The sub wasn't the issue. Soon that reality will hit Bioware too.

I'm afraid so too

They are betting all they got on free-to-play, while totally ignoring any other issues they have. I'm pretty sure they are all telling eachother ''yes, sure, we created alot of bugs in 1.4, but, hey, we're too busy with free-to-play to care, things will get better''.

I think they are seriously misjudging the effect that a terrible patch like 1.4 has on the community. They don't have a MMO-reputation to fall back to, people simply loose faith that they will get it right.

Especially if players make alost of 47 bugs and then a DEV makes a list with only 11. Exactly how hard is it to read the player list with 47 bugs and react to that instead of making your own list? They bugs are described there, that's half the work already done! And if some of the bugs aren't really bugs, well, investigate those too and react. Show that you care about the players, gee.

whats wrong with 500,000+ subs , i played city of heroes and in the first two maybe three years we only had 250,000+ subs. ps. wheres the old thread with this article?

500,000+ was 2 months ago... You can bet it was less already before 1.4 hit. And with the bugs in 1.4, it's even worse, I bet.

whats wrong with 500,000+ subs , i played city of heroes and in the first two maybe three years we only had 250,000+ subs.

City of Hero's didn't fork out 200+ million in development for a product that wasn't even finished or polished.

whats wrong with 500,000+ subs , i played city of heroes and in the first two maybe three years we only had 250,000+ subs.

Nothing wrong with it but the development cost was extremely high and the offices probably bloated with too many people. Therefore cost reduction.

I think after the layoffs the game would still be profitable at 300.000 subs, not 500.000

ISeveral of my guildies have had this one: Upon attempting to board your ship, the loading screen freezes, turns black, then the game crashes with no error windows. When trying to log back in, you get the message that the toon is already logged in. It can be up to 5 days before CS gets around to unlocking it for you. One of my guildmates has had this happen 3 times on the same toon.

For the record (answering specific "what's wrong?" question), a version of this happened to me, although after two attempts (quitting game and restarting) I was able to access my toon again without contacting CS.

Old article.

 

The result the first time it appeared on these forums was a firestorm. Please use search.

 

The salient take away was that EA says *WE* the players left SWTOR because of the subscription instead of the lack of content and features that many AAA MMORPGs have and which we have grown accustomed.

 

If you want to ADD to that the recient craptastic Patch 1.4, I would be surprised if EAware keeps 500K subscribers if they don't fix many of the errors introduced and REintroduced with this patch.

I like the "AAA" comment, as if WoW was triple A when it came out. If WoW were released today, in the condition it was when it hit the streets, it would flop. It had no end game content, no PvP content except world which sucked bad, no group finder or any of those other "AAA" features.

WoW had timing most of all, at the time it's compitition was was UO and EQ, UO was self destructing and people were bored with EQ.

People didnt leave over 15 bucks a month. They left because it wasnt worth paying 15 bucks a month for. Most of those people are not likely to pay much money in the store either.

Pretty much my opinion too.

But F2P only works because there are idiots who won't pay $15 a month subscription but will happily spend $20 a month for useless fluff in the store.

City of Hero's didn't fork out 200+ million in development for a product that wasn't even finished or polished.

This is such an old and bad argument.

This game already made that money back with box sales. Lets move on from that.

The game is also profitable. What we have here is EA saying they want to make alot more money with the game than they are doing.

I think patch 1.4 must've brought back all the doom sayers. They like to moan, but in the end they come back because this game is good. I just find funny how they want it to fail baaad just cause they had a big budget at the start.

NEWS FLASH: This game was supposed to be KOTOR online! It SUCEEDED AT BEEING THAT! Its not our fault you thought money = their going to make the bst MMO ever. It means they are going to make a cool KOTOR online. And they did!

I swear... TERA and GW2 are terribly buggy and you dont get people moaning about it constantly like its the end of the world.

Aslong as they are not in raids, its something im willing to wait till it gets fixed. I like this game, and i want it to keep on going for many years to come.

People left for one reason: There was no new content. There is now, wich is why people like you are back with us.

Also, it helped that people got a reality check with GW2.

I agree and so do most of those in the MMO community. No way will it happen.

 

I do think SWTOR could get back up to that 2 million mark IF they make some significant changes. I think F2P is the only way to inflate the numbers, but I think the true value is if they start listening to feedback.

 

Granted, some feedback is reviewed and acted on (not sure how, but it's happening).

 

That 1000 Papercuts is an excellent example of a model they should look into. A focus group working alongside with BW to develop a better product for everyone. Heck I'd jump onboard to help make it a better product and so would many others that love the game, but hate it's death spiral that it's begun. Signing NDA's and such would be in order, but it's worth it to BW to get engaged with customers. I don't think DEV's play this game themselves or more would be fixed prior to deployment.

