Originally posted by tiefighter25
It bears mentionong that Terra has garnered a lot of interest since its far less restrictive Free To Play. That would explain a lot of SWTOR's FTP population migrating to a different game. (The trend can be seen at a third party website.)

The people playing games like swtor is not the same people who love to play korean games like Tera, you are talking about the AION players, the other F2P Korean MMO. 

Originally posted by Eletheryl

Originally posted by tiefighter25
It bears mentionong that Terra has garnered a lot of interest since its far less restrictive Free To Play. That would explain a lot of SWTOR's FTP population migrating to a different game. (The trend can be seen at a third party website.)

The people playing games like swtor is not the same people who love to play korean games like Tera, you are talking about the AION players, the other F2P Korean MMO. 

By no means am I the Wizzard of Oz, but Path of Exile and Terra's poopuations (both FTP) appear to have grown rapidly in the last month. Aion appears to be stable. D3 (BTP) and SWTOR (Freemium) appear to have experienced a decline in population.

I was speculating on SWTOR's decline being attributable to other games as opposed to just attrition. Both Terra and Path of Exile have laxer FTP systems.

I think that you underestimate the FTP playerbases' ability to skip from genre to genre.

This is of course all speculation, (based on a some data). I'm sure someone will point this out.

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Originally posted by Eletheryl

Originally posted by tiefighter25
It bears mentionong that Terra has garnered a lot of interest since its far less restrictive Free To Play. That would explain a lot of SWTOR's FTP population migrating to a different game. (The trend can be seen at a third party website.)

The people playing games like swtor is not the same people who love to play korean games like Tera, you are talking about the AION players, the other F2P Korean MMO. 

By no means am I the Wizzard of Oz, but Path of Exile and Terra's poopuations (both FTP) appear to have grown rapidly in the last month. Aion appears to be stable. D3 (BTP) and SWTOR (Freemium) appear to have experienced a decline in population.

I was speculating on SWTOR's decline being attributable to other games as opposed to just attrition. Both Terra and Path of Exile have laxer FTP systems.

I think that you underestimate the FTP playerbases' ability to skip from genre to genre.

This is of course all speculation, (based on a some data). I'm sure someone will point this out.

I have a sub with swtor and havent played in like a week or so, is doesnt meant i quit, just taking a break till the new update coming this month, a lot of people is probably doing the same, thats how the playerbase in a MMO works, and thats why the Population in swtor is not growing like weeks before, however, the playerbase is stable and the activity will be back to like it was   or even better with the launch of the 1.7 update.

Originally posted by Eletheryl

Originally posted by tiefighter25
It bears mentionong that Terra has garnered a lot of interest since its far less restrictive Free To Play. That would explain a lot of SWTOR's FTP population migrating to a different game. (The trend can be seen at a third party website.)

The people playing games like swtor is not the same people who love to play korean games like Tera, you are talking about the AION players, the other F2P Korean MMO. 

That blanket statement isn't true.  I found enjoyment in Aion since it went F2P, and ArcheAge looks really good as well (actual housing & land ownership / decoration, actual roleplay features).  Both are Korean games.  I also found SWTOR fun, or at least fun before the content dried out and new content was just rehashed old stuff.

Korea has some good games and even more stinkers.  But the same can be said for any country.

A good game is fun regardless of where it came from, and thus worthy of playing.  It might be true that people who invested themselves in SWTOR would like to see SWTOR get fixed & improved, but that doesn't equate to it being a longtime fun game or even a game meant to be played exclusively.

Good games come in all colors, if you get my drift.

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Originally posted by Eletheryl

Originally posted by tiefighter25

Originally posted by Eletheryl

Originally posted by tiefighter25
It bears mentionong that Terra has garnered a lot of interest since its far less restrictive Free To Play. That would explain a lot of SWTOR's FTP population migrating to a different game. (The trend can be seen at a third party website.)

The people playing games like swtor is not the same people who love to play korean games like Tera, you are talking about the AION players, the other F2P Korean MMO. 

By no means am I the Wizzard of Oz, but Path of Exile and Terra's poopuations (both FTP) appear to have grown rapidly in the last month. Aion appears to be stable. D3 (BTP) and SWTOR (Freemium) appear to have experienced a decline in population.

I was speculating on SWTOR's decline being attributable to other games as opposed to just attrition. Both Terra and Path of Exile have laxer FTP systems.

I think that you underestimate the FTP playerbases' ability to skip from genre to genre.

