Arena losing popularity?

I dont know what happened to arena, the past week Ive barely seen anyone playing in it. Is it just the times I go online, or is it true what I say? Is Arena losing popularity, or is the game just dying more :/

(P.S.- I check gametracker to see whos in arena before I actually go to arena)

I've been noticing this too. Idk if the game is dying because I still see a bunch of people in the .com server.

Just a guess but, I just think we need to get something started and then everybody would join the arena more.

Whenever nobody is in arena I say we put one CPU on each side so people can still join and gain points, but not gaining too much by battling CPU's. Once enough people come in, in theory, then we remove the bots and play on arena as normal

Remember that a lot of pple started college and school and that could be one of the strong reasons of this problem.

Yeah, I've noticed this too.

I would agree with Mandalore. School started back up for most of our regulars. A lot of our players are youngins. SWBFII.com's server has always been the older guys. So, that's why they still have their usual players. Plus, a LOT of our guys moved on to first-person-shooter games. Those must've been invented recently....


But one thing I KNOW fo' sho. It sure as s#*% ain't Death Star GCW "killing the server" like some people have posted. No offense to those guys, but the exact opposite of that statement is true.
The Arena will be completely empty for HOURS on ANY other map. If I put it on Death Star CTF - Rebels vs. Empire, the server starts to get players IMMEDIATELY!

Watch this little video:


Watch live video from SWBFII OFFICIAL ARENA on Justin.tv


Notice how SWBFII Official Server is on Death Star CTF - Rebels vs. Empire and their server is FULL?
And the Arena is on Death Star CTF - Clones vs. Droids (the "popular" one) and it's EMPTY.



I've jumped on an empty Arena for Mos Eisley, Super Hoth, Coruscant, Mustafar, etc...every other map you guys say is "more popular". And I ran around by myself for 5-10 minutes before I finally get fedup and switch it to Death Star CTF - Rebels vs. Empire. And BAM! Players start to join the server.


The simple fact is that there aren't enough players left in this game to fill up the 4 main servers.
At peak time, we can only fill 3 servers nowadays! This last week apparently has been the Arena's turn to be the empty one.


Plus, it looks like we're getting into bad territory these day - our main players don't actually play anymore, they just post messages.



Oh well, I'm gonna go back to watching a kickass Bears-Cowboys game

Well, i would still play on the Arena and the .Com server if i didn't have that stupid patch problem. I've went to Lucasarts fourms and it seems that quite a bit of people got this same problem. They contacted Lucasarts about it but they didn't help much. They are trying to get the problem fixed at the moment, but it's been almost a month now when this problem occurred. I just hope this gets fixed soon.

give it a few weeks as soon as all the back to school settles down everyone comes back and plus that server stat reset ner the end of summer really messed things up a little also!

There are 4 reasons for declining activity:
1. School... it takes away people for a time each year
2. The game in general is just dying. If the servers are going to stay up for a while longer, then most activity will be dead by summer of next year. Traffic has significantly declined over the past few years. People have just sold this game or moved on.
3. Yes, the Arena is not as popular as it once was. Part of it is the reset

what if we reset the arena? now hold on dont look at me like im crazy yet i do have a point haha ok member when arena 1st came on it was an instant hit! then we tweaked it lil by lil to make it btr untill its what it is today what if we put the map rotation and stuff bak the way it was when we 1st had it? then tweak it bit by bit as needed and when it dies again just put it bak to normal lol what u guys think?

Sounds like a decent plan to me Vash.

sigh i doubt itd work x.x i just got bak from arena i was 2nd to join and got it up to like 11 or so then crash x.x its still crashing i bet thats whats really keeping players away geez and i was so close to my beam rifle on mos eisley too x.x lol

Its because .com is better to play in

what makes .com better? walking around watching command post change color doesnt make a good server? its the players!
and ctf vs con to me conquest is a little boring in a shooter game about killing avoiding the enemy and changing a command post possession is a waste of a shooter game lol thats why ctf is better the flag means killing in a shooter game killing is the bottom line while trying to win of course! lol the main thing like shonuff said is .com has more adults playing and all the kiddies have school now plus the new generations of systems but this game will survive untill pt3 comes out if ever lol

Yes we definitely have more server slots than we do players. I think the start of the school year has a lot to do with it. The PC servers seem to be faring better but they tend to have older players.

It's too bad that our the PS2 versions are incompatable with those in Europe (NTSC vs PAL). Even with the lag it would be interesting to play against and/or with them.

It's all the damn crashes. Like Vash said, as soon as we get a decent amount of players the stupid server crashes. I'm getting sick of it. I sure as hell don't wanna waste my time and money on an empty server anymore.


