What's Killing SWTOR?

[Darkulous]

Ok... show me an MMO that has launched with "fully developed features".

 

Honestly, I don't know what people want. The game has battlegrounds, raids, other PvE endgame options... and then there's the whole Legacy thing which is designed to encourage the leveling of many characters... I mean SWTOR even launched with endgame reward gear, which is frankly unheard of.

 

Maybe that's why so many MMOs have failed. They released the game without fully developed features. We're 6 months in a BW still doesn't have the ability to merge servers, conduct transfers or release a LFD. They should have had at least one of these features ready to go Day One. By not having any of them proves BW has no plan.

[Vlacke]

Ok... show me an MMO that has launched with "fully developed features".

 

Honestly, I don't know what people want. The game has battlegrounds, raids, other PvE endgame options... and then there's the whole Legacy thing which is designed to encourage the leveling of many characters... I mean SWTOR even launched with endgame reward gear, which is frankly unheard of.

 

The problem is there is a lot of spoiled whiners on these boards.

[Blistrich]

Maybe that's why so many MMOs have failed. They released the game without fully developed features. We're 6 months in a BW still doesn't have the ability to merge servers, conduct transfers or release a LFD. They should have had at least one of these features ready to go Day One. By not having any of them proves BW has no plan.

Oh I totally agree that BW has dropped the ball on these issues. Big time. I simply don't think this amounts to an irreversible failure on their part. If transfers pop up, ranked warzones are introduced, and BW starts being more careful/more thorough with their testing of patches, I think a lot of the rage will die down.

 

As for the population issue, it's hard to fault BW since the game launched with all red servers and players were demanding more. The players wanted more servers, but BW launched too many. It was a collective screw up imo, but I'm sure there are those who disagree and put the blame squared on BW.

[rakuenCallisto]

How am I DEFENDING BioWare?!

 

 

 

 

Why do I care what other MMOs have done on launch? I'm talking about the game here and now, and for whatever reason it's bleeding people because people are not finding themselves wanting to keep playing, and this occurs especially so when they reach the endgame because of the general emptiness of the galaxy. Whether or not other MMOs have or haven't doesn't bother me in the slightest, we're talking about the state of swtor and what's actually going to be there in the foreseeable future.

 

Oh my bad man. I apologize, I meant to quote Skidrow.

 

Everything you have said I agree with

[Rudrash]

devs listening too much baby cry & solo players

 

all game concept with cut scenes voice acting & focused on story (it is great for SP but crapy for MMO)

[Katarine]

Peak hours on the fleet max 60. players...

 

Why do people keep measuring the success of SWTOR & Server population on how many people are 'in Fleet'?

 

The ONLY time I ever need to visit the Fleet is when I leave the Starter Worlds, before heading to Dromund Kaas or Coruscant. Other than that the quests are on the Planets.

 

Most people actually PLAY the game, instead of Idling 'on the Fleet'

[Helistin]

Why do people keep measuring the success of SWTOR & Server population on how many people are 'in Fleet'?

 

The ONLY time I ever need to visit the Fleet is when I leave the Starter Worlds, before heading to Dromund Kaas or Coruscant. Other than that the quests are on the Planets.

 

Most people actually PLAY the game, instead of Idling 'on the Fleet'

 

Because thats the hub where most players reside between the things they do,wait for warzones and so on so you can get a rough estimate on the server population.

For example this being peak time 8 pm cet my fleet has now a whopping 3 people at fleet. Well i guess they are all doing stuff,leveling alts and so on. Nope, total population on the server isn't stellar either, 21 people on the whole server. That's mmo for you.

[rakuenCallisto]

Why do people keep measuring the success of SWTOR & Server population on how many people are 'in Fleet'?

 

The ONLY time I ever need to visit the Fleet is when I leave the Starter Worlds, before heading to Dromund Kaas or Coruscant. Other than that the quests are on the Planets.

 

Most people actually PLAY the game, instead of Idling 'on the Fleet'

 

Actually smart guy, most people go to the fleet several times a day.

