Over a million why ? GW2 is gonna FLOP with its pay to win cash shop that the fanboys keep ignoring and want to pretend will only have cosmentic items. TSW ? I got 1 word for you FUNCOM Anyone remember the AOC beta ? I wont ever trust that company again.
SO once GW2 flops and TSW is released way to early (thats what funcom does people) a SWTOR expansion will be out and people will be interested again.
Oh and when did some of you become experts ? TOR didnt meet expectation ? whos ? Yours ? Name another New MMO that sold over 2 million copies in the first week ? You cant. I got a question do you [mod edit] believe wow had 10 mil players from day 1 ? WOW didnt blow up until way after release.
There is so many things wrong with this post I don't even know where to start....
William12 tends to posts that have so many things wrong with them that I am getting to the point that I just keep on scrolling down when he posts. Good luck with your start on where to start with correcting all the errors! heh. Btw if you do correct the errors, he most likely won't address the factual corrections you make, even if you link links to each point. Thought I'd warn ya.
I think it is funny that people say <500k subs when they will have that many, at least in the US and AMEA, as well as getting ready to launch in Asia and Asia Pac. I think it is too early to say for sure but I think it will be higher than peeps here suspect.
Nobody who understands the economics of MMOs cares about those. Those subs, for Blizzard, run $1 US a month. They don't even run at a proft. They're just kept on for marketing purposes... And considering how much free hype they've gotten over the years on the 12 million subscriber thing... It was worth every penny and then some.
I'm curious as to where you read that they don't run a profit in Asia, would love a link to that. Sounds like an interesting read.
Im curious too, 1 of my friend, join blizzard asia and was send to china for a few months, he told me every hour there is 80k players playing WoW.
I have no idea to be honest. When the game was still in beta I figured it would break all kinds of sales records... then have server mergers before the first year was up.
The problem with this forum is we concentrate far to much on if a game sucks or not.
As opposed to... the market we currently have is far more saturated than ever before.
MMO's as a whole have always had over developed lower level areas and under developed "end game". This was fine with a game like EverQuest ... simply because a large percentage of the population was not "end game" that fast.
In the over saturated market its much easier for a player with little time invested in a game to leave out of boredom.
If end game was engaging... then retention might be higher.
This to me is what TOR's largest problem is... and the largest problem of most new MMO's. Development has to almost start being backwards or they have to slow the pace of most players getting to end game. Honestly I think "end game" should be the development focus regardless... because that is where you are going to live if you stay in a game long term. Or at least a large percentage of players will live there.
In short... I expect the game to lose subscribers... likely large numbers of subscribers. I just don't want to get into a discussion of "The game sucks" or "you are a hater"... "you are a fanboi". There is a market reality that is not based on any of those things.
If end game was engaging... then retention might be higher.
This to me is what TOR's largest problem is... and the largest problem of most new MMO's. Development has to almost start being backwards or they have to slow the pace of most players getting to end game. Honestly I think "end game" should be the development focus regardless... because that is where you are going to live if you stay in a game long term. Or at least a large percentage of players will live there.
In short... I expect the game to lose subscribers... likely large numbers of subscribers. I just don't want to get into a discussion of "The game sucks" or "you are a hater"... "you are a fanboi". There is a market reality that is not based on any of those things.
I think this is the problem with all theme park mmo.
Not only you have to capture the players the moment they step foot into the world, and all the way till max level, you have to make them wana stay with the raid-or-die , or pvp-or-die, end game contants which is always repeative.
Very difficult to do if you ask me.
And tor having a much worst end-game contents, i believe, is sufffering from it now.
I still wonder why, if mythic is part of the pvp group which brings us daoc ( provided they've learn their lesson from War ), can bring out such lousy pvp...
I have no idea to be honest. When the game was still in beta I figured it would break all kinds of sales records... then have server mergers before the first year was up.
The problem with this forum is we concentrate far to much on if a game sucks or not.
As opposed to... the market we currently have is far more saturated than ever before.
MMO's as a whole have always had over developed lower level areas and under developed "end game". This was fine with a game like EverQuest ... simply because a large percentage of the population was not "end game" that fast.
In the over saturated market its much easier for a player with little time invested in a game to leave out of boredom.
If end game was engaging... then retention might be higher.
