Themeparks are too easy to develop with you as player being railed to the finish line, then you end up in a repetive endgame powergrind.
They should introduce tools to create player created content, like ways to roleplay, actually give a meaning to the war instead of linear quests, player generated dungeons which spawn and de-spawn.
No way that SWG was a succesful game, but actually taking in some of that game's content could be quite fun.
Let players add content to the game.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Originally posted by lotaparty swtor has excellent chance to resurrect the game while going f2p .but this is their last chance .i hope they will avail it . will play the game free for one month and if i like it i will by the sub
F2P is not going to change anything. The game is more or less the same as it is when it launched.
The main reason why SWTOR flopped is that the devs did not add content / update the game fast enough, and still aren't
Bad Endgame (which is the 3rd chosen problem) is most definately the MAIN problem to the game, as the 2nd chosen reason atm is Linear worlds, but SWG could have even had Linear Worlds through the Legacy quest series and lack of content, but what made them not linear was all the content and end game that made people go back to the worlds, You can still go back to the worlds in SWTOR by choice but there is no end game content to make you want to. If there was good end game that made you want to go back to all the worlds, then the worlds would not seem linear. Therfore Bad Endgame is the bigger problem than Linear Worlds
Originally posted by hyllstarter All of the above.
The same here it wasn't 1 reason but many, just going into SWTOR for the first time there was just so many missing features or lackluster ones that i just couldn't find myself wanting to hand over my cash each month
Themeparks are too easy to develop with you as player being railed to the finish line, then you end up in a repetive endgame powergrind.
They should introduce tools to create player created content, like ways to roleplay, actually give a meaning to the war instead of linear quests, player generated dungeons which spawn and de-spawn.
No way that SWG was a succesful game, but actually taking in some of that game's content could be quite fun.
Let players add content to the game.
Actually, for its time, SWG was quite successful. It had some of the highest sub numbers for an MMO of that time period (pre-WoW) and made back its develpment costs within a year or so. After that it was just the cost of developers and keeping the servers running, the rest was profit.
In my opinion, TOR failed because it did what every other MMO has done since and tried to copy the WoW formula. Just like every other game that's copied WoW, people soon realise that there's no point playing something that's a copy when they can play the real thing that is generally polished better.
Despite it's rocky history, SWG survived because ultimately, it was unique. There was no other MMO that had all the features and systems that it had, and there still isn't. Apart from voice overs (which I actually found annoying during my time playing TOR), there's not a whole lot that's unique about TOR. It's WoW with lightsabers.
It was awefull on so many levels.. When discussing this game I find it difficult to come up with something positive to say about it. The only positive I can think of now is..NO one can force me to play it. I would have to be PAID a substantial amount to play it again, that's how bad I feel it is/was.
Maybe TOR is as good as a game can be, maybe BW/EA are at the top of their craft and I am just over critical. Considering the reception SWTOR has recieved that is unlikely.
Story was fine, but once you were done and had done all the dungeons there was no reason to keep playing. PvP was bad and raids were too easy. So no challenge or progression there, and there were no other redeeming features that would keep people logging in such as housing or fluff stuff.
Basically it didnt warrant a subscription, and even now the F2P is too restrictive for what is essentially a story driven game with a few multiplayer features.
TOR managed to gain substantial player base, meaning people do like the game. Only problem is it was too expensive to make.
People bought and played the game from hype and the Bioware reputation. 2 million sales at launch before even playing the game, even before knowing they liked it. Then 75% quit. The majority really did not like SWTOR
It has only sustained a high level player base, as people do not want to just write off the game after buying it, especially after buying the collectors edition - a waste of money if you end up just playing theough one class and quit within a month
WOW started off small with a small playerbase, and then grew to mass proportions, which means people liked WOW
It's like any single player game with campaign + multiplayer, you finish your campaign, play during 1 month or so the multiplayer chores and move on to next game
Hmm. My 'primary reason' vote has to go to "the OCD/dedicated behavior patterns of a large number of very vocal and persistent 'haters', followed by a predictable 'all the cool kids are hating on this game' surge of 'me toos'." But the originals are still chipping away at the stone, to this day.
