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Following in Blizzard's footsteps
whilan
Member UncommonPosts: 3,472
Okay, any regulars here know i'm an avid fan of Star wars the old republic. If you don't? well you'll find out soon enough. Anyhow. I've been looking at what Bioware is doing with their game and it struck in, i think it was yesterday, people keep comparing this game to WoW saying it looks so much like it. Whether you agree or not. Theres one thing if any i think BW is doing that directly copies WoW.
It's not the graphics. gameplay, or sounds. It's how they are going about making their game.
Many times i hear people say what made WoW great was the fact that it took what worked so well in other games, incorporated into their game and polished and made it better.
Now BW is taking what made WoW great: accessability. polish, story, gameplay and adding/incorporating these features into their own. Story is enhanced with VO and choice, their graphics allow for large accessablity of a wider audience. and the gameplay looks great.
It just seems to me that it isn't so much of a WoW clone so to speak more of a repeat of how blizzard made their own MMO.
If this is true, can we expect a game on par and maybe subs near WoW figures? I'm not sure but this seems the right way to g about it
Just a thought. What do you all think?
Edited the second to last line of text to make more sense.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Comments
Its not possible. Where would those subs come from? Out of thin air? Do you really think peopple would leave WoW for another WoW? Why? There is no incentive. Do you happen to think 12 million (or 3 million in NA) more people are going to join the market for SWTOR?
IMO, SWTOR is hoping to steal some of WoW subscribers, which has been shown to be impossible, thus far.
should be the basic of every game
uh, and @ the "why": maybe because they want sci fi!
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Biased talk aside...
Well, we all should already have learned to do not start talking too early about x mmo success
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
So, we look at the history of MMOs recently. Many have been meh, many have been pretty bug free(Relative to AoC or Vanguard, etc), many have been different enough to attract a crowd that is bored with WoW. Many haven't done well.
What Bioware appears to be making is a sci-fi WoW. There is a subscriber base for Sci-fi, there is also a fanbase for Star Wars. There is also, in my case, a subscriber base just because it is Bioware.
While production values are great, many up and coming games have those. (Rift, GW2, SWTOR, etc) So having a fully functioning product isn't going to be a strong draw.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
What i was more interested in talking about is do you think this is BW goal, to follow the idea of how blizzard did their product (incorporating features from other games, polishing, adding good story) more so whether it will be a success or not.
I'm just wondering if people think BW isn't so much trying to make a WoW clone but make a clone of blizzards business model.
Whether that will be the key to success is unknown to me but i think it's the best possible chance at the moment.
I apoligize for the second to the last line about saying it would do well. I edited so as not to assume anything.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I think Bioware like Blizzard is designing the game "with the times" **AND** are doing it in line with the "new" times (post "We Believe in Change", financial collapse, "Jay Leno distrust" etc.).
This is why I think Blizzard is out dated. The entire game was designed with/on/in/through an old behavior no longer prevalent. If Bioware is following the new wave -- and from the beginning they seem to have a completely different attitude that was hard for me to understand -- then they should be successful.
Had they or if they follow the old attitude they're a sinker.
Obviously Blizzard can change too with its new mmo (which won't even be ANNOUNCED till at best 2012) but their current money maker is a piece of trash only desperately -- getting back on topic...
There are MANY things that Bioware is taking from the successful run of WoW. But the way that they are integrating those successes is what will *strike* people and ultimately make the game a success.
A lot of developers have a problem just DOING those successes let alone integrating them all to a coherent message. Then you have others that focus too much on the integration and not enough on the actual product itself (Warhammer comes to mind..). If you can DO what people like and integrate them together in the way that people want - you'll get your money.
Just a thought.
Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.
No it wont rival wow , cant happen especially not till after maybe 2 years if lucky .
First off all Bioware bring there own set of fans , just like blizzard did with battlenet fans .
Those are the first subscribers , they dont want there beloved game producer going bankrubt .
So just chuck in 1-2 million (some of them are from wow ) but truth is 1-2 million bioware fans is realistic .
Star wars fans , that really depends on marketing commercials and peeking there interest .
Dont forget Blizzard didn´t had more then 3 million subscribers in the west , till they released WOW in asia .
Then they hyped there numbers up to 8 million , and that did the trick .
Especially NA audience are very fast attracted to hypes , 8 million sure sounds beter then 3 million people playing .
For bioware to start they need to get a solid foothold in the west , and honestly its not the MMO crowd that they target first.
Just like Blizzard did , its there own loyal fanbase they need to convince .
Those they need first , so basically with 3 language only , french german and englishe , they wont target the south european or russian market , and unlike wow who found 2 additional gold mines in spanishe and russian servers .
Thats going to cost them 500k subscribers atleast .
So number on worldwide sales , that will be huge , but actual number of subscribers that stays after 3 months .
If product is good , will be around 1-2 million from there on they can see if they can increase the market .
