DaxRendar Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I haven't seen any "Wah wah I'm stuck in a queue" threads in a while. Surest sign that something is up with the server pops. Yeah... it's called they expanded the Server Caps to alleviate queues. There was even a post about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mannic Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 That's great (despite providing inaccurate information yourself - although not certain why you think they went from 5 years and spent $80M, and added $70M in the last 8 months of development). However, you regularly come into threads to crush people using any sort of sales number. And you even said yourself that you hate inaccurate information. Yet you do not correct people ever when they use $300M as the budget. Seems selective you would crusade against one misinformation and totally let the other slide....especially for a self-proclaims vanguard of misinformation. Awesome. EA had spent $80 million on development costs since they bought Bioware. How much was spent by Bioware before that? By all accounts, TOR had already been in development for at least 2 years prior to being bought out by EA. We know that they were writing checks for things like the game engine and bringing in people like Gordon Walton to run the show. Bioware Austin had already been established and you know setting up that studio specifically to make TOR wasn't free. And how much was spent by EA after that article was published? In 7 months, a 100 designers will cost you millions of dollars just in payroll. You realize the last few months of development is the most expensive time for an MMO, right? That's when they start hiring scores of CSR's, expanding their bandwidth, building new servers, ramping up marketing, etc. etc. In that article itself EA said it would cost an additional $20 million for distribution, so already you're at $100 million. You see how quickly you start to get up to an astronomical number? And that, of course, still doesn't include the $860 million EA spent to acquire Bioware/Pandemic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scar Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 (edited) Awesome. EA had spent $80 million on development costs since they bought Bioware. How much was spent by Bioware before that? By all accounts, TOR had already been in development for at least 2 years prior to being bought out by EA. We know that they were writing checks for things like the game engine and bringing in people like Gordon Walton to run the show. Bioware Austin had already been established and you know setting up that studio specifically to make TOR wasn't free. And how much was spent by EA after that article was published? In 7 months, a 100 designers will cost you millions of dollars just in payroll. You realize the last few months of development is the most expensive time for an MMO, right? That's when they start hiring scores of CSR's, expanding their bandwidth, building new servers, ramping up marketing, etc. etc. In that article itself EA said it would cost an additional $20 million for distribution, so already you're at $100 million. You see how quickly you start to get up to an astronomical number? And that, of course, still doesn't include the $860 million EA spent to acquire Bioware/Pandemic. Yet for the second straight response, you are making this about the trees and not the forest. You are the self proclaimed hater of inaccurate information, but are extremely selectivity to what inaccurate information you actually hate. $300M is ok by your tacit implication of never challenging it. 2M sales is offensive to you enough to continually jump down anyone's throat who dares suggest it. Edited January 16, 2012 by Scar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hushia Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 The game either makes it or not. No one has the exact figures, so it's all speculation. There is absolutely no point in a discussion about who is right and who is wrong with regards to server populations. The only thing you can do is compare personal experiences with regards to server population. And what does that tell you when not all SWTOR players are present? Right, nothing.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparklehorse Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 well, i'm 1 less that will show up after 20th. we'll see how it all plays out when EA announces their qtrly earnings report and "actual" subscriber count, not just box sales. My brother and cousin just purchased and subbed for 3 months so that's 2 for your 1. Just sayin... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insideman Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 The game either makes it or not. No one has the exact figures, so it's all speculation. There is absolutely no point in a discussion about who is right and who is wrong with regards to server populations. The only thing you can do is compare personal experiences with regards to server population. And what does that tell you when not all SWTOR players are present? Right, nothing.. THIS^ And just to comment, The server I play on hasnt seen any drop and it seems it's even getting more popular, at least on the Republic side Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mannic Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Those two franchises have a combined sales of over 12 million copies. There's at least one more mass effect game and who knows how many dragon age games. I'd say they're more than big enough to warrant the purchase. 