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Seems like the game has peaked on XFire
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also need to be fair the server was down briefly yesterday.
http://www.xfire.com/games/wow/World_of_Warcraft/
It's recent trend is almost an exact duplicate of WoW's, which means... that all players are not playing as much right now.
Yeah I know the number is not guaranteed in any way so that is why I said I did it just for fun.
However the number, 1.4 million, is not that bad at all. If there was 1.7 million a month ago then I would not find it unreasonable if Bioware would say it is 1.4 million after the end of this month. I would wager a couple of houndreds of k's less but still around that number sounds reasonable.
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I am sorry but where are you getting this from? WoW had around 17-18k players during weekdays a month ago and it is still around that so it has not changed much at all.
However the SW:TOR comparison above with 11.4 vs 4.8 is not valid because the 11.4 was for a weekend and 4.8 is for a weekday. You need to compare the same day of week to have a valid trend comparison.
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Sorry, I know stats and numbers aren't looked at too finely on SWTOR forums and they can just make stuff up and get away with it but not here.
That wasn't my attempt at a comparitive yam, it was just a peak -- valley timeline. Not really trying to reach a specific number, just a trend and speed of them.
Well said. And you are right, lot of little mitigating factors are skewing the numbers today. But also this is the week a lot of 2 month sub cards expire. Maybe a double whack.
EA and investors already estimated 800k for March 31st, and nothing so far makes them too far off. If I had to guess, they are still over 1 mil subs, but far less are actively playing the game, and that means more lost subs each month. Xfire is not a good tool to measure SWTOR. It's a hardcore gamers tool. It is fair to say SWTOR has lost the hardcore player base, and has become the new niche MMO for the casual non MMO player. Which is why Istill say the game will stay at 500-600k for a long time and keep its doors open. But the best part is, the investors will stop looking at WOW clones as a safe investment.
I play on Lord Adraas and The Bergeran Colony so I am on the more busy servers where sometimes even to find an open node of resource is impossible. I know though that those servers that are light must have grouping issues.
I play on Hyperspace Cannon primarily and two others as well. The only time I have issues finding a team is in the "darkest hours" of the night and that normally just means it takes 5 minutes or so instead of the normal one minute to fill a team. If that is what the definition of "peaking on XFire" means, then I think we have nothing to worry about.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I suppose games #1-#6 did not get affected by the patch then?
WOW managed to sustain its #3 position, and if MMO gamers are mostly affected then would have thought it would have lost a position as well, as too would have been hit hard.
STO players managed to jump from 31 to 23 which is quite remarkable considering it causes problems, which I encounter from time to time too.
The other week the reason for the drop was Valentines day, but then the next day and afterwards was even worse than before. I think it is time to face facts, game is dropping and dropping fast.
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You are forgetting one simple fact. This game is more geared to the casual to mid range player than the hardcore players. This demographic is also less likely to use things like XFire or any other tracking program, so all XFire is really measuring is the numbers of the more hardcore types that are leaving. Not a big loss. At least, not on any of the servers I play on so far.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
No, I am not forgetting that fact, as it is not fact, just opinion. That is just excuses. WOW (or any other game for that matter) would have its fair share of casuals too.
Why is SWTOR the only one affected by this? Because you want them to be!
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Except that as has been noted, all the games took a dive and the MMO ones took the largest dive. Also, WoW while casual friendly is still geared towards the hardcore, the same people that are more likely to use the program AND with 10+ million players, will have a much higher base to work from than a newly released game geared towards casuals. But whatever, you have obviously made up your mind and refuse to open your eyes and look around.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
And the decrease in server status? WOW is stable there, RIFT is increasing, but SWTOR is consistently going down. How do you explain that?
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Also, maybe worth noting that the huge drop coincides with the beginning of the game's 3rd month.
People who subscribed only one month beyond the free month have just left.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
As well as Rift, WOW, what about STO which rose a lot, as I mentioned in the other post, which you seem to have missed. It also causes problems, there is a fix, but the easiest fix is just not to use Xfire while playing it.
I have looked around, that is why I can say it is declining. For a new MMO, it should still be appealing to everyone, at this stage. Also casuals will end up getting less value for money subbing to SWTOR, so if too casual then they will probably wait for it to go F2P, as the hardcore players are just getting through the content fast, and that is why they are leaving, which should not be the case. This shows the problem with SWTOR, and eventually the casuals will quit too. Hardcore players get through the content in one monthly fee, yet casuals end up paying more maybe constantly to play through same content.
Basically casuals quit because they pay more than hardcore playes, and harcore players quit because there is not enough content.
Bottom line is , the game should have enough stuff in it to make everyone want to subscribe month by month, then everybody pays the same. Just that the casuals will then have to choose the content they end up doing, and not be able to do everything. This is why F2P works - casuals pay for what they get the chance to play, hardcore players pay the monthly fee
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I am not sure were people are seeing this great decline they are talking about. I have been checking the server status every night since this thread came up and I have not seen the drastic decline so many have claimed. Also FYI the website server status does not seem to be in sync(lagging behind) with the server status when you run the game client.
In Bioware we trust!
WoW geared towards hardcore. LOL!
This game is declining and you fans can deny it until it stares right in your face and then it would be interesting to hear your excuses.
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No, no it's not, I am startng it right in the face, I am in game playing and have only seen a small decline in players, the servers are pretty busy during the week and moreso on the weekend.
In Bioware we trust!
If you know for a fact that there was 1.7 million a month ago (where do you have this number?), why don't you just interpolate the x-fire trend from a month ago? Wouldn't that be alot more predictable than some cross-game maths, that is doomed to be madly unreliable, as the games are very different, and therefore players play them at different lengths?
The best I can do for a month is this (both days are sundays):
Jan 22 = 59053
Feb 19 = 35943
35943 / 59053 = 0.609
1.700.000 * 0.609 = 1.035.000 subscribers
A little over one million subscribers is still decent, but whether it is true is a good question. However, what is very disturbing, is that the game lost almost 40% of its subscribers (or rather, gametime, as that is what x-fire measures) in just one month!
That is an extreme downturn, that will see the game into the ground in just 1½ months if that trend continues.
Thi far into the thread and people are still trying to say X-Fire is an "accurate" measure of a games population.
It's very interesting to watch the trends, but X-Fire is a specific and independent subset of game players.
You should use players rather than hours. I only have players since feb 6th though.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
prediction is 800k by March and stablize around 300k after Tera TSW GW2
And the 500k 'extra sales' that EA pulled in after Christmas will/are coming up to their renewal dates as well - people not keen enough to pre-order merely interested so more likely, imo, to drop.
There is little doubt that SWTOR's first month numbers were very good - the (slightly fuzzy) 1.7M number (it included some 30 day sub folks according to the CFO in the conference call).
There is little doubt that the XFire drop is very dramatic - and whether the XFire population is representative or not doesn't really matter as it has since it has proved an accurate guide to the popularity of multiple games: WoW, CoD, Minecraft, WAR, AoC, LL.
Throw in the secondary evidence - forums less busy and server stats lower - both unreliable but circumstantial.
The question I came up with yesterday was whether SWTOR's story was both its strength - keeping people into month 2 - and its Achilles heel. Once people have consumed the story - adios. Maybe in 6 months or a year they will return for the new stuff - which is essentially what Blizzard have said is happening in WoW.
Yes, that is the problem, otherwise I would.