Is SWTOR Dying?

[IntegrationArch]

We can load Android emulator and fire up Galaxy of Heroes

 

They are really promoting it with so many adds and banners on any scifi video

Edited August 23, 2017 by IntegrationArch

[Slowpokeking]

LMAO, go look at the TOR status on time machine. Compare that to now. The game is not even close to doing well. The problem isn't summer. It's not the weather. It's really poor design decisions that they have compounded over time and doubled down on and then mistakes they seem determined to repeat. The game will last as long as EA wants it to. But it isn't going to mkee a huge money maker and when EA decides they don't want to pay for it anymore it'll go away.

 

To be fair, you have to consider about MMOs are going downhill overall and this game is already 5 and 1/2 years old, it could have done well with more resources since 3.0, but it did ok among MMOs.

[fushnchips]

To be fair, you have to consider about MMOs are going downhill overall and this game is already 5 and 1/2 years old, it could have done well with more resources since 3.0, but it did ok among MMOs.

 

Not all MMO's are going downwards FFXIV is a fine example of this not being the case the game is doing very well

[Slowpokeking]

Not all MMO's are going downwards FFXIV is a fine example of this not being the case the game is doing very well

 

Most of the MMOs are, especially the old style ones. SWTOR's WOW clone style was a bit old even upon its release. It was a bad mistake they've made.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Slowpokeking

[DWho]

Not all MMO's are going downwards FFXIV is a fine example of this not being the case the game is doing very well

 

Final Fantasy also was going downhill fast. It almost died because of bad design. That is why they redesigned the whole thing from the ground up on a new engine. A Realm Reborn as they say. If you put the kind of money they put into that game into any other MMO out there, they would be in a similar place. Having an major expansion released earlier in the year doesn't hurt either.

 

With the extra attention it is getting from its design staff as a result of almost killing it on launch, it is hardly a typical MMO

Edited August 23, 2017 by DWho

[Rabenschwinge]

I must say I am traditioinally not particularly concerned with the possibility of the game declining. I am not a regular player, I always play for a few months and then I am a few months off when I got enough of it. In my experience such impressions are highly subjective. One has the impression that the game was dying when the own peer group moves away from it.

 

However, what I found on The Progenitor after a time of absence was frighting, particularly on the Republic side. 40 people in the fleet during prime time, hardly 20 players on Coruscant, extremely low point totals for conquest on the score boards, galactic star fighter popping up no more twice over the entire sunday, even though I was virtually continuously in the queue, and then only a relatively small amount of players on either side. Veteran Uprisings hardly pop at all during a week day, even when uprisings are bonus:

 

Yesterday I was in the queue for a Veteran Mode Uprising and played through the Ilum event stuff, did the Yavin IV, CK-198 dailies and four of the Iokath dailies, the heroics on Hoth and Coruscant nothing popped. I deliberately did not rush it, killed a lot of mobs I didn't have to, played without companion whenever I could afford it, but nothing happened. No Uprising. Admittedly that was with a damage dealer, but in my experience, if there is a decent amount of players when usually gets a game within an hour or two. And that with a bonus on Uprisings!

 

It's a bit different for the Imperial side, but as far as the Republic side on The Progenitor is concerned, it feels like a club of leftovers. While it's obviously difficult to estimate I'd say that there typically weren't more than 100, maybe 150 people around on the entire republic side during prime (i.e. as far as average population of at least 10 minute intervals is concerned).

Edited August 23, 2017 by Rabenschwinge

[supertimtaf]

Actually when I mention QoL I mean the game as a whole. Not our a personal little things we enjoy about the game and yes "toon names" are a very small part of the game, whether you think they are some massive part of the game or not. Doing what is best for the game is more in important than your gosh darn character names. What good are your toon names when the game goes down? I would rather lose character names than the game itself. It's pure stupidity to think otherwise. I mean, "DarthSpuds" is that an example of your cherished amazing character names? Gee how amazing, your a genius with character names

 

Well, someone clearly don't know the trouble that it is on RP server about changing your name. Problem with this is, as similar in real life, somebody cannot change his name by a snap of fingers. I stopped playing on RP server since a moment, but I think if you deny them the right to keep their name, it's as if you were asking a raider to get rid of his pve reward, or a pvp player to get rid of his rating.

Like you said earlier, isn't the QoL of evryone more important than the QoL of one ? Furthermore, a character name is part of the identity someone has made in this game. I myself, along with many other people don't always want to lose things that allow people to know us in this game.

 

And furthermore, I think I suggested a solution in another topic about this problem.

