Does TOR still have a viable playerbase?

[Crash-X]

last reported was long enough that subs have dropped again and yes. i doubt 1 million is correct at all. however .. i think everyone needs to stop estimating anything and just let the transfers go and see if it fixes the problems.

 

 

fatman is proof that even with low sub numbers the game is fun when there are people on the server to play..

 

i dont see why we all need to be financial estimaters who now realize and know everything there is about the financial status of a game that hasnt had an offical report released in a while and the last time it was 1 million and since then even bioware admitted a drop..

 

so everyone please stop estimating something you dont have the ability to estimate. it will make your enjoyment of the game all that better.

 

Well now you are estimating though.

 

Meh it wasn't that long ago, I wouldn't be surprised if it was still at 1 million. The largest drop off of a MMO happens really early in it's life. SWTOR has passed that phase already. Everyone that truly dislikes the game has left and moved on now. People still playing this game are interested in it somehow, and the number is likely going to flunctuate between 700k-1.1 or so million I bet. MMOs just don't drop a ton of players every 3 months and if this game was doing that, I think we would have seen a lot more urgency from Bioware. At this point of a games life it will lose subs more slowly now unless they do something really stupid.

 

Either way, I'm not estimating. I'm simply going by what was last reported. When someone shows me proof that the subs have dropped several hundred thousand then I'll go with that.

[thomasgallant]

Well now you are estimating though.

 

Meh it wasn't that long ago, I wouldn't be surprised if it was still at 1 million. The largest drop off of a MMO happens really early in it's life. SWTOR has passed that phase already. Everyone that truly dislikes the game has left and moved on now. People still playing this game are interested in it somehow, and the number is likely going to flunctuate between 700k-1.1 or so million I bet. MMOs just don't drop a ton of players every 3 months and if this game was doing that, I think we would have seen a lot more urgency from Bioware. At this point of a games life it will lose subs more slowly now unless they do something really stupid.

 

Either way, I'm not estimating. I'm simply going by what was last reported. When someone shows me proof that the subs have dropped several hundred thousand then I'll go with that.

 

i am not estimating.. bioware admitted to further drops.. how far.. dunno but frankly i am tired of people screaming doom and gloom with regards to something we know very little about.

i never suggested a several thousand drop in subs..but bioware has reported a drop since last fiscal report.

[Crash-X]

i am not estimating.. bioware admitted to further drops.. how far.. dunno but frankly i am tired of people screaming doom and gloom with regards to something we know very little about.

i never suggested a several thousand drop in subs..but bioware has reported a drop since last fiscal report.

 

Nah I know it's not you but I see alot of "This game's at 500k subs right now" and all this concurrent user stuff that can't be used to find subs simply because there are way too many variables. (they are never counting all the little different instances players are in either. Just fleet and planets lol) but even if it is a drop it could still be a small drop.

 

1.3 million is still a ton of subs though, for the doom and gloomers I just hope they realize that not many MMOs even hit the million mark at all...or even half of that.

[thomasgallant]

Nah I know it's not you but I see alot of "This game's at 500k subs right now" and all this concurrent user stuff that can't be used to find subs simply because there are way too many variables. (they are never counting all the little different instances players are in either. Just fleet and planets lol) but even if it is a drop it could still be a small drop.

 

1.3 million is still a ton of subs though, for the doom and gloomers I just hope they realize that not many MMOs even hit the million mark at all...or even half of that.

 

this game is fine.. it needs transfers and mergers.. but then we will have like 15-20 servers as fat as fatman and we will be good:P people need to lay off the kool aid a bit:P

[svartalfimposter]

As the the title says. Does TOR still have enough players to keep going?

 

If all the servers are like mine, they will have about 5 servers total, probably.

[gabarooni]

The last census was 1,400,000 subs come on take a second to look at those numbers. Jeez there are MMO's that run with less then 10,000 subs. Consider how much money Swtor would make if they only had 100,000 subs. You people really have to stop thinking a MMO needs millions of subs to be succesful. If you can't be happy with just playing with hundreds of thousands of other people then I don't know what to tell you.

