my own personal tip would be something between 50k and 250k, with the last 100k returning players which are playing for a week, experience all the new content, leave some cash buying some ships, come back in 2-3 months or with a new update.
why? cause 5k online means - 1k grinders doing STF's, 1k casuals playing missions, 3k DOFFers, which tend to log in for 30 minutes a day just to take care of their crew.
i also know of some people which are waiting for playable romulans and are refusing to play other toons.
Could the situation change? Sure, but I don't think STO is in danger of sunsetting (or seeing CBS pull the ST MMO IP rights from Cryptic) anytime soon.
STO came close to sunsetting a year and a half ago. Things haven't changed that much. The big boss have bigger pockets this time but not unlimited ones. CBS and cancelling, not a good combination historically.
The recent series of questionable moves is disconcerting.
Those 2 millions captains from the aniversary promo are probably registered accounts, copies sold from the original format and users registered into STO since the F2P launch. Considering that in comparsion with other MMO's numbers, the average of actual active players could something be about 50.000.
This isnt bad at all, taking a very close example: Battlestar Galactica Online has almost 20 millions registered accounts, but by first hand I know it has about 50.000 active players, maybe a little bit more, but that's all. That considering that Battlestar Galactica is suppored in more than 10 languages and it has much more advertising.
For STO, only suported in 3 languages and almost without advertising, 50.000 active players from 2.000.000 accounts its a good number.
However BSGO is also a browser MMO - and that turns off a good chunk of people right there.
In an interview Jack Emmert stated STO was 'more successful then City of Heros at its peak'. back in the early days of CoH NCSoft used to include hard subscription counts for CoH and CoH peaked at around 240,000 subs at its start. DStahl also stated they recently had their biggest month (numbers wise) of players recently -- so depending on the stock you give these comments, it appears the minimum recently is 240K-plus players; and the maximum is anyone's guess up to 2 million - without more concrete statements.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Probably more, since it's currently bigger than CoH was at its peak, and is being published by a company that HASN'T closed more MMOs than they have active.
I think NCSoft is unique in the industry in that dubious position.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
However BSGO is also a browser MMO - and that turns off a good chunk of people right there.
In an interview Jack Emmert stated STO was 'more successful then City of Heros at its peak'. back in the early days of CoH NCSoft used to include hard subscription counts for CoH and CoH peaked at around 240,000 subs at its start. DStahl also stated they recently had their biggest month (numbers wise) of players recently -- so depending on the stock you give these comments, it appears the minimum recently is 240K-plus players; and the maximum is anyone's guess up to 2 million - without more concrete statements.
Well I can believe than STO has reached 200-300k active players in two or three specific peaks (F2P launch, S6 Launch, New Romulus and close to it, Winter Event followed closely by the Ambassador). Its a good average, but for me its just impossible that in the long months of drought between "events" and "bran new seasons" the average of active players keep so high, specially for a game that only has 2 millions accounts...
With that said, I think 50-100k active players between peaks its more than a succesfull average.
Why ask for an opinion over a fact that nobody knows?
Well there are folks to do not, but just don't release that information for some unknown reason.
And there are ways as I attempt to illustrate to generate numbers, with everyone being on the same server and such you can see how many people are in zones so checking the popular ones and looking at PVE lists you can get a pretty good idea.
They won't say how many players actively play the game for one simple reason.
If they release figures now, and figures in a year and the ones released in a year are even slightly less, people will act like the sky is falling.
Look at what happened on the WoW forums when they announced they'd gone from 11 million subs to 10 million, people acted like Blizzard were going to pull all support from the game if it dropped any more.
Tell that to FASA who previously had the ST RPG IP rights yanked out from under them by CBS/Paramount.
This games existance has always hung precariously on the whims of corporate stooges and not on how successful it is.
Well, they had a reason - FASA published some material WITHOUT running it by CBS for approval first.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I don't think anyone in this thread really took the "sky is falling" route in their comments. Just curious about number of players and stuff. Is it a touchy subject around here?
Just curious about number of players and stuff. Is it a touchy subject around here?
