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Will SWTOR last another year or two?
MrJurgens
Member Posts: 47
Ever since I quit SWTOR back in October and came to these forums, I was happy to have been met with mostly warm welcomes. I was very happy to reveal to you all how EAware's CT is heavily biased toward the apologists, and pretty much swiftly deals with anyone who criticizes a change or decision made to the game, or the game itself.
Now I'm wondering whether SWTOR can actually sustain itself for another year or two? I say this because subs have been dwindling heavily since release. As you all know, EAware was forced to go F2P, and did so in November of 2012. It's been a year now since F2P was implemented, but subscribers keep on falling. Sure, they'll spike up a bit near and during the release of an upcoming expac, only for them to plummet right after. It's very common for MMOs to lose many subscribers after a major expac.
SWTOR started out with around 1.7mil subscribers, and our last report of current subs was right after the release of Rise of the Coin Cartel, which put SWTOR at just under 500k subs, thus making it the 3rd most subscribed MMO in the western market. Subs may not be a good indicator for how much money SWTOR is making, but it sure is hell of a good indicator on how many people think the game is good for the long run. A 75%+ loss in subscribers since launch—that is NOT a good indicator whatsoever.
There are many reasons why SWTOR is losing subscribers at the rate it is, which include, but are not limited to:
- The CT "attacks" critical posters while they "endorse" apologists, making them heavily biased.
- Using a pre-alpha engine to develop the game.
- Heavy focus on the CM for a quick buck.
- Lack of endgame content (more PvP systems have been removed and some Operations weren't scaled).
Comments
good luck on your last sentence .
personally I happen to enjoy swtor when I don't enjoy it I will cancel sub same and all my other mmo's I played ,
Don't worry, this title well be around for many years to come, so if you enjoy it go play it, looks like you'll have plenty of company and content.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The cartel market gambling boxes will keep it alive until 2015.
Sadly there are enough people who can't control their spending and buy dozens and dozens of boxes to get a new shiny mount skin.
It's Jurgens!11!!!
How you doing grumpy tusks?
/lick
Driz
This game will be around for a long while.
Its my only hopes that they do indeed start to include;
1. huge scale pvp with mounted combat,
2. mini games such as pazaak/swoop racing,
3. player created content for mini games and housing (similar to wild star),
4. guild mechanics,
5. relook at class roles and not making healers imba and thus make balance more in the favor of 1vs1 for all,
6. day/night cyles,
7. npc routines,
8. faster traveling speeds with swoop racing they can make it the same for the open world
9. Rework gear grind to more about attaining unique items that offer different animations for abilities or different abilities all together rather than stat collection and gear grinds... thus reducing the gear grind and encouraging the completion of certain iconic quests which can have class/historical/world/galaxy stories in epic quest chains... similar to macro binoculars and seeker droid
10. At the same time make crafting more important, and still include companion system for crafting but their success is dependent on the location they are sent and how the area is doing depending on pve/pvp rules. Still include rares that are got from raids... how make raid rewards about getting things related to house decoration, and player creating content, and ofc rare resources.
11. Integrate with crafting caravans for the open world which can be part of the dynamic events in swtor tied in with crafting
12. less side quests and more dynamic quests, also as mentioned epic quests to get iconic gear instead of just CM to pay for items
13. Frequency with class stories
14. Events that shape the world, and creating a system that makes it coherent to follow and thus it creates a galaxy that is in a certain state of flux and based on certain on going events certain things happen which change certain aspects of the world with different areas looking different and even moving quest givers to different areas. So events become dynamic.
15. Make raids dynamic and different mazes
16. More landscaping and exploration
17. Fix draw distance of game to include a longer view
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
all been repeatedly requested by tons of (ex)subscribers since early beta 2011
what makes you think it's going to happen in 2014 and beyond?
Especially when they are doing really well with the "Buy crap from our store" model.
[mod edit]
You should at least do some research buddy they just re-upped for another ten years, they are making a profit, they have a million players playing each month. I take it you never made it to end game? There is tons to do dailies, pvp, fps, ops I'm sure you have never ran a hm ops, therefore never experienced a nightmare ops.
I've been a pretty big hater , lover, hater of this game. I do not play it anymore (i do sub every now and then for a month just to level an alt ) .
At launch the game had massive amounts of hype. The game opened up way to many servers because they weren't expecting the amount of people playing. After about 3 months or so, those people (myself included) who got to max level, realized it was just another raid/dungeon game. Population dropped hard and they were down to just a handful of servers.
That was the "rough" point. During this time, they increased server capacity and eventually went f2p. They are seeing an INCREASE in revenue + unique logins, NOT a decline in them.
I do not know of any MMO (lol doesn't count, im talking gw2, wow, swtor type games) that have e-sports on a competitive level. The biggest one is wow arenas on twitch and it's still not an e-sport in terms of frequent tournaments that you would find at MLG. Expecting an MMO to hold a competitive pvp environment and promote it as an esport is kinda weird to gripe at.
While I do agree with all the complaints from pretty much everyone and their mother, the game is basically a wow clone with light sabers that is missing 75% of the features in wow. The game itself is amazing on the first few playthroughs and extremely enjoyable for the story. It stops at max level, everyone knows that. I find the ui responsiveness, loading times and technical issues to slowly changing for the better. The rate at techinical improvements is really slow though.
PvP is still bad, not because the classes or game is bad, but because the engine really hurts when there are more than 8 people doing anything on the same screen. I love the pvp in teh game, more than any other mmo but it's technically a piece of crap with no optimization options or macros or anything that would allow it be something worth investing time into.
