Wow, just WOW! (About WAR though, not WoW.)
Just found this post about Warhammer Online’s faction population balance. The crux of it?
 Average of All North American ServersÂ
Â
Â
Active Accounts Per Faction: 49% / 51%
Relative Average Exp. Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Relative Average RP Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Average Exp. Per Character: 50% / 50%
Average RP Per Character: 50% / 50%
Monolith
Relative Average Exp. Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Relative Average RP Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Average Exp. Per Character: 50% / 50%
Average RP Per Character: 50% / 50%
Monolith
Â
Active Accounts Per Faction: 44% / 56%
Relative Average Exp. Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Relative Average RP Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Average Exp. Per Character: 51% / 49%
Average RP Per Character: 51% / 49%
Relative Average Exp. Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Relative Average RP Earning Rate per Time Unit: 50% / 50%
Average Exp. Per Character: 51% / 49%
Average RP Per Character: 51% / 49%
Â
The servers are perfectly balanced. That is AMAZING. What are the chances?
That’s pretty impressive. I guess they are getting the hang of this design thing, eh?
It’s certainly not how it started on Monolith. I was pretty cynical, but impressed that they turned it around. On the other hand, not quite so impressed with the class balances, server merges and other related compromises they made to get more people playing Order. I suppose that’s just the cost of it though. And after Slayers get in, they’ll have to swing the bat around the other way to keep the populations balanced.
Overall, I’m hella critical of the two-factions formula. I think three-factions would have naturally balanced better and even worked out better with imbalanced populations, for RvR at least (there’s nothing quite like watching your back as an equalizer).
Still, a good achievement for Mythic, they’ve done what they had to do.
Of course, that is without scrutinizing the numbers. I always have a hard time taking them at full value with MMO companies. Is 50% Order mean 90% t1-t3, 10% t4, while 50% of Destro is 90% t4 and 10% t1-t3?
Yay stats analysis! Wish they would provide the core numbers =)
And Rog, I agree wholehearted awesomely as well. I bet the only reason why they didn’t do that is that it would have been a straight DAOC ripoff, instead of the subtle one they ended up with. (I am a big DAOC fan too).