Rumours

[Mezarkan]

I did want to make a comment on the spammers as well:

 

Their prices are based on "Supply vs Demand." Not the state of the game per se. I look at the sudden drop as they have more supply than demand. If no one's buying, the prices keep dropping. Simple economics there. When I saw some spam last night, and the prices, I just laughed and thought: One day it'll be $1/10mil.

 

Credits are easily come by in-game. Up until 3.0 went live training had a cost, an outrageous cost at high levels. Now there's no cost leveling. You can even save your data crystals for end-game or companion gifts or decorations for your stronghold. Do heroics. Make money. Get gear. Everything's handed to the player now if you know where to look or what to do for it.

 

So now we have a lot of money sinks for those that feel the need to piss away their money. By the time a character reaches level 40, he/she should be sitting right around a mil easily. The only thing that's really necessary to spend credits on before end-game, in my book, is expanding the inventory - and the final row cost (200k credits) can be negated by the refer a friend inventory expansion token.

 

So yeah, let the spammers reduce their prices. I see that as a positive.

 

but those spammers are hacking the game bigtime, running like 12 copies of the game on a computer hitting slicing nodes and resource nodes 24/7. that leads to a lot of easy to generate credits that they want to sell. so they just spam at super cheap prices on the fleet. i have had the same spammer name spamming me for weeks without getting banned

 

bots, spammers, exploiters are given free reign in this game.

[JeKoCZ]

I thought they said recently (past year or so) that voice acting wasn't really that much?

 

What CG trailer? The one for 4.0 that came out early last year?

 

Yes, the Sacrifice trailer. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were already planning to do a new cg trailer for Season 2.

 

And voice actors in general may be cheap. But they want(ed) more money.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/9/23/9383633/video-game-voice-actors-strike-union-sag-aftra

Whether they got what they wanted or not, I'm not sure because I haven't heard anything about since then nor I remember all the people that signed it (Going by memory only I remember Steve Downes, Master Chief, signed it aswell; and he's Master Chief. I mean.. If he doesn't earn a lot of money already thanks to his job as voice actor for a videogame such as Halo, I don't know who does). But I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the SWTOR voice actors such as, for example, Jennifer Hale were actually given more money. She probably has the biggest portfolio among the whole cast simply because she's the voice of so many iconic characters (Commander Shepard, Samus, Elizabeth and many more) so it wouldn't be strange if BW Austin paid her more.

[TUXs]

Yes, the Sacrifice trailer. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were already planning to do a new cg trailer for Season 2.

If that happens, all bets are off

[richiesilva]

The plug being pulled overnight would be the biggest fiasco in gaming industry, ever.

 

SWTOR is here to last.

[Docthebutcher]

The plug being pulled overnight would be the biggest fiasco in gaming industry, ever.

 

SWTOR is here to last.

 

EA has done it before more then once..

Over night plug pull no...Warning of shut down date very possible.

If anything like they have done before and I have said because I was there

When it happened more then a few times

E.A. " We are very sorry to announce that it has been painfully decided the time has come to end this

adventure to begin another one. We will be taking the staff from this game and putting them

Hard to work on SIMS .

Once again we apologize to all our loyal Star Wars The old Republic subscribers and our free to play

community.

The Servers will be turned off xx/xx/2017 . You will still be able to log in and continue your

adventures until said date."

 

Sincerely Electronic Arts and Bio Ware staff.

 

Something very much like that.

Here is what we got when they shut Earth and Beyond down. Which was no where nears as nice

The game they shut E&B down was for SIMs....

Below is exactly what EA said...

 

"""""Earth & Beyond Says Goodbye

Starting September 22, 2004, Earth & Beyond will no longer be in service. After an amazing two years of galactic adventure, Electronic Arts has made the decision to close Earth & Beyond in order to focus resources on future games.

 

Please check your email associated with your Earth & Beyond game account for updates and more information on what this closure means to you. We hope you've enjoyed the game as much as we have and that we'll see you again in another great EA game!

 

For more information, please visit http://www.enb.com

 

Thank you,"""""

The Earth & Beyond Team

 

Len

2017

[Soluss]

EQ1, 30,000 players (last count I saw) and still kickin'...just sayin'.

 

Yes the development slowed (in its heyday there was an "expansion" [equivalent to a WOW content patch] every six months), but they released the 22nd expansion for that game in October 2015 (https://www.everquest.com/news/september-producers-letter-holly-longdale-everquest).

 

The point is that if you have enough diehard fans you can sustain an MMO indefinitely. And the Star Wars IP alone should accomplish that. SWG shut down ONLY because SOE did not/could not re-up their license (the specifics of what happened have never been released).

 

It's a lot cheaper to make content for EQ1 then it is for ToR. Just sayin.