This is of course all speculation, (based on a some data). I'm sure someone will point this out.

I have a sub with swtor and havent played in like a week or so, is doesnt meant i quit, just taking a break till the new update coming this month, a lot of people is probably doing the same, thats how the playerbase in a MMO works, and thats why the Population in swtor is not growing like weeks before, however, the playerbase is stable and the activity will be back to like it was   or even better with the launch of the 1.7 update.

Yeah probably, and if this was said last year, then I would agree with you, but despite updates throughout 2012, the populations still declined, and never got back to what it was or even better, and if it did it would not have gone F2P. F2P did not do anything to fix the population loss, so chances are the same thing will happen again. With Tera and TSW now F2P/B2P there are more attrractive better valued games to spend time on instead

When the game had its last spike, which was 13th Jan, that was the weekend after they allowed people more char slots. I would think people would be busy levelling up those extra chars still keeping servers FULL, but does not look like it.

1.7 does not look all that awesome, it has PVP content which will not appeal to PVE players which is the main attraction of this game / F2P, and the reputation system is just another grindfest, similar to the Legacy system. STO has it, and it is not exciting to do in there either. To do it in both - no chance.

The next time the game may get a major boost will be when Makeb is about to be released, as I may even resub to get that at half price, and hopefully get the preorder perks if not too late, then unsub and carry on playing as preferred if have nopt quite finished stuff.

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Thing is though that games kept improving,  each new game was bigger and better than the last, unlike SWTOR which has many features missing from a lot of MMOs, and is basically a step backwards.

Racing games have progressed loads. Sega Rally on the Saturn only had very few tracks, and people just kept playing it to improve their scores, then they add in more realistic graphics, crashes, more courses, online mode, helpful racelines, rewind option, open world etc

Usually each new game has what the last had, plus more.

Mario 64 was a proper advancement on the 2D Mario games, but now they seem to have gone backwards with the Wii U mario game too, which is like the 2D Mario games again.

For MMOs it matters as it is heads up for whether it will shut down or not. You did not have worry about Megaman shuttig down, and you can still play it today if you want to. If you didn't like it you could resell it, which you can not with SWTOR once used, you are stuck with it. Also games like that did not keep getting updated or changed, so you knew that what you get will be what it is forever. SWTOR may get stuff added that will make me want to keep subbing to the game. There is always hope until the game shuts down.

Originally posted by superniceguy

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Thing is though that games kept improving,  each new game was bigger and better than the last, unlike SWTOR which has many features missing from a lot of MMOs, and is basically a step backwards.

Racing games have progressed loads. Sega Rally on the Saturn only had very few tracks, and people just kept playing it to improve their scores, then they add in more realistic graphics, crashes, more courses, online more, helpful racelines, rewind option, open world etc

Usually each new game has what the last had, plus more.

Mario 64 was a proper advancement on the 2D Mario games, but now they seem to have gone backwards with the Wii U mario game too, which is like the 2D Mario games again.

For MMOs it matters as it is heads up for whether it will shut down or not. You did not have worry about Megaman shuttig down, and you can still play it today if you want to. If you didn't like it you could resell it, which you can not with SWTOR once used, you are stuck with it. Also games like that did not keep getting updated or changed, so you knew that what you get will be what it is forever. SWTOR may get stuff added that will make me want to keep subbing to the game. There is always hope until the game shuts down.

 But that is nature of MMOS isn't it? ultimately they are going to shut down. I think all players who play MMO are aware of the fact. Nothing lasts forever but that doesn't mean one stops enjoying the game worrying about the future. Earth and Beyond lasted not even a year before EA shut it down and i had so much fun in that game. Even though i wish it lasted for more years but i had tons of fun in that game, no regrets. Maybe i just don't get so emotinaly attached to MMOS and can just walk away easily whenever i want.

Ofcourse you can sell Megaman it is vintage and stuff like this will always fetch you nice price. I don't even know why would anyone want to resell MMOS or SWTOR for that matter say 10 year from now. Two very different type of genre in comparison here.

Originally posted by Doogiehowser

Originally posted by superniceguy

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Thing is though that games kept improving,  each new game was bigger and better than the last, unlike SWTOR which has many features missing from a lot of MMOs, and is basically a step backwards.

Racing games have progressed loads. Sega Rally on the Saturn only had very few tracks, and people just kept playing it to improve their scores, then they add in more realistic graphics, crashes, more courses, online more, helpful racelines, rewind option, open world etc

Usually each new game has what the last had, plus more.

