Server population is dropping...

[Nemmar]

Some servers have around 20 people on the fleet during primetime, I don't think it would be a problem to merge those servers with other servers as far as the engine is concerned.

 

Seriously... this is highly dubious. Screenshot of the fleet on prime time or im calling it a lie.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Nemmar

[Minack]

I'm glad you realise that.

 

The population is quite healthy. You have to understand that this isnt a game with 5 zones and 1 hub. It has about 30 planets with several cities and outposts on them.

 

When i questing, wherever it is in the game. I always see other people, wich is impressive for such a massive game.

 

So, while you point to graphics you yourself say nothing can be concluded from, i point to you. Whats your point?

 

 

 

The trend.

[Nemmar]

Theres no chance you are just slow with your class or bad at the game huh? Everyone faster than you just 'rushed'?

 

Generalisation.

 

You have to understand that not everyone has the same free-time or game centered orientation you do.

I'm in a guild with 50+ people on my republic character. The highest character is lvl 48 as of yesterday and theres always about 15 people online.

[DigitalPrime]

As I have said many times, I have seen an increase on my server.

 

This

 

Lastnight on my server had over 300 people on the republic fleet. 120 on tatoonie in the phase i was in.

 

My server is growing in numbers which is good.

 

A few more wouldnt go a miss, But we are only a month in and MMOs take time to grow.

[Xabana]

Theres no chance you are just slow with your class or bad at the game huh? Everyone faster than you just 'rushed'?

 

Exact same boat here. My character is only 41 as well.

 

Why is it that every person who chooses a jawa avatar seems to have personality issues?

[Nemmar]

The trend.

 

Oh, but he himself said:

 

AGAIN I KNOW ITS NOT OFFICIAL NUMBERS, AND NOTHING YOU CAN CONCLUDE ANYTHING FROM.

 

You are concluding something. To conclude something you need to interpret the data with external variables that influence it.

 

Its not as simple as "oh oh! WoW on patch day has dozens of people in small spaces doing daily grinds. Its so popular and sucessful! I must be playing the right game if this many people are here". Illusion is a powerful thing, and many artists make a living out of it.

I much rather a great and massive game where i see 3 different people all over the place, than one where i see dozens cramped in a little island. But, you know... i have a mind of my own.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Nemmar

[Nozzamorph]

What you guys fail to realize is that EA has it's own in house testing, public "BETA" for EA games is nothing more than a demo, as someone who has worked in a QA for EA, i can tell you that EA does not even RESPOND to public tester concerns.

 

The TOR public beta was a demo nothing more, and the TORtanic will surely sink. Just look at the MMO-junkies statistics tool you will see that at most SWTOR had 800k active players and now that number is down to 400k after the first month, that is A DISASTER for a triple A title.

Bioware and EA have released a garbage wow clone with a Star wars skin, don't believe me? Compare the classes to WOW, heck even the professions are reminiscent of wow.

 

Also another post from the forum:

 

 

I posted this as an Amazon review, but felt like I should share it here. Have fun.

 

NOTE: There are spoilers for the JK class story. Please be advised.

 

The Old Republic was very much a hyped game. Announced in 2008 to much anticipation, it promised a revolutionary gaming experience that would create a new standard in the MMO genre. Not only were the great development team at BioWare behind it, but it was based on a very good license and on a series of single-player RPGs - Knights Of The Old Republic and its sequel, Knights of The Old Republic 2 : The Sith Lords. More than a few fans of those games (I included), were disappointed that we were not to have a sequel but nevertheless, we were looking forward to this game, to see what it could be. Perhaps the first warning sign though, is that Rich Vogel, former lead on Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest, is working on the MMO, and that BioWare are using an untested prototype engine - the HeroEngine.

 

Flash forward to 2011. The Old Republic nears release date, after being pushed back a few times, but pre-order numbers are huge and the hype machine is working even harder than it was in 2008. Anticipation builds, ignoring the cries of beta testers who are commenting that the game might not be as good as made out. The game is released, and I pick up a copy for both me and my younger brother, as we eagerly await an MMO that would replace World Of WarCraft, which was quit a year before in frustration at dumbed down game mechanics and a serious stale feeling.

