EA/BW expected millions of subs and so did their investors. They came out and said it. WoW-like numbers are what they were looking for. And the EA execs came out and said what they needed for this game to be a "success" and profitable. Those have obviously not been reached, which is why EA was downplaying TOR on the conference call, and fired 100+ people off the TOR staff, just a couple weeks after saying they were keeping everyone.
More importantly, TOR has not met player expectations for the majority of players, i.e. those that already quit. Player expectations were certainly not helped by the gaming press, including this site, that hyped the hell out of it. About 2/3 or 3/4 of all the people that bought TOR have quit or not subbed (of the 2.4 mil boxed TOR allegedly sold) , during the first 6 months. Perhaps more. That does not scream success to me.
TOR is simply mediocre. EA can't fix it (or soon enough to make any difference), and that is the end of the story.
As to those other games, they will do how they do, but it will certainly be easier for them to reach the goals the companies set, because neither cost half of what TOR did.
And gameplay aside, I think GW2 will sell a lot of boxing because of their pricing model.
Exactly, i dont know if EA could have been more clear when they said what IS a success and what IS NOT a success, and what is minimal acceptable with kind of expenses they had.
Since they already started cutting expenses and publicaly said SWTOR is somewhere down their on their radar its pretty clear what SWTOR IS and what SWTOR IS NOT.
However it doesnt stop people to come with their versions. Hey, Vanguard is still out there, its amazing success, AMIRITE?
As to those other games, they will do how they do, but it will certainly be easier for them to reach the goals the companies set, because neither cost half of what TOR did.
I'm still trying to figure out why it cost so much in the first place...they used an inferior engine and already have experienced people. The only thing I can think of is bloated wages (i.e. overpaid voice actors, overbid advertising, etc).
Doesn't really make any sense..nor should they have used how much they spent on it as a positive..it's more embarassing than exciting.
I agree that the subs are probably down to about 300k or so now, but EA must be making money still or they would just shut it down.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
I agree that the subs are probably down to about 300k or so now, but EA must be making money still or they would just shut it down.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
I do not see them shutting it down yet, for at least a year, even if it is not making money.
They spend so much on it already, and no doubt have a set term licence with LA. They have said they have already got years of content already written, so will no doubt have a few tricks up their sleeves yet, to attract people, before pulling the plug.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
As to those other games, they will do how they do, but it will certainly be easier for them to reach the goals the companies set, because neither cost half of what TOR did.
I'm still trying to figure out why it cost so much in the first place...they used an inferior engine and already have experienced people. The only thing I can think of is bloated wages (i.e. overpaid voice actors, overbid advertising, etc).
Doesn't really make any sense..nor should they have used how much they spent on it as a positive..it's more embarassing than exciting.
It beats the hell outta me, they could have made 3-4 "standard cost" MMOs for the price of TOR and at this point, they'd have likely been better off doing that.
I too can't see where such a high cost came from... it was literally double what AoC cost and that was expensive to make.
As to those other games, they will do how they do, but it will certainly be easier for them to reach the goals the companies set, because neither cost half of what TOR did.
I'm still trying to figure out why it cost so much in the first place...they used an inferior engine and already have experienced people. The only thing I can think of is bloated wages (i.e. overpaid voice actors, overbid advertising, etc).
Doesn't really make any sense..nor should they have used how much they spent on it as a positive..it's more embarassing than exciting.
It beats the hell outta me, they could have made 3-4 "standard cost" MMOs for the price of TOR and at this point, they'd have likely been better off doing that.
I too can't see where such a high cost came from... it was literally double what AoC cost and that was expensive to make.
Perhaps it will come out eventually...
No official cost figures has been revealed, every estimate so far has been third party speculations or hearsay.
But what could've been the cost, hmm, my guess is ofc things like the class quest, next to that, it may not look like it, but the total sum of all the available landmass is pretty big, easily multiple times what AoC had, and I think also as large or larger than WoW vanilla's or LotrO's total landmass. Also, that is handcrafted and not procedurally generated.
It might not look like it cost much, producing landmass and content on it, but Brad McQuaid once told that they had to stop from developing the third continent in Vanguard completely, because designing the other 2 continents and content on it had cost already so much time and manpower resources that they were already far past their initial deadline.
So yeah, the bigger the total available world or landmass is with the content on it to go with it, the more resources and time it'll take up. Especially for handcrafted worlds and not procedurally generated ones.
Of course, it's all speculation and just guessing.
No official cost figures has been revealed, every estimate so far has been third party speculations or hearsay.