Yes. Because Cryptic has always remained non-responsive on those questions. And has a tendency to twist, warp and sometimes completely misinform on data/numbers. So you get comments like Jack Emmert saying STO has more players than City of Heroes at its height. But the funny thing is no one knows either number he's referring to.
There's third party sites that track data, and occasionally Cryptic employees will try to debunk those numbers, but never offer anything official on what the real numbers are, so it's just more of their really awkward attempts to spin/manipulate the discussion about their playerbase's actual size.
Those third party data sites may be wrong on exact numbers, but they do offer up a pretty decent comparison between MMO's, so you get the idea that while the numbers might not be exact, the small potatoes of Cryptic's games do indeed lag behind the juggernaut of the MMO world rather substantially, like most other MMOs.
So for comparison's sake, those sites give an interesting picture.
But again, it's a touchy subject because Cryptic likes to "refute" the numbers other sources offer. But then never actually gives insight into the actual numbers. So, it's frustrating in that they try to spin things in the positive, but are pretty clearly heavy handed about how they do it.
In all fairness, if they want to never release official numbers ... they should also you know, not gloat about the numbers they do have, you know? Don't lash out at someone saying STO has X players. And then trump up that STO has the most players it's EVER had, but not tell anyone what that is.
And, you know, to the MMO community at large, don't offer stats that people know are wonky ... like "Number of captains" or the number of people who've ever logged in. We're not that dumb. We know that's an inflated statistic.
Yes. Because Cryptic has always remained non-responsive on those questions. And has a tendency to twist, warp and sometimes completely misinform on data/numbers. So you get comments like Jack Emmert saying STO has more players than City of Heroes at its height. But the funny thing is no one knows either number he's referring to.
There's third party sites that track data, and occasionally Cryptic employees will try to debunk those numbers, but never offer anything official on what the real numbers are, so it's just more of their really awkward attempts to spin/manipulate the discussion about their playerbase's actual size.
Those third party data sites may be wrong on exact numbers, but they do offer up a pretty decent comparison between MMO's, so you get the idea that while the numbers might not be exact, the small potatoes of Cryptic's games do indeed lag behind the juggernaut of the MMO world rather substantially, like most other MMOs.
So for comparison's sake, those sites give an interesting picture.
But again, it's a touchy subject because Cryptic likes to "refute" the numbers other sources offer. But then never actually gives insight into the actual numbers. So, it's frustrating in that they try to spin things in the positive, but are pretty clearly heavy handed about how they do it.
In all fairness, if they want to never release official numbers ... they should also you know, not gloat about the numbers they do have, you know? Don't lash out at someone saying STO has X players. And then trump up that STO has the most players it's EVER had, but not tell anyone what that is.
And, you know, to the MMO community at large, don't offer stats that people know are wonky ... like "Number of captains" or the number of people who've ever logged in. We're not that dumb. We know that's an inflated statistic.
The problem with these third party sites is - No MMO developer routinely or reliably states their subscriber/player numbers publicly UNLESS it's for a marketing campaign or strategy of some type (even Blizzard as there are really few actual month to month subscribers in Asia -- that's just not how WoW is run over there; so Blizzard uses an income formula to say 'X income from China counts as X subscriptions would in the west.) The ONLY developer that used to routinely tout sub number (hell they used to display concurrent player server usage) was SOW and EQ for about the first 3 years. Once competing MMOs started appearing (like Dark Age of Camelot); SOE completely stopped the practice and actual subscriber number started to become closely held internal info for any MMO developer. NCSoft also released quarterly subscription info for CoH publicly up until mid 2005 - but also stopped that practice.
MMO Data got it's start in th time when EQ had trackable numbers but honestly, since hard info has dried up - they've honestly just been pulling numbers out of their rear based on printed reviews, 'gut feelings'; and the occasional marketing blurb of 'we had our Xth subscriber sign up!' -- and unless it's an MMO they personally like say EvE Online; they'll even treat such blurbs with skepticism.
In the end, these days, the only folks who really know the numbers are the teams producing the games; and they're no longer releasing any real hard info publicaly anymore.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I get that. But my beef isn't really with the third party sites. They may not have the apples. And are only looking at oranges. But their oranges do paint a useful picture when comparing those oranges to the other oranges they track. If that makes any sense. It's not a great piece of data, but it has it's place.
