Game has died, Nowhere to go

[Alssaran]

TOFN 19-00 GMT 100 ppls on imp fleet, 60 ppls on rep side, server in forever light status more than 2 month. Wasting 10 min to get pop on - no pops alt-f4. Will try another game.

 

An eight-ten minute queue is not long. Even World of Warcraft (the current market leader) has queue times of up to 10-15 minutes as a DPS and inbetween 5-10 minutes for a battleground. HFC can go up to 25 minutes, depending on your role.

 

Sorry, but an eight-ten minute queue is simply not in any way exceptional. A thirty or fourty minute queue, and that on a regular basis? That would be evidence and seriously hurting business. But a 5-10 minute queue can be considered normal for most MMORPGs, espescially as a DPS.

[TUXs]

And the issue still remains: There is no money for that.

I don't believe that at all. I believe there's no desire for it, but there's surely no lack of $.

[helpmewin]

An eight-ten minute queue is not long. Even World of Warcraft (the current market leader) has queue times of up to 10-15 minutes as a DPS and inbetween 5-10 minutes for a battleground. HFC can go up to 25 minutes, depending on your role.

 

Sorry, but an eight-ten minute queue is simply not in any way exceptional. A thirty or fourty minute queue, and that on a regular basis? That would be evidence and seriously hurting business. But a 5-10 minute queue can be considered normal for most MMORPGs, espescially as a DPS.

 

Its wz pops(10-20 min pops on TOFN imp side in peak times is ok nowdays - just tired srsly its too long), last time i've tryed PvE i wasted 1 hr without pop on hard mode FP, then tryed tactical FP get pop in 20 min and saw unlimited wipes on strong mobs from 2 guys and quit. I will come back to DOTA tho. At least this is the most balanced game in terms of class balance and attention from devs to community i ever seen and heard.

Edited March 15, 2016 by helpmewin

[Thoronmir]

I don't participate in PvP or Group Finder content, so no one has to worry about me stumbling into their WZ or PUG. But I honestly thought all the "complaints" about queues taking "ten minutes" to pop were by players goofing the rest of us. I never conceived that anyone would consider ten minutes an unreasonable amount of time to get a group of random strangers together. I don't know if a ten-minute queue for a WZ is proof that SWTOR has "died," but I'll take the PvPers' word for it that it's proof that PvP has died. Of course, the demise of PvP does not herald the death of SWTOR for the rest of us.

 

My expectations for queue times was set years ago in Final Fantasy XI. I had emigrated over to FFXI because I could play on my PS2. I'll spare you all my tales of heroic deeds, doomed romances, and thrilling daring-do, and, instead, mention two fundamental truths about FFXI:

 

1. You had to group to play past level 10 (the primary method of earning XP to level was to form a group, find a camp out somewhere near groups of mobs, and spend the next few hours pulling and killing mobs).

2. Getting the "right" group could take hours of spamming public chat channels.

 

You read that right. Hours. My personal "best" was a 3.5 hour wait culling through chat messages to find a group that would last longer than five minutes. I remember it was in the fall ... my television had split-screen capability, and I was half-watching the football game on one side while reading chat text on the other. I "hoisted my flag" at kickoff and finally found a group a few minutes before the game ended. It was expected that getting a worthy group in FFXI required at least a one-hour commitment to sitting around (followed by at least thirty minutes of organization, strategy discussions, and travel to the camp). It was equally expected that no one was interested in an "unworthy" group ... those always led to death, frustration, rage quits, etc.

 

Looking back, I am shocked (and a little disappointed in myself) that I tolerated FFXI. But I played it for more than year.

[Alssaran]

Its wz pops(10-20 min pops on TOFN imp side in peak times is ok nowdays - just tired srsly its too long), last time i've tryed PvE i wasted 1 hr without pop on hard mode FP, then tryed tactical FP get pop in 20 min and saw unlimited wipes on strong mobs from 2 guys and quit. I will come back to DOTA tho. At least this is the most balanced game in terms of class balance and attention from devs to community i ever seen and heard.

