If SW:TOR is successful...

[Thornstar]

Star Wars Galaxies came out a year before WoW. It's shutting down in a month or two. Guess the Star Wars shtick didn't work out that well for them. (Coincidentally, SW:TOR's studio is mostly led by people who came over from the Star Wars Galaxies team)

Your theory hasn't really worked out for other Star Wars games either. Besides maybe the original arcade game from the 80s, can you think of any Star Wars games that did extremely well? KOTOR 1 was probably the most popular and it wasn't exactly a mega blockbuster.

You should get your facts straight before posting. The two games are run by different companies. While I realize your trolling I atleast needed to point that out.

[Smitzelplix]

Star Wars Galaxies came out a year before WoW. It's shutting down in a month or two. Guess the Star Wars shtick didn't work out that well for them. (Coincidentally, SW:TOR's studio is mostly led by people who came over from the Star Wars Galaxies team)

Your theory hasn't really worked out for other Star Wars games either. Besides maybe the original arcade game from the 80s, can you think of any Star Wars games that did extremely well? KOTOR 1 was probably the most popular and it wasn't exactly a mega blockbuster.

It's already been said, but I think it bears repeating. Star Wars Galaxies got screwed over by Sony when they decided to do not one but two things to try to "fix" their game and even after these "fixes" the game still held onto a loyal fan base that was probably big enough to keep the game going even longer, or at least it could of gone the freemium route like LOTRO and DDO did. But there was most likely some corporate back room shenanigans that made this a no go. Also the game lasted for about or exactly eight years, that's pretty good I hope SWTOR can last that long if not longer.

[Stingray]

You should get your facts straight before posting. The two games are run by different companies. While I realize your trolling I atleast needed to point that out.

I have them straight, sounds like you need a bit of education though. Both Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic are made in Austin, TX. SWG was by Verant (or Sony Online if you prefer) Austin, SW:TOR is BioWare Austin. The two heads of BioWare Austin are Richard Vogel (who was head of Verant Austin) and Gordon Walton (who also worked at Verant Austin). Many of the other people come from Verant Austin as well. Some came from the old Ultima Online team, as well. Austin is a small'ish community, new experienced game developers don't just magically appear out of nowhere to work on a new project with a massive budget.

[sleekit]

Star Wars Galaxies was a true "sandbox" mmo unlike virtually anything in the mainstream market atm other than EVE online.

sandbox mmos have never attracted as many players as "theme park" mmos (where you are offered multiple "rides" to take up your time and a path to follow) and the comparison is an invalid one for anyone who actually understands the mmo market and the difference between the two fundamentally different types of games.

or to put it another way:

you can't really have "casuals" in game type that basically sets out nothing for you to do other than what you can come up with on your own.

to "casuals" that sentence ends at "nothing for you to do."

[Auminer]

Comparing WoW and SW:TOR is "almost" like comparing apples to oranges. WoW had a small fan base to begin with with some books and a few RTS games. It didn't get "huge" until end of Vanilla into BC etc. The Star Wars fan base is already huge and is already world wide. It has literally decades of build time in, multiple "successful" games over various platforms and genres.

Where I think SW:TOR will vastly surpass WoW is simply in the lore. The lore of the Star Wars universe is set and I highly doubt they will go all "willy nilly" and changing things about said lore because they simply feel like it. This also goes for completely ignoring said lore. Whereas WoW has clearly proven that they will kick their own lore to the curb and make up some half witted "It works because we added 5 quests to make it work" excuse.

I like a solid story behind game play as do others. I am not saying SW:TOR will kill WoW, I am simply voicing my opinion on why I feel one game will surpass the other in quality in one aspect. Where quality gets surpassed so does the quantity that follows. So to the whole "If SW:TOR is successful" question, I highly doubt this game will be any other than a success.

Though I know if the game doesn't have 13 mill subs in the first 30 days people will be screaming I told you so. That isn't the case. A game is a success when it's overhead cost gets nullified by it's profit.

[Stingray]

Guess you didn't actually play SWG. Given what Sony did to literally push and shove people out of giving them money for that game the fact that it's only shutting down now because of Lucas arts not wanting SWG and SWTOR to screw with each other and maintained profitability despite one of the worst gaming company's best efforts to ruin it is nothing short of a miracle. The Rogue Squadron series was very popular, Star Wars Battlefront also quite popular, The entire Jedi Knight Series especially Outcast and Academy also very popular, Tie Fighter vs X-wing also very popular in its day. Not every game has to set record sales or be over hyped to the point of idiocy to be a good game. Just because you can only think of one successful Star Wars game doesn't negate the successes of others or the size of the SW fan base.

