Who Swtor was made for.

[JackalTurner]

links to facts are not needed

1 swg no hardcore raid just alot of other stuff everyone agrees was dying

 

Stopped reading right there.

 

MMO's do NOT need "hardcore raid", as you put it, to be successful or good.

 

"hardcore raid" is just a single part of a single genre of MMO.

 

What killed SWG had nothing to do with raiding, it was the constant changing of the game from the ****** developer.

 

Your "facts" are simply opinions based upon the idea that every MMO should cater to you and your playstyle alone.

[KrittaB]

But those aren't facts, those are observations.

 

they barely even count as that.

 

SWG did quite well despite being on the whole a terrible game. It lasted nearly 8 years and had a respectable sub count for its time.

 

WoW Cata raiding was more difficult than WOTLK, so I don't really see how that supports his conclusion that it caused a drop in subs. If anything, it should have caused an increase.

 

We don't have any conclusive evidence that the population has dropped for SWTOR. People play less once they've finished the content, and a lot of people have. That's all it is. Claiming that subscription numbers are down and the game is failing based on that is laughably ignorant.

[ConradLionhart]

I think primarily for casual gamers who don't raid.

 

The legacy system is definitely made for solo players, altoholics, role players.

Story in an MMO, made for RPG fans.

[DarthOvertone]

This is not a game aimed at the hardcore. Many HC gamers (like myself) are guilty of trying to make this game what it simply isn't.

 

Then again, what I expected was based on what I had hoped for rather than what was most logical for the company and the subsequent game.

 

You are absolutely correct. In the end, it's a matter of expectations. Like the main MMO I used to play, I expected SWTOR to be of similar caliber. I expected to play SWTOR for years. Instead, I will only be playing for months. Currently set to unsub this month, but will probably resub for 1.2 since it appears they are holding the release of the Patch until after the next round of monthly sub renewals (as expected).

 

I was part of EGA, but I didn't rush through the content, at least by my playstyle standards. I didn't even participate in Beta. When I reached level 50 in a month playing in a way that I perceived as casual, I began to suspect my participation in this game wouldn't last long.

 

Sad thing is, this game didn't need much more to keep me interested/involved. Its content just needed to be a bit more challenging, and it just needed to have some good OPvP. That would have been enough to keep me happy for a long, long time. Unfortunately, BW botched Ilum and their OPvP world designs horribly. OPvP is pretty much non-existent in this game as a result, and after 1.2, is pretty much being shirked entirely. Not to mention that the PvE content is just stupid easy, and it seemingly gets easier with each patch.

 

So I'm very disappointed. I really loved Star Wars, really enjoyed KOTOR, and in the past had always been impressed by BW titles. I just wanted to have years of MMO fun and give BW lots of my money, but in the end, I'm not their target demographic and they don't want it. Oh well. On to the next game...

[Technohic]

I think primarily for casual gamers who don't raid.

 

The legacy system is definitely made for solo players, altoholics, role players.

Story in an MMO, made for RPG fans.

 

Yeah your statement almost fits me. Not much of a role player though and I probably would raid if my guild really pushed me to get on a level 50 and do so, so long as I had time to.

 

Other than that, I love playing through the stories and I love solo queuing for sub-50 PvP. I definitely love alts and learning the other classes. Definitely has been my type of game.

 

This has surprised me that such a theme park game would be my game. I actually prefer sandbox games in the past where I could wander around doing nothing more than what I wanted to do myself and if someone wanted to come with, all the better; or if I ran into someone to travel around with, fine. It just turns out, there is enough them based content where I sort of have that freedom here. Not that I wouldn't mind a more sandbox type area to be added to the game; but I am solo yet never really alone.

[Carambole]

Hardcore means Pure Red? Rage and whatnot, you burn out in the end. Glad we did away with that with the outlands expansion in WoW.

 

However the OP points out a good fact. I myself have 8 toons, hitting 50 on my first today.

 

Fact 1. The average MMO player plays more than 1 MMO. I see this trend continuing.

Fact 2. More variety leads to more XP!

Fact 3. Grab a drink

Edited April 10, 2012 by Carambole

[mattgyver]

Seems like if you don't plan to play a lot of hours in the week, hate (present tense) SWG, don't want complexity to befuddle you, this is your game.

[Carambole]

I think primarily for casual gamers who don't raid.

 

The legacy system is definitely made for solo players, altoholics, role players.

Story in an MMO, made for RPG fans.

 

And THIS ...

 

Is what Star Wars the Old Republic is all about. I totally respect the anger and frustration up in here. I'm NO BETTER myself. However we do as a species tend to forget which games we play. I remember the 3 - 4 year long drought of only WoW, EvE and LotrO.

 

Do you remember?

[Nightrode]

A game can be targeted for casual players, but in the end those games end up dying out quickly and don't last very long, or just have such a small player base of about 100-150k people after a few years. As for games who simply target for the hardcore niche, aka EvE, those games end up at the same result, a few hundred thousand people after a few years.

 

The best option for an MMO is to, of course, target for a wide range of audiences. I feel like SWTOR did that but I feel that most of their resources were spent to benefit the more casual audience. That isn't so bad, because this game has done fairly well, however I feel like the longevity of the game is most likely going to lack.

 

The best thing a developer could do is design content in their game that appeals to as many audiences as possible, NOT necessarily the largest amount of people who enjoy it. In my opinion, and as a future game developer, a game is going to be more successful if content is made to appeal to more audiences, instead of more people.

 

Content that appeals to many of the casuals, hardcores, PvPers and PvEers, and RPers is probably going to a lot better than content that merely is appealing to the vast majority of casuals and RPers. For example, I think (when done correctly), most niche's seem to really like open-world PvP. It seems a lot of people really like that for some reason, and I know I do (it's just that it's rarely done successfully for some reason). If a developer could somehow create content like this in their game that appeals to wide variety of audiences, rather than one, or just content that attracts the most people, their game is likely to be more successful.

 

And that's just one design concept. There needs to be content put in place that has great potential to last a long time. MMO's feed on long-lasting subs -- they need people to play the game a long time. Right now I feel like SWTOR's content does not have the longevity MMOs require to be successful for a long time. Unless there is content that is going to make a large number of audiences want to play a long time, the game isn't going to last very long -- only supported by those who have that required content, which I would say are the casual bunch, but even then it's hard to tell if it will. 15 bucks a month for re-rolling characters just doesn't seem to be worth it in my opinion, and I think many would feel the same.

[GalacticKegger]

And THIS ...

 

Is what Star Wars the Old Republic is all about. I totally respect the anger and frustration up in here. I'm NO BETTER myself. However we do as a species tend to forget which games we play. I remember the 3 - 4 year long drought of only WoW, EvE and LotrO.

 

Do you remember?

Still do LOTRO as my sword & board / elf & orc diversion.

[AlphaBraddox]

I stopped playing SWTOR because the PVP is so stale. Ilum is a bore fest and WZs became more aggravating than fun due to class stacking and class imbalances with whacky classes (Tanks doing more DPS than DPS classes...lol, Tanks with uber heals, clothie tanks, etc). Will become more interested when PVP has much more content to grind than the puny end-game PVP it has now. Good luck and I am off to Diablo III Edited April 10, 2012 by AlphaBraddox

[greenleef]

Stopped reading right there.

 

MMO's do NOT need "hardcore raid", as you put it, to be successful or good.

 

"hardcore raid" is just a single part of a single genre of MMO.

 

What killed SWG had nothing to do with raiding, it was the constant changing of the game from the ****** developer.

 

Your "facts" are simply opinions based upon the idea that every MMO should cater to you and your playstyle alone.

 

let me be more clear about swg i LOVED that game i stuck with it from the start bad and good i paid and still would pay 60 a month to play that game i miss it every time i log into tor. the game had a small playerbase and i blame it to lack of adverticing lack of updating heroics and severs not handeling mass pvp well, and the reason it was considered to be dead was because wow had 11 million subs where swg was around 100k area. but even with these small numbers the comunity and economy was greater than any other game, and this was b4 the server merges so it just got better.

Now to the reason it ended is all guessing because there was no offical reason. I would say it was because this game wanted to come out and lucas only wanted 1 star wars mmo. i only think this because soe doesnt just shut down a game and there are so many more soe mmos that are still up that had a fraction of the players. this is just my opnion.

[tekkamansoul]

I stopped playing SWTOR because the PVP is so stale. Ilum is a bore fest and WZs became more aggravating than fun due to class stacking and class imbalances with whacky classes (Tanks doing more DPS than DPS classes...lol, Tanks with uber heals, clothie tanks, etc).

Do you even know what you're saying?

 

Will become more interested when PVP has much more content to grind than the puny end-game PVP it has now. Good luck and I am off to Diablo III

 

What, right now? Still got a month, bud, but I'm sure you'll find "something to do" (this is me insinuating you're gonna keep trolling these forums)

[NotDonnaReed]

This is not a game aimed at the hardcore. Many HC gamers (like myself) are guilty of trying to make this game what it simply isn't.

 

As the Bioware Rep on the Pax East Panel said, to Paraphrase "your focused demographic is usually dictated by how much the game cost to make. In the future when these game can be made faster and for less money, I'm sure we'll see a lot of games aimed a niche audiences like the hardcore but for now, you don't spend 300 million on a game for 70k-100k subscriptions."

 

When I quit WoW years ago, I said i would wait for Swtor, as it seemed to have what i wanted from a game and after 7 years, it wasn't set in Azeroth.

 

 

What i hadn't (but should have) anticipated was the targeted audience and how wide the net Swtor was casting.

 

After hitting 50, raiding and rolling numerous alts to 50 It started to sink in that the overall difficulty level of this game is not what i expected. Then again, what I expected was based on what I had hoped for rather than what was most logical for the company and the subsequent game.

 

 

Basically we the minority, the hardcore few will never change the aims of this game and would be silly to even try to. Accept What the game is, then evaluate if it is for you. Anything more is just trying to change something that was obviously not meant for your play style.

 

Excellent post!

 

I can only think of one game I've played that did satisfy hardcore raiders, but even then the hardcore bliss only lasted a year or two before the company decided to maximize its profits by making the game more attractive to non-hardcores. It's hard to imagine any company intentionally gimping their profits by focusing on such a small market, regardless of the development budget. Instead they try to appeal to everyone by offering different levels of difficulty in end game. The trouble is, they often miss the mark in terms of what the community feels is easy and difficult. If I understand correctly, nightmare mode in this game is just more damage and faster boss enrage than normal mode. Instead of just boosting the numbers, they should add more mechanics to keep the hardcores challenged.

[TurboCoward]

I think alot of the frustration from people who play this game comes from Star Wars fans who won't admit that the flavour of this particular game is simply not for them, and rather than put it down and find one that is, they stick around and fume simply because it has lightsabers, thus they must play. I suppose that makes sense to some degree, and they shouldn't be judged too harshly for having their imaginations fostered by a very widespread modern mythology. Although I'd still say at some point they need to get over it. I fell in love with the Lord of the Rings trilogy in fifth grade, yet I realized quite quickly LOTRO was not for me.

 

I don't really play alot of games, but about ten years back I was hooked by EQ on the PS2. Sony made some bad decisions with that game (everyone had to be a werewolf/lion/gator/rat or be gimped, and to get infected was ludicrously tedious), and I remembered how much I like hanging out at the bar on my free time. My buddy convinced me to try this game, with a brief attempt at LOTRO being my only foray into MMOs since, and I just didn't dig it. I didnt like that we had a four man static group that couldn't really move through the world together fluidly, because we were each on our own treadmill, we were each starring in our own little movie. So I realized this isn't the game for me. It did renew my need for an open world, community driven (grouping centric) mmo, and I found Vanguard, flaws and all, and my liver thanks me for it. He still loves this game, more power to him. It just wasn't for me.

 

My friend admits that the reason he plays this game rather than Rift, which is also a theme-park mmo (I've learned the terminology while trying to find the game I wanted) is that it's based in the Star Wars universe, but that Rift (I'm talking PvE, he said the PvP in this is far superior) had much better content endgame. He played that for months and didnt really have an alt. In this game he got his Jugg as geared as it could be, then went off and leveled up a Powertech, which is almost as geared as it can be. But this game is close enough to what he wants that he sticks around for the sake of the mythos. It is good as an ongoing client to let the company who needs your patronage know what it is you want, and to look for improvement, but if the product is just wrong then admit to it and put your lightsaber down.

 

This is just a theory as to why so many people stick with something that frustrates them so much. This is also a response to alot of the thread, but not the OP, as he was very mature and to the point.

[AlphaBraddox]

Do you even know what you're saying?

 

 

 

What, right now? Still got a month, bud, but I'm sure you'll find "something to do" (this is me insinuating you're gonna keep trolling these forums)

 

1) I love to PVP. I gave SWTOR a shot and I do not see SWTOR holding my interest in the long haul. To me what makes a MMO great is all the little things you can do casually. TOR's PVP is very limited, crafting is a joke, no sense of community in game (no guild city?!?), etc... Do you see the servers at Heavy like before? I cant speak for all but Bioware failed at end game and that is what they are now trying to fix. Sure 1.2 is coming out and it better be epic to keep SWTOR interesting.

 

2) I paid Bioware so can do whatever I like in the forums. Feel free to write me a refund check or live with it.

Edited April 10, 2012 by AlphaBraddox

[Skylarke]

Still do LOTRO as my sword & board / elf & orc diversion.

 

Same here (lifetimer since the beginning for LoTRO).

 

And, I'm anxious for The Secret World to launch (lifetime subscription bought there also).

 

It'll be the perfect trio of MMORPGs for me. Traditional Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Modern. Variety is good!

 

And, with that trio, I'll have 3 MMORPGs and only one monthly subscription fee!

 

[Jederix]

Casual gamers don't maintain subscriptions to one game for years. That's the simple fact.

 

WoW would like to disagree with you. If you honestly believe that their massive playerbase is primarily hardcore, you have serious issues.

 

Casuals pay the bills; in this game and in the MMO juggernaut WoW. Like it or not.

[Nightrode]

WoW would like to disagree with you. If you honestly believe that their massive playerbase is primarily hardcore, you have serious issues.

 

Casuals pay the bills; in this game and in the MMO juggernaut WoW. Like it or not.

 

Yes, but not long-term. WoW reached its peak when the game seemed to be more centered toward the hardcore crowd back in vanilla-late TBC. They changed it, and there was a surge of players, but since Cata subs seem to be decreasing a bit. Mostly it's probably because people are tired of WoW, which I was, however his post has some merit.

 

I would say that WoW was made for people who were already in the MMO scene, like those who played EQ and what not, as well as their playerbase in WC and D2. I don't think Blizzard expected the massive surge of players who were new to the MMO genre. Regardless, they still kept to their idea that endgame was the way to go and keep the players entertained for years, and I would say it was pretty successful.

 

The casual playerbase doesn't really care about raiding that much. The problem in WoW is that they centralized raiding as the primary objective of the game, so everyone wanted to do it. The problem is that raiding is suppose to be difficult, so when you have a bunch of people who don't care to be so good at the game in order to defeat a raid the developer has to make it easier, which makes your hardcore playerbase angry.

 

I can count how many things I can do in WoW in one hand. Raid, arena, BG, dailies, and RP. Nothing else is fun for 95% of the playerbase because it's either not there, or just so lackluster that nobody wants do it. Achievements are just for those who have nothing else fun to do.

 

If Blizzard were to add other things to do (such as a good open-world PvP setup that doesnt suck) then the game would last longer for more players than just those who raid and PvP. I think we see the same problem here in SWTOR, the only difference is that casuals (and those who like this) have the glory of a great leveling experience, something that WoW lacks. If this element was brought into WoW I think the game would be SO much better because the raiders would still enjoy there part of the game. There would still be attunements and gear progression that didn't give handouts to everybody, while at the same time the casual players would have so much do in the open world and leveling up new characters with a great story.

 

TL;DR: If WoW wasn't so centered on endgame raiding and PvP and brought in other objectives that players (both casual and hardcore) could enjoy, raiding would still be enjoyable for the hardcore playerbase and casuals could have other things to do. Casuals only felt the need to raid because Blizzard centralized that as their game.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Nightrode

[Ricktur]

This is not a game aimed at the hardcore. Many HC gamers (like myself) are guilty of trying to make this game what it simply isn't.

 

As the Bioware Rep on the Pax East Panel said, to Paraphrase "your focused demographic is usually dictated by how much the game cost to make. In the future when these game can be made faster and for less money, I'm sure we'll see a lot of games aimed a niche audiences like the hardcore but for now, you don't spend 300 million on a game for 70k-100k subscriptions."

 

i mena, he's telling the truth. . . they spent a lot of money making this game and if they didnt aim for the MAJORITY audience, itd be wasteful.

 

sounds like you need to find another game to be "Hardcore" in. . . .

 

i mean, i work full time, have a family, like most sociable people.

 

do you work full time? if you did, you'd realize that casual is a good way to go.

[DrManse]

i hope you find your game OP

 

^^

 

I'm not sure where people find the time to level multiple chars to 50 and have run raids and PvP to boredom. I still haven't got my first character to 50 and started with early access. Today I was lucky enough to play a pair of space missions. Right now I'm typing with two kids on my lap and another downstairs wanting me to play legos. If I'm lucky I'll get another shot at a space mission or two before the weekend. Then if things go well another 1-2 hours of play time over the weekend. As it is for me this game has hundreds of times more content than I'll ever see.

 

I like this game and wish there was enough to satisfy you guys, really. It is amazing how many types of people game designers have to keep in mind.

[Almar]

I still play EQ to this day as it fills my desires as a Hardcore players game. You always have something to grind in that game and they release an expansion every single year giving you hundreds of more things to grind. Oddly enough the grind is fun each time.

[Jjix]

In my book, the vast majority of you guys posting here are "hardcore". Anyone who cares enough about gaming to post in forums is hardcore in my opinion.

 

Furthermore, I would argue that the vast majority of MMO gamers are hardcore. To be a MMO gamer IS to be "hardcore" by definition! Sure, you get a few types like one of the above posters who "have kids, a family, a job" etc and like to pretend they aren't hardcore, but the fact that the few hours of free time that they do have . . . hours they could be spending with the kids, they instead game just makes them even more hardcore than the rest of us! Hats off to you!

 

So any MMO that tries to appeal only to these so-called "casual" gamers at the expense of hardcore types is really a MMO that has turned its back its playerbase, like a Republican who is worried about global warming.

 

I don't have facts or figures, none of us do. But what is immediately clear is that the general consensus around the MMO world -- other than here (and perhaps even here!) -- is that swtor is in serious trouble. Go to any mmo forums other than these forums and that is what you hear. Whether it is true or not I can't say, but that is overwhelmingly what I hear. And price of EA stock has done nothing but drop steadily since its release.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Jjix

[Spartanik]

This is not a game aimed at the hardcore. Many HC gamers (like myself) are guilty of trying to make this game what it simply isn't.

 

As the Bioware Rep on the Pax East Panel said, to Paraphrase "your focused demographic is usually dictated by how much the game cost to make. In the future when these game can be made faster and for less money, I'm sure we'll see a lot of games aimed a niche audiences like the hardcore but for now, you don't spend 300 million on a game for 70k-100k subscriptions."

 

When I quit WoW years ago, I said i would wait for Swtor, as it seemed to have what i wanted from a game and after 7 years, it wasn't set in Azeroth.

 

 

What i hadn't (but should have) anticipated was the targeted audience and how wide the net Swtor was casting.

 

After hitting 50, raiding and rolling numerous alts to 50 It started to sink in that the overall difficulty level of this game is not what i expected. Then again, what I expected was based on what I had hoped for rather than what was most logical for the company and the subsequent game.

 

 

Basically we the minority, the hardcore few will never change the aims of this game and would be silly to even try to. Accept What the game is, then evaluate if it is for you. Anything more is just trying to change something that was obviously not meant for your play style.

Well you might try this in the future.

[Malus_Rex]

Don't even think this is made for Star Wars fans judging by the end game armour...