New WoW expansion announced! Any hurry-up for SWTOR?

[JennyFlynn]

For SWTOR you pay 15$ per month and get;

- full access to the game and base features

- new content every 3'ish months with about 30-60 minutes worth of new story and the occasional ops/pvp update

- in-game cashshop for vanity purchases and additional services

 

For WoW you pay 15$ per month + one time 20$ for base game and past expansions, 50$ for latest expansion

- full access to the game, all expansions and all features

- periodic content updates on top of the content already included in the latest expansion

- in-game shop for certain mounts and pets, character/account services and game-time tokens (to be sold for, or bought with game currency as an alternative to buying gametime with real-world money)

 

And vanity wise other things such as armors, weapon models, further mounts and pets, toys etc. you earn in-game for Warcraft by doing the appropriate content rather than pay the CM or try a hand at loot boxes.

 

Now I get that buying an expansion for 50$ on top of the 15$ subscription seems expensive (and to some it may be, I can't decide that for others) but it offers a lot in return. Assuming you keep up to date with the game you spend that 50$ every 18 to 24 months (divided across that period of time it's about 2-3$ per month) and in exchange you get not just the expansion itself which is already plentiful in the content it offers but every few months they add hours worth of more content on top of that. New dungeons and raids are added, new zones with a continuation of the story are added, crafting is expanded upon, pvp is expanded upon, QoL changes are added, catch up mechanics are added for those with alts or who fell behind. In MY eyes, that is worth the 50$ every 18-24 months.

 

I know the pricing seems steep when you look at it but take into consideration all you get for it in return. In my eyes, though you pay more for Warcraft, you also get far more in return which makes it worth the investment for me.

[SourOrange]

- new content every 3'ish months with about 30-60 minutes worth of new story and the occasional ops/pvp update.

 

I agree with what you're saying, but I just want to point out that we haven't even gotten this in quite a while. Updates have been getting increasingly scant and spottier since autumn of last year.

[TrixxieTriss]

I agree with what you're saying, but I just want to point out that we haven't even gotten this in quite a while. Updates have been getting increasingly scant and spottier since autumn of last year.

 

And the bugs 😳. Oh my goodness, they just keep multiplying each time.

[JennyFlynn]

I agree with what you're saying, but I just want to point out that we haven't even gotten this in quite a while. Updates have been getting increasingly scant and spottier since autumn of last year.

Oh I know, I was being generous with the 3 month period. It's been somewhat sporadic but I vaguely recall Keith expressing the desire for quarterly updates or something so. Unless I misunderstood what he meant but yeah, 'best case scenario every 3 months'

[TrixxieTriss]

Oh I know, I was being generous with the 3 month period. It's been somewhat sporadic but I vaguely recall Keith expressing the desire for quarterly updates or something so. Unless I misunderstood what he meant but yeah, 'best case scenario every 3 months'

 

The quartly roadmap update became thrice a year update and the actual content became a half yearly update.

Edited November 7, 2017 by TrixxieTriss

[JennyFlynn]

The quartly roadmap update became thrice a year update and the actual content became a half yearly update.

 

Basically. Well there's about 3 months between Umbara (8.23) and the upcoming Copera (11.28)... 4 and half months between Iokath (4.11) and Umbara... and KOTET was December 2016? So in about a year we got KOTET and 3 story snippet updates... which yeah... unless I missed one, and that's just going by story update solely.

[Eshvara]

For SWTOR you pay 15$ per month and get;

- full access to the game and base features

- new content every 3'ish months with about 30-60 minutes worth of new story and the occasional ops/pvp update

- in-game cashshop for vanity purchases and additional services

 

For WoW you pay 15$ per month + one time 20$ for base game and past expansions, 50$ for latest expansion

- full access to the game, all expansions and all features

- periodic content updates on top of the content already included in the latest expansion

- in-game shop for certain mounts and pets, character/account services and game-time tokens (to be sold for, or bought with game currency as an alternative to buying gametime with real-world money)

 

And vanity wise other things such as armors, weapon models, further mounts and pets, toys etc. you earn in-game for Warcraft by doing the appropriate content rather than pay the CM or try a hand at loot boxes.

