Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by mmaize

WRONG.  First of all houses doesn't even factor in or at least so little it makes no difference in the definition of a "Sandbox" game.  Secondly quests are always fixed, the difference is whether the player can run into said quests through adventuring on their own and it falls into their laps rather than being led in a linear fashion from one place to the next along the story line.  Monsters fixed?  Aren't they always?  Now if you mean location wise I'd say that made more sense but in Skyrim it's pretty much random or at least based on the climate as it should be.  Spawn dynamic based on rules...um you're in some sort of RP fantasy world where the player just make believes he is wherever they want to be whenver they want to be...Sure I'd love to morph into a dragon too and fly around on a whim but that's just plain unrealistic and dumb.

Themebox does not equate to anything that is created by devs...sorry.  No more than complete and total freedom equates to sandbox.  You're being ridiculously extreme.

1. I never said houses are a requirement for a game to be sandbox.  I said that customizable housing is a sandbox feature.  It's sand for you to play in and customize.

2. Quest are predominantly fixed, but not always.  Games have existed with player-created quests.  In those games, quests were a sandbox feature.

3. Monsters are predominantly fixed, but not always.  Games have existed where players can program their own mob behavior and/or attributes.  In those games, monsters were a sandbox feature.

4. When you consider the features that make up typical gameplay in a game, that's what type of game a game is.  For Skyrim since house-customization isn't the #1 thing done and the rest of the features are themepark rides, the game is obviously a themepark.

Themeparks have rides.  Dev-created content players ride.

Sandboxes have sand.  Content that players create or manipulate.

This is the simple truth of what created these two terms.

Never thought of it this way (or perhpas more accurately, never so succinctly), and I have to say I tend to like/agree with this definitions.  Makes sense.

Curious - based upon this definition, which of the current "main stream" MMORPG's (if any) would you consider to offer primarily sandbox features?  EvE?  Any others?

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by cutthecrap

Originally posted by Teala

Actually EVE now has around 450k subscribers.  

Correction, that's 360k subs.

From Wikipedia - with citation.

"In March 2012, EVE Online reached over 400,000 subscribers.^[9]"

 

^{There you go.}  

I was also looking for a post on the official forums where one of the devs recently said they were nearing the 450k mark.    So EVE is around 450k now and growing.  If I can find his post I'll put a link to it.

LOL... so some random dev, and some random article says Eve (made by CCP, a non-public company) has 450k subs and it's "true"...

But EA, a publicly traded company that would be committing securities fraud by lying says they have 1.2m subs, and you say they're lying...

Originally posted by Distopia

The real problem is companies like EA are shooting for massive success and are unwilling to truly support anything less. TOR's major issue lies in longevity, you don't fix that problem by reducing staff, you fix it by throwing all available hands at it.

The problem is clear here, it's not the game that is the problem it's EA and the Suits in charge. When they're saying things like TOR isn't a developmental priority, it shows they weren't in this for the long haul to begin with.

TOR could be a good MMO, if they wanted to take the time to make it so, they don't. Last word they still had close to a million or so subs. That's not enough for EA, which means I personally will never touch an MMO they put out again. It will be the same song and dance every time no matter the design. If it doesn't put them in the TOP spot, they don't give a rats ass about it.

The problem with your theory is that a million subs only can support paying for so many salaries.  You say it could be a good MMO if they wanted to take the time to make it so - what makes you think they haven't already done that?  The game has been out since December, they've released multiple updates, but the sub number is still falling.

Eventually you need to stop throwing "good money after bad", and that's probalby what they are doing with these layoffs.  The unfortunate casualties, of course, are the employees whose lives are being affected.

Originally posted by lectrocuda

To a degree that term is somewhat subjective but if we ponder its generic inferrence something striking grabs my  attention. The sheer abundance of dilapidated, cookie cut , strucrural reproductions. Even SWTOR to a significant degree characterized this by its sheer foundation.

