Can SWTOR be Saved ?

[mithrelkhaar]

Successful MMO's give away free subs and trials 3 months after release? Wow, they are really nice.

 

Or maybe they are FAILING.

 

Or maybe they are trying to advertise for expansion and reward their non complaining subscribers?

 

Ignorant post is ignorant

[mithrelkhaar]

Haha.... ummm lemme think. Has WoW or RIFT ever given away free trials and playtime? Hmmm..... I wonder.

 

Oh wait..isn't WoW F2P up until level 20 now?

[mithrelkhaar]

you could be right here, I just had higher expectations for this game, and I will admit I came from WoW in hopes this would blow WoW outta the water, and to be honest the first couple weeks, i truly thought it had, But once I hit 50 and raided for a few weeks, the bubble done popped for me.

 

Well...maybe its because you came from a game that is 7 years old and has all of its elder content in place already, to a game that is working on putting it in, at a rate of 1 op per content patch so far...dont think it will be too long before it has more endgame than WoW, but hey, i suppose im a Bioware fanboy or something for not jumping on the bandwagon and saying the game is failing when it clearly isnt like most people on these forums...

[WrecklessMEDIC]

Oh wait..isn't WoW F2P up until level 20 now?

 

You're right, I forgot about that one too..... Lol.

[MindscapeX]

I truly hope it can be saved, but i suspect it may be too late. Many times i have been the ONLY one on the fleet on my server and I am aware that low server population is the biggest issue with the game, but is Bioware aware? You would think they were, but why are they even talking about doing other things with the game when server pop is the biggest issue? DROP EVERYTHING ELSE AND MERGE THE SERVERS!!!!! If i want to play a solo game i'll play skyrim, but untill server merges/transfers happen this is nothing but a solo game that you have to pay monthly for. Well i canceled my sub and hopefully this problem will be fixed in the future. I love the game, for the 2 hours a night where there are more than 5 people in the fleet anyway. I know my server is the 5th least populated, but i have too much time invested to re-roll on the fatman server. I pay the same amount (err, paid rather) than the players on the fatman, but they get a mmo and solo game, and all the few people that are on our server (and most other servers) get is nothing more than a solo game. It's BS that bioware has been dragging thier feet on this issue and they know it! Im not paying a monthly fee till its fixed,period! There is simply no excuse for bioware putting out a patch of ANY kind until the servers are merged! Sorry for the ranting on my only post, i just think the game could be outstanding if Bioware would just listen and get thier priorities straight. Lets hope they do... Edited May 17, 2012 by MindscapeX

[Mallorik]

You talk about head in the sand, and yet you sit here and blindly state that this game is failing when in reality the only reason the subs are truly falling is due to one mistake...too many servers at launch

 

Did they need 125+ servers? hell no, even at its peak with 2 million subs, 125 servers is FAR too many for a game in this early stage of life.

 

As for issues with the game...go ahead and name the MMO you come from that had NO issues at launch and had its full population at launch.

 

Waiting....because it doesn't exist

 

Point is, WoW made people lazy, it made people feel like every MMO has to be like it from the start in order to be considered an MMO.

 

WoW had less than a million subs up until the 1 year mark, because it was a broken mess. as it started getting fixed, and features started getting added, more and more people started pouring in.

 

This game is almost 6 months old, 1.3 million subs is DAMN good for a game this new, and the only reason it doesnt seem as such is because they are spread out too far apart.

 

They have been adding ops in with every content patch, and according to patch leaks for the next 3 content patches....that isnt going to stop soon, problem is people feel as if all this content should have been here from day 1, and combined with the fact that they LOVE to complain, as if their word is the authority on matters, it causes what you see on the forums.

 

Talk about head in the sand, only one question for you...which server did YOU play on in WoW?

 

You really believe that this game is bleeding subs just because there are too many servers? 5 months ago my server had ques 4 months ago there were alot of people , 3 months ago it was just ok, 2 months ago it was dying and now it is dead.

