''Lol Pandas''...(and the hubris of the commnitty)

[Spatology]

So, they lose 5 million subs after repeatedly dumbing down their content, making the game less engageing, and releaseing a "not so popular" expansion....

 

Id say alot of the 7 mill still playing wow are late commers on the happy gear treadmill who didnt see BC or Wrath at all or players who still pay their sub but dont have alot of actual playtime if any.

 

Swtor did ALOT of stuff wrong and are still trying to dig out of the hole.

 

If everyone had 5 hours to sit and read the HUGE wall of text that would be required if i expanded on what happened over the last 2 years that helped this game suck, id type it out. Alas, im short on time.

 

I saw the expansion TM for this go round...something about the dranei....

 

Yes, considering they are going back to BC story content, we can assume this will be a big one...

[Angedechu]

What is trolling ? I like Star Wars (I have virtually all books, I bought a Blu-Ray just for SW). I'm not terribly liking TOR, and I keep playing it because it's SW.

[LordArtemis]

I think actually "dumbing down" the content in WoW is the only thing that hasn't prevented them from losing far more subs than they have. What cost them was constant class changes for the sake of PVP (Arenas), followed by lost opportunities (WotLK), followed by a world change that was not well received (Cataclysm).

 

Just my opinion naturally. Market analysis has indicated that most of the hardcore traditional MMO players have left the market for more challenging games, like the Battlefield and CoD franchises.

[Darkulous]

Okay, I will rephrase

 

WOW is in decline (it's really not a big surprise after 10 years). What boggles me is that WOW vastly derided last expansion, ''lol Pandas'' have better retention rates than TOR.

 

WOW is ten years old. TOR is not even two years old. We should beat WOW out of water. We are not.

 

Well, it shows that content (pandas) is not the most important thing in MMOs. Functionality, accessibility, smoothness, versatility. WoW has and always has had a very strong foundation.

[Vandicus]

Okay, I will rephrase

 

WOW is in decline (it's really not a big surprise after 10 years). What boggles me is that WOW vastly derided last expansion, ''lol Pandas'' have better retention rates than TOR. (35% customer base lost in 2 years is awful for most businesses, not so bad for a game so ancient. However, you don't mock a game losing 35% in two years while we lost more than 75% over the same period with a brand new game)

 

WOW is ten years old. TOR is not even two years old. We should beat WOW out of water. We are not.

 

Do we know our retention rates from the RoTHC launch?

 

If you're keeping the initial crash in subs, that's not really the same type of activity during their life cycles.

[Angedechu]

Pretty hard to calculate without subs numbers.

[Drake_Hound]

WoW is wow , and when they release the next expansion , they will probaly hit 10 million sub worldwide .

 

But wow sub numbers do not come from the west , they have russian support .

they have brazillian/south american market , they have spanishe support .. They have asian market , with each decline of the western market they go into other markets nobody else dares and they succeed .

 

LoL wow even has bigger chance of finding a RL date then dating sites !

you can't compare anything to wow anymore . Sorry it is a anomaly and they keep doing the right thing .

Look they couldn't retain the numbers they want , like numbers on the mobile platforms .

But they sure know how to keep customers cause of there infrastructure .

 

they do a very good analysis and they do ignore hardcores that are moaning and none productive .

Let say they have everything in place , if next expansion brings graphic updates and old talent tree back .

I would definetly be interested , if next expansion keep the same combat system .

I will pass , that is it .

[Jeweledleah]

And people in WoW are still ridiculing pandas every day, still ridiculing Blood Elves, still ridiculing gnomes. That's just how people are. Every new MMO that came out, people claimed it would be a WoW killer. Warhammer Online was the first one I remember. If you go to the forums of every other MMO now, they all have the same conversations about WoW that happen here.

 

Truth is, WoW is an anomaly and a lot of its success was a combination of perfect timing and brilliant advertising, and once they got a hold on a good number of people, they want to stay where all their friends are, in a game they know will be around for a long time. Even for those who stopped playing WoW, there is a really high degree of nostalgia for the old days that we keep trying to get back. I'll be at Blizzcon tomorrow, interested in the new Xpac, seeing TONS of old friends, even though I canceled my subscription a couple of months ago and don't really have any interest in playing right now.