[LovarBoy]

The last census was 1,400,000 subs come on take a second to look at those numbers. Jeez there are MMO's that run with less then 10,000 subs. Consider how much money Swtor would make if they only had 100,000 subs. You people really have to stop thinking a MMO needs millions of subs to be succesful. If you can't be happy with just playing with hundreds of thousands of other people then I don't know what to tell you.

 

 

You're wrong.

 

EA / BioWare announced at the release of SW:TOR that they need roughly 500.000 subs to be profitable.

 

 

And guys... there hasn't been any real competitive game ( though Diablo III is not an MMO but it's release took a big amount of players out of SW:TOR ) right now. Guild Wars 2 and Mists of Pandaria are coming in less than half a year - and I am quite sure that 10-20% of the actual subscribers just wait for this two games ( or one of them ).

 

 

It's astonishing that you really think the 1,3 million subscribers mentioned in the last financial call is a usable and realizable number of "permanent-subscribers". As I told you 1.2 has been hailed as the real "release" SW:TOR candidate and it appealed to many many players - until 95% of them were disappointed and left the game already - and a huge amount of subscribers that still played the game until 1.2.

 

 

I think it's really naive - in fact of the server-population and the information we got about that - to think that SW:TOR still has over 1 million "active" subscribers. That's just unrealistic. 90% of the servers are "Low" at any time of the day you are looking at - that's meant to be there are less than 500 players ( 450-600 is the line where Low goes to Standard ) - playing - anytime.

Edited June 10, 2012 by LovarBoy

[Kailthir]

Nah I know it's not you but I see alot of "This game's at 500k subs right now" and all this concurrent user stuff that can't be used to find subs simply because there are way too many variables. (they are never counting all the little different instances players are in either. Just fleet and planets lol) but even if it is a drop it could still be a small drop.

 

1.3 million is still a ton of subs though, for the doom and gloomers I just hope they realize that not many MMOs even hit the million mark at all...or even half of that.

 

Umm. That is not quite accurate. Many MMO's hit the million mark, wither or not they sustain that mark is another point. To be quite honest... sub numbers are irrevelent. Out of that 1.3 million stat you mentioned, X% is a free 30 days but aren't playing, X% is subbed for 6 months but aren't playing, X% is subbed for a year but aren't playing. So you see just because there is 1.3 million active subs, that dosen't mean active players.

 

You fanbois are just as much a problem as the doom and gloom people. Always blowing things way out of porportion to suit you own ends... just like doom and gloom but opposite side of the scale. Doom and Gloom: the game is failing bad, it will be soon F2P.... Fanbois: The game is perfect. Don't change a thing. All complainers must leave. Both are wrong.

 

A F2P is not fail... they are still making money and keeping in the black. Actually they usually make more money with less subs. (i don't like F2P, but that is just my opnion). The game is far from perfect. Many problems effect gameplay, from the engine to combat mechanics to annimation etc. We all know the vast problems. To deny them is to be a lier. Can the game be fixed? Possibly, BW/EA will have to swallow their pride and admit they messed up and fix it. The game has great potential. There is just too much MMO left out to be an MMO.

 

I stick around cause the game could become great, if BW/EA would just get their stubborn heads out of the sand and fix/add the things that make a game an MMO, this game can become one of the top 3 MMO's out there.

[Naej]

Even if there was only 5k people playing at the same time, but over 1 server, we'd be having a blast. The problem we have is that there are too many servers. If you go by what WoW has said, around 7-10% of your player base is playing at any given time. Meaning that having 1M subs would translate to 70-100k people playing at all times. Split that over 35-40 servers and we have no problems at all.

[Lundli]

As the the title says. Does TOR still have enough players to keep going? Now I'm not trying to start any arguments, I'd just be really interested to know how many ppl still play.

 

Yes, I would think we're down to what could be considered more normal.. that abomination called wow is something else, a one off that we'll probably never see again.

