How un-subbing doesn't help population

[Superawesomerman]

Look, before you ask, it's not only Bioware's fault, but the community's. By un-subbing, the population lowers, in which ironically people un-sub about there being low population *Chuckles*. However, this is also bioware's fault by spreading out the community in having too many servers. Just my 2 cents here.

 

there's always "im going to unsub if x" types. Tragically, when they do, this is the result. I wish I could find anyone who's ever said "can I have you stuff" and gank them.

 

chicken___t fanbois who blindly defend bware then cry about pops (or call pvps liars and frauds and then eat it when bioware admits fault) just enrages me.

[laiboch]

Look, before you ask, it's not only Bioware's fault, but the community's. By un-subbing, the population lowers, in which ironically people un-sub about there being low population *Chuckles*. However, this is also bioware's fault by spreading out the community in having too many servers. Just my 2 cents here.

 

Un-subbing is directly Biowares fault. No communication. Not fixing things that actually need to be fixed.

 

Creating a dead end game where people leveled to fast and have nothing to do but grind out the EXACT SAME content 500000 times.

 

Putting off features players want in favor of fluff content that does nothing but suck down credits. Not putting in server transfers when they realized the population was tanking to do the right thing for the community.

 

Being more worried about saving face by showing the server pops as standard in the 1.3 video and there by blatantly attempting to deceive potential new players into thinking the game is alive and well when even the titanic was doing better after it ran face first into an iceberg.

 

Taking a theme that was a sure fire subscription magnet and screwing up CS to an epic level that not even SOE could match.

 

I would have to say it is Directly their fault.

[Kourage]

Hey dude...

 

Me continuing to pay my subscription will not make the population rise.

 

 

/thread

[Evel]

Look, before you ask, it's not only Bioware's fault, but the community's. By un-subbing, the population lowers, in which ironically people un-sub about there being low population *Chuckles*. However, this is also bioware's fault by spreading out the community in having too many servers. Just my 2 cents here.

 

If BioWare had provided a stable and fun game to begin with people would not unsub. It is not the communities responsibility to pay for a game that is unfun and imbalanced.

 

Common sense is common sense.

[Drakkip]

I can't speak for RIFT's currently health status. I stopped playing after 2-ish months out of disinterest (no particular reason). Around the time I left, however, they had server transfers up and running. I forget the conditions were active then, but I didn't quit RIFT due to a low pop server. I just couldn't stay interested in a WoW clone with an IP I didn't care about.

See, even if someone wants to argue SW:TOR is a WoW clone with a Star Wars IP, for me that's perfectly fine. I don't hate WoW. Really its the player base of WoW I can't stand, combined with the continual nerfing of player choices in character design.

 

It seems like everyone who posts about WoW and what they hate is the "player base"... It's like everyone in WoW but them was a complete a-hole... honestly, with all the people posting about how it's the "playerbase" like it was everyone but them makes me laugh. I have played severeal of MMORPG's and in every single one there were both good people, bad people, funny people, people I loved, people I couldn't stand, people I hated but respected, and so on.... You know it was like a smattering of people I have met in real life. It's highly doubtful that every single person other than you were the problem in WoW <rolls eyes>

Edited May 29, 2012 by Drakkip

[Celebrus]

It seems like everyone who posts about WoW and what they hate is the "player base"... It's like everyone in WoW but them was a complete a-hole... honestly, with all the people posting about how it's the "playerbase" like it was everyone but them makes me laugh. I have played severeal of MMORPG's and in every single one there were both good people, bad people, funny people, people I loved, people I couldn't stand, people I hated but respected, and so on.... You know it was like a smattering of people I have met in real life. It's highly doubtful that every single person other than you were the problem in WoW <rolls eyes>

 

It's easier to blame the player base when they are conveniently located on a forum near you.

 

People find it harder to bash on a video game developer that is basically inaccessible, hidden deep within a turtle shell, the man behind the curtain is hard to blame when you don't even know who he is.

 

However, Drakkip on the general forums, he's a nice black sheep for people to vent their anger out on no matter how senseless and idiotic their points may be.

[Maxkardinal]

Look, before you ask, it's not only Bioware's fault, but the community's. By un-subbing, the population lowers, in which ironically people un-sub about there being low population *Chuckles*. However, this is also bioware's fault by spreading out the community in having too many servers. Just my 2 cents here.

In first place people are unsubbing because the game is a pile of steaming ****.

 

Only then people, who like Star Wars too much, realise that they are in dramatic minority and unsube too. Because the game is a steaming pile of **** and there is noone to play with.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Maxkardinal

[Tuscad]

Last I checked, it was Bioware, not the Community that were slow to open Server Transfers, fix bugs and basically released a game still in it's Beta.

