New to the game - pessimism all around!

MMOdata

To be down to 2m Western subs they've had a big change of subscription balance in the last 2 years.

But even if it is now 2m that's still more than SWTOR ever had and 4 times as much as they do have.

So again "fine" isn't language I'd use.

I want to see SWTOR growing.

People demanding ridiculous changes to the game while at the same time complaining its not like WoW or SWG. Funny and sad all at the same time. What most folks don't understand is that a product usually has to target ONE audience. If you fracture your product and target too many people, inevitably you get no one.

The data on that graph for East and West stops in 2010. WoW lost 1.1 million subs in Q2 2012 and 1.8 million subs in FY 2011. Im not saying WoW is dying because even with all that its still at 9.1 million worldwide subs. I'm saying that there are not 5 million western subs.

People want off the WoW model. They want innovation and TOR fell short. THAT on top of the unrealistic expectations of todays MMO gamer is the issue with TOR.

What most folks don't understand is that a product usually has to target ONE audience. If you fracture your product and target too many people, inevitably you get no one.

MMOdata

To be down to 2m Western subs they've had a big change of subscription balance in the last 2 years.

But even if it is now 2m that's still more than SWTOR ever had and 4 times as much as they do have.

So again "fine" isn't language I'd use.

I want to see SWTOR growing.

Why does it have to target just one audience? It can cater to everyone without any serious losses and do just fine.

Take MoP as an example. Hardcore players get HM raids, challenge modes, rated battlegrounds and arenas on high raiting. Casual players of any level get normal raids, raid finder, world bosses, scenarios, heroic dungeons, also challenge modes to some degree, normal battlegrounds, arenas on low raiting, cross-realm zones for better world PvP, dailies, achivements, archeology, pet battles, player farms, epic questlines and more.

In that game, you have plenty of things to do on max level even if you can't afford to raid and/or do serious PvP for whatever reason.
In SWTOR, you have dailies and... that's it. Of course, there are also FP HMs and NM OPs in group finder, but honestly, how long does it take to gear up into full Columi? A month at worst, 1-2 weeks at best.

Though there are some things in this game, which are made great and are weak points of WoW, i'd really love to see Bioware adopting Blizzard's experience and ways of creating a good quality end-game content for everyone. But, sadly, they won't. They've chosen to go ftp and cash shop way.

I dont think people actually know what do they want. They think they want stuff that was in their previous/first game, yet when they got it they get bored and they will blame on the features that are still missing from the game. When you look at the games and those people who keep playing them for a long time, its not any particular set of features that keep people playing. Sure, the generic type of the game, say pvp or hc raiding or whatever is important. Also it would be difficult to persuade someone who hates mmorpg:s to keep playing for a long time. But details are not really that important.

Most important feature to keep people playing is their friends. Problem with this game currently is that loads of people leave. So people will find themselves in a situation where most of their friends have left, and eventually they either find new playing friends or they will leave too. How does Bioware stop this downward spiral then? I have no idea. I just doubt implementing any specific feature from some other game will be enough.