It's pretty obvious that he's upset about the notion that people would care about this game's popularity to the world and is angry that other people have allowed that to impact their enjoyment of the game and is making an attempt to belittle the opinions of other people by repeating a mantra that he wont stoop to the level of allowing those things to impact his own personal opinion. I'm sorry that you can't see that, probably because you agree with him, but it's fairly apparent if you're capable of reading between the lines. I've had my share of enjoyment from the game too, but it doesn't mean I have to forgive and forget all of the mistakes I've seen and the mismanagement of the entire project, which is what he's obviously seeking to do, nor does it mean that my opinion of the game is any less valuable or constructive than his.

Congrats? Honest question, do you think this is anymore constructive than another thread about falling subs or another thread about someone quitting the game? Don't bother answering: because it isn't, and if you didn't care about subs or what other people think, you wouldn't be here desperately trying to convince us. You've proven nothing, provided no ideas on how to improve one's enjoyment of the game, and basically done nothing other than say "I like the game, so there!". You're just lashing out because the game that you like is dying and the closest most convenient people to blame are fellow players and forum goers.

Well, the people that wanted a WoW away from WoW certainly got what they wanted. And yes, we are aware that not every MMO can completely break the mold and remake the genre, but at least some of them are attempting new things, rather than roughly tracing over someone else's vision and calling it your own, which is what BW has done on this project. I don't care how many ways you argue it (there aren't many) but at the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that they didn't even try to create a unique product in SWToR, they simply cut too many corners and copy pasted far too many ideas from other games (mainly just one) to create something that doesn't already feel like you've been playing it for the last 10 years. You can only follow someone else's formula so far before it becomes obvious that you're walking in their footsteps and never straying.

I'm not convinced, maybe you'll come back for another attempt, if so I'm hoping for a better showing the second time around. This is the same game that I had at launch. Nothing is really better, different, or noticeably improved from the first month of play other than the nagging annoyance that Ilum pvp dailies were. The difference between now and the last four months? People. Thats it. Literally the only thing they did right the last six months was merge servers down to 10% of what they had at launch. They added a single FP and single OP and WZ which were probably mostly wrapped up before the game launched, and then added a group finder 6 months too late. If people are enjoying the play "more than they ever have" it is probably because they didn't play at launch and have been on a dead server for the last few months. I'd like a few examples or reasons to explain why people are enjoying it so much and so suddenly, because there is no indication from the outside looking in that anything significant has changed other than the population problem which had to reach a critical point before they even acted on it. Nothing indicates a positive future for SWToR in the short term. It's going to be one boring summer/fall on this game, I sure hope theres a light at the end of the tunnel for the few faithful clingers-on that will remain.

Actually, they never said they needed 500k to profit, they said they needed 500k for the game to be "sustainable" which really means that 500k is their absolute bottom line for the number of subs that this game needs to keep afloat. Theres a difference between being profitable and just being able to keep the lights on, ask a small business owner, they could explain it.

If he really is an insider, the fans are just a convenient scapegoat for the failures of BW. If he's not, the fans are just a convenient scapegoat for the failures of BW. Either way, you really can't blame fan feedback for a complete lack of skill, foresight, and planning. It's like blaming your child for the bake sale going poorly because you took his advice in putting motor oil into the cookie recipe.

They are enthusiasts, enthusiasts tend to like other people enjoying the things that they are enthusiastic about, in the same way that misery loves company, so do enthusiasts. Thats not to say they are accurate, they are just hopeful, which has little to do with reality. If you think the game is going to be great by the end of the year, you probably think it's great now, which means you'll be as wrong in five months as you are at the current time.

People that play wow have better things to do than try to defame a game that is already eating itself alive. Nobody needs to expend this kind of effort to make swtor look bad.

