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Will SWTOR ever recover?
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I've had a very love hate relationship with this game. let's face most of us do want a successful star wars game. SWG was not successful, it was a great sandbox but it had very glaring issues. That aside, i started to sit back really wonder why i kept leaving this game.
I have to compare this to wow. In fact I came to the realization that I must compare all games to wow. The reason is simple, it is the most complete MMO on the market by leaps and bounds.
So, i've tried guild wars 2, swtor, and just about everything under the sun. I tried going back to wow and and i've tried all these mmo's. I don't stay with wow but i also don't stay with all these mmo's.
I look at swtor as i look at a ton of other games. With all the holy trinity talk and all the back and forth you have to realize that games just don't carry the complexity that wow does.
Completely customizeable interface. Threat meters, addons, organized raids and boss fights. When you get to end game in swtor , there is so much of what wow does that the game is just NOT complete.
Same goes with guild wars 2. THe end game pve is just not there.
I got sick of the same ol same ol with wow. After tbc i learned that the game was nothing but rep grind for gear that was replaced by another rep grind and after doing the same dungeon 25 times it got old. The problem with swtor and a lot of mmo's is they fail so hard to even make what wow does bad. Wow's rep grinds suck , the nonstop grinding sucks, but swtor doesn't even do what wow does wrong....right.
we take something simple as the world. Look at vanilla wow and compare that world to swtor (it is in it's vanilla stage). You didnt zone nonstop. Raiding was a challenge, it was hard and there were only a handful of guilds that could beat ragnarok in molten core early on. Even back then in 2004, it was more complex than swtor is today.
The game is not a success , it thrives on gambling boxes much like perfect world, aeria and all the other f2p companies. The game will have it's niche crows that are devoted but ultimately it failed at it's goal of providing a huge universe and taking a chunk of the market. It was hyped more than warhammer and although it didnt fail as bad, the game has taken a step that is basically saying "we made a game that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, now we dont belive in our product, and we can't really produce more so lets charge our subs a sub + cash shop".
The game is going to chug along but it will never gain the audience wow has, the audience gw2 has and it will survive but will it grow . The game is great as a leveling "single player experience" no doubt. It will constantly attract that crowd and it'll trhive off of charging people while they level. It will however, only hold a small portion of people in end game and it will have a very small niche crowd in that department because they are not "developing" the game. People don't need more flashpoints they need more polish, they need a more sturdy, complete game.
/end rant
tldr; it wont grow but it'll stay around the same just as all the other smaller mmo's
I'm reading through this and amazed someone could put it in words!
As a former WoW player myself, I can relate to your comparisons. SWTOR tried to beat WoW by dumbing down WoW .. but essentially EA forgot to copy Vanilla WoW, when the game was a huge success .. instead they copied Cataclysm, during WoW's decline, but the bosses were all bugged :P .. the content didn't allow for social divisions and everyone was at end game twiddling their thumbs, doing huttball ... again, on a "random" PVP match.
Good read, thank you.
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.
SWTOR is an epic journey from start to level cap.
There's really no point playing after that. The core game is horrible and their endgame just doesn't live up to the sub fee.
Actually I post (negatively) nearly every time I see a thread, but I don't really need to. The game does far more damage to itself than any negative SWG vet could. For anyone reading this who hasn't played it, go check out SWTOR, but have a backup plan for something to do when you abruptly uninstall that sapping piece of bore-candy.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
yea, they dont know much about mmos
and for some reason, they decided not to hire someone , who does
they had the biggest Cash cow in their hands,,but they wouldnt spend a dollar on a rope to keep it
their failure is well deserved
Some are, ones where people transfer from dead servers
Also Asia servers are dead, and will be literally dead from tomorrow when they shut down permanently
The game is declining bit by bit each day
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FROM STAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™
Reminder – One week from Asia Pacific Server Consolidation
Greetings,
We wanted to inform you that we are one week away from consolidating our Asia Pacific servers into our current West Coast North American servers. The consolidation will take place next week on Tuesday, August 13th. (please check the forums for specific maintenance timing).
