Just an observation, but a free weekend, on top of the recently offered 3 buddy keys to existing players, smells an awful lot like desperation for a game that supposedly has 1.7 mil subs.
If all were well, I don't think this stuff would be showing up for a while yet. Or even going as well as the EA execs have announced lately.
But then, the claims of 90% or so retention were hard to believe to begin with.
That's because the game doesn't have 1.7 million paying subs. If you believe that... I've got a bridge...
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
And when there are not enough people to party with (which i doubt will be the case in a SW game for a very very long time) then I move to the next game, that is how I have rolled the past ten years and will continue to do so.
Would it be possible they will give announcement on having over 2 million subscribers after the free weekend?
They would be able to add in real subscribers, freemonthers, 7-day trials and free weekend trials and make it look like they have been able to suck more paying customers in. And followed by another "vast number of them" announcement to appeal investors.
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release. And the 90 day subs are about to run out just before Q1 2012 ends as well.
It is very difficult to really know what is going on "behind the curtain", but there are too many coincidences and anecdotal observations for everything to be going as well as the EA/BW spin would have people believe.
But then, once a game gets a stink on it, a loss of subs becomes a self fulfilling prophecy: People finish the content, get bored and leave, people talk about the people leaving TOR, get bored as well, and then leave themselves because the people they know are leaving.
That being the case, I'd spew all kinds of positive, "sunshiny" PR too, and encourage the gaming sites to do so as well (lot of TOR articles here, lately).
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release.
Take off the tin foil hat. EVERY company does this. Let's play that game again. SWTOR launches and has 5 million subs in 2 months, but 1 million more people quit after the first month. So in your opinion, since they have 5 million, they shouldn't do anything to try to get those 1 million people to resub? The game is successful "enough", right? Can you give me your opinion on at what point the game is successful enough they no longer need to try to get back people who have quit?
Facebook must be almost in the tank, I get emails from them every week saying "You can't logged in in a while, come back!". Talk about desperation.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release. And the 90 day subs are about to run out just before Q1 2012 ends as well.
Well I tend to agree with the 'corporate BS is shining through' trains of thought but on the subject of sending 'What can we do to get you back' emails, thats just good customer service and smart business. Some folks like to be heard. If the email bots send one of these out to everyone who has cancelled (at very low overhead), even a small percent of ppl coming back is a win and very smart business.
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release.
Take off the tin foil hat. EVERY company does this. Let's play that game again. SWTOR launches and has 5 million subs in 2 months, but 1 million more people quit after the first month. So in your opinion, since they have 5 million, they shouldn't do anything to try to get those 1 million people to resub? The game is successful "enough", right? Can you give me your opinion on at what point the game is successful enough they no longer need to try to get back people who have quit?
Facebook must be almost in the tank, I get emails from them every week saying "You can't logged in in a while, come back!". Talk about desperation.
Name any other MMO that did this within 3 months of launch.. wait, you can't.
All of this stuff, the multiple trials, the "please come back" emails, the full court press on the PR front, the many sponsored articles at MMO sites, is all to put the best possible spin on the Q1 numbers for investors. All while the populations on a good number of servers is falling. That's it.
As to when they are successful enough, how about when the investment in the game is paid off and and the investors are no longer worried about their return? For a start.
As to "let's play this again", TOR launched with about 1.7 mil subs, and yet 3 months later the execs claim that is almost the same number they have (which is BS for a linear themepark). So now, the EA/BW execs are using every trick they can (which they are) to get anyone to log into TOR during the month of March, so the investors don't scream "liar, liar, pants on fire" to the SEC or the press and make it impossible for a company to raise $200 mil to make an MMO ever again.
(As an aside, for all the folks that think MMOs these days are NOT run by the marketing/PR depts of the various studios, this whole deal with TOR should go a long way to dispelling that myth)
And make no mistake, that is what is at stake here.... along with a bunch of reputations and jobs.