I guess having two functional and available fourty man raids counts has having "no end game at all". By the way, look up "Roguecraft", I remember killing geared mages on my mostly naked rogue with vendor quality daggers. Unplayable, right? PvP was fun, it was enjoyable, it was good times, it just didn't have a pvp stat, which to MMO newbies makes it "lame" or "a mess". Were things perfect? No, but despite all of these things, Blizzard kept a passion for the game and made things work, by the end of the first year, the game was improved in many ways, there were new raids, new dungeons, battlegrounds, and so on. Subscriptions were trending up, word of mouth was positive, and the game was being seen as something new, something which was bringing change to a stagnating genre. The same cannot be said, in any of those categories, for SWToR. The difference here is that BW has no passion left for this game, people seem to be losing interest from the top down, and thats really when a game starts to die. When the developers and leads of a project begin to lose their passion for creating a given project, it ceases to improve and grow.

Wait a sec. So they knew for a fact that we didn't want WoW in space, we wanted something different, something new, but still a throwback to the old kotor games. Why is it then that WoW in space is exactly what we got?

Having multiple characters is one thing, but it doesn't make you an altoholic by default simply because you leveled more than one character, or are leveling more than one character. Having an interest in playing two or more classes doesn't really mean you're an altoholic, it just means you like more than one thing. People that have more than one character may make up the majority, an altoholic is someone who may or may not even have a character at level cap, and if they do, they're far too busy with leveling all of their characters to even consider progressing a character at end game in any capacity. If they hit level cap, they immediately drop the character to make and level another one, because all they have interest in is leveling and creating more characters. That is an altoholic, I had four level 85s in WoW, but that wasn't because my focus was on leveling or having a stable full of characters, it was because I liked those four classes and wanted to experience them in *meaningful* content. Your definition of an altoholic is basically any person that has more than one character, period, which is fairly inaccurate, to say the least. So you can solo content a bit more easily? I don't find those benefits to be big at all considering they are completely restricted to solo play, they have no impact whatsoever on the MMO aspects of this game.

Altoholics are a pretty niche group of players. It seems like people tend to excuse the fact that end game is quick and easy by saying that you're not really supposed to be focusing on playing at max level anyhow, and to me, that is mostly a cop out for this game lacking meaningful and engaging content at level 50. They basically spoon feed you all but the absolute most bleeding edge gear (campaign and war hero) which are painfully gated, as a way of veiling the fact that there isn't much to do. I just don't really feel like aiming your game directly at altoholics is the best way to maintain a strong and diverse player base. Point me to some of these "huge" benefits by the way, because to me, the benefits of legacy seem rather minimal. Is it the 3% bonus to crafting critical chance? Yeah, that is massive right there. Is it the 30% bonus to companion affection from gifts? Enormous. Is it the experience bonuses, when most people that have played since launch already have 4 or 5 level capped characters, or more? Is it mailboxes on your ship or in the field respecs? I'm not seeing these "huge" benefits granted from alting, it all seems like fluff and credit sinks, you really don't gain anything from alting itself, you gain those perks from grinding dailies every day for credits.

You mean exactly like Darth Thanaton along the sith inquisitor quest line? That kinda thing seems pretty familiar to me. As for whether or not I want to recover medicine or force a crime lord to my side, either one could be entertaining and interesting depending upon the context. Haven't beta tested GW2 and don't intend to, it doesn't seem like my kind of game, but I don't really think the examples you're giving are all that strong.

The theory that it takes a larger staff to develop a game than it does to maintain a game does not in anyway explain or even hypothesize on the question as to how they are going to deliver content more *frequently* with a smaller staff. Yes, we are aware that there tends to be some sort of restructuring within a year or so of launch for *some* MMOs. That really doesn't answer his question though. The key part of his question is how exactly do they intend to speed up the production of content despite having a smaller staff.

It sucked so bad that you beta tested it not once, but twice, and spent, by your own admission, nearly 50 hours playing it over the course of two beta sessions. Are we talking two beta weekends here? That is a lot of time to spend on something during your weekend that you apparently hate. I know I don't waste weekends doing things that I think suck, just sayin'. *edit* Haven't beta tested GW2 myself, personally I never enjoyed the original GW and see no reason why GW2 would appeal to me.

