For all intents and purposes SWTOR is P2P game with these additions:
- very intrusive cash shop
- paid content updates
effectively triple dipping. It really is first of its kind where they try to keep the cake and eat it to.
Also lot of fanbois, even wirters for this site, try to bundle anything but Makeb and license to level to 55 in ROTH and the price. Which is FALSE as EA clearly said that other stuff (operation and old FPs) are part of 2.0 and NOT ROTH. Anyone who ignores this is just shutting his eyes, covering their ears and going "nanananananananan".
And what did Michael Bitton do after his first preview when he was pointed out to his big mistake? Correct it? Nope
He actually made another article with same crap. ROFL, as its so hard to go to official site and check what is actually included in your purchase. But i guess expecting correct info from this author is a bit much.
The cash shop as a subscriber at least is totally unintrusive, just a tiny icon (it can be shrunk in the ui editor quite easily) I only ever spend the monthly allocated cartel coins from my sub+security key in there & it's 99% cosmetic fluff, bulk of my coins went on legacy perks like rocket boost, ship gtn terminal etc anyway.
I am perfectly happy to buy dlc updates to continue supporting the game, I felt 9.99 was extremely good value for money for RoTHC, my only real gripe was how sloppy crafting was handled & that they really did nothing to improve the state of it. I could see how people who "only" PvP to the exclusion of any PvE might feel short-changed perhaps but the game isn't built as a PvP only game.
I feel SWTOR is steadily improving, it does have a lot of things it needs to address but I enjoy playing it and feel it is entertaining & worth my time & money.
Im glad, now if you only could find enough other people that think like you SWTOR wouldnt have to triple dip their subscribers.
Bummer.
You act like the payment method EA picked is an exact representation of SWTORs player numbers. This is the company who puts cash shop like micro transactions into single player games. They've been doing it with madden for years via ultimate teams and unlocks(unlocks that you can get just for playing the game mind you). I have no doubt in my mind this game could have 5 million subscribers and EA would be using the same payment method there using now. The cash shop was something that they said was comming before the game even launched.
Turbine's been using this payment method for years to so its not like EA is the first, EA is greedy and will always go the route that will bring in the largest potential profits.
I'm actually a little surprised EA didn't break the planet in a half release the first half of the planet for 10/20 dollars. Then a month or two later release the second half for the same price. I mean if there going to rip off Turbine's payment model they may as well do it right.
With LOTRO, STO and other F2P MMOs, when having a sub, there is less need to pay more. Every expansion with LOTRO can be purchased with Turbine points, and if you have a sub, then can use your monthly grant.
SWTOR is the only MMO that milks the cash shop to the extreme, they even have a reputation system for using it.
Makeb was intended to be a major free update, and with F2P it was not sure whether it be free to subbers, but then one month after F2P they decide to make not free to subbers, which indicates that they were waiting to see the figures from F2P - If enough were paying then it would be free, and if not enough paying, then it would cost.
Also WAR is not F2P or has a cash shop to the extreme that SWTOR is, as far as I know, so they are not putting in cash shops everywhere.
SWTOR went F2P as it cost loads, and were not getting enough players, and they saw the success of F2P with LOTRO etc, and wanted that success too, following the failed attempt to copy WOWs success with a sub.
Last I heard and my information could be outdated, Turbine throws in some pretty serious perks for pre-ordering there expansions, and you can only pre-order with cash not your Turbine points.
As an Sto player outside of the vet rewards, having a sub does very little outside of character slots and inventory/bank space. In reality a subscriber to STO is still gonna have to acquire items from the cash shop either via dilithum trading or outright purchasing. Just using your cryptic points you get every month would require 4 months for a fleet ship or 5 months for tier 5 ship from the cryptic store. Content on STO is free though so their just double dipping.
EA has left WAR for dead, it would require an investment on their part to implement cash shop/ f2p in war. A much better example of EAs greed is Deap Space 3, a single player game that reminds you all the time of the cash shop.
If more people suddenly jumped back into SWTOR and their sub numbers/cash shop revunue both increased. Do you honestly think EA would let there next dlc be a free update. I don't, i'd be willing to bet they'd increase the cost of there next update to take advantage of the larger customer base to further increase profits.
I mean look at what they did when they announced the WAR MOBA was closing down. They put items in the cash shop on sale, a beta game, with an already implemented cash shop, has basicly a going out of business sale for a bunch of virtual goods that will be useless as soon as they close up shop.
Most of the extras you get for preordering LOTRO expansions with money, was so not worth it, and available as separate purchases in the store when the expansion launched.
That is mostly the case with all MMOs, except SWTOR, where you are locked out of stuff and can not even get it from the cash store, and the only way is to sub ie credit limit and some quest rewards.
Also I forgot to mention in my previous post that games like Madden and Dead Space 3 do not have monthly subs, and the stuff that they do add for DLC is for people who want to cheat / make the game easier, NONE of the stuff is ESSENTIAL to actually playing the game to the fullest. I have bought DS3 but have not purchased any of its DLC - I can get better stuff by just playing the game.
I do not have problems with putting general everyday speeders in the store, although could give players the choice of buying with credits or CC, and is the point of getting free CC. Considering SWTOR does have a sub things like Anniversary fireworks and Life Day Items in the store is just pure greed and laziness, as other MMOs give that stuff out for free or even create an enjoyable mission to get the stuff. It would be better if people who sub get it for free when logging in, but for people who do not sub, they get have to get it with CC
I should make it clear I don't play swtor, haven't since 3 months after launch. Maybe if the games around in a cpl years, bioware may have added enough content to make a return worth it. Nor was I defending there price structure.
My point was I don't believe EA would ever make its current pricing plans less expensive just because more people are suddenly playing/paying. If EA is happy gouging hundreds of thousands they would be delighted to be gouging millions.
