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Originally posted by Dirkzen
Casual here.
Hahahahahahah.  Suck it, MMOs.
I play all of you like a singleplayer game, disregard chat and every cash shop,  and only play on the lowest population servers.
I ignore your 'pvp' and your 'endgame'.
I sit there and take my time reading every npc chat box.
....and, I only play your game perhaps 1-2 hours a day. 
 
I am the cancer that is killing your game.
 
I am the carebear.  The guy who never talks.  The guy who never socializes. 
I am the guy you'll never get a single penny from,  and I laugh in your face.
 
I. Am. Your. Death.

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You sir, are awesome. Therfore I feel obliged to hand you this Tinfoil Hat of Casual Awesomeness.

Originally posted by Mahavishnu

They just made a bad MMO with a dull gameplay. 5 years ago it would have been more successful, but nowadays players expect a little bit more than a cheap WoW-clone in space. When I looked at it during beta I was completely disappointed:

• Does it have an action-oriented combat-system that fits with laser-guns and laser-swords? No, it looks like WoW and they have Han Solo healing Luke Skywalker, who somehow survives even big laserbeams from this big robot.
• But there are cool ideas for huge battles between the empire and the republic? No, just battelgounds with waiting-cues like in WoW.
• Can I fly with my starship from planet to planet? No, there is only a rail-shooter daily-quest-system and the plantes are just litle zones like in any other MMO.

 

It's droid not robot, get it right.

Lore police are standing by at all times ya know.

Originally posted by TangentPoint

Originally posted by mikahr

You dont have to be qualified to make choices.

This summs it perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9f1TYyvEx8

And therein lies why we keep seeing the same regurgitated gameplay from company after company.

The funny thing is, it's not even that they're trying to emulate WoW's gameplay to any degree that's the problem. It's that they don't seem to understand what makes WoW so successful, or more specifically, why it does.

If you go back and read or watch interviews with Blizzard about the making of WoW, you'll see that their focus was on making a great game. They were inspired by EQ1 and UO to make one, but wanted to craft a more accessible and less tedious incarnation of what they enjoyed about those games. Ultimately, though, they were putting their efforts and creativity into crafting a fun game that people would enjoy playing, ideally for months or years, not merely weeks. Creating an awesome game experience was their cornerstone, not "maximizing profts by appealing to as many gamers as possible", and it showed.

Quick disclaimer: I'm talking Vanilla WoW here, through BC; obviously they've strayed from that path themselves in recent years and have gone more to the "money grab" side of things.

When I've watched or red those old articles or interviews, I got the impression of a company who was trying to create something people would love playing; the kind of game they would want to play, in the kind of world they would want to explore.

Look what happened. It blew up. it blew away even their own expectations and preparations for it.

Read an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto about how he created Super Mario Bros, or Zelda. He's not saying "well, I was trying to create a game that would appeal to as wide a spectrum of gamers as possible", and running down a talking-point list of buzz-words he knew people wanted to hear. He talks about trying to recreate his experience and feeling of exploring the woods as a kid, or gardening in his own backyard for others to experience. He's trying to craft a truly memorable and special gameplay experience. Now, we're fortunate that he also has the development chops and the support of a qualified team to pull it off, but it can't be ignored that what Shigeru Miyamoto uses as his primary goal in creating something is not "a target ROI", but crafting a unique, quality gaming experience.

Love them or hate them, say what you want about how they were executed, but that's what the old-school 1st and 2nd generation MMO developers did that many newer ones aren't. The people who designed and developed UO, EQ1, AC1, DAoC, FFXI and so forth, were trying to craft unique worlds with epic and unique experiences. They were trying to stand out and offer something that their competition wasn't. They weren't saying "well, EQ1 is really popular and it does "x, y and z". So we need to do "x, y and z" as well, and we should get some of their playerbase".

Nowadays, developers shy away from doing something different, because creating a truly unique and memorable experience isn't their goal. Making as much profit as they can is.

 

 

I'm with you on everything you said.

In red is something I just can't understand at all. It's unknowable how much money has been lost because they are all wanting to make as much as they can. The lack of innovation and all has cost companies far more money than they would have earned if their goal was to create a good experiance instead of emulator of other games.

They keep pissing in the wind Homer Simpson style.

No need for any casuals to be insulted by this.

The reason he's blaming the casuals is because theres no hardcores left that CAN leave: the last of them probably left several months ago.

And its funny how they're starting to distance themselves from SWTOR now: its only in the top ten right now, not top 5. And apparantly the game is not as important as Sim City... I mean REALLY..?!

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Originally posted by Dirkzen
Casual here.
Hahahahahahah.  Suck it, MMOs.
I play all of you like a singleplayer game, disregard chat and every cash shop,  and only play on the lowest population servers.
I ignore your 'pvp' and your 'endgame'.
I sit there and take my time reading every npc chat box.
....and, I only play your game perhaps 1-2 hours a day. 
 
I am the cancer that is killing your game.
 
I am the carebear.  The guy who never talks.  The guy who never socializes. 
I am the guy you'll never get a single penny from,  and I laugh in your face.
 
I. Am. Your. Death.

---

Played SWTOR, played EVE.  If people want a "big expansive universe," as he said.....they'll play EVE.

Originally posted by Alot

 

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Originally posted by Dirkzen
Casual here.
Hahahahahahah.  Suck it, MMOs.
I play all of you like a singleplayer game, disregard chat and every cash shop,  and only play on the lowest population servers.
I ignore your 'pvp' and your 'endgame'.
I sit there and take my time reading every npc chat box.
....and, I only play your game perhaps 1-2 hours a day. 
 
I am the cancer that is killing your game.
 
I am the carebear.  The guy who never talks.  The guy who never socializes. 
I am the guy you'll never get a single penny from,  and I laugh in your face.
 
I. Am. Your. Death.

---

 

You sir, are awesome. Therfore I feel obliged to hand you this Tinfoil Hat of Casual Awesomeness.

Both of these posts made me LMAO, therefore, one of you needs to buy me a new pair of jeans, since these don't fit anymore.

Originally posted by Dirkzen

Casual here.

Hahahahahahah.  Suck it, MMOs.

I play all of you like a singleplayer game, disregard chat and every cash shop,  and only play on the lowest population servers.

I ignore your 'pvp' and your 'endgame'.

I sit there and take my time reading every npc chat box.

....and, I only play your game perhaps 1-2 hours a day. 

 

I am the cancer that is killing your game.

 

I am the carebear.  The guy who never talks.  The guy who never socializes. 

I am the guy you'll never get a single penny from,  and I laugh in your face.

 

I. Am. Your. Death.

No, just SWTOR's death.  MMORPGs will go on.  You aren't even playing a true MMORPG, how could you be the death of the entire genre?

If I remember correctly this was the same reasoning used to explain the Galaxies NGE.

http://rubenfield.com/?p=86

Maybe the "blame the players first" tactic is not be the best indicator of success.

Too much money has been spent on advertisements and not enough on new content, that could be why things are not looking so good. Perpaps if EA did not rush and fire devs who did not comply with their demands? Maybe if they didn't gut what used to be Bioware and Mythic they would still have the will and the talent to do this project?

Wait...what?   I thought SWTOR was aimed at the casual player to begin with.   Wasn't that the whole ideal about playing the storylines of the various classes- you know rolling alts?

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

If I remember correctly this was the same reasoning used to explain the Galaxies NGE.

http://rubenfield.com/?p=86

Maybe the "blame the players first" tactic is not be the best indicator of success.

Too much money has been spent on advertisements and not enough on new content, that could be why things are not looking so good. Perpaps if EA did not rush and fire devs who did not comply with their demands? Maybe if they didn't gut what used to be Bioware and Mythic they would still have the will and the talent to do this project?

If you think that is bad, I suggest going and reading the infamous "om-nom-nom" blog entry in its original glory... what you linked to is the cleaned up version...

The original is much worse...

http://www.mmofringe.com/forum/15-Star-Wars-Galaxies/14-OM-NOM-NOM

Not only "blaming" the customers for the "non-success" of the their product, but holding the customers in utter contempt.

I fail to see where EA "blames" casuals for their declining numbers.  Instead I read how they explain why their numbers are declining.  Explanation =/= blame.  To me the irony in this are the numerous claims pre-launch of how this game was intended and would appeal to all audiences.  I suppose all the gear grinds that were added after launch mark a change in the direction of the project.  Too bad us 'casuals' were mislead in this regard.

Cheers!

you would think when a company loses 25 percent of its subs,they wouldnt be pointing the finger at people and they would actually think "well,crap what can we do better to get more subs and keep the subs we have"

but whatever,just goes to show how much of a garbage company ea games are

"I didn't know SW:TOR appealed to the hardcore MMO fan base in any way, shape or form. But now that I know, I feel enlightened."

it doesnt,im sure a true hardcore mmo player probably didnt even play swtor past a week.hell,i dont even consider myself a hardcore mmo player and the only reason ive stuck with sw tor for so long is because guild wars 2 isnt out yet and i dont wanna go back to wow

Seriously, I can't even post another blog entry for Old Republic anymore because I can only say "I told you so" so many damn times. It's not stellar graphically, it breaks absolutely zero new ground in gameplay, half the classes barely acknowledge their host lore and it only took a budget of 300 million to accomplish this feat. Oh, and you get the privilage of payng $15/mo for what f2p games are offering sans subscription these days.

Frankly, this game deserves to fail. Sorry Bioware.

I've pre-ordered SW:TOR and still have an active subscription now... I've also played WoW for 7+ years before SW:TOR. So I am in no way a "hater".

The problem of SW:TOR is that it follow the WoW model. You can level from 1 to max either solo, or in groups, as you wish, and then comes end game... and you are forced in a gear grind whatever you choose to do. PvP gear grind, PvE gear grind... and of course, to progress further in PvE, you are then forced into raids (operations).

The level 1-50 gameplay of SW:TOR is nothing short of amazing for the casual player. He's never forced into groups, he can play at his own rythm. Then comes the max level, and everything changes. Just like WoW.

To be honest, once games like GW2 will come out, I don't see a single reason for a REAL casual gamer to play games like WoW or SW:TOR (and I mean REAL, not the people pretending being casuals because they don't raid but playing more than a hardcore raider). The only thing that will keep some casuals players is the Star Wars brand, just like the Lord of the Rings brand keeps many people playing LOTRO despite the bad changes and "pay to win" cash shop.

Why? In GW2, "end game" starts at level 1. The game is not gear centric. The gameplay doesn't force people into insanely long scheduled playing sessions. It reminds me games like UO and AC1. And as bonus, the level differences means little since you can come back to lower level areas, be downgraded, and help friends while keeping rewards for your real level. That is "casual friendly", that means you will be able to help your very low level casual friend even if you level twice as fast and be rewarded for it. In SW:TOR, low level planets are dead zones, wasted space.

I hate it when a company simply creates a bad product, but then it (or other people) try to blame it on some side rubbish like casuals, WoW, or anything else of that sort. Create a good game first, then we'll talk, otherwise all the side speculation is worthless. Casuals are even more resistant to rubbish than hardcores are.

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

The level 1-50 gameplay of SW:TOR is nothing short of amazing for the casual player. He's never forced into groups, he can play at his own rythm.

This is where you and the rest of this thread are wrong.

It is not amazing for the casual player. Not in the least. It's a very bland game. Others have argued this better than I can. Making a casual happy isn't any easier than making any other player happy.

Not forcing the player into groups is not enough. WoW doesn't force you into groups, either. But WoW actually has an enjoyable leveling experience. That's why TOR dies and WoW lives here.

Originally posted by Teala

Wait...what?   I thought SWTOR was aimed at the casual player to begin with.   Wasn't that the whole ideal about playing the storylines of the various classes- you know rolling alts?

That's what I wanted. They couldn't even get that right.

I am a hardcore player....I leveled fast and did alot of PvP...in fact a ton of PvP.

Let me tell you...hardcore players are leaving SWTOR too.

Its not that its a bad game..on the contrary its a good game.

Unfortunately, like many Bioware products...EA rules Biowares roost and then ruins the game by focusing on stuff nobody cares about (Legacy System) and not fixing PvP, Space Combat, no end game, etc.

Also, with the Secret World and Guild Wars 2...of which I have played BETA in both...who needs SWTOR and its mess of a dictator EA.

EA..the people who ruined WAR and are now ruining Wrath of Heroes (Was good now sucks).

Originally posted by UnleadedRev

I am a hardcore player....I leveled fast and did alot of PvP...in fact a ton of PvP.

Let me tell you...hardcore players are leaving SWTOR too.

Its not that its a bad game..on the contrary its a good game.

Unfortunately, like many Bioware products...EA rules Biowares roost and then ruins the game by focusing on stuff nobody cares about (Legacy System) and not fixing PvP, Space Combat, no end game, etc.

Also, with the Secret World and Guild Wars 2...of which I have played BETA in both...who needs SWTOR and its mess of a dictator EA.

EA..the people who ruined WAR and are now ruining Wrath of Heroes (Was good now sucks).

Hell yeah. What this guy says. Pretty much to the T.

Odd that you never see a company making excuses for good products.

Only when the droves of people leave do the execs start blubblering with their "B-b-but it's the c-casuals guys!.... Guys?"

No wonder EA stocks face planted; SWTOR was EAs only cash cow until the next quarter