Launch, Now and the Future...your perspective

[LordArtemis]

I'd like to see what folks think of the three phases of this game....Launch state up to F2P/Market conversion, it's current state and what the future might hold for this title.

 

No opinion is wrong as long as it it is not a judgement of another. I ask that folks try and avoid commenting on others opinions and allow all to put forth their own perspectives without being attacked or questioned.

 

That said, I will give my take.

Launch state

 

I would like to be critical about the launch state of the game, but I would rather try to be more objective. So all I will say is that many factors seemed to come together to create some problems for the game out of the gate, and it lost subs at a steady rate. Many reasons are cited for this....it is my belief that the design of the game is the largest culprit, but naturally there were many other factors likely involved as well, including a rough market for MMOs.

 

Current state of the game

 

I think that the game has reached a point of general good quality, perhaps where it should have been at launch. That is not to say there isn't room for improvement, but overall I am satisfied with it's current state. The addition of the market, changes to legacy, addition of many types of new armor appearances and a focus on convenience has really changed the game....there is no doubt that for the better or worse is subjective. IMO it is for the better.

 

Future of the game

 

I think the game will continue to move toward further convenience, focus on appearance and casual friendly features, and continue to expand and refine the Market. I expect to see changes to things that were considered permanent in the past in the short term, as well as many more market additions. As time goes on, the market will likely mature and more features will be added like the SSSP. In the distant future I expect to see crafting changes, serious changes to ability trees and ACs, a PVP revamp and many more minigames added, as well as Starship interior decoration.

 

I expect to see a very different game than what we have now in the future.

 

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your takes on past, present and future.

[KorbinArmand]

Hmm loving how this thread is starting, hope it dont go down hill cuz honestly this could turn into a productive discussion. Before I start I'll give background on myself so others might see where my opinions are based from. Was WoW player from 2005 til just after Mist released, just lost my love with the game. First got into SWTOR with beta, around early november before open beta weekends. Ive played STO, LoL as well in these years so have played afew MMO's.

 

Launch State - Well personally I'd divide the game at launch into two groups. First being leveling and other being endgame. For myself I found leveling decent overall and well enough for launch of an MMO, overall didnt have any major complaints or problems with game at that point. Endgame was troublesome due to too many servers and no group finding aid. Sitting in Fleet trying to form one is not way modern MMO's need to be operating.

 

Current State - having taken 9months? off I returned to a much friendly design than I left this game. Collections and adaptive armor have really opened doors for altoholics like myself (whom is 5/8 through all storylines with 2/8 in Ch2). Endgame is decent and completable to other MMO's.

 

Future - Given that they continue to add more storyline as we go (and not just planet or world but class) this could really continue into wonderous game. I have high hopes as I did when this game launched.

 

 

Last I'd like to say that my sole opinion as to why this game had such a rocky start was simple...EA forced it out the door 6 month before it was truly ready to face modern MMO market. Adding in Dev's weak resolve in holding to lower number of servers with high enough populations just crippled this game. If not for going to F2P with Cartel Market we'd lost what could and can still be a wonderful MMO.

[Andryah]

Personally, I make it a point to not be too critical of a brand new MMO when it launches. They are all a bit rough around the edges, with things unfinished, and things not there that are there in a mature MMO.

 

But let's look at a high level at what was available in December 2011.. and then compare it to all the new content, features, gear, etc. in it's first 18 months.

 

IMO, it's moved nicely up and to the right on the progress curve, about on par with other MMOs IMO (and I have played almost all of them). There is so much I can do and access today that I could not at launch... because it just was not there to access.

 

AND.. they did this at a critical tipping point in the genre when it became virtually impossible to sustain a subscription only MMO unless you had a mature installed base from years of playing to draw upon (ie: WoW or EVE) and managed to regrow the games player base in the process. [Notice how all the newer MMOs have converted to flexible access models, and so have some old time MMOs]. WoW and EVE are immune for the time being because they have a decade of subscribers to recycle in and out of the game to stave off dropping the sub-only model for now.

 

As for the future..... again.. I can't get too wound up about the future of any MMO. WoW should be a lesson to the player base in this regard.

 

TL;DR it's unpredictable, and it will adjust and adapt to the market it decides it wants to serve.

