Wizzrobe
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Posts posted by Wizzrobe
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Both game and mainstream media will injure more than their and EA's pride, it will injure SWTOR and in less extent all of BW's future games and will hit their profits too if they go for server merge.
There are ways around this.
The easy way is to enable free transfers to everyone (I believe Rift does this) on a weekly basis. This way they can leave the 'empty' servers online to avoid the bad PR and everyone can still have the game experience they want. Name taken on server X? Try server Y. Tired of low pop? Move to high pop. Tired of high pop? Move to low. etc. Granted I do not (and have never) played Rift, but it is an interesting idea that could end up evening up the populations over time. People wouldn't be as inclined to flock towards the high pop servers if they didn't have to worry they'd get abandoned on a ghost town server.
But, to do this, Bioware would have to throw away all the potential money they could make off of paid transfers (like Blizzard).
Another possible way is to move everyone off of the lowest servers and repurpose those servers for other territories (Australia, China, wherever they happen to be launching next). Server stays open, people move off. Technically the server was not 'closed', they just didn't have to add additional ones.
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Thanks to OP and others for bringing this to my attention. I had not encountered people getting upset about server mergers outright but rather they'd toss out things like "start over on another server" or some how spinning it as the persons fault.
I was not aware that denying the truth that there were bad decisions made in spreading people too thin and the fact that people have/are leaving so the problem is compounded would somehow make the game a 'win' when it seems it isn't.
This is true, there is a lot of 'blame the victim' mentality on these forums.
I do agree that the naming issue is a problem and that people should not be forced to change names. I understand how that would be upsetting.
But some of the 'aggressively against server merge' people refuse to acknowledge that some of the lower pop servers are spiraling down the drain as people either reroll or quit the game due to the lack of other people around. I don't like to see this happen.
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If it is as bad as you portray, then if they all quit it would not noticeably affect total subscription numbes, much less have any effect on ALL the servers that are heavy/very-heavy/full each night.
I do play on three servers, including a server that is virtually always light. And, if I did not like it on that server, I would abandon the characters and roll on other servers, because I am not a victim and I determine the fun I have in playing an MMO. In fact, I enjoy playing on all three servers, each has a different personality to the community.
And I totally do not support your reason for merging... to subsidize your crafting trade.
And if they all quit there would be a number of completely empty servers, at which point they may as well not exist anyway (sort of like if they were merged). I'm sure it would make a good impression on a new subscriber to start on one of these servers.
What is the light population server you play on? If by 'different personality' you mean empty, then yeah the servers have different personalities.
Your last sentence is just ignorant. The dead market is just one of the many reasons a low pop server is bad. I'm not even a hardcore crafter but if I was so what? Isn't that part of the game? You could make the same argument for anything.
'And I totally do not support your reason for merging.... to subsidize you getting loot and experience from flashpoints and operations'
It's obvious you don't support merging for any reason, let alone crafting.
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I've posted a number of threads about this that I won't link to here. Maybe some of you have read them. Most of you probably haven't, or just don't care.
What I see in this thread is a lot of people who are playing on populated servers telling those who aren't 'too bad'. After all, it's easy to ignore stuff that doesn't affect you directly right?
Out of sight, out of mind.
Your primary concern is not for the health of the game and for the people playing it, but for the possible negative PR associated with server merges. If that's your priority, fine, but I would hope Bioware's first priority would be to improve the game for all players.
All I can tell you is that it is really bad on some servers, and the game isn't going to keep these people around in that state. These low pop servers are hurting, and people on them are starting to wonder why they are paying a sub for a multiplayer game if there isn't anybody else around. Many of these players (like me) really enjoy the game, but it's hard to feel excited about leveling up your characters when there is nobody around to do flashpoints or operations. It's hard to get excited about crafting new items when there is nobody to buy them off the market.
So people should just reroll right? And how exactly does that help the 'low pop' server problem?
Out of sight, out of mind I suppose.
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IMO the problem is not with the class, it's with the way the game categorizes force/tech damage vs ranged/melee damage.
Not an easy problem to fix either, because there are many abilities and talents related to defense, shield, and tech/force damage. Itemization would also be an issue.
Of course the quick sloppy fix is to make key sniper/GS attacks tech just like everybody else, but once you do that you start to marginalize 'tank' classes (and talents and such) even more so than they already are in PvP.
Tanks need shield and defensive stats to stay alive in PvE, and those stats really only help against a select few classes in pvp since, for the most part, everybody just spams special abilities all the time (since there really is no reason not to).
