Look - I completely understand the people who call me out on this. It's not that ToR is a bad game, to the people who did the trial and had fun, I 100% understand, I had a blast the first month or so I played and then things went sour, real sour..but I'll leave that for you to decide.
ToR is a quick and fun pick up game, its more like a single player game, play through the story which will take at most even the most casual player 2 months to run through.
As for those of you claiming all these great content packages on the horizon - I will believe it when I see it, most of us have been around MMOs long enough to have heard all this before.
I would like to reiterate - I don't believe ToR will be shutdown anytime in the next 10 years, no way, but I also don't think it will ever hold even a moderate sized population following this year (2012) - it will be just another mediocre game with a mediocre niche population - content patches will be released later and later as the staff working on it dwindles.
As I said there is just too much promise in the next year (my short-term) , I really do think the next few AAA releases will be vastly different then what we've seen the last 6 years or so of 'wow' cloneish (not getting into the debate of who is actually being cloned, you know exactly what I mean).
well then my question is the niche outcome something that the audience and BW are able to tolerate? Does the game have to be the biggest game in order to be a success?
Bioware will tolerate it because they have to, with the amount of money they dumped into development and the amount of time they spent on it they have no other choice, they are in this for the long run - does the game have to be the biggest? no, does it have to be more then what ToR will end up? definitley.
i dont think the game will ever be a great game, but.. i do think that with a bit of work it might be a good one, its just at the moment it lacks basic features that most expect from MMO's, just dealing with those issues will improve the game dramatically, for the moment though, SW;TOR is a mediocre game, but one with possibilities. Bioware/EA just need to be a bit more sensible about its development.
Look - I completely understand the people who call me out on this. It's not that ToR is a bad game, to the people who did the trial and had fun, I 100% understand, I had a blast the first month or so I played and then things went sour, real sour..but I'll leave that for you to decide.
ToR is a quick and fun pick up game, its more like a single player game, play through the story which will take at most even the most casual player 2 months to run through.
As for those of you claiming all these great content packages on the horizon - I will believe it when I see it, most of us have been around MMOs long enough to have heard all this before.
I would like to reiterate - I don't believe ToR will be shutdown anytime in the next 10 years, no way, but I also don't think it will ever hold even a moderate sized population following this year (2012) - it will be just another mediocre game with a mediocre niche population - content patches will be released later and later as the staff working on it dwindles.
As I said there is just too much promise in the next year (my short-term) , I really do think the next few AAA releases will be vastly different then what we've seen the last 6 years or so of 'wow' cloneish (not getting into the debate of who is actually being cloned, you know exactly what I mean).
well then my question is the niche outcome something that the audience and BW are able to tolerate? Does the game have to be the biggest game in order to be a success?
Bioware will tolerate it because they have to, with the amount of money they dumped into development and the amount of time they spent on it they have no other choice, they are in this for the long run - does the game have to be the biggest? no, does it have to be more then what ToR will end up? definitley.
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
I have to dis agree with the op and this is why. People who play swtor play it for different reasons than say eq2 or wow, People who like it- like it because of the story line, voice overs, cut scenes, excellent sound, companions, small group fun, social points, star wars, . Bioware will continually make new content and that will keep old players and add new. My only hope is that they change the space game into something more substantial, but what they have now in terms of story etc will certainly keep me around
Me too and this analysis is spot on. The things that posters here gripe about TOR not having are things I could give two shits about. What TOR DOES have is more than enough to keep me playing in the foreseeable future. The games they keep trumpeting as being the death knell for TOR (GW2 , Archeage,Tera,Planetside 2) have absolutely NO appeal to me whatsoever. Plus, if I'm already having fun in one MMO, why in the world would I leave it to try something else? It's also interesting that two of those are sequels to games that had a very niche audience. I highly doubt they will be pulling TOR's target audience away. But I guess there's no harm in dreaming.
