Subs down 25%

[Blackardin]

They said something similar about Warhammer Online. Unfortunately they'd been cutting the developement budget since before it went Live (and basically never stopped).

 

On the other hand if they are moving DA Devs to SWTOR and this is resulting in a net gain in the developement budget then there is reason to be hopeful.

 

However I wouldn't rely on anything someone who is want to sell you something says, that's just not good business sense.

 

The analysis was done by an independent individual, whom by his knowledge and jargon demonstrated a proficiency in the field. I've run a business for 25 years. I'm well aware of how to do so.

[BJWyler]

what? Even during a weekday the majority of servers are Standard.

 

Don't bother trying - QQers will just continue to make up their own facts. I have kept count of the server status over the last couple of weeks. Typical weeknight for each region is 55%-65% Light with the rest being Standard, except for APAC which usually sees all three servers being Standard during their peaks. Typical weekend reverses that where the majority are Standard or better.

 

Again, that doesn't mean that a handful of servers are not population-challenged, it just means the game overall is not yet population-challenged and looks to be stable until at least the end of the year. The real test will be how soon they can get PvP in an acceptable state to hold as many of those players as possible. Without PvP, I don't see why this game can't level off at around 800k to 1m subs.

 

I read that post (the one you quoted) as "Yes, technically I guess that statement was correct."

 

I also read that post as "Nearly half of the servers are dead, most of them are less than dead, and exactly one server (the very heavy one) is the only one likely at an acceptable population for a 'MMO' RPG."

In your opinionI play on both Light and Standard servers, and the PTS. I find that the Standard servers are more than adequate to provide me with the MMO experience - even not being in a guild. The Light server not so much, but I in fact was chatting it up with some players last night, and feeling the MMO vibe despite the server label.

 

They have before. EA has never been afraid to say, "This isn't working, cut it." They don't care how much people love it. They only care if it's making profit. I guarantee you, if TOR wasn't profitting, they'd say, "Cut our losses, get rid of it." They've done it before.

 

"Oh, but 200 million cost!!!111!1eleven" Shut up. EA spent more than that on BF3 MARKETING ALONE. If they'll spend more than 200 million on marketing alone, do you really think they're worried about TOR's return?

 

Look at page 7. TOR is not only making that investment back, but it is "very profitable". Get over yourselves, people. Take a step back and look at the whole picture for ONCE, will you??

 

They can't:

http://winning-teams.com/recognizenarcissist.html

 

The problem is, people can't accept the fact that they failed at cutting through the obvious and typical hype of any new game to look at what the devs were actually trying to build and accomplish in said game. Anyone with the ability to do so would have realized that PvP and end game was not the priority for the content. Since people in today's society rarely have the ability to take responsibility for their own actions, they focus the blame on outside sources - in this case EA/BW for creating a game different from what they had falsely imagined in their own minds.

 

 

BJ

Edited May 9, 2012 by BJWyler

[tkinnunzero]

Yep, people have rose-colored glasses on when it comes to Rift at launch. But here's the truth:

 

Let's see, RIFT launched:

 

Without an LFG tool

Without a wardrobe

 

I've seen you post this analysis a couple of times, but I don't agree with the features you've prioritized, so I only included the features that are most important for me above. Can rerun the analysis with those, please?

[Goretzu]

The analysis was done by an independent individual, whom by his knowledge and jargon demonstrated a proficiency in the field. I've run a business for 25 years. I'm well aware of how to do so.

 

Then why do you believe anything that someone that is trying to sell you something tells you?

[Irenicus_Jon]

This time next week my server will have less than 20 people on fleet prime time because of Diablo 3. If the server merge/transfer supposed to come before summer does not land me on a server with 200+ people on fleet at prime time I'm cancelling my sub and putting my time entirely on Diablo.

 

I don't think I'm the only one.

 

This is the cold hard truth the game is facing right now. If you don't offer your players massive multiplayer on an MMO you are losing them. Doesn't matter how much you balance PvP or how much new content you introduce. I have played on an extremely high population server as well, at level 50 doing operations and PvP, it's an entirely different game.

