Game has died, Nowhere to go

[HuaRya]

Another Analogy:

The severs are like a dying local indoor shopping mall where the stores are slowly closing up one by one and the remaining foot traffic consists mostly of elderly people doing exercise laps. They don't shop, eat at the food court, or buy tickets at the movie theater. The elderly people are telling you the mall is fine for their needs and keep to keep it open.

Edited February 9, 2017 by HuaRya
grammar

[MaximumOwnage]

Another Analogy:

The severs are like a dying local indoor shopping mall where the stores are slowly closing up one by one and the remaining foot traffic consists mostly of elderly people doing exercise laps. They don't shop, eat at the food court, or buy tickets at the movie theater. The elderly people are telling you the mall is fine for their needs and keep to keep it open.

 

According to lordturin jedi covenant is just hopping with a thriving player base and queue pops are almost instant day and night. There is only a few hours a day when it is kinda slow. Hummmm someone here is horribly incorrect.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

The reverse is also true. If it's fine for one person, not another, they both have the right to their own opinions, and as long as they stay within the forum rules, they're both allowed to post those opposing views. He's not "pushing it", he's arguing it from his viewpoint. He may think it's misleading to say it's all fine because when he's online, it isn't...conversely, it may be just fine when the other guy is on...it's all subjective.

 

Saying a server is horrible isn't arguing anything, it's stating an opinion as though it were fact.

 

Also why the strawman? No one is saying anyone "isn't allowed" to do anything.

I'll assume though implying someone is a troll because they have no issue with a servers population might very well breach forum rules ... that's for Bioware to decide though of course, not you nor I.

Edited February 9, 2017 by MeNaCe-NZ

[MeNaCe-NZ]

. Saying JC is almost 24/7 PVP queue pops WHEN in reality unless your playing prime time your pretty much sitting in wait is just the height of absurdity.

 

He never said that, stop making things up.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

According to lordturin jedi covenant is just hopping with a thriving player base and queue pops are almost instant day and night. There is only a few hours a day when it is kinda slow. Hummmm someone here is horribly incorrect.

 

I'm sorry your experience differs from his. Perhaps try a different server?

[MaximumOwnage]

I'm sorry your experience differs from his. Perhaps try a different server?

 

Its just not true. I have PVP toons level 70 on JC and the queue pos stop after peak time. And even during peak time they are not that steady and fast. There are times during peak time that I waited over 10 minutes for a PVP pop. Sorry, waiting 10 minutes during peak time is unacceptable. And I am only talking about regs. Ranked PVP is almost non existent. So yes to answer your question it is just simply not true what was said about JC. It has been tried and tested by me.

 

Just last week I waited 30 minutes for a queue pop and never got a pop. I logged off and that is the last time I have been on JC. I have been playing JC for years and the population is lower now than I have seen it in the 2 years I have been there. That's not an experience, that's just the reality of it.

 

Between 90cc transfers absolutely crushing JCs population by entire guilds moving to Harbinger and this recent 5.0 mess, I am not shocked that I waited for 30 minutes in queue and never got one. JC was an incredible server to play on, but as of 5.0 it has slipped away into a bad state.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Its just not true. I have PVP toons level 70 on JC and the queue pos stop after peak time. And even during peak time they are not that steady and fast. There are times during peak time that I waited over 10 minutes for a PVP pop. Sorry, waiting 10 minutes during peak time is unacceptable. And I am only talking about regs. Ranked PVP is almost non existent.

 

Says you. Another user is having a different, more positive experience. There is no reason anyone should take your word over his.

 

So yes to answer your question it is just simply not true what was said about JC.

 

I never asked you if what the user said was true or not so not entirely sure how you can answer a question that was never asked. I suggested you go play on another server if your experiences on JC aren't satisfactory.

 

It has been tried and tested by me.

 

So totally subjective and probably bias then.

 

Just last week I waited 30 minutes for a queue pop and never got a pop. I logged off and that is the last time I have been on JC.

 

Maybe it's gotten better. You should try again.

 

I have been playing JC for years and the population is lower now than I have seen it in the 2 years I have been there. That's not an experience, that's just the reality of it.