But what could've been the cost, hmm, my guess is ofc things like the class quest, next to that, it may not look like it, but the total sum of all the available landmass is pretty big, easily multiple times what AoC had, and I think also as large or larger than WoW vanilla's or LotrO's total landmass. Also, that is handcrafted and not procedurally generated.
It might not look like it cost much, producing landmass and content on it, but Brad McQuaid once told that they had to stop from developing the third continent in Vanguard completely, because designing the other 2 continents and content on it had cost already so much time and manpower resources that they were already far past their initial deadline.
So yeah, the bigger the total available world or landmass is with the content on it to go with it, the more resources and time it'll take up. Especially for handcrafted worlds and not procedurally generated ones.
Of course, it's all speculation and just guessing.
They had 12 full time writers and god knows how many programmers, modelers, sketch artists, etc which is ridiculous...The game really doesn't have that much content or landmass size in reality compared to other games on the market. The story isn't much more than a novel written by 1 person..maybe two or three novels worth of content..not 12. They've been working on it for what..four years? I believe that was the first time I heard about development. It was written in HeroEngine..which is so simple that even I can write up a MMO in a few weeks that runs just like SWTOR (no content though), so they didn't need someone to design an engine or learn it. It's fairly straight forward to use. I have used it..as I said..and I'm not a professional programmer.
Using Vanguard as an example is a bad idea..they had quite a few of the same problems as SWTOR..so it's not a surprise they agree on some things. Looking at cost estimates..even cutting that in half to be safe..is depressing when you actually play the game and feel how unpolished it is..how simple it is..and how much more work it needs.
About the only way to save SWTOR would be to drop HeroEngine and start over...good luck with that. The engine is dated, restrictive, unoptimized, and clunky. They won't get anything done with it.
For reference, I played 3 characters through their storylines before I gave up and canceled my account. I didn't find the content all that impressive. Repetitive character motions, lipsync issues, cliche story arcs, and nothing that impressive. It's still not as bad as The Secret World though. That game made me laugh and uninstall it after a day in beta. I at least got to release on SWTOR.
Some of you guys are on bath salts if you honestly believe this game is dying or going away with in the next year when games like WAR/Aion/Rift/AoC are still up and running and were hyped just as much as SWTOR by the lunatics on here... yet have less subs than SWTOR.. and I just can't stop loling at the OP suggesting there are only 200k subs left.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
They went from a pre launch crew of 800, and cut 200 jobs. That leaves 600.
I would like to see how many pre launch games have 600 employees, let alone launched games.
Put it in perspective.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
They had 12 full time writers and god knows how many programmers, modelers, sketch artists, etc which is ridiculous...The game really doesn't have that much content or landmass size in reality compared to other games on the market. The story isn't much more than a novel written by 1 person..maybe two or three novels worth of content..not 12. They've been working on it for what..four years? I believe that was the first time I heard about development. It was written in HeroEngine..which is so simple that even I can write up a MMO in a few weeks that runs just like SWTOR (no content though), so they didn't need someone to design an engine or learn it. It's fairly straight forward to use. I have used it..as I said..and I'm not a professional programmer.
Most of what you wrote is just nonsense, regarding the content, landmass, the amount of story written... why do I even bother? It's just your own wild guessing with no proof of any kind at all. I'd look up the dev quotes regarding story material and analysis posts of people who went so far to actually measure the planets, but it just isn't worth it to waste the time. So believe in your made up stories however much you like, they still are your own make belief tales
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
They went from a pre launch crew of 800, and cut 200 jobs. That leaves 600.
I would like to see how many pre launch games have 600 employees, let alone launched games.
Put it in perspective.
The specific numbers are not as important, and almost irrelvant, because of how they are or are not counted. Who is a TOR specific employee and who is an EA support person? Does it matter? Not really.
And all of that is much less important than the fact that only 2-3 weeks before the announcement of the mass TOR firings, one of the execs in charge of TOR said they would not be laying people off, so something must have changed. And not for the better.
But we knew that.
How's that for perspective?
(And for the record, I am pretty sure one of the EA execs came out at some point and said that the TOR project had 600 people (post is around here somewhere), not 800, but like I said, it does not matter much, they fired a lot of people because TOR was "under-preferforming". Badly.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
They went from a pre launch crew of 800, and cut 200 jobs. That leaves 600.
I would like to see how many pre launch games have 600 employees, let alone launched games.
Put it in perspective.
The specific numbers are not as important, and almost irrelvant, because of how they are or are not counted. Who is a TOR specific employee and who is an EA support person? Does it matter? Not really.
And all of that is much less important than the fact that only 2-3 weeks before the announcement of the mass TOR firings, one of the execs in charge of TOR said they would not be laying people off, so something must have changed. And not for the better.
