The clone wars are over

Warsong · January 2012

Originally posted by Gibbonici

Originally posted by Rasputin

Originally posted by Gibbonici

Originally posted by Rasputin

We have reached the end of the line for EQ-clones. The failure of SW-TOR will finally set the MMO free from the stranglehold, that quest- and level-centric games has held on it for almost a decade.

The MMO industry has always been free of quest and level-centric games. The problem is that whenever anything different has been tried it's generally been crushed by a lack of interest on the part of players. I don't like it any more than you do, but even if TOR loses 75% of its players it will probably still be more populated than the biggest sandbox out there.

And that's why there'll always be themeparks.

The last big sandbox game was Starwars Galaxies. It almost rivalled Everquest subscription-wise, being the second biggest of its age, and with a retention rate, that makes the performance of the current crop of MMOs laughable.

Along came WoW and then they tried to alter SWG into a clone, and they lost both their game as well as the target. Wierdly enough, this behemoth of the MMO world was suddenly not good enough anymore, just because WoW came along?

Ridicilous. And my bet is, a new sandbox can still be madly successful. Maybe not like WoW, but maybe not so far from it - a little like the EQ/SWG balance back then.

We don't know, because noone tried on a big budget since WoW released.

What happened to SWG proves my point completely. More players wanted to play WoW than SWG, and that's who the money behind SWG chased. And if TOR loses 75% of it's subs, it will still be bigger than SWG was in its heyday.

Over the years I've come to realise that the vast majority of MMO gamers don't want to scratch around in virtual dirt looking for their own fun. You, me and dozens of others on these forums might love the idea of it, but millions want their gaming on a plate. This is self evident.

Many believe a game "can" be developed that offers both...

1) PvE typed themeparks for PvE'ers basically

2) A Sandbox world/worlds-environments that have sand box elements Based around PvPing mainly

3) Tying them together can be a crafting element envolving PvE looted componants for gear/bases/houses-cities making the end game and markets thrive with non generic componant changing gear/weapons and a never ending supply of componants also needed for bases that can be built/placed and fought over (or something along those lines).

4) There are many elements from many games that "could" be combined to make a more engaging MMO if designed and exicuted well enough .

I have played almost every MMO to date and have found the most fun in more of a sandbox typed game because it's not the same thing over and over again (like killing the same raid boss a thousand times for a chance on another piece of gear that makes crafted gear useless ect).

IMHO a sand box element is needed to keep the end game alive and not the same ol' thing a thousand times over.

And I don't believe that SWG failed due to it being a primarily based "sand box" I believe the reasons were more due to bugs and balancing issues rather than "because it was a sand box". But I also believe that they could have done more with the PvE end of the game as well.

Just like Dark and Light didn't fail because of it's overall design, it had one of the best end games land control+fort building-placement designs and flying combat etc. I have ever seen, it failed primarily due to it's server rollbacks and gear bugs. It's coding, managment and exicution failed not it's overall design concept....much like SWG

rojoArcueid · January 2012

7.9k players using xfire everyday. it seems xfire is losing its popularity among Swtor players.... that doesnt mean anything to swtor playerbase. Yes, some people are leaving the game but xfire doesnt know how many.

thark · January 2012

Originally posted by dreamsofwar
Can somebody clarify for me how Xfire shows trends when the majority of mmo users don't actually use it?

There doesnt have to be a majority that uses X-fire, It shows a percentage , that In this case will stand for the entire community..In a survey they never ask each person/player/consumer..They ask a small group to see "trends"

In a survey they use a set of maybe 100-1000 RANDOM people to measure "a trend" of a certain thing, it may be in a election or wich butter they use or if a MMO is popular..But all serveys are almost alike ..and they are also rather accurate

In this case the player base from X-fire is not random..But It will show "the trend" rather accuratly nevertheless, and It will only differ if you actually can say that the playerbase that use X-fire is somehow diffrent from the playerbase that doesn't. Wich IMO believe they are not..

thark · January 2012

Originally posted by Zinzan

Originally posted by Rasputin

Originally posted by Zinzan
Im amazed people still have the balls to quote X-Fire as representative of the entire community of a game, it's representative of X-fire users (which speaks volumes in itself), thats all.

