TOR was launched shortly after the announcement of the ''Lol Pandas'' expansion (1). At this time, the forums were sure that TOR would utterly destroy WOW.

Yet, the other game announced yesterday to still have 7.6 millions subs (stabilized from last report), without any ''trick'' like the Annual Pass, and they are on the verge to announce (likely tomorrow) Expansion V (which will be way more impressive than Hutt Cartel or Starfighter...)

What we did wrong, and what Blizzard did good ?

(1)The point being that the ''Pandas'' were widely ridiculed, and yet, at the end of the expansion, WOW still have between three and four times more sub than TOR at it's prime.

whats your point in this post

you feel better now ?

WOW = Fantasy

SWTOR = SciFi

And both are relatively simple compared to DDO. Both are basically hack & slay games. A thing whichBlizzard more or less invented (with the Action-RPG sub-genre).

Meaning that the hardcore RPG folks will go elsewhere.

whats your point in this post

 

you feel better now ?

The point being that the ''Lol Pandas''-that were widely derided as ''that will kill WOW'' have not prevented WOW to still have 7.6 millions sub (including asian ones, yes, I know) at the end of the expansion cycle While TOR, whose launch was very soon after the Pandas announcement crashed and burned.

So, obviously, Blizzard did something better than Bioware.

And people in WoW are still ridiculing pandas every day, still ridiculing Blood Elves, still ridiculing gnomes. That's just how people are. Every new MMO that came out, people claimed it would be a WoW killer. Warhammer Online was the first one I remember. If you go to the forums of every other MMO now, they all have the same conversations about WoW that happen here.

Truth is, WoW is an anomaly and a lot of its success was a combination of perfect timing and brilliant advertising, and once they got a hold on a good number of people, they want to stay where all their friends are, in a game they know will be around for a long time. Even for those who stopped playing WoW, there is a really high degree of nostalgia for the old days that we keep trying to get back. I'll be at Blizzcon tomorrow, interested in the new Xpac, seeing TONS of old friends, even though I canceled my subscription a couple of months ago and don't really have any interest in playing right now.

TOR was launched shortly after the announcement of the ''Lol Pandas'' expansion (1). At this time, the forums were sure that TOR would utterly destroy WOW.

 

Yet, the other game announced yesterday to still have 7.6 millions subs (stabilized from last report), without any ''trick'' like the Annual Pass, and they are on the verge to announce (likely tomorrow) Expansion V (which will be way more impressive than Hutt Cartel or Starfighter...)

 

What we did wrong, and what Blizzard did good ?

 

(1)The point being that the ''Pandas'' were widely ridiculed, and yet, at the end of the expansion, WOW still have between three and four times more sub than TOR at it's prime.

At one point, WoW had 13 million subscribers. That is a lot of money. Money that lets you do things that other games without that amount of money can not.

But remember, WoW at one point had a subscriber base under one million. They didn't start with 13 million players, they built up to it. As their base grew so to did their ability to spend more money to make more money.

The problem with gamers nowadays is that they expect WoW-like stuff from launch and that will never, ever happen.

Also, the current sub numbers mean that WoW has lost nearly half of their high point. Half. That is a ton of lost revenue that should be a clue that maybe everything in WoW land isn't all sunshine and happiness. Right now it is rolling along on momentum and the 800lb gorilla is getting old and hasn't learned any real new tricks lately.

Nobody smart ever thought SWTOR would be a WoW-killer. It's carved out its own niche focused on story and it's done decently, the early F2P transition notwithstanding.

Honestly, given the sort of people who are big fans of WoW, I'm perfectly happy to let them stay in their little land of chainmail bikinis, giant shoulder pads, and particle effects so sparkly it's impossible to see what's going on.

What we did wrong, and what Blizzard did good ?

THEY MADE BIG SEXY PANDAS!!!!!

unlike this dumb game were all the races can be described as

Human

human with horns(zabrak)

human with tentacles(sith)

blue human(chiss)

emo human(ratataki)

blind human

green human

human with slight fur

1)Then why we copied the Vanilla Gorilla tricks ?

2)They lost half of their subs in 10 years. We lost more than 75% of ours within a year.

THEY MADE BIG SEXY PANDAS!!!!

 

unlike this dumb game were all the races can be described as

Human

human with horns(zabrak)

human with tentacles(sith)

blue human(chiss)

emo human(ratataki)

blind human

green human

human with slight fur

There is a point here, as in WOW, despite having crude models, at least the models are different.

And people in WoW are still ridiculing pandas every day, still ridiculing Blood Elves, still ridiculing gnomes. That's just how people are. Every new MMO that came out, people claimed it would be a WoW killer. Warhammer Online was the first one I remember. If you go to the forums of every other MMO now, they all have the same conversations about WoW that happen here.

The Warhammer forums are a little different on what they talk about now, considering they close in a month.

THEY MADE BIG SEXY PANDAS!!!!!

 

unlike this dumb game were all the races can be described as

Human

human with horns(zabrak)

human with tentacles(sith)

blue human(chiss)

emo human(ratataki)

blind human

green human

human with slight fur

You forgot humans with metal on their skin.

You forgot humans with metal on their skin.

I dislike the fact that a cartel set of gear is more of a race change than the cyborg race itself.

Nobody smart ever thought SWTOR would be a WoW-killer. It's carved out its own niche focused on story and it's done decently, the early F2P transition notwithstanding.

Honestly, given the sort of people who are big fans of WoW, I'm perfectly happy to let them stay in their little land of chainmail bikinis, giant shoulder pads, and particle effects so sparkly it's impossible to see what's going on.

To be fair, you could apply these descriptions to some of the current and old cartel & raid gear. Particle effects have always been subjective with sliders in your graphics settings.

1)Then why we copied the Vanilla Gorilla tricks ?

 

2)They lost half of their subs in 10 years. We lost more than 75% of ours within a year.

1) Because everyone does. But this game also has innovations that WoW does not.

2) The early sub gain and loss from WoW was pretty similar in the beginning. Also, there is a big difference from going from 1.5 million to around half a million and going from 13 million to 7.3 million in 3 years or so.

In reality, WoW lost most of their subs from the middle of Cataclysm to now.

Again, this is still a relatively new game on the market. Should EA/BW finally figure out where they went wrong and fix those problems and start to build their sub base again instead of relying on the CM and a F2P scheme that doesn't seem to be working that well, they too could see sub numbers start to go up and in 8 years or so they'd see the numbers drop as the game got stale unless they kept innovating.

Corporations like to find what works and milk it until it no longer does work. For todays MMO companies, this won' t work. To keep the players from jumping ship, they have to keep finding new ways to engage and attract players. Sitting on your laurels will only get you downsized in the MMO world.

Ultimately, if you don't like it here you can go play WoW but you can not compare MMO's of different genres with different draws. WoW's e-sport arena play alone keeps millions of players in the game just for that available competition. SWTOR doesn't have that (and I hope it never does).

The Warhammer forums are a little different on what they talk about now, considering they close in a month.

lol, true, though I'm sure there's still some "what went wrong posts" going on. Warhammer left my radar years ago, though.

Nobody smart ever thought SWTOR would be a WoW-killer. It's carved out its own niche focused on story and it's done decently, the early F2P transition notwithstanding.

Honestly, given the sort of people who are big fans of WoW, I'm perfectly happy to let them stay in their little land of chainmail bikinis, giant shoulder pads, and particle effects so sparkly it's impossible to see what's going on.

Because SWTOR does not have leia bikinis, Sion sized shoulder pads or flashy effects, right?

Just messing with you, WOW is a great game, has great PVP map options and fantastic musical mood changers. Hopefully TOR will stay strong and try to catch up. It has potential to be one of the best mmo's, if they stop shooting themselves in the foot.

The strength of a game is determined not solely on its current sub numbers, but on how they arrived at those numbers.

Example: Game A is sitting at 7.6million subs. To get to this point, they've dropped from 12 million in a few years' time.

Game B is sitting at 2-3 million players. To get to this point, they've gone from a million players to two or three million players in a few years' time.

Looking at these two, is Game A in a better place than Game B?

Obviously, Game B would be in a better shape.

However, TOR is not, by far, Game B.

What we did wrong, and what Blizzard did good ?

Do you work at bioware ? If so on what department ?

The point being that the ''Lol Pandas''-that were widely derided as ''that will kill WOW'' have not prevented WOW to still have 7.6 millions sub (including asian ones, yes, I know) at the end of the expansion cycle While TOR, whose launch was very soon after the Pandas announcement crashed and burned.

 

So, obviously, Blizzard did something better than Bioware.

so, they lost subs after an expansion, about 2 million of them, and yet they are doing good.

Logic for the win i guess

No game is ever going to match what WoW did, nor would WoW do it again if it was released today, it was a freak occurrance and the market ( and playerbase) are different now

THEY MADE BIG SEXY PANDAS!!!!!

 

unlike this dumb game were all the races can be described as

Human

human with horns(zabrak)

human with tentacles(sith)

blue human(chiss)

emo human(ratataki)

blind human

green human

human with slight fur

Humans with implants...don't forget those cyborgs!

TOR was launched shortly after the announcement of the ''Lol Pandas'' expansion (1). At this time, the forums were sure that TOR would utterly destroy WOW.

 

Yet, the other game announced yesterday to still have 7.6 millions subs (stabilized from last report), without any ''trick'' like the Annual Pass, and they are on the verge to announce (likely tomorrow) Expansion V (which will be way more impressive than Hutt Cartel or Starfighter...)

 

What we did wrong, and what Blizzard did good ?

 

(1)The point being that the ''Pandas'' were widely ridiculed, and yet, at the end of the expansion, WOW still have between three and four times more sub than TOR at it's prime.

Considering Blizzard boasted around 12m subs for WoW at one point, to slide to 7.6m is roughly a 37% slippage. In April-June of 2013 they lost 600,000 subs.

http://www.maximumpc.com/world_warcraft_subscribers_plummet_77_million_players_2013

If TOR lost that amount in three months it most likely would be closed.

Your post seems to be targeted at the "haters" ie. not game industry analysts, not former developers or project leads, not insiders in the industry, just the common folk whose opinions vary as greatly as the types of fish in the ocean. Reading someone posting, "This game sucks and will die in 6 months" or "This is expansion is stupid and will kill this game in 3 months" yada yada yada is akin to reading a movie review in your local rag paper claiming, usually in overly pretentious tones, that the film is a waste of time while seemingly strangely enough, you go and have a wonderful time watching it.

Or in short, the only thing your post amounts to is an "I told you" statement. So umm, you feeling better now that you got it out of your system?

While TOR, whose launch was very soon after the Pandas announcement crashed and burned.

It's nice of people to keep pointing out how this game utterly failed and has shut down. I forget that every time I log in to play. I forget that when queues pop over and over again. I forget that when new content gets released. I forget that... you get my point.

Why bother comparing this to another game? They are different. Play the one you like.

Why does WoW still have so many players?

Simple, becaus ALOT of people have invested years of time and effort into the game and it will usually take massive efforts to stop playing permanently.

You have to understand that before you can start throwing numbers around and asking what TOR did wrong.

As for the "massive" drop of subs after launch, this happens to every modern MMO.

People are looking for something new to play and usually they are doing it under the paradoxical idea that they want something that is not like WoW, but then when they try it and find out that feature X or Y from WoW isn't in the game it is suddenly a failure and they leave in droves.

Everyone expects a new game to have everything that WoW has added for the last 10 years at launch. They don't have the patence to wait for anything.

This is why TOR lost so many subscribers.

They either hated it because it was too similar to WoW or it wasn't similar enough. Those were, by far, the most common complaints I heard after launch.

And then sprinkle in a few "this isn't star wars, there are no clone troopers and the jedi look wierd" people who came here looking for a game set in ep: I-VI and the people who came here from SWG looking for a clone of SWG.

TOR was launched shortly after the announcement of the ''Lol Pandas'' expansion (1). At this time, the forums were sure that TOR would utterly destroy WOW.

 

Yet, the other game announced yesterday to still have 7.6 millions subs (stabilized from last report), without any ''trick'' like the Annual Pass, and they are on the verge to announce (likely tomorrow) Expansion V (which will be way more impressive than Hutt Cartel or Starfighter...)

 

What we did wrong, and what Blizzard did good ?

 

(1)The point being that the ''Pandas'' were widely ridiculed, and yet, at the end of the expansion, WOW still have between three and four times more sub than TOR at it's prime.

First of all, where do you get this statement that the forums were sure that TOR would utterly destroy WOW? That's a general, baseless statement. I'm sure some people said that....just like some people said Diablo 3 or Guild Wars would be the end of this game. But, certainly the majority of people in the forums weren't saying that and no one with any common sense thought that this game would put WOW out of business.

In March of 2011, WOW had 11.4 million subs. If WOW is now down to 7.6 million subs, then they've lost 1/3 of their subs in that time. If you think Blizzard is happy with that or patting themselves on the back over that, then I have some swamp land in Florida for sale that might interest you.