ATTENTION ALL 2MIL SUBS spread out across the servers

[Alcarinn]

Well, good for you. I actually selected that very server, and it has a good population, only little thing that cought my attention was the complaining about rerolling and the wow debats though. I must admit, i didn't level past level 12.

 

Still doesnt make me wanna reroll. I'll keep playing like i do now (probably) and wait what future brings. Hopefully transfers and or merge's.

 

Well ... paid transfers will surely come its only a matter of time but i suspect they will not come BEFORE 1.3 which might very well be more than 4 months away.(I suspect 5-6)

 

So that means transfers around September/October... Which is a long way off and you can easily have additional 1-2 lvl 50s by then which not only gives you more play choice but ALSO increases your knowledge of classes/ACs which will help you both PvP and PvE whichever you prefer

Edited April 2, 2012 by Alcarinn

[Claudistine]

Well ... paid transfers will surely come its only a matter of time but i suspect they will not come BEFORE 1.3 which might very well be more than 4 months away.(I suspect 5-6)

 

So that mean transfers around September/October... Which is a long way off and you can easily have additional 1-2 lvl 50s by then which not only gives you more play choice but only increases your knowledge of classes/ACs which will help you both PvP and PvE whichever you prefer

 

True, i could do that. but i won't, but won't complain either. Because you are right, it is an option, just not an option i would take. I can only hope that it won't take so long to be able to transfer. Besides, noone knows what will happen in the meantime, the population on my server is low, but it seems stable. Im in a guild doing HM Ops and pvp, so im playing the game, and having fun.

[Alcarinn]

True, i could do that. but i won't, but won't complain either. Because you are right, it is an option, just not an option i would take. I can only hope that it won't take so long to be able to transfer. Besides, noone knows what will happen in the meantime, the population on my server is low, but it seems stable. Im in a guild doing HM Ops and pvp, so im playing the game, and having fun.

 

I fixed my previous message had 2 ''huge'' typos...

 

Well whats the problem then i mean you run endgame without problems so it seems you have it all covered apart from possible and most likely long pvp queues...

[Claudistine]

I fixed my previous message had 2 ''huge'' typos...

 

Well whats the problem then i mean you run endgame without problems so it seems you have it all covered apart from possible and most likely long pvp queues...

 

Its really and i mean really lacking community. Its almost non existant. The guild im in usually makes up for 30% of the people in the fleet

 

In other mmo's there was always someone that needed help, had questions or there was a discussion in general chat (good ones, not childish) i miss that.

 

The pvp queue isn't that bad, altough you really get to know all opponents

[Alcarinn]

Its really and i mean really lacking community. Its almost non existant. The guild im in usually makes up for 30% of the people in the fleet

 

In other mmo's there was always someone that needed help, had questions or there was a discussion in general chat (good ones, not childish) i miss that.

 

The pvp queue isn't that bad, altough you really get to know all opponents

 

Yeah ok i get it but what i keep reading in your posts is:

 

''I want community BADLY but i will not abandon my char because it is obviously more important to me than community''

 

You have to make up your mind, lvl 50 and guild or community

 

The Red Eclipse has 145 people on Imperial fleet at 15:30 CET and there is 125 on Republic fleet...

 

It just feels your char>Community in your posts

 

I always function based on the problem.

 

If i have a problem i fix it one way or the other if i do not WANT to fix the problem I have due to my OWN restrictions it is obviously not big enough problem for me yet.

 

Obviously you either do not work like that or dont think or see your ''problem'' as big

Edited April 2, 2012 by Alcarinn

[Claudistine]

 

If i have a problem i fix it one way or the other if i do not WANT to fix the problem I have due to my OWN restrictions it is obviously not big enough problem for me yet.

 

Obviously you either do not work like that or dont think or see your ''problem'' as big

 

I think that could be it, for me the problem isn't game breaking yet.

 

Still, there are many more that do feel that it is game breaking, and i understand where they are comming from. There are to many light servers and it's also up to BW to do something about it, if they want a steady player base.

 

Atleast, thats what i think.

[Listerman]

A lot of these issues could be fixed if they implemented transfers. You can get out of your dead server, AND keep your hard work. Win-Win.

[SkuzBukit]

A lot of these issues could be fixed if they implemented transfers. You can get out of your dead server, AND keep your hard work. Win-Win.

 

Absolutely, I haven't "given up" on my hard work on my old server yet because I'm hopeful of transfer capabilities being implemented in the mid-term (3 months).