 

They should not be balancing classes, fixing PvP, introducing new content, introducing sound bugs, bug-deleting matrix cubes, or anything else. Every person employed at Bioware that is working on SWTOR should have on their desk a big sign that reads "WHAT DID YOU DO TO FIX SERVER POPULATION TODAY?"

[PcGamingRig]

All MMORPGs gain & lose subscribers in the first months, it is just from people testing out if they like the game.

If it is still losing subscribers after a year of being out that is when you need to start worrying.

Edited May 9, 2012 by PcGamingRig

[stonelead]

first of all I just downloaded the free RIFT trial.... BORING and lame.. . SWTOR kicks RIFT's bottom.

 

That being said SWTOR is missing that thing that WOW has... not sure what it is, but it may be that its too linear, but more likely it is the nerf's and the lack of open world PVP (Its meant to be star WARS!)

 

My recollection of the movies , well more my knowledge of the movies being that most of us can tell you the song being played in Jabba's palace, is of huge epic battles, not an 8v8 capture 2 of the 3 points and hold on for 5 minutes war.

 

In relation to Nerf's... never nerf... just boost other things

Server pop on the aussie servers by the way is still massive. There are always at least 260+ on the imp fleet and 170+ on the repub's

[thomasgallant]

first of all I just downloaded the free RIFT trial.... BORING and lame.. . SWTOR kicks RIFT's bottom.

 

That being said SWTOR is missing that thing that WOW has... not sure what it is, but it may be that its too linear, but more likely it is the nerf's and the lack of open world PVP (Its meant to be star WARS!)

 

My recollection of the movies , well more my knowledge of the movies being that most of us can tell you the song being played in Jabba's palace, is of huge epic battles, not an 8v8 capture 2 of the 3 points and hold on for 5 minutes war.

 

In relation to Nerf's... never nerf... just boost other things

Server pop on the aussie servers by the way is still massive. There are always at least 260+ on the imp fleet and 170+ on the repub's

 

im glad the aussie servers are going good.. what i find ironic is that people do not understand that those people came from the NA servers.. which also contributes to the lowered pop on those servers... it doesnt mean people quit the game.. they got server transfers ..

[BJWyler]

Meh. I never argued for nerfs.

 

Still, they will come regardless. Where the developers are at fault is completely caving with massive changes to a game that was largely good. They could have implemented incremental changes to balance and showed they were moving in the right direction. Instead? They gutted the most popular classes in the game right before several strong online rpgs are on the way. Not a good plan no matter how you slice it.

 

Without a rollback of 1.2's balance heart attack this game will continue to lose subs at a meteoric rate.

 

P.S (to those downplaying the 400k)

24% is staggering for one quarter. I wonder if the fan boys would be as dismissive if it was a 24% increase. Don't answer that

 

Developers have every right to change the classes they create in their game if certain classes end up having an unfair advantage (i.e. are overpowered) in the game - and it continues to happen to this day in those games, years after their launch. Happened in every MMO I played. Know what players said in those forums to the whiners - LRN2PLAY. If you need an overpowered class in order to compete in this game, then yeah, SWTOR probably was not the game you should have been playing. The class balance is better now, but there is still a long way to go, but at least every class continues to be viable in this game, with a little bit of practice and play time.

 

And I will answer that - which is a resounding NO. In fact no one would be dismissive of a 24% increase because it would be so totally against the trend that it would be what everyone in the industry is talking about. The current trend is important to watch, but not a major worry at this point because anyone who even follows this industry in the slightest (and even has the slightest bit of common sense) would realize that this is a normal trend, and SWTOR is still ahead of the curve on that respect. If the game had less than 1m subs, then yes, 400k would be a bigger problem. But when you already have the 2nd largest sub base of MMOs currently, then it is not much more of an issue because, again, ratio-wise it is normal and expected.

 

I will continue to watch for the numbers with interest (I expect to be down to 1m subs by next report), and take the TORtanic comments with dose of asininity that they are. Because, you see, those people are the ones who jumped ship and died in the freezing water. The rest of us "fanbois" are waiting to see if we need the lifeboats. We will survive because we use something that is distinctly lacking in today's society - common sense.

 

Minimum 350 total pop is required for standard actually, so you either have a one-sided rep deal goin on or.. well.

