What this game needs to keep players from leaving..

[Killgroth]

1. Player housing, giving the people a sense of belonging to the galaxy and planets.

2. Guild communities which incorporate the player housing. To give the guild and the people who reside in it the sense orly loyalty and comraderie that this game seriously needs.

3. Less single player quests and more multiplayer focus. Most of this game can be soloed which build for a very poor MMO which you see with the drastic declining subscriptions.

4. More customization for mounts and ships along with players, give the subscribers the chance to be unique and express themselves better in the game they want this to be. Not everyone in the Star Wars galaxy looked almost identical.

5. Move away for the very linear planet concept. Give players a chance to explore a real planet, not just instances and zoned parts on which you rarely cross paths with opposing factions. The galaxy is at war remember,, but the way this plays outyou would think everything in the universe is done and dandy braids what the quests tell you and the brief opposition you see from enemy NPCs who are the opposite faction.

6. Actual PvP that is better structured in this game, especially for the ones who play on a PvP sever and rarely run into enemies while they "solo" quest the entire game.

[MORTTUUM]

1. 3. Less single player quests and more multiplayer focus. Most of this game can be soloed which build for a very poor MMO which you see with the drastic declining subscriptions.

That's a totally illogical statement. If you want to solo, how is being prevented from doing so going to help with 'scrop numbers? If you don't want to solo, you don't have to as things are now.

[Killgroth]

That's a totally illogical statement. If you want to solo, how is being prevented from doing so going to help with 'scrop numbers? If you don't want to solo, you don't have to as things are now.

 

This entire game was pretty much built from the was it seems off of the KOTOR and they just simply added a multiply player aspect by have it put on servers so other people can join. I have seen less groups and parties in this game then any other MMO I have ever played, and that's quite a bit. To me along with others this is far from and illogical statement because the only real time you may even need a partner is for heroics, fps etc. That's not really saying much imo as far as questing goes my friend.

Not to mention the rare encounters of the other factions while questing even on a PvP server. This game has a wide lack of content and a long way to go if it wants to keep its sub fan base up. Anyone can make a single player game and add servers to call it and MMO and in my opinion you would get much of the effect you have here, a decent sub base at release but heavily declining numbers once the story line is over for your character and the EGC is very sub par.

[HeavensAgent]

This entire game was pretty much built from the was it seems off of the KOTOR and they just simply added a multiply player aspect by have it put on servers so other people can join. I have seen less groups and parties in this game then any other MMO I have ever played, and that's quite a bit. To me along with others this is far from and illogical statement because the only real time you may even need a partner is for heroics, fps etc. That's not really saying much imo as far as questing goes my friend.

Not to mention the rare encounters of the other factions while questing even on a PvP server. This game has a wide lack of content and a long way to go if it wants to keep its sub fan base up. Anyone can make a single player game and add servers to call it and MMO and in my opinion you would get much of the effect you have here, a decent sub base at release but heavily declining numbers once the story line is over for your character and the EGC is very sub par.

You're not intended to participate as a group through the basic leveling process. It's an option, but not an intended one; for the most part level ling is supposed to be a single-player game.

[VanorDM]

1. Player housing

 

This has never brought in more then about a dozen subs into any game it's added onto. Player housing while cool is typically a net drain on resources, because once the craze is over, no one bothers doing anything with them any more.

 

2. Guild communities which incorporate the player housing.

 

This has less impact on player retention then housing does.

 

3. Less single player quests and more multiplayer focus.

 

There's more group content in this game then most other games released recently. As it stands you can solo your way to 50, or you can group your way to 50. There is no need for more group content.

[Varteras]

1. Player housing, giving the people a sense of belonging to the galaxy and planets.

 

This is not a necessary feature. Most MMOs do not have this. Those that don't are no less successful than those that do. Infact, considering that the current king of the hill has yet to introduce player housing of any kind and those that have, few as they are, cannot even boast to have over a million subs should be a good indication that this is not viewed as a necessary feature. The only game that has millions of subs and has player housing is Aion and that game had millions of players well before player housing was implemented. As well, as far as I can tell the introduction of player housing really didn't change their numbers. TOR has personal starships which essentially act as the players' home and with Legacy introducing ship additions I can see this becoming more robust down the road.

 

2. Guild communities which incorporate the player housing. To give the guild and the people who reside in it the sense orly loyalty and comraderie that this game seriously needs.

 

I am not even aware of any MMOs that do this but please correct me if I'm wrong. That being said, if individual housing has little effect I doubt "guild housing" will either. They have already said they are working on Guild Capital Ships which will essentially serve as the guild base. So between personal starships and guild capships, these will pretty much cover what you're suggesting even if it's not what you exactly want.