It would make no sense for a big tough tank specced guardian (or powertech, or whatever) to gain next to no advantage from his/her heavy armor, shield, and defensive talents but that's kind of the way the game is.
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I think the BH ship looks great from the front and sides, but awful from the back. It's just sort of flat and dumpy back there.
Oh and imo the Smuggler ship is by far the most like Serenity.
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Is the population low, or are you one of the few people holding out at level 50 while everyone else re-rolled alts?
The population is very low all around, not just among the level 50s. Compared to populated servers the level 50 population is all around pathetic on many of the low pop servers.
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Merging servers means a lot of angry players who have to change their names. Not just that, but think of the confusion it would cause if people who you thought you knew, were actually strangers with the same name. Now you buddies have new names, and someone you don't know has their old name.
It's still a better alternative than having to reroll entirely on a new server, which is what a lot of us who enjoy the multiplayer portions of this game (market, flashpoints, ops, group quests, etc) are doing. You still have to change your name, and you get to lose everything you've worked for on your old server as well.
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Haven't read everything so I apologize if repeated.
One of the worst names I've seen was 'Swtor'
Best guild name I've seen (not my guild) was 'Ewok Taxidermy Service'.
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We definitely need a server merger soon. I have seen several post from players in our server ICE BREAKER that rolled to go to a high pop server. This just adds more concern for players who are sucking clean air because people are leaving.
Our level 50s are complaining about the long ques. Do we tell our members to slow down leveling because lvl 50 will be QueQue much?
The sad reality is that we need these mergers to energize the base into recruiting for the end game. Forget what PR it will have, the important thing is that you are focused on your Base. These are players that have already committed. It is the base that provides the best PR, better than any advertising out there. You mishandle your base you lose the game completely.
WoW adopted a pioneering venture. Their ideas generated millions. It behooves BW to look at the model and develop their own. But if you are going to twiddle your thumb and expect your TV commercials will generate new subscription, you are imagining things. This is consumer driven market.
To add to that, even if the commercials DO add more players, you now risk them inadvertently joining one of the 'low' pop servers, playing for a little while and then saying 'where is everybody? why am I paying a subscription for this?'.
Believe me, the difference between the servers in 'fun' factor is enormous.
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Gonna go with sent/marauder based on my experience.
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In addition, some people think that smaller servers will give a better community where you get that small town feeling. I played on a small server in WoW for years and loved it. I would always run into people I knew.
What server are you playing on? Is it a low population server?
WoW is not a good comparison as the cross server dungeon finding and pvp (and now even raid I guess, though I haven't played it in quite a while) alleviate a lot of the problems of a low population server. I also played on a small WoW PvP server (during pre-BC). Blizzard eventually allowed server transfers from a heavily populated server to my server (not quite a server merge). It was the opposite reason for transferring people, but it was needed none-the-less.
Even on a high population server the only way to not 'run into' people you know would be to go out of your way to avoid them. Just because there are other people around doesn't mean you can't still group, guild, run missions, etc the same as on the small server.
If there are people out there who prefer a very small server than Bioware could accommodate them by enabling server transfers for them during the merge. That way if your server was being merged, you'd have the opportunity to move to a bigger server or to a smaller server of your choice. This would also allow people to possibly find a server where they could keep their character names and/or legacy name.
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Vette > Mako > Corso > Kaliyo > Khem
(Based solely on how much I like them - most leveled only to level thirties so they could get more interesting based on later story events)
Vette makes me a laugh a lot and has some great lines, so she's highest on my list. She adds some great lines to conversations on a regular basis.
Mako is nice but a little needy and clingy (always saying 'don't forget about me' type of stuff).
Corso also has some good lines, but people usually either like or hate the whole 'country boy' schtick.
Kaliyo is just too random for my tastes. Sometimes she 'likes' or 'dislikes' things that I say that make no sense at all. It's also very annoying that agents are stuck with only her until their thirties (especially light side).
Khem is just irritating. He takes a minute to say a sentence, and a few seconds to say a paragraph. His job is to always get in the way of anything I want to click, and he's always whining about how nothing is as good as it was with his dead master. He rarely adds anything of interest to a conversations besides threatening to eat whoever I am talking to.
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Thanks for sharing your experience. Actually, I also have rerolled onto Mind Trick for the time being. So far I have found playing on a populated server to be worth the switch, but I still miss my characters on the Defenestrator.
