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EQN dead, Wildstar dying...swtor?


Zhedzaban

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Do you remember vanilla WoW? The endless grind to 60? The insane raids? Oh yeah, let's get 40 people together. And the bugs, oh yeah, those were fun. So great.

 

People talking about how great vanilla WoW was only talk from nostalgia, but in reality it was not that great. They like to forget the serious problems it had. Having been in WoW since launch I take today's WoW over vanilla WoW any day.

 

WoW evolved massively and has become a highly polished, high quality product. Wrath was the best expansion game play wise. My favorite remains Mists, which was somewhat ruined by all the racist fools moaning about "kung fun panda". Blizzard messed up with Warlords, yeah, because in the end it was really all about garrisons and logging in just to manage your missions, which got dull pretty fast. Legion will hopefully liven things up again. WoW is a lot of things, but sterile it is not.

 

 

 

But overall, in those 11+ years of WoW, WoW set the standards of how to be successful. Sure, WoW lost a lot of subs, that is correct, but even in its current state all other subscriber based MMORPGs would murder for those sub numbers.

 

I bet even you're Consular Sage is cranky.

 

If you spend time doing activities you don't enjoy, you're going to have a bad time of it.

I never raided in WoW.

 

I had a great time.

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Do you remember vanilla WoW? The endless grind to 60? The insane raids? Oh yeah, let's get 40 people together. And the bugs, oh yeah, those were fun. So great.

 

People talking about how great vanilla WoW was only talk from nostalgia, but in reality it was not that great. They like to forget the serious problems it had. Having been in WoW since launch I take today's WoW over vanilla WoW any day.

 

WoW evolved massively and has become a highly polished, high quality product. Wrath was the best expansion game play wise. My favorite remains Mists, which was somewhat ruined by all the racist fools moaning about "kung fun panda". Blizzard messed up with Warlords, yeah, because in the end it was really all about garrisons and logging in just to manage your missions, which got dull pretty fast. Legion will hopefully liven things up again. WoW is a lot of things, but sterile it is not.

 

But overall, in those 11+ years of WoW, WoW set the standards of how to be successful. Sure, WoW lost a lot of subs, that is correct, but even in its current state all other subscriber based MMORPGs would murder for those sub numbers.

 

WoW highly polished, high quality product? Thank you, I enjoyed having a good laugh.

 

Blizzard's had problems from the beginning, server crashes, having to disable armor rendering in login servers to keep them from imploding, etc. Balancing is something Blizzard still can't get right. Think about it, how many other MMOs have done so many drastic class tweaks as WoW has? Remember when Blizzard said "Cataclysm is our biggest expansion yet" then everyone logged on and went "uh wait this is it?"

 

As far as "murder for WoW's sub numbers" you do know that there are other mmos that have no subs that dwarf WoW? Runescape has 200 MILLION registered users and that's still not even #1 in the world. So please spare us the fanboy-filtered posts mmkay? :D

 

As for SWTOR, the Star Wars brand will keep the game going ... for a while at least. When the Farce Awakens came out it actually spiked subs and players here, not sure if they all stayed though. Unless someone starts working on a new Star Wars theme MMO, this one isn't going anywhere.

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Honestly I think the films will save SWTOR from any kind of death, the next few years will keep SWTOR alive thanks to episodes 7-8-9 and the spin off comming this year rogue one.

 

It wont be necessarily a MAJOR influx of players but it may be enough to keep this thing going for quite a long time yet.

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Honestly I think the films will save SWTOR from any kind of death, the next few years will keep SWTOR alive thanks to episodes 7-8-9 and the spin off comming this year rogue one.

 

It wont be necessarily a MAJOR influx of players but it may be enough to keep this thing going for quite a long time yet.

If BW acts like the last time EP 7 was released any of the Star Wars movies will have none impact to the game.

 

IMHO they should've synchronised KotFE's release with the release of EP 7, and do a lot of movie based stuff instead of HK-55.

