Jeff Hickman has promised we will NOT be getting any new MMO content this year.

[Icestar]

A teacher has been working with a class of 30 kids for the past year. One day she looks at her information and goes hey, there is a trend here. 25 kids really love my stories, 2 of the kids really like my competitive games, and 3 of the kids really like my strategy games. This teacher only has the time money to plan out one event though. So she chooses to create a story, which will appease 25/30 of the kids, and to be nice, she repairs some of the old and dusty competitive and strategic board games that were missing a few pieces so the kids that felt left out would have at least something to do. 4/5 of the left over kids split off and enjoy playing their board game, whilst the other 25 are really enjoying the storytelling time with the teacher.

 

However then there is Billy. Billy is really upset. For one, the games she repaired aren't NEW games. They are stuff he has played before, so he gets mad and goes to the teacher. The teacher tells Billy that she is sorry, but she must focus on what the majority of kids want, and that there will eventually be new games added to the classroom, but right now Billy will have to either join the kids playing the board games, join the kids in story time, or leave and go to the principles office.

 

Billy does neither. Instead he starts kicking and screaming like a spoiled infant, that he didn't get HIS way, when the teacher clearly has stated that most of what the players want is story time, and the others playing the board games are fine playing some old repaired ones while they wait for newer games to arrive. Nope, Billy screams and hollers, pounds his fist upon the floor in rage,

"I WANTS IT NOW, SCREW THE OTHER KIDS, I WANT MY NEW BOARD GAMES." Whilst this is happening a few new kids come to the doorway because they are interested in taking the teachers class, but then they see Billy, and they don't like the way Billy is acting, or what he is saying about the class, so they decide to go to the class down the hall.

 

The rest of the 29 other kids start feeling down, because they hear what Billy is saying, and their mood overall shifts, to where they really don't want to be in the class with Billy anymore either. Yet, Billy doesn't care how the other children feel, Billy only cares for himself, even IF he is the minority, but instead of leaving and just going to the principle's office, Billy stays just to be Toxic, he starts taking his wrath out on the other kids, making them feel bad, and telling them that because the teacher won't get him his new board games, that the entire class will be "REMOVED FROM THE SCHOOL! and their favorite teacher should be "PUNISHED!",

 

Don't be Billy. You are acting like Billy. Stop.

 

Awesome this can be applied to so many situations and so many games. I think we can agree upon that there is no point in acting like Billy

[GalacticStarfigh]

A teacher has been working with a class of 30 kids for the past year. One day she looks at her information and goes hey, there is a trend here. 25 kids really love my stories, 2 of the kids really like my competitive games, and 3 of the kids really like my strategy games. This teacher only has the time money to plan out one event though. So she chooses to create a story, which will appease 25/30 of the kids, ...

 

Ooo this looks fun. Lemme try!

 

Principal looks at the calendar of the coming year. Entire long year's worth of blank spaces to fill. Couple of semester of keeping kids interested, involved and active. Another year of keeping the school up and running. Principal knows the school has a loud, large and surprisingly aggressive clique of popular guys&girls who are HUGE fans of The Talking Heads. Then there is several usual and largely more quiet groups of students who like math, history, chemistry or playing Huttball in the schoolyard. Principal realizes all of these things takes resources to provide. He'd have to hire teacher for each activity. People into Hutball have grown up and really could use new gear. People who like history would greatly benefit for field trips to local museums.

 

Principal has 20 millions of cash. This is enough to either

A) Provide a schoolyear's worth of interesting, involving activity to pretty much everybody. Teachers. Hutball gear. Field trips. Couple of Talking Heads songs off iTunes.

or!

B) Buy the entire school tickets to the coming Talking Heads concert.

 

One of these options would fill the calendar of his school. Other of these options would provide an awesome evening to the loud clique who just loves The Talking Heads. Principal decided to buy tickets to talking heads concert, scheduled for 11th of october, 2015. Once announcement is made, he becomes the most loved principal in school's history. Talking Heads fans are all over him. Most everybody seems pleased enough; they'd get a rock concert!! *** lol!!! Principal kinda digs sound of Talking Heads well enough himself. He is SO happy. Nice to be popular.

 

Every now and then couple of people who have some idea of how a school system works wonder what happens come 12 of october, 2015. Or next March, for that matter. People into Hutball don't have any new gear. Folks who dig history won't get their field trips. People into math have gone without teacher. This year is going to be all about The Talking Heads, the principal said.

 

Pretty huge amount of people, some Talking Heads fans included start wondering if it is really that good an idea to invest on one awesome affernoon, not in schoolyear as a whole. These questions and people are attacked by the loud clioque of talking heads fans; " Are you kidding?? SHUT UP! The concert is going to be SOOO awesome! We'll make bootlegs! WOOOOO BEST SCHOOL EVER!"

Edited July 10, 2015 by GalacticStarfigh

[Jeweledleah]

You are still not helping the situation Billy.

 

There will eventually be new operations and flashpoints.

 

It will be okay.

 

eventually? when? when people who would actualy be interested in them are gone?

 

or is that the plan?

 

doesn't sound like a very profitable plan, unless they can churn out new story literally on monthly basis. which, I have a feeling, given that story in SWTOR is animated, voiced and changes depending on which character you play - is a bit more involved to create than an operation that should last half a year before you need to create a new one.

