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[magichans]

Disclaimer: please be accurate in your posts, because someone might buy the game based off this thread/your posts (i.e. me), and it would, well, suck if they bought something they thought had a big online community and actually had a very small one.

My contribution to start with:

WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne.

I don't know about the vanilla multiplayer (probably still going, but haven't checked in a year). But the original DotA is still very much alive and kicking. Finding a game takes less than 5 minutes at any hour of the day. As well, some custom maps such as TowerDefense are still active. Unfortunately, not many maps except those two are still being played, though.

This got me thinking: it's very, very impressive for a game to still have an active online community after over a decade on the market, competing with all these other new games. That's a true testament to quality, right there.

 

[fluffydelusions]

WoW
Runescape

Also Team Fortress 2 is approaching 10 years come Oct 10 and is still among top 5 most played on Steam so there is that too.

 

[hobblygobbly]

Ultima Online still has thousands of players across the official shards and unofficial (emulator) shards. It was its 20th anniversary two days ago.

 

[magichans]

Ultima Online still has thousands of players across the official shards and unofficial (emulator) shards. It was its 20th anniversary two days ago.

this is from 1990's, good god.

gonna check this out

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

Ultima Online still has thousands of players across the official shards and unofficial (emulator) shards. It was its 20th anniversary two days ago.

Not surprised. It's the one of the few sandbox MMOs that exist that aren't in space or are Korean grindfests.

 

[paperspace]

⁣

 

[Linkark07]

I still see servers running in the original Unreal Tournament.

 

[Kareha]

Quake 3 and UT, always loads of servers to play those on.

 

[RockmanBN]

Old school Runescape had 70k concurrent people online the other day though nothing is an issue.

 

[mullet2000]

As others have said, RuneScape is the recent revelation for me.

The have a niche though, I guess. Not many good browser based MMOs out there.

 

[Neptonic]

There are like 1-3 servers of die hard Day of Defeat players left, usually pretty full

Which is surprising to me

 

[Drain You]

Quake 3 and UT, always loads of servers to play those on.

This was gonna be my answer, but I can't say it's really surprising. Quake 3 is one of my favorite games ever.

 

[superdeluxe]

Ultima Online still has thousands of players across the official shards and unofficial (emulator) shards. It was its 20th anniversary two days ago.

I was in the beta for this 21years ago. Tied up the phone line for 2 days to DL on 56.6k

 

[Duchess O'Death]

WoW
Runescape

Also Team Fortress 2 is approaching 10 years come Oct 10 and is still among top 5 most played on Steam so there is that too.

"surprisingly"

 

[Kilrogg]

I still see servers running in the original Unreal Tournament.

Good one. But everytime I fancy booting the game and playing for a bit I can't join servers even though there's nothing wrong with my internet connection and my game is legit and up to date. Haven't tried in recent years though.

 

[Voidwolf]

Is Mass Effect 3 old enough to qualify? I recently started playing it again with some friends. I had a lot of great weapons and characters unlocked on 360 and it's been fun working towards all that on PC now. I've been playing almost everyday when my friends can't and I never have trouble finding a lobby for any difficulty. It definitely helps that all the multiplayer DLC was free from the beginning.

 

[Cimarron]

Ultima Online still has thousands of players across the official shards and unofficial (emulator) shards. It was its 20th anniversary two days ago.

ORLY? I must check this out. I was too poor back in the day to play this. I would love to try it out now.

Left 4 Dead 2 still has a very healthy player base. I still like to fire it up on occasion.

 

[BiggNife]

"surprisingly"

Honestly, I think it's pretty surprising TF2 still has a strong population despite the fact that updates have slowed down considerably and other hero shooters like Overwatch and Paladins are way more mainstream now. That game is a war horse.

 

[Arkkoran]

Everquest still has a decent live population, especially on progression servers and then the private servers like p1999.

 

[Neptonic]

Honestly, I think it's pretty surprising TF2 still has a strong population despite the fact that updates have slowed down considerably and other hero shooters like Overwatch and Paladins are way more mainstream now. That game is a war horse.

Under all the cosmetic bloat is probably one of the best multiplayer games of all time, that rewarded skill as well as team work, but also let players fuck around. TF2 doesn't deserve to burn out like it is right now.

