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Only Broadsword really knows the answer to that question. However, there are a few pieces of information that the rest of us can access to attempt to answer that question. You can see which of these shards have their own EM and which have occasional visits from an EM primarily assigned to another shard. You can also see how many towns on a shard have a newly elected governor. You can also try logging on in when it is evening in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (use any world time zone website to determine this) and at other times of the day and sort the shard list using the "% Full" button at the bottom to see where these shards show up in the list. My gut feeling is that Asuka, Yamato, Hokuto and Wakoku have the largest/most active populations of all these shards.
Below is a list of the Asian shards showing the following bits of information:
- Name of their current EM and the EM website URL.
- How many cities have newly elected governors (from http://uo2.stratics.com/essays-and-...lty-councils/britannian-election-results-asia).
- Where the shard fell in the list of all 27 shards using the % Full button as of about 11:45 pm Eastern Daylight Time on the evening of Wednesday, March 19th, with a #1 ranking indicating the shard that apparently is "most full" (i.e., Atlantic) and shard #27 being the shard that it is "least full." (Keep in mind that at this same time, it was 12:45 pm in the afternoon on Thursday, March 20th in Tokyo and Seoul and 11:45 am in the late morning in Taiwain.) I would definitely recommend checking this ranking again in another 5-10 hours for comparison purposes and again on the weekend.
Arirang (Korean) - EM Hanarin. uoem.arirang.net. EM Hanarin has recently held a series of in-game meetings with Korean players to hear their concerns about UO and hopefully encourage more activity/participation on the shard. arirang.uoem.net. No governors were elected in the March 2014 election. This evening it is ranked #8 in the "most full" ranking.
Asuka (Japanese) - EM Misaki. asuka.uoem.net. Nine governors were elected this month. This evening it is ranked #4 in the "most full" ranking.
Balhae (Korean) - Currently has no assigned EM. balhae.uoem.net has not been updated since December 2012. In spite of not having an EM, someone usually seems to make sure the shard gets a "clicky" statue for things like holiday gifts when other shards do. No governors were elected in the March 2014 election. This evening it is ranked #7 in the "most full" ranking.
Formosa (Taiwanese) - EM Takako. formosa.uoem.net. Three governors were elected this month. This evening it is ranked #6 in the "most full" ranking.
Hokuto (Japanese) - EM Riccia. hokuto.uoem.net. Nine governors were elected this month. I believe this shard has a fair number of European players and many of them apparently belong to the Z3RO guild. (See http://stratics.com/community/threads/hear-ye-hear-ye.297345/ for a bit more info.) I see many of their members running around when I play on Hokuto. This evening it is ranked #24 in the "most full" ranking.
Izumo (Japanese) - EM Nekomata. izumo.uoem.net. Eight governors were elected this month. This evening it is ranked #23 in the "most full" ranking.
Mizuho (Japanese) - Does not have its own EM, but I think EM Kanata handles some of the EM responsibilities for this shard such as weddings. The website at mizuho.uoem.net seems to be unused. Eight governors were elected in this month's election. This evening it is ranked #22 in the "most full" ranking.
Mugen (Japanese) - Note that this shard follows the same rule set as Siege so there's no way to transfer to/from this shard. Does not have its own EM, however I believe EM Riccia from Hokuto handles some EM responsibilities on this shard such as weddings. The website at mugen.uoem.net seems to be unused. Seven governors were elected this month. This evening it is ranked #26 in the "most full" ranking.
Sakura (Japanese) - Also EM Nekomata. sakura.uoem.net. Six governors were elected this month. This evening it is ranked #27 (i.e., least full of all 27 shards) in the "most full" ranking.
Wakoku (Japanese) - EM Kanata. wakoku.uoem.net. Nine governors were elected this month. This evening it is ranked #25 in the "most full" ranking.
Yamato (Japanese) - It looks like EM Asiantam no longer handles Yamato and EM Nekomata has stepped in to handle things there for the time being. yamato.uoem.net. Nine governors were elected this month. This evening it is ranked #21 in the "most full" ranking.
Edited to add: Screen shots of the shard listing this evening after pushing the "% Full" button. Note that I'm in the Mountain Daylight Time zone.
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Tina, you are always a welcome source of information. You are appreciated.
If you think you're going to actually play on the shard a lot and will be looking for other people to join you to do some hunting, I would lean towards Hokuto if you don't speak/understand Japanese (or Korean or Taiwanese) just because it seems like you're more likely to find other English speakers there who will respond to you in general chat. That's not to say that you will never find anyone to talk to on the Asian shards. On the contrary, I've met quite a few players on all of those shards who are very friendly and do their best to have a conversation with me in English. They do much better than I could ever dream of doing if I tried to hold a conversation in their language! However, I'm just not sure how many players on those shards even use the chat channels. I can play for hours at a time on any one of those shards and not see ANYTHING come up in general chat.
If you want to go to EM events, you probably want to just scout out all of the shards or maybe find someone else who is already doing that and get their opinion. You probably already know that on the Japanese shards, the EM halls are in Nujelm, north of the tailor shop by a building or two, and you can usually get there via a moongate at the WBB. Arirang, Balhae, and Formosa all have their EM halls in Britain like the English-speaking shards.
