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Why would you play SWTOR in the long term?
Greymoor
Member UncommonPosts: 802
Battlegrounds?
Raid instances?
Think I've seen them before... probably done better too from the looks of the BG preview.
I'm fairly sure flashpoints will eaither all be done within the first few months or get boring and easy.
Space combat looks fun but it can't compensate for an entire end-game.
Looks like SWTOR could become a victim of pure themepark gameplay, not having the content nor the ability to churn out the content fast enough to keep it's players entertained. I'll deal with the poor static animations etc for a good story line and questing system but with no endgame it's a no go for many people.
Comments
So what you are saying is you think Bioware is making this mmo with no endgame?
Absolutely amazing...really... common folk...pffft.
That's not what I said, from what we've seen the endgame is very little. Nothing we've seen so far would keep players attention for a long stretch of time.
Ya I'm not sure what the OP is saying either.
I agree with the first part in that what they are doing looks to be done before. I really haven't seen anything 'fresh' to get me excited about the game.
However, I'm sure they will have endgame. BG's, raids blah blah.. been there done that to.
TBH, the majority (or rather all of them, for me personally) of endgames suck anyway as you wind up repeating the same content for gear because that's the easiest hamster wheel to give players (and sadly many look forward to it). I've given up on MMO endgame and just play them like any other game- once you get to the end it's time for a new game.
I'll be doing the same in SW:TOR.
I doubt I will play this game long term. I haven't played a game long term since 2005 I suppose. Ok I did play EQ2 quite a bit because harvesting was relaxing to me for some unknown reason.
Anyway what is likely to keep people is the Star Wars world. (my best guess). Since in the end beyond the class story we seem to have the same repitition of content with some name changes. I don't think the class story will really convince me to stick around. Simply because I thought Age of Conan had a great story for the first 20 levels. Especially how all the other stories showed you a new point of view of the same story (between the class choices that is). In TOR the story may last longer but in the end its grinding the same (tho renamed) things for the same purpose. At least from what we've seen.. as opposed to say comprehensive crafting.. harvesting.
Then again I would say this is where the arguement for actually creating a virtual world comes up. Its much easier to keep your subscriber dazed and confused longer.
When I think long term and look at the information I've seen. What I wonder is what makes a smuggler a smuggler. It seems like they either heal or dps. Outside of story time what do they do that makes them a smuggler? Maybe I missed that if they ever said. Or any class within TOR do they have things that actually represent their class for long term content? Or is it just a familiar Star Wars iconic name slapped on a somewhat standard MMO class?
Why would you play any MMO in the long term? You're gonna exhaust / get tired of content anyway, so why bother?
There is no logic in such statements. You get into a game because you like what content it has (in each case, what you think it has) at launch.
MMO's continuously add content and there are things like world PvP (most likely objective based) in TOR as well.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I would be happy to get few months out from the game. Not really looking for long-term prospects. Too many good games coming out each year to devote too much time on one, but I would not mind coming back to TOR when they release new content/expansion.
So a short answer to your question would be that I would probably not play SW:TOR that long (or any other game).
Good games that I am currently playing and havent completed yet:
Single/Multip
Red Dead Redemption XBOX
Dead Space 2 XBOX
Assassins Creed 2: Brotherhood XBOX
Shogun 2 PC
MMOs:
LOTRO
EVE
Looking forward to:
Witcher 2 PC
Mass Effect 3 PC
Deus Ex 3 PC
La Noire XBOX
MMOs:
Guild Wars 2
SW:TOR
The Secret World
Warhammer 40k
And many more...so why on earth would I play anything in a long-term? I know most of my friends won't either.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
You reach endgame, the story is suddenly very short...
You can PvP in battlegrounds that are static and repetitive
You can beat the couple of raids in existance to get the shiny gear.
Then you realise you could have this exact gameplay but more polished, fluent and more timely in the release of new content in WoW.
Then after reading another thread here you don't see new instances coming out terribly quick because of VO acting OR the they drop that and just throw in a few pages storyline attatched within the patch notes and leave you to get the new shiny gear.
So far they've bigged up every feature and class they have, videos, interviews yet we don't see them bigging up the end game. I smell trouble folks.
What game exactly, especially in the MMO market, is NOT the same thing over and over once you have reached endgame? I hear a lot of people complaining about this, but honestly even sandbox games like Eve are just the same thing Over and Over and Over throughout MOST of the game.
Really this is a tired old argument that you can't substantiate even. What exactly have you experienced of the end game even to be able to judge it already?
