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Anecdotal Population Evidence Is Useless
damicatz
Member Posts: 102
Recently, there have been a number of posts claiming that the servers in Star Wars Galaxies are empty, or conversely that they are more populated than ever. Such claims are impossible to back up and both sides of the argument are easily debunked with simple logic.
First, it helps to understand the scope of the game world. With the exception of Kashyyyk and Mustafar, each planet has a total scaled land area of 225 square kilometers. If one were to lay out the entire game world onto the ground in the real world without adjusting for scale, the game world would easily encompass 12 square kilometers of real world land. To get an example of just how large the game world is, Star Wars Galaxies has more land area than some countries. And for further comparison, The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion, a popular single-player role-playing game praised for it's huge amount of land to explore, is only 25.7 square kilometers. With the possible exception of EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies has a bigger game world, in terms of land area, than any other MMO on the market.
In addition, there are also the planets of Kashyyyk and Mustafar which add at least another 50 square kilometers combined. Finally, there is space, which adds many cubic kilometers of area to the gameworld.
Now that you have an idea of the scope of Star Wars Galaxies, I can now debunk a few claims that I have seen posted throughout the forums and explain why they are not valid arguments.
Using the /who command
A number of people zone in to a few cities, use the /who command and then claim that the results are a good indication of server population. This particular method is flawed .
In order to understand why the /who command is flawed it first helps to understand how the /who command works. When most people think of a galaxy, they think of a single server. In fact, a galaxy or shard can be comprised of many dozens of individual servers, called blades, working in tangent. Every planet in Star Wars Galaxies is divided into a number of invisible zones. These zones represent a block of server resources (be they virtual or physical). Despite the contiguous nature of a planet, if you drive from one side of a planet to another, you will in fact end up changing servers many times. This is why server side lag tends to be localized as the lag is usually caused by heavy load in a particular zone or area. A planet can consist of anywhere from 3 to 12 zones. Note that zones are not to be confused with locations, which are listed when you use the /who command. Zones are not named and they are not referenced when using /who.
The /who command only returns a list of people in your current zone. It does not list people in other zones and it does not list people in other planets. When you use the /who command, you are only seeing a small portion of the players currently on the server. Furthermore, many players, especially bounty hunters, elect to become anonymous. An anonymous player is neither listed nor counted towards the total when using the /who command.
Visual Evidence
Another common claim is that cities are empty and/or devoid of people. There are a number of flaws with using this as an argument, the first of which is that the definitions of what constitutes empty are entirely subjective. What one person calls empty, another person could call bustling with players. The appearance of being full or empty does not make a valid metric upon which to base any educated guess of server population on.
That aside, there are lurking variables involved when it comes to city population. People are quick to point out that cities such as Coronet and the Dantooine Mining Outpost are empty but most people overlook other factors and immediately assume the game is dying. However, there are other factors involved that can account for the lack of population in formerly popular cities.
So let's look at a bunch of formerly populous cities and then look at the lurking variables behind why they aren't as populous as they once were :
Coronet
Before Jump to Lightspeed introduced Instant Travel, the only way to travel was through starports and shuttleports. Unlike with a starship's Instant Travel, planets don't always connect to each other. In order to get from Planet A to Planet B, it is sometimes necessary to stop over on a planet in between. Out of all the planets, Corellia has the most connections so chances are, if you had to stop over, it would be on Corellia. In a sense, Corellia was the crossroads of the galaxy.
Furthermore, when opening the window to buy a shuttle or starport ticket, Coronet is the first city to come up when selecting Corellia as a destination (or at least it was). This accounts for why Coronet was popular over other Corellian cities such as Tyrena.
Additionally, starport wait times were 10 minutes, which mandated that people sit around while waiting for the shuttle. Because there was no Instant Travel to other planets at the time, and because of the long wait, it was not uncommon to find large groups of people who were only passing through in Coronet, giving the illusion of a higher population. Shuttles and starports are instant now so there are no longer large groups of people waiting around for them.