 

It's fairly obvious you just do the storyline PvE thing exclusively, because literally everything else is related to the fleet.

[Blistrich]

On weekends, we get around 200 to 250 "in Fleet" on Harbinger. Fleet is used as a standard measurement for the overall current server population because it fluctuates relative to the total online pop in most cases. However, it is true that the vast majority of players are in something (warzone, instance, etc) or on other worlds.

[Jalez]

Then why does DaoC have an estimated 25 000 subscribers, if it's the paradise of PvPers? Why not 250 000? Why isn't Bioware-Mythic doing DaoC 2? Why is WAR almost dead with it's world RvR?

 

Because PvPers speak one thing and do another.

 

Because the game was released in 2002 Einstein.....its going on 11 years old, they stopped advertising it in 2005.....why I have no idea. But for an 11 year old MMO to have 25k subscribers..practically all hardcore PvPers...speaks to the games quality in PvP even eleven years later.

 

Warhammer was nothing like DAoC...the only thing they shared in.common was the term rvr. Daoc players played Warhammer for 2 weeks then went back to DAoC. Also there has been talk of a "DAoC 2"...DAoC :Orgins....however some.company other than Myyhic would have to make it.

 

The spiritual successors too DAoC are Elder Scrolls Online which is being designed by the co-designer of DAoC. And ofc Guild Wars 2 has copied alot of DAoC as well with there WvWvW large and small scale roaming RvR.

[Patched]

Why do people keep measuring the success of SWTOR & Server population on how many people are 'in Fleet'?

 

The ONLY time I ever need to visit the Fleet is when I leave the Starter Worlds, before heading to Dromund Kaas or Coruscant. Other than that the quests are on the Planets.

 

Most people actually PLAY the game, instead of Idling 'on the Fleet'

 

The fleet is the best place to judge. At level 50 most groups start at the fleet.

 

But if that bothers you. I can't remember the last time I was on a planet with more than 10 players. This week Black Hole has had between 2-4 players when I've been there (2 being my friend and myself). I started an alt last weekend and hutta had 2 players. Went on another alt and Drommand Kaas had 6 players.

[devCharles]

Honestly, I'm starting to think that whatever Bioware would do to improve the game would not speak to inherent design issues that caused a number of early buyers to drop and other gamers to not pick it up in the first place. Largely, I think what they're talking about serves almost purely to keep the players already here happy (a good goal, but you want some level of growth in a game only a few months old.) I don't think there are a lot of people watching SWTOR from the outside going "Man, I just need a cross server PVP and in server group finder, and you can sign me up or a 6 month sub." It does seem like there are a lot of people who are on the "You better deliver those or I am gone" side though, and keeping those people is pretty important. I'm starting to think that inherent game design problems are at work here. What inherent game design decisions? It's not even so much sandbox/themepark, but just deep design that decisions that didn't seem fully thought through.

[WBTronix]

I believe the game was doomed from the beginning. All because they started with a poor decision by trying to build a game simliar to wrong type of game. While I agree that borrowing successful ideas can be a good thing, it has to make sense with the license. In this case the Star Wars universe seemed to be an after thought from the direction of gameplay.

 

So instead of asking, "We have an extremely developed universe at our finger tips, and the flexability to expand it into an MMO. How do we make a game around it?"

 

It's more like, "We have our game plan and the direction in which we'd like to make a game. How do we add Star Wars to it?"

 

And ultimately we get a game that feels disconnected to anything Star Wars. Neither Jedi nor Sith have the same impact of power we grew up with. There really is no reason to be afraid of force users because of the way the game was made. "You've got the force? Big deal, I've got a gun!" and there goes lore out the window. And that's just a small example off the top of my head. The game is covered with all sorts of different aspects that don't go well with the license. In the end Star Wars was nothing more than a mask to hide a different game.