I will quote myself:

"You have been able to read every single failure so far in the X-Fire graph."

I have been around long enough to see the furious denials and the subsequent crawling back, admitting the truth. I can not name a single MMO failure, that could not have been predicted by reading x-fire.

Can you?

Your making claims your "evidence" cannot support, thats all.

I'm not disputing trends, im disputing your interpretation of skewed, non-representative and disproportional data as solid fact.

The evidence of the falling population is the server numbers, subs figures, these are undisputable facts. X-Fire is a trend among X-Fire users...thats it.

You also need to understand that just because few X-Fire users play a game, does not make it a "failure" as again you would have us believe. Plenty of games with low X-Fire users are doing fine, just becuase a small minority clique of players don't play a game does not make it a failure.

Your own X-Fire numbers show ~50k players on SWG....out of about a million....thats no more than 5%...how can that be representative?

Thats FAR more than is needed in a survey to show the trend..

Rasputin · January 2012

Originally posted by Zinzan

Your own X-Fire numbers show ~50k players on SWG....out of about a million....thats no more than 5%...how can that be representative?

Do you know anything about statistics?

A poll of 1000 is called representative. That is about the number, that is sampled for the election polls.

You cannot dispute the amount of players on X-Fire, what you can dispute is whether they are representative of the population.

teoyaomiqui · January 2012

Originally posted by Shivam

Originally posted by teoyaomiqui

Well, obviously you've missed the point. If I would say it your way, it would mean that the game sales are going to increase, or atleast not decrease over time. What i mean, is that the majorty buys the game at the release, and there is a minority left to keep up the sales atleast at some level, and the bigger the hype the bigger that minority is.

But you are claiming that the sales were so big, that it is impossible for game to grow? well indeed so, it was overhyped, a lot of people bought it, and now are thinking, wtf is this, another medicore wow clone, and stop playing it. If it was otherwise, people who play other games, wow for instance, would think, omg this game is great, thinks oh, it's better than wow and drops wow sub. Or you think that it is actually what is happening?

Or you think that they've sold 2m coppies and retained atleast 1 to 1.5 million subscribers?

I really don't see the reasoning, behind your words.

To see the point you just have to read your own post. I will copy paste what you wrote.

THe game still is very popular, because of huge hype around it, around 2m copies sold... But... you know

The game is still not just popular because of hype alone but also because people find it fun and want to play it beyond first 30 day period. You make it sound as if SWTOR is still running on pure hype when people are actually getting to play it and not just watch videos on you tube.

Hype is over now, the game will talk for itself.

If the subscribtion numbers are lets say 600-700k in february, that means, yea game speaks for itself, out of 2 mil people, 1.3 dropped it... Game speaks for itself, it's only first month, and 60% dropped the game, and then we will see more drop in march and even more in april, the game speaks for itself indeed. you say otherwise?

What numbers for you would mean that game is doing great?

For me, for MMO to be succesful nowadays it has to show stable subscribtion retention or growth , not a decrease. I would say that 600-700k is a top for this game, and from that sub number, it will go down, fast and steady.

Gylfi · January 2012

Originally posted by Clywd

Originally posted by ktanner3

Keep dreaming. Themeparks are here to stay.

No way - look at all the upcoming big titles, not one of the big devs is betting anymore on pure themeparks.

People will look back and see what a shameful and ridiculous mistake the whole subgenre was.

Massive games you pay for months, into games that invite solo playing and that because of stories you only play for the free month.

People will go WTF were they thinking?

fony · January 2012

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/trends

teoyaomiqui · January 2012

you'r phony...

Shivam · January 2012

Originally posted by teoyaomiqui

Originally posted by Shivam

Originally posted by teoyaomiqui

Well, obviously you've missed the point. If I would say it your way, it would mean that the game sales are going to increase, or atleast not decrease over time. What i mean, is that the majorty buys the game at the release, and there is a minority left to keep up the sales atleast at some level, and the bigger the hype the bigger that minority is.

