Server population is dropping...

[Frostvein]

So is 1.5 million the new "dead"?

 

Are you trying to intentionally misunderstand what I said?

 

1.5 million, when spread out over 200 servers, makes the game feel dead.

 

It doesn't mean that it is dead. 500-700 people per server at max during primetime is not acceptable and not conducive to group gaming.

 

 

Nice job ignoring the rest of what I posted by the way.

[Snailzz]

Logged on, 4 on fleet, only a handful of 50's on the entire server.... cut my losses and re-rolled.

 

Yeh its annoying that I have spent alot of time and effort on one toon but it happens.

[Mr_Clark]

So is 1.5 million the new "dead"?

 

In major MMO terms, I think under 1.5MM subs is the new dead yes. - that's less than 20 million per year in revenue... factor in all your on-going costs and you pretty quickly you realize there is very little money for things like improvements...

 

That said, I don't think they even have 1.5million after this month.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Mr_Clark

[Shrikestalker]

Actually I went from a complete SWTOR nerd to someone who's only pays/plays since my friends still do. I can't really explain why some people leave their friends as soon as they get bored of the game they play with them.

 

Is it because most people playing MMORPGs these days believe they are playing single player games thus don't play them with friends anymore?

It's because some people are more dependant on their 'relationships' with their friends than their friends are on them.

 

"I hate this game but I'll keep paying only because my 'friends' are here."

 

"I love this game but I'll quit and leave only because my 'friends' hate it and left."

 

 

 

Which makes more sense? If you answered 'neither', you are a healthy adult.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Shrikestalker

[Kthx]

please stop drinking the bioware koolaid and look at the facts.when you can link something that disproves this,ill be the first to say im wrong. log on during prime time and look at the server list,most are light/standard...maybe 4 are heavy,that dosent sound like a healthy population to me. do you actually think this site just makes it all up?

 

You are not looking at the facts either. Assuming, that torstatus' information is accurate, here is the breakdown for U.S. servers:

 

Heavy/Very Heavy: 15 (12%)

Standard: 72 (59%)

Light: 36 (29%)

 

Whether this is healthy depends on what you feel about "Standard": There are no statistics on torstatus that will help you define this.

[tloops]

So what I see here is: I posted clearly debatable 'facts', put them across as some sort of proof, so I now need to go and find some other 'proof' to discredit your 'proof' and now I'm the troll.

 

Gotchya.

 

nothing what ive posted is debatable,the link is real is it not? your the one making baseless accusations that evryone is wrong while you are right.i have simply given you the chance to prove your side ,which of course you cannot.

[Frostvein]

You are not looking at the facts either. Assuming, that torstatus' information is accurate, here is the breakdown for U.S. servers:

 

Heavy/Very Heavy: 15 (12%)

Standard: 72 (59%)

Light: 36 (29%)

 

Whether this is healthy depends on what you feel about "Standard": There are no statistics on torstatus that will help you define this.

 

Sure there are, you just chose to ignore them.

[Kthx]

Are you trying to intentionally misunderstand what I said?

 

1.5 million, when spread out over 200 servers, makes the game feel dead.

 

You still don't explain how 1.7 million would not feel dead but 1.5 million would. I also don't understand your distinction between "feel dead" and "be dead".

 

Nice job ignoring the rest of what I posted by the way.

 

I quoted the last paragraph, which I assume was your conclusion and what you were leading up to. It was a bit hard to follow your posting, given that your link is broken.

[Kthx]

Sure there are, you just chose to ignore them.

 

Then make your case instead of throwing out baseless accusations.

[eHug]

It's because some people are more dependant on their 'relationships' with their friends than their friends are on them.

 

"I hate this game but I'll keep paying only because my 'friends' are here."

 

"I love this game but I'll quit and leave only because my 'friends' hate it and left."

 

 

Which makes more sense?

 

Not sure why you think being bored of something that has nearly no content is the same thing as "hating" it or why you would put friends that you know for over 10 years and meet in real life into quotation marks. If you don't value such long time friendships (or don't have them) and prefer to spend solo/strangers time in other games, that's okay, I am just not like that. It's far more fun for me to play with good friends then being a soloer or grouping with strangers ingame.

