Think I Know whats wrong with this game

[Greyhaws]

Simple answer?

 

The single player game is just too good.

 

It really is freaking amazing. I have played Skyrim and really not been too bothered about the plot or where I was headed but with TOR I find I am actually WANTING to know what happens next with my toons regarding the class quests.

 

I find I am umming and arring over what choices to make in quest dialogues...not just for class quests but all of them. This part of the game makes me feel almost beard strokingly good. Should I choose option A? How will my companion take it? Dark side points arent bad when the difficult decisions arise (real world decisions FTW). I have found myself wandering off into the kitchen thinking about what choice I'm going to make in a quest dialogue.

 

The single player game...you guys made it just too amazingly well written and voice acted! The group game just doesnt get a look in.

 

If this was released as a single player game it would beat Skyrim hands down IMO. What you need to do is create group only planets with the depth of interaction that the single player game has. There also needs to be an option to not get combat xps or quest xps. I say this because I enjoy the journey more than anything else and if I find a really interesting area I dont want to level past it. Doing Taris at the moment and its awesome.

[Mannic]

Stop telling Bioware how awesome the story is. The story focus is what is killing this game. It's like complimenting the chef on the wonderful cream-of-arsenic sauce he put on your broccoli. Edited June 1, 2012 by Mannic

[SNCommand]

If you played any other Bioware singleplayer RPG it brings nothing new to that genre, but on the other hand it is quite revolutionary for a MMO

 

I just hope that the MMO part will get more defined simultaneously as they try to further develop the class storylines, I don't want everything to happen in ops

[DarthSabreth]

Stop telling Bioware how awesome the story is. The story focus is what is killing this game. It's like complimenting the chef on the wonderful cream-of-arsenic sauce he put on your broccoli.

 

i disagree the story is the best part of this game.

[Mannic]

i disagree the story is the best part of this game.

 

You're right. And that is a bad thing in an MMO.

[MasterFryman]

There needs to be end game content that keeps you locked in, not something that is "WOW" for and hour, and then there is nothing else. There are 3 operations, none of which take a whole lot of time. There are too few bosses and not enough to keep you locked in for an extended amount of time. I am not saying there needs to be more operations and more end game content, well.... there does, but give us something that takes longer than an hour or two... Daily's suck, i would rather spend a couple nights a week working on one operation, than a couple of hours and then having to do daily's until they unlock. Too little, and it is looking like it is going to be too late.

[DiabloDoom]

My sarcasm sense is tingling.

[Moaky]

Stop telling Bioware how awesome the story is. The story focus is what is killing this game. It's like complimenting the chef on the wonderful cream-of-arsenic sauce he put on your broccoli.

 

 

How about you worry about what you like, and let the OP be concerned with what they enjoy personally.

 

I say if they had never worried about PVP, and put that dev time into these game additions, that we are finally getting, is why the game is hurting.

 

Instead of having group finder, resizable windows etc, we have instead dealt with drama due to lack of them, and all the nonsense from the PVP side.

 

The story aspect is the one thing they did get right IMO, and it would appear the OP as well.

[DiabloDoom]

There needs to be end game content that keeps you locked in, not something that is "WOW" for and hour, and then there is nothing else. There are 3 operations, none of which take a whole lot of time. There are too few bosses and not enough to keep you locked in for an extended amount of time. I am not saying there needs to be more operations and more end game content, well.... there does, but give us something that takes longer than an hour or two... Daily's suck, i would rather spend a couple nights a week working on one operation, than a couple of hours and then having to do daily's until they unlock. Too little, and it is looking like it is going to be too late.

 

I think this is the problem, people expect to be entertained with something new every hour. No-one complained back in the golden age of MMORPG's, when all we had were less than a handful of bosses worth killing. You get bored of doing something more than once, you'll get bored of life.

[SNCommand]

My sarcasm sense is tingling.

 

I was suspicious first, but he kept bringing out the story in Skyrim to compare it too, and even though the lore and setting is awesome in that game it is nowhere near as compelling in the actual story as Bioware RPGs, could be he hasn't played much beyond MMOs and Skyrim

[Greyhaws]

The single player game is just the shiz. Pure awesome

[metalgearyoda]

Stop telling Bioware how awesome the story is. The story focus is what is killing this game. It's like complimenting the chef on the wonderful cream-of-arsenic sauce he put on your broccoli.

 

If it werent for the story this game would have about 500 subs left.

 

(The joke being that bioware has about 500 people working on swtor.)

Edited June 1, 2012 by metalgearyoda

[Kourage]

Best Single Player Role Playing Game I ever played!

[Sarfux]

You're right. And that is a bad thing in an MMO.

 

what the...

 

are you on drugs or something O_o ?

[metalgearyoda]

what the...

 

are you on drugs or something O_o ?

 

Swtor clearly wasn't aimed at his demographic.

 

Bioware hoped for about 1m subs and 2m sales. They beat that, much to everyone's surprise, so its clear a lot of people bought the game who bioware didn't think would like it.

 

This guy happens to be one of them.

[siegedeluxe]

Simple answer?

 

The single player game is just too good.

 

It really is freaking amazing. I have played Skyrim and really not been too bothered about the plot or where I was headed but with TOR I find I am actually WANTING to know what happens next with my toons regarding the class quests.

