Originally posted by TruthXHurts

What needs to be done? The first step would be falling off your toilet, hitting your head and creating the Flux Capacitor. The next step involves a DeLorean.

Now you've done it, you made me watch the movies again

Originally posted by MMOarQQ

Slap some new skins on it, code some particle effects and call it Elder Scrolls Online. 

 

Please don't even refrence the holy Elder Scrolls in the same thread as TOR;  Bethesda is trying to ruin the Elder Scrolls, but they have gotten there yet.

As with all new MMOs they face 1 major problem which will kill their game, and lots of little ones.

The elephant in the room is 'what happens what the population drops?'. 

- do you have cross server PvP queues?

- do you have a cross server dungeon finder?

- do you have server transfer/merging infrastructure "ready to roll", and a sensible idea on how to bring the community with you?

- or do you have a cunning plan?

---

Everything else is irrelevant.  People WILL play SWTOR simply because it's star wars - but those people are not going to sit around in fleet for 4 hours trying to get a group for an instance/pvp instance.

Solution?  A GW2 pricing model.  Box costs $, no monthly subs, but expansions and various in-game utilities cost $.

- the box itself has limited content.  As many players discover after N hours, "you're done".  That's perfect as it pushes people that enjoy the content to put $ into the expansions...

- micro-expansions can be sold for a micro-payment price.  Add companions, storyline  - things players *will* pay for.

- likewise speeders, custom clothing options are certainly micropayment-able.

For bonus population, 'gift' existing players $n in the cash-shop to cover the initial expansions etc.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Needs to be done, to call a halt to the lowering numbers of suscriprions and make new people and old fans interested intoo this game again?

 

Can it be saved at all?

Yes it can be saved, if they can do some of this in the next week:

- char transfers

- less servers and merges

- improve game and engine performance

- fix targeting

- revert the rebalancing to pre1.2

- fix resolve

- rework CDs

- revert one-use policy

- make the clunky shadows looking good

- give the high res grafics already with ultra high settings

- have optional cross server PvP

- have PvP content at all

- do 16 more Warzones asap

- Rated PvP omg

- ...

But they are working hard, look here what is topic the last 2 weeks:

http://www.swtor.com/blog/dev-tracker-summary-may-8th-2012-%E2%80%93-may-14th-2012

The differences between what the people want and what the developers deliver, is not to understand for nabbers like me.

I think there is interlectual incompatibilities between this game and me, but if they decide, that my ship is starting when i enter .. well ... my ship shouldnt do that .. it shouldnt,  but still they cant even get it in a logical order.

Im playing since December and it is an entertaining game at all, but the gap is still too big.

invent a time machine, go back to the day EA exec said DECEMBER, shoot the EA exec in the head. really the only chance it has imo.

nothing they promised outside of an entertaining 1-50 was delivered. raids are boring facerolls only made hard by 100s of ridiculous bugs. leveling an alt was without doing all the same stuff minus 15% class stuff is boring.

I hope everyone else throwing VO into their games last year realize that story is NOT the 3rd pillar.

this game was fun for 3+ months. 1+ more than I thought it would be.

1.2 was a complete disaster. Almost the complete opposite of what the game needed in every area. legacy is a great idea. worst execution imaginable.

i want them to add more non colored humans as playble speices. more aliens and more stuff makes this game better.

Originally posted by Tayah

I think they've shown they can't do world pvp, since it appears to be tacked on. They need to stick with pve/storyline/additional fluff like podracing and do something with the casinos/cantinas. They need those extras for people that like to do something else when they're not doing dailies/raids/fp's imo. They need to go with one target audience and stick with it, they're so scattered, it's a train wreck atm.

Hm,bad pvp is not the main problem with this game,it died when pve players let it at level cap since it was more or less game over then.

The issues are to fundamental to change at this point. If it were possible in the short-term:

Dump half of every classes redundant skills and let players rank the skills they want to use

Dump a good portion of the cosmetic restrictions. My consular doen't need to wear a brown dress all the time.

Make every item salvagable for something.

Make all the best gear craftable.

Make all the planets have a 5 level overlap.

This may buy you a few more subs.

1)  Keep all the art assets as is - for argument sake I think they are fine, some of the clothing pieces need better graphics but this is very secondry to my other changes.

1B) emphasis on re-thinking SWTOR from a MMO community point of view -How do we pull people together in our game  -it really plays like a solo game where i sometimes bump into people now and then.

