Well nobody wants to pay 15 bucks a month for a hunk of junk. So yes the sub price was the reason sort of. However there are tons of other reasons that made a lot of us quit. I am just not going to pay them 15 bucks a month when I am not having fun. Nothing about going free to play fixes that for me, and I would bet that will not fix it for other folks.
Does anybody remember back during beta that we had rumors of there being a cash shop. Do you all remember the outrage. I think this free to play thing was already in the works before the game was even released with a sub. Just saying.
Well I would have stuck around longer if there was no sub so no argument from me.
Let's assume the sub was the problem, why would going F2P but pushing players to subscribe change anything? I'll play free until I get bored. They aren't getting money out of me for a game that has gutted its development team.
I obviously cannot speak for all,however for myself,it couldn't be further from the truth.
I played SWTOR and gave it more an effort to like the game,than i have any game in a very long time,well since Vanguard.
It had NOTHING to do with money,i always have 2-3 accounts in games,so ya money is not the issue and never has been.
Also on the notion of gamers rather remove the sub and pay more in cash shop is ridiculous notion,even those that do it i am sure would rather not spend foolishly.I went back to playing FFXI just because i despise all these cash shop games with a passion.
They can play their head games and pretend everyone wants cash shops,they will not get my money,i have decided to stay far away from those developers.I won't even buy into the bull i usually hear about the cash shop is only selling meaningless stuff.Oh yes of course they design and make meaningless stuff,that is always a good sales pitch ...pfft.
I could sum up SWTOR problem very quickly,the combat structure ALL OF IT,including AI ect ect,was done like a drab amateur.I don't know who is responsible,be it one guy or many but i would not hire them back,they helped kill a giant IP name in the gaming world.
There were of course pety things like locking out areas from the stories ,i don't like that single player game feeling,i like to feel i am always in a wide open MMO world.No matter i can look past stuff liek that if the combat structure was decent.I felt it held at least my interest until around level 20 for all classes both sides,then i just got tired of waiting for it to improve.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
They polled the players exiting the game, and that was the number one answer given. It worked for WoW and EvE, your right. Name a game in the last 5 years that it's worked on?
Name a game that's worked with a sub fee in the last 5 years? RIFT for one.
That "poll" is only there to support EAwares spin.
Lots of people picked that choice, but it wasn't because mmos aren't worth $15 a month, it's because SWToR itself is not worth $15 a month. But their little "poll" doesn't allow you to specify that.
I think a few people nailed in when they said "the game wasn't worth the 15 bucks". It's not that 15 bucks was to much, it's that past the story and voice, the game is lacking in so many areas. The PvP leaves a lot to be desired, the end game has almost no endgame after a year. The PvP planet was terrible. And there isn't a whole lot to do at 50. No reps to grind, no cool things to slowly make.
So basically, people said, the game is bad in many places. Thus not making it worth 15 bucks. It's not like the game was good, but the economy or anything stopped people from playing it.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
The problem is the money, players nowdays don't want to pay a monthly on a MMO, monthly works for older games that players have years of time invested, years of friends so pretty much players only pay because it became more then a game to them, it became a socal network kind of like a 3d facebook or a membership club like netflix, new games can't expect players to stop and drop years of membership on a new game to start all over so most will just stay with the old for thoses reasons.
New MMO's need to be F2P or B2P in order to slowly wheel players into that world, they can't expect them to drop everything and move to there new game, I think alot of newer MMO's are now starting to see this and id the reason they are going the GW2 way, games like WoW and EvE just got in at the right time to have a monthly sub so they pretty much got lucky.
No MMO game no matter what will have a huge player base if there is a monlthy fee anymore, even Blizzars new MMO and I am willing to bet that game goes the way of GW2, Swtor seems to understand this and making this shift should help a bit but then again might also be to late, only time will tell.
I don't see how F2P in SWTOR is going to be much different to the $15 fee, when you have to keep buying a weekly pass to the warzones etc I don't see people constantly buying it, more people will buy it if it is a one off purchase.
Name a game that's worked with a sub fee in the last 5 years? RIFT for one.
That "poll" is only there to support EAwares spin.
