How many are we?

[Flagg]

How many people do you think still play UO? How many accounts you recon we have open? I'm pretty sure nobody here has any accurate, actual data available.. but I find it an interesting thing to try and guesstimate.

Note, poll options are about total amount of active subscriptions, not total amount of active, seperate people.

Some months back, there was a poll asking how many active accounts a stratics user has. ( http://stratics.com/community/threads/how-many-accounts-do-you-use.293401/page-2#post-2250525 ) I was surprised to notice how an average active player has around 3 accounts up and running at once;o Not sure if this poll is something you wanna use as referance when guesstimating.

 

[Flagg]

I have a PURE GUT FEELING according to which UO has....
- 20.000 active, different individual people paying for one or more UO accounts.
- Out of those 20k, around 10.000 people log in game at least once a month. Around 7000 people consider themselves as active, frequent players of UO.
- Those 20k people pay for 40.000-60.000 active subs.

 

[Dag Nabbit]

[youtube]SiMHTK15Pik[/youtube]​

Sorry but you made this post just too easy.

 

[Uvtha]

I have a PURE GUT FEELING according to which UO has....
- 20.000 active, different individual people paying for one or more UO accounts.
- Out of those 20k, around 10.000 people log in game at least once a month. Around 7000 people consider themselves as active, frequent players of UO.
- Those 20k people pay for 40.000-60.000 active subs.

Similar thoughts, I think paid are more 75k. Just a guess.

 

[startle]

I bet it would mean more to them if they ever thought they could lose it....

 

[DJAd]

I'd say easily over 50.

 

[Winker]

some days it feels like its just me

 

[pumpkin_escobar]

Lol^^
Depending on where u are I know the feeling. If only they ran things better it'd be like the old days, ea I mean I think the devs have stepped it up lately imo

 

[Mitzlplik_LS]

I`d say alot more than any of the above have suggested, since its the Asian numbers that have the most players/subs and is prolly the only reason the lights are still on.

 

[Winter]

The answer is 3.

Yesterday morning I ran all over Britannia, Malas, Lost Lands, Ilshanar and the Lost Lands. I only saw two other people playing.

 

[Victim of Siege]

The answer is 3.

Yesterday morning I ran all over Britannia, Malas, Lost Lands, Ilshanar and the Lost Lands. I only saw two other people playing.

no there's 4 of us, I was stealthing...

 

[yars]

no there's 4 of us, I was stealthing...

actually 2,the other guy has 3 accts running at once

 

[Theo_GL]

Are these polls made by 3 year olds? Why not have an option for LESS THAN 30k. My guess is about 15k paid accounts.

 

[Theo_GL]

I have a PURE GUT FEELING according to which UO has....
- 20.000 active, different individual people paying for one or more UO accounts.
- Out of those 20k, around 10.000 people log in game at least once a month. Around 7000 people consider themselves as active, frequent players of UO.
- Those 20k people pay for 40.000-60.000 active subs.

There is NO WAY there are that many accounts. What are there - 30 shards? You have to assume that about 10 shards are completely irrelevant because no one plays them. Go log into Balhea or Arriang. There are litterally about 100 castles on the shard, 20 luna houses and that is IT. So assume 20 active shards. Divide 40k by 20 shards and that would be 2,000 houses per shard. I really don't think we have 2,000 houses per shard. Even Great Lakes, one of the most populated shards in UO is a ghost town with 18x18 plots open all over malas. I'd say GL has about 800 -900 houses. Given that ratio and assuming every account has at least one house (Grandfathered have more but those accounts are few and far between) I'd say we have about 15,000 paid accounts and out of that I'll bet half or less log in on a monthly basis. I'd say the average player has 2 accounts so that is 7,500 unique players - about 3,750 logging in daily/weekly.

Look at stratics - we used to have hundreds of posts a day - now we get about 5 posts a day and there are about 50-100 active posters. You mean to tell me only 50-100 people out of 20k+ come to THE message board to discuss the game? More like 50-100 out of 3,750 or about 3%. That sounds about right.

This game is surviving on vapor and for good reason. The devs throw out publish after publish, patch after patch, of things no one asked for. At some point - $10-13 month isn't worth it anymore. Get a focus group and quick. Do things your players want and things that would attract a new player. If not... the slide will continue..

 

[temu]

Make UO F2P! Merge shards!

