect good frame rate.   Extreme quality is not something you want to use.  Very High quality will result in almost exact same quality but without un-needed stuff turned on.   Reducing the number of player torches, number of shadows and complex shader distance will boost your fps by ALOT and the graphics still look great. Two systems I use to play eq2 are: A64 3000+ single core, 1gb ram, x850xt video.  Typically run 1280x1024 balanced setting, works great. A64 x2 4400+ dual core, 2gb ram, x1900xt 512mb.   Always run 1600x1200 with custom gfx set somewhere between very high quality and high quality.  Raids drop to 15fps and QH can be in the 20fps range but out in the open 25-45fps is the norm (remember this is not first person shooter)

[Fatkiddown]

<cite>Ronox wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sure it works good for you, its your job to defend the crappy performance... </blockquote> Someone is just bitter that they spent $4k on a waste of money name brand gaming rig that came bloated with all kinds of programs that sit there in the background using up resources but yet they have no clue how to make their system run smooth.   I know it is not the perfect solution but take your Restore CD and pop it in and restore your system back to factory defaults.  That will at least buy you 2 weeks of time till it becomes bloated with your limewire, AIM, yahoo messenger, Norton Internet security, Google Desktop, not to mention you probably have "System Restore" monitoring your harddrives. Uninstall Norton, mcafee etc download Avast at avast.com or grisoft's AVG.    I always right click disable turn off whatever my Antivirus before gaming.  It is 10-20mb of memory that could be used for eq2 not my AV program. If you have PCI-express slot pick up a dirt cheap card that will really play eq2 decent ($165 X1950 XT 512MB)  or if you got $$ pickup a 8800GTS or HD2900XT, any number of the ideas above will help your game run better.  In the mean time shut it.

[Ron]

If you knew [I cannot control my vocabulary] about me you would eat that crap you just typed. If you bring up the taskmanager and check how many processes you got, it's a good indication if you run a clean system. I use 19 processes when gaming on my X2-2Gb-GF7900(512Mb) system. and btw i build my own PCs.

[MidnightShade]

well the game is running a lot better then it did when it first came out.  Hell I had near top of the line then and it stuttered like crazy! Amd64 3000+ 1gb ram and 6800gt for 2004 was near top of the line.  Now in 2007, i come back to the game that was my first mmo ever played after trying many others(how ironic is that?) And once again I have a near top of the line pc(built myself like always)  core2duo 2.7ghz, 8800gts-640mb , 2gb xms2-ddr2, and 1 terabyte worth of hd's.   Back in 05' a top of the line set in eq2 could play balanced and still have hitches in cities at 1024x768(17"crt).  Now in 07. I play at extreme quality 1680x1050 on a 22"lcd w/ 4xaa.  The only time i need to turn down settings is near the brokers when lots of players are congregating in the cities.  Otherwise its smooth sailing.  So I totaly believe it was a great idea for them to make the game more advanced for its time!  Imagine if they didn't. the graphics would suck, just like wow(which has a graphics engine from 2001 btw) One thing that bothers me on my new character, is that now that I am in Freeport, there doesn't seem as much to do there as I remembered back in 05. Back then the city distrcits were crowded and there seemed like more quests! You had to earn citizenship before being allowed in the city proper and the plague was going on.  Now it seems more dead, except by the broker and docks. I kinda miss the more structured quests there.  Now I feel kinda lost.  Now I just wish I could of picked my kerra shadowkinght at neriak/darklight forest instead of freeport.

[Ron]

EQ2 needs loads of raw CPU power, thats why it runs "better" on a new high-end PC. It was built for the future PCs? Then start using both cores/dx10/all ram etc. SOE!

[Scarge]

I play exclusively on a mid-grade laptop and have only occasional rendering problems running the game on the "balanced performance.  Can't wait to get my PC out of storage and see what it can really do!

[rumblepants]

<p>CPU power has little effect on the performance of the game. What you need is video card memory and to some degree physcial board memory (2 Gb is about standard and the limit if you are using XP anyway). I don't run a top of the line machine (self built AMD Venice not over clocked) and I run absolutely fine on the second to highest quality setting. I do have a much more powerful video card than what I had before.</p>