Yeah, this game sure is losing people...

[Lord_of_Mu]

At every stage of the losses this game has suffered, an excuse emerged that game fans rallied around. At this point it seems the common excuse seems to be that "all games have suffered this kind of attrition 9 months after release".

 

So in effect it is being said that all games (except WoW) have lost over 50 percent of their launch sub base within 9 months. Well, lets investigate that, shall we?

 

Aion - Launched with around 200 to 500k in subs, 9 months later had 4 million players.

Lineage - Launched with around 100k in players in 1998, 9 months later had 500k in players.

 

Everquest - Less than 50k at launch, around 175k at the 9 month mark.

 

FFXI, LotRO, Rift, Second Life, Eve Online, DAoC, CoH/V, SWG, etc.

 

The list goes on and on. All you have to do is look up the ACTUAL information. In truth, there appears to be only three games...just three comparable games....AAA MMOs that launched and 9 months later had lost 50 percent or more of it's playerbase...

 

Warhammer Online, AoC and....SWToR.

 

It seems the common accepted flaw between all three games? The games launched incomplete.

 

All three games had serious content holes and flaws, bugs and gameplay issues. All three had strong voices before launch warning about the flaws and pointing out the game was not ready, all three launched and had catastrophic losses.

 

(One could point out Tabula Rasa, Vangaurd, PotBS, PotC, Sims online and STO, but should those games even be compared to this game? If I add STO to the list it ends up falling into the same problem category...incomplete, warnings, losses.)

 

So no...not ALL games have suffered this "attrition" in this time frame. Three comparable AAA MMOs have. And all three had reasons to lose such an alarming amount of players in such a short time.

 

They ignored their players, either by choice or necessity, and suffered the consequences as a result.

 

EA are slow learners. One thing to mention though, the WoW devs reported that more people have quit playing WoW than are currently playing. In addition to WoW showing a continuous downwards trend. We'll see how that pans out after MOP launches.

 

As for TOR. Some people may be like me in that we're waiting to see how this game pans out post f2p. The ball is in Bioware's court but EA's track record isn't exactly stellar.

[Costello]

While it is nice some fleets have a lot of people on them there is no argument that TOR has lost one hell of a lot of players in the last 8 months. We are going free to play because of these loses.

 

That 40% of those leaving said it was the sub fee is enough for the devs to rip up the subscription model and opt for free to play. If it was 40% of 100,000 people they wouldn't even think about it, that 40% has to be a major faction of the gaming community for such a drastic move to take place. Specially given launch they were confident they would be getting the content out to warrant a sub.

 

Perhaps though if they had got the content out in the first 6 months things would have been different. Do I think they released an unfinished game, no. There was tons to do and so people blew through it people were logging in for 7 hours a day. What Bioware failed to realise was that they needed to have a reason for people to log back in once the story was complete. Whether this was world domination, social, guild or PvEing yourself a guild ship. It shouldn't be theme park of sand box it should be Themepark and Sandbox allowing players more to do than running the same few quests time and time again.

[CharleyDanger]

At every stage of the losses this game has suffered, an excuse emerged that game fans rallied around. At this point it seems the common excuse seems to be that "all games have suffered this kind of attrition 9 months after release".

 

So in effect it is being said that all games (except WoW) have lost over 50 percent of their launch sub base within 9 months. Well, lets investigate that, shall we?

 

Aion - Launched with around 200 to 500k in subs, 9 months later had 4 million players.

Lineage - Launched with around 100k in players in 1998, 9 months later had 500k in players.

 

Everquest - Less than 50k at launch, around 175k at the 9 month mark.

 

FFXI, LotRO, Rift, Second Life, Eve Online, DAoC, CoH/V, SWG, etc.

 

The list goes on and on. All you have to do is look up the ACTUAL information. In truth, there appears to be only three games...just three comparable games....AAA MMOs that launched and 9 months later had lost 50 percent or more of it's playerbase...

 

Warhammer Online, AoC and....SWToR.

 

It seems the common accepted flaw between all three games? The games launched incomplete.

 

All three games had serious content holes and flaws, bugs and gameplay issues. All three had strong voices before launch warning about the flaws and pointing out the game was not ready, all three launched and had catastrophic losses.

