f13.net

Over 3 billion NPCs killed

I'm actually surprised it's only a million. Hell, it felt like there was a million people alone doing the same stupid destroy ten computer thingys as me, on my under populated server on the Republic side.

He said January 2013, the Hump will be long over by then. I couldn't even guess the numbers, it's fun, but can they keep the fun at end game going to keep people for a year?

 It's WoW but the end game is far more accessible and that is going to be enough for a lot of people.

I went and counted and right now the front pages of the general discussion are 1/3 to 1/2 complaints and negatives. And that's with mods very actively removing threads--I clicked on one and it was already gone. That doesn't sound like high retention to me.

Or it's AN OFFICIAL FORUM. Outside the lunatic fringe, people don't go there for general discussion, they go there to bitch. People who enjoy the game play the game. Look how drastically my posting here goes down when I'm not at work. Because I'm enjoying the game.

no big ad campaign(s)

We must watch different tv networks, I'm seeing their adverts all over the place.

I thought the rumours about preorders were in the 1.7 to 2 million range, 1 million seems low.  There are too many variables for this what with guild wars, horrible panda expansion, will there be a swtor expansion in that time?

I dunno, 525,000.

They had 800k preorders. 1 million is indeed quite low-- it means that most of the people playing the game preordered it, and it's not performing well at retail. If they had 1.5 million players, that press release would have said "almost 2 million".

It's not a disaster or unrecoverable, but subs need to substantially grow ver time.

Or it's AN OFFICIAL FORUM. Outside the lunatic fringe, people don't go there for general discussion, they go there to bitch. People who enjoy the game play the game. Look how drastically my posting here goes down when I'm not at work. Because I'm enjoying the game.

WoW's boards were always full of bitching, even in its peak years.

It will be at least 500k if they tune and add more content for the poopsockers.  But to succeed and grow or survive a dip -- like LotRO did -- they need to fill out of the mid-game and retune and enhance the starting levels.  The core market is not us and they need to either go F2P or add MT for cosmetics items and buffs ASAP.  Otherwise, it will die a typical EA death -- over ambitious, over spent, over thought, under played, under critiqued (cf. Spore).

A year from January i peg them at around 500k, third place behind WoW and Rift.

How many subs does Rift have these days?

Over a million but F2P.

EA will never let TOR go F2P.  Look at WAR.

They had more than 800k.

Okay, let's look at WAR (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21155.0)
Hell, EA don't even need to go F2P to start; they could just start selling empty orange gear for real cash. Want that authentic Revanchist mask/helm? Yours for only $2!

Okay, let's look at WAR (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21155.0)
Hell, EA don't even need to go F2P to start; they could just start selling empty orange gear for real cash. Want that authentic Revanchist mask/helm? Yours for only $2!

Legitimate question: why do so many people think this is going free to play?

I think the investment is far too large to make F2P a realistic proposal for now. It's going to have to bomb really badly over the next 12 months for that to happen.

I also think it's far to early to make predictions. It depends so much on how they handle the coming months. They've got a decent foundation of a game that's a lot of fun but which still has too many cock-stabbing mechanisms and rough edges left over from 2006. If they go all hardass "stupid players are doing it wrong" and ignore the glaring problems then it's doomed and will go the way of WAR and will have 300-500k by Jan 2013. If they address the main problems and start really innovating and seriously see themselves as competing with WoW as it is (not WoW as it was) then they've got a chance to stay above 1-1.5m by 2013.

They need a major content patch in 3-4 months time that also has huge improvements to core systems such as AH, LFD, crafting.

Legitimate question: why do so many people think this is going free to play?

Legitimate question: why do so many people think this is going free to play?

Because they are being dicks. It's one of those one-off things people like to say when they think a game sucks.

They of course have no basis in economic reality. No game that put this much money in R&D decides to go F2P within a year. You'd never be able to get any ROI from the deal. I'm not saying they won't have a combo of vanity microtrans and sub like WoW, but outright F2P? Please.

