Is SWTOR dying?

[Nazguapo]

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Teala/012012/22492_The-Tortanics-Maiden-Voyage

 

This is what happens when you create a ranged stun fest and the best pvp dps classes are also the easiest to play.

 

You quickly come to the conclusion...why bother.

 

Pulled from the blog....

 

And speaking of forums, the official forums are littered with post of disappointed and frustrated fans.

 

Same leap of logic the majority of the people on the forums make. The percentage of people complaining on the forums is in no way representative of the players' opinions on the game. The majority of the players are playing the game. Plain and simple. Using that same logic, you could ask in the game who visited and actively posted on the forums, and undoubtedly less than 10% of the people would say they do.

 

Now, certainly, the server populations have decreased. This is to be expected. Launch came right before christmas, students were on break, many people took time off work, and were generally more motivated to play. But people DID have to go back to the real world. Some people quit, some people got busy. There are two issues presenting themselves then, as a result. 1. Everyone is no longer playing at the same time, and the "play schedules" are spread more evenly throughout the day. 2. Those that ARE playing are distributed more evenly across the level ranges. So instead of 300 people being on Dromund Kaas, there's 30-40 people on each planet, with more on the fleet.

 

The most costly mistake Bioware made was listening to all the idiots complaining about the long queue times right at launch.

 

also, this....

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/1011697/

Looks familiar... can't quite place it...

[Lord_Karsk]

Game is dying period.Atlest mostly with the PvP community.And i see this on my server aswell.Alot of people like me are waiting for GW2 a game with real world pvp.Just a few days ago more then 1 million people signed up for GW2 beta.And i will bet alot of those are TOR subs.

 

I wanted nothing more then for this game to be the best MMO ever.As a DIE HARD

star wars fan and gamer since the 80s when i was a a kid playing commandore 64

this was the unlimate game for me as a star wars fan.SWG was great in many ways

but i though this would be the thing.

 

Sadly it was not.Why ? because you have devs and writers who dont know the

star wars universe and the lore.And yes i know some of the devs actually have a

clue like Drew K, i'm talking in general.And so you get stories gear and worlds

that is not like in the star wars universe.

 

The other thing is the lack of certain things in this game.Like LFG tools, Arenas

andworld PvP.Without real fun competitive gameplay all can enjoy casuals

and skilledplayers there is no hope. Game have way to many instances because

the game engine/coding is bad.With this you get Ilum with even a zone

cap, massive lag and low FPS.And bioware on this actualy blaims the players

hardware.

 

And what is end game in SWTOR ? Standing around a daily pvp box on fleet

in a hallway.THATS IT.

 

The reason games like cod get 10 m + players playing the same 5-10 maps over and

over again for years is because the gameplay is fun for all players in all skill ranges.

And it's competitive on all skil ranges.low-midd-high.Why MMO makers have not

learned this...

Edited February 27, 2012 by Lord_Karsk

[EduardoJN]

I really hope not, because i like star wars.

[Dooger]

Inquisitor/Consular base is growing however.

 

Its not bad to counter in a premade, but causal play is no longer appealing, with alternating lightnings then heal, then endless stuns.

 

If there was content it would be worth fighting through it all, but there is not.

 

/shrug gonna cut my hours back, run a few premades and roll the lightning spammers.

 

gw2 is coming, I am sure it will not be perfect, but world pvp there should be a fun sandbox to pvp in. our entire guild will be moving soon as we can get into beta/live

Edited February 27, 2012 by Dooger

[FarizAA]

SWTOR is not a bad game, I will hate to see it closed. I am still enjoying it and I still see lot of interesting things to do here despite I am with SWTOR from early start.

 

Yes, game is ill now in many aspects, but BW is trying to make it better. If they will have a year, they will make gamers experience much better and add lot of content. Question is if this game will survive for so long.

Edited February 27, 2012 by FarizAA

[Panzerbase]

Is the game going to suddenly end? No, of course not, but I suspect it will decline to a lower overall population level, much lower, probably around 300-500K subscriptions before it stabilizes. The game is simply too much like WOW, matter of fact it's like they took WOW and replaced the dragons with spaceships, to put it simply.

 

In any event they failed to live up to the Star Wars line and in the end delivered an average MMO, sure you'll have your die-hard fans who swear up and down this is the best game ever and we are judging it too harshly. But, really they set out to create an epic adventure and that is the standard by which they will be judged. You do not tone down the critique afterwords to suit your way of thinking, and sadly that is what many of these fanboys are doing, hell bent on making sure you don't hurt their baby.

 

Another troubling sign is the give aways in 1.1.5 to pacify the upset population, they are simply buying time nothing more, and that bodes ill of any meaningful future for this game. Instead of fixing the myriad of problems in this game they are pulling out the trusty carrot but that is old and will not work.

 

So for me after 5 years of WOW I finally got bored and needed a change, I tried SWTOR and well jumped right back into WOW and after 2 months I am bored again, they say they spent 200 million on the development of this game, if true I wonder if they paid more into advertising rather then the game mechanics itself, how little they understand the industry.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Panzerbase

[Aribethx]

Perhaps if these people moderated their game as much as they moderate their forums, this game would be golden.

[getdownsb]

Is SWTOR dying?

 

Yes. Amazing IP, Decent planning, Crap developers.

 

Dead.

[AetherMcLoud]

On my server warzone queues are still instant most of the time, with maybe having to wait 3 minutes max, just like it was 2 month ago. Yes people on the fleet have gone down from 200 to ~130 but that's because much more are in Karaggas Palace and the other Operation than month ago.

[Toranna]

I would think some servers are still healthy, but alot of the servers are startign to feal the pinch, expecially during off peak times. The only way to fix this is merge servers, but that is a sign the game is failing and right now they can not afford to do that, because it will give peopel who are just hanging on a boost to finally quit.

 

But the server merg would be best for long term sever stability. Take the servers that you close down and beef up the Illum server groups so they can handle more simultanious threads, and hope this helps with the SERVER lag in Ops v Ops PvP scenarios.

[Almar]

I can't take anyone seriously that calls it the TORtanic

[Zhentarion]

Swtor will last i just think many of the subs are wow Junkies Edited February 27, 2012 by Zhentarion

[Adzzy]

the people who were playing a lot are battlemaster+ now and have quietened down, the people who still aren't were only casual pvp'ers to begin with.

[Telaan]

well it was obvious but you missed it still.

 

and xfire proved accurate measuring aoc's pop decline, WAR's pop decline and RIFT's pop decline, yet for some reason the data is not accurate for TOR right?

 

rift/war/aoc all had their dedicated fanbois too saying the pop wasn't dying, that xfire was wrong, that the pop was there it was just spread out more now etc etc etc.

 

we all know how well that worked out for them

 

if bw suck it up and act now to address the issue rather than burying their heads in the sand to protect their egos and the EA share price then they could still save it:

 

merge servers

fix ilum

add more wz's, 3 maps is pathetic by anyone's standards.

 

Speaking of head buried in sand......

 

You must've missed the part where I stated that I agreed the overall population was declining. You also missed the part where I found it amusing to use xfire as a means of data collection and measurement. I didn't think I'd have to spell it out twice; it seemed easy enough to infer from my first post and definitely pointed out in my second.

 

I also find it amusing that anyone not simply posting "agree" to you is a fanboi. I've been extremely critical of this game, especially its handling of Ilum and resolve. But, I can form my own opinion without needing to drool over some other random e-critique of the game; from someone who went into the game wanting it to do well but expecting it to suck; from a website with a biased history against anything without "World of Warcraft" in its title.

[Golarz]

Game is dead.

EA is trying to salvage what they can by releasing it in Australia and Asia.

Didn't You notice that the release date in those regions is planned in march. Exacly 3 months after release, exacly when people who subscribed via 2 month pre-paid card will run out of subscription.

It's also great time for big patch hat will add new content so mabey they will resub for another 2 months.

[Diggerjames]

everyone needs to remember this is a new mmo that is trying to do something new i remember people saying the same thing about wow and it is bw first entry into the mmo market or have you forgotten that so no there not going to get it perfect straight away thats

a simple fact and they did make this game to be fun for the casule market as well. the mmo veterans out there will find this game easier to play then the first timers out there.

[Adzzy]

nah... they made 70m on box sales + 30m for the 2 months of subs...

 

still 100m just to break even. (they still have to pay for the full team currently working on the new content) - if subs drop below 0.5m they will probably never make their money back. (expecially if you count all the money making opportuities lost, by parking 200m in this game for 5 years)

 

their subs will probably increase soon, because they're going to be releasing in countries where the economy doesn't suck (1 in particular has an awful lot of people...).

Edited February 27, 2012 by Adzzy

[aishiki]

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/eu/stats, all of the minuses on the servers should tell you something. 50-60 people on Republic Fleet, peak time, on weekend is not normal. It used to be 90++. Everyone's gone and it's going to be worse next weekend when TERA 2nd CBT is up.

 

They need to announce servers merge and this new rumoured update contents in March otherwise this game is going to be beyond salvation.

[Rakimou]

Most people in my guild have gone inactive or quit. Lots of guilds on my server merge or disband.

I also cancelled yesterday.

[fadingdimension]

Everyone's gone and it's going to be worse next weekend when TERA 2nd CBT is up.

 

YEAH. Hop on the next hype-train. Enjoy.

[Katharsis]

From my perspective ;

Problems:

No combat log

No achievments for pvpers affter hitrank 65 and get your BM gear and pvp ride.

Unplayable open world pvp called : Ilum. ( No unfortunately i dont have uber rig and even friends with good systems had issues with ilum)

No benefits of killin your opposite faction @ open world pvp.

Outlaws den ?

UI do i need to say something ?

No point of 16 man raids . ( same loot )

Worst customer support experience ive ever had on any mmorpg out there.

Pointless crafting system which rewards nothing but biochem for endgame.

Terrible class endgame gears. ( Playin scoundrel myself and my pve and pvp gear all looks same only dif colors.

Very boring travel system. Load , load and thn load and load again to go somewhere.

Guilds?

Legacy system?

Rated pvp ?

This list can go forever i think.. Not enjoyin game atm realy. They should fix the stuff and add the stuff asap , or game will be realy empty in like a month.

[PalawaJoko]

SWTOR is not dying per se but it won't be growing much either. And what I know for sure is that once GW2 and some other games comes around even more people will leave. I know I will go to GW2 for sure because PvP there is going to be so much more fun. Probably will PvE as well

 

SWTOR is not a bad game don't get me wrong there but I feel all the mechanics and everything is so old and I don't feel SWTOR's PvP is going to satisfy me. It just feels so ... frustrating at times and worthless.

Edited February 27, 2012 by PalawaJoko

[aishiki]

My guildies and I liked SWTOR. We're pretty chilled people so we can tolerate a lot of stuff. Can't modify UI? no problem, doesn't affect much. Biochem is the only end game craft? So we all switched to biochem, no big fuss. Nerf classes? Fine, we just try diff specs.

 

Thing is, we're PVPers so we need means to satisfy that craving. 3 warzones over and over for a PVP guild just won't cut it. Most of us are war heroes, battlemasters so there's nothing else to achieve by doing that 3 maps. Had enough of those maps when we were grinding valor ranks. Won't even start with Ilum. Sure it's enjoyable for some to camp Ilum for hours, back and forth but I won't do it even if you pay me. It's so skullnumbing.

 

We wanted to PVE, but there's no LFG tool so it's much more exhausting to form an ops party with decent geared people. We wanted to PVP, 3-maps warzones is so boring. So what else to do? Making alts. That's what we're doing. But what to do after the alts hit 50? Gearing up again. It's like a vicious circle that never ends.

[Oneiros_IV]

game's dying

 

No it can't be you must be 4chan trolls if you say that!! Game's great and innovative with brilliant PVP PVE convenient UI and worldbreaking story!!1 *goes into ignorant denial*

[oldshatterhand]

If we don't get cross-server warzones soon, many servers will be dead. On my server at least (Trayus Academy EU) there is abosultely nothing to do if you want to play before 5-6 PM. For example now, on imperial side there are 11 people on fleet and I've been waiting in WZ queue for 45 minutes.