Server population is dropping...

[Seeiphiel]

Any one else noticed that the servers were all full during peak times the other week and now all the full ones are now only heavy or very heavy. Lots are just standard now and you log on to them to see what the populations are like and you'll get like 20 people in a zone compared to around 80 in the very heavy ones.

 

Bioware needs to start merging servers before they make the mistake every other developer has done with mmorpgs ever since WoW. If you're part of an unpopulated server you're more likely to quit because you cannot find the people to play with.

 

It's not a doomsday thread but Bioware need to get on top of the population decline before the servers get too underpopulated and people quit.

 

Obvious troll is obvious.

[Strangefate]

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/totals

 

That site (which I think most already know) gives you a good idea of where things are going.

 

You can make selection on the second lower bar to see things better on the upper one.

 

I imagine that some servers might be picking up yes, there's always new people coming in and people rerolling on more populated servers, but the overall trends are still slightly dropping population and if you click on population trends, you see that light populated servers are becoming a trend.

 

Obviously, if BW raised the population caps it would explain part of the downward trend, which would settle about... now ?. I would have expected a clearer jump in the graphs as this happened but I'm sure they did do it.

Either way, the trend remains that things are going slowly downhill. There might be a second wave of people coming as there's always those that want to play the game but like to wait a few months until initial bugs are fixed, who knows.

 

I want to enjoy this game, I like it mostly, but the dead servers (even Bastion now is starting to feel too much like The Constant with almost empty worlds) are making it rather tough.

 

I don't have a problem with overall pop dropping for the MMO, happens in any MMO (other that wow), and its not a sign of the end of the world... but TOR really has too many servers for it's total pop.

[Kourage]

Somehow, I don't see new players choosing to play on this server, and there are much worse ones.

 

http://www.torstatus.net/krayiss-obelisk/history/7d#!/krayiss-obelisk/history/30d

[Jxspyder]

That does raise an interesting question though. One night I was checking up on the various servers I had toons on, and most of the list said "light." Came here after logging off and clicked on the server list out of habit. Was surprised to see most of the servers on the list said "standard." Maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, bunches had just logged on, the list didn't update as often as I thought, or maybe the population isn't quite calculated the same way between the two.

 

That is kind of interesting. Even better though, would be to find out what "light", "standard" or "heavy" roughly translated to in-game.

 

 

And what I find funny is that even when the servers I play on say heavy, they still are dead with no people.

 

I have no idea why it says heavy.

 

I am wondering if they turned down what "heavy" really means.

 

I mean the servers that say light or standard are like ghost towns. At least on heavy servers you will see some people.

 

Actually, the last time they posted anything on it, they had increased the numbers. Which would mean that the high end of "standard" was the low end of "heavy" at launch.

 

You've got something like 70 different zones that people can be spread about in. It's like complaining about how empty EPL was when WoW launched.

 

 

I already tried the raids. They aren't even as fun as Molten Core.

 

You must have some seriously rose-tinted glasses in regards to Molten Core.

[Jxspyder]

Thats YOUR server, YOUR server doesn't speak for the population of EVERY server.

 

Pot, meet kettle?

 

The fact that YOUR server has a problem, doesn't mean that EVERY server has a problem. Thus, the fact that YOUR server has a problem, doesn't mean the game is ruined, broken, or devastated.

[stuw]

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/totals

 

That site (which I think most already know) gives you a good idea of where things are going.

 

You can make selection on the second lower bar to see things better on the upper one.

 

I imagine that some servers might be picking up yes, there's always new people coming in and people rerolling on more populated servers, but the overall trends are still slightly dropping population and if you click on population trends, you see that light populated servers are becoming a trend.

 

Obviously, if BW raised the population caps it would explain part of the downward trend, which would settle about... now ?. I would have expected a clearer jump in the graphs as this happened but I'm sure they did do it.

Either way, the trend remains that things are going slowly downhill. There might be a second wave of people coming as there's always those that want to play the game but like to wait a few months until initial bugs are fixed, who knows.

 

I want to enjoy this game, I like it mostly, but the dead servers (even Bastion now is starting to feel too much like The Constant with almost empty worlds) are making it rather tough.

 

I don't have a problem with overall pop dropping for the MMO, happens in any MMO (other that wow), and its not a sign of the end of the world... but TOR really has too many servers for it's total pop.

