Let's do a little math on server stats

Let's break this down in simple terms. Your numbers indicate that 1% of subscribers play concurrently, compared to the 10-15% rule of thumb. So either the rule of thumb is incorrect or EA's claim of 1.7 million subscribers should really be, at best, 170,000. Which is it?

We can take the discussion from there after you have answered this simple question.

The dulfy.net population sample indicates an average server count of ~900 at peak time, which would mean a concurrency of ~12%. And that is based on actual cross-sectional sampling, whereas your calculation is a flawed hypothetical construct.

91 EU servers? Doesn't that other game only have about 12 or so for EU?

Just jumping in to say that this is relatively consistent with what Notdonnareed, Byerley and I have see by doing the same thing.

I call BS on the rule of thumb. 900 players AVERAGE on each server during peaktimes? Keep on dreaming. You tell that the people on light servers.
I say it's both, far lower concurrent player numbers plus lower subscription numbers.
Unfortunately the next numbers they release will be flawed too, due to the free 30 days many active accounts won't even use or wanted. Active account is active account, right?
The next "real" numbers, if they don't give away more free sub extensions, should be released in late summer, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are down to one million or even lower, if there are no significantly interesting updates in the meantime.

Eaggeration and hyperbole.

1) Not everyone wants to play on servers cramed to the gills with other players (like Fatman). True statement.

2) The target should be HEAVY for 90% of servers at prime time. A good target, even though with the squirrelly MMO community in 2012 it's cannot be achieved to perfection.

3) achieving 1 and 2 would mean issuing transfer notices to about 30% of the servers, and allowing transfers only to STANDARD servers to nudge them up to HEAVY or HEAVY+. and it would support a subscriber base of ~ 2 million (assuming 15% logged in at any given time) without nasty nightly queues everywhere. Reasonable queuing on ~50% of servers could allow the server farms to support 2.5+ million players, which is probably about where subscriptions will be for 2012 unless the game gets ganked again by all the locusts abandoning their salvation games of GW2/TERA.

I call BS on your BS call. I find your willful disregard of the word AVERAGE troubling.

900-1000 AVERAGE across 220 servers sounds about right at the moment. About 25% of servers are LIGHT at prime time, the rest are STANDARD or higher, with some much higher. And not all LIGHT servers are dead. I know because one of the three servers I play on is perpetually light, but it averages about 600-700 at prime time.

Um, by definition someone on a light server is going to experience populations below the average. This should be pretty self-evident.

My choice now is in your statement that the rule of thumb is BS or a cross-sectional statistical sampling with a clearly defined methodology, which also happens to return results consistent with the concurrency rule-of-thumb...

You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. If you have data to back this up, please do so. If not, it is just your opinion. It seems right now your "analysis" is being reduced to you claiming that any finding contrary to your view is "BS".

EA's Q4 2012 ended March 31, 2012. The free 30-days went into effect on April 25, and therefore have no impact on the Q4 2012 results.

People like you have been predicting the failure of SWTOR since pre-launch. I understand you are disappointed there is no space exploration and housing and therefore want the game to fail, but wishful thinking has precious little impact on the reality of the situation.

great, so take those average numbers (which seem nowhere near the gruesome reality imho) -
600-1000 concurrent players average at any given time of the day, on each server worldwide?
Great, in that case server merges are totally unnecessary? Thanks for clearing that up...

so everyone on light servers finding 10-30 people on fleets, 3-5 people on planets and too less people to queue up for warzones is in fact dreaming.

I don't think you understand what "average" means. You can have broad variability within the average. The dulfy.net numbers range from ~240 to ~2400. If you are on a Light server, you could easily see 30 players on Fleet (or less). This still doesn't mean there is a population problem on the majority of servers. Nobody is disputing that some servers have light populations. That is exactly why character transfers are being implemented.

Btw, my numbers use the PVE sample. There is a separate sample for PVP servers that you are free to analyze. All available at dulfy.net.

I find your apparent lack of reading comprehension troubling. Or are you just choosing to disregard what other people are saying??

As I stated earlier, I support the plan for transfers, AND I support the retiring of about 30% of the servers.....forcing people like you to transfer to a STANDARD server (free of charge of course).