Why do you think swtor has population issues.

[Rikeryo]

- game shipped unfinished

- false promises

- wrong priorities (voiceover, legacy lolz)

- lies

- 'soon'

- horrible CS at launch (I think it got better)

- gameplay issues / no open pvp / boring endgame / failed experiments (ilum) / gear grinds / linear worlds / no exploration / BAD ARMOR DESIGN! / etc

- tech issues / badly optimized engine - 20fps@warzones@i7, no anti-aliasing at launch lolz?

- denial on everything critical by bioware, forum censorship like STASI

Edited May 24, 2012 by Rikeryo

[Lammy]

From my perspective, what I saw was lots of people who wanted to enjoy the game, but the game itself promoting antisocial behavior on the one hand, and demanding group play on the other.

 

This amounts in player frustration and boredom. They are only now adding the tools that needed to be in months ago.

[Mannic]

Ultimately, the mistake was that which was predicted by many of us right after beta and just before release; there isn't enough that differentitates TOR from every other MMO out there. The only thing TOR has that really sets it apart from other MMO's is the story. However, one could easily make the case that the story driven play is just as much an anchor around TOR's feet as it is a boon.

 

The linear play is due to the story focus. So is the heavy instancing. So, too, is the limited choice of races at character selection. The problem with Bioware's storytelling is that while it might have fit well into an MMO, it doesn't fit well into this MMO as Bioware ultimately designed it. It works at first, but eventually conspires to actually detract from the experience. You can rest assured that 100% voiced content leads to slower content updates.

 

I think the community would have been perfectly content not to have everything voiced. In fact, I'm pretty sure no one would have objected if only the main class stories and world-arc quests were voiced. Problem is that the full voice-over and cut-scenes really are the only things that differentiate this game from other MMO's. Once the thrill of a good story wears off, what's left? The voice over actually starts to become annoying after a while. Everything else is more of the same, only not as well-implemented as in many other MMO's. The world isn't seamless like other MMO's-- there are loading screens every time you travel. The crafting system is virtually irrelevant. PvP is like pretty much any other MMO-- a scenario-based rep and gear grind. End game raiding is nothing special or new. The skill system is virtually a carbon copy of WoW just with different names for skills. Nearly all of the MMO systems feel thrown-in, like wherever a decision didn't involve story Bioware just defaulted to industry-standard--and worse-- Industry Standard Lite.

 

Those were design decisions that all have hurt the game, but even those things might have been tolerable if not for the following:

 

-The Hero Engine, with all its well-documented flaws.

-Open PvP only in part of Ilum, but so laggy that no one wanted to bother with it, which eventually killed open world PvP and forced all PvP'ers to queue for warzones if they wanted some actual PvP.

-End game content that was buggy and unplayable.

-Poor customer service.

-Lack of meaningful communication between the devs and the community, including Bioware's disturbing habit of announcing things through vague comments on 3rd-party sites.

-WAY too many servers at release, obviously due to the inability of the Hero Engine to accomdate an actual, typical MMO population. This is 2012, right? Not 2001? Too many initial servers quickly led to too many empty servers, causing many more players than needed to quit the game.

 

In almost every area where Bioware has been faced with an important decision in the deployment of this game, they've just made the wrong decision. It really appears that all their decision-making was for the purpose of making short-term profits rather than having long-term success, and now their long-term viability is slipping away. They were warned, but chose to listen to the fanboys who thought Bioware could do no wrong rather than the beta testers and pre-launch community that desperately tried to explain to them what MMO'ers want.

[ludma]

People leave because they get bored doing always the same things....

I think that problems are:

-Too big maps...lot of time spent in wandering around...why do I have to return back to deliver a quest miles away while I have an holocall to use?

-Too many unuseful passages...Ship/ orbital station/planet... that's boring!

- Too much farming...one for all Black hole...4 silly quests for few daily commendation everyday the same...again and again...that's boring!!

