How did it come to this?

[Toweleeeie]

Wipes monitor.....

 

You have a nice rig there.. What is your connection to the internet?? That can also make a difference.. But other than that, you shouldn't have much of an issue that I can see.. Just please keep in mind that having the best parts doesn't automatically mean you will have the best performance.. Especially when it comes to online games.. It just means that the problem is most likely not your computers..

 

Like I said in my post above.. We don't know what the issue is.. It could be the engine, it could be the game code, it could be how Ilum was built as a planet, it could be your interenet.. It could also be none of the above and something that we just don't know about..

 

Again very nice rig.. Out of curiousity?? Why didn't you get the I7-2600??

 

I had Comcast and then switch to Centurylink about 5 months ago. I currenty have 40 up 20 down for torrenting No Im not torrenting while playing. Oh and im also wired not wireless.

 

The price jump was not worth it at the time IMO. I went with liquid cooling to overclock instead.

[MajikMyst]

 

 

As I mentioned in my edit, WAR was terrible right after Live, performance-wise, but they got on top of it eventually (WAR can run 400 v 400 before a server crash these days - far too late for the game itself though, subs-wise).

 

It might not be the engine, or solely the engine, it might be more to do with their network code (although I'd have thought they'd have some change over staff-wise from Warhammer Online with that)..... although more likely it's both.

 

The bigger problem with SWTOR isn't just that it still has engine performance issues, it's that is currently has NO RvR or OPvP at all....... worse with no mention of when (if ever) it might be coming back.

 

Well... Until this Ilum thing is figured out.. I would think that it wouldn't be wise to make many changes if any to PVP.. I agree that PVP servers should have some open PVP.. As long as their are safe guards to prevent camping and or griefing.. That was a hot topic in the beta and until their is a viable means to deal with that Open PVP was going to be limited..

 

The biggest issue they faced was shuttle timer when you die.. Kill someone 3 times and they have a 10 minute timer.. All but forcing them to spawn back at a med droid, and out of their quest area or whatever it was they were doing..

 

This is off topic but you see the issue..

[Devlonir]

Not Bioware, thats true, but EA. And since EA is overlord of BW, what EA wants BW does....or doesnt.

 

Oh yes.. I remember the adverts for this game saying it would be better than WoW. Or the one time the EA publisher said that anything less than 12 million subs in a few months would mean the death of this game.

 

Oh wait no.. even those didn't happen.

 

90% of hyped up expectations about this game were created by the fans themselves, not by either BW or EA execs or developers. People wanted this game to be better than WoW from the get-go. But only 1 game ever promised it.. and RIFT was prooven to be false in their claim as well.

[GrandMike]

Oh yes.. I remember the adverts for this game saying it would be better than WoW. Or the one time the EA publisher said that anything less than 12 million subs in a few months would mean the death of this game.

 

Oh wait no.. even those didn't happen.

 

90% of hyped up expectations about this game were created by the fans themselves, not by either BW or EA execs or developers. People wanted this game to be better than WoW from the get-go. But only 1 game ever promised it.. and RIFT was prooven to be false in their claim as well.

 

Well, if they say "we re going after WoW"...kinda reveals it.

 

And nobody but them built all the hype. How long was NDA in effect? Oh yeah.

 

Well, now that results are here they margunalized it, its off their radar, SWTOR staff lays off whats likely 1/2 of thier numbers....it seems they cant keep 500k subs, and going after WoW was just a pipe dream (not that people didnt laugh at that anyway).

 

Yeah....rainbows and unicorns

 

This agenda of blaming people for shortcomings of SWTOR is really transparent, its not peoples fault that game is in pretty bad shape in every possible way.

Edited June 4, 2012 by GrandMike

[MajikMyst]

I had Comcast and then switch to Centurylink about 5 months ago. I currenty have 40 up 20 down for torrenting No Im not torrenting while playing. Oh and im also wired not wireless.

 

The price jump was not worth it at the time IMO. I went with liquid cooling to overclock instead.

 

How much does that cost you... Your internet?? I don't want to put my addy in their website and get tons of junk mail..

[Devlonir]

Well, if they say "we re going after WoW"...kinda reveals it.

