I found my original demographic posts I think. I wrote some of this as AHII beta was about mid-stream after observing the major difference in participation from the three different MA country affiliated player groups.
Zazen
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I've been playing these games as long as just about anyone, and the axiom 'Birds of a Feather, flock together" is true. While some are more loyal to their chess piece than others. There is a very tightly knit core of Rooks that stuck it out throughout the dark ages, when it was sport for Bishops and Knights to see how quickly they could reset the far numerically inferior Rooks. For those that stayed Rooks, there developed an intense loyalty to country and to one another which parallels any real life military unit subjected to harsh combat conditions.
Now, a year or more after Rooks took their 6 month+ arse beating, they instituted RJO's and a highly organized inter-squadron system of co-operation, the numbers have evened out, and all those galvanized by the fire of getting gang-raped daily are still Rooks for the most part.
Bishops usually have numbers during the morning and daytime US central time, Rooks during prime-time, and Knights late night. The perception that Rooks have huge hordes is likely a result of RJO's, squadron co-ordination in general, especially on Sunday nights, and the fact that Rooks have numbers during prime-time US time when there are far more total people online to feel the impact, observe it, and whine about it.
As far as Rook numbers in AHII is concerned, I have flown for all countries under one name or another. One thing is clear, Rooks have a higher percentage of adults than the other two countries, especially Bishops. The high pitched squeel of Bishop pre-pubescents on vox is proof of this. Most Rooks I know personally in AH or from long years in AWFR are in their 40, 50's and beyond. These people can generally afford the necessary upgrades and probably already have very beefy systems able to easily handle the requirements of AHII. On the other hand the 13 year old'ish demographic of the AH population can probably not afford to upgrade or purchase a beefy, higher-end system capable of playing AH2.
Obviously, I'm generalizing here, but you get the idea. Every country is going to lose a percentage of it's player base to AH2 based on prohibitive hardware requirements, I think Rooks will just be less impacted than the other two countries, so will appear to have greater numbers as they have in beta thus far.
Zazen
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I have flown with Bishops, my ears are still ringing from the shrill, pre-pubescent squeels on VOX. As you fairly quoted I am grossly generalizing the demographics, but take it from someone with extensive first-hand knowledge, Bishops have a veritable monopoly on teenie-boppers.
As far as Rooks are concerned, we conducted an informal poll, the average age of a Rook is 46! I am 33 and am one of the younger Rooks!
Zazen
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Originally posted by ghostdancer
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Knits then recovered briefly Jan and February but then numbers started falling off again. Actually it looks like Bishop and Knits number both fell off more than the Rooks did with the conversion to AH2.
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Yup, exactly as I conjectured would transpire months ago during early beta for reasons of demographics. Rooks simply have the fewest financially precarious 'children' who cannot afford the hardware to make the transition to AH2. Believe this if you want to, if you do not...well that's your prerogative.
Zazen