But that was probably more of a local phenomena.
The game itself had a fairly complete set of issues, too.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
OTHER: mainly, they did not incorporate ANY SWG stuff. As issued as SWG was, it had many interesting and cool features to built and expand on. Large worlds, player ctities, non combat classes, living worlds asf. SWTOR totally ignored EVERYTHING and made on pupose a sort of anti-SWG, which was just absurd.
Other also import points INVPO:
- dead, sterile, non-animated worlds: NPCs standing around like glued to the ground, no city life, no ambient sounds, asf. Everything that made the planets feel like theatre stages more than actual worlds.
- lack of social hubs, space station was BAD BAD idea to make a "meet and greet" place
- waaaaay too serious. Nothing funny, cute or stuff to distract from the war. Seriousness needs contrast. The civil life to be worth defending, fighting for. Same issue as in Tabula Rasa: if all is war, what civil good society we are actually fighting for? All that made WOW a success: the cute, the absurd, the funny; something for everyone. This is way too much a male wet dream of combat and heroism without anything else.
- lack of playable alien races. In a Star Wars game simply an unforgivable sin. Period.
- some planets are really boring. Taris anyone? Again, possibly because of the totally not animated worlds, which just is not believable. But also the quest series are often strangely dull and uninspired. I really dunno why so many praised the writing of SWTOR, because I really found it lame, dumb and tiring in too many places. Class stores were great, ok, but the planetary quests often waaay too boring. Some planets are really a snoozefest and a pain in the ass if you have to make them a second time.
- cartoony graphics. In such a serious setting as Star Wars, the visual were just a bad choice. It might work in more lighthearted stuff, but for Star Wars especially the cartoony graphics were simply a horrible choice. I am not against stylized realism per se, but Star Wars and cartoon just simply should never ever meet.
- NPCs talk WAAAY too much, and my companions (strangely) way too little. I don't really need to know the entire biography of every unimportant NPC, but my companions were way too uninteresting and shallow. I would have invested into much more fleshed out companions, as in Bioware single player games, and then leave most NPCs less chatty. I don't care about the life story of some imperial officer or what, but my constant companions! A really, really odd choice of emphasis Bioware made. As I predicted before launch, people will SPACEBAR through dialogues much more than Bioware expected.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Given the results of the vote so far, we can count on Bioware to:
Add more cutscenes (95 percent of players love them!)
Scrap any hint of world design that is not linear in nature (75 percent of players love this feature!)
Drop their supposed super secret space project in favor of the space mini-games they already have (97 percent of the players voted they would leave the game if space changes)
Never add weather or day/night cycles (99 percent of players never noticed this was left out of the game!)
Make no modifications whatsoever to the "gameplay feeling " (like EAWare could anyway)
Increase the time of loading screens (97 percent of players like them!)
Completely remove all endgame features (85 percent of players voted it's the best ever in a current Star Wars Game!)
Never implement swimming (99 percent would never use it)
Keep catering to all the gollums in their community (who make up 98 percent of the remaining community!)
And grope you up and down until they get their greasy little paws on your wallet (The 28 percent of people who chose "other" feel like they are not paying enough!)
There were too many things to choose just one. Overall, the combination of those things caused me to burn out quickly and lose my will to log in.
I can't help but think that if SWTOR had been more like SWG (pre-NGE) and less like WoW it would have been more successful. Still....I enjoyed the game for the brief time I played it and don't regret buying it. Live and learn, I say.
TOR managed to gain substantial player base, meaning people do like the game. Only problem is it was too expensive to make.
People bought and played the game from hype and the Bioware reputation. 2 million sales at launch before even playing the game, even before knowing they liked it. Then 75% quit. The majority really did not like SWTOR
It has only sustained a high level player base, as people do not want to just write off the game after buying it, especially after buying the collectors edition - a waste of money if you end up just playing theough one class and quit within a month Don't forget to add in those that would have bought a 3 or 6 month sub bundle and tried to get their moneys worth from that before quitting
WOW started off small with a small playerbase, and then grew to mass proportions, which means people liked WOW
That's generally what I think is causing the longer-term failure of MMOs today. We can see it in SWTOR, we can see it in Guild Wars 2, and I imagine we'll see it in The Elder Scrolls Online. It's the common thread.
