Can SWTOR be Saved ?

[Caspian_Rho]

Bunch of impatient whiners on these forums.....wish there was a universal tool to teach people the art of patience

 

How long do you think I should be giving MY money to EAware? and not expect them to fix anything? What would be a reasonable time?? 2 months? 3? possibly 4? maybe 6? If you can't fix major bugs (the ones reported most) in 6 months then there is something serrously wrong. doesn't matter how much patience!

[Nyla]

How long do you think I should be giving MY money to EAware? and not expect them to fix anything? What would be a reasonable time?? 2 months? 3? possibly 4? maybe 6? If you can't fix major bugs (the ones reported most) in 6 months then there is something serrously wrong. doesn't matter how much patience!

 

Are you trying to say they didn't fixed/added anything since the launch ? Really ?

[Costello]

I hope it can be saved, though a major problem Bioware face is that with full VO and story and companion etc any new content is very costly and without a large staff slow to come. Look at STO for what happens if you don't have the staff its months between very small content updates. Of course they are free to play so its a little different and rely on the foundry system.

 

So unless TOR can become very very popular and commercially sucessful we will find it stagnating with the story not progressing and very little to do. When that happens people will move on cause why pay 15 bucks to repeat the same conentent and dailies.

[Totaltrash]

I swear society has become more and more whining and alot less realistic

 

You misunderstood, I'm not whining at all - I had fun playing SWTOR.

But I believe, I'm very realistic assessing the business side of this game.

 

Pre-WoW, MMO's were mostly creative playgrounds with marginal profits.

But nowadays, they are big money!

It is not easy to predict financial sustainability of any new MMO - players are fickle.

Therefore, game companies will maximize profits right upon launch, when the interest in the game is at its peak and the game's short-comings are the least apparent.

 

Bioware/EA did exactly that and now the costs are recovered and the profits are made.

 

Sure, if subscriptions remain high enough, the game may continue to be financially sustainable, but that is no longer all that relevant from a corporate view point, since the bulk of the profits are already in the bank.

 

Which leads me to the conclusion that from a player's point of view - stick a fork in it, its done.

[Celwinn]

I love how people think that their experiences are shared by everyone else in exactly the same way. Your SWTOR experience is largely defined by which server you are on. I'm now on one of the aussie servers...Result is 2 instances of fleet because it's so busy. No shortage of people for flashpoints, heroics and other stuff..We even have people pugging the ops for HM and Nightmare. In short, it's probably the ideal situation for Bioware and one which in an ideal world, exactly how they envisaged the game experience to be.

 

It's obviously not replicated like that on all the other severs. To be honest, I really don't understand why those people who are going overboard in their criticism about dead servers just do not roll on a busy one. There is enough data out there now to know which are the main servers and if you've been playing on a dead server, your character is unlikely to be geared to the max, so you're not really losing much by just creating another toon. It doesn't take long to level and i already have 2 50's a 42 and now levelling a trooper who in the space of one evening I got to level 10....

 

Is it an ideal situation? No..but creating another character is probably preferable than whining and waiitng until the summer for transfers.

 

Not trying to be a downer but Aussie's only have 3 servers, so it would be busy, whereas the North American Servers have 133 servers with people spread all through the servers.

 

I bet if Bioware merges about 50 servers, the population would increase on those servers.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Celwinn

[SeppukuA]

Or just don't give them money until it improves and let us who are enjoying the game pay them money? If you're not currently enjoying it, you can cancel your subscription and come back later. This is pretty common for an MMO, SW:TOR has a lot of potential, Bioware just needs to work on the content and bug fixes. People are gonna quit and the numbers are gonna drop because people get bored or they decide they didn't like it and for some servers that number may be greater than others. Server merges (like FFXI:Online occassionally does when numbers drop - even though their population is low, the servers still have a strong population) should mean servers have a stronger population. SWTOR does have a lot of servers. If Bioware does an expansion, no doubt that'll boost the numbers again.