But we knew that.
How's that for perspective?
(And for the record, I am pretty sure one of the EA execs came out at some point and said that the TOR project had 600 people (post is around here somewhere), not 800, but like I said, it does not matter much, they fired a lot of people because TOR was "under-preferforming". Badly.
Dude it still has a shit ton more folks working on it than practically any game around.
You are acting like this game has skeletal crews ala those MMO sandbox games that dont sell.
Fuck if SWG had as many devs working on it as TOR you would be creaming your damn jeans. So dont sit up here, and play hypocrit with us. You say 400 left after 200 dropped, and I have never seen anything to suggest they had 600.....800 on 4 continents is what we have heard.
Regardless of which, it is still a ton of folks on a launched game. Not the "life support" you wish to portray it as.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I agree that the subs are probably down to about 300k or so now, but EA must be making money still or they would just shut it down.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They would probably lose more money if they shut it down. Even if they had 100K subscribers it would be better to let the game continue with a skeleton crew and/or as a F2P game.
And after investing and spending that much money it would be crazy to give up now regardless how bad the game is doing. They will probably try to fix it some way first before even thinking about that.
I think the game deserves to flop. It failed to have many basic MMO elements players take for granted at launch, some of the worst open-world PvP I've ever seen in an MMO, and lots of money spent on voiceacting that most folks skip.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
They went from a pre launch crew of 800, and cut 200 jobs. That leaves 600.
I would like to see how many pre launch games have 600 employees, let alone launched games.
Put it in perspective.
The specific numbers are not as important, and almost irrelvant, because of how they are or are not counted. Who is a TOR specific employee and who is an EA support person? Does it matter? Not really.
And all of that is much less important than the fact that only 2-3 weeks before the announcement of the mass TOR firings, one of the execs in charge of TOR said they would not be laying people off, so something must have changed. And not for the better.
But we knew that.
How's that for perspective?
(And for the record, I am pretty sure one of the EA execs came out at some point and said that the TOR project had 600 people (post is around here somewhere), not 800, but like I said, it does not matter much, they fired a lot of people because TOR was "under-preferforming". Badly.
Fuck if SWG had as many devs working on it as TOR you would be creaming your damn jeans. So dont sit up here, and play hypocrit with us. You say 400 left after 200 dropped, and I have never seen anything to suggest they had 600.....800 on 4 continents is what we have heard.
Regardless of which, it is still a ton of folks on a launched game. Not the "life support" you wish to portray it as.
First, in case you missed it, I said in the post not even talking to you, that TOR is on the cost cutting path. Which they are. That they fired a bunch of people, which they did. A pattern which every MMO in trouble to date has followed.
This is after an EA exec said they would not be cutting TOR staff a couple weeks prior.
The only one saying the game is on life support, is you. I and many others simply think it is going that way... and so does EA when they are cutting their personnel expenses by 1/3. That would not be happening if things were going well for TOR, which they are clearly not.
And it seems you have some fixation with hating on SWG. It seems there is some near Pavlovian response that any criticism of TOR is in some way related to SWG in your mind, a game you clearly hated.
At what point does SWG even enter into it? It has nothing to do with anything. That game closed before TOR even launched.
I feel for people that actually like the game. I am not sure of the subs but its a game that will only decline from here, how fast? Who knows.
The bottom line is that most hard core Star Wars fans don't like the MMO. My cousin lives and breathes Star Wars and I am not far behind him and both of us quit after 3 weeks.
If they can't retain the fans that love the IP then its pretty hard to survive.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
They went from a pre launch crew of 800, and cut 200 jobs. That leaves 600.
I would like to see how many pre launch games have 600 employees, let alone launched games.
Put it in perspective.
The specific numbers are not as important, and almost irrelvant, because of how they are or are not counted. Who is a TOR specific employee and who is an EA support person? Does it matter? Not really.
And all of that is much less important than the fact that only 2-3 weeks before the announcement of the mass TOR firings, one of the execs in charge of TOR said they would not be laying people off, so something must have changed. And not for the better.
But we knew that.
How's that for perspective?
(And for the record, I am pretty sure one of the EA execs came out at some point and said that the TOR project had 600 people (post is around here somewhere), not 800, but like I said, it does not matter much, they fired a lot of people because TOR was "under-preferforming". Badly.
Fuck if SWG had as many devs working on it as TOR you would be creaming your damn jeans. So dont sit up here, and play hypocrit with us. You say 400 left after 200 dropped, and I have never seen anything to suggest they had 600.....800 on 4 continents is what we have heard.
