For those who don't want to read the articles: What it comes down to is that SWTOR's subscriptions are in drastic decline and they are considering making it free to play THIS soon after release (it came out in December 2011). WOW has like 10 million subscribers while SWTOR only had like 1.7 and now has about 1.3 million. Every day if I go online I see that most of the servers have a very light population. In my experience you rarely EVER see another player. One who has played the game will usually admit that it has many things that are much better than what WOW offers, so why is it doing so crap?
Am I the only one who is aware of the fact that SWTOR is made available in only TWO CONTINENTS? While WOW is available internationally ?
Areas where SWTOR is available: North America and Europe (Some countries).
Areas where their competitor's games (including wow) are available: North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, South America and also 20 countries of Europe that SWTOR does not cover.
I personally had to import the game from amazon, which in total cost about $150 for the standard edition. The alternative was to download the digital version and buy the cd key online but you can't because Origin is also locking other countries out and you need to go through proxies and shit which I always thought criminals did to steal money but in this case you need to do it to GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY. It's like EA seriously doesn't want your fucking money.
Then I had to wait 4 months for it NOT to arrive. Then I had to wait as they send another one, it arrived last week from today. I installed it but couldn't update until I had a subscription. "Hmmmm, I'm new at this subscription thing but won't the time used for updating still count as play time and just waste subscription time? Can't I update FIRST and THEN start a subscription to avoid wasting valuable and expensive play time? Nah I'm sure the game time only starts to count down when you can actually play the game, EA aren't such big dicks." So I linked my cd-key to my SWTOR account. EA wants your credit card details too. "Eeerm, okay. I'm going to need to use my dad's because I can't use mine for certain reasons but he's over seas so I'll just wait for him to come back next week. I'll just let the game update in the mean time".
What happens:
The game cannot update. EA HAS To have my credit card details. The days remaining for my subscription are decreasing regardless of the fact that I have not given them my credit card details and cannot play or update."I am sitting here, being charged for a game I am deliberately being prevented from playing even though the first month is free and shouldn't need any credit card details, didn't EA win an award for practices like this? Oh yeah, it was the Golden poo award".
Personally I am not surprised at all that this game isn't doing well. It's a shame too, Bioware did a pretty good job with the game, it's EA's decisions that are leaving it worse off. I guess this is why many people thought that EA would really screw up bioware now that they own them.
On a different note, yes the subscription system is an abomination. Free to play would be much better and bring in many customers. Buy to play would be ideal but that won't return a profit.
So forum, wouldn't it be ideal for SWTOR if EA sold it internationally so it can ACTUALLY COMPETE against other mmos? I mean look at the subscribers it has from merely two countries, think of the many more the rest has to offer. And is it not true that the f2p system would make the game more approachable to new players?
Eventually my dad showed up and activated the account with his credit card and EA charged him for a dollar (to ping him or something I was told by someone on the forums). Luckily the game updates quickly and I only lost ONE week of subscription time.
It's no surprise that with service like this, people severely dislike EA. This subscription model needs to be ripped out and cast aside.
Wow I didn't even know they had such a shitty setup, I guess my mate was too embarrassed to tell me the full story after I warned him about this game for so long.
Anyway that is quite the hilarious read and I fucking called this MMO failing like all others the moment they announced it, WoW still owns that market and you just can't beat them with a game almost as good.
Mr.K.: Wow I didn't even know they had such a shitty setup, I guess my mate was too embarrassed to tell me the full story after I warned him about this game for so long.
Anyway that is quite the hilarious read and I fucking called this MMO failing like all others the moment they announced it, WoW still owns that market and you just can't beat them with a game almost as good.
Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
Mr.K.: Wow I didn't even know they had such a shitty setup, I guess my mate was too embarrassed to tell me the full story after I warned him about this game for so long.
Anyway that is quite the hilarious read and I fucking called this MMO failing like all others the moment they announced it, WoW still owns that market and you just can't beat them with a game almost as good.
Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
At this point, I find WoW to just e totally unfun to play. However, I think WoW has kept it's subscribers by being so big. "Why would I play some Star Wars game when all my friends are playing WoW?"
Wait, it came out in December 2012? Isn't it still June? Are you from the future or something? If so, when are they releasing Half-Life 3?
Teasing aside, EA should have seen the population shrinkage coming. After the developers of Kingdoms of Amalur were lost to a failed MMORPG project, i really have to ask: why even try to make pay to play MMORPGs anymore?
Mr.K.: Wow I didn't even know they had such a shitty setup, I guess my mate was too embarrassed to tell me the full story after I warned him about this game for so long.
Anyway that is quite the hilarious read and I fucking called this MMO failing like all others the moment they announced it, WoW still owns that market and you just can't beat them with a game almost as good.
Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
At this point, I find WoW to just e totally unfun to play. However, I think WoW has kept it's subscribers by being so big. "Why would I play some Star Wars game when all my friends are playing WoW?"
So it's really more about the amount of players playing it? I found wow unfun too but the things that I thought the game needed are right there in SWTOR. The combat is just much better to me, you are actually in duels with beautiful choreography, blade meeting blade, shifts and changes and adaptations in motion as the blades meet in different places from the counter attacks you haven't even initiated, it is art. Wow's combat felt kind of mindless, dragon age was literally the same stabbing motion over and over and over again, I thought SWTOR did it properly.
For those who don't want to read the articles: What it comes down to is that SWTOR's subscriptions are in drastic decline and they are considering making it free to play THIS soon after release (it came out in December 2012).
Unless you have a time machine, I think you meant 2011.
Edit: Fucking Ninja's
And it's news like this that makes me think Bethesda is making a mistake by trying to make an MMO. So many people have tried and failed, why risk it when you could just spend that time on a console game that will do well
Anti Nudist Cupcake: Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
The benefit you get from being The Big Dog is that you have the most people playing. I still know people playing WoW, people that I like. I do not know anyone that I like who is currently playing Rift, TOR or any other pretender to the crown.
Each one that comes out, like TSW, dozens of people I know clamor about how amazing and fantastic it is, then when half of them are done in the first two months, and 40-50% of the remaining half melt away.
Pyramid Head: Wait, it came out in December 2012? Isn't it still June? Are you from the future or something? If so, when are they releasing Half-Life 3?
I installed it but couldn't update until I had a subscription. "Hmmmm, I'm new at this subscription thing but won't the time used for updating still count as play time and just waste subscription time? Can't I update FIRST and THEN start a subscription to avoid wasting valuable and expensive play time? Nah I'm sure the game time only starts to count down when you can actually play the game, EA aren't such big dicks." So I linked my cd-key to my SWTOR account. EA wants your credit card details too. "Eeerm, okay. I'm going to need to use my dad's because I can't use mine for certain reasons but he's over seas so I'll just wait for him to come back next week. I'll just let the game update in the mean time".
What happens:
The game cannot update. EA HAS To have my credit card details. The days remaining for my subscription are decreasing regardless of the fact that I have not given them my credit card details and cannot play or update.
That's the same with all MMO's. It's pretty lame but not individual to SWTOR or EA.
Most MMO's require you to pay extra or link your account to a credit card before you can start playing. Despite getting a free month with the game. I don't have a credit card and had to wait a week before I could get my hands on a time card and could finally start playing. So I also lost time.
Then again, after a month my interest waned and I ended up wasting two months anyway. Such a shame. Honestly the game isn't too bad, I had quite a bit of fun with it, until I got to Tatooine that is. I swear if I have to see that planet in ANY Star Wars game ever again...
I installed it but couldn't update until I had a subscription. "Hmmmm, I'm new at this subscription thing but won't the time used for updating still count as play time and just waste subscription time? Can't I update FIRST and THEN start a subscription to avoid wasting valuable and expensive play time? Nah I'm sure the game time only starts to count down when you can actually play the game, EA aren't such big dicks." So I linked my cd-key to my SWTOR account. EA wants your credit card details too. "Eeerm, okay. I'm going to need to use my dad's because I can't use mine for certain reasons but he's over seas so I'll just wait for him to come back next week. I'll just let the game update in the mean time".
What happens:
The game cannot update. EA HAS To have my credit card details. The days remaining for my subscription are decreasing regardless of the fact that I have not given them my credit card details and cannot play or update.
That's the same with all MMO's. It's pretty lame but not individual to SWTOR or EA.
Which is why I dislike the pay to play system and think f2p is better. It has problems I know which is why I only say it's "better".
Pyramid Head: Wait, it came out in December 2012? Isn't it still June? Are you from the future or something? If so, when are they releasing Half-Life 3?
OT: Well... I haven't played The Old Republic, so I don't think I can really contribute to the topic at hand. I find it amusing though, because as Yahtzee once said: "Fair enough. I mean, of all that things that tried to unseat WoW from the MMORPG throne, Star Wars is the one thing over which nerds get even weirder."
Besides, most of it is probably caused by EA's terrible business model anyway. "If you can't sell five million copies, you don't get to eat tonight!"
Mr.K.: Wow I didn't even know they had such a shitty setup, I guess my mate was too embarrassed to tell me the full story after I warned him about this game for so long.
Anyway that is quite the hilarious read and I fucking called this MMO failing like all others the moment they announced it, WoW still owns that market and you just can't beat them with a game almost as good.
Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
Wow has momentum. Me and my friend are playing another month when MoP comes out for old times sake. Hopefully my other friends will do the same that I've lost contact with and I can undo that. You don't move onto TOR because all your friends are on WoW, simple as that.