 

Very very small downward trend. Really lends some credence that the population overall is decreasing, at least in activity. A few big patches though and any losses on that chart should be reversed i think. all depends on how quick these patches are released.

 

On your point about too many servers for the given population, I'd say is spot on. You can only dilute your player base across so many servers before too many people are exposed to something that feels akin to an empty single player game. Those are the people I'd be most concerned about in keeping as a customer. But *** do I know, right?

[Jxspyder]

Very very small downward trend. Really lends some credence that the population overall is decreasing, at least in activity. A few big patches though and any losses on that chart should be reversed i think. all depends on how quick these patches are released.

 

On your point about too many servers for the given population, I'd say is spot on. You can only dilute your player base across so many servers before too many people are exposed to something that feels akin to an empty single player game. Those are the people I'd be most concerned about in keeping as a customer. But *** do I know, right?

 

A very very small downward trend. A trend that could be explained by the fact that Bioware increased server caps, thus changing the basis of the graph itself....since the graph isn't based on numerical population, but rather server status?

 

If a "heavy" server becomes a "standard" server because server caps are raised, that would create a downward trend.

 

And as a base number, 215 servers really isn't that diluted. The problem is largely one that Bioware can't control, where people choose to roll their toon.

[gurugeorge]

A very very small downward trend. A trend that could be explained by the fact that Bioware increased server caps, thus changing the basis of the graph itself....since the graph isn't based on numerical population, but rather server status?

 

If a "heavy" server becomes a "standard" server because server caps are raised, that would create a downward trend.

 

And as a base number, 215 servers really isn't that diluted. The problem is largely one that Bioware can't control, where people choose to roll their toon.

 

I dunno, it's a tricky one. I happen to be on a healthy server, and it's great fun (always groups around for anything, pretty much). But playing on a "light" server sure isn't going to be fun (unless you're a dedicated soloist). It's one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" things. A server merge would probably be a good thing for the game itself, but bad publicity; otoh leaving it as it is is bad for the game (snowball effect of people leaving "dead" servers - I don't think casual players are likely to bother going through umpteen levels again on another server).

 

I believe char transfer is in the works - the sooner the better, imho. Then things are likely to even themselves out naturally, without any need to kill any servers (pure soloists will stay spread out on the "dead" servers, social players will gravitate to healthiest or next-healthiest server, and so on).

[Emeda]

Actually, the last time they posted anything on it, they had increased the numbers. Which would mean that the high end of "standard" was the low end of "heavy" at launch.

 

Can you show me where in the graphs when they did this.

 

If they did there should be a dramatic change in the population as being full or heavy or standard.

 

Its easy for them to say they did something. Just look at the this patched fixed this issue that it really didnt.

 

Then also remember they said the servers were almost to their absolute maximum capacity they they were somehow able to double.

 

Want to say Im just hating on them and dont know what Im talking about then show me in the graphs where they did increase the server capacity.

[Strangefate]

A very very small downward trend. A trend that could be explained by the fact that Bioware increased server caps, thus changing the basis of the graph itself....since the graph isn't based on numerical population, but rather server status?

 

If a "heavy" server becomes a "standard" server because server caps are raised, that would create a downward trend.

 

And as a base number, 215 servers really isn't that diluted. The problem is largely one that Bioware can't control, where people choose to roll their toon.

 

The problem is that it doesn't even matter whether people are leaving or not (which if you read the forums, there's enough quitters and haters as in any MMO) so SOME are leaving for sure.... but like said, it doesn't matter.

 

Let's assume nobody at all is leaving, the problem that most servers feel too empty still remains.

They felt full around release time and don't do so anymore. Everybody can draw their conclussions about the holidays etc but what remains is that the current amount of servers could probably support about twice the actual population, which means that a lot of servers are atm kinda underpopulated, whether yours is or not, doesn't change reality for the rest of us.

[Emeda]

The problem is that it doesn't even matter whether people are leaving or not (which if you read the forums, there's enough quitters and haters as in any MMO) so SOME are leaving for sure.... but like said, it doesn't matter.

 

Let's assume nobody at all is leaving, the problem that most servers feel too empty still remains.

They felt full around release time and don't do so anymore. Everybody can draw their conclussions about the holidays etc but what remains is that the current amount of servers could probably support about twice the actual population, which means that a lot of servers are atm kinda underpopulated, whether yours is or not, doesn't change reality for the rest of us.

