What's Killing SWTOR?

[Varteras]

Your sample size couldn't BE more skewed, my friend.

 

Why do you think I said "I think"? I never stated it was a fact. Besides, those who argue against it do so with equally if not worse sample sizes.

[Antissa]

The game launched incomplete,

 

No MMO in history have ever or will ever be launched complete.

[Kemosobe]

duel spec-Should be standard for all games that have both PVP and PVE content.

 

NO! Just no. Stop thinking something is standard simply because you are used to it from your last MMO.

 

3D Space Combat- It isn't star wars without a robust space combat system. Many of the most exciting sequences in the films involved space combat. The community told them that the on rails shooter was a big disappointment, bioware didn't listen.

 

The game is 4 months old. Learn to wait. There is no way they were going to time sink into something that robust for the initial launch of the game.

 

Group finder- It is not the good old days where it was perfectly acceptable to look for groups in chat. Group finder is now a feature people expect to have, and it should have been in the game from the start.

 

Group Finder is also one of those things people expect because they are too obsessed with their previous MMO. If people learned to use the group finder that is already in the game, you wouldn't even be asking for one that forms the group for you.

 

Better socail hubs- Whoever decided to have a fleet station be the social hub instead of Corruscant and Drumand Kaas should go stand in the corner. They should have also had a nutural social area on Nar Shadda complete with the following multiplayer activities (Podraces, gladitorial arenas, sabac and pazzak)

 

Again, things you should expect later down the road, not on launch day.

 

Better character customization- Just barely better than KOTOR customization just doesn't cut it anymore. Should have put more people on that, also there should be have been appearance vendors so people could change the way they look if they want to.

 

The only way to get better than what they have is to have the sliders for EVERYTHING. Simply because you can not change the size of your cheek bones doesn't make it bad. They implemented everything they cared for and obviously did not care to have to implement sliders for every minor detail. (and I do not blame them seeing the time sink it is)

 

Open World PVP- It isn't a feature, it is a central theme, that is the only way you can successfully pull it off. Anything less would be considered a failure. It is either go all the way or not try it at all with systems like that.

 

This is one I will agree with you on. Considering the Republic and Empire are (supposed to be) in a full scale war, it feels weird not having full scale wars happening on planets. Only reason I can think for this is from an RP perspective because at the start of the game, the Treaty of Coruscant is still in effect. Can only hope for sometime down the road.

 

Better guild features- Guilds can help an MMO thrive if they are supported. This game launched with nothing for guilds.

 

Yet again, something you should not be having high expectations for a launch. Wait for them, and they SHOULD come.

 

Too many load screens- Again, there are other games out there with fewer, and some with none. This game has way too many. It interrupts the flow of the game.

 

Ummmmmm......what? Are you honestly crying because you have to load? Every single game ever created from the dawn of video games to this very second have load times. Only difference is how they are handled. If you are trying to compare this game to WoW's load times, even WoW has load times. Main difference is that WoW has the capability to do it in the background because the game knows where you are going and knows what to load for you while you are running. Wow's load times are comparative to the load times you have on an individual planet. The load times you have on this game are equivalent to those you get on WoW when you change continents.

Edited May 5, 2012 by Kemosobe

[Sowwy]

All the systems (GTN, crafting, raiding, grouping, guilding) all have a common dependency.

 

PEOPLE

 

No people means many of these systems just fall apart or plain don't work, which creates a huge problem for the players unlucky enough to be stuck on basically a zombie server.

 

- P

 

 

Exactly, they opened too many servers at launch, which the population paper thin.

 

The Rated WZs debacle hurt as well. I personally know quite a few ppl that quit as result of the BWs timing. Unfortunately, their exodus left a gap in the pvp community, which has since metalized across the server.

[pairadox]

!) Servers: I play on Master Zhar Lestin. Well... I sort of do. The problem is, at peak times and on weekends, we are looking at 34 people in the fleet at any given time. Less than 10 on average in the planets. Basically our server is a ghost town. And quite frankly, logging in at fifty, theres absolutely nothing to do. Bioware keeps mentioning that they are going to do something... and thats great. But that doesnt fix the problem now. Now I have five worthless fifties, sitting around the Impie fleet with nothing to do. Its an mmo. Without the Multi at this point.

