Being the less failing  game post wow not make it a success... 

Is still a fail but with better IP to sustain the attrition by the months.

Close 200 servers and lost more than 60% of playerbase is not a success, not even if you compare it with WAR or AOC. 

I'm sorry but be the first of the losers is not be the best of anything.

Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by SaintPhilip

BUT not the amounts we are talking about...

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Oh really? Why not? because it is IMHO too much?

Same goes for rest of your post, just because it is IMHO does not make it true...

no- Its a fact. NOT OPINION. (please understand the difference- I also state when its an opinion) over 75% of the servers are GONE in 6 months... How is that an opinion that this is not a good thing- Ah nevermind.

Your right- SWTOR is doing great- EA just enjoys merging servers and firing people so that it looks like they are failing. Its the new strategy to be #1 and beat WOW by appearing to fail whilst being ubur succesful.

Cool story bro-

EDIT: THose quotes were not opinion either (although they were paraphrased) want me to link the interview ?

The swtor server cap at launch was really bad and limited, thats probably one of the reason why they opened way too many servers. I remember porth nowhere, one of the most populated PvP servers in the east, with less than 100 players on the fleet, and less than 20-10 on everysingle planet, and that was at launch with queues in everysingle server. the server cap was really small, same with the performance, lot of people quit just because the population problem or rerolled. 6 months later, they find the way and the technology to make ¨superservers¨, now we have 3 or 4 instances with over 200 players on the fleet, per instance, that never happen before not even at launch, and planets with more than 30 players, again never happen before, not even on the most populated servers at launch like i said before. The merge in this case, dont mean less people playing. 

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Is success merging servers and firing staff so early on?

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There is nothing odd about server merges and lays off. It is a reasonable, expected and common practice.

You're right. It happens to every MMO that fails at launch. So the layoffs are right on track.

Successful MMOs merge servers after about 5-6 years. Not at launch.

Some here seem to be confusing two questions. "Is SWTOR a good game, that people enjoy" and "Is SWTOR a success". They are radically different questions, and one has no bearing on the other.

is it a good game? Views are mixed. But honestly the story elements are quite impressive. Certainly to some peoples tastes. It's good enough to feed a certain degree of support and subscriptions.

But it doesn't matter...

Because the game can never ever be a success at this point. Success has nothing to do with story, or end game, or number of servers, or even much to do with growth or churn. It doesn't matter if it is the best game ever made or the worst abomination ever put forth that makes Horizons seem good. It does not matter. Success all comes down to accounting. And there is no mathematical way that SWTOR can pull off being a succesful game. If you like it great! Fantastic! I hope you are having fun. But I am sorry to tell you, they blew way too much money making the game. They spent more than they could hope to get back in a decade at reasonable subscriber levels. For what they spent they could have purchased a small South American country. And that is the problem. The game is now and will always be a huge sucking hole of red ink on the balance sheets. It's so big that they will keep it going, at least for now, just to try and reduce the losses. But they are not going to throw crazy money at it anymore to try and grow it. That way lies madness. 

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Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Wow- that means you are running at less than 25% expected caopacity

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Think of it this way: 1 out of 4 people on trial account will sub to your game.

You still need server capacity to accommodate all 4 users tho. Is it still that far stretched?

No blind support, just a bit of a reason and giving the topic some thought instead of emotions...

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Originally posted by faefrost

The game is now and will always be a huge sucking hole of red ink on the balance sheets. It's so big that they will keep it going, at least for now, just to try and reduce the losses.

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Talking about accounting, you do not reduce losses by running in red numbers...so just you know..

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by faefrost

The game is now and will always be a huge sucking hole of red ink on the balance sheets. It's so big that they will keep it going, at least for now, just to try and reduce the losses.

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Talking about accounting, you do not reduce losses by running in red numbers...so just you know..

They're trying real hard to make SWTOR at least run a profit so that maybe, 6 years from now, MAYBE they'll have broken even.

It really revolves around your definition of fail.  Is the game earning as much as they predicted, nope.  Did they retain the number of subscribers they hoped for, nope.  Did it beat WoW, nope.  Was spending over 6 years and 150 million dollars worth the effort when compared to spending 50 million and 4 years when you compare the revenue from ToR vs something like TSW or Rift.

From a business perspective, I can tell you if I was running EA, I would be doing the same thing.  I would be firing several high level project managers who made decisions on the direction of the game, reduce the staff who supports it and see if I can get the cost to maintain the game below the revenue it brings in over the course of the next 6 to 10 months.  If I couldnt, I would scrape it.  Throwing good money after bad has very rarely worked. 

