Please refrain from quoting more than 3+ posts in a single post. Thanks guys!

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by blazin-ace

This is 2011.... Who is still dumb enough to expect truth in market advertising?

even if its false -- its still lame tactic for more sales

yep, exactly.

Originally posted by vesavius

 

 

No, no it really hasnt.

 

It won't be answered with certainty until after dec 20th.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by vesavius

You blind faith is insipiring.

Your entire point is based on 'they said it so it must be true', despite evidence to the contrary?

BTW, they have obviously lied about having limited stocks of the product in an effort to make the gullible panic buy, so yes the part in red makes utter sense.

Aren't you doing the same if not more? You apparently hate/dislike EA/BW and SWTOR, therefore you automatically dismiss any sensible argument that could be made for them, arguments that you'd be willing to accept when it wouldn't be about EA/BW or SWTOR, and instead you automatically seem to conclude the most negative scenario possible

IIRC I think that's what 'cognitive dissonance' is about.

I don't really like EA, but I don't hate them.  They have run shoddy over the whole industry for a really long time now and I buy from them because developers I like publish with them, but I certainly don't have any sort of fond feelings or customer loyalty.  That's true with a few publishers though, not just EA.

However, I am really tired of publishers and some dev studios marketing half-truths while using smoke and mirrors.  EA certainly isn't alone in this.  I've played Turbine games for several years now and I always have to pay attention to what they don't say as much as I need to watch what they say.  Still that doesn't let EA off the shady marketing hook for me any more than it does SoE or Turbine.

Maybe it's time we stopped using pretzel logic to try and let devs and publishers off the hook.  We can still like the games they deliver without giving them the "rose colored glasss - good guy pass".  I still like LotRO, but sometimes I think Paiz/Campbell make Smedley look like a paladin.  It's good to know when the publisher thinks they can pull market speak on their players.  It helps to remind us to keep a sharper eye on their communication.

EA is using shady vulgar marketing tactics to drive more sales.  Buy the game and enjoy it but don't give EA a pass either.

I agree 100%

While I generally dislike marketing ploys used to entice buyers, I find this one pretty tame.  Saying "stocks are limited" is used by just about everyone.

Would I have prefered that they didn't say that?  Sure, assuming it's not true.  But it may very well be.  We're not sure what the cap is, but if there is a cap, even if it's 5 million+, then they didn't lie.   Simple as that.

I'm sure this has been said but Justin Case is my name!

Pre-orders are "limited" so their will be a better hope of the mythical "perfect launch" that BW is aiming at. Doesn't matter how many people want to buy it. The false limit is the server load limit.

As far as the CE goes though, they better damn well be very limited. As in none sold after launch, preferably before launch. Or I won't get as much out of mine in a few years.

Originally posted by DLangley

Please refrain from quoting more than 3+ posts in a single post. Thanks guys!

maybe you should change your software to only quote 3 posts, rather than try to make us enforce that for you.

Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by Kyleran

I don't view it as lying per sec, rather its just a standard marketing ploy to  build up artificial demand.  Toy manufacturers have been successfully using this trick around Christmas for many years.

Watch how challenging it will be to log in the first few weeks, expecting some very long log in queues no matter how hard they try to prepare for the onslaught.

 

 

How is it not a lie? Even 'per sec'? (did you mean 'per se', as in 'in itself'? Not criticising or correcting, just asking for clarity)

I agree that it's a standard lie that is used, but it is still a lie, and thats all the OP asked.

A lie being 'standard' dosent make it any truer or more acceptable.

 

 

Anyone who believes that EA doesn't have the resources to have 'servers ready' for a game of such potential magnitude are just crazy. This is 110% a marketing ploy. Just like having pre orders for a game that didnt' have a release date until 2 months after.. I mean come on people.

And please stop saying BioWare this and that.. this is what EA paid 700 some odd million for.. .. the name. They OWN them now. It's EA now.

NOTE: This doesn't say if I'll buy the game or not, just topic wise I think the whole thing is BS.

Originally posted by Abdar

Anyone who believes that EA doesn't have the resources to have 'servers ready' for a game of such potential magnitude are just crazy. This is 110% a marketing ploy. Just like having pre orders for a game that didnt' have a release date until 2 months after.. I mean come on people.

And please stop saying BioWare this and that.. this is what EA paid 700 some odd million for.. .. the name. They OWN them now. It's EA now.

NOTE: This doesn't say if I'll buy the game or not, just topic wise I think the whole thing is BS.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on that.

This is BW (yes it's still BW making this) first MMO. I really think they are worried about not having a perfect launch. Regardless of if a perfect launch is possible or not. Their inexperience in MMOs is making them take even more time and care than usual. You can't throw wads of money at a server room and go "Money rules all! Work damnit! The power of Greed compells you!"

