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

[Bloberts]

I'll play this game til it's not fun anymore and stick with that plan until I can't play games in general. Edited April 20, 2012 by Bloberts

[Dabrixmgp]

1. Still no macros

2. Still no cross server PvP...I work from 9pm-4AM. When I get off theres no one to play with. PvP queues are 30-60 mins but usually I just give up and log out. Thats unacceptable.

3. Still no cross server LFG. See above

4. GTN still broke. Why cant I search materials by grade?

5. Leveling takes forever. Problem is quests are spread way too far out and travel times suck. 1-25 for your speeder is just torture.

6. Ability Bloat. Having to use 25-40 keybinds is beyond ridiculous. No other MMO requires you to do that. This is my 7th one (UO, EQ, DAoC, WoW, Aion, Rift, SWTOR)

7. I want to play Republic but it seems if you want to do anything in game you are forced to either reroll to the one and only server with any form of a Republic population, Fatman, and then wait in 30 min queues or reroll Empire.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Dabrixmgp

[Innocences]

I agree 100%. Many of my friends won't leave wow because of how much time they have invested and they have a a deep rooted community. I think BW has done a great job pulling some of those players, but they have a lot to over come. When you spent thousands of hours in a game, you won't want to give it up. I know after all the time, I've spent in swtor, I don't want to leave or start another character. It's a investment, I'm not willing to leave, but I do want the ability to pay for faction and server switches.

 

What people are looking for in an MMO doesnt exist after you have played one before. Think back to when you first stepped into your first MMO, the feeling that youre apart of something massive and you get sucked into the universe right away.

 

That feeling just doesnt exist anymore if youve played MMO for a while. There isnt enough fresh blood to come in after WoW people got theyr dose of MMO. Alot of people try out new MMO's that are coming out to look for the "first MMO experience again" but it just isnt there.

 

The reason WoW is still 10million+ is just because it has a community, people that have played with eachother for a long time becoming good friends and wont quit because of theyr friends/guildies. SWTOR doesnt have that yet, thus its easy to leave.

 

I think that unless MMOs are put on hold for a good 4-5 years, we will never see another giant like WoW again. The market is filled up.

[MahBo]

I agree 100%. Many of my friends won't leave wow because of how much time they have invested and they have a a deep rooted community. I think BW has done a great job pulling some of those players, but they have a lot to over come. When you spent thousands of hours in a game, you won't want to give it up. I know after all the time, I've spent in swtor, I don't want to leave or start another character. It's a investment, I'm not willing to leave, but I do want the ability to pay for faction and server switches.

 

hahahahahhahahahahahahahh LMAO ROFL LOL!!!! :p:p:p:p:p:p

I lul'd.

[GalacticKegger]

i'm not hopping on the "this game is dying" train , the game is new and theres room for improvement...that said , i still want the dude that designed the endgame armor for sages to be fired , the goal is to look cooler when you progress through content ,and not look like you just jumped out of a forest living on berries and nuts for 13 years.

lmao!

[DieAlteHexe]

I think Bioware is very generous in allowing threads such as these. I know if it was my company this thread would just get deleted. Who cares who is fired or hired? If you like the game play it and if you dont just stop and move on.

 

The financial workings of EA doesnt matter to any of us unless you happen to be a shareholder then I think you would be taking your gripes to the shareholder meeting instead of the forums. If the game dies we all move on and if not there will be people who stay and enjoy it. It says a lot about people when even the hint of a game/company dying(even if its true or not) brings them enjoyment.

 

I miss when Forums was used for sharing game information, tips, tricks and most importantly the majority of posters were helpfull people. Now they are all just filled with hate, bashing, trolling.

 

Absolutely agree. On all points.

[bobamech]

I think Bioware is very generous in allowing threads such as these. I know if it was my company this thread would just get deleted. Who cares who is fired or hired? If you like the game play it and if you dont just stop and move on.