You aren't even paying attention to the claims that were made in the post I was replying to. Either that, or you really didn't think before posting.

The person I replied to said that SW:TOR will surpass WoW in popularity, because it is Star Wars. You named a few Star Wars games in addition to KOTOR 1 that sold well. However, compare those names you mentioned to other non-MMO games like Starcraft 3, the upcoming Diablo 3, or even BioWare's own Mass Effect and you will see that they fare poorly in comparison, despite "being Star Wars". Also, whatever you think about Sony screwing up SWG, it never even came close to approaching the success of WoW, despite "being Star Wars".

All I'm saying is that being Star Wars isn't enough, it will also have to be a better game than WoW to surpass WoW. (Which it may very well end up being, who knows)

[Thornstar]

I have them straight, sounds like you need a bit of education though. Both Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic are made in Austin, TX. SWG was by Verant (or Sony Online if you prefer) Austin, SW:TOR is BioWare Austin. The two heads of BioWare Austin are Richard Vogel (who was head of Verant Austin) and Gordon Walton (who also worked at Verant Austin). Many of the other people come from Verant Austin as well. Some came from the old Ultima Online team, as well. Austin is a small'ish community, new experienced game developers don't just magically appear out of nowhere to work on a new project with a massive budget.

I am well aware that a few people did leave Sony to come work on TOR. Some of the original people as well. That however doesn't mean as you said "SW:TOR's studio is mostly led by people who came over from the Star Wars Galaxies team" Please show me anywhere a list of at least 51% of the people working on TOR to be from SWG and I'll eat my words. Otherwise you should watch how you word things.

[ZeroEdgeir]

Part of why SWG is done, is because of the launch of SW:TOR... SWG ends on 12/15/2011, SW:TOR launches on 12/20/2011.

LucasArts decided to end the licensing agreement with Sony, and frankly, can't blame em. Profitability had to be barely above operational costs. I remember my buddy's roommate playing it like 1-2 years prior to WoW. It was also a sandbox game. You could sit around and moisture farm, if that interested you. The fact it is coming to a close now, instead of a few years ago, is a testimate to the fanbase. The fact the code isn't being made open-source, or going F2P... that is again licensing issues. It is LucasArt's intellectual property still.

I just hope that BioWare does something of a job on crushing all the re-spellings of every major Star Wars character... don't need 80 mis-spellings of Anakin, Skywalker, DarthMaul, and others. I mean, really, the game's story is a few thousand years preceding the movies.

To those who wanna skip the storyline: Feel free to, the spacebar apparently will do the job, but you are literally skipping over a large amount of that which you paid for. And if it is a mad rush to be the server first 50... news flash: No achievements regarding that kinda stuff. BioWare doesn't want you racing to level cap. Also, just cause you wanna skip the storyline, which does occur in flashpoints (instances) and operations (raids), doesn't necessarily mean everyone else in the party does. Moreso in the flashpoints, cause decisions for the run (yes, multiple paths!) are based on everyone making their choice, and then a roll happens to determine who speaks for the party. You still get the Light/Dark side points for YOUR choice though (which is a one-time reward for that dialog). And I doubt that BioWare is just gonna let you kick people for reading the story, cause it's their 1st time and your 3rd (or 5th... 12th... umpteenth).

Otherwise... I hope it does well. Breeding some good competition for the market would be worth it. And clearly there is interest, as the last pre-order predictions were around 3.5 million. Not a small launch.

[Auminer]

You aren't even paying attention to the claims that were made in the post I was replying to. Either that, or you really didn't think before posting.

The person I replied to said that SW:TOR will surpass WoW in popularity, because it is Star Wars. You named a few Star Wars games in addition to KOTOR 1 that sold well. However, compare those names you mentioned to other non-MMO games like Starcraft 3, the upcoming Diablo 3, or even BioWare's own Mass Effect and you will see that they fare poorly in comparison, despite "being Star Wars". Also, whatever you think about Sony screwing up SWG, it never even came close to approaching the success of WoW, despite "being Star Wars".