 

(One could point out Tabula Rasa, Vangaurd, PotBS, PotC, Sims online and STO, but should those games even be compared to this game? If I add STO to the list it ends up falling into the same problem category...incomplete, warnings, losses.)

 

So no...not ALL games have suffered this "attrition" in this time frame. Three comparable AAA MMOs have. And all three had reasons to lose such an alarming amount of players in such a short time.

 

They ignored their players, either by choice or necessity, and suffered the consequences as a result.

 

One big flaw in your comparison... the flaw is literally the size of a continent... because the flaw is that you did not take in to account the continent of Asia.

 

You can not compare games like WoW and Aion to SWTOR. An Asian "sub" can consist of a guy paying for one hour a month. Not to mention that a popular MMO in Asia opens the game up to about a Billion more people. You think WoW is killing it in the US? Well WoW and SWTOR are not that far apart in the good ol US of A. 49% of WoWs player base resides in Asia... 22% resides in North America.

 

The other MMOs you mentioned did not have more subs at their peak than SWTOR has at its low. Also, most of the other MMOs you mentioned are now.... F2P.... and are doing very well lol.

 

Your argument does not fit.

[Devlonir]

Out of 2.4 Million people that bought the game ~500k players are left. That kinda of disproves your post no?

 

"More than 500k, less than 1 million" does not equal around 500k. Get your facts straight please.

 

The rational people, if they need to make 1 number, just use 750k. Right in between the two. Because we never got exact numbers.

[Kubernetic]

At every stage of the losses this game has suffered, an excuse emerged that game fans rallied around. At this point it seems the common excuse seems to be that "all games have suffered this kind of attrition 9 months after release".

 

So in effect it is being said that all games (except WoW) have lost over 50 percent of their launch sub base within 9 months. Well, lets investigate that, shall we?

 

Aion - Launched with around 200 to 500k in subs, 9 months later had 4 million players.

Lineage - Launched with around 100k in players in 1998, 9 months later had 500k in players.

 

Everquest - Less than 50k at launch, around 175k at the 9 month mark.

 

FFXI, LotRO, Rift, Second Life, Eve Online, DAoC, CoH/V, SWG, etc.

 

The list goes on and on. All you have to do is look up the ACTUAL information. In truth, there appears to be only three games...just three comparable games....AAA MMOs that launched and 9 months later had lost 50 percent or more of it's playerbase...

 

Warhammer Online, AoC and....SWToR.

 

It seems the common accepted flaw between all three games? The games launched incomplete.

 

All three games had serious content holes and flaws, bugs and gameplay issues. All three had strong voices before launch warning about the flaws and pointing out the game was not ready, all three launched and had catastrophic losses.

 

(One could point out Tabula Rasa, Vangaurd, PotBS, PotC, Sims online and STO, but should those games even be compared to this game? If I add STO to the list it ends up falling into the same problem category...incomplete, warnings, losses.)

 

So no...not ALL games have suffered this "attrition" in this time frame. Three comparable AAA MMOs have. And all three had reasons to lose such an alarming amount of players in such a short time.

 

They ignored their players, either by choice or necessity, and suffered the consequences as a result.

 

Numbers is numbers.

 

1,000,000 - 12,000,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

 

150,000 - 1,000,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png

 

50,000 - 150,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-3.png

 

0 - 50,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-4.png

 

Source: http://mmodata.blogspot.com/

 

Note that the only two which seem to be on anywhere near an upward trend is Second Life and EVE, and Second Life seems to have plateaued by the looks of this chart and where the numbers end.

 

Additionally, even though EVE is climbing steadily in subscribers, they just reached somewhere around the estimated 360,000 subs mark, which means that SWTOR still has TWICE the number of subscribers, even after losing all that it did.

 

And WOW lost something like 1.1 million subscribers last quarter.

 

You can deny it all you want, but there appears to be a saturation point and decline in the MMO market from what I see here.

 

You may disagree with the methodology, but if anyone else has a better way of trying to get some sort of even measurement of these things, please let me know.

[LordArtemis]

One big flaw in your comparison... the flaw is literally the size of a continent... because the flaw is that you did not take in to account the continent of Asia.

