Please switch the engine now before its too late..

[Andryah]

It WAS a colossal failure whether you want to admit it or not.

 

Just like a 200 million dollar movie, a 200 million dollar game has to make far more money than a 10 million dollar one to be a "success". Someone mentioned John Carter earlier. It is very much like TOR, it made a boatload of money, but since it cost a boatload +1, it was a "failiure".

 

TOR isn't a colossal failure NOW, but it's no Avatar either.

 

You are attempting to measure the games success on the basis of EA/Biowares own aspirations. A game you still play by the way. Whereas, I am measuring it on the basis of open market comparisons.

 

You yourself stated yesterday that you think they made back their investment.

 

Your own data above, which I quoted verbatim, shows it to be the most successful MMO since WoW in the western market place at the 2 year mark in life cycle.

 

All you are doing is conflating because you are fixated on denigrating the game. Give it up.. even you don't believe it.. as evidenced by your own statements in the forum.

 

It's a commercial success, less then what the company would desire (what company does not desire more success?) and when it was struggling last year, instead of tucking into a fetal ball and dying.. they picked themselves up and turned the game around. It's not only a commercial success, it's an operational success.....no matter how you try to spin it otherwise.

[MillionsKNives]

Yeah.. even though Zenimax has been spinning this to make players believe that they won't use the hero engine.. if you read what they state carefully... they don't actually say that. The clever wording reads more like they will be deploying their "own engine" but when read carefully.. it reads as though their engine is probably a reworked hero engine platform.

 

 

 

Source: http://elderscrollsonline.info/news/about-game-engine

 

Seriously.. everything above could have been spun the exact same way by Bioware for SWTOR if they wanted to distance themselves from the brand. In which case.. we would all be declaring Bioware a failure at writing engines rather then a failure a modifying engines. The end effect is the same though.

 

When Firor talked about it in interviews, he was more direct then what is actually written on their website, leading me to believe he was spinning a bit. In other words.. since the hero engine has a bad rep on the internet, they are distancing themselves from the brand.. but the above does not make it clear that they are replacing it.. it reads more like they are changing it.

 

So it will be interesting to see the player verdict on ESO when it goes live.

 

What you linked isn't the official website, unless you're referring to something else. Notice the constant use of "they". In this interview they specifically say that it was only for whiteboarding.

- so while we were prototyping the game on HeroEngine, we were simultaneously developing our own client, server, and messaging layer that were specifically designed with ESO in mind.

Think of HeroEngine as a whiteboard for us – a great tool to get some ideas in the game and start looking at them while the production engine was in development.

Because of this, we needed to write our engine to be versatile enough to add or cut back on graphical features based on the user’s hardware. To do this, we had to write our own renderer with our own shaders.

When you’re creating something this big and complex, writing your own engine makes debugging and new feature creation far easier.

There are no compromises with the technology that we’re using – everything in the game’s engine was written for this game, with no extraneous code, features, or tools.

How can everything in the engine be written for the game if it was a 3rd party engine? Sure, it's possible they're still using the Hero Engine in at least some form for the final release, but he'd be (borderline) lying to be claiming the things he says in that interview if that were true.

 

But like you said, even if it's still used it doesn't matter. Like BioWare they have the source code, so it's completely on them what the game can and can't do. They can rewrite any or all of it if they'd like.

[Targarion]

You are attempting to measure the games success on the basis of EA/Biowares own aspirations. A game you still play by the way. Whereas, I am measuring it on the basis of open market comparisons.

 

You yourself stated yesterday that you think they made back their investment.

 

Your own data above, which I quoted verbatim, shows it to be the most successful MMO since WoW in the western market place at the 2 year mark in life cycle.

 

All you are doing is conflating because you are fixated on denigrating the game. Give it up.. even you don't believe it.. as evidenced by your own statements in the forum.

 

It's a commercial success, less then what the company would desire (what company does not desire more success?) and when it was struggling last year, instead of tucking into a fetal ball and dying.. they picked themselves up and turned the game around. It's not only a commercial success, it's an operational success.....no matter how you try to spin it otherwise.

It's a commercial success in the short term revenue generated by easy to make content sold in the cartel market. The game is a monumental failure as a content driven MMO since f2p models don't have the same consistent financial backing that MMO's need to generate original content.

 

It's not just about the numbers but about what the numbers mean in player base categories, the paying player vs the free to play player base has shifted significantly in favor of F2P. The game deservedly has a high turn over rate, that keeps new content from being a viable option to keep the subscriber population happy. BW knows this and has guided each patch to favor more the F2P camp over the Subscriber camp. The numbers in the link show a significant fall in subscriber contribution to SWTOR revenue of about 25%. This is a huge junk of SWTOR's long term viability as a content driven MMO. And no one should look as the numbers as sign that SWTOR will be enjoying the same kind of growth in the next two quarters, especially after 2.5 when the content created by the last development team is used up.