 

[cazador]

If MYUO ever comes back it'd be a close estimate..so well probably never know..or know "soon"

 

[Picus of Napa]

There is NO WAY there are that many accounts. What are there - 30 shards? You have to assume that about 10 shards are completely irrelevant because no one plays them. Go log into Balhea or Arriang. There are litterally about 100 castles on the shard, 20 luna houses and that is IT. So assume 20 active shards. Divide 40k by 20 shards and that would be 2,000 houses per shard. I really don't think we have 2,000 houses per shard. Even Great Lakes, one of the most populated shards in UO is a ghost town with 18x18 plots open all over malas. I'd say GL has about 800 -900 houses. Given that ratio and assuming every account has at least one house (Grandfathered have more but those accounts are few and far between) I'd say we have about 15,000 paid accounts and out of that I'll bet half or less log in on a monthly basis. I'd say the average player has 2 accounts so that is 7,500 unique players - about 3,750 logging in daily/weekly.

Look at stratics - we used to have hundreds of posts a day - now we get about 5 posts a day and there are about 50-100 active posters. You mean to tell me only 50-100 people out of 20k+ come to THE message board to discuss the game? More like 50-100 out of 3,750 or about 3%. That sounds about right.

This game is surviving on vapor and for good reason. The devs throw out publish after publish, patch after patch, of things no one asked for. At some point - $10-13 month isn't worth it anymore. Get a focus group and quick. Do things your players want and things that would attract a new player. If not... the slide will continue..

This.

Take a look at this page for stratics where a post will sit on the main page for a week or more without a bump. There are a few reasons for the decline I thinkg such as poor management, harsh rules from some fan sites, bad pubs and horrible expansions but most of all is people getting tired of a endless grind without any good reason. Couple this all with the fact that this game is pricey for what you get after 10+ years and people feel that they are not getting a good bang for the buck.

 

[Zosimus]

With some research a while back with old information from MYUO and this is just an average number because of characters that were guilded I came to 17k possible players roughly. Not all chars are guilded but 17k was being generous in my research.

Even with previous polls on here how many accounts a person has an average at that time was 3 for most players besides the few who has an outrageous amount of accounts.

Then you have to factor not all players post on forums and truly it's small percentage of the player base that does post on forums. Site numbers can be misleading on some cases but it depends on the game and site itself.

As a few other site examples below ( sites wont be listed.)


67365 Total Members

7601 Most Online
3616 users are online (in the past 60 minutes)

146 members, 3460 guests, 10 anonymous users




167589 Total Members

14736 Most Online
2178 users are online



94198 Total Members

4702 Most Online
1456 users online


Then lets get to some sites that may forums but more of a news site for a particular game or many games. Some posters are not really playing the game at all or used to play but have opinions n them still so any gaming site , no matter the format, can't be accurate when it comes to any games population.


I do agree with Picus and Theo. The poll numbers should of had a lesser options because the game is not reflecting even close to 30k.

 

[Madrid]

No doubt Ultima Online is in dire straits and the number of subscribers will continue to decline because UO supports an outdated client which can't attract new players.

Calvin Crowner, Mesanna, and Tim whatever his name is have all been horrible. Terrible decisions made the last 4-5 years.

Last publish a vast majority of players begged and pleaded for them not to publish it and they went ahead with it anyways. Nice job Mesannna!

As for UOStratics....

Why post on a forum when every thread of interest gets locked.

Moderators on this forum are terrible, one in particular.

And it's not going to get any better because nothing is changing.

Downward spiral!

Best scenerio we players could ever hope for is that someday UO gets sold to someone who actually cares about the game.

 

[kelmo]

Oh please! Say it is me!

 

[Winter]

Oh please! Say it is me!

*SNORTS*

Kelmo - No one has ever accused you of favoritism, have they? But I can't say I've ever really disagreed with your style either.

 

[kelmo]

The moderators, admins, content managers and reporters here on Stratics really do a bang up job. We do it for the love of the game.

 

[Nexus]

Oh please! Say it is me!

I know...I know it's the guy with the

next to his name.

 

[Tanivar]

No doubt Ultima Online is in dire straits and the number of subscribers will continue to decline because UO supports an outdated client which can't attract new players.

Calvin Crowner, Mesanna, and Tim whatever his name is have all been horrible. Terrible decisions made the last 4-5 years.

Last publish a vast majority of players begged and pleaded for them not to publish it and they went ahead with it anyways. Nice job Mesannna!

As for UOStratics....

Why post on a forum when every thread of interest gets locked.

Moderators on this forum are terrible, one in particular.

And it's not going to get any better because nothing is changing.

Downward spiral!

Best scenerio we players could ever hope for is that someday UO gets sold to someone who actually cares about the game.