 

Yeah i agree that the empty servers are really hurting this game alot right now, but they emptied out for a few reasons and until you fix those reasons they will empty out again after server transfers.

[mithrelkhaar]

This has less group content than any other MMO I've seen. U do not know what u are talking about sir. I have NOTHING to do on my 50's. NOTHING. I can log into several other MMO's and never have enough time to do all I want.

 

Been doin same 2 raids for 6 months, sick of em and dont need em anymore. Denova is 1 time a week, 2 if u wanna do both modes. There is only 1 - 4 man instance worth doing, and it is only worth doing 1 time a week.

 

The game is like an X-box game u could buy for 60 bucks and be done with in 2 weeks.

 

really.....less group content.....5 HM flashpoints, 3 raids with 3 difficulty settings, pvp, dailies...

 

LOL what MMO did you play in its first YEAR that had this much endgame content? much less in the first 6 months

[mithrelkhaar]

You really believe that this game is bleeding subs just because there are too many servers? 5 months ago my server had ques 4 months ago there were alot of people , 3 months ago it was just ok, 2 months ago it was dying and now it is dead.

 

Yeah i agree that the empty servers are really hurting this game alot right now, but they emptied out for a few reasons and until you fix those reasons they will empty out again after server transfers.

 

Ok, lets analyze this...one of the most major complaints this game has had is that there arent enough people to do content, server merges fix that issue, another is that they want a dungeon finder...done in 1.3, ranked warzones also coming around that time....bugs are getting fixed, some are taking longer than others.

 

subs are bleeding because of the server pops, only so long people can log into an empty server before they start dropping off.

 

other than that, this game is not doing anything to hurt itself, other than what EVERY MMO does at launch through its first year

[Talarchy]

I expect bugs, glitches and constant patching from any MMO I play, regardless whether its SWTOR or not.

 

To not expect these things, means you are inexperienced. Bottom line. That's not saying don't get angry, but you really need to expect and accept it.

 

What is killing SWTOR is the lack of updating content - but this of course leads to more bugs that you guys whine about...

 

see the problem here?

[Mallorik]

Ok, lets analyze this...one of the most major complaints this game has had is that there arent enough people to do content, server merges fix that issue, another is that they want a dungeon finder...done in 1.3, ranked warzones also coming around that time....bugs are getting fixed, some are taking longer than others.

 

subs are bleeding because of the server pops, only so long people can log into an empty server before they start dropping off.

 

other than that, this game is not doing anything to hurt itself, other than what EVERY MMO does at launch through its first year

 

Like i said, low server pops is a huge problem with this game right now and is killing it. but low server pops werent killing my server 3 or 4 months ago becaue it had pleanty of people. those people left for other reasons than server populations, and that caused the population problem.

 

And yeah the lfg tool will help a little in theory (but imo a same server lfg tool will not work and may end up driving people away when it takes hours to get a flahpoint group still). and yeah rated wz's , cross server wz que and all the other things in 1.3 will all help. I just pointed out in my last post that while they may be the biggest problem right now low server pops are not and were not the core problem.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Mallorik

[Grimne_Lothos]

No, because the community is terrible. Had a guild mate recently say that he would never leave TOR for another game no matter how much better the other game was because he loves star wars. I realized that this was the only type of player that was still playing this game and immediately un-subbed. People that apply this sort of reasoning to their decisions are incapable of being good players which means that deciding to continue to play this game would be accepting that I would be playing with horrible players and horrible humans.

[WrecklessMEDIC]

No, because the community is terrible. Had a guild mate recently say that he would never leave TOR for another game no matter how much better the other game was because he loves star wars. I realized that this was the only type of player that was still playing this game and immediately un-subbed.

 

Thank-you from the bottom of my heart for leaving. On your way out could you please tell me who this ex-guild mate is so I can ask him to come play with some like-minded fans? Thanks.