Now on a side note, how viable is it for a new player (who subs) for lotro to hit max level without paying for an expansion and not have to either A) wait months for enough turbine points to get the expansions buy the expansion or C) grind for turbine points and possible outlevel an expansion doing so. This is just a serious question as the last expansions I bought was Mines of Moria and I might go back, but if I did I'd want to sub and purchase them with turbine points but i don't wanna hit a point I need the expansion to go on and I have to wait 2 months to get enough tp to be able to purchase it.
And do you think the worst company in America would change their current pricing structure in anyway if they had more people playing.
Yes I do. Especially the "expansion" as I explained earlier
It is done in the way now to maximise as much money from players as possibly, due to its enormous costs. The way the F2P is set up, is to get even subbers to buy from the store, and force F2Pers to sub. All other MMOs are fully playable as F2P or P2P, SWTOR is not fully playable as F2P
I just don't think EA would ever lower their prices simply cause they were making more money then they were before. The whole charging for DLC they said would be for free is something EA does, I remember when DICE said all battlefield 3 map packs would be free. Once EA gets people used to paying a price for something that price goes up not down.
EA wasn't voted the worst company because they value their customers or care if their ripping people off. It would like them saying since box sales of madden suddenly increase by 25% they were gonna get rid of the season pass.
Sad part is that most of you ppl that are giving the reasons why game is fail or not worth of your money are not here only to point bad things, you are here also to cure your frustrations.
I can copy/paste almost the same type of coments from WOW, TERA, GW2, TSW, NWN.....
Also many of you are picking sides like this is a MAN UTD vs MAN City game.
There are good and bad things in every game thing is are you ok with the bad things and can you go over them.
All mentioned games have (some more some less) bad sides but if you as a player have fun and good timer playing it and can go over the bad things as they are something minor to you then you should play it, even pay for it.
When you draw a line under every game with your personal opinion you just need to ask yourself: "Do I have fun playing this game or not?".
That is the whole point.
You cannot put WoW and GW2 in the same bag as Tera and SWTOR.
Some games are successful....and some are not. Its pretty clear what is what.
You see, fanbois on official forums BS with excuse "when SWTOR has gone "F2p" all previous deals were off".
BUT, i didnt see subscription lower due to lower quality/quantity, nope, they now expect you to pay MORE for much lower quality/quantity.
Its been a steady downhill since launch, getting worse and worse. And why is that? Because they fail to make money. And why is that? Because not enough people want to play and pay for it.
THAT is the whole point.
If you single handedly want to pay for complete SWTOR expenses, be my guest, THEN your point will actually be valid.
I can put any game in bag cause again you are missing the point.
Again and again. you didnt invented hot wather and you are pointing things that are legit from your view and many others and that is also legit.
You missed the point cause you still dont get it, cause you are bitter and you have every right to be, at the end you have your opinion.
Let me put it simple:
Poin of ANY game being that a WOW, Lemmings, Ghost`n` Goblins or Pac - Man is to have fun.
Everyone is paing for mistakes. We ll use SW:TOR for exsample cause that is the topic. You lost 50 euros maybe bit more and EA lost millions. Did they learned from the mistakes i guess not and they still are trying to force something that lot of us who played it from beta dont support.
On the other hand with all patches and DLC you have to pay for the price of a regular DLC game is better and can be even more better.
When I started leveling my BH and left Hutt as lev 10 i rarely saw ppl. That feeling that i generaly playing the single player game with option for multyplayer pissed me off and I quited 10 days after I dinged 50. Lets not get back and point all the bad things, buggs, no LFG.....
Now, they game have everything that they missed to put at the start (well, there is always more you can add) and I started leveling a new toon and there are ppl everywhere. You get to the point that you need to wait in line to kill enough mobs for you quest or to take something like the game just got live.
Thought it is cause lot of ppl are installed game for free and wanna give it a go that is why. Now i am lev 44 and still in every planet there is like 150-200 ppl in same shard and ppl looks more live then ever.
Most of are still pissed but game is much better now and it deserve a 2nd chance.
Love the feeling that I am at work and knowing that after i come home, play with my kids talk a bit with my wife I ll have awesome 2h to chill and have fun.
That is all about ANY game.
You cant wait to play it cause it is damn fun and you like it.
Seems you missed the point....again.
Ignorance is bliss....for some.
Bitter? rofl, i dont get pissed off, bitter or w/e at computer games, i just point out turd when i see one. Emperor is naked and all that.
Luckily (well not for you) we can compare how successful games do stuff, and then we have how SWTOR does stuff.
Example:
WoW and GW2: FREE content updates
SWTOR: PAID content updates (on top of subscriprion)
You are saying same old same old. You had the point but this is for another matter and we do not talk about that in this one.
Make a new one and date is 2011 cause what you are saying community know for almost 2 years.
I am sorry you are not bitter you have a tunle vision.
Please, how did community know that they would rename free content update to "expansion" and expect 20/25$ for it? Even when you dont get OP and FPs with it? Eh?
Its directly tied to the topic (unfortunate for you), its you who has tunnel vision with stance "if i like the game i dont care about anthing else"
BTW nice cop out try, but its kinda lame. Nevermind though. Dont discuss if you dont want to lol
And do you think the worst company in America would change their current pricing structure in anyway if they had more people playing. Because that is the point I was attempting to make. Because I don't believe they would one bit.
Point is that if the game succeeded it wouldnt have happened in the first place.
And instead fixing and making game better they go to squeezing people for money expecting to pay more and more for less and less. It does need a bit of attention
If they released the game as it is now at launch the universe would have imploded.
First they wouldn't be able to hype up Open world PVP (No Ilum).
The would not be able to say class stories would be the game's future focus.
There would be riots in the streets if they launched the game with a subscription fee and a cash shop.
They wouldn't have sold any boxes, (especially collector's edition boxes) with its current payment model.
With its FTP option, a ton of people would have never subscribed at all.
Other then that, good plan.
It is sad that all a company has to do is lable a game FTP, and not only can they double dip on the playerbase. But the players will defend the company's actions.
And do you think the worst company in America would change their current pricing structure in anyway if they had more people playing. Because that is the point I was attempting to make. Because I don't believe they would one bit.
Point is that if the game succeeded it wouldnt have happened in the first place.
