The Old Republic Population Shrinking

[ThunderCavalier]

tbh, TOR probably didn't have much of a chance against WoW anyway. Personally, I don't see the point of most MMOs trying to eek out an existence trying to be just like WoW (or have a lot of its elements). Since you have to pay a subscription to play both games, and since it's most likely assured that that person that's playing your MMO has probably also played WoW and has a much better investment in WoW than your game, a game that borrows a lot of basic elements from WoW won't keep them hooked for long, even if it has a great story dynamic, universe, etc.

Despite what people say, I see Halo, CoD, and Battlefield as games that fall under the same genres, but play in entirely different ways just enough that they manage to have their own fanbases and still remain in competition despite CoD being the obvious monetary juggernaut. MMOs already seem to have an uphill battle, what with having to compete with the sole proprietary IP that's held the entire genre captive indisputably, but you also have to factor in the expanding costs of subscriptions, which will probably turn off people trying to play it if they've already played WoW.

I don't play MMOs that much, if at all, though, so I'm not quite sure EXACTLY how closely TOR emulates WoW, but if it's an experience that you can get fairly similarly in something like WoW, then it's probably doomed for failure.

 

[Quiotu]

You're forgettin the important part about ToR. The astronomical costs associated with their MMO. Those other MMOs that would kill to have 1.3 million subs? They have about 10 servers. ToR has upwards of 50. Other MMO's don't need to pay for the VO work and cinematic work that ToR is goin to have to pay for in every single content update if they want to stay true to their "story based" gimmick. Other MMO's didn't spend half as much on the lead up to their game that Bioware did for ToR.

All things bein equal, this would still be great news because they have such a large amount of subscribers for such a new MMO. However everythin isn't equal. ToR spent more before the game was launched. ToR spends more on every single content update than an equally sized content update for another game would cost (I have no figures to back that up). ToR has way more servers than they could possibly use. Hell, ToR has enough servers for WoW and the US population in WoW is 4 times the size of ToRs now.

Anyway. Here's my take. If Bioware had waited to release the game instead of tryin to get it out for Christmas, maybe they'd still have those 400k subscribers. As it is, I doubt many people liked to be glorified beta testers for the game that also had to pay a subscription fee.

... you're an idiot, you know that?

Do you honestly think any of those decisions were Bioware's? Nope, EA had the overinflated expectations, they rushed it out (if you call a 5 year dev cycle 'rushing'), they overdid it with the servers. Hate on EA, currently I fully support that activity, but I'd bet real money that Bioware had no say in what you're insinuating.

 

[Agayek]

... you're an idiot, you know that?

Do you honestly think any of those decisions were Bioware's? Nope, EA had the overinflated expectations, they rushed it out (if you call a 5 year dev cycle 'rushing'), they overdid it with the servers. Hate on EA, currently I fully support that activity, but I'd bet real money that Bioware had no say in what you're insinuating.

You're right on the rest of it, but I've gotta say that EA did rush the release of TOR. There was a number of pieces of content that Bioware, by their own admission, wanted in at launch, but couldn't make it in time for the release date they were given. Everything from release until the 1.2 update was pretty much a beta you had to pay a monthly fee to play.

They really should have given it another 4 months, but EA was in too much of a hurry to start recouping their investment and rushed it out the door. You can give people a couple of decades to do something, but if you take it and release it before it's done, you've rushed the product. That's all there is to it.

Also, while EA should take the blame for the utter failure they are in business practices, Bioware should also be blamed because they're the ones that signed on with EA, knowing full well what was coming. EA has done this exact thing before. As soon as EA bought it, Bioware was doomed to what it is swiftly becoming, and it will share the fate of Maxis et al fairly soon and collapse under the weight of EA's incompetence.

 

[Worgen]

So I wonder when it'll go F2P.

Considering that warhammer online still hasn't, I don't think it will, ea seems to want the monthly fee thing which hurts it really bad since it has to compete with wow and not many people want to pay for 2 mmos at once.

I'm not particularly surprised to see this, as I said before, it has to compete with wow and 15 a month adds up pretty quick.

 

[ResonanceSD]

I'm not particularly surprised to see this, as I said before, it has to compete with wow

Guess what hasn't got a monthly sub and is right around the corner?

GG EA, now please just die.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

This is not surprising to me. As a single-player game with minor multiplayer elements TOR is awesome. As a lasting MMO that keeps players going for months or years, it doesn't have anywhere near enough end-game content to sustain itself. I played it for 2 months before I "finished" everything and was ready to move on.

