I was so excited for SWTOR to come out, was in all the betas, and never overplayed and didn't do what most die hards do (grind 50 asap, get to 50, whine about how endgame sucks), but I seriously got burned out quick.
The endgame is just slap in the face. After going through what was a massive single player storyline, to endless gen chat spam for hard modes, PvP queues for everyones favorite Huttball, to the hardmode ops w/ guild that weren't really that great.
While leveling, I did a few flashpoints here and there. Horrible experience, cool setups and scenarios, decent loot for the level, but I never really felt like I was earning anything other than the occasional title.
I honestly believed I would be playing this game for much longer then now. I even did a 6 month sub, ready and willing to support Bioware on this. I haven't even logged in since a few days after Ilum was changed (and ruined badly, for me anyway). I just seriously hope they fix the many issues alot of their fans are voicing, because everyone is going to be bored in the endgame pretty soon.
Looking forward, I have no will to even log in to SWTOR until I see some massive changes, what's the point if I'm not having fun anymore. I've already pre ordered TERA and will be giving that a try next.
What I would like to see in the future for this game:
-Something other than dailies/raid/FP/WZ to do at endgame. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I did enough of these in WoW. I never do dailies actually.
-The elimination of the fleets, and putting the main hubs on actual planets.
-Maybe space content, if done right. (Again, I'm not sure what I mean by done right, as long as it's fun)
-I wouldn't mind planet improvements too, making the mobs not so static.
I would love to see future story content (main class) to have real branches as well. Realistically, we could probably only have 1 branching area due to the amount of content that should be needed for more than that. But having real change based on a key decision would be really great.
How many people are logged in to a standard server or a heavy one again? Give me hard numbers. Prove your point. Ohh that's right you don't know.
Besides, server status only shows concurrency, not sub numbers.
make sure you're posting after Q4 i wanna have an i told you so lined up.. like the one i got slapped int he fact with when i was defending bioware prelaunch.. assuming the oceanic launch doesnt boost there box sales and make there "active" subs look good again... the way they're releasing this game it'll be months before we get an accurate number or anykind.. not to mention them reserving the right to give information based off the financial quater and not being obliged to update such information.. if you actually believe them saying "to date" means anything you have it wrong... CEO's are smarter then you with the way they word investor calls and questions, they are legally covered to use terms like that which have no baring on actual real time.. neither are they legally obligated to give you an accurate answer on the "current state" of things when they're giving a Q3 financial report and projections call..
but it's ok, i only been playing mmo's since EQ1 clearly i havent seen investor fluff and have shares of my own to hear it all before
LOL, dead with over 1 and a half millions subs. That's rich. So if I provide a link tonight around prime time for US servers when most people play, and it shows heavy population on most of the servers (which btw, means nothing either as it's based on whatever server capacity they've set the servers to), then you'll recant?
Because every evening, when people get home from work, the majority of servers are heavy. Now, as I said, that info is useless since it is only based on pre-set server capacity, but hey...if the haters can use useless info to try and prove a point, so can I, right?
LOL, dead with over 1 and a half millions subs. That's rich. So if I provide a link tonight around prime time for US servers when most people play, and it shows heavy population on most of the servers (which btw, means nothing either as it's based on whatever server capacity they've set the servers to), then you'll recant?
Because every evening, when people get home from work, the majority of servers are heavy. Now, as I said, that info is useless since it is only based on pre-set server capacity, but hey...if the haters can use useless info to try and prove a point, so can I, right?
umm how is 6.30 not prime time... i'm kinda confused do you all work till like 10pm or something
Sorry, should have been more specific. It's currently 5:30 where I'm at. By "prime time," I'm talking about 8 pm or so. Most people don't hop right onto their games half an hour after they get out of work. Most MMOs are at their daily peak from the hours between 7pm to around 10 pm. People need to eat, and say hello to the wife and kids, you know.
i'm not bent on it failing i wanted it to be good, EA cannot report it's Q4 status because Q4 ends 31st march and anything they said even saying "to date" "as of now" etc.. any of these quotes would be in relation to Q3 because the conference call was about Q3 and future projections.. i read the transcript nothing in it i would go and buy shares on..