That's Corporate America.
(Stick that in your tin-foil hat)
Speak the name of the TOR fanbot and they appear...
Just an observation, but a free weekend, on top of the recently offered 3 buddy keys to existing players, smells an awful lot like desperation for a game that supposedly has 1.7 mil subs.
If all were well, I don't think this stuff would be showing up for a while yet. Or even going as well as the EA execs have announced lately.
But then, the claims of 90% or so retention were hard to believe to begin with.
It's kind of sad how this site has been pocketed by EA. It feels like EA and Activison are becoming the microsoft(s) of the MMO industry. May GW2, or even some Korean RPG (e.g. Tera) let them feel the cold, hard boot of competence.
Reviewers getting fired for having honest opinions? People being banned from the forums for voicing negativity about a particular game? Threads locked when nobody is doing ANYTHING, but criticizing a game and quite fairly, I might add.
This site has really gone to the birds.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Well at least it gives people who are still on the fence a chance to play the game for free for several days. I enjoyed my time during SWTOR especially the storyline. It was a short 2 months but it was a fun ride while it lasted!.
I for one will not be signing up. I wanted to try the "free weekend" and all I get is a message you have no active subscriptions on this account. I wasted my time to download this game. So much for a free weekend.
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release.
Take off the tin foil hat. EVERY company does this. Let's play that game again. SWTOR launches and has 5 million subs in 2 months, but 1 million more people quit after the first month. So in your opinion, since they have 5 million, they shouldn't do anything to try to get those 1 million people to resub? The game is successful "enough", right? Can you give me your opinion on at what point the game is successful enough they no longer need to try to get back people who have quit?
Facebook must be almost in the tank, I get emails from them every week saying "You can't logged in in a while, come back!". Talk about desperation.
Name any other MMO that did this within 3 months of launch.. wait, you can't.
Aion - Launched in NA is Sept 2009, had a free trial in Dec.
I for one will not be signing up. I wanted to try the "free weekend" and all I get is a message you have no active subscriptions on this account. I wasted my time to download this game. So much for a free weekend.
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release.
Take off the tin foil hat. EVERY company does this. Let's play that game again. SWTOR launches and has 5 million subs in 2 months, but 1 million more people quit after the first month. So in your opinion, since they have 5 million, they shouldn't do anything to try to get those 1 million people to resub? The game is successful "enough", right? Can you give me your opinion on at what point the game is successful enough they no longer need to try to get back people who have quit?
Facebook must be almost in the tank, I get emails from them every week saying "You can't logged in in a while, come back!". Talk about desperation.
Name any other MMO that did this within 3 months of launch.. wait, you can't.
Aion - Launched in NA is Sept 2009, had a free trial in Dec.
isnt that the point? those games star wars included lost so many subs in a short time that they had to start handing out free trials.
server merges are next and after that people will be talking about free to play. but personally i dont think star wars will go free to play. i mean look at War that game is so dead its not even funny and it still isnt free to play. and thats even a better game than star wars haha
I think its great giving people a chance to try the game before they waste their money on somthing they dont like.
EA might want to re-think this one.
Actually , if you think about it , it's genius.
This game ,more than any other except possibly AoC (Tortage was great) , shines in the initial levels. The trainwreck occurs on your 2nd character or 3rd , and at later levels on your first.
So the weekend trial , 7 day trial from friends etc , lets folks get a whiff of an interesting environment and some nice stories etc with the characters.
They won't get to experience the fully on rails feel of leveling through a specific course , every time. The non existant end game PVP planet that Bioware has abaondoned . The early levels will feel a bit more crowded also, they won't realize the compartmentalized , instanced , and stale game SWTOR becomes at the later levels.
A short trial gets them box sales and maybe a month sub , it takes more than a weekend to realize the emperor has no clothes.
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release.
