To the people who claim that TOR will not have "go get 10 bat wings" quests, you have played DA:O and DA2, right? Those games have so many MMO-esque quests it's unbelievable.
It still amazed me that people still think this game will get millions. Pesonally, I thnk it will be lucky to have a million, maybe a million and a half. I don't think it is going to revolutionize anything considering there is nothing revolutionary about it. SWG never had millions of Starwars fans go play a Starwars game before, why would they do so now ? Just alot of hype, nothing more.
A Game like Rift have more than 1 million of subs, do you really believe that a game like TOR will have just 1 mill or less of subs at launch?, Nothing revolutionary? lol, is a fully voiced MMO without repetitive content, i mean you dont need to do the same content and quests in the same zones over and over everytime you wanna make an alt, and that my friend is revolutionary in a MMO, we dont have pets with a broken AI we have Bioware companions, and everyone here knows what that mean, the game is huge from any point of view and even when a lot of people want to see this game fails, the game industry know that TOR is probably the 1st MMO with the popential to fight WoW.
Do you have a link for that? I was under the impression that that 1 million number was with respect to accounts created on the Rift website.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
They basically said, if TOR is successful, developers will copy this model for years to come. The story based, subscription MMORPG, voiceover, expensive AAA title.
I still am facinated at those that believe WoW to be more of an mmo than a social network. WoW is and has been more of a social network than an mmo for years, and it's "supposed" 12-million sustained subscribership is not about mmorpg enthusiasts, but social-networking relationships, making any comparison to WoW as a mmorpg a false one; that is unless your comparing it to other facebook games.
Also, we see this 500k subscribership number being posted more than the 2-million subscribership number that was once remarked about by EA investors, just demonstrating the confidence slide and back-peddling about the potential consumer attention, prolonged, to this title.
Since most mmorpg's in the last 6-years have garnered more than 200k-300k sustained subscribers 6-months to a year-out, not only do I not think that Bioware has a game/genre changing formula, but if they do and it results in 200k more sustained mmorpg enthusiast subscribers than the most rudimentary mmorpgs, I really dont see that as a win as much as I see that as a meager survivorship.
So with that, since every mmorpg in the past 6-years has roughly the same design, content and game-play formula, and that goes with story also, and after having been following TOR, my opinion is that there will be absolutely nothing remarkable about being able to choose out of 4 or 5 story arch options that shape the persona and reputation of ones' character since the core and fundamentally PvE-heavy, single-player-esque lobby-system game-play mechanics of TOR with their shoe-box frag-fest and non-massively-multiplayer instanced pvp will be as shallow as any other game.
Yes, this will be another mmo that I will play, but as history as proven, there is far greater chances of it being nothing more than yet another transient, familiar style of game-play with window-dressing mmo, with new shallow gimmicks, that doesn't do enough to break away from the mundane single-player style, PvE-heavy, non-massively-multiplayer, non-organic game-play mechanics that other non-remarkable mmo's having been asking $15/month for in the last 6-years.
It still amazed me that people still think this game will get millions. Pesonally, I thnk it will be lucky to have a million, maybe a million and a half. I don't think it is going to revolutionize anything considering there is nothing revolutionary about it. SWG never had millions of Starwars fans go play a Starwars game before, why would they do so now ? Just alot of hype, nothing more.
A Game like Rift have more than 1 million of subs, do you really believe that a game like TOR will have just 1 mill or less of subs at launch?, Nothing revolutionary? lol, is a fully voiced MMO without repetitive content, i mean you dont need to do the same content and quests in the same zones over and over everytime you wanna make an alt, and that my friend is revolutionary in a MMO, we dont have pets with a broken AI we have Bioware companions, and everyone here knows what that mean, the game is huge from any point of view and even when a lot of people want to see this game fails, the game industry know that TOR is probably the 1st MMO with the popential to fight WoW.
you have to wait a bit on Rift numbers.
The important thing is not box sales, although that is relevant, but subscription retention.
How may people that buy the box with the free month, renew their subscription at the end of the free month?
My guess is Swtor will do very, very well. It's also going to be in the books as one of the biggest games ever released, content wise. And if they've "got things right", it will only draw in more people over time.
I bet all my postcount stars that it will have 2 million subs after a year or so.