This to me is what TOR's largest problem is... and the largest problem of most new MMO's. Development has to almost start being backwards or they have to slow the pace of most players getting to end game. Honestly I think "end game" should be the development focus regardless... because that is where you are going to live if you stay in a game long term. Or at least a large percentage of players will live there.
In short... I expect the game to lose subscribers... likely large numbers of subscribers. I just don't want to get into a discussion of "The game sucks" or "you are a hater"... "you are a fanboi". There is a market reality that is not based on any of those things.
The problem is that the game worlds are nolonger about the journey and now about the destination. This is a bad game development concept for an mmo-rpg. It is a perfectly fine one for a FPS or MOBA style game, but does not work for an mmo-rpg. I've been saying this for some time and I know others have as well.
Please don't misunderstand me, I think that end game activities are needed and are fun as well, but to make the game all about the end game instead of the journey is like designing dinner around the desert without the main course etc. The whole picture or whole meal to continue the previous example needs to be taken into account for good mmo-rpg game design. Anything less and you end up with a very imcomplete game that will only make a smaller group of players happy at best or at worst makes no one happy since many other genre of games will do each aspect of this games mechanics better.
Oh and I don't think that I or many others focus on a game sucking so much as that we focus on why a game doesn't do X, Y or Z, or why they do them so poorly. Also I think many of us will talk about the things that we do like about a game, in the case of SWTOR sadly, there was so many things done wrong that a majority of most posters responses are going to be focused on these short comings. They just can't be ignored they are so glaringly obvious.
Oh and I don't think that I or many others focus on a game sucking so much as that we focus on why a game doesn't do X, Y or Z, or why they do them so poorly. Also I think many of us will talk about the things that we do like about a game, in the case of SWTOR sadly, there was so many things done wrong that a majority of most posters responses are going to be focused on these short comings. They just can't be ignored they are so glaringly obvious.
I like the graphic and the combat animations of sentinel. Good companion story, and like the fact that the class quest last all the way till max level.
Stupid blizzard go and kill their class quest... -___-
ToR won't have subs a year out. It'll be F2P long before that.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Oh and I don't think that I or many others focus on a game sucking so much as that we focus on why a game doesn't do X, Y or Z, or why they do them so poorly. Also I think many of us will talk about the things that we do like about a game, in the case of SWTOR sadly, there was so many things done wrong that a majority of most posters responses are going to be focused on these short comings. They just can't be ignored they are so glaringly obvious.
I like the graphic and the combat animations of sentinel. Good companion story, and like the fact that the class quest last all the way till max level.
Stupid blizzard go and kill their class quest... -___-
I also enjoyed my main characters class quest over all. A times it was a bit lame but over all it has been fun. The interactions with the troopers squad have just over all been interesting and fun. Really this has been the best part of the game over all. It just doesn't make it an mmo-rpg by its self.
Oh and I don't think that I or many others focus on a game sucking so much as that we focus on why a game doesn't do X, Y or Z, or why they do them so poorly. Also I think many of us will talk about the things that we do like about a game, in the case of SWTOR sadly, there was so many things done wrong that a majority of most posters responses are going to be focused on these short comings. They just can't be ignored they are so glaringly obvious.
I like the graphic and the combat animations of sentinel. Good companion story, and like the fact that the class quest last all the way till max level.
Stupid blizzard go and kill their class quest... -___-
I also enjoyed my main characters class quest over all. A times it was a bit lame but over all it has been fun. The interactions with the troopers squad have just over all been interesting and fun. Really this has been the best part of the game over all. It just doesn't make it an mmo-rpg by its self.
I enjoyed my main character quest as well.
Problem is, I couldn't bring myself to do the same 90% of stuff to get the 10% of new content a different class of that faction ( Imp ) would provide me. And when I switched to Rep, there was noone there. And I don't raid or PvP. So I left with 60+ days remaining on a sub I'll never bother using.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
My personal opinion is <500k just because I can't see it being suistainable in long-term simply for the fact that it just focuses too much on story while not giving attention to parts that give it the definition of MMOrpg. I am sure pvp will improve and more content will be added during the coming months but severe damage has already been done to the title in its initial stage. On top of it all, we still see generic gameplay mechanics and the game reportedly missing basic social functions.
Now if you take into account probably by far the biggest factor, where we have titles like GW2, Tera and The Secret World maybe even Archeage?) being out within the next year, with each offering something unique to the genre, even if SWTOR gets an overhaul it really needs to compete, it will just be too late by that time. I doubt even expansions will save the game.
I am just being a realist.
My counter argument to this is that none of those games offer what is in reality on of the biggest draws for SWTOR, it being SWTOR by Bioware.
Look how poor SWG was from a subjective POV, the only things to really do in it was Crafter or space combat.
Sure they might lose all the people looking for something new (assuming they havn't already left), but how many people want an MMO by Bioware, or a Star Wars MMO?
Yes that is true. However, even given THAT fact, we see ppl complaining saying "what do I do after reaching 50?" or "The world is generic and lifeless" or "so much cinematics i skip thru them. Spacebar is my favourite feature in game (sorry couldnt resist that last part :P)" or "its not really MMO. I feel like im playing single player with social hubs attached" or "PvP is lacking and exploitable" or "These issues havent been fixed since the time I reported them back during beta" ..and the list continues.
It is really testing out and shaking Bioware foundations in the mmorpg world. People are beginning to realise that it is just not enough to have Star Wars and Bioware in the same line when the game is having problems in dozens of areas.
IMHO, only the most hardcore Star Wars fans will stay in game.
Theres plenty to do at end game, Granted its more of the same but that doesn't take away from the fact thats its still there. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=225858, I'm on jedi convanat and spend 90% of my time talkin on /1 and Do not hear any major complaining and I find thta the complaining on the forum is inconsistant with the complaining in the actually game (If you where around doing WAR's launch you'd see what I mean).
I actually have to yell at people to hit spacebar during cinimatics.
I am honestly not trying to sound fanboish here but I just don't see these things outside of the TOR Gen forums or here.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VascyLfpNrI (Play it) Im sorry Im not seeing any of this, and I am by no means saying that this game is going to have millions of subs tomorrow. But to say that this game will have less then 400k subs is redonculus RIFT still has about 300k subs, SWG managed 300k subs pre-NGE (AKA When the game was slightly more playable.). With the SW IP and Bioware being a rather competant developer I see no reason how this game can't get at least 800k subs, I fail to how that is a failure.
We are talking about <500k but that is not the point here. I hear stories on this site of ppl leaving SWTOR for Rift...now why would they do that when SWTOR has Star Wars and Bioware and tons of story behind the game? IMO it is because Rift, while not being overly unique (though without a doubt, rift mechanic is a huge draw to the game), has a more sense of being an MMO and is still considered to be one of the more polished AAA mmo out there. The thing is, it just does not matter in the ***long term*** (1 year + ) whether the game has Star Wars and Bioware behind it.
Yes there are still thousands upon thousands of ppl enjoying SWTOR. That is pretty much a fact. The question is, will these people continue playing SWTOR after they played the game with 2,3,4 or 5 lvl 50 alts in the long run? Yes, for those who enjoy pvp, these people will continue playing. How about for those that never touch pvp? What does the game have to offer for the next year or two besides ofc the developers adding in pve content?
You may talk about the side quests and all that, but they too grow tired esp given the fact that nothing new hasnt been done that is radically different from other mmo games besides slapping on more unneccessary cinematics.
Please dont get me wrong as I am trying to look at this as realistically as I can without bashing on the game or anything. Last thing I want is a full on war with swearing and caps everywhere lol.
Though it is nice to discuss this in the most neutral and objective way as possible.
It is these challenges that Bioware is facing and needs to deal with to ensure a healthy amount of subs for this game.
Weird my clan of 30-somethings bolted because the PVP sucked.
Thirty years of gaming experience...not sure if I should be proud of that www.mmoexaminer.blogspot.com
Anyway following the title of the thread, i put an emphasis on Predictions.
You guy's can't predict with accuracy what will happen to the game in a years, especially knowing you are not representative of the entire player base of the game, wich makes your poll result biased.
End
you could predict it pretty much as well as weather man predicts the weather.. you can use patterns and past experiences to make an educated guess. In the end though obviously it's just a guess
Yes and this is why im not so mad about these anymore i guess, people have the right to have opinions wether i disagree with them or not. But thanks god it's not representative of the mass!
My guess is 600K. 1.2 should be able to stem the rapid bleeding. If they can crank out some solid space combat by the end of the summer that should help as well.
I was hoping lobotomist would give us a follow up prediction to the following prediction last november:
Here is just how i think things will roll out for SWTOR in its first year. Or at least how EA would maximize profits and keep SWTOR alive and thiriving.
Month 1-3 : 1 million subs.
Month 3-6 : 300 thousand subs. (GW2, D3 launches)
Month 6-9: Expansion launched , subs on slight rise
Month 10-12 : F2P announced , subs on all time low
My guess is 600K. 1.2 should be able to stem the rapid bleeding. If they can crank out some solid space combat by the end of the summer that should help as well.
I was hoping lobotomist would give us a follow up prediction to the following prediction last november:
Here is just how i think things will roll out for SWTOR in its first year. Or at least how EA would maximize profits and keep SWTOR alive and thiriving.
Month 1-3 : 1 million subs.
Month 3-6 : 300 thousand subs. (GW2, D3 launches)
Month 6-9: Expansion launched , subs on slight rise
Month 10-12 : F2P announced , subs on all time low
1 year : SWTOR goes F2P
i agree with first two add TSW, TERA to those other two.. I don't see an expansion coming out this year.. also don't see this one going F2P anytime soon either.. warhammer isn't f2p I don't see this one going that way either..
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I can't think of a good model for this game as F2P. It's just a single player game so F2P will be giving it away for free completely lol.
They can put cute shinies and PVP stuff on mirotransactions or whatever but what else?
Most everyone will just follow the story then go poof never to be seen again.
I can see them doing something like free to level 20 like other games have done. That makes much more sense to me than F2P but...yeah but what much sense has anyone seen from these guys yet?
My guess is once GW2 goes live, TOR will do a free weekend or even a week once a month....naaa they too stingy for a whole week.
By years end they will be doing the free to level 20 thing.
Sometime next year if they haven't come up with a good F2P model this game goes poof.
My guess is 600K. 1.2 should be able to stem the rapid bleeding. If they can crank out some solid space combat by the end of the summer that should help as well.
I was hoping lobotomist would give us a follow up prediction to the following prediction last november:
Here is just how i think things will roll out for SWTOR in its first year. Or at least how EA would maximize profits and keep SWTOR alive and thiriving.
Month 1-3 : 1 million subs.
Month 3-6 : 300 thousand subs. (GW2, D3 launches)
Month 6-9: Expansion launched , subs on slight rise
Month 10-12 : F2P announced , subs on all time low
1 year : SWTOR goes F2P
i agree with first two add TSW, TERA to those other two.. I don't see an expansion coming out this year.. also don't see this one going F2P anytime soon either.. warhammer isn't f2p I don't see this one going that way either..
Wow that prediction looks hauntingly accurate...
Accept for the F2P part... EA doesn't do "free"
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 yeah, you mean another quack that assumes the 1.7 million are actual paying subbed people even though this statement was made:
SWTOR has 1.7 million active subscribers. "The majority of these subscribers are paying customers already." Eric Brown
Which leaves it up in the air yet magically, somehow, those with the 80% retention rate knew exactly how many were and compared it to the overall sales to get their figure.
Not to mention your own site says it appears to be "going downward". I guess to you that means they dropped to 79% then...eh?
I don't know where you pulled that quote from, but following quote comes from the quarterly report :
"Let me offer some metrics on purchase and subscription that will help you understand this business. As John stated, we have sold through two million units of the game since December.
We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers. The rest have either not started playing yet or have opted out."
To sum it up, they sold 2 million boxes, they held on to 1,7m after the first resubscription date. However now, after the second resubscription date ( 3 months after release ), they dropped to an estimated 1;2m subs.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
1.2 is an estimation based on some usage graphs, Really no one knows until ea or bioware releases more figures, id actually expect there numbers to go up since they just released in asia/pacific regions.
Im not gonna get into this how many subs they will have at end of a yr but anyone saying free 2 play is just naive, and not paying attention to ea or there games, dark age of camelot and warhammer still are subs and they dotn have anywhere near tors subs
So no way they go free 2 play and i know alot of players in game who arent going anywhere, When im on fleet and i see 20 people running around and im in phase 120 at 2 am est time on an est server,
I don't know where you pulled that quote from, but following quote comes from the quarterly report :
"Let me offer some metrics on purchase and subscription that will help you understand this business. As John stated, we have sold through two million units of the game since December.
We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers. The rest have either not started playing yet or have opted out."
To sum it up, they sold 2 million boxes, they held on to 1,7m after the first resubscription date. However now, after the second resubscription date ( 3 months after release ), they dropped to an estimated 1;2m subs.
I got the quote from this very site in an article about the whole affair. Active does not mean subbed beyond the 30-day trial period. How many times does this have to be said? The quote was in response to that question as in how many are paying customers. The ones that opted out were people that hadn't activated their account at that time for whatever reason. Take your pick: haven't received the game yet, returned their game, simply haven't activated their game, etc. Those are BW's words not mine unless you're going to say that mmorpg.com themselves were lying.
Does this mean that the number could have been very high out of the 1.7 million? Yes. It also could have been just above 50% and still be considered the majority. So...again, it is all subject to interpretation but they did not have 1.7 million paying customers at that point by their own statement. Hence the reason the whole claim by some posters that the game had an 80% retention rate was pure bullshit. We don't know what it was because we don't know the exact number of who were paying customers.
Anyways, a much clearer picture will be made available this next quarter so again this is all moot anyways at this point.
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.
I don't know where you pulled that quote from, but following quote comes from the quarterly report :
"Let me offer some metrics on purchase and subscription that will help you understand this business. As John stated, we have sold through two million units of the game since December.
We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers. The rest have either not started playing yet or have opted out."
To sum it up, they sold 2 million boxes, they held on to 1,7m after the first resubscription date. However now, after the second resubscription date ( 3 months after release ), they dropped to an estimated 1;2m subs.
I got the quote from this very site in an article about the whole affair. Active does not mean subbed beyond the 30-day trial period. How many times does this have to be said? The quote was in response to that question as in how many are paying customers. The ones that opted out were people that hadn't activated their account at that time for whatever reason. Take your pick: haven't received the game yet, returned their game, simply haven't activated their game, etc. Those are BW's words not mine unless you're going to say that mmorpg.com themselves were lying.
Does this mean that the number could have been very high out of the 1.7 million? Yes. It also could have been just above 50% and still be considered the majority. So...again, it is all subject to interpretation but they did not have 1.7 million paying customers at that point by their own statement. Hence the reason the whole claim by some posters that the game had an 80% retention rate was pure bullshit. We don't know what it was because we don't know the exact number of who were paying customers.
Anyways, a much clearer picture will be made available this next quarter so again this is all moot anyways at this point.
My quote is from Februari 1, and they say "We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers". At that point in time, the first wave of resubscriptions had already occured, so it is pretty safe to assume that the majority of these 1,7 million were actually players that did resubscribe. Obviously part of that are also players that bought the game at a later time, and thus still in their first month. It is also clear that the bulk of boxes were sold in December, so if they still have 1,7m active subscribers, that means something.
If you check serverload and daily xfire players on January you will see that they were indeed damn high, close to WoW proportions. The drop off only started during February, and before the largest chunk of the players had a chance to unsubscribe. After the following unsubscription round around February 20, it became obvious many players already stopped playing and most of these probably unsubbed.
I think SWTOR has some good content, but it is just too easy, players either burn thru it, skip content or fight grey mobs and reach the endgame that is pretty light, add to that a thin social fabric, and it is clear that many players don't have reasons to resubscribe after 2 months of playing.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
"Star Wars, this is an area that I think has got a lot of people anxious. I've heard from investors today saying that we must have 800,000 subscribers. I heard 600,000 yesterday. So what I think a lot of people have misunderstood is we said we had 1.7 million subscribers on the last call, which was about a month ago. What that was about was the fact that only about – just about half that number had triggered through their 30-day point and become active subscribers, our definition of recurring subscribers. We had about half that total still in the 30-day trial period, but they're subscribers because that first month is including with a package good. What I said a month ago was, just over half. I can now confirm for you today that the vast majority of the 1.7 is now triggered through that point and they're recurring subscribers."
So what is the vast majority of 1,7m? I believe it to be higher than 70%, so maybe 80%, 90% tops.
It won't be something like 95% or otherwise EA had no reason to spin it, and could have given out a solid number.
And as always, people start to misquote and spin the information even more :
I admit I was on the lowside with my first estimate, there are probably many players not playing but not unsubscribing either.
Either way, the actual subscription number is on the decline, comming from 1,7m in the beginning of February to around 1,45m to the end of February. Meanwhile Xfire numbers and server load are still slowly declining.
I don't expect a big turnaround with the release of v1.2, but it may be enough to stabilize the subscription base for a while.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
I put 900k, but only because of all of the new releases this year. I think next year will be the big year for ToR content wise. I really have faith that Bioware is going to crank out some amazing content for years to come.
Do you have any logical reason for this opinion?
I'm under the impression the game is not a mmorpg but a single player RPG with online options. People get bored after a few weeks or months. I think EA knows this and just put a lot of money in marketing hoping to make profit by initial box sales NOT counting on any big long term subscription profit. I think the moment the box sales and subscriptions drop hard, they will cut funding for this game significantly and my bet is this will happen in a few months already.
1.2 is an estimation based on some usage graphs, Really no one knows until ea or bioware releases more figures, id actually expect there numbers to go up since they just released in asia/pacific regions.
They released an ENGLISH version in asia/pacific...
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
800,000 seems to be realistic figure. Too many people have been quiting, because their friends or guild mates are quiting and a lot of people are just using it as filler until one of the big 3 come out. Most noteably GW2.
What are you talking about GW2 is a filler till AA.
Well they could be waiting a while then. Game doesn't even have a publisher yet.
What are you talking about?
AA is a filler till Planet Side 2.
Planet side 2 is a filler until Command and conquer: generals 2.
and so on and so forth.
AA won't see massive success. Calling that right here, right now. It's a sandbox. They just aren't *that* successful. I'll happily accept your adoration and awe for my amazing skills of prediction when that turns out to be true when it releases, or you could just accept the alternative that anyone could predict it'll be a niche game. It's like how all the TERA fans are adamant that a F2P-esque Korean grinder, that wasn't even successful in Korea, will go toe to toe with GW2. It'll be a great game for those interested though from what i've seen.
Planetside 2 isn't really an MMORPG, so it's not directly in competition with them, but it will be well worth people's time. I'll certainly give it a go.
Wrong, it's a sandpark. From what i have seen, AA looks to bring back that true open world mmorpg feel that's been missing for a long time.
Comments
Asheron's call, UO, DAOC, Eve, Everquest, Wizard101... Off the top of my head. If I spend some time thinking about it I could come up with more.
And before you say that any of those are big IPs(specifically EQ) it wasn't when it came out.
William12 tends to posts that have so many things wrong with them that I am getting to the point that I just keep on scrolling down when he posts. Good luck with your start on where to start with correcting all the errors! heh. Btw if you do correct the errors, he most likely won't address the factual corrections you make, even if you link links to each point. Thought I'd warn ya.
Im curious too, 1 of my friend, join blizzard asia and was send to china for a few months, he told me every hour there is 80k players playing WoW.
That is 80,000 playing every hour.
Huge profit if you ask me...
RIP Orc Choppa
I have no idea to be honest. When the game was still in beta I figured it would break all kinds of sales records... then have server mergers before the first year was up.
The problem with this forum is we concentrate far to much on if a game sucks or not.
As opposed to... the market we currently have is far more saturated than ever before.
MMO's as a whole have always had over developed lower level areas and under developed "end game". This was fine with a game like EverQuest ... simply because a large percentage of the population was not "end game" that fast.
In the over saturated market its much easier for a player with little time invested in a game to leave out of boredom.
If end game was engaging... then retention might be higher.
This to me is what TOR's largest problem is... and the largest problem of most new MMO's. Development has to almost start being backwards or they have to slow the pace of most players getting to end game. Honestly I think "end game" should be the development focus regardless... because that is where you are going to live if you stay in a game long term. Or at least a large percentage of players will live there.
In short... I expect the game to lose subscribers... likely large numbers of subscribers. I just don't want to get into a discussion of "The game sucks" or "you are a hater"... "you are a fanboi". There is a market reality that is not based on any of those things.
I think this is the problem with all theme park mmo.
Not only you have to capture the players the moment they step foot into the world, and all the way till max level, you have to make them wana stay with the raid-or-die , or pvp-or-die, end game contants which is always repeative.
Very difficult to do if you ask me.
And tor having a much worst end-game contents, i believe, is sufffering from it now.
I still wonder why, if mythic is part of the pvp group which brings us daoc ( provided they've learn their lesson from War ), can bring out such lousy pvp...
RIP Orc Choppa
The problem is that the game worlds are nolonger about the journey and now about the destination. This is a bad game development concept for an mmo-rpg. It is a perfectly fine one for a FPS or MOBA style game, but does not work for an mmo-rpg. I've been saying this for some time and I know others have as well.
Please don't misunderstand me, I think that end game activities are needed and are fun as well, but to make the game all about the end game instead of the journey is like designing dinner around the desert without the main course etc. The whole picture or whole meal to continue the previous example needs to be taken into account for good mmo-rpg game design. Anything less and you end up with a very imcomplete game that will only make a smaller group of players happy at best or at worst makes no one happy since many other genre of games will do each aspect of this games mechanics better.
Oh and I don't think that I or many others focus on a game sucking so much as that we focus on why a game doesn't do X, Y or Z, or why they do them so poorly. Also I think many of us will talk about the things that we do like about a game, in the case of SWTOR sadly, there was so many things done wrong that a majority of most posters responses are going to be focused on these short comings. They just can't be ignored they are so glaringly obvious.
I like the graphic and the combat animations of sentinel. Good companion story, and like the fact that the class quest last all the way till max level.
Stupid blizzard go and kill their class quest... -___-
RIP Orc Choppa
ToR won't have subs a year out. It'll be F2P long before that.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I also enjoyed my main characters class quest over all. A times it was a bit lame but over all it has been fun. The interactions with the troopers squad have just over all been interesting and fun. Really this has been the best part of the game over all. It just doesn't make it an mmo-rpg by its self.
I enjoyed my main character quest as well.
Problem is, I couldn't bring myself to do the same 90% of stuff to get the 10% of new content a different class of that faction ( Imp ) would provide me. And when I switched to Rep, there was noone there. And I don't raid or PvP. So I left with 60+ days remaining on a sub I'll never bother using.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Weird my clan of 30-somethings bolted because the PVP sucked.
Thirty years of gaming experience...not sure if I should be proud of that
www.mmoexaminer.blogspot.com
Yes and this is why im not so mad about these anymore i guess, people have the right to have opinions wether i disagree with them or not. But thanks god it's not representative of the mass!
My guess is 600K. 1.2 should be able to stem the rapid bleeding. If they can crank out some solid space combat by the end of the summer that should help as well.
I was hoping lobotomist would give us a follow up prediction to the following prediction last november:
Here is just how i think things will roll out for SWTOR in its first year. Or at least how EA would maximize profits and keep SWTOR alive and thiriving.
Month 1-3 : 1 million subs.
Month 3-6 : 300 thousand subs. (GW2, D3 launches)
Month 6-9: Expansion launched , subs on slight rise
Month 10-12 : F2P announced , subs on all time low
1 year : SWTOR goes F2P
i agree with first two add TSW, TERA to those other two.. I don't see an expansion coming out this year.. also don't see this one going F2P anytime soon either.. warhammer isn't f2p I don't see this one going that way either..
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I can't think of a good model for this game as F2P. It's just a single player game so F2P will be giving it away for free completely lol.
They can put cute shinies and PVP stuff on mirotransactions or whatever but what else?
Most everyone will just follow the story then go poof never to be seen again.
I can see them doing something like free to level 20 like other games have done. That makes much more sense to me than F2P but...yeah but what much sense has anyone seen from these guys yet?
My guess is once GW2 goes live, TOR will do a free weekend or even a week once a month....naaa they too stingy for a whole week.
By years end they will be doing the free to level 20 thing.
Sometime next year if they haven't come up with a good F2P model this game goes poof.
Wow that prediction looks hauntingly accurate...
Accept for the F2P part... EA doesn't do "free"
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
I don't know where you pulled that quote from, but following quote comes from the quarterly report :
"Let me offer some metrics on purchase and subscription that will help you understand this business. As John stated, we have sold through two million units of the game since December.
We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers. The rest have either not started playing yet or have opted out."
To sum it up, they sold 2 million boxes, they held on to 1,7m after the first resubscription date. However now, after the second resubscription date ( 3 months after release ), they dropped to an estimated 1;2m subs.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
1.2 is an estimation based on some usage graphs, Really no one knows until ea or bioware releases more figures, id actually expect there numbers to go up since they just released in asia/pacific regions.
Im not gonna get into this how many subs they will have at end of a yr but anyone saying free 2 play is just naive, and not paying attention to ea or there games, dark age of camelot and warhammer still are subs and they dotn have anywhere near tors subs
So no way they go free 2 play and i know alot of players in game who arent going anywhere, When im on fleet and i see 20 people running around and im in phase 120 at 2 am est time on an est server,
im not worried about sub losses.
I got the quote from this very site in an article about the whole affair. Active does not mean subbed beyond the 30-day trial period. How many times does this have to be said? The quote was in response to that question as in how many are paying customers. The ones that opted out were people that hadn't activated their account at that time for whatever reason. Take your pick: haven't received the game yet, returned their game, simply haven't activated their game, etc. Those are BW's words not mine unless you're going to say that mmorpg.com themselves were lying.
Does this mean that the number could have been very high out of the 1.7 million? Yes. It also could have been just above 50% and still be considered the majority. So...again, it is all subject to interpretation but they did not have 1.7 million paying customers at that point by their own statement. Hence the reason the whole claim by some posters that the game had an 80% retention rate was pure bullshit. We don't know what it was because we don't know the exact number of who were paying customers.
Anyways, a much clearer picture will be made available this next quarter so again this is all moot anyways at this point.
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.
My quote is from Februari 1, and they say "We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers". At that point in time, the first wave of resubscriptions had already occured, so it is pretty safe to assume that the majority of these 1,7 million were actually players that did resubscribe. Obviously part of that are also players that bought the game at a later time, and thus still in their first month. It is also clear that the bulk of boxes were sold in December, so if they still have 1,7m active subscribers, that means something.
If you check serverload and daily xfire players on January you will see that they were indeed damn high, close to WoW proportions. The drop off only started during February, and before the largest chunk of the players had a chance to unsubscribe. After the following unsubscription round around February 20, it became obvious many players already stopped playing and most of these probably unsubbed.
I don't think our opinion differs that much.
I do not say that mmorpg.com is lying, but my quote comes straight from the Quarterly Report comments from EA
I think SWTOR has some good content, but it is just too easy, players either burn thru it, skip content or fight grey mobs and reach the endgame that is pretty light, add to that a thin social fabric, and it is clear that many players don't have reasons to resubscribe after 2 months of playing.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
I received some more info from EA regarding SWTOR.
http://investor.ea.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=110580
Quote
"Star Wars, this is an area that I think has got a lot of people anxious. I've heard from investors today saying that we must have 800,000 subscribers. I heard 600,000 yesterday. So what I think a lot of people have misunderstood is we said we had 1.7 million subscribers on the last call, which was about a month ago. What that was about was the fact that only about – just about half that number had triggered through their 30-day point and become active subscribers, our definition of recurring subscribers. We had about half that total still in the 30-day trial period, but they're subscribers because that first month is including with a package good. What I said a month ago was, just over half. I can now confirm for you today that the vast majority of the 1.7 is now triggered through that point and they're recurring subscribers."
So what is the vast majority of 1,7m? I believe it to be higher than 70%, so maybe 80%, 90% tops.
It won't be something like 95% or otherwise EA had no reason to spin it, and could have given out a solid number.
And as always, people start to misquote and spin the information even more :
http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/08/electronic-arts-reveals-new-mass-effect-3-and-star-wars-mmo-numbers/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-08-star-wars-the-old-republic-sitting-at-nearly-1-7-million-paid-subscribers
I admit I was on the lowside with my first estimate, there are probably many players not playing but not unsubscribing either.
Either way, the actual subscription number is on the decline, comming from 1,7m in the beginning of February to around 1,45m to the end of February. Meanwhile Xfire numbers and server load are still slowly declining.
I don't expect a big turnaround with the release of v1.2, but it may be enough to stabilize the subscription base for a while.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Unless you have some regression lines.. your MANOVA is seriously in need of statistical viagra...
Do you have any logical reason for this opinion?
I'm under the impression the game is not a mmorpg but a single player RPG with online options. People get bored after a few weeks or months. I think EA knows this and just put a lot of money in marketing hoping to make profit by initial box sales NOT counting on any big long term subscription profit. I think the moment the box sales and subscriptions drop hard, they will cut funding for this game significantly and my bet is this will happen in a few months already.
I say 250.000 subs a year out.
They released an ENGLISH version in asia/pacific...
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
Wrong, it's a sandpark. From what i have seen, AA looks to bring back that true open world mmorpg feel that's been missing for a long time.