[bahramnima]

if there was not something people would not say a lot, i mean there are signs that game is moving towards the end but people exaggerate too much that it feels like this is about to close down in few months. in my opinion it might survive till 2023 because EA will lose its grasp on star wars IP in 2023, after that it is up to lucas arts.

personally i think Q4 2017 is the end for the game but like i said i have my own reasons for this, i actually hope i am wrong because i also spend a lot of money and time on this game.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

The point is that if you have enough diehard fans you can sustain an MMO indefinitely. And the Star Wars IP alone should accomplish that. SWG shut down ONLY because SOE did not/could not re-up their license (the specifics of what happened have never been released).

 

The Star Wars IP is a double edged sword though ... yes it can keep players playing indefinitely but at the same time there would be an expected amount of players for that IP so if it falls below that level at some stage the IP holder ( in this case EA ) may very well want to pull the plug to maximise on the IP in a new game.

 

I don't see them running 2 Star Wars MMOs but stranger things have happened.

[Pagy]

The plug being pulled overnight would be the biggest fiasco in gaming industry, ever.

by what logic?

 

this is a what, 4 year unsupported game being played by very few people. if its still profitable, sure, pulling the plug would be an odd decision but "the biggest fiasco in gaming industry ever" is a gross exaggeration. this game is nothing in the gaming industry.

[MWidowmaker]

so you got your info from fleet chat? thats like getting real life news from TMZ

[TX_Angel]

This will be the last expansion of the game imo. Looks like lights out after this year.

 

Don't be silly, the game will be here for years, it just won't get lots of new stuff.

 

SWG got its last expansion in 2005, it didn't close until 2011.

[Daex]

This is from February (http://investor.ea.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=712515-16-86&CIK=712515):

 

"For the three months ended December 31, 2015 , service and other revenue was $445 million , primarily driven by FIFA Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic".

 

So it looks to be making them money. Keep in mind this is EA, who is keeping Dark Age of Camelot running right now, and it's like 15 years old.

[dr_mike]

Nearly all the servers are light all the time,

 

Got curious. 10:30pm US East Coast time. 5 are standard, the rest are light.

 

...devs...

 

To point out in their defense, their hands may be tied as to what they are allowed to do or able to do. We don;t know what's happening on their side.

 

Also it;s not like they are releasing fixes. I;ve seen some rather lengthy long bug fixes lists on the patch notes.

 

dr mike could you check your private messages please, had a good question for you about something unusual in the game

 

I have contacted staff about the issue and they blew me off. I contacted staff about my missing coins and they blew me off. I have contacted staff about the bigoted comments I have received from a specific staff member and they blew me off. I sent off my arbitration request last week. I'm giving them 30 days to respond.

 

I thought they said recently (past year or so) that voice acting wasn't really that much?

 

Voice acting scale is not that high. Would also depends on if they're going to them or if the actors are getting flown in and put up somewhere.

 

So it looks to be making them money..

 

Revenue is not profit. Although thank you for the link.

Edited March 18, 2016 by dr_mike

[Fleurdelis]

Don't be silly, the game will be here for years, it just won't get lots of new stuff.

 

SWG got its last expansion in 2005, it didn't close until 2011.

 

Maybe closed by Sony but still going strong on emulators. I play on SWGEMU.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

I don't think the plug is being pulled either - we'd sure as hell not be getting new chapters if it were, EA isn't stupid enough to try to string people along by flushing away $, but I don't believe there will be much beyond the new WZ, the new arena and the final chapters...I hope I'm very wrong though

 

I am there with you. I dont expect anything major. NOW WHAT I AM HOPING FOR, is that at the end of KOTFE they will have a nice OP. Even tie that in with a related WZ, and I think that would really breed some life into the game, and pull in the people they have lost.

 

Because as much as some people may think, maybe OPs is a smaller percentage of players, same as PVP. But when you lose both of them, that is a decent chunk of income. Hopefully, BW will pull a rabbit out of the hat, but like I said I am not expecting it, just hoping.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

It's not enough for you to spam your own threads with this tinfoil hat crap?

 

its like a cancer lol.....invading every cell in the organism.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

This is from February (http://investor.ea.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=712515-16-86&CIK=712515):

 

"For the three months ended December 31, 2015 , service and other revenue was $445 million , primarily driven by FIFA Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic".

 

So it looks to be making them money. Keep in mind this is EA, who is keeping Dark Age of Camelot running right now, and it's like 15 years old.

 

The whole quote helps put things in context though:

 

"For the three months ended December 31, 2015 , service and other revenue was $445 million , primarily driven by FIFA Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Service and other revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2015 decreased $75 million , or 14 percent , as compared to the three months ended December 31, 2014 . This decrease was driven by a $133 million decrease primarily from Titanfall and Battlefield 4 Premium . This decrease was partially offset by a $58 million increase primarily from the Madden NFL and SimCity franchises .

