Can SWTOR be Saved ?

[BrenoBria]

swtor has everything and more you would expect from a good mmo and hey its star wars we like that, population is a big issue now but giving away 30 days and dropping the standard 15 dollar script to maybe 7 or 8 bux would bring people flocking

[Astoncam]

Nope. BW and EA don't know how to develop and take care of a MMO game and just ruined a expensive Star Wars license.

 

Next time, use the money in a good market study and multiple focus group to people who know something about MMO's and not only Star Wars nerds who only cares about rainbow-color lightsabers.

 

I had some faith before, but after 1.2 and the 4-boss operation I just lost it. I have my character permanently on Gav Daragon waiting for raid to kill the 4th boss on EC HM. After that, bb.

[BrutikusIV]

I think if they fix gear progression ( one of my biggest gripes its soooo sad) Get ALOT more endgame content out and get server xfers up for free QUICKLY they may save 'some' but sadly it seems about 80% of the population has allready vanished (least on my server/guild)than they stand a chance of 'maintaining' until thru massive changes and patches they can keep drawing in new stragglers and possibly draw some of those who have left back is about the only chance I see of it not just A: vanishing ( i'm hoping the ceo's don't cry shut it down we're losing money ( im keepig my sub up regardless to help funds )) B: Worse fate going F2P with cash shop with frogster O.O LOL), C:dimishing until there's just 4 or 5 decent servers.

 

I hope for the best and wish them the best. But as of now I'm just finishing my last 50 up and probably going back to Tera than possibly GW2 & TSW (The Secret World). I have sever ADD and when a game dies down as much as my server has and enjoyable content becomes impossible due to lack of other players I cannot possibly force myself to log on for any simple reason such as just doing dailies to amass coinage which will have no purpose..

[Mallorik]

Next time, use the money in a good market study and multiple focus group to people who know something about MMO's and not only Star Wars nerds who only cares about rainbow-color lightsabers.

.

 

I am very interested in this, How exactly did they let it go wrong, was it ignorance or arrogance? I could see it go either way, but i definately think it was one or both of them.

 

Id like to know what their reason is for thinking dual specs werent important, why they dont like cross server lfg tools, how they thought leaving out something as simple as a combat log and window was a good thing. Who told them that mmo players would enjoy being prodded into rolling 8 alts which all share 90% of the same content? the questions could fill this page.

[gurugeorge]

Uh....No...lol..

 

This is a game that peaked at 1.7 subscriptions and still maintains 1.3 million, that's a massive foundation and a pretty significant profit for both BW and EA. They won't just out and out CLOSE the game. Especially not before doing a f2p conversion...

 

Do I think this game has a future? Yes...Can it be "saved" ??? I guess so, it's definitely not looking good right now. Honestly, this is a game that should be maintaining, and growing larger numbers of players but people went through leveling very rapidly and ate up the sort of limited end-game content. There's more to this games end-game than most MMO's have launched with in years, but then again look at how badly all those games fared. People played SW:TOR for it's story, they got that and then they moved on. There's really not much to keep people playing afterwords other than making a bunch of alts, and most MMO players aren't total altaholics. If you could somehow keep the story going endlessly then you would probably see this game continuing it's growth, but that's impossible to do.

 

the MMO genre has been in desperate need for what SW:TOR has brought to the table, before it was a stagnant, vapid and static genre of games where you weren't really invested into what was going on in the games, with SW:TOR you're invested only as far as the story will take you and after that there's a big feeling if disconnection. You can't continue to interact with companions on any level after you max them out like in DA:O, you don't really have story content left once you complete what's available, you can only stand to repeat the same flashpoints and stuff so many times...I guess what I'm saying is that there should of been *MORE* at level 50 took get into. Space combat, while fun, is still very limited, and you get bored of it after doing it so long each day. All in all, people played the game and essentially beat it...You move planet, to planet in this game which is awesome but there's no sense of community when you do that. If they'd had some galaxy chat channel that spanned across the entire game for both factions regardless of where you were then I'm willing to bet it would of helped to form a better sense of community all together cause people would of actually chatted while playing. We'll see what 1.3 and beyond brings to the game, I think BW can pull it off but they'll have to move faster than they are now and I'm not sure that's possible. They claimed to have kept a full pre-launch team on the game to speed up content development, but who knows if that's still the case after all of this...

 

I love star wars, and I love mmo's. I'll be on SW:TOR for a long time but I am really sad that it's turned out this way so far.

 

Excellent post, balanced, fair and accurate.

[peterpangelo]

I ask myself often whether or not this game can be saved, and I really hope so. It's hard to say at this point, because judging by how things have gone, it doesn't seem BW is able to keep up.

