I do agree with you a lot in spirit, but bear in mind this: if any of those games you mention weren't still profitable, they'd have been shut down. Obviously developers and publishers shoot for the stars, but I think most business plans are ready to take into account if a game doesn't do as well as hoped. All that happens is that the development team is matched to the degree of profitability - all the way from healthy dev teams furiously polishing and balancing the game and pumping out regular free and paid content, down to the level of the game no longer being profitable, devs being withdrawn, and the game being shut down. The MMO "community" has got to get out of this silly rut of conceptualizing that every MMO is meant by its developers and publishers to be a "WoW killer". It's just a daft meme that's sprouted up that's probably done a lot of harm - it's like little boys arguing about whether Superman could beat Batman. Kids come on forums and think they're clever by pointing out that a game isn't a "WoW killer" or whatever. Nothing has to be a "WoW killer". In fact, if you look at WoW, Blizzard didn't intend it to be an "EQ killer", they intended to open up a new market by streamlining EQ - they didn't want EQ's players so much as new players. I think this is partly what BW intended, and they partly succeeded, but they also partly failed.

The game doesn't have longevity though, so no.

Had the game not had the problems it has (in terms of its MMO side - basically a decent RPG but a lacklustre MMO), and had the game had a bunch of healthy servers, a cross-server LFG tool would not have been necessary, and would indeed have been detrimental to community spirit at this early stage of the game. However, the game has very few healthy servers. It seriously needs an automated cross-server LFG tool just to keep its head above water now.

Yes, but this is part of the problem. The automated cross-server tool was introduced as the solution to a problem. The problem is now that, for other MMOs, it has become an expected tool out of the box. It seems that BW underestimated how used people are to that kind of system (not just from WoW but many other MMOs now). Nevertheless, for various reasons everyone has gone through ad nauseam, SWTOR probably does need one urgently now - not just PvP but PvE. SWTOR has a problem and if they don't want to merge servers because it would be too embarrassing, they need to do the only alternative thing that's going to pull the game out of decline. Sad, but necessary.

Yes, this is a big problem, and for my money the only actual design flaw about the game. Everything else is tweakable, but this, which should have been sorted and transparent from the beginning, has done I think more damage than anything else to the game.

No, equating solo with casual player, and guilds with socializing is IMHO a huge mistake. There are plenty of casual players out there who like socializing, but aren't interesting in committing to guilds, with all their politics and drama, etc. (or, equally boring, anonymity). MMOs need to make allowances for PUGs, make it easy to forms PUGs, and make gameplay tuneable so that people don't shy away from PUGs because content is fixed at a level that's so difficult that PUGs can't do it. I think the automated cross-server LFG tool is a malaise in MMORPGs (I think that's why Blizzard didn't introduce it till relatively late), but now that it's been introduced and people have come to expect it, we're stuck with it. It's still possible to socialize with people in PUGs, you just have to initiate it. Sometimes people are silent, other times you can have nice chats with random strangers. But yeah, I remember when the type of LFG tool that's actually in SWTOR already was, even up to a few years ago, perfectly sufficient for people to use to form groups. It's like the culture of using such tools has just totally disappeared from MMO space.

Voices definitely worth it. For the first time in an MMO I find myself knowing what my quest is, instead of clicking through text and bumbling along wondering what I'm supposed to be doing. (I am of course exaggerating to get a point across.) Great VO definitely adds depth to immersion, and there's a lot of great VO (and digital puppetry) in this game. In an MMO context, the amount of VO this game has really does add a whole new feel to the MMO genre. Yeah, there are a few bald patches in the story, but generally most of the stories are at the very least competent, and occasionally brilliant (like the BW single player games really). Companions aren't as interesting and in-depth as in some of BW's previous single-player games. They're ok, but more could have been made of them. The problems this game has aren't really in these areas, these areas consist in whatever strength the game does have. The game's weakness is in 1) making it easy for people to play together, 2) creating as polished and immersive an MMO experience as it does a single-player experience, and 3) too much linearity in the non-story parts of the game, both solo and grouped - the game feels claustrophobic in some respects, rather than expansive. It doesn't feel like a virtual galaxy.

