Some numerical population data for SWTOR servers

Dulfy 49 Comments Feb 24, 2012

Hey everyone, server population and faction balance has always being a hot topic in SWTOR. In response to the surging demands in the early days of SWTOR launch, many servers were opened up to drive down the server queues. Come March 1st, oceanic servers will be opened up, this will add quite a few servers to the already extensive sever list.

To my knowledge, there has being previously very little, if any, study on the actual SWTOR population for each server. Bioware has not released any actual numbers and 3rd party sites lack the tools to analyze the population effectively (i.e. TORstatus.net offers a longitudinal examination of server load, but offers no insight to actual server population).

I have started a little project that will give some actual numbers to the population status on each of the SWTOR servers. This project is only completed for US PVE and RP-PVE servers. If there is enough interest, I can do the same for US PVP servers and maybe EU servers in the future. All the data are collected by hand, via creating two level 1 characters on each server and using the who list to record population numbers in each planet.

As it is impossible to collect data for all the planets for all the servers at the same time, I have restricted myself to 6 planets + the fleet for each faction and restricted my data collection to “prime-time” for each server (i.e. 6:30 – 10 pm EST for East Coast Servers and 6:30 to 10 pm PST for West Coast servers) over a span of 3 days.

The six planets studied are:

K/T – Korriban/Tython

D/C – Dromund Kaas/ Coruscant

Alderaan

Hoth

Voss

Ilum

These six planets + the fleet represents roughly 45% of the total server population for each faction and allow a very rough estimation of the total server population.

PVE/RP servers population ranking
PVE/RP servers Imperial/Republic Ratio
PVE/RP servers Ilum population
PVE/RP servers population distribution
Estimated total poplation of all PVE/RP servers and other interesting facts
Raw data

PVE/RP Servers population ranking

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for most population

Rank	Server	Type	Population
1	Canderous Ordo	PVE-E	1079
2	The Harbinger	PVE-W	1072
3	Lord Adraas	RP-E	862
4	Mind Trick	PVE-E	746
5	The Ebon Hawk	RP-E	745
6	Shadow Hand	PVE-E	718
7	Krayt Dragon	PVE-E	717
8	The Shadowlands	PVE-E	699
9	Jedi Covenant	PVE-E	678
10	Space Slug	PVE-W	647

Top 10 PVE/PVE servers for least population

Rank	Server	Type	Population
1	Sedyn Kane	PVE-E	109
2	Nathema	PVE-E	113
3	The Defenestrator	PVE-E	115
4	Telos Restoration Project	PVE-E	119
5	Crevasse City	PVE-E	120
6	Foraxan Shark	PVE-E	133
7	Zez-Kai Ell	PVE-E	714
8	Keetael	PVE-E	146
9	HanHarr	PVE-E	147
10	Axial Park	PVE-E	152

PVE East Coast servers ranked by population

PVE West Coast servers ranked by population

RP PVE servers ranked by population

PVE/RP servers Imperial/Republic Ratio

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for most Imperial Ratio

Rank	Server	Type	Ratio
1	Sith Meditation Sphere	PVE-E	2.91
2	Lord Praven	PVE-W	2.22
3	Mask of Nihilus	PVE-W	2.20
4	Tarro Blood	PVE-E	2.03
5	Assassins of Sion	PVE-E	1.90
6	Darth Xedrix	PVE-W	1.94
7	Darth Brandon	PVE-E	1.93
8	Darth Sion	PVE-W	1.90
9	Sith Wyrm	PVE-E	1.87
10	Shadow Hand	PVE-E	1.86

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for least Imperial Ratio (most Republic Ratio)

Rank	Server	Type	Ratio
1	Wall of Light	PVE-W	0.72
2	The Shadowlands	PVE-E	0.76
3	The Courageous	PVE-E	0.76
4	Empress Teta	PVE-W	0.78
5	The Ebon Hawk	RP-E	0.78
6	Whitebeam Run	PVE-E	0.83
7	Ki-Ta Kren	PVE-E	0.84
8	Perlemian Trade Route	PVE-W	0.84
9	Sedyn Kyne	PVE-E	0.85
10	Anturi Reach	PVE-E	0.85

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for most faction balance (ratio ~1)