It still amazed me that people still think this game will get millions. Pesonally, I thnk it will be lucky to have a million, maybe a million and a half. I don't think it is going to revolutionize anything considering there is nothing revolutionary about it. SWG never had millions of Starwars fans go play a Starwars game before, why would they do so now ? Just alot of hype, nothing more.
A Game like Rift have more than 1 million of subs, do you really believe that a game like TOR will have just 1 mill or less of subs at launch?, Nothing revolutionary? lol, is a fully voiced MMO without repetitive content, i mean you dont need to do the same content and quests in the same zones over and over everytime you wanna make an alt, and that my friend is revolutionary in a MMO, we dont have pets with a broken AI we have Bioware companions, and everyone here knows what that mean, the game is huge from any point of view and even when a lot of people want to see this game fails, the game industry know that TOR is probably the 1st MMO with the popential to fight WoW.
you have to wait a bit on Rift numbers.
The important thing is not box sales, although that is relevant, but subscription retention.
How may people that buy the box with the free month, renew their subscription at the end of the free month?
I always see box sales as the studios chance to recoup production costs, and the monthly fees as their chance for profit.
I'm a huge fan of older games and haven't really found a newer game that catches my fancy. I will tell you this though, I am about 99% sure I will be buying a copy of SWTOR and playing it for a few months. KOTOR is probably in my top 3 when it comes to favorite single player RPGs and if for that reason only I will probably purchase SWTOR. Granted SWG was freaking awesome and I liked that their wasn't a ton of jedi running around. I liked it because it fit the timeline of the star wars univers. Bioware has found a way to get around that, it makes sense to have tons of jedi during a time period when there is giant jedi vs sith war going on. I will go ahead and say that I will not be rolling a jedi at first, I never liked the FOTM classes.
It still amazed me that people still think this game will get millions. Pesonally, I thnk it will be lucky to have a million, maybe a million and a half. I don't think it is going to revolutionize anything considering there is nothing revolutionary about it. SWG never had millions of Starwars fans go play a Starwars game before, why would they do so now ? Just alot of hype, nothing more.
A Game like Rift have more than 1 million of subs, do you really believe that a game like TOR will have just 1 mill or less of subs at launch?, Nothing revolutionary? lol, is a fully voiced MMO without repetitive content, i mean you dont need to do the same content and quests in the same zones over and over everytime you wanna make an alt, and that my friend is revolutionary in a MMO, we dont have pets with a broken AI we have Bioware companions, and everyone here knows what that mean, the game is huge from any point of view and even when a lot of people want to see this game fails, the game industry know that TOR is probably the 1st MMO with the popential to fight WoW.
you have to wait a bit on Rift numbers.
The important thing is not box sales, although that is relevant, but subscription retention.
How may people that buy the box with the free month, renew their subscription at the end of the free month?
I always see box sales as the studios chance to recoup production costs, and the monthly fees as their chance for profit.
And for me, personally, the gimickiness of Rift wore off after a month and a half; as a result of my afformentioned tiresome same-ol mmorpg formula. My sense from thoughtful perspective, guilds ebenflow, game-play content and mechanics, the server pops i saw, the forums, etc. that Rift will do as well as any other mainstream mmo, but will suffer from lack of retention like the rest. For me, again, it's bottled in the generalized reasons I mentioned.
Bioware's Reputation + Star Wars IP + Huge Budget = an uncommonly powerful trifecta so I doubt SWTOR will have any trouble attracting customers. The story-based approach should also be an effective way of engaging players right from the outset so SWTOR must surely have the potential to shake the genre up a bit during its first few months.
I think the challenge for SWTOR will be retaining players in the long-term because story content has relatively poor replayability. Eventually SWTOR will have to rely on its non-story content to keep players subscribing so I don't think it will be easy to judge its success until 6 to 12 months have passed. By then, of course, it may already have had a huge impact on how other developers are thinking.
Bioware's Reputation + Star Wars IP + Huge Budget = an uncommonly powerful trifecta so I doubt SWTOR will have any trouble attracting customers. The story-based approach should also be an effective way of engaging players right from the outset so SWTOR must surely have the potential to shake the genre up a bit during its first few months.
I think the challenge for SWTOR will be retaining players in the long-term because story content has relatively poor replayability. Eventually SWTOR will have to rely on its non-story content to keep players subscribing so I don't think it will be easy to judge its success until 6 to 12 months have passed. By then, of course, it may already have had a huge impact on how other developers are thinking.