I, too, feel a little guilty about it since I know I've only made the problem worse for those remaining. Until Bioware makes a statement concerning population though it felt like it was the only choice to make for someone who enjoys the multiplayer aspect of the game (I enjoy flashpoints, heroic quests, and an active economy).
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It is approximately 10AM EST and here are some numbers for the imperial side.
This gives you an idea of the DRASTIC difference between the populated and unpopulated servers.
Server:: The Defenestrator listed as LIGHT (5 people in imperial fleet)
44 levels 1-25
47 levels 26-49
4 level 50s
TOTAL 95 people
Server: Mind Trick listed as STANDARD (91 people in imperial fleet)
Note: I had to cut this one into many smaller steps to keep under the 100 person /who limit.
77 levels 1-10
78 levels 11-15
86 levels 16-20
56 levels 21-25
70 levels 26-30
59 levels 31-35
58 levels 36-40
51 levels 41-45
34 levels 46-49
22 level 50 mercs
35 level 50 sorcerors
8 level 50 powertechs
8 level 50 operatives
7 level 50 snipers
17 level 50 assassins
14 level 50 juggernauts
16 level 50 marauders
TOTAL 706 people
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Yes, of course, what I was arguing against was the likes of the OP which generalizes from this kind of thing to hyperbolic claims about "how the game is doing".
Ah sorry, I get frustrated that the Bioware reps keep merging 'this game is failing' posts into this thread alongside legitimate 'my server population is low, we need a merge' posts.
They really are two separate issues.
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Just did another population check...
- at 8:00 AM EST, on an EST server
- Saturday (can't use "at work" as excuse)
- checked all levels (1-50)
- all locations included (planets, ships, Fleet, etc)
... total online (Republic) = 79
Yep, we SURE don't need any server merges or character transfers
/end_sarcasm
(we are in DIRE need of both/either)
At this rate, it should be taken out of the MMO classification, to an FMO (Few Multiplayer Online).
I don't think people on the populated servers just realize how barren it has become on these low pop servers. Having rerolled some characters on Mind Trick I know it really is a night and day difference between the two.
Later today I may post up some population numbers for my server as well. It's been a few days since I logged in there.
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Until I see some server names and screenshots I'm calling gullabaloney
My server name is in the second sentence of my original post, and in my signature.
People have posted plenty of screenshots in other threads.
Here is one from a previous thread that I took a week or two ago. It is 7PM EST on an East Coast server and there are 10 people in the fleet. For fun I should have done a /who 50 so you could have seen the 3 or so level 50s who would have been online at the time.
http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p544/PiratePenguin/SWTOR/defenestrator_low_pop.jpg
This wasn't even cherry picking. I could do this at most any time at night and the highest you will likely see is 25 in the fleet, with an average around 20 from 9PM-11PM or so.
At the time of the picture the entire population of the imperial side of the server was between 150 people and 200 people.
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Per Stephen Reid's podcast from last Thursday, the soon part is enabling live characters to be transferred (copied) to a PTS. Once that system proves reliable then they'll have the confidence to patch it into the game.
@Jackobite hit the nail on the head. Queues caused impatient players to kneejerk and reroll mains on low pop servers to avoid login queues. Those who stuck it out on their original servers while BW reworked the pop caps (myself included) now have their mains on healthy populated servers; while the ones that rerolled have mains on low pop servers. So the next logical kneejerk reaction becomes players rerolling (again) back onto on high pop servers which is dwindling the active player counts on the low population servers.
In hindsight BioWare probably should not have added more servers except to address a genuine overpopulation crisis. They probably remember what happened during WoW's launch and overeacted. They also should not have played to the impatience of the mob by recommending they reroll on other servers to buy time. I think that was a king-sized mistake on their part. I'm sure EA had a hand in that decision. Live and learn.
The really funny part is - had players just patiently stayed put when they first joined the community we wouldn't be having this discussion. Now players constantly rerolling on different servers to chase high population counts has done nothing but create a moving target for BW.
Although I agree with the majority of your post, I don't think it's appropriate to blame the 'mob' of new players for being impatient or for their 'kneejerk' reactions as it is Bioware who purposefully raised the queue times to encourage people to move to the new servers.
Also recall that all servers at launch were listed as 'heavy' or 'full'. Due to the artificial limitations Bioware placed on the servers it made the new servers appear far more populated than they actually were, leading a lot of people to think they were doing the right thing by rolling there.