I've said it before and I will say it again, I wish I had the Crystal Ball these people are looking through, it might just be able to make me a fortune on the staock market. Since I do not though, I think I will just have to buy this game and see how much fun it is to play. Based on about 95% of the reviews out there so far I would say it will be money well spent. Even more encouraging for me though is the fact that so far, even with all the research I have been doing, I have not seen one person that claims to be a beta tester breaking the NDA and telling us how bad the game is. Seriously, if it was, don't you think someone would have stepped forward by now? Instead all we get is all these apparently expert gamers coming forward making unsubstantiatable claims. Worst part for me is, most times I can see where these claims have already been debunked.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree. Many MMO players I know these days, including myself, aren't in these games for the long haul anymore. We buy them, play them until we get bored, then quit, at least until the next expansion comes out. Gone are the days when a large part of the community are players who are active for years (or even months) at a time.
This is a wide spread trend among players and companies know this. In fact it is starting to effect MMO production. Take a look at Cryptics games and SOEs DCUO. Neither company bothered to even attempt to add enough content to keep players playing indefinitley, just enough to get them hooked and then promised to add more to the game as time went by. A promise neither company has shown themselves to be able to keep very well.
As to what Bioware plans for players, I really think it is too early to tell. From what I've seen it does seem that they are focusing less on the end game grind fest and more on making leveling a new character an entertaining experiance. Sort of a"Tired of your Bounty Hunter? Why not go see how the Smuggler storyline quests pan out." kind of a thing.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
So instead of saying SWTOR offers x and y gameplay, I'm sure they have other things planning the general attitude of SWTOR fans is 'who wants endgame anyways because no one stick around' ?
If the game can not keep you entertained and playing for long periods of time after the inital story line then it's poorly designed.
Darkfall although arguable a bad game for many has kept the same players going for over two years now over player created wars.
MO, Rift, GW2 have gone down the route of frequent dynamic, world PvP events, better versions of SWTORS instanced PvP.
Tera can create and spew out the well known dungeon system without having to spend months on VOs combined with a semi-FPS combat system.
Archeage is going for politcal warfare, castle sieges, building your own stuff ontop of dungeon raids and open world bosses.
SWTOR, small group gameplay with great storylines which will quickly dry up + generic BG's which don't look as interesting.
I have no doubt SWTOR will have a great storyline gameplay etc but without a good endgame to keep players going it's going to be another server merging situation.
Okay, not to get in a pissing match here Tadcore, but could you provide the links to the serveys and studies that back up your claims? Even the detailed membership stats from a single long term successful MMO will do.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Only thing that has kept me playing the MMOs I played the longest (EQ, SWG, WoW and EQ2) is the people you meet and group up with regularly. Over the years I have realised this comes from investing time in a game, committing to a game. I've been an MMO nomad for a while now and I'm a bit sick of it. A lot of that comes from being able to drop a game easily because you have no lasting friendships, no reason to keep logging in. I played EQ for 5 years and was bored as hell some days, but I logged in to see friends, to help them with stuff and find things to do with them.
As a Star Wars fan SWTOR offers something worth committing to, from what I've seen. So that'll keep me playing, as long as it doesn't totally suck ofc.
This question is so easy to answer.
ALTS!
and housing.
Example: - WoW - Alt playability from launch day to now - 10 different classes. If you are smart and play 1 of each race give or take from both horde and alliance you can literally have a different level progression experience. Hence why most people have played it for a very long time. A game that hinders this? AoC. Rift. a few others. Can't bring myself to level up through those games due to lack of alternate leveling paths.
I say housing, because, someone somewhere showed that games with housing have more longevity and lifespan and players that stick around for a LONG time due to housing. I think UO, EQ, EQ2, and FFXI are given as examples.
But that's just me.
1. - If the storylines end up being diverse and very engaging it will be an alt paradise; probably a lot of replayablility there.
2. - Crafting is supposed to be something which allows for a lot of specialization with a limited amount of people having access to certain unique recipe's, etc. Also some interesting aspects to managing crew skills. Might be an engaging endgame activity.
3. - World pvp (which will also play a role on pve servers) is a kind of endless content which adds a lot of longevity to mmorpgs (for those who like it).
4. - PVE endgame and guild content: not much known here yet. Supposedly there will be raiding as well as world bosses. Either this part will be subpar, average or extensive. We can only guess.
5. Immersive, seamless worlds which will keep having a use for different reasons (world pvp, harvesting, world bosses, exploration), etc. As well as being a great setting for RP. I have a positive outlook on this bit.
5. - Long term gear incentives: working your ass off at max level to get that awesome speeder bike / armor set / weapon, etc.
For me personally if the worlds are great and immersive, crafting has depth and the world pvp is fun + having some nice long term gear incentives to work on while doing so, I'm a happy pony.
If the rest will be great too, I'm a very happy pony.
But if crafting or world pvp will be kind of disapointing and storylines will be the only redeeming aspect to Swtor I probably won't play it for longer than three to six months and I'll probably end up complaining and bashing Swtor on mmorpg.com.
All in all I suspect that Swtor will be the next 'big one' for me and keep me happy for atleast a whole year. But it would be foolish to be completely convinced of that at this time.
My brand new bloggity blog.
I don't think asking for someone to back up an opinion with a little explination is starting a pissing contest. However I also don't see why I need to be backed up by some third party {mod edit} with charts to vaildate my claims on the behavior I've experianced first hand in the MMO industry for the past five years.
Let me lay it out and see what you think.
Games themselves:
First question is how many of the recent (last 5 years) MMOs have you played? I've played most of them, either at beta or at release. In that time I have seen in my own behavior, in the behavior of my circle of online gaming friends, and the various guilds I've been in, this exact churn of population. Friends start the games, friends quit due to bordem at level cap (or before), our guilds never grow past a certain point because we lose as many if not more players to inactivity than we are able to recruit.
Web Forums:
How many times have you seen people on these forums alone, express that they are going to try New Game X due to being fed up with all the other choices, and if New Game X is turns out to be the suck, no big deal, they are content just to have had something new to play with for even a short time? How many people who played Cataclysm, DCOU, STO (except for the poor bastards that got suckered into the life time subs), and now days Rift, did just that?
Game Developers:
Go find Bill Ropers interview where he lays out why CO, STO, and Hellgate: London where made the way there were. It boils down to they no longer see the long term MMO subscriber as a realistic way to recoup their expenses. Now days they need to invest less, and add more ways to get cash fast (cash shops, life time subs) out for their player base beacuse the old box sales and 15 a month just ain't cutting it.
Why did Trubine decided that LOTRO with a stable subscribed player base needed to go to the freemium pricing plan? They spent most of a year ignoring their paying customers to create what must have been an exhausting new hybrid pay/freemium pricing plan aimed at people who most likely weren't fans of the game.
Why did Blizzard spend most of their effort redoing the starting portion of the game which really only benfits new players and then give their long time fans such a tiny amount of content, but at large content prices?
Why did Rfit make decisions such as only one starter zone per faction? Could it be they really aren't too concered about long term re-playability?
I could continue but I think I've made my point. You can accept that my observations have at least some merit or you can't. Either suits me.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
I don't get the question of the OP. I mean, seriously.
What the OP says applies to any MMORPG out there, raids, dungeons, crafting, battlegrounds. Yet people play MMO's like WoW and LotrO and Aion and AoC for years.
So, want to explain to me why they do that, OP, since according to your idea of how MMO gamers think and how MMO fun works, they should have been bored of it within months and left all those MMO's already.
Yet they haven't.
Bit of a mystery here, eh?
And don't give that biased prediction of how upcoming MMO's besides will have gameplay that makes them hugely different and suddenly provide THE reason to stay subbed for years, having the ultimate endgame content, because that's just wishful thinking. Rift already proves you wrong, since their dynamic content wasn't enough to prevent large amounts of players leaving that game.
SWTOR will have all the features and endgame content that other themepark MMO's have, so at the least every reason that applies to those other themepark MMO's why people keep playing them, also applies to SWTOR.
Besides that, however, SWTOR will make the leveling alts a totally unique experience, more so than other MMO's did till now. That's about 200 hours per character class added as entertainment fun, and it will launch with a huge amount of content, far more than any other MMO did, not just bland textbased 'fetch this or kill that' but more immersive story questing which over 90% of the demo players have already stated to find more immersive and entertaining than the regular current MMO questing.
The same applies to the Heroic content or group questing that has been made more immersive too, with enough content to level up grouping all the way to level cap.
And so far all signs point towards that the Crew Skills will be a more extensive, deeper experience than it is in other themepark styled MMO's.
As for the endgame content, it'd be wrong to assume they have released everything there can be revealed. We do know that there will be raid content with their own twist to them and that open world pvp will have objectives attached to it, but that's all we know for now.
In the end, it's simply that you can't imagine having longterm fun in SWTOR for yourself, and think that your idea of fun applies to all other MMO gamers. But then again, in your viewpoint of MMO fun you probably have found no explanation why MMO gamers keep playing themepark MMO's anyway, since they have gameplay that you've grown to find boring within months.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
what will keep me playing for a long time? as long as i find it fun and enjoy the people i hang with in game thats all i need. personally i don't need some specific "end game" feature.
hopeing for world pvp to be endgame make the right friends and right enemies can make a great experience while you wait for more content updates
I wish I could find the quote, but my google-fu is lacking today. I recall somewhere a dev saying that TOR would have "all you would expect" from endgame, "plus a twist".