Bioware is paid to keep customers satisfied.

The Community pays to play.

 

So whose fault is it if people are leaving the game again?

 

This^ Anything else is balogna.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Tuscad

[Irenicus_Jon]

Buy a game thinking it will be awesome

Receive a game full of bugs

Keeping paying hoping they fix the bugs

Instead of fixing they introduce more bugs with every patch

Keep paying thinking it'll be ironed out in time

Server population becomes abysmal

Can't play new content because server is dead

Keep paying thinking they will fix this future?

 

This thread is "OMG EVERYTHING IS FINE THEY'LL FIX DON'T UNSUB!!" and it should be buried, not bumped.

[GalacticKegger]

That means plan to fill them all and have the tools to deal with the fall off. Kinda like installing fire sprinklers instead of just burning a building down because you might have a fire.

The plan to deal with a falloff was to simply keep the existing servers and increase advertising. The plan to deal with success was to have servers in reserve for expansion. The expansion servers were deployed way too early at the behest of an impatient (but extremely loud) minority. Most in the community were rolling with the queues until Bioware got it dialed in. Dev obeyed the minority when they should have just listened to the majority. Probably why SR is gone. Edited May 29, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Matte_Black]

If it's payback you're looking for, perhaps you should take it out on early access' petulant nerd ragers that all but forced Bioware to add those 70+ new servers at launch. Had BW ignored them (their fear was repeating Blizzard's debacle with WoW's release) and stuck to their plan instead of graciously giving the mob what it wanted, this wouldn't even be a topic.

 

Frankly, I think those are the sort of high-maintenance players the community and dev's might not miss much. I would have let them whine until things settled down some and risk them taking their complaints to the next game. At least if the game is full and has long cues, it has subtext of being so popular that their isn't room to get on.

[GalacticKegger]

/agree

 

Altho no1 wants to lose their game. And when it starts, as we seen in SWG, some people will come up with just about anything or any excuse to put it off on some1 else to try and save "their game". To be honest, SWG's NGE and TOR have the exact same problem. The WoWification of a Star Wars game by some of the exact same developers. And the fact that these developers have the mindset that they're right and everyone else, including the lost subscriptions, is just wrong.

 

Want to fix the problem? Get rid of these people who made the decisions then and now, bring in a new team that will actualy listen and develope to the playerbase.

I believe they recently did that. Or at least started the process.

[Booyakah]

I enjoy the game. But i'm not going to continue paying when a company isn't keeping up their end of the bargain. As of right now, there's no multiplayer aspect in my MMO

[Baizak]

I am not un-subbing, but I am playing a lot less. In the last month my server population has been steadily dropping. I enjoy playing Warzones, with our current population you are lucky to get a queue pop every half an hour and that is only at prime time, with 30 folks on the fleet. Most the time it takes much much longer.

 

I don't like logging into the game and waiting forever for a WZ pop. Re-rolling is not an option for me, my legacy level is 36 and I have 3 50's, 2 30's, and a couple of 20's. I am not about to start over. When server transfers happen, I will play again, but right now, I do not see the point.

[Lurchy]

Frankly, I think those are the sort of high-maintenance players the community and dev's might not miss much. I would have let them whine until things settled down some and risk them taking their complaints to the next game. At least if the game is full and has long cues, it has subtext of being so popular that their isn't room to get on.

 

We talking about snooker or SWTOR Chief? Just asking

[GalacticKegger]

Frankly, I think those are the sort of high-maintenance players the community and dev's might not miss much. I would have let them whine until things settled down some and risk them taking their complaints to the next game. At least if the game is full and has long cues, it has subtext of being so popular that their isn't room to get on.

Agreed. The people who "get it" don't care whether there are 500k subs or 500 million subs. As long as the remaining players aren't griefing narcissists, gameplay & community experiences will be positive ones for them. If there are so many griefing narcissists that the game would die if they all left, then no MMO is safe.

[Dokar]

Agreed. The people who "get it" don't care whether there are 500k subs or 500 million subs. As long as the remaining players aren't griefing narcissists, gameplay & community experiences will be positive ones for them. If there are so many griefing narcissists that the game would die if they all left, then no MMO is safe.

 

when 500k is your break even point it means less $ for new content. look at WAR

[Armourboy]

It seems like everyone who posts about WoW and what they hate is the "player base"... It's like everyone in WoW but them was a complete a-hole... honestly, with all the people posting about how it's the "playerbase" like it was everyone but them makes me laugh. I have played severeal of MMORPG's and in every single one there were both good people, bad people, funny people, people I loved, people I couldn't stand, people I hated but respected, and so on.... You know it was like a smattering of people I have met in real life. It's highly doubtful that every single person other than you were the problem in WoW <rolls eyes>

 

Luckily knowing Afto from WoW and SWG I can say he is a pretty nice guy. The guild he was originally in for WoW was far from full of nice guys but I've never had an issue with him personally.

