The Status of SWTOR on Twitch

[Andryah]

This is kinda the issue here, I mean we are talking about streamers. Those people have various reasons why they stream. I have seen some famous streamers (at least I think they were) try out swtor and those people had 300-400 viewers at one point, but not cause of Swtor, but because they have a fanbase which watches them play whatever. If you would be a streamer seeking glory you would pic a game people actually watch and thats not swtor.

 

As it was said many swtor streamers stream the story, leveling or any other stuff. We don't see GSF at all, Raiding is also a small % of the streams and the most are PVP. Anyone can stream swtor, even me, but what can you offer the viewers? Not much.

 

I think this is an excellent analysis merovejec. I liken streamers and the channels they use to bloggers in a number of ways. They build an audience through creating and promoting something that brings views to their work. It is sort of a self-perpetuating cycle if they are good at it and YES... their primary goal is to create a dedicated following in most cases... so they can actually hop from game to game and pull a following with them if they are good at what they do. And yes.. their success is very much tied in to the subject they are streaming.. and not all games are equally stream worthy for reasons in your analysis.

 

That said.... like bloggers...... the good ones prosper with their fan base and the bad ones, or the inconsistent ones, do not. But they are certainly not a good metric for measuring any internet property or service in terms of perceived health.

 

None of this really matters of course with this topic.. because this topic was basically a bait and switch move... using anecdotal Twitch data (that none of us can actually confirm after the fact) as the premise and soapbox to claim the game is dying. The OP even admitted being "scared" about it. Populations are on the decline for sure... I think everyone embraces this fact....but not everyone draws the same conclusions... probably because not every player is so dependent on very high population counts in order to play SWTOR. The servers do remain active and the game is no where near death yet... nor is it thriving and growing. Right now... SWTOR is kind is kind of stuck in an stagnant tide in terms of player activity... but that could change with a single expac release (like it did with KoTFE). Then again.. just because you release an expac does not mean you will see a large upsurge in player activity and player count (as evidenced with KoTET).

 

Not that MMOs really thrive and grow anymore anyway..... they simply move through peaks and valleys centered around major content releases. This is true even for the great and powerful WoW... seeing multi-million player swings between expacs, and while a larger installed base than any other MMO.. they still suffer retention problems of similar scale in terms of %. Given this studios low pace of content releases over the last 18 months..... it is no surprise to see interest waning for some players and active player counts appear to be down (not that any of us has any accurate way to measure actual numbers.... only general observations as to observable trends).

Edited July 31, 2018 by Andryah

[DarthWoad]

because this topic was basically a bait and switch move... .

 

You say that about literally every thread you disagree with....

[Batwer]

I do not watch a lot of videos on YouTube (SWTOR). Because I want to be surprised. Bad ..... bad, now I'm not in the statistics in it.

[Jdast]

You say that about literally every thread you disagree with....

 

Don't be obtuse. This was clearly a thread using a surrogate variable to drive home the point that the game is on its death bed.

 

Literally... and I mean that word in its literal sense (I know what it means) most of us know that numbers are going down. We can use approximate surrogates like fleet numbers, Twitch numbers, queue time pops, etc.. Of course, I imagine that when (if) 6.0 is released, numbers will spike for a bit like they do with every MMORPG and every expansion. Then there will be the natural decline.

 

Far be it from me to put words in Andryah's mouth, but I sympathize with the sentiment Andryah expressed. The OP wanted to say that numbers are down, which isn't a shocking observation given the content drought.

 

Pretty much everyone acknowledges this point. To wit, Joonbeams and I had a geeky social science debate about data interpretation, but Joon and I (and hopefully most others) acknowledge numbers are going down. Blathering on about twitch vs. fleet numbers is pointless.

 

Newsflash: Absent new content, numbers will decline. The OP was just trying to use a different direction / tactic to say that s/he wants new content.

 

Well, duh.

 

Dasty

Edited July 31, 2018 by Jdast

[FlameYOL]

You say that about literally every thread you disagree with....