Lots of people picked that choice, but it wasn't because mmos aren't worth $15 a month, it's because SWToR itself is not worth $15 a month. But their little "poll" doesn't allow you to specify that.
I wouldn't count that so much on WoW yet. We still have yet to see the annual pass crash in WoW. It's coming in nov dec.
Secondly, Eve has pleanty of exploits that are allowed by their company so in game currency will pay for everything. One doesn't need to sub but for a short period if at all until their empire is built up and they have enough happening to keep their economy going. So also not a good example.
And finally, this is exactly what those of us who support evolving from the sub only requirement have been saying all along.
It makes you wonder, if they know this and their model forces people to sub to do anything meaningful, why are they using that freemium model to require a sub to do anything meaningful. I mean even the lockouts aren't unlocks, they are active only when a sub is present. Even LOTRO knew that you had to unlock things for people so they could sub to get those unlocks. Worked great for LOTRO even when they subed only for one month to get traits, bags, and character slots unlocked and those unlocks remained permanent.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
They polled the players exiting the game, and that was the number one answer given. It worked for WoW and EvE, your right. Name a game in the last 5 years that it's worked on?
Name a game that's worked with a sub fee in the last 5 years? RIFT for one.
That "poll" is only there to support EAwares spin.
Lots of people picked that choice, but it wasn't because mmos aren't worth $15 a month, it's because SWToR itself is not worth $15 a month. But their little "poll" doesn't allow you to specify that.
For the money it cost it is, certainly compared to SWTOR which is the most expensive game ever made and has gone F2P within a year, whereas Rift still charges that pesky $15 a month after 2 years.
Originally posted by grimal Sub based games are so 2004.
That's probably why it still works for those games. When you subscribe to EVE, WOW, DAoC or any of the other games from that era, you are getting 8-15 years of content with that sub.
Is that so? Played EVE for three weeks. Not my cup of tea. WoW entertained me for 3 months. That's less than 6 months combined. Where do you come up with 8-15 years of content?
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
They polled the players exiting the game, and that was the number one answer given. It worked for WoW and EvE, your right. Name a game in the last 5 years that it's worked on?
Name a game that's worked with a sub fee in the last 5 years? RIFT for one.
That "poll" is only there to support EAwares spin.
Lots of people picked that choice, but it wasn't because mmos aren't worth $15 a month, it's because SWToR itself is not worth $15 a month. But their little "poll" doesn't allow you to specify that.
People will pay a monthly sub for a GOOD game.
Some people will pay a monthly sub for what they consider a good game. The problem is no one can agree on what's good any more.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
They polled the players exiting the game, and that was the number one answer given. It worked for WoW and EvE, your right. Name a game in the last 5 years that it's worked on?
Name a game that's worked with a sub fee in the last 5 years? RIFT for one.
That "poll" is only there to support EAwares spin.
Lots of people picked that choice, but it wasn't because mmos aren't worth $15 a month, it's because SWToR itself is not worth $15 a month. But their little "poll" doesn't allow you to specify that.
Name a game that's worked with a sub fee in the last 5 years? RIFT for one.
That "poll" is only there to support EAwares spin.
Lots of people picked that choice, but it wasn't because mmos aren't worth $15 a month, it's because SWToR itself is not worth $15 a month. But their little "poll" doesn't allow you to specify that.
Should we post its sales as well and assume that a game that didn't sell half as much as swtor or gw2 somehow is doing better than both of them?
I'm not saying Rift is a bad game, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be delusional and assume that a game that sold less than half as well as swtor or gw2 is somehow rolling in subs. At least at patch 1.7 they gave a free trial to level 20 out.
Trion won't release its numbers, so data is hard to get, but nobody thinks they have a million subs, or half that for that matter.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
They charged $15 for Ultima Online and it seems to be doing ok still. Are they saying that the money spent on making SWToR isn't even as good as Ultima Online? All this time UO hasn't even gone F2P yet either.
This guys is all what is wrong about the game industry, and about EA in particular.
For him, all is a calculation. And that is wrong. A game is first and foremost a dream, a fantasy, a vision. Something that is great and wonder and miracles and action. For him and his lot, it all a plan, a calculation.
