EA released a statement indicating that they'll be limiting sales. This means that:
- They're greedy bastards who want to create a false sense of scarcity and jack up sales.
- Their servers are unequipped to handle any large amount of players and are likely to fail.
- They're having shady backroom meetings to intentionally screw their potential playerbase, and any hope of creating a long term customer.
- They care nothing about the actual stability of their game on launch, or the cost of scaling back servers from a drop off of customers after the first month.
- Servers are not really servers, but are just a grouped list of processes that can handle any amount of players at any time, and it's actually my computer's fault if these so called "servers" are unstable.
So taking into account the above, I can surmise that under no circumstance does EA want their game to be successful at launch. They just want to sell as many boxes as they can in the first month and move on to the next 4 year project... Look, guys, I can understand that there are probably marketing gimmicks going on here in a crazy way, but it's not far fetched to believe that in order to make more money in the long run, they're going to limit box sales and increase stability in the short run.
A shitty launch is damning to a game, and from what the lead Devs at BW have been indicating in their interviews recently, they're trying to make this launch go as smoothly as possible, and they're taking the necessary precautions to see it through. Will they pull it off? That's anyone's guess, but even if it's only money these guys are interested in, they're going to make sure the game has every chance to succeed right off the bat.
this is an OLD marketing ploy. do you really thhink they are doing this and making it well known out of the kindness of their hearts?
Mythic had 120 servers and are now down to two in the USA. I don't doubt they are trying to learn from this.
But that isn't because of a bad launch, it's because of a bad game. Everybody says WOW had a bad launch in the US, so.. there you have it.
This is true, but WOW actually had a good launch compared to many in the market at that time.
wow had good lunch?lol they were too popular from the start!they had countless issue (same eq1 faced and almost all game faced after) when you got 1 million player playing the same game that data has to pass somewhere and when the network doesnt like it because it is too much issue arise.even aion had those lol. preplanning can probably prevent this from happening but it is only checked once the game is lunched on average.check aion they had issue with their tool so people wouldnt hack they had to disable it to have a smoother lunch even tho they had betatested that the tool was in the way so they ditched it!
this is an OLD marketing ploy. do you really thhink they are doing this and making it well known out of the kindness of their hearts?
Mythic had 120 servers and are now down to two in the USA. I don't doubt they are trying to learn from this.
But that isn't because of a bad launch, it's because of a bad game.
Everybody says WOW had a bad launch in the US, so.. there you have it.
This is true, but WOW actually had a good launch compared to many in the market at that time.
wow had good lunch?lol they were too popular from the start!they had countless issue (same eq1 faced and almost all game faced after)
when you got 1 million player playing the same game that data has to pass somewhere and when the network doesnt like it because it is too much issue arise.even aion had those lol.
preplanning can probably prevent this from happening but it is only checked once the game is lunched!
HEHELOLEHEHELOOL.. Do you even understand what I meant by that comment? The game worked, which wasn't the case for AO, EVE, SWG, EQ2 etc...
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
this is an OLD marketing ploy. do you really thhink they are doing this and making it well known out of the kindness of their hearts?
Mythic had 120 servers and are now down to two in the USA. I don't doubt they are trying to learn from this.
But that isn't because of a bad launch, it's because of a bad game.
Everybody says WOW had a bad launch in the US, so.. there you have it.
The point is that people look not just at the upsides but the downsides as well. Too many servers IF the game isn't well recieved is something someone should consider. It's only those with a overblown ego who can't look at the downsides of their choices because it would hurt them to think they didn't do something perfect.
In any case, nobody here knows what really went on behind closed doors.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
all game should be like this:open a server..... full?open another....full etc they shouldnt open 64 thousand server too many people dont know wich to chose ,if you open the next only when server is full and only those on that server can log in,no more issue!server stay full.yes it probably make the dev or technicien work since he would probably have to open server manually but it would ensure all server are at capacity and player would have more fun not many like to meet a low population server!
HEHELOLEHEHELOOL.. Do you even understand what I meant by that comment? The game worked, which wasn't the case for AO, EVE, SWG, EQ2 etc...
I guess you forgot about the bug between Menethil Harbor and Auberdine which was dropping players into the ocean and crashing the servers?
Oh there were bugs, didn't say that there weren't, what about the loot bug where you stayed bent over for an hour? That's not what I am talking about, again compared to SWG or AO it went as smooth as pie. Did their hardware completely fail as an example?
