Most MMO's attract a very large percentage of non MMO players. Most players simply do not play MMOs they just pretend to. Unlike the veran players most of these players are box sale players only and will only last a few months in a MMO. They dominate the boards, help dumb down games and are a big part of the revenue but they are not real players and are impossible to keep happy.
SWTOR is pulling strong from this type of casual player. Given the type of gameplay, action combat, super fast leveling and untested endgame content I doubt many MMO veteran players will be attracted to SWTOR. I am amazed but out of hundreds of MMO friends from amy different guilds I know no one playing SWTOR at release.
Untested endgame? Not true.
Super fast leveling? not true. Rift was super fast leveling, this is significantly longer than that.
Dominate the boards? Ha! The people that dominate the boards are not the casual box sale players, it's the jaded veteran's that have played every mmo. Most people don't use forums at all, especially the casual crowd.
"Not real players?" What the hell is a real player? I think anyone playing the game, who is also a real person, is a "real player."
Rift was 50-100 hours on release, Tor is 30-50 hours. 2-3 weeks ago I recived an email that Bioware sent to all beta testers that opened a special Endgametest server to start testing the endgame content. I don't call 2 weeks of testing testd content. I hope SWTOR does it well. It is a good game for what it is. But its target market is not veteran EQ1/UO type players.
Most likely not, ToR as a game is much more niche and has a much higher "entry" requirments than WoW, it is not a game that any one could pickup and relate too, not because its SW but becasue of the whole store and char development mechanics that WoW lacked. WoW was and still is a very good game but it's entry bar especially after WOTLK is set so low that litterly any one can pick it up - it is the farmvile of MMO's simple mechanics and instant and constant gratification via dings and shiny new loot.
Entry requirements to get all of the WoW content right now is over $100 to buy the game and all expansions plus subscription.
TOR (the o stands for old not of) is not a niche product by any stretch of the imagination. That is just laughable. It has already sold millions of preorders and will continue to sell more. The largest MMO launch in history is not a "niche."
I think it definitely will be attracting a lot of non-mmo players. First of all, you have Star Wars fans. Second of all, you have Bioware fans. And third of all, and this is the biggest reason, you have a game that can be played as a single player rpg if you are so inclined due to the story content alone. This is going to be attractive for a number of new players to the mmo scene, and I think it will be good for the industry. Is it going to be at the level WoW was in terms of introducing the genre to people? No, obviously not. But there will be a good amount of MMO newbies willing to give it a shot.
Rift was 50-100 hours on release, Tor is 30-50 hours. 2-3 weeks ago I recived an email that Bioware sent to all beta testers that opened a special Endgametest server to start testing the endgame content. I don't call 2 weeks of testing testd content. I have nothing gsint the game and I hop it does it well. It is a good game for what it is. But its target market is not veteran EQ1/UO type players.
I have not really searched in depth, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of in-depth reviews and details about the end game - imo.
If it was really strong, I would expect to see a lot more press about it. Is there a lot of positive press about it?
Most likely not, ToR as a game is much more niche and has a much higher "entry" requirments than WoW, it is not a game that any one could pickup and relate too, not because its SW but becasue of the whole store and char development mechanics that WoW lacked. WoW was and still is a very good game but it's entry bar especially after WOTLK is set so low that litterly any one can pick it up - it is the farmvile of MMO's simple mechanics and instant and constant gratification via dings and shiny new loot.
Entry requirements to get all of the WoW content right now is over $100 to buy the game and all expansions plus subscription.
TOR (the o stands for old not of) is not a niche product by any stretch of the imagination. That is just laughable. It has already sold millions of preorders and will continue to sell more. The largest MMO launch in history is not a "niche."
You do realize that a niche can be a billion people too right? 1M out of say 20M MMO players, and proably close to 100M players of various other games from bejewled to Call of Duty can still be considered Nieche.
Any how back to your "remarks" WoW Costs today 35US with all the expanions 5 US for the "Battle Chest"(WoW+TBC) 10 for WOTLK, and 20 for cata, those are the prices on the Blizzard US Store and you can find it even at lower prices in some shop's i dont live in the US but i've seen complete WoW bundles for as low as 25GBP in stores like TESCO in the UK, and around 30 Euro's in Target in germany.
