If SW:TOR is successful...

[sleekit]

i haven't really seen many "ragers" on this forum except for people who think WoW is threatened by SW:TOR...

[Stingray]

Oh, by "this forum" I meant MMO-Champion as a whole, I think most of them are in the WoW forums actually.

[prankstar]

Competition is always good. I personally hope WoW doesn't die so BW has to work hard to keep subs, which means better content.

will take a lot to kill wow like i said in another topic wow could go down to 2 million subs and still be very profitable and this is my opinion but i cant see any game other then blizzards yet to be announced mmo codenamed titan getting a vast majority of the wow userbase

[sleekit]

it doesn't have to take away WoW players to equal WoW (at least in the US and EU where they really count) tho some people will undoubtedly jump ship.

there was an interview about a year or so ago with Rob Pardo (the Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard) where he talked about the number of people who had bought WoW but decided not to play it.

he said that number was at least 3 times the current "subscriber" base. given that at the time by Blizzards own measurements the "subscriber" base would be at least 10 million that means that there are, in Blizzards own opinion, 30 million plus people who bought their MMO to try it out but decided not to play it.

that means the potential MMO market is far larger than most people think it is.
far larger than WoW and almost big enough for 4 WoWs to sit side by side.

[Stingray]

I thought that in that interview he was talking more about people who used to play WoW but have quit, not necessarily trials who decided not to subscribe (as you make it sound, but maybe I'm misinterpreting). Either way, tons of people have quit WoW. Most of the people still playing WoW at this point are pretty dedicated to it. I bet Diablo 3 ends up being bigger competition for subscriptions for SW:TOR than WoW, the two of them will have to fight it out for all those people who are always looking for the "WoW replacement".

[sleekit]

2 points to that

1stly afaik Diablo 3 isnt subscription based.

2ndly only on a forum devoted to a Blizzard game do you meet people who think an isometric hack & slash dungeon crawler is a direct competitor to completely different type of game ie. your Blizzard fanboi is showing.

[Stingray]

1stly afaik Diablo 3 isnt subscription based

True, what I meant is, if people decide to play Diablo 3 as "their game", they probably won't bother with an SW:TOR subscription.

Anyway, my comment is based on actual personal experience talking to people I play games with. Quite a lot of them seem to be debating which game(s) they'll play long-term, and it's between WoW, Diablo 3, or SW:TOR.

[Meezo]

Competition is always good. I personally hope WoW doesn't die so BW has to work hard to keep subs, which means better content.

indeed competition is always good, make dem on their toes witch is good for us =)

[Deleted]

Honestly SWTOR sales come from it being KOTOR kinda game not from it being an mmo.
SW rpg games is what most fan want and bioware is doing that but making it mmo wise in hope of you playing after you finish the story as well and giving you co op ability.
I could hardly imagine SWTOR having strong pvp or pve and thus it will not even compete with wow imo, it might get few subs out of wow but it will get few subs into wow ( ppl playing boiware games buy swtor realize they want an mmo for the raiding side of it and switch to wow )
Until blizzard ups there in game story telling, player interaction and decision making wow will not even be comparable to swtor and on the same hand until swtor proves it has a hard and balanced pve endgame, balanced pvp and the ability to be a game where you stay up 5 hours to kill a boss with your guild it won't be comparable with wow.

[luckybeer]

and the ability to be a game where you stay up 5 hours to kill a boss with your guild it won't be comparable with wow.

qft.

The TOR "operations" are going to have to be something real special to compete with some of the astonishing designs Blizzard has created in the past. Ulduar and Sunwell come to mind as strokes of 25 player brilliance.

[Thornstar]

qft.

The TOR "operations" are going to have to be something real special to compete with some of the astonishing designs Blizzard has created in the past. Ulduar and Sunwell come to mind as strokes of 25 player brilliance.

yet now the best Blizz has to offer via their trailer is pandas. While the past is important it is what Blizz is doing in the future that matters more than what they have done in the past.

