Originally posted by waynejr2

SWTOR must be doing well as even the haters are still posting their envy/hate threads.  Until the threads die down to a minimum, it will be doing well.

WoW fans are delusional to think that Star Wars fans are not more hardcore then them. Also my last count even Bioware is releasing content faster then Blizzard lol

i am happy to say I agree with the OP.  We are finally seeing a time where none of the upcoming games are blatant WoW copies... Which is incredibly refreshing.  WoW has made a huge impact on the genre and that will always remain, but at least the blatant copies have all been released.

2003-2011 in my mind = the dark age of MMOs.

Between Archeage, Planetside 2, and Guild Wars 2 we might actually have some stimulating fun in the next few years.  :-)

Originally posted by Puremallace

 Also my last count even Bioware is releasing content faster then Blizzard lol

And it shows in the piss poor quality of their latest title.  Speed of development does not a great game make.

...but, back on topic.  I'm trying to fathom what would inspire a publishing house and its investors to adopt an attitude of, "We want them to drop the current game that they're playing to buy another version of the current game they're playing."

The whole, "We want another WoW!  Clone it!" mentality baffles me.

People have invested time and money into WoW.  If they're going to be lured away from that time and financial investment, you don't give them more of the same 'ol same 'ol, that's just ridiculous.

Do you borrow features that people have come to like?  Of course.  It's not like Blizzard started out with a plethora of original ideas when they made WoW--- they just took some good ideas (some that had already been implemented in other games) and enfolded them into something made by Blizzard.

But beyond some "features" (e.g. intuitive, easy-to-use interface, in-depth macro system, guild banks, dungeon finder tools, etc), the overall premise should be original, and the approach should try to be something people haven't seen before, not a direct rip-off of another game model with a new coat of paint.

The WoW clone mentality will continue up until the next big thing comes around and gets millions of people playing. It may be GW2 or something else, but that will be the new clone. Back in the day everything was an Everquest clone.

Fact of the matter is that a "fail" for some is still a success. Just because you don't like the game does not mean it is a failure. Realistically as long as the game is making money it will continue to produce content updates which means it is not a failure. EQ2, Rift, DCUO, LOTOR,SWTOR,ect all have something in common. They were all hyped a ton and still dissapointed some people who had unrealistic expectations. People still love these games and play them, and they all produce pretty frequent content updates (3-6 month range for most, 2-3 for one or two of them). Ironically enough one of the slowest updating MMOs lately has been WoW...the most successful. 

Play what you enjoy. As long as you are having fun it really doesn't matter what constitutes as "failure" in some people's eyes. This especially applies to opinions coming from,quite frankly, the most jaded group of mmo players' website. 

I do wonder what LA 's knee jerk reaction will be to TOR's falling numbers.  If SWG's history tells us anything, we should be expecting something epic coming from them soon...under the guise of Bioware too.

Originally posted by Obraik

I do wonder what LA 's knee jerk reaction will be to TOR's falling numbers.  If SWG's history tells us anything, we should be expecting something epic coming from them soon...under the guise of Bioware too.

 

Hah I didn't think about that. Hilarious. I wonder if LA will put the screws to them.

TOR wont be the end of Wow clones. Many if not all Wow clones have actually done worse than TOR and that never stopped anyone.

The only thing that stops Wow clones is a more successful game with another concept to copy. If GW2, Class 4, Titan or something else do really well they would start copying that instead.

Originally posted by bigsmiff

Yep...10 million+ at WoW and 1.7 million at SWTOR...it will go down in flames.  o.O

Originally posted by Loke666

TOR wont be the end of Wow clones. Many if not all Wow clones have actually done worse than TOR and that never stopped anyone.

The only thing that stops Wow clones is a more successful game with another concept to copy. If GW2, Class 4, Titan or something else do really well they would start copying that instead.

lol except GW2 is another THEMEPARK that is CLONING everything it does from OTHER GAMES.  It may not be a direct clone of wow, but its not something new or different.

All these types of threads show is that none of you amatuer CEO's and Development guru's know bugger all about running a successful business. Its like me claiming I can outsmart Sir Alex Ferguson at Football management. Though I might when I become manager of Arsenal FC.

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Malacth

Yes! This will be the death of the most successful and popular MMO genre! This will be the death of the only MMO genre that makes money! This will be the death of the only MMO genre that has had millions of constant players! 

 

No company will ever want to make an MMO again after Star Wars The Old Republics lame numbers!!!! Who wants 2+ million boxsets sold and 1.7 million players in the first three months when you can have SANDBOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

WoW clone genre will die a quick DEATH!

 

No wait, it won't. End of discussion, lets move on.