Damn, UO must be a totally masochistic experience for you from the things you keep saying. Do yourself a favor and move to another game. WoW still has 8 or 9 million players and the better graphics, try there.

 

[Tanivar]

Oh please! Say it is me!

You do have a knack for keeping an eye on things. Your good at troll tending.

 

[Victim of Siege]

You do have a knack for keeping an eye on things. Your good at troll tending.

 

[Flutter]

Counting the people who only pay for accounts to keep houses but haven't played in over 2 years? Probably close to the 40K mark. Of those I'd venture to guess more than half have multiple accounts between 2-7 accounts. So 40K people, 20K have 2 accounts, 10k have 3 accounts, etc etc, giving the fewest to the one account and 7 account holders. I'd guess total active accounts (by active I mean paid for at least every 3 months) is somewhere around 80-125K.
This might be higher because I don't know the gaming habits of our Japanese brothers and sisters of the game, I imagine I may be underestimating their gaming habits, but if similar to our own I think I'm close.

 

[MissEcho]

How about we all count how many houses are on our shard? Don't count OSI owned ones. At least then you will know 'roughly' how many paid accounts there are, even if they only 'pay' once every three months. Be interesting to actually see. I will do Oceania and post when I am done.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

I still wonder, how "harsh rules on fan sites" play a role for UO subscriptins...
*shakes head*

 

[MalagAste]

How about we all count how many houses are on our shard? Don't count OSI owned ones. At least then you will know 'roughly' how many paid accounts there are, even if they only 'pay' once every three months. Be interesting to actually see. I will do Oceania and post when I am done.

That would take me three months to count then it'll be off from random falling and rebuilding...

 

[Flutter]

How about we all count how many houses are on our shard? Don't count OSI owned ones. At least then you will know 'roughly' how many paid accounts there are, even if they only 'pay' once every three months. Be interesting to actually see. I will do Oceania and post when I am done.

Accounts is not equal to number of players though :/

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

How many? At least three... beyond that the math gets a little fuzzy.

 

[MissEcho]

Accounts is not equal to number of players though :/

Yes but the question was 'active subs' not the amount of players.

At the end of the day EA doesn't give a rats about how many players, could be 1 player with 100,000 accounts or 100.000 players with 1 account. Houses is the real 'tell' as to how many subs there are. I would suggest that there would be a tiny number (if any other than a total newbie) that play UO without having a house. Right now while there is only one house per account counting them is the only way of getting even a slightly accurate figure. However, the amount of houses you get, you can probably divide that again by 3 as probably a third of them are only 'active' every 3 months.

 

[MissEcho]

That would take me three months to count then it'll be off from random falling and rebuilding...

You could count them in a day if you were to get a couple of friends and each take a landmass. I bet your life any regular idoc'er can tell you how many houses there are on their noraml idoc run

 

[Picus of Napa]

I still wonder, how "harsh rules on fan sites" play a role for UO subscriptins...
*shakes head*

Well it all depends upon your views, which sites you follow and post at but I'd safely say that there is a group of people who are put off from some sites due to poor moderation be it on many topics. I'm not saying that interesting threads are closed or damning comments of the dev team are "blocked" but it sure could happen. You can't have people who are given two or three none EA sponsored websites feel that they are not being heard for one reason or the other and not expect it to have some effect on the sub rate, that it just foolish at best and plain stupid at worst. You certainly can't expect people to be directed here never seeing the team post anything greater than hot air and a deep lack of understanding the player base.

Stratics does a fine job for what it is and I can understand the rules they place but in all reality EA should have it's own site for real game talk. This site, and the others, just grew as UO predated the well planed PR runs that we see today hence why these sites are even around.

The last interview done on the other site was with a person 95% of people didn't even know was working on the game(or mythic games). Sadly he promptly lost his job a few months later and he was the guy who was tasked with promoting mythic's stable of games...brutal.

 

[Theo_GL]

Counting the people who only pay for accounts to keep houses but haven't played in over 2 years? Probably close to the 40K mark. Of those I'd venture to guess more than half have multiple accounts between 2-7 accounts. So 40K people, 20K have 2 accounts, 10k have 3 accounts, etc etc, giving the fewest to the one account and 7 account holders. I'd guess total active accounts (by active I mean paid for at least every 3 months) is somewhere around 80-125K.
This might be higher because I don't know the gaming habits of our Japanese brothers and sisters of the game, I imagine I may be underestimating their gaming habits, but if similar to our own I think I'm close.

There...is...no..way....there are 85-100k active accounts. If there were we'd have more than 5 people maintaining the game. Have you even logged in recently?