 

Well, now that results are here they margunalized it, its off their radar, SWTOR staff lays off whats likely 1/2 of thier numbers....it seems they cant keep 500k subs, and going after WoW was just a pipe dream (not that people didnt laugh at that anyway).

 

Yeah....rainbows and unicorns

 

Wow.. that is 1 assumption, 1 hyperbole and 1 doomsaying in just one sentence.

 

You are good at this my friend.

 

Look, I'm not saying all is good. All I'm saying is the claims some posters, including you, made on their assumptions and goals are just prooven to be false. That is a very simple fact. Much like your claim of 1/2 their staff and an inability of keeping 500k subs, both of those things are also easilly prooven to be false.

[GrandMike]

Wow.. that is 1 assumption, 1 hyperbole and 1 doomsaying in just one sentence.

 

You are good at this my friend.

 

Look, I'm not saying all is good. All I'm saying is the claims some posters, including you, made on their assumptions and goals are just prooven to be false. That is a very simple fact. Much like your claim of 1/2 their staff and an inability of keeping 500k subs, both of those things are also easilly prooven to be false.

 

Well, if they dont mean what they talk about thats their fault. If by saying "we are going after WoW" they mean something completely different, well, not peoples problem.

 

Prove that they didnt lay off 1/2 of their staff and they are confident in kepping 500k subs (over any period they need to to break even).

[Bloodstealer]

Exactly! I am getting so sick and tired of these mass "Oh noes!" threads. The game is solid. I've played most every MMO since 1998 (started with EverQuest) and this is by far, for me, the best one! It has JUST launched! Come on! We are just at the six months mark of year one and these people act like it is 5-10 years old.

Errrm maybe cos thats how it feels.. I mean what is there apart from some cutscene voiceover work (which is good admittedly.. the first few times you run it before spacebarring your keyboard to death)... the rest is dated beyond its young life... poor perfomance, dogged patching, feature deficient compared to modern MMO standards, single player driven MMO experience, poorly thought out crafting tool which is all but worthless in game, lifeless never changing planets which like all the other areas of the game lack challenge and are basically on a rail from A-B, instanced to death leaving a feeling of emptyness, no day night cycles, no random or scaling exploration/encounters, wacko PvP which is sooo far out of balance.. lvl 10 in same fight as lvl 49... hmmmm you can bolster my stats as much as you like but when im 39levels of skills and attibutes differnt there is a one sided feel.... even premades need some kind of level ranging and grp balancing.. otherwise its just a stun, hold, choke, dot, aoe mismatch already heavily sith dominant...but at least the que times might get addressed with transfers ...... bottom line imo its a new game thats old hat and still lacking in comparison to where MMO's were 5-6 yrs ago, not just current ones....sorry.

 

1) Bioware opened WAY too many servers. That spread the population too thin to begin with (even at "full" I felt we had far less than we should have had on anyway and now it sucks). This has caused a measurable and significant amount of people to quit prematurely and this sucks too... almost like being punished twice for the same mistake. They need to fix it FAST.

Agreed

 

2) The game has launched with more features and endgame than most other MMOs (if not all). People are kidding themselves if they say otherwise. The problem is that they are comparing it to longrunning MMOs. YES WoW has more endgame... guess what? Its 8 years old!

Disagree -

I have never played WoW but like that game and others of that kind of age, they launched a game that met the current demands of the genre and the community quite well.. SWTOR on the other hand has had 5+ yrs to look at its competition, look at what other MMO's brought to the community, looked at what the community liked/disliked... then brought a game that offered less than what those game did back then.... that's why it feels outdated already.

Quest/ Raids.. engame etc is open to debate as to what is not enough or just right or maybe too much... but the differnece for me is that SWTOR might have more endgame or less.. but getting to it is sooo vastly unchallenging and boring.. unless of course you throw the server population into the word challenge.

So comparing SWTOR to any long running MMO is not entrieyl without merit.. becuase BW has had a large budghet and plenty of time to consider what others have done, are doing in the industry.... that is where the OLD comes into it for me becuase they have failed to deleiver something that is modern with which their innovative VO story work could stand out but its lost in myriad of other issues and deficiencies it launched with.

 

3) There are a lot of bugs. Yes there are... and MANY should be fixed weekly. Some of the bugs have been going on since early Beta. That is ridiculous. They need to respond faster! However... they ARE trying. They DO care.