And instead fixing and making game better they go to squeezing people for money expecting to pay more and more for less and less. It does need a bit of attention
It's the second biggest subscription MMO in the west, the game has succeeded. EA was very happy with the earning from SWTOR in their last investor call. You can keep trying to claim the game failed but you're simply wrong. Game is very strong right now.
Ea kept banging on about 2 million + subs before release.
No they didn't. The highest sub number they ever gave was 1.7 million. The last sub numbers they gave was under 1 million and well above 500k. At this point sub numbers don't mean much, it's about revenue of which subs are but one part.
And do you think the worst company in America would change their current pricing structure in anyway if they had more people playing. Because that is the point I was attempting to make. Because I don't believe they would one bit.
Point is that if the game succeeded it wouldnt have happened in the first place.
And instead fixing and making game better they go to squeezing people for money expecting to pay more and more for less and less. It does need a bit of attention
It's the second biggest subscription MMO in the west, the game has succeeded. EA was very happy with the earning from SWTOR in their last investor call. You can keep trying to claim the game failed but you're simply wrong. Game is very strong right now.
claims of sub numbers mean nothing for "f2p" games in general. and EA has never been completely forthcoming about sub numbers for SWTOR, ever.
it may be bigger or smaller than we think, we'll never know. given its history of shedding players, i highly doubt the game has succedded. EA never touts SWTOR alone in invester calls, it's allways bundled in with other titles. In one moment of clarity they accually admitted it was underperforming.
It's the second biggest subscription MMO in the west, the game has succeeded. EA was very happy with the earning from SWTOR in their last investor call. You can keep trying to claim the game failed but you're simply wrong. Game is very strong right now.
"As a reminder, on November 15, we launched our free to play option for Star Wars The Old Republic. Very early indications have been positive, and we are pleased with the initial results. But it's still too early to know how successful this will be in the long term."
Yeah, EA can hardly contain their excitment over how well SWTOR is doing.
It's the second biggest subscription MMO in the west, the game has succeeded. EA was very happy with the earning from SWTOR in their last investor call. You can keep trying to claim the game failed but you're simply wrong. Game is very strong right now.
How many subscription MMOs are there in the west?
I believe it's just WoW, Rift, and Eve now, with SWTOR being a hybrid. So they're #2 out of 4. What percentage of the market share is that? WoW supposedly is still in the 4-5M range, you're saying SWTOR is ~500K? The other two are probably about 500K total. That's 5-6M total, with WoW at ~80% and #2 at ~10%.
How do you define success?
Is it a sub game that goes f2p in less than a year? A game that has a much lower than 50% retention rate? A game that not only still has to shut down servers due to lack of population, but is removing all local server support for their entire asia/pacific playerbase?
How happy do you think EA is with SWTOR?
They removed toll free customer support via phone. They no longer offer in-game customer support for all game issues, even if you're a subscriber. They removed forum support for their non-English forums. And while the game is mentioned in the conference calls still, it hasn't been mentioned in either of the last 2 earnings reports, even though there was the f2p launch and expansion preorders in that time and the devs since claiming the f2p launch was successful.
Yeah, clearly SWTOR is a powerhouse in the MMO market, everything is great, and EA loves them.
This along with The secret world is a great game for casual players. I am still waiting for them to put in a good space game and when that happens , whewww look out!
Originally posted by DwarfZZZ Is the world still lifeless? Is it still technically possible to add more life to NPCs and creatures in the world? Are the devs thinking in adding it later on?
I have the same question. I remember being dissapointed in the lifeless world and apparent lack of effort in game design.
Character creation, was basic. One quest I went on had 6 prisoners strapped to chairs, the prisoners were the same bald model guy, nothing distringuishable about any of it. Character development was poor as well.
I liked SWTOR and GW2 for awhile, but the lack of a complex and interesting development of your character could not keep me hooked.
If your a fan of the class story element of SWTOR, you get in trouble if your a casual gamer too. Because your class story gets broken up over a period of several days as you wait to level up so you can see the next part of the class story. Its problematic.
It's the second biggest subscription MMO in the west, the game has succeeded. EA was very happy with the earning from SWTOR in their last investor call. You can keep trying to claim the game failed but you're simply wrong. Game is very strong right now.
How many subscription MMOs are there in the west?
I believe it's just WoW, Rift, and Eve now, with SWTOR being a hybrid. So they're #2 out of 4. What percentage of the market share is that? WoW supposedly is still in the 4-5M range, you're saying SWTOR is ~500K? The other two are probably about 500K total. That's 5-6M total, with WoW at ~80% and #2 at ~10%.
How do you define success?
Is it a sub game that goes f2p in less than a year? A game that has a much lower than 50% retention rate? A game that not only still has to shut down servers due to lack of population, but is removing all local server support for their entire asia/pacific playerbase?
How happy do you think EA is with SWTOR?
They removed toll free customer support via phone. They no longer offer in-game customer support for all game issues, even if you're a subscriber. They removed forum support for their non-English forums. And while the game is mentioned in the conference calls still, it hasn't been mentioned in either of the last 2 earnings reports, even though there was the f2p launch and expansion preorders in that time and the devs since claiming the f2p launch was successful.
Yeah, clearly SWTOR is a powerhouse in the MMO market, everything is great, and EA loves them.
There are others, Warhammer, AoC is freemium as well with a very similar free to play system as SWTOR and if he's considering SWTOR to be a "sub" game then the same would apply to Conan. Lots of other "free" games have sub options, LOTRO, TERA, STO etc. Beyond that you can look at Xfire stats to see that SWTOR is in the top 10 of all games and 3rd behind WoW and GW2 as far as MMOs go. While Xfire isn't an ironclad indicator of how a game is doing it was used on this very forum for a long time an indicator of how the game was failing after launch so I think it's fair to bring it up now. I think everyone would agree that the other 9 games are extremely popular so I don't see how SWTOR is somehow an anomaly on that list.
