Runescape currently has more subscribers than any game on there, except WoW.

Lulz

Unfortunately, we don't enjoy as many such services on Chinese servers. And apparently, there are greater needs and people are richer to use them in the US or Europe.

Yeah buddy, it's much more likely that the 5.5 million players in china are all legitimate,and about 500k of the 2.5 million US accounts are/were goldfarmers/powerlevelers.

Well, maybe not that big of a number, but, still.

You simply missed the point.

LOTR is a good MMO but I think that it hews so closely to the lore that it really appeals to the LOTR fans more than anything else. Having seen the movies isn't really enough to go into the games with and understanding of what to expect. Because it hews so close to the lore it's a lot quirkier than other fantasy MMOs. A pedestrian MMO player would wonder where the wizards were not really understanding that wizards in LOTR are a very particular race of people who only numbered, what 5?, in the books. That sort of thing. If you're a LOTR geek, the game hits the nail on the head. If you're just looking for a good MMO to replace WOW it would be a rough transition.

LotRO is kind of buried under other things on there, but it looks to be hovering around 200,000 or so... which is a shame. It really deserves to do better and Turbine have done, I think, the best job outside of Blizzard to realize something this complex.

I enjoy Lord of the Rings, but I've never finished the books OR the movies. I just have a general familiarity with them. The lore stuff has its ups and downs. It's not going to make you feel like you don't know what's going on and pretty much everything is self contained and well explained. Frodo's quest is just part of what's going on in all of the world, obviously. I don't feel any more confused than I do in WoW's lore.

However, the quests are enjoyable (the "epic" ones especially, as they make you feel like you're really affecting the story... something I never personally feel in WoW), people are friendly, there's a lot of customization and the world is well realized.

Perhaps some of the classes things would take time to get used to, but largely for those who want a WoW clone... and in that sense, just stick with WoW. LotRO isn't it. Hunters don't act like Hunters in WoW, for example. The pet class is actually the Lore Master. There's no obvious magic users either, as mentioned, but the game's character creation page informs you who is the crowd controller, who is the tank, who is the nuker, who is the healer, etc.

It's got some ways to go, but for a game that's been out a year they've made some incredible strides. Even WoW had a lot of missteps back in its first formative years.

I think they're both great games. You could do a lot worse if you want a companion game for WoW or want to do something different for a while.

Guild Wars as more than a million customers. It should be there.

Guild Wars always gets left off these charts because they don't consider it an MMO. It's just an online game in a fantasy setting, but it's not Massive. They entire world is individually instanced for each player so you will never run into any live players out in the world, only in the few hub centers (towns) and even then they are split up into separate zones.

Personally I think it should still be considered as competition to the other MMOs - which it is - and be factored into any comparitive numbers, but I have little say in the matter...

There are over 200 North American servers, with 2.5 million players from North America. That's a server for every 12,500 people, meaning you're looking at a third of the server's population on at any given time before queueing starts. (Or, 900,000 people on from North America alone, which contains only 2.5 million of the listed 10,000,000 WoW player base.)

Obviously, player distribution isn't that even, so while some realms will almost always have a couple thousand players on, others will dip much lower.

On Medivh, it does feel like WoW has that many people. Quel'Danas, for example, is packed. There are people LFG for lots of instance runs when I log off at 2am Pacific. It's a fairly high pop server, I guess. That's mostly good, although mining sucks. :)