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August 29, 2005
Zone Populations by Character Level, Zone Type, and 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: ~12 minutes
Parsing Method: For each one hour period, we parsed the location of every unique character. Zones that a character is only observed once in (traveling through) are not counted. For each character per hour, only the first zone they are seen in is counted.
Data Filter: None
Sample Size: 1,249,017 Counts
We split character levels up into 3 bands: 1-20, 21-40, and 41-60. We then plotted the average zone population over time of day by zone type - Instance, Outdoor, Main City, and PvP (Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch).
Posted at August 29, 2005 11:00 AM
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Comments
Interesting! As an East coast Australian, my night play sessions would typically start around 2am PDT (7pm) and last until 7am PDT (12am) at the latest.
I know from experience that it's often difficult to find a groups on my nights due to low populations. (I wish Blizzard had designated Australian servers in the first place! GRR)
I find that a number of us leave our level 60 characters alone a lot during the week from frustration at finding the groups we are after. This is primarly as there is very little a level 60 can do alone to progress in World of Warcraft apart from gathering.
Our habits should lead to a small spike in the population of lower level characters, mainly outdoors, during this time. It's hard to see, however, as the whole server populations drop off so dramatically at that time.
Hmm, the more I think about it, the more I'm dissapointed that Blizzard didn't think to encourage people in the Asia/Pacific timezone to play on set servers. (They have in more recent times but not at release)
Posted by: Dave at September 7, 2005 11:07 PM