Trust me I am not a fanboy for any company. I disagree with A LOT of what BW (with EAs pushing I admit) is doing with this game. But I don't think this is even a 50% ploy.

Originally posted by Abdar

Anyone who believes that EA doesn't have the resources to have 'servers ready' for a game of such potential magnitude are just crazy. This is 110% a marketing ploy. Just like having pre orders for a game that didnt' have a release date until 2 months after.. I mean come on people.

And please stop saying BioWare this and that.. this is what EA paid 700 some odd million for.. .. the name. They OWN them now. It's EA now.

NOTE: This doesn't say if I'll buy the game or not, just topic wise I think the whole thing is BS.

Pre-orders are good in MMO land (in a way), at least in knowing what to expect as far as initial sales go, the higher number of pre-orders, the higher the demand, would be the philosophy at work here.

Second as for the actual question, whether it's a marketing ploy or not, the only people who would be effected by it are those who would have purchased the game either way. As the only person who would be worried about not getting in on day one, would be the person who doesn't want to miss day one. No harm no foul as they say...

This fact makes this overall subject pointless to debate, as either way it's not going to be something a majority sees as wrong. Which is obviously the intent behind this thread.

We'll know soon enough whether they halt digital sales or not, which is something else that makes this whole debate pointless. As the only thing that will come from it is, what has.

One side calling one blind haters, the other calling the latter fanbois or crazies.

"So, was it a lie that pre-order stocks are 'limited', or is the demand lower then expected?"

Brilliant, i didn't even think of that.

It was about then when i started to wonder about this game, why all the pressure sales tactics when it's supposed to be the greatest thing evar? Good games practically sell themselves, check what happened with Minecraft, the guy never even had one ad, and has already made more money than this game on word of mouth alone.

I know some stores here (EB games, etc..) are still taking pre-orders, but they are out of Early Access Codes.  I beleive the codes are the reason people are trying to get copies, unless they feel all the available supply we be bought up before they can get a copy.

Early access will help stagger the amount of players that initially hit the servers, this is also why they have said the Europe release date is 3 days later, if I am not mistaken.  Alot of this stuff is on their forums.  swtor.com

Sounds like they are trying to ensure a smooth launch, which I like . 

They have stated before that they will be putting a hard cap on the number of copies sold before launch.  This is to ensure stable servers during head start.  They said that once that limit is reached (no one knows what that number is) they will stop selling physical and digital copies.  Then you can only get a copy on lauch day at a retailer, but not before once the cap is reached.

So yes, there is a limited stock if you want in before launch day.

There was a rumor that the cap was 500,000 people would be in the head start and they would cut it off after that. VGChartz shows SW:TOR pre-orders at 489,000 right now.  However their numbers are based only on ONLINE pre-orders, physical and digital.  They have no way of tracking gamestop or other brick and morter pre-orders.  

I don't know if that 500k was right, but I guess we'll find out soon if it is.

Originally posted by rt33

"So, was it a lie that pre-order stocks are 'limited', or is the demand lower then expected?"

Brilliant, i didn't even think of that.

It was about then when i started to wonder about this game, why all the pressure sales tactics when it's supposed to be the greatest thing evar? Good games practically sell themselves, check what happened with Minecraft, the guy never even had one ad, and has already made more money than this game on word of mouth alone.

The demand obviously isn't lower than expected  nor is it a lie the stocks are limited.  When they run out of supply for the CE they will no longer sell it.  Digital copies may or may not have a cap on them,  but chances are any cap they encounter would be so high up until a couple weeks before launch as they'd likely take that time to cut off sales to get the servers ready.  If they cut it off too soon, they make people angry, if they cut it off too late, they can't scale servers in time for launch without spending way more money than necessary.   

SWTOR will make much more money than Minecraft.  He had a pay to play beta thats been going on for years.... YEARS.  The game was on the market,  SWTOR isn't.....  so saying its made more money over years in comparison to a game that hasn't launched yet is pretty stupid.   SWTOR will outsell minecraft in the first month alone.

Originally posted by Tacola

I know some stores here (EB games, etc..) are still taking pre-orders, but they are out of Early Access Codes.  I beleive the codes are the reason people are trying to get copies, unless they feel all the available supply we be bought up before they can get a copy.

 

Early access will help stagger the amount of players that initially hit the servers, this is also why they have said the Europe release date is 3 days later, if I am not mistaken.  Alot of this stuff is on their forums.  swtor.com

Sounds like they are trying to ensure a smooth launch, which I like . 

