EVE hits new milestone with 56,021 players online
by James Egan 
Jan 11th 2010 at 6:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry, News items
It was just last week when we mentioned EVE Online's new peak concurrent user (PCU) record of 54,446 pilots online. That record was smashed yesterday though, only one week after the previous PCU record was set, with 56,021 pilots online in New Eden. Beyond the new PCU record being set, this past Sunday's traffic may also make CCP raise the limit on number of players that can be in the Jita trade hub at a given time. 1400 players crowded into Jita yesterday, which is apparently the hard limit that the game's developers had set for the busy solar system. This prompted CCP Games Software Director Erlendur Þorsteinsson (aka CCP Explorer) to state, "We have been increasing the limit in the last few weeks and it looks like there might possibly be room for more in Jita."
This could be good news for the legions of traders who flock to the system, and overall a good sign for EVE Online to see the PCU climbing higher and higher. Likely a major factor in the surge of active players is the upswing in nullsec alliance warfare which resulted from changes in the Dominion expansion -- not the least of which is that a certain moon material holds great value now; the desire to control these rare resources is a major driver for large scale conflict. And of course, the recent 'get EVE for $5' sales on Steam probably hasn't hurt either.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Graill said on 6:12PM 1-11-2010
......really?!
Why is EVE the only niche mmo given press when two more people sub to the game or some miner boxes two more accounts? It is ignorant at best to constantly give this MMO an attaboy everytime they beat their old record of small subs at peak times.
It serves no purpose other than showing us, and anyone just happening by to this site that EVE is pathetic and has a small minority customer base of 27k folks avg over the last two years and at peak times the gold sellers and boxers log on everything. Now move along.
I cant help but wonder, and i have been told by the staff here that CCP pays them nothing, these folks, or at least a couple get some type of kickback to keep posting about EVE so much. A person just has to wonder.
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Kevin said on 6:30PM 1-11-2010
Yes, thanks. You hate EVE. We get it. You can stop any time now.
Lateris said on 6:34PM 1-11-2010
What MMORPG's do you play?
Descender|LE said on 9:35PM 1-11-2010
"It serves no purpose other than showing us, and anyone just happening by to this site that EVE is pathetic and has a small minority customer base of 27k folks avg over the last two years and at peak times the gold sellers and boxers log on everything. Now move along."
Try again, buddy. What this goes to show is that CCP is still leading the industry as far as a stable "Single Shard" set up. They're showing that their technology is able to handle Fifty-four THOUSAND people online at the same time. Your precious World of Warcraft or Aion is lucky to handle a couple thousand at a time per server.
So pats on the backs are wholly deserved for CCP and EVE Online. They're showing it can be done, and that it works, which paves the way for games that allow players to make a significant impact to what they're playing, instead of just another WoW clone.
Firebreak said on 2:50AM 1-12-2010
And by 27k you mean 300k, or do you think that everyone plays MMOs at the exact same time?
dudemanjac said on 10:54PM 1-11-2010
I'm not a massive fan of the game, but I think it is pretty impressive. It's not that they have only so many ppl playing it's that they have them oll playing on one server cluster. I believ that has been the big deal all along. I don't knoe how many ppl are on a WoW server at a time. Anyone got those numbers?
Jason said on 7:20PM 1-11-2010
This is a really great thing, but the fact that 0.0 is significantly broken at the moment due to lag overshadows this a bit.
The lag is so bad in some situations people are getting the insurance for their ship that was blown up and keeping the ship at the same time. Not to mention CCP allowing a station to be taken over while it was in a bugged state, and the many cases of people not loading the grid when they jump into a system for sometimes up to an hour later.
Dominion was supposed to reduce blobing and bring more opportunities to small corporations and alliances, but it has done the exact opposite. Blobing is how you win, and it is bringing the EvE's servers to its knees.
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DrewIW said on 6:38PM 1-11-2010
+1
Accipeter said on 10:41AM 1-12-2010
That's a shame.
Dag said on 6:20PM 1-11-2010
I wouldn't mind re-designing some aspects of Eve but I have to admit it is a solid game with a promonisng future. Abit open ended, if one doesn't mind sticking around.
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DrewIW said on 6:50PM 1-11-2010
mmorpg.com game of the year!
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/14/feature/3908/page/1
Obviously a "niche" and "pathetic" game.
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UltimateQ said on 9:27PM 1-11-2010
Wow So cool, W101 was on the list. That's fantastic, because it really deserves at least a nomination. Now onto Eve, I am happy to see that it won. Because I think it's worthy.
Accipeter said on 10:44AM 1-12-2010
Yes, I've only recently started playing, but I'm finding it a very engaging game. The plans for "walking in stations" sound exciting -- I hope they get implemented. It would add tremendously to the game, in my opinion
mpdivo said on 7:15PM 1-11-2010
I attribute this spike to Hulkagedon and Drew's enlightening comments.
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DrewIW said on 7:19PM 1-11-2010
I'm doing my best to scare carebears away, but it just doesn't work.
>.
DrewIW said on 7:36PM 1-11-2010
btw, still waiting for you to find a single suicide gank on my killboard. I mean, obviously enjoying that EVE is the only MMO with legitimate risk makes me a non-stop suicide ganker, right?
mpdivo said on 10:04PM 1-11-2010
you're morally corrupt and the reason why EVE is unplayable by some. In my opinion, it is ok to play a dangerous game, one based on PvP. It's another to defend exploits of the game in order to cause grief to new players.
I've never had a problem with suicide ganking. You have inspired me though to be more proactive in the game, to encourage CCP to give more power to the council as well as small changes such as insurance and a fix to station games in high sec.
I'm a carebare, and I enjoy Eve, and loosers like you will not scare me away.
Timmah! said on 9:17AM 1-12-2010
Seriously, the monthly updates on eve's concurrent connections is not news.
300k subscribers, a good chunk of which are macro miners and alts is just not impressive. Stop already.
You wouldnt tell us every time WoW got another 30k subscribers would you? How is this any different?
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ChromeBallz said on 9:38AM 1-12-2010
To put it into perspective: Any given WoW realm (which consists of 4 "nodes" plus instance and battleground servers shared with the battlegroup) can handle 2500 people before you get login queues.
This game has only one realm and manages to squeeze 26 *full* WoW realms worth of players in there. The reason Massively reports on it is because of the technical achievement of having everyone in the same game world. And no, it is not instanced, it is zoned, which is a significantly different thing. There is only one instance of any given area. You will never, ever have 2 Jita's just because the first one was full.
That, and last year EVE actually went down a lot in concurrent numbers because a hell of a lot of macro-miners and bots were banned. It took untill now (and probably the $5 steam thing indeed) to get it back up to scratch. While 20-30% of those logged in accounts may be by less players (someone logging in with 2 or more accounts), it's still a significant achievement. Darkfall can't handle more than 10k per realm, Aion (i believe, have to check) around 5 to 7k. Champions Online and Guild Wars *do* instance areas when there;s too many people in it, so they can't really be compared (let alone that they start instancing at 25 people or so apparently).
Timmah! said on 10:19AM 1-13-2010
I'm not saying it's not a feat, I'm saying that we were informed last week about this but the number was like 500 lower. I dont mind stories about eve, but I think most people dont give a crap about how many people are playing at the same time on one server. If they sharded like everyone else, maybe the lag would be more barable and as a side effect, each shard wouldnt be dominated by goons (even if I do love their videos)
Truth is, once you get to 0.0, it all feels pretty empty anyway.
Let me know when they get 50k players in jita, till then, shhh.