Well, actually for me the game has more value than it seems to have to you, and I honestly wouldn't put so gloomy a cast on it at all. There's nothing deeply flawed in essence about the gameplay or anything else - how can standard MMO tropes that everyone likes be deeply flawed? - it's mostly implementation that's the problem, lack of attention to detail to the MMO side, and yes, a few bad decisions here and there. Most of the storylines I do find emotionally engaging - obviously far more so than any MMORPG to date. The combat is variable, but I've enjoyed my Scoundrel and my Kinetic Shadow as much as I've enjoyed my favourite toons from other MMOs. The game's implementation is lacking in some areas (too much linearity, no sense of continuity between ground and space so that you feel like you're in a galaxy rather then a linear series of stage sets), and in some fundamental areas is really poor (making it easy for people to play together) And BW haven't been fast enough in responding to those problems. It's probably too late now to make this game the smash hit that it could have been, but it's not nearly a total disaster, and it's probably salvageable as a profitable game with a fairly healthy subscription of around 500-700k.

I used to be sort of optimistic, I played the first month of the game and thought that it had a solid rpg core and fun combat, but had some serious MMO problems that needed fixing, so I thought we'd see a drop to 1.5m subs roundabout now, but I thought that if they sorted out a lot of the problems the pop might gradually rise. I was optimistic because the devs fixed the important ability delay problem pretty quickly, and I reckoned if they fixed the other problems as quicklyk, the game would pick up. I come back and the game is now completely stagnant, 1.2 didn't address anything important (such as the problem of people needing to find people to play with in an MMO), it just ended up pissing people off because all it had was some legacy fluff (that broke other things) and some (at THAT time) unneeded upheavals to classes (as if BW actually wanted to piss more people off). 1.3's ballyhooed LFG tool is going to be just a tweak to the existing tool, and will be cross-server only for PvP. It's clear from the EA guy's interview that SWTOR is no longer a piority - which, translated, means "skeleton crew of devs". That means slower bug fixing, slower updates, etc. So now, I'm no longer optimistic. My prediction of 1.5m was 200k out. D3 has just come out and looks like it's totally killed some servers. My server, which was always pretty busy a couple of months ago, is now depressingly much less busy than it was a couple of months ago. So I'm not optimistic any more. I reckon there's going to be a precipitous decline in the next report - probably down to 700k, if not around 500k. Still not an absolute total disaster, but a sad, sad showing for what could have been a top class AAA MMORPG in every way.

Why do I need a "right" to an opinion on a forum? IN MY OPINION, the game is not a total disaster yet, but it's fast becoming one. IN MY OPINION, heads should roll, because IN MY OPINION, the game could have been so much better - and indeed the classiness of some parts of it (storyline, grouped quest dialogues, etc.) only highlight how below-par the rest of the game is, as an MMO. At the moment, it's failing in the main job of an MMO for many players - being able to play with other people. The game has some things worth defending against yahoos, sure, but IN MY OPINION, there comes a point when you've got to look at what's happening realistically. IN MY OPINION, some elements of the game have been carried off superbly; but IN MY OPINION, some other aspects of the game range from poor to terrible, and unfortunately those are the aspects of the game that many players, once they've enjoyed the storylines, will have to face day after day. You may be quite happy with a game that has around 500k subscribers, but IN MY OPINION, that's not going to please EA, the shareholders or BW, really. A game that's profitable is still a far cry from a game that's a smash hit. And IN MY OPINION, this game could have been a smash hit. Obviously so, since the numbers of people who bought it showed that a large number of people were ready for a smash hit Star Wars game. But clearly, their interest hasn't been retained. Why must heads roll? BECAUSE SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING NEEDS TO STOP THE SHIP FROM SINKING. In my opinion.

What the heck is the point of this question?

