Is SWOTR already failing?

[Cerveza mas fina]

Bioware is offering a free month to anyone who maxed out their char (aka please don't buy Diablo 3), threads about empty servers on SWOTR forums...

Anyone have sub numbers and or impressions?

I hope Oscar has some numbers

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I have an ongoing bet with a coworker - server merges hit within the first 6 months. Looks like he may yet owe me a Ruth's Chris steak dinner.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I said since it became apparent its still the same old mmo thing that it would close down before WoW did.

So far it's looking like a safe bet for you

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I thought the servers were kind of empty when I was playing it back in early January.  Haven't touched it since.   I could only imagine what it's like now.

[Momo]

Failing? When did it even succeed?

[MrAngryFace]

server population was low on most servers form the beginning- honestly though i think the subscription based MMO is on its way out anyway

[Freyj]

I have an ongoing bet with a coworker - server merges hit within the first 6 months. Looks like he may yet owe me a Ruth's Chris steak dinner.

People have been calling for this for months now as a good portion of the servers are dead. I hardly ever saw another player outside of Fleet during the first free month anyway.

server population was low on most servers form the beginning- honestly though i think the subscription based MMO is on its way out anyway

A lot of this can be attributed to the poorly handled head-start if I am remembering correctly. The servers they kept bringing up to try and alleviate the queues were essentially ignored as new players kept swarming to the High Pops.

[MrAngryFace]

A lot of that has to do with instancing I think, but yeah

[Freyj]

Sometimes, the later half of the zones had less than 10-20 or so Empire when I was active in them and you never saw the opposing faction. I'd say I was leveling at about an average pace as well.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Hmm sounds bad. I wish Oscar would come through with some of his info though.

[Momo]

Sold 2 million copies and 1.7 million subscribers ($15 p/m)as of last data (Feb) and apparently the majority of them are post 30 day free trial subs. Numbers are from EA so take it with a grain of salt.

[Tasty]

Hrm, the closed beta seemed pretty active but then again they were probably limiting the number of servers during that...

[etiolate]

There's a lot of things going on with MMOs right now.

Sub numbers are dropping for a lot of sub-based MMOs. TOR is getting empty. I just logged into wow on a 7 day trial and my servers were empty and my friends gone.

Sub-based models can no longer make the argument that the games require subs to pay for server costs. That's an old model based on a less wired-up world. With F2P becoming profitable, the sub model is probably on its last days. Some people think you can have both, and maybe you can, but it won't ever be WoW sized numbers again.

All the MMOs and different wyas of doing them means the MMO player base will splinter. Instead of one game with 10 million players, you will have multiple games with 1 to 5 million players.

TOR was just ill-timed. It is an old model MMO released at the point where MMOs are moving towards new models and upgrading their gameplay from an archaic past.

[thisismyusername]

Bioware is offering a free month to anyone who maxed out their char (aka please don't buy Diablo 3), threads about empty servers on SWOTR forums...

Anyone have sub numbers and or impressions?

I hope Oscar has some numbers

I don't have sub numbers, but if /v/ is to be believed (I don't remember the server stastic site) the site graph for server populations has been broken on light (like sub-500 players?) for months now, but it's gone OFF the graph at like two months ago.

Heavy and Medium have been dead/flatlined on that graph since like 1.2 patch.

The issue with TOR is that after you hit level 50 there is no post-game, and the PvP has been unbalanced since the first major patch and has gotten continuously broken since. Why bother playing once you hit the end of the "singleplayer story"?

There's a lot of things going on with MMOs right now.

Sub numbers are dropping for a lot of sub-based MMOs. TOR is getting empty. I just logged into wow on a 7 day trial and my servers were empty and my friends gone.

Sub-based models can no longer make the argument that the games require subs to pay for server costs. That's an old model based on a less wired-up world. With F2P becoming profitable, the sub model is probably on its last days. Some people think you can have both, and maybe you can, but it won't ever be WoW sized numbers again.

All the MMOs and different wyas of doing them means the MMO player base will splinter. Instead of one game with 10 million players, you will have multiple games with 1 to 5 million players.

TOR was just ill-timed. It is an old model MMO released at the point where MMOs are moving towards new models and upgrading their gameplay from an archaic past.