And this ABSURD idea that they must be active on every platform. Maybe that pleases stockholders, but for gamers this isn't good news. First, I don't care rat's ass about smartphones, tablets or consoles. I have none of these and I care zilch about the crappy sort of games made for these. At all! and second, this jack-of-all-trades mentality creates crap everywhere. If you stretch yourself so far, just to play in every league at the same time, you just lose focus. Good companies focus on one or two things. Like the OLD Bioware and their RPGs, or like Bethesda and their RPGs. Or like good companies like Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog asf did BEFORE EA bought and destroyed them with their absurd "philosophy". Those small studios were great, because they were not ruled by bean counters and stockholders, but by gamers and visionairies!
That is what made games great for us gamers. This EA philosophy of maximal profit and minimal risk is the bane of all truly good gaming. A good game is not some scheme, some calculated plan, it is a vision, a piece of art, a piece of love and creativity and wonder and dreams and action and fun. And THAT is what EA never ever understood.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I don't think it's the overall consensus that it's a single player game. I know a lot of people have expressed this, but there are many whom disagree. Just like the whole GW2 is not an MMORPG thing...some people feel that way, others don't.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the overall issue is with the game...so many different theories floating around. But it may just have been a victim of its own hype.
I also disagree. I partied far more in SWToR than most mmo's that I've played. I had no intention of buying it but I'm glad I did, I enjoyed it very much. Up until I ran out of things to do. Or at least things I wanted to do.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Then why are people still paying to play old mmo games like WoW?
truth be told with the SW IP they could have gotten away with been a wow clone but they just could not get away with a terrible third party engine and weak end game sorry.
granted rift runs on a third party engine called gamebryo but clearly it was much better modified(and maybe a better engine to start with) then the hero engine was.
The subscription fee was not the problem for me. I've subbed to games for months on end without actually logging in. I didn't stop playing SWTOR because of the money. I stopped playing SWTOR because it was agonizing after the first play through, and even at some points during.
That the game will be F2P does not entice me in the least.
That said, if others did find the fee prohibitive to their enjoyment, I wish them all the best if/when they get back into the game.
EA Chief Operating Officer has claimed the fall of SWTOR was down to people not wanting to pay $15 a month for MMO's, funny, it seems to work for WoW and EvE amongst others. Maybe $15 is too much for this game.
They polled the players exiting the game, and that was the number one answer given. It worked for WoW and EvE, your right. Name a game in the last 5 years that it's worked on?
Don't get me wrong, I prefer subscriptions, but with the content burning min max crowd destroying content now, no game can charge a monthly sub for a game that players will beat in a week.
The EvE model might work(sandbox, is sandbox and the players generate the content) now, for a niche, a 300-600k sub base, but of course anything less than 10 million subs is a failure(sarcasm)
Themepark subscriptions? Not seeing it happen anytime soon. Everyone I know that plays GW2 is done(Only three people I personally know played it, but they are done with everything, and they are more on the casual side)
I don't think any sub based themepark is going to make it past that 6 months mortality rate of mmo's in todays market.
Of course, I'm a bit upset with the exit survey. I did select the choice about the game not being worth paying for, but I was being cynical about how much I disliked the games design philosophies, static worlds, and anti community build and not the fact that subs where hard to pay(that wasn't an option on the poll). I just wanted Bioware to know their game was not worth money. I guess they can take it as needing a pricing model change, but I would have preferred if they took my exit poll as a "need to change the game" more.
Well their actually kinda right imho. but i think most players rather thougt that the cost was to high for what the game actually delivered ( mechanics & content ), so yes if they made a better game they wouldnt have a problem charging 15$/month, but for what they delivered "No fucking way.", i even doubt it would go good for that game as f2p.
I think this is a good example of how bad surveys gives bad foundation for decissions.
Comments
Well nobody wants to pay 15 bucks a month for a hunk of junk. So yes the sub price was the reason sort of. However there are tons of other reasons that made a lot of us quit. I am just not going to pay them 15 bucks a month when I am not having fun. Nothing about going free to play fixes that for me, and I would bet that will not fix it for other folks.
Does anybody remember back during beta that we had rumors of there being a cash shop. Do you all remember the outrage. I think this free to play thing was already in the works before the game was even released with a sub. Just saying.
Well I would have stuck around longer if there was no sub so no argument from me.
Let's assume the sub was the problem, why would going F2P but pushing players to subscribe change anything? I'll play free until I get bored. They aren't getting money out of me for a game that has gutted its development team.
I obviously cannot speak for all,however for myself,it couldn't be further from the truth.
I played SWTOR and gave it more an effort to like the game,than i have any game in a very long time,well since Vanguard.
It had NOTHING to do with money,i always have 2-3 accounts in games,so ya money is not the issue and never has been.
Also on the notion of gamers rather remove the sub and pay more in cash shop is ridiculous notion,even those that do it i am sure would rather not spend foolishly.I went back to playing FFXI just because i despise all these cash shop games with a passion.
They can play their head games and pretend everyone wants cash shops,they will not get my money,i have decided to stay far away from those developers.I won't even buy into the bull i usually hear about the cash shop is only selling meaningless stuff.Oh yes of course they design and make meaningless stuff,that is always a good sales pitch ...pfft.
I could sum up SWTOR problem very quickly,the combat structure ALL OF IT,including AI ect ect,was done like a drab amateur.I don't know who is responsible,be it one guy or many but i would not hire them back,they helped kill a giant IP name in the gaming world.
There were of course pety things like locking out areas from the stories ,i don't like that single player game feeling,i like to feel i am always in a wide open MMO world.No matter i can look past stuff liek that if the combat structure was decent.I felt it held at least my interest until around level 20 for all classes both sides,then i just got tired of waiting for it to improve.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png
Rift looks like an amazing success.
I think a few people nailed in when they said "the game wasn't worth the 15 bucks". It's not that 15 bucks was to much, it's that past the story and voice, the game is lacking in so many areas. The PvP leaves a lot to be desired, the end game has almost no endgame after a year. The PvP planet was terrible. And there isn't a whole lot to do at 50. No reps to grind, no cool things to slowly make.
So basically, people said, the game is bad in many places. Thus not making it worth 15 bucks. It's not like the game was good, but the economy or anything stopped people from playing it.
Great Job Mr EA COO, way to fail at failing!
The problem is the money, players nowdays don't want to pay a monthly on a MMO, monthly works for older games that players have years of time invested, years of friends so pretty much players only pay because it became more then a game to them, it became a socal network kind of like a 3d facebook or a membership club like netflix, new games can't expect players to stop and drop years of membership on a new game to start all over so most will just stay with the old for thoses reasons.
New MMO's need to be F2P or B2P in order to slowly wheel players into that world, they can't expect them to drop everything and move to there new game, I think alot of newer MMO's are now starting to see this and id the reason they are going the GW2 way, games like WoW and EvE just got in at the right time to have a monthly sub so they pretty much got lucky.
No MMO game no matter what will have a huge player base if there is a monlthy fee anymore, even Blizzars new MMO and I am willing to bet that game goes the way of GW2, Swtor seems to understand this and making this shift should help a bit but then again might also be to late, only time will tell.
Swtor was so restrictive and not sandbox enough for me, I would compare it to a Knights of the Old Republic 3, with friends.
It had nothing to do with the sub for me.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
that site gives an accuracy rating of A B or C -- C meaning the sub information is the least accurate
RIFT scores a C
http://mmodata.blogspot.com/search/label/Accuracy%20and%20abbreviations
EQ2 fan sites
I wouldn't count that so much on WoW yet. We still have yet to see the annual pass crash in WoW. It's coming in nov dec.
Secondly, Eve has pleanty of exploits that are allowed by their company so in game currency will pay for everything. One doesn't need to sub but for a short period if at all until their empire is built up and they have enough happening to keep their economy going. So also not a good example.
And finally, this is exactly what those of us who support evolving from the sub only requirement have been saying all along.
It makes you wonder, if they know this and their model forces people to sub to do anything meaningful, why are they using that freemium model to require a sub to do anything meaningful. I mean even the lockouts aren't unlocks, they are active only when a sub is present. Even LOTRO knew that you had to unlock things for people so they could sub to get those unlocks. Worked great for LOTRO even when they subed only for one month to get traits, bags, and character slots unlocked and those unlocks remained permanent.
