Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Razgon]

Does not mean you’re wrong. Could just mean that they are releasing the game in an unfinished state in an attempt to get a lot of cash, not thinking about the backlash that will occur a few months later when 75% of the players jump ship cause the game lacked x,y,z,v,w features “all” the other MMOs have or are about to introduce.

Fortunately, this is one of the companies less likely to do so.

[Mark_Asher]

I think the one thing SWTOR has going for it that LOTRO didn’t is coming out at the right time. People werennt bored with WOW yet when LOTRO came out, and that boredom is really the biggest thing SWTOR has.

I can see massive sales, selling maybe three million copies in the first couple of months, and then a steep decline in subscriptions. I think any new MMO is going to see at least a third of the base unsubscribe after a couple of months, and for many it will be more than one third. I just think that’s the reality of the MMO market. What EA probably hopes

Even with Old Republic and the idea of each class having its own unique content so it feels like a new playthrough, players can do this at their leisure. There’s no reason they can’t play through one or two classes, unsub, and then come back a few months later and resub to play a different class.

[The_Mad_Hatter]

I’m still playing WoW, but I’m thinking that I will finally give another MMOG a try. It’d had better work out of the box though - that’s rule number one for me. Any of this “and we’ll introduce this feature which we initially promised for release but ran out of time for sometime next year” crap and back to WoW I go.

[Eightball]

Even with Old Republic and the idea of each class having its own unique content so it feels like a new playthrough, players can do this at their leisure. There’s no reason they can’t play through one or two classes, unsub, and then come back a few months later and resub to play a different class.

Be great if that was the case, but DAMNED NDA.

Let’s just say I was sincerely hoping they would release next year.

[Knightsaber]

Be great if that was the case, but DAMNED NDA.

Let’s just say I was sincerely hoping they would release next year.

Agree, on both. Freakin NDA.

[FieryBalrog]

Fortunately, this is one of the companies less likely to do so.

Dragon Age 2

[instant0]

Fortunately, this is one of the companies less likely to do so.

You forget that they are at the mercy of the madmen in EA™.

If “Mr. Big Shot Executive” gets his xmas bonus because SWTOR is shipped before the end of the year, you can be damned sure he will “make it so™” regardless of how unfinished or unpolished the project is.

The old adage “Gamers/MMO players are used to this anyway, so they wont mind “Ship now, Patch in later””.

And for any criticism regarding the state of the game at launch, there is always “An MMO is constantly evolving, and as we gather feedback from our loyal customers, we will be adding new features and tweaking existing to give our players the best possible experience in the Star Wars™ Galaxy™®”…

Edit: I am not in the beta, but from what I have seen demonstrated, and also heard people say, A December launch feels rushed.

[The_Mad_Hatter]

You forget that they are at the mercy of the madmen in EA™.

If “Mr. Big Shot Executive” gets his xmas bonus because SWTOR is shipped before the end of the year, you can be damned sure he will “make it so™” regardless of how unfinished or unpolished the project is.

The old adage “Gamers/MMO players are used to this anyway, so they wont mind “Ship now, Patch in later””.

And for any criticism regarding the state of the game at launch, there is always “An MMO is constantly evolving, and as we gather feedback from our loyal customers, we will be adding new features and tweaking existing to give our players the best possible experience in the Star Wars™ Galaxy™®”…

Edit: I am not in the beta, but from what I have seen demonstrated, and also heard people say, A December launch feels rushed.

That would be incredibly stupid though. They won’t keep the bored WoW players if the game they flock to is bugged and unfinished. Surely they’ve seen that with other games that have come before.

[instant0]

That would be incredibly stupid though. They won’t keep the bored WoW players if the game they flock to is bugged and unfinished. Surely they’ve seen that with other games that have come before.

I agree.

But I would not be surprised if it happened. :-)

[Neopythia]

Just in time for me to have no time to play it for two weeks due to Christmas and New Year’s plans. Good job.

I find myself in exactly the same position. It couldn’t come at a worse time.

[Foxstab]

1. SW:TOR already consumed far too much money on development. It’s been on development for what now, 5 years? longer?
2. EA EXECs love to ship for XMAS “because that’s when parents buy their kids presents - game sale time”, no matter how many times this idea has been proven retarded, digging own downfall and that releasing between seasons when no competing/or otherwise at all titles available is a good way to ring in sales.
3. EA EXECs, as was previously stated, believe that “gamers are dumb and used to broken games by now and it won’t have big effect on sales, besides we only need to rake in the first wave of sales, we can always patch shit in later, to get players back or even more new players, right?”…yeah…
4. BioWare is expected to show something big that’ll net in enormous revenue to make decent returns on the ElevationPartners buyout.

Called this game/project to be a massive epic fail flankage that’ll have EA cancelling half of the BW studio waaay back. Remember that!

Post Scriptum

My future condolences to all the employees & their families.

[MattKeil]

Called this game/project to be a massive epic fail flankage that’ll have EA cancelling half of the BW studio waaay back. Remember that!

One of the primary reasons I expect it to sell millions.

