Looking at how this board is rife with speculation from both fans, neutral anticipators and detractors and launch is less than 3 months away, NOW is the time to make your prediction on SWTOR's overall success or lack thereof in its first year post launch.

Please have the common decency to elaborate on your vote and opinion and keep it consise and to just that: a long list of predictions.

*disclaimer*

Your prediction in this thread might or might not be used against you in a court of "I told you so" post launch.

EDIT: Based on feedback received, I agree that the poll is kind of lacking a "good success" option. But that is kind of how I intended the "mediocre success" option.

As in: it can still be a succesful, highly profitable game, even when there isn't much evidence in a year from now that it will ever be able to directly compete with WOW in sub numbers.

Of course it is naive to think that any mmorpg can reach WOW's sub numbers in just a year, WOW needed the good part of a decade and a lot of porting to other languages and regions for that: The "huge success" option is meant to reflect the option that Swtor is really having the prospect of becoming WOW sized by still growing in sub numbers at a very high rate in a year from now as well as having a very high sub retention.

I agree that "mediocre" is probably a bit badly chosen but I can't edit the poll options anymore.

I'm going with other because i don't think it will reach WoW numbers but i didn't care for the description of mediocre success. I think it will be really successful as in hold about 3 to 4 million but not get up into the 10 million range

Looks to me alot of time and money are being put into the game and will have alot of support at start. My concern is 2yrs from now and all the Item shops and F2p models.

I voted mediocre sucess. I dun believe this game will fail like WAR(current) or AoC(at launch). I'm sure they'll have steam of massive update like rift in the 1st few month to impress the sub player...there're 2 phd in charge of bioware after all.

Free to play within a year.

Voted huge success myself.

The only uncertainty I have is in regards to the scope of endgame content of which I know too little. Otherwise it will be a breath of fresh air and an amazing rpg experience, on par with the best single player rpg's yet with the social aspects, advantages and group content of a mmorpg.

People won't want to get back to the boring leveling process of generic themepark mmorpgs once they've played Swtor.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Voted huge success myself.

The only uncertainty I have is in regards to the scope of endgame content of which I know too little. Otherwise it will be a breath of fresh air and an amazing rpg experience, on par with the best single player rpg's yet with the social aspects, advantages and group content of a mmorpg.

People won't want to get back to the boring leveling process of generic themepark mmorpgs once they've played Swtor.

I don't know about those term in brown, not going down the wow in space route as it's been the "coner stone" of this sub forum for sometime now.

but it'll be a big YES to those term in red

Okay, here's what I expect:

1. Game will release in playable condition with relatively few bugs, and only a few missing desirable features (not things promised that aren't in, but things players would have wanted that got cut or never got added).

2. Box sales will be astronomical.

3. Overall public acceptance will be similar to Rift, small pockets of praisers and haters, but overall... "Not bad, it's a decent game."

4. Mainstream media acceptance will be very strong.  Indie media will range from "not bad" to "what is this piece of crap".

From there it starts downhill.

5. Lack of continued promotion.  This is bad.  Non-stop marketing pushes games.  WoW and Rift are both prime examples of marketing done well.  I don't expect campaigns as solid as Rift and this will hurt sales and playerbase.  (This is speculation on my part, EA might prove me wrong.  I hope for their sake they do)

6. Lack of content patches.  Lack of feature introductions.  Possibly even lack of system fixes.  (This is also speculation, but too many corporate types don't understand that MMOs are not like SP games.  They need non-stop attention the first year, and if that doesn't happen, players leave.)

7. Subscription declines because of the above two topics.  Then some exec decides to not throw more money at the project and it starts to decay.  (This is also speculation.  Unfortunately this pattern is close to the norm for huge corporation driven games [think SOE] with subscriptions.  If the spreadsheet says we made enough money, screw the game.  On the other hand, we might see the game introduce heavy cash shop sales items to increase revenue.  I'm not sure which is worse.)

Overall, I think the developers will do well, but the suits will kill what would have been a major win.  Just my hunch.

EDIT: As an individual I have little faith in corporate management doing what's good for a project.  They seldom prove me wrong in this regard.  My comment would have been the same, if not worse if SW:TOR was an SOE game.

I chose other. I think the launch, and however months it takes for GW2 to come out will be huge....then I see a lot of people leaving; at least for awhile. I'm not a GW2 fanboy I just don't like outerspace themed stuff much. Also mister pony....are you saying that SWTOR isn't a themepark? I mean yeah it's more like the hall of presidents in disney land where the NPC's actually talk, but it's still a themepark. 

