You ever heard the saying up the creek without a paddle. That's pretty much where you are at with TOR.

The so called mmorpg's of today have very little in common with their older siblings of the past. I really believe the reason why the days of playing one mmo for yrs on end may be over is because of how the dev companies have turned the actual meaning of mmorpg into something else.

Don't get me wrong, everything is about making money, even back in the old days of the genre. The difference is that, the lines of the genre has become blurred and now resembles more SPRPG with coop features than true virtual world online games that had the tools and systems that encouraged community and player interdependency. There was as much focus on out of combat features as there were things to do that involved combat.

Today's so called mmo's are all about following the WOW model that has changed every yr. up to how it is now in the present. They go about trying to distiguish themselves by adding in story or VO or some different type of combat system, but in it's foundation it is the WOW model to the core. Every new mmo now has to have ranked instanced warzone pvp, the so called end game gear treadmill grind, the same simplistic crafting, and leveling for progression.

Now, there are a few new mmo's up and coming that is not using the WOW model. GW2, TSW, AA, The Repopulation, and a few more will hopefully bring back the days when you could log in and actually dedicate time to a character, with tools and systems that will make you feel like you are part of the virtual world.

Originally posted by goldiewilson

Well whatever in your hearts you all know this is a 300k sub game at best, it's not even a good stable, 500 to 600k game. All that time and money wasted by EA just to create a reskinned NGE because they just knew the players were wrong the first time and they were gonna prove it gosh darnit.

I think these twits need to understand the Sci Fi audience is different, even campy sci fi like Star Wars. The best sci fi mmorpgs like EVE which after it's said and done will probably have more subs than TOR since its a steady 450k every year and they fight like dogs for every 50k worth of players. Content patches, bug fixes and customer support will easily blow anything EA has to offer out the window. it took Anarchy online 8 years to finally lose subs dispite their release problems, thats free and paying players, Ryzom has a small yet mortally dedicated fan base which keeps the heartbeat ticking they don't keep those players by being pricks.

I am not talking only in sub numbers but in philosophy, an updated version of something closer to what Ryzom did would be much more in tune with Star Wars lore than a WOW clone would. Star Wars isn't a raid grind, no one thinks of 50 foot raid bosses in Star Wars. Star Wars is not a RVR game it just deoesn't fit, and its not an Esport game, because it looks dumb on Star Wars. Star Wars is best approached as some kind of hybrid between terrestrial sandboxyness and Cyberpunk with just enough themepark thrown in the prevent full loot and corpse griefing. But World of Warcraft in space will get rejected every time.

Your post is so dead on with my own thoughts on TOR it's freaky. Everything about the game is so wrong from the ground up, it is almost as much of a case study in what not to do in a mmo than the NGE was. As big of a SW fan as i am, i never thought i would dislike something more than TOR. From a SW point of view only and not the game mechanics and systems, it teeters on being absurd to a down right joke. Then add in whats being sold on the box as a mmorpg to what it really is once opened and played, adds to the disbelief of how could a dev company with so much money for development screw up so bad of a project with the biggest IP in the world. I've said this many times. If Bioware wanted to screw up a IP, then they should have left SW alone and made a ME game instead. Leave making a mmorpg to a company that actually knows how to make a mmorpg.

Originally posted by Homitu

All this talk of retention.  Should a game company not expect their player population to grow drastically after launch as word of mouth spreads about how good the game is?  Have the truly great games not done this?  WoW certainly didn't sell over 10 million copies in its first year.  EQ nearly doubled its subscribers after four years.  

The fact that anyone is expecting sub numbers to only decline from here on out for TOR (or any other MMO that finds itself in a similar conversation) would seem to indicate that they've already resigned to the fact that either A) TOR isn't going to be one of those top notch elite MMOS, or B) the MMO industry has peaked and will never see an MMO grow post release again.  

