As you probably already know, the last update to SWTOR saw all servers get 12 character slots – except the three oceanic servers. It’s obviously a problem, and one that BioWare have fully acknowledged:
Folks, I wanted to take some time to let you know that we are listening to your concerns and that they’re important to us. Oceanic servers WILL be getting 12 slots, just like the other servers and we’re going to implement this change the next opportunity that we have.
Additionally, we’ve seen your concerns about Oceanic server populations and we’re going to be evaluating this in the next few days.
We’re listening, and I know you’ve all been patient with us, and for that, I thank you. As soon as I get any update to this, I will let you know here.
Thanks again.
The more interesting part for me is the additional acknowledgement of the issue of server populations locally. They’re going to evaluate and I’d be surprised if the decision wasn’t to knock the three servers down to 2, or even a single server. That said, I’d imagine they’d wait until F2P hits fully before deciding.
It also flags an ongoing issue locally in that there to date has been bugger-all promotion of SWTOR and that’s not likely to improve. Go into your local games store and see if you can find a copy of SWTOR still on the shelves – I know I’ve tried with two stores in the past week and have come up blank. It’s hard to see anything but a decline in local servers, F2P or not, unless something changes in that regard.
Hell, the pessimistic side of me thinks the call may be made to close all oceanic servers and let people take their chances on the US or EU ones. I’d like to think that’s definitely very pessismistic though.
What’s your take – do you want to see the larger server populations and if so how do you think it should be done?
Loading ...
Merging them into one server would be fantastic. If they do a Warhammer Online and get rid of the oceanic servers altogether the rage inside me will be overwhelming.
I’ve seen a few copies of SWTOR in local EB games stores here in SA and the prices have been slashed to around $25.
I recently bought SWTOR in Australia for $15 online, after their free trial to level 15 thing, so I don’t think that not being in stores would necessarily be the big problem (steam for example has killed both my pirating and boxed purchases of games over the past decade). I’d guess that most customers for this type of product would know about its existence by now.
That being said, I’ve let my first month subscription lapse this week and don’t think that I’ll be going back, as I rolled toons on the Australian PvP server and just got sick of being alone, as well as the endless fights up and down hallways which are probably designed to have been cleared by other players from time to time (e.g. Even though I loved Voss, the Consular storyline there required going in and out of an instance down a hallway twice, which required fighting the same spawns up and down both directions 4 times in total, which is where I began to lose my patience – but I’m presuming that on an active server, it’s not always like that).
I like questing, and have no interest in PVP. If server merges interfere with this, then I will quit. Since I really just wanted to play KOTOR 3 the number of people on the servers does not bother me. I have been playing since easter and when a character finishes the main quest I switch to an alt.
When there were more players on it was occasionally a struggle to fulfil the bonus quests of killing a certain number of enemy, but I have not had that problem for months, so for me the empty servers have more of an effect on the GTN than anything else. I rarely team up for Heroics anyway, though I do enjoy them when they happen.
I went to the local games store (EB Games) and asked about SWTOR as their where none on the shelves. The guy said ‘I think that has gone now.’ I asked where did it go (this was a bit sarcastic) and got the response ‘It failed, but you will be able to get it again I think when it goes free to Play next year’.
So this kinda give you an idea of the promotion if the staff and a large franchise see it as a failed game. Makes me very sad
How can you be in any doubt it’s not a failed game? It had failed by about Feb/Mar this year…!