Is there a linky to this. I have actually been curious as to what the thresholds are, but afaik BW hasn't actually released that info. If they have I want to see it out of curiosity - but the actual BW facts, not some supposition on a fan blog or site.

 

It doesn't matter if you merge the servers. I'm on the busiest server and NEVER see any opposite faction. Not even much of my own. During PVP it's the same people over and over. IF there's a premade you just have to give up the whole night.

 

IF ANY OF YOU GUYS THINK YOU DON'T SEE ANY OPPOSITE FACTIONS BECAUSE YOU ARE ON A SLOW SERVER, I AM ON FATMAN AND LAST MONTH WAITED THROUGH 400 PEOPLE LOGINS AND ALMOST NEVER SAW ANY OTHER FACTION PLAYERS. GOT INTO WORLD PVP MAYBE 4 TIMES THE WHOLE GAME.

 

THE GAME WILL FEEL JUST AS EMPTY AND SLOW ON FATMAN TRUST ME BECAUSE BIOWARE SEPARATED THE PLAYERS ON PURPOSE DURING DEVELOPMENT. THIS IS SOCIALISM. MICRO-MANAGE AND CONTROL THE CHILDREN SO THEY DON'T FIGHT.

 

Sounds like a Community Attitude problem to me and not a population problem. BW can't force people to play with you if they don't want to.

 

 

BJ

Edited May 9, 2012 by BJWyler

[Tiaa]

. The class balance is better now.

 

 

Is it better now because you happen to either play or have rolled one of the FOTM classes?

[Sanxxx]

Is there a linky to this. I have actually been curious as to what the thresholds are, but afaik BW hasn't actually released that info. If they have I want to see it out of curiosity - but the actual BW facts, not some supposition on a fan blog or site.

 

BJ

 

Only from EA can it be true ?

 

I guess this reasonably aticulated and evidenced post can't be accurate ?

 

http://inquisitive-myths.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/population-numbers-behind-server-status.html

[thomasgallant]

Is it better now because you happen to either play or have rolled one of the FOTM classes?

 

i find the balance alot better for pvp than it used to be.. a healer class can no longer out heal the damaged caused by 3 or 4 players hitting them, which in my opinion was a bit excessive

[Tiaa]

i find the balance alot better for pvp than it used to be.. a healer class can no longer out heal the damaged caused by 3 or 4 players hitting them, which in my opinion was a bit excessive

 

I do it all the time on my commando combat medic.

 

And I wear DPS gear.

 

And heal others.

 

And get spammed with knockbacks / stuns.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Tiaa

[thomasgallant]

I do it all the time on my commando combat medic.

 

Ya a good healer still can.. but the crappy average ones cant anymore.. its down to skill now, not just clicking buttons..

 

its the same as tracer missle spamming.. any idiot can tracer spam and win..but now there is a bit of skill involved in winning with a bher..

 

i didnt say it was impossible to do it..it just means you are a good healer.. my wife can do it with her sith. but i have seen a noticed drop in her damage levels if she is constant spam healing now, unlike before

[Serbegorn]

Some info to those who are to lazy to search them self

 

Let me provide you with an update on Star Wars:

 

Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last

call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we now

have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players

cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.

We have already launched a number of initiatives designed to grow subscriptions.

 

The initial responses have been positive and we are encouraged by the gaming community’s reaction.

In summary, we delivered an extraordinary launch of a solidly profitable long-term franchise,

which contributed to both our gross and operating margin improvements in fiscal 12. We expect

this title will further expand our margins in fiscal 13 as we get the full year benefit of subscription

revenue.

 

Let us give you two additional points of perspective as it relates to our current subscriber base

and its impact on our fiscal 13 guidance. First, the current number of active subscribers, 1.3

million, is very consistent with the original assumptions we made when we acquired BioWare in

2008. Second, while this franchise is very profitable, it only represents a mid-single digit

percent of our total profitability in fiscal 13.

-snip-

.[/i]

 

What happens to that 1.3 million "active" subscriber base when the free 30 days they gave us expires? I canceled a while ago but still have like 40 days left on my sub, thus it is "active". I guess it's clear why they gave them to us in the first place, to artificially inflate the subscriber number for this quarter's reports. Well played EA, well played, lol. Someone needs to alert Wall Street about this I think, hahaha.

