SW:TOR 4th biggest Sub MMO in the world

[ZionHalcyon]

Yea I doubt that's accurate. F2P is just a hook to get people to subscribe. People who have no problem spending money in the CM will have no problem with a monthly fee either. I suspect the majority of the CM sales come from subscribers who are starting alts or further customizing their existing characters.

 

Subs actually spend the most $$$ in the cartel market - devs have come out and told us this.

[Sangrar]

Subs actually spend the most $$$ in the cartel market - devs have come out and told us this.

 

makes the most sense really, the guys who have already committed money to the game are more likely to commit more money than are the people who haven't done so.

[LordArtemis]

What matters to individual members of the forum may be NA subscriber numbers or revenue. I would speculate what matters to Bioware is total subscribers and revenue at the end of the day.

[JokerThe]

my atleast 1200 is in there

[Infernixx]

What matters to individual members of the forum may be NA subscriber numbers or revenue. I would speculate what matters to Bioware is total subscribers and revenue at the end of the day.

 

I imagine what matters to BW is total 'players' and monthly revenue. I know quite a few preferred players at the moment who are still grinding away but aren't going to sub up again until Aug 19th.

[Kalfear]

Apparently lots of people...I am equally surprised to be honest, but yeah....

 

has to be oriental players with the skewed stats regarding numbers

(I remember WOW having issues doing accurate number tracking because of how it works over there)

 

I doubt Tera would be on any top 20 lists if just North America numbers

[LordArtemis]

I imagine what matters to BW is total 'players' and monthly revenue. I know quite a few preferred players at the moment who are still grinding away but aren't going to sub up again until Aug 19th.

 

Fair enough, but your comment simply reinforces my own. It's not likely about NA numbers, its more likely it's about worldwide numbers.

[AshlaBoga]

What shocked me was that Lineage is making 5.62 times as much as Lineage II.

 

Having never played Lineage, but having tried a free trial of Lineage II I`m sort of shocked that the older game is making more $$$.

 

Has anyone here played both Lineage and Lineage II enough to comment on the differences?

[Kalfear]

What shocked me was that Lineage is making 5.62 times as much as Lineage II.

 

Having never played Lineage, but having tried a free trial of Lineage II I`m sort of shocked that the older game is making more $$$.

 

Has anyone here played both Lineage and Lineage II enough to comment on the differences?

 

LOL I beta tested Lineage back in the day

It was a Korean only game so we had to run a script just to be able to type English in the game (the game itself was still written totally in Korean)

 

So with the language barrier it basically turned into a week of hunting Koreans (thats not meant as racist by the way). Was only like 5-6 of us that tried to beta it from North America (that we ever saw anyways) and after a day of trying and failing to understand the quests (all written in Korean) and everything we just treated the game as a FFA PVP game (was no non pvp zones back then. From day 1 you could go PK other players).

 

Games definitely dated but man o man was it popular in Korea back in the day

 

Looks like it had some staying power according to that list.

 

I cant make any comparisons though because again, I couldnt read or understand anything beyond running up and whacking people with my sword

Edited July 21, 2014 by Kalfear

[AshlaBoga]

 

Looks like it had some staying power according to that list.

 

That looks to be a bit of an understatement.

[OddballEasyEight]

I meant between when I read the posts I quoted and when someone else replied, there's over a page of posts between the napkin maths posts. Yes there's 3 posts between mine and his, but I clicked Quote on yours and the other guy's posts..

 

Oh and if you really want an estimate about CM versus sub revenue, there was a report released earlier this year that stated BW's CM revenue for 2013 was 139M and sub revenue was something like 76M. Now I'm not sure if that was based on a calendar year, let's assume it was and therefore that's the reason for the difference between those numbers and their FY2014 report (the first quarter of 2013, which fell in FY 2012, was heavily driven on both fronts by ROTHC, in both CM and sub revenue). One could assume reasonably that the revenue streams ratio didn't change much therefore.. subs would make up about 35% of that total revenue figure.