My beef is with the marketing aspects of the official companies ... like you state ...
- No MMO developer routinely or reliably states their subscriber/player numbers publicly UNLESS it's for a marketing campaign or strategy of some type
Cryptic in this case likes to hoot and holler about how great things are but never uses any useful numbers when doing so. That on its own, is also fine with me. It's the in-between bits that grate on me and probably others. The parts where they'll get defensive and debunk third party sites, almost as if it's an offense the site committed against Cryptic. But then Cryptic itself will get all shy and coy when asked for the numbers. Numbers that they're then proud to vaguely reference in marketing hype.
Individually the elements don't really bug me. Debunking a third party site's incorrect numbers is fine. Not releasing the data they have to the public is fine. It's when Cryptic puts it all together and you get some seriously wonky BS you know?
In the end, these days, the only folks who really know the numbers are the teams producing the games; and they're no longer releasing any real hard info publicaly anymore.
Which is fine. But Cryptic, who's never been good at PR, should really consider how awkward they look when they tout how "great" the game is going, but offer up no hard data. And then have their employees debunk third party figures, but never offer correct data.
In short, I think DStahl and Jack should just kind of shut up about playerbase figures. Forever. It would make everything a lot easier. And take some of the BS away.
I get that. But my beef isn't really with the third party sites. They may not have the apples. And are only looking at oranges. But their oranges do paint a useful picture when comparing those oranges to the other oranges they track. If that makes any sense. It's not a great piece of data, but it has it's place.
My beef is with the marketing aspects of the official companies ... like you state ...
Cryptic in this case likes to hoot and holler about how great things are but never uses any useful numbers when doing so. That on its own, is also fine with me. It's the in-between bits that grate on me and probably others. The parts where they'll get defensive and debunk third party sites, almost as if it's an offense the site committed against Cryptic. But then Cryptic itself will get all shy and coy when asked for the numbers. Numbers that they're then proud to vaguely reference in marketing hype.
Individually the elements don't really bug me. Debunking a third party site's incorrect numbers is fine. Not releasing the data they have to the public is fine. It's when Cryptic puts it all together and you get some seriously wonky BS you know?
Which is fine. But Cryptic, who's never been good at PR, should really consider how awkward they look when they tout how "great" the game is going, but offer up no hard data. And then have their employees debunk third party figures, but never offer correct data.
In short, I think DStahl and Jack should just kind of shut up about playerbase figures. Forever. It would make everything a lot easier. And take some of the BS away.
Nothing odd about it. People will make big deals of hard data like that; so it's only natural that they don't want third party sites circulating false figures, regardless of whether or not they want to release the official numbers themselves.
I don't think anyone in this thread really took the "sky is falling" route in their comments. Just curious about number of players and stuff. Is it a touchy subject around here?
I think it kinda is because usually folks who bring it up are the "LOL FAILBOAT" kind of person so alot of folks have become defensive about it.
I don't care how many folks play the game as long as it is "enough" to keep the game alive and keep development going. And from what cryptic says we have more then enough.
So why is it anyone's business the exact number of accounts or number of people who actually play there account or number of people who may play a free account....?
Anyway, not directed at the OP, that was a simple question. More at the conspiracy theorists who feel Cryptic is somehow hiding their numbers from the world at large because....because.... well, personally I cant think of a reason they would, and would not care if they did.
When I log in, there are ALOT of people playing. When I que for a 20 man event, it takes little time to get that many. If the player base increased too much more, I could not even log in. I am already qued time to time with log in. That tells me their statistics are probably closer to the truth than the conspiracy theorists.
You are a customer, not a share holder. You pay for the account you play, and you get it, if you pay for it, not for statistics and how many devs wiped their behinds with Charmin as opposed to Wal Mart brand. You do not deserve to know anything. Your $15 dollars a month buys you an account. Whatever you purchase extra, you bought that product and received it. Does Piggly Wiggly owe you their customer base because you bought a Snickers there? No. They may tell you how many people they had that day, if you ask, and they feel like it. Some of you would go the next day with a counter, and when it didn't match up to the day before accuse Piggly Wiggly of lying, even while you went back inside and bought yiou a Ding Dong.