Take off the tin foil hat. EVERY company does this. Let's play that game again. SWTOR launches and has 5 million subs in 2 months, but 1 million more people quit after the first month. So in your opinion, since they have 5 million, they shouldn't do anything to try to get those 1 million people to resub? The game is successful "enough", right? Can you give me your opinion on at what point the game is successful enough they no longer need to try to get back people who have quit?
Facebook must be almost in the tank, I get emails from them every week saying "You can't logged in in a while, come back!". Talk about desperation.
Name any other MMO that did this within 3 months of launch.. wait, you can't.
Aion - Launched in NA is Sept 2009, had a free trial in Dec.
isnt that the point? those games star wars included lost so many subs in a short time that they had to start handing out free trials.
server merges are next and after that people will be talking about free to play. but personally i dont think star wars will go free to play. i mean look at War that game is so dead its not even funny and it still isnt free to play. and thats even a better game than star wars haha
That's not what he said at all, he said no MMO has done that. Nevertheless, which MMOs do you consider successful?
They need it to fill up the server again. Check your Auction House and Iam sure the offers for the lower and med levels on several servers did decline or is almost not existent.
The game is getting hit hard like a lot did expect and the player rating on mmorpg is already down to 7.xx
They have way too many servers for the allegedly 1.7 Million active subscriber....
Just an observation, but a free weekend, on top of the recently offered 3 buddy keys to existing players, smells an awful lot like desperation for a game that supposedly has 1.7 mil subs.
If all were well, I don't think this stuff would be showing up for a while yet. Or even going as well as the EA execs have announced lately.
But then, the claims of 90% or so retention were hard to believe to begin with.
^^^^^^^^^^^ROFL at tinfoil-hat theories.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
He's right. There are way too many examples of failing MMOs offering free trials early.
It's common knowledge... This game is a flop, people can lie all they want about it.
Just an observation, but a free weekend, on top of the recently offered 3 buddy keys to existing players, smells an awful lot like desperation for a game that supposedly has 1.7 mil subs.
If all were well, I don't think this stuff would be showing up for a while yet. Or even going as well as the EA execs have announced lately.
But then, the claims of 90% or so retention were hard to believe to begin with.
It's called marketing. Every MMO has a huge turnover rate in players, therefore no matter how popular your game (see WoW) you still need to keep bringing new people in or your subs will eventually die. I mean, WoW has free trials too. Are they desperate?
The have a big patch coming next month which will likely include a big advertising blitz so they want to give people a taste of the game and then entice them with a look into the kind of content they should expect if they actually sub. It would make no sense to do the friend trial after 1.2 launches because some people will try to get to that content before their 2 weeks expires. The free weekend is slightly differenty in this regard because it's capped at level 15 but the rest of what I said holds true about it, give them a taste, hit them with ads showing the amount if free content you'll continue to get if you sub.
Wow did not have free trials until like year 3... lol.
I wouldn't read too far into this free weekend thing. SWTOR did the same thing with thier beta test, they know that people on adverage will get hooked after a couple of days and it takes a few more days until those people start getting bored. Other games may waited longer to run such marketing campaigns but SWTOR learned from those games.
What SWTOR did not learn is how to make a good game, at least in my opinion, where I would pay a dime for. Game design choices makes no sense...
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release.
Take off the tin foil hat. EVERY company does this. Let's play that game again. SWTOR launches and has 5 million subs in 2 months, but 1 million more people quit after the first month. So in your opinion, since they have 5 million, they shouldn't do anything to try to get those 1 million people to resub? The game is successful "enough", right? Can you give me your opinion on at what point the game is successful enough they no longer need to try to get back people who have quit?
Facebook must be almost in the tank, I get emails from them every week saying "You can't logged in in a while, come back!". Talk about desperation.
Name any other MMO that did this within 3 months of launch.. wait, you can't.
