Are there assumed values?
Active players @ 3 PM

That's not accurate -- primetime is likely around 300ish

But most people do not have "General" chat open.

I would guess there are about 200 different accounts online during prime time and maybe 100 different players. I have only 1 account but I also know people with 8.

Knowing the active player base alone isn't enough information to make a judgement on either the playablity of the game or if it's going to be around for a long time.

What is relevant, is that the game really needs new players to grow, which should make it more attractive to players; since each person joining the game now has a much greater potential to effect it.

That is, if your 1 of 1,000,000 active players, you only have a 1 in a million chance to make a difference.

As for longjevity, the number of active players isn't indicative of the number of actual subscribed players. Because this is a time based game, many players keep accounts active, even while they are taking a break. This means the game has a strong income base, so it will be around for a long time.

So, playability:

If your interested in solo play, then the active base isn't very important. A lower population actually means less competition for resources.

If your looking for team play, there are established corps, from 2 to 100 players (with players active in different time zones since this is a global server), just be sure to pick a corp with the same prime time zone as your play time.

The vetern corps have goals that new players can particiapte in, or they can try to oppose them.

The only real negative at the moment is the market. With the new patch, we've come into a recession, and NIC is actually valuable as a resource. However, this is an excellent opportunity for new players, because running missions provides NIC, as well as tokens which are a hot commoditity now; like kernels were at launch.

Basically. This is probably the best time to be a new player, if you want to be more than a drone.