12 million copies = around $400 million in gross revenues (and that's being generous.) Gross revenues is not profit. To find out the profit you have to subtract the price of developing those games and the price of distributing them, as well as taxes and other liabilities incurred by the game. In general terms, in the gaming industry, $400 million in gross revenues will work out to somewhere around $80 million in actual profits. So let's give those games the benefit of the doubt, and say they've made twice that-- $160 million in profits off ME 2 and DA 2, plus all units of previous titles sold by Bioware in the interim. Then let's add another $100 million for DLC's and margin-of-error just so no one says I'm cheating (even though the actual numbers are almost certainly much lower for these sales figures) and say Bioware has generated $260 million in profit for EA since their acquisition in 2007. That's still means Bioware needs to generate $600 million more in profit before Bioware/Pandemic breaks even compared to what they paid for them. You don't think TOR was a BIG part of EA's plans? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waypoc Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 yeah definitely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neverendingname Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 well i hope u all have fun for how long u stay i just unsuscribed dont have time for ****** games like this more bugs in this game thatn there is in africa its rediculas honestly well have fun all goodbye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCommando Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 People go back to work after the Holidays? BLASPHEMY! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daeborn Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 well i hope u all have fun for how long u stay i just unsuscribed dont have time for ****** games like this more bugs in this game thatn there is in africa its rediculas honestly well have fun all goodbye You never subscribed to begin with and you really need a spell checker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortwave Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 The holidays? Since this game failed to keep people from work/school we see how bad the title really is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Safiir Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 12 million copies = around $400 million in gross revenues (and that's being generous.) Gross revenues is not profit. To find out the profit you have to subtract the price of developing those games and the price of distributing them, as well as taxes and other liabilities incurred by the game. In general terms, in the gaming industry, $400 million in gross revenues will work out to somewhere around $80 million in actual profits. So let's give those games the benefit of the doubt, and say they've made twice that-- $160 million in profits off ME 2 and DA 2, plus all units of previous titles sold by Bioware in the interim. Then let's add another $100 million for DLC's and margin-of-error just so no one says I'm cheating (even though the actual numbers are almost certainly much lower for these sales figures) and say Bioware has generated $260 million in profit for EA since their acquisition in 2007. That's still means Bioware needs to generate $600 million more in profit before Bioware/Pandemic breaks even compared to what they paid for them. You don't think TOR was a BIG part of EA's plans? If Bioware ceases to exist you would be right. But EA didn't buy them for what they'll do tomorrow. They bought them because they expect them to profitable for the next decade. At the least. TOR is a part of they're expected profits, of course. But it's ridiculous to think it's the main reason. Noone expects TOR to make a wow-level of profits. I very much doubt any game would be able to top wow's profits in the not too distant future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokivoid Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 OR, perhaps they addressed the server issues allowing for higher caps which we are not hitting. This is what USUALLY happens this early in the game. nah, Really it has nothing to do with the holidays or server cap changes (server cap changes would show a raise in overall player activity.) Current datamined server statistics show a steady 3% drop in server activity per day sense retail launch. This is not a holiday issue as the statistics would of stablized after jan 1. The 3% drop is averaged for all servers. ( This means wile a fue servers might show a net raise in activity). also would like to point at a net average of 3% per day drop is a vary alarming figure. Source: http://www.swtorarena.com/statistics/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rheshalea Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 (edited) Meh... I still love this game and plan to stick around for a long time. But after I got to play to my heart's content over the holidays, I don't mind that I don't play every single evening anymore. I do play for a while every morning though, and 3-4 evenings per week. But I also enjoy doing other things in life, so ...sorry if I'm part of the reason activity seems to be dropping. Edit to clarify: My holiday lasted until January 9th; I work with kids whose school holiday lasted that long. Might be others who also enjoyed a long holiday this year. Edited January 16, 2012 by Rheshalea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sithmud Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I know on my sever there has been a drop in people playing , but recently I rolled up a reb alt so that would compound the fact that the sever seems empty ... even the fleet in non peak hrs. There also has been a drop in players playing in my guild ,I do think the # are dropping , but regardless I dont think the game has anything to fear tho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sevenpatch Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Haha you guys are so dumb. Here's what happened: 1) They set the server caps low in order to spread people out across many servers 2) They raised the server caps 3) Dummies think the game is dying and post a thread about it It's obvious what they should have done. They should have lowered the server caps, so everyone is queuing for hours and hours and then everyone will think that the game must be super amazing that everyone and their mother is trying to play at the same time so they have to sub or they will be unpopular. Take THAT marketing director!