 

 

The cartel market main purpose is to help EA regain it's loses after launch. Once it's done, it's done. With the subscribing population dropping below 500 thousand, SWTOR will be losing money investing in the game to keep the subscribers happy.

[Andryah]

The cartel market main purpose is to help EA regain it's loses after launch. Once it's done, it's done. With the subscribing population dropping below 500 thousand, SWTOR will be losing money investing in the game to keep the subscribers happy.

 

The commercial success of freemium MMOs is NOT subscribers. It's average revenue per active player per interval time (typically monthly).

 

The operational success of freemium MMOs is based on active players, not subscribers.

 

By both methods of measure.. this MMO is the most successful since WoW in western markets. Which might not be saying much to some.. but they have broken a long trend of MMOs suffering commercially and operationally after launch. Credit to them for figuring out how to do it.

[Targarion]

IMO it is doubtful we will see another SW MMO in the near future as the franchise will need to rely on strong interest from the Disney SW movies before another MMO even begins to go into development.

 

However this might be good news for KOTOR fans as TOR will once again return to the console market in which it enjoyed it's highest popularity.

 

The only thing that will save this game is complete rebuild of it's engine and platform. However I sincerely doubt that EA has the interest or time to try and fix an old car. The biggest losers in this out come are the subscribers such as myself who have played this game since launch. The biggest winners are is EA who will profit over the cartel market and FP model.

 

SWTOR truly is a dead MMO.

[CosmicKat]

You are attempting to measure the games success on the basis of EA/Biowares own aspirations. A game you still play by the way. Whereas, I am measuring it on the basis of open market comparisons.

 

You yourself stated yesterday that you think they made back their investment.

 

Your own data above, which I quoted verbatim, shows it to be the most successful MMO since WoW in the western market place at the 2 year mark in life cycle.

 

All you are doing is conflating because you are fixated on denigrating the game. Give it up.. even you don't believe it.. as evidenced by your own statements in the forum.

 

It's a commercial success, less then what the company would desire (what company does not desire more success?) and when it was struggling last year, instead of tucking into a fetal ball and dying.. they picked themselves up and turned the game around. It's not only a commercial success, it's an operational success.....no matter how you try to spin it otherwise.

 

Heh. "Open market comparisons"? There's no such thing. Every MMO publisher in the world grossly inflates their sub/player numbers. This is an undisputed fact that you yourself often cite when anyone mentions how many players WoW has, but of course, you buy EA's numbers like they came from Jeebus himself.

 

I'm not "denigrating the game". I'm saying it's broke, so fix it. The fix they picked (the cash shop) has improved their bottom line but it hasn't really translated into many more paying customers, just a percentage who pay a LOT more than they were. Anyone who played when the servers were contracted 10-1 knows we have maybe twice the players we had then.

 

I'm not "spinning" anything either. What would my motive be? I don't have any dogs in the hunt. I like the game enough to pay $15/month till something better comes along. My ONLY motive for "denigrating" the game is to point out things that I, as a paying customer, think are wrong with it and therefore things I think would make the game better and more successful.

 

What are your motives for blindly supporting nearly every decision they make? Do you have a personal stake in the game or company's success?

 

P.S. IF TOR had 10 million or even 5 million paying customers, like WoW does, I would not bother to criticize anything about it. It would actually be a successful game then, and my opinions wouldn't matter at all. I despise WoW with a passion, yet I wouldn't presume to criticize points of their game on their forums because whatever they do, it works. I may hate it, but most people who play it love it. If that were the case here, then I'd shut up.

[Targarion]

The commercial success of freemium MMOs is NOT subscribers. It's average revenue per active player per interval time (typically monthly).

 

The operational success of freemium MMOs is based on active players, not subscribers.

 

By both methods of measure.. this MMO is the most successful since WoW in western markets. Which might not be saying much to some.. but they have broken a long trend of MMOs suffering commercially and operationally after launch. Credit to them for figuring out how to do it.

Keep in mind that SWTOR was not intended to be a F2P MMO like GW2. They are not going to continue to enjoy strong returns on their investment by generating new content. They are going to generate revenue through the Cartel Market and game purchases which has it's own limiting rate factor. How many times can one person by the same game?

[Andryah]

What are your motives for blindly supporting nearly every decision they make? Do you have a personal stake in the game or company's success?

 

Considering that I don't blindly support everything they do, your question is pointless. My post history is there for anyone to see.