[Foxstab]

You do realize that I’ve been calling these things for the longest time and I don’t think I’ve ever been wrong?
I mean, it’s not like this is a work of mathematical genius. All the facts are right there. This isn’t even an educated guess. It’s like reading the text out of the script.
Are you seriously intending on contending merely because it has been uttered by me (alongside how many more)?

[MattKeil]

In a way, yes. I hear a lot of bitching from MMO fans obsessed with details, game systems, the industry, etc. about SWTOR, and it has slowly convinced me that it will be a runaway hit. Similar to the way hardcore fans and players have near-universal hate for Gears of War, Call of Duty, DLC, iPhone games, Facebook games, and so many other things that are wildly popular with the millions upon millions of people who don’t give a shit what a tiny, tiny vocal minority thinks.

For a recent non-gaming example that may be relevant to SWTOR, see the Star Wars Blu-Rays, which were a source of endless and almost universally negative complaint and discussion on the internet for the last month or more, and promptly became the best-selling Blu-Ray of all time upon release.

I’m not saying SWTOR is 100% guaranteed to be a huge success, as it’s still very much a gamble at this point given its competition, insane budget and mind-shreddingly shitty release date, but I think the naysayers are severely underestimating the power of both the brand and EA’s marketing machine.

[Foxstab]

Initial sales are bound to be good, yes.
Movie tie-ins shitty assed games still sell when marketing supports them aggressively.
Even when reviews call the baby by its name you won’t be short of finding idiots who buy them only to cry about it later.

However, this is the MMO sphere. And we’ve been witness time and again that when the majority of the fanbase/testers agree the game is not ready then it is not ready. And forcing a premature launch almost certainly spells the doomsday for that game. Courting disappointed fans to return after an initial bugged launch was always considered to be extremely hard to do.

And neither are we talking about initial sales here, rather about longevity and retention.
About a MMO’s probability and potential at surviving a hard crash-landing of a/at launch.

By the way, I thought mass-marketed FPSes like those lame games you listed were considered to be the hardcore. Or the new hardcore or whatever.
So what’s hardcore then?

[Nephrinn]

I’m not saying SWTOR is 100% guaranteed to be a huge success, as it’s still very much a gamble at this point given its competition, insane budget and mind-shreddingly shitty release date, but I think the naysayers are severely underestimating the power of both the brand and EA’s marketing machine.

SWTOR will be a success simply on the Star Wars brand alone. You take away the brand and this would be grouped among all the games that have piggy-backed on WoW’s success and inevitably failed.

[stusser]

SWTOR will be a success simply on the Star Wars brand alone.

Counterargument, SWG.

[Athryn]

In a way, yes. I hear a lot of bitching from MMO fans obsessed with details, game systems, the industry, etc. about SWTOR, and it has slowly convinced me that it will be a runaway hit. Similar to the way hardcore fans and players have near-universal hate for Gears of War, Call of Duty, DLC, iPhone games, Facebook games, and so many other things that are wildly popular with the millions upon millions of people who don’t give a shit what a tiny, tiny vocal minority thinks.

I’m not saying SWTOR is 100% guaranteed to be a huge success, as it’s still very much a gamble at this point given its competition, insane budget and mind-shreddingly shitty release date, but I think the naysayers are severely underestimating the power of both the brand and EA’s marketing machine.

The one thing you left off of your list that has been wildly successful yet has little in the way of naysayers (until recently, which has also seen a corresponding drop in subscribers,) is Wow itself.

As for the release date, it might be bad for you, but it’s pretty brilliant for most. Heck, Wow itself was originally released Thanksgiving weekend, and that didn’t hurt it’s sales.

I think that there will definitely be huge initial sales, as I said before, they’re releasing at just about the perfect time to catch a lot of bored/burned out Wow players, plus all the other Star Wars people.

If, and that’s a big if, the same has the content to match its promises, then it will be successful. If it’s really just “Wow with lightsabers,” then it may still have a chance.

But I’m not so confident as I was before, based on rumblings I’ve heard. As has been proven time and time again, a license isn’t an ironclad guarantee of success.

[Nephrinn]

Counterargument, SWG.

I’m not going to argue that SWG was a success, but it apparently sold a million copies and garnered a lot of attention, which I think was impressive for its time (before WoW). I find it hard to believe that it would’ve come anywhere near those numbers without the Star Wars brand.

[Matthew_Bramblet]

If you look at the numbers, it’s clear that game players in the MMORPG market are more impatient than ever before when it comes to new entries. There are a vast number of PC game players who buy these games the first month, play with it during the 30 day trial period, and never sign up for a subscription. Given the marketing and the fact that it’s Star Wars, SWTOR should sell a ton of copies; but that doesn’t mean much, for an MMO.

In some ways, SWTOR will have it easy: it only has to keep 600k subscribers long-term to have beat every Western subscription MMO other than WoW, for bragging rights. Given the money they’ve sunk into development, though, that doesn’t seem like a big win from a business standpoint. The question is: can it maintain over 1 mil subscribers, to keep enough money flowing and make it worth further large scale development (which in turn is what keeps all those players sticking around)? So far, no other Western subscription-based MMORPG has managed to pull that off.