 

Rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Serbegorn

[iCanUseTheForce]

I love SWTOR. But, it's naive to think that D3 & GW2 launching won't affect a player's time. While I don't expect to see subscription numbers to drop drastically, many players will spend more time exploring these newer games. That's fine...IF Bio can merge/combine/transfer servers before then. If not, the individual server population will decrease and getting a FP group together won't be the tough thing, it'll be getting a 2nd for H2's.

[RangerRobEU]

first of all I just downloaded the free RIFT trial.... BORING and lame.. . SWTOR kicks RIFT's bottom.

Clearly you've not played Rift very much at all then. Rift has far better character creation options but apart from that I would certainly agree with you that starting areas in Rift are extremely bland compared to SW:TOR and although the leveling experience in Rift feels very polished it's also highly forgettable.

 

Where Rift shines in comparison to SW:TOR (and no free trial will ever tell you this) is the sheer amount of things to do at end-game. Also, if you're a raider then right now Rift is probably where you want to be since it has arguably the best designed fights in the industry and the flexibility of their soul system is wonderful.

 

With that said, I play both games for a reason and I think in SW:TOR has a huge amount to offer players and it's only getting better. I played SW:TOR in 2 betas and thought it was over-hyped and under-developed but then last month a good friend sent me 7 days and asked me to try it again and I was shocked how much I enjoyed it.

 

The biggest problem with SW:TOR is the population is spread out. Sadly the proposed server transfer system looks like a carbon copy of the WoW one which is designed to milk cash from existing subscribers rather than making the subscriber experience better. Bioware could learn a lot from Trion in how to manage server populations.

[Phlakaton]

The backlash from all the "TOR is dying" folks I think really comes from the let down. This game was supposed to be the major competitor to WoW and it failed, horribly, ignoring the very development points that BW advertised would need to be done to actually compete with WoW.

 

I wonder if this was the SoE crew that came over or someone else. The sooner they can dismiss those employees the better this game will be.

 

I have a full post on this here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=447469&page=124

 

Its not a let down to me at all. It is not WOW and never was going to be - sure you can say they want it to be competative with WOW... why bother entering the market at all if you dont have that in mind. To say its a a failure is silly. Its a different approach to how an MMO is played. I for one love it and have a great time being more of a solo player with it. So people can talk all they want - 1.3 million subs is a fantastic start. WOW couldnt say that when they launched. AND - WOW has been around for how many years and you expect this to kill them instantly? heh.

[Jett-Rinn]

Its not a let down to me at all. It is not WOW and never was going to be - sure you can say they want it to be competative with WOW... why bother entering the market at all if you dont have that in mind. To say its a a failure is silly. Its a different approach to how an MMO is played. I for one love it and have a great time being more of a solo player with it. So people can talk all they want - 1.3 million subs is a fantastic start. WOW couldnt say that when they launched. AND - WOW has been around for how many years and you expect this to kill them instantly? heh.

 

Careful you will get labeled a Bioware employee like I did over at the Gamestop forums, unless you are screaming fail you have to work for Bioware you know.

[Goretzu]

Careful you will get labeled a Bioware employee like I did over at the Gamestop forums, unless you are screaming fail you have to work for Bioware you know.

 

The problems for EA, Bioware EA, and us players is not that SWTOR has 1.3m subs (the active subs is probably >1m tbh) it's that theres a pretty serious downward trend.

 

I don't think there's an example of an MMORPG with such a trend ever regaining their peak or even close too it.

 

 

On the upside announcing something like a Space Expansion might just do it for SWTOR, because it has options more MMORPGs just don't have.

[Valkirus]

I love SWTOR. But, it's naive to think that D3 & GW2 launching won't affect a player's time. While I don't expect to see subscription numbers to drop drastically, many players will spend more time exploring these newer games. That's fine...IF Bio can merge/combine/transfer servers before then. If not, the individual server population will decrease and getting a FP group together won't be the tough thing, it'll be getting a 2nd for H2's.

 

They had better hurry. D3 launches in less than a week.

[Jett-Rinn]

The problems for EA, Bioware EA, and us players is not that SWTOR has 1.3m subs (the active subs is probably >1m tbh) it's that theres a pretty serious downward trend.

