Server population is dropping...

[Bafucin]

On my server Rep fleet have around 60 at max and Imperial fleet 160 now.

 

We used to have 80 reps and 250 Imps some weeks ago.

 

Most WZ are Imp vs Imp...

 

Market is going down, Rep is the worse with sick prices. Imp is OK, but it's about to go down also...

[blaynew]

I really think this needs to happen, a few things have combined to make life really hard for players. If you started playing early on almost every server had a line to even get in so there was no way of determining which servers would be low or high pop later on. This wouldn't be a huge deal in most MMOs because you could just reroll on a new server, certainly annoying, but not THAT big a deal. In SWTOR though, if you start on a new server you loose your whole Legacy which you might have put a lot of work into. I think the Legacy system is a GREAT idea and really encourages me to have multiple characters, but if you encourage people to have a ton of characters on the same server and then the server population drops, you need to have something in place to address that.

 

I know an MMO doesn't want to start merging servers this early on because the next day IGN with have some article like "SWTOR server merge. Why the game failed." Then everyone freaks out and it seems like they are going broke. The reality is though, they made sure to have enough servers for launch, which was great, but NO MMO sustains their entire player base from day 1 and now we just really don't need all these servers. It may look bad in the short term, but in the long run all the players will be happier and it will help the game grow to NEED that many servers.

[Exceboche]

I really think this needs to happen, a few things have combined to make life really hard for players. If you started playing early on almost every server had a line to even get in so there was no way of determining which servers would be low or high pop later on. This wouldn't be a huge deal in most MMOs because you could just reroll on a new server, certainly annoying, but not THAT big a deal. In SWTOR though, if you start on a new server you loose your whole Legacy which you might have put a lot of work into. I think the Legacy system is a GREAT idea and really encourages me to have multiple characters, but if you encourage people to have a ton of characters on the same server and then the server population drops, you need to have something in place to address that.

 

I know an MMO doesn't want to start merging servers this early on because the next day IGN with have some article like "SWTOR server merge. Why the game failed." Then everyone freaks out and it seems like they are going broke. The reality is though, they made sure to have enough servers for launch, which was great, but NO MMO sustains their entire player base from day 1 and now we just really don't need all these servers. It may look bad in the short term, but in the long run all the players will be happier and it will help the game grow to NEED that many servers.

 

I think the biggest issue I have with the Bioware response 'Legacy system is too complex to allow server moves' is why didn't you account for this possibility in the design? The roll out of any software should include contingencies on the plus and minus sides. As noted in many previous posts, they did address the load issue by throwing out alot of servers for the players. They should be applauded for choosing to build that in, but they should have also had downside contingencies that would allow the adjustment of populations that includes all the facets of the game.

 

What really makes this all the more strange from a planning sense, is the fact that at this point all the Legacy mechanic includes is a level and a current amount of accrued legacy experience. How hard would that be to move? While i don't know the architecture of the game, this should be of minimal complexity to move. I do understand that this move may include legacy for a collection of characters. I think most people would be OK with moving multiple characters to the new populated servers to address this fact. If you want to limit the number of characters that can be moved with Legacy, simply limit the number to like 2 or 3. Those choices are still better than the current choice, start from scratch on a new server without any real guarantee that this won't happen again on the new server.

 

What I can say for sure, is that I have four friends that started characters on Thendys Noori 2+ months back. The server started to die and all four stopped playing since they didn't want to start from scratch. I think the game is great, but like all great things it isn't perfect. The diminishing populations on servers is an issue that needs attention, because I'd hate to see the good start for this game derailed.

[Alcarinn]

Yes WoW never had 1,7 million subs at starting stage BUT lvling from 1-60 in WoW Vanilla actually took atleast 3 times longer than in SW ToR and even i think i am over generouc... more like 3-5 months of average 20 hours a week...

 

ToR is a joke on other side you can be lvl 50 in under 120 hours playtime

 

WoW had time to fix end game everything SWToR doesnt have that time cos everyone is bored(well 60% of community)

 

They should scale lvling so that those average players (5-15h/week) would not be lvl 50 before this 1.2 patch...