 

 

Thats a very clever way of saying that people are quitting but denying that they are.

[Kneelocked]

I have avoided posting here but I do think they need to do something.

 

According to the server list, my 2 main toons are on heavy servers. One toon is at lvl 39 on a west coast PvE server, and the other is at lvl 20 on a east coast PvP server. I play eveningd, or 'prime time' if you prefer.

 

I have only been playing for 4 weeks, taking it nice and slow because of advice of other players that say content at lvl 50 is weak.

 

I only give about 15 mins to find a at level flashpoint group when going between planets with limited results there.

 

And on planets there are only between 32-45 ppl on the planet. Fleet is about double that.

 

So yes, they need a merge or something. its a ghost town. Heroic2+ rarely happen, heroic 4's never happen. So Im feeling I am missing content, at least till I out level it and going back to grey heroics feels grindy and just a time sink.

 

Do it.

 

I got 62 days till my gamecard runs out. If things dont change, I will do some serious thinkin about re-upping.

[TFSilicon]

Can you show me where in the graphs when they did this.

 

If they did there should be a dramatic change in the population as being full or heavy or standard.

 

Its easy for them to say they did something. Just look at the this patched fixed this issue that it really didnt.

 

Then also remember they said the servers were almost to their absolute maximum capacity they they were somehow able to double.

 

Want to say Im just hating on them and dont know what Im talking about then show me in the graphs where they did increase the server capacity.

 

I agree... the graph does not show an increase in server capacity since that would result in a step change and not a gradual decrease.

 

However, if you look at long term trends, that "gradual decline" has a higher server population then weeks prior to it. That graph really just shows that the population declines during the week and peaks on Sundays.

 

In summary... SWTOR has a healthy population.

[Kourage]

And on planets there are only between 32-45 ppl on the planet. Fleet is about double that.

 

So yes, they need a merge or something. its a ghost town.

 

 

 

You must be joking....

There are servers with not even half that amount. Your server will never be merged.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Kourage

[CriticalMasses]

I've logged in twice this week. At 50 things just take a nosedive. If I had a reason to log in, I would be in. But IMO Crafting is broken, Color Crystals are a carrot. The Dailies are a grind. No time for Ops, the FP's don't offer much, and I can't PVP every day (it gets old).

 

The game is great from 1-49, but for me, it takes a nosedive at 50.

 

I'm not leaving, I just don't have anything compelling me to log into the game. I could log in right now and do what.... LFG for an hour? Run dailies? PVP? Craft? (ha). Explore?? explore what? I've gotten all my datacrons, there are no mysterious quests to pick up that will lead to something interesting. There is no customization available. I need variety and there just is none right now.

 

The story line is over, the companions say the same 2-3 lines over and over again. The ship droid is annoying.

 

The sharding makes the planets seem empty even when my server shows "Heavy".

 

I encourage everyone who is not yet 50, not to reach 50, because after a few weeks at 50, you will run out of things to do and start getting bored and stop logging in.

 

You may even begin to feel like the game you've been playing would have been better as a single player, that way you don't have all the compromises that need to be made for an MMO, and SWTOR doesn't really feel like an MMO. It feels like a single player with MMO elements.

 

I guess I'll see how it is in a few weeks.

Edited February 11, 2012 by CriticalMasses

[Emeda]

I agree... the graph does not show an increase in server capacity since that would result in a step change and not a gradual decrease.

 

However, if you look at long term trends, that "gradual decline" has a higher server population then weeks prior to it. That graph really just shows that the population declines during the week and peaks on Sundays.

 

In summary... SWTOR has a healthy population.

 

What graph are you looking at that shows that. Dont look at one server and see a rise because people are rerolling becasue servers are dead.

 

Look at the US from Dec to now and it goes from very heave to standard. That is showing a large decrease in players.

 

Also you cant use the excuse that they raised the server load cap because you already admitted that there is no proof that they did and all evidence points to that they did not.

 

Like it or not SWTOR is losing thousands of players and right now I do believe they are now under the 1 million mark. While that number still might look good it still means over 1/2 of the players that wanted to play this game quit.

 

I will also predict that SWTOR will have about the same amount or less subs as SWG did at the 1 year mark.