Any and every MMO I have ever played has bugs, gees my chosen MMO over the last 7 yrs still has the same ladder bug in it... but many bugs become worked around or mere nuisances, harly game breaking. To date most of the game breaking or more BUGGY parts of the game have either been addressed or are being addressed so I have no issues with that... sure I would love it to be bug free or fixed immediately but experience suggests otherwise, and I think many experienced MMO players understand and live with that.

No one can truly say that BW doesn't care just becuace a bug is found and takes time to fix... but of course we want perfect and we want it NOWso we harass and blame till it gets done.. and then move onto something else to whine about.. show me a game forum that's any different

 

4) By this time next year the game will have more free expansions and at least one paid for true expansion. The level cap will be raised, there will be new endgame and class stories will progress. The servers will be condensed and stable and those of us still here (raises hand) will have a rich and tight nit community and there will be tons of new players every month & year for the next 5-10 years.

I like your optimism here, one would hope they have launched alot more content and even brought in some of those nice fluff features we have grown to love in our indivdual MMO's.. thats part of the hook afterall but community is a bigger issue, especially with a game seeing sub declines like it is... first impression and competion in the marketplace tend to be a strong driving force to any game community I have been part of but I am confident the game will reach a point where its retention stabilises and the unsubs are balanced by its new subs or re-subs... tons of players and a population reversal... hmmm not confident in seeing that happening anytime now.. maybe some odd spikes around new content/expansion but the first 12 months is where the bulk of your audience is won and loss.. with maybe WoW being an exception to this.

 

The game hasn't failed. The game won't be shut down within the next 5 years at minimum. Stop the hyperbole and get a reality check! Stop posting doomsday threads for attention.

No it hasnt failed, but it has failed to be as big as it could / should of been and I hope its here in 5yrs time... but EA are a fickl;e thing when it comes to $$$$

Edited June 4, 2012 by Bloodstealer

[Devlonir]

Well, if they dont mean what they talk about thats their fault. If by saying "we are going after WoW" they mean something completely different, well, not peoples problem.

 

Prove that they didnt lay off 1/2 of their staff and they are confident in kepping 500k subs (over any period they need to to break even).

 

It doesn't work that way sir. Just because I cannot proove your assumptions are wrong, doesn't make them automatically right. You just jump to conclusions on numbers that are not known to anyone, inlcuding you, and therefore think your numbers are safe to say?

 

You need to proove they laid off half their staff and are afraid of going below even 500k subs before you can safely state these things as part of your point, it is not my job to proove how false they are when you state them without facts to back them up. I can proove them false by simply asking the question: Where do your numbers come from?

 

And also: give me the exact quote: "We are going after WoW." and I will give you that point as being one EA exec being an idiot. As i remember it coming from 1 gamescom somewhere where just after it a BW manager actually said their goal was 500k to break even after 1 year. Because that is the only case of it I can remember.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Devlonir

[Descent]

Sadly, they've shot themselves in the foot by investing so much time and effort in fully voice character and story, which is sadly an extremely finite game mechanic with absolutely NO longevity. Who in the R&D department came up with the idea that MMO players wanted fully voiced story lines?

 

I've never heard players talk about how they thought the fact they couldn't have conversations with NPCs was game-breaking; primarily because there is a better alternative in MMOs, TALKING AND INTERACTING WITH OTHER REAL HUMAN BEINGS WHICH IS KIND OF A FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF THE GENRE BIOWARE.

[Goretzu]

Well... Until this Ilum thing is figured out.. I would think that it wouldn't be wise to make many changes if any to PVP.. I agree that PVP servers should have some open PVP.. As long as their are safe guards to prevent camping and or griefing.. That was a hot topic in the beta and until their is a viable means to deal with that Open PVP was going to be limited..

 

The biggest issue they faced was shuttle timer when you die.. Kill someone 3 times and they have a 10 minute timer.. All but forcing them to spawn back at a med droid, and out of their quest area or whatever it was they were doing..

 

This is off topic but you see the issue..

 

 

I've no idea why they didn't just fully port a Warhammer Online RvR basin, it would have fixed 90% of the issues outside of performance.

[Toweleeeie]

How much does that cost you... Your internet?? I don't want to put my addy in their website and get tons of junk mail..