 

Now everyone is crying

 

And gear progression is smacked into bits for no progression whatsoever

[Godzillamax]

Ill be interested to see the server statues when the High Months kick in in full swing. American Summer is prime time for MMO gaming,

 

Interesting, I would think it would be just the opposite. For us, summer means being outside doing stuff (swimming in the pool, going on hikes, fishing, camping trips, soccer, baseball, vacation time, etc.). In my guild (all adults >30 yrs old, many with families/kids) our raiding/MMO game playing slows down measurably in the summer months because our members tend to have many other things to occupy their time other than sitting in front of a computer.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Godzillamax

[Godzillamax]

And if they can copy toons to PTR, they can copy toons to other game servers, they just don't really want to at the moment. So they tell you they are "working on it".

 

If Bioware has 1.7 million accounts let's assume that means they sold 1.7 million copies of the game. Say the average sale price was $60 (assuming far more players bought the non CE version). That equals $102 million in retail sales. Now, they have only been billing for say 3 months (and I'm not even going to try and factor in their monthly costs to operate/maintain the game). 1.7 million accounts at $15.00/month equals $25.5 mil per month, or $76.5 mil for January-March. Total revenue generated by ToR to date would be around $178.5 mil. This means EA/Bioware still has yet to break even on the game. This of course is assuming the development cost of ToR was ~$200 mil (I read somewhere that some pegged it closer to $300 mil, but it's all speculation). My numbers are just guesstimates, but it gives you a general idea.

 

Server mergers are usually as death knell for a MMO. It is a primary sign of a MMO in decline. I can see why EA/Bioware wouldn't want to be contemplating server mergers only 4 months after their >$200 million dollar MMO launched, it would make the investors seriously jumpy.

[Godzillamax]

Server mergers are needed and are being worked out. WOW never had 1.7 million players in its infant stages either, and content for WOW was released much more sporadically than it is for SWTOR. I made 50 just after Christmas but have started other toons to try other classes. .

 

True, but one thing WoW did have was a slower leveling pace AND more robust end-game content at launch. And what I mean by "more robust" was that Molten Core and Onyxia were not easy to conquer. IMO the simplicity and easyness of ToR is exactly what will be its dowfall. First time my guild attempted Eternity Vault it took us 3 hours to learn the fights and clear the instance (and we are in no way a hardcore gaming guild). First time we tried Molten Core way back with vanilla WoW it took us 10 hours just to clear to and defeat Magmadar. Do I want to return to my MMO being like a job? Absolutely not. But at the same time I think ToR is simply too easy.

 

ToR is a fun single player game that allows some co-opt play if you desire. There really is nothing Massively Multiplayer feeling about it in my humble opinion.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Godzillamax

[Godzillamax]

My entire guild has rerolled Empire on the same server since the population is about 3 times as large on Empire(judging by fleet, illum and belsavis). Now when we started to hit 50 there was no issue at all puging Eternity Vault. There where actually 4 pugs ongoing on a sunday.

 

I can only speak for my server (Girrada the Hutt) but that sounds like the Republic population on my server. I've leveled two toons to 50 and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a higher level Republic player on a planet. 19 out of 20 PvP matches are against other Imperial teams. You definitely don't get the sense that there is a second faction playing the game.

[Kinrain]

True, but one thing WoW did have was a slower leveling pace AND more robust end-game content at launch. And what I mean by "more robust" was that Molten Core and Onyxia were not easy to conquer. IMO the simplicity and easyness of ToR is exactly what will be its dowfall. First time my guild attempted Eternity Vault it took us 3 hours to learn the fights and clear the instance (and we are in no way a hardcore gaming guild). First time we tried Molten Core way back with vanilla WoW it took us 10 hours just to clear to and defeat Magmadar. Do I want to return to my MMO being like a job? Absolutely not. But at the same time I think ToR is simply too easy.

 

ToR is a fun single player game that allows come co-opt play if you desire. There really is nothing Massively Multiplayer feeling about it in my humble opinion.

 

WoW may have a slower levelleling process but its also horribly boring. Which is why they are now giving away level 80 characters to anyone that wants to come back.

 

As for 'robust end game content' I really can't agree with that. Their raids may have been tougher to learn and break but only 2% of players ever saw them. If 98% of SWTOR players couldn't access the Ops content we've have a rebellion.

[Touchbass]

True, but one thing WoW did have was a slower leveling pace AND more robust end-game content at launch. And what I mean by "more robust" was that Molten Core and Onyxia were not easy to conquer. IMO the simplicity and easyness of ToR is exactly what will be its dowfall. First time my guild attempted Eternity Vault it took us 3 hours to learn the fights and clear the instance (and we are in no way a hardcore gaming guild). First time we tried Molten Core way back with vanilla WoW it took us 10 hours just to clear to and defeat Magmadar. Do I want to return to my MMO being like a job? Absolutely not. But at the same time I think ToR is simply too easy.

 

ToR is a fun single player game that allows some co-opt play if you desire. There really is nothing Massively Multiplayer feeling about it in my humble opinion.

 

People tend to forget this point to easily. WoW was my first MMORPG and half of our guild was EQ vets that I joined up with. It took us 2 months of solid playing (not alt playing) for the majority of us to level. The next 8+ months was 4-5 nights of team work doing dungeons, plannning for raids, farming mats for raiding and helping guildies. WoW had so much at launch for us. Would I go back to that style? Hell no, but it's not fair to say either a game can't release with loads of content.

[Touchbass]

WoW may have a slower levelleling process but its also horribly boring. Which is why they are now giving away level 80 characters to anyone that wants to come back.

 

As for 'robust end game content' I really can't agree with that. Their raids may have been tougher to learn and break but only 2% of players ever saw them. If 98% of SWTOR players couldn't access the Ops content we've have a rebellion.

 

Leveling becomes boring after awhile, re-leveling in this game doesn't hold a candle to leveling in WoW again. Only the first trip to max is better, maybe the 2nd but the rest is superior in WoW due to options you have while leveling and the diverse backgrounds.

WoW managed to making alting really success so they know their market.

[muzzle_flash]

Dropping? Its dead, like this whole pos, train wreck of an excuse for a game.. Just bury it and lets never speak about it again... Kinda like WAR, but a lot worse

[Icedanno]

For the record, there is simply NO way this cost 200+ million to make. Look at all the shortcuts and cut and paste design. Every space port looks the same, terrain features show up on multiple planets, archtypes are just copies of each other.

 

I could go on and on, (being a coder myself), about the things Bioware did to keep the 'cost' of the game down. When I first started going through the game, more and more it looked like a free to play with all the copy and paste features throughout.

 

Now, that being said, the voice acting and linking animations to speech would certainly add a big chunk to the cost of game creation. Would it add hundreds of millions? I really don't know.

 

I can tell you this. The actual game development was done on the cheap, with a smallish crew. Hundreds of millions for that?

 

No way.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Icedanno

[Godzillamax]

As for 'robust end game content' I really can't agree with that. Their raids may have been tougher to learn and break but only 2% of players ever saw them. If 98% of SWTOR players couldn't access the Ops content we've have a rebellion.

 

Yes and no. Hindsight being 20/20 the WHY part of only 2% of players (going to have to take your word on that percent, though my gut tells me it was probably a higher number) ever seeing end-game vanilla WoW raid content was because of the simple logistics of trying to field 40 players for a raid. Your guild needed to be far larger than just 40 people and you needed a very active recruitment to continually replace people who took time off and/or quit the game.

 

Most people don't necessarily want to be part of a huge guild where they may only know a few of the players and the rest are strangers bound together only by a guild moniker. Most large WoW guilds were just an amalgamation of many smaller guilds that banded together so their members could raid end-game vanilla WoW content. This is also why so many vanilla WoW guilds also rapidly fell apart. WoW even recognized and rectified this issue in its expansion packs by moving away from 40-man raids to much smaller raids (which opened up end-game content to smaller guilds who tended to be closer nit groups of friends in real life). IMO this was a good trend.

[Godzillamax]

For the record, there is simply NO way this cost 200+ million to make. No way.

 

Just going off a commonly cited developmental cost many pundits toss around. MMOs tend to cost more to develop than other games. And your average game these days seems to come with a $30-$50 mil development price tag. Seeing how much writing and voice acting was required for ToR, plus how much advertising they did and number of years it was in development, I can believe it might have cost $200 mil or more to make.

[Touchbass]

I wonder if cutting costs is why warzones are stuck at 8/8, one of the more bigger disappoints in PvP

[Andryah]

True, but one thing WoW did have was a slower leveling pace AND more robust end-game content at launch.

 

Actually, vanilla wow had similar number of hours played to reach 50 (~200), give or take a bit.

 

What is different today then in 2004 is people consume content like starved Gerbils on speed. People used to actually take their time, smell the roses, look under rocks, stop into the local taverns and chat and socialize. Now days, it's hurry up and cap to do end game content.

 

Problem is MMOs NEVER have a lot of end game content at launch. Post launch patching is what brings end game content. This is just a practical reality of MMOs and end game. You need a large end game population that knows the game to run end game content and provide sufficient bug reporting to get it all shiny and polished. Betas NEVER provide enough detailed feedback to debug end game content.

 

Net Net: the average MMO player is a lot more impatient and hyperactive then 8 years ago in terms of content.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Andryah

[Damon_Mott]

I'm on Progenitor too (EU though so might be different). My experience is that between 6pm-12midnight fleet doesn't drop under 100, and after midnight goes down to between 40-80...

 

Yea, like the OP doesnt understand that some servers got a player cap increase. Last night on Sanctum we have over 150 on fleet at 2AM. Our "standard" is most servers "Heavy."

[pieteral]

To allow giving me the MMO experience I need to be able to find during my gameplay people to play with. If I don't have people to play with it will reduce my MMO experience.

So in order to give me the MMO experience you need to have enough players at a given time online just wanting to play the same thing as you.

 

A lot of people are debating over servers, the time you play and what you play ..... and high or low populating, etc .... but the most important is what my perception is of Bioware MMO experience offering and this is very subjective from person to person. For me I will reference this to other MMO's I have played.

 

1) Should it matter when I play?

2) Should it matter which server I am enrolled?

3) Should it matter what I want to play?

 

Bioware should offer me the MMO experience when I want to play, at the server I have enrolled to and what I want to play at that time.

 

My personal experience is on Bao-Dur EU server (which has like 4 time zones population - UK , Europe, North East Europe, Russia) is that 1, 2 and 3 are starting to become more and more important in order to have a good MMO experience.

1) I need to play only at certain times (that window is getting and smaller - personal experience) to get the maximum MMO experience.

2) Based on feedback from the forums other servers should offer more so I should enroll to another one without guarantees for better MMO experience or that it will stay like that.

3) I need to diversify my game play much more based on the available players and not do my most favourite gameplay, limiting my MMO experience.

[Touchbass]

Actually, vanilla wow had similar number of hours played to reach 50 (~200), give or take a bit.

.

 

Haha, no my biodrone fanboy. WoW took a lot longer then SWTOR did by a long shot.

 

Quests were more difficult to find and locate, often had to alt_tab for websites

Traveling took longer

Instances were far apart, often 20+ minutes of travel time alone, not including getting a group together

No free "go were you want" hearth or capital city flight pass

Quests weren't streamlined

There were probably 2-3x the amount of quests to go through with chains that spanned across zones

 

I can go on easily ...

Edited March 19, 2012 by Touchbass

[Godzillamax]

Actually, vanilla wow had similar number of hours played to reach 50 (~200), give or take a bit.

