PC EU: What is happening to ESO? Why cities are so empty?

Lieblingsjunge

on PC/EU I know a lot of people who decided to take a break from the game. Multiple PvP-guilds on all factions have gone inactive and I know a lot of PvE/Social guilds struggle with recruitment also.

But I haven't noticed anything, really. Craglorn feels as crowded as before. People still spam skills to their hearts content infront of the bank-NPC in Reaper's. Although the instances is a good guess.

zaria

Lieblingsjunge wrote: »

on PC/EU I know a lot of people who decided to take a break from the game. Multiple PvP-guilds on all factions have gone inactive and I know a lot of PvE/Social guilds struggle with recruitment also.

But I haven't noticed anything, really. Craglorn feels as crowded as before. People still spam skills to their hearts content infront of the bank-NPC in Reaper's. Although the instances is a good guess.

Its probably some slowdown in activity after homestead, however main effect is more shards / instances for popular zones.
It was very noticeable in Rawl'kha who is my standard go to base.

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Zinaroth

PelinalWhitestrake wrote: »

Yesterday I made a character on NA and it's a whole lot more active. Now to remake my characters...

I think this is only true if you're only looking at the amount of people around during peak times, in which case NA might be ahead.

PC EU however has:
- more active players at all times of day
- a better and more active raiding community
- more active organized PvP guilds
- a more healthy economy due to increased competition
- more veteran players in both PvE and PvP

This is the general concensus I have gathered from the high profile EU players who spent some time over on NA and still play over there sometimes.

I suspect that this is because welfare in the NA sucks so they actually have to work and us EU plebarians can just suck on the government *** and no life all day if we please.
- However that is just my theory.

anotherwriter

Mass Effect Andromeda + Wow patch 7.2 could also helps for reducing ppl in eso.

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Ulfgarde

Looks fine to me.

Honestly, possibly a change in phasing. It depends what time you come on as well.

Last times I went on NA in prime time. it was dead in Craglorn / Deshaan. Maybe it's a bit of perspective that makes the difference...

xeNNNNN

mandricus wrote: »

I play ESO since about a year and a half, and I'm a bit confused about what is happening to the game. I play on EU server, mainly in the evening.

Back in the days, almost every city of the game was very crowded, full of players, to the point that logging in some cities (e.g. Mournhold) was an issue at peak hours, due to the huge number of player textures to load at login. Zone chat was very populated, every single evening, full of people looking for Damage Dealers, Tanks and Healers in order to create groups for pledges. With the constant "noise" in the zone chats of guilds recruiting, trading guilds recruiting, people trying to sell stuff, people looking for stuff to buy, people just chatting, and so on). Cities felt exactly like a city should feel: very crowded, and full of life. Setting up a group was usually a matter of seconds. You called for 2 DDs for pledges in zone chat, and you were usually whispered by 4-5 players in no time, having to write most of the time "sorry, we are already full" to the late ones. Mournhold center was everytime full of players deconstructing equipment, dueling (when duels were introduced) or just messing around spamming skills or doing stupid things just for the fun of it.

Now get to what is happening today. The situation feels very different, and I honestly don't understand exactly what is happening.

In the last two or three weeks I've almost never been able to set up a group in order to run pledges. Cities are almost empty. Zone chat is almost empty. Tried in Mournhold, Belkarth, Rawl'ka, Elden Root, Wayrest. All cities looks exactly the same: almost nobody is there. Using dungeon finder, it's almost the same. Back in the days it took seconds to be put in a group to start a dungeon. Nowadays, it often takes hours to find a member for your group (and the funny thing is that often, after all this time spent waiting in queue, when you find a member and the dungeon starts, you are ported in the dungeon and then all the group is removed from instance, because group finder is still broken and nobody seems to care about it. AND, when you are thrown out, you are on 15 mins queue cooldown (this I think is the most annoying thing).

So my question is: what am I missing?

Are people spending time doing different things todays (normal and vet trials?) so nobody is anymore messin'around in cities?

