UO Second Age

I was wondering - what kind of numbers were shards like Atlantic, Chessie, etc. running during UO's hayday? My brother and I were wondering how UOSA compared.

Several thousand simultaneously, easily. I don't know any solid number range, but basing my guess on how populated the World was during peak hours/era.

I remember Sonoma being close to 2000 on average back before trammel.

"Sorry dude the shard's full lol" was a common message at peak times on Europa when trying to get back in after a disconnect.

I don't know what full capacity of a server was then though? 5000 or so?

This may be of considerable interest: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=23876

I'd assume double that during prime time, easily. Afk macroing was not legal, and most players on the US shards were not online then.

I have some anecdotal evidence...

I had a friend who was a guide and if he ever talked to a CSR or a GM they would hint at it being around 2000 on Atlantic during primetime.

DAoC came a few months after it and they listed actual numbers on the browser and servers on that game capped around 2500 as well.

I would imagine the technical limitations would have improved a bit between the launch of uo and DAoC but saying around 2500 is probably a safe bet at max capacity during the time.

The server capacity limit was 15k per. The only server that hit the max was the Abyss shard. The login screen would notify the validation when the server was at max capacity.