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Looking for a list of Shards in order of population

Val Van Wolf

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Either from low to high, or high to low. Thanks a lot if you know of such a list. I have played over 16 years and would like to place a castle. Never had one, cannot afford to buy one... So what I really want to know is which shards might have space for a castle, but have a reasonable population...
 

Goodmann

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Either from low to high, or high to low. Thanks a lot if you know of such a list. I have played over 16 years and would like to place a castle. Never had one, cannot afford to buy one... So what I really want to know is which shards might have space for a castle, but have a reasonable population...
It goes
ATL
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Siege
 
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Quickblade

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
-Atlantic
-Yamato
-Mizuho
-Azuka
-Izumo
-Sakura
-Asuka
-Wakoku
-Hokuto
-About Tie between Catskills/Great Lakes/Chesapeake
-Europa
-Formosa
-Balhae/Arirang
-Mugen
-Tie between Legends/Sonoma/Napa Valley/Pacific/Lake Superior
-Oceania
-Drachenfels/Baja
-Lake Austin
-Origin
-Siege Perilous
 
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Val Van Wolf

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Did I say "frivolous answers only?" I don't think so.... I am not as stupid as you assume. In fact....well I would prefer a more serious reply... Tina Small might have an answer...
 
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Amber Witch

Babbling Loonie
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UNLEASHED
It changes depending on the time of day. One thing to look at is the log in window that shows the shards. There is a click-able button for %full. That might be a way to determine an answer for the time period you play. I think overall the listings will be fairly consistent in their ranking.
I know it doesn't give any quantifiable information but it's probably gives you info you can use.
 
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Quickblade

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
wow in what my answer was ''frivolous'' ?
 
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Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Dear Poster,

Thank you for your imquirie as to the population of the current UO shards.
At this time, there is no actual known accounting for this subject.
Many here can atest to that any number players give you is pure speculation...
EA frowns on any who ask this question, and you will hear dead silence if you do ask.

Have a Lovely day;
Lady Storm


P.S.: Any numbers tossed out there by others may not be accurate.
Time of day when players show up or chat (Some shards in Asia have a Teamspeak type they use and dont run in game chat) differ with region.
Housing can't be used to judge account numbers as some still have multi home accounts
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
Professional
Alumni
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Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Dread Lord

wanderer1origin

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Either from low to high, or high to low. Thanks a lot if you know of such a list. I have played over 16 years and would like to place a castle. Never had one, cannot afford to buy one... So what I really want to know is which shards might have space for a castle, but have a reasonable population...


origin u might find one in fel or buy one low gold , i have placed a few given away a few, lurk shard offer crazy gold for one 20 million lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
within week maybe month will have one
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
This is 100% off the top of my head and is not based on any kind of current gathering of data.

These are three shards where I suspect you might be able to place a castle without needing any kind of assistance, but you won't find a very large population:
  • Balhae
  • Mugen
  • Arirang
These are some some shards that seem to have a fairly small population, but I have no idea how difficult it would be for you to find a castle location without assistance. I suspect someone like THP or Claudia might be able to tell you if there are any spots available on these shards:
  • Baja
  • Formosa
  • Lake Austin
  • Legends
  • Napa Valley
  • Oceania
  • Origin
  • Sonoma
The following shards seem to me like they are a tad bit busier than the ones in the group immediately above. No idea how hard it would be to find a castle spot on these shards. As far as Siege goes, keep in mind that it has one less, very large facet than all the other shards so castle and keep locations could be considerably more difficult to obtain there than elsewhere:
  • Catskills
  • Chesapeake
  • Drachenfels
  • Siege Perilous
  • Izumo
  • Mizuho
  • Pacific
  • Sakura
  • Wakoku
Shards that might have the largest active populations at this point? Again, this is really just a guess:
  • Asuka
  • Atlantic
  • Europa
  • Great Lakes
  • Hokuto
  • Lake Superior
  • Yamato
 

Lady Storm

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Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Aww kelmo..sweety cheer up... i saw puppies and kittys comming. :)

Tina might be close to the truth but without any interjection from EA or the Dev as I said before its all speculation.