You first have to take into account that WOW will always be an anomaly in the mmo genre. It is the Bruce lee of the martial arts world, the Elvis of the music world, the Einstein of the Science world. I really don't believe that any other mmo will ever have those type of sub numbers, ever. Now, does that mean that a new mmo can't release and grow year after year, no. In TOR's case though, it seems that it has already peaked and now is on the decline after only 5 months of being released. That just doesn't bode well for a game that cost so much and was supposed to continue on a up swing and challenge WOW in the west.

I predict that Bioware will keep adding in things that will not have much player retention. I predict they will have way more unsubbing and leaving than more coming in. I predict that out of all those 218 servers only a handful will stay above heavy and the rest will be shut down after they make payable transfers available. I predict the game will continue on with around 250k to 300k subs. I also predict all this to start happening pretty fast once WOW's MOP hits, and the release of GW2, TSW and a few other titles. TOR just doesn't have enough staying power because at it's core is nothing more than a SPRPG with COOP features, that sells itself on the box as a mmorpg, but once opened and played the truth is very apparent.

Originally posted by DannyGlover

I don't think I could do another Star Wars MMO. Unless it was literally SWG2 with Koster at the helm.

Amen to that.

The funny thing about this is that, the fans of the game and the people that are Biodrones will do the same thing that the NGEr's did in SWG. The ones that play on one of the few heavy servers will continue to believe and try and prove that the game is healthy and nothing is wrong, even though they will see servers drying up and dieing all around them.

It's funny, SWG pre-cu had 25 very healthy servers back then and once the NGE hit, that was cut down to 13. At the end there were really only a few that had any type of population on them and the game was doomed. TOR has like 218 servers and only a handful of servers that reach heavy or better. The rest sit at standard and light and this game is only 5 months old and we have people proclaiming to everyone the game is doing absolutly great.

I think some people need to stop drinking the EA/Bioware kool-aid.

Originally posted by Obidom

Originally posted by Paragus1

It's a shame that 1000 people are going to lose their jobs who had probably nothing to do with the poor decisions made at the drawing board for this game.  The entire concept that someone thought one-time consumable story content which can't be produced nearly as fast as it consumed would keep people paying a monthly fee over the long-term is silly.  They should have just made a single-player RPG or used the bloated budget to make a full length motion picture.

is there a source for the 1000 job losses?

 

Plus can you name one game that within 3 months of launch had a fully functioning end game content? 10 years + MMO experince I cannot think of one game that had fully functioning End Game content at launch (of those that I have played)

 

 

People like yourself that think a mmorpg needs this so called endgame, is the main reason why we have these crapola games that come each yr. MMORPG's are about virtual world and communtiy building, that has the tools to deal with combat but on a equal level with out of combat systems that build player interdepenency with a real player economy. There should never be a start and and this so called end game finish. From the first minute login, a player should be set in this virtual world that has many tools and systems to let the player figure out what they want to do and how they want to play within the confines of the game. There are many other ways to enhance the overall playing expierience and add in content that has nothing to do with a rat on the wheel gear grind.

I honestly believe that this is the best thing that could happen to this genre. When developers stop making SP COOP GAMES, and start making VIRTUAL WORLD ONLINE MMORPG's once again, then the genre will be heading back in the right direction. For too many yrs. now, lazy AAA dev companies have pushed these awful ideas and systems that has turned this genre into something different. I say, it is time for the old fat cats to go and the smaller companies with new and innovative ideas that want to create real mmorpg's to get their due and the finance's they need to do it right and in a timely manner.

TOR was nothing more than a fast cash grab for EA and nothing more. They created a GAME that they knew would only satisfy the SP console KOTOR fans and figured if they could get enough money up front then it would be a success. They were wrong in my opinion.

Originally posted by Warjin

Originally posted by Jason2444

Originally posted by Warjin

Second Life lol, you mean Facebook 3D, Second Life is just a social hub.

 

Are you drunk?

 

Alright, whatever.