[Noxulifer]

Since 18:00 to now 20:00 there have been from 15 to 30 people in the fleet... Bad, bad....

[Gungan]

WoW had a good, comprehensive server only LFG tool in 2005 - something SWTOR doesn't have.QUOTE]

 

Please tell me you aren't referring to the LFG Global Channel. It was like trade chat on steroids. It was a perfect example of what "not" to do when trying to create a LFG system more evolved than spamming chat channels for hours.

 

90% of the people on the old LFG Global Channel in WoW were attention whores, nothing more.

 

No, I'm talking about the LFG tool that let you pick what quest/dungeon you wanted to do, then advertise yourself by class/role.

 

It also allowed groups looking for more to advertise themselves by content, and by what class/role they needed.

 

It had filters for quest/dungeon, with class filters, and level filters. A multi-filter search function.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Gungan

[Kthx]

In major MMO terms, I think under 1.5MM subs is the new dead yes. - that's less than 20 million per year in revenue... factor in all your on-going costs and you pretty quickly you realize there is very little money for things like improvements...

 

Other than WoW, which western MMOs have more subscribers than 1.5 million?

 

I compute 1.5 million x $15 = $22.5 million. Some subs are discounted due to 3 and 6-month subscriptions, but European subscription rates are higher than U.S. (except UK, which I believe has the cheapest subscription).

 

EA/Bioware have said that their target is 2 million subscribers. I trust that they know their business model fairly well.

 

That said, I don't think they even have 1.5million after this month.

 

We should know in about 20 days what the subscription count was at the end of March.

[Shrikestalker]

Not sure why you think being bored of something that has nearly no content is the same thing as "hating" it or why you would put friends that you know for over 10 years and meet in real life into quotation marks. If you don't value such long time friendships (or don't have them) and prefer to spend solo/strangers time in other games, that's okay, I am just not like that. It's far more fun for me to play with good friends then being a soloer or grouping with strangers ingame.

You don't have to justify being the dependant one, somoene has to be it in relationships. Nothing wrong with that.

 

I'm just telling you that it's a sure sign that if you're doing ANYTHING just because your friends are that you're bored of, that's that case since you asked why. Your question didn't seem rhetorical to me; it seemed as if you really wanted to understand that psyche that allowed people to do that. Remember, this is YOUR question.. no one elses:

 

I can't really explain why some people leave their friends as soon as they get bored of the game they play with them. Is it because most people playing MMORPGs these days...

 

I'm telling you those types of people are more likely the 'alphas' in their relationships and go where they like and usually others follow them. They are the types of people who usually can talk their friends into playing or doing anything like..

 

 

"Ring Ring.. Hey man, yeah. Can you log in? Our healer just left and we are stuck. Yeah, I know you got to work tomorrow but we need you man! Cool.. I'll tell them you are logging in."

 

They are usually the same people who say "Hey, let's all go to X game coming out. We'll start the guild up there" while their 'friends' don't really want to go but end up scooting over after a month or so 'just because'.

 

 

Again, you don't have to quantify anything. I'm just giving you the answer to your question.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Shrikestalker

[KingofFlares]

Have you guys noticed that alot of ppl are using the forums. It could be that half the game's population are complaining about the population, therefore, not playing the game.

[Frostvein]

You still don't explain how 1.7 million would not feel dead but 1.5 million would.

 

I never said 1.7 wouldn't either, I just don't think they have those numbers.

 

I also don't understand your distinction between "feel dead" and "be dead".

 

"Feels dead" - 50 people on fleet, less then 250 a side per server. Few people around, oftentimes you are alone on planets. Warzones don't pop or pop infrequently. GTN has very few items listed. You don't see or interact with people very often, because there aren't many around

"be dead" - 0 people on fleet, 0 people on the server. No items on the GTN. That is literally dead.