Are all players too busy crafting stuff and decorating their houses, so nobody cares anymore about being in city or doing group content? For sure housing put out of the cities a lot of people that are now "hidden" in their instanced houses, but is this really the reason why nobody is in city anymore? And, if so, don't you think this may be hurting the "social" aspect of the game? If I go in a city, shouldn't I expect to find a lot of other players there?

Or may be it's because (easiest answer) ESO's active player base is actually shrinking?

What do you think about it? Am I the only one having the feel that city todays looks a lot emptier than before?



p.s. sorry for my english, I'm not a native speaker.

its because the natural hubs for players have moved or are simply doing other things other than sititng on their arses next to a wayshrine.

Pledge groups are easier to find in Stormhaven.
nTrials are easier to find groups for in Crag and Deshaan (cant speak for the other capitals).

A lot of people use group finder now.

There are also still tons of people about its still very much active, you just need to be on at certain times. 4-10 is primetime roughly.

Not only that but the game is more populated on some days rather than others. its like that every week.

You are most likely in a newly created instance by the server which is why you see so little people, travel to guild mates who are in your capitals and you should see a difference provided they are in a separate instance.

Emmeric1964

I play on both servers and find European to be active and crowded until late in the evening, then it thins out considerably. Sometimes the pack of people in European is so intense it dwarfs NA.

Asardes

Emmeric1964 wrote: »

I play on both servers and find European to be active and crowded until late in the evening, then it thins out considerably. Sometimes the pack of people in European is so intense it dwarfs NA.

Probably because there's more people in Europe overall, about 700M, which is much more than North America. Not sure about the players in South America, Africa and Asia but I don't see many Asians or Africans here so probably the game is not overly popular in those zones. That's why there's no East Asia server either, though geographically it ought to be as the distance is very long from there to both existent ones.

xeNNNNN

Asardes wrote: »

Emmeric1964 wrote: »

I play on both servers and find European to be active and crowded until late in the evening, then it thins out considerably. Sometimes the pack of people in European is so intense it dwarfs NA.

Probably because there's more people in Europe overall, about 700M, which is much more than North America. Not sure about the players in South America, Africa and Asia but I don't see many Asians or Africans here so probably the game is not overly popular in those zones. That's why there's no East Asia server either, though geographically it ought to be as the distance is very long from there to both existent ones.

If memeory servers, The asians do have a client but it is seperate from our own and do indeed play the game quite a bit.

Based in japan if i recall correctly.

Talek

There is nothing to do in the game since like half a year, last content update was like in september? And it was just few new monster masks from the end game player perspective. Homestead was poor timing imo, like for me i don't give a **** about comestic-only homes so it's pretty much like this update don't exist, we need to wait another 2 months for a content update and we have to pay for it, that's like 8+ months without new gameplay content, i don't remember when i saw something like that last time in mmo.

Asardes

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Emmeric1964 wrote: »

I play on both servers and find European to be active and crowded until late in the evening, then it thins out considerably. Sometimes the pack of people in European is so intense it dwarfs NA.

Probably because there's more people in Europe overall, about 700M, which is much more than North America. Not sure about the players in South America, Africa and Asia but I don't see many Asians or Africans here so probably the game is not overly popular in those zones. That's why there's no East Asia server either, though geographically it ought to be as the distance is very long from there to both existent ones.

If memeory servers, The asians do have a client but it is seperate from our own and do indeed play the game quite a bit.

Based in japan if i recall correctly.

It's not a separate server, just a client localization, the same way as German or French ones.

xeNNNNN

Asardes wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Emmeric1964 wrote: »

I play on both servers and find European to be active and crowded until late in the evening, then it thins out considerably. Sometimes the pack of people in European is so intense it dwarfs NA.

Probably because there's more people in Europe overall, about 700M, which is much more than North America. Not sure about the players in South America, Africa and Asia but I don't see many Asians or Africans here so probably the game is not overly popular in those zones. That's why there's no East Asia server either, though geographically it ought to be as the distance is very long from there to both existent ones.