I gotta be honest here. What it shows me more than anything else is that whomever decided they need to have that many servers needs their head examined.
I would really love to see a percentage in relation to how many end up quitting this game due to population or grouping related issues from EA. We never will but frankly I think that is one of their biggest mistakes with this game in how this has been handled.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Sorry, should have been more specific. It's currently 5:30 where I'm at. By "prime time," I'm talking about 8 pm or so. Most people don't hop right onto their games half an hour after they get out of work. Most MMOs are at their daily peak from the hours between 7pm to around 10 pm. People need to eat, and say hello to the wife and kids, you know.
dont get me wrong if you're enjoying the game i'm glad you are i was hoping for a good time sync till gw 2 comes out this just didnt provide the experience i was looking for and tbh i dont think tera will either so im still undecided on that game... reagrdless i hope they fix and improve a lot of areas that are lacking if the game gets better i'd consider resubbing to check it out and mess around again but at this point in time it's not viable i kept my sub and paid for a month to get my founders title becuase i thought it would be neat to have and i'll keep an eye on patch notes and upcoming content to see if anything sparks my interest again, but even in 3 hours i've seen the server list and actually rerolled on other heavy servers for more population but the most i've seen is 4 heavy to full servers
I personally would like to see them iterate on space. SWG was a big pile of garbage, but space was really fun.
Is this some sort of joke? SWToR isn't a success by any means unless you're looking at the size of the wallets over at EA/Bioware Austin from box sales. If you haven't noticed, the majority have left. Can't wait to see the next EA quarterly report that doesn't include box sales in their 'active' subscriber count.
SWToR is a bad game, period. It's been a long time since I felt cheated after buying a game. Last time was Age of Conan.
How is selling 2M boxes not successful?
The majority has left? Let's see. They sold 2M boxes, .. retain 1.7M subs. How is that "the majority has left"? Do you need a 1st grade lession in math.
"SWToR is a bad game, period" = you do not like it. Well, i don't like it much so i didn't sub after 30 days. But it is just wrong to say it is not a success in sales.
Except the 1.7 million number really doesn't tell us much. It tell us that in 10 days, you can't measure how people quit. End of Feb or March lets look at those sub rates again. Then it will be really instructive. By then, the free months from launch or the first month (like me) will be over. By March, the amount of people who were willing to at least play another month (again, like me), those subs will be up, and let's see who does or doesn't stay.
Evan Wilson of Pacific Crest wrote Friday that he has raised his sales estimate for “Star Wars” to 2.2 million units from 1.5 million units for the quarter, and said he remains “comfortable” with his 800,000 subscriber target when the company’s fiscal year ends in late March.
“Admittedly, we set our expectations as if Star Wars was to be a good, not great, MMO,” he wrote. “Fortunately, we think the company did too.”
Get it now?
So... meeting the 800,000 subscriber target that the company and industry analysts set is not successful?
I find this quote amusing: “Admittedly, we set our expectations as if Star Wars was to be a good, not great, MMO,” he wrote. “Fortunately, we think the company did too.”
EDIT - I'll answer my own question. A "Great" MMO is one that makes boatloads of money right out the door and just keeps printing money exponentially. Then again, that's what you get from a market analyst.
Once again, this ain't 2004. The MMO market was considerably smaller back then. Before WoW, if a game had 500k subscribers, it was considered wildly successful. If you spend 200 million and you want to be taken seriously, you should probably have over a million around launch. Yet if the 800k number is true, that means the game has a roughly 50% burn rate, and it is only 4 months old. That is something to worry about. The simple fact is that as the game goes on, your burn rate only increases.
i'm not bent on it failing i wanted it to be good, EA cannot report it's Q4 status because Q4 ends 31st march and anything they said even saying "to date" "as of now" etc.. any of these quotes would be in relation to Q3 because the conference call was about Q3 and future projections.. i read the transcript nothing in it i would go and buy shares on..
