I hope the new seasons model hits it's stride and cadence. I don't think snippets of content attracts interest like a Chapter does, and a smaller release scale for content will result in less interest in this game over time. I mean look at the difference in hype between FFXIV's new expansion announcement vs. a Sheogorath story lol.

As population goes to me it seems fine though decreasing again. There are always people in the crafting area in Blackwood where I go, and now that I am in Rimmen regularly there are a lot of people that socialize near the wayshrine it seems during peak hours. Sometimes morning too. Lots of people in the Grahtwood main hub every time I'm there. When I am rando-shopping which I'm doing just to see what house items are being sold, I usually see others shopping too no matter what guild trader I am at.

There may be less people out in the world as people run out of things they need to do there, is what I'm guessing. Longer-term players are done all the quests and dailies for certain things will get people out into the world for maybe 5 or 10 minutes at a time.

alternatelder wrote: »

Your whole argument is dead within the first paragraph. Every online game community exploded during covid. Of course it died back down afterwards.

This. Now imagine this thread, and others, if ZOS implemented a poster's suggestion yesterday(?) about including player numbers in game.

The game is healthy enough to justify a high update frequency...as long as this continues im not that concerned

both PC servers are very populated ,even dead hours i find ppl do stuff and i visit many areas
weekends id say it's overloaded , specially starter areas, Alik'r dolmens and main capitals
Grey Host PC NA is full,not like before but i guess ppl still farming Night Market

Depends what you're doing and who you're doing it with and when you're playing.

Night market was really hopping for a couple of weeks and we saw greatly increased guild activity and had groups running all the time. That likely pulled players away from other areas of the game too.

Now it's dying down a bit as people have gotten what they want out of it. But on the other hand, for some of us long term players there's now nothing else new until the next update and I've noticed logins from that cohort starting to dwindle again.

Are these bite sized pieces of content going to be enough? I don't know, they seem to spark short term rather than long term engagement. Zos really has to find more ways to draw in new players. Those of us who have been in the game for a long time and done most of the things (multiple times even) are not going to repopulate the old zones and old content. We'll see I guess.

But comparing it to covid times of course it's dead, the world has moved on.

I agree: Necromancers would definitely revive the game.........................................

Btw, to me forum seems dead more than game recently.
And jokes aside I can't comment on game population right now because I'm taking a pause after grinding Night Market.