Will they come back?

[landdon]

I love SWTOR, but nobody is playing it anymore. It's completely empty on my server. What's going on with this game? Is it dying? I hope things turn around for SWTOR. I don't want to see if go down. I've had lots of fun with friends. I fear the worse.

[ReverendAnderson]

Basically, from what I can tell,

1. Bioware launched the game and everyone wanted to play.

2. This created huge server queues and lot of people *****ed about not being able to play.

3. Bioware launched a ton of new servers and everyone spread out over those so they could play. In the first month of the game, the population was plenty high enough to support this huge number of servers.

4. After the first free month was over lots of people left because they'd decided they game wasn't worth paying a sub for (normal for any new MMO).

5. With the population spread out over all those server Bioware opened after launch, this exodus dropped the number of players on most of the servers low enough to make it harder to find other people to play with when you wanted to.

6. While the game had a nice population overall, most servers were hurting for players, which made the game less fun to play, which meant more people left, which created a self sustaining cycle of player drop off that meant the population couldn't stabilize itself (as with most MMOs in the months following launch).

7. Without a way to transfer their characters, tons of players were stranded on very low population servers, unable to find enough people to play with.

 

Now, Bioware has announced free transfers to specific servers, which SHOULD fix the problem by consolidating the player base and finally allowing it to stabilize. If this had been a launch feature, or if there had been a plan to merge the added servers back into the others as the population dropped after month 1, this probably wouldn't have ever been an issue and we'd have a much livelier MMO on our hands.

Even so, if you don't mind re-rolling on one of the populated servers, the game is still great (provided this kind of game appeals to you) and you can have good times again right now.

If you don't want to re-roll then it might not be the worst idea to unsub and adopt a wait and see attitude until character transfers (and maybe 1.3) are out. If they fix the issue, then you can come on back and enjoy without having burnt yourself out on the game trolling for party members on the fleet of a dying server.

[Phinion]

Basically, from what I can tell,

1. Bioware launched the game and everyone wanted to play.

2. This created huge server queues and lot of people *****ed about not being able to play.

3. Bioware launched a ton of new servers and everyone spread out over those so they could play. In the first month of the game, the population was plenty high enough to support this huge number of servers.

4. After the first free month was over lots of people left because they'd decided they game wasn't worth paying a sub for (normal for any new MMO).

5. With the population spread out over all those server Bioware opened after launch, this exodus dropped the number of players on most of the servers low enough to make it harder to find other people to play with when you wanted to.

6. While the game had a nice population overall, most servers were hurting for players, which made the game less fun to play, which meant more people left, which created a self sustaining cycle of player drop off that meant the population couldn't stabilize itself (as with most MMOs in the months following launch).

7. Without a way to transfer their characters, tons of players were stranded on very low population servers, unable to find enough people to play with.

 

Now, Bioware has announced free transfers to specific servers, which SHOULD fix the problem by consolidating the player base and finally allowing it to stabilize. If this had been a launch feature, or if there had been a plan to merge the added servers back into the others as the population dropped after month 1, this probably wouldn't have ever been an issue and we'd have a much livelier MMO on our hands.

Even so, if you don't mind re-rolling on one of the populated servers, the game is still great (provided this kind of game appeals to you) and you can have good times again right now.

If you don't want to re-roll then it might not be the worst idea to unsub and adopt a wait and see attitude until character transfers (and maybe 1.3) are out. If they fix the issue, then you can come on back and enjoy without having burnt yourself out on the game trolling for party members on the fleet of a dying server.[/quote

 

I agree. BW has time and again not completely thought out every move they have made. If they had come up with a backup plan right at launch we, the players, would not be in this mess of low pop servers. Nothing will kill a game faster than dead servers. Some people reroll and others just quit. BW needs to start asking "if we do this what could be the result". Plan for the worst and hope it does not happen but if it does you are ready.

[Trineda]

Hello everyone,

 

In order to keep the forums tidy and conversations in one place please use this thread to discuss the topic of returning players, we will be closing this current thread. Thank You!