SWTOR still bleeding players?

I don't know who you're measuring with, but I have spreadsheets from before, during and after these events - except for launch - and there is no significant change in the break points for load status.

Displayed server load is based on at least two factors, one of which appears to be the raw (system) load on the server hardware. That's why they can launch Ilum, for example, and get more red in the list even though player counts didn't go up much. The metric doesn't change, but new game features can be pigs on the server side until they optimize them. After a hotfix or two, things stabilize. it's also why you can get queues on servers that just show Very Heavy.

Anyway, the real reason we know we're holding firm (until this week) is from counts. It just so happens that every time one correlates this with Torstatus, it's consistent. If you know how to read those graphs, they're a godsend.

The one thing they definitely seem to do is tweak instance sizes. And F2P has completely reshuffled the zone/level player curves for most servers. So I don't count fleets - it doesn't tell you as much any more.

Yes the website can adjust using logic, but at the end of the day we don't know when they make changes in what they concider light, me, high. So this is just a good guess. I am sorry, but I don't hang my hat on good guesses when arguing if a population is going up or down, when the game can just change 300k to high when 300k was med at launch. yes that last sentence was just pulled out of my you know what, but they have made these changes and can make them any time. nobody knows what thse words actually stand for when it comes to the numbers they represent. So using it in an argument for or against the actual numbers is laughable.

Of course we do - because we can count players.

I agree, I check the servers from time to time around 10 to 11 pm eastern time, all US Servers are heavy, very heavy and one or two might be full, I have see these patterns in other games, the player base seems to be very time specific..

This premise is completely not true. If there's a problem, it's that the servers are too full and 'very heavy' all too often.

Side note: I have to wonder where these posts come from and why, because it's not from someone who's actually playing.

Been playing the game since December 2011 and seeing people, especially raiders ... you know, people who actually care about endgame or playing the game for more than a month, leaving the game in droves since then. Having a bunch of F2P dribblers who have no interest in seeing the game beyond tier 1 flashpoints doesn't actually benefit the game in the long run. And since the two mergers I've only seen multiple instances of people either on the fleet or in the starting areas ... on servers with "fully heavy".

So, being stuck on a supposedly "full" server where my guild can't even replace one dps in months and where an average raider lasts a few weeks before jumping ship doesn't make the game super duper populated and healthy in the long run.

And I love your confident statement about the premise of the OP not being true. You do realize we've had two server merges so far, right? Were you asleep at the time where more than 100 servers had 10-20 people online on the fleet at peak times? What makes you think that the bleeding of subs has stopped all of a sudden? F2P? You mean the almost-fascist policies of EA which makes every other F2P model out there look like paradise compared to SWTOR's idea of "free playing"?

http://www.torstatus.net/the-harbinger/history/7d

Lower average highs ... higher average lows ... stabilizing. That's about what it feels like in game.

Here's what the STANDARD server designation looks like from in-game, and this was before 10:00AM server time the day after Christmas. (Harbinger is west coast & the screen is timestamped for my computer's U.S. CST):

http://www.galactickegger.com/SWTOR/..._10_817139.jpg

Having been here myself since closed beta I can easily live with being "stuck" with this.

To address your year-old excess baggage concern as to why the populations thinned out after launch, here's a bit of a refresher for ya:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=254

Not kissing up to progression raiders had little to do with anything because hardcore end gamers do not comprise the vast majority unless end game is the MMO's signature. In which case those style of players stick with their niche and grind the hell out of it.

This...

WoW and Tera both have had more people on over the holidays. So um, yeah, what this guy said.

M