 

As for WOW, Blizzard broke it similar to any other MMO out there which got their first addon. It seems this is a thing in the MMO genre. You release a new addon and boosten up the level speed, ease up the classes, smothen the GUI, get rid of unprominent crafting and missions, etc. Just look at any MMO who had the first or several addons. The more you compare them to Vanilla, you'll realise that all are streamed out the same way. They are killing the longevity of their own product.

IMHO all of the deveopers did major errors assuming the playerbase wants to be dumb. Because all easening up shows only on thing "you are dumb and lazy. Here I'll make it easier for you. Now give me your money."

 

You know what the funny thing with Wildstar is?

While it was unique in its first months, indeed it lost some customers. Still it has character. The it got streamlined out and even more customer left for good. It is simple to recognise why: They took the "soul" of this game also. By now it is nothing special with an unsettling kind of gameplay. So, why would anyone play that game, which behaves to complicated instead any other MMO around?

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This is NOT a PvP centered game, and never has been. Sure it has some PvP features in it, but they are not the core of the game for most players AND certainly not for the studio. PvPers need to pursue MMOs where PvP is more central to the core of the game design... Period. then again.. there are very few MMOs where PvP is core to the game. Maaaaayyyybeee Camelot Unchained could fill the hunger, but with Jacobs running that train.... it will go sideways shortly after launch and PvPers will hound the dev team and reject it.

 

Best PvP game on the market still today, IMO, is Eve Online.

 

Black Desert Online end game is all PvP.

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Honestly I think the films will save SWTOR from any kind of death, the next few years will keep SWTOR alive thanks to episodes 7-8-9 and the spin off comming this year rogue one.

 

It wont be necessarily a MAJOR influx of players but it may be enough to keep this thing going for quite a long time yet.

 

Only if BW changes there stance on F2P and preferred players. Otherwise, no. They should have learned from all the rest. The new content should have been a B2P content for everyone, not just subs because it's not going to get them anywhere. Subbers want more. F2P and preferred want to play it. And very few give a damn about the HK reward items.

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WoW highly polished, high quality product? Thank you, I enjoyed having a good laugh.

 

 

As far as "murder for WoW's sub numbers" you do know that there are other mmos that have no subs that dwarf WoW? Runescape has 200 MILLION registered users and that's still not even #1 in the world. So please spare us the fanboy-filtered posts mmkay? :D

 

 

Registered user stats mean nothing. Battlestar Galactica Online boasted over 100 million registered users at some point. So turn down your fanboy filtered posts as well, mkay?

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Honestly I think the films will save SWTOR from any kind of death, the next few years will keep SWTOR alive thanks to episodes 7-8-9 and the spin off comming this year rogue one.

 

It wont be necessarily a MAJOR influx of players but it may be enough to keep this thing going for quite a long time yet.

 

Only reason I play this game a couple months a year still is because it's Star Wars. If it was some random generic MMO, I would have left for good when 3.0 dumbed the game down. 4.0 is stupidly easy and not even fun. My newest character hit 65 before finishing Chapter 2, and never came close to death once, even soloing Heroics.

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My newest character hit 65 before finishing Chapter 2, and never came close to death once, even soloing Heroics.

Either you're talking about low-level planet heroics, or your "solo" is referring to "with a companion out".

 

Once you start getting into late planet heroics (particularly the old H4s that were changed to H2+), running them completely solo with no companion out at all has plenty challenge. Take an encounter with 2 elites and 3 silvers in a single group, for example.

 

These fights are completely doable, of course, but it requires CC, using your DCDs, and really knowing your class well to burn everything down quickly. You're going to end a fight like this with low HP. Unless you're willing to wait 60-90 seconds in between each pull for ALL of your defensives to come off CD.

 

Mind you, I'm not disagreeing with your complaint that the game has become too easy -- just take the hyperbole down a notch.

Edited by Khevar
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Either you're talking about low-level planet heroics, or your "solo" is referring to "with a companion out".

 

Once you start getting into late planet heroics (particularly the old H4s that were changed to H2+), running them completely solo with no companion out at all has plenty challenge. Take an encounter with 2 elites and 3 silvers in a single group, for example.

 

These fights are completely doable, of course, but it requires CC, using your DCDs, and really knowing your class well to burn everything down quickly. You're going to end a fight like this with low HP. Unless you're willing to wait 60-90 seconds in between each pull for ALL of your defensives to come off CD.

 

Mind you, I'm not disagreeing with your complaint that the game has become too easy -- just take the hyperbole down a notch.

 

For that matter, it's not like you weren't horribly overlevelled for content pre-4.0 if you did everything on-planet, nor were even the H4's terribly hard at low level, as long as you brought your healer in gear appropriate to your level. They were just tedious. Other than some extremely random (fake) difficulty spikes (none of which were in Heroics), I don't recall anything truly difficult on the class storyline planets (class/planetary/side-quests or heroics). For the very few heroics I didn't complete before leaving the planet (in Nar Shadaa's bonus series area), I came back a few levels later on and facerolled because the opponents could literally not touch me. I don't get this "pre-4.0 was hard" nostalgia; it really wasn't, because you could always pick up a level or two, get out of the band at which the enemies could even touch you, and come back and lay waste.

 

Not saying that post-4.0 isn't easier (it is), but it's not that much easier, and except is some very extreme circumstances, you can be hurt, and if you work hard enough at it, hurt pretty badly

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For that matter, it's not like you weren't horribly overlevelled for content pre-4.0 if you did everything on-planet, nor were even the H4's terribly hard at low level, as long as you brought your healer in gear appropriate to your level. They were just tedious. Other than some extremely random (fake) difficulty spikes (none of which were in Heroics), I don't recall anything truly difficult on the class storyline planets (class/planetary/side-quests or heroics). For the very few heroics I didn't complete before leaving the planet (in Nar Shadaa's bonus series area), I came back a few levels later on and facerolled because the opponents could literally not touch me. I don't get this "pre-4.0 was hard" nostalgia; it really wasn't, because you could always pick up a level or two, get out of the band at which the enemies could even touch you, and come back and lay waste.

 

Not saying that post-4.0 isn't easier (it is), but it's not that much easier, and except is some very extreme circumstances, you can be hurt, and if you work hard enough at it, hurt pretty badly

 

Indeed -- the idea that pre-4.0 was some sort of "hard content utopia" can only be based on trying to speed through the content so fast that your characters were underleveled and undergeared, and so were your companions. If you did even some of the side missions to go with the class and planetary arcs, you'd be out in front of the level range, and if you just upgraded every 4 or 6 levels, there was very little you couldn't do on each world.

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I don't get this "pre-4.0 was hard" nostalgia; it really wasn't, because you could always pick up a level or two, get out of the band at which the enemies could even touch you, and come back and lay waste.

I agree completely.

 

When 1.2 added legacy +presence boosts, the more you played the game, the easier it got (and not just due to familiarity with game mechanics). Unless you were a brand-new player (both to this game and to MMOs in general) it required somewhat deliberate playstyle choices by the player to maintain any degree of challenge (e.g. underleveled, don't upgrade gear, don't use a companion, etc).

 

That said, I can say with certainty that combat vs mobs has absolutely been tuned down remarkably. I remember the very first elite mob I ever encountered in the game (4 years ago now) was on Ord Mantell -- I had just gotten Corso, and both of us were quickly creamed. Res at med center, bought some new gear, and tried again and died. Third try I finally killed him with Corso on the ground and me at 2% health. :eek:

 

Fast forward to 4.0 -- I created a toon on a new server with no legacy, ran into that very same elite mob, and killed him completely solo, with about 70% of my health remaining.

 

Personally, I rather enjoyed the earlier experience -- I like the idea of seeing a powerful enemy mob and being worried. But it's apparent not enough people like it that way so it was changed.

Edited by Khevar
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SWTOR will likely live longer than most of us imagine, many of us just won't really be playing it or we will only subscribe a few times a year. I'll explain why I believe this.

