SWTOR May Still Be Headed Down a Dark Path (LONG POST)

[Ralidyn]

Edit: I quoted wrong person.

 

People cant post or play after their subscription runs out, so do they spend the last few days/weeks complaining after they cancel? Or do they stick around just to complain? I don't get it.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Ralidyn

[NRVNQSR]

Edit: I quoted wrong person.

 

People cant post or play after their subscription runs out, so do they spend the last few days/weeks complaining after they cancel? Or do they stick around just to complain? I don't get it.

 

Both, I've had people on Corellia who admit to having unsubbed and just hanging around to rant at everyone in General Chat.

[Ephesia]

Oh and people are going to hate me for this but I really honestly think that the release of new things should be twice a year in much bigger chunks.

 

Tweaks small fixes in between but If they have more time it generally leads to more in higher quality and the update even from psychological view is better.

 

Quite frankly If you close the whole team in a room for 6 months they can come up with something great. If you chase them with concept art to PTS in 60 to 80 days it is going to be as now.

 

This. I don't expect an expansion to this game with new planets new level cap new quests and operations until the end of 2013.

[NRVNQSR]

I have never been able to decypher why people seem to think we should be seeing entire expansion level updates multiple times a year. It's an unrealistic expectation that is not being met by ANY mmo, not just this one.

[MOPSFounder]

I have never been able to decypher why people seem to think we should be seeing entire expansion level updates multiple times a year. It's an unrealistic expectation that is not being met by ANY mmo, not just this one.

I think they just want to see more than what EAWare said they'd deliver. They failed this because everything they release is quickly scarfed up by the community until they're starving for more. EAWare's response to that is: "The next major update will be 'Coming Soon™!'" "Coming Soon™" is nothing either than weeks/months, and that's one thing really killing this game.

[TUXs]

I have never been able to decypher why people seem to think we should be seeing entire expansion level updates multiple times a year. It's an unrealistic expectation that is not being met by ANY mmo, not just this one.

 

Hmmm...are you talking about THIS game?! Because, we currently have LESS PvP content than we did at launch...10 months after release. I don't expect expansion level content, but a few steps forward would be nice.

[NRVNQSR]

Hmmm...are you talking about THIS game?! Because, we currently have LESS PvP content than we did at launch...10 months after release. I don't expect expansion level content, but a few steps forward would be nice.

 

I honestly wouldn't know, I don't pvp so I don't keep track of what content there is for it.

[TUXs]

I honestly wouldn't know, I don't pvp so I don't keep track of what content there is for it.

 

Well good, now you know. I PvP and PvE, so I'm well aware of most developments in the game.

[NRVNQSR]

Well good, now you know. I PvP and PvE, so I'm well aware of most developments in the game.

 

the only one I'm aware of is taking Ilum off of open pvp, and thank GOD for that.

[TUXs]

the only one I'm aware of is taking Ilum off of open pvp, and thank GOD for that.

 

Since you don't PvP, why do you say "thank god for that"? I don't understand why you'd care...?

Edited September 25, 2012 by TUXs

[odericko]

You seem to forget that SWTOR cost at least 200 million to develop, but total cost is probably over 300 million once you factor in advertisement and other expenses. It's a failure in that the game with a huge budget couldn't even keep half their subs and based on current trend may well be below the 500k or near that mark of subscribers, which in it's self is failure by swtor own statements when the game launch. Here is forbes report about EA and impact swtor has on EA. SWTOR is like the child that could have, but never amounted to any thing.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/07/19/five-reasons-ea-is-in-decline/

 

Players don't judge failure by if it made profit yet or not. You don't have stock in EA do you? I judge the game based on if it's fun or not. And obviously I'm not alone, as the game still has more subs than a majority of P2P games.

[BrianDavion]

I'd hardly look at the sub decline as a big negitive sign. let's be honest here if you didn't predict that would happen the moment the game was first announced you're not paying attention to how the MMO marketplace works.

[Evensong]

The game is not dying.

Let's look at Xfire numbers - though we can argue about value of xfire numbers.

As of today SWTOR is 18th most played game (that includes single player games and MMOs)

 

What is ahead of SWTOR (in order)?

LoL, Call of Duty 4, GW2, WoW, Call of Duty 2, Borderlands 2, Diablo III, Battlefield 3, Minecraft, World of Tanks, Grand Theft Auto, Dota 2, Torchlight II, StarCraft II, Call of Duty 3, Counter-Strike:Global Offense, Medal of Honor.

 

What is Behind SWTOR - with their ranks:

Aion-21, EVE-27, LOTRO-30, Skyrim-36, STO-63, TSO-75, Rift - 81, Tera - 83, Warhammer - 110, EQ2 - 251

 

 

http://beta.xfire.com/games

click on show all games

 

PS. Btw GW2 lost about 30% of xfire players in about 1 month and WoW is going to go ahead of GW2 in a day or two.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Evensong
typo

[Tim-ONeil]

You just convinced me to sign up for xfire Thanks!

[Urael]

You just convinced me to sign up for xfire Thanks!

 

Just be careful. You can be game stalked!!!

 

[Tim-ONeil]

Just be careful. You can be game stalked!!!

 

 

This is the only game I play. Besides I already have my character info in my sig. I'm no one important.

[Andryah]

I'd hardly look at the sub decline as a big negitive sign. let's be honest here if you didn't predict that would happen the moment the game was first announced you're not paying attention to how the MMO marketplace works.

 

Superbly spoken BrianDavion.

[MOPSFounder]

I'd hardly look at the sub decline as a big negitive sign. let's be honest here if you didn't predict that would happen the moment the game was first announced you're not paying attention to how the MMO marketplace works.

I knew it would happen to decline. It's just that honestly, it's been declining at such a rapid rate and it hasn't gotten any better.

[MOPSFounder]

The game is not dying.

Let's look at Xfire numbers - though we can argue about value of xfire numbers.

As of today SWTOR is 18th most played game (that includes single player games and MMOs)

 

What is ahead of SWTOR (in order)?

LoL, Call of Duty 4, GW2, WoW, Call of Duty 2, Borderlands 2, Diablo III, Battlefield 3, Minecraft, World of Tanks, Grand Theft Auto, Dota 2, Torchlight II, StarCraft II, Call of Duty 3, Counter-Strike:Global Offense, Medal of Honor.

 

What is Behind SWTOR - with their ranks:

Aion-21, EVE-27, LOTRO-30, Skyrim-36, STO-63, TSO-75, Rift - 81, Tera - 83, Warhammer - 110, EQ2 - 251

 

 

http://beta.xfire.com/games

click on show all games

 

PS. Btw GW2 lost about 30% of xfire players in about 1 month and WoW is going to go ahead of GW2 in a day or two.

You're seriously going the Xfire route?

 

I used to use Xfire but not anymore. I think only a small fraction of the gaming community even uses Xfire. It's debatable, but it still doesn't excuse the fact that SWTOR has been rapidly declining since post-1.1.

[noodlehaus]

give it up people. the pandas and the tiny mouse people are eating swtor's cookies.

[MOPSFounder]

give it up people. the pandas and the tiny mouse people are eating swtor's cookies.

I'm not sure of Pandacraft really put any dent in SWTOR's population, but for those that did leave for it they may come back soon. Heard the expansion pack is causing a lot of hate on WoW. It seems like Blizzard is running out of ideas.

[DarthSabreth]

I guess it all comes down to perspective, I personally love this game and "currently have no issues with it." The only beef that i had with this game ( Which was resolved by BW this month) was that my imp toons were stranded on lord Adrass due to no space avilable on ebon hawk, all of my republic toons were on there. But now that they were consolodated i now have 15 toons on Ebon hawk and i could not be happier.

 

This is an awesome game and i have faith that the hard working devs will put forth content, you know its comming due to them advertising it. Sure the F2P system is comming, but im a subscriber and will continue to do so, most mmo's are going F2P and it makes money. As long as it is not P2W then why should we care if it goes F2P? I sure dont, as a subber i get to do things that a free player cant unless they fork over some cash.

[MOPSFounder]

I guess it all comes down to perspective, I personally love this game and "currently have no issues with it." The only beef that i had with this game ( Which was resolved by BW this month) was that my imp toons were stranded on lord Adrass due to no space avilable on ebon hawk, all of my republic toons were on there. But now that they were consolodated i now have 15 toons on Ebon hawk and i could not be happier.

 

This is an awesome game and i have faith that the hard working devs will put forth content, you know its comming due to them advertising it. Sure the F2P system is comming, but im a subscriber and will continue to do so, most mmo's are going F2P and it makes money. As long as it is not P2W then why should we care if it goes F2P? I sure dont, as a subber i get to do things that a free player cant unless they fork over some cash.

Sorry I couldn't respond so soon!

 

I have to say a part of it comes down to perspective. Like I do love this game, but I'm in a love-hate relationship with it at the moment. The only things I really enjoy is doing endgame content with my guild, progressing in Operations and RWZs. PvP is a big thing to me and I hope EAWare improves on that in the future.

 

I know you're happy they're advertising but it all comes down to them answering questions without actually answering them and "Coming Soon™" posts.

 

There were players here that had to right to say that F2P would turn into P2W, and it's because they would expect something shallow like that from EA. EA would probably do that because they know there would be causal players who are in love with this game who'd love to be "ahead of the curve" in gear and since they can't grind for it, they love this game so much that they'd buy it.

[thespin]

SWTOR like all MMOs are for-profit endeavors. Sometimes you expect too much from developers. You want them to care about the players, but then you come here on the forums and do nothing but gripe and complain.

 

I have been playing MMOs for too many years to care about DOOOM posts anymore.

 

You like the game, be happy to pay to play it. The more money the game makes the more attention it will receive from developers. It's really as simple as that. These types of threads don't help the devs do their jobs better, they just destroy the playerbase.

[LogicalPremise]

OP: Average post, but TORTanic histrionics makes you sound like a troll, and achieves nothing. The part about subscription numbers is worthless. Neither you or anyone else knows with hard facts exactly what the numbers were, and mistatements on financial documents are something that EA Legal isn't going to let slide for a few PR points. No, I think the numbers were legit ... and that James Olsen and others started writing checks with their mouths that their *** couldn't cash.

 

But let's clear up the three real important points in the thread:

 

1) "All people do is whine and complain, why don't they quit" : you should probably bother to take a closer look at who is doing the so-called "whining and complaining". It's , amusingly enough, not the same people over time. What you are really starting to see now is people "whining and complaining" who, six months ago, were very supportive of the game.

 

All of the early "whiners" are gone, and most of the ones from March to July are also gone. So, no, you don't have a small population of trolls that pay good money to keep trolling a forum, no matter how desperately fanboys wish to believe this. You have an ongoing movement of people who are happy with the game to , as they max out characters and have nothing to do at end-game and other games start looking newer or more interesting, people who become upset that the issues important to them have been ignored.

 

2) Bioware's Miserable Communication model: Yes, all MMO's tend to fudge numbers about when updates will happen or release dates. They do not, however, state plainly and openly and multiple times that they will have large content updates on a regular schedule and then hit NONE of them.

 

Unlike most people, I don't mind the whole Soon thing. What bothers me immensely is the constant inclusion of "features" into one game update in posts on the forums or blogs, then it mysteriously gets moved back to another update, but they're still prattling on about what great features are coming. People end up not wanting to play the game as it is, but subscribing hoping it will improve soon, and when it doesn't, get extremely upset (for obvious reasons).

 

Bioware's handling of the server merges and the communication therein is simply inexcusable. There's not a single logical reason why they would do it this way and still not have paid transfers that has been put forward by either BW or their supporters, yet complaining about it is classed as "whining".

 

3) The irony of "personal perspective" : There is this increasingly bombastic tone to people who support the game and think that , since they enjoy it, everyone else should simply not say anything bad about the game. In this thread there was a person saying, in effect, that people shouldn't complain so people who are thinking about playing won't get turned off by the complaints.

 

The mind-boggling inanity of such a concept can't be overstated. If people NOW do not like the way things are going and if current players are pissed at PVP, bugs, lack of features, lack of endgame, and the rest, what makes you think new players are not also going to see this? Furthermore, it's actually self-defeating.

 

You don't want WoW-kiddies, hard-core PVP types, extreme crafters, or anyone who wants sandbox content to play the game. You want your ultra-casual, low expectation first time MMO player or hard core SW fanatic to play it. Normal MMO consumers are going to pan this game as "just average". The only growth , given that BW keeps ignoring many of the issues with the game in favor of adding (of all the things on heaven and earth) facial expressions , is going to be from the people who don't bother to read forums much in the first place.

 

The OP can be bashed for putting this together only if you reject the premise that Bioware shouldn't be held to account for saying one thing and doing another. If you are basing that on the fact that you like the game, rather than what has actually transpired, then you are not even engaging in realistic discussion of the facts as they stand. Dismissal of ALL of someone's points by pointing out he engaged in histrionics in ONE of said points is arguing the affirmative conclusion from the negative premise.

 

"The game must be good since we like the game and we don't like negativity and you're being negative and saying it sucks so u r RONG go bck 2 WOW lulz" is not commentary, it's not even thought, it's just knee-jerk reactivity to what you don't want to hear.