Is the problem with subs really casual players?

[TUXs]

When it comes to PvP the games planets are.. Poorly designed.

 

Let's put it this way. On WoW I played on a PvE role play server. I ran into PvP situations pretty much every day. Whether it was someone running around flagged or a bunch of Alliance players randomly attacking my factions towns, there was always player vs player action going on. Dynamic conflict.

 

And keep in mind... This is happening on a PVE-RP server!

 

Meanwhile, the way a lot of the planets are set up in Swtor seems to discourage world PvP... Even on actual PvP servers.

 

I've never played W0W, but reading these comments makes the current PvP situation this game is in that much more pathetic...that a flipping RP PvE server (as anti-PvP as you'll find) has better PvP than this game...holy **edit**.

 

That's exactly what this game needs. Cities that come under attack. Consequences for holding/losing those cities. Impacts on PvE and PvP.

 

Makes me wish this game really WAS a W0W clone.

Edited May 15, 2012 by TUXs

[WickedDjinn]

I've never played W0W, but reading these comments makes the current PvP situation this game is in that much more pathetic...that a flipping RP PvE server (as anti-PvP as you'll find) has better PvP than this game...holy **edit**.

 

That's exactly what this game needs. Cities that come under attack. Consequences for holding/losing those cities. Impacts on PvE and PvP.

 

Makes me wish this game really WAS a W0W clone.

 

Comes down to zone design. In WoW you constantly ran into players of the opposite faction. Even sitting in one of the capital cities, at any time, a few dozen players from the opposing faction might try to raid it. In TOR you rarely see the other faction. In fact there are some planets that have completely different versions for each faction.

 

I'm guessing Bioware put all their eggs into the Iluim basket. One planet with 24/7 PvP.

 

But the concept failed so spectacularly they are pretty much scrapping the idea. At least for now.

Edited May 15, 2012 by WickedDjinn

[LeperJack]

As a player with a level 50 Operative, I would just like to say:

 

It's my fault. For realz, yo. Me and 15 other guys have rolled Operatives on every single server and we log in together just to queue for warzones and stunlock everyone all the time to make them quit the game. We don't even win most of the time, we just spend the whole game stunlocking people for chuckles. Because we can totally do that. Georg said so.

[chaosdefined]

Comes down to zone design. In WoW you constantly ran into players of the opposite faction. Even sitting in one of the capital cities, at any time, a few dozen players from the opposing faction might try to raid it. In TOR you rarely see the other faction. In fact there are some planets that have completely different versions for each faction.

 

I'm guessing Bioware put all their eggs into the Iluim basket. One planet with 24/7 PvP.

 

But the concept failed so spectacularly they are pretty much scrapping the idea. At least for now.

 

I don't think BW thought PvP was that popular outside of Warzones. I honestly don't think they put any proper research into an MMO before starting this...especially when their third party research came back saying that it would take the average player 4-6 months to level 1-50 in the game...

[Celebrus]

Actualy you probably dont, it was horrible, i have no idea what these people were playing who have such fond memories of swg. by the time they got it half way playable the game was a ghost town then they changed the combat system and the fanboys even left .

 

So you're saying that it was exactly like tor is now?

[Wolfeisberg]

Um, if you're going to have four 50s by the end of a month and a quarter, you are not a casual. I've been playing since launch, and with one month-long break from playing, I have one decently-geared 50 and two ~25s. I might be a casual.

 

I don't disagree that there could be more fun side-things to do, like space battles, but I don't think you're representative of the niche you say you are.

 

I think he means casual = non raider, which really isn't accurate at all. Cause yeah, having 4 level 50s in 6 weeks is not casual playing at all.

[WickedDjinn]

So you're saying that it was exactly like tor is now?

 

Heh, what he doesn't understand is that for all it's many flaws SWG was a sandbox. It provided players with tools they could use to create their own gaming experience. That's why it's looked back on fondly. Those who got around its problems were building cities and playing out the lives of their characters.

 

TOR on the other hand, being a theme park style deal, leaves us more at the Devs mercy. We have fewer ways to amuse ourselves. We have to take what they give us.

[Blistrich]

Guys, let's face a harsh fact here...

 

The problem with subs isn't casuals who bought the game and quit early, or the hardcores who got to the endgame and were disappointed by the offering, or the roleplayers who are unhappy with the lack of tools made available to them, or the people who fall somewhere in between all of those things and jump from one game to the next (I call them "MMO players"), or the free time, or the delayed server transfers and ranked warzones...

