Star Wars: The Old Republic Profitable With 500,000 Subs

[Midnight Crossroads]

/facepalm

Except wizards were intentionally left out. It's not an imagination thing. It has to deal with balance.

I can see I won the argument, bye.

------------------------------

TOR is going to be fantastic and varied. There are going to be more than just Jedi players, the proof has been shown, and it doesn't matter how many Jedi there are going to be. The number is irrelevant. If people are going to play something or imagine they are playing something, they will do it and nobody is going to stop them.

People need to have an open mind instead of complaining about one arbitrary and unimportant aspect of a game.

Enjoy your trip to Candyland while you hypothetically storm out in a huff of indignation.

 

[bob1052]

It's like you've arbitrarily decided what can and cannot work in a certain game genre, and condemn anyone who disagrees.

You assume that all an MMO can ever be is a grind fest, and that it can only appeal to someone who wants to grind.

Subscription based MMOs are games that you are constantly paying for. If you are constantly paying money, you are going to want constantly new things to do.

Developers will never be able to produce content faster than the player base will be able to complete it. To accommodate for that, gameplay has to be grindy. You have to spend a long time beating a relatively small amount of content, and then the content has to be worth completing again to keep you occupied.

Any MMO that is not a grind fest will fail after a few months when people realize there is nothing to do.

(And a side note about SWTOR: complete voice acting means that future content will also be expensive, requiring even more subs to become profitable, and that content will take far longer to develop, meaning that SWTOR will need to be especially grindy, or it will severely lack end game content.)

I don't know what MMOs you played, but in World of Warcraft, there's more content than there is a grind.

As someone who has played World of Warcraft since vanilla beta, I can assure you that all of World of Warcraft is a grind.

 

[xxcloud417xx]

I believe that ToR will do great and be able to hit those numbers no problem if they release soon and stop hyping the game. I would hate to have this project go on too long and be outdated at release. It would be unfortunate to have all this money and work put into a project that could have been ambitious "if it had come out 2 years ago" if you know what I mean.

 

[Mr. Socky]

I'd be freakishly surprised if this doesn't do well.

 

[Vaccine]

Can they keep the balancing game afloat for that long? one bad patch and you can fuck your entire community.

 

[bob1052]

As someone who has played World of Warcraft since vanilla beta, I can assure you that all of World of Warcraft is a grind.

Well, yeah. It's a bore. But the point was that you will finish the grind before you finish all the game's content. It's not stretched out at all.

The whole point of World of Warcraft is that you never finish the grind.

You go into a dungeon. You spend a few months if you are one of the top guilds out there, or many, many months, potentially the entire tier of raiding for most guilds, trying to complete the same handful bosses.

Guess what happens if you kill them all. You wait until a week passes, and then go kill them all again.

If it wasn't a grind, people would finish it, and then stop playing because they have nothing to do.

 

[jovack22]

If the game is anything like KOTOR I'm sure it will do well. I wasn't a huge fan of KOTOR2 (it wasn't bad, just not as amazing as the first), but the ball is back in Bioware's court.

If The Old Republic did not have a monthly or whatever subscription, I would purchase it on day 1. Same reason why I never got WoW.
Oh well, best of luck to TOR.

 

[rekabdarb]

Long live the sith!

 

[Eldarion]

Half a mill? Thats easy. Good to see that it won't be hard to keep this mmo going.

 

[Dethpixie]

I hope it will succeed. I don't want EA to suffer any more losses and wither and die beneath Activision's milking tendencies.

Exactly this, EA isn't perfect but they've at least been trying to do some new things, unlike Activision.

Considering it is Bioware I'm interested, and I don't think 500,000 is too far off. Best of luck to them, personally I'm just hoping the story manages to be up to Bioware's pedigree (wishful thinking in an MMO, I know).

 

[rsvp42]

I don't think 500,00 is that hard to achieve and maintain. And with all the interest in this game, 1 million isn't to out there either. I mean, there's almost that many on the official forums and even if only half of them like the game, it's still in business. Not to mention all the interested players who aren't registered on the forums.

It doesn't look good when the game is not even release and the publisher already go into defence mode.