 

They, Bioware, have placed their focus on what they do best, story. They have dedicated themselves to "seasons" of content and right now we are in Season 1 of KotFE with Season 2 being hinted at. Bioware has stated there will be no new Op's during KotFE.

 

My question is, are you talking for both seasons or just season 1?

 

If it is just season 1 then you may see some of those who left come back to finish the story, experience the new Op and other group content and then take off back to another game once they have gotten their fill of SWTOR. It is what it is an that is the nature of the gaming market right now.

 

Bioware is doing what they think they need to do to keep SWTOR rolling on. Personally I think it will be shut down by the time Episode 8 hits theater if not Christmas of 2017, but I might be surprised. I just don't see them doing enough to encourage group play. Although many players prefer solo play these days there are still plenty of us out there looking for group.

Edited by RiVaN_
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People tend to forget SWTOR is a F2P model with a strong IG-shop. Actually it is the most profitable of the entire genre. That means in other words, SWTOR billing design is optimised exaclty for the purpose of compensating temporal player loss. The major error people do is watching at each and every month and how many monthly fee customers log in the game. For a F2P model this is absolutely not important, but the entire year the whole income the game can make. This devided by 12 is the actual monthly profit. And by that numbers SWTOR is still doing very good. If I remember correct SWTOR has the second best income of the entire MMO genre. Of course WOW is the primus, and there is a huge gap of income between WOW and the second best, SWTOR, but nevertheless SWTOR is still earning a heck of money. As long as it stays that way BW has no reson to change any subscription model or of the F2P design it is actual using.

 

With that in mind, SWTOR will go on as long as it can. This mean, as long as it remain profitable and as long BW can use the Star Wars franchise.

 

What happened back then with SWG? There were exactly those 2 elements that put it down. First of all Lucas Arst didn't want to rent their brand to SOE anylonger. Second, the game wasn't quite lucrative enough. Beside that BioWare had proven themself with KotoR and the new overall deal with EA was anyway at bay. So SWG was shut down.

Will there be ever a new SWG? Not as long as another producer owns the rights of Star Wars.

 

What happened to EQN? Actually similar reasons different timeline. The brand was sold from SOE. The new owner shut it piece by piece down, for reasons unknown by me. I hardly belive the argument EQN asn't profitable, because there is no profitable game in the alpha stadium. Only if the developer can bring it to gold it can be profitable. But until then is is only a hole for money. Shuting it down means there is absolute no profit for the owner.

 

WildStar. As soon as the gamedesign was altered to be more mainstream friendly it began to die. Why? Because the entire combat design is not what most people expect in a MMO. IMHO it is still a helluva fighting system which is the most intense I've ever played into a MMO. In Wildstar I never had the feeling my alt got down for resons I couldn't understand but always because of my misreaction. Kinda "Dark Souls light". But that is the main problem! Most MMO players want to play a game for longer durations. We don't want to handle the stress on an on and on, but only for a short amount of time. Thatfore WildStar was designed only for a special kind of people. As soon as Carbine threw it in their faces by changing Wildstar more casualfriendly those people began to leave as well. And here we are now.

 

Taking the whole circle,

those arguments can kill any MMO. You do it to fast and to easy, people will do more content, but will definetely get bored. By that the players are robbed of the long time experience. "Don't you wanna be in short time a lvl 65?" - Well that's the thing, actually in an MMO endgamecontent is always short and repeditive. As sooner you get there, as sooner you'll get bored. And what is the costomer reaction? Of course taking a break for a while or leving for good. What does this mean for a MMO? Naturally less income, less playerbase.