-Bugs, things that desappear from inventory

- PVP ripetitive and not competitive

-Good issues that become unusful like legacy...if I grant legacy lvl, why do I have to pay lots of credits to take abilities?and we are not talking about cute abilities...just emotes, few minutes less for teleporting...and a selling npc on your ship...

-No care for players, forgetting that behind each toon there is a person.

Simple matters that can be solved....I'm sad about...i like this game.

[Ewgal]

Wow still had 8 million subs last time I checked, so being like Wow isn't necessarily a bad thing. This only caused problems because a large percentage of SWTOR's audience is the people who were sick of Wow.

 

Activision/Blizzard put their China player base into those numbers. The numbers that play in Europe and North America aren't that high anymore.

 

I think 1.3 will enable players to migrate out of low population servers and stuff like LFG tool will enable players to get into the PvE content more. On my server at the moment there are quite few guilds doing hard mode Denova for example...I think there is a lot of content players haven't even attempted in the game.

[Draeb]

They gave us a massively multiplayer game that had a huge focus on solo content... That's why you don't see too many people. Even the role playing aspect of the game was revoked from you at the very beginning; you had to choose a class and got stuck with the character's voice no matter how evil you wanted to make your jedi or good you wanted to make your sith, BW apparently didn't think it was important because they just predetermine what we wanted. They entirely canned the experience. Phoned it in. Uninspired. Lacking anything organic.

 

All that hard work for the heavy dialog portion of the game ultimately provided us with another minigame where the only thing you did was repeatedly pressed spacebar faster than the other guy you happened to be grouped with.

 

The worlds were just simply clone factories: inq, warrior, warrior, inq, bh, bh, bh, bh, sniper, inq, inq, inq, inq, inq, inq. etc...

 

Crafting was a tedious mini game and provided no incentive except for biochem.

 

Space combat didn't provide anything unique to the game nor any real reward.

 

World pvp was a complete and utter failure. Worst pvp I can think of in any MMO.

 

There's no saving this game. Too many fundamental flaws for it to grow more than it currently is now. Server merges will provide just enough warmth for those willing to stick around the camp fire just like it did for SWG.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Draeb

[The_Butler]

I think many of the features of SW:ToR that were eagerly anticipated have actually hampered population numbers.

 

Companions that craft for you so you don't have to run collecting materials - brilliant hated that aspect of crafting in other MMOs. But it makes crafting as a reason to login redundant!

 

The lack of Factions / Acheivments to grind for - brilliant I hated collected x rep items or killing 300 of mob x in other MMOs. But thats what kept me playing.

 

A fast-paced and griping story line - brilliant but to keep it fast paced the levelling process was made a lot quicker to compensate so you complete much quicker than other MMOs.

 

Small group sizes for Ops and FPs - brilliant - that will make in much easier to get groups together! But the small sizes mean that you have far less flexibility to involve people. Also means there's less reliance on guilds.

 

Accessible end-game gear - brilliant again - no more grinding the same FP or Op a million times to collect x tokens or get lucky on 1% chance drop! But without this you can actually "complete" end-game content pretty quickly.

 

Looking at all the things that I was looking forward to on paper they all seem like brilliant ideas, but BW kinda forgot to replace them with other activities that are fun e.g. hobbies, inovative solo end-game, evolving class quests, dynamic PvP or world events, end-game expansion of companion systems etc. etc. no-one likes the grind but without a substitue theres not much reason to keep logging in. Even the dailies can be completed really quickly which is a good thing as they get boring but a bad thing as once they are done short of finding a FP or OP or rolling an alt theres not much left to do.

[tloops]

So what you guys think.

 

Personally I think the game hasn't delivered original content but is more a rehash of wow like material.

 

for a game that encourages alt rolling,the leveling process is way to linear. there should be more choice in planets you can goto for leveling. 90% of all the quests are the same, no matter what class you level.

[Miyo]

Imho the population issue at the moment is caused by three things;

 

1) The pulling of ranked warzones in 1.2 caused alot of my server's players to quit the game, some vowing to come back when it's implimented. This game does not have enough endgame PVE (Operation) content to grow hardcore raiding guilds, so most players PvP so when ranked warzones and the ability to queue as 8 were pulled, people kinda got fed up.

