A game should be more than simply "Going" when you invest 200 million dollars into a game set in the Star Wars IP.
It didn't outright fail but it seriously fell short of expectations, both in terms of quality and how much of the market it should have attracted.
According to financial analysts and many investors, SWTOR is one of the main reasons why EA stock has catapulted so high in the last 5 years. You can try to say its a failure, but the bottom line dollars show a much different picture. The game has a very large subscriber base and population. According to the EA investor reports and this is echoed as a strong reason by advisors as well, the game is a shining star for EA. BTW you can view the real time numbers and see for yourself this is real.
Loved the story quests and how they played out. Hated that they had to come to an end and pretty much all you were left with was a gear grind like every other MMO. Expansions put some life back into the game story wise but again those had to end. The space combat game was more of an after thought and in the end was not very much fun. And then of course, there was the free-to-play. F2P killed our guild and the game became pretty empty of my gaming friends. Some day they will figure out a way to make a game that is more open ended and does not just end.
This company cannot make games anymore, their racism against white race is at pick and it started showing. Mass effect andromeda is a nice example. Youtube is filled with videos about bioware studios and how racism white people effects their games here is an example and If you search more, he is not the only one, more than 5 people in high placement in bioware are flagged as
such..
I was playing swtor and I was a dedicated subscriber I also used my referral code in youtube making videos, I had so many referees and I also got in monthly bases goodies and stuff.
My problem begun after I made more than 5-6 characters to experience game play and story. I start asking more facials in swtor forums, because I am not eastern so I love my characters to be familiar (you know), to like my characters, I didnt like eastern faces. It seems I asked it so many times that I got banned from the forums, NOT from the game for xenophobia HAHA!!!
I mean they promote racism and they accuse us for it. Andromeda has 0 presets for white Caucasians, you cannot create a toon as a white Caucasian. This company is doomed by me, I removed all my videos from youtube, more likely their games are banned from my youtube channel, I also stop paying them and stop playing. Its so sad I made about 10-12 characters in swtor but all of them had the same face, horrible presets for my likes.
They brought it into their face. If they ever make swtor 2, is going to be doomed as well. Its sad for them and they dont deserve my money
I wait for star citizen or cronicles of Elyria since then. Its the first mmo that I had problems, I played wow for 7 years, swtor about 2 or 3 years, I stop playing before they empty all their servers the last expansions, archeage about a year (very pay2win thats why I stop it) and others never ever had problems.
So... lets just pretend like there are no Caucasian faces in Mass Effect for a moment. This is untrue, but lets pretend for a while that they don't exist.
I dont know if they change it, I quit playing it before the emperor expansion/story driven doom. Since then they have had 1-2 western presets and the other ones was asiatic. So I didnt have options to make the character I want horific character creator.. So I asked a few times in their forums for more presets
I dont know if they change it, I quit playing it before the emperor expansion. Since then they have had 1-2 western presets and the other ones was asiatic.
I dont know if they change it, I quit playing it before the emperor expansion. Since then they have had 1-2 western presets and the other ones was asiatic. So I didnt have option to make the character I want horific character creator.. So I asked a few times in their forums
Wait, so your complaint is that you want more options?
My complaint was that.. I quit playing the game for more than 2 years, never went back. I only pointing out that bioware have issues, internal issues against the audience they create games. I am sure I am not the only one I had a bad experience from bioware. (sorry that I edit my posts very much I have severe dyslexia).. lol
I dont know if they change it, I quit playing it before the emperor expansion. Since then they have had 1-2 western presets and the other ones was asiatic. So I didnt have option to make the character I want horific character creator.. So I asked a few times in their forums
Wait, so your complaint is that you want more options?
I agree with most of the OP's statements but not some. I felt the combat was really bad like 1/5 bad and that is because the mobs tied into combat were also done poorly,example 3 on a leash.The AI was also really poorly done with almost no effort at all.
I felt the world was bad as well but not because of travel ,more so because it felt like a computer game and not a world.Sometimes it was ok but other times ,it just looked like a questing hub and nothing more. I didn't find the story bad but not good either,i felt it was grossly over rated. Graphically speaking,perhaps the art style was ok to good but they were done very low end which again made it look like a computer generation rather than a world.But overall i found the world acceptable,it just lacked events that made it look like a real living world.I expected to see an armada of ships land on the surface and attack ,with players joining in the fight to defend the cities,stuff like that.The times the game did have action it looked fake,with the 3 on a leash fighting in clusters all over a zone but never moving around.
