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Originally posted by Obraik

Going to a hub usually consumed quite a bit of a persons play period.  By the time they got through a doctor queue to get their wounds cured, then another for buffs, then another for an Ent buff, then finding someone selling/advertising stims/supplies for their trip to replace what decayed last time, etc, a person could find they'd been in the hub for 30-60mins.

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Originally posted by sookster54

Since 2003 I played on Lowca, Tarquinas and Radiant, Lowca being my main home, they were all regularly "light" throughout the years and even after the NGE they remained "light" but noticably much fewer people than previously. Before 2005, Wanderhome and Kauri were known to be quiet places and Kauri remained quiet after the plunge and even moreso after the free CTS, and the free CTS is responsable for the last 21 servers to suffer, very few people are willing to stay behind and rebuild which takes a TON of effort to do- from the 3 servers I transferred from (to Flurry), Tarquinas got hit the hardest and there's like 4 people there now?

Between 2005-2007 Tarquinas' community was declining very rapidly and there was hardly any pvp and hardly any events (or even roleplaying events), however WSQ and another Rebel based guild kept trying to put up events (the backpack raffles, the flea market) and were of moderate success.

I dunno bro, I saw Lowca hit medium quite a bit at peak time.

Originally posted by sookster54

 

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Originally posted by Obraik

Going to a hub usually consumed quite a bit of a persons play period.  By the time they got through a doctor queue to get their wounds cured, then another for buffs, then another for an Ent buff, then finding someone selling/advertising stims/supplies for their trip to replace what decayed last time, etc, a person could find they'd been in the hub for 30-60mins.

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I look at that as a positive thing, hubs were busy places and a good place to meet new people and sell/trade things, there's a reason why a place like Orgrimmar in WoW is a popular hangout place. After all an MMO is supposed to be a social type game, is it not?

 

Exactly, MMO's always seem to have the one or two spots that players will congregate at to sell, trade, buff or what ever...it is the social nature of such games to do so.

There were many 'hubs' back in the day, be it Cnet, Theed, or MO on Dantooine. There were also major player cities that were also seen as 'hubs' and were literally bristling with players. If it makes current players feel better to think that the original incarnation of SWG just gave an illusion of a healthy population, then fine - believe what you wish if it makes you feel more secure with the game as it is today. The forums certainly didn't have unending threads and outcries calling for free transfers or server merges back then as they did since the NGE. What is an illusion is $OE listing a server as heavy now that has no where near the number of players that warranted the 'heavy 'server status five years ago.

Mos Eisley seems to be the only main hub now, and maybe on occassion (depending on the time of day), Restuss. That is where players seem to congregate to get Ent buffs, socialize and hawk items as seen in other games. Compared to yesteryear, these congregation points are a mere shadow of what was - that is not an illusion. The transfer-from servers are dead, and even a few of the destination servers are in desperate need of the free CTS. $OE allowed too many servers as destination servers and sooner or later that list will have to be pared down.
 

New players should be directed only to welll populated, destination servers. Now with the extension of the free CTS, more vets will be able to trasnfer when the next round of free trials which I suspect will be around the next publish.

I don't know what illusion you are referring too obraik...there are still hubs in the game today although not as much as in the past as the game is much less social than what it used to be.  I believe Mos Eisley would be considered a hub now.  Restuss at one time was and may still be

I won't speak for others but I loved the "hub" / marketplace we had prior to SOE's brainfarts.  It was a great way to meet new people and learn what to do in the game.

For Kauri it was Coronet, Theed, Anchorhead, Bestine, and many player cities depending upon what you wanted and wanted to do.

I think some of the bad decisions they made were dropping shuttle times and the introduction of the ITV's.  They have been methodically removing many of the social aspects of the game which is a real shame. 

Originally posted by Obraik

 

Kauri, Lowca, etc have always had pops that could have been handled by a number of the other more populated servers.  They were always known as low-pop servers, even back when SWG was at its peak.

There are MMO's now that have more players then SWG had during its peak and have less servers then SWG has ever had.

I used to play on Lowca pre NGE / CU an it was always medium to high population (and one of the best communities I have ever had the pleasure to play alongside)

There was a time a month or so after launch, and it lasted for several months, that you could not create a new toon on Ahazi.

