New Operations Urgently Needed

Of course it did. The comparison was of two games releasing content relatively quickly after launch. Both of those games had the resources for that content in development before launch finished. That's generally how dev cycles go. There's a lot more downtime between going gold and publishing than you think.

Now, we can rightly discuss the question of provision of content in TOR. But comparing TSW's first content update to TOR's, developmentally, they're identical.

The problem is the amount of content that's needed, and some design choices that were made with loot.

With amount; people are not going to be happy with anything less then a full explanation or a release schedule. 4 more raid bosses with the prospect of 4 to 6 months before the next update isn't going to cut it this time around because we've seen how that goes, and it didn't hold anyone's interest for long. No one is coming back unless there is a lot of new content for them to try. I would say 9 raids, tiered, which could be done as 3 raids at 3 difficulty levels where you have to unlock higher levels would be reasonable, provided there is enough of a mechanic change between the modes that it takes a raid or two to adjust. This would but it in line with something like EQ2, which release about that much new content every 6 to 8 months. It's worth noting that EQ2 is free to play, and the total cost of buying these raid zones is around $5 to $10, so we are basically asked that SW:TOR gives us, for $120, about the same content EQ2 would give us for $10. Not unreasonable.

I mean Bioware could just solve the problem by having a release schedule; you will get this in 4 months, this in 8, this in 12, this in 16. That would keep a LOT of people interested. But either because they are honestly completely unable to meet deadlines or because they get off on keeping players in the dark, Bioware has a strict no ETA policy.

Loot is the biggest problem. Let's assume you can do lost island hard mode because you're in a guild or you don't suck. Did you know that, without raiding, you only need 5 weeks to COMPLETELY gear your toon? This is because black hole gear is all you need, you buy it with tokens, and you pull in 59 tokens a week just doing quests and HM. If you raid, add 40 to that and reduce the time needed to be 100% done with end game content to an unbelievable 3 weeks. Add Nightmare Pilgrim to that, 2 weeks. That's right, SW:TOR has 14 days worth of end game content for some people.

You could say "OH, OH, OH, you need champign gear" ... you real don't. The stats change is minor at best, and net negative for some classes.

MMO's need rare loot. They need BIS items that require you to get lucky and do the same boss over and over again as part of the motivation to do the same boss over and over again. Flash points should have rare bosses that drop BIS non-armor pieces and raids should have the same for BIS armor. The idea of completely gearing my toon in 14 to 35 days is just laughable, and this isn't even "I have no life" playing. This is logging on once a day for about 40 minutes to do a flash point, and spending an hour or so a week doing the black hole quest line.

as far as content releases I think the main issue there is just a massive failure on BWs part. I think the game engine they chose was a mistake from the beginning. It might have gotten the job done at first but at this point I think its hitting them that its not so easy to develop new content for it. Then the layoffs just compounded the issue even more. Essentially development of this game has been slowed to a crawl. I almost get the feeling that they are a little embarrassed by it. CSR dont even police the forums anymore. They refuse to answer any of the serious questions in the weekly Q&As. I would be very interested in seeing how many subs have been lost just in the past month.

Not many. In fact the game is likely gaining subs, based of server population numbers from a variety of sites. You see, all the people who wanted a good, flushed MMO with an end game and updates already left, and FTP to 15 is getting new people hooked. The people playing the game now are split between casual players and SW fanboys, and neither group is effected by the problems we are talking about.

This isn't the fantastic and dramatic death of SW:TOR, it's the slow burn. It's why it's not going to convert any of the new subs into long term players and why people are going to be in a cycle of quitting as soon as they reach 50. It's called "churn" in the industry, and it's not always a failed model. You stop caring about how many people stop giving you money and concern yourself only with new people giving you money. You're cell phone company does this. You cable provider does this. As long as "people in" is greater then "people out" on a month to month basis you can keep this up forever.

The problem is MMOs do not have a limitless player base to draw from. The "new in" is going to go down while the "old out" is going to remain constant until something is done about the lack of content.

Idk last report said they were down something like 700k subs. I would not be surprised one bit if they were well under 1 mill total subs at this point. The game just has no longevity. Anyone who does 5 minutes of research on the game can see that. The fact that CSR isnt policing the forums and dealing with all these "Doomsday" threads is really hurting them in the long run. Honestly as a consumer if I went on another games forums and I saw threads like this I would never consider buying it. They dont need to delete them. But a little discussion and communication from the devs would go a long way towards easing peoples minds.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default...62&find=unread
http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=41198
http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=48605
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6201271322
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6201550704
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/sh...d.php?t=100151

Not really sure what MMO you would play then. Most MMO that are based in the western world value free speech and allow players to express their opinions even when they are negative.

Every single MMO ever that has forums has constant "the sky is falling" threads, as you can see above. Going around and deleting every post that speaks negatively about your game isn't the answer.

Not saying that they should delete those posts just that they should be doing more to prevent them from popping up. Alot of that crap could be prevented just by talking to the player base

You underestimate the entitlement factor of children, fools, and gamer neckbeards.