You are all looking at this the wrong way. Micro-tranactions will be the death of MMO..... Why you say.... Think of it this way. When you can buy everything you need at the onstore. You have the best gear, best weapons. Pay to buy your levels. How long before you get tired of the game and put it away like those dozens of console collecting dust in the corner.
I've been thinking for some time now that this game will follow the same model as GW1 and GW2, which is buy to play.
Look, people will spend money on stuff in games whether it's F2P or not, but more people will play and buy stuff, if they don't have to pay to do it. My brother-in-law, who I got into playing Aion (this is his first MMO) actually bought crap from the NCSoft store I din't know you could buy. One day he asked me where people got the pets, I told him you can get them from a pet merchant in game, they cost anywhere from 1 to almost 2 mil, or you can play for a year and get one as a vet reward. So he logs out for bit, logs back in with a Pesky Manduri and tells me he just bought it from the Aion store instead. I'm old school and actually used ingame currancy I made to buy my pet. Truth is, most people won't want to spend hours upon hours saving money in a game to buy stuff, because they have never had to put effort into playing, like we have in old MMOs like SWG.
Look, like GW2 or not, SWTOR is not going to even be able to compete subscriberwise when it comes GW2 unless they use the same damn model.
I believe they can compete with GW2 pretty easily with a subscription.
For how long? If end game in SWTOR is just re-roll+rinse repeat, they have already lost because most of GW2's game is the end game. And you've seen how they are able to pound out expansions for GW1.
To early to answer, we only know you can re-roll and get a new experience, but we also know there will be endgame, we're lacking the information on it though. I think if they can deliver some time consuming fun endgame I'll be happy with that and just the reroll cycle. I like having alts but absolutely hate leveling a second time, a new experience should make it enjoyable.
Edit: Forgot to mention PvP, they've been more vocal about it lately. I can live on PvP alone in an MMO, but that's just me.
Yeah same here, re-rolling for a different experience is something I look forward to. I always wondered why this has not been one of their major selling points of this game. They talk about it, but they have yet to show any good ingame examples on this. Maybe as they near launch they will show more of the differnet class story and content plots, beyond leakerz or whatever that site is called.
So, guy that runs a site full of crap free to plays says pay to play sub won't work... I don't mean all free to plays are crap, hell I'm playing the hell out of Vindictus atm. But his free to plays are certainly crap lol.
Yeah... this wasn't note worthy at all lol. Was funny though I guess. It's like a Chihuahua barking at a Bull Mastiff lol.
Repost the thread once Bigpoint makes a game thats note worthy lol.
profit means you need revenues that exceed your costs, and that is not just operating costs but also development costs. i think its actually quite possible that EA/Bioware might not make back all the money they spent developing the game, which would make it unprofitable by definition.
Companies have been making money off subscription games for years... Why wouldn't they now?
Just another idiot, F2P proponent banging his own drum again IMO.
oh? that's like saying, "Companies have been making money off newspapers for years... Why wouldn't they now?"
Riding trains isn't fashionable anymore though people can still do it. Neither is talking on a corded telephone, though they are still around. Radio killed the music store, and the internet is killing record companies.
Society changes the way they want things with new cheaper/faster ways of doing the same thing. There's lots of impatient "try before you buy" people around these days, and F2P caters to that particular mode of thinking. So do betas, but that's a different argument.
While I have yet to find a f2p as good as EQ/WoW/CoH, I will admit there are some rather good ones, and I've played for hundreds of hours without paying a dime.
I've been thinking for some time now that this game will follow the same model as GW1 and GW2, which is buy to play.
Look, people will spend money on stuff in games whether it's F2P or not, but more people will play and buy stuff, if they don't have to pay to do it. My brother-in-law, who I got into playing Aion (this is his first MMO) actually bought crap from the NCSoft store I din't know you could buy. One day he asked me where people got the pets, I told him you can get them from a pet merchant in game, they cost anywhere from 1 to almost 2 mil, or you can play for a year and get one as a vet reward. So he logs out for bit, logs back in with a Pesky Manduri and tells me he just bought it from the Aion store instead. I'm old school and actually used ingame currancy I made to buy my pet. Truth is, most people won't want to spend hours upon hours saving money in a game to buy stuff, because they have never had to put effort into playing, like we have in old MMOs like SWG.