I remember around the holidays in 2003 that Ahazi was opened up for new toons, and we had a rash of new players who were plopped down at Mos Eisley or Restuss or Keren with a blaster and a melon and had no idea what they were supposed to be doing.

I ran into some of these hapless noobs near Doaba Guerfel, and they promply left the starport and headed out into the wilds and started shooting at some Beldonna mobs not knowing how dangerous that was for someone with only novice marksman or brawler trained.

Many visits to the cloner for those guys that day.

The notion that there were "too many servers" early on in SWG is just not supported by the facts.  Most servers had healthy populations and it wasn't until SOE's repeated mismanagement drove enough people away that problems with low pop servers became evident.

Originally posted by SioBabble

There was a time a month or so after launch, and it lasted for several months, that you could not create a new toon on Ahazi.

I remember around the holidays in 2003 that Ahazi was opened up for new toons, and we had a rash of new players who were plopped down at Mos Eisley or Restuss or Keren with a blaster and a melon and had no idea what they were supposed to be doing.

I ran into some of these hapless noobs near Doaba Guerfel, and they promply left the starport and headed out into the wilds and started shooting at some Beldonna mobs not knowing how dangerous that was for someone with only novice marksman or brawler trained.

Many visits to the cloner for those guys that day.

The notion that there were "too many servers" early on in SWG is just not supported by the facts.  Most servers had healthy populations and it wasn't until SOE's repeated mismanagement drove enough people away that problems with low pop servers became evident.

Well they have to many servers at the current time.. which is why they were doing the transfers.

However, yes obviously up until the "combat upgrade" they didn't have to many servers.

I think what you describe is part of what I miss from MMO's in general... where just randomly running out of your starting area and attacking anything could result in a quick trip back to town.  It was one of those things that made you wake up, pay attention and figure things out (at least in my opinion).

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Suvroc

Originally posted by Obraik

SWG has always had too many servers

 

What exactly are you basing this comment on to make the assertion that there are too many servers?

 

Kauri, Lowca, etc have always had pops that could have been handled by a number of the other more populated servers.  They were always known as low-pop servers, even back when SWG was at its peak.

There are MMO's now that have more players then SWG had during its peak and have less servers then SWG has ever had.

Ummm, I had a toon of Lowca from day 2 to this very day, and back in Pre-CU and CU Lowca had a nice population. 

Of course SWG had about 250,000 players back then as well, as opposed to the 10,000 or less that it has today.

Originally posted by Valeran

I don't know what illusion you are referring too obraik...there are still hubs in the game today although not as much as in the past as the game is much less social than what it used to be.  I believe Mos Eisley would be considered a hub now.  Restuss at one time was and may still be

I won't speak for others but I loved the "hub" / marketplace we had prior to SOE's brainfarts.  It was a great way to meet new people and learn what to do in the game.

For Kauri it was Coronet, Theed, Anchorhead, Bestine, and many player cities depending upon what you wanted and wanted to do.

I think some of the bad decisions they made were dropping shuttle times and the introduction of the ITV's.  They have been methodically removing many of the social aspects of the game which is a real shame. 

 

I completely agree. I found hubs to be quite immersive.

But am I the only one that thinks Obraik's claim of 30-60 mins prep time at these hubs a bit excessive (no offense intended Obraik)? Of course I did spend that much time at hubs, but because I wanted to and not because I had to.

Originally posted by Suvroc

Originally posted by Valeran

I don't know what illusion you are referring too obraik...there are still hubs in the game today although not as much as in the past as the game is much less social than what it used to be.  I believe Mos Eisley would be considered a hub now.  Restuss at one time was and may still be

I won't speak for others but I loved the "hub" / marketplace we had prior to SOE's brainfarts.  It was a great way to meet new people and learn what to do in the game.

For Kauri it was Coronet, Theed, Anchorhead, Bestine, and many player cities depending upon what you wanted and wanted to do.

I think some of the bad decisions they made were dropping shuttle times and the introduction of the ITV's.  They have been methodically removing many of the social aspects of the game which is a real shame. 

