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Why the MMO community should continue to support SW:TOR
BigBadWolfe
Member Posts: 143
Okay so I'm hearing a lot of reports from players saying that they like TOR but they don't want to stay subbed to it, or that they are going to cancel and resub back to the game when they've added more content/fixed issues.
DON'T DO THAT.
EA/Bioware spent a lot of money on SW:TOR, I'm hearing estimates around $300 million or so, that's the most money a company has ever tossed at the MMO industry. You WANT them to toss money at us. However in order to cover such a big investment, Bioware needs an evern bigger return, and that's where the MMO community comes in. Unlike other gaming industries, MMOs need to establish a relationship with the playerbase to keep making money, and lately that relationship as soured. A lot of developers think the MMO community has turned into a bunch of loud-mouth, lazy, fickle bunch of spoiled brats.
We need to change our ways and have more realistic expectations of new MMOs if the industry is going to survive.
1.) We need to understand that a game that just launched is simply not going to have as much end-game content as a game that's been out for over a 1-6years.
2.) We need to understand that if we want new content, we have to pay for it. If you like the game but want more content, unsubbing isn't going to help, but only make things worse.
3.) We really need to stop comparing everything to WoW. I think this is self-explanitory.
4.) We really need to stop wishing every MMO that's not your kind of MMO will fail. Just because I might not like that style of MMO doesn't mean that it should fail, and nobody be allowed to play it.
I'm not a SW:TOR fanboy, I'm just concerned what will happen to the industry if a huge financial investment like TOR can't buy its way into the market. I can imagine that it's failure will create another black hole, similiar to Warhammer, where the industry was stuck in the dark ages of bad mmos for another 2-3 years. Or even worse, MMOs turn out to be an unprofitable fad and they pull the plug like they did with the Guitar Hero type games.
So in conclusion if you do like Star Wars: The Old Republc, give them your money. TOR may not be the best game in the market, or any good at all, but it's definitely super expensive, and it's new, and EA gets really mad if they don't get paid. We want to keep the relationship between MMO companies and communities good, or they might pull out and go make cheap browser games or something.
Comments
Honestly, it's just a mediocore game. It played it far too safe. I supported it enough by buying the digital copy. Left before supporting it further by cancelling within 15 days.
So because they spent alot of money and made a virtual copy of every other AAA MMO we should stuff their pockets with our money. Makes total sense.
EA/Bioware are just picking up the scraps leftover from WoW, thats it. Why should that be rewarded?
Problem here is I played Swtor during late Beta. I had some decent amount of fun but nothing Im going to pay 15 bucks a month for. It just wasnt that fun to me. I love Star Wars, but this seemed a very mediocre effort as far as mmos go, and I remember people complaining over chat saying things like, " Okay Ive played for around 6 hours and Im bored. This is not a good thing." For me around level 15 everything began to feel tedious. I wasnt really having fun anymore.
You really expect people to pay 15 bucks a month for mediocrity? Yes a lot of people will play it and enjoy it so there you go but dont expect the community to cash out. You're acting as though SWTOR is some kind of charity case. " Please, our game is mediocre, please, give all you can. "
I signed on to Pirates of the Burning sea, and have played for about 2 months and for me its 10 times more fun than Swtor and thats just a little niche mmorpg. The graphics are comparable but it sure didnt have Swtors budget. And thats just sad. Also, its F2P or you can pay 15 bucks one time and play forever after that with everything unlocked.
My point? Games are not charitys. Either they put out a product that the majority of mmorpg enthusiasts will continue to subscribe to for months or years or they didnt. In my opinion they didnt. Too bad for them.
I love the game. I am going to play well past my 30 days. But in no way do I agree with the OP. If people do not like a product, as it is, they should NEVER support that product. It is the only way the market will change the product in the future, and the only way you will get the product you want to have.
Ha. Let em burn. These big companies need to lean that they can't feed us crap even though it has a brand name and a ton of $$ and marketing. All the people and critics that gave it "great" reveiws can stay with it. I'm sure someone can turn out a good mmo with out 300 million. Besides they probably only spent half of that making the game.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can
be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard
lol seriously? No thanks, they can deal.