 

Take right now for example, it's around mid-day on sunday and on the top 5 eu servers there are like 10 ppl in fleet.

 

Really? What "top" EU server are you playing on?

 

Funneling ppl together with the coming char transfers might make the few destination servers a bit more active, but can the game keep running with the current subscriber amount?

 

I'm sure the game will be around for a while longer

[Ghaiana]

For many, yes..but for the 6 month subscription buyers, we still have : "You have 67 days of play time remaining". So it'll take over 2 months before those drops off the list...

 

In 3 months, you can get a better idea of actual subscriber numbers.. which is probably after the next quarterly EA report even.

 

Uhmm..or they renew for another six months, like I am planning to do. There's always another side of the medal.

[tloops]

The last census was 1,400,000 subs come on take a second to look at those numbers. Jeez there are MMO's that run with less then 10,000 subs. Consider how much money Swtor would make if they only had 100,000 subs. You people really have to stop thinking a MMO needs millions of subs to be succesful. If you can't be happy with just playing with hundreds of thousands of other people then I don't know what to tell you.

 

the last census was 1.3 million,and that was almost 3 months ago...many have left since then

Edited June 10, 2012 by tloops

[lorddarklon]

I would say the answer is yes it does. Despite what some people on the Forums say this is a very well built game. The main problem is the ammount of servers which really should have been addressed about 2 mo. ago. In my opinion the 1.2 patch should have been the one that allowed server transfers. Also when they release a expansion for this game the pop. will rise.

[Valkirus]

It's viable to me and the people in my guild.

 

It would be great if BioWare can continue to make a profit off the few guilds like yours.

[RocNessMonster]

Yes there are still plenty of people playing, add all of the EU servers, US servers and Asiatic servers together and you have close to 500 servers. If you only have 2000 people on each server that is a million people.

 

How many people on fleet is only a small percentage of people playing the game.

 

500x2000=/=1000000. The missing zero makes all the difference.

[Arlbo_Nabbins]

From summarized ~ 100.000-150.000 players in the prime time ( for sure there are people that were not counted ), how do you think there can be +1 million active subscribers?

.

 

Because not everyone plays prime time and not everyone plays every day. All MMOs have between 5-10 times as many active players as the prime time peak number. So yes that number would mean somewhere near 1 million subs.

 

But lets take the 100k figure, those players are spread across 200 servers, so on average 500 players per server in 2 factions (its going to be a smaller number on the less populated servers). After the server merges when BW have moved people to say 50 servers you will probably be looking at an average of 1500+ players per server (assuming 75% of people chose to transfer). That is enough people to create a viable population as that will be what you see online each day and they could very well be planning on less than 50 servers, it could be as low as 20-25.

Edited June 10, 2012 by Arlbo_Nabbins

[Veluthurk]

What I fail to understand in any of these threads is what does it matter how many subs the games has?

 

The main problem BW has is the population is spread too thin. Hopefully transfers will consolidate the population enough so people aren't so isolated and can get on with playing the game.

 

Ultimately if the game fails, it fails. Move on to another. It's not like all your friends will tweet that they know someone who played that fail MMO...or will they? rofl

 

Sheesh.

[belizar]

u wont see the true figures on whos left to september imo

alot of ppl with 6month subs + free month who have cancled but still accounted for like myself stoped in the 1st 2 months

 

What I fail to understand in any of these threads is what does it matter how many subs the games has?

to the above poster not 500k = f2p or worst

Edited June 10, 2012 by belizar

[RSLeMire]

with a million players+ subscribed and playing (a conservative estimate) you are curious if there is a viable playerbase? I am not sure we are on the same page when it comes to numbers.

 

Just wait a week or so (after X-Fers are worked out) and you will feel the playerbase more realistically. We are just spread really thin right now.

[Symbea]

As I told you 1.2 has been hailed as the real "release" SW:TOR candidate and it appealed to many many players - until 95% of them were disappointed and left the game already - and a huge amount of subscribers that still played the game until 1.2.