Pre-NGE SWG

 

 

Old school SWG was strong I agree, but that was pre WoW, after WoW came out the MMO world crashed, WoW became kingpin and only because WoW made full use of the Themepark play style and WoW has proven that the masses want that type of play, because of that SWG tryed to follow there lead but it was to late, many people where allready invested in Wow so SWG as sad as it was died (RIP SWG)

You are correct, SWG pre-cu was strong, but you are wrong if you think the majority of mmo players want Themepark type of play. Everyone gets hung up on that 10 million sub number Blizzard throws around knowing all to well that the majority of those, are in the East, Kung fu panda anyone.

The reason why Sandbox mmorpg's fail to capture a huge amount of subs, is because of the way the devs of those games want FFAPVP and corpse looting. A dev company should just create a huge open game and supply the tools to promote player interdependency with a player run economy and other systems that doesn't involve combat.

PVP should be open and should happen anywhere and everywhere and no one should be forced to pvp if they so choose. That's why the SWG overt/covert system was so good. This is also the reason why SWG didn't need all those different server types. You could did it all on one server type and play the way you wanted to.

Another thing that is dragging the genre down, in my opinion, is the rat in the wheel gear grind. That's not content, that's just a lazy way to keep people running the same stuff over and over, to keep up with the next person in the fake warzone PVP crapola. Having the proper skill set that was obtained by gaining xp from killing creatures to opposing NPC's is what should set people apart in PVP not gear.

Some of the funnest times i ever had was when a master BH had a bounty on me and i had to escape so i didn't lose all the xp i had gained for those hrs i had been logged on. As i grew stronger and my skill got better, it was even more a blast to take down a BH that thought i was easy prey. Those type of things only happened of course we all know was when you unlocked a jedi, but that type of instant dynamics and all the other stuff is what made SWG so great and what makes TOR so painful to play.

No amount of dev created content can ever hang with content that people can come up in their own minds. Three or four people can do and come up with some great things but a thousand people coming together and creating different content on a daily basis is just amazing. All these games that have embodied the Themepark mold are really nothing more than online hub to hub games that have even drifted much further into more of a SP online game with coop features.

The genre needs to get back to it's roots before it can go forward in a positive direction. What we have now is a stagnant pool that keeps infesting itself over and over.

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by musicmann

Let's put some numbers to the servers. Now none of this is scientific so, whatever. If some of you have more knowledge about this, than please correct me.

Light = 250

Standard = 500

heavy = 1000

very heavy = 1500

full = 2000

 

Now, TOR has a total of 218 severs. If every night at peak playing hrs all those servers were at full, then the amount of people playing would be 436,000. We can see though, that's not the case. There are many more light and standard servers both NA and EU than heavy, very heavy or full.

So what does this mean. It means that at odd server hrs, the majority of servers are light with a few standard and there would be around 54k to 55k playing at that time.

What this shows is that, even if every server 24-7 was at full, TOR at the most would only have that 436,000 playerbase actually playing. If we also go off of the 1.7 miilion subs that Bioware said they have and divide that by the 218 servers, that would mean that a full server would hold 7,798 players. We all know that the game has never had that many players on a single server, so, in my honest opinion, and that's all this is, TOR is tanking. Taking into account that they have some other mmo's coming out in the very near future, The game may even drop much further than it is now.

 

 

But...to use the dreaded McDonalds as example. When the McDonalds sign says 5 billion served..they don't mean at the same time. Nor doesn it mean that if  x number of McDonalds existed  then 5 billion/x= how many served at each MacDonalds. A server may have the potential of 10000 people that chose it to play on....but only 750-1000 or so play at any particular time. I don't doubt 1.7mil active subs at one time...I just doubt that many were playing simultaneously on any particular server except the known (by players) few. I also doubt they have that many active subs today. All in All ..it doesnt really matter...I'm having fun.

I'm not saying everyone is playing at the same time. If you just look at the server statis though and go off of the numbers that i layed out, be they are wrong or somewhat correct. If you had 218 full servers 24-7 that would come out to a number way more accurate of how many people are actually playing compared to those who are not and are just waiting for their sub to run out. I'm just thinking out loud and by no means trying to tell anyone not to play the game. For me, the game tanked. For Bio/EA the game may or may not have tanked. If you're still playing and having fun, then what i or anyone else says on a online game forum shouldn't matter.

