Bioware just needs to add more things in game that keep you hooked, and side attractions to slow down the levelling.
I agree. Not sure why companies keep getting a free pass from some. I mean you only have the same complaints popping up all the time. Instead they make it easier and quicker to reach max level. Not to mention how solo oriented these games are while leveling.
Then people wonder why this complaint pops up or those that did reach max don't want to simply gear grind in raids. Like this should be the least bit surprising considering how quickly they allow leveling and the majority of these games are so solo oriented until then.
Even I agree. If you scroll up you'll see I mentioned the leveling speed and side activities as 2 of 17 points to improve the game. :-)
Counting out the fact that I feel ToR is by far anything but a success in my personal opion, it stands as a point that its virtually impossible to judge 'success' until you give it some time. You need to actually wait and see what comes out of it several months later, I would say a 6 month spread at earliest.
As far as what to add... again... ignoring my distaste for the game in general and just overlooking the flaws I see, I would say the biggest addition would be actual space battles. Yes I know, technically I'm pointing out a flaw, but comparing it to SWG, there could be a vast amount of stuff done to improve it. SWG space combat was actually pretty fun. Having that added into ToR would be great. Improving on that aspect would be even better. I hope they go about taking out the lame rail shooter and just expanding on space to make things feel more 'vast'.
Sorry if this has been said already, pretty sure it has, but wth.
I'd like to see a better implementation of the space section of the game. When I say that I mean pretty much all of the time spent in space is pretty uninteresting as it stands now. The way I picture it, or at least the way I would like it to be is something similar to what Eve has going on with the MMO & their coming FPS. I dont mean to go as far as Eve does either in regards to the exploration part, but I would like to have a bit of freeform space combat & exploration as well.
I could see operations spin out of this, with maybe a contingent of the Operation dealing with a space battle, while the rest are dealing with things on the ground, space station etc. You could have a navigator/pilot for the main capital ship, 1 or 2 working active shielding components (something like old school missile command maybe/not), a couple people on gunnery or missile duty, & even people piloting smaller ships with their own dog fights & objectives to deal with.You could even use this format in a PvP encounter with ally or rival guilds setting a time to do battle & such.
I also wish the Galactic Trade Network was better, once again I will reference Eve's system, & while a system not quite as deep as that would suffice, the way it plays out in relation to the rest of the gameplay could offer quite a bit of immersion for those who like to play with the economics in these MMO's. Having crafting materials, weaponry, armor, ship materials & other things matter more to the game as a whole would be difficult to pull off, but I think it would be more rewarding.
We already have our "housing" with our ships, but I would like to see them improved a little in regards to our companion characters & overall experience. Right now its for the most part a taxi/inn for all intents & purposes with no other reason to go there. Having better interactions with our companions on the ship would help entertain, rather than have them at a set position with the old thought balloon there, maybe they could take a walk, treat the companion I just came back with in the med bay, physically leave when they are sent on a crew skill mission, come seek me out for a conversation, or even play a nice game of that space chess with me or another companion so I can see that nice table on my smuggler's ship isn't just there for nothing.
Have capital ships to be the equivalent of guild housing. Make them, buy them, whatever but they could be used as something for the guild for fun, travel points to Operations, Flashpoints, PvP. Have them be what your guild would be using in my point above.
No server right this moment is above standard, although Tomb of Freedon Nadd is fluctationg between Heavy and Standard.
Yep, on valentines day, at 6pm EST.
Ignoring the fact that a lot of people are probably with their sweeties, and the fact that some people are still at work are school...
Not in the EU it was not that time, and out yesterday as well?
This game is fresh, and there should be plenty people still hammering at this, at this stage of the games life. Not everyone is in relationships. SWG caused realtionships to break up! SWTOR makes people get together!
No server right this moment is above standard, although Tomb of Freedon Nadd is fluctationg between Heavy and Standard.
Yep, on valentines day, at 6pm EST.
Ignoring the fact that a lot of people are probably with their sweeties, and the fact that some people are still at work are school...
we're talking star war fans here....think about that for a second.
Not just Star Wars fans, but MMO Gamers.
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Once.....just *once*, I'd like to see people pay attention to the semantics of the term "success"...and how success is related to a goal. People will have different criteria for what is to count as a success as they have different aims in mind.