Each of your characters on an Asia Pacific server is allowed a free one time transfer to any non-Asia Pacific server. Any characters remaining on an Asia Pacific server when the consolidation takes place will be moved to a West Coast North American server in order to provide a better overall gameplay experience.
Please follow the instructions below to begin your free character transfer:
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The Asia servers are always low populated, took them THIS long to actually do something about it?
Well written.
But I treat GW2 like an FPS game, it's all about the pvp. :P
I'm sorry but the OP has failed in his deductive reasoning as to why the servers may be failing. Let me first explain that I'm not a fan boy that praises the game for no reason, but I'm smart enough to know you can't judge s servers populace just by looking at fleet.
The need to even be on fleet has diminished substantially. With FP/OP finder you no longer have to call out endlessly to find groups. also Makeb has a GTN on fleet and with legacy unlocks you can skip most of the convinence items that are located on fleet like the skill mentor.
In the past 2 months I have been so mobile in swtor that I rarely ever see fleet. And when I do get there, is usually just using an authentication fleet pass to drop off some cargo and hit the free ride to one of the daily mission planets from the hanger kiosks.
So, please OP, consider all the parameters as to why players might not be camping on fleet, maybe they are actually playing and enjoying all the content the game has to offer?
It took them like almost a year to do server mergers when there were threads in January about server population being astoundingly low.
It took them nearly two years to get server transfers.
This is the slowest group of developers of any game I've ever played.
Don't try to change the subject or the argument. I said it took nearly a year for server mergers. It did. I also said It took nearly two years for server transfers. It did. Unless anything has changed that I am aware of, ranked WZ's are still in preseason from over a year ago, despite the fact that it was supposed to be released in patch 1.2.
The pace in which things were and are added to this game is abysmal, especially when compared to GW2 and Rift. The only game I've played that might be slower is WoW, and at least WoW's updates are beefy and free, and aren't advertised as "digital expansions"
Further, don't try and tell me that I am unaware of what they've added since launch. I know a good portion of it was datamined back in Feb of 2012 (http://www.torhead.com/guide/leaks) Meaning, they've had a large amount of this content ready to go since pre-launch. All they are doing now is breaking up their bigger patches that were mostly finished pre launch and are pushing then out as updates in smaller more frequent increments with 50000 cartel items.
In short, stop acting like you are the only informed person in this thread.
PWE makes crap tons of $ from suckers in STO's cash shop as well. Very few however, consider STO a great game. WB is doing ok from LOTRO's item shop but the game itself is loosing traction in general. One of the hurdles in the f2p world particularly in the western markets is avoiding the trap of designing content around a cash shop not the other way around.
Cash shops as the primary revenue driver in the western markets have some limitations to overcome still.
The two games I mentioned will probably IMO stay viable longer than SWTOR will for two primary reasons.
A. they run on engines they designed themselves and have full documentation for and know their @$$ from elbow in designing around it.
B. Neither has to recoup the massive development cost EA/BW incurred by fielding the Jerries' kid of mmo's.
EA's already downgraded SWTOR in it's own portfolio, weather or not they decide to cut their losses remains to be seen
1. Original server mergers weren't available till mid July 2012. That is 8 months after launch.
2. Paid server transfers weren't available until early July 2013. That is one year, 8 months after launch.
3. Yes, some of the raids they listed were done (or mostly completed) at launch.
A. All of 1.2 was datamined back in February. They released this mostly on schedule.
B. From originally datamined Patch 1.3
a. "Terror from Beyond" was supposed to be in patch 1.3, which was released on 6/28/2012. It wasn't actually released in game until patch 1.4 on 9/28/2012.
b. HK-51 was supposed to be released in patch 1.3 as well. He was not released until patch 1.5 on 11/15/2012.
c. "Titans of the industry" was set to be released in 1.3. This was not released in game until patch 2.3, which was released in game on 8/6/2013. Most of the Legacy
d.. Original Patch 1.4, which served as the basis of Makeb, wasn't released until the digtial expansion. They had planned it as a FREE CONTENT patch, and instead, they released it as an EXPANSION after the game tanked and they went F2P.