If you really hate Cryptic so much, please stop using their product. Considering how many play and enjoy it, we really wont miss you that much. Maybe it will be easier for me to log in for the next event, too.
Okay, done poking the bears. Growl, roar, and attack....I have really thick skin. Dr. said so, so it's official.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else. -Einstein
Comments
why? cause 5k online means - 1k grinders doing STF's, 1k casuals playing missions, 3k DOFFers, which tend to log in for 30 minutes a day just to take care of their crew.
i also know of some people which are waiting for playable romulans and are refusing to play other toons.
The recent series of questionable moves is disconcerting.
Officially Nerfed In Early 2410
However BSGO is also a browser MMO - and that turns off a good chunk of people right there.
In an interview Jack Emmert stated STO was 'more successful then City of Heros at its peak'. back in the early days of CoH NCSoft used to include hard subscription counts for CoH and CoH peaked at around 240,000 subs at its start. DStahl also stated they recently had their biggest month (numbers wise) of players recently -- so depending on the stock you give these comments, it appears the minimum recently is 240K-plus players; and the maximum is anyone's guess up to 2 million - without more concrete statements.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Probably more, since it's currently bigger than CoH was at its peak, and is being published by a company that HASN'T closed more MMOs than they have active.
I think NCSoft is unique in the industry in that dubious position.
Well I can believe than STO has reached 200-300k active players in two or three specific peaks (F2P launch, S6 Launch, New Romulus and close to it, Winter Event followed closely by the Ambassador). Its a good average, but for me its just impossible that in the long months of drought between "events" and "bran new seasons" the average of active players keep so high, specially for a game that only has 2 millions accounts...
With that said, I think 50-100k active players between peaks its more than a succesfull average.
Well there are folks to do not, but just don't release that information for some unknown reason.
And there are ways as I attempt to illustrate to generate numbers, with everyone being on the same server and such you can see how many people are in zones so checking the popular ones and looking at PVE lists you can get a pretty good idea.
Ahhhh you saw what I did there.
+1 internet
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
If they release figures now, and figures in a year and the ones released in a year are even slightly less, people will act like the sky is falling.
Look at what happened on the WoW forums when they announced they'd gone from 11 million subs to 10 million, people acted like Blizzard were going to pull all support from the game if it dropped any more.
I just read a "I'm qutting STO rant", so we're down to 4 now.
So don't worry about it there are plenty of players.
Well, they had a reason - FASA published some material WITHOUT running it by CBS for approval first.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Those are almost always a lie. But what thread, I'm going to ask for their stuff.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Yes. Because Cryptic has always remained non-responsive on those questions. And has a tendency to twist, warp and sometimes completely misinform on data/numbers. So you get comments like Jack Emmert saying STO has more players than City of Heroes at its height. But the funny thing is no one knows either number he's referring to.
There's third party sites that track data, and occasionally Cryptic employees will try to debunk those numbers, but never offer anything official on what the real numbers are, so it's just more of their really awkward attempts to spin/manipulate the discussion about their playerbase's actual size.
Those third party data sites may be wrong on exact numbers, but they do offer up a pretty decent comparison between MMO's, so you get the idea that while the numbers might not be exact, the small potatoes of Cryptic's games do indeed lag behind the juggernaut of the MMO world rather substantially, like most other MMOs.
So for comparison's sake, those sites give an interesting picture.
But again, it's a touchy subject because Cryptic likes to "refute" the numbers other sources offer. But then never actually gives insight into the actual numbers. So, it's frustrating in that they try to spin things in the positive, but are pretty clearly heavy handed about how they do it.
In all fairness, if they want to never release official numbers ... they should also you know, not gloat about the numbers they do have, you know? Don't lash out at someone saying STO has X players. And then trump up that STO has the most players it's EVER had, but not tell anyone what that is.
And, you know, to the MMO community at large, don't offer stats that people know are wonky ... like "Number of captains" or the number of people who've ever logged in. We're not that dumb. We know that's an inflated statistic.