 

The financial workings of EA doesnt matter to any of us unless you happen to be a shareholder then I think you would be taking your gripes to the shareholder meeting instead of the forums. If the game dies we all move on and if not there will be people who stay and enjoy it. It says a lot about people when even the hint of a game/company dying(even if its true or not) brings them enjoyment.

 

I miss when Forums was used for sharing game information, tips, tricks and most importantly the majority of posters were helpfull people. Now they are all just filled with hate, bashing, trolling.

 

That hasn't happened for me since Everquest beta March 1998. Most MMORPG forums have their share of rants, but they also have their share of quality constructive criticism. Bioware should be appreciating threads like these because it points out reasons for concern. If there were no negative posts, then the game will never improve. It's a good thing this isn't your company. lol

[JeramieCrowe]

That hasn't happened for me since Everquest beta March 1998. Most MMORPG forums have their share of rants, but they also have their share of quality constructive criticism. Bioware should be appreciating threads like these because it points out reasons for concern. If there were no negative posts, then the game will never improve. It's a good thing this isn't your company. lol

 

There's a big difference between constructive criticism and flat-out QQ negativity. Generally, constructive criticism can actually be viewed as a positive post.

 

The negative posts are neither constructive, nor conducive to a constructive conversation. Negative posts do not improve the game. Positive posts that include constructive criticisms do.

Edited April 20, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[CaptRavenous]

I really want to like this game , I really do. My question is , if your going to take the ideas from other MMO's , why didn't BW take any of the good ones? The LFG system is archaic , the guild level system was great in Warhammer , the perk system ect.. I'm not saying that taking from another game is bad , its part of a collective creative process like most artforms and/or mediums , I feel like I'm playing KoToR 3 with multiplayer emements , not a true MMO. If you want to compete , take the GOOD ideas from past games and fire the guy that designed the armor sets n this game , hes terrible....

 

If Bioware had taken the time to incorporate the advances currently in other MMOs, we would still be waiting for release, and their current deadline would probably be 2015 or later. No one wants to wait 10 years for an MMO to develop, and by the time you released it, it would be an obsolete game engine with poor sales as a result, regardless of game features. The fans wouldn't wait, and the Shareholders certainly won't, they expect a profit from their inventments within a certain amount of time.

 

So, Bioware had no choice but to release what they already had done, because EA ultimately decides when release date is. They may listen to what Bioware has to say about it, but EA made the final decision about release date.

 

Many of the features you would have expected to see in this game have yet to be implemented, because they were working on them still when the game was released, and still are. It takes months to write the code and programming for many game features, such as a LFG tool.

 

Some are patient to wait, some are not, the rest hold their breath till they turn blue and blame Bioware for the lack of oxygen to their brains.

 

C'est la vie.

[jtobscure]

If Bioware had taken the time to incorporate the advances currently in other MMOs, we would still be waiting for release, and their current deadline would probably be 2015 or later. No one wants to wait 10 years for an MMO to develop, and by the time you released it, it would be an obsolete game engine with poor sales as a result, regardless of game features. The fans wouldn't wait, and the Shareholders certainly won't, they expect a profit from their inventments within a certain amount of time.

 

So, Bioware had no choice but to release what they already had done, because EA ultimately decides when release date is. They may listen to what Bioware has to say about it, but EA made the final decision about release date.

 

Many of the features you would have expected to see in this game have yet to be implemented, because they were working on them still when the game was released, and still are. It takes months to write the code and programming for many game features, such as a LFG tool.

 

Some are patient to wait, some are not, the rest hold their breath till they turn blue and blame Bioware for the lack of oxygen to their brains.

 

C'est la vie.

 

Buy an unfinished game for the good of a company's shareholders and then call it a virtuous act of patience. Maybe that makes somebody feel better about being sold a bill of goods. Too bad a huge portion of the subscribers aren't so virutous and are voting with their feet right out the door. Wonder what the shareholders will think of that?