4. Legacy, Acheivements, (useless) Family tree and most of that other stuff you mentioned was supposed to be included in launch, but since they rushed the game out for the holidays they couldn't complete it in time. Further, I never said that they created Zero new content - just that a large portion of it was already done (or nearly done) pre launch.
Stop trying to change the argument to suit your rants. What I said here is 100% true, you can find this information on SWTORs website and TORHEAD via the link I gave you.
This development team has constantly over promised and under delivered.
Like I said, Shame really, you are saying that you cannot find something good in any mmo? Of course TOR needs improvements especially in the space game, but the story, animation and sound is fun for many of us. There are games I cannot get myself to play to often that I find dreadfully dull like WOW, rift, aion, eq2, but even these games had a few things in them that were kind of fun, just not enough
TOR do some things right, but it have always severely lacked in the multiplayer department. Many MMO players do enjoy a good story and TOR have plenty of that but to keep most of your players (besides the bungee players all new MMOs get the first month) you need to offer good grouping as well as single player stories.
I just don't see how the game will get much more player unless they revamp the flashpoints and general group dynamics but I am not so sure EA is interested in coughing up enough money to do that.
If they actually fix that aspect, then the game can start to recover. If not I think the game slowly will bleed players for a long time.
But saying that the game have nothing good feels unfair, it is more that they put too much work into voice acting every side quest and not to much into group playing and that made many players play the game for a few weeks or a few months and then quit once they played out the story options.
While story might initially draw in many players good grouping keeps them play the game for a long time.
My God, you are embarrassingly thick.
Let me make this abundantly clear -
SERVER MERGERS TOOK 8 MONTHS.
PAID SERVER TRANSFER SERVICE TOOK ONE YEAR, 8 MONTHS.
SERVER TRANSFERS and SERVER MERGERS are two DIFFERENT THINGS.
If you think that 8 months isn't nearly a year, fine. Argue semantics. I'll even GIVE you that point. It still took 8 months for server mergers, and 1 year, 8 months for a paid server transfer service.
Click on the actual links there smart guy. It specifically lists everything that was supposed to be released in that patch.
Here, Ill even do it for you since you apparently lack the intellectual capacity to manage this -
http://www.torhead.com/guide/leak-1.2
http://www.torhead.com/guide/leak-1.3
http://www.torhead.com/guide/leak-1.4
http://www.torhead.com/guide/leak-1.5
Yes, I have a fair idea of how long it takes to generate content. I also see how long it takes comparable companies to deliver said content. Not only is SWTOR behind the curve on content, they are still operating in 2006 when it comes to in game features. Cross server anything is a pipe dream. No macros. No day night cycle. Barely any guild features.
Like I get it, you like this game. This doesn't change any of what I said.
Solo ez-mode MMORPGs where you have 95% solo content, not enough group-based content, and nowhere near enough challenge, end up getting played like single player games by most players. Finish the solo ez-mode in a few days/weeks, maybe dabble in the weak endgame, and done. Hardcores obliterate the solo ez-mode and mow thru the endgame and end up done pretty fast too.
SWTOR is just one of many such MMORPGs with the same poor design. When you spend years and millions developing single player content that gets vaporized in days and spend little time on group content, endgame, or PvP such that endgame and PvP are usually incomplete, unbalanced, or worse at release...is it any wonder that player numbers drop dramatically shortly after release?
F2P isn't a solution. It might make a few bucks or get a few new and different people to try the game but it doesn't fix the overall problem of MMORPGs that aren't really MMORPGs and that are glorified single player games.