Not havign addons really killed it for me as well. As someone who has been playing and customizing WoW for 8 years now, going back to a boring stock UI with far too little information available on the screen, it's just not the same.

 

[ResonanceSD]

snip

keep hyping, reality is gonna hit faster for GW2 than any other MMO to ever come out.

Well you can't be certain of that until it actually launches.

And from the Beta, we've seen that it's demonstrably better than ToR ever will be before release XD

Spoiler

 

[shintakie10]

You're forgettin the important part about ToR. The astronomical costs associated with their MMO. Those other MMOs that would kill to have 1.3 million subs? They have about 10 servers. ToR has upwards of 50. Other MMO's don't need to pay for the VO work and cinematic work that ToR is goin to have to pay for in every single content update if they want to stay true to their "story based" gimmick. Other MMO's didn't spend half as much on the lead up to their game that Bioware did for ToR.

All things bein equal, this would still be great news because they have such a large amount of subscribers for such a new MMO. However everythin isn't equal. ToR spent more before the game was launched. ToR spends more on every single content update than an equally sized content update for another game would cost (I have no figures to back that up). ToR has way more servers than they could possibly use. Hell, ToR has enough servers for WoW and the US population in WoW is 4 times the size of ToRs now.

Anyway. Here's my take. If Bioware had waited to release the game instead of tryin to get it out for Christmas, maybe they'd still have those 400k subscribers. As it is, I doubt many people liked to be glorified beta testers for the game that also had to pay a subscription fee.

... you're an idiot, you know that?

Do you honestly think any of those decisions were Bioware's? Nope, EA had the overinflated expectations, they rushed it out (if you call a 5 year dev cycle 'rushing'), they overdid it with the servers. Hate on EA, currently I fully support that activity, but I'd bet real money that Bioware had no say in what you're insinuating.

Bioware made a ton of bad decisions when it came to ToR and people can not blame EA for every single one of them. At some point you have to just say the Bioware fucked up their fair share.

Think about it. Would the rushed release date still have fixed the ridiculous costs associated with new patches because of their love of story progression, cutscenes, and voice overs? Would the amount of servers they launched with, whether that was an EA or Bioware decision, change the fact that you barely see anyone anyway because of the heavy instancin that went into the game in order to preserve their precious story progression?

Also, yes it was a rushed. The game was released before it was ready. I don't care if it takes a decade to make your game. If you release it 4 months before it is actually ready and charge people for that obviously not ready game, you rushed your game. A game should not launch with the kind of technical issues that ToR had and if it had, I'd expect the Devs to own up to that fact and not blame the players, which Bioware did. They vehemently said almost all of the technical issues people had from horrid graphical lag to completely unresponsive controls were not a problem on their end and it was our fault. Then they finally got around to fixin it and what do they say? "So whoops. It really was our fault and we didn't optimize the game correctly." Nope. Silence. They treat us like it was our issue that they had no part in, then quietly fix it and pretend there wasn't an issue in the first place.

You want to try and say bullshit like that was all on EA too?

 

[Waaghpowa]

I'm, for the most part, happy with the game. Aside from the fact that I'm in the minority of people who the game runs like shit for despite high end hardware >.>

Really wish they would fix that...

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Good, good.....

Now if only EA would shut down Bioware, then it would really be a happy day.

Agreed

why is that a good thing?

is NO bioware better than a Bioware that some people dissaprove of?

What are you talking about? I think almost everyone who made the "good ole" Bioware games have already jumped ship. It's not really Bioware if the people who made Bioware -> BIOWARE are gone.

So yeah, I'd rather follow the people who made the good Bioware games and see the Bioware today gone rather than the watch the few jokers they have left puppetering it's bones around anymore.

 

[Vault101]

What are you talking about? I think almost everyone who made the "good ole" Bioware games have already jumped ship. It's not really Bioware if the people who made Bioware -> BIOWARE are gone.

So yeah, I'd rather follow the people who made the good Bioware games and see the Bioware today gone rather than the watch the few jokers they have left puppetering it's bones around anymore.

but I seriously liked ME3..ending or no ending

shock horror...not everyone shares you exact tastes

 

[Flailing Escapist]

What are you talking about? I think almost everyone who made the "good ole" Bioware games have already jumped ship. It's not really Bioware if the people who made Bioware -> BIOWARE are gone.

So yeah, I'd rather follow the people who made the good Bioware games and see the Bioware today gone rather than the watch the few jokers they have left puppetering it's bones around anymore.

but I seriously liked ME3..ending or no ending

shock horror...not everyone shares your exact tastes

The fuck? Did I say anything about ME3's ending? No. Okay then.

