Server population is dropping...

[Kthx]

Usually for a company to start seeing a profit, they need to make about 30 percent over the cost. Overhead in a large company is a lot. They are paying for other game development, games that didn't do so well, human resources, equipment, advertising, etc.

 

General overhead is usually included in indirect labor costs, so you are most likely double counting it. Conversely, your number of subscriptions is high and you are ignoring variable costs. Your lifecycle for the investment analysis seems to be 4 months, which is obviously a flawed assumption. The end result is that your "analysis" is a classical example of garbage in, garbage out.

 

SWTOR was suppose to generate a lot more money than it has.

 

So when EA reported in its quarterly earning statements that SWTOR did better than expected, it is lying to its investors?

 

From an investment point of view, it is a big failure. The stock was at $20-24 dollars pre-launch. It is at a 52 week low now.

 

You can only judge that if you can separate out other factors which affect the share price (and there are many). I'm willing to bet that the recent announcement of a 25% drop in all video game sales had a bigger impact on the share price than anything that is specific to SWTOR:

 

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2012/04/video-game-sales-sink-25-in-march/1#.T48c5LO8YQg

Edited April 18, 2012 by Kthx

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

Other than the MMO addicts, I think the online community is ready for something more than the "safe" model of MMO that exists now.

 

Yes, yes and YES! Therefore I am looking forward to TSW, can´t wait to receive my preorder copy...!

[Blistrich]

Yes, yes and YES! Therefore I am looking forward to TSW, can´t wait to receive my preorder copy...!

I'm keen on knowing how long it takes you to turn into the guy you are now, but with that game.

[thbends]

Bioware is saving the Star Wars name not hurting it. The only good SW stories that feel like SW have come from Bioware. Lucas has killed the franchise with his prequels. This is coming from a 501st member who sold his armor after seeing Episode I.

[chrisftw]

I'm keen on knowing how long it takes you to turn into the guy you are now, but with that game.

 

betting at least 3 weeks before he starts posting about how TSW is boring, and lacking features.

[Skidrowbro]

Get to lvl50 then your opinion maters not someone whom just began the game and doesnt have any experience in it. You said I only just began playing it many people liked it until saw it for what it is.

 

FYI, this is not my first MMO. And please enlighten me to what it really is? If you think this game is so horrible, why are you still playing or are you just a forum troll?

Edited April 18, 2012 by Skidrowbro

[Blistrich]

betting at least 3 weeks before he starts posting about how TSW is boring, and lacking features.

Some guys avoid the poop... others just enjoy rolling around in it I guess.

[Oofpez]

You can only judge that if you can separate out other factors which affect the share price (and there are many). I'm willing to bet that the recent announcement of a 25% drop in all video game sales had a bigger impact on the share price than anything that is specific to SWTOR:

 

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2012/04/video-game-sales-sink-25-in-march/1#.T48c5LO8YQg

 

Not to mention that technology companies all over have been taking hits all week. Doesn't mean that Apple is dying. Doesn't mean that Google is dying, Doesn't mean Microsoft is dying.

 

Stock market != general health of a company.

 

Not to mention that TOR, no matter how large of a game it is (estimates go anywhere from 70 to 300 million) is still one game from one side company of Electronic Arts.

[Klax]

Oh no!

 

Then which forums will you go to and post about how what you're posting about is dying?

 

Sorry, this is betting funnier by the minute.

 

You're missing the point. We like SWTOR and want it to grow. We simply see the light at the end of tunnel... and its the front of an oncoming train.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

I'm keen on knowing how long it takes you to turn into the guy you are now, but with that game.

 

You don´t even know how much I tried to love SWTOR - I still want the game to suceed, why should anyone have a reason not to, except for beeing a shill for Blizzard or any other competing company, which I am not.

Fact is, I enjoy the Rakghoul event and I am not bored at the moment, but I doubt they put out stuff like this weekly.

 

I´ll take a break until the game gets more polished, more interesting quests and space combat, then I´ll be a happy subscriber again. Now with the free months I got another 30 days on top of my 30 days gamecard left, not a bad thing at all. After this I´ll check out TSW, I might be disappointed but I like the fact TSW is NOT WoW. I think I´ll be quite entertained by this title as I like the setting and the whole idea of it.

