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

[unseenmaji]

In my view if SWTOR fails and costs them financial loss it would be good for gaming industry overall showing to companys that rush releases with lack of something new will not be tolerated by the gamers any longer. Some peoples standards are much much lower than others but people whom are thinkers for themselves dont stand for such treatments.

[Saerith]

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.

 

What is this? I don't even...

 

If you make bad choices, that makes you "not a good person." I guess. What are you even trying to say? The Mass Effect 3 backlash was just silly. SWTOR was released early, that's plain to see, but so was KotOR 2, and that didn't stop that game from selling. Heck, just about every game gets patched numerous times after release, even console games nowadays. So what you're saying is that you don't want people to play the game six months down the road based on your personal experience playing the game at release, regardless of whether or not it's greatly improved by then?

[unseenmaji]

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.

 

Bioware lied to the player base and has lost alot of respect, it wont be getting much help but you can bet the ones whom left are making it known to others why they left. People are talking about the game but saying it sucks.

[unseenmaji]

What is this? I don't even...

 

If you make bad choices, that makes you "not a good person." I guess. What are you even trying to say? The Mass Effect 3 backlash was just silly. SWTOR was released early, that's plain to see, but so was KotOR 2, and that didn't stop that game from selling. Heck, just about every game gets patched numerous times after release, even console games nowadays. So what you're saying is that you don't want people to play the game six months down the road based on your personal experience playing the game at release, regardless of whether or not it's greatly improved by then?

 

I am saying some people in game enjoy the evil choices take pleasure in it, that counts for them being evil in eyes of God that is what im saying. I am also against this game it is not what it was advertised to be.

[Devlonir]

Bioware lied to the player base and has lost alot of respect, it wont be getting much help but you can bet the ones whom left are making it known to others why they left. People are talking about the game but saying it sucks.

 

Give me one instance of them blatantly lying.

 

I will give you one instance of them being blatantly honest (which i'm sure is the one you will use to say they are lying), the apologies they gave for removing rated Warzones from patch 1.2. That is the most honest apology for a mistake I have ever heard by any MMO developing company.

 

PS. Blizzard still doesn't have the dance studio they promised in the first Wrath videos and never even mentions it when asked about it. And now fans are even calling it a deliberate April fool's joke.. haha, how delusional.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Devlonir

[CelstialFury]

lol right, i love bf3 and dont see that as a failing game. it blows MW3 badness out of the water and servers are always full in that game.

 

 

 

 

SWTOR i love this game but yes numbers do rise and drops. thats mmos people. i quit for 2 months now i am back. i do it alot in mmos.

 

^ this.

 

The thing about MMOs is that you have to pay for subscriptions. So if funds are tight or you aren't able to play enough to be worth in money-wise, you might let your subscription lapse for a few months. Also, new games come out and people end up playing those for a while. EA and Bioware just released ME3 last month and we lost half our guild to it. Just now starting to get people back. And if you paid close attention, there was a major population drop that corresponded directly with ME3 launch. But as people finish that game up, I think we will start to see them return to SWTOR. I think it was a weird decision to release ME3 so soon after SWTOR launch since they fill similar niches and cater to the same fan base, but that's the decision they made.

[Dabrixmgp]

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.

 

If they were so serious at drawing a big crowd then....

 

why no server transfers

why no macros

why no cross server PvP...my hours of play are 5AM-8AM because of work, like I can do anything then

why no cross server LFG...see reason above

why did it take them 6 months just so you could move the UI around

if supposed to be catering to the casuals why do all melee classes require you to be a keyboard athlete

why is there only one faction. It says theres supposed to be a Republic faction somewhere

Edited April 20, 2012 by Dabrixmgp

[unseenmaji]

What is this? I don't even...

 

If you make bad choices, that makes you "not a good person." I guess. What are you even trying to say? The Mass Effect 3 backlash was just silly. SWTOR was released early, that's plain to see, but so was KotOR 2, and that didn't stop that game from selling. Heck, just about every game gets patched numerous times after release, even console games nowadays. So what you're saying is that you don't want people to play the game six months down the road based on your personal experience playing the game at release, regardless of whether or not it's greatly improved by then?

 

Bioware should never have gone to EA.

[unseenmaji]

Give me one instance of them blatantly lying.

 

I will give you one instance of them being blatantly honest (which i'm sure is the one you will use to say they are lying), the apologies they gave for removing rated Warzones from patch 1.2. That is the most honest apology for a mistake I have ever heard by any MMO developing company.

