Wayshuba
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Posts posted by Wayshuba
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I think a few people have asked, but what happens when the next tier of gear drops, will that started at 301?
Now I think I am doing better than most in that all my gear is tier 2 purple or better, so I have gotten lucky. However tier 3 is slightly more demoralizing when you get nothing but junk (which is the norm) as disintegrating it all just to start over again only this time needing slightly more and for what, a possible stat increase; I went from 236 to 242 boots and my accuracy increased by a negligible amount that I didn't even look to reoptimize my stats.
Now if Jaesa was waiting for me at the end of it to massage my grind fatigued body fair play and I will be getting back to the grind. But as it stands the 'rewards' do not seem to offer enough for the massive grind involved (even with the increase). While any future gear, seems to offer one of two options, first you bypass the 300 ranks. Which for anyone that has done the grind my be *** moment, or you require anyone that wants tier 4 gear to grind out 300 ranks first for gear at tiers 1 to 3 which is worse than basic crafted gear which will leave returning players with little reason to start the grind 150 hours (at best) or 2 mill from the gtn, though call.
Good point. 5.2 is slowing down the CxP gain rate and, rumored to be dropping two new tiers of gear.
Can't wait to see the community backlash with that one.
Glad, as of tomorrow, I won't be here to live with it either. For those still remaining though - I hope you have figured out by now you are being taken on a serious ride. If you haven't, then that's what you can most look forward to with 5.2, learning that your being played big time.
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This is my last sub day, so one of my last posts.
To further elaborate on what I said earlier in this thread, it is simply people moving on. As of this past Saturday, our entire guild cancelled their subs and bought the game and sub time in ESO instead.
Simply stated, no one wanted to stick around while BWA insists on implementing a system that makes a GAME a chore. To most in our guild, it is like they either don't care about paying customers or their blind determination to make something work that many warned them would cost them a lot of subs just doesn't matter to them.
Ironically, today Zenimax announced now 8.5 million players have purchased ESO. Because of their model, it is unclear how many are actually subs, but what is enlightening is that they gained 1.5 million more players in just nine months (they announced 7 million in June last year). I bring this up not to pump up ESO, but to draw a parallel of a game that got off to a rocky start and then simply implemented the changes the players wanted (One Tamriel) and then put out new content on a regular basis. The game is two years old and already has had 6 updates in that time and an expansion (a real one, not the water down SWTOR ones) coming in June with a further two updates coming after that. Imagine what SWTOR would be today if BWA had taken the same approach - listening to their customers.
Funny, in the starting towns (which are swamped with people) their is a LOT of discussion from people who are new and just came from SWTOR. So, I guess the biggest ones happy with the GC System is Zenimax, since they seem to be picking up a lot of ex-SWTOR players including my entire guild.
I may be wrong in this, but when BWA promised the EA execs they were implementing a new system to keep subs longer and increase revenue - I think EA expected that revenue instead of having it go to a competitor. At least they can make the claim that the GC System did a good job increasing revenue and subs for Zenimax and, most likely, Square Enix as well.
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To the OPs question it is simple. A lot of people, who were very active on these forums, said they were unsubbing over the GC system and they have (mine runs out this week on Feb. 14).
Our entire guild, for example, has decided it is time to move on and ESO has become our new home. People were fed up with two simple things - the glaring lack of new content compared to other MMOs (especially for one doing supposedly so well financially) and the utter arrogance of the developers in putting in a game system that simply frustrates the player base and refusing to do anything about it (and we are referring to the deplorably bad RNG on the Command Crates, not just the CxP).
Honestly, it shouldn't be surprising and this should have been expected. People said they were leaving and have left and, I have a feeling, the forums are going to continue to get even quieter over then next couple of months.
Heck, as of Dec 18 even TORstatus has decided it is no longer worth the effort and has decided to cease operations. SWTORData picked it up but you can see the massive population decline that has happened since Dec. Look how many servers have flat-lined and even the populated ones have dropped more than 40 points in traffic.