Regardless of which, it is still a ton of folks on a launched game. Not the "life support" you wish to portray it as.
First, in case you missed it, I said in the post not even talking to you, that TOR is on the cost cutting path. Which they are. That they fired a bunch of people, which they did. A pattern which every MMO in trouble to date has followed.
This is after an EA exec said they would not be cutting TOR staff a couple weeks prior.
The only one saying the game is on life support, is you. I and many others simply think it is going that way... and so does EA when they are cutting their personnel expenses by 1/3. That would not be happening if things were going well for TOR, which they are clearly not.
And it seems you have some fixation with hating on SWG. It seems there is some near Pavlovian response that any criticism of TOR is in some way related to SWG in your mind, a game you clearly hated.
At what point does SWG even enter into it? It has nothing to do with anything. That game closed before TOR even launched.
Got some irrational hate in there, I am thinking.
Well seeing as most of the comments based in fantasy land come from said SWg fans here, yeah I do have a problem with them.
The game isnt down to 2 or 300k, but if we listened to the trolls we sure would believe it. Of course we have been forced to deal with them for a couple of yr now, and frankly the act is beyond old. The PRECioUs is gone, and there isnt anyone making you guys a AAA sandbox.
We will hear you guys for several more yrs, and yet this game will continue to chug along. Much to your dismay. So who has the problem? It surely isnt me, as I got a SW MMO....do you? No you dont.....your beloved SWG crashed n burnt, and thus we get our forum disrupted by the non sense.
Next time you wanna call something out as irrational, I suggest you look into a mirror. Nobody in their right mind carries on over a game being closed, yet a few of ya have for over 6 yrs now, and it is still going on till this very day. If that isnt having a couple sammiches short of a picnic, I dont know what is.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Such a shame, the most entertaining part of SWTOR, is watching it fail this fast, it is however abit odd seeing some players, still praising it as a success or "It'll come around with 1.3!", I thought 1.2 were supposed to save the game?
I really expected more, and would have stuck with it, if it's "only" issues were bugs and not the fact that it's a sorry excuse for a mmo, honestly, when they missed the target by that much, with the box game, I can't see them fix the game ever, who in their right mind at BW/EA thought that they had a great mmo on their hands?!
Just shit the damn thing down, and let it be a lesson to other mmo devs out there, we don't want a wannabe wow game, SWTOR arent even a theme park game, its more like a ride within the themepark, I seriously hope that future devs arent going to lock down players again, mmorpg's a games who you can somehow "play to live in", SWTOR arent.
They would have had a much great success, had they just made it KOTOR 3, but I guess they got too tempted when they saw the cash cow, that WoW is.
I don't even feel sorry for them, in my eyes they owe me for a CE box, not even AoC made me feel that way..
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
They went from a pre launch crew of 800, and cut 200 jobs. That leaves 600.
I would like to see how many pre launch games have 600 employees, let alone launched games.
Put it in perspective.
The specific numbers are not as important, and almost irrelvant, because of how they are or are not counted. Who is a TOR specific employee and who is an EA support person? Does it matter? Not really.
And all of that is much less important than the fact that only 2-3 weeks before the announcement of the mass TOR firings, one of the execs in charge of TOR said they would not be laying people off, so something must have changed. And not for the better.
But we knew that.
How's that for perspective?
(And for the record, I am pretty sure one of the EA execs came out at some point and said that the TOR project had 600 people (post is around here somewhere), not 800, but like I said, it does not matter much, they fired a lot of people because TOR was "under-preferforming". Badly.
Fuck if SWG had as many devs working on it as TOR you would be creaming your damn jeans. So dont sit up here, and play hypocrit with us. You say 400 left after 200 dropped, and I have never seen anything to suggest they had 600.....800 on 4 continents is what we have heard.
Regardless of which, it is still a ton of folks on a launched game. Not the "life support" you wish to portray it as.
First, in case you missed it, I said in the post not even talking to you, that TOR is on the cost cutting path. Which they are. That they fired a bunch of people, which they did. A pattern which every MMO in trouble to date has followed.
This is after an EA exec said they would not be cutting TOR staff a couple weeks prior.
The only one saying the game is on life support, is you. I and many others simply think it is going that way... and so does EA when they are cutting their personnel expenses by 1/3. That would not be happening if things were going well for TOR, which they are clearly not.
And it seems you have some fixation with hating on SWG. It seems there is some near Pavlovian response that any criticism of TOR is in some way related to SWG in your mind, a game you clearly hated.
At what point does SWG even enter into it? It has nothing to do with anything. That game closed before TOR even launched.
Got some irrational hate in there, I am thinking.
Well seeing as most of the comments based in fantasy land come from said SWg fans here, yeah I do have a problem with them.
The game isnt down to 2 or 300k, but if we listened to the trolls we sure would believe it. Of course we have been forced to deal with them for a couple of yr now, and frankly the act is beyond old. The PRECioUs is gone, and there isnt anyone making you guys a AAA sandbox.
We will hear you guys for several more yrs, and yet this game will continue to chug along. Much to your dismay. So who has the problem? It surely isnt me, as I got a SW MMO....do you? No you dont.....your beloved SWG crashed n burnt, and thus we get our forum disrupted by the non sense.
Next time you wanna call something out as irrational, I suggest you look into a mirror. Nobody in their right mind carries on over a game being closed, yet a few of ya have for over 6 yrs now, and it is still going on till this very day. If that isnt having a couple sammiches short of a picnic, I dont know what is.
You could have just said you don't like people who played SWG too you know, no need to beat around the bush.. though why you think they are the reason for SW;TOR's failure i have no clue. Even at its peak i don't think SWG had more than about 250k players, most of which left the game more than 5 years ago ? doesnt seem like you got over it, but, i can appreciate that, a lot of people have a great deal of anger even still, not just against SWG, but SOE themselves and i think LA for their part. SW;TOR probably was hoped to be the best ever re-envisioning of the genre, it wasnt, in the end, just another mediocre one, it might just be that the only people who are really sticking with SW;TOR though, are perhaps the die hard Starwars fans that you hate so much from SWG, who will play a game just because it is Starwars. Perhaps if you tried to forget about SWG, and moved on, you might as many others have done, become less angry about it.
Look at Tor Status and you will see Tor has 10 NA servers left the rest are dead empty servers. Europe has 3 servers left and the rest are dead and empty.
Presently the server status across North America and Euorope is as follows:
1 Medium Server
4 Light Servers
8 Very light Servers
156 Dead Servers
At the current rate of decline the 8 very light servers will all be dead servers within 2 weeks and the light servers will be on the verge of dying. Looking at the 13 light servers left at best ToR has 300k players playing likely less than 200k. But at the current rate of loss Tor will be down to 3 or 4 non dead servers in the next 3-4 weeks and will have less than 100k players.
EA/BW since release has engaged in a campaign of misinformation to make peiople believe the game is doing well and has a lot more subs than it actually has. The facts simply do not bear that out. Approaching server merges their latest attempt at deception is the "Mega Server" scam. They want people to believe there will be mega servers taking the place of all these empty servers. Looking at Tor Status on a daily bas since launch one can quickly see they do not have the population to support such mega servers. Rather EA/Bioware realize that at the current decline the population will only be able to support 3-4 servers at most. But they can save face and keep telling people they are successful with their mega server scam. Plus it gives the fanboys a reason to make post after post telling people how successful Tor is.
With only 13 light servers left it is not arguable that there are mroe than 300k players left. The Titantic is sinking and its almost entirely under water now. There is nothing that can be done for this game at least in the short term. Many games have recovered from bad launches but it takes years. With the SW brand name and a few years of development time it could have a revivial down the road and be a 100-300k sub game. But at least in the short term it is sinking quite fast.
I did my own research last night, sat and watched all the servers and to my horror I found that there are infact only 2 real ppl playing TOR, although they are multiboxing 100k accounts each, amazing.
I don't need to provide proof as my word is my bond.
Fuck if SWG had as many devs working on it as TOR you would be creaming your damn jeans. So dont sit up here, and play hypocrit with us. You say 400 left after 200 dropped, and I have never seen anything to suggest they had 600.....800 on 4 continents is what we have heard.
Regardless of which, it is still a ton of folks on a launched game. Not the "life support" you wish to portray it as.
First, in case you missed it, I said in the post not even talking to you, that TOR is on the cost cutting path. Which they are. That they fired a bunch of people, which they did. A pattern which every MMO in trouble to date has followed.
This is after an EA exec said they would not be cutting TOR staff a couple weeks prior.
The only one saying the game is on life support, is you. I and many others simply think it is going that way... and so does EA when they are cutting their personnel expenses by 1/3. That would not be happening if things were going well for TOR, which they are clearly not.
And it seems you have some fixation with hating on SWG. It seems there is some near Pavlovian response that any criticism of TOR is in some way related to SWG in your mind, a game you clearly hated.
At what point does SWG even enter into it? It has nothing to do with anything. That game closed before TOR even launched.
Got some irrational hate in there, I am thinking.
