You can't just take a bad sample and derive a conclusion from that.
Are the TWO (out of how many) serves serving the time timezone in their population? The figures reported are so low, a single guild running a single alt levelling event could totally throw it.
The age of the two games means that in one game that has a proven longevity, people will have levelled all the alts they want and have little reason to do another since the story is the same for all.
The other game is still new, still desperately needs new blood to get even within 10% of the others player base (a mere 1 million) and has different story line for each class and each side.
I have been playing SWTOR recently and the population on each planet can vary widely, it is far to small a sample to make any conclusions.
Look at the login screen for SWTOR sometime, you can see an occasional FULL server in the same timezone as light servers. How do you explain that? Because the difference between the time can purely be accident been done by one server having a lot of fans of a sport that is playing at that time.
WoW is an old game but people are still playing it because they know it well and no other games have come along to give a similar deep social experience. It has a new massive expansion coming soon that in the past has been the key to getting a LOT of people to come back. Often more people come back to taste an expansion then other games have in their entire lifespan.
SWTOR is the new kid on the block but its reception has been far from smooth. It desperately needs patches and content addition and so far, this is slow in coming with Bioware unable to even tackle spam with the exact same message for month after month. It is not a good sign, sure, they are new but surely SOMEONE in all those years of development must have thought of a spam filter? Oops, guess not.
Some people claim that Bioware can make a comeback... that is NOT good talk, no MMO so far has ever made a comeback. You might think you are defending the game by saying that 1.2 and 1.3 and 999.999 will fix the game and make it attrack millions of subscribers... but historic evidence suggests this never happens.
Personally? I think WoW will continue for a lot longer as the most revined MMO that only suffers from its perceived childish community and the fact that people have played the game for far to long. SWTOR in the meantime will slowly die as Bioware is unable to justify developing new content a story MMO needs so desperately with subscribers saying "I seen the stories I wanted, unless you offer more, I won't pay". It will hang on for as long as EA is willing to risk new development with declining revenue. SOE has shown games can survive a long time like that but if you wanted a WoW killer, this is not.
It is not a bad game, just like any MMO, it ain't for everyone. The mass appeal that WoW somehow managed to generate is not to be found in SWTOR. To me, it is far more a single player RPG with grieving and spamming and monthly bills and lag and "can't see target" that I play because it is the closest thing to Kotor3 out there.
Anyway, drifting off point, in the end, trying to determine new players by people in low level areas on a single server is stupid. Basing a conclusion on that is moronic.
This was an interesting informative post to someone (me) considering the game.
The OP and guestuser are clearly trolls - the rest of you have been playing games long enough to recogonize them. Don't feed them.. "Do heals crit?"
It all started with a lantern, a sword, and a trap door...
If a player stops playing then that is a leak, in a F2P it reducing the chance of them buying something in the shop to zero so the publisher obviously want to keep as many players as possible to increase the chance of gaining revenue, I think that is undeniable. All games have a leak of retiring customers, I have never said games want to lose any customer but it a fact of life that it will happen.
The game is still running and accessible, where is the leak? You either have a cup with no holes, F2P game, or a smashed cup because the F2P game has closed its doors. That is not a leak.
Then we disagree about an analogy of mine, I guess I can live with myself.
When you make it about online multiplayer only with the option of not being accessible until you pay to play the leak will start after you lose one subscriber. F2P games you always have access until the game closes its doors, there is no leak in terms of losing or gaining players. People will try it simply because it looks like something that interests them. They have nothing to lose since it is F2P, no leaks. Buy to play pay to access has leaks, don't pay then get out. Stipulations to being accesible is the reason for the leak.
If a player stops playing then that is a leak, in a F2P it reducing the chance of them buying something in the shop to zero so the publisher obviously want to keep as many players as possible to increase the chance of gaining revenue, I think that is undeniable. All games have a leak of retiring customers, I have never said games want to lose any customer but it a fact of life that it will happen.
The game is still running and accessible, where is the leak? You either have a cup with no holes, F2P game, or a smashed cup because the F2P game has closed its doors. That is not a leak.
Then we disagree about an analogy of mine, I guess I can live with myself.
When you make it about online multiplayer only with the option of not being accessible until you pay to play the leak will start after you lose one subscriber. F2P games you always have access until the game closes its doors, there is no leak in terms of losing or gaining players. People will try it simply because it looks like something that interests them. They have nothing to lose since it is F2P, no leaks. Subscription based has leaks, don't pay then get out. Stipulations to being accesible is the reason for the leak.
