An update on the development of SWTOR

[JakRoanin]

🤣

[SteveTheCynic]

Do I have to post this again?

(Originally posted on the GW2 forums)

"game is dying" is (or should be) a generic meme in all MMORPG forums, even to the extent of things like

• Game released today: "Game is dying."
• Game released yesterday: "Game is dying."
• Game just released a new expansion, all the servers are jam-packed with players: "Game is dying."
• Game will release in two weeks: "Game is dead."

[Jdast]

5 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Do I have to post this again?

(Originally posted on the GW2 forums)

"game is dying" is (or should be) a generic meme in all MMORPG forums, even to the extent of things like

• Game released today: "Game is dying."
• Game released yesterday: "Game is dying."
• Game just released a new expansion, all the servers are jam-packed with players: "Game is dying."
• Game will release in two weeks: "Game is dead."

Sadly, yes. You should create a macro with the above text to save you the time typing! 

Dasty

[Khoxion]

Game has dyeing.

[SteveTheCynic]

11 minutes ago, Khoxion said:

Game has dyeing.

Well played.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

5 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

Keep in mind, some of those same people have been saying "game is dead" since like 2013  

Perhaps  BroadWare can make new server for only them + the  'game r easy' seller bots.

Yeah, people have been saying "game is dead" for the last 10 years.

or

"It'll be gone in 6 months."

6 months later, it's still going.

When the game is dead, we won't be able to sign in anymore. Which will be a dead give away.

[fabsus]

you can whitewash everything by putting words on the gold scale.
but let us take a look at the past.

when swtor was released, we had to wait a time to get a spot on the server.
so many more servers were set up. shortly after the change to the free2play model,
many players left the game and we got server merges. 
did the game died? no. was there an massive decrease of the player population? yes.
did even the half came back, after later updates? no.

people got frustrated that SoR took so long, people left before. most didn't came back.
people got frustrated with the commando rank system and full RNG gearing. most didn't came back.
people got frustrated with the progress of gods operation and the ongoing lies by bioware, so
they got frustrated. most didn't came back. 
people got frustrated with 10 years anniversary lies. most didn't came back.

not to mention the needed server merge, down to 5 in total. 

and take a look at the servers now. if you are playing on the smaller ones and you still
can remember the old times, it seems pretty dead. 
are there still gsf matches? sure! but you need to wait hours for a single pop.
are there still pvp matches? sure! but atm you need to wait more than 30min for a pop
during prime time. 
are there still pick up raids? sure! yesterday i have seen 2, both for ev storymode. yeah.
they couldn't fill the group within 2 hours. 
are there still master flashpoints through activity finder? sure! but again it takes hours
for a pop as a tank.
are there still uprisings pops? no.

and if you join a random group, it is really hard to have any fun in these, because the
most time, you are top dps as a tank in full tank gear. when i'm playing dot sorc, i'm
above the healers with healing. with dot sin, i'm mostly equal. 

so will a stop in new content or more needed time for even smaller new content
make people stop playing swtor? sure! will the most come back? no. will the game
still be running and with flexible AWS servers more profitable? sure.

but just remember the older times, even when content was harder as today.
you could run veteran operations without checking anything, because people
knew what to do or at least how to play their characters. today they even
hardly fail in EV storymode. if there is a veteran pick up group, they are mostly
asking for equip and experience, even for karagga. 

so is the game dying? yes.
will it run for more years? sure!


 

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

45 minutes ago, fabsus said:

and take a look at the servers now. if you are playing on the smaller ones and you still
can remember the old times, it seems pretty dead. 
are there still gsf matches? sure! but you need to wait hours for a single pop.
are there still pvp matches? sure! but atm you need to wait more than 30min for a pop
during prime time. 
are there still pick up raids? sure! yesterday i have seen 2, both for ev storymode. yeah.
they couldn't fill the group within 2 hours. 
are there still master flashpoints through activity finder? sure! but again it takes hours
for a pop as a tank.
are there still uprisings pops? no.

That's more of a server issue I think. It's not like that on Star Forge.

[fabsus]

17 minutes ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

That's more of a server issue I think. It's not like that on Star Forge.

ignorance is bliss.

[ceryxp]

52 minutes ago, fabsus said:

when swtor was released, we had to wait a time to get a spot on the server.
so many more servers were set up. shortly after the change to the free2play model,
many players left the game and we got server merges. 

Sorry, but you remember incorrectly.  Free to play launched with update 1.5 on 15 November 2012.  The first server merge occurred on 18 September 2012 when the high population servers came online.  That took the server list from 100+ servers down to 20.  The second merge occurred on 13 August 2013 when the APAC servers were closed.  20 servers down to 17.  The third merge occurred on 8 November 2017.  That took the server list from 17 down to 5.  The greatest loss in number of servers occurred prior to F2P.  Yes, United Forces took us from 17 to 5 servers, but that was primarily just consolidating the regional servers (PVE, PVE-RP, and PVP) into a single server.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

15 minutes ago, fabsus said:

ignorance is bliss.

Fair enough.

[Nee-Elder]

1 hour ago, fabsus said:

ignorance is bliss.

Perhaps, but bitterness isn't.

[Samcuu]

1 hour ago, fabsus said:

ignorance is bliss.

There hasn't been much of a drop off since 6.0 as far as population. So it's stable. Of course it's not like it was at launch with over a million players but the game isn't bleeding players either. 

[OlBuzzard]

Right now I'd settle for getting the STUPID BUGS FIXED!!

[Nee-Elder]

8 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

Right now I'd settle for getting the STUPID BUGS FIXED!!

If i were Broadsword , once the merger goes through official ,  on Day 1  i would announce on forums within my initial  INTRO sticky: 

"Our 1st patch will be a massive *Bug Bash* "

Heck that might make more disgruntled players  re-$ub than any  content expansion tbqh.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[OlBuzzard]

42 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

If i were Broadsword , once the merger goes through official ,  on Day 1  i would announce on forums within my initial  INTRO sticky: 

"Our 1st patch will be a massive *Bug Bash* "

Heck that might make more disgruntled players  re-$ub than any  content expansion tbqh.

YES !!!!!!

To be followed by a week long celebration !!!   WOO HOO !!!

[TrixxieTriss]

7 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

That's more of a server issue I think. It's not like that on Star Forge.

It’s also a time of day issue too 😞.

If you play from APAC, the only time the SF server feels populated is between 4am & 10am AEST (around about now). 

If you play from my region and aren’t retired like me, which allows you to play super early or aren’t an early riser, then even SF seems dead to us APAC players during what used to be our APAC prime times of 4pm - 10pm AEST. Which is actually the lowest population times of the day on SF. 

Sadly, the Shae Vizla PTS got turned off 😞. That actually felt more full than SF does for me 50% of the time I can play. So I think an APAC server will do ok & will probably mirror SS or SF for numbers at opposite times of the day.

There’s also the fact that since the second PvP season finished & the IGN Bioware to Broadsword announcement, swtor’s steam population has dropped 22.16% from last month. Unfortunately we can’t see the total population trend because BioWare removed that ability so as to obscure numbers from the player base.

PvP season 3 starts in a few more weeks. So hopefully that & some news the deal has gone through with Broadsword will boost the player numbers again by the end of next month. Fingers crossed an APAC server will be setup when they migrate to AWS.

[TrixxieTriss]

5 hours ago, Samcuu said:

There hasn't been much of a drop off since 6.0 as far as population. So it's stable. Of course it's not like it was at launch with over a million players but the game isn't bleeding players either. 

Actually that’s not entirely true or the full story.

After 7.0 hit, there was a major population drop for most of last year and the game was in a distinct steady decline. Last year saw the lowest numbers in the games population ever.

Before 7.2. landed, the game was definitely looking like it was on its way out and if 7.2 had flopped, I sincerely think they would have shuttered the game instead of moving it to Broadsword. 

But 7.2 came at just the right time. And even though I personally think parts of the new PvP seasons is severely flawed (8 man premades vs solo), I will say that PvP seasons & the other changes in 7.2-7.3 have definitely boosted player numbers again back to higher than before 7.0 released. An increase in April (35%) & May (20%) this year saw the highest player growth in years on Steam outside of an expansion release. 

So while numbers are back to around 6.x numbers. It’s not as simple as saying the population is stable or was stable between now & then. There was a very distinct possibility that the game was going to shutter after 7.0 disastrous changes. If 7.2 failed to boost numbers, I don’t think we’d be discussing Broadsword taking over right now. I think we’d be hearing they are shuttering the game. Thankfully 7.2 worked. 

Edited June 25, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[xxSHOONYxx]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Actually that’s not entirely true or the full story.

