Either they are lying or they have 350k+ subs, which would put them in pretty rare company. The only games that have maintained that high of a player base in the west for a years time are EQ, EvE and WoW. Of course those three games combined cost probably less than 75 million to make (WoW was 60 million, EvE was 5...I have zero clue what EQ cost but given its age and technology at the time Im sure it wasnt signifcant)
EVE hit around 400K couple of years back. You make it sound as if eve maintained 4OOK+ players since release. WOW on the other hand is the only P2P MMO which has grown in millions and EQ was the only PVE MMO to hold a large amount of subs back in the day because it had no compeition. Either it was EQ or back to UO.
So yes it is quite possible that SWTOR has grown in numbers after F2P changes..all the MMOS do for example Tera which also hit 1 mill playerbase after F2P conversion. But no since it is BW so it must be lying.
I mean games that maintained 350k subs for an entire year, regardless of when it came out. And to think EQ had no competition is ridiculous, because EQ's peak was from 2001-2004 and there was UO, DAoC, AC, even AO and a little bit later SWG.
And we arent talking about growing in numbers, its the fact that there are more subs than EvE that is relevant. The game clearly isnt the failure people think it is (although its far from the success Bioware wanted)
Either they are lying or they have 350k+ subs, which would put them in pretty rare company. The only games that have maintained that high of a player base in the west for a years time are EQ, EvE and WoW. Of course those three games combined cost probably less than 75 million to make (WoW was 60 million, EvE was 5...I have zero clue what EQ cost but given its age and technology at the time Im sure it wasnt signifcant)
EVE hit around 400K couple of years back. You make it sound as if eve maintained 4OOK+ players since release. WOW on the other hand is the only P2P MMO which has grown in millions and EQ was the only PVE MMO to hold a large amount of subs back in the day because it had no compeition. Either it was EQ or back to UO.
So yes it is quite possible that SWTOR has grown in numbers after F2P changes..all the MMOS do for example Tera which also hit 1 mill playerbase after F2P conversion. But no since it is BW so it must be lying.
I mean games that maintained 350k subs for an entire year, regardless of when it came out. And to think EQ had no competition is ridiculous, because EQ's peak was from 2001-2004 and there was UO, DAoC, AC, even AO and a little bit later SWG.
And we arent talking about growing in numbers, its the fact that there are more subs than EvE that is relevant. The game clearly isnt the failure people think it is (although its far from the success Bioware wanted)
Stragio, swtor was not designed to beat EVE. it was designed to beat WoW.
eve is not beatable. it's a niche of a niche. it's its own entity. WoW however is the mainstream of mainstream. the only aspect wow's unanimously regonsied for is its size. beat it, you beat wow. while games like farmville, legaue of legends etc have beaten wow, neither is an mmo, particularly not a subscription MMO.
comparing swtor with eve is like comparing an overfilled toilet and an apple.
Apparently more people like the overfilled toilet than the apple
Originally posted by BrooksTech I like swtor. Still playng it and having a good time dong so.
exactly.
You win mate , really was reading the thread then bam and I had to re-read what you highlighted
Cheers,
BadOrb.
PSO 4 years , EQOA 4 months , PSU 7 years , SWTOR launch ongoing , PSO2 SEA launch ongoing , Destiny 360 launch ongoing. "SWG was not fun. Let it go buddy." quote from iiNoSkillzii 10/18/13 The original propoganda pixie dust villain :[]
I think they relaized before launch that they designed a game which it was too easy to cap. (From Beta testing analytics) I believe that was the inspiration for the Legacy system which they began espousing before it was even created or implemented.
Unfortunately for them, not only was the Legacy system a little too late, it didn't address a lot of the main problems of the game's original design.
They say they used WoW as a touchstone, but they didn't do several things that vanilla WoW did to build in "endgame" time sinks and simple mechanics which allowed for alt replayability.
Vanilla WoW had multiple paths to roll an alt, SWTOR did not.
WoW had faction reputation (with equioment rewards) from the start.