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You can't ignore CXP, its the core of gear progression in SWTOR now and gear progression is the entire engine that drives all MMOs.
However, where SWTOR falls down in the gear progression is the reason for progression in the first place versus other MMOs.
When any other MMO introduces higher tier gear, it usually comes with new zones, dungeons, raids and CONTENT that requires the newer gear - and character level increases for that matter.
The last two expansions - 4.0 and 5.0, there has been no progression but rather REGRESSION. This is what I think has worn out most people who have been here a while. We have had two level cap increases with those and not a single reason (in new content) to require those levels caps. We have had two gear resets also that, again, did not add any PROGRESSION to the game.
If you were BiS with 212 gear in 3.0 you could do all the content in the game at that point. With 4.0 that climbed to 224 that once you got it, got you back to doing the same thing you were doing in 212 3.0 gear. With 5.0 that has climbed again to 242 that once you achieve it, gets you back once again to doing everything you did in 212 3.0 gear.
Each of the last two expansions has regressed players, not added any progression. And that is why SWTOR fails miserably versus any other MMO on the market. I can't think of a single MMO besides SWTOR, that introduces a level increase and BiS gear increase with NO CONTENT AT ALL TO WARRANT THOSE CHANGES.
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Name them please, and substantiate why.
Keep in mind.. one persons "meet" or "exceed" =/= another persons... so this will be a uphill challenge for you.
If everyone played the same way, at the same pace, and with the same expectations, you would have a good point here. But as you can see.. your baseline for measuring (the people playing) is not a simple equation to meet.
See.. some players never run out of things to do in an MMO.. even if the pace of new content is lacking by commercial norms and standards. Others can and will binge consume and discard quickly in the absence of more piles to binge on. And of course there is a full range of players in between. MMOs are the antithesis of "one size fits all".
It is the bingers that cannot be satisfied, ever.. no matter the MMO. They rotate through an ongoing series of virtual infatuations of one MMO after another... always discarding and verbally trashing the last "girlfriend" in favor of the new one. I call these players the "serial MMO infatuators" and they are free to play as they like, but they are generally disruptive to some degree because they also think everyone should play their way. In my guild.. we in fact have ways to screen for this trait and we deny memberships over it, because we have found over time that they are disruptive to guild stability and growth. And I am sure they can find other suitable guilds with like minded people for a few months until they all binge on the salt block of dissatisfaction and /group_rage_quit.
First, I will name two where the player bases have generally been satisfied with the output of new content (in fact, a good majority of them praise these games for it - FFXIV:ARR and ESO. Regular quarterly content updates from each.
In fact, ESO just released the housing update today for free (to both B2P and subscribers). Last week they announced the annual update schedule which will be content updates every quarter except Q2. Q2 will be an expansion, each year while Q3 DLC update will strictly be group (Trails - their version of raids) content. FFXIV is doing major expansions (two in two years) that rival those done by WoW AND they are putting out sizable updates about every 4 months.
Of course, their is still a matter of ones taste in an MMO, and they may not be for everybody, but they do receive from the player base in the amount of content they produce regularly.
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To be honest. This is how Theme Park MMO's always do it. Gear up, new Ops come out (or expansion), everyone needs to regear in new gear sets. PvP'ers and PvE'ers both.
You are correct... except, most also release new content to require that new gear, not just reset all the old content so you do an endless gear treadmill.
Think about this for a second, just prior to 4.0 I believe 212 was top gear (sorry my memory may not be entirely correct on this). With 212 gear, you could do all the Operations in the game in any mode.
When 4.0 dropped, they reset the gear grind and you went and grinded the gear up to 224 to do all the SAME content in the game that you were doing pre-4.0. The level and gear increase wasn't needed for anything, there was no new content that required it.
Now 5.0 drops, the introduce a tedious and frustrating system for you to gear up to 242 to do what? Run all the same content you could do in 212 gear in 3.0. So you have gained nothing new in content.
Soon, 5.2 will drop and yet more gear will be introduced to get you to grind up to 248 for what? One new Op boss and all the same content you could do in 212 3.0 gear.
