The elephant in the room

[Unkknownsith]

Wow was built by a hardcore player base that kept the game alive for quite a long time. Wow didn't become the facerolling easy-fest that it is today for several years. It is catering to the EXTREME casuals, which is why even wow's subs are in decline, the game is basically on cruise control at this point while they push Titan out of the factory.

 

I'm not talking about hardcore *raiders* by the way, I'm talking about hardcore players. You're not a hardcore raider unless you're clearing the absolute most difficult content, which most of us aren't. But you really can't be defined as a casual player if you play for 15-20 hours per week. I'm sorry, but we're talking part time job hours here, thats not casual, whether you raid or not.

 

Thats the kind of player I'm talking about, you seem confused as to the context of my message. I wasn't saying that the top 1% of raiders keep the game alive, I was saying that people that actually play the game are what keep it alive. And the fact that this game is so mind numbingly boring at end game and everything is streamlined down to the most easily understandable and achievable state that it possibly could be is what is pushing those potentially dedicated players away from the game.

 

You can't please everyone, but you're certainly not going to keep dedicated players by pushing out a game with basically no complexity to speak of. It's just too damn easy, and thats one of the biggest problems hampering it's success. Btw. Wow does *nothing* for me, not everything, and it's because they have geared the game towards people that can't find the time to get good at the game so they require it to have a system in place to hand out epics to you the moment you get to ding 85. Much like this game does. It is those extreme casuals that I speak of that have caused the clouds in wow to literally rain epics.

 

Hate to burst you bubble bud, but wow lost 2.2 million accounts for the same reasons TOR is taking a bloodbath. People hit max level in WOW and unless you are a hardcore raider and raiding 3 or more times a week Cataclysm has nothing else to do if your not raiding.

 

They even lost some of their hardcore raiders as well, NOT because the raids were to EZ/EASY. Not at all, everyone forgot including Wow's devs, that hardcore raiders had talked their families, extended families into playing wow. Those WHO were NOT raiding with their guilds often did other things in game, in Wrath it was so easy for extended families to play while a main family member raided. When there was nothing for families to do it breaks up a shared hobby. I know of 10 people who dumped wow because family had nothing to do in game, these 10 people use to raid and after they raided would join their families in game and do stuff, when their families bailed it left them very upset.

 

There was ALWAYS SOMETHING to do in Wrath. In cata there wasn't and it cost them 2.2 Million accounts. Same thing is happening in TOR - woo whooo you made 50 now the boredom begins. Sadly, half the player base can't even do the TOR raids, because finding a stable group to actually raid and raid on a consistant basis on all servers (excluding the lucky 3 servers that managed to retain decent numbers) is NON EXISTANT.

 

This is entertainment for a lot of people, if they are being bummed out and bored and frustrated, they will leave. It's a fact of real world. Time all you guys who keep yelling crap learned, especially in hard times people will be much more discriminating with where their disposable income goes; that's real world deal with it.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Unkknownsith

[Illville]

Transfers.. are the elephant in the room. What's the point of playing a group based game if when you log on there are 8 people on the fleet for your faction? I'd like to play but I am finding it very difficult to do on my completely dead server(Mandalore the Indomitable). Subscriptions are not painitng an accurate picture of the ghost towns that some of the servers are. I tried to re-roll on another server but I miss my lvl 50 toon. I can't get excited about any of the new upcoming content without the knowledge that there will be other players to play with. Clean up your servers then worry about adding and fixing things like sitting in chairs. Just to make sure I'm being absolutely clear..

 

TRANSFERS!

Merger Servers!

Transfers!

Transfers!

Transfers!

Damn it.

[Blakinik]

Honestly I am torn.

 

My primary server (Hanharr) is basically dead. I will log in and sign up immediate for PvP and on weeknights I can go the whole evening without a single PvP match starting up. Also since I take my jolly sweet time and not powerlevel my rear to 50, I find it next to impossible to find more than 4 or 5 people a planet at a single time. But the true deathkneel of that server - I listed all republic players on a friday night during prime time and it totalled 37 players. It did spike up to 45 at one point.

 

Guess my questions are if they doing server merges soon, how will it work, will it cost me (Sorry but Bioware is owned by EA, and years of UO taught me if there is a buck to be made, EA will do it), and will they do it on a guild basis for moving people or do we all need to make individual decisions (I kinda like my guildmates).