Without a consensus of what would constitute success, people are using the term in wildly differing ways, rendering discussion of whether or not SWToR is a success....well, really pretty meaningless.
I believe that the OP is posting the thread in this way purely to elicit a response.
If the OP really wanted feedback on what should be added, a better question would have been something like "Now that you've played it for a month (or so), what would you like to see next?"
I can't call it a success because I can still barely believe those numbers, any chatbox I go most people have played SW:TOR and then quit, even my real friends have and people still playing complain servers feel empty. I don't know how they could have retained 1.7m of 2m. I've probably almost talked to 300k who dropped it.
As far as I am aware that 1.7mil number was released during the 'free month' after the release. Not sure if it was even relesed this year.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic Has More Than 1.7 Million Active Subscribers
-- Star Wars(R): The Old Republic(TM) has generated 1.7 million active subscribers and sold through more than 2 million units in a little over one month.
This is after the first month is over, these are "ACTIVE" subscribers.
They said "most" of them are paying. Which is a majority of their sales were from pre orders, or the first few weeks of their game opening (which they released these sales numbers too)
We can then LOGCIALLY deduce that YES, MOST of that number has subscribed and is paying. A Large majority, as when this was released a month and a half had passed since it had launched, meaning most people MUST Have paid to be considered "an active sub"
Now you are aware otherwise.
Not sure i would personally but to much stor by that date as it says q3 fy12 at the top, which as far as i know doesn't start until june. More likely comes from q1 which ended end of last year. But this is ea so i doubt even they know:).
I'd love to see them add a reason to log in aside from raids that are dumbed down clones of whats available elsewhere and pointless after 1 or 2 runs due to how quickly the best gear is amassed, FPs that are utterly pointless considering how easy raid loot is to get, an endgame pvp planet thats just a shoddy mess - over a decade of MMOs to dissect and study and this is what we get, some walkers to click on?
I'd really like there to be a reason to actually go out into the galaxy, as it stands once you hit 50 you stand in the fleet or on Ilum, there's zero reason to go back to any planet you've previously been on (let's face it, you can knock out all datacrons in a day or two with a guide).
I'd be tempted to resub if they stopped desperately clinging to this fourth pillar which clearly isn't a sustainable form of content and instead actually produced a means for me to go out, experience the Star Wars universe and let my own story unravel. If after years of production they can only manage enough forced story to last my main character a week or two, I dread to think of how minimal future expansion will be in this area. You have the whole Star Wars universe there, why not let us go play in it? No? Just Ilum and the fleet?
Alternate advancement beyond the fluff the legacy system is slated to bring would be nice as well.
I'd love a reason to give them money, I love Star Wars, however they gave me everything so fast and so easily that it's hard to find a reason to play when you've reached the end of an easy linear path and there's nowhere left to go. I guess that's the biggest flaw of easy, zero risk, linear themeparks. Perhaps if they added some sandbox elements it would increase the games longevity, but as it stands this is a game with a clearly defined finish line due to linear & limited content, unfortunately many of us passed it within the first month.
No server right this moment is above standard, although Tomb of Freedon Nadd is fluctationg between Heavy and Standard.
And as of my post right now all are either light or standard with 2 being heavy. This is prime time being 9pm EST and 6pm PST. Though a better time to check would be in one hour I think.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic Has More Than 1.7 Million Active Subscribers
-- Star Wars(R): The Old Republic(TM) has generated 1.7 million active subscribers and sold through more than 2 million units in a little over one month.
This is after the first month is over, these are "ACTIVE" subscribers.
They said "most" of them are paying. Which is a majority of their sales were from pre orders, or the first few weeks of their game opening (which they released these sales numbers too)
We can then LOGCIALLY deduce that YES, MOST of that number has subscribed and is paying. A Large majority, as when this was released a month and a half had passed since it had launched, meaning most people MUST Have paid to be considered "an active sub"
Now you are aware otherwise.
Every time one of the dwindling number of fans of this dying MMORPG try to 'explain' EA's pathetic attempt to claim '1.7 million subs' this clip from Dumb and Dumber comes to mind:
I know people have explained this countless times. Might as well do it again...