I don't think it has this, or there are any plans for it, but the cherry on the top, IMO, would be RvR end game content.
I mean, it's Jedi vs Sith. It's MADE for RvR.
I hope the game does well.
With a string of mediocre releases since WoW, it would be nice to see a game that is successful to the point it can compete with WoW generating income from Subscriptions, and not cash shops.
They basically said, if TOR is successful, developers will copy this model for years to come. The story based, subscription MMORPG, voiceover, expensive AAA title.
It will be one of the few games to take on WoW head to head with a subscription base, and do ok. Because they all agreed the game was taking on WoW, not going for a niche like Secret World or something like that.
Or, if ToR is a horrible failure, more games will go F2P and developers will be scared to take on WoW because they know they'll just lose money. They will concentrate on either F2P titles, or niche games that don't compete with WoW.
I guess sort of, if ToR can't do it, nobody can.
Sounds to me like there are more pressing concerns than just the success or failure of TOR...
Yeah it's going to have to have some kind RvR content endgame to keep people around. I could see certain planets being able to be fought over and controlled by either sith or the republic. There is already 17 planets according to their website so that's plenty to fight over if you ask me. I'm surprised i cant find any info pointing to this though.
I think there are several factors that could be to BW's and SWTOR's advantage.
First, there's the combination and brand recognition of Star Wars combined with the name and reputation BW has made for itself over the years, which add up to BW having the best chance of all MMO companies around to do the same trick as Blizzard did, namely attracting non-MMO gamers into the MMO market. Especially if you throw a media storm campaign from powerhouse publisher EA into the mix.
Secondly, SWTOR is on its way of having a humongous, unprecedented amount of questing content. 200 hours of unique Class Quest content per class, or as a BW rep stated 1 of the 3 Class chapters alone is far larger than a KOTOR game. That amounts to like 1600 hours unique questing content for the classes in total, or as has been said by comparison, a lot more than a full KOTOR trilogy per class, with 8 classes it'd mean that SWTOR will have KOTOR 3-26 in it already, solely for the Class Quest content. That's quite a lot.
And that isn't even the majority of the questing content, the majority of the quest content is said to be the World Quests.
Add to that the World Arcs, the Flashpoints, the Warzones and a worldsize and total amount of explorable area that dwarfs even WoW and LotrO in their present state, expansions included, or any other themepark MMO, and SWTOR is shaping up to be one humongously big MMORPG. It's already more than 10 times the size of Rift in worldsize, and that's excluding the planets that haven't been revealed yet and that will add up to that total.
Regardless of how the gameplay will turn out, that's a lot of content and piece of world to explore to keep players busy for months.
Of course, it all depends whether the questing and gameplay is actually fun. But so far it seems that there's enough to do.
That said, I think SWTOR won't be the only potential gamechanger: the article may be right in that this year - and the next one - will determine the course the MMORPG genre will take, but it will do so because of the joint impact that MMO's like Rift, TERA, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ArcheAge and WoD will make together.
Take 1 of those, and you'd already have an attention drawing MMO as good or better than any other AAA MMO of the past 7 years. But take all those powerhouses together and we're talking about a potential gamechanging phenomenon, a tempest with the power to change the landscape of the MMO scene for years to come.
Well, if I'm right in this, we'll find out after a year or so
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
But no one will spend the money on a big polished AAA sandbox, because no sandbox game has ever done really well, and by that I mean WoW sorts of sub numbers.
No game ever did besides well WoW
That's true, but they've been trying.
The gist of the article, again with interviews from developers of various other MMORPGs, sorry can't remember the details, was basically, if ToR can't do it with 100 million plus dollars and the Star Wars IP, then screw it.
WoW is king of the subscription based AAA title, and we just won't even try to compete with that. We'll try something else.
I mean, sure, they could have said that a long time ago, but the attitude seemed to be ToR would put the nail in the coffin of funding for competing with WoW if it didn't succede.
ToR has everything and the kitchen sink. If that aint' enough to compete with WoW, we surrender. WoW wins, we'll go make something else.
What? Wow is not AAA.