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
Ok so it's the fact that they essentially spent too much money in development for a release product that didn't match up to expectations (killing WoW, sitting atop the heap, making sanboxers and theme park people get along). I guess there is nothing to argue with there except maybe that it was their money to spend?
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
Ok so it's the fact that they essentially spent too much money in development for a release product that didn't match up to expectations (killing WoW, sitting atop the heap, making sanboxers and theme park people get along). I guess there is nothing to argue with there except maybe that it was their money to spend?
If subs drop to a certain level, there will be no extra content, certainly no extra VO content, EA will do what they have done with other games and have a couple of Devs working on bug fixes and stability and put it on back burner life support. That relates to cost and profits.
I have to dis agree with the op and this is why. People who play swtor play it for different reasons than say eq2 or wow, People who like it- like it because of the story line, voice overs, cut scenes, excellent sound, companions, small group fun, social points, star wars, . Bioware will continually make new content and that will keep old players and add new. My only hope is that they change the space game into something more substantial, but what they have now in terms of story etc will certainly keep me around
Me too and this analysis is spot on. The things that posters here gripe about TOR not having are things I could give two shits about. What TOR DOES have is more than enough to keep me playing in the foreseeable future. The games they keep trumpeting as being the death knell for TOR (GW2 , Archeage,Tera,Planetside 2) have absolutely NO appeal to me whatsoever. Plus, if I'm already having fun in one MMO, why in the world would I leave it to try something else? It's also interesting that two of those are sequels to games that had a very niche audience. I highly doubt they will be pulling TOR's target audience away. But I guess there's no harm in dreaming.
I laughed abit with the line I highlighted, and I agree with both those posters. The thing I truly find just mind blowing is, what seems to be the total desire to find negatives with everything. I see it like this.. If there is a game that you dont like but others do, why should it bug you enough to post about its negatives? True people like to be informed but this type of thread is a mere speculation rather than a fact that somethings wrong with it. I"ve posted before about such a thing in games and I"ll say it, yet again, here. I dont like WoW for many reasons, one being the people playing it now , but I want it to continue to succeed as much , if not better than it is now for many years... Here is why... It keeps those with that short term mentality out of the game of my choice, making the game of my choice that more enjoyable. Enjoy, and please if you take a cookie from the tray, USE the tongs.. thanks
PS2 is going to suffer just like PS1 did from hacks. FPS is littered with them and the only way to stop them is to drop the ban hammer which no game has been willing to do enough to make people think twice. No one really cares as much in instanced games where you do not really lose anything, but add a RPG feel to it and people will get pissed.
I really wanted to like this game. I played to 50 on my first toon and got several others to 30ish.
They stayed pretty true to the spirit and look of the franchise in most respects. Where they didn't (speeders come to mind) their liberties seemed much less about creativity and more about development convenience. The lack of variety in gear was disappointing but one could argue that more could come in future updates. I find that this is rarely the case for anything below end game - what launched is all you'll ever see, as the developers become focused exclusively on raid and pvp progression. The environments were well done - immersive and consistent.
They had everything you needed. Everything you liked from a hundred other MMOs. And yet they took such a formulaic approach to everything - gear progression, level progression, questing, dungeons, crafting - that it all felt pretty stale and predictable. All the bells and whistle, and yet no soul.
I enjoyed the single-player aspect of the game a lot. But it makes any kind of RP immersion difficult when your character has the exact same history and companions and connections as every other character of the same class. Running around with my companion, say, Bowdar, and seeing dozens of other players dressed exactly like me and accompanied by an identical wookie with the same name was a serious impediment to RP. Not as serious as the fact that literally no one RPd, but that's a different point.
But the game-killer for me was the absolutely terrible group experiences. I've been playing MMOs long enough to have become quite accomplished at grouping and raiding. I think this game's appeal to a market consisting almost entirely of single-player veterans and the very young, coupled with the strong emphasis on the single-player experience, made for some of the most frustrating group instance crawls I've ever endured - WoW included.