 

$35 for the 1st 6 months then $70 a month.

[GrandMike]

It doesn't work that way sir. Just because I cannot proove your assumptions are wrong, doesn't make them automatically right. You just jump to conclusions on numbers that are not known to anyone, inlcuding you, and therefore think your numbers are safe to say?

 

You need to proove they laid off half their staff and are afraid of going below even 500k subs before you can safely state these things as part of your point, it is not my job to proove how false they are when you state them without facts to back them up. I can proove them false by simply asking the question: Where do your numbers come from?

 

You may believe whatever you want. People can just look at string of actions taken on part of BW/EA since april/server status, compare it what they said before/during laucnch and you dont be rocket scientist to come to conlusions yourself.

 

Of course, it doesnt exclude believing in rainbows and unicorns by ignoring eerything

 

And also: give me the exact quote: "We are going after WoW." and I will give you that point as being one EA exec being an idiot. As i remember it coming from 1 gamescom somewhere where just after it a BW manager actually said their goal was 500k to break even after 1 year. Because that is the only case of it I can remember.

 

Yes, it came from EA, it doesnt matter how many times or where was it said. It pictures expectations EA had. Which are not necessarily aligned with BWs expetations.

 

And it was never mentioned how long they need 500k to break even, from standard business practice its 2-5 years.

 

But as i said, EA are overlods, and what EA wants BW does....or doesnt.

 

Game is in very bad shape, and prospects are not looking good. Some very good reasearch puts subs at 400-500k atm with tendecy of dropping (Scorpienne). You want to ignore it? Fine, do so, but dont try to convince people either, they have their own logical thinking capability.

Edited June 4, 2012 by GrandMike

[Galbatorrix]

If this game isn't an MMO, neither is WOW. It has all of the same things WOW has plus better questing. This, once again, seems to be a "I played a dancer in SWG and want to play something similar in TOR!!" type of thread to me. People coming from one failed SW MMO wanting more of the same and then complaining because they don't get it. As to why they want this game to fail so bad.... well, their baby, SWG failed, so maybe they want this one to fail too. Edited June 4, 2012 by Galbatorrix

[DiabloDoom]

Cough...

 

Intel® Core™ i7-960 3.20 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366 Liquid cooled

12GB (2GBx6) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Kingston HyperX)

GTX580 3G edition was $600 alone

Asus Rampage III Extreme

1,000 Watts - Thermaltake TR2 RX Modular 80 Plus PSU

 

Pfft noob computer

 

*retreats to a dark corner and starts sobbing*

[Gungan]

Then you were robbed or you don't know how to maintain your PC.

 

I dropped $700 on my PC and I run SWTOR at MAX settings and can have 100+ on the fleet at it runs fast and clean for me. For one don't use Vsync... that is probably your issue. Most times I have 80-100+ FPS and if it gets busy the FPS-meter says it dips to 50-60 and as low as 30-40 but it ALWAYS looks and runs the same. I don't know what you all do to your games but if mine works fine yours should too!

 

On fleet and on screen with spell effects is not the same thing.

[Morsong]

I absolutely love SW:TOR. I have followed it since 2009 and remember when I was selected to participate in one of the beta weekends. Amazing, just an amazing game. Like others have said though, it feels more like a single player game with MMORPG elements rather than a full blown MMORPG. Here are a few things that I think would give SW:TOR that much needed boost:

 

 

• Economy
  

In my opinion and I think most others agree, the in-game economy is not good. There is very little reason to go to the auction house. The reason why is because it is easier and near cheaper to get your stuff at a vendor. Armor, weapons, medkits, mods, etc. All of those things can be bought and easily obtained at vendors with credits, commendation currency, or just looting NPCs. Bad, bad idea.

 

I don't suggest Bioware completely take out the NPC vendors, but don't have them sell items that are at your level. On each planet, set the levels of the items that the NPC vendors sell, below everyone else's suggested level for the planet and people won't buy as much stuff from the vendors. They will be forced to loot, and sell/buy it all on the auction house. This will provide for a stronger economy, and better supply and demand I would imagine.

 

Bottom line for the economy: don't let the NPCs sell the goods, let the players sell the goods. This will force people to craft and buy/sell their product at the auction house (GTN) thus creating a better economy and even better, a stronger community.

