Let's assume that in the first week after launch there were 1.5M active players, and they were VERY active. That would mean each server supported around 7K accounts, all of which could play totally smoothly. Of course, some servers supported more and some less, but it shows that the average server could run anywhere between 5K and 10K accounts without breaking a sweat.

It's not unreasonable to say that after 6 months of experience and server/database tuning, that the average server can quite possibly support far more accounts now than it could at launch. I don't really buy the "mega server technology" sales pitch, but I would believe that they were far too conservative with the initial server loadings.

The player distributions by zone are also not as concentrated as they would have been in the first few weeks, because the character level-spread is far greater. And a large number of players at level-cap will be playing in instances most of the time. The amount of hours played by each account will also decrease on average, because few players keep up the fevered pitch of those first few weeks of "new and shiny" gameplay.

So perhaps the new servers are supporting double or even triple the accounts that they did at launch. If a server at launch could support 10K accounts, that could mean they now are loading 20K or even 30K accounts per server, which (with 20-30 remaining servers) could mean a total sub of anywhere between 200K and 900K ! 

Originally posted by Trol1

Man, it's fun to see that ppl always have something to cry about. *rolls eyes*

Had SWTOR started with a lower number of server, people would have been in queue for ages getting the hate rollin'...

so instead BW overcompensated (and added in the "early access" APACs) and now people a crying that the servers are too empty (due to natural reduction of tourism players leaving).

so BW now sets up a server transfer model (not even a server merger, just a server transfer model!) and ppl start crying that this is SWTOR's end as obviously it'll show how few gamers there are actually playing SWTOR...

so, what is it that ppl actually want?

Because I assume with these smart doom-n-gloomers here (who should problably actually sit on the board of every MMO to assure that everything runs perfect) they have the answer that BW doesn't have...

Right now BW needs to determine what works best... and guess who makes that hard: the gamers!

There is no point of creating 2 or 3 "overservers" and a dozen or so mid-strong servers and another dozen light-to-mid servers and then say "hey, we are done!"

Because then suddenly people will start complaining that these "overservers" are too full and that there ain't enough on the mid-light servers and the whole game starts again.

This is a simple, persistant "let's look at the numbers" game where BW needs to see if one server is in danger of going critical and needs to be dropped as a destination server or not.

And who knows, out of all those origin servers, at the end of the day there may well be quite a few "rising from the ashes" when BW actuially finds their prime servers saturated and now goes for the "second class" servers that still have a "stronger" population (compared to other low pop servers) on 'em.

Anyhow, things are in motion, now let 'em progress, will ya? ;-)

 

More content, and a more solid planned future

When I started playing SWG, it was all quite lame, with running everywhere and not much in sight, but on the horizom, we knew we were gettiing vehicles, mounts, player cities, space etc and with the vast worlds to explore and the crafting system in place, it kept you well occupied.

When SWGs servers merged, they were all full for a while (except Gorath), and then a year later it was cries for more server merges, as the transfers and merges only fixed the problem temporarily.

By the time all the transfers are done, servers will become swiftly dead again, and then more merges will be necessary.

It took SOE 6 years to do transfers/merges and they mainly focussed on content, which is the right thing to do, as it tackles the root of the population decline. Transfer/merges will make some people quit too, if their characters name is the really important to them.

More content that people want = people return, when people return the servers fill back up again, servers fill back up, then those that quit due to low population will also return.

These transfers are the beginning of the end

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Originally posted by TangentPoint

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Originally posted by pierthSource? Metrics/Statistics? Any proof whatsoever? Because the last two "forced grouping" games that I played were FFXI and EQ1 both of which have run with profitable amounts of players for years. Certainly, if MMO Pubs are only seeking players for less than six months they should focus on soloers- however if they are looking to profit on more than box sales then it shows that it's a stupid, stupid thing to do.

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The problem is you have people on either side of the fence arguing to the extremes of their position, while dismissing or ignoring the other side of the coin.  It's either "All A" or "All B". Too few people dwell in the gray area between that better represents the actual situation. This leads to a complete dead-end in terms of any kind of meaningful discussion taking place, because people on either side refuse to even acknowledge the other.

What I see happening is bigger name developers finding they can provide what is essentially a forced-online solo-RPG with optional group content. That is, optional in that you don't have to do it, but it's there in case you want to. It's not mission critical to progressing in the game - that includes Raids and PvP in most cases.