Edited May 17, 2012 by WrecklessMEDIC

[Gloga]

I think in a year, possibly two this game will be something that causes more enjoyment then frustration to play. I had really high hopes for this game and honestly planned on playing it until they closed the final server. Unless they remake their customer service department, reprioritize their fix orders (I'm sorry, but /grovel and running around doesn't stop me from playing the game...getting knocked down in warzones in the spawn area does and the /grovel was fixed first. The getting knocked down still isn't fixed...and to be honest I think it happens more often now...I saw it twice in the last 8 warzones or so), and last but not least, merge their servers and stop trying to stop a panic that won't happen if they spend half the amount of time spinning the 1.2 changes as they spend spinning the merges.

 

I'll tell you what I think would get most things fixed in a hurry: They use their free time to play their game. That sound bug would have lasted less then 24 hours had anyone on the design team actually played the game.

 

Edit: almost forgot, give us tools to help build a community....that means when I go to my server forum, I find my server forum....and don't have to dig through 30 posts from other servers to find it.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Gloga

[Approbate]

I can be saved. They just have to ripoff World of Warcraft a lot more to get those MILLIONS of subscribers the need and want.

[Kakachan]

It geting worse everyday, most of servers are light populated and it is pain to play in these servers. You cant see more than 20 people online in fleets at peak times in my server (Ahto City). They should admit it first that swtor is in a dire situation to get countermeasures. Everyday that they dont admit it and look forward to prevent that bleeding this patient cant live any longer in this condition.

[priest]

I just want to say that the D3 threads are FULL of qq'ing about it being an, and I quote, Epic fail. Really, people have way too much time on their hands. I miss the days where you just played a game you liked and if you didn't like it, you didn't play. now we have hordes of people who feel that it is their god given responsibility to not only loathe a game, but continue to play it and tell everyone how much they hate it. Such insanity.

 

SWTOR will be fine. It is profitable, it will grow into its own, despite what the naysayers and imbecullins say.

[Mallorik]

I can be saved. They just have to ripoff World of Warcraft a lot more to get those MILLIONS of subscribers the need and want.

 

that is the way the mmo universe works, wow did it to eq, hell wow even did it to rift, and in the future if swtor ever pioneers a good mmo game mechanic soemone will rip them off.

[Staalker]

I would say a little patience, and hopefully an epic 1.3 patch that will correct the experiment of 1.2 from early complaints of people who were too used to playing WoW. 1.2 is a prime example of you get what you ask for when you are used to playing another game and bringing that mentality to a new game before it has had it's freshmen five moment. I am hoping BW has and is looking at the mechanics an will realign it to what was envisioned before the players who complained about certain aspects, and now turn their backs because they got too much of what they thought they wanted.

 

I'd say patience is what we don't have.

 

Unless they plan to make us all able to play for free until they get this game sorted out, it's not right to ask us to be patient. We are paying monthly for an MMO...that is not an MMO.

 

Twin Spears was one of the most populated severs when this game launch. I spent 6 hours straight in a PvP Q yesterday without a single match. And that was in the 1-49 bracket. The 50 bracket is worse,

 

Why should I be expected to continuing paying to wait?

 

There is very little to do at 50 without other players. PvP, Operations or Flashpoints. The only things they keep giving us at lvl 50, and you need a team for them all. But there are so few players, you can wait nearly all day and can't get a team for one.

 

I am all for big updates, but they need to quit trying to cram three months into a single update and start dumping some content into the game each week. They can do stat changes and new features in a big update, but there needs to be something to do in between updates.

 

Let's consider this. Legacy, while cool, gave us very little to do. The Corellia dailies are the only part of that in which you don't need a team of people to do. How much more content could we have had if they hadn't worked on Legacy? I mean, the Legacy system didn't give us playable content. It only supplemented content that was there.