The problem with these third party sites is - No MMO developer routinely or reliably states their subscriber/player numbers publicly UNLESS it's for a marketing campaign or strategy of some type (even Blizzard as there are really few actual month to month subscribers in Asia -- that's just not how WoW is run over there; so Blizzard uses an income formula to say 'X income from China counts as X subscriptions would in the west.) The ONLY developer that used to routinely tout sub number (hell they used to display concurrent player server usage) was SOW and EQ for about the first 3 years. Once competing MMOs started appearing (like Dark Age of Camelot); SOE completely stopped the practice and actual subscriber number started to become closely held internal info for any MMO developer. NCSoft also released quarterly subscription info for CoH publicly up until mid 2005 - but also stopped that practice.
MMO Data got it's start in th time when EQ had trackable numbers but honestly, since hard info has dried up - they've honestly just been pulling numbers out of their rear based on printed reviews, 'gut feelings'; and the occasional marketing blurb of 'we had our Xth subscriber sign up!' -- and unless it's an MMO they personally like say EvE Online; they'll even treat such blurbs with skepticism.
In the end, these days, the only folks who really know the numbers are the teams producing the games; and they're no longer releasing any real hard info publicaly anymore.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I get that. But my beef isn't really with the third party sites. They may not have the apples. And are only looking at oranges. But their oranges do paint a useful picture when comparing those oranges to the other oranges they track. If that makes any sense. It's not a great piece of data, but it has it's place.
My beef is with the marketing aspects of the official companies ... like you state ...
Cryptic in this case likes to hoot and holler about how great things are but never uses any useful numbers when doing so. That on its own, is also fine with me. It's the in-between bits that grate on me and probably others. The parts where they'll get defensive and debunk third party sites, almost as if it's an offense the site committed against Cryptic. But then Cryptic itself will get all shy and coy when asked for the numbers. Numbers that they're then proud to vaguely reference in marketing hype.
Individually the elements don't really bug me. Debunking a third party site's incorrect numbers is fine. Not releasing the data they have to the public is fine. It's when Cryptic puts it all together and you get some seriously wonky BS you know?
Which is fine. But Cryptic, who's never been good at PR, should really consider how awkward they look when they tout how "great" the game is going, but offer up no hard data. And then have their employees debunk third party figures, but never offer correct data.
In short, I think DStahl and Jack should just kind of shut up about playerbase figures. Forever. It would make everything a lot easier. And take some of the BS away.
Nothing odd about it. People will make big deals of hard data like that; so it's only natural that they don't want third party sites circulating false figures, regardless of whether or not they want to release the official numbers themselves.
I think it kinda is because usually folks who bring it up are the "LOL FAILBOAT" kind of person so alot of folks have become defensive about it.
I don't care how many folks play the game as long as it is "enough" to keep the game alive and keep development going. And from what cryptic says we have more then enough.
Anyway, not directed at the OP, that was a simple question. More at the conspiracy theorists who feel Cryptic is somehow hiding their numbers from the world at large because....because.... well, personally I cant think of a reason they would, and would not care if they did.
When I log in, there are ALOT of people playing. When I que for a 20 man event, it takes little time to get that many. If the player base increased too much more, I could not even log in. I am already qued time to time with log in. That tells me their statistics are probably closer to the truth than the conspiracy theorists.
You are a customer, not a share holder. You pay for the account you play, and you get it, if you pay for it, not for statistics and how many devs wiped their behinds with Charmin as opposed to Wal Mart brand. You do not deserve to know anything. Your $15 dollars a month buys you an account. Whatever you purchase extra, you bought that product and received it. Does Piggly Wiggly owe you their customer base because you bought a Snickers there? No. They may tell you how many people they had that day, if you ask, and they feel like it. Some of you would go the next day with a counter, and when it didn't match up to the day before accuse Piggly Wiggly of lying, even while you went back inside and bought yiou a Ding Dong.
If you really hate Cryptic so much, please stop using their product. Considering how many play and enjoy it, we really wont miss you that much. Maybe it will be easier for me to log in for the next event, too.
Okay, done poking the bears. Growl, roar, and attack....I have really thick skin. Dr. said so, so it's official.
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else. -Einstein