 

It takes a while for all that end game content to build up, there was once a time where WoW's endgame was small. WoW has the advantage because it's got years of development behind it. But I actually find WoW quite boring to play. SW:TOR on the other hand, I don't. Obviously, there's a case of it being "to each his own", I mean people may have tried this and gone back to the MMORPG they prefer playing (like WoW) or break away from the curse and venture the MMORPG outdoors called real life, where the graphics are a LOT better.

[mikphobos]

I love how people think that their experiences are shared by everyone else in exactly the same way. Your SWTOR experience is largely defined by which server you are on. I'm now on one of the aussie servers...Result is 2 instances of fleet because it's so busy. No shortage of people for flashpoints, heroics and other stuff..We even have people pugging the ops for HM and Nightmare. In short, it's probably the ideal situation for Bioware and one which in an ideal world, exactly how they envisaged the game experience to be.

 

It's obviously not replicated like that on all the other severs. To be honest, I really don't understand why those people who are going overboard in their criticism about dead servers just do not roll on a busy one. There is enough data out there now to know which are the main servers and if you've been playing on a dead server, your character is unlikely to be geared to the max, so you're not really losing much by just creating another toon. It doesn't take long to level and i already have 2 50's a 42 and now levelling a trooper who in the space of one evening I got to level 10....

 

Is it an ideal situation? No..but creating another character is probably preferable than whining and waiitng until the summer for transfers.

 

you sr have no idea of what the US and EU servers are living atm, and have no idea how it was at the begin.

you are just like you say. talking about your experience

but you do not know how as be for the others, so instead of tell the OP that hes talking about his own very experience and flaming him because of that, you should do what you speak about and be quiet about yours as well.

 

Reroll for many people its a no go, we come to servers with queues at the begin, we level more that one 50

on full servers, now the server die and i have to leave my legacy level 30+ and my 50s, my legacy name, and

my character names and start all over again, on a new server, just because BW cant merge or do transfers

soon?

 

im sorry but you are really being silly. this is not about us hating the game, is about us being hit by BW lack

of communication and effective solutions to the game issues.

and for god sake dont come and tell me *they say tranfers come early summer* because that answer from them

just show they lack of communication.

Edited May 16, 2012 by mikphobos

[VegaPhone]

I think people are over reacting by thinking swtor is failing.

 

Its not failing, and the only thing that is threatened is the the amount of resources added to the game which can be better utilized for more development with more (or less means less development) customers. Since there are enough loyal fans to keep this game going for a long time.

 

Thats the only problem that could hurt the game in the short run and thats the amount of development that can be done based on the number of customers giving different amount of resources affecting different levels of input into the game.

 

Which is why releasing things like pazaak, actual open world systems, ranked before 3 months into the game, more than 3 warzones, have warzones that emulate sand box mechanics, crafting that requires exploring to see other planets, no stuck on fleet feature, player housing and other MMO features would have given swtor more customers and more money by retaining customers with longer worth while goals to achieve in game.

 

There is no carrot on the stick for me in this game tbh. Ranked would be one, but even then there needs to be more to the swtor galaxy to feel alive with strange looking aliens, NPC movement, and more immersive features to only have ranked coming as the only saving feature. So this game needs a lot more than 1.3 to keep the game going strong especially with the summer coming up and to generate interest when people have the time... but it wont fail, it will just not be enjoyable until they have enough time to put the other features in the game.

Edited May 16, 2012 by VegaPhone

[Lenlo]

I can already drum up a list of easy peesy fixes that could make the player experiance better:

 

A: A cross server LFG system for flashpoints.

 

B: A guild recruitment/looking for guild, tab

 

C: Subtitles during quest dialogue

 

D: Customisable Player ships names

 

E: Merge at least 50 servers, and make sure they're all the same type when you merge.