Maybe this isn't the thread for it, but how many of you plan on playing past the free month?  Or longer?

Maybe this isn't the thread for it, but how many of you plan on playing past the free month?  Or longer?

I signed up for the cyclical 3 month subscription.  No way I am quitting after the first month.  Not only am I as slow as Hutt spit in leveling in the first place (level 28, been playing since day 1 of EA), but I am definitely going to play at least 3 classes all the way through.  And that is just on the Empire side.

I predict 500k subscribers a year from now.
However, if those of us who are predicting numbers less than 1 million are right, will we ever find out for sure?

Maybe this isn't the thread for it, but how many of you plan on playing past the free month?  Or longer?

I signed up for the cyclical 3 month subscription.  No way I am quitting after the first month.  Not only am I as slow as Hutt spit in leveling in the first place (level 28, been playing since day 1 of EA), but I am definitely going to play at least 3 classes all the way through.  And that is just on the Empire side.

I planning to play for a while, yeah. A shock, I am sure.  :oh_i_see:

I'm waiting for the first major bug-release/minor content patch myself to see how much effort Bioware is going to put into SWTOR. If I see some solid attempts at improving quality of life and fixing most of the shit that should've been fixed in beta (like fixing the last boss of Cademimu's room so you don't literally burst into flames and die if you enter it), I'll be satisfied.

Let's throw some sales data into the mix: http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110015

Let's throw some sales data into the mix: http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110015

Your need to hate on this is getting more tiresome than Sinij's paranoia and veering closely to trolling.

Maybe this isn't the thread for it, but how many of you plan on playing past the free month?  Or longer?

I signed up for the cyclical 3 month subscription.  No way I am quitting after the first month.  Not only am I as slow as Hutt spit in leveling in the first place (level 28, been playing since day 1 of EA), but I am definitely going to play at least 3 classes all the way through.  And that is just on the Empire side.

I'm holding off on playing my republitards because we'll probably be the only two left in another month :)

In one year, they're not going to catch themselves up to all of the features and innovations that have been introduced in the industry since 2006. I am long past accepting "We'll add that sometime in the future" as anything other than "We had no idea that this missing feature was in any way important to player satisfaction. We'll add it after we see that we're losing subs."

I'm playing this as a single-player game with some occasional co-op content bits, and for that it's def.

I signed up for a 6 month subscription once it came time to pay up.  I'm in for the long haul.  If/when BC fades, I'll probably find another group to putter around with.  I'm suffering from major altitis and a pretty big desire to play a sorcerer instead for my inquisitor, and have yet to even touch Republic side stuff in release, so I've got tons of stuff to do. 

I got the six month sub.  My wife and I are having a blast leveling together  (Fun fact:  If you have a player who specs healing then it is possible to 2 man all the 4 man heroics - at least up to level 38). 

I found it depends on the heroic 4. Some of them get really fucking hard.  :ye_gods:

We tried a heroic 4 on Voss that was I think level 47, with a 46, a 47, and a 49, using the 49's companion; we got obliterated several times by the final boss guy, although the steps before that were all a breeze.

I LOVE my operative. I didn't think it was possible to improve on the Sith storyline but being able to play space James Bond and basically hump your way across the Star Wars universe makes me absolutely giddy. 

And group conversations - so good! Grouped with a load of really fucking earnest, do-gooder Jedi for Hammer Station and the only dialogue option I won was when my Smuggler says "If I die, I want you to build a statue of me."

SWTOR right now doesn't offer any better gameplay than many free to play games that are available so why pay a monthly fee?

I am going to guess 700k based on the fact that the 50 game is Terrible with nothing to look forward to but forced grouping.  I am hopeful that the game becomes a bit more accommodating to the solo and small group experience.

Now, at 50 I don't have a lot of experience, but I don't mind running dungeons and doing dailies. I liked that stuff. I could give a crap less about WoW now and have no plans to return. I'll play this for 3 months and see what the horizon looks like.