 

So with the understanding that new and improved does not dominate markets and that new and different has the most probability of being financially rewarding, why do we continue to get slight adaptations of previous installments into our genre?

I think we continue to get slight adaptions because the bit I've highlihgted above is, in fact, wrong.

Don't get me wrong - there are indeed examples of products that buck the trend, try something completely different, and are in fact rewarded handsomely for it.  Think:  Apple iPod.

But those examples are few and far between.  They are exceptions.  For every 10 "new and different" ideas that see the marketplace, 9 of them most likely fail.  

So while I agree that "innoviation is great", I'm hardly surprised that we see so little of it.  Take a look at the various sandboxes that exist in our marketplace today.  Are any of them doing as well as the themeparks?  No.  

Originally posted by cahenderson

Originally posted by Greyhooff

I hope it was the lead devs and managers at Bioware, and not the regular programmers and staff who get on with the work but don't make decisions.

SWTOR is dead because of the bad decisions of the people at the top. The bosses at Bioware SWTOR do not deserve a paycheck, and yes, they deserve to be fired and never work in the industry again.

Specifically, I hope the following were fired:

Erickson

Zoeller

Ohlen

Reid

Campbell

All their forum mods

 

You forgot (Gabe) Amantangelo and (Dallas) Dickinson.

 

I say good fucking riddance. God, I'd put baby's on spikes if I could be there to see specifically Georg Zoeller, James Ohlen and Gabe Amantangelo frog-marched out of the building by security.

Because these people personally caused you some form of irreperable harm?

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by Anolev

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by Anolev

Originally posted by Teala

It'll be on life support before the end of the year like Warhammer in its first year.   Face it, the game was an unmitigated disaster from the get go.   Some of us said this before the game launched.  We told you how bad the game was.   I came right out and said I could stomache beta testing this game it was that bad and deleted it from my HD and gave my beta key away.   I was told to STFU and get off the forum boards.   I was a troll.  A hater. 

Well guess the fuck what?!   I was dead on.   Put that in your fucking pipes and smoke!

Wow... way to focus on yourself, rather than the people affected by this layoff... true to form... 

People are getting laid off all over.   I feel sorry for them all.  Not so much for the people that made SWTOR the game it became.  Not so much.

So because they made a game that you didn't personally like, or made decisions that you personally don't agree with, they deserve to lose their jobs, their livelihoods, and now these human beings need to go home and tell their families that their lives have been rocked.

Wow.

 

Wow...I am sorry.    People make a  bad product.   They shouldn't be employed.   Sorry you see it differently.

So let's say BMW designs a new car... people on fhe factory floor assemble the car.  The car doesn't sell well.

You want to fire all of the people on the assembly line because, despite them building the car that they were told to build, the car didn't sell well.

I don't know what you do for a living, but I hope you are never affected in this way.  I wouldn't wish it upon anybody.  Then again, I'm not filled with anger/spite/hatred towards any game that I play and don't like.  I just move on.  Too bad you can't manage to do the same.

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by Anolev

Originally posted by Teala

[mod edit]

People are getting laid off all over.   I feel sorry for them all.  Not so much for the people that made SWTOR the game it became.  Not so much.

So because they made a game that you didn't personally like, or made decisions that you personally don't agree with, they deserve to lose their jobs, their livelihoods, and now these human beings need to go home and tell their families that their lives have been rocked.

Wow.

Originally posted by DanaDark

So a BUSINESSMAN told the truth about a BUSINESS affair... and everyone is up in arms?

Was everyone expecting him to say "Oh yes, we have decided to drop ALL games and just focus on TOR."? Or are people just kind of hurt that perhaps of ALL the games EA is involved in, TOR is not the BE-ALL END-ALL?

Simply because a BUSINESSMAN said he isn't taking out every loan possible, hiring 1,000,000,000 programmers, and dropping everything business related to develope TOR further doesn't mean it is going the way of the Dodo bird.