Rank	Server	Type	Ratio
1	Namadii Corridor	PVE-W	1.00
2	Corellian Run	PVE-E	1.01
3	Thana Vesh	PVE-E	1.01
4	Veeboo Lunx	PVE-W	1.01
5	The Defenestrator	PVE-E	1.02
6	The Jekk’Jekk Tarr	PVE-W	1.02
7	Grand Master Zyrm	PVE-E	1.03
8	Begeren Colony	RP-W	1.04
9	Rubut Crystal	RP-E	0.96
10	Fa’athra	PVE-W	0.85

PVE – East coast Imperial/Republic Ratio

PVE – West coast Imperial/Republic Ratio

PVE- RP server Imperial/Republic Ratio

PVE/RP servers Ilum population

Most % of players on Ilum – Both factions combined

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for most % of players on Ilum (both factions combined)

Rank	Server	Type	% of total pop
1	Keller’s Void	PVE-E	19.60
2	Juyo	PVE-E	14.29
3	Sith Wyrm	PVE-E	13.57
4	Tarro Blood	PVE-E	12.94
5	Giradda the Hutt	PVE-E	12.74
6	Grand Master Zym	PVE-E	11.18
7	The Shadowlands	PVE-E	10.16
8	Sedyn Kyne	PVE-E	10.09
9	Master Zhar Lestin	PVE-W	9.84
10	Jedi Covenant	PVE-E	9.73

Most players on Ilum – Both factions combined

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for most players on Ilum (both factions combined)

Rank	Server	Type	Players
1	Keller’s Void	PVE-E	98
2	Sith Wyrm	PVE-E	79
3	Canderous Ordo	PVE-E	74
4	Juyo	PVE-E	73
5	The Shadowlands	PVE-E	71
6	Mind Trick	PVE-E	67
7	Jedi Covenant	PVE-E	66
8	The Harbinger	PVE-W	63
9	Tarro Blood	PVE-E	62
10	Krayt Dragon	PVE-E	57

Most players on Ilum – Republic

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for most Republic players on Ilum

Rank	Server	Type	Players
1	Juyo	PVE-E	46
2	Keller’s Void	PVE-E	45
3	Sith Wyrm	PVE-E	41
4	The Shadowlands	PVE-E	40
5	Canderous Ordo	PVE-E	39
6	Jedi Covenant	PVE-E	33
7	The Jekk’Jekk Tarr	PVE-W	33
8	The Harbinger	PVE-W	32
9	Mind Trick	PVE-E	28
10	Tarro Blood	PVE-E	26

Most players on Ilum – Imperial

Top 10 PVE/RP servers for most Imperial players on Ilum

Rank	Server	Type	Players
1	Keller’s Void	PVE-E	53
2	Mask of Nihilus	PVE-W	43
3	Begeren Colony	RP-W	39
4	Mind Trick	PVE-E	39
5	Sith Wyrm	PVE-E	38
6	Krayt Dragon	PVE-E	36
7	Tarro Blood	PVE-E	36
8	Canderous Ordo	PVE-E	35
9	Jedi Covenant	PVE-E	33
10	Giradda the Hutt	PVE-E	32

Imperial/Republic Ratio on Ilum*

*Crevasse City had 0 Republic players on Ilum – divide by 0 and hence no value.

PVE/RP servers population distribution (over 6 planets & fleet)

Server population distribution (Imperial)

Server population distribution (Republic)

Estimated total population on all PVE/RP servers + other interesting stats

Estimation is done assuming that the 6 planets + fleet represent ~ 45% of the total population on a server. This 45% is calculated by dividing the sum of population on all 6 planets + fleet over the total population of all the planets + instances (EV, KP, Warzones, and flashpoints) on the Harbinger server.

Planet/Instance	Population
Korriban	55
Hutta	49
Dromund Kaas	144
Taris	33
Nar Shaddaa	89
Balmorra	85
Tatooine	57
Alderaan	56
Belsavis	63
Hoth	49
Voss	42
Quesh	16
Corellia	30
Ilum	22
Fleet	232
EV	63
KP	16
Civil War	44
The Pit	56
Voidstar	8
BT(Black Talon)	26
BP(Boarding Party)	13
FE(False Emperor)	11
KUS (Kaon)	4
Foundry	10
Athiss	7
Cademimu	6
Est. unaccounted population	50
Total	1336

Korriban +Dromund Kaas + Alderaan + Hoth + Voss + Ilum + Fleet = 600/1336 = 45%

.Using this estimation technique on both factions, this give us 71646 concurrent players on 79 PVE/RP servers – with 35686 concurrent players on 46 PVE East Coast servers, 24817 concurrent players on 24 PVE-West Coast servers and 11142 concurrent players on 9 RP servers.