 

I have tried to take my time leveling up. Tried to take my time with the Story, explore and do whatever I could to not reach 50. It's hard to do. Levels come so fast. you have to literally sell your gear and start over to not level up "too fast".

 

They said they had a year's worth of content ready at launch. Well, maybe they should start dropping some of it on us. Slow down the XP gain. Do something to give people a reason to play. At this point, I watch my days tick off the subscription and think how crappy it is that I didn't get but one PvP match in because there is no one to play with.

 

Server merges might work, but then you are still ticking people off. Someone would lose their name. The way the game is designed you can't have three ShooterSix characters in the game. So someone gets unlucky and loses their name. Or their Legacy name. Then you are going to drive even more people away.

 

For a team who claimed they watched WoW and all the other popular MMO's, and they built their game modeled after those games so they felt they knew what they were doing...I have to wonder what they are thinking.

 

When WoW launched, levels weren't as fast as they are today. Back then they were slow. Not a bad grind, but you weren't going to max out a character in a day. I played beta and launch, and I remember people thinking it was amazing that the fastest to 60 was 78 hours.

 

Today, they can afford to let people level fast, they have tons of content to back it up. As they added more and more to do, they gradually increased the XP gain, so people who were knew wouldn't need weeks to get to the content they wanted.

 

But SWToR doesn't have tons of content. Being able to level up in rocket speed only hurts the game, because when players run out of things to do...they go somewhere else.

 

I can't speak for everyone, but 8 out of 10 people I have spoken with said they would still be playing if they hadn't ran out of things to do. All but one of the 30 people on my friends list said he same thing.

 

Most people will be fine with doing PvP for a while. But at some point, you have all the gear and you really have nothing left to work for. And to make it even easier to run out of reasons to PvP...Bioware makes getting PvP gear even easier in 1.2.

 

A weekend pass isn't going to help us. I know it's a chance to get some people into the game for a weekend, but that doesn't help us. We will be back to low pop on Monday, assuming people even show up to play this weekend.

 

Then you have random people who don't care if they ruin your fun, they aren't paying customers. And they won't be lvl 50, so the high level PvP won't have players anyway.

 

There are a ton of things that could be done to "save" the game, but sadly most of them will take too long to get implemented. I have seen this too many times with too many games. By the time you get what is needed to "save'"the game, the playerbase is gone. Who is really gonna keep paying for six months while the work on Cross server tech? Or what if they decide to go free to play? That takes time to implement as well. Not too mention, while they work on those things, they aren't adding new content. So, you spend the next 4 to 6 months with nothing new, which is a huge portion of the problem already.

 

I think the game can be saved. But Bioware needs to start being vocal. They need to start telling us what is coming, and when it's coming. They need to start giving us content, NOW, not "next update". They need to do something other than sit quietly and pretend it's all good.

 

I had to laugh when I read the latest new item on the main page of the website.

 

"Join thousands of others in experiencing your personal Star Wars saga with thousands of other players from May 17th until May 21st!"

 

Thousands? Where? Oh, that's right...you have 1000 people on during peak time. But divided across 50 servers means you have 20 people per server.

 

I'd love to see these thousands.

 

At this point, I'd settle for a character transfer, but then we end up with the same thing that is wrong with server merge. Someone has to change a name, or a legacy name. Nah. Most people will just unsub...and that is exactly what they are doing.

 

The game has the potential. It's not a bad game. I enjoy it, when I have something to do. It just needs to be managed by someone who has a clue what it takes to maintain an MMO. People were amazed to know SWToR had over 2 million subs in the first 90 days. And it took less than that to lose half them.

 

Maybe they still have game time that hasn't expired...but they aren't playing the game. The serer pop numbers show it. I don't know what numbers Bioware is looking at...but they should pop into a few servers and see for themselves just how barren the place is. Numbers don't tell everything...and apparently, they aren't telling enough in this case.

