[daslog]

I think this is a bad idea. Denying players information to make them login is just bad design

[Eraser55]

remove online numbers.. eve doesn't have it and still there are thousands of people playing..

[Ambrosius]

Jumpgate has always been a far superior game to Eve. Why backslide?

[Pyrophred]

once again its the "if you never had it, how would you know?" thing. will new players care if they were never aware of the tool in the first place? besides, if we do manage to get huge numbers, it will be a pain to scroll through them all before logging in.

Did anyone here honestly look through the entire online list every time you logged on when the numbers were 300+ ? I know I didnt always bother, because I was going to log in regardless of who was out there

[daslog]

Originally Posted by Pyrophred

once again its the "if you never had it, how would you know?" thing. will new players care if they were never aware of the tool in the first place? besides, if we do manage to get huge numbers, it will be a pain to scroll through them all before logging in.

Did anyone here honestly look through the entire online list every time you logged on when the numbers were 300+ ? I know I didnt always bother, because I was going to log in regardless of who was out there

we used it to see who was HG.

[Pyrophred]

I stand corrected

[Lordopic]

Originally Posted by Eraser55

remove online numbers.. eve doesn't have it and still there are thousands of people playing..

When you fire up the log in for eve it tells you how many are on and the state of the server, which as i type is ok and has 14556, which at 9:00am GMT isnt too shabby.

[JoCool]

Total online numbers once, ingame on the login screen. Nothing more please.

[Bingofuel]

Most other MMO games will not tell you haw many people are on period.

I agree with the original poster. In general it is bad practice to post who is logged on for all to see. Even the player stats should not indicate whether someone is active,docked,in flight.

[Tim]

I think it's a good idea to display who is online because the 'who' is what makes a MMO worth playing.

It's _because_ of the other people that most folks log in, not in spite of them.

This is a community game, perhaps even more so than eve and diablo because there is some skill involved. That community, like any, depends on communication. Communication begins with friends and acquaintances, and as such it should be well known who is around.

Most of the posts in this thread assume that there is somebody on who we are afraid to log in and deal with. I suspect the exact opposite is the case: there is somebody on who we would _like_ to interact with.

[Tim]

Additional argument, concerning those billions of new players we can't live without:

people are basically sheep. If 'everybody' is doing it, it must be good. Seeing a ton of online folks is purely a good thing. It makes the game seem more popular.

Also, if you are a newbie, you might only know one or two folks. Seeing that they are in the game, or seeing some semi-familiar names, would at least let you know who you can talk to once you log in.

[Eraser55]

First.. I don't log in in the morning.. even if I can cause I see 15 people online. Fewer then 40 and I still wont log in. booooooring.
2nd.. I cant go pirate without the whole server knowing about it.
3rd. People wont fight if they are outnumbered. They wont even launch sometimes for many hours. This also counts for pirates. and for haulers when they see few pirates online.

Where is the element of surprise?