[FieryBalrog]

How long did it take for EA to pull "proper" support of Warhammer: Online and downsize the servers? And how long did Mythic last before they were axed/merged into Bioware? Not saying it's going to happen to Bioware, just curious.

About 9 months (both happened at around the same time). Warhammer was a far bigger disaster than this one, although maybe not if you consider just how many hundreds of millions they poured into TOR.

Warhammer got a handful of major patches and then it got shut down, cold. Only a trickle of small updates have followed for the past 3 years, and there's never been an expansion.

[crimsonheadGCN]

How long did it take for EA to pull "proper" support of Warhammer: Online and downsize the servers? And how long did Mythic last before they were axed/merged into Bioware? Not saying it's going to happen to Bioware, just curious.

Well, EA supposedly terminated about 50% of Mythic's employees within the first year of WAR's release. Then there were smaller layoffs after that and people leaving to form their own studios or join up with Trion Worlds and Zenimax Online. Whatever was left was merged with Bioware in late 2010/early 2011 (I think).

[Aedile]

I've been playing during the free-month-for-level-50s to finish up some of the (for lack of a better term) single-player content that I didn't get through when I was a subscriber. With some of the servers my characters are on being absolute ghost towns--PvP queues stretching on for thirty minutes or more, a few dozen people on fleet during prime time, public chat dead except for the occasional person searching for a group--I have to wonder how Bioware expects to retain people interested in traditional MMO activities on these servers. Is the choice just between quitting and rerolling? That's a non-starter for a lot of the casual players the game seems oriented towards.

Absent launching new content, which obviously takes time to create, it seems to me that free transfers and server merges are damn near a necessity at this point, as in now--not a few months down the road. Maybe merges are bad PR, but so is the vicious cycle of subscriber bleed on low population servers.

[mysteriousmage09]

So funny watching the apologists for this game say whatever random shit they want to damage control this game.

The game went from the definite WoW killer to

"Game will play much better then WoW" to

"Who cares if it has the same combat system as WoW! It will still be better!" to

"It's still better! Zomg story!!!" to

"You can't compare WoW to SWTOR right now in terms of features! It's not fair!. Give the game a year or so to gain basic features present in WoW that aren't in this yet!" to

"25% subscriber drop off... It's only a knife wound not a gun shot wound! It will bounce back and compete against Mists of Pandaria, GW2, Diablo 3, etc.!" to already the biggest damage control of them all...

"It's still more subscribers then SWG ever had!"

God damn, what is next?

[Burekma]

Yeah, countries like Afghanistan and Moldova. Incoming huge subscriber wave. You can't make this shit up. We're launching in Afghanistan, guys!

Lol wut. My country is included and people have been playing the game since launch. If this just means "you can now officially buy and play, but you could do it unofficially before if you wanted", than that's completely irrelevant.

The guys that wanted to play from those countries already did so.

[smug]

Maybe they shouldn't have tried to clone WoW and do a shitty ass job. I wasted $50 on this game and one months subscription fee I believe. What a total snooze fest. It felt like the game was meant for single player but decided to put me in this MMO wanna be universe.. it was total disappointment on every fucking level.. It also doesn't help that I feel like MMO's are becoming stale..

[Slappers Only]

They came, they saw...

[Zeal]

Maybe they shouldn't have tried to clone WoW and do a shitty ass job. I wasted $50 on this game and one months subscription fee I believe. What a total snooze fest. It felt like the game was meant for single player but decided to put me in this MMO wanna be universe.. it was total disappointment on every fucking level.. It also doesn't help that I feel like MMO's are becoming stale..

Pretty much took the words out of my mouth. Glad I dropped this enormous turd and tried TERA Online. Actually having fun with MMOs again, finally.

God, I ended up buying 3 copies of this garbage (me, wife, brother). I couldn't even make it to the second month, and it was the first time I didn't even bother leveling 1 character to max level in an MMO.

So funny watching the apologists for this game say whatever random shit they want to damage control this game. God damn, what is next?

"F2P was their plan all along."

"Server mergers are a good thing."

"In-game item shops using Force Bucks is revolutionary."

etc., etc.

[Arnie]

should have just made KOTOR 3

Spot on.

[krameriffic]

So funny watching the apologists for this game say whatever random shit they want to damage control this game. The game went from the definite WoW killer to "Game will play much better then WoW" to "Who cares if it has the same combat system as WoW! It will still be better!" to "It's still better! Zomg story!!!" to "You can't compare WoW to SWTOR right now in terms of features! It's not fair!. Give the game a year or so to gain basic features present in WoW that aren't in this yet!" to "25% subscriber drop off... It's only a knife wound not a gun shot wound! It will bounce back and compete against Mists of Pandaria, GW2, Diablo 3, etc.!" to already the biggest damage control of them all... "It's still more subscribers then SWG ever had!" God damn, what is next?

