CowCollector Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'm kind of wondering how many other people are having the same experience. My guild had 262 members and 53 active subscribers at the start of December. At my last check, we have 245 members and 31 active subscriptions. The sub drop had impacted reputation boosts, but hasn't done anything to the XP boost yet. We were founded about 6 months prior to 2.0 and had steadily climbed in numbers up to the point of 3.0. We have never been the kind of guild to take quantity of members over quality, so we have never spammed general chat looking for members. We mostly recruit out of flashpoints, ops and word of mouth. I never really jumped on the bandwagon complaining that this game had one foot in the grave, but at this point, its getting hard to deny. I have enjoyed playing SW:TOR since launch and we went through a spell where the activity dropped off just before the first batch of server merges. Things seemed to smooth out for a while and even seemed to improve based on server population. Since 3.0, it seems like there is an exodus from TOR based on the numbers I am seeing in my guild. Has anyone else noticed this? Does it seem like a phase, or is this the first sign of the real death of TOR? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'm kind of wondering how many other people are having the same experience. My guild had 262 members and 53 active subscribers at the start of December. At my last check, we have 245 members and 31 active subscriptions. The sub drop had impacted reputation boosts, but hasn't done anything to the XP boost yet. We were founded about 6 months prior to 2.0 and had steadily climbed in numbers up to the point of 3.0. We have never been the kind of guild to take quantity of members over quality, so we have never spammed general chat looking for members. We mostly recruit out of flashpoints, ops and word of mouth. I never really jumped on the bandwagon complaining that this game had one foot in the grave, but at this point, its getting hard to deny. I have enjoyed playing SW:TOR since launch and we went through a spell where the activity dropped off just before the first batch of server merges. Things seemed to smooth out for a while and even seemed to improve based on server population. Since 3.0, it seems like there is an exodus from TOR based on the numbers I am seeing in my guild. Has anyone else noticed this? Does it seem like a phase, or is this the first sign of the real death of TOR? Ummm no. And wouldn't the easiest way to figure things out and analyze the situation be ask why the sub people either dropped sub or the game entirely? Kinda a Guild exit poll? Rather than going to the forums and writing a post that virtually begs a flame war to start? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Wicked Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Does it seem like a phase, or is this the first sign of the real death of TOR? You're not a fan of Mark Twain, are you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draqsko Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'm kind of wondering how many other people are having the same experience. My guild had 262 members and 53 active subscribers at the start of December. At my last check, we have 245 members and 31 active subscriptions. The sub drop had impacted reputation boosts, but hasn't done anything to the XP boost yet. We were founded about 6 months prior to 2.0 and had steadily climbed in numbers up to the point of 3.0. We have never been the kind of guild to take quantity of members over quality, so we have never spammed general chat looking for members. We mostly recruit out of flashpoints, ops and word of mouth. I never really jumped on the bandwagon complaining that this game had one foot in the grave, but at this point, its getting hard to deny. I have enjoyed playing SW:TOR since launch and we went through a spell where the activity dropped off just before the first batch of server merges. Things seemed to smooth out for a while and even seemed to improve based on server population. Since 3.0, it seems like there is an exodus from TOR based on the numbers I am seeing in my guild. Has anyone else noticed this? Does it seem like a phase, or is this the first sign of the real death of TOR? I've noticed a big drop in sub numbers in mine but there are reasons that don't involve the death of swtor. I know a few people who subbed and bought the xpac because it was A) Christmas, and B) Wanted to level through the xpac before their vacation was over. A 60 day timecard received as a gift on Christmas would have just expired at the beginning of this month. Some people just find the game isn't for them, for whatever reason, and stop subbing as well. That said, I look at sub numbers more as a percentage, especially now with so many having alts after 12x. My guild's sub accounts are still over 25-30% of my membership total, and well over 100 accounts. Considering many of us have multiple alts in the guild, and nearly everyone has at least 2 alts, that's expected. Also aside from people I know are gone long term because of real life commitments (yet plan to return), no one in my guild hasn't logged in within the last 90 days. But that doesn't cover the ravagers exploit and slot machine business, and I think there's some that left because of that. Ask me again in May, and I'll be able to give you a better idea where my guild stands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandyL Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 (edited) I'm kind of wondering how many other people are having the same experience. My guild had 262 members and 53 active subscribers at the start of December. Qualifying accounts includes preferred, which probably makes up a very large percentage of the player base. Unless you're keeping detailed records on your members I don't think there's a way to tell how many are subscribers vs. preferred. Additionally, I'm not sure if you're saying 262 "members" and mean "characters" instead. Edited March 18, 2015 by RandyL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiiTarr Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 To answer your question about how the game is doing, I'd suggest looking at EA's financial information, which will be a much more accurate indicator of the game's future than speculating based on fluctuations in guild membership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 (edited) To answer your question about how the game is doing, I'd suggest looking at EA's financial information, which will be a much more accurate indicator of the game's future than speculating based on fluctuations in guild membership. Exactly...first the data set is too small, second it doesn't take into account that the majority of their income comes from micro-transactions now. If you look at the data in 2013 they were the number 8 game world wide (including sub games...which they still count as and straight up f2p games) and they were number 4 among the subscription option games. In 2014 they were in 12th place overall BUT that data was from before the expac hit... if they got the "typical" bump they could have easily gotten back into the top 10 (number 10 was at 114 million in revenue, SWTOR had 106 million prior to SoR launch.) So in terms of it's place in the market, SWTOR improved in 2013 by a LARGE margin and more than likely ended 2014 in a similar position. This isn't bad at all especially when you look and see that many of the games beating them are in more markets... Example DOTA 2 jumped from 20 in 2013 to number 9 last year BUT they also launched in China in the fall of 2013... SWTOR is not in the growing Asian gaming market (no Asian servers) and at least at one point, the Chinese Gov't actually had SWTOR.com on their block list. Some people assumed it was Bioware blocking China but it wasn't. The Chinese Gov't has strict rules on gamers and games, some games having to even make different versions of the game (largely story wise) to get into the market. Heck China made WoW put skin on skeletons and corpses are instead tiny graves to "promote a healthy and harmonious online game environment" lol. So people may say "see game X made more" BUT if Bioware is spending less money on server management, regionalization of the game, bribes err I mean "gifts" to Chinese officials then they can still be doing quite well. Edited March 18, 2015 by Ghisallo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 Edit that list by Super Data Research even includes games I would not call an MMORPG. It includes MOBAs and such like L.o.L, DOTA2 etc. Super Data has a broader definition for the purposes of their rankings...basically looking at the number of people on the server and such... http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/whats-an-mmo/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavSalco Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 In the guild that I am we are also losing subs (including myself), but we keep playing. We just don't feel that the current state of the game is worth regular payment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rithoma Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 (edited) My guild focuses on raiding and progression and therefore almost all active members are subs due to the operations access. Before 3.0 there were about 20 to 25 online during prime time. When SoR launched it went up to 30+ guildies online between 8pm and midnight, because a lot of inactive members came back to see the expac. About two weeks later it dropped to 15 to 20, because of the performance issues (ability delay and FPS). I took a break from the game myself and have just returned. Now at prime time we have 10 to 15 guildies online. When I asked what happened, I was told that most progression oriented members left the game to play other games for now due to poor game performance and too many bugs in the raids. I'm not sure if that is the first sign of death for the game, even though as in this thread reported other guilds are experiencing similar issues. Right now the general tone seems to be that people are waiting for the game to be fixed and then probably return, so at the moment I'd say it is just a phase. Personally, I think that sub numbers have vastly dropped after the SoR launch and the expac was not very well received. Not because of the content itself, but because of performance issues including ability delay, FPS drops and bugged fights, and the lack of response from the community team and the devs just frustated many players. That's why BW announced the next expac already so shortly after releasing 3.0, to prevent even more people from leaving/canceling their subs by giving them hope that there is something better on the horizon. That's just my personal opinion though. Edited March 18, 2015 by Rithoma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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