Just saw this on CVG.

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/343845/ea-poor-battlefield-3-old-republic-performance-result-in-layoffs/

 

"and Star Wars: The Old Republic, which received similar treatment and has supposedly already seen subscription numbers decline, are big contributing factors to the cuts."

 

http://startupgrind.com/2012/04/exclusive-electronic-arts-set-to-lay-off-500-employees/

This one is a bit more in depth.

 

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-02-02/markets/31029084_1_ea-shares-earnings-report-unit-sales

This seems to be more focused on the stock from EA and seems to lean both ways.

 

It seems EA have had a poor financial year due to BF3 and SWTOR.

 

I have found this on several other sites, it seems to be reliable.

 

I don't want to start a flame war or an "I told you so" thread. Instead, I was wondering what people would like to see to maybe improve the player base.

I am one of the people that is on the fence, I have around 90 days or so left on my sub but am, as of yet, not convinced to renew it.

Following the new "world event" (which I though was good mostly) maybe this is the way forward?

So lets hear it, what would it take (for those that aren't sure or maybe have already cancelled) to bring you back?

For those that are already commited, what more things would you like improved or added?

 

Lets try and keep it on track and pleasant ok?

 

Ok, weigh in.

Because the previous thread has exceeded our normal threshold for thread length, we've started this new thread for the community to discuss the topic.

 

As always, we ask that the community keep the following things on mind when responding:

 

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2. No insults, name calling, or personal attacks
    
   
3. Please stay on topic. Discussion should center around Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ and not other games.
    
   
4. Please express your opinion and thoughts in a constructive, respectful manner.
    
   
5. If someone violates the Rules of Conduct, please flag it instead of replying to it.
    
   
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Thank you!

I just want to remind everyone if you read the article this is all simply conjecture in a gaming blog. EA denies laying anyone off. When a big project is being developed you hire additional staff. Now that the staff are no longer needed you technically "layoff" those people. In reality they still have a job and are probably shuffled into another dept.

 

Also here is the original article they quote:

 

http://startupgrind.com/2012/04/exclusive-electronic-arts-set-to-lay-off-500-employees/

 

Note the only mention of swtor anywhere in this article is this:

 

After a brief resurgence, EA has had a rough year with Star Wars not matching lofty internal expectations, an expensive Popcap acquisition, a CFO departure, and being recently named the worst company in America.

 

Nowhere does it mention any decline in subscriptions but it didnt meet some "lofty" goal EA had set for itself (whatever that means).

Edited April 26, 2012 by Leggomy

Quote: Originally Posted by Kthx

 

1. BioWare fully understands that the forums represent a vocal minority, not the average player that is the bread and butter of their business.

 

2. BioWare has actual statistics on subscriptions and concurrent players, and can react to what is actually happening as opposed to what you perceive is happening.

 

3. Many in the rest of the community are fairly eager to see the MMO-of-the-Day crowd move on, so you are not likely to see a community outcry either.

 

1. Suppostion much like other 'facts'.

2. Or are unable to at this time

3. 'Many' probably don't care either way....people either play or leave.

 

' the average player that is the bread and butter of their business'........hmmm

Edited April 26, 2012 by Sanxxx

So if someone asks what exactly your issue is you put them on ignore? smh

 

Some people even do it just because they were incorrect.

 

FPS issues are 99.9% the users fault. If you have a top end system and cannot get good fps then it snot bioware's fault. I get 30-40 in fleet and 60 everywhere else and my system is far from high end. Bioware cannot come to your house and configure your pc to run properly with swtor. Most people arent having any issues so that alone should tell you something.

 

You obviously never played on Ilum, actually big PvE raids can be a problem too.

 

SWTORs performance isn't terrible, but it struggles badly in some zones and certainly with bigger battles and it needs to be better optimised for such.

 

It's one of the things that SWTOR needs to have fixed to help bring people back.

All businesses lose and gain customers consistently. It doesn't mean they are going under or its all doom and gloom. Some people came here with ridiculously high expectations and didn't participate in the beta so had no idea what they were getting into. The rumor mill that started a long time ago caused the hype machine to overload so people are up in arms about stuff that was never mentioned to be here upon release.

 

I'd say the numbers are great for still what is a brand new MMO. People seem to forget this game isn't even 6 months old yet, and are already going around acting like it must be perfect in all aspects of development. The WoW people come here and try to make comparisons to a 7 year old game that had years of fixes and changes plus expansions that added content..