 

For SWTOR.. that market is broad appeal, but with broad appeal comes a lack of depth in any given area. So this games future is not bright, IMO, for hardcore PvPers, Hardcore Raiders, or hardcore <any other segment>. But for players that love Star Wars IP, love MMOs at a moderate depth and wide breadth of things to do.. this game will satisfy for years to come.

 

The hardcore audiences are destined to find limited niche MMOs that serve their particular hardcore interest deeply, perhaps even obsessively. SWTOR is not a candidate niche provider IMO.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Andryah

[DrewFromPhilly]

It's doomed.

 

The developers do not release content fast enough, especially with regards to pvp (which is actually worse off then it was at release in many ways), and when they do its recycled content we already had. Speaking of recycling, they seem more concerned with recycling models we already had for their cartel market than actually making new content.

 

There is simply not enough content being released to justify the subscription fees, and the f2p option is so hamfisted and restricted its not even a viable alternative. So many other games out there (MMO and otherwise) give players far more for a lot less.

 

Edit: also, the whole "look at X MMO when it came out and compare it to that!" Idea is dumb. They knew what they were competing against and they obviously didn't have to reinvent the wheel, and I'm not paying monthly fees for years with the anticipation that eventually it will be as good as something else I could buy immediately.

Edited July 16, 2013 by DrewFromPhilly

[evodude]

no idea what the launch was like, i currently love playing it now an will do so for probably many months at the least as ive not even seen half of whats to offer, the future is what ever ea/bioware deem it to be i suppose Edited July 16, 2013 by evodude

[Bilirubin]

Was in the 11/11/11 beta and thought things were awesome. Launch and leveling were fine, Ilum PvP zerg valor farm nonsense notwithstanding. Odd bug but meh. Endgame, especially Soa, was buggy, and eventually that and the lack of other things to do after a certain point lead to a disillusionment with the game in my guild so they quit TOR. Back now for a few days on my own (WoW only lasted for me for 4 months or so) and am very pleased to see a lot of the performance issues seem settled. Have no idea about Soa bug fixes (only our core got their Infernal title and they pledged "never again" ) but I plan to just SP and alt for stories for now. I am pleased with how Legacy and even the Cartel Market seem to be working.

 

For the future I hope for more story content.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Bilirubin

[Nemmar]

I'm fine with the game for the most part.

 

The 3 things i want to see the most are:

 

1. A new full fledged expansion with the continuation of the class stories or new ones (comparable to a WoW expansion in scope).

2. The ability failing bug fixed.

3. Better internal testing for patches. Recurring bugs are the worse and while this has been pretty good in the last 6 months, this last patch broke more things than it fixed. Its difficult to understand when the patch was basically just nightmare mode for 2 ops and ended up bugging several misc features of the game.

 

Presently i think the PvE gear progression is at a very good point. Genius move on the planetary commendations beeing unfied and useful for end-game. Promote the guy that came out with that idea and let him make more design decisions imo.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Nemmar

[xorcist]

I'd like to see what folks think of the three phases of this game....Launch state up to F2P/Market conversion, it's current state and what the future might hold for this title.

 

No opinion is wrong as long as it it is not a judgement of another. I ask that folks try and avoid commenting on others opinions and allow all to put forth their own perspectives without being attacked or questioned.

 

That said, I will give my take.

Launch state

 

I would like to be critical about the launch state of the game, but I would rather try to be more objective. So all I will say is that many factors seemed to come together to create some problems for the game out of the gate, and it lost subs at a steady rate. Many reasons are cited for this....it is my belief that the design of the game is the largest culprit, but naturally there were many other factors likely involved as well, including a rough market for MMOs.

 

Current state of the game

 

I think that the game has reached a point of general good quality, perhaps where it should have been at launch. That is not to say there isn't room for improvement, but overall I am satisfied with it's current state. The addition of the market, changes to legacy, addition of many types of new armor appearances and a focus on convenience has really changed the game....there is no doubt that for the better or worse is subjective. IMO it is for the better.