 

[cazador]

80-125k lol are u serious??

More like 10-15k

 

[Viper09]

42

 

[THP]

LOL....U NEEDED a few more options below the first one.....30k tops

Atl prob got 2-3k....then most shards like europa [ top 10] 300 -500 players.....lower end shards are like 100-200 players ......and some are down to a handfull

 

[Tanivar]

There...is...no..way....there are 85-100k active accounts. If there were we'd have more than 5 people maintaining the game. Have you even logged in recently?

While the number of active players is clearly nearly scraping bottom, the number of paying players is likely higher because of the ones who are just piling up thousands of million gold checks, and piling up rares, are likely seldom seen as they spend their time off in their niches. There are many who tend to play the game as a solo game and visit NPCs in quiet game towns, or just play when the mood strikes and available playtime permits. I may spend my free time reading, watching a dvd, kicked back listening to a Linda Rondstat or Gordon Lightfoot cd, or whatever. There are players who live this game, others just invest the 50 cents a day to keep their accounts active and stop in on occasion.

Does EA think the game needs more than four devs? UO has been around for 15+ years, is pretty stable, and is being played by a niche group of players who are older adults and are fairly happy campers with the game. Only a few sound off in forums concerning UO and while there are more than one forum site, many of the posters on each site also would be clearly the same people. I've posted to two using Tanivar on both, and there are others who from their complaints, opinions, and guilds/characters mentioned are likely the same player posting on both sites. EA may well have had someone make a professional estimate of how many vocal customers there are and compared it to the number of known paying customers there are from their billing center data and decided the UO customer base is actually pretty happy with the game overall and while they don't like some parts of the game, there are parts they do like and enjoy playing those. EA may have just decided that the world of UO doesn't really need many changes and that most players are just happy with the world of Sosoria as it is. Make small changes some niche groups in the game want and that most can ignore if they don't like the change and let the world of Sosaria go on.

Most games out there these days are simple monster-hackers that lead you by the nose through the levels as you advance. Players get their skills given to them, put on the appropriate gear for their level, and go hack on the set of tough monsters for that level. Required I.Q. to play? not much, all you need is the ability to understand you need to go to a new spot in the game and press the attack key there until the monster graphic falls down. Repeat this over and over until the game tells you you've earned the next level, then go see if you can recall how to get your next levels skills and the actions needed to go earn the next level. UO is a complex game that requires some thought, you get a smidgen of information doing the quests in New Haven, then your left on your own in the big bad world of Sosaria to learn what you need to know to go on. No ring in your nose to lead you around here. Here game life and survival takes effort and an ability to figure things out. Likely most gamers can't handle that much mental effort or don't want to. They want a game they can 'win' at and have the bragging rights with minimal effort involved. UO is Chess compared to most modern games being Pick up Sticks.

I'm a crafter/forager by preference, have been since I joined in 2000. I bought expansions for the crafting changes and rarely do anything else concerning the expansions. I have rarely been in an ML dungeon or SA's underworld because I'm not into hardcore hunting. Spending ages wearing down a monster's thousands or tens of thousands hp doesn't interest me. So about the only such monster I mess with are greater dragons for barbed hides since they are a necessary evil. They are annoying though because the hp's wear down to just above where Word of Death works and hover there. I've just had to abandon them and go hunt something else after a half hour spent hoping they miss a couple self heals so I can finish them off. Thankfully High Seas merchant ships provide a source of barbed leather to help compensate. PvP, supersuiting, artifact farming, gold farming, super monsters are all part of the game, but they're of no interest to me. I'll leave them to those who find my preferred style of play boring and need something else to do. I'm happy puttering about my crafting shop and shearing the occasional sheep as I watch the big dogs run by to go hunt where Bad Things play.

 

[THP]

While the number of active players is clearly nearly scraping bottom, the number of paying players is likely higher because of the ones who are just piling up thousands of million gold checks, and piling up rares, are likely seldom seen as they spend their time off in their niches. There are many who tend to play the game as a solo game and visit NPCs in quiet game towns, or just play when the mood strikes and available playtime permits. .

There are players who live this game 24/7, others just invest the 50 cents a day to keep their accounts active and stop in on occasion.

true....

 

[THP]

ive been collecting data on my travels over the shards.i will post a league table of full to empty shards very soon....

 

[Tanivar]

true....

THP, don't add changes to the quotes you use from my posts. That really lacks class.

 

[Dag Nabbit]

I still wonder, how "harsh rules on fan sites" play a role for UO subscriptins...
*shakes head*

Speaking of "harsh rules" of fan sites,if I tried to sport the same size siggy that you have,I'd probably get a message to remove/edit it within hours of adding it.

