Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

Something else to consider: To celebrate the legacy system finally going live, BioWare gave all active subscribers with a legacy level of 6+ or a level 50 character one month free. So it may be that the infusion of playtime kept active the accounts of people who otherwise would have quit and are no longer playing, which would explain the number of concurrent users dropping while the subscription count technically remained steady. In fact, I'm just cynical enough to believe the promotion was coordinated specifically for that effect.

I'm really starting to miss the days that this was a hobby for nerds and children. Bullshitting is becoming a job of its own in this industry.

[Raydeus]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

Unfortunately for them they just can't BS their way into profit, you need to be a banker to do that.

In the gaming industry all it accomplishes is making your most gullible players stay a bit longer even if the entire community is falling apart around them. The rest will just move on faster than you can say "Oh look! New bright colors over there!" And maybe come back from time to time after expansions or big enough updates.

[Firewind]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

I still play SWTOR and have fun with it and they do solve recycled environments by...Are you ready for this?

Copy and pasting the same general area such as a cave, ship or building and then reskinning it .

Joking aside SWTOR isn't actually a bad game, it's pretty fun. Bioware having to apologise for something that is or isn't their fault (both have happened) is a bit of a running joke in the community.

If you've ever seen the SWTOR forums you will know why they actually made that subscriber statement. I would say it's 50% whining about PvP from CoD kiddies who have never played an MMO before, 45% "MOAR ENDGAME OR I UNSUB!" (even though WoW had even less to do at endgame 4 months after release) and 5% posts that are genuinely constructive be they positive or critical about the game. Basically it's the same as WoW's forum except you also have anti-Bioware and anti-EA trolls in the and the Bioware fanboys taking the blatant trollbait and causing even more drama.

Honestly if you've ever played SWTOR the statement is more "The sky isn't falling so for the love of god please stop whining and trolling the forums". One of the issues the game is having is they launched with too many servers so basically while the population is stable, finding groups sucks because the population is way too spread out. They badly need server merges or at the very least need to enable transfers but they are also blatantly trying to avoid the inevitable shitstorm from idiotic pro and anti fanboys that server merges produce.

Basically:
SWTOR? Good game, playerbase is stable but is pretty spread out and needs merging. Community is fine as long as you play on a Roleplay Server since the average age of a player will be over 12. It will eventually go the way of Warhammer Online though: a fantastic MMO ran into the ground by EA and Bioware until the horse is not only dead buy turned into a fine power and scattered to every single corner of the galaxy to ward off Reapers.

EA? SSDD for them, they don't give a crap as long as the game's turning a profit. I think people know what to expect from them and all other Games Publishers by now. I handle them in the same was as I handle all other Publishers and Game Retailers: A less and less nessecary evil with the advent of sites like gog.com, used as a means to an end. I'm basically going to let everyone else decide if the end really justifies the means. In this case: playing an MMO I genuinely enjoy but also gives EA money.

Bioware? Probably regretting ever making an MMO to be honest. Devs are easy scapegoats sure but sometimes you do wonder if these things are more Bioware dropping the ball and less EA blatantly interfering to monetise cash cows.

As for the GW2 Paid Beta. It does look fun and as I have friends getting the game I probably will pick it up when it's actually out and not when I'm paying the equivalent of 80 US Dollars to play a fucking beta. It seems they took a leaf out of Square Enix's book by tricking everyone into paying retail price for what is basically a beta key. The Digital Deluxe Edition is worse since it's the equivalent of 130 US dollars here and the items are useless. The Collector's Edition is basically the equivalent of 200 US dollars and you get a soundtrack and a 10 inch figure. That's it.

Dialbo 3 Beta? Completely Free! Warhammer Online Wrath of Heroes Beta? Free and yes it's an EAWare game. Am I the only one seeing NCSoft laughing all the way to the bank here? It's publishers monetising blatant cash cows again.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

Something else to consider: To celebrate the legacy system finally going live, BioWare gave all active subscribers with a legacy level of 6+ or a level 50 character one month free. So it may be that the infusion of playtime kept active the accounts of people who otherwise would have quit and are no longer playing, which would explain the number of concurrent users dropping while the subscription count technically remained steady. In fact, I'm just cynical enough to believe the promotion was coordinated specifically for that effect.

These aren't the subscription numbers they were looking for.

Old Before Its Time? SWTOR Subs Sliiiiiide | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

[Firewind]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

The game badly needed server mergers back in Jan-Feb and those lost subs are the consequence. For a company that is big on actions having consequences you really would have thought they would have considered this. EA definitely should have learned from this because this is exactly the thing that killed Warhammer Online.

It's caused a self perpetuating cycle. People in low pop servers get bored due to not enough people to form groups and leave the game, which results in the remaining players having even less people to group with so they get bored.

So instead of merging servers to consolidate the playerbase what there is right now is one or two huge servers, a lot of average ones and even more dead servers. Since there's no option to transfer server and people really don't want to remake characters on other servers, it's understandable that people will get bored.

[Taskmage]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

Be that as it may, 1.3M ain't bad at all. If the information at mmodata.net is complete, only Aion and of course WoW have a larger subscriber base atm. It's just a question of whether that number can support the business model and team size that they want.

[Firewind]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

Well a company as big as EA can always afford to throw money at it to keep it afloat and the Star Wars IP is popular enough to bring in new players. The server merge issue is one of the bigger contributing factors of losing 400,000 subs in a month though.

We also aren't told if it's counting trial accounts, semi-inactive accounts (people who have an account but haven't logged on or renewed in the last month), people who had accounts in that month but unsubbed pat way through, and people with more than one account like Blizzard does.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

Even with the merges, it seems like every zone is still pretty barren.

400k players lost within the first half year of the game does not bode well, either

I also think the game being too single player for its own good is a large contributing factor. Many have said they should have just made a KOTOR 3 instead and they'd have the customers for it, likely matching Mass Effect's success if they did. EA got greedy and made an MMO.

[Taskmage]

Re: Bioware's Pax East Panel show's they really don't get it.

I'd chalk up the loss of 400k players to the power of the Star Wars franchise to attract people to a product they wouldn't have been interested in otherwise. I could believe a significant percentage of their launch subscribers saw the awesome if misleading advertising, picked up their first MMO and wondered what the hell they bought. Not to say that accounts for the whole 400k, but it's a factor.

I also think the game being too single player for its own good is a large contributing factor. Many have said they should have just made a KOTOR 3 instead and they'd have the customers for it, likely matching Mass Effect's success if they did. EA got greedy and made an MMO.

TOR is, in my experience, a massive single player game with some optional multiplayer in the form of PvP and a 4 man co-op campaign, so designing it as such from the get-go and planning for expansion packs instead of a subscription makes a lot of sense to me.