Game has died, Nowhere to go

[dr_mike]

Which ones are still here who threatened to quit exactly?

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=882083

[Shwarzchild]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=882083

 

I don't know how many people, but the total would have to be more than just me I would assume, are going to leave sooner rather than later. There are probably a lot like me who have hit the unsub button and are just letting the string of our sub time play out. There are probably a lot like me who are waiting for this next live stream to decide if they end up resubscribing or just flat out leaving or going free to play. For me these last two "expansions" have been awful in the sense that I don't feel they are worth my subscription money. Too many companions with no "soul". Too much story that feels disconnected from the swtor world. Too much reliance on old content when they should be building onto those content categories instead of building completely new forms of content (i.e ignore flashpoints, pvp, operations in favor of creating things like uprisings instead). The next live stream is a huge event for me at least as it relates to my subscription. Simply put, I will not support this game with it's current direction. It's just not worth it.

[Narrowsws]

The game has always had immense potential. But, at what point does potential stop being the word we use? The game is 5 years old. We're getting into the territory of wasted potential at this point it would seem.

 

The game has definitely been negatively impacted by 5.0, and 4.0 before it. These two cycles have absolutely hurt the game. I wouldn't say it's dying. But, I would say they're in a really tough position that's entirely self inflicted.

 

I'm just returning after I was gone for quite a bit. I left right before the Chapter "anarchy" I don't know honestly what is in game, 4.0? or 5.0? that's so bad. If you could kindly informed me. Honestly, I'm more interested in the story and PVP, then I am with any end game raiding.

 

I like how the chapters are set up. You don't need a group to go with. It just improved since it released. It shouldn't ever have released that buggy in the first place. With the choices. It's more fun then more active MMO, it gives you something to do.

[TUXs]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=882083

 

HA!!!! OMG...I did not expect THAT lol! God I love the irony!!!

[HelinCarnate]

Also madcuzbad keeps posting. He is not playing the game yet he pays a sub just so he can complain about a game he is not playing. Sorry but money talks louder than words.

 

Side note. They should just compile all the threads about this subject from the last 5 years and make one giant thread thousands of pages long.

Edited January 13, 2017 by HelinCarnate

[Troelsen]

Side note. They should just compile all the threads about this subject from the last 5 years and make one giant thread thousands of pages long.

Thousands of pages worth of complaints in one easy-to-see location. That'll be great for publicity.

[HelinCarnate]

Thousands of pages worth of complaints in one easy-to-see location. That'll be great for publicity.

 

Thousands of pages over 5 years saying the game is dying. Yet here we are.

[Troelsen]

Thousands of pages over 5 years saying the game is dying. Yet here we are.

because sub count has only been increasing over those 5 years?

[Sardorim]

because sub count has only been increasing over those 5 years?

 

I would say it has been mostly consistent after the initial hype and f2p launch.

[Troelsen]

I don't want it to die, but I wouldn't say it's in a great place. If this is consistent, then it will die after non-subscription benefactors don't feel like it's worth the continued investment.

 

I find it ironic that this new RNG system was put in place seemingly to increase or sustain profits through retaining subs. It does this by luck-gating gear without providing any new content besides the solo story, which I believe is causing subs to bleed once they've completed the solo chapters. 15 bucks a month to grind the same content over and over just to pull a lever and bust.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Troelsen

[Talon_strikes]

Also madcuzbad keeps posting. He is not playing the game yet he pays a sub just so he can complain about a game he is not playing. Sorry but money talks louder than words.

 

Side note. They should just compile all the threads about this subject from the last 5 years and make one giant thread thousands of pages long.

How do you know that? Even if what you say it's true, it's his sub money and he can use his sub time any way he wants. If he wants to be critical he has every right to be. As a subscriber you are entitled to use the forums and leave feedback as you wish.

[MadCuzBad]

How do you know that? Even if what you say it's true, it's his sub money and he can use his sub time any way he wants. If he wants to be critical he has every right to be. As a subscriber you are entitled to use the forums and leave feedback as you wish.

 

/Agree

 

And FYI I did install the game to run an independent study of all remaining NA servers. And so far the results are a lot worse than I thought they would be. I am more convinced of how badly this game needs server mergers than I ever have been. The server populations are in a terrible state and in need of immediate attention. This is going to go from bad to worse very rapidly if bioware doesn't step in and create a mega server or server merge everyone into one of the other servers.

