Originally posted by leaky free to play did not save this game!!!! What saved this game was the IP definitely the most iconic IP out there. The development team and EA definitely were the culprits of killing this game. By releasing too early forced by money backing and not listening to the community. I.e. endgame content.
If this game were instead called BiowareX and described:
-Theme Park Game with level restrictive zones that have no atmospheric qualities (day/night cycles, weather, interesting and well programmed wildlife).
-Limited class structure of 4 classes per faction with two possible sub-classes. Sub-classes are restricted to one weapon type, so there is no diversity in playstyle for weapon choice or switching between weapons.
-Mobs in this game are extrememly static and appear to be placed by a rudimentary routine probably better suited to designing how to place trees in an orchard. Mobs have limited non-combat animations, and are placed in triads with a roamer in most situations.
-Crafting is simplistic and largely inconsequential. No variability in product within a tier as materials are essentially common, good, and better.
-Quests are given by cinematic cutscenes, making repeating quests require that you use the spacear unless you want to watch the little movie over and over again. Dialogues in cutscenes have almost zero effect on outcome. A token morality system is included but only allows access to vendor of that social bent for itms that are not extraordinary. Morality system has no effect on in-game factions for purpose of determining KOS or ally status.
-Extremely limited space minigame that can be botted, and repeates the same missions in a predictable pattern
-Art Style that attempts to be more realistic than a cartoon, but yet is more cartoony than the eye can appreciate as being realistic. Undermines story as the characters seem fake.
-No environmental interaction: Character actions do not affect environment in any way. There is no score card for faction wars, no ability to change the landscape or storyline in any way. All characters are the hero of the world in personal story, and Bioware has restricted all influence of players to keep this intact and commensurately meaningless.
-If you do encounter a problem in game, Bioware customer service can be reached by hiring a psychic and attempting contact. All other methods will prove fruitless.
-Combat is tab/target toolbar timer game stuff. There is a cover mechanic for two of the classes, but it is accomplished through preset locations for cover that your character moves to on rails. You cannot use any combat specials except with a valid target locked.
-No RP tools (bio, chat bubbles, sitting in chairs).
-No player housing (space game is accessed through a starship transition location that is identical for all players by class).
-Bioware modified Game engine cannot display more than 16 players in combat without serious performance degradation.
-Character generation has limited customization (as all faces have to be fully articulated for cutscenes) and body styles are static. Races to choose from are few, and are human in basic form. No stat variance available from character creation, human melee tank is human melee tank.
-Loot tables are repetitive, and as there is little character customization and no world interaction, are populated with either junk loots, or statted equipment.
-Faction-locked main social hubs are mirrored visually numbing locales that are designed like a shopping mall with currency vendors.
-Guild features are limited, no guild halls etc.
-No skill system or complex stat breakdown for characters means that tree is utilized for builds, with limited workable variations (game is trinity design so sacrificing ability in your job will gimp you in high end content, reducing the 8 clases down to effectively 3)
-F2P model restricts PvP interaction in game, and also space mini-game (which is actually not anything negative).
-Bosses in dungeons and raids are giant-sized (sometimes humongous so only the feet are visible) versions of enemies that have a mechanic coupled with tank and spank combat.
-Daily quest lines at endgame are same cutscene formula, and are tedious rehashes of same structure sans any ability to capitalize on story element. The converse happns, and daily quests at endgame actually end up working against any immersion in the leveling process.
Originally posted by leaky free to play did not save this game!!!! What saved this game was the IP definitely the most iconic IP out there. The development team and EA definitely were the culprits of killing this game. By releasing too early forced by money backing and not listening to the community. I.e. endgame content.
If this game were instead called BiowareX and described:
was there a point to this incredibly long wall of text?
I like the sound of BioWare will be EA's lead MMORPG department and we might even get a new SW one or another IP. Still it can take about 6 years to make one , hopefully they are working on one , well they are working on Ultima Online and so maybe that's one of them.
It's great to read about the fact all the money spent wasn't on VO or cut scenes and dev's shouldn' be afraid of having them in their games. The amount of times I have read all that money just on VO on websites such as this , at least now we have the ( possible ) truth.
More expansions coming our way , yay!
Cheers,
BadOrb.
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Nice work detective! Yes, I've only posted in this forum because it's the only MMO I'm playing at the moment, did you also happen to have noticed that I made this account in 2010? I must be a far thinking shill!
Meanwhile you made an account to bash a game you're not playing and only to casually mention another MMO. Do you work for Zenimax? What about all the other posters here who have admitted in other threads that they don't like or play the game who just enjoy bashing it? Who do they work for? Why are they spending time in the forum of a game they don't play or like? If you're not getting paid to do that it seems like a tremendous waste of your time.
Maybe you can better explain your motivations for posting in this forum, I'd be curious to know what you had hoped to achieve with your post.