Comparing a game 3 months old vs a game (Cata) which is 15ish months old, based on new players doesn't make much sense.
Regardless, if SWTOR was a better game over all then WoW, don't you think it would be beating WoW in subs by now?
Nah, even if it is better it would still take a while to get that many subs. It took Wow some time to before it had these sums of players.
Personally I think that WoW is a better game. If both had been released late 2004 things would have been different but even then they are rather different tyoes of game. TOR is more a multiplayer game than a MMO (even if WoW moved in that direction as well, not as much though).
So I am not sure comparing them is fair to either game.
Server status, player polling, EA using nebulous statements that can be truth from one extreme to the other, Xfire trends, falling new game sales,and even forum QQing, all add up to the game headed in one direction. The only question now is, how much.
I left wow because I could no longer maintain a viable guild there due to decreasing numbers of new players coming to the game. I concluded that wow is in fact a dying game. In SWTOR I have found the opposite. My guild has continued to grow and gain new members. What is more, the quality of the new members is much higher. In SWTOR, about half of new members stay and become active, contributing guild members. In WoW, I found that only about 1 in 20 recruits become active, contributing guild members. Yes, wow is moving in one direction, down and MoP will not save it. For us on our SWTOR server, the game is moving in one direction, up.
You are making no sence, unless your guild is for only for level 1s to 20s then whats the point, guilds dont just recruit from that level range, and just becasue you found something does not mean they are FACT across the board.
Here is what i've seen, alot of my guild in WoW made a guild in SWTOR, for the first couple of weeks people where very active, 3-4 weeks in only about 5 people left and then when the time came to sub for the second month there where ZERO people left in the guild, EVERYONE had quit, now just becasue thats what ive seen does not make it a FACT across the board, calling people bias becasue they dont agree with you is just stupid and to me your coming across more that way than anyone else in this thread.
Fact is theres alot of avidence out there that does not support your claim, and does look like it is not growing but in decline.
If a player stops playing then that is a leak, in a F2P it reducing the chance of them buying something in the shop to zero so the publisher obviously want to keep as many players as possible to increase the chance of gaining revenue, I think that is undeniable. All games have a leak of retiring customers, I have never said games want to lose any customer but it a fact of life that it will happen.
The game is still running and accessible, where is the leak? You either have a cup with no holes, F2P game, or a smashed cup because the F2P game has closed its doors. That is not a leak.
Then we disagree about an analogy of mine, I guess I can live with myself.
When you make it about online multiplayer only with the option of not being accessible until you pay to play the leak will start after you lose one subscriber. F2P games you always have access until the game closes its doors, there is no leak in terms of losing or gaining players. People will try it simply because it looks like something that interests them. They have nothing to lose since it is F2P, no leaks. Subscription based has leaks, don't pay then get out. Stipulations to being accesible is the reason for the leak.
I disagree.
I might can agree that once the F2P game closes its doors that there could be always be a patch on a slight crack in the cup just waiting to leak. But this is all dependent on if they want to remove the game from ever being accessible again for free. It might never leak, but that is up to how strong the glue bond is on the patch.
You are making no sence, unless your guild is for only for level 1s to 20s then whats the point, guilds dont just recruit from that level range, and just becasue you found something does not mean they are FACT across the board.
Here is what i've seen, alot of my guild in WoW made a guild in SWTOR, for the first couple of weeks people where very active, 3-4 weeks in only about 5 people left and then when the time came to sub for the second month there where ZERO people left in the guild, EVERYONE had quit, now just becasue thats what ive seen does not make it a FACT across the board, calling people bias becasue they dont agree with you is just stupid and to me your coming across more that way than anyone else in this thread.
Fact is theres alot of avidence out there that does not support your claim, and does look like it is not growing but in decline.
Again your "evidence" is not supported by what is happening in game in SWTOR or WoW.
You are comparing a really old game to a relative new game. I dont' even need to play it to know there are more low level in SWTOR compare to Wow.
and it's very unlikely swtor will have 1.7m sub if you exclude tne asian population, and the new server they opened in other area/country. Most people that want to play the game probably already bought it the first week, and I'm sure "some" quit.
