The end of the arguement. Is SWTOR in decline? Can it be saved?

That's easy RIFT. It took me almost 6 months of 4-6 hours per day to have a full set (minus some bracers and something else little) top rank PvP gear. Top tier raid kills didn't come for months later after launch. People had to gear up to get it done.

Well, in truth there was one that fit your description. Original City of Heroes. But that game had no crafting and no end game at launch and didn't have it for years. When you got to 50, you had essentially one option: Roll a new class. Even after they added badges in an early patch, it still boiled down to "get to 50, roll a new class, (optional: collect badges again)".

Well in rift which i also played at launch and on a pvp server i managed to rank my pvp just fine and i couldnt do half of the raids because they were simply so bugged it was unreal.

And you see where that game is now...

I ranked mine just fine too.

Bugged raids? I've heard that one before somewhere... hmmm...

edit - that 6 month carrot gave me time to really learn my calling. about 5 months in I come up with a 28/28/10 Dom/Stromcaller spec (micro-burst -> to raging storm - > ice shear -> GG.

Still around? Hell it didn't go free to play until last year.
And yeah, I still play it as a Tier 9 VIP.

But I get your point. Initially the game's subscription numbers fell off a cliff when people realized the game had nothing going for it beyond the relentless march from 1 to 50.

Edit: I should add that the comparison is inherently flawed as COH was early 2004 and this is 2012. In early 2004 there weren't a lot of MMO options. Because of that, COH was able to hobble along for years even with low subscription numbers. Now, of course, there are a lot of options which TOR is having to compete against. Some are behemoths in the industry, others are little niche F2P games. In other words, TOR has a steeper hill to climb than COH did all those years ago.

I wanted to play that game, being a supper hero buff. By the time I tried it was far beyond its prime. The genral concept was really neat though.

The reports of SWTOR's death have been greatly exagerated.

All MMOs lose a ton of subscribers after launch. Everyone tries the new game out, but not everyone stays. It's like a TV show - Everyone comes in for the pilot, many leave after and numbers gradually decline until those that really like it remain. The fact that SWTOR had a better than expected release means they'll probably have a greater than expected decline too.

As for the game itself, I think we all know that it was released too early. It wasn't until 1.2 that this felt like a finished game, and before then it felt far more like an expanded beta than a release. Most of the celebrated upgrades of 1.2 were things we should have had at launch, and other major upcoming upgrades (like guild ships) are things we should have gotten far sooner after release. Instead, we got things like The Ratghoul Plague, which gave us a ridiculously stupid quest and a sickness we can't control killing us in the middle of a quest and ruining our flashpoints. This could have been ok in a stale community, but in a game that is still finding its footing, it's just plain stupid.

Bottom line is, BW made some pretty big mistakes... But they also gave us a great core of a game. Whether or not it succeeds will have to do with upcoming content, but I think we all owe them a chance to come through.

The game simply does not live up to the hype. It does not meet current technical standards. Heck, it does not even live up to standards of a ten year old SWG. Space combat is a joke. Worlds are small and static. Graphics are outdated and strange design decisions have been made. Story and voiceovers are great, warzones and flashpoints too, but it's simply not enough. Two years more of development and it could have been great. Will it survive until then? Most likely. Will many disappointed users come back in two years? Definitely, if BW knows what to do.

So are you still subbing, playing and being part of the solution?