Can SWTOR be Saved ?

[Deluged]

Can SW:ToR be saved? It might help to know what your definition of "saved" is.

Saved meaning that the game manages to do a complete turn around and see a return of the hundred's of thousands that have left? To that my answer would be, not in a million years.

 

Next possibility of the meaning of saved.

 

To stop the people from leaving in droves and maintain its current numbers. Again, no I don't believe it can. The bleeding of this game is way past transfussions of any patch. I believe people have already left in their mind if they haven't done it for real already. So many alternatives that have newly been released or soon will be.

A game gets a "death" smell about it, and its almost impossible to change that. Picture a snow ball being rolled down a fairly steep hill of packing snow...it keeps getting bigger and bigger, picking up speed until its massive.

This game is the snow ball and its halfway down the hill.

 

 

I gave two possible scenarios for the meaning of saved, concerning this game.

Neither one in my books has a positive out come.

 

The short of it is they blew it. Probably the best IP in the gaming World and a big company with reputation and dollars to burn.............and they blew it. I think this is the biggest story of epic failure in MMO history.

 

Arrogance? Poor leadership? fear of failure, stick to copying others? Poor choice of team members, who haven't got an imaginative bone between them? Their choice of using the Hero engine was the first and biggest mistake?

 

Pick one, or add your own............but whatever you believe, you will never come up with, SWTOR is or can ever be a success story.

 

Bring in the bugle player and command "taps" be played. This Turkey's done, stick a fork in it.

[Bloodstealer]

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.

 

I agree.. SAVED maybe a bit premature.

But yes it needs a huge injection of improvement... not short term band aids, real into the future kind of vision.

 

It has some pretty decent foundations to build on... good story and VO.. I think thats the general consensus, but it needs to make a decision on which way it wants the game to go.. does it want to engage a community and try to engender players to work together, especially as more and mre come out of their intial story questing and move into endgame... or do thet want to keep pushing it down a one player only track with limited amount of co-op requirement.

 

No problems with either direction but I personally wont be paying fa sub any more for a single player game when there is soo much choice out there... but sadly none with lightsabres

Edited May 17, 2012 by Bloodstealer

[Kabaal]

They have a very short window left to turn things around, if it's not already too late. Their biggest mistake besides focusing too much on the 1-50 content while leaving the 50 content less than full is not already having methods in place to control server populations. It never fails to surprise me when each game releases that the devs don't have the foresight to have simple systems in place such as server transfers.

 

The longer the current state of the majority of the servers goes on the less like they are to retain new subs, people will keep buying, trying and then moving on from the game.

 

Content needs to be fleshed out faster and server transfer/merges need to happen ASAP. Going by the recent interview they gave though i doubt the former will happen.

[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.

[chaosdefined]

They have a very short window left to turn things around, if it's not already too late. Their biggest mistake besides focusing too much on the 1-50 content while leaving the 50 content less than full is not already having methods in place to control server populations. It never fails to surprise me when each game releases that the devs don't have the foresight to have simple systems in place such as server transfers.

 

The longer the current state of the majority of the servers goes on the less like they are to retain new subs, people will keep buying, trying and then moving on from the game.

 

Content needs to be fleshed out faster and server transfer/merges need to happen ASAP. Going by the recent interview they gave though i doubt the former will happen.

 

that could be down to the fact that the research they recieved from a third party company suggested the majority of players would only be hitting level 50 by now.

[nissanmaxima]

What i would like to know is how Bioware plans on continuing the Voice Acting for quests and class story in the future. If you look at it now, all quests with the exception of a few, and all the class stories are Voice Acted by paid Voice Actors/Actress. If they are to add new content such as an expansion, they will have to re-use previous voice's and pay large amount of money in royalties or hire new people to come in and voice act for them. As we know this is very expensive based on their 300 million dollar budget. Seeing how BW has not really made alot of money on this game, and most likely will not for quite awhile, are we going to just end up with text issued quests in a cut scene or a computer simulated droid voice for future quests? Discuss

[XtremJedi]

I'm waiting to see what happens. I left because of low server pops, awful bugs that were taking for-ever to fix and then the coup de grace was the mutilation of the healing classes' game-play in 1.2. I arranged to have the 3 months I had left on my subscription suspended... so that when/if I do come back to the game, I'll still have those days credited. I really want to love the game and get back to it.