It doesn't help that SWTOR just isn't that great of an overall game. Some of the content is decent to play thru once...and unfortunately the solo content is probably the best content in the game....which isn't good for an MMORPG.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
F2P did not fix what ails the game. All it did was remove the biggest entry barrier to SWTOR - the initial game cost. The F2P model is so restrictive, that many F2P gamers came and went while some stuck around to subscribe or occasionally pony up cash to the Cartel market. F2P here is more like a very restrictive trial - - there is little doubt Bioware wants subscription fees more than actual F2P players. Double dip FTW.
I believe many subscribers move to preferred status (or completely stop playing) when they feel the end game no longer warrants a subscription fee. I think this is what most players see in most freemium theme park games anyway, but SWTOR players just get there a little quicker.
no mmo will ever launch with complete PVP and endgame content
they cant finish these, without the numbers and stats from actual users
even WoT are still tweaking the numbers each patch,,what does that tell you?
and they cant spend too many resources on them either, they need most on the casual content and bughunting
in short: youre best off in a hardcore niche game,,casual themeparks are almost bound to disappoint you
PS! holy..i just saw the EA logo in the TSW ad,,is this true? is EA really responsible for THREE of the
biggest mmo failures?
It's recovering so well, that they just merged their Asia Pacific servers, the other night, with their Western ones. /sarcasm
They had one chance to recover (jk, there never was a chance), with f2p, but blew it. It's too restrictive and not enticing. It's actually a detriment for new players.
The core game is still flawed though, so any hope of a recovery will not matter.
Major flaws of Swtor:
There's obviously more that can be added, but these, in my opinion, are the major ones that made swtor fail. And by fail, i mean going from almost 1 million players, and over a hundred servers, down to 8 total (NA). No amount of spin can be positive when swtor had a budget of $100+ million, then goes f2p in around 6 months.
I recently downloaded the F2P version.
I was a subscriber from Day 1 and stopped my sub in June - very close to the Hutt Cartel Expansion.
So I skimmed the stickies quickly before redownloading it and thought "what the hey!" - I'll have preferred status and a bunch of Cartel Coins to spend up and purchase a few unlocks.
So I log in and firstly no Cartel Coins for me =( Seems I stopped subbing a few days before some release deadline so get nothing. Kick in the teeth, but oh well.
Had an issue with reactivating characters. No worries, contact support quickly - never had any issues with them before. Oh... Wait. I get NO ingame support whatsoever, no forum access to pose a simple question and no email to send them the problem.
It's cool - I sorted it with several restarts. Yay - I'm playing ... and yes .. I am actualy enjoying it (so Nyahh!)
I liked the graphics. I liked the Storylines. Hell I even like the Space Combat. I raided alot when I first started so all my toons had pretty good gear - but I need to now purchase the expansion to actually start using them. No worries. You know what ? I like Star Wars. I liked this game. Screw it - I'll buy the expansion. Oh! Wait! I hammered the buy now buttons but it never progresses to a payment screen. K, so I tried 3 different browsers over 2 days. No luck. I want to buy. I can't. I also cannot contact support. Yay!
Ok. You know what I want an MMO (or close) to play atm, so I think I'll actually sub. Maybe this will make buying the expansion easier or give me another option. I doubt they'll refuse my money ... lol (?)
Yeah, you guessed it. I cannot sub either. Brilliant. I am (was) willing to buy the expansion and am (was) willing to sub. I can't contact support unless I phone at a cost or install Skype. Can I be bothered to jump through hoops now ? Not really if I am honest.
Will SWTOR ever recover ?
Highly skeptical about that. If you cannot even organise a system whereby your customers, new or returning cannot actually give you any money. Also - who's fantastic marketing idea was it to stop you contacting even the most basic of support ?
What I will do is continue to tool around on my low level toon for free until I'm bored or something takes my eye and maybe even my cash.