The solution would be to link charater name to their account name. This way, everybody could have the name he want without the famous message «this name is already taken».

As for IG message, or whispers and else, you just have to make it like CharacterName#AccountName. This would prevent any mix up between peoples too.

[merovejec]

Its not dying and never will die, since its Star Wars, like it was said multiple times here before. The game can be crap as it gets, but ppl will still play it since its STAR WARS!!

[Rabenschwinge]

Its not dying and never will die, since its Star Wars, like it was said multiple times here before. The game can be crap as it gets, but ppl will still play it since its STAR WARS!!

 

I get your meaning, but the way you phrase it, you're falsified by empiric evidence: (from wikipedia)

Star Wars Galaxies was a Star Wars themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows, developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts.[1]

 

Released June 26, 2003, to much critical acclaim, it spawned three expansions through 2005. The game was completely overhauled in the last expansion, which frustrated many longtime subscribers.[2] Star Wars Galaxies continued operation for six more years.

 

The servers shut down on December 15, 2011.

... which was one or two weeks after SW:TOR came live. I don't remember the exact date, the game actually came live before its nominal release date, because of a so-called pre-order phase, which had absolutely no restrictions as to who could play. (You could still "pre-order" the game during the pre-order phase, meaning you could buy the game online, download and play instantly even if you hadn't heard of it ever before. For all means and purposes the "pre-order phase" was a full release and not to call it release a mere technicality. "Instantly" meaning you could log into the game after downloading, installing, and waiting about half an hour in the queue of several dozen server, which lacked the capacity to spawn several instances of large world zones then.)

 

The game will not be replaced as long as there are two pending Star Wars films, but after the Star Wars IX is out, I expect new projects to be unveiled.

 

It may a seasonal effect right now, but at the time being it's difficult to find people for things like GSF, master mode flashpoints, veteran uprisings. If this was to become even worse, many aspects of the game would hardly be playable anymore, and even though I love running around and doing simple stuff just for the sake of enjoying my character and the Star Wars environment, that does get dull very soon.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Rabenschwinge

[Andryah]

Not all MMO's are going downwards FFXIV is a fine example of this not being the case the game is doing very well

 

Like all MMOs.... even FFXIV will ebb and flow population over time.

 

FFXIV just happens to be a favored "go to" for those who have played out other MMOs right now. If there were brand new MMOs coming out.. they would be flocking to them instead and FFXIV would get dropped like stale bread too.

 

This is not a knock on FFXIV (though I personally do not like the game), it's just the nature of the MMO playerbase these days. FFXIV is certainly NOT the holy grail of MMOs.... it's just that it currently benefits from low release of new MMOs + nomads looking for something fresh to play after playing out their current "favorite" MMO.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Andryah

[TUXs]

The game will not be replaced as long as there are two pending Star Wars films, but after the Star Wars IX is out, I expect new projects to be unveiled.

 

It may a seasonal effect right now, but at the time being it's difficult to find people for things like GSF, master mode flashpoints, veteran uprisings. If this was to become even worse, many aspects of the game would hardly be playable anymore, and even though I love running around and doing simple stuff just for the sake of enjoying my character and the Star Wars environment, that does get dull very soon.

I wish I shared your optimism, but I don't. I am still confident that Visceral's new Star Wars game, set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, will be replacing this game. It won't be an "MMO", but it will be online and have MMO elements meant to attract our players, and a story to rival anything here. There's no other justification for the gutting in staff and funding that this game has undergone. EA likes to sell boxes, not subs. They can't do that with SWTOR.

[kodrac]

EA likes to sell boxes, not subs. They can't do that with SWTOR.

 

Then they should've gone with a B2P model instead of a F2P model.

[Qreck]

I've been playing on and off for a bunch of years now and I can say for sure the population is diminishing. Not really a surprise though since the game is so old. People just move on after a while. There's still enough people to play with on several servers like red eclipse.

[DarthSpuds]

A I mean, "DarthSpuds" is that an example of your cherished amazing character names? Gee how amazing, your a genius with character names

 

Nope, not one of my toons has that name, that is ONLY a forum name.

 

Nice attempt at trying to sound edgy and cool; shame it failed - totally.

 

All The Best

[VanguardOfDark]

Well I'am not sure what actually happened but maybe the players them selves start to think a little.

From monday not only trade on GTN slow down but also prices start to go down.

 

I sell on GTN freequently scavenged materials and seriously the quantity of buys are lesser then normally. So today I enter to check prices on some stuff and they are really much smaller. As example today I buyed Technographer Lightsaber for only 500k while in last week lower price was 2,5mln.