 

Even the stories are disappointing. They don't really grasp Star Wars and run with it. They were created to fit into a WOW game. A cookie crumble experience that has the choices you make boil down to a letter in the mail. And for me at least, it didn't work. It's not even close to the same as KotOR.

 

In any case the foundations are set and I don't believe there's anything that can be done to make it feel more like a Star Wars game. They might make strides towards bettering the game in general but because of the approach to making this game I think it's only going to get further disconnected from it's license. "Oh hey did I just saw zombies!? Oh no wait that's just the Rakgoul disease. What amazing fun!"

Edited May 9, 2012 by WBTronix

[Varteras]

If you want to get the whole picture as far as who is playing the game at what times instead of using just one area or the other then do what I do. I /who and run a search for all core classes and advanced classes for my faction. If you really want to know how it looks overall then create a character for the other faction on that same server and do the same thing.

[invulnerableking]

After reading this this massive thread, I've decided I would throw in my two cents. All opinions herein are my own, and while they could possibly be shared by the community abroad, I speak strictly from my own point of view. It is my hope while writing this and offering these opinions, that they will not be disregarded as slanderous jargon or whining and these expressions will reach the proper authority to be taken into account.

 

(Caution: Wall of text inevitable.)

 

First, a little about me to exclude (or apply) myself to any particular demographic that Bioware places its customers into. I am a full time student, one year removed from six years of active duty service in the military. During my time in the mlitary, I had three deployments to Afghanistan. I am now a full time employee, student, father of three, and husband. This may seem irrelevant to forum-goers, but I'm nearly positive that I apply to a particular demographic Bioware uses to target consumers. (Sorry if it bored forum-goers)

 

I have been playing MMO's since Ultima Online, which I firmly use as the measuring stick for any product I decide to invest my time in. I think, due to the popularity of World of Warcraft, that many of the concepts founded by Ultima Online during its prime have been forgotten or manipulated by the current product line of MMO's that we get. Other games that I have played since then include: Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars, and a plethora of privately run Ultima Online clients. I have also participated in many table-top gaming experiences like D&D, Modern D20, and the custom made Naruto D20. All that being said, the only other relevant piece of information about me is: I'm a manga artist/graphic novelist. (I'll come back to this later)

 

So, what IS killing SWTOR?

 

1.) I think it's been said many, MANY times. Server population. This is a classic case of biting off more than one can chew in SWTOR's case. First of all, for the amount of bugs, glitches, and just poor programming... The amount of social interaction you attempted to fulfill with this many servers set everything else up for failure. This is number one, because quite frankly, unless you fix this everything else is null and void. The primary reason people choose MMO's is to commune with one another. If we wanted to play a solo game, well, there are plenty pf products in any local game store that can fulfill that purpose. This is supposed to be a MASSIVE Multiplayer Online game. Do not make the mistake of underestimating the word massive in that acronym. Gamers like myself play MMO's to be involved with other people in an activity we enjoy. It's single most fundamental aspect of making these sort of games work.

 

2.) Level 50, end game PVE content. this can branch into many aspects, but for the purposes of this post I'll concentrate on flashpoints and operations. These have to get fixed. These bugs that have been looming around with the flashpoints and operations involved have to fixed. This is a no brainer, but as a game designer it comes down to one thing: Putting out a product that you can be proud of. Your consumers are investing time and money into your product, and that should make you feel good as a gamer designer. When your consumer tells you something is wrong with the product you have promised to put out, you do not simply give them dry acknowledgment. You address the situation that has been brought before you, and provide an ETA of when this portion of your product will be repaired to function as intended. The other part of this one, is the rewards for these flashpoints and operations. It also goes without saying, the more difficult something is, the better the rewards should be for completing it. Admittedly, their have been some steps in a positive direction in this regard, that being said I personally feel that this game should be leaps and bounds ahead of what we are currently experiencing as consumers.