Let's put some numbers to the servers. Now none of this is scientific so, whatever. If some of you have more knowledge about this, than please correct me.

Light = 250

Standard = 500

heavy = 1000

very heavy = 1500

full = 2000

Now, TOR has a total of 218 severs. If every night at peak playing hrs all those servers were at full, then the amount of people playing would be 436,000. We can see though, that's not the case. There are many more light and standard servers both NA and EU than heavy, very heavy or full.

So what does this mean. It means that at odd server hrs, the majority of servers are light with a few standard and there would be around 54k to 55k playing at that time.

What this shows is that, even if every server 24-7 was at full, TOR at the most would only have that 436,000 playerbase actually playing. If we also go off of the 1.7 miilion subs that Bioware said they have and divide that by the 218 servers, that would mean that a full server would hold 7,798 players. We all know that the game has never had that many players on a single server, so, in my honest opinion, and that's all this is, TOR is tanking. Taking into account that they have some other mmo's coming out in the very near future, The game may even drop much further than it is now.

Originally posted by ignore_me

How the hell did they do this?! SWTOR forums say it's impossible to achieve this feature, that the programming is tantamount to a mission to Mars. Good for you guys, genuinely meant.

Bioware took the lazy way out. Many things could have been done in TOR.

No, shutting down SWG was not LA biggest failure. The biggest was themselves and SOE thinking they could change a already established mmorpg to try and capture the wow crowd.

All that played way back then already know that the game needed some balancing and some added content thrown in but overall it was damn good SW mmo in the pre-cu days.

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by Deathstrike2

Jesus, these SWTOR hate threads get old.  I wish the kiddies would get over it all ready and move along.  We get it -- they don't like the game.  I promise the sun will still rise tomorrow.  Geez....

 

  LOL they will never get over it, these are the same knuckleheads that cried a river when a failing SWG turned to CU and finally to NGE in order to save a game that had IMO fatal flaws to begin with.  However I am wondering if these same people who played SWG pre CU did not complain so much about SWG if Sony would have taken the unpresidented step in changing the game?

You don't need to cry a river or even be a brain surgeon to know, that SOE and now Bioware have screwed up the SW IP in the mmo genre with radical changes and flat out bad gaming design. For SWG, i know for a fact that everyone i knew and played with never bitched or moaned about changes. It was the ADD twits that wanted to have everything handed to them from first login and not have to actully put in the time and effort to obtain the status of those that had been playing for some time that caused the dumb changes to be made. Radical changes = Mass exodus of players.

In Bioware's case, they just made a horrible and boring game, my opinion, after leveling a 50 Sith Warrior. With a much less on rails design and a more open environment and system tools to create player interdependency with a player made economy, TOR could have been a great mmorpg. I feel all they have created is nothing more than a SPRPG with coop features. This is the reason in my eyes that it is fail. On rails, story, story = level 50 bored and Mass unsubbing.

Payed and played = My opinion is just as valid as the next person.

Originally posted by Tayah

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by GoldenArrow

SWTOR might not be a good game, but it certainly isn't a bad one.

It has nearly 2million subs so it's doing allright considering how much BS bioware has pulled off in the past months. They aren't going to beat WoW which was their original plan but they are surely surviving and making profit.

Saying SWTOR is a fail just shows how very little you know :j

 

2m subs, ROFL

I think when the 6 months subs run out people will see that the game only has a few hundred thousand paying customers left and that's why BW is only giving transfers and giving out free 30 days like candy. In a guild with several hundred actual people, not alts. I know a lot of them bought 3-6 months subs/game cards thinking they would play at least that long, my husband included. I only pay month to month so they didn't get me, heh. Of those several hundred in the guild on Jung Ma only 3 are left, the rest are awaiting GW2 or Tera or both. That's a lot of gamecards/subs still floating about and no one online playing. If just that many in my guild aren't playing, imagine how many others are doing the same. That's why there are ghost town servers. They may be able to say they have this many subscribers, but that's only because people prepaid too many months and are now gone. When 6 month playtimes are up, they'll have to face reality that the game is a niche game, that only fanbois and extremely casuals will be playing. It will be lucky to have a few hundred thousand people playing by the end of the year.