[loganweissler]

First off i'll say that i do enjoy this game, bioware is an excellent developer and i hope to continue playing. That being said the thing everyone seems to agree on is that there are far too few players spread out over far too many servers. Merging servers as soon as possible would solve most of this game's problems. I simply don't understand why this hasn't been addressed in 6 months or why there are so many servers to begin with.

[BlazingShadow]

I play this game because it's star wars.

 

But I will never buy another Bioware game. Ever.

[Merovinjin]

First off, I love the game.

 

I think flash points should not all be started from the fleet, you should have to travel by yourself (in your ship) to the planet the flashpoint is taking place, even for HMs then all the planets would be visited more often and newer players would not feel so lonely on the planet.

 

Even on my "full" server there are only 250 people max on the fleet. Sounds like loads to the people on low population servers but for players from "wow" it's appalling. It looks to me like a full server has something like 2500 max. That is just poor a full server should be over 10k. We have a galaxy to fill not a world.

 

Capital cities that you can invade/attack need to be added aswell as biological mounts, the speeders just look dull.

 

EDIT - also legacy is not something people that want server transfers should be worried about not much use for it anyway. Still would it really be that difficult calculate the legacy gains that 1 toon has made? Alls it is is quests, mobs etc so I'm pretty sure Bioware are not stupid to not store that kind of info.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Merovinjin

[Aspartane]

I don't know if "saved " is the correct term. I think the game is pretty amazing and have had a great time in it so far.

Saying saved means it's in danger of death, and I think it's to early to make that statement.

Can it be improved? Without a doubt.

 

The biggest problem I think it has though, is that it really doesn't seem like an MMO most of the time. I love the story lines I've tried, so far the gameplay has been outstanding. But it seems (again, most of the time) like i'm playing it by myself....which for the most part I do.

I don't know what the secret ingrediant is. In WoW Open PvP....and all the problems/fun/danger it causes was a part of daily life. You could be attacked...or attack someone else, almost anywhere at any time.

Ditto SWG. SWG had even more depth in that regard because you could set up houses and actually claim a piece of real estate.

Open world PvP may seem like a head ache, but it adds flavor and a level of excitement that you can't get any other way. So does an open "world"

In this game we are actually limited to a lot of pre-defined areas.

In WoW and SWG, you could basically go anywhere. The worlds (or "realms") seemed HUGE.

This game has really amazing backdrops. I mean talented people drew the buildings, streets and areas. But it loses it's luster because as great as they look, they are just stage dressing.

 

whatever the secret is, it takes interraction with other people to keep an mmo, any mmo, interesting.

[BlueFromMoon]

Only thing they can do really is start to give more free months to see if people come back. I'd say chances are but they're small.

[Bloodstealer]

Ya because raising the caps and causing server overload which would most likely lead to a crash and make the game unplayable is a better solution than opening up servers and letting everyone play. And people keep throwing the word logic around in this thread....

 

Yes they do throw Logic around... where's yours... you obviously have no understanding of the issue or the effects their decisions have had on the playerbase as a whole...

For a game which has sooo much potential in it its hard to fathom how in 6months its already fading... not convinced then try this..

Roll a toon on every server.. pick you prime time and go about logging each toon and just as a base test take a snapshot of how many players are congregated on the fleet.. rinse repaet for every server.

Then do the same for an off peak time.... take a look at Colonel Tobin server, which was one of the heavy servers at launch... now suffering a peak time of around 25max on fleet and not even double figures off peak.. and I will hazard a guess its a similar picture for 80% of all the other servers. Maybe then you will understand the issue that has been caused by having 200+ servers out there and no where near enough players to fill them.

 

I am sure if there was say 5-10mill subs then a much higher proprtion of those servers would see Standard to Heavy... but it cant even comfortably forcast a million subs without padding Free play numbers into its figures.. do the maths and see just what 1mill subs looks like across so many servers across a 24hr period,.... it likely isnt gunna look pretty.