Compare that to an MMO that raises the cap by 10 levels and adds more powerful gear than you had before. With that, they introduce three new zones, 18 new dungeons, and 9 new raids - all designed around the level increase and new gear.
See the problem? For more than two years they have simply reset the gear grind and given no new content to go with the grind. SWTOR simply puts people on a gear treadmill for no reason at all whereas their competitors add a ton of NEW content that justifies the level increase and gear treadmill.
Peeps in SWTOR who have been here since 3.0 are asking themselves, "Why exactly I am doing this gear grinding yet again?" to which the answer for over two years has been, "To do what you were already doing before we added the new gear." Whereas elsewhere in other MMOs, they ask the same question to which the answer is "To do the three new zones, 18 new dungeons and 9 raids built for the level increase and new gear." This is where there is a striking contrast between SWTOR and what in normally in MMOs with gear grind.
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I agree to 100%. I always stated that introducing such a system would end up in nothing but more grind. And to announce new tiers now is 'risky' to say the least. However, the issue you've mentioned isn't limited to the command system (x12 experience event; insta-lvl60 tokens), etc.
It's already going to be done come 5.2. This whole thing (Patch 5.1.1 and 5.1.2) is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to make you think they are doing something for the players when it is nothing more than to help keep you up to date when they drop the new tiers in April.
I am willing to bet that even the most stalwart will finally wake up to the fact their being played come the 5.2 patch.
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This is an easy guess.
Bioware will introduce new gear tiers in 5.2 to extend the grind. This is the only reason to increase CXP gains. This way, the player base is not too far behind when they have to grind more crates for the new tiers.
It is obvious. They are not giving us anything or even fixing the system. They want people leveling the GC so they can get close to the new tiers. Once the new tiers drops, everything will slow down again so that we can keep on the treadmill.
Ding, ding, ding.... We have a winner!
and the hamsters will keep running on the wheel...
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Since you apparently know what is "really coming", please enlighten us.
@Eric: I like the information style of your OP. Thank you.
Against forum rules to post data mining. Information is out on web.
Let's just leave it at everyone's gear grinding to date will be invalidated.
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Can't wait to hear the reactions of the community when they find out what is really coming in the 5.2 patch.
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At this point, it is painfully obvious what Bioware's plan is. They are extending Galactic Command and slowly increasing the speed for players to reach a level that they won't feel too far behind the curve and quit. It's pretty common to plan the life-cycle of a release and increase the speed of rewards in relation to the next release. The 250% event ends when they plan on introducing new tiers. Speed everyone up to tier 3 and then drop tiers 4 and 5 on them.
In other words, move the carrot a little closer to entice the players to speed up and move it out again. Enjoy the treadmill of more tiers!
Problem is.. it is mainly the RNG of the crates that is making people quit... thus the alternate gearing in 5.1. Increasing CxP level still does nothing if it takes 20-30 crates to get one decent piece of gear. In other words, no matter how much they increase/speed up the CxP levels, it does nothing to eliminate the frustration of 95% of the crate being complete junk.
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Why will editing these numbers take one month?
Because they can only be edited downwards in four days. Otherwise, going up benefits paying customers so it has to be down slowly.
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One of the biggest things I hear from the "gear shouldn't matter" people is rewarding cosmetics instead. You're getting those cosmetics in just about every crate.
Your right. My Jedi Guardian has been dying to get a hold of those cosmetic blaster pistol, sniper rifle, and blaster rifle he has been looking for. Oh, and the trooper armor is just a big bonus.
The crate drop junk 95% of the time. Every time you open one you are reminded just how stupid the whole thing is. The only things these "fixes" are going to do, is remind you more frequently how stupid the junk in the crates are.
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This is pretty disappointing. In particular the fact that this issue wasn't even addressed in the original post - still seems like an afterthought if that. Not even mentioned in the "in the future" section. And even here, the only commitment is to "look" into the issue further. You still have not actually committed, even in principle (and even without detail), to radically improving the quality of crate contents. I'm at a loss as to how this isn't the PRIMARY issue you're addressing at this point...
