Story-based themepark MMO can only fail

The magic formula IS WOW. All the other clones try to copy that formula, but they can't because WOW was first and WOW has the most resources to stay first.

I never said WOW is flat out better. I said WOW is better at being WOW. And I certainly didn't say "give up". I said "please quit trying to be better than WOW at WOW".

Why do all these forum posts have people comparing SWTOR to WOW? Because they came from WOW, and they're looking for something new. So why would they be satisfied with a game that copies WOW on so many levels?

Level 43 and stagntating, i tried the 'roll an alt'.. Got a new character to level 10 then deleted it. I just cant get into the locations and the emptiness of the gameworld is twice as bad the second time through.

How anyone will play 8 characters to 50 is beyond me

Oh man . . . another one?

Hah. Nice.

How BW go with this game in the next few months will be key to keeping subs. Personally I'm a PVP monkey and normally hate most PVE/Raiding/story but I decided to play this game for its single player storyline and game because I love Star Wars so much.

This game captures everything that I love about Star Wars and really enjoying it, will it keep me occupied for months to come? probably not unless they come up with some innovative ideas.

I would not say TOR is doomed to fail.... but Bioware definitely did itself no favour.

Story has to be written first... for 8 Classes... Planets... Flashpoints etc. Implemented and the voice over recorded.

Voice overs need voice actors. These are not cheap and other mmos don't need those in the same amount TOR needs them.
This is an added cost to the already high development costs.

Add to this sound technicians, time in a sound studio (even if they have the own it costs money), processing it etc.

The voice overs alone need TIME and cost more money. This money needs to be compensated by subscriptions.

Here he come to the next big point. Someone said "just cancel you subscription and wait" but how will Bioware finance the new content? I just let this sit just like this.

So... I am Level 50 <insert class>... what now?

Ok I can start a new character but why would I? The same quests AGAIN? Ok the Class quest is different but everything else is the same. So I can only make a character of the other faction.

I am not yet level 50 so I can't talk end game content but what I hear is really bad and makes me concerned.

Because the fact is...this game more than any other stands or false with the ability to keep a steady subscriber-base!

Why?

MMOS are expensive. The HUGE Server Farms need to be paid for. You need to pay devs to fix bugs, add new features, new content.

For a story bases mmo you need to add to that the costs of people who write the HUGE amount of story, the voice actors and other added costs I mentioned above.

If REPEATABLE End game content is missing the subscriber numbers will go down... this will mean less income....

And now take a look at EA track record... do you think they will pump money into this if the numbers are not good?

What I see is TOR needs a strong MMO foundation with fun, rewarding, repeatable end game content first.
It needs to attract casual gamers as well!

And Bioware is unfortunately running out of time.

I do. As long as I enjoy playing it, obviously. First of all, 15$ (12.99 euros, which is actually a bit more) is small change I think (though this depends on everyone's financial situation obviously). It's the equivalent of going to lunch outside the office once a month.... Yes, add it up over 3 years and it becomes a significant amount of money, but do the same with say, toilet paper, and you could find yourself creatively recycling newspapers before you know it.

If the game has enough content to keep me happy, I'm willing to pay that fee to be able to play it online, interact with others, etc. But, this argument is somewhat moot, since there will be new content.

I can't speak for other gamers, but I'm reasonably sure there will be more like me.

In regards to the original subject of this thread: I don't think story-based themepark MMO's are bound to fail. Reason being that if a themepark MMO ith cr*p story can sustain, than there is no reason why adding good story to it up to the "endgame" would all of a sudden cause it to fail. The people who only play it for the story can do so, and level all available classes, which will keep them playing for some time. The people only playing for the endgame can just burn through the story and go at it at max level... Obviously, both the "story" part and the endgame need to be "good enough" to keep players playing, but there's no reason why they couldn't be.

Then of course there's the option of adding some story to the endgame, as well as making endgame enticing to "story players", I see some nice possibilities there as well...

And there is the problem. The endgame is lacking the fun right now.

This does not mean that Bioware will not fix it but the question is will they be able to do it fast enough to keep the subscriber numbers at a level where the "story bases" is sustainable?

I am not talking you and me. I am talking about the numbers that will bring the funding for new content.

That is indeed the question. Whether or not Bioware have succeeded, or will succeed, at making a viable story-based themepark MMO is yet to be determined. But to say that a Story-based themepark MMO (a SBTPMMORPG?) is by defenition bound to fail, is taking it a bit to far I think

Someone's parents failed.