 

I'm here for the long haul, I love SWTOR and although there is much room for improvements I will stick it out and pay my $15 a month to see how things end up later down the road.

If you have a GTX680, an i5 2500k @ 4.0+ and say that you're only getting 17 FPS in Warfronts, I will just go ahead and say that you're doing something wrong with your build.

 

Sorry, but that computer will run this game flawlessly, regardless of what you think.

I really think the whole "<insert game here> is going to blow SWTOR out of the water!" conversation is amusing. If you are disappointed in this game, well, you should recall how it was suppose to blow all the competition out of the water too. It was suppose to be the elusive WoW killer! Ooh. And beta testers played it, loved it, and begged to get into early access as soon as possible.

 

If you are dissatisfied with SWTOR then clearly it didn't blow all competition out of the water for you. If you are satisfied with it, then maybe it did do that for you. It is all subjective. Tera, D3, GW2, TSW, they're going to be in the same boat. SWTOR fills a niche so it will continue to grow and maintain a player base. The same can be said for all the others.

 

If you don't like the game and you're clamoring for another, fine, but lets not pretend any of these games are going to be SWTOR killers.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Dolcia

If you have a GTX680, an i5 2500k @ 4.0+ and say that you're only getting 17 FPS in Warfronts, I will just go ahead and say that you're doing something wrong with your build.

 

Sorry, but that computer will run this game flawlessly, regardless of what you think.

 

Probably everywhere except a 50 v 50 in ILUM which was, and would be, a slideshow, thankfully ILUM PvP no longer exists so it's not a problem anymore.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Sanxxx

I really think the whole "<insert game here> is going to blow SWTOR out of the water!" conversation is amusing. If you are disappointed in this game, well, you should recall how it was suppose to blow all the competition out of the water too. It was suppose to be the elusive WoW killer! Ooh. And beta testers played it, loved it, and begged to get into early access as soon as possible.

 

If you are dissatisfied with SWTOR then clearly it didn't blow all competition out of the water for you. If you are satisfied with it, then maybe it did do that for you. It is all subjective. Tera, D3, GW2, TSW, they're going to be in the same boat. SWTOR fills a niche so it will continue to grow and maintain a player base. The same can be said for all the others.

 

If you don't like the game and you're clamoring for another, fine, but lets not pretend any of these games are going to be SWTOR killers.

 

Everyone is always after that next game. That next one will be the perfect one for me I just KNOW it. It was SWTOR for these same people before it came out. They will post the same thing on GW2 website. Its always about chasing that high but never catching it.

If you have a GTX680, an i5 2500k @ 4.0+ and say that you're only getting 17 FPS in Warfronts, I will just go ahead and say that you're doing something wrong with your build.

 

Sorry, but that computer will run this game flawlessly, regardless of what you think.

 

Warfronts as in 100 people infront of you in Ilum

 

or

 

Warfronts as in WARZONES.

 

Check this out:

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29187962/Pictures/jpgs/gg%20%282%29.png

 

Nope, it's not my fault.

 

Please explain to my why;

 

Every other game out there in this world is working as intended except SWTOR.

 

No, my computer is not at fault and you should stop defending Bioware or even saying it's my fault when it's not.

 

I think people have already made it clear in "Horrid FPS" thread that even people who are computer technicians can tell if there's a game that's corrupt or if it's their own PC.

 

Stop this nonsense.

 

Bioware screwed up and they don't want to admit it, therefore I'm not giving a damn penny to a lousy company that doesn't care about its customers.

Everyone is always after that next game. That next one will be the perfect one for me I just KNOW it. It was SWTOR for these same people before it came out. They will post the same thing on GW2 website. Its always about chasing that high but never catching it.

 

People who play MMO's seem to be the most over dramatic and demanding players I've ever gamed with. Nothing is ever good enough and that "next game" is always going to be "this games" killer.. Also people never seem to play more than one MMO at a time therefore they always feel like they must defend "their" game of choice. GW2 may not be as such, due to the no monthly fee, but still.. I really hate where the gaming community has gone in recent times, people always out to hate on a game that doesn't have everything handed to them just the way they want.

People who play MMO's seem to be the most over dramatic and demanding players I've ever gamed with. Nothing is ever good enough and that "next game" is always going to be "this games" killer.. Also people never seem to play more than one MMO at a time therefore they always feel like they must defend "their" game of choice. GW2 may not be as such, due to the no monthly fee, but still.. I really hate where the gaming community has gone in recent times, people always out to hate on a game that doesn't have everything handed to them just the way they want.

