As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

You can feed me lines about 1.2 and the voice acting and such but there is little doubt that ToR for the most part played it safe and I think it will bite them.

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme.  There isn't much room to change.  Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.

I burried SWtoR back in January, and it will stay there for eternity, BW need to seperate themselves from EA as with other companies that joined them, EA is bad for gamers, bad for developers and bad for the industry as a whole.  SWtoR will survive with a niche market, but with so much competition on the horizon they really need to up their game.  Personally I will not buy another game that has the EA trademark on it, other companies can have my money but they won't have it.

I'm not sure what you define as short term. One year? So far it has been doing OK. Both GW and PS2 won't be ssub based so it is possible to own and play both. I myself will probably play PS2 and ToR (on and off).

Yeah they did play it safe and I do fear they will hold too tight to that mentality or be force to by EA. But I have a feeling it will really take off again once they start putting in the content that they had to cut so they could get it released. There is a lot more they can do and add. Still waiting for pazaak...

Will SWTOR survive while dishing out the occasional content patch? - Yes.

Will SWTOR live up to investor and developer hype and expectations? - Hell no.

Originally posted by crysent

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme.  There isn't much room to change.  Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.

Just NO. in 1 year the game will be just huge, with an insane amount of content and probably an expansion by the end of the year ¨the space combat secret proyect¨. 1.2 is coming, and they already have on internal testing  the 1.3 , 1.4 and 1.5 content updates. Probably we will see more people playing tor in the next months/years. 

   I have to dis agree with the op and this is why.   People who play swtor play it for different reasons than say eq2 or wow,  People who like it- like it because of the story line, voice overs, cut scenes, excellent sound, companions, small group fun, social points, star wars, . Bioware will continually make new content and that will keep old players and add new. My only hope is that they change the space game into something more substantial, but what they have now in terms of story etc will certainly keep me around

Originally posted by hikaru77

Originally posted by crysent

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme.  There isn't much room to change.  Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.

Just NO. in 1 year the game will be just huge, with an insane amount of content and probably an expansion by the end of the year ¨the space combat secret proyect¨. 1.2 is coming, and they already have on internal testing  the 1.3 , 1.4 and 1.5 content updates. Probably we will see more people playing tor in the next months/years. 

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by hikaru77

Originally posted by crysent

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme.  There isn't much room to change.  Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.

Just NO. in 1 year the game will be just huge, with an insane amount of content and probably an expansion by the end of the year ¨the space combat secret proyect¨. 1.2 is coming, and they already have on internal testing  the 1.3 , 1.4 and 1.5 content updates. Probably we will see more people playing tor in the next months/years. 

 

Lol, oh wait, you are serious

Would be great, but don't see it happening. We'll make a bet and  If subs grow past 1.7 million by the end of the year Refminor will eat his clown nose. lol

I really wanted to like this game. I played to 50 on my first toon and got several others to 30ish.

They stayed pretty true to the spirit and look of the franchise in most respects. Where they didn't (speeders come to mind) their liberties seemed much less about creativity and more about development convenience. The lack of variety in gear was disappointing but one could argue that more could come in future updates. I find that this is rarely the case for anything below end game - what launched is all you'll ever see, as the developers become focused exclusively on raid and pvp progression. The environments were well done - immersive and consistent. 

They had everything you needed. Everything you liked from a hundred other MMOs. And yet they took such a formulaic approach to everything - gear progression, level progression, questing, dungeons, crafting - that it all felt pretty stale and predictable. All the bells and whistle, and yet no soul.

I enjoyed the single-player aspect of the game a lot. But it makes any kind of RP immersion difficult when your character has the exact same history and companions and connections as every other character of the same class. Running around with my  companion, say, Bowdar, and seeing dozens of other players dressed exactly like me and accompanied by an identical wookie with the same name was a serious impediment to RP. Not as serious as the fact that literally no one RPd, but that's a different point.

But the game-killer for me was the absolutely terrible group experiences. I've been playing MMOs long enough to have become quite accomplished at grouping and raiding. I think this game's appeal to a market consisting almost entirely of single-player veterans and the very young, coupled with the strong emphasis on the single-player experience, made for some of the most frustrating group instance crawls I've ever endured - WoW included.