AAA Title needs almost unlimited Budget, broad scope and marketing, powerfull graphics engine with great polish. WoW fails in the engine category, it never had a good graphics or graphical polish. 50 polygon characters with skinned armors and blurry textures is not AAA, sorry buddy.
ToR is a AAA title but if it succeeds is largely based on gameplay, content and most important immersion.
They basically said, if TOR is successful, developers will copy this model for years to come. The story based, subscription MMORPG, voiceover, expensive AAA title.
It will be one of the few games to take on WoW head to head with a subscription base, and do ok. Because they all agreed the game was taking on WoW, not going for a niche like Secret World or something like that.
Or, if ToR is a horrible failure, more games will go F2P and developers will be scared to take on WoW because they know they'll just lose money. They will concentrate on either F2P titles, or niche games that don't compete with WoW.
I guess sort of, if ToR can't do it, nobody can.
Supposed to release this year I think, and even then you have to wait a month or two to see if people renew their subs or just buy the box then dump the game.
Makes sense. I agree with the basic premise of the article. For better or worse the events with ToR, Rift, Turbine's latest f2p endeavours, & events with GW2 are going to dramatically effect how future games are released, promoted, and financed from both an investor and customer standpoint.
I also think how FFXIV played out was also widely viewed by other devs and companies. Hopefully it has finally sunk in that to release a product before it is ready is not worth the hits you will receive in customer retention and overall profitability. Granted there have been several other examples of this in the mmo industry but I think most would agree that the Final Fantasy is the most significant ip this happened to.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
SWTOR is very similiar to WoW, the only difference beyond the license is the story wheel, which people are likely to copy to some degree regardless of SWTOR's success.
What this boils down to is...
If SWTOR is successful, the current trend of making themepark MMOs that play like WoW will continue.
If SWTOR is unsuccessful, developers will either avoid making MMOs or will look to innovate away from the WoW style of gameplay.
Being free to play or subscription has little to do with it, you can easily make money both ways whether you make a themepark or a sandbox or anything in between.
The Scoundrel is the healing class of the republic. Once that was made clear, I was pretty sure this game will fail. This is nothing more than a story played with others, and once the PvE story is over, that's it. maybe you re-roll and try to find another story as republic/sith alternative, but replayability will be terrible.
They basically said, if TOR is successful, developers will copy this model for years to come. The story based, subscription MMORPG, voiceover, expensive AAA title.
single player adventure with monthly fees,6 months and its f2p.
Ok all u tor is a single player game need to go away now. U are all just lying and spreding false hoods. This game has all the things an mmo has. The fact is new games have to be solo player freindly . Not everyone wants to group.
Also im so tired of the not an mmo stuff. Its so not true. This game will even make it so high level players have reason to visit startign areas so new players will actually see higher level characters.
Im tired of all the crap being spewed about tor. From what we know this game has everythign any themepark mmo has. Including a solo player freindly leveling experiance. Yes thats a must in todays mmo.
I find it funny the same people say this is highly instanced single player game are the same people champion gw 2. Which is way more instanced the tor and way more a single player game. Even it if does have dynamic content which rift beat them too.
FYI Gw2 is not instanced, it has a persistant world, much like WoW and Rift. The dynamic events are much more advanced than rifts, they replace quests all together and add that natural grouping.
On the topic: I think ToR has a standard mmo design, if it's fun, polished and inovative enough it might hold on to a milion or two subs
The Scoundrel is the healing class of the republic. Once that was made clear, I was pretty sure this game will fail. This is nothing more than a story played with others, and once the PvE story is over, that's it. maybe you re-roll and try to find another story as republic/sith alternative, but replayability will be terrible.
Nonsense. You've just decided to dislike the game, after which you stopped paying attention to what the game's really about. Liking another game - GW2 -, that's fine, disliking SWTOR, also fine. But saying that SWTOR is less than an MMORPG and nothing but a PvE story is that much idiotic that it becomes hilarious. And makes one question the sanity or seriousness of people that make such statements, admittedly.
Originally posted by inBOIL
single player adventure with monthly fees,6 months and its f2p.
Shrug. Haters gonna hate. When people have no sane or sensible arguments anymore to bash on a game they dislike, they'll resort to insane arguments.