Ah, found it (or at least one very similar): http://www.computerandvideogames.com/238122/news/star-wars-the-old-republic-end-game-is-brand-new-system/
I'm interested to know what that "brand new" aspect will be. As far as anything else goes, people raid and pvp at the endgame in almost every game out there, some players stick with the same game for years. If SW:TOR is fun and engaging enough, you can be pretty sure plenty of people will stay around for endgame even if it is only "same old, same old".
CO and STO were I think made specifically to depend upon box sales mainly, considering the fact that both had a development time of 2 years or so.
However, no MMO company will just ignore subs especially since 3 months that someone stays subbed already provides as much revenues as when someone bought the game, 1 year that someone stays subbed is the equivalent of 4 people having bought the game.
So i don't think they'd in general just ignore those facts in their design, it's more the case though that they acknowledge changed gamer behaviour, where a lot more people will buy the game at launch than that will stay. the MMO market isn't like in the beginning anymore, an emerging market where slowly more and more people got introduced to online gaming and the MMO market and where people had only choice of a few MMO's. Today the competition is far fiercer, and MMO companies are aware of that.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
So in other words . . . YOU feel this way and have nothing but your own personal experience to back it up? Got it. By the way, disgusting sexual references were unnecessary and immature.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Question: Why would you play SWTOR in the long term.
Answer: Because I can, Because I want to, Because I like what I see, end of story.
Says the guy who made the comment about the aforementioned "bodily function" match? Pots and kettles friend, pots and kettles.
Now I explained my observations, whether you chose to bother listening to them is your choice.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Interesting response.
First off not all MMO's had raids and batttlegrounds. In fact some of the oldest if not the oldest MMO's still around didn't have raids and battlegrounds.
All MMO's have crafting.. sure. Not all MMO's deal with crafting the same way. There was a time that crafting was intrical to the game as opposed to only support crafts really being worth it. Ultima Online, EvE, SWG and Dark Age of Camelot back when player crafted gear + spell crafting was the best you could get.
Long term crafting now for profit? You maybe make bags.. potions or some type of enhancement. Don't bother making armor or weapons because the entire point of MMO's now is... Grind PvP or PvE for your gear and crafted gear is crap in comparison.
Another interesting statement:
"Yet people play MMO's like WoW and LotrO and Aion and AoC for years.
So, want to explain to me why they do that, OP, since according to your idea of how MMO gamers think and how MMO fun works, they should have been bored of it within months and left all those MMO's already."
Why is this interesting. Well let's see Aion and AoC had really good box sales followed by massive amounts of server mergers well under 1 year from release. Aion has what 4 US servers now? I'm not sure how many AoC has and then you could toss Warhammer Online in there.
Lotro... is another poster child as far as subscriber numbers go. Tho after they went with the "free to play"/pay for content model it helped them out apparantly. Tho there is still pretty much a P2P option.
Out of the three games you list people did in fact get bored and leave within months... WoW being the exception.. based on the financial returns of the company which are hard to argue with (in other words I don't care about claimed sub numbers.. they are making a ton of money).
Then you say:
"And don't give that biased prediction of how upcoming MMO's besides will have gameplay that makes them hugely different and suddenly provide THE reason to stay subbed for years, having the ultimate endgame content, because that's just wishful thinking. Rift already proves you wrong, since their dynamic content wasn't enough to prevent large amounts of players leaving that game."
Well yes because Rift was exactly what the OP was talking about. The exact same.. same old same old. The soul system was the only thing really interesting. Rifts? You call that dynamic content? Rifts were ok as extra content a variation on PQ's from WAR.. but quite often they were more annoying than interesting.
So using Rift as in a statement of "different" really doesn't show anything.
UO was different than EQ.. AC was different than either of those. EvE is entirely different or at most somewhat like UO in the aspect of skill system.. even tho its still its own thing even there. DAoC was different... and very popular until it was made.. "the same".
Now here is a thought. EA pretty much wants for a minimum 500,000 subscribers and they want and/or need to maintain that "long term". So we are leaving the universe of player perspective and opinion to business reality. So that fact comes back to why the thread has merit. In fact EA has suggested they really believe they will maintain 1.5 million subscribers.
So when you think about all the MMO's that have come out since 2005 (post WoW). How many of those MMO's do you think maintained 500,000 subscribers? Its a valid questions because the company that makes the game needs to make more money than the game cost.. and running the game cost money.. cost doesn't end at launch. *edit* I went with 2005 because EQ2/WoW launched in November of 2004 and I don't think another MMO came out in Nov or Dec. EQ2 obviously subscriber wise falls in with all the other MMO's along with the server mergers etc
In other words the idea isn't just to sell a million boxes or 2 million then close most of your servers in less than a year.
So you don't agree with someones opinion and that's just fine. However, based on things that have actually happened in the MMO market... trying to act like someone is making things up or the minority because you don't agree with them... doesn't suddenly make all these MMO's that have fallen flat.. successful.