Finally, Pre-CU game mechanics encouraged people to wait around and "hang out" in cities. With Pre-CU SWG, in order to be competitive, you usually had to have doctor buffs. So there were doctor buff lines in Coronet because that's where people pass through on their way to the Tier 3 planets. Entertainers were required in order to heal fatigue. Again, Coronet was the logical place for them to hang out because it is the crossroads of the galaxy. And the population from the doctor buffs, entertainers, and people waiting to travel made Coronet an appealing place for traders to advertise their wares.
Jump to Lightspeed made Instant Travel possible between planets without having to stop over. The Combat Upgrade reduced the need for doctor buffs. Those two combined made Coronet less relevant. In addition, entertainers and medics no longer have to be inside cantinas and medical centers or in a city for that matter in order to benefit other players.
Theed
Naboo also had a lot of connections to other planets, though not quite as many as Corellia. In addition, the Theed Spaceport has a bug (which SOE tried to then later spin as a feature) where one can travel even if the shuttle is not currently present. Also, Theed is the first city selected when one selects Naboo from the shuttle ticket window. Theed's popularity came from the fact that it was the second most popular layover point aside from Coronet. JTL and the removal of features that require people to wait around in cities have made Theed less populated.
Bestine/Anchorhead
Bestine and Anchorhead are an Imperial and a Rebel City, respectively, that are 1 kilometer apart from each other. Both cities are located in newbie friendly areas that are populated by low difficulty MOBs, which made Bestine and Anchorhead popular places for new characters to grind up their respective factions. The old PVP system did not differentiate between NPC and PC combat; by attacking an NPC, you opened yourself up to attack from enemy players. A lot of the PVP action and traffic in Bestine and Anchorhead came in the form of people waiting for newbies to return from their missions with TEFs (Temporary Enemy Flags) in order to gank them.
That PVP system was replaced by one which allows for players to attack enemy NPCs without risking attack from other players. As a result, the gank squads no longer had anything to do and had no reason to be in Bestine/Anchorhead. Because there were no gank squads, no one was needed to defend the city and the newbies (part of the population came from high level players looking for PVP action in the form of attacking the gank squads). Finally, the addition of the Planetary Control Game and special PVP areas such as Restuss have drawn the attention of PVPers elsewhere.
Dantooine Mining Outpost
With the CU, the fastest way to skill up was to get into a hunting group. Group XP bonuses were insane to the point where it was possible to go from CL1 to CL80 in a day. People chose Dantooine because of Bols; Bols do not aggro and they do not add which makes for easy hunting missions. Furthermore, the Dantooine Mining Outpost is the first city selected when one selects Dantooine from the travel window.
With the unfortunate elimination of the group XP bonus, there is no more need for group hunting missions and therefore no more need for people to be in the Dantooine MO looking for groups.
"Leaked" Server Numbers"
A while back, someone posted numbers and claimed that the numbers were population counts derived from SOE's servers. A number of people were quick to use these numbers as evidence that SWG was dying. The problem is, there is no way to verify the data or the source. Anyone can post a list of numbers on the internet and then claim that they are true. However, simply because a person stated that those numbers were the actual population count doesn't make it so. Without further evidence or a way to verify the method in which the numbers were obtained, this particular source is anecdotal at best.
MMOGData.com
More recently, a number of people have posted a link to MMOGData,com, a site that attempts to follow in the footsteps of MMORPGCharts.com by documenting MMORPG subscriber counts. Like the leaked server numbers, there is really no way to verify the data or the validity of the source. Anyone can make a site with graphs and then claim that their data is accurate but without references to sources or how the data was obtained, it's useless. In addition, by the author's own admission, the subscriber numbers for SWG are at best, a guess.
Lack of announcements
Another popular argument goes something like this :
1.If SOE releases subscriber numbers, the population is up.
2.SOE has not released subscriber numbers.
3.Therefore the population is not up.