 

I quoted the last paragraph, which I assume was your conclusion and what you were leading up to. It was a bit hard to follow your posting, given that your link is broken.

 

I'm sorry you had trouble understanding it. Ignore the link then. I'll break it down.

 

Myself and others have gone to servers and typed in "/who" and level range 1-10, 11-20, etc.

 

What we noticed is that even servers listed as "Standard" can have as few as 350 people total - that's right, total. Not in fleet, not on one side, no, both sides, total, 350 players online.

 

So, since servers with less then 350 people are listed as light, it appears that 350 is the bare minimum required for standard ranking on the server list. Where this number caps at is still speculation, but it is probably around 2000. By doing /who, 1800 was reported by others a few times (including someone who was in the link I had in, but no matter)

 

So, we can assume that the heavy/very heavy and full servers start around 2000 and go up. The cap is hard to judge because on the larger servers the population shifts so frequently its near impossible to get an accurate reading, but its safe to assume they are over 2500.

 

Now, the issue is there are only really 4 servers that I know of between US and EU that have heavy or above designations. That is 4 out of 200 total servers. The rest are always standard and light. As I mentioned, we don't know the number on the servers exactly, only that it is probably over 2500. How much, we don't know, but we know the population is limited to logging in and we doubt that the number could be much higher then 5000.

 

In order to account for this, I was trying to be reasonable and count an additional 6 servers as "heavy" servers with an average population of 2500 or more between EU and US. Simple math tells us that the number of players on those servers is 25,000, give or take.

 

Now, the other 190 servers that say "Light" or "Standard" don't have that kind of pop. At least, light has about 150 people and standards have 350. Now, I don't beleieve that to be the case, as there are "standard" servers who have a decent population. So, using more math, I went with an average of 500 (which again, includes the light servers with under 350, and the standard servers with 1800 or so) and when you multiply that out over 190 servers, it comes out to be a bit short of 100,000.

 

25,000 players from the heavily populated servers and 100,000 from the sparsely populated ones comes out to be about 125,000. This number is roughly consistent with the fact that rarely, if ever, do MMO's have more then 10% of their player base playing.

 

So, 125,000 is 1/10th of the playerbase, which when multiplied out comes to a bit under 1.25 million subs (given that I rounded up slightly earlier). This number isn't too unrealistic either.

 

Even if you increase the average population per server to be 600 or even 700/800, you still don't see much of a total increase, and it only get the subs up to 1.4 mil, 1.5 or so. This doesn't make a **** of a difference though because at 600 or 700 people per server you still don't have enough of a population for it to feel like an MMO, which is why I said the game "feels" dead.

 

Now, you can draw a ton of conclusions from this. One is that the population of 1.5 million subs is either not playing as much as they used to (which is basically a fact) Another is that if there weren't as many servers, there would be more people per server while still not going over capacity.

 

You can take from this what you will, but I'd like you to explain something different or offer some numbers to the contrary.

[EnsignSorrow]

Pure naysayer thread. There is no facts surrounding this insertion. Therefore, it is pure nonsense.

[ant_olbi]

servers are standard at the moment in europe guys. good times. End pf problem. Close thread.

[eHug]

You don't have to justify being the dependant one, somoene has to be it in relationships. Nothing wrong with that.

 

So for you there's only being "non social", not caring about friends - just like you seem to do it - or enjoying spending time with good friends which is "being dependend"? I really hope you are not some kind of borderline syndrome case, because that's what this kind of black/white thinking looks like to me.

 

I'm just telling you that it's a sure sign that if you're doing ANYTHING just because your friends are that you're bored of, that's that case since you asked why. Your question didn't seem rhetorical to me; it seemed as if you really wanted to understand that psyche that allowed people to do that. Remember, this is YOUR question.. no one elses:

 

Spending the limited time that I got with good friends always increases the fun in it for me. If you are not a social person but prefer to be a loner ingame or hanging around with strangers, that's fine with me, too. I won't tell you to become a social person. You can be as "non social" as you want, I just don't understand why some people assume that everybody is *that* "non social" and quits on their friends right away just because they got bored of the game itself. And that's what my post was talking about.