It's a very fun game to play 2 player, my wife and I have leveled together exclusively.  I am annoyed that some player quests can be completed together and some cannot.  The game bugs really start coming out of the wordwork post level 25 though.  Some of the design decisions leave me really scratching my head (after spending the time to put together an orange outfit I like I am going to have to scrap it entirely when I get epic gear because they don't ant me removing the mods...).  I think a lot of folk are going to leave this game pretty quickly if they don't fix the combat responsiveness issues.

It's a very fun game to play 2 player, my wife and I have leveled together exclusively.  I am annoyed that some player quests can be completed together and some cannot.  The game bugs really start coming out of the wordwork post level 25 though.  Some of the design decisions leave me really scratching my head (after spending the time to put together an orange outfit I like I am going to have to scrap it entirely when I get epic gear because they don't ant me removing the mods...).  I think a lot of folk are going to leave this game pretty quickly if they don't fix the combat responsiveness issues.

What about pulling mods? The system was  still in flux at launch, I posted a dev tracker post with some changes in the pipe.

What are the combat responsiveness issues? I've heard this mentioned a few times and I'm not sure what people are talking about. Maybe I shouldn't ask, I'm enjoying the game and should just leave it at that.

I think all class quests can be completed together, if by together you mean that your groupmates can follow you into the areas. I think some may put you into "spectator" mode on moral choices but if you go into the options you can let anyone into your story areas. I dunno about letting people onto your ship though, I've never tried that.

What about pulling mods? The system was  still in flux at launch, I posted a dev tracker post with some changes in the pipe.

What are the combat responsiveness issues? I've heard this mentioned a few times and I'm not sure what people are talking about. Maybe I shouldn't ask, I'm enjoying the game and should just leave it at that.

Ships: Your party members can go on your ship, and can ride with you to another destination. The Trick is, you have to let them on the ship first. Once you enter your ship, it takes off. Anyone not on the ship will be punted out of the hanger.

Class Story areas: group mates can go in, but go into spectator mode for conversations. Can help combat.

Class Story areas and 2 of the same class in a group: There is an option to allow a group member of the same CLASS to also enter, they can not by default. ( IE: Cant have two Operatives, unless allowed ) Only the owner (First in) will progress story however.

Ships: Your party members can go on your ship, and can ride with you to another destination. The Trick is, you have to let them on the ship first. Once you enter your ship, it takes off. Anyone not on the ship will be punted out of the hanger.

All story lines, for all classes, at equal stages, will be in the same location/area. IE: All members on "Planet" + "step 5" will all be going to the "abandoned mine",  just different doors.

For people complaining about the mods at endgame, they posted today that they will be flipping purples back to having all their mods removable.

What are the combat responsiveness issues? I've heard this mentioned a few times and I'm not sure what people are talking about. Maybe I shouldn't ask, I'm enjoying the game and should just leave it at that.

I'm calling space combat pvp warzones by next Christmas, instant win there.

As an example, Jedi Knights have an AoE instant stun ability called Force Sweep.  The ability description says it's instant.  You activate it, and your toon crouches down, then jumps into the air, then slams back into the ground and creates a wave that stuns everyone around you. 

I'm not seeing anything that will stop me from sticking around yet. I haven't gotten to do much level 50 stuff, Slap doesn't have any level 50 dpsers yet.  :why_so_serious:

I'm not seeing anything that will stop me from sticking around yet. I haven't gotten to do much level 50 stuff, Slap doesn't have any level 50 dpsers yet.  :why_so_serious:

:(

Heh. I thought that was a cool ability.

There's a real disconnect between the mmo fans and the casual fans. I hope they don't go to far in trying to please you guys, because honestly none of you are going to be playing in three months even if they fix every thing you perceive as a problem.