 

165M *.35 = 58.3M

58.3M / 180 (yearly sub cost) = 324K aggregate subscribers

 

I use aggregate because that's not really how many individual subs there are. I know alot of people that let their subs lapse while playing other games, or have real life things come up, yet come back and resub once that has passed. I can tell you about several of my guildies that have done this. One was deployed, another is going to be deployed soon, a third went to play ESO because he loves elder scrolls story, but came back once he finished it because he likes swtor's endgame better (PvE and PvP). We all probably know people that subbed, left, and resubbed for whatever reason.

 

So it's not outside of reason to figure 350-400k individual accounts that sub over the course of a year, with 250-300k full time subbers, while another 50-100k sub on and off over the course of a year. The only way we'd know for certain is if EA/BW came right out and told us (which no company would ever do unless it was an astronomical number), and even if they told us, I think half the people on these forums would never believe them unless they're given a list of accounts.. And even then I still think some people would say they're lying to us.

 

Oh I've always counted the game as having somewhere around 250k-500k subscribers, so I'm not arguing that.

 

I was just pointing out a guys flawed mathematics (with my own flawed mathematics apparantly... damned sixes)

 

And I only took a jab at you because of your "doesn't anyone bother to check decimal places" jab

Edited July 21, 2014 by OddballEasyEight

[ZionHalcyon]

Since WOW is being used as a benchmark for SWTOR's release of new content (which is probably flawed, but so be it)...

 

I present the following for all of the posters here that like to talk out of their rear ends rather than check basic facts available through simple searches, here is a list of the level increases and and expansions for both WOW and SWTOR.

 

 

Year Release Level

2004 WOW Release 60

2005 60

2006 60

2007 The Burning Crusade 70

2008 Wrath of the Lich King 80

2009 80

2010 Cataclysm 85

2011 85

2012 Mists of Pandaria 90

2013 90

2014 Warlords of Draenor (?) 100

2015

 

 

Year Release Level

2011 SWTOR Release 50

2012 50

2013 Hutt Cartel 55

2014 GSF 55

 

 

WOW went almost 3 years from its first release until an expansion pack and level increase. SWTOR's first expansion pack came almost twice as fast even though it was only half as high of a level increase. If SWTOR were to release a level increase in the next 6 months, even if it was only 5 levels, it would be right on track as far as WOW's history is concerned. Arguable the content expansions of SWTOR are being released at a faster rate than WOW saw in its first several years. Oddly enough SWTOR and WOW will get player housing on about the same date.

 

It took WOW 3 years to see the release of new races (Burning Crusades) versus a year for SWTOR, though the WOW races were much bigger releases as the new races included cities and other race specific content and SWTOR's race releases were nothing more than additional skins for player characters.

 

WOW took 4 years to add a new classes (Death Knight with WOLK). SWTOR hasn't existed for 4 years yet.

 

Oh interesting. Except you left out quite...a....bit...

 

Let's revisit, shall we? I'll even only do the first year and 2 months as a for example:

 

WoW:

 

2004, November - WoW Launches

2004 - December - NEW DUNGEON ADDED - Maraudon

2005 - March - NEW DUNGEON ADDED - DireMaul. Also 2 new World Raid Bosses Added

2005 - April - PvP System Implemented and Update to Racial Traits

2005 - June - New PvP Battlegrounds

2005 - July - BlackWing Lair Raide and Darkmoon Faire World Event

2005 - September - New Raid Opened - Zul'Gurub, Plus a new battleground. Arathi Basin

2005 - October - 4 New Raid-Level Dragon Bosses, Plus NEW area Silithus, Plus Halloween Event Hallow's End

 

 

And that's just for starters. Anyone with eyes can see a FAR MORE ACCURATE LIST here:

 

http://www.wowwiki.com/Timeline_(World_of_Warcraft)

 

 

Funny thing that - lots of meaningful updates in a single year, and just even looking from the wiki, which shows not only what was done, but what was announced when, FAR better communication as well.

 

So yeah, nice try being slick, but you've just been pantsed. The people comparing WoW's release schedule and communication to SWTOR's and complaining have a VERY VALID POINT.