 

3. Less single player quests and more multiplayer focus. Most of this game can be soloed which build for a very poor MMO which you see with the drastic declining subscriptions.

 

The game, like pretty much all MMOs these days, is designed so that you can get to max level by yourself. So that you can experience the bulk of the story and your own class story solo. The game has Heroic Missions, Flashpoints, Operations, and World Bosses if you're looking for group PvE content. This is really no different than the setup WoW has used. The drastic decline in subscription numbers is not some doomsday indication. People really need to stop acting like the recent financial report is somehow proof that the game lost 400,000 subs from the beginning of March (the last time they touted 1.7 million subs which was actually the count as of the end of December) and the end of the same month (which was shown to be 1.3 million). Those subs were lost over a 3 month span and were predominantly the 30-day freeloaders and 1-month subbers. If a very large portion of this game being able to be soloed makes for a poor game that causes subs to fall then you might want to tell Blizzard that their 10+ million subs they've had in a game that has been that way for nearly 8 years is an indication that they went the wrong way.

 

4. More customization for mounts and ships along with players, give the subscribers the chance to be unique and express themselves better in the game they want this to be. Not everyone in the Star Wars galaxy looked almost identical.

 

This is where I agree with you. Though less so for mounts considering that there is a good variety of them already. I will agree that external customization of your starship would be nice as well as internal customization that is not about function but form.

 

5. Move away for the very linear planet concept. Give players a chance to explore a real planet, not just instances and zoned parts on which you rarely cross paths with opposing factions. The galaxy is at war remember,, but the way this plays outyou would think everything in the universe is done and dandy braids what the quests tell you and the brief opposition you see from enemy NPCs who are the opposite faction.

 

Another point I agree with. The linear leveling was a bit surprising to me considering that a game that was boasted to be about story and choices did not give me a choice about how I experience my story. The dialogue options were mostly flavor and point earners for alignment and companion affection instead of actually having an impact on what I experience next. I also do feel that the mission areas for the factions lacked significant overlap which is one reason why open PvP does not happen as often as it should.

 

6. Actual PvP that is better structured in this game, especially for the ones who play on a PvP sever and rarely run into enemies while they "solo" quest the entire game.

 

I also agree with this. Like I said in the last point, planet designs need to have more mission area overlap between the two factions. PvP zones like Ilum should just be redesigned to be what they are in WoW considering that Ilum was a complete joke as it was and Tol Barad in WoW, for example, is still being run consistently even after being introduced almost a year and a half ago. Say what you want about WoW's PvP zones but the ones in that game are run regularly and those in TOR are ghost towns.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Varteras

[Killgroth]

As of right now Being a long time fan of the Star Wars franchise, this game plays out as a poorly put together MMO with the franchise tag and atmosphere. I'm not sure if you ever played SWG but housing and guild housing was one of the biggest successes in that game because it added on the feel and atmosphere of the world. People had actually meeting's rallies hunting parties and all forming in their own made cities. Not to mention guild city faction raids and such. To make an authentic Star Wars game you need to give player customizable options and different ways to go about their daily lives. Not just linear worlds and your average run of the mill everyone's the same characters and transportation. Then again maby I'm wrong but in many players eyes, this game has a very poor foundation and many ways to build onto it that could actually make it a real Star Wars game worthy of the name. Everything in this game is based off of the single player KOTOR. All's they really did was add servers and and small open areas to let you feel like your exploring something. When in all reality this game needs more then that. BioWate took this game and claimed it to be ground breaking and award winning. Of course its award winning when you redo almost the same stories as the games before it and just add the multi player options. There may feel like there's alot of grouping for you but being the season MMORPG player I am and gamer I expected some way more vast and diverse then this. BioWare has made too many claims and promises that they have not kept and seem like they will not keep. Granted everything takes time to dev and out into prospect with testing and such but at the rate this game is declining there soon might be that F2P coming sooner then later my friend. For a ground breaking game set in the Star Wars universe, they surely have not come close to even scratching the potential of this game and at the rate they are going and addressing these issues I doubt they ever will.

[VanorDM]

SWG but housing and guild housing was one of the biggest successes in that game

 

The biggest sucess in SWG is a pretty meaningless thing considering how poorly the game did as a whole.

 

To make an authentic Star Wars game you need to give player customizable options and different ways to go about their daily lives.

 

No you don't. Star Wars has always been about a epic story of the fight between good and evil. Playing Sims in space does nothing to make a game more like the movies.

 

make it a real Star Wars game worthy of the name.

 

So unless it has the features you want, it's not a real Star Wars game? That is a classic logical fallacy and I'm going to stop reading now, because that alone proves your whole argument invalid.