 

Now, if it is saveable, I think there is one major thing that BW needs to do: PICK UP THE PACE. They've got some great ideas, but this whole "later in the year" thing (remember a couple months ago when they were talking about new races? That's one idea). IMHO, their main problem is that they didn't produce enough initial content to keep us exploring and what not while they worked on this stuff.

 

So, the information is out there. I've been following these forums since way before launch, and even I've been able to get a taste as to what "really" needs to be done-- if you follow these forums, there are some AWESOME ideas out there, as well as some fairly identifiable trends as to what the players really want, and legitimately, too (not just your typical nerdrage that a class needs to be nerfed because that class beat me in pvp). That being said, I dare to think that this game's saveable, as long as BW speeds it up a bit and gets us busy again.

[Jetflair]

Don't know.

 

I think the main problem is the customer care BW has addressed. In a way its not bad its average.

But the real problem is WoW. They were always bit ahead what came to changes. The game engine was very much streamlined and in my experience mostly bug free. It set the standards.

 

Now BW comes with game that many things look like WoW. But its still missing many things it already had like LFG or Character transfer. New problems arise but they arent ready for them. They should get their priorities straigthen up pretty fast. Give people something to grind and easy way to transfer characters.

 

Good choice would be remove difference between PVP and PVE gear altogether. It would force PVPser to PVE and would make PVErs interested in PVPing. Move the grinding to operations and flashpoints. Then give some rewards from PVP that are unique and then both places are full.

 

This is a faction game after all. There is no reason to separate PVE and PVP really. if you don't want to fight other side in PVE and PVP what are you doing in the game? Crafting?

[janne_josefsson]

Funny how swtor woks fine on a factory cheap inspiron 400 dollars yeah windows 7. Also funny how it works on a small form factor HP which cost less than 300 dollars , on that 2nd machine which is my friends they upgraded the memory to 12 gig and funny how it now runs on everything on high settings , makes you wonder doesn't it.

 

Oh and to the subject at hand , this game doesn't need to be saved its doing fine , obviously it needs a few things doing but its fine. This game is young and maybe the pc crowd have been spoiled , remember mmorpg's need time to grow and we havent even had a cap increase yet , people are jumping the gun or are moles for other companies.

 

Cheers,

 

Badorb.

 

100+

 

Could not have said it better even if i tried.

As long as some people have over 130+ pages of negative posts (yeah i found one with that much) my tinfoil hat stays on.

Edited May 20, 2012 by janne_josefsson

[Darkulous]

I guess "saved" is a relative term. If you mean "saved" as in getting millions more subscriptions than BW/EA has a lot of work to do. A lot of features need to be put into this game to make it easier to play.

 

If you mean "saved" where the game can sustain itself with subscriptions at 500K than BW/EA don't need to do too much more than they are now.

[Lexster]

I personally don't think it will be 'saved'. Sure, the game will continue on after mergers happen, but I truly think the 'golden era' has sailed on. The game has a lot of good qualities, but the game is missing massive themes that make an MMO live.

 

The worlds are static. Not only are you strictly guided along a path from start to finish, the npcs in the game simply stand around waiting for the next player to come along and mow them down. There is no real wandering danger, there is no real exploration. There isn't even much need to watch your pulls to prevent gaining aggro from other groupings.

 

Too little end game content. With the game so bent on being story driven, they sacrificed volumes of content in order for it to have full voice and story. Players can only handle so much repetition before they grow bored. Furthermore, most rewards for dailies/wzs while having stat improvements, arent overly appealing to many people, or even that much better than a previous tier after a certain point. No real carrot to keep a person wanting to grind further.

 

Game feels more single player than MMO. The game was designed for mostly completion with you and your companion. From lvl 1 to 50, there really is no need to group with one other person, let alone 3, 5, or 15 others. Many story/quest areas are further troubled by being instanced. So not only do you play solely with a companion, you are in your own secluded world away from others. Content is far too easy for those that put serious time into a game. The problem with the game design is while you can increase the difficulty to require grouping, too much time is spent in dialogue. How many people want to spend 3 hours in NPC chat and only 1 hour killing mobs?

 

Overlooked importance of PvP. It amazes me how they can claim to not realize how much the overall community would be interested in pvp. Look at most of the larger MMOs out there. While many have pretty crappy systems in place, they pretty much all have systems. If every friggin game out there has pvp thrown into it(even games that started without pvp) one should probably take it as a sign that people want to pvp, even if casually. Then to make dedicated pvp servers with the Ilum we got. . . .