WoW had their resistance system which players had to gear up for in order to tackle raids such as Molten Core and AQ.
SWTOR's ease to cap was compounded with relatively quick XP gainers such as the tacked on (during Beta) space mini-game.
Also SWTOR's crafting system eliminates the need to "gather" resources.
Vanilla WoW also didn't really have dailies or weeklys to soak up XP.
Couple all that with the fact that the game was so simlait in its mechanics to WoW that there wasn't much of a learning curve to slow people down through their first SWTOR playthrough.
Blizzard, on their first MMO, realized that keeping XP gain, and creating systems for "end content" was key. (And with a much smaller budget.)
Blizzard also had a road-map for future end game content.
SWTOR spent their first few months playing catch-up with stuff like the UI, groupfinder, graphic and optimization issues.
It's also pretty common knowledge that MMO gamers tend to play 30+ hours a week. This is even true of today's SWTOR players; about 4 hours a day, more on weekends. (Despite many on the SWTOR forums calling anyone who plays that much either a no-lifer or a content locust.)
Again, I think Bioware realized they had a problem earlier then he is indicating. Bioware's attempt to overcome that problem was a combination of trying to cobble together a Legacy system, and crossing their fingers and hoping that people would suddenly all become alt-aholics.
His admission of a mistake (to me) is another Bioware blaming the playerbase then themselves.
"It's not our fault, the gamescape has changed and now everyone is a content locust."
Similar to their "It's not our fault, P2P games are dead, it's all F2P now."
As you might have noticed by now, all MMO Companies are completely out of touch with reality.
One big reason is how these games are developed. They make an internal proof of concept for the various systems and finish off one small part of the game, usually one map or zone and an instance. These are tested for stability and feature completeness over and over until they are fairly stable and working.
Everything then is extrapolated from it. It takes the test team 4 hours to finish the starter planet. Multiply it by 3 because players don't know the game yet and testers can play it in their sleep. Multiply it by number of areas and instances. Add expected travel times ( also made up out of thin air as they don't really know it yet ) and you end up with fantasy numbers like 200 hours.
If you expect a casual player to play 2 hour sessions per day on average. 200 hours would be a bit more than 3 months.
It's sad but true, they have no clue.
Yeah I think this is the most likely explanation. I don't imagine they were sitting there twisting their moustaches and intentionally fucking the game up beyond repair. They did do that, however, and deserve the consequences.
I think Jimmy was just putting out the most expedient explanation though, because he can't say, "Well we were in an echo chamber and figured we had a golden IP that would carry any content."
He's still clueless. It wasn't the rush to max level that caused players to leave. It was the core concept design. I still believe the UI, the traveling system, and the restricted zone areas were the main reasons players hated swtor. It was such a pain in the ass having to get anywhere. Add to the fact, that the fleet pass was on a 24 hour cooldown. What the hell where they thinking? In most MMOs, it's around an hour cooldown. Want to explore? Too bad, because there's an artificial barrier blocking you. Max level content wasn't the problem, and they still don't realize it. I hate to say it, but i hope this MMO closes down, so it frees up the star wars IP for the next generation movies, and hopefully we'll get a better MMO based on those.
edit: I almost forgot to add, that Alt Replayability was another major factor. It forced everyone through the same stories from 1-10 if they wanted to try another class, that shared the same hierarchial class. This was very unfriendly to alts.
Originally posted by tokini their own inexperience is no excuse. they could have looked at any of the games that have been released before them to see how fast people are able to achieve level cap. they straight blew it, in that regard.
They should of hired former MM Odevelopers in the upper management positions or this would of never happened.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Endgame was and is lackluster. Most people i played with (pre launch guild around 200 strong) most people (90%+) quit because there was nothing to at endgame BUT operations and taking alts through 90%+ of same leveling content didnt appeal to many at all.
Its not worth paying 15$ to log in twice a week for few hours to do operations (EV and KP).
No, it wasnt lack of operations, it was lack of anything else.