All I'm saying is that being Star Wars isn't enough, it will also have to be a better game than WoW to surpass WoW. (Which it may very well end up being, who knows)

You can't compare numbers from 2003 to numbers of 2011. Sorry but shoots your argument in the foot as well. While I see your point in the name of the game not being enough and I agree. Comparing gaming numbers of 2003 to today as well as a first generation game compared to 3rd gen games isn't a fair comparison....

[Alvito]

I dont see how this game wont do well. It may not jump to several million players right away but with the huge following SW has the game is going to have to be one big fat steaming pile of crap to not have 1 or 2 million very quickly. Mix in all the burnt out and angry WoW players and the other ppl that are off on other MMOs and its destined for at least a little more time then its 15 minutes of fame.

[Stingray]

IThat however doesn't mean as you said "SW:TOR's studio is mostly led by people who came over from the Star Wars Galaxies team" Please show me anywhere a list of at least 51% of the people working on TOR to be from SWG and I'll eat my words. Otherwise you should watch how you word things.

The two co-heads of the BioWare Austin studio came over from SWG, I'm not sure how much more you need than that to say it's "mostly led" by people from that team. Their Director of Production, Dallas Dickinson, is also from the SWG team, not sure if he's the #3 guy at the studio, but probably close if not.

[darthkud]

Well put. Also people shouldn't hope for WoW to die. I would hate to see what would happen to the company that did release an MMO that "killed" WoW. We have all seen what happens to a company and game when they have such a stranglehold on the market.

Cata has been Blizzard's poorest expansion thus far in my and a lot of people's opinions, I mean they have gone as far as to make excuses for not releasing the abyssal maw instances with a horribly weak excuse of they didn't want to dilute the fire theme of Fire Lands or that they were satisfied with the ending of Vashj'ir even though they hyped that instance a lot and the ending wasn't even closed it was a very open ending. Also lets not forget the release of the two re released Troll dungeons that were the only content for patch 4.1, this in my opinion was all brought on by the fact that WoW didn't have much competition until Rift's release and now with SWTOR and GW2 on the horizon.

I think Alatian is right, we won't see another king of MMOs. I think the MMO player base will scatter to a bunch of MMOs instead of one having such a drastic lead over all of it's competition or at least I hope that is what happens.

another thing that made cataclysm such a poor xpac in my opinion was shadowfang keep and deadmines returning as lvl 85 heroic dungeons, I was ok with a revamped version of blackwing lair in the form of blackwing descent because of the differences as well as the common factors it had with the old,same with firelands/molten core,but blizz didn't do anything to make sfk and deadmines different,yes they changed up all of SFK to be as though all the worgens got hit by the plague and yada yada,but then to my dismay i went thereas a low lvl and it was changed there as well nothing as what it was when i first leveled,the rehashed content is what made me lose interest in WoW. Reading the line up for heroic dungeons in MoP has me turned away from WoW,sure I play it now as I await ToR to release,but even if ToR didn't come out i'd be cancelling my sub come time for MoP to drop anyway,give us stuff that we haven't seen before,sure boss fight mechanics are hard to come by now a days and most of them are rehashed but i don't want to grind to lvl 90 just to do heroic versions of the dungeons i did back in vanilla days.

[Dragoncurry]

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.

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).

[sleekit]

Lego Star Wars sold well over 18 million units and spawned half a dozen sequels off the back of its success :P

Stingray is right in one respect in that it has to be a good game.
whether it has to be a better game is another argument.

WarCraft is a gaming franchise: well known to gamers and a few on the peripherally.

Star Wars is a world wide cultural phenomenon: you could walk into a random tent in sub Saharan Africa and there's every likelihood people would know who Darth Vader was. hell, my mum could virtually recount most of the plot from the first 3 movies and she's in her 60s and has only picked that up through cultural osmosis.

big and seriously underestimated difference.

if this game ever breaks in Japan (where they are insane for Star Wars) its profits will blow WoW out the Water.

[Deleted]

Comparing WoW and SW:TOR is "almost" like comparing apples to oranges. WoW had a small fan base to begin with with some books and a few RTS games. It didn't get "huge" until end of Vanilla into BC etc. The Star Wars fan base is already huge and is already world wide. It has literally decades of build time in, multiple "successful" games over various platforms and genres.

You are ignoring the essential detail that the whole Warcraft fanbase was of course already accustomed and interested in playing Warcraft computer games, while only a small portion of the Star Wars fan base is accustomed or interested in playing Star Wars games.