Polished?The part of game that really began to turn me away was when i started the crafting. That is why i NEVER like the use of the term "polish"because doing less or very little leaves nothing to be critiqued. Bottom line is that yes i too felt the game came close but while playing for around 2 months,i began to get the gut feeling the game was rushed to the finish line the last 6 months or so.There was a lot of hit n miss,sometimes the game design felt completed while other times it felt like it was cut short,crafting as an example.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It's just a symptom of developers of AAA MMOs trying to be all things to all people. They know that there are people who prefer BG PvP to open world, so they include both. They know that some people want to fast travel everywhere, so they add that. They know some people care nothing about the game feeling like a world, so they create convenient hubs for them.
It seems to take a smaller developer without dreams of WOW-like glory to make a decision about doing things one way instead of all possible ways.
You have to keep in mind that SWTOR was developed during time when AAA MMOs still had visions of outdoing WoW.
I have quite a few friends who worked on SWTOR, and they planned for 10mil players, as that is how they sized the servers they bought.
The amount of money they spent on everything was absurd, again their target was 10mil players and they firmly believed that they would hit those numbers.
They never came close.
Those were different times, no MMO dev studio today has such visions of grandure anymore.
Imagine new games and MMOs focused on these things;
pvp, raids, mini games - instanced pvp, card games, racing day/night cycles, npc movement and politics (npc alignment and they move and interact with other NPCs), AI, OWPVP, player housing, player creation with lots of options and races, server types that make use of the OWPVP that the game is destrucible envronments and resets, or large instanced pvp zones short story expansions are large 'fun' combat
Then playing an MMO would be more about the different combat, or different settings, and not really which one is better by a large margin
A lot of development is wasted on questing imo, when if you can fill the world with NPC's and an AI, that it becomes virtual 'reality', then it would make all video games that much better
I expect if AI, and virtual worlds become easier to create then development for games will be better focused.
And since you have friends that worked on that game, care to share how large their budget was since it hasnt been officially confirmed but its been rumored to be in the 150 millions of dollars.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
They have plans for swtor 2 you know, I ve read few articles about it a month ago, that swtor 2 is already in development for 4 years now? (If I am not mistaken). But I dont have faith in them. I more trust the unfinished SC instead of ea mmos.
The article actually said an online mmo based in original KOTOR but in the process as an outcome is a brand new thing, that will be announced soon.. You can search for the article.
What are you smoking mate? They cut content post release because it lagged so much and it was impossible to fix because of the complete garbage engine the whole game is built upon.
It's also the reason the whole thing feels like a lobby game, they couldn't make it any different because it lagged. People screamed at them to the point of ridiculousness on the forums when it was in alpha and early beta, they didnt listen to a damm single thing, they actually banned people. It's a cancerous game that deserves to be shut down and the lead developers to be black listed by the entire industry.
A game should be more than simply "Going" when you invest 200 million dollars into a game set in the Star Wars IP.
It didn't outright fail but it seriously fell short of expectations, both in terms of quality and how much of the market it should have attracted.
According to financial analysts and many investors, SWTOR is one of the main reasons why EA stock has catapulted so high in the last 5 years. You can try to say its a failure, but the bottom line dollars show a much different picture. The game has a very large subscriber base and population. According to the EA investor reports and this is echoed as a strong reason by advisors as well, the game is a shining star for EA. BTW you can view the real time numbers and see for yourself this is real.
Do you have links to the "real" numbers?
I followed development and played SW:TOR at launch for a year. The investors reports did not show what you state. The investors reports show rapid decline in the playerbase with the game en-route to being a financial failure: EA stated the break even point was 500k subscribers, but it dropped below 500k between 3 and 6 months after launch.
This is what caused the F2P switch and massive overcharging for cash shop items - they had to do it otherwise the game would have been shut down. The following few investor reports stated a stabilisation of income for SW:TOR, but they stopped publishing SW:TOR-specific data in their investor reports just after F2P switch.
This is all ancient history now of course, but given the initial financial failure of the game, followed by the stabilisation due to F2P (at the break even point), I am obviously intrigued by your statements that the game increased EA stock values and that the game is a shining star for EA. It didn't do well financially, it didn't do well critically, the majority of the public didn't like it, the only thing it is praised for is the class story lines which make up about 2% of the game...