Endgame was and is lackluster. Most people i played with (pre launch guild around 200 strong) most people (90%+) quit because there was nothing to at endgame BUT operations and taking alts through 90%+ of same leveling content didnt appeal to many at all.
Its not worth paying 15$ to log in twice a week for few hours to do operations (EV and KP).
No, it wasnt lack of operations, it was lack of anything else.
Agree & Same thing here. Watched literally hundreds of players and 3 guilds die.
The amazing thing to me is that they (Bioware) seem to be immune to learning.
Endgame was and is lackluster. Most people i played with (pre launch guild around 200 strong) most people (90%+) quit because there was nothing to at endgame BUT operations and taking alts through 90%+ of same leveling content didnt appeal to many at all.
Its not worth paying 15$ to log in twice a week for few hours to do operations (EV and KP).
No, it wasnt lack of operations, it was lack of anything else.
Agree & Same thing here. Watched literally hundreds of players and 3 guilds die.
The amazing thing to me is that they (Bioware) seem to be immune to learning.
Dont think its lack of ability to learn, more of a lack of manpower to do much at all now....small team and all.
And its not (wasnt) much BW in it al all, opposed to what many say BW hired a lot of "experienced devs" on high positions. And they all sang same song.
For instance, they praised they had Mythic on board for PvP. And what did we get? Ilum. Hows that BWs fault?
Thats the paradox of it: lot of experienced people in charge, 200-300m budget, strongest IP managed to produce.....SWTOR.
And James Ohlen is Project Manager. He doesnt (didnt) design the game. Those "experienced devs" do (did).
He's still clueless. It wasn't the rush to max level that caused players to leave. It was the core concept design. I still believe the UI, the traveling system, and the restricted zone areas were the main reasons players hated swtor. It was such a pain in the ass having to get anywhere. Add to the fact, that the fleet pass was on a 24 hour cooldown. What the hell where they thinking? In most MMOs, it's around an hour cooldown. Want to explore? Too bad, because there's an artificial barrier blocking you. Max level content wasn't the problem, and they still don't realize it. I hate to say it, but i hope this MMO closes down, so it frees up the star wars IP for the next generation movies, and hopefully we'll get a better MMO based on those.
edit: I almost forgot to add, that Alt Replayability was another major factor. It forced everyone through the same stories from 1-10 if they wanted to try another class, that shared the same hierarchial class. This was very unfriendly to alts.
Absolutely this.
Artificial barrieres to compensate for lack of leveling content, zero replayability, graphical engine issues, lack of social features...I could go on and fill the entire page with flaws.
James Ohlen is most likely lying, since i can't believe that anybody could be so much disconnected from reality.
Anyway, it's interesting to observe the SWTOR phenomena and many developers could (hopefully) learn so much from it.
Endgame was and is lackluster. Most people i played with (pre launch guild around 200 strong) most people (90%+) quit because there was nothing to at endgame BUT operations and taking alts through 90%+ of same leveling content didnt appeal to many at all.
Its not worth paying 15$ to log in twice a week for few hours to do operations (EV and KP).
No, it wasnt lack of operations, it was lack of anything else.
Agree & Same thing here. Watched literally hundreds of players and 3 guilds die.
The amazing thing to me is that they (Bioware) seem to be immune to learning.
Dont think its lack of ability to learn, more of a lack of manpower to do much at all now....small team and all.
And its not (wasnt) much BW in it al all, opposed to what many say BW hired a lot of "experienced devs" on high positions. And they all sang same song.
For instance, they praised they had Mythic on board for PvP. And what did we get? Ilum. Hows that BWs fault?
Thats the paradox of it: lot of experienced people in charge, 200-300m budget, strongest IP managed to produce.....SWTOR.
Ok let's just consolidate the blame to "they." The clusterfuck armada over there have produced a giant disappointment through a synthesis of can't, won't, don't know, and working as intended. There has been ample feedback in the form of lost subs, bad press, generation after generation of players leaving over continued fail decisions.
Endgame was and is lackluster. Most people i played with (pre launch guild around 200 strong) most people (90%+) quit because there was nothing to at endgame BUT operations and taking alts through 90%+ of same leveling content didnt appeal to many at all.
Its not worth paying 15$ to log in twice a week for few hours to do operations (EV and KP).
No, it wasnt lack of operations, it was lack of anything else.
Agree & Same thing here. Watched literally hundreds of players and 3 guilds die.
The amazing thing to me is that they (Bioware) seem to be immune to learning.
Dont think its lack of ability to learn, more of a lack of manpower to do much at all now....small team and all.
And its not (wasnt) much BW in it al all, opposed to what many say BW hired a lot of "experienced devs" on high positions. And they all sang same song.
For instance, they praised they had Mythic on board for PvP. And what did we get? Ilum. Hows that BWs fault?
Thats the paradox of it: lot of experienced people in charge, 200-300m budget, strongest IP managed to produce.....SWTOR.
Ok let's just consolidate the blame to "they." The clusterfuck armada over there have produced a giant disappointment through a synthesis of can't, won't, don't know, and working as intended. There has been ample feedback in the form of lost subs, bad press, generation after generation of players leaving over continued fail decisions.
There is no apology or reform, so fuck em.
Thtas just a fact for those who say "they should have hired experienced people and put them in high positions". Thats exactly what they did.
To me it seems they didnt have enough "outside people" to bring in fresh ideas, but "experienced devs" with stale outdated (2004) views on things. MMOs and players have changed since then.
They all screwed up. BW for not realizing that devs are designing outdated game and devs for having zero fresh ideas.
Endgame was and is lackluster. Most people i played with (pre launch guild around 200 strong) most people (90%+) quit because there was nothing to at endgame BUT operations and taking alts through 90%+ of same leveling content didnt appeal to many at all.
Its not worth paying 15$ to log in twice a week for few hours to do operations (EV and KP).
No, it wasnt lack of operations, it was lack of anything else.
Agree & Same thing here. Watched literally hundreds of players and 3 guilds die.
The amazing thing to me is that they (Bioware) seem to be immune to learning.
Dont think its lack of ability to learn, more of a lack of manpower to do much at all now....small team and all.
And its not (wasnt) much BW in it al all, opposed to what many say BW hired a lot of "experienced devs" on high positions. And they all sang same song.
For instance, they praised they had Mythic on board for PvP. And what did we get? Ilum. Hows that BWs fault?
Thats the paradox of it: lot of experienced people in charge, 200-300m budget, strongest IP managed to produce.....SWTOR.
Ok let's just consolidate the blame to "they." The clusterfuck armada over there have produced a giant disappointment through a synthesis of can't, won't, don't know, and working as intended. There has been ample feedback in the form of lost subs, bad press, generation after generation of players leaving over continued fail decisions.
There is no apology or reform, so fuck em.
Thtas just a fact for those who say "they should have hired experienced people and put them in high positions". Thats exactly what they did.
To me it seems they didnt have enough "outside people" to bring in fresh ideas, but "experienced devs" with stale outdated (2004) views on things. MMOs and players have changed since then.
I see what youre saying. I agree. The echo chamber consumed them all I guess.
It wasn't the rush to max level that caused players to leave. It was the core concept design. I still believe the UI, the traveling system, and the restricted zone areas were the main reasons players hated swtor. It was such a pain in the ass having to get anywhere. Add to the fact, that the fleet pass was on a 24 hour cooldown. What the hell where they thinking? In most MMOs, it's around an hour cooldown. Want to explore? Too bad, because there's an artificial barrier blocking you. Max level content wasn't the problem, and they still don't realize it. I hate to say it, but i hope this MMO closes down, so it frees up the star wars IP for the next generation movies, and hopefully we'll get a better MMO based on those.
edit: I almost forgot to add, that Alt Replayability was another major factor. It forced everyone through the same stories from 1-10 if they wanted to try another class, that shared the same hierarchial class. This was very unfriendly to alts.
^this
It was "kinda" fun the first time through, but already the last 10 level dragged, going through the same static type of planets.