 

So yeah, the game will limp on eventually going f2p. But I think you are seeing Warhammer 2.0 right now, and with the same outcome.

[Goretzu]

Uh....No...lol..

 

This is a game that peaked at 1.7 subscriptions and still maintains 1.3 million, that's a massive foundation and a pretty significant profit for both BW and EA. They won't just out and out CLOSE the game. Especially not before doing a f2p conversion...

 

Do I think this game has a future? Yes...Can it be "saved" ??? I guess so, it's definitely not looking good right now. Honestly, this is a game that should be maintaining, and growing larger numbers of players but people went through leveling very rapidly and ate up the sort of limited end-game content. There's more to this games end-game than most MMO's have launched with in years, but then again look at how badly all those games fared. People played SW:TOR for it's story, they got that and then they moved on. There's really not much to keep people playing afterwords other than making a bunch of alts, and most MMO players aren't total altaholics. If you could somehow keep the story going endlessly then you would probably see this game continuing it's growth, but that's impossible to do.

 

the MMO genre has been in desperate need for what SW:TOR has brought to the table, before it was a stagnant, vapid and static genre of games where you weren't really invested into what was going on in the games, with SW:TOR you're invested only as far as the story will take you and after that there's a big feeling if disconnection. You can't continue to interact with companions on any level after you max them out like in DA:O, you don't really have story content left once you complete what's available, you can only stand to repeat the same flashpoints and stuff so many times...I guess what I'm saying is that there should of been *MORE* at level 50 took get into. Space combat, while fun, is still very limited, and you get bored of it after doing it so long each day. All in all, people played the game and essentially beat it...You move planet, to planet in this game which is awesome but there's no sense of community when you do that. If they'd had some galaxy chat channel that spanned across the entire game for both factions regardless of where you were then I'm willing to bet it would of helped to form a better sense of community all together cause people would of actually chatted while playing. We'll see what 1.3 and beyond brings to the game, I think BW can pull it off but they'll have to move faster than they are now and I'm not sure that's possible. They claimed to have kept a full pre-launch team on the game to speed up content development, but who knows if that's still the case after all of this...

 

I love star wars, and I love mmo's. I'll be on SW:TOR for a long time but I am really sad that it's turned out this way so far.

 

 

 

It's hard to disagree with any of that.

 

The unfortunate position for Bioware at the moment is that 1.3 or at the latest 1.4 need to be a rabbit out of the hat sort of patch, and then need to follow it with one or two more directly.

[Kleve]

It's hard to disagree with any of that.

 

The unfortunate position for Bioware at the moment is that 1.3 or at the latest 1.4 need to be a rabbit out of the hat sort of patch, and then need to follow it with one or two more directly.

 

1.2 was supposed to be the rabbit out the hat patch.... Does no one remember that? Am I all alone? Hello? Is this thing on?

[Hambunctious]

To OP: It can be saved, but I'm not sure Bioware can alter their "vision" enough to make a difference. Heck, they could revert some stuff back to the beta build in April 2011, and have a better product.

[cyberfreaq]

It can be saved only if the developers finally understand that this game needs 2012 standard features. You know, no hotkey combat, improved space combat, more stuff to do on planets and so on.

 

Until then however, there is nothing else to do. Unless they want to treat this game as they did to Warhammer, in which case it will be the last straw.

[zoofar]

Can it be saved as in brought back to first month number of players? Nope, extremely unlikely. Possible ofc, but why would they put so much extra resources in the game...given the amount they already put in?

 

But does it need to be "saved" ? Rather needs to be "fixed" I'd say. When it's fixed...no dead servers, no more broken stuff...it'll be a fine piece of work and a pretty good game. At least for a month or three. Or as something you pop into now and then for some lightsabering. It's just not currently something you want to stick around in for long, for other reasons off-topic. Def worth the original money though.

[irishdrunk]

To OP: It can be saved, but I'm not sure Bioware can alter their "vision" enough to make a difference. Heck, they could revert some stuff back to the beta build in April 2011, and have a better product.

 

OMG totally better. The mod system was better than now, I still loot grey Emitter Matrix's and laugh. I seriously miss BETA. Full server, great community. I had to quit from Jan until 3 weeks ago for school, I came back and could not believe what BW/EA has done to this game...it such short time. We get it guys, launch was great. Now murder 50 servers really quick so we can have an MMO again.