 

The problem is quite literally all of those things.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Blistrich

[Wolfeisberg]

Of course you do. Anything that agrees with your narrow views you agree with. No one here is shocked.

 

agreeing to a statement that says people are leaving for different reasons, for different gripes about the game, is a narrow view?

 

I don't think narrow means what you think it means.

[Jalez]

Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online are both going to be "3 Faction RvR/PvP Centric MMO's"......both are copying alot of Dark Age of Camelots awesome RvR

 

These games will also have PvE (dam fun PvE I might add) but the difference here is that the PvP Endgame will effect everything, as in if your Faction/Server is pwning in World vs World vs World battles then your faction gets "buffs" that will help both PvE and PvP players.

 

GW2 had a Beta Stress Test yesterday for 7 hours, large and small battles happenning everywhere , keeps under seige and roaming guild vs guild fights as well. Total awesomeness that even "PvE" players were enjoying

 

The days of seperating the PvE and PvP communities in MMOs is over, as these new game are deciding to copy DAoC instead of WoW ...and thank gawd for that:)

Edited May 15, 2012 by Jalez

[Blistrich]

The days of seperating the PvE and PvP communities in MMOs is over, as these new game are deciding to copy DAoC instead of WoW

And thank the good lord for that.

[Wolfeisberg]

I said that from the start. They should have NEVER opened those extra launch servers.

 

Who cares if some people came to the forums to whine about waiting 10 minutes to log on? It would have died down in a week or two anyway. It was Christmas break and everyone wanted to play. I think anyone who has played MMO's before knew what was going to happen. The extra servers killed the population bubble and spread it out way too far.

 

Now we have way too many servers and not enough players to fill them.

 

Half their problems could have been avoided if they simply didn't open extra servers.

 

I love this game. I really do, but please close down the launch servers. As soon as people have a populated place to play you will see how much happier they are.

 

10 minutes? The server I wanted to play on was 90+ minutes queue time at launch and for 2 weeks after that. They really only needed about half of the servers for the 2 million they had at launch, if everyone was playing during their normal times and lengths. If they only had half of the servers then, it would easily be 2+ hour queue times on almost all the servers. For lots of people, that would have been all their gaming time gone, waiting in queue.

 

No, the problem was launching the game during a major holiday break in the first place, that alone forced them to create more servers then what was actually needed. A few days of long queue times till people go back to work aftering taking 1 or 2 days off for the game is one thing, but to have 2+ weeks of long queue times till people go back to school and work after having 2+ weeks off for the Christmas holiday break would go beyond the reasonable.

[Arkerus]

I've never played W0W, but reading these comments makes the current PvP situation this game is in that much more pathetic...that a flipping RP PvE server (as anti-PvP as you'll find) has better PvP than this game...holy **edit**.

 

That's exactly what this game needs. Cities that come under attack. Consequences for holding/losing those cities. Impacts on PvE and PvP.

 

Makes me wish this game really WAS a W0W clone.

 

The fact that there is no world PvP is due to 2 reasons:

 

1. In reality is a fringe crowd. Look what happened when WoW opened BGs. People like queueing and playing rather than being ganked. Now everyone complains that Blizzard isn't helping world PvP. New Flash: That isn't their fault.

 

2. Population situation. We'd see a ton of world PvP if there were a lot less servers and the population was more dense.

[ThiborF]

in our day adn age pve is a dying breed

 

I've been hearing that since DAoC if not before and it hasn't changed a thing. Keep stating the message though as perhaps one day it will be true.

 

Plenty of people get their PvP kicks in non-MMORPGs be it in FPS games or RTS and mostly play titles in this genre as a way to do cooperative PvE on a larger scale than say something like Borderlands.

 

Not everybody of course, lots of people look to mmorpgs for predominantly PvP.

 

The problem is that developers seem to get only one of the two largely/mostly right in their games and the other takes a back seat. Granted, strides are often made to try and improve that which is lacking but, you're still more likely than not to have a game that only delivers one aspect being worthy of a monthly sub.

 

DAoC may have been the last to get the balance down pretty well. GW2 may get the mix fairly right but, jury is still out on that. I've heard plenty of good things about it as well as concerns.

 

IMO, what will honestly decide where TOR's numbers will likely sustain at is their hinted at big updates to space. No details are known to us on the outside so whether that means player PvP in space, co-op missions, off the rails - free form flight, we don't know. BUT, I think that is the one ace they have left to play that has a chance to make a significant difference in how this game's population ultimately hovers around. While they will continue to add content and polish, I don't foresee anything else having a huge impact on subs.