One last point is that a lot of people got the game at or very close to launch (Christmas present) and had no idea which servers were the prelaunch and which were the new, they just didn't want to wait 2 hours to play their new game. Can you blame them?
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That's not the tenor of these kinds of threads. The problem is that lots of people have been hyperbolically generalizing from their own experience of what seems like an empty server and then claiming that the server population in general is dropping, the sky is falling, the game sucks, the Hero engine is crappy, etc., etc., etc.
The appropriate fact to counter that type of propaganda is to point out that one's own experience contradicts that general, hyperbolic claim.
Of course some servers have low populations, there has never been an MMO in which it's been any different, even a successful one; it's only when such a bland statement gets inflated to "OMG the game is failing!!!" generalizations that us fanbois leap to the defence of the game.
The truth is that none of us know the real data, all we have is our individual "feels". And your claim that the game feels dead is easily countered by my claim that the game feels alive - IOW, neither claim is really worth much, without data to back it up, and none of us have the appropriate data.
Well, except for an official statement that the game has about 1.7m active subs. That certainly jibes with my "feel" of the game, but of course it could be a lie (at the cost of prosecution if EA are ever found out) and the game could have about 100k players who are mainly clustered on 2 or 3 servers. Who knows?
This has nothing to do with the 'feel' of the game for you and me. There is no correlation between the two. If you are on a populated server and the game 'feels' alive and prosperous, that's wonderful for you, but I am not on a populated server and the game 'feels' like a ghost town.
Neither claim counters the other claim unless you also happen to play on The Defenestrator server (or one of the other low pop servers), which based on your feelings of the game it is obvious you do not.
Honestly even if the game had 30 million people playing it, if 29,999,800 of them were all playing on one server while everyone else was playing on other servers the game would still seem dead to them and it would STILL be a problem.
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1.7 million people disagree with this thread.
Sure, if the 1.7 million people all happened to be on the same server they might all disagree.
Being one of those people though I know for a fact that the population on my server has dropped quite a bit.
Everytime I see these threads I see more and more people saying 'my server is great, so everything is fine'.
Do you not understand that other servers could be having serious population problems?
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BioWare . . . you reading this?
Actually, they are working on this and will soon be using live character transfers to the PTS as a model. (One of many incentives to get more players on the test servers.) Just hope it happens sooner rather than later.
[edit] I'm on Mask of Nihilus and it rocks every friggin night & weekends. There are groups forming all the time (world boss ops are not uncommon) and even guilds spamming chat looking to recruit for 16s. I took a screen of one tonight and I'll add it as soon as I can find it.
[edit] Found it: http://www.galactickegger.com/SWTOR/Screenshot_2012-02-02_19_48_31_312500.jpg. The 7:48 is US CST and the server is a west coast server. So many weren't even home from work yet.
I hope you are correct in that there will be some sort of transfer option soon.
I would be quite disappointed though if they tried to charge all the people on these low pop servers to help fix a problem they created in the first place.
And yeah it looks like your server is doing well (as is 'Mind Trick', the server I've rerolled some characters to). The game is far more enjoyable playing with a health population.
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Nope. If that was the case, the heavy pop servers would be seeing increased activity level, or at least hold steady. They are not. Even Swiftsure and Harbinger right now are only "heavy" and before this they were Very Heavy or Full from about 5:00 PST into the early hours of the A.M. every night, even on weeknights.
I've just observed that the population on my server has decreased rather rapidly over the past 2-3 weeks. I began the process of rerolling on a large server and there has been a decent amount of chatter in the low level zones of people rerolling from low pop servers.
Anecdotal evidence for sure, but since I'm basically doing the same thing it's believable.
I tend not to pay too much attention to the server status's since they are arbitrary designations that Bioware can readily change without any of us really knowing about it.
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My server (Lord Calypho) population is doing great. When I was in earlier today (it was either standard or heavy), there were at least 1000 Republic online at one time. Since Empire population is a lot higher (I've even heard it is up to 4 to 1 empire to republic) I'm sure there were at least 1000 Empire on.
Over 2000 people online at once time doesn't sound like a dropping population to me. If anything I'm seeing more and more people every day.
I'm glad that the population of your server is growing. This is not the case for my server and many like it.
It kind of hard to stomach when you realize...
in General Discussion
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OP I (and many others) have been in the exact same situation. People get hung up on the 'light' vs 'heavy' and what they mean stuff when the real issue is that there just isn't enough people on some of these servers to sustain an enjoyable multiplayer experience.
People from the larger servers just don't understand because the experience is so drastically different.