My guess is that EA's stock continues to rise because, as a company, they are experts at marketing sub-par games and make an awful lot of money from doing so. The bulk of their income likely comes from their sport franchise games, but beyond that Dragon Age and Mass Effect series are both more popular that SW:TOR and both series have released games since TOR came out.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
A game should be more than simply "Going" when you invest 200 million dollars into a game set in the Star Wars IP.
It didn't outright fail but it seriously fell short of expectations, both in terms of quality and how much of the market it should have attracted.
According to financial analysts and many investors, SWTOR is one of the main reasons why EA stock has catapulted so high in the last 5 years. You can try to say its a failure, but the bottom line dollars show a much different picture. The game has a very large subscriber base and population. According to the EA investor reports and this is echoed as a strong reason by advisors as well, the game is a shining star for EA. BTW you can view the real time numbers and see for yourself this is real.
Do you have links to the "real" numbers?
I followed development and played SW:TOR at launch for a year. The investors reports did not show what you state. The investors reports show rapid decline in the playerbase with the game en-route to being a financial failure: EA stated the break even point was 500k subscribers, but it dropped below 500k between 3 and 6 months after launch.
This is what caused the F2P switch and massive overcharging for cash shop items - they had to do it otherwise the game would have been shut down. The following few investor reports stated a stabilisation of income for SW:TOR, but they stopped publishing SW:TOR-specific data in their investor reports just after F2P switch.
This is all ancient history now of course, but given the initial financial failure of the game, followed by the stabilisation due to F2P (at the break even point), I am obviously intrigued by your statements that the game increased EA stock values and that the game is a shining star for EA. It didn't do well financially, it didn't do well critically, the majority of the public didn't like it, the only thing it is praised for is the class story lines which make up about 2% of the game...
My guess is that EA's stock continues to rise because, as a company, they are experts at marketing sub-par games and make an awful lot of money from doing so. The bulk of their income likely comes from their sport franchise games, but beyond that Dragon Age and Mass Effect series are both more popular that SW:TOR and both series have released games since TOR came out.
Below is a highlight section from a recent investor call with information specifically mentioned about SWTOR in the game comments section after the intro comments. I just posted the info about SWTOR in quotes.
ELECTRONIC ARTS Q2 FY17
EARLY INVESTOR CALL
PRELIMINARY DATA
PREPARED COMMENTS
MARCH 28, 2017
Thank you. Welcome to EA’s early investor call, quarter 2
fiscal 2017 earnings call. With me on the call today are Andrew Wilson, our
CEO, and Blake Jorgensen, our CFO. Please note that our SEC filings and our
earnings release are available at ir.ea.com. In addition, we have posted
earnings slides to accompany our prepared remarks. Lastly, after the call, we
will post our prepared remarks, an audio replay of this call, our financial
model, and a transcript. With regards to our calendar, Blake will be speaking
at the Morgan Stanley Conference in San Francisco on our Q4 earnings call is
scheduled for Tuesday, May 9, 2017.
This presentation and our comments include forward-looking
statements regarding future events and the future financial performance of the
Company. Actual events and results may differ materially from our expectations.
We refer you to our most recent Form 10-Q for a discussion of risks that could
cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today.
During this call, the financial metrics, with the exception
of free cash flow, will be presented on a GAAP basis. All comparisons made in
the course of this call are against the same period in the prior year unless
otherwise stated.
“We are building our online games today to have a long life with players through outstanding
live services and dynamic content updates. For example, Star Wars: The Old Republic
continues to add new content, driving average gameplay time per player to an
unprecedented total of 155 minutes per day. The release of new Star Wars movies created
a renewed interest in the game causing game subscriptions and overall population to rise
significantly. The increase generated substantial revenue which solidifies our strong belief
and commitment to the game. Player satisfaction scores are among the highest in our
portfolio, showing just how much fun players are having with this game.”
This company cannot make games anymore, their racism against white race
Well, you are certainly welcome to your opinion but that is not true. Having played many (maybe at this point most) of their games I could pick a "white person" all the time though I don't remember what I picked in Jade Empire as I most likely picked someone who looked more Chinese. Not sure how great their art department was in that regard.