Because they have no intention of fixing it for.... reasons.
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In this set of changes, not yet. We are still looking into Crate contents to see where changes should be made. It would be a much more substantial change from our side to update the contents and so although we are definitely open to doing so, we wanted to take these steps first.
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You guys really, really need to stop playing people for fools. On Monday, October 17, 2016 you gave a livestream (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/95573503) where you mentioned the contents of the crates were still being discussed and hadn't been determined yet. Six weeks later, early access for the expansion launched. It has now been nine weeks since the expansion launched and an estimated 10-12 weeks for the 5.2 patch. So six weeks to do it, but 21 weeks to adjust it. Not buying it in the slightest.
It always seems you can do something when it benefits BW, but when it comes to your customers it suddenly becomes difficult and time-consuming.
Plain and simple, stop being blatant lairs. The truth is, and you know it, that RNG is not exciting, it is frustrating. You also know that you have no intention of fixing the crates because it is all you have at this point to hold subs - even though subs are fleeing out the door. Do you guys even know how to read metrics? Your customers can see through the charade and BW, at this point, deserve to lose as many customers as can be with the abuse and resentment you treat them with.
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Not only they fixed things and listen more now, but these games have a clear direction. Problem with this game, imo, we have no idea were it's going, no big plans, no clear goal... They change direction every time and in the end, it just looks like a big mess.
Here is something to cry about. I will first admit that I do not play ESO (yet). But compare the livestream and discussions we have had with ESO recently:
They have a MAJOR update going live on Monday with the housing update. Before that even hits, they drop a bomb about a big expansion coming in June. Then, to top matters off, they also take about what the annual content cycle will be from now on - content related DLC (non-group stuff) in Q1 and Q4, group related DLC in Q3 and an expansion in Q2. Most importantly, that is going to be the delivery schedule every year. They drop a new Trial (their version of a raid which is 12-person) in the expansion and another one in Q3.
But the most telling thing. Look at the team from BW on a livestream as they feed a bunch of half-truths to their customers with little to no passion (especially the last livestream), then watch the livestream from ZeniMax this week on with the announcements I mention above. You can see the difference in passion and commitment to their respective games. ZeniMax team looks excited to discuss what they are doing (or, and you can tell from the examples given that they actually play their own game).
Anyway... you get the point.
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I expect their plans at launch was for the game to run at least 10 years, and that guesstimate being based solely on internal forecasts for EA/BW to get a good return on their investment. There's no way anyone then could've predicted the direction of the industry back then.
We can only speculate how much money the game is actually making, but I imagine they will keep it going as long as it is turning a reasonable profit.
Not with EA, they have a larger viewpoint across a product portfolio that they consider. If SWTOR, for example, had thirty FTEs working on it, and it makes says $5 million in profits but those resources could be shifted to another project that in the course of a year made $25 million in profits, they would shut this down in a second.
EA doesn't look at it as if something is making a profit. What they look at is are they maximizing the profit they can make on the resources they have.
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I've looked again and while you may have proven the source or data wrong the conclusion is the same.
EA "Select Live Services and Mobile": Here:
I would guess SWTOR sits in-between some of the ultimate team games...say in-between hockey and madden (thats just a guess)...but a guess that i would say earns more than your average (i.e its above average)
This report shows how much SWTOR is "making" in the mmorpg world:
I'm willing to stand corrected if my previous "evidence" was incorrect however the argument and conclusion remains. SWTOR 5.0 as an expansion did NOT cost 28 million. So, as i said. The money is not going back into the game.
Two things. The last part of my post I was referencing what you had linked (as one of the materials). Meaning no one knows exactly where it falls.
Second link you provided links to a firm I have called out several times for being nothing by a complete and utter fabrication of data. Since SWTOR isn't sold as hard physical goods and only the only channels of revenue are subs and the online cash shop, all directly controlled by EA, no third party outside firm has even the slightest clue what the revenue EA makes on SWTOR is.
