You can write scripts to parse lodestone to get the total number of active characters. But this will also include mules (like i have 16 characters (inc buddy key) and im 1 person lol) so its not accurate but it is accurate as to how many total characters there is. It can also take a long time >.> as there are 10 million possible characters. (thats max this game can have) so if 1 char parse took 1 second, it'd take like 3 months. Needs some optimization XD
But you could just guess through common sense. Before pt number was taken off they were usually 600-1000, i'd say about 1k is active now per day as game is a little better, maybe less at times, then just times that by conditions, I used to be logged on 24/7 so my number wouldnt ever change, a lot of others did so you'd work out the % of people who are static, then % of people who play a set amount of time (you can get this from the polls but i think it only goes to about 8hrs? or 3? idk lol)
There are probably hundreds of thousands of characters but about 50k active.
