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August 26, 2005
Zone Populations by Time of Day
Server Sample: RP (High), PvE (Medium), PvE (High), PvP (High)
Sampling Period: 7/05/2005 12:00 am - 7/12/2005 12:00 am
Sampling Resolution: ~14 minutes
Parsing Method: We parsed the number of characters in each zone. Characters just passing through (seen for only one snapshot and not the next are not counted). Characters who were in 2 zones in an hour had both zones counted.
Data Filter: None
Sample Size: 50,464 zone counts
First, we graphed the average population in each zone. Unsurprisingly, Ironforge is the most populated zone, followed by Ogrimmar and The Barrens.
Next, we chart the zone populations by time of day.
Among the main cities, the average zone population (by proportion) is fairly stable over the day.
The same is true for the outdoor zones.
Among the instances, Molten Core sticks out as the only zone that seems to fluctuate proportionately as a function of time. Also, the instance population counts swell more in the evening hours than do in the Outdoor and Main City zones.
Posted at August 26, 2005 10:57 AM
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Comments
But what about the battlegrounds? :-)
Posted by: Joel Martinez at September 2, 2005 07:51 AM
These are great, but they leave me wanting more. Do you have separate data for weekends and weekdays? I would bet that they display some interesting differnces. Also, what timezones were the servers in?
Really beautiful work.
Posted by: periphera at September 2, 2005 07:18 PM
Periphera, the RP server, the medium-load normal server, and one of the PvP servers are east coast. The high-volume normal server is on central time. I'll have to check the time zone of the other PvP server. (I can't remember which server it is, atm.)
Yes, we have separate data for weekdays and weekends, and were just asking ourselves the same questions. It will be interesting to see.
Posted by: Eric Nickell at September 3, 2005 04:18 PM
I think Blizzard should take note of the lack of popularity of Darnassus!
Implementing auctioneers at other capital cities won't help much, the city is not a transport hub and higher-level characters have little reason to visit.
Posted by: Dave at September 7, 2005 11:45 PM
any chance you could send me an excel sheet or similar with the numbers of the zone population and eventually horde/alliance numbers? :)
TVMIA
Posted by: MFighter at November 16, 2005 07:31 AM
you should make new ones of these to include outland now that burning crusade is out. these are awesome would love to see more.
Posted by: wowplayer at June 17, 2007 02:03 AM
Can you weight the graphs to take out the trend of lower and higher population at popular and unpopular times?
This would allow us to see for example that people are in cities in the morning and not in the evening.
Posted by: Alan at July 26, 2008 04:10 PM