 

2) PvP: There is one guild that pvp's regularly on our server. Its pretty much guarenteed you are going to face them at least fifty percent of the time. Thats great, they are all in War Hero gear, while the rest of us are attempt to trudge our way there. Nothing like getting facerolled by gear after waiting for an hour for a que to pop. Wont even bother to touch on the horrid open world pvp or lack thereof. Yes, I realize the game has just come out, but guess what... time is somewhat critical in the birth of a game. How well you do now, will dictate how much customer trust you retain. (See SOE for a great example.)

 

3) Aside from PvP/PvE there is absolutely nothing else to do. No homes to decorate. (before you start laughing, people would log and spend eight hours getting their houses just so. ) Crafting is simplistic, and has barely begun to become worthwhile. Space missions are repetitive and boring. Essentially, the game created a narrow view of Star Wars, and forces you to walk through it. Theres not much to explore. Not much to do. It needs life. It needs space, and space combat. It needs decoratable housing or ships. It needs to feel more like a player populated and lived in game, and less like a sterile corporate environment. Disagree with me? Show me one place in game, one thing in game, that is uniquely you. Where you have left your mark on the universe.

 

Invest in players, and they invest in the game.

 

And they are running against the clock too. Time is of the essence, and how they respond, and what they add will ultimately determine the level of success the game enjoys. Right now, its not a bad game. Its not great. But its not bad. If thats how they want to be viewed, then they are done.

 

If they want to put out a great game. They have quite a bit of work to do.

 

The question is, will they?

[samhainous]

It's pretty much EA and to a lesser degree Bioware's fault for the state of the game now. They went out and bought the licensing from Lucas and said if Blizzard can do it, so can we. And they sure did, only they launched with half the features WoW has at this point. Lots of people will say "WoW wasn't WoW when it came out! Give them a chance!"

But the reality is you can't go backwards. You need to have everything that the competition has and more IF you want to be successful. If you just want to make a couple of bucks, buy a license agreement and pay devs that developed other MMO's (that are considered mmo duds) and churn out something that is very similar to what we have now in SWTOR.

[Kemosobe]

And they sure did, only they launched with half the features WoW has at this point. Lots of people will say "WoW wasn't WoW when it came out! Give them a chance!"

 

And WoW only had half the features its competitors had when it launched. I fail to see how saying "WoW wasn't WoW when it came out! Give them a chance!" is not a viable excuse.

[Goretzu]

And WoW only had half the features its competitors had when it launched. I fail to see how saying "WoW wasn't WoW when it came out! Give them a chance!" is not a viable excuse.

 

There's no excuses in business, just success and failure.

[Kemosobe]

There's no excuses in business, just success and failure.

 

So WoW was a complete failure at launch to? That is what I am getting from this.

[Goretzu]

So WoW was a complete failure at launch to? That is what I am getting from this.

 

No, it was a massive success.

 

But there's no excuse for not succeeding, in business, there's just failure. Business doesn't care for excuses, just $$$'s.

 

Having said that SWTOR isn't a failure (yet), it's actually a very successful MMORPG, just not in WoWs league. Although that wouldn't be out of the question IF they can fix and add enough stuff quickly enough.

 

Take Warhammer Online, there's tons of excuses as to why that now has just 3 servers..... but at the end of the day they are meaningless, certainly to EA and the now defuncted Mythic.

[pairadox]

So WoW was a complete failure at launch to? That is what I am getting from this.

 

Nope. But it wasnt exactly a success either. The staying power of a game is its success.

 

For instance, you could say the launch of AOC was a success. Less than two months later, it was a huge failure.

 

MMO developers and companies need to be fluid within their plans and respond to certain things that arise. The biggest at this point is server populations. People wont stay for a dead server. And the idea of compeletely rerolling and releveling both your toon and your legacy level, not to mention completely regearing your toon....

 

This becomes a turn off. And people just sigh and quit.

 

So yes, its a success to some extent. But its not a great success. Its one of those games that is so far "following in the tradition....."