So...it's normal for people to be laid off after a MMO is launched, but it's also normal for content quality and delivery rate to drop when people are laid off as well, so whether expected or not, it is still a bad sign. Thats really the only thing I can take from what you've said, especially using WoW as an example. The game got worse everytime one of the original minds behind it moved on, at this point I'd say that WoW is on retention mode. They are simply sucking everything they can from it keeping the game maintained by the cheapest possible means, while they are busy pushing Titan out of the stables. I'm going to go ahead and continue to assume this isn't a good sign, as every indication would point that way.

You play in a way that most people would consider pretty casual, you never play on weekends, and only play 1-2 hours per day regularly, yet you've still hit max level on two characters and nearly depleted the PvE content of the game on a casual player's schedule. How can you not realize that this is one of the larger problems with the game? If you've depleted the content of the game playing it in a way that most people would consider pretty casual, can you imagine how bored people are that play the game for 3 or 4 or more hours per day? It's great and all that from your perspective this game is solid and going strong, but if you're the type of player that Bioware and EA really had targeted as their chosen demographic, it is no wonder that this game is failing as an MMO. Also, it's stupid to assume that they planned on having an average player base but are being forced to make changes because of it. If they planned on it, they wouldn't need to make reactive changes as a result of their plan working.

When will people stop using the "WoW is a cultural phenomenon" cop-out to excuse why this game is a failure?

Yes. He's a clever manipulator, this OP is. Seriously though, for someone who throws around the tin foil term so much, you sure are *********** crazy.

I am curious about this as well, saw several claims that a world event was set to be unveiled when 1.3 released....but....thats been a while. Where is it?

Wow definitely had definable end game, it just wasn't accessible to every mouth breather with a mouse and keyboard, which is what most MMOs are attempting these days. Both Molten Core and Onyxia's lair were available 40 man raids when the game launched, there were constant pvp battles at certain small villages across the world. It's amazing that people say that pvp didn't exist simply because it was before the days of pvp stats and arena rankings. Thats simply naive and shows a lack of experience in the genre before game's like WoW. The difference between WoW's end game at launch and ToR's end game at launch is that you actually had to work to get to WoW's end game. The levelling took time, gearing took time, and professions took time, but they were also enjoyable and engaging, which is basically the opposite of this game. Where most achievements are easy and mind numbing other than the ones they are gating us through right now, such as Campaign gear and War hero. I mean hell, it's taken me 7 months to level four level fifties (working on a fifth) three of which have almost full Battlemaster gear, one of which has full BM, mixed columi and rakata. Contrast that with WoW where 6 months in I had only one level 60, was working on a second, and my level 60 was not well geared. It was simply more difficult and engaging than SWToR is. ToR is a good example of a game that is just trying far too hard to cater to the lowest common denominator, and as a result, that is the only demographic they've ensnared. Tell me about it, I've been waiting five days for them to give me back a battlemaster weapon that I accidentally replaced without removing the black-green crystal I had swapped into it. Five days for an item return from a vendor.

Not seeing this in the dev tracker, may I ask where you saw it?

It just seems pretty bad to me that when asked about the falling subscriptions of ToR the CEO has nothing to talk about other than F2P games, F2P mmo models, and their current move towards broad F2P trials. Beyond babbling about the benefits of F2P MMOs all he had to say was that tor's subs aren't even a concern.

What he said about the subscriptions basically amounts to "*We* feel that we have a great product, it's just that reality doesn't agree with us, and apparently our product isn't good enough to make it in the world of premium MMOs." To me, he basically just admitted that SWToR is not a premium subscription product despite how the company may internally feel about it.

To me, it simply seems as if server stability took a big hit in the last patch. Honestly I've never had so many performance problems as I've had since 1.3. Even after the first week or so of transfers the game seemed to be perfectly playable and running well, but ever since 1.3 I've had fps problems, lag, ability delay(thought this was fixed months ago), you name it, short of crashes, I've had it. Not sure what they did exactly, but it really seems like their constant maintenance is to conceal/alleviate the terrible server stability and the overall performance hit that the game took with 1.3, which was supposed to aid performance, mind you.