Originally posted by jerkbeast

I chose other. I think the launch, and however months it takes for GW2 to come out will be huge....then I see a lot of people leaving; at least for awhile. I'm not a GW2 fanboy I just don't like outerspace themed stuff much. Also mister pony....are you saying that SWTOR isn't a themepark? I mean yeah it's more like the hall of presidents in disney land where the NPC's actually talk, but it's still a themepark. 

No, I didn't mean that. It will be a themepark and there are striking similarities with existing themepark mmorpgs, but it will be much less of a generic themepark as a lot of people think it will be due to some distinct differences.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by jerkbeast

I chose other. I think the launch, and however months it takes for GW2 to come out will be huge....then I see a lot of people leaving; at least for awhile. I'm not a GW2 fanboy I just don't like outerspace themed stuff much. Also mister pony....are you saying that SWTOR isn't a themepark? I mean yeah it's more like the hall of presidents in disney land where the NPC's actually talk, but it's still a themepark. 

No, I didn't mean that. It will be a themepark and there are striking similarities with existing themepark mmorpgs, but it will be much less of a generic themepark as a lot of people think it will be due to some distinct differences.

that's fair.

Because it has SW in it's name it will be popular at first.  Once people realise the true nature of the beast i.e. WOW 2.0, they'll leave.

When did matching WOW's success become the standard for a new MMO?

It's already clear that TOR will sell a ton of copies at launch. It's also clearly not a revolutionary game. I see it a year from now holding up better than games like WAR, AOC, Aion, and Rift (projecting obviously) did after their first year but not having achieved any kind of dominant status in the industry. There are just too many other AAA MMOs coming out in the next year. I expect many players will experience TOR like I will: play it for 2-6 months then move on to Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, etc.

Originally posted by Aguitha

Because it has SW in it's name it will be popular at first.  Once people realise the true nature of the beast i.e. WOW 2.0, they'll leave.

 Why? You can't even pry the buggers away from WoW 1.0 with a crowbar.

The people on this forum will scream, cry, and  whine about how horrible the game is and it will make money hand over fist, Then we'll get a thousand threads about how stupid people who play it must be while it continues to grow.

Originally posted by meddyck

When did matching WOW's success become the standard for a new MMO?

It's already clear that TOR will sell a ton of copies at launch. It's also clearly not a revolutionary game. I see it a year from now holding up better than games like WAR, AOC, Aion, and Rift (projecting obviously) did after their first year but not having achieved any kind of dominant status in the industry. There are just too many other AAA MMOs coming out in the next year. I expect many players will experience TOR like I will: play it for 2-6 months then move on to Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, etc.

/agree completely.  This is why I said it would be free to play within a year, it definitely is not a MMO built to have a long lifespan (plays too much like a single player game).  And the other big MMOs coming out shortly after it definitely won't help with that.

They seem much more interested in initial sales.

And a game will not trump WoW's success for a very long time; I think most have finally realized that.

I went for mediocre success. Think it will do well, espeicialy at launch. I will be there, been waiting for this game for ever.  However, I don't think it will topple wow from the throne but it should keep enough subs to be around for a long time.

It'll be a mediocre game, with a massive playerbase at launch, but will dwindle rather fast after the first 4-6 months down to a still respectable number. It'll be popular, but nowhere even close to the hype level over the long term.

I'll be buying it, $100 for 3-6 months of entertainment is worth it in my book. Only other game that will offer that much entertainment and then some for less money will he skyrim.

[quote]
Originally posted by wormywyrm

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 (plays too much like a single player game).  

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My vote goes for the:

Disappointing: Sub numbers started dropping steeply after a few months and the game is following the AoC / WAR curve

Just because this is what happens to most MMORPGs nowadays. They bring nothing new to the table. And as much as I am an mmorpg addict, the SWTOR just hasn't shown me anything that makes me want to play it "so bad".

Of course I wish all the luck to SWTOR, would be nice if the Star Wars fans got their new home and the pre nge vets can stop beating a dead horse and retire with peace.

I went with 'rival WoW'.

I think SWTOR will do very well actually. It is made by Bioware and that alone means millions of sales.

I mean, two new IPs that sold millions since 2007.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age. 

That alone tells you how many of us gamers out there will buy whatever game has 'Made by Bioware' on it.

Yes, I write this looking at my N7 Mass Effect Beanie. What of it? :P