Player population ( PC NA )

Drinks-Loves

( PC NA )I know ZoS does not give EXACT answers on the player population for platforms, but it would be awesome for some ballparks!

DeadlyRecluse

I don't think any player is going to be equipped to make reasonable estimates about total player counts.

Drinks-Loves

20-50k

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

I don't think any player is going to be equipped to make reasonable estimates about total player counts.

Ya never know. Keep this forum in touch.

Turelus

The only information sources we have are as follows to my knowledge.

• Purchases & currently playing stats on Steam (PC not region specific)
• Purchases, currently playing & achievement stats on console
• ZOS announcements of number of players (accounts purchase predicted rather than active subs)

ZOS is very marketing driven I think which means they probably don't want true stats out there because of the fear of how it will effect their marketing.

Personally I don't give a hoot how many people play and I don't think most of the players would either, it's only ever used in stupid arguments about which game is "best".

danno8

OTHER #

Right now on steam the number of concurrent players is 6216.

If Steam accounts for 50% (very arguable, probably less) then PC has maybe 13,000 concurrent players right now.

ZoS has stated that the number of total players are about evenly split so if we are to believe that then that means there are 39,000 players playing right now.

And that is CONCURRENT players. There are going to be many more players that are not playing this very second.

Generally though, the options you gave are WAAAAY to low. I wrote this at 7AM CST, when most of NA is going to work or still sleeping.

edit: Just to add in, last night the concurrent players on Steam were over 10k, so your first two options are demonstrably incorrect.

Orjix

OTHER #

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh how are we supposed to know?

Turelus

@danno8 right now isn't peak time for anyone though, NA is just getting up EU is in work and AU should be sleeping.

In theory you want to start looking about three or four hours from now and it should start spiking up. Steam only has portion of the PC players as anyone who got the game at launch is unlikely to have the Steam version and the same for anyone buying retail versions.

Drinks-Loves

20-50k

Orjix wrote: »

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh how are we supposed to know?

BALLPARKKK

DeadlyRecluse

Drinks-Loves wrote: »

Orjix wrote: »

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh how are we supposed to know?

BALLPARKKK

There's a big difference between a ballpark and pulling numbers out of one's derriere.

The only way you can even remotely claim to make an educated guess given the information we have right now is by working from steam statistics, but we have no clue what percentage of PC players are on steam. And even if we did, we could, at most, estimate the number of concurrent players across all platforms.

parkham

OTHER #

All I know is that most places are a lot less crowded before I took a 6 month break. I'm guessing they are in the areas Morrowind /HOTR / in their houses etc..


I LOVE IT. Mournhold actually isn't a suckfest anymore.

idk

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

I don't think any player is going to be equipped to make reasonable estimates about total player counts.

This ^^^

And OP isn't clear with the question. How does he defin population. Max players online at a given time. Total players that log in on a given day. Total players that log in at least once per a given period of time.

But yes, the poll results are meaningless.

Balamoor

After seeing how Wrothgar was packed last night I would say a metric crap ton.

Berenhir

People complaining about "empty" areas don't realize that there are various instances of every area. Only because you are in an empty version of Alik'r doesn't mean that Alik'r is empty, it just means that you happened to be put into an empty version.

danno8

OTHER #

Turelus wrote: »

@danno8 right now isn't peak time for anyone though, NA is just getting up EU is in work and AU should be sleeping.

In theory you want to start looking about three or four hours from now and it should start spiking up. Steam only has portion of the PC players as anyone who got the game at launch is unlikely to have the Steam version and the same for anyone buying retail versions.

I think I said all that with "very arguable" and " going to work or sleeping."

Tabbycat

OTHER #

*shakes Magic 8-ball*

OC_Justice

Concentrate and ask again.

Megabear

10-15k

More important question is whether or not the population is declining, and I certainly think it is.

Saturn

20-50k

*Saturn begins to enact a vile act of necromancy on this dead thread, chanting the names of past developers and promised content like spellcrafting...* (okay, it's not that old, but it still seems pretty dead)

steamcharts.com/app/306130

This only represents the players from steam, and accounts for both servers, but still gives a reasonable insight into how many people might be playing.

An interesting note to make is that the highest number of concurrent eso players on steam is 29,979 in April 2017 (likely because of Morrowind being announced).
Now, I don't know how large of a percentage of pc players use steam, and I'm willing to bet that most of the long-term players don't use steam since it wasn't available at launch (although equally, I would imagine most new players likely do use steam). Despite the lack of clear information on what % of ESO PC players use steam, you can still use the graph on the website linked above to track the ebb and flow of players, which from my own experience matches quite well with what I've seen in game.

