If you sit back and take the game for what it really is and not how it was labeled on the box, you will see that everything that is happening to TOR makes sense. SPRPG's with coop features, make big splashes from pre-release and first few month sales. Once players reach the end of the story and max level, they leave and shelve the game,  possibley going back in the future or never reinstalling it again.

I would guess that, there's those that are still playing and loving it, and are more KOTOR SP fans per say, and then there are those that are struggling with the empty servers and all other things the game lacks that pertain to the mmo genre. Nothing Bioware adds will change the core foundation of how TOR plays. They can add another 3 chapters to your personal story and it will be nothing more than the next KOTOR.

When they said they were making KOTOR 3 through 10, they really meant that in a literal term. TOR is basically KOTOR 3, and everything after that will just follow in the same order.

Well, its still the second most successfull mmo release for an AAA title.
Yet there is clearly a reduction in subs and i hope the developers get the right conclusions out of it:
Iconic but highly repetitive and quite one dimensional gameplay is not enough to get a mmo crowded for years to come - you need to get back to virtual worlds with economics and social interdpendancies, faction pride etc.

Dont get it wrong, the story was the selling point for SWTOR and it sold well but it was not the fourth pillar - it was pretty much the only pillar in this game!

Liked:
Some of the less overdone, less iconic story parts.
Comnpanions

Disliked:
All of the rest and the boredom from it.

It was good to ok for three months as Coop-RPG.

Populations are still A-OK.

According to Arts of Electronica all is fine and dandy. And I for one believe them whole heartedly. NASDAQ approved.

i have to delete all heroics as well. cant find anyone to do them.

i hate the fact that i go trough whole conversations before i know if its a heroic or not tough...... 

BioWare was to lazy to put another Quest Sign for heroics above the NPCs sadly....

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by mmodanno

lol... before I canceled my sub, often times I would be the ONLY one on a planet!  I would usually have to just delete the HEROICS for a planet as I leveled up because there were never enough people to complete them. 

For the record, I play mostly daytime, never a big population for MMOs.  But still, of all the MMOs I've played over the years, this is by far the emptiest I have ever seen world to world, realm to realm, etc. in any of them.

Server merges would certainly help, but Bioware will not do this for fear of 'bad press'.  Well, they will do it eventually, but only when the game is so empty that it would be classified as dead for any other 'AAA' mmo.

 

Sigh, alas this.

Was on Quesh yesterday the only person for 2 hours.

I really wish they would just either merge servers or at least make a cross server dungeon finder for Flashpoints and Warzones. So is so depressing. :/

To be fair, Quesh is only a two level planet. Two hours is about all you need to level up and move on. Granted, they would have beeen better of just putting those two levels on another planet and dismissing Quesh all together.

Originally posted by musicmann

If you sit back and take the game for what it really is and not how it was labeled on the box, you will see that everything that is happening to TOR makes sense. SPRPG's with coop features, make big splashes from pre-release and first few month sales. Once players reach the end of the story and max level, they leave and shelve the game,  possibley going back in the future or never reinstalling it again.

I would guess that, there's those that are still playing and loving it, and are more KOTOR SP fans per say, and then there are those that are struggling with the empty servers and all other things the game lacks that pertain to the mmo genre. Nothing Bioware adds will change the core foundation of how TOR plays. They can add another 3 chapters to your personal story and it will be nothing more than the next KOTOR.

When they said they were making KOTOR 3 through 10, they really meant that in a literal term. TOR is basically KOTOR 3, and everything after that will just follow in the same order.

Game is very subpar to SPRGs, so no, if you play it like that you will be very dissapointed.

Only way to "feel right" is to take it as pure themepark MMO ala WoW/LOTRO/Rift...

Tbh, my gut feeling tells me this game is doomed. I am the first to admit I was wrong when it makes a big return or whatever in a year, but what I feel now is, despite the fact you can have fun in SWTOR, the games is bleeding subs dramatically. And neither GW2 nor TSW have even yet launched. If these 2 games are even halfway good, the remaining community will simply break down!

It is really painful and sad to see this happening, but I am just confirmed in all the critique I had for the last few years of development of SWTOR. And Bioware's denial just makes it worse. They deny they makes some fundamental mistakes, they do not work on repairing the issues and they do no merge servers because that would admit their failure. It's a tragedy.