 

I find I am umming and arring over what choices to make in quest dialogues...not just for class quests but all of them. This part of the game makes me feel almost beard strokingly good. Should I choose option A? How will my companion take it? Dark side points arent bad when the difficult decisions arise (real world decisions FTW). I have found myself wandering off into the kitchen thinking about what choice I'm going to make in a quest dialogue.

 

The single player game...you guys made it just too amazingly well written and voice acted! The group game just doesnt get a look in.

 

If this was released as a single player game it would beat Skyrim hands down IMO. What you need to do is create group only planets with the depth of interaction that the single player game has. There also needs to be an option to not get combat xps or quest xps. I say this because I enjoy the journey more than anything else and if I find a really interesting area I dont want to level past it. Doing Taris at the moment and its awesome.

 

TL;DR: Limited end-game content.

[DarkSaberMaster]

Best Single Player Role Playing Game with co-op online elements I ever played!

 

Fixed for ya.

[Mannic]

Swtor clearly wasn't aimed at his demographic.

 

Bioware hoped for about 1m subs and 2m sales. They beat that, much to everyone's surprise, so its clear a lot of people bought the game who bioware didn't think would like it.

 

This guy happens to be one of them.

 

Dude. It was a Star Wars MMO written by Bioware. They could have put a blank DVD in a box and sold 2 million units. The game is obviously failing now, and if you think Bioware was hoping to be in the position of requiring mass server merges 5 months after release, you're nuts.

[metalgearyoda]

Dude. It was a Star Wars MMO written by Bioware. They could have put a blank DVD in a box and sold 2 million units. The game is obviously failing now, and if you think Bioware was hoping to be in the position of requiring mass server merges 5 months after release, you're nuts.

 

Do I have to go dig up their blogs / Q and As about their expected subs and sales?

 

Its pretty much common knowledge.

[Mannic]

what the...

 

are you on drugs or something O_o ?

 

When the story is the best part of an MMO... that's a very bad thing; especially when the story isn't really that spectacular.

[Mannic]

Do I have to go dig up their blogs / Q and As about their expected subs and sales?

 

Its pretty much common knowledge.

 

Go ahead.

 

"1 million subscriptions is significantly profitable."

 

Here's where you don't get it. They weren't saying, "as long as we, at any point, have 1 million subs, we win!"

 

They were talking about 1 million subs over the long term, month after month, like WoW. They weren't talking about having 1 million subs for a couple months and rapidly fading to the point of requiring mass server merges.

[Kourage]

It has potential. Those Super Servers should have been here at release.

[Mixxathon]

I think that the worst part of this game is actually the players themselves. Not all players, mind you, but those that thought that this game would be The Game to end all games out of the box. They ventilate their negative opinions on every forum there is, muddying the waters, poisoning the well, creates a sense of "Fail" - and that affects many of the rest of us in negative ways. I know this since I am nobody special, I love this game as it is and look forward to what will happen to it in the future, but every time I read a "Bioware needs to.." or "This game fails because..." or "Will you resub?", I feel a little less optimistic about the future. And this is probably the wanted reaction.

 

I don't get why so many calls this a great single player / co-op game since we always have alot of fun when forming a full group, or doing an 8 player or 16 player The surprise is that this game is still awesome if you are running solo or co-op mode.

[metalgearyoda]

Go ahead.

 

"1 million subscriptions is significantly profitable."

 

Here's where you don't get it. They weren't saying, "as long as we, at any point, have 1 million subs, we win!"

 

They were talking about 1 million subs over the long term, month after month, like WoW. They weren't talking about having 1 million subs for a couple months and rapidly fading to the point of requiring mass server merges.

 

6 months after launch there are no more people who "where here just to try it out".

 

1.3m subs, at this point, is the month after month.

 

Also, being significantly profitable does mean you won. Its a business. If they are making profits they are winning.

[Mannic]

6 months after launch there are no more people who "where here just to try it out".

 

1.3m subs, at this point, is the month after month.

 

Also, being significantly profitable does mean you won. Its a business. If they are making profits they are winning.

 

1.3 million subs in March, dude. It's June. Population has significantly declined since the end of the quarter.

 

Have you not noticed the thousands of posts by people complaining their servers are utternly dead? Did you miss the news that they just laid off 150+ employees?

 

You obviously need a math lesson. So here goes:

 

2 million units = about $60 million in gross revenues ($30 per unit.)

4.5 million subscription units in the first 3 paid sub cycles = about $65 million in gross revenues.

 

That's $125 million in revenues generated to this point

 

The game cost $150 million + to make, and maybe considerably more. Don't forget that EA paid over $800 million to buy Bioware, and this game was one of the main reasons they wanted the company.

 

$3.5 million per month to maintain the game after release. That's another $17.5 million spent on upkeep since release.

 

That means that, at this point, they have spent, at minimum, $167.5 million on the game (and probably much more) and brought in somewhere around $130 million. So... no... they are nowhere near to break-even at this point, and the sub numbers are in severe decline.

 

Don't bother linking to the "EA spend $80 million on TOR" article. It's not saying what you think it's saying. Bioware had already spent a TON of money on TOR before EA bought Bioware, so the $80 million is on top of what Bioware had already spent, PLUS another $20 million spent by EA at release, PLUS the value EA projected into the game when they spent almost a BILLION dollars on Bioware. No, my friend, even a full year of 1 million subs does not pay the rent on this game. That's why EA just laid off 30% of Bioware-Austin.