This is a type of fallacious argument known as denying the antecedent. This argument makes the faulty assumption that the only reason SOE wouldn't release subscriber numbers is because the numbers are down. It assumes that the casual relationship between releasing the subscriber numbers and the population going up works in both directions. In fact however, SOE is not alone in keeping their subscriber numbers a secret. World of Warcraft has over 8 million subscribers; for all intensive purposes a runaway success. However, having millions of subscribers is not the norm as far as MMOs are concerned. Previously, simply breaking 6 digits in terms of subscriber count was considered successful, and World of Warcraft is an exception rather than the rule. However, in light of World of Warcraft, any subscriber numbers released are going to pale in comparison.
First, it helps to understand the scope of the game world. With the exception of Kashyyyk and Mustafar, each planet has a total scaled land area of 225 square kilometers. If one were to lay out the entire game world onto the ground in the real world without adjusting for scale, the game world would easily encompass 12 square kilometers of real world land. To get an example of just how large the game world is, Star Wars Galaxies has more land area than some countries. And for further comparison, The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion, a popular single-player role-playing game praised for it's huge amount of land to explore, is only 25.7 square kilometers. With the possible exception of EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies has a bigger game world, in terms of land area, than any other MMO on the market.
In addition, there are also the planets of Kashyyyk and Mustafar which add at least another 50 square kilometers combined. Finally, there is space, which adds many cubic kilometers of area to the gameworld.
Now that you have an idea of the scope of Star Wars Galaxies, I can now debunk a few claims that I have seen posted throughout the forums and explain why they are not valid arguments.
Using the /who command
A number of people zone in to a few cities, use the /who command and then claim that the results are a good indication of server population. This particular method is flawed .
In order to understand why the /who command is flawed it first helps to understand how the /who command works. When most people think of a galaxy, they think of a single server. In fact, a galaxy or shard can be comprised of many dozens of individual servers, called blades, working in tangent. Every planet in Star Wars Galaxies is divided into a number of invisible zones. These zones represent a block of server resources (be they virtual or physical). Despite the contiguous nature of a planet, if you drive from one side of a planet to another, you will in fact end up changing servers many times. This is why server side lag tends to be localized as the lag is usually caused by heavy load in a particular zone or area. A planet can consist of anywhere from 3 to 12 zones. Note that zones are not to be confused with locations, which are listed when you use the /who command. Zones are not named and they are not referenced when using /who.
The /who command only returns a list of people in your current zone. It does not list people in other zones and it does not list people in other planets. When you use the /who command, you are only seeing a small portion of the players currently on the server. Furthermore, many players, especially bounty hunters, elect to become anonymous. An anonymous player is neither listed nor counted towards the total when using the /who command.
Visual Evidence
Another common claim is that cities are empty and/or devoid of people. There are a number of flaws with using this as an argument, the first of which is that the definitions of what constitutes empty are entirely subjective. What one person calls empty, another person could call bustling with players. The appearance of being full or empty does not make a valid metric upon which to base any educated guess of server population on.
That aside, there are lurking variables involved when it comes to city population. People are quick to point out that cities such as Coronet and the Dantooine Mining Outpost are empty but most people overlook other factors and immediately assume the game is dying. However, there are other factors involved that can account for the lack of population in formerly popular cities.
So let's look at a bunch of formerly populous cities and then look at the lurking variables behind why they aren't as populous as they once were :
Coronet
Before Jump to Lightspeed introduced Instant Travel, the only way to travel was through starports and shuttleports. Unlike with a starship's Instant Travel, planets don't always connect to each other. In order to get from Planet A to Planet B, it is sometimes necessary to stop over on a planet in between. Out of all the planets, Corellia has the most connections so chances are, if you had to stop over, it would be on Corellia. In a sense, Corellia was the crossroads of the galaxy.
Furthermore, when opening the window to buy a shuttle or starport ticket, Coronet is the first city to come up when selecting Corellia as a destination (or at least it was). This accounts for why Coronet was popular over other Corellian cities such as Tyrena.
Additionally, starport wait times were 10 minutes, which mandated that people sit around while waiting for the shuttle. Because there was no Instant Travel to other planets at the time, and because of the long wait, it was not uncommon to find large groups of people who were only passing through in Coronet, giving the illusion of a higher population. Shuttles and starports are instant now so there are no longer large groups of people waiting around for them.
Finally, Pre-CU game mechanics encouraged people to wait around and "hang out" in cities. With Pre-CU SWG, in order to be competitive, you usually had to have doctor buffs. So there were doctor buff lines in Coronet because that's where people pass through on their way to the Tier 3 planets. Entertainers were required in order to heal fatigue. Again, Coronet was the logical place for them to hang out because it is the crossroads of the galaxy. And the population from the doctor buffs, entertainers, and people waiting to travel made Coronet an appealing place for traders to advertise their wares.
Jump to Lightspeed made Instant Travel possible between planets without having to stop over. The Combat Upgrade reduced the need for doctor buffs. Those two combined made Coronet less relevant. In addition, entertainers and medics no longer have to be inside cantinas and medical centers or in a city for that matter in order to benefit other players.
Theed
Naboo also had a lot of connections to other planets, though not quite as many as Corellia. In addition, the Theed Spaceport has a bug (which SOE tried to then later spin as a feature) where one can travel even if the shuttle is not currently present. Also, Theed is the first city selected when one selects Naboo from the shuttle ticket window. Theed's popularity came from the fact that it was the second most popular layover point aside from Coronet. JTL and the removal of features that require people to wait around in cities have made Theed less populated.
Bestine/Anchorhead
Bestine and Anchorhead are an Imperial and a Rebel City, respectively, that are 1 kilometer apart from each other. Both cities are located in newbie friendly areas that are populated by low difficulty MOBs, which made Bestine and Anchorhead popular places for new characters to grind up their respective factions. The old PVP system did not differentiate between NPC and PC combat; by attacking an NPC, you opened yourself up to attack from enemy players. A lot of the PVP action and traffic in Bestine and Anchorhead came in the form of people waiting for newbies to return from their missions with TEFs (Temporary Enemy Flags) in order to gank them.
That PVP system was replaced by one which allows for players to attack enemy NPCs without risking attack from other players. As a result, the gank squads no longer had anything to do and had no reason to be in Bestine/Anchorhead. Because there were no gank squads, no one was needed to defend the city and the newbies (part of the population came from high level players looking for PVP action in the form of attacking the gank squads). Finally, the addition of the Planetary Control Game and special PVP areas such as Restuss have drawn the attention of PVPers elsewhere.
Dantooine Mining Outpost
With the CU, the fastest way to skill up was to get into a hunting group. Group XP bonuses were insane to the point where it was possible to go from CL1 to CL80 in a day. People chose Dantooine because of Bols; Bols do not aggro and they do not add which makes for easy hunting missions. Furthermore, the Dantooine Mining Outpost is the first city selected when one selects Dantooine from the travel window.
With the unfortunate elimination of the group XP bonus, there is no more need for group hunting missions and therefore no more need for people to be in the Dantooine MO looking for groups.
"Leaked" Server Numbers"
A while back, someone posted numbers and claimed that the numbers were population counts derived from SOE's servers. A number of people were quick to use these numbers as evidence that SWG was dying. The problem is, there is no way to verify the data or the source. Anyone can post a list of numbers on the internet and then claim that they are true. However, simply because a person stated that those numbers were the actual population count doesn't make it so. Without further evidence or a way to verify the method in which the numbers were obtained, this particular source is anecdotal at best.
MMOGData.com
More recently, a number of people have posted a link to MMOGData,com, a site that attempts to follow in the footsteps of MMORPGCharts.com by documenting MMORPG subscriber counts. Like the leaked server numbers, there is really no way to verify the data or the validity of the source. Anyone can make a site with graphs and then claim that their data is accurate but without references to sources or how the data was obtained, it's useless. In addition, by the author's own admission, the subscriber numbers for SWG are at best, a guess.
Lack of announcements
Another popular argument goes something like this :
1.If SOE releases subscriber numbers, the population is up.
2.SOE has not released subscriber numbers.
3.Therefore the population is not up.
This is a type of fallacious argument known as denying the antecedent. This argument makes the faulty assumption that the only reason SOE wouldn't release subscriber numbers is because the numbers are down. It assumes that the casual relationship between releasing the subscriber numbers and the population going up works in both directions. In fact however, SOE is not alone in keeping their subscriber numbers a secret. World of Warcraft has over 8 million subscribers; for all intensive purposes a runaway success. However, having millions of subscribers is not the norm as far as MMOs are concerned. Previously, simply breaking 6 digits in terms of subscriber count was considered successful, and World of Warcraft is an exception rather than the rule. However, in light of World of Warcraft, any subscriber numbers released are going to pale in comparison.
Comments
There is a small problem in that SOE has a proven track record of mendacity, so any numbers they produce are suspect.
I'm afraid I'll believe my own eyes. When I was back for the vet trial a month ago, the only cantina where you could get a buff, because it was the only cantina with players in it, was Mos Eisley.
Contrast this with populated cantinas in Theed, Coronet, and the Dantooine starports.
MO on Dant was a ghost town. No one at all. The group pvp penalty cannot be the sole reason for this.
And this was on Ahazi, which is one of the more populated servers.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
The catch is, it's not personal incredulity.
It's player base wide.
The fact of the matter is, there are fewer active players, because you can see that there are. The cantinas in Theed and Coronet are empty. The cantina in Bestine is empty. During the preCU period this was simply not so, even before the hologrind artificially populated the cantinas.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
[ The problem is, no one truly knows what the exact populations numbers are, except SOE. And, they are not talking. I've seen quite a few posts that the posters basically say they go to cities X, Y, Z, etc... and see such amount of people. There is a couple of problems with that.
- At any point in time, the poster can only observe the people that are directly around them at that point in time. Therefore, the poster cannot view any other people that are in other areas at that point in time. This is especially true with players who are out in the wilderness or other cities, doing legacy quests, missions, etc... The poster cannot see those players while the poster is in the poster's current area.
- People are usually in constant motion. Therefore, if the poster moves to another spot, the poster may or maynot see players that were in the area before the poster arrives at the new area. Also, the poster may see the same players in the new area, as those players migrated similarly with the poster. This is especially true when a poster takes a shuttle/starship to a new city... the poster may see similar faces in the new city, but miss the players that just left before the poster arrived.
It's a continuous process. Therefore, these population numbers that people spout are just extremely rough guesstimates. Which means that, more than likely, none of them are actually true... especially the overexaggerated ones. ]Saying you are not viewing people at specific areas means little to the continuity principle, as people are continuously moving. The only reason the entertainers stay in Eisley or on Tatooine, is because that's the major hub of Star Wars now. The ents know that they will get customers if they stay there.
And I've already given potential reasons for why cities aren't as populous as they once were.
Please if you would be so kind, I am interested to know how you came to this conclusion. Without any judgement of scale (your words) we are to measure the area of a virtual environment using 'real world' scale measurments.
Is the idea that if we were to somehow get a ruler and measure on the screen each 12", somhow mark it that virtual pit of land, scroll down measure and mark again, we would eventually end with 12^2 Km?
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
First of all, that was a high number of suspitions you had to argue.
Secondly, I have played SWG since the beta. I quit for 6 months a little after NGE came out, but I have played on and off since then. There is no way you can tell me that the player population is not dropping. The cities are empty now compared to the mass amounts of players before that used to lag my computer. I used to run through Tatooine from Bestine to Anchorhead, hitting local player merchant spots on the way. They used to be stocked and would post restock dates on their signs. Now, every house seems to be abandoned.
The only cantina with ents is mos eisley, but this is not because they all migrated there. Mos Eisley has the same number of ents now as it used to. The other cantinas are empty because players arent playing.
As far as the whole "can only see who's around you" deal, no $|-|!7, that is common sense. But if I average the amount of players I see around me on a constant basis, compared to the old days, it is a much, much smaller number.
Players are leaving, deal with it. I just came back because I decided no SWG was worse than NGE SWG, but I wonder how long the game will last with this pop.
A good post, OP, and one with a good deal of obvious intelligence behind it. However, some of the things you say just don't sit right with me. You say one thing, and it makes sense in words, but logic tells me otherwise.
For example, your bit about the /who command. It is true that "shards" are divided up into multiple servers. However, most games allow the /who command to cross multiple servers and list ALL of the people within that shard. In WoW, for example, I could be in Ironforge or Orgrimmar and type /who and still get a list of people in Outlands. I don't have any experience with SWG's /who system but I would assume it's the same. If not, WTF SOE?
Another example would be your bit about visual populations. It is true that players move, and you can't always see players within your current area. However, logic tells me that if I went somewhere, and I went there for a specific reason (not just "because I felt like it") then there should be other players there as well. You can't just say "well everyone is somewhere else" because it simply isn't true. There will ALWAYS be some players in a zone or area, as long as that area has a reason for them to be there. Obviously useless zones will have significantly reduced population, but I'd be willing to bet that even there you should find at least a few people.
Anyways, these are just a few examples, but it's a good post overall and one that everyone should read and keep in mind. There's some things in there that I'm sure not everyone knows, but probably should.
I no longer have an active account but it would be interesting to see if someone with some clout on their server can organize a "party" say at Theed, and invite everyone on their server to show up and see how many people you can get there.
This I think would be our best chance at determining how large a population a server has.
And I've already given potential reasons for why cities aren't as populous as they once were.
So you deny that SOE has a slight crediblity problem? When they have a track record of being deceptive, particularly in terms of subscriptions?
Sorry, but this "who are you going to believe, me and my latin or your lying eyes" stuff does not cut it. I was in beta 3 and played continuously through February of 2006, and the number of players I saw around me steadily declined. On Ahazi, at least, prior to the NGE there were three places where you could reliably get an entertainer buff any time of the day: Mos Eisley, Bestine, and Theed. A month ago, there was only one place where you could HOPE to get an entertainer buff: Mos Eisley. I'm not talking about how many people I see at the Mining outpost on Yavin IV.
To provide another counterpoint, it's easier to sell things on the bazaar in Mos Eisley than it is anywhere else in the game? Why? Because you don't have heavy foot traffic in the other bazaars, but Mos Eisley does, because it's newbie central. This is in direct contrast to pre NGE, when you'd put things up in Theed, Coronet, or Bestine to get the best chance to sell your stuff. Why? Because they had the foot traffic, greater than the foot traffic in newbie central, Mos Eisley.
Your suppositions as to why cities aren't as populous as they once were are interesting, but are irrelevant, and are frankly counterintuitive to what I have seen based on the experience of playing the game from beta 3 onward. There are fewer players.
The fact that the few folks on my friends list that I ran into observed the same thing is of course "vox ad populum". All our observations are inncorrect, from your view.
I guess the thousands upon thousands of "abandoned" buildings don't count as a demonstration of lost players, either.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Each non-expansion planet ~= 225 Virtual Square Kilometers
Total Land Area Of SWG is ~2025 Square Kilometers without expansions.
1 Unit Of Coordinate = 1 Virtual Meter
1 Meter in SWG ~= 2 Millimeters In Real Life.
1000 Meters in a Kilometer
2025 Virtual Square Kilometers = 2,025,000 Virtual Meters = 4,050,000 Real-World Millimeters
4,050,000 Real-World Millimeters = ~4.05 Real-World Square Kilometers
Will post the math for space + ground expansions later (Space makes up the majority of the game world because it's three dimensional). Also instances, while not very large in and of themselves, together add up.
2.The /who command is indeed limited by area. I believe this was done intentionally to foster a sense of local community in the game.
3.I do encounter a number of players out in the wild. There are always plenty of people doing the Legacy Quests for example and I've encountered other players on almost every step. I've even managed to form 8-man groups for doing the Legacy Quests. For the record, this is on Bloodfin.
Sigh.....
As ive stated before why does the amount playing mean a hill of beans to anyone who isnt playing? I mean if you dont play cause you hate the NGE like i do, why does it matter if a small amount actually do? We all know the NGE killed the population, even the overly happy players admitted to that. But again why does it matter how many subscribers there actually is?
