GW2 could be the executioner of any number of average (or worse) MMOs. Or it could be a blip on the radar. My personal opinion is that a lot of companies are underestimating the impact GW2 might have and they could end up paying the price.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
OK... every statment released by BW states profits + over 500k subs. I have seen your threads about your suspicions, and you're welcome to have them.. but you didn't post anything concrete, whereas EA has done so. If you're going to talk numbers and refute EA, this is again welcome, very much so... but please do add things up. The CE price didn't drop until the game announced ftp is coming... just one example of how speculation can steer things off course if numbers and proof aren't there... So believe what you will, but if you want to convince me, it will take more than what you've posted on this forum.
Let me start of by saying that you are very polite and civil. I find this comendable.
As to me convincing you that SWTOR isn't profitable, with all the evidence already out there, if you still believe that SWTOR is profitable, and therefore a marginal success, I don't really think I could convince you otherwise.
To a certain extent, I fear that EA is planning on capitalizing on the stalwart loyalty of those like you. As an outsider looking in it is ugly. The problem is that by calling it ugly, I can see how I easily look like the bad guy.
From my point of view, EA decided in April to use your subscription to pay for a conversion to FTP. Furthermore, they are going to double dip you on any future content releases. Some of that content they are going to charge you for had been intentionally witheld from you as they seek to change their payment model. Stuff who's development you have paid for is going to be now "monetized" so despite paying for it's creation, you will now have to pay to participate in it. I find this a breaking of some sort of MMO covenant I guess.
I may seem like a Debbie-Downer, doom and gloom; but I think that EA is purposely maligning the P2P payment model, and will now do the same to the FTP model. Ther FTP model just doesn't make sense. The only way they are going to take in any decent ammount of money (in my mind to minimize loss, in your mind to maximize profits) is to in essence, milk their loyal fanbase of players such as yourself.
I could expound further but this is already getting tl;dr.
I'll make a new thread soon looking for analysis from everyone at SWTOR's FTP monetezation plan.
Again, I hope I'm wrong and respect that you enjoy the game. I do also agree that we are probably going to disagree about a lot of aspects of SWTOR, especially the version of the game you will be seeing in November.
PS-I should point out that I do think that EA is worse then malignant, it's incompetent malignant.
Originally posted by Aviggin BioWare EA should be worried about every MMO on the horizon, to be honest.
I really think that once they go F2P they'll start making some profit. As F2P the game will do great or at least significantly better and definately become a leading contender in the F2P MMOs. It's just not a P2P worthy game. However this all falls upon whether or not they get the backing and support the need from BW/EA which I think they'd be fools not to.
I logged into Rift today. It's not SWTOR, but the example is the same.
Anyway, I said hi to more than 30 plus guild members online. Did a few dailys and then saw the Zone Invasion in Shimmersand. So, I ported down there and very quickly into the invasion, it was a full public raid group we had 20 in ours, I cant tell you the number in the other Guardian raid group. I also can't tell you the exact number of Defiants that were in their raid group. but they were there in force.
I saw lots of people in Sanctum doing their business. Etc Etc.
For months and months now, we have all been subjected to this theory or that theory about how GW2 is gonna shut down other mmos.
For years and years we have been subjected to the next big MMO to be released is going to shut down other MMOs.
Come on. To date, how many MMOs have launched and stolen another game's player base to the point of it shutting the older game down? None. At it's peak player base, WoW didn't kill even one other MMO.
Originally posted by tiefighter25 Originally posted by Souldrainer
OK... every statment released by BW states profits + over 500k subs. I have seen your threads about your suspicions, and you're welcome to have them.. but you didn't post anything concrete, whereas EA has done so. If you're going to talk numbers and refute EA, this is again welcome, very much so... but please do add things up. The CE price didn't drop until the game announced ftp is coming... just one example of how speculation can steer things off course if numbers and proof aren't there... So believe what you will, but if you want to convince me, it will take more than what you've posted on this forum.Let me start of by saying that you are very polite and civil. I find this comendable.
As to me convincing you that SWTOR isn't profitable, with all the evidence already out there, if you still believe that SWTOR is profitable, and therefore a marginal success, I don't really think I could convince you otherwise.
To a certain extent, I fear that EA is planning on capitalizing on the stalwart loyalty of those like you. As an outsider looking in it is ugly. The problem is that by calling it ugly, I can see how I easily look like the bad guy.