 

2) Following the mass exodus of most of the decent PvP players in the game PvP became less frequent, and less enjoyable. There were minimal people you recognised in warzones, and most people were fresh 50's which made it frustrating. This lead people to try the GW:2 Beta weekend, and play Tera (I know of quite a number of our 'old' PvPers who left to play Tera, I even tried it... its terribad but meh ).

 

3) The final nail in the coffin is D3. From the Friday before it was released the servers died and are still dead. People are getting bored with it and are coming back but they come back to dead servers so don't stay online. I know I would stay online if I could actually do something but my server (Luka Sene) is just barren.

 

Overall the population issue was made desperate by the false promise of ranked warzones in 1.2. I saw so many PvPers come back to the game for 1.2, so many guilds were scrabbling together PvP teams. The servers were booming. But a week after it was released they all left again, due to the absense of ranked warzones. Imho when server transfers (though server merges would be a million times better) come through this game will thrive. People will forgive slower content releases if they can actually still play existing content. It's the community that makes MMO's great, SWTOR is by far miles better than WoW at release, and tbh WoW now, but WoW has the community. Countless hours I spent on wow flying around Stormwind chatting to people because the game itself was boring, SWTOR is the opposite, the game is fun but the community isn't there.

 

To fix this BW need first to get these server transfers right. Then finally release ranked warzones and operations that have more than 4 easy bosses. Competition will make people play if hardcore PvP'ers and Raiders exist, everything at the moment is too casual for competition to thrive, so why would people play to be the best if there is no one to beat.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Miyo

[kirorx]

I have noticed a wierd trend.....aside from the few extremist taking things way out of proportion its seems that most people actually agree on a few things here (which is the odd part...) that is hurting this game.

 

Wheter you love this game or hate it, I see the most people agree with the following.

 

The Summed up version

 

Leveling is a fun experience but aside from that, the galaxy is a dead place with little to no reason to even leave the fleet. The time it takes to travel from one point to the other to complete dailies is hardly worth the effort and the loading sceens on planets like corellia can be a major drag as well.

 

Flashpoints and Warzones can be fun but its the same warzones and flashpoints, which is understandable but with nothing else to do those things get played out fast.

 

No open world pvp and the failure of illum has hurt the player base alot and the price of legacy stuff seems to frusterate alot of players that were looking to obtain certain items or unlock new species.

 

There are other complains out there like lack of chat bubbles or RP stuff but i just wanted to hit the points i think i see the most call for here.

Edited May 24, 2012 by kirorx

[Arnan]

I wrote this review of the game on my guilds forum weeks after it launched. Sadly my fears came trough and my points of concern is as true as ever. My only MMOs before it was WoW (1,5 years) and AoC(3 years):

 

As someone who had Star Wars as their favourite movies as a kid, I have long waited for the ultimate SW game to come out. When my favourite game company Bioware announced that they where making a SW MMO based on Knight of the old Republic universe which I played and enjoyed, I really had high hopes for this game. Some disapointment came after I saw the first video of the game. The artstyle was not so good, reminded me more of WoW then Knights of the Old republic. Char models looked dull, knowing that with that engine the armorsets would never look as good an shiny as in AoC. From that point I knew I wouldnt get my utimate SW game since some of game ground set up was already "broken". So I stopped reading and watching videos about Old Republic hoping that when I would start palying it, I would get suprised every corner.

 

Ive been playing it for some time now and really want to get out how I feel about it. No its not all that bad, it has many strong sites. Here it goes:

 

When I started playing the game, it felt very familiar. There where 2 games that popped into my head, and that was Knight of the old Republic mixed with WoW. (I havent played WoW for 3,5 years so could only see the big picture similarities, not the smaller thing difference that someone who just came from WoW would see if you know that I mean.) . The reason it felt like WoW was because the Jedi starting area reminded me of a playfield I played in WoW. Same colour style, grass etc... Now Age of Conan never ever felt for me like WoW because it had so different artstyle. Conarch Valley for me reminded me of my home in Norway and not of any other game I played.