 

The first twenty levels I found fun and engaging. The game shines here. I picked a Jedi Knight, and began playing the story on Tython. The dialogue over all seemed relatively good, and the voice acting in the MMO (much vaunted in previews), was relatively impressive compared to similar games, such as WoW, which often left me cringing. However, skills felt sluggish, and my character seemed oddly blurry. I blamed my own connection for the sluggishness (I live in New Zealand and was played throughout with 200ms ping), and perhaps a bug for the textures, that would hopefully be quickly fixed. The first twenty levels, that ranged from the planets Tython, Coruscant and the first chunk of Nar Shaddaa were generally interesting quest wise. The planet Taris was very much a low point, and later, I realized, a sign of things to come.

 

However, after about level 18, the game begins to slow down. Enemies took longer to burn down, and my droid companion T7, rapidly became very useless, very quickly. The sluggishness in my abilities became even more noticeable to the point my connection couldn't be possibly to be blame, and one thought that went constantly through my head was 'didn't I quit this game a year ago?'. I dismissed this and continued to soldier through. I reached level 24, and immediately shipped off from Nar Shaddaa to Tatooinne, the next planet in my quest, after completing my class quests on Nar Shaddaa two levels before reaching the minimum level requirement for Tatooinne. This would become a much bigger issue, which I will elaborate on later. I worked my way to Alderaan, the next planet after Tatooinne, and then levelled to level 33 on the planet Balmorra before quitting in complete and utter boredom.

 

Generally the class quests post level-20 still remain as fun and engaging as ever. They are usually a step-above other quest lines in terms of writing, and more or less kept me interested as I ploughed through enemies. However, generally quest design was just that - plough through enemies. Or plough through enemies and take their stuff. Or left click a chest to collect an item, or disable a turret. That's it. That's every quest in the game, all fifty levels worth. They might have voice-acting in an attempt to disguise this, but generally, every quest feels more or less the same. Sometimes an interesting environment or enemies will distract the player from this, or an interesting plotline tying the quests together. Because that feels like what all the voice acting is for, not to give character, but to hide the fact the quests are all the same. The same could be achieved with the old quest dialogue box from WoW with 'Accept/Decline' available. Heck, WoW even had dialogue options!

 

This is fundamentally behind the times in terms of theme park MMO's. Even WoW, the old mainstay, has quests that are more than that, even going back to its first release in 2004. In WoW, many of the quests would be variations on the 'kill this theme', but there were also such quests where I could bomb an enemy fortress, seek assistance for a dying crusader, throw parachutes to falling warriors in the air, or even compete in racing orcs on dragons. You could even reveal the royal adviser to be an evil dragon, and trigger a city wide event that could involve dozens of players (sadly, this quest is long gone.). The Old Republic, as far as I saw it, does not do this. It is simply two types of quests, repeated ad nauseam, with voice acting to cover it up. It is simply unacceptable for an MMO to have this design in 2011. It is even beat by WoW in what should be most important in a story-driven game - the permanence of your actions. For example, on the planet Balmorra, I was ordered to take an Imperial base for the resistance on the planet. I cleared out the base, and reached what the game calls a 'group phase' - essentially, a walled off area that only you and members of your group, if you are in one, can access. I wiped out the base, and watched the cutscene where the resistance establishes itself in the base. Then I left the group based phase. Now I am no longer allowed in the interior of the base, and furthermore, the outside of the base was still covered in Imperials. It was if I'd done nothing at all, except turn a bunch of green lines in a door into red ones saying I could no longer enter this door and explore that part of the game world. In WoW, this would have been handily carried out by phasing. Instead of entering a 'group phase', the whole world would have phased, from being an Imperial base into a Republic one, with generic Republic NPC's instead of Imperial ones. There is even a quest line like this in WoW, in the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, where you build the Crusaders Tower, and add a new town for yourself to the map, along with the quest hub. In The Old Republic, the world does not change with your actions. The base is still the same as if you had left it.