From my point of view, EA decided in April to use your subscription to pay for a conversion to FTP. Furthermore, they are going to double dip you on any future content releases. Some of that content they are going to charge you for had been intentionally witheld from you as they seek to change their payment model. Stuff who's development you have paid for is going to be now "monetized" so despite paying for it's creation, you will now have to pay to participate in it. I find this a breaking of some sort of MMO covenant I guess.
I may seem like a Debbie-Downer, doom and gloom; but I think that EA is purposely maligning the P2P payment model, and will now do the same to the FTP model. Ther FTP model just doesn't make sense. The only way they are going to take in any decent ammount of money (in my mind to minimize loss, in your mind to maximize profits) is to in essence, milk their loyal fanbase of players such as yourself.
I could expound further but this is already getting tl;dr.
I'll make a new thread soon looking for analysis from everyone at SWTOR's FTP monetezation plan.
Again, I hope I'm wrong and respect that you enjoy the game. I do also agree that we are probably going to disagree about a lot of aspects of SWTOR, especially the version of the game you will be seeing in November.
PS-I should point out that I do think that EA is worse then malignant, it's incompetent malignant.
This guy is not off his rocker. This is EXACTLY what Funcom has done to it's Anarchy Online Loyal fan base for years. The game is all but dead now.
Follow on what's been happening with SWTOR, Bioware and EA since the launch of SWTOR, do you think it's a coincident or really had alot to do with TOR? There has been waves of layoffs, many comments/spins from devs on how excited they are for future patches and changes (oh yeah really, they're excited for TOR to go F2P), many key members of Bioware for years are now gone, and Lucas Arts is taking a good chunk of the profit out from the game.
So they spent $200-500 million, sold 2+ million at launch and subs dropped steadily after the first 30 days, not even 6 months into the game they announced free2play, a few weeks after the first server merge roundup. SWTOR will last another 3-4 years give or take, Bioware originally set TOR on a 10 year plan, it's not going to last that long and it's pretty close to being put into maintenance mode.
I think EA is more worried about making money than being worried about GW2.
I think the worrying part is over for TOR. EA knows the game bombed big time already. All they are doing now is milking whatever they can out of it until it officially dies.
SWTOR is dead until it goes F2P in November. The moment I have been waiting for
They are probably going to let WOW and GW2 have their moment, and then by Nov people will probbaly not be playing GW2 or WOW again, so then SWTOR will be more attractive. No point doing much now until Nov
SWTOR is dead until it goes F2P in November. The moment I have been waiting for
They are probably going to let WOW and GW2 have their moment, and then by Nov people will probbaly not be playing GW2 or WOW again, so then SWTOR will be more attractive. No point doing much now until Nov
Sorry but when it goes F2P there are only 40 percent more potential players and some have already stated that even if swtor goes full F2P, they wont even touch the game based on how bad it is in their opinion/view. I'm playing GW2 until the end/until SWG2. I can't see me touching SWTOR now that my friends left and SWTOR left me with disappointment.
Looking at: The Repopulation Preordering: None Playing: Random Games
Originally posted by Rayshe I really think this is my point. Those who were unsatisfied with SWTOR left already, They gave up and played something else. The people still Playing SWTOR are playing it because they want to keep playing in the Sci Fi World rather than a fantasy. you have already left the Sci Fi prior to the release of GW2. so i can now enforce the idea. the people who left SWTOR for other games have already done so. BW wont feel the release of GW2 at all because the players still playing SWTOR, have no interest in it. people who were unsatisfied with SWTOR left it a long time ago.
Sort of.
I left SWTOR months ago because I wasn't having any fun. I chose to go MMO-less, outside a couple dives into Aion.
You see the thing is, that I love sci-fi, and I was excited that a new Star Wars MMO was coming out. What a boner killer SWTOR was. The game started out great, I loved it - it had good detail, passion, and story. Then, the more I played it, all I could do was engage in forced cinematics, without much else. This is the game - story. Nothing else. There is so little feelings of community that I turned to the GTN (AH) to feel like I was playing with other people, buying and selling. The GTN/AH interface blows chunks, and whoever designed this obviously never played a MMO. Die in a fire :P
So, yeah, the people who wanted to leave left already. The big question is whether the current small population of players will leave too.
I love sci-fi / sci-fantasy .. but hell if the only games that are fun to play are fantasy, then so be it. I won't accept 10 fps during a minor SWTOR PVP encounter. Really EA Bioware, you put a shitty game engine with the most popular IP in the world? For shame.