The developers and, to a greater extent, the publishers are steadily working this into a situation where they get to have their cake and eat it, too. It seems to me that this whole genre is steadily moving toward the "standard" of being forced online single-player games with an on-going revenue model.

Looking at the current crop of MMOs and comparing it to earlier MMOs, even including those that came out earlier in the "WoW Era", fewer and fewer developers are even trying to make them massive anymore.

The genre's being streamlined, simplified and wittled down into a lean, mean, money-generating machine that barely resembles its roots anymore. It's happening right under people's noses, and those same people are eating it up.

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I agree, and the sad thing is we'll always see proponents of these poor quality games white knighting them with "Hurr durr it's only $60.00- I can't get that many hours of entertainment elsewhere for the same price." They'll never demand better because of this insipid idea.

Originally posted by TangentPoint

Originally posted by pierth

Source? Metrics/Statistics? Any proof whatsoever? Because the last two "forced grouping" games that I played were FFXI and EQ1 both of which have run with profitable amounts of players for years.

Certainly, if MMO Pubs are only seeking players for less than six months they should focus on soloers- however if they are looking to profit on more than box sales then it shows that it's a stupid, stupid thing to do.

The problem is you have people on either side of the fence arguing to the extremes of their position, while dismissing or ignoring the other side of the coin.  It's either "All A" or "All B". Too few people dwell in the gray area between that better represents the actual situation. This leads to a complete dead-end in terms of any kind of meaningful discussion taking place, because people on either side refuse to even acknowledge the other.

What I see happening is bigger name developers finding they can provide what is essentially a forced-online solo-RPG with optional group content. That is, optional in that you don't have to do it, but it's there in case you want to. It's not mission critical to progressing in the game - that includes Raids and PvP in most cases.

The developers and, to a greater extent, the publishers are steadily working this into a situation where they get to have their cake and eat it, too. It seems to me that this whole genre is steadily moving toward the "standard" of being forced online single-player games with an on-going revenue model.

Looking at the current crop of MMOs and comparing it to earlier MMOs, even including those that came out earlier in the "WoW Era", fewer and fewer developers are even trying to make them massive anymore.

The genre's being streamlined, simplified and wittled down into a lean, mean, money-generating machine that barely resembles its roots anymore. It's happening right under people's noses, and those same people are eating it up.

Tangent, BadSpock has a blog post on forced soloing that's rather relevant to this discussion. He even has a neat Ihmotepp quote in there. ;)

I know this forum needs to get their daily dose of hating SWTOR in, but let me provide some facts from someone who actually plays this game rather than just trolls forums:

Yes, there are far fewer servers than there was at launch.  However, last night there was also far more players on my new server (Prophecy of the Five) than there was on any single server at launch, approximately 500 people on the Republic Fleet and 900 people on the Imperial Fleet.  No single server came close to this at launch.  Obviously server caps are far higher than they were at launch.

With that being said, let the hating resume.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by SpottyGekko

Lol, if a game has 700K players, what diffirence does it make whether they are spread over 214 servers or 20 servers ? As long as the servers can handle the player numbers.

 

It sounds like the doomsayers are going to use the character transfer numbers to try to "prove" that the game is finally "dead". Is the subtext here something like: "Wow, if they needed 214 servers for 1 million players, reducing that to 20 servers must mean the game only has 100K players left !!1!!!"

 

SWTOR had the smoothest launch in MMO history, but it came at quite a steep price in the end. Having so many servers at launch (and aggresively managing server loadings) made for very smooth gameplay during the initial rush, but it has left a large number of servers empty now that the population has stabilised.

So, what's really important ? The drop in player numbers is important, and we can clearly see that the numbers have dropped substantially (even by the official announcements), so nothing new there. The re-arrangement of remaining players on fewer (but bigger) servers is expected, not headline news...

 

Stop fooling yourself please.  It would be surprising if the game has greater than 500K active players right now and as soon as GW2/TSW launch they'll be heading down to the 200-300K range. (one man's opinion)

 

First of all you don't have a clue of how many subs they have. Secondly you don't know the CAP of their servers. And finally with server transfers and 1.3 coming, alot of people are going to resub. I did, alot of my guildies did and more will continue to do so.

People who are sick of WoW, people who think RIFT is crap, and people who love star wars will all come back. And no, GW2 won't steal players from it, it is just another game. And much less TSW, which is pure garbage.