Most people I met had no concept of even the most basic of group mechanics: group roles and their responsibilities, pulling, threat, target focus, crowd control, and so on. Most encounters were either a disaster or could have been far, far less risky and time consuming. Wiping on nearly every trash encounter was not uncommon. I'm not talking about a few groups here and there - I'm talking about 4 characters up to at least 30, and one to 50, on 2 different servers.
4 people soloing beside each other is fun for me occasionally, but I find role-aware, tactical, efficient groups far more interesting. That's my personal preference and SWTOR's populace just couldn't provide that consistently.
I enjoyed much of my time in the game, but after a couple of months I believe I've seen everything significant that it will ever have to offer, and I'm done.
I think the game will stick around for a long while, though. The severs were always full of people enjoying themselves and there are more people each day who seem to fit right in with that crowd. I hope they have fun, but I'll continue to look for something more to my liking.
I like small groups much better because they are easier to control and everyone knows their rolls. In big groups its more like a mob than anything else and it is hard to see who is shooting who because the animations take up the whole screen and it just becomes a jumble mess, now some people like that sort of thing but not me
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
Ok so it's the fact that they essentially spent too much money in development for a release product that didn't match up to expectations (killing WoW, sitting atop the heap, making sanboxers and theme park people get along). I guess there is nothing to argue with there except maybe that it was their money to spend?
If subs drop to a certain level, there will be no extra content, certainly no extra VO content, EA will do what they have done with other games and have a couple of Devs working on bug fixes and stability and put it on back burner life support. That relates to cost and profits.
well then now we have returned to the Doomsday scenario. Unless you are saying that no new content will still result in mediocre subs but will just be merely that much more unsatisfying for the die hards. Meaning you are saying the quality will deteriorate faster than the incoming money?
I have to dis agree with the op and this is why. People who play swtor play it for different reasons than say eq2 or wow, People who like it- like it because of the story line, voice overs, cut scenes, excellent sound, companions, small group fun, social points, star wars, . Bioware will continually make new content and that will keep old players and add new. My only hope is that they change the space game into something more substantial, but what they have now in terms of story etc will certainly keep me around
Me too and this analysis is spot on. The things that posters here gripe about TOR not having are things I could give two shits about. What TOR DOES have is more than enough to keep me playing in the foreseeable future. The games they keep trumpeting as being the death knell for TOR (GW2 , Archeage,Tera,Planetside 2) have absolutely NO appeal to me whatsoever. Plus, if I'm already having fun in one MMO, why in the world would I leave it to try something else? It's also interesting that two of those are sequels to games that had a very niche audience. I highly doubt they will be pulling TOR's target audience away. But I guess there's no harm in dreaming.
I laughed abit with the line I highlighted, and I agree with both those posters. The thing I truly find just mind blowing is, what seems to be the total desire to find negatives with everything. I see it like this.. If there is a game that you dont like but others do, why should it bug you enough to post about its negatives? True people like to be informed but this type of thread is a mere speculation rather than a fact that somethings wrong with it. I"ve posted before about such a thing in games and I"ll say it, yet again, here. I dont like WoW for many reasons, one being the people playing it now , but I want it to continue to succeed as much , if not better than it is now for many years... Here is why... It keeps those with that short term mentality out of the game of my choice, making the game of my choice that more enjoyable. Enjoy, and please if you take a cookie from the tray, USE the tongs.. thanks
Look - for some strange reason this post is being hijacked by fanboys: THIS POST IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE GAME - no where in my op or any post that followed did I call ToR a bad game or anything of that sort. This post is on the longevity of the game in the short term future. In fact, I said ToR was a good game for a month or two.
I don't want this post to turn into "if you don't have anything good to say abou tthe game then go away"
As for the post asking what the consequence to ToR 'failing' would be - As I said, hopefully a lesson to gaming companies that the 'wow cloneage' is growing stale.