1.  How is my tank character balanced vs. the other 2 tanks?  Their stuns are actually instant, I imagine.

1.  How is my tank character balanced vs. the other 2 tanks?  Their stuns are actually instant, I imagine.

One thing I wonder if you guys are underestimating is character investment. I feel really attached to my character unlike most MMOs. It's very much like I get attached to my Commander Shepard in Mass Effect.

I really want to love this game, but my guild is already growing weary of the lack of things to do besides reroll.

Heh. I thought that was a cool ability.

There's a real disconnect between the mmo fans and the casual fans. I hope they don't go to far in trying to please you guys, because honestly none of you are going to be playing in three months even if they fix every thing you perceive as a problem.

There are some voice actors I just can't make myself identify with. There are probably 4-5 classes I just can't play.

What are the combat responsiveness issues?

Male Sith Warrior voice actor is terrible - sounds like he's reading the dialogue from cards over the telephone and his intonation is pretty similar for everything he says.

I've seen most of these ingame, but I just call it "culnky" or broken and move on. Good to see someone cares enough to records videos and discuss it, hope they can actually fix all of those.

btw, if you watch one movie, watch this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUQ1JCcuaNQ&feature=youtu.be) it really illustrates the problem well.

I also feel much more attached to my characters, but it mostly results in me thinking "I can't just ABANDON THEM" and wanting to level them through their story. I am failing Kalah in my inability to solo as a gunslinger without wanting to kill myself.  :heartbreak:

Coming across the crossover storylines is motivating me to take a hell of a lot more interest in parts of the game I took for granted.

The problem in that video is what bothers me the most in terms of responsiveness.  It's as though the server checks to see if you are moving causing lag to be a factor whereas WoW lets the client decide if you are standing still.  It's frustrating because if I'm not pushing any other button, meaning I'm clearly not moving, I should be able to cast whaterver I want.

As a melee character I shouldn't have to stand still for any of my moves but that's a seperate gripe...

btw, if you watch one movie, watch this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUQ1JCcuaNQ&feature=youtu.be) it really illustrates the problem well.

Wtf was that? I've never had a problem pressing a button and having my ability fire off. I'm not trying to be all fanboy on this, I've honestly thought the combat is pretty awesome. I do run with 1s ability queues (though I'd prefer a full length ability queue, not including that option is dumb).

Maybe it's my awesome internets  :oh_i_see:

WoW seems to have much more robust client side prediction.

It seems that Wow players like having the damage attributed, BEFORE you swing your arm. Only time I have felt any real disconnect was during heavy load areas.

We like having our abilities actually work when we use them, yes  :awesome_for_real: (especially in pvp)

Yes. Dam them for waiting for the projectile to connect with the target before attributing damage.
Dam them for requiring your arm to swing in a non-super hero speed before damage is attributed.

On and on.   :awesome_for_real:

There is a difference between hitting a key and having the ability fire ( Animation and Effect/Affect ). And what most are arguing ( On the Main Forum ), that animation, and by that, time, should not be a factor.

This seems to come up in every MMO that has a unique animation per ability.

The only problem I've encountered with the animations is when I use an ability with a cast time longer than the GCD, and try to use another ability before the animation on the first has completed, the second ability fires off, but no damage is done.  I.E. I fire off Tracer Missle, and as the cast bar completes, I use Rail Shot.  The cool down for Rail Shot will activate, and I'll see the Rail Shot animation, and here the shot, but no damage will be done, based on the scrolling combat text.  Nor will I get a miss/dodge/etc. result.  I had the same issue during the earlier levels on my BH when using say, Unload, followed by my Flamethrower ability.  The Flamethrower animation would play, but no damage would be done.

Unfortunately, with no sort of combat log, I can't verify that nothing is happening, but from what I tell it isn't.

edit: to elaborate - if I press my interrupt hotkey while an enemy is casting a 2-second spell, I want the interrupt to go off NOW and interrupt whatever the opponent is casting... not go off 1.5 seconds later and whiff, go on cooldown, etc. In SWTOR an 'instant' off-GCD interrupt can take an extra second or two depending on circumstances. Latency by itself is a big enough problem, why compound it with unresponsive skills?