[Tharenisis]

Ooo this looks fun. Lemme try!

 

Principal looks at the calendar of the coming year. Entire long year's worth of blank spaces to fill. Couple of semester of keeping kids interested, involved and active. Another year of keeping the school up and running. Principal knows the school has a loud, large and surprisingly aggressive clique of popular guys&girls who are HUGE fans of The Talking Heads. Then there is several usual and largely more quiet groups of students who like math, history, chemistry or playing Huttball in the schoolyard. Principal realizes all of these things takes resources to provide. He'd have to hire teacher for each activity. People into Hutball have grown up and really could use new gear. People who like history would greatly benefit for field trips to local museums.

 

Principal has 10 millions of cash. This is enough to either

A) Provide a schoolyear's worth of interesting, involving activity to pretty much everybody.

or!

B) Buy the entire school tickets to the coming talking heads concert.

 

One of these options would fill the calendar of his school. Other of these options would provide an awesome evening to the loud clique who just loves The Talking Heads. Principal decided to buy tickets to talking heads concert, scheduled for 11th of october, 2015. Once announcement is made, he becomes the most loved principal in school's history. Talking Heads fans are all over him. Most everybody seems pleased enough; rock concert!! Principal kinda digs sound of Talking Heads well enough himself. He is SO happy. Nice to be popular.

 

Every now and then couple of people who have some idea of how a school system should work wonder what happens come 12 of october, 2015. Or next March, for that matter. People into Hutball don't have new gear. Folks who dig history won't get their field trips. People into math have gone without teacher. Pretty huge amount of people, some Talking Heads fans included start wondering if it is really that good an idea to invest on one awesome affernoon, not in schoolyear as a whole. These questions and people are attacked by the loud clioque of talking heads fans; " Are you kidding?? SHUT UP! The concert is going to be SOOO awesome! We'll make bootlegs! WOOOOO BEST SCHOOL EVER!"

 

See class, perfect example of Billy. He has a very selective ability and will manipulate anything to fit his agenda.

 

Don't be like Billy.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Tharenisis

[GalacticStarfigh]

See class, perfect example of Billy. He has a very selective ability and will manipulate anything to fit his agenda.

 

 

Don't attack the poster, argue his post instead.

[Tharenisis]

Don't attack the poster, argue his post instead.

 

Oh I have. Nothing you have said in any means could possibly come true. Also you bluntly lied in your title. Hickman didn't "promise" anything. I completely disagree with the original post as it is a complete bait post setup to draw more attention to the OP's hate mongering.

 

The world is not ending. SWTOR is not dying. It never even came close.

 

However..

It's obvious you know better than the developers what is best for the game.

 

"Every now and then couple of people who have some idea of how a school system should work wonder what happens come 12 of october, 2015." -GalacticStarFigh

 

When Billy believes he knows better than what the Teacher does, all Billy can do is be toxic.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Tharenisis

[GalacticStarfigh]

eventually? when? when people who would actualy be interested in them are gone?

 

or is that the plan?

 

doesn't sound like a very profitable plan, unless they can churn out new story literally on monthly basis. which, I have a feeling, given that story in SWTOR is animated, voiced and changes depending on which character you play - is a bit more involved to create than an operation that should last half a year before you need to create a new one.

 

 

I find the utter lack of empathy among Talking Heads fans midlly depressing,tbh.

" You prolly get something new eventually once foreseeable future is done, lol!! Stop whining!"

It'd take approximately single ounce of empathy to understand why so many people are so worked up over this. " I don't give a single fig about PvE, PvP, end game raiding or any of that. But If I would...man,

I'd be pissed too. " <- - According to my estimations, 0,89 ounces of empathy is what it takes to reach this state, instead of sticking with lol what are you QQing about" Not. That.Hard.

 

Your post touches the topic I'd love to see talked a bit more about. And asked as much in OP: Longevity in 10-20 hours of story content . Too bad people are too busy trying to undermine posts based on titles to have time for such discussion. Then again, if I were solely devoted to Talking Heads, I'd - hate - to think about longevity, too.

 

- -

 

Every successful MMO, TOR included, has always been a beast with many heads. It has always been about providing a huge wealth of different activities and differing content for different people. SW:TOR has always been all about having multitude of pillars to stand on. GSF, end game PvE, more casual PvE, competitive arena PVP, casual Pv P, Storylines, Conquest, CM bathrobes, Decorating strongholds, Roleplaying..

...beast with many heads. Almost nobody cares of everything. But almost everybody is connected to several different pillars of the game. You have just heard there is going to be an entire expansion, entire concept cycle that is ALL ABOUT ONE OF THESE HEADS, while rest are left starving. And you are happy? You celebrate. You feel glee.

Edited July 10, 2015 by GalacticStarfigh

[Jeweledleah]

See class, perfect example of Billy. He has a very selective ability and will manipulate anything to fit his agenda.

 

Don't be like Billy.

 

Pot - meet kettle.

[GalacticStarfigh]

Oh I have. Nothing you have said in any means could possibly come true. Also you bluntly lied in your title. Hickman didn't "promise" anything. I completely disagree with the original post as it is a complete bait post setup to draw more attention to the OP's hate mongering.