 

Also to take issue with the quests is the writing of the game. BioWare have long been trumpeted as the masters of RPG writing. I would argue this point very much (my vote for that would go to Obsidian Entertainment), but generally find BioWare to be tolerable at worst to rather fun and interesting, even if it follows an obvious formula. I should perhaps have seen warning signs in Dragon Age 2, released earlier in March 2011. The games share writers (Jennifer Hepler, for example), and I generally found Dragon Age 2 one of the most intolerable games I have ever had the misfortune to play, with flat, boring and stereotypical characters to often cringe worthy writing. Dragon Age 2 reaching a blinding crescendo of 'barely tolerable', writing wise and game play wise, and did nothing to go beyond this.

 

WARNING : SPOILERS FOR JK CLASS STORY.

Spoiler

 

 

I played through the Jedi Knight class story. The first line you hear in game playing as a Jedi Knight is about how special you are, how you were the BEST duelist at whichever Jedi training academy you were at. You then proceed to defeat the opening quest mobs single-handedly, (or at least treated so by the quest-givers), defeat a Dark Jedi at level three with a training saber, which is supposedly impossible, and are met by the grand master of the Jedi herself at level four. You then get the bestest Knight ever as your Master, who hasn't taken a Padawan in over thirty years. Then every Jedi you talk to admires you, or compliments you on your achievements. Then you 'save' Tython by killing another Dark Jedi at level 10 and build your own lightsaber at the special Forge, where only the best make their lightsabers. Then you get applauded by the Jedi Council and made a Knight because you ~ saved Tython ~.

 

What does this sound like to you? To me, it sounds like an almost typical Mary Sue story, for the perfect self-insert character that does all this ~ awesome ~ stuff and is really special and everyone admires them because they are ~ awesome ~. The game continues in this manner, where your neophyte Jedi Knight defeats a Sith Lord at level 16, saves Coruscant in random side-missions. A few quests had interesting choices - do I choose to expose a corrupt Senator who is nevertheless fighting for the poor, or do let her continue?. But these choices are presented in a blanket light/dark dualistic way. Also, apparently it is the dark side thing to ask for money before doing something, and gives the same amount of Dark Side points for committing random murder.. Jedi don't buy food, apparently. The quest line gets even more ridiculous from there - the Sith Lord has leaked all the locations of the Republic's doomsday weapons and you've got to save the galaxy before they get all of them. Coincidentally, all the doomsday weapons weren't hidden on out-of-the-way planets in the middle of a nebula or a random asteroid, but in highly-populated planets that are also, coincidentally, the zones where everyone else goes. A few quests throw planets at you in the form of 'instances', but these are generally extremely brief, and do not cover these doomsday weapons. You go ahead and annihilate the weapons, saving each planet in the process, because you are the Jedi Knight. Rather than sending an experienced Knight or even a Master to accompany you, or even go in your stead, it is you who gets to save all these planets! Because.

 

 

On the last planet you've got to save (funnily enough, the Sith seem to wait for you to get there before doing anything with the weapons), you meet your Master again, who tells you he's going to go after Darth Angral, the Sith behind the scheme. You save the planet of Alderaan, but then get to see a cutscene of your master dying. This is obviously meant to evoke sadness and an urge to avenge this character but.. well.. in game, I'd had a grand total of 10 minutes out of at least 30 hours played talking to him. I felt no attachment to him at all - I'd spent more time talking to generic quest NPC's than my apparent Jedi Master. Also evoking Mary Sue traits is the fact that the player character then goes after Darth Angral and avenges their master, despite the fact that your master is, apparently, one of the best combat masters in the Order. But he can't beat you, Player Character!. Then the Jedi Council asks you to go kill the Big Bad, the Sith Emperor. Coincidentally, all the clues for getting the Emperor are where all the other player characters are going to do their story quests! And so on. It feels extremely contrived.