People can dislike SWTOR all they like, and they're entitled to it. But SWTOR is a fully fletched MMORPG, everyone with a shred of common sense and intelligence can see that.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Nothing revolutionary? lol, is a fully voiced MMO without repetitive content
Voice overs dont make a game good
i mean you dont need to do the same content and quests in the same zones over and over everytime you wanna make an alt and that my friend is revolutionary in a MMO
I have never and will never roll alts so this means nothing to me
we dont have pets with a broken AI we have Bioware companions
another thing that means nothing
the game is huge from any point of view and even when a lot of people want to see this game fails
I dont want the game to fail, I just don't have a lot of hope for it, If it has something other than pvp to do at max level I may give it a try. So far nothing I have seen or read about the game dosn't look as great as everyone seems to think it is
If it has something other than pvp to do at max level I may give it a try. So far nothing I have seen or read about the game dosn't look as great as everyone seems to think it is
Next to warzones and open world pvp, SWTOR has flashpoint, world arcs and raiding as well.
I do wonder though what other things you could come up with that the MMORPG's that you do like to play have, besides pvp or raiding as endgame content.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The Scoundrel is the healing class of the republic. Once that was made clear, I was pretty sure this game will fail. This is nothing more than a story played with others, and once the PvE story is over, that's it. maybe you re-roll and try to find another story as republic/sith alternative, but replayability will be terrible.
KOTOR is one of the few games I replayed all the way to the end. I played as light side, then as dark side, and it was fun both times.
"After the Pve story is over" well, that's a LOT of story. Not sure I'd even make it through all of it, much less be worried about replay.
I hope they fail, because I don't like Star Wars. Never cared for the first three movies, or anything after them. Sure, the special effects were great for the time, but it felt too much like a themepark. The mere thought of the most popular MMORPG being based entirely on SW lore makes me very depressed.
It's a shame that it couldn't be the world of darkness, or something else more interesting. Warhammer sure had a chance, too bad they fucked it up miserably.
/sigh
Lol, I am always astonished how self centered some people are. It would never occur to me to wish a game fails just because I don't like the IP. =P
Either way, yes I too think the success or failure will influence the industry for a long time.
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Comments
To the people who claim that TOR will not have "go get 10 bat wings" quests, you have played DA:O and DA2, right? Those games have so many MMO-esque quests it's unbelievable.
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Do you have a link for that? I was under the impression that that 1 million number was with respect to accounts created on the Rift website.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I still am facinated at those that believe WoW to be more of an mmo than a social network. WoW is and has been more of a social network than an mmo for years, and it's "supposed" 12-million sustained subscribership is not about mmorpg enthusiasts, but social-networking relationships, making any comparison to WoW as a mmorpg a false one; that is unless your comparing it to other facebook games.
Also, we see this 500k subscribership number being posted more than the 2-million subscribership number that was once remarked about by EA investors, just demonstrating the confidence slide and back-peddling about the potential consumer attention, prolonged, to this title.
Since most mmorpg's in the last 6-years have garnered more than 200k-300k sustained subscribers 6-months to a year-out, not only do I not think that Bioware has a game/genre changing formula, but if they do and it results in 200k more sustained mmorpg enthusiast subscribers than the most rudimentary mmorpgs, I really dont see that as a win as much as I see that as a meager survivorship.
So with that, since every mmorpg in the past 6-years has roughly the same design, content and game-play formula, and that goes with story also, and after having been following TOR, my opinion is that there will be absolutely nothing remarkable about being able to choose out of 4 or 5 story arch options that shape the persona and reputation of ones' character since the core and fundamentally PvE-heavy, single-player-esque lobby-system game-play mechanics of TOR with their shoe-box frag-fest and non-massively-multiplayer instanced pvp will be as shallow as any other game.
Yes, this will be another mmo that I will play, but as history as proven, there is far greater chances of it being nothing more than yet another transient, familiar style of game-play with window-dressing mmo, with new shallow gimmicks, that doesn't do enough to break away from the mundane single-player style, PvE-heavy, non-massively-multiplayer, non-organic game-play mechanics that other non-remarkable mmo's having been asking $15/month for in the last 6-years.
you have to wait a bit on Rift numbers.
The important thing is not box sales, although that is relevant, but subscription retention.
How may people that buy the box with the free month, renew their subscription at the end of the free month?
My guess is Swtor will do very, very well. It's also going to be in the books as one of the biggest games ever released, content wise. And if they've "got things right", it will only draw in more people over time.