Look, like GW2 or not, SWTOR is not going to even be able to compete subscriberwise when it comes GW2 unless they use the same damn model.
I believe they can compete with GW2 pretty easily with a subscription.
For how long? If end game in SWTOR is just re-roll+rinse repeat, they have already lost because most of GW2's game is the end game. And you've seen how they are able to pound out expansions for GW1.
To early to answer, we only know you can re-roll and get a new experience, but we also know there will be endgame, we're lacking the information on it though. I think if they can deliver some time consuming fun endgame I'll be happy with that and just the reroll cycle. I like having alts but absolutely hate leveling a second time, a new experience should make it enjoyable.
Edit: Forgot to mention PvP, they've been more vocal about it lately. I can live on PvP alone in an MMO, but that's just me.
Yeah same here, re-rolling for a different experience is something I look forward to. I always wondered why this has not been one of their major selling points of this game. They talk about it, but they have yet to show any good ingame examples on this. Maybe as they near launch they will show more of the differnet class story and content plots, beyond leakerz or whatever that site is called.
I think this is where BioWare may have a problem. They talk about it sure, but it seems sometimes they're only talking to the people that have played their games, the ones who understand what they mean. They really do need to demonstrate more. They've always been a silent company though, so it's not to surprising for me. But I think for the most part, tell people leveling alts will be different each time and they can kind of imagine what they're in for. Leakerz is just one portal of information on it, but BioWare really needs to extend their reach to people who don't prowl for this information or don't exactly understand what they're talking about.
Also wanted to add that re-rolling talk shouldn't be a major selling point, it should be a minor one. There will be people out there who choose to ignore the story, sad but true, you can't ignore them though. For them all rerolling means is they get a new character and different skills.
Just crap developers making crap games who then blame it on Blizzard. Ironic, it's cryptic. You don't have to appeal to the world to call your game successful. No, WoW didn't steal the genre or the sub model, to many people are just making MMOs that aren't even close to being fun and never made any improvements on existing features.
Yeah but there was a time when everyone thought Cryptic was gonna bring "game over" for WoW, just like people think BioWare is gonna do.
I don't think that's what Bioware is going to do, nor have I ever thought that. I always thought people calling games "WoW killers" to be delusional. I mean seriouisly. And honestly, I think most mmo players, after saying rediculous stuff like that for so long and being WRONG, have finally figured out there will be no WoW killer. I haven't seen many at all saying the same sort of thing about TOR. But what I do say is that both Star Wars and Bioware have a ready made fanbase in the millions. They don't NEED to steal subs from WoW.
I could link at least 50 posts on their boards saying so, but no need. Star Wars fans, like us are mostly older players, we buy and play anything Star Wars. They already sold us on the game. To capture the younger audience that enjoys WoW and instant gratification, they are gonna have to have a gimmick to get them to stop playing WoW and give TOR a try. As of yet they haven’t come up with anything other than story, which leads me to believe there is one that they have yet to announce Perhaps tomorrow we will find out what that gimmick really is, perhaps not
I wish you were right that the community will mostly be an older, and hopefully, more mature audience; but I just don't believe it. I think we're going to have a younger community not unlike what there is in WoW. Either way I think TOR will have at least a million subscribers stay with the game if it's any good at all. It doesn't even have to be great, just good enough.
As for Bioware giving us more good info, I wouldn't count on it. I've been a fan of Bioware games since Baldurs Gate, and they have always been stingy with information until the game is released. People have always complained about it too, but it never really made a difference. The sales will be there regardless, no matter how uptight people on forums may get. The only thing that could cause a problem is some serious financial meltdown in the US or the world in general, just my opinion.
Being a german company and myself being german, knowing people who have worked there all i got to say is this : Don't believe a word that he's saying. Bigpoint wouldn't even recognize a quality product when it's jumping in their face. The company is run by amateurs who got lucky once and now think that they got the philosphers stone of busniness modells. These people don't know shit and make money by milking poor dumb casual gamers who don't know what a real game looks like. It's pathetic really. They have not ONE good game in their portfolio just cheap browser-microtransaction scams. As soon as people realize how they get ripped off by bigpoint, all will crumble into dust.
Just crap developers making crap games who then blame it on Blizzard. Ironic, it's cryptic. You don't have to appeal to the world to call your game successful. No, WoW didn't steal the genre or the sub model, to many people are just making MMOs that aren't even close to being fun and never made any improvements on existing features.
Yeah but there was a time when everyone thought Cryptic was gonna bring "game over" for WoW, just like people think BioWare is gonna do.
I don't think that's what Bioware is going to do, nor have I ever thought that. I always thought people calling games "WoW killers" to be delusional. I mean seriouisly. And honestly, I think most mmo players, after saying rediculous stuff like that for so long and being WRONG, have finally figured out there will be no WoW killer. I haven't seen many at all saying the same sort of thing about TOR. But what I do say is that both Star Wars and Bioware have a ready made fanbase in the millions. They don't NEED to steal subs from WoW.
I could link at least 50 posts on their boards saying so, but no need. Star Wars fans, like us are mostly older players, we buy and play anything Star Wars. They already sold us on the game. To capture the younger audience that enjoys WoW and instant gratification, they are gonna have to have a gimmick to get them to stop playing WoW and give TOR a try. As of yet they haven’t come up with anything other than story, which leads me to believe there is one that they have yet to announce Perhaps tomorrow we will find out what that gimmick really is, perhaps not
I wish you were right that the community will mostly be an older, and hopefully, more mature audience; but I just don't believe it. I think we're going to have a younger community not unlike what there is in WoW. Either way I think TOR will have at least a million subscribers stay with the game if it's any good at all. It doesn't even have to be great, just good enough.
Sadly the older players in WoW tend to be the immature bunch. Kids will be kids, this doesn't bother me. The people in their mid 20s empowered by anonymity are the problem, mostly. ToR I think will be a mix, much like WoW. A community will act like you manage it. Moderate them poorly (blizzard) and they will act poorly.
Just crap developers making crap games who then blame it on Blizzard. Ironic, it's cryptic. You don't have to appeal to the world to call your game successful. No, WoW didn't steal the genre or the sub model, to many people are just making MMOs that aren't even close to being fun and never made any improvements on existing features.
Yeah but there was a time when everyone thought Cryptic was gonna bring "game over" for WoW, just like people think BioWare is gonna do.
I don't think that's what Bioware is going to do, nor have I ever thought that. I always thought people calling games "WoW killers" to be delusional. I mean seriouisly. And honestly, I think most mmo players, after saying rediculous stuff like that for so long and being WRONG, have finally figured out there will be no WoW killer. I haven't seen many at all saying the same sort of thing about TOR. But what I do say is that both Star Wars and Bioware have a ready made fanbase in the millions. They don't NEED to steal subs from WoW.
I could link at least 50 posts on their boards saying so, but no need. Star Wars fans, like us are mostly older players, we buy and play anything Star Wars. They already sold us on the game. To capture the younger audience that enjoys WoW and instant gratification, they are gonna have to have a gimmick to get them to stop playing WoW and give TOR a try. As of yet they haven’t come up with anything other than story, which leads me to believe there is one that they have yet to announce Perhaps tomorrow we will find out what that gimmick really is, perhaps not
I wish you were right that the community will mostly be an older, and hopefully, more mature audience; but I just don't believe it. I think we're going to have a younger community not unlike what there is in WoW. Either way I think TOR will have at least a million subscribers stay with the game if it's any good at all. It doesn't even have to be great, just good enough.
Sadly the older players in WoW tend to be the immature bunch. Kids will be kids, this doesn't bother me. The people is those in their mid 20s empowered by anonymity. ToR I think will be a mix, much like WoW. A community will act like you manage it. Moderate them poorly (blizzard) and they will act poorly.
You seen the class forums on the official TOR forums? omg. I would say I hope most of them leave after they play for 2 months, but that would empty any game of players lol. Hopefully they have a robust ignore feature in this game.
Sadly the older players in WoW tend to be the immature bunch. Kids will be kids, this doesn't bother me. The people is those in their mid 20s empowered by anonymity. ToR I think will be a mix, much like WoW. A community will act like you manage it. Moderate them poorly (blizzard) and they will act poorly.
You seen the class forums on the official TOR forums? omg. I would say I hope most of them leave after they play for 2 months, but that would empty any game of players lol. Hopefully they have a robust ignore feature in this game.