 

You can not compare games like WoW and Aion to SWTOR. An Asian "sub" can consist of a guy paying for one hour a month. Not to mention that a popular MMO in Asia opens the game up to about a Billion more people. You think WoW is killing it in the US? Well WoW and SWTOR are not that far apart in the good ol US of A. 49% of WoWs player base resides in Asia... 22% resides in North America.

 

The other MMOs you mentioned did not have more subs at their peak than SWTOR has at its low. Also, most of the other MMOs you mentioned are now.... F2P.... and are doing very well lol.

 

Your argument does not fit.

 

My argument fits because it is a DIRECT counter to the claim that all other MMOs have lost more than 50 percent of their playerbase in a 9 month period, being coined as "attrition". That claim was patently false, as proven by the actual numbers.

 

That was my only contention.

[LordArtemis]

Numbers is numbers.

 

1,000,000 - 12,000,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

 

150,000 - 1,000,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png

 

50,000 - 150,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-3.png

 

0 - 50,000 Players

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-4.png

 

Source: http://mmodata.blogspot.com/

 

Note that the only two which seem to be on anywhere near an upward trend is Second Life and EVE, and Second Life seems to have plateaued by the looks of this chart and where the numbers end.

 

Additionally, even though EVE is climbing steadily in subscribers, they just reached somewhere around the estimated 360,000 subs mark, which means that SWTOR still has TWICE the number of subscribers, even after losing all that it did.

 

And WOW lost something like 1.1 million subscribers last quarter.

 

You can deny it all you want, but there appears to be a saturation point and decline in the MMO market from what I see here.

 

You may disagree with the methodology, but if anyone else has a better way of trying to get some sort of even measurement of these things, please let me know.

 

That source proves my point. My point being that the claim that this game is undergoing standard "attrition" is false based on actual evidence.

 

Only three other games (perhaps 4 if you want to STO as an equal game to SWToR, a stretch IMO) have lost as many subs in this time period, 9 months after launch. No matter how you slice it it is a huge loss in a short time period, and is not the norm for the industry.

 

Also the three games that lost more than half of their playerbase in that short period all seemed to suffer from being incomplete in one way or another at launch.

 

Now one could perhaps make the argument that all games are experiencing dropping subs in THIS time period, 2009 to present, and that would at least be a more accurate assertion.

Edited August 30, 2012 by LordArtemis

[patchew]

Out of 2.4 Million people that bought the game ~500k players are left. That kinda of disproves your post no?

 

 

nope, 1 mill were always going to leave because they were just curious, shiny new game etc etc (guildwars, diablo3 as examples of what i mean). 500 would leave because it wasnt enough like their other MMOs, just with another skin. Another 500 because they cant hack/cheat their way to victory like in other MMOs. That leaves a deficit of 100, so its actually out-performing expectations by 100. No bad Bio, not bad at all.

[DarthTHC]

it very well could. All we know is they have less then 1 million and more then 500k.

 

Either way thats much much more then EVE.

 

Why exactly do we care what EVE Online has?

 

And it had > 500k BEFORE all the 6 month subs that were purchased in December and January ended. Those that haven't been renewed are now ended. Whatever number EA was hiding in that 500k-1mil statement is now lower. By how much? They'll never say.

 

 

nope, 1 mill were always going to leave because they were just curious, shiny new game etc etc (guildwars, diablo3 as examples of what i mean). 500 would leave because it wasnt enough like their other MMOs, just with another skin. Another 500 because they cant hack/cheat their way to victory like in other MMOs. That leaves a deficit of 100, so its actually out-performing expectations by 100. No bad Bio, not bad at all.

 

It seems highly unlikely that a million players shelled out $60 or more for a game they knew they could only play for 1 month (which is what your assumption that they never planned to subscribe means). That's just crazy thinking, really.

Edited August 30, 2012 by DarthTHC

[JediElf]

I'd rather it gain people who really love the game... than fret about loosing people who never cared to begin with.

 

I play MMOs to have fun, not to watch metrics, statistics, and sub numbers.

[Halacs]

I'd rather it gain people who really love the game... than fret about loosing people who never cared to begin with.

 

I play MMOs to have fun, not to watch metrics, statistics, and sub numbers.

 

Agreed. I play this game because my friends are here and I enjoy it, not because it's the most popular.