 

But to be clear, I have no financial interests in any way with EA or Bioware. So stop with the ad hominem attempts to discredit.

[Andryah]

Keep in mind that SWTOR was not intended to be a F2P MMO like GW2. They are not going to continue to enjoy strong returns on their investment by generating new content. They are going to generate revenue through the Cartel Market and game purchases which has it's own limiting rate factor. How many times can one person by the same game?

 

You are attempting to demonstrate that the freemium business model for MMOs does not work. Market data proves you incorrect on this.

 

The majority of revenue in MMOs in the west is obtained from freemium models (not subscriber models). There is a reason for this. It's successful. Further, the market is expected to grow for freemium business models over the next three years and continue to decline for subscriber only business models. The market has changed... and companies are changing in step with market demands.

 

The eastern market for MMOs is almost exclusively non-subscriber based. It's the way the eastern markets operate.

[brutall]

i hope they change the engine. or atlest fix it so it can handle 16 vs 16 pvp

[CosmicKat]

Considering that I don't blindly support everything they do, your question is pointless. My post history is there for anyone to see.

 

But to be clear, I have no financial interests in any way with EA or Bioware. So stop with the ad hominem attempts to discredit.

 

You are correct. Your post history is there for anyone to see.

 

As Stan Lee would say....'Nuff said.

[CosmicKat]

You are attempting to demonstrate that the freemium business model for MMOs does not work. Market data proves you incorrect on this.

 

The majority of revenue in MMOs in the west is obtained from freemium models (not subscriber models). There is a reason for this. It's successful. Further, the market is expected to grow for freemium business models over the next three years and continue to decline for subscriber only business models. The market has changed... and companies are changing in step with market demands.

 

The eastern market for MMOs is almost exclusively non-subscriber based. It's the way the eastern markets operate.

 

Only true if you take out WoW, Everquest, Ultima Online, and well... pretty much any successful subscription based MMO of the last 15 years.

 

And "freemium" is not a word. It's a marketing-derived buzzword made by combining two positive words to illicit feelings of fluffy goodness in the reader.

[aeterno]

The only thing that will save this game is complete rebuild of it's engine and platform. However I sincerely doubt that EA has the interest or time to try and fix an old car. The biggest losers in this out come are the subscribers such as myself who have played this game since launch. The biggest winners are is EA who will profit over the cartel market and FP model.

 

SWTOR truly is a dead MMO.

 

I'm not a fan of the engine or how far it's been pushed so far but that's a bit heavy on the hyperbole innit. =P

[LordArtemis]

And "freemium" is not a word. It's a marketing-derived buzzword made by combining two positive words to illicit feelings of fluffy goodness in the reader.

 

In all fairness the phrase "pay to win" exists for the same purpose for the derision of F2P/hybrid models.

 

There are caveats and benefits to both models. One side rarely acknowledges the benefits of the other.

[MaximusRex]

Apparently it don't take much to develop a quality environment as demonstrated by the student's video.

 

Just sayin' you can't say "oh this can't be done" when clearly it can, if they use the proper engine.

 

A student can make a pretty video in a controlled environment, that doesn't mean it would work in a MMO with hundreds or even thousands of people connected to it, or that it would look that way on average systems specs.

 

This is the major problem the modern world is facing, people who think they know things, but really don't know anything, shoving their ignorance down societies throat.

[Andryah]

Only true if you take out WoW, Everquest, Ultima Online, and well... pretty much any successful subscription based MMO of the last 15 years.

 

And "freemium" is not a word. It's a marketing-derived buzzword made by combining two positive words to illicit feelings of fluffy goodness in the reader.

 

What matters is the market today, not the market of yesterday. You know this.. so stop with the rhetoric.

 

And "freemium" is an accurate representation of the actual business model which is more commonly misrepresented as F2P or "free-2-play" (even by the company). Free-2-play is an inaccurate descriptor and leads to misunderstanding and endless spinning of wheels in discussion in the forum.

[Drake_Hound]

WoW , this is getting interesting , people argueing against facts with feelings .

Listen purpose of MMO for publisher is to make "Money" as long it generate "Revenue" it is considered a success.

Purpose for developers is to have a lot of people playing there project and admiring or liking it .

Purpose for gamers is to have fun playing it ..

 

all 3 wish for more and more , that is where conflict arise , just like the current topic deviation from the engine .

Yes all 3 know by now the limitation of the engine cause of budget and techical constraints.

 

there is no simple solution at this point , no matter how much money we throw at it , unless somebody comes with ingenious way of fixing it , which I hardly doubt .