 

Future of the game

 

I think the game will continue to move toward further convenience, focus on appearance and casual friendly features, and continue to expand and refine the Market. I expect to see changes to things that were considered permanent in the past in the short term, as well as many more market additions. As time goes on, the market will likely mature and more features will be added like the SSSP. In the distant future I expect to see crafting changes, serious changes to ability trees and ACs, a PVP revamp and many more minigames added, as well as Starship interior decoration.

 

I expect to see a very different game than what we have now in the future.

 

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your takes on past, present and future.

 

Launch: Screwed out of the first day of early access because of a stupid system of entering a code. First entered first get access. Hundreds even thousands didn't get codes until months later thereby loosing their place in line. First transgression, even before the game launched.

 

Now: The Cartel Market is GOD. nuff said.

 

Future: The Cartel Market ensures there will be a future. But I don't see it being a bright one. Laziness has gotten the better of them now and I don't see that changing. Ever.

[DarthMaulUK]

Been here since 2008 and now I am leaving at the end of the month. I'm not a PvE fan as I mostly pvp and as someone said earlier - PvP is in a worse state than it was at launch. Few updates, 2.0 was a mess, my class suffering 2 broken abilities since 1.4, I simply can't get excited about a game that I sub to, that places all its focus on selling crappy armour kits found on NPCs or changing the colour of a mount to justify parting with over 1400 Cartel Coins.

 

The future looks bleak. After Bioware had the cheek to charge for fireworks and other goodies so we could celebrate the games birthday, really gives you an idea of the nickle and dime approach seen by them now and the focus shifting on the Cartel Market.

 

I've seen the Red Eclipse server go from Very Heavy to just Heavy(only at weekends now) as numbers drop as more bugs are added to the game and so many are left unfixed - especially if they are game breakers. Lag spikes should stabilize once numbers drop even more.

 

Shame, as this game could have been great but it's the end of the road for me

Edited July 16, 2013 by DarthMaulUK

[LordArtemis]

Well, I appreciate all of your posts, they were interesting reading. I look forward to reading others opinions on the subject.

[Ayelinna]

Launch

 

I think launch went pretty well, a few weeks later it started dying down a bit, but i guess thats normal

 

Current state

 

Its sort of level now considering Bioware are focusing on the CM, their main income from this game now

 

Future

 

I assume they will do more CM stuff, I don't really have any high hopes for the future. The "traditionalists" will probably move on to other games, and the casuals will stay

Edited July 16, 2013 by Ayelinna

[Bojangle]

Launch

Personally I enjoyed the launch and had 0 issues with anything. I remember being in the first group to log in early access before the official launch and for me the experience was amazing. I didn't dc, had no logging on issues, no lag, performance was great, and didn't really come across any game breaking bugs or really many bugs at all that made me aggravated. No rubber banding either.

 

Even on the official launch I never ran into any issues. I know some people had bad experiences on launch but don't know what to say to that as I didn't have that. I have been on launch days for a lot of mmo's and ones like Aion, Warhammer and AoC were pretty bad. WoW I didn't start playing until a month after launch so I didn't hit a lot of the bad things people experienced. Tera had tons of account issues where people couldn't even log on and had corrupted files etc.

 

Now

I still love the game and sub, but don't play much anymore. I was in a guild that was raiding and we cleared all the hardest modes extremely quick. D3 just came out too and so we decided to take a break then since we saw everything. Ended up folding so I joined a new guild. Was getting ready for the new raid but MoP for WoW was about to come out. I'm a raider so I decided to go back to WoW for raiding due to ToR's raids then were very easy.

 

So anyways I am still playing ToR here and there and like I said, I still love it but too much behind now to raid for fun as I am not grinding any tokens for gear. Just stuck in my 146 or whatever gear that is.

 

Future

I don't know. I see maybe a new version of space. A type of player housing for our ship maybe. More mini expansions and races. The basic mmo stuff I guess you could say. But it depends on what you mean by future. 1 year? 5 years? I think this game will still be fine in 3-5 years from now.

[curtkram]

launch-

rocky. i would say partly because they didn't know what they were doing, poor planning, an inability to react quickly, and ignoring their players. you could say EA pushed it out the door too fast, but they had 5 years and piles of money. they should have had a solid plan a year ahead of time, with goals and deadlines, and their staff should been working together to meet those goals.