Mario 64 was a proper advancement on the 2D Mario games, but now they seem to have gone backwards with the Wii U mario game too, which is like the 2D Mario games again.

For MMOs it matters as it is heads up for whether it will shut down or not. You did not have worry about Megaman shuttig down, and you can still play it today if you want to. If you didn't like it you could resell it, which you can not with SWTOR once used, you are stuck with it. Also games like that did not keep getting updated or changed, so you knew that what you get will be what it is forever. SWTOR may get stuff added that will make me want to keep subbing to the game. There is always hope until the game shuts down.

 But that is nature of MMOS isn't it? ultimately they are going to shut down. I think all players who play MMO are aware of the fact. Nothing lasts forever but that doesn't mean one stops enjoying the game worrying about the future. Earth and Beyond lasted not even a year before EA shut it down and i had so much fun in that game. Even though i wish it lasted for more years but i had tons of fun in that game, no regrets. Maybe i just don't get so emotinaly attached to MMOS and can just walk away easily whenever i want.

Ofcourse you can sell Megaman it is vintage and stuff like this will always fetch you nice price. I don't even know why would anyone want to resell MMOS or SWTOR for that matter say 10 year from now. Two very different type of genre in comparison here.

True, but there are plenty of other games out there to give as much fun, and MMOs that are doing well like WOW or ones only just released are least likely to shut down within a year, although TOR also needs $7.5 million per month in subs and CM sales, so increases the likelihood, any other MMO would be happy to have the populations of SWTOR and if TSW or Tera had as many it probably would not have gone F2P/B2P for a very long time. City of heroes went F2P in 2011 and shut down 2012. Just when I was getting a new character going, they announced its shut down 1 month later, and did not get very far with the new content, and had I known it was closing that soon I would not have bothered and put my time to something else, plus it caused a stir and the Korean times were puzzled why it was closing.

As for the selling that was mainly on the basis if you do not like a game, not selling it 10 years from now. It would be good if you had 7 days or even 24 hours to unapply a code. As you can not and can not sell, you have to make do with your purchase even if you do not like it, just to make the purchase worthwhile.

The main problem with SWTOR right now is that the only real place is shines in compared to other games is its Flashpoints for the interactive story. Thats it, when your journey outside of that their big aspects just cant stack. TSW beats SWTOR in story, Alot of games beat it in PVP, WoW Beats it in its gameplay(well not beats however there isnt really a difference). People HATE the Space combat, and the list can continue.  

SWTOR's best idea in keeping the game alive is to do everything within their power to not get players to TRY other games. Thats where they get hurt. The game is like a jack of all trades - It can do alot of things, however its not the best at anything. The game is solid however loses out as soon as its compared to others.

Originally posted by Doogiehowse

 But that is nature of MMOS isn't it? ultimately they are going to shut down. I think all players who play MMO are aware of the fact. Nothing lasts forever but that doesn't mean one stops enjoying the game worrying about the future. Earth and Beyond lasted not even a year before EA shut it down and i had so much fun in that game. Even though i wish it lasted for more years but i had tons of fun in that game, no regrets. Maybe i just don't get so emotinaly attached to MMOS and can just walk away easily whenever i want.

Ofcourse you can sell Megaman it is vintage and stuff like this will always fetch you nice price. I don't even know why would anyone want to resell MMOS or SWTOR for that matter say 10 year from now. Two very different type of genre in comparison here.

I don't know why anyone would want to buy an old game like megaman either since you can play it for free with an emulator. 

Your first paragrpah is so true and is one of the biggest reasons many of us disagree with each other here. Many posters like get really wrapped up in MMOs. They are like second lives and get really emotionally attached to the characters they create. They watch population levels and quarter returns religously.Gaming is more of a cause than simple entertainment. When their MMO of choice shuts down, they react as if there was just a death in the family.

Whereas other posters  know the game will shut down at some point it's only a question of when. They enjoy the games for what they are and don't lose any sleep over population levels. They don't have a check list of features for that perfect game and don't use it as a litmus test for judging others. If their favorite game shuts down the attitude is, "Oh well. That was fun. Next."

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Judging by how many topics like this are made, some people like complaining and picking apart numbers that have no meaning to them more than playing games it seems. Dunno though, I guess it can count as a hobby.

Originally posted by Draron

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Judging by how many topics like this are made, some people like complaining and picking apart numbers that have no meaning to them more than playing games it seems. Dunno though, I guess it can count as a hobby.

