I still play this game. Its enjoyable to me. I love the PvP. And yes, I pay to play this game. Why? Cause Id like to think that paying will help fund more content and improve the game as a whole.
Star Wars: The Old Republic Two Million Accounts Larger
- Thread starter StewShearerOld
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Accounts and subscribers is an important distinction to make. On one hand you have a group of people who are payin x amount of money a month to play your game. In another you have x amount of people playin your game with no idea who is spendin money on what.
Really I expected more than 2 million accounts. Even ignorin how many of those are spambots or people who gave it a single try for a weekend and gave up, that number just seems low. That's only 300k more than they had subscribers at one point. Compared to somethin like say....LotRO which saw a jump of somethin like 400% in actual payin customers, this is pretty low.
On the flip side, now that I'm not actually payin for the game I do enjoy it a whole lot more. Back when it had a sub fee I actually felt like I was gettin ripped off when any number of game breakin bugs showed up. Now that its a F2P game I can just shrug it all off.
Really I expected more than 2 million accounts. Even ignorin how many of those are spambots or people who gave it a single try for a weekend and gave up, that number just seems low. That's only 300k more than they had subscribers at one point. Compared to somethin like say....LotRO which saw a jump of somethin like 400% in actual payin customers, this is pretty low.
On the flip side, now that I'm not actually payin for the game I do enjoy it a whole lot more. Back when it had a sub fee I actually felt like I was gettin ripped off when any number of game breakin bugs showed up. Now that its a F2P game I can just shrug it all off.
now for the important question;
how many of those are active players/subscribers?
cause one of those 2 million is mine but i haven't touched the game in months
how many of those are active players/subscribers?
cause one of those 2 million is mine but i haven't touched the game in months
I love this game. I realize how flawed it is at it's core (Hey guize letz make a wow-killer and make it exactly like wow lol) but the storyline and world are awesome enough to keep me playing. I'll never subscribe since I don't play it regularly enough to justify the monthly fee, but I'm quite willing to fork over some cash for an expansion here or a snazzy mount there.
I do hope the game stays healthy enough to give us more story and more classes.
I do hope the game stays healthy enough to give us more story and more classes.
The article is hilarious, implying that the most important update for a content-lacking game are same sex relationships, like this is some kind of a sex game or something. And the inaccurate wording in the bold text.
I find this article to be below standard for the Escapist.
I find this article to be below standard for the Escapist.
It doesn't matter if they managed to get 2 million f2p subscriptions. At the end of the day you can't defeat math. This turd of a game cost somewhere nearing half a billion USD to make. even 2 million people buying in game hats aren't going to even begin to dent that debt. And if the game can never recoup its initial development costs, exactly how long do you think an outfit like EA will keep pouring money into further development? (Here's a hint, how long have we been hearing about this magical gay marriage expansion now? When exactly is the release date? So yeah they have a handful or people working on it at best).
Games like LotRo or EQ2 could be saved with f2p, because the costs they needed to make up were not unreasonable, and were a reachable goal for a f2p cash shop profit model. 10, 20 or even $50 million may be achieved. But for $250 to $500 million? you're not going to hit that with a niche MMO that has already failed once in the market. And Oh boy won't the wailing and gnashing of teeth be spectacular when EA's accounting department finally drops the hammer and takes the whole mess as a tax write off.
Games like LotRo or EQ2 could be saved with f2p, because the costs they needed to make up were not unreasonable, and were a reachable goal for a f2p cash shop profit model. 10, 20 or even $50 million may be achieved. But for $250 to $500 million? you're not going to hit that with a niche MMO that has already failed once in the market. And Oh boy won't the wailing and gnashing of teeth be spectacular when EA's accounting department finally drops the hammer and takes the whole mess as a tax write off.
Dear BiowarEA,
Overhaul your space game. Less Starfox, more X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. Heck, I'd take Rogue Squadron in a pinch.
Overhaul your space game. Less Starfox, more X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. Heck, I'd take Rogue Squadron in a pinch.
I got two problems with this news article. One, two million new accounts doesn't mean two million new subscribers. Two, EA did not spent $500 million making TOR. That number is absurd, and I get pissed off every time I see it repeated with the same caveat "according to some estimates." The estimate always comes from the same analyst, who included the purchase of Bioware as a "development cost" for TOR. And I keep seeing it popped up in news on the Escapist because it's the most eye-catchingly ludicrous estimate they can find a source for.
Bioware said close to launch that TOR was budgeted to remain profitable at a minimum of 500,000 subscribers. That number makes no sense if the game cost half a billion dollars, unless you think "profitable" means "it will take seven months of subscriptions just to break even."
Anyway. From my experience playing the game, the biggest consumers of TOR's new cash shop are actually the subscribers. It turns out if you're already $15 deep into a game, it's easy to fork out $15 more for a new speeder or a Darth Malak outfit.
