It’s probably safe to say that most of us are aware of the NGE that has essentially destroyed Star Wars Galaxies. There has been a lot of talk on gaming sites about how drastically the population on this MMORPG’s servers have dwindled. Many have speculated that server pops were merely in the hundreds.
Now it seems as though that speculation was accurate.
It turns out that the SWG servers sends the population numbers of each server to the game client when a person logs in. This is used by the client to determine if the server has a heavy, medium, or light load, which is the information presented to the player. A curious gamer ran a packet sniffer on his computer and checked the information that it logged to determine the number of players currently logged into Star Wars Galaxies.
This information was taken on a Friday evening:
ID: 24 - Name: Europe-Infinity - IP: 195.33.138.101 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0334
ID: 23 - Name: Europe-FarStar - IP: 195.33.138.75 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0133
ID: 22 - Name: Europe-Chimaera - IP: 195.33.138.41 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0331
ID: 1C - Name: Shadowfire - IP: 199.108.197.130 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0518
ID: 1B - Name: Wanderhome - IP: 199.108.197.103 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0462
ID: 1A - Name: Tarquinas - IP: 199.108.197.87 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0456
ID: 19 - Name: Starsider - IP: 199.108.197.50 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0414
ID: 13 - Name: Tempest - IP: 199.108.7.148 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0457
ID: 12 - Name: Valcyn - IP: 199.108.7.111 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0455
ID: 11 - Name: Sunrunner - IP: 199.108.7.73 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0493
ID: 10 - Name: Scylla - IP: 199.108.7.50 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0457
ID: 0F - Name: Naritus - IP: 199.108.8.137 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0496
ID: 0E - Name: Kettemoor - IP: 199.108.8.117 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0522
ID: 0D - Name: Intrepid - IP: 199.108.6.178 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0456
ID: 0C - Name: Flurry - IP: 199.108.6.133 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0473
ID: 0B - Name: Radiant - IP: 199.108.198.70 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0266
ID: 0A - Name: Lowca - IP: 199.108.198.36 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0227
ID: 09 - Name: Kauri - IP: 199.108.196.178 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0245
ID: 08 - Name: Gorath - IP: 199.108.196.131 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0271
ID: 07 - Name: Eclipse - IP: 199.108.196.101 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0397
ID: 06 - Name: Chilastra - IP: 199.108.196.84 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0357
ID: 05 - Name: Bloodfin - IP: 199.108.196.40 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0441
ID: 04 - Name: Corbantis - IP: 199.108.6.105 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0460
ID: 03 - Name: Ahazi - IP: 199.108.6.79 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0520
ID: 02 - Name: Bria - IP: 199.108.6.53 - PortA: 44463 - PortB: 44462 - Population: 0722
This provides a very interesting peek into the actual state of Star Wars Galaxies. Numbers like these cut painfully through the hype and positive PR spinning to reveal the truth of the game’s current state, and I would not be surprised if SOE changes the information that is sent from their servers to hide this data.
As someone who has been following and playing MMORPGs off and on for the last few years I find this information fascinating. I remember when the original EQ used to openly display their population numbers, and I remember the public reaction that occurred when they began hiding them.
Now it seems as though that data has been right under our noses all this time. 
Links for this post:
MMORPG.com’s discussion thread on this subject- MMORPG.com has deleted the thread.
~Mysk
Technorati Tags: SWG, Star Wars, Star Wars Galaxies, MMORPG
February 7th, 2006 at Feb 07, 06 | 1:37 am
MMORPG.com has since deleted the thread. That’s mighty weak of them, in my opinion. Pretty low considering the intelligent and interesting conversation going on in that thread.
February 7th, 2006 at Feb 07, 06 | 2:19 am
Pic 1?
Pic 2?
Pic 3?
Pic 4?
these pics illustrate the process in the original thread on the SWG forums on how to get ethereal to pick up the information.
February 7th, 2006 at Feb 07, 06 | 6:45 am
There appears to be another small thread starting about this subject. If you want to post in it, click here.