If memeory servers, The asians do have a client but it is seperate from our own and do indeed play the game quite a bit.

Based in japan if i recall correctly.

It's not a separate server, just a client localization, the same way as German or French ones.

ah thank you for the correction ^^

xeNNNNN

Talek wrote: »

There is nothing to do in the game since like half a year, last content update was like in september? And it was just few new monster masks from the end game player perspective. Homestead was poor timing imo, like for me i don't give a **** about comestic-only homes so it's pretty much like this update don't exist, we need to wait another 2 months for a content update and we have to pay for it, that's like 8+ months without new gameplay content, i don't remember when i saw something like that last time in mmo.

See this is why you need to enjoy the game beyond "what there is to do".

For more I love the content, I try different builds I play pve and pvp extensively, I run around in the game with friends ive been playing with for almost 2 years we have a blast most of the time, Honestly enjoying this game is all about the people not just the content.

ereboz

Didn't want to read everyones post, so forgive me if this was already mentioned. PC EU is like consoles. There are so many other games, in PC land SO many new MMO's constantly coming out in EU, that it is bound to lose some of the population while some people who are bored of the same game after 3 years take a break to check something new. I'm sure the numbers will grow again with Morrowind....but for how long it is hard to say.

MissBizz

PelinalWhitestrake wrote: »

Yesterday I made a character on NA and it's a whole lot more active. Now to remake my characters...

Definitely wasn't even prime time when you joined in yesterday @PelinalWhitestrake

Zinaroth wrote: »

PelinalWhitestrake wrote: »

Yesterday I made a character on NA and it's a whole lot more active. Now to remake my characters...

I think this is only true if you're only looking at the amount of people around during peak times, in which case NA might be ahead.

PC EU however has:
- more active players at all times of day
- a better and more active raiding community
- more active organized PvP guilds
- a more healthy economy due to increased competition
- more veteran players in both PvE and PvP

This is the general concensus I have gathered from the high profile EU players who spent some time over on NA and still play over there sometimes.

I suspect that this is because welfare in the NA sucks so they actually have to work and us EU plebarians can just suck on the government *** and no life all day if we please.
- However that is just my theory.

But we have... ... ... yeah I don't know.

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The user and all related content has been deleted.

mandricus

still checking city population every time I go in a city. Still seeing very low population, even durging primetime. Cities looks pretty dead compared to what they were before HS patch.
May be i'm the only one complaining about this, as I am probably one of the few that would prefer to deal with higher load times, and to be put in an highly populated instance that gives me the impression of actually be in a "city", with loads of players around me. I love being sorrounded by players doing strange things about me or just walking around doing their stuff, and I really miss that aspect of the game.

azoriangaming

also have been noticing since housing cities are rather underpopulated until primetime when it starts to pick up hopefully this is just the calm before the storm of morrowind.

zaria

PelinalWhitestrake wrote: »

@MissBizz True, I just was referring to overall activity in all zones. Some on EU feel a lot more dead than NA, especially if that wasn't prime time there.

City is part of zone, this is why Reaper Mach is so dead, almost all the players are in Rawl'kha making it hard to wait for world bosses.
Again patch reduced population cap in popular zones as many had problems porting to them.
i think they put the cap too low, add that we are in an slowdown, it will be worse after current event.
Reducing number of shards will be smart, more so as morrowind is released and all the population moves there

Asardes

From what I've seen the cities are just as full as they have always been. Belkarth is full of people until late at night, and they are dueling near the shrine as always. I've seen something strange in some alliance capitals, namely Wayrest - I pick up the pledges there on every char because the Undaunted Enclave is closest to the shrine: there were a bunch of players with "atronach" type mounts jumping around. I've seen that a few days in a row, so there's probably some kind of RP event. Mournhold, Elden Root, Rawl'ka are busy as well. So there's plenty of action and players going about at peak hours.