I know for a fact you can place castles on Balhea as the 3 i dropped... yes I dropped 3 castles. Well back to the point i was making..is the spots are still open... I went and recalled on my book of homes and all were vacant along with the neighbors!

Small population shards may be but have an Event going on and you watch them crawl out of the woodwork! Some have consolidated down and still keep a home on shard but frequent Atlantic for play. Oh but call out and you get answers from a dozzen people...that you dont see doing their business. There is a thin chance for a castle... and i do mean thin. I own homes on 5 of what Tina listed so I do know the score.

Medium shards... I have been on these and can atest to the ebb and flux of players at times and they do carry more population and working players visable in and around banks.
As for castles..... I asked locals on one of my shards and got a 350mill reply an told fat chance of getting one there. Meaning they booked. Here I own homes on 4 but just dropped a tower on the 5th so again I play and have the scoop on the skinny.

Heavy play shards... With 3 being asian 3 east coast and Europa which covers alot of ground. Need I say more? Castles cost you and I mean cost you where it hurts. When one falls its big news and you can bet your bottom dollar its gunna be camped by the snippets with the programs to take it. I own homes on 2 shards and play most on this list.

I dont like that we have such openings... I opened almost all the shards and have good memories of friends on each. I have to interject one small fact..what you see is not all there is. Meaning players are there on all shards, its rare that no one talks to you if queeried. Some players play and you would never know they were there unless a head count was done. So what looks vacant may be a bustling shard under the cloak of silence.

My gameplay takes me nearly to every shard we have.... heck Mesanna hand me one of them sopt removers and ill wipe the excess junk while i am working... grumbles about all the trash cluttering up the place... You would be surprised how many paintings, hanging lanterns, water troths, goza, and odd junk is out there! oh and a redeeder for lost servants...good gravy they are every where!
 

Quickblade

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
well if we judges the healer quest result from 2 years ago ? well Mizuho Izumo and others asians shard had like 20k participants compared to Catskills who got like 5k participants to give you an idea and Lake Superior who had like 2-3k .
 

Val Van Wolf

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Thank you all for your responses. And I apologize Quickblade for calling your first response "Frivolous." I had no idea that some of the shards you listed had pretty good populations. I play on Atlantic where castles cost in the Billions now. I have lowered my accounts from 7 to 3, but I still may wander some of the other shards looking for giant empy spots. By the way, I have always wanted to say "Frivolous offers only!" which is probably what led to my obnoxious response to Quickblade. Special thanks to Tina Small and Lady Storm who seem to know eveything about everything.
 

4gregu

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Shards that might have the largest active populations at this point? Again, this is really just a guess:
  • Asuka
  • Atlantic
  • Europa
  • Great Lakes
  • Hokuto
  • Lake Superior
  • Yamato
I realize you put a disclaimer at the top, but I just want to clarify something. Having spent a great deal of time on Europa the last month (before, during and after rares fest) and being on at all times of day (including local "prime time") you have that shard listed WAY too high on the list. Just my 2 cents. lol
 

Cetric

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Atlantic
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Everything else but..
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Siege
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
Professional
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
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UNLEASHED
Dread Lord

Lady Storm

Grand Inquisitor
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Stratics Legend
Kelmo you know he is wrong .....
Siege has more players then Balhea and Arirang combined ..
This I base on the number of people I see on a daily basis when i work at home.
Many shards look empty, but looks are very decieving.
Siege has players... many players who do it their way and many dont chit chat though we try to encourage a good moring or good day Siege out of our players ...
We are polite people
:cheerleader:
OK Siege Players Sound OFF............
 
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Leather Lucy

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Kelmo you know he is wrong .....
Siege has more players then Balhea and Arirang combined ..
This I base on the number of people I see on a daily basis when i work at home.
Many shards look empty, but looks are very decieving.
Siege has players... many players who do it their way and many dont chit chat though we try to encourage a good moring or good day Siege out of our players ...
We are polite people
:cheerleader:
OK Siege Players Sound OFF............
I very rarely speak on Siege and I spend a great deal of my playtime there. I've had a new neighbour next to one of my houses for a while, bet he doesn't even think anyone lives in my house. I play solo on Siege, I have for years. Bet there's plenty like me.
 

