BioWare Doing “Anything and Everything” to Raise The Old Republic’s Concurrent Users Numbers

PC Gamer is offering an interesting article-style interview with BioWare’s Daniel Erickson on Star Wars: The Old Republic which tackles some oft-discussed subjects such as the allegedly depopulated servers and declining subscription numbers.

Apparently, while the overall server population hasn’t decreased, the peak concurrent players numbers have, and BioWare is doing their best to counter this:

BioWare claim that subscriber numbers haven’t dropped, but concurrent users at peak times have. This, Erickson says, is the reason why players are noticing a lot of ‘˜light’ server populations and also why mergers are on the cards, but not a priority. According to Erickson, they’re doing (anything and everything) to bring that concurrent users number up. (Nothing is off the table when it comes to making sure our communities are strong and active on each server.)

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Events like the Rakghoul plague outbreak, which ends tomorrow, are one of the ways that BioWare are looking to make SW:TOR an attractive place to return day after day. Erickson wants the game to be (not just a destination to see your friends but a place to log in just to see what’s new.) To that end, more variety in daily quests is also a priority. (Interesting replayable content is the top of the list of design prototypes going on over here.)

It’s important to BioWare that the Rakghoul plague is a one-off. (Events are, by their very nature, transient things that build a sense of history within the game) Erickson explains. (Later you’ll pull out your red rakling pet and say, ‘˜remember when the rakghoul plague hit.’)