Well seeing as most of the comments based in fantasy land come from said SWg fans here, yeah I do have a problem with them.
The game isnt down to 2 or 300k, but if we listened to the trolls we sure would believe it. Of course we have been forced to deal with them for a couple of yr now, and frankly the act is beyond old. The PRECioUs is gone, and there isnt anyone making you guys a AAA sandbox.
We will hear you guys for several more yrs, and yet this game will continue to chug along. Much to your dismay. So who has the problem? It surely isnt me, as I got a SW MMO....do you? No you dont.....your beloved SWG crashed n burnt, and thus we get our forum disrupted by the non sense.
Next time you wanna call something out as irrational, I suggest you look into a mirror. Nobody in their right mind carries on over a game being closed, yet a few of ya have for over 6 yrs now, and it is still going on till this very day. If that isnt having a couple sammiches short of a picnic, I dont know what is.
And here is it...what is behind everything: blah blah blah "Any hate for TOR is from disgruntled SWG vets".
Guess what? More people have quit TOR, than EVER played SWG. Think some of them might be critical of TOR/EA/BW?
SWG never comes into the TOR equation.
Most of us are well over SWG, or can play the flightless bird, but is seems that YOU aren't over SWG and the people that played it. So they liked a game that you hated, so what?
Nothing SWG vets could ever do, compares to the mistakes that the people that made TOR made, and thus the game is crashing. Too Bad.
It does always seem to come back to SWG for some people. Its pretty damn odd.
Whenever people starting bringin SWG into discussion and start comparing it to SWTOR even Jesus does a /facepalm. You are right it is pretty damn odd. But hey SWG players are angry and the closest thing they can get to vent their anger is SWTOR even thoguh that game has absolutely nothing to do with failure of SWG and its shutting down.
For years when SWG was up it was struggling for survival and was ignored and flamed in general, but now after it is gone suddenly it was the best MMO ever made compared to SWTOR.(why the fuck even make this asnine comparison?).no shit...two very different MMOS made for two very different playerbase.
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Exactly, i dont know if EA could have been more clear when they said what IS a success and what IS NOT a success, and what is minimal acceptable with kind of expenses they had.
Since they already started cutting expenses and publicaly said SWTOR is somewhere down their on their radar its pretty clear what SWTOR IS and what SWTOR IS NOT.
However it doesnt stop people to come with their versions. Hey, Vanguard is still out there, its amazing success, AMIRITE?
We're trying to avoid getting reviews from people that are paid off by a third party..not encourage it.
I'm still trying to figure out why it cost so much in the first place...they used an inferior engine and already have experienced people. The only thing I can think of is bloated wages (i.e. overpaid voice actors, overbid advertising, etc).
Doesn't really make any sense..nor should they have used how much they spent on it as a positive..it's more embarassing than exciting.
I agree that the subs are probably down to about 300k or so now, but EA must be making money still or they would just shut it down.
I dont care what anyone says, as soon as it stops making money, EA will shut it down. Thats just the way they are and it is also obvious good business sense. I suspect they will probably wait until they break even then just shut it down anyway knowing EA.
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I do not see them shutting it down yet, for at least a year, even if it is not making money.
They spend so much on it already, and no doubt have a set term licence with LA. They have said they have already got years of content already written, so will no doubt have a few tricks up their sleeves yet, to attract people, before pulling the plug.
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They are on that path now.
The single biggest expense an MMO has (especially after launch) is labor, and EA has started cutting that already. (IP fee notwithstanding)
Once the two annouced expansions are done, it will likely go into maintainence mode until enough money is made.
And for that to even happen, I suspect that the license agreement with LA would have to change, because you know that wasn't cheap, and it was predicated on certain population numbers being maintained, which they are not.
So for TOR to stay open long term at all, I suspect the deal with LA needs to be renegotiated.
Otherwise, yeah... the mostly likely outcome is TOR shutting its doors.
It beats the hell outta me, they could have made 3-4 "standard cost" MMOs for the price of TOR and at this point, they'd have likely been better off doing that.
I too can't see where such a high cost came from... it was literally double what AoC cost and that was expensive to make.
Perhaps it will come out eventually...
No official cost figures has been revealed, every estimate so far has been third party speculations or hearsay.
But what could've been the cost, hmm, my guess is ofc things like the class quest, next to that, it may not look like it, but the total sum of all the available landmass is pretty big, easily multiple times what AoC had, and I think also as large or larger than WoW vanilla's or LotrO's total landmass. Also, that is handcrafted and not procedurally generated.
It might not look like it cost much, producing landmass and content on it, but Brad McQuaid once told that they had to stop from developing the third continent in Vanguard completely, because designing the other 2 continents and content on it had cost already so much time and manpower resources that they were already far past their initial deadline.