 

I'm sure you have some statistics to support that statement right?

[AscendingSky]

For my part, I play on Ebon Hawk. I don't play every day, but I will play on both weekdays and weekends. Pops for operations are nonexistent (though a lot of that is because most people organize groups of 8 in Allies chat and queue together, to be fair). Flashpoints can take an hour or more to get a pop--not just for my filthy peasant DPS, but for my healer and tank characters as well. Outside of prime time, that turns into 2-3 hours. Tactical pops faster than HM, obviously, which means you're usually in a group of 4 DPS.

 

I don't queue for PvP every day. When I do, the pops are between 5-10 minutes during prime time, and maybe once or twice an hour outside of prime time. This goes up when PvP gets the CXP bonus, and back down again the next day. The only thing that seems to be popping more is GSF, since people are jumping into that both because of a daily CXP bonus as well as frustration from the nerfed bolster in PvP meaning people already not in 242 gear just get pasted and pad the kill counts of tier 3 premades. That used to be hard to get a pop for even during prime time, now I can usually get a 2-3 pops in an hour during prime time, and then one every hour or two outside of prime time.

 

The guild I was in when 4.0 hit was very active that October, but was dead by December/January as people completed the new content and quit. I moved my toons into a couple other guilds. All of them have seen shrinking numbers since 5.0 hit--even my RP guild, because even those players want something new to do sometimes and they're not getting it from TOR, and they have zero interest in grinding for hours and hours every day to try to get gear.

Edited February 10, 2017 by AscendingSky

[MaximumOwnage]

For my part, I play on Ebon Hawk. I don't play every day, but I will play on both weekdays and weekends. Pops for operations are nonexistent (though a lot of that is because most people organize groups of 8 in Allies chat and queue together, to be fair). Flashpoints can take an hour or more to get a pop--not just for my filthy peasant DPS, but for my healer and tank characters as well. Outside of prime time, that turns into 2-3 hours. Tactical pops faster than HM, obviously, which means you're usually in a group of 4 DPS.

 

I don't queue for PvP every day. When I do, the pops are between 5-10 minutes during prime time, and maybe once or twice an hour outside of prime time. This goes up when PvP gets the CXP bonus, and back down again the next day. The only thing that seems to be popping more is GSF, since people are jumping into that both because of a daily CXP bonus as well as frustration from the nerfed bolster in PvP meaning people already not in 242 gear just get pasted and pad the kill counts of tier 3 premades. That used to be hard to get a pop for even during prime time, now I can usually get a 2-3 pops in an hour during prime time, and then one every hour or two outside of prime time.

 

The guild I was in when 4.0 hit was very active that October, but was dead by December/January as people completed the new content and quit. I moved my toons into a couple other guilds. All of them have seen shrinking numbers since 5.0 hit--even my RP guild, because even those players want something new to do sometimes and they're not getting it from TOR, and they have zero interest in grinding for hours and hours every day to try to get gear.

 

Ebon Hawk right now is the second most populated NA server according to swtorstatics website. I moved 2 toons there recently to check out its ranked PVP and I found out there is none. I stood in queue 1 hour around 8pm EST while I ran some heroics.

 

I asked around the server to get a feel for what people are saying and your story is exactly the same as most of the people I talked to. They said the queue pops are getting longer and the guilds that most of them are in are becoming ghost town due to the release of 5.0.

 

I am sure once people start leaving that its a snowball effect causing more and more people to start transferring to Harbinger. Its a slippery slope once that trend takes hold of a server.

 

Why did they build this game without cross server queues? I don't understand how you build a game on a queue based grouping system and don't have it server to server capable. Why?

[IanArgent]

Why did they build this game without cross server queues? I don't understand how you build a game on a queue based grouping system and don't have it server to server capable. Why?

 

Because the game was designed in 2010 or so, with a "design doc" dating a couple of years prior to that? And because the people designing and implementing the game were amateurs. It's not the only boneheaded maneuver they pulled that we're still having to deal with. Using an engine with a constrained (read: nonexistent) upgrade path is another, and "closing" the class stories is yet another.