[Baxterwolfe]

I will answer your questions here. Can Swtor be saved no by the way things are going.Bioware has has 6 months to fix all the issues that were in the game from the begining when they were first reported. Bioware has failed to fix the lag issue connection issue and the game compatability issue. This game has been really hard for me and my wife to play on our computers because bioware had to set the specs to where only a super computer could run it. I guess bioware wants every one with a low end computer to upgrade or buy a new one.

 

In my opinion that is not going to happen today tomorrow or never. i got my wife a windows 7 computer a week ago and she cant play swtor at all because of spec issues. i think its time for my wife and i to move on. i would rather pay 15.00 a month for aion or buy farmville farmtown or frontier trail stuff with our 30.00 dollars that we will be saving and take a 10 pound hammer and smash both of the collector addition cd cases and let file 13 take biowares **** out of here. i believe in my heart i gave bioware 6 months to start building this game and instead they fell and fell hard.

[Nicolettexiv]

I don't want this post to come off as "screw star wars, this game sucks," or whatever. Im just simply curious if you guys think this game has a future anymore. With the countless bugs and glitches, customer service issues gone unanswered, dying servers, what does bioware need to do to save this game or is it already to late.

 

In my opinion from what I have witnessed is it is to late. I have been a star wars fanboy for life and have been playing TOR since launch back in December. At game launch I remember sitting in que to even get on a server, now im lucky to see 30 people on fleet during peek hours. IMO the leveling part of this game was the best. The story lines with each class were a breath of fresh air compared to traditional mmos. But once you hit 50 the lone "2" operations were laughable at best. Full of bugs that went week after week with no fixes, and "raids" that consisted of 4 bosses. It was extremely underwhelming and even nightmare mode was a breeze for my guild. We had a strong 20+ active members in our guild and consistently did 16man operations 3 times a week. About 2 weeks before 1.2 dropped is when people (at least in our guild) finally had enough. We started seeing players hardly ever logging on, and if they did they were bored in about 15 minutes. Leveling alts seemed to pass the time, until it got to the point where you were the only person on a planet while trying to level and do quests. Forget about running a 4+ heroic on a planet, because there were only about 2-3 people on the planet at any given time.

 

Patch 1.2 drops and honestly I feel that a lot of people were holding out for that patch in hopes it would breathe life into this game again, but it fell very short of doing so. The new raid was an improvement IMO from EV/ KP but, it just simply wasn't enough. The so called "legacy" system was completely useless to any of us endgame players. Its just sad how this game had been anticipated for so many years and this is the end product that we received. Not even 6months into the game and it already is on the verge of dying.

 

My question is this, What can possibly be done to save this game, what can be done to stop the bleeding of thousands of people cancelling there subs every month. Is it to late to save it ?

I hope this game can be brought back with server transfers etc... but i fear its to late, for the proof is in the pudding, I have witnessed a game where I would login to 100+ on fleet getting groups together for flashpoints, leveling, doing operations and pvp, now all i see is people complaining they have been in que for pvp for hours with nothing going on, guilds that have fallen apart due to members losing interest in this game. I truly hope bioware has a fix for this because I feel if something isn't done, and done very quickly, this game will forever be lost and chalked up to another failed attempt to compete with WoW.

 

Any input appreciated, again this thread is not a rant, i Just want to know what we need to do to save/drastically improve this game where its fun and exciting again.

 

I love this game. I like the aesthetics better than any current MMO, I will be forever ruined by the voice acting (I am really looking forward to GW2.. but after the SWTOR cutscenes, the GW2 Dialogue scenes disappoint me..), I like the story, despite never having watched all of the Star Wars films. I simply liked the game for the game. Yes, some convenience features are missing. I get that it's a new game, and I can't necessarily hold it to standards of those in the past, when I played those games several years after their initial launch.

 

I should also mention, I'm a producer for another (small-time) game developer.