EA was forced to admit that their bogus 1.7 million number consisted of:
1. Paying subscribers
2. Every new person who bought the game, started playing, and had not yet had their first free month end
1.7 million == X number of paying sub + Y number of new players
If X is close to 1.7 million, Y is very, very low. So in desperation to claim the actual paying sub numbers are REALLY, REALLY HIGH, and ALMOST EVERY ONE IS PAYING, they unwittingly are claiming the game has bombed in its second month and virtually no one is buying the game.
So what is it? Take your pick:
1. The game probably had about a million paying subs and 6-700k new players after the first month. 200k or so box sales in the US and EU, and 100k or so online sales in each region
2. The game has 1.5-6 million paying subs and has completely bombed in sales in the second month
It's 6pm on the West Coast, 9pm on the East Coast. There are only 3 Heavy servers right now. Every other server is Standard or Light. Players continue to beg for server mergers or transfers off their dead servers on the official forums. Continue to post screen shots of their completely dead servers in the official forums.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic Has More Than 1.7 Million Active Subscribers
-- Star Wars(R): The Old Republic(TM) has generated 1.7 million active subscribers and sold through more than 2 million units in a little over one month.
This is after the first month is over, these are "ACTIVE" subscribers.
They said "most" of them are paying. Which is a majority of their sales were from pre orders, or the first few weeks of their game opening (which they released these sales numbers too)
We can then LOGCIALLY deduce that YES, MOST of that number has subscribed and is paying. A Large majority, as when this was released a month and a half had passed since it had launched, meaning most people MUST Have paid to be considered "an active sub"
Now you are aware otherwise.
Every time one of the dwindling number of fans of this dying MMORPG try to 'explain' EA's pathetic attempt to claim '1.7 million subs' this clip from Dumb and Dumber comes to mind:
I know people have explained this countless times. Might as well do it again...
EA was forced to admit that their bogus 1.7 million number consisted of:
1. Paying subscribers
2. Every new person who bought the game, started playing, and had not yet had their first free month end
1.7 million == X number of paying sub + Y number of new players
If X is close to 1.7 million, Y is very, very low. So in desperation to claim the actual paying sub numbers are REALLY, REALLY HIGH, and ALMOST EVERY ONE IS PAYING, they unwittingly are claiming the game has bombed in its second month and virtually no one is buying the game.
So what is it? Take your pick:
1. The game probably had about a million paying subs and 6-700k new players after the first month. 200k or so box sales in the US and EU, and 100k or so online sales in each region
2. The game has 1.5-6 million paying subs and has completely bombed in sales in the second month
It's 6pm on the West Coast, 9pm on the East Coast. There are only 3 Heavy servers right now. Every other server is Standard or Light. Players continue to beg for server mergers or transfers off their dead servers on the official forums. Continue to post screen shots of their completely dead servers in the official forums.
Where are these elusive SWTOR players...
how dare you sir... how dare you use logic, when clearly ea said they had 1.7 million subs and by now it must really have 5 million playing subscribers! but as i posted on another thread, but applies here too...
the thing you optimists seem to miss that the realists point out and isnt being a hater or jumping on the bashing bandwagon, is that the data was posted as of 31st december 2011 when the Quarter ended.
the game launched on the 20th of december, 2 million copies were sold, let's assume the other 300k were people who had bought the game but not activated until the new year that 1.7 million people were all people in there first free month of the game who had to enter either a game time card or a credit card to be able to play thus "activating a sucscription" even after you cancel your subscription your account is still marked "active" for however many days still on your account in that current billing cycle.
so i'm really sorry to burst you bubbles but honestly calling people who put up facts and not just heresay and fake %'s to backup there statements dont make them haters or bashers... it makes them realistic and it makes anyone clinging to said 1.7million players and "most successful mmo ever" dellusional to be honest
-Star Wars: The Old Republic Has More Than 1.7 Million Active Subscribers
-- Star Wars(R): The Old Republic(TM) has generated 1.7 million active subscribers and sold through more than 2 million units in a little over one month.
This is after the first month is over, these are "ACTIVE" subscribers.
They said "most" of them are paying. Which is a majority of their sales were from pre orders, or the first few weeks of their game opening (which they released these sales numbers too)
We can then LOGCIALLY deduce that YES, MOST of that number has subscribed and is paying. A Large majority, as when this was released a month and a half had passed since it had launched, meaning most people MUST Have paid to be considered "an active sub"
Now you are aware otherwise.