After 7.0 hit, there was a major population drop for most of last year and the game was in a distinct steady decline. Last year saw the lowest numbers in the games population ever.

Before 7.2. landed, the game was definitely looking like it was on its way out and if 7.2 had flopped, I sincerely think they would have shuttered the game instead of moving it to Broadsword. 

But 7.2 came at just the right time. And even though I personally think parts of the new PvP seasons is severely flawed (8 man premades vs solo), I will say that PvP seasons & the other changes in 7.2-7.3 have definitely boosted player numbers again back to higher than before 7.0 released. April (35%) & May (20%) this year saw the highest player growth in years on Steam outside of an expansion release. 

So while numbers are back to around 6.x numbers. It’s not as simple as saying the population is stable or was stable between now & then. There was a very distinct possibility that the game was going to shutter after 7.0 disastrous changes. If 7.2 failed to boost numbers, I don’t think we’d be discussing Broadsword taking over right now. I think we’d be hearing they are shuttering the game. Thankfully 7.2 worked. 

7.0 besides leaving a sour taste in everyone's mouth that made people leave also coincided with the end of galactic seasons 2 ending and it took them 4 months of no events (4 moths of red numbers).
It wasn't until patch 7.1.1 that introduced galactic season 3 that went from red to green numbers. 
The effective season is 5 months but if done correctly it takes 3 or less, so after the 3 months of "green" numbers it went back to red.
Then march came with galactic seasons 4, 64bit and pvp season 1 and back into green numbers. 
And now going down again because seasons ending + broadsword announcement.

Game increases and decreases player base because of mobile "battle passes", rather than content because they don't know how to develop content to make people play.

- There is no reasons to do dailies outside of lousy cosmetics because if you want to get credits from them you will die of old age before you get anywhere.
- There is no reason to do fps because the rewards are worthless.
- There is no reason do do ops because sm was done so easy that they are a chore rather than fun(maybe just for oem/rpm but if that worked ranked pvp would have been a success), the gap from sm o vm is too wide and some people are scared to get into it, and many nim players left with r4 nim announcement.
- No crafting for several years.
- No incentives for achievement/rare drops hunting.
- GSF was popular in 7.0 because it actually had an incentive to be played. but before and after that... crickets.
- PvP... idk, all i did was regs to get battlemaster rank for the darth marr like armor in a couple of toons and never played it again because i got more upset at teammates than enjoy my time, so no idea  what would make people play it more outside of forcing them with pvp seasons.
- Pets wasted, easily every op and fp boss could have a small chance to drop a lower scale pet of the boss it drops from like they did previously with dwedtoof.
- No achievement progression rewards as in special mounts/titles/armor or weapons.
- No grindy content (new content, not gs, and not timed gated so new players can do it too) with great rewards at the end, being a new stronghold, a weapon with tuning that can only be obtained through there, special armor or mounts,
And more.

If even less than half of the items they make go into actual gameplay rewards instead of everything on the CM, it would make reasons for many more people to log.
But they add everything to the CM screwing over the little content they have been doing. 

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[OlBuzzard]

17 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

7.0 besides leaving a sour taste in everyone's mouth that made people leave also coincided with the end of galactic seasons 2 ending and it took them 4 months of no events (4 moths of red numbers).
It wasn't until patch 7.1.1 that introduced galactic season 3 that went from red to green numbers. 
The effective season is 5 months but if done correctly it takes 3 or less, so after the 3 months of "green" numbers it went back to red.
Then march came with galactic seasons 4, 64bit and pvp season 1 and back into green numbers. 
And now going down again because seasons ending + broadsword announcement.

Game increases and decreases player base because of mobile "battle passes", rather than content because they don't know how to develop content to make people play.

- There is no reasons to do dailies outside of lousy cosmetics because if you want to get credits from them you will die of old age before you get anywhere.
- There is no reason to do fps because the rewards are worthless.
- There is no reason do do ops because sm was done so easy that they are a chore rather than fun(maybe just for oem/rpm but if that worked ranked pvp would have been a success), the gap from sm o vm is too wide and some people are scared to get into it, and many nim players left with r4 nim announcement.
- No crafting for several years.
- No incentives for achievement/rare drops hunting.
- GSF was popular in 7.0 because it actually had an incentive to be played. but before and after that... crickets.
- PvP... idk, all i did was regs to get battlemaster rank for the darth marr like armor in a couple of toons and never played it again because i got more upset at teammates than enjoy my time, so no idea  what would make people play it more outside of forcing them with pvp seasons.
- Pets wasted, easily every op and fp boss could have a small chance to drop a lower scale pet of the boss it drops from like they did previously with dwedtoof.
- No achievement progression rewards as in special mounts/titles/armor or weapons.
- No grindy content (new content, not gs, and not timed gated so new players can do it too) with great rewards at the end, being a new stronghold, a weapon with tuning that can only be obtained through there, special armor or mounts,
And more.