 

In my opinion, the game needs more life. While, for me, being on the second most populated server -- I can run flashpoints, operations 4x/week (on two diff characters), run dailies, pvp, etc. so I feel there is enough to do, however, there needs to be more "filler". The world event was a great temporary addition.. but I think, this is with exception to bugs and whatnot, which are of priority, that events/mini-games/social hubs should be added to bring life to different areas of the game. For instance - the central floating casino in Nar Shaddaa - introduce dailies, add Pazaak/Sabbacc/swoop racing/etc. to add engaging activities to participate in while taking a break from leveling, gaining rested xp, waiting for raid times or pvp queues, etc.

 

HOWEVER, the biggest issue with this game is the server populations. 110+ Light servers around the clock. They opened too many in expecting a much larger player base. They have 1/10th the players that WoW does, and yet only 1/2 of the servers.

 

I think top priority other than bugs should be cutting 50, or likely even more, servers, and merging those players onto the remaining servers. For instance, Server A, B & C get Moved to server D. Resulting in a larger community, and yet you're still with your guild, your friends, and your existing community, if one even existed (Hard with 30 active players on the entire faction). This is supposed to be a Massively Multiplayer game, and it's lacking the Massive because the player base is spread so thin. Half of the draw in this game depends on having a large, ACTIVE player base. (Flashpoints, Operations, Heroics, Community, etc.)

 

When my server died, I quit for two months - not out of spite or resentment, I simply didn't have any reason to log in. It wasn't until I was reminded of how excited I was for this game, and the upcoming 1.2 patch, that I worked up the nerve to re-roll on the most populated PvE server I could. Unfortunately, with the APAC transfers half (if not more) of our player base has since relocated.. relegating us to the forever standard-light population group. This was after resisting and debating all of the doom and gloom in general about how our server would take a major hit.

 

They really need to cut the servers in half - no target transfers between a small handful of servers (and hopefully not like blizzard, and from larger servers to fill out a small one) But a large, coordinated move between 50-60 dead servers to invigorate those remaining.

 

I'm content with endgame, I feel I don't have enough time to do everything. But when I hit a wall for trying to get FP groups, and guilds losing Ops members, and the like.. that's content, and basically the entire endgame game play, that can't be accessed any longer. Kill the social elements in addition to that, and there's no longer a draw to play.

 

I didn't like Tera, I wasn't interested in D3, and I've pre-ordered GW2. But I want to play this game. I want to be playing it next year. I want so much for it to succeed, and I have faith that the devs can implement great features and content in the future - I mean, two patches with new content in the first 5 months? Awesome. But the content means nothing without the social element. And to wait 6-7 months for a fix that was being called for and necessary back in January (when I took my hiatus) is proving detrimental. Especially for how much emphasis Bioware puts on preserving community. By the way, Early Summer? June 20 is the official first day of Summer.. so that could be up until August 1 for this to be implemented, which is too long, and will be too late.

[chaosdefined]

 

C: Subtitles during quest dialogue

 

I agree with your points, but that one is actually ingame. Just go into the Preferences menu and you'll find a subtitle option.

 

As there's a distinct lack of music in this game, I often put on Spotify and then just read the subtitles whilst playing.

 

Also helps when I'm playing late at night and have to keep the sound off.

Edited May 16, 2012 by chaosdefined

[Nicolettexiv]

I love how people think that their experiences are shared by everyone else in exactly the same way. Your SWTOR experience is largely defined by which server you are on. I'm now on one of the aussie servers...Result is 2 instances of fleet because it's so busy. No shortage of people for flashpoints, heroics and other stuff..We even have people pugging the ops for HM and Nightmare. In short, it's probably the ideal situation for Bioware and one which in an ideal world, exactly how they envisaged the game experience to be.