Bioware said close to launch that TOR was budgeted to remain profitable at a minimum of 500,000 subscribers. That number makes no sense if the game cost half a billion dollars, unless you think "profitable" means "it will take seven months of subscriptions just to break even."
Anyway. From my experience playing the game, the biggest consumers of TOR's new cash shop are actually the subscribers. It turns out if you're already $15 deep into a game, it's easy to fork out $15 more for a new speeder or a Darth Malak outfit.
does anyone know if they still punish people who play for free? i heard its fun if you go with the subscription, but for the people who play for free, its so limiting that it makes the game a chore to play. also, is finding groups easier now? one reason i cancelled my subscription last year was because my friends dont play it, so finding people for group missions could take a very long time and i dreaded getting them because i knew it would be me just standing there going "Looking for group" for an hour or so. honestly, i could deal with the game treating me like shit for not having a subscription, if i could just consistently find a group
The F2P system is pretty shit but they've added a group finder that is really quite easy to use. You pick which flashpoints or ops you want to queue for, set your spec, then it automatically sets you up with a group.00slash00 said:
It's really something that should have been in the game to start with, but I think it fixes your problem.
Does it only apply to Flashpoint and Ops? I never reached endgame and I know Flashpoints are extremely limited in the free to play model. What I was talking about just the normal missions you get from NPCs that are just like, "Clear out this cave" or something, and suggest playing it with two or more playersbastardofmelbourne said:
It is limited to flashpoints, operations and daily hubs, sadly. That means you're stuck using /1 if you want to find a group for a heroic.00slash00 said:
How easy it is to do that depends one what heroic you're doing. The daily heroics are usually part of a useful weekly quest, so it's easy enough to find a group for them. The low-level heroics and most of the Corellia level 50 heroics, however, don't give useful rewards, so no-body does them.
Hm, well that's unfortunate. I am interested in playing to experience the story, but I guess in order to do low level heroic missions, I'd have to be super over leveled (which would probably then make them kind of pointless. If no one does low level heroics, does that mean they're pointless and I should stick to just doing daily heroics?bastardofmelbourne said:
Low-level heroics primarily give planetary commendations, which you get buckets of through other quests and can only be used to buy gear and mods appropriate to the planet's level range. You can easily skip them.00slash00 said:
You shouldn't worry about missing out on any of the story since most of the heroic missions are basically filler. It'll be some Twi'lek dude telling you to go kill twenty gangsters in pre-recorded Huttese so Bioware don't have to pay for more VA. You're not missing much.
I tried this out recently, made a Jedi consular. The game is not immersive, The starter area even feels very "gamey". That may sound silly but it's hard to explain. The quests are instantly mundane and jammed into a tiny space, they are all standard WoW quests, even less insteresting than WoW, because it's already been done and our suspense of disbelief is less forgiving.
Off the bat it felt very generic, lot's of mundane black and white choices like "if you complete quest in this manner puppies will fall from the sky into blankets of cosy warmness or in the other manner puppies will fall from the skies TO THEIR DEATHS, THE SURVIVORS WILL ATTACK THE LEGS OF BYSTANDERS MWAHAHAHA"
It just felt forumlaic and unnatural. I can't judge it too harshly because I didn't make it out of the starter area, but I didnt feel like I wanted to, I was already bored.
Even Star Trek Online felt more alive than this game's starter area.
The reason it failed because there was never any passion in it, cash in licensed games rarely ever feel good. They touted it as a bioware MMO but all they ever did to Bioware is use them as a brand, once they realised how tasty and succulently full of money their games could be they leeched on. The people who were previously "we have to make this game because I want to tell this story and hopefully make a living from this" seemed to have become the people who go "Damn I have to make this game a certain way so it will make lots of money".
That's the problem with art for profit. At some point, when the art isnt being made for sake of creativity, and you are making art for the sake of how much money it will make, you lose all the integrity of the creative process and you make things that are mundane.
Off the bat it felt very generic, lot's of mundane black and white choices like "if you complete quest in this manner puppies will fall from the sky into blankets of cosy warmness or in the other manner puppies will fall from the skies TO THEIR DEATHS, THE SURVIVORS WILL ATTACK THE LEGS OF BYSTANDERS MWAHAHAHA"
It just felt forumlaic and unnatural. I can't judge it too harshly because I didn't make it out of the starter area, but I didnt feel like I wanted to, I was already bored.
Even Star Trek Online felt more alive than this game's starter area.
The reason it failed because there was never any passion in it, cash in licensed games rarely ever feel good. They touted it as a bioware MMO but all they ever did to Bioware is use them as a brand, once they realised how tasty and succulently full of money their games could be they leeched on. The people who were previously "we have to make this game because I want to tell this story and hopefully make a living from this" seemed to have become the people who go "Damn I have to make this game a certain way so it will make lots of money".
That's the problem with art for profit. At some point, when the art isnt being made for sake of creativity, and you are making art for the sake of how much money it will make, you lose all the integrity of the creative process and you make things that are mundane.