Star Wars: The Old Republic Random Question/Discussion thread - F2P

[Katlan]

I don't understand. Dead Island released with such a shitty amount of bugs. BUT ITS STILL FUN AS FUCK WITH FRIENDS

they are scared of their product

[Daemonxel]

There reaches a point where you need to release a game even w/ balance issues and bugs.

Cause that worked very well for FFXIV

[Katlan]

Cause that worked very well for FFXIV

XIV is an entirely different story.. that was about balance and bugs.. that was about making a game not utterly fail and redoign everything about the game. but sure, bring everything back to that point

[vrumpt]

they are scared of their product

this is really the only reason i see them doing what they are doing right now, specifically in regards to beta invites and stuff. The only actual reasons they wouldn't want tons of people playing is either they legitimately suck and can't handle more than they have, or they just want to be sure they can contain negative feedback. Neither option bodes well for the future of this thing.

[Alderaan]

Thank fucking god targeting is fixed. Questing and combat are still meh.

[Zerocool]

At this point, aside from game breaking bugs, there's not really too much more they can do to the game. There's really not enough time to implement any totally new features unless it's something they've been working on for a while and are just getting ready to push it out for testing. Unless of course, they do push it back a few more months to next year to implement something else, but as I said earlier, I think that would be a big mistake.

They really just need to fix as many bugs as they can right now and do some high volume stress testing in the beginning of October and shoot for a release in late Oct. or early Nov. That way the only competition they'll really have is Skyrim as I think most people interested in TOR probably won't have a lot of interest in MWF3 or BF3. If they release it around the same time or after D3 is released, I think there's a risk of losing a big chunk of potential sales.

And then of course, if they push it to next year there's probably the most risk of losing a lot of players as games like GW2, TERA, TSW, ME3, in addition to games like Skyrim and maybe D3 already released, and whatever else. These games could take a chunk of that market that they could have potentially locked in with an earlier release. I mean, either way the game will still probably sell a shit ton of boxes, but you'd think that with something they spent a 100+ mil on that they would want to maximize their sales.

[Dantrag]

I think regardless of when it's release it will hit extremely high sales volume. But the shelf life will be greatly reduced. People will try it, BUT, if it's out at the same time as Diablo 3 or Guild Wars 2, I don't think it will maintain anywhere near the amount of subscriptions that it gets compared to initial sales.

[Man0warr]

You guys are crazy, have you played any of the MMOs that have come out recently? Let them take as long as they need to fix whatever they think needs fixing. I can count on one finger the number of MMOs that were allowed to dictate their own release date, all the others were rushed, buggy, unfinished messes. It's a blessing that they have time to get their core things into the game and just work on bugs, balance, and polish before going gold.

Also, they have never given a release date so no one has any idea if they are behind schedule or not. Historically the best release times for MMOs are the week before/after Thanksgiving or before Christmas and has probably been their target the whole time, there is no indication they will miss those dates.

Also, GW2 isn't releasing anytime soon and D3 is not their competition. Maybe some of you on this board will play D3 instead of SWTOR but the majority of their audience aren't. Neither D3 or SWTOR are going to be the type of games you will be able to sink 25-30 hours a week into for 6+ months like D2 or early WoW/EQ. Times are changing.

[Ohemgee]

It would be a post-thanksgiving release. There's nothing wrong releasing a game and introducing shit to it. Build a strong core, release this shit, add shit that you wanted to add that might of delayed the release (non-critical additions that add to existing core) THEN EXPANSION PACKS

[Alderaan]

The main problem is that the game is dull. I was bored by the time i hit level 5. It's not going to sit well with a lot of people when the first thing you do is go kill 15 whatevers, after seeing the route GW2 is going. The novelty of it being SW wears off pretty quickly. I have no doubt it's going to sell a shit ton of boxes, but the retention rate is going to be very low after 3 months. What else is new, right?

[Ohemgee]

How different is GW1 to GW2? I never played GW1. Don't redirect me to the GW2 thread fags.

30 seconds or less, go!

Found this

[Man0warr]

GW1 is more akin to current F2P Asian games, 1 main (or several) hubs/cities and everything else is instanced. GW2 is closer to a traditional MMO.