I honestly do not think content is the main issue. The biggest problem most players have with the game (even the hold outs I know who defended the game to the last have this complaint) is that it is not an MMO. Massively Multiplayer ? SWTOR is not and people dont want to pay a monthly subscription to play what is essentially a CRPG with small group co-op and vs modes tacked on.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by pierth

Just goes to show the importance of having a quality, compelling endgame.

Not really. TOR is just putting all the focus on soloing so people enjoy the game for 1-3 months and then feel done with it like a singleplayer game.

If you want people to play a long time you need to focus on multiplayer instead or at least have 50/50.

Very much agree with this.

Originally posted by Bombzaway

on december 26 when on official forums you got a thread thats " OMGAD SKILL DELAY PEW PEW PEW" and theres 1000 comments and its been viewed 100k times and devs actually commentate saying that everything was working as intented (who saw it knows the comment im talking about, was left only a few hours untill removed from mods but I saw it) insulting the players telling them they are at fault....really explains everything.

Thats pretty much exactly what the lead dev from Mythic did to to everyone complaining about broken bright wizard DoT stacking & pvp magic resistances not working at all (with evidence). Maybe since biowares been helping them out with WAR the dev in question has been "mentoring" the SWTOR devs ? ;)

Originally posted by TheCrow2k

Originally posted by Bombzaway

on december 26 when on official forums you got a thread thats " OMGAD SKILL DELAY PEW PEW PEW" and theres 1000 comments and its been viewed 100k times and devs actually commentate saying that everything was working as intented (who saw it knows the comment im talking about, was left only a few hours untill removed from mods but I saw it) insulting the players telling them they are at fault....really explains everything.

 

Thats pretty much exactly what the lead dev from Mythic did to to everyone complaining about broken bright wizard DoT stacking & pvp magic resistances not working at all (with evidence). Maybe since biowares been helping them out with WAR the dev in question has been "mentoring" the SWTOR devs ? ;)

All of the half decent Mythic developers left after they were moved to WAR btw. Mythic being blamed for Warhammer is like Bioware being blamed for Mass Effect 3's terrible plot holes and gameplay. We all know that EA outsourced most of the code for ME3 overseas, and then took a slightly "Creative" direction with it after the basework was done. All of the talent from the original Bioware are gone, and now it is EA-Bioware...the name alone.

Temporary locking this. The thread has a high volume of things that need to be cleaned up. Will post when reopened.

Open again. Apologies for the wait.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

Originally posted by TheCrow2k

Originally posted by Bombzaway

on december 26 when on official forums you got a thread thats " OMGAD SKILL DELAY PEW PEW PEW" and theres 1000 comments and its been viewed 100k times and devs actually commentate saying that everything was working as intented (who saw it knows the comment im talking about, was left only a few hours untill removed from mods but I saw it) insulting the players telling them they are at fault....really explains everything.

 

Thats pretty much exactly what the lead dev from Mythic did to to everyone complaining about broken bright wizard DoT stacking & pvp magic resistances not working at all (with evidence). Maybe since biowares been helping them out with WAR the dev in question has been "mentoring" the SWTOR devs ? ;)

All of the half decent Mythic developers left after they were moved to WAR btw. Mythic being blamed for Warhammer is like Bioware being blamed for Mass Effect 3's terrible plot holes and gameplay. We all know that EA outsourced most of the code for ME3 overseas, and then took a slightly "Creative" direction with it after the basework was done. All of the talent from the original Bioware are gone, and now it is EA-Bioware...the name alone.

Damn you havent a clue.

The plot holes are obvious in the ME3 ending, but the game itself is the best of the 3. ME3 is an upgrade to the combat of ME2, and a more RPGish experience that harkens back to ME1. To top it off, the MP  turned out to be a good time.

I understand you wanna call BW the debil, but it would be nice if you dealt in reality. The ending of ME 3 did indeed stink for some, but the game till that point is a very solid RPG experience. The gaming world would be a much better place if all games "stunk" like ME3.

Originally posted by sirphobos

I know this forum needs to get their daily dose of hating SWTOR in, but let me provide some facts from someone who actually plays this game rather than just trolls forums:

Yes, there are far fewer servers than there was at launch.  However, last night there was also far more players on my new server (Prophecy of the Five) than there was on any single server at launch, approximately 500 people on the Republic Fleet and 900 people on the Imperial Fleet.  No single server came close to this at launch.  Obviously server caps are far higher than they were at launch.

With that being said, let the hating resume.

Do you remember aproximatively the figures at launch?