I gotta be honest here. What it shows me more than anything else is that whomever decided they need to have that many servers needs their head examined.
I would really love to see a percentage in relation to how many end up quitting this game due to population or grouping related issues from EA. We never will but frankly I think that is one of their biggest mistakes with this game in how this has been handled.
Yeah. Even going with half the amount there, the game would probably appear to be a smashing success.
Kinda like the economy. Unemployment is a lagging indicator. So you can't say "the economy is better" to a lot of people, because they are still unemployed. They don't feel it.
in this game, you can quote the numbers all you want. But people are so spread out across so many servers, you don't feel the population. The amount of servers here was probably made for a game I'm betting with 3-5 million subscribers.
The quote was that there were that many subs in a little over one month.
The number is Feb subs including people that were still in their free trial.
"a little over one month" does not equal "ten days"
The 10 days was hyperbole. Sorry.
Yet you can't measure retention rates or really much of anything in the first month or two of a paid MMO, especially when that first month is free. You can get a better indication by the second month, but it really takes the third month where you can start to get a concrete picture. The picture is pretty well painted by the 6th month and one year marks.
That's really all I'm saying. The quote is absolutely useless one way or the other.
Hmnm. Well OP i enjoyed SwG a TON and would say IMO it spanked the shit out of TOR. TOR is a decent sucess and should be able to maintain 600k subs I think.The fall off of players I'm afraid is higher then that but I'm sure they expected that ( or they should have ) . I would like to see them focus on end-game a little more , make opvp more rewarding and have meaning and get rid of this "work for these points and buy a bag with a chance for you gear BS " , we would rather grind a little longer to get that peice then to have a 5% chance for it.
I agree with that. One month is nothing compared to the lifespan of an mmo.
What you can really tell is what the game has to start with. That's about it. There is some value to that, as most games don't grow with time they decline, with a few obvious exceptions.
I think that is useful in the sense that the vast majority of games won't grow beyond their initial numbers. I don't think SWTOR will be one of those games, so it is a useful indicator of where they can go In the future.
LOL, dead with over 1 and a half millions subs. That's rich. So if I provide a link tonight around prime time for US servers when most people play, and it shows heavy population on most of the servers (which btw, means nothing either as it's based on whatever server capacity they've set the servers to), then you'll recant?
Because every evening, when people get home from work, the majority of servers are heavy. Now, as I said, that info is useless since it is only based on pre-set server capacity, but hey...if the haters can use useless info to try and prove a point, so can I, right?
Majority heavy? lol You sound like a rabid fanboy. As of 9pm est, 15 servers are heavy, one is very heavy and the rest are normal or light. Im no mathmatician but 16 servers out of 110+ isnt the majority.
I am not going to lie when I say this seems like a flamebait post. One for saying that SWG was garbage when there are dedicated fans on this forum and two, for hitting the bees nest on TOR's design versus commercial sales.
Personally, I still do not know if it was a commercial success yet. 2 million units sold is impressive, but is it enough? If I assume that the 200 million figure used by the dev is accurate, they still have ways to go to break even. Again, this is conjecture and the figure could be wrong, whether the cost was less or even more than 200 million. In addition to just breaking even or becoming mildly profitable, there is EA's expectations. If this game was sold to investors as the next WoW then I'd imagine some failed expecations. TOR does not need to be the next WoW for players, but it may have been expected to be by investors. I do not know how that would change things if at all.
One thing though, Bioware needs to get on top of being able to patch TOR.
I personally would like to see them iterate on space. SWG was a big pile of garbage, but space was really fun.
