It has been stated that there will be 2,000 people per campaign for PVP, and that once assigned to a campaign, that is yours, and won't necessarily change. The campaign is tied to your guild, friends, etc. So let's say I have a large west coast guild, and through the game's logic, most in the campaign, on both sides, are west coast players... makes sense.

How often will a large number of those people be on at once, playing PVP? I personally don't PVP much, and though I'll be assigned to a campaign, I, and my PVE guildmates (let's say 50) will be occupying 50 of those 2,000 slots (50 of the 666.6 on my alliance,) and NOT be in cyrodil, we'll be PVEing.

And if it's a west coast centralized campaign, could it be that at 3:00am on a Tuesday, very few people will be playing in general, and of those playing, even fewer PVPing.

3:00am on Tuesdays = solo PVP capturing keeps!

I know it won't work out that way, but there's still a lot of questions running through my mind. How active will Cyrodiil be in my campaign, when I associate almost entirely with people who focus on PVE, and PVP just for funsies when there's nothing else really going on? 2,000 people max (as it currently stands) per campaign. Matt Firor has said many times that you're essentially locked to a campaign, so you can really get to know your allies and enemies. If my Alliance has 666.6 (repeating of course) members, how many will be in Cyrodil at any given time? With only 2,000 per campaign, there could very likely be large chunks of time where NOTHING is happening in Cyrodil.

I believe that's a function that allows spill overs from other campaigns that have just too many players in for a limited period of time. I don't think that just 2000 players will be registered to one campaign, it could be 2,500 for all we know and it would be a limit that gets adjusted.

Keep in mind, they haven't even properly tested Cyrodiil in beta yet. Once they do that i'm sure they will start to get a better idea of how a good player cap for the campaigns, and that seems something that would be easily adjusted assuming the tech can handle it.

I'm sure they will allow more than 2000 people be registered to one campaign, it's just limited to only holding 2000 people. So like Southern said they could allow 2500 people be registered to one campaign. They all won't be on at the same time. And if they are they will spill over into another campaign till they free up space in the one you are registered in.

I don't see campaigns really becoming ghost towns in this game.

Yeah in a recent Q&A with Matt Firor he said 2,000 is a starting point and will adjust based on play testing.

Due to the mega-server, I do not foresee any issues with having a well-populated Cyrodil.

Hope I understood your post correctly.

I don't see it being a ghost town either... it's just when Firor says that you're essentially locked to a campaign for the duration, that doesn't lend to bringing people in and out like the megaserver. 2,000 people per campaign, with penalties/cost to change campaigns.

If you're locked to a campaign, and penalized for changing, it seems pretty rigid. And with 2,000 (hell, even 5,000) how many will be playing throughout the day? 25% all day every day? or more likely 25% at peak, and 5-10% campaign population when it's ass-early o'clock.

If my guild has 500 people, and campaigns try and keep your guild together, that's a lot of spots assigned to a campaign (even at 5,000 per - that's almost one third that never enter Cyrodil except to kill time before large events). As PVEers, we won't be in Cyrodil, gimping our campaign.

Bah, who cares if you have 500 PvE players in a campaign.

Gimping or not, I think people just need to remember that it's a game meant to have fun.

In the end, we're gonna need to get data from actual Cyrodil tests to discuss this topic much further, I think.

I'm not saying there's 500 PVE players gimping the campaign cause they svck at PVP - I'm saying there's 500 PVEers gimping their campaign because they're out PVEing. With a 5,000 cap even, that's 1/3 of your alliance.

Well, the simple solution is to not assign players to a campaign until they try to enter Cyrodiil. Your guild of 500 doesn't go in, the campaign fills with people that do.

I've always read the 2000 players as the target capacity--If you get on and your campaign is full, the system can move you do one with room at no penalty to yourself (not your fault someone else logged in first, after all). It's only when you actively try to switch that it penalizes you (this is most likely to discourage people from abandoning a campaign where their faction is doing poorly).

If your guild of 500 people don't ever want to venture into Cyrodiil they will never be assigned a campaign. You are only assigned one when you go into it for the first time. And if one of your members goes into Cyrodiil its not like all 500 of you are suddenly registered there and are taking spots from other people.

We really don't have much information on this to say what exactly will happen. But with how the megaserver is suppose to work your theory of your guild taking spots in Cyrodiil isn't that big of an issue. Cyrodiil will be filled most of the time.

You should post the direct quote but I am pretty sure you misunderstand this.