 

Now I get that buying an expansion for 50$ on top of the 15$ subscription seems expensive (and to some it may be, I can't decide that for others) but it offers a lot in return. Assuming you keep up to date with the game you spend that 50$ every 18 to 24 months (divided across that period of time it's about 2-3$ per month) and in exchange you get not just the expansion itself which is already plentiful in the content it offers but every few months they add hours worth of more content on top of that. New dungeons and raids are added, new zones with a continuation of the story are added, crafting is expanded upon, pvp is expanded upon, QoL changes are added, catch up mechanics are added for those with alts or who fell behind. In MY eyes, that is worth the 50$ every 18-24 months.

 

I know the pricing seems steep when you look at it but take into consideration all you get for it in return. In my eyes, though you pay more for Warcraft, you also get far more in return which makes it worth the investment for me.

 

I really wish swtor had paid expansions again, I'd gladly pay the amount you do for WoW for that kind of content.

But even if they'd offer it again, would we, 'the remaining players" be enough to make it worth it financial wise?

[Tsillah]

I really wish swtor had paid expansions again, I'd gladly pay the amount you do for WoW for that kind of content.

But even if they'd offer it again, would we, 'the remaining players" be enough to make it worth it financial wise?

Well even though technically I paid for RotHC, it was like 17 bucks or something. I don't want to return to that.

 

The reason is that the RotHC expansions was not big enough either. I want a 40-50 bucks expansion that is worth that price. SWTOR never did that.

 

The game had clear issues at launch and people weren't having it. So people left in masses and the team for SWTOR got cut down to size accordingly. Added to that, the negativity around the game also caused other people not to try out the game because they heard so much bad stuff about it. Frankly, when friends asked me about it, I could not recommend the game and so they never got into it either. Things like not having legacy storage as we call it and a lack of guild options really made people go "omg that sucks, never mind".

 

The SW name is powerful but it doesn't fix everything and not every SW fan is interested in this era of SW either. So the game actually also needed to be good. Now, the stories were great, but I do admit the xp grind was there. Certainly not as bad as other games but yeah, you needed to do a lot to make sure you didn't fall behind on level.

 

I still believe that a poor launch and the following negativity caused a downward spiral. I wish they had made the decision to make a proper size expansion to win customers back. A media campaign where they said, sorry guys, we messed up but we're going to do better with this expansion. Instead we got a half-finished product yet again. I totally remember how laggy Makeb was back then. And frankly I still believe that Makeb was originally intended to have class stories looking at how short the planetary story was and how it was extended just by having to kill lots of mobs but having huge xp rewards to fill up the level cap raise. I mean they were extraordinary xp amounts compared to the rest. You wouldn't be able to tell now because that got nerfed but at the time it was massive.

 

So just saying that even though RotHC and SoR were prettty good sized compared to the current expansions, we actually never had a proper expansion. It was always lacking.

 

That's why I say I don't want to go back to paid expansions but I would like the game to move forward to a proper expansion that I'll be happy to pay for.

[Eshvara]

That's why I say I don't want to go back to paid expansions but I would like the game to move forward to a proper expansion that I'll be happy to pay for.

 

I thought that kinda went without saying. While RoTHC was a better expansion than kotfe kotet in terms of content, it wasn't very large. Now I'll take that over what we've gotten recently, but yes, ultimately I'd love an expansion for 30-50£ that offers the same kind of content WoW offers for a similar price to their players.

[GalacticKegger]

I really wish swtor had paid expansions again, I'd gladly pay the amount you do for WoW for that kind of content.

But even if they'd offer it again, would we, 'the remaining players" be enough to make it worth it financial wise?

Great question. For a paid expansion to really be successful it would not only have to address the needs of the remaining player base, but also address the needs of the veteran player base they chased away to bring as many of those back as they can. Capitulating is not something the suits want to be seen doing unfortunately.

 

With their dwindled resources (reassign Visceral's staff to SWTOR? Unlikely.) there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of that happening. The best B2P xpac we could hope for at this point is a minimalist compromise catering to who's left (think of a Ziost/Zakuul hybrid) and only be charged $5 or so for it. I personally wouldn't pay for something like that because while we'd be getting more, it would just be more of the same.