[mordredz]

You wont be when actually get to end of it, the solo player game is fine but it when you see what it really has to offer then you will know why so many have left.

 

Spoken like a true player with no guild/friends on the game/called bad/etc...

 

The games a blast, make some friends and enjoy...

[Drakkip]

The people who are leaving are disenfranchised WoW players who didn't get what they wanted when they bought ToR. No LFD, learn to make friends, I'll take a guess at end game gear not being handed out as well which will cause these players to leave. Good riddance. The end part is just a guess though and I could be wrong

 

Really? Every single one of them? That's a pretty broad sweeping assumption you are making there. It's like saying all the people making posts like the one I quoted are paid fanbois of the company... Honestly it's great that you love the game and it would take a medical procedure to surgically remove your lips from the behind of the game designers, but not everyone who is unhappy with the changes and left did so because they thought wowisuberleetandiwishthisgamewasmorelikeittoo! Some people are unhappy with the changes because the changes ARE bad changes. Sometimes some things are just wrong, not because it isn't more like something else, but because you know, wrong is wrong, bad is bad!

 

Really, there are fundamental issues with the game that need to be addressed. There are far too many places in the world to get stuck for starters. Not enough quickslots for all your abilities (especially with legacy abilities now), Seriously DF is a must as on some servers the population just isn't there. In prime time the server I am on, pub side you are lucky to break 50 people at GS nightly, it's brutal. Since most of my guild, along with 2 other guilds I used to group with often have quit, HM groups have been extremely difficult to come by. But I guess according to you good riddance....

[SinisterZz]

93 People online on Prime Time Republic side (Tassaa Bareesh EU) BW this is a disgrace.

[Blistrich]

You're missing the point. We like SWTOR and want it to grow. We simply see the light at the end of tunnel... and its the front of an oncoming train.

Uh huh.

 

Yeah. In vanilla. The train. Is coming.

 

All I'm saying is "lighten up" about it. If the train hits, well, what are you gonna do about it? I remember having high expectations from Age of Conan only to discover that after you leave Tortage, there was really nothing to do. The game was unfinished, and that wouldn't have been the end of the world... if they had eventually finished it.

 

Funcom never did finish AoC. They let it languish in neglect for ages before throwing Godslayer in there (useless expansion that it was). They did it wrong. We haven't even seen what BW plans for future patches and the first expansion, so chill, and if you're bored, play something else for a while.

 

It simply isn't worth getting this worked up about.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Blistrich

[iamthehoyden]

With server populations there is "low" and then there is itty bitty teeny tiny. I logged on to Fleet today on the Imp side and I was the only person on. Uno. One. On my server it's not uncommon at all for there to be fewer than 3 people on a planet. I'd like to see free server transfers to a list of specific servers to build up decent populations and then close down a few servers (or more than a few). I don't care for servers that are stuffed full but a standard population would be nice.

 

The population problems are pretty clearly a case of assuming an initial tidalwave of players was the norm. I will say that when I heard some of the guys from BioWare speak at Screenburn it was pretty clear that they had not been prepared for how fast people were going to go through content and how popular pvp was going to be. I got the impression they had a pretty good plan for rolling out story and content on a slower timeline, but it all went to hell when people started rolling through the content at breakneck speed. They've been playing catch up ever since. So we're seeing that a large number of people who have leveled quickly and have been chewing on the same end-game content for quite some time are bored so they're not going to be playing as often (and many will unsubscribe). The amount of daily gametime per person is dropping.

 

I think it's likely that the gaming population in swtor will shrink to a certain level and then stabalize. It was too much growth too fast. As long as they have enough of a player base to sustain profitability they'll continue with the game (and I think they will) but the number of hours of gameplay that they initially saw won't be coming back for quite some time if ever.

[Blistrich]

I'll take a break until the game gets more polished

Smart man.