Biggest initial cost for an MMO is the developement of the main game itself. Once that is completeld, investment can drop rather significantly to simply maintain and update content. Even adding expansions is significantly cheaper. I highly doubt EA will drop 200m on each expansion.

I was excited about TOR. I followed up on it for years before release. All this hype that each of you has mentioned so far has totally and completely been player hype, not perpetuated or created by Bioware/EA. It was the players saying it'd be over two hundred biillion million zillion subs and be the bestest MMO since life developed on Earth. It is the players that have consistantly compared it to WOW (mainly due to the sheer hope someone can take that beast down).

The ONLY problem TOR has in my mind as far as gaming goes, is they made it too quick to go through (Almost every MMO does this now... its what YOU all want). They spent YEARS developing the content you burned through in EVERY possible combination in 5 days. Be real, if they released a FREE expansion once a week, you'd burn through it fast enough to complain about how stale the game is by sunday.

Besides, we must all remember that every game not yet released is better than every game released in every way and will totally destroy every game ever! /sarcasm

Agree!

Originally posted by Askedan

Originally posted by tawess

Originally posted by Askedan

SWTOR is probably the MMO with less updates ever.

 

How can they be so fcking Slow? 4 or 5 months already...is there anything new in the game?

oh yeah... 2 raids, 1 battleground  and some legacy system which does nothing but rehashed gimmicks... no new races or skills......

 

Where are the new quests, any new planets? , new features?

 

Where is the new content? WHERE?

actually very few games add anything major in the first 6 months. That is usually saved for rxpansions to create buzz... And as you your self admitted it have seen updates and several bug fix patches.

 

But yes this will be WAR all over again.

Payed expansions for MMOs are a joke, 15$ a month isn't enough? do they really need 50$ for 4 new hours of quest content?

I played tons of MMOs which added content in the first months, and i never had to buy 1 expansion.

And?

SW:TOR hasn't charged for anything yet, and has already added 2 new free updates in the first 4 months, and is about to add a 3rd update.

Or are you privy to some information about an upcoming paid expansion that none of the rest of us know about??

Originally posted by Askedan

SWTOR is probably the MMO with less updates ever.

 

How can they be so fcking Slow? 4 or 5 months already...is there anything new in the game?

oh yeah... 2 raids, 1 battleground  and some legacy system which does nothing but rehashed gimmicks... no new races or skills......

 

Where are the new quests, any new planets? , new features?

 

Where is the new content? WHERE?

Clearly you don't play the game.

They've already put out 2 patches and are preparing a 3rd.  In the first two, they've added several raids, flashpoints, the Rakghoul event, guild banks, adjustable UI, and the legacy system.

LotRO released content updates (called "books") every 3 months or so with new quest content, but seldom any new features - those were saved for paid expansion packs.

Every other MMORPG I've played only puts out new major content publishes every 9-18 months.

So SW:TOR gives you 2 in the first 4-5 months, and you're complaining?

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Anolev

Yes I do.

The invested LOTS to build the game, they aren't just going to pull the plug less than 6 months after they've launched it.  I also think it's funny everybody says they're bleeding subs like crazy, when in fact they're still the 2nd biggest MMORPG ever launched, even after having bled all of those subs.  No other game has ever had 1M subs (except WoW) within 1 month of launch let alone 5, and SWTOR is still bigger than that.

I swear, it's like your Ferrari has a dent on the hood, so you're saying screw it, it's worthless now, let's drive it off of a cliff. 

Amazing.

They invested plenty in Sims online and still pulled the plug within a year, I think it had something like 150K players then.

If TOR go that low they might do it again (yeah, they are morons).

Hopefully will they instead fix up the game, and put focus on the multiplayer aspect they so far could have done better with. The soloexperience is already good enough but a game with monhly fees need more multiplayer if it want the player to continue pay the fees.

But with EA (and Activision for that matter, i still can't believe they fired the MW lead designer) you never know, I can actually see them drive off a cliff.

150k vs 1.2 milliion.  Yeah that's apples to apples.

