Originally posted by MindTrigger

I don't care if the player count says there are 10,000 people in my zone.  If I only ever see 5-6 people, then the world still feels dead. 

Agreed.

Imo, zones should have about the same level of effectively visible population. as we see in say a decently populated WoW server.

Also, I think it is important to make the non-player elements to seem as lifelike as possible, to help foster the feeling of 'life'.

Speaking for myself, the feeling of a 'dead' server is just as much a motivation to cancel, as is a lagging server.

And again, screenshots please.   With so many fanbois and Haters out there, it is hard to tell who is telling the truth, who is fibbing, and who is embelishing a smiggion.

Originally posted by mithoss

wait a second...so swotor isnt a mmorpg its a morpg... so world events are out of the question eh?

No its an 'OG'  Simply an online game. pretty much just x-box live in my opinion.

Originally posted by er99

Originally posted by mithoss

wait a second...so swotor isnt a mmorpg its a morpg... so world events are out of the question eh?

No its an 'OG'  Simply an online game. pretty much just x-box live in my opinion.

+1

Originally posted by Margulis

I would rather deal with a week or two of crowded started zones than deal with the emptiness of how things are now with all of this instancing of zones.  Getting a random group together to take out a rare mob or tackle a heroic quest shouldn't be an issue when my server is "very heavy", but it is when the players are spread out over a bunch of copies of the zone I'm in.  Cities never even feel busy, it's lonely out there.

Crowded starter areas we would have to deal with for a few weeks.  This problem will always exist. 

Working as intended.  I have no issues with this.

I haven't had any grouping issues at all

/shrug

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by dubyahite
Also, saying you can't find a group because of the instancing is wrong.

All of the instances share the same chat and LFG thing.

Maybe nobody wants to group with you?

I think youu totally misunderstood what he meaned. OP did not mean, group for instance but a group for taking out rare mob or heroic quest in OPEN WORLD. Learn to read.

It's still not an issue - you can still call for people to help with a world boss or heroic by calling it on the chat channels.

Originally posted by Margulis

I would rather deal with a week or two of crowded started zones than deal with the emptiness of how things are now with all of this instancing of zones.  Getting a random group together to take out a rare mob or tackle a heroic quest shouldn't be an issue when my server is "very heavy", but it is when the players are spread out over a bunch of copies of the zone I'm in.  Cities never even feel busy, it's lonely out there.

Crowded starter areas we would have to deal with for a few weeks.  This problem will always exist. 

No thanks. I prefer not having to deal with a--holes who camp important spawns or waiting behind others who are all trying to kill the same NPC I am. Those are issues you didn't mention which this system doesn't allow. If you're feeling lonely then join a guild and group up.

Originally posted by er99

Originally posted by mithoss

wait a second...so swotor isnt a mmorpg its a morpg... so world events are out of the question eh?

No its an 'OG'  Simply an online game. pretty much just x-box live in my opinion.

ya nothing MMO about this game...........

say hello to aoc style gameplay--a cacophy of people--in dozens of different instances. The result therein a immersion axe to the neck of players.

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Originally posted by ktanner3

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Originally posted by Margulis
I would rather deal with a week or two of crowded started zones than deal with the emptiness of how things are now with all of this instancing of zones.  Getting a random group together to take out a rare mob or tackle a heroic quest shouldn't be an issue when my server is "very heavy", but it is when the players are spread out over a bunch of copies of the zone I'm in.  Cities never even feel busy, it's lonely out there.
Crowded starter areas we would have to deal with for a few weeks.  This problem will always exist. 

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No thanks. I prefer not having to deal with a--holes who camp important spawns or waiting behind others who are all trying to kill the same NPC I am. Those are issues you didn't mention which this system doesn't allow. If you're feeling lonely then join a guild and group up.

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instancing is something that really hurt CO and STO.  Bioware should be listening to this feedback.