You are comparing a really old game to a relative new game. I dont' even need to play it to know there are more low level in SWTOR compare to Wow.
and it's very unlikely swtor will have 1.7m sub if you exclude tne asian population, and the new server they opened in other area/country. Most people that want to play the game probably already bought it the first week, and I'm sure "some" quit.
The only benefit to asian subs is inflating numbers, they are on a different and much less profitable revenue model.
You are making no sence, unless your guild is for only for level 1s to 20s then whats the point, guilds dont just recruit from that level range, and just becasue you found something does not mean they are FACT across the board.
Here is what i've seen, alot of my guild in WoW made a guild in SWTOR, for the first couple of weeks people where very active, 3-4 weeks in only about 5 people left and then when the time came to sub for the second month there where ZERO people left in the guild, EVERYONE had quit, now just becasue thats what ive seen does not make it a FACT across the board, calling people bias becasue they dont agree with you is just stupid and to me your coming across more that way than anyone else in this thread.
Fact is theres alot of avidence out there that does not support your claim, and does look like it is not growing but in decline.
Again your "evidence" is not supported by what is happening in game in SWTOR or WoW.
Your views of what is happening in game is differentfrom my view in the same game. Your evidence is complete nonsense to me, as much as my "evidence" would be to you, and the reason why is simple. We can only speak about our servers.
Your server may be fine, but others are not. For that reason you can not claim to speak for the whole game.
Currently playing- SWG PreCU & GW 2 Have tried WoW, AoC, & Vanguard, SWG:NGE, GW, LOTRO & SWTOR Best MMO: SWG Worst MMO: SWTOR
You are comparing a really old game to a relative new game. I dont' even need to play it to know there are more low level in SWTOR compare to Wow.
and it's very unlikely swtor will have 1.7m sub if you exclude tne asian population, and the new server they opened in other area/country. Most people that want to play the game probably already bought it the first week, and I'm sure "some" quit.
The only benefit to asian subs is inflating numbers, they are on a different and much less profitable revenue model.
It's only open for hong kong, singapore, new zealand, australia. Not china directly, even though hong kong is part of china.
That being said, swtor is monthly sub in those area. I'm sure it boost the sub number by quite a bit.
This is an incredibly stupid post. WoW has maintained it's subscribers through keeping them occupied with end-game content.
SWToR has sparse end-game content, but RELIES ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY on it's leveling content to keep it's subscribers occupied, which is why they've made it a priority to implement the legacy system.
If you really want to see which one is faring better than the other, compare CHANGES IN SUBSCRIBER NUMBERS. Everything else is straight up propaganda, or stupidity.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
City of Heroes didn't absolutely flop, and it's more focused on rolling hundreds of alts over doing any endgame. The incarnate system gives players some things to do after 50, but it's not any more compelling than leveling another character.
In CoH, though, the content came from mixing and matching powers. Creating builds was a pretty fun part of the system - probably one of the games that could make me feel so excited by just playing with a builder, the main other being D&D.
BioWare needs to pump out either a lot of story, or a lot of end-game content - or both, if they fancy VO'd raids. Remember that at WoW launch, only two 40 mans were out - Onyxia and MC. Although we're not comparing launch to launch, it's still a consideration - the game has a (small) grace period to impress its players.
This is an incredibly stupid post. WoW has maintained it's subscribers through keeping them occupied with end-game content.
SWToR has sparse end-game content, but RELIES ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY on it's leveling content to keep it's subscribers occupied, which is why they've made it a priority to implement the legacy system.
If you really want to see which one is faring better than the other, compare CHANGES IN SUBSCRIBER NUMBERS. Everything else is straight up propaganda, or stupidity.
Most of wow's end game content was player driven during this period of time right after launch was it not?
Again your "evidence" is not supported by what is happening in game in SWTOR or WoW.
You've yet to address why you feel your 'evidence' matters. Or why we should be at all surprised that a very old game has a slower rate of installs than a new game.
You could possibly claim that ToR has more than twice the installs of WOW, but you can't claim to know whether the population is actually growing (especially with some pretty solid evidence showing the opposite.) Population includes two factors: installs and quitters. You're indirectly observing a measure of installs (players in the newbie zone) but you have no sense of the rate of quitters.
