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

[ConradLionhart]

LMAO... amazingly buggy, hacked and impossible to play....

 

Because you cannot say the same for Modern Warfare 3.

 

But anyway, I am very curious to see the sub numbers for both WoW and SW:TOR during their next investor conference call, or whatever you call it.

[SliceAntilles]

Also why are the people who always say they "quit" still here.

 

If you really don't like a game you wont cancel your sub and then hang around for that time you have left you would of had gone somewhere else.

 

So you haven't really quit your just playing like everyone else but trying to troll.

 

That's easy to explain really. It means they like the game enough to hope it gets better, and they can actually enjoy playing it again.

 

Or they're just trolls

 

However, I'm pretty sure most are the former. I've done it myself in other games. My complaints were never hate, they were "I wish this game was better because it has so much untapped potential."

[DeathDeathDie]

I'm going to use an analogy here as a person who is no longer subbed to the game but wishes it and the people still playing all the best and all the continued enjoyment.

 

I work in the Oil Industry the Oilsands to be exact. Last I heard it costs Suncor about 26$'s to produce a Barrel of oil. So Suncor is essentially profitable as long as oil stays at 26.01$ per barrel. It might not make as much as it is now, but it is still economically viable at that point.

 

Now SWTOR from what I have heard will break even @ the 1 year mark so long as it has 1 million subs at that point. Say it doesn't though say it sits at 500k subscriptions like Eve has and it takes twice as long to break even. Then lets say the game keeps on going with a steady 500k subscriptions for 8 years, at that stable number that means Bioware and EA will make even worst case scenario all the money they invested + 3X more...

 

Does bleeding down to 500k dedicated subscribers make a game dead? Is Final Fantasy XI dead with its diehard following of subscribers? Is Eve dead? No those games are not dead. SWTOR will not die either if it has 500k players that love it then its fine and doesn't need to change itself into what everyone crying about it wants to be.

 

Hell I quit the game cause its not what I wanted it to be and yet I don't see anything wrong with it, its just not my style of game, If you don't like a game move onto something you do like but there is no need to drag the game down because it isn't what you like/ love.

[DieAlteHexe]

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

 

Yup. Used to see the same thing with movies and it was back then that I learned never, ever fall for what critics said and to judge for myself. Some of the "best" games, I think are "eh" whilst some that other folks think terrible, I quite enjoy and when it comes to MY entertainment, I don't care what anyone else thinks, it's my call.

 

GW2 is about to be hit with this, as you say. I have no idea what to expect from it, nor do I D3 (which I've been waiting for what seems like forever...Blizzard "soon" ). I'll find out when the go live and try them for myself.

 

So simple. So much better than letting someone else's opinion make the call.

[Draeb]

Consider this for a moment,:

 

Yes, WoW is the status quo.

Yes, BW/EA wants to be the best MMO on the market.

Yes, there's plenty of speculation that the SWTOR subscription may have plateaued.

No, SWTOR hasn't achieved WoW status...yet.

Yes, SWTOR may get better.

No, SWTOR won't get worse.

Yes, people have left the game.

Yes, people are buying the game.

No, the game isn't dead...yet.

Yes, there are more MMO's coming out that want to dethrone WoW.

Yes, there's a chance they can.

No, it's not guaranteed they will...yet.

Yes, there might be a better MMO than SWTOR coming out.

No, it's not a promise.

Yes, I'm rambling.

No, I don't care what you think.

Yes, I've unsubscribed.

No, I have no interest in coming back.

Yes, I'm going to stop now.

No, I'm not drunk.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Draeb

[Bafucin]

When MMORPG start to give out free days and invite your friends = Subs going down...

 

EU have 3 active servers. 55min wait on the PvP...

[DieAlteHexe]

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.

 

Where on EARTH did you get that idea (the bolded, italicised, red bit)? This is a prime example of exaggeration which leads to more exaggeration (like Chinese whispers). There is utterly no indication that BW is going to be losing most of their devs.

 

Gawd, I hate it when people blort out stuff like this with no basis OTHER THAN what they think. No offense but this is pure OPINION on your part.

 

TSW? No interest and to counter your assertion (yes, I realise this is as valid as yours ) I don't know a single person who cares.

 

GW2, I am interested in, D3, yes! But y'know what? I can actually play more than one game at a time and by playing, say, D3, I'm not detracting one iota from SWTOR.