The main topic should be which server has the most players on it so that the newer players have someone to enjoy the game with. I dont even like the NGE and im very vocal to that point. I just dont see why 10000000 post about numbers, stats and random garbage makes any difference to those that like it. To the new player it would matter so they dont choose a dud server with 5 afk spammer bots in mos eisley.
I could go on and say the game is dead but it would be from a jaded pov and based on my SERVER numbers. But all that'd do is create another 15 threads with charts,flames and the oldvet vs the NGEvet. It solves nothing to keep making this topic over and over and over.Neither lucas or SoE has ever realeased actual facts on player subs. Some say that they have seen and increase on their respective server. I cant imagine why it would matter to them that mine is vaccant. Its all based on the individuals server and their opinions.
Post about actual subs=
No one but SoE and LA can give you actual fact based figures. So argue about something else besides who plays and who dont. Heck at least make a new thread debating how long it will take for the waaahbulance to show up and nerf Beast Mastery. 
same topic now locked due to the same ole same ole -> http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/133823
And I've already given potential reasons for why cities aren't as populous as they once were.
So you deny that SOE has a slight crediblity problem? When they have a track record of being deceptive, particularly in terms of subscriptions?
Sorry, but this "who are you going to believe, me and my latin or your lying eyes" stuff does not cut it. I was in beta 3 and played continuously through February of 2006, and the number of players I saw around me steadily declined. On Ahazi, at least, prior to the NGE there were three places where you could reliably get an entertainer buff any time of the day: Mos Eisley, Bestine, and Theed. A month ago, there was only one place where you could HOPE to get an entertainer buff: Mos Eisley. I'm not talking about how many people I see at the Mining outpost on Yavin IV.
To provide another counterpoint, it's easier to sell things on the bazaar in Mos Eisley than it is anywhere else in the game? Why? Because you don't have heavy foot traffic in the other bazaars, but Mos Eisley does, because it's newbie central. This is in direct contrast to pre NGE, when you'd put things up in Theed, Coronet, or Bestine to get the best chance to sell your stuff. Why? Because they had the foot traffic, greater than the foot traffic in newbie central, Mos Eisley.
Your suppositions as to why cities aren't as populous as they once were are interesting, but are irrelevant, and are frankly counterintuitive to what I have seen based on the experience of playing the game from beta 3 onward. There are fewer players.
The fact that the few folks on my friends list that I ran into observed the same thing is of course "vox ad populum". All our observations are inncorrect, from your view.
I guess the thousands upon thousands of "abandoned" buildings don't count as a demonstration of lost players, either.
1.Ad Hominem attacks do nothing except to discredit your position.
2.I do not deny anything regarding SOE. You are misrepresenting my position.
3.Anecdotal evidence. Not proof. In your opinion, the cities are empty but that does not make it a fact.
4.Card stacking. You dismiss my claims outright without explaining your position and why you believe my claims are irrelevant.
5.MMOs have turnover. Old players leave and new players join. This is an inevitable fact and it happens to every MMO. It just so happens that player turnover with Star Wars Galaxies happens to be exceptionally visible due to the fact that players can place structures in the game world. The current game world has 4 years worth of houses.
It's very true that the only source for information that can possibly reflect reality is SOE and LA, and they are not going to tell us that. Ever. Blizzard boasts of its numbers because they are boastworthy. Not so the numbers for SWG!
I"ve seen some threads on the General Game Discussion board that indicate that the waaahmbulance has already arrived in regards to Beast Mastery. Now we have to wait to see how long it will be before the devs take action.
As for advising a newbie which server to create a toon on, it's obviously going to be Bria, Bloodfin, or Ahazi. They have always been the most heavily populated servers if SOE's own public measurements (the login screen) are to be believed.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
If there really are that many people around, something should be done to encourage them to congregate again, because I think social interaction was a strong point of SWG pre CU.
Why you spent this much time on this OP is beyond me..... wanna do something productive and come clean my pool for me?
