Star Wars: The Old Republic not losing subscribers, says dev

BioWare's massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic is not suffering subscriber defections, according to project lead designer Daniel Erickson.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Erickson claims subscriber numbers have not dipped, but concurrent users during peak play times have. This, Erickson said, is why players may have experienced "light" server populations.

The developer said BioWare is considering merging servers in response to the lessened concurrent user population, but this action is not a priority. Erickson also made clear that BioWare is doing "anything and everything" to spike the concurrent user figure.

"Nothing is off the table when it comes to making sure our communities are strong and active on each server," he said.

To help encourage players to regularly return to The Old Republic, Erickson said BioWare is seeking to design quests and one-off events with greater variety and impact.

Additionally, Erickson responded to criticisms of BioWare being slow to create new endgame content. He said because The Old Republic is a fully voiced MMORPG, creating quests takes a big longer, though he said, "We're getting sprier all the time."

Star Wars: The Old Republic--which reportedly cost $200 million to develop--was released in December to a warm critical reception after six years of development. It sold 2 million copies and gathered 1.7 million subscribers by publisher Electronic Arts' latest report.