The end of the arguement. Is SWTOR in decline? Can it be saved?

[Blistrich]

Oh my god...

 

"Bad customer service"...

 

I'm sorry, I'm crying tears of laughter shaped like Funcom logos.

[lowflyingmeat]

WoW has never, ever, ever had a server merge or close. Ever.

 

They have had free character transfers from multiple high servers into one low pop. Same thing and much better for the resident denizens of the low pop server.

[Blistrich]

They have had free character transfers from multiple high servers into one low pop. Same thing and much better for the resident denizens of the low pop server.

No one ever takes advantage of these, at least, not to any noticeable degree.

 

All of the major transfers are from low pop to big, hub servers like Illidan where the raider "elite" like to hang out and keep pushing server progression. Blizzard rakes it in off these transfers, because they're aware that players like to be where the action is.

 

And that's what happens. People start off on low pop servers, and assuming they don't quit and keep going, they eventually want to be where the action is.

 

And Blizzard charges them good money to get there.

 

Blizzard can afford to let low pop servers languish, because the option is there for you to give them more money and go where you want.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Blistrich

[andretious]

Just saw this on CVG.

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/343845/ea-poor-battlefield-3-old-republic-performance-result-in-layoffs/

 

"and Star Wars: The Old Republic, which received similar treatment and has supposedly already seen subscription numbers decline, are big contributing factors to the cuts."

 

http://startupgrind.com/2012/04/exclusive-electronic-arts-set-to-lay-off-500-employees/

This one is a bit more in depth.

 

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-02-02/markets/31029084_1_ea-shares-earnings-report-unit-sales

This seems to be more focused on the stock from EA and seems to lean both ways.

 

It seems EA have had a poor financial year due to BF3 and SWTOR.

 

I have found this on several other sites, it seems to be reliable.

 

I don't want to start a flame war or an "I told you so" thread. Instead, I was wondering what people would like to see to maybe improve the player base.

I am one of the people that is on the fence, I have around 90 days or so left on my sub but am, as of yet, not convinced to renew it.

Following the new "world event" (which I though was good mostly) maybe this is the way forward?

So lets hear it, what would it take (for those that aren't sure or maybe have already cancelled) to bring you back?

For those that are already commited, what more things would you like improved or added?

 

Lets try and keep it on track and pleasant ok?

 

Ok, weigh in.

 

what is it with this generation of gamers posting things like this. To take the time to actually be-little the game it baffles me. Pulling up stocks and little ramblings by some fly by night websites. As if you are THE Person to legitimatelly say this game is dying? Do you actually think you can hold bioware hostage with some kind of threat? They are already trying very hard at making this game a success and doing a fine job of it. 1.2 for me has been a blast thus far and i love the new world event. Maybe you aren't playing the game to it's full potential i don't know? I do know one thing , all the whiners here can't do a better job than Bioware is doing. The negativity here is part of the problem. Try enjoying the game yourself and not worrying about the negativity.

Edited April 16, 2012 by andretious

[Phenyr]

Just saw this on CVG.

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/343845/ea-poor-battlefield-3-old-republic-performance-result-in-layoffs/

 

"and Star Wars: The Old Republic, which received similar treatment and has supposedly already seen subscription numbers decline, are big contributing factors to the cuts."

 

http://startupgrind.com/2012/04/exclusive-electronic-arts-set-to-lay-off-500-employees/

This one is a bit more in depth.

 

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-02-02/markets/31029084_1_ea-shares-earnings-report-unit-sales

This seems to be more focused on the stock from EA and seems to lean both ways.

 

 

Ok, weigh in.

 

Seen that even mighty Blizzard sacked some folks around now and then. that does not mean that WoW is dying isnt it? The world economy is not fully recovered and i think most of the big corporation sack and rehire personel depending on their projects etc etc.

 

Is like is the company i work for sacks few employee mean is dying and have to rush to find new job? Neah it takes more than that.

 

If the world economy was in a pre-recession state and EA was 'cuting' off jobs then yes that might be worrying news.

 

But thats just my opinion.

[Aloro]

The single interesting thing in all of this, to me, is the OP's choice of title. How could you have thought, even for a second, that this would be the end of the argument?