It's getting absolutely silly now. 11 people on Tattoine on Saturday night on a server that was at game launch and for a good month afterwards invariably Heavy (Lord Calypho - EU RP-PVP). It really looks like Diablo III has killed the game stone dead. I predict around 600-700k subs next notice. Still not quite a total disaster, but such a shame, given how much goodwill and promise the game started off with ... it means a skeleton crew of devs (EA guy already said as much - it's not a priority moneymaker any more), which meansa even slower bugfixes and updates. This needed fast action months ago. It needed 1.2 to address the whole problem of people being able to find people to play with, instead of the relatively unimportant fluff of legacy and (sometimes) complete overhauling of class skill trees that people were just getting used to. BW, it's probably already too late from the point of view of money being pumped in by EA, but if you want to save this game, you need to do a CCP, admit mistakes, and try and solve the problems people have been flagging since the Betas. There's a fine class storyline/planet MQ backbone there to entice people. But you need more to keep people you have enticed playing the game. Make the MMO side of the game as high performance and well tuned as WoW, have a few more alternative levelling paths in terms of environments, make the 1.3 LFG tool cross-server for PvE as well as PvP, merge some servers, and use the Hero engine's capabilities to put more little surprises and things that change, for explorers, and those will go some way towards salvaging what is fast becoming a laughing stock in the industry.

Nonsense, the OP was about what I've just said, my previous post was an attempt to get behind that and try to figure out what was missing in their rationale, in response to someone who was talking about devs tailoring their min-maxing of resources to likely audience preferences. To spell it out:- the overt problem, as highlighted in the OP, is that the alien bodies are almost all humanoid 1-4, same as the human characters that we play. This is annoying an un-immersive, and also looks like some sort of lazy min-maxing of resources on BW's behalf (it's not worth their time being a bit more careful and varied about the alien bodies, since probably most players won't even care) - a point made by someone in the thread. I argued that many SW lovers will care, because part of the initial SW appeal was the alienness of the aliens, and that it shows a certain lack of care about the IP on BW's part, to ignore that and not put a bit more attention to detail into giving the aliens alien bodies, and not just sticking alien heads on top of the human body types. I really don't think that's too much to ask for, for the sake of artistic integrity; but BW in this instance put convenience ahead of artistic integrity. Bad call - makes the game have a much less "solid" feel than it otherwise could have had. I hope that's clear.

Excuses excuses. THE BODIES ARE THE SAME AS HUMAN BODIES, that's what the problem is. It's extremely dull and immersion-killing to be talking to aliens who have exactly the same body shapes as the humans you talk to. At the very least they could have elongated a bit here, changed proportions there, so that you didn't feel you were talking to muscle-bound human body type 3 with an alien head stuck on top. Yes, lots of the aliens are humanoid, but that's a big difference from lazily having the exact same 4 body types that human beings have for every fricken' alien type.

Uhhh, excuse me? Never mind min-maxing to the majority - what about bloody ARTISTIC INTEGRITY, eh? What about bringing as true a representation of the lore as you can into a game - a lore that was notable from its first appearance on the big screen, for presenting a really good impression of aliens of all sortts of shapes and sizes? The Cantina scene in Star Wars is probably the moment that clinched the deal for lots of Star Wars fans, so I doubt you can seriously claim that only a "minority" who are interested in Star Wars are interested in authentic aliens (as opposed to human forms with alien heads glued on top). Yes, this has always been one of the major minor letdowns in the game (so to speak) - along with lots of little niggles like immediately taking off as soon as you enter your ship, not having a proper community-based space element, not having much integration between ground and space (it's absolutely canonical in Star Wars to have fights that move from ground to space, or vice-versa). Bah. It's just a symptom of this game's odd lack of attention to detail in odd places (there's tons of attention to detail in some areas, but just a curious lackadaisickal feel in others). This game is like a Potemkin village - it looks absolutely great from certain angles, but the longer you live with it and look at it from other angles, the more jerry-built it looks.