 

SWTOR is not going to die any time soon. It will stabilise to a certain level and carry on from there just like most other MMOs have. This nattering on and on about its death is getting silly. It really is. It's simply people WANTING it to die because it didn't suit them.

[OddballEasyEight]

I'm going to use an analogy here as a person who is no longer subbed to the game but wishes it and the people still playing all the best and all the continued enjoyment.

 

I work in the Oil Industry the Oilsands to be exact. Last I heard it costs Suncor about 26$'s to produce a Barrel of oil. So Suncor is essentially profitable as long as oil stays at 26.01$ per barrel. It might not make as much as it is now, but it is still economically viable at that point.

 

Now SWTOR from what I have heard will break even @ the 1 year mark so long as it has 1 million subs at that point. Say it doesn't though say it sits at 500k subscriptions like Eve has and it takes twice as long to break even. Then lets say the game keeps on going with a steady 500k subscriptions for 8 years, at that stable number that means Bioware and EA will make even worst case scenario all the money they invested + 3X more...

 

Does bleeding down to 500k dedicated subscribers make a game dead? Is Final Fantasy XI dead with its diehard following of subscribers? Is Eve dead? No those games are not dead. SWTOR will not die either if it has 500k players that love it then its fine and doesn't need to change itself into what everyone crying about it wants to be.

 

Hell I quit the game cause its not what I wanted it to be and yet I don't see anything wrong with it, its just not my style of game, If you don't like a game move onto something you do like but there is no need to drag the game down because it isn't what you like/ love.

 

As i recall it, they needed 500k to break even... not 1 million.

 

So theyre well on their way. And the maths on that is a bit off too, if they need 500k at the end of year 1 to break even, that means that with 1.7 million subscribers (last reported number) they are well on their way to breaking even within a month or two.

After that, its not that big of a deal if the subscriber base goes down to 1 million, or even lower.

[cyberfreaq]

It is time for the all important history lesson.

• Remember when Warhammer Online was launched? Remember how people were worshiping that game before launch and flooded the forums with whining after?
   
  
• Remember when Age of Conan was launched? Remember how people were worshiping that game before launch and flooded the forums with whining after?
   
  
• Remember when Aion was launched? Remember how people were worshiping that game before launch and flooded the forums with whining after?
   
  
• Remember when Rift was launched? Remember how people were worshiping that game before launch and flooded the forums with whining after?
  
• Remember when FF XIV was launched? Remember how people were worshiping that game before launch and flooded the forums with whining after?
  

 

Remember what were people saying before TOR was launched? Of course, you do.

 

What do we have now?

 

• People are worshiping GW2, before launch. What do you think will happen in 2-3 months?
  
• People are worshiping Tera, before launch. What do you think will happen in 2-3 months?
  
• People are worshiping TSW, before launch. What do you think will happen in 2-3 months?
  

You know what's gonna happen and you know that it is going to happen.

 

There is a very "select" playerbase, called the "MMO Migrators", who will go from game to game saying:

 

Game B will destroy game A!

Game B is a disaster, game A is better.

Game C is going to be launched. It is going to destroy game B and A!

Game C is the worst thing I've played in my life! I'm going back to game A!

Game D will destroy game A, B and C!

Game D is a piece of bat droppings! I'm going to wait for game E, because that will be the best game ever made!

 

These people are the ones any sane game developer should completely ignore...

Oh and we, here on the forums, should also ignore these players. They don't deserve any attention whatsoever.

Edited April 18, 2012 by cyberfreaq

[Suturi]

LMAO... amazingly buggy, hacked and impossible to play....

 

Excuse me, are we playing the same game? Of course, you are trolling and spewing bile,,,

 

Best tactical military shooter so far, at least on the PC version.

[Devlonir]

When MMORPG start to give out free days and invite your friends = Subs going down....

 

To use the overused market example:

 

I started WoW 3 months after launch on a 7 day free trial account I got through a gaming magazine. Note, that is at least 2 times as long as SWTOR gives people right now.

I then invited a number of friends through invite-a-friend throughout the years of WoW growing.

 

When a game gives people extra perks for returning to the game (aka, resurrection scrolls), THAT is a clear sign subs are going down and the developer is desperate for people to pay for their game again.

When they give you a 1 year-deal which everyone gets because of the free access including beta to another game it gives, that is a clear sign of subs going down.