 

He's right though. There's no denying there isn't a lot of public interest in SWTOR right now which likely is why people don't bother streaming, but using Twitch as an argument as to the game being dead is disingenuous.

[AshenK]

Fact is this game is dying and everyone knows it. More so more and more people don't want to give money to EA or Disney. Really both are running one of the greatest Sci-Fi IP's into the ground well Disney is also doing that with the Marvel movies as well.

 

This is why over on r/swtor anytime I see a new player post I send them a PM telling them to check out FFXIV as it's over all a better game.

[TUXs]

The OP wanted to say that numbers are down, which isn't a shocking observation given the content drought.

What kind of content is W0W releasing that explains that much of a gap?

 

All I read in the OPs comments was sadness and disbelief over the huge discrepancy in streamers. An observation that the OP dislikes, but is also factual - nothing more. I'm not arguing that the game is dying - in fact, I believe we've had an increase in activity lately, which pleases me greatly, but that gap is HUGE!

[FlameYOL]

Fact is this game is dying and everyone knows it. More so more and more people don't want to give money to EA or Disney. Really both are running one of the greatest Sci-Fi IP's into the ground well Disney is also doing that with the Marvel movies as well.

 

This is why over on r/swtor anytime I see a new player post I send them a PM telling them to check out FFXIV as it's over all a better game.

 

No offense, it's kind of sad you'd PM someone to check another game. You sound very displeased with the game, if so leave and it is your right as customer but if someone new wants to play let them, warn them perhaps of the content gap but for a completely new player there is a lot to do, explore, experience. To go out of your way like that serves no real purpose.

Edited July 31, 2018 by FlameYOL

[AshenK]

No offense, it's kind of sad you'd PM someone to check another game. You sound very displeased with the game, if so leave and it is your right as customer but if someone new wants to play let them, warn them perhaps of the content gap but for a completely new player there is a lot to do, explore, experience. To go out of your way like that serves no real purpose.

No offense but I'd rather warn people that way they don't spend money on something they will hate. And I'm displeased with gaming as a whole. We have been ripped off way too much, we have reviewers being paid off, and a ton of things forced on us now.

 

Things need to go back to the days when customers got respect from companies. I'll give Anet credit they fired those two people who insulted us players. We need to see more things like that along with less gambling boxes, pay to win systems, and this forced bs.

[PennyAnn]

What kind of content is W0W releasing that explains that much of a gap?

 

All I read in the OPs comments was sadness and disbelief over the huge discrepancy in streamers. An observation that the OP dislikes, but is also factual - nothing more. I'm not arguing that the game is dying - in fact, I believe we've had an increase in activity lately, which pleases me greatly, but that gap is HUGE!

 

WoW is releasing ALL kinds of content. A massive expansion is only two weeks away. New races (I believe 6 or 8 new races total once the expansion is live?), class reworks, epic story lines, new areas to explore, new raids, PvP warmode (open world PvP)... you know... a real expansion.

 

The huge gap that you're noticing is reflected in the huge gap in "new content" between the two games. They are doing a massive expansion full of all kinds of everything at WoW, and Bioware is putting in a new stronghold and some tweaks to the already existing PvP system.

 

The Stronghold, by the way was supposed to be great for PvP players and was taken over by the decorators wanting to play house on the beach such that the PvP areas of the SH are full of bugs and don't really work for the intended purpose. What happened to the "traps" we were supposed to be able to place on the map, like exist in every huttball arena? Why can't you use most of the speed boost abilities when you're on the catwalk decos that Bioware have arranged for you on the map? Why didn't they listen to the multitude of requests to make it more challenging than running up a ramp into the scoring area? They listened and worked very hard to make a house out of nothing for the decorators and abandoned the PvP part of the stronghold except to test the LoS issues with decos (when there are much larger more game breaking issues with the map). Yes, they should have fixed LoS with decorations a long time ago and it's good that they are doing that, but I feel like their original aim of making it an awesome PvP area got sidetracked by spending the development time on making a house area instead of fixing the PvP bugs. They had to choose one or the other probably, and they picked the one that had nothing to do with the original intent of the Stronghold. Which is a shame, really. (Though as someone with one of the highest prestige scores in the game and definitely decorated tons of strongholds and enjoyed it, I'm happy for those that this was important for - but I feel like it came at a cost, which is the shame here).

