Where are all the players?

[Worm]

I took this SS of the BHD lobby at 23.10 CET last night. There were 385 servers online of which 239 were either US or Canadian leaving 146 Euro servers i.e. Dutch, Swedish, UK etc. As you can see, there were 1802 players online at that time.

Now according to Nova, they've sold a million copies of the game so far. So if that's the case, where are all the players? Surely the other 998,000 odd are only playing SP?

[Scott]

Alot of people do buy it for single player only, alot of people buy it, try it and never play it again, or never even try it. And there are probably some people like me that just don't play it unless they are extremely bored.

[Steve]

sure u r in the updated game lobby?

[Hellfighter]

i was in co-op in DF:LW last night a guy told me he has it but like DF:LW Better to play in then DF: BHD it has to do with tast or what Panther said is true also.

mostly i think what every make you feel good in the playing field that one likes to play in the most

[Diamond Bullet]

Panther you run a df resource site (the best :P) and dont play the game?

Is it just bhd you dont play?

[DeadBoltdf2]

I haven't played any df games in ages myself.

You need to consider how many people will buy the game, not play it online, or only do so infrequently.

The best time to check the lobby is friday and saturday night around 8-10pm ast. You will probably find your highest numbers then.

Also, consider that you are looking at a single point in time rather than over the course of a 24 hour period. So, if on average each player played 1 hour and the average for the day was 1800 that is nearly 50,000 players in just that day. Then consider, some people may play once or twice every couple of weeks.

A million copies does sound high but there isn't only 2000 people playing the game online.

[Steve]

i don't play any df games :/

[BADDOG]

I agree with DEADBOLT about this, Friday and Saturday nights seem to be the times you find most players on line. If I host a game most nights of the week I find that by the 3 rd map I have a full or nealry full server.

Regards

[Worm]

Thanx for your feedback guys.

I have checked the lobby at other times and the average seems to be around 1900 with totals of around half that figure at around 20.00 CET.

I think it's a pity though if as some of you have said, that many ppl play once and never again, or simply don't bother with MP at all. When I read about good sales figures, I often look forward to a nice full server every night. But that hasn't been happening now for quite a long time I regret to say. There are too many servers in fact and with an average of less than five players per server if they were to be distributed evenly, the level of enjoyment is diminished considerably IMHO.

In addition, the patches that enable some servers to host 50 players doesn't help either because ppl seem to be attracted to high capacity games. One full 50 player server infers two empty servers i.e. 50 minus 16 = 34. So while the 50 player game may prove to be an enjoyable experience, it also means other servers who may not have sufficient upstream capacity to host those type of games have to do without. That doesn't do the game any good in the long run.

[Gunner102]

Originally posted by BADDOG
I agree with DEADBOLT about this, Friday and Saturday nights seem to be the times you find most players on line. If I host a game most nights of the week I find that by the 3 rd map I have a full or nealry full server.

Regards

Yeah I notice Friday and Saturdays lots of people come so I will put a map up and have people come because usually dont come for a while on regular days!

[XenoMorpH]

Don't forget that there R differences in time of playing the game. We have: Asia, USA (east time and west time) and Europe. Each of them play at different time.