In my opinion, if they want to be complete assclowns in the forums, let them. People who usually visit the forums in most cases represent the smallest minority of the playerbase for that game. In game, there should be strict rules of conduct in place. Guild and private chat should be something the player manages, when crap starts flooding openly though, I think BioWare needs to step up and take charge. To answer your question, not really. I rarely visit a class forum for any game I'm playing, better alternatives are usually fansites, atleast when you're looking for some info on your class anyways. I can imagine it's troll heavy right now, they don't exactly have builds and strategies to talk about currently :P
Sadly the older players in WoW tend to be the immature bunch. Kids will be kids, this doesn't bother me. The people is those in their mid 20s empowered by anonymity. ToR I think will be a mix, much like WoW. A community will act like you manage it. Moderate them poorly (blizzard) and they will act poorly.
You seen the class forums on the official TOR forums? omg. I would say I hope most of them leave after they play for 2 months, but that would empty any game of players lol. Hopefully they have a robust ignore feature in this game.
In my opinion, if they want to be complete assclowns in the forums, let them. People who usually visit the forums in most cases represent the smallest minority of the playerbase for that game. In game, there should be strict rules of conduct in place. Guild and private chat should be something the player manages, when crap starts flooding openly though, I think BioWare needs to step up and take charge. To answer your question, not really. I rarely visit a class forum for any game I'm playing, better alternatives are usually fansites, atleast when you're looking for some info on your class anyways. I can imagine it's troll heavy right now, they don't exactly have builds and strategies to talk about currently :P
Yeah, I made it a point to stay away from the Jedi and Bounty Hunter forums in SWG, unless I wanted a good laugh. I don't want to say I will never see a forum like those were, but I imagine if it can happen, it will happen in this game.
Unless this game is going to suck big time I can't see how Bioware will not be profitable. Maybe he is saying not profitable for eh first year ? That would make some sense but good games last more than 1 year and are very profitable.
Micro transactions do not mean instant profit. They are a short term solution for MMORPG games that are weak to begin with. A solid game will make a profit based on their projections, investment, and culture. I bet TOR will make their development money back on the sale of individual units and digital downloads in the first year. Because this is EA I am sure there will be bonus items to buy regardless at their store just like Blizzard has for WoW. In fact I bet it matches Guild Wars and WoW. I am sure merchandise such as T shirts and toys will be available. I understand his point about profits with subscriptions but you are only as good as your XP in business. One should not be so trendy to jump on every business wagon so quickly. Besides the American dollar could crash next year making all this not matter due to overprinting of money. And then...
Sadly the older players in WoW tend to be the immature bunch. Kids will be kids, this doesn't bother me. The people is those in their mid 20s empowered by anonymity. ToR I think will be a mix, much like WoW. A community will act like you manage it. Moderate them poorly (blizzard) and they will act poorly.
You seen the class forums on the official TOR forums? omg. I would say I hope most of them leave after they play for 2 months, but that would empty any game of players lol. Hopefully they have a robust ignore feature in this game.
In my opinion, if they want to be complete assclowns in the forums, let them. People who usually visit the forums in most cases represent the smallest minority of the playerbase for that game. In game, there should be strict rules of conduct in place. Guild and private chat should be something the player manages, when crap starts flooding openly though, I think BioWare needs to step up and take charge. To answer your question, not really. I rarely visit a class forum for any game I'm playing, better alternatives are usually fansites, atleast when you're looking for some info on your class anyways. I can imagine it's troll heavy right now, they don't exactly have builds and strategies to talk about currently :P
Yeah, I made it a point to stay away from the Jedi and Bounty Hunter forums in SWG, unless I wanted a good laugh. I don't want to say I will never see a forum like those were, but I imagine if it can happen, it will happen in this game.
Heh, PvP should be interesting. A mix of "Get wrecked scrub" and "*&^% you OP noob". Great popcorn moments.
"EA and Bioware will never make a profit with the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, according to Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz. Speaking at the London Games Conference, Hubertz said that micro-transactions were the only viable way to make money out of online gaming and that subscription-based games such as Bioware's forthcoming role-playing game had a huge mountain to climb in order to succeed.
According to Hubertz, who heads up one of the world's biggest free-to-play games sites, The Old Republic - which is rumoured to have cost in excess of $100 million to develop - would need over a million active subscribers over an extended period of time for EA to break even, but doubts that will actually happen. He also claimed that the subscription model was fundamentally flawed, stating that micro-transactions were the only real way to efficiently monetise an online game, providing it's done properly.