If even less than half of the items they make go into actual gameplay rewards instead of everything on the CM, it would make reasons for many more people to log.
But they add everything to the CM screwing over the little content they have been doing. 

 

Add to this the outright brokenness of the game due to BUGS ( see the latest one that this time has mess up my MAIN character) combined with the total lack of apparent lack of listening to feedback from players on this formboard and (to be perfectly honest) you have the last SEVERAL YEARS of SWTOR summed up in one single post!
** That explains the outrage of some ...
** That also explains the anger of others ...
** That explains the discouragement of many, many, many more.

What it does NOT explain is why on earth ANY of are still hanging on to any form of hope at all.

That answer that that last question really isn't that difficult to understand.  Hopefully that same answer won't go on ignored this time.  The end results could and WOULD be disastrous! 

[Nee-Elder]

40 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

If even less than half of the items they make go into actual gameplay rewards instead of everything on the CM, it would make reasons for many more people to log.

i've been saying/screaming exactly that ^ for literally 10 years.

BroadWare, if you're reading: From the short-sighted mistakes of EA greed you must learn, yesssssssss.

[OlBuzzard]

58 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

i've been saying/screaming exactly that ^ for literally 10 years.

BroadWare, if you're reading: From the short-sighted mistakes of EA greed you must learn, yesssssssss.

You and a LOT of other folks as well.  

The CM has it's place!  It can be beneficial.   OR (unfortunately) ... a poor substitute for what the game (and those who want to enjoy it) really needs.

BTW...  sorry for the commentary...but I'm fresh out of those reaction things (again).  I owe you (another one) when they become available.

[ReKabNad]

22 hours ago, TziganeNZ said:

Unless you're Vitiate/Tenebrae/Valkorian.

Or Malgus.

Or Palpatine/Darth Sidious.  Some of those Sith really needed to learn how to die! 😜

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

4 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

PvP season 3 starts in a few more weeks. So hopefully that & some news the deal has gone through with Broadsword will boost the player numbers again by the end of next month. Fingers crossed an APAC server will be setup when they migrate to AWS.

Well, you know I got my fingers crossed for you APAC peeps getting your own new server. It's a distinct possibility. And if they do do that, that's also a good sign for the game. Adding servers isn't a trend we've been seeing, quite the opposite =p.

I can see how to APAC peeps Star Forge doesn't seem quite as busy. Your prime times are our sleeping times!

As far as the future and Broadsword and all that, I'm cautiously optimistic.  I like what I hear them saying, but whether they'll follow through or not, that remains to be seen. I try to keep my expectations low and realistic. Less chance of disappointment that way.

54 minutes ago, ReKabNad said:

Or Palpatine/Darth Sidious.  Some of those Sith really needed to learn how to die! 😜

Friggen Disney. If they had done Lucas's Sequel Trilogy, that he wrote in 2011 and that he sold them, as they inclined him to believe they would, Palpatine would have stayed dead after Return of the Jedi. Lucas straight out said Palpatine doesn't get cloned in a 2008 interview.

Also, Ian McDiarmid has said in interviews that he spoke to Lucas about Palpatine, if he ever comes back after ROTJ and he said Lucas told him, "No, he stays dead."

Disney's version totally ruins Darth Vader's sacrifice and the Prophecy. It was stupid in the comics, and it was stupid in the Disney movie.

All hail the Super-Rey. Bestest Jedi evah!

 

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[robwettengel]

The number of additional items added to the CM regularly was likely more driven by EA and/or BW to get more revenue. For all we know BW may have been promised x% of CM revenue would be funneled back to them by EA.

Deprecated armor sets, decos, weapons, etc. could be offered as rewards for completing FPs and Ops. Additionally, they could also be sold on vendors for a lot of credits a piece to aid with clamping down on the credit supply. There are also armors in the game that could be made available in the game--for instance, Vitiate's armor.