It will be 2000 people playing in the campaign at once, not 2000 people registered to a campaign. I don't have any direct confirmation but just use common sense.

Well this system is basically being taken directly from Darkage of Camelot back in the day. An ESO campaign will be the same as a server that DAOC had. Their servers help approximately 2000 people. So about 666 per a side. And you would only see the majority actually logged into the game at prime time. Even then i would only say about half the population was in the PVP zone. SO i would say during normal hours there was 200 people per a side PVPing, 300 at primetime. Now 600 total or 900 total people in a campaign that has a 2000 limit might sound low but in really wasnt. There was alot of action. And the zones were massive there as well. I think this sysetm will work very well because you will never have to wait in a que to get into Cyrodiil.

There will also be times when your side's Elder Scrolls are in danger, or when you start to lose most your territory within Cyrodiil, at time like this alot of people will stop PVE or question and head to PVP until the threat is gone and your (relics) are safe. It is what happened in DAOC.

No i dont think it is, I think it is 2000 people registered, just as it was in Darkage of Camelot. They said there would be no ques to wait to get into your campaign. Even if only 300 people from each saide are in Cyrodiil at that time, there would still be plenty of people.

They said no queues to get into a campaign. Didn't say you would be guaranteed a spot. So if your Campaign is full you would go to another so can start playing right away and not have to wait.

Ahh, I see what you're getting at now.

I think the 2k limit is because of such things, actually. If you're doing PvE in Cyrodil, you're likely to get attacked by other players.

I believe Zenimax wants people to be free with how they choose to play, so that people don't need to worry too much about only doing PvP in Cyrodil, yet still having it as a main focus. I can definitely see 500 PvEer's wrecking a campaign due to them not even participating in the PvP, but my best guess to negate that fear, is that PvE in Cyrodil won't require large groups.

I'm also under the assumption that 'instanced' zones will not count them towards the 2k cap. It seems unlikely that Zenimax would balance Cyrodil off the idea of your metaphorical predicament, but I also see them wanting to avoid such things as well. I'd really like to understand the actual implementation of the campaigns so that I could get a better grasp on this question, but I don't think I'll be making it into the closed beta to find out any time soon. ;[

I also believe that overflow campaign switching won't negatively impact you.

I really should have just multi-quoted. Ah well.

That's not a bad guess, actually; however, I have heard in interviews that people may get booted out of a campaign if it's full...so yeah, I think your idea sounds very believable and could work quite well, the evidence says otherwise - unless they've changed their stance in a recent interview, that is.

The thing about hard capping campaigns to 2000 players means that if there are say 2 million players who want to play in Cyrodiil at the same time that will mean there is 1000 campaigns running, how is that supposed to mean anything then when your side wins? Because so did 999 other sides win....it kind of makes is all a bit meaningless when you think about it like that....

Earth < Sun < Billions/Trillions of suns = 1 Galaxy < billions/trillions of Galaxies = the Universe.

Doesn't stop me from appreciating my tiny existence.

Take it for what it's worth.

Don't worry what other campaigns are doing then. I never cared what other servers were doing in WoW during PvP, all I cared about was being the best in my server. Same rule should apply here.

Then who's campaign would you go to?, nothing you did there would matter to your campaign.... if your campaign is full and your elder scroll is under attack how can you go defend? you dont want to go to some random campaign...... these are the things other games did different than DAOC and those are some of the reason people did not like them. Matt knows this. I see no reason why they wont do campaigns the same way servers worked in DAOC. Its your campaign, your lands to protect, what you accomplish stands for you and your alliance. I am almost positive your campaign will always be open to you at any time. 2000 people registered / assigned but more like 1000 in there at any givin time

Yah you just have to think of it as your server, like how it was in DAOC. server realm pride. As long as it works in the way that it is always your campain and you can always go there

That would be great. You have to remember, though, that not everyone will be playing at the same time. I do not believe they have done the testing to see how campaigns work out with a massive amount of players yet, and I believe once they do, they will know what to do with it.

This means they better get on some heavy stress testing in time to make the changes before release, but perhaps I'm simply underestimating Zenimax's proficiency with theory-crafting possibilities.

That would work for the people who only care about random PVP. the otherside is people want to fight for their alliance and protect their lands in their campaign. I want to go to my guilds's keep and protect it or even to help upgrade it, i dont want to go to some random campaign where nothing matters..... if my guild chat all the sudden says "AD has a huge force headed for our elder scroll keep! hurry to Cyrodiil to defend!" I dont want to sit in an over flow campaign doing nothing while my side loses it elder scroll ......