 

Taking the first transport vehicle in the starting zone for the first time, just reminded me how close this was to wow. The animation and gui was exatly the same as in wow. You can do a video comparison and you woundt see the difference. Still I enjoyed the first zone. There where some cool quest where you had to kill test dummies droid and it got harder for every new level. I even did all the bonus quests because I enjoyed killing mobs and do all the quests. It didnt feel boring. But in the end, this video couldnt say it better how I felt for some time

 

 

Now when I am level 36 my attitude to the game changed a lot. There are postives that I will write about later, but lets write about the negatives first.

Some players in the guild said they really enjoyed leveling, but I dont. It doesent take long before I get really bored after questing on a planet. Mainly because i already know what to expect from a planet before I am already there.

When you first travel to a planet, it will be devided in different zones. You start in the first one. It has all the things you need. Mailbox, tradeskill vendor etc. You go and pick few sidequest where all of them are: "help me", kill 10 mobs or go into an instance a push a button. And even those quest where you have to pick up an item you already know you have to kill at least 10-20 mobs just to get to the item . Instead of "kill 10 of x" they just send you to an area with 10 people in your way...So in the end every quest becomes kill 10-30 mobs quest

 

Even the class quest for me feels nothing more then a guide line where to go next then a quest based on a story. Because you already know that after you have done one part of your class quest on a planet, it will just lead you to the next area of the planet and the next and then the next just so you know where to go and where to pick up your side quests. This is okey on one planet, but not on every single planet. If you get this de ja vu feeling, it starts to get boring. Specially when the whole world feels like a typical MMO playfield. Mobs standing there along the road just waiting to get killed. And you know that if you kill em, they will respawn in 5min. So avoid killing em is the best way to do it. You just cant effect the playfield

 

Good thing is that you have flashpoints, pvp or spacemission to do when you get bored. But I really dont want to talk about spacecombat. For someone who grew up with StarWars Roques Squadron: Rogue Leader playing this is huge disapoitment. Its fun if you want to do something different for few minutes, but thinking what it could have bin and how mutch space combat is a part of SW makes me wanna ...... Someone can say they will rewamp spacebombat. But when? And will it really be lot different? I am also expecting they will implement Pod Racing since even KotOR had it. Sadly based on their record I am expecting a hurried minigame and not podracing like on N64 and arcades that I grew up with.

But to prove my point. Here is a space combat misson from a SW game from 2002 (10 years old game)and compare it to old republics that is from 2012. And that is my point. I feel like I am playing a game that is stuck in the past...

 

One could say that you are just noticing every small detail that is similar to WoW and not seing the big picture, but sometimes every sigle detail do paint the big picture. I can name a few details that is just a copy paste from WoW/Everquest and that woldnt requere a any more swet just to make it little different.

 

1. While does this game have mailboxes? They have spaceships, but they havent invented a little cellphone to read your emails? Why just dont have a email in your gui?

2. Why do I buy skills from a trainer? Ever watched a Star Wars movie where a jedi says to his padwan, "no I cant train you this skill because you dont have enough credits!"

3. Why does this game have durability system and exact the same copy as in WoW? Already happend to me many times that if your grp wipes more then 3 times, people leave because they cant loosing money on wipes. I mean they could have a durability system on your speederbike where it had to get repaired then and again or pay for the repars of your ship after a space mission. But this? Now words....

4. Why does my Jedi Guardian play like my Warrior on WoW? It has taunt, aoe taunt, sunder armor, thunderclap, charge and you can spec stunning charge like in WoW. Charge also gives you focus point like in WoW. Then I have buble and and the ability that gives me 30% hp etc etc...

