Scared of swtor being a fad

SWTOR isn't going anywhere.

That said, neither is WoW.

If you were expecting WoW to disappear after SWTOR's launch, then you will be disappointed. If you were expecting SWTOR to take over as the "top" MMO, then I believe you will still be mistaken.

SWTOR won't be another AoC, Aion, or WAR. But, WoW really is streets ahead and still innovating. It won't be going anywhere until an MMO launches with a better feature parity.

There will not be another MMO with the market dominance of WOW during its prime. It had the benefit of being the first true mass-appeal and sort of jump started the MMO era (I know the history of muds leading into Everquest leading into others I mean to say WOW is what pushed it from a niche market to perhaps the leading computer-gaming genre from a market standpoint.)




For a vast number of people they either had only played one MMO prior, or more likely WOW was their first, which inherently creates more of an inherent loyalty.



In this day and age there are a huge number of mid-market MMO's popping up that have enough staying power to hold their own and function with respectable playerbases for a solid period of time (LOTRO, Rift, Warhammer, AION, etc. etc.).



This leads to a lot more 'grass is greener' feeling because not only are there many MMO's already out that one gets compelled to try out, but also there is always another next big thing on the horizon (Before SWTOR was rift, now that SWTOR is live Guild Wars 2 is the next MMO savior).


All of this leads to a large chunk of the playerbase being rather fickle. Many MMO's will have tremendous early numbers followed by a pretty significant dropoff relatively early on. This is not cause for alarm or doom and gloom. Those that remain after the opening 3-6 months are generally going to be around for at least a ways into the first expansion (somewhere in the year and a halfish range) unless something drastic happens.


If you like a game stick with it, it will maintain a substantive enough playerbase that it will not likely impact your actual play, aside from the occasional bad luck draw of being on a servor/faction that is hit a little harder then others population-wise.




Will SWTOR have over 2 million playing it a year from now.... I doubt it. It'll gain some, lose more then it gains, and likely level off at around 1 million active subs at that point, which is about as well as any MMO at present can expect in this day and age where vritually all MMO's are varying degrees of mid-market as opposed to one mass-market champ to rule them all.



Keep in mind most MMO's at their time of shutdown had been underpopulated and pretty much unprofitable for awhile before the plug was actually pulled, most survive on much longer then their true 'prime' lifecycle meaning that the odds of the rug being pulled out from under you any time soon are incredibly low.

I didn't mean wow going away it's too big I just want a healthy subscriber base on swtor cause I know the more subs the better the content will be I just don't want this game to fail I like it too much

Because you don't understand. Bioware lied.
The true fans can see that.

There is no reason at all to worry that SWOTR will fail, its basically impossible. Historically speaking when a major publisher creates an MMO in only extreme cases (usually games by companies already having financial problems and a combination of a completetly disasterous release) does a game fail. I'm hard to pressed to even think of a game that actually failed (closed its doors) in the last decade. Even Star Wars Galaxies after the dreaded NGE had a 8 year run.

The basic rule of thumb is that major MMO's never actually fail. They might not be successful financially, sometimes they go free to play, other times they are bundled up into a couple of servers, but outright closures are extremely rare even for the worse MMO's.. hell even Indie MMO's refuse to die, just look at Mortal Online, Darkfall.. all games despite being complete disasters and having populations so low that there are times when you log in that there are more GM's on than players and its still up and running.

MMO's don't fail

You say that like it's a bad thing.


You do realize when you cut WoW's market into the markets SWTOR is in 2 million is about 1/3 of the subscribers WoW has?

Roughly half of WoW's playerbase is Asian based.

That means that big huge number WoW boast is inflated by adding a market that none of the rest of us care about. Not to mention Asian subs usually pay a hell of a whole lot less than we do here in the western markets.

But I'd imagine is SWTOR ported to eastern market they'd get their numbers pumped up too.


Here's to hoping I never have to hear "SWTOR has 8 million subs" because half or more of them are in Asia.

Somebody should dig up that video about Bioware staff hyping up TOR. "In the first few minutes of the game you'll be doing things you wouldn't expect to be doing in an MMO"

That vid always makes me lol.

Definitely

I mean if EA will keep WAR, a complete flop still on sub and by their words have absolutely no plans to go F2P with it, then you can rest assured SWTOR won't be going anywhere or that route either.

As for WoW, it's a wounded duck really. They aren't really innovating anything, or never really did, just borrowed. But with Kung Fu Panda, and vanity pet pokemon, they just appear to be running out of ideas.

Where as SWTOR has a lot of potential to go places WoW never will, at least not first.

Perhaps, perhaps not, but irrelevant to the question at hand. Is SWOTR a fad and is it at risk of failing. The answer is a definitive, factual, no. It may not be the booming success it hopes to me. We might one day be down to 3-4 servers, but the game if you like it, is not going anywhere. So for fans of the game, the state of the game community is irrelevant. If you like it, you will always be able to play it. Hell even after Star Wars Galaxies officially closed, if I wanted to, I could be playing it in an hour from now as the emulation community already has live servers up and running. You can even play on pre-cu servers if you want.

Its interesting people call WAR a flop when its currently one of the most successful MMO's on the market.