Most people I met had no concept of even the most basic of group mechanics: group roles and their responsibilities, pulling, threat, target focus, crowd control, and so on. Most encounters were either a disaster or could have been far, far less risky and time consuming. Wiping on nearly every trash encounter was not uncommon. I'm not talking about a few groups here and there - I'm talking about 4 characters up to at least 30, and one to 50, on 2 different servers.

4 people soloing beside each other is fun for me occasionally, but I find role-aware, tactical, efficient groups far more interesting. That's my personal preference and SWTOR's populace just couldn't provide that consistently.

I enjoyed much of my time in the game, but after a couple of months I believe I've seen everything significant that it will ever have to offer, and I'm done.

I think the game will stick around for a long while, though. The severs were always full of people enjoying themselves and there are more people each day who seem to fit right in with that crowd. I hope they have fun, but I'll continue to look for something more to my liking.

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by hikaru77

Originally posted by crysent

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme.  There isn't much room to change.  Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.

Just NO. in 1 year the game will be just huge, with an insane amount of content and probably an expansion by the end of the year ¨the space combat secret proyect¨. 1.2 is coming, and they already have on internal testing  the 1.3 , 1.4 and 1.5 content updates. Probably we will see more people playing tor in the next months/years. 

 

Lol, oh wait, you are serious

Would be great, but don't see it happening. We'll make a bet and  If subs grow past 1.7 million by the end of the year Refminor will eat his clown nose. lol

I got invited to the 7 day trial and played along with a friend who rolled a new char. We were having fun - a lot in fact.

As B2P CO-OP RPG  this game would rock. .

As cheap alternative I'm playing Age of Conan occasionally. I just wish that game had a full voiceover like SWTOR has.

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by hikaru77

Originally posted by crysent

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme.  There isn't much room to change.  Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.

Just NO. in 1 year the game will be just huge, with an insane amount of content and probably an expansion by the end of the year ¨the space combat secret proyect¨. 1.2 is coming, and they already have on internal testing  the 1.3 , 1.4 and 1.5 content updates. Probably we will see more people playing tor in the next months/years. 

 

Lol, oh wait, you are serious

Would be great, but don't see it happening. We'll make a bet and  If subs grow past 1.7 million by the end of the year Refminor will eat his clown nose. lol

 

I cannot change the clown nose but will change my avatar to one of Darth Vader for a year in penance.

Instead of something so trivial how about you just come back and admit you were wrong?

It would be the adult thing to do, after all.

haha! how about putting the nose on Darth Vader ? But ok, you're on. What is my penalty if I lose?

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

 

You can feed me lines about 1.2 and the voice acting and such but there is little doubt that ToR for the most part played it safe and I think it will bite them.

Your words are marked. Your same argument can be made at anytiime about any game. There is always something on the horizon. It's always something big and earth shattering...lol. 

I can't even count how many post I've read int eh past 7 years saying that WoW would be dead by now. They've all been wrong... and you will too. Mark my words.

Originally posted by Furiant

I really wanted to like this game. I played to 50 on my first toon and got several others to 30ish.

They stayed pretty true to the spirit and look of the franchise in most respects. Where they didn't (speeders come to mind) their liberties seemed much less about creativity and more about development convenience. The lack of variety in gear was disappointing but one could argue that more could come in future updates. I find that this is rarely the case for anything below end game - what launched is all you'll ever see, as the developers become focused exclusively on raid and pvp progression. The environments were well done - immersive and consistent. 

They had everything you needed. Everything you liked from a hundred other MMOs. And yet they took such a formulaic approach to everything - gear progression, level progression, questing, dungeons, crafting - that it all felt pretty stale and predictable. All the bells and whistle, and yet no soul.

I enjoyed the single-player aspect of the game a lot. But it makes any kind of RP immersion difficult when your character has the exact same history and companions and connections as every other character of the same class. Running around with my  companion, say, Bowdar, and seeing dozens of other players dressed exactly like me and accompanied by an identical wookie with the same name was a serious impediment to RP. Not as serious as the fact that literally no one RPd, but that's a different point.