I'm gonna start a poll about what to do with the server.

yea they have been crashing a lot. .com has a dedicated following of players that generally only play in that server, or at least prefer it. And yes a lot of us are older and done with school. Add in the DD players and the server has been pretty full this past week.

ill be honest....very honest, please dont take this as an offense...
i think that arena is boring....its true im a Conquest player, but its not only the ctf which is boring. There are not good players at all playing in arena (the apocalypse guys are good, and some others) but the overall good players play on .com...yes, the veterans, i havent been on in 2 or 3 weeks, idk whats going on, but i agree with that guy who said that this is thnaks to school...and yes, arena players are, alsmot all, young guys who play not good at all, but they like to have fun. On .com is different, if u are not good, u get ur ass pwned. And since .com players are the "big gusy" it is always full....

just my opinion,....i know how it feels to have ur server, which is very famous, and i know what it feels to see how it is dying little by little....i really know it, i was admin of bsattle server, the best server ever. But you need to move on and join .com...its the only server which has remained over the years...since 2006...this is legendary...

ehh u say that .com players btr but u really cant compare the 2 its like compareing apples and oranges lol 1st in .com bcause its con its so easy to get awards i could do it in my sleep if i wanted to b cowardly all id have to do is take over weak command posts then once i got d-increase then i attack and get weapon lol also .com has moded clases of course its gonna b easier to kill with a grunt the way it is there my grandma could kick but with a grunt XP lol but in all seriousness they 2 diff worlds and we dont want to leave our unmoded ctf server and join the .com there r lots of ppl that feel the same way i do lol thats the whole reason this forum is here

yeah what vash said! lol
i like tons of the .com players im buddys with most of the vets and i like conqest to and so do allot of us thats why the arena has them to. but it goes deeper than that we all know .com is con and the arena is ctf but go back awhile the original SWBFII OFFICIAL SERVER not the new copycat one, it was the top server even with all the glitchers! lol and apoc owned it whith out actually owning it because we all played there but we dont glitch lol and when it was gone we decided to make are own server and in 1 month became the top server! why because the arena is now the server for ctf except we dont allow glitching lol so conqest has mostly always come second to ctf which has proved that the players have chosen ctf over con for what ever reason even if its 51% to 49% lol but its about the fact that at the end of the day .com is the top conqest server and the arena is the top ctf server like two halves to the same coin and both are the top 2 servers!

Sometimes I choose to play arena just to play CTF. CTF is as fun to play as Conquest. Both have cons and pros. At conquest, sometimes one of the teams take almost all the command posts and just let the enemy have only 1 command post just to spawn camp them and get a "godly" kills count. At the other hand, the spawn camping at CTF maps, specially Death Star, is annoying. Its like to see 3/4 of a team spawn camping until one soldier get the flag and score. Arena keep the real classes stats. No fast running rockets, no 2 sniper turrets, etc etc and that is one of the best reasons to play in Arena server. Im a .com player now, but i learned in this server how to play. Sometimes i visit the server like old times. Stop comparing two different servers with different gameplays. Also both servers uses different maps. Arena is recognized by using deathstar map as his fav map and always is fun to play there. If u dnt like Arena, dnt play in it. I dnt want to offend someone with this topic, but comparing arena with .com its like to compare gasoline and diesel... both are combustibles but both are not for all type of vehicles. In this case, players.

Sho,

I disagree with you on Death Star GCW. Here is how I see it. The reason why the server gets more people for that board is because a lot of people in the Arena just want to spawn camp and DS GCW is the best board to spawn camp. So when they see it, they join to play. So what happens when the board is over? People leave for 1 of 2 reason:

1. The opportunity to spawn camp is gone, so players leave.

2. Those that want to play are burnt out from 5hrs of Death Star GCW so they leave.

This is just my opinion, but I cant get into DS GCW anymore and it has made me play less. There are still players that like it and those are the ones in the Arena that you see. This is not sustainable and does not lead to new players becoming regulars. If DS GCW were so great, then why not just run that? I just cant get into killing with no purpose while the flag sits idle.

Another thing to consider is when the competition is doing better, try to figure out what they are doing that you are not doing. Also, I think Vash mentioned using the old rotation. Im not in favor of the new map rotation and preferred the old way.

I completely agree with you Wiley. So many players on GCW DS spawn camp ALOT. Hardly anyone every tries to get the flag on that map. It's all about getting kills.

I force myself to play on that map when it's on and i usually just try to go for the flag. I know their are a few others that try to get the flag on DS GCW. I can't remember their names but one of them is Axe.

I suggest we add a time limit for DS GCW if their isn't one yet. I'd say at least 20 minutes.

And i agree with Vash and Wiley about going back to the old rotation. The new rotation is decent. I really think we should get rid of the Conquest maps because we could just go to .com server for that. Arena was always the server for CTF and it should stay like that. That's just how i look at it.

Yep Axe goes for the flag and so does Parth. FU Whitwickey was another flag hawk. That is why I like when they play. Im not a big conquest fan either, which is why I dont play on .com. Arena should be almost all CTF with a conquest board here and there with a short timer. Seems the solution to DS GCW is a timer. I dont want to be on any board loner than an hr and that board can kill an entire afternoon.