Yes ToR is a nieche game take it as you will but the whole fact that it has a story, dialog and char progression makes it much harder for say an 8 yr old or his grandma to pick up, and i've seen whole families playing WoW from grand children to grand parents i've seen quite a few family run guilds even.
Rift was 50-100 hours on release, Tor is 30-50 hours.
Sorry, but there are enough beta tester reports around that completely countermand this claim you're trying to make.
Originally posted by Zippy
I am amazed but out of hundreds of MMO friends from amy different guilds I know no one playing SWTOR at release.
This is another kind of extreme statement that makes me raise my eyebrows and suspect the use of hyperbole exaggerations in your arguments. You might be the rare case where indeed none of the hundreds of people you know playing MMO's intends to play SWTOR, but it'd be rare nonetheless.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I am amazed but out of hundreds of MMO friends from amy different guilds I know no one playing SWTOR at release.
This is another kind of extreme statement that makes me raise my eyebrows and suspect the use of hyperbole exaggerations in your arguments. You might be the rare case where indeed none of the hundreds of people you know playing MMO's intends to play SWTOR, but it'd be rare nonetheless.
While hundreds might be an exaggeration in this case, there are going to be a number of people that do not buy TOR, so it is not surprising to see people not seeing their associates rushing out to buy it.
I have certainly seen enough negative reviews from people that tried the weekend that are not interested in the game, as well as those that tend to agree with the feeling, to make it a credible claim.
Rift was 50-100 hours on release, Tor is 30-50 hours. 2-3 weeks ago I recived an email that Bioware sent to all beta testers that opened a special Endgametest server to start testing the endgame content. I don't call 2 weeks of testing testd content. I hope SWTOR does it well. It is a good game for what it is. But its target market is not veteran EQ1/UO type players.
30-50 hours?! More like 80 - 100 for the first play-through, and even then only if you spacebar all the way. By that logic I would have amassed an army of 50's during testing. And I didn't. I put in well over 120 hours on my first character and got to level 43. You'd need to know the maps and the stories inside out and backwards to hit 50 in 50 hours. Not gonna happen on a first playthough.
I know of plenty of testers who saw end-game in various builds. The high-level server was to broaden the scope of testing on the later planets (Belsavis, Voss, Corellia, Ilum). Lot of people played multiple classes to the end of Act 1 or Act 2, but there was a huge chunk of players who didn't want to spoil the story by playing through to the end before launch.
It was the one area where story mattering probably stung the testing process. That said, when I started testing in the summer, there were people already testing 'endgame', as in running with level 50s. You can't seriously say that there was only 2 weeks of testing done on the late game. You can claim it, but that can be countered with facts such as people were already testing it in early June, and an old testing adage about how more eyes never hurt, which is probably what led to the pre-made 40+ characters being made available in the first place (and they didn't only do that once).
Rift was 50-100 hours on release, Tor is 30-50 hours.
Sorry, but there are enough beta tester reports around that completely countermand this claim you're trying to make.
Originally posted by Zippy
I am amazed but out of hundreds of MMO friends from amy different guilds I know no one playing SWTOR at release.
This is another kind of extreme statement that makes me raise my eyebrows and suspect the use of hyperbole exaggerations in your arguments. You might be the rare case where indeed none of the hundreds of people you know playing MMO's intends to play SWTOR, but it'd be rare nonetheless.
Well I've been a memeber of several cross-game guilds which played MMO's for about a decade now and switched from game to game, 3 of them with about 160-170 members total are switching to ToR, on allot of the WoW/MMO forums of other sites there are huge threads which serv as "transfer lists" so people could find their buddies from WoW on ToR.
OFC those numbers are still meaningless because even if i could quantify 10000 people who are switching from WoW to ToR with WoW's 10M player base it's not a real impact.
I am amazed but out of hundreds of MMO friends from amy different guilds I know no one playing SWTOR at release.
This is another kind of extreme statement that makes me raise my eyebrows and suspect the use of hyperbole exaggerations in your arguments. You might be the rare case where indeed none of the hundreds of people you know playing MMO's intends to play SWTOR, but it'd be rare nonetheless.
While hundreds might be an exaggeration in this case, there are going to be a number of people that do not buy TOR, so it is not surprising to see people not seeing their associates rushing out to buy it.