[Nighthawked]

There's no excuses in business, just success and failure.

 

Since when do competitors need EVERY SINGLE FEATURE that other competitors have? This is SWTOR, NOT WOW. This game does not need to have every single feature that WoW has to be successful. Companies CAN do things differently, unless you REALLY want a 100% WoW clone.

[Mallorik]

And WoW only had half the features its competitors had when it launched. I fail to see how saying "WoW wasn't WoW when it came out! Give them a chance!" is not a viable excuse.

 

No they did not, wow's only real competitors it had at launch were eq1 and daoc two aging games that didnt have any of those features. what mmo had dual specs and an lfg tool when wow came out? none that i can think of. the reason you "fail to see" is probably because you are blind and ignorant and talking total bs.

[AriTrk]

1- Server population

2- Developers causing other bug while fixing something else

3- Client Optimisation

[Mallorik]

Since when do competitors need EVERY SINGLE FEATURE that other competitors have? This is SWTOR, NOT WOW. This game does not need to have every single feature that WoW has to be successful. Companies CAN do things differently, unless you REALLY want a 100% WoW clone.

 

This games population is calling you a liar.

[Goretzu]

Since when do competitors need EVERY SINGLE FEATURE that other competitors have? This is SWTOR, NOT WOW. This game does not need to have every single feature that WoW has to be successful. Companies CAN do things differently, unless you REALLY want a 100% WoW clone.

 

It's not what I want or don't want that matters.

 

It's whether whatever is given is what enough people want.

 

Which goes back to what I said; business doesn't care about excuses, just success or failure.

[Marlaine]

IMO, because it's a raid-oriented eq/wow clone. I think raiding as a concept is the biggest flaw in mmos because on the whole, so few people truly enjoy it. Of those who do raid, there is extensive turnover as burnout occurs, and it's super tough to find a guild that actually has (in wow's case) 25 players ready to play on time and excited about it.

 

The reality is that there are very few raiders who enjoy it. The raiders who enjoy it carry those who are only in raids for gear progression, which causes further strife and drama, thus perpetuating burnout and turnover. I truly believe that most people who raid don't really want to raid. They may think they do, and they may want to raid to get better gear, but they are not raiding because they actually enjoy raid encounters.

 

Applied to SWTOR, it is super easy to level and get to end-game, then you are as usual forced to raid; which causes people to leave the game early. They've done it before in wow, and arguably wow did it better.

 

The above is my opinion, and my bias, although supported by too many years of raiding only because I have to, not because I want to.

Edited May 5, 2012 by Marlaine

[Kemosobe]

No, it was a massive success.

 

But there's no excuse for not succeeding, in business, there's just failure. Business doesn't care for excuses, just $$$'s.

 

Having said that SWTOR isn't a failure (yet), it's actually a very successful MMORPG, just not in WoWs league. Although that wouldn't be out of the question IF they can fix and add enough stuff quickly enough.

 

Take Warhammer Online, there's tons of excuses as to why that now has just 3 servers..... but at the end of the day they are meaningless, certainly to EA and the now defuncted Mythic.

 

The only reason WoW was a massive success is because it broke the golden rule of any game development, cater to your specific crowd. When WoW first came out, it did good because the Warcraft universe already had plenty of followers that people didn't care about all the garbage that was WoW at launch, and the fact that Blizzard was mainly catering to the people that already loved the universe of Warcraft. Then they started to just try and cater to every man, woman, and child on the planet. Not caring one bit about their real community. Lots of people still like the game, but there are also just as many who hate what they did to it. Now that new MMOs are coming out that still follow the golden rule, people hate them because they are not trying to say F' YOU to the people they want playing the game.

 

Warhammer was an amazing game. I would have stayed playing it if I had an invested interest in the Warhammer universe. Since I did not, the game did not capture my attention. The reason why LOADS of people hated it is because it wasn't WoW, and wasn't trying to be. Same thing with every other MMO that was launched after WoW had been around for 3+ years. People are too expecting new MMOs on the market to cater to every man woman and child on the planet that they forget what a video game is really trying to do, cater to its real community. Lots of people still play the game because it is more focused on allowing Star Wars fans to play an MMO than making sure they get 10 million subscribers. On the flip side, lots of people hate it for the exact same reason. As long as an MMO has around 500,000 people playing it, it is a success.

