How is SW:TOR Holding On ?

[Forsedar]

This is not a hate post in any way*

To add onto the future of gaming from my perspective- I'm scared for it honestly. No, I am not scared because of the developers or because I'm basing this post off of recent releases. I am scared because the player community is becoming way too demanding. It seems like the entitlement generation has finally made its way into gaming and it is hurting everything. Since this is an MMO site, I will just talk about MMOs. The generation that thinks they are entitled to everything is coming to WoW and SWTOR as well as many other MMOs. They feel that since they pay a subscription fee, they are entitled to anything and everything they want. If its not already easy to get- they will complain. If they can't have anything that some other people have- they will complain.

The future of MMO gaming looks weak if players keep acting like this. I remember 'back in the day' where it took A LOT of time in order to accomplish specific tasks or to get specific loot. You felt great when getting it. Now players are like, "well I don't have that much time but I pay per month so its not fair that I can't get it either." They complain and complain until they get what they want.

I'm sure you all agree with me on this one.

[Mooji]

The game is ridiculously balanced for a launchtitle. Even if you disagree what evidence can you provide to back up our assertions? It's not like the game features a combat log and the overall win/lost ratio as reported by the developers was literally within a few percentage points. Again you have ZERO evidence to back up your assertions, just more conjecture.

As for humor of recent note on my Sith Inquisitor as I was walking into the cantina Khem Val managed to spark up a chuckle and say in his charecteristically dour way "I have a great sabacc face. That was a joke. I do not like sabac"

or

Walking into the cantina on nal hutta with the bodies of several dead mercs on the ground and one BH standing above them
"How was I supposed to know they were throwing a surprise party?"
I found the more spontaneous random bits of humor laced throughout the game vastly more witty, droll and down right funny than "plants vs zombies".

BW fanboy alert.

Infracted

[Luko]

They've made a lot of MMO-nono mistakes, that's for sure, but fortunately, the only machine this throws a wrench in is the fabled "LOLWOWKILLER" claim that a collection of idiots were chanting months back. I think the game works fantastic as a tight-knit community type game. Logging in, asking general chat for help, literally having to turn 4 people down because your group to help you finish a low level quest filled up with volunteers so quickly.

I asked general chat a question about orange gear and armor mods before I got a guild. Not only did they answer promptly, I woke up the next day and 2 different level 50's had mailed me mods for my armor with letters attaches saying "Have fun."

Can't comment at all on end game which seems to be the big bane of it all, but hey, I'll get there when I get there. If you're rushing through SWTOR as it currently stands, you're probably doing it wrong.

[Armourboy]

I think the games in trouble and with releases like Guild Wars 2, Tera and MoP coming later this year TOR is going to struggle, hell its struggling now and WoW is in a so called ''terrible state''

I will agree that the game has a very short window now to get everything in and make sure they hold people. However, 2 million subs is not struggling, heck even 1 million isn't struggling. Struggling would be them sitting at 500k and dropping.

I will say this though, at least on my server, a good chunk of the population are people that are not interested in any of those games you listed. They are SW fans and as such won't be going anywhere. I suspect there is enough of a difference in the population of SWTOR that it can keep going for a long time, even if it loses some subs in the next year.

[Luko]

I think the games in trouble and with releases like Guild Wars 2, Tera and MoP coming later this year TOR is going to struggle, hell its struggling now and WoW is in a so called ''terrible state''

The funny thing is, neither one of these titles that you claim are "in trouble" are going to bat an eye when other games, let alone GW2, are released.

I've got nothing against GW2, in fact I'm greatly looking forward to it, however I think the community as a whole is going to get a wake up call when they turn it on and can't find any exclamation points above NPCs heads or arrows on the map. Just a quick example of many.

[Forsedar]

The funny thing is, neither one of these titles that you claim are "in trouble" are going to bat an eye when other games, let alone GW2, are released.

I've got nothing against GW2, in fact I'm greatly looking forward to it, however I think the community as a whole is going to get a wake up call when they turn it on and can't find any exclamation points above NPCs heads or arrows on the map. Just a quick example of many.

This. Its just another over-hyped game that the current playerbase is going to hate on in the end because they got themselves so excited for some industry changing game. When its nothing like their beloved WoW they're going to rage on forums and deem the game a failure. Its inevitable.

[Leonard McCoy]

The funny thing is, neither one of these titles that you claim are "in trouble" are going to bat an eye when other games, let alone GW2, are released.

I've got nothing against GW2, in fact I'm greatly looking forward to it, however I think the community as a whole is going to get a wake up call when they turn it on and can't find any exclamation points above NPCs heads or arrows on the map. Just a quick example of many.

I think their will be a wake up call in general when their exagerated hopes and expectations are some not meant. That's not to say its gonna be bad but people jumping on the gw2 band wagon have such inflated expectations...

[Luko]

I think their will be a wake up call in general when their exagerated hopes and expectations are some not meant. That's not to say its gonna be bad but people jumping on the gw2 band wagon have such inflated expectations...

Correct, that was my point entirely. As I said, I'm looking greatly forward to the game myself but I also know what I'm getting into. These hyped-up MMO jumpers are going to log in and go "LOLWUTNOW? WHAR IS ENDGAME?" and the negative reviews will simply pour in because people couldn't do a little bit of reading about the games they spend their money on anymore.

Fortunately, however, they're going on a non-subbed, free to play system and wont suffer very much from the negative feedback. Star Wars, on the other hand, having such a HUGE budget, have to maintain strong numbers or they're in trouble. They're still nearly at 1.5m last I heard though, so that's not a near future to concern ourselves with.

[Leonard McCoy]

Correct, that was my point entirely. As I said, I'm looking greatly forward to the game myself but I also know what I'm getting into. These hyped-up MMO jumpers are going to log in and go "LOLWUTNOW? WHAR IS ENDGAME?" and the negative reviews will simply pour in because people couldn't do a little bit of reading about the games they spend their money on anymore.

Fortunately, however, they're going on a non-subbed, free to play system and wont suffer very much from the negative feedback. Star Wars, on the other hand, having such a HUGE budget, have to maintain strong numbers or their in trouble. They're still nearly at 1.5m last I heard though, so that's not a near future to concern ourselves with.

The game is reported to still be profitable at 500 mill subs so yea we got a long way to go before we get anywhere near that point. Again Rift does more with less I don't see why we can't get the same from swtor.

[Luko]

The game is reported to still be profitable at 500 mill subs so yea we got a long way to go before we get anywhere near that point. Again Rift does more with less I don't see why we can't get the same from swtor.

Oh yeah. What much of the community doesn't understand is that 500k subs for an MMO these days is actually fantastic. It's no 14million, mind you, which is what everyone wants these new MMOs to achieve, but it's still impressive and we've got a long way to go before we worry about those numbers. (Current Player)

[Arog]

Tbh.. I see what you mean, but you have to remember that most of the quest where you need to kill X amount of Y are bonus quests that are totally optional.

How so, I played till 40 before I got bored..they only have 2 types of quests, Collect X amount or Kill X amount..and the quest chain sends you to pretty much the same place every time so I've killed the pack of mobs many times throughout the chain. Bonus quests are like "hey why don't you kill 20 more of the same mobs you have already killed"

[Deleted]

I will admit I only had a sub for a month, so I am not sure how valid my opinion is. There are some fune features to this game- the companions aspect, for example, and having all "dungeons" accessed from the main "city". It also has a fun minigame in the form of space missions.

However, I found the healing quite non functional having been used to healing with healbot. There wasn't even target of target, although they are adding this.