[AscendingSky]

Ebon Hawk right now is the second most populated NA server according to swtorstatics website. I moved 2 toons there recently to check out its ranked PVP and I found out there is none. I stood in queue 1 hour around 8pm EST while I ran some heroics.

 

I asked around the server to get a feel for what people are saying and your story is exactly the same as most of the people I talked to. They said the queue pops are getting longer and the guilds that most of them are in are becoming ghost town due to the release of 5.0.

 

I am sure once people start leaving that its a snowball effect causing more and more people to start transferring to Harbinger. Its a slippery slope once that trend takes hold of a server.

 

Why did they build this game without cross server queues? I don't understand how you build a game on a queue based grouping system and don't have it server to server capable. Why?

 

To be fair, I've never queued for ranked PvP (I don't think I'm good enough to be anything but a liability to a team), just regs. I would imagine ranked PvP would indeed pop a lot less. I see people in the PvP and Allies channels begging for more people to queue for ranked all the time.

 

I also personally know of at least three raid focused guilds who transferred wholesale to Harbinger, guilds full of people I used to raid with on teams and backfills. They did it because it's the most populated server, and with the decline of Ebon Hawk it was getting very difficult to find PvEers competent enough to run HM and NiM raids like they wanted.

 

I have been playing this game for five years straight. I have the Founder title. My subscription has never stopped--I got the ugly decoration statue and everything. I started on the Lord Adraas server, which was then merged into Ebon Hawk in the 1.0 days. I think I can say with a great deal of credibility, with all that experience behind me, that this is by far the lowest and least active population I have ever seen on Ebon Hawk--the longest queue times, the most dead guilds, the largest amount of my former friends and guildmates I met through the game that have stopped playing entirely.

 

4.0 did cause a surge of activity for a few months, but then petered out quickly around December. That's when the guild I was GM of at the time died completely. 5.0's surge was much smaller, only lasted for about a week (so people could complete the 9 short new chapters), and then it immediately went into a tailspin. Most of the people I know who have left since 5.0 dropped have cited a lack of new group content worth doing (PvP and PvE both), and the trainwreck that is Galactic Command.

 

This is the damage that Ben Irving has wrought. I hope he's ashamed of himself for it, both for how terribly wrong he was, and in his sheer hubris in not admitting he was wrong and reverting back to the prior system that actually worked and no one asked to change.

Edited February 10, 2017 by AscendingSky

[jedcjedcjedc]

What? JC is horrible. And all I do is PVP only. I have no idea what you are using for measuring fine, but outside of a few hours of prime time there are little to no queue pops for PVP. Do you only play at exactly the 2 hours of prime time every time you play? Because a lot of us play at all different times of the day. And JC is an absolute disaster. Worse then I have ever seen it and I have had toons there for several years.

 

I do just pvp as well, I got 110+ ranks from pvp (before this event) and several t3 (meaning the t1 and t2 pieces as well) from doing pvp so I can tell you, it pops just fine at the very least, for 70's.

Edited February 10, 2017 by jedcjedcjedc

[HuaRya]

This is the damage that Ben Irving has wrought. I hope he's ashamed of himself for it, both for how terribly wrong he was, and in his sheer hubris in not admitting he was wrong and reverting back to the prior system that actually worked and no one asked to change.

 

Doubt that for Ben. He probably plays more golf these days as there are less people to manage at EAware Austin. Server consolidations based on active players should've been adjusted before we as players really noticed it impacting the gameplay. I've moved all but a couple of my original toons to Harbinger. From the frequent pops they already have triple the CXP levels the others do mainly to non stop pops.

[MaximumOwnage]

Doubt that for Ben. He probably plays more golf these days as there are less people to manage at EAware Austin. Server consolidations based on active players should've been adjusted before we as players really noticed it impacting the gameplay. I've moved all but a couple of my original toons to Harbinger. From the frequent pops they already have triple the CXP levels the others do mainly to non stop pops.

 

But why is it our responsibility to consolidate servers? Isnt that the job of the development crew to do? Or is it the 90CC each toon they are after?

[PlasmaJohn]

Ebon Hawk right now is the second most populated NA server according to swtorstatics website.