 

Don't suppose you have any real evidence or a source for that eh?

 

I love that people pay to troll game forums.

 

Anyways, the main issue with the game is server population, with transfers we'll soon get an idea of how the game is doing. Players will come back, some may leave. We'll all have to wait.

[Celise]

i can tell you that i had a month out of the game a while back, but since most of the problems i got with the game have been eliminated and the CSR teams have been great towards me, the game is good. i intend to keep playing.

 

the important thing as to why i remain is because bioware are bringing out more content and listening to feedback, despite some disgruntled members getting the wrong end of the stick sometimes like rage quitting for example. i wouldnt mind playing an IA in full imp soldier gear and doing HM's and FP's in elite one day, amazing i have never gotten that far before. definately want to try out the new space combat missions as well.

[LovarBoy]

Don't suppose you have any real evidence or a source for that eh?

 

I love that people pay to troll game forums.

 

Anyways, the main issue with the game is server population, with transfers we'll soon get an idea of how the game is doing. Players will come back, some may leave. We'll all have to wait.

 

 

Evidence?

 

We figured out the "activity" and the server population before 1.2, with 1.2 and at the end of the Rakghoul event - it's in the German forums but you did the same or something like that right here ( I saw it a few days ago ).

 

 

Pre 1.2: 75% activity

 

1.2 & Rakhgoul event: 100% activity

 

After the event: 20-30% activity

 

The overall active prime-time population fell down from 35k to 10k. That's less than a third.

 

 

What are transfers supposed to solve? Yes, empty and dead servers. But not the problem of the missing population overall. But we'll see next week and the "evidence" you need in August right to the next Financial Call.

Edited June 10, 2012 by LovarBoy

[Scorpienne]

As the the title says. Does TOR still have enough players to keep going? Now I'm not trying to start any arguments, I'd just be really interested to know how many ppl still play.

 

Hi there. I was interested in that number too. I'm mathematically inclined and so I did some math at it:

 

Here is how I got to the numbers: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=449144

Here is my data, in spreadsheets for you to check or reanalyze (you can dl it as a spreadsheet):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aregkvys5QFodFJ2OWN5U0hwaVFBYWdqUUh1WmdZUFE#gid=26

 

I estimate that the average number of people concurrently logged in at once, as a 24 hour average over the last two weeks, is about 60,000 people.

 

This is not the number of subscribers; I have no way to know that number.

 

Those 60,000 people do not represent the active player base - they are just an average of how many people are logged in all at once.

 

For instance, I might know that server X has an average of 1,000 logins. That might mean that 1000 stay-at-home moms log in at noon and log at out 3. 1000 teenagers log in at 3 and log out at 8. 1000 salarymen like me log in at 8 and log out at 11. 1000 college students log in at 11 and log out at 2 am. 1000 bartenders log in at 2 am and log out at noon. I can only tell you that it's about 1000 people logged in at any one time, but it's 5000 different subs.

 

People have guessed (and they're truly just guesses because we don't know) that between 5% and 10% of the world wide population might be logged in at once. If the number is 5%, then that's about the 1.3m subs BW said that they had at the last earnings call.

 

I know that on my server, the peak population is 2x to 3x times higher than the average population (details on that math in the post above).

 

Given that math, it is my opinion that SWTOR has a more-than-viable playerbase. The reason these forums don't reflect that is because one of the great truths of the world is that unhappy people complain and happy people generally don't say anything.

 

Yes there are still plenty of people playing, add all of the EU servers, US servers and Asiatic servers together and you have close to 500 servers. If you only have 2000 people on each server that is a million people.

 

Us has 100 servers and EU about 90 ...pacific what 3? so where does the rest 300

 

We have ~ 220 servers and not 500.

 

There are 217 servers in the game. This is how they are broken out...