 

It didn't have 1.7m subscribers at 3 months, that was at 31st December when people were locked in the free month and was in the Q3 financial report, the statements after that referred to that figure and then made unsubstantiated generalised comments for which EA are not legally accountable. All anecdotal evidence strongly points to falling subscriber numbers, the only question is how many have left the ship.

You know if you keep on repeating something it doesn't eventually make it fact.

From Massively..

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/03/09/star-wars-the-old-republic-subscription-numbers-stabilize-at-1/

Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription numbers stabilize at 1.7 million

by Matt Daniel on Mar 9th 2012 2:00PM

It's shaping up to be one hell of a good month for BioWare. If you consider the amount of money made by the launch of Mass Effect 3 and by the continued success of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the entire studio must be swimming in pools of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck by now. At any rate, it would appear that Star Wars: The Old Republic's subscriber numbers have stabilized at about 1.7 million active subscribers.

 It's also worth noting that, according to EA's John Riccitello, the "vast majority" of these active subscribers have already used their 30-day trials, which means most of those 1.7 million subscribers are shelling out $15 per month to play the game. It'll be interesting to see how these numbers change (or don't) in the coming months, but for the time being The Old Republic seems to be doing BioWare proud.

This is at the time of the article and hopefully they'll tells us again what the numbers are around the 2nd week of April and then we can see if there is a drop if they are silent about sub numbers then then we will certain know numbers are dropping. But we can also find out when EA release their quarterly financial report. 

Originally posted by William12

Originally posted by Loke666

TOR wont be the end of Wow clones. Many if not all Wow clones have actually done worse than TOR and that never stopped anyone.

The only thing that stops Wow clones is a more successful game with another concept to copy. If GW2, Class 4, Titan or something else do really well they would start copying that instead.

lol except GW2 is another THEMEPARK that is CLONING everything it does from OTHER GAMES.  It may not be a direct clone of wow, but its not something new or different.

GW2 is indeed a themepark, I never said anything else. And most of the features do have been in other games in some form or another.

But stuff like changing out the quests for DEs have never been done before. The game is not a MMO made completely from scratch by starting at pen and paper RPGs and make it to a computer game all over again like WoDO but I never said it was.

All that does not matter for this argument, GW2 ain't a Wow clone and if the devs of new games clone it instead of Wow it would be the end of Wow clones.

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Malacth

Yes! This will be the death of the most successful and popular MMO genre! This will be the death of the only MMO genre that makes money! This will be the death of the only MMO genre that has had millions of constant players! 

 

No company will ever want to make an MMO again after Star Wars The Old Republics lame numbers!!!! Who wants 2+ million boxsets sold and 1.7 million players in the first three months when you can have SANDBOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

WoW clone genre will die a quick DEATH!

 

No wait, it won't. End of discussion, lets move on.

 

It didn't have 1.7m subscribers at 3 months, that was at 31st December when people were locked in the free month and was in the Q3 financial report, the statements after that referred to that figure and then made unsubstantiated generalised comments for which EA are not legally accountable. All anecdotal evidence strongly points to falling subscriber numbers, the only question is how many have left the ship.

 

You know if you keep on repeating something it doesn't eventually make it fact.

 

From Massively..

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/03/09/star-wars-the-old-republic-subscription-numbers-stabilize-at-1/

 

Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription numbers stabilize at 1.7 million

by Matt Daniel on Mar 9th 2012 2:00PM

It's shaping up to be one hell of a good month for BioWare. If you consider the amount of money made by the launch of Mass Effect 3 and by the continued success of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the entire studio must be swimming in pools of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck by now. At any rate, it would appear that Star Wars: The Old Republic's subscriber numbers have stabilized at about 1.7 million active subscribers.

 It's also worth noting that, according to EA's John Riccitello, the "vast majority" of these active subscribers have already used their 30-day trials, which means most of those 1.7 million subscribers are shelling out $15 per month to play the game. It'll be interesting to see how these numbers change (or don't) in the coming months, but for the time being The Old Republic seems to be doing BioWare proud.

 

 

This is at the time of the article and hopefully they'll tells us again what the numbers are around the 2nd week of April and then we can see if there is a drop if they are silent about sub numbers then then we will certain know numbers are dropping. But we can also find out when EA release their quarterly financial report. 

Originally posted by RefMinor

 

So the vast majority of the 1.7m there were at 31st Dec subbed, that's anything from 1.2m to 1.69m, no mention of how many of those unsubbed at the end of Jan or the End of Feb, as a statement of subs at the time it was made in march it is essentially meaningless. The truth will out in the year end investor reports but ALL anecdotal evidence points to severe falls in numbers.

Uhm, while i don't really like to take a side in that debate he actually posted links supporting his theories while you posted your own opinion.

So put up some proof (at least something as good as the link) or you are losing this discussion..