I personally think that maybe 50k people play on PC NA, just based on how many new players you see, the amount of pvp activity, queue times, hub populations, number of phases you encounter in zones, etc.
I think that it is quite a stretch to imagine that 2.5 million play this game every month (as reported by "The Market for Computer & Video Games" aka "MCVUK" in their interview with Firor), but who knows, maybe 2 million+ people play on consoles every month. Further, the "10 million people play this game" line sounds more like "10 million accounts have been made" and less like the number of active accounts, since that number is said to be 2.5 milly (at least if you judge activity on having logged on at least once within a one month period).
According to a polygon article (link) from 2016, ESO had ~500k players on console immediately after Update 6 and the console release. The steam concurrent player stats for that time peaked at 6k (again not sure how big of a % of the pc players that is), which by comparison is miniscule, so it could be likely that there are so many players on console that the 2.5 milly a month is true, but then it's weird that Firor (in that same article) says that the player base is split 1/3 between each platform (PC, PS and XBOX), since that would mean roughly 1.5 million players for that time period and yet they didn't make a huge statement about it (which they are wont to do when the opportunity strikes to promote themselves), plus the PC NA communtity at that point was quite dead or at least became so following Update 6 until Imperial City / Orsinium revitalised it.

Since no MMO with a solid PR team will ever reveal this kind of information, all we can do is speculate and use what available resources we have. I'd recommend taking all the numbers ZOS provides (or any MMO developer for that matter) with a pinch of salt, as these numbers are only used for PR purposes, so it is possible that their time-frame / specifics used to measure "players per month" / "active accounts" / "concurrent players" / etc. skew heavily to favour themselves and might therefore not accurately portray reality. I for one find the numbers they provide very difficult to believe, but that might also just be because PC NA is one of the smallest communities within the greater whole.

Lord_Eomer

As per Steam Spy:

Peak concurrent players yesterday: 16,594

imredneckson

OTHER #

Break up 2.5 million players among the different servers and platforms and you'll have a rough estimation of how many play on the NA PC server .

Zorgon_The_Revenged

OTHER #

I usually get my very rough idea of player population by how many players can actually be bothered to read major patch notes right here on the official forums. It's a very, very rough number but just as viable as any other ballpark numbers.

Patch notes v1.0.1 205.1k views.

DoctorESO

-

Saturn

20-50k

Zorgon_The_Revenged wrote: »

I usually get my very rough idea of player population by how many players can actually be bothered to read major patch notes right here on the official forums. It's a very, very rough number but just as viable as any other ballpark numbers.

Patch notes v1.0.1 205.1k views.

I don't think the majority of ESO players actually use the forums. You have to setup your account to specifically use it, and in general I doubt most players are that into the game. You also have to wonder how views are monitored, because if it's like YouTube for example, then the same person visiting the following day means another view, this means that active discussions on threads can result in the same people adding several views to the counter.

Zorgon_The_Revenged

OTHER #

Saturn wrote: »

Zorgon_The_Revenged wrote: »

I usually get my very rough idea of player population by how many players can actually be bothered to read major patch notes right here on the official forums. It's a very, very rough number but just as viable as any other ballpark numbers.

Patch notes v1.0.1 205.1k views.

I don't think the majority of ESO players actually use the forums. You have to setup your account to specifically use it, and in general I doubt most players are that into the game. You also have to wonder how views are monitored, because if it's like YouTube for example, then the same person visiting the following day means another view, this means that active discussions on threads can result in the same people adding several views to the counter.

You're quite correct but that's why I said a very, very rough number. Other languages, fan sites, even guild web sites could be the go-to place for info on a major update......and as you said, most players might not be "that into the game".

jcaceresw

OTHER #

Less than 100 players. I miss the days were I grouped with people to do pledges using zone chat and LFG shouts and lots of people in the wayshrine. Now its a ghost town.

kypranb14_ESO

OTHER #

One thing is for sure, it's over 9,000.

ClockworkCityBugs

i only know its lower than on PC EU
dont ask me why, i just know and thats all

SisterGoat

OTHER #

An odd poll, asking for opinions when they want hard facts. I can't even estimate how many there could be since there's no way to tell. It's like looking at a jar of jellybeans and being asked how many are also in in the hidden jars behind the counter when you don't even know how many jars there are.

geonsocal

OTHER #

there are 14,231 players on the pc platform, na server logged in at this exact moment...

the numbers are easy to find - you just have to know where to look...

Bryanonymous

Fun fact: zones have a 256 player limit before creating another identical zone lobby, so it wouldn’t matter how many players are in one zone. You might be in an alternate and wouldn’t know.

platonicidealgirlfriend

OTHER #

It's actually a lot more likely that Steam stats account for a vanishingly small proportion of the player base, given that Steam is not the primary platform on which this game is distributed, that Steam integration with this game has generally sucked, and that it has not been an option for much of the game's lifespan so far. Most PC players are using independent clients and even a very conservative estimate blows right past the numbers presented in this poll.

ZoS would be shuttered if this game was pulling a mere 5k players lmfao