The only thing I'm saying is that I know the lead writers from Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age (I'm not sure what else they did) no longer work for Bioware. Apparently the composer for ME1 doesn't work for them either but I do have no idea how composers work. I also know quite a few other writers left after Dragon Age 2 and ME3 and I've heard of other people leaving.

The lead designer for TOR was the same guy behind Baldur's Gate II.

See, not everyone left. But what I'm saying is that if most of the people who made Bioware great are gone is it still Bioware (the Bioware we know and love)?

Oh and since that's all you quoted me for:

Mass Effect 3 sucks, [http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=why+mass+effect+3+sucks&oq=why+mass+effect+3+sucks&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=youtube-psuggest.3...6684.12469.0.12753.15.13.0.2.2.0.320.1643.0j7j1j1.9.0...0.0.] the ending sucks [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8uyNV5vK_I] and you have incredibly low standards. -But we still love you.

 

[Vault101]

[snip.

my point is regardless of Dragon age 2..EA or what people think of Mass effect 3 I would still be interested in whatever Bioware comes up with next

I assumed when refering to "old" bioare you were talking about baulders gate or KOTOR..or ME1

not sure who has left after ME3...but still

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

[snip.

my point is regardless of Dragon age 2..EA or what people think of Mass effect 3 I would still be interested in whatever Bioware comes up with next

I assumed when refering to "old" bioare you were talking about baulders gate or KOTOR..or ME1

not sure who has left after ME3...but still

You are right about people being interested in what Bioware is going to do next. It's just that some (including me) are more "wanting to see the train wreck" and "freaky science experiment gone wrong" gawkers than interested customers.

Let's face it, the Bioware that created many classics is gone and something else is trying (and failing) to wear its skin.

 

[Vault101]

You are right about people being interested in what Bioware is going to do next. It's just that some (including me) are more "wanting to see the train wreck" and "freaky science experiment gone wrong" gawkers than interested customers.

Let's face it, the Bioware that created many classics is gone and something else is trying (and failing) to wear its skin.

if that "sotmhing" is whatever created ME3 Ive got no issues

I mean steam has screwed me over in the past, is it right of me to seriously want steam and valve to collapse as a result?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

-SNIP-

if that "sotmhing" is whatever created ME3 Ive got no issues

I mean steam has screwed me over in the past, is it right of me to seriously want steam and valve to collapse as a result?

Steam?

It's less about screwing over, more that Bioware is trying to reach wider audiences. That I don't really mind, I'm just not going to buy their games any more.

 

[Vault101]

Steam?

It's less about screwing over, more that Bioware is trying to reach wider audiences. That I don't really mind, I'm just not going to buy their games any more.

internet caps....

my point is that alot of people like steam and valve and their games

even if Bioware is declining or EA is a troll its still not right to wish them to die because theyve metaphorically screwed you over

 

[Flailing Escapist]

The fuck? Did I say anything about ME3's ending? No. Okay then.

The only thing I'm saying is that I know the lead writers from Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age (I'm not sure what else they did) no longer work for Bioware. Apparently the composer for ME1 doesn't work for them either but I do have no idea how composers work. I also know quite a few other writers left after Dragon Age 2 and ME3 and I've heard of other people leaving.

The Lead writer for Dragon Age is David Gaider, he was also the lead writer for Dragon Age II. Drew Karpyshyn recently left to work on novels, He was the lead writer on Mass Effect, but left shortly into Mass Effect 2's development cycle to work on the Jedi Knight sotryline for TOR.

Okay, fuck, I guess I'm misinformed. But I'm a little more upset now.

 

[Nargleblarg]

I liked SWTOR too for about the first month or two and even bought the collectors edition which I somewhat regret now. (The statue is awesome though) But my god it was just missing so much right from the beginning. The PvP had 3 game types with 3 maps total, No Dungeon Finder, I personally had issue with keeping my level equal to the levelling zone, and I hated the design of most of the worlds that had no points of interest.

Only big thing was that the game had some interesting characters and a few interesting plot lines. Overall it has a lot it still needs improved.

In the end it even got me to get back into WoW after a half year break.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Steam?

It's less about screwing over, more that Bioware is trying to reach wider audiences. That I don't really mind, I'm just not going to buy their games any more.

internet caps....

my point is that alot of people like steam and valve and their games

even if Bioware is declining or EA is a troll its still not right to wish them to die because theyve metaphorically screwed you over

I think you misunderstand me, I do not wish the company known as Bioware to be dissolved. I do however believe that the Bioware who created many classics no longer exists.