Forum feedback isn't that valuable. It comes from a very small percent of the people that play and is very loud minority. It is not however a good sampling of people that play. Forum players are a form of hardcore player

EA needs new analysts. Their theory is wrong. There is no way in high hell that this game will get 50 million subscribers, EVER. They predict that by next year. LMAO.

So it's not the analyst firm that actually made the prediction that should hire new analysts then? You have a link to EA making claims like that?

Pretty much my opinion too.

 

But F2P only works because there are idiots who won't pay $15 a month subscription but will happily spend $20 a month for useless fluff in the store.

Interesting take.. "only works", well it only works in that opinion IF:

1. you can actually log in to the game(at least 5% of our peeps cannot consistently log in[especially after a patch])

2. when in the game you can stay in as long as you like(at least 5% of our peeps get kicked to load-in screens or to desktop rather consistently)

3. your OS is supported by the game(EA/BW in their infinite wisdom state they do not support win8.. so on October the 26 for $40 a pop u can upgrade all your comps to 64 bit win8, but SWTOR doesn't support it?)

4. while playing your toons, they don't freeze-up/slow down and do execute planned attacks in a timely fashion I.E. you must have smooth game play, unlike at least another 5%(dam those 5% add up)

So before the ftpers spend money, they MUST be able to play the game smoothly with no glitches for long periods of time. Failing that the ftp gambit of SWTOR will fail big time.

Oh, and most ftpers in other games don't have to:

Flush DNS daily.

Reset routers 2-3xs per week.

Connect directly with/to their routers/modems.

Constantly up-date/rollback their various drivers, depending on the mood of the CS guys.

Go into the game's various files and make "corrections".

Post their dxdiag at the drop of a hat..... in the last 15 years of playing various mmo's the games were never so "bad"? "broken"? weird?, that I saw anyone asked to post their dxdiag by CS peeps, until swtor.. weird indeed.

Most ftp games are fairly well established, and don't need the "wait for a year or so, it'll be great then" nonsense, ftpers expect a good game, before they spend money.

Players being turned off by subs is such BS... No endgame content was the biggest complaint early on.

Only by the 5% that rushed thru the game.

Ultimately, Pachter believes that Star Wars now has the potential to “attract at least 10 million Monthly Active Users indefinitely, with upside to perhaps 50 million.” He added, “Thus, we believe that contribution from the model shift could be significant for years to come.”

Three comments:

1) this is an old article, much discussed BACK IN AUGUST here, and has been used to wrangle up negative forum members out of the wood work. It's catnip for critics. That is really the only purpose for posting this IMO.

2) generally accpeted expectations for MMOs that move from subscription to freemium is 2-4x incremental active accounts (referenced to stable active subs rates at the time game goes freemium). So, regardless what any internet source may present (based on marketing hype or simply pulling it out of dark places in the body) this sugggests the game will surge to a stable level of 1-3 Miilion per month (depending on whose data you choose to use form what current subs are).

3) None of this matters. It will be what it will be. Conservatively, we should plan to see 2x players on average per day vs what we see now under the current sub model. If they get more, great. If not, who cares.

Three comments:

 

...this sugggests the game will surge to a stable level of 1-3 Miilion per month (depending on whose data you choose to use form what current subs are). ...

Here is where I seriously disagree. Whether it is stable or not, depends alot on how "stable" the game play is. A ftper who can't log-in, stay logged in, or play without jumping thru a lot of CS hoops(and note they will not be able to get direct help from CS with no use of the forums) will not remain to play in the game.

I really, and unhappily, predict numbers like you mention in the first month, but a rapid steady decline after that.

Three comments:

 

1) this is an old article, much discussed BACK IN AUGUST here, and has been used to wrangle up negative forum members out of the wood work. It's catnip for critics. That is really the only purpose for posting this IMO.

 

2) generally accpeted expectations for MMOs that move from subscription to freemium is 2-4x incremental active accounts (referenced to stable active subs rates at the time game goes freemium). So, regardless what any internet source may present (based on marketing hype or simply pulling it out of dark places in the body) this sugggests the game will surge to a stable level of 1-3 Miilion per month (depending on whose data you choose to use form what current subs are).

 

3) None of this matters. It will be what it will be. Conservatively, we should plan to see 2x players on average per day vs what we see now under the current sub model. If they get more, great. If not, who cares.

I remove my comment didnt know it was a 3 month old article. nothing more to see here folks back to the game we love.

Oh, and most ftpers in other games don't have to:

 

Flush DNS daily.

 

Reset routers 2-3xs per week.

 

Connect directly with/to their routers/modems.

 

Constantly up-date/rollback their various drivers, depending on the mood of the CS guys.

 

Go into the game's various files and make "corrections".

I've never had to do any of the above because of this game. The only issue I've had with this game besides some of the in-game bugs (which have no affect on performance, just simply ones such as the companion weapons staying out after having been put away) is that when I exit the game, the game stops responding and I have to manually close it... but since I'm exiting it anyway, it's not a big deal.