This^
This is what i thought in the first 3 lines of the OP post, Y? as another person said they played this MMO way to safe and it was a waste of a great potinal use of IP, instant of a massive chance of making it a complete and proper MMO with all the features and a another AAA mmo and making it a sandbox and spaning it across the universe PROPERLY, they made a liniar story driven (which isnt bad) game with little to no MMO aspects to it... CO-OP game... waste of 300 mill + dolloars which took the fanboys of STAR WARS to town with there wallets..
I will play my Agent till i am done the story. I will probably play a republic character to view the story from their side. This mean that i'll probably sub another month.
After that who knows but frankly i dont plan on playing all characters. Why should i give them my money for making an MMO and they forgot one M?
Screw them, comapnies milk us tons. We keep taking it in the azz and accepting mediocre games that arent properly tested. We keep accepting betas and providing feedback and that feedback is almost never taken into account.
Why do we have to be a bunch of heroin-like addict?
I say it's about time we stop catering to them and it should be the other way around.
If you cant produce a top of the line MMO with such large budget then you deserve to fail and fall on your sword, uhh light saber!
No the cost was estimated at roughly 86 millions by some business insiders. So even if you round that up to 100 millions, it is far from 300...
Issue is, so much money was spent on the game that, lets face it, was pretty much wasted. There are so many MMos out there and many that top ToR in terms of graphics/gameplay that spent far less money in production. Having it succeed would just spark the whole idea "work with generic structure and use a big name to sell" which doesn't let the MMo genre expand. Sure, its difficult to be original, but to cheapen the experience by using 'fans' as a selling point is just bad. How can we have the 'next great thing' if we just get a bunch of medocer products that just interest us because it features some popular series?
If thats what they try to do then i do hope they fail and fail hard, you cant buy your way in, you have to deliver with a good product, if they do it that way then good for them and i hope they succeed regardless of the budget.
I don't care what the game cost to make. I don't care at ALL.
I paid my $60 and I've played the game. Its cute. But its not an MMORPG and the voice acting is ruined by the physical acting (I.E. the same canned bioware cutscene animations).
The ugly character creator and the complete lack of a real Appearance system? Nah, not paying for this game at all.
I'm a huge Star Wars fan, its what the SW in my forum name stands for infact, but this game is a turd of a Star Wars game. Bad bad writing. I really dislike all the spoken dialogue and as I said, every character has a decent actor behind it but the lines they're reading and the total lack of physical acting makes the game feel more like a cheap porno than a real engrossing story. Dialogue cutscenes do not take place in a wide enough variation of situations and scenarios. Its far too much standing 3 feet apart from one another with goofy hand waving gestures... over, and over... and over. Bleh.
And... I get a real significant feeling that the suits behind this product were quite malicious with their attempt to rip off other popular titles instead of listening to the modern day desires from MMORPG players.
I wish that Bioware would've just made Knights of the Old Republic 3, with Mass Effect level presentation. Feels like a real loss there, that that is not going to happen.
hm... Every time a new game launches, people start complaining...
There is little content... complain...
There is too much content... complain... (like one of the guys writing things here)...
The game is generic... complain...
Its too different I cant understand it... Complain!!!
It gets boring after a while because I dont feel high anymore... Complain...
It looks cartoonish ... Complain...
It looks too real ... Complain...
The mmo genre is stagnant... Complain...
WoW Clone... Complain
Sandbox... Complain...
Let me put it this way, if you played swtor and if feels like more of the same... You can cancel yoru account right away, delete all your mmos from your computer adn forget about the genre for the next 15 years or the rest of your life...
Respect is not given it is earned. EA/Bioware does not automatically qualify you as the greatest mmo dev ever. Neither does ArenaNET. Let them put out some hotfixes, content, exploit fixes and see how they handle pvp.
I hate Rift, absolutely dislike it and even I know Rift was gypped.
To talk about supporting half-assedness and overall mediocrity?
No.
The OP's set of mind is exactly what is wrong with the MMO world.
It is this attitude that will breed more and more mediocre games that are almost exact copies of each other . Except the next game will cost 500mil and be the exact mediocre crap we've been getting in the past few years.
If you enjoy the game - go ahead and sub to it. But subbing it to support EA/BW only for the sake of supporting them? It is a submissive attitude that will keep ruining the genre.
I think it was Teala in one of her posts that said it better than me: you pay for mediocre - you get mediocre.
Personally I think we deserve more. Yes maybe it was naive of me to expect something better for whatever millions they spent on it.
disclosure: I got my copy from a friend abroad since they don't sell SWTOR in my region. Yet another "fabulous" decision from EA. I got to level 35 and couldn't bring myself to play more. To those who do enjoy the game - I envy you in a way. Me, I hoped for something better.
we shouldn't support company that release un-finish, buggy products, and shouldn't support games that have no innovation
we don't wana send the wrong message to the developers if we still give them cash for all these.
Its way pass the time for developers to really look pass the old mmo design and come out with something new if they want our money.
Edit: to add, I also wouldn't like to see too many mmo " fail " , this may in turn discourage future developers , and may lead to only a few companies monopolizing the market
RIP Orc Choppa
Gamers won't (and shouldn't) give charity.
I'll be staying subbed to Tor for exactly as long as it continues to entertain.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
See I think the exact opposite. I personally think SWTOR failing would do the mmo market a hell of a lot of good for a few reasons.
It might make the big corporate big wigs reconsider investing again and again into the same exactly formula leading to **Gasp** some innovation
It might just teach these folks that we as gamers cant just be bought by big prices, huge marketing schemes, and hype.
It might after six years FINALLY make developers wake the hell up.
Personally Im tired of MMO's. There hasnt been a new type released since 2004. They are all the same thing. Linear grinds to max level, then you pvp or pve grind to max gear, then you do whatever content there is and wait on the next content updates.
That is a great model for some, but a lot of us are quite sick and tierd of playing the same game with a new ip and absolutely 0 innovation or creativity.
SWTOR is wow with lightsabers and a little more thought put into the story line. You grind to end game, grind instances for gear, and then raid for gear. For pvp'ers you grind bg's for gear till you hit level 60 valor and fully equip. There is 0 difference between swtor and wow in these regards.
MMO developers need to start thinking out of the box, innovate, change, and actually CREATE something as opposed to slapping on a new skin on the same old same old.
So no I canceled, my guild canceled, and pretty much everyone I know did as well. Sure we arent a big chunk of the mmo populace but I got a feeling theres a lot of folks that are doing the same thing.
Time will tell how SWTOR does, but IMO we shouldnt support failure just cause we dont want the big corps to go away. Personally, I saw screw the big corps lets get some nice indie developers with some new ideas and run with them cause IMO EA just spent 300 million to get what wow's been selling for 6 years.
I don't want games like TOR, I would rather start over with low budget MMOs and see them gain momentum down the right path. The path layed out by UO --> SWG --> ??? NOT the path laid out by EQ --> WoW --> a bunch of really bad rip offs.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Well technically it went like this...
UO --> EQ --> SWG --> WoW....
And SWG was not a low budget....
Guess you didnt understand...
UO and SWG were sandbox games
EQ and WoW were theme park games
Thats why he listed them on seperate tracks.
A better way to list it would be...
Sandbox track
UO - > AC - > Shadowbane - > SWG -> EvE Online ->
Theme Park track
EQ -> EQ2 -> WoW -> WAR - > AOC -> Rift -> SWTOR
Both tracks are extremely different games. One focuses on player driven content that needs very little dev creation the other is 100% developer induced fun.
One could stop getting content and play on for years just fine... the other would die rather quickly
It depends on company, some people feel that some companies have given them so much entertainment throughout decades (square-enix, nintendo, konami, capcom, etc) that they are willing to give them charity to a certain extent.
Honestly Bioware should have just released SWToR with same price tag except no subscription, then sell people DLCs. Would have a far better retention rate. When people are paying by the month they play as if they are working on the hour.
MMOs with subscription fees always have people asking "where is my money going to."
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
Let it die so we see no more WoW clones.
A genre doesn't die on the back of a bad game, it dies because of lack of interest. If they keep on making WoW clones noone is going to be fucking interested anymore!
Hope you are joking.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)