 

I don't think there's an example of an MMORPG with such a trend ever regaining their peak or even close too it.

 

 

On the upside announcing something like a Space Expansion might just do it for SWTOR, because it has options more MMORPGs just don't have.

 

Well I think the space expansion is the worst kept secret in the industry....the timing of when to announce it is the issue, personally they should have announced it at the investors meeting, but since that has passed I don't think they can announce it soon enough.

 

The negative campaign that has been waged on these forums has worked, Bioware did what I said they shouldn't do, provide a stage to People that will hate them no matter what, I pretty much have stopped posting here as there is no room for positive posts or for people who enjoy the game and that is on Bioware.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Jett-Rinn

[Coyotecalls]

I'm playing Aion free because it is rumored to have great PVP and Bioware has failed the PVP player in EVERY conceivable way. You would think that they would EVENTUALLY grasp the concept that "Good content" is content driven by player interactions. PVP, raiding, grouping, it's all about people working or fighting together. SWTOR isn't fun any more because no one PVPs and what few people there are playing don't put much effort into doing the two raids there are available. SWTOR has the potential to be amazing. They put in great features, great voice acting, amazing story and good graphics but they forgot to allow the players mechanics to which they could get together and have fun.

 

They made the worlds largest single player game with a server.. yeah.. not much replay value.

 

They are working on all the wrong things. Roleplaying emotes and character biographies... Yeah.. um.. could you fix the things people actually come to play first? Having the ability to color my armor is really nice but I would like to actually have something to -do- in the game...

 

I'm heading to Aion for a while. I'll check back once a few more patches come out. Maybe they will finally get a clue and take PVP back to the way it was in Beta where you could actually level in PVP, get lots of credits and enjoy it because it was worth doing.

[Jedipwnsauce]

i played mostly all the major MMO's that came out in the last 4-5 years (Aion,AoC,Warhammer,Rift) and i dont think not one of them was doing this bad 4 months in.. 25% drop in subs? id expect more from a Star wars MMO. sadly Star Wars may be the only thing keeping this alive at the moment.

[BJWyler]

any other developer wouldnt of broke something when they patched something anyway

 

or something as serious as deleting a best in slot item from alot of people

 

Sorry, my friend, almost every patch in every game I still play today (even ones that have been out for years) breaks something else that needs a follow-up patch to fix. Par for the course with today's technology I'm afraid.

 

I dunno, I don't have a basement. Although I should. A tornado just wiped out a whole neighborhood not even a mile away just few weeks ago.

 

But, anyway...

 

Oof - the force was with you on that one. My thoughts are with you guys out there.

 

Understand, I really, really want to like this game. But as tired as I am of WoW after all these years, and as much as I fear that the next expansion will truly be WoW's jump-the-shark moment (panda PCs? seriously?), WoW still gives me something that TOR, today, does not. And somewhere above in this thread, I read that they had designed an LFG tool into the game, and TOOK IT OUT based on beta tester comments??? Seriously? Took it OUT?

 

That and the ability to rid oneself of companions, and the desire not to have to wait in ques during the initial weeks. Funny how players here constantly like to QQ that BioWare does not listen, yet they forget that some of the stuff they are QQing about is exactly the stuff that BW listened to in the first place. Goes to show you why it's never a good idea to design a game 100% based on what gamers want. Can anyone say Edsel?

 

I think the main problem was we all thought this was a WOW killer.. and it clearly isn't.

 

By a killer I mean that it is superior and the world would play this game and because of that no one would play WOW.

 

Now I find myself wanting GW2 to be the same thing....and time roles on:rak_02:

 

Ding ding ding! We have a winna! What we have here, is a failure to cut through the hype and see what was actually being developed in the game. It didn't take much hyperbole cutting to realize that this game was not going to be the next WoW, was not going to have messiah-like PvP, and was not going to have an extensive "end game" (whatever that is - I have yet to see someone complaining about the "lack" of end game actually explain or suggest what kind of end game (that is any different in any other MMO, GW2 included) that they would like to see). However, instead of manning up to their own lack of awareness about the game, and thusly buying the wrong game for them, the QQers would rather blame someone else for the faults that aren't really faults, but known design choices.

 

 

BJ

Edited May 9, 2012 by BJWyler