 

 

I also have several issues on how game lore was done. I may disconnect with some readers on this (if you ARE still reading), but Revan, the great big hero of the first game in Knights of The Old Republic, is a straight white dude with stubble. Like every video game hero, including the recent Galen Marek of the Star Wars franchise. It also completely rewrites a previous fan favourite, Knights Of The Old Republic 2, to advance a boring storyline that ultimately feels tired and generic,.

 

 

It was at this point, I stopped playing. I can find better writing in Dragon Ball than in BioWare.

 

This depiction of you as the Big Kahuna, the Next Big Thing in the class quests, also completed conflicts from how every other quest in the game sees you. Sure, I'm addressed as 'Master Jedi', but then I'm asked to go punch ten guys in the face because they're shooting at the quest giver. Or shut down three turrets. Or collect cat teeth. Or beat up three guys and take their guns. I don't even remember quests in much detail any more - they all mashed together into one big generic lump, because they are all the same.

 

Space combat also suffers from being overly generic. You get a ship at the completion of your second planet, that lets you fly around the galaxy at will. The same ship that everyone else gets in your class. Wanted to craft ships and sell them to people in this game? Go back to EVE Online. Space combat could have made up for this, but it is literally the same four missions repeated over and over again, with little variation. Station Attack 2 is the same as Station Attack 1, except the hard points you need to destroy have SHEILDS! And everything hits twice as hard, so you better buy upgrades! Oh, and you've got to shoot two more hangars! But otherwise, Station Attack 2 is identical to Station Attack 1, even down to the on-rails flight route.

 

Overall, the writing felt like a concentrated attempt to make the player feel special in a game where 50 other people are probably saving the planet all at the same time as you. To facilitate this, group phasing and story phasing are used to split off areas of the zone/planet from other players except you, which makes The Old Republic feel like a solo game. As aforementioned, the problem is that changes to the world brought about by your actions only appear in these phases - nowhere else. Characters in the phase will talk about how they are making the area their own, and then the area, outside the phase, is uh, not their own. Phasing areas of the game like this also does not contribute to the MMO experience. I am playing an MMO to play with other people, not to play a single player game with a subscription.

 

Which brings me to The Old Republics MMO experience - simply put, there is none. Planets are sharded (meaning they are hosted on different servers), which means it can be hours before you see other players on certain planets. Phasing off areas also does not contribute to the experience of playing a Massively MULTIPLAYER game. Grouping with a player is not necessary, you merely need to whip out a companion and kill the elites with them instead. Chat channels in game are near dead, even in the most populated areas. I saw a grand total of five guild recruitment ads while playing for over twenty hours.

 

What is also detrimental to the MMO experience of the Old Republic is not simply the empty feeling of the game, but also the simple fact that as an MMO, it is very much behind the times. The UI is cumbersome and overly flashy. It is not there to be usable first, but to look cool first. What is also terrible about the UI is the fact that it is missing industry mainstays that have been around since 2007. You can form a guild, but this provides no appreciable benefit beyond a green coloured chat channel. There are no guild banks, no guild achievements, no guild anything. There is no default threat meter, or target of target, or even a combat log to track your damage or what killed you whilst tanking a boss. Nothing. The UI also does not have the ability to be modded, to have these added in (as WoW did in 2005!), but is completely unable to be customized. BioWare have not made up for this by, perhaps, paying attention to excellent player UI's created for WoW since 2005, or even the default WoW UI itself, which has all I mentioned above as defaults since 2008. The Old Republic was announced in 2008. Surely they could have learned?

Instances, outside of the first one you run, are standard generic fare with the chance to gain light side or dark side points. If you've played WoW and run dungeons, they are more or less exactly the same thing.

This is not to speak of the abominable Auction House (GTN) interface, which does not even have the option to name filter what you after. You have to pick the category of item, the subcategory, and then search, and then use the name filter. There is no general search to perhaps see the most expensive items of the day, or browsing by name because you want a specific item. Again, WoW had these options in 2008 (though present in 2005), the same year as The Old Republics announcement. The Looking For Group interface is even worse. It consists of marking yourself as 'Looking For Group', but not what dungeons you are interested in, or even your role that you wish to play. You also have to type /who to find these players, then whisper them to find out what they want to do, and then either invite or decline. This is far cry from even the system used in WoW in 2007, or even in 2009. Other options include sitting in a major center spamming for three hours. Simply put, The Old Republic has a worse interface than WoW in 2007. And you can't modify it, so you're stuck with the flashy blue UI that doesn't do what you need it to do. The UI is possibly the worst element of The Old Republic - it fails to even measure up to an eight-year-old game based on an even older RTS engine.

 

Technically, The Old Republic appears, on the surface, to be okay. Environments are gorgeous, and everything but the character models looks great on high settings. Because the character models are stuck at low texture forever, because of a bug. This was later justified by a BioWare employee to actually be a feature - high resolution textures on player characters would stress systems too much. Except for the fact that beta testers report that high resolution textures were in the game before, worked fine, and did not cause any noticeable lag on decent computer systems. However, for what the graphics are, they should not require a heavy system to render. In essence, the game is badly optimized, and it shows. Low FPS will randomly occur, before shooting up again. This is not my system - my GTS 250 flew through Skyrim on Ultra High with no issues whatsoever, at around 60 FPS - but rather the game. The level of graphics in The Old Republic should not require what they do to display. Furthermore, bad graphics on characters are possibly the worst move by an MMO, as the characters are what we build and should care about. I was rightly impressed when my gnome in WoW went from a level 1 wearing crappy chain mail into a juggernaut of destruction with an enormous shield that was so big it clipped through the ground. In contrast, The Old Republic will have your character left with muddy textures forever, because apparently you can't handle it. Except in cutscenes, where they magically appear.

 

Companions were also supposedly a revolutionary innovation that would sweep us off our feet. In reality, it's like every class has a hunter pet from WoW, except the hunter pet can sometimes use a lightsaber! You also can't use them in dungeons, and some companions are very much worse than others, especially tank companions. Companions are also trite, and boring. Romances are included, but because my Jedi Knight was female, she couldn't romance the only standable NPC in the party who wasn't a droid. After level 50, you don't even need your companions with you, so what was the point in them?

 

I cannot comment on endgame, but from what I have heard, the boss design is terrible, heavily bugged (loot chests cannot be opened by players), and very easy and quick to complete. PVP at endgame has also suffered from a World PVP area where before Patch 1.1, the way to win was win-trading flags, and now it is Empire camping the Republic base and gathering inordinate amounts of PVP rewards for doing so. Republic and Empire population is heavily imbalanced also, with a 1:10 ratio on some servers.

 

This is not to mention the treatment of the community by BioWare. Threads criticizing BioWare are locked, or consolidated into one big thread where not a voice can be distinguished from the crying masses - an informative post can be drowned out by

'QQ RAGE QUIT' -type posts. The forums are, more or less, a cesspool. Recently, players asked for server forums - a standard in sharded MMO's. BioWare responded with a thoroughly inadequate system and then said 'this is the best you are going to get'.

 

The patches also don't fix anything. Ability lag was a major problem in the game, causing the sluggish controls I mentioned earlier. It is still a problem, despite apparently being 'fixed', and appears to be an issue with the engine, rather than anything else. Anti-aliasing was also added in the patch. Except enabling did nothing and the tool tip read 'not implemented yet'. But according to the patch notes, anti-aliasing is in. Outright lies around the patch have also been sighted - James Ohlen, lead designer says that the Auction House interface was apparently fixed in the patch. Except it wasn't! Huzzah! This isn't to mention that the bugged endgame is still not fixed.

 

The design team also puff up around the game, insisting it is the most revolutionary game ever released while the actual game insists this is not so. I wonder, have the developers played another MMO released in the last five years, or even looked at a screenshot? Because their game says they haven't. Their game is stuck in 2005, rotting with vanilla WoW, a game that was ever more interesting than this one, even at its lowest points.

 

In short, don't buy this game. Maybe get a trial account when they release them to see the class stories. But do not play this game. If you want an MMO, play something else, because this game is simply not worth your time when it can't even do MMO right when so many others can. This is not the revolutionary game promised, it contains one new innovation - voice-acting to hide the fact that all the quests are the same and the quest designers are extremely lazy.

 

What I want to ask, is why did they hire Rich Vogel, the man who wrecked another Star Wars MMO, to have another go. Because that is the most confusing element of all.

 

ADDENMUM :

 

The music is also an issue, because the same twelve tracks are repeated over and over with no real difference. And its in really bad compression rate, so it sounds like crap on decent headphones, as do the voices.

 

tl;dr I am disappointed in the Old Republic and you shouldn't buy it.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Parali
Spoiler tags added

[PHPer]

Oh, but he himself said:

You are concluding something. To conclude something you need to interpret the data with external variables that influence it.

 

But when i buy a stocks i also look at trends before i buy, why ? because trends is ALL you have to base your judgement on.

 

Show me a "trend" that shows a increase in users a cross servers. I cant use a single person saying "more is on my server" to anything. Just something.

 

I want more population, and a succesfull game myself, i like it a lot atm, but that dosent mean i go all fanboy on it, and ignore the "trends" i can find and see. Its not like Bioware gives us info on how its going.

[Wizzrobe]

Seriously... this is highly dubious. Screenshot of the fleet on prime time or im calling it a lie.

 

This is the thing we are trying to bring attention to!

 

Here is the best I can give you at the moment since it's not primetime now (I doubt there are more than 5 people in the fleet at the moment).

 

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p544/PiratePenguin/SWTOR/defenestrator_low_pop.jpg

 

This picture was taken a couple of days ago at 7PM EST on the Defenestrator (which is an east coast server).

 

The only change I made to the picture is I blocked out names of people since they might not want to be on the forums. A number of other people have posted similar pictures.

 

I realize your server is fine and that's GREAT, but some of the servers really are hurting! I'm not trying to make an overall commentary on the health of the game, just on MY server.

[Nemmar]

What you guys fail to realize is that EA has it's own in house testing, public "BETA" for EA games is nothing more than a demo, as someone who has worked in a QA for EA, i can tell you that EA does not even RESPOND to public tester concerns.

 

The TOR public beta was a demo nothing more, and the TORtanic will surely sink. Just look at the MMO-junkies statistics tool you will see that at most SWTOR had 800k active players and now that number is down to 400k after the first month, that is A DISASTER for a triple A title.

Bioware and EA have released a garbage wow clone with a Star wars skin, don't believe me? Compare the classes to WOW, heck even the professions are reminiscent of wow.

 

I really couldnt be bothered to read your wall of text, since from this preface it was obvious what it was all about.

 

Your numbers pulled out of a place you call your own, and your obvious hatred due to something else is clouding your judgement.

 

You wanting it to fail, does not make it fail. The game is highly enjoyable wether you like it or not.

[Nemmar]

This is the thing we are trying to bring attention to!

 

Here is the best I can give you at the moment since it's not primetime now (I doubt there are more than 5 people in the fleet at the moment).

 

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p544/PiratePenguin/SWTOR/defenestrator_low_pop.jpg

 

This picture was taken a couple of days ago at 7PM EST on the Defenestrator (which is an east coast server).

 

The only change I made to the picture is I blocked out names of people since they might not want to be on the forums. A number of other people have posted similar pictures.

 

I realize your server is fine and that's GREAT, but some of the servers really are hurting! I'm not trying to make an overall commentary on the health of the game, just on MY server.

 

Well i understand US gamers are more volatile probably due to Blizzards influence.

 

It really is a bad thing if that happens all the time. I'm sure Bioware will do something about it, wich can pass through trying to aim the new players at that server. Maybe it was one of the last ones to come online?

Edited January 27, 2012 by Nemmar

[Nozzamorph]

I really couldnt be bothered to read your wall of text, since from this preface it was obvious what it was all about.

 

Your numbers pulled out of a place you call your own, and your obvious hatred due to something else is clouding your judgement.

 

You wanting it to fail, does not make it fail. The game is highly enjoyable wether you like it or not.

 

http://www.mmo-junkies.net/statistics/

 

Hello, numbers say hi.

 

Next time do your research , biodrone

[mutharex]

Theres no chance you are just slow with your class or bad at the game huh? Everyone faster than you just 'rushed'?

 

Dart IamAnoobWhoPlaysTardcraft strikes back! Anyone who enjoy the game and can wait for fixes in a adult way is a FANBOI!

 

Anyone who takes his/her time with the game and doesn't rush to 50 is a baaad player

 

Thank god darth IamAnoobWhoPlaysTardcraft is here to show us how YOU TOO can be as leet as him

 

Or a complete knob with no social life, but that's just a price to pay to be AWESOME as IamAnoobWhoPlaysTardcraft

[Minack]

Generalisation.

 

You have to understand that not everyone has the same free-time or game centered orientation you do.

I'm in a guild with 50+ people on my republic character. The highest character is lvl 48 as of yesterday and theres always about 15 people online.

 

 

The guy said he played 40 hours a week since launch. That's a little less than 6 hours a day every week. In 6 hours I could probably average 3-4 levels easily until about level 32. After level 32 it might take a bit longer but it's still doable, maybe 2 levels a day after 32. For me this means playing at a "normal" pace. My definition of a normal pace is just doing storyline, side and bonus quests either alone or with a partner sans Spacebaring anything except the generic side quests. I also make sure to log my characters out in a cantina for the rested xp boost. The only limiting factor is how long anyone can stomach playing for that length of time. After a while, the quests start to get repetitive and run together at which point the game just stops being fun and I'd rather do homework/study.

 

I know Normal means different things for different people but I don't feel like I "rushed" through anything. People can take all the time they want to reach 50, but to say that those who have reached 50 or have multiple 50s "rushed" to end game is just ridiculous.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Minack

[Wizzrobe]

This is the thing we are trying to bring attention to!

 

Here is the best I can give you at the moment since it's not primetime now (I doubt there are more than 5 people in the fleet at the moment).

 

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p544/PiratePenguin/SWTOR/defenestrator_low_pop.jpg

 

This picture was taken a couple of days ago at 7PM EST on the Defenestrator (which is an east coast server).

 

The only change I made to the picture is I blocked out names of people since they might not want to be on the forums. A number of other people have posted similar pictures.

 

I realize your server is fine and that's GREAT, but some of the servers really are hurting! I'm not trying to make an overall commentary on the health of the game, just on MY server.

 

 

Another commentary on this photo concerning my server is to look at the majority of quests I haven't completed on the right side of the screen, they are mostly heroic and flashpoint related. Truth is it has been extremely difficult for me to find people to do these quests, and typically I just have to dump them all and move on to the next planet.

[Safiir]

http://www.mmo-junkies.net/statistics/

 

Hello, numbers say hi.

 

Next time do your research , biodrone

 

You do know those aren't numbers of users playing, right?

[mutharex]

Just look at the MMO-junkies statistics tool you will see that at most SWTOR had 800k active players and now that number is down to 400k after the first month, that is A DISASTER for a triple A title.

 

LOL and how do you extrapolate those numbers fro ma site that...doesn't show numbers?

 

Fail troll is ...well fail

Especially when he is so angry he practically writes a novel on how TOR is evil

 

mate, it's breaking sale records, I know that hurts but just get over it, really

[Nemmar]

http://www.mmo-junkies.net/statistics/

 

Hello, numbers say hi.

 

Next time do your research , biodrone

 

I dont know why i even bother replying to you. You have not read a single post on this thread nor on other related ones where the validity of those values was questioned by the own website creator.

 

I'm not a biodrone, but im also not a blind hating drone.

[mutharex]

You do know those aren't numbers of users playing, right?

 

Do you think he cares? He knows that chart means nothing, trolls and haters who used it in the past have been buried in the ground by the weight of all the laughter they garnered by referencing it, but every time they will rise again and show it again hoping someone hasn't followed the humiliation they had to undergo

 

I start to feel a bit sorry for haters, their little lives wasted in trying to sink the unsinkable

really sad

[PHPer]

@mutharex

 

Any chance you could explain the posting on a alt to me, i asked before but you dident reply to it.

 

As PHPer is my account name and not a Char name, i would need another account aka buy the game again to post under another name, am i correct ?

[mutharex]

I really couldnt be bothered to read your wall of text, since from this preface it was obvious what it was all about.

 

Your numbers pulled out of a place you call your own, and your obvious hatred due to something else is clouding your judgement.

 

You wanting it to fail, does not make it fail. The game is highly enjoyable wether you like it or not.

 

Actually that post is a copy and paste of a previous post. identical

Doesn't that say something ?

[Nemmar]

Another commentary on this photo concerning my server is to look at the majority of quests I haven't completed on the right side of the screen, they are mostly heroic and flashpoint related. Truth is it has been extremely difficult for me to find people to do these quests, and typically I just have to dump them all and move on to the next planet.

 

I think the best thing you can do is try to open a ticket and explain the situation to Bioware and ask them if they are aware of the issue. The feedback in the forums is always more volatile to follow.

 

Maybe create a new thread saying that your server (insert server name) has low population and back it with that screenshot. This thread is just a flame bait due to its generalisation.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Nemmar

[Sparklehorse]

Some advice to those on low pop servers.

 

Just go ahead and re-roll now if it bothers you that badly and you plan to continue playing because here is what is going to happen.

 

There won't be any server mergers for the next 6 months to a year. It's just something that won't be done because Bioware is full aware that there is a vocal group of people who would love nothing more than to see them merge servers in the first year so they can scream from the top of the rooftops that Bioware is failing.

 

There might possibly be individual character transfers but I wouldn't hold my breath on those either. Most likely, Bioware anticipates slow growth on the low pop servers so you have two choices. Stay on the low pop server and hope it grows or cut your losses and re-roll on an active and fun server. I suggest Space Slug if you are Republic, it's a really awesome server.

 

I know none of you want to hear this and I'm sorry it is this way but 70+ pages into a thread of arguing about something and not one person has really stated the truth. Sometimes the truth sucks.

 

Does this fix the overall issue of pops being spread thin across some servers? Nope. You can whine and cry and scream all you want but nothing you say or do will fix this. Bioware is in complete control here and ONLY Bioware knows what server pops really are doing.

 

Re-roll now. It's early enough in the game's life span where you won't suffer from being too far behind others and you will be on a server with more people.

 

After reading this thread there are a few posters that have spent enough time in this thread to already be level 10.

 

Come to Space Slug, there's a vibrant community and the starter zones are always popping.

 

Sorry if that's not what you want to hear but in reality, if you really want a solution and you want it fast, you are going to have to take it upon yourself.

 

Remember this the next time you join a game at launch and don't want to wait through a log in que. Sometimes a couple of weeks of waiting 20 minutes to log on is the correct choice to make.

[Nozzamorph]

Do you think he cares? He knows that chart means nothing, trolls and haters who used it in the past have been buried in the ground by the weight of all the laughter they garnered by referencing it, but every time they will rise again and show it again hoping someone hasn't followed the humiliation they had to undergo

 

I start to feel a bit sorry for haters, their little lives wasted in trying to sink the unsinkable

really sad

 

You seem like an enlightened fellow who will enjoy his voyage on the TORtanic from the surface level to the bottom of the sea.

A true captain you are!

[mutharex]

@mutharex

 

Any chance you could explain the posting on a alt to me, i asked before but you dident reply to it.

 

As PHPer is my account name and not a Char name, i would need another account aka buy the game again to post under another name, am i correct ?

 

Some people bought more than a copy of the game to be able to troll from one account and then use the other accounts to show suport for the first account

Many of the trolls left on the board are like that. the most famous (or infamous) was xugos who got caught redhanded creating another alt and was exposed by Reid on twitter.

xugos was actually banned from wow boards because of that reason