 

Why do your last two posts and the combination "DOTA" not at all surprise me?

 

This is not a MOBA environment, and this game is not a quick match MMO. Every MMORPG out there has inbetween 5-15 minutes of queue time, depending on peak hours.

[helpmewin]

Why do your last two posts and the combination "DOTA" not at all surprise me?

 

This is not a MOBA environment, and this game is not a quick match MMO. Every MMORPG out there has inbetween 5-15 minutes of queue time, depending on peak hours.

 

SWTOR is not MMORPG anymore, thats why peoples leave. 10-20 min in peak time to play in 80% situations with the same guys without matchmaking, maps to choose and terrible class balance? No, sry, just tired.

Edited March 15, 2016 by helpmewin

[IanArgent]

Geez - I play on JC, and when I'm in the mood to put a couple matches towards 4X, I enter the queue, go do something else, and bam, within a few minutes at East Coast evening times, I'm in a match. It might take as long as 10 minutes when it's slow. Since I'm generally playing Pub, I get run over by imp premades, but PvP is hopping on JC by those standards

[robertthebard]

I find myself wondering how many of these players that sincerely believe a 10 minute wait is too long have ever actually played another MMO where they had to queue for a group. I remember in Rappelz, where there was no group finder, so you spammed Whole chat to find players, that it could take an hour to fill a 6 man group, and then you hoped they'd all stick around for more than a single SS, a method of maintaining increased xp, so that you could actually do something that day. If you got lucky, and spent 4 - 5 hours actually grinding a dungeon, you might get 1% of the xp you needed to level. If that first group got attacked by other players looking for your spot, PvP was not consensual, but did require one or the other to be flagged, then you may not even get the first hour done and may waste that SS, an hour long buff, trying to reform the group, even if you won.

 

People talking about 10 minutes is amusing, in the extreme, compared to some of the things I've seen happen in other MMOs.

[Alssaran]

SWTOR is not MMORPG anymore, thats why peoples leave.

 

First: It is still an MMORPG. Otherwise I cannot explain how I ran operations this past week and play the GTN for the past month. Whether you like the way SWTOR is going or not changes little about the fact that it - still - is an MMORPG. I dislike the absence of new operations, but that doesn't mean that I need to discredit SWTOR. It might not be an MMORPG anymore, but it still is a MORPG. That is not a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

 

Second: Do you have any evidence of all those "people" leaving? Do you have any evidence that is not subjective which would indicate that indeed many veterans have left the game, and not just the people from the "fresh expansion rush"?

[Thoronmir]

I find myself wondering how many of these players that sincerely believe a 10 minute wait is too long have ever actually played another MMO where they had to queue for a group. I remember in Rappelz, where there was no group finder, so you spammed Whole chat to find players, that it could take an hour to fill a 6 man group, and then you hoped they'd all stick around for more than a single SS, a method of maintaining increased xp, so that you could actually do something that day. If you got lucky, and spent 4 - 5 hours actually grinding a dungeon, you might get 1% of the xp you needed to level. If that first group got attacked by other players looking for your spot, PvP was not consensual, but did require one or the other to be flagged, then you may not even get the first hour done and may waste that SS, an hour long buff, trying to reform the group, even if you won.

 

People talking about 10 minutes is amusing, in the extreme, compared to some of the things I've seen happen in other MMOs.

Oh, Bob. I could tell you such tales of FFXI in the way back then, in the long, long ago. Before Sony changed things, a popular strategy for stealing a group's camp was to intentionally pull a group of mobs through their area. Once the puller was far enough away, the mobs would stop chasing and return to their original spot ... passing right through the group's camp, where the mobs would aggro the group.

 

Some of the XPing spots were narrow ... and very popular. I remember grinding away in a long, lizard-filled cave. It became common practice for players to effectively yell (i.e., using region chat), "Look out, incoming!" when someone was pulling a horde of mobs through the tunnels. At that point, survival hinged on our ability to hide until the big baddies returned to their spots.