 

 

However I do watch sub numbers simply because I want the game to succeed and keep looking for a sign of stabilization.

[DarthTHC]

I'd rather it gain people who really love the game... than fret about loosing people who never cared to begin with.

 

I play MMOs to have fun, not to watch metrics, statistics, and sub numbers.

 

If you think the game has only lost people who never cared about it, you're kidding yourself. It has lost hundreds of thousands of people who cared enough about it to form guilds a year or more pre-launch. People who followed it rabidly since October 2008. People who recruited friends to it telling them it was the greatest thing ever.

 

The thing is, with an MMO, population matters. Without population, an MMO is just another game.

 

The other thing about population is revenue generation. Revenue funds the team developing new content and features for the game. Without sufficient population, you have insufficient revenue. With insufficient revenue, you have massive layoffs (two so far in this game). With massive layoffs, the team available to develop new content and features is crippled and new content and features arrive super slowly, if at all.

 

Does that sound something like where this game is right now, if you look only at what EA has actually delivered and ignore what they SAY they will deliver, someday, maybe?

[Imhotep]

These arguments are amusing. First of all, I support this game fully. Now, that being said this game in no way met the expectations of its community at large. Bioware made a series of bad decisions, you cannot deny this.

 

The amount of subs lost is part attrition and part failure on BWs part. The game isnt a total failure in as much as it is a disappointment to alot of people.

 

Arguing that the lost subs are pure attrition though is biased and naive. If TOR had been the successful game we all had hoped for we wouldnt be looking at Free to Play and BW would still have their employees.

 

I intend to play this game for a while but lets not try and pretend that whats happened was just part of the normal cycle of a MMO.

[Wayshuba]

"More than 500k, less than 1 million" does not equal around 500k. Get your facts straight please.

 

The rational people, if they need to make 1 number, just use 750k. Right in between the two. Because we never got exact numbers.

 

No, 500k is more the number. Real simple to figure why, if it was 750k EA would have said less than a million but more than 750k, not a low range number like 500k. In addition, that number still includes the six-month subs that lapsed in this current quarter or many, like myself, that purchased one more month until GW2 came out. You can also look at the original sub population and how few servers are left to extrapolate that this game, come the next reporting cycle is, at best, sitting at about 250k-300k players now. Going down to 1/10 of the original servers and F2P in less than a year (and the announcement of F2P six months after launch) is the clear indicator this game tanked and tanked hard.

 

Now, many will say that GW2 is going to be the same. Isn't going to happen. They already sold more copies of the game than SWTOR did, have more concurrent users at launch than SWTOR did and general chat is filled with ex-SWTORites that don't plan on coming back.

 

The game won't die, but people shouldn't hold their breath either that EA is going to put a lot more into this title unless F2P turns out to somehow be a miracle (which it hasn't for any company). Not to mention that EA set themselves up for disappointment again because (1) they believe a lot of players that left the game are actually going to come back because of F2P (Hint: The sub fee itself wasn't the problem - it was that people were getting very little for the sub fee and wondered what the heck they were paying for) and (2) they believe they will get 3 million players with F2P. When both of these aren't achieved, this title will go into maintenance mode much like WO did. Time to face hard facts folks, EA just wants to recuperate their investment and will put as little as possible into the game to try and turn as much profit as possible.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Wayshuba

[Trenter]

No, 500k is more the number. Real simple to figure why, if it was 750k EA would have said less than a million but more than 750k, not a low range number like 500k. In addition, that number still includes the six-month subs that lapsed in this current quarter or many, like myself, that purchased one more month until GW2 came out. You can also look at the original sub population and how few servers are left to extrapolate that this game, come the next reporting cycle is, at best, sitting at about 250k-300k players now. Going down to 1/10 of the original servers and F2P in less than a year (and the announcement of F2P six months after launch) is the clear indicator this game tanked and tanked hard.

 

Now, many will say that GW2 is going to be the same. Isn't going to happen. They already sold more copies of the game than SWTOR did, have more concurrent users at launch than SWTOR did and general chat is filled with ex-SWTORites that don't plan on coming back.

