Hello gamers,

This article is not being written for any hate to the Star Wars (SW) franchise, but in hopes that the genre might actually become better.  By simple facts, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) loses more subscribers than it gains on any given time period.  Eventually EA Bioware division's game may be reduced to nothing, with exception to the hard-core of SW, a prospect that is horrible for general fans wanting to experience a new dimension in gaming.

THE PAST:

The SW movies, starting in the late 70's, were nothing short of brilliance, chock full of innovation.  Sci-Fi movies before this period largely consisted of contempory (modern day, as we see it) technology .. Star Trek clones if you will.  Then Star Wars brought the idea of a civilization long ago which was not only technologically superior over nature, but also used magic - the Force.  The series captivated a humungous audience loving this new realm of thought.  The fans of this idea of SW were captivated, collecting memorbelia, toys, and anything that screamed "Star Wars".

After many years, decades later, games came out that were very innovative and fun for PC & console.  Games relating to the SW universe kept players interested.  Fly your own ship.   Perform actions to take down an AT-AT.  Defend your planet and defend your military ships.  Take to the ground and do objective based missions.  Ride vehicles and defend them or use them to get somewhere else.  SW had what no other game could provide - a believable world.  It held a sense of what you did mattered - not only to the game itself, but to other players .. since many missions (2D or 3D) were left to hand-eye coordination.  If you sucked, you would fail .. although you had opportunities to get better, and try again.  Success gave way to bragging rights.

The first actual MMORPG was Star Wars Galaxies (SWG), in which players could finally enter into a SW universe with other players and actually interact.  While it had mixed receptions at the time, it was a success because of it's longevity.  Many people just didn't play it because they didn't know about it (because of EQ and SOE's expansion structure), or they didn't understand what sandbox actually meant, and how that was different from what they were already playing.  SWG was a good game .. but they had competition which were also good games, so a small niche is expected, unless it went viral, which it didn't.

TODAY:

Now SWTOR released and it did great, at first, thanks to a huge marketing campaign and from BioWare co-founders comparing this game to WoW.  It had the beauty and charm of a quality game - it had a company website timeline detailing the course of events in the SW universe, it had a beautiful soundtrack, it had books being released detailing relevant stories in The Old Republic.  It had weekly videos describing how people could enjoy and live in EA Bioware's SW environment.  Analysts predicted this game to have millions of subscribers by next year, ever growing.  Everything was perfect for this game.

Then came the actual game - there were major elements missing from the beta.  After taking out so much content for an earlier than expected release, the engine became worse due to inefficiencies.  Multiplayer aspects tumbled, as people realized they couldn't really do Illum even in a 15 vs 15 because they were only getting a couple frames per second.

Roleplayers found faults as well.  While the game lacked fundamentals of roleplaying, like sitting, sleeping, and CHATBUBBLES, it was really difficult to have roleplaying sessions.  The game just derps out and causes graphic problems if and when you attract too many players (like on a RP server).  Roleplayers were forced to separate out into smaller groups and be segregated.

Customer service was dreadful.  If you submit a ticket, then it might either (1) get deleted, or (2) get responded to with a request for more information, of which you already provided, or (3) get an pre-formated auto-response which doesn't relate to the problem you had.  I attribute the overwhelming ticket submissions to an incomplete game full of bugs.  If EA Bioware were to release a quality experience, then tickets would be only player vs. player disputes and not millions of bug complaints.

An individual ticket number during beta was in the 10's of thousands.  A month after launch an individual ticket number was listed in the millions, soon to hit 10 million shortly there-after.  The response-time for GM action then dropped to days, weeks, or never (because of overwhelming tickets) .. if the sender ever got a response it was a canned response .. "Thank you for submitting ... We apologize .. we thank you for your business".

FUTURE:

This game simply needs a good shut down like FFXIV, so EA Bioware can work out what was wrong and correct the game.  There is so much wrong with the game that it is not fun.  Fun elements do exist in this game, and the music / story is exceptional.  But, there is so much wrong for an MMORPG (see other thread complaints) that I only listed a few small grains of sand.  This game  needs more than that to take an upward swing .. more sand .. like a sandbox! .. yup I went there.  Give this game any sandbox content where players actually matter, and I am positive this game might hold a stable customer base.

As it is, this themepark game won't end well.  F2P (B2P hybrid) doesn't fix problems, it only extends issues to others who never played the game.


TLDR: SW franchise is awesome in the past.  SWTOR is a letdown and needs to be reworked.
 

