Server population is dropping...

[Xruptor]

I wonder if at the Guild Summit they will bring up the population imbalance between Empire and Republic? If so I can just imagine what Bioware will say about that.

 

Anyways, the population on my server is dropping fast... and I mean really fast. (at least on Republic side) I was on Alderan and saw only 6 people on the planet. I went to Tattoine I saw about a whooping 11 people. Lets see I went to Voss and saw 3 people. I even went to the starter areas. Most of the starter areas had around 10-13 people. The Republic fleet had a HUGE 20 people on. At prime time it goes up to 60-70. Whereas, the Empire is like 180-200+. Yep.. things are great on my server!

 

Look at these charts. Gives you a general idea of the downward spiral.

 

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

 

 

I'm really trying to love this game. I'm having some fun in PVP but I don't know how long I can hold out. These issues with population and the games FPS issues are getting to me

[gurugeorge]

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?

 

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?

[Gehoornde]

1.7 million people disagree with this thread.

 

1.7 million subs =/= 1.7 million players. Many subbed and don't play anymore.

[Drewser]

The games boring as all hell now.

You get a level 50, then find out end game sucks.

You roll a few alts but its boring and many story lines are weak.

Crafting, meh, done it once ..... no thanks.

 

Space combat = yawn.

 

So people did not subscribe and have moved on. As I will be soon.

 

Game just did not have enough content for encouraging group play, still feels like a solo game. Now I can not even fill a 4 man for heroics on level 36+ planets because the player base is too small, or players just can not be bothered.

 

1.7M and counting....

 

Enjoy you next game while millions will be here.

[Dustmonger]

I cancelled my sub due to long queue times for warzones and the nerfbat swinging wildly.

 

Before you flame me - it's not because I don't enjoy this game - I do.

 

However until they combine server queues and shift their focus to new content instead of constant nerfs or spending all of their energy addressing exploits that made it to the live game. I simply can not see any rational reason to fund this game's development.

 

 

Let's be honest we are paying to beta test at this point.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Dustmonger

[nevetss]

I cancelled my sub due to long queue times for warzones and the nerfbat swinging wildly.

 

Before you flame me - it's not because I don't enjoy this game - I do.

 

However until they combine server queues and shift their focus to new content instead of constant nerfs or spending all of their energy addressing exploits that made it to the live game. I simply can not see any rational reason to fund this game's development.

 

 

Let's be honest we are paying to beta test at this point.

 

I believe one nerf tha actually affected any class was the recent smuggler and agent but from what I have heard from the main population not this minority on the forums is that its not that terribly bad they just can't two shot people anymore. Ending your account over pvp..you will never find an mmo for you in that case.

 

Edit: by main population I meant as people who still play scoundrel that I talk to the only problem they seem to have is the healing spec.

Edited February 3, 2012 by nevetss

[Sildrin]

There are like 4 servers that have a decent population. The rest are dead.

 

Reminds me of WAR.

[Adderdin]

1.7 million people disagree with this thread.

 

 

Sure... but if they have around 200 Servers and 1.7 million people play, thats around 5000 per server. So why on earth cant people find a healer for a flash point between 16 and 20 CET?

 

Why when we started there were tons of servers with heavy population, and now when i log its mostly light or standard in EU?

 

Keep on lying to yourself. Everyone who was in their trial peroid was counted as a subscriber, yet they are canceling. The number of posts on customer support doesnt decrease because they are fixing bugs or issues, its becasue people stopped posting and stopped playing.

[Drewser]

Sure... but if they have around 200 Servers and 1.7 million people play, thats around 5000 per server. So why on earth cant people find a healer for a flash point between 16 and 20 CET?

 

Why when we started there were tons of servers with heavy population, and now when i log its mostly light or standard in EU?

 

Keep on lying to yourself. Everyone who was in their trial peroid was counted as a subscriber, yet they are canceling. The number of posts on customer support doesnt decrease because they are fixing bugs or issues, its becasue people stopped posting and stopped playing.

 

They changed how many people a server can hold. This was covered in conference call a couple days ago.

[Weezyfb]

my server was heavy, then standard, now it is always light. Some planets had like 12 people last night

[zrinking]

my server was heavy, then standard, now it is always light. Some planets had like 12 people last night

 

What server is that?

[Jett-Rinn]

They changed how many people a server can hold. This was covered in conference call a couple days ago.

 

No matter how many times you try to drill this into their heads....they still just can't grasp it.