Every time one of the dwindling number of fans of this dying MMORPG try to 'explain' EA's pathetic attempt to claim '1.7 million subs' this clip from Dumb and Dumber comes to mind:
I know people have explained this countless times. Might as well do it again...
EA was forced to admit that their bogus 1.7 million number consisted of:
1. Paying subscribers
2. Every new person who bought the game, started playing, and had not yet had their first free month end
1.7 million == X number of paying sub + Y number of new players
If X is close to 1.7 million, Y is very, very low. So in desperation to claim the actual paying sub numbers are REALLY, REALLY HIGH, and ALMOST EVERY ONE IS PAYING, they unwittingly are claiming the game has bombed in its second month and virtually no one is buying the game.
So what is it? Take your pick:
1. The game probably had about a million paying subs and 6-700k new players after the first month. 200k or so box sales in the US and EU, and 100k or so online sales in each region
2. The game has 1.5-6 million paying subs and has completely bombed in sales in the second month
It's 6pm on the West Coast, 9pm on the East Coast. There are only 3 Heavy servers right now. Every other server is Standard or Light. Players continue to beg for server mergers or transfers off their dead servers on the official forums. Continue to post screen shots of their completely dead servers in the official forums.
Where are these elusive SWTOR players...
Forgot to mention in my previous post that I'd noted that I don't really ever see any of the EU servers over "light". Seems our EU cousins are not warming up to SWTOR at all. My wife is traveling this week due to work so it isn't like I'm doing anything on V-Day, even if she were home we aren't fans of the the whole commericalization of romance day. On top of that it is a Tuesday, there is work and school if you have kids, so it isn't like we're going out to party our asses off.
I'm thinking I'm going to keep the server page up from now on and keep an eye on it to see if the numbers ever reach anything near what I was seeing in the days right around release. I'm really curious now due to how many keep claiming the servers have high volumes of traffic, I tend to be around off an on at all times so its not hard for me to check this.
SWTOR is a big pile of garbage, and space really sucks.
Fixed it for you.
And success? to whom? single player gamers and the extreme casual crowd? I guess.
I would say to the members of the 3 guilds I am in right now, each with over 300 members, each with an average 45 people on at any given time. To those people who are working thier way through hardmodes and nightmaremodes as we speak, weekly raiding scheduled already and officers putting together events almost daily to gear up the lower level members.
I would say SWTOR is a success for all of them, you know, the people who used ot be hardcore raiders in other games and now run progression based raiding guilds in SWTOR. I see them every day, so I know they are there, unlike your assumption you posted.
No offence, but I have heard this so many times now and it always ended the same way; a month later the guild is deserted.
Maybe one of your 3 will be the exception though.
Good guild leaders will have busy active guilds
Bad or absent guild leaders will have guilds fall apart
Same as any other MMORPG
Sometimes it really is the game.
I come from a guild where we have been around 10 years, and this is our 9th active game. The "leadership" of the guild has been there from basically the beginning. In short, we know a thing or two about guild recruitment and management.
Our guild size, once you factor in alts, is around 50 people. 5-6 on during my "shift" (trying to increase that but its a bit difficult.) Maybe 10 on during prime time. again, respectable. But it isn't the numbers we are used to.
Mainly because the game doesn't really encourage grouping or even make it worth your while until you are level 50. We've got about 40% of our guild at level 50 now, the rest of us leveling up taking our time. One of the big pulls of joining a guild is they help you advance in the game.
Yet before being level 50 (and even after in some instances) there's no real way guilds help you advance. Give us better guild tools, and you will see a lot of "old school" guilds play in this game. And if there's one thing those old school guilds know how to do, it is how to make a server thrive.
SW:TOR is considered a success only 1.5 months after release?
Yeah, that's precisely what I was thinking. Lets see how it holds up 6 months to a year down the line. If they follow the current path..... the game will most likely be dead.
Which means they probably won't. They will try a few new things, and we will see how it works.
I personally would like to see them iterate on space. SWG was a big pile of garbage, but space was really fun.
No, no no no!
Why do you SWG fans keep begging for open space stuff?
Look, I played SWG, it was fun sure, but this game isn't it, stop trying to make it something its not. Again, name a movie that had an extended space combat scene, that WASN'T on rails... Lets see, death star trench run? VERY rail shooter, 2nd Death star run? ALSO a rail shooter.
