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Main reason why SWTOR flopped?
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Yea its an mmorpg. People just tend to say that because it plays so much like a single player RPG and lacks so many things that standard mmos have come to have (like a LFG tool which they just added or are adding....finally).
But it really does play like a single player RPG. I really thought so, and not necessarily a great one either.
They will slap the Star Wars name on many many other games and people will all buy it again no matter how bad it is. Just have to give you a light saber and its a win.
Im sure they made tons off the initial box, collectors editions and digital sales. Now comes the layoffs, server merges, then the games going to limbo until they decide to pull the plug before the game starts costing them money. They made their cash grab, now they don't care what happens.
I voiced my opinion of the game. You disagree and have added some points that would just turn into an arguement of subjectivity such as meaningful pvp. Any game I name that has what I would call meaningful pvp would then in turn make me into some game favoring "Fanboi" which would further make this banter pointless.
The only part of your response that I found odd was the acceptance of the spacebar jump mechanic. Why is the character jump designed to look like a short hop instead of a jump that a reasonably well trained force user might employ?
Yes platforming for some datacrons could be an annoying project however I did not enjoy spacebar jumping in say Huttball where my character would bunny hop out of the acid pit or barely clear a couple of sandbags now and then. That alone just made my Assasin seem out of place in the Star Wars universe.
In regard to the class purpose behind the smugglers, Bounty Hunters, agents etc, yes the story lines were effective in telling the story. My point is now that you are at max level and no longer have the story to create purpose for that character what do you do now? What does the smuggler do? Who are the bounter hunters chasing if anyone? Are they retired? My point is that the classes have no purpose now that the class story is finished.
During my time in SWTOR which was until about 3 weeks prior to the 1.2 update my War Zone experience consisted of about 7 or 8 Huttball matches....against Imperials just like me, often against my own guild mates and then a Void Star against the Republic or maybe the Battle for Alderan before another series of Huttball for 6 or 7 times. I started to notice bad blood developing between members of my own faction. Granted this can occur without any pvp between people, but it certainly seemed to be fueled by the conflict.
These were my experiences and they affected my opinion of the game. I understand and respect your different perspective. Insinuating that I am a liar because we do not see eye to eye is uncalled for.
yup, according to EA website, SWTOR is an mmorpg
http://www.ea.com/star-wars-the-old-republic
haha... so true! and yet so sad
It's what happens when EA gets involved, they truly are evil monsters
thats the ticket.... we bought and expected a mmorpg (you know the games that you get a quest dialog and click accept instead of sitting in the middle of a flashpoint watching the exact same dialog for the upteenth time because someone wont spacebar through it, not to mention at least some freedom from the beaten path going where we want instead of being told to go to point a b c and then at such and such level go to d e and f)
instead we got a handheld journey through very limited planets that werent even wide open for exploring, and god help you if you feel like making an alt.... space space space through 20000000 of the exact same quests you all ready did before, and for what? Broken pvp, very limited end game, space is turned into starfox 64.
now on to why it can be called a failure to me at least... they sold over 2 million copies... last report only had 1.3 subs. So in less than 6 months you have all ready lost nearly half of your users and that 2 million was around release time, I am sure they have most likely sold near 3 million over all if not more since december.
My wish for this game is that they had done movies for class story only, left non class traditional mmo type... use the money they saved from that change and fully flesh out space... even just stealing the damn thing from SWG if they had to. While that wouldnt have fixed everything, it would at least make the game livable to me with something to do besides should lfg in some station for hours.
I have to agree. The game launched without suitable social tools and endgame. The solution was pretty much 'reroll another character for the story' which was fine once or twice, but they really misjudged the MMO market.
If thats all they were going to offer it should have been B2P.
Its hard to justify paying a monthly subscription when the endgame for both PvP and PvE is lacking. Before anyone asks, I was fully decked out in the best of both PvE (raid) and PvP gear within two months of launch. There was no challenge at all.
Regarding the social tools, the space fleet was boring and bland, the home planets really should have been the social hubs. Guilds should have been able to get their own space fleet and decorate / personalise it. Same with personal ships. The guild interface was very lacking, and lets be honest, with the type of game that SWTOR is, it really needed a dungeon finder. Yes I was able to find groups, but often it felt like I spent more time looking for a group than doing it. Its nice to just wait in a queue while you continue questing on the planets, rather than waiting in a social hub spamming LFG.
Many have hit it right on. You can't have a social game without social mechanics.
The very essence of a mmo was ignored. When a developer forgets they are making a mmo they seal their doom.
Beyond that the developers did not connect with the fans of star wars. Star wars is a religion. The core fans watched the movies at a young age. They formed an image set in stone from an early age. It is something that cannot be relived. Perhaps it is something that can never be reclaimed ... like your first mmo experience. Many have later developed their Star Wars infatuation further through the expanded universe material. For me it was the Star Wars RPG. Bioware did NOTHING to capture that imagery and connection. Instead they went their own direction and capitalized on being the first with KOTOR when it came to gaming. Sadly they thought that translated into an mmo if copy and pasting Wow mechanics into it. They were wrong.
A Star Wars mmo should be something spawned out of the existing expanded universe and movies that has sustained the fan base for decades. Bioware lost sight of this and made a Wow clone (with story) instead of making a universe you could fall into. Perhaps Star Wars will always be too big for video games to capture.
You stay sassy!
I am of the personal opinion that TOR was pushed for release by EA looking for a bump in slumping stock numbers.
The core of the game that Bioware meant to push, story and meaningful character development, is in place, however, the traditional MMO peripherials are very much lacking. PvP is ok, but there just isn't enough other content that people want to do at endgame. Even PvP only has 4 warzones and a pretty dead open-world option.
Mostt everything else just feels very half-assed, which lends creedence to the rumor* that lots of projects were dropped half-way through development.
I really have almost no fun playing my level 50s. I much rather prefer leveling new characters through their respective stories.
With that being said, we shall see what the state of the game is come next Christmas. There is still plenty of time for Bioware to pick it up.
*and by rumor I mean I've seen people post anecdotal evidence here on the forums.
Waiting: CU, WildStar, Destiny, Eternal Crusade
Playing: ESO,DCUO
Played: LotRO,RIFT,ToR,Warhammer, Runescape
So did I, but because I followed it for so long, I already knew what the game is like months before the beta, so the beta only put a seal on my suspicions.
I'll tell you why the game 'failed'. I say 'failed' even though it has clearly still quite many subs compared to many otehr MMO's, I say failed because it is a Star Wars MMO, and a successful Star Wars massive online world has no peers, it would make WoW's numbers look like a cheap little puppy compared to a roaring lion.
The game failed because Bioware lost the touch, they lost their pride, I rememeber a time when Bioware was wiping the floor with Blizzard, back in the glorious day of Baldur's Gate, the golden era of RPG games. What did Blizzard have to show back then? The simple hack & slasher called Diablo, which I did love back then (the only Diablo I liked) but comparing it to the Baldurs Gate Saga was silly. Back then Bioware was defining how RPG's should be like, there was no one they needed to copy.
10+ years later and what do we see? Bioware officials blatantly stating to the public they will make SWTOR, their biggest project, similar to WoW! They didn't even try to hide it! It's like admitting "we suck, we don't know how to make games anymore, but Blizzard does, so we will follow suit". It's this mentality in the executive team that hurt the game the most, dooming it to fail long before we got to play it. You can fix a game, but you can't fix how people think. The foundations for a good game simply were not there. Self respect, belief in own skills, and the will to take risks to innovate a stagnant genre. Instead we got shameful statements praising Blizzard and their pet product, praising those they once greatly surpassed, it's how far Bioware has fallen, from the top of the heap to a mere shoelicker. How can anyone be surprised about how SWTOR turned out to be?
Compare that to ArenaNet. They not only never even mentioned WoW, or copying it, they bashed it and other MMO's speaking out loud what the tired MMO's gamers have known for years. A small dev studio has more guts and apparently skills, than old giants with hundreds of millions of budget. This is a good foundation, this is how you know a game has a chance. It will have a chance even if it's not immediately successful - because as I said, you can fix a game, but you can't fix how people think - and the thought processes of ANet devs need no fixing, clearly, if you listened to anything they have to say.
My Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend "reviewette" : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4944570/thread/349125#4944570
Simple and straight forward- Too much of a single player game, and not enough MMO. Now if it were a single player game it would be an amazing one (like the majority of biowares single player games), but its not the case. Instanced dungeons and battlegrounds (of both small scale may I add) gave no sense of immersion at end game, operations weren't too bad but If I wanted to play a game for hardcore raid progression I would go play WoW since thats all the game offers. PVP wasn't too bad though until they left it aside and decided to let it rot with imbalances and rather repetitive progression. Do I think it can be saved? Yes, there is always a chance. Do I think bioware will save it? At this point im not sure, hope for the best.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
I don't know about you guys but... When I load into zones 2 months after the release of what is supposed to be the most epic game ever and there are 5 people questing in the zone=DEALBREAKER I might as well go play KOTOR I had other reasons as everybody mentioned as well. The instancing just gets old or maybe it is the transition idk just my take on it.
Number one reason it "flopped" wasn't because it's a bad game or anything like that, it's because the MMO community as a whole has become a bunch of gloom and doom naysayers. It was over-hyped from the word go. It's a good game. If you enter it without preconceived notions, you'd actually like to play it. It seems since day 1, people have been comparing it to WoW, SWG, EQ, and others...compare it to SWTOR...When will people learn that every MMO is different, but they all share a certain core to them..that's what makes them MMOs! I think alot of the MMO community really shouldn't be playing MMOs. They got hooked on WoW, and now are looking for something to slate thier addiction. The fact is that you're NOT a MMO player. If you didn't play Everquest, Ultima Online, or Dark Age of Camelot, you simply aren't a MMO player. Players like myself who played before MMOs became mainstream still like alot of the newer MMOs and stick up for them. The problem is that others who came in later (who shouldn't even be playing) will buy a game, try it for the first 30 months and leave. The core MMO players will stick around with an MMO for years. It's not the Games, it's not the Devs, It's the COMMUNITY. Something that early MMO players know all to well is that the game isn't what makes an MMO, it's the players.
Asheron's Call Bitch!
Sorry had to add that
You stay sassy!
The personal story was the meat of this "massively multiplayer" online game.
Then you should know quality instead of sticking up for every new mmo that comes out. But you dont seem too. You should have a more refined pallete after playing so many mmos and being such an expert, but again you dont seem too. Furthermore, on your definition of what makes an mmo, I can log into a friggin chat room for that. An ugly chat room with no features.
No sir. Mmos are a game play experience and if that does not deliver then you wont HAVE a community. Yes community and relationships are a huge part of the experience, but yes....its the games......and yes....its the developers. Without quality with either of those you dont HAVE a community. Period.
So I think.....yea.....I think I disagree with every single point you've made here. But it gave me a laugh I guess.
Because Its WoW?
Oh right.. eh.. *Hides under Flameshell*
Center of the Universe located: ^^
I really do love the "Blame the Users" argument. The SWTOR unsubbed are a homogenous group of cynical jerks who really probably just bought the game so they could trash it more thoroughly by dumping their subs to make BW look bad.
I also enjoy the No Expectations defense. If you cut out your tongue before you eat a dog turd, you will see it's fine.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
- Endgame consisting out of standing around in a shoping mall waiting for your battleground to pop when you are not doing instances.
- Crafting suddenly being tied in to instanced content and item mod vendors competing with crafters.
- World pvp and other open world content at max level were hugely underdeveloped. Even random world pvp at lower levels was never stimulated due to the lack of incentives, bad mechanics (lethal npc guards) and divided content distribution between factions (see pic). As if they were mortally afraid to have people fight eachother (i.e. provide content for eachother) on pvp servers.
My brand new bloggity blog.
what community do you speak of? How does this game even encourage community other than dumping you in a space station to spam LFG with all the others your level. I mean you have 30 instances of the same zone with like 15 people in each zone... you get to know each other really well there... lots of comradarie... or maybe you are speaking of the Lake of Ill Omen/Barrens chat channel general chat which to me was nothing but wow central and I just ignored it completely.
Hate to break it to you but its not the community in this case, its the game... you want community but the game can be done completely solo without ever talking to a single person.... companion characters while a nice feature for a solo rpg, help to kill community in a MMO... its like mercs in eq1... who needs a cleric or a warrior just fire up your mercenary... and thats just touching on your community jab... that doesnt even get into missing elements of the game like end game period, space may as well not exist, pvp broken/against your own faction further encouraging that community and set up as a competition sport throwing a ball around.... again thats not the community... thats the devs taking a game called star wars, removing the war part and saying go stab your own team in the back for pvp points... no thanks.
In eq1 you had to group period... everything required it you realistically couldnt solo past level 17 in eq... DAOC was easier to solo in but you had to buy gear that was crafted... just had to and you had group roams of pvp, guild houses, player houses, leaderboards to compete with your other server members bonuses for capturing relics and the like. There is nothing like that in SWTOR... hell SWG was even better with player crafted gear, doc buffs, entertainers healing wounds... so much better than swtors community features.
I voted it released too soon.
1) Needed to fix combat issues with animations and cooldowns before release
2) Needed group finder tools
3) Needed ranked PVP and should have never made Ilum
4) Needed more leveling paths to prevent alts of same faction from running 80% of the same quests
1. Whole game felt like single player with co-op option.
2. Lack of ANY innovatiness.
3. Zone-copies that made you feel alone even if server was packed
4. Life-less world
5. Tunneled game zones and whole gameplay
6. WoW-copy mechanics wise
7. No community building tools - any not even one. not even simplest bubble-chat (though it alone would not be enough)
8. Economy & crafting in this game is a joke even for a themepark
9. Alien races - EXACTLY same as humans just with diffrent skin color or "hair" <-- 300 mln $ srsly?
10. Total lack of immersiveness and belivibility - things like knee deep water in whole universe.
11. Another mmorpg about 'standing and waiting to farm instances' or browsing AH
12. Damn cutscenes & voice chat at EVERY SINGLE QUEST. Seriously VO for main story-line and for others text-based converstaion (not text wall) without cutscenes would be x 100 better. Not to mention that this story and dialogues in VO were laughable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7pgk7TZO_c <---anyone? *spoiler alert*
+ many more - those are those I remember straight accesing "swtor fail" fast in my brain ;p
PvP... thats why... it sucked.
"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
They bet everything on a single unique selling point: the fully voiced story. Turned out the story was mediocre, the voice acting was mediocre, and it wasn't a very good idea for an MMO anyway, even if they HAD pulled it off to perfection.
Thanks for that link, that is absolute champagne comedy and exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.I really liked SWtoR and most of its features were very well done but the WoW type questing is old and boreing and going nowhere also the way that every planet port looked very much the same just spoilt the feel of the game.