What Determines SWTOR's Failure?

[lokivoid]

I keep seeing all these threads in this forum and the running theme is that SWTOR is going to fail is failing has already failed. The time lines for these failure projections range from 2 weeks to 6 months to a year, but what determines if SWTOR is a failure?

 

1. EA/Bioware lost money due to high development costs ($300 million) so SWTOR is a financial failure!

 

 

No where has EA a ever confirmed the 150 to 300 million budget rumor. Odds are this was nothing more than viral marketing, and never had remotely close to that level of budget.

EA's goal was box sells, and additional income gimmicks such as the overpriced CE or digital delux. They had no intentions of this game being successful.

[Blackwater]

Warhammer online is still making money. It's still alive. It isn't free to play.

 

By your logic Warhammer online is a very successful MMO

[Blackwater]

They had no intentions of this game being successful.

 

THIS

 

Why do you think Bioware chose to use the Hero engine? One of the cheapest engines out there DESPITE the fact that it's the root cause of crashes and lag?

 

Why do you think Bioware made

2 4 man dungeons where you kill Revan and Malgus which basically kills off any main antagonists for future expansions?

 

 

Why do you think they rushed out 4 flashpoint a week before the game launched?

 

This game isn't set up for long term success, plain and simple

Edited January 15, 2012 by Blackwater

[SnoggyMack]

No where has EA a ever confirmed the 150 to 300 million budget rumor. Odds are this was nothing more than viral marketing, and never had remotely close to that level of budget.

EA's goal was box sells, and additional income gimmicks such as the overpriced CE or digital delux. They had no intentions of this game being successful.

 

Even with the 300 million figure, the 5.8 million box sales this game will have by November 2012 will easily make EA flush with the force!

[Jesira]

Anyone who says this game isn't set up for long term success and/or that they had no intention on making this game successful is a complete and utter moron. The logic in both of those statements are so remarkably stupid it makes my head hurt.

[Honelith]

I like this thread, and the OP bringing a well written point to the table.

[Galentor]

5 more days and we'll be rid of persons like the OP.

[Krace]

This game has not failed at all, because I'm still playing it.

[windzro]

basicly people feel if swtor didnt launch with

 

10mil players

LFG tool

27 raids

67 dungeons

8 battlegrounds

 

 

 

than it is a fail boat.....

 

and dont tell me its the bugs.........

[Blackwater]

Anyone who says this game isn't set up for long term success and/or that they had no intention on making this game successful is a complete and utter moron. The logic in both of those statements are so remarkably stupid it makes my head hurt.

 

Really? Are we?

 

Bioware pours most of their budget into voice acting, creates linear worlds, leaves out 7 years of features that have come to be the norm in MMOs and they lazily throw together a few raids and flash points with bosses of NO lore significance what so ever, and you still think they're setting up for long term success?

 

Let me ask you something, why does a game like Guild Wars 2, from a company with not even a quarter of the recognition of Bioware, manage to have features like a LFG system, day night cycles, swimming, a dynamic world, and yes FULL voice overs. But Bioware, a world reknown developer couldn't even manage to include AA and high res textures in the final release.

 

What makes you think SWTOR will survive a 2012 market when not only BETTER games are coming out, but those better games... ARE FREE TO PLAY

Edited January 15, 2012 by Blackwater

[Jesira]

basicly people feel if swtor didnt launch with

 

10mil players

LFG tool

27 raids

67 dungeons

8 battlegrounds

 

 

 

than it is a fail boat.....

 

and dont tell me its the bugs.........

 

Exactly this,

 

While I think they could of launched with a few more raids and end-game dungeons, they still have far more than any MMO has really ever launched with before. Their first major update comes within 1 month of release; this is also new with the exception of RIFT. I think the main thing is the fact it didn't launch with 10 million players and actually has a surprisingly humble number of players compared to what everyone THOUGHT would be the case. Any successful MMORPG snowballs it's success. WoW launched with 300,000 players, and over the span of 2 years snowballed into it's first million. I'm one of those people who thought this game would probably launch with around 600-700k and snowball into 1-1.5 million within a year. Instead it looks like we'll be seeing it take a more similar route to WoW as long as BioWare can keep releasing quality and engaging content on a relatively fast basis for the first couple of years.

[SnoggyMack]

, leaves out 7 years of features that have come to be the norm in MMOs

 

I don't have an LFD tool in City of Heroes. I don't have Recount in Star Trek Online. I don't have a healing meter in Pirates of the Burning Sea.

[Mogitu]

THIS

 

Why do you think Bioware chose to use the Hero engine? One of the cheapest engines out there DESPITE the fact that it's the root cause of crashes and lag?

 

Why do you think Bioware made

2 4 man dungeons where you kill Revan and Malgus which basically kills off any main antagonists for future expansions?

 

 

Why do you think they rushed out 4 flashpoint a week before the game launched?

 

This game isn't set up for long term success, plain and simple

 

please sir, get a clue.

[Blackwater]

I don't have an LFD tool in City of Heroes. I don't have Recount in Star Trek Online. I don't have a healing meter in Pirates of the Burning Sea.