I invested money in this game (1 CE copy) I played at relase with my guild - I won't lie, at least to us it was a let down for various reasons. I have every right to discuss the future of the game. If you enjoy the game, GREAT! more power to you, if you think you will be playing the game 5 years from now or whatever, GREAT! My opinion (and only that) is that you will find yourself on underpopulated servers in a declining game.
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
Ok so it's the fact that they essentially spent too much money in development for a release product that didn't match up to expectations (killing WoW, sitting atop the heap, making sanboxers and theme park people get along). I guess there is nothing to argue with there except maybe that it was their money to spend?
If subs drop to a certain level, there will be no extra content, certainly no extra VO content, EA will do what they have done with other games and have a couple of Devs working on bug fixes and stability and put it on back burner life support. That relates to cost and profits.
well then now we have returned to the Doomsday scenario. Unless you are saying that no new content will still result in mediocre subs but will just be merely that much more unsatisfying for the die hards. Meaning you are saying the quality will deteriorate faster than the incoming money?
Subs are dropping, that seems clear, what level they stabilise at will influence the business decision from EA, the accountants will decide what the cost efficient future will be, invest or maintain.
I have to dis agree with the op and this is why. People who play swtor play it for different reasons than say eq2 or wow, People who like it- like it because of the story line, voice overs, cut scenes, excellent sound, companions, small group fun, social points, star wars, . Bioware will continually make new content and that will keep old players and add new. My only hope is that they change the space game into something more substantial, but what they have now in terms of story etc will certainly keep me around
Me too and this analysis is spot on. The things that posters here gripe about TOR not having are things I could give two shits about. What TOR DOES have is more than enough to keep me playing in the foreseeable future. The games they keep trumpeting as being the death knell for TOR (GW2 , Archeage,Tera,Planetside 2) have absolutely NO appeal to me whatsoever. Plus, if I'm already having fun in one MMO, why in the world would I leave it to try something else? It's also interesting that two of those are sequels to games that had a very niche audience. I highly doubt they will be pulling TOR's target audience away. But I guess there's no harm in dreaming.
I laughed abit with the line I highlighted, and I agree with both those posters. The thing I truly find just mind blowing is, what seems to be the total desire to find negatives with everything. I see it like this.. If there is a game that you dont like but others do, why should it bug you enough to post about its negatives? True people like to be informed but this type of thread is a mere speculation rather than a fact that somethings wrong with it. I"ve posted before about such a thing in games and I"ll say it, yet again, here. I dont like WoW for many reasons, one being the people playing it now , but I want it to continue to succeed as much , if not better than it is now for many years... Here is why... It keeps those with that short term mentality out of the game of my choice, making the game of my choice that more enjoyable. Enjoy, and please if you take a cookie from the tray, USE the tongs.. thanks
Look - for some strange reason this post is being hijacked by fanboys: THIS POST IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE GAME - no where in my op or any post that followed did I call ToR a bad game or anything of that sort. This post is on the longevity of the game in the short term future. In fact, I said ToR was a good game for a month or two.
I don't want this post to turn into "if you don't have anything good to say abou tthe game then go away"
As for the post asking what the consequence to ToR 'failing' would be - As I said, hopefully a lesson to gaming companies that the 'wow cloneage' is growing stale.
I invested money in this game (1 CE copy) I played at relase with my guild - I won't lie, at least to us it was a let down for various reasons. I have every right to discuss the future of the game.
Um.. where are either of us trying to stop you from saying what you want? Feel free to pick the lines and showcase them for us because we both were discussing the topic. Let me check the title again...
THIS GAME WON'T SURVIVE THE SHORT-TERM FUTURE
Yep, that's what I thought. Now how again was me and eddie hijacking the thread by stating our disagreement with your topic and our reasons why?
A year before release a group of testers tried to rally the testers behind getting Bioware to notice what was missing and wrong with the game and they were hit with fanboys defending the game and making useless comments about "its just beta" and "give them time".