[Mallorik]

Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online are both going to be "3 Faction RvR/PvP Centric MMO's"......both are copying alot of Dark Age of Camelots awesome RvR

 

These games will also have PvE (dam fun PvE I might add) but the difference here is that the PvP Endgame will effect everything, as in if your Faction/Server is pwning in World vs World vs World battles then your faction gets "buffs" that will help both PvE and PvP players.

 

GW2 had a Beta Stress Test yesterday for 7 hours, large and small battles happenning everywhere , keeps under seige and roaming guild vs guild fights as well. Total awesomeness that even "PvE" players were enjoying

 

The days of seperating the PvE and PvP communities in MMOs is over, as these new game are deciding to copy DAoC instead of WoW ...and thank gawd for that:)

 

I really cant understand why these mmos keep trying to make pvp/pve games and use the exact same skills for both. The difficulty in making compeltely different skills or atleast make the same skills behave completely different in pvp than in pve cant be as big of a pain as balancing one without ruining the other.

 

I know eq2 attempted this in some ay but i played that game so little i dont know how it turned out for them, if they were able to balance pvp without destroying pve or vice versa like every other pvp/pve game has done since the dawn of time.

[Blistrich]

The fact that there is no world PvP is due to 2 reasons:

1. In reality is a fringe crowd. Look what happened when WoW opened BGs. People like queueing and playing rather than being ganked. Now everyone complains that Blizzard isn't helping world PvP. New Flash: That isn't their fault.

Some of the best fights I ever had in Warcraft were the massive Alliance vs. Horde fights at the Crossroads. They were beyond epic. Everyone who remembers them knows how awesome they were. Those days were the best days Warcraft ever knew. World PvP doesn't happen in WoW any more (except on the PvP servers) because there is nothing to fight over. World PvP is not supported, and therefore, it does not flourish.

 

2. Population situation. We'd see a ton of world PvP if there were a lot less servers and the population was more dense.

I disagree. Again, you need something to fight over... something to fight for. This is the root of the success of the RvR model - RvR is World PvP with objectives, and nothing more.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Blistrich

[Arkerus]

10 minutes? The server I wanted to play on was 90+ minutes queue time at launch and for 2 weeks after that. They really only needed about half of the servers for the 2 million they had at launch, if everyone was playing during their normal times and lengths. If they only had half of the servers then, it would easily be 2+ hour queue times on almost all the servers. For lots of people, that would have been all their gaming time gone, waiting in queue.

 

No, the problem was launching the game during a major holiday break in the first place, that alone forced them to create more servers then what was actually needed. A few days of long queue times till people go back to work aftering taking 1 or 2 days off for the game is one thing, but to have 2+ weeks of long queue times till people go back to school and work after having 2+ weeks off for the Christmas holiday break would go beyond the reasonable.

 

No, NO.

 

Holidays are great time to launch the game because of the exposure. That's the perfect time to launch a game. HIGH EXPOSURE. I'm not sure if you get that or not but trust me, that was the right decision.

 

The bad decision(s) was the extremely limited server populations and then opening up way too many extras servers.

 

I never saw a 90 minute queue time. If I did, it was estimated way too high. The worst I saw was 30 minutes and I had toons on all the packed servers until I decided on Anchorhead.

[Skidrowbro]

The fact that there is no world PvP is due to 2 reasons:

 

1. In reality is a fringe crowd. Look what happened when WoW opened BGs. People like queueing and playing rather than being ganked. Now everyone complains that Blizzard isn't helping world PvP. New Flash: That isn't their fault.

 

2. Population situation. We'd see a ton of world PvP if there were a lot less servers and the population was more dense.

 

1. World PvP was extinguished in WoW once arena hit, another instanced play style to leave the world zones empty, yes BG's did help but it was arena that killed it.

 

2. Yes, population will help but again, instancing is what kills the zones. The players complain about lack of world PvP but are any of you going out looking for it? Kinda hard to find world PvP while standing in the fleet waiting on your WZ queue

[Razdek]

Simply put, leveling 1-50 is great. All the star wars content and class quests were enjoyable.

 

Post 50 content isn't worth $15 a month. Not in PvE, and definitely not in PvP.

PvP has 4 repetitive warzones and a gear grind. That isn't amazing content. That isn't content at all.

 

Since when is this different to any other mmo the world has ever seen? You hit max level and you get a gear grind and some repetative 'instances/a couple of raids' and the same 3 warzones. Max level is just that... Max level. Your done, finished, ka-put.

 

At least bioware has made it viable to level alts and see the game through again from a different perspective. So take your 50, go do the daily grinds/flashpoints and some pvp then go level an alt to change it up. Hopefully by thetime the first xpac comes around, you would have been able to keep yourself busy.

[Blistrich]

Since when is this different to any other mmo the world has ever seen? You hit max level and you get a gear grind and some repetative 'instances/a couple of raids' and the same 3 warzones. Max level is just that... Max level. Your done, finished, ka-put.

Actually, in most MMOs, this is where the game begins.

[Mallorik]

The fact that there is no world PvP is due to 2 reasons:

 

1. In reality is a fringe crowd. Look what happened when WoW opened BGs. People like queueing and playing rather than being ganked. Now everyone complains that Blizzard isn't helping world PvP. New Flash: That isn't their fault.

 

2. Population situation. We'd see a ton of world PvP if there were a lot less servers and the population was more dense.

 

1) I agree that the world pvp people are not a large crowd. but a very vocal one. especialy the people that just want random world pvp. The people that want structured world pvp (like daoc) are a much larger crowd, there is just no game that has even come close to getting it right in execution.

 

2) there was not a ton of world pvp when servers were full.

[WickedDjinn]

The fact that there is no world PvP is due to 2 reasons:

 

1. In reality is a fringe crowd. Look what happened when WoW opened BGs. People like queueing and playing rather than being ganked. Now everyone complains that Blizzard isn't helping world PvP. New Flash: That isn't their fault.

 

2. Population situation. We'd see a ton of world PvP if there were a lot less servers and the population was more dense.

 

 

1. It is there fault. You were rewarded for world PvP. Massive raids happened constantly... And I'm coming from a role play server. Some of my fondest memories of that game were doing things like swimming towards Stormwinds harbor with thirty other players to launch a surprise attack on the city. It's amazing what people will do for an achievement or bear mount.

 

2. Double the population today and you have the same problem. The factions don't cross each others path very often because of zone design. Nor us it even possible to lead large scale raids against the other faction.

[Arkerus]

Some of the best fights I ever had in Warcraft were the massive Alliance vs. Horde fights at the Crossroads. They were beyond epic. Everyone who remembers them knows how awesome they were. Those days were the best days Warcraft ever knew. World PvP doesn't happen in WoW any more (except on the PvP servers) because there is nothing to fight over. World PvP is not supported, and therefore, it does not flourish.

 

 

I disagree. Again, you need something to fight over... something to fight for. This is the root of the success of the RvR model - RvR is World PvP with objectives, and nothing more.

 

Its not supported because its just a concept. The reason there were epic fights at the crossroads was because BGs weren't even in yet...or they had just put them in. I played WoW from start to end of Cataclysm. I saw it all.

 

As soon as there were BGs, world PvP all but disappeared. You know it. Just got the WoW forums. All the "world" people complain about how there is not world PvP.

 

Its not the developers fault that world PvP doesn't fourish. Its a fringe crowd who has dreams of epic battles outside some base. Sorry. That's not what most gamers actually want. They want to drop into a balanced instance and get out in 10 minutes. That's the cold, hard truth.

 

This game doesn't need to support some side game that ppl really don't want.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Arkerus

[Mallorik]

Since when is this different to any other mmo the world has ever seen? You hit max level and you get a gear grind and some repetative 'instances/a couple of raids' and the same 3 warzones. Max level is just that... Max level. Your done, finished, ka-put.

 

.

 

I agree that the content is there just like every other mmo (including wow) . They just have a totaly fubar gear progression that needs to be completely scrapped and reworked. There are no reasons to really do flash points, And the only reason to to do nightmare modes are for the personal challenge and a ttile. Raid gear itself is so easy to get that they mind as well sell it on vendors for credits.(something that looks like they may have fixed in denova or atleast are heading int he right direction).

[WickedDjinn]

Its not supported because its just a concept. The reason there were epic fights at the crossroads was because BGs weren't even in yet...or they had just put them in. I played WoW from start to end of Cataclysm. I saw it all.

 

As soon as there were BGs, world PvP all but disappeared. You know it. Just got the WoW forums. All the "world" people complain about how there is not world PvP.

 

Its not the developers fault that world PvP doesn't fourish. Its a fringe crowd who has dreams of epic battles outside some base. Sorry. That's not what most gamers actually want. They want to drop into a balanced instance and get out in 10 minutes. That's the cold, hard truth.

 

This game doesn't need to support some side game that ppl really don't want.

 

That's not even the issue here.

 

The problem is its barely possible to HAVE world PvP in the first place. It's part of a larger problem of how the game partitions players off from each other.