"

 

Overall a drop due to Titanfall and BF4 that was offset by a gain from Madden ... this implies SWToR ideally had no significant in change of revenue to the 3 months ending December 2014 ...

 

It's interesting because Dec 2014 had a paid expansion where as Dec 15 had an ideally "free" one yet they both claimed similar revenue amounts ... interesting.

 

What will be more interesting I feel is the next 2 periods since there is no hype of a KoTFe launch to push things through and we're established in this episodic model along with the perceived decrease in people playing.

[trueKieran]

I don't think the plug is being pulled either - we'd sure as hell not be getting new chapters if it were, EA isn't stupid enough to try to string people along by flushing away $, but I don't believe there will be much beyond the new WZ, the new arena and the final chapters...I hope I'm very wrong though

 

I don't expect much more at this point either. Maybe they do add a second seaon, but I doubt there'll be a third or any other story after KotFE. For one thing, what happens with all the companions afterwards? Most of them joined up to fight Arcann, so do they leave after that's done, even though people spent a lot to get their influence up? And if not, why will they stick around? I mean sure the original companions also stayed for several adventures, but there's a bit of a difference between traveling the galaxy with 5 other people, and doing so with an entire platoon following you around, especially when that consists of people from both factions, and the third faction that made them work together is no longer around. This feels more like the big ending to me.

[iankalo]

I don't expect much more at this point either. Maybe they do add a second seaon, but I doubt there'll be a third or any other story after KotFE. For one thing, what happens with all the companions afterwards? Most of them joined up to fight Arcann, so do they leave after that's done, even though people spent a lot to get their influence up? And if not, why will they stick around?

I dont think this is a problem. Remember the class stories? When you get your mission, you can summon whatever companion you want to kill the ads and finish the quest.(just like you can use the cosmetic companions like Treen, HK-51, etc.) Just some important instances requires a specific class companion. Maybe the new content is gonna be that way. Just a few loyal companions will stay with each class and they`ll make convos just for those 2-3-5 companions in some future mission instances.

 

Me enlish bad. Me know. Me ithorian.

Edited March 18, 2016 by iankalo

[trueKieran]

Me enlish bad. Me know. Me ithorian.

That's alright, I'm not a speciesist and I'm sure my ithorian is way worse than your english.

 

I dont think this is a problem. Remember the class stories? When you get your mission, you can summon whatever companion you want to kill the ads and finish the quest.(just like you can use the cosmetic companions like Treen, HK-51, etc.) Just some important instances requires a specific class companion. Maybe the new content is gonna be that way. Just a few loyal companions will stay with each class and they`ll make convos just for those 2-3-5 companions in some future mission instances.

That is possible of course, it's just that at least up until the start of KotFE, all companions we had were actually also with us storywise, even Treek and HK-51 "usually" join via a quest. Sure they could for example make us and Lana go seperate ways in the story after KotFE, and still keep her in the roster to summon, it'd just surprise me if they actually did it.

[spectreclees]

It's a rumor, spread over countless years over countless games. Many of which are never true. You would see obvious signs of it. Look at Wildstar, more than half of it's staff have been laid off. That game is definitely shutting down in a year or two.

[DieAlteHexe]

*runs around in circles screaming*

 

THE SKY IS FALLING!!11!!

 

THE SKY IS FALLING1!!1!!

 

And, according to the rumour-mongers, has been for years.

 

Right then.

[divinecynic]

EA released that SWTOR saw a 30% subscriber increase with KotFE.

 

Do you honestly think a game whose numbers jumped like that is going anywhere any time soon? Tack on this is a Star Wars game and it's done by Bioware.

 

Now what you are seeing is some of the folks who played it for years and did just about everything leave because Bioware did not crank out a new op. So yeah it looks bad when old timers leave. I do think you will start seeing some of them back this year.

 

I am actually pretty hopeful. We have been asking for more story for a while and we got it. We have been asking for new PvP maps and we are getting 2. I am this fall or bu Christmas we will see an op or two. Is everything perfect? Of course but still a good game and it is doing fine.

 

Now supposedly there is a project I think I heard EA is working on with another SW game. I doubt it will be a MMO, prolly first person rpg like Skyrim or Fallout 4.

Edited March 18, 2016 by divinecynic

[IanArgent]

Don't see the game going away anytime soon. "Content" is cheap to produce, if the underlying system is sound (whic it's not right now). But fixing the system is a matter of time more than money (and one where money does a poor job of substituting for time - see "They Mythical Man Month") - time for the programmers to grok the bugs and fix them instead of painting over.

 

If they cancel Eternal Championship, then I'll start to worry, just a little.

[Pagy]

EA released that SWTOR saw a 30% subscriber increase with KotFE.

lol a sub was required for kotfe; can you not understand context?