The Sage's rock throw instant has a delay to it too.

Nar Shadda was by FAR the worst experience for me.  I know most of this game is monster hallways but making an entire planet of literal monster hallways, and bland ones, was rough.  Any alts do all the side shit, fleet shit, and PvP ahead of time so I can just do class quests and get the fuck out of that shithole.

Alderaan had a lot of long empty pointless hallways too. It's like dudes, I understand you want it to feel BIG and shit but ... man, I do not need to run around in your big, stupid, mostly empty building this much.

Wtf was that? I've never had a problem pressing a button and having my ability fire off. I'm not trying to be all fanboy on this, I've honestly thought the combat is pretty awesome. I do run with 1s ability queues (though I'd prefer a full length ability queue, not including that option is dumb).

Maybe it's my awesome internets  :oh_i_see:

I just hope they put in a fix that doesn't diminish the coolness of the animations. Cue someone bitching about how shitty the animations are.

I'd rather have cool animations.

It's a matter of pressing a 1.5s ability and moving in the less than half a second it finishes the cast. In WoW it goes off, in TOR it interrupts it, movie displays that quite nicely. I'm still not used to it and sometimes it takes 5-6 attempts to mount. After 6 years, my fingers know how long 1.5s take.

he's doing the exact same thing in both movies, he's not gaming it.

I did some testing of that meantime (thought could only use smuggler's 2 sec heal rather than a 1.5 sec cast)  I'd say generally the respone was quite fine in my experience -- even if i started moving right as the cast was about to end, i'd get the "interrupted" note from client but the heal would still go off. However, there seems to be annoying bug in the client which often prevents progress bar from appearing on sub-sequent casts -- the ability fires but you get no indication of that. When the ability is being induced "blindly" like that it's very easy to interrupt it because you lack the cue just how long exactly the cast is going to yet last.

I was thinking this had to do with running vs walking, and possibly the sprint ability. Seeing as I don't have the game I can't exactly test it, but the animation for moving/strafing could be what's causing this interrupt.

I continually keep wondering if anyone who beta tested this game actually submitted bug reports, especially with the numerous issues I've been reading about on forums since my beta weekend experience. I saw numerous bugs I submitted the second stress/beta weekend (when I actually got into the game), but honestly put most of the action delays, animation timing and poor responses I was having into the category of "massive lag" with how busy the servers were at that time.

Shame there's no combat log, or it might be easier to detect some of this shit.

I liked the whole bad acid trip vibe of Voss.

fakeedit: Had to look up the past tense of "to cancel"... English major ftw.  :grin:

No problems - none of us native English speakers would of picked you up on it.

More seriously, I think the lack of impact from itemization is really dragging me down. In Vanilla WoW, if you outfit yourself with good quality gear for your level and got some consumables you could make the levelling curve a bit easier. Also as you got more abilities and more powerful abilities, levelling got that much easier. In SWTOR, I can have dual purple hilts, blue gear and mods with a smattering of purples here and there and still be getting my ass kicked to the point I have to use defensive cooldowns and 8 or 9 abilities just to make it through simple fights, much less heroics with a healer.

I was rather vehement in beta about keeping the game difficulty somewhat high because WoW's faceroll mode levelling was so damn boring, but now faced with another few quests of frantically mashing buttons in order to kill shit before I hit a quarter health, it's so far in the other direction that I just can't seem to bother with it. The feeling of actually growing more powerful as you level simply isn't there for me, at least on the Sith Marauder.

I got a good chuckle from that.  :grin:

1.  Four stories instead of eight, but each twice as long.
2.  No side quests, no errands.  Literally no quests but the story, which takes a player from 1-50. 