 

I think that it's how we choose to play in the meantime that may determine if we'll wait long enough for them to arrive or not, playing on very low-population servers is demoralising whilst a re-roll can re-ignite interest in the game, it has for me & many others I'm sure.

 

I rerolled to Republic-side on the Red-Eclipse eu server but haven't stopped playing on my old one entirely, I play on the busy one at peak times & my old one (all empire-side) off-peak.

[Lithy]

MMOs always have these issues:

 

1. Initially there's a huge influx of players trying the new MMO. There are massive servers queues, lags and drama.

 

--> Developer hectically scrambles to add more servers for people to play on.

 

2. After the initial ~2 months, interest fades and a large % of the player-base move on. This is normal for any modern MMO. The Problem is however...

 

--> Developer has spread the population across too many servers.

 

3. Players start migrating from "dead" servers to "active" servers in hopes of a better play-experience. Others quit the game rather than reroll.

 

--> Developer is left with several "dead" servers and a migrating/quitting population.

 

4. Players rightfully call for server-merges, but these are technically challenging endevours.

 

Basicly this, it's not that the game pop is bad it was in #1 where bioware panicked and made too many servers instead of upping population caps. It's sad really.

[bigheadbrandon]

i feel obligated to reply since i am one of the subscribers

 

nno

[shadowrouge]

BW is not totally to blame for low pop servers. During the Early Access and for a few weeks after the community was crying for more servers to lower Queue times.

 

Does something need to be done? Yes. Should BW hold full blame for it? No.

[CrunkShizzle]

2 mil subs and 90 percent of them are probably clogging up the high population servers

 

 

seems like what the community wants,a game with nothing but jam packed high population servers

Edited April 2, 2012 by CrunkShizzle

[SilverBlink]

I know the developers have said they are working on the transfer system but because of legacy it is a bit more involved than other games. I'm sure once they come up with a system they will probably do some migrations of their own to merge lower pop servers into medium pop servers and balance the factions the best they can. It will just take time. Other than waiting rerolling is the only option, I personally wouldn't go to the highest pop I'd find a good medium pop server if I had to transfer, and try to get my guild to go too. Edited April 2, 2012 by SilverBlink

[fungihoujo]

Even if the servers were averaged, well. You've got something like 250 servers. 1,000,000 divided by 250 is ... 4,000.

 

I don't even think the servers can hold that many people, which kind of confuses me. ... Oh, and I used 1,000,000 instead of 2,000,000. So that means if Bioware equalized it we'd have 8,000 players per server (if every server had an equal population.).

 

Why am I trying to do math? I'm dyscalculic (think dyslexia with numbers), I'm starting to confuse myself and also this is the worst way to average anything ever (as in it's incredibly inaccurate.).

 

4k per side isn't that odd- remember that they won't all be playing at the same time. I've had events taking place where there were over 300 players per side on a single planet taking part (across multiple instances of course)- and if fleets are both capped, that's another 400+ players on.

[Zag_Stratos]

I like how they never thought about that beforehand. They are "now" working on a solution for server merge. After all these years in the making, no one even thought about that aspect? Aside EVE-online (only 1 server) - every MMOs in history had server merges! (or at least most of them)

 

This is what I really dislike about BW. There's a whole lot of "after thought" in this game.

[fungihoujo]

BW is not totally to blame for low pop servers. During the Early Access and for a few weeks after the community was crying for more servers to lower Queue times.

 

Does something need to be done? Yes. Should BW hold full blame for it? No.

 

They shouldn't have listened to the whining idiots to begin with- and the whiners shouldn't have rolled to low pop servers cuz there was a 100 person queue week one either- if people had been smart enough to realize the beginning rush would die down they wouldn't be on underpopped servers now.

[Xenrae]

We have a guild, 185 characters. I'm supposed to just quit and start over somewhere else? Obviously, I can't. I rather enjoy my guild, our officers, our casual players and those fighting for a chance to raid. We have a fantastically developed website. We're a family of sorts, and we don't want to be separated because Bioware didn't have a contingency plan for an event that, historically, was inevitable.

 

We're dying. Every day that goes by, I wonder what the membership number will be when I log in, or how many people I'll have to demote because it's been more than 30 days since they played... or 50... or 70. We love it here. We love the game. We've been fighting side by side for months to gear, to learn, to level and achieve success.

 

Quit, drop my toon, and start over? How about no. There's nothing wrong with expecting the people I'm PAYING to work out the population problems and make it playable. That does not make me lazy, it makes me dedicated.

 

Come on, Bioware... I'm in. I'm hooked. I'm invested. You've got to pull this off, and you've got to do it soon.