Originally posted by sekira

It should be pretty apparent by now that SWTOR aka WOWTOR is not doing as well as Bioware or their fans had hoped. The game is already being discounted by $10 on origin, they are already offering multiple free weekends for the game, and one of the most replied to posts on the official forums is titled "Server population is dropping...". Yes it looks like it is the beginning of the end for this game.

 

When a company spends $200 million on a new game and instead of growth, the total population starts to decline (or stabilizies) as individual server populations drop noticeably, its an obvious sign that customers are not satisfied. The game also has a small number of subscribers relative to the total number of potential customers, compared to WoW 7 years ago which had an equal or possibly greater number of subscribers the same length of time after its' release, back when MMO's  were not as mainstream as today.

 

This should speak volumes that gamers are not looking for games that are "similar to WoW" anymore and do not want games that fit the bill of a linear theme park. If WOWTOR monumentally collapses or does not experience great success (profit), I would expect more developers, if they haven't already, will begin to distance themselves from SWTOR/WOW as they realize now that advertising a game as a WoW clone should not be considered a selling point to get people interested in their MMO anymore.

 

I for one will not be playing another MMO until it is very innovative and different than a MMO I have played in the past, in particular, WoW. Developers should stop worrying about making a viable competitor in the MMO market that is nearly identical to WoW in order to appeal to that playerbase. Instead they really should be making it completely unlike WoW in order to compete with Titan, which I guarantee will probably be vastly different than WoW.

 

I suspect SWTOR will probably be the last wow clone we will see. Overall I think this is very good news for the genre, even at the expense of a game that had such a massive budge for a company eyeing major success.

 

 

RIP SWTOR "Tortanic"

I think you're seeing it the wrong way.  SWTOR had 2M sales+.  That number represents them getting back about 60% of their design costs.  I will be generous with maintenance and employee costs and forego saying two paid months pays it all off and say three paid months will pay it all off

Well that means SWTOR is profitable after only three months.

Yeah that's the kicker, an MMO doesn't even have to do that great of sales to be profitable.

I smell a century of WoWclones.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by RefMinor

 

So the vast majority of the 1.7m there were at 31st Dec subbed, that's anything from 1.2m to 1.69m, no mention of how many of those unsubbed at the end of Jan or the End of Feb, as a statement of subs at the time it was made in march it is essentially meaningless. The truth will out in the year end investor reports but ALL anecdotal evidence points to severe falls in numbers.

Uhm, while i don't really like to take a side in that debate he actually posted links supporting his theories while you posted your own opinion.

So put up some proof (at least something as good as the link) or you are losing this discussion..

Originally posted by troublmaker

Originally posted by sekira

It should be pretty apparent by now that SWTOR aka WOWTOR is not doing as well as Bioware or their fans had hoped. The game is already being discounted by $10 on origin, they are already offering multiple free weekends for the game, and one of the most replied to posts on the official forums is titled "Server population is dropping...". Yes it looks like it is the beginning of the end for this game.

 

When a company spends $200 million on a new game and instead of growth, the total population starts to decline (or stabilizies) as individual server populations drop noticeably, its an obvious sign that customers are not satisfied. The game also has a small number of subscribers relative to the total number of potential customers, compared to WoW 7 years ago which had an equal or possibly greater number of subscribers the same length of time after its' release, back when MMO's  were not as mainstream as today.

 

This should speak volumes that gamers are not looking for games that are "similar to WoW" anymore and do not want games that fit the bill of a linear theme park. If WOWTOR monumentally collapses or does not experience great success (profit), I would expect more developers, if they haven't already, will begin to distance themselves from SWTOR/WOW as they realize now that advertising a game as a WoW clone should not be considered a selling point to get people interested in their MMO anymore.

 

I for one will not be playing another MMO until it is very innovative and different than a MMO I have played in the past, in particular, WoW. Developers should stop worrying about making a viable competitor in the MMO market that is nearly identical to WoW in order to appeal to that playerbase. Instead they really should be making it completely unlike WoW in order to compete with Titan, which I guarantee will probably be vastly different than WoW.

 

I suspect SWTOR will probably be the last wow clone we will see. Overall I think this is very good news for the genre, even at the expense of a game that had such a massive budge for a company eyeing major success.

 

 

RIP SWTOR "Tortanic"

I think you're seeing it the wrong way.  SWTOR had 2M sales+.  That number represents them getting back about 60% of their design costs.  I will be generous with maintenance and employee costs and forego saying two paid months pays it all off and say three paid months will pay it all off

Well that means SWTOR is profitable after only three months.

Yeah that's the kicker, an MMO doesn't even have to do that great of sales to be profitable.

I smell a century of WoWclones.