 

And if you think WoW is a huge success, Final Fantasy XI is an even bigger success because it is still going strong 10 years after launch. WoW's population started dropping, and is continuing to drop, only 5 years after launch. I would bring up Everquest, but I do not know if there are still servers being run by the real company or if all of them are player run.

 

Once they start doing server merges and server transfers, this game will be as good as it was at launch.

[Kemosobe]

No they did not, wow's only real competitors it had at launch were eq1 and daoc..

 

Did you forget Final Fantasy XI, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online, and I know there are more. WoW had plenty of competitors when it launched, all with more content than it had.

 

EDIT: Went back and read the rest of your post and just wanted to say that WoW also did not have a LFG Tool and Dual Spec until it was out for 3(?) years. And simply because WoW has them does not at all mean every MMO should. It only means that WoW has them.

Edited May 5, 2012 by Kemosobe

[-Kelerak-]

Servers Merge and Char Transfer

[Mallorik]

Did you forget Final Fantasy XI, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online, and I know there are more. WoW had plenty of competitors when it launched, all with more content than it had.

 

No i didnt not forget them or eq2, ill give you swg as competiton although it was extremely short lived as a threat to any other game, neither ff or eve were ever real competition. but that really doesnt matter at all, NONE OF THEM HAD AN LFG TOOL, DUAL SPECS or any other big innovation in mmo gaming that wow later adopted and is now considered the norm or must have in a successful mmo. so i really dont see what you are arguing about, youre just wrong.

[Mallorik]

Did you forget Final Fantasy XI, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online, and I know there are more. WoW had plenty of competitors when it launched, all with more content than it had.

 

EDIT: Went back and read the rest of your post and just wanted to say that WoW also did not have a LFG Tool and Dual Spec until it was out for 3(?) years. And simply because WoW has them does not at all mean every MMO should. It only means that WoW has them.

 

Added for your edit: So now you just change your position from wow not having what all the other games already out had to, just because wow added them to the game and they were successful that doesnt mean all mmos need them?

 

That is your opinion and that is fine, i just happen think youre 100% wrong and any mmo that is doing well right now will back up my opinion.

[Kemosobe]

No i didnt not forget them or eq2, ill give you swg as competiton although it was extremely short lived as a threat to any other game, neither ff or eve were ever real competition. but that really doesnt matter at all, NONE OF THEM HAD AN LFG TOOL, DUAL SPECS or any other big innovation in mmo gaming that wow later adopted and is now considered the norm or must have in a successful mmo. so i really dont see what you are arguing about, youre just wrong.

 

If you think that EVE and FFXI were not and are not competitors, you need to check your head. Both of those games are still going strong in the industry and have more things that are standard in the industry. Simply because one game did it and then everyone likes it so people simply try and copy-paste it into their games does not make it standard at all. Standard things for an MMO are things like servers, persistent world, levels (in some way, shape, or form), chat, etc. Small things like this. Take FPSs for an example. Simply because many FPSs have a rebounding health meter now does not at all mean that is standard in the genre. It just means many developers use that while some still use a health bar. The only things that are standard in a genre are what make those genres different from each other. What developers choose to add to the game inside that genre is not standard, it is just that game doing it and anyone who wishes to copy it. You can call me wrong all you want, but the fact that this is the truth proves you incorrect in that assumption.

[veyl]

The lack of ambition and actual innovation on Bioware's part is what is contributing to killing SWTOR. They are following the Warcraft Guide book on How to MMO... Only that edition is just out of date and not where the MMO community should be.

 

However, the recent posts asking the community what they would like to see in the game and why they want to see it is a HUGE step in the right direction on Biowares behalf. I know there's plenty of us out there who are hoping that bioware redeems themselves.

[Dantana]

Too many MMO's is killing SWTOR. It's a very good game but not what we waited so long for. I was expecting Super SWG with good pvp. A lot of good things about the game, though and will keep pushing on through.