Aion - Launched in NA is Sept 2009, had a free trial in Dec.
isnt that the point? those games star wars included lost so many subs in a short time that they had to start handing out free trials.
server merges are next and after that people will be talking about free to play. but personally i dont think star wars will go free to play. i mean look at War that game is so dead its not even funny and it still isnt free to play. and thats even a better game than star wars haha
That's not what he said at all, he said no MMO has done that. Nevertheless, which MMOs do you consider successful?
Yeah, you got me: I forgot to include the word SUCCESSFUL in there.
Looks like other people got the point, even if you didn't.
And I hope TOR does just as well as those examples you pointed out, right? Don't you? Isn't that your point?
As others have said, WoW did not start a trial for a couple years after, it was a long time for original SWG (at least a year) and similar time for EvE.
If I were a fan of TOR, I'd not be bringing up Rift if I were you... huge hype, big crash in subs.
Comments
Who cares how many subs the game has, so long as the game is not dead and I have people to party with then I am happy as are a ton of others.
And when there are not enough people to party with (which i doubt will be the case in a SW game for a very very long time) then I move to the next game, that is how I have rolled the past ten years and will continue to do so.
Many of the servers are so empty their isnt anyone to party with
They refuse to merge servers or even discuss the problem.
Exactly, and let me add another possibility, they have good numbers but they are declining fast.
Or any meaningful combination between the three.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Would it be possible they will give announcement on having over 2 million subscribers after the free weekend?
They would be able to add in real subscribers, freemonthers, 7-day trials and free weekend trials and make it look like they have been able to suck more paying customers in. And followed by another "vast number of them" announcement to appeal investors.
Yeah, I do not think things are going nearly so well as the fanbots think.
EA/BW has also been sending out "What can we do to get you back?" emails, and that is not a good thing for a game not 3 months past release. And the 90 day subs are about to run out just before Q1 2012 ends as well.
It is very difficult to really know what is going on "behind the curtain", but there are too many coincidences and anecdotal observations for everything to be going as well as the EA/BW spin would have people believe.
But then, once a game gets a stink on it, a loss of subs becomes a self fulfilling prophecy: People finish the content, get bored and leave, people talk about the people leaving TOR, get bored as well, and then leave themselves because the people they know are leaving.
That being the case, I'd spew all kinds of positive, "sunshiny" PR too, and encourage the gaming sites to do so as well (lot of TOR articles here, lately).
Take off the tin foil hat. EVERY company does this. Let's play that game again. SWTOR launches and has 5 million subs in 2 months, but 1 million more people quit after the first month. So in your opinion, since they have 5 million, they shouldn't do anything to try to get those 1 million people to resub? The game is successful "enough", right? Can you give me your opinion on at what point the game is successful enough they no longer need to try to get back people who have quit?
Facebook must be almost in the tank, I get emails from them every week saying "You can't logged in in a while, come back!". Talk about desperation.
[Mod Edit]
Well I tend to agree with the 'corporate BS is shining through' trains of thought but on the subject of sending 'What can we do to get you back' emails, thats just good customer service and smart business. Some folks like to be heard. If the email bots send one of these out to everyone who has cancelled (at very low overhead), even a small percent of ppl coming back is a win and very smart business.
Name any other MMO that did this within 3 months of launch.. wait, you can't.
All of this stuff, the multiple trials, the "please come back" emails, the full court press on the PR front, the many sponsored articles at MMO sites, is all to put the best possible spin on the Q1 numbers for investors. All while the populations on a good number of servers is falling. That's it.
As to when they are successful enough, how about when the investment in the game is paid off and and the investors are no longer worried about their return? For a start.
As to "let's play this again", TOR launched with about 1.7 mil subs, and yet 3 months later the execs claim that is almost the same number they have (which is BS for a linear themepark). So now, the EA/BW execs are using every trick they can (which they are) to get anyone to log into TOR during the month of March, so the investors don't scream "liar, liar, pants on fire" to the SEC or the press and make it impossible for a company to raise $200 mil to make an MMO ever again.