 

 

I completely agree. I found hubs to be quite immersive.

But am I the only one that thinks Obraik's claim of 30-60 mins prep time at these hubs a bit excessive (no offense intended Obraik)? Of course I did spend that much time at hubs, but because I wanted to and not because I had to.

You see, that was the thing.

"Going out and killing stuff" was a small part of what I did in SWG.

Just being in the world was enough for me.  Interacting with others, especially RP activies, is why I was there.

If you bitched about the hubs, it was because you were missing the entire point of them.

But JTL killed the hubs when everyone got their own ship they could launch on command to get from Theed to Dantooine without having to go through Corellia, usually Coronet, first.

Originally posted by Suvroc

Originally posted by Valeran

I don't know what illusion you are referring too obraik...there are still hubs in the game today although not as much as in the past as the game is much less social than what it used to be.  I believe Mos Eisley would be considered a hub now.  Restuss at one time was and may still be

I won't speak for others but I loved the "hub" / marketplace we had prior to SOE's brainfarts.  It was a great way to meet new people and learn what to do in the game.

For Kauri it was Coronet, Theed, Anchorhead, Bestine, and many player cities depending upon what you wanted and wanted to do.

I think some of the bad decisions they made were dropping shuttle times and the introduction of the ITV's.  They have been methodically removing many of the social aspects of the game which is a real shame. 

 

 

I completely agree. I found hubs to be quite immersive.

But am I the only one that thinks Obraik's claim of 30-60 mins prep time at these hubs a bit excessive (no offense intended Obraik)? Of course I did spend that much time at hubs, but because I wanted to and not because I had to.

I agree. When I found myself at Cnet, I usually wanted to be there - and yes, at times for the occassional Doc buff that never took more than a few minutes to get. I bought my supplies from player vendors (not in a hub) and most times, my buffs were made available by fellow players (also not in a hub), be it in a player city or out in a camp.

Originally posted by Kazara

Originally posted by Suvroc

Originally posted by Valeran

I don't know what illusion you are referring too obraik...there are still hubs in the game today although not as much as in the past as the game is much less social than what it used to be.  I believe Mos Eisley would be considered a hub now.  Restuss at one time was and may still be

I won't speak for others but I loved the "hub" / marketplace we had prior to SOE's brainfarts.  It was a great way to meet new people and learn what to do in the game.

For Kauri it was Coronet, Theed, Anchorhead, Bestine, and many player cities depending upon what you wanted and wanted to do.

I think some of the bad decisions they made were dropping shuttle times and the introduction of the ITV's.  They have been methodically removing many of the social aspects of the game which is a real shame. 

 

 

I completely agree. I found hubs to be quite immersive.

But am I the only one that thinks Obraik's claim of 30-60 mins prep time at these hubs a bit excessive (no offense intended Obraik)? Of course I did spend that much time at hubs, but because I wanted to and not because I had to.

 

I agree. When I found myself at Cnet, I usually wanted to be there - and yes, at times for the occassional Doc buff that never took more than a few minutes to get. I bought my supplies from player vendors (not in a hub) and most times, my buffs were made available by fellow players (also not in a hub), be it in a player city or out in a camp.

Even when the "need" to go to a hub for buffs/travel was removed, players just moved those hubs to new areas.  There is always a "need" for social hot spots if a game has commerce between players, pvp combat, grouping, social mechanics (buyable buffs like those from entertainers now), etc.  It doesn't matter what game.  If it has those mechanics players will develope social hots spots to meet up and socialize in.

The notion that some game changes were made and everyone ran off into the wild to play the game without anyone else seeing them is just plain silly. 

Maybe Obriak is right that old swg could have merged out 4-5 servers, but those 4-5 servers were never a problem population wise.  There was no need to merge them.  Just because something could have been done, doesn't mean there was a need to do it.  There was no sleight of hand illusion work going on to make things seem busier than they were. 

Originally posted by sookster54

 

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Originally posted by Obraik

Going to a hub usually consumed quite a bit of a persons play period.  By the time they got through a doctor queue to get their wounds cured, then another for buffs, then another for an Ent buff, then finding someone selling/advertising stims/supplies for their trip to replace what decayed last time, etc, a person could find they'd been in the hub for 30-60mins.