 

Zepp

[Verill]

Merge !!!

 

NOW !!!

 

Sick of being alone in fleet

[greenboy]

i have 4 toons on begrin colony with my guild i have played several other games with and 4 on dark reaper a PVP server i play on with my roommates and real life friends. both servers tend have a decent amount of people on

[Satako]

Forgive me if the answer is obvious or has been answered elsewhere but... just what is the technical difficulty with merging one lightly-populated server with another?

[RebelWeasel]

this game has 2 million subs.....but some of the servers are dying because there are so many servers.....as a member of the infinity server i plead to all of you to come to servers like inifinity gate or other light servers. servers like the fatman are extremly overpopulated and we really hope that the subs can spread across the servers a bit.

 

Excuse me if this is obvious to everyone else because maybe you have information that I haven't seen yet. I have to point something out here:

 

I have never seen, in any BioWare publication, a mention that they have a current 2 million subscribed accounts. What I DID see, was the Guild Summit report, in which they said they sold close to 2 million copies of the game.

 

Can I please point out to everyone in this discussion, that selling a copy of the game is not the same thing as a subscription to the game. I can name 5 personal friends who purchased this game and then cancelled their subscription to it before the end of the trial month period. So they count, as 5 people who purchased the game, but they are not Subs.

 

By my calculations, out of a group of 6 people total, this is a 5/6 failure rate to retain subs, in other words they lost 83% of a very tiny sample pool of subscribers just based on my personal experience alone. Naturally, I understand enough about statistics to know my sample pool of only 6 people out of 2 million purchases is too small to be accurate reflection of the game as a whole. I use this merely as an example of the difference between the definition of a purchase versus a subscription.

 

This entire argument is being predicated on a statistic that has no verifiable proof. I ask the OP to prove his claim before people get riled up over something that could be a totally false claim or even a lie simply meant to generate drama and misinformation.

 

To the OP: a link to a post made by a verifiable BioWare or EA representative, with dates and actual statistics is the only credible proof you could offer. Because this is a very new game, I'm afraid only statistics within the last month could be considered true or relevant, since any subs listed in December or January might be people who dropped their subs after a 2 month testing time.

 

Again, if this is obviously somewhere I haven't seen it, I apologize, but so far, to put it in terms most people here would recognize: "Screenshot or it didn't happen."

[Satako]

They've sold two million copies of the game and maintain nearly 1.7 million active subscribers.

 

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-08-star-wars-the-old-republic-sitting-at-nearly-1-7-million-paid-subscribers

Edited April 3, 2012 by Satako

[Sammm]

Forgive me if the answer is obvious or has been answered elsewhere but... just what is the technical difficulty with merging one lightly-populated server with another?

 

It isn't "difficult", it'd only be a PR disaster.

[Jesira]

People are migrating to a set of 3 servers. Fatman being the primary one, this is a disaster onto itself and honestly they should find a way to stop it right now so people have to migrate to other servers on the list, too but that won't happen.

 

They made the same mistake every MMO developer makes. They started with too many servers, people would rather have 15 or 20 minute queues for a couple of weeks then have their server be dead by the time the first month or two rolls around. While I don't think the game itself is genuinely losing too much of it's players (again, they're migrating upward), it's really just a matter of BioWare turning it around -somehow-. They should have used some foresight in this old fashioned server technology. ArenaNet is supposed to be using a system in GW2 where you've got a home server that your character and everything is stored on but you can play anywhere you choose, negating population issues almost entirely. Something like that, or universal servers that hold way more people, split between rulesets would be ideal for an MMO today. If it were possible, BioWare would use this situation and turn the tables making it something "innovative" like that as a resolution rather than "merging" and calling it a day. I know that's probably unrealistic to hope for, but it would be the ideal solution.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Jesira

[ErisktheRed]

Yeah and players will "merge themselves'... so lighter servers become lighter. Even standard, there's just toooooo many so ppl who reroll go for the already top pop servers making them even more populated and the mid-range pop servers lose out. Legacy is the biggest thing and guilds to keep ppl in their servers.

 

I'm on Spaceslug and it's a decent pop. Used to be a top 10 server but dropped significantly cancelled subs, some guilds rerolling/leaving. There's so many server choices for new players, who want a populated server - so you go on prime time for US servers - see Light and immediately discount joining any light server. I would myself if I was new. See the 5 or so Heavy vs the 15+ Standard pop servers and... unless u go by server name or know ppl/guilds in servers, the choice seems obvious to go with one of the top 5 pop servsers.

 

BW I'm sure realizes this pickle... but won't merge servers anytime soon.