If Game A has 8800 installs a week (88 chars in newbie zone) but loses 16000 a week to players quitting, that game's population is not growing. If Game B has 2800 installs a week (28 chars in newbie zone) but only loses 1000 players a week, that game's population is growing. (Although realistically in WOW's case I think it's in a gradual decline overall.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The key to MMORPG viability is "how many new players are coming to the game?" or "how many players are leveling new characters?" when the starting zones are empty, its over for an MMORPG. Why are starting zone numbers so important to MMORPG viability? Because without new players it is very difficult for guilds to recruit and form new guilds or replace losses due to attrition in existing guilds. New blood is the key to guild and MMORPG viability.
Lets compare The number of players in WoW's Alliance starting zones on the Maelstrom RP-PvP server to the number of players in the Republic starting zones on the Ven Zallow RP-PvP server from levels 1-20 today, Sunday March 3/25/2012 at 11:00 AM CST. Both servers are medium population. Here are the numbers;
Maelstrom Alliance: 1-20 - 28 characters
Ven Zallow Repuplic: 1-20 - 88 characters.
The numbers speak for themselves. SWTOR is clearly growing twice as fast as wow by sufficient numbers more than replace any losses due to attrition while WoW is in maintenance mode at best or is slowly losing players. Neither game is dying but SWTOR is clearly more healthy than WoW. You will likely find similar results on most servers in WoW and SWTOR.
Edit:
Objectively, which is a better recruiting pool for guild leaders, 28 characters scattered across 15 zones or 88 characters in 3 zones?
I recruited 20 new players in one 10-16 zone, Courscant yesterday. Only about 1/4 of them were alts. Today in Westfall there were only 3 characters from 10-15. Yesterday on Courscant there were 20-35 all day.
Feel free to post your results from your server(s).
Your numbers specifies 1 day at 1 given time. How can you be so sure that is happening the same on most servers? Have you done the same research in every server? at any time?
Both game have few low levels in starting areas in some servers but Swtor is certainly not healthier.
The truth is, I don't think either game is gaining new players. I play on Daragon's Trail server on SWTOR and as I've said in other posts,, the server has a very low server population and clearly, new players are not coming into the game and I think this will be refelcted in active subscription numbers over the next couple of months. I love the game but new people simply aren't buying the game. Maybe the buddy keys and the free SWTOR weekends will change this.
As for World of Warcraft, I think the game has much more stable numbers currently and you have to view WoW from it's most popular starting area, which would be Elwynn Forest and I promise you that there are many more new WoW players then there are SWTOR players. It's just a fact.
I would love to make the argument that SWTOR is doing very well with bringing new players in. But I'm not a liar. It's not.
Server status, player polling, EA using nebulous statements that can be truth from one extreme to the other, Xfire trends, falling new game sales,and even forum QQing, all add up to the game headed in one direction. The only question now is, how much.
I left wow because I could no longer maintain a viable guild there due to decreasing numbers of new players coming to the game. I concluded that wow is in fact a dying game. In SWTOR I have found the opposite. My guild has continued to grow and gain new members. What is more, the quality of the new members is much higher. In SWTOR, about half of new members stay and become active, contributing guild members. In WoW, I found that only about 1 in 20 recruits become active, contributing guild members. Yes, wow is moving in one direction, down and MoP will not save it. For us on our SWTOR server, the game is moving in one direction, up.
I'm having a hard time seeing that considering my entire guild quit TOR and other allied guilds are pulling out of the game. Most of us are split up in other MMOs now or playing other types of games. I can't wait for EAWare to tell us that the game is still doing good....
I think there is a design flaw in SW:TOR. The zones are planets. On top of this, the fleet is the hub of social interaction. So, most players do not intereact with new players and the starting areas are empty. In contrast, WoW has starting areas just outside the major cities. I think it is important to have starting areas around major hubs, then have the content designed to be progressively difficult the further you venture away from the hub.
I agree with this.
My first memories of EQ....getting my ass swatted at lvl 3 by an orc pawn, and then heading to East Commons where I ran into a much higher lvl pali. He took the time to outfit me with a couple of brass armor items, and tossed me a fine steel longsword. I thought I was the shiznit.
He also said to me "try to help other palis as you grow in strength".
I wanted to be like that guy, and spent a lot of time trying to help out other new players as I progressed into NRO, Oasis, etc. Made some great friends that way.
I can remember watching folks come back to Commons to fight Gryphons, thinking that is cool.