 

The things you point out are standard business practices to reel in customers. If your retention rate is 50%, you are better off having 100 people in where 50 are disappointed and leave, then only having 20 people come in and 10 of them becoming disappointed and leaving.

 

Simple business.

[MayDay]

Just to be upfront and honest, SWToR is a huge success, it will be around for a long time, the launch was just a bit to casual for some people. But i guess it's how things are turning with the new console generation!

 

I have been thinking alot about the current situation of SWToR and the people who play/ed it.

I think there are several huge reasons as to why people aren't sticking around for very long., and none of them have anything to do with the quality of SWToR, which is imo better then any newly launched mmo ever.

 

1. SWToR was made to easy from the start, before 1.2 you could basically arrive at 50, JUST do 3 hours of pve/pve daily missions for a few days and have epic gear, this being orange gear with 22 mods and tier 1.1-1.2 PvP items.

This is enough to faceroll Hardmode Flashpoints, Normal Operations and even get you into Hardmode Operations.

No wonder players aren't sticking around, they have seen all the content within a month of hitting 50.

 

2. Many of the people who bought SWToR are tired of WoW because they have played it for soooo long, many of them raiding hardcore.

So when it comes to SWToR, they have tried it all once and have NO wish to do it again.

 

3. Personally i tried to keep a guild running without using any 3rd part website or tools, this worked sort of fine until everyone had seen all Operations in Normal and we were starting on Hardmodes, people started dropping like flies.

We tried for a month or two to add new members wherever we could find them but they either ended up as the single player type that leveled very slow to 50 or never got there at all, or we just lost player faster then we could find them.

Basically we went though about 100 players in 3 months until just before 1.2 where everybody vanished, i thought they might comes back after 1.2, but they didn't, it's just new existing content, they have tried that several times in WoW, it's not exciting unless you still want to play the existing game.

Had there been a calendar tool from launch or even just a bit later when they took down the swtor guild forum, we would have had a much bigger chance of keeping the guildies interested in events. Thought i'm not sure it would have changed the outcomes.

 

At lauch 1.2 i had 3 lvl 50, a Tank, Dps and Healer, i had used them all to keep our Operations going, my fourth and final class had just finished chapter 2, this gave me every single buff when i buffed.

Other then that i got NO joy from Legacy content, my Legacy level is 35 but anything beyond 15 is POINTLESS.

I have almost no credits because i spent all my time leveling my alts and legacy level, thus i can't even buy the legacy stuff that aren't bound to legacy level for some stupid reason.

 

As for the rest of the 1.2 content, the pvp warzone is brilliant, the new gearing system seem much more balanced, while you still get easy gear at 50, they are just blues. I haven't seen the new HM or Operation, but don't really want to see it with randoms.

My Armstech still feels crappy and useless, EVERYBODY that has it can make the new stuff, you still can't sell anything to other players and we don't get a bop at 50, i should have gone Armortech!

 

My guild is DEAD, another once 500 strong guild that asked us to merge is also DEAD, there are plenty of new and old players but i can't bother to start over.

If there was a ingame tool to advertise our guild like there were in Warhammer, or if my recruitment post on the SWToR forum wouldn't get erased because i bumped it, then i might still keep going with new people, but as it seems now, i'm done after the free month.

 

But, I WILL BE BACK! Someday....

 

"But it won't be for no *********** space expansion, i didn't buy it in SWG, and i won't buy it here, if i wanted to play a space game, i would play EVE!"

Edited April 18, 2012 by MayDay

[SliceAntilles]

Consider this for a moment,:

 

Yes, WoW is the status quo.

Yes, BW/EA wants to be the best MMO on the market.

Yes, there's plenty of speculation that the SWTOR subscription may have plateaued.

No, SWTOR hasn't achieved WoW status...yet.

Yes, SWTOR may get better.

No, SWTOR won't get worse.

Yes, people have left the game.

Yes, people are buying the game.

No, the game isn't dead...yet.

Yes, there are more MMO's coming out that want to dethrone WoW.

Yes, there's a chance they can.

No, it's not guaranteed they will...yet.

Yes, there might be a better MMO than SWTOR coming out.

No, it's not a promise.

Yes, I'm rambling.

No, I don't care what you think.

Yes, I've unsubscribed.

No, I have no interest in coming back.

Yes, I'm going to stop now.

No, I'm not drunk.