But you are claiming that the sales were so big, that it is impossible for game to grow? well indeed so, it was overhyped, a lot of people bought it, and now are thinking, wtf is this, another medicore wow clone, and stop playing it. If it was otherwise, people who play other games, wow for instance, would think, omg this game is great, thinks oh, it's better than wow and drops wow sub. Or you think that it is actually what is happening?

Or you think that they've sold 2m coppies and retained atleast 1 to 1.5 million subscribers?

I really don't see the reasoning, behind your words.

To see the point you just have to read your own post. I will copy paste what you wrote.

THe game still is very popular, because of huge hype around it, around 2m copies sold... But... you know

The game is still not just popular because of hype alone but also because people find it fun and want to play it beyond first 30 day period. You make it sound as if SWTOR is still running on pure hype when people are actually getting to play it and not just watch videos on you tube.

Hype is over now, the game will talk for itself.

If the subscribtion numbers are lets say 600-700k in february, that means, yea game speaks for itself, out of 2 mil people, 1.3 dropped it... Game speaks for itself, it's only first month, and 60% dropped the game, and then we will see more drop in march and even more in april, the game speaks for itself indeed. you say otherwise?

What numbers for you would mean that game is doing great?

For me, for MMO to be succesful nowadays it has to show stable subscribtion retention or growth , not a decrease. I would say that 600-700k is a top for this game, and from that sub number, it will go down, fast and steady.

Since evrything just boils down to 'my opinion' you can say whatever you like i guess? but yeah hype period is over. Now the game has to stand on its own legs.

BadSpock · January 2012

In this modern age of MMOs I fully expected to see 50-60% drop after the first month.

I don't think that has very much to do with the games but instead a whole hell of a lot to do with the gamers.

MMO junkies is the new population - millions of kids who get super hyped about the "next big thing" overload on the fanboi/haterism and buy every new game, burn through it in a month at 987mph then drop it, complain a lot, and start jones'ing for your next fix - the next "next big thing" to start drooling over.

Ya'll are like dogs chasing cars.

Some will come back, some will pick up the game at a later date, some will leave when new games are released, even more will come back for expansions etc.

Even with 500k subscribers, which is what EA/Bioware has said is there "game will be very profitable" point - TOR will still be the 2nd biggest game in the West.

How is that a failure?

You people are all crazy... "it either beats WoW or it's a failure."

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You know what games are also NOT going to beat WoW and you'll then have to say are quote "failures?"

GW2, TSW, Archeage, Tera...

Just play what you like, play what you WANT to play and shut up already.

Want to actually make your voice heard? Vote with your wallet.

teoyaomiqui · January 2012

Originally posted by Shivam

Since evrything just boils down to 'my opinion' you can say whatever you like i guess? but yeah hype period is over. Now the game has to stand on its own legs.

Indeed, what else can we say? third party statistics like xfire, swtorarena and torstatus? you don't buy them, I don't buy your personal 'people like the game' opinion. So we have nothing but to grab beer, popcorn or whatever you prefer, and wait till we have EA quater report for january...april, or something like server merges etc...

Shivam · January 2012

Originally posted by BadSpock
In this modern age of MMOs I fully expected to see 50-60% drop after the first month.

Some will come back, some will pick up the game at a later date, some will leave when new games are released, even more will come back for expansions etc.

Even with 500k subscribers, what is what EA/Bioware has said is there "game will be very profitable" point - TOR will still be the 2nd biggest game in the West.

How is that a failure?

You people are all crazy... "it either beats WoW or it's a failure."

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You know what games are also NOT going to beat WoW and you'll then have to say are quote "failures?"

GW2, TSW, Archeage, L3, Tera...

Just play what you like, play what you WANT to play and shut up already.

Want to actually make your voice heard? Vote with your wallet.

Its obvious that none of thsoe games you mentioned will beat WOW but the irony is that the same people who call SWTOR a failure because it didn't get WOW numbers will defend GW2 for same reasons. Hypocricy runs rampant here.

Just wait and see.

Distopia · January 2012

Originally posted by Warsong
You don't need x-fire to prove anything, all you need is to be honest and be in touch with guilds and gamers from the servers in any game.

Member inactivity seems to be in the range of 50%+ over the last month and the complaints keep coming. I see it in general chat constantly, I hear it from players from guilds server wide, I hear it from players/guilds on other servers.