Post their dxdiag at the drop of a hat..... in the last 15 years of playing various mmo's the games were never so "bad"? "broken"? weird?, that I saw anyone asked to post their dxdiag by CS peeps, until swtor.. weird indeed.

I posted because of the above. Other mmos don't ask for dxdiag when something goes wrong? Lol. After having spent a good long time on WoW forums when I used to play WoW, I know for a fact that their CS asks for the dxdiag when trying to solve some customer issues, and it's not a rare occasion either.

...

 

 

I posted because of the above. Other mmos don't ask for dxdiag when something goes wrong? Lol. After having spent a good long time on WoW forums when I used to play WoW, I know for a fact that their CS asks for the dxdiag when trying to solve some customer issues, and it's not a rare occasion either.

Never played THAT game(?). Spent my time in DAOC, AOC(ran screaming away after 4 months), and WAR.

So my 3 against your 1. But it does show SWTOR is really following in all the wrong WOW footsteps.

Never played THAT game(?). Spent my time in DAOC, AOC(ran screaming away after 4 months), and WAR.

 

So my 3 against your 1. But it does show SWTOR is really following in all the wrong WOW footsteps.

I've also played LOTRO for several years as well as Forsaken World since it came out. So if we are keeping score, it's 3 to 3. As for the dxdiag, some issues you need certain information and dxdiag is a way to get that information. It shows a lot of stuff that an average joe would never be able to provide the CS with on their own. It is not BAD that they are asking for dxdiag. It would be bad if they couldn't solve the issue and didn't ask for dxdiag.

I'm not saying there aren't issues with SWTOR, because their definitely are, but I also remember having problems with LOTRO, Forsaken World and World of Warcraft. I remember patches not installing correctly (LOTRO), and repetitive errors which caused crashes (World of Warcraft and Forsaken World) just to name a couple of the many issues I've encountered. (Please don't have me list more, I have a very expansive list of issues I've encountered and I'd rather not waste time listing them all, suffice to say, I actually quit LOTRO for a while (because of game imbalances) despite having a lifetime sub (mean't I never had to pay a dime more for the game... get the expansions free too). Every mmo will have issues, especially a fairly new one until they iron out all the kinks. Yes, they could be faster on working on the stuff. But with the reorganization of the company, it is easy to see how they have fallen behind on content/bug fixes.

Remember, if SWTOR was trying to match everything that WOW has and to exceed it, the game would never be released. A mmo being released isn't even close to being done. It's always in development. WoW has added MUCH (severe understatement) to the game since it's release. MMO's are a work in progress. If you want to compare SWTOR to WoW. WoW has had over 11 years of development time (as I've already stated, the game is continually developed after it's been released) whereas SWTOR's had what, like 6? All MMO's release behind in content and features as the well established mmos. It takes time to build an MMO into what it will be. However, people never seem to get that through their thick heads.

Fortunately, SWTOR has something WoW doesn't, and that is an impressive story. The story in SWTOR is nothing like I've seen in any other mmo (I've also tried a lot of free to play ones for a week or two each). It's a huge reason why I'm still subbed to this game. Most other mmos, you don't even know half of what is going on because of how poorly things are told.

Interesting take.. "only works", well it only works in that opinion IF:

 

1. you can actually log in to the game(at least 5% of our peeps cannot consistently log in[especially after a patch])

 

2. when in the game you can stay in as long as you like(at least 5% of our peeps get kicked to load-in screens or to desktop rather consistently)

 

3. your OS is supported by the game(EA/BW in their infinite wisdom state they do not support win8.. so on October the 26 for $40 a pop u can upgrade all your comps to 64 bit win8, but SWTOR doesn't support it?)

 

4. while playing your toons, they don't freeze-up/slow down and do execute planned attacks in a timely fashion I.E. you must have smooth game play, unlike at least another 5%(dam those 5% add up)

 

So before the ftpers spend money, they MUST be able to play the game smoothly with no glitches for long periods of time. Failing that the ftp gambit of SWTOR will fail big time.

 

Oh, and most ftpers in other games don't have to:

 

Flush DNS daily.

 

Reset routers 2-3xs per week.

 

Connect directly with/to their routers/modems.

 

Constantly up-date/rollback their various drivers, depending on the mood of the CS guys.

 

Go into the game's various files and make "corrections".

 

Post their dxdiag at the drop of a hat..... in the last 15 years of playing various mmo's the games were never so "bad"? "broken"? weird?, that I saw anyone asked to post their dxdiag by CS peeps, until swtor.. weird indeed.

 

Most ftp games are fairly well established, and don't need the "wait for a year or so, it'll be great then" nonsense, ftpers expect a good game, before they spend money.

I don't have to do any of that. You are exaggerating or doing something grossly wrong.