Originally posted by adam_nox

instancing is something that really hurt CO and STO.  Bioware should be listening to this feedback.

I will chime in here and say some of the instancing is not too bad. The stuff for the personel story where you get your own little thing is sort of like Rifts chronicles. Although I wish some of them were 1-2 person and could be duo'd

Originally posted by jerlot65

Originally posted by er99

Originally posted by mithoss

wait a second...so swotor isnt a mmorpg its a morpg... so world events are out of the question eh?

No its an 'OG'  Simply an online game. pretty much just x-box live in my opinion.

ya nothing MMO about this game...........

Better yet, nothing RPG about this game

Originally posted by adam_nox

instancing is something that really hurt CO and STO.  Bioware should be listening to this feedback.

I dunno, I think the single-server system in those games makes up for the instancing. I don't really mind it in TOR, but that's maybe because I've got used to it through playing CO.

Originally posted by adam_nox

instancing is something that really hurt CO and STO.  Bioware should be listening to this feedback.

 Bioware will absolutely ignore this feedback. They have no other choice. The engine cannot handle the population without instancing and zoning. Won't work, not possible, not going to happen.

Originally posted by Zecktorin

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by mithoss

wait a second...so swotor isnt a mmorpg its a morpg... so world events are out of the question eh?

Wait a second...we have an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory sans evidence on our hands.

For the record, HE claims the capability of handling 100k players at a time.  This is also unsubstantiated, of course, because no current server hardware can handle that kind of load anyway.

But hey, they're eager to believe it, so let 'em.

Umm Eve online server can handle more than 100k at a time... its only one server.

No. Not a single server. A single shard (a single DB), but many, many nodes.

Originally posted by Gibbonici

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by dubyahite
Also, saying you can't find a group because of the instancing is wrong.

All of the instances share the same chat and LFG thing.

Maybe nobody wants to group with you?

I think youu totally misunderstood what he meaned. OP did not mean, group for instance but a group for taking out rare mob or heroic quest in OPEN WORLD. Learn to read.

It's still not an issue - you can still call for people to help with a world boss or heroic by calling it on the chat channels.

Correct but what the OP means is that he cant walk up a rare mob and see people around and just ask to group up. Anyone that has played an MMO for any period of time has come across this. You are walking around in a quest area and just ask other people that are around to group up.

With the way it is in this game you have an extra step which isnt that big of a deal but it is a speedbump in a way.

Originally posted by DexterMMO

Originally posted by dubyahite
I'm regularly seeing 100 - 200 people per instance. Doesn't seem empty at all. People everywhere

dude... they're obviously talking about the intro cut scene... leave em be.

Apparently.  Sometimes I wonder if they're playing the same game.

True, there's not, like, 50 NPC's mulling around the Senate lobby.  That's not an engine issue some much as it is a user video card issue.  The only MMO I've seen with lots of NPC's in a given area is CoX, and that 7 year old game with its 7 year old gfx runs worse on my machine than any new game.

Lack of ambient sound complaints, I REALLY don't get.  There's TONS of ambient noise, from speeders to crowds to wind to far off firefights to the thrum of starship engines.  Only thing I don't like is some of the audio positioning.  You'll start hearing a conversation from some NPC's, then take a cab.  When you get to your destination, you'll hear the remainder of the conversation as though they're standing right next to you. 

Also, sometimes when you travel, some ambient noise will stop abruptly, then fade back in again.  It seems to happen depending on where you move, so I still think it's a positional thing.  But the fact that it's so startling when things go quiet is actually flies in the face of the criticism. 

Back to the OP's criticism... Most times I saw anywhere from 50-250 people on a given planet.  The fact that you don't see very many of them is a testament to the size of some of these planets.  That said, it wouldn't bother me if they opened them up a little more.  50 in an AoC or STO zone would be overcrowding; 250 on a SWTOR planet like Tatooinne?  Not even close to being a fire hazard.