Have to cut this convo short as I'm running out the door, would be happy to continue when I'm back in a few hours.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
All-in-all... everything is still speculation at this point from the consumers' perspective. The only people who truly know what's up are the higher-ups at BioWare/EA.
I trust BioWare... they've never done me dirty, and I don't think they'll screw up this amazing opportunity w/ such a huge IP.
Everyone's patience is wearing thin If the launch is laggy and too many people are playing your game... ummm... isn't that a good thing?!
"OMG -- we only accounted for 3 million players, but 4 million are trying to login....!" I pray this happens, to be honest.
Yeah but of course they won't say that it's a hypothetical limit that is way beyond what will actually sell. For instance they will limit it to 50 million sales. With only EA knowing the limit, it will cause everybody to buy a copy thinking that the limit will be a couple million. The end result is more sales than they would have had without the "cap".
ea rep should have said this instead: we ll unlock server 1 by 1 (we only unlock server when one is full!this way same rwesult he said would be achieved but it would be widly accepted!
it may be real or it may be a technique to create a sense of urgency or it may be both. One thing is for sure though if I really wanted to be there launch day and had not already pre ordered it I would have my pre order in. I preordered mine back in July since I am way overdue to switch MMOs and this seems like it may be a good one.
This is a huge let down to me, because I simply don't pre-order games. I worked at Gamestop for several years, I know how the market works, and the whole pre-order sensation is almost entirely unnecessary. If that means I have to wait to play TOR, that really sucks, it's certainly something I want to experience as soon as possible. That being said, hopefully I can get to Walmart or Target faster than everyone else the day of public release.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
all game should be like this:open a server..... full?open another....full etc
they shouldnt open 64 thousand server too many people dont know wich to chose ,if you open the next only when server is full and only those on that server can log in,no more issue!server stay full.yes it probably make the dev or technicien work since he would probably have to open server manually but it would ensure all server are at capacity and player would have more fun not many like to meet a low population server!
RIft did something similar to this and it worked at first. It was after the initial rush when people did not subscribe that lead to low pop servers. At least the RIft developers allowed free server transfers.
I have preordered SW:TOR, but this announcement seems like any other marketing ploy. It just seems like an attempt to artificially increase demand for the product by promoting a fear of being 'left out'.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
all game should be like this:open a server..... full?open another....full etc
they shouldnt open 64 thousand server too many people dont know wich to chose ,if you open the next only when server is full and only those on that server can log in,no more issue!server stay full.yes it probably make the dev or technicien work since he would probably have to open server manually but it would ensure all server are at capacity and player would have more fun not many like to meet a low population server!
WAR tried that - in fact as fast as they opened servers, they were queued. This doesn't work because if the game was 'hyped' (Like WAR was and like SWTOR) is, you're going to sell massive amounts (800K+ for WAR) - unfortunately, all the Beta in the world, and all the 'early access' you can get is NOT going to tell you what's going to happen once people start to get to end game in masses (and in WAR's case, find out just how unfinished - and broken - it was)
When in the entire history of the MMO industry did a bad launch EVER kill a good game ?
"I hear that this game is quite fun to play, but I know it had a TERRIBLE LAUNCH, so I won't ever bother subbing"... yeah, right...
It may have caused huge amounts of forum-whining for the first 2 weeks, but after that it's a non-factor. However, if the game is riddled with bugs and other issues that persist beyond the initial launch window, then the "launch disaster" becomes a major part of the players' final decision to leave in the first month.
The success or failure of an MMO has nothing to do with the quality of the launch. It's the gameplay that makes or breaks it. Otherwise WoW would just have been another failure...
"epic voice" and yes this is obviously a malicious and evil plan to drive up sales even further because without this ploy of marketing there would be no desire to play the game. "End epic voice"
You ever think when making comments about evil business practices and to take advantage of weak minded younger people you're specifically speaking on your own preferences? I see bioware having a pretty heavy invested interest in no failing on launch day as many know thats a much more player-base ruining event that a lot of people seem to ignore. I believe Bioware wants to limit pre-orders and I believe it's for server stability... unless you can name a game pushing as many pre-orders as SWTOR?
That's the problem with "old" people... the glass is always half empty and everything is malicious.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
"epic voice" and yes this is obviously a malicious and evil plan to drive up sales even further because without this ploy of marketing there would be no desire to play the game. "End epic voice"
You ever think when making comments about evil business practices and to take advantage of weak minded younger people you're specifically speaking on your own preferences? I see bioware having a pretty heavy invested interest in no failing on launch day as many know thats a much more player-base ruining event that a lot of people seem to ignore. I believe Bioware wants to limit pre-orders and I believe it's for server stability... unless you can name a game pushing as many pre-orders as SWTOR?
That's the problem with "old" people... the glass is always half empty and everything is malicious.
"epic voice" and yes this is obviously a malicious and evil plan to drive up sales even further because without this ploy of marketing there would be no desire to play the game. "End epic voice"
You ever think when making comments about evil business practices and to take advantage of weak minded younger people you're specifically speaking on your own preferences? I see bioware having a pretty heavy invested interest in no failing on launch day as many know thats a much more player-base ruining event that a lot of people seem to ignore. I believe Bioware wants to limit pre-orders and I believe it's for server stability... unless you can name a game pushing as many pre-orders as SWTOR?
That's the problem with "old" people... the glass is always half empty and everything is malicious.
It is more a plot to win "most sold MMOs first week" or month.
As for naming a MMO with as many pre orders as TOR, I would like to see both TORs and GW2s numbers even if TOR have had their preorders longer. I think it will be a close match between those 2.
I don't think pre orders will matter that much in the longer run, only game I can think of where it really matters was STO and that is because it was more or less a scam. TOR, GW2 and Titan needs to be fun games that keeps their players entertained for a long time, or 5 million pre orders wont help.
Comments
I't's a marketing trick to make you rush out and buy the game, dont fall for it sheep.
You'd be surprised how accurate that is.
I remember when WoW launched, you had to traverse all of Las Vegas for about a month praying you came across a copy.
Supply and Demand... Drop your Supply... Demand goes up. Flood the market with too much "Supply," and consumers will think your game is floundering.
It's really simple... make people want, desire, and crave your game... it's like crack.
What I have learned from this thread so far
EA released a statement indicating that they'll be limiting sales. This means that:
- They're greedy bastards who want to create a false sense of scarcity and jack up sales.
- Their servers are unequipped to handle any large amount of players and are likely to fail.
- They're having shady backroom meetings to intentionally screw their potential playerbase, and any hope of creating a long term customer.
- They care nothing about the actual stability of their game on launch, or the cost of scaling back servers from a drop off of customers after the first month.
- Servers are not really servers, but are just a grouped list of processes that can handle any amount of players at any time, and it's actually my computer's fault if these so called "servers" are unstable.
So taking into account the above, I can surmise that under no circumstance does EA want their game to be successful at launch. They just want to sell as many boxes as they can in the first month and move on to the next 4 year project... Look, guys, I can understand that there are probably marketing gimmicks going on here in a crazy way, but it's not far fetched to believe that in order to make more money in the long run, they're going to limit box sales and increase stability in the short run.
A shitty launch is damning to a game, and from what the lead Devs at BW have been indicating in their interviews recently, they're trying to make this launch go as smoothly as possible, and they're taking the necessary precautions to see it through. Will they pull it off? That's anyone's guess, but even if it's only money these guys are interested in, they're going to make sure the game has every chance to succeed right off the bat.
I think a few peoples tinfoil hats are on too tight.
when you got 1 million player playing the same game that data has to pass somewhere and when the network doesnt like it because it is too much issue arise.even aion had those lol.
preplanning can probably prevent this from happening but it is only checked once the game is lunched on average.check aion they had issue with their tool so people wouldnt hack they had to disable it to have a smoother lunch even tho they had betatested that the tool was in the way so they ditched it!
HEHELOLEHEHELOOL.. Do you even understand what I meant by that comment? The game worked, which wasn't the case for AO, EVE, SWG, EQ2 etc...
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
The point is that people look not just at the upsides but the downsides as well. Too many servers IF the game isn't well recieved is something someone should consider. It's only those with a overblown ego who can't look at the downsides of their choices because it would hurt them to think they didn't do something perfect.
In any case, nobody here knows what really went on behind closed doors.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
WoW launch was horrendous.
Compared to SWG's EVE's or AO's?
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
I guess you forgot about the bug between Menethil Harbor and Auberdine which was dropping players into the ocean and crashing the servers?
all game should be like this:open a server..... full?open another....full etc
they shouldnt open 64 thousand server too many people dont know wich to chose ,if you open the next only when server is full and only those on that server can log in,no more issue!server stay full.yes it probably make the dev or technicien work since he would probably have to open server manually but it would ensure all server are at capacity and player would have more fun not many like to meet a low population server!
How many times did Mike Morhain write apology letters on the forums?
Oh there were bugs, didn't say that there weren't, what about the loot bug where you stayed bent over for an hour? That's not what I am talking about, again compared to SWG or AO it went as smooth as pie. Did their hardware completely fail as an example?
Have to cut this convo short as I'm running out the door, would be happy to continue when I'm back in a few hours.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
Technically, all games are capped. The amount they ship is the amount the cap is at.
Not falling for this trickery of words.
All-in-all... everything is still speculation at this point from the consumers' perspective. The only people who truly know what's up are the higher-ups at BioWare/EA.
I trust BioWare... they've never done me dirty, and I don't think they'll screw up this amazing opportunity w/ such a huge IP.
Everyone's patience is wearing thin
If the launch is laggy and too many people are playing your game... ummm... isn't that a good thing?!
"OMG -- we only accounted for 3 million players, but 4 million are trying to login....!" I pray this happens, to be honest.
Yeah but of course they won't say that it's a hypothetical limit that is way beyond what will actually sell. For instance they will limit it to 50 million sales. With only EA knowing the limit, it will cause everybody to buy a copy thinking that the limit will be a couple million. The end result is more sales than they would have had without the "cap".
ea rep should have said this instead:
we ll unlock server 1 by 1 (we only unlock server when one is full!this way same rwesult he said would be achieved but it would be widly accepted!
it may be real or it may be a technique to create a sense of urgency or it may be both. One thing is for sure though if I really wanted to be there launch day and had not already pre ordered it I would have my pre order in. I preordered mine back in July since I am way overdue to switch MMOs and this seems like it may be a good one.
I miss DAoC
This is a huge let down to me, because I simply don't pre-order games. I worked at Gamestop for several years, I know how the market works, and the whole pre-order sensation is almost entirely unnecessary. If that means I have to wait to play TOR, that really sucks, it's certainly something I want to experience as soon as possible. That being said, hopefully I can get to Walmart or Target faster than everyone else the day of public release.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
RIft did something similar to this and it worked at first. It was after the initial rush when people did not subscribe that lead to low pop servers. At least the RIft developers allowed free server transfers.
I have preordered SW:TOR, but this announcement seems like any other marketing ploy. It just seems like an attempt to artificially increase demand for the product by promoting a fear of being 'left out'.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
WAR tried that - in fact as fast as they opened servers, they were queued. This doesn't work because if the game was 'hyped' (Like WAR was and like SWTOR) is, you're going to sell massive amounts (800K+ for WAR) - unfortunately, all the Beta in the world, and all the 'early access' you can get is NOT going to tell you what's going to happen once people start to get to end game in masses (and in WAR's case, find out just how unfinished - and broken - it was)
When in the entire history of the MMO industry did a bad launch EVER kill a good game ?
"I hear that this game is quite fun to play, but I know it had a TERRIBLE LAUNCH, so I won't ever bother subbing"... yeah, right...
It may have caused huge amounts of forum-whining for the first 2 weeks, but after that it's a non-factor. However, if the game is riddled with bugs and other issues that persist beyond the initial launch window, then the "launch disaster" becomes a major part of the players' final decision to leave in the first month.
The success or failure of an MMO has nothing to do with the quality of the launch. It's the gameplay that makes or breaks it. Otherwise WoW would just have been another failure...
28 here...
"epic voice" and yes this is obviously a malicious and evil plan to drive up sales even further because without this ploy of marketing there would be no desire to play the game. "End epic voice"
You ever think when making comments about evil business practices and to take advantage of weak minded younger people you're specifically speaking on your own preferences? I see bioware having a pretty heavy invested interest in no failing on launch day as many know thats a much more player-base ruining event that a lot of people seem to ignore. I believe Bioware wants to limit pre-orders and I believe it's for server stability... unless you can name a game pushing as many pre-orders as SWTOR?
That's the problem with "old" people... the glass is always half empty and everything is malicious.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
You will be wiser too, with age.
Sorry couldn't resist
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
It is more a plot to win "most sold MMOs first week" or month.
As for naming a MMO with as many pre orders as TOR, I would like to see both TORs and GW2s numbers even if TOR have had their preorders longer. I think it will be a close match between those 2.
I don't think pre orders will matter that much in the longer run, only game I can think of where it really matters was STO and that is because it was more or less a scam. TOR, GW2 and Titan needs to be fun games that keeps their players entertained for a long time, or 5 million pre orders wont help.
Yeah sounds more like a way for them to drive up pre-release demand.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Metallica8589/videos?view=0