 

Quoted for truth.

 

and I'm going to add that Blizzard is genious when it comes to taking other people's ideas, refining them and then adding them to their own games. they have invented absolutely nothing. everything they do is 100% derivative. but they do it very VERY well. and the momentum that they gained as the first relatively accessible MMO (the only thing they did first, really) lasted to this day, bolstered by years and years of development.

 

and the thing is TOR is doing pretty well, all things considered. it doesn't have the numbers of WoW, but if numbers are our only consideration for the success of the media, than any young adult fantasy books that are not Harry Potter - are automatic failure. and never mind that Diane Duane has been quietly writing her young wizards for decades now, long before JK Rowling wrote Sorcerer's stone and enjoys a healthy fanbase and is on book 10 now and she and Rowling actually corresponded and yes, she's been accused of copying Rowlings even though she first created her characters, including a glasses wearing wizard while Rowling was still a child, but of course the less big copying the one that sells more. why do I bring this up? because damn if it doesn't sound familiar.

 

SWTOR is not a game without issues. it can certainly use improvement, but that's what MMO's do - they grow and evolve and change. amazingly enough WoW is not different and its still doing it (to the point where it has grown too far away from the kind of game I personally enjoy)

 

so the question is not what TOR did wrong, but rather what can it keep doing right to keep evolving and growing.

[Klarick]

Oh, yes, obviously, I'm paid by Blizzard. That one is new

 

And btw, I don't doubt WOW is in decline. I said, which is a huge nuance, that WOW deals better with it than TOR

 

Mocking a game that lost 30-40% of its subs over two years is ridiculous when our game lost 75% in six months.

 

Still trying to figure out the point of your trolling here? Is your point simply to not play SWTOR due to the fact that, in your unprofessional opinion, WoW is the better game?

 

You want Orcs, play WoW. You want Lightsabers, play SWTOR.

 

Personally, i'm glad that a good number of the "WoW-crowd" stays in WoW.

[Cyberwoman]

What is trolling ? I like Star Wars (I have virtually all books, I bought a Blu-Ray just for SW). I'm not terribly liking TOR, and I keep playing it because it's SW.

 

Why play just because it is a SW game though? Surely your enjoyment of something should come before, for lack of a better word, 'fan duty'.

[jedimessiah]

Pretty sure this post is in response to the most recent investors call (today I think?) in which Blizzard announced another drop in Sub numbers last quarter, by about 100K. My guess, OP is looking for some sort of validation to continue playing WoW.

[Xakthul]

I see Warhammer.....

 

my reaction

 

 

I love TOR. Not just 'cause it's SW Universe, but because of the story bits, even if they're crappy. I have so far not seen one MMO that pulled off the story as well as Bioware did.

 

And don't give me any bull about STO. Their story is not really a story.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Xakthul

[Angedechu]

1)Yes, I flat out says that this was the lastest investor call results in the first post

 

2)100k subs loss (or gain) is stable.

[Klarick]

1)Yes, I flat out says that this was the lastest investor call results in the first post

 

2)100k subs loss (or gain) is stable.

 

...and yet you're still here...

[Oneirophrenia]

TOR is a story-driven, PvE-centric, theme-park MMO. It has always been the realm of "casuals."

 

Personally I wish TOR had stuck with that ideal.

 

I used to be a hardcore MMO player back in the days of EQ and FFXI, playing 40 hours a week, at times more. Spending a month getting epics and camping raid bosses with my guild in 6 hour shifts was a-ok because it was the "uber" thing to do. But then I started playing the more casual MMOs such as DDO or CoV and that was when I had my MMO epiphany. The virtual achievements and sense of satisfaction derived from being "hardcore" in those previous MMOs were ultimately hollow. I didn't get to keep any of it after clicking uninstall. They didn't increase the size of my bank account. They didn't help me achieve faster career advancement. Even the friends I made in game didn't last for very long after departing. If anything, devoting that much time to a MMO actually had a negative impact on my real life. In summary, my "hardcore" experience was simply fleeting. These days, the MMO player in me is hardly concerned with the ever escalating flow of endgame content and the associated BiS loot. Instead I am far more focused on the leveling experience, quality and variety of content when it comes to attaining my own gaming nirvana.