Comparing SW:TOR (or indeed any MMO) to WoW and using the result to criticise the MMO is quite frankly ridiculous. WoW is king of the market and isn't budging anytime soon. Everyone knows that. Also, three continents. Not two.
On the subscription model, I actually prefer P2P. I find it much easier to just have a solid payment every month and have complete acces to the game than having to pay micro-transactions galore for the full experience.
The thing is that Blizzard made a smart move by optimizing WoW to work everywhere. By the July your microwave could run it. And that can only mean moar and moar subs. And also, many people take it up because of a friend, and Blizzard has always known that, so they try to take some kind of advantage from it.
What they did with WoW was genius. Except Mists of Pandaria, that is.
Anti Nudist Cupcake: Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
They have an actual end-game. And players to make that end-game function properly. I played at the absolute height of SWTOR's popularity and there still weren't enough people or content to really make the game last at max level.
The only thing SWTOR does better than WoW is the story elements while leveling up. It's a pretty outstanding single-player RPG until max level... then it turns into a really bad version of WoW with fewer players and less than half the content.
I don't mind p2p as long as the game is good enough and gets enough support to warrant the price. The amount of hours I got out of WoW per month were either higher or on par with the hours I'd get from a game for my xbox which would cost me £40. So if you play enough, MMO's are pretty cost effective. But yeah, f2p done right is better. Guild Wars 2 (when it's finally out) should be a good example of f2p, in that it's free and the micro-transactions are only cosmetic. Lord of the Rings Online however is an example of very bad f2p in that a shit tonne of content is locked away and it costs more to unlock than it would to subscribe.
Anti Nudist Cupcake: Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
They have an actual end-game. And players to make that end-game function properly. I played at the absolute height of SWTOR's popularity and there still weren't enough people or content to really make the game last at max level.
The only thing SWTOR does better than WoW is the story elements while leveling up. It's a pretty outstanding single-player RPG until max level... then it turns into a really bad version of WoW with fewer players and less than half the content.
this is the sole reason i am waiting for it to go f2p, i'm gonna blow through all it's single player stuff in a month then toss it to the side
*goes back to circling EA like a starving alone person in the desert*
*sigh* if they had only listened to people in the first place and made kotor 3 (and possibly kotor 4 and 5) they would've pleased the fans and made bucketloads of cash.
Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
What irritated me most about ToR was its lack of responsiveness. When I pushed a button in WoW, my avatar executed that ability immediately while going through the animation. When I pushed a button in ToR, my avatar first went through some animation and then executed the ability after that.
It was kinda like the bending in the Last Airbender cartoon versus Shyamalans movie adaptation abomination.
Lord of the Rings Online however is an example of very bad f2p in that a shit tonne of content is locked away and it costs more to unlock than it would to subscribe.
Champions freakin' spoiled me for everyone else's F2P, there are still pretty solid incentives for subbing, but the free limitations don't include locked away game content.
D&D Online was, here's two dungeons, you can grind them to level five or give us money. Lots of money.
DCUO was, here's all the launch content, but nothing else, but you can only have 2000 resources at any time.
Trying to remember which other F2Ps I've spent time in, and drawing a blank.
Pyramid Head: why even try to make pay to play MMORPGs anymore?
Because dats where da big money is bro! Look at WoW! Making millions!
Never mind the 20 or so other MMO's that tried, failed and ended up making loses. No. Just look at WoW and how successful it is.
:) i love you for this.
F2P could actually end up saving ToR, as going F2P has given new life to several MMO's already. hell, Age of Conan is still alive and kicking thanks to its F2P conversion and i thought it died long ago
The game did not fail because of a limited market. It failed because it had no interesting endgame content and did not offer attractive means to play multiple characters, since the non-story quests were always the same.
Arguing that it failed because of a limited market implies that a game has to be published in asia to be succesful, which is simply not true.
Sure, the limited marked did not help the game. But if it had been better, it would have suceeded anyway. WoW did not start out international either.
I just didn't buy it because I refuse to play subscription MMOs.
Even If I had to pay the $60, with no subscription fee, I'd be alright with it.
fnartilter: I liked the CGI cinematics they used to hype it up. After that I had/have no interest.
Me too! I thought it was a new KOTOR. And I thought, "Man this looks really awesome!! Oh wait, MMO...So nothing I watched really has any significance to the game.."
Could you point out what WOW does better? A friend of mine said some people had complaints about swtor and I want to know what wow does to keep its subscriptions.
At this point, I find WoW to just e totally unfun to play. However, I think WoW has kept it's subscribers by being so big. "Why would I play some Star Wars game when all my friends are playing WoW?"