I have certainly seen enough negative reviews from people that tried the weekend that are not interested in the game, as well as those that tend to agree with the feeling, to make it a credible claim.
Why are you trying to counter a claim I never made in the first place?
I never said that I don't believe that not everyone will play SWTOR. I questioned his statement that of all of the many people he knew ('hundreds of MMO friends') there was not one who intended to play SWTOR when it arrives. The extremity of that statement is what made me suspect the use of hyperbole exaggeration in his arguments, and having a loose view of the truth.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
When did they open up end game to testing to the beta testers? Iirc, it was not until recently, and I do not think it was available during the summer.
You could level to 50 in the summer. Ilum was available for a few builds, not sure of dates, I think around September.
What was held back were the heroic flashpoints and Operations, for a while it looked like no-one would get to try Operations at all (but to be fair, who wants a frapsed beat the bosses guide up before the game has even launched?). But they (Eternity Vault and Faathra's Palace) were both available for testing before it ended. For anyone who had levelled high enough to attempt them ; )
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
I think people will 'try it', much like they tried other games. Iirc, SWG and STO both sold over a million boxes at release, but failed to retain most of those subscribers by the 3rd month.
So for me, it is less about how many boxes, but rather how many are still around 3 or 4 months later. Box sales, imo, indicate how well the game was Hyped. Sub retention +3 months later is a good indication of how captivating the gameplay is.
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
I concur, however many of these two groups already play (or have played) MMOs before.
One would think that most of the rpg crowd mixes well with the mmo crowd. i think the fps crowd and casual gamers are prolly the most distant from mmo's
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
I concur, however many of these two groups already play (or have played) MMOs before.
Well Star Wars Galaxies failed to attract new blood into the genre, as did STO and LOTRO for the most part. Even the release of the Star Wars Prequal and KotoR did bring a lot of new blood to SWG.
Blizzard seems to be the only one to have been able to attract and retain new blood.
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
I concur, however many of these two groups already play (or have played) MMOs before.
Well Star Wars Galaxies failed to attract new blood into the genre, as did STO and LOTRO for the most part.
Blizzard seems to be the only one to have been able to attract and retain new blood.
Star Wars Galaxies was never going to attract new blood into the genre because it wasn't a player-friendly game. It was a strict sandbox game with little content and a fairly steep learning curve. In short, it was a game for hardcore gamers, not people new to the genre. So that's not the best example.
Star Trek Online was just a shitty game. No nice way to put that. It got terrible reviews early on, the ground combat was a trainwreck, and it didn't have a great deal of content. Again...not a great example.
I'd be willing to give you LOTRO, however, because it was modeled after WoW, was a solid, polished game, and did have an extremely easy learning curve. Still, I'm not sure you can conclusively say that it didn't attract new blood, since I'm not aware of any actual stats for that. However, it did very well in terms of customer retention and has a very loyal fanbase after 5 years on the market. The move to F2P was a result of DDO's success with that model, not because the game was in any danger of dying.
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
I think people will 'try it', much like they tried other games. Iirc, SWG and STO both sold over a million boxes at release, but failed to retain most of those subscribers by the 3rd month.
So for me, it is less about how many boxes, but rather how many are still around 3 or 4 months later. Box sales, imo, indicate how well the game was Hyped. Sub retention +3 months later is a good indication of how captivating the gameplay is.
Bear in mind, the OP said non MMO players.
MMOs are still very mucha niche. Most of the casual gamers I meet in everyday life play mostly on consoles. If they are PC gamers, it's mostly relegated to RTSes like SC2, shooters, or mobas like LoL.
I agree for an MMO, sub retention is what counts. I think SWTOR will be poor in that regard concerning the 2 groups I mentioned mainly because:
a) the first group, BW's current SRPG fanbase - are wary of MMOs. they're gamers and they know that MMOs go no where ie. player will be forever chasing the carrot. They will buy the game, play for the free month and then some but most will be gone by your "3 month mark".
b) SW fans - little dicier to predict; but I don't see them doing operations or whatnot at end-game. Given the MMORPG playerbase mentality, they too will quit when they realise that their future basically ends at 50.
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
I concur, however many of these two groups already play (or have played) MMOs before.