I wish I didn't take any sadistic pleasure in watching them squirm.

but i do

[ZoddGutts]

About 9 months (both happened at around the same time). Warhammer was a far bigger disaster than this one, although maybe not if you consider just how many hundreds of millions they poured into TOR. Warhammer got a handful of major patches and then it got shut down, cold. Only a trickle of small updates have followed for the past 3 years, and there's never been an expansion.

Funny that you mention Warhammer Online, since the team that made SWTOR is made up of ex Mythic dev members, which made Warhammer Online.

[AppleMIX]

So funny watching the apologists for this game say whatever random shit they want to damage control this game.

The same could be said for the other side. Taking any negative news and blowing way out of proportion.

I can't speak for everyone else, I thought it would have a steady million subs and be a far second place to wow.

[Tellaerin]

So funny watching the apologists for this game say whatever random shit they want to damage control this game. The game went from the definite WoW killer to "Game will play much better then WoW" to "Who cares if it has the same combat system as WoW! It will still be better!" to "It's still better! Zomg story!!!" to "You can't compare WoW to SWTOR right now in terms of features! It's not fair!. Give the game a year or so to gain basic features present in WoW that aren't in this yet!" to "25% subscriber drop off... It's only a knife wound not a gun shot wound! It will bounce back and compete against Mists of Pandaria, GW2, Diablo 3, etc.!" to already the biggest damage control of them all... "It's still more subscribers then SWG ever had!" God damn, what is next?

To be fair, though, the doomsayers were predicting failure from day 1. And in a lot of cases, it was for no better reason than the fact that the game wasn't WoW (because nothing can compete with WoW, apparently), or that it was an MMO rather than a KotOR sequel. No matter what the news was, you would have that (very vocal) contingent spinning it into proof positive that the game was going to be a disaster.

I have to wonder how much of an effect all the negative buzz has had. Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that.

[Ferrio]

I have to wonder how much of an effect all the negative buzz has had. Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that.

Little to none. I don't think any big name MMO is going to fail right out the gate. Fucking conan was horrible shit, and the writing was on the wall that it would be... and it still started with a million purchases.

[SatelliteOfLove]

EA, no! You're not supposed to copy WoW this way!

WOW. People's perception of the MMO market is fucked. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...h-500-000-Subs Even at 1.3 million they are making a pretty significant profit. Pretty Much.

The MMO market sure as shit wasn't anywhere near as big as it was a decade ago either.

And there's the boom. Far too many new ones think they must have that same sustained meteoric rise WoW had for its first 4 years, and expect lightning to strike twice, all while aping the WoW of the last 4 years and boring people out the door within 3 months and putting themselves behind an 8-ball of a viscously fast patch cycle:

Design game to be easily and quickly beaten.
Have underwhelming and unengaging endgame.
???
Profit!

One was an MMO the other is a single-player game with an online community.

And *twist* goes the knife.

[King_Moc]

The game was just dull. Voice acting couldn't hide the fact that all the fetch quests were identical. All the lore was was boring. The combat was just copy-pasted from elsewhere. And like most MMO's, it just doesn't feel immersive. You get the impression that your actions are having zero consequence. Or any anything that does will be reset a few seconds later so that someone else can do it as well. I didn't like having separate planets rather than one large landmass with zones either. Felt like you were starting again each time and the previous area is (mostly) just left behind. The end game must be incredibly dull if all you have is that level 50 planet. I quit at level 41.

[markot]

f2p by early next year.

[FieryBalrog]

It's funny, because SWTOR actually lost a larger % of its playerbase in a single quarter than Wow did over an entire year (25% vs 15%). They've also got less than 50% retention if you compare to total sales.

That low retention % is the key to why this game is not very exciting for EA anymore.

He also downplayed the significance of the title somewhat, noting that the company has bigger franchises that are more important to its overall business. “In our portfolio in terms of property from a franchise, it’s in our top 10 but it’s not in our top 5,” Riccitiello said. “So I understand there’s a modest amount of interest, but I don’t know if it warrants as much interest as what we’re seeing right now.”

Way to twist the knife, John.

[markot]

And wow took like 6years to start losing subs over all >.<;

They looked at wow as something to be emulated, when it was, really, this lucky moment when the stars alligned perfectly with a good game... I dont think there will ever be a p2p mmo like wow again. Hell, I think swtor will be the last major p2p mmo to release.