Star Wars is not about exploring space, or space combat at all really, almost ALL of the action is people fighting people (or aliens)
Star TREK is the droid you are looking for.
Oh so Han's chase through the asteroid belt was obviously rails.
The starfighter fights at both deathstars? Yeah obviously rails.
Your first mistake was comparing a game to a movie. Your second mistake was even then, your just plain wrong.
Even the haters of SWG gave JTL its props as incredibly well done, and truly capturing the SW experience. So why not go with what worked? Instead of doing something where success or failure actually has nothing to do with player skill, or even mashing buttons. If you have the requisite gear, you will succeed. Its that simple.
After todays session, which might be my last with SWTOR, i think this game is completly doomed. First i must say i loved the story based mission with cutscenes and all the fluff, but thats the only good thing i can say about the game. I dont see any point on playing.
Let see:
Good:
- story based mission with voices and chessy cut-scenes (good main PVE)
- some animations
- overal polished
Bad:
- the combat is over 10 years old, its even worse than WOW. While some of the classes have nice animation and maybe some interesting skills, its been done 10 million times. They could try something like Rift, where i had much more fun in t, since Rift copied the core just like SWTOR from WOW, but they actualy improved, while SWTOR didnt...
- space missions. God, such a mockery. A space system like that can be made by a bored good programer in a few days, a few weeks with extra polish.
- heavly instanced zones, with large cities which are empty, i saw the most in a zone 50 people. In some evenings or nights, its imposible to do Heroics.
- killing the same spawn of enemies while doing quest. Once when you go to point A, and then when you return, or pass again through that area, since the maps are pretty linear, Bioware style...
- nothing interesting to do beside doing story quests, which after a while even with the fluffy cutscenes, you get sick of them. Maybe that crafting for dummies? Woa...
- no persistent content, no high end content. Flashpoints and casual clueless PvP doesnt count. Every asian mmo has better high content and persitent than this game
Ugly:
- i seriosly consider KOTOR 1 as a game, better than this 200 mil garbage. Tho they probably lied, its imposible to waste that much money, i only see mayb 30-50mil (50 is hugeeee!) that went into this game. With 50 mils and a good experienced team, you can make 2 vanilla WOWs or even more with outsourcing on graphics.
- they had Warhammer Online in their studios, from which they couldve made millions, if they let a good team to manage it. A game that is like 10x better than this thing...
- i really cant belive it this shit, really.
--------------------
For new mmo players and Star Wars fans, this might be an interesting game, for people that actually played a variety of mmos in their life, this is A BIG JOKE.
Still, if you have fun good for you, but this is just another step back for industry...
I personally would like to see them iterate on space. SWG was a big pile of garbage, but space was really fun.
i would resub if they expand the gameplay and the worlds. I would like to get in my starshipt and drive it myself to outer space and reach my other planet destinations. Space open world pvp while traveling and exploring the space towards my destination (open space pvp / pve?), things like that would give a purpose to space in SWTOR. Until that or something similar is added, ill play other mmos that give me better times
No server right this moment is above standard, although Tomb of Freedon Nadd is fluctationg between Heavy and Standard.
And as of my post right now all are either light or standard with 2 being heavy. This is prime time being 9pm EST and 6pm PST. Though a better time to check would be in one hour I think.
So as of 19:45 PST/ 22:45 EST of the 120 or so US servers, 8 are heavy and the rest are either light or standard. None of the EU servers are above light.
I'll consider SWTOR a success if it can keep 500,000 subscriptions past the release of Guild Wars 2, TERA, ArcheAge, The Secret World, Wildstar, etc. etc. because I don't really think it can do it. Right now, I think too many people are playing it because they are still interested in the single player aspects of the game, because they are hopeful BioWare will actually "add something cool" to the game, or because there is nothing else out there that is better to play.
Comments
Even I agree. If you scroll up you'll see I mentioned the leveling speed and side activities as 2 of 17 points to improve the game. :-)
There Is Always Hope!
Counting out the fact that I feel ToR is by far anything but a success in my personal opion, it stands as a point that its virtually impossible to judge 'success' until you give it some time. You need to actually wait and see what comes out of it several months later, I would say a 6 month spread at earliest.