 

I never understood why SWTOR's level phase has been shortened by this amount? By me it was fine, paired with those XP Packs and the lvl60 token everyone could have the levelingspeed we want. The secondary bad developement was the now boken crafting through the fast leveling span. By all means, IMHO BioWare broke 2 of the main spires of the game and called it an improvement. Well it's not! It's weapongrade Ballonium. And the thing that bothering me is, the alternative could have worked quite easy and would be cheaper, since everything is already in the game. By lowering the standard leveling speed those two spires would be working again.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Well yea I do agree so far MMO system is not getting alot of traction like how World of Warcraft did so alot of people are going from game to game. The Development team did a good job on the MMO game even though theirs bugs and some other bump on the road but if the game has to end eventually I am sure they will come up with a new Star Wars Old Republic RPG game They have good story in them so if they game dose dye I will look forward to their next Star Wars RPG game from Bioware
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With that in mind, SWTOR will go on as long as it can. This mean, as long as it remain profitable and as long BW can use the Star Wars franchise.

 

 

It'll go until the IP license expires in a few years. Maybe there's an option to renew in the contract, that'd be nice.

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BW/EA only has to do one thing too make this game explode with people, in fact if they did this they would need the Ark to float in the waves of people wanting to play....

 

Get rid if WZ passes and open up WZ to unlimited access to F2P and Prefurred. It's the old saying if you can get them in the gate and keep them their, more likely people would be eager to spend money... If you want to attract the Bee's you need to offer a little honey...

 

And this game has by far the best queued PvP out their imo! :)

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BW/EA only has to do one thing too make this game explode with people, in fact if they did this they would need the Ark to float in the waves of people wanting to play....

 

Get rid if WZ passes and open up WZ to unlimited access to F2P and Prefurred. It's the old saying if you can get them in the gate and keep them their, more likely people would be eager to spend money... If you want to attract the Bee's you need to offer a little honey...

 

And this game has by far the best queued PvP out their imo! :)

 

Spreading this story across the forums to push this PVP agenda does not support your PVP agenda, but rather undermines it. New players are attracted to Star Wars because it's Star Wars, not because of any one particular feature.

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BW/EA only has to do one thing too make this game explode with people, in fact if they did this they would need the Ark to float in the waves of people wanting to play....

 

Get rid if WZ passes and open up WZ to unlimited access to F2P and Prefurred. It's the old saying if you can get them in the gate and keep them their, more likely people would be eager to spend money... If you want to attract the Bee's you need to offer a little honey...

 

And this game has by far the best queued PvP out their imo! :)

 

I saw your other post on this, and honestly it just wrong. if you give F2P full WZ access then PvP players in general would have no reason to sub, once they used ingame credits to unlock the bars and equipment they'd need. BW would lose subs because of this.

 

Not to mention this games PvP has always been a side mini game (just like GSF which is what I do most of the time). The main reason people join this game is because it's a SW MMO. PvP may be part of the reason, but they'll sub for more then just the PvP aspect.

 

The F2P model is perfect the way it is. People get to try the game, see if they like it, and sub so they get full access to it.

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BW/EA only has to do one thing too make this game explode with people, in fact if they did this they would need the Ark to float in the waves of people wanting to play....

 

Get rid if WZ passes and open up WZ to unlimited access to F2P and Prefurred. It's the old saying if you can get them in the gate and keep them their, more likely people would be eager to spend money... If you want to attract the Bee's you need to offer a little honey...

 

And this game has by far the best queued PvP out their imo! :)

...the what?! We do talk about the same game, do we?;)

 

BioWare does not show any big interest in fixing the PVP problem. SWTOR is the most PVP unpractical MMO I've ever played. The error lies in the entire game design. SWTOR is not fit for PVP and the support for this is almost nonexistential. Thatfore the entire PVP community is dying piece by piece out in here. Just look at the so called PVP servers. What is the real difference between those and the rest? At most 10% of the areas as FFA PVP suitable. That's no PVP at all! The same stuff you can get also in PVE servers if you activate your PVP mode. There is no PVP advantage and those servers do not acomodate natural PVP behavior.

 

Giving F2Players free entrance to the Warzones won't chage a thing! The PVP is dying with and without in here simply because it is not enough for PVPlayers just to queue in line for the next match. If they want to do ONLY this, they have a lot of other way better options out there beside SWTOR.

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