[Lord Kristivas]

I don't think Bioware is all that brilliant. Other than Mass Effect and Baldur's gate, I didn't think their other games were all that fantastic. Recently, I'm more interested in games that don't have 10 choices of dialogue that you just pick so KOTOR and Dragon Age 1 did not interest me as much as the Mass Effect franchise (although it is hard to deny that they were pretty good). They attempt to MassEffectify Dragon Age II was an incredible failure to me, I thought that game was some utter trash. I have yet to find a Blizzard game that I felt was utter trash though.

You're entitled to that, but I'm going to go ahead and say you're wrong. We can base this off of my personal preference, sales for BioWare games, general opinion on these forums, or whatever. Not every company puts out 9-10/10 every time. Dragon Age 2 was quite shitty, especially compared to the first. However, for every DA2, I can name you 5 amazing BioWare games.

Now, you don't like a lot of choices in dialogue, great. I don't like shit quests, where you basically just hit accept and run to the shiny area on the map without caring why you're killing 10 of these miners for their rusty picks. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but when you go off of sales alone, I'd say a lot of people would strongly disagree on BioWare not being 'brilliant'.

They aren't the type of developers to just keel over and fall if SWTOR comes with an innovative feature. They will just incorporate it in a better way. Also, the lore for World of Warcraft still has some juice left. I won't stop till Sargeras drops dead at my feet. Unless my enemy in Star Wars is Darth Vader (and it can't be unless they do some crazy shit), it won't hold the same level of allure to me. I want to be a hero same level as Luke. WoW definitely gave me that feel during Arthas (at least it did before fucking Cataclysm and this random dragon).

Most people (the sane ones) don't really care if they keel over. They just want to play a game that, to them, is better.

"incorporating innovative features it in a better way" is certainly a topic of debate. Like with DA2, if you name me 1 good thing Blizz has snatched from another game and made it better, I can probably name 5 they've messed up on, or promised and didn't bother with.

A very common opinion, even among current WoW players today, is that the Lore has been raped over and over again. When I played in Vanilla and TBC, I loved the story. Things started taking a turn, for me, during Wrath.. and went out the poop chute in Cata. I guess that would depend on how much a person cares about Lore, how much they know about it beyond the game (books and such), and how biased they are towards the company.

I'm not turning this into a hate on Blizzard post. I honestly don't hate them, nor do I wish their business model any ill will. I find it both odd, and amusing, that the biggest Fanboy race ever was announced shortly after SWTOR's release date, for BOTH factions. I find it even funnier that so many perks were offered just for people to keep their WoW subs active for the next year. To me, that says that SWTOR has already succeeded.

[sleekit]

True, what I meant is, if people decide to play Diablo 3 as "their game", they probably won't bother with an SW:TOR subscription.

Anyway, my comment is based on actual personal experience talking to people I play games with. Quite a lot of them seem to be debating which game(s) they'll play long-term, and it's between WoW, Diablo 3, or SW:TOR.

ye well in the perhaps wider MMO centric circles i move in on the net those 3 would be SW:TOR, GW2 and possibly Tera.

[Aenwyrm]

Here's my opinion on SWTOR. If it is successful, then all the Blizz haters, along with the whiny children and fed-up trolls will most likely stay gone. If it isn't however, then I look forward to seeing all of their negative comments coming back to bite them in the butt when they come back to WoW, supposing they don't stay gone and head for
another game.

But either way I don't care what happens.

[Imadraenei]

I think for once Blizzard will go back to their roots and sink or swim out of their current complacency.

Complacency? You mean that thing where they're giving people an "appearance tab", a "monk" class, and "pandarens", which all 3 are some of the most commonly requested or pitched features that have appeared on WoW forums everywhere?

I honestly hate people.

SW:tOR could be successful, but I have little hope for it given SWG's failure. People are making a big deal about the voice-acted cast...ooh, that totally makes gameplay fun.

[Auminer]

qft.

The TOR "operations" are going to have to be something real special to compete with some of the astonishing designs Blizzard has created in the past. Ulduar and Sunwell come to mind as strokes of 25 player brilliance.

I am not trying to pick on people by any means, but do you guys seriously think that SW:TOR devs have been in a vacuum to where they haven't been able to see what an MMO fan base likes and dislikes from it's competitors? Just by the info released to date I think it is fair to say that the SW:TOR devs have done their homework. I really wish people would just stop and think about that aspect sometimes.

