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  1. #741
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    Also would be fine with this. They would need to actually hire an art team to create different looking gear, but they need to do that anyways.
    Not to... Diverge from the topic at hand, but how does the gear currently look in the new patch? Eternal Conflict gear not only had terrible stats, but looked terrible (for some classes) as well.

  2. #742
    Scarab Lord Forsedar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Challenger! View Post
    Not to... Diverge from the topic at hand, but how does the gear currently look in the new patch? Eternal Conflict gear not only had terrible stats, but looked terrible (for some classes) as well.
    Hate to break it to you... but the new gear is just a different color. I am sad to say that. I was looking forward to see what kind of new gear set I would sport but it looks like I'm going to use orange gear once again.

  3. #743
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsedar View Post
    Hate to break it to you... but the new gear is just a different color. I am sad to say that. I was looking forward to see what kind of new gear set I would sport but it looks like I'm going to use orange gear once again.
    I too do not wish to be Scuba Steve.

  4. #744
    Scarab Lord Forsedar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    I too do not wish to be Scuba Steve.
    Finally!

    Someone agrees with my reference! Everyone else is like, "Whaa?"

  5. #745
    Quote Originally Posted by Forsedar View Post
    Hate to break it to you... but the new gear is just a different color. I am sad to say that. I was looking forward to see what kind of new gear set I would sport but it looks like I'm going to use orange gear once again.
    Well, better to hear it here as opposed to ending up disappointed after a long night of raiding.

    Also, Scuba Steve got me. Great movie.

  6. #746
    Scarab Lord Forsedar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Challenger! View Post
    Well, better to hear it here as opposed to ending up disappointed after a long night of raiding.

    Also, Scuba Steve got me. Great movie.
    The gear is just grey scaled, so it doesn't look BAD, but its still pretty ugly.

    My fix: Get war hero and use that instead (the shell).

  7. #747
    Quote Originally Posted by Forsedar View Post
    The gear is just grey scaled, so it doesn't look BAD, but its still pretty ugly.

    My fix: Get war hero and use that instead (the shell).
    We are still in the silly transition time where as campaign and war hero is the only armor which has the set bonus on its armor mod. I hope they don't change that with Dread Master gear, which means that you can choose whatever outfit you like and just switch mods to look as individual as you like. Would have been much better if they had changed the previous sets as well instead of just leaving them as they are.

  8. #748
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alyssa View Post
    Players does not equal subscribers though.

    On that topic, I found it interesting that City of Heroes is closing down now, a game that in previous discussions on the subject was proclaimed as successful with a huge increase in it's revenue and player base, not only that but also claimed to get more and better content as a result of the transition.
    Yep, here is the link, we hear about hundreds of thousands or millions creating accounts but not a whole lot afterward. As an example, Turbine opened, what, two more servers to deal with the supposed rush of going F2P but have they opened any since? Where is the growth that many like to assume F2P brings? Its an illusion and opens the product to even more potential trouble when you can actually have no revenue at all instead.
    Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot.
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  9. #749
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Yep, here is the link, we hear about hundreds of thousands or millions creating accounts but not a whole lot afterward. As an example, Turbine opened, what, two more servers to deal with the supposed rush of going F2P but have they opened any since? Where is the growth that many like to assume F2P brings? Its an illusion and opens the product to even more potential trouble when you can actually have no revenue at all instead.
    Except plenty of other companies have the same data and yet continue to operate with a profit. We know they profit, because they continue to stay open and make new content. They aren't a bank, they aren't going to get bailed out. If they cease to make more money than they spend, their doors will close.

    That's not to say that the only reason a game would shut down is due to non profitability. Several terrible management/business events could cause something like this. Not to mention that some companies might see an opportunity elsewhere and abandon ship to jump on it. This is the first 'failure' from a 'big' F2P game that we've seen. A lot of people claim they were still making money, so who knows what was really going on.

  10. #750
    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Yep, here is the link, we hear about hundreds of thousands or millions creating accounts but not a whole lot afterward. As an example, Turbine opened, what, two more servers to deal with the supposed rush of going F2P but have they opened any since? Where is the growth that many like to assume F2P brings? Its an illusion and opens the product to even more potential trouble when you can actually have no revenue at all instead.
    We have one game out of the (counting... I can count 10 off the top of my head?) that made the transition and closed down afterwards. The remaining games are all still open and running fine, releasing content and patching the game ect.

    It's not some OMGEXPLOSIONOFMONEYEVERYWHERE! change, but it brings a huge initial influx of revenue followed by a generally higher steady revenue stream than before. If it didn't work, games wouldn't consider the transition and we wouldn't see SWTOR doing it and TSW considering it.

  11. #751
    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    We have one game out of the (counting... I can count 10 off the top of my head?) that made the transition and closed down afterwards. The remaining games are all still open and running fine, releasing content and patching the game ect.
    It was the only one that came up in discussions around here as being successful after the transition that later closed down, an assumption would be the other 9 wasn't successful enough to be remembered or valid enough to use in an argument.