 

No but they all have day night cycles and combat logs don't they?

 

 

Oh and they all launched with AA and High Res textures. Can't say the same for Bioware and their crack team of story masters

[SnoggyMack]

No but they all have day night cycles and combat logs don't they?

 

What do you do with a combat log in City of Heroes? I played that game for years and didn't need any combat data parsed to figure out how to maximize my 4 button setup.

 

In fact, compared to age old Everquest, none of Cryptic's games have a very user friendly UI. Yet that never really became a hot button isssue.

 

STO has a combat log. Ever made any use of it? I never did.

Edited January 15, 2012 by SnoggyMack

[iamzombie]

No but they all have day night cycles and combat logs don't they?

 

 

Oh and they all launched with AA and High Res textures. Can't say the same for Bioware and their crack team of story masters

 

Does STO have a day/night cycle? I didn't play past my first free month, but I don't recall ever seeing it.

[SnoggyMack]

Does STO have a day/night cycle? I didn't play past my first free month, but I don't recall ever seeing it.

 

Well if you roleplay stardates, yes, you can kind of pretend it does. But nah, in the game the away missions have no actual time cycle.

[Echeyk]

Well SWTOR has already failed to properly allocate resources.

Betting all on full voiceover is a bad decision. They should have gone with class quest voiceover only and paid more attention to the rest of the game.

This is nearly the same flaw as WoW:Cataclysm where Blizzard poured all its money on revamping level 1-60 zones.

 

These two things are completely irrelevant for endgame and sustained subscription numbers.

It proved detrimental for WoW.

We'll have to see how it unfolds for SWTOR, though I don't exclude the possibility of them allocating a lot of people to quickly fix these issues.

(not holding my breath though, the infamous green graphics bug is still there... They could have at least temporarily removed the object that caused this bug... sigh)

 

Anyway, I'll know for sure in 3-6 months if it's worth coming back.

[Blackwater]

What do you do with a combat log in City of Heroes? I played that game for years and didn't need any combat data parsed to figure out how to maximize my 4 button setup.

 

In fact, compared to age old Everquest, none of Cryptic's games have a very user friendly UI. Yet that never really became a hot button isssue.

 

STO has a combat log. Ever made any use of it? I never did.

Why are you continuing to defend a lazy company? WoW doesn't NEED to have the ability to sit in chairs. But they DO. Why? Cause they CAN.

 

Bioware made a WoW clone with the bare features and slapped Star Wars on it.

 

If this game didn't have the Star Wars IP on the front NO ONE would have given this game a second glance. NO ONE

[BobTheTeepo]

creates linear worlds

Some worlds are linear, some are not. Corellia and Hoth come naturally to me as two examples where this is true.

 

leaves out 7 years of features that have come to be the norm in MMOs

How many MMOs have you played? Let me guess, WoW, Rift, Aion and GW right? Those games do not represent "the norm" in MMOs. Most MMOs do not have as many features as TOR, that's how blatantly incorrect your statement is (now maybe super popular MMOs do, I don't know on that).

 

lazily throw together a few raids and flash points with bosses of NO lore significance what so ever

Really?

Revan

has NO lore significance? Wow, I must be an idiot or something because this entire time I thought he was quite significant.

 

and you still think they're setting up for long term success?

Yes, yes I do. They have all the groundwork laid, now they just start spamming endgame content and fixing bugs, then a year or so from now make a big change to the game (JTL comes to mind, something like that), rinse and repeat.

 

Let me ask you something, why does a game like Guild Wars 2, from a company with not even a quarter of the recognition of Bioware, manage to have features like a LFG system, day night cycles, swimming, a dynamic world, and yes FULL voice overs. But Bioware, a world reknown developer couldn't even manage to include AA and high res textures in the final release.

Because up until this game Bioware was a single player developer... Not an MMO developer. Just because someone drives Cars with more skill than anyone else in the world, and makes tons of cash, doesn't mean that he can drive a Motorcycle the same. He can buy the best Motorcycle, but he needs time to learn how to ride the motorcycle.

 

What makes you think SWTOR will survive a 2012 market when not only BETTER games are coming out, but those better games... ARE FREE TO PLAY

Remind me now, real quick, how long did SWG survive with virtually no players?

 

P.S. What is with your gray text? It's hard to read D:.

Edited January 15, 2012 by BobTheTeepo

[AleksanderX]

no crafting depth

no "ownership" feeling of your character

ability delay

unbalanced mirror classes

zero customer support

doesnt matter what you reply in a dialog

to many loadscreens

terrible UI

skills/speeders/respecc costs a fortune

very long traveltime

same stupid spaceport on all planets (almost)

no level 50 space combat (this is star wars isnt it?)

poor map writting (spend more time finding the 5 meter wide entrance to the zone then doing the quest)

no guild options (even tho the BW PR machine said before release this was their top priority)

way to many bugs to be released

lack of player vendors around the world

GTN is not userfriendly at all

 

 

you can pick some of these and say "its been out a month"

but they have been designing this game for years, they have looked at other MMO`s and seen what failed, they spent a record amount of money... so the list should not be this long, even after 1 month of release.