So yeah, the bigger the total available world or landmass is with the content on it to go with it, the more resources and time it'll take up. Especially for handcrafted worlds and not procedurally generated ones.
Of course, it's all speculation and just guessing.
They had 12 full time writers and god knows how many programmers, modelers, sketch artists, etc which is ridiculous...The game really doesn't have that much content or landmass size in reality compared to other games on the market. The story isn't much more than a novel written by 1 person..maybe two or three novels worth of content..not 12. They've been working on it for what..four years? I believe that was the first time I heard about development. It was written in HeroEngine..which is so simple that even I can write up a MMO in a few weeks that runs just like SWTOR (no content though), so they didn't need someone to design an engine or learn it. It's fairly straight forward to use. I have used it..as I said..and I'm not a professional programmer.
Using Vanguard as an example is a bad idea..they had quite a few of the same problems as SWTOR..so it's not a surprise they agree on some things. Looking at cost estimates..even cutting that in half to be safe..is depressing when you actually play the game and feel how unpolished it is..how simple it is..and how much more work it needs.
About the only way to save SWTOR would be to drop HeroEngine and start over...good luck with that. The engine is dated, restrictive, unoptimized, and clunky. They won't get anything done with it.
For reference, I played 3 characters through their storylines before I gave up and canceled my account. I didn't find the content all that impressive. Repetitive character motions, lipsync issues, cliche story arcs, and nothing that impressive. It's still not as bad as The Secret World though. That game made me laugh and uninstall it after a day in beta. I at least got to release on SWTOR.
Some of you guys are on bath salts if you honestly believe this game is dying or going away with in the next year when games like WAR/Aion/Rift/AoC are still up and running and were hyped just as much as SWTOR by the lunatics on here... yet have less subs than SWTOR.. and I just can't stop loling at the OP suggesting there are only 200k subs left.
They went from a pre launch crew of 800, and cut 200 jobs. That leaves 600.
I would like to see how many pre launch games have 600 employees, let alone launched games.
Put it in perspective.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Most of what you wrote is just nonsense, regarding the content, landmass, the amount of story written... why do I even bother? It's just your own wild guessing with no proof of any kind at all. I'd look up the dev quotes regarding story material and analysis posts of people who went so far to actually measure the planets, but it just isn't worth it to waste the time. So believe in your made up stories however much you like, they still are your own make belief tales
The specific numbers are not as important, and almost irrelvant, because of how they are or are not counted. Who is a TOR specific employee and who is an EA support person? Does it matter? Not really.
And all of that is much less important than the fact that only 2-3 weeks before the announcement of the mass TOR firings, one of the execs in charge of TOR said they would not be laying people off, so something must have changed. And not for the better.
But we knew that.
How's that for perspective?
(And for the record, I am pretty sure one of the EA execs came out at some point and said that the TOR project had 600 people (post is around here somewhere), not 800, but like I said, it does not matter much, they fired a lot of people because TOR was "under-preferforming". Badly.
Dude it still has a shit ton more folks working on it than practically any game around.
You are acting like this game has skeletal crews ala those MMO sandbox games that dont sell.
Fuck if SWG had as many devs working on it as TOR you would be creaming your damn jeans. So dont sit up here, and play hypocrit with us. You say 400 left after 200 dropped, and I have never seen anything to suggest they had 600.....800 on 4 continents is what we have heard.
Regardless of which, it is still a ton of folks on a launched game. Not the "life support" you wish to portray it as.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
They would probably lose more money if they shut it down. Even if they had 100K subscribers it would be better to let the game continue with a skeleton crew and/or as a F2P game.
And after investing and spending that much money it would be crazy to give up now regardless how bad the game is doing. They will probably try to fix it some way first before even thinking about that.
I think the game deserves to flop. It failed to have many basic MMO elements players take for granted at launch, some of the worst open-world PvP I've ever seen in an MMO, and lots of money spent on voiceacting that most folks skip.
Oh well, on to the next Themepark MMO disaster.
First, in case you missed it, I said in the post not even talking to you, that TOR is on the cost cutting path. Which they are. That they fired a bunch of people, which they did. A pattern which every MMO in trouble to date has followed.
This is after an EA exec said they would not be cutting TOR staff a couple weeks prior.
The only one saying the game is on life support, is you. I and many others simply think it is going that way... and so does EA when they are cutting their personnel expenses by 1/3. That would not be happening if things were going well for TOR, which they are clearly not.