    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    It's not some OMGEXPLOSIONOFMONEYEVERYWHERE! change, but it brings a huge initial influx of revenue followed by a generally higher steady revenue stream than before. If it didn't work, games wouldn't consider the transition and we wouldn't see SWTOR doing it and TSW considering it.
    Yet it closed down, if it did make enough money to justify having the studio open there would be no reason to close it down. Another way of looking at it is that they aim for that quick boom in players and revenue as a last resort to squeeze money out of the game before writing it off.

  12. #752
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    Except plenty of other companies have the same data and yet continue to operate with a profit. We know they profit, because they continue to stay open and make new content. They aren't a bank, they aren't going to get bailed out. If they cease to make more money than they spend, their doors will close.

    That's not to say that the only reason a game would shut down is due to non profitability. Several terrible management/business events could cause something like this. Not to mention that some companies might see an opportunity elsewhere and abandon ship to jump on it. This is the first 'failure' from a 'big' F2P game that we've seen. A lot of people claim they were still making money, so who knows what was really going on.
    There's no doubt that if EA allows it, TOR can and will settle down to be a modestly profitable back catalog game, with modest staff, modest content schedule, and modest playerbase, and run for years.

    The danger is that EA surveys its shark tank of competing titles and says "We're EA, we don't do modest little games," and continues to mess with it until they've killed it completely. Let's hope that prudence (and a little force choke from LEC) prevent them.

    Still experimenting...

  13. #753
    Quote Originally Posted by Clattuc View Post
    There's no doubt that if EA allows it, TOR can and will settle down to be a modestly profitable back catalog game, with modest staff, modest content schedule, and modest playerbase, and run for years.

    The danger is that EA surveys its shark tank of competing titles and says "We're EA, we don't do modest little games," and continues to mess with it until they've killed it completely. Let's hope that prudence (and a little force choke from LEC) prevent them.
    Going on past experience with EA, they are pissy because they didnt get 10 million subs in the first 3 months, and are now yanking all the talent they can from the game and leaving a skeleton crew of interns to run day to day. EA doesnt give a crap about making a good game, or what fans what, they just want as much money as possible, if they dont get it despite putting in little effort, they ditch the game and move on.

  14. #754
    Quote Originally Posted by snowcrash512 View Post
    Going on past experience with EA, they are pissy because they didnt get 10 million subs in the first 3 months, and are now yanking all the talent they can from the game and leaving a skeleton crew of interns to run day to day. EA doesnt give a crap about making a good game, or what fans what, they just want as much money as possible, if they dont get it despite putting in little effort, they ditch the game and move on.
    Watch EA burn swtor down to make way for Mass Effect MMO.

    Hype the hell out of the MEMMO.

    Make all their money back in the first month.

    And then destroy that mmo.
    (Warframe) - Dragon & Typhoon-
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  15. #755
    Quote Originally Posted by Alyssa View Post
    Yet it closed down, if it did make enough money to justify having the studio open there would be no reason to close it down. Another way of looking at it is that they aim for that quick boom in players and revenue as a last resort to squeeze money out of the game before writing it off.
    You're right, it did close down. So based off the 10 games that made the transition recently that I can think of, that's a 90% success rate given that most have been running for well over a year with this model. I'm not even counting the model that L2/Aion uses, but it seemed successful enough in L2 to justify making Aion F2P as well.

    So you have one example of a studio closing shop after a transition, and I've provided 9 others for studios that haven't closed shop after a transition. I fail to see how your argument holds much more weight, especially when you look at games like LOTRO/DDO/Champion Online ect. which have been going strong for years since their transition.

    It's a legitimate model that has been proven to work the overwhelming majority of the time. And for CoH it's not as if they made the transition and stopped reinvesting in it, only seeking to "squeeze money out of the game before writing it off". They've had a number of patches (I think they actually patched faster after the transition) since then so active development was still going on. Nobody actually knows why the studio is closing down. It's assumed that they aren't profitable enough, and that's a good assumption, but there is the possibility that there are some sort of internal conflicts.

  16. #756
    Quote Originally Posted by Alyssa View Post
    Yet it closed down, if it did make enough money to justify having the studio open there would be no reason to close it down. Another way of looking at it is that they aim for that quick boom in players and revenue as a last resort to squeeze money out of the game before writing it off.
    There is plenty of possible reasons why to close down a studio. Glass half empty kind of guy can speculate like you do, but it's all just speculation. It's clear that BW and EA are not happy with how TOR is doing, so they are trying something else. Either it will work out or it won't ... current situation is not something that is sustainable in the long run anyway and it's better that they are trying to do something rather than have the game slowly die with no bang at the end.

    I just hope future MMO developers realize that making b2p MMO is much more reasonable business plan than hoping for p2p miracle. I also hope that b2p MMOs will be good business in the future

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  17. #757
    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    You're right, it did close down. So based off the 10 games that made the transition recently that I can think of, that's a 90% success rate given that most have been running for well over a year with this model. I'm not even counting the model that L2/Aion uses, but it seemed successful enough in L2 to justify making Aion F2P as well.
    So how long did CoH run the model before shutting down, that there is an initial boom is no question about but the validity over time is in question and matters much in the discussion as content deliver is tied in to that, especially if the developer doesn't fix the original problem that made them bleed subscribers.

    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    So you have one example of a studio closing shop after a transition, and I've provided 9 others for studios that haven't closed shop after a transition. I fail to see how your argument holds much more weight, especially when you look at games like LOTRO/DDO/Champion Online ect. which have been going strong for years since their transition.
    Never said it hold more weight, originally I only said that it was interesting turn of events as it was one of a handful games proclaimed as successful in our discussions about it on this forum.

    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    It's a legitimate model that has been proven to work the overwhelming majority of the time.
    Yet it's not proven to work better, especially not over an extended timespan.

    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    And for CoH it's not as if they made the transition and stopped reinvesting in it, only seeking to "squeeze money out of the game before writing it off". They've had a number of patches (I think they actually patched faster after the transition) since then so active development was still going on. Nobody actually knows why the studio is closing down. It's assumed that they aren't profitable enough, and that's a good assumption, but there is the possibility that there are some sort of internal conflicts.
    That comment was made regarding EA and SWTOR as an alternative motive to make the transition, if it's shown that the initial boom will tie the game over for 6-12 months with increased revenue before it dies down then it can very well be a valid business decision.

    And patching faster means little without quantifying content of said patches and knowing how much they had lined up to make them selfs look better after the transition.

  18. #758
    Quote Originally Posted by Alyssa View Post
    Yet it's not proven to work better, especially not over an extended timespan.
    Really, so what other games have shut down shortly after a transition? As far as I can see, all the evidence points to it actually saving and improving the quality of the games that have made the transition, even over the longterm (calling 2+ years longterm at this point given that that's a pretty good run for many MMO's). That and the fact that games continue to transition to it and view it as a more viable option than a subscription model speaks volumes, there's a ton of market data to support these kinds of decisions.

    Quote Originally Posted by Alyssa View Post
    And patching faster means little without quantifying content of said patches and knowing how much they had lined up to make them selfs look better after the transition.
    To my knowledge, patch size remained almost identical to pre-transition patches, but someone who played more pre-transition could provide a more accurate answer. And as for having patches stored up, knowing a few guys that work at Paragon and speaking with them, they definitely did not store a bunch of content in their back pocket.

  19. #759
    Quote Originally Posted by Repefe View Post
    There is plenty of possible reasons why to close down a studio. Glass half empty kind of guy can speculate like you do, but it's all just speculation. It's clear that BW and EA are not happy with how TOR is doing, so they are trying something else. Either it will work out or it won't ... current situation is not something that is sustainable in the long run anyway and it's better that they are trying to do something rather than have the game slowly die with no bang at the end.
    I could argue that they should have spent the time and effort fixing the issue why people didn't want to play the game instead, without fixing that no amount of changes to payment methods will save the game, sure the free to play boom will surely work as a band aid but only for so long before they are back to same position with the downside of giving players an easy out to play free.

    If you look at it from that view they are yet again wasting months of development on features that should have been developed with the game and not after it's launch at the expense of actual content.

    ---------- Post added 2012-09-24 at 05:15 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    Really, so what other games have shut down shortly after a transition?
    Did I say shortly?

    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    As far as I can see, all the evidence points to it actually saving and improving the quality of the games that have made the transition, even over the longterm (calling 2+ years longterm at this point given that that's a pretty good run for many MMO's). That and the fact that games continue to transition to it and view it as a more viable option than a subscription model speaks volumes, there's a ton of market data to support these kinds of decisions.
    Only game I have come to understand actually improved and supposedly retained a bigger player base after the transition is LotRO, others are alive as free to play but if they actually improved or retained any players after the initial boom is debatable at best. CoH was held up there with LotRO by some which is why I find it interesting that it closed down, if such a successful game after transition does that what does it say about the once not achieving the same success with the transition.

    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    To my knowledge, patch size remained almost identical to pre-transition patches, but someone who played more pre-transition could provide a more accurate answer. And as for having patches stored up, knowing a few guys that work at Paragon and speaking with them, they definitely did not store a bunch of content in their back pocket.
    There are so many factors that plays in to that was more my point, but hey if you know people working there you should be able to find out why they closed down and if it was profitable when they did...
    Last edited by Redblade; 2012-09-24 at 05:18 PM.

  20. #760
    Quote Originally Posted by Repefe View Post
    I just hope future MMO developers realize that making b2p MMO is much more reasonable business plan than hoping for p2p miracle. I also hope that b2p MMOs will be good business in the future
    Idk... I actually think (just from my observations talking to people and reading the internet) that model type of an MMO doesn't matter all that much in general. What people seem to care about most is content. I mean of course other things go into it as well, but content is the one thing that seems to come up in every discussion.

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