You're the one who glommed onto the fact that that was my first post here and decided I must be here exclusively to bash swtor rather than reply concerning any of the merits of what I wrote, or lack of. So I guess that makes you the "detective" here, I just followed suit.
As for you being a Bioware employee, obviously I don't really believe that. It's called hyperbole, I assumed you used that when you wrote that I made this account solely to bash this game, but maybe you're just that paranoid. For fun's sake though, assuming you actually made your account here in 2010 (I didn't bother to check, nor will I now) doesn't disprove anything, it's not as if they weren't already hyping it up at that point. And hey, if mentioning other games on a forum website is that powerful of a statement maybe it will get me free stuff so....Neverwinter, Elder Scrolls Online, Wildstar, Tomb Raider, Bioshock 3 (whatever its real name is), Titan, and whatever the next Starcraft 2 expansion will be called.
And my motivation for posting on this forum? Presumably it's the same as yours or anyone else's, to express my opinions. I was making accounts on a few MMO websites and here I noticed this forum topic on the main page. And this topic, the article it refers to specifically but also the idea that f2p "saves" a failing mmo, annoys me. Mainly because the statements of Mr. Ohlen in that article are just more bs from them, as I pointed out previously.
So unless you want to actually discuss something on topic, or want to actually contribute something more than what amounts to "lol, troll", I'm done replying to you.
Returned to game last month to level two classes to lvl 50 before new content arrives. And i was pleasently surprised seeing how jam packed servers are. F2P did bring a lot of players around something i really missed few months back. So far enjoying the game because there is no downtime this time while looking for operations / flashpoints or PVP.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
I like the sound of BioWare will be EA's lead MMORPG department and we might even get a new SW one or another IP. Still it can take about 6 years to make one , hopefully they are working on one , well they are working on Ultima Online and so maybe that's one of them.
It's great to read about the fact all the money spent wasn't on VO or cut scenes and dev's shouldn' be afraid of having them in their games. The amount of times I have read all that money just on VO on websites such as this , at least now we have the ( possible ) truth.
More expansions coming our way , yay!
Cheers,
BadOrb.
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Cheers,
Badinfo.
Nope bad troll re-read the last paragraph , it implies that they are EA's leader in MMORPG's now and that not just SW MMO'S but other IP's too, Propaganda lol give me a break , I even said it was too short and not the best game ever. I was just posting a link to the article as I thought it to be very positive and no SWG2 won't be coming anytime soon sorry.
Badcopy is Badcopy :[]
EDIT forgot to directly quote it for visable proof
"SWTOR now has plans extending into the future including more expansion packs, like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and beyond. The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs. And thanks to the current success of TOR, BioWare is now the studio that will lead the charge for EA MMORPGs in the future, ones that aren't just Star Wars but other IPs as well. But most importantly, Ohlen told us, the morale of the BioWare community and studio has soared, and he hopes to tell us a different story for next year."
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 :[]
"The targets in terms of how fast players are running through the content, they’re hitting it at about the rate we want."
game success,
"In terms of subscribers, it keeps on growing every day. We’ve got very positive word of mouth. I’m confident in saying it’s going to be BioWare’s biggest game yet, in terms of how successful it’s going to be."
about the smooth launch, but this part was interesting. so in his mind SWTOR is equal to WOW
"I think the main thing there was, it was in BioWare’s and EA’s best interest that if we’re going to be taken seriously, we had to come across as a AAA massive multiplayer. And the fact is, there really has been only one other AAA MMO in the last decade or so, and that was World Of Warcraft."
in another article,
"Unlike a lot of other game companies that, once they launch a game, downsize their teams radically, our plan is to keep the team together and continue to focus on building content."
I like the sound of BioWare will be EA's lead MMORPG department and we might even get a new SW one or another IP. Still it can take about 6 years to make one , hopefully they are working on one , well they are working on Ultima Online and so maybe that's one of them.
It's great to read about the fact all the money spent wasn't on VO or cut scenes and dev's shouldn' be afraid of having them in their games. The amount of times I have read all that money just on VO on websites such as this , at least now we have the ( possible ) truth.
More expansions coming our way , yay!
Cheers,
BadOrb.
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Cheers,
Badinfo.
Nope bad troll re-read the last paragraph , it implies that they are EA's leader in MMORPG's now and that not just SW MMO'S but other IP's too, Propaganda lol give me a break , I even said it was too short and not the best game ever. I was just posting a link to the article as I thought it to be very positive and no SWG2 won't be coming anytime soon sorry.
Badcopy is Badcopy :[]
EDIT forgot to directly quote it for visable proof
"SWTOR now has plans extending into the future including more expansion packs, like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and beyond. The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs. And thanks to the current success of TOR, BioWare is now the studio that will lead the charge for EA MMORPGs in the future, ones that aren't just Star Wars but other IPs as well. But most importantly, Ohlen told us, the morale of the BioWare community and studio has soared, and he hopes to tell us a different story for next year."
Cheers,
BadOrb.