 

now-

if the cartel market was released as a side element of the game as a whole, and was limited to cosmetic elements, it would be better. 'content' releases with a strong cartel market element and either limited or no content is a very bad thing in my opinion. this is not what they said they were going to do during the transition from subscription to f2p. i think they are still ignoring their players and making bad decisions.

 

future-

i can't see the future. maybe they will go back to the game instead of just the cartel market focus they've had. they talked about releasing new content on a 6 week schedule. that turned into cartel market updates on an 8 week schedule. if they go back to content, maybe there is a bright future. if they continue the path they've been on for the last few months, i doubt swtor will have a good future. there is also the possibility EA has given up on swtor, so maybe if their profitability isn't a focus of executives anymore, there will be people who care about the game developing the game. that might be the sort of dramatic change that could turn things around.

 

people talk about "casuals" v. "hardcore" which i don't entirely understand. a casual gamer is still a gamer, who wants to play a game. the difference between the casual and hardcore gamer is mostly just the amount of time they have and the priority they give the game right? so for those who like the cartel market, do you say "casuals" as casual shoppers instead of casual gamers? there is nothing in the cartel market that is good for people who like the game, whether they're casual or hardcore or somewhere in between. sure, customizations and new races can be fun, and i think people who like the game would also buy those things, but without new content, they're going to lose the people who like the game first. the next pvp update is in october. i can't imaging why anywone who wanted to play pvp first would stick around. it's going to be nearly a year between real pvp updates, and all they've seen in the interim is the bolster fiasco and basically things that hurt their experience instead of improve it. RP people finally get a chair they can sit in... come on, that was a joke. i can't imagine why someone would want to play a game just so they can log in and buy stuff off the cartel market. unless there is a dramatic shift in developer priorities soon, that's going to be the only player-type left. wont' they eventually have enough ewoks and new empty armor shells? wouldn't there be a point even those players would get bored?

[PlasmaJohn]

I started playing a week after F2P launched, so cannot comment on the prior era.

 

The Good

 

Some of the storytelling is superb. JK and SW were really good if a bit cliche. Smuggler has its moments. I just finished the Agent story and was blown away... only to have to utterly trashed by the Makeb storyline. I do like the Imperial Makeb story but the setup just ran roughshod over both the Agent and SW endings, IMO.

 

The gameplay is fun and to my complete surprise, I've found that I prefer end-game to levelling.

 

Oh yeah... and it's fricken Star Wars.

 

The Bad

 

Well, I have to say that EA has met all my expectations: Utterly stingy and completely focused on short-term profits. Monetizing the appearance designer just underscores their contempt for their customers. Same goes for making desirable items gamble box exclusives. The Cartel Market gets constant updates while specialty vendors (VIP, CE, Security Key, etc.) and crafting are left to rot [1] (suggestions on how to fix).

 

I can't tell if it's lack of staff budget or just poor management but their release quality is very poor. Obvious regressions should never get released. Developers need to get more directly involved with the community, in particular the Class, PvP and FP & Ops forums. It should not take civil disobedience to get issues addressed much less acknowledged.

 

Class changes seem to be managed via a dart board where they should embrace (or hire!) the theorycrafters.

 

The Ugly

 

Customer Service. MMO's are a service first and a game second. Customer Service has to be a core competency. The sense I get are that tickets are processed through some AI that gets things very wrong. I dread the day I have to deal with SW:TOR's CS.

 

Preferred. Somebody mentioned "Hamfisted" which I thought was pretty much spot on. F2P works because people want a flexible schedule. To many people a subscription only makes sense if you can play most days out of a month. From personal experience Preferred is "almost" playable. Treating it like a trial sacrifices a large number of potential customers.

 

The Future

 

The scariest statement that came out of EA talking about the F2P/Cartel Market transition was that subs were generating the most revenue from the CM. That's completely backwards, F2P should attract a large enough pool of new accounts that spend more than the pool of subscribers. That suggests that the Preferred program is too restrictive.

 

(Nope, not looking to lapse into Preferred again. Like I mentioned above, I'm having enough fun with end-game)

 

The issues I've highlighted are not unfixable, but they require a rethink that flies in the face of EA Corporate attitude. Marketing 101: Make the customer want to spend money. Their short-sighted short-term profit at all costs attitude makes me not want to give them any more money than I have to or subsidize those purchases via the GTN.

