Analyst: 1.5 Million People Already Playing The Old Republic

[jackalblue3141]

Can we please stop using logic based around "killing WoW"? It's meaningless. WoW failed to "kill" EQ2, so does that mean WoW is a failure?

Ok. I'll stop using the term "WoW killer". I don't care if it kills WoW. I don't like WoW myself, I find the community is kind of jerkish and too intense in some ways. But I'm cleverly disguised as an adult so I understand other people have other tastes, and maybe my (admittedly brief) exposure to WoW isn't the be all and end all of it.

That said, I preordered ToR first chance I got, and have enjoyed every second of it. It's not better than I expected, but it's more than satisfied me and I've been waiting for a sequal to KoTOR 2 pretty much since the credits rolled. Both games satisfy different goals, and I'm cool with that.

 

[sir.rutthed]

And of those 1.5 million, roughly a million of them are playing Empire. It's kinda silly. I spent half an hour cruising around Republic questing zones on Tatooine yesterday and never saw a single Republic player.

Yeah that's what worries me. Everyone just wants to be the "badass on parade" guy and be the most evil Sith bastard imaginable. I expected that the numbers would be tilted slightly towards the Empire, but this is ridiculous. Hopefully it'll change a bit after the game is launched for a few months and people get over their urge to kill everything in sight.

I'm a roleplayer though and I find it a little harder to make a compelling character in the Empire than it is in the Republic.

Funny, I feel exactly the same way about the Jedi. Me and my buddies talk about this stuff a lot, and we've pretty much come to the conclusion that the Jedi are hypocritical tyrannical thought police who are responsible for far more problems than they help solve. I just find Sith philosophy to be much more honest. That said, I still plan on rolling a Jedi character some day, I'm just gonna give it a few days for the starter zones to depopulate.

 

[bojac6]

Having played this for about a week now, I can say this: Soloing is more fun than it was in WoW or any other MMO I've had experience with. The standard Bioware conversation options are still there and the story is fun and engaging so far, something I really didn't expect. I definitely was a first month to try it out person, but I've already invested in 3 months because it's cheaper and I know I'll be playing at least that long.

The Raids/Instances/Group stuff is a blast. The dynamics are very different between the classes and it leads to a lot of interesting game choices. Jedi, for instance, build up energy and abilities as they engage in combat, so they want to move quickly from one fight to the next. Smugglers have a more traditional energy bar that takes time to recharge, so they want some downtime. Balancing that has been fun. I'm enjoying it immensely.

At least it's taken the sting out of finding out my job is going away in January.

 

[sir.rutthed]

And of those 1.5 million, roughly a million of them are playing Empire. It's kinda silly. I spent half an hour cruising around Republic questing zones on Tatooine yesterday and never saw a single Republic player.

Yeah that's what worries me. Everyone just wants to be the "badass on parade" guy and be the most evil Sith bastard imaginable. I expected that the numbers would be tilted slightly towards the Empire, but this is ridiculous. Hopefully it'll change a bit after the game is launched for a few months and people get over their urge to kill everything in sight.

I'm a roleplayer though and I find it a little harder to make a compelling character in the Empire than it is in the Republic.

Funny, I feel exactly the same way about the Jedi. Me and my buddies talk about this stuff a lot, and we've pretty much come to the conclusion that the Jedi are hypocritical tyrannical thought police who are responsible for far more problems than they help solve. I just find Sith philosophy to be much more honest. That said, I still plan on rolling a Jedi character some day, I'm just gonna give it a few days for the starter zones to depopulate.

Oh well, yeah the archetypal Jedi is a tyrannous Nazi and the archetypal Sith is just Dr. Evil with a short temper. That all goes without saying.

I just mean that, if you'd like to make a compelling Sith character, it would be something like... I don't know. A guy who's evil, but sort of remorseful afterwards? The entire background is just "Don't feel emotion, hate, murder, pillage" and it's very, very likely that a big portion of the roleplaying community is going to be some Mary Sue (google that if you're curious) badass bounty hunting, dual wielding emo teenager that kills everything and doesn't give a crap.

If I have to deal with stupid archetypal characters in my roleplay, I'd rather it be some deluded Jedi than a Sith who's like a teenager going through puberty. That's all.

My question is, if you're role playing why would you role play an archetype? That's boring no matter what you do. Sith philosophy/society is based on the idea of essentially doing whatever you want. If you're strong enough to do it, it's your right. Naturally, that tends out to bring out people's more base nature more often than not. But because they're raised to control their emotions rather than ignore then in favor of serenity, Sith go the entire emotional/mental gambit, they can be anyone and do anything. Jedi are strictly limited by the Code, and inevitably either become mindless, soulless drones of orthodoxy or end up as emotionally crippled man children with the powers of a god and end up killing everyone close to them. True there have been grey Jedi, but most of them are closer to true Sith ideals than Jedi.

 

[LetalisK]

Can we please stop using logic based around "killing WoW"? It's meaningless. WoW failed to "kill" EQ2, so does that mean WoW is a failure?

Ok. I'll stop using the term "WoW killer". I don't care if it kills WoW. I don't like WoW myself, I find the community is kind of jerkish and too intense in some ways. But I'm cleverly disguised as an adult so I understand other people have other tastes, and maybe my (admittedly brief) exposure to WoW isn't the be all and end all of it.

That said, I preordered ToR first chance I got, and have enjoyed every second of it. It's not better than I expected, but it's more than satisfied me and I've been waiting for a sequal to KoTOR 2 pretty much since the credits rolled. Both games satisfy different goals, and I'm cool with that.

I'm loving ToR right now. Questing with someone else even makes it more fun. I left WoW several months ago, and I never planned on returning, but the chances of me going back grew even slimer.

 

[Paladin Anderson]

Bah why does this have to be an EA game? I love Bioware, but EA isn't getting a dime of my money.

And, before "You're just hurting the developers!" there are plenty of good developers out there. My money will just go to them instead.

I'm not going rationalize away supporting a company that's giving me the middle finger.