[Neloth]

Well since I'm feeling in the constructive corner today (and after getting a warning) I'll post my quick fix to TOR to make it all alright again:

 

1. Server transfer/merge servers (is under way)
   
2. Group finder (is under way)
   
3. Add sandbox content to end-game FPs and raiding, diversity is the key and TOR is screaming for some
   
4. Extend crew skills to be much more complex, sandbox-ish yeah yeah inspiration from SWG
   
5. 3D space
   
6. Guild based territory control
   
7. Guild based territory control in 3D space, I want my space rock. Space rocks give asteroid resources.
   
8. Make my space rock target for invasion by either players in PvP regions or NPCs (raid) in PvE regions
   

 

Make it so.

 

Do that and I, and many like me, will cheer BW as the second comming.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Neloth

[JGames]

Can't save something that doesn't need salvation

[evildestroyer]

Im not gonna bother reading all the posts but all i can say is the window to save this game has passed.

 

They had a small window before D3 came out to fix this game, to recover the people that quit and gain new people but that window has passed. Now people are leaving cause of low pops but shortly before people were leaving cause the game in general wasnt that great to begin with i mean for example in terms of PVP it sucked. This game is a PVPers worst nightmare. But anyways the longer Bioware/EA takes to fix this game up the more people will leave. Guild Wars 2 is on its way and i think if GW2 is great people from here will flock to it and no way of saving this game then.

 

Remember Warhammer (by the same devs of SWTOR), i predict SWTOR will follow the same fate of it just on a slower rate.

[kilosoldier]

I think the damage is done. I think many MMO players have already been through the "wait and see, it will get better" dance in other games and just have little to no desire to do it again with this game. This game will fall of into niche status and be lucky to have 200k playing.

 

The MMO player base refuse to accommodate developers which employ a "pay to beta" model while the developer finishes the game. Good for the players. This type of game development was always negative for the players and its refreshing to see the players as a whole start to reject this with such passion.

 

Bioware should have known better than this and it proves it doesnt matter how big and renowned the developer or budget....

 

DO NOT RELEASE A GAME UNFINISHED AND EXPECT THE PLAYERS TO EMBRACE IT WHILE YOU ATTEMPT TO PLAY CATCH UP AND FINISH IT.

 

Lesson to be learned here for other developers of MMO's in the future for sure.

[drfirewater]

The game is far from dead in what 4 months?

 

That being said they have a big problem .. they swore there would be alot to do at end game and there is nothing to do at end game. When i said ... there are more peopel who dont want alts then do and everyone said your crazy .. well i was right .

 

When i said voice acting would make developing quests cost more and take more time ... and then 1.2 proves me right (1 fp 1 raid and 1 voice acted daily with what 5 other mission box quests and both have very little conversations... seems they finally realized it)

 

all they need to do is give us a reason to run HM FPs after we have our columi (1.3 already offering new ways to get BH coms through HMFPs and the new quest finder)

 

and a TON more dailies and FPs and make all the old FPs with no HM have a HM that drop rakata and BH coms.

[Syntarius]

I seriously think that using TOR for an MMO time period to depict the Star Wars experience lacks in the nostalgia of 4-6 for the older generations and 1-3 for the younger generations. There are no iconic NPC's or anything else that ties it to anything mainstream. You get no feeling of ownership with this game. I hate walking the path that is set before me. Keeping both Republic and Imperial factions separate from each other is one of the most stupid things I have dealt with. Just because someone is playing a Reb and I am an Imp means that we can't be friends in the game, and that seriously cuts into any feeling of community. Plain and simple this game lacks any kind of feelings of accomplishment. And just because a prof is split into 2 categories doesn't make it 2 profs by giving them separate names. I think BW should have looked at Trion and Rift, and made cross server queues for warzones and the like.

Server transfers were not an option before 1.2 and therefore the legacy crap was set into motion. It's obvious that BW is trying to keep our subs with pointless content and furthering your leveling process with more species that are only available by leveling to 50 or paying 1.5mil in creds .... = huge time sink. I don't care if you agree or disagree. My sub is up soon and there isn't anything bringing me back unless this game turns into SWG2. I told everyone from Chili that this game wouldn't be all that they made it out to be.

[Syntarius]

The game is far from dead in what 4 months?

 

Been longer than 4 months.... Dec, Jan, Feb, March, April, and I believe it's May now.

[kilosoldier]

Been longer than 4 months.... Dec, Jan, Feb, March, April, and I believe it's May now.

 

...and its on life support

[KhamG]

The game will not be like Ultima On-line and go on indefinately on a small budget.

 

Waiting for BW to pull a rabbit out of the hat but it does seem to me that it is indeed to late. The game is essensially dead already. A select few populated servers will not save it.

 

I don't know how many original players from the Fatman are still playing. But the whole place is filled with rerollers. The die hards. And there are hundreds of them - NOT tens of thousands.