Rieley

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
In all honesty, I do not play Siege anymore. I play ATL. Several times a friend and I have gone to many other shards just to try and set up a working crew (chars). It has been stated many times that Siege is low populated, however when playing there it appears to be very populated. To me, it's a busy shard, that may be the correct way to say it. So, when looking to place a house and have a decent playing shard it's not always the population. Gosh I hope I'm clear. (must remember to only read the boards when sipping on wine) I'd keep that in mind, sit in GC for a bit.
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I realize you put a disclaimer at the top, but I just want to clarify something. Having spent a great deal of time on Europa the last month (before, during and after rares fest) and being on at all times of day (including local "prime time") you have that shard listed WAY too high on the list. Just my 2 cents. lol

I probably should have clarified for the last 3 groups in my post that each group was listed alphabetically and not necessarily in order of what the population might be. That's why Europa ended up just after Atlantic and before Great Lakes.
 

claudia-fjp

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Either from low to high, or high to low. Thanks a lot if you know of such a list. I have played over 16 years and would like to place a castle. Never had one, cannot afford to buy one... So what I really want to know is which shards might have space for a castle, but have a reasonable population...
They are mutually exclusive. There are several servers you can go out and place a castle on right now however they are so dead you'll have trouble buying anything because even luna is devoid of stocked vendors (and in some cases even houses) due to lack of population.





And to add a tweek to the middle of Quickblades list, some of them I haven't run around in awhile but from last I've seen:

Pacific (handful of open keeps)
Napa Valley (open keeps, castles are dirt cheap)
Sonoma (emptied out before Napa and Pac)
Arirang (open castle spots)
Balhae (1 guy owns most of the server lol, open castle spots everywhere)
Mugen (I've used this server to test castle spots before, the brit/vesper xroads had open castle spots as far as the eye can see at least before the extra siege house went into effect, haven't looked about since) Unlike Siege it does have a Trammel but that just lets you more fairly compare population to the regular servers.



There isn't a problem estimating server population by number of houses due to grandfathered housing. A lot of the time you can spot grandfathered houses and even which ones are on the same account so you can easily count them as 1 player. What you can't tell is how many are bugged and yet to be fixed.
 

startle

Siege... Where the fun begins.
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
In all honesty, I do not play Siege anymore. I play ATL. Several times a friend and I have gone to many other shards just to try and set up a working crew (chars). It has been stated many times that Siege is low populated, however when playing there it appears to be very populated. To me, it's a busy shard, that may be the correct way to say it. So, when looking to place a house and have a decent playing shard it's not always the population. Gosh I hope I'm clear. (must remember to only read the boards when sipping on wine) I'd keep that in mind, sit in GC for a bit.
Siege is a busy shard and the population has it's up's and down's, but it's a very dynamic shard - in that most everyone seems to know most everyone else... Chat is widely used. The bulk of the population is made up of people who've been ingame a long time, and making friends - or enemy's - is easy. I came here from Pacific this past early summer and intend to stay. I'm a 14yr trammy vet who came for a new start (in an old place) once they added the ability to keep your prodo shard home and have one on Siege also.. Since then I've made very good friends, been killed several times and love the camaraderie and risk that Siege comes with... Keeps my blood moving... I suppose that it's not always for the feint of heart, but then - who needs the feint of heart anyway...?

Ok, that's my pitch for my shard. Feel free to pm any questions... :cool:
 
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Val Van Wolf

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
I play on Siege too. I have a keep and 2 18X18s. No guild. Sometimes the general chat is wonderful, which is probably why I stay there. I have given up on the idea of getting a castle now, and decided to keep 4 accounts, instead of three. Hi Ian James, Hi Kelmo!!!! (I was in Gilfane for a while...)
 

startle

Siege... Where the fun begins.
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What have you got to lose, old gypsy?
Let me answer that for you... nada.
You come, see what's here, decide to stay or leave... And you lose nothing but a bit of time...
Just let me know so I can welcome you and introduce you to some great people...