 

[GalacticKegger]

Sure... but if they have around 200 Servers and 1.7 million people play, thats around 5000 per server. So why on earth cant people find a healer for a flash point between 16 and 20 CET?

 

Why when we started there were tons of servers with heavy population, and now when i log its mostly light or standard in EU?

 

Keep on lying to yourself. Everyone who was in their trial peroid was counted as a subscriber, yet they are canceling. The number of posts on customer support doesnt decrease because they are fixing bugs or issues, its becasue people stopped posting and stopped playing.

Sometimes worms work better than lures. Especially fresh ones that refuse being barbed to a hook. If that doesn't help then perhaps changing lakes can take some of the sting out of missing those ill-fated shots in the dark. Edited February 3, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[karzakeish]

Just one quick thought.

I log onto WOW at peak hours. Then I log onto SWTOR at peak hours. Server info on high/low/full is pretty much the same.

 

Wow has 10 mil + subs and was released 7 years ago.

Swtor has 1.7 mil subs and was released a month ago.

 

If server activity is almost the same how can ANYONE say the game has more ppl arriving or leaving????????????

 

This is why! BECAUSE A LOT OF PPL LOVE TO TROLL!

[dyves]

Sure... but if they have around 200 Servers and 1.7 million people play, thats around 5000 per server. So why on earth cant people find a healer for a flash point between 16 and 20 CET?

 

Why when we started there were tons of servers with heavy population, and now when i log its mostly light or standard in EU?

 

Keep on lying to yourself. Everyone who was in their trial peroid was counted as a subscriber, yet they are canceling. The number of posts on customer support doesnt decrease because they are fixing bugs or issues, its becasue people stopped posting and stopped playing.

 

There are low population servers and there are high population servers, simple as that.

An MMO server generally has 10-20k players attached to it on average. Of that total number of players, you'll usually only see 1/5th, 1/6th number logged in on prime time. A good example is EVE Online: when it reported 360k subs, the highest PCU (peak concurrent users) ever it had was 60k players simultaneously logged in, the number of players logged in at normal peak times even only 40-50k.

That is 1/6th to 1/9th of the number of subs.

So, if a server has 1000-1500 players logged in at peak times (which is still deep into Standard status and nowhere near 'Heavy'), you can safely assume that 6-10k players in total are bound to that server.

 

Other facts:

- a 'heavy' status server has already more players logged in than the highest populated servers of other MMO's, namely >2100

- the majority of the 'standard' status servers easily equal (and sometimes surpass) healthy high population servers in other MMO's, seeing how many of those report above 1200 players logged in numbers at peak times.

- on a number of servers the number of L50 players at peak times is fairly low, like below 50-100, even when the total player number is relatively high.

 

 

When the game started, 2000 players logged in was enough to have a server show 'full' or 'very heavy' status. Now, with the player cap that has been increased by then, a number of 2000 players will have a server show 'standard' for a number of servers where 'heavy' only gets triggered at 2200+ players logged in.

That doesn't mean that a number of servers aren't light populated especially compared to the higher population servers or that of course a number of people left after the first month. But things are often less doom&gloom as people want to make of it.

Edited February 3, 2012 by dyves

[Scar]

Sure... but if they have around 200 Servers and 1.7 million people play, thats around 5000 per server. So why on earth cant people find a healer for a flash point between 16 and 20 CET?

 

Why when we started there were tons of servers with heavy population, and now when i log its mostly light or standard in EU?

 

Keep on lying to yourself. Everyone who was in their trial peroid was counted as a subscriber, yet they are canceling. The number of posts on customer support doesnt decrease because they are fixing bugs or issues, its becasue people stopped posting and stopped playing.

 

Well first of all, servers never have 100% of the people on. Never. For any MMOG. Normal is you get 1/6th the loading at peak hours. So if the server has 9k accounts on it, the most you're ever going to see at peak hours are about 1.5k.

 

Look at WoW. Their server structure was set up to handle about 30k accounts (6M on 246 server). At which on peak hours, they top out at 5k people on. Now WoW NEVER sees the whole 6M on concurrently. Nor does any individual server EVER see anything close to 30k.

 

Same thing here, just on about a 1/3 the ratio. Which I suspect they rolled out so many servers initially was to keep the number of servers the same throughout, and to continually adjust the server cap to add accounts as the time went on.

[gasgasgas]

This is the "Hex Droid EU" server (taken from here )

 

0 = offline (it can also be that the web server status was unavailable)

1 = light

2 = standard

3 = heavy

4 = very heavy

5 = full

 

http://i.imgur.com/S1vHG.png

 

It's going down but it could be that servers got bigger since we can't have a number of actual players.

[Scar]

This is the "Hex Droid EU" server (taken from here )

 

0 = offline (it can also be that the web server status was unavailable)

1 = light

2 = standard

3 = heavy

4 = very heavy

5 = full

 

http://i.imgur.com/S1vHG.png

 

It's going down but it could be that servers got bigger since we can't have a number of actual players.

From the phone call the other day:

 

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19915-electronic-arts-q3-fy12-earnings-call

 

I want to take a second to correct the reports which speculated that a lack of congestion was a sign of slow participation. Shortly after launch, we doubled the efficiency of each server, allowing us to handle twice as many players and remove the waiting lines. The lack of congestion is a function of great engineering.

 

That last part about "great engineering" is total PR blah blah, but he does address that they have doubled the capacity, which would effect that scale system.

[Kourage]

I'm convinced the problem with the light servers is that a lot of people are re-rolling to heavy pop servers. So while those on the heavy servers say everything is fine, this is because you're getting all the new players & re-rolls. Light servers are not getting new players and are losing players.

 

 

There really just seems to be so many almost empty planets, the game just seems dead to many. I often find myself on a planet with just 1 or 2 others Imperials. I went on an alt and I was the only player on Hutta for half an hour. Amazingly, I noticed 15 Imperials on Ilum last night around 10pm EST. 15 people should be the norm on Ilum, not the exception. Most days I can't get anyone to do the 2 man heroic because there's 3 people at most and they already did it or are afk. Eventually I can get a guildie who still needs the dailies.

 

Sure seems like zones were more populated in other games I played that didn't sell nearly as many copies.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Kourage

[Jederix]

I disagree - the servers were all showing heavy with queue times.

 

Having said that, I'm glad what they did - it's just i fully expect server mergers soon. I doubt there's well over a million accounts playing now (past the 30 days). But I'm curious how many there really are.

 

Let's name one game that merged servers immediately after launch because of a population decline? Merging servers is an act of final desperation for a game that is dying. That is not the case here.

[Lankybrit]

This is the "Hex Droid EU" server (taken from here )

 

0 = offline (it can also be that the web server status was unavailable)

1 = light

2 = standard

3 = heavy

4 = very heavy

5 = full

 

http://i.imgur.com/S1vHG.png

 

It's going down but it could be that servers got bigger since we can't have a number of actual players.

 

Bingo. I really believe they upped the number of players for each of those bands, making graphs like that pointless.

 

Cheers.

[dyves]

Sure seems like zones were more populated in other games I played that didn't sell nearly as many copies.

 

There's a reason for that impression.

Take Rift for example: it has a world the size of Outland, less than half of Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms. Some of the planets in SWTOR are already as large as Rift's entire world.

Now take 400 people in Rift, which is already a 'medium' status populated server, or 800 players in SWTOR that has a world like 10 times the size of Rift. People will be far more spread out in SWTOR. Larger population will still feel like a lot less populated when the world they're playing in is many, many times the size of the world of other MMO's that may have smaller populations.

 

Even when Rift has a server cap of 2000 players max logged in, 300 people can still feel a lot more populated in such a smaller world than when you have 700-800 people on a SWTOR server with a world 10 times larger but maybe only 70 in an area the size of Rift's entire world.

[gurugeorge]

That doesn't mean that a number of servers aren't light populated especially compared to the higher population servers or that of course a number of people left after the first month. But things are often less doom&gloom as people want to make of it.

 

Don't speak of common sense and facts to the hataz dude, too much cognitive dissonance in relation to the "fail template" they were hoping to stroke their e-peens by.

[Whitesmokes]

I think BW should do what Trion did, free character xfers to different servers with a giant cool down for the toon that was transfered. brilliant idea and seems to be working for that MMO quit well. WoW character transfers can suck it, since they are greedy bastards.

[GalacticKegger]

Impatient players kneejerk-rerolled mains onto new low pop servers to avoid the initial login queues. Now they're complaining about having to reroll (again) back onto high pop servers which is dwindling the active player counts of the servers they're abandoning. A dog chasing its tail comes to mind.

 

In playing to the impatience of the mob, BioWare didn't help themselves by recommending rerolls onto other low pop servers to buy time. I think that was a king-sized mistake on their part. Regardless, had players just patiently stayed put on their initial servers for three weeks we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

I really feel for the new players who walked into the middle of all this, read the forum rants about queue problems on high population servers, and as a result rolled on low population servers.

Edited February 3, 2012 by GalacticKegger