My main issue was with the leveling system. I played an inquisitor, and my boyfriend played a warrior. By level 32, he had 100k more XP than me due to his class quests. Also due to the class quests, leveling as a pair is much slower than leveling alone. Also, we could not chose seperate light/dark options- I would have quite liked the opourtunity to play lightside, but once you have a few dark side choices, you feel punished for picking the other option. I can't think of another MMO where you feel like it is a "lesser option" to group up and quest.

PvP is also weird due to all levels (well 1-49) being shoved in the same BG.

There are many good aspects to this game, and I might come back to it, e.g. in patch 1.3 when LFG is introduced (although no doubt I will have forgotten how to play my class).

I think it has enough subs to suceed, however, I also think many people who subbed in the christmas period were turned off by the large number of bugs- most were minor issues, but together they add up to put people off a game. I do hope SWTOR continues to gain subs and improve, as it does have potential for example as a transitional game between single player and MMOs, but I don't think it is the game for me.

[Hegar]

This is not a hate post in any way*

To add onto the future of gaming from my perspective- I'm scared for it honestly. No, I am not scared because of the developers or because I'm basing this post off of recent releases. I am scared because the player community is becoming way too demanding. It seems like the entitlement generation has finally made its way into gaming and it is hurting everything. Since this is an MMO site, I will just talk about MMOs. The generation that thinks they are entitled to everything is coming to WoW and SWTOR as well as many other MMOs. They feel that since they pay a subscription fee, they are entitled to anything and everything they want. If its not already easy to get- they will complain. If they can't have anything that some other people have- they will complain.

The future of MMO gaming looks weak if players keep acting like this. I remember 'back in the day' where it took A LOT of time in order to accomplish specific tasks or to get specific loot. You felt great when getting it. Now players are like, "well I don't have that much time but I pay per month so its not fair that I can't get it either." They complain and complain until they get what they want.

I'm sure you all agree with me on this one.

I agree with the first part that MMO gamers are tending towards being too whiny, but I think of it in the sense that they want everything from the devs with no sense of what is a reasonable request and what is logistically or technically difficult to achieve.

Your idea that it is somehow wrong for players with a limited play time to feel entitled to have equal access to the game is, frankly, silly. The olden days of EQ, where MMOs felt they needed grueling, punishing gameplay and grinds to keep players hooked and playing for long periods of time is dead, thankfully.
It is possible for an MMO to be casual friendly and still have deep, compelling game play and rewarding experiences for players with more time`.

This is a bit off topic so I'll add my SWTOR thoughts. I started playing a sith assassin - and up to about level 30 it was awesome. The story was amazing, the single player experience was strong, and the group quests in every planet were interesting and rewarding with many people interested in grouping up. After 30 the story lagged a bit, I experimented with some alts, and eventually stopped playing with my main around level 44.

The first act was basically "Your mentor needs you to collect 5 magic dongles from different planets", but is was really compelling I found. The second act boiled down to "Now you need 5 different dongles for a different reason", but it felt more transparent about it, much less exciting.

I really enjoyed space combat, contrary to what a lot of people feel. I stopped questing about a week before I stopped logging in, but during that week I did my space dailies every day.

Maybe when they have time to make a dungeon finder I'll come back, and maybe I'll look at the legacy system, but maybe not.

All in all I still feel that Rift is a better 2nd mmo than swtor, it certainly held my attention way longer. Killing time with wow till TERA comes out.

[Leonard McCoy]

Oh yeah. What much of the community doesn't understand is that 500k subs for an MMO these days is actually fantastic. It's no 14million, mind you, which is what everyone wants these new MMOs to achieve, but it's still impressive and we've got a long way to go before we worry about those numbers. (Current Player)

Indeed. People just assume that since a certain company can't produce content at a good rate with 14 million subs how can any other company do the same with less people? I'm extremely excited for the future of star wars. After watching the guild summit I could tell BW was committed to this game and good things are coming. They h int at so much secret crap their working on its such a tease.

---------- Post added 2012-04-03 at 06:16 PM ----------

I quit in february, at that point of time we had 250-300 people on imperial fleet.
My friend just logged in and there was the whopping amount of 36 people on the fleet.