 

Even if you had hard data instead of mere speculation (and you do not), people would argue. Remember six weeks ago when EA had its quarterly earnings report? People argued and argued and argued about what the numbers meant, and whether the game was dying or doing well.

[Leggomy]

The original article only says this about swtor:

 

After a brief resurgence, EA has had a rough year with Star Wars not matching lofty internal expectations, an expensive Popcap acquisition, a CFO departure, and being recently named the worst company in America.

 

 

How does this blogger pull from that the subs are in decline at swtor? I think you guys should at least read the referenced article before you start talking about how swtor is doing so bad. Estimates are they have sold 3 million copies so far and new people come into the game everyday.

 

Also the referenced article says EA does not call these "layoffs". Look:

 

“There are no lay-offs as such, we always have projects growing and morphing,” EA told MCV. “At any given time there are new people coming in and others leaving. EA is growing and hiring and building teams to support the growing demand for digital games and services.”

 

So anyways the second blogger just made some false dramatic statement to get you to look at his blog. He lied about the declining sub numbers straight up.

[Dolcia]

No one ever takes advantage of these, at least, not to any noticeable degree.

 

All of the major transfers are from low pop to big, hub servers like Illidan where the raider "elite" like to hang out and keep pushing server progression. Blizzard rakes it in off these transfers, because they're aware that players like to be where the action is.

 

And that's what happens. People start off on low pop servers, and assuming they don't quit and keep going, they eventually want to be where the action is.

 

And Blizzard charges them good money to get there.

 

Blizzard can afford to let low pop servers languish, because the option is there for you to give them more money and go where you want.

 

Source? Stats?

[dakarii]

I made this comment earlier that people's perceptions of games and what they consider successful and a failure are not really close to reality.

 

Thought this article was interesting about wow

http://www.gamespot.com/features/the-uncertain-future-of-world-of-warcraft-6370984/

[Geeluc]

Personally, I don't think any MMO should be on a monthly sub.

 

I paid who knows how much money to SOE for SWG for 6 years, just to see them slowly kill the game I originally loved.

 

Take something like Skyrim. It's 100's of hours of gameplay and it was £40. Or, of the PvP'ers, something like COD4, again, £40 and all the PvP'ing you want for a one off payment.

 

On the one hand, this game will go for a few years, of course it will. On the other, if they keep giving us crap like 1.2 and loose loads of subs over night...maybe it won't last.

[Blistrich]

Source? Stats?

Sorry, but you would have to be either brain dead or not a Warcraft player in order to not to see the trend from simply looking at the WoW server progression system and paying attention to what is going on in the game.

 

Warcraft has countless dead servers. Most of the population there has either dwindled out, prefer no one else around, or have transferred to somewhere they can get in a big PvP or raiding guild.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Blistrich

[Kanharn]

Personally, I don't think any MMO should be on a monthly sub.

 

I paid who knows how much money to SOE for SWG for 6 years, just to see them slowly kill the game I originally loved.

 

Take something like Skyrim. It's 100's of hours of gameplay and it was £40. Or, of the PvP'ers, something like COD4, again, £40 and all the PvP'ing you want for a one off payment.

 

On the one hand, this game will go for a few years, of course it will. On the other, if they keep giving us crap like 1.2 and loose loads of subs over night...maybe it won't last.

 

Comparing Skyrim to SWTOR .

[iSweeper]

What TOR needs are time sinks and I'm not talking about increasing the amount of exp it takes to level up (hopefully when the level cap does get raised it does take longer to level up then previous levels).

 

TOR needs mini games. It NEEDS swoop racing, sabacc, and pazaak. It needs better open world PvP as in when massive amounts of people get into a small area it doesn't lag 96% of the players out. TOR NEEDS something other then dailies and weeklies. It needs something people can do as a guild or on their own.

 

Mini games are huuuuuuuge time sinks and I'm sure loads of people (not everyone mind you) but loads of people would love to sit down and customize their own swoop bike and race against others, or play people in pazaak or sabacc.

 

Right now all there is to do with your guild is dailies, weeklies, flashpoints, warzones and ops. That's not enough! Don't get me wrong those are fun to do but only for so long. You can only do a flashpoint so many times. This world event was a great start! Guild Capital ships, when they do release, will give guilds, hopefully if they're implemented with the idea of giving guilds something to work for and use together, something to strive for.

