Server population is dropping...

[theskurGe]

In this case, Bioware even admitted that EA forced them to release before they were ready.

Thats's why the game has a hard time running on lower end machines. The massive problem they are having trying to optimize the rendering and IO subsystems.

 

1.2 was practically hailed as the 'real' launch of SWTOR.

 

They licked the textures issue pretty quick(in mmo terms), they will get around to the rest soon enough hopefully.

 

PS sorry if I hurt anyones feelings in a previous post, I tend to use language that is pretty borderline in todays super politically correct world.

 

Feel free to PM me or report me if I cross the line. Sometimes I get worked up and momentum can take me over the edge.

Edited April 13, 2012 by theskurGe

[Goretzu]

Also, Mythic completely ignored the feedback from the playerbase for over 2 years. It's a testament to how bad they are as a development team to ignore feedback from pre-beta and still have the same problems 2 years out.

 

If I had payed more attention to this game and had known Mythic developers were part of the creative process I would not have subscribed for 6 months or bought the digital deluxe edition pre-order.

My plans of not spoiling the game bit me in the arse.

 

 

Yeah they made some strange decisions that went against player feedback too.

[Kthx]

Technically we are still in beta, since the game was rushed out the door early by EA. But we are paying anyway because a broken SWTOR is better than no SWTOR.

 

Drop the hyperboles. SWTOR is not broken. It has some bugs. Name one commercial software package that doesn't.

[Kthx]

As you wish. Here's a nice article that was relatively easy to find. It's not the only one.

 

The topic is whether Bioware/EA are paying people to come here on the forums to "deflect bad press from the inner circles of gaming". The claim that I object to is that this is "standard marketing practice." You posted a paper on viral marketing, which you apparently did not read, because it doesn't discuss any examples like this. It discusses a number of viral marketing techniques (use of youtube videos, minigames, etc.), but that is not what we are talking about. So again, where is the evidence that Bioware/EA is hiring people to deflect criticism on the forum or that this is a standard marketing technique?

 

The practice isn't just standard, it's so well known that it's got it's own word that even conservative etymology puts at about a century old.

 

Look everyone, I just proved fairies exist because wikipedia has an entry for them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairies

Edited April 13, 2012 by Kthx

[theskurGe]

Drop the hyperboles. SWTOR is not broken. It has some bugs. Name one commercial software package that doesn't.

 

If the game isn't fundamentally broken, then why are most of the servers deserted?

 

Because the game engine itself has huge issues. Most of the PC game playing userbase does not have brand new computers.

And you basically need a new and powerful PC just to overcome the shoddy programming.

 

Until they fix the broken engine they will not attract many new, recurring subs.

They might not even recover the subs who abandoned the game because of all the issues.

 

EA might learn for a second time that you can't recover from a poor reputation and terrible optimization in the MMO world.

[rjkishida]

If the game isn't fundamentally broken, then why are most of the servers deserted?

 

Because the game engine itself has huge issues. Most of the PC game playing userbase does not have brand new computers.

And you basically need a new and powerful PC just to overcome the shoddy programming.

 

Until they fix the broken engine they will not attract many new, recurring subs.

They might not even recover the subs who abandoned the game because of all the issues.

 

EA might learn for a second time that you can't recover from a poor reputation and terrible optimization in the MMO world.

 

+1 with this and the OP

[Oldgrimm]

Its a death of a thousand papercuts.

 

This game was not nearly ready for release 4 months ago and truthfully said, neither would it be ready in this state now.

Many of us could live with the crappy engine, bad implemented / not working or still missing MMO core features.

But the sum of the problems in this game, combined with the blatant ignorance of the developing team is too much.

 

Everyone should take an objektive look at this game and judge the quality of this MMO without the Star Wars franchise.

And then give an honest answer to yourself to this question: Would you continue to play this game without this franchise?

 

Besides the lightsabers and the good VO storyline in the leveling process this game lacks almost everywhere and that is why the people are leaving fast.