 

3.) Player versus Player. The game, upon release, and with the Bioware brand placed on it was introduced as a more PVE oriented experience. All things being fair here, us as consumers generally accept this as truth. The catch here, is that regardless of what your game is mainly focused towards, player versus player concepts extends the horizons of your product ten fold. This is a demographic that does not require a whole lot of attention once you get it right, as PVPers in general are content with hacking and slashing one another until their little hearts are content. The problem in SWTOR right now can be broken down into two categories. First, PVP rewards/gear systems. Second, open world PVP.

 

3a (PVP): The first of the two is an easy fix. First things first, let's go back to what I said about PVE being the basic rule of the game right now. Remember that? It's indisputable at this point. So, rather than spend the energy denying this, just embrace it. Their is something to be proud of when you release a product that entails an extensive PVE experience. That being said, it is long past time for the "expertise" stat to be removed from the game. Prior to this stat being put into the game, and being given some much relevance in PVP, the initial thought on your PVP goals was positive. Since the introduction of this "PVP stat", consumers have become so enraged by it you are losing subscribers by the day. I don't claim to be a software or programming expert, but what I can say with confidence is: Not a whole lot of PVPers enjoy this stat, so just remove it. Their is nothing wrong with being able to admit that something did not work, and go into a different direction. This system in general railroads your consumers onto a path that is inexcapable and painful, to say the least. Each of them have to wear the same generic looking sets of armor (which I'll get into more later), and even with the "Recruit" set, they have little prayer to be able to participate in an extensive PVP experience.

 

The pickle in this situation is, how do you remove this stat without angering the people whom have already grinded for War Hero or Battlemaster gear? It's quite simple, actually. Rework the stats to provide minor adjustments to basic stat boosts that the classes that wear them still have a small edge in PVP. The other thing that can be done additionally, is to redo the art of the Battlemaster and War Hero gear. It's surprising how much goes into actually looking unique on this game more-so of how powerful you are on the battlefield. Lastly, remember that this is a PVE game, so it's all well and good to ensure that your more rare PVE sets of armor can be slightly more powerful edge wise than the PVP gear. This allows the avid PVPer to experience even more of your product if he or she wishes to gain an even further edge against his or her rivals on the battlefield. I do not believe those whom pride themselves on PVP content would be threatened by an avid PVE player in slightly better gear.

 

3b (PVP): Open World PVP is probably universally the most difficult task to get right in MMO's. Dark Age of Camelot did it right. To some extent, games like Warhammer made it fun. The master of these titles in open world PVP goes all the way back to our two-dimensional friend and cornerstone of all MMO gaming... Ultima Online. The key, in my opinion, with open world PVP is to give the consumers something to achieve out in the open terrain. This, to a small extent, can be accomplished with a daily mission (loosely). When I say "daily mission", I don't mean go out into the open world grounds and defeat X amount of enemies. You CAN make your dailies much more creative than that. It could be done through a similar system like that of the way Offensive and Defensive war zone commendations are earned. The point is, open world PVP must be fixed to atleast be somewhat objective oriented while still be challenging. The other aspect is, you have to make it true open world PVP. Sure, you can start on one planet like Ilum (which also needs fixing), but you have to either get a stronger engine to support it or make a population limit. Over time you can release other planets that are for the strict use of open world PVP to alleviate the pressure on Ilum. I will post in another thread on another forum with my idea's about open world PVP in SWTOR which is a unique concept with some shared concepts.

 

4.) The Economy. This is another concept that Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot had to a science. What they accomplished, is quite simple. The most powerful items in the game, could ONLY be made by crafters. Currently, everything in this game can be acquired without the need of a crafter, so your economy suffers, your crafters have no identity, and your GTN suffers. Crafting in SWTOR though is somewhat unique in experience because it does not require you to commit extensive amounts of time on resource gathering. This system is good to some extent, but ultimately you have to find a way to empower crafters in this game if you wish to repair the economy. Augmenting and Reverse Engineering is not enough.