 

Though I would be willing to pay $60 to $80 and stay subbed for a WoW sized expansion featuring all 4 pillars with a fully fleshed out end game, full loot tables, a return of the whole group leveling game, group-playable expansion story ... and no more GC.

Edited November 7, 2017 by GalacticKegger

[Tsillah]

I thought that kinda went without saying. While RoTHC was a better expansion than kotfe kotet in terms of content, it wasn't very large. Now I'll take that over what we've gotten recently, but yes, ultimately I'd love an expansion for 30-50£ that offers the same kind of content WoW offers for a similar price to their players.

Well, I suppose I wanted to specify it, since there probably are more new players than old players by now, who don't know the SWTOR history if you will.

 

It's been my experience that if you tell Bioware I would like 10 but I'll accept 5, they'll give you 4 and hope you'll learn to live with it since you were willing to accept 5 if you know what I mean.

 

So yeah RotHC was better than what we get now as far as content value is concerned but at the same time I don't want to aim low since I really want more. I'm sure you're no different in that though

[LordFell]

WoW Leveling Zones are Empty...

OK, so this is true. When I went back and made some alts, I found a few things...

• WoW has accelerated XP too, especially if you get the Heirloom sets. You quickly out-level the leveling zones.
  
• Getting gear through questing or auction is a pain, you're better off getting Heirloom gear.*
  
• Group Content gives better gear, and faster XP than questing. Better to hang out in a Capital and be teleported to your dungeon than run around in the wild.
  
• If you want to level, you don't have an easy way to get to the zone appropriate to your level, because you haven't unlocked the territory in between.
  

...and so, WoW is instituting Level Sync. If you're questing somewhere, it gives you the incentive to stay and finish your story. I hope they will also automatically give you the Flight Paths new, level appropriate regions they recommend you quest in... it's not like your Troll Shaman has a Starship... your Dranei Shaman does, but it's broken.

 

Cost of WoW Content

I'm pretty sure that you can get the base game for free, because you can free trial the game. If you buy a new expansion (seems to me these are $60CAN retail) you get a Token that lets you boost a character up to the level of the new content, complete with gear and leveled crafting skills. You also get a month of subscription time. When you take the value of a month of play, and a leveling token, the expansion is "almost" free. Also, the leveling tokens (and you can buy more if you want them) is another reason why the leveling zones tend to be sparsely populated.

 

How does (Or Should) this related to SWTOR?

The fact is, even if they are "down to" 5 million subscribers, WoW still brings in 2 million dollars every day. They have the money to throw at the game... whether that is to make content, or to fill the employee pool with and roll around in. We really can't directly compare WoW to SWTOR anymore than we can compare a Sith Lord to a half-grown Rodian wielding a broken stick.

 

So... once we rule out direct competition in terms of the production, how should SWTOR behave. I think, they should be looking at expanding micro transactions to target things that players want. This can't be (and needs to stop being) re-skins of old Cartel Market items or Zone Gear.

 

Players would like, and pay for...

New Races. Produce Nautolans and Rodians... those will sell, and sell fast.

Expanded Companion Story Here's a detailed example of the kind of thing I'm talking about...

...I'm sure there's other stuff as well. It's late here, I'm sleepy. But anyways, the point is putting money into SWTOR's coffers (in ways they can realistically attempt) gives the game more life, and more incentive for them to bring us... more stuff.

 

EDIT

*Heirloom Gear (for the uninitiated) is gear that has stats useful to your character, that level with your character, and give an experience buff. 5% or 10%. If you wear a lot of Heirloom Gear, you're probably picking up 50 - 75% experience bonus. It's also "blue quality" for your level; at lower levels especially, your character would normally have grey to green gear, if not straight up empty slots -so you're a LOT more powerful than characters on-level used to be.

Edited November 7, 2017 by LordFell

[Eshvara]

I play on Auchindoun EU on WoW and I can't say the zones feel empty. They're not over crowded but I frequently see other people questing.

There's also a lot of ganking from low levels and high levels alike.