Though in truth, other than skin color what is a "white person" supposed to look like? I believe it's more complicated than just skin color and quite frankly I think it has to do more with skull shape.
In any case, um "no".
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
It's just a symptom of developers of AAA MMOs trying to be all things to all people. They know that there are people who prefer BG PvP to open world, so they include both. They know that some people want to fast travel everywhere, so they add that. They know some people care nothing about the game feeling like a world, so they create convenient hubs for them.
It seems to take a smaller developer without dreams of WOW-like glory to make a decision about doing things one way instead of all possible ways.
Think he hit the nail on the head for almost any game put out in the last 8 or 9 years. Developers can't pick something and stick to it. They think they can get a massive amount of players by having everything when in reality they basically just screw up everything because of it. If they could pick a style and stick to it games would be better for everyone. Every game doesn't have to have something for every person.
A game should be more than simply "Going" when you invest 200 million dollars into a game set in the Star Wars IP.
It didn't outright fail but it seriously fell short of expectations, both in terms of quality and how much of the market it should have attracted.
Can't change the past. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. That doesn't mean anything now.
It means a lot. It means there is no market place for WoW clones anymore. This game is already burdened down with that model (Though it should be working to establish it's own market space and not replicating every mistake WoW makes like skill tree removal) but every game coming into the market should look at SWTOR as an example of what not to do.
I tried to go back a few weeks ago , after watching all the star wars movies i was pretty pumped to return. Everything just feel's like a card board cut out, Think a bad western movie set . The story is superb but everything else just feels, well, off.
The NPC in the game made it feel like walking through lame diorama, as you neared the display it would come to life. They tried to fix this static NPC issue with adding a few pathing NPC that wander around, but after years of this game being out it still feels like a Star Wars Museum/ digital version of Star Tours.
A game should be more than simply "Going" when you invest 200 million dollars into a game set in the Star Wars IP.
It didn't outright fail but it seriously fell short of expectations, both in terms of quality and how much of the market it should have attracted.
Can't change the past. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. That doesn't mean anything now.
It means a lot. It means there is no market place for WoW clones anymore. This game is already burdened down with that model (Though it should be working to establish it's own market space and not replicating every mistake WoW makes like skill tree removal) but every game coming into the market should look at SWTOR as an example of what not to do.
I don't think SW:TOR means there is no market for themeparks, I think that market still exists and would still welcome a good game.
I do, however, think SW:TOR is the perfect example of the difficulties of transitioning from single player games to the MMO market.
On the surface, SW:TOR has a great feature list. It has pretty much everything that you find in other themeparks - quests, main stories, vertical progression, lots of zones, mostly solo, some group, dungeons and raids, instanced and open world pvp, pets, cosmetics etc etc
It really does have an awful lot of features.
The problem, in my opinion, is that Bioware simply don't appreciate the nature of MMOs and so screwed up most of those features. You can see the single player influences everywhere, but it just resulted in a very shallow, short lived experience for most players. Some examples:
Combat In a single player RPG, you might expect the average gamer to play your game for 50 hours. That means you need a combat system which can be learnt and mastered in that time period. In an MMO, you want your players to keep playing for years. However, SW:TOR retained a very shallow combat system that still only took a short time to master. It meant that the combat, which for the average gamer is what they do most of the time, was just boring. That lack of depth killed the longevity and any sort of skill challenge.
Stories In a single player game, its fine being the hero. Doesn't work in MMOs (even if most of them try it). It means you have to put yourself in a state of ignorance in order to immerse yourself in the story, then come out of it when you re-enter the normal game world. It just doesn't work unless you only play solo.
Gear Progression For a single player, its fine to have massive vertical gear progression - it gives you motivation to keep playing and getting better stuff and it is satisfying to see bigger numbers. This is only possible because in a single player game, you don't need to balance against other real people, so you can control everything. In an MMO, vertical progression creates power gaps which creates massive imbalances within the community. Grouping becomes harder, pvp becomes unfair. Its just a dumb move.
PvP After WAR shut down, the remaining EA Mythic devs joining the SW:TOR team, so all through development we heard stories about how great the pvp was, how important it was in the game and how PvP and PvE would both get roughly the same resources. Yet, their engine couldn't handle it. Ilum used to lag with 20 people and became a slide show by 50. Again, just another sign that Bioware hadn't fully thought out the consequences of building an MMO.