 

The world is not ending. SWTOR is not dying. It never even came close.

 

However..

It's obvious you know better than the developers what is best for the game.

 

"Every now and then couple of people who have some idea of how a school system should work wonder what happens come 12 of october, 2015." -GalacticStarFigh

 

When Billy believes he knows better than what the Teacher does, all Billy can do is be toxic.

 

SW:TOR Reddit and these Forums have been in utter meltdown about this ever since that blogpost was released. 5 mins on these forums or SW:TOR Reddit is all it takes to realize loads of people are kinda upset or disappointed. I'd try to be little less dismissive about it all, if I were I you. I'm sure it is a world of fun to run around calling everybody Billy though.

 

 

Jeff Hickman literally and proudly declared " This year will be all about the story". Blogpost confirming we'll not be getting single new FP or Operation sounds a whole lot like him living up to his promises.

The Original Post provides direct quote, full context and link to the source. How much more legitimacy you expect on these forums? Stop trying to undermine entire post based on it's title.

Edited July 10, 2015 by GalacticStarfigh

[ThorgrimLutgen]

.................................It's obvious you know better than the developers what is best for the game.....................................

 

When it comes to knowing what appeals to me personally, absolutely.

[Tharenisis]

I find the utter lack of empathy among Talking Heads fans midlly depressing,tbh.

" You prolly get something new eventually once foreseeable future is done, lol!! Stop whining!"

It'd take approximately single ounce of empathy to understand why so many people are so worked up over this. " I don't give a single fig about PvE, PvP, end game raiding or any of that. But If I would...man,

I'd be pissed too. " <- - According to my estimations, 0,89 ounces of empathy is what it takes to reach this state, instead of sticking with lol what are you QQing about" Not. That.Hard.

 

Your post touches the topic I'd love to see talked a bit more about. And asked as much in OP: Longevity in 10-20 hours of story content . Too bad people are too busy trying to undermine posts based on titles to have time for such discussion. Then again, if I were solely devoted to Talking Heads, I'd - hate - to think about longevity, too.

 

- -

 

Every successful MMO, TOR included, has always been a beast with many heads. It has always been about providing a huge wealth of different activities and differing content for different people. SW:TOR has always been all about having multitude of pillars to stand on. GSF, end game PvE, more casual PvE, competitive arena PVP, casual Pv P, Storylines, Conquest, CM bathrobes, Decorating strongholds, Roleplaying..

...beast with many heads. Almost nobody cares of everything. But almost everybody is connected to several different pillars of the game. You have just heard there is going to be an entire expansion, entire concept cycle that is ALL ABOUT ONE OF THESE HEADS, while rest are left starving. And you are happy? You celebrate. You feel glee.

 

Okay, it’s time for teacher to school some Billy’s.

 

When the game launched, there were some major issues, some very VERY, major issues. The game released with a massive amount of story, 8 entire classes worth of fully voice-over’ed star wars goodness. This was wonderful, and people had a blast going through the different stories on their characters.

 

Bioware like many other companies did not predict exactly how fast the Locust would reach 50 however. I remember them on these very forums complaining about certain hardmodes, being, well hard. I remember them tackling the first raid, I’m pretty sure it was EV if I’m correct. Heres the problem though, EV was buggy, and REALLY hard. There were post after post after post, on the difficulty of Biowares raid. The result of this? The hardcore locust’ spread the word on this difficulty, and brought MORE locust into the game, wanting to get worlds first, and the best of the best gear yada yada.

 

Then Bioware fixed the bug… and suddenly…EV was easy, it was a wash. Bosses that once took hours of wiping, now were one shot. This turned off a lot of the locust, and the first wave of subscribers left.

 

Further down the road, people are flocking back to star wars for the great Illum release. “OPEN WORLD PVP PLANET! 2 Flashpoints! More OPS! The entire time the PvP players had been complaining about there being no ranked pvp, it was all randoms, and premades fighting groups of pugs were a HUGE problem. This turned a lot of pvp players off, but they stuck around for Illum, I mean, what pvper wouldn’t. Massive open world pvp? Heck yeah!

 

Then Illum released. It was BAD, servers were crashing from the lag, people were abusing an exploit to get battlemaster quickly. This turned pvpers off. One they felt cheated, a lot of them worked really hard grinding warzones and getting their battlemaster gear, only to have some random pve joe come in and exploit to get there BM title in 4-6 hours. This caused a HUGE exodus of the pvp community, everyone left.

 

Now that most of the hardcore raider’s had split, and most of the dedicated pvper’s had split, who was left? That’s right. That 500k that everyone talks about, you know, the 500k that were hanging around when SWTOR went FtP. Those guys, were still playing the story. THE STORY. The ONLY part of the game that kept people playing during all the crap from the getgo, was the STORY.