You might also go to Covetous and see what's going on with the Void Pool on the busiest of the Asian shards and see how many people seem to still be doing that.
Also take a peek in Magincia and check out things like the pet vendors and figure out what your odds will be for maybe acquiring a good hunting pet or two if you decide to build up a tamer or will need blue beetles for crafters. And look at the commodity brokers to see what they might be buying because maybe there's something you can gather with low-skilled characters and sell to raise some gold (e.g., on some shards I think some of the brokers are buying boura pelts for anywhere from 3k to 5k apiece). Start a newbie tamer with 50 taming and 50 lore and bond a pair of lowland bouras and you could do all right killing high plains bouras or even the lesser bouras for pelts and leather to sell. Get 50 imbuing or so on a new crafter and you could make your own simple LRC suits.
Another thing to consider is that you might want to hold off until the vendor search feature is operational on all shards so you can get a more accurate idea of what's going to be available to you for building up characters. Trying to do that with the existing websites has seemed to me to be very hit or miss for quite a while, ranging from getting no results whatsoever to getting a few results for specific items only, in spite of seeing good items for sale on a vendor right in front of you. If you think you're going to be playing on the shard quite a bit, maybe will build a house and need furnishings and will also need to buy power scrolls and other items to build up characters, you should check around on Hokuto, Mizuho, Wakoku, Asuka, and Yamato. You will definitely find vendors with usable items for building new characters on those shards and there's a really good chance that the shops won't be in Luna and the prices will be actually quite reasonable. (I guess I'm kinda forgetting you'll have a shield to use to move stuff over. LOL)
Hopefully a few of the people whom I think are regulars here in UHall and have shields for some of the Asian shards might speak up and give you their opinion as well. We all have such different playstyles that it's kind of hard sometimes to guess at what someone else is hoping to experience when they decide to try a shard where they will be perhaps starting off from scratch and also might be dealing with a bit of a language barrier.
It's just before 5 pm now in Tokyo and Seoul (should be just before 4 pm in Taiwain and it's just before 4 am Eastern Daylight Time) and here's what order the shards are in if you use the % Full button:
This is what the order was about 4 hours ago (I think, unless I'm goofed up again on dates/times haha) if you don't want to piece it together from the screen shots in my previous post:
'Night.
Edited to add: For whatever it's worth, here is the order of the shards ranked by using the "% Full" button again at approximately 10:15 am Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday, which is about 11:15 pm on Thursday night in Tokyo and Seoul and 10:15 pm in Taiwan and mid-afternoon in Europe:
- Atlantic
- Oceania
- Great Lakes
- Arirang
- Pacific
- Asuka
- Yamato
- Formosa
- Napa Valley
- Baja
- Lake Austin
- Sonoma
- Origin
- Siege Perilous
- Catskills
- Chesapeake
- Lake Superior
- Legends
- Drachenfels
- Europa
- Balhae
- Mizuho
- Izumo
- Hokuto
- Wakoku
- Mugen
- Sakura
This is what the order was about 4 hours ago (I think, unless I'm goofed up again on dates/times haha) if you don't want to piece it together from the screen shots in my previous post:
- Atlantic
- Great Lakes
- Pacific
- Asuka
- Oceania
- Formosa
- Balhae
- Arirang
- Catskills
- Chesapeake
- Lake Superior
- Napa Valley
- Baja
- Lake Austin
- Sonoma
- Origin
- Siege Perilous
- Legends
- Drachenfels
- Europa
- Yamato
- Mizuho
- Izumo
- Hokuto
- Wakoku
- Mugen
- Sakura
'Night.
Edited to add: For whatever it's worth, here is the order of the shards ranked by using the "% Full" button again at approximately 10:15 am Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday, which is about 11:15 pm on Thursday night in Tokyo and Seoul and 10:15 pm in Taiwan and mid-afternoon in Europe:
- Atlantic
- Asuka
- Yamato
- Hokuto
- Wakoku
- Oceania
- Sakura
- Arirang
- Mizuho
- Catskills
- Izumo
- Great Lakes
- Formosa
- Napa Valley
- Baja
- Lake Austin
- Sonoma
- Pacific
- Origin
- Siege Perilous
- Chesapeake
- Lake Superior
- Legends
- Drachenfels
- Europa
- Balhae
- Mugen
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Erm take no no notice of the %full button...u would be lucky if oceania had 50-100 players while atlantic as thousands yet they sit number 1 and 2.....see what i mean....definate no information there
For a english speaking player with no asian tongue...Hokuto is a no brainer
Iam doing a world tour at the moment actaully rating shards in low medium high etc etc and telling you wether u can place a castle/keep easily or not as well as common shard to shard info.
..maybe worth a look..http://stratics.com/community/threads/thps-world-tour.303941/
I havent done a lot of asian shards yet but the likes of airang and balhae are very very quiet indeed..again they sit hig on the %full button which is absoloute nonsense
For a english speaking player with no asian tongue...Hokuto is a no brainer
Iam doing a world tour at the moment actaully rating shards in low medium high etc etc and telling you wether u can place a castle/keep easily or not as well as common shard to shard info.
..maybe worth a look..http://stratics.com/community/threads/thps-world-tour.303941/
I havent done a lot of asian shards yet but the likes of airang and balhae are very very quiet indeed..again they sit hig on the %full button which is absoloute nonsense
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