[antonz]

And wow took like 6years to start losing subs over all >.<;

WoWs numbers have always been over inflated by nebulous chinese numbers.

[CaLe]

I'm really enjoying the game... I hope it stabilizes.

[TheSeks]

What's going on with EA's stocks? OH LAWD.gif

Anonymous 05/07/12(Mon)19:08 No.138719957 You know what I smell? F R A U D All this seems fishy. No one is playing the game, the number cant possibly be 1.3 million subs. At the same time CEO John 'Riki' is snarfing it past investors, blowing it off, and dimishing its importance to the company. "The game is in our top 10, but not in our top 5"... uh a 300+ million dollar game isnt worth much to you? OK you f*****. Also, for those who are really curious, check out who is selling the most EA stock. Notice something? They are all top EA execs. >>138719957 >Also, for those who are really curious, check out who is selling the most EA stock. Notice something? They are all top EA execs. I'd actually like to see a source for this. >>138720542 Heres your source: http://money.cnn.com/quote/sharehold...1&duration=365 Also, from marketwatch: EA has now plunged 10% after hours and is at a new 52 week low. The MW chart shows it has no PE multiple indicating that it has no earnings. How does that reconcile with the claim that they now have earnings. It appears that those earnings are a net of 17 cents a share after "adjustments." Assuming they actually have earnings and that they can sustain them at 17 cents a share, then the shares of EA should be valued at about $1.70 based on a PE multiple of 10 but are currently at around $14 which means they have about 90% to fall to get anywhere near fair value. From a market watch poster with over 75,000 posts. He must know at least some fraction of a percent more than /v/ turds.

It's interesting to see how many of them (even John) sold shortly before TOR launched. Hmm... not a lot of faith in their $300 million MMORPG, eh?

[Pyronite]

The game was just dull. Voice acting couldn't hide the fact that all the fetch quests were identical. All the lore was was boring. The combat was just copy-pasted from elsewhere. And like most MMO's, it just doesn't feel immersive. You get the impression that your actions are having zero consequence. Or any anything that does will be reset a few seconds later so that someone else can do it as well. I didn't like having separate planets rather than one large landmass with zones either. Felt like you were starting again each time and the previous area is (mostly) just left behind. The end game must be incredibly dull if all you have is that level 50 planet. I quit at level 41.

Agree 100%, and not just because you have Chris Morris in your avatar.

Impact on the world doesn't have to go the route of GW2's "meaningful quests" - I felt I had an impact on UO even with branded weapons, house placement, etc.

[nyong]

I'm actually sitting on a buddy's account. I can't decide whether it's worth activating for a month or two just to try it out. Between Tera (which is downloading right now...hurrythefuckup!!!!!) and WarZ, I'm not in any rush.

[FieryBalrog]

WoWs numbers have always been over inflated by nebulous chinese numbers.

It's not the numbers that are nebulous, it's how much they pay (7 cents an hour or so). But they're part of the playerbase.

It's true we don't know exactly what the split is anymore; the last time the numbers were revealed the split was 50-50. We do know there's at least 1 million players in the EU & NA who have subbed for the entire year with the annual pass. Since obviously not everyone did the deal, that is circumstantial evidence that there's still quite a few people in the West playing the game.

[antonz]

It's not the numbers that are nebulous, it's how much they pay (7 cents an hour or so). But they're part of the playerbase. It's true we don't know exactly what the split is anymore; the last time the numbers were revealed the split was 50-50. We do know there's at least 1 million players in the EU & NA who have subbed for the entire year with the annual pass. Since obviously not everyone did the deal, that is circumstantial evidence that there's still quite a few people in the West playing the game.

Oh yeah I still expect Western players to be at least 3-4 million. Which is why If TOR settles around a million and keeps havings its jumps up and resttling like most games it wont be a disaster. If the population dives to well below a million then it will be a disaster

[sTeLioSco]

So funny watching the apologists for this game say whatever random shit they want to damage control this game. The game went from the definite WoW killer to "Game will play much better then WoW" to "Who cares if it has the same combat system as WoW! It will still be better!" to "It's still better! Zomg story!!!" to "You can't compare WoW to SWTOR right now in terms of features! It's not fair!. Give the game a year or so to gain basic features present in WoW that aren't in this yet!" to "25% subscriber drop off... It's only a knife wound not a gun shot wound! It will bounce back and compete against Mists of Pandaria, GW2, Diablo 3, etc.!" to already the biggest damage control of them all... "It's still more subscribers then SWG ever had!" God damn, what is next?

probably they are paid to post,so we are giving them work to do,more jobs and we help the global economy...............

[antonz]

probably they are paid to post,so we are giving them work to do,more jobs and we help the global economy...............

oh please.

Gaf has been a circle jerk of negativity about TOR since the game was announced.

"Waaaah I hate MMOs"
"Waaaah Its not KOTOR3"
"WAAAAAH"
"WAAAAAH"

[Moaradin]

A lot of people actually like the game.

Shocking, I know.

[Cipherr]

Pretty much took the words out of my mouth. Glad I dropped this enormous turd and tried TERA Online. Actually having fun with MMOs again, finally. God, I ended up buying 3 copies of this garbage (me, wife, brother). I couldn't even make it to the second month, and it was the first time I didn't even bother leveling 1 character to max level in an MMO. "F2P was their plan all along." "Server mergers are a good thing." "In-game item shops using Force Bucks is revolutionary." etc., etc.

:lol, you guys are ruthless.

Funny that you mention Warhammer Online, since the team that made SWTOR is made up of ex Mythic dev members, which made Warhammer Online.

Really? I didnt know that. Ill never forgive Mythic for the layers of shit they added to DAoC. It was a fine fine game at its core, but they didnt seem to know how to handle expansions at all. Shrouded isles wasnt so bad, but everything from Trials of Atlantis onward was just terrible.

[antonz]

:lol, you guys are ruthless. Really? I didnt know that. Ill never forgive Mythic for the layers of shit they added to DAoC. It was a fine fine game at its core, but they didnt seem to know how to handle expansions at all. Shrouded isles wasnt so bad, but everything from Trials of Atlantis onward was just terrible.

Mythic people were brought into the SWTOR team to do PVP. They fumbled the ball pretty bad on world pvp but they are apparently totally redoing it

[NeededSleep]

If they cant figure out why they are losing players its pretty sad..

The engine from my understanding was very difficult for them to program with.
They should of just licensed one. Also the game itself was a total mess game play wise.

first 10 levels you are taught to play by yourself.
After that your entire game is focused around playing with companion AI.
From missions, gearing them up, to planed strategy in combat with them.

Then all of a sudden you hit end game.
Everything you learned playing up through the levels does not affect end game unless you solo daily quests. End game focuses on grouping with other players where it dismisses your companion characters away from you from pvp to instances/raids.

After getting a character up to max, getting end game raid gear. I was bored. this was within 2 months.

The only thing left which i was being told by bioware and the official forums to do was re-roll! The new charter story will be great! Well it would be if you didn't have to do all the same fucking zones/quests all over again. Just doesn't seem worth it to me.

It probably would of been better if they left companions in with the end game. Screw it, make dungeons where you can keep your companions, and raids with them, Scale encounters to adjust to player companion composition. Would of probably made end game a lot more appealing and not so short.


/rant
sorry, i was stupid and bought the collectors edition, i just feel like the IP was wasted, and downgraded from kotor.

[AppleMIX]

oh please. Gaf has been a circle jerk of negativity about TOR since the game was announced. "Waaaah I hate MMOs" "Waaaah Its not KOTOR3" "WAAAAAH" "WAAAAAH"

Pretty much, seems like every thread is the same nonsensical garbage anyways.
Claiming it will go F2P when it has over a million subs. That anything less that WOW is not good. Even if SWTOR did go F2P, that somehow makes it a failure.

We're getting close to the 6 month mark and we're still over a million subs.

I don't even know why I even bother correcting people.

Mythic people were brought into the SWTOR team to do PVP. They fumbled the ball pretty bad on world pvp but they are apparently totally redoing it

World PVP was obviously rushed so the could have more features at launch. Regular PVP is quite fun.

[Green Slime]

f2p incoming

I hope so.

[sTeLioSco]

oh please. Gaf has been a circle jerk of negativity about TOR since the game was announced. "Waaaah I hate MMOs" "Waaaah Its not KOTOR3" "WAAAAAH" "WAAAAAH"

and they are correct.
whats your problem,you have ea stock?

[bjb]

Someone please use this image with the caption "ToRtanic"

[markot]

Mythic people were brought into the SWTOR team to do PVP. They fumbled the ball pretty bad on world pvp but they are apparently totally redoing it

The fact that there are any Mythic people still employed is pretty worriesome >.> (I want my money back you british con man!)(That ass in the videos who still has a job at EA for some reason)

[Slappers Only]

What's the ratio of Force Bucks to Stanley Nickels?

[Moaradin]

Someone please use this image with the caption "ToRtanic"

Not this shit again.

[FieryBalrog]

Oh yeah I still expect Western players to be at least 3-4 million. Which is why If TOR settles around a million and keeps havings its jumps up and resttling like most games it wont be a disaster. If the population dives to well below a million then it will be a disaster

We'll easily get a good idea of it when Mists of Pandaria releases, since the box sales are only in the West and other boxed copy regions, not China/Korea etc. I believe Cata sold 4.5 million in its opening month, meaning the Western playerbase was larger than that at the time.

[Dysun]

Game was fun til 50 when the story ends and you realize you were just playing it like a single player game anyway

[markot]

Game was fun til 50 when the story ends and you realize you were just playing it like a single player game anyway

I remember when I said it seemed like it would be a problem before launch, and people just said 'well then you roll another class and experience another story!' which seemed counter to the whole mmo thing... even though I like alts!

[HarryDemeanor]

oh please. Gaf has been a circle jerk of negativity about TOR since the game was announced. "Waaaah I hate MMOs" "Waaaah Its not KOTOR3" "WAAAAAH" "WAAAAAH"

It was only a matter of time until this thread turned into hot garbage.

[Effect]

1.3 mil subscribers is struggling?

I would say not struggling but slipping. That number is only going to go down. Next time they release their numbers I wouldn't be surprised if they don't mention the number if they don't have to as it's likely to be below a million.

Personally I canceled my sub in April. Last about two months. As much as I like Star Wars and even this era the game's design just bothered me to much.

[FieryBalrog]

Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we now have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...Y12_Script.pdf

Sub numbers are current. That means the loss is a lot larger than it looks, given that a large majority of the players are within the free month promotion that was given out.

Ouch.

[K.Sabot]

Not this shit again.

Look forward to seeing more of it, the blood is in the water.

[markot]

If they cant figure out why they are losing players its pretty sad.. The engine from my understanding was very difficult for them to program with. They should of just licensed one. Also the game itself was a total mess game play wise. first 10 levels you are taught to play by yourself. After that your entire game is focused around playing with companion AI. From missions, gearing them up, to planed strategy in combat with them. Then all of a sudden you hit end game. Everything you learned playing up through the levels does not affect end game unless you solo daily quests. End game focuses on grouping with other players where it dismisses your companion characters away from you from pvp to instances/raids. After getting a character up to max, getting end game raid gear. I was bored. this was within 2 months. The only thing left which i was being told by bioware and the official forums to do was re-roll! The new charter story will be great! Well it would be if you didn't have to do all the same fucking zones/quests all over again. Just doesn't seem worth it to me. It probably would of been better if they left companions in with the end game. Screw it, make dungeons where you can keep your companions, and raids with them, Scale encounters to adjust to player companion composition. Would of probably made end game a lot more appealing and not so short. /rant sorry, i was stupid and bought the collectors edition, i just feel like the IP was wasted, and downgraded from kotor.

They did license an engine, it was just pretty ass for what they needed it for from what I gather. They should have built their own imo, but then they wouldnt have been able to pay for voice acting that 90% of people skip over.

[AppleMIX]

It was only a matter of time until this thread turned into hot garbage.

I'm pretty sure that happened when people started using TORtanic.

[bjb]

When listening to the re-cap of the conference call, the most interesting thing mentioned to me was:

While discussing the importance of TOR, John Riccitiello put upcoming Battlefield, SimCity, Tiger Woods, and Madden titles ahead of Star Wars.

Unbelievable.

[The Technomancer]

Yeah, that still hurts too. KoTOR 2 was going places, rewarding non-morally aligned playstyles, had some interesting characters (G0-T0, the unassuming little droid that secretly ran an entire galactic Dominion of crime; Kreia who was just incredibly well performed and realised), and a story that acknowledged the sinister possibility that The Force is some sort of tyrannical entity feeding of constant and unending death and warfare between its pawns. Kreia's quest, to use the freak of nature that was the Jedi Exile to poison The Force to death, and restore free will to the galaxy, was a fascinating direction for a Star Wars "villain". The idea that both Jedi and Sith were under constant vigilance to kill her on sight, exposed both groups as dogmatic. Some really great stuff was happening... But then you hit the two-thirds mark and the entire game collapses into disjointed nonsense with chasms seperating narrative chunks and a nonsense ending. If the game was finished, and maybe tinkered a bit further, it would have (in my opinion) succeeded KoTOR 1. Still hurts.

...I should play KoToR 2