That's great to hear, J-R! Glad to hear that y'all are doing well. :-D

I completely agree with you. RP-PvE did suffer losses, but their retention is pretty solid. Part of that is because GW2 is (debatably) percieved (by some) as a PvP-focussed game, not necesarily a RP-focussed game. SWTOR is billed as an RP centric game because of the IP and because... Bioware. That might explain a lot of it. Another potential contributing factor is that RP folks can sometimes amuse themselves regardless of what's going on in and around the game. As an RPer myself, I found that I have levelled quite slowly. I don't know if that's common of if there's any way for us to measure progression speed among the population segments. If RPers level more slowly, that might also explain their retention.

TL;DR Dalborra and Gav Daragon are fine. Master Dar'Nala has a low population. (Details here). As of today's analysis, Dalborra (PvE) is at 85% of it's numbers as of 2 months ago. The average PvE server is at 84% of it's numbers from 2 months ago. Dalborra is fine. Gav Daragon (RP-PvE) is at 96% of it's numbers from 2 months ago. The average RP-PvE server is at 104% of it's numbers from 2 months ago. Gav Daragon is fine. Master Dar'Nala is at 58% of it's numbers from 2 months ago. The average PvP server is at 68% of it's numbers from 2 months ago. PvP is decreasing rapidly. Master Dar'Nala is losing population faster that. In summary, Dalborra and Gav Daragon are fine, and are doing as well as most servers of their type. Master Dar'Nala has experienced a population drop of 42%, which is higher than most PvP servers. Data here - check the APAC analysis tab. Paige

We've seen another week of (expected) losses given the competition from other games. Our total estimated population of active players is 28,253, which is a -6.2% loss from last week and a -14% loss from 6/27/2012. Details in the OP. In general, the PvP servers have dropped the most, and the RP-PvE servers have grown. Here's a comparison of today's numbers vs. 6/27/2012. PvE 87% of 6/27/2012 population (lost 13%) PvP 71% of 6/27/2012 population (lost 29%) RP PvE 106% of 6/27/2012 population (grew 6%) RP PvP 88% of 6/27/2012 population (lost 12%) Paige

As a resident of Davik's Estate, you are able to transfer to Prophecy of the Five. You might very well be the *only* person on the server, so collect your stuff and move out if you want more people around. Sadly the PvP servers in this game have experienced a dramatic drop in population across the board. The PvP community now measures less than 25% of the population of active players (details HERE). I compared the estimated populations on the PvP servers on 6/27/2012 and 9/4/2012 and then compared that to *average* server size among all the destination servers. So if server X had 1,000 people on average on 6/27 and it had 900 people on average on 9/4 then it's listed as 90% of it's original numbers, which would be a 10% loss in popualation. PvP Server Area % orig Darth Nihilus EUR French 92% Jar'Kai Sword EUR German 86% The Bastion US West 77% The Fatman US East 70% Prophecy of the Five US East 67% Tomb of Freedon Nadd EUR English 62% Master Dar'Nala APAC 58% SWTOR Average PvE 91% SWTOR Average RP-PvE 111% SWTOR Average PvP 73% Overall SWTOR grand average 90% Keep in mind, this is only *change* in population size of active characters. That's not the total number of active characters and it's absolutely no measure whatsoever of how many PvP matches are played, or the quality of the community. Paige

You're welcome! I prefer talking solid numbers. There's a certain element of "the sky is falling" that is better off with a little quantitative analysis. Paige

Hi, my downunder friends! I'm Paige, the girl with the numbers (LINK to numbers). TL;DR = Dalborra and Gav Daragon are okay. Master Dar'Nala has experienced a precipitous population decline. I saw this thread, and I thought I'd look at the change in APAC numbers since I've been monitoring post transfers. I compared the estimated populations on the APAC servers on 6/27/2012 and 9/4/2012 and then compared that to *average* server size among all the destination servers. So if server X had 1,000 people on average on 6/27 and it had 900 people on average on 9/4 then it's listed as 90% of it's original numbers, which would be a 10% loss in popualation. Here is a LINK to the math (look on the APAC analysis tab). Server % orig numbers from 6/27 Dalborra 92% SWTOR Average PvE 91% Gav Daragon 101% SWTOR Average RP-PvE 111% Master Dar'Nala 58% SWTOR Average PvP 73% Overall SWTOR grand average 90% So what I'm seeing here is that Dalborra is doing okay. It's about 92% of it's original numbers (or about an 8% loss in population). That's about standard for what's going on in the game in general. Gav Daragon has grown a teeny bit (it's 101% of it's original numbers, or a 1% gain). This is less than the average RP-PvE server which has grown about 11% in the last couple of months. Master Dar'Nala has gotten whacked. It's 58% of it's original numbers, which is a loss of 42% of it's population. PvP servers in general have shrunk about 27%... but Master Dar'Nala is really hurting. In fact, it's the *only* destination server since the start of post-transfer monitoring that has had a phi = 1. That's critical because I can't really estimate the pop of a server with a phi equal to or less than 1. HEre's what the PvP servers look like... PvP Server Area % orig Darth Nihilus EUR French 92% Jar'Kai Sword EUR German 86% The Bastion US West 77% The Fatman US East 70% Prophecy of the Five US East 67% Tomb of Freedon Nadd EUR English 62% Master Dar'Nala APAC 58% So... I think when we're talking about "something must be done" for APAC servers... Gav Daragon and Dalborra are doing about as well as can be expected. The more fruitful discussion is "what is going on with Master Dar'Nala?" Paige

It was stunning to me, too. I'm mostly a Rep player and I *always* felt out-numbered and out-gunned by the Imps. :-) I *totally* feel where you're coming from. Also, some servers have really different ratios... Jedi Cov was about 58% rep, for instance. Maybe your server is atypical? What server are you on? Let's get the actual data and talk real numbers. Would you mind filling out the rep and imp sides of the survey a few times during peak hours over the next couple of weeks? Can you get some of your friends to do the same? -LINK TO SURVEY- Paige

So, unsuprisingly... there's a dip in population numbers this week. With warring guilds and kung-fu pandas, that's to be expected. The last two weeks show about a 7% drop... the long term numbers look like this... Date Logins Growth 6/27/2012 32,834 6/29/2012 34,310 4.5% 7/2/2012 35,383 3.1% 7/10/2012 35,160 -0.6% 7/16/2012 35,853 2.0% 7/23/2012 35,827 -0.1% 7/30/2012 34,490 -3.7% 8/5/2012 34,173 -0.9% 8/13/2012 33,872 -0.9% 8/21/2012 33,579 -0.9% 8/27/2012 32,311 -3.8% 9/4/2012 30,133 -6.7% It's entirely probable that some of these folks are out there enjoying the new hotness - or are busy going back to school - and will rejoin us in the future. Some of them won't, of course. However, with City of Heroes shutting down, we may be picking up more folks from that, and of course, from F2P down the road. I'll be here, slinging the actual real numbers. :-) Paige

Hi there! I'm *that* person. The one with all the population analysis for SWTOR (link). I've never even *heard* of Xfire. Perhaps it's not as widely used as you think it is...

Yogol, hello there! If you'd like a thorough discussion of methods, please read the original post that those numbers are coming from. The way we know how many people = light versus heavy is that people went and counted the number of players on their servers using the /who command. We have 90+ readings on the destination servers. So I can, with a defined amount of accuracy, say that each status roughly means a certain number of people. How do *you* recommend getting a census of the origin servers? We had a *lot* of folks trying to figure that problem for months. We gave up. Those servers could be nobody or as much as maybe 90k players. You tell me how to figure that out and I'll happily add it to my analysis. Also, I have no clear understanding of how you believe that the 20% swing in PvP and RP-PvE is "misleading"? Please do enlighten me? Paige

Ah... if your interest is which segment of the community uses the forums more, I will readily agree that the PvP forums have *far* more posts than the others. This trend is also reflected in the server group forums (LINK) if you look at the numbers of both threads and posts. I understood the point of the original point to be "Why Bioware should shift most of their focus to PvP" (as the original title of the thread suggests). I happen to disagree with that statement, and I just wanted to point out that though the PvP community is *extremely* vocal, they are about 25% (or less, and dropping) of the active players. In my opinion, it is not in the best interests of the larger SWTOR-playing community nor in the best interests of BW/EA for bioware to "shift most of their focus to PvP". Paige

I appreciate your inclination for polite discourse, and I completely agree that knowing how many people are playing on which type of server is an imperfect metric of the importance of PvE vs PvP. By choosing a PvE or PvP server, the player makes a basic "mindset" choice. My argument rests on the assumption that the people who really like PvP are more inclined to be actively playing on a PvP server. That may be an incorrect assumption. I completely agree with your analysis of the # of forum threads. That's plain data and I commend any efforts to talk about data rather than opinions. My personal experience leads me to belive that the forums are an imperfect and biased "slice" of the game-playing community. I'm in a guild of 100+ RP-PvErs and it's only a couple of us that will get on the forums. 90% of our guild wouldn't enter these forums with a CDC BL4 containment suit! No one but BW has the numbers to really say how much time people spend doing PvE vs PvP. We just don't have a good metric here on the outside. Even if they *did* share that data, that still wouldn't answer the question. Does the PvP or the PvE cause more people to subscribe? Which is more fun to more players? You may spend most of your time PvEing, but PvP is what *really* makes you happy. That's going to take some serious, well designed, statistically- and epidemiologically-sound surveys to get at. Paige

TL;DR: Bioware should NOT shift most of their focus to PvP. The people on the PvP servers are less than 25% of the total population of players AND they are already leaving. Hi there! I'm *that* person. The one with all the numbers. (LINK). We have had some population declines, but look more closely at the numbers as of 8/27/2012. Who did we lose? LINK HERE, go to the "SUMMARY STATS" tab and look to the right for the math. PvE logins are at 99.7% of their original number (as of 6/27/2012). RP-PvP logins are at 100.0% of their original number. RP-PvE logins are at 120.0% of their original number, so that's a lot of growth. PvP logins are at 81.4% of their original number, so that's a pretty big loss. So yeah, we've lost some folks that have left for greener PvP pastures. We've gained a *LOT* of RPers - Yay! In fact the biggest server these days is Beg Colony (US PST RP-PvE). The PvE crowd is as big as it ever was (and it's 48% of the total pop). The RP-PvE and PvP populations are each 24% of the total pop. RP-PvE numbers have gone up 20% in the last two months. PvP numbers have gone down 20% in the last two months. RP-PvP is small (3.8% of the total pop) and they're not going anywhere (almost no change). It makes much more business sense to focus on your PvE crowd because those are your most numerous subscribers and your RP-PvE crowd because that's your fastest growing population segment. Paige

Archaeonn, If you'd read the OP, you'd see I've been diligently trying to collect as much actual census data as humanly possible. I'd love to have your contribution, if you have time to census the servers. LINK TO SURVEY LINK TO DATA Paige

100% You said it, big guy. This game was billed as a "4th Pillar", story based MMO. I know a lot of folks who are happy as clams just levelling and don't give a rat's bottom about the endgame or PvP. Sometimes they'll team up for heroics or flashpoints but that's an occasional thing. I think that might be the core constituency of the game. A lot of these folks are here for the RP specifically, or are on RP servers because they think the social climate is nicer there. Paige

A noble goal, Don Quixote, a noble goal. :-) I wish you the best of luck. I'd just pointed out elsewhere that these forums have been so toxic that 99% of my guild of 100+ people wouldn't read them or post here even with a CDC BL4 positive pressure containment suit. The forums have an image problem, and I welcome the efforts to police them more effectively. If by doing so you lose some customers, then I think that's okay. Sometimes, some paying customers aren't worth the revenue they bring in because they scare away too many other paying customers. Think of the drunk-smelly-obnoxious person at the restaurant. You go in, you see him, you decide to eat elsewhere. That's kinda what's been going on here. As a consultant, IRL, I've seen my firm "fire" a few customers because they, for whatever reason, were hurting our morale or reputation, both of which hurt our bottom line. It's a good business decision. Give 'em ach-ee-double-hockeysticks! Paige

Oh, and... some things I noticed while responding to another post... We have had some population declines, but look more closely at the numbers as of 8/27/2012. Who did we lose? LINK HERE, go to the "SUMMARY STATS" tab and look to the right for the math. PvE logins are at 99.7% of their original number (as of 6/27/2012). RP-PvP logins are at 100.0% of their original number. RP-PvE logins are at 120.0% of their original number, so that's a lot of growth. PvP logins are at 81.4% of their original number, so that's a pretty big loss. So yeah, we've lost some folks that have left for greener PvP pastures. We've gained a *LOT* of RPers - Yay! In fact the biggest server these days is Beg Colony (US PST RP-PvE). The PvE crowd is as big as it ever was (and it's 48% of the total pop). RP-PvP is so small (3.8% of the total pop) and they're not going anywhere. So I think that it's perhaps possible that maybe the "content locusts" have come and gone, and what we're left with are the people who enjoy the game. Most of those people (like 99% of my guild of over 100+ people) wouldn't come onto these forums in a full CDC BL4 containment suit. That's one reason that the forums are so full of negativity. Paige

I'm that girl. The one with the numbers. Rather than just talk about server X at time Y, let's look at the numbers... DATA and STATS FURTHER ANALYSIS Since 6/27/2012 (exactly two months ago) Date Logins Growth 6/27/2012 32,834 6/29/2012 34,310 4.5% 7/2/2012 35,383 3.1% 7/10/2012 35,160 -0.6% 7/16/2012 35,853 2.0% 7/23/2012 35,827 -0.1% 7/30/2012 34,490 -3.7% 8/5/2012 34,173 -0.9% 8/13/2012 33,872 -0.9% 8/21/2012 33,579 -0.9% 8/27/2012 32,311 -3.8% So yeah, some declines, but look more closely at the numbers as of 8/27/2012. Who did we lose? PvE logins are at 99.7% of their original number (as of 6/27/2012). RP-PvP logins are at 100.0% of their original number. RP-PvE logins are at 120.0% of their original number, so that's a lot of growth. PvP logins are at 81.4% of their original number, so that's a pretty big loss. So yeah, we've lost some folks that have left for greener PvP pastures. We've gained a *LOT* of RPers - Yay! In fact the biggest server these days is Beg Colony (US PST RP-PvE). The PvE crowd is as big as it ever was (and it's 48% of the total pop). RP-PvP is so small (3.8% of the total pop) and they're not going anywhere. So I think that it's perhaps possible that maybe the "content locusts" have come and gone, and what we're left with are the people who enjoy the game. Most of those people (like 99% of my guild of over 100+ people) wouldn't come onto these forums in a full CDC BL4 containment suit. That's one reason that the forums are so full of negativity. Paige

Another Monday update! Feels like time is flying by... or maybe that's because my parents were in town for the weekend! Mostly, the ratios of how many people are where and when and doing what haven't changed BUT this is the first time that RP-PvE is bigger than PvP (but only by a smidge, 24.2% of total logins for RP-PvE vs 24% of logins for PvP). Also, much like the last week of July, we experienced about a 4% drop in numbers over the last week. The last week of the month must be when subs run out, or something. Date Logins Growth 6/27/2012 32,834 6/29/2012 34,310 4.5% 7/2/2012 35,383 3.1% 7/10/2012 35,160 -0.6% 7/16/2012 35,853 2.0% 7/23/2012 35,827 -0.1% 7/30/2012 34,490 -3.7% 8/5/2012 34,173 -0.9% 8/13/2012 33,872 -0.9% 8/21/2012 33,579 -0.9% 8/27/2012 32,311 -3.8% Full details in the OP. Paige

Would love to! What's your system? With the caveat that I'm trying very hard to make the survey not a total pain in the rear for people. Hard enough to get people to take the survey as-is now. Paige

I'm so glad you brought that up! That is, in fact, EXACTLY how we determined what each level band was. If you'll carefully review points 3 and 7 in the OP, you'll see the math. We have 90+ measurements on the destination servers. LINK HERE. The data is there for you and everyone else to do independent analyses. If you'd like to help out by doing surveys of your server, then that would be fabulous! More data only improves the numbers! LINK TO SURVEY Paige

Fella, that *whole* thing was explaned to death. I quit counting the 191 origin servers that week because I cannot reliably estimate the population of a "light" server where the phi is rarely or never greater than 1. That means that I'm ignoring between maybe 0 and maybe 90,000 players. Check point 5C in the OP and the bright yellow TL;DR statement at the top. Check out THIS thread (LINK HERE) for a beaten-like-a-dead-horse discussion of that line of reasoning. If you think these numbers aren't trustworthy, show me where you think they're wrong and I'll happily alter the analysis if you find something I've misinterpreted or overlooked. Paige

Again... not a whole lot to report... more of the same. There was a very slight loss, not quite one percent. Most of that loss in in PvP. Right now, RP-PvE and PvP are about tied with each other for # of people. It's entirely possible that next week RP-PvE will surpass PvP. Here's what that looks like since the start of monitoring. Date Logins Growth 6/27/2012 32,834 6/29/2012 34,310 4.5% 7/2/2012 35,383 3.1% 7/10/2012 35,160 -0.6% 7/16/2012 35,853 2.0% 7/23/2012 35,827 -0.1% 7/30/2012 34,490 -3.7% 8/5/2012 34,173 -0.9% 8/13/2012 33,872 -0.9% 8/21/2012 33,579 -0.9% Other than that... the song remains the same. Paige

There's been a lot of jokes about the GW2 "Rapture" that is going to leave every other game on the planet a ghost town on the 28th of this month. /shrug We'll see what happens. I'll be here crunching the data so that we can at least be discussing something factual and trying to come up with good interpretations. Paige