So how many players fit on 30 servers?  1.3 million?  LOL

Originally posted by BigHatLogan

So how many players fit on 30 servers?  1.3 million?  LOL

they would probably do just fine with the same number servers as Tera...

Originally posted by BigHatLogan

So how many players fit on 30 servers?  1.3 million?  LOL

Pretty soon SWTOR will have as many subscribers as GW2.

Originally posted by pierth

 

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Originally posted by Fadedbomb

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Originally posted by Loke666

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Originally posted by pierth Just goes to show the importance of having a quality, compelling endgame.

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Not really. TOR is just putting all the focus on soloing so people enjoy the game for 1-3 months and then feel done with it like a singleplayer game. If you want people to play a long time you need to focus on multiplayer instead or at least have 50/50.

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I also feel that the quality was piss poor. The Animations & sound were great, don't get me wrong, but the combat, graphics, gameplay, emphasis on solo gameplay, massive linearization, and massive instancing simply cut me off from the game before it began.

 

 

You only touched on a small portion of the issue I believe Loke :)!

 

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Surely we all knew that the majority of this game would be solo-centric and SWTOR did not disappoint in that- but for any real longevity you have to have an endgame that entices players to keep playing. There's simply no way for EA/Bioware to churn out solo content at the rate players devour it, and naturally once they've completed that content they move on- it's a recipe for disaster for a MMORPG.

This is precisely what happens when a Massively Solo Online Role-Playing Game (with optional multiplayer) is created. Those players that insist MMORPGs cater to solo playstyles are actively telling Pubs/Devs to shoot themselves in the foot. Proof that solo content-locust playstyles kill MMOs.

Richard Bartle, one of the more famous game designers in academia, pointed that out about SWTOR, albiet indirectly:

As I regularly mention, I don't play MMOs for player fun. In terms of designer fun, I could have stopped a day after I started, but I kept going for reasons of credentials and solidarity. I was also determined to get involved with the endgame more than I usually do, in the hope that it might offer something new (it didn't). I achieved this goal with some fairly intensive playing that ate up rather too many evenings, but work is work. I reached legacy level 37 (the highest in the guild by some margin) with a /played of 19d 8h 30m on my level 50 Jedi sage healer, 11d 11h 45m on my level 50 gunslinger ranged DPS and 2d 17h 45m on my level 40 Jedi knight tank. Including assorted other characters, that means I played for around 33 days of elapsed time over 137 days, or roughly 25% of my time. This may sound excessive, but when I was marking assignments I was spending 60% of my time on that; I can be dedicated when the job demands it.

SW:TOR is shedding players by the bucketload now, at least on the Republic side. It used to be that our guild could put together three operations (ie. raids) at once, but yesterday it couldn't even put together a group for the Lost Island flashpoint (ie. instance). I can go to planets such as Ilum (where PvP takes place and there are lucrative daily quests) and be the only Republic player present. It may be different for Imperials, but on the Republic side the game is a multi-player wasteland.

I won't be going through the 93 pages of notes I made to tell you why I believe things aren't turning out as well as they might, but I believe that the fundamental reason is the too-large dissonance between the levelling game and the endgame. The levelling game is all about story and solo play; the endgame is all about group play and grinding through dailies. There's too great a disconnect. If new content had been added to the levelling game in patch 1.2, things could have been different. However, the new content added was at the endgame; indeed, the developers' view seems to be that players want to skip through the levelling game quicker on their alts, judging by the introduction of shared buffs across all your characters and legacy items you can use to over-gear them. As a result of this, my level 15 trooper ranged dps is cutting through content like a hot knife through butter. SW:TOR was sold on the strength of its story elements; encouraging players to scoot through the story to get to a generic endgame is of course going to cost it players.

 

So, they build a story MMO.   Those people ran through the MMO and SWTOR can't compete at end-game with end-game/raiding MMOs.    Even worse, BioWare devaluates the stories with the legacy system allowing you to burn through them at a higher rate by over-gearing/over-buffing while putting their emphasis on a third-rate end-game.

Amateur hour is took kind.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by pierth

Just goes to show the importance of having a quality, compelling endgame.

Not really. TOR is just putting all the focus on soloing so people enjoy the game for 1-3 months and then feel done with it like a singleplayer game.

If you want people to play a long time you need to focus on multiplayer instead or at least have 50/50.

 Yeah, Agreed, but where are all these gamers that praised Bioware and wanted story, content, and the experience over multiplayer/pvp related content??