 

The problem with SWTOR is two fold. The population issues didn't start because of population issues, but because people decided the game wasn't for them. It doesn't matter the reasons, and it doesn't really matter if they were valid, all that matters is that they stopped playing. Now once those people left it was a snowball affect and it pretty much happens with anything in business. Once your product starts sliding down, its pretty hard to stop it, its even harder to push that big thing back up the hill.

 

I resubbed to WoW because I just wasn't enjoying SWTOR at all. I hate that because I wanted this to be my new home for years to come, just like SWG was, but it isn't going to happen. My issues with the game are not just lack of features, but the core of how the game was designed. They are things that will probably not change any time soon so I chose to unsub and fill out my survey, thats really all I can do.

 

Oddly enough I thought I like many of the idea's they had going when I bought the game, but I discovered very quickly that I can't go back and play like I did 10 years ago. Games have evolved and I have too, thats just the way things are.

 

The sad part is a very large chunk of the problems that exist with the game goes back to one single point in time, that point is when they chose their game engine. It is the reason so many people have issues with load times and performance, it is the reason that group sizes are so small, and it is the reason server capacities were kept down at launch. Its easy to say that all BioWare should of done was increase the caps, but it seems fairly evident that they had no confidence in the game engine to be able to handle that work load or they would of never set the caps so low to begin with.

 

TLDR: Afto is a cool dude, and it is never the players fault. When players stop paying for your product it is because your product has a flaw.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Armourboy

[Celebrus]

Agreed. The people who "get it" don't care whether there are 500k subs or 500 million subs. As long as the remaining players aren't griefing narcissists, gameplay & community experiences will be positive ones for them. If there are so many griefing narcissists that the game would die if they all left, then no MMO is safe.

 

So. You're saying you don't care how dead the game becomes. You don't care if it goes F2P. You don't care if they scrap the project and just keep the servers going but never provide another piece of content.

 

You just care that you don't have any potential conflicting viewpoints on the forums.

 

You wouldn't care if the game was on life support so long as you didn't have to see people complaining about it or saying it isn't good.

 

You're exactly the kind of person that this game could do without.

[GalacticKegger]

when 500k is your break even point it means less $ for new content. look at WAR

No one who isn't inside the EA/BW/LA circle knows what that number is. It could be higher or it could be lower. The 500k number, like the unrealistic 500 million number, were arbitrary values used to merely illustrate a point. The point being, there are those who generate some degree of self esteem by making life miserable for other people when they can't get their way. I believe those are the kinds of people @Matte_Black was referring to, and I was agreeing with him. Edited May 29, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[GalacticKegger]

So. You're saying you don't care how dead the game becomes. You don't care if it goes F2P. You don't care if they scrap the project and just keep the servers going but never provide another piece of content.

 

You just care that you don't have any potential conflicting viewpoints on the forums.

 

You wouldn't care if the game was on life support so long as you didn't have to see people complaining about it or saying it isn't good.

 

You're exactly the kind of person that this game could do without.

I do care or I wouldn't be in this discussion. As long as the game thrives and evolves, and continues to be fun to play then, well ... I'm not a shareholder. So what else is there? Edited May 29, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[DarthTHC]

had they slowly increased the number of people per sever ( like they are now) instead of adding new servers as a stop gap measure we wouldnt be in this problem

 

How would they slowly increase the number of people per server? I could see maybe having more control over this pre-launch, but at launch it was a deluge. There is no control. The players go where they will, like a waterfall, and if you don't have enough buckets to put all that water in, you drown.

 

I could see this argument if there were a bunch of light pop servers at launch. But there weren't. Every new server they put up filled pretty quickly.

 

The problem is NOT how the devs managed launch. They did that better than any other MMO, ever.

 

The problem is that the game failed to keep the attention of a significant percentage of players who tried it.

[GalacticKegger]

How would they slowly increase the number of people per server? I could see maybe having more control over this pre-launch, but at launch it was a deluge. There is no control. The players go where they will, like a waterfall, and if you don't have enough buckets to put all that water in, you drown.

 

I could see this argument if there were a bunch of light pop servers at launch. But there weren't. Every new server they put up filled pretty quickly.

 

The problem is NOT how the devs managed launch. They did that better than any other MMO, ever.

 

The problem is that the game failed to keep the attention of a significant percentage of players who tried it.

Guessing it was a misspeak in reference to the server pop cap thresholds, not the actual number of people. Edited May 29, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Denki_]

I agree with OP. Mainly because it is the unpopular opinion amongst the ocean of QQs.

[Kourage]

He's right. It's always the customers fault when a business fails.