PVP
They have GOT to improve this. Not being able to choose the warzone you want to fight in sucks. Out of the five warzones I qued for tonight, only ONE wasn't huttball. Sorry, but I want to fight in a war, not play sports. Give players the option. I don't care if I have to wait longer for republic players. I'd rather drink draino than play another round of huttball. Haven't maxed a toon yet so I can't comment on the problems in Ilum, but based on what has been said, that needs work too. Give players territory control and resources to fight over.
PVE
Add random missions to the terminals. No,not dailies. They don't have to have voice overs or cutscenes. Just missions that you read, you complete and then turn in. As a bounty hunter, I'd like to be able to run to a terminal on Hutta or Nar Shadar and do a few bounty missions when I don't feel like leveling. Same could be done for other classes.
Crafting
This also needs work. Right now, Cybertech and Biochem are the only worthwhile professions because the rest can't compete with what's given in game. Crafted items should at least be on par with what is available. Plus the high cost of learning your skills and sending out the companions is really gimping to someone just starting out with no credits. They need to taper this back a bit.
A space game should have the ability to fly freely in space.
Crafting. Click and watch a timer count down. Really? That was the best you could come up with?
Where are all the extra things to do? Fishing. Hobbies. Experimentation. Cooking. Trapping. Farming. Making your own clothing styles. How about custom light saber hilts? Blaster grips and barrels with engraving? Most of the custom stuff wouldn't be visible unless very close and looking for it.
Cantina is a place to go to rest? No reason to be there other than that? Shouldn't it be a great place for rumors? Information about the local bad guys? Place for tall tales to be told? Shouldn't others be interested when you kill the local boss?
Over all I like the game. So many little things could be added to make it a great game.
I wanna herd some nerfs!
No but really, I totally agree. There needs to be more "distractions" besides shooting/slashing stuff. Not that shooting/slashing stuff is a bad thing, I'd just like some fixin's with my steak.
well for starters there getting rid of that retarded bag for gear system and doing what they should of did in the first place.but yeah,if theres one thing that will lead to me to just bsing around in sw tor until guild wars 2 comes out is if the pvp sucks
which i dont know,i dont really have much faith in the pvp in this game being all that great if the things ive heard about mythic are true
Comments
I was so excited for SWTOR to come out, was in all the betas, and never overplayed and didn't do what most die hards do (grind 50 asap, get to 50, whine about how endgame sucks), but I seriously got burned out quick.
The endgame is just slap in the face. After going through what was a massive single player storyline, to endless gen chat spam for hard modes, PvP queues for everyones favorite Huttball, to the hardmode ops w/ guild that weren't really that great.
While leveling, I did a few flashpoints here and there. Horrible experience, cool setups and scenarios, decent loot for the level, but I never really felt like I was earning anything other than the occasional title.
I honestly believed I would be playing this game for much longer then now. I even did a 6 month sub, ready and willing to support Bioware on this. I haven't even logged in since a few days after Ilum was changed (and ruined badly, for me anyway). I just seriously hope they fix the many issues alot of their fans are voicing, because everyone is going to be bored in the endgame pretty soon.
Looking forward, I have no will to even log in to SWTOR until I see some massive changes, what's the point if I'm not having fun anymore. I've already pre ordered TERA and will be giving that a try next.
How many people are logged in to a standard server or a heavy one again? Give me hard numbers. Prove your point. Ohh that's right you don't know.
Besides, server status only shows concurrency, not sub numbers.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
What I would like to see in the future for this game:
-Something other than dailies/raid/FP/WZ to do at endgame. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I did enough of these in WoW. I never do dailies actually.
-The elimination of the fleets, and putting the main hubs on actual planets.
-Maybe space content, if done right. (Again, I'm not sure what I mean by done right, as long as it's fun)
-I wouldn't mind planet improvements too, making the mobs not so static.
I would love to see future story content (main class) to have real branches as well. Realistically, we could probably only have 1 branching area due to the amount of content that should be needed for more than that. But having real change based on a key decision would be really great.
make sure you're posting after Q4 i wanna have an i told you so lined up.. like the one i got slapped int he fact with when i was defending bioware prelaunch.. assuming the oceanic launch doesnt boost there box sales and make there "active" subs look good again... the way they're releasing this game it'll be months before we get an accurate number or anykind.. not to mention them reserving the right to give information based off the financial quater and not being obliged to update such information.. if you actually believe them saying "to date" means anything you have it wrong... CEO's are smarter then you with the way they word investor calls and questions, they are legally covered to use terms like that which have no baring on actual real time.. neither are they legally obligated to give you an accurate answer on the "current state" of things when they're giving a Q3 financial report and projections call..
but it's ok, i only been playing mmo's since EQ1 clearly i havent seen investor fluff and have shares of my own to hear it all before
LOL, dead with over 1 and a half millions subs. That's rich. So if I provide a link tonight around prime time for US servers when most people play, and it shows heavy population on most of the servers (which btw, means nothing either as it's based on whatever server capacity they've set the servers to), then you'll recant?
Because every evening, when people get home from work, the majority of servers are heavy. Now, as I said, that info is useless since it is only based on pre-set server capacity, but hey...if the haters can use useless info to try and prove a point, so can I, right?
umm how is 6.30 not prime time... i'm kinda confused do you all work till like 10pm or something
Sorry, should have been more specific. It's currently 5:30 where I'm at. By "prime time," I'm talking about 8 pm or so. Most people don't hop right onto their games half an hour after they get out of work. Most MMOs are at their daily peak from the hours between 7pm to around 10 pm. People need to eat, and say hello to the wife and kids, you know.
I gotta be honest here. What it shows me more than anything else is that whomever decided they need to have that many servers needs their head examined.
I would really love to see a percentage in relation to how many end up quitting this game due to population or grouping related issues from EA. We never will but frankly I think that is one of their biggest mistakes with this game in how this has been handled.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
dont get me wrong if you're enjoying the game i'm glad you are i was hoping for a good time sync till gw 2 comes out this just didnt provide the experience i was looking for and tbh i dont think tera will either so im still undecided on that game... reagrdless i hope they fix and improve a lot of areas that are lacking if the game gets better i'd consider resubbing to check it out and mess around again but at this point in time it's not viable i kept my sub and paid for a month to get my founders title becuase i thought it would be neat to have and i'll keep an eye on patch notes and upcoming content to see if anything sparks my interest again, but even in 3 hours i've seen the server list and actually rerolled on other heavy servers for more population but the most i've seen is 4 heavy to full servers
Except the 1.7 million number really doesn't tell us much. It tell us that in 10 days, you can't measure how people quit. End of Feb or March lets look at those sub rates again. Then it will be really instructive. By then, the free months from launch or the first month (like me) will be over. By March, the amount of people who were willing to at least play another month (again, like me), those subs will be up, and let's see who does or doesn't stay.
Once again, this ain't 2004. The MMO market was considerably smaller back then. Before WoW, if a game had 500k subscribers, it was considered wildly successful. If you spend 200 million and you want to be taken seriously, you should probably have over a million around launch. Yet if the 800k number is true, that means the game has a roughly 50% burn rate, and it is only 4 months old. That is something to worry about. The simple fact is that as the game goes on, your burn rate only increases.
The quote was that there were that many subs in a little over one month.
The number is Feb subs including people that were still in their free trial.
"a little over one month" does not equal "ten days"
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
Yeah. Even going with half the amount there, the game would probably appear to be a smashing success.
Kinda like the economy. Unemployment is a lagging indicator. So you can't say "the economy is better" to a lot of people, because they are still unemployed. They don't feel it.
in this game, you can quote the numbers all you want. But people are so spread out across so many servers, you don't feel the population. The amount of servers here was probably made for a game I'm betting with 3-5 million subscribers.
The 10 days was hyperbole. Sorry.
Yet you can't measure retention rates or really much of anything in the first month or two of a paid MMO, especially when that first month is free. You can get a better indication by the second month, but it really takes the third month where you can start to get a concrete picture. The picture is pretty well painted by the 6th month and one year marks.