 

Cut it out with the logic and reason. No one replies to that. You want people to notice what you said, you have to say something unreasonable, preferably completely nuts.

Edited April 18, 2012 by SliceAntilles

[Wayshuba]

Read this where EA denies the rumor

 

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/rumour-ea-preparing-for-500-1-000-layoffs/094475

 

or

 

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/04/16/ea-games-denies-layoff-rumours/

 

Yup. And Kodak denied they were considering bankruptcy and guess where they were four months later?

[Aliksteel]

Not putting this on here to start another fight, As after I say this. I don't see myself coming back to read it. canceling my subscription, i'm tired of fighting to just to get into a game that was not that fun to me. I'm one of the people after 1.2 came out that could not get the game to update right. Not only that I started having blue screen of death crashes. When I tried to ask for help, I was told to give log's(I did), And delete files(I did), And then they told us all. It's your PC and not our GU1.2 . Found out from other player that if I had an older system that I could down load the game there and copy it over to my gaming rig. I thought this was a bit much, With caps on my download data, And the fact that I had tried to download the game 8 time already. Yes, Every time I logged in and it went to download the GU it wanted to download the game, Or most of it 11gig what it did on me.

 

Any way, So I dusted off my old laptop that would never be able to play this game and download the game again. copied it over to my gaming rig. My big mem stick is only 8gig, So it took some doing to copy all the files. It worked, Somewhat After that, And it had to be the way I copied it over, But it would crash 4 out of every 5 tries of pushing play. And some of them crashes became blue screens of death crashes. And even when I did log all the way in, The game would crash on me after an hour. Hating that, But thinking they will get this fixed soon, And I still can play the game. So I find out the game is down and some type of new fix/bug/fix something is happening. So I was happy, Thinking yep they are fixing the game for us. Nope, At lest not for me., What ever they did yesterday put me right back where I was before. The game is somewhat fun to me, But it's not great, I very much feel like I'm playing a console game. And that's not what I really want to feel like in a MMO. So I can't update again, I know I could do the bug fix or what ever it was on my laptop again and copy over. But I don't like the game enough to be working this hard to get into it. And I really feel like they don't care, And it feels like as if they are thinking we have enough people in the game and playing to worry about the ones that can't get past the patcher. The last I saw there was a post with 99 pages(this was two days ago now) of people begging for help, And for the most part SWTOR people said, "It's your PC, Nothing wrong on our end", And now they can say "Oh look at our pretty new website."

 

So that's it for me, I will be canceling my subscription as soon as I post this. I hope they ask why I'm canceling my subscription, And really read why i left. As I never want to see a real MMO(opposed to browser MMO's) die.

[DarthVindictus]

It was NEVER trying to be the next wow. Again google John Reticelo swtor sub and you'll see from his statements that from even before the game came repeating the success of warcraft was never their aim. At 1 million subs their game is something to write home about. About 500,000 it's still profitable.

 

Not their aim? Then why did they pattern the game after WoW's base gameplay? There are differences yes, but any veteran coming from WoW will find the core gameplay extremely similar.

[DarthVindictus]

That's easy to explain really. It means they like the game enough to hope it gets better, and they can actually enjoy playing it again.

 

Or they're just trolls

 

However, I'm pretty sure most are the former. I've done it myself in other games. My complaints were never hate, they were "I wish this game was better because it has so much untapped potential."

 

This is the truth. Gamers are passionate about their hobby, Most people complaining about things on this game are not doing so because they "hate it", if they truly did, they wouldn't have bought the game, and wouldn't be posting here.

 

Most of the people complaining WANT this game to be good, just in their cases, it doesn't live up to snuff.

[Devlonir]

Not their aim? Then why did they pattern the game after WoW's base gameplay? There are differences yes, but any veteran coming from WoW will find the core gameplay extremely similar.

 

Because they saw WoW as the example to follow, but did not put their business model up in such a way it needed to beat WoW's subscription numbers to be viable of course.

Sheesh, was that so hard?

[MayDay]

So that's it for me, I will be canceling my subscription as soon as I post this. I hope they ask why I'm canceling my subscription, And really read why i left. As I never want to see a real MMO(opposed to browser MMO's) die.

That's okay mate, swtor won't die just because you can't get your PC in order.

But, tbh in your case with a download cap, they should send you some dvd's with 1.2 installer on it.

I too had crash problems after 1.2a, but they just vanished before 1.2b, donno what to make of that....

