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Scope of the survey
Recently, more and more threads seem to emerge from people asking about the population of servers (maybe considering migration or starting a new character). I figured it was time to publish some server stats for my server in response to this.
Similar statistics have been published about six months ago for Hades: ( Server Statistics (Hades Server - May 13-23).
Server: Hades
Monitoring period: October 14, 2005 to November 19, 2005
Time zone: GMT+1 (EU)
1. Server population
To gather information about server population (number of people logged on at the moment) I simply used the "/sea all" command at random times (whenever I was on) in the monitoring period. I did a total of 17 measurements over a 36 day period, trying to cover JP, NA and EU prime time, weekends and holidays. The number of anonymous players (#Anon) was calculated as the difference between the total number of players on line (# PC) and the sum of all individual jobs (see next paragraph).
Date Time # PC #Anon Fr Oct 14 08:20 2047 754 (37%) Su Oct 16 12:50 3086 1049 (34%) Mo Oct 17 19:50 2133 1395 (35%) Tu Oct 18 08:26 2002 752 (38%) We Oct 19 08:15 1982 768 (39%) Th Oct 20 08:20 1945 743 (38%) Su Oct 23 00:48 2513 846 (34%) We Oct 27 01:07 2140 754 (35%) Sa Oct 29 19:09 3198 1135 (36%) Mo Oct 31 15:09 3322 1139 (34%) Sa Nov 01 16:40 3602 1156 (32%) Tu Nov 08 08:29 2042 762 (37%) We Nov 09 08:41 2071 817 (39%) Th Nov 10 08:20 2049 801 (39%) Tu Nov 15 12:18 2634 1004 (38%) Th Nov 17 13:17 3011 1059 (35%) Sa Nov 19 14:15 3627 1103 (30%) Average 2554 905 (36%)
Conclusion:
1) In the monitoring period, the population of Hades varied between 1945 (min) and 3627 (max) with an average of 2554 +/- 618 (as compared to 2419 +/- 578 for the previous monitoring periode six months ago). So the population on Hades seems to have stayed the same (despite the migration influx).
2) Over one third of those people are logged on anonymously (a slight increase compared to six months ago: from 33 +/- 3% to 36 +/- 3%)
3) Weekends are still the busiest days (no surprise there).
2. Job Distribution
2.a. Basic Jobs
The results given below are the calculated averages of the same 17 measurements mentioned in paragraph 1. Included are the minimum observed value (Min), the maximum observed value (Max) and the calculated standard deviation on the average (+/- value) (all based on the number of non-Anonymous players of course). The results are presented in descending order.
Job Distribution Min Max BLM 13.5% +/- 0.9% 12.0% 15.0% RDM 11.5% +/- 0.9% 10.3% 13.3% WHM 11.3% +/- 0.8% 9.9% 12.7% WAR 8.9% +/- 0.9% 7.4% 10.6% THF 8.9% +/- 0.8% 7.4% 10.5% MNK 6.6% +/- 0.6% 5.7% 7.8% Total 60.7% +/- 1.0%
Conclusion:
1) 60.7% (+/- 1.0%) of the players were on line as one of the basic jobs as main. This is about the same number (slight decrease) as in the previous monitoring period (62.4 +/- 1.1%).
2) The day-to-day variation on job distribution is again very small, even taken over different periods (JP/NA/EU prime time, week ends, holidays, ... ). This indicates that the above numbers are a good representation of job distribution.
3) The Mage jobs are by far the most popular but WHM has lost first place to BLM now. WHM and RDM can be considered to share second place. WAR and THF share the fourth place, MNK is still last.
2.b. Advanced Jobs
These results were obtained in the same way as described in paragraph 2.a.
Job Distribution Min Max NIN 8.9% +/- 1.0% 6.1% 10.2% PLD 5.9% +/- 0.6% 5.1% 6.8% BST 4.4% +/- 0.4% 3.7% 5.0% DRK 3.8% +/- 0.5% 3.0% 4.8% BRD 3.7% +/- 0.5% 2.6% 4.7% SMN 3.7% +/- 0.5% 2.6% 4.4% SAM 3.5% +/- 0.4% 2.9% 4.2% RNG 3.1% +/- 0.5% 2.2% 4.3% DRG 2.3% +/- 0.6% 1.4% 3.2% Total 39.3% +/- 1.0%
Conclusion:
1) At least 39.3% (+/- 1.0%) of the players have one of the advanced jobs as their main job (slight increase from previous period: 37.6 +/- 1.1). This implicitly means that over one third of the players has at least one basic job higher than level 30.