So it's really more about the amount of players playing it? I found wow unfun too but the things that I thought the game needed are right there in SWTOR. The combat is just much better to me, you are actually in duels with beautiful choreography, blade meeting blade, shifts and changes and adaptations in motion as the blades meet in different places from the counter attacks you haven't even initiated, it is art. Wow's combat felt kind of mindless, dragon age was literally the same stabbing motion over and over and over again, I thought SWTOR did it properly.
Just my opinion.
I prefer games with real deep mechanics that truly differentiate each class, like Lord of the Rings Online, or, even better, games that do away with auto-attack all together, like Age of Conan. I tried TOR when it first came out though and I thought it was okay. Truth be told, I have yet to get really addicted to an MMO like most other people I see, and I'd love to really get that engrossed into a game. Without doing dumb things like copying character builds for better DPS and the like, though.
The biggest complaint I have heard about SWTOR is the end-game content, or rather, the extreme lack of end-game. This is what WoW has, it has not only A LOT of end-game content, but it also has somewhat good content. Now, I have only heard this from a friend, but apparently, TOR only have PvP as end-game content. People may bash WoW all they like, but they can't deny that it is a quality-driven, and extremely huge game. TOR may have the quality, but it is simply to small.
Ya hear that Bioware? You need to pump out expansionpacks to have a chance!
They should've just stuck to making Knights of the Old Republic 3. Or kept the title, but focused on a single-player only game. That would have been much better imo.
Gitty101: They should've just stuck to making Knights of the Old Republic 3. Or kept the title, but focused on a single-player only game. That would have been much better imo.
Considering what they did with Mass effect 3 i'd rather they didn't completely ruin the KotOR series.
I saw this post today: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.378811-BioWare-Considers-Free-to-Play-For-The-Old-Republic
Along with this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117133-The-Old-Republic-Population-Shrinking
For those who don't want to read the articles: What it comes down to is that SWTOR's subscriptions are in drastic decline and they are considering making it free to play THIS soon after release (it came out in December 2011). WOW has like 10 million subscribers while SWTOR only had like 1.7 and now has about 1.3 million. Every day if I go online I see that most of the servers have a very light population. In my experience you rarely EVER see another player. One who has played the game will usually admit that it has many things that are much better than what WOW offers, so why is it doing so crap?
Am I the only one who is aware of the fact that SWTOR is made available in only TWO CONTINENTS?
While WOW is available internationally ?
Areas where SWTOR is available:
North America and Europe (Some countries).
Areas where their competitor's games (including wow) are available:
North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, South America and also 20 countries of Europe that SWTOR does not cover.
I personally had to import the game from amazon, which in total cost about $150 for the standard edition. The alternative was to download the digital version and buy the cd key online but you can't because Origin is also locking other countries out and you need to go through proxies and shit which I always thought criminals did to steal money but in this case you need to do it to GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY. It's like EA seriously doesn't want your fucking money.
Then I had to wait 4 months for it NOT to arrive.
Then I had to wait as they send another one, it arrived last week from today.
I installed it but couldn't update until I had a subscription. "Hmmmm, I'm new at this subscription thing but won't the time used for updating still count as play time and just waste subscription time? Can't I update FIRST and THEN start a subscription to avoid wasting valuable and expensive play time? Nah I'm sure the game time only starts to count down when you can actually play the game, EA aren't such big dicks." So I linked my cd-key to my SWTOR account. EA wants your credit card details too. "Eeerm, okay. I'm going to need to use my dad's because I can't use mine for certain reasons but he's over seas so I'll just wait for him to come back next week. I'll just let the game update in the mean time".
What happens:
The game cannot update.
EA HAS To have my credit card details.
The days remaining for my subscription are decreasing regardless of the fact that I have not given them my credit card details and cannot play or update."I am sitting here, being charged for a game I am deliberately being prevented from playing even though the first month is free and shouldn't need any credit card details, didn't EA win an award for practices like this? Oh yeah, it was the Golden poo award".
Personally I am not surprised at all that this game isn't doing well. It's a shame too, Bioware did a pretty good job with the game, it's EA's decisions that are leaving it worse off. I guess this is why many people thought that EA would really screw up bioware now that they own them.
On a different note, yes the subscription system is an abomination. Free to play would be much better and bring in many customers. Buy to play would be ideal but that won't return a profit.
So forum, wouldn't it be ideal for SWTOR if EA sold it internationally so it can ACTUALLY COMPETE against other mmos? I mean look at the subscribers it has from merely two countries, think of the many more the rest has to offer. And is it not true that the f2p system would make the game more approachable to new players?
Eventually my dad showed up and activated the account with his credit card and EA charged him for a dollar (to ping him or something I was told by someone on the forums). Luckily the game updates quickly and I only lost ONE week of subscription time.
It's no surprise that with service like this, people severely dislike EA. This subscription model needs to be ripped out and cast aside.