 

[1] Y'all set "vanity" as the threshold for what goes into the CM. Dial back the greed a bit and that would go a long way towards making subs feel less milked.

 

 

• Add an in-game credit option for at least the simple cosmetics in the appearance designer (hairstyle, hair color, eye color, tattoos, etc.)
  
• Gear sets should be made available for direct CC purchase either concurrently with a gamble pack release or up to a month in the future.
  
• For every X sets that are added to the Cartel Market add one or two (NICE LOOKING!) set to the specialty vendors and/or crafting.

Edited July 16, 2013 by PlasmaJohn

[TUXs]

Slow. That covers all 3. They (Bioware) deliver new content far too slowly. I see a game that had HUGE potential, never reaching any of it. They don't seem to have the staff, nor the ability or desire, to move any quicker than a snails pace. This is a game that will run for years on the name alone, allowing EA to let it limp along with a skeleton crew, while milking players dedicated to the brand.

[TUXs]

The scariest statement that came out of EA talking about the F2P/Cartel Market transition was that subs were generating the most revenue from the CM. That's completely backwards, F2P should attract a large enough pool of new accounts that spend more than the pool of subscribers.

 

Why do you think players unwilling to spend $15 a month on a sub, would drop MORE than that on vanity items? Of course the current customer is their biggest buyer - we've all proven we'll throw money at them already....we ARE the target of the store, not a few random unlocks.

[LordArtemis]

In most common formulas with respect to a F2P/Hybrid model F2P purchases far exceed subscriber purchases.

 

The fact that that is not the way it is here was shocking to me...and perhaps is something to worry about a bit.

 

I see it two ways really...

 

1) CM has items that are so popular and desirable for all players that subs are willing to pony up cash unlike other games.

 

2) F2P is so undesirable that the folks that are usually attracted to F2P games with money to spend are going elsewhere.

 

The second possibility concerns me, because it could mean the long term health of the market could be in jeopardy if it relies on subscriber purchases once the appeal of the market wears off.

[PlasmaJohn]

Why do you think players unwilling to spend $15 a month on a sub, would drop MORE than that on vanity items? Of course the current customer is their biggest buyer - we've all proven we'll throw money at them already....we ARE the target of the store, not a few random unlocks.

The target for the store is anybody willing to spend CC's subscriber status notwithstanding. There are other reasons not to sub besides affordability.

 

Sure if you average the revenue across the two populations, the per member revenue of non-subs is going to be (much) lower than that of subscribers. In most F2P programs there are so many more of these players that the net revenue of the F2P pool exceeds that of subscribers usually by a large margin. That it does not for TOR is worrisome.

 

Maybe TOR has an unusually large number of Whales or maybe spending patterns haven't yet reached steady-state (consumer fatigue). The next few investor calls should prove "interesting".

[curtkram]

the next investor thing is supposed to be released july 23rd. my guess is they aren't going to say anything about swtor. if they do say something, it will be vague enough as to not contain any information.

 

that doesn't mean swtor is dead or anything like that. i just think this is not really one of the top earners for EA anymore, and they aren't focused on this IP for future developement. they invested a bunch, it either paid off or it didn't, and now they're moving on. they will talk about FIFA, battlefield, whatever sort of mobile platform and facebook type game they're working on, and probably something about whatever else it is they're going to do with the star wars brand. bioware austin is, of course, still focused on this game, since that's what they do, so i'm not saying development will stop either.

[CosmicKat]

The target for the store is anybody willing to spend CC's subscriber status notwithstanding. There are other reasons not to sub besides affordability.

 

Sure if you average the revenue across the two populations, the per member revenue of non-subs is going to be (much) lower than that of subscribers. In most F2P programs there are so many more of these players that the net revenue of the F2P pool exceeds that of subscribers usually by a large margin. That it does not for TOR is worrisome.

 

Maybe TOR has an unusually large number of Whales or maybe spending patterns haven't yet reached steady-state (consumer fatigue). The next few investor calls should prove "interesting".

 

The other real purpose of F2P is to pad the numbers and give the illusion of health and happiness.