The thing is, going free to play isn't a sign a game is failing, it's a sign that the sub only model is no longer the best option. LOTRO went free a long time ago and profits soared and they're about to release their 5th expansion. Is that game a failure? No. SWTOR had issues after launch, no doubt, and their sub model wasn't bringing in enough money to keep developing the content they needed to improve and expand the game. All indications are that the move has been a great success and I personally know a lot of people who game back to the game impressed with how much it's improved since launch.
The APAC servers are a self perpetuating problem. As the server populations drop below a certain point then even people who like the game quit because there aren't enough people to play with. When I recently counted all the players on my server there were approx 6500 people online, at the same time there were 100 on the most populated APAC server. That's a huge difference in game experience between the two populations. There is no doubt there were too many servers at launch, let's not forget they opened a lot of new servers after launch because people complained about queues. That was a mistake, as populations reached normal post-launch levels there just wasn't enough density on each server to make for a good experience. The new servers hold 8-10k players which is far more than the old ones and they are frequently full.
Lastly, SWTOR was most certainly mentioned in their last earnings report and it was grouped in with their 2 most popular francihises.
"Extra content and free-to-play contributed $185 million, up 50% led by FIFA and Madden Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic. These revenues relate to businesses on PC or consoles, where consumers pay for additional digital content — including virtual characters, map packs and micro-transactions associated with browser based games or MMO’s – like Star Wars. As a reminder, on November 15th we launched our free-to-play option for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Very early indications have been positive and we are pleased with the initial results but it is too early to know how successful this will be in the long term."
That was up to the end of Dec, so 45 days after free to play launched. The next earning call is in just over a week, we'll see what they say but from multiple dev comments they have been very pleased with the conversion to free to play and said over 2 million new accounts have been created since the move.
It´s actually a pretty decent game, clearly better than on release.
Imagine they would not have invested time into the space rails and rather announced a big space sim with the release, and show something of it!
A lot of "would have´s" but hopefully the game is on the right track now and they skim through the tons of suggestion.
Still needs Pazaak, swoop racing, space casino, improve the feeling of the lame ass speeders, giving more life to the planets(day night change), sandbox elements and expand the planets, add a really good "Privateer/EvE" type space sim then it will be perfect.
SWTOR 3.0 maybe?
Had they done a lot of things the game would have been better. Problem is they didn't do a lot of things. They would have been better off not releasing any space combat all as Starwars Galaxies did, until they could put in a system everyone would like (like Galaxies did)... But they didn't, they made a generic boring as shit space rail game.
Pazaak? Swoop racing? You ask about? Guess what, Boiware was going to put this stuff into game, they were going to have all kinds of crap. They had it all planned out, systems already created from other games... However, they teamed up with EA who wanted a lower rating on the game, and thus gambling had to be removed to fit the T for Teen rating.
I still have hope that this game will become what we all hope it could be, but as time goes on, that hope fades a little at a time. I canceled my account a while back, but still kind of key an eye on it. Granted, with Star Citizen, World of Darkness Online, and EverQuest Next... I doubt I'll play it again.
It´s actually a pretty decent game, clearly better than on release.
Imagine they would not have invested time into the space rails and rather announced a big space sim with the release, and show something of it!
A lot of "would have´s" but hopefully the game is on the right track now and they skim through the tons of suggestion.
Still needs Pazaak, swoop racing, space casino, improve the feeling of the lame ass speeders, giving more life to the planets(day night change), sandbox elements and expand the planets, add a really good "Privateer/EvE" type space sim then it will be perfect.
SWTOR 3.0 maybe?
Had they done a lot of things the game would have been better. Problem is they didn't do a lot of things. They would have been better off not releasing any space combat all as Starwars Galaxies did, until they could put in a system everyone would like (like Galaxies did)... But they didn't, they made a generic boring as shit space rail game.
Pazaak? Swoop racing? You ask about? Guess what, Boiware was going to put this stuff into game, they were going to have all kinds of crap. They had it all planned out, systems already created from other games... However, they teamed up with EA who wanted a lower rating on the game, and thus gambling had to be removed to fit the T for Teen rating.
I still have hope that this game will become what we all hope it could be, but as time goes on, that hope fades a little at a time. I canceled my account a while back, but still kind of key an eye on it. Granted, with Star Citizen, World of Darkness Online, and EverQuest Next... I doubt I'll play it again.
Hello,
- I tried it and the engine was a little laggy, mostly on the faction fleet - there must be something wrong with the way the server packs up world data and sends it to the gameclient. There were vendor NPCs which faded in like 10+ seconds after standing beside them and low res textures on mission boxes which switched to high res after 5+ seconds.
- the space missions. No comment. Besides, don´t expect more than a single player minigame which gets boring very quickly
- the game worlds feel dead. Just dead. Static environments, static mobs standing around, some move and walk in circles. That´s about it. Also, too many of them.
- flashpoints are fun, but only for a couple of times at max. After that, just repetitive
- warzones: maybe the best part of the game, was fun but could use more maps
- The stylized look. Can´t get used to this. Some char models look quite good, but the environments look a bit cartoony. Very basic geometry, you see reused stuff everywhere. Every planet has mostly identical looking space ports, then you go out and you almost get a feeling they took the geometry from Minecraft, with lots of blocky 90° architecture.
- I´d rate the overall experience a 6.5/10 with room for lots of improvements
If 2.0 was 1.0 nothing much would change because its just more of the same...even less because most hyped and interesting part (by BW) is missing...class stories.
Originally posted by Pongo_
It is sad that all a company has to do is lable a game FTP, and not only can they double dip on the playerbase. But the players will defend the company's actions.
Its more of triple dip now. sub+cash shop+(mandatory)paid content update
So like World of Warcraft then?
Nope. WoW doesnt have real cash shop with all the latest ingame stuff, and it has free content updates.
No, those content updates are patches to fix stuff......the free content you are talking about are additions to PAID expansions.
"ah yes, but we just got the Thunder King raid for free" I hear you say.....
-no, that stuff was delayed content from that panda expansion which everyone had to pay for but it wasn't ready at release. Same with all the other content added inbetween expansions, they should have been there in the expansions but it wasn't ready.
