All Posts by Romy

Coronet is dead on most servers - that doesn't mean the game is.  Coronet used to be the hub of doctor buffing, so it was crowded.  Now, not so much.  But Tatooine is usually busy on many servers, and other planets as well.  Not like the old days, but not so dead as some would suggest.

If you are looking for space gaming, consider Starsider - a lot of pilot groups have migrated there.

Well, I cannot predict what EA will do, and I am not playing TSO at the moment, although I do maintain an account, so I am not sure what they have or have not done to ramp up. I do know Tiggs bailed for SWG, which I viewed as a sign that the future of TSO was not assured.

Still, The Sims offline has been such a success and such a mainstay of EA, that I rather wonder if they will not give TSO every chance to succeed, longer perhaps than other games they have pulled the plug on. I hope so - as you say, it is one of a relatively few number of games (although by no means the only one) where you can play purely to socialize and not engage in EQ-style fighting/leveling - and I know from personal experience, it can be a lot of fun if you are willing to put the time and effort and creativity into it.

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Originally posted by Katheryne

At any rate, TSO is not dying out. Our subscription numbers have been pretty stable over the past year. In-city population shifts happen when large-scale new features come out, such as the opening of Dragon's Cove, and the testing of Betaville. Sims like me are prone to frequent city-shifting anyways, so I never put too much stock on city population fluctuations.

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Well, I am not sure that is quite accurate. As Cocoanut posted on the Stratics TSO site:

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TSO has not been the runaway success EA had hoped for -- they initially projected 400,000 subscribers by the end of 2003, then they cut their expectations to 200,000 by the end of the year shortly after the game came out, and then again to only 125,000 players by May of 2004. The disappointing subscription figures for the game have been widely reported in various news articles, although with some conflicting numbers that took me a while to sort out. After reaching a peak of 105,000 subscriptions began dropping dramatically. An article in the New York Times published in April 2004 quotes EA as providing an official number of 57,500; since then sources indicate that number has fallen further to 35,500 subscribers as of January 2005.

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Her numbers are close to what I have read/seen as well. BTW - her website source, which seems to be fairly reliable, is here: www.mmogchart.com

I will be really interested to watch what happens to TSO over the next several months. EA canceled two other games when they hit the 35k mark. The Sims is a flagship of sorts for EA, so TSO may be spared that fate - I hope so, anyway. But only time will tell.

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Originally posted by Zwerchfell
I think you guys are a bunch of whiners, just play the f****** game and have fun.

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Amen!

Wow - when you said on the Stratics boards you were coming over here to lobby for TSO, you weren't kidding, Kathryn. Good luck with it - looks like you have your work cut out for you with TattooedGirl, though.

The fact is, TSO IS garbage - to some. To others, it is the best online game around. That is the way of the world, so why fight about it? Clearly, Kathryn enjoys TSO - so did I, for almost a year. Now I enjoy SWG, CoH and WoW, a year from now, it may be Tabula Rasa or whatever.

Threads like this never cease to amaze me - just because you hate (or love) a game, why purpose does it serve to flame those who do not agree with you? Just because TSO no longer interests me does not make it a bad game, it just makes it a game I once enjoyed and no longer do.

Mind you, threads where you discuss, calmly, rationally, the relative strengths and weaknesses of a game ARE useful, to players and hopefully to developers. Threads like this one, though - I really am at a loss for what purpose they serve.