Player Purchase Priorty

[Jojoya]

If housing is a high priority then NA players need to consider moving to a low pop NA server when autodemo resumes. Otherwise housing is not a priority for them.

Does no good when the low pop NA worlds won't have housing anymore than the high pop NA worlds. Resuming demolition isn't going to increase the number of available houses by as much as some want to think.

Some people forget that last year's resumption of demolition on NA worlds coincided with the patch for the data center reorganization. They wrongly attributed all those houses that suddenly appeared during the two week free transfer period as being due to demolition when they really appeared because players were transferring between servers.

The effects of demolition resuming didn't appear until 4 weeks after the free transfer period ended. The number of houses that appeared at that time were minimal (was much less than I had expected). And of course everything was gone before Shadowbringers launched.

When the number of players on the low pop servers is still 2-3 times the number of houses, you're not gaining anything by transferring.

Those are both EU servers, which indicates your datacenters aren't as populated as the NA ones, whereas each NA datacenter has 8 servers (compared to your six). I would expect that the EU datacenters wouldn't experience the crowding issues that the US has, and that's likely why we're seeing many different (and completely correct for their datacenter) views on this issue. It would be interesting to see the SE demographic information on peak and average player count across all the servers, as I suspect we're looking at a houselayer ratio on the NA servers that's just significantly lower than it is on the EU servers.

Back in SB, average population per EU world ended up slightly higher than average population per NA world even if total population for the region was less. That's why SE added to new worlds to EU for ShB launch.

Even with those 2 new worlds, their average population isn't that much lower than ours based on Lucky Bancho's August census (their 22k versus our 24k). Take back Spriggan and Twintania, and their average population would be 26k per world. Then there's JP. Their average is 13k per world. As far as I know, the census is counting characters and not unique players so the actual player numbers would be less. Still the difference is pretty telling unless JP players don't bother making alts the way NA/EU players do.

But JP players definitely prefer being on low pop worlds while a large part of the NA/EU player base demand high pop worlds. Unfortunately for those of us who like the lower pop worlds, SE is paying attention to those who want the higher pop worlds and pushes the overflow onto the low pop worlds, which are no longer low pop. Unless servers get to the point that log-in queues last for 30 min+ on a regular basis instead of 1-3 minutes, I doubt it's going to change.

[Almagnus1]

Back in SB, average population per EU world ended up slightly higher than average population per NA world even if total population for the region was less. That's why SE added to new worlds to EU for ShB launch.

Even with those 2 new worlds, their average population isn't that much lower than ours based on Lucky Bancho's August census (their 22k versus our 24k). Take back Spriggan and Twintania, and their average population would be 26k per world. Then there's JP. Their average is 13k per world. As far as I know, the census is counting characters and not unique players so the actual player numbers would be less. Still the difference is pretty telling unless JP players don't bother making alts the way NA/EU players do.

But JP players definitely prefer being on low pop worlds while a large part of the NA/EU player base demand high pop worlds. Unfortunately for those of us who like the lower pop worlds, SE is paying attention to those who want the higher pop worlds and pushes the overflow onto the low pop worlds, which are no longer low pop. Unless servers get to the point that log-in queues last for 30 min+ on a regular basis instead of 1-3 minutes, I doubt it's going to change.

That's kind the thing... unless the Lodestone is hiding inactive characters... the problem with using the Lodestone is that it's counting every single character that was ever created, including those created through the free trial and have long been abandoned.... which is going to make the numbers be artificially higher... that's why I'd like to see the SE concurrency numbers as that would show us what the real DAU [Daily Active Users] average and peaks were per server, along with MAU [Monthly Active Users] which would give a good indication for sever population. MAU would be useful with figuring out supply issues, while DAU might help give a better idea of how many people you're actually competing against (especially if you can get a breakdown by hour) which ties into best practices around getting a house. While I'd like for SE to make that info public... I kinda doubt they ever will.