 

Yet Bioware screwed up. They stopped releasing quality STORY, they wanted to pull those raiders back. SO they started releasing 2 ops a year, they wanted those PVPer’s back, so they made that ranked warzone they were asking for, released new warzones!. They started adding other stuff in people were requesting, GSF, Player housing. They were appealing to the crowd who squeeled the loudest, not the ones who truly mattered. That 500k, 2 years later, is now starting to get restless, they have finished all 8 classes stories now, and the only bone that has been tossed to them in the past 2 years, was Makeb, Rishi, and Ziost…Bioware knows something must be done. Yes P2W and other things brought more people back to the game, why wouldn’t it? The story players. Those 500k are the ones who kept this game alive. They just ran out of material LONG AFTER the raider’s/pvpers originally did. They had more originally to do.

 

Now we have run out. Bioware knows it must feed that 500k, and if it’s base players, it’s CORE GROUP, is happy. Then they will be stable enough to feed the content locust/pvpers more Ops/FP’s/WZ’s/GSF.

 

You take care of your core players.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Tharenisis

[Alssaran]

SW:TOR Reddit and these Forums have been in utter meltdown about this ever since that blogpost was released. 5 mins on these forums or SW:TOR Reddit is all it takes to realize loads of people are kinda upset or disappointed. I'd try to be little less dismissive about it all, if I were I you. I'm sure it is a world of fun to run around calling everybody Billy though.

 

Yes, they are upset. But what about it? They have been for two and a half years, and they are still around.

 

These days, MMO's mostly cater to a special playerbase. World of Warcraft managed to amass a ton of subs, even today, by being the first game that has a broader range (Arena PvP, PvE and the likes). That's the reason WoW was so successfull, because it was first. Today, it's not easy to cater to PvP, PvE and casuals alike. It takes a ton of money to do that.

 

What Bioware is now doing is to choose their special playerbase. They obviously decided that it isn't worth keeping the 10% raiders and the 10% PvP focused players by pouring money into that development, which would leave money out of 80% of their target group: Casual gamers and story enthusiasts. If Billy has a problem to accept that this special game has abandoned his focus, then it is time to move on. Literally everyone I speak to in this game is a casual, with many people being in this game for it being Star Wars. I run HM Ops (currently trying Revan HM for the past two weeks) and I casually PvP on two of my characters. Many of the people I know do that too. And you know what? Nobody is giving a tiny bit of importance to the PvE changes. They think it sounds interesting.

 

Bioware is now facing the obvious problem in the room: There is no way this game can recover to be a viable choice for progressive raiders and hardcore ranked enthusiasts without pouring a ton of money into that. A ton of development power they simply don't have. It is probably better to focus your development on one point, the point which was heavily advertised before release, and try to keep as many subs and preferred as possible. Without going into too much detail, while retention is important, I think people underestimate the amount upscaled HM operations can do for retention. Many people I told this were actually quite content with it.

 

I'd also like to point out that, rarely, the sentence "Change this or my sub is going away!" has changed anything. It is a given that, after such a release, players of that group will gather in a post to make their voice heard. But it doesn't mean that this group of people can immediately crash the game. Also, a developer of a very big MMO once pointed this out: People usually claim to stop subscribing, they threaten us with leaving subs. Truth be told, maybe ten percent of the people who claim to do it actually do it.

 

It was obvious for the past two years that Bioware could not support giving out PvP and PvE content on a regular basis. Long times inbetween new Operations, the old operations being scaled up. A small PvE and PvP development team. Bioware even said at one point that barely anyone runs NiM, with a very tiny minority actually trying. And people are still angry and surprised by this announcement? People still have to spam the forum because it was such a surprise that Ops focus or Operation development wasn't a thing anymore.

 

Does it s*ck that there is no "new" Operation with the launch of KotFE? Yes, indeed. Will the game die for it? Probably not. But the most important thing: Do I believe that the constant threat about how subs will run away in a tremendous amount is true? Not one tiny bit. A few people will leave the game over it, that's it. That's my two cents for this whole "This game is becoming a single player RPG with multiplayer elements" take. It won't hurt the game. It's what many people I know actually wanted: A KOTOR with the ocassional multiplayer option. The fact that there are 500 comments on a reddit, which barely even 8% of the playerbase is subsribed to, doesn't prove a single point. 500 people claiming to unsub is funny, not devastating. Even 25 pages full of people claiming to unsub is funny. 500 people (of which some might post double), so 400. Do you know what percentage of the actual playerbase that is? Going by last years figures it's 0,08% of all active subscribers. Tell me again how this is devastating?

Edited July 10, 2015 by Alssaran

[GalacticStarfigh]

 

When the game launched, there were some major issues, some very VERY, major issues. The game released with a massive amount of story, 8 entire classes worth of fully voice-over’ed star wars goodness. This was wonderful, and people had a blast going through the different stories on their characters.

 

 

 

Wrong. People thought it was not wonderful. People did not have a blast going through it at all. Instead, people left the game. - You - thought it was wonderful. See the difference? 2.5 million people bought and/or subscribed to SW:TOR around it's launch. Two million of these people were gone after few months. I'm pretty sure we can agree that almost nobody who left was anywhere nearly done with the staggering, humbling 600 hour lasting wealth of story content. People didn't have a blast. People left. Sub based Vanilla TOR was Bioware asking " Will at least a million people want to subscribe and stick around to 600 hours of story? Answer was one big Nope.jpg.

 

CM lottery tickets and F2P is what brought SW:TOR back among living. Not the story.

