http://i.imgur.com/h6VMsws.jpg

The screenshot says it all. This weekend was a major stress test and DC was underpopulated in all but the first campaign. Not surprisingly they didn't do too well in my home campaign, and no idea how they did in Auriel's Bow.

The population imbalance might be a problem. It doesn't matter that each campaign has population limits if one faction does not have enough people playing in a campaign, and if DC has the fewest players most of the campaigns will not have enough DC players. It's exactly what happened this weekend.

Maybe

It may end up that they close a few campaigns and then lower the player cap for one of them to offset

With the campaign system and a megaserver vs a bunch of individual servers added to population caps I really don't see that happen much. I think it'll balance itself for the most part. If there is population balance I think it'll mainly be the lower population campaigns. But by the same token they may be able to adjust individual campaigns.

The numbers on this site http://tesocensus.info/? have been almost exactly even as long as that site's been up.

I think there's some ebb and flow in the beta, but I would not worry about it long-term.

I'm curious to see how the PvP autobalance mechanic handles the population imbalance, yes. How well, how responsive, et cetera.

Does that site reset stats periodically? A long term trend isn't very helpful, it would be like polling political opinion over the past 20 years when looking at an upcoming election. They should also have monthly polls that show what the numbers look like over the short term, as several of the recent video reviews have told people specifically to join AD.

I'm playing DC partly because of populations. I don't want to be in the Albzerg.

On release all the people that preordered can make what ever race on what ever faction so this should help with the issue a bit.

They should simply limit the max amount of players a faction can have in Cyrodiil based on the smallest faction in it at that time.

So if there are only 2 bars for blue, then red and yellow can only have 2 bars of players.

One of the things I'm thinking, that maybe a lot of people did what I did, and rolled separate factions other than their main so as not to blow themselves out on the starter quests and such. It may not be an accurate representation.

That's the reason i will join DC. I love to play the underdog side. Winning is fun for 1 time. But loosing keeps the game interesting for me. That way there will be always something in the game i want but can't reach but i will keep trying to get.

I think this will be a rolling issue short term, but hopefully it evens out in the long run. I'd be curious to see the what the ratios will be like once everyone is at level 50 .

I avoided my real faction and have played the other two as well for all the betas.

this isn't a good representation. because at launch people can roll any race in any faction.

I'm rolling DC, but personally I have a short temper. Losing over and over and over just makes me a little downhearted.

I was in blackwater blade on the Ebonheart Pact and during my time spent PVPing the DC was actually in command of most keeps and was making gains against both my faction and the AD in the south west.

So theres more to it than just population numbers. I'm pretty sure that there are measures in place to help with this issue

DC is dominating all on Wabbajack. At one time they even have all scrolls captured.

Lol u so wrong DC has fine numbers reason why was empty as most of the bugs for quests were DC and many gave up lvling for the time being till they fixed. Trust me once bugs and game is out DC. Umbers in pvp be fine

I think this is exactly why they let you choose what pact you want to be regardless of race with the pre-order of the game, it will mix things up and to smooth it out even more ... like me, I will play a Nord in Daggerfall Covenant.

In terms of points I think Azure's Star and Aureil's Bow were dominated by AD. DC did poorly in both although there was a stretch when DC had the emperorship on Aureil when some group (I wonder who) came in a wrecked the map. They faded away and by early Sunday morning, DC in Aureil only had one scroll, EP had three and AD had two.

I don't think population will be an issue in determining which faction dominates a Cyrodiil instance after launch for the majority of cases. I predict it will be more based on guilds. Like that one group that wrecked the map.

One dominant guild in a faction will dominate a Cyrodiil instance over time. The other guilds in the weaker factions will either cease playing or move to a weaker Cyrodiil instance that they can dominate. This strategy makes sense because the odds that the ESO megaserver will shift populations and pit top pvp guilds against each other in Cyrodiil are slim. Cyrodiil will be like player housing for the dominant guild. Wreckable player housing if they aren't around but that's why guilds will be big.

The result over time will be one dominant faction led by one dominant guild in most Cyrodiil instances. Could be AD, EP or DC. The population of the two weaker factions will be filled out by strays to play their role as cannon fodder.

When I was on I noticed AD having a ton more than EP tho. Whats good is that since there are different campaigns, the population numbers wont matter much, just choose the most balanced.

What are you talking about? The Daggerfall Covenant conquerored Cyrodiil within 3 hours. And the areas were FLOODED with players, i had a blast!