The F2P model used to be much better back in the day when the only thing that was F2P was asian crap-tastic games.  People quoting how LOTRO and DND made money going F2P dont realize the competition was very weak at the time and played a major role in the additional revenue.  Today, there are so many good F2P games out there that going F2P is not a guaranteed profit maker any longer.  The current F2P games have started to gouge players like in STO where you have to pay to get a key to open a lockbox with the good drops

I disagree with the F2P model all the way, but im an avid fan of a B2P model, much like Guild Wars always followed and will continue on Guild Wars 2, make the game free from monthly fees but keep the boxes on the stores for 50 bucks/euros and throw in a good real money store with nice items that don't affect the gameplay... ill be a happy customer

Originally posted by hikaru77

The hate around swtor is just epic, and mostly from people who is not even playing the game. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/31584/star-wars-the-old-republic/  over 2.37 mill of copies, probably more than 3 mill by the end of the year, just a quiestion for all the people talking about the fail of swtor, how many p2p MMO had sold over 1 mill of copies in 6 months after launch in the last 10 years? no talking about WoW.

Does not make a difference how many licenses you sell in a subscription MMO, it is how many you KEEP playing!

Of course SWTOR is keeping very few and those that are left are dropping fast.

Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Normally I think people who make statements like yours are just paranoid -  Now, I am not so sure- looks kinda odd huh?

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Considering your recent posts, I do not find it odd at all, that also sums up my reply to your post above...

Which recent post(s) would those be? We are discussing a FAILED game which has spent an estimated 300 million and has closed 75% of its servers within six months... But humor me- Since I post about pretty much every game and every topic I find interesting (in this case the FAILURE of an overhyped game) what do you mean.

But back to the game- You never answered my question- Is success merging servers and firing staff so early on? Not to me- My opinion (as stated) s this was a poor excuse at a money geab by an incompetent company known forterrible MMOs- But the Fact is, good or Bad it is failing. Yes or No?

They haven't closed a single server yet bud.  They're still in the process of voluntary transfers.  They will be starting the mandatory transfers sometime at the end of summer.  There are still more than 500k subscribers at the moment, they could put that on one server and it would still be considered a very successful game with very nice income.

Originally posted by Xstatic912
That's what greed cause.. Yes you want a piece of the mmo market, but make a compelling product at best..

Plus you (Ea) got pimped by Lucas for the star wars license, thinking the name alone will be enough, there is a reason most mmo dev's don't use others IP because if it doesn't work, the dev's suffer greatly while the IP owner already profited..

Hope you learn (even though I doubt it), because in all honesty I think this game and it's quick release was aim at getting back the cash you put into it then hope for the best...

if the 23% drop in sub they had in May rolls over to the coming months, after the heavy hitters come out, then probably next stop is F2P if they can't meet there "500k minimum sub needed to make a profit" goal...

If this game was what all those people thought and was told this game will be then we wouldn't be having this conversation because they will still be paying that monthly fee. Obviously that isn't happening. 

Didn't the game sell 2.3 million copies before and at launch? We're coming on 8 months so what is the total now? Should be a lot more than 2.37million but is it? EA is real good at bragging when its' going good like they were not shy at all to say how many they sold early but I haven't seen a word on post launch sales.

About the servers... Anyone with a lick of sense knew from day one thatt hey woudl have to sooner or later close servers as they popped them out way way to fast since the impatient (wo)man-children of today can not handle a que time at all. They simply opend more servers then they needed so it is not a "sign of doom" that they do. Even if they had retained the most optimistic number of players (nobody in the biz expects a 100% retention rate) they woudl have had to move people and close servers as some servers were simply too low pop to begin with. Now that being said it is obvious that the community is much smaller then they projected and i think that is much due to the sort of split personality of the game, it is not a top notch SP game and it is not a top notch MMO... And each part scare the other side away.

That being said the game is still well made and if you have a older GFX card it looks about as a good as TSW or GW2. Animations are good and ofc the sound/audio/voice is top notch. Maybe it woudl have been nice to have a bit more variety in NPC's(if i see another military dude using the bulk body i will cry)  but that is a minor complaint. And like it or not... the story for the two classes i have actually moved up (consular/smuggler) is very enjoyable.. sure the replay value is crap and it will be very boring to level up another one (my biggest pet peeve, some thing iam forced to as you are locked in to your chooice of specialization for good no dual-spec Sage/shadow for me)

Thats too bad, I liked Vogel. I wish him the best of luck. Also Georg Zoeller(not sure if hes been laid off, but rumor has it), I disagreed with pretty much everything he said, but the ahole way he said it, made me like him lol for having his opinion and being staunch.

I hope they find work.

Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by SaintPhilip

Originally posted by daltanious

Originally posted by dotdotdash

This is what happens when you fail to make a good game.

Never in my life (50 currently) have played better and more polished and bugfree game with good performance all maxed out. Everything is there, immersion, incredible natural movement of avatars, complex, incredible twists in class quests, fun abilities where nearly every one have use, there is no blind button mashing, .... playing since day 1 and I still log back every day to my 16 alts. Tried virtually all there ... but found only 3 games so far worth every penny of sub, wow, rift and now swtor.

However i can not judge for pvp or end game as I could not care less. Guess many are not happy there.

Are you joking? You cannot be for real- If you are I appologize and respect your opinion BUT thats a statement I find suspect. How many MMOs have you played?

I am not discounting your opinion if you really feel this way- We all have different tastes but...

I agree with him and completely disagree with you, guess that makes you the delusional one, huh?

Nobody said anything about delusional-

Dude said hes 50 years old and this is rthe greatest game he has ever played- I asked if he was serious? Games a failure in my eyes and most other peoples - If that weere not the case then we wouldnt be having discussions each week about server merges and layoffs.

Games not a trainwreck (never said that)- But to equate it to the greatest game ever made is a very odd statement IMHO- Game is horrible IMO. 

You mean how many have played since pacman or original prince of persia era? :-) A lot. Also a lot on PS and PS2. And I guess all mmo, some only up to expiration of free time or even few days only (TR i.e.). Was completely non fun for me. But for this I have not been bashing game on all forums after stopped to play. It looks to me like hate comunity have developed even much faster then that of wow. I have played even nightmares like Rappelz (actually ... was not so bad if not for impossible lag and money sucking apart that "free"). Have endured for months even with Aoc and War and even CO, despite crippling bugs. Despite all I enjoyed them for some time. I endured despite many left, they could not handle any more.

So ... EXACTLY WHAT is so bad about SWTOR that you hate so deeply,  that you (and others) at it looks you obviusly do not play for long (if ever) is so terrible that you must spend so much time bashing it? I.e. once TR or Rappelz or War ... were dead end for me ... i never bothered again in any forum, not even following. 

I have LISTED one by one why I love so much SWTOR and why keeps me for aprox 7 months now to log in every single day, from half hour maybe because of time schedule or 16 hours on weekends. As I understand from some other forums major down is pvp and endgame, two parts of any game I could not care less.

Could be I'm infulenced by lore as I always loved sw series since first movie released ... but I'm sure would enjoy same.

Game for me is most perfect up to date. And I'm not trolling.

Originally posted by Talonsin

 

The F2P model used to be much better back in the day when the only thing that was F2P was asian crap-tastic games.  People quoting how LOTRO and DND made money going F2P dont realize the competition was very weak at the time and played a major role in the additional revenue.  Today, there are so many good F2P games out there that going F2P is not a guaranteed profit maker any longer.  The current F2P games have started to gouge players like in STO where you have to pay to get a key to open a lockbox with the good drops

I think this is an extremely good point. Thanks, Talonsin, I will remember this...

Originally posted by Malcanis

Originally posted by Talonsin

 

The F2P model used to be much better back in the day when the only thing that was F2P was asian crap-tastic games.  People quoting how LOTRO and DND made money going F2P dont realize the competition was very weak at the time and played a major role in the additional revenue.  Today, there are so many good F2P games out there that going F2P is not a guaranteed profit maker any longer.  The current F2P games have started to gouge players like in STO where you have to pay to get a key to open a lockbox with the good drops

I think this is an extremely good point. Thanks, Talonsin, I will remember this...

Another point: DDO and LotRo launched F2P on top of highly polished MMO wheter you like the gameplay or setting.

TOR is missing many AAA MMO features and isn't as much evenly polished. For example they don't even get the shadows right.

Don't know why people are surprised...

SWTOR was just WoW "2.0" with Star Wars theme.

Why would anyone use the craptastic HeroEngine (even if it's heavily modified).

Couple that with the PIECE OF SHIT 'mobile authenticator', which breaks if you remove the battery, at the time they hadn't yet made the keychain availible so it was either risk account crack (since it's brute force, and not actually 'hacking') or get the mobile key gen.

So 'yay!' I get to spend ~2hrs on hold, plus another hour explaining why I had to pull the battery because my phone locked up. Then convence them that it's really me, then order a keychain-because apparently you can't re-enter the Mobile App's SN (look it up).

All to play a game that after the "Ooooo, Star Wars!" feel rubbed off left me going "I am playing WoW with better graphics."