Well Star Wars Galaxies failed to attract new blood into the genre, as did STO and LOTRO for the most part. Even the release of the Star Wars Prequal and KotoR did bring a lot of new blood to SWG.
Blizzard seems to be the only one to have been able to attract and retain new blood.
Agree again. People definitely don't give Blizzard enough credit, but that is certainly one of the X factors of WoW... that it has the potential to make MMORPG gamers out of people who typically don't play MMOs (RTS players, shooter players, Sims players, etc).
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I think that TOR is mostly attracting Bioware followers so the answer is yes. I say that because this a disproportionate number of people that for some reason think first month box sales matter. All of the bad reviews are written off as Bioware haters, which is one of the more foolish statements I have heard. I think TOR is an attempt to only go after the Star Wars fan base, mostly the younger Star Wars fan base. I also think their going to pay a price for doing so.
Seems like I hear a lot about people who typically don't play MMOs are really interested in SWTOR. How do you think this will effect the mmo community? I saw where someone released a short FAQ for newcomers to the genre http://www.roboawesome.com/?p=20727
It worked for me in helping me adjust.
I do have a feeling there will be a lot of hating on them.
Initially, it will attract wannabe MMOers and a lot of SW fans that don't play MMOs.
When the game gets harder (Taken from the words of Wharghoul). they quit and stop paying the monthly fee.
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
I concur, however many of these two groups already play (or have played) MMOs before.
Well Star Wars Galaxies failed to attract new blood into the genre, as did STO and LOTRO for the most part. Even the release of the Star Wars Prequal and KotoR did bring a lot of new blood to SWG.
Blizzard seems to be the only one to have been able to attract and retain new blood.
I'm gonna throw out pure speculation here. But, interesting none the least.
Ok so SWG release in June of '03, EVE released may '03, WoW released in November of '04, STO released in Feburary '10, LOTRO was april '07.
I'm gonna start with LOTRO. On it's arrival the WoW craziness was in full swing. Why the diehards of tolkien and rings probably all jumped ship and pursued this game, along with some of the MMO community. In all it's beauty, was not better then WoW.
While Star Trek has a good loyal following, I don't think ST was / is as popular as SW. And this point here is valid for all games. Once a game comes out, the reason it attracts more people after launch, is I would say 70% word of mouth. Between friends, co-workers, blogs etc... While this game came out, Blizzard was announcing 12 million, again 12 millon people "are" playing WoW. Sorry but word of mouth, blogs and co-workers talking about how bad STO failed at launch, why would that game ever see en masse people go to it?
When SWG went live in '03, at that time I do believe EQ was the most popular game. AC was in there, and I'm sure a few others. SWG went live (and while I'm not hunting numbers down) I'm sure this game had quite the release. SW appeals to millions, and still does. At this time EQ a good themepark MMO was going. I'm sure many left to go to SWG, and upon playing a themepark style for so long, (My opinion here) that the sandbox style of SWG did not appeal to many. While I'm sure people were looking for something new as EQ was 4 years old, and many UO'ers and sandbox fan's in general were wanting a new fix.
Or should I say it appealed to plenty, cause at this time I do think alot of sandboxers had there hands in EVE which released just a month before SWG did. So quite honestly probably the best two sandbox games released in the last 10 years (speculation) went up head to head against each other. Thinning out the sandbox fan's / crowd even more.
So with WoW getting ready to shoot out the gate, just about a year and a half later. Many people still playing EQ, and AC. While EVE and SWG the two new kids on the block were opening there doors and spreading there wings.
WoW releases with a fairly recognizable IP, nothing like SW or probably even STO. But, by this time STO was I do believe in disaray, and SWG was competing with fellow sandbox game EVE. While the other games I mentioned still kicking. But, here this game releases. Nothing special at all, plenty of issues at launch. But, definetely more on the path of EQ. But, also more friendly to many. (throw in your own reason's here) But, WoW explodes word of mouth. People, kids, aunts, uncles hell even Mr. T! This game as so many sandboxers say appeals to the mass's. (also throw in your own speculation here) But, it's still the fact! That whatever they (Blizzard) put in the kool-aid at the time worked! And it worked like no other game company has ever seen!
Why you are entitled to say whatever you want or think what you want about all the said games above. There is only one of them, that did it completely right when it comes to mass appeal! And I'm not knocking a single one of any of these games. But, what WoW did is still to this day mind blowing! Because it appealed to so many!