But the game-killer for me was the absolutely terrible group experiences. I've been playing MMOs long enough to have become quite accomplished at grouping and raiding. I think this game's appeal to a market consisting almost entirely of single-player veterans and the very young, coupled with the strong emphasis on the single-player experience, made for some of the most frustrating group instance crawls I've ever endured - WoW included.

Most people I met had no concept of even the most basic of group mechanics: group roles and their responsibilities, pulling, threat, target focus, crowd control, and so on. Most encounters were either a disaster or could have been far, far less risky and time consuming. Wiping on nearly every trash encounter was not uncommon. I'm not talking about a few groups here and there - I'm talking about 4 characters up to at least 30, and one to 50, on 2 different servers.

4 people soloing beside each other is fun for me occasionally, but I find role-aware, tactical, efficient groups far more interesting. That's my personal preference and SWTOR's populace just couldn't provide that consistently.

I enjoyed much of my time in the game, but after a couple of months I believe I've seen everything significant that it will ever have to offer, and I'm done.

I think the game will stick around for a long while, though. The severs were always full of people enjoying themselves and there are more people each day who seem to fit right in with that crowd. I hope they have fun, but I'll continue to look for something more to my liking.

the two major factors for me from what you wrote: Solo-centric feel, Their story-Not Yours

Originally posted by Kost

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by hikaru77

Originally posted by crysent

Originally posted by ignore_me

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

This could be true, but isn't it also possible that SWTOR will evolve toward those models with future content?

No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme.  There isn't much room to change.  Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.

Just NO. in 1 year the game will be just huge, with an insane amount of content and probably an expansion by the end of the year ¨the space combat secret proyect¨. 1.2 is coming, and they already have on internal testing  the 1.3 , 1.4 and 1.5 content updates. Probably we will see more people playing tor in the next months/years. 

 

Lol, oh wait, you are serious

Would be great, but don't see it happening. We'll make a bet and  If subs grow past 1.7 million by the end of the year Refminor will eat his clown nose. lol

 

I cannot change the clown nose but will change my avatar to one of Darth Vader for a year in penance.

Instead of something so trivial how about you just come back and admit you were wrong?

It would be the adult thing to do, after all.

Originally posted by mmoguy43

I'm not sure what you define as short term. One year? So far it has been doing OK. Both GW and PS2 won't be ssub based so it is possible to own and play both. I myself will probably play PS2 and ToR (on and off).

Yeah they did play it safe and I do fear they will hold too tight to that mentality or be force to by EA. But I have a feeling it will really take off again once they start putting in the content that they had to cut so they could get it released. There is a lot more they can do and add. Still waiting for pazaak...

even tough GW2 will not ahve a sub you still have a time problem, since most of swtor people say they don't have much gamming time because they have a "life" they will still find only one game to play and we know most of then are the "ohh, shiny" kind of people, and will play anything is new, rinse and repeat, plus the game will not survive, they say swtor have 1,7M, I doubt, I still think they are not telling the truth to us so they can try and gather more peeps

Originally posted by crysent

As the title says, and mark my words.  While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so.  A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext)  - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.

While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster.  ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release.  Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.

Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.

The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's.  Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.

 

You can feed me lines about 1.2 and the voice acting and such but there is little doubt that ToR for the most part played it safe and I think it will bite them.

Prior to release would you say SWToR was bound to fail? Maybe, but most had high expectations and even detractors thought it would do well. And yet again, people are putting their faith in unreleased games. GW2, PlanS 2, archage could all turn out flops just as you perceive swtor will. WAR was going to save us all. AoC would save us all. Aion would save us all. Vangaurd would save us all. And now yet again, we are saying GW2 will save us all, Archage will save us all, EQNext will save us all....

History repeats itself.

So mark my words. All of the 'saviors of the genre' games that you listed will release with a high population. Within three months their populations will begin to considerably decline. While at first posts will demand more servers and faster queues, it will slowly digress into posts about server merges and 'game x is a failure' posts. SWToR will stablize its population and as some tire of the messiah games, you will see posts of 'i'm going back to SWToR, Rift, WoW, etc.'

 Or, you could believe that the games you mentioned will actually be the messianic utopia you hope for, and SW will shut down. At least my prediction is based upon actual historic patterns.