[glazia]

Simply this.

 

I can laugh myself to sleep with all these forum trolls stating the game is dying.

 

Simply put this game is nowhere near dying, it has a very healthy population, they just need to consolidate it, Every Friday night in the EU you will have standard replace the light status on 50% of those 'light' servers, meaning a minimum of 350 people are playing on that server.

 

Dying, lol go try Warhammer Online and get back to me.

 

hahaha you need to look some more on each server this game is almost dead sorry had to laugh at what you said

[Geeluc]

Just a note about the hating. I know a lot of it is trolling and hating for hating sake.

 

Personally, I won't say I hate the game, I'm just so terribly disappointed in it.

 

Now, I know BW wasn't thinking 'OK, how can we make this game good for Gee', but, I've been on these forums for a long time, I've been reading up about the game for ages, watching video clips, looking back at BW track record and man alive, I was excited about this game. I remember how excited I was to be asked to Beta test. How I yelled in an internet cafe while on holiday in Australia coz I couldn't pre-order from that location. I couldn't wait till Dec 2011 to finally play the game!

 

I decided to treat myself to the CE. I got home, sat my Darth Malgus on a shelf, listened to the new music while the game installed. Then, playing it, I didn't see my wife for a while, coz all I wanted to do was play! And play I did! The story was gripping, the graphics were amazing (I bought a new card just for it), getting a ship, space combat...all of it just seemed what I was waiting for.

 

Then, as time went on, I just started to realise that the game was just not that good! So many bugs, which I understand, it's a huge undertaking, some are bound to creep through, but then also other annoying things, C2 talking, the constant server (and forum) maintenance, the GTN wasn't a great system...all this little things.

 

Then I got excited about The Legacy System, it looked great. Then in hit and again, disappointment.

 

I have said this a few times before, but BW should have just made KOTOR 3 and not tried to make an MMO. Obviously, there's more money in an MMO, since there's a monthly sub, but it's a two edged sword. If the game is great and it works and you can please everyone...you win! If the game is bugged and doesn't work and you can't please everyone...you loose! And lets face it, you can't please everyone. Period!

 

After the years of hype, the years of waiting and anticipation...the game just didn't deliver for me. And I think a lot of the more intelligent haters are the same. They aren't wearing rose tinted glasses and just thinking 'This game is great, no matter what!', they are looking at it for what it is, a let down.

[Devlonir]

You would really rather get a weekly blog post, than daily interaction with developers? Really?

 

If so, can I ask why?

 

Yes, because nothing ever truly came out of one of GC's 'daily' blue responses. Only when they made an actual announcement was anything truly done about it.

These blogs Bioware keeps up give more information and answer questions more in depth than the blues ever did. And don't think blues do not ignore blatant problems for months or years without any response about them (Mage Blink bug anyone?)

 

Blue responses only gave a feeling of commitment and connection with the userbase, they were functionally useless as it came to solving issues quicker or defining them better.

[Oldgrimm]

Yes, the sub-numbers are dwindling.

But it is nothing new, if the numbers of ghost servers are growing.

 

The problem in SWTOR is not the problem of the MMO genre.

The current problems are custom made by the developing and publishing companies.

I know, that new ideas / mechanics or whole gaming systems cost money , are risky (because nobody knows how the customer will react) and take time to develop.

Now we can clearly see, that BW/EA went the "save" way too, and developed a game with little to 0 innovation.

They decided to keep to the standard and give the customerbase a game with already known mechanics.

(known mechanics =! WoW clone)

 

Problem is, that a gamer expects a genre to make an evolution.

AOC tried that once with an innvative combat system (but failed to deliver everything else)

Aion tried it with 3D fightting in the air (the same failure like AOC)

a.s.o.

 

So the lesson the big companies learned, is not, that they have to be innovative and deliver a finished product.