Heiko also believes the future of full-priced retail games could also be in jeopardy, claiming that huge games that cost millions of dollars to develop must make their money back within the first two to three months otherwise they're deemed a failure - and few games ever manage to achieve this.EA and Bioware will never make a profit with the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, according to Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz. Speaking at the London Games Conference, Hubertz said that micro-transactions were the only viable way to make money out of online gaming and that subscription-based games such as Bioware's forthcoming role-playing game had a huge mountain to climb in order to succeed."
15 euros per month with 500k players = 7.500.000 in a full year it makes 90.000.000. Thats just counting subs, not even counting on box sales. Yeah, the game is going to be profitable, sure it is.
Yeah there are some more expenses you need to count on here, ok, say they need 2 years, or even 3, but it's going to be profitable. Subs makes for a lot of money.
Just crap developers making crap games who then blame it on Blizzard. Ironic, it's cryptic. You don't have to appeal to the world to call your game successful. No, WoW didn't steal the genre or the sub model, to many people are just making MMOs that aren't even close to being fun and never made any improvements on existing features.
Yeah but there was a time when everyone thought Cryptic was gonna bring "game over" for WoW, just like people think BioWare is gonna do.
I don't think that's what Bioware is going to do, nor have I ever thought that. I always thought people calling games "WoW killers" to be delusional. I mean seriouisly. And honestly, I think most mmo players, after saying rediculous stuff like that for so long and being WRONG, have finally figured out there will be no WoW killer. I haven't seen many at all saying the same sort of thing about TOR. But what I do say is that both Star Wars and Bioware have a ready made fanbase in the millions. They don't NEED to steal subs from WoW.
I could link at least 50 posts on their boards saying so, but no need. Star Wars fans, like us are mostly older players, we buy and play anything Star Wars. They already sold us on the game. To capture the younger audience that enjoys WoW and instant gratification, they are gonna have to have a gimmick to get them to stop playing WoW and give TOR a try. As of yet they haven’t come up with anything other than story, which leads me to believe there is one that they have yet to announce Perhaps tomorrow we will find out what that gimmick really is, perhaps not
I wish you were right that the community will mostly be an older, and hopefully, more mature audience; but I just don't believe it. I think we're going to have a younger community not unlike what there is in WoW. Either way I think TOR will have at least a million subscribers stay with the game if it's any good at all. It doesn't even have to be great, just good enough.
Sadly the older players in WoW tend to be the immature bunch. Kids will be kids, this doesn't bother me. The people is those in their mid 20s empowered by anonymity. ToR I think will be a mix, much like WoW. A community will act like you manage it. Moderate them poorly (blizzard) and they will act poorly.
You seen the class forums on the official TOR forums? omg. I would say I hope most of them leave after they play for 2 months, but that would empty any game of players lol. Hopefully they have a robust ignore feature in this game.
This. Ignore function should be configurable.
I dont intend to carry on about 5.5 yrs of EQ in TOR general chat daily, yet I fully expect some to carry on about sandboxes/SWG constantly. Which is par for the course both on MMORPG.com and the BW TOR forums..
Hoping there is either dedicated servers for these folks....or a nice filter/ignore list.
Edit.....I forgot.....I am also hoping for a subscriber forum. It will cut down some of the whining, although there will always be chatter on MMO brds methinks.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Who or what is Bigpoint games? Never heard of them.
and the CEO is saying that of SWTOR and look at the games from Bigpoint LMAO http://us.bigpoint.com/
My point exactly. I've never heard of any of their games, much less played them. For the small fish he is to have this critical assessment of a major player is like a paperboy trying to give insight into the financial workings of Time Inc.
HAH! Heiko Hubertz is a MT mothership. And MT is STILL a flawed enterprise. Sure, the company makes money, but at the cost of consumer relations. One would take a look at games like Runes of Magic for this instance. A F2P MMO, a clone of WoW (arguably the most famous MMO to-date), and the WORST customer service agents in the MMO franchise. But they're not alone. Many other F2Ps, and I'm talking DOZENS, have been given the slip for their generic version of customer service. Bigpoint is included. But where's my reference material? Why haven't I created any links showing proof of this? The same could be asked of Heiko, who has only planted the seed, without any market analysis or the like.
I fail to see the importance in listening to a man with a company that is completely unheard of, aside from the occasional, "They're customer service sucked, so I /quit the game."
Companies have been making money off subscription games for years... Why wouldn't they now?
Just another idiot, F2P proponent banging his own drum again IMO.