The thing that pisses me off is that on the SWTOR foums, all complaints about the game engine and sub-standard framerates are deleted, while threads saying "Oh what is the problem with the engine? I run fine! It must be your computer!" get to live on. I call shennanigans, because as a former subscriber, the EA modified version of the Hero Engine sucks.. big time. And I optimized my computer, even going into processes and disabeling various OS processes just to get more CPU cycles.
The SWTOR forums are just trying to sucker more people in to buying their box so they can mitigate losses. Geez, George Lucas was a real moron for giving any license to EA. Then again, Han Solo no longer gets the first shot...
Geez, George Lucas was a real moron for giving any license to EA. Then again, Han Solo no longer gets the first shot...
/sigh
Thats not how the world will remember Lucas. Moron or not, SW:TOR means nothing to Lucas and his ultimate legacy. It was just another Lunchbox with a Star Wars logo on it that we all bought.
Geez, George Lucas was a real moron for giving any license to EA. Then again, Han Solo no longer gets the first shot...
/sigh
Thats not how the world will remember Lucas. Moron or not, SW:TOR means nothing to Lucas and his ultimate legacy. It was just another Lunchbox with a Star Wars logo on it that we all bought.
The prequels, Jar Jar Binks, and Red Tails already hurt that legacy more than some slight association with a horribly made attempt at an MMO.
For me TOR represented the last big thing to let me keep living Star Wars (I had hoped until yet another, better Star Wars MMO replaced it). I've been a fan for nearly three decades. I'm not a fanboy. I don't defend the direction of the EU or try to explain away the awfulness of the prequels. I loathe canon arguments. But God help me I like the setting. I've played several Star Wars games, read numerous Star Wars books, and have a small action figure collection. I used to play or read or watch something to do with Star Wars every month or two throughout my entire life.
Since TOR, I have lost interest. These last six months are the longest I've gone in probably my entire life not immersing myself in anything Star Wars (except for this forum), and I don't feel any great urge to change that.
It's not just that I feel TOR undermined parts of the underlying story and setting that I liked; I think for me it was the end of the line in terms of Star Wars things I was looking forward to. Yes, there will be new Star Wars games that will be played and beaten and set aside in a week, but part of being a Star Wars fan has always been about the speculation, anticipation, and the hype, however faint. Wherever TOR was going to take the greater Star Wars story, I now find I couldn't be arsed to care. There will probably be another epic galaxy-spanning Star Wars adventure tha has the potential to captivate me down the road, but it's so far away right now that I can't even muster the will to think about what it might be like. In all those respects TOR's failure to deliver -- for me -- has "killed" Star Wars.
There might not be many like me, but I'm guessing I'm not alone.
With respect to the OP's point, despite all the spin being put on what's happened, I don't think Bioware had any detailed plans in place for this particular scenario. Eight months in they should have been rolling out new content, but between the sharp drop in subs and activity through the srping, their difficulty in addressing essential gameplay issues in a timely manner (admitted by the guy now running the show), and EA's shreadding of the development team, I think they've been winging it for the last several months, which is not conducive to coming up with answers for major "shocks" to the market like GW2 or MoP.
Originally posted by Souldrainer SWTOR just had an event last week. The game has turned a profit through CE, headphone, keyboard, mouse, and other merch sales, and their aub numers are over the "profitable" margin. That said, a large number of their fair weather fans have jumped over to Tera and TSW by now... so GW2 probably won't impact SWTOR.
Maybe I'm just in a bad mood but (and this is unnecessarily blunt) but...
...that event last week was M'eh at best.
,,,,the game has not made back the cost of development and marketing by a long shot.
....the sub numbers which appear to have dipped below their day to day operations minimum ammount for profitability at 500k?
...the collector's edition that only had 50,000 pre-order units made? The CE that is selling for $29.99 and less collecting dust on shelves worldwide?
....if you are basing profitability on the few bucks EA makes on razer products (which amazon stocks at most 25 of) that's really scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
....those "fair weather fans" all 2 million of them? What makes a non-fair weather fan of this game? GW2 is already impacting SWTOR. When more and more leave, will they be fair weather fans as well? When will you be concerned about all the unhappy people leaving the game? When you are down to one half filled server or when the shut off the lights?
Maybe I'm jut piling on. I'm happy you enjoy your game but I find your level of delusion frightening.
OK... every statment released by BW states profits + over 500k subs. I have seen your threads about your suspicions, and you're welcome to have them.. but you didn't post anything concrete, whereas EA has done so. If you're going to talk numbers and refute EA, this is again welcome, very much so... but please do add things up. The CE price didn't drop until the game announced ftp is coming... just one example of how speculation can steer things off course if numbers and proof aren't there... So believe what you will, but if you want to convince me, it will take more than what you've posted on this forum.