 

[MekaDragon]

EVE Online.

25k on week days at night and ~30k weekends at night.

Game was released in 2003

 

[Mcleon6494]

Honestly as others have said, Runescape is what catches me. At the moment of this writing there are nearly 50,000 people playing old school, and 75,000 people playing "new" school. The game launched in January 2001 (beta) and at 11:30 on a Monday morning there are 125,000 players. There are people who could have been playing that first year and their account is still accessible and playable in the newest version of the game. 16 years is quite an achievement. And Jagex is all going strong with updates to both versions of the game frequently, and oftentimes some pretty big changes.

 

[ArtHands]

Its due to the different gaming habits. And its not just online PC game. I feel like it applies to offline games too.

There are several reasons for why games tend to have longer longevity:

the games on PC sell mainly based on online presences, such as social media and words of mouth, while console games sell based on offline presences, such as TV or stores. PC doesn't have a console manufacturers advertising and telling you what is the hottest and must-get titles of the month. Stores have limited shelf space, so after these console AAA titles gets done being the favor of the month, the sales drop and they go shafted to the side (into the bargain bin) for the next favor of the month. Whereas on PC, gamers tend to buy digital and digital has infinite 'shelf' space, so they have longer exposure.

That and the countless sales that encourages players to buy older games, and free online, help encourage gamers to jump in older games that help further sustain the userbase. In addition there's little to no backward compatibility for past gen games. So playing older console games is rather troublesome.

In short: console games tend to buy and play the popular new games, then move on to the next rather quickly. Many PC gamers on the other hand, will wait for Steam sales, buy bunch of slightly older games, then play them.

 

[Linkark07]

Good one. But everytime I fancy booting the game and playing for a bit I can't join servers even though there's nothing wrong with my internet connection and my game is legit and up to date. Haven't tried in recent years though.

I'll check if I can enter into one of those servers after I return to my house.

About Quake 3 Arena, I can't find any servers at all. Do you guys have to do something for make them appear? Using the GoG version btw.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

Medieval 2: Total War almost 4000 players peak today. Released 10. November 2006. Is one of the greatest Total War games ever and my personal favorite. Was not made by Creative Assembly.

 

[arts&crafts]

1.6 still has about 15,000 to 20,000 players at a time http://steamcharts.com/app/10

I dont know if I could ever go back now.

 

[Kilrogg]

I'll check if I can enter into one of those servers after I return to my house.

About Quake 3 Arena, I can't find any servers at all. Do you guys have to do something for make them appear? Using the GoG version btw.

Mind you, I didn't get booted from every single game. But a fair bit of them were completely inaccessible or had obscene amounts of custom content to be downloaded. I have the GOG version by the way.

What about Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy? Are those still active?

 

[paperspace]

⁣

 

[Puruzi]

Honestly, I think it's pretty surprising TF2 still has a strong population despite the fact that updates have slowed down considerably and other hero shooters like Overwatch and Paladins are way more mainstream now. That game is a war horse.

TF2 is better than those. People like to meme about hats and other bullshit but TF2 is still an amazing game and is probably my favorite multiplayer game ever.

 

[Xumbrega]

Tibia

Game released in 1997 and still have a lot of players. (There's almost 10,000 online right now)

And that is just on the official servers.

 

[JWiLL]

Not "old" really by any means, but I'm still surprised that Borderlands 2 is usually approaching ~10k concurrent users on Steam, when I last checked (some point in the summer).

I'm sure it varies quite a bit, but that game has some serious staying power. One of the reasons I thought Destiny 2 would be much bigger on PC than many predicted before launch. Though, post launch, it doesn't appear to have a deep enough loot grind/build diversity - so we'll see.

 

[SledGod]

Ragnarok Online averages about 3,000 players online between the three official servers. I'm sure there are plenty of active private servers too.

Haven't seen the player numbers but people are still streaming/watching Lineage 2.

Older CS games seem like an obvious answer, tons of people still playing 1.6 and Source.

 

[Flying Toaster]

Ultima Online still has thousands of players across the official shards and unofficial (emulator) shards. It was its 20th anniversary two days ago.

UO paid for my first backpacking trip in Europe. Played in highschool then sold my keep and two castles as well as account separately. Best online game I ever played and the community was amazing.

