So How Many Subscribers In UO?

[Capt. Lucky]

Just musing this over. Searching around on the net I found the following. At it's peak UO had about 250K subscribers. I would have thought it was much higher than that. Back 5 years ago or so it was estimated at 100K. So how many do you think we have now? We know it's profitable or EA would pull the plug in a New York second, lol. My guess would be 25K or perhaps a little more than that. I'm counting that some folks have like 5 accounts. An account is an account. That's 5 accounts to me. So I guess I'm not asking how many players, but how many accounts. Lets say it is 25K, that's like $325,000+ a month plus all the junk they sell at the Mythic store. That seems like decent money, I don't really know what it actually costs to run something like this. But we know it's profitable. So anyway, how many accounts do you think UO has these days?

 

[Tjalle]

I guess one could count the houses on all the shards and then roughly subtract bugged, grandfathered and payed-every-4th-month houses. Plus Siege and Mugen have some "doubles" as well.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Seriously?
Not this nonsense again.
Who thinks they really know what the numbers are and what difference does it really make?

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Take a breath Just something to chat about Thought maybe someone might have some valid info. I was just rather surprised after coming back at the relative low population on most shards. Kinda surprised they haven't done server merges.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Since EA have never released figures, all you'll get anywhere is a vaguely close guess.
Server merges are a 'hot topic' which invariably gets locked. Devs have said on several occasions that it isn't going to happen.
If you can think of a way to achieve it without driving away every castle owner who's house is on the same spot as the castle owner on the intended merge shard, and every Luna house owner in the game please feel free to email Broadsword. Only for the sake of my sanity, please don't post it here.

 

[The Old Man]

How many subscribers in UO?

Somewhere between 'more than I would have expected after all these years' and 'not enough'

 

[callum_fitzhugh]

How many house spaces are there per shard [roughly]? Multiply this out somehow? Back when I started on Europa you couldnt place a house and there were hundreds of accounts without a house [circa year 2000] that I was aware of.

My guesstimate would be something like 5% of the original high point? Of the people I knew who played UO from Europa RP days of like 400 maybe only 15-20 still play. Its an interesting chat topic =)

 

[DJAd]

Gotta be over 50

 

[Aran]

I'd guess about 5. Maybe 6.

 

[Goodmann]

Prob 8k active if that , with a majority of those with more than 1 account

So say in the range of 15k at top end thats roughly $14 per account =210,000 a month x12 months
2.5m a year

Servers have been set in place for awhile. I guess one of the only major cost would be the dev team but with such a small team and no advertisement/future expansions/additions to UO, it looks like a WIN for someone.
So there is still some kind of profit in there which is most likely were still around playing it

Just keep giving me that pixel crack and ill keep coming back

 

[DJAd]

I'd guess about 5. Maybe 6.

I think he means in the whole of UO. Not just on Siege...

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Since EA have never released figures, all you'll get anywhere is a vaguely close guess.
Server merges are a 'hot topic' which invariably gets locked. Devs have said on several occasions that it isn't going to happen.
If you can think of a way to achieve it without driving away every castle owner who's house is on the same spot as the castle owner on the intended merge shard, and every Luna house owner in the game please feel free to email Broadsword. Only for the sake of my sanity, please don't post it here.

Yeah that's a tough one, no doubt. EA being mostly heartless in general, lol, I just assumed that each character would get a transfer token and tough luck after that lol. I guess it's just as cheap to run 20 shards as it is to run one. But it seems like it would be a lot more expensive. Didn't they just shut down the Korean shards or something like that though? Thought I heard something about that. I'd prefer a merge over them just pulling the plug. lol.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Prob 8k active if that , with a majority of those with more than 1 account

That's like less than 300 people a shard. I think they're doing better than that lol.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

My bad
You and nobody else has or has ever shown any real data on actual number of subs so you just started a post to kinda shoot the breeze and take wild guesses?
A topic that has already been started a billion times before and never gone anywhere no less.
Chat on my man and keep over-using the term lol because when you don't know what you are talking about it is the perfect term to end every sentence with.
I guess that makes it the perfect term for this thread

 

[Capt. Lucky]