The big QQ is offcourse what will WoW fans do , dont forget a lot of organisers of wow community are overburned .
And seems cataclysme wont bring different solutions to a excisting problem ,
You might see a portion of those jump ship , simply but tired of wow especially after 6 years .
Especially if SWTOR community is beter , thats the question will the release of SWTOR bring a beter community .
Or will it set foot just like all the others and the community drives mature people away .
Dunno, i think that the VO may not work out as well as some think it will.
Same with the story. Too many cut scenes, and VO might very well limit the people that are interested rather than make more be willing to stay.
I think they will have a pretty good launch if they start out with few bugs and very low server problems. If they can keep those past a month or 2 is the big question to me.
Seems more people are more interested in faster pace to their games now. Taking the time to read story or even listen and watch seems like something a lot will just wish to skip past if at all possible.
Even if done perfectly, i just am not too sure how large the market is for a real in depth story, and VO in a game. Hope they do well, but just have to wait and see.
Last thing, i really hope they wait till game is REALLY ready. Very few bugs and everything working very well on servers, and connections and all. I still think that the release is one of the most important things a game can do. If a game has a bad release they garner so much neg publicity that it can seriously hurt the game very quickly.
One thing a game can very rarely do, is to get a good rep after having a bad launch.
Really?
You think that all the other MMO players just came out of thin air to play WoW too huh? You realize that the top games, in the west were 400-500k or thereabouts, right? So where did Blizzard find it's subscribers?
I wont suggest that there is just one answer, but look at the whole picture. They had a fanbase from their RTS series, they had a great rep as a game company, the made a game that would run on most systems, they took many of the best features of other MMO's, and they polished the game like crazy. They really made the genre a mainstream (kind of) success.
Now I dont know that SWTOR can do the same thing, in fact I'd say the odds are against them. However, they have one of the most successful IP's around, one that just about everyone in the world has been exposed to in some way, shape or form. They also appear to be following the book that Blizzard wrote. They are trying to emulate it, so I certainly wont say that they wont have a shot to expand the market the same way Blizzard did over time. Likely? Maybe not. Possible? Sure.
I think TOR will be a worthy competitor when it hits the market, nothing more and nothing less. If it's not, there are other fish in the sea.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I can't see any game that I've heard of yet that will ever match 12 million concurrent subbers.
7+ million asian players just won't be touched anytime soon. That's just a fact. TOR won't get that many asian players, GW2 won't, TERA won't, and those are the big contenders. They don't pay monthly subs. Which is slightly weird in it's own way.
Could I see TOR getting 4+ million? Sure! But that will be 3++ million of EU/US players.
GW2 doesn't have subs, they just will sell copies. I could easily see them selling 3 million copies over the first couple months. I think this game would have a slightly larger asian fan base. But yet they still won't pull "12 million subs".
I don't think there's any doubt for me that ToR will do well, just how well I'm not quite certain. If it can get 1 million steady subs it will be in better shape than every other non WoW MMO.
I see a game that will attract alot of WoW players because it is very basic, seems fun and easy to get into. Almost exactly the same reasons why alot of WoW players play WoW. TOR is going to do well.
I think I can see the point you are making though I hate to throw around the phrase "like WOW", I kind of have the same feeling about what it appears BW is trying to achieve in adding high production value (and hopefully polish) into TOR.
I still don't think that anyone from BW has actually sat back and thought "hey! Blizzard did it this way so maybe we should" as much as Bioware is keeping with the standard they have set for themselves. Which really isn't that different because Blizzard has tended to follow that same pattern with the non mmorpg's they made too, high quality games that they released when ready.
I'm not sure about speculating if BW can reach Blizzard type numbers or not since WOW is such an exception in the genre. If I felt comfortable about guessing anything it would be that it will do better than WOW or any other mmorpg did at launch. If I was going to guess even further it would be that the retention rate may be higher than the average mmorpg (and many peoples expectations).
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I have never believed in the term before, but I am going out on a limb in a big way and calling this a WOW-killer. People will think I am insane for saying it, but I think it will be.
WOW killed Everquest....
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Business model would be the wrong thing for which you are trying to get across i think. Business model refers to the means in which business is conducted, so subscription based games are a business model.
I think what you are going for is that they hope to achieve Blizzard's design decisions which were influenced by their wide target audience. In order to achieve appeal for the Target Audience Blizzard not only obtained but helped define, visual, technical and design is catered then to that particular group.
Sadly, the result will be a pretty shoddy game in my opinion, since the wider your audience, the less defined the game will be in how it specializes in a particular area. Blizzard was good in offering multiple playstyles for different gamer types, every indicator i see shows BW not really capitalizing on that fact.
SWTOR sadly will be a flop in that they will not be able to achieve their projected numbers, however I dont think it will be bad enough for the game to go under, rather it just wont result in the type of success Blizzard is able to achieve. EA isnt really good when it comes to the MMORPG market just yet, and BW is too focused on the single player rpg approach.