I really liked the way EQ did stuff like that. I wish more games would add higher lvl content into zones, so that you have to watch your ass, and if you are lucky, you can see a higher level person in action. It adds to my immersion level.....which although I like TOR, is a knock against it.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
The truth is, I don't think either game is gaining new players. I play on Daragon's Trail server on SWTOR and as I've said in other posts,, the server has a very low server population and clearly, new players are not coming into the game and I think this will be refelcted in active subscription numbers over the next couple of months. I love the game but new people simply aren't buying the game. Maybe the buddy keys and the free SWTOR weekends will change this.
As for World of Warcraft, I think the game has much more stable numbers currently and you have to view WoW from it's most popular starting area, which would be Elwynn Forest and I promise you that there are many more new WoW players then there are SWTOR players. It's just a fact.
I would love to make the argument that SWTOR is doing very well with bringing new players in. But I'm not a liar. It's not.
I think a couple of things have had a bad effect on things concerning TOR.
Having PVP in game, and not giving them a satisfactory experience. I mean WTF was BW thinking? They had Mythic there to tell them first hand how unforgiving PVP folks are. Delivering some broken down PVP was like sticking a sign on them that says "kick me", and that is what PVP folks are doing now that they have left.
They also put up about 20 servers too many. They rolled out new ones waaaaaaaaaaaay too quickly. The early launch servers filled quickly, but the ones that come after should of went up 5 or 10 at a time, with 3 or 4 days minimum to see how things were spreading. There would of been some initial griping, but far less than is happening now.
So now they are stuck with too many servers, folks that wanted a sandbox are bitching, and folks looking for their PVP fix up in arms. There is actually a game in there that some will enjoy, but it makes it hard for BW to sell them with folks filling forums with so much negative BS....both warranted and unwarranted.
The sandbox bitching was going to happen regardless, but the other 2 could of been avoided. ONe of those Monday Morning QB scenarios.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
They also put up about 20 servers too many. They rolled out new ones waaaaaaaaaaaay too quickly. The early launch servers filled quickly, but the ones that come after should of went up 5 or 10 at a time, with 3 or 4 days minimum to see how things were spreading. There would of been some initial griping, but far less than is happening now.
This problem definitely isn't that simple.
The worst solution is not to open new servers at launch. This is a guaranteed, terrible experience (customer pays money; doesn't receive gameplay.)
The good solution is to open more servers. This only runs the risk of the possiblity of a mediocre experience. A low population server isn't the end of the world.
The best solution is to build the game with better server architecture (ideally a single server like GW or EVE). Not only does this sidestep the entire "should we open more servers?" problem, it lets all the real world friends actually play your game together (which increases the likelihood of all those friends continuing to play your game a lot longer than they might otherwise.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What a flawed argument. WoW is over 7 years old and has tons of end game content and it has proven that it has longtherm viability, something which the 4 month SW:TOR has yet to prove. Ofcourse starter zone is full, the game has very little end game content so there isnt much to do beside reroll or quit.
What a flawed argument. WoW is over 7 years old and has tons of end game content and it has proven that it has longtherm viability, something which the 4 month SW:TOR has yet to prove. Ofcourse starter zone is full, the game has very little end game content so there isnt much to do beside reroll or quit.
It doesn't matter how much "end game" content WoW has - it's all still repetative 'hampster wheel' stuff.
I think the MMORPG of tomorrow is Eve Online + DUST 514. This is because your game is constantly having to change due to the unpredicatble actions of other players.
Comments
This was an interesting informative post to someone (me) considering the game.
The OP and guestuser are clearly trolls - the rest of you have been playing games long enough to recogonize them. Don't feed them.. "Do heals crit?"
It all started with a lantern, a sword, and a trap door...
When you make it about online multiplayer only with the option of not being accessible until you pay to play the leak will start after you lose one subscriber. F2P games you always have access until the game closes its doors, there is no leak in terms of losing or gaining players. People will try it simply because it looks like something that interests them. They have nothing to lose since it is F2P, no leaks. Buy to play pay to access has leaks, don't pay then get out. Stipulations to being accesible is the reason for the leak.
Comparing a game 3 months old vs a game (Cata) which is 15ish months old, based on new players doesn't make much sense.
Regardless, if SWTOR was a better game over all then WoW, don't you think it would be beating WoW in subs by now?
The game is still running and accessible, where is the leak? You either have a cup with no holes, F2P game, or a smashed cup because the F2P game has closed its doors. That is not a leak.