 

The only other additions are the matchmaking in regs and making PvP queues cross faction. That's not to say that the changes they are making to the PvP system in the game won't potentially be helpful in reviving the queues... but it is not new content. There was some mention of a new PvP map in the roadmap for summer, but haven't even heard a word about that either. That would have been the only new "content" on the roadmap entirely, yet it's *crickets*.

 

As someone who left SWTOR to play WoW, it's very clear why there is such a significant gap. There is a significant gap in the development of the games as well.

 

.

Edited July 31, 2018 by PennyAnn

[FlameYOL]

No offense but I'd rather warn people that way they don't spend money on something they will hate. And I'm displeased with gaming as a whole. We have been ripped off way too much, we have reviewers being paid off, and a ton of things forced on us now.

 

Things need to go back to the days when customers got respect from companies. I'll give Anet credit they fired those two people who insulted us players. We need to see more things like that along with less gambling boxes, pay to win systems, and this forced bs.

 

You're assuming they'll hate the product, warn them sure, but don't outright turn them away from the game. It's assuming they'll hate it, and I'm not saying they'll like it, but let them find out on their own. It's just as PM'ing them telling how much they'll love the game, point is to each their own, so they might be pleased enough with the game, they might hate it. But do not try to infer your judgment of whether or not they'll like it on them.

Well... not sure how to respond to you, I'm pretty pleased with my games at least. I never cared too much for reviewers, always attempted to find out myself even after reading a review.

I do agree we need less gambling boxes as well as P2W systems, I'm glad CM is having more direct sales and apparently Anthem will feature direct sales without packs. I think gaming is mildly switching to direct sales cosmetics, which is fine by me. IDK about P2W however as it depends on the game I guess.

[Joonbeams]

lol I guess the others already said it but yeah, you cant really compare "those" statistics. I mean what does swtor have? The best part of the game is probably the leveling and story (1-50 story), who would watch that? You can go to youtube and watch the cutscenes of every single story!

 

So ok, if you wanna play it that way, find a youtuber who posted all swtor class stories for example and put together the statistic of how many views those videos had! WoW has PVP, progression, competition in general, you cannot compare that to swtor.

 

I think this is actually the takeaway. It's why I think Twitch numbers are useful as additional proxies of game health - for literally the exact reasons you stated (highlighted above). There's no real driver in 2018 for a streamer/streaming community to organize around SWTOR because there is no new content, and nothing particularly new concerning the legacy content that makes for compelling streaming.

 

Now, I would add there there are things in SWTOR that are personally Twitch-worthy still. I think streaming any of the HM, NiM Ops would be very compelling. I think the same for ranked PvP and even regs. I also think that decorators including some amazing ones (ahem Lunafox ) would be awesome on Twitch, showing different ideas, layouts, and even what decos are out there. I like to decorate, but I only know about 20% of the available decorations if that. The issue is, compared to other peer games, there are far fewer people who think this way about this 2011 title.

 

Given the broad scope of Twitch, and the fact that streamers simply will not ignore compelling games (even if old, e.g. Skyrim) or games with lots of players, this lack of activity on the platform is a very good surrogate marker for a game in declining health (please note, I'm not in the doooooooom camp on this if you check my posting history. But I also am not someone to bury data).

 

This is essentially what I got from the OP (once all the melodrama is washed off). SWTOR's long content drought is causing it to lag far behind other peer games in Twitch activity, and this is an additional proxy measurement of the general decline in the health/population of the game. Note, this =/= game is dead...

[TrixxieTriss]

Just out of interest. How do you find out how many people are online watching specific games on twitch?

 

There are so many channels and a you can call the game swtor or Star Wars: the old republic.

 

(Let me note, I’m only searching through my iPad app. But I can’t see anyway to ascertain the numbers unless you go into ever possible channel to get them).

[Joonbeams]

Just out of interest. How do you find out how many people are online watching specific games on twitch?

 

There are so many channels and a you can call the game swtor or Star Wars: the old republic.

 

(Let me note, I’m only searching through my iPad app. But I can’t see anyway to ascertain the numbers unless you go into ever possible channel to get them).

 

https://www.twitch.tv/directory

 

The most active games are up front - or you can search for SWTOR (it should show up under that or Star Wars with autofill)...

[TrixxieTriss]

https://www.twitch.tv/directory

 

The most active games are up front - or you can search for SWTOR (it should show up under that or Star Wars with autofill)...

 

Edit : answered my own question

 

Actually looking at the streamers for swtor, I can see why they don’t hvae many viewers, the quality and content they are playing just isn’t there.

Maybe if the streamers were better, more people would watch. LoL

It is funny to see that a nearly ancient game like Age Of Empires has more viewers than swtor

Edited August 1, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

[merovejec]

I imagine that when (if) 6.0 is released, numbers will spike for a bit like they do with every MMORPG and every expansion. Then there will be the natural decline.

 

That depends on the expansion itself. I mean they can always surprise us. The community now is in a state where they really don't expect anything so they have the element of surprise. They can throw a new raid at us, new planet, specific class stories and a good comeback to reps vs imps. It is doable and that could keep people busy so its all up to them, the numbers don't have to go down afterwards.

Edited August 1, 2018 by merovejec

[TUXs]

WoW is releasing ALL kinds of content. A massive expansion is only two weeks away. New races (I believe 6 or 8 new races total once the expansion is live?), class reworks, epic story lines, new areas to explore, new raids, PvP warmode (open world PvP)... you know... a real expansion.

 

The huge gap that you're noticing is reflected in the huge gap in "new content" between the two games. They are doing a massive expansion full of all kinds of everything at WoW, and Bioware is putting in a new stronghold and some tweaks to the already existing PvP system.

Damn...that's disheartening...

[Slowpokeking]

Its so Easy.

 

If we have more Players in the Game then we have more People on the Fleet!

If we have more Players in the Game then we have more active People on the Forum!

If we have more People watching Twitch then we have more Players in the Game (Overall Population)!

 

Some of us watch Twitch some not. Myself are not the daily viewer of Twitch but sometimes i watch Twitch. Twitch is a good indicator how much popluar a game is nowadays! And if a game is popular you have more Players in the Game. Like it or like it not.

Compared to the old days of SWTOR we had more Streamers and more Viewers. Like Twitch or dont Like it. Numbers dont lie. The Game is at the Moment not Healty. And Twitch is a Indicator of this Observation.

 

If i look on the Twitch Streamers i see rarely Kids Streaming. Mostly Adult People stream WOW or SWTOR. Watching Twitch has nothing to do with your Age. Most People Play the Game more then they watch Twitch. But where is the Problem if People watch a Little bit Twitch? Why so Agressive?

 

And im 30+ Years old, so its a litte to late for me to go to School! And i know a Time where Computers and Mobile Phones was Rare for the Majority of People.

 

And i Agree with many others that the Lack of Content in the Last 3 Years bring us down to this Status of the Game that we now have. Not very Healty.

 

On Some Servers we have Problems to fill up Hardmode Raiding Groups. We dont have enaugh Players to teach the new Players Hardmode Raiding. PVP and Flashpoint HM/Tactical Queues are slow. Mid PVP is nearly dead.

 

If you Play out of Prime Time this Problems are more. You know this Problem TrixxieTriss.

