Actual population right now?

[Menkaure]

Past few nights I heard there were field fights returning players etc; then I look at the pop count right now and it says 365 online and its 7pm. I never saw the pop drop below 425 at this time even when I thought it was super slow/dead last month. It seems like there's more on now but its not showing. Is there an actual population for unique ips? Cause this seems strange to me. Feels like more people on but shows less

[FishinPro]

Past few nights I heard there were field fights returning players etc; then I look at the pop count right now and it says 365 online and its 7pm. I never saw the pop drop below 425 at this time even when I thought it was super slow/dead last month. It seems like there's more on now but its not showing. Is there an actual population for unique ips? Cause this seems strange to me. Feels like more people on but shows less

You can ping the server via IRC to get the unique IP count....

Noob

[Menkaure]

Past few nights I heard there were field fights returning players etc; then I look at the pop count right now and it says 365 online and its 7pm. I never saw the pop drop below 425 at this time even when I thought it was super slow/dead last month. It seems like there's more on now but its not showing. Is there an actual population for unique ips? Cause this seems strange to me. Feels like more people on but shows less

You can ping the server via IRC to get the unique IP count....

Noob

Don't use irc anymore. Plus that just tells the ips on irc right?

[Drone]

<Drone_> !status
<@SecondAge> Server: RunUO 2.1 Mobiles:245276 Items:10553170 Guilds:1359 Online:387 IP's:228 (554 today) Uptime: 13:10

[N-SilverBABY!!]

Past few nights I heard there were field fights returning players etc; then I look at the pop count right now and it says 365 online and its 7pm. I never saw the pop drop below 425 at this time even when I thought it was super slow/dead last month. It seems like there's more on now but its not showing. Is there an actual population for unique ips? Cause this seems strange to me. Feels like more people on but shows less

Seeing as how someone else brought it up I figured i'd jump in here. First off let me say I LOVE this server and want only good things for it. Now with that said this server has probably 100 or less people on even at 400 players online. It may be true that there is good pvp the last couple of nights at the GY BUT if you look just behind the curtain there is NO ONE on no blues farming no reds looking for blues its a wasteland.

[Lord Cavewight of GL]

Now with that said this server has probably 100 or less people on even at 400 players online.

Looks more like 228 real people for 387 logged on.

[Menkaure]

Where's that chart Kaivan showed before, anyone know? Has server eer been this dead? Weird how just march of this year I saw pop hit like 750 or something, what happened?

[Kaivan]

JoinUO statistics for UOSA player count. This does not reflect the IP count, not that the IP count is fully accurate regarding the number of actual players either.

[skynyrd2]

The action doesn't really dictate the population number. Honestly I think it would be wise for staff to turn it off. People log on and see that and think man this server is dead no reason to play, which in reality is far from the truth.

It isn't like it was during the peak of 800 or so. This server last because of the fact it isn't pvp oriented. But unfortunately lack of content and a somewhat screwed up economy pushed away a lot of non pvp type players. With the addition of new gms and some old vets giving away some silver hopefully we can rekindle some love.

There was a great deal of people at the Gem Encrusted nuj event and hopefully we keep seeing things move in that direction.

When Magic Arrow 2 launched UOSA was toast or so everyone thought , it rebounded from that and saw great numbers just a few short months ago. Longevity is there and there is only 1 other freeserver ever that has that and none of which that are t2a.

I think ultimately people can bitch about what they want but all they really care about at the end of the day is knowing the staff cares as much about this server as they do. And that we are going to see UOSA year after year and not have to worry about it being shut down. I think derrick has touched base on this a little bit but not fully..

Regardless great server great people(somewhat) fun times.

[memememe]

Past few nights I heard there were field fights returning players etc; then I look at the pop count right now and it says 365 online and its 7pm. I never saw the pop drop below 425 at this time even when I thought it was super slow/dead last month. It seems like there's more on now but its not showing. Is there an actual population for unique ips? Cause this seems strange to me. Feels like more people on but shows less

Seeing as how someone else brought it up I figured i'd jump in here. First off let me say I LOVE this server and want only good things for it. Now with that said this server has probably 100 or less people on even at 400 players online. It may be true that there is good pvp the last couple of nights at the GY BUT if you look just behind the curtain there is NO ONE on no blues farming no reds looking for blues its a wasteland.

Not true. When I do my rounds at the sickest off-peak hours there are people at the usual farm spots, even stuff like covetous 3 liches.
It's not none-stop farming. But if you put a ghost at hyth balrons, shame bloods and destard AW room and just check the log now and then you'll see lots of blue names.

Lately I've even seen some REAL new players, prolly close to a dozen different names farming brit GY in true newbie fashion. And here I mean people who are happy when you hand them a few bandages or a plain silver weapon. So whenever I see people like that I hand them out a small token like that. Mostly on my red char too, so I hope they realize that not everyone is evil here and will stick around to tough out the harsh starting time of when you have pretty much nothing. A few hand outs here will prolly go a lot further than setting them up in a co-owned house and all that jazz, they would miss a lot of what UO is. Back on OSI I was probably a real newb for a year, and enjoyed it a lot.
Gotta say though, besides the odd thief stealing something useless from them (imo a neat way to teach them that not all of UO is nice ) I've seen mostly everyone leave them be. It's nice to see that even without protection mechanics we have a relatively save haven area, because at that state they really don't need to be tripple-FS-roasted and dry looted. They can transition to that when they get to yew or deceit liches

Ya me rambling.
tl;dr version:
More oranges seem to be popping up, blues do farm, and new people seem to be coming as well. From my personal perspective: Already a lot better than this time a month ago.

[Kye Smogg]

Past few nights I heard there were field fights returning players etc; then I look at the pop count right now and it says 365 online and its 7pm. I never saw the pop drop below 425 at this time even when I thought it was super slow/dead last month. It seems like there's more on now but its not showing. Is there an actual population for unique ips? Cause this seems strange to me. Feels like more people on but shows less

Seeing as how someone else brought it up I figured i'd jump in here. First off let me say I LOVE this server and want only good things for it. Now with that said this server has probably 100 or less people on even at 400 players online. It may be true that there is good pvp the last couple of nights at the GY BUT if you look just behind the curtain there is NO ONE on no blues farming no reds looking for blues its a wasteland.

Not true. When I do my rounds at the sickest off-peak hours there are people at the usual farm spots, even stuff like covetous 3 liches.
It's not none-stop farming. But if you put a ghost at hyth balrons, shame bloods and destard AW room and just check the log now and then you'll see lots of blue names.

Lately I've even seen some REAL new players, prolly close to a dozen different names farming brit GY in true newbie fashion. And here I mean people who are happy when you hand them a few bandages or a plain silver weapon. So whenever I see people like that I hand them out a small token like that. Mostly on my red char too, so I hope they realize that not everyone is evil here and will stick around to tough out the harsh starting time of when you have pretty much nothing. A few hand outs here will prolly go a lot further than setting them up in a co-owned house and all that jazz, they would miss a lot of what UO is. Back on OSI I was probably a real newb for a year, and enjoyed it a lot.
Gotta say though, besides the odd thief stealing something useless from them (imo a neat way to teach them that not all of UO is nice ) I've seen mostly everyone leave them be. It's nice to see that even without protection mechanics we have a relatively save haven area, because at that state they really don't need to be tripple-FS-roasted and dry looted. They can transition to that when they get to yew or deceit liches

Ya me rambling.
tl;dr version:
More oranges seem to be popping up, blues do farm, and new people seem to be coming as well. From my personal perspective: Already a lot better than this time a month ago.

It sounds like you are trying to convince people of it more than you actually believe it.

I have made the thief runs around the banks, and there are far, far fewer people around now. When looking at the chart posted above, when viewing the yearly breakdown you can see the trend going one undeniable direction. First, people claimed it was summer for the decline. Now, I'm sure people will start blaming winter.

The UO freeshard phenomenon is simply on the decline. The ones that will likely survive the storm will find new and unique ways to keep people returning, there's only so much "nostalgia" one can experience before its no longer nostalgia, then it just becomes a question of "how long before it gets old/burnout sets in/another game takes over".

UOSA brought a new era of re-experiencing the "golden days". But that era too is now in the past. Someday there will be a server recreating this UOSA shard. [Save those patch notes peeps!]

[Aeris]

When looking at the chart posted above, when viewing the yearly breakdown you can see the trend going one undeniable direction.

Nice post Kyle, but did you actually look at the chart? Every year the population has surged during late winter, this year's late winter being the all-time high (although perhaps biased, since 4 years ago with the PIII 500 and 64 Mb of RAM, maybe people weren't running 3 clients </sarcasm>). There are a couple other random surges (Aug '11, Aug '12), but the late winter surge is pretty telling, so not sure what you're trying to argue.

Don't forget, there are probably lots of people waiting to get the UO blues and come back, just like I did in February for the first time in 12 years. Of course I don't expect to be here for more than a couple years, when I will get bored, that's the way it goes, but maybe some more new ones will come then, too.

[memememe]

Back when I started in april and peak was close to 700 I couldn't really appreciate it. Those numbers seem insanely high compared to right now, and I'm really sad that I missed it.
So don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to tell people "Yea summer is over, pop is going to double up in no time!", cause that just isn't the case. Unless one of the 2 other big shards out there implodes I just don't see that happening.

What I CAN say though is that there is a noticeable difference between today and 2 months ago. Lot's of factors are involved of course, so it may just be my subjective view.
But it's little things like pvp picking up again and the people I noticed at brit gy that give me hope.

I'm well aware of the fact that UO is a project destined to die. No big funding, little advertisement, nothing to draw people to it besides "it's a sandbox" as it's really hard to explain what this game, and especially this era, is all about. The learning curve is pretty steep so people without OSI experience need to either have their hand held for a decent amount of time or need to have an insanely thick skin.


But in the end there's one thing I'm sure about: We've got a slight updraft, UOSA isn't gonna die this Winter.

[Budner]

Winter is coming.

[Lambo]

Its UO freeshards in general don't point fingers around 1am eastern time last night every UO freeserver was under 400 UOSA was ranked 3 only 6 clients shy of #2.

UOSA will always be the top 3 largest freeservers as long as derrick keeps it up.