This is what I was talking about. they have a tenuous grasp on one Star Wars license that they have a contract for, and have produced an under performing product with. They have been made the MMORPG division by EA, but the sentence does not say anyhting about further SW IP RPGs from them. You put that in yourself.
Originally posted by Praetalus F2p brought me back to chck it out and after about a week, I re-subbed. Im really enjoying it.
Ok I think a lot of people have started to go off topic. Thats why I very, very rarely even look at this forum any more because it turns into children fighting over who's opinion is more valid.
However, the quote above is the reason SWTOR is doing better and its subs and player count are on the up. F2P was there to get people to 'try' the game and go "Oh damn I enjoy this." And sub.
I personally believe that F2P or a hybrid of sub and F2P is the future for MMO's. Whether I like it or not.
Why do people ask these insane (inane?) questions about SWTOR's population that nobody asks about other games? For SWTOR, and SWTOR *only*, there are a lot of people who aren't happy unless they know the exact number of players playing at a given moment, not the total number of players. NO GAME has released numbers of active players moment-to-moment, because, for one thing, active population varies from second to second.
People are logging in. People are logging out. EVERY. SECOND.
But yeah, WOW says they have 9 million players, and it's not questioned. People don't even stop to consider how many of them are Asain gold farmer accounts. But for some reason, when SWTOR post numbers, people start asking how many people are in the game at any given second, as if that's an accurate metric of anything. It's not.
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Why do people ask these insane (inane?) questions about SWTOR's population that nobody asks about other games? For SWTOR, and SWTOR *only*, there are a lot of people who aren't happy unless they know the exact number of players playing at a given moment, not the total number of players. NO GAME has released numbers of active players moment-to-moment, because, for one thing, active population varies from second to second.
People are logging in. People are logging out. EVERY. SECOND.
But yeah, WOW says they have 9 million players, and it's not questioned. People don't even stop to consider how many of them are Asain gold farmer accounts. But for some reason, when SWTOR post numbers, people start asking how many people are in the game at any given second, as if that's an accurate metric of anything. It's not.
Yeah I don't care about the population, any amount of players is too much. But I agree that it's a moving picture that can't be estimated with any meaningful accuracy.
Why do people ask these insane (inane?) questions about SWTOR's population that nobody asks about other games? For SWTOR, and SWTOR *only*, there are a lot of people who aren't happy unless they know the exact number of players playing at a given moment, not the total number of players. NO GAME has released numbers of active players moment-to-moment, because, for one thing, active population varies from second to second.
People are logging in. People are logging out. EVERY. SECOND.
But yeah, WOW says they have 9 million players, and it's not questioned. People don't even stop to consider how many of them are Asain gold farmer accounts. But for some reason, when SWTOR post numbers, people start asking how many people are in the game at any given second, as if that's an accurate metric of anything. It's not.
It's because they want the game to fail and unless there is 100 percent definitive proof of that not happening then they will never believe anything coming out of the dev's mouth.
I like the sound of BioWare will be EA's lead MMORPG department and we might even get a new SW one or another IP. Still it can take about 6 years to make one , hopefully they are working on one , well they are working on Ultima Online and so maybe that's one of them.
It's great to read about the fact all the money spent wasn't on VO or cut scenes and dev's shouldn' be afraid of having them in their games. The amount of times I have read all that money just on VO on websites such as this , at least now we have the ( possible ) truth.
More expansions coming our way , yay!
Cheers,
BadOrb.
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Cheers,
Badinfo.
Nope bad troll re-read the last paragraph , it implies that they are EA's leader in MMORPG's now and that not just SW MMO'S but other IP's too, Propaganda lol give me a break , I even said it was too short and not the best game ever. I was just posting a link to the article as I thought it to be very positive and no SWG2 won't be coming anytime soon sorry.
Badcopy is Badcopy :[]
EDIT forgot to directly quote it for visable proof
"SWTOR now has plans extending into the future including more expansion packs, like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and beyond. The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs. And thanks to the current success of TOR, BioWare is now the studio that will lead the charge for EA MMORPGs in the future, ones that aren't just Star Wars but other IPs as well. But most importantly, Ohlen told us, the morale of the BioWare community and studio has soared, and he hopes to tell us a different story for next year."
Cheers,
BadOrb.
This is what I was talking about. they have a tenuous grasp on one Star Wars license that they have a contract for, and have produced an under performing product with. They have been made the MMORPG division by EA, but the sentence does not say anyhting about further SW IP RPGs from them. You put that in yourself.
It does mention SW IP's , not sure about your reading comprehension. in any case I am now know as the propoganda pixie sprinkling my dust on the official forums and here , even though I haven't even replied after my original OP on the official forums , maybe I'm slacking ?
If something reads as "ones that aren't just SW but other IP's aswell" , if you break it down it implies that they could be SW and / or other IP's aswell. It's quite simple really. Troll fail again ? Anyways we obviously both read it differently , funny how you changed the highlighted colour and missing the word "ones".