[MayDay]

Not their aim? Then why did they pattern the game after WoW's base gameplay? There are differences yes, but any veteran coming from WoW will find the core gameplay extremely similar.

WoW copied other games and so on and so forth...

 

The things that ARE different in SWToR worked EXTREMELY well, Companions, Crafting although unbalanced, PvP (Huttball).

Edited April 18, 2012 by MayDay

[shepardcomander]

"The site claims Battlefield 3, which it spent $30 million marketing and only generated $13 million from, and Star Wars: The Old Republic, which received similar treatment and has supposedly already seen subscription numbers decline"

 

Eh, I don't claim that subs haven't dropped, but nobody has numbers. At least some figures were provided for BF3.

 

The 30 days free game time is a delay tactic they are using to delay subscription loss and thusly delay the need to report subscription loss to investors.

[corbanite]

I think swtor is holding steady.

 

I would like to see swtor continuing with world events to unfold and tell a larger story of the universe. I would hope the rhakghoul event was just the start of it and I think it is. Rise of the rhakgouls now a ship crashed on tatooine. What next?

 

Keep up this dynamic storyline and introduce others arcs and keep it going every month or so with a new event and the game will grow.

[Suturi]

Not putting this on here to start another fight, As after I say this. I don't see myself coming back to read it. canceling my subscription, i'm tired of fighting to just to get into a game that was not that fun to me. I'm one of the people after 1.2 came out that could not get the game to update right. Not only that I started having blue screen of death crashes. When I tried to ask for help, I was told to give log's(I did), And delete files(I did), And then they told us all. It's your PC and not our GU1.2 . Found out from other player that if I had an older system that I could down load the game there and copy it over to my gaming rig. I thought this was a bit much, With caps on my download data, And the fact that I had tried to download the game 8 time already. Yes, Every time I logged in and it went to download the GU it wanted to download the game, Or most of it 11gig what it did on me.

 

Any way, So I dusted off my old laptop that would never be able to play this game and download the game again. copied it over to my gaming rig. My big mem stick is only 8gig, So it took some doing to copy all the files. It worked, Somewhat After that, And it had to be the way I copied it over, But it would crash 4 out of every 5 tries of pushing play. And some of them crashes became blue screens of death crashes. And even when I did log all the way in, The game would crash on me after an hour. Hating that, But thinking they will get this fixed soon, And I still can play the game. So I find out the game is down and some type of new fix/bug/fix something is happening. So I was happy, Thinking yep they are fixing the game for us. Nope, At lest not for me., What ever they did yesterday put me right back where I was before. The game is somewhat fun to me, But it's not great, I very much feel like I'm playing a console game. And that's not what I really want to feel like in a MMO. So I can't update again, I know I could do the bug fix or what ever it was on my laptop again and copy over. But I don't like the game enough to be working this hard to get into it. And I really feel like they don't care, And it feels like as if they are thinking we have enough people in the game and playing to worry about the ones that can't get past the patcher. The last I saw there was a post with 99 pages(this was two days ago now) of people begging for help, And for the most part SWTOR people said, "It's your PC, Nothing wrong on our end", And now they can say "Oh look at our pretty new website."

 

So that's it for me, I will be canceling my subscription as soon as I post this. I hope they ask why I'm canceling my subscription, And really read why i left. As I never want to see a real MMO(opposed to browser MMO's) die.

 

Hey, hope to see you back once you upgrade your toaster.

 

Some people running antique or non-gaming rigs vent their frustation over a game they technically cannot run spewing disinformation and bile on the forums. At least you were almost sincere (i say "almost" cause the console game comparison ).

[da_krall]

The 30 days free game time is a delay tactic they are using to delay subscription loss and thusly delay the need to report subscription loss to investors.

 

+1

 

first person i have seen say this and why i think the 30 free days have been given. Jan was the last release to investors so May will be the next one. Strangely lots of people where given a 30 days sub thats going to last until near the end of may so they can have a press release saying "1.89 million active accounts" giving them another 1/4 to get numbers up.

[Newsinz]

/violin

 

People are still playing Diablo 2 ffs... why because it has a following. People still play NwN, why? because it has a following. People will play this game for years to come. Why? Because it has a following.

 

Honestly though if you cant enjoy yourself... you should not be playing... wasting your time on a game that you don't enjoy is dumb. seriously.