And it seems you have some fixation with hating on SWG. It seems there is some near Pavlovian response that any criticism of TOR is in some way related to SWG in your mind, a game you clearly hated.
At what point does SWG even enter into it? It has nothing to do with anything. That game closed before TOR even launched.
Got some irrational hate in there, I am thinking.
I feel for people that actually like the game. I am not sure of the subs but its a game that will only decline from here, how fast? Who knows.
The bottom line is that most hard core Star Wars fans don't like the MMO. My cousin lives and breathes Star Wars and I am not far behind him and both of us quit after 3 weeks.
If they can't retain the fans that love the IP then its pretty hard to survive.
Well seeing as most of the comments based in fantasy land come from said SWg fans here, yeah I do have a problem with them.
The game isnt down to 2 or 300k, but if we listened to the trolls we sure would believe it. Of course we have been forced to deal with them for a couple of yr now, and frankly the act is beyond old. The PRECioUs is gone, and there isnt anyone making you guys a AAA sandbox.
We will hear you guys for several more yrs, and yet this game will continue to chug along. Much to your dismay. So who has the problem? It surely isnt me, as I got a SW MMO....do you? No you dont.....your beloved SWG crashed n burnt, and thus we get our forum disrupted by the non sense.
Next time you wanna call something out as irrational, I suggest you look into a mirror. Nobody in their right mind carries on over a game being closed, yet a few of ya have for over 6 yrs now, and it is still going on till this very day. If that isnt having a couple sammiches short of a picnic, I dont know what is.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Such a shame, the most entertaining part of SWTOR, is watching it fail this fast, it is however abit odd seeing some players, still praising it as a success or "It'll come around with 1.3!", I thought 1.2 were supposed to save the game?
I really expected more, and would have stuck with it, if it's "only" issues were bugs and not the fact that it's a sorry excuse for a mmo, honestly, when they missed the target by that much, with the box game, I can't see them fix the game ever, who in their right mind at BW/EA thought that they had a great mmo on their hands?!
Just shit the damn thing down, and let it be a lesson to other mmo devs out there, we don't want a wannabe wow game, SWTOR arent even a theme park game, its more like a ride within the themepark, I seriously hope that future devs arent going to lock down players again, mmorpg's a games who you can somehow "play to live in", SWTOR arent.
They would have had a much great success, had they just made it KOTOR 3, but I guess they got too tempted when they saw the cash cow, that WoW is.
I don't even feel sorry for them, in my eyes they owe me for a CE box, not even AoC made me feel that way..
You could have just said you don't like people who played SWG too you know, no need to beat around the bush.. though why you think they are the reason for SW;TOR's failure i have no clue. Even at its peak i don't think SWG had more than about 250k players, most of which left the game more than 5 years ago ? doesnt seem like you got over it, but, i can appreciate that, a lot of people have a great deal of anger even still, not just against SWG, but SOE themselves and i think LA for their part. SW;TOR probably was hoped to be the best ever re-envisioning of the genre, it wasnt, in the end, just another mediocre one, it might just be that the only people who are really sticking with SW;TOR though, are perhaps the die hard Starwars fans that you hate so much from SWG, who will play a game just because it is Starwars. Perhaps if you tried to forget about SWG, and moved on, you might as many others have done, become less angry about it.
I did my own research last night, sat and watched all the servers and to my horror I found that there are infact only 2 real ppl playing TOR, although they are multiboxing 100k accounts each, amazing.
I don't need to provide proof as my word is my bond.
And here is it...what is behind everything: blah blah blah "Any hate for TOR is from disgruntled SWG vets".
Guess what? More people have quit TOR, than EVER played SWG. Think some of them might be critical of TOR/EA/BW?
SWG never comes into the TOR equation.
Most of us are well over SWG, or can play the flightless bird, but is seems that YOU aren't over SWG and the people that played it. So they liked a game that you hated, so what?
Nothing SWG vets could ever do, compares to the mistakes that the people that made TOR made, and thus the game is crashing. Too Bad.
Whatever man, you can join SNJ on the block list.
It does always seem to come back to SWG for some people. Its pretty damn odd.
Whenever people starting bringin SWG into discussion and start comparing it to SWTOR even Jesus does a /facepalm. You are right it is pretty damn odd. But hey SWG players are angry and the closest thing they can get to vent their anger is SWTOR even thoguh that game has absolutely nothing to do with failure of SWG and its shutting down.
For years when SWG was up it was struggling for survival and was ignored and flamed in general, but now after it is gone suddenly it was the best MMO ever made compared to SWTOR.(why the fuck even make this asnine comparison?).no shit...two very different MMOS made for two very different playerbase.