 

Much of what I dislike about MMOs was educated by my time in FFXI.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Thoronmir

[helpmewin]

First: It is still an MMORPG. Otherwise I cannot explain how I ran operations this past week and play the GTN for the past month. Whether you like the way SWTOR is going or not changes little about the fact that it - still - is an MMORPG. I dislike the absence of new operations, but that doesn't mean that I need to discredit SWTOR. It might not be an MMORPG anymore, but it still is a MORPG. That is not a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

 

Second: Do you have any evidence of all those "people" leaving? Do you have any evidence that is not subjective which would indicate that indeed many veterans have left the game, and not just the people from the "fresh expansion rush"?

 

Gl to u then. I playing this game since release with few long breaks. Almost everyone with who i've ever played a long time leave. Its a ton of players. Yes a lot of old players quit. My friend list on may main shadow is "no one online" with 160+ friends(mains mostly). Every PvP guild where i've been dead, coz every one leave this game.

Edited March 15, 2016 by helpmewin

[TUXs]

Gl to u then. I playing this game since release with few long breaks. Almost everyone with who i've ever played a long time leave. Its a ton of players. Yes a lot of old players quit. My friend list on may main shadow is "no one online" with 160+ friends(mains mostly). Every PvP guild where i've been dead, coz every one leave.

You're absolutely right. The people denying the games collapsing population wouldn't be swayed if Bioware came out and made the statement themselves.

 

The game is stagnant and losing players. We need Bioware to take notice and act quickly.

[helpmewin]

You're absolutely right. The people denying the games collapsing population wouldn't be swayed if Bioware came out and made the statement themselves.

 

The game is stagnant and losing players. We need Bioware to take notice and act quickly.

 

This starts not only with KOTFe, its starts with 3.0 for PvP mostly. But when KOTFe comes out, peoples play 1 month and just leave. Said - this game is dead or more rude words. Mostly because population was ruined - like a domino effect then leave others.

Edited March 15, 2016 by helpmewin

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Last year this time Harbringer was heavy at peak times. Now it hits standard quickly during peak and then goes back to light for the rest of the time.

 

No its not even close to last years numbers.

 

Post up the link ... I seem to have issue getting the proper torstatus data from work.

[Darklighter]

You're absolutely right. The people denying the games collapsing population wouldn't be swayed if Bioware came out and made the statement themselves.

 

The game is stagnant and losing players. We need Bioware to take notice and act quickly.

 

I have zero faith the current dev team can fix this game in any fashion. They'll just ride this sinking ship to the very end, and be stunned when they hit bottom.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I couldn't say whether the game is succeeding or drifting into oblivion. However, I do know that my own personal satisfaction with the game comes at a cost of lowering expectations.

 

So long as I don't expect very much, I can be satisfied and continue to play.

 

I don't expect upcoming chapters to be lengthy or sophisticated.

I don't expect any significant replay value in KotFE.

I don't expect new group content of any kind whatsoever in the near future.

I don't expect the additional content (such as TEC) to be released on time or in a working state.

 

At the moment, I've actually had more fun replaying the original 8 class storylines (vanilla game) on a new server without my established legacy. It's been over 3 years since I've seen most of the class stories, and I figured I'd give it another go.

 

Plus I've been having fun running GF flashpoints while leveling -- I've yet to encounter a single one I couldn't complete, even on lowbie toons with classes I'm not very good at.

 

So there's that.

 

But 4.0 all on it's lonesome? Doesn't really do it for me.

 

Such dedication is quote admirable with the option of just going elsewhere to play something completely new.

[Max_Killjoy]

You're absolutely right. The people denying the games collapsing population wouldn't be swayed if Bioware came out and made the statement themselves.

 

The game is stagnant and losing players. We need Bioware to take notice and act quickly.

 

In contrast, I don't find the game stagnant, but that's a subjective issue.

 

If the game is losing players, then that's an objective issue -- I wish we had a way to know that's clear-cut and not muddied by issues like changes in where players spend their time, changes in server capacity, and shifts in various segments of the game like PvP or Ops.

 

If Bioware stating putting out sub numbers, weekly or daily unique account login numbers, etc... or better yet there was somehow an objective third-party set of metrics... then no, I would not deny whatever those number show.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Max_Killjoy

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I don't believe that at all. I believe there's no desire for it, but there's surely no lack of $.

 

Agreed so the question becomes ... why is there no desire?

 

I often wonder how much technology plays a part in the decision making in that they may truly believe this game has less and less long term viability due to technology limits of the engine and how dated graphics are going to become.

 

Already we are hitting a peak now where anytime they try get a little bit more out of the game it's to the detriment of a lot of players who are just finding they cannot play anymore with viable FPS.

The minimum specs come across as utter crap now and really aren't realistic at all if you wanted to actually play the whole game including OPs and WZs.

 

They even went as far as to bury the complaints about this ( the help section basically ) on the EA help forums ( or whatever you call it ) to get it out of the main forum spotlight. That's probably not really the main reason and more likely to do with staff cuts/cost cutting but still heh.

A trip over there will show you a ton of people having major issues with performance and it the amount of people seems to constantly grow.

 

Now I think it's given that there will be a star wars MMO ( or hybrid ) to replace this at some stage, I don't see EA leaving a big gap in that market. The question we can't answer is when and as we see less and less money being pushed into this game it doesn't seem that far out of the bounds of reality that a replacement is that far off.

 

Basically the end of KoTFE "season 1" will tell the story of the next year for this game and if there could be anything new on the horizon... what will be announced content wise that is.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

You're absolutely right. The people denying the games collapsing population wouldn't be swayed if Bioware came out and made the statement themselves.

 

The game is stagnant and losing players. We need Bioware to take notice and act quickly.

 

The other point with people denying this is I wonder how many of them do content that doesn't rely on playing with other people.

 

They aren't affected at all by such players leaving as they play on their own ... it's only their issue once the players leaving reaches a critical mass and that is the end of that and this game.

 

It's not hard to reach either ... no new PVE end game content drives away the players by now who just can't stomach the old content any longer ( already 5 months since KoTFE and nothing even announced to cater to them as opposed to being released ).

 

The PVP community are at least getting new content but they've been ignored for so long and the balance issues are such an ongoing issue for them is there even that much of a PVP community left? Do they really think this new mode and map will attract players back who have probably found other games that suit them much better after ideally being forced out of this game by lack of PVP content and attention?

 

Then you've got your casual players who KoTFE might have attracted or attracted back only to find each chapter they are waiting for is hopelessly small so there too is another portion of the paying community being driven away.

 

Another key point of not keeping people subbed is they can always come back to get everything they've missed at a later time for much less money. Of course by the time this happens the revenue may drop so low that EA gives BW the bad news and it's too late.

 

Who is left? Die hard, "be there and done it all" players who many admit would stay subbed almost regardless of what happens and are happy to repeat things over and over because they strangely enough enjoy doing so and also the, new players who haven't done it all and are of course having a great experience.

 

I just can't see those 2 groups being enough to sustain this game long term ...

Is this going to be enough to warrant future

[MadCuzBad]

The other point with people denying this is I wonder how many of them do content that doesn't rely on playing with other people.

 

They aren't affected at all by such players leaving as they play on their own ... it's only their issue once the players leaving reaches a critical mass and that is the end of that and this game.

 

The PVP community are at least getting new content but they've been ignored for so long and the balance issues are such an ongoing issue for them is there even that much of a PVP community left? Do they really think this new mode and map will attract players back who have probably found other games that suit them much better after ideally being forced out of this game by lack of PVP content and attention?

 

It has been my experience that when the PVP gets slow, it becomes a snowball effect on a servers population. Whether or not you like PVP, when the PVP dies off, the entire server goes boooooooom.