 

Flashpoints and ops are fun, new warzones are fun, but they only last for a little while. BioWare needs to put something else in there that isn't PvE or PvP. Something people can actually do to relax from PvE or PvP grinding and have fun with other players. Mini games seriously are one of the major routes they can take. And they aren't the only route but I really think BioWare needs to take a look at them and get them implemented, correctly and with in the next couple of months.

 

TOR is struggling and it needs this.

[Rayla_Felana]

Comparing Skyrim to SWTOR .

 

Hahahaha...

[iRouven]

The main question for me is - why do people take some of this stuff serious? For example the vote from that website with the subtitle "shoppers bite back". I cannot take this serious. I'm probably weird but in a world full of bloggers that can write pretty much everything ...

 

I mean even in normal newspapers you have to take things with a grain of salt and read at least two other papers on the same topic to get a picture ...

 

Is this the new trend? A new sport of semi-intelligent half baked maybe somewhat researched "news" providing a minimum entertainment value? Or just a modern version of global gossiping?

[Derbefrier]

really mods should just remove these as spam threads there is no point to these. its all troll bait.

[Darka]

I think there is much mate and annoyance at MMOs in general that are taken out on specific games, there seem to be various patterns that follow every new MMO these days.

From everyone hyping it up to be a game it never was going to be, to picking it apart before launch. The same comments are made by the same people, " Oh thank god Game X is launching soon"

Its a vicious cycle, and GW2 is about to get hit by it

[Dolcia]

Sorry, but you would have to be either brain dead or not a Warcraft player in order to not to see the trend from simply looking at the WoW server progression system and paying attention to what is going on in the game.

 

Warcraft has countless dead servers. Most of the population there has either dwindled out, prefer no one else around, or have transferred to somewhere they can get in a big PvP or raiding guild.

 

I was more or less referring to your sweeping generalization that, "no one ever takes advantage of these, at least, not to any noticeable degree."

 

I have twice been on servers that were PVP made PVE and forced to either stay on the server as a PVE server or migrate to another PVP server. What reason could Blizzard possibly have for changing a PVP server to a PVE server if not to combat some population issue?

[Oscibi]

Here is the thing, people do not want unique features. They want everything that WoW has and that is it. I have heard many people complain about the legacy feature and that they should have made 1.2 about LFG.

 

I do not care about LFG. The legacy system is an amazing feature that I love. It is a truly unique feature in MMOs.

 

People need to wake up and realize that this game, and any other game, will NEVER have WoW's numbers. Even WoW 2 and Titan will not have 10 million subscribers. There are just too many choices out there now to reach that many players.

 

 

How is legacy an amazing feature?

 

You get to click and drag your toons on to an empty space. and then lines are drawn between them.

 

As to other legacy features. Level a smugglar and you can kick people! once every 10 mins.

 

Or are you referring to "mailbox" and "target dummies" etc etc.

 

Its just the same as wow, presented differently and you get a surname. (excluding the drawing lines between toons - to show they are related or not)

[Fox_McCloud]

I think there is much mate and annoyance at MMOs in general that are taken out on specific games, there seem to be various patterns that follow every new MMO these days.

From everyone hyping it up to be a game it never was going to be, to picking it apart before launch. The same comments are made by the same people, " Oh thank god Game X is launching soon"

Its a vicious cycle, and GW2 is about to get hit by it

 

No, GW2 is different and that is the key.

 

World of Warcraft came out and was a stellar huge success because it was different then its predecessor.

 

However every MMO since WoW is basically a WoW clone, this is especially true of SWTOR.

 

If you want to get players attention you need to do something different, not the same thing they already have.

 

The game that will beat WoW is the game that is not like WoW.

 

GW2 has the most innovation we have seen in any MMO since Ultima Online, or perhaps EQ, but definately more then WoW. GW2 has the chance to be the next step because they understand this fact. Innovation is key, GW2 is its own game, it is almost nothing at all like WoW.

[Blistrich]

I was more or less referring to your sweeping generalization that, "no one ever takes advantage of these, at least, not to any noticeable degree."

Perhaps it was a tad sweeping, yes, I'll give you that.