5. Why does my mount/speederbike feel and controls like a mount in WoW? How the hell can my bike with just a click of a mouse button turn 180 degrease? Even the mount in AoC didnt do that. Damn I want speederbike to feel like a speederbike! Why did they copy the jump ability from WoW? I mean I understand that horses can jump, but a speeder bike? Why didnt take the best ideas from Rogue Squadron how speedbike works (or SW galaxies). Use space to boos instead of jump? Here is a video how speederbike should work in a SW game:

 

The list could have bin many pages, but there is no point in writing more when I think most people got the point. I would also go as far as wishing they wouldnt have the trinity system(tank, healer, dps) simply because it doesent fit SW, but enough of that. The game has some highlights that I want to point out:

 

What I like the most is companion thing. There is nothing better to do a man instance with 3 person. Missing a healer? No problem just take out your healing pet. It really gives a fresh feeling to the game and makes it easier to get grp for instances.

Sound in this game is amazing also. Soundeffects and music is 10/10 with out a doubd. Its what keeps reminding me that I am playing SW game, not anything else. Combat plays like many other games I played before it(waiting for cooldown, click, waiting for cooldowns), but also has a few moments of its own. Nothing is better when you jump down a cliff, click on a mob while you are mid air and use the jumpin charge ability. Awsome. For a sec I felt like a jedi there.

 

Actually what I was looking forward the most in this game was the tradeskills. Sadly it wast as exited as they I thought from watching the tradeskill video. Its not much different from any other mmo, its just a more lazier version of it where u have pets doing crafting for you. Nothing exiting. Crafting from 1/400 is no different from crafting an 400/400 item, just a longer CD.

 

There you have my opinion. I could have written much more how they could have done instead of just copying, but I think I at least explained my point of view. I will level to level 50 before I deside if I gonne play it more or not. But most likely I will play it till Secret World comes out. If that also is too similar to AoC or WoW Ill probably quit MMO and go and play sigle player games till one day an MMO comes out that tries to do little different. Because after 5 years of same ****, you are going to get bored, he he.

What can save the game for me is not more of the same(More fashpoints, raids, pvp minimap), but content that really is gameplay changing and different from other typical mmos.

 

I wrote this 5 months ago. Havent touched the game since. I still have 6 levels to go before I am 50 and sometime I will complete em. Still paying the subscription, he he

Edited May 24, 2012 by Arnan

[nartiuslightlord]

I'm going to assume one of the factors is people thinking a game just coming out would have seven years worth of content like Wow has.

 

I never let the player made hype and to some extent the hype from media soruces authoirzed by EA/BW/LA to paint a different picture then the information provided by long time beta testers.

 

Your bubble will burst when the game fails your expectations. you end up wondering why you even payed for it. but if you really payed attention and read the various sources of information provided all over the web, then you would arrive were i'm at and understand the game is what they said it would be.

 

You also have people who are pulled to a game by the hope various systems like PVP and raiding will be a focus and one they enjoyed in other MMOs.

 

So they buy TOR assuming this game will have entire sections of the game dedicated to raids and PVP.

[Photoshop]

The transfers could have come way earlier and saved the game, but instead we are paying for this...

 

[Orrow]

There are some issues with the game, some bugs etc, but overall this game was the most complete out of the box game I have ever played.

 

The real issue is with all the self entitled brats who play mmos, who cant grasp the concept of MMORPG, that it takes time to develop and implement things. Because of this, and BIoware not planning for a population drop, the remaining playerbase is suffering.

 

Im tired of WoW gen MMO players, they have subsequently ruined every mmo since WoW. Miss the old days of the UO and EQ players.

 

The reason this game is dieing has everything to do with the previous generation of MMO players like you that refuse to allow the MMO genre to evolve. Since beta the self righteous "golden age" MMO players from 1999 demanded SWTOR become a game that would appeal to them. And now you have it a game that cant attract anyone besides your incredibly niche market and will soon go the Warrhammer route of being milked to death with zero new content.