 

I am in the process of doing a study on the EU servers right now. I will let you know what my findings are when complete but so far it also is not good at all. I honestly didn't know we were this far down the rabbit hole. I hope bioware has drastic plans made and just not telling us.

[MadCuzBad]

When I look up POT5 on TORstatus, it shows on the list, with light server load, and steady at that level for the last 60 days.

 

I don't think we're all using the same definition of "dead". I use the term quite literally, some use it to mean "population consistently too low to do group content", and some use it to mean "it's dead to me so it's just dead no matter what anyone else is experiencing, and you're a troll if you won't jump on my self-important rage-wagon."

 

When someone has been saying "this game is dead" for years now, and yet is still logging in and playing the game, and still paying their subscription fee in order to come here and rage-post again about how the game is "dead"... I can't take them seriously as anything other than a self-absorbed dudebro.

 

So dead means server offline? Because dead to me is POT5 where group content is impossible 24/7.

 

How anyone can define POT5 anything but dead is beyond understanding. That server has been dead for years, its nothing new. The newest news of dead servers is: Shadowlands, Jedi Covenent, Bergeren, and Ebon Hawk. Those 4 are following the same trend as POT5 and are in my definition of dead certainly dying and quickly.

 

I have been testing each of those servers for the last 10 days at peak times and off peak times. These servers are trending exactly how POT5 did. Don't forget people POT5 and Tomb of The Freedom Nodd were the heaviest servers on the game with queue times to even get into play them. I know the trend here and these 4 servers are being sucked dry of life as we speak. Whatever little bit of life is left in them is being sucked out by 90CC transfers to The Harbinger.

 

BTW side note. Who is going to be the 3000th reply to this thread? I am considering offering a 10 million credit reward on The Harbinger for the lucky one who hits number 3000.

[fatsi]

So dead means server offline? Because dead to me is POT5 where group content is impossible 24/7.

 

How anyone can define POT5 anything but dead is beyond understanding. That server has been dead for years, its nothing new. The newest news of dead servers is: Shadowlands, Jedi Covenent, Bergeren, and Ebon Hawk. Those 4 are following the same trend as POT5 and are in my definition of dead certainly dying and quickly.

 

I have been testing each of those servers for the last 10 days at peak times and off peak times. These servers are trending exactly how POT5 did. Don't forget people POT5 and Tomb of The Freedom Nodd were the heaviest servers on the game with queue times to even get into play them. I know the trend here and these 4 servers are being sucked dry of life as we speak. Whatever little bit of life is left in them is being sucked out by 90CC transfers to The Harbinger.

 

BTW side note. Who is going to be the 3000th reply to this thread? I am considering offering a 10 million credit reward on The Harbinger for the lucky one who hits number 3000.

Unfortunately, you are so right. With the handful of other ghost town servers remaining, we will probably be left only with the Harbinger after EAware finishes grabbing people's cash on their pockets with the character transfers.

[HuaRya]

Servers used to be consolidated at the pace of the games population. They must not have a viable work around for guildships fearing some guilds would lose all the decos they had. I'm sure there are a few other hangups keeping them from logically merging half and quarter half servers. The end result is people berating them on the forums who remember what the game was like around 2.0 and the managers telling them to create single mode content that kind of undermines the whole purpose of playing an MMO.

[Savej]

Servers used to be consolidated at the pace of the games population. They must not have a viable work around for guildships fearing some guilds would lose all the decos they had. I'm sure there are a few other hangups keeping them from logically merging half and quarter half servers. The end result is people berating them on the forums who remember what the game was like around 2.0 and the managers telling them to create single mode content that kind of undermines the whole purpose of playing an MMO.

 

I'm sure there are viable solutions for transferring guild ships and strongholds and legacy banks and persisting things like outfits; the original transfer system was designed before any of those things existed.

 

BW just has a tendency to move like molasses on some things. That original character transfer system? Wasn't available at the launch of the game. Why not? No one knows. Players were begging on their hands and knees for a system that let them pay BW $ to transfer characters off of dying servers. Instead many that didn't just quit the game were forced to restart legacies on other servers from scratch if they wanted to play with friends and/or other people (and many did: Fatman was packed, Jung Ma was on Heavy most of the time - most other servers were dead, tho). But BW lost a mint and they lost probably more subs than they have now because they didn't prioritize that system when it was needed. Same deal with merges in general, really.