 

[DaciaJC]

Medieval 2: Total War almost 4000 players peak today. Released 10. November 2006. Is one of the greatest Total War games ever and my personal favorite. Was not made by Creative Assembly.

Eh?

And that .gif seems to be from Total War: Attila, not Medieval II, just so nobody is confused. I agree that M2 was the peak of the series (haven't played Warhammer, though), both in vanilla and when including mods.

 

[Sober]

That's a good example, but I'm fairly certain it was?

"Not the current Creative Assembly"

 

[Drain You]

About Quake 3 Arena, I can't find any servers at all. Do you guys have to do something for make them appear? Using the GoG version btw.

Tried to take a screenshot of the server list but some of these old games are weird when it comes to that on my Sp3, but when I booted the game up on Steam just now I was able to find over 400 servers, plenty populated and was able to join the couple I tried. I just click multi-player then refresh server list. Don't know if its any different on GoG or not.

 

[magichans]

Medieval 2: Total War almost 4000 players peak today. Released 10. November 2006. Is one of the greatest Total War games ever and my personal favorite. Was not made by Creative Assembly.

This is really surprising to me, because that game's multiplayer was completely bland as I recall it. You just pick a bunch of units at a selection, and duke it out on a battlefield and that's the match. No clue why people would still be playing it a decade later actively.

 

[Dusk Golem]

The Resident Evil games, in a very non-traditional sense.

Players on Steam right now:

Resident Evil 5:

Resident Evil 6:

Resident Evil Revelations 2:

And keep in mind I just took these screens at 11:20 AM PST on a Monday morning several years after these games have come out (RE5 is 8 years old, RE6 is 5 years old, and Revelations 2 is nearly 3 years old). And RE5 & RE6 mainly just are 2-player online co-op deals rather than big multiplayer modes, and Revelations 2 only has online multiplayer in its Raid Mode.

They're not like, massive numbers, but you'll never find much difficulty with finding people to play online co-op with in these games as there's always at least a 100 people playing every day at about any given time.

 

[MisterBrimstone]

EVE Online

Just ask gigX

 

[magichans]

So apparently thousands of people are still playing WWII Online. It's an MMO fps based in WW2 that first came on my radar in 2003. Don't know how good it is. People complain about it being boring running around doing nothing. But it sounds like the funnest game I EVER heard of, at least in theory. Screens:

 

[Sinfamy]

CS 1.6 still has lots of players.

 

[C.Mongler]

While Gamespy is now dead and you'll have to go online and look for server IP addresses to actually play, there's still a few hundred players of 2002's Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Which is great, because the multiplayer in that game is amazing, even to this day (no rockets though noob).

 

[Barrel Cannon]

Halo 1 sort of if you look at the CE editions

 

[pretty done]

CS 1.6 still has lots of players.

Not many good servers left though, at least on the east coast. Most have bullshit mods/sounds or are 247 d2 or just way too many slots.

I've found only KZ has good servers left. Which is fine because there's not many good 3D platformers these days anyway.

 

[WilsonX100]

So apparently thousands of people are still playing WWII Online. It's an MMO fps based in WW2 that first came on my radar in 2003. Don't know how good it is. People complain about it being boring running around doing nothing. But it sounds like the funnest game I EVER heard of, at least in theory. Screens:

how did i miss this back then

 

[Patrick S.]

I have Team Fortress 2 from buying The Orange Box but haven't ever tried it, heh. I think I remember being put off from reading that the game got huge graphical downgrades over the time long after it had been released. Is that true?

 

[WilsonX100]

While Gamespy is now dead and you'll have to go online and look for server IP addresses to actually play, there's still a few hundred players of 2002's Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Which is great, because the multiplayer in that game is amazing, even to this day (no rockets though noob).

man i used to play AA and mainly the Spearhead expansion multiplayer. Might have to look into it now.

 

[crimzonflame]

I wonder if people are still playing Warcraft 2?

 

[You Pay This Much]

Star Wars: The Old Republic was running pretty strong last I checked.



..that was probably about 2 years ago now that I think about it.

 

[Patrick S.]

I played Battlefront 2 not that long ago. I think I had to use some external program to be able to play multiplayer.