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by RefMinor

 

So the vast majority of the 1.7m there were at 31st Dec subbed, that's anything from 1.2m to 1.69m, no mention of how many of those unsubbed at the end of Jan or the End of Feb, as a statement of subs at the time it was made in march it is essentially meaningless. The truth will out in the year end investor reports but ALL anecdotal evidence points to severe falls in numbers.

Uhm, while i don't really like to take a side in that debate he actually posted links supporting his theories while you posted your own opinion.

So put up some proof (at least something as good as the link) or you are losing this discussion..

 

http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/34910064-electronic-arts-inc-ea-q3-2012.aspx

 

These are the only official figures quoted, this is a transcript of the EA Q3 financial year 2012 (period ending dec 31st) margin call with investors. They quote 2m sales with 1.7m active ( ie 300k not activated, or activated and credit card cancelled), all the quote above said was that of those 1.7m a vast majority went on to subscribe, that may be true so all we know 1.2m to 1.69m took at least a month after the initial free period.

 

So for some more actual figures rather than generalised non legally binding CEO spin we need to wait for the Year End financials sometime after 31st March, this is why they are cramming in free trials to try to pick up extra subs before those figures are announced, my opinion which is in line with all anecdotal evidence is they are falling hard. Eg

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=350700

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/336517/page/46

The plural of anecdote is not data

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by RefMinor

 

So the vast majority of the 1.7m there were at 31st Dec subbed, that's anything from 1.2m to 1.69m, no mention of how many of those unsubbed at the end of Jan or the End of Feb, as a statement of subs at the time it was made in march it is essentially meaningless. The truth will out in the year end investor reports but ALL anecdotal evidence points to severe falls in numbers.

Uhm, while i don't really like to take a side in that debate he actually posted links supporting his theories while you posted your own opinion.

So put up some proof (at least something as good as the link) or you are losing this discussion..

 

http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/34910064-electronic-arts-inc-ea-q3-2012.aspx

 

These are the only official figures quoted, this is a transcript of the EA Q3 financial year 2012 (period ending dec 31st) margin call with investors. They quote 2m sales with 1.7m active ( ie 300k not activated, or activated and credit card cancelled), all the quote above said was that of those 1.7m a vast majority went on to subscribe, that may be true so all we know 1.2m to 1.69m took at least a month after the initial free period.

 

So for some more actual figures rather than generalised non legally binding CEO spin we need to wait for the Year End financials sometime after 31st March, this is why they are cramming in free trials to try to pick up extra subs before those figures are announced, my opinion which is in line with all anecdotal evidence is they are falling hard. Eg

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=350700

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/336517/page/46

 

The plural of anecdote is not data

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by RefMinor

 

So the vast majority of the 1.7m there were at 31st Dec subbed, that's anything from 1.2m to 1.69m, no mention of how many of those unsubbed at the end of Jan or the End of Feb, as a statement of subs at the time it was made in march it is essentially meaningless. The truth will out in the year end investor reports but ALL anecdotal evidence points to severe falls in numbers.

Uhm, while i don't really like to take a side in that debate he actually posted links supporting his theories while you posted your own opinion.

So put up some proof (at least something as good as the link) or you are losing this discussion..

 

http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/34910064-electronic-arts-inc-ea-q3-2012.aspx

 

These are the only official figures quoted, this is a transcript of the EA Q3 financial year 2012 (period ending dec 31st) margin call with investors. They quote 2m sales with 1.7m active ( ie 300k not activated, or activated and credit card cancelled), all the quote above said was that of those 1.7m a vast majority went on to subscribe, that may be true so all we know 1.2m to 1.69m took at least a month after the initial free period.

 

So for some more actual figures rather than generalised non legally binding CEO spin we need to wait for the Year End financials sometime after 31st March, this is why they are cramming in free trials to try to pick up extra subs before those figures are announced, my opinion which is in line with all anecdotal evidence is they are falling hard. Eg

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=350700

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/336517/page/46

 

The plural of anecdote is not data

 

I repeat all anecdotal evidence is that subs are falling fast from the Q3 figures and that we have to wait for the year End figures to see where it has gone. I repeat this because I have no idea what your statement means.

It means that no matter how much ancedotal evidence you have, like having more than one piece (plural) it will never be hard cold data or... 

Anecdotes like this do not prove anything. In any case where some factor affects the probability of an outcome, rather than uniquely determining it, selected individual cases prove nothing; e.g. "my grandfather smoked 40 a day until he died at 90" and "my sister never went near anyone who smoked but died of lung cancer". Anecdotes often refer to the exception, rather than the rule: "Anecdotes are useless precisely because they may point to idiosyncratic responses." Even when many anecdotes are collected to prove a point, "The plural of anecdote is not data." (Roger Brinner)

We can only take what the CEO of EA has said until we have other evidence that he is not telling the truth. Until that time all other theories are conjecture and assumptions. So the real truth will out with EA's quarterly finances and projections for the future.