What Trent Oster thinks.

[Andryah]

he can't because they never did... they repeatedly stated they weren't looking to beat WoW or "re-invent the MMO wheel"... it was only foolish fans that made those claims

 

Yeah.

 

This whole... Bioware/EA said they wanted to dethrone WoW is just more of the MMO player ubran mythology presented as magnanimous fact.

 

Did they want it to be more successul in the launch ramp then it was, I'm pretty sure they did. WHO WOULDN'T? But that is entirely different the the urban mythologies circulating in the MMO tribal player base.

[Ansalem]

Wow another Paul Tassi hate blog on swtor Im so shocked! I swear when is that guy going to let it go he does nothing but write opinion pieces bashing the game. Sure SWTOR isn't everyone's cup of tea, but for the remaining players it sure is fun. If tassi were a real reporter he would have looked into the way EA was mishandling swtor and having their marketing department screwing with the development. I prefer to read the reviews on glassdoor.com. Those articles from employees show how EA claimed yet another victim.

[hippiechick]

If you dont think BW/EA has been taking one hell of a beating this last year you have blinders on. If they couldnt take it thats their problem. But the fact remains that between SWTOR and ME3 they have really gotten a bashing from their playerbases.

 

M

[Yogol]

I asked for official statements or actual proven subscriber numbers not estimates of concurrent log-ins and guesses about what percentage of the entire population that represents...

 

even Scorpienne himself, who's numbers you are copying, freely admits they are only estimates

 

Yes, indeed. The estimate may be off. But it won't be off by much.

 

And... 500k is a very, very generous estimate at the moment. The games only has like 25 servers left... tell me, do you think that there are 20.000 subscriptions per server? 500k is VERY generous.

[Andryah]

The number one reason why people left, is because they felt the game was not worth it.

 

In reality, this is a very common feeling of MMO players today, REGARDLESS of the MMO. The WW population of MMO players is in decline (down ~15% from it's peak in 2010 according to mmodata). Half a generation of fast food single player discardable gaming in consoles and PCs, along with changing consumer patterns in general (wanting pay as you go, not subscribe to play) is taking it's toll on all MMOs, even the once great and gloriously worshipped WoW.

 

TL;DR: it's not specifically an SWTOR thing. It's a changing movement in the player base. They want everything for free, or want it for one price for life. Yet even in that model... it does not work (evidence the rapid decline in active players on GW2 after one month.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Andryah

[Yogol]

I'm sure if it was 100% BioWare game, people would love it without reason.

 

No, you can't say that 2.4 million people buy a Bioware / EA game and then have 2 million saying ''oh, wait, I bought a EA game, eeeek, I will leave cause EA is bad''.

 

That argument doesn't make any sense.

[Andryah]

tell me, do you think that there are 20.000 subscriptions per server? 500k is VERY generous.

 

Using generally accepted metrics for concurrent logins-vs-subscriptions....MORE then 20K per server (average, as some are larger and some are smaller). there is plenty of core data tracked and reported by Paige right up until the last server merge to support this.

 

But do feel free keep trying to hammer down the game any way you can.

[MidichIorian]

They forgot about one important thing, the reason the fans bash the game is because we deep down would like to play the game and because we see potential in it. If it had been a total crap game we would have simply moved on due to not caring enough. We've all played those games, right? You install it and ten minutes later you're bored to death. I can't remember ever going to the official site to complain about a game like that because it's beyond repair.

 

I like the additions to the game but the changes to things that were in the game at launch have ruined it for many. Reset the game to December 2011, add that new material and we would have been somewhat back on track.

Edited September 29, 2012 by MidichIorian

[Slurmez]

That whole post is nothing but SWTOR bashing. If they got so depressed over the "failure" of the game that they quit then maybe they should have sucked it up and listened to the fans in the first place.

 

"After users continued to decline and SWTOR went almost entirely free to play, to most, including EA apparently, that was the final straw that indicated the title was indeed a failure. Some fans may still enjoy it, but their numbers are dwindling and they’re not nearly enough to make the game the hit it was supposed to be."