 

Concluding this, I realize that Bioware and its employees respect game designing as art and go to extensive measures to ensure they do not manipulate or change the idea of that artwork. I too am an artist, and in the next 72 hours I'm going to present some custom costume designs on these forums that I believe Jedi Knights SHOULD look like in higher tier gear. Not this Atlantis-esque version, and Gym Suit w/ Boom Box on the back presentation we have now. While I support your theory that game-designing is an art, at the same time you are attempting to sell that art. You are expected to veer your art towards your audience in order to make money off of it. All artists do this, and do not thing for a second that any artist in the history of our time did not get paid for their work. You have consumers, get back to the old Bioware before EA took your by the reignes where your bosses sat in front of TV/Computer screens all over the world and not behind a desk staring idly at charts then screaming at you because all of their magnificent and brilliant plans aren't working.

 

Regards,

 

Ill

Edited May 9, 2012 by invulnerableking

[Jalez]

Nice post Invulnerable....spot on with all of it imo

 

The problem as I see it, there obviously is 2 MMO templates. Those "pre-WoW, and those post-WoW".

 

WoW has muddied the waters sooooo much that any gaming exec only asks one question when approached with a concept for an MMO...and that question nowadays is "does it look and play like WoW?" Fortunately for us Arenanet is taking the iniatitive and is taking MMO's kinda back to their roots with alot of their features in Guild Wars 2, which when playing the Beta reminded me of Dark Age of Camelot in many ways.

 

The sooner MMOs can stop following the WoW model, the.sooner the genre can evolve into truly next-gen MMOs.

[GalacticKegger]

SWtoR has alot of problems

 

But IMO having NO MEANINGFUL Endgame PvP/RvR is killing the game faster than anything...pvpers hit 50 and have a whopping 4 meaningless warzones to play in...thats not endgame pvp, thats capture the flag for 10 minutes

 

If you would like to know what I mean by meaningful endgame PvP/RvR...go read the Dark Age of Camelot Wiki-x

How many expansions did it take to produce champion abilities? Anyway, meaningful end game for me was Earth & Beyond, where monthly updates essentially took whatever happened the previous month and changed/updated almost everything: quests, maps, factions and NPC storylines. Plots were constantly evolving regardless of character level. But that was a small scale MMO compared to the resource hounds of today. I don't think any AAA MMO will do that until HAL9000s come out for the desktop. Edited May 10, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Darth_Sinistor]

In my opinion, I would imagine it's not having the same features as other MMO's such as dungeon finder, Cross server PvP. But people forgetting this is a new game and it annoys me a great deal when A conversation goes "You play MMo's?" "Yes, Swtor" "Ha ! Swtor sucks" And the person reason bascially being.. swtor doesn't have features other games do.. My response "I'm so sorry for my innsolance, let me go find a game which HAD these features when it FIRST came out"

 

I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculous argument. If you purchase a car in 2012 do you expect it to only have features that a Model T Ford had in 1908?

 

This is 2012.

 

Modern features are modern.

[TSgtSeuss]

2.) Level 50, end game PVE content. this can branch into many aspects, but for the purposes of this post I'll concentrate on flashpoints and operations. These have to get fixed. These bugs that have been looming around with the flashpoints and operations involved have to fixed. This is a no brainer, but as a game designer it comes down to one thing: Putting out a product that you can be proud of. Your consumers are investing time and money into your product, and that should make you feel good as a gamer designer. When your consumer tells you something is wrong with the product you have promised to put out, you do not simply give them dry acknowledgment. You address the situation that has been brought before you, and provide an ETA of when this portion of your product will be repaired to function as intended. The other part of this one, is the rewards for these flashpoints and operations. It also goes without saying, the more difficult something is, the better the rewards should be for completing it. Admittedly, their have been some steps in a positive direction in this regard, that being said I personally feel that this game should be leaps and bounds ahead of what we are currently experiencing as consumers.

