PlayOn has posted some pretty charts showing the movement of World of Warcraft populations by time of day. Most of the graphs show the same pattern that most MMOGs tend to exhibit: a lull in activity between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM Eastern, followed by a gradual rise and peak between the hours of 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM.
The graphs are certainly interesting, but what's more noteworthy is that the data appear to back the theory amongst the WoW-playing population that current woes afflicting the Molten Core zone are related to load in that zone. Molten Core's population is represented by the teal color in the graph pictured here.
If it's true that Blizzard dishes up the Molten Core zone via the same set of servers, then this balloon in activity in Molten Core shows why those servers might be groaning under the weight of the game's unprecedented success.
The balloon in Molten Core populations is also a good indicator that WoW's population is fairly close to exhausting available content in the game. If that were to happen, subscriber retention would take a nose dive. Blizzard's handling of this critical mass of end-game players is an important test of their ability to handle operational issues and growing pains simultaneously.
[Via Walkering.com, a blog dedicated to "Musings on Massively Multiplayer Online Games"]