Do you mean TOR Status? Gotta be careful with drawing conclusions.

 

TOR Status reports the population density relative to each server's capacity and each server has a different capacity. While JC has a lower density, since it's a higher capacity server than EH it may have more people playing there.

[AscendingSky]

But why is it our responsibility to consolidate servers? Isnt that the job of the development crew to do? Or is it the 90CC each toon they are after?

 

That, and if we transfer on our own, they don't have to figure out how to get servers to merge and transfer things like guilds and whatnot. If they force people to move to another server, and people end up losing guilds, strongholds, etc. in the process, they'd face even MORE backlash and bad press beyond what they've already received for the trainwreck that is GC. Letting people voluntarily transfer on their own puts the responsibility for the losses on the player, not EAWare, so they get to dodge that bullet by being manipulative.

Edited February 10, 2017 by AscendingSky

[sethdil]

Just last week I waited 30 minutes for a queue pop and never got a pop. I logged off and that is the last time I have been on JC. I have been playing JC for years and the population is lower now than I have seen it in the 2 years I have been there. That's not an experience, that's just the reality of it.

 

Between 90cc transfers absolutely crushing JCs population by entire guilds moving to Harbinger and this recent 5.0 mess, I am not shocked that I waited for 30 minutes in queue and never got one. JC was an incredible server to play on, but as of 5.0 it has slipped away into a bad state.

 

Yea I just logged in, I remember the good old days where you could get an Ops group together or raid with the guild but seems like the game is truly on deaths door. Over the past month I have logged in and out spending far less time with each passing login due to low population on JC. I finally just canceled my sub after sitting around 20 minutes and seeing mostly silence on fleet. The game just honestly needs to give it up.

[Genada]

This game came out with the hopes of being a mainstream mmo that would compete against WoW. Star Wars was a big selling point but it was suppose to go further then that reaching a broader audience.

 

Today it's nothing more then a niche mmo that survives off of it being Star Wars.

 

They need to merge servers, consolidation of the playerbase should be something they should focus on. It helps improve the overall enjoyment for the playerbase they have left.

[Khaleg]

This game came out with the hopes of being a mainstream mmo that would compete against WoW. Star Wars was a big selling point but it was suppose to go further then that reaching a broader audience.

 

Today it's nothing more then a niche mmo that survives off of it being Star Wars.

 

They need to merge servers, consolidation of the playerbase should be something they should focus on. It helps improve the overall enjoyment for the playerbase they have left.

 

I strongly believe it really had that potential BUT it was given into the hands of a totally incompetent company, at least mmorpg wise but probably beyond that genre and just plain incompetence and lack of any foresight.

 

It all started with the unmatched stupidity and ignorance to release it on a modified BETA Hero engine with no manufacturer support and updates/upgrades, and modifying it, then afterwards not even holding those who modified it within the company or at least their know how, ending up today with a totally outdated engine and not even a clue about that one inside the company left - >> no bug fixing, no life savers like X server and so on...

Imho that is fail by design from start. Fail®, a trademark by Bioware.

Edited February 11, 2017 by Khaleg

[HuaRya]

I strongly believe it really had that potential BUT it was given into the hands of a totally incompetent company, at least mmorpg wise but probably beyond that genre and just plain incompetence and lack of any foresight.

 

Seems like a no brainer to keep a swtor themepark mmo going:

 

1. Create new 4-8-16 man group content

2. Create new planets for dailies

3. Create new events or at the very least add new items to the recycling events vendors

4. Instead of blending the pubs and the imps, introduce a 3rd faction with a new playable race

5. Don't abandon single boss operations like TC or Ziost make sure they offer unique rewards

6. Create side games like pazaak and swoop seen in the original KOTOR

 

Instead we have

1. Create more cartel packs

2. Create an RPG all in one story expansion in a planet of all plain white humans that doesn't resemble Star Wars

[MaximumOwnage]

Seems like a no brainer to keep a swtor themepark mmo going:

 

1. Create new 4-8-16 man group content

2. Create new planets for dailies

3. Create new events or at the very least add new items to the recycling events vendors

4. Instead of blending the pubs and the imps, introduce a 3rd faction with a new playable race

5. Don't abandon single boss operations like TC or Ziost make sure they offer unique rewards

6. Create side games like pazaak and swoop seen in the original KOTOR

 

Instead we have

1. Create more cartel packs

2. Create an RPG all in one story expansion in a planet of all plain white humans that doesn't resemble Star Wars

 

Those are all awesome concepts. But in the meanwhile, why wont they fix the return rate on this horrible gearing system. The ranked queue pops on Harbinger have slowed to almost a crawl during peak time. This gearing system has really taken its toll on this game.