What EA said was 500k subs for a day-to-day operating profit. So initially they will have been covering their running costs.
Now they will - I assume - have reduced their operating costs and so they will now need fewer subs but there is also the cost of the free month to figure in. Free month = no money. Same with free weekends etc.
What EA also said is that they needed 1M subs to "make a profit but nothing to write home about" - to quote JR, EA CEO. And the talk here was about long term subs not sales - EA actually saying it was subs not sales that were key. There was some discussion about how long they would need this level of subs and most commentators suggested 1 to 2 years. Obviously actual sub numbers, actual subs, free months, advertising and all sorts of stuff will play a part.
Key point: EA have never announced 1M "subs". The highest number they announced (in Feb ) was 1.7M "subs + 30 days included" and subsequently announced (in March) that just around half were "subs". So about 850k.
So whilst SWTOR was covering its costs - except when it was giving away free time - it has never been on track to paying back the investment.
And the sub trend has clearly been steeply down - as evidenced by EA announcing something between 500k and 1M at 31st July. This is almost certainly due to the 6 month folks who were coming up to renew from late August. EA would have been remiss if they had said 1M when they expected 500k a few weeks later.
And as a result it may well be below 500k now. Probably still covering its costs today but going forward - especially when it goes F2P ... going to be very hard. Very few F2P folks pay anything - Zynga numbers suggest thay they get most of their money from 5%. So to get the equivalent of 100k subs they could need 2M players .... tough sell.
Players aren't playing as much or as long. Player loss seems to be reflected (but not as measurable) on Tor Status as well.
You could say that it's just because GW2 is new, xfire favors pvp players, or it's a lull in content release from BW, or the GW2 hoppers will come back; but then again, maybe those players are gone.
To a certain degree MoP could do even more damage in about a month.
I excepect them to charge subs for Makeb and that to go over like a Led Balloon.
Even if you are excited about SWTOR's FTP, they are going to have quite an uphill battle to climb.
It is quite possible that they could start November with a subscription base of 150 thousand.
It will be intresting to see how they phrase their sub numbers in October.
why would they be worried? let it go hybrid payment model and they will be sleeping on cash. if you played any of the EA play4free titles you would know that they really bring tons of money with heavy pay2win setup, EA is not worried about anything. just wait till it goes hybrid and you will see the change.
Originally posted by Tibernicus I think they're worried about themselves, not any other game. The design of their game is completely out of tune with their goal. Unless they scrap the whole thing and redo it, a la the NGE, they'll never make it back.
Can you imagine if they did a NGE on a SW MMO again!! The wailing and outrage! lol
Plus, then we would have to put up with, in 4 years, how SWTOR was the mythical 'best game evah that got ruined by the evil corperation'... despite the fact that no bugger was actually playing it before the change.
I don't think it will have that big an impact. Since GW2 is a B2P game, people can maintain a subscription if they wish. Also, I think that those who fled SWTOR were already gone. I think those of us still playing enjoy it. In my case, I'm in the boat of playing GW2 and SWTOR since it's only one subscription.
But God help me I like the setting. I've played several Star Wars games, read numerous Star Wars books, and have a small action figure collection.
Since TOR, I have lost interest. These last six months are the longest I've gone in probably my entire life not immersing myself in anything Star Wars (except for this forum), and I don't feel any great urge to change that.
There might not be many like me, but I'm guessing I'm not alone.
With respect to the OP's point, despite all the spin being put on what's happened, I don't think Bioware had any detailed plans in place for this particular scenario. Eight months in they should have been rolling out new content, but between the sharp drop in subs and activity through the srping, their difficulty in addressing essential gameplay issues in a timely manner (admitted by the guy now running the show), and EA's shreadding of the development team, I think they've been winging it for the last several months, which is not conducive to coming up with answers for major "shocks" to the market like GW2 or MoP.
I rarely agree totally on the poster here, but you summoned up mine and probably others peoples feelings very well.
After TOR, i just feel...done with Star Wars...and its downright sad.
For me TOR represented the last big thing to let me keep living Star Wars (I had hoped until yet another, better Star Wars MMO replaced it). I've been a fan for nearly three decades. I'm not a fanboy. I don't defend the direction of the EU or try to explain away the awfulness of the prequels. I loathe canon arguments. But God help me I like the setting. I've played several Star Wars games, read numerous Star Wars books, and have a small action figure collection. I used to play or read or watch something to do with Star Wars every month or two throughout my entire life.
Since TOR, I have lost interest. These last six months are the longest I've gone in probably my entire life not immersing myself in anything Star Wars (except for this forum), and I don't feel any great urge to change that.
It's not just that I feel TOR undermined parts of the underlying story and setting that I liked; I think for me it was the end of the line in terms of Star Wars things I was looking forward to. Yes, there will be new Star Wars games that will be played and beaten and set aside in a week, but part of being a Star Wars fan has always been about the speculation, anticipation, and the hype, however faint. Wherever TOR was going to take the greater Star Wars story, I now find I couldn't be arsed to care. There will probably be another epic galaxy-spanning Star Wars adventure tha has the potential to captivate me down the road, but it's so far away right now that I can't even muster the will to think about what it might be like. In all those respects TOR's failure to deliver -- for me -- has "killed" Star Wars.
There might not be many like me, but I'm guessing I'm not alone.
No. People on swtor.com forums is talking about ¨the fail of GW2 launch¨, the population drop on the servers, is not really there. Most of the people playing GW2 atm, talking about the swtor.com playerbase, still have their swtor subs. In the long term, and in the case of GW2 is 1 month or less, people will get bored and come back to their old MMOs.
Of course TORs servers didnt dropped, that happened already months ago and only the real fans are left.
As for GW2 players returning to TOR that sounds like wishful thinking. I know plenty of ex TOR players that play GW2 but they were already done with the game long before GW2s launch.
I do think that half of the GW2 players will move back to their old games after a while because the hype did pull in plenty of people who raid but I also think it will pull in that many players from other games.
If TOR want to survive they need to add more social content and generally make the game more MMOish. TOR fans shouldnt be worried about GW2, they should be worried that EA might close down the game instead of fixing it up just like they did to Sims online.
No. People on swtor.com forums is talking about ¨the fail of GW2 launch¨, the population drop on the servers, is not really there. Most of the people playing GW2 atm, talking about the swtor.com playerbase, still have their swtor subs. In the long term, and in the case of GW2 is 1 month or less, people will get bored and come back to their old MMOs.
Of course TORs servers didnt dropped, that happened already months ago and only the real fans are left.
As for GW2 players returning to TOR that sounds like wishful thinking. I know plenty of ex TOR players that play GW2 but they were already done with the game long before GW2s launch.
I do think that half of the GW2 players will move back to their old games after a while because the hype did pull in plenty of people who raid but I also think it will pull in that many players from other games.
If TOR want to survive they need to add more social content and generally make the game more MMOish. TOR fans shouldnt be worried about GW2, they should be worried that EA might close down the game instead of fixing it up just like they did to Sims online.
Of course they did. It's fact, SWTOR population drops daily.
Agree they should be worried. But it's not players fault, it's EA's for not adding substantially new content or breaking the mold (or even listening to SW fans). They can't fix the engine becuase they already fubared it and are no longer supported by Hero. Graphics/Game engine = foundation for a game, IMO.
No. People on swtor.com forums is talking about ¨the fail of GW2 launch¨, the population drop on the servers, is not really there. Most of the people playing GW2 atm, talking about the swtor.com playerbase, still have their swtor subs. In the long term, and in the case of GW2 is 1 month or less, people will get bored and come back to their old MMOs.
Of course TORs servers didnt dropped, that happened already months ago and only the real fans are left.
As for GW2 players returning to TOR that sounds like wishful thinking. I know plenty of ex TOR players that play GW2 but they were already done with the game long before GW2s launch.
I do think that half of the GW2 players will move back to their old games after a while because the hype did pull in plenty of people who raid but I also think it will pull in that many players from other games.
If TOR want to survive they need to add more social content and generally make the game more MMOish. TOR fans shouldnt be worried about GW2, they should be worried that EA might close down the game instead of fixing it up just like they did to Sims online.
To be truthful, Tor's servers are being hit by GW2 pretty hard. All the usual places support this. (xfire, tor-staus).
As for the forums. They are close to dead, very, very slow. Of those who post there, the die-hard fans are in the majority seemingly.
There are more threads and posts bemoanng haters and complainers then there are complainers by a wide margin.
As for any counter moves by Bioware in regard to GW2, their strategy seems to remain silent, weather the storm, and hope for the best.
Comments
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Let me start of by saying that you are very polite and civil. I find this comendable.
As to me convincing you that SWTOR isn't profitable, with all the evidence already out there, if you still believe that SWTOR is profitable, and therefore a marginal success, I don't really think I could convince you otherwise.
To a certain extent, I fear that EA is planning on capitalizing on the stalwart loyalty of those like you. As an outsider looking in it is ugly. The problem is that by calling it ugly, I can see how I easily look like the bad guy.
From my point of view, EA decided in April to use your subscription to pay for a conversion to FTP. Furthermore, they are going to double dip you on any future content releases. Some of that content they are going to charge you for had been intentionally witheld from you as they seek to change their payment model. Stuff who's development you have paid for is going to be now "monetized" so despite paying for it's creation, you will now have to pay to participate in it. I find this a breaking of some sort of MMO covenant I guess.
I may seem like a Debbie-Downer, doom and gloom; but I think that EA is purposely maligning the P2P payment model, and will now do the same to the FTP model. Ther FTP model just doesn't make sense. The only way they are going to take in any decent ammount of money (in my mind to minimize loss, in your mind to maximize profits) is to in essence, milk their loyal fanbase of players such as yourself.
I could expound further but this is already getting tl;dr.
I'll make a new thread soon looking for analysis from everyone at SWTOR's FTP monetezation plan.
Again, I hope I'm wrong and respect that you enjoy the game. I do also agree that we are probably going to disagree about a lot of aspects of SWTOR, especially the version of the game you will be seeing in November.
PS-I should point out that I do think that EA is worse then malignant, it's incompetent malignant.
Yeah, can't get any worse, that's for sure.
I logged into Rift today. It's not SWTOR, but the example is the same.
Anyway, I said hi to more than 30 plus guild members online. Did a few dailys and then saw the Zone Invasion in Shimmersand. So, I ported down there and very quickly into the invasion, it was a full public raid group we had 20 in ours, I cant tell you the number in the other Guardian raid group. I also can't tell you the exact number of Defiants that were in their raid group. but they were there in force.
I saw lots of people in Sanctum doing their business. Etc Etc.
For months and months now, we have all been subjected to this theory or that theory about how GW2 is gonna shut down other mmos.
For years and years we have been subjected to the next big MMO to be released is going to shut down other MMOs.
Come on. To date, how many MMOs have launched and stolen another game's player base to the point of it shutting the older game down? None. At it's peak player base, WoW didn't kill even one other MMO.
Let me start of by saying that you are very polite and civil. I find this comendable.
As to me convincing you that SWTOR isn't profitable, with all the evidence already out there, if you still believe that SWTOR is profitable, and therefore a marginal success, I don't really think I could convince you otherwise.
To a certain extent, I fear that EA is planning on capitalizing on the stalwart loyalty of those like you. As an outsider looking in it is ugly. The problem is that by calling it ugly, I can see how I easily look like the bad guy.
From my point of view, EA decided in April to use your subscription to pay for a conversion to FTP. Furthermore, they are going to double dip you on any future content releases. Some of that content they are going to charge you for had been intentionally witheld from you as they seek to change their payment model. Stuff who's development you have paid for is going to be now "monetized" so despite paying for it's creation, you will now have to pay to participate in it. I find this a breaking of some sort of MMO covenant I guess.
I may seem like a Debbie-Downer, doom and gloom; but I think that EA is purposely maligning the P2P payment model, and will now do the same to the FTP model. Ther FTP model just doesn't make sense. The only way they are going to take in any decent ammount of money (in my mind to minimize loss, in your mind to maximize profits) is to in essence, milk their loyal fanbase of players such as yourself.
I could expound further but this is already getting tl;dr.
I'll make a new thread soon looking for analysis from everyone at SWTOR's FTP monetezation plan.
Again, I hope I'm wrong and respect that you enjoy the game. I do also agree that we are probably going to disagree about a lot of aspects of SWTOR, especially the version of the game you will be seeing in November.
PS-I should point out that I do think that EA is worse then malignant, it's incompetent malignant.
This guy is not off his rocker.
This is EXACTLY what Funcom has done to it's Anarchy Online Loyal fan base for years.
The game is all but dead now.
Follow on what's been happening with SWTOR, Bioware and EA since the launch of SWTOR, do you think it's a coincident or really had alot to do with TOR? There has been waves of layoffs, many comments/spins from devs on how excited they are for future patches and changes (oh yeah really, they're excited for TOR to go F2P), many key members of Bioware for years are now gone, and Lucas Arts is taking a good chunk of the profit out from the game.
So they spent $200-500 million, sold 2+ million at launch and subs dropped steadily after the first 30 days, not even 6 months into the game they announced free2play, a few weeks after the first server merge roundup. SWTOR will last another 3-4 years give or take, Bioware originally set TOR on a 10 year plan, it's not going to last that long and it's pretty close to being put into maintenance mode.
I think EA is more worried about making money than being worried about GW2.
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
SWTOR is dead until it goes F2P in November. The moment I have been waiting for
They are probably going to let WOW and GW2 have their moment, and then by Nov people will probbaly not be playing GW2 or WOW again, so then SWTOR will be more attractive. No point doing much now until Nov
Sorry but when it goes F2P there are only 40 percent more potential players and some have already stated that even if swtor goes full F2P, they wont even touch the game based on how bad it is in their opinion/view. I'm playing GW2 until the end/until SWG2. I can't see me touching SWTOR now that my friends left and SWTOR left me with disappointment.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
Sort of.
I left SWTOR months ago because I wasn't having any fun. I chose to go MMO-less, outside a couple dives into Aion.
You see the thing is, that I love sci-fi, and I was excited that a new Star Wars MMO was coming out. What a boner killer SWTOR was. The game started out great, I loved it - it had good detail, passion, and story. Then, the more I played it, all I could do was engage in forced cinematics, without much else. This is the game - story. Nothing else. There is so little feelings of community that I turned to the GTN (AH) to feel like I was playing with other people, buying and selling. The GTN/AH interface blows chunks, and whoever designed this obviously never played a MMO. Die in a fire :P
So, yeah, the people who wanted to leave left already. The big question is whether the current small population of players will leave too.
I love sci-fi / sci-fantasy .. but hell if the only games that are fun to play are fantasy, then so be it. I won't accept 10 fps during a minor SWTOR PVP encounter. Really EA Bioware, you put a shitty game engine with the most popular IP in the world? For shame.
The thing that pisses me off is that on the SWTOR foums, all complaints about the game engine and sub-standard framerates are deleted, while threads saying "Oh what is the problem with the engine? I run fine! It must be your computer!" get to live on. I call shennanigans, because as a former subscriber, the EA modified version of the Hero Engine sucks.. big time. And I optimized my computer, even going into processes and disabeling various OS processes just to get more CPU cycles.
The SWTOR forums are just trying to sucker more people in to buying their box so they can mitigate losses. Geez, George Lucas was a real moron for giving any license to EA. Then again, Han Solo no longer gets the first shot...
/sigh
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Thats not how the world will remember Lucas. Moron or not, SW:TOR means nothing to Lucas and his ultimate legacy. It was just another Lunchbox with a Star Wars logo on it that we all bought.
The prequels, Jar Jar Binks, and Red Tails already hurt that legacy more than some slight association with a horribly made attempt at an MMO.
For me TOR represented the last big thing to let me keep living Star Wars (I had hoped until yet another, better Star Wars MMO replaced it). I've been a fan for nearly three decades. I'm not a fanboy. I don't defend the direction of the EU or try to explain away the awfulness of the prequels. I loathe canon arguments. But God help me I like the setting. I've played several Star Wars games, read numerous Star Wars books, and have a small action figure collection. I used to play or read or watch something to do with Star Wars every month or two throughout my entire life.
Since TOR, I have lost interest. These last six months are the longest I've gone in probably my entire life not immersing myself in anything Star Wars (except for this forum), and I don't feel any great urge to change that.
It's not just that I feel TOR undermined parts of the underlying story and setting that I liked; I think for me it was the end of the line in terms of Star Wars things I was looking forward to. Yes, there will be new Star Wars games that will be played and beaten and set aside in a week, but part of being a Star Wars fan has always been about the speculation, anticipation, and the hype, however faint. Wherever TOR was going to take the greater Star Wars story, I now find I couldn't be arsed to care. There will probably be another epic galaxy-spanning Star Wars adventure tha has the potential to captivate me down the road, but it's so far away right now that I can't even muster the will to think about what it might be like. In all those respects TOR's failure to deliver -- for me -- has "killed" Star Wars.
There might not be many like me, but I'm guessing I'm not alone.
With respect to the OP's point, despite all the spin being put on what's happened, I don't think Bioware had any detailed plans in place for this particular scenario. Eight months in they should have been rolling out new content, but between the sharp drop in subs and activity through the srping, their difficulty in addressing essential gameplay issues in a timely manner (admitted by the guy now running the show), and EA's shreadding of the development team, I think they've been winging it for the last several months, which is not conducive to coming up with answers for major "shocks" to the market like GW2 or MoP.
What EA said was 500k subs for a day-to-day operating profit. So initially they will have been covering their running costs.
Now they will - I assume - have reduced their operating costs and so they will now need fewer subs but there is also the cost of the free month to figure in. Free month = no money. Same with free weekends etc.
What EA also said is that they needed 1M subs to "make a profit but nothing to write home about" - to quote JR, EA CEO. And the talk here was about long term subs not sales - EA actually saying it was subs not sales that were key. There was some discussion about how long they would need this level of subs and most commentators suggested 1 to 2 years. Obviously actual sub numbers, actual subs, free months, advertising and all sorts of stuff will play a part.
Key point: EA have never announced 1M "subs". The highest number they announced (in Feb ) was 1.7M "subs + 30 days included" and subsequently announced (in March) that just around half were "subs". So about 850k.
So whilst SWTOR was covering its costs - except when it was giving away free time - it has never been on track to paying back the investment.
And the sub trend has clearly been steeply down - as evidenced by EA announcing something between 500k and 1M at 31st July. This is almost certainly due to the 6 month folks who were coming up to renew from late August. EA would have been remiss if they had said 1M when they expected 500k a few weeks later.
And as a result it may well be below 500k now. Probably still covering its costs today but going forward - especially when it goes F2P ... going to be very hard. Very few F2P folks pay anything - Zynga numbers suggest thay they get most of their money from 5%. So to get the equivalent of 100k subs they could need 2M players .... tough sell.
If Bioware is worried about GW2 they are doing a pretty good job of prentending not to be.
There has been little forthcoming from them in regards to the game's future content and implementation.
In the meantime, (and I realize that it's early yet) GW2 seems to be taking a significant chunk of their playerbase.
Not to open up an ld can of old worms, but here it is anyway:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/swtor
Players aren't playing as much or as long. Player loss seems to be reflected (but not as measurable) on Tor Status as well.
You could say that it's just because GW2 is new, xfire favors pvp players, or it's a lull in content release from BW, or the GW2 hoppers will come back; but then again, maybe those players are gone.
To a certain degree MoP could do even more damage in about a month.
I excepect them to charge subs for Makeb and that to go over like a Led Balloon.
Even if you are excited about SWTOR's FTP, they are going to have quite an uphill battle to climb.
It is quite possible that they could start November with a subscription base of 150 thousand.
It will be intresting to see how they phrase their sub numbers in October.
I guess we shall see what we shall see.
Can you imagine if they did a NGE on a SW MMO again!! The wailing and outrage! lol
Plus, then we would have to put up with, in 4 years, how SWTOR was the mythical 'best game evah that got ruined by the evil corperation'... despite the fact that no bugger was actually playing it before the change.
I self identify as a monkey.
I rarely agree totally on the poster here, but you summoned up mine and probably others peoples feelings very well.
After TOR, i just feel...done with Star Wars...and its downright sad.
this was already posted:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/swtor but it has little significance when not compared to this:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2
no comment. I really wonder how people don't understand SWTOR is dead.
4500h played compared to 81.000 of GW2
I feel like you do.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Of course TORs servers didnt dropped, that happened already months ago and only the real fans are left.
As for GW2 players returning to TOR that sounds like wishful thinking. I know plenty of ex TOR players that play GW2 but they were already done with the game long before GW2s launch.
I do think that half of the GW2 players will move back to their old games after a while because the hype did pull in plenty of people who raid but I also think it will pull in that many players from other games.
If TOR want to survive they need to add more social content and generally make the game more MMOish. TOR fans shouldnt be worried about GW2, they should be worried that EA might close down the game instead of fixing it up just like they did to Sims online.
Of course they did. It's fact, SWTOR population drops daily.
US:http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/stats
EU: http://www.torstatus.net/shards/eu/stats
Agree they should be worried. But it's not players fault, it's EA's for not adding substantially new content or breaking the mold (or even listening to SW fans). They can't fix the engine becuase they already fubared it and are no longer supported by Hero. Graphics/Game engine = foundation for a game, IMO.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
To be truthful, Tor's servers are being hit by GW2 pretty hard. All the usual places support this. (xfire, tor-staus).
As for the forums. They are close to dead, very, very slow. Of those who post there, the die-hard fans are in the majority seemingly.
There are more threads and posts bemoanng haters and complainers then there are complainers by a wide margin.
As for any counter moves by Bioware in regard to GW2, their strategy seems to remain silent, weather the storm, and hope for the best.