 

It was a pretty consistent stream of content, for both PvP and PvE, to keep people interested, and these things were announced ahead of time to keep the masses invested and excited.

 

So yeah - if someone wants to try again to say WoW's schedule, try again.

 

For comparson:

 

SWTOR:

 

2011 - December - Launch

2012 - January - Rise of Rakghouls: 1 Flashpoint, and Second Half of existing Karraga's Palace Raid (Story mode)

2012 - April - Legacy System, Explosive Conflich Raid, Lost Island Flashpoint, Novare Coast Warzone (SOLID Update, even though Legacy was a feature that missed the launch date cutoff but was intended for launch)

2012 - June - Groupfinder and Legacy Perks.

2012 - September - Terror From Beyond Raid

 

 

And that's it.

 

And if you look at the Wiki list for WoW, they're able to keep up with their pace by how much they jam into their expansion packs, which they announce in some cases even a YEAR in advance or more.

 

Vs SWTOR latest fad over the past couple years, in which they barely say squat until a patch hits Test Center or the week before, and then proceeds to milk that patch for 3 months By pretending releasing the same content to Preffered and then Free to Play players is relevant new content somehow, even though subs have by that point had it for 2 months already.

 

So tired of people who think they're so smart being dismissive of SWTOR's information lockdown and release practices.

 

IT'S HORRID AND INEXCUSABLE.

[Reno_Tarshil]

Oh interesting. Except you left out quite...a....bit...

 

Let's revisit, shall we? I'll even only do the first year and 2 months as a for example:

 

WoW:

 

2004, November - WoW Launches

2004 - December - NEW DUNGEON ADDED - Maraudon

2005 - March - NEW DUNGEON ADDED - DireMaul. Also 2 new World Raid Bosses Added

2005 - April - PvP System Implemented and Update to Racial Traits

2005 - June - New PvP Battlegrounds

2005 - July - BlackWing Lair Raide and Darkmoon Faire World Event

2005 - September - New Raid Opened - Zul'Gurub, Plus a new battleground. Arathi Basin

2005 - October - 4 New Raid-Level Dragon Bosses, Plus NEW area Silithus, Plus Halloween Event Hallow's End

 

 

And that's just for starters. Anyone with eyes can see a FAR MORE ACCURATE LIST here:

 

http://www.wowwiki.com/Timeline_(World_of_Warcraft)

 

 

Funny thing that - lots of meaningful updates in a single year, and just even looking from the wiki, which shows not only what was done, but what was announced when, FAR better communication as well.

 

So yeah, nice try being slick, but you've just been pantsed. The people comparing WoW's release schedule and communication to SWTOR's and complaining have a VERY VALID POINT.

 

It was a pretty consistent stream of content, for both PvP and PvE, to keep people interested, and these things were announced ahead of time to keep the masses invested and excited.

 

So yeah - if someone wants to try again to say WoW's schedule, try again.

 

For comparson:

 

SWTOR:

 

2011 - December - Launch

2012 - January - Rise of Rakghouls: 1 Flashpoint, and Second Half of existing Karraga's Palace Raid (Story mode)

2012 - April - Legacy System, Explosive Conflich Raid, Lost Island Flashpoint, Novare Coast Warzone (SOLID Update, even though Legacy was a feature that missed the launch date cutoff but was intended for launch)

2012 - June - Groupfinder and Legacy Perks.

2012 - September - Terror From Beyond Raid

 

 

And that's it.

 

And if you look at the Wiki list for WoW, they're able to keep up with their pace by how much they jam into their expansion packs, which they announce in some cases even a YEAR in advance or more.

 

Vs SWTOR latest fad over the past couple years, in which they barely say squat until a patch hits Test Center or the week before, and then proceeds to milk that patch for 3 months By pretending releasing the same content to Preffered and then Free to Play players is relevant new content somehow, even though subs have by that point had it for 2 months already.

 

So tired of people who think they're so smart being dismissive of SWTOR's information lockdown and release practices.

 

IT'S HORRID AND INEXCUSABLE.

 

The person you quoted was just pointing out when expansions were released and how many years are in between in each one.

 

You're trying to argue a point that wasn't even brought up.

 

Please settle down.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Reno_Tarshil

[OddballEasyEight]

*snip*

 

What Reno said...

 

Also, you left out quite a bit yourself:

Major changes in SW:TOR since launch:

 

Additional Character slots can now be purchased

Appearance Designer Added Designer Added

Armor Dye added

Escrow Account Transfers added

Cartel Market added

Free to Play option released

Group Finder added

Guild Improvements (+5% XP Boost, Banks)

Galactic Trade Networks all linked together (Empire, Neutral, Republic)

Level Cap increased to 55 (Requires Rise of the Hutt Cartel)

Major class changes / balances

New Animal Mounts

New Cartel Market Collections system added

New Class abilities

New Companion (HK-51, Treek)

New Daily Hubs (Black Hole, CZ-198, Makeb, Oricon, Section X)

New Digital Expansion (Rise of the Hutt Cartel, Galactic Starfighter Early Access - Space PvP)

New Game Systems (Legacy, Legacy Achievements, Legacy Character Perks, Galactic Reputation)

New Guild Perk - XP/Reputation Boost (1% per 5 Active Accounts to a Max of 10%)

New Heroic Space Missions added

New Level 50 Hard Mode Flashpoints (Kaon Under Siege, Lost Island)

New Level 55 Hard Mode Flashpoints (Athiss, Cademimu, Czerka Corporate Labs, Czerka Core Meltdown, Hammer Station, Mandalorian Raiders)

New Level 50 Operations (Karagga's Palace, Explosive Conflict)

New Level 55 Operations (Dread Fortress, Dread Palace, Terror From Beyond, Scum & Villany)

New Level 55 Operations Nightmare Mode (Dread Fortress, Dread Palace, Scum & Villainy, Terror From Beyond)

New Planet Makeb (requires Rise of the Hutt Cartel )

New PvP Brackets (10-29, 30-54, 55)

New PvP 4x4 Arenas (Corellia Square, Makeb Mesa, Orbital Station, Makeb Mesa, Tatooine Canyon)

New PvP Warzones (Ancient Hypergates, Novare Coast, Quesh Huttball)

New Space PvP Maps (Denon, Kuat Mesas, Lost Shipyards)

New Space PvP Mode (Domination, Team Deathmatch)

New Space PvP Ships (Bomber, Gunship, Scout, Strike Fighter)

New Story Arc (Forged Alliances)

New Tactical Flashpoint - Role Neutral (Assault on Tython, Czerka Corporate Labs, Czerka Core Meltdown, Korriban Incursion, Kuat Drive Yards)

New Tutorials added

New Unlockable Species - Cathar added

New World Bosses (Nightmare Pilgrim, Dreadtooth, Lucky)

New World Events (Bounty Contracts Week, Chevin Grand Acquisition Race, Life Day, Rakghoul Outbreak, Rakghoul Resurgence, Relics of the Gree, Spoils of War)

Paid Character Transfers Available

Palette Graphics Upgrade (All environments have been given a visual upgrade with more vibrant colors.)

Ranked PvP Leaderboards Added

Ranked PvP Season 1 Started

Ranked PvP Season 1 Ended

Ranked PvP Season 2 Started

Removed PvP 8x8 Ranked Warzones

Ready Check added

Rename consumables added (Player, Legacy & Guild)

Servers merged onto high population servers

User Interface can now be customized

Visible Mission Rewards added

[Darth_Wicked]

New character slots are now perceived as being "content"? For real?

 

Now I've seen it all indeed.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Darth_Wicked

[Tsillah]

I look at it this way. As much as I do like SWTOR, everything that has been added to the game since release and I mean everything, barely constitutes one expansion in another game. And in that comparison it would be an ok expansion but not great.

 

The game has been out for over 2.5 years. Personally the problem with this small releases is that because they are small you also get bored with them more quickly and always feel shortchanged because it's a little bit of this OR a little bit of that. So when GSF came out, PvE'ers were not impressed much. When Oricon came out with 2 new ops, the PvP crowd was unimpressed. Now housing comes out and lots of people will not be impressed again.

 

Now, for me they are all great additions to the game but by releasing them one by one with so much time between as it is, BW is keeping people on a starvation level and every new release has one or more groups unhappy because they got nothing.

 

I think the best thing would be that releases are a bit bigger and add more stuff for more groups of players. I don't think adding a warzone here or there really counts in that. It's all just too little.

 

The core game is a strong title. It's Star Wars, the stories are of high quality compared to other games especially, the voice acting is superb and I like the way the game looks. It's a world that draws me in. But at the moment I log in, do a couple of quests or pvp matches and log out 30 mins later because the game just feels stale.

 

I accept that in a single player game, but an MMO that charges a monthly sub AND has a successful CM, I expect more than what we're getting. Sure, I see no point in catering to the cries of people who blew through the entire game in a matter of weeks but we are rather a bit on the other side of the scale, aren't we?

 

The game needs to renew itself regularly. Two major releases in a year are enough for me, problem is that the releases so far haven't actually been major. They've been advertised as such but they weren't. Again, not to say that the released content was bad, there just wasn't enough to keep the game vital...at least for me. I can only speak for myself of course but I am not one of those people who blows through the game and I have made 21 alts, so I've done my share of repetition. I've already taken 2 breaks of 2-3 months as it is and if you can get someone like me bored, it makes me wonder. It really does.

[Jandi]

Oh this is just precious. It's lovely when people list what WoW released early on yet it's obvious you weren't even there! (I was).

 

The first raid, MC? Intentionally unbeatable for months. According to devs, they had to make it literally impossible so people wouldn't run out of things to do. BWL? The exact same thing. In fact, the difficulty of BWL was so high that people were struggling with it until BC launched, and it only got harder in AQ. The corpseruns alone would make most TOR "raiders" quit. They even admitted that the difficulty of raids was completely over the top in vanilla apart from MC. For the sole reason that they had no means to keep doing content, so they had to artifically ********* the raiders.

 

Let's see, Dire Maul? That was a laugh. It was done once by non-stealth classes. After that, people did the stealth run and that was it. Silithus? Cool event and all (was in the guild that opened the gates on Al'Akir server, EU) but it was a disaster. It took me 2 hours to get from Orgrimmar to Silithus to actually attend the event that I busted my behind off to make happen (Getting the scepter was no joke for the team who actually did it). Simply because the server couldn't handle it.

 

So, yeah, when you talk about Vanilla WoW, please take your stupid coloured glasses off. Most of the content was either broken intentionally or otherwise for weeks, if not months after it was released. Some things were so terrible that it never really worked at all. Like, all their efforts for World PvP? A complete waste. Silithus? Zone was fun if you were in the top guild on your server, and did what you were there to do with a group but for others? Too bad, you were arrow bait. (Troll hunter ftw!).

Edited July 21, 2014 by Jandi

[Jandi]

New character slots are now perceived as being "content"? For real?

 

Now I've seen it all indeed.

 

You never played SWG, then?

 

Best thing about unlocking a Jedi, apart from the enormous e-peen? 1 extra char slot! WOOP!

[Darth_Wicked]

You never played SWG, then?

 

Best thing about unlocking a Jedi, apart from the enormous e-peen? 1 extra char slot! WOOP!

 

Can you "play" a character slot?

[Jandi]

Can you "play" a character slot?

 

Yes, you can. Because SWG was 1 char per account per server. Having an extra one was a massive boon to your bank account if you made it an ent/crafter, which helped you pay the bills being a Jedi incurred.

 

Also, as far as TOR goes, not having 16 slots means that if you want to see all the content, you're either going to have to buy char slots or delete 55s because you need to make 1 male and 1 female of every base class.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Jandi

[Tsillah]

Can you "play" a character slot?

 

Adding f2p on that list...that's what got me.

[Tsillah]

The first raid, MC? Intentionally unbeatable for months. According to devs, they had to make it literally impossible so people wouldn't run out of things to do.

 

Oh you mean like how Soa was unbeatable in EV for the first 6 months or longer except here the reason was that he was bugged so you couldn't actually complete the first raid for a looooooong time unless you were really lucky?

[Jandi]

Oh you mean like how Soa was unbeatable in EV for the first 6 months or longer except here the reason was that he was bugged so you couldn't actually complete the first raid for a looooooong time unless you were really lucky?

 

That's bs. It wasn't bugged for *that* long. Only for a month or so. We did it on HM on 2nd of Feb 2012, and the problem with SOA was fixed by then (platforms). We already killed him 3 times on SM IIRC at that point.

 

 

There, a Video of it. I'm the Twi'lek Assassin

 

Him vanishing happened rarely. It worked fine like 90% of the time. In fact, it never vanished on us.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Jandi

[Tsillah]

That's bs. It wasn't bugged for *that* long. Only for a month or so. We did it on HM on 2nd of Feb 2012, and the problem with SOA was fixed by then (platforms). We already killed him 3 times on SM IIRC at that point.

 

 

There, a Video of it. I'm the Twi'lek Assassin

 

That wasn't the only bug. Soa also got stuck mid air between levels or reset. I agree the main issue that you described was fixed in about a months time...which was bad enough as it is, but there were still various problems with the Soa fight that took a lot longer.

 

WoW was pretty much unplayable for the first 3 months according to two friends of mine who played it for years. Something to do with long server queues and unstable servers.

 

The comparison in the end is not a correct one anyway. When WoW came out the genre was still very new especially to the larger public and I don't know how much WoW started with compared to SWTOR.

 

What I find a shame is that SWTOR started without a number of features that are commonplace in other games. You know stuff like legacy banks and UI customisation. I am glad that we're finally getting legacy banks but it's about 2.5 years late. It's also not content, but a convenience, QOL feature. These are important but it's not new stuff to do. The housing is, but won't appeal to everybody.

 

And this is my main point. Content releases here are always too small and too one-sided. I hope Strongholds will offer more than QOL/convenience stuff. Housing is nice but it does require you to do the same content that exists already to gain the decorations. So that's only partially new content.

 

But hey, I don't really care what other games do except that the games I've played in the past have given me some minimal expectations of what should be in a game and SWTOR certainly didn't come with some of those basics. Now it's 2014 and the game is almost 3 years old. I don't think it's too much to ask to get more content than we're getting at the moment and I suggest BW look at various categories at the SAME TIME.

 

What are such categories:

 

PvE casual (leveling, housing and FPs)

PvE endgame (operations, crafting, gear itemisation)

PvP casual (low level warzones, GSF)

PvP endgame (ranked warzones)

QOL/Convenience items

Bug fixes

 

Now I just put some examples and it's not a perfect list but I think you ge the idea.

 

I think we should get 2 major updates a year addressing ALL of these in good measure. For example, one warzone is not enough for PvP. The thing is, a lot of people like a sort of set schedule so they can pace themselves and know more or less when to expect more content that they like. PvE endgame hasn't had new content for a year (I don't count adding NiM as new content really) and needs to be redesigned anyway. The commendation system is fooked and most people don't even do NiM and I think we are missing a tier between SM and HM ops because from what I can see the difference of number of people who do SM ops and HM ops is way too big.

 

Mind you I have my main in full 180 with set bonuses and perfectly itemised but I am not even interested in NiM. The down side of how DF and DP are done is that you do them so often that another difficulty level just already lost its charm before it came out. Also the reward system makes no sense but that's another topic.

 

TL;DR I just feel that SWTOR is moving forward too slowly. Anyone can agree or disagree with that. Whether it's as fast as WoW or not doesn't change that feeling. Content releases are not regular and don't take all player groups into account leaving people wanting for more even if we just got a new update.

[OddballEasyEight]

New character slots are now perceived as being "content"? For real?

 

Now I've seen it all indeed.

 

Of course not, I was just listing everything that's been added or changed. Nowhere did I claim it was "content".

Edited July 21, 2014 by OddballEasyEight