No, they learned, that new ideas are risky and it is the safer way to keep to the ol'good standards.

 

Problem is, that after one decade of little to 0 evolution in the MMO genre, the gamerbase is tired of the same ol'mechanics.

And I'm glad, that SWTOR will fail on the long run too, because the big companies have to learn it the hard way, that they have to take risks and develop new / fresh and innovative gaming mechanics to stay alive.

 

If you are one of the ol'generation of MMO players, who are happy with no evolution in the MMO genre, thats OK. But I'm relieved, that a good portion of the gamerbase is showing with their wallets, that the MMOs have to evolve, to be successful in the future.

[whofan]

Apologies if I'm being thick, but, why do the overall subscriber numbers affect whether or not one feels they should be resubscribing? I enjoy the game and so long as I continue to enjoy the game I will resubscribe. If I feel that the server I am on is too quiet, I'll roll on a different server - though this is unlikely as I'm in a guild of people that I've been gaming with for several years.

 

Enough of the doomsaying! Enjoy the game? Then play it!

[JediElf]

It's not dead, nor is it dying.

 

It's simply finding it's place in the MMO world.

 

SW:TOR is finding it's audience, and it's own brand of players. One the word gets around, and perhaps with a bit more targeted advertising this game will be in it's full stride.

 

This is a game about story, and choices within the story. it's not a game that begins at max level, it begins at level one. That's what makes it so unique, and it will draw unique players to it.

 

SWTOR will do just fine.

[Devlonir]

EA gets worst company of the year award. LMAO!

 

Called the SWTOR thing for a while. Only so many times you can say "Leave we don't care!!!" before you actually have to care....

 

Should have listened to the community BioFail.

 

Do you honestly think SWTOR is the reason they got this award?

 

One word: Origin. And I do not mean the subtitle of the first Dragon Age games.

 

And they also got a lot more hate from getting the internet blame for ME3's endings, than anything done on SWTOR.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Devlonir

[jtobscure]

It's not dead, nor is it dying.

 

It's simply finding it's place in the MMO world.

 

SW:TOR is finding it's audience, and it's own brand of players. One the word gets around, and perhaps with a bit more targeted advertising this game will be in it's full stride.

 

This is a game about story, and choices within the story. it's not a game that begins at max level, it begins at level one. That's what makes it so unique, and it will draw unique players to it.

 

SWTOR will do just fine.

 

They didn't spend $200 million and build a casual-gaming product under one of the biggest brand names in pop culture history to "draw unique players" and let it "find its place." They can't afford to. They clearly intended to take a serious shot at WoW and boasted of 1 million subs, and now they are offering a full month of free time to lure back the many who have fled. It is great you love the game, but merely strongly stating your dreams for its longevity is not evidence; whereas the company's own behavior indicates this one is already getting into significant financial trouble.

[jtobscure]

Apologies if I'm being thick, but, why do the overall subscriber numbers affect whether or not one feels they should be resubscribing? I enjoy the game and so long as I continue to enjoy the game I will resubscribe. If I feel that the server I am on is too quiet, I'll roll on a different server - though this is unlikely as I'm in a guild of people that I've been gaming with for several years.

 

Enough of the doomsaying! Enjoy the game? Then play it!

 

Because all of the servers will be low-population eventually, and this is--supposedly--an MMO. Also, as the company reportedly spent $200 million making this game, you better hope the subscriber numbers stay up, or you will not have a game to enjoy for very long. You need to go beyond your circular logic of "enjoy it if you enjoy it" and see how the industry and this particular subgenre work.

[DiabloDoom]

Most games generally do better through beta in terms of activity amongst the playerbase. How many active subs does this game currently have? Over a million? Will most likely see that number grow to 2-3 million as Q4 approaches. Once major bugs are fixed and game is respectable will will most likely see an enormous push from SWTOR marketing.