Then we disagree about an analogy of mine, I guess I can live with myself.When you make it about online multiplayer only with the option of not being accessible until you pay to play the leak will start after you lose one subscriber. F2P games you always have access until the game closes its doors, there is no leak in terms of losing or gaining players. People will try it simply because it looks like something that interests them. They have nothing to lose since it is F2P, no leaks. Subscription based has leaks, don't pay then get out. Stipulations to being accesible is the reason for the leak.
I disagree.Nah, even if it is better it would still take a while to get that many subs. It took Wow some time to before it had these sums of players.
Personally I think that WoW is a better game. If both had been released late 2004 things would have been different but even then they are rather different tyoes of game. TOR is more a multiplayer game than a MMO (even if WoW moved in that direction as well, not as much though).
So I am not sure comparing them is fair to either game.
You are making no sence, unless your guild is for only for level 1s to 20s then whats the point, guilds dont just recruit from that level range, and just becasue you found something does not mean they are FACT across the board.
Here is what i've seen, alot of my guild in WoW made a guild in SWTOR, for the first couple of weeks people where very active, 3-4 weeks in only about 5 people left and then when the time came to sub for the second month there where ZERO people left in the guild, EVERYONE had quit, now just becasue thats what ive seen does not make it a FACT across the board, calling people bias becasue they dont agree with you is just stupid and to me your coming across more that way than anyone else in this thread.
Fact is theres alot of avidence out there that does not support your claim, and does look like it is not growing but in decline.
I might can agree that once the F2P game closes its doors that there could be always be a patch on a slight crack in the cup just waiting to leak. But this is all dependent on if they want to remove the game from ever being accessible again for free. It might never leak, but that is up to how strong the glue bond is on the patch.
Again your "evidence" is not supported by what is happening in game in SWTOR or WoW.
You are comparing a really old game to a relative new game. I dont' even need to play it to know there are more low level in SWTOR compare to Wow.
and it's very unlikely swtor will have 1.7m sub if you exclude tne asian population, and the new server they opened in other area/country. Most people that want to play the game probably already bought it the first week, and I'm sure "some" quit.
The only benefit to asian subs is inflating numbers, they are on a different and much less profitable revenue model.
Your views of what is happening in game is differentfrom my view in the same game. Your evidence is complete nonsense to me, as much as my "evidence" would be to you, and the reason why is simple. We can only speak about our servers.
Your server may be fine, but others are not. For that reason you can not claim to speak for the whole game.
Currently playing- SWG PreCU & GW 2
Have tried WoW, AoC, & Vanguard, SWG:NGE, GW, LOTRO & SWTOR
Best MMO: SWG
Worst MMO: SWTOR
It's only open for hong kong, singapore, new zealand, australia. Not china directly, even though hong kong is part of china.
That being said, swtor is monthly sub in those area. I'm sure it boost the sub number by quite a bit.
This is an incredibly stupid post. WoW has maintained it's subscribers through keeping them occupied with end-game content.
SWToR has sparse end-game content, but RELIES ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY on it's leveling content to keep it's subscribers occupied, which is why they've made it a priority to implement the legacy system.
If you really want to see which one is faring better than the other, compare CHANGES IN SUBSCRIBER NUMBERS. Everything else is straight up propaganda, or stupidity.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
City of Heroes didn't absolutely flop, and it's more focused on rolling hundreds of alts over doing any endgame. The incarnate system gives players some things to do after 50, but it's not any more compelling than leveling another character.
In CoH, though, the content came from mixing and matching powers. Creating builds was a pretty fun part of the system - probably one of the games that could make me feel so excited by just playing with a builder, the main other being D&D.
BioWare needs to pump out either a lot of story, or a lot of end-game content - or both, if they fancy VO'd raids. Remember that at WoW launch, only two 40 mans were out - Onyxia and MC. Although we're not comparing launch to launch, it's still a consideration - the game has a (small) grace period to impress its players.
Most of wow's end game content was player driven during this period of time right after launch was it not?
You've yet to address why you feel your 'evidence' matters. Or why we should be at all surprised that a very old game has a slower rate of installs than a new game.
You could possibly claim that ToR has more than twice the installs of WOW, but you can't claim to know whether the population is actually growing (especially with some pretty solid evidence showing the opposite.) Population includes two factors: installs and quitters. You're indirectly observing a measure of installs (players in the newbie zone) but you have no sense of the rate of quitters.