 

SERVERS BY AREA

APAC 3

EUR English 45

EUR French 16

EUR German 30

US East 81

US West 42

Total 217

 

SERVERS BY TYPE

PvE 111

PvP 82

RP PvE 18

RP PvP 6

Total 217

 

If you want to see the type-by-area table, check the spreadsheet here. Look on the right and realize that torstatus.net wasn't reporting 3 German PvE servers on the 6/8/2012 numbers.

 

We've got estimated "prime-time" activity numbers - and worldwide they are under 150.000.

For example: German Prime Time - less than ~ 12.000 people are playing ( 30 servers ).

 

We figured out the "activity" and the server population before 1.2, with 1.2 and at the end of the Rakghoul event - it's in the German forums but you did the same or something like that right here ( I saw it a few days ago ).

 

If you have prime time activity numbers, then send me the link. I've been looking very hard for that info and I can't find it. Links or it didn't happen, fella.

 

I think there is only around a few thousand people subbed to this game. I would guess near the 100k mark.

 

As long as you are clear in saying that you're guessing, then that's fine. You realize, that by guessing there are 100k people subbed, the math says that 60% of them are online at once? That would be amazing!

 

It's also nearly impossible to get the numbers of concurrent users, there is way too many variables there.

 

Your post is mostly correct, but I'd like to let you know about http://www.torstatus.net. They check the activity status of all servers once an hour. That gives us a record of average concurrent users over the last two weeks.

 

I think this thread should be an example of just how much the community does not know about the sub levels of this game. lets take this whole thing as a lesson in futility in trying to estimate the number of people playing this game...and just stop.it makes us all appear far less intelligent. lets just stop estimating something that we as a community have no ability to estimate accurately.

 

Oh man, preach it brother! We have absolutely no clue about subs - that information is in a bioware accounting server somewhere. Torstatus.net allows us to get at who's playing based on publicly-available server load data, but we can no-way, no-how know subs.

 

No, we have 226 severs with an average concurrent use of 346 per server.

That's 78,196 concurrent. That's very high. For reference WoW's concurrent in NA is about 200k-250k.

 

Close. 217 servers, about 60k concurrent as of Friday. Can you link the WOW numbers?

 

 

Paige

Edited June 10, 2012 by Scorpienne

[LovarBoy]

*snip*

 

 

You command, I obey:

 

http://www.swtor.com/de/community/showthread.php?t=453376

 

It's just the "German version" but there you can see the prime time population - the thread has / had over 100 pages (the actual one is at page 52) - we started the measuring 1 month before 1.2 hit the live servers.

 

Little explanation:

 

Orange Numbers: Highest Peak of Prime-Time Population

 

Yellow Numbers: Most actual measure

 

 

How we got the numbers?

 

Day for day people from the different servers gathered the number of players in the prime time ( 19-22 Uhr / 7-10 PM ) whit using the /who command. After weeks we got a very nice and acurate measurement.

 

A Google Doc. we've got, too: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkpMzDO67MPgdDdLcG9vNmFfM2FSRXN2c1ZRNW9rQ1E&output=html ( Last update 05/31/2012 )

 

The most important break even could be next week, when the free 30 day-period ends. That will cut off everyone who has been disappointed after the end of the 1.2 patch / Rakghoul event and everyone that has been disappointed with the games development.

Edited June 10, 2012 by LovarBoy

[Veluthurk]

u wont see the true figures on whos left to september imo

alot of ppl with 6month subs + free month who have cancled but still accounted for like myself stoped in the 1st 2 months

 

What I fail to understand in any of these threads is what does it matter how many subs the games has?

to the above poster not 500k = f2p or worst

I understand the economic implications of not making the theoretical 500k, but much of the hype seems to revolve around a need to be playing the most popular MMO.

 

It's doubtful there will ever be another WoW where a single game can so completely dominate the genre. In this post WoW era MMOs will have to share the available pool of subscribers. With whatever amount of subscriber-ship TOR actually requires, if they are able to provide necessary new content and the occasional expac I think the real TOR fans will be happy. Then gaming fotm crowd may continue to bounce from game to game with minimal effect to TOR.