The game reputation is kinda ''terminal phase'' at this point.

[AboB]

Sounds like something an MMO hipster would care about

"Is my MMO cool?"

[Lunafox]

It was an interesting article for sure. It's a shame that Bioware just does'nt get the simple point, that most people care about the stories, and want more of that. Any of the fixes or inducements they've put out so far, is like trying to put a bandage on a gauged submarine.

 

I want story, I don't care about anything else. What I wouldn't pay/give to hear my companions speak some fresh new dialogues with me...

[chuixupu]

While I am concerned about how any returning 50's will view the free to play version, overall I can't say that the switch really embraces the solo-player aspect any more than the game already does. People don't typically do operations competitively unless they're dedicated players. Operations are the only group content that they're completely cut off from without being subscribed or paying extra.

 

It's also ironic to me that they're saying going f2p marks the end of swtor's signification in one breath and then praising gw2 in another. Their models are different but their goals are ultimately the same.

[MorgonKara]

I hear that SWTOR still has a chance of killing WOW.

 

 

lol jk

[Rayla_Felana]

I hear that SWTOR still has a chance of killing WOW.

 

Only WoW can kill WoW and it's happening really quickly now.

[Jnaathra]

MMOFPS combat = real skill

 

MMORPG combat = gear

 

I must say besides Planetside 2 also the Firefall beta is amazing. Everything about it. Amazing graphics (Unreal 3), everything moves, everything is interactive, they´ve got a huge world with day/night change. Just beautiful.

They even have a very efficient way of storytelling, great voiceacting, and they haven´t even started to get into the main phase of the PvE quests and dynamic events. Very promising.

 

Not everyone´s cup of tea I guess but anyway...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz6PJKEbq7U

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNOgHFtMPw

 

GW2 SPVP has a staging area. It makes you lvl 80 (max). Lets you respec for free (no limit) and offers you vendors full of free gear to mix and match as you see fit. There is ZERO gear grind associated with their SPVP (just as it was in GW1).

 

Even tho we bled subs like a jason voorhees victim after launch, and we have no where near WoW's numbers..... aren't we still like the 2nd most populated MMO out there as of this time?

 

Globally? Hell no...

Edited November 11, 2012 by Jnaathra

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

Only WoW can kill WoW and it's happening really quickly now.

 

Only Blizzard can kill WoW - and it will happen with "Titan".

I don´t think these two games will peacefully coexist forever

[aeterno]

There's no denying the fact TOR picked up a bad "reputation" by now.

 

The surely not so far-pff expansion better hit it out of the ballpark or it's swans song.

[LordArtemis]

Even tho we bled subs like a jason voorhees victim after launch, and we have no where near WoW's numbers..... aren't we still like the 2nd most populated MMO out there as of this time?

 

Aion and Second Life are believed to be the number two and number three global games at the moment, with WoW being number one naturally. That is until GW2 releases it's numbers.

 

If your talking NA games, it's probably number two. Worldwide however, it either number three or four. Still, even if subs have dropped to around 400 to 500k as some contend it's still in the top ten.

[kirorx]

I blame all the jocks trying to be one of the new millennial cool kids by playing MMOs. "If it isn't number one on twitter it sucks!"

 

Its sad how this generation has become so obsessed with being like everyone else. We get these flashmobs, Hippsters, Occupiers, etc... Its sickening how far people are sacrificing self expression to be "popular".

 

um, what? pretty sure playing mmo video games, actually playing any vidoe game is pretty much the least ""cool"" thing you can be doing.

 

Doubtful that you will be the most popular kid in school because you are a jam up tank and i really cant see success when using your highest damage in warzone as jumping off point when picking up chicks at a bar.

[Stncold]

TOR will forever have a terrible reputation and it will never improve, likely it will get worse.

At this point the game is only limping along(and will do so for a while) for two reasons.

 

1) Star Wars

 

2) Being sci-fi in a sea of fantasy MMO's.