 

If this will go in this direction maybe slowly the economy of game will improove and more people will come back.

[fushnchips]

Final Fantasy also was going downhill fast. It almost died because of bad design. That is why they redesigned the whole thing from the ground up on a new engine. A Realm Reborn as they say. If you put the kind of money they put into that game into any other MMO out there, they would be in a similar place. Having an major expansion released earlier in the year doesn't hurt either.

 

With the extra attention it is getting from its design staff as a result of almost killing it on launch, it is hardly a typical MMO

 

You should watch the 3 part doco on Youtube about FFXIV and the redesign it's really good I would love SWTOR to try the same because they are now finding out they are in a world of trouble with the current system they use.

[Slowpokeking]

I really think SWTOR is going from a bad cycle.

 

This game has a strict trinity system, so it's hard to find a group when population is low, plus the garbage outdated LFG system. They don't have enough resource to fix and improve these so more ppl are leaving.

[ChanceGalvin]

Beta player here. Also guildmaster of a hardcore raiding, social, leveling, and pvp guild that has existed since 2011. At a point in time, we needed to form eight guilds to keep our population.

 

Yes it's dying. Back after I was merged from Darth Xedrix into Droogo's Pleasure Barge (which was later merged into The Harbinger), I remember there being 3-5 instances of 275-300 people each. There's 12 people on The Harbinger's republic fleet. Yes, it's the middle of the day. But there's 12.

 

12 people.

 

There's 12.

 

My guild has been larger than this game's current population.

 

Bioware, EA - Please read my comment. I have used points that my guild has brought up as to why they have left SWTOR and refused to come back. I have a lot of very tactful suggestions and I believe that the community would be very significantly larger if you followed these points, complaints, and suggestions.

 

-Release raids more often - make them longer, harder, and more grindy

-That doesn't mean nerf everyone. Make them stronger if anything

-Have a bolster that changes each class' performance in PvP so you don't have to nerf them into the ground - because then you screw over your PvE population. They get angry. And leave.

-Items on the GTN are tens of millions of credits. I remember back in the day when 200k was a fortune it took a couple of days to get

-classes are nerfed over and over again - I have 33 maxlevel toons in the top tier of raiding gear. That's what it took to always have a class that was the best.

-deleted pvp coms and vendors

-SAGENERFS

-deleted flashpoint and operations crystals mega crap and vendors

-exchange rate for my hard work is downright insulting every expansion

-no new operations, flashpoints, pvp until it's too late

-uprisings are half *** flashpoints and usually not even worth playing

-SAGENERFS

- Loot from raids damaged their playerbase

- After an extend, no one cares about light or dark side points

- Quality of life patches make the game easier, yes, but the game used to take maybe a week of playtime to get to 50 and now a 65 can be gotten in seconds with a token, or a level 70 can be grinded out in under a week. this makes it so players do what they want, finish early, and then they have nothing to do. plus what they work for has less value to them because it wasn't as hard to get

-SURPRISE! SAGENERF

-Should have improved server lag and gameplay smoothness - they didn't really do that

-Needs to have a similar idea as GW2 to credit and cartel coin currency exchange - that would stop websites like SSEGOLD from selling TRILLIONS of credits every month and ruining SWTOR's economy

-Upgrade level cap too 100 never again raise it - copy GW2's idea. Command XP was actually a good idea, but kind of worthless to know that our time is going to be meaningless when the next expansion raises the level cap by five

-Forceful Class-Literal Streamlining. Example. Sith Inquisitor classes. Force Lightning deleted from Sith Inquisitor, now exclusive to Sorcerer. Thrash Second Melee Attack deleted from Inquisitor, exclusive to Assassin. Phase Walk deleted from Inquisitor, exclusive to Assassin.

-Hahahaha, healer nerf!

-PvP gear deleted and any gear people have is also pointless. Sell it. Expertise Stat also deleted.

-COMPANION INFLUENCE NEEDS TO BE UNIVERSAL ACCROSS ALL CHARACTERS. I HAVE 33 MAXLEVEL CHARACTERS TO KEEP UP WITH THE NERFS. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO YOU EXPECT ME TO SPEND THE BILLION CREDITS FOR COMPANIONS GIFTS TO GET A 50 ON EACH ONE TO JUST RUN DAILIES WITH??

-Pow! Sagenerf!

-Change the warzones up more often! Good god, I'm tired of capping snow and grass!

- Strongholds? Great idea! But I feel lonely in every other part of the game now. How bout some neighbors? Maybe a Cul-de-Sac where my space shuttle is located?

-Class stories are your strength! Add more of them and not the same story for every toon.