What is free in WoW is fluff....but that's not content.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
It´s actually a pretty decent game, clearly better than on release.
Imagine they would not have invested time into the space rails and rather announced a big space sim with the release, and show something of it!
A lot of "would have´s" but hopefully the game is on the right track now and they skim through the tons of suggestion.
Still needs Pazaak, swoop racing, space casino, improve the feeling of the lame ass speeders, giving more life to the planets(day night change), sandbox elements and expand the planets, add a really good "Privateer/EvE" type space sim then it will be perfect.
SWTOR 3.0 maybe?
Had they done a lot of things the game would have been better. Problem is they didn't do a lot of things. They would have been better off not releasing any space combat all as Starwars Galaxies did, until they could put in a system everyone would like (like Galaxies did)... But they didn't, they made a generic boring as shit space rail game.
Pazaak? Swoop racing? You ask about? Guess what, Boiware was going to put this stuff into game, they were going to have all kinds of crap. They had it all planned out, systems already created from other games... However, they teamed up with EA who wanted a lower rating on the game, and thus gambling had to be removed to fit the T for Teen rating.
I still have hope that this game will become what we all hope it could be, but as time goes on, that hope fades a little at a time. I canceled my account a while back, but still kind of key an eye on it. Granted, with Star Citizen, World of Darkness Online, and EverQuest Next... I doubt I'll play it again.
let me get this straight,,you want to play a star wars mmo,,but you dont want kids to play it?
i guess they could make one, just for adults, but it would be VERY small,,and VERY cheap
a game of swtor size has to go for the biggest playerbase they can get
There are others, Warhammer, AoC is freemium as well with a very similar free to play system as SWTOR and if he's considering SWTOR to be a "sub" game then the same would apply to Conan. Lots of other "free" games have sub options, LOTRO, TERA, STO etc. Beyond that you can look at Xfire stats to see that SWTOR is in the top 10 of all games and 3rd behind WoW and GW2 as far as MMOs go. While Xfire isn't an ironclad indicator of how a game is doing it was used on this very forum for a long time an indicator of how the game was failing after launch so I think it's fair to bring it up now. I think everyone would agree that the other 9 games are extremely popular so I don't see how SWTOR is somehow an anomaly on that list.
The thing is, going free to play isn't a sign a game is failing, it's a sign that the sub only model is no longer the best option. LOTRO went free a long time ago and profits soared and they're about to release their 5th expansion. Is that game a failure? No. SWTOR had issues after launch, no doubt, and their sub model wasn't bringing in enough money to keep developing the content they needed to improve and expand the game. All indications are that the move has been a great success and I personally know a lot of people who game back to the game impressed with how much it's improved since launch.
The APAC servers are a self perpetuating problem. As the server populations drop below a certain point then even people who like the game quit because there aren't enough people to play with. When I recently counted all the players on my server there were approx 6500 people online, at the same time there were 100 on the most populated APAC server. That's a huge difference in game experience between the two populations. There is no doubt there were too many servers at launch, let's not forget they opened a lot of new servers after launch because people complained about queues. That was a mistake, as populations reached normal post-launch levels there just wasn't enough density on each server to make for a good experience. The new servers hold 8-10k players which is far more than the old ones and they are frequently full.
Lastly, SWTOR was most certainly mentioned in their last earnings report and it was grouped in with their 2 most popular francihises.
"Extra content and free-to-play contributed $185 million, up 50% led by FIFA and Madden Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic. These revenues relate to businesses on PC or consoles, where consumers pay for additional digital content — including virtual characters, map packs and micro-transactions associated with browser based games or MMO’s – like Star Wars. As a reminder, on November 15th we launched our free-to-play option for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Very early indications have been positive and we are pleased with the initial results but it is too early to know how successful this will be in the long term."
That was up to the end of Dec, so 45 days after free to play launched. The next earning call is in just over a week, we'll see what they say but from multiple dev comments they have been very pleased with the conversion to free to play and said over 2 million new accounts have been created since the move.
I didn't realize those other games were also sub hybrids, but you ignored the point. Regardless of how many other sub/sub hybrid games there are, #2 MMO in the west is like saying #2 OS for PCs. WoW dominates the market, whether SWTOR is #2 or number #89 doesn't matter much because in that market both positions are marginal.
And to say that they went F2P because it's no longer the best payment option is demonstrably false. All I really have to do is mention WoW, do you honestly believe that if F2P were superior they wouldn't switch? But let's not forget that no sub MMO has switched to F2P unless their subs were dwindling. It's a last desperate attempt to reach profitability. Where is the success story where a sub game fails, goes F2P and succeeds enough to regularly ADD servers along with new content? There isn't one, because going F2P isn't a success for a sub game, it's a reprieve.
APAC is both a result of continued mismanagement, they launched with too many servers.... again, 4 months after making the mistake the first time. And also a sign that the game is STILL not retaining enough players. And I think as a result of that continuing trend EA told them to drop APAC servers completely to cut operating costs, because they have no faith that ROTHC is going to turn things around over the long term.
As I said before, yes, they still mention SWTOR in the conference calls. They do NOT mention it in the earnings releases anymore though, which is where they list the quarter's highlights, ie projects they're proud of. I'm honestly not sure what will happen with the next one. I would assume it will get a mention, but the fact that they didn't mention pre-order sales of the "expansion" implies they already may not be happy. But we'll see.
Originally posted by LogicLesterI didn't realize those other games were also sub hybrids, but you ignored the point. Regardless of how many other sub/sub hybrid games there are, #2 MMO in the west is like saying #2 OS for PCs. WoW dominates the market, whether SWTOR is #2 or number #89 doesn't matter much because in that market both positions are marginal.
So you're trying to say that no other MMOs should even bother trying because being numbers 2 isn't even good enough? Ridiculous. Unless you're talking about some fanboy garbage list wars then as far as BW is concerned there is most certainly a difference between being #2 and being #89.