I could go on with all it's flaws, but to answer your question; the game is here to stay, there are far worse games that have gone free to play and lived longer. I do hope they continue to release more non-ops/flashpoint content. GS is a good step, arenas, and hopefully next its all about customization.
anyways my two cents.
One day, Disney will realize that SWTOR and its bad reputation is hurting the Star Wars IP more than they are earning money with it.
Frankly, that day can't come soon enough.
The problem with the game is the F2P is TOO limiting. Until they make it more player friendly it will continue to dwindle no matter how much content they add to the game.
With regards to Kyleran's comments about the 10 year IP that is not specific for SWTOR as that was done well before the LucasArts - Disney merge. I am sure there is a 10 year contract similar to SWG, but EA is not going to keep a game running if it is not making money. Period. They are the most notorious company for killing game servers including MMO's.
I came back for a month recently in SWTOR and had a great time leveling up a new Bounty Hunter doing tons of Flashpoints and the class quest line.
Seeing groups coordinate some of the puzzles/boss attacks for the first time can be exciting and a little frustrating.
Unfortunately, there are no long term emergent gameplay mechanismsto be found, so it will only be short lived.
-WL
Werewolf Online(R) - Lead Developer
what kind of BS misinformation is this?
"they".. "re-subbed" .. the licence? for ten years?
Yeah EA got a ten year deal for Star Wars games with Disney. That does not affect SWTOR at all. It could shut down tomorrow, or in 2021 when their MMO licence runs out.
a million players per month, ha, not on my server
1. The 10 year deal that EA have with Disney doesn't mean that SWTOR will last; however:
2. Is the game going to close however? Not according to Eric Jorgenson EA's CFO in the recent interview. What he actually said was that he hoped the new film would generate extra interest in the game. So by inference it will be around in Dec 2014.
3. Doesn't mean that much is going to happen. Whilst Eric also said it was "profitable" that was after slashing staff. Reminds me of what Marc Jacobs said about both WAR and DAoC a few years back; he essentially said the same thing - that they had adjusted the cost base to keep the games open. And WAR, as we know, has carried on with almost no updates and DAoC is still going with even fewer updates!
4. How much new stuff there will be? Probably not a great deal - but its a subjective question some people will look at what has been announced and say that is lots others will say it is trivial.
EA will be planning on sub based revenue declining and on f2p revenue declining. It might not but that is what they will be planning on because that is what happens as a game gets old. Not a SWTOR's specific thing it's just the way it is. New games come along, people's circumstances change.
5. Maybe they could give people who purchase SW Battlegrounds a months free sub. Probably wishful thinking!
The only thing I can see really killing the game off is if they implement some sweeping changes to the game (ie: NGE), or if they decide to put out another Star Wars MMO.
Even SWG was profitable when it closed, partly due to the card pack items which were very similar to cartel packs.
I think SWTOR has a fair number of people playing the game who have accepted it for what it is, and enjoy it. The next expansion should give a good indication of the game's direction.
Well of course there aren't a million players on your server. They can't fit all of their players on one server. Duh.
According to Eric Musco, SWToR's community manager, there are something like ten million people occasionally playing, and one million people playing per month. There's no break down on how many are subscribers and how many are F2P.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
And he never said the 10 year license had anything to do with the MMO did he?
EA renewed the SW License so they can keep on making SWTOR run as long as its profitable for the next 10 years. Nothing in what he said was BS.
And yes there are over a million players playing the game easily. Your server? What server? You don't even play. You are the guy who complained about shutting down the game because speeders aren't fast enough for you and you reached that conclusion from a video being played at 4X speed for crying out loud.
Disney.....turning away from an income source. I laughed so hard I dropped my phone. Go back and re read what you just said
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Well a little maths for you all
, so say it is 1 mil per month divide that by 30 ( average number of days in a month ) to get the daily average then divide that number by the number of servers.
1000000/30=33333 , 33333/17= 1961 so there are on average 1961 players per server per day , obviously some servers are busier than others but yeah a decent amount of gamers there.
Anyway on topic , I do think and they know it too that the group finder was rushed and is a lot harder than you think to update and add missions too , toborros courtyard should have been in a long time ago as an example. They have said they would need to re-design it from the ground up. So that's what I would like to see happen in the coming 4 months or so.
Plus chat bubbles
.
Cheers,
BadOrb.
PSO 4 years , EQOA 4 months , PSU 7 years , SWTOR launch ongoing , PSO2 SEA launch ongoing , Destiny 360 launch ongoing.
"SWG was not fun. Let it go buddy." quote from iiNoSkillzii 10/18/13
The original propoganda pixie dust villain :[]
Start over maybe..?? Some guy talking about it below
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/400455/page/1
I think that 500k they stated was because they effectively gave away a free copy of the expansion with a monthly sub(or a free sub with the expansion if you prefer). In reality is probably under 200k somewhere(could currently be under 100k I suppose), not that is is really relevant to the poulation.
Also don't think that the number of subs(or indeed how much money they are making per month) will effect wether it's still up in a year or two. They spent a reported $300,000,000.00+ altogehter developing and advertising this game(not including the f2p model etc), so I don't see why the wouldn't keep it going for at least as long as their contract lasts to make as much of that back as possibly. Even if they did start running at a loss per month I think there's a good chance they may keep it running within the 2 yrs you've suggested because the loss the game makes could be nothin to the loss the share prices take if the close it too early.
I am told killing off a profitable MMO is good business. Confirm or Deny?
/facepalm
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.