Server population is dropping...

[HeavensAgent]

Nobody decided "well, my server has a healthy pop, time to go reroll to another server and leave my legacy and my other toons behind!" Its like you are answering questions I didn't ask. Yes, I know people are being "proactive" and doing Bio's job for them. That still doesn't explain where all the people went. Something caused them to move servers to find more people.

People did leave the game, but it was all at once. At the end of a game's initial launch bubble a substantial portion of the community always leaves. It's the same phenomena that results in WoW's number swelling just after a new expansion, only to have them return to pre-expansion numbers within a month or two afterwards. This was why Bioware was emphasizing the need to keep server numbers low, and why we were told to bear with the queue times. They knew the bubble was going to burst, and that if there were too many servers those that remained would find themselves on servers with less-than optimal populations. Sure enough that's what happened.

 

That's why people began to start rerolling; the servers that fared better due to nothing more than luck of the draw became destinations for those looking for a new home. They left their suddenly empty servers, a change that literally occurred over a week, in order to seek out greener pastures. The majority of the community that didn't leave after that first month is still playing the game. The current number of subscriptions is not dropping off, at least not at a substantial rate. These are the individuals who are truly invested in SWTOR's success for one reason or another.

Edited April 3, 2012 by HeavensAgent

[HeavensAgent]

Not to antagonize you, but a comment like that is eminently not constructive in a thread that is meant to find/ask for a solution to what you yourself recognize is a problem.

I was constructing my constructive post. I wanted to get the snide knee-jerk stuff out first so it didn't sully my attempt to shed light on the situation.

[Xyphias]

It has been said a zillion times by now, but this population problem urgently needs to be fixed.

 

I also noticed that some people are complaining about their server having about 50-70 players on the fleet on peak moments... well those people don't realize it's not THAT bad on their server... just come and visit me on the fleet on the Senator Contispex server and you'll get a whole new definition of "low population". You won't have trouble finding me there, since most of the time it's just me and 3-4 others there... and about 10 players during prime-time (if you're lucky).

 

Most planets don't have more than 5 players on them (prime-time), some even less. I guess I don't need to tell you how "fun" warzones are? Well they mostly just don't exist, and if they start, they end within 120 secs because there aren't enough players.

 

So please do something about this or give us at least an idea when this will be solved, so I can leave and return to this game when it's fixed. It's very sad because i really love this game, and my server used to be very fun and had a large population, even queues at times.

 

And please, I really don't need answers like "just reroll on another server"... That just isn't a solution, that's literally running away...

[Ackarion]

Can you back this up with some facts please? It's hard to have a serious discussion with people who make unfounded assertions.

 

It is not the point of the original conversation that of the comment I started. The individual who insists that placing 2nd or 3rd is a resounding accomplishment. The truth is placing 2nd or 3rd is not resounding when a MMO that is placed 1st and has not been toppled for such a duration is resounding. Many MMO's come into play and place 2nd and 3rd in the past but fall to the wayside or find a niche that keeps them stable for a duration. That is not resounding. To provide facts on a topic that was not the intention of communication has no need for provision.

 

Currently STWOR in the #2 or #3 slot. Either they fall to the wayside this next year or so or succeed to stabilize and maintain the niche. What will be resounding for SWTOR if they can accomplish this and topple for the #1 slot. Then will that be a resounding act. Just placing #2 and #3 is not once again resounding.

[Frostvein]

People did leave the game, but it was all at once.

 

They left their suddenly empty servers, a change that literally occurred over a week

 

You have no proof of this, only speculation.

[evoleye]

The Fatman is waiting for you. He's consuming all of your low server populations and growing larger every day.

[Muskaan]

The Fatman is waiting for you. He's consuming all of your low server populations and growing larger every day.

 

Fatman is one of the 4 US severs that actually has a decent population.

 

Other 3 being--

Ajanta Pall

Canderous Ordo

Harbinger

 

Swiftsure used to be a decently populated server till the asia-pacific exodus.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Muskaan

[HeavensAgent]

You have no proof of this, only speculation.