If a game in beta is lacking in something, say...good crafting for example. You KNOW the crafting is bad, a post is made about it...dont defend the damn company. Say you agree and that you hope the maker is aware that YOU ALSO WANT IT IMPROVED and move on...or dont post if you dont need better crafting.
Derailing those actually trying to make a game better is foolish even if they are trying to improve part of the game that YOU dont use. Bioware got away with ignoring most issues while making the game because of the lack of the beta community working together to test and make the game better...like so many other games before it.
The reason the market has so many average games is 100% the fault of the players, the people buying and paying for the products. you are the consumer, they are the providers, if they are providing bland products continually its due to the consumer thinking he has no power or voice when in fact THEY DRIVE THE MARKET because they ARE the market.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
I don't think the game is gonna go anywhere anytime soon, but they aren't gonna be keeping the supposed 1.7 million people they have now. BioWare isn't currently skilled, creative and/or ambitious enough to really take this game to where it could be. They need new game designers to really take things to new levels, and right now, we've seen what little thought has been going into this game. They're currently restricted to the inside of the box.
The writing and voice talent are top-notch - no one can argue that - but unfortunately a great story doesn't make up for shotty, cut-and-paste game design and mechanics that have already been done far too many times before.
Sorry SWTOR/BioWare, you need to step up your game in a hurry.
I disagree with the OP about new games. I have never seen the MMO market look worse. There are are almost no games in development that look interesting. TSW and Tera both seem to be awful. GW2 seems to be targetted to the ultra casual with limited content that people will grow bored of quite quickly. Once a few months have passed it will likely will only be a side game for people to play when bored. EQNext could be big but its SOE and its likely 2014 at the earliest. Archeage lookslike the only inetresting game on the list but its a 2014 release at earliest . ToR will live or die on its own. Presently it seems to be dying quite fast. But I am sure it will bottom out at some point and stabilize and then maybe have a revival in a year or two once the game gets enough contnet to support players. What will be the bottom out figure 500k? 200k? Who knows it certainly has the ability with its IP to bring in newe players. But I do agree that GW2 will take away many players in he short term. GW2 will be massively hyped and will appeal the casual player base that plays ToR. The question is where will these players go once they become bored of GW2. There are not many options. WoW and EQ2 are getting old and then there is Rift and ToR and that si it for AAA mmos that provide updated content.
It's not gonna die, SW fans and BW fans alone will keep the game going. Will it continue to be P2P by the end of the year or throughout 2013 is another question. All MMOs have their nitch groups. If AoC, War, Fallen Earth and whatever else very lackluster games then I'm sure SWTOR will survive just fine.
As the title says, and mark my words. While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so. A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext) - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.
Planetside 2 will have little to no impact. The same goes for Archage and TSW.
GW2 is the only one that can have an impact, but I think it will be negligable as well.
The only thing that will hurt SWTOR is BW and where they take the game.
As the title says, and mark my words. While this game is doing fine now, and would survive the current market, the horizon for mmo gamers looks as bright as I can remember in the last decade or so. A quick over-view of what will likely be released this year: Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and Archage (not to mention a few lesser knowns Dust and EverquestNext) - Right now the genre is stale, but in the next year I have a feeling that these games will drain the population from most games currently on the market including ToR.
While there are some innovative features in ToR for the most part its lackluster. ToR took the safe route of cliche mmo mechanics and its going to bite them down the road when some of the more innovative and promising games release. Call me a naysayer, a dooms day kinda guy, whatever.
Of course the game won't shut down, that's not what I mean, but we all know that MMO's usually die long before the company actually shuts them down.
The bright side (and I'm stealing this from another poster) is that ToR might have been the game that breaks the 'wow clone' market of MMO's. Companies might start pushing away from that market and that is a good thing.
You can feed me lines about 1.2 and the voice acting and such but there is little doubt that ToR for the most part played it safe and I think it will bite them.