Oh my, that's way to much logic you have there.

Originally posted by Darklighter1

Originally posted by Cthulhu23

Originally posted by musicmann

You don't need to be a stock broker or follow the stock market to know that SWTOR is fail. All you need to do is just play it to realize that.

Yeah man, or just ask the million + players that play it.  Amirite?  

 

 

I wonder this myself.  I mean, if the game is so horrible...and such FAIL.  What does that make people that play it and actually LIKE it....?

God forbid we enjoy something you do not!

Let me restate my post as to not upset all the people who still play this garbage.

I didn't need to be a stock broker or follow the stock market to know that SWTOR is fail. All i needed to do was just play it to realize that.

You don't need to be a stock broker or follow the stock market to know that SWTOR is fail. All you need to do is just play it to realize that.

Originally posted by cahenderson

Originally posted by hh33

Now just sit back and wait for the other shoe to drop. I stated yesterday that EA/Bioware was not going to have any other choice but to refund money spent by people who resubbed or stuck around due to a certain feature they openly advertised was going to be contained in this patch.

Now that EA/Bioware has decided to take what I deem as the sleaze option, the market (players) are going to tear them apart. Rule #1 in any business is you do not lie to or attempt to deceive your customers.

The free playing time offer is not going to cut it and as others have said it is a major sign of desperation on EA/Bioware's part.

As far as the free playing time goes, I uninstalled SWTOR for a reason and see no need to punish my PC further.

Check my history, I've tried to be equal parts supporter and critic. As objective as I've tried to be, 1.2 was doomed to failure. Ignore the game code/bug/mechanics for a second. What's REALLY screwing SWTOR is endemic organizational problems with BW. Getting a char copied to the PTS apparently requires a working knowledge of quantum physics and a virgin ungulate to accomplish. Even then, there's seems to be a marked preference by the developers to completely dismiss or outright IGNORE community feedback in the PTS forums.

I'll need to double check, but the 'announcement' about rated wz's not making it into 1.2 wasn't 'a day before' 1.2 was supposed to drop. It was HOURS before. There's not actual timestamp on Daniel Erickson's blogpost, but it WASN'T THERE all day yesterday. It didn't show up until yesterday evening AFTER they fucked up the loader and prematurely started downloading and installing 1.2 and subsequently breaking several peoples ability to play yesterday.

The free month thing isn't fooling ANYONE, even those of us 'still drinking the cool-aid'.

 

I fear it's already too late, but if it's NOT, they need to pull their heads out of their asses and make some organizational changes. First thing they should do is fire Georg Zoeller and frogmarch his incompetent ass from the building.

This situation reminds me of something that happened in a distant galaxy long ago. SWG Trials of Obi-Wan, was supposed to be released with all kinds of goodies. Instead, it ushered in the NGE that was never mentioned to the playerbase. Folks pleaded and begged SOE to roll back to the CU version and some how, SOE had lost/destroyed or just couldn't do so. People left in droves.

Now, Bioware releases a 1.2 patch with certain things that are supposed to be in it and right at the last minute, pulls ranked WZ PVP out, not to mention a failure of a patch that was riddled with problems and bugs. Now, their trying to give away free time to level 50's to keep them playing.

Moral of the story. Don't ever assume that you're smarter than your customers. Certain vision's of how you may want to do things in the future may have to be altered because of player feedback. Never lie and try and deceive, it only shows how desperate you are and how little faith you actually have in your product.

Sorry Bioware, FAIL is just FAIL.

Bioware has now become the laughing stock in the mmorpg world. Back in the day they might have had their shit together, but now they flat out suck. They outsourced so much in the building of TOR, they can't even release a patch that's been on test servers for some time without it failing. A failed game is just a failed game. You build something/anything with a weak foundation and everything else that follows is pure fail.