[IslanderRebel]

just recently, we had Battlefront and Fallout 4 take a lot of players away and now we have The Division.

Zakuul still has people running around like chickens with no head doing Chapter 10 in Breaktown and in the Swamp doing Chapter 11.

I see a few farmers for achy and bio in the swamp and slicing nodes in breaktown but not the same amount since the nerf bat took over.

yavin 4 looked normal to me.

Odessen still has people asking for groups to do the Heroic SFs but nothing outrageous as far as the number of requests, please go.

But as far as population goes, I can't recall harby being "Heavy" in prime time at all recently.

without new content, balance changes, sooner or later, friends or no friends, people will disappear into the night.

[robertthebard]

The other point with people denying this is I wonder how many of them do content that doesn't rely on playing with other people.

 

They aren't affected at all by such players leaving as they play on their own ... it's only their issue once the players leaving reaches a critical mass and that is the end of that and this game.

 

It's not hard to reach either ... no new PVE end game content drives away the players by now who just can't stomach the old content any longer ( already 5 months since KoTFE and nothing even announced to cater to them as opposed to being released ).

 

The PVP community are at least getting new content but they've been ignored for so long and the balance issues are such an ongoing issue for them is there even that much of a PVP community left? Do they really think this new mode and map will attract players back who have probably found other games that suit them much better after ideally being forced out of this game by lack of PVP content and attention?

 

Then you've got your casual players who KoTFE might have attracted or attracted back only to find each chapter they are waiting for is hopelessly small so there too is another portion of the paying community being driven away.

 

Another key point of not keeping people subbed is they can always come back to get everything they've missed at a later time for much less money. Of course by the time this happens the revenue may drop so low that EA gives BW the bad news and it's too late.

 

Who is left? Die hard, "be there and done it all" players who many admit would stay subbed almost regardless of what happens and are happy to repeat things over and over because they strangely enough enjoy doing so and also the, new players who haven't done it all and are of course having a great experience.

 

I just can't see those 2 groups being enough to sustain this game long term ...

Is this going to be enough to warrant future

 

You know, reading this post, I can't help but believe that this is your first MMO. Let's point out the things that make me believe this:

 

Your first group in the "Who is left?" paragraph above. You have effectively described 90% of all people that play MMOs. This delusion that somewhere out there is an MMO that's releasing content often enough that people don't burn out on it is just that, a delusion. It doesn't happen. In fact, if you start combing MMO's gen discussion forums, you'll likely find a couple of threads just like this one, and worse, last nail in the coffin threads. They happen, and they happen a lot, and frankly, they start happening in Beta for a lot of games "because they're not enough like WoW", which ironically turns into "they're too much like WoW". Any kind of experience outside of this MMO would demonstrate that quite clearly, and, in fact can be observed through the history of this forum as well. I wonder, how many of these threads have you actually posted in?

 

The fact that you don't seem to understand the nomadic nature of a lot of MMO players, who come in, play the latest content, come to the forums and complain about nothing to do, then move on to the next MMO on their list, sometimes even overlapping with other players that do the same thing. This isn't unique to here, or even new. It used to happen to me in a NWN server that I worked on, and one that I made. I'd announce new content, get an influx for a few days to a week, get some posts on our forum, and then poof, back to whatever the pop was prior to the release, give or take a few players. It was an easy thing to observe on my server, it was small, deliberately, a low magic world where munchkins weren't catered to. Welcome to the wonderful world of online gaming, these trends have been going on for years.

 

These activity spikes don't concern me because I've seen them all too often. Hey, sometimes people don't come back. Sometimes they do, and bring others with them, and then there's the new people you listed above. None of this is unusual, trying to claim otherwise demonstrates a lack of understanding of the way these things really work. All of these games "suffer" from these trends, not just here. I'd imagine, however, that a lot of the "real" PvPers have left, since PvP carries so much relevance to the main game. What is it that it adds that compels "real" PvPers to stay? PvE mounts? The one chance they had to make it totally relevant was blown with the way Conquest is handled. I'd much rather square off against a guild that already owns a planet for control than watch people craft their way to the top, or PvE enough guards...