 

Now stop argueing about this product is a fail , cause of gamers feeling ,

It is a success in the publisher eye cause it makes money ! That is what counts as success on the longterm .

All other issue are currently not important , if you want the product to be a success , then you should drag in more people !

 

simple more people makes developers and gamers happy , side effect it brings maybe a bit more income .

But that is the only thing publisher want .

[LordArtemis]

I would mention one other thing, then get back on topic....

 

How much do you think subscribers pay now as opposed to before the market launched?

 

Lets play a guessing game. Lets say 25 percent of the current playerbase of subscribed players...lets say 400k, so 100k, pay an extra 30 dollars a month, on average, to purchase coins.

 

That equals, very roughly, the same revenue as 600k in straight subs.

 

Now, they have 750k in free players lets say...and lets say 10 percent of those, 75k, pay 30 dollars a month. That pushes it up to 750k in straight subs to equal the same revenue.

 

Really a rough but conservative estimate IMO. All things being equal, that is a almost 100 percent increase in revenue just based on the market alone.

 

Again, only Bioware has the current metrics, but they spoke to them a bit in the past. This is not an unreasonable estimate IMO.

 

Now...that's not 1.2, 1.7 or even 2 millions subs, but it would be hard to say this game was a failure if it had 750k in subs...especially in this market, considering it launched as a P2P.

 

It's certainly not WoT numbers, or even WoW numbers...but still, that's quite an improvement.

 

Numbers out of the sky, but conservative none the less. The value of each subscriber is not in the subscription any longer...it is in the value-added contributions given each month in Cartel revenue.

[Blackardin]

sure, i can swim the atlantic, walk around the world, or even take space ship to mars. Possible does not mean realistic.

 

Well, as I said, it all depends on the bottom line, but this sound like they would be better off to rebuild the game then attempt it.

 

The running joke here is OP (and some others) think its is so simple one can simply COPY AND PASTE into a new engine. OP would have easier time walking into Mordor.

 

LOL.

[Blackardin]

Thing is.. they have been quietly adjusting the engine since launch. More of their effort (by their own admission) to make the game more effective with lower end machines. Seriously.. they get almost no credit from the player base for engine changes since launch... but they have been making them (just not enough to please the forum predators). And of course.. the "engine" has become a popular meme in forum raging... so engine criticism now has a life of it's own.. some warranted, some not.

 

I'm that guy, still running xp on a six year old machine because I'm too busy, or too lazy to build another. ;p

 

...but you are right, seems they get very little credit at all for anything, only accusation and complaint. I have to agree with you there.

[LordArtemis]

Sorry, one more point....

 

The most successful MMO in history is not World of Warcraft...it is World of Tanks...and it is a F2P game. It has over 60 million registered users. They also hold the record for most players playing on one server at the same time, set on 21st of January, 2013, 190,541 players on its RU2 server. The previous world record that they broke also belonged to them...91,311 concurrent players.

 

Note, this does not include social games, which top the scales at anywhere from 200 million all the way up to 340 million (words with friends).

 

..and there are people that might argue the engine in WoT is not great...it's not even good. Its the gameplay that seems to draw folks despite that fault. It has naturally improved over time, as most engines do.

[TheLost]

...and why don't we just do everything else needed to do so then? which includes having to DL a full new version of the game ( and as someone who has a collector's edition disc, I should be entitled to a replacement hard copy), give up our characters and gear (because we're going to have to have an entire new database system for this new engine as well), and then tell all the existing subscribers to slag off while we're at it? (subscribers including myself)

[Slipfeed]

could write the entire game/engine and such in assembly code. POSSIBLE. not not really feasible.

 

I wouldnt' expect it to happen. Just isnt worth the effort.

 

Final fantasy a realm reborn will be around long after swtor shuts the servers down with nothing more than an in game mail with some fireworks and a 6k cartel coin final event pack one week before close.

[Drake_Hound]

Final fantasy a realm reborn will be around long after swtor shuts the servers down with nothing more than an in game mail with some fireworks and a 6k cartel coin final event pack one week before close.

 

And if we were worried about that we all go play runescape !

So any point , I mean if you want to be so badly a winner go play runescape .

[TrakonBazzaak]

Runescape isnt the answer.

 

I actually applaud this dude for his caring about the future of the game if nothing else. Fanboyism doesnt help solve the problems the game has.

 

Fanboyism just reinforces the old adage

 

"Why feed a pig cherries, when he will happily eat muck?"

Maybe one day someone like OP will put out a hairbrained scheme that will actually take.

 

I have no trust in these devs, they are the interns he speaks of in his OP anyway.

 

 

Whatever happened to Georg Zoeller?