In terms of overall estimated fraction balance – 39395 concurrent Imperial players and 32250 concurrent Republic players, a Imperial/Republic Ratio of 1.22.

Raw data

The raw excel data file with timestamps can be obtained here as a google doc for personal use only.

Google docs

Youtube video showing you my data gathering method

Ikon

WOW.. that’s a lot of legwork! thanks for putting some numbers to a question i’ve been wondering for a while.

and totally glad that my friends stuck with Harbinger through the queue.
Psynister

I would certainly be interested in seeing what numbers you come up with for PvP servers.
Waldo Wohin

I would also be intested in seeing the PvP Servers.
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Donnie Speeg

Wow, great work.
Were you queued for getting in to any of the servers? What is population cap (or best guess)?
- dulfy
  
  hey yes Harbinger (my server had some long queues in the first weeks of release – 2hr queues. The top east coast still had a 5 minute queue the other day). My guess is that the cap is around 5-6 k for both factions but I don’t have any solid evidence
Percy

Looks like Canderous Ordo and The Harbinger are easily the two best PvE servers to pick from.

I think some PvP servers would be worth checking out though. I’d wager Anchorhead and The Fat Man both are pretty high population as well based on your Ilum number.
- dulfy
  
  yes! Looking to check out the pvp servers this coming monday – weekend would inflate the pvp server numbers since I did all the pve server during the week
Asdjlkf

Excellent work, I wish you would have done a longer span though, there’s so many more people on the weekends.
- dulfy
  
  yes now I have all the characters on all the pve/rp servers.. doing weekend is definitely a possibility and definitely interesting to see how much the population increased on weekends compared to weekdays.
Nostrand

My friends and I were thinking about rerolling Harbinger, what is the Imp/Pub ratio like? Your graph says it’s about even, but what do you think personally?
- dulfy
  
  I have actual chars (not level 1 chars) on both factions in Harbinger. In the early days Ilum was dominated by Imperials and we all thought that Imperials greatly outnumber the Republics. This isn’t really true anymore, you will see very healthy population on both sides now – even on Ilum. Imperials still have a higher population overall though – on the fleet for example you will see 250 Imperials and 180-200 Republics – also alot of Imperials like me are rolling Republic alts – so you will see a higher Republic ratio in the low level zones.
  
  If you check out the google doc file I put at the bottom of the page (above the youtube video), you can search for The Harbinger and see some detailed numbers per planet.
  
  That being said, I do have to warn you that we have a fair bit of Aussies here and many of them are planning to move to the real oceanic servers on March 1 – how that affects Harbinger is still remain to be seen
  - Nostrand
    
    Thanks for your reply and excellent job on this data, keep up the good work!
Jeff

Why did you only use PVE!??! Server balance only matters on pvp….

But seriously thank you for putting in this much work, that was a very impressive read!
- dulfy
  
  Initially wanted to do both actually but there were alot of servers and I didn’t know if people wanted the data or not so I released the PVE data first.
Kelerak

awesome job, im a pvp player.. would be nice if someone did the same for pvp servers… Im on swiftsure lots of people right now but with the aussie servers coming im kinda afraid… lol
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Scorpienne

Thank you for looking into the population and thank you even more for describing your methods and giving us the raw data. I’m a scientist IRL and I appreciate that! 🙂
- dulfy
  
  Nice! which field? I did a psychology/biochem major and did some research in biochem- hence my graphing/excel skills lol 😉
Myth

Ack. The post was a bit too awesome, and I got inspired to run the same method on pvp servers (us) on both Friday and Saturday (two samples). If I have time, I’ll run them again this week, see how much they move.
(putting link to data in website link)

Related: oy that takes ages.
- dulfy
  
  Nice! I should have my data for pvp servers in the next day or two and we can compare! 🙂
LTwoJ Computing

Excellent work, just wanted to drop a note and say it’s appreciated. I’m lucky to be on a server with a 1.04/1 Empire/Republic ratio. I kinda knew it already, but it took me forever to find when I started back in January. I used the less scientific method of starter areas + fleet to determine where to land.
- dulfy
  
