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Biggest MMO Failure to date?
pharazonic
Member Posts: 860
This has got to be the biggest MMO failure to date. Big and I mean BIG budget studios (BioWare, and then all of Mythic), many millions of dollars, reknown voice actors and actors, world-famous interllectual property (Star Wars - who doesn't know it???), one of the titans of video games, EA and many years of anticipated development - all of this to crash and burn in less than a year?
Sure you guys can argue that F2P is not a failure and that the game had "always been intended for F2P/Freemium" . Personally I think this view is bogus but whatever.
But the FACT remains that this game was THE WoW killer. Everyone from EA's CEO to BioWare's developers to SWTOR community managers said that this was the game that was going to face Blizzard's juggernaught, WoW. (You can look up articles posted during SWTOR's development that how this was the next big thing; I am not making this stuff up.)
Well, one game still requires you to buy the latest expansion at FULL PRICE. One game still requires you to buy the game to level to levelcap. One game still has a major expansion coming up. One game still requires a subscription fee. That game isn't SWTOR.
This has got to be the most monumental MMO failure - way beyond other "WoW killers" like AoC, War, etc. I mean, even WAR still has a subscription. How sad.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Comments
I'd say Tabula Rasa over SWTOR [mod edit]
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
No one can deny the facts, after playing in a few SWTOR betas I knew this game would fail, graphics were ugly, combat was boring and the story got repetitive especially the jedi storyline that was a joke.
but then again I'm not a fan of Star Wars so doesn't affect me in the least.
I don't play WoW. [mod edit]
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
They designed a game that would have been stale on the day they started working on it, let alone 4-5 years later. It might have done well five years ago, maybe with just a few tweaks. It's completely outdated game design today.
MMO developers need to anticipate innovations that will evolve the genre during the five years they will be spending developing the game and position the end result to compete with next generation games. TOR is maybe two generations behind and that's what killed them.
There were things I liked, a fair number of them, actually. However, i grew tired of the vast over-abundance of time sinks long before the point where I would have "run out of things to do" if the game had offered the same content, minus 80% of the time sinks.
The game engine was sub-par as well, which didn't help. Most of the game zones felt more like something I would find in a solo RPG, not an MMO and I think a lot of that was due to engine limitations effecting zone design.
It may not be the biggest failure ever in the MMO space, but it's definitely one of the biggest disappointments to date and the wasted potential of the setting and the i.p. just serves to shine an even brighter spotlight on the game's failures.
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The idea of the game intending to be F2P from the start was shutdown by the article below, detailing the timeline of EA's stance on F2P over the years:
Star Wars: The Old Republic's Long Road to Free-to-Play
Aug 01, 2012
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/bioware-mmo-project/1225612p1.html
custesey of Observer in this thread:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5174904#5174904
EA BioWare had no intention of making this game F2P.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Age of Conan, Vanguard and Star Trek Online
I'd say one of the MMOs you can't play at all anymore for lack of it's continued existence. Pick one.
Sounded like you were praising WoW. Most people would think you were praising WoW, It's of no moment, as I just think Tabula Rasa was a more epic failure as it completely shut down.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Praising?
Those are facts. Praise would be if I said "WoW rocks and is the best game ever".
Tabula Rasa never had as much as effort or ambition poured into it as SWTOR did. [mod edit]
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
Tabula Rasa... Way way bigger, and not the effort. For it's time it was the most over-hyped debacle made. Sure it did not have full VO but then agaoin not many other games have had that so far and this was a few years ago. And for it's time i think Motorcity Online was a pretty big fail to. Ultima Online 2 was also a pretty big fail.
And least but not last... SW:ToR did not fail... EA might be considerd a fail as they completley missjudge the market, they are now rectifying it and i think the game have a very good chance of making EA very big piles of money...
But as the second poster said, don't let me rain on your parade as nothing i say will change your mind.
This have been a good conversation
..because this topic has already been discussed so many times and its repeat threads like this which is why fans rarely visit these forums anymore. The thread itself is a necro of god knows how many threads, so its not contributing anything [mod edit]
There Is Always Hope!
At the end of the day SWTOR if done correctly would have been the "WOW Killer" but sadly instead of making an MMO for Star Wars fans they decided to make a Star Wars MMO for MMO fans and we all know how fickle your standard MMO fan is.
I agree after UO tabula was supposed to be the next big MMO for Richard but was a complete disaster. At least swtor is playable and has a decent story aspect.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Asheron's Call 2 is my personal favorite for biggest mmo failure to date. Such a let down considering its predecessor.
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So explain it to me..."buddy"
Tabula Rasa had a ton of money.. some really big names and a marketing machine pretty much unseen at the time. Same as SW:ToR only it went belly up.
But that being said you are right, SW:ToR does deserv to be a F2P game because it offers content in a way that is hard to capitalise on with a sub-model. By going F2P it get the amount of players it deserv and and people can enjoy the content in what ever pace they like. It is a win/win situation so i am not sure what you are complaning about. It is not like they are closing it down.
If that happens you are free to mess me and gloat all you want.
This have been a good conversation
how was CoH a complete failure? it's done pretty well for itself so has EQ2
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I thought the game was nice, I was only bothered by how small the zones were and the copy/paste-esque content. (Storylines, classes, abilities) but other than that my first playthrough was rather enjoyable, I loved the theme and I did quite enjoy the PvP. If only they had left some perfect imbalance I'd still be playing it. But they tried to avoid any imbalances at all by the copy/paste-esque.
Surely if it all hadn't been a copy/paste-esque feeling to it with lack of ANY replayability without total boredom it would have been a terrific game. And the artstyle was quite alright. It was a bit too demanding to play on ultra settings, most likely due poor graphical tweakings so on and so forth.
The whole atmosphere of all the zones were amazing aswell in my opinion. I think that was what I enjoyed the most. I did think that the combat was alright aswell but a bit clunky at times.
I personally loved the game during my first month, until I reached the levelcap and did not play it again. Was it worth the money? Possibly not, but without doubt not the worst MMORPG out there. Might be one of the biggest flops however.
Was TR backed by a film moghul? Did TR have a world-famous IP? From what I have heard TR had great potential but some very poor design executions and the devs didn't give it a chance.
SWTOR has had its chance the market has spoken.
I don't think the Freemium model will bring it the consitent userbase EA hopes itn will. My evidence is AoC which has the same subscription/F2P model.
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
with everyone's definition lately of failing, just about every MMO since WOW has failed. It certainly didn't maintain subs like I thought it originally would, but I wouldn't call it a failure when compared to most other MMOs. The problem all MMOs have nowadays is that there are so many choices. It really is becoming a more and more segregated and niche market.
There Is Always Hope!
I think the poster was showing other games that went F2P without the world ending.
This have been a good conversation
SWTOR failed because of one thing; they were making a Star Wars MMORPG geared towards non-Star Wars fans. This translated to as 'easy-as-possible' or -basically- a dull world. EA thinks that easy-as-possible also means completely dumbing down everything, with no real depth to the game. They chase the illusionary 10-million casual crowd that simply does not exist. This lesson should have been learned after LoTRO failed to do any better than EQ II.
TR was the biggest failure of anything with Garriot's name attached to it. To be fair, what was released was NOT what Garriot intended. I've always gotten the impression his original idea was so ambitious, the suit wearing bean counters were uncomfortable and so he was instructed to dump everything he had done and start from scratch. And then he was increasingly marginalized until he finally ragequit.
TR didn't have the hype behind it nor the IP. In my opinion, there ARE IP's that are practically licenses to print money and I think Star Wars is one. It's a testament to just how BADLY mismanaged SWTOR was that BW has such a giant turd on it's hands.
Imagine if someone like Trion had gotten their hands on it. Rift may be a WoW clone, but it's a well coded one and it does have some novel ideas.