Not too well, i suppose.

just logged on at what time? I just logged on Fatman and it has 35 but thats at 2:16 est. No big surprise there.

[Dakia]

Also, we could not chose seperate light/dark options- I would have quite liked the opourtunity to play lightside, but once you have a few dark side choices, you feel punished for picking the other option. I can't think of another MMO where you feel like it is a "lesser option" to group up and quest.

Just as a FYI on this, you certainly can pick different LS/DS options from those in your group. What happens is that, for example, you pick LS and he picks DS. The game does a die roll and whoever wins that roll advances the dialogue with the LS or DS option that won. The loser of the roll is not punished at all for the winning choice. So you would still gain 50 LS even though the DS option won the roll.

Also, you can eventually remove all of one side of points once you get to the maximum LS/DS total. As a LS character, I had about 700 DS when I hit max level. After doing quests and running dungeons, I have completely eliminated all of my DS points.

[Prag]

The game is amazing.

Until you hit 50.

Had they held off release until the content available in 1.2 was available, it may have retained its superb, strong start. Alas, I have seen a steady decline in population and getting those people back is harder than getting them to buy the game. These are people who already bought the game and paid for a month or so.

You have to realize that tons of people continue to log in and play WoW despite there being no content left for them to do. Content isn't everything. SW:ToR isn't doing fantastic because it's just.... boring. Not because there aren't 400 ops to do, or because there isn't a lot of PvP options... It's just nothing NEW.

[Leonard McCoy]

I believe the average online across the whole day was ~ 40 people.

Yea but how can you get average when your friend just logged on. That doesn't make very much sense and is not very accurate or telling in any way. Even if its true theirs a host of reasons why and are not terribly indicative of any serious drop in subs or poor performance in "how swtor is holding up".

[FalinMor]

I haven't logged in in a couple months, so I don't know. The game is promising, but I think expectations were too high, and they made some pretty fundamental mistakes that need to be addressed. The lack of a real endgame is a killer, as is the completely lackluster PvP experience. If they can fix those, I can see the game going places.

We had 15 people in my WoW guild get the game and start playing it together. Of those 15, currently zero of us have an active SWTOR account. The leveling was really cool until around level 40, and then it falls apart... and there's really nothing to do at max level that held any of our attention.

I hope they can fix it.

[Forsedar]

SWTOR's endgame is absolutely horrendous.

Uh what? Yes EV was not that great of an operation, but it was their FIRST time doing something like that. Bioware had to test its footing and see how the content would be attacked. They specifically said in their panel that they did not anticipate operations being cleared so fast by so many so they are definitely throwing out a lot harder content in 1.2.

To say it is horrendous is a giant accusation in my mind. Its nothing different from other MMOs. You either raid or you PvP. I know I found myself sitting around in major cities in Cata. I would clear all the content in 2 nights and then run in circles the rest of the week.

[Deleted]

I dont have a perspective on end-game, but the leveling experience is really awesome.

I tried it in the free weekend, and it's definitely not "awesome".

The advantages compared to WoW are that it features visual dialogue with voiceovers and conversation choices, and killing mobs as part of meeting goals is rewarded with "bonus quests".

However, the disadvantage is that at least on the first and second planets, all quests are strictly "kill mobs"/"kill boss mob"/"click on stuff"/escort quests, and there is no gameplay variety at all, while WotLK/Cataclysm introduced far more varied quests.

Overall, the impression is that they just pumped huge amounts of money in SWTOR and thus delivered stuff like visual quest assignments with voice, but failed to deliver significant gameplay innovation, instead regressing compared to WoW in many gameplay aspects.

Additionally, on a more subjective note, Coruscant is extremely boring both in looks and gameplay, and overall the game takes itself very seriously, and pretty much lacks any whimsical elements or imaginative art/design, while WoW tends to have a lot of those.