With all this wall of text I'm just simply gonna give my inital response to playing the game and hearing the hyperbole.
I think that TOR is mostly attracting Bioware followers so the answer is yes. I say that because this a disproportionate number of people that for some reason think first month box sales matter. All of the bad reviews are written off as Bioware haters, which is one of the more foolish statements I have heard. I think TOR is an attempt to only go after the Star Wars fan base, mostly the younger Star Wars fan base. I also think their going to pay a price for doing so.
Not nearly as foolish as all of the good reviews being disregarded as paid endorsements by EA shills, which seems to be the general consensus amongst those that hope the game fails. And your sweeping and inaccurate generalization about the age of Star Wars fans who will play this game aside, we'll know for sure how this game will hold up at the 6 month mark. But I definitely think there are a lot of people underestimating its appeal.
Comments
Rift was 50-100 hours on release, Tor is 30-50 hours. 2-3 weeks ago I recived an email that Bioware sent to all beta testers that opened a special Endgametest server to start testing the endgame content. I don't call 2 weeks of testing testd content. I hope SWTOR does it well. It is a good game for what it is. But its target market is not veteran EQ1/UO type players.
Entry requirements to get all of the WoW content right now is over $100 to buy the game and all expansions plus subscription.
TOR (the o stands for old not of) is not a niche product by any stretch of the imagination. That is just laughable. It has already sold millions of preorders and will continue to sell more. The largest MMO launch in history is not a "niche."
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
I think it definitely will be attracting a lot of non-mmo players. First of all, you have Star Wars fans. Second of all, you have Bioware fans. And third of all, and this is the biggest reason, you have a game that can be played as a single player rpg if you are so inclined due to the story content alone. This is going to be attractive for a number of new players to the mmo scene, and I think it will be good for the industry. Is it going to be at the level WoW was in terms of introducing the genre to people? No, obviously not. But there will be a good amount of MMO newbies willing to give it a shot.
I have not really searched in depth, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of in-depth reviews and details about the end game - imo.
If it was really strong, I would expect to see a lot more press about it. Is there a lot of positive press about it?
Let's not bait other users. Thanks!
You do realize that a niche can be a billion people too right? 1M out of say 20M MMO players, and proably close to 100M players of various other games from bejewled to Call of Duty can still be considered Nieche.
Any how back to your "remarks" WoW Costs today 35US with all the expanions 5 US for the "Battle Chest"(WoW+TBC) 10 for WOTLK, and 20 for cata, those are the prices on the Blizzard US Store and you can find it even at lower prices in some shop's i dont live in the US but i've seen complete WoW bundles for as low as 25GBP in stores like TESCO in the UK, and around 30 Euro's in Target in germany.
http://us.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=f:1
Yes ToR is a nieche game take it as you will but the whole fact that it has a story, dialog and char progression makes it much harder for say an 8 yr old or his grandma to pick up, and i've seen whole families playing WoW from grand children to grand parents i've seen quite a few family run guilds even.
Sorry, but there are enough beta tester reports around that completely countermand this claim you're trying to make.
This is another kind of extreme statement that makes me raise my eyebrows and suspect the use of hyperbole exaggerations in your arguments. You might be the rare case where indeed none of the hundreds of people you know playing MMO's intends to play SWTOR, but it'd be rare nonetheless.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
While hundreds might be an exaggeration in this case, there are going to be a number of people that do not buy TOR, so it is not surprising to see people not seeing their associates rushing out to buy it.
I have certainly seen enough negative reviews from people that tried the weekend that are not interested in the game, as well as those that tend to agree with the feeling, to make it a credible claim.
30-50 hours?! More like 80 - 100 for the first play-through, and even then only if you spacebar all the way. By that logic I would have amassed an army of 50's during testing. And I didn't. I put in well over 120 hours on my first character and got to level 43. You'd need to know the maps and the stories inside out and backwards to hit 50 in 50 hours. Not gonna happen on a first playthough.
I know of plenty of testers who saw end-game in various builds. The high-level server was to broaden the scope of testing on the later planets (Belsavis, Voss, Corellia, Ilum). Lot of people played multiple classes to the end of Act 1 or Act 2, but there was a huge chunk of players who didn't want to spoil the story by playing through to the end before launch.
