Daniel Erickson on Server Population.

/standsupandslowlyclaps

bravo sir.

So what is going to be the excuse in September if BioWare says the population is about the same or haven't shrunk? You guys have had one every time they talk about numbers.

1 free transfer per character, rest paid. Can't have ppl jumping all over the place, would never be a settled balance. It also puts stress on the servers as it's a trickier operation than you might think, scripted or not to move cells cross databases.

Talking business isn't an excuse or a conspiracy theory. It's the way the world works.

I like the game, I see the potential, I want it to succeed. However, BioWare's lack of MMO experience is painfully obvious and they're on the same path as other failed/failing MMOs and seem to be blindly following the same footsteps.

Who said they were lying? It's just the fact that server populations are too low
Evidence 1: http://www.torstatus.net/shards/eu
Evidence 2: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04...now-declining/

So you don't have to pay for them? Of course for those willing to (like you) there should be a donation option.

Oh yeah, nuclear science... so complicated that Rift offers the feature without problems and WoW does transfers in 5 minutes?

First stage of transfers should be free transfers OFF of FULL servers to Standard servers. I think if some of these standard servers just a got little bump in population it would make a big difference. I saw the (prime time) population of RP server Ebon Hawk grow from standard to Heavy in the matter of a few days.

If BW is implementing character transfer first, at least could let us transfer for free on the first month or so. I have at least one character that I would like to transfer to the server I'm playing now.

If you define game population as concurrent players, then yes. But this is not the same thing as saying "servers are dying" or "the overwelming majority of players are on dead servers" or "SWTOR will go f2play", all of which are representatives of common unsubstantiated assertions here on the forums. If you define game population as subscriptions, then you have not presented any evidence to support that there is a decline.

I fail to see your point. It's not an issue of hiding behind semantics: BioWare has been very clear and upfront about how it defines an "active subscription." Moreover, the definition follows a de facto standard used in the industry. Everyone understands that not every subscriber is actually an active participant (and this is true for any subscription based service, regardless of industry). From a financial perspective (which is the only context in which subscription numbers are relevant), why should they not count every paid subscription, regardless of hours played? Finally, even if you wanted some other measure of the subscription base to get around the difference between active and inactive players who maintain a subscription, how would you do it? If somone has paid for 90 days, has 45 days left, but hasn't played for the last 30 days, how could Bioware predict whether or not that person is coming back?