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by mmodanno

lol... before I canceled my sub, often times I would be the ONLY one on a planet!  I would usually have to just delete the HEROICS for a planet as I leveled up because there were never enough people to complete them. 

For the record, I play mostly daytime, never a big population for MMOs.  But still, of all the MMOs I've played over the years, this is by far the emptiest I have ever seen world to world, realm to realm, etc. in any of them.

Server merges would certainly help, but Bioware will not do this for fear of 'bad press'.  Well, they will do it eventually, but only when the game is so empty that it would be classified as dead for any other 'AAA' mmo.

 

Sigh, alas this.

Was on Quesh yesterday the only person for 2 hours.

I really wish they would just either merge servers or at least make a cross server dungeon finder for Flashpoints and Warzones. So is so depressing. :/

To be fair, Quesh is only a two level planet. Two hours is about all you need to level up and move on. Granted, they would have beeen better of just putting those two levels on another planet and dismissing Quesh all together.

Isn't that part of the problem, there is no reason to go back to the planets.

Originally posted by Thorqemada

Well, its still the second most successfull mmo release for an AAA title.
 

It depends on what you consider a success.

If you look at success purely in box sales, then it was 'arguably' successful, although I think Aion lays claim to 2nd place in that respect.

But... Star Wars is the largest IP in the world, coupled with a Christmas launch (with no competition I might add), the largest marketing budget ever... and from a (previously revered) studio the likes of Bioware, they could hardly fail to sell a lot of copies.

If you consider profit made, to be a truer measure of success, then it has a long way to go.

SWTOR has yet to make a dime. It needs a minimum of 500k subs for 12 months,  just to break even!

Bioware are quoted as saying 'investors will not be happy with that'.

It appears that 'real' subs are already under 500k which doesn't bode well for the future.

I really have to question your understanding of 'success'.

Originally posted by jacklo

Originally posted by Thorqemada

Well, its still the second most successfull mmo release for an AAA title.
 

 

It depends on what you consider a success.

If you look at success purely in box sales, then it was 'arguably' successful, although I think Aion lays claim to 2nd place in that respect.

But... Star Wars is the largest IP in the world, coupled with a Christmas launch (with no competition I might add), the largest marketing budget ever... and from a (previously revered) studio the likes of Bioware, they could hardly fail to sell a lot of copies.

If you consider profit made, to be a truer measure of success, then it has a long way to go.

SWTOR has yet to make a dime. It needs a minimum of 500k subs for 12 months,  just to break even!

Bioware are quoted as saying 'investors will not be happy with that'.

It appears that 'real' subs are already under 500k which doesn't bode well for the future.

I really have to question your understanding of 'success'.

 

 

Make that 13 months, because they gave everyone free month ;P

But true state of the game will be know only after 1st of september when finally all 6 months subs+all free days everyone got expire.

IMHO, it wont be a pretty sight.

Originally posted by mikahr

Originally posted by jacklo

Originally posted by Thorqemada

Well, its still the second most successfull mmo release for an AAA title.
 

 

It depends on what you consider a success.

If you look at success purely in box sales, then it was 'arguably' successful, although I think Aion lays claim to 2nd place in that respect.

But... Star Wars is the largest IP in the world, coupled with a Christmas launch (with no competition I might add), the largest marketing budget ever... and from a (previously revered) studio the likes of Bioware, they could hardly fail to sell a lot of copies.

If you consider profit made, to be a truer measure of success, then it has a long way to go.

SWTOR has yet to make a dime. It needs a minimum of 500k subs for 12 months,  just to break even!

Bioware are quoted as saying 'investors will not be happy with that'.

It appears that 'real' subs are already under 500k which doesn't bode well for the future.

I really have to question your understanding of 'success'.

 

 

Make that 13 months, because they gave everyone free month ;P

But true state of the game will be know only after 1st of september when finally all 6 months subs+all free days everyone got expire.

IMHO, it wont be a pretty sight.

 Didn't the same people say the same things about one month and then again about three months?

The big issue with SWTOR is keeping concurent users online.

The game has a massive amount of subs but people hardly log in.

It as if the game is filled with people that log on once or twice a week or just on the weekends.

I can imagine this being an issue to the more active player as they end up in a non-active guild that hardly ever logs in, yet still stays subscribed.

I think the inclusion of Fleets was a big mistake on Bioware's part. It's what's killing planets on low pop servers.

As a previous poster said, having many planets also plays into this...

In the end I think bigger but fewer planets without the implementation of fleets would be much better for this game.

Ìm still playing but yeah, im also deleting the heroic quests. Unless i play online when others are also, i play on the european servers...

But the game needs a dungeon kind of tool :)

But the game is lacking more players, and the only way i can see to deal with this is to merge servers...

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 Didn't the same people say the same things about one month and then again about three months?

If you want my opinion, SWTOR will struggle to get bare minimum of 500k subs. Yah.

Although EA said last year "500k to be substantially profitable" at their last earnings call they said 500k to break even and that they would noy have gone ahead if they had expected less than 1M subs.

The general interpretation is that 500k is the number needed to cover its costs and make a profit on a monthly basis (some analysts reckon it could break even on 350k, maybe that is with no monthly profit). A large number probably because of the royalty payment  to LucasArts - if it is 35% then 3 SWTOR subs, financially, are the same as 2 WoW/Rift etc. subs (ignoing freee months etc etc.)

The 1M is assumed to be needed to recover the cost of the investment - and needed for 1-2 years. How long depending on e.g. advertising costs, promotions like free months, ratio of box sales to Origin sales, total sales - analysts assumed $60M from 2M sales so that got back some of the cost but .... a long way to go.

And if it has slipped below 500k .... expect cut-backs  in development/staff etc. Can't see that for at least another quarter though unless it is in truly dire straits. At least WAR had 300k 6 months after launch.

Originally posted by gervaise1

And if it has slipped below 500k .... expect cut-backs  in development/staff etc. Can't see that for at least another quarter though unless it is in truly dire straits. At least WAR had 300k 6 months after launch.

Pretty sure SWTOR has already dropped below 400-450k subs.

Notice that there is no 1.3 PTS yet, and no testing going on for the urgently promised 1.2 ranked warzones? It has been a few weeks now, and nothing new is being done.

Note also that the game is not earning any money this month.

Major cutbacks incoming, new content development is going to grind to a halt pretty soon.

Originally posted by Greyhooff

Originally posted by gervaise1

And if it has slipped below 500k .... expect cut-backs  in development/staff etc. Can't see that for at least another quarter though unless it is in truly dire straits. At least WAR had 300k 6 months after launch.

Pretty sure SWTOR has already dropped below 400-450k subs.

Notice that there is no 1.3 PTS yet, and no testing going on for the urgently promised 1.2 ranked warzones? It has been a few weeks now, and nothing new is being done.

Note also that the game is not earning any money this month.

Major cutbacks incoming, new content development is going to grind to a halt pretty soon.

Love how your pulling these numbers out of your ass. What proof do you have of anythng you just stated?

Originally posted by Minny

Originally posted by Elikal

Tbh, my gut feeling tells me this game is doomed. I am the first to admit I was wrong when it makes a big return or whatever in a year, but what I feel now is, despite the fact you can have fun in SWTOR, the games is bleeding subs dramatically. And neither GW2 nor TSW have even yet launched. If these 2 games are even halfway good, the remaining community will simply break down!

It is really painful and sad to see this happening, but I am just confirmed in all the critique I had for the last few years of development of SWTOR. And Bioware's denial just makes it worse. They deny they makes some fundamental mistakes, they do not work on repairing the issues and they do no merge servers because that would admit their failure. It's a tragedy.

XFire highest # sw tor players was 11.8 k players. Today at 2.9 k players ... Or 25%.

 

1.700.000/ 25% = ... 425.000 active sw tor players that still log in and play, the rest is no longer active.

 

it is confirmed by the servers, the in game counting.

 

Now add the free weekend play, the free month play, the 50 free trial accounts play ...

 

... and the launch of block busters like  D3, GW2, MoP,...

 

Of  course this game is doomed as a subscription based game 5 months after launch. It will be funny how the CEO will describe their subscription definitions this time to arrive at 1.7 M once again ...

 

The internet didn't explode with the launch of SW TOR (as some said...) : Sw tor imploded.

 

 

 

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