[MaximumOwnage]

BTW, who is going to be the 3000th post on this epic thread?

[americanaussie]

Those are all awesome concepts. But in the meanwhile, why wont they fix the return rate on this horrible gearing system. The ranked queue pops on Harbinger have slowed to almost a crawl during peak time. This gearing system has really taken its toll on this game.

 

I know we had some cheats on harby. If you go to regs it's popping quickly. At times instantaneous but the most I've had to wait...late late aussie time. 5/6am lax time is probably 3 or 4 mins.

[americanaussie]

Yea I just logged in, I remember the good old days where you could get an Ops group together or raid with the guild but seems like the game is truly on deaths door. Over the past month I have logged in and out spending far less time with each passing login due to low population on JC. I finally just canceled my sub after sitting around 20 minutes and seeing mostly silence on fleet. The game just honestly needs to give it up.

 

Yeah ok...so just because people may have transferred off your server like they did from bastion and to harbinger doesn't mean the game is dead. It means people transferred. This is why I think they didn't want to offer discounted transfers. People use them makin quiet servers even more so. My guilds on bastion left for harbinger. I found them there. So feel free to ubsub if you refuse to utilise your 600 a month cc on a 90 cc transfer. Ops groups were filling fast last night on harb. I messaged someone within 2 or 3 min and they were full up by then.

 

So it's not dead. You just refuse to transfer so you can complain it is.

[BJWyler]

I strongly believe it really had that potential BUT it was given into the hands of a totally incompetent company, at least mmorpg wise but probably beyond that genre and just plain incompetence and lack of any foresight.

 

It all started with the unmatched stupidity and ignorance to release it on a modified BETA Hero engine with no manufacturer support and updates/upgrades, and modifying it, then afterwards not even holding those who modified it within the company or at least their know how, ending up today with a totally outdated engine and not even a clue about that one inside the company left - >> no bug fixing, no life savers like X server and so on...

Imho that is fail by design from start. Fail®, a trademark by Bioware.

 

I wouldn't say incompetent, but inexperienced. TBH, I think the makers of the Hero engine are partly to blame as well - I am sure they overpromised what the engine was actually capable of doing. Couple that with the fact that BW didn't really know how to manage and maintain an MMO - two things that are just as important as the initial development (and something that they continue to show that lack the ability to do), and its a recipe for the mess we have now.

 

BTW, who is going to be the 3000th post on this epic thread?

 

Why that would be me!

 

Yeah ok...so just because people may have transferred off your server like they did from bastion and to harbinger doesn't mean the game is dead. It means people transferred. This is why I think they didn't want to offer discounted transfers. People use them makin quiet servers even more so. My guilds on bastion left for harbinger. I found them there. So feel free to ubsub if you refuse to utilise your 600 a month cc on a 90 cc transfer. Ops groups were filling fast last night on harb. I messaged someone within 2 or 3 min and they were full up by then.

 

So it's not dead. You just refuse to transfer so you can complain it is.

Unfortunately it is more complicated than a simple Dead/Not Dead way of looking at things. Is the game "Dead"? No, it's not, but there is absolutely no denying that there are too many servers that are "dead" in terms of having an MMO type multi-player experience. The game may not be dead, but neither is it in a healthy state, and it hasn't been since the year it went F2P.

 

For what SWTOR is, and what it offers right now, there should be no discussion on this subject. However, the fact that a great many people feel that they are not receiving the MMO experience that they think they should be having is a genuine problem and a reflection on the poor management of the game up to this point.

Edited February 13, 2017 by BJWyler