This isn't defensive, the call was actually really positive (as expected since it was for investors). The point was that the game could get by on as little as 500k (reassuring to worried stockholders), but that EA was confident and actually expects it to do much better than that.

 

[Zakarath]

This tells me that you haven't played LoTRO or haven't played it very long.

I usually saw at least one Gandalf look alike each day I played it. Heck, my dwarf runekeeper was a dwarf version of Gandalf. He had a hat like Gandalf, and everything he wore was dyed gold. I called him Frenin Thegold(it would have been The Gold, but the last name thing won't let me have a two word last name). So with that I can be happy and imagine all that I want that my dwarf is a gold wizard.

Heck it you want to go the staff magic route, you have the Lore Master class. Several times I saw a Lore Master that was dress like Gandalf, but his clothes were all in black(with the wizard looking hat). He even had wizard in his name, Wizo-something, I don't remember the full name.

The powers of these classes have are awesome and feel just as good as it would if there was a wizard class.

The only thing that is barring players from being a wizard, is an imagination. I always played my dwarf as if he was a wizard. I was going to right a back story for him too, I just didn't get around to it.

/facepalm

Right, and the only thing barring my warrior in WoW from being a Jedi is that the sword doesn't glow! Oh wait, enchantment and all that. I guess that means there are Jedi in WoW.

You can facepalm all you want, but what I said is totally valid and based in fact about what I have seen and done.

That is the problem I see with some gamers, they apparently don't have a good imagination. With a good imagination, one can believe anything they want about a game and have fun.

If I played WoW and decided that my character was some Jedi transported to another world by some weird portal, than it will be as such because I'm the one imagining it when playing the game. It doesn't matter if I'm the only one playing along or if everybody thinks I'm crazy, it is what I imagined and it makes me happy when playing the game.

It is one of the reason why some people don't like Minecraft, they aren't the type of gamer that uses their imagination when playing a game. The reason the game is a hit is because there are hundreds of thousands of people that have imaginations and like to explore and create things using those imaginations.

Just because something isn't in a game, doesn't entirely mean one cannot achieve it.

I believe that my dwarf in LotRO is a wizard, guess what, he is a wizard.

Just because you say my dwarf isn't a wizard because the class isn't a wizard(even though it uses powers that a wizard class would have), doesn't make my dwarf not a wizard.

/facepalm

Except wizards were intentionally left out. It's not an imagination thing. It has to deal with balance.

It's not a balance issue, its a lore issue. If you ever actually read LOTR (which seems unlikely since you never mentioned this), There were only ever five wizards in all of Middle-Earth, and they were members of the Maiar. Considering this, it would've been a gross violation of the lore of Middle-Earth to allow playable wizards, and so they gave wizard-like abilities to the loremaster class instead, even granting them the signature sword-and-staff combo that was Gandalf's fighting style.

And yes, balance does also play a secondary issue. Wizards are of the same race as Sauron. It would be downright insane to give players that power. About as insane as it would be to make a Star Wars game and then tell people that they can't be Jedi. And Jedi, unlike the Wizards of LoTR, can be reasonably balanced with the other classes while still staying mostly within the bounds of lore.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

This tells me that you haven't played LoTRO or haven't played it very long.

I usually saw at least one Gandalf look alike each day I played it. Heck, my dwarf runekeeper was a dwarf version of Gandalf. He had a hat like Gandalf, and everything he wore was dyed gold. I called him Frenin Thegold(it would have been The Gold, but the last name thing won't let me have a two word last name). So with that I can be happy and imagine all that I want that my dwarf is a gold wizard.

Heck it you want to go the staff magic route, you have the Lore Master class. Several times I saw a Lore Master that was dress like Gandalf, but his clothes were all in black(with the wizard looking hat). He even had wizard in his name, Wizo-something, I don't remember the full name.

The powers of these classes have are awesome and feel just as good as it would if there was a wizard class.

The only thing that is barring players from being a wizard, is an imagination. I always played my dwarf as if he was a wizard. I was going to right a back story for him too, I just didn't get around to it.