 

What else are they going to do? Go on a date or something?

People who play MMO's seem to be the most over dramatic and demanding players I've ever gamed with. Nothing is ever good enough and that "next game" is always going to be "this games" killer.. Also people never seem to play more than one MMO at a time therefore they always feel like they must defend "their" game of choice. GW2 may not be as such, due to the no monthly fee, but still.. I really hate where the gaming community has gone in recent times, people always out to hate on a game that doesn't have everything handed to them just the way they want.

 

You forgot their tendency to present their perceptions of things as facts. But yes, I agree ... there is far too great an attitude of entitlement in the MMO community. It gets pretty political.

 

"The voice of the people? There is no such thing. You got 240 million voices all yelling for something different. The only thing you all seem to agree on is you don't want higher taxes. The voice of the people, my fanny." - Jack Lemmon in My Fellow Americans

 

Replace taxes with queue times and it is fitting, no?

People who play MMO's seem to be the most over dramatic and demanding players I've ever gamed with. Nothing is ever good enough and that "next game" is always going to be "this games" killer.. Also people never seem to play more than one MMO at a time therefore they always feel like they must defend "their" game of choice. GW2 may not be as such, due to the no monthly fee, but still.. I really hate where the gaming community has gone in recent times, people always out to hate on a game that doesn't have everything handed to them just the way they want.

 

All correct. Gamers jump around, but usually only if there is something new to jump to. It just so happens that in the next few months there a a number of choices coming along be it D2, GW2, Tera , TSW or Pandaland.. This number of choices is such a short period happens rarely if at all,

 

Unless you find a new market, they will pull from existing games. If there are new players to MMOs then they are unlikely to pay for one with 'bad press' be that SWTOR or any of the above.

All correct. Gamers jump around, but usually only if there is something new to jump to. It just so happens that in the next few months there a a number of choices coming along be it D2, GW2, Tera , TSW or Pandaland.. This number of choices is such a short period happens rarely if at all,

 

Unless you find a new market, they will pull from existing games. If there are new players to MMOs then they are unlikely to pay for one with 'bad press' be that SWTOR or any of the above.

 

There are tons of people playing SWTOR who never played a MMO before. They play it because it is star wars.

All correct. Gamers jump around, but usually only if there is something new to jump to. It just so happens that in the next few months there a a number of choices coming along be it D2, GW2, Tera , TSW or Pandaland.. This number of choices is such a short period happens rarely if at all,

 

Unless you find a new market, they will pull from existing games. If there are new players to MMOs then they are unlikely to pay for one with 'bad press' be that SWTOR or any of the above.

 

SWTOR has an advantage in the fact that it pulls from a pre-existing fan base that is decades old. There are people who play this game not because they're game fans but, rather, Star Wars fans. It is also one of few sci-fi games on the market right now. Like I said, it fills a niche. And it will maintain a player base because of that.

SWTOR has an advantage in the fact that it pulls from a pre-existing fan base that is decades old. There are people who play this game not because they're game fans but, rather, Star Wars fans. It is also one of few sci-fi games on the market right now. Like I said, it fills a niche. And it will maintain a player base because of that.

 

I fit that description. Would not seriously consider paying for an MMO with any other genre - especially one involving the Middle Earth/LoTR/D&D type of setting.

Edited April 26, 2012 by GreySix

I don't think anyone is saying its all doom and gloom but before TORs release people were shouting 'woot woot woot TOR its going to be the WOW killer!'

 

Nobody is shouting that any more, TOR is sitting very very pretty at somewhere betweem 1.25 million and 1.75 million subs which is very good. Obviously the idea that they may have lost 500k players in 4 months or so might be alarming to EA investors who had vissions of 11 million subs after a few years so losing 500k subs is not heading in the right direction to the WOW dreams all investors have.

 

Hindsight is always 20/20 so its easy to say ahh you did this wrong but to look back and say we got everything spot on would also be crazy. So there must be things that the dev team think this worked out right but this hasn't been recieved as well as we had hoped or that could have gone better.

 

Now for me there are some things that can be worked on. Firstly more Species choice that is different unique and adds to the Star Wars Universe. Saying I wouldn't understand the story is I was a Gran is bizzare, there are enough plot holes that having three eyes would hardly register. Being betrayed by a companion with 10k affection or having a darkside JC who sacrifices his life force to heal people he wouldn't are far biggest hurdles to get over.

 

Next is the much vaunted story, where it needs to have more of an effect. If I have done all the bonus series of quests when I come to that final show down they should appear and possibly make it so I don't have to lift a finger in the end. If I have spent an extra 100 hours doing side quests and the like it should have an effect on the game and not be completely ingnored. I will take a simple example from the SW story early stage, you can aid another apprentice by giving him your tables and then going back and getting more, doubling the length of the quest. He then appears later, great this is what I am talking about. Only his appearance makes no difference to the coming fight. I have doubled the length of a quest for nothing. And this is constant all through the game you help tons of people Darths and Lords and Generals and Jedi through the bonus and side quests. All of whom quickly forget your name and words of support the moment you finish talking to them.

 

If I play through the basic game rushing to the end I should get story progression A, B, C etc. But if I play through the bonus content, the companion content, side quests etc it should be A1, A2, B, C1, C2, D. It should all mess together adding various elements to the game much as Mass Effect or Skyrim do.

 

Finally there should be far great responses from the devs. We have all seen it, once a game starts doing badly the community team come on and say we realise we haven't been communicating well enough we are going to start more open communications with the players. Only by then its too little too late and people have moved on and know its far too late for anything to really get done as the lay offs axe is being swung by the parent company and server merges are imminent. This thread has gotten a number of yellow name restarts cause of the large number of posts yet no one from the dev or community team seems to have paid it any attention. I would suspect the developlemt team will continue to write off any community comments as vocal minority and keep going on their own way cause they are right and the players are wrong. Until things nose dive into disaster and then we get comments like we would love to add more species but we don't have the design team to do the art any more, or we would love to make stories more impactful but the entire writing stuff has been let go and we can't afford more VO so all your quests from now on will be dailies or mission terminal quests.

One outlining issue is that the playerbase has been drastically split up. We have the MMORPG crowd and the onling gaming crowd. Two very different types of players. Another factor that a lot of the new players to MMORPG's seem to be missing is that the games are designed for the journey, not the destination. MMORPG's are not your typical online game where it's rush in, kill everything and look at score to flex epeen. These are roleplaying games and companies try very hard to immerse the players into their world which is something the CoD/PvP crowd will never understand.

SWTOR has an advantage in the fact that it pulls from a pre-existing fan base that is decades old. There are people who play this game not because they're game fans but, rather, Star Wars fans. It is also one of few sci-fi games on the market right now. Like I said, it fills a niche. And it will maintain a player base because of that.

 

It's bound to maintain some population.

 

SWG did for 10 years.

 

The question is how much population is Bioware aiming at.

One outlining issue is that the playerbase has been drastically split up. We have the MMORPG crowd and the onling gaming crowd. Two very different types of players. Another factor that a lot of the new players to MMORPG's seem to be missing is that the games are designed for the journey, not the destination. MMORPG's are not your typical online game where it's rush in, kill everything and look at score to flex epeen. These are roleplaying games and companies try very hard to immerse the players into their world which is something the CoD/PvP crowd will never understand.

 

Concur, and then there are the unwarranted attacks by one form of gamer upon the other.

 

Challenge: "You're not a real MMO player unless you _______"

 

Response: "Hey numbnuts, I'm playing this game during my free time for enjoyment - not to compete with some kid in a basement with too much time on his hands."

FPS issues are 99.9% the users fault. If you have a top end system and cannot get good fps then it snot bioware's fault. I get 30-40 in fleet and 60 everywhere else and my system is far from high end. Bioware cannot come to your house and configure your pc to run properly with swtor. Most people arent having any issues so that alone should tell you something.

 

Agreed. I run a GTS250 SLI on 8GB RAM and an Intel Core2 Duo E8400, and have never seen less than 24fps, even in a 24-man, and on the Fleet.

It's bound to maintain some population.

 

SWG did for 10 years.

 

The question is how much population is Bioware aiming at.

 

Does it matter? After the initial box sales and subs for the past few months they have made more than enough money to stay afloat. This game can and will thrive on just a few hundred thousand players.

"The stock lately has been trading close to a 52-week low, as it continues to struggle through a transition to switch more of its business to digital distribution and away from the traditional shrink-wrapped console game market."~Forbes.

 

Yeah EA is switching things up, this why the lay-offs and other things OP talked about. Read a little beyond questionable sources, kids.