[Iboga]

I don't wanna jump on the doom bandwagon, but my server was a consistent Standard population server and now it's pretty consistently a light population server. I rerolled with my friends on a heavy that is now standard... so that does seem to coincide with the belief that the population of players is decreasing, or possibly centralizing... who knows... it's still a bit early to tell.

[Kourage]

Some of you on the lower pop server need to realize that not everyone can start a guild anymore than everyone can own a sandwich shop on Central Avenue! If you're guild can't manage to get a raid going, then merge with another guild, or quit and join one that can.

[Strangefate]

 

In summary... SWTOR has a healthy population.

 

 

It has, on the top 4-8 servers.

Also, look at the graph that shows server capacity vs. server load, there's capacity for twice the pop which means that there's a lot of empty servers. People are not even spread even across servers. A few servers get the most people and are healthy and the others suffer.

 

If you look at the graphs since launch, there's a steady decline, peak hours don't reach as high as they used to a month ago and so on, the curves go down.

At the very least I'd expect the trend to stay steady this early as some haters leave but new people come in, but so far it isn't staying put. As the weather gets better and people go out, populations will sink again somewhat.

 

And lastly, listen to all the people NOT on the top pop servers saying that their servers are underpopulated.

 

Again, just because you say the population is healthy and maybe enjoy denial, doesn't make it true. When all speculations are said and done, yours and mine, what remains are people playing on empty servers.

 

 

Like someone pointed out, char transfers would fix most of this issue I think, let people migrate and concentrate on fewer servers... and it would also give BW/EA a boost through the micro transactions.

[CriticalMasses]

I don't wanna jump on the doom bandwagon, but my server was a consistent Standard population server and now it's pretty consistently a light population server. I rerolled with my friends on a heavy that is now standard... so that does seem to coincide with the belief that the population of players is decreasing, or possibly centralizing... who knows... it's still a bit early to tell.

 

A decrease in population is normal after 2-3 months for any new game. The problem is if the population continues to decrease month after month, and I think that may end up being the case with SWTOR. The main draw (the story line) is over at 50, IMO, what they have for end-game, is extremely weak.

 

But hopefully it will stabilize. It doesn't really matter though, Rubat Crystal still shows "Heavy" and you can still spend an entire evening on several different planets and maybe see 5-8 people.

[Iboga]

A decrease in population is normal after 2-3 months for any new game. The problem is if the population continues to decrease month after month, and I think that may end up being the case with SWTOR. The main draw (the story line) is over at 50, IMO, what they have for end-game, is extremely weak.

 

But hopefully it will stabilize. It doesn't really matter though, Rubat Crystal still shows "Heavy" and you can still spend an entire evening on several different planets and maybe see 5-8 people.

 

The differences in zones between my light/standard (or standard/heavy) are pretty crazy though. I can go into the fleet and see around 20 people with a total of maybe 400 people on the light/standard server and on the standard/heavy it's more like 100+ in the fleet with closer to 1k total... a pretty huge difference that does worlds for the multiplayer aspects of the game and actually makes it feel like an MMO rather than a singleplayer game...

[ShadowNessej]

Shotgun-clavy: When are character transfers going to become available? And are server transfers a real possibility?

 

Daniel Erickson: Character transfers between servers are definitely going to be available in the future and we’ll announce details as soon as we have firm dates.

 

Taken from yesterday's Q&A

 

So yeah, people really should quit whining and do research, frankly all MMO's do this if not worse during launch, the smart people rull on the most populated full servers, handle queues and now my server is almost always Heavy with 100-200 people on the fleet and 20+ people on each planet, and usually its much more than that.

[Jxspyder]

What graph are you looking at that shows that. Dont look at one server and see a rise because people are rerolling becasue servers are dead.

 

Look at the US from Dec to now and it goes from very heave to standard. That is showing a large decrease in players.

 

Also you cant use the excuse that they raised the server load cap because you already admitted that there is no proof that they did and all evidence points to that they did not.

 

Like it or not SWTOR is losing thousands of players and right now I do believe they are now under the 1 million mark. While that number still might look good it still means over 1/2 of the players that wanted to play this game quit.

 

I will also predict that SWTOR will have about the same amount or less subs as SWG did at the 1 year mark.

 

TOR is losing thousands of players, and right now has under 1 million subs? So that conference call that was brought up on the other thread about TOR breaking 2 million sales, with 1.7 million current subs as of the 1st is a bold-faced lie? Also, that thread is located here.