 

Back in1999 MMOs hadn't attracted the mainstream gamer. Now that MMOs are mainstream the genre can never go back to its niche roots. You have to design a game that can appeal to everyone, you have to assume the community will be garbage, and you have to make sure your content is accessible to the majority. People don't want to spend their time trying to get into server cliques to do content, they don't want to spend a significant chunk of their play time trying to find groups, they don't want your social cliques approval to do anything. Put simply they don't want to see the genre reset back to 1999.

[Frostvein]

The games few redeeming qualities are overshadowed by the glaring flaws.

 

I still don't know what this game does better then anything else on the market outside of the IP and VO - the former can only do so much, and the latter severely limits the ability to replay the game.

[patchew]

its very simple, the numbers that left wow and others came here to see if it could bring back the fun and frolicks of those other games before they bacame ultra-serious and omg-we-wiped-ragequit games.

once swotr remains fun, they will build up their numbers ... they just need to consolidate some servers together, take the embarassment of that on the chin, and just remain the fun game it is and not be tempted to turn in to wow2. thats what is going to save this game .... daring to be different.

[Mannic]

The reason this game is dieing has everything to do with the previous generation of MMO players like you that refuse to allow the MMO genre to evolve. Since beta the self righteous "golden age" MMO players from 1999 demanded SWTOR become a game that would appeal to them. And now you have it a game that cant attract anyone besides your incredibly niche market and will soon go the Warrhammer route of being milked to death with zero new content.

 

.

 

You don't even see how this post is self-contradicting, do you?

 

If what you say is true, and all the "old-schoolers" are just a niche and a fringe group, if it was true that...

 

Back in1999 MMOs hadn't attracted the mainstream gamer. Now that MMOs are mainstream the genre can never go back to its niche roots. You have to design a game that can appeal to everyone, you have to assume the community will be garbage, and you have to make sure your content is accessible to the majority. People don't want to spend their time trying to get into server cliques to do content, they don't want to spend a significant chunk of their play time trying to find groups, they don't want your social cliques approval to do anything. Put simply they don't want to see the genre reset back to 1999

 

...then TOR wouldn't be bleeding so many customers, would it. But.. what you really should be saying is that these are things that are important to YOU, not the MMO community at large. The fact that this game is dying despite appealing to YOU should tell you that perhaps YOU are the fringe, not the other 90% of the MMO community. If the old-school MMO'ers are so many that we can cause a game to fail simply by refusing to conform to it, if it's *our* fault TOR is dying, then obviously we are not the niche you say we are.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Mannic

[Kourage]

Plenty of subscribers and players. Too many servers.

[CarneyBravo]

There're plenty of people playing, we're simply spread too thin among too many servers.

[Mrcheezle]

Maybe because they promised a dynamic open world pvp campaign which never existed and still doesnt.

 

Then they told us we'd receive rated wzs last patch (also doesnt exist and wont anytime soon).

 

Need more reasons?

[Reinoud]

They should just remove one third of the servers and give the people that become serverless free option to merge in another server they want to go. Then you already got a major problem fixed!

[Gungan]

It has population issues because it has genuinely uninteresting and unsatisfying gameplay beyond experiencing the class stories. Edited May 24, 2012 by Gungan

[Galbatorrix]

Because they have WAY too many servers and the population is way too spread out.

[SabreMonkey]

Promised rated warzones, pulled last second

 

promised 8 man ques. Im sick of raging in teamspeak because we are having to carry 12k HP, green geared **** heavy armor specc'd players wearing light armor , no buffs and dont follow objectives.

 

 

I'd make a safe bet that you're not the only one tired of your raging.

[Zhauric]

Because they have WAY too many servers and the population is way too spread out.

 

Partly true but that can't be the total reason since there are servers that were Full, Very Heavy and Heavy but they are now just Standard or Light. These servers had no population issue. The simple fact is they are losing subs on many servers and only a handful have a really healthy population. I really began to realize this the last few days when I just sat and waiting for a warzone to pop. My server use to be one of those Full or Very Heavy. Not anymore.

 

So while the servers need to be cut down they still need to find out WHY they are losing people on all servers and I assume that is what the OP is trying to delve at.