Of course if it gets to 150k they might do it again.  But they have games like WAR and DAoC that are very likely less than 150k and are still up, running, and charging a subscription.

The one thing I do agree on is this - hopefully they will add what people need/expect (I think the multiplayer aspects are fine personally, but anything that promoted more community/grouping/etc. would be a welcome addition).

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Anolev

Originally posted by erictlewis

Does anybody honestly think that ea is going go invest anything into this game?  Honestly this game is bleeding subs like crazy,  why would ea devote anything at this point,  You don't spend more money trying to save a game that is already dying.  You reallocate those funds.  That is basically what the guy said,  its not our top 5, that should make anybody playing the game go "oh crud".

 

 

Yes I do.

The invested LOTS to build the game, they aren't just going to pull the plug less than 6 months after they've launched it.  I also think it's funny everybody says they're bleeding subs like crazy, when in fact they're still the 2nd biggest MMORPG ever launched, even after having bled all of those subs.  No other game has ever had 1M subs (except WoW) within 1 month of launch let alone 5, and SWTOR is still bigger than that.

I swear, it's like your Ferrari has a dent on the hood, so you're saying screw it, it's worthless now, let's drive it off of a cliff. 

Amazing.

you honestly think SWTOR currently has over a million paying subs...

amazing.

Unless EA is committing securities fraud, then yes I do believe their independently audited financial statements which state  as much are the truth.

Originally posted by erictlewis

Does anybody honestly think that ea is going go invest anything into this game?  Honestly this game is bleeding subs like crazy,  why would ea devote anything at this point,  You don't spend more money trying to save a game that is already dying.  You reallocate those funds.  That is basically what the guy said,  its not our top 5, that should make anybody playing the game go "oh crud".

 

 

Yes I do.

The invested LOTS to build the game, they aren't just going to pull the plug less than 6 months after they've launched it.  I also think it's funny everybody says they're bleeding subs like crazy, when in fact they're still the 2nd biggest MMORPG ever launched, even after having bled all of those subs.  No other game has ever had 1M subs (except WoW) within 1 month of launch let alone 5, and SWTOR is still bigger than that.

I swear, it's like your Ferrari has a dent on the hood, so you're saying screw it, it's worthless now, let's drive it off of a cliff. 

Amazing.

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Anolev

Originally posted by UNH0LYEV1L

I enjoy playing SWTOR but this article royally pissed me off...

http://tor-talk.com/storm-preparation/

CLIF NOTES: EA/Bioware does not view this game as a top 5 revenue gainer and as such they will be devoting most of their attention elsewhere.

Huh?  Where, exactly does it say that?

I love how people make up their own "quotes", claim they come from an article, nobody bothers to actually read the article, and just assume the OP is telling the truth... 

Here's a quote, copy/pasted directly from the article:

"But we love the franchise, we’re going to grow the franchise and just like we want to see Tiger Woods Golf grow or SSX grow, or Madden for that matter, we’re going to drive this one for growth.

 

If it's not in EA's top 5, it's going on life support! Period!

I mean... I don't know about you... but the game really feels like it's already on life support!

Ridiculous long time between content patches! No news about 1.3 AT ALL!  Nothing more about rated warzones. Nothing more about Ilum.

Even more important... they continue to ignore the screaming playerbase for server mergers and are in a massive thread lock/delete frenzy on the forums!

Just face it! SW:TOR is already down running on a skeleton crew.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm.  I'll assume it's not.

Just because a game isn't contributing in the top 5 games doesn't immediatley mean the game is on life support.  If the company only had 5 total games, then maybe... but EA is quite a bit bigger than that, and any game that has over 1 million subscribers (the 2nd biggest MMORPG of ALL TIME) certainly isn't about to put the company out of business.

Long time between content patches?  Really?  The game has been out for less than 6 months, they've already put out 2 patches, and are likely releasing a 3rd soon.  So that's a patch every 2-3 months.  What the heck are your expectations?!