 

But as to everyone complaining about endgame - go start a new character and SLOW DOWN. Honestly I am enjoying the stories. Granted the 4th time I run the planet 'mission' series it gets old, but I love just messing with the NPCs in my dialogues.

[OrionSol]

They lost 400k subs after giving every account with a level 50 30 days free. So, 400k people quit before they even hit 50. With 90 servers at less than 100 people online EVER...... perhaps you are need of some math tutoring.

 

Where are you getting your numbers from?

[Durasturan]

WoW went from 12 million subs in WoTLK to 10.3 million that is not 25% of their subscription base; not to mention this is in a game that is 7 years old. http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/09/world-of-warcraft-subscriber-numbers/

To the first bolded statement; while MMO's do lose some of their subscriber base, a 25% loss is not good. This graph was done before the 1.3 million was announced and shows that those MMO's (having a peak active subscriber number greater than 1 million) don't lose such a huge percentage of their customers right after launch. http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png As to your second statement, who says this? Do you have an actual source for this information?

EDIT: also TOR pads it's numbers just like WoW it's called business that is what they do. They gave everyone a free month which will extend the 6 month subs to pad the next quarterly report as well.

 

Sub numbers aren't nearly as important here as online subscription revenue. WoW has it's numbers bolstered by literally millions of Asian accounts that pay only a fraction of what their Western accounts pay. From Q1 2011 to Q1 2012 WoW went from $395M over a three month period or $131M/mo to $256M over three months or $85M/mo which is a 36% decline in Online Subscription revenue. That amount doesn't just include subs either, that's boxed sales of WoW and all expansions, paid transfers and service revenue and liscensing from merchandise. Regardless of how they inflated or manipulated their sub numbers, the revenue doesn't lie. They can offer free accounts out of their butts, doesn't change the fact that the recession dropped their online subscription revenue from WoW by 36%.

 

http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-12-35264&CIK=718877

 

Page 15

[MaximusRex]

Your right its not closing anytime soon but games are veiwed as dead and gone long before they forced to close up shop.

 

By this standard every MMO running today is dead.

[Driveinns]

1.3 mil includes the free month given out. We really have no clue how many people are actually playing.

 

This is wrong, they released a news story about how they calculate population and taking the free subscribers and people in their first month were among those they DO NOT count.

 

And no I am not posting the article again, it would be redundant as its on these forums somewhere, use the search.

 

For some reason everyone who post stuff on these forums seem to post absolutes, like they work for Bioware or are hiding out in their offices, well that's not the case. Those people are making a guess at best, and yes they try to back it up with so called 'news' articles they find on the internet, some of which could be legit, most seem just as dodgy as they claims being made about them.

 

Thanks.

[revial]

Not to get off topic, but I always giggle when people use Wow's sub numbers in a discussion about healthy servers, considering most of those numbers are Chinese players.

[Bluerodian]

By this standard every MMO running today is dead.

 

Pretty much, yes. Not every MMO, but a large number of them are considered dead in the grand scheme of things.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Bluerodian

[Mallorik]

Wow was built by a hardcore player base that kept the game alive for quite a long time. Wow didn't become the facerolling easy-fest that it is today for several years. It is catering to the EXTREME casuals, which is why even wow's subs are in decline, the game is basically on cruise control at this point while they push Titan out of the factory..

 

Wow may have seemed "Hardcore" to someone whos first mmo was wow, but for people who have been around alot longer wow was just another step towards "Ez mode" mmos even when it released.

[revial]

Pretty much, yes. Not every MMO, but a large number of them are considered dead in the grand scheme of things.

 

It's strange, but the MMO I had the most complete MMO experience in was Anarchy Online, which I think peaked at like 20k subscribers.

 

Ultimately, I've always felt the only thing that matters is:

 

1) The server(s) have healthy populations. In AO's case, they only had two at the time.

2) The subscription fees bring in enough money to keep the servers running and a dedicated team going with content and bug-fixes. If I was developing an MMO, I'd make sure the projected box sales paid for the actual initial development.

 

From that standpoint, I have a hard time understanding why games need hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of subscribers to be successful.

 

But, I am, admittedly, not a game developer myself, so I'm sure I'm missing something.

[Elkirin]

UO is still running and they have smoothed out the bugs they were working on in 1997......

[Bluerodian]

Wow may have seemed "Hardcore" to someone whos first mmo was wow, but for people who have been around alot longer wow was just another step towards "Ez mode" mmos even when it released.

 

Yeah. I scratch my head at people who say WoW was ever hardcore or challenging. Compare Molten Core or even Naxx40/60 to Sleeper's Tomb and the difference in difficulty is night and day.

 

It's strange, but the MMO I had the most complete MMO experience in was Anarchy Online, which I think peaked at like 20k subscribers.

 

Ultimately, I've always felt the only thing that matters is:

 

1) The server(s) have healthy populations. In AO's case, they only had two at the time.

2) The subscription fees bring in enough money to keep the servers running and a dedicated team going with content and bug-fixes. If I was developing an MMO, I'd make sure the projected box sales paid for the actual initial development.

 

From that standpoint, I have a hard time understanding why games need hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of subscribers to be successful.

 

But, I am, admittedly, not a game developer myself, so I'm sure I'm missing something.

 

Oh there's nothing wrong with your understanding. It's just how the industry and the media attached to it works. AO might still be operational, but you never hear anything about it. Never see adverts for it. It's also how individuals respond to these games. WAR, AoC, for instance, are also still operational but people say that the games are dead. Media also never speaks of them and adverts rarely if ever get made for them.

 

Finally, on the other point. This industry has shifted away from games for fun to games for profit. Enough is never enough when you put corporations, like EA, in charge of video games.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Bluerodian

[revial]

Yeah. I scratch my head at people who say WoW was ever hardcore or challenging. Compare Molten Core or even Naxx40/60 to Sleeper's Tomb and the difference in difficulty is night and day.

 

 

 

Oh there's nothing wrong with your understanding. It's just how the industry and the media attached to it works. AO might still be operational, but you never hear anything about it. Never see adverts for it. It's also how individuals respond to these games. WAR, AoC, for instance, are also still operational but people say that the games are dead. Media also never speaks of them and adverts rarely if ever get made for them.

 

Finally, on the other point. This industry has shifted away from games for fun to games for profit. Enough is never enough when you put corporations, like EA, in charge of video games.

 

I was actually being sarcastic. I'm not missing anything at all.

 

I'm well aware that in the pursuit of the largest profits these companies can envision, games suffer, when the very same games would likely have been great successes if the publisher was alright with a more modest profit.

 

Seeing as the devs behind Witcher 2 self-published (I believe), and the digital age that we are in, you'd think developers would self-publish rather than throw themselves at the mercy of publishers like EA who only think about how much profit they can make.

[Bluerodian]

I was actually being sarcastic. I'm not missing anything at all.

 

I'm well aware that in the pursuit of the largest profits these companies can envision, games suffer, when the very same games would likely have been great successes if the publisher was alright with a more modest profit.

 

Seeing as the devs behind Witcher 2 self-published (I believe), and the digital age that we are in, you'd think developers would self-publish rather than throw themselves at the mercy of publishers like EA who only think about how much profit they can make.

 

I wish. It would make this whole industry so much better. I was sad to hear that Bioware saddled themselves with EA to make TOR. I knew from the start when the EA logo was attached to it that this game was doomed to be another soulless consumer product.

[revial]

I wish. It would make this whole industry so much better. I was sad to hear that Bioware saddled themselves with EA to make TOR. I knew from the start when the EA logo was attached to it that this game was doomed to be another soulless consumer product.

 

Bioware selling out to EA will always stand in my mind as one of the saddest moments of gaming history. I guess, even the best creative minds find themselves unable to resist the lure of lots of money.

[Bluerodian]

Bioware selling out to EA will always stand in my mind as one of the saddest moments of gaming history. I guess, even the best creative minds find themselves unable to resist the lure of lots of money.

 

It's mean of me to say it, but for the overall good of this industry it's my hope that TOR does go down in flames and with such a monumental failure that it triggers a collapse of the entire industry. If every developer was tossed back to square one because the current formula no longer worked, we might actually see them get back to making games that are done for fun instead of maximum profitability.

[Minguss]

My reasons why the game failed (in no particular order):

1. The class story lacked real choices (didn't go through all of them but the stories I did see lacked any meaningful choice)

2. Class story on republic side was boring (I wanted to play a Jedi Knight but couldn't stand the story)

3. Lack of exploration (some of the planets like Coruscant or Nar Shadaa are just hallways)

4. The planets are very static with no weather, no day/night cycles, and the mobs just stand there waiting to die

5.The music is good, for the small amount of time it plays, but on every planet I have to listen to the sound of my speeder for just about the whole time I am there.

6. OPs are easy, when you don't hit bugs, and gear from them is way too easy to get

7. I can't level alts, after leveling a character on each faction, without having to replay the same story in the same order. Yes there are class quests, but they are far and few between.

8. PVP is gear based without it you get slaughtered. Didn't mind 1-49, though it got tedious playing the same warzones again and again. It is also unbalanced, not that I expected it to be as it is a difficult thing to do.

9. World PVP happened to me exactly once while leveling.

10. cant swim all the water features are shallow

11. No x-server LFG

12. Extreme population problems and lack of action to correct it

13. The game runs terribly and graphics aren't that good

14. Combat is not very fluid and there are ability delays

15. The game copies heavily from WoW

16. No same gender romance options

17. Lack of in game combat logs

18. Lack of addons. Some people hate them but for people with disabilities it can be very beneficial and allow them a much better gameplay experience. I'm not disabled I just saw a post about this and it made me realize how it could allow much better access to the game and content for some people.

19. No alien species, I mean seriously they are all pretty much recolored humans. Would have liked to see Togruta, Cathar, or Trandoshans as playable.

20. Character customization is seriously lacking; a lot of clones.

21. No way of character customization changes after creation; ie changing hairstyles or adding scars.

22. Nothing to in end-game that is non-combat like pazaak, swoop racing, or pod racing

23. No chat bubbles

24. Can't sit in chairs

25. Space Combat is unintuitive and on rails

26.Crafting is almost useless and is going to be even worse in next patch

27. Lack of intuitive guild features

28. The amount of bugs and the time it is taking to fix them

29. Gear design was terrible (I liked the gear I got in the beginning better then tier gear)

30. Can't have my companions in my legacy tree; this is a very bad oversight.

31. Social points were a good idea but they are poorly implemented.

32. No reputation grinds; it adds to re-playability and can give cool non-combat rewards

33. Can't customize my ship

34. Too many loading screens

35.The fleet was poorly done all the vendors on the fleet should be on Dromund Kaas and Coruscant. Also the Republic fleet looks terrible.

36. The GTN

37.No non-combat macros

38. Customer service; they had closed many of my tickets without resolving them. Also the Hoth incident accusing player of being liars and fraudulent.

 

looks a lot like the game this one was suppsed to replace. I agree 99.9% dont really care what the "fleet" spacestions look like as they are clones and nothing more than waiting rooms.

[wutru]

My reasons why the game failed (in no particular order):

1. The class story lacked real choices (didn't go through all of them but the stories I did see lacked any meaningful choice)

2. Class story on republic side was boring (I wanted to play a Jedi Knight but couldn't stand the story)

3. Lack of exploration (some of the planets like Coruscant or Nar Shadaa are just hallways)

4. The planets are very static with no weather, no day/night cycles, and the mobs just stand there waiting to die

5.The music is good, for the small amount of time it plays, but on every planet I have to listen to the sound of my speeder for just about the whole time I am there.

6. OPs are easy, when you don't hit bugs, and gear from them is way too easy to get

7. I can't level alts, after leveling a character on each faction, without having to replay the same story in the same order. Yes there are class quests, but they are far and few between.

8. PVP is gear based without it you get slaughtered. Didn't mind 1-49, though it got tedious playing the same warzones again and again. It is also unbalanced, not that I expected it to be as it is a difficult thing to do.

9. World PVP happened to me exactly once while leveling.

10. cant swim all the water features are shallow

11. No x-server LFG

12. Extreme population problems and lack of action to correct it

13. The game runs terribly and graphics aren't that good

14. Combat is not very fluid and there are ability delays

15. The game copies heavily from WoW

16. No same gender romance options

17. Lack of in game combat logs

18. Lack of addons. Some people hate them but for people with disabilities it can be very beneficial and allow them a much better gameplay experience. I'm not disabled I just saw a post about this and it made me realize how it could allow much better access to the game and content for some people.

19. No alien species, I mean seriously they are all pretty much recolored humans. Would have liked to see Togruta, Cathar, or Trandoshans as playable.

20. Character customization is seriously lacking; a lot of clones.

21. No way of character customization changes after creation; ie changing hairstyles or adding scars.

22. Nothing to in end-game that is non-combat like pazaak, swoop racing, or pod racing

23. No chat bubbles

24. Can't sit in chairs

25. Space Combat is unintuitive and on rails

26.Crafting is almost useless and is going to be even worse in next patch

27. Lack of intuitive guild features

28. The amount of bugs and the time it is taking to fix them

29. Gear design was terrible (I liked the gear I got in the beginning better then tier gear)

30. Can't have my companions in my legacy tree; this is a very bad oversight.

31. Social points were a good idea but they are poorly implemented.

32. No reputation grinds; it adds to re-playability and can give cool non-combat rewards

33. Can't customize my ship

34. Too many loading screens

35.The fleet was poorly done all the vendors on the fleet should be on Dromund Kaas and Coruscant. Also the Republic fleet looks terrible.

36. The GTN

37.No non-combat macros

38. Customer service; they had closed many of my tickets without resolving them. Also the Hoth incident accusing player of being liars and fraudulent.

 

Great list. All the fanbois will hate it though, because the reality is that swtor failed. It was a poorly designed game from it's concept.

[Razdek]

1.3 mil includes the free month given out. We really have no clue how many people are actually playing.

 

Actually no it didnt. They released the 1.7 mill figures BEFORE the 30 day trial. It was down to 1.3 long after the 30 free days had been announced and most people would have used their time up (unless they had 6 month subs. I remeber reading a dev post somewhere (cant remember where) that their figures did not include the 30 free days to reflect the true population of the game.

[wutru]

You know, im pretty critical of SW:TOR but yeah, this list is out to lunch in a massive way and cant say I agree with much of it!

 

Reads like someone thats looking for something to complain about rather then a actual player giving real feedback.

 

People did give feedback. In beta. After launch. And even to this day. It's up to Bioware to deliver. The millions of players stopped playing for a reason. It was because the game couldn't keep them interested, and it was mostly because of what's in that list.

[Overtone]

1.3 million subs buddy.

 

and we'll get ACCURATE sub numbers from EA every fiscal quarter for them. dont forget they are a publicly traded company. if they lie, they're in trouble

 

And that 1.3 million is an inflated number

[SavageTofu]

Depressing. I just came back to sw with dcuo being so buggy. This game is so much cooler then dcuo. I don't play swtor more because I have a great guild with active players in dcuo. Swtor scratches an itch. The game is only as good as its community. I hope bw makes many of u eat your words. My biggest disappointment aside lack of community meaning not many people willing to help is no open world space. Look forward to switching servers cuz shadow town is a complete ghost town. I hope the people of this game are nicer then those whom had been in shadow town. Edited June 6, 2012 by SavageTofu

[Staalker]

Granted, I haven't logged in on EVERY server. But at least half the US servers I have logged in during what is peak time on that server. Only one of them had more than 100 people on, both sides totaled, doing a who search.

 

That single server was The Fatman.

 

So, if there are 1.3 million people playing this game...please tell me where they are hiding, because I sure can't find them.

[Darth_Victus]

Granted, I haven't logged in on EVERY server. But at least half the US servers I have logged in during what is peak time on that server. Only one of them had more than 100 people on, both sides totaled, doing a who search.

 

That single server was The Fatman.

 

So, if there are 1.3 million people playing this game...please tell me where they are hiding, because I sure can't find them.

 

Too many servers so the popultion is spread out. Fatman is highly populated because almost everyone is rerolling alts on that server, or Jedi Covenant. BioWare has already admitted they launched with too many servers. Hence why the character transfers are coming soon.

 

Pretty sure after the transfers are done they will merge the other servers together to bring the population closer together. Then again, I am an optimist and dont see everything as doom and gloom.