Look at what people said about SWTOR: the levelling process was engaging and entertaining. For the most part, people enjoyed the story-driven content up to end game, and then the complaints started when the verticle progression hit home. The same thing happened with Guild Wars 2: the prevalent opinion is that the levelling process is fun and engaging, but then people hit endgame, verticle progression kicked in, and people complained. The drop off point for both games happened after a month or 2, when the majority were starting to hit cap. Seems reasonable to assume that end game content is, for the most part, the problem.
Just look at World of Warcraft's release cycle: peak-concurrency usually comes shortly after an expansion release, and number drop off over the year. This has been happening more dramatically with MoP, with number sliding noticably down as the expansion's age grows. Again, the common thread is a mid-term drop off as players begin to hit the verticle progression at end game.
The problem is that we've been pursuing progression in such terms since EQ, but mostly since WoW popularised the formula back in 2004. No developers or designers have made any effort to diversify verticle progression, and have certainly avoided trying to introduce new forms of non-vertical progression.
Now I'm not saying that verticle progression as end game SHOULDN'T be offered. It is a mistake however to offer it as the ONLY brand of progression at cap, and there needs to be more content options for players that doesn't fall within "new raids" or "new dungeons".
It has nothing to do with a lack of multiplayer content, or social content; most people would rather spend the vast majority of their time in their own little bubble. It has nothing to do with raid encounters being poorly designed. It has nothing to do with their not being enough raid content at end game.
Do you want to know who I blame for all of this? The "veterean" EQ/DAOC/GW/WoW developers that people like ZeniMax and Blizzard tote as their "trump cards". The reality is that saying you have an EQ dev just means your game is going to follow the crowd. I'm not really interested in TESO at all because they have DAOC developers working on it. I played DAOC. It was great. I don't want to play it again, tyvm. I'd like some new faces to come to the fore. I'd like to see people who've never worked on an MMO before, or at least have never led MMO development before, taking the lead on these bigger projects. I'm fed up of seeing tired hacks being rolled out to steer the development of big and potentially great titles into the very much known waters of the MMO space.
We've had the better part of a decade of constant raids and dungeons, and it's about time someone grew some balls and challenged that paradigm... because it's flawed.
Comments
Themeparks are too easy to develop with you as player being railed to the finish line, then you end up in a repetive endgame powergrind.
They should introduce tools to create player created content, like ways to roleplay, actually give a meaning to the war instead of linear quests, player generated dungeons which spawn and de-spawn.
No way that SWG was a succesful game, but actually taking in some of that game's content could be quite fun.
Let players add content to the game.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
F2P is not going to change anything. The game is more or less the same as it is when it launched.
The main reason why SWTOR flopped is that the devs did not add content / update the game fast enough, and still aren't
Bad Endgame (which is the 3rd chosen problem) is most definately the MAIN problem to the game, as the 2nd chosen reason atm is Linear worlds, but SWG could have even had Linear Worlds through the Legacy quest series and lack of content, but what made them not linear was all the content and end game that made people go back to the worlds, You can still go back to the worlds in SWTOR by choice but there is no end game content to make you want to. If there was good end game that made you want to go back to all the worlds, then the worlds would not seem linear. Therfore Bad Endgame is the bigger problem than Linear Worlds
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
The same here it wasn't 1 reason but many, just going into SWTOR for the first time there was just so many missing features or lackluster ones that i just couldn't find myself wanting to hand over my cash each month
Actually, for its time, SWG was quite successful. It had some of the highest sub numbers for an MMO of that time period (pre-WoW) and made back its develpment costs within a year or so. After that it was just the cost of developers and keeping the servers running, the rest was profit.
In my opinion, TOR failed because it did what every other MMO has done since and tried to copy the WoW formula. Just like every other game that's copied WoW, people soon realise that there's no point playing something that's a copy when they can play the real thing that is generally polished better.