I wouldn't say ill-timed. In a fashion, yeah, P2P is on the way out, but the issues with TOR (no post game, no PvP balancing, the engine is shit and [rumored] can't be fixed because they bought it during it's BETA phase and it just NOW this year reached it's final/1.0 release) are numerous and many and why people are jumping ship from it.

Edit: Well, here's a generic server status from Bioware themselves: http://www.swtor.com/server-status Notice 90% of servers are light. Only like two of the servers are heavy. So uh... yeah...

[Human Snorenado]

It had already failed before it even launched, let's get real.

[ManaByte]

My WoW guild is about 650+ characters on our server. When TOR came out, no one was on at all. But starting in the last couple months nearly everyone has started to come back to the point where we can nearly schedule raids again. All of them said the same things:

- World instancing was unbelievably stupid. Created dead and boring worlds. Felt like a single player game while leveling.
- Story was good, but the underlying MMO felt like they just copied WoW at the Burning Crusade era and were in a panic to add features people were expecting from six years of MMO evolution.
- Quest/Encounter design was the same. Felt out of date when compared to WoW and other modern MMOs.
- PVP was hopelessly broken and unbalanced.

Server merges will likely begin around the time Pandaria comes out. WAR is already down to just one server...

[pilonv1]

- World instancing was unbelievably stupid. Created dead and boring worlds. Felt like a single player game while leveling.

if WoW players think it feels like a single player game it must be an absolute ghost town. Surprised they weren't crying about the lack of dungeon finders or other tools to avoid human interaction.

[Van Cruncheon]

feels like a single player game? suddenly interested...

[Human Snorenado]

*a single-player modern bioware game

 

[pilonv1]

feels like a single player game? suddenly interested...

The problem is that the shittyness of most MMO's is revealed when you're the only one killing your 1000th rat. If everyone else is doing it, then it seems slightly less stupid and pointless.

[Momo]

feels like a single player game? suddenly interested...

http://www.thebore.com/forum/index.php?topic=37625.0

[Stoney Mason]

http://startupgrind.com/2012/04/exclusive-electronic-arts-set-to-lay-off-500-employees/

[MrAngryFace]

I played till level 42, was fun- but im done.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Well I know they set up a brand new office here especially for SWOTR, but they aren't hiring many people it seems.

There is like 3 job openings.

http://www.bioware.com/careers/galway,-ireland

[originalz]

How surprising, another super-hyped MMO that everyone is saying will finally take down WOW that ends up being mediocre and being on life-support within a year.  Whatever happened to the people praising shit like Aion or Warhammer and saying how they'll change the genre?  I don't understand why people get exited about new unnecessary MMOs.

[Human Snorenado]

How surprising, another super-hyped MMO that everyone is saying will finally take down WOW that ends up being mediocre and being on life-support within a year.  Whatever happened to the people praising shit like Aion or Warhammer and saying how they'll change the genre?  I don't understand why people get exited about new unnecessary MMOs.

This phrase brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department

[Momo]

SWTOR makes Shenmue's cost look like a 75% off 2 for one special happy meal

[thisismyusername]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/15/mmo-week-in-review-tortanic/

Even "game journalism" blogs are starting to call it by the /v/ nickname. 

Also I found the site if you want to pursue how it's leaking members: http://www.torstatus.net/

[Cerveza mas fina]

Tortanic

I'd really like to see Blizzard break the mold, but I think they will just perfect F2P in their next one. It prob won't be for me unless there are some new game mechanics.

[etiolate]

blizzard doesn't break molds

I can think of one new idea they put forth in all of wow's life

[Phoenix Dark]

Yup, my WoW server is pretty much dead for now. There are still a lot of people hanging around the capitol cities but that's about it. My guild is pretty big but most people have either quit, disappeared, or are waiting for MoP; doesn't help that there's literally no new content to explore from now until the expansion comes out. Everyone has pretty much done their share of DS thanks to the raid finder, the people I know who PvP say it's broken.