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I look at that as a positive thing, hubs were busy places and a good place to meet new people and sell/trade things, there's a reason why a place like Orgrimmar in WoW is a popular hangout place. After all an MMO is supposed to be a social type game, is it not?

 

I'm not saying it's a bad thing.  I'm just saying that the hubs were a reason why the lower pop servers didn't look barren.

Yes, you could call Mos Eisley today a hub, but the hubs of today are quite different from the hubs of the past.  There's no real requirement that you need to go to them.  You could go multiple days without having to go through a major NPC city or common gathering area on your server.  Back then, you had wounds (that required two different professions to cure), buffs (again, two different professions), decay, shuttle waits (until JTL), etc that all kept you in the player hubs. 

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by sookster54

 

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Originally posted by Obraik

Going to a hub usually consumed quite a bit of a persons play period.  By the time they got through a doctor queue to get their wounds cured, then another for buffs, then another for an Ent buff, then finding someone selling/advertising stims/supplies for their trip to replace what decayed last time, etc, a person could find they'd been in the hub for 30-60mins.

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I look at that as a positive thing, hubs were busy places and a good place to meet new people and sell/trade things, there's a reason why a place like Orgrimmar in WoW is a popular hangout place. After all an MMO is supposed to be a social type game, is it not?

 

 

I'm not saying it's a bad thing.  I'm just saying that the hubs were a reason why the lower pop servers didn't look barren.

Yes, you could call Mos Eisley today a hub, but the hubs of today are quite different from the hubs of the past.  There's no real requirement that you need to go to them.  You could go multiple days without having to go through a major NPC city or common gathering area on your server.  Back then, you had wounds (that required two different professions to cure), buffs (again, two different professions), decay, shuttle waits (until JTL), etc that all kept you in the player hubs. 

Which IMHO just reinforces the fact that SOE was systematically removing social functions from the game which assisted the exodus.

Please stay on topic and away from personal attacks.  Thanks!

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by sookster54

 

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Originally posted by Obraik

Going to a hub usually consumed quite a bit of a persons play period.  By the time they got through a doctor queue to get their wounds cured, then another for buffs, then another for an Ent buff, then finding someone selling/advertising stims/supplies for their trip to replace what decayed last time, etc, a person could find they'd been in the hub for 30-60mins.

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I look at that as a positive thing, hubs were busy places and a good place to meet new people and sell/trade things, there's a reason why a place like Orgrimmar in WoW is a popular hangout place. After all an MMO is supposed to be a social type game, is it not?

 

 

I'm not saying it's a bad thing.  I'm just saying that the hubs were a reason why the lower pop servers didn't look barren.

Yes, you could call Mos Eisley today a hub, but the hubs of today are quite different from the hubs of the past.  There's no real requirement that you need to go to them.  You could go multiple days without having to go through a major NPC city or common gathering area on your server.  Back then, you had wounds (that required two different professions to cure), buffs (again, two different professions), decay, shuttle waits (until JTL), etc that all kept you in the player hubs. 

The lower populated servers in Pre-CU didn't look barren because they were not. Infact, even the so called lower populated servers back in the Pre-CU era had much larger populations than the vast majority of servers today. You may not care for gathering areas, but many players do, and such areas often reflect the health of a server's community.

The lowest populated servers in Pre-CU had much larger populations than the most populated SWG servers today.  You could log an any server back then and find people all over the place.

Now you log in and it's hard to find someone outside of Mos Eisley.  Heck the cantina in Coronet on most servers back in the day had more players than you would find in all of Mos Eisley today.  That doesn't even include the buffing lines by the starports back then.

SWG is dead.  It's been dead since November of 2005.  I have never witnessed a mass exodus from a game like that.  Tens of thousands of players leaving daily when the NGE hit...  It is unprecedented and it was quite sad.  The game now is just a shell of what it once was.  It's on life support until the new Star Wars MMO comes out and puts it out of it's misery.

been playing at primetime today and was more crowded then on midweek primetime.. it is fairly well populated in the weekend i guess. i still think they need to cut 1/2 of their servers so every server has a healthy population