You are to a certain extent correct. Call it a hobby. It's intresting in the context of comparing the SWTOR Freemium system to the supposed paradign shift in MMO payment models.

As I've stated, I think it's just a melting off of a good chunk of FTP players. An easy fix for Bioware is to just reset the population reporting caps on the individual servers.

As I said, they are just FTPers. No one would really notice them gone, it's only evident between ToRstatus (which could be fixed by adjusting the pop caps) and to a lesser extent the 3rd party site.

The game relies on the sub based players, ehich there is no way of determing number, but likely not much affected.

Originally posted by Draron

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Judging by how many topics like this are made, some people like complaining and picking apart numbers that have no meaning to them more than playing games it seems. Dunno though, I guess it can count as a hobby.

I could only imagine what gaming would have been like in the 80s had internet forums existed then. You'd have had Atari fans fighting with Coleco vision fans who would have lost their favorite platforms and then started hating on the NES because of it's dominance. That and cries of "Pac-Man clone" by posters who hate on every game that isn't Pong. 

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by Draron

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Funny to me.  When we played games in the 80s.  We never sat around and asked "Is Megaman still selling?  I see that its Toys R Us volumes have been low"

I guess it was because we were having too much fun playing to care.  If I didnt like a game I sold it or threw it away.  Played something else.

Funny how things change....

Judging by how many topics like this are made, some people like complaining and picking apart numbers that have no meaning to them more than playing games it seems. Dunno though, I guess it can count as a hobby.

I could only imagine what gaming would have been like in the 80s had internet forums existed then. You'd have had Atari fans fighting with Coleco vision fans who would have lost their favorite platforms and then started hating on the NES because of it's dominance. That and cries of "Pac-Man clone" by posters who hate on every game that isn't Pong. 

You just posted your minimum age, if you didn't know that stuff had existed already! :D

If you said 70's well that would led to a whole lot of speculation .. but saying it wasn't available in the 80's pinponts it down :P  Because there was plenty of smack going down in the 80's, "online".

Originally posted by superniceguy

City of heroes went F2P in 2011 and shut down 2012. Just when I was getting a new character going, they announced its shut down 1 month later, and did not get very far with the new content, and had I known it was closing that soon I would not have bothered and put my time to something else, plus it caused a stir and the Korean times were puzzled why it was closing.

Because the developers from Paragon Studios itself have confirmed that they game was making more money since the F2P conversion, and the game wasn't losing money according to them - hence NCSoft's "realignment of company focus" instead of saying anything regarding its profitability, and why the Korean Times questioned their decision in shutting down a game that was still providing a profit for them.

The closest thing I've seen when it comes to what reason they had for what they did is that they don't want too many titles to support, and only want the very best to represent their name - which seems weak at best, seeing how most other companies want as many succesful titles on their portfolio as possible.

Ah well, lesson learned - stay away from NCSoft as they are willing to shut down the game the moment they decide it no longer "fits" in their company lineup.

And I agree with you that its in SWTOR's best interest to make work of their updates and to get new content in game ASAP.

Originally posted by tiefighter25

As I said, they are just FTPers. No one would really notice them gone, it's only evident between ToRstatus (which could be fixed by adjusting the pop caps) and to a lesser extent the 3rd party site.

Revenue wise that's true, but the FTP crowd does add to the activity level of a game, giving subscribers more people to team with, to chat with, etc... which in turn helps them to not get bored so that they stay subbed.

Originally posted by Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by LoverNoFighter

SWTOR is a failure. Just face the truth already.

Should just have made SWG 2 instead. SWG pre cu style with content from CU / NGE.

According to your signature that holds true for every MMO that isn't "SWG pre CU". ;)

 Well it's a fact that no other MMO has ever been close to SWG pre cu's potential. ;-)

Originally posted by LoverNoFighter

Originally posted by Azaron_Nightblade

Originally posted by LoverNoFighter

SWTOR is a failure. Just face the truth already.

Should just have made SWG 2 instead. SWG pre cu style with content from CU / NGE.

According to your signature that holds true for every MMO that isn't "SWG pre CU". ;)

 Well it's a fact that no other MMO has ever been close to SWG pre cu's potential. ;-)

 

how many players in pre CU? 300-400k, right?

thats a pretty solid number,,but not for a AAA mmo,,and its still very far from the top dog

so the real life numbers prove that you are in a minority

and building a mmo for minorities will get you another niche game

thats what both SW mmos are,,,niche games