 

Almost none of the (not all that severe-) problems TOR had around launch had anything to do with any of the story aspects at all. It's not like game launched with unfinished VA or something. Story content was every bit as tight(or irrelevant) as it is today.

 

Vanilla asked if most people want to stick around for 200 million costing, 600 hour lasting story. Answer was no. Most people did not want that at all. Minority who sticks around does it for any wealth of reasons. Certainly loads of people who chose to stick around are those who really love every second they get to spend by looking at a Bioware Talking head. I'm not sure why you've chosen to go assuming entire core is made of people who care for nothing except story. Take a look at these forums right now, or at TOR's reddit for that matter. Does it sound like that? Does it look or sound like some huge imaginary core of people are happy? People are disappointed, worried and speaking out.

 

I'm glad you mentioned " Core of players" and needing to take care of them though. I fully agree.

Core is not majority. Majority is not the core. Core is what keeps it all together. Core of players is the pile of people who add depth and presence to the game and community. Core is people who care about multiple aspects of the game and bring life, depth and presence all around them through the virtue of their own enthusiasm alone. Core is people who write long angry rants about pvp class balance, create pve DPS rotation guides and are interested to endlessly discuss and argue about the experience of playing the game. Core is where all else is attached.

Edited July 10, 2015 by GalacticStarfigh

[mmmbuddah]

I find the utter lack of empathy among Talking Heads fans midlly depressing,tbh.

" You prolly get something new eventually once foreseeable future is done, lol!! Stop whining!"

It'd take approximately single ounce of empathy to understand why so many people are so worked up over this. " I don't give a single fig about PvE, PvP, end game raiding or any of that. But If I would...man,

I'd be pissed too. " <- - According to my estimations, 0,89 ounces of empathy is what it takes to reach this state, instead of sticking with lol what are you QQing about" Not. That.Hard.

 

Your post touches the topic I'd love to see talked a bit more about. And asked as much in OP: Longevity in 10-20 hours of story content . Too bad people are too busy trying to undermine posts based on titles to have time for such discussion. Then again, if I were solely devoted to Talking Heads, I'd - hate - to think about longevity, too.

 

- -

 

Every successful MMO, TOR included, has always been a beast with many heads. It has always been about providing a huge wealth of different activities and differing content for different people. SW:TOR has always been all about having multitude of pillars to stand on. GSF, end game PvE, more casual PvE, competitive arena PVP, casual Pv P, Storylines, Conquest, CM bathrobes, Decorating strongholds, Roleplaying..

...beast with many heads. Almost nobody cares of everything. But almost everybody is connected to several different pillars of the game. You have just heard there is going to be an entire expansion, entire concept cycle that is ALL ABOUT ONE OF THESE HEADS, while rest are left starving. And you are happy? You celebrate. You feel glee.

 

That's exactly my sentiment as well, the people that are happy that the other pillars of the game are being ignored are what I call the "me me me" generation. They don't care about anyone else, as long as they are happy. What happened when this game first came out after a ayear because of the lack of focus on all the pillars? It lost around 75 percent of its paying customers , it is going to happen again, around 20 percent of players have finished ALL raid content, and more than that play raids in general for fun, then you add the 15-20 percent of players who pvp, and then the people that roleplay. All these pillars are being flat out ignored with this expansion, so they are not ignoring just the pvpers this time, they are ignoring about 50 percent of their fanbase, what do people think these people are going to do? Stay? I highly doubt it. If they are anything like me they will wait about a month into the expansion, and if there is no news on ANYTHING else aside from solo mode story, they will likely leave and the game will fail miserably again.

[Alssaran]

...and then the people that roleplay. All these pillars are being flat out ignored with this expansion.

 

That gave me a good laugh. As a roleplayer, I do not need to be catered to by Bioware to generate my content. I create my own content with fellow roleplayers. Trying to make a point about how roleplayers are ignored in a story-focused expansion is ridiculous at best.

 

That's exactly my sentiment as well, the people that are happy that the other pillars of the game are being ignored are what I call the "me me me" generation. They don't care about anyone else, as long as they are happy.

 

This has nothing to do with the fact that I selfishly want Bioware not to produce new Operations and PvP. It is about living with a decision they have made. If Bioware would have said: "We will not produce any more story, but will focus on PvP and PvE for the next year.", then I would have taken my hat and moved away. Maybe play through WoD or something. I don't need to prophecy doom, threaten Bioware with cancelling my sub or any of the likes. It is a selfish act to think that you can persuade Bioware to change their plans (which they probably thought about in advance) because a minority is being ignored. I'd just unsubscribe and be done with it.

 

What happened when this game first came out after a ayear because of the lack of focus on all the pillars? It lost around 75 percent of its paying customers

 

There are many factors in this. One might argue that the biggest portion, the significant portion of end-game focused people has already left back then. What point would there be appeasing the rest then? There were also MMO locusts, who have spend the past eight years telling people that MMO X will kill WoW, only to move on to MMO Y. It happens.

 

that play raids in general for fun

 

And they will continue to do that. Many people in the operations blog thread have already said they are casuals and like the change. My guild focuses on PvE and HM, and they like to run the old raids, even with some people (like me) being Founders.

 

What do people think these people are going to do? Stay? I highly doubt it.