 

You can thank EA for all of that.

Edited November 11, 2012 by Stncold

[kirorx]

TOR will forever have a terrible reputation and it will never improve, likely it will get worse.

At this point the game is only limping along(and will do so for a while) for two reasons.

 

1) Star Wars

 

2) Being sci-fi in a sea of fantasy MMO's.

 

You can thank EA for all of that.

 

Bioware/EA needed to accept these 2 things as reality and rather than compete with WoW and all the fantasy mmos, they needed to simply focus on Starwars and the starwars fanbase.

 

Justin Beiber makes music that alot of people buy but that will never appeal to the Pantera fans, Pantera sells alot less tickets than Justin Beiber but that does not mean Pantera is not a better product, its just appeals to smaller and much different audience.

 

SWTOR needed to not care about the existance of WoW or GW2, They needed to simply focus on building an awesome Starwars game.

 

SWTOR needs to become the Pantera of Starwars.

 

SWTOR has the one thing that WoW and GW2 will never have, STAR WARS.

Edited November 11, 2012 by kirorx

[Xatasha]

Only Blizzard can kill WoW - and it will happen with "Titan".

I don´t think these two games will peacefully coexist forever

 

Wow has been dying a slow death for a couple years now. Blizzard does a great job of covering this since people don't look into it. Ask yourself this how many gamers in real life that you know that play wow for any length of time. I know one hardcore player and other that plays once every 3 or 4 months to do new content and then quits for a few months.

 

Back in its hay day most of my workshop played. Now your teased if you do

[Arkerus]

The article was laughably...bad.

 

There was zero perspective. If the author had even a shred of perspective they would have noticed that relative to the rest of the industry, TOR is doing just fine. WoW isn't included in the conversation. It's WoW. Its the anomaly and will be for a very long time. The shakeout appears to be over (large as it was) and the game has a new, yet unpredictable, future.

[Nemmar]

I don't think that the game is dead....however, many does.

 

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/bioware-mmo-project/1226628p1.html

At the same time, the free-to-play conversion marks the end of SWTOR's significance as an MMORPG, just under a year after its release.

 

And it's very worrying. The game having the reputaiton of being dead is almost as bad as the game being dead.

 

To be honest, i dont give one ounce of credit to that review cause he us telling is how GW2 is so awesome.

 

Its the problem with professional reviewers, they dont completely play the game. If they did they would realise like so many players did, that the game is quite boring. A game that is boring is bad. Yet, it does have a very good initial impression that fools those that dont play it for long.

 

Does that mean im pleased with the F2P model that is beeing launched? No, not really. I think its blatently greedy and dumb. I dont think it will work and i am afraid it will mean the end of the game. All cause of EA. I really wish they would bankrupt. The world would be a better place without EA ruining studios and games.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Nemmar

[Babyduck]

I'm enjoying the game, all the people in my guild are also enjoying the game. Heck all the people on my server are enjoying the game. That's why we continue to subscribe to the game. The author of that article doesn't enjoy the game. Well his opinion doesn't mean diddly to me. Every game has it's haters, you just have to ignore them and they will get bored and move on.

[jorill]

I think the population has leveled. Ever since the mergers ebon hawk has been pretty consistent on the population side. I do think the next 3-6 months will be pretty important to the long term success of this game.

[Hardwear]

I will rephrase my POV.

 

I do not think the game is dead.

 

I think that for a lot of the videogame community, it's dead.

 

Even more unfortunately, the game also hits the perfect storm concerning the SW franchise. If you are a SW fan, there will soon be tons of SW stuff to buy.

 

 

That's funny, because my POV is the complete opposite.

 

With the news of Disney buying Lucas Arts and reviving the Star Wars franchise with a new trilogy is seems to me that this will generate new interest/excitement and if EA/BioWare plays it right they have the opportunity to capitalize on this new momentum since ToR represents the only persistent Star Wars related virtual world.