Despite it's rocky history, SWG survived because ultimately, it was unique. There was no other MMO that had all the features and systems that it had, and there still isn't. Apart from voice overs (which I actually found annoying during my time playing TOR), there's not a whole lot that's unique about TOR. It's WoW with lightsabers.
Neither.
TOR managed to gain substantial player base, meaning people do like the game. Only problem is it was too expensive to make.
I could only chose one...
Cons
1. Linear world
2. Gameplay/Combat was too static and slow
3. Space combat felt like a minigame
Pros
1. World felt like Star Wars
2. Great stories and characters
3. Legecay system
Cons to pros
1. A dynamic world
2. Action oriented and fast paced combat with accurate physical collision
3. PvP space combat and PvE space combat with more players/RvR/WvWvW type of map
It was awefull on so many levels.. When discussing this game I find it difficult to come up with something positive to say about it. The only positive I can think of now is..NO one can force me to play it. I would have to be PAID a substantial amount to play it again, that's how bad I feel it is/was.
Maybe TOR is as good as a game can be, maybe BW/EA are at the top of their craft and I am just over critical. Considering the reception SWTOR has recieved that is unlikely.
Story was fine, but once you were done and had done all the dungeons there was no reason to keep playing. PvP was bad and raids were too easy. So no challenge or progression there, and there were no other redeeming features that would keep people logging in such as housing or fluff stuff.
Basically it didnt warrant a subscription, and even now the F2P is too restrictive for what is essentially a story driven game with a few multiplayer features.
People bought and played the game from hype and the Bioware reputation. 2 million sales at launch before even playing the game, even before knowing they liked it. Then 75% quit. The majority really did not like SWTOR
It has only sustained a high level player base, as people do not want to just write off the game after buying it, especially after buying the collectors edition - a waste of money if you end up just playing theough one class and quit within a month
WOW started off small with a small playerbase, and then grew to mass proportions, which means people liked WOW
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
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<spacebar><spacebar>
<spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar>
<spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar>
<spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar><spacebar>
<ESC> <Quit>
<Uninstall>
the game is single player for leveling, but not for end game.
swimming, day/night are just a feeling in every game
cutscenes is 90% of leveling, only 10% is for endf game.
loading screens are in all games and last the same.
space i find it very relaxing and enjoyable.
................
things that make me quit
1. no global chat
2. all items BoP
3. removing items is something that i hate
Hmm. My 'primary reason' vote has to go to "the OCD/dedicated behavior patterns of a large number of very vocal and persistent 'haters', followed by a predictable 'all the cool kids are hating on this game' surge of 'me toos'." But the originals are still chipping away at the stone, to this day.
But that was probably more of a local phenomena.
The game itself had a fairly complete set of issues, too.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
About time someone made a post like this!
...
OTHER: mainly, they did not incorporate ANY SWG stuff. As issued as SWG was, it had many interesting and cool features to built and expand on. Large worlds, player ctities, non combat classes, living worlds asf. SWTOR totally ignored EVERYTHING and made on pupose a sort of anti-SWG, which was just absurd.
Other also import points INVPO:
- dead, sterile, non-animated worlds: NPCs standing around like glued to the ground, no city life, no ambient sounds, asf. Everything that made the planets feel like theatre stages more than actual worlds.
- lack of social hubs, space station was BAD BAD idea to make a "meet and greet" place
- waaaaay too serious. Nothing funny, cute or stuff to distract from the war. Seriousness needs contrast. The civil life to be worth defending, fighting for. Same issue as in Tabula Rasa: if all is war, what civil good society we are actually fighting for? All that made WOW a success: the cute, the absurd, the funny; something for everyone. This is way too much a male wet dream of combat and heroism without anything else.
- lack of playable alien races. In a Star Wars game simply an unforgivable sin. Period.
- some planets are really boring. Taris anyone? Again, possibly because of the totally not animated worlds, which just is not believable. But also the quest series are often strangely dull and uninspired. I really dunno why so many praised the writing of SWTOR, because I really found it lame, dumb and tiring in too many places. Class stores were great, ok, but the planetary quests often waaay too boring. Some planets are really a snoozefest and a pain in the ass if you have to make them a second time.
- cartoony graphics. In such a serious setting as Star Wars, the visual were just a bad choice. It might work in more lighthearted stuff, but for Star Wars especially the cartoony graphics were simply a horrible choice. I am not against stylized realism per se, but Star Wars and cartoon just simply should never ever meet.
- NPCs talk WAAAY too much, and my companions (strangely) way too little. I don't really need to know the entire biography of every unimportant NPC, but my companions were way too uninteresting and shallow. I would have invested into much more fleshed out companions, as in Bioware single player games, and then leave most NPCs less chatty. I don't care about the life story of some imperial officer or what, but my constant companions! A really, really odd choice of emphasis Bioware made. As I predicted before launch, people will SPACEBAR through dialogues much more than Bioware expected.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Given the results of the vote so far, we can count on Bioware to:
RELAX!@!! BREATHE!!!
There wasn't a choice for all of the above. So I had to choose other.
problems i had with was lifeless worlds (the same character model everywhere
npcs look like they are having conversations no sound coming out from them)
a cut scene for everything (no i do not want to listen to your life story to kill ten womprats)
forced to do everything in a chain including questing
hardly any rewards for exploration
no system of progression for gathcraftsplorers like me
There were too many things to choose just one. Overall, the combination of those things caused me to burn out quickly and lose my will to log in.
I can't help but think that if SWTOR had been more like SWG (pre-NGE) and less like WoW it would have been more successful. Still....I enjoyed the game for the brief time I played it and don't regret buying it. Live and learn, I say.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Main reason SWTOR failed? HMM... Could be it had to much this...
And not enough this...
Single Player Game with MMO badge.
Reason enough?
Verticle progression.
That's generally what I think is causing the longer-term failure of MMOs today. We can see it in SWTOR, we can see it in Guild Wars 2, and I imagine we'll see it in The Elder Scrolls Online. It's the common thread.
Look at what people said about SWTOR: the levelling process was engaging and entertaining. For the most part, people enjoyed the story-driven content up to end game, and then the complaints started when the verticle progression hit home. The same thing happened with Guild Wars 2: the prevalent opinion is that the levelling process is fun and engaging, but then people hit endgame, verticle progression kicked in, and people complained. The drop off point for both games happened after a month or 2, when the majority were starting to hit cap. Seems reasonable to assume that end game content is, for the most part, the problem.
Just look at World of Warcraft's release cycle: peak-concurrency usually comes shortly after an expansion release, and number drop off over the year. This has been happening more dramatically with MoP, with number sliding noticably down as the expansion's age grows. Again, the common thread is a mid-term drop off as players begin to hit the verticle progression at end game.
The problem is that we've been pursuing progression in such terms since EQ, but mostly since WoW popularised the formula back in 2004. No developers or designers have made any effort to diversify verticle progression, and have certainly avoided trying to introduce new forms of non-vertical progression.
Now I'm not saying that verticle progression as end game SHOULDN'T be offered. It is a mistake however to offer it as the ONLY brand of progression at cap, and there needs to be more content options for players that doesn't fall within "new raids" or "new dungeons".
It has nothing to do with a lack of multiplayer content, or social content; most people would rather spend the vast majority of their time in their own little bubble. It has nothing to do with raid encounters being poorly designed. It has nothing to do with their not being enough raid content at end game.
Do you want to know who I blame for all of this? The "veterean" EQ/DAOC/GW/WoW developers that people like ZeniMax and Blizzard tote as their "trump cards". The reality is that saying you have an EQ dev just means your game is going to follow the crowd. I'm not really interested in TESO at all because they have DAOC developers working on it. I played DAOC. It was great. I don't want to play it again, tyvm. I'd like some new faces to come to the fore. I'd like to see people who've never worked on an MMO before, or at least have never led MMO development before, taking the lead on these bigger projects. I'm fed up of seeing tired hacks being rolled out to steer the development of big and potentially great titles into the very much known waters of the MMO space.
We've had the better part of a decade of constant raids and dungeons, and it's about time someone grew some balls and challenged that paradigm... because it's flawed.