As far as what to add... again... ignoring my distaste for the game in general and just overlooking the flaws I see, I would say the biggest addition would be actual space battles. Yes I know, technically I'm pointing out a flaw, but comparing it to SWG, there could be a vast amount of stuff done to improve it. SWG space combat was actually pretty fun. Having that added into ToR would be great. Improving on that aspect would be even better. I hope they go about taking out the lame rail shooter and just expanding on space to make things feel more 'vast'.
Sorry if this has been said already, pretty sure it has, but wth.
I'd like to see a better implementation of the space section of the game. When I say that I mean pretty much all of the time spent in space is pretty uninteresting as it stands now. The way I picture it, or at least the way I would like it to be is something similar to what Eve has going on with the MMO & their coming FPS. I dont mean to go as far as Eve does either in regards to the exploration part, but I would like to have a bit of freeform space combat & exploration as well.
I could see operations spin out of this, with maybe a contingent of the Operation dealing with a space battle, while the rest are dealing with things on the ground, space station etc. You could have a navigator/pilot for the main capital ship, 1 or 2 working active shielding components (something like old school missile command maybe/not), a couple people on gunnery or missile duty, & even people piloting smaller ships with their own dog fights & objectives to deal with.You could even use this format in a PvP encounter with ally or rival guilds setting a time to do battle & such.
I also wish the Galactic Trade Network was better, once again I will reference Eve's system, & while a system not quite as deep as that would suffice, the way it plays out in relation to the rest of the gameplay could offer quite a bit of immersion for those who like to play with the economics in these MMO's. Having crafting materials, weaponry, armor, ship materials & other things matter more to the game as a whole would be difficult to pull off, but I think it would be more rewarding.
We already have our "housing" with our ships, but I would like to see them improved a little in regards to our companion characters & overall experience. Right now its for the most part a taxi/inn for all intents & purposes with no other reason to go there. Having better interactions with our companions on the ship would help entertain, rather than have them at a set position with the old thought balloon there, maybe they could take a walk, treat the companion I just came back with in the med bay, physically leave when they are sent on a crew skill mission, come seek me out for a conversation, or even play a nice game of that space chess with me or another companion so I can see that nice table on my smuggler's ship isn't just there for nothing.
Have capital ships to be the equivalent of guild housing. Make them, buy them, whatever but they could be used as something for the guild for fun, travel points to Operations, Flashpoints, PvP. Have them be what your guild would be using in my point above.
Yep, on valentines day, at 6pm EST.
Ignoring the fact that a lot of people are probably with their sweeties, and the fact that some people are still at work are school...
Not in the EU it was not that time, and out yesterday as well?
This game is fresh, and there should be plenty people still hammering at this, at this stage of the games life. Not everyone is in relationships. SWG caused realtionships to break up! SWTOR makes people get together!
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
we're talking star war fans here....think about that for a second.
i loled
Not just Star Wars fans, but MMO Gamers.
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x115u4_triumph-the-insult-comic-dog-star-w_fun
Once.....just *once*, I'd like to see people pay attention to the semantics of the term "success"...and how success is related to a goal. People will have different criteria for what is to count as a success as they have different aims in mind.
Without a consensus of what would constitute success, people are using the term in wildly differing ways, rendering discussion of whether or not SWToR is a success....well, really pretty meaningless.
I believe that the OP is posting the thread in this way purely to elicit a response.
If the OP really wanted feedback on what should be added, a better question would have been something like "Now that you've played it for a month (or so), what would you like to see next?"
Not sure i would personally but to much stor by that date as it says q3 fy12 at the top, which as far as i know doesn't start until june. More likely comes from q1 which ended end of last year. But this is ea so i doubt even they know:).
always the challenge
my answer to this is rvr.. ideally with a third pirate faction. bu i agree that there should be more life in the game world
I'd love to see them add a reason to log in aside from raids that are dumbed down clones of whats available elsewhere and pointless after 1 or 2 runs due to how quickly the best gear is amassed, FPs that are utterly pointless considering how easy raid loot is to get, an endgame pvp planet thats just a shoddy mess - over a decade of MMOs to dissect and study and this is what we get, some walkers to click on?
