Homecoming player count: a year in review

[GM Crumpet]

On 4/28/2023 at 10:31 PM, Number Six said:

 

It might be doable but it would be a lot of work to disambiguate it for concurrent users.

 

What I do have handy is my log analysis of the launcher files. Since almost everybody generally has to run the launcher to make sure they're up to date, I'm able to gather stats on unique IPs. This is more analogous of active players rather than concurrent, since not everybody plays at the same time and not everybody plays every day of the week.

 

Between April 15 and April 27, there were 28,613 unique IP addresses that were used to launch the game.

 

Report Range: 2023-04-15 through 2023-04-27

Total unique users       : 28613

Manifest-based           : 6522
HC Launcher              : 22091
New HC Launcher installs : 1317

Launcher OS breakdown:
windows-11-x86-32        : 510
windows-11-x86-64        : 6867
windows-10-server-x86-64 : 1
windows-10-x86-32        : 1453
windows-10-x86-64        : 11562
windows-7-x86-32         : 46
windows-7-x86-64         : 416
windows-8-x86-64         : 2
windows-8_1-x86-32       : 13
windows-8_1-x86-64       : 88
windows-xp-x86-32        : 2
wine                     : 1131

Manifest-based launcher breakdown:
Island Rum               : 210
Other                    : 310
PenguinRocks             : 2
Tequila                  : 6000

 

Interesting trivia: between the same time period exactly 1 year ago (April 15 - April 27, 2022), there were only 24,390 unique IPs.

 

Since people sometimes change IPs or play from multiple places that measure probably overcounts somewhat. But it's not too far off from our weekly account stats which sees about 16k unique accounts active in a week, or 22k unique accounts active in a month.

Some people are still using windows XP??

[GM Crumpet]

I'm impressed OP. It's always nice to see hard figures to combat the regular "Homecoming is dying" posts that crop up now and again. We are reasonably stable, and we get a steady trickle of new players on discord who either played on live and only now found we exist, or were too young to play on live and are now old enough to try the game their parents used to go on about all the time. We also get a few from other games like DCO or CO who want their fix of superhero action but have lost interest in those games.

 

As for the low pop shards, it's a shame. Reunion gets a bad rep, and it's undeserved. I play on Reunion a lot, and there are player led events like Hami and MSR, plus iTrials and weekly TF/SF's. Everyone says "Don't play on Reunion it's dead" which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It does get quite busy at times, but mostly when the Americas are quiet so someone over there logs in at 7pm there time and goes "It's dead" when actually all the EU players are asleep. We are active when you lot aren't. And as someone else pointed out, even at their quietest, our two low pop shards are still more active than *cough* other servers where more solitary players who enjoy being solo play. 

 

TL:DR Come to Reunion, it's lovely 😛 

[High_Beam]

On 4/28/2023 at 4:53 PM, tidge said:

I thought I noticed an anomaly, so I zoomed in

 

 

Enhance!

[Ironblade]

On 4/27/2023 at 8:14 PM, macskull said:

(Ignore those weird dips in January and February, the script pulled no data for a week or so for some unknown reason).

 

On 4/27/2023 at 11:10 PM, Number Six said:

The weird looking gap in December is because either the API endpoint or the stats database was down for a few days over Christmas, but was low priority enough that nobody took time away to go fix it.

 

Wake up, people!  The internet is becoming self-aware and those periods are when it got distracted by cat videos!

 

[PyroNugget]

On 4/28/2023 at 11:39 PM, Number Six said:

 

What makes me sad is our brave, lonesome Windows Vista player seems to have either left or upgraded finally.

 

well...this one made my day.

 

i can 100% assure you that neither has happened, as it is me.

 

the system in question was built in 2007--yes it played the game when it was live-- and is now in my best friends game room as part of our weekly LAN parties.

 

these are friends iv'e known since we were kids--played Atari 2600 with, rode bikes to the arcade with(all 80s kids)-and LANd our butts off when we got real jobs and money wasn't a gateway anymore.

 

the reason i don't log in with it as much is we tend to shift what old games we play from year to year--like megamech(battletech) or  X-Wing VS Tie fighter or unreal tournament( yes the old one) etc.

 

i still log it in even then from time to time when i get my butt handed to me early.

 

 and that old rig will NEVER be upgraded!

[Nightwatch]

On 5/30/2023 at 8:10 AM, UltraAlt said:

 

You could make social media posts and post on gaming sites.

 

 

Well, there is no Defiant Homecoming server.

So I'm unsure where you're playing on "Defiant".

 

 

You can move characters to other servers if you want to.

 

[Nightwatch]

Have edited that. meant to say REUNION.  (Defiant was one of the old live servers.)  To address UltraAlt's suggestion i move my Reunion alts to another server with a higher pop.  I have been doing that.  Of course that means I'm also losing some VERY good names as I grabbed quite a few in the early days of Homecoming on Reunion, thinking the server would be popular.

 

The basic point remains however, what can we do in a practical sense to stem longterm population decline?  Can we amalgamte servers?

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

Have edited that. meant to say REUNION.  (Defiant was one of the old live servers.)

 

I figured, but I don't know if one of the other CoH Server groups (Thunderspy and whatnot) had a Defiant server or not.

 

3 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

I'm also losing some VERY good names

 

Sorry about that.

Maybe you should leave the characters with "very good names" on Reunion and make other characters if you are trying to fill some gap in your  character base on the new server that you moved ot.

 

3 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

The basic point remains however, what can we do in a practical sense to stem longterm population decline?

 

Lead teams that are actively recruited thorough /lfg. 

Be friendly to new players.

Be friendly to each other.

Help out in the /help channel when people ask questions.

... and I was serious about social media ...

Posting videos on YouTube or streaming on twitch might get people interested as well.

 

3 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

Can we amalgamte servers?

 

Does combining servers change the number of players?

 

Who gets to keep a name if it is already existing on the other server?

Who gets to keep the name of a supergroup if it exist on the other server?

Who gets to keep a base if it has the same base number?

 

This discussion comes up every now and again.

I'm against it.

 

If it comes down to the player base not being able to pay for all 5 servers, then I could see that as a reason to think about giving people time to move characters to another server before it is taken down, but I would still be against a of server merger.

[Number Six]

54 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

If it comes down to the player base not being able to pay for all 5 servers, then I could see that as a reason to think about giving people time to move characters to another server before it is taken down, but I would still be against a of server merger.

 

It's been asked and answered a few times, but combining servers would not affect costs*. Our dbservers are virtual and they share common backend SQL servers as well as a common mapserver pool that all of them run on. The NA shards are effectively "free" because of the way we built our infrastructure.

 

* The exception to this is Reunion, which runs on separate hardware in the Europe datacenter. That's the single biggest bang-for-buck reduction we could make and is something we've discussed contingency plans for if it looks like the costs are an undue burden on the community. However we wouldn't merge it, we'd simply move it as-is to the shared North America infrastructure and eliminate the Europe hardware costs. The downside of that is that eastern hemisphere players would suffer worse ping times, but if it stays at its current very low population levels, it is something that's on the table and may be done to reduce costs so we're not paying a premium for a very small segment of the population.

[UltraAlt]

1 minute ago, Number Six said:

It's been asked and answered a few times, but combining servers would not affect costs*.

 

Thanks for clarifying. I had missed that in past discussions about possible server mergers.

 

2 minutes ago, Number Six said:

The exception to this is Reunion

 

3 minutes ago, Number Six said:

we'd simply move it as-is to the shared North America infrastructure and eliminate the Europe hardware costs. The downside of that is that eastern hemisphere players would suffer worse ping times

 

I am glad that it is there for for the players on the European side simply do to the "ping".

I am glad that hear that it wouldn't be shutdown or merged, but just ported to the same free structure system as the NA servers.

 

Thanks for providing the info.

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

The downside of that is that eastern hemisphere players would suffer worse ping times

I'm curious, do we have data that compares ping times? For example, any European players able to test on Reunion versus Torchbearer (similar population size)?  

[Ironblade]

21 hours ago, Bopper said:

I'm curious, do we have data that compares ping times? For example, any European players able to test on Reunion versus Torchbearer (similar population size)?  

Easy enough to check in the opposite direction.  I have Ironblade on every shard.  I just logged in and my ping was 240 on Reunion and 130 on Torchbearer.  I'm in the northeast U.S.

 

Having said that, I've gotten Ironblade to incarnate levels on Reunion and never noticed any performance issues.

[Troo]

On 5/31/2023 at 10:42 AM, Number Six said:

It's been asked and answered a few times, but combining servers would not affect costs*. Our dbservers are virtual and they share common backend SQL servers as well as a common mapserver pool that all of them run on. The NA shards are effectively "free" because of the way we built our infrastructure.

 

sooo...

M0r3 servers!

[Glacier Peak]

It's great work from community members like mac that reinforces my assertion of how lag free it is on Indomitable! 

 

We don't even have bumpy or pushy Ouroboros entrances either!

[kelika2]

The amount of names that are locked up by people who probably played for a week or two max

So many potentials in the abyss

So many people using leetspeek

So many people adding Suffixes and the opposite of suffixes to names

OP made me think of a pot of water that was left simmering and all those names are clinging onto the sides as the water evaporates

I will never forget that one GM, whos name I forgot, announced that in week one of Homecoming someone made over 300 alts.

[Kaika]

3 hours ago, kelika2 said:

The amount of names that are locked up by people who probably played for a week or two max

So many potentials in the abyss

So many people using leetspeek

So many people adding Suffixes and the opposite of suffixes to names

OP made me think of a pot of water that was left simmering and all those names are clinging onto the sides as the water evaporates

I will never forget that one GM, whos name I forgot, announced that in week one of Homecoming someone made over 300 alts.

 

Well good new, unless they got all those characters to 50 or log in with them all regularly, the names are back on the market for taking. I don't remember the exact numbers but until your reach 50 if you go too long without logging in with that character the name becomes usable by anyone else. The time it takes for the name to become unlocked is relative to the characters level. So as long as they haven't reached 50 and are not active on that character specifically the names are available eventualy.

In short,

Quote

The amount of names that are locked up by people who probably played for a week or two max

is probably relatively low, unless they just blitzed a ton of toons to 50 in that week.

[UltraAlt]

19 minutes ago, Riot Siren said:

I don't remember the exact numbers but until your reach 50 if you go too long without logging in with that character the name becomes usable by anyone else.

 

Not true.

The system is active, but they haven't started reclaiming names as far as I know. (link the post if the DEVs said that they have started the renaming process)

 

22 minutes ago, Riot Siren said:

In short,

Quote

The amount of names that are locked up by people who probably played for a week or two max

is probably relatively low, unless they just blitzed a ton of toons to 50 in that week.

 

It's not hard with multiboxing,  farms, and doorsitting is it?

 

I only have a couple characters that are level 50.

I don't intend on leveling any more to 50.

I prefer the lower levels.

I keep up with logging my characters in case the policy goes into effect.

 

If they are going to rename characters below 50, then level 50 characters should be open to renaming as well.

It isn't like it was on live. We are not subscribers. People get to 50 in a couple of hours. It is no big challenge to get to level 50.

If you can't log your level 50 in once a year and the policy goes live, it should get renamed the same as any other character.

[Wavicle]

52 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

If you can't log your level 50 in once a year and the policy goes live, it should get renamed the same as any other character.

 

No.

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 hours ago, Wavicle said:

No.