 

On the PR side, it makes the game look much more popular and successful than it really is. This can have the very real result of actually increasing popularity by enhancing the image of the product. This is exactly the same concept of sports teams padding the crowd with ultra-cheap or giveaway tickets. If the place is half empty, then the people who paid real money feel like they got ripped off and may not come back. If there is the illusion of popularity with a (padded) full house, then people will feel they got their money's worth because obviously people are willing to pay.

 

On the non-PR side, most MMO's need a critical mass of players to function. I've seen some very good games fizzle and die because they couldn't keep that mass and allowing a F2P option is a legitimate way to help this out. If the game is worthy, many will subscribe. However, TOR has a sort of unique MMO problem. When you are one of 8 people on a planet, in prime time, as we all were 6 months after launch, it becomes blatantly obvious that... it doesn't matter in TOR. It's a solo game. That realization does dawn on most people at some point and it's kind of a light bulb moment for many. "Why am I paying a subscription to play a solo game?".

[MrJurgens]

The other real purpose of F2P is to pad the numbers and give the illusion of health and happiness.

 

On the PR side, it makes the game look much more popular and successful than it really is. This can have the very real result of actually increasing popularity by enhancing the image of the product. This is exactly the same concept of sports teams padding the crowd with ultra-cheap or giveaway tickets. If the place is half empty, then the people who paid real money feel like they got ripped off and may not come back. If there is the illusion of popularity with a (padded) full house, then people will feel they got their money's worth because obviously people are willing to pay.

 

On the non-PR side, most MMO's need a critical mass of players to function. I've seen some very good games fizzle and die because they couldn't keep that mass and allowing a F2P option is a legitimate way to help this out. If the game is worthy, many will subscribe. However, TOR has a sort of unique MMO problem. When you are one of 8 people on a planet, in prime time, as we all were 6 months after launch, it becomes blatantly obvious that... it doesn't matter in TOR. It's a solo game. That realization does dawn on most people at some point and it's kind of a light bulb moment for many. "Why am I paying a subscription to play a solo game?".

/Agree

 

Always brings a smile to my face reading your posts, CK. Always something insightful.

[CosmicKat]

In most common formulas with respect to a F2P/Hybrid model F2P purchases far exceed subscriber purchases.

 

The fact that that is not the way it is here was shocking to me...and perhaps is something to worry about a bit.

 

I see it two ways really...

 

1) CM has items that are so popular and desirable for all players that subs are willing to pony up cash unlike other games.

 

2) F2P is so undesirable that the folks that are usually attracted to F2P games with money to spend are going elsewhere.

 

The second possibility concerns me, because it could mean the long term health of the market could be in jeopardy if it relies on subscriber purchases once the appeal of the market wears off.

 

Developers of MMO's changed the product over the years from a hard, limited-appeal product into a simple, disposable, mass-market product. They went from a 10 difficulty to a 0. They should have stopped at around 5.

 

The mass market doesn't care. They never will care.

 

MMO's are made for a hardcore audience that has no interest in the milquetoast MMO's they now make, and for a "casual" mass market audience that clearly does not exist in high enough numbers to cover their costs.

 

They'll eventually figure out that they need to change the games, not the payment method or the whole industry will vanish or morph into a phone game.

[LordArtemis]

The industry standard is becoming the hybrid system. Many studies have been released that demonstrate two things...

 

1) The market is now dominated by casual players.

2) Hardcore players are leaving the market for Multiplayer FPS games.

 

It is just the reality of the current market. People can lament the loss of the traditional sub hardcore model, but it is likely gone forever....or at least will be in the near future.

[Pietrastor]

Past (launch to F2P) - don't know, wasn't playing back then.

 

Now - there's lots of people to do content with, most of the core mechanics work well and and there's been lots of convenience improvements lately.

 

Future - continuation of class stories is the #1 priority. Nothing else can even compare in terms of improvidence. Other than that, engine improvement, space combat/traversal overhaul, more 'living world' feel (sandbox mechanics + cosmetics like night/day cycle) are probably next on the importance list.

Edited July 17, 2013 by Pietrastor

[LordArtemis]

...I still hold out hope that they will do some kind of in game poll to see how important starship housing is to the player community....I suspect it is more desired than they might expect.