 

4.) The Economy. This is another concept that Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot had to a science. What they accomplished, is quite simple. The most powerful items in the game, could ONLY be made by crafters. Currently, everything in this game can be acquired without the need of a crafter, so your economy suffers, your crafters have no identity, and your GTN suffers. Crafting in SWTOR though is somewhat unique in experience because it does not require you to commit extensive amounts of time on resource gathering. This system is good to some extent, but ultimately you have to find a way to empower crafters in this game if you wish to repair the economy. Augmenting and Reverse Engineering is not enough.

 

Regards,

 

Ill

 

 

Good points... But I'd like to add slightly to this:

 

2a - Leveling is about triple the speed it should be... This is a BIG problem with the game. In almost any MMO, going from level 1-50 for the first time is an enjoyable ride. Once you're at level 50, you have to find something else to do... PvP, end-game content, end-game crafting, RP... Something. Everyone that buys SWTOR gets through this initial "really fun" stage within a month. The second time around, leveling a toon is significantly less enjoyable. Then even less for the third, etc. The whole game takes 2 months to "complete."

 

On top of the fact that people can get through content lightning fast, this also has a HUGE negative effect on the economy... The hilts/barrels/mods/enhancements you buy to gear up your toon are obsolete in a day or so, so why bother buying them?

 

 

4a - Credits flow like wine in this game. Inflation is incredibly rampant because quest & daily rewards are way, way too high. A watered down currency will DESTROY your economy.

 

Besides, as I've mentioned in other posts: In Episode 4, Luke says "$10,000? We can almost buy our own ship for that!"... You can't buy your own **** with $10,000 in this game. Are we to believe that the fall of The Old Republic actually deflated the currency?

[Deyjarl]

Threads like this. People more concerned about what everyone else thinks instead of just playing and enjoying the game.

[LiMiToNe]

for me this game is killing me, if it wanst for getting 30 free days i would of been long gone. i need more solo end game content. dailies running them for months on end i feel like shooting myself. i love doing ops and such but since that is only like 2 times a week i cant find a reason to make me play more than that, paying a monthly sub for 2 days a week not cool.

and for pvp i wish i could play it but my assassin just lags out massivly, im told my char is bugged by CS, coz my IA sniper plays fine, but lvlin him up to 50 doing the same missions over and over is not fun so 20 odd days left something needs to be fixed or bye, il go back to f2p at least they update often

[Shredbull]

Know what's killing SWTOR? Lack of merges/transfers, lack of patch 1.3

 

And above all, maintenance 4 times a *********** week.

[misrossk]

Spoiled folks from Wow expected all the lazy/spoiled stuff from Wow in Swtor.

Pitty for them it wasnt that at all.

So they wont come back after a free period of playing.

And the folks who are staying are like "whheeee whheeee i want this and that whheee whheee"

 

Thats not it at all. I don't give a f*ck about Dungeon Finders and what not. The fact that I can't even really do PvP or PvE on my server anymore due to the population drop, is what just made me unsub for now. Nothing is worse than playing on a server where the population on the Republic fleet is more or less 20ish, at primetime. Its been like this for so long for me that I've pretty much stopped playing anyways, since I can't do jack. My server is so dead, that finding Augments for gear is next to impossible. I seriously believe my server is one of the deadest in this game atm. (The Cruicble Pits). I've had enough time to casually level up 1-50 on The Fatman, and still we do not have transfers or even an eta on them.

 

And I just know they are going to make us pay for it.

 

No bugs would have made me unsub, and neither would stacked PvP teams(premades etc).

 

Edited May 10, 2012 by misrossk

[ridikiscali]

I have noticed that the lack of players on each server is killing SWTOR.

When I get on at 7PM (west coast server) there is usually only 25 ppl total on the Rep Fleet and only 3-8 on each planet.......This is just sad, we need some kind of server merge or global chat! I will try to keep playing but if this does not get resolved I will drop sub due to lack of players.

[decrypter]

Main reason is end game content

 

Lack of crafting , customization , economy

 

lack of pvp and guild options n guild things to do

 

bugs , bugs , bugs

 

Game feels like an empty shell @ 50

 

low population servers because of the above