For instance 2 things come to mind as well. 8 and 16 player raids versus the 10 and 25. For a lot of people 25 consecutive people is hard to come by seeing as people do have lives outside of the game. Gathering 16 people is easier than 25 by numbers alone. Then you go with the gear. If I recall correctly (and someone please correctly me if I am wrong) the 8 man raids won't be a middle class to larger guilds who can afford a 25. Meaning that it will drop the same gear level versus what WOW's current system is.


These two issues alone are putting the raiding game ahead of WoW alreadyin my humble opinion.

---------- Post added 2011-11-01 at 05:14 AM ----------

Complacency? You mean that thing where they're giving people an "appearance tab", a "monk" class, and "pandarens", which all 3 are some of the most commonly requested or pitched features that have appeared on WoW forums everywhere?

I honestly hate people.

SW:tOR could be successful, but I have little hope for it given SWG's failure. People are making a big deal about the voice-acted cast...ooh, that totally makes gameplay fun.

I am sorry but you have no idea why SWG failed do you? I don't first hand but as a friend of mine put it who played it for a very long time. "It took me a very long time to get all of my gear and to become a jedi. Then with one patch they gave everyone everything." So you mean to tell me that if I reactivated my account and once I got into Ogr I could simply buy the top tier gear you would be fine with that?

Serious question by the way. This was one of the main reasons why SWG failed, or so I hear.

[sleekit]

the comparisons aren't really valid anyway.

some people can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that it's a different type of game with very different goals (as was SWG but in a different way again).

anyone who logs into sw:tor on day one and races to end game drumming the space bar to skip the talking and not paying attention to much of the story ala how many WoW players play through an expansion after 5-6 years will have severely missed the point of the product they just bought nor are they even in truth the target audience.

[Imadraenei]

I am sorry but you have no idea why SWG failed do you? I don't first hand but as a friend of mine put it who played it for a very long time. "It took me a very long time to get all of my gear and to become a jedi. Then with one patch they gave everyone everything." So you mean to tell me that if I reactivated my account and once I got into Ogr I could simply buy the top tier gear you would be fine with that?

Serious question by the way. This was one of the main reasons why SWG failed, or so I hear.

If the game was good enough, people would've gotten over it. It sounds like your friend was suffering from special snowflake syndrome. Similar things have happened over WoW's lifetime more than once (nerfing old raids? nerfing heroics? Badge/Emblem/JP/VP gear?), and the game is still chugging along.

[darkwarrior42]

A very common opinion, even among current WoW players today, is that the Lore has been raped over and over again. When I played in Vanilla and TBC, I loved the story. Things started taking a turn, for me, during Wrath.. and went out the poop chute in Cata. I guess that would depend on how much a person cares about Lore, how much they know about it beyond the game (books and such), and how biased they are towards the company.

It's hard not to feel they're raping the lore when they retcon it at will just to make it fit what they want to do next, and when they force you to go out of game to learn it in the first place. Both are failures, as far as I'm concerned. If you cannot tell the story the way it needs to be told in-game, you've failed; having extras outside the game is fine, but everything you need to understand the characters needs to be presented in-game. And continuity is important; if you have to change the past in order to make future stories work, you screwed up. If you have to resort to time travel to get yourself out of a mess because you've written yourself into a box, you've failed. (That doesn't mean all time travel stories are bad, only the ones that resort to it at the last minute because they've left themselves no other options.... ie, going back in time to retrieve the dragon soul).

I do hope SW:TOR succeeds. Competition is always good, and different companies can learn a lot from each other. I'm still kinda sad that Bioware went with a Star Wars MMO, because I simply cannot get into the lore. The movies were entertaining, but nothing I ever felt compelled to go in depth with. Still, I know I'm in the minority when I say that, and there will be a lot of people who play SW:TOR who never would play WoW, because they like that universe or genre better.

[shimerra]

SW:tOR could be successful, but I have little hope for it given SWG's failure. People are making a big deal about the voice-acted cast...ooh, that totally makes gameplay fun.

So what you're saying is that because one company crapped out on a Star Wars game you have little hope for a game being made by a different company that, whether you personally like em or not, has produced a large number of RPG hits which by most people's indicators would suggest a decent chance at success. Saying that after being so spot on with your response to Ret too .