  I initially wanted to be lazy and do the fleet – but then I figured creating a new char takes a while so might as well take some additional data 🙂
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Fataali

Nice to see some numbers for once compared to all of the statistic sites. I’ve been doing something similar on the EU servers (So far I’ve only worked through a few but hopefully I’ll be able to get more done). I’ve been going onto Each side on my own server (Uthar Wynn EU sadly a dry server) and comparing numbers of people on at prime times between set level ranges such as 1-10 11-20 ect ect. If you’re looking for help for the EU side of things I’d be more than happy to help! Keep up the good work.
- dulfy
  
  oh very nice! I will finish the US pvp servers this week and then take a look at the European servers if I can find some time. I will definitely keep you in mind, thanks! 🙂
  - Fataali
    
    Well best of luck with that 🙂 I’ve got about 2 weekends worth of prime time stats along with checking every other day so far. My servers on average 400 players on the whole server Inc. Republic and Empire compared to a more successful server of 2500+ at a prime time / weekends / raiding days. Infact we have more people on @ 12:00 for resets than anything else.
Darthsithdious

…wondering if this data was gathered before or after the European servers were added.

Also, where is Ajunta Pall?

Thanks for the great work!!
- dulfy
  
  Hey this data was collected last week – I did not do the European servers yet. Ajunta Pall is a RP-PVP server I believe and therefore will be covered in the next population data post where I look at the PVP servers 🙂
Guest

Nice work, thanks!
Chiggz

Wow, amazing Job and thnx muchly!! Put some perspective into numbers for some of the diehards on the forums. I’d personally be interested in any PVP numbers if you do decide to go that route, understand its a large and long undertaking though, either way, thanks an Cheers!
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Daniel Barbour

Hmm so there’s a total of 143,291 concurrent subscribers in SW:TOR according to your calculations?
- William
  
  No, your math is wrong. There are 71646, then he breaks down how its distributed. You can double check by looking at his Empire / Republic distribution.
  - dulfy
    
    hehe I am a she btw :p
    
    Like William said the estimated concurrent population at peak time on all US PVE server is 71k. This is a very ballpark number and not representative of the total # of subscribers at all. The estimation method is very rough as well – esentially taking one server’s population distribution (Harbinger) and apply it to 78 other servers.
    - KOTEN
      
      so…how do you know the other 78 servers are as “full” as harbinger?
Ancaglon

Hi,

I’m curious why you didn’t just use the level ranges to get the total numbers? e.g 1-9 for the base classes, 10-49 for the levelling Advanced classes, and 50 for the 50’s (although the 50’s usually have to be split by class, e.g. “50 jedi” or “50 sith” or “50 commando” or “50 sniper” etc.) — and on more populous servers you might need to do say 1-9, 10-29, 30-49 ?
- dulfy
  
  that is an interesting idea actually – I didn’t do it because I want to get a sense of how populated each planet is as this affects your questing experience. Also I was not aware that you can sort people by level range. This is something I will definitely keep in mind next time though!
Matt Barrett

Thanks for the info. Would love to get a better idea of class distributions in the future. Any plans for that?
- dulfy
  
  hey, they released an overall class distribution during guild summit
  http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/121.jpg
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Spikeray06

Awesome job man, would really love to seen this done for the us pvp servers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- dulfy
  
  pvp servers were done 😉
  
  http://dulfy.net/2012/03/01/numerical-swtor-population-data-for-pvprp-pvp-servers/
practice numerical tests

However, you can easily improve you own reasoning, as well as test your current level by simply taking psychometric test online yourself.
Timmy

This is a great way to see how full the servers are generally, but it isn’t a very accurate indicator of the unique player population, the only way to see that would be using some type of back-end server metric that identifies each unique id. Still, glad to see my server is in the middle of the road area.
Nyne

BioWare should pay you. Does bioware pay you? they should…
WrecklessMEDIC

Yes! Please do this for US-PvP servers. Been looking for info like this since launch. Well done!! 🙂
Johnb1175

Any server below 300, should be closed and they people should be given the chance to change servers or moved to server that has between 300-600 players. They made the mistake of having to many servers, and they have realized this by, so why is it taking so long to lock the big servers or cut out the smaller ones. I can only imagine how lonely it is on some of those servers below 300. I’m on sith meditaion sphere and its hard to find tanks and healers some times and pvp matches are mostly empire vs empire.

Some numerical population data for SWTOR servers

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