 

PS. Blizzard still doesn't have the dance studio they promised in the first Wrath videos and never even mentions it when asked about it. And now fans are even calling it a deliberate April fool's joke.. haha, how delusional.

 

Game was false advertised to begin with...

[DarthVindictus]

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!

 

Enjoyment of MMO's is largely driven by community. The economy stops functioning if there's too few people participating in it, and PVP and end game flashpoints/operations, and even heroics leveling up, require good populations to find people to do them with.

 

If people feel that the game is getting "emptier" and they're not one of these people that prefers soloing everything but plays MMO's to interact with other people, they might not enjoy the game much anymore when the game is no longer social.

[Saerith]

I am saying some people in game enjoy the evil choices take pleasure in it, that counts for them being evil in eyes of God that is what im saying. I am also against this game it is not what it was advertised to be.

 

Yeah, I'm not sure the SWTOR forums are the best for religious trolling. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure this game was everything it was advertised to be, even if it weren't everything the hardcore playerbase hoped it would be. This game is going strong. They just need to add a few more game features, expand the ones they have, and consolidate the player base onto fewer servers. Then this game can really start building a long term population and not just, as somebody else called them, the "MMO hoppers."

[Indicium]

I like the game, I really do, but it has way too many bugs which take the enjoyment away. One of the most serious IMO is the "can't see the target" because there is a 6 inch sidewalk in the way. Really? The game is severely unbalanced. At the end of every chain there is a fight thay you can't win so you die about 3 times to whittle them down. There are bugs in certain quests that have been there since launch. And if by chance you do go back and fix these bugs, do me a favor and remove Khem Val from my butt hole. VERY annoying.

[DarthVindictus]

Bioware should never have gone to EA.

 

To be fair, they didn't have a choice.

 

EA bought the holding company that owned Bioware. Bioware had no say in the sale.

 

About all Bioware could have done, and this has happened frequently in the past with other developers..

 

when their brand is acquired by a large company they dislike, they quit and found a new studio. In the process of that they give up their brand name and their reputation, which can be important to them.

Edited April 20, 2012 by DarthVindictus

[unseenmaji]

Yeah, I'm not sure the SWTOR forums are the best for religious trolling. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure this game was everything it was advertised to be, even if it weren't everything the hardcore playerbase hoped it would be. This game is going strong. They just need to add a few more game features, expand the ones they have, and consolidate the player base onto fewer servers. Then this game can really start building a long term population and not just, as somebody else called them, the "MMO hoppers."

 

They used well done videos to decieve perception of game as well, it wouldnt have even sold as well it did without those interesting videos it made people feel that what it would be like but honestly it was a joke. It worse than wow remove voice acting and what is left a joke.

[unseenmaji]

To be fair, they didn't have a choice.

 

EA bought the holding company that owned Bioware. Bioware had no say in the sale.

 

I wont ever buy another bioware/ea game I wish that company would get out of the gaming industry. I honestly hate EA for it is not about the customers but about malipulating and taking as much cash from customers as can get.

[Devlonir]

If they were so serious at drawing a big crowd then....

 

why no server transfers

Work In Progress, it is being tested on Asia Pacific now and has been said to be rolled out for all players after that.

 

why no macros

Deliberate choice of wanting interaction in combat and not programming.

 

why no cross server PvP...my hours of play are 5AM-8AM because of work, like I can do anything then

why no cross server LFG...see reason above

Last update was that is was on the list for 1.3. I guess they first wanted to get rated out of the door though, maybe they will deliver that together? Makes sense to have as big a player pool as possible for rating.

 

why did it take them 6 months just so you could move the UI around

Why did it take third party developers just so you can move the UI around? WoW still has no own UI customization and every new patch always breaks something about all the UI mods out there. I am glad they made this an ingame feature and not dependent on mods.

 

if supposed to be catering to the casuals why do all melee classes require you to be a keyboard athlete

Do they? Haven't experienced it really..

 

why is there only one faction. It says theres supposed to be a Republic faction somewhere

Get to a better server, latest numbers given said the imbalance was not 3:1 or 5:1 or whatever players were claiming but it was closer to 60% vs 40%. Also, with the shown correlation between MMO-hoppers and those that wanted to be evil (must be a coincidence, I'm sure!) many servers are actually reporting equal or even higher Republic numbers lately.

So, I call false here.

 

Sorry, I sometimes have this tick to have to point-by-point answer a list thread like yours. nothing personal.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Devlonir

[Devlonir]

Game was false advertised to begin with...

 

example please, where was it advertised as more than an MMO set in a Star Wars universe with voiceovers?