 

Agreed. I don't ever want to lose Bill Z Bubba as the name of my main even if I do disappear for a year. Life happens and I'd be awfully pissy about it if I woke up from a year long coma to find that I'd been genericed and someone else was running around with my name.

[Mopery]

8 hours ago, kelika2 said:

I will never forget that one GM, whos name I forgot, announced that in week one of Homecoming someone made over 300 alts.

My name is Mopery.

I am an Alt-aholic...

[A Cat]

It's nice to see that things aren't in decline. It really is hearing. Thanks for gathering the data bro. 

[macskull]

22 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

It's not hard with multiboxing,  farms, and doorsitting is it?

It takes longer to get to 50 now, even using those methods, than it's taken any time in the last four years, and the pace is downright glacial compared to some points when the game was live (15-minute 50s, anyone?). You're also assuming that just because "it is no big challenge to get to level 50" (it never was) that a person can't have developed an attachment to a character name or concept, and I know I would be more than a little upset if I came back to the game after a year away and the characters I'd played for years had lost their names. I don't like the name release policy, period. I am 100% camping on some good names on characters I don't play, and would absolutely give one up if someone asked for it, but that has never once happened to me.

 

Besides, at the end of the day, it shouldn't really matter what level the character is, or whether I'm attached to them or not - I came up with a concept and/or a name and the name happened to be available, so I took it. If you come up with a great idea and you find out the name's already taken by someone who hasn't played the game since 2019, you can do what everyone else does in that situation and... come up with a new name.

[UltraAlt]

4 minutes ago, macskull said:

It takes longer to get to 50 now, even using those methods, than it's taken any time in the last four years, and the pace is downright glacial compared to some points when the game was live (15-minute 50s, anyone?). You're also assuming that just because "it is no big challenge to get to level 50" (it never was) that a person can't have developed an attachment to a character name or concept, and I know I would be more than a little upset if I came back to the game after a year away and the characters I'd played for years had lost their names.

 

You know what I'm saying. You are trying to belittle it, but it doesn't change the point.

People park their characters in the AE door-sitting and go do other stuff. Some people apparently automate their farming characters so they can go AFK to powerlevel AFK doorsitters.

 

My translation is: "Well, how dare you say that my level 50 should be renamed if your lowly sub-level 50 would be renamed under that same situation. I have an attachment to my level 50!"

 

What you are assuming is someone that has a character that is level 25 or below that may be xp-locked to that level for one reason or another doesn't have as much or more "attachment" to a character as someone that power-leveled a character to level 50.

 

Who should be more upset? Someone that spent 5 hours actually playing a character that was AFK-doorsat to 50 or someone that played 40-50 hours on character that isn't 50?

Does being 50 give you some kind of increased connection to a character simply because they are level 50 regardless of how you got there?

 

My points are valid. I don't see your counterpoints beling valid at all. Your counterpoint goes directly back to the superiority of level 50's characters simply because they are level 50.

Attachment to a character has nothing to do with the level of the character.

 

18 minutes ago, macskull said:

I don't like the name release policy, period.

 

Great. I don't like the policy the way it is written.

 

19 minutes ago, macskull said:

I am 100% camping on some good names on characters

 

Then you are part of the reason that a renaming policy is needed.

You are part of the problem. You are making that clear.

[Wavicle]

10 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Then you are part of the reason that a renaming policy is needed.

You are part of the problem. You are making that clear.

I’m sorry, but no, absolutely not.

 

 An active player has every right to have low level toons with names they want to use but haven’t gotten around to yet. Stop trying to control people and stop griping because they are using the game systems in a way you disapprove of.

[Wavicle]

I have almost fifty level 50 characters. I did not PL ANY of them. I played them all, level 1 to 50.

Why should I EVER be at risk of losing the names of such characters???? Even if I took a break for a year. I would be FURIOUS.

 

I have to regularly login ALL of them, one by one?

Don't be ridiculous.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Wavicle