Bottem line is there isn't much "entertainment" after you have enjoyed the story. If you didn't pay much attention to the story and played spaced through the questing etc. then the end game PvE, Crafting, PvP leaves tons to be desired during the midst of broken things/bugs/balancing issues.

End game PvP here has now turned into standing around trading kills instead of organized competitive battles. /yawn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgTaWNP2HJ0

How many PL are still logging in? We're losing people now, plus when I'm seeing infighting in guild (FIGHT) like I've been seeing, that tells me people are simply bored. Just a week or so ago we had a regular average of about 50 or so logging in for long periods, these last few days we're lucky to have 20.

Not to mention people separating from the guild to join another which seems more active, it doesn't bode well for me to stay around in any capacity for PVP. I joined up late so I'm not even 50 yet I've been skipping half the game to get to 50 which I'm about to 40. I'll sub another month to run the actual stories with my alt, at this point I'm getting disappointed by the amount of peopel we've been losing.

This is Malickie btw. Sad to see you guys are having these issues as well.

Ausare · January 2012

themeparks are not dead. SWTOR is floundering not due to a bad game, but due to content. Either the speed of content (ie leveling) or the amount, end game and during leveling. Themeparks that want to succeed will have to figure this out. If you are going to have super fast leveling then you have to have a lot to do at the end or you have to slow down leveling to allow time for more endgame content to be developed. Those are the lessons of SWTOR.

Gibbonici · January 2012

Originally posted by Warsong

Originally posted by Gibbonici

Originally posted by Rasputin

Originally posted by Gibbonici

Originally posted by Rasputin

We have reached the end of the line for EQ-clones. The failure of SW-TOR will finally set the MMO free from the stranglehold, that quest- and level-centric games has held on it for almost a decade.

The MMO industry has always been free of quest and level-centric games. The problem is that whenever anything different has been tried it's generally been crushed by a lack of interest on the part of players. I don't like it any more than you do, but even if TOR loses 75% of its players it will probably still be more populated than the biggest sandbox out there.

And that's why there'll always be themeparks.

The last big sandbox game was Starwars Galaxies. It almost rivalled Everquest subscription-wise, being the second biggest of its age, and with a retention rate, that makes the performance of the current crop of MMOs laughable.

Along came WoW and then they tried to alter SWG into a clone, and they lost both their game as well as the target. Wierdly enough, this behemoth of the MMO world was suddenly not good enough anymore, just because WoW came along?

Ridicilous. And my bet is, a new sandbox can still be madly successful. Maybe not like WoW, but maybe not so far from it - a little like the EQ/SWG balance back then.

We don't know, because noone tried on a big budget since WoW released.

What happened to SWG proves my point completely. More players wanted to play WoW than SWG, and that's who the money behind SWG chased. And if TOR loses 75% of it's subs, it will still be bigger than SWG was in its heyday.

Over the years I've come to realise that the vast majority of MMO gamers don't want to scratch around in virtual dirt looking for their own fun. You, me and dozens of others on these forums might love the idea of it, but millions want their gaming on a plate. This is self evident.

Many believe a game "can" be developed that offers both...

1) PvE typed themeparks for PvE'ers basically

2) A Sandbox world/worlds-environments that have sand box elements Based around PvPing mainly

3) Tying them together can be a crafting element envolving PvE looted componants for gear/bases/houses-cities making the end game and markets thrive with non generic componant changing gear/weapons and a never ending supply of componants also needed for bases that can be built/placed and fought over (or something along those lines).

4) There are many elements from many games that "could" be combined to make a more engaging MMO if designed and exicuted well enough .

I have played almost every MMO to date and have found the most fun in more of a sandbox typed game because it's not the same thing over and over again (like killing the same raid boss a thousand times for a chance on another piece of gear that makes crafted gear useless ect).

IMHO a sand box element is needed to keep the end game alive and not the same ol' thing a thousand times over.

And I don't believe that SWG failed due to it being a primarily based "sand box" I believe the reasons were more due to bugs and balancing issues rather than "because it was a sand box". But I also believe that they could have done more with the PvE end of the game as well.