Agreement: This x1000. You get +5 internets for your astute observation. Unfortunately one can't be as lenient as that with a game like this. EA and the shareholders aren't going to be that lenient, and players shouldn't be either. Heads should roll, and (obviously, given the type of near-disaster it is) mainly higher-level heads, at that. Either management/high level design heads should roll or they should do a CCP and be totally honest about what's happened.

Excellent post, balanced, fair and accurate.

This type of hyperbole is totally unnecessary. It doesn't make you look clever to exaggerate things this way and criticize other peoples' gaming decisions - quite the opposite. You don't like it, other people like it. You don't find enough value in it to pay for, others do, end of story. You haven't uncovered some great, secret conspiracy by EA/BW to bilk people out of money, all you're pointing out is a game that doesn't satisfy everyone, like it could have done.

Evidently "people", or at least some people, are. The question is whether they are enough to do anything on the scale from: 1) keep the game afloat, to 2) make it hugely profitable. At the moment it looks like somewhere in the middle, but edging towards the bottom end. Certainly the rest of the game, the MMO side of the game, while the grouped combat in and of itself is engaging, both PvE and PvP, it's not got the right setting - rewards are wonky, the setup isn't right, it's hard to find groups, etc., etc., etc. But this is only made worse by the fact that the storyline bits are indeed immersive and engaging. It's the contrast that's so shocking. You come out of feeling like you're a character in the Old Republic, into this below-average set-up MMO context, with unimmersive, linear world design, and it's stark by contrast, stark, bleak and claustrophobic. A few months ago I was more positive about the game; seeing how quickly they reacted to the ability delay problem, it seemed like BW were on their toes. But now I'm much less optimistic; I suspect the poor performance of the game (relative to what I think must have been EA's/shareholders' expectations) has meant the development team has been cut - which is why 1.2 was lacklustre, and 1.3 looks like it's only going to cause more bad publicity for the game (since the LFG tool will not be cross-server as many hope for).

I don't think this is true at all. I think the game is somewhat WoW-like because a) there are a certain number of things that people expect since WoW, and b) BW presumably thought they ought not to re-invent the wheel, especially since they had no previous experience with MMOs. What they did have experience with is immersive VO-ed storylines with occasionally interesting moral choices. That's what BW do, that's what they're known for. That's what KOTOR was. Hence, what SWTOR is is "KOTOR with mates", KOTOR with some WoW-like MMO elements tacked on (but also some other MMO elements as well). I think their idea was not so much to take people away from WoW, but rather more like Blizzard's game plan when they started WoW - i.e. open up a new market of players, people who hadn't played MMOs before. (i.e., the history of WoW is that Blizz thought they could attract more people to the MMO market by streamlining EQ's gameplay - it's obviously more complex than that, but that's the gist). Given that, it looks to me like BW wanted to try to make an MMO that was a BW MMO, whose strengths were BW strengths; BW hoped to emulate Blizzard's success by, like Blizzard, but in a different way, attracting people to an MMO genre who might not have been attracted before. Sure, snagging some people from other MMOs including WoW is good, but it wasn't their main focus. And to some extent it's obviously worked. The people for whom this is a first MMO, or the people who haven't actually liked WoW enough to subscribe, etc., etc., are probably the people who are defending this game. Consider, for example, Yahtzee's review, where he (as someone who doesn't like MMOs generally, but liked WoW a bit) says that SWTOR is really an MMO made more for people like him, who wouldn't normally play MMOs. The problem is that the non-BioWare parts of the MMO aren't good enough to retain the extra number of players over and above the newbies BW hoped to attract (the "old hands" as it were). They're good enough in terms of general idea, but they're just not good enough in detail, in depth, in implementation. The WoW bits just aren't WoW enough, they aren't as good as what people have come to expect from WoW. Now, the amusing thing is that SWTOR hasn't behaved quite according to the predictions of the SWTOR-haters. It didn't tank after the first month, it's still not tanking yet. It seems that there are enough people out there who are enjoying it to keep it profitable. My fear is that it's the "old hands" who have been most disappointed with the game. Yes, while you're in the story, it's helluva immersive and very cool, but when you're not in the story, the under-par nature of the MMO side (particularly, but of course not limited to, the difficulty finding teams on thinly-spread servers) is doing a fair bit of damage. So really, it's kind of on a knife edge at the moment. There are obviously a lot of people who do enjoy the game, but whether that's enough to keep the game above the magic million mark, is debatable. Basically, BW took a gamble but it didn't quite pay off. Not totally disastrously, but enough for EA to lose interest and not pump more money into the game, which means, for the players, a "skeleton crew", slower updates, slower bugfixes, etc.,etc. The game could be turned around, but it would take a CCP-style turnaround to do it. (Oh and lots of people play more than one MMO, I usually have 2 on the boil at any given month, sometimes 3, and I hop between them a fair bit. As I hardly ever play single-player games anymore, I can afford to do this.)