 

The company repeats basic mistakes over and over. Other games know full well that megaservers or x-server are important - every other non-eastern mmo I know of has implemented them. BW definitely isn't the only game with things like guilds and player/guild homes and player/guild banks....

[MadCuzBad]

Players were begging on their hands and knees for a system that let them pay BW $ to transfer characters off of dying servers. Instead many that didn't just quit the game were forced to restart

 

The company repeats basic mistakes over and over. Other games know full well that megaservers or x-server are important - every other non-eastern mmo I know of has implemented them. BW definitely isn't the only game with things like guilds and player/guild homes and player/guild banks....

 

So true.

[MaximumOwnage]

I have played on Harbringer for 2 years now. I was forced to server transfer off of POT5 (PVP) server because it became a ghost town. 30 minute que times during peak time. After peak time (mornings and late evenings) no que pops at all.

At the time I had a choice. Goto a populated server with que pops and leave my current server. At the time and still is the most populated server TheHarbringer was really the best choice.

The past 3 to 4 weeks on Harbringer has been the longest que waits in the 2 years I have been playing here. And in the past month has been getting slower each week. I play everyday at the same times so I have my finger on the pulse of Harbringer and know it well.

 

TLDR: Harbringer is heading down the same road as POT5 and has an eroding population. Only difference is this time for me is that when Harbringer dies off (and it is rapidly heading that way) there is no "GO TO" server like there was in the past. Harbinger dies, where do people run to? As I see it, there is nowhere to run anymore. We have reached the end of the rope.

 

I'm hoping that if they fix this return ratio on these unassembled components and crates that this will turn around. POT5 back then sounds like Shadowlands and Jedi Covenant now. Every server besides Harbinger and Red Eclipse is suffering from group finder trouble. It seems that only if all the planets are aligned just right, and its the perfect time of the day and week that you might get some queues to happen. But outside of those certain and very specific windows your pretty much out of luck. POT5 all over again.

 

I hope the damage that 5.0 has done to this community will not be permanent. My hope is that they over compensate the returns for this gearing system and people will return to this game and play it again. My guild is empty over this issue. I hope they fix this soon and I hope the fix will work. I wish this mess never happened in the first place.

 

I am hopeful that this will get things heading in the right direction for both new and old players. I guess all we can do it wait. I know as for me, if they get the return ration back to what it was 4.0 I will be back to playing this game everyday like I used to prior to 5.0. I am sure I am not alone on this.

[Talon_strikes]

Thankfully 90cc discounted transfers are staying indefinitely. I wish the devs would add this news to the game's launcher so people can see where to go to transfer their characters off their dead servers. The vast majority don't visit the game's official website so they probably don't know they can transfer to one of the 2 populated servers.

 

I also honestly think this is their solution for this situation. Since people have paid for what really is their mistakes (unfortunately), this is the only option they're going to give us. Yeah, it's now discounted, but it should have stayed this way a long time ago, or more preferably giving FREE server transfers off dead or dying servers. The dead and dying servers are not going to pick back up like the devs said they would, unless the devs somehow start to release major batches of group content--end of story.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Talon_strikes

[MaximumOwnage]

Thankfully 90cc discounted transfers are staying indefinitely. I wish the devs would add this news to the game's launcher so people can see where to go to transfer their characters off their dead servers. The vast majority don't visit the game's official website so they probably don't know they can transfer to one of the 2 populated servers.

 

I also honestly think this is their solution for this situation. Since people have paid for what really is their mistakes (unfortunately), this is the only option they're going to give us. Yeah, it's now discounted, but it should have stayed this way a long time ago, or more preferably giving FREE server transfers off dead or dying servers. The dead and dying servers are not going to pick back up like the devs said they would, unless the devs somehow start to release major batches of group content--end of story.

 

I completely agree. Why are servers with no players on them left open for new people that do not know that to make toons on? I mean really for real?

[MaximumOwnage]

The truth sort of like this thread? 100% PVP Incredible Case Files Testable and Varifiable

 

That was a funny one, once people actually took your test and proved how utterly wrong and flawed our data was ( and how therefore unpopular PVP is ) you ran off with your tail between your legs without a comment to be heard.