[Rohkai]

I am voting for transfers. I recently abandoned my Legacy and 3 highest level characters to re-roll on a higher population server... at lv 27 I"m already sick of leveling her throught the same ares that I have done 3 times before. I just want to be on a server with 150+ people at fleet durring OFF peak hours.

[mordredz]

93 People online on Prime Time Republic side (Tassaa Bareesh EU) BW this is a disgrace.

 

You're complaining about close to 100 ppl in the fleet at prime time when there are servers that have 10-20 on at peak? QFT plz, dear lord...

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

betting at least 3 weeks before he starts posting about how TSW is boring, and lacking features.

 

- They said they´ll prevent instances wherever possible (+50 affection gain)

- They use single-server technology (+50 affection gain)

- They said they did not go for "kill X click Y" but let you do a lot of other interesting stuff (e.g."Investigation Missions") (+50 affection gain)

- Crafting is pretty much like SWG was (+100 affection gain)

- Graphics are superior, engine is up-to-date, server side collision and PhysX (+50 affection gain)

 

-> enough arguments to get me interested. Will TSW be good? I´ll know after playing. Perhaps I´ll know how great SWTOR is compared to it, perhaps not, who knows.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst

[Deneok]

A lot of the people are just leaving to random games like League of Legends (My son just started playing that). He left WOW about a year ago, played Aion briefly, and played an Inquisitor on my SWTOR account till level 6 and bailed.

 

Other than the MMO addicts, I think the online community is ready for something more than the "safe" model of MMO that exists now.

 

This! There are so many MMOs right now not to mention app and facebook games etc. that there simply will never be a WOW in terms of subs again. After hardcore raiding with WOW for 3 years, I gave it up, tried several MMOs and now only play SWTOR and even then not every day or even every week. There may be too many servers but SWTOR isn't going anywhere.

[Blistrich]

Funny thing is, my server is busting at the seams. I regularly have queues during peak times on Harbinger, so I'm not feeling the loneliness of being stranded in a low pop environment.

 

Transfers will improve things, and they are coming, but again, the biggest issues players have can only be addressed through further content patching and expansions.

[mordredz]

This! There are so many MMOs right now not to mention app and facebook games etc. that there simply will never be a WOW in terms of subs again. After hardcore raiding with WOW for 3 years, I gave it up, tried several MMOs and now only play SWTOR and even then not every day or even every week. There may be too many servers but SWTOR isn't going anywhere.

 

lol made my day, fanbase alone will carry it for quite some time...

[Ansultares]

others just enjoy rolling around in it I guess.

We're here, so clearly we all enjoy the latter.

 

Sorry, this is betting funnier by the minute.

Of course it is; good thing the moderators condone you fanboy trolls trolling random posters.

 

You should get together with Andryah and Azzras and the three of you can strive tirelessly to drive away anyone who isn't already turned off by standard forum negativity, let alone the game itself.

 

lol made my day, fanbase alone will carry it for quite some time...

You galaxies fans aren't dealing with Sony anymore. These guys (EA) are just as capable at taking a baseball bat to the game's metaphorical knees, but they're even more pro at cutting funding for future development.

 

People need to remember that STANDARD population is where a server should be...

No, it's not. It just sounds nice. Edited April 18, 2012 by Ansultares

[Blistrich]

We're here, so clearly we all enjoy the latter.

No, this (the forum) is the soup.

 

The poop, on the other hand, is what you're rolling in when all you can think to do is complain ad nauseam about something as insignificant as the population of an online computer game based on a science fiction world created by a guy who had too many speeding tickets to become an Air Force pilot.

[mordredz]

We're here, so clearly we all enjoy the latter.

 

Of course it is; good thing the moderators condone you fanboy trolls trolling random posters.

 

You should get together with Andryah and Azzras and the three of you can strive tirelessly to drive away anyone who isn't already turned off by standard forum negativity, let alone the game itself.

 

You galaxies fans aren't dealing with Sony anymore. These guys (EA) are just as capable at taking a baseball bat to the game's metaphorical knees, but they're even more pro at cutting funding for future development.

 

No, it's not. It just sounds nice.

 

You're obv upset, sorry you feel that way champ...