And I'll note one other curious and amusing point about this. Even (heaven forbid) it falls to 500k, that's still a lot of people who, when they're looking around for their next MMO in a few years' time, SWTOR having been their first, will be complaining about the lack of VO-ed storyline and lack of immersion Remember kids, it's always the first MMO you played that others have to match up to - and never quite match up to the rosy memory you have

No that's not what I'm saying, I'm saying that the contrast HIGHLIGHTS THE INADEQUACY of the rest of the game, makes it seem even worse than it is. IOW, the rest of the game is indeed under par, but the amount of sound and fury the detractors are putting out about the game doesn't match the degree of under-parness it objectively has. There's more going on, and that more is that the storyline parts do indeed immerse you, so that the lack of immersion in the other parts of the game stands out all the more.

If you're counting on more subs in the future, I think you may possibly be being too optimistic As I say, CoX was a few minute wait game right out of the box. Although I joined that game intending to solo it, I spent 3 years either joining PUGs or forming them, and hardly ever soloed - because it was so much fun teaming up, and easy and quick to do. So it is possible to have a game out of the box that has fast, easy PUG-ging, and to have a culture of group gameplay.

I don't think it's as simple as that. I doubt EA were particularly interested in a game with less than a million subs, and it looks like the game is heading that way. Now that's not an absolute disaster, and for those still subbed to the game who enjoy it (say it bottoms out at around 500,000) there will still be a lot of fun to be had for them, and no doubt the game can live for a while like that, making a profit. The trouble is, I don't think that's going to be a good enough performance for EA and shareholders. Given the huge IP, they wanted a smash hit. It looked like the game was a smash hit from the numbers of people who bought it, but clearly, a large percentage of the people who bought it don't like it enough to keep subscribing. What that means is that, while the game will continue, it will likely continue with a much smaller crew of developers. Which means that bugs will be fixed slower, content will be added slower, etc., etc. That's the real tragedy really - and it's happened to many MMOs in the past that "had potential". That potential is only going to be fulfilled if people stick around long enough for it to look profitable enough for the money men to keep pumping money into it. Given the poor performance of the game relative to (what I think must have been) EA's expectations, that money's just not going to go into the game, it's never going to fulfil its potential. And that would be a shame. Now I think the game can be saved, because I think there's a lot of goodwill for the IP, and still some goodwill for BW, but they're going to have to do a CCP-style turnaround, admission of having gotten some things (of course not everything, but some things) wrong, and a dedication to the fans to improve the game by building on the decent CRPG storyline/quest based foundation they've got and making the rest of the game a better MMO. But whether they have the balls to do that, I don't know.

Counter-example: last year was absolutely disastrous for CCP, the developers of EVE Online. They had a huge dip in subscriptions - not just that, but a huge dip in subscriptions after a huge and much ballyhooed update. There were titanic threads sailing majestically through the forums, lots of people threatening to quit, and quitting, and giving evidence of it. But CCP acted fast, admitted their mistakes, turned the game around in a few months, and now EVE has more subscribers than it's ever had, and the trajectory is up again. And what's more: this isn't the first time CCP has pulled back from such a disaster. So it is possible.