Actually, I do. Records of player activity over the past two months show no real variation for the vast majority of servers. Populations peak at approximately the same time each day, the magnitude of that peak remains constant nearly every day, and the daily lows show similar repetition. This indicates the users that are playing the game today are essentially the same users that have been playing the game over the past two months, and that the population issues we face today were also present two months ago.

 

This means the vast majority of players that left the game would have had to do so more than two months ago. This places the time of the mass cancellations at the end of of the first-month free trial period, which demonstrates the sudden depopulation that I described.

[HeavensAgent]

Fatman is one of the 4 US severs that actually has a decent population.

 

Other 3 being--

Ajanta Pall

Canderous Ordo

Harbinger

Don't forget Jung Ma.

[Teenki]

Actually, I do. Records of player activity over the past two months show no real variation for the vast majority of servers. Populations peak at approximately the same time each day, the magnitude of that peak remains constant nearly every day, and the daily lows show similar repetition. This indicates the users that are playing the game today are essentially the same users that have been playing the game over the past two months, and that the population issues we face today were also present two months ago.

 

This means the vast majority of players that left the game would have had to do so more than two months ago. This places the time of the mass cancellations at the end of of the first-month free trial period, which demonstrates the sudden depopulation that I described.

 

Whose records? And where? Can we see it?

[Meldwyn]

Actually, I do. Records of player activity over the past two months show no real variation for the vast majority of servers. Populations peak at approximately the same time each day, the magnitude of that peak remains constant nearly every day, and the daily lows show similar repetition. This indicates the users that are playing the game today are essentially the same users that have been playing the game over the past two months, and that the population issues we face today were also present two months ago.

 

This means the vast majority of players that left the game would have had to do so more than two months ago. This places the time of the mass cancellations at the end of of the first-month free trial period, which demonstrates the sudden depopulation that I described.

 

April might be the next big drop from those that purchased a 3 month sub initially.

[RoboRope]

OMG this thread has exploded in popularity!

I guess most of us get more interaction here than in game.

 

I have cancelled my sub and am playing out my remaining game time on The Fatman.

 

Hope to come back in 6 months.

[GalacticKegger]

Whose records? And where? Can we see it?

Exactly ... because there are none! There is no official proof of anything: decline or growth. It's just windbags making stuff up to bring attention to themselves.

[Snibb]

April might be the next big drop from those that purchased a 3 month sub initially.

 

I'm in the 3 month crowd, and my sub is cancelled as of now, but I suggest you tinker around with 1.2. I will try it out for another month and go from there. 1.2 UI developments are very welcome, as well as them starting to add some guild features and legacy stuff to work for.

Though, I don't have eyeballs right now on the test server (maybe they did that so we wouldn't see any bugs? lol) In any case, 1.2 makes the game feel less beta like and if you haven't checked it out yet, I would before making any final decisions.

[Trenter]

You have no proof of this, only speculation.

 

Uh, speculation is the only thing this discussion consists of.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Trenter

[HeavensAgent]

Whose records? And where? Can we see it?

I'm looking for them, but they're buried. Someone else posted the link this morning, and I was too tired to think to bookmark them. The poster tried to use them to show declining subscriptions, but hadn't analyzed the data properly.

 

April might be the next big drop from those that purchased a 3 month sub initially.

There might be one, yes.

[DarthMaulUK]

Exactly ... because there are none! There is no official proof of anything: decline or growth. It's just windbags making stuff up to bring attention to themselves.

 

Actually, if you read EAs last report (this is a PDF file and starts on Page 4)on March 8th, sheds some light on things.

 

1.7 'active' subs - which included the free 30 days. From those 1.7 million around half(or vast majority as EA put it) subbed for another month.

 

Server drops dont apply to almost all servers, but you have to be a total clown not to notice the decline. Guilds are empty, regular pvpers are gone and as the 3 month sub ends, probably more will go. A few more regulars went on the 20th of March.

 

The way I see it is, where will the growth come from? PvErs will probably just run the same ol' operations, pvpers will play on the limited warzones with reduced numbers because there isnt any x-server support. If new players join a light server and it is really light, they probably wont sub. And, if EA DO decide to merge the servers, its will almost sound like a cry for help - rightly or wrongly, then certain corners of the gaming will find fuel to fan the flames of 'failure'.

 

IMO, 1.2 MUST MUST MUST bring X-server support. It wont but right now, not going forward without it, will just add to the feeling of emptiness on some servers.

[Snibb]

Exactly ... because there are none! There is no official proof of anything: decline or growth. It's just windbags making stuff up to bring attention to themselves.

 

I would say that torstatus.net is the closest thing we have to charting population. While no where near perfect, one can base some conclusions off the number of light, standard, heavy, etc. servers and for how long they remain in those states.

There is 3-1/2 months of data available, and while I'm sure the first couple of weeks BW was tweaking the parameters, it would make no sense for them to gradually adjust those parameters to show what the long term graphs show us the past 3 months.

That is, North American servers have had a slow but steady increase in servers going to "light" status. Europe basically looks the same as the NA servers. And Asia Pacific servers have a healthy and steady population.

 

You can pick out individual servers like The Fatman and see it has a very healthy population, which has been also seen in game. You can pick other servers and see they're light almost 100% of the time. Anturi Reach would be one example of that. And instead of hating on Torstatus, trying to disprove it's usefulness, use it, and test it out for yourself! It tells you the best servers to play on, whether you like a high pop or low pop.

[Darth_Gao_Gao]

my ENTIRE guild has quit. 52 people.

 

but no way guys, the server pop is fine!

[Gersidi]

I made a thread a couple days ago regarding my personal experience with my guild in swtor.

 

We all came from rift, a solid group of around 40 that have been together since Rift's launch. I know many of them rl, and we all decided to tackle TOR together. I was in Beta, so I already knew what the game was about, even though I DO like it - the majority of the people that came over quit playing in the first month. My GM, as well as many others, bought 3-6 month subs at launch, and most do not even bother to simply log on anymore even to check on how things are going. In fact, I think 3 of the 40 actually log on, on a weekly basis even. Buggy and stale endgame seems to be the major complaint.

 

Here's a link to the thread I made, with screen shots of my guild roster activity taken a couple days ago. Most people haven't logged in for 30-90 days, 3 pple including myself, once this week. There are major pop problems. I see it on my server, and my friend list. Not one them really cares anymore. All of em are holding out for TERA, or TSW, or GW2. I can't be bothered. Ive invested so much time waiting for this game I'm not jumping ship!!

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=385768

Edited April 3, 2012 by Gersidi

[IMiteBeWrong]

Dear Bioware/EA,

 

You have lost another Sub. Now, I know I'm merely a grain of sand in your amazing community-dependent MMO. But many others are going to as well. I truly love the game, but you've pushed me out by not responding to the decline of one key ingredient. THE PLAYERS.

 

I shall return when news of a merger or character transfer's come about. To keep even your most loyal fans, you can't turn a blind eye to such a HUGE issue. Your fans are begging you. LISTEN UP!

 

May the force be with you, Bioware.

[Trenter]

Dear Bioware/EA,

 

You have lost another Sub. Now, I know I'm merely a grain of sand in your amazing community-dependent MMO. But many others are going to as well. I truly love the game, but you've pushed me out by not responding to the decline of one key ingredient. THE PLAYERS.

 

I shall return when news of a merger or character transfer's come about. To keep even your most loyal fans, you can't turn a blind eye to such a HUGE issue. Your fans are begging you. LISTEN UP!

 

May the force be with you, Bioware.

 

Well, if this is such a HUGE issue generally, then you will likely see them do something about it, right? Or do you think they're basically sitting there, watching their numbers go down rapidly and just going "meh, can't be arsed"? And if they're not doing something about it, maybe the whole issue is a bit blown out of proportion? Maybe the game isn't really tanking? We can use our own eyes and see for ourselves and read what others are saying - doesn't have to represent the actual state of the game. Just saying.

[Andryah]

We all came from rift, a solid group of around 40 that have been together since Rift's launch.......Buggy and stale endgame seems to be the major complaint.

 

Same thing happened quite a bit in Rift.... whole guilds hopped in consumed, then quit. Some hoped from server to server for a while, but still ended up quitting

 

I would be willing to bet that a lot of guilds that hop from MMO to MMO are going to find SWTOR lacking at launch. They are end game content consumers for the most part when they game hop as a guild, and new MMOs are poor choices for them.

 

Such guilds need to wait at least 9-12 months before doing this sort of thing. They need to let the game producer get ahead of them on end game content first. That takes time.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Andryah

[pahbi]

By all appearances it seems that bioware has no intention of implementing server transfers.

 

Given that bioware still can't get past RAND(x) for reverse engineering, I'm not surprised that they cannot implement server transfers. Maybe once their programming co-op student gets done with this semesters studies, he or she will be able to implement server transfers.

 

What they seem to have chosen to do instead is try to lure in more players with free weekends and, "invite your friends to play" types of promotions instead of implementing the desperately needed server transfers that would help relieve players of logging in daily to what amounts to a single player SWTOR experience.

 

Once has to wonder what new players do when they log into a light server only to see it practically empty and devoid of others to play the game with.

 

- P

[WhiskyJax]

I remember these type of threads from the warhammer online forums..

All the fanboys disclaiming that the game was dieing...How wrong those fanboys were!..........

 

Well initially the only issue was that there were too many servers for the population but between people quitting because they wanted transfers BEFORE bioware's ANNOUNCED Asia/Pacific date, people quitting because of false information passed around by players and people unsatisfied with the graphics we have dropped to a million or less.

 

And yes i still believe there are a million players but players will continue to quit because some are to lazy to move off a server that has been dead for 2 and a half months but dont mind rolling alts on the same dead server over and over.

 

This whole issue is Biowares fault because they caved in over the first week of launch and added about 80 more servers then needed. We just made it worse by having no patience and no idea on the work it takes to do these types of things.

 

 

From 3/1

 

"Hello everyone. I can absolutely understand the frustrations expressed here, and I appreciate that for the most part, you're being constructive in your comments. Here's a little more insight into the situation.

 

The character transfer system is being actively worked on by the development team. It's a large, complex project, made more complicated by the Legacy System - and it has to work perfectly. As always, it is not the only task the team as a whole is undertaking, but it's a priority. It has not been deliberately delayed, nor is it being 'held back' for any reason. As you know, the first stage of the system will be a one-off, optional transfer for those who are based in the regions defined in our FAQ. At some point after that, we'll bring a more fully-featured character transfer system online for all to use.

 

I can understand the frustration of those of you who have been playing on the US servers and waiting for transfers. We know your enthusiasm and excitement for the game - you wouldn't have taken the steps you did to get the game earlier than the official launch if you weren't enthusiastic. We're working as hard as we can to get the system in place. If we could have brought it online earlier, we would have. However, priorities post-launch had to be directed towards the game itself. The team's been working flat-out to improve the game, including bug fixes and additional content.

 

When we announced our launch territories last year we knew many more fans were excited to play The Old Republic. That's why we moved quickly to launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, with more territories being lined up for future launches. Our primary focus when launching in any new territory has to be to reach more players. Ultimately, that's best for the continuing success of the game. We want everyone who wishes to play on the new servers to be able to do so, hence character transfer being offered. With that said, in this case we felt it was important to get the game into the hands of new players as soon as possible. That, combined with our post-launch development priorities, meant that character transfer did not make our launch date for these territories.

 

The development team remains committed to delivering a robust character transfer system for all, with our first priority being for Asia-Pacific players. If we can bring the system to you earlier than expected, we will, but for now we’re aiming towards late April.

Stephen Reid | Senior Online Community Manager

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