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So it's the second payment month for SWTOR and the population continues to decline.
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That's because MMOs (that retain players) make ongoing profits, not just box sales. Maybe if MMOs had the pitiful retention of shooters, they'd sell a lot more boxes, as more players jump to whatever the latest one happens to be. With MMOs being so poorly designed for retention lately, I guess that's exactly where things are going.
Sure, some of us bought Rift and TOR, and will buy Tera, TSW and GW2 - but more casual players, where a huge amount of revenue comes from, will just buy one or two, and if it doesn't hold them, probably give up on the genre for a while, rather than buying one MMO after another, the way they do with other genres. Longterm playability is a vital part of what makes the whole genre worthwhile for a lot of people.
That retention is why less sales can still be a success, but it's also why an MMO is a failure if it doesn't have it.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Problem is all I see for the end game in that patch is Another Raid and another Warzone.... that's boring.
All I did for fun in SWTOR was hang around the Balloon ride datacron because it's the only truw world PVP in the game with an objective.
Its that kind of anti-insert big game corporation here- mentality that amuses the hell out of me with these things. Blaming EA/Activision/NCSoft/Sony for failures to produce high quality products....
Game development is a business, and much like the real world, (considering they are made there, after all) there are deadlines. If the deadlines are not met costs could increase and share holders can lose faith in a company. It is probably a pretty fine balancing act to try to keep the big guys happy and the guys who have an investment in your product, but ultimately it is the game developer who is at fault. The game company pitches the product to a publisher and tells them "this is how long we need to complete it" in most cases, and the publisher determines if it will work for them. If they don't give enough time for an estimate the final product loses something because of it. I mean, this might not be EXACTLY how it works in the game world, but i will go out on a limb and say it is something like that.
If you don't want to invest money into a company like EA then don't. I bet half of the people saying that are the same people who buy games like Mass Effect 3,Battlefield, and Kingdoms of Amalur. It's like the people who hate Activision because of WoW. Those guys are probably already preordering Diablo 3 and the next Modern Warfare title.
i hate WoW because of how much time i wasted on it. i'd love to watch it burn, no ill will against Activision though.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
I don't really care if people think I'm a child. I don't care if I'm only .0001% of people calling EA or any other company out on their bullshit.
As long as I do it, I can live with myself. I can't however, live as someone who pretends everything is fine, who will shut his mouth because other people think he's a child, because as long as I can maybe change someones mind, or at least provoke thought, I'm happy with myself.
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB
Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP
Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
Oh trust me, I spread PLENTY of blame to Bioware.
I think it's disgusting when I see Bioware claiming they made Baulders Gate, when in reality they just rode on the backs of Black Isle before EA (go fuckin figure) shut them down.
Also
>buying games
OOOHOHOH, you crack me up
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB
Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP
Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
ive given it thought, hense why i have multiple comebacks for it. also why i dont have a hatred for EA. i stand firm in my belief that they are one of the best things for the MMORPG industry right now. its needs an enabler, EA is the only enabler.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
Nope it's more likely that they paid for the annual pass for WoW and waited in vain for Blizz to launch D3 only to find they pulled it at the last minute to make it a console game instead of releasing it to the public when originally promised when the annual pass was in motion. Got any colorful corporate cliches to use to explain that one? Because I'll tell you what it means, it means bad business and mismanagement when it really boils down to the bottom of the pot and yes it does hurt a company, maybe not immediately but it will sometime down the road, especially when it comes to the gaming industry because players take pride in the company as much as the product, why do you think there are so many "biggest sales ever", "best product ever" news posts about SWTOR right after the first month when everyone started discovering how bad a product it was. It's life or death with PR and it doesn't matter what the shareholders want because in the end it's the payments from the players that is the profit like in any business taking profit from the public, PR matters. Mess with your customers you mess with your bottom line.
First off, lets go about saying that this trend will happen in ANY MMo. If WoW came out today, it would find itself in two months having a lesser population then at release.
That being said, a game shouldn't be making you feel 'meh' about it only due to population. You should still want to play despite numbers and it shouldn't be a factor. Putting it as a big factor seems more like an excuse.
Well I did get a survey from SWTOR/Bioware just recently asking if I planned to purchased the game and undecided as of yet if I will in the future or not.
First, The game still costs $50 from the swtor site, yet on amazon it costs $26, so no way am I buying from them at that price unless its a collectors edition.
Second, The Streaming Video from the person streaming live on MMORPG didn't look impresive at all in any way, The loading time it took in PVP and the fact it just looked boring period.
Third, The PVP last time I played beta was highly unbalanced.
Fourth Lack OF Customization
Fifth, No Wardrobe/Edits to character after it is created at least that I know of.
Sixth,When you choose a mission such as a dialogue in a story it gives Light Side/Dark Side points however you are never fully aware of what your character is going to say, not sure if this was fixed since beta.
Seven, Over All, based on Beta experience, what I hear about SWTOR, and have seen from the Streaming, it is honestly not enough to buy SWTOR, I would rather be playing TERA, or Continent OF The Ninth, which currently I have just recently played both, and they look a lot better than SWTOR in my opinion while quests do get boring of course at least it doesn't lack customization like SWTOR, and it is action game play not click a target select a skill wow style.
Eight, What about Epice Space Combat I went from level 1-20 I think it was in beta maybe it was 30 I dont really remember, but I never had a single instance of space combat which was quite boring.
So anyways I did tell them exactly what would make me buy their game if the changes come in time before another MMO is released I might think about buying a copy of swtor off Amazon for $26 and trying it but until then I am giving swtor a big thumbs down as it was released in 2011, and it should have been polished/optimized a lot more on release for a 2011 MMORPG title, there is no reason it couldn't offer the things I have described above.
I am not a StarWars Hater either, I like StarWars, but I do not like the direction this game took. It could have been an epic game, but I feel the developers did a very bad job on it, and the only good thing I found about SWTOR really was the story that is about it, in other words a lot of the times it didn't actually feel like I was in the game at all times.
I would like to subscribe to SWTOR, or give it a try however I want to see improvements and changes like I have said come first, if not I will leave it to those who actually like and want to play their game, but I will not recommend this game to anyone with the state that this game is in until I see major improvements, things that should have been done before launch, in fact I told them to do so but nope they never listen.
I have only one thing to say to that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0vrJ-y2zM&feature=g-u-u&context=G2526067FUAAAAAAAAAA
oh that whole increase in price thing, Bah. this is mild compared to what microsoft wanted to do.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
Well, Microsoft can blow me to.
Once I get linux figured out, I'm dropping my old ass vista OS
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB
Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP
Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
Oh get Kubuntu, it runs like windows. also you may want to pick up a app called wine, it allows you to run games though a digital windows partion.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
Noted, I was wondering which version I should get
MMOs played: WoW, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars, Planetside, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, RIFT, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, EvE online, APB
Best MMO Companies: Trion Worlds, ArenaNet, CCP
Worst MMO Companies: Electronic Arts
Only? No...I agree there. But I think it is a factor if you like to group with others on a long term basis. Because frankly the level of population affects this as well as faction imbalances, community, etc. So I disagree that it is an excuse. It mainly is something that tends to make other potential shortcomings way more noticeable.
...and frankly could have been avoided in this game if they didn't go so over the top on servers.
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.
its been awhile, i'd probubly just go for the latest. im running windows 7 now and im pleasently suprised. so i got rid of my old linux partition.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
The reason they went over the top on servers was because the beginning Pop was soo great they need more, now that the BOOM is dying down they need to remove useless ones.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
That would be true if A: it wasn't an MMO we were talking about, the massive multiplayer aspect negates that statement about numbers, especially in a gear treadmill, team only end game environment. and B: it was a game that was designed on MODERN concepts but it wasn't it was done exactly like WoW to get the WoW crowd (accept companions and VO's of course) and WoW was designed off older concepts that haven't changed in 7 years so essentially it's based off overall designs from ten years ago. The same thing would happen to WoW if it was released today yes but not because of the reason you are suggesting, it's because of the age of the overall model. Rush leveling to end game, end game prelim gearing up, "heroic" dungeons or pvp runs to gain gear, the endless new gear from new dungeons, the waiting around in town waiting for a group to form for these runs to keep the never ending gear stream monster happy.
Sorry but it's true.
? This doesn't make any sense at all. Bioware made Baldur's Gate and also Baldur's Gate 2 which was even better than the first one. Black Isle was merely the publisher.I'm not saying that more servers weren't needed. Simply way too many.
...and all of us know regardless how well put together a game is or we feel it is anyhow there will always be a drop in population for several reasons. Some may not even be any fault of the game at all. It does not appear to me any of this was taken into account and the game as a whole for some players is suffering because of it. Which is causing them to either reroll or simply quit. They aren't the first ones to do this so I'm not singling them out.
Until these companies get out of the mind set that they're going to have the numbers like WoW and their initial sales are going to be the long term prognosis they are going to continue making this mistake and frankly I think it is a much bigger issue that cause some to quit than many seem to realize.
There is always a boom when a AAA title comes out and yes...queues suck. Certainly need to be measures to try and mainstream this but most of these companies go way overboard and frankly people having to deal with a queue for a week or two is a much better place to be then people screaming for servers merges or simply quitting due to low pops from a month out of the launch until the company decides to give in and take the PR hit.
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.
completely agree, you should really be pointing out Jason2444) how like Blizzard much of the devs in Bioware left in 2007 when it was taken over by EA and that the lead writer, three devs and the director of finances all left BW right after the launch of SWTOR. sounds fishy to me.
I dropped out middle of this month (february). The game bored me so very much. So theme parked it was almost on autopilot. So when I discovered myself tryin on several games gone F2P just cuz I counldnt be borthered to log on to swtor I cancelled the account. And now I am back to EQ2. At least I can enjoy the crafting and have fun until the next new game comes around to dissapoint me again.
that is true, but dont make the mistake in thinking that these companies talk to eachother. this is one of the reasons im interested in TSW, Funcom already fell on it face once. so this time around they know what a modern MMO launch feels like. TSW already is feeling like its gonna be a sleeper, with barely anyone knowing about it and minimal hype happening. alot of people are critisizing it for being Funcom, if anything they learned their lesson the last time they launched in the modern market. this was Biowares first attempt at a MMO, as much as you can speculate from outside. once your in it, its a completely different ballgame.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
Well, we'll see. TSW is a game Im following as well. I also believe it could be a sleeper assuming Funcom doesn't pull a repeat as they did with AoC.
Far as whether they learned their lesson? I hope they did, but I would think there are more than a few that were around for both the AO and the AOC launches that would question as to whether the third time will really be the charm.
Personally, I hope it is because I like what I'm seeing in that game.
...and frankly these companies don't need to talk to each other. If you follow mmos at all as I would hope at least some involved in the game do it isn't hard to pinpoint the same mistakes many of these companies keep repeating over and over again.
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.