 

On the contrary I think recent events are a perfect storm that could potentially breath new life into ToR.

[Jahl]

I played beta with no problems, I played pre-launch with no problems. I managed to get three weeks in after launch before I began to have problems patching SWtOR, corrupted data, repairs did not work until it reached a point where I realised that paying for this game would be pointless and I unsubscribed. Since January I have tried countless times to install and patch SWtOR, all to no avail.

 

Until, that is, a few weeks ago. Having yet another go, it once again, refused to patch. I gave up again after hours of repairing/patching over and over but forgot to shut it down. I'd been playing another game and upon quitting I realised SWtOR had been running in the background, and low and behold....it had patched!!. Since then I've been through one update, and after a couple of failures it patched again.

 

As you can imagine, I was pretty annoyed at buying a game I could not play, and you might think that I am in a minority in having these problems....until that is, you go read the customer service forum........and you wonder why SWtOR has a bad reputation????

 

So here I am, ten months after buying the game I am actually playing it. Now before the fanboi's pitch in let me be clear, I actually think the core of SWtOR is very very good. The class story/quests, the combat, the planet quests..all top notch stuff, better than any MMO out there, but thats as far as I'd be willing to go on praise. Almost every person I came to SWtOR with, has left months ago, because they were bored.

 

Space is a joke ( something I still can't quite believe they though was good enough), PvP is not even worth a mention, exploration is none existant, still zero 'side games' like speeder racing, interaction with the world is nil (you cant even sit in a chair) you cant customise your char' once it's made (matching colours, SERIOUSLY!!) and crafting is as bad as space....it was an afterthought.

 

I'll subscribe until I get fed up with levelling because, as I said, the core game really is excellent, but beyond that there really is nothing here to keep people playing long term, free or not.

[deltadt]

sure server populations are stable at the moment in the USA servers and the europeean servers and they hit standard/heavy but in the australian servers it's rare for that to happen. and think about this i haven't seen a single copy of star wars the old republic in any stores for weeks. i live in australia and even at JB-HIFI where i bought a game time card a few weeks ago there's now no game time cards there at all. so it begs the question if this game is doing so good why are there no disk copies/ game time cards in stores. and i think it's because the stores are not making enough money from the star wars the old republic. i don't have much hope that my local eb games has game time cards though ill check in a couple of weeks when i go to to see about getting another game time card.

[Angedechu]

I would say this is because the game is going F2P and that no one sane would buy it right now, as it's going to be this week ?

[AMKSED]

Going from 2 million people at launch to what they have now is bad.

 

All Bioware/EA are going to do is cash-cow the crap out of this game with the F2P option since this game is licensed to run for another 10 years. Don't expect that many great updates but a lot of features you can buy with cartel coins!

[darthstinji]

Gamespy hasn't been relevant since 1998.

 

they are still around?

[spectreclees]

Gamespy hasn't been relevant since 1998.

 

Not to mention they get the chance to praise GW2 whenever they can. It shows in this article.

[Marak]

Didn't read all 10 pages of this thread so if I'm repeating what has already been said, please forgive.

 

Name one MMO that isn't in some aspect F2P. I don't understand how this signals anything. Even WoW is F2P up to level 20.

 

The fact of the matter is we've come a long way from the days of "One MMO to rule them all" and the market is saturated. People simply aren't going to want to lock themselves in with subscription models anymore unless they are a die hard fan. I currently play TOR as my primary MMO. That doesn't mean I don't hop into GW2 or EQ2 from time to time, and I wouldn't be able to do that if I had to pay subs as the amount of time I play those other games doesn't warrant $15/mo.

 

TOR isn't the next big thing, but it's not the next big dud either. So long as we stay in the hundreds of thousands and maybe even grow a little (we totally could with a well timed expansion) then anyone that claims TOR is irrelevant or dying is being obtuse. Far inferior games have lasted many years.