You see there will never be a time of day that 100% of their sub base is logged in at the same time... so your server pops become heavily diluted per server... then consider how that's diluted further by players running on different planets, different content... END RESULT... Empty Server.. ideally suited to play the game as single Player ...

Server transfers wont do anything to aid that at this stage imo.. however the cashcow effect from it will be a nice bonus no doubt, when players realise the free transfers are not to their prefered destinations.....

Merging servers will have a much faster effect of re-populating alot more servers and allow them to kill of the rest.. except making money out of merges isn't so easy, except maybe if they want to charge for name changes (funny how we cant even get a name change in this game... hmmm I wonder why )

 

Personally I believe this was actually their goal from the outset to try and shield the game performance when they knew it was already struggling to run 8v8 Wz's let alone any openworld elements..so dilting server pops mean less instances of say Illum running at the same time... Illum is the most identifiable example of how the game cannot perfom in any way stable with high numbers, lots of effects etc all going off at the same time... then look at a busy fleet and how your FPS nosedives when you speed past a crowd.

Open your inventroy or your crafting sheets.. look at the delays you see and the FPS spikes.. so by limiting server pops it helps to reduce the wathes of threads by people whop actually know something about game design, engines, hardware/software....

Unfortunately the flipside of managing their game performance has resulted in empty lifeless planets with little social community which heavily promotes a single player storyline.. no issues there.. but I like many others just dont want to pay for a single player game anymore.

But by all means keep those rosey tinted galsses on, all will be fine in your world.... until at some point even you will wake up and see it for how it really is.. except the only thing left to do at that point will be to flick the light switch off.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Bloodstealer

[Wayshuba]

I haven't unsubbed yet, am part of a fairly large guild on a populated server (Jedi Covenant). That being said, I don't know that just having server merges is going to help.

 

Here is what I think is the problem, and it is hard to fix. SWTOR is the tightest themepark on rails in the MMO space. Regardless of the class stories, you are forced through the same pattern of planets, quests and leveling areas for every single character you play. There are no real alternative paths to leveling. Sure, some planets you can skip the main questlines and just do the story (since you outlevel so fast) but even this doesn't provide enough variety in the leveling process (except for the class stories) so the gameplay quickly becomes stale.

 

Then, you reach level 50 and the gameplay is just as linear. Run dailes to get armor and weapon mods. Then run HM FPs and some NM Raids to get gear while still running dailies for Rakata implants, earpiece and relics. Then run T2 for campaign gear. There is no alternatives with the borked PvP, nor alternate sets of gear and FPs/Raids for different sets of armor. Everything at level 50 is the same.

 

While I like some of the features introduced in 1.2, the grind attached to them really wrecked it for me (and many others). The pricing on everything is ludicrous for what benefit there is, including the Legacy armors and 200 daily commendations per legacy level 14 piece (this one makes no sense whatsoever). So it became apparent what BW is now doing is adding the inflated grinds to get people to stay subbed. However, MMO customers are smarter than this and can detect artificial grinds a mile away - not to mention they are the least fun part of any MMO.

 

I have a lot of fun with guildmates, and that is what keeps me subbed for the moment. However, the truth is I could have this kind of fun in any MMO so the question goes down to how gun the game is when it is solo, and I covered the issues above.

 

However, I am going to say my personal opinion here though it is the subject of quite a bit of vent chat - I really am beginning to believe either BioWare doesn't know what they are doing when it comes to an MMO or they think they know better than their own customers. Either way, there is plenty of feedback on these forums that just doesn't seem to be taken to heart (or completely ignored). A good example is the major class nerfs that came with 1.2, they were warned to stop looking at their numbers and instead you DO NOT make these kind of major changes less than six months after launch. They ignored it and went ahead with it anyway. I do know, this cost them quite a few players from our guild as a result. So now they have new numbers to analyze as a result, those of rapidly declining subs.