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I am not saying the game is dead, but all MMOs share the same characteristics. Players congregate to central social settings. Be it ironforge, britannia, tatooine or whatever. All games have their social hotspots. SWG isn't some miracle game that keeps people hiding in the field doing activities. All games have plenty of activities that keep players out in the field, no more or less than SWG. It is the basic premise of MMOs.
Most games have no reason to be in "towns" other than a bank vault, maybe an auction/bazaar house and perhaps some area specific chat channel. No different than in star wars, so the results should be typical with what you find in any other game.
End result, if there are no big social hot spots, then it is most likely because there isn't much of a society to populate it.
I agree with Daffid001 in that people tend to navigate to specific social areas. However, the only reason Coronet was a social spot in Pre-CU was because it was the biggest city in Corellia... and Corellia was a focal point for travel between many worlds on transports. However, with using starships to fly to areas, that has made Coronet obsolete. Therefore, people are all over the place, doing whatever they are doing (missions, quests, gathering resources, etc...) And, there's plenty of cities per planet to be used as restocking areas. Therefore, the socializing area that Daffid011 proposed has it's flaws when it comes to this game.
Then, schumacher57, then you need to sit yourself down at one point and hope that people come to you. Because, as I explained in a post earlier, since people are in continuous motion, it is difficult to "count players" (which people seem to want to do) when you move about.
Now, I'm not saying that this game has more people than pre-CU, because it doesn't. However, the constant NGE-haters bashing the game with dismal, ficticious population statistics, is getting very old.
It isn't like once people got xwings they stopped going to the same hotspots they once did.
Why is star wars some fluke of the industry where people now go out of their way to hide in remote locations or never come to towns? The same social interactions go on in SWG that do in every other game online, and more to some extent with dancer buffs and the restriction on locations.
What is more likely? That people now stopped coming to towns, do their banking in remote locations and are hiding out in the wilderness doing whatever activities and not going to social hotpoints anymore.
-OR-
After a long series of unfortunate events by the SOE team, people stopped playing and there is a lack of people to interact with?
It's similar with Vanguard. Players cannot place houses anywhere in the game world, houses are restricted to specific areas.
Furthermore, the NGE made the game more solo friendly. Before Chapter 6, a single player could pretty much solo anything in the game. That and the fact that grouping now actually penalizes your XP gain rather than add to it mean that people didn't need to go into cities to find groups.
Oh, and about the population question... Yes, there are less people now than pre-CU. However, no one truly knows the true population numbers except SOE themselves, and they are not giving out that information at present. I, for one, truly think that the population issue is nowhere near as dim as a lot of the NGE-hating vets try to spin it as.
QFT.
This is what I was trying to say in my reply on the first page, but this person said it better than I. Kudos to you, Daffid011!
This is what we call "argumentum ad ignorantiam," or, "appeal to ignorance." It is a logical fallacy that a premise is false simply because it has not been proved true.
Sophistry at its finest: "I have proffered a counter to every ground upon which you could base your argument, ergo, your argument must be wrong." In correct. The existence of a counter does not necessitate a finding that the assertion is wrong.
It is a given that anyone making an assertion based on anecdotal evidence is merely speculating. However, since SOE does not release the actual server numbers, speculation is all that is available and anecdotal evidence is all that can be used. There is nothing wrong with speculating based on anecdotal evidence in the absence of any other reliable evidence. If humans stopped speculating on subjects simply because they lacked solid empirical evidence, intellectual development would be ground to a screeching halt.
Also, your argument as to why SOE would not release its numbers is wholly unconvincing. Many MMOs with significantly smaller numbers than WoW release their numbers. It is pretty well known that ALL other MMOs pale in comparison to WoW's numbers, so there's no reason that would deter SOE from releasing its numbers to chart itself. The fact is that SOE used to release numbers, which were around 200k, when WoW was at 5 million. So clearly they had no problem then. It is not illogical to SPECULATE that their change in policy may have been brought about by a significant decline in numbers.
Pile up enough anecdotal evidence and logical conclusions can emerge.
Here's a pretty interesting article on the subject: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/101/14