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 :[]
"When free-to-play launched in November, it "blew all expectations out of the water," said Ohlen. Subscriptions started going up again. Concurrent players on the servers went way up. Both of those statistics continue to rise. As Ohlen put it, TOR is the second biggest subscription MMORPG in the western world, it has had two million new accounts since the F2P launch, thousands of new players try out the game everyday, and TOR is one of the largest microtransaction money-makers for publisher EA."
Also, interesting that "We didn't have some important social features such as a group finder to make finding groups at the elder game easier" was cited as one of the early problem.
... so LFD and F2P ... turned TOR around.
You do realize that every MMO that does the switch makes this very same statement. However, there hasn't been a single report from any of them, since their intial player boom.
I like the sound of BioWare will be EA's lead MMORPG department and we might even get a new SW one or another IP. Still it can take about 6 years to make one , hopefully they are working on one , well they are working on Ultima Online and so maybe that's one of them.
It's great to read about the fact all the money spent wasn't on VO or cut scenes and dev's shouldn' be afraid of having them in their games. The amount of times I have read all that money just on VO on websites such as this , at least now we have the ( possible ) truth.
More expansions coming our way , yay!
Cheers,
BadOrb.
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Cheers,
Badinfo.
Nope bad troll re-read the last paragraph , it implies that they are EA's leader in MMORPG's now and that not just SW MMO'S but other IP's too, Propaganda lol give me a break , I even said it was too short and not the best game ever. I was just posting a link to the article as I thought it to be very positive and no SWG2 won't be coming anytime soon sorry.
Badcopy is Badcopy :[]
EDIT forgot to directly quote it for visable proof
"SWTOR now has plans extending into the future including more expansion packs, like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and beyond. The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs. And thanks to the current success of TOR, BioWare is now the studio that will lead the charge for EA MMORPGs in the future, ones that aren't just Star Wars but other IPs as well. But most importantly, Ohlen told us, the morale of the BioWare community and studio has soared, and he hopes to tell us a different story for next year."
Cheers,
BadOrb.
This is what I was talking about. they have a tenuous grasp on one Star Wars license that they have a contract for, and have produced an under performing product with. They have been made the MMORPG division by EA, but the sentence does not say anyhting about further SW IP RPGs from them. You put that in yourself.
It does mention SW IP's , not sure about your reading comprehension. in any case I am now know as the propoganda pixie sprinkling my dust on the official forums and here , even though I haven't even replied after my original OP on the official forums , maybe I'm slacking ?
If something reads as "ones that aren't just SW but other IP's aswell" , if you break it down it implies that they could be SW and / or other IP's aswell. It's quite simple really. Troll fail again ? Anyways we obviously both read it differently , funny how you changed the highlighted colour and missing the word "ones".
Cheers,
BadOrb.
Exactly, they already have the SW license for that one game. The sentence reads that they will have other properties to develop, you are reading it to mean that they will get other SW licenses for MMOs because that's what you want. He is simply mentioning the SW IP in the context of the topic.
Ohlen is speaking from his perspective, which is well divorced from objective reality. Go ahead and call me names if you want, youre the one who is championing something bad. In my book you're a straight villain, and I'm not kidding.
I like the sound of BioWare will be EA's lead MMORPG department and we might even get a new SW one or another IP. Still it can take about 6 years to make one , hopefully they are working on one , well they are working on Ultima Online and so maybe that's one of them.
It's great to read about the fact all the money spent wasn't on VO or cut scenes and dev's shouldn' be afraid of having them in their games. The amount of times I have read all that money just on VO on websites such as this , at least now we have the ( possible ) truth.
More expansions coming our way , yay!
Cheers,
BadOrb.
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Cheers,
Badinfo.
Nope bad troll re-read the last paragraph , it implies that they are EA's leader in MMORPG's now and that not just SW MMO'S but other IP's too, Propaganda lol give me a break , I even said it was too short and not the best game ever. I was just posting a link to the article as I thought it to be very positive and no SWG2 won't be coming anytime soon sorry.
Badcopy is Badcopy :[]
EDIT forgot to directly quote it for visable proof
"SWTOR now has plans extending into the future including more expansion packs, like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and beyond. The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs. And thanks to the current success of TOR, BioWare is now the studio that will lead the charge for EA MMORPGs in the future, ones that aren't just Star Wars but other IPs as well. But most importantly, Ohlen told us, the morale of the BioWare community and studio has soared, and he hopes to tell us a different story for next year."
Cheers,
BadOrb.
This is what I was talking about. they have a tenuous grasp on one Star Wars license that they have a contract for, and have produced an under performing product with. They have been made the MMORPG division by EA, but the sentence does not say anyhting about further SW IP RPGs from them. You put that in yourself.