 

I'd also imagine that a lot of the hardcore raiders are elsewhere, at least until we get something new to bring them in. However, most of them have been gone. Some probably from the time they learned that nothing was on the table for a while. They may or may not come back when something else comes along. The point being; I fully realize that the population fluctuates a lot. I realize that it's probably lower now than it was. The difference is, I'm not seeing the doom and gloom. The reason has been stated, but I'll repeat it here: MMOs attract a large number of nomadic players that will come in, devour the latest content and move on. It's been going on since online gaming became a thing, and it will continue to go on until someone invents tech that allows devs to simply think of something to do and it's built.

[Khevar]

Such dedication is quote admirable with the option of just going elsewhere to play something completely new.

Heh.

 

Well I have gone elsewhere for a while. I certainly haven't been playing this game full time for 4 years.

 

A friend was a fan of STO and convinced me to try it. I played it for a while, found the ground combat awkward, liked the space combat, made it to their version of "end game", had fun in their version of GF queues, and then my interest petered out. Haven't logged in for a while.

 

I caught up a number of single player games I was backlogged on.

 

I tried FFXIV, made it to level 30-ish. It's an interesting game, and the community seems surprisingly nice. At least, any time I've asked a question in game, on the official forums or the reddit forums I've had plenty of friendly and helpful answers. The NPC conversation interaction is quite jarring (after SWTOR) -- a mute PC seems to bother me these days.

 

However, their version of "appearance designer" doesn't kick in until level 50. Until then you generally have a truly weird set of gear choices. As I gear up (quest rewards), my toon bounces between looking like a stay-puft marshmallow wrapped in bamboo leaves, and an out-of-work prostitute. :/

 

I got a free copy of the The Division as a promotion with a new Logitech keyboard. Theoretically I could log in and see what the fuss is all about. Not sure why I haven't yet. Maybe soon?

 

What happened was I was feeling nostalgia about KOTOR, and followed instructions from WSGF to hack the screen resolution to play it full widescreen, along with a few mods with improved textures / skyboxes. Still quite dated, but I had fun. Then I did KOTOR 2 with TSR mod.

 

That rekindled a yearning for the vanilla class quests in TOR. Seeing as how I just replayed a 13-year old game for the Nth time, I figured I could stand running through a part of the game I hadn't seen in 3 years.

 

/shrug

Edited March 15, 2016 by Khevar

[TUXs]

The other point with people denying this is I wonder how many of them do content that doesn't rely on playing with other people.

 

They aren't affected at all by such players leaving as they play on their own ... it's only their issue once the players leaving reaches a critical mass and that is the end of that and this game.

I have often wondered this myself. I think it's clear that most of them are solo players - they state that much...but even a solo player should notice the decline in players unless they're completely isolated.

Agreed so the question becomes ... why is there no desire?

 

I often wonder how much technology plays a part in the decision making in that they may truly believe this game has less and less long term viability due to technology limits of the engine and how dated graphics are going to become.

 

Basically the end of KoTFE "season 1" will tell the story of the next year for this game and if there could be anything new on the horizon... what will be announced content wise that is.

Agreed. I have to believe it's an EA decision not to throw good money after bad. They've made their $ on SWTOR...and a helluva lot of it! At this point, I believe they're pocketing the revenue for current/future investments.

[TUXs]

It has been my experience that when the PVP gets slow, it becomes a snowball effect on a servers population. Whether or not you like PVP, when the PVP dies off, the entire server goes boooooooom.

I think most people here will disagree with you, but I am absolutely in agreement!!! I've never seen a full RP server and PvE servers are perfect for the more casual PvPers. PvP isn't about ego for most people, it's challenging end game content that isn't scripted or static and has no guides for it.