I defintely stumble on some planets, I sat idle on Alderaan for a week before deciding to just get it over with.  An unfair comparison to WoW is that there are always two level appropriate zones that are very different to go through (at least 1-60) so if you don't like a zone you can just choose the other.

Maybe all these games are copying the wrong parts of WoW.  

Been saying that for a while now...

I'd copy WoW's AH. All of it.

....per-planet currency system, ....

Surely you don't mean the terrible commendation system.  I think I bought a few upgrades before I left Coursant and then never cared about them again since the selection to buy with them was rarely any good.  I mostly just bought minor modification upgrades to blow all my commendations before I left a planet.

Surely you don't mean the terrible commendation system.  I think I bought a few upgrades before I left Coursant and then never cared about them again since the selection to buy with them was rarely any good.  I mostly just bought minor modification upgrades to blow all my commendations before I left a planet.

Quality of Life and Polish, for beginners.  It's not like I'm a DIKU fan-girl.

My memory may be getting fuzzy with age, but WoW was pretty bug ridden the first 3 months as I remember. SWTOR also seems to be much better in terms of quality of life for people that enjoy solo play. 

Your problem could be that you keep playing these things at release, then.  WoW got much better over time in terms of QOL - until Cataclysm.  I can't say I care for much of the endgame right now but in terms of the leveling it was always improving in incremental, if small, ways.

Making this prediction is hard if you don't follow the medium closely enough to know what's supposed to come out this year. Diablo3 is fantasy and not MMO so it seems like that wouldn't have a large impact and I'm not aware of any other AAA MMO titles off hand.

I didn't think I had a problem, just an opinion.  

I think Diablo 3 is relevant because the market has expanded past the old hardcore MMO market and as MMOs have dumbed themselves down to being little more than a visual game lobby, a game with a non-visual game lobby is more likely to pull players away.

For like a month. Maybe. And people aren't going to cancel their subscriptions for it.

He also isn't doing "the exact same thing" by any means:

* WoW part, 4 strafes between 0:10 and 0:18, once per 2 seconds.
* SWOTR part, 5 strafes between 0:26 and 0:31, once a second

is it still any wonder he's getting different results?

Incorrect, there are 5 strafes between 0:10 and 0:18.

Also, the SWTOR part he strafes faster because the spell fails to fire after the strafe + button press, so he just tries again without having to wait for the spell to cast.

People aren't going to quit their MMO for D3 any more than they quit their MMO for, say, Skyrim. They might play less for a while, but I don't know anyone who quit an MMO for a non-MMO. They quit out of boredom, they quit because they don't like the game, they quit because they're out of shit to do, they quit because the new shiny MMO came out, but they never go "YES DRAGON AGE CAME OUT GOODBYE FOREVER WOW" or whatever.

But D3 isn't just a single player game with a clear-cut completion point for many people. It's an open-ended, continual character advancement, loot farming game, which has the potential for some people to replace an MMO in their gaming time.

Not generalising, some people of course will play through D3 once or twice and never touch online play at all. But many other will play online for a loooooong time probably.

tl;dr: When I'm sitting at my PC, deciding what game to play, I'd rather log into WoW.

Even if it hadn't timed-out on you it would have told you too many characters.   Nobody in business who makes decisions reads essays. Bullet lists give nice data points and checklists.

You like some things but also hate some things, but you like WoW, so you're going to play that.  I kinda looked at the (SWTOR) game with a critical eye yesterday too, and decided to abandon my L35 Jedi Guardian for now in order to play Empire-side, because everyone says (and the sever populations show) that Empire is more polished.  So why struggle with the bugs and annoyances on the Republic side, makes no sense.

ed: Hutch; that post is entirely too long for a feedback slot on a 'why did you cancel' form.  They're looking for bullet lists, not essays.  Even if it hadn't timed-out on you it would have told you too many characters.   Nobody in business who makes decisions reads essays. Bullet lists give nice data points and checklists.

This post is inspired by the feedback that I tried to type into the box, when I went through the cancellation process on my account page.
...
Here, I'm going to expound a little more and also review some things that have occurred to me since then.