 

The game won't die, but people shouldn't hold their breath either that EA is going to put a lot more into this title unless F2P turns out to somehow be a miracle (which it hasn't for any company). Not to mention that EA set themselves up for disappointment again because (1) they believe a lot of players that left the game are actually going to come back because of F2P (Hint: The sub fee itself wasn't the problem - it was that people were getting very little for the sub fee and wondered what the heck they were paying for) and (2) they believe they will get 3 million players with F2P. When both of these aren't achieved, this title will go into maintenance mode much like WO did. Time to face hard facts folks, EA just wants to recuperate their investment and will put as little as possible into the game to try and turn as much profit as possible.

 

It's a bit hard to take your "hard facts" seriously when your post is essentially 99% speculation.

[Wayshuba]

It's a bit hard to take your "hard facts" seriously when your post is essentially 99% speculation.

 

Really, speculation?

 

Are there not 10% of the servers left that were there to begin with?

 

Has the player base nose dived from 2.4M, to 1.7M to now less than a million but more than 500k?

 

Was F2P not announced six months after launch?

 

Did EA not say that they think the players will return with F2P and they will get to 3 million players?

 

None of it is speculation. It is all cold hard truths. Many of the critics said, with the Q1 numbers that the true number was really around 500k-600k and, lo and behold, look at EA's statement on the following quarter. All one has to do is take the trends out further to realize what is coming at the end of Q3. Subs down even further, probably around the 250k-300k range.

 

I hate to be the one to say it, but the critics of the game have been right more times than the fans of the game.

[asbalana]

No, 500k is more the number. Real simple to figure why, if it was 750k EA would have said less than a million but more than 750k, not a low range number like 500k. In addition, that number still includes the six-month subs that lapsed in this current quarter or many, like myself, that purchased one more month until GW2 came out. You can also look at the original sub population and how few servers are left to extrapolate that this game, come the next reporting cycle is, at best, sitting at about 250k-300k players now. Going down to 1/10 of the original servers and F2P in less than a year (and the announcement of F2P six months after launch) is the clear indicator this game tanked and tanked hard.

 

Now, many will say that GW2 is going to be the same. Isn't going to happen. They already sold more copies of the game than SWTOR did, have more concurrent users at launch than SWTOR did and general chat is filled with ex-SWTORites that don't plan on coming back.

 

The game won't die, but people shouldn't hold their breath either that EA is going to put a lot more into this title unless F2P turns out to somehow be a miracle (which it hasn't for any company). Not to mention that EA set themselves up for disappointment again because (1) they believe a lot of players that left the game are actually going to come back because of F2P (Hint: The sub fee itself wasn't the problem - it was that people were getting very little for the sub fee and wondered what the heck they were paying for) and (2) they believe they will get 3 million players with F2P. When both of these aren't achieved, this title will go into maintenance mode much like WO did. Time to face hard facts folks, EA just wants to recuperate their investment and will put as little as possible into the game to try and turn as much profit as possible.

 

I agree 100%. The only thing that you did not mention is that over the last few days the number of people playing took a sharp dive that was clear to see.

[vandana_]

Really, speculation?

 

Are there not 10% of the servers left that were there to begin with?

 

Has the player base nose dived from 2.4M, to 1.7M to now less than a million but more than 500k?

 

Was F2P not announced six months after launch?

 

Did EA not say that they think the players will return with F2P and they will get to 3 million players?

 

None of it is speculation. It is all cold hard truths. Many of the critics said, with the Q1 numbers that the true number was really around 500k-600k and, lo and behold, look at EA's statement on the following quarter. All one has to do is take the trends out further to realize what is coming at the end of Q3. Subs down even further, probably around the 250k-300k range.

 

I hate to be the one to say it, but the critics of the game have been right more times than the fans of the game.

 

Plus last content update was made in April 2012 and the next one is not even on PTR.

[Devlonir]

Really, speculation?

Most of it, yes.

 

Are there not 10% of the servers left that were there to begin with?

Yes, but each has a higher concurrent login population than any has had since the early weeks. So less, but bigger. I'm not saying 10 times bigger, but it's not 10% of the start as well as you have suggested. There is actual proof that the current servers can hold more players at once than the originals.

 

Has the player base nose dived from 2.4M, to 1.7M to now less than a million but more than 500k?

 

Was F2P not announced six months after launch?

These are facts indeed.

 

Did EA not say that they think the players will return with F2P and they will get to 3 million players?