It does mention SW IP's , not sure about your reading comprehension. in any case I am now know as the propoganda pixie sprinkling my dust on the official forums and here , even though I haven't even replied after my original OP on the official forums , maybe I'm slacking ?
If something reads as "ones that aren't just SW but other IP's aswell" , if you break it down it implies that they could be SW and / or other IP's aswell. It's quite simple really. Troll fail again ? Anyways we obviously both read it differently , funny how you changed the highlighted colour and missing the word "ones".
Cheers,
BadOrb.
Exactly, they already have the SW license for that one game. The sentence reads that they will have other properties to develop, you are reading it to mean that they will get other SW licenses for MMOs because that's what you want. He is simply mentioning the SW IP in the context of the topic.
Ohlen is speaking from his perspective, which is well divorced from objective reality. Go ahead and call me names if you want, youre the one who is championing something bad. In my book you're a straight villain, and I'm not kidding.
The last paragraph of that article is written in a different style , it's almost like a re-cap by the author and isn't Ohlen's direct talk. You see the word "ones" is plural and implies more than one , So don't blame me , maybe blame the author ? I haven't called you names you called me them , ok I said troll fail and Badcopy is Badcopy but you said i give bad info among a few other insults. I am by no means a villan here at all. Maybe they won't make another SW MMO and if you read what I first said I didin't say it was 100% guaranteed that they will make another. Mind you if BioWare are Ea's leading MMORPG creator surely they will get to work on a new one shortly , a new MMORPG that is of any IP.
I said we might even get a new SW one , notice the word might.
I think I have a new name Propoganda pixie dust villain.
Sprinkles propoganda pixie dust and vanishes.
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 :[]
With Disney aquiring the IP I think any "speculation" about what EA or Bioware has planned for a future SW MMO is meaningless. Disney holds the cards, not EA or Bioware. See the recent SW projects that have been put on hold or canceled since the aquisition. Disney clearly has a different vision about the future of Star Wars than Lucas did so we have no way of knowing where TOR fits in the grand scheme of things.
The point was that its a really really bad game. If it didn't have the Star Wars IP it would be in the tank all ready.
It means that people are willing to over look a lot for just a taste of Star Wars.
The funny thing is, it doesn't really feel very 'Star Wars-y' at all. It has the name, but next to no association with the actual movies aside from Jedi, for better or worse.
Originally posted by ktanner3 With Disney aquiring the IP I think any "speculation" about what EA or Bioware has planned for a future SW MMO is meaningless. Disney holds the cards, not EA or Bioware. See the recent SW projects that have been put on hold or canceled since the aquisition. Disney clearly has a different vision about the future of Star Wars than Lucas did so we have no way of knowing where TOR fits in the grand scheme of things.
I wouldn't expect Disney to do anything drastic with TOR. The game definitely has a long-term contract in place, which would just cost them more money to break.
Plus, I'm pretty sure TOR isn't even close to recovering the staggering cost of development and marketing for this game. I think they made back maybe a third of the investment in box/digital sales, but only a small fraction of players ended up subscribing. I don't know how well the cash shop is doing. I know they claim it's great, but they also claimed the subscriber numbers were doing great, etc, etc.
One of the reasons I will never downplay a game going free to play is because the mere fact that subscription games do that is because the game is failing...therefore the only thing that can save the company all those years of hard work in creating and publishing the game is attempt to go free to play and hope that generates enough interest and money to keep the game going and profitable.
So no I won't ever say free to play is bad for any game and I am not one of those people who look down on and think less of the people who are free players in subscription games...in fact, whether I'm a sub or a free player, I thank every free player there is because it means the games I love to play will continue to be available. Had SWG gone free to play, it probably would still be around today...because remember, one of the biggest reasons people complain so much is that when you pay money for something, you feel entitled to your say and demand a certain amount of respect and influence on that which you pay money for. So instead of going free to play (like Anarchy Online did), SWG decided to try and draw upon the WOW crowd by going with CU and then evnetually the NGE. If you think about it, SWTOR would likely not even be successful or maybe not even considered to be developed had SWG never shutdown....it left a open market for star wars games online...but that's just my opinion.
So personally, I welcome any free to play game even with cash shops because fact is times are different...the world isn't flourishing as much as we use to....here in the USA, when we had Clinton as president, the economy was booming and people had plenty of cash to spend....soon as Bush became president, we went to war for his whole 2 terms and still it's not fully over...this put the USA in a big deficiet and people have less money to spend on luxury (games being one of them). So subscription games are bound to fail unless they are truly unique in their field and/or have a really good dev team that keep the paying player happy. Most companies can't put the kind of attention into games these days because they can't afford to pay as many developers as they use to and it's so easy to start a new MMO these days.
So I welcome free to play and hope one day every game goes free to play....it's not like they aren't making money by being free to play or else free to play wouldn't be such a big hit recently.
I like the sound of BioWare will be EA's lead MMORPG department and we might even get a new SW one or another IP. Still it can take about 6 years to make one , hopefully they are working on one , well they are working on Ultima Online and so maybe that's one of them.
It's great to read about the fact all the money spent wasn't on VO or cut scenes and dev's shouldn' be afraid of having them in their games. The amount of times I have read all that money just on VO on websites such as this , at least now we have the ( possible ) truth.
More expansions coming our way , yay!
Cheers,
BadOrb.
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Cheers,
Badinfo.
Nope bad troll re-read the last paragraph , it implies that they are EA's leader in MMORPG's now and that not just SW MMO'S but other IP's too, Propaganda lol give me a break , I even said it was too short and not the best game ever. I was just posting a link to the article as I thought it to be very positive and no SWG2 won't be coming anytime soon sorry.
Badcopy is Badcopy :[]
EDIT forgot to directly quote it for visable proof
"SWTOR now has plans extending into the future including more expansion packs, like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and beyond. The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs. And thanks to the current success of TOR, BioWare is now the studio that will lead the charge for EA MMORPGs in the future, ones that aren't just Star Wars but other IPs as well. But most importantly, Ohlen told us, the morale of the BioWare community and studio has soared, and he hopes to tell us a different story for next year."
Cheers,
BadOrb.
Please quote everything they said from launch till now. It would be....interesting read lol
They had so many plans, and none of it came true. Why would this one be different than countless before it?
The thing with BW and EA is that since launch, and all the BS, their words have exactly 0 weight.
F2P only saved it temporarily, as the game still has the same short attention life span as it did from launch, althought the F2P restrictions may slow people down. In June 2012 it still had more than 1 million subscribers.
-SNIP-
Exactly, this is just a temporary reprieve. I seriously doubt many of the planned "extra planets" will ever coem to fruition. Remember when they were talking pre-release about having the capability to add hundreds of new planets ?
Comments
If this game were instead called BiowareX and described:
-Theme Park Game with level restrictive zones that have no atmospheric qualities (day/night cycles, weather, interesting and well programmed wildlife).
-Limited class structure of 4 classes per faction with two possible sub-classes. Sub-classes are restricted to one weapon type, so there is no diversity in playstyle for weapon choice or switching between weapons.
-Mobs in this game are extrememly static and appear to be placed by a rudimentary routine probably better suited to designing how to place trees in an orchard. Mobs have limited non-combat animations, and are placed in triads with a roamer in most situations.
-Crafting is simplistic and largely inconsequential. No variability in product within a tier as materials are essentially common, good, and better.
-Quests are given by cinematic cutscenes, making repeating quests require that you use the spacear unless you want to watch the little movie over and over again. Dialogues in cutscenes have almost zero effect on outcome. A token morality system is included but only allows access to vendor of that social bent for itms that are not extraordinary. Morality system has no effect on in-game factions for purpose of determining KOS or ally status.
-Extremely limited space minigame that can be botted, and repeates the same missions in a predictable pattern
-Art Style that attempts to be more realistic than a cartoon, but yet is more cartoony than the eye can appreciate as being realistic. Undermines story as the characters seem fake.
-No environmental interaction: Character actions do not affect environment in any way. There is no score card for faction wars, no ability to change the landscape or storyline in any way. All characters are the hero of the world in personal story, and Bioware has restricted all influence of players to keep this intact and commensurately meaningless.
-If you do encounter a problem in game, Bioware customer service can be reached by hiring a psychic and attempting contact. All other methods will prove fruitless.
-Combat is tab/target toolbar timer game stuff. There is a cover mechanic for two of the classes, but it is accomplished through preset locations for cover that your character moves to on rails. You cannot use any combat specials except with a valid target locked.
-No RP tools (bio, chat bubbles, sitting in chairs).
-No player housing (space game is accessed through a starship transition location that is identical for all players by class).
-Bioware modified Game engine cannot display more than 16 players in combat without serious performance degradation.
-Character generation has limited customization (as all faces have to be fully articulated for cutscenes) and body styles are static. Races to choose from are few, and are human in basic form. No stat variance available from character creation, human melee tank is human melee tank.
-Loot tables are repetitive, and as there is little character customization and no world interaction, are populated with either junk loots, or statted equipment.
-Faction-locked main social hubs are mirrored visually numbing locales that are designed like a shopping mall with currency vendors.
-Guild features are limited, no guild halls etc.
-No skill system or complex stat breakdown for characters means that tree is utilized for builds, with limited workable variations (game is trinity design so sacrificing ability in your job will gimp you in high end content, reducing the 8 clases down to effectively 3)
-F2P model restricts PvP interaction in game, and also space mini-game (which is actually not anything negative).
-Bosses in dungeons and raids are giant-sized (sometimes humongous so only the feet are visible) versions of enemies that have a mechanic coupled with tank and spank combat.
-Daily quest lines at endgame are same cutscene formula, and are tedious rehashes of same structure sans any ability to capitalize on story element. The converse happns, and daily quests at endgame actually end up working against any immersion in the leveling process.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
was there a point to this incredibly long wall of text?
The point was that its a really really bad game. If it didn't have the Star Wars IP it would be in the tank all ready.
It means that people are willing to over look a lot for just a taste of Star Wars.
Thank you.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I re-read this and you have made a giant leap with this not backed up by the text in the article. I also noticed that you sprinkled your propaganda dust on the official forums.
Cheers,
Badinfo.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
You're the one who glommed onto the fact that that was my first post here and decided I must be here exclusively to bash swtor rather than reply concerning any of the merits of what I wrote, or lack of. So I guess that makes you the "detective" here, I just followed suit.
As for you being a Bioware employee, obviously I don't really believe that. It's called hyperbole, I assumed you used that when you wrote that I made this account solely to bash this game, but maybe you're just that paranoid. For fun's sake though, assuming you actually made your account here in 2010 (I didn't bother to check, nor will I now) doesn't disprove anything, it's not as if they weren't already hyping it up at that point. And hey, if mentioning other games on a forum website is that powerful of a statement maybe it will get me free stuff so....Neverwinter, Elder Scrolls Online, Wildstar, Tomb Raider, Bioshock 3 (whatever its real name is), Titan, and whatever the next Starcraft 2 expansion will be called.
And my motivation for posting on this forum? Presumably it's the same as yours or anyone else's, to express my opinions. I was making accounts on a few MMO websites and here I noticed this forum topic on the main page. And this topic, the article it refers to specifically but also the idea that f2p "saves" a failing mmo, annoys me. Mainly because the statements of Mr. Ohlen in that article are just more bs from them, as I pointed out previously.
So unless you want to actually discuss something on topic, or want to actually contribute something more than what amounts to "lol, troll", I'm done replying to you.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Nope bad troll re-read the last paragraph , it implies that they are EA's leader in MMORPG's now and that not just SW MMO'S but other IP's too, Propaganda lol give me a break , I even said it was too short and not the best game ever. I was just posting a link to the article as I thought it to be very positive and no SWG2 won't be coming anytime soon sorry.
Badcopy is Badcopy :[]
EDIT forgot to directly quote it for visable proof
"SWTOR now has plans extending into the future including more expansion packs, like Rise of the Hutt Cartel and beyond. The plan is to introduce items into the game that do not exist in current MMOs. And thanks to the current success of TOR, BioWare is now the studio that will lead the charge for EA MMORPGs in the future, ones that aren't just Star Wars but other IPs as well. But most importantly, Ohlen told us, the morale of the BioWare community and studio has soared, and he hopes to tell us a different story for next year."
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 :[]
i got some nice james ohlen quotes too.
about content,
"The targets in terms of how fast players are running through the content, they’re hitting it at about the rate we want."
game success,
"In terms of subscribers, it keeps on growing every day. We’ve got very positive word of mouth. I’m confident in saying it’s going to be BioWare’s biggest game yet, in terms of how successful it’s going to be."
about the smooth launch, but this part was interesting. so in his mind SWTOR is equal to WOW
"I think the main thing there was, it was in BioWare’s and EA’s best interest that if we’re going to be taken seriously, we had to come across as a AAA massive multiplayer. And the fact is, there really has been only one other AAA MMO in the last decade or so, and that was World Of Warcraft."
in another article,
"Unlike a lot of other game companies that, once they launch a game, downsize their teams radically, our plan is to keep the team together and continue to focus on building content."
http://www.tentonhammer.com/swtor/news/bioware-devs-discuss-the-launch-and-future-plans-for-star-wars-the-old-republic
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/12/interview-biowares-james-ohlen-on-swtor/
James Ohlen,
BadLiar.
This is what I was talking about. they have a tenuous grasp on one Star Wars license that they have a contract for, and have produced an under performing product with. They have been made the MMORPG division by EA, but the sentence does not say anyhting about further SW IP RPGs from them. You put that in yourself.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Ok I think a lot of people have started to go off topic. Thats why I very, very rarely even look at this forum any more because it turns into children fighting over who's opinion is more valid.
However, the quote above is the reason SWTOR is doing better and its subs and player count are on the up. F2P was there to get people to 'try' the game and go "Oh damn I enjoy this." And sub.
I personally believe that F2P or a hybrid of sub and F2P is the future for MMO's. Whether I like it or not.
Why do people ask these insane (inane?) questions about SWTOR's population that nobody asks about other games? For SWTOR, and SWTOR *only*, there are a lot of people who aren't happy unless they know the exact number of players playing at a given moment, not the total number of players. NO GAME has released numbers of active players moment-to-moment, because, for one thing, active population varies from second to second.
People are logging in. People are logging out. EVERY. SECOND.
But yeah, WOW says they have 9 million players, and it's not questioned. People don't even stop to consider how many of them are Asain gold farmer accounts. But for some reason, when SWTOR post numbers, people start asking how many people are in the game at any given second, as if that's an accurate metric of anything. It's not.