 

It's obviously not replicated like that on all the other severs. To be honest, I really don't understand why those people who are going overboard in their criticism about dead servers just do not roll on a busy one. There is enough data out there now to know which are the main servers and if you've been playing on a dead server, your character is unlikely to be geared to the max, so you're not really losing much by just creating another toon. It doesn't take long to level and i already have 2 50's a 42 and now levelling a trooper who in the space of one evening I got to level 10....

 

Is it an ideal situation? No..but creating another character is probably preferable than whining and waiitng until the summer for transfers.

 

I re-rolled on the Harbinger, and I had the same experience that you note. But the APAC transfer has killed it. Despite having convinced myself that it wouldn't. After re-rolling on 5 different servers, with multiple 50s, 40s and 30s.. I don't think I can bring myself to do it again.

 

I think the key point to note here, is that they took all of the AUS/APAC players, and moved them to three servers. And they all have a rich population. I think if they took steps to do this with the US players, by eliminating the excess servers for when they're actually needed, and condensing the player base to fill the remaining servers, the US players could have the same rich experience that you are currently enjoying.

[Nyla]

I can already drum up a list of easy peesy fixes that could make the player experiance better:

 

A: A cross server LFG system for flashpoints.

 

B: A guild recruitment/looking for guild, tab

 

C: Subtitles during quest dialogue

 

D: Customisable Player ships names

 

E: Merge at least 50 servers, and make sure they're all the same type when you merge.

 

I don't understand C, i already have subtitles.

I don't see how D would change much, your ship get a new name, so what ?

 

the best are A and E, easy peasy ? lol, you are one of thoses who think devs don't want to fix problems and are playing TERA and D3 atm ?

[Galbatorrix]

The game? Absolutely. This board? Nope.

 

 

1.3 will come out, server transfers will be put in place and everyone will stop complaining for a few weeks. Then, they'll get tired of running HMs and Ops and they'll be right back here stressing how horrible the game is and how it is once again dead due to lack of content. Then, in 1.4, Bioware will release more content and they'll be fine for another few weeks. The cycle will continue due to this board being absolutely insatiable.

[Nicolettexiv]

. So this game needs a lot more than 1.3 to keep the game going strong especially with the summer coming up and to generate interest when people have the time... but it wont fail, it will just not be enjoyable until they have enough time to put the other features in the game.

 

I agree with this.

 

Population issues aside, I've continually told myself to give it time. This is indeed a new game. And (sorry to compare) with other MMOs.. start to current state.. had years of development time to create and implement features that were convenient, and enriched game play. I believe, if they address the major issues that currently stand, that this game could certainly grow to be amazing. It's just requiring patience, and providing feedback when they poll the community for desired features.

 

Competition might be good for Bioware.

[chaosdefined]

 

Competition might be good for Bioware.

 

I'm not so sure, I mean I like this game but if they don't fix a lot of the major problems with it anytime soon I may end up leaving for one of the competition. I'd come back and try it again next year to see if they'd improved things...if the game was still going by then.

[Nicolettexiv]

So basically you have 2 level 50's and legacy yet you are on a dead server? At what point did it dawn on you that your server was dead..after your first or second level 50? Or did the general population just drop right after this?

 

I had two characters to 50 by the end of January. I was leveling with two real life friends. While leveling, we were the only 3 people on each planet after Alderaan, the same was the case with my alt whom I leveled by myself. I attributed this to the game still being rather new, and thus maybe the rest of the player base hadn't got there yet. Within a few weeks, I noticed the population declining significantly. My guild dwindled - which was the largest at the server's peak - to being the only one signing in over two weeks, and I decided to look into re-rolling. Researched server populations, re-rolled on several to find the right fit and one that was consistently populated, and finally committed. Now I've got two more 50's, a 40 in progress, plus others, and level 39 legacy.. but now THAT server is declining (we lost half of our population, as the designated "Aussie" server - which I didn't know about - in the APAC transfer). Soooo... re-rolling AGAIN is a bit out of the question.