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merex Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I can't wait for the 30 free days to end. The people who actually want to play the game will be here, and a lot of the trolls will leave and go back to WoW. The game will be much more enjoyable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaskaszh Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Yes, of course... if people keep claiming TOR has sold 2 million units based on a notoriously inaccurate site, that's totally cool; but if someone points out that the site is totally inaccurate, suddenly it really does not matter... "According to Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz, between 1 million and 1.5 million players are already jockeying for position in The Old Republic's servers. Creutz's estimate is based on the fact that EA now has 140 Old Republic servers online, with 77 handling US players and 63 for Europe. That figure is significantly up from the 106 servers The Old Republic had online as of Wednesday, one day after EA began inviting preorder customers into the game." http://www.statisticbrain.com/star-wars-the-old-republic-statistics/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/12/23/even-a-jedi-cant-keep-ea-stock-above-21-on-gaming-battlefield/: “Additionally, SWTOR has managed to generate a frenzy amongst MMORPG gamers with pre-sales numbers already nearing 1 million” That's a lot of varied evidence pointing to the approximate accuracy of the 2 million (minimum) number. I'd say even 2 million is conservative now, considering they'd managed to sell half that before the game had even launched. Can we get on with ignoring you now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deuscariot Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Oh, look, it's this thread again. How unique! Last night every region/planet that I was in had between 80-100 people in it and that was at midnight on a Monday on a "Standard" server. Problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holden_Dissent Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 I don't know why people post this stuff. Thanks for pointing out that YOUR server lost a handful of people. It's all speculation anyway. You don't know what people are doing and you shouldn't care. They could be on vacation, grounded, gone back to school, military, work, or maybe they died IRL. Who knows....I have actually been running into more and more people the higher in level I get. But it still seems most people are in the Coruscant levels. I used to play other games and I'd never see anyone hardly ever in brand new expansion zones. I literally saw 20 people the whole time I was leveling to max level. But that doesn't affect my gameplay nor does it affect my attitude and opinion of a game. Why does it affect you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knewt Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 I'm on my second character and taking a much longer time to level (leveled my first during xmas vacation). On both characters, I've noticed the same large drop in planet population when I got to Nar Shada. Originally I thought I just out leveled the initial curve. On this toon, I play maybe 2-3 hours in the evenings. I see 100+ people in the fleet and on Coruscant. There was a small drop on Taris, but the numbers were still in the 80-100 range. Now on Nar Shada, I've dropped to 35. It seems like most people are re-rolling at about level 20 to try another class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mutharex Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 I can't wait for the 30 free days to end. The people who actually want to play the game will be here, and a lot of the trolls will leave and go back to WoW. The game will be much more enjoyable. You wish, there are actually people who bought the game ONLY to be able to troll and the yaren't going to give up that easily.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Itharius Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 (edited) It isn't that bad of a population drop off. That said, I may unsub if they don't fix my problems soon. I have some pretty horrible performance issues that aren't being addressed in 1.1. I can only hope they're addressed in 1.2, else I may have to leave the guild I raided with in WoW for a year :-( You know what I mean, the crazy warzone/city performance drops. This game would be awesome if it played at over 20 fps on my rig, and it's nothing on my end. Edited January 17, 2012 by Lord_Itharius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valarcrist Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 I noticed servers aren't always full like before, most of them are now Heavy, but this doesn't effect my in game play, still get groups fast just like launch day. If population is low on your server then it's probably because its a Wednesday and it's 11 AM. Seriously kids, stop worrying about these things and just play the game and stop making these pointless threads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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