I'd really like there to be a reason to actually go out into the galaxy, as it stands once you hit 50 you stand in the fleet or on Ilum, there's zero reason to go back to any planet you've previously been on (let's face it, you can knock out all datacrons in a day or two with a guide).
I'd be tempted to resub if they stopped desperately clinging to this fourth pillar which clearly isn't a sustainable form of content and instead actually produced a means for me to go out, experience the Star Wars universe and let my own story unravel. If after years of production they can only manage enough forced story to last my main character a week or two, I dread to think of how minimal future expansion will be in this area. You have the whole Star Wars universe there, why not let us go play in it? No? Just Ilum and the fleet?
Alternate advancement beyond the fluff the legacy system is slated to bring would be nice as well.
I'd love a reason to give them money, I love Star Wars, however they gave me everything so fast and so easily that it's hard to find a reason to play when you've reached the end of an easy linear path and there's nowhere left to go. I guess that's the biggest flaw of easy, zero risk, linear themeparks. Perhaps if they added some sandbox elements it would increase the games longevity, but as it stands this is a game with a clearly defined finish line due to linear & limited content, unfortunately many of us passed it within the first month.
And as of my post right now all are either light or standard with 2 being heavy. This is prime time being 9pm EST and 6pm PST. Though a better time to check would be in one hour I think.
Every time one of the dwindling number of fans of this dying MMORPG try to 'explain' EA's pathetic attempt to claim '1.7 million subs' this clip from Dumb and Dumber comes to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5jNnDMfxA
I know people have explained this countless times. Might as well do it again...
EA was forced to admit that their bogus 1.7 million number consisted of:
1. Paying subscribers
2. Every new person who bought the game, started playing, and had not yet had their first free month end
1.7 million == X number of paying sub + Y number of new players
If X is close to 1.7 million, Y is very, very low. So in desperation to claim the actual paying sub numbers are REALLY, REALLY HIGH, and ALMOST EVERY ONE IS PAYING, they unwittingly are claiming the game has bombed in its second month and virtually no one is buying the game.
So what is it? Take your pick:
1. The game probably had about a million paying subs and 6-700k new players after the first month. 200k or so box sales in the US and EU, and 100k or so online sales in each region
2. The game has 1.5-6 million paying subs and has completely bombed in sales in the second month
It's 6pm on the West Coast, 9pm on the East Coast. There are only 3 Heavy servers right now. Every other server is Standard or Light. Players continue to beg for server mergers or transfers off their dead servers on the official forums. Continue to post screen shots of their completely dead servers in the official forums.
Where are these elusive SWTOR players...
how dare you sir... how dare you use logic, when clearly ea said they had 1.7 million subs and by now it must really have 5 million playing subscribers! but as i posted on another thread, but applies here too...
the thing you optimists seem to miss that the realists point out and isnt being a hater or jumping on the bashing bandwagon, is that the data was posted as of 31st december 2011 when the Quarter ended.
the game launched on the 20th of december, 2 million copies were sold, let's assume the other 300k were people who had bought the game but not activated until the new year that 1.7 million people were all people in there first free month of the game who had to enter either a game time card or a credit card to be able to play thus "activating a sucscription" even after you cancel your subscription your account is still marked "active" for however many days still on your account in that current billing cycle.
so i'm really sorry to burst you bubbles but honestly calling people who put up facts and not just heresay and fake %'s to backup there statements dont make them haters or bashers... it makes them realistic and it makes anyone clinging to said 1.7million players and "most successful mmo ever" dellusional to be honest
Forgot to mention in my previous post that I'd noted that I don't really ever see any of the EU servers over "light". Seems our EU cousins are not warming up to SWTOR at all. My wife is traveling this week due to work so it isn't like I'm doing anything on V-Day, even if she were home we aren't fans of the the whole commericalization of romance day. On top of that it is a Tuesday, there is work and school if you have kids, so it isn't like we're going out to party our asses off.
I'm thinking I'm going to keep the server page up from now on and keep an eye on it to see if the numbers ever reach anything near what I was seeing in the days right around release. I'm really curious now due to how many keep claiming the servers have high volumes of traffic, I tend to be around off an on at all times so its not hard for me to check this.
Sometimes it really is the game.
I come from a guild where we have been around 10 years, and this is our 9th active game. The "leadership" of the guild has been there from basically the beginning. In short, we know a thing or two about guild recruitment and management.