Just sayin.... ;)
 
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FrejaSP

Queen of The Outlaws
Professional
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I have seen players join Siege after being a Siege anti on this forum for years. Then when they at last get started on Siege, they blame them self for all the years they missed on Siege :grouphug:, every time it is the community who win their heart.
 

old gypsy

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What have you got to lose, old gypsy?
Let me answer that for you... nada.
You come, see what's here, decide to stay or leave... And you lose nothing but a bit of time...
Just let me know so I can welcome you and introduce you to some great people...

Just sayin.... ;)
Thank you, but I've visited, and my introduction was somewhat traumatic.

Seriously, I have real-world reasons for not enjoying much excitement (or as some would say, "challenge"). Among those reasons are advancing age and very real heart palpitations. I'm happiest when indulging in simple (and usually peaceful) roleplay these days. :)
 

Leather Lucy

Seasoned Veteran
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Stratics Legend
I hear that my Gypsy friend, I swear my heart was pounding so hard one night and all that happened was that I got jumped by a couple of (rubbish) murderers at Yew gate after buying a bunch of stuff. I was shaking by the time I escaped (yea, up yours you two!).

Having said that, I've only been killed once by another player in about ten years and that was because I announced (drunkenly at last year's Boom Fest) that I hadn't been killed in years, within half a second I was poisoned :p.
 

old gypsy

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I hear that my Gypsy friend, I swear my heart was pounding so hard one night and all that happened was that I got jumped by a couple of (rubbish) murderers at Yew gate after buying a bunch of stuff. I was shaking by the time I escaped (yea, up yours you two!).

Having said that, I've only been killed once by another player in about ten years and that was because I announced (drunkenly at last year's Boom Fest) that I hadn't been killed in years, within half a second I was poisoned :p.
Your last line made me laugh. I suppose the moral to the story might be, "Do not speak carelessly about thy good fortune, lest it be taken from thee." :D
 

FrejaSP

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old gypsy said:
Thank you, but I've visited, and my introduction was somewhat traumatic.

Seriously, I have real-world reasons for not enjoying much excitement (or as some would say, "challenge"). Among those reasons are advancing age and very real heart palpitations. I'm happiest when indulging in simple (and usually peaceful) roleplay these days. :)
Advancing age would be a good reason to play Siege, a lot of us are past 50. We have very few kids on Siege :)

You can still find roleplay on Siege, also the peaceful kind but sure you may find your gypsy wagon surrounded of not so peaceful evil if you are traveling the road. In old days, the orcs would had eating your poor horse too.



Anyway, Siege is not for all. Sorry for taking the thread of tropic.
 
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Lady Storm

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Gypsy Siege is as FrejaSP said. We have guilds and players who come just to enjoy the shards peace and quiet.
I have been on that shard from 2nd day of its opening (would have been first but for the fact i was ot of town and no comp in sight).
Whats heart stopping is in the past on normal shards where your out with your favorite pet and some idiot pullsa stunt that kills you in the deepest dungeon and you cant get back and pet wont answer you..... Or one of my dear friends takes me hunting to the scarriest part of some corner of uo that is a tad over my skill level in heart attack mode.....
You learn to not take yoru best stuff with you and what may be fun to one may be horror to you..hehe
Siege has been changing and evolving....sure we have our troubled children in adult suits.... but for the most part many of us are very reasonable and fun to play with.
 

old gypsy

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Advancing age would be a good reason to play Siege, a lot of us are past 50. We have very few kids on Siege :)

You can still find roleplay on Siege, also the peaceful kind but sure you may find your gypsy wagon surrounded of not so peaceful evil, if you are going to traveling the road but in old days, the orcs would had eating your poor horse too.

Anyway, Siegge is not for all. Sorry for taking the thread of tropic.
I guess we all have different comfort levels. If I ever tried Siege again, no doubt I'd be traveling without horse or wagon, probably unclothed, and with only a crust of bread in my backpack. Truth is, I admire your fortitude, even though I lack the same. :)
 

FrejaSP

Queen of The Outlaws
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If you ever should wish to visit us, give me a call and I will get you a mount, a suit and some tools so you don't need to traveling unclothed and without being able to make a fire and cook some food. I can't get you a wagon but this weird blue beetles will be a great help.
 
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