Heck, even space combat just being a rail shooter was honestly announced months before actual game release (E3 2011 I think it was, but not 100% sure)

 

So really, give me an example please!

[Neloth]

To be fair, they didn't have a choice.

 

EA bought the holding company that owned Bioware. Bioware had no say in the sale.

 

About all Bioware could have done, and this has happened frequently in the past with other developers..

 

when their brand is acquired by a large company they dislike, they quit and found a new studio. In the process of that they give up their brand name and their reputation, which can be important to them.

 

To be even more fair, despite some popular impression amongst nerds on the internet, EA isn't run by the devil scheming over what company they can buy and destroy today. As all game companies they want to make good games, the economic balancing act is just a lot more apparent in big companies than small. I honestly believe it gave BW more and larger choices in what they can accomplish (like TOR), but perhaps also with some restrictions on what they can not pursue.

 

If things are so horribad under EA then wouldn't more original BW devs have left? Did any leave at all?

[Oldgrimm]

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.

 

The VO is quite a fancy way to deliver a quest text, nothing more. Its not an innovation or a new mechanic to change the game.

Quite frankly, the VO was a fault, because the resources were wasted for it and were needed in all the other game parts, who are seriously lacking in SWTOR.

Of which importance is the VO in the endgame (which keeps normaly an MMO alive)?

 

And lastly, dont compare the evolution of the shooter genre with the MMO genre. 2 whole different matters.

And shooter do evolve there, where the it matters most for the gamers.

[Devlonir]

The VO is quite a fancy way to deliver a quest text, nothing more. Its not an innovation or a new mechanic to change the game.

Quite frankly, the VO was a fault, because the resources were wasted for it and were needed in all the other game parts, who are seriously lacking in SWTOR.

Of which importance is the VO in the endgame (which keeps normaly an MMO alive)?

 

Actually.. Voice Over makes me feel more 'connected' to my character than any other MMO I ever played.

Heck, I actually call my character a character and not a toon because of it.

 

Of course, it is very subjective. But for me it actually made me more loyal to my characters than I ever was. And isn't an MMO about building a connection with the pixels you play with in such a way that you feel invested? Isn't that the number 1 reason people have trouble leaving an MMO they played for a long time?

[DarthYutz]

That sub numbers have fallen is normal for a new MMO. If anything Ive seen population numbers on the fleet for my server increase during prime time since 1.2

 

The community involvement could be better. A sure way to do that is to release a development tool kit and support 3rd party mods. The modding community is amazing. Any wow player former or current can attest to that. They do things that the DEV's may like to do but dont have the time or budget to accomplish.

 

Merging servers would help. What a great issue to have though. How many gaming companies over do it on the server numbers? To many servers vs not enough to handle the load. Cross server pvp and flashpoint functions will be implemented at some point.

 

Me, Im enjoying the game. A day hasnt gone by where I havent logged in since launch. And Im not expecting that to change anytime soon.

[DieAlteHexe]

Actually.. Voice Over makes me feel more 'connected' to my character than any other MMO I ever played.

Heck, I actually call my character a character and not a toon because of it.

 

Of course, it is very subjective. But for me it actually made me more loyal to my characters than I ever was. And isn't an MMO about building a connection with the pixels you play with in such a way that you feel invested? Isn't that the number 1 reason people have trouble leaving an MMO they played for a long time?

 

I'm going to agree with this too. It adds a dimension that was missing in the click/read/click-again/go-forth questing in other games. It makes the world seem more rich to me.

 

I have to say I am honestly surprised by the number of people who do not like the VO parts. So many people complained in other games about having to read too much stuff.

 

We just can't be pleased, can we. Heh.

[Digtahk]

If EA had a poor financial year it won't be due to SWTOR since most US companies have year end December, so the only money received would have been the initial game sales amounts. If you are talking about the quarterly figures those won't really be impacted since most people would have had January free and subscribed for at least February. I suspect that it doesn't require as many staff to run once a game has passed the release stage so lay-offs are not surprising.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

GW2 and Secret World will take half of the WoWTOR subscribers, pretty sure about that.

 

Tera won't have an impact, too asian style - ArcheAge could be tougher competition.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst

[DarthVindictus]

GW2 and Secret World will take half of the WoWTOR subscribers, pretty sure about that.

 

Tera won't have an impact, too asian style - ArcheAge could be tougher competition.

 

Archewhat?

 

A game is going to need considerable marketing to really be any competition as a modern MMO.

 

If only to get awareness of the game's existence so that people go check it out.