SW:TOR could have been a massive success, despite it being a themepark, if Bioware had taken a bit more time to think through the ramifications of building an MMO. A deeper combat system and better itemisation alone would have solved a lot of problems by making the core activities (combat / questing) more engaging and enjoyable. A better engine would have allowed for some proper world pvp, for example I'd have loved to see a stars wars equivalent of Cyrodiil. With better itemisation, they could have made crafting relevant and engaging - their companion system could have been developed into a really unique micromanagement type system where you could setup your companions almost like bots. They could have tied that into a phone app so you could manage your companions even when not in game, thereby further increasing engagement with the game.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Some of us believe there is no really good themepark mmorpg, and no way to make one. Certainly no great themepark mmorpgs. That is an impossibility in my opinion.
My real and unadulterated view on themepark mmorpgs is the following: they ran their course and hit their peak with Everquest, Everquest 2, and Vanilla World of Warcraft.
Comments
A game should be more than simply "Going" when you invest 200 million dollars into a game set in the Star Wars IP.
It didn't outright fail but it seriously fell short of expectations, both in terms of quality and how much of the market it should have attracted.
Let's party like it is 1863!
This company cannot make games anymore, their racism against white race is at pick and it started showing. Mass effect andromeda is a nice example. Youtube is filled with videos about bioware studios and how racism white people effects their games here is an example and If you search more, he is not the only one, more than 5 people in high placement in bioware are flagged as
such..
I was playing swtor and I was a dedicated subscriber I also used my referral code in youtube making videos, I had so many referees and I also got in monthly bases goodies and stuff.
My problem begun after I made more than 5-6 characters to experience game play and story. I start asking more facials in swtor forums, because I am not eastern so I love my characters to be familiar (you know), to like my characters, I didnt like eastern faces. It seems I asked it so many times that I got banned from the forums, NOT from the game for xenophobia HAHA!!!
I mean they promote racism and they accuse us for it. Andromeda has 0 presets for white Caucasians, you cannot create a toon as a white Caucasian. This company is doomed by me, I removed all my videos from youtube, more likely their games are banned from my youtube channel, I also stop paying them and stop playing. Its so sad I made about 10-12 characters in swtor but all of them had the same face, horrible presets for my likes.
They brought it into their face. If they ever make swtor 2, is going to be doomed as well. Its sad for them and they dont deserve my money
I wait for star citizen or cronicles of Elyria since then. Its the first mmo that I had problems, I played wow for 7 years, swtor about 2 or 3 years, I stop playing before they empty all their servers the last expansions, archeage about a year (very pay2win thats why I stop it) and others never ever had problems.
(am dyslexic).Why the fuck does that matter?
Why would that be bad?
Wait, so your complaint is that you want more options?
I felt the combat was really bad like 1/5 bad and that is because the mobs tied into combat were also done poorly,example 3 on a leash.The AI was also really poorly done with almost no effort at all.
I felt the world was bad as well but not because of travel ,more so because it felt like a computer game and not a world.Sometimes it was ok but other times ,it just looked like a questing hub and nothing more.
I didn't find the story bad but not good either,i felt it was grossly over rated.
Graphically speaking,perhaps the art style was ok to good but they were done very low end which again made it look like a computer generation rather than a world.But overall i found the world acceptable,it just lacked events that made it look like a real living world.I expected to see an armada of ships land on the surface and attack ,with players joining in the fight to defend the cities,stuff like that.The times the game did have action it looked fake,with the 3 on a leash fighting in clusters all over a zone but never moving around.
Polished?The part of game that really began to turn me away was when i started the crafting.
That is why i NEVER like the use of the term "polish"because doing less or very little leaves nothing to be critiqued.
Bottom line is that yes i too felt the game came close but while playing for around 2 months,i began to get the gut feeling the game was rushed to the finish line the last 6 months or so.There was a lot of hit n miss,sometimes the game design felt completed while other times it felt like it was cut short,crafting as an example.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Imagine new games and MMOs focused on these things;
pvp,
raids,
mini games - instanced pvp, card games, racing
day/night cycles,
npc movement and politics (npc alignment and they move and interact with other NPCs), AI,
OWPVP,
player housing,
player creation with lots of options and races,
server types that make use of the OWPVP that the game is destrucible envronments and resets, or
large instanced pvp zones
short story
expansions are large
'fun' combat
Then playing an MMO would be more about the different combat, or different settings, and not really which one is better by a large margin
A lot of development is wasted on questing imo, when if you can fill the world with NPC's and an AI, that it becomes virtual 'reality', then it would make all video games that much better
I expect if AI, and virtual worlds become easier to create then development for games will be better focused.
And since you have friends that worked on that game, care to share how large their budget was since it hasnt been officially confirmed but its been rumored to be in the 150 millions of dollars.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
The article actually said an online mmo based in original KOTOR but in the process as an outcome is a brand new thing, that will be announced soon.. You can search for the article.
What are you smoking mate? They cut content post release because it lagged so much and it was impossible to fix because of the complete garbage engine the whole game is built upon.
It's also the reason the whole thing feels like a lobby game, they couldn't make it any different because it lagged. People screamed at them to the point of ridiculousness on the forums when it was in alpha and early beta, they didnt listen to a damm single thing, they actually banned people. It's a cancerous game that deserves to be shut down and the lead developers to be black listed by the entire industry.
Do you have links to the "real" numbers?
I followed development and played SW:TOR at launch for a year. The investors reports did not show what you state. The investors reports show rapid decline in the playerbase with the game en-route to being a financial failure: EA stated the break even point was 500k subscribers, but it dropped below 500k between 3 and 6 months after launch.
This is what caused the F2P switch and massive overcharging for cash shop items - they had to do it otherwise the game would have been shut down. The following few investor reports stated a stabilisation of income for SW:TOR, but they stopped publishing SW:TOR-specific data in their investor reports just after F2P switch.
This is all ancient history now of course, but given the initial financial failure of the game, followed by the stabilisation due to F2P (at the break even point), I am obviously intrigued by your statements that the game increased EA stock values and that the game is a shining star for EA. It didn't do well financially, it didn't do well critically, the majority of the public didn't like it, the only thing it is praised for is the class story lines which make up about 2% of the game...
My guess is that EA's stock continues to rise because, as a company, they are experts at marketing sub-par games and make an awful lot of money from doing so. The bulk of their income likely comes from their sport franchise games, but beyond that Dragon Age and Mass Effect series are both more popular that SW:TOR and both series have released games since TOR came out.
Sites - These are the most recent from the last few days showing EA's growth.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/07/electronic-arts-stock-up-500-over-last-5-years-wha.aspx
http://investorplace.com/2017/05/electronic-arts-inc-ea-stock-expect-earnings/#.WRIACUrK00
http://investorplace.com/2017/05/electronic-arts-inc-ea-stock-needs-an-earnings-beat-to-keep-running/#.WRIAZlUrK00
Below is a highlight section from a recent investor call with information specifically mentioned about SWTOR in the game comments section after the intro comments. I just posted the info about SWTOR in quotes.
ELECTRONIC ARTS Q2 FY17
EARLY INVESTOR CALL
PRELIMINARY DATA
PREPARED COMMENTS
MARCH 28, 2017
Thank you. Welcome to EA’s early investor call, quarter 2
fiscal 2017 earnings call. With me on the call today are Andrew Wilson, our
CEO, and Blake Jorgensen, our CFO. Please note that our SEC filings and our
earnings release are available at ir.ea.com. In addition, we have posted
earnings slides to accompany our prepared remarks. Lastly, after the call, we
will post our prepared remarks, an audio replay of this call, our financial
model, and a transcript. With regards to our calendar, Blake will be speaking
at the Morgan Stanley Conference in San Francisco on our Q4 earnings call is
scheduled for Tuesday, May 9, 2017.
This presentation and our comments include forward-looking
statements regarding future events and the future financial performance of the
Company. Actual events and results may differ materially from our expectations.
We refer you to our most recent Form 10-Q for a discussion of risks that could
cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today.
During this call, the financial metrics, with the exception
of free cash flow, will be presented on a GAAP basis. All comparisons made in
the course of this call are against the same period in the prior year unless
otherwise stated.
“We are building our online games today to have a long life with players through outstanding
live services and dynamic content updates. For example, Star Wars: The Old Republic
continues to add new content, driving average gameplay time per player to an
unprecedented total of 155 minutes per day. The release of new Star Wars movies created
a renewed interest in the game causing game subscriptions and overall population to rise
significantly. The increase generated substantial revenue which solidifies our strong belief
and commitment to the game. Player satisfaction scores are among the highest in our
portfolio, showing just how much fun players are having with this game.”