 

 

• Open world PvP
  

I cannot stress this enough, but with the addition of warzones there is very little reason to fight opposing players in the open world. Bioware does not get this, and neither did Mythic when they created Warhammer Online. MMO players love open world pvp. We have seen the posts over, and over, and over again, and I agree. Open world pvp helps bolster a community, and gives a reason for players to fight for their side.

 

Warzones in my opinion, although fun, is a bad way to incorporate pvp into an MMO. I understand the concept making it simpler and quicker for players who want to pvp but don't want to take the time to join a raid party, but sometimes going the easy route is not the right way to go about. In WAR it wasn't as bad because it was classified as an RvR MMO and the main goal at the end of the day was to sack the enemy's capital city. Everything contributed to the war.

 

This is not the case for SW:TOR. This is mostly a pve with pvp elements. There is honestly no point for open world pvp other than it's fun, but now people will rarely organize pvp raids because they can simply go into a warzone for fifteen minutes, and repeat.

 

Just imagine if Bioware hadn't incorporated warzones at all. Do you not agree that players would organize pvp raids more often? Why? Because that would be the only way to pvp in the first place, thus creating a much stronger community.

 

Bottom line: I know Bioware won't take their warzones away (I really wish you all didn't add them in the first place), but give reasons for people to pvp. I'm not talking about buffs and all that jazz either. Give people an option to capture bases or something that they can be proud of. WAR nearly had it right. The main goal was to capture an enemy city and to do that you had to capture territory. All in all it was fun, although horribly implemented in my opinion.

 

 

• Server Merges
  

I understand that Bioware is finally merging the servers and raising the pop caps. Good choice! I've been itching to see more people on the planets I currently roam. It makes it that much more exciting. Just hurry up please or you will lose even more subs with each passing month.

 

 

• Community
  

As you can see I bring up the word community a lot. That is because community is key to a fantastic MMO. Take every single successful and amazing MMO, and understand that they had/have a strong community. Although many people whine about the kids and idiots who run rampant in WoW, the passion does indeed make it more exciting and fleshed out.

 

Give players tools to building their community. That is why people play an MMO. At the end of the day the regular MMO player isn't just going to solo (why even play an MMO in the first place?). They want to join groups and interact with other people. That is the whole concept of an MMO.

 

SW:TOR needs that strong community vibe. Without it, it is stale and boring. Bioware, give players the tools to help build the community it needs. It has so much potential.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Morsong

[DiabloDoom]

Then you were robbed or you don't know how to maintain your PC.

 

I dropped $700 on my PC and I run SWTOR at MAX settings and can have 100+ on the fleet at it runs fast and clean for me. For one don't use Vsync... that is probably your issue. Most times I have 80-100+ FPS and if it gets busy the FPS-meter says it dips to 50-60 and as low as 30-40 but it ALWAYS looks and runs the same. I don't know what you all do to your games but if mine works fine yours should too!

 

So you PC somehow combats the problem with Hero Engines client to server streamlining issues. Post a screeny at PvP terminal on fleet with 60 FPS.

[Gungan]

Why do all the tools think you have to guess the concurrent population of a server at primetime? You can /who every zone if you want to get the current realtime population on each faction. On light and standard servers you can search by levels as a catch all very easily. Edited June 4, 2012 by Gungan

[Devlonir]

You may believe whatever you want. People can just look at string of actions taken on part of BW/EA since april/server status, compare it what they said before/during laucnch and you dont be rocket scientist to come to conlusions yourself.

 

Of course, it doesnt exclude believing in rainbows and unicorns by ignoring eerything

 

Of course, blame whoever doesn't agree with your own view of current affairs as seeing everything as rainbows and unicorns. Did I once say there are no problems? No, I only said your figures are pulled out of thin air and nothing else.

 

Yes, it came from EA, it doesnt matter how many times or where was it said. It pictures expectations EA had. Which are not necessarily aligned with BWs expetations.

 

And it was never mentioned how long they need 500k to break even, from standard business practice its 2-5 years.

 

Funny fact, the 500k quote was actually added with a 'by the end of the first year' by the same person that said it in the same exact line. This is not 'standard business practice' or whatever.. this is exact quote from a Bioware exec.