First question i'd of asked is who is the CEO of Big Point Games and wait what is Big Point Games? I have seriously never heard of this company. That is like my uncle claiming that the United States is doomed to collapse and Zombie Reagan will come back to save us all. No worth in the comments at all.
Comments
You are all looking at this the wrong way. Micro-tranactions will be the death of MMO..... Why you say.... Think of it this way. When you can buy everything you need at the onstore. You have the best gear, best weapons. Pay to buy your levels. How long before you get tired of the game and put it away like those dozens of console collecting dust in the corner.
Yeah same here, re-rolling for a different experience is something I look forward to. I always wondered why this has not been one of their major selling points of this game. They talk about it, but they have yet to show any good ingame examples on this. Maybe as they near launch they will show more of the differnet class story and content plots, beyond leakerz or whatever that site is called.
http://us.bigpoint.com/
So, guy that runs a site full of crap free to plays says pay to play sub won't work... I don't mean all free to plays are crap, hell I'm playing the hell out of Vindictus atm. But his free to plays are certainly crap lol.
Yeah... this wasn't note worthy at all lol. Was funny though I guess. It's like a Chihuahua barking at a Bull Mastiff lol.
Repost the thread once Bigpoint makes a game thats note worthy lol.
profit means you need revenues that exceed your costs, and that is not just operating costs but also development costs. i think its actually quite possible that EA/Bioware might not make back all the money they spent developing the game, which would make it unprofitable by definition.
http://hardballgaming.blogspot.com/
oh? that's like saying, "Companies have been making money off newspapers for years... Why wouldn't they now?"
Riding trains isn't fashionable anymore though people can still do it. Neither is talking on a corded telephone, though they are still around. Radio killed the music store, and the internet is killing record companies.
Society changes the way they want things with new cheaper/faster ways of doing the same thing. There's lots of impatient "try before you buy" people around these days, and F2P caters to that particular mode of thinking. So do betas, but that's a different argument.
While I have yet to find a f2p as good as EQ/WoW/CoH, I will admit there are some rather good ones, and I've played for hundreds of hours without paying a dime.
I think this is where BioWare may have a problem. They talk about it sure, but it seems sometimes they're only talking to the people that have played their games, the ones who understand what they mean. They really do need to demonstrate more. They've always been a silent company though, so it's not to surprising for me. But I think for the most part, tell people leveling alts will be different each time and they can kind of imagine what they're in for. Leakerz is just one portal of information on it, but BioWare really needs to extend their reach to people who don't prowl for this information or don't exactly understand what they're talking about.
Also wanted to add that re-rolling talk shouldn't be a major selling point, it should be a minor one. There will be people out there who choose to ignore the story, sad but true, you can't ignore them though. For them all rerolling means is they get a new character and different skills.
I wish you were right that the community will mostly be an older, and hopefully, more mature audience; but I just don't believe it. I think we're going to have a younger community not unlike what there is in WoW. Either way I think TOR will have at least a million subscribers stay with the game if it's any good at all. It doesn't even have to be great, just good enough.
As for Bioware giving us more good info, I wouldn't count on it. I've been a fan of Bioware games since Baldurs Gate, and they have always been stingy with information until the game is released. People have always complained about it too, but it never really made a difference. The sales will be there regardless, no matter how uptight people on forums may get. The only thing that could cause a problem is some serious financial meltdown in the US or the world in general, just my opinion.
Being a german company and myself being german, knowing people who have worked there all i got to say is this : Don't believe a word that he's saying. Bigpoint wouldn't even recognize a quality product when it's jumping in their face. The company is run by amateurs who got lucky once and now think that they got the philosphers stone of busniness modells. These people don't know shit and make money by milking poor dumb casual gamers who don't know what a real game looks like. It's pathetic really. They have not ONE good game in their portfolio just cheap browser-microtransaction scams. As soon as people realize how they get ripped off by bigpoint, all will crumble into dust.
I was just looking at this store for GW1 and TBH If I was playing GW1 It wouldn't bother me to much.
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/Store.pl?dnv=360098365&action=toggleCategory&category=4
Loot it, buy it, I guess I don't really care lol. It's just a game, I don't feel jealous if someone has better "stuff" then me in a game.
if I had to pay more per month to play and have access to all that crap, I probably wouldn't.