That firm has three times said SWTOR has made over $100 million annually. Go back over the least few years of EA reports and you will notice they specifically point out ANY titles doing that kind of revenue. You will also notice, SWTOR is conspicuously absent from EA ever saying that about this title.
Lastly, that firm has no partnership with EA nor can get their numbers from EA directly (as it would be in violation of Federal Public reporting laws to give them to a third party and then not divulge them in your financial reports).
I am aware that the industry sites love to point to SuperData quite often (as it looks good). Its too bad that a lot of that data is nothing more than, what is known in the corporate world, as a SWAG (silly wild-a** guess).
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I agree, without the many "complaining people" ( I'm one of them ), I really doubt they would have fixed anything. Maybe some little changes, but nothing like what they're planning now. If everyone was silent or happy, they would have no reason at all to do anything. They don't want to change the system, they're forced to, by complaints and unsubs, without these, they would keep things going as they were.
I've seen a lot of people saying "If you don't like it, just leave and don't stay here complaining" and I disagree, you don't improve a game only with positive critics, negative ones are at least as much as important.
I'm the kind of player who had no plan at all to leave this game not so long ago. I never really bother complaining on forums or anywhere before 5.0 or 5.0 annoucement maybe, I have never be that upset by dev's behaviour before.
As others I think, I'm not happy to leave, I still like this game or parts of it at least, I just refuse to pay anything for that team anymore while they've take players for fools SO MANY TIMES.
But I'm not Attila the Hun, I don't want everything to burn behind me because I'm leaving, I'm actually hoping they will at some point open their eyes and make things better for those who stays.
Do you find it coincidental that two MMOs that got off to very bad starts (FFXIV and ESO), actually listened to the complaints and responded by fixing them (FFXIV with ARR and ESO with One Tamriel) and suddenly those titles not only turned around, they are growing?
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Before you's "fix" "change" things with more stupid please THINK, you do realize when people STOP complain that is when people no longer care and you's really are screwed cause they would of left, Start Listening before it to late.
or because their subs ran out, so they can no longer post, after BW decided they could move at a snail's pace...
What I find interesting, is two competing MMOs (FFXIV and ESO) have both recently admitted to an uptick in new players recently. I wonder where those new players are coming from?
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SWTOR is making EA / Bioware A LOT of money, that is clear to see on their fiscal reports. It's topped only by (you guessed it) the Fifa franchise and "card packs"..
I have no idea where you are getting this from. SWTOR rolls up onto what is called subscription services - of which there are 13 titles/products in that grouping. Last quarter (not the most recent one), sub services did $83 million with it being noted that SWTOR was the biggest cause of decline from the previous quarter of $84 million.
This quarter, they did $106 million and attributed the majority of that growth to EA Access and Origin Access.
Taking all the titles into account, that means an average title in the sub services portfolio is doing about $28 million annually. To a $4.5 billion dollar company that is utter peanuts.
At this point, it is obvious SWTOR is running on a minimal crew. If this title were making them A LOT of money, EA would continue to invest to get that to grow. They are not investing, however, because the title is in fact NOT making them a boatload of cash.
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Thanks all for your replies!
Not going to "defend" the game or counter what you just said (I would be a very bad defender as I play an average of 2 months every 3 years
)But two things which have been said:
- no content. Well, the game is having expansions on regular basis, no?
- not popular, not enought players. Last time I played, 3 years ago, we had something like 60-80 players in station at peak time. Now it's close to 200. So not sure of what you meant. To me the game is (or at least seems) much healthier than a few years ago. All that coupled with the "cash shop", I can imagine that the game is doing correctly in term of income. And to be honest, when I started the thread I hadnt in mind that the game could be not worth it economically, but mainly was thinking about the plans for the future (if something has or not been announced). After all it's StarWars, finding ideas for new stories shouldnt be a problem. The will to do it is the key.