 

See my quote above. Yes, roleplayers will stay. Most casuals will stay. Story-players will stay. Star Wars fans will stay.

 

they will likely leave and the game will fail miserably again

 

What constitutes a "fail"? A game with 300k subscribers and revenue from the CM can continue to make a profit which is quite sustainable at a low level of spending. 300k is also a good guess, assuming that the last figures were 480k subscribers last year. That'd be a subscription loss of 40%, worst case scenario. Stop saying this game will fail because of XY. People have been doing that since release, it didn't happen. The game was supposed to shut down in 2012,2013 and 2014. We are in 2015 and still around.

[mmmbuddah]

snip.

 

Game had over 2 million subs at start. Game loses over 75 percent of population. Main complaint when massive loss of players was, lack of end game. Bioware introduces CM, makes f2p, adds end game content, player base stabilizes.

 

Now we have 300-350 k players because all pillars have been at least slightly catered to, BW states they will repeat what they did before. Do the math. EA even blatently said this game is a failure. It will fall again because they are repeating the exact mistakes they made before.

 

If you don't see it, I can't help you there, but the information is out there, and it supports my outlook, not your rosey eyed glasses selfish outlook.

[GalacticStarfigh]

 

These days, MMO's mostly cater to a special playerbase. World of Warcraft managed to amass a ton of subs, even today, by being the first game that has a broader range (Arena PvP, PvE and the likes). That's the reason WoW was so successfull, because it was first. Today, it's not easy to cater to PvP, PvE and casuals alike. It takes a ton of money to do that.

 

Firstly, I think much in your post makes a great contribution and would like to thank you for coming up with the time to craft it.

 

 

WoW or Blizzard has never had the reputation of some great innvotator. They alwways had the uncanny ability to see what works, copy it, polish it, perfect it and turn it popular. Several MMOs long before WoW found their success by providing a very diverse serving of different content for different people. Ultima Online was the first non dysfunctional MMO- It came with wealth of different content appealing to wealth of different people from day one. Blizzard just does what they are so good at: they saw it works, perfected it and made it huge.

It takes a ton of money to do that.

I guess it does, yeah. There is something frustrating in this. It is clear EA still had the will to invest a ton of money on TOR. The 4 minute daddy issue CGI alone cost somewhere around 8-10 millions. For the sake of a comparsion, entire developement of vanilla World of Warcaft cost 60 mils. They have/had exceptional amounts of money at their disposal. They put all of them eggs it buys in one single basket. This is very frustrating. It also is a clear change to how they've used to do things post-vanilla. Up until now, SW:TOR has cobnsistently been expanding in multiple different areas. Now we hear this approach has been dropped. Til foreseeable future, this game is suddenly going to be all about story.

What Bioware is now doing is to choose their special playerbase. They obviously decided that it isn't worth keeping the 10% raiders and the 10% PvP focused players by pouring money into that development, which would leave money out of 80% of their target group: Casual gamers and story enthusiasts.

Yeah. This is exactly what it looks like. It appears they've figured people who care about story and - only- people who care about the story should make their community now. I'd never expect to see this approach in a game that wants to keep you as a paying subscriber. Nothing is as disposable as 10 hours of story content. No matter how great, bad or disposable the story is..you spend 10 hours of playing it. Then you are done.

 

Literally everyone I speak to in this game is a casual, with many people being in this game for it being Star Wars. I run HM Ops (currently trying Revan HM for the past two weeks) and I casually PvP on two of my characters. Many of the people I know do that too. And you know what? Nobody is giving a tiny bit of importance to the PvE changes. They think it sounds interesting.

We all end up playing with people who share our own interests. We all live in our own echho chambers. I've spend last night in Ops grp that was both an 8 man GSF premade and an RP event. I spend last night with my buddies, like I'm sure you did! I can assure you this pile of RP enthuasists and GSF pilots do not give a single fig about what BW writes for Jennifer Hale to say. Your echo chamber sounds very different from mine.

Bioware is now facing the obvious problem in the room: There is no way this game can recover to be a viable choice for progressive raiders and hardcore ranked enthusiasts without pouring a ton of money into that. A ton of development power they simply don't have. It is probably better to focus your development on one point,

 

This is exactly what frustrates me. Clearly EA has interest in investing huge wealth of money in TOR- It just all of this money gets spend on one single pillar of the game. One that has smallest amount of longevity out of them all. Spend 10 million on perfecting a clever mechanic like Conquest and it keeps adding flavor, overlap and meaning to one's gameplay on so many different levels. It can provide a literal lifetime of longevity. Spend 10 mils in creating a 10 hour long story and you have new content for 10 hours. Then it is over. No matter how much you like it. I understand how this is great news for somebody who plays this game in ultra casual fashion. If somebody has plans to subscribe for a month, keep logging in for few weeks, enjoy the new story and then forget the game exsists, then I'm sure an expansion like this is great news for you. It's just that there are some people who feel joy/glee over the new direction who are here for the long haul.

Celebrating a heavy focus and investment to 10 hour story is the "Anti" for the long haul.

[Tharenisis]

Wrong. People thought it was not wonderful. People did not have a blast going through it at all. Instead, people left the game. - You - thought it was wonderful. See the difference? 2.5 million people bought and/or subscribed to SW:TOR around it's launch. Two million of thes..snip.