[Saerith]

Holy crap, I was looking forward to this game since the Deceived trailer came out several years ago, and I was hooked right from the start. In fact, I can honestly say I've never looked forward to a game more than SWTOR, not even Starcraft II.

 

And you know what? I've logged in over 1,000 hours already. The game's biggest problem right now is that Bioware created too many servers back in December for the game's launch. The first month was great (at least on my server), and we'd get roughly 300 players on the fleet every single night. Then the numbers started dropping. At first, I'm sure it was just the end of the holidays and people returning to work. Now my server's sitting at about 100 at prime time, and it's starting to feel a little sparsely populated. Bioware needs to slash the servers down to about 1/3 of what they currently have, and they need cross server LFG/PVP queues. One of the most common complaints I hear about the game is that people just find it too difficult to put groups together. I don't have this problem since I'm friends with many of my server's PVPers, and I'm in a solid raiding guild. Still, I know others aren't so fortunate, and I remember how frustrating it can be to find people for heroic missions and flashpoints, especially on level.

 

However, I think the game's finally leveling off population wise. Those who don't like what they see in this game have mostly left. The rest of us (probably about half the original player base) are looking forward to all the great content coming in the coming months. We just need more players on each server, and we're pretty much set. That's not to say that we each don't have a wish list of new content and features we'd like to see in the game, but most of the remaining players (and it's a substantial percentage of the first wave of subscribers) are happy enough with the game that they're going to stick around for the foreseeable future.

 

The same thing happened in LotRO. 2-5 months after the game launched, many players left, and the servers felt kind of empty, and there were only, I believe, 9 of them at the time. Even with so few players, and sparsely populated servers at that, LotRO never felt like it was "dying." SWTOR just feels a bit worse than it did because it got off to SUCH a strong start, it pretty much had nowhere to go but down for a while.

 

My prediction? This game is going to have a ton of stuff to do by the time 1.4 and 1.5 roll around, and the player base will hit its lowest point between 1.2 and 1.3 before beginning to pick up new players again. Trust me, EA already spent $300 million on this beast, and they're going to make sure it's successful.

 

If you look at the quality of 1.1 compared to 1.2, it's night and day, and 1.1 was a huge improvement over the initial release. KP was relatively bug free compared to the nightmare of EV, and we have yet to run across a bug in Explosive Conflict. The audio issues sucked, but they got fixed within a week of 1.2's release. Bioware's already getting much better at patching. Yes, it sucked that ranked warzones weren't included, but 1.2 is still a very solid patch overall. About the people who quit because ranked warzones aren't in 1.2 right now, my sentiment is that if they were hinging their subscription on warzones, this game probably just isn't for them in the first place.

 

You know what somebody in my guild said about Explosive Conflict? He's not even that into raiding, but he said he had a lot of fun, and he's looking forward to giving Warlord Kephess another attempt this weekend (got him down to 11%, but people had to hit the sack for early work days tomorrow). If 1.3 is as much improved over 1.2 as 1.2 was over 1.1, SWTOR will be a very successful MMO in the years to come.

 

Problem is, that after one decade of little to 0 evolution in the MMO genre, the gamerbase is tired of the same ol'mechanics.

And I'm glad, that SWTOR will fail on the long run too, because the big companies have to learn it the hard way, that they have to take risks and develop new / fresh and innovative gaming mechanics to stay alive.

 

Because the game is almost fully voice acted except for the random text-based mission console, that's not innovative? And clearly games DON'T have to innovate. Modern Warfare 3 is a reskinned Modern Warfare 2, which was also a reskinned Modern Warfare, and people continue buying those games even though they're the exact same experience. So no, if a game mechanic isn't broken, why fix it? I'm glad other games like Monopoly, poker, or even chess have changed so much over the past decades or centuries. But you're right. I mean, you have an opinion on the Internet, so it's automatically valid.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Saerith

[unseenmaji]

It's not dead, nor is it dying.