 

I guess it depends on your server. But then they have the whole cross server thingy.🤔

Edited November 7, 2017 by Eshvara

[Skullblazer]

THey could go with a classic xpack route that would revitalize the game:

 

-no voice acting to save on the costs and production time

-4-5 fully 3d, explorable planets with flying enabled

-5-6 flashpoints (plus another 3-4 to be released during the xpack life circle)

-3 operations (to be released during the xpack life circle)

-A NEW CLASS <- that is always one of the best selling points of an xpack, wow xpack with a new class always spike up in sales

-2-3 new warzones

-addons, i know many will disagree with it but for me addons are a great thing for establishing a community inside the community and to save development cost and time, blizzard invest basically nothing in qol related to the interface if you play wow without addon is borderline unplayable and some thing are extremely clunky, they leave the UI management to player, that range from bag overhaul to maps, guides, tomtom, various interfaces etc. Plus blizzard still has complete control to what someone can interact with there are many case where they don't like some kind of addon and broke them by simply restricting an api function.

[Eshvara]

THey could go with a classic xpack route that would revitalize the game:

 

-no voice acting to save on the costs and production time

.

 

You lost me at the first suggestion.

[Skullblazer]

You lost me at the first suggestion.

 

i know, for me the 1-50 levelling was the best ever done in a mmorpg but let's be real it sucked so much resources and time that the real game suffered, if they offer me a classic xpack without VA or a VA xpack with small content i still take 1 without a second of hesitation.

 

Even a Software House with massive resource like blizzard wouldn't be capable of deliver both in the same product.

[Skummy]

every mmo beats swtor lol

[Eshvara]

every mmo beats swtor lol

 

Lies, Aion doesn't!

[Rasinator]

Yes WoW announced "Battle for Azeroth" going back to its roots of Alliance vs Horde. They are promising a better leveling system to more streamlined. Within 2-3 weeks for the leveling. This is great for alts and to get to endgame. They announced subraces more to come in the future; which are more customizations but they are releasing gear sets for those races. Any current race can of course buy a race change. also more character slots 12 max and an additional 6 are being added. a bigger back pack. considering after Kotfe/kotet people are wanting to get back to Republic/Imperial storyline. its like with Revan the factions came together to fight a common foe. so true has it been with WoW. This is a good thing. When doing with story for both games they always reel you in.

[GalacticKegger]

...and so, WoW is instituting Level Sync.

7.3.5 ... my luck with MMOs sucks. Edited November 8, 2017 by GalacticKegger

[dscount]

Sorry - but I agree. WoW announces things YEAR in advance with a lot of details and information about changes. EA/Bioware halfway announces "Something is coming..." and provides little to no details except a month or two before it happens. Even then the marketing suits seem to shutdown any sort of information on things that might or might not happen beyond 5 months out in this game. It's a little sad from a user standpoint and one of the reasons folks leave this game. (No content, no communication, no pulse)

[SolarSaenz]

THey could go with a classic xpack route that would revitalize the game:

 

-no voice acting to save on the costs and production time

-4-5 fully 3d, explorable planets with flying enabled

-5-6 flashpoints (plus another 3-4 to be released during the xpack life circle)

-3 operations (to be released during the xpack life circle)

-A NEW CLASS <- that is always one of the best selling points of an xpack, wow xpack with a new class always spike up in sales

-2-3 new warzones

-addons, i know many will disagree with it but for me addons are a great thing for establishing a community inside the community and to save development cost and time, blizzard invest basically nothing in qol related to the interface if you play wow without addon is borderline unplayable and some thing are extremely clunky, they leave the UI management to player, that range from bag overhaul to maps, guides, tomtom, various interfaces etc. Plus blizzard still has complete control to what someone can interact with there are many case where they don't like some kind of addon and broke them by simply restricting an api function.

 

I don't think this (the no voice acting part) would be well received by a significant number of players.

The "classic KOTOR" style conversations in KOTFE rubbed some people the wrong way. So, I don't think people will be willing to go along with no voice acting.

 

While I concur it could be a way to save time and money, I don't know if the community as a whole is ready to give up voice acting.

 

The game could sure use the other things you mentioned though. While I would be more than glad for any and everything you mentioned, I want to give a special call out to

4-5 fully 3d, explorable planets with flying enabled

 

We really haven't had a big, fully explorable planet since launch. Makeb could have been that if it was all connected instead of it being chunks of isolated islands only connected by speeders. Rishi was heading in that direction it felt like, but it was little small, imo

Edited November 7, 2017 by SolarSaenz

[JennyFlynn]

What WoW is implementing is akin to level sync but not quite. Zones dynamically adjust to the player level rather than the player being scaled down. If you're level 20 and still somehow questing in Elwynn Forest, mobs and quest rewards will scale up to level 20 as well so you can finish the zone out at your own leisure without feeling you "must" move on to a different zone in order to get the amount of XP/rewards appropriate to your level. Similarly, if you hit level 60 and you hate Outlands but love Northerend, you can now head to Northerend at level 60.

 

There will be base limits though, a lowest and max level cut off. I think they stated that Westfall for example will not scale higher than level 50 tops, and at level 5 you can't just wander into Eastern Plaguelands expecting everything to be at your level. It's also not the way it is in SWTOR where if you're level 50 but the zone you're in is 40-43, that you end up still being 5 levels higher than the mobs. If the Legion precedent is followed, there will never be more than a 1 lvl difference at most between you and the npcs/mobs and thus keeping it 'challenging'.

 

It basically adds some flexibility and variety in choosing your leveling path, without turning into a roflstomp fest. Which imo is quite nice.

Edited November 7, 2017 by JennyFlynn

[SourOrange]

What WoW is implementing is akin to level sync but not quite. Zones dynamically adjust to the player level rather than the player being scaled down. If you're level 20 and still somehow questing in Elwynn Forest, mobs and quest rewards will scale up to level 20 as well so you can finish the zone out at your own leisure without feeling you "must" move on to a different zone in order to get the amount of XP/rewards appropriate to your level. Similarly, if you hit level 60 and you hate Outlands but love Northerend, you can now head to Northerend at level 60.

 

There will be base limits though, a lowest and max level cut off. I think they stated that Westfall for example will not scale higher than level 50 tops, and at level 5 you can't just wander into Eastern Plaguelands expecting everything to be at your level. It's also not the way it is in SWTOR where if you're level 50 but the zone you're in is 40-43, that you end up still being 5 levels higher than the mobs. If the Legion precedent is followed, there will never be more than a 1 lvl difference at most between you and the npcs/mobs and thus keeping it 'challenging'.

 

It basically adds some flexibility and variety in choosing your leveling path, without turning into a roflstomp fest. Which imo is quite nice.

 

That sounds alright, I like the idea, but it will make traveling and roleplaying in areas that were once low level and unthreatening a bit of a challenge. I hope they have the sense to make it a toggleable feature that people can choose at their leisure.

Mobs and such are set up differently in WoW than they are in SWTOR- in SWTOR there are areas that are dense with mobs and areas that are sparse, which allows you to find spots that are fairly uninhabited for RP purposes, or to find "gaps" in the mobs that allow you to slip through on your way past without engaging them. In WoW they tend to be rather evenly distributed throughout a zone, and can be hard to avoid- and in some cases, such as that of "murlocs", can be placed very close together and tend to swarm if you happen to draw their attention.

 

It would be nice to see higher level players still enjoying the content of lower level zones, and would add some extra value to said zones as well- but hopefully they will simply allow that to happen, rather than enforcing it.

It really isn't a developer's job to tell a player how to have fun in the open world anyhow- just give players the tools they need to create their own game experience and let them have fun their way. That's what open world games are all about.

Edited November 7, 2017 by SourOrange

[TrixxieTriss]

I really wish swtor had paid expansions again, I'd gladly pay the amount you do for WoW for that kind of content.

But even if they'd offer it again, would we, 'the remaining players" be enough to make it worth it financial wise?

 

Probably not. The time to do it was before the last expansion and before moving the servers because now they would just miss out on the additional APAC players that would have returned for a proper expansion. They’ve reduced the scope of players able to play by moving all the servers to the west coast. So now it would be a foolish move finically to go down that path. But if they did, they could always reboot the game model like Square Enix did with FF and then they could open up a west coast server again.

Edited November 8, 2017 by TrixxieTriss