But once again, not my intention to counter your analysis, just that seen from the outside it isnt as dark than you describe. Have a nice weekend all
You are not going to want to hear this but a lot of the population increase you see on TRE and Harbinger are existing players transferring (or rerolling) from dead servers. It is not a population increase across the board. As other servers die, and BW refuses to merge servers, people are going to naturally transfer who want to play just to keep playing.
Then again, if BW merged servers and everyone found out that there was maybe two or three servers of population left in the game, wouldn't exactly go over well in trying to attract new players - would it?
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That's certainly true for many people but not for all.
Take Wayshuba .. he has blatantly said he will be gone when he unsubs and will not return.
Thus all his anti game posts seem to be nothing more than to fan the flames, wind the crowd up.
Whilst I get your point I still maintain many could endeavour to be more constructive and then the few who are here purely to fire up the crowd should just be ignored for the most part.
That is true, I did say that and it will happen come 2/14. However, I don't post to fan the flames. I post because when the devs are sitting there wondering why subs are dropping off like a bad habit it is useful for them to know WHY people are leaving the game.
Your reference to what I said about me and the guild moving on also contained two points of feedback for the devs on fixing what is wrong. If you look at my post history prior to saying I was moving on, with the announcement of the 5.0 GC System, I gave constructive feedback on the system. It just so happens, that that feedback aligned with quite a few in the community.
But when a dev says give us feedback, and as players we can see the feedback aligning, it is even more frustrating when they act like that feedback doesn't exist. When a good portion of customers tell them no end game gear RNG and Ben responds with something as insulting as "RNG is exciting", it just makes you want to cancel you sub more. It makes people despise the game even more when the devs seem determined to implement something that upsets so many paying customers. It makes absolutely not the slightest bit of common sense for a business (any business) to do something that intentionally damages their product and drives away revenue. It's not like SWTOR has SO many paying customers that they can afford the luxury of losing half their paying player base over it.
Like many, I have (had) a lot of time and investment in the game. To see it come down to this is, quite frankly, is upsetting. I would rather stay in SWTOR, but to be honest, it seems the devs don't want us to. And, NO, as a paying customer from month to month I am not just going to shut up and take what they throw at us when it destroys enjoyment in the game. I have personally witnessed, in the period of two-three weeks, this GC System destroy our entire guild in the game. That, is 100% BWAs fault. We would have been fine, even with the older content, if they had simply updated the current gearing stats and kept the old mechanism.
One last thing, all these changes that are being implemented are not because of those supporting the **** they threw in with the GC System - it is the drop off in subs and going back and finally reading the complaints that has them making "fixes" to the system. So for those that stay, your welcome.
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I fully support this idea - then this MMO can return its focus to story and solo options with sporadic group content as side content.
Raiders can play Raid-focused MMOs that cater to their tastes, solo-/story-centric players can play story-focused MMOs that cater to their tastes, and players with diverse tastes can pick the MMO or MMOs they individually like best.
WoW developers did a good article on this once on the problem with MMOs. It was basically to have a successful MMO you have to first grasp that no one type of customer focus will allow you to succeed because their are not enough of them. Basically, an MMO succeeds by catering to a variety of minority groups that collecitvely make up a player population and success. So there are story players, raiders, PvPers, crafters and decorators, etc. Each group may make up 10% of a customer base.
So, if you think SWTOR can survive on those that are just here for story, you might not have been in in the 1.0-1.6 era when that was pretty much what they had and the game almost went belly up as a result. In other words, it will be fine if the PvPers, raiders, dungeon runners go elsewhere. But for those here for just story - guess what? You won't be getting anymore story because there will not be enough customers left to keep the lights on.
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Why are the forums so dead?
in General Discussion
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I don't even think they care about that. Someone has made the decision on the GC system and, even if the game goes down in a flaming heap as a result, they are not going to change direction.
Someone has a vested corporate interest in trying to make this work and, whoever it is, this is not going to change or be fixed until that person is removed from their position (and I am not saying fired, just taken away from the decision making over SWTOR).
Unfortunately, by that time I think the damage is going to be so great that EA will just make the decision to shut it down rather than try and salvage it.