Guys, cut them some slack. I mean, really, I agree with most that some fundamental things in the SWTOR design went wrong. But just please stop making a fool out of yourself, by blowing small issues out of proportion. A 30 days free "returner" sub is a normal marketing method after a big patch and no sign for doom and gloom. A big patch can have some issues, all MMO had that from time to time, and a 8 hours downtime can happen.
There is enough to critizise here, but a delayed patch feature, a few hours downtime or some free play time certainly are NOT. Let's try to be rational and fair with our critique.
No , a 30 days free for a certain subset of your paying customers but not the others is not a "normal" marketing method at all.
Offering those who have left free time to come back yes , but offering those already paying free time for having a certain level but nothing for the others is a moronic idea from a PR standpoint and they deserve the criticism they got initially , and now for claiming to "listen".
It was NOT a "returner" offer at all -
To use a modified quote:
Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch MMOs burn.
The logical thing is not to give this promotion to active players and let the new patch bring them back to play, as an extra free 30 days will not. If they do not want to play now on an active sub to check out 1.2 then giving them another 30 days will not make them check it out, it will just extend their expiration by 30 days.
If people unsubbed, and were unable to play and did not think it was worth the $15 then the 30 day promotion would be a "returner", and what you say would be correct.
Thousands of I am leaving threads on all SWTOR forums
Horrific patch problems for 1.2
Free 30 days to all level 50's
7 Days free for returning customers
And still the fans of the game deny the game is in serious trouble. They still try and say it's doing better than WOW :S When wow launched their subscription graph went up and up and up for years, not up for 1 month and then down, down, down.
SWTOR is over, the game was flawed on the white board at the first staff meeting but the devs never saw it, they made a game that is unfixable without serious reverse engineering that would take over a year. I am referring to the planet system, the game is empty because of the instancing of the planets. When I played WOW (pre BC) I would meet hundreds of people heading to different zones, this cross over meeting of players from both faction made the game alive. In SWTOR you only meet people on the same planets and the planets are all badly designed with impassable walls and other crap designed to keep factions apart. BW don't realise that most MMO players do not want factions to be apart, that is what kills a game.
Thousands of I am leaving threads on all SWTOR forums
Horrific patch problems for 1.2
Free 30 days to all level 50's
7 Days free for returning customers
And still the fans of the game deny the game is in serious trouble. They still try and say it's doing better than WOW :S When wow launched their subscription graph went up and up and up for years, not up for 1 month and then down, down, down.
SWTOR is over, the game was flawed on the white board at the first staff meeting but the devs never saw it, they made a game that is unfixable without serious reverse engineering that would take over a year. I am referring to the planet system, the game is empty because of the instancing of the planets. When I played WOW (pre BC) I would meet hundreds of people heading to different zones, this cross over meeting of players from both faction made the game alive. In SWTOR you only meet people on the same planets and the planets are all badly designed with impassable walls and other crap designed to keep factions apart. BW don't realise that most MMO players do not want factions to be apart, that is what kills a game.
Who cares about SWTOR or the fanbois? If you have any spare investment money I would recommend short-selling EA stock by $4-5 at this point for a nice short term profit. EA's claim of having $6.70 cash flow per share is beyond delusional if you examine their books; it is more like $2.18 in a best case scenario.
Now just sit back and wait for the other shoe to drop. I stated yesterday that EA/Bioware was not going to have any other choice but to refund money spent by people who resubbed or stuck around due to a certain feature they openly advertised was going to be contained in this patch.
Now that EA/Bioware has decided to take what I deem as the sleaze option, the market (players) are going to tear them apart. Rule #1 in any business is you do not lie to or attempt to deceive your customers.
The free playing time offer is not going to cut it and as others have said it is a major sign of desperation on EA/Bioware's part.
As far as the free playing time goes, I uninstalled SWTOR for a reason and see no need to punish my PC further.