That's really all I'm saying. The quote is absolutely useless one way or the other.
Hmnm. Well OP i enjoyed SwG a TON and would say IMO it spanked the shit out of TOR. TOR is a decent sucess and should be able to maintain 600k subs I think.The fall off of players I'm afraid is higher then that but I'm sure they expected that ( or they should have ) . I would like to see them focus on end-game a little more , make opvp more rewarding and have meaning and get rid of this "work for these points and buy a bag with a chance for you gear BS " , we would rather grind a little longer to get that peice then to have a 5% chance for it.
Lol what? A success?
Wait, is he sarcastic? Yeah, he's gotta be.
Lololol. A success. Thanks for the laugh OP.
What you can really tell is what the game has to start with. That's about it. There is some value to that, as most games don't grow with time they decline, with a few obvious exceptions.
I think that is useful in the sense that the vast majority of games won't grow beyond their initial numbers. I don't think SWTOR will be one of those games, so it is a useful indicator of where they can go In the future.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
Majority heavy? lol You sound like a rabid fanboy. As of 9pm est, 15 servers are heavy, one is very heavy and the rest are normal or light. Im no mathmatician but 16 servers out of 110+ isnt the majority.
I am not going to lie when I say this seems like a flamebait post. One for saying that SWG was garbage when there are dedicated fans on this forum and two, for hitting the bees nest on TOR's design versus commercial sales.
Personally, I still do not know if it was a commercial success yet. 2 million units sold is impressive, but is it enough? If I assume that the 200 million figure used by the dev is accurate, they still have ways to go to break even. Again, this is conjecture and the figure could be wrong, whether the cost was less or even more than 200 million. In addition to just breaking even or becoming mildly profitable, there is EA's expectations. If this game was sold to investors as the next WoW then I'd imagine some failed expecations. TOR does not need to be the next WoW for players, but it may have been expected to be by investors. I do not know how that would change things if at all.
One thing though, Bioware needs to get on top of being able to patch TOR.
PVP
They have GOT to improve this. Not being able to choose the warzone you want to fight in sucks. Out of the five warzones I qued for tonight, only ONE wasn't huttball. Sorry, but I want to fight in a war, not play sports. Give players the option. I don't care if I have to wait longer for republic players. I'd rather drink draino than play another round of huttball. Haven't maxed a toon yet so I can't comment on the problems in Ilum, but based on what has been said, that needs work too. Give players territory control and resources to fight over.
PVE
Add random missions to the terminals. No,not dailies. They don't have to have voice overs or cutscenes. Just missions that you read, you complete and then turn in. As a bounty hunter, I'd like to be able to run to a terminal on Hutta or Nar Shadar and do a few bounty missions when I don't feel like leveling. Same could be done for other classes.
Crafting
This also needs work. Right now, Cybertech and Biochem are the only worthwhile professions because the rest can't compete with what's given in game. Crafted items should at least be on par with what is available. Plus the high cost of learning your skills and sending out the companions is really gimping to someone just starting out with no credits. They need to taper this back a bit.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
25 pages... All i asked was what would you like added to the game and i probably got 5 legit answers....
eqnext.wikia.com
just a heads up on the success you are asking about, for your reading pleasure
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115365-EA-Share-Price-Slides-Over-Old-Republic-Concerns
I wanna herd some nerfs!
No but really, I totally agree. There needs to be more "distractions" besides shooting/slashing stuff. Not that shooting/slashing stuff is a bad thing, I'd just like some fixin's with my steak.
"
PVP
They have GOT to improve this."
well for starters there getting rid of that retarded bag for gear system and doing what they should of did in the first place.but yeah,if theres one thing that will lead to me to just bsing around in sw tor until guild wars 2 comes out is if the pvp sucks
which i dont know,i dont really have much faith in the pvp in this game being all that great if the things ive heard about mythic are true
awesome.
Here's to the possible nearing of the themepark monumental fail and of its evil rule
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