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
Yeah I don't care about the population, any amount of players is too much. But I agree that it's a moving picture that can't be estimated with any meaningful accuracy.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
It's because they want the game to fail and unless there is 100 percent definitive proof of that not happening then they will never believe anything coming out of the dev's mouth.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
It does mention SW IP's , not sure about your reading comprehension. in any case I am now know as the propoganda pixie sprinkling my dust on the official forums and here , even though I haven't even replied after my original OP on the official forums , maybe I'm slacking ?
If something reads as "ones that aren't just SW but other IP's aswell" , if you break it down it implies that they could be SW and / or other IP's aswell. It's quite simple really. Troll fail again ? Anyways we obviously both read it differently , funny how you changed the highlighted colour and missing the word "ones".
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 :[]
You do realize that every MMO that does the switch makes this very same statement. However, there hasn't been a single report from any of them, since their intial player boom.
Exactly, they already have the SW license for that one game. The sentence reads that they will have other properties to develop, you are reading it to mean that they will get other SW licenses for MMOs because that's what you want. He is simply mentioning the SW IP in the context of the topic.
Ohlen is speaking from his perspective, which is well divorced from objective reality. Go ahead and call me names if you want, youre the one who is championing something bad. In my book you're a straight villain, and I'm not kidding.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
The last paragraph of that article is written in a different style , it's almost like a re-cap by the author and isn't Ohlen's direct talk. You see the word "ones" is plural and implies more than one , So don't blame me , maybe blame the author ? I haven't called you names you called me them , ok I said troll fail and Badcopy is Badcopy but you said i give bad info among a few other insults. I am by no means a villan here at all. Maybe they won't make another SW MMO and if you read what I first said I didin't say it was 100% guaranteed that they will make another. Mind you if BioWare are Ea's leading MMORPG creator surely they will get to work on a new one shortly , a new MMORPG that is of any IP.
I said we might even get a new SW one , notice the word might.
I think I have a new name Propoganda pixie dust villain.
Sprinkles propoganda pixie dust and vanishes.
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 :[]
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
The funny thing is, it doesn't really feel very 'Star Wars-y' at all. It has the name, but next to no association with the actual movies aside from Jedi, for better or worse.
You make me like charity
No it means that they like what the game has and don't care as much about the things missing that drive some people here nuts.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I wouldn't expect Disney to do anything drastic with TOR. The game definitely has a long-term contract in place, which would just cost them more money to break.
Plus, I'm pretty sure TOR isn't even close to recovering the staggering cost of development and marketing for this game. I think they made back maybe a third of the investment in box/digital sales, but only a small fraction of players ended up subscribing. I don't know how well the cash shop is doing. I know they claim it's great, but they also claimed the subscriber numbers were doing great, etc, etc.
You make me like charity
One of the reasons I will never downplay a game going free to play is because the mere fact that subscription games do that is because the game is failing...therefore the only thing that can save the company all those years of hard work in creating and publishing the game is attempt to go free to play and hope that generates enough interest and money to keep the game going and profitable.
So no I won't ever say free to play is bad for any game and I am not one of those people who look down on and think less of the people who are free players in subscription games...in fact, whether I'm a sub or a free player, I thank every free player there is because it means the games I love to play will continue to be available. Had SWG gone free to play, it probably would still be around today...because remember, one of the biggest reasons people complain so much is that when you pay money for something, you feel entitled to your say and demand a certain amount of respect and influence on that which you pay money for. So instead of going free to play (like Anarchy Online did), SWG decided to try and draw upon the WOW crowd by going with CU and then evnetually the NGE. If you think about it, SWTOR would likely not even be successful or maybe not even considered to be developed had SWG never shutdown....it left a open market for star wars games online...but that's just my opinion.
So personally, I welcome any free to play game even with cash shops because fact is times are different...the world isn't flourishing as much as we use to....here in the USA, when we had Clinton as president, the economy was booming and people had plenty of cash to spend....soon as Bush became president, we went to war for his whole 2 terms and still it's not fully over...this put the USA in a big deficiet and people have less money to spend on luxury (games being one of them). So subscription games are bound to fail unless they are truly unique in their field and/or have a really good dev team that keep the paying player happy. Most companies can't put the kind of attention into games these days because they can't afford to pay as many developers as they use to and it's so easy to start a new MMO these days.
So I welcome free to play and hope one day every game goes free to play....it's not like they aren't making money by being free to play or else free to play wouldn't be such a big hit recently.
Please quote everything they said from launch till now. It would be....interesting read lol
They had so many plans, and none of it came true. Why would this one be different than countless before it?
The thing with BW and EA is that since launch, and all the BS, their words have exactly 0 weight.
Exactly, this is just a temporary reprieve. I seriously doubt many of the planned "extra planets" will ever coem to fruition. Remember when they were talking pre-release about having the capability to add hundreds of new planets ?