https://mmo-population.com/r/ultimaonline https://playercounter.com/ultima-online/ https://steamcharts.com/app/326160 I knew our population felt a little sparce, but i also didn't realize that ultima online was still blossoming like that in 2023. When i looked at the live concurrent number of players for UO just a bit ago it was 4200 concurrent players. When i played UO not too long ago I never saw a soul. Just goes to show just how amazingly big that old game was. I see more players in shroud of the avatar with "30 concurrent players" than i did in UO with 4200 players. Cudos to that old game for still kicking around though.
You forget that the steam charts do not count those players who do not start the game using Steam but with the games own client.
yeah there's probably quite a few who don't play on steam. I never do. The game didn't even get steam for a few years into development. Not sure how many.
Atlantic on UO for me. Atlantic was super popular back in the 90s and i jumped on that band wagon. I still remember spending over 3 years to become a GM and then Elder tamer. x.x The ultimate grind. "Why aren't you in bed yet son?!" "I will in a minute, I'm in the middle of power hour and I'm not done taming bulls!" "Why didn't you do that 8 hours ago son?!" "I can't help it i was roleplaying all day with my guild mates." "Roleplay?! What kind of kinky **** are you doing on that computer boy?! You shouldn't even be on the computer during day anyways, we might have important phone calls coming in and you're hogging the phone line you little ****!"
Oh, yes I remember those complains. My grandma complained to me that I was not available on phone because the line was always occupied by internet (old modem). That was the reason that I got ISDN with 2 numbers and 3 lines so that my phone could ring while I was online...
I don't use steam to start the game as well. IMO steam only records a portion of the total population.
Our Steam chart numbers literally mean nothing total population wise because you can use steam or not (I don't use the steam client as do many others). But it does at least show the people who use the steam client. However population wise there are other interesting metrics to look at, like for example in the last 30 days: 2.78 Million Barley were destroyed for crafting. 935 Thousand Buckets of Water were destroyed for crafting. 908 Thousand Wood Scrap were destroyed for crafting. 846 Thousand Wood Pulp were destroyed for crafting. https://sotagraphs.com/d/EgTXn0MWz/crafting?orgId=2&from=now-30d&to=now As you can see, there seems to be at least a few people playing. No idea on what that exact number is however...
Would be interesting to see an actual real population metric that accounts for both login methods. Edit: Oh wow! We can see our own player metrics on that site! https://sotagraphs.com/d/1Yzgp-7Wz/player-stats?orgId=2&var-PlayerName=Kelanor Greyash
On the leaderboard, there are around 200-250 people on the pve kills for today. That's hopeful. 250 in a day isn't too shabby at all.
Well, we don't have a way to see concurrent players in shroud of the avatar, the leaderboards shows you how many people have made kills in PvE that day. So 200-250 players on a given day in shroud vs 22,131 players per day on ultima online. Still though 200+ players per day is alot better than the steam charts make you think is the population.
Of note the Leaderboards statistics (PVE Kills) does NOT show the hundreds and hundred of people that have API tracking off. Just make sure you are keeping that in perspective when looking at that.
Most of my best gaming experiences was when the population of a game equals 1 player; me, single player. No pesky humans to get in my way. I hated those overcrowded MMO's with so many players, lag rules and it's not playable, or those pesky humans get in your way of enjoyment. I played SoTA for 2 years with no human interactions and the single player experience, online, was excellent. The challenge was to solve problems solo vs. asking for help. After 2 years, I started to interact with humans and eventually found regulars and we formed a guild, the guild remains small. It's all good interacting with humans as long as everyone knows where we all stand. I would never judge the greatness of a game based on online population.
i think these hold true to any game: if you enjoy the game, play it if you dont enjoy the game, dont play it and play something else when discussing population as a deciding factor i think again, see above. if the current population causes you to choose 1, then great. if the current population causes you to choose 2, then great. its a personal choice. one players idea of fun may be thousands of players. another may like a small community. there will always people that will decide 1 or 2 based on the population even at both population extremes.
Cleaned up the thread a bit to remove argumentative and troll posts. Please be sure to keep posts on topic, avoid supposition and false statements. Note: Troll posts, argumentative posts, and misleading/false information are all against TOS. When these types of posts are encountered, please be sure to report them for moderation instead of engaging. A note on this thread topic: A very small percentage of players login using Steam, and has been stated, activity from players who are flagged anonymous are not counted in the Statistics API data. Our account and character creation numbers have been steadily rising, along with retention. We continue to produce new content, features and fix bugs, and have plans being outlined for next year's roadmap that will be released at the end of January.