Originally posted by LogicLesterAnd to say that they went F2P because it's no longer the best payment option is demonstrably false. All I really have to do is mention WoW, do you honestly believe that if F2P were superior they wouldn't switch? But let's not forget that no sub MMO has switched to F2P unless their subs were dwindling. It's a last desperate attempt to reach profitability. Where is the success story where a sub game fails, goes F2P and succeeds enough to regularly ADD servers along with new content? There isn't one, because going F2P isn't a success for a sub game, it's a reprieve.
You proved it yourself in your other post. You couldn't even name 4 other sub ONLY MMOs. I guess to you that could mean that every MMO that isn't sub only is a failure but that flies in the face of basic logic and understanding of the current marketplace. Here is an article from before SWTOR even launched showing how the entire industry was seeing subscription numbers decline:
SWTOR was in development when sub only was the norm and they tried to stick to that model but it just wasn't bringing in enough cash to keep their large development team going. Kotaku wrote about it here The Subscription MMO Is Dead
Originally posted by LogicLesterAPAC is both a result of continued mismanagement, they launched with too many servers.... again, 4 months after making the mistake the first time. And also a sign that the game is STILL not retaining enough players. And I think as a result of that continuing trend EA told them to drop APAC servers completely to cut operating costs, because they have no faith that ROTHC is going to turn things around over the long term.
Yeah, that last line really is quite a wild guess, the evidence doesn't support that. I'm sure they said drop the servers because it wasn't financially feasible but not because of ROTHC, it's because even combined there just weren't enough players to make those servers healthy enough. So many people had already rerolled on to NA or EU servers. Your assertion that the game is not retaining players is just you expressing what you wish was the case, there is no evidence to support that. Torstatus doesn't show it, Xfire doesn't show it, BW has specifically said that sub numbers are going up and anecdotally I haven't seen any drop in player numbers on my server. The fleet always has 2 instances except in the very late night/early morning and during ROTHC launch there was actually queues on my server.
Originally posted by LogicLesterAs I said before, yes, they still mention SWTOR in the conference calls. They do NOT mention it in the earnings releases anymore though, which is where they list the quarter's highlights, ie projects they're proud of. I'm honestly not sure what will happen with the next one. I would assume it will get a mention, but the fact that they didn't mention pre-order sales of the "expansion" implies they already may not be happy. But we'll see.
let me get this straight,,you want to play a star wars mmo,,but you dont want kids to play it?
i guess they could make one, just for adults, but it would be VERY small,,and VERY cheap
a game of swtor size has to go for the biggest playerbase they can get
and it looks like they dont have enough
Or you could read what I said and not make random assumptions. EA doesn't allow gambling in their games. That's all was pointing out. We got a game that was going to allow gambling of sorts, playing cards and betting in game credits for it, but because of EA, we couldn't get it. That is total bs, and EA sucks big for it. Who else finds it completely freaking asinine that it's ok for a game to have killing in it, Battlefield series, and it's ok. Oh, there isn't any blood therefor it isn't to much.... Give me a freaking break...
You can play Battlefield and kill people, but they draw the line at gambling. How the hell does that make any sense at all? There is a massive disconnect from reality on these ratings.
I'm not bashing on battlefield. I'm not bashing on SWTOR. I was answer his question on why there weren't certain games (pazaak) and such in SWTOR when Bioware had it in it's other starwars games. And I simply brought up the retarded logic that these people use for their game ratings and what they think it so much for "impressionable young minds" to handle.
the only remaining sub games , i know, are the old giants,,wow and EVE
RIft is still sub based and puts out a lot of content.
Originally posted by Lord-Kronk
You can play Battlefield and kill people, but they draw the line at gambling. How the hell does that make any sense at all? There is a massive disconnect from reality on these ratings.
I'm not bashing on battlefield. I'm not bashing on SWTOR. I was answer his question on why there weren't certain games (pazaak) and such in SWTOR when Bioware had it in it's other starwars games. And I simply brought up the retarded logic that these people use for their game ratings and what they think it so much for "impressionable young minds" to handle.
It's pretty weird that the Teen rating would ban virtual gambling but allow real money gambling via the cartel packs.
Comments
I should make it clear I don't play swtor, haven't since 3 months after launch. Maybe if the games around in a cpl years, bioware may have added enough content to make a return worth it. Nor was I defending there price structure.
My point was I don't believe EA would ever make its current pricing plans less expensive just because more people are suddenly playing/paying. If EA is happy gouging hundreds of thousands they would be delighted to be gouging millions.
Now on a side note, how viable is it for a new player (who subs) for lotro to hit max level without paying for an expansion and not have to either A) wait months for enough turbine points to get the expansions
buy the expansion or C) grind for turbine points and possible outlevel an expansion doing so. This is just a serious question as the last expansions I bought was Mines of Moria and I might go back, but if I did I'd want to sub and purchase them with turbine points but i don't wanna hit a point I need the expansion to go on and I have to wait 2 months to get enough tp to be able to purchase it.
I just don't think EA would ever lower their prices simply cause they were making more money then they were before. The whole charging for DLC they said would be for free is something EA does, I remember when DICE said all battlefield 3 map packs would be free. Once EA gets people used to paying a price for something that price goes up not down.
EA wasn't voted the worst company because they value their customers or care if their ripping people off. It would like them saying since box sales of madden suddenly increase by 25% they were gonna get rid of the season pass.
This topic is named:
If SWTOR 2.0 would have been 1.0
You are saying same old same old. You had the point but this is for another matter and we do not talk about that in this one.
Make a new one and date is 2011 cause what you are saying community know for almost 2 years.
I am sorry you are not bitter you have a tunle vision.
Please, how did community know that they would rename free content update to "expansion" and expect 20/25$ for it? Even when you dont get OP and FPs with it? Eh?
Its directly tied to the topic (unfortunate for you), its you who has tunnel vision with stance "if i like the game i dont care about anthing else"
BTW nice cop out try, but its kinda lame. Nevermind though. Dont discuss if you dont want to lol
Point is that if the game succeeded it wouldnt have happened in the first place.
And instead fixing and making game better they go to squeezing people for money expecting to pay more and more for less and less. It does need a bit of attention
love blinds
so does hate
luckilly, masturbation doesnt
It's the second biggest subscription MMO in the west, the game has succeeded. EA was very happy with the earning from SWTOR in their last investor call. You can keep trying to claim the game failed but you're simply wrong. Game is very strong right now.
Ea kept banging on about 2 million + subs before release.
No they didn't. The highest sub number they ever gave was 1.7 million. The last sub numbers they gave was under 1 million and well above 500k. At this point sub numbers don't mean much, it's about revenue of which subs are but one part.
claims of sub numbers mean nothing for "f2p" games in general. and EA has never been completely forthcoming about sub numbers for SWTOR, ever.
it may be bigger or smaller than we think, we'll never know. given its history of shedding players, i highly doubt the game has succedded. EA never touts SWTOR alone in invester calls, it's allways bundled in with other titles. In one moment of clarity they accually admitted it was underperforming.
"As a reminder, on November 15, we launched our free to play option for Star Wars The Old Republic. Very early indications have been positive, and we are pleased with the initial results. But it's still too early to know how successful this will be in the long term."
Yeah, EA can hardly contain their excitment over how well SWTOR is doing.
How many subscription MMOs are there in the west?
I believe it's just WoW, Rift, and Eve now, with SWTOR being a hybrid. So they're #2 out of 4. What percentage of the market share is that? WoW supposedly is still in the 4-5M range, you're saying SWTOR is ~500K? The other two are probably about 500K total. That's 5-6M total, with WoW at ~80% and #2 at ~10%.
How do you define success?
Is it a sub game that goes f2p in less than a year? A game that has a much lower than 50% retention rate? A game that not only still has to shut down servers due to lack of population, but is removing all local server support for their entire asia/pacific playerbase?
How happy do you think EA is with SWTOR?
They removed toll free customer support via phone. They no longer offer in-game customer support for all game issues, even if you're a subscriber. They removed forum support for their non-English forums. And while the game is mentioned in the conference calls still, it hasn't been mentioned in either of the last 2 earnings reports, even though there was the f2p launch and expansion preorders in that time and the devs since claiming the f2p launch was successful.
Yeah, clearly SWTOR is a powerhouse in the MMO market, everything is great, and EA loves them.
I have the same question. I remember being dissapointed in the lifeless world and apparent lack of effort in game design.
Character creation, was basic. One quest I went on had 6 prisoners strapped to chairs, the prisoners were the same bald model guy, nothing distringuishable about any of it. Character development was poor as well.
I liked SWTOR and GW2 for awhile, but the lack of a complex and interesting development of your character could not keep me hooked.
If your a fan of the class story element of SWTOR, you get in trouble if your a casual gamer too. Because your class story gets broken up over a period of several days as you wait to level up so you can see the next part of the class story. Its problematic.
There are others, Warhammer, AoC is freemium as well with a very similar free to play system as SWTOR and if he's considering SWTOR to be a "sub" game then the same would apply to Conan. Lots of other "free" games have sub options, LOTRO, TERA, STO etc. Beyond that you can look at Xfire stats to see that SWTOR is in the top 10 of all games and 3rd behind WoW and GW2 as far as MMOs go. While Xfire isn't an ironclad indicator of how a game is doing it was used on this very forum for a long time an indicator of how the game was failing after launch so I think it's fair to bring it up now. I think everyone would agree that the other 9 games are extremely popular so I don't see how SWTOR is somehow an anomaly on that list.
The thing is, going free to play isn't a sign a game is failing, it's a sign that the sub only model is no longer the best option. LOTRO went free a long time ago and profits soared and they're about to release their 5th expansion. Is that game a failure? No. SWTOR had issues after launch, no doubt, and their sub model wasn't bringing in enough money to keep developing the content they needed to improve and expand the game. All indications are that the move has been a great success and I personally know a lot of people who game back to the game impressed with how much it's improved since launch.
The APAC servers are a self perpetuating problem. As the server populations drop below a certain point then even people who like the game quit because there aren't enough people to play with. When I recently counted all the players on my server there were approx 6500 people online, at the same time there were 100 on the most populated APAC server. That's a huge difference in game experience between the two populations. There is no doubt there were too many servers at launch, let's not forget they opened a lot of new servers after launch because people complained about queues. That was a mistake, as populations reached normal post-launch levels there just wasn't enough density on each server to make for a good experience. The new servers hold 8-10k players which is far more than the old ones and they are frequently full.
Lastly, SWTOR was most certainly mentioned in their last earnings report and it was grouped in with their 2 most popular francihises.
"Extra content and free-to-play contributed $185 million, up 50% led by FIFA and Madden Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic. These revenues relate to businesses on PC or consoles, where consumers pay for additional digital content — including virtual characters, map packs and micro-transactions associated with browser based games or MMO’s – like Star Wars. As a reminder, on November 15th we launched our free-to-play option for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Very early indications have been positive and we are pleased with the initial results but it is too early to know how successful this will be in the long term."
That was up to the end of Dec, so 45 days after free to play launched. The next earning call is in just over a week, we'll see what they say but from multiple dev comments they have been very pleased with the conversion to free to play and said over 2 million new accounts have been created since the move.
Had they done a lot of things the game would have been better. Problem is they didn't do a lot of things. They would have been better off not releasing any space combat all as Starwars Galaxies did, until they could put in a system everyone would like (like Galaxies did)... But they didn't, they made a generic boring as shit space rail game.
Pazaak? Swoop racing? You ask about? Guess what, Boiware was going to put this stuff into game, they were going to have all kinds of crap. They had it all planned out, systems already created from other games... However, they teamed up with EA who wanted a lower rating on the game, and thus gambling had to be removed to fit the T for Teen rating.
I still have hope that this game will become what we all hope it could be, but as time goes on, that hope fades a little at a time. I canceled my account a while back, but still kind of key an eye on it. Granted, with Star Citizen, World of Darkness Online, and EverQuest Next... I doubt I'll play it again.
