Why are all the SWTOR databases dying?

Those who undertake such projects will quit when they lose intrest in game, simple as that. That is why running popular site for game makes one 'important person', as you quitting sends message to everyone using you site that there is something going on with game. Also reason why usually those sites recieve extra attention (when possible) directly from devs/community representatives, to keep them with game. Well, as I've said, usually.

Now this is an interesting post. Let's stick with this for a moment. Because I do believe you are right, but I would like to talk about what needs to change from EA/Bioware's standpoint that could improve the community. It may or may not be too late, but it doesn't hurt to try. I don't believe the average person knows what goes on with fan sites and user generated content.

It's too late and frankly, once Mr Bass said that to me, I gave up. I used to run a very successful website for Star wars Galaxies and various other SW game sites so I knew what to do, understood NDA etc and if a company like LucasArts could trust me, that says it all.

Community is more than just posting on a forum - they need to get out there - play on servers with the community, interact more, talk about the community sites, the pvp videos, the 'how to guides' and actually show some community love. But when you treat your job as a typical 9-5, you are either not passionate about community or the game you are working on.

Essentially the finger of blame points at both Sean and Stephen who simply didnt have a plan, or they did and EA/Bioware said 'no'. If you look at the success of other games and not just MMOs, it all centres around PGC(player generated content) and for any MMO to be a success, community and their fan sites are critical.

Hence why almost 2 years on, SWTOR is on life support.

Neither of those sites have real backing of sponsors. Torhead being the exception, being signed on with Curse (I believe) DarthHater is still running and has its own database. It happens with a lot of games where they have all this data to collect but nobody around to help them collect it.

Alright, move along then.

Torhead is owned by Zam. Darthhater is owned by Curse.

I will be. sub runs out in 2 weeks. But you miss the point totally. If you want things to move forward, then the Bioware Community Team need a total brain transplant and start activity getting involved, instead of being over paid forum moderators.

Is it? I was under the impression that since going F2P, the game had gained a lot of new players (1.7 million new accounts by the end of last year) and was beginning to stabilize.

Same here. Sure, they may have more content updates that are free, but they dont interest me in the slightest, especially when compared to SWTOR, a game I really do love playing.

I didn't miss the point. I just didn't have anything to say to you from that response.

Not sure how much more involved they can get, I'm trying to think of how community teams in other games get involved and I don't personally know any that do much more than this one does.

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SWTOR is not responsible for fan sites. Fan sites are responsible for fan sites.

It is clear from listening to Dulfy and a few others over the last year that they DO in fact support fansite content owners. Ones that in their assessment have the actual interests of the fans and the game in mind. You are just using this topic to further promote your hate rhetoric that you splatter all over the forum about the game and the devs. Get over yourself and move on IMO.

You know what the real issue is with fansites in most cases now days? THEY ARE NOT FANSITES... they are internet profit centers for the owners. Problem is... they are not profitable and so they fold shop. They are not doing it for the fans.. they are doing it for themselves and just leveraging off of whatever the next MMO launch is. This is why most of them are centered around a database core....not because players need that most, but because it is the easiest thing for them to launch and maintain that has potential to draw page hits and ad revenue.

It used to be fansites were actually fansites. Most now days are not. This is one of the reasons why I appreciate Dulfy so much. She is doing exactly what classic fansites do. There are some others as well, such as torparse, but honestly they are in the minority today.