Judging the game too harsh

You're just complaining about the gift-wrapping and the universe the game exists in. That, in of itself, is sort of trivial to this statement. If you're only basis for liking ToR more is that it's based in the Star Wars universe then that's entirely your prerogative and there's no point in arguing with you.

You're the one complaining that the iPhone 1 doesn't have the feature of current Androids. TOR doesn't have a lot of the features WOW has because its not even a year old, its as simple as that. Just because it took company X or Y, A or B amount of time to do something doesn't mean that company W can do it at the same pace.

HAD, is the Keyword.

WoW doesn't have World PvP and Blizzard really seems to have no plan on bringing it back.

WoW didn't have arenas until Burning Crusade.

And they all had one same complaint that explains the short term sttention span of players far more then sweeping statements about how players nomads

ALL THE GAMES LISTED have gotten the same feedback
To easy
To fast to complete
got bored

Strange how the much insulted "Grind fests" that came before WOW and easy mode MMORPGs didnt have this issue. Other then failures like DDO and SWG, most MMORPGs maintained large percentages of their initial population well over 12 months. Sure some had a 20%-30% bleed off as thats the normal attrition rate.

It wasnt till easy mode MMORPGs hit the sceen that we saw 80%-90% of games initial populations get bored and leave after a month or two.

So is it this sudden unexplainable change in gamers long term play styles?
Or does it have nothing to do with gamers and everything to do with the start to finish journey being just to dang short and fast.

PS: I LOVED RIFT. Absolutely loved the game. Everything about it (excluding gear score nonsense at end game). But after 90 days I had finished the 2 faction storylines start to finish and done 95% of the game content!

I finished the game and moved on because I simply leveled out way to fast and there was nothing left for me to do.

And I was far far far from the fastest leveler in that game!

Contrary I only LIKED Original EQ, didnt love it. And there was newer alternatives to move to if I so choosed. And yet I stayed 3.5 years in EQ. Because even after 3.5 years I hadnt completed everything I wanted to.

Its not hard to understand the main reason for short term loyalty since WOW and after and its got NOTHING AT ALL TO DO with players not being willing to stay long term if there is content to keep them entertained and interested.

Forget all TORs many issues and problems and look at the game alone.
It takes someone playing 20 hours a week less then a month to max out if they are focused
After that its easier and faster for every alt so being overly generous (and ignoreing all the bugs and design flaws) this game really has a built in shelf life for a casual player of maybe 7 months max. Thats all characters once through.

Problem is all the issues do matter to many and most people will not play 8 characters to finish.

If EA had slowed down the level curve of this game, many of the cancelled accounts would still be here. Not all of course as there is other issues but the cancellation rate might have been 3 out of every 5 rather then 4 out of every 5.

Possibly even lower as a number of end gamers wouldnt have hit end game in 2 weeks with a slower progression level curve which means EA would have given themselves more time with greater reasources to finalize and fix the end game content after launch!

If EA (and Trion and others) had just slowed things down somewhat.
Players would feel more connected to their characters
End gamers wouldnt have been one and done in under a month
would have bought more time to fix end game so it was completely ready to go (which it wasnt at start)
Would have greatly increased financials coming in
and much much more

The short term players are not this sudden nomad mentality
The games are just to short and easy and people finish them and get bored
Like they always have when finished.

You seem to be insisting that MMOs of all eras start out at the same level, which is just not logical. New MMOs learn from old MMOs. They use newer technology, learn from previous games what game mechanics people find fun and what they don't, and keep track of the features that make gameplay smoother and more enjoyable. If they don't learn from what previous MMOs have done, then they're foolish.

A MMO that is released right now, today, must be prepared to compete with every other MMO on the market AS THEY ARE TODAY. If they can't do that, they'll fail. It's pointless to say that SWToR at launch was better than WoW at launch. What's important is can SWToR today compete with WoW today.

And once again your claiming that EA is filled with morons that couldnt look at the previous 21 years of MMORPGs and not learn important lessons from them.

Sorry I dont buy that for a second.

There is some stuff they get a initial pass on
But design failures and concept failures because they ignored the past just isnt some of them

Contrary to your opinion I happen to think EA devs are capable of learning from others mistakes and dont actually need to have their skin burned off their hands to know not to stick their hands into the open fire pit.

That's because you're comparing WoW Vanilla to ToR 1.1 and making the claim that ToR 1.1 is light years ahead of WoW Vanilla. And that's a bad comparison because ToR was developed knowing these changes have been out and still they blundered through it.

Rift wasn't a year old and it had way more features in it than ToR does today. ToR had the advantage of knowing all of these wonderful features and yet they're not in the game. They didn't have to slowly test and evolve certain things, it was right there in front of them.

I don't get how you can fail to understand that.

Even now, you don't get it. Let me break it down for you.

Imagine WoW, when it first came out, was the iPhone 1. Throughout the years, due to the customer feedback and advances in programming, hardware, etc., Apple has improved upon the iPhone with it's newest model of iPhone5. The iPhone5 has things like a front and back camera, voice-activated commands, things that weren't around in the iPhone1. Now, Android sees all of these wonderful improvements and makes their first Android with those same features (front and back camera, voice-activated commands, etc.).

Is it fair to compare the Android to the iPhone 1? No. But that's exactly what you're doing. You're comparing the Android (ToR) to the iPhone1 (WoW Vanilla) and saying, "Look at how much more advanced ToR was in Year One!" That is a terrible comparison simply due to the fact that ToR was well aware of these features and doesn't have them.

Get it now?

With a 75-90% drop in subscriptions, I think their hands are charcoal by now.

Probably not the developer's faults so much as the marketing/executives who wanted the WoW clone though.

Dude. Just stop trying to explain this to him and the others who think like he/she does. You won't get anywhere except for a headache. I truly think that they are just making that opposing argument just for the sake of arguing. I really can't believe that people actually think companies develop products and services to compete with others in the same arena by using technology and practices that are 5-10 years older and expect to compete or surpass their competition that use current techniques and practices. I refuse to believe that people are that ignorant.

But then again. This generation regards Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minage as musical icons. So yeah. I guess I shouldn't find it surprising.

Please go back and read my original statement, where I pointed out that all recent (as in within the last 3-4 years) bleed out. Then go way back to WoW launch days.... and see it play out differently for not just WoW but all others i the same era.

And, now... look at the last expansion of WoW, and the fact that it bled out more then 50% of paid subscriptions (note the emphasis on paid subscriptions, NOT including the 6-7 million Asian pay to access accounts). This new expansion will likely be even worse.

The player base has changed between the two eras (WoW launch, and the last 36 months).