 

If you talk about Story with Story Players. Most of them talk with you about the old Story. They dont want to talk about KOTFE/KOTET because...... And some of them say: "Hey other MMOs give me more and better and frequently Story then SWTOR and they give me the possibility to do Group Playing". And not mostly 3+ years old Group Content or Story Group Content. Most of them want new explorable Planets. 3+ Years of not new explorable Plantets hurt this Game.

 

Yes this are not Problems of the Fanatic Agressive Space Barbie Players. Because for them all other Players are Toxic. What are you doing when you see other Players in the Game. Do you Shut Down SWTOR? Possible you Shut Down your Computer?

Someday These Players will have they own Simulator called: SWTOR!

 

And thanks to level syncblostering old content, these old content are still blocking the casual players.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Slowpokeking

[Slowpokeking]

It's not just about new content, this game's format(WOW clone) is seriously outdated and unlike WOW it never got a strong playerbase. Current content could also use a big overhaul.

[Slowpokeking]

Fact is this game is dying and everyone knows it. More so more and more people don't want to give money to EA or Disney. Really both are running one of the greatest Sci-Fi IP's into the ground well Disney is also doing that with the Marvel movies as well.

 

This is why over on r/swtor anytime I see a new player post I send them a PM telling them to check out FFXIV as it's over all a better game.

 

To be fair, this game has been doing well than most of the MMO, it's still alive after nearly 7 years.

[DarthWoad]

To be fair, this game has been doing well than most of the MMO, it's still alive after nearly 7 years.

 

The only thing keeping it alive is the IP

[Slowpokeking]

The only thing keeping it alive is the IP

The story and voiceover has been outstanding, I also like the SH system a lot. I think till SoR it was doing good as a MMO, KotFE was the beginning of the downfall.

[Vember]

Damn...that's disheartening...

 

Yea, but it's akin to polishing a turd. If you can get past the graphics and the general hand holding through the entire game, there's the godawful controls and the incredibly toxic community to deal with.

 

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't play it, because the mouselook in WoW doesn't work the same as literally every other game on the market, which makes it clumsy as hell to play.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Vember

[PennyAnn]

Yea, but it's akin to polishing a turd. If you can get past the graphics and the general hand holding through the entire game, there's the godawful controls and the incredibly toxic community to deal with.

 

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't play it, because the mouselook in WoW doesn't work the same as literally every other game on the market, which makes it clumsy as hell to play.

 

Well then the population of WoW must enjoy polished turds, because there are tons of people playing that game and enjoying it (including me).

 

I absolutely can get past the graphics, though I realize the art style is not for everyone. They are however upgrading their graphics pretty drastically and making both environment, mobs, and armors look much more high-res than they used to and it's pretty cool to see them make efforts in this direction. The cinematics during the storylines are also really cool and enjoyable. They aren't so long that they detract from what you're doing or make you feel like you are just there to kill a few mobs between cut scenes (like KotFE/ET did sometimes).

 

The combat is similar enough for me, but again just like the graphics that's down to personal preference.

 

What I really enjoy there is the fact that there is new and exciting stuff to do. Pre-patch quest lines have been going into the game for the last couple of weeks, and they created some amazingly beautiful story shorts as well for some of the main characters that are coming up in the expansion. Very exciting times over there for those who like the game and Blizzard story lore.

 

.

[micnevv]

Yea, but it's akin to polishing a turd. If you can get past the graphics and the general hand holding through the entire game, there's the godawful controls and the incredibly toxic community to deal with.

 

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't play it, because the mouselook in WoW doesn't work the same as literally every other game on the market, which makes it clumsy as hell to play.

 

What are you on about?

 

Swtor controls are literally copy pasted from WoW, if anything wow has more control options than Swtor. Plus the graphics in the recent expansions are just as good, if not better than SWTOR's in many ways. Yeah you can say that the starting areas don't look as good, but the issue is circumvented by the fact that you get a level 110 boost when you buy the game - instantly skipping the ugly bits.

 

It honestly sounds like you have no clue what you're talking about.

Edited August 1, 2018 by micnevv