SWTOR “solid, successful, profitable” - Riccitiello

[mothermonterr]

the reason i didnt respond to this the first time you posted it was because you are obviously trolling. As someone who actually plays the game unlike you. I know most, if not all those issue are corrected. The daily quest is the only one I havent done in awhile and cant confirm if it was fixed.

 

link me to the fixes and i can link you to still bugged soa and operations.

[noodlehaus]

on the other hand, blizzard's latest financial reports have the following:

 

- wow steady at 10.2M subscribers (as of 03/31/2012, expected to go up after MoP)

- record-high diablo 3 pre-sales

 

it doesn't matter if SWTOR has 1.3M or 2.3M subs. as long as the number they keep lets them keep profitable margins, it will be good for the game and they can keep working on it and pushing out content.

 

the hype period for swtor is over. all that's left for it is organic growth. it's only 5 months out and with only 1.3M subs. it's got plenty of room for growth if BW do things right.

Edited May 10, 2012 by noodlehaus

[mcburly]

link me to the fixes and i can link you to still bugged soa and operations.

 

Why am i going to link you fixes when i saw it with my own eyes running ops the past week. I have no need to prove to you otherwise lol. go look through patch notes all you want, Im sure you can find the fix if you want to.

[discosoc]

The problem is, the game might be a financial success for the shareholders, but that doesn't always translate well to the players. They've said it would be profitable at 500k subscribers, but I wonder how much leeway such a "profit" would give for new content and future expansions?

[mothermonterr]

Why am i going to link you fixes when i saw it with my own eyes running ops the past week. I have no need to prove to you otherwise lol. go look through patch notes all you want, Im sure you can find the fix if you want to.

 

There are still complains on Soa and the pylons even today, 16 man NM, even HM it bugs. Doesn't mean i bash the game i cease to help my guild mates clearing content.

[gurugeorge]

Not everybody. I expected a persistent sequel to KOTOR with regular updates and the ability to play with my real-life friends (something lacking from KOTOR). So they are giving me exactly what I expected.

 

I'm sorry that the PVP and raiding crowd are unhappy but I've found that to be generally the case with them. For my part I am happy with what I have and am seeing coming up.

 

Spot on. I would never have expected anything other than a "KOTOR with mates/strangers" experience from SWTOR.

 

That said, the game lacks somewhat in the "with strangers" department (needs a server merge maybe? there are enough complaints about this so that BW need to sit up and take notice - char transfer might not be enough).

 

It also lacks somewhat (for me) in the sense of a virtual world, so I will always be an intermittent subscriber - but I can see myself dipping into the game now and then for a few years to come, to eventually pick up all the class stories. I suspect this will be the way many players play it.

 

And in actual fact, some of the classes (e.g. Jedi Shadow) are amongst the best, most fluid-playing in any MMO. But it's a bit uneven (some are a bit of a PITA to play, others a tad OP - although just in terms of fx and graphics and "feel", they're all quite fun).

 

As to the rest of it - competitive PvE players and PvP players, they always whine endlessly about everything in every MMO, nothing new there. WoW forums are just as full of whine.

 

(As Zeropunctuation said in his review of SWTOR: "Cows go moo, dogs go woof, MMO players go 'The PvP is unbalanced'". When someone who doesn't even play MMOs regularly notices that, you've got to realize it's a marked feature of the genre. Same for overall whining.)

Edited May 10, 2012 by gurugeorge

[Dezzi]

I can't see how you think this is new for any MMO.

 

How are you surprised by this? How do you think its related to the long term success of this game?

 

46% retention is higher than I was expecting, and probably way higher then EA was.

 

I don't think it's new.

 

I'm not surprised by this. It's related because subscriptions directly fund future development; the more people playing, the more money the team has to make the game better, which makes the game more attractive to new players. The inverse of this is also true.

 

It's a 54% retention rate--46% loss rate.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Dezzi

[Janade]

“We have an obligation to tell them the facts."

 

Hope he remembers this come July, because we will sure want to know! Lol.

[sithbrewery]

I can't believe some of you are actually defending Bioware and EA for the atrocious management of this game. They don't have a single feature in this game that works 100% or even 98%. When they attempt to fix a single issue, they create several new issues. The game is less stable now than it was at launch.

 

Then some of you try to play the pvp card, like if it is something not wanted by you. then you have the right to speak on behalf of the development team and the community. The community feels different and are voting with their wallets. Walk around fleet and you can see it. How many game conventions did they showcase the pvp at? If it wasn't a major feature why put it on a pedestal? Hey, where did that guy go that jumped/got knocked into the pit, and the game client can't seem to track for at least 3 seconds?

 

And pve is not better. Every base class story has bugged quests, Ops still don't function as intended. Several of them can be found in this thread, so I wont bother repeating them. This is not a single player game, so making an argument that you got what you wanted in just the story makes about as much sense as sitting alone in a crowded restaurant, ordering a water, and yelling "I'm Anti-social!" at random customers.

 

The flow of information about issues is an abomination in itself. Treating the people paying to play your game like children, and any information will hurt them, offering mostly canned responses. Pray you never have to call support to deal with a security key problem. The time to correct issues is long, and often held for large content updates in a veiled attempt to keep you paying for a broken game.

 

This game was my most anticipated title, probably ever. I did enjoy some of my time playing it, but is a flawed, convoluted, and an almost masochistic experience. That is the problem itself, the sum of the flaws is greater than the whole of the game experience. I do sincerely hope it changes, but I see no sign of anything getting better under current management.

[discosoc]

on the other hand, blizzard's latest financial reports have the following:

 

- wow steady at 10.2M subscribers (as of 03/31/2012, expected to go up after MoP)

- record-high diablo 3 pre-sales

 

it doesn't matter if SWTOR has 1.3M or 2.3M subs. as long as the number they keep lets them keep profitable margins, it will be good for the game and they can keep working on it and pushing out content.

 

the hype period for swtor is over. all that's left for it is organic growth. it's only 5 months out and with only 1.3M subs. it's got plenty of room for growth if BW do things right.

 

Historically, MMO's don't grow much at all past their initial "peak." World of Warcraft was an exception, though. That game had some out of control growth.

[Gungan]

I will never understand why companies try to make multiplayer online games with so much solo focus. It completely kills the experience of linking people together over the internet, and it gimps what might otherwise be amazing solo experiences.

 

Don't even try to argue that the storytelling in this game is anywhere near the same quality as BioWare pre-2011.

 

You cannot cater to everybody, and trying to do so only turns your game into this average mess.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Gungan

[discosoc]

I will never understand why anybody tries to make online games with so much solo focus. It completely kills the benefits of linking people together over the internet.

 

This game actually has a ton more group stuff than most other MMO's. Obviously, the class quests are solo affairs, and all the story stuff can be solo'd, but there's a ton of heroics out there. Pretty much every quest hub location on each planet has at least 1 HEROIC, and sometimes 2 or 3. Not to mention the flash points.

 

What I can't figure out is how many subscribers they thought they would actually get to make getting groups for that content reliable.

[Mashy]

I bet he will continue in his job until he decides he wants something else. He clearly stated what the investment case target for SWTOR is: 1.2 million subs. Meaning they will make as much profit as they originally intended with that many subscriptions.

 

At 4 months from launch we don't know nearly enough to judge the long-term success of the endeavor. That data will come to us over the next 3-6 months.

 

3 to 6 months? The trouble with that is that there will be nobody around to read it or care, the CEO will be under the Bus well and truly by then and the Star Wars fans will be left in the dirt.