1 million active players, but how many of them are bots and alts?

[TheNight]

Lost Ark averaged 200 thousand concurrent players last March and April. How many of those are bots? Players later discovered that over half of them are bots.

And given how FF14's STF is the epitome of ineptness, and given how the bot problem is getting worse and worse when people do less and less content, can we really say that the game has "grown"?

I daresay that most of the player "growth" is actually driven by bots. A good guess would be that 30-40% of the 1 million "active" players are indeed bots and alts.

[Atelier-Bagur]

quick question. Why do you care? We already know botting is a serious issue with this game and it needs to be fixed, but is this thread's tinfoil theory seriously going to be the tipping point for SE to double down on RMT? For what purpose does this thread even serve besides just being absolute nothing discussion about player numbers.

I rather we instead talk about how SE isnt doing a good job about banning RMT accounts rather than change the narrative about "active players"

[MintnHoney]

quick question. Why do you care?

I raise you a counter question:
what else do people do with this game, except care? What else is there to do for those who need the midcore content that this game sorely lacks?
Besides, these are all things that should be said, but people are just tired of seeing it. If the problem were somehow dealt with, we'd probably see less threads like this. So, in the meantime, we may as well let these threads keep happening so that it's annoyingly there for Squeen to see, if they look at all, so that we don't have to write it ourselves. Maybe, one day, it'll lead to some sort of resolution.

[Striker44]

quick question. Why do you care?

I think it's a simple answer - this particular personality of his only knows how to doomsay, and all of his recent attempts at doing so have been thoroughly refuted with real data showing how the game is continuing to grow. I'd say he's given up pushing the lie about the game failing based on the number of players, and is now shifting to acting as if it's failing because there are bots. But without anything to support the idea that there are a greater portion of bots now compared to in the past, it's also meaningless.

[DixieBellOCE]

Far more when you realize that on Materia alone, bots outnumber actual players by 3:1, and on some of the servers, like Zurvan, even more like 8:1

For a player base of 19000 players on Materia, bots make up a good 10,000 of those.

[TheNight]

Far more when you realize that on Materia alone, bots outnumber actual players by 3:1, and on some of the servers, like Zurvan, even more like 8:1

For a player base of 19000 players on Materia, bots make up a good 10,000 of those.

Precisely. It's also rather sad when some of those bots also purchase housing, an extremely limited resource in this game. We have gotten to the point where one would not know whether a player is a player or a bot.

[Stormpeaks]

Precisely. It's also rather sad when some of those bots also purchase housing, an extremely limited resource in this game. We have gotten to the point where one would not know whether a player is a player or a bot.

And that's literally where you lost me

Shell FC's are not botters, bots dont purchase houses.

Also if housing is "an extremely limited resource" it's because of SE. It also isnt that much of an extremely limited resource considering there's thousands upon thousands of plots on new worlds.

[DixieBellOCE]

And that's literally where you lost me

Shell FC's are not botters, bots dont purchase houses.

While there is a large number of Airship/submersible bot farms, the majority of the FC's are just hoarders.

[TheNight]

quick question. Why do you care? We already know botting is a serious issue with this game and it needs to be fixed, but is this thread's tinfoil theory seriously going to be the tipping point for SE to double down on RMT? For what purpose does this thread even serve besides just being absolute nothing discussion about player numbers.

I rather we instead talk about how SE isnt doing a good job about banning RMT accounts rather than change the narrative about "active players"

Lost Ark's creator, Smilegate, lied to their investors about there being more than 1 million concurrent players to attract investment, while fully cognizant that the majority of those "players" are bots.

Do you see the parallel here? Do you see why Square Enix is not banning bots?

[TheNight]

And that's literally where you lost me

Shell FC's are not botters, bots dont purchase houses.

Also if housing is "an extremely limited resource" it's because of SE. It also isnt that much of an extremely limited resource considering there's thousands upon thousands of plots on new worlds.

Perhaps not all shell FCs are botters, but how many of the owners of these shell FCs engage in RMT...?