 

 

Definately doesn't make sense. If they really are trying to insure a smooth experience for thier customers, then one of the worst things they can do is not have data centers local in Europe to host for thier European customers. Even though it's not an FPS.... you are introducing alot more latency by sending packets across the Atlantic.

If they are hosting servers in a Data Center in Europe for our freinds accross the pond...then there would be no reason to stagger the launch that way...since the traffic will have zero impact on each other due to seperate infrastructure.

Note even if you ARE legitimately worried about your infrastructure load (which you really shouldn't be with as much time and resources to plan this and the kind of advancements in rapid scalability made in the tech industry the last few years).....there is no reason to limit sales....especialy PREORDERS.....you just establish a throttle...whether it's staggered access codes to get on(like they seem to be doing)... or implimenting a queue system.

Limiting pre-orders is actualy one of the worst things you can do from an operations standpoint.... since pre-orders are what gives you some sense of being able to forecast the amount of traffic you'll have (and hence resources that you need) at launch.

As someone who actually is in charge of network operations for an SaaS provider....this whole thing doesn't make much sense. It makes perfect sense from a marketing standpoint though..... not to actualy limit preorders...but to claim you are so that more people will be enticed to buy early...rather then wait for the last minute and possibly changing thier mind.

Note that getting people to buy early is also good from an Operations standpoint....since it helps to forecast the amount of load you can expect.

It's called Marketing 101

And they are limited, limited to the number that they sell before launch.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. If they control the amount of initial players, it gives those players time to progress to different zones. This spreads people out across different zones to reduce congestion, rather than having thousands of people trying to play in one single area together. We've seen what occurs when companies try to launch and have tons and tons of people trying to cram into one zone. It's either extremely laggy and unstable and/or you have several hour queue times just to log into the server.

Now on the other hand, people might say, well why don't they just create more servers to ease congestion then. Well, we've seen companies do that as well. You have all these servers at launch, and then eventually some of the lower population servers become wastelands and they end up merging the servers together anyways once initial launch settles down. And most people won't roll on the lower pop suggested servers anyways because they want to play on the same server as their guild and their friends, which just creates more congestion.

So, they can either do what other companies did and just open the flood gates and let everybody in on day one, and deal with constant server crashes, lag, and constant maintenance in which case nobody really gets to play. Or they can limit initial population to let people actually play the game and enjoy it without having to deal with the above mentioned issues. The downside is that some people may have to wait a bit longer to play the game, but that's why it's on a first come first serve basis. The people that pre-ordered first and secured their early access will be rewarded with just that; early access.

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

 

 

Definately doesn't make sense. If they really are trying to insure a smooth experience for thier customers, then one of the worst things they can do is not have data centers local in Europe to host for thier European customers. Even though it's not an FPS.... you are introducing alot more latency by sending packets across the Atlantic.

If they are hosting servers in a Data Center in Europe for our freinds accross the pond...then there would be no reason to stagger the launch that way...since the traffic will have zero impact on each other due to seperate infrastructure.

Note even if you ARE legitimately worried about your infrastructure load (which you really shouldn't be with as much time and resources to plan this and the kind of advancements in rapid scalability made in the tech industry the last few years).....there is no reason to limit sales....especialy PREORDERS.....you just establish a throttle...whether it's staggered access codes to get on(like they seem to be doing)... or implimenting a queue system.

Limiting pre-orders is actualy one of the worst things you can do from an operations standpoint.... since pre-orders are what gives you some sense of being able to forecast the amount of traffic you'll have (and hence resources that you need) at launch.

As someone who actually is in charge of network operations for an SaaS provider....this whole thing doesn't make much sense. It makes perfect sense from a marketing standpoint though..... not to actualy limit preorders...but to claim you are so that more people will be enticed to buy early...rather then wait for the last minute and possibly changing thier mind.

Note that getting people to buy early is also good from an Operations standpoint....since it helps to forecast the amount of load you can expect.

 

What they've said has nothing at all to do with pre-orders, pre-orders will continue until the game launches, they've said as much. If anything what they're talking about is post launch, as well as on a global scale. They seem to be making it a difficult thing to purchase the game outside of it's launch areas. No DL's, only box purchases (which will be limited, as they always are), some report it costing upwards of a $100 to ship it to Australia as an example.

In the end who knows what will happen, I plan on picking it up when it's available, didn't pre-order, I will be going with a digital purchase. Didn't feel a need to pre-order that. If it happens that I have to wait a week or more to purchase the game (due to a staggered entry approach) so be it, no skin off my back.

 I do think it makes sense to attempt a staggered launch, however, I don't know how successful it will be in ensuring a smooth launch. There will still be upwards of a million people trying to play on day one. Early access will lighten launch day loads a bit, not by that much though.