Any thoughts on SWTOR having a shutdown / revamp?

I hate to say it but it will just not happen with all the money they have tied up in it already.

In order to make it a a good fun game play they would have to scrap everything and rebuild it from the engine up.  Then they may make the same mistakes that they did in building the current game.

Sadly; I don't believe this is possible at this point in time. Too much money was dropped into this project, and barely any is really left for them to rehaul everything. The only thing they can do is add some fluff content and hope F2P gives it a life-line to stay afloat.

EA mostly moved on to it's other MMO's.

"This game simply needs a good shut down like FFXIV"

This would be the right thing to do for the game, it worked wonders for FFXIV and IMO is one of gamings best kept secrets its actually a pretty good game now. But it will never be done, its all about the money for EA, and as long as it continues to keep failing it will be everyone and everything elses fault (players, players computers, economy, janitor using the wrong toilet paper in BW's bathrooms, old post-its on the Dev's desk, gas prices etc) BW/EA think their game is perfect and the best out there, I admire their confidence but that won't fix all the glaring issues of why everyone is leaving in droves.

Maybe in 8-10yrs from now we will be looking forward to the next Starwars MMO installment.

Originally posted by Chewychomp

 

Maybe in 8-10yrs from now we will be looking forward to the next Starwars MMO installment.

Unfortunately, after two 'failed' attempts (yes, I know SWG lovers, but you have to admit NGE was at least a fiasco) a Star Wars MMO is quickly approaching "How many drummers has Spinal Tap had" proportions pretty quickly.

Nicely said. I think your narrative is pretty close to the mark.

Originally posted by Ahnog
I have not found so much to be wrong with the game that it is not fun. Are there bugs and design issues that need to be addressed? Sure there are--all mmos have these, but I find the game to be very good the way it is.

Well I guess it was impossible for it to suck to absolutely everyone. I just wish I knew how many of these guys there were versus the rest who got kicked in the junk by BW.

Every game with a budget is a compromise in desires to satisfy several groups of people and satisfying the investors (logically or not) is what typically comes first. SWTOR is what happens when you try to make a WOW competitor for EA and a game “more like the movies" for Lucas. Every feature in the game seems to filter downward from the top throughout actual play design from those two ideas. From cinematic space combat to voice acted cut scenes to a play model based around trying to do WOW one better. These are things you can not fix at this point no matter how large the enema. The resulting game is what it is and it will always be so, love it or hate it. They are not going to make a new game out of it. I guess it's no wonder they blame the fans as those basic ideas are where they think the money trail comes from in the industry, what they think we really wanted, and now simply can’t grasp why it failed to meet their expectations for the fiscal return they thought a sure bet.

Originally posted by Sora2810

Sadly; I don't believe this is possible at this point in time. Too much money was dropped into this project, and barely any is really left for them to rehaul everything. The only thing they can do is add some fluff content and hope F2P gives it a life-line to stay afloat.

EA mostly moved on to it's other MMO's.

if you think ea money is running dry .you are in big mistake . they still have alot of money to waste .

Finally, an OP that is not a fanboi or a hater, how refreshing!

I agree on most parts, SWTOR really had the chance to be a great MMO but something went wrong.

Personally, i dont do any PVP, can live with the bugs and glitches and all other technicalities, those can be solved over time.

The idea with the storytelling pillar was great, it would allow for a greater immersion and understanding.

Somewhere it all got wrong. Its like BW really didnt get the concept of an MMO.

There is no point listing all the donegative issues, there have been thousands of post allready.

Can that be solved? I dont think so, unfortunately.

This is what's going to happen:

Riccetto (the EA CEO) is going to get fired in the near future, say within the next year.   A minority of investors are already calling for his head, but he's managed to keep the board baffled with his BS.

The SWTOR MMO will go on life-support and be otherwise forgotten as 'someone elses mistake'  by the new CEO/Management team.

When the LA contract runs out, they'll shut down the servers.

I think this guy speaks for us all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cegn3QC3ZQ&feature=youtu.be

Good things about SWTOR:

- Questing + Story

- Combat (Personally I like it)

- Dungeons

Things to Improve drastically

- PvP (atrocious)

- Space Combat ( 20 y/o Nintendo game)

- Endgame (Tedious as f..k)

OP, as a frustrated player I kept telling them more or less exactly the same thing. Not flaming or being rude, just detailing suggestions. Response - they kept deleting my posts.

My response - gave up.