Your "foresight" is so vague, it could apply to many situations and you could claim you were correct.
How about you give specific numbers and dates. Concrete number we can verify your prediction.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme. There isn't much room to change. Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.
So, if it's the "themeparkishness" of the game that will kill it, then I suspect LotRO and many other "doin' just fine" games will just collapse into oblivion. Even WoW...
I don't think so. Those games will be fine, and so will TOR, at least based on that prediction. The only real threat is GW2, and it's B2P.
If TOR fails, it won't be because of the "themeparkishness". Lots of players like that about the game. When people do claim to like this game, it's generally BECAUSE of these aspects. TOR's main problem is the brick wall at 50. If they don't fix it, it will be the game's downfall, IMO.
No - I don't think it can unfortunatly, the fundamentals of the game are too themeparkish to the extreme. There isn't much room to change. Perhaps it could happen, anything is possible and my opinions only worth a cent, but I will stick by my prediction.
So, if it's the "themeparkishness" of the game that will kill it, then I suspect LotRO and many other "doin' just fine" games will just collapse into oblivion. Even WoW...
I don't think so. Those games will be fine, and so will TOR, at least based on that prediction. The only real threat is GW2, and it's B2P.
If TOR fails, it won't be because of the "themeparkishness". Lots of players like that about the game. When people do claim to like this game, it's generally BECAUSE of these aspects. TOR's main problem is the brick wall at 50. If they don't fix it, it will be the game's downfall, IMO.
Man no offense but could you please stop with the blinding retna burning colors in all your posts seriously? I would also agree with both of you to a certain extent, however, comparing this game to LOTRO is laughable at best. Have you even played LOTRO?
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~ Italian proverb
Comments
Bioware will tolerate it because they have to, with the amount of money they dumped into development and the amount of time they spent on it they have no other choice, they are in this for the long run - does the game have to be the biggest? no, does it have to be more then what ToR will end up? definitley.
i dont think the game will ever be a great game, but.. i do think that with a bit of work it might be a good one, its just at the moment it lacks basic features that most expect from MMO's, just dealing with those issues will improve the game dramatically, for the moment though, SW;TOR is a mediocre game, but one with possibilities. Bioware/EA just need to be a bit more sensible about its development.
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
Me too and this analysis is spot on. The things that posters here gripe about TOR not having are things I could give two shits about. What TOR DOES have is more than enough to keep me playing in the foreseeable future. The games they keep trumpeting as being the death knell for TOR (GW2 , Archeage,Tera,Planetside 2) have absolutely NO appeal to me whatsoever. Plus, if I'm already having fun in one MMO, why in the world would I leave it to try something else? It's also interesting that two of those are sequels to games that had a very niche audience. I highly doubt they will be pulling TOR's target audience away. But I guess there's no harm in dreaming.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Ok so it's the fact that they essentially spent too much money in development for a release product that didn't match up to expectations (killing WoW, sitting atop the heap, making sanboxers and theme park people get along). I guess there is nothing to argue with there except maybe that it was their money to spend?
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
Ok so it's the fact that they essentially spent too much money in development for a release product that didn't match up to expectations (killing WoW, sitting atop the heap, making sanboxers and theme park people get along). I guess there is nothing to argue with there except maybe that it was their money to spend?