/facepalm

Right, and the only thing barring my warrior in WoW from being a Jedi is that the sword doesn't glow! Oh wait, enchantment and all that. I guess that means there are Jedi in WoW.

You can facepalm all you want, but what I said is totally valid and based in fact about what I have seen and done.

That is the problem I see with some gamers, they apparently don't have a good imagination. With a good imagination, one can believe anything they want about a game and have fun.

If I played WoW and decided that my character was some Jedi transported to another world by some weird portal, than it will be as such because I'm the one imagining it when playing the game. It doesn't matter if I'm the only one playing along or if everybody thinks I'm crazy, it is what I imagined and it makes me happy when playing the game.

It is one of the reason why some people don't like Minecraft, they aren't the type of gamer that uses their imagination when playing a game. The reason the game is a hit is because there are hundreds of thousands of people that have imaginations and like to explore and create things using those imaginations.

Just because something isn't in a game, doesn't entirely mean one cannot achieve it.

I believe that my dwarf in LotRO is a wizard, guess what, he is a wizard.

Just because you say my dwarf isn't a wizard because the class isn't a wizard(even though it uses powers that a wizard class would have), doesn't make my dwarf not a wizard.

/facepalm

Except wizards were intentionally left out. It's not an imagination thing. It has to deal with balance.

It's not a balance issue, its a lore issue. If you ever actually read LOTR (which seems unlikely since you never mentioned this), There were only ever five wizards in all of Middle-Earth, and they were members of the Maiar. Considering this, it would've been a gross violation of the lore of Middle-Earth to allow playable wizards, and so they gave wizard-like abilities to the loremaster class instead, even granting them the signature sword-and-staff combo that was Gandalf's fighting style.

And yes, balance does also play a secondary issue. Wizards are of the same race as Sauron. It would be downright insane to give players that power. About as insane as it would be to make a Star Wars game and then tell people that they can't be Jedi. And Jedi, unlike the Wizards of LoTR, can be reasonably balanced with the other classes while still staying mostly within the bounds of lore.

Yes, I've read the Lord of the Rings. Thanks for making assumptions though.

 

[MazzaTheFirst]

Would have been cooler if they just made KOTOR 3.....

Hear hear! Was my first thought when I heard it was an MMO.

 

[Octorok]

I think the WoW fanboys are swarming because something looks moderately threatening to them. I don't think ToR will be a WoW killer, hell I hope it isn't, I do think it is one of the best MMOs to come along in years and should be able to make a million subscribers pretty easily.

I'm a WoW fanboy, and I'm loving the look of TOR. Really looking forward to playing it. Don't be like those people assuming that people only ever play one MMO, UNT PRECISELY VON.

And people who think it won't even sell 500,000 have no understanding of the games industry sales. I get that holding subs for a year is hard, but come launch, I'd be very, very surprised if this only sold 500,000. Games this high profile just sell better.

 

[duchaked]

I just don't think I will ever have the time to invest in any MMO...

that and the fact that all the awesome animated trailers are enticing but make me sad because such a game does not exist in actuality

 

[fierydemise]

Its quite clear reading this thread the number of people who have never seriously played an MMO. Sales on launch day aren't really that important of a metric, if bioware sells a million copies on launch day (something not outside the realm of possibility) good for them however player retention is an entirely different kettle of fish. At this point technology has advanced to the point where you can make a reasonably compelling single player leveling experience without significant difficulty. Combine this with things like novelty factor and curiosity and you'll get a pretty solid sales bump, every big MMO recently has sold quite well.

Heres the problem, leveling content doesn't retain players. When you hit max level there needs to be something there, that is what WoW does so right that no one else has been able to capture yet. At this point in time no one makes raid content like Blizzard, continuing to come up with new fight gimmicks keeps raiding as fresh as it can be and with the current raiding tier they have the difficulty curve pretty well figured out. Arena has its problems but overall Blizzard has created a pretty decent e-sport that works well at most skill levels. Many games have gotten one thing right (like Aions world PvP was actually a ton of fun) or another but no one has been able to get the full package.

My prediction (given the general lack of info about end-game), 800K at launch down to 300K within 6 months. That should be enough to get into the black but beyond that I'm not sure.