 

Do you have any idea what the implications would be if EA actually was lying, as your delusional, unsubstantiated guess would suggest? I'm fairly sure you don't, because TOR losing subs would be far from the biggest issue EA would face at that point.

 

Taken from yesterday's Q&A

 

So yeah, people really should quit whining and do research, frankly all MMO's do this if not worse during launch, the smart people rull on the most populated full servers, handle queues and now my server is almost always Heavy with 100-200 people on the fleet and 20+ people on each planet, and usually its much more than that.

 

Was announced by Stephen Reid back on the 20th of December, as well. Was linked about 15 pages or so back.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Jxspyder

[Jxspyder]

I have avoided posting here but I do think they need to do something.

 

According to the server list, my 2 main toons are on heavy servers. One toon is at lvl 39 on a west coast PvE server, and the other is at lvl 20 on a east coast PvP server. I play eveningd, or 'prime time' if you prefer.

 

I have only been playing for 4 weeks, taking it nice and slow because of advice of other players that say content at lvl 50 is weak.

 

I only give about 15 mins to find a at level flashpoint group when going between planets with limited results there.

 

And on planets there are only between 32-45 ppl on the planet. Fleet is about double that.

 

So yes, they need a merge or something. its a ghost town. Heroic2+ rarely happen, heroic 4's never happen. So Im feeling I am missing content, at least till I out level it and going back to grey heroics feels grindy and just a time sink.

 

Do it.

 

I got 62 days till my gamecard runs out. If things dont change, I will do some serious thinkin about re-upping.

 

When playing WoW, do you decide that they need to merge servers because there are only 40 or so people in Hillsbrad, or EPL at any given time?

 

There are around 70 different zones for people to be in, in this game. Even with a heavy population, that doesn't leave a lot of people in each individual zone to be hanging around. Which, when you look through the competition, isn't exactly a rare thing.

 

Can you show me where in the graphs when they did this.

 

If they did there should be a dramatic change in the population as being full or heavy or standard.

 

Its easy for them to say they did something. Just look at the this patched fixed this issue that it really didnt.

 

Then also remember they said the servers were almost to their absolute maximum capacity they they were somehow able to double.

 

Want to say Im just hating on them and dont know what Im talking about then show me in the graphs where they did increase the server capacity.

 

No, there shouldn't. If they increase the server population, then the numbers that constitute "Light", "Standard" and "Heavy" also increase. Therefore, the graph largely doesn't change, except for a small dip downward to represent the fact that what was once rated as heavy, is now standard. Which is pretty obvious if your read the text on the site. The graphs on torstatus don't reflect actual population, they reflect "light", "Standard", and "Heavy" server status. Which can be radically different between individual servers.

[Strangefate]

When playing WoW, do you decide that they need to merge servers because there are only 40 or so people in Hillsbrad, or EPL at any given time?

.

 

If a healthy server has 2-3 times as many people in the same zones, then sure. Numbers themselves are irrelevant, what matters is the relative amount of players needed on average per zone for proper playability.

That number is not there on a large amount of servers. There's a reason why server loads are labeled as 'LIGHT' or standard and not 'AWESOME'.

 

I think everybody would be happy without server mergers if they had server transfers.

A statement saying 'its coming in the future' is as helpful for us stranded on deserted servers as a statement saying that space combat will be fun a year from now.

 

Personally I like the game but empty servers are no fun to play in, and rerolling doing everything all over again isn't fun either. Like I think others, I don't care what the solution they come up with is, as long as they act quickly and not 'in the future'.

 

Even 'in the near future' would be awesome, but the fact that they already said a while ago server transfers were coming 'in the future' and today they still say 'in the future' doesn't give us much to go on, wouldn't you agree ?

 

If they could at least give an estimate, 1 month ? 3 months... a year ? it would be easier for us to make decisions on what to do with the game.

 

No, there shouldn't. If they increase the server population, then the numbers that constitute "Light", "Standard" and "Heavy" also increase. Therefore, the graph largely doesn't change, except for a small dip downward to represent the fact that what was once rated as heavy, is now standard. Which is pretty obvious if your read the text on the site. The graphs on torstatus don't reflect actual population, they reflect "light", "Standard", and "Heavy" server status. Which can be radically different between individual servers.

 

You're right and that would explain a dip in the graphs, but not a slow steady decline.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Strangefate