I doubt they're ignoring the playerbase for server merges.  Rather, that's not the type of thing you do lightly.  Consider what happened when WAR did it.  Maybe they don't have the capabilitiy (technologically speaking) to do it yet, and it might take months to develop something like that.  We simply don't know.

As for thread locking - they've always been consistent on that.  Provide constructive criticism and discussion, and the thread stays open.  Be unconstructive, and the thread gets closed.  It's a waste of database space.

Running on a skeleton crew?  So you work there and can comment on the size of their staff?  

Originally posted by LordDevil

Wow I always heard diablo will be the next gen hack & slay, but I have never seen such a low rating on a game within a long time. I mean 3 out of 5 stars would be ok counting a lot of angry people in, but 2 stars tells the average customer its a crappy game. I mean I am not really interested in this hack & slay game, maybe if I am bored I will want to try it out... but does it really deserve 2 stars... is it the greediness of activision and the loss of the core people from blizzard maybe? The true Diablo creator are working on torchlight 2 anyway...

Just wow...

Don't believe what others tell you to believe.  Form your own opinion.  I tried the beta, didn't like it personally, and moved on.  But that doesn't mean it's a crap game... just not one that I particularly cared for.

Originally posted by Nibs

Originally posted by Anolev

Originally posted by UNH0LYEV1L

I enjoy playing SWTOR but this article royally pissed me off...

http://tor-talk.com/storm-preparation/

CLIF NOTES: EA/Bioware does not view this game as a top 5 revenue gainer and as such they will be devoting most of their attention elsewhere.

Huh?  Where, exactly does it say that?

I love how people make up their own "quotes", claim they come from an article, nobody bothers to actually read the article, and just assume the OP is telling the truth... 

Here's a quote, copy/pasted directly from the article:

"But we love the franchise, we’re going to grow the franchise and just like we want to see Tiger Woods Golf grow or SSX grow, or Madden for that matter, we’re going to drive this one for growth.

 

Let's give the whole quote shall we?

The Old Republic is in EA’s top 10 franchises in terms of profitability, “but it’s not in our top five”. “So it’s a business contributor, while important, is not as important as Medal of Honor or Battlefield or FIFA or Madden or The Sims or SimCity, but it’s more important than Tiger Woods PGA Golf.” “So while I understand there’s an enormous amount of interest, I don’t know that it warrants as much as what we’re seeing right now. But we love the franchise, we’re going to grow the franchise and just like we want to see Tiger Woods Golf grow or SSX grow, or Madden for that matter, we’re going to drive this one for growth.”

Sure.  Because the part you underlined has absolutely nothing to do with the title of this thread, nor of his Cliff's notes version.

What you've underlined is simply the CEO saying, "hey, we know you reporters want to ask us a ton about SW:TOR, but honestly there are others things that are more impactful on our company's finances".

That's not the same thing as "SWTOR is not a priority for development" nor "we will be devoting our (EA's) time elsewhere, developing other things".

Originally posted by Golelorn

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Metacritic is useless. 

No, its not.

Yes, it is.

Play the games/demos yourselves and draw your own opinions... or do you always let others tell you what your opinons are for you? 

Originally posted by UNH0LYEV1L

I enjoy playing SWTOR but this article royally pissed me off...

http://tor-talk.com/storm-preparation/

CLIF NOTES: EA/Bioware does not view this game as a top 5 revenue gainer and as such they will be devoting most of their attention elsewhere.

Huh?  Where, exactly does it say that?

I love how people make up their own "quotes", claim they come from an article, nobody bothers to actually read the article, and just assume the OP is telling the truth... 

Here's a quote, copy/pasted directly from the article:

"But we love the franchise, we’re going to grow the franchise and just like we want to see Tiger Woods Golf grow or SSX grow, or Madden for that matter, we’re going to drive this one for growth.

How long before somebody mods this video to show the capsuleer being podded?  ;)

<drool>