Of course, they could just delete it again…
February 8th, 2006 at Feb 08, 06 | 7:32 am
Hi there,
Would be interesting if such a survey could be done over a longer period. As such you could make statistics over the actual size of the community.
February 8th, 2006 at Feb 08, 06 | 8:08 am
Hello Oneish,
I totally agree. If someone gets those numbers then I’ll be glad to put them up along with these.
It’s not something that I can do because I no longer have the software.
February 8th, 2006 at Feb 08, 06 | 9:25 am
I can’t say I’ve actually played SWG so I have no way of actually confirming these numbers myself, but has anyone bothered to? I mean, it’s rather easy to make stuff like this up, perhaps the supporting thread had more evidence, some way of verifying validity, but with the numbers and just these numbers, it’s just as reasonable to assume they’re made up.
February 8th, 2006 at Feb 08, 06 | 12:39 pm
There’s always that chance. The original thread did go into a good deal of detail of how to obtain the numbers for one’s self, though.
The original person used a packet sniffer called Ethereal and there were some screen shots of the steps needed to obtain the numbers.
However, I was not expecting mmorpg.com to go as far as deleting the entire thread. So I never bothered to save the other information.
Now I’m kicking myself in the rear for not doing so. My apologies that I can’t supply more of the data.
February 9th, 2006 at Feb 09, 06 | 7:16 pm
So, what was the population prior to the NGE?
Those same numbers +200 per server? That’s my guess.
February 9th, 2006 at Feb 09, 06 | 10:17 pm
I just noticed the comment with the image links that was in moderation. Thanks for the image links!
February 23rd, 2006 at Feb 23, 06 | 1:23 pm
i say we go back to pre cu, but these frigging people dont think, to me their stupid! i say they change back to pre cu and they get payed for a decent game! i want the game i actually bought out of the shop!
February 24th, 2006 at Feb 24, 06 | 5:59 pm
As an unfortunate Wanderhome player, I’d be hard-pressed to find the supposed 462 players on my server. I’d say that would be on the high end..peak hours, maybe. What surprises me is how much of a ghost server Wanderhome feels like…yet according to the numbers, we’re kinda up there in players compared to other servers. The only way to get truly useful data is to catalogue the number of logged-in users every hour for a week or more and chart the results. Obviously the European servers will be really dead when the others are still going strong. My guesstimate of SWG completely dying out by 2007 looks to be on schedule.
February 24th, 2006 at Feb 24, 06 | 6:54 pm
Last I heard, they patched their login routines so that this information is no longer given. I came across that comment while browsing through the many comments on mmorpg.com.
So it may no longer be possible to gather data over a period of time.
I would not be surprised if it was dead by 2007, based on those numbers.
~Mysk
February 27th, 2006 at Feb 27, 06 | 10:53 am
[...] Source:Shadows in motion [...]
March 22nd, 2006 at Mar 22, 06 | 10:21 pm
Whether the figures are real or not, check Amazon.com’s sales rankings for SWG: Starter kit. It was number 3226 today. SWG: The Total Experience is ranked 4788. Contrast this with World of Warcraft which is a much older product than the SWG Starter Kit. WoW is number twelve! Personally I hated WoW, but whatever.
March 24th, 2006 at Mar 24, 06 | 11:56 am
I would definetly have to debate the 457 on tempest, i play there and at most have seen maybe 200 on at once… my firneds list is dead of elders anymore, i stick around cause i run a guild and that makes it fun still, and plus i wont abandon them,
but yea def peak hrs some night…
March 26th, 2006 at Mar 26, 06 | 9:23 am
I was one of the people who complained bitterly when the CU was introduced, and then left entirely after NGE.
At the time, half of the community seemed to think that it was pointless to complain, and that we should just trust SOE and their plans.
My point that those two “upgrades” would take the complexity, uniqueness and maturity out of the game, and in doing so destroy itself, turned out to be true.
It had plenty of bugs and imbalances, but so many elements of it were done better than any other MMO. Communication, player economy, crafting, player and guild housing. SWG has never been equalled or bettered in these areas.
RIP SWG.