HMMM, where to start?

 

OK I love this game. I am new to MMO's (Rift & SW:TOR). I am not a Sci-Fi fan either. Though this game has given me a passion for things relating to star wars, I even watched all 6 movies (LoL yeah I am a late bloomer hehe). This game has also succeeded in making me feel like a HEROINE (real female gamer here not a G.I.R.L.). I thoroughly enjoy the story driven aspect of this game. I wont rush through my cut scenes for anyone. The way I describe it to my NON GAMING friends is; "Instead of just watching the movie, YOU are in the movie, THE Hero of the movie!" This kind of sums up the feelings and emotions playing this game has me experiencing.

 

Rift was also a wonderful MMO. But the community no longer exists, even though I still loyally log in and see what's happening round the place. It has become a ghost town. I am extremely concerned this is going to happen in sw:tor too. It has already started. Players are taking off to new games that haven't even been released yet. Each day another friend tells me they cancelled their subscription. I have about 22 days to convince them to re-subscribe. I am getting worried. AND I will not continue with this game no matter how great the story is, if there is no community to play with. I am in one of the largest guilds in MMO's and I am still seeing a major decline in player activity & population.

 

I had a discussion with some players on the fleet after the first GW2 open BETA event. I was a little gob-smacked at the lack of people on the fleet in what would normally be considered prime playing time. We were talking about the downfall of the SW:TOR community at large. I am getting depressed at the loss of my second MMO.

 

I will follow my friends be sure of that, as I will not stay in a game if there is no one to play with. During the discussion with other players on the fleet, one of the things a player (devout star wars fan) told me, was that I should not stress yet at the loss of players in-game. Star Wars has something special that no other MMO can ever compete with. That is the fans that LOVE everything to do with Star Wars itself. He also told me that when they do the merges of servers, the staying community will get put together to even out our populations. Then we should see things returning to normal.

 

Sad thing is just yesterday I asked him if he had any idea when the merges would happen. His comment "Well those developers have not come through with that yet. Just another thing they are messing up.". They are pushing this MAJOR FAN to cancel his subscription. So far I have convinced him to join my guild, where we still have a rather large player base. But ultimately its shrinking at a rapid rate.

 

SO please give the end gamers something to keep them coming back for more. Get the population settled NOW. Allow server transfers, so that we can move our built up team of legacy characters elsewhere, where there may still be SOME semblance of a community still active. The last thing I plan to do is START again on a different server. You cannot afford to malinger on this bioware. You will jeopardise the playing community that intends to be loyal to you. Seriously consider what I have said here. Or I too will be off to the next new big game.

 

Safari Plum

Edited May 28, 2012 by Safariii
Fixed gramma error

Safari is absolutly right the biggest threat to this game is the loss of community.

Most fans will tolerate almost anything to play a game they love, but if there's noone to share it with then what's the point.

on the sith meditation sphere server, there are few republic players anymore.

this makes PvP just an empire vs empire huttball-fest

An MMO's comunity will eb and flow with time. That's the nature of an MMO. The Trick is to make sure they return after trying that new "HOT" game. The core players, the ones that don't leave, or keep thier accounts active even while trying a new game, are part of the reason people come back. They pull thier friends back in after the shine wears off of whatever pulled them away. But even the core wont stick around if the the surver population is so low it seems like nobody is around. So a merge is a good way for loyal players to continue to play, and enjoying the game. Thus building a solid comunity for returning players to come home to, and decide to stay.

Agree with OP.

 

And most folks won't come back if the community is gone or dispersed amongst the servers.

Personally, quick server mergers are a short sighted solution and will only temparily fix the problem until people leave again or complain because they dont like the server they got merged with, they lost the character name, their legacy name, and/or their guild name.

 

Offering transfers first is a better long term solution. Players get to select a server (possibly from a pre selected batch) with the knowledge that they may lose their names, but at least they can choose which server to go to.

 

After the dust settles from the transfers, THEN merge the remaining dead servers into larger servers. At least those who were interested had the chance to transfer.

 

Now, something like character names and such may seem small and insignificant to most, but to a fair number of players that is a very important aspect to their characters.

I do enjoy this game as well, but as Saf said, I don't see paying a monthly sub for a game that I play by myself. Please give us an option(s) to breathe life back into our (or some other) server.

Doing that takes time, they cant just say "Ok we are going to add a way to buy credits" and then 1 hour later its installed. No, they have to program the feature to ensure it cannot be hacked or taken advantage of, therefore they wont have to remove it and spend even more time updating it. So if you really want it, just wait. If you can't wait, then unsub if you would like.

Agreed. MMO

 

Massive Multiplayer

 

 

Right now we have small single player on many, many servers.

 

 

As a programmer I fully understand the cycle of development, test, release, etc. But this problem is not new. It has been swirling around for months. Bioware should have been aware of it long before the end users were.

 

I am sure there is some pretty powerpoint somewhere with a linear day by day, and hour by hour, server population load volumes. If there is not, then someone needs fired....

 

The game is at a precipice. The longer it is there, the rougher the road will become for the future of the game.

Soresu hardly ever has an pvp queue pops. Finding a group for hardmodes is difficult, and ops pugs are extinct. I'm not paying for another month of this crap. I love the game but the OP is absolutely right, no community is a big problem. I'll go back to RIFT in a month if this continues to drag on.

BioWare, please don't drag your feet as far as the "Server Transfers" go or have some knee jerk reaction plan like the Mega Server Merge I have read about. Having a bunch of people on my server that are pissed off that they have to be there would be just as bad if not worse then a low population. I don't want to see such a great game die a early death simple because people could not play where they wanted.

Nevermind. Edited May 29, 2012 by spectreclees

I totally agree! It is lonely out there!

Nevermind.

don't say that, or they just might

Great post Saf...absolutely right. I organize many events on the Republic side and even started up a Clone Army of our own, but have seen the number of participants drop from 146 on the first day to around 20-30. If folks are given the choice of moving their toons, they may be able to find a place that will bring back some of the fun with more people to play with and those like myself will have more fun things to organize.

I played LoTRO for a long time and would have stayed if they had let me transfer my toons to the server OTG is on there without making me pay $25 per toon. I refused to do that especially since I had a lifetime sub with them and so moved on. I know many that will do the same if they are unable to do the group content or have events due to lack of players. I hope this post makes you think hard, Bioware about what needs to be done.

Agree completely with the concept, although I also lean toward voluntary server transfers for a month, and then see where the balancing is needed and do merges then.

 

As well as cross-server PVP options so the queue issue is resolved.

 

Thanks for a great game.

I know working out transfers and/or server merges takes time, but it seems to me that Bioware has absolutely NO sense of urgency. Their 'major' patches to this game have been few and FAR between. Let's hope they don't continue to drag their feet on this one. I've seen most of my static OPs group leave the game and the pvp queues lately have been painful. I love this game and Star Wars in general! You guys have already dropped the ball... now grab it quick before it rolls away:X

I completely agree with this. I have been waiting for this game for many years now and hoped to be playing it for years to come. I am also a die-hard star wars fan who has watched all the movies countless times and bought tons of props for display. However these past few days I have found myself logging in to find no one online and then logging back off. There is nothing for me to do outside of raid time and my static has changed many times already as many people have quit. I don't even want to level alts as the quests become too repetitive and it simply takes too long. Yes 1.3 might be able to solve these problems but I do not want to wait months for each patch. Considering that 1.3 isn't even heavily content based I personally don't feel that there is an excuse for such a long wait time for us players. The most adamant supporter of the game in my guild is now starting to talk about going back to other games he has played in the past. I'm sure thousands of players will not be willing to wait another month for 1.3. Split it up if you have to but we need server merges/transfers now!

Well, from what i have seen, the only concept of community is crafters over charging and only crafting level 50 items, claiming lower level items are worthless to craft........likely due to a lack of high amounts of profit, which is likely all they care about.

Oh Safari has a very valid point. I agree with her 100% and then some. However, there are other issues that cause population drops which I do not see being addressed. Since I do not pvp, or do space quests, I started doing operations and have started gearing up for hard modes.

 

Doing the raids and hard mode flashpoints is a lot of fun with my friends, but if the content is not changed out or increased, it won't matter how many folks are on to play with...boredom sets in and folks leave for "greener shores" more for the reason of content than any other I have noticed.

Its easy to see that there will be a hell of a lot less players playing this game if transfers/merges aren't in place within the next couple of weeks.

 

 

I love the game and I've barely been logging in because my ''home server'' just isn't cutting it.

 

 

I'll be playing a lot more when it becomes a massively multiplayer online game with more than 5 people in what is basically our capital city, the damn fleet.

I have toons on a light pop server and one on a standard pop server. The quality of the gaming experience in terms of finding PUGs if guildies aren't online on the standard pop server is HUGE. It makes the MMO feel more like a ya know a MMO. Where I enjoy heroics compared to the low pop server where finding one is a pain in the ***-I don't think SWTOR is suposed to be a single player experience but is damn close on the low pop server.

Server merges CANNOT come soon enough.

 

I logged into my old main on my "home server" of Veela on Saturday at 8pm. There were 3 people on the Imperial Fleet. 3!!

 

That is just ridiculous. Merge servers ASAP!

what community? Only people on the forums are people who are displeased and vocal about it. Or biodrones who defend the game.

Seriously please merge! My server use to have a waiting line... Now its so empty I don't accept heroic missions or flashpoints. Since doing them alone is impossible. I would like to log in and actually be able to talk to someone!