Edited January 15, 2012 by AleksanderX

[Jesira]

Really? Are we?

 

Bioware pours most of their budget into voice acting, creates linear worlds, leaves out 7 years of features that have come to be the norm in MMOs and they lazily throw together a few raids and flash points with bosses of NO lore significance what so ever, and you still think they're setting up for long term success?

 

Let me ask you something, why does a game like Guild Wars 2, from a company with not even a quarter of the recognition of Bioware, manage to have features like a LFG system, day night cycles, swimming, a dynamic world, and yes FULL voice overs. But Bioware, a world reknown developer couldn't even manage to include AA and high res textures in the final release.

 

What makes you think SWTOR will survive a 2012 market when not only BETTER games are coming out, but those better games... ARE FREE TO PLAY

 

Yes, I really don't mudsling very often but you are making really stupid "points". Have you ever played Guild Wars 2? I have played 3 demonstrations of it over the past year; and I will tell you as of the last time I played it; it was TERRIBLE. The voice acting is severely limited and almost exclusive to "personal" story sequences that are very brief and not very cinematic, several people asked them if they planned on actually making the entire game voiced over and cinematic as they claimed to; the developers that were there said no, it is how it was intended to be.

 

The personal story is mostly dictated via character creation, with player choice truly coming into play later on and only seems to be things like choosing sides between the Queen and her enemy, and things like that which set up for "faction" content at the "end" of the game. For the most part it seems like a glorified RIFT with some voice acting thrown in more than anything else, the "dynamic" content they toute is little more than what Trion has already done, just without the Rifts.

 

BioWare on the other hand took the time to develop a fully engaging set of stories, independent of each other both in your personal class storyline, the regular world missions, and then flashpoints. The fact you say that flashpoints and operations have nothing to do with the lore or storylines of the game shows how little you really know about SW:TOR so far. They're all connected to what you're doing in the game on some level; when you obtain the missions for flashpoints it's typically after a certain point on a planet's storyline for your faction. I will agree that they could of done a better job with the UI and accessibility/QoL mechanics such as having a LFG tool, making the UI more customizable even if it was minor things such as scaling and arrangement. Some of the bugs are ridiculous, yeah I get all of that but at the end of the day they created what is easily the best MMORPG, and first REAL mmoRPG to date (notice my emphesis on the RPG). They created exactly what they said they would, and possibly a little more; you bought into it as did the rest of us and just because you may not necessarily like what they created is no good reason to go and try to demonize them and spread fiction as if it were proven fact, to try and put a damper on other peoples opinions of the game.

 

Yes, there are things that need to be addressed quickly, No I do not love everything about the game; but I can give constructive criticism without trolling the overall positive reception of the game like a few people seem to do repeatedly on here.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Jesira

[Tahana]

I don't know where people keep on getting that 300 million number from.. That isn't the number I read. Can you provide a link please from a reputable source.. Not some guys blog.

[Blackwater]

Some worlds are linear, some are not. Corellia and Hoth come naturally to me as two examples where this is true.

 

 

How many MMOs have you played? Let me guess, WoW, Rift, Aion and GW right? Those games do not represent "the norm" in MMOs. Most MMOs do not have as many features as TOR, that's how blatantly incorrect your statement is (now maybe super popular MMOs do, I don't know on that).

 

 

Really?

Revan

has NO lore significance? Wow, I must be an idiot or something because this entire time I thought he was quite significant.

 

 

Yes, yes I do. They have all the groundwork laid, now they just start spamming endgame content and fixing bugs, then a year or so from now make a big change to the game (JTL comes to mind, something like that), rinse and repeat.

 

 

Because up until this game Bioware was a single player developer... Not an MMO developer. Just because someone drives Cars with more skill than anyone else in the world, and makes tons of cash, doesn't mean that he can drive a Motorcycle the same. He can buy the best Motorcycle, but he needs time to learn how to ride the motorcycle.

 

 

Remind me now, real quick, how long did SWG survive with virtually no players?

 

P.S. What is with your gray text? It's hard to read D:.

So 2 out of the 21 planets aren't linear? Sorry, that's not gonna cut it especially when you have no reason to revisit them after you hit 50.

 

And i know about Revan, but guess what:

 

YOU KILL HIM IN A 4 MAN FLASH POINT. Unless you're on the Republic of course than you don't get to participate

 

 

And quit with these excuses.

 

Yeah they laid the FOUNDATION, unfortunately they're competing in a housing market, not a foundation market.

 

Oh and Bioware Austin IS NOT new to MMOs, they have A LOT of MMO vets from Warhammer and SWG.

 

2 failed MMOs, go figure

[SnoggyMack]

I don't know where people keep on getting that 300 million number from.. That isn't the number I read. Can you provide a link please from a reputable source.. Not some guys blog.

 

I initially thought it came with their box, but I think it's in Gnost-Dural's journal.