-New playable classes for each faction (Jedi, Republic, Empire, and Sith)! And maybe a cartel, consortium, separatist, or pirate faction!

-STOP WITH THE SAGENERFS ALREADY.

-Give me more bang for my buck in these Cartel packs. If your going to change the color of old armor and call it something else, at least give me the whole set. Or just remove them in general and make really cool armor sets, color crystals, and weapons obtainable like the original magenta crystal. Where you have to do something crazy and follow a complicated online guide to do. So you work for it.

-Cartel companions should be worked for at least once - like HK-51 - and then purchaseable with UNDER A MILLION CREDITS per character

-For the love of god, the Sage has been through enough. Stop nerfing it.

-Reputation should not be bought in packs, it should be earned with grinding!

-Change up the items from reputation vendors already.

-Okay just because you gave the Sage a 1% power boost doesn't mean it's okay to nerf the others! The scoundrel isn't even remotely strong enough to clear current content now! Stop! Stop!

-Give me real ''space'' to fly in already! I want to manually land on Tattoine, not click on it. Your space missions are guided, and your starfighter battles are forced, complicated, uncomfortable, and hard. Plus we're 90% a PvE community.

-And we're back to Sage nerfs. Stop nerfing the sages. They've been through enough. Stop already, please.

-Let me land on my guild ship with my starfighter! Or let me do something with my guild ship that makes it worth the 2 billion credits that my guild has invested over the years! It has a hanger, does it not?

-Cut free to play players off at 50 and make them buy the expansions to progress further. Sell each expansion separately, and set packs that include the previous for more money but at a discount. Get your money from expansions. Big expansions make big money.

-BE IMMERSIVE! You have a third type of gamer playing here, Role-Players. There are many of us, and many more who want to be us. Adding things like item numbers 2, 8 and 9 will help. RP'ers like to hold events in their strongholds. How about a tab in the strongholds directory players can put up that they are hosting an event at this time.

 

 

And you stop bullying those sages.

Edited September 13, 2017 by ChanceGalvin

[TUXs]

Beta player here. Also guildmaster of a hardcore raiding, social, leveling, and pvp guild that has existed since 2011. At a point in time, we needed to form eight guilds to keep our population.

 

Yes it's dying. Back after I was merged from Darth Xedrix into Droogo's Pleasure Barge (which was later merged into The Harbinger), I remember there being 3-5 instances of 275-300 people each. There's 12 people on The Harbinger's republic fleet. Yes, it's the middle of the day. But there's 12.

 

12 people.

 

There's 12.

 

My guild has been larger than this game's current population.

Damn...I knew it was quiet last night, but I had no idea it was this bad during the day...

[kodrac]

Damn...I knew it was quiet last night, but I had no idea it was this bad during the day...

 

I wonder if he's an Aussie.

[Andryah]

Then they should've gone with a B2P model instead of a F2P model.

 

True, but this is arm-chairing after the fact.

 

The game released on the tail-end of the MMO marketplace being accepting of sub-only business models. They realized it would not work long term, and they changed their business model in late 2012... as have just about every other new MMO that released in that time frame as well.

[TyonYlle]

I wonder if he's an Aussie.

 

You maybe asking bc you're where crocodile dundee hails from?

[iankalo]

SWTOR is already dead to me and for all of the old players. There is nothing out there to do if you already done the achievements. I`m not an "alt" guy, Im playing only with 1 character (I have 8 just for the class achievements). Now its boring... 15 min cutscenes every 6 months. Thats not enough for me... I want a new "open world" expansion, just like Makeb or Yavin, with new achievements and stuff to do. Edited September 13, 2017 by iankalo

[Andryah]

There's 12 people on The Harbinger's republic fleet. Yes, it's the middle of the day. But there's 12.

 

12 people.

 

There's 12.

 

My guild has been larger than this game's current population.

 

Pointless statement when made in the absence of stating server time.

 

For all we know.. you are either making this up, or played at off hours (like 2:00 in the morning server time), or were in a second instance during prime time and completely missed that a second instance of fleet was active.

 

While I have transferred my main characters off Harbinger long ago.. I still maintain an active GTN presence there and honestly I rarely ever see less then 20 players in a stronghold instance on Harbinger...ever. Point being.... your data presented lacks any context at all and runs in contradiction to recent observations by me on Harbinger. You also assume that Fleet is where people hang their hats these days, and that simply is less and less true as time goes on.

Edited September 13, 2017 by Andryah

[kodrac]

You maybe asking bc you're where crocodile dundee hails from?

 

Nah, if it's midday in Australia/New Zealand the server would appear dead.