[Penfookio]

i see alot of people saying player housing is a waste and wont do anything but waste memory space in the game. i gotta say you wrong. believe it or not their is a large player base that would love to display unatainable item or hard to attain items... to show them off. ive seen players ask blizzard for years to do this. anouther way to do it is allowing you to customize your ship. another stupied point is it waste space..... 10 years ago i could see that being a point but needless to say 1 TB is easy to get and considering with adding in player housing maybe take up 1 gb of data on a server . it wont make much of a dent

[VanorDM]

i see alot of people saying player housing is a waste and wont do anything but waste memory space in the game.

 

Content used by 1% or less of the games population is in fact wasted space. I played LotRO which had both player housing and guild housing. Few people bothered with it other then as a place to store more stuff. Few people bothered with guild housing, and no one bothered doing stuff in the neighborhoods.

 

to show them off.

 

If they're actually that hard to find, then odds are next to no one will have them. Even for those who do, most people won't really care much about seeing them.

 

it wont make much of a dent

 

It's not the size of the data that's the main issue, it's the fact that it's a huge waste of dev resources.

 

What would you rather have, player housing or 4 more story lines that you can use to level up alts?

[Killgroth]

Vadnor,

Sadly enough kind sir, player housing in SWG before the the NGE they forced upon people the was a very big success and exploited all the great aspects people wanted out of the franchise especially when it was a sandbox mmorpg. Its seems to me you are very blind in the issues surrounding this game. Please point out where in the linear story or on any of the limited planets you "explore" you see any war with the opposing factions in PvP aspect or anything of the such. Simply stated these are not just features I would like to see, if you actually pay attention to the fan base instead of what this half developed game shows you, you would see the lack of diversity this game tries to offer, almost as a horse with blinders on you are content because you dont seem to see the potential this game could go off in expanding the Star Wars universe. Just as that would be your opinion your entitled to it and I respect that. But the dropping fan subscription base no matter what you try and justify it as is an out cry from the fans saying this game is very dissatisfying in many peoples eye and still continues to be a major let down with these broken promises and horrible "updates". Read the forums more and you will see many people are going to continue to leave unless some of the reasonable issues I have stated amongst others are addressed or BioWare and the Devs give a clear cut direction on where this game is headed. But that alone seems to elude you on a whole. And again thank you for expressing you opinions.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Killgroth

[VanorDM]

player housing in SWG before the the NGE

 

Apparently player housing wasn't enough to save SWG, because even with them they felt the need to put in the NGE, because they were losing enough sub's at that point that they felt the need to try and fix the game. Player housing and Guild housing will do nothing to bring more people into this game, or keep those who are here.

 

Please point out where in the linear story or on any of the limited planets you "explore" you see any war with the opposing factions in PvP aspect or anything of the such.

 

Pretty sure I didn't comment on that at all. Because larger planets that you can do some exploration on would be a good thing. So would more open world PvP on the PvP server.

[Kissakias]

2 things for start

 

1. LFG tool

2. free server transfers

 

/thread

[Killgroth]

VanorDM

 

If you played SWG pre NGE then you would possibly understand how the player housing affected those who played it. It was a home away from all the madness where you could escape, evnjoy some RP and set up your own construction benches and make your very own income. There were presidents of towns and chairmen, there was an entire government for each set of housing and guild towns.

The reason they pushed the NGE without announcement was because people like you cried foul on actually having to work long and hard at the items you wanted and the skills you valued. There were no class restrictions or race restrictions for the most part and you could pick up and use any weapon in the game you see fit. So maby you wanted to be a ranged bounty Hunter along with dabbling in the Melee aspect for close encounter to be a very well rounded player. You could do it, you could craft houses and vehicals along with combat pets and droids to help you out on you adventures.

Anything and everything was possible in that game, which ultimately led to the younger fan base crying foul because it wasnt handed to you automatically. People who didnt want to work for their levels and items cried foul and SOE caved.

 

Regardless of all this, all that i am simply saying is that if you believe that this is as good as it can get for a Star Wars game, you are sadly mistaken. Most people who dont agree with how this game is being handled are speaking up because this is to us, a low sub par version of Star Wars. In a franchise that has made more movies, more books, and more lore (even a recognized religon on the census for the government) the possiblities should not be limited by linear game play and very minimal customization. A Star Wars game should have open worlds, very detailed crafting, and a place to call home on planets not just random pit stops and a open starport or small city with the bare minimum spaced out. Again like i have said before this game is by far no where near ground breaking and sadly enough not ver award winning in many peoples eyes, including critics.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Killgroth