If Game A has 8800 installs a week (88 chars in newbie zone) but loses 16000 a week to players quitting, that game's population is not growing. If Game B has 2800 installs a week (28 chars in newbie zone) but only loses 1000 players a week, that game's population is growing. (Although realistically in WOW's case I think it's in a gradual decline overall.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Your numbers specifies 1 day at 1 given time. How can you be so sure that is happening the same on most servers? Have you done the same research in every server? at any time?
Both game have few low levels in starting areas in some servers but Swtor is certainly not healthier.
I'm going to argue this pointt.
The truth is, I don't think either game is gaining new players. I play on Daragon's Trail server on SWTOR and as I've said in other posts,, the server has a very low server population and clearly, new players are not coming into the game and I think this will be refelcted in active subscription numbers over the next couple of months. I love the game but new people simply aren't buying the game. Maybe the buddy keys and the free SWTOR weekends will change this.
As for World of Warcraft, I think the game has much more stable numbers currently and you have to view WoW from it's most popular starting area, which would be Elwynn Forest and I promise you that there are many more new WoW players then there are SWTOR players. It's just a fact.
I would love to make the argument that SWTOR is doing very well with bringing new players in. But I'm not a liar. It's not.
I'm having a hard time seeing that considering my entire guild quit TOR and other allied guilds are pulling out of the game. Most of us are split up in other MMOs now or playing other types of games. I can't wait for EAWare to tell us that the game is still doing good....
I agree with this.
My first memories of EQ....getting my ass swatted at lvl 3 by an orc pawn, and then heading to East Commons where I ran into a much higher lvl pali. He took the time to outfit me with a couple of brass armor items, and tossed me a fine steel longsword. I thought I was the shiznit.
He also said to me "try to help other palis as you grow in strength".
I wanted to be like that guy, and spent a lot of time trying to help out other new players as I progressed into NRO, Oasis, etc. Made some great friends that way.
I can remember watching folks come back to Commons to fight Gryphons, thinking that is cool.
I really liked the way EQ did stuff like that. I wish more games would add higher lvl content into zones, so that you have to watch your ass, and if you are lucky, you can see a higher level person in action. It adds to my immersion level.....which although I like TOR, is a knock against it.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I think a couple of things have had a bad effect on things concerning TOR.
Having PVP in game, and not giving them a satisfactory experience. I mean WTF was BW thinking? They had Mythic there to tell them first hand how unforgiving PVP folks are. Delivering some broken down PVP was like sticking a sign on them that says "kick me", and that is what PVP folks are doing now that they have left.
They also put up about 20 servers too many. They rolled out new ones waaaaaaaaaaaay too quickly. The early launch servers filled quickly, but the ones that come after should of went up 5 or 10 at a time, with 3 or 4 days minimum to see how things were spreading. There would of been some initial griping, but far less than is happening now.
So now they are stuck with too many servers, folks that wanted a sandbox are bitching, and folks looking for their PVP fix up in arms. There is actually a game in there that some will enjoy, but it makes it hard for BW to sell them with folks filling forums with so much negative BS....both warranted and unwarranted.
The sandbox bitching was going to happen regardless, but the other 2 could of been avoided. ONe of those Monday Morning QB scenarios.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
This problem definitely isn't that simple.
The worst solution is not to open new servers at launch. This is a guaranteed, terrible experience (customer pays money; doesn't receive gameplay.)
The good solution is to open more servers. This only runs the risk of the possiblity of a mediocre experience. A low population server isn't the end of the world.
The best solution is to build the game with better server architecture (ideally a single server like GW or EVE). Not only does this sidestep the entire "should we open more servers?" problem, it lets all the real world friends actually play your game together (which increases the likelihood of all those friends continuing to play your game a lot longer than they might otherwise.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Of course people will still subscribe to SWTOR and WoW. These people are the ones who are relatively new to MMORPGS.
However, if you've played WoW-like games for while, you'll be looking for a new experience.
Whether future WoW / SWTOR games will 'break even' though is another question entirely.
What a flawed argument. WoW is over 7 years old and has tons of end game content and it has proven that it has longtherm viability, something which the 4 month SW:TOR has yet to prove. Ofcourse starter zone is full, the game has very little end game content so there isnt much to do beside reroll or quit.
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If by "end game" you mean this:
http://www.wowwiki.com/End-game
It doesn't matter how much "end game" content WoW has - it's all still repetative 'hampster wheel' stuff.
I think the MMORPG of tomorrow is Eve Online + DUST 514. This is because your game is constantly having to change due to the unpredicatble actions of other players.