I doubt we will ever get a 'real' expansion, just a lot of mini DLC.

It would be nice to get an expansion that brings in proper space combat like SWG and an engine fix that actually allows pvp zones larger than 8 v 8.

nahhh. Starcraft2: Heart of the Swarm was no "real" expansion, cause ... em... yes... well, there were no new 10 levels or more... you know... content is totally overrated, the number of levels is all that counts

Well, there were 70 levels that Kerrigan could get, but you got them in the amount of time I wrote

Probably won't get one, seems the cartel market gets most of the extra attention

I see no evidence of that. Quantity and quality of content prior to f2p switch is roughly the same as quantity/quality of content released after f2p switch.

Also, as an interesting side note, Blizzard's Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm could be considered a full expansion (priced at 40+ USD, which seems to be the logic people here use), and the playtime was roughly the same as half of the content in RotHC (makeb main story, one round of staged weekly). And we waited almost three years for that.

HotS IS a full expansion. The problem is that it doesn't make sense to compare one with the other. There's one set of expectations you have for a non-MMO and a different set for MMOs. MMOs have crappier ( for lack of a better word ) gameplay compared to other games ( especially SWTOR, which is basically WoW in terms of gameplay ), so you expect more of it. You also expect more of it because it's an MMO that you pay a sub for. Yes, the sub is still a factor when it comes to expansion content/pricing, because the content needs to keep you entertained until they can release more. You don't need to play a single-player game for months on end, and for multiplayer games like HotS MP or, say, CS:GO the fun and longevity isn't in the actual content, it's in the competition.

I am kinda hoping that BW was just to occupied during the last year that there could only be a mini expansion and there will be regular, genre-standard expansions in the future. an expansion that costs about 30-40, adds 10 levels and brings 10+ new flashpoints and several new operations and war zones (similar to burning crusade)

a real expansion.

You'd be paying 50-60 for that type of expansion not 30-40 just because that was the WoW equivalent.

The problem is that TOR's numbers would need to be much higher to put out an expansion with that much content and only charge 30-40 for it.

As it stands right now they'd need to charge full price in order to turn a profit on the development costs of a such an expansion.

It's easy/easier for Blizzard to do the things they do with WoW when they're pulling in a billion dollars a year from subs alone.

Basically what it boils down to is that in order for them to put out (post-game) content on the same level that Blizzard does they would need to have a customer base like the one Blizzard does.

You'd be paying 50-60 for that type of expansion not 30-40 just because that was the WoW equivalent.

 

The problem is that TOR's numbers would need to be much higher to put out an expansion with that much content and only charge 30-40 for it.

 

As it stands right now they'd need to charge full price in order to turn a profit on the development costs of a such an expansion.

 

It's easy/easier for Blizzard to do the things they do with WoW when they're pulling in a billion dollars a year from subs alone.

 

Basically what it boils down to is that in order for them to put out (post-game) content on the same level that Blizzard does they would need to have a customer base like the one Blizzard does.

Or have their parent company provide more funding like Blizzard has.

yeah I dunno. even with expansions for old mmo's like dark age of camelot (and they pulled from 300k subs)

had so much more content for the value even with the inflation that happened since then.

as for starcraft2 did not blizzard pull the 2 other factions from the original game just to sell it as an expansion or even separate full price game ?

maybe I am not up to speed with this but from what I've heard that was one of the greatest customer ripoff's in the last year, even mass effect3 with its rushed ending and pulled out day1 dlc fades in that light. the only thing that comes near to that might be dragon age2 that was 2-3 areas copy&pasted so much that it hurt the eyes.

as for starcraft2 did not blizzard pull the 2 other factions from the original game just to sell it as an expansion or even separate full price game ?

maybe I am not up to speed with this but from what I've heard that was one of the greatest customer ripoff's in the last year, even mass effect3 with its rushed ending and pulled out day1 dlc fades in that light. the only thing that comes near to that might be dragon age2 that was 2-3 areas copy&pasted so much that it hurt the eyes.

They didn't pull anything, each campaign has almost as many missions as all 3 campaigns did in the original game.

HotS IS a full expansion. The problem is that it doesn't make sense to compare one with the other. There's one set of expectations you have for a non-MMO and a different set for MMOs.

Yes, SC2/CoD has multiplayer, but then again, SWTOR has PvP, which is basically the same thing, just apply strategies that will make sure your race (or class in SWTOR) will beat other races (classes), adapt to what they do, and repeat that ad nauseum.

MMOs have crappier ( for lack of a better word ) gameplay compared to other games ( especially SWTOR, which is basically WoW in terms of gameplay ), so you expect more of it.

Not sure, I didn't find HotS gameplay any less crappier than RotHC. Just spam Zerglings, hydralisks and roaches with debilitating upgrade to win (I did beat almost everything with that combo), or just lolsmash smaller armies with Kerrigan. However, it is possible we do not have the same deifinition of word "crappy".

And as for SWTOR being basically WoW, I could just as easily argument that WoW is just like Everquest and games that came before it. The model is good, players are used to it, and any other game that tried to deviate from it usually failed pretty hard.

You also expect more of it because it's an MMO that you pay a sub for. Yes, the sub is still a factor when it comes to expansion content/pricing, because the content needs to keep you entertained until they can release more.

However, to sum it up, yes, MMOs are different from non-MMOs, all I wanted to point out is that we got a huge load of content for 10 dollars, and that many other expansion packs often do not offer as much content for even higher prices.

Yes, SC2/CoD has multiplayer, but then again, SWTOR has PvP, which is basically the same thing, just apply strategies that will make sure your race (or class in SWTOR) will beat other races (classes), adapt to what they do, and repeat that ad nauseum.

Granted. However, in the case of SWTOR, and other MMOs, pvp is a smaller part of the game compared to mp in sc2, cod or cs:go. Hell, in cs:go and cod multiplayer IS the game ( I seriously question anyone that buys cod for the singleplayer, it's awful ), and in the case of sc2 it's probably more than 50 % of the game.

Not sure, I didn't find HotS gameplay any less crappier than RotHC. Just spam Zerglings, hydralisks and roaches with debilitating upgrade to win (I did beat almost everything with that combo), or just lolsmash smaller armies with Kerrigan. However, it is possible we do not have the same deifinition of word "crappy".

I think that's the case, yes.

And as for SWTOR being basically WoW, I could just as easily argument that WoW is just like Everquest and games that came before it. The model is good, players are used to it, and any other game that tried to deviate from it usually failed pretty hard.

I used WoW because it's the most known, however, if you want to go even earlier than that, it only helps my argument, since my point is that it's old and outdated.

Sub is not required for full enjoyment RotHC (minus SaV), you can only pay once and then play, just like in any game with expansion pack

Granted, but in that case we're talking about 20$, not 10$. Not to mention that the expansion still needs to be designed with subscribers in mind, since that's what Bioware seems to be aiming for, get as many ppl to subscribe as possible.

However, to sum it up, yes, MMOs are different from non-MMOs, all I wanted to point out is that we got a huge load of content for 10 dollars, and that many other expansion packs often do not offer as much content for even higher prices.

I agree with everything, except the " huge " part. Personally, I feel it was an appropriate amount of content. I don't feel like I got ripped off, but it doesn't feel like a great deal either.

IMO, I dont think we ever will. It took them an entire year to bring this to us. They just dont have the staffing to do a large expansion. If you see them start hiring a bunch of people then maybe but this is EA. They dont hire people, they fire them.

You're missing a huge point here. They spend at least a half a year moving to F2P which was a massive undertaking. Conditions have changed since then, so you cannot extrapolate that time going forward.

Or have their parent company provide more funding like Blizzard has.

I was talking about EA. EA is the one that funds/produces the game, not Bioware. Bioware Austin develops the game, but the majority of the funding comes from EA. Alot of the money Bioware makes in the end is going to pay their staff. Alot of people forget that part or never think about it, ie there's a group of people that are all getting to paid to work on the game and that money made from the game is used to pay their salaries.

So now explain this, why would EA put money into the game that they know they won't/can't make back? EA has all the statistics of how many people play the game, how many are subs vs F2P, what the Cartel Market is earning, etc. Those figures don't reflect a situation where EA is going to dump alot of money into the future of the game.

For instance let's say a full on expansion cost $50 million to produce. A million players would need to purchase the expansion at a price tag of $50 just for it to break even. Now imagine that TOR's player base is a million players. That would mean that even if all 100% of TOR's player base bought the expansion (which would never happen - WoW doesn't even have that success rate) it wouldn't be enough to turn a profit.

^That is the situation that TOR is in right now. It does not have the numbers it needs for someone like EA to pour a bunch of money into it. It's different when a game is in development because then it's all about potential, but after it releases you then have hard numbers that get used to weigh decisions.

Why would you think EA would pour more money into TOR when it never achieved what they wanted it to? Don't say you gotta spend money to make money because in their eyes they've already spent over 300 million on this game and were expecting it to make billions.

I was talking about EA. EA is the one that funds/produces the game, not Bioware. Bioware Austin develops the game, but the majority of the funding comes from EA. Alot of the money Bioware makes in the end is going to pay their staff. Alot of people forget that part or never think about it, ie there's a group of people that are all getting to paid to work on the game and that money made from the game is used to pay their salaries.

 

So now explain this, why would EA put money into the game that they know they won't/can't make back? EA has all the statistics of how many people play the game, how many are subs vs F2P, what the Cartel Market is earning, etc. Those figures don't reflect a situation where EA is going to dump alot of money into the future of the game.

 

For instance let's say a full on expansion cost $50 million to produce. A million players would need to purchase the expansion at a price tag of $50 just for it to break even. Now imagine that TOR's player base is a million players. That would mean that even if all 100% of TOR's player base bought the expansion (which would never happen - WoW doesn't even have that success rate) it wouldn't be enough to turn a profit.

 

^That is the situation that TOR is in right now. It does not have the numbers it needs for someone like EA to pour a bunch of money into it. It's different when a game is in development because then it's all about potential, but after it releases you then have hard numbers that get used to weigh decisions.

 

Why would you think EA would pour more money into TOR when it never achieved what they wanted it to? Don't say you gotta spend money to make money because in their eyes they've already spent over 300 million on this game and were expecting it to make billions.

A few things:

1) BioWare Austin is EA

2) Any business that figures their price to cost ratio in that way deserves to go out of business, I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that BioWare develop a $50 million expansion (which is more than almost every videogame ever developed). I'm assuming you arrived at that number based on speculation concerning SWTOR's development budget (which is speculation, that's never been publicly revealed) which EA has admitted got eaten up by the cost of the engine which is a sunk cost at this point, so I'm not sure where you got $50 million from.

3) Developing an expansion is a way of recouping those initial developments costs as long as it is budgeted for in the profit margin.

A few things:

 

1) BioWare Austin is EA

Yeah I know, what I meant was that Bioware proper isn't developing the game and that their parent company is one and the same, ie EA. As in there's no separation of Bioware Austin and EA.

2) Any business that figures their price to cost ratio in that way deserves to go out of business, I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that BioWare develop a $50 million expansion (which is more than almost every videogame ever developed). I'm assuming you arrived at that number based on speculation concerning SWTOR's development budget (which is speculation, that's never been publicly revealed) which EA has admitted got eaten up by the cost of the engine which is a sunk cost at this point, so I'm not sure where you got $50 million from.

I wasn't suggesting 50 million is what it would cost. It's just a go to number because it's easy to use when explaining things.

I know that 50 is on the high end of things. For instance Red Dead Redemption reportedly cost somewhere between 50 to 55 million to make. Not too surprising, but yeah it's on the rare end of video game budgets.

3) Developing an expansion is a way of recouping those initial developments costs as long as it is budgeted for in the profit margin.

It's true that sequels, expansions, updates, etc, are a good way of recouping costs given that all the heavy lifting as been done once the 1st game is finished and as result it makes something like a sequel (or whatever) much easier as long as you're using the same engine.

The big problem comes from what people want/expect out of an expansion, but more specifically it's the story stuff that presents the biggest challenge.

Not counting anything story related TOR probably easily could deliver the content that people are asking for in terms of an expansion, ie warzones, ops, flashpoints, space combat, races, etc, but the story elements or the biggest element/draw of the game is what takes the longest to develop and is the most expensive part of the process.

We know from the most recent GDC that it's not the voices that are expensive or problematic but the player choices that are the difficult/expensive part of the process. Now without making the stories completely linear I don't know how you'd design/develop around that or find a cheaper alternative. If that's the big sticking point for Bioware to develop more class stories, or story content in general, would players be able to sacrifice the element of choice in order to get more story content?

I imagine alot of people would complain about not having choices, but then again there's already alot of complaints about choices not effecting much of anything anyways. That's not really a surprise though given that this is an MMO, then again in most of Bioware's single player games the choices don't have a drastic or long lasting impact on the overall game. The overall game (because of it's size) has to have a good majority of elements that are set in stone like the locations you go to, the quests/missions you do, etc.

You'd be paying 50-60 for that type of expansion not 30-40 just because that was the WoW equivalent.

 

The problem is that TOR's numbers would need to be much higher to put out an expansion with that much content and only charge 30-40 for it.

 

As it stands right now they'd need to charge full price in order to turn a profit on the development costs of a such an expansion.

 

It's easy/easier for Blizzard to do the things they do with WoW when they're pulling in a billion dollars a year from subs alone.

 

Basically what it boils down to is that in order for them to put out (post-game) content on the same level that Blizzard does they would need to have a customer base like the one Blizzard does.

A real interesting thing here though. Despite what haters or biased gaming sites would say and try to have us believe, TOR was actually the first REAL MMO since WoW to actually have a shot at being a WoW killer (RIFT and GW2 were absolutes jokes in this respect). Or another way to put it, draw enough gamers away from other games to make it much, much bigger and substantially bigger than anything else, save perhaps WoW.

When TOR dropped, people were leaving WoW in droves, and not just casuals, we're talking people that had played WoW since '05, NO other MMO before had done that... The only thing that prevented those from staying with TOR was the fact that, aside from a literally smooth launch, the game was a complete disaster when it went live.

Everything from lack of basic gamer and guild tools, to systems not working properly, to a botched server setup, to not having enough endgame or mini-game/mini-system mechanics, to not having any contingency plans to deal with any of this, and an admin that seemed to have no clue what the game (and players) wanted or needed.

The game has caught up nicely in many respects with the last few patches, but TOR still has to show it can produce the content of a WoW or a RIFT, if they expect players to have faith in this MMO and commit to making a time investment to want to stick with the game.

The best possible thing TOR can do right now, is maintain their 6-8 week content schedule and to show the player base they are busy working on a future "meaty" expansion in order to build trust and to solidify their customer base.