My bad
You and nobody else has or has ever shown any real data on actual number of subs so you just started a post to kinda shoot the breeze and take wild guesses?
A topic that has already been started a billion times before and never gone anywhere no less.
Chat on my man and keep over-using the term lol because when you don't know what you are talking about it is the perfect term to end every sentence with.
I guess that makes it the perfect term for this thread

I don't think "I" over use the term. And fair enough 5 or 6, or 8000, is as good a guess as any. Although I find the house counting thing interesting. I doubt I'm up to it though lol. If nothing else that got my gears turning. There have been actually reports, but not for a long time.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Also there was some deal at one time where you could find out how many active guilds there were. Little indicators like that. Never know what might still be out there I just don't know about. When it comes to this game there's a ton I don't know. You could see if there were 5000 active guilds then there would naturally have to be at least 5000 active accounts. So if I don't ask I might miss something obvious.

 

[MalagAste]

On my shard GL's there are TONS of small guilds with less than 10 members and having only 1 to 3 active members.

I would estimate that there are at least 30k in subscribers.... of those 30k about 20k of them have more than one account. So if you think about there being 30k in people.... real people ....... likely that 5 to 10k of those don't really play.... they only pay for the account to keep homes. Some do the every 90 day thing... Some who have more than 1 account have one or two active at all times and then do the 90 day thing with the rest of them. Really nutty folk like myself have multiple accounts that are paid EVERY Month. I would know if one of my accounts was inactive because I get an email... immediately. I never ever play the 90 day game. I know loads of folk who do though.

Each active person has I would say on average 3 accounts. If you didn't count homes on Siege... and only counted homes per shard it wouldn't be too hard to figure out.

I often wonder if those folk who do IDOC's regularly would have more of an idea the number of players. I do meet new folk all the time. New returning players. I have been training characters up on multiple shards and I'm surprised to find several "young" players in Haven. Generally one or two per shard I go to will have a "young" player roaming around old haven working skills up. I don't count the gold selling announcer. I am talking actual young players working skills in Haven. More I am there the more of them I see. Gives me hope.

I will say I play EQ Landmark and have actively promoted UO there. I have on more than one occasion sparked interest in the game... or at least lit the memories of more than a few old players.

I can say this... I would right now today drop 180 bucks on a start up if they ever made a UO like Landmark. If we could have a true 3d world where you chop a tree down and it's gone.... where you mine and you actually dig up a hole and gather up the ore... Where you enter deep caverns to find treasures... Where you can build in on and above the ground... in true 3d... If such a thing ever happened... I would so be there. Landmark is absolutely beautiful... but all I can think of is how I wish UO could have that. I can almost picture it. Homes could be placed ANYWHERE. Not just in open flat ground... Yes sure the towns and roads, shrines, and near the dungeons etc... would be "no build" area's... but imagine having a house on a mountaintop... Deep in the ground under a mountain... with only a small hidden entrance... imagine having PvP where you can actually blow up and effect the land... the buildings... Imagine swimming under the sea. It's amazing... but I just keep wishing it could be UO.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

It's amazing how many people I talk to assume UO is still just like it was in the late 90's. 2 people this week have told me they don't like getting PKed so they would never play UO. It's hard to decide where to start to bring them up to date

 

[Viper09]

More than 1 and less than 500,000.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

More than 1 and less than 500,000.

I think we've all learned from The Price Is Right that is you make your margins too wide you never win

 

[James Moriarty]

What would be a good idea would be to get someone from each shard to count all the houses on each shard. Then we would have a ball park figure of paying accounts. It wouldn't need to be spot on the mark, within a few 100 would be close enough.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

What would be a good idea would be to get someone from each shard to count all the houses on each shard. Then we would have a ball park figure of paying accounts. It wouldn't need to be spot on the mark, within a few 100 would be close enough.