Though I know if the game doesn't have 13 mill subs in the first 30 days people will be screaming I told you so. That isn't the case. A game is a success when it's overhead cost gets nullified by it's profit.

I guess the indicator will be whether SW:TOR continues gaining subscribers after launch at an increasing pace or not, and whether it will be projected to surpass WoW's market share in 2-3 years (both are unlikely, IMHO).

[Stingray]

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.

Dragon Age 1 was extremely good. Of course, after Dragon Age 2, you have to wonder if the greatness of the first installment was just blind luck, or maybe they're "going in a different direction"... Jade Empire was pretty good too. Personally, I would say their worst games ever are Neverwinter Nights 1 (NWN2 was done by Obsidian, and was actually quite good) and Dragon Age 2. It is a little troubling that one of their worst games is their most recent release.

[sleekit]

You are ignoring the essential detail that the whole Warcraft fanbase was of course already accustomed and interested in playing Warcraft computer games, while only a small portion of the Star Wars fan base is accustomed or interested in playing Star Wars games.



I guess the indicator will be whether SW:TOR continues gaining subscribers after launch at an increasing pace or not, and whether it will be projected to surpass WoW's market share in 2-3 years (both are unlikely, IMHO).

em WOWs meaningful "market share" is only about 2 million in both the EU and US (it only makes around 6% of its profits from the entire Asian operation and most of its profits come from those 4-5 million EU and US subscribers).

to equal WoW in terms of business important numbers SW:TOR only has to get about 2 million in both the EU and US.

its aimed at getting 1 million in each and already has over 2 million registered on its official forums.

to place a bet that it won't at least equal WoW in 2-3 years is....a brave bet.

especially given the trending in WoW subscriptions and what a SW:TOR expansion could offer up (like full space flight and combat).

anyway this game does not have to beat WoW to alter the market for the better. only compete.

monopolies are not good for consumers.
they result in arrogant and lazy development.
both of which it can be argued you see evident in WoW.

if WoW gets a truly viable competitor in the market you'll likely see a lot more flexibility and content as well.

its not an either/or game.

by Blizzards own reckoning the potential mainstream western mmo market is at least 30 million
(going by the number of people who have tried WoW but chosen not to play it)

[Auminer]

You are ignoring the essential detail that the whole Warcraft fanbase was of course already accustomed and interested in playing Warcraft computer games, while only a small portion of the Star Wars fan base is accustomed or interested in playing Star Wars games.



I guess the indicator will be whether SW:TOR continues gaining subscribers after launch at an increasing pace or not, and whether it will be projected to surpass WoW's market share in 2-3 years (both are unlikely, IMHO).

Does it matter what fanbase had what % interested in games? You are still ignoring the fact that Star Wars in itself has not only the movie/book fan base that has decades into it, but almost a decade of gaming fans as well. From the entire KOTOR series to the Battlefront series, hell even Lego, Clone Wars, Force Unleashed series etc etc. No matter how you would like to look at it you simply can't ignore that the gaming base is there.

Now on an MMO level Star Wars has proven to be a hit in a previous release. WoW was it's first. We are arguing semantics here, but I am not ignoring that Warcrafts base was gamers to begin with but you most certainly aren't giving any credit to the amount of gamers and even previous MMO Star Wars gamers that may or are coming to the table for SW:TOR.

And yet again, why are you comparing subs to WoW? They can coexist, you do realize this right? Let alone you are comparing a number you are pulling out of a hat based on speculation. Not a good way to end a debate post. Again, the game is a success if the overhead cost is nullified by it's profit margin. Please re-read the bold.

Quick edit here: Your right a smaller percent of Star Wars is really interested about the games. However when your fan base "probably" surpasses the 100 million mark. That percentage becomes a large number quickly.

[GarGar]

its aimed at getting 1 million in each and already has over 2 million registered on its official forums.

Heh, at the same time, one must wonder how many of those are dummy accounts created by people hoping to have a better chance of getting into beta.

[Stingray]

Again, the game is a success if the overhead cost is nullified by it's profit margin. Please re-read the bold.

Yeah, but to most of the ragers on this forum it won't be a "success" unless it kills WoW.

You have to consider context.

Heh, at the same time, one must wonder how many of those are dummy accounts created by people hoping to have a better chance of getting into beta.

Yep, seems like a lot of people I know are always casually discussing how they have 5 or 10 or 15 SW:TOR forums accts.