For the money it cost it is, certainly compared to SWTOR which is the most expensive game ever made and has gone F2P within a year, whereas Rift still charges that pesky $15 a month after 2 years.
good point - annual pass was first offered Oct 21
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3767193/Sign_Up_for_the_World_of_Warcraft_Annual_Pass_and_Get_Diablo_III_Free-10_21_2011
i thought Blizzard would offer a new annual pass deal but seems I was wrong
EQ2 fan sites
Ahnog
Hokey religions are no replacement for a good blaster at your side.
Is that so? Played EVE for three weeks. Not my cup of tea. WoW entertained me for 3 months. That's less than 6 months combined. Where do you come up with 8-15 years of content?
Some people will pay a monthly sub for what they consider a good game. The problem is no one can agree on what's good any more.
I don't know what chart you were looking at, but on the one you linked, Second Life looks like the amazing success.
Should we post its sales as well and assume that a game that didn't sell half as much as swtor or gw2 somehow is doing better than both of them?
I'm not saying Rift is a bad game, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be delusional and assume that a game that sold less than half as well as swtor or gw2 is somehow rolling in subs. At least at patch 1.7 they gave a free trial to level 20 out.
Trion won't release its numbers, so data is hard to get, but nobody thinks they have a million subs, or half that for that matter.
They charged $15 for Ultima Online and it seems to be doing ok still. Are they saying that the money spent on making SWToR isn't even as good as Ultima Online? All this time UO hasn't even gone F2P yet either.
exactly
I wouldnt play the game if it released F2P and I knew what it was going to be like.
Bullshit.
This guys is all what is wrong about the game industry, and about EA in particular.
For him, all is a calculation. And that is wrong. A game is first and foremost a dream, a fantasy, a vision. Something that is great and wonder and miracles and action. For him and his lot, it all a plan, a calculation.
And this ABSURD idea that they must be active on every platform. Maybe that pleases stockholders, but for gamers this isn't good news. First, I don't care rat's ass about smartphones, tablets or consoles. I have none of these and I care zilch about the crappy sort of games made for these. At all! and second, this jack-of-all-trades mentality creates crap everywhere. If you stretch yourself so far, just to play in every league at the same time, you just lose focus. Good companies focus on one or two things. Like the OLD Bioware and their RPGs, or like Bethesda and their RPGs. Or like good companies like Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog asf did BEFORE EA bought and destroyed them with their absurd "philosophy". Those small studios were great, because they were not ruled by bean counters and stockholders, but by gamers and visionairies!
That is what made games great for us gamers. This EA philosophy of maximal profit and minimal risk is the bane of all truly good gaming. A good game is not some scheme, some calculated plan, it is a vision, a piece of art, a piece of love and creativity and wonder and dreams and action and fun. And THAT is what EA never ever understood.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I also disagree. I partied far more in SWToR than most mmo's that I've played. I had no intention of buying it but I'm glad I did, I enjoyed it very much. Up until I ran out of things to do. Or at least things I wanted to do.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Then why are people still paying to play old mmo games like WoW?
truth be told with the SW IP they could have gotten away with been a wow clone but they just could not get away with a terrible third party engine and weak end game sorry.
granted rift runs on a third party engine called gamebryo but clearly it was much better modified(and maybe a better engine to start with) then the hero engine was.
SW:ToR was a turd, single player game pretending to be a mmo!
Who pays $15 to play an instanced online game that in no way is a online world to play in.
ToR failed because it copied WoW and did it very poor way, such waste of money and the StarWars IP....
Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
Waiting on: Lost Ark
Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?
The subscription fee was not the problem for me. I've subbed to games for months on end without actually logging in. I didn't stop playing SWTOR because of the money. I stopped playing SWTOR because it was agonizing after the first play through, and even at some points during.
That the game will be F2P does not entice me in the least.
That said, if others did find the fee prohibitive to their enjoyment, I wish them all the best if/when they get back into the game.
Well their actually kinda right imho. but i think most players rather thougt that the cost was to high for what the game actually delivered ( mechanics & content ), so yes if they made a better game they wouldnt have a problem charging 15$/month, but for what they delivered "No fucking way.", i even doubt it would go good for that game as f2p.
I think this is a good example of how bad surveys gives bad foundation for decissions.