Tag: The Old Republic

The Old Republic May Merge To A Few Super Servers


Back when DC Universe Online lapsed in subscribers, Sony Online Entertainment merged all of the existing servers into four mega-servers. In a similar move, Bioware may just be gearing up for a similar response to dwindling server populations. In an interview with PC Gamer, Daniel Erickson had the following to say about the upcoming group-finder tool:

They will not be cross-server as we are coming up on a huge move to servers with massively higher population caps than we have today.

A win-win situation all around. There hopefully will be more information as Update 1.3 prepares to roll out.

(Source: PC Gamer)

Bioware Hit With Layoffs, The Old Republic


Discussing layoffs after a game launches is akin to beating a dead horse. I should know, as the Human Resources director in my old company had brought in a live horse and a baseball bat to give the saying more meat (or to be blunt about it, depending on your flavor of pun). The Old Republic is one of the largest, most stable launches in MMO history. So large and stable in fact, that Bioware laid off an unnumbered amount of staff to keep the system from being too balanced and stable.

Of course this is all conjecture. Layoffs following an MMOs release are to be expected as the game’s requirements shift downward in scope. There isn’t any more detail than what I’ve pointed out here, but if you are interested in some marketing lingo, you can check out Greg Zeschuk’s statement at the Old Republic forums below.

Best of luck to the recently laid, and in case you are still looking for jobs, Turbine is hiring.

(Source: SWTOR Forums)

The Old Republic Dropped 400,000 Subscribers, 1.3 Million


I have good news and bad news. First the good news: Electronic Arts is reporting a net income of $76 million compared to this time last year where the publisher posted a loss of $276 million. Additionally, total revenue for the past fiscal year came to $4.14 billion, compared to $3.59 billion the year prior. On the kind-of-massively-but-not-really front, EA’s “Play4Free” games rake in around $2 million monthly.

Now the bad news: The Old Republic has dropped 24% in population since February, when Bioware revealed that the game carried 1.7 million subscribers. The Old Republic now boasts 1.3 million, which may not include the nearly forty countries that the game just launched in at the end of April.

In addition to the recent Legacy update, Bioware has the upcoming Allies update to hopefully bring in lapsed subscribers.

(Source: EA Finances)

TERA/The Old Republic Discuss Server Transfers


Since I know how much you all love hearing about server transfers, I’ve lumped both games in the same article.

You may be aware of TERA’s pre-launch woes, particularly a lacking in space on player vs player servers. Alongside the release of a new PvP server, En Masses is opening temporary free server transferal for all players. Transfers are immediate, free of charge, and will remain so until the server populations level out. You can not transfer between PvP and PvE servers, and your character cannot have any chronoscrolls. For a full list of the restrictions, check out the announcement here. After the announcement, transfers will remain free if used for the purpose of balancing server population.

Now for games that have been released. Over on the Old Republic, Bioware has announced that server transfers will be held in waves, beginning in early summer. Players will be limited in which servers are able to transfer from and which servers can be transferred to, with more details to come as the time approaches. After, server transfer limits will open up, allowing anyone to transfer anywhere, although not necessarily for free. Presumably, if servers drop enough in population, Bioware may take the Warhammer route and retire servers.

 

The Old Republic Launches In More Countries


Good news, Star Wars fans in Croatia! Bioware has announced today that The Old Republic is available for purchase in a whole host of countries previously unavailable. The entire list includes thirty eight countries over Europe and the Middle East, although only a select number of countries in the list will actually have The Old Republic appear on retail shelves. The rest will have to buy through Origin.

Check the list below to see if your country is listed. Unfortunately, if you don’t speak English, French, or German, you are out of luck. Bioware has no plans on adding any additional languages or launching servers for the new territories, so you will have to use the existing European servers.

(Source: The Old Republic)

TOR Subscribers Will Decline To 1.25 Million In March 2013


Cowen and Company, market analysts, are suggesting that The Old Republic peaked shortly after launch and has begun its decline. The analyst group suggests that Bioware’s announcement of 1.7 million subscribers marks the MMO’s peak, and that by the end of the current fiscal year, The Old Republic will boast 1.25 million subscribers. The current fiscal year ends in March 2013.

A 450,000 subscriber loss over the course of a year? That doesn’t sound too bad. At the very least, the issue Cowen and Company attributes the subscriber loss to sounds simple enough to rectify before the year is out:

“While the game got off to a good start, the relatively light amount of end-game content does appear to be taking a toll.”

Despite this prediction, Cowen and Company goes on to predict that EA will outperform the market by 20% year over year, thanks to The Old Republic and a number of other titles.

(Source: Gamasutra)

The Old Republic: Server Mergers Possible


“Long term we actually have to look at servers as a whole. The nice part about it is we have doubled how many people we can put on each server since launch. The down side is that at launch, because people were upset at the long queues we aired on the side of opening up more space. What that has now done is separated our player-base into a larger group.”

When The Old Republic originally launched, servers were staggered in order to ensure that players evened out over the course of launch. Following launch, Bioware has slowly increased server capacity to allow more people into each server. The combination of increased capacity and post-launch player activity has resulted in a number of servers with a dearth of players, and Bioware is looking into server mergers in the future.

First, however, Bioware will be opting for a server transfer approach, allowing players to freely move about to the server of their desire.

“One of the problems we’re running into right now is kind of a classic MMO problem, which is that our overall population of players has not changed, but our peak concurrent users has changed”

(Source: Now Gamer)

[Update] The Old Republic: Free Month For Most Loyal Players


[Update] Bioware has extended the free month to anyone who also receives Legacy level 6 on their account. The time to obtain this has also been extended to April 22nd.

[Original Story] Bioware wants to thank its most loyal customers for sticking with the developer during these hard times. Of course, how do you factor in how loyal a player is? You could ask for a human sacrifice, but Human Resources is notorious for requiring long and redundant paperwork to be signed before any such promotion can take place.

So Bioware has decided to rate “most loyal” as anyone with at least one level 50 character. Those of you who have subscribed since launch but have not reached end game? Well, you’re loyal but they are more loyal. Perhaps you shouldn’t be such a casual gamer?

But don’t fret, all players subscribed regardless of loyalty will receive a free Tauntaun pet. in addition, previous subscribers can log in from April 13th to April 19th.

More on The Old Republic as it appears.

(Source: The Old Republic)

Try Out The Old Republic Free, Again!


Last weekend, Bioware invited users who had never experience The Old Republic to show up and try the game for free for a weekend. Starting today and running through the 26th, Bioware wants to scoop up anyone who did not participate in last week’s trial. Players are able to take on the first fifteen levels of the first two planets for any class or race. Trial players will not be able to use general, trade, and PvP chat, and will be unable to use the send mail or use the Galactic Trade Network.

Check it out here. A reminder: This only extends to people who have never played The Old Republic before. Previous subscribers, friend pass users, and prior free weekend players are not included.

The Old Republic Responsible For WoW Subscriber Losses


Talking to Eurogamer, Producer John Lagrave admitted that the launch of The Old Republic has had an effect on World of Warcraft’s subscription numbers. Lagrave goes on to talk about possibly extending the current World of Warcraft unlimited trial (up to level 20) to level 40, or even level 60, but with a firm reminder that Blizzard has no plans to take the MMO to a free to play model, as Blizzard still feels that the game runs best as a subscription.

“Of course people are trying Star Wars – our development team are trying Star Wars! I’m one of the few people who’s still playing it actually, but yeah we’ve seen a dip in subs. It certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic, but it’s also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria, so it’s not surprising.”

Blizzard is one of several developers to be very open about their loss of subscribers, and one of the few companies to actually post a base figure of how many are still playing. Up until recently, a major portion of Blizzard’s dropped subscribers have been attributed to losses over in China where the rate of income per user is lower than in the West, in territories including China where users pay for World of Warcraft like a prepaid phone (adding hours). Blizzard also attributes some of the loss to players to a need to release more content at a faster pace, as players complete it. Meanwhile, the expansion of the cash shop has more than made up for the loss of subscribers, leading to higher revenue each quarter.

In the face of 1.7 million subscribers for The Old Republic, Blizzard is looking to entice its previous customers to return and current customers to remain so. Back in October, Blizzard launched the expanded Annual Pass offering a free copy of Diablo 3, a spectral mount, and guaranteed access to the Mists of Pandaria beta (The Diablo 3 promotion ends May 1st, if you were thinking about signing up). Just recently, Blizzard launched the Scroll of Resurrection campaign, offering an upgrade to Cataclysm, a free level 80 character, and free faction/server changes for the recipient.

All of this on the heels of Blizzcon 2012 being cancelled so Blizzard can focus on its development, and laying off 600 non-developmental workers.

You can read the rest of the discussion at the link below.

(Source: Eurogamer)