 

Max level in vanilla Wow was level 60, not 50.

 

 

Net Net: the average MMO player is a lot more impatient and hyperactive then 8 years ago in terms of content.

 

I would probably agree with this statement. But, I believe the problem isn't so much the consumers as it is developers not changing the game model. In effect, we have been playing the same MMO game since March of 1999 (when EQ was released), just with different graphics. All the "advances" each subsequent game has brought to the genre are really just window dressing. I think today developers believe their franchise brand (whether it be the Warhammer Universe, DC Comics, Star Wars franchise, etc.) is sufficient to draw players (and their all important dollar) in.

 

I think over the years the failure of many Star Wars or Star Trek video games would have proven to developers that a great game is what players want, not just a recognizable title. Creating one in a well known universe (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) is the icing on the cake. But that universe by name alone does not make the game great in and of itself.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Godzillamax

[Andryah]

True story......The server populations are much lower this morning in NA then they were last night at prime time. Oh NO!!!

 

Serously though.... I follow the general tempo of population in the server farms and they continue to ramp up during the day toward prime time, and prime time farm status has been, and continues to be pretty stable from week to week, and have been for more then a month now.

 

The core issue at the moment is people rerolling off of light servers and moving to more heavily populated servers. I'm sure they would like to transfer characters (and Bioware has said this is coming), but in the mean time they apparently like the game well enough to move to a new server and reroll. Even entire guilds are doing this. It shows that people can and will take charge of their own experience rather then sit like victims and cry about it.

 

I learned a long time ago not to get fixated on a single server at launch in MMOs. There are a number of reasons, populations, faction balance, community personality and trend, etc. So if I join an MMO at launch, I roll characters on several servers and since the game is new and fresh I enjoy playing multiple servers. Eventually I settle into the one I like best and put most of my effort on a single server.

 

The thing people are losing sight of is no MMOs have character transfers at launch. It's counter productive to server establishment and stability. Sometime after launch, they introduce character transfers and ultimately either merge or shut down some servers. This is normal. What is different now days is people who play MMOs are soooooooo impatient and demanding.

 

Some people should not play a new MMO at launch. They should wait a few months and see how things settle out and then join and select a server that meets their needs.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Andryah

[Godzillamax]

Double post Edited March 19, 2012 by Godzillamax

[Beachcomberb]

play on fatman, i'm waiting in a que to get in as we speak and the lowest i've seen the population drop was down to heavy at 5 am

 

So 1 server proves all the rest of us are wrong? lol

Edited March 19, 2012 by Beachcomberb

[Beachcomberb]

True story......The server populations are much lower this morning in NA then they were last night at prime time. Oh NO!!!

 

Serously though.... I follow the general tempo of population in the server farms and they continue to ramp up during the day toward prime time, and prime time farm status has been, and continues to be pretty stable from week to week, and have been for more then a month now.

 

The core issue at the moment is people rerolling off of light servers and moving to more heavily populated servers. I'm sure they would like to transfer characters (and Bioware has said this is coming), but in the mean time they apparently like the game well enough to move to a new server and reroll. Even entire guilds are doing this. It shows that people can and will take charge of their own experience rather then sit like victims and cry about it.

 

I learned a long time ago not to get fixated on a single server at launch in MMOs. There are a number of reasons, populations, faction balance, community personality and trend, etc. So if I join an MMO at launch, I roll characters on several servers and since the game is new and fresh I enjoy playing multiple servers. Eventually I settle into the one I like best and put most of my effort on a single server.

 

The thing people are losing sight of is no MMOs have character transfers at launch. It's counter productive to server establishment and stability. Sometime after launch, they introduce character transfers and ultimately either merge or shut down some servers. This is normal. What is different now days is people who play MMOs are soooooooo impatient and demanding.

 

Some people should not play a new MMO at launch. They should wait a few months and see how things settle out and then join and select a server that meets their needs.

 

ah, so its the players fault for sticking by a server/character.

 

You make so much sense