Well, you are certainly welcome to your opinion but that is not true. Having played many (maybe at this point most) of their games I could pick a "white person" all the time though I don't remember what I picked in Jade Empire as I most likely picked someone who looked more Chinese. Not sure how great their art department was in that regard.
Though in truth, other than skin color what is a "white person" supposed to look like? I believe it's more complicated than just skin color and quite frankly I think it has to do more with skull shape.
In any case, um "no".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Think he hit the nail on the head for almost any game put out in the last 8 or 9 years. Developers can't pick something and stick to it. They think they can get a massive amount of players by having everything when in reality they basically just screw up everything because of it. If they could pick a style and stick to it games would be better for everyone. Every game doesn't have to have something for every person.
It means a lot. It means there is no market place for WoW clones anymore. This game is already burdened down with that model (Though it should be working to establish it's own market space and not replicating every mistake WoW makes like skill tree removal) but every game coming into the market should look at SWTOR as an example of what not to do.
The NPC in the game made it feel like walking through lame diorama, as you neared the display it would come to life. They tried to fix this static NPC issue with adding a few pathing NPC that wander around, but after years of this game being out it still feels like a Star Wars Museum/ digital version of Star Tours.
I don't think SW:TOR means there is no market for themeparks, I think that market still exists and would still welcome a good game.
I do, however, think SW:TOR is the perfect example of the difficulties of transitioning from single player games to the MMO market.
On the surface, SW:TOR has a great feature list. It has pretty much everything that you find in other themeparks - quests, main stories, vertical progression, lots of zones, mostly solo, some group, dungeons and raids, instanced and open world pvp, pets, cosmetics etc etc
It really does have an awful lot of features.
The problem, in my opinion, is that Bioware simply don't appreciate the nature of MMOs and so screwed up most of those features. You can see the single player influences everywhere, but it just resulted in a very shallow, short lived experience for most players. Some examples:
Combat
In a single player RPG, you might expect the average gamer to play your game for 50 hours. That means you need a combat system which can be learnt and mastered in that time period. In an MMO, you want your players to keep playing for years. However, SW:TOR retained a very shallow combat system that still only took a short time to master. It meant that the combat, which for the average gamer is what they do most of the time, was just boring. That lack of depth killed the longevity and any sort of skill challenge.
Stories
In a single player game, its fine being the hero. Doesn't work in MMOs (even if most of them try it). It means you have to put yourself in a state of ignorance in order to immerse yourself in the story, then come out of it when you re-enter the normal game world. It just doesn't work unless you only play solo.
Gear Progression
For a single player, its fine to have massive vertical gear progression - it gives you motivation to keep playing and getting better stuff and it is satisfying to see bigger numbers. This is only possible because in a single player game, you don't need to balance against other real people, so you can control everything. In an MMO, vertical progression creates power gaps which creates massive imbalances within the community. Grouping becomes harder, pvp becomes unfair. Its just a dumb move.
PvP
After WAR shut down, the remaining EA Mythic devs joining the SW:TOR team, so all through development we heard stories about how great the pvp was, how important it was in the game and how PvP and PvE would both get roughly the same resources. Yet, their engine couldn't handle it. Ilum used to lag with 20 people and became a slide show by 50. Again, just another sign that Bioware hadn't fully thought out the consequences of building an MMO.
SW:TOR could have been a massive success, despite it being a themepark, if Bioware had taken a bit more time to think through the ramifications of building an MMO. A deeper combat system and better itemisation alone would have solved a lot of problems by making the core activities (combat / questing) more engaging and enjoyable. A better engine would have allowed for some proper world pvp, for example I'd have loved to see a stars wars equivalent of Cyrodiil. With better itemisation, they could have made crafting relevant and engaging - their companion system could have been developed into a really unique micromanagement type system where you could setup your companions almost like bots. They could have tied that into a phone app so you could manage your companions even when not in game, thereby further increasing engagement with the game.
My real and unadulterated view on themepark mmorpgs is the following: they ran their course and hit their peak with Everquest, Everquest 2, and Vanilla World of Warcraft.