(As an aside, for all the folks that think MMOs these days are NOT run by the marketing/PR depts of the various studios, this whole deal with TOR should go a long way to dispelling that myth)
And make no mistake, that is what is at stake here.... along with a bunch of reputations and jobs.
That's Corporate America.
(Stick that in your tin-foil hat)
Speak the name of the TOR fanbot and they appear...
No, they just want even more people playing it.
It's kind of sad how this site has been pocketed by EA. It feels like EA and Activison are becoming the microsoft(s) of the MMO industry. May GW2, or even some Korean RPG (e.g. Tera) let them feel the cold, hard boot of competence.
Reviewers getting fired for having honest opinions? People being banned from the forums for voicing negativity about a particular game? Threads locked when nobody is doing ANYTHING, but criticizing a game and quite fairly, I might add.
This site has really gone to the birds.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Well at least it gives people who are still on the fence a chance to play the game for free for several days. I enjoyed my time during SWTOR especially the storyline. It was a short 2 months but it was a fun ride while it lasted!.
I for one will not be signing up. I wanted to try the "free weekend" and all I get is a message you have no active subscriptions on this account. I wasted my time to download this game. So much for a free weekend.
I think its great giving people a chance to try the game before they waste their money on somthing they dont like.
EA might want to re-think this one.
Aion - Launched in NA is Sept 2009, had a free trial in Dec.
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/78642
Rift - Launched in Mar 2011, had a free trial week in May
http://www.riftgame.com/en/news/articles/05102011_free_trial.php
It's not the weekend yet?
isnt that the point? those games star wars included lost so many subs in a short time that they had to start handing out free trials.
server merges are next and after that people will be talking about free to play. but personally i dont think star wars will go free to play. i mean look at War that game is so dead its not even funny and it still isnt free to play. and thats even a better game than star wars haha
Actually , if you think about it , it's genius.
This game ,more than any other except possibly AoC (Tortage was great) , shines in the initial levels. The trainwreck occurs on your 2nd character or 3rd , and at later levels on your first.
So the weekend trial , 7 day trial from friends etc , lets folks get a whiff of an interesting environment and some nice stories etc with the characters.
They won't get to experience the fully on rails feel of leveling through a specific course , every time. The non existant end game PVP planet that Bioware has abaondoned . The early levels will feel a bit more crowded also, they won't realize the compartmentalized , instanced , and stale game SWTOR becomes at the later levels.
A short trial gets them box sales and maybe a month sub , it takes more than a weekend to realize the emperor has no clothes.
That's not what he said at all, he said no MMO has done that. Nevertheless, which MMOs do you consider successful?
They need it to fill up the server again. Check your Auction House and Iam sure the offers for the lower and med levels on several servers did decline or is almost not existent.
The game is getting hit hard like a lot did expect and the player rating on mmorpg is already down to 7.xx
They have way too many servers for the allegedly 1.7 Million active subscriber....
He's right. There are way too many examples of failing MMOs offering free trials early.
It's common knowledge... This game is a flop, people can lie all they want about it.
Wow did not have free trials until like year 3... lol.
Free trial has already begun? Talking about falling like a stone...
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
I wouldn't read too far into this free weekend thing. SWTOR did the same thing with thier beta test, they know that people on adverage will get hooked after a couple of days and it takes a few more days until those people start getting bored. Other games may waited longer to run such marketing campaigns but SWTOR learned from those games.
What SWTOR did not learn is how to make a good game, at least in my opinion, where I would pay a dime for. Game design choices makes no sense...
Yeah, you got me: I forgot to include the word SUCCESSFUL in there.
Looks like other people got the point, even if you didn't.
And I hope TOR does just as well as those examples you pointed out, right? Don't you? Isn't that your point?
As others have said, WoW did not start a trial for a couple years after, it was a long time for original SWG (at least a year) and similar time for EvE.
If I were a fan of TOR, I'd not be bringing up Rift if I were you... huge hype, big crash in subs.