Check my history, I've tried to be equal parts supporter and critic. As objective as I've tried to be, 1.2 was doomed to failure. Ignore the game code/bug/mechanics for a second. What's REALLY screwing SWTOR is endemic organizational problems with BW. Getting a char copied to the PTS apparently requires a working knowledge of quantum physics and a virgin ungulate to accomplish. Even then, there's seems to be a marked preference by the developers to completely dismiss or outright IGNORE community feedback in the PTS forums.
I'll need to double check, but the 'announcement' about rated wz's not making it into 1.2 wasn't 'a day before' 1.2 was supposed to drop. It was HOURS before. There's not actual timestamp on Daniel Erickson's blogpost, but it WASN'T THERE all day yesterday. It didn't show up until yesterday evening AFTER they fucked up the loader and prematurely started downloading and installing 1.2 and subsequently breaking several peoples ability to play yesterday.
The free month thing isn't fooling ANYONE, even those of us 'still drinking the cool-aid'.
I fear it's already too late, but if it's NOT, they need to pull their heads out of their asses and make some organizational changes. First thing they should do is fire Georg Zoeller and frogmarch his incompetent ass from the building.
This situation reminds me of something that happened in a distant galaxy long ago. SWG Trials of Obi-Wan, was supposed to be released with all kinds of goodies. Instead, it ushered in the NGE that was never mentioned to the playerbase. Folks pleaded and begged SOE to roll back to the CU version and some how, SOE had lost/destroyed or just couldn't do so. People left in droves.
Now, Bioware releases a 1.2 patch with certain things that are supposed to be in it and right at the last minute, pulls ranked WZ PVP out, not to mention a failure of a patch that was riddled with problems and bugs. Now, their trying to give away free time to level 50's to keep them playing.
Moral of the story. Don't ever assume that you're smarter than your customers. Certain vision's of how you may want to do things in the future may have to be altered because of player feedback. Never lie and try and deceive, it only shows how desperate you are and how little faith you actually have in your product.
As you can see subscriptions really aren't that big a deal to EA. They make more than twice as much money off of Smartphone games than they do sub fees.
I do feel like this is just borderline fraud though. They are duping those idiots investors with loopholes, and technicalities. No wonder their stock is plummeting.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Sadly I knew it was coming and I'm very angry against the clueless managers that butchered the game when hard working peons did their best for... years.
Well stopped reading right there. Why? Becuase it is incorrect.
Near primetime, only 27 of the servers today were light. Out of 123 in the US. That is 23%. In WoW, 55 out of the 236 US servers were light. Again, 23%.
So when did "most" turn into the vast minority here?
Well stopped reading right there. Why? Becuase it is incorrect.
Near primetime, only 27 of the servers today were light. Out of 123 in the US. That is 23%. In WoW, 55 out of the 236 US servers were light. Again, 23%.
So when did "most" turn into the vast minority here?
While I haven't been watching any server stats I would point out that that post you quoted was on the 14th and your rebuttal on the 17th. I don't know if you're aware, but things can change and vary over time. What might have been a very true statement on one day does not mean it would continue to be a true statement for all days. Might the release of 1.2/free game time/especially a rakghoul infestation artificially inflated numbers from the norm? You see this all the time in other games. As soon as new stuff comes, the servers are a little more full than before. And depending on how big/interesting that new content is determines how long that artificial inflation lasts.
Now I'm not claiming he's right and you're wrong (or vice versa) as I don't bother looking at server stats and such. I just felt you were being a bit disingenuous.
Well stopped reading right there. Why? Becuase it is incorrect.
Near primetime, only 27 of the servers today were light. Out of 123 in the US. That is 23%. In WoW, 55 out of the 236 US servers were light. Again, 23%.
So when did "most" turn into the vast minority here?
It happened when the vast minority of a forum think they represent the vast majority of MMO gamers.