Just like Dark and Light didn't fail because of it's overall design, it had one of the best end games land control+fort building-placement designs and flying combat etc. I have ever seen, it failed primarily due to it's server rollbacks and gear bugs. It's coding, managment and exicution failed not it's overall design concept....much like SWG

I totally agree, a decent hybrid sandbox/themepark game can be designed and developed. I bet there are hundreds of pitches out there for just a thing, backed by teams who absolutely could deliver. The issue is the money to develop. The money isn't controlled by gamers, it's controlled by businessmen whose sole interest is in the return which is why the whole MMO scene has stagnated.

There was a time when relatively small companies could get funded to try something different, but even the best of those projects were destroyed by word of mouth, very often unfairly. Add that to the current state of the general economy and it's fair to say that risky projects are even less likely to be funded than ever before. In fact, I'd suggest it's much more likely that fewer MMOs will be made over the coming years than for more sandbox-type games to be made.

I don't like it either, but its what it is. MMO development is incredibly complex, expensive and risky, and at the end of the day it's a mercilessly thankless task. If a new game doesn't match player expectations, many of which are informed by the exceptional case that is WoW, it will be dropped and mocked for years. Themeparks can often survive this (even if they're dismissed as failures) and eventually turn a profit, simply because they are a pre-packaged experience with a very large audience. The same rarely applies to sandboxes because they lack the audience and accessibility of themeparks.

Vato26 · January 2012

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Zinzan

Im amazed people still have the balls to quote X-Fire as representative of the entire community of a game, it's representative of X-fire users (which speaks volumes in itself), thats all.

Who are you, oracle of truth? Maybe people dont agree that X-Fire is not representative.

Yet, X-fire is not representative of the total gaming population. That is a fact. Especially when combined with statistical collection procedures like sampling controls, which are used to remove any extraneous variables. Removing these variables would would make the sample as closely representative of the population as possible. However, the fact that there is NO sampling controls in place when using X-fire statistics outside of the X-fire userbase automatically means that it's invalid and does not represent the total gaming population.

What the X-fire supporters are doing is engaging in hope. Hope that the X-fire userbase is representative of the total gaming population. Facts trump hope.

nordya · January 2012

While I find the game to be quite fun and enjoyable, I must admit it didn't hook me like past mmos. There are days I can simply decide not to get on, compared to let's say WoW where I had to log in there daily. Something is missing.,

Vato26 · January 2012

Originally posted by Opapanax

Originally posted by Rasputin

We have reached the end of the line for EQ-clones. The failure of SW-TOR will finally set the MMO free from the stranglehold, that quest- and level-centric games has held on it for almost a decade.

You can say what you want about X-Fire, but it does show trends. You have been able to read every single failure so far in the X-Fire graph. Devs and fanboys will furiously deny, coming up with all kinds of explanations, but a few months later, when the financial result is out or the servers go too empty, they come back and admit it.

On X-Fire SW-TOR has almost been halved after the first month. It is actually one of the most violent downturns I have witnessed in my time following these trends (I began before X-Fire, with much more uncertain graphs).

http://www.xfire.com/games/swtor/Star_Wars_The_Old_Republic/

The thread title got me.. Very funny.

Hopefully holds truth too, the genre needs to float back to the more freeform, sandboxes, way...

Remove some of the grind and in more of the social..

Slow down leveling and make it about the "journey".. Voice overs are probably a good idea.. Keep those..

Cinematics better not outshine in game too much. Keep the content coming and the coding tight..

Most importantly and most under-rated.. COMMUNTY M'FN SERVICE..

DON'T BE LIKE SW:TOR- BW. BE MORE LIKE RIFT-TRION..

You clammor for more freeform and sadbox games, wanting to remove the grind, and slow down levling. Yet, you want SWTOR to be more like Rift? A game that is even less freeform and sandbox than SWTOR (only 2 starting areas vs. SWTOR's 4), more grindy than SWTOR (everyone on each side does the same quests vs. each class has their own quest line), and is very fast leveling compared to SWTOR. Yeah.... LOL.

Amana · January 2012

There's a thread open for X-Fire/SWTOR discussion here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/336517/Seems-like-the-game-has-peaked-on-XFire.html

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