Our guild size, once you factor in alts, is around 50 people. 5-6 on during my "shift" (trying to increase that but its a bit difficult.) Maybe 10 on during prime time. again, respectable. But it isn't the numbers we are used to.
Mainly because the game doesn't really encourage grouping or even make it worth your while until you are level 50. We've got about 40% of our guild at level 50 now, the rest of us leveling up taking our time. One of the big pulls of joining a guild is they help you advance in the game.
Yet before being level 50 (and even after in some instances) there's no real way guilds help you advance. Give us better guild tools, and you will see a lot of "old school" guilds play in this game. And if there's one thing those old school guilds know how to do, it is how to make a server thrive.
Yeah, that's precisely what I was thinking. Lets see how it holds up 6 months to a year down the line. If they follow the current path..... the game will most likely be dead.
Which means they probably won't. They will try a few new things, and we will see how it works.
By what measure ? this sounds more like personal opinion & nothing more.
Oh so Han's chase through the asteroid belt was obviously rails.
The starfighter fights at both deathstars? Yeah obviously rails.
Your first mistake was comparing a game to a movie. Your second mistake was even then, your just plain wrong.
Even the haters of SWG gave JTL its props as incredibly well done, and truly capturing the SW experience. So why not go with what worked? Instead of doing something where success or failure actually has nothing to do with player skill, or even mashing buttons. If you have the requisite gear, you will succeed. Its that simple.
After todays session, which might be my last with SWTOR, i think this game is completly doomed. First i must say i loved the story based mission with cutscenes and all the fluff, but thats the only good thing i can say about the game. I dont see any point on playing.
Let see:
Good:
- story based mission with voices and chessy cut-scenes (good main PVE)
- some animations
- overal polished
Bad:
- the combat is over 10 years old, its even worse than WOW. While some of the classes have nice animation and maybe some interesting skills, its been done 10 million times. They could try something like Rift, where i had much more fun in t, since Rift copied the core just like SWTOR from WOW, but they actualy improved, while SWTOR didnt...
- space missions. God, such a mockery. A space system like that can be made by a bored good programer in a few days, a few weeks with extra polish.
- heavly instanced zones, with large cities which are empty, i saw the most in a zone 50 people. In some evenings or nights, its imposible to do Heroics.
- killing the same spawn of enemies while doing quest. Once when you go to point A, and then when you return, or pass again through that area, since the maps are pretty linear, Bioware style...
- nothing interesting to do beside doing story quests, which after a while even with the fluffy cutscenes, you get sick of them. Maybe that crafting for dummies? Woa...
- no persistent content, no high end content. Flashpoints and casual clueless PvP doesnt count. Every asian mmo has better high content and persitent than this game
Ugly:
- i seriosly consider KOTOR 1 as a game, better than this 200 mil garbage. Tho they probably lied, its imposible to waste that much money, i only see mayb 30-50mil (50 is hugeeee!) that went into this game. With 50 mils and a good experienced team, you can make 2 vanilla WOWs or even more with outsourcing on graphics.
- they had Warhammer Online in their studios, from which they couldve made millions, if they let a good team to manage it. A game that is like 10x better than this thing...
- i really cant belive it this shit, really.
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For new mmo players and Star Wars fans, this might be an interesting game, for people that actually played a variety of mmos in their life, this is A BIG JOKE.
Still, if you have fun good for you, but this is just another step back for industry...
My Top Free MMORPGs
i would resub if they expand the gameplay and the worlds. I would like to get in my starshipt and drive it myself to outer space and reach my other planet destinations. Space open world pvp while traveling and exploring the space towards my destination (open space pvp / pve?), things like that would give a purpose to space in SWTOR. Until that or something similar is added, ill play other mmos that give me better times
So as of 19:45 PST/ 22:45 EST of the 120 or so US servers, 8 are heavy and the rest are either light or standard. None of the EU servers are above light.
I'll consider SWTOR a success if it can keep 500,000 subscriptions past the release of Guild Wars 2, TERA, ArcheAge, The Secret World, Wildstar, etc. etc. because I don't really think it can do it. Right now, I think too many people are playing it because they are still interested in the single player aspects of the game, because they are hopeful BioWare will actually "add something cool" to the game, or because there is nothing else out there that is better to play.