If subs drop to a certain level, there will be no extra content, certainly no extra VO content, EA will do what they have done with other games and have a couple of Devs working on bug fixes and stability and put it on back burner life support. That relates to cost and profits.I laughed abit with the line I highlighted, and I agree with both those posters. The thing I truly find just mind blowing is, what seems to be the total desire to find negatives with everything. I see it like this.. If there is a game that you dont like but others do, why should it bug you enough to post about its negatives? True people like to be informed but this type of thread is a mere speculation rather than a fact that somethings wrong with it. I"ve posted before about such a thing in games and I"ll say it, yet again, here. I dont like WoW for many reasons, one being the people playing it now , but I want it to continue to succeed as much , if not better than it is now for many years... Here is why... It keeps those with that short term mentality out of the game of my choice, making the game of my choice that more enjoyable. Enjoy, and please if you take a cookie from the tray, USE the tongs.. thanks
PS2 is going to suffer just like PS1 did from hacks. FPS is littered with them and the only way to stop them is to drop the ban hammer which no game has been willing to do enough to make people think twice. No one really cares as much in instanced games where you do not really lose anything, but add a RPG feel to it and people will get pissed.
I like small groups much better because they are easier to control and everyone knows their rolls. In big groups its more like a mob than anything else and it is hard to see who is shooting who because the animations take up the whole screen and it just becomes a jumble mess, now some people like that sort of thing but not me
well then now we have returned to the Doomsday scenario. Unless you are saying that no new content will still result in mediocre subs but will just be merely that much more unsatisfying for the die hards. Meaning you are saying the quality will deteriorate faster than the incoming money?
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Other game companies dont need to pull players away from swtor, EA will push them.
Look - for some strange reason this post is being hijacked by fanboys: THIS POST IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE GAME - no where in my op or any post that followed did I call ToR a bad game or anything of that sort. This post is on the longevity of the game in the short term future. In fact, I said ToR was a good game for a month or two.
I don't want this post to turn into "if you don't have anything good to say abou tthe game then go away"
As for the post asking what the consequence to ToR 'failing' would be - As I said, hopefully a lesson to gaming companies that the 'wow cloneage' is growing stale.
I invested money in this game (1 CE copy) I played at relase with my guild - I won't lie, at least to us it was a let down for various reasons. I have every right to discuss the future of the game. If you enjoy the game, GREAT! more power to you, if you think you will be playing the game 5 years from now or whatever, GREAT! My opinion (and only that) is that you will find yourself on underpopulated servers in a declining game.
See, this is what I am honestly trying to understand. If the game falls to the level you described, what is the catastrophe? I mean you have stated a historical description of what happens to most games. Maybe it's time to correct the overhype by being realistic about the future of SWTOR. It's not gonna shut down, and it's not going to blow up the market with fabulous success.
No it just blew their wallet with a fabulous budgeting... used to produce yet another "been there, done that".
Ok so it's the fact that they essentially spent too much money in development for a release product that didn't match up to expectations (killing WoW, sitting atop the heap, making sanboxers and theme park people get along). I guess there is nothing to argue with there except maybe that it was their money to spend?
If subs drop to a certain level, there will be no extra content, certainly no extra VO content, EA will do what they have done with other games and have a couple of Devs working on bug fixes and stability and put it on back burner life support. That relates to cost and profits.well then now we have returned to the Doomsday scenario. Unless you are saying that no new content will still result in mediocre subs but will just be merely that much more unsatisfying for the die hards. Meaning you are saying the quality will deteriorate faster than the incoming money?
Subs are dropping, that seems clear, what level they stabilise at will influence the business decision from EA, the accountants will decide what the cost efficient future will be, invest or maintain.Um.. where are either of us trying to stop you from saying what you want? Feel free to pick the lines and showcase them for us because we both were discussing the topic. Let me check the title again...
THIS GAME WON'T SURVIVE THE SHORT-TERM FUTURE
Yep, that's what I thought. Now how again was me and eddie hijacking the thread by stating our disagreement with your topic and our reasons why?
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
It'll survive, much like Warhammer survived. It just won't be anywhere near the numbers retention EA and Bio were gambling on.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
More too little too late.
A year before release a group of testers tried to rally the testers behind getting Bioware to notice what was missing and wrong with the game and they were hit with fanboys defending the game and making useless comments about "its just beta" and "give them time".