 

[popps]

Personally, rather than knowing how many active accounts there are, I'd be more interested in numbers showing how many players on average return to Ultima Online AND, on average, for how long they reactivate their accounts. And if their time back into the game is short lasted, I'd find it interesting any feedback as to why they did not want to extend their returning to the game more than a few months.

Alxo, I'd like to see the numbers about brand new accounts (i.e. new players to the game, not returning ones...) and for how long on average they keep playing the game and what the reasons are for their ending playing UO if their experience in the game is only for a few months.

My point is, that in my view Ultima Online is a game with a great depth, enormous land mass and a whole lot of things to do. Now, while great graphics might be usefull to "attract" me to the game for its looks, it is the depth of the game and what one can do in it, which, at least for me, keeps me playing a game.

Now, if there are players returning to Ultima Online or starting it anew regardless from its older style graphics (the enhanced client is not as old looking as the classic client, though), I would find it interesting to know what they did not like about the game to stop playing it after a few months.

Perhaps it was the learning curve to get used to this vast amount of things which can be done in the game? Was it perhaps the time expected to become competitive with existing players for those who might have wanted to play the game for its aspects in PvP ? Was it maybe because it was too hard to find a Guild to become part of ?

What I am trying to say, is that I would like to try understand whether or not there might be something particular that keeps Ultima Online from gaining far more active subscriptions rather than just wanting to know how many they may be currently....

Personally, I do not value great graphics so much as others, I tend to get used to graphics after a while no matter how great and realistic it might be so, what keeps me wanting to play a game is the variety of things that I can possibly do in that game and its depth of game play. I agree that good graphics might be an initial reason for wanting to start playing a game, but what keeps me wanting to play a game is not much the graphics but rather its depth of game play possible.

That's at least as I see it.

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Speaking of "harsh rules" of fan sites,if I tried to sport the same size siggy that you have,I'd probably get a message to remove/edit it within hours of adding it.

Txs for reminding me - its smaller now and should cause no more trouble

On the other hand, does a signature failure or rule realy affect the number of subscriptions or players UO has?
I mean, to speak it out clearly, with no offense, do stratics rules affect your subscriptions you have with UO in any way?
And if so, how comes?

greets
Ron

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

Well it all depends upon your views, which sites you follow and post at but I'd safely say that there is a group of people who are put off from some sites due to poor moderation be it on many topics. I'm not saying that interesting threads are closed or damning comments of the dev team are "blocked" but it sure could happen. You can't have people who are given two or three none EA sponsored websites feel that they are not being heard for one reason or the other and not expect it to have some effect on the sub rate, that it just foolish at best and plain stupid at worst. You certainly can't expect people to be directed here never seeing the team post anything greater than hot air and a deep lack of understanding the player base.

Stratics does a fine job for what it is and I can understand the rules they place but in all reality EA should have it's own site for real game talk. This site, and the others, just grew as UO predated the well planed PR runs that we see today hence why these sites are even around.

The last interview done on the other site was with a person 95% of people didn't even know was working on the game(or mythic games). Sadly he promptly lost his job a few months later and he was the guy who was tasked with promoting mythic's stable of games...brutal.

I understand what you mean Picus, but i still cant see why fansite rules would ever affect your UO subsription - in my opinion this is two pair of shoes.
I havent heard of any player yet, who couldnt accept stratics rules of posting and because of this QUIT his UO account - we are not EA/Mythic etc.. we are an independent statistics, tactics and news network for several games including a massive part on UO stuff (out of history aspects you know..)

I do understand that it might happen players cancle their subsriptions because the game producers decided to launch a patch they couldnt live with - but it doesnt affect the players decission to cancle his/her account because it was posted on a fan site - especially when its posted on the gamers site....you know what i mean?



greets
Ron

 

[Winker]

THP, don't add changes to the quotes you use from my posts. That really lacks class.

He is just trolling to get a response as per his normal posts

 

[THP]

THP, don't add changes to the quotes you use from my posts. That really lacks class.

just picking the best bits out mate...and u forgot the 24/7 bit...that all..dont get all sentimental cause the games dying its last breath...hell i will be here too when we have the final party lights out night

 

[THP]

ive been collecting data on my travels over the shards.i will post a league table of full to empty shards very soon....

ill have this up in next few days....interesting to say the least....like i said 30k is bout good figure......Atl prob got 2-3k....then most shards like europa [ top 10] 300 -500 players.....lower end shards are like 100-200 players ......and some are down to a handfull