It was the one area where story mattering probably stung the testing process. That said, when I started testing in the summer, there were people already testing 'endgame', as in running with level 50s. You can't seriously say that there was only 2 weeks of testing done on the late game. You can claim it, but that can be countered with facts such as people were already testing it in early June, and an old testing adage about how more eyes never hurt, which is probably what led to the pre-made 40+ characters being made available in the first place (and they didn't only do that once).
Well I've been a memeber of several cross-game guilds which played MMO's for about a decade now and switched from game to game, 3 of them with about 160-170 members total are switching to ToR, on allot of the WoW/MMO forums of other sites there are huge threads which serv as "transfer lists" so people could find their buddies from WoW on ToR.
OFC those numbers are still meaningless because even if i could quantify 10000 people who are switching from WoW to ToR with WoW's 10M player base it's not a real impact.
When did they open up end game to testing to the beta testers? Iirc, it was not until recently, and I do not think it was available during the summer.
Edit: seeing some discussion about it on some forums, but that was pre-nda, so not sure about accuracy.
Is there a Dev comment indicating when End Game content was made available to testers, and when most of the end game content was available?
Why are you trying to counter a claim I never made in the first place?
I never said that I don't believe that not everyone will play SWTOR. I questioned his statement that of all of the many people he knew ('hundreds of MMO friends') there was not one who intended to play SWTOR when it arrives. The extremity of that statement is what made me suspect the use of hyperbole exaggeration in his arguments, and having a loose view of the truth.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
You could level to 50 in the summer. Ilum was available for a few builds, not sure of dates, I think around September.
What was held back were the heroic flashpoints and Operations, for a while it looked like no-one would get to try Operations at all (but to be fair, who wants a frapsed beat the bosses guide up before the game has even launched?). But they (Eternity Vault and Faathra's Palace) were both available for testing before it ended. For anyone who had levelled high enough to attempt them ; )
I can totally see BW's SRPG fanbase trying TOR for the first couple of months.
I can also see SW fans giving this game a try.
Not many people outside that group.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
I think people will 'try it', much like they tried other games. Iirc, SWG and STO both sold over a million boxes at release, but failed to retain most of those subscribers by the 3rd month.
So for me, it is less about how many boxes, but rather how many are still around 3 or 4 months later. Box sales, imo, indicate how well the game was Hyped. Sub retention +3 months later is a good indication of how captivating the gameplay is.
I concur, however many of these two groups already play (or have played) MMOs before.
One would think that most of the rpg crowd mixes well with the mmo crowd. i think the fps crowd and casual gamers are prolly the most distant from mmo's
Well Star Wars Galaxies failed to attract new blood into the genre, as did STO and LOTRO for the most part. Even the release of the Star Wars Prequal and KotoR did bring a lot of new blood to SWG.
Blizzard seems to be the only one to have been able to attract and retain new blood.
Star Wars Galaxies was never going to attract new blood into the genre because it wasn't a player-friendly game. It was a strict sandbox game with little content and a fairly steep learning curve. In short, it was a game for hardcore gamers, not people new to the genre. So that's not the best example.
Star Trek Online was just a shitty game. No nice way to put that. It got terrible reviews early on, the ground combat was a trainwreck, and it didn't have a great deal of content. Again...not a great example.
I'd be willing to give you LOTRO, however, because it was modeled after WoW, was a solid, polished game, and did have an extremely easy learning curve. Still, I'm not sure you can conclusively say that it didn't attract new blood, since I'm not aware of any actual stats for that. However, it did very well in terms of customer retention and has a very loyal fanbase after 5 years on the market. The move to F2P was a result of DDO's success with that model, not because the game was in any danger of dying.
Bear in mind, the OP said non MMO players.
MMOs are still very mucha niche. Most of the casual gamers I meet in everyday life play mostly on consoles. If they are PC gamers, it's mostly relegated to RTSes like SC2, shooters, or mobas like LoL.
I agree for an MMO, sub retention is what counts. I think SWTOR will be poor in that regard concerning the 2 groups I mentioned mainly because:
a) the first group, BW's current SRPG fanbase - are wary of MMOs. they're gamers and they know that MMOs go no where ie. player will be forever chasing the carrot. They will buy the game, play for the free month and then some but most will be gone by your "3 month mark".
b) SW fans - little dicier to predict; but I don't see them doing operations or whatnot at end-game. Given the MMORPG playerbase mentality, they too will quit when they realise that their future basically ends at 50.