I bet all my postcount stars that it will have 2 million subs after a year or so.
My brand new bloggity blog.
I always see box sales as the studios chance to recoup production costs, and the monthly fees as their chance for profit.
I'm a huge fan of older games and haven't really found a newer game that catches my fancy. I will tell you this though, I am about 99% sure I will be buying a copy of SWTOR and playing it for a few months. KOTOR is probably in my top 3 when it comes to favorite single player RPGs and if for that reason only I will probably purchase SWTOR. Granted SWG was freaking awesome and I liked that their wasn't a ton of jedi running around. I liked it because it fit the timeline of the star wars univers. Bioware has found a way to get around that, it makes sense to have tons of jedi during a time period when there is giant jedi vs sith war going on. I will go ahead and say that I will not be rolling a jedi at first, I never liked the FOTM classes.
And for me, personally, the gimickiness of Rift wore off after a month and a half; as a result of my afformentioned tiresome same-ol mmorpg formula. My sense from thoughtful perspective, guilds ebenflow, game-play content and mechanics, the server pops i saw, the forums, etc. that Rift will do as well as any other mainstream mmo, but will suffer from lack of retention like the rest. For me, again, it's bottled in the generalized reasons I mentioned.
Bioware's Reputation + Star Wars IP + Huge Budget = an uncommonly powerful trifecta so I doubt SWTOR will have any trouble attracting customers. The story-based approach should also be an effective way of engaging players right from the outset so SWTOR must surely have the potential to shake the genre up a bit during its first few months.
I think the challenge for SWTOR will be retaining players in the long-term because story content has relatively poor replayability. Eventually SWTOR will have to rely on its non-story content to keep players subscribing so I don't think it will be easy to judge its success until 6 to 12 months have passed. By then, of course, it may already have had a huge impact on how other developers are thinking.
I don't think it has this, or there are any plans for it, but the cherry on the top, IMO, would be RvR end game content.
I mean, it's Jedi vs Sith. It's MADE for RvR.
I hope the game does well.
With a string of mediocre releases since WoW, it would be nice to see a game that is successful to the point it can compete with WoW generating income from Subscriptions, and not cash shops.
Also interested to see how the Hero Engine does.
Sounds to me like there are more pressing concerns than just the success or failure of TOR...
Yeah it's going to have to have some kind RvR content endgame to keep people around. I could see certain planets being able to be fought over and controlled by either sith or the republic. There is already 17 planets according to their website so that's plenty to fight over if you ask me. I'm surprised i cant find any info pointing to this though.
I think there are several factors that could be to BW's and SWTOR's advantage.
First, there's the combination and brand recognition of Star Wars combined with the name and reputation BW has made for itself over the years, which add up to BW having the best chance of all MMO companies around to do the same trick as Blizzard did, namely attracting non-MMO gamers into the MMO market. Especially if you throw a media storm campaign from powerhouse publisher EA into the mix.
Secondly, SWTOR is on its way of having a humongous, unprecedented amount of questing content. 200 hours of unique Class Quest content per class, or as a BW rep stated 1 of the 3 Class chapters alone is far larger than a KOTOR game. That amounts to like 1600 hours unique questing content for the classes in total, or as has been said by comparison, a lot more than a full KOTOR trilogy per class, with 8 classes it'd mean that SWTOR will have KOTOR 3-26 in it already, solely for the Class Quest content. That's quite a lot.
And that isn't even the majority of the questing content, the majority of the quest content is said to be the World Quests.
Add to that the World Arcs, the Flashpoints, the Warzones and a worldsize and total amount of explorable area that dwarfs even WoW and LotrO in their present state, expansions included, or any other themepark MMO, and SWTOR is shaping up to be one humongously big MMORPG. It's already more than 10 times the size of Rift in worldsize, and that's excluding the planets that haven't been revealed yet and that will add up to that total.
Regardless of how the gameplay will turn out, that's a lot of content and piece of world to explore to keep players busy for months.
Of course, it all depends whether the questing and gameplay is actually fun. But so far it seems that there's enough to do.
That said, I think SWTOR won't be the only potential gamechanger: the article may be right in that this year - and the next one - will determine the course the MMORPG genre will take, but it will do so because of the joint impact that MMO's like Rift, TERA, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, ArcheAge and WoD will make together.