 

It's simply finding it's place in the MMO world.

 

SW:TOR is finding it's audience, and it's own brand of players. One the word gets around, and perhaps with a bit more targeted advertising this game will be in it's full stride.

 

This is a game about story, and choices within the story. it's not a game that begins at max level, it begins at level one. That's what makes it so unique, and it will draw unique players to it.

 

SWTOR will do just fine.

 

You do realise it one games with worst press atm, people are recommending to other gamers to avoid it that it bad and full of problems and was released early, others are saying to boycotte ea and bioware games all together as a statement against money grabbing releases. What reality are you living in that you cant see that the game is failing and that the word of mouth will actually be it down fall. Are people in denial so much the obvious is missed. The choices suck and have no impact on the way the game goes really it could been so much more appealing with more impact and fact is anyone whom wants to choose evil choices is not a good person and deserves the wrath of god.

[unseenmaji]

Because all of the servers will be low-population eventually, and this is--supposedly--an MMO. Also, as the company reportedly spent $200 million making this game, you better hope the subscriber numbers stay up, or you will not have a game to enjoy for very long. You need to go beyond your circular logic of "enjoy it if you enjoy it" and see how the industry and this particular subgenre work.

 

300 million all up.

[Bafucin]

Bioware need help from it players also. WoW had a lot of help from it players, posting videos on Youtube and pictures at sites like mmorpg.com.

 

If more people start to talk about this game, the more will come.

[Devlonir]

They didn't spend $200 million and build a casual-gaming product under one of the biggest brand names in pop culture history to "draw unique players" and let it "find its place." They can't afford to. They clearly intended to take a serious shot at WoW and boasted of 1 million subs, and now they are offering a full month of free time to lure back the many who have fled. It is great you love the game, but merely strongly stating your dreams for its longevity is not evidence; whereas the company's own behavior indicates this one is already getting into significant financial trouble.

 

Actually.. they can 'afford' to let the game find it's place.

 

Seeing that pre-launch 500.000 concurrent subscribers by the end of 2012 would be enough to break even and anything more would be considered a success (Bioware/EA executive's own words), the fact of the matter is that if they had 1.7 million subscribers, or almost 3,5 times what they need at the end of the year, they have the financial possibilities (also known as being able to afford something) to let the game slowly find it's real place in MMO space.

 

And the more I listen, the more I read, the more I observe. I notice one trend: This game caters to the casuals and newcomers. It is always the non-casuals and MMO hoppers that complain the most about the game, but basicly: The game is not made for them. They made it for casuals and newcomers. But you know what, that is actually probably the biggest group of people that get drawn into the Star Wars IP.

 

You see, Star Wars is one of the oldest sci-fi IPs out there. Heck, besides some of Disney's stuff it is probably the oldest IP that still has new stuff being made for it. This means there are many old fans, people in their 50s, 60s even who love Star Wars. These people never touched any other MMO, so they are the newcomers that get drawn in by the IP.

Then there are the casuals, most of which are actually former hardcore players (a lot more than current hardcores want to admit, because they were the noobs when these were owning the games they were in). These people are just done with the whole gear treadmill and just want a place to chill out, have some fun, have no reason to rush anything because it is not really hard to get anyway, and just use the 10-15 hours a week of playtime they have between job, kids and other obligations to enjoy themselves without feeling that those with 'no life' in their eyes get an unfair advantage they can never catch up with.

 

You see, if you do not fit in one of these two groups, the game is simply not that much made for you. I am not saying you have no place here, the game clearly has some semi-hardcore things to do. And for a few weeks when new content/new PVP seasons come out you will have a reason to play it. But it is not the fulltime game you were hoping it to be. Which is not bad in itself, as long as you accept that fact.

 

So well, I just want to end this post with a final word of wisdom we all need to remember when labelling people in an online game:

Every online player considers those who are behind them noobs, and those that are ahead of them 'no-lifers'.