Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by Eletheryl
Are the servers dying again? the answer is easy, NO. Just a normal drop of acitve players till the 1.7 update coming this Month, and that drop is really small and temporary.   

I'd say this is the most likely reason, but Bioware does need to step it up on releasing new content. Some of their competition is releasing new content on a monthy basis(TSW for instance) and players get bored of grinding the sames instances and zones every day. 

I agree with this statement. I don't think that game is loosing subs, players just spend less time in SWTOR waiting for 1.7 and Makeb. Every MMO I played was going through the same cycle. Nothing unusual here in my opinion.

Low planets are still swarmed with new players. Every planet I was yesterday had at least 2 instances /shrug

Originally posted by Icewhite
Nope, not biting.

All one has to do is look at torstatus.net to see the answer.  Standard server line been on the increase the past week or so,  heavy is way down.

The fact is folks are tired of the same old thing.  The next patch will go out folks will log in and play until board to death again. 

Still the decline is adding up.  EA is just not doing what it takes to keep folks interested that much is a fact.

Originally posted by grimal

Nope.  Haven't noticed any steady drop at all.  My server is still packed in all areas.

 

Seriosuly even Sevnstar has noticed a decline.

Looking forward to seeing a screenshot later with it being FULL

No screenshots (taken since today) showing 5 FULL US servers or more = (temporarly) dying.

When 1.7 or Makeb hits and does not meet 5 FULL US servers, then it is definately dying

Originally posted by superniceguy

Originally posted by grimal

Nope.  Haven't noticed any steady drop at all.  My server is still packed in all areas.

 

Seriosuly even Sevnstar has noticed a decline.

Looking forward to seeing a screenshot later with it being FULL

No screenshots (taken since today) showing 5 FULL US servers or more = (temporarly) dying.

When 1.7 or Makeb hits and does not meet 5 FULL US servers, then it is definately dying

Dying? Hardly. There were over 200 players on Tython on The Ebon Hawk yesterday, Alderan had 2 instances... my Jedi Knight is there right now, Fleet has multiple instances on both factions,

it's just a common sense that there is decline in time you spend in game between new content. Even I spend less hours in SWTOR now, as I am going through all Mass Effect games - starting from 1 in prepareness for Mass Effect 4. I am going to also go through all Dragon Age games, to prepare for Dragon Age III. That alone makes me play less SWTOR, but I stick with bioWare games, which I absolutely love. My guildies spend right now plenty of time in Minecraft... (I might even join them LOL) trying to build a Deathstar /grin. But they did not unsub, and we still have regular guild events, they just play less SWTOR waing fo new content. I bet though that servers will be full when Makeb hits.

There is nothing wrong in playing more then one game at the same time.

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Originally posted by superniceguy

Originally posted by grimal

Nope.  Haven't noticed any steady drop at all.  My server is still packed in all areas.

 

Seriosuly even Sevnstar has noticed a decline.

Looking forward to seeing a screenshot later with it being FULL

No screenshots (taken since today) showing 5 FULL US servers or more = (temporarly) dying.

When 1.7 or Makeb hits and does not meet 5 FULL US servers, then it is definately dying

Dying? Hardly. There were over 200 players on Tython on The Ebon Hawk yesterday, Alderan had 2 instances... my Jedi Knight is there right now, Fleet has multiple instances on both factions,

it's just a common sense that there is decline in time you spend in game between new content. Even I spend less hours in SWTOR now, as I am going through all Mass Effect games - starting from 1 in prepareness for Mass Effect 4. I am going to also go through all Dragon Age games, to prepare for Dragon Age III. That alone makes me play less SWTOR, but I stick with bioWare games, which I absolutely love. My guildies spend right now plenty of time in Minecraft... (I might even join them LOL) trying to build a Deathstar /grin. But they did not unsub, and we still have regular guild events, they just play less SWTOR waing fo new content. I bet though that servers will be full when Makeb hits.

There is nothing wrong in playing more then one game at the same time.

If it is not dying then there should be a screenshot later from you with 5 FULL US servers as you took on 13th Jan. But then you say it is natural between content, totally ignoring what I said about being temporary and permanent. Dying servers mean populations dropping whether temporary or not.

The game died off last year when there was hope for more content, it only got resurrected with F2P, and now they are just spinning their wheels with the year old content, losing hope for a decent future. The game is bound to die off, at this rate.

With SWTOR being F2P it is easier for people to come and go, but mass loads of people still not make a healthy game, only if they are paying enough money in F2P. Even I still play but do not pay anything. People may spend loads in the store, but obviosuly it is not enough, otherwise the game would clearly be progressing leaps and bounds, and not living on year old content.

As for playing more than one game, there is nothing wrong with that, but there was so much to do in SWG, there was not much time to play other games.

Oh, look, the usual supsects trying to mug their favorite victim -- again.

Because it's dying -- again.

Because... Ummm, they say so -- again.

*Yawn*

As for F2P restrictions in SWTOR. I think it's less restrictive then it seems. Looked at GTN yesterday and I was amazed how cheap and how many unlocks are for sale. They are actually afordable enough to make like of F2P players pretty good imo. Even unlocks for new characters are selling pretty cheap ~ 120k. People actually spend lots of real money to sell unlocks.

Quicksots are for 75k right now.

Edit. I spend plenty of real money too LOL but on cartel packs LOL

Originally posted by Myria

Oh, look, the usual supsects trying to mug their favorite victim -- again.

Because it's dying -- again.

Because... Ummm, they say so -- again.

*Yawn*

Because it is.

F2P only gave it a guaranteed boost, as it is easy to play the game when there is no money barrier,  but it will not rise again.

Lets keep a weekly track of things from now and through to Makeb and beyond, and dollars to donuts populations will basically keep dropping (although will spike for a bit when content added but not as much as F2P did)

For STOs anniversary they dish out tonnes of goodiees, another new different Q event and a mission featuring Tasha Yar and voiced by the official actress Denise Crosby, which gets you the Enterprise C - awesome. What did SWTOR get for its recent anniversary? Fireworks in the Cartel Market - lame.

It's definitely on a steady decline, but it's certainly a long way from dying.

The XFIRE numbers have cut in half since the originally F2P conversion but overall it's declining slowly rather than abruptly like everyone feels it would.

Well see what this expansion brings to the population.

Originally posted by eddieg50
  LOL, The game is certainly NOT Dyeing, the super hard core of course will rip through the content but for the millions of us who play mmo's along with our single player games it is fine

 Its true, the game is not dyeing...

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by eddieg50
  LOL, The game is certainly NOT Dyeing, the super hard core of course will rip through the content but for the millions of us who play mmo's along with our single player games it is fine

 Its true, the game is not dyeing...

LOL, my bad , actually dyeing in the game does kind of suck, the game itself is not dead:)

Originally posted by Pivotelite

It's definitely on a steady decline, but it's certainly a long way from dying.

 

 

That is what causes the confusion here, as I regard "steady decline" = dying.

Also dying is not = dead. So SWTOR is not dead, but servers are dying, which is the same as steady decline

Not dying = no decline whatsoever or rises

Dying is certainly too harsh a term.

Since the FTP conversion, primarily in the last month, there has been a sizeable downtick in populaton.

To a certain degree this was to be expected. If an FTP player was determined to play out a class story and leave, (factoring in XP nerf, limited PVP, Flashpoint, and Space Game XP it would take a couple of months to hit 50.

Futhermore, if you look closer at the X-Fire charts, SWTOR has gone down a bit. Also of note, Terra (now FTP) has risen considerably from where it was, as (to a lesser extent) Planetside 2 (also FTP), and making big waves (much to D3's expense) Path of Exile (FTP).

FTP players, which can be easy to attract, can also be easy to lose.

That said, monetarily, the game's main streams of revenue is from subscription fees and primarily from what those same said subscribers spend in the cartel shop.

Even if the game has lost say 15% of its FTP population, they probably only represented 1% of revenue.

That is the beauty (or curse) of a Freemium system. You cannot know how much money is actually being made or lost solely on population numbers.

Again, it is more likely FTP players leaving as opposed to subbers. The theorey that there is just a lull due to lack of new content for subbers to play seems to ring hollow to me. There wasn't much in the way of new content for SWTOR in general, so I doubt subbers just figured this out and decided to stop levelling alts.

Unless the FTP restrictions are relaxed, I would expect to see the FTP population to continue to melt away. Especially when Makeb comes out. Makeb is going to add a definitive $20 (to buy FTP x-pac) or $25 (to buy a sub and x-pac) paywall to all FTP players.

Again, this doesn't necesarily make the game considerably less profitable. The foundation for the game is its subscription fees, and the profit comes from the subbers buying items from the catel market. (And from DLC)

So, FTP players leaving doesn't really affect the bottom line (Although bad for PR) the question is how long the current system is sustainable unless new content is added at a decent rate. Makeb is coming in the spring, but that has been planned since before the game launced, as has the Cathar. We shall see how much of the cartel revenue is reinvested in the game in order to keep the whole thing going. Even as EA said, it is too early to see if this monetization model is sustainable for the long term.

TL;DR A bunch of FTP players either got bored or left for other FTP games. Those players weren't paying much in money to EA, so it's far too early to say the game is dying.

BTW; those saying "Oh another the game is dying thread," the P2P game did die. SWTOR of today depends on those microtransactions to survive in any meaningful way.

Originally posted by superniceguy

Originally posted by grimal

Nope.  Haven't noticed any steady drop at all.  My server is still packed in all areas.

 

Seriosuly even Sevnstar has noticed a decline.

Looking forward to seeing a screenshot later with it being FULL

No screenshots (taken since today) showing 5 FULL US servers or more = (temporarly) dying.

When 1.7 or Makeb hits and does not meet 5 FULL US servers, then it is definately dying

Relying on server "loads" is a foolish endeavor since these actually represent an unknown variable and the DEVs can have them state whatever they want.  Haven't we seen this in tons of other games already?

I can post a SS showing the people around me and create a thread saying "it feels like launch again" but then what does that prove?   Every post you and a couple others place here is an aim to bring this game down so honestly there is point in conversing with you about it.

My server (Prophecy of the Five) is packed.  Every planet has two instances on it at pretty much every time I log (except early early mornings), so this doom and gloom propoganda has little merit.

Now excuse me while I log into my packed server....

To be fair, any discussion of the game being shut down is silly. No one knows the exact details of the licensing agreement between EA and LA.

What people are postulating on is whether the game is generating enough revenue to justify reinvestment into new content. (Avoiding the dreaded WAR maintenence mode)

As to the recent apparent population downward trend; the last time we saw this from SWTOR was shortly after the release of GW2 (and to a lesser extent MoP). Then as well as now many people said their server populations were fine. A couple of months later there was a second round of server merges. (D3 also decimated server populations, but the initial mergers were held off for a long time for EA PR purposes, much to the game's detriment.)

But to be honest, it's all a fool's erreand. SWTOR's profitability no longer relies solely on subscription numbers. In fact, the FTP option of this game is so restrictive, odds are they aren't generating much money from FTP players at all.

The key to SWTOR's success is retaining subscribers, and just how much those subscribers spend on microtransactions.

In theorey, the game could lose 90% of it's FTP players, and 30% of its subscribers and still be more profitable then it is today. (If microtransaction sales remain strong, and there is further DLC releases.)

So while it is intresting to observe population levels, it doesn't really tell you much about the gme's health. The only way to guess the game's financial health is by how much new content is released (representing reinvestment.) And even that is assuming that EA isn't of a mind to swqueeze all possible short term profit out of the remaining players in an attempt to quickly recover the game's development costs (assuming they are stil in the red, debatable I know, but most people think the game is still in the red.)

The proof can only really be seen in the pudding that is served post-Makeb.

One might conclude then that this discussion of server popualation is then all idle chatter, doom and gloomers bickering with rose-shaded glass wearers. Well that might be a correct conclusion but hey, this is a MMORPG discussion forum. What did you expect?

Originally posted by grimal

Relying on server "loads" is a foolish endeavor since these actually represent an unknown variable and the DEVs can have them state whatever they want.  Haven't we seen this in tons of other games already?

I can post a SS showing the people around me and create a thread saying "it feels like launch again" but then what does that prove?   Every post you and a couple others place here is an aim to bring this game down so honestly there is point in conversing with you about it.

My server (Prophecy of the Five) is packed.  Every planet has two instances on it at pretty much every time I log (except early early mornings), so this doom and gloom propoganda has little merit.

Now excuse me while I log into my packed server....

 Funny thing about your post is the same can be said on the flip side. Same people kept posting that there was nothing wrong with the game as populations dropped, same things said as EA had their investor meetings talking about the big drop in subscriptions...same thing being said as entire staffs were being replaced...same thing being said as F2P was announced...same thing being said today.

I am sure the same thing will be said the day before they shut the game down due to less than 100 people playing, then the same again as you try to get a petition going to get EA to start the game back up ala CoH.