Here is Aion's store
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/Store.pl?dnv=360098365&action=toggleCategory&category=14
CoH
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/Store.pl?dnv=360098365&action=toggleCategory&category=2
we do not care if it's profitable as long as it's fun.
Sadly the older players in WoW tend to be the immature bunch. Kids will be kids, this doesn't bother me. The people in their mid 20s empowered by anonymity are the problem, mostly. ToR I think will be a mix, much like WoW. A community will act like you manage it. Moderate them poorly (blizzard) and they will act poorly.
Talk about attention whore, geesh.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
You seen the class forums on the official TOR forums? omg. I would say I hope most of them leave after they play for 2 months, but that would empty any game of players lol. Hopefully they have a robust ignore feature in this game.
In my opinion, if they want to be complete assclowns in the forums, let them. People who usually visit the forums in most cases represent the smallest minority of the playerbase for that game. In game, there should be strict rules of conduct in place. Guild and private chat should be something the player manages, when crap starts flooding openly though, I think BioWare needs to step up and take charge. To answer your question, not really. I rarely visit a class forum for any game I'm playing, better alternatives are usually fansites, atleast when you're looking for some info on your class anyways. I can imagine it's troll heavy right now, they don't exactly have builds and strategies to talk about currently :P
Yeah, I made it a point to stay away from the Jedi and Bounty Hunter forums in SWG, unless I wanted a good laugh. I don't want to say I will never see a forum like those were, but I imagine if it can happen, it will happen in this game.
Unless this game is going to suck big time I can't see how Bioware will not be profitable. Maybe he is saying not profitable for eh first year ? That would make some sense but good games last more than 1 year and are very profitable.
I would say that too if I ran a f2p company
Micro transactions do not mean instant profit. They are a short term solution for MMORPG games that are weak to begin with. A solid game will make a profit based on their projections, investment, and culture. I bet TOR will make their development money back on the sale of individual units and digital downloads in the first year. Because this is EA I am sure there will be bonus items to buy regardless at their store just like Blizzard has for WoW. In fact I bet it matches Guild Wars and WoW. I am sure merchandise such as T shirts and toys will be available. I understand his point about profits with subscriptions but you are only as good as your XP in business. One should not be so trendy to jump on every business wagon so quickly. Besides the American dollar could crash next year making all this not matter due to overprinting of money. And then...
Heh, PvP should be interesting. A mix of "Get wrecked scrub" and "*&^% you OP noob". Great popcorn moments.
15 euros per month with 500k players = 7.500.000 in a full year it makes 90.000.000. Thats just counting subs, not even counting on box sales. Yeah, the game is going to be profitable, sure it is.
Yeah there are some more expenses you need to count on here, ok, say they need 2 years, or even 3, but it's going to be profitable. Subs makes for a lot of money.
This. Ignore function should be configurable.
I dont intend to carry on about 5.5 yrs of EQ in TOR general chat daily, yet I fully expect some to carry on about sandboxes/SWG constantly. Which is par for the course both on MMORPG.com and the BW TOR forums..
Hoping there is either dedicated servers for these folks....or a nice filter/ignore list.
Edit.....I forgot.....I am also hoping for a subscriber forum. It will cut down some of the whining, although there will always be chatter on MMO brds methinks.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
i'm not afraid about Bioware
but i have my doubts for EA, in the past do a lot of damage in gaming industry
This.
HAH! Heiko Hubertz is a MT mothership. And MT is STILL a flawed enterprise. Sure, the company makes money, but at the cost of consumer relations. One would take a look at games like Runes of Magic for this instance. A F2P MMO, a clone of WoW (arguably the most famous MMO to-date), and the WORST customer service agents in the MMO franchise. But they're not alone. Many other F2Ps, and I'm talking DOZENS, have been given the slip for their generic version of customer service. Bigpoint is included. But where's my reference material? Why haven't I created any links showing proof of this? The same could be asked of Heiko, who has only planted the seed, without any market analysis or the like.
I fail to see the importance in listening to a man with a company that is completely unheard of, aside from the occasional, "They're customer service sucked, so I /quit the game."
Thanks for the laugh though. It was needed.
THE Rooster Nash
First question i'd of asked is who is the CEO of Big Point Games and wait what is Big Point Games? I have seriously never heard of this company. That is like my uncle claiming that the United States is doomed to collapse and Zombie Reagan will come back to save us all. No worth in the comments at all.