If a game in beta is lacking in something, say...good crafting for example. You KNOW the crafting is bad, a post is made about it...dont defend the damn company. Say you agree and that you hope the maker is aware that YOU ALSO WANT IT IMPROVED and move on...or dont post if you dont need better crafting.
Derailing those actually trying to make a game better is foolish even if they are trying to improve part of the game that YOU dont use. Bioware got away with ignoring most issues while making the game because of the lack of the beta community working together to test and make the game better...like so many other games before it.
The reason the market has so many average games is 100% the fault of the players, the people buying and paying for the products. you are the consumer, they are the providers, if they are providing bland products continually its due to the consumer thinking he has no power or voice when in fact THEY DRIVE THE MARKET because they ARE the market.
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I don't think the game is gonna go anywhere anytime soon, but they aren't gonna be keeping the supposed 1.7 million people they have now. BioWare isn't currently skilled, creative and/or ambitious enough to really take this game to where it could be. They need new game designers to really take things to new levels, and right now, we've seen what little thought has been going into this game. They're currently restricted to the inside of the box.
The writing and voice talent are top-notch - no one can argue that - but unfortunately a great story doesn't make up for shotty, cut-and-paste game design and mechanics that have already been done far too many times before.
Sorry SWTOR/BioWare, you need to step up your game in a hurry.
Star Wars Galaxies was only shut down due to expired contract and the on-coming launch of LucasArts new baby TOR.
It wasn't shut down due to lack of subscriptions.
TOR will remain open for god knows how long. Eventually it'll go free to play and offer up its cheap little dime store novel stories for free.
But thats about it.
I disagree with the OP about new games. I have never seen the MMO market look worse. There are are almost no games in development that look interesting. TSW and Tera both seem to be awful. GW2 seems to be targetted to the ultra casual with limited content that people will grow bored of quite quickly. Once a few months have passed it will likely will only be a side game for people to play when bored. EQNext could be big but its SOE and its likely 2014 at the earliest. Archeage lookslike the only inetresting game on the list but its a 2014 release at earliest . ToR will live or die on its own. Presently it seems to be dying quite fast. But I am sure it will bottom out at some point and stabilize and then maybe have a revival in a year or two once the game gets enough contnet to support players. What will be the bottom out figure 500k? 200k? Who knows it certainly has the ability with its IP to bring in newe players. But I do agree that GW2 will take away many players in he short term. GW2 will be massively hyped and will appeal the casual player base that plays ToR. The question is where will these players go once they become bored of GW2. There are not many options. WoW and EQ2 are getting old and then there is Rift and ToR and that si it for AAA mmos that provide updated content.
It's not gonna die, SW fans and BW fans alone will keep the game going. Will it continue to be P2P by the end of the year or throughout 2013 is another question. All MMOs have their nitch groups. If AoC, War, Fallen Earth and whatever else very lackluster games then I'm sure SWTOR will survive just fine.
Planetside 2 will have little to no impact. The same goes for Archage and TSW.
GW2 is the only one that can have an impact, but I think it will be negligable as well.
The only thing that will hurt SWTOR is BW and where they take the game.
Your "foresight" is so vague, it could apply to many situations and you could claim you were correct.
How about you give specific numbers and dates. Concrete number we can verify your prediction.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
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So, if it's the "themeparkishness" of the game that will kill it, then I suspect LotRO and many other "doin' just fine" games will just collapse into oblivion. Even WoW...
I don't think so. Those games will be fine, and so will TOR, at least based on that prediction. The only real threat is GW2, and it's B2P.
If TOR fails, it won't be because of the "themeparkishness". Lots of players like that about the game. When people do claim to like this game, it's generally BECAUSE of these aspects. TOR's main problem is the brick wall at 50. If they don't fix it, it will be the game's downfall, IMO.
Man no offense but could you please stop with the blinding retna burning colors in all your posts seriously? I would also agree with both of you to a certain extent, however, comparing this game to LOTRO is laughable at best. Have you even played LOTRO?
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~ Italian proverb