 

Those are the reasons why my stint with WoW lasted all of 4 months after experiencing those aforementioned more casual MMOs. As such, I'm hoping TOR will never become overly endgame-centric like WoW.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Oneirophrenia

[Jeweledleah]

pretty sure TOR subs are also stable. so... there?

 

also Angel, sounds like you are staying for the same reason so many of the WoW players are staying. none of you are really enjoying yourselves anymore, but its like a habit at this point.

 

I genuinely wonder what WoW subscription numbers would look like if all the people who keep their subscriptions because their friends play and mostly use the game as $15 a month chatroom, would drop their subscriptions... might still be bigger overall number the TOR, but percentage wise.

[Suzina]

They also have more content in wow, more support, more advertising, better customer support and a larger community with a longer history.

 

 

I guess what we should have done is convinced EA to not sack most of the TOR team a few months after development, or strip out the coolest looking outfits from beta pre-launch only to bring them back with a 12$ price tag. Perhaps we should have warned them that the RP community would be upset by restricting emotes by subscription status, outfits by social points, taking out chat-bubble option, and not having basic emotes like the ability to sit in all those chairs they put everywhere or lay in a bed on your ship.

 

Who can say?

[Klarick]

pretty sure TOR subs are also stable. so... there?

 

also Angel, sounds like you are staying for the same reason so many of the WoW players are staying. none of you are really enjoying yourselves anymore, but its like a habit at this point.

 

I genuinely wonder what WoW subscription numbers would look like if all the people who keep their subscriptions because their friends play and mostly use the game as $15 a month chatroom, would drop their subscriptions... might still be bigger overall number the TOR, but percentage wise.

 

i would like to see the dollar figures on how much WoW is bringing in a year. Many of their reported 7 million players are in foreign contries that do not pay to play the game. The game is initially bought, and ran, by that country and not blizzard. Nor does Blizzard reap any financial gain after the initial sale.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Klarick

[Stradlin]

i would like to see the dollar figures on how much WoW is bringing in a year. Many of their reported 7 million players are in foreign contries that do not pay to play the game. The game is initially bought, and ran, by that country and not blizzard. Nor does Blizzard reap any financial gain after the initial sale.

 

Them wacky foreign contries living plebs who don't have to pay to Bliz because of reasons! Stay classy sir.

 

Thing you are copypasting is belitling intentional misconception repeated ad nausea by people who just refuse to believe WoW has as many subs as it does.

[McCamper]

Isn't WOW also making less money now.

I read that they're operating profit is 88 million, down 48% from last year. And that their revenue (282 million this year) is down 32% from last year as well.

They're slowly but surely dying.

[Xakthul]

Why are we even talking about this? Bioware is actually getting more customers than ever because there's no other real Star Wars MMO (I don't give a **** about that Sony TCW thing. It's bull.)

[mrubioos]

WOW = Fantasy

SWTOR = SciFi

Star Wars SciFi?

 

wat

[Projawa]

It's hard to make comparisons when Blizzard includes their Chinese customers in the total subscriber numbers they release even though their Chinese segment does not follow the same pricing model as US/EU players and therefore do not count as 'subscribers'.

 

What percentage of their 7 million players are in China, 50/60% ? That leaves 3-3.5 million US/EU/ANZ subscribers. That's a healthy sum but it's no longer a juggernaut.

[Angedechu]

Making comments about Blizzard ''subs numbers'' is a very pertinent and valid question.

 

This said, TOR is ill placed to comment on that matter, since we no longer release sub numbers at all.

[GalacticKegger]

They also have more content in wow, more support, more advertising, better customer support and a larger community with a longer history.

 

 

I guess what we should have done is convinced EA to not sack most of the TOR team a few months after development, or strip out the coolest looking outfits from beta pre-launch only to bring them back with a 12$ price tag. Perhaps we should have warned them that the RP community would be upset by restricting emotes by subscription status, outfits by social points, taking out chat-bubble option, and not having basic emotes like the ability to sit in all those chairs they put everywhere or lay in a bed on your ship.

 

Who can say?

A decade of development can work wonders. Edited November 8, 2013 by GalacticKegger