[-Eternal-]

SWTOR cannot be saved. The developers have already infuriated and isolated their original subscribers. Once a dev team leaves that type of impression, the MMORPG community is unforgiving. They have permanantly tainted their reputation at this point and TOR is doomed to be average at best with a small long-term community. The fact that servers already need consolidated is completely ridiculous and a clear sign of things to come.

[Nicolettexiv]

With the summer transfers, will legacy be transferred with your character? It wasn't for the aussie servers...

 

Yes it was. At least, for my former guildmates it was. Bioware has stated that if you have established yourself on your destination server with new characters, and you initiate a transfer of your original characters to that server, the highest of the two legacies will be the one that is recognized.

[ross_deutsch]

I dont know if the game can be saved, but I hope so. Its better than, WoW, but needs the MMO feel PERIOD.

 

Until then Diablo 3 will entertain me, inhopes ToR gets rolling again.

[Baxterwolfe]

I hope it can be saved, though a major problem Bioware face is that with full VO and story and companion etc any new content is very costly and without a large staff slow to come. Look at STO for what happens if you don't have the staff its months between very small content updates. Of course they are free to play so its a little different and rely on the foundry system.

 

So unless TOR can become very very popular and commercially sucessful we will find it stagnating with the story not progressing and very little to do. When that happens people will move on cause why pay 15 bucks to repeat the same conentent and dailies.

 

i guess every one had high hopes for this game but in the end bioware has let every one down. i should say those who are not blind were disappointed and let down. This game is done like the turkey and ham that we place on our table around the holiday season. Bioware has heard and received reports of bugs since january and about 10% of those fixed. This game has a lot of huge issues now in reference to people unsubbing which is causing the game servers to have low population. i saw in a post where some one said a 25% drop i think if you look it up you will see its about 50% drop. That is why there has been a lot of free weekends and a free 30 days gave to people with lvl 50 toons and finally the server transfers is now stated to be coming. this is why i say no it cant be saved and that it is done. galaxies suffered the same fate when nge was added and look where it ended in its grave.

[Eillack]

Can the TOR community become respectable one day?

 

Sorry to burst your bubble but TOR is making economic profits right now....no saving required until it becomes a loss.

[Jett-Rinn]

Can the TOR community become respectable one day?

 

Sorry to burst your bubble but TOR is making economic profits right now....no saving required until it becomes a loss.

 

Well as Stephen Reid said, huge difference between the forum community and the in-game community, but yeah chicken little threads like these are hilarious.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Jett-Rinn

[Baxterwolfe]

The game? Absolutely. This board? Nope.

 

 

1.3 will come out, server transfers will be put in place and everyone will stop complaining for a few weeks. Then, they'll get tired of running HMs and Ops and they'll be right back here stressing how horrible the game is and how it is once again dead due to lack of content. Then, in 1.4, Bioware will release more content and they'll be fine for another few weeks. The cycle will continue due to this board being absolutely insatiable.

 

in my opinion you opinion is heard for what it worth and not accepted. the 1.3 should be delayed for at least 2 more months to fix the broken stuff in game and to fix bugs and other issues in the game instead of adding new stuff to a overly bugged game that bioware had 6 months to fix.

 

The only things bioware did to the game was make it more buggy and not fix the game issues that were there from the star of this game a launch. The big thing that bioware did for this game was to put it on life support and the proof is in the server pop and all the unsubs that have taken place. The free weekends server transfers and the bribes that bioware did by giving 30 days free time to people with 50 toons is just a sign that this game is dieing. Galaxies saw the same thing with the nge and look not swg is done and in its resting place.

 

Finally you need to wake up from your dream that 1.3 is going to improve this game. im afraid its not going to happen not today tomorrow or never until bioware fixes the bugs and other issues in the game and quit nerfing the hell out of it. this is the reason why my wife my friends and my self will be leaving this game at the end of the month. i will sit and watch the news in about 3 to 5 months when this game goes free to play or just die because of people leaving the game.