Finally, the competition for next year is going to be tough... guild wars 2, Rift: Planes of Telara, and Tera. While SWTOR will be one of the few Sci Fi rpgs, sci fi mmorpgs are still considered niche.
i say, so what? if it copies this and that everyone copies everyone and try to be somewhat unique failing mostly.
its only good if we get even decend challengers of wows ultimacy. and copies wow hmm if it copies pvp you can play good guys or bad guys its only good.
also like some dude say earlier we should have learned not to have so much opinions about x mmos unrealeased yet.
i also say, be patient , wait, play and judge bash whatever you are titled to your opinion afterwards. gg
cheers
We have no idea of how well it will do, but it does seem that Bioware is taking their time and trying to be innovative. That's a good groundwork for a successful game. Not saying that it will be, just that they seem to be doing this right.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I agree with your assessment OP. I don't think the game looks like a WoW clone, but I do think they are going about its design the same way Blizzard did... which is a very good thing. Only time will tell if it works out though.
I agree, but really this is not so much *Blizzards goal* as it is just general practice in the whole industry, even in Indie games.
BioWare does it with their other franchises as well.
Everything becomes more polished, accessible and so on; it doesn't always turn out right in other games either, nor does it in MMO's.
There are a couple of games which still cling to old ways rigirously, but they're not often successful.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Once the initial excitement passes and all the hype has evaporated and things settle down into the long haul for SWTOR, will it really matter if their are 20 servers or 200? each of us will only be concerned with the 1 or 2 that we play on. The question is, will there be enough subs so that EA/Bio/Mythic can and will continue(?) to turn out high quality content. I would put that number somewhere around the 1million mark world wide. If they can sustain 1m+ they will be able to retain enough staff on the project to produce regular content for several years. Anything over 100k will be enough to keep the lights on but may not convince the suits to continue improvements past a year or so.
I think this title, combined with the "lets stick to the basics" attitude might not be and exciting approach but I suspect it will be successful. And by successful I think it will double and then settle back into somewhere close to the 1 million mark. At least it has more potential to hit this kind of success than most any recent mmo title.
All die, so die well.
I actually think this is exactly what Bioware is hoping to do. Draw a new generation of people into the MMO market rather than try to steal away from the existing market share. I’m sure a good deal of existing MMO players will try TOR and a much smaller number will stick with the game but if anyone is going to be WoW successful they are going to need to draw in new blood to do it. It’s just not realistic to expect large numbers of people that have years of time and have developed in many cases close social ties in game to leave to WOW in large numbers. Over time I expect WoW’s numbers to dwindle as people drift away to other games but I just don’t see anything short of a revolutionary technology/game design (think holodeck) change having any meaningful impact on that game.
Never forget that MMO’s only make up a small part of the overall game market so it’s not like Bioware doesn’t have a good deal of room to grow into that space if they can create the right mix of accessibility and appeal.
Why is it not possible? are people secretly banned from playing more than one MMO?? i'm not gonna say anything about sub numbers etc but your basis for saying "its not possible" is completely daft. i know many who play multiple MMO's and i myself was subbed to SWG and AoC for a while because i liked both games, but what your saying is just because a person plays one MMO their not allowed to sub to another.
Your opinion is your own and you have a right to it but i'm pretty sure that no games developer plans on stealing players from other games no matter what they are, they simply make a game and then hope for good numbers in order to recieve income.
IMO, i hope SW:TOR doesn't take any players from WOW, fair enough their are plenty of decent people who play WOW but a lot of WOW players want simplicity and things to work exactly how they are used to. (my opinions and experiences of WOW players who i've known online and those who have posted in various game forums/moaned in games forums)
It simply is not going to happen. Certainly not with a Science Fiction game.
SW:TOR will have the same faith as all other launched MMO's in the past 8 years (well except Wow and Eve).
X = number of pre orders at launch day Y
X + 50% sales during the first 2-3 weeks.
Y + 3 months = 30% retention rate (meaning only 1 out of 3 will want to pay a subscription after 3 months).
Sales at Y+ 3 months are a meager 5% of the iniital sales.
Meaning: half of the launching servers will be void of players after 4 months.
Y + 6/9 months: game (due to no new recruitment of players) will be at around 20% of the X initial launch period.
You fill in : 1.5 M = 300K - 2 M = 400K etc.
Since it is a pure PC and western launch: 400 K subscriptions is the absolute maximum it will get after 9 months.
All the rest is filling in the blanks and a waste of time discussing the obvious.
WoW is not growing that much any more. What does SW:TOR do to attract new people to MMO hobby? GW2 sure does but SW:TOR?
At the same time it is too huge project to be the second coming of long gone geek haven we are naively hoping for. It can be better LOTRO, I guess, by the recent and not so recent failures that could count as success.