[RTCBrad]

I think at this point merging servers is 100% necessary, I mean it's not rocket science all servers are either Light/Standard except for maybe 3/4 in each region lots of people are re rolling to high pop servers.

 

This is an MMO after all and with some of these server populations there is nothing massive or multiplayer about it.

 

I agree with what some other people have said as well, this game must be programmed very poorly seeing as the graphics are barely better than WoW yet, it drains about 300% more resources. On my laptop for example I can play WoW at max + AA 60fps, I can't even play swtor on low with no AA. Even at 800x600 my fps doesn't reach 60, the graphics engine is seriously flawed.

 

Runs fine on my main PC, but it shouldn't take a GTX580, 6GB of RAM, and an i7 to run a game like this, (meaning relatively low quality graphics).

Edited April 13, 2012 by RTCBrad

[theskurGe]

OK I was just in the game for a bit testing out some stuff and I can see some of the problems are gone.

You can no longer jump, and open your character panel or inventory and force your system to come to a halt.

The game used to grind to single digit FPS and freeze when I did this, and no longer suffers from a pretty *** bug.

 

The FPS seems to be better, but my server is empty and WZs are dead so I cannot test if the massive performance hit is still there in PvP.

 

We still need server merges though. This game is not going to attract new players or retain paying current players when there is nobody to play with.

Gonna log out of the game until later and re-roll on one of the more populated servers.

My server is like a crypt.

 

EDIT and even if I wanted to play, the servers came down again.

At least they are actively working on improving things.

Second Edit I took some time away from the game, so the improvements I noticed might have been included in a previous patch.

Edited April 13, 2012 by theskurGe

[sayatist]

the resion the server pop is low during the day. Is that people have to work and go to school during the week. is not that the game is bad is just that people do not have time to get on

[brentonj]

Its a death of a thousand papercuts.

 

This game was not nearly ready for release 4 months ago and truthfully said, neither would it be ready in this state now.

Many of us could live with the crappy engine, bad implemented / not working or still missing MMO core features.

But the sum of the problems in this game, combined with the blatant ignorance of the developing team is too much.

 

Everyone should take an objektive look at this game and judge the quality of this MMO without the Star Wars franchise.

And then give an honest answer to yourself to this question: Would you continue to play this game without this franchise?

 

Besides the lightsabers and the good VO storyline in the leveling process this game lacks almost everywhere and that is why the people are leaving fast.

 

Excellent Post.

[makjulos]

I think they should merge servers asap- to save the situation until they've made this very nice game into a proper social MMO. Myself i'm playing with buddies i've played SWG with for years, and even if we're fewer now i'm enjoying playing and chatting in Teamspeak with these old friends- and ofc a couple new ones too- so i'll stay around, but i bet many that play solo will find the shrinking population on some servers too discouraging to continue playing.

 

[Dorpire]

the resion the server pop is low during the day. Is that people have to work and go to school during the week. is not that the game is bad is just that people do not have time to get on

 

.... and if they made a cross server lfg for pve and pvp..those few ppl on ea server could still play the game.

[brentonj]

I think they should merge servers asap- to save the situation until they've made this very nice game into a proper social MMO. Myself i'm playing with buddies i've played SWG with for years, and even if we're fewer now i'm enjoying playing and chatting in Teamspeak with these old friends- and ofc a couple new ones too- so i'll stay around, but i bet many that play solo will find the shrinking population on some servers too discouraging to continue playing.

 

 

I think it's safe to say the ToRTanic has sunk.

[AnoriOlko]

Its a death of a thousand papercuts.

 

This game was not nearly ready for release 4 months ago and truthfully said, neither would it be ready in this state now.

Many of us could live with the crappy engine, bad implemented / not working or still missing MMO core features.

But the sum of the problems in this game, combined with the blatant ignorance of the developing team is too much.

 

Everyone should take an objektive look at this game and judge the quality of this MMO without the Star Wars franchise.