Take 1 of those, and you'd already have an attention drawing MMO as good or better than any other AAA MMO of the past 7 years. But take all those powerhouses together and we're talking about a potential gamechanging phenomenon, a tempest with the power to change the landscape of the MMO scene for years to come.
Well, if I'm right in this, we'll find out after a year or so
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
What? Wow is not AAA.
AAA Title needs almost unlimited Budget, broad scope and marketing, powerfull graphics engine with great polish. WoW fails in the engine category, it never had a good graphics or graphical polish. 50 polygon characters with skinned armors and blurry textures is not AAA, sorry buddy.
ToR is a AAA title but if it succeeds is largely based on gameplay, content and most important immersion.
Makes sense. I agree with the basic premise of the article. For better or worse the events with ToR, Rift, Turbine's latest f2p endeavours, & events with GW2 are going to dramatically effect how future games are released, promoted, and financed from both an investor and customer standpoint.
I also think how FFXIV played out was also widely viewed by other devs and companies. Hopefully it has finally sunk in that to release a product before it is ready is not worth the hits you will receive in customer retention and overall profitability. Granted there have been several other examples of this in the mmo industry but I think most would agree that the Final Fantasy is the most significant ip this happened to.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Stupid article.
SWTOR is very similiar to WoW, the only difference beyond the license is the story wheel, which people are likely to copy to some degree regardless of SWTOR's success.
What this boils down to is...
If SWTOR is successful, the current trend of making themepark MMOs that play like WoW will continue.
If SWTOR is unsuccessful, developers will either avoid making MMOs or will look to innovate away from the WoW style of gameplay.
Being free to play or subscription has little to do with it, you can easily make money both ways whether you make a themepark or a sandbox or anything in between.
The Scoundrel is the healing class of the republic. Once that was made clear, I was pretty sure this game will fail. This is nothing more than a story played with others, and once the PvE story is over, that's it. maybe you re-roll and try to find another story as republic/sith alternative, but replayability will be terrible.
single player adventure with monthly fees,6 months and its f2p.
Generation P
Ok all u tor is a single player game need to go away now. U are all just lying and spreding false hoods. This game has all the things an mmo has. The fact is new games have to be solo player freindly . Not everyone wants to group.
Also im so tired of the not an mmo stuff. Its so not true. This game will even make it so high level players have reason to visit startign areas so new players will actually see higher level characters.
Im tired of all the crap being spewed about tor. From what we know this game has everythign any themepark mmo has. Including a solo player freindly leveling experiance. Yes thats a must in todays mmo.
I find it funny the same people say this is highly instanced single player game are the same people champion gw 2. Which is way more instanced the tor and way more a single player game. Even it if does have dynamic content which rift beat them too.
FYI Gw2 is not instanced, it has a persistant world, much like WoW and Rift. The dynamic events are much more advanced than rifts, they replace quests all together and add that natural grouping.
On the topic: I think ToR has a standard mmo design, if it's fun, polished and inovative enough it might hold on to a milion or two subs
Nonsense. You've just decided to dislike the game, after which you stopped paying attention to what the game's really about. Liking another game - GW2 -, that's fine, disliking SWTOR, also fine. But saying that SWTOR is less than an MMORPG and nothing but a PvE story is that much idiotic that it becomes hilarious. And makes one question the sanity or seriousness of people that make such statements, admittedly.
Shrug. Haters gonna hate. When people have no sane or sensible arguments anymore to bash on a game they dislike, they'll resort to insane arguments.
People can dislike SWTOR all they like, and they're entitled to it. But SWTOR is a fully fletched MMORPG, everyone with a shred of common sense and intelligence can see that.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Next to warzones and open world pvp, SWTOR has flashpoint, world arcs and raiding as well.
I do wonder though what other things you could come up with that the MMORPG's that you do like to play have, besides pvp or raiding as endgame content.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
KOTOR is one of the few games I replayed all the way to the end. I played as light side, then as dark side, and it was fun both times.
"After the Pve story is over" well, that's a LOT of story. Not sure I'd even make it through all of it, much less be worried about replay.
Lol, I am always astonished how self centered some people are. It would never occur to me to wish a game fails just because I don't like the IP. =P
Either way, yes I too think the success or failure will influence the industry for a long time.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert