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PC gamer article interviews devs of major MMORPGs says TOR will change the industry for good or bad
Ihmotepp
Member Posts: 14,495
It's an article in the current PC Gamer mag.
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.
Comments
So, basically, we all have to hope for TOR to fail horribly in order to get sandbox MMOs?
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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.
Well, I don't think you're going to get a sandbox MMO with the budget of TOR no matter what.
Numbers vary, but ToR is something like over 100 million dollars, and said to be one of the most expensive games EVAR! made.
But, if you're even a fraction as successful as WoW with those sub numbers, that will be chump change compared to what you make back.
That's the target, those monthly revenues of 14.95 comining in every month from millions of players.
So the risk of investment is worth it because of the big potential pay off.
No one has ever made a sandbox game with the sort of revenue like WoW, so there's no proof you can make that kind of money with a sandbox game.
It's kind of a catch 22 isn't it?
If you don't have the budget, nad you release a crappy buggy incomplete sandbox, of course it's not going to do well.
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.
Supposedly they break even at 500K, which is still a big number for any game that is not WoW.
But of course they don't want to break even, they want to make some serious profits, which will take a million plus subs.
Im not sure the SWG comparison is valid.
The article pointed out all the differences between ToR and SWG, basically saying, this isn't anything like SWG at all.
Both games are based on Star Wars, and that's where the similarties stop.
For example, in SWG everyone wanted to play a Jedi, but you couldn't till you leveled up every skill. Ugh!
You can play a Jedi right out of the box with ToR.
No game ever did besides well WoW
If you dont think SWToR will generate at the very least a million subs in the first month your delusional. Regardless if the game will, revolutionize, or fail...it will draw enormous numbers for an MMO without question, atleast initially.
Currently Playing : Rift, EQ2
Has Played: Anarchy Online, SWG(Pre NGE refugee), DAoC, EQ1, EQ2, Lineage 2, CoH, CoV, Horizons, AoC, FFXI, FFXIV, Aion, WoW, DCUO, Matrix Online, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, LotRo, Fallen Earth, Shadowbane, EQoA, ArchLord
This is one of the features i loved about SWG(pre NGE) and dont like about ToR...Everyone and their moms running around as Jedi...atleast in SWG when you saw a Jedi...you knew they had put a lot of time into becoming one and deserved it....
Currently Playing : Rift, EQ2
Has Played: Anarchy Online, SWG(Pre NGE refugee), DAoC, EQ1, EQ2, Lineage 2, CoH, CoV, Horizons, AoC, FFXI, FFXIV, Aion, WoW, DCUO, Matrix Online, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, LotRo, Fallen Earth, Shadowbane, EQoA, ArchLord
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.
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
If all it takes is putting in the "time", then you might as well just hand it out, cuz that's hardly "earning" it.
Putting in the time to master the professions, and finding the holocrons...yea id say thats earning it. Or atleast as much "earning it as you can do in an MMO". Your response hardly made any sense at all...lol sorry.
Currently Playing : Rift, EQ2
Has Played: Anarchy Online, SWG(Pre NGE refugee), DAoC, EQ1, EQ2, Lineage 2, CoH, CoV, Horizons, AoC, FFXI, FFXIV, Aion, WoW, DCUO, Matrix Online, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, LotRo, Fallen Earth, Shadowbane, EQoA, ArchLord
The story telling is pretty revolutionary. I'll be amazed if the game doesn't reach at least 1 million subscribers, they have a larger pool of possible fans than SWG.
It seems like the logical progression to me.
What's been going on with MMORPGs ever since WoW?
They have been becoming more and more like single player RPGs, only with really crappy single player RPG elements.
DAoC, EQ, nad those types of games required team work to succeed in an acceptable fashion. So doing quests like go get me ten bat wings was interesting, becaues of teh team work required. Then we got cries of "forced grouping"...
Now, you can solo through most MMORPGs relatively easily. People dont' want to have to group, they just like seeing other people in the game while they play. But the quests are still go get me ten bat wings.
and not anywehre near as fun as a single player RPG. I mean, play KOTOR, or Fallout, or any single player RPG. It's a ton better than WoW for actual game play, just not online with other people.
So the ToR devs said let's give 'em what they want. They want a single player RPG, with lots of people around while they play.
So they're desiging something that's supposedly as good as a single player RPG, but online with lots of other players.
Look I don't think you can justify continuously pitting one mmo vs. another. The market needs to expand if it hopes to evolve. Y0u cannot accomplish that by always going after they same players over and over. This is why the attitude among mmo players stinks to high heavens as it is. The article basically amounts to the need for the market to expand and evolve.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
They should try something else, there are only 12 million people playing WoW so why target them, there are at least a billion or 2 that dont play WoW, that should be the target audiance.
Even Blizzard has praised BioWare for what they're doing with TOR, bringing new players into the genre.
I won't disagree with you about what the article said. I don't have the magazine, just read it while browsing at the bookstore, and that was my impression.
But somewhere in there they mention that MMORPGs do have to cannabalize each other if they are subscription based, and I thnk that's true.
An MMORPG is unique because you can play it so much, unlike a single player RPG which you finish in a month or less.
Most people won't have time to play TWO MMORPGs, and or, they won't want to pay TWO subscriptions.
So, they're gonna make a choice. Play this MMO or that MMO.
Only one at a time is gonna get ther sub fee. Again, that's MOST players. Some will do two or even three subs, but they are the minority.
Perhaps you should look into what the TOR devs have actually said. Theyve talked quite extensively about encouraging grouping, and even teaching new players, those coming from single player games, how to group and participate in an MMO.
WoW may be king right now, but the game is definately showing its age, its only a matter of time before its numbers dwindle due to more innovative projects. Cant knock what Blizzard has done from a business standpoint...but i personally cant wait to stop hearing about WoW , and hearing it be talked about by people as if it was the first MMORPG ever released.
Currently Playing : Rift, EQ2
Has Played: Anarchy Online, SWG(Pre NGE refugee), DAoC, EQ1, EQ2, Lineage 2, CoH, CoV, Horizons, AoC, FFXI, FFXIV, Aion, WoW, DCUO, Matrix Online, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, LotRo, Fallen Earth, Shadowbane, EQoA, ArchLord
I believe they actually said you can solo all the way through with no problems if you want to.
After seeing the success of Rift I believe everything is possible, if you release a polished MMO in a smart time-frame.
Now I guess Rift wasn´t seen as a rival in the MMO-genre. This is going to change with SWToR and GW2. Perhaps we´ll see both of them plus Diablo 3, Starcraft 2x, Call of Duty X:Out of Lybia in a 2 month timeframe.
Yes, and they've also spoken about why you wouldn't want to do that and what you'd miss out on if you did. They're smart enough to know that there are plenty of people who aren't going to be able or willing to group up for everything, so they make it available as an option. But they've also put a lot of time and effort into encouraging grouping as well, but you're more than welcome to ignore that in order to try to prove a point.
I think there are two player bases.
You have the WoW veterans.
that's a plus, and a minus.
They have characters they are invested in, and looking for the next expansion. Plus.
But they've played the heck out of WoW, nad may be looking for something new. Minus.
Then there are the MMORPG newbies. Kids that graduate from console games or whatever, and play an MMORPG for the first time.
Maybe it's the first time their parents let them, maybe the first time they got access to a credit card, game card, wahtever.
They are looking for the cool MMORPG to play. the one EVERYONE is playing.
Right now that's WoW. If ToR gets a million plus subs, that sort of changes things.
Might make it more of a toss up, depending on if they like fantasy or sci fi, or star wars, or the latest thing, or the established thing, or whatever.
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.
I'm just saying that if you wanted to progress at a decent rate, in DaoC and EQ, you needed to find a group. So what if the content was lousy, collect 10 bat wings, the grouping was fun.
IN WoW, no group necessary. Just go collect 10 bat wings. Over and over. But people like that.
They may like it even more if the game play is close to a single player RPG in content quality.
of course you CAN group in ToR. You CAN group in every MMORPG.
You can solo in every MMORPG too.
What will be the rate of progress in ToR if you solo vs group? I don't think we'll know that till the game releases.
I doubt very much the rate of progression playing solo will be like ti was in EQ or DAoC vs grouping.
Does that mean people won't group all the time? No.
Is that the same thing as needing to group to make good progress? No.