Makes me wonder how long people will stay for MoP. The beta is definitely fun, and I'm glad Blizzard made some changes to the Monk class recently. But it's another five level expansion like Cata which means less content than BC/WOTLK. Once people get to lv90 and spend a few months doing the new raids twice a week (thanks to raid finder), they'll probably just take another break and wait for the next content dump.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Sub numbers already down to 1.25 million it seems, and D3/Pandaren isn't even out yet.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/168878/Star_Wars_The_Old_Republic_sub_numbers_already_declining__analyst.php

Analyst group Cowen and Company suggests in a new report that player subscriptions for Star Wars: The Old Republic have begun to decline since Electronic Arts said earlier this year that the game has 1.7 million subscribers.

Cowen's Doug Creutz estimates that subscriber numbers for the game peaked at 1.7 million in February, and that by the end of the current fiscal year in March 2013, the game will have around 1.25 million subscribers, based on server statistics provided on TorStatus.net.

Creutz also noted that EA has begun to heavily promote the game, leading him to believe that this is in response to the stalling subscriber numbers.

"We believe that the apparent decline in subscribers is most likely due to a lack of 'end-game' content for the title, meaning that players who hit the level cap have few compelling options in terms of ongoing game play," he noted. "While the game got off to a good start, the relatively light amount of end-game content does appear to be taking a toll."

[MyNameIsMethodis]

the game wasn't bad it was just..unneccesary and had some bad decisions and a bad engine.

[Momo]

wow, wtf @ my numbers being right. I barely even remember details for games i love

[etiolate]

hey at least I got a free weekend out of it

their failure is my reward

[Himu]

I'm sure EA can afford this bomb but can Bioware?

[Human Snorenado]

Maybe EA will cut their losses and dump them, enabling BioWare to go back to doing what the do best:  crafting games about fucking aliens or trying to hook up with a bitchy witch with asperger's.

[etiolate]

Didn't Bioware just add a whole mobile apps division?

[Tasty]

I'm sure EA can afford this bomb but can Bioware?

Bioware will be fine as long as Riccitello is in charge.  If he allows their star to fade too much, it's going to invite an awful lot of questions about the incredibly fucking shady nature of the acquisition in the first place.

How was it shady?

[Tasty]

What's the difference between doing that and just buying them using EA?

Shady would be him being head of EA, then going to BioWare, then saying "Oh gee EA is so awesome we want them to buy us." (See: Elop and Microsoft/Nokia.)

[Momo]

Riccatello bought his own company (or at least one he has a stake in) at a questionably high price and gained financially from said endeavor.

[Tasty]

Riccatello bought his own company (or at least one he has a stake in) at a questionably high price and gained financially from said endeavor.

Ah OK I see.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Ofc the price was too high, they never had a 5 million seller.

Now they are the makers of a huge flop SWTOR.

Almost as bad as the Rare purchase.

[ManaByte]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/23/bioware-doing-anything-and-everything-to-keep-players-logging-in-to-swtor/

BioWare claim that subscriber numbers haven’t dropped, but concurrent users at peak times have. This, Erickson says, is the reason why players are noticing a lot of ‘light’ server populations – and also why mergers are on the cards, but not a priority. According to Erickson, they’re doing “anything and everything” to bring that concurrent users number up. “Nothing is off the table when it comes to making sure our communities are strong and active on each server.”

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Sure, people have stopped playing the game, but their pre-paid subscriptions haven't run out yet! Once those expire they'll be sure to re-up.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Plus they gave everyone at 50 a free month, so those don't count as cancelled subs...

[Phoenix Dark]

Maybe this will be the one that convinces publishers that big paid sub MMOs don't work anymore.

nope. I bet somewhere, someone is offering a studio a bag of money to create Battlestar Galactica MMO

[Verdigris Murder]

Biowares implosion has been a seriously gratifying thing.

[pilonv1]

BioWare claim that subscriber numbers haven’t dropped, but concurrent users at peak times have.

So people haven't stopped subscribing (yet), but they're not even logging in? Sounds like a roaring success

[Positive Touch]

Maybe this will be the one that convinces publishers that big paid sub MMOs don't work anymore.

nope. I bet somewhere, someone is offering a studio a bag of money to create Battlestar Galactica MMO

battlestar galactica after star wars fails? i think not

this is such a high-profile bomb that i'm sure will keep most major companies away from mmorpgs til they can come up with a better way to incorporate f2p stuff

[Great Rumbler]

The Old Republic cost at least $150-$200 million, some even say it cost as much as $500 million [which I can't even remotely fathom], and they're never going to recoup enough of that to make the venture worthwhile.