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Agree again. People definitely don't give Blizzard enough credit, but that is certainly one of the X factors of WoW... that it has the potential to make MMORPG gamers out of people who typically don't play MMOs (RTS players, shooter players, Sims players, etc).
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
I think that TOR is mostly attracting Bioware followers so the answer is yes. I say that because this a disproportionate number of people that for some reason think first month box sales matter. All of the bad reviews are written off as Bioware haters, which is one of the more foolish statements I have heard. I think TOR is an attempt to only go after the Star Wars fan base, mostly the younger Star Wars fan base. I also think their going to pay a price for doing so.
Initially, it will attract wannabe MMOers and a lot of SW fans that don't play MMOs.
When the game gets harder (Taken from the words of Wharghoul). they quit and stop paying the monthly fee.
I'm gonna throw out pure speculation here. But, interesting none the least.
Ok so SWG release in June of '03, EVE released may '03, WoW released in November of '04, STO released in Feburary '10, LOTRO was april '07.
I'm gonna start with LOTRO. On it's arrival the WoW craziness was in full swing. Why the diehards of tolkien and rings probably all jumped ship and pursued this game, along with some of the MMO community. In all it's beauty, was not better then WoW.
While Star Trek has a good loyal following, I don't think ST was / is as popular as SW. And this point here is valid for all games. Once a game comes out, the reason it attracts more people after launch, is I would say 70% word of mouth. Between friends, co-workers, blogs etc... While this game came out, Blizzard was announcing 12 million, again 12 millon people "are" playing WoW. Sorry but word of mouth, blogs and co-workers talking about how bad STO failed at launch, why would that game ever see en masse people go to it?
When SWG went live in '03, at that time I do believe EQ was the most popular game. AC was in there, and I'm sure a few others. SWG went live (and while I'm not hunting numbers down) I'm sure this game had quite the release. SW appeals to millions, and still does. At this time EQ a good themepark MMO was going. I'm sure many left to go to SWG, and upon playing a themepark style for so long, (My opinion here) that the sandbox style of SWG did not appeal to many. While I'm sure people were looking for something new as EQ was 4 years old, and many UO'ers and sandbox fan's in general were wanting a new fix.
Or should I say it appealed to plenty, cause at this time I do think alot of sandboxers had there hands in EVE which released just a month before SWG did. So quite honestly probably the best two sandbox games released in the last 10 years (speculation) went up head to head against each other. Thinning out the sandbox fan's / crowd even more.
So with WoW getting ready to shoot out the gate, just about a year and a half later. Many people still playing EQ, and AC. While EVE and SWG the two new kids on the block were opening there doors and spreading there wings.
WoW releases with a fairly recognizable IP, nothing like SW or probably even STO. But, by this time STO was I do believe in disaray, and SWG was competing with fellow sandbox game EVE. While the other games I mentioned still kicking. But, here this game releases. Nothing special at all, plenty of issues at launch. But, definetely more on the path of EQ. But, also more friendly to many. (throw in your own reason's here) But, WoW explodes word of mouth. People, kids, aunts, uncles hell even Mr. T! This game as so many sandboxers say appeals to the mass's. (also throw in your own speculation here) But, it's still the fact! That whatever they (Blizzard) put in the kool-aid at the time worked! And it worked like no other game company has ever seen!
Why you are entitled to say whatever you want or think what you want about all the said games above. There is only one of them, that did it completely right when it comes to mass appeal! And I'm not knocking a single one of any of these games. But, what WoW did is still to this day mind blowing! Because it appealed to so many!
With all this wall of text I'm just simply gonna give my inital response to playing the game and hearing the hyperbole.
Are ya all ready for a new flavor of kool-aid?
Not nearly as foolish as all of the good reviews being disregarded as paid endorsements by EA shills, which seems to be the general consensus amongst those that hope the game fails. And your sweeping and inaccurate generalization about the age of Star Wars fans who will play this game aside, we'll know for sure how this game will hold up at the 6 month mark. But I definitely think there are a lot of people underestimating its appeal.