 

But from what I can tell, there's absolutely no signs of the devs wanting to make any changes to healers. It doesn't look like that's going to be adjusted any time soon. If I understand right, there'll be some free character transfers to specific servers (presumably not the busy ones) and paid for character transfers for others... and no server merges. To be honest, I can't believe that BW wants to ask me to pay to transfer to a server I know will be good to play on - and is likely to stay good to play on... after I already paid for too long, to play on 3 servers that were dead or dying.

 

On top of all that though, I went off and started playing TERA - which is a bit cartoony.. but I've been having an absolute blast with the game-play there. TERA has its own problems of course, and the quests are dull as dishwater... but I'm finding myself eager to log in.

 

Players will put up with a lot, if they're actually enjoying the game-play... but ToR had average game-play at best - and with every patch it seems to get even more homogenous and dull, as they nerf hybrids, healers and tanks in an effort to try to balance the players to the content. I understand their desire to curb power-inflation, but to do that at a time when so much else in the game was suffering already, just seemed deeply wrong.

 

And then I've also pre-ordered The Secret World, which I played a little in beta and found the story-line elements and puzzles and interesting quests really engaging... where ToR's quests ended up being fairly repetitive and samey... certainly the levelling quests but also even some of the class quests. I pre-ordered because I frankly didn't think I'd like TERA... but soon I'll have two games that I really want to play, competing for my time.

 

So where does that leave me?

 

Well... it means that ToR really has to deeply change and make some startling improvements to make me want to come back again - not just changing now, but they also need to communicate a change in their direction and approach for the future. Because there are other games out there with far better game-play, at least as good story-lines, better and more imaginative content (levelling and end-game) and just generally, a whole lot more going for them.

 

A lot of ToR's success was based on the Star Wars brand, short beta weekends and good marketing. But really they've failed to deliver on the promise that the game had... and if anything have been going backwards. There doesn't even seem to be any recognition from the devs yet, that something is going wrong... never mind that they are the cause of it.

 

Somebody there needs to take the reins and change direction and communicate to the players why things will really be better in future. That's the only way I see SWToR beginning to live up to its promise.

 

X

[RobNightfall]

Personally, I think SWTOR is the titanic and the ship is going down. I don't think it can be saved because of incredibly bad decisions made during initial design:

1) Use of a game engine that was in alpha testing (hero engine).

2) Extreme lack of end game content.

3) Blowing most of the budget on voice acting instead of standard MMO features and more end game content (I like the voice acting too, but the game doesn't have enough to do once you reach 50, and there isn't enough in the way of sandbox options for players to generate their own content).

This game is essentially a large, over-developed single player RPG with online co-op options. I'm not happy to say it, as I had high hopes for the game, but it's doomed. Regardless of what BW does from this point, I see the game limping forward but never shining (based on the EA quarterly report, the game is making money). The 3 incredibly stupid initial design decisions I listed above have doomed the game to never being able to shine.

[Iiyria]

Swtor ended before it began sadly this game could not compete this game is dead bioware too this games not coming back its time to fade to black on a galaxy far far away. Perhaps bioware will be successful another day.

[Bloodstealer]

Can SW:ToR be saved? It might help to know what your definition of "saved" is.

Saved meaning that the game manages to do a complete turn around and see a return of the hundred's of thousands that have left? To that my answer would be, not in a million years.

 

Next possibility of the meaning of saved.

 

To stop the people from leaving in droves and maintain its current numbers. Again, no I don't believe it can. The bleeding of this game is way past transfussions of any patch. I believe people have already left in their mind if they haven't done it for real already. So many alternatives that have newly been released or soon will be.

A game gets a "death" smell about it, and its almost impossible to change that. Picture a snow ball being rolled down a fairly steep hill of packing snow...it keeps getting bigger and bigger, picking up speed until its massive.

This game is the snow ball and its halfway down the hill.

 

 

I gave two possible scenarios for the meaning of saved, concerning this game.

Neither one in my books has a positive out come.

 

The short of it is they blew it. Probably the best IP in the gaming World and a big company with reputation and dollars to burn.............and they blew it. I think this is the biggest story of epic failure in MMO history.

 

Arrogance? Poor leadership? fear of failure, stick to copying others? Poor choice of team members, who haven't got an imaginative bone between them? Their choice of using the Hero engine was the first and biggest mistake?

 

Pick one, or add your own............but whatever you believe, you will never come up with, SWTOR is or can ever be a success story.

 

Bring in the bugle player and command "taps" be played. This Turkey's done, stick a fork in it.

 

Lolz... you should write mission ending statemtns for money that was a class finally...

In principle I think I agree with alot of what you say except I think there is still time to stabilise the subs decline all be it with a lot of work in not alot of time.. yes new ideas from different people I think would not go amiss... having 2 failed games in the development portfolio cant be good for anyone.... but if they can stabilise the subs to a mangeable amount, with a better managed server stack and perfomance improvements, then maybe.. a tall ask but maybe.

 

For me as I said in my previous post, its not just the lack of players, its the way the game has harvested and engendered a single player attitude.. that I feel is a harder issue to solve now, unless it realy wants to take the game in that direction... I think that will be a hard pill to swallow from a subs point of view.. but thats why I say they need some real "in the future vision" coming through from them, not just band aiding things to quell the fires.

 

Regards to the engine, I dont actually agree its the choice of engine that is 100% to blame here, sure some balme lies there no doubt.

Of what have read about it and the other companies looking to use it, I think mistakes were made in the selection prrocess and how BW took hold of it and pretty much closed shop on the project, to I guess guard there project from unwanted intrusions early on. How they took on an unfinished /untested Engine and by all accounts pretty much re-made it without ustilising the engines core expertise (its own people) is a risk in itself.. did BW have the necessary experience to be able to do this, was it managed properly.. these things we will never know but the intial signs maybe tell us that its struggled to get the needed performance out of the engine, that it is supposedly capable of. but over time as more and more optimisation is brought into, well who knows.

The statement / Blog from Hero was actually pretty interesting - alot of damge limitation sure, lots of support for the game but also some engaging insight as to how it all came about, and some of the issues they can see.... so I wouldnt be too quick to judge Hero Engine just yet.. SWTOR was the first to use it... but is it really a hero engine now, for all intense and purpose?

Edited May 17, 2012 by Bloodstealer

[Darth_Alki]

This is a great game and it has some great elements. However, for many, returning to this game will only happen if it goes Free to Play.

 

I'm one of them.

 

I'm not paying a monthly subscription to play on a dead server (I have 3 level 50's on 3 different servers and all 3 servers are dead). Wait for server transfers you say? Sorry, but the damage has been done and waiting until at least June 30th isn't going to cut it for me. I'm a patient person, but logging into SWTOR and waiting in 45 minute to 1 hour queues isn't fun. Nor is trying to find groups to do instances, etc. My guild was over 100 members. Now it's down to 2. Yes, 2.

 

Again, I love SWTOR, but to me, it's just not worth the monthly subscription anymore. Tera Online gets my monthly sub now. Why? Because it feels like an MMO. I play console games for the 1 player feel and expect more of a community out of my MMO subscription based games. Hell, Ultima Online has more of a community than this game ...

 

Anyways, go F2P SWTOR and I'll return. Until then, I'll spend my money elsewhere.

[Meldwyn]

Or it's a sign of profit and can afford to do so

 

This actually made me laugh out loud.

[JeramieCrowe]

This actually made me laugh out loud.

 

Actually, EA did say on page 7 of the report that TOR has been "very profitable". Their words, not mine, don't shoot the messenger...

[Skidrowbro]

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.

 

Ok genius, can you tell me what developer has never opened more servers to quell the uprising on their launch day?

I play on a standard server and you know what I do when I can't find players on the fleet? I head to the planets and within minutes I have a group. Quit being so damned lazy and using the excuse you can't find a group just to ruin this game and get the x-LFG put in. Try being proactive. It's a virtual world with chat and you have an avatar with guns or a lightsaber, go enjoy it, if not you know what to do

[vincent-]

They can't save it. They decided to be cheap and buy and engine instead of making one and not adding all the basics first than the bells and whistles after words.

 

 

Of course time can fix this I was playing galaxies for 7 years I know what is possible and not. But that was back when the real players stuck with devs who did listen in the end.

 

The only ones I truly blame are LA they made the decisions they always have and it goes the same here. I shouldn't have expected different when they can't even release a decent game.

[Lord_Karsk]

Think the only way to save this game is that the two in charge at bioware need to fire everyone in

charge for the deperatments working on the game. And then get in some help from LUCASARTS

when it comes to getting the STAR WARS feeling into the game.LA must set down very clear rules

on how the world should be.When it comes to armors looking like star wars, ingame things that will

keep people around wanting more. What bioware is doing is trying to hard for too long to make wow 2.

 

And that failed bigtime.People came to thing game wanting the star wars experience.But in the end

i blame LUCASARTS for not setting down the ground rules. But i think LA thought that bioware knew

what they were doing, and now they know better.Something the next ones who get the star wars IP will

have to learn from.Sadly it tok two star wars MMOs to learn it all on how to succeed.

 

Question is, how many more subs do they have to lose before they wake up and change course.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Lord_Karsk

[Asherton]

Save, hmm, that's anyones guess and a LOT will depend on fixing the bugs and adding MEANINGFUL content.

 

My guess is, FTP in 6 months or less.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

Save, hmm, that's anyones guess and a LOT will depend on fixing the bugs and adding MEANINGFUL content.

 

My guess is, FTP in 6 months or less.

 

This will *never* go F2P. Before that they would shut it down half a year for reconstruction to keep their faces.

 

I strongly believe this will remain the "classic MMO" and there probably will come another more action based like an MMOFPSRPG based on the SW Battlefront brand.

 

(Obi-Wan) "That boy is our last hope."

(Yoda) "No, there is... another."

Edited May 17, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst

[Sunlessdaysrise]

SWTOR, in my opinion, has launched with actually quite a bit more overall content than nearly any major MMO I could name offhand. Endgame content is certainly comparable. Huge number of glitches? Nothing requiring DAYS of downtime like I remember from other games in a time and a galaxy not all that far away. Are people getting to the endgame content faster? Yeah, but I think that's a problem ANY game would have now, because this is just not the first time around the block for most of us. The people for whom this IS a first MMO tend to be taking a bit longer to get to endgame and enjoying the experience more overall because it's well, new.

 

If this is your second, fourth, twelfth or whatever MMO, then I think we tend to be a) way more demanding as far as features are concerned, b) have the tricks of leveling in an MMO down pat, and c) think ANY endgame content isn't enough (that's just going by my experience in those "other" games with countless buddies who launched themselves to the end of every expac and then cried foul over the amount of content). I don't think there has ever, since the dawn of MMO's, been enough content to satisfy the populace who reaches endgame ahead of the planned curve. So do I think SWTOR is dying? Server merges FTW for sure, but honestly, I haven't seen a new MMO yet that could be judged before it's first paid expac was out on endgame content. There just will never be enough in the first go round when the focus has to be on the leveling experience. I'm going with "Patience, young padawan."

 

That is perhaps the most perfect thing to say about Tor. I think that a lot of people who play mmo's need to realize exactly that they demand more and should show a little more patience as this game has been out for a very little amount of time where as other mmo's have been out for years and years and have massive amounts of end game content because they have 6 expansions made for them or whatever as well has several years of post game launch development put into them. and when they were released most certainly did not begin with all these things. Just as I tend to demand a whole hell of a lot more from a game like Skyrim because I've been playing Elder Scrolls forever and I feel skyrim didn't quite hit the mark, Although a good game, had more flaws then i could count, Doesn't mean i discredited it's purpose and do not enjoy the game with the fullest extend possible. I think to be spoiled by our previous experiences makes the new seem old and the old seem better and the fun spatter out faster then we would like it. However We just need to tap into the idea that these games are just as amazing as we would have if we played them before playing Morrowind or before playing WoW(Insert whatever games you would like) and i personally believe that idea. I think this would remedy the problem we have that these games in the world today lack what is familiar without giving them the chance to be innovative or in fact an amazing game. To put it simply if you played The Old Republic before WoW came out would you not feel that The Old Republic is better and thus discredit WoW. I think it can be viewed as such even if just an example. As I could use any game in it's place however, my point is give The Old Republic a chance without throwing it to the fire so quickly

Edited May 17, 2012 by Sunlessdaysrise
wrong button

[Xyeth]

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.

 

Yes, I believe that they can BUT they are now going to have to work twice as hard to counter the initial bad experience that it's left with a large number of players. To be fair, if you ignored the marketing and listened to what the Devs said at the various conventions, they DID tell everyone what this game was going to be. Unfortunately more people listened to the marketing departments fanticrap information and ended up with a different view of the game.

 

I hope that they still care about the game and start to push out more features and content faster BUT they need to kick it into high gear and do it now. Soon is going to be too late to keep a lot of players.

[AeSaar]

The people who want to stay are fans, and they just want more details.

 

If we are being transferred, telling us where we will be transferred to would help people make preparation and add incentive to resubscribe.

 

EA's lock and shut down all your complaints methods have driven even more of those who want to stay away. Right now we can't even talk about retention for every time a thread is locked out walks another player.

 

We can't talk about the things that need to be done without attacks from the blind screaming "Vagueness is Coming" following by their white knights with thread locking powers.

 

I want to stay. I want to play.

 

There is no one to play with outside my guild and my guild is the only relevant guild on the server.

 

Fleet will NEVER exceed the amount of players online from my guild. NEVER under ANY circumstance will fleet ever exceed my guild members online.

 

I suppose EA will have to make all of their money off of the players on The Fatman server cause the rest of use are treated like garbage.

 

Shut Up Re-Roll is not an acceptable response to paying customers. Locking complaint threads is not an acceptable response. Attacking the opinion of those who do not play on The Fatman is not acceptable.

 

EA must decide. If you can survive of the sub from the Fatman alone then more power to you have fun. If not, a major measure must be taken to improve the customer service towards people on your underpopulated servers like yesterday.

Edited May 17, 2012 by AeSaar

[TUXs]

To be fair, if you ignored the marketing and listened to what the Devs said at the various conventions, they DID tell everyone what this game was going to be.

Yup! I largely agree...but then I remember how Gabe said this as well:

 

So far very few people have seen, or know much about the stunning Open World PVP on Ilum; when you get to the high levels prepare to be blown away! In addition to that high level PVP content, expect new Warzones and new PvP features on a regular basis.

That hasn't really worked out too well so far.

[metalgearyoda]

The idea that swtor needs saving is hilarious.

[DarthTHC]

The idea that swtor needs saving is hilarious.

 

25% drop in subscriptions in one quarter seems like it might be the opposite of hilarious... from a business perspective.

[metalgearyoda]

25% drop in subscriptions in one quarter seems like it might be the opposite of hilarious... from a business perspective.

 

The fact that you think that a 25% drop since launch is "bad" for an mmo is also hilarious.

 

Get some perspective.