Speculation. EA did not mention a 3 million player number. They merely said they expect people to return.

 

None of it is speculation. It is all cold hard truths. Many of the critics said, with the Q1 numbers that the true number was really around 500k-600k and, lo and behold, look at EA's statement on the following quarter. All one has to do is take the trends out further to realize what is coming at the end of Q3. Subs down even further, probably around the 250k-300k range.

But even trends even out. A lot of people left over the summer, this much is true. Some people played the game less for GW2 as well, as torstatus.net shows a drop in activity on all servers. (not a big drop by the way 0.10 is about the average drop).

 

I hate to be the one to say it, but the critics of the game have been right more times than the fans of the game.

This is indeed true in some aspects. But the critics also often made numbers that are a lot worse than what the fans say. So it really goes both way. Honestly, and I'm on record on this, I already thought it was somewhere between 500k to 1 million before the August call, I said I hoped it would still be over 1 million but didn't think it was. And I was right there as well. Was that because I know so much better, or just because I was lucky?

 

I say luck.

 

Oh and also.. you said GW2 already sold more than TOR? Funny, what number did you hear? As the 1 million pre-sales are about equal, or even slightly less if i recall correctly, than TOR's. And TOR was already on around 3 million total sold before the summer from my latest info. So really, what are your sources on those 'cold hard facts'.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Devlonir

[vandana_]

Haters will always hate, but I think the reports of SWTOR's demise were greatly exaggerated.

Oh yes, everything is fine, we have plenty of people to play the 5 month old broken content with untill the game goes free to play in a month and we can start buying dancing jawas.

[Devlonir]

Oh yes, everything is fine, we have plenty of people to play the 5 month old broken content with untill the game goes free to play in a month and we can start buying dancing jawas.

 

He is not saying everything is fine, he is just saying the game isn't dead. You know why? Because I can log into the game now if I want. That is proof of not being actually dead.

Dying, maybe. Dead, certainly not.

 

Facts, it's not a hard game to play.

[Trenter]

Really, speculation?

 

Are there not 10% of the servers left that were there to begin with?

 

Has the player base nose dived from 2.4M, to 1.7M to now less than a million but more than 500k?

 

Was F2P not announced six months after launch?

 

Did EA not say that they think the players will return with F2P and they will get to 3 million players?

 

None of it is speculation. It is all cold hard truths. Many of the critics said, with the Q1 numbers that the true number was really around 500k-600k and, lo and behold, look at EA's statement on the following quarter. All one has to do is take the trends out further to realize what is coming at the end of Q3. Subs down even further, probably around the 250k-300k range.

 

I hate to be the one to say it, but the critics of the game have been right more times than the fans of the game.

 

Well, rest of the speculation aside (why people left, f2p option failing, maintenance mode etc.), does your trend analysis take into account that the population has remained stable for quite some time now?

[TUXs]

I'd rather it gain people who really love the game... than fret about loosing people who never cared to begin with.

 

I play MMOs to have fun, not to watch metrics, statistics, and sub numbers.

 

Are you seriously trying to suggest that nearly 2 million people who have bought this game, and quit, didn't 'care about it'?! That's seriously just dumb. The mystical group of players you think exists, DID BUY THE GAME...but nearly 2 million of them have QUIT!

 

I'll argue that the ONLY people who don't seem to care about it are the people at Bioware. There's no attempt to counter GW2 or W0W, there's no sense of urgency, no real communication (improved, but still vague), they've lied about what they were going to do, what they were planning, what we could expect since development began.

 

The people YOU accuse of not caring, actually bought the game, mostly at full price...they simply didn't enjoy it. The problems that have caused players to quit since launch are still here, still unaddressed, still ignored and still without any promise of change...and you accuse them of not caring?! lol

[vandana_]

The people YOU accuse of not caring, actually bought the game, mostly at full price...they simply didn't enjoy it.

 

LIAR! They couldn't afford $15 subscription 40% of them poor sods.

Edited August 30, 2012 by vandana_

[Truescopes]

Well, rest of the speculation aside (why people left, f2p option failing, maintenance mode etc.), does your trend analysis take into account that the population has remained stable for quite some time now?

 

 

I wouldn't call that exactly "stable": http://imgur.com/mFJir