 

Game had over 2 million subs at start. Game loses over 75 percent of population. Main complaint when massive loss of players was, lack of end game. Bioware introduces CM, makes f2p, adds end game content, player base stabilizes.....SNIP

 

 

Your reaching. People quit SWTOR at the beginning because of a few main reasons.

1. The amount of bugs.

2. Too many servers.

3. Lack of Basic necessity for an MMO (This has nothing to do with OPs) There was no group finder, guild stuff was all jacked.

4. When the original wave of people left, it thinned all the servers populations. People were spread out across numerous servers, so to everyone it looked like the game was dying, which had a domino affect, causing MORE people to leave.

5. Lack of communication from EA/BW some of the up tops. Server merges that were needed didn't come until like 6 months down the road. This was like 3 months too late. IF they would of merged servers at the right time, alot of players wouldn't have felt so alone and left.

7. Alot of the gear was buggy and useless (augmented gear was crap if you had campaign gear, because of the set bonuses)

8. No competitive pvp

9. The inability to fix the amount of bugs.

10. Crafting was useless.

 

You want proof. Here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=444571&page=4

Here's proof. This was one of the BIGGEST forum post back in the day when people were leaving. You will find the main reason for leaving was dead servers/bugs. NOT LACK OF OPERATIONS, a couple times operations were mentioned but it was few and far between. Just take a read through. I highly doubt you will because it.

 

Now tell me again that I don't know what the hell i'm talking about. I WAS THERE and had the SAME COMPLAINTS.

 

Now put your money where your mouth is. I've paid up.

 

P.S. Your "Reddit" street cred doesn't work here.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Tharenisis

[GalacticStarfigh]

Game had over 2 million subs at start. Game loses over 75 percent of population. Main complaint when massive loss of players was, lack of end game. Bioware introduces CM, makes f2p, adds end game content, player base stabilizes.

 

Now we have 300-350 k players because all pillars have been at least slightly catered to, BW states they will repeat what they did before. Do the math. EA even blatently said this game is a failure. It will fall again because they are repeating the exact mistakes they made before.

 

If you don't see it, I can't help you there, but the information is out there, and it supports my outlook, not your rosey eyed glasses selfish outlook.

 

 

This.

 

People forget how heavy focus on 600 hours worth of story content is not what made TOR a success. Instead, EA's misplaced trust in millions of people wanting to subscribe to said 600 hours it what almost killed the game off. Once SW:TOR recovered from it's trainwreck and found it's feet and place, it happened during time that saw F2P, CM and good, hard old traditional MMO development.

[Alssaran]

Game had over 2 million subs at start. Game loses over 75 percent of population. Main complaint when massive loss of players was, lack of end game. Bioware introduces CM, makes f2p, adds end game content, player base stabilizes.

 

There is your answer. The game has become f2p. People didn't have to buy the game, they could jump right into it. That caused the surge of players to come back. There will still be endgame with KotFE. Just because there are no new textures at launch doesn't mean it is missing. New players and many of the old ones will still enjoy it.

 

I love how you don't actually try to explain and build your argument on my locust/playerbase argument. You just say: They were there, they left. Yes, they left. Most serious end game players were already gone by the time the figures below were released. The game will not have 2 million active subscribers again. But it can have a solid 400k playerbase with casuals. The hardcore raiders who left after release/TfB could still be gone. What point is there to cater to people who have already went away?

 

You are completely ignoring that, of the 52 pages of discussion in the post, actually 40-50% of people said they are indifferent to the changes, or even like them. Not EVERYONE who raids will go away, comments have showed that. Stop saying it. There is still endgame, there will be new tiers of gear to progress, there will still be a challenge. Stop hiding your disappointment with not getting a new room to fight in behind the curtain of a completely missing endgame.

 

Now we have 300-350 k players because all pillars have been at least slightly catered to, BW states they will repeat what they did before. Do the math. EA even blatently said this game is a failure. It will fall again because they are repeating the exact mistakes they made before.

 

500k. That's the last report. But, do tell me: When did Bioware cater to PvP? They haven't for the past one and a half year, yet those 500k numbers are from late 2014. How do you call that "catered to"? They have ignored groups for close to two years, yet we are at 500k. By the way: SWTOR ranked 5th in the MMO revenue rank-list. I wouldn't call that a failure. Also...EA does call it failure, but invests enough money to make a new CGI trailer and include it in their E3 stage-show? Alright friend-

 

If you don't see it, I can't help you there, but the information is out there, and it supports my outlook, not your rosey eyed glasses selfish outlook.

 

Here is the thing: Everything is subjective. I don't need to "see" something you do. My opinion isn't wrong, yours isn't. Just the fact that you try to convince me that a game I enjoy playing is bad is a good evidence as to what is wrong: You can't make people dislike a game they like. I like SW:TOR, I am quite content with what I got...and what I still get. You can blame me about having a rosey eyed glasses look, but that's not it. I enjoy the current game. End of discussion. I don't need you to make me see, I don't need you to tell me why my opinion about the game is wrong on so many levels.

 

If anything, just move on without spamming the forum with pointless subscription cancel posts and "You are just a fanboy. The game is bad. You can't see it!". That the game is bad is your subjective viewpoint, it always is.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Alssaran

[Tharenisis]

This.

 

People forget how heavy focus on 600 hours worth of story content is not what made TOR a success. Instead, EA's misplaced trust in millions of people wanting to subscribe to said 600 hours it what almost killed the game off. Once SW:TOR recovered from it's trainwreck and found it's feet and place, it happened during time that saw F2P, CM and good, hard old traditional MMO development.

 

I love how you completely skip over the post that completely obliterates your main stance that people left due to PVE. Okay. Only watch that which helps your argument. I'm done with you Billy.

[GalacticStarfigh]

^

And you say * I * am reaching., heh. If self made lists and forum rage is all it takes to deliver proof, then I should be glad how this thread right here proves me right just as well.

 

SW:TOR launches with over 600 hours of story content and 2.5 million people playing it.

Few months later, significant majority of these people are gone. Just how much do you recon people really care about bugs and UI imperfections, in case they find 600 hours worth of narrative they wanna stick with? Bugs become a reason to leave the moment beef of the game stops being the reason to stay. Not sooner.

 

It takes a very, very unstable and broken and terrible game to leave it because of bugs, if there is much in there that'd keep you in.

 

It's not like SW:TOR was some exceptionally buggy mess at launch at all. Certainly not when you consider it's absurd size and scale. I don't remember suffering from crashes, disconnects, broken quests or anything like that. Precious little about the " story pillar" suffered from a significant bugs at all. It was about as solid as it is now.

 

 

I've said this to you once. I try one more time. Stop trying to undermine people behind posts. Focus on posts instead. It is 100% possible to write a reply without any of that. Look at how Alssaran disagreed with me and take notes.

 

Let us assume you are right. Vast, huge , significant majority of people who have ever bought SW:TOR almost immediately left it due to PvE and traditional MMO elements. Alright. Is this not a significant sign of how BW should re-align their focus pretty darn fast? Game launches with 600 hours of story and couple of PvE raids. If you honestly suggest PvE and the " MMO" in TOR is so incredibly important to huge majority of people who bought the game..then hell, you got some panic buttons to press just as well, Billy. Cause clearly end game is then much, much more important than I have ever thought. it needs much more focus like yesterday.

Edited July 10, 2015 by GalacticStarfigh

[mmmbuddah]

Snip

 

Putting words in my mouth? I love this game, I have been loyally playing it for 2 and a half years and have stood up for BW through thick and thin. I enjoyed all aspects of the game, story, pvp, fps, ops, starfighter, and space missions, hell even di the strongholds, and there are many, MANY -MANY- people just like me who do that. Now though, I can't support their direction anymore. I have 2 main characters that I did -all- the story content with, and spend most of my time on flashpoints, operations, starfigther and warzones. ALL of which are being ignored with this expansion. Re-hashing old content is not new content.

 

Even if we have 500 k subs, that is down 75 percent from what we had at launch. That is not a success by any measure. The only reason it stabilized is because they catered to everyone. They did in fact cater to the pvp crowd a little bit, what do you think starfighter was? What do you think 3.3 is? Those are pvp oriented, but this expansion is -only- catering to the kotor whinos and completely ignoring all servers that aren't strictly pve and all players who don't -just- do story. Not to mention they said you HAVE to sub to get this expansion. So not only are they ignoring a large chunk of their playerbase, they are -forcing- people to sub. Meaning they are going away from one of the very things that mad e the game stay afloat again.

[Alssaran]

but this expansion is -only- catering to the kotor whinos and completely ignoring all servers that aren't strictly pve and all players who don't -just- do story. Not to mention they said you HAVE to sub to get this expansion. .

 

Thank you for proving that you are not only incapable of adressing people on an equal ground without calling them "little Kotor whiners", which is funny right after you claim that everyone who doesn't want others to be happy with a game is selfish, and that you have no idea what it is about. They want to get people to sub.

 

Sorry, but this is getting ridiculous. You're skipping whole posts to repeat a point about launch that was already proven false by official surveys. Not to mention you call the KOTOR whiners selfish for liking the expansion and ignoring the fact that PvE doesn't get as much attention for a few months, yet you do only harass them for liking the expansion.

 

At least PvP players are good when it comes to flaming Bioware. You have some stuff to learn.

[mmmbuddah]

Thank you for proving that you are not only incapable of adressing people on an equal ground without calling them "little Kotor whiners", which is funny right after you claim that everyone who doesn't want others to be happy with a game is selfish, and that you have no idea what it is about. They want to get people to sub.

 

Sorry, but this is getting ridiculous. You're skipping whole posts to repeat a point about launch that was already proven false by official surveys. Not to mention you call the KOTOR whiners selfish for liking the expansion and ignoring the fact that PvE doesn't get as much attention for a few months, yet you do only harass them for liking the expansion.

 

At least PvP players are good when it comes to flaming Bioware. You have some stuff to learn.

 

I call the kotor whinos selfish because they are saying "good riddance, we are happy they are ignoring all other content". That is in itself selfish. You obviously didnt read the first sentence of my post saying I loved this game and supported it and all its aspects for years, but that's ok, selective reading is obviously your thing.