 

My point was that the option to pay Blizzard for a transfer to a hub server so that you can continue your career in a saturated environment has been heavily leveraged by the player base. I know guys who have dropped hundreds of bucks on transfers, re-customization and faction changes.

 

Most people here would call that "money grubbing". It is. Blizzard doesn't care.

 

They're making money hand over fist thanks to servers that have built themselves up so much that anyone who wants to be someone will shell out to go there.

 

Genius when you think about it.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Blistrich

[lollermittens]

Why are all the BioWare crusaders and apologetists saying these sources are not reliable? We have confirmation from EA that they are indeed laying off 500 - 1,000 employees (to be expected, the EA PR machine has already spun this layoff as a "restructuring plan where we expect to recuperate the number of people being shifted around by the end of the year") and that poor performance for BF3 and SWTOR is reflected by the huge losses resulting from a huge investment on marketing strategies which are not returning a proper return on investment.

 

1.2 was not the resurgent patch that BW was looking for. This is obvious by the free month of gameplay to keep a hemorrhaging playerbase from dwindling even faster. You can ignore all of the complaints you want from all the people who are having a dismal gameplay experience on low populated servers and the innumerable number of players who are dissatisfied to the game but that would be turning a blind eye to very real issues facing this game in both the short-term and the long-term. Although the forums are probably frequented by a minority of the playerbase, there is still a sufficient number of players to draw a population sample from which would accurately predict the sentiments players are currently having and whether or not this indignation can be statistically projected to result in unsubscribing. Player complaints are not superficial either; they demand answers to very obvious issues.

 

Let's not forget that BioWare has to compete with Diablo 3 next month which is the behemoth to compete against for every single game developer this year -- add GW2 to this furious battle between game developers and SWTOR finds itself in an extremely competitive market.

 

Investors are not dumb. Within two weeks of the game's release, Brean Murray Carret & Co (a reputable investment banking firm) quickly "issued a note to investors on Thursday morning, slashing its price target on EA stock from $22 to $28. Analyst Todd Mitchell said he had “creeping concerns” over Star Wars: the Old Republic’s profitability." These investors did not re-issue another note even when the numbers for February were released. They know this game had too many issues when it came out and no amount of post-release patching was going to save it.

 

EA has already made its initial ROI on this game. But, internally, the management is obviously not happy with the subscription numbers (as expressed in the article linked by the OP) and seem extremely wary about the future health of this game. When the developers include a "preview pane" for the Legacy abilities to come out in 1.3, it's quite pathetic that they need to show players future updates to hopefully keep people playing for their subscriptions for the incoming new features.

 

IMO, the omission of Ranked WZs and a complete destruction of the finely crafted class balanced present pre-1.2 has damaged the game beyond repair.

 

Anyways, I'll be here until Wednesday. Then my subscription is over.

Edited April 16, 2012 by lollermittens

[KrittaB]

No, GW2 is different and that is the key.

 

GW2 may technically be 'different,' but it's still getting the same treatment. It isn't going to be as good as you think it is, because no game can live up to expectations. No MMO has ever lived up to expectations since WoW, and WoW only managed to because at that time expectations were non-existent for MMOs.

[AshenK]

The fact is that TOR is dying, even the press in the last few days have finally turned on TOR and are calling it what it is a bad game.

 

From the looks of things BioWare is going to be losing most of the Dev's here very soon, the player base is going to drop down come this week as people see 1.2 hasn't changed anything and has made everything worse. The plague was a bad idea and is upsetting most of the player base.

 

The death blow to TOR is coming as well, everyone I've talked to really wants to play Secret World. Guild Wars 2 is already being looked at as what will be one of the best games of the year. And Diablo 3 is well Diablo 3 we all know how well it will do.

 

So no nothing can save TOR, it's too little and too late to save it.

[Dolcia]

GW2 may technically be 'different,' but it's still getting the same treatment. It isn't going to be as good as you think it is, because no game can live up to expectations. No MMO has ever lived up to expectations since WoW, and WoW only managed to because at that time expectations were non-existent for MMOs.

 

And now, because it has made such an impact, people have lofty expectations for it with every new content release. And so threads like this get made in the WoW forums too. Is this the end for WoW?!