This game is missing mechanics and things to do while leveling to get immersed into the world. Had two alts, didn´t even play a single operation, so "missing endgame" wasn´t my problem. None of my guild mates quit because of "no endgame". In the first week we were even thinking when we reach lvl 50 and planet Ilum, this will be a gigantic open sandbox planet with awesome things to do.
Much more telling he didn't talk about January, February and March. EA announced that subs for WAR had gone up just after Christmas post launch. When EA released numbers as part of their quarterly results ... subs had not gone up.
Content: his statements suggested that either they were clueless, delusional, had no testing, didn't listen to their testers, didn't read (or believe) any forums expessing concern about the lack of content, or were just been plain dishonest when they suggested it would take 200 hours and 5 months (an average of just over hour per day). Maybe all of the above.
And given the lack of significant additional content is he suggesting there has been "very little" extra content since the game launched. Is Olsen suggesting that all these new subscribers have stuck around - in a way that the original subscribers didn't?
And is he suggesting that the game has been "sufficiently fixed" to hold onto all these new subscribers? Sure there has been some new content but it is woefully inadequate to provide 200 hours / 5 months of play for all these new subscribers. I hope he doesn't believe it if that is what he is trying to suggest.
In fact reading it again my impression is that: at launch we didn't know how subscription based games work and now we have no idea how f2p games work.
Much more telling he didn't talk about January, February and March. EA announced that subs for WAR had gone up just after Christmas post launch. When EA released numbers as part of their quarterly results ... subs had not gone up.
Content: his statements suggested that either they were clueless, delusional, had no testing, didn't listen to their testers, didn't read (or believe) any forums expessing concern about the lack of content, or were just been plain dishonest when they suggested it would take 200 hours and 5 months (an average of just over hour per day). Maybe all of the above.
And given the lack of significant additional content is he suggesting there has been "very little" extra content since the game launched. Is Olsen suggesting that all these new subscribers have stuck around - in a way that the original subscribers didn't?
And is he suggesting that the game has been "sufficiently fixed" to hold onto all these new subscribers? Sure there has been some new content but it is woefully inadequate to provide 200 hours / 5 months of play for all these new subscribers. I hope he doesn't believe it if that is what he is trying to suggest.
In fact reading it again my impression is that: at launch we didn't know how subscription based games work and now we have no idea how f2p games work.
It is kind of odd when you put together his statements that the P2P iteration failed because there wasn't enough content (about 1 month according to him) so for the F2P iteration of the game, we fixed that by adding even less content?
The spin is strong with this one. From the massively article:
"When free-to-play launched in November, it "blew all expectations out of the water," said Ohlen. Subscriptions started going up again. Concurrent players on the servers went way up. Both of those statistics continue to rise."
I know this is painful news for many of the people on this forum who desperately want the game to fail.
Comments
I mean games that maintained 350k subs for an entire year, regardless of when it came out. And to think EQ had no competition is ridiculous, because EQ's peak was from 2001-2004 and there was UO, DAoC, AC, even AO and a little bit later SWG.
And we arent talking about growing in numbers, its the fact that there are more subs than EvE that is relevant. The game clearly isnt the failure people think it is (although its far from the success Bioware wanted)
Apparently more people like the overfilled toilet than the apple
I personally dont really like either
exactly.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
You win mate
, really was reading the thread then bam and I had to re-read what you highlighted 
Cheers,
BadOrb.
PSO 4 years , EQOA 4 months , PSU 7 years , SWTOR launch ongoing , PSO2 SEA launch ongoing , Destiny 360 launch ongoing.
"SWG was not fun. Let it go buddy." quote from iiNoSkillzii 10/18/13
The original propoganda pixie dust villain :[]
I don't think he is being entirely truthful.
I think they relaized before launch that they designed a game which it was too easy to cap. (From Beta testing analytics) I believe that was the inspiration for the Legacy system which they began espousing before it was even created or implemented.
Unfortunately for them, not only was the Legacy system a little too late, it didn't address a lot of the main problems of the game's original design.
They say they used WoW as a touchstone, but they didn't do several things that vanilla WoW did to build in "endgame" time sinks and simple mechanics which allowed for alt replayability.
Vanilla WoW had multiple paths to roll an alt, SWTOR did not.
WoW had faction reputation (with equioment rewards) from the start.
WoW had their resistance system which players had to gear up for in order to tackle raids such as Molten Core and AQ.
SWTOR's ease to cap was compounded with relatively quick XP gainers such as the tacked on (during Beta) space mini-game.
Also SWTOR's crafting system eliminates the need to "gather" resources.
Vanilla WoW also didn't really have dailies or weeklys to soak up XP.
Couple all that with the fact that the game was so simlait in its mechanics to WoW that there wasn't much of a learning curve to slow people down through their first SWTOR playthrough.
Blizzard, on their first MMO, realized that keeping XP gain, and creating systems for "end content" was key. (And with a much smaller budget.)
Blizzard also had a road-map for future end game content.
SWTOR spent their first few months playing catch-up with stuff like the UI, groupfinder, graphic and optimization issues.
It's also pretty common knowledge that MMO gamers tend to play 30+ hours a week. This is even true of today's SWTOR players; about 4 hours a day, more on weekends. (Despite many on the SWTOR forums calling anyone who plays that much either a no-lifer or a content locust.)
Again, I think Bioware realized they had a problem earlier then he is indicating. Bioware's attempt to overcome that problem was a combination of trying to cobble together a Legacy system, and crossing their fingers and hoping that people would suddenly all become alt-aholics.
His admission of a mistake (to me) is another Bioware blaming the playerbase then themselves.
"It's not our fault, the gamescape has changed and now everyone is a content locust."
Similar to their "It's not our fault, P2P games are dead, it's all F2P now."
I was crying while I typed that post, laughing so hard
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Yeah I think this is the most likely explanation. I don't imagine they were sitting there twisting their moustaches and intentionally fucking the game up beyond repair. They did do that, however, and deserve the consequences.
I think Jimmy was just putting out the most expedient explanation though, because he can't say, "Well we were in an echo chamber and figured we had a golden IP that would carry any content."
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
He's still clueless. It wasn't the rush to max level that caused players to leave. It was the core concept design. I still believe the UI, the traveling system, and the restricted zone areas were the main reasons players hated swtor. It was such a pain in the ass having to get anywhere. Add to the fact, that the fleet pass was on a 24 hour cooldown. What the hell where they thinking? In most MMOs, it's around an hour cooldown. Want to explore? Too bad, because there's an artificial barrier blocking you. Max level content wasn't the problem, and they still don't realize it. I hate to say it, but i hope this MMO closes down, so it frees up the star wars IP for the next generation movies, and hopefully we'll get a better MMO based on those.
edit: I almost forgot to add, that Alt Replayability was another major factor. It forced everyone through the same stories from 1-10 if they wanted to try another class, that shared the same hierarchial class. This was very unfriendly to alts.
They should of hired former MM Odevelopers in the upper management positions or this would of never happened.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Endgame was and is lackluster. Most people i played with (pre launch guild around 200 strong) most people (90%+) quit because there was nothing to at endgame BUT operations and taking alts through 90%+ of same leveling content didnt appeal to many at all.
Its not worth paying 15$ to log in twice a week for few hours to do operations (EV and KP).
No, it wasnt lack of operations, it was lack of anything else.
Agree & Same thing here. Watched literally hundreds of players and 3 guilds die.
The amazing thing to me is that they (Bioware) seem to be immune to learning.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Dont think its lack of ability to learn, more of a lack of manpower to do much at all now....small team and all.
And its not (wasnt) much BW in it al all, opposed to what many say BW hired a lot of "experienced devs" on high positions. And they all sang same song.
For instance, they praised they had Mythic on board for PvP. And what did we get? Ilum. Hows that BWs fault?
Thats the paradox of it: lot of experienced people in charge, 200-300m budget, strongest IP managed to produce.....SWTOR.
And James Ohlen is Project Manager. He doesnt (didnt) design the game. Those "experienced devs" do (did).
Absolutely this.
Artificial barrieres to compensate for lack of leveling content, zero replayability, graphical engine issues, lack of social features...I could go on and fill the entire page with flaws.
James Ohlen is most likely lying, since i can't believe that anybody could be so much disconnected from reality.
Anyway, it's interesting to observe the SWTOR phenomena and many developers could (hopefully) learn so much from it.
Ok let's just consolidate the blame to "they." The clusterfuck armada over there have produced a giant disappointment through a synthesis of can't, won't, don't know, and working as intended. There has been ample feedback in the form of lost subs, bad press, generation after generation of players leaving over continued fail decisions.
There is no apology or reform, so fuck em.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Thtas just a fact for those who say "they should have hired experienced people and put them in high positions". Thats exactly what they did.
To me it seems they didnt have enough "outside people" to bring in fresh ideas, but "experienced devs" with stale outdated (2004) views on things. MMOs and players have changed since then.
They all screwed up. BW for not realizing that devs are designing outdated game and devs for having zero fresh ideas.
I see what youre saying. I agree. The echo chamber consumed them all I guess.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
^this
It was "kinda" fun the first time through, but already the last 10 level dragged, going through the same static type of planets.
This game is missing mechanics and things to do while leveling to get immersed into the world. Had two alts, didn´t even play a single operation, so "missing endgame" wasn´t my problem. None of my guild mates quit because of "no endgame". In the first week we were even thinking when we reach lvl 50 and planet Ilum, this will be a gigantic open sandbox planet with awesome things to do.
Game should have been more KOTOR and more SWG.
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
.
.
The Return of ELITE !
Certainly very selective.
Subs started to go up again - between November and December as per your second link (http://www.edge-online.com/features/gdc-2013-star-wars-the-old-republics-difficult-launch-and-its-free-to-play-switch/ ) Like saying subs are going up kust after a game launches. Game goes f2p, lots of folk try it and, no surprise, some of them become subscribers - and given that the game will have had very few new subscribers in the months prior to going f2p no big deal.
Much more telling he didn't talk about January, February and March. EA announced that subs for WAR had gone up just after Christmas post launch. When EA released numbers as part of their quarterly results ... subs had not gone up.
Content: his statements suggested that either they were clueless, delusional, had no testing, didn't listen to their testers, didn't read (or believe) any forums expessing concern about the lack of content, or were just been plain dishonest when they suggested it would take 200 hours and 5 months (an average of just over hour per day). Maybe all of the above.
And given the lack of significant additional content is he suggesting there has been "very little" extra content since the game launched. Is Olsen suggesting that all these new subscribers have stuck around - in a way that the original subscribers didn't?
And is he suggesting that the game has been "sufficiently fixed" to hold onto all these new subscribers? Sure there has been some new content but it is woefully inadequate to provide 200 hours / 5 months of play for all these new subscribers. I hope he doesn't believe it if that is what he is trying to suggest.
In fact reading it again my impression is that: at launch we didn't know how subscription based games work and now we have no idea how f2p games work.
These guys at EA/Bioware are setting new standards for arrogancy and incompetence. Why you ask?
Well, first they blame the casual players for their failure and now they blame the hardcore? Who's next I wonder?
It is kind of odd when you put together his statements that the P2P iteration failed because there wasn't enough content (about 1 month according to him) so for the F2P iteration of the game, we fixed that by adding even less content?
If you watch that guy talk, you get the feeling there is an earpiece in his ear, and someone outside the room is feeding him answers.
My guess is that it's the same person who feeds lines to the Wormtongue-like co-host from the Republic show on Gamebreaker, Larry Everett.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
The spin is strong with this one. From the massively article:
"When free-to-play launched in November, it "blew all expectations out of the water," said Ohlen. Subscriptions started going up again. Concurrent players on the servers went way up. Both of those statistics continue to rise."
I know this is painful news for many of the people on this forum who desperately want the game to fail.