Comments
The logical thing is not to give this promotion to active players and let the new patch bring them back to play, as an extra free 30 days will not. If they do not want to play now on an active sub to check out 1.2 then giving them another 30 days will not make them check it out, it will just extend their expiration by 30 days.
If people unsubbed, and were unable to play and did not think it was worth the $15 then the 30 day promotion would be a "returner", and what you say would be correct.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Most of the servers on low population
Two or three heavy population during peak times
Thousands of I am leaving threads on all SWTOR forums
Horrific patch problems for 1.2
Free 30 days to all level 50's
7 Days free for returning customers
And still the fans of the game deny the game is in serious trouble. They still try and say it's doing better than WOW :S When wow launched their subscription graph went up and up and up for years, not up for 1 month and then down, down, down.
SWTOR is over, the game was flawed on the white board at the first staff meeting but the devs never saw it, they made a game that is unfixable without serious reverse engineering that would take over a year. I am referring to the planet system, the game is empty because of the instancing of the planets. When I played WOW (pre BC) I would meet hundreds of people heading to different zones, this cross over meeting of players from both faction made the game alive. In SWTOR you only meet people on the same planets and the planets are all badly designed with impassable walls and other crap designed to keep factions apart. BW don't realise that most MMO players do not want factions to be apart, that is what kills a game.
Who cares about SWTOR or the fanbois? If you have any spare investment money I would recommend short-selling EA stock by $4-5 at this point for a nice short term profit. EA's claim of having $6.70 cash flow per share is beyond delusional if you examine their books; it is more like $2.18 in a best case scenario.
^
This situation reminds me of something that happened in a distant galaxy long ago. SWG Trials of Obi-Wan, was supposed to be released with all kinds of goodies. Instead, it ushered in the NGE that was never mentioned to the playerbase. Folks pleaded and begged SOE to roll back to the CU version and some how, SOE had lost/destroyed or just couldn't do so. People left in droves.
Now, Bioware releases a 1.2 patch with certain things that are supposed to be in it and right at the last minute, pulls ranked WZ PVP out, not to mention a failure of a patch that was riddled with problems and bugs. Now, their trying to give away free time to level 50's to keep them playing.
Moral of the story. Don't ever assume that you're smarter than your customers. Certain vision's of how you may want to do things in the future may have to be altered because of player feedback. Never lie and try and deceive, it only shows how desperate you are and how little faith you actually have in your product.
Sorry Bioware, FAIL is just FAIL.
Bingo!
not good news for EA
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/343845/ea-poor-battlefield-3-old-republic-performance-result-in-layoffs/
As you can see subscriptions really aren't that big a deal to EA. They make more than twice as much money off of Smartphone games than they do sub fees.
I do feel like this is just borderline fraud though. They are duping those idiots investors with loopholes, and technicalities. No wonder their stock is plummeting.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Sadly I knew it was coming and I'm very angry against the clueless managers that butchered the game when hard working peons did their best for... years.
Well stopped reading right there. Why? Becuase it is incorrect.
Near primetime, only 27 of the servers today were light. Out of 123 in the US. That is 23%. In WoW, 55 out of the 236 US servers were light. Again, 23%.
So when did "most" turn into the vast minority here?
While I haven't been watching any server stats I would point out that that post you quoted was on the 14th and your rebuttal on the 17th. I don't know if you're aware, but things can change and vary over time. What might have been a very true statement on one day does not mean it would continue to be a true statement for all days. Might the release of 1.2/free game time/especially a rakghoul infestation artificially inflated numbers from the norm? You see this all the time in other games. As soon as new stuff comes, the servers are a little more full than before. And depending on how big/interesting that new content is determines how long that artificial inflation lasts.
Now I'm not claiming he's right and you're wrong (or vice versa) as I don't bother looking at server stats and such. I just felt you were being a bit disingenuous.
It happened when the vast minority of a forum think they represent the vast majority of MMO gamers.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft