SWTOR: Lacking in appeal for the casual gamer?

It boggles the mind. All I can think is that EA made a statement that said that the 25% lose in subs was due to casual gamers leaving the game. Which is a complete lie! My entire guild except for my wife and I have left this game because it didn't have enough end game content. Not surprising considering that you can power-level to 50 in a week.

I really enjoy this game. Love the stories, and the accessibility to easy money. Gold farmers must hate this game.

In any case, I just don't see how they can cater to casual gamers anymore then they already do. This is the most casual friendly MMO ever. I just don't get the article at all. I guess the press just eats up what EA lies about...

Casual players also appreciate beautifuly crafted and engaging worlds and are more likely to stop and smell the roses while playing the game and take their time to get to 50.

In swtor the worlds are so uninteresting and have no life, weather, days/nights that you have to ask: Who would want to stop and smell cardboard cutouts of roses? Who wants to explore worlds that are so clearly designed to funnel you in and out of them asap to get you to end-game.

I hate to break it to y'all, but the OP has a point. Even THIS game is really too much for most casual gamers. I have three friends that love Star Wars, but none of them will touch MMOs...not because of the subscription, but because the commitment to an MMO is still too hardcore for them.

If we can measure the spectrum of players on a bellcurve, harcore at one end and non-players at the other, SWTOR probably comes in at about 1 sigma above the peak of the bellcurve.

That is my gripe as well and I'm someone that would be considered as hardcore. Can only hope that, in the future with new planets, they make them worlds instead of a prop.

I think EA's definition of casual players is different than ours.

They seem to define casuals as the hard cores that flip from MMO to MMO as they are released, whereas we define casuals as those who don't play a single character to the level cap in a week and then complain that there is nothing left to do.

/agreed.

Polarizations are stupid, you're no better than EA. I played my first char to 50 4 days after early access yet I didn't complain about lack of content. In fact, I still don't complain about it even with 6x50.

This article seems to be just another round of rubbish spouted by EA Executives to minimize their gross mismanagement of TOR in an attempt to save their jobs. Unfortunately, it does not help those 1000+ EA employees who lost their jobs do to their executives incompetence

This is correct.

Take the Legacy system which in its current form has plenty of casual perks and very few hardcore perks. The problem with it is the monetary costs, asking a casual player to dedicate his entire playing to doing dailies for 2 weeks just to unlock that race he wants is crazy.

Casual base loves flashpoints, WoW proved this. However, without an LFD tool casuals are forced to make their own groups which cuts into playing time and they are unable to finish the FP.

In a nutshell,

Designed for casuals, implemented for hardcores

It makes sense to mean, When he was talking casual gamers he seems to mean NON mmo players who checked the game out and desided MMOs are not for them