2) Completely re-layout some of the game worlds so that they are interactive, interesting, compelling places. Make each one so awesome that I actually want to visit them again with a MAIN and an ALT. At the Moment the only planets I would keep the same is Korriban and Hutta, all the others are in some way lacking big time.  All of the others... I would greatly increase the NPC and player populations running around on Nar Shaddaa and Coruscant - these should feel like busy places you can hardly move in ( I would rather have a busy lag fest than a smooth empty city ) - ALSO Nar Shaddaa should have lots of pazzak and holo chess games for players in their casinos with other games and lots of prizes and a real buzz going on that makes players come to Nar Shaddaa for socialising in this way. ( casinos re-designed - they are bland atm ).

3) When I enter a space dock I want to see all the other players space ships, all class's, all player names etc ( well at least up to 50 in each quadrant of parking ) - so make it a big space dock - stop all this instancing crap - it might make the load lighter but it breaks the immersion. And swtor has done a stellar job of breaking immersion throughtout this game.   When I click on my spaceship door - the door opens and me and other party members can enter it and walk around WITHOUT taking off yet !!!!   Lots of interactive features on my spaceship.  When I go to my cockpit there are numerous buttons in my cock pit I can use, some of them are related to taking off etc etc you can see where I am going here. Space ship combat can be third or 1st person perspective with at least 10 controls and is a combination of solo / party AND RAID groups for space combat missions that vary in scope....WITH the possibility of having party  members aboard MY spaceship.  Make spaceships customizable, dyes, other bits on the exterior. Uber spaceship drops ( unique non class based spaceships ) in spaceship missions OR craftable -. all proffesions can make part of what is needed.

4) NPC's need to be busy as hell patrolling around zones like they actually care..., interactive on a basic level for non important NPC's. Droids need to be in a hurry delivering messages around the place.  GW2 does this well with soldiers patrolling around alot and running into fights etc.

5)  Day/Night system,  the lack of this in the current game is another peg in the "Lack of immersion" basket - this is NOT a single player RPG BW.....!!!  this is a living, breathing world.  The well known statement "The World will turn" doesn't seem to apply to swtor planets....  I've always appriciated the complete change in atmosphere in a zone that goes from day to dusk to night to dawn its really cool.

6) Mini games  - sooo MANY people want Pazaak, holo chess, swoop/pod racing etc etc etc gambling games in cantinas and pod/swoop racing on Tattooine ( proper full 3d racing - not  a virtual arcade game) for community and immersion, have betting, have complex crafting for the swoop/pod racers etc etc so many obvious Ideas that BW missed.

7) Forget making every quest voice acted, save your budget for class strorylines and use the money for focusing more on game world than story, there is too much emphasis on story in swtor - I want to write my OWN STORY - just give me the game world  and community to do so.

8) Illum - take a leaf out of GW2 or AoC book for ideas for this.

9) Way more alien species for character selection, more changes for them -ditch cyborg make those elements addons for humans. 

anyone have some ideas? Perhaps some future developer will use the posted ideas on a future SW MMO...

Originally posted by Vidir

Originally posted by Tayah

I think they've shown they can't do world pvp, since it appears to be tacked on. They need to stick with pve/storyline/additional fluff like podracing and do something with the casinos/cantinas. They need those extras for people that like to do something else when they're not doing dailies/raids/fp's imo. They need to go with one target audience and stick with it, they're so scattered, it's a train wreck atm.

Hm,bad pvp is not the main problem with this game,it died when pve players let it at level cap since it was more or less game over then.

My point is, they need to stick with one target audience, and stick to what they do best. Trying to appease everyone, and doing it poorly isn't working. At this point, I don't think they can save the game. It will be a niche game with maybe if they're lucky 100-200k people in a year, and I'm being generous.

There's is TOO much to be done and EA already started to dial down on how much SWTOR can improve.

It needs an inverted NGE or something

Originally posted by Pelaaja

Originally posted by TruthXHurts

What needs to be done? The first step would be falling off your toilet, hitting your head and creating the Flux Capacitor. The next step involves a DeLorean.

Now you've done it, you made me watch the movies again

GREAT SCOTT!!

Originally posted by madjonNZ

anyone have some ideas? Perhaps some future developer will use the posted ideas on a future SW MMO...

People did have ideas and they were ignored. The mentality EA Bioware took. Was that the NGE was correct and the players were wrong. They set out to prove it because "industry insiders" knew that the NGE direction was the correct way all along. EA embraced this nonsense and got what they deserved. It doesn't give me much hope of some future developer looking at ideas posted on a forum. When they ignored everything that went wrong with SWG and why. Then they ignored their fanbase on the Old Republic forums before the game was out in favor of the opinions of raiding guilds from Everquest. 

At this point I would trust Gpotato more than EA to make a Star Wars game.

You want to make a Star Wars mmo then make a Star Wars mmo.

There are no set factions in Star Wars, THERE ARE NO SET FACTIONS IN STAR WARS. You cannot make a Star Wars game like DAOC with raiding thrown in, It doesn't mean there are no factions, but you should never be faction locked in this universe. Palpatine would never have been able to infiltrate such an opaque universe. 

Raiding is totally out of the lore for Star Wars. A Star Wars player would rather run bounties or smuggle, maybe mess with his engine specs or tweak his lightsaber. Rather than kill scripted 30 foot Gwarbeasts in some heartless attempt at gear progression. Luke Skywalker didnt have 10 foot shoulder pads the glowed in the dark and there is no huge calling in the Star Wars fan base for that kind of nonsese.

Star Wars is best played from city to city from town to town. You should be able to explore but the cities themselves should be massive, not just quest hubs. I think as far as faction on faction battle goes it should be more an UO style faction system but without tags. You would have to actually use abilities for that kind of thing or be higher level or something. RVR would be much better suited as some kind of random event or part of a story, I don't think open RVR suits Star Wars it makes it feel like WAR. Star Wars is not about running through grassy plains for hours looking for a bad evil sith hiding behind a rock, its just silly to me.

TOR is beyond saving. Best thing that can happen is Lucas will pull the plug and fast. So he can get someone esle working an a new Star Wars IP ASAP. But thats best case scenario.

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

Originally posted by madjonNZ

anyone have some ideas? Perhaps some future developer will use the posted ideas on a future SW MMO...

People did have ideas and they were ignored. The mentality EA Bioware took. Was that the NGE was correct and the players were wrong. They set out to prove it because "industry insiders" knew that the NGE direction was the correct way all along. EA embraced this nonsense and got what they deserved. It doesn't give me much hope of some future developer looking at ideas posted on a forum. When they ignored everything that went wrong with SWG and why. Then they ignored their fanbase on the Old Republic forums before the game was out in favor of the opinions of raiding guilds from Everquest. 

 

At this point I would trust Gpotato more than EA to make a Star Wars game.

You want to make a Star Wars mmo then make a Star Wars mmo.

There are no set factions in Star Wars, THERE ARE NO SET FACTIONS IN STAR WARS. You cannot make a Star Wars game like DAOC with raiding thrown in, It doesn't mean there are no factions, but you should never be faction locked in this universe. Palpatine would never have been able to infiltrate such an opaque universe. 

Raiding is totally out of the lore for Star Wars. A Star Wars player would rather run bounties or smuggle, maybe mess with his engine specs or tweak his lightsaber. Rather than kill scripted 30 foot Gwarbeasts in some heartless attempt at gear progression. Luke Skywalker didnt have 10 foot shoulder pads the glowed in the dark and there is no huge calling in the Star Wars fan base for that kind of nonsese.

Star Wars is best played from city to city from town to town. You should be able to explore but the cities themselves should be massive, not just quest hubs. I think as far as faction on faction battle goes it should be more an UO style faction system but without tags. You would have to actually use abilities for that kind of thing or be higher level or something. RVR would be much better suited as some kind of random event or part of a story, I don't think open RVR suits Star Wars it makes it feel like WAR. Star Wars is not about running through grassy plains for hours looking for a bad evil sith hiding behind a rock, its just silly to me.

TOR is beyond saving. Best thing that can happen is Lucas will pull the plug and fast. So he can get someone esle working an a new Star Wars IP ASAP. But thats best case scenario.

 

nice post and I agree star wars just does not work well in the traditional wow style raid/dungeon/warzone type gameplay.. dev's should have seen this from the get go but guess they had that wow $$$$ hanging in front of them and "thought" this is what everyone actually wanted....

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

Originally posted by madjonNZ

anyone have some ideas? Perhaps some future developer will use the posted ideas on a future SW MMO...

People did have ideas and they were ignored. The mentality EA Bioware took. Was that the NGE was correct and the players were wrong. They set out to prove it because "industry insiders" knew that the NGE direction was the correct way all along. EA embraced this nonsense and got what they deserved. It doesn't give me much hope of some future developer looking at ideas posted on a forum. When they ignored everything that went wrong with SWG and why. Then they ignored their fanbase on the Old Republic forums before the game was out in favor of the opinions of raiding guilds from Everquest. 

 

At this point I would trust Gpotato more than EA to make a Star Wars game.

You want to make a Star Wars mmo then make a Star Wars mmo.

There are no set factions in Star Wars, THERE ARE NO SET FACTIONS IN STAR WARS. You cannot make a Star Wars game like DAOC with raiding thrown in, It doesn't mean there are no factions, but you should never be faction locked in this universe. Palpatine would never have been able to infiltrate such an opaque universe. 

Raiding is totally out of the lore for Star Wars. A Star Wars player would rather run bounties or smuggle, maybe mess with his engine specs or tweak his lightsaber. Rather than kill scripted 30 foot Gwarbeasts in some heartless attempt at gear progression. Luke Skywalker didnt have 10 foot shoulder pads the glowed in the dark and there is no huge calling in the Star Wars fan base for that kind of nonsese.

Star Wars is best played from city to city from town to town. You should be able to explore but the cities themselves should be massive, not just quest hubs. I think as far as faction on faction battle goes it should be more an UO style faction system but without tags. You would have to actually use abilities for that kind of thing or be higher level or something. RVR would be much better suited as some kind of random event or part of a story, I don't think open RVR suits Star Wars it makes it feel like WAR. Star Wars is not about running through grassy plains for hours looking for a bad evil sith hiding behind a rock, its just silly to me.

TOR is beyond saving. Best thing that can happen is Lucas will pull the plug and fast. So he can get someone esle working an a new Star Wars IP ASAP. But thats best case scenario.

 

nice post and I agree star wars just does not work well in the traditional wow style raid/dungeon/warzone type gameplay.. dev's should have seen this from the get go but guess they had that wow $$$$ hanging in front of them and "thought" this is what everyone actually wanted....

True and True, well here's hoping Lucas kills SWTOR off then.

Third time lucky?  about 7 years away earliest?  sob sob... :-(

Originally posted by Aerowyn

nice post and I agree star wars just does not work well in the traditional wow style raid/dungeon/warzone type gameplay.. dev's should have seen this from the get go but guess they had that wow $$$$ hanging in front of them and "thought" this is what everyone actually wanted....

Yah, mostly "defender" arument was: look at WoW.

But what they failed to do is look at all other evidence. Its easy to be blinded by "WoW+12m".

I guess thats what separates good from bad, looking at all facts and act in right direction, not selectively like they did.

But i bet there will be someon to tell you "you have no clue, look a WoW" lol

I honestly dont think that SWTOR is a bad game what so ever. i really like it, and i havent liked a game liek this in a long time. I think they need more content for sure to keep me busy, they definitely need the 1.3 patch for the teh transfers and the group finder... but overall, im not dissapointed in the game mechanics. i think this game will be around for a long time. 

realistically i dont see this game having more then a million players world wide. MMOs just dotn do what WOW did anymore. not until a game comes out with commerical appeal, and dynamic sandbox content, will there be another WOW.

If someone wants to out WoW WoW then they need to make a crap load more content and all the features of WoW.  If they are going to string people along saying more is coming then they need to slow the leveling processes and put in the "fun" (how can be debated) in leveling.  If people can rush to the end and there is nothing there then the game is going to fail.  Now if it was a rush and the end game options were numerous then their might be a chance.

Originally posted by Ausare

If someone wants to out WoW WoW then they need to make a crap load more content and all the features of WoW.  If they are going to string people along saying more is coming then they need to slow the leveling processes and put in the "fun" (how can be debated) in leveling.  If people can rush to the end and there is nothing there then the game is going to fail.  Now if it was a rush and the end game options were numerous then their might be a chance.

i agree with this, but in BIo's defense they have always said that rerolling was going to be a big pice of content in this game, due to them wantign everyone to try the different stories. leaving there defense i think that Biowares biggest problem was that they didnt account for how much mmo players are used to certain things, and how it wouldnt be easy to get them off of those things (LFG tool, more end game, dynamic pvp) i think things liek that are where they are catching the most heat. they didnt realize how many people were not big on rerolling, or how many people would grow tired of doing warzones ect...