The main problem is that the game is dull. I was bored by the time i hit level 5. It's not going to sit well with a lot of people when the first thing you do is go kill 15 whatevers, after seeing the route GW2 is going. The novelty of it being SW wears off pretty quickly. I have no doubt it's going to sell a shit ton of boxes, but the retention rate is going to be very low after 3 months. What else is new, right?

So basically WoW or any quest based MMO? Sounds exactly like what they were aiming for. That's what the majority (read: WoW players) want, the only reason they are tired of WoW is the setting and Blizzard's retarded decisions over the last couple years. Plus the glacial pace of patching.

That may not appeal to you but they are trying to make money here. Verdict is still out on GW2, it's still really far away.

As for retention, the only way to retain the majority of players (casuals) in any MMO is have a multitude of things to do at endgame that advance your character - Raiding, crafting, pvp, a reason to play alts, etc.

RIFT failed miserably since the only real option was raiding, but the raids are/were hard and casual players couldn't do Greenscale. Casuals could hardly do the level 50 instances. Just courting to the hardcore raiders is a good way to lose subs quickly.

[Ohemgee]

I need to find time between SWTOR GW2 and Skyrim now.

Fuck

[Hyan]

after seeing the route GW2 is going.

You and your GW2

Holy fuck.

[Takiwaki]

Can safely say that gw2 is almost nothing like gw1, except for the lore and story continuity. Otherwise everything including, gameplay, professions, armor system, crafting, graphics engine has been totally changed. Sucks to see SWTOR getting some bad reviews from here also, was a bit excited about it.

You and your GW2

Holy fuck.

Its the GW2 effect, really cannot be helped lol

[Man0warr]

I haven't really seen any bad reviews, more like people were expecting something different from WoW and feel slighted that they aren't going to get it (outside full voice acting). Ignoring the fact that BioWare said they were targeting the WoW crowd years ago.

[Alderaan]

You and your GW2

Holy fuck.

Hey now, i've been staying out of the XIV section, but i do miss disagreeing with you on everything.

[Hyan]

Hey now, i've been staying out of the XIV section, but i do miss disagreeing with you on everything.

Not everything bro.

Its the GW2 effect, really cannot be helped lol

Its the unreleased game effect, and I agree.

[Ohemgee]

Even GW2 seems to be just another MMO after 15 minutes of youtube

The only thing SWTOR needs more of is endgame shit (which is not hard to add later on). I don't think Bioware is expecting an entire end game community after 3 months of grinding to 50. The exciting part about Star Wars (and maybe GW2 if you're in to it), is a valid reason to level alts. I wouldn't bother releveling another character in Rift because Rift sucks. But I still can't figure out if I want to be a Jedi Knight, Bounty Hunter, or Commando, or whatever class in TOR (which is a good thing because of each classes unique story experience)

All that stupid shit aside:

I just want to play this fucking game just to play it already, even if its not 100% of what Bioware wants. What if Bioware releases a "finished" product in Q1 2012, and it fizzles from the first three months? I would rage quit simply for the fact they waited for so long to release a gummi bear (zero calories etc). If they release it sooner, it gives players something to look forward to. Telling people to wait and wait and "were testing shit out hater" is really turning me off from the game.

Infrastructure wise, I'm pretty sure they're ok to release a game without major server issues.. Content wise, there's enough there to satisfy people until they're ready to release things. Bug wise, even if this game is prematurely released (nothing retarded like Dead Island or releasing a frankenstein version of the game), it shows promise if they're able to actively respond to bugs and patch regularly. Almost every time I logged on Rift there was a hot fix, which I don't mind because at least I know that the issues were fixed.

As I said. Fucking Skyrim will be awesome.

[Man0warr]

They have no competition in the next 2 quarters, they are in no rush and shouldn't be rushing, polish is a good thing. That said, unless something goes horribly wrong there's no reason it won't be out between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is most likely what their internal date has been all along. They don't have to give the release date out ahead of time, they could have the current game already printed on DVDs and packaged and have the updates patched in on release day.

WoW only gave a couple weeks warning from when they announced the release date.