2) Ninja still is by far the most popular advanced job (increase from 6.4% to 8.9%), while RNG is the biggest loser (from 6.2% to 3.1%) dropping from second to last but one place. This is a strong indication of just how devastating a tweak (or call it nerf) by SE can be on gameplay.
3) Paladin now takes the second place from Ranger, while Beastmaster also is a strong climber taking third place (coming from sixth with 3.4 +/- 0.4% previous). Bard gains in importance too and climbs from eighth place (with 2.9 +/- 0.5%) to fifth place (with 3.7 +/- 0.5%).
4) Dark Night holds fourth place, Summoner and Bard share fifth, Samurai keeps seventh place and Dragoon still comes in last.
3. Town Distribution
These results were also obtained in the same way as described in paragraph 2.
Town Distribution Min Max
SAN D'ORIA 37.7% +/- 1.7% 35.6% 40.3%
BASTOK 31.8% +/- 1.0% 30.5% 33.9%
WINDURST 30.5% +/- 1.3% 28.4% 33.8% Conclusion:
1) San d'Oria still houses the most citicens on Hades and Windurst the least (despite the fact that the mage jobs are the most common) with Bastok somewhere in between the middle. No significant change since previous monitoring period.
4. Race Distribution
The results for racial distribution were taken from three distinct measurements only (Sa Oct 29 2005 @ 19:09, Mo Oct 31 @ 15:09 and Sa Nov 19 @ 14:15). Average and standard deviation were calculated an are presented in the table below.
Race %PC (Hades)
Hume 41.9% +/- 0.8%
Taru 23.2% +/- 1.1%
Elvaan 19.0% +/- 1.0%
Mithra 11.5% +/- 0.8%
Galka 4.4% +/- 0.1% Conclusion:
1) Hume is by far the most preferred race, Galka the least.
2) No significant change in race distribution since previous monitoring period.
5. Level Distribution
The results for Level Distribution were obtained in the same way as described in paragraph 4.
Level %PC (split levels)
0-10 7.2% +/- 0.9%
11-20 8.1% +/- 1.3%
21-30 9.6% +/- 0.3%
31-40 9.1% +/- 0.3%
40-50 7.7% +/- 0.5% 41-45 2.7% +/- 0.2%
46-50 5.0% +/- 0.7%
50-60 12.2% +/- 0.5 % 51-55 4.8% +/- 0.3%
56-60 7.4% +/- 0.6%
60-70 14.9% +/- 0.6 % 61-65 7.3% +/- 0.8%
66-70 7.6% +/- 0.4%
71-75 31.2% +/- 3.1% Conclusion:
Quite a change compared with the situation half a year ago!
1) About a third of the players are playing a job sub-40 now (compared to half of the players).
2) The number of level 71+ players has increased drastically from 18% previously to 31% now! Don't say Hades is a 'dead' server!
6. Rank Distribution
The results for Level Distribution were obtained in the same way as described in paragraph 4 and 5.
Rank % PC
1 6.6% +/- 1.0%
2 6.5% +/- 1.6%
3 3.7% +/- 0.3%
4 3.2% +/- 0.7%
5 17.3% +/- 1.1%
6 17.9% +/- 1.5%
7 8.1% +/- 0.8%
8 6.9% +/- 0.4%
9 6.0% +/- 0.2%
10 23.8% +/- 3.3% Conclusion:
Same conclusion as in previous paragraph: significant increase in average rank level of Hades players (indicating the server population is 'ageing').
1) Less then one sixth (previously one third) of the players have a rank equal to or below 3. Probably quite a number of the sub 3 players can be attributed to 'mule' characters. Since mules have generally no advantage in raising rank (contrary to raising fame), these characters generally stay at rank 1-3.
2) The peak at rank 5 (about one sixth of the players) can be explained by the fact that at this level players get their Airship Pass, which is a very good incentive to reaching Rank 5.
3) The peak at rank 6 (also about one sixth of the players) can be explained by the fact that rank 6 is required to open the Zilart Missions. Compared to previous monitoring period, the number of Rank 6 players has drastically increased (from 11.6% to 17.9%). I assume this can be mostly attributed to the fact more and more people are trying to finish (or start with) the Zilart Missions.
3) The peak at rank 10 (23%) is most likely associated with the level 71+ players.
General Conclusion and call for feed-back
From the StDev calculations, I'm confident that whenever there are enough people on line to have a sufficient population (around 2000 or more people on), a snapshot of that moment gives a good and reliable picture of that servers stats. Day of the week, time of the day, JP/NA/EU prime time, holidays, weekends, ... they all don't seem to have a great effect on the statistical data. So if people from other servers would care to spend about 10 minutes of their playing time, we could generate similar stats from other servers and compare.