 

I find it funny you can imply other posters are trolls after you made that thread.

 

So after that lovely "truth" excuse me and everyone else who thinks you're full of it if we .... think you're full of it.

 

I think that is a very accurate measurement. A lot more accurate than anything I have seen besides Bioware actually posting the numbers themselves (which they refuse to do) I wonder why.

 

Its an easy was to measure server health if you actually take the time and do it.

 

If you do this "test" you will find that Harbinger is significantly more active than any other server besides Red Eclipse. And it is not by a small margin. According to this measurement it is consistently 5 times more active than the other so called "healthy" servers IE shadowlands, jedi covenant, bergerean colony, and ebon hawk. Its not even close.

 

IMO if a server is not AT LEAST as active as Harbinger it should be shut down and merged immediately. I think an absolute bare minimum should be Harbingers population. With the current group finder queue system, a server with 2 or 3 times of what Harbinger is would be ideal.

[Andryah]

Thankfully 90cc discounted transfers are staying indefinitely. I wish the devs would add this news to the game's launcher so people can see where to go to transfer their characters off their dead servers. The vast majority don't visit the game's official website so they probably don't know they can transfer to one of the 2 populated servers.

 

{I suppose any player who has an actual interest on being on the biggest server in a region also won't bother to spend 10 minutes on google to research for their needs, before committing.}

 

{You could send a studio employee to every front door, who would tattoo the notice on the players forehead and give them a mirror, and there would still be players complaining that they don't know and it's the studios fault}.

 

Not to mention... todays biggest and badest sever could very well get abandoned in favor of another one later.. which does not help the player who made an informed choice either. Players choosing to move to different servers in MMOs has provoked stability havoc in every MMO I have ever played. It's always a two edged sword.

 

TL;DR there is no perfect way to inform and encourage players to make sound choices that fit their personal tastes and interests. There is also no "standard" profile for player tastes in terms of servers size and activity. In fact, it's impossible to stop players from making stupid decisions that are counter to their personal interests.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Andryah

[DanNV]

IMO if a server is not AT LEAST as active as Harbinger it should be shut down and merged immediately. I think an absolute bare minimum should be Harbingers population. With the current group finder queue system, a server with 2 or 3 times of what Harbinger is would be ideal.

 

At the rate they are going, they'll only need one NA server within a year, maybe a good bit less (like maybe even now if Harby's hardware is up to it.) Shadowlands is down in size to BC and BC has been stable at low pop for a couple years. Shadowlands is at the point BC was when I transferred off for SL.

 

0 days on my sub, so not my problem anymore, but BW really needs to do something concrete f they want the game to last.

[Khaleg]

Thankfully 90cc discounted transfers are staying indefinitely. I wish the devs would add this news to the game's launcher so people can see where to go to transfer their characters off their dead servers. The vast majority don't visit the game's official website so they probably don't know they can transfer to one of the 2 populated servers.

 

I also honestly think this is their solution for this situation. Since people have paid for what really is their mistakes (unfortunately), this is the only option they're going to give us. Yeah, it's now discounted, but it should have stayed this way a long time ago, or more preferably giving FREE server transfers off dead or dying servers. The dead and dying servers are not going to pick back up like the devs said they would, unless the devs somehow start to release major batches of group content--end of story.

 

90 cc transfers worsen the problem for guilds and stronghold owners, especially when fully extended. It's a typical incompetent "solution" made by Bioware. Anybody who can't see this should apply for a Bioware open position since they obviously employ mostly people with no oversight regarding action/reaction...

[RswanBing]

I completely agree. Why are servers with no players on them left open for new people that do not know that to make toons on? I mean really for real?

 

There's no logical reason, unless they just want people to pay for transfer.

 

My guess is that even at the price of 90CC, they make some benefit on transfers, if they don't, they're just insane, sometimes I'm really not sure.

 

I've asked many times what was the point of 3 different dying french servers, no one ever gave me any argument to defend bioware's position, neither the dev's, neither the customer service, they can't even give a logical reason.

 

They don't want to close anything because it would clearly show the game isn't in good shape or they just find a benefit in transfers. Maybe both, but they're clearly ignoring and minimizing this issue for so long now that it is obvious they don't care at all about players situations. Which, one more time, is no suprise from this team.