 

"Ring Ring.. Hey man, yeah. Can you log in? Our healer just left and we are stuck. Yeah, I know you got to work tomorrow but we need you man! Cool.. I'll tell them you are logging in."

 

You would call such anti social creeps "friends"? Ouch.

 

They are usually the same people who say "Hey, let's all go to X game coming out. We'll start the guild up there" while their 'friends' don't really want to go but end of scooting over after a month or so 'just because'.

 

If your friends do such things with you, I truely feel sorry for you. Nobody from our group of friends would try something that selfish. If I was you, I'd get rid of those fake friends asap.

 

Again, you don't have to quantify anything. I'm just giving you the answer to your question.

 

And I still wonder why you think that there are only fake friends and how you never met someone that you give up some fun for simply because they are worth it and will make it up at some point.

[GalacticKegger]

Pure naysayer thread. There is no facts surrounding this insertion. Therefore, it is pure nonsense.

Griefers will keep the fires burning across mutiple threads because it's what they do. Maybe they've sold themselves on being able to effect a fence rider's purchase decision by shooting out their kneecaps. Who knows. All I care is that the game will be fine, and the in-game community on our server is all I need for proof. Edited April 10, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[keleth]

What i'd like to see is a targeted incentive to switch servers. Our server has (or had as pops drop) an overwhelming amount of sith. How about offering some kind of "bump" (experience, credits, a free move, race change, hell anything) to someone willing to move to a server of the same faction that is low on the other faction. Let's keep the war going. This might encourage some servers the want to beef up but even better balance the servers so the things like those on Ilum would be more entertaining and you'd have more PvP then Huttball.

[EnsignSorrow]

Griefers will keep the fires burning across mutiple threads because it's what they do. Maybe they've sold themselves on being able to effect a fence rider's purchase decision by shooting out their kneecaps. Who knows. All I care is that the game will be fine, and the in-game community on our server is all I need for proof.

 

True story.

[Incendergel]

Griefers will keep the fires burning across mutiple threads because it's what they do. Maybe they've sold themselves on being able to effect a fence rider's purchase decision by shooting out their kneecaps. Who knows. All I care is that the game will be fine, and the in-game community on our server is all I need for proof.

 

Therein lies the problem with regards to your statement, and others. All you care about is the in-game community on "YOUR" server. And that is all you need for proof.

 

The sad truth of the matter is you are ignoring the same proof people are providing you based on their in-game community and their server. Isn't that a double standard? I mean honestly if you say the game is fine based on your server yet others are saying that it isn't based on the server they are playing yet you ignore it.

 

You can't have it both ways.

 

People are stating facts that the server they play on is a ghost town. Republic fleets having 11 to 33 people during prime time...imagine what the starting or other planets have. You think people are making this crap up?

 

Deny all you want. It is a issue and people are leaving because of it. Those are the sad facts.

[eisad]

I think there is some truth to the servers dying and BW needs to start seriously considering the possibility of merging servers to keep them populated.

 

As of now, on my server (Kath Hound US - East Coast), I am routinely one of the only players on the higher level planets (usually about 4-5 players) and it's near impossible to do any of the heroic quest b/c there is no one to group up with.

 

I still love the game and continue to play it, I just loved it a lot more when it was easy to find at least 3 other people to do flashpoints and/or heroic quests.

[Incendergel]

Dragon Trail: 13:54 4/10/2012

Republic Fleet: 12

 

The Fatman: 13:56 4/10/2012

Balmorra: 87

 

The Fatman is the only one listed as Heavy (East Coast PvP server)

 

There are 19 other servers currently listed at Standard (both East/West PvE/PvP servers)

It doesn't matter time of day I would wager then more or less since both are showing good populations.

 

The rest of the servers are light.

 

Ignoring all that, and this is a small sample size, it doesn't negate the fact that many people here continue to login during prime time and report dismal populations in their respected area. If that area is even a newbie / starter planet they then hop to the fleets and report the same low numbers.

 

They need merging.