 

Game is in very bad shape, and prospects are not looking good. Some very good reasearch puts subs at 400-500k atm with tendecy of dropping (Scorpienne). You want to ignore it? Fine, do so, but dont try to convince people either, they have their own logical thinking capability.

 

What very good research? Focused on concurrent online users maybe? You do realise that no such study can ever even come close to the actual numbers of subscribers right? Subs =/= active concurrent users. So no 'study' can ever be accurate enough to really get into finding out how financially succesful the game is based on activity of players. I know it's a bad thing, but there is a large amount of people who do pay their subscription that do not log on every day, or even every week. So nothing will ever come close to finding out how high the subscriber count is except a direct financial report from EA. The last of which put up the 1.3 Million number.

 

So yes, right now is probably lower than 1.3 Million, probably quite a bit lower though. But less than 500k at this time is something I will not believe untill I have seen it from an actual financial report, and not because someone did some 'accurate' study of things that are not definitely tied to actual subscriber amount.

 

Everyone pays $15 a month, no matter if you play 10 hours a day, or 10 minutes a year.

[thomasgallant]

What very good research? Focused on concurrent online users maybe? You do realise that no such study can ever even come close to the actual numbers of subscribers right? Subs =/= active concurrent users. So no 'study' can ever be accurate enough to really get into finding out how financially succesful the game is based on activity of players. I know it's a bad thing, but there is a large amount of people who do pay their subscription that do not log on every day, or even every week. So nothing will ever come close to finding out how high the subscriber count is except a direct financial report from EA. The last of which put up the 1.3 Million number.

 

So yes, right now is probably lower than 1.3 Million, probably quite a bit lower though. But less than 500k at this time is something I will not believe untill I have seen it from an actual financial report, and not because someone did some 'accurate' study of things that are not definitely tied to actual subscriber amount.

 

Everyone pays $15 a month, no matter if you play 10 hours a day, or 10 minutes a year.

 

 

this is my position as well. its lower than 1.3 million but i can not see it being below 500k.. until i se different i will remain confidant the game can turn itself around

[Devlonir]

Just adding, to quote Scorpienne him/herself:"

 

These numbers represent the average number of simultaneous concurrent logins over the past two weeks. This isn't the number of subscribers, or number of characters, it's an estimate of how many people are actually logged in at once.

 

In no situation ever is the entire subscribing population of a server logged in at once. From previous MMO experience, this normally caps out at about 50% of the population logged on at once at special moments (like shortly after a new content patch and stuff like that). But even that figure is irrelevant because it cannot be verified with more information. Bioware once reported average playtime, but that was months ago and I assume those numbers to be outdated by now.

 

So really, active population at one moment in time, even if those measurements are spread out over different moments of measuring them and then averaged, cannot give an accurate figure of actual subscribers with active characters on a server without other information like average play time or another unknown variable.

 

Just saying..

Edited June 4, 2012 by Devlonir

[Eillack]

Great advice for ya OP,

Step away from the forums for a bit, then realize that all the doom and gloom are just trolls and QQ'ers.

[GrandMike]

Of course, blame whoever doesn't agree with your own view of current affairs as seeing everything as rainbows and unicorns. Did I once say there are no problems? No, I only said your figures are pulled out of thin air and nothing else.

 

Hey, dont really care, as i said evidence is out there, its your right to ignore it or not.

 

Funny fact, the 500k quote was actually added with a 'by the end of the first year' by the same person that said it in the same exact line. This is not 'standard business practice' or whatever.. this is exact quote from a Bioware exec.

 

Timeframe was never given for wither 500k or 1m. Again, you are clueless about standard business practices yet you continue to argue. Thats entirely your fault.

 

What very good research? Focused on concurrent online users maybe? You do realise that no such study can ever even come close to the actual numbers of subscribers right? Subs =/= active concurrent users. So no 'study' can ever be accurate enough to really get into finding out how financially succesful the game is based on activity of players. I know it's a bad thing, but there is a large amount of people who do pay their subscription that do not log on every day, or even every week. So nothing will ever come close to finding out how high the subscriber count is except a direct financial report from EA. The last of which put up the 1.3 Million number.

 

Uh oh. No kidding. And BW admitted they pad the numbers, just like they padded 1,7m they padded 1,3m. Didnt you see creative guide on "how to pad sub numbers" by BW? Its pretty funny, and true im afraid. You seem to have missed it so tehre you go

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=469917&page=12

 

At this point its really moot if game ever had more than 1m subs.

 

And by statistics/experiences of other MMOs certain number of concurrent users means certain number of subscribers. There is some lag, because there are lot of people that dont play any more but have renning 1/3/6 month sub, but it all evens out in the end. But you dont seem to be in MMO world very long to know about this stuff.

 

So yes, right now is probably lower than 1.3 Million, probably quite a bit lower though. But less than 500k at this time is something I will not believe untill I have seen it from an actual financial report, and not because someone did some 'accurate' study of things that are not definitely tied to actual subscriber amount.

 

Everyone pays $15 a month, no matter if you play 10 hours a day, or 10 minutes a year.

 

Except when they give free 30 days to everyone, then everyone can play for free 30 days. Ooops, another in string of events on path south.

 

Just sayin...

Edited June 4, 2012 by GrandMike

[Devlonir]

Hey, dont really care, as i said evidence is out there, its your right to ignore it or not.

Hey, stop putting those words in my mouth or I will sue you for harrassment!

 

Seriously though.. I never said there are no problems. Stop trying to say I am saying that, sheesh. It seems personal attacks is the only way you can debate. I wonder if it's even worth it to continue.

 

Timeframe was never given for wither 500k or 1m. Again, you are clueless about standard business practices yet you continue to argue. Thats entirely your fault.

Okay, I can at least be man enough to admit one mistake. My memory was wrong on the timeframe being given. I remembered them saying 'by the end of the first year' in one interview yet my google-fu has not been able to dig up that exact quote. So I will give you that one.

 

Still though, saying I am clueless on standard business practices because of this again reeks waaaaay too much of personal attacks and really, what is the worth of adding it? If you knew so much about running an MMO, wouldn't you be.. well... running an MMO instead of discussing on an internet forum of one?

 

 

Uh oh. No kidding. And BW admitted they pad the numbers, just like they padded 1,7m they padded 1,3m. Didnt you see creative guide on "how to pad sub numbers" by BW? Its pretty funny, and true im afraid. You seem to have missed it so tehre you go

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=469917&page=12

/golfclap for taking a quote out of context there. They are just saying active sub numbers are a difficult number to define and especially to read without having all information (information they do have)

 

Blizzard admitted counting pay2play customers from Asia who had to pay by the minute/hour and did not pay a once a month amount as part of their 12 million subscribers number, just saying.

 

At this point its really moot if game ever had more than 1m subs.

I agree with that, past amount of subs are not important for a game's future, current amount are.

 

And by statistics/experiences of other MMOs certain number of concurrent users means certain number of subscribers. There is some lag, because there are lot of people that dont play any more but have renning 1/3/6 month sub, but it all evens out in the end. But you dont seem to be in MMO world very long to know about this stuff.

Again with the personal attacks, lovely. Man what a wonderful person you must be for attacking people personally without any knowledge about the person based on a few lines on a web forum.

 

I agree with what you say, but you are missing a lot of other customer demographics as well like:

- People with running subs but no time to play right now because of other reasons then wanting to quit the game

- People who play an amount of time well below the average curve (like 1 day a week, if that) but have the money to spend on a subscription based game they like

- People with two active subscriptions but can only play one at a time

- etc..

 

The gap between concurrent active users and subscriptions is not just filled with people waiting for their sub to run out.

 

Except when they give free 30 days to everyone, then everyone can play for free 30 days. Ooops, another in string of events on path south.

I admit, the 30 days free were given to pad their last quarterly numbers as well as keep people in while stuff got fixed. But you know what: I kind of like an MMO that is willing to invest in that loss of revenue to keep people in.

I mean, looking on the bright side of it, they didn't HAVE to give us all those 30 extra days and could have just really bled us dry of our money without giving anything in return and just see how far the sinking ship could go without further development or support cash put in.

 

It's not like 1.3 and 1.4 Development stopped while they had no income from the game for 30 days. Bioware kept investing despite getting no revenue.

 

Something about standard business practices and apparently not understanding them comes to mind..