With all the doom threads about, I was wondering just how long people thought TOR would last before the Sub drop off hits.

I think it will last about 6 months.  I believe that bioware will have alot of content at the start but leveling with be fast.  Also with the crap DLC that bioware makes, I just don't think they will be able to add enough quailty fast enough to keep themeparkers happy.

Edit:  This isn't a poll about how long it will stay running.  I fully expect EA to beat this horse till it's long dead, like SOE does with it's games.  I know that SWG is still running, but it's sub numbers are a shadow it former numbers.  This poll is about how long TOR will keep large number of subs and be one of the top western MMOs. 

You will get a drop at the end of the free month.

5 years + , if it has the RPG as deep as Dragon Age Origin .

yeah, people here tends to believe that it could last some months...

that's sort of an improvement...

Didn't vote. The game won't get past beta.

I think it will make it for some time but think the first big drop will come about 3 months in.  I think the journey to max will be short like Rift and nothing will really be waiting except the gear grind for end game.

As I said in another thread, the drop off for people who frequent sites like this will be fast. Just look at many of the critique posts here, people for whatever reason will still buy TOR even though they hate the very foundation that the game stands on. I guess people don't understand the concept of voting with their wallet.

Casuals it's hard to say, until they run out of content I'd assume, which I can't give an estimated time of. As I have no real clue how long it will take an average player to reach that point.

As for DLC =/= their content development for TOR, I'm not sure how one jumps to such a conclusion. I'm sure the dev's working on TOR who have worked in this industry since the beginning (meridian 59) might have something to say about that. Very few members of this Dev team come from titles such as ME or DA, as those teams are still working on those franchises.

They may "borrow" devs from time to time, but those devs hardly have any control over the day to day development of TOR.

I think the game will sell really well (1 million easy) with subs dropping like a rock roughly 4-6 months after launch.

SWG is at 7 years so I can't see it doing any worse than SWG did.

Originally posted by kegtap

SWG is at 7 years so I can't see it doing any worse than SWG did.

 +1

Considering how much focus is on story, it depends on how long Bioware can pump out interesting new content to keep players interested. Players have a nasty habit of blowing through content though...

We can only hope not long so another company can get the Star Wars Ip and make a game that will do it justice.  But, STO is still going so the future doesn't look bright for Star Wars fans.

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

I think the game will sell really well (1 million easy) with subs dropping like a rock roughly 4-6 months after launch.

 same prediction. the hype will give great box sales. it'll also show its ugly teeth...

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

I think the game will sell really well (1 million easy) with subs dropping like a rock roughly 4-6 months after launch.

 same prediction. the hype will give great box sales. it'll also show its ugly teeth...

I also agree with the above. Especially with the population issues I'm currently seeing in Rift I see no reason at all to try SWTOR until at least 4 months after release.

Considering they've got 10 years of content mapped out and in full development as we speak, I believe it will last at least 10 years :P, but it will peak somewhere in it's first 5 years as long as they handle the game properly.

12 years

Originally posted by pierth

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

I think the game will sell really well (1 million easy) with subs dropping like a rock roughly 4-6 months after launch.

 same prediction. the hype will give great box sales. it'll also show its ugly teeth...

I also agree with the above. Especially with the population issues I'm currently seeing in Rift I see no reason at all to try SWTOR until at least 4 months after release.

What population issues? Cause right now I'm logging on and there are 4 full servers, 6 High servers and the rest are medium. And each week for the last month a new server goes from medium to high on peak hours sooo I'm really not seeing the population issue unless you rolled on an imbalanced server (factionally speaking), on the wrong side of that situation.

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by SlothnChunk

I think the game will sell really well (1 million easy) with subs dropping like a rock roughly 4-6 months after launch.

 same prediction. the hype will give great box sales. it'll also show its ugly teeth...

I'm not sure the hype in this respect really can be tied to the hype of past games. The hype here is on Bioware/Star Wars not a lie of the finest steak to ever see it's way to a plate.

They've been straight forward with their aims with this game (a themepark game with cinematic story elements). They've been shooting down hopes of something more since the beginning, which is why there's so much pre-release controversy. In the end what do those who don't like that sort of direction, or who have grown completely sick of it have to complain about post release, especially if they buy it anyway?

I think it's safe to assume we all know what to expect from TOR at this point. Story based leveling similar to AOC's tortage. A stream-lined approach to character development similar to other Bioware titles. Gear Progression at later stages of the game. Raid like scenarios for end game. PVP battlegrounds from lvl 1-cap. Something similar to WARs pvp lakes. Certain planets being linear certain planets being more open.

A bot based crafting experience, a certain level of craftable goods, tokens and rewards for grouping up. Typcial MMO combat, Typcial MMO animations, typcial MMO UI etc..

I give it 3 months. TOR and Rift will be smoked by other games.

I've bookmarked the thread, will be interesting to revisit in the future.

You'll have some drop off after the first free month, because you'll have people who discover that SWTOR isn't to their liking, just as you see with other MMO launches.

After that it can go 2 ways, either we see a WoW effect for whatever reason happen. I'm saying 'for whatever reason' because I still cannot fully understand how it is that WoW managed to draw in 10+ million people and got them playing for 6 years off and on, I myself get tired of playing the same game after a while. So it's hard to pinpoint what I'd call the 'gravity effect', is the object large enough in mass, then it starts pulling in other mass making it bigger with an increased gravity effect and so on.

The other effect is the also oberved 'content consumption' effect. where people consume the dev content, and if there's little of it left or they've grown tired of it, they start to leave.

The 2nd one depends upon how fast people are with consuming the content. See in this post below for my own guesses.

Originally posted by parrotpholk

I think it will make it for some time but think the first big drop will come about 3 months in.  I think the journey to max will be short like Rift and nothing will really be waiting except the gear grind for end game.

I differ from this opinion. The journey towards level cap in Rift was on average 125-150 hours pure leveling time.  The journey towards level cap and finishing a class story (which doesn't necessarily end immediately after reaching level cap) rates around 200-300 hours on average, based upon their CB tester metrics.

After that, in contrast to Rift the leveling of alts has been made more appealing by making the journey, the leveling experience, also for alts unique and different.

I'd say that that content alone should be entertaining enough for the average gamer to provide entertainment value for 6-9 months. For people who're going for more than 2-3 alts even more than 9 months, purely to be entertained on that content alone, class story and leveling.

The rest is where it gets interesting: most features are what we've seen in other themepark MMO's, so it depends how many MMO gamers have grown tired of that, and how BW has executed it. The crafting sounds interesting and could be a different path of occupation, especially since the crafted items are on par with raid gear, the best of crafted items are on par with the very highest tiered of raid items.

As for the PvP Warzones, the exploration, the economy game, the dungeons and raids, and the open world PVP and any possible surprises that can be found in there, it all depends. Matter of fact is that 6-9 months after launch, just like WoW, Rift and the other MMO's around, SWTOR will face the competition of the other upcoming MMO's.

There's only so many subs and amount of playtime that an MMO gamer can afford.

   Ha!

  All of you fail to forget that it has Star Wars in the name, as well as Bioware and EA backing it.  

  So just let that sink in...