And then give an honest answer to yourself to this question: Would you continue to play this game without this franchise?

 

Besides the lightsabers and the good VO storyline in the leveling process this game lacks almost everywhere and that is why the people are leaving fast.

 

Agreed.

[Incendergel]

the resion the server pop is low during the day. Is that people have to work and go to school during the week. is not that the game is bad is just that people do not have time to get on

 

You do understand that we actually know this and therefore put in PRIME TIME numbers?

 

People posting about server merging know this and usually state times when they are on along with the information about the population numbers. If you go back a few pages you will see clearly that I posted during PRIME TIME of both East and West coast servers. Not only did I correct the 3 hour offset for time zones. Sadly the numbers still maintained the delta's. What is worse is that Fatman, East coast server still had more people logged on by a order of magnitude at 12:00 AM than Dragon Trail, West coast server, at 9 PM....

 

Let us not muddy the water and thinking people are fools by stating the obvious. We know people work, go to school, or have other things more important to do. We have been talking Prime Time through out all pages, posts, and split threads.

 

Just have to ask if everything was rosy why give people 30 free days or 7 days free if you return?

 

Yeah - they know they have some troubles. Does it make it a bad game? No. Most of us that talk about merging like the game.

 

We just don't like desolation

[Trenter]

Its a death of a thousand papercuts.

 

This game was not nearly ready for release 4 months ago and truthfully said, neither would it be ready in this state now.

Many of us could live with the crappy engine, bad implemented / not working or still missing MMO core features.

But the sum of the problems in this game, combined with the blatant ignorance of the developing team is too much.

 

Everyone should take an objektive look at this game and judge the quality of this MMO without the Star Wars franchise.

And then give an honest answer to yourself to this question: Would you continue to play this game without this franchise?

 

Besides the lightsabers and the good VO storyline in the leveling process this game lacks almost everywhere and that is why the people are leaving fast.

 

James Ohlen, one of the top dogs on TOR says they have a very healthy game right now. You are saying it's a dying game. Why should I believe you? What information do you have access to that the rest of us don't? Genuine question. If there is a solid and apparent trend that shows Bioware that they are losing their subs, why have they just recently said that they do not need to implement server merges? According to people here, that is the only way to save TOR, right?

 

I'm not saying there aren't low pop servers - obviously there are. Are a majority of the servers low pop servers? Now, this is my guess, but I'd say definately no. My server, the Progenitor, is a standard tagged server with a healthy population. A majority of the servers during prime hours are marked standard (and yeah, I know standard servers have both a min and a max but I still don't think that a majority of the standard servers are in the min range). James Ohlen says they have a healthy game. The last reports from the EA financial reports have very much hinted at a healthy game.

 

Take an objective look at your own involvement on this topic and ask yourself the following: What do I really know about this?

[ComeAndSee]

Almost topped 300 people in Republic Fleet yesterday.

 

Even my i5 OC'd CPU + HD 6970 video card was lagging like ***.

[Muskaan]

Almost topped 300 people in Republic Fleet yesterday.

 

Even my i5 OC'd CPU + HD 6970 video card was lagging like ***.

 

Fatman?

[Incendergel]

James Ohlen, one of the top dogs on TOR says they have a very healthy game right now. You are saying it's a dying game. Why should I believe you? What information do you have access to that the rest of us don't? Genuine question. If there is a solid and apparent trend that shows Bioware that they are losing their subs, why have they just recently said that they do not need to implement server merges? According to people here, that is the only way to save TOR, right?

 

Just to clarify something - most posting about merging servers are not saying the game is dying. Although we do question why some servers are losing more people than others. But that is another debate.

 

Genuine answer. We have the same data you do. We play the game during all hours of the day and week. If our server had 33 people, no instance, in the fleet; then it impacts us. It isn't health like James Ohlen is saying. He has data he can pull from various databases and what not that give him a picture. But if a subscriber logs in day in and day out and sees the same thing, like many here have said, then it is what it is. What you have then is a TOR person saying X and subscribers saying Y with whatever we have to support it.