 

That made me LOL. SWTOR still has a great fan base, and still plenty of players. If they are basing it as a failure because it doesn't have anywhere near as many subs as WoW, than every MMO but WoW was a failure.

 

It was a gigantic failure given how they expected it to perform and indeed NEEDED it to perform. Just because the subs fell off a cliff doesnt mean Lucas isnt rubbing his hands waiting for his cheque every month. SWTOR had the highest development budget ever, probably the biggest IP in the world and it was a disaster of a MMO, dont get me wrong, I like the game and it has many plus points but at best its a 5 year old game which launched without features that were standard 10 years ago.

[WillCaedes]

I think Paul Tassi should choose a smaller font. And bash on GW2 some.

[mothear]

Yeah, it's all the players fault lol. Can't blame the people that made and run the game, because everything they've done is due to whinging children. Of course it is lol. I'm not saying that some of the playerbase haven't been whinging kids, but for goodness sake, you can't seriously think bioware and ea are blameless victims who's only fault is listening to players.

 

Not saying that BW/EA didn't make some bad decisions and have jumped around like a headless chicken, am saying that they took too much notice of 'whinging children', as you call them

[utio]

In reality, this is a very common feeling of MMO players today, REGARDLESS of the MMO. The WW population of MMO players is in decline (down ~15% from it's peak in 2010 according to mmodata). Half a generation of fast food single player discardable gaming in consoles and PCs, along with changing consumer patterns in general (wanting pay as you go, not subscribe to play) is taking it's toll on all MMOs, even the once great and gloriously worshipped WoW.

 

TL;DR: it's not specifically an SWTOR thing. It's a changing movement in the player base. They want everything for free, or want it for one price for life. Yet even in that model... it does not work (evidence the rapid decline in active players on GW2 after one month.

 

I'm not so sure they want it for free. Look at how many subs swtor launched with. I think it's a simple value for money thing. A lot of people were prepared to pay a sub, but left because they didn't feel the game was worth the money.

[Yogol]

This is going to be the new Wikipedia entry for "Strawman Argument."

 

He said, and I quoted it for you in my post, that the problem is that people don't know that MMOs launch without extra features. I replied that you can't blame the players.

 

I fail to see how that is a strawman argument.

[Skoobie]

(evidence the rapid decline in active players on GW2 after one month.

 

Care to share this "evidence"?

[Andryah]

Care to share this "evidence"?

 

Login and play, check the servers. Check other publicly available metrics (like xfire, not for absolute numbers, but to see the trend line), etc. etc.

 

You know.. just like people have been doing with this game since launch.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Andryah

[Skoobie]

Login and play, check the servers. Check other publicly available metrics (like xfire, not for absolute numbers, but to see the trend line), etc. etc.

 

You know.. just like people have been doing with this game since launch.

 

Interesting that when folks say/said the same here, using the same metrics, many claim it's "hyperbole", but when done there it's the truth.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Skoobie

[Andryah]

Interesting that when folks say/said the same here, using the same metrics, many claim it's "hyperbole", but when done there it's the truth.

 

Yeah right Skoobie.

 

You are confusing statements like "this game is dead" with "this game is loosing subs". The first is hyperbole, the second is a reasonable statement, especially when the game producer themselves say it.

[ReverendAnderson]

Interesting that when folks say/said the same here, using the same metrics, many claim it's "hyperbole", but when done there it's the truth.

 

It was the truth for SWTOR, even if fans didn't want it to be true. Its true for Guild Wars 2 as well.

[DrewFromPhilly]

Yeah.

 

This whole... Bioware/EA said they wanted to dethrone WoW is just more of the MMO player ubran mythology presented as magnanimous fact.

 

Did they want it to be more successul in the launch ramp then it was, I'm pretty sure they did. WHO WOULDN'T? But that is entirely different the the urban mythologies circulating in the MMO tribal player base.

 

Uh huh, and EA is now apparently releasing Medal of Honor games on a yearly basis like CoD for the thrill of schedule crunches, and redesigned the games to emulate Call of Duty in almost every conceivable way just because they felt like it.

[BrotherJohn]

I think this guy is a huge azzhat. he produced a game that was a titanic waiting to happen due to very poor vision on their part. yes there are many things that are good about the game but the focused on so small a sampling of what an mmo is that it was doomed to be what it is now, in recovery mode and hopefully going in the right direction.

 

why he thought people would just fall and bow to his game is just mind boggling considering there were many mmos before that did things right but mostly wrong and all he had to do was learn from those mistakes but NOPE

 

he decided his vision filled with short comings and missing items would still work cause well its bioware and we cant do wrong attitude.

 

that attitude of i am the best and therefore they will lvoe it regardless if its a flawed pile of buffalo dung was their mistake.

 

you can only hope now that EA has cleaned up that the developers now will listen to the greater mmmo community and do it right the second time.

 

enough kissing these guys butts cause they just dont deserve it.

[Kubernetic]

And still we have people claiming that the game is faltering because there wasn't enough brand new content released within the first 9 months of the game's existence, even though other games took how long to get substantial content additions into their games?

 

And still we have people claiming that the game is faltering because it had no free-flight space game at launch... even though it took 17 months for this to be added into SWG.

 

We have people suggesting that most of the budget was spent on voice-overs, which is completely unfounded as far as I'm aware. Does anyone have some kind of budget breakdown as to what money was spent on what elements?

 

And we have people blaming the developers for cashing out on the game and not spending the money on development? Huh? Where the hell did THAT come from?

 

I have to agree... I think at least a substantial part of the issue is a group of gamers who expect too much at the launch of a game. And I must just be a crappy gamer who likes crappy games, because I'm still loving my time in the game. I haven't even experienced half of the class story content so far, and they're about to release another 5 levels worth on top of what I haven't finished already.

 

I seriously wonder what people were expecting... and would love to see another game that launched with as much content and kept cranking it out at the rate that these players expected.

 

I don't think it's ever existed.

 

I was also amused to see complaints that the game has no open-world PVP. This kind of statement alone proves to me that some players are just completely confused and ignorant on what this game actually has. And on that note... I'm going to take off and get ready for the open-world PVP event that's scheduled for tonight on Prophecy of the Five.... since open-world PVP... doesn't... exist? Uh huh.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Kubernetic

[Kourage]

95% of that was what Paul Tassi thinks.

[Andryah]

I was also amused to see complaints that the game has no open-world PVP. This kind of statement alone proves to me that some players are just completely confused and ignorant on what this game actually has. And on that note... I'm going to take off and get ready for the open-world PVP event that's scheduled for tonight on Prophecy of the Five.... since open-world PVP... doesn't... exist? Uh huh.

 

There is indeed a certain irony in the community..... wanting more "player control" and "sandboxiness"... yet most will not spend an ounce of energy to create player lead events like you are noting on PoTF. I guess they want insta-port to world PvP on demand and lots of personal rewards for doing so.

 

Personally, I want to see world PvP with consequences and faction level incentives, but I give the players on PoTF credit for not sitting on their hands and QQing 7/24 and instead organizing their own events and having some fun.

[Comstrike]

Pretty much, and the hilarious thing is if Bioware announced that they were sunsetting SWTOR tomorrow the same smacktards would be signing petitions and staging in game sit ins because of the drama factor and that is what they are all about drama, they could care two cents about the actual game good or bad.

 

Maybe that is why they went to F2P now, so they wouldn't have to deal with petitions later!

[Spiritinblack]

In reality, this is a very common feeling of MMO players today, REGARDLESS of the MMO. The WW population of MMO players is in decline (down ~15% from it's peak in 2010 according to mmodata). Half a generation of fast food single player discardable gaming in consoles and PCs, along with changing consumer patterns in general (wanting pay as you go, not subscribe to play) is taking it's toll on all MMOs, even the once great and gloriously worshipped WoW.

 

TL;DR: it's not specifically an SWTOR thing. It's a changing movement in the player base. They want everything for free, or want it for one price for life. Yet even in that model... it does not work (evidence the rapid decline in active players on GW2 after one month.

 

This I can agree with.

 

A someone who has played almost every MMO out there, I have seen this trend slowy crop up in gamers.