R.io & Current number of active players in WoW

[Season2mask]

I was just having a look at raider.io and I wondered if this page would be a good way to judge how many people currently play WoW. Obviously the number would be higher because not everyone has done a M+, but it looks to be around 2.5m+ ?

Just interested to read your thoughts on this method, which I'm sure probably has some major flaw in it. Thanks.

https://raider.io/mythic-plus-charac...122787#content

[craigw]

how many of those players are just alts of the same account? of those 2.5M players, 3 of those are my toons. i know people with ten plus toons on that list. not accurate for subscriptions if thats what you where going for. if you were thinking pool of toons in warcraft then yes it may be slightly acccurate. i also know people who dont do mythics or raid. just pvp.

[Season2mask]

how many of those players are just alts of the same account? of those 2.5M players, 3 of those are my toons. i know people with ten plus toons on that list. not accurate for subscriptions if thats what you where going for. if you were thinking pool of toons in warcraft then yes it may be slightly acccurate. i also know people who dont do mythics or raid. just pvp.

Well, that's a very good point. No idea how alts slipped my mind. So in fact, perhaps less than 2.5m rather than more, then.

[Shedaar]

Interesting.
Any IT geniuses that can support or disprove this in an easy to understand way?

EDIT:


+ I don't think China's Big Brother Firewall allows for tracking such as this?
Probably not possible in Hong-kong etc., either?

[Ragnarohk]

Most players don't do Mythic+

I wouldn't take it as a metric.

[Kumorii]

Question is, does it matter?

[Gorsameth]

Interesting.
Any IT geniuses that can support or disprove this in an easy to understand way?

EDIT:


+ I don't think China's Big Brother Firewall allows for tracking such as this?
Probably not possible in Hong-kong etc., either?

2.5 mil with a M+2. I will confidently say more then half the players don't do M+ at all (because its not part of LFD)
So 5-6mil easily.

[Queen of Hamsters]

It is not a reliable source for the player total, no. If there's ever a tool used by everyone that ranks players doing world quests, then maybe we'd get a reliable tool. Maybe.

There are no sources on the sub numbers. We only have access to MAUs and speculation based on how Blizzard words their reports. And it's still speculation.

[Relapses]

Hang on guys, this will be an invaluable source for my college thesis on antagonistic game developers and the abusive relationship they have with their communities!

[Tziva]

Aside from the issue of alts, I think people underestimate how many people don't do M+, like, at all, because our perspective is skewed by talking with likeminded players and people posting offsite which reflects a more serious interest level in the game to bother to read and discuss it outside of gametime itself. Those players are much more likely to at least do a single weekly gear for their chest/vault.

I know ample people who have never done a key of any kind because they do almost exclusively solo content or short increments of playing. I also have plenty of friends who hate m+ and haven't touched it (even for a weekly chest) since early BFA or even legion. While my sample isn't necessarily reflective of the percentages across the whole game, it's enough for me to suggest there's probably a fair number of people who won't ever appear on that list.

Between those two factors skewing the count, it's hard to know how to judge that list, even with a bucket of sand.

[varren]

There are tons and tons of people who don't partake in any non group finder queue-able content.

[Drusin]

Aside from the issue of alts, I think people underestimate how many people don't do M+, like, at all,

*waves*

Counting Challenge Modes from MoP, WoD, and M+ from Legion to SL I've probably done 30 lol
Maybe 7 in Legion, 0 in BFA and 0 in SL

[GreenJesus]

Aside from the issue of alts, I think people underestimate how many people don't do M+, like, at all, because our perspective is skewed by talking with likeminded players and people posting offsite which reflects a more serious interest level in the game to bother to read and discuss it outside of gametime itself. Those players are much more likely to at least do a single weekly gear for their chest/vault.

I know ample people who have never done a key of any kind because they do almost exclusively solo content or short increments of playing. I also have plenty of friends who hate m+ and haven't touched it (even for a weekly chest) since early BFA or even legion. While my sample isn't necessarily reflective of the percentages across the whole game, it's enough for me to suggest there's probably a fair number of people who won't ever appear on that list.

Between those two factors skewing the count, it's hard to know how to judge that list, even with a bucket of sand.

I have a friend that started playing in BFA and js still trying to "catch up" on old content and his computer isn't very good so he can barely handle older zones. Therefore he doesn't want to buy shadowlands. /shrug.

[A Chozo]

No, it's not accurate at all:

1 - There are alts. How many of those are piloted by the same person?
2 - As you said, what about the people who don't do m+ (which many think it's the majority of players)?
3 - What about the people who do M+ but don't use this addon nor appear in their data?
4 - Is that addon a real-time sample? What if some of those characters were never touched again after doing some dungeons?

Too many variables. Anyone who uses wowhead, raider io or whatever to try to gauge the population are just being disingenuous. We don't know this number, and there is no way to know this number unless you are working with Blizzard.

[Nathanyel]

Aside from the issue of alts, I think people underestimate how many people don't do M+, like, at all, because our perspective is skewed by talking with likeminded players and people posting offsite which reflects a more serious interest level in the game to bother to read and discuss it outside of gametime itself.

This. I have a friend who was a progress raider in Vanilla-WotLK, but plays super casual now, especially since getting a kid in early Legion. Last ID, I took him into a +2 for the first time (I'm not pushing keys myself either, basically cheesed the mount achievement in BfA via other friends) since it seemed a better time investment to get something from the Vault than LFR.

[Bloodyleech]

Most people actually do not set foot into Mythic/+.
Either it's because they think it's a huuuuuge step up from heroic AND/OR they just don't want to group manually.

My guild consists of both types. Just today 3 of them only went into their first mythic because I went with them via Teamspeak, while some did their very first mythic+ ever afterwards (we got the easiest key in the world - a +2 mists, just after we cleared the standard mythic mists).

- - - Updated - - -

3 - What about the people who do M+ but don't use this addon nor appear in their data?

You do not have to use the addon to be in the rio data. Rio takes data from blizzard, if I'm not wrong.
But yeah, rio is not accurate enough.