 

You want screen shots? You want to re-roll on our server and see for yourself? What would help you understand those posters plight? I'll also give you a secondary option. Why give players 7 days free for returning to try a patch? Why also give away 30 days free for all who have lvl 50's? Genuine question

 

Take an objective look at your own involvement on this topic and ask yourself the following: What do I really know about this?

 

We have. We are a paying subscriber as you are and want to have fun. It isn't fun when there are only a handful of people on a server whereas 4 others have 300. If you look at my involvement I've stated over and over how it is on Dragon Trail. I've given data during prime time, during morning, during afternoon, and I've compared it to Fatman. The two servers are not even close. And it can be felt in the game when you play.

 

Fatman has a healthier economy. It has tons of /general chat. You can get flashpoints done. There are plenty of healers. You can do heroic quests. You can get help if you are ganked. The list goes on and on. It isn't just Dragon Trail, it is other servers people have reported.

 

We are not debating about why people left. We are not saying the game isn't good.

 

We are saying there are too many servers and we shouldn't be forced to reroll elsewhere giving up alts, money, materials, and legacy.

[Buddhalux]

And now we just got an extra day due to down time. That kind of appeasement only says one thing. Subs are dropping and they're trying to hold onto as many as possible to give them time to fix their game.

[farfulnugen]

Honestly, I unsubbed and BW can keep their 30 free days. Why would i subject myself to a boring and unfinished game even if it was for free? Someone said it before, this game was not ready for release. This isn't a case of a few bugs or having to shut down a bit for a patch....that is tolerable. It's about the many things that's been going wrong. The general direction of the game...the balance of the classes...the amount of content to do at 50. I mean, who develops a system (legacy) that promotes leveling alts over and over???? Why not develop content for level 50's (aside from 1 raid and 1 flashpoint)?

 

Their class balance ideas are horrible and it's showing in pvp right now. It's fine ... imbalance will happen ... but, when you have many people on the PTR telling you something is wrong, and then you do nothing to fix it....that's just arrogance.

 

I had high hopes for this game..obviously my standards are too high...or theirs is too low. I wish it were different. I didn't start to play this game with the idea that I wanted it to fail. I really wanted it to succeed. I still do - but I and many others just don't want to wait until they get it even half right.

[Azzras]

Honestly, I unsubbed and BW can keep their 30 free days. Why would i subject myself to a boring and unfinished game even if it was for free? Someone said it before, this game was not ready for release. This isn't a case of a few bugs or having to shut down a bit for a patch....that is tolerable. It's about the many things that's been going wrong. The general direction of the game...the balance of the classes...the amount of content to do at 50. I mean, who develops a system (legacy) that promotes leveling alts over and over???? Why not develop content for level 50's (aside from 1 raid and 1 flashpoint)?

 

Their class balance ideas are horrible and it's showing in pvp right now. It's fine ... imbalance will happen ... but, when you have many people on the PTR telling you something is wrong, and then you do nothing to fix it....that's just arrogance.

 

I had high hopes for this game..obviously my standards are too high...or theirs is too low. I wish it were different. I didn't start to play this game with the idea that I wanted it to fail. I really wanted it to succeed. I still do - but I and many others just don't want to wait until they get it even half right.

 

You hate on the free game time, yet come to the forums to post?

 

I don't understand people.

 

[farfulnugen]

You hate on the free game time, yet come to the forums to post?

 

I don't understand people.

 

 

Yes, I do, because I want the game to get better and BW should know that many people are unhappy. What's so hard to understand?

[Azzras]

Yes, I do, because I want the game to get better and BW should know that many people are unhappy. What's so hard to understand?

 

Either you're truly dedicated (which I kind of doubt) or you just want to bash the game and justify why you are here. To me it sounds as if you have moved on from the game, yet still come to post? Craziness.

 

Either way, I don't really care much how you waste your life.

 

I prefer to enjoy what life has to offer me.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Azzras