Hello,
- I tried it and the engine was a little laggy, mostly on the faction fleet - there must be something wrong with the way the server packs up world data and sends it to the gameclient. There were vendor NPCs which faded in like 10+ seconds after standing beside them and low res textures on mission boxes which switched to high res after 5+ seconds.
- the space missions. No comment. Besides, don´t expect more than a single player minigame which gets boring very quickly
- the game worlds feel dead. Just dead. Static environments, static mobs standing around, some move and walk in circles. That´s about it. Also, too many of them.
- flashpoints are fun, but only for a couple of times at max. After that, just repetitive
- warzones: maybe the best part of the game, was fun but could use more maps
- The stylized look. Can´t get used to this. Some char models look quite good, but the environments look a bit cartoony. Very basic geometry, you see reused stuff everywhere. Every planet has mostly identical looking space ports, then you go out and you almost get a feeling they took the geometry from Minecraft, with lots of blocky 90° architecture.
- I´d rate the overall experience a 6.5/10 with room for lots of improvements
cheers
Doc B
No, those content updates are patches to fix stuff......the free content you are talking about are additions to PAID expansions.
"ah yes, but we just got the Thunder King raid for free" I hear you say.....
-no, that stuff was delayed content from that panda expansion which everyone had to pay for but it wasn't ready at release. Same with all the other content added inbetween expansions, they should have been there in the expansions but it wasn't ready.
What is free in WoW is fluff....but that's not content.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
semantics
X mio players have paid for 4 full price expansions in wow
thats a big success
we dont even know, how many makeb Xpacks BW have sold, theyre keeping it secret
the panda expansion sold roughly the same number, as the ENTIRE swtor box sale
theyre not even in the same league
let me get this straight,,you want to play a star wars mmo,,but you dont want kids to play it?
i guess they could make one, just for adults, but it would be VERY small,,and VERY cheap
a game of swtor size has to go for the biggest playerbase they can get
and it looks like they dont have enough
I didn't realize those other games were also sub hybrids, but you ignored the point. Regardless of how many other sub/sub hybrid games there are, #2 MMO in the west is like saying #2 OS for PCs. WoW dominates the market, whether SWTOR is #2 or number #89 doesn't matter much because in that market both positions are marginal.
And to say that they went F2P because it's no longer the best payment option is demonstrably false. All I really have to do is mention WoW, do you honestly believe that if F2P were superior they wouldn't switch? But let's not forget that no sub MMO has switched to F2P unless their subs were dwindling. It's a last desperate attempt to reach profitability. Where is the success story where a sub game fails, goes F2P and succeeds enough to regularly ADD servers along with new content? There isn't one, because going F2P isn't a success for a sub game, it's a reprieve.
APAC is both a result of continued mismanagement, they launched with too many servers.... again, 4 months after making the mistake the first time. And also a sign that the game is STILL not retaining enough players. And I think as a result of that continuing trend EA told them to drop APAC servers completely to cut operating costs, because they have no faith that ROTHC is going to turn things around over the long term.
As I said before, yes, they still mention SWTOR in the conference calls. They do NOT mention it in the earnings releases anymore though, which is where they list the quarter's highlights, ie projects they're proud of. I'm honestly not sure what will happen with the next one. I would assume it will get a mention, but the fact that they didn't mention pre-order sales of the "expansion" implies they already may not be happy. But we'll see.
So you're trying to say that no other MMOs should even bother trying because being numbers 2 isn't even good enough? Ridiculous. Unless you're talking about some fanboy garbage list wars then as far as BW is concerned there is most certainly a difference between being #2 and being #89.
You proved it yourself in your other post. You couldn't even name 4 other sub ONLY MMOs. I guess to you that could mean that every MMO that isn't sub only is a failure but that flies in the face of basic logic and understanding of the current marketplace. Here is an article from before SWTOR even launched showing how the entire industry was seeing subscription numbers decline:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-15-money-from-mmo-subs-begins-to-decline
SWTOR was in development when sub only was the norm and they tried to stick to that model but it just wasn't bringing in enough cash to keep their large development team going. Kotaku wrote about it here The Subscription MMO Is Dead
Yeah, that last line really is quite a wild guess, the evidence doesn't support that. I'm sure they said drop the servers because it wasn't financially feasible but not because of ROTHC, it's because even combined there just weren't enough players to make those servers healthy enough. So many people had already rerolled on to NA or EU servers. Your assertion that the game is not retaining players is just you expressing what you wish was the case, there is no evidence to support that. Torstatus doesn't show it, Xfire doesn't show it, BW has specifically said that sub numbers are going up and anecdotally I haven't seen any drop in player numbers on my server. The fleet always has 2 instances except in the very late night/early morning and during ROTHC launch there was actually queues on my server.
Yep, we'll see.
the only remaining sub games , i know, are the old giants,,wow and EVE
both of the the big dogs in their genres
other games have tried , and failed,,F2P most definately saved STO and TERA
TERA prolly have as many subs ,as swtor does now
Or you could read what I said and not make random assumptions. EA doesn't allow gambling in their games. That's all was pointing out. We got a game that was going to allow gambling of sorts, playing cards and betting in game credits for it, but because of EA, we couldn't get it. That is total bs, and EA sucks big for it. Who else finds it completely freaking asinine that it's ok for a game to have killing in it, Battlefield series, and it's ok. Oh, there isn't any blood therefor it isn't to much.... Give me a freaking break...
You can play Battlefield and kill people, but they draw the line at gambling. How the hell does that make any sense at all? There is a massive disconnect from reality on these ratings.
I'm not bashing on battlefield. I'm not bashing on SWTOR. I was answer his question on why there weren't certain games (pazaak) and such in SWTOR when Bioware had it in it's other starwars games. And I simply brought up the retarded logic that these people use for their game ratings and what they think it so much for "impressionable young minds" to handle.
RIft is still sub based and puts out a lot of content.
It's pretty weird that the Teen rating would ban virtual gambling but allow real money gambling via the cartel packs.