I'm completely against this. Having started this thread I would be obligated to help and I really don't want to lol. I'm gonna punt and hope some IDOC chasers get interested

 

[Aran]

I can say this... I would right now today drop 180 bucks on a start up if they ever made a UO like Landmark. If we could have a true 3d world where you chop a tree down and it's gone.... where you mine and you actually dig up a hole and gather up the ore... Where you enter deep caverns to find treasures... Where you can build in on and above the ground... in true 3d... If such a thing ever happened... I would so be there. Landmark is absolutely beautiful... but all I can think of is how I wish UO could have that. I can almost picture it. Homes could be placed ANYWHERE. Not just in open flat ground... Yes sure the towns and roads, shrines, and near the dungeons etc... would be "no build" area's... but imagine having a house on a mountaintop... Deep in the ground under a mountain... with only a small hidden entrance... imagine having PvP where you can actually blow up and effect the land... the buildings... Imagine swimming under the sea. It's amazing... but I just keep wishing it could be UO.

Sounds like you want a persistent Minecraft server

 

[MalagAste]

Sounds like you want a persistent Minecraft server

Minecraft is ugly.... blocky..... Landmark is so much more.

 

[Aran]

Minecraft is ugly.... blocky..... Landmark is so much more.

So you want an HD Minecraft persistent server.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

Yeah that's a tough one, no doubt. EA being mostly heartless in general, lol, I just assumed that each character would get a transfer token and tough luck after that lol. I guess it's just as cheap to run 20 shards as it is to run one. But it seems like it would be a lot more expensive. Didn't they just shut down the Korean shards or something like that though? Thought I heard something about that. I'd prefer a merge over them just pulling the plug. lol.

Uhhhh..What? I just logged in and check shard list Arirang and Balhae are still there. Are you talking about Baekdu? Here's what I found on stratics about it:

Baekdu A mountain in North Korea. Baekdu was an experimental shard, located in Korea and prepared exclusively for use in Korean internet game rooms (or "IGRs"). It was allowed to run for a predetermined number of months for testing, after which it was decided to not pursue that variation on the UO service
So what Korean server/s closed?

 

[MalagAste]

So you want an HD Minecraft persistent server.

I want the true 3d... And I like the way you can chop down a tree... dig a hole... Change the face of the land. I just want to have the UO content with it.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Yeah that's a tough one, no doubt. EA being mostly heartless in general, lol, I just assumed that each character would get a transfer token and tough luck after that lol. I guess it's just as cheap to run 20 shards as it is to run one. But it seems like it would be a lot more expensive. Didn't they just shut down the Korean shards or something like that though? Thought I heard something about that. I'd prefer a merge over them just pulling the plug. lol.

No shards have been closed down. They did close the Japanese UO site.
There's a poster @THP who has occasionally guestimated population from houses - only he works on the mistaken premise that everyone aspires to have a castle on their main account - and I wouldn't have one as a gift.

 

[Jerec KTM]

I'd assume a large amount of houses are on the cycling method, and the fact that they are afraid of losing that extra $10 every three months keeps them from changing the housing policy. I know several people, including myself, with 10-20+ accounts on cycle, so that is what I draw my conclusions from.

 

[Tina Small]

Capt. Lucky, I think the closest thing we have to recent "official" numbers are the numbers in the analysis the dev team released in June 2011 after the Magincia housing lottery. Not everyone participated in this (I didn't), so you'd have to increase the numbers in the analysis by some unknown amount to get to the true number of UO accounts that were active in the spring of 2011.

http://stratics.com/community/threa...ry-ticket-sales-analysis.244024/#post-1971243

 

[THP]

No shards have been closed down. They did close the Japanese UO site.
There's a poster @THP who has occasionally guestimated population from houses - only he works on the mistaken premise that everyone aspires to have a castle on their main account - and I wouldn't have one as a gift.

I DONT work on the primise everyine seeks a castle...nor do i work on the prmise everyine seeks a luna shop......Its just common sense...if each shard as just over 200 castle spots max!!!.. and there are a lot of free castle spots on that ''quiet shard'' then the populous on that shard is below 200... thats just plain bloody common sense.. then simple maths....

hey read it earlier....and made me laugh.....'' go tame me a unicorn and we can go ride to the rainbow forest''.... time to wake up ,methinks

 

[THP]

the thread is asking im gonna take a nibble

near dead population shards under 50-100 people playing max
low population shards under 100-300 people playing max
average poplation shards 300- 500 people playing max
above average shards 500-1000 people max
max popukation...aka atl 2000-3000 tops

total ...15-20k this is good and will keep uo going for a few more years

 

[Flutter]

I am curious to know the average # of accounts per player.

 

[Captn Norrington]

I am curious to know the average # of accounts per player.

There was a poll about that a few months ago (forgot what forum) the average was 2-3 accounts. Then again, this is Stratics...so who knows what the real average is.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Uhhhh..What? I just logged in and check shard list Arirang and Balhae are still there. Are you talking about Baekdu? Here's what I found on stratics about it:

Baekdu A mountain in North Korea. Baekdu was an experimental shard, located in Korea and prepared exclusively for use in Korean internet game rooms (or "IGRs"). It was allowed to run for a predetermined number of months for testing, after which it was decided to not pursue that variation on the UO service
So what Korean server/s closed?

Yup that's the one I was thinking of. They're all experimental if they don't make money, lol.

 

[Viper09]

I DONT work on the primise everyine seeks a castle...nor do i work on the prmise everyine seeks a luna shop......Its just common sense...if each shard as just over 200 castle spots max!!!.. and there are a lot of free castle spots on that ''quiet shard'' then the populous on that shard is below 200... thats just plain bloody common sense.. then simple maths....

hey read it earlier....and made me laugh.....'' go tame me a unicorn and we can go ride to the rainbow forest''.... time to wake up ,methinks

You claim you don't work on the premise that everyone wants a castle spot, but then you go directly into explaining that you think castles makes a good approach to estimating population per shard. Perhaps you need to explain this more because it appears you are contradicting yourself and are in fact assuming that everyone wants a castle spot (meaning that if there is an open castle spot it must be a low population server).

 

[Capt. Lucky]

It would be tough to pass up on a castle. It's just a status thing and that's pretty popular in UO. The storage ain't bad either.

 

[Viper09]

It would be tough to pass up on a castle. It's just a status thing and that's pretty popular in UO. The storage ain't bad either.

Indeed it would be hard. But for me it would depend on where the location is.

 

[Dodger]

I read somewhere garriot sold the game in the 90's for 30 mill. Then more recently tried to buy the rights back but it was too expensive. So I would guess there's still a lotta peeps paying.

 

[Dot_Warner]

I'd say the numbers are somewhere between "barely enough" and "still less than needed to be healthy."

 

[Aran]

It would be tough to pass up on a castle. It's just a status thing and that's pretty popular in UO. The storage ain't bad either.

Eh, I have three 18x18s, one of them still has 800 free storage slots, the other two have maybe a handful of items in each just to say they're not totally empty. It's probably easier when you're not a hoarder though

 

[Capt. Lucky]

I read somewhere garriot sold the game in the 90's for 30 mill. Then more recently tried to buy the rights back but it was too expensive. So I would guess there's still a lotta peeps paying.

Well with EA it's not just selling the UO game. There's a lot of technology rights they have that goes with it as far as coding and the way it plays through the internet and all that rot. I understand they bought Kesmai back in the day just to secure rights to a lot of technology rights. So UO is more to them than just the game we see. If they ever wanna do an online game like this again in the future, they need to show they haven't abandoned the technology that makes the whole thing work. I explained this horribly, lol. If you get my drift. So you couldn't just buy UO without everything else that in the end makes it show up on our puters. I'm not sure EA would ever let that go.

 

[G.v.P]

my last calculation was 2,880

 

[Dodger]

Well with EA it's not just selling the UO game. There's a lot of technology rights they have that goes with it as far as coding and the way it plays through the internet and all that rot. I understand they bought Kesmai back in the day just to secure rights to a lot of technology rights. So UO is more to them than just the game we see. If they ever wanna do an online game like this again in the future, they need to show they haven't abandoned the technology that makes the whole thing work. I explained this horribly, lol. If you get my drift. So you couldn't just buy UO without everything else that in the end makes it show up on our puters. I'm not sure EA would ever let that go.

Hey Cappy, what's the happs? I was searching for stuff about the game before paying for it again and saw that Garriot had made over sixty mill from the game, 30 mill for selling it and nearly the same again from suing people. Then because he was unable to buy the rights back he crowd funded his new project making over 3 mill from over 130000 peeps all of whom would undoubtedly have been uo players at some stage to fund his new project.

My point being uo must still be viable commercially and hopefully here to stay.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Hey Cappy, what's the happs? I was searching for stuff about the game before paying for it again and saw that Garriot had made over sixty mill from the game, 30 mill for selling it and nearly the same again from suing people. Then because he was unable to buy the rights back he crowd funded his new project making over 3 mill from over 130000 peeps all of whom would undoubtedly have been uo players at some stage to fund his new project.

My point being uo must still be viable commercially and hopefully here to stay.

I'm optimistic about his new game. But I'll sit back and see what people say after it's been out for awhile. I like to bounce between games. I'll get bored here, bounce to something else for a week and come back. But I'm riding UO till the end. Tired of starting from scratch over and over lol.

 

[THP]

You claim you don't work on the premise that everyone wants a castle spot, but then you go directly into explaining that you think castles makes a good approach to estimating population per shard. Perhaps you need to explain this more because it appears you are contradicting yourself and are in fact assuming that everyone wants a castle spot (meaning that if there is an open castle spot it must be a low population server).

Sit up straight ..big deep breath..and ..and let common sense prevail...thankyou...and...and ... relax

 

[Viper09]

Sit up straight ..big deep breath..and ..and let common sense prevail...thankyou...and...and ... relax

Wasn't trying to aruge. Just wanted some clarity on your post. But I shall take it from your lack of a real reply that you are in fact contradicting yourself. Thanks.

 

[Theo_GL]

Take a breath Just something to chat about Thought maybe someone might have some valid info. I was just rather surprised after coming back at the relative low population on most shards. Kinda surprised they haven't done server merges.

Yes, 8k is low. My guess is about 20-25k. Yes, shards like Atlantic and GL might have almost 1,000 players but there are overseas shards that have literally about 200 houses on them total and they are nearly all castles. Go run around Balhae for example. Seriously. Make a char and run around. Leave Luna and you won't hardly find a house in Malas.

Its a vicious cycle. The more people leave - the less $$ - the less dev resources. We used to have a Dev team upwards of 30 ppl. Now we have like 5.
I do want the game to prosper but they keep making it more complicated and harder and harder for new players to learn. They listen too much to the vets with adding this and adding that - instead of adding content or fun things to do and ways to bring new players in.

The armor system alone takes a minor degree in stats to just understand how to build a decent suit. I think new players starting and staying is at an all time low. There used to be tons of new players all the time. Now any new player is usually a vet on an new account or a new shard.

100% of developer effort should be focused on how to bring new players to the game. Instead its about adding vet based systems, rewards and content. Great for us existing players but it makes the divide or chasm to cross when joining the game higher and higher.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Yes, 8k is low. My guess is about 20-25k. Yes, shards like Atlantic and GL might have almost 1,000 players but there are overseas shards that have literally about 200 houses on them total and they are nearly all castles. Go run around Balhae for example. Seriously. Make a char and run around. Leave Luna and you won't hardly find a house in Malas.

Its a vicious cycle. The more people leave - the less $$ - the less dev resources. We used to have a Dev team upwards of 30 ppl. Now we have like 5.
I do want the game to prosper but they keep making it more complicated and harder and harder for new players to learn. They listen too much to the vets with adding this and adding that - instead of adding content or fun things to do and ways to bring new players in.

The armor system alone takes a minor degree in stats to just understand how to build a decent suit. I think new players starting and staying is at an all time low. There used to be tons of new players all the time. Now any new player is usually a vet on an new account or a new shard.

100% of developer effort should be focused on how to bring new players to the game. Instead its about adding vet based systems, rewards and content. Great for us existing players but it makes the divide or chasm to cross when joining the game higher and higher.

You precisely described exactly how I feel and said it better than I ever could have. Especially about what a complicated mess a lot of UO has evolved to.

 

[Arcus]

Thought maybe someone might have some valid info.

No one has had valid info for 10 years, what makes you think they would start advertising the numbers now? LOL