I also don't really like how the republic itself is portrayed.  I thought it would be all virtuous and united in striving against evil but the quests make plain that it is full of scum and corruption from top to bottom.  That kind of takes the wind out of any pride which would normally come from fighting the good fight.

As far as I've seen it currently doesn't seem to have any endgame appeal, period.  The only attractive end game activity seems to be making alts to see another class or factions main quest line.

Didn't we come to this conclusion months ago... and for every MMO that has come out?

As far as I've seen it currently doesn't seem to have any endgame appeal, period.  The only attractive end game activity seems to be making alts to see another class or factions main quest line.

I also don't really like how the republic itself is portrayed.  I thought it would be all virtuous and united in striving against evil but the quests make plain that it is full of scum and corruption from top to bottom. 

I'm sure you meant to say "wretched hive of scum and villainy" /instantcsi (http://cow.org/csi/)

The optimism is then smashed by cruel reality. 

tl;dr: What it all boils down to is this. When I'm sitting at my PC, deciding what game to play, I'd rather log into WoW. I made the same decision regarding Rift, nearly a year ago now. Maybe SWTOR will be a better MMO at some point in the future. I'm sure it's not going anywhere.

The worst empire side storyline is superior to the best republic storyline.

 (I've only played each class of theirs up to 16 or so though).

 :headscratch:

Typical internet sentiment that bad guys are better characters and good guys are boring.  You see this everywhere about how "good guys are boring because they have no flaws and are predictable."   Stormwaltz had said something about this in one of the ME2 threads as well, so it seems to be something pervasive about the greater culture.   

One can be good and flawed, but for some reason they're always labeled as uninteresting or unrelatable.  I always relate it to bad writing that you can't make being good 'interesting.' 

Then agian, I always identified with Luke, not Han despite how "cool" he was always supposed to be. Han was an ass.  Also; Sturm was a better character than Tannis or Raistlin ever were.

The problem with the "Good" Jedi Knight choices is that the delivery and lines are sometimes soooooo groan worthy.

"Wait, we can sort this out without violence." - Bear in mind I slaughtered 40 faceless goons to get here.
"Put down your weapons and surrender." - Not once has that ever worked, we only do it because we KNOW it's the good guy choice.
"I'm a Jedi, we aren't bound by passion." - No, we are bound by emotionless delivery.
"Allow me to help with this." - Because asking for payment for a hard days work is wrong.

The answer is probably nothing. Who is going to throw a budget that size at a single player RPG?

Are you actually playing the game in a guild with other people? I am starting to suspect no.

They should have a lot more snarky retorts, maybe along the lines of "Yeah yeah I'll do it, I mean who else is going to?" or even the light side / dark side interrupts they had in Mass Effect where you just up and punch the guy in the middle of his speech or cut him short or whatever.

Consular gets quite a few of these.

This game doesn't even have a release date, so no.

So you're another one of those people who didn't play the game at all, but came into a subforum to complain about it?

"Put down your weapons and surrender." - Not once has that ever worked,

Typical internet sentiment that bad guys are better characters and good guys are boring. 

Not sure why you label this "internet sentiment" when it's been this way forever. Consider this list: Darth Vader, The Terminator, The Wicked Witch of The West, Norman Bates, Jack Torrance, Mr Blonde, Pennywise, Nurse Rached, Freddy Krueger, Hans Gruber, Hannibal Lecter, Roy Baty, Harry Lime, Khan... movie villains that became iconic and popular long before internet started to rule our lives.

If by "Forever" you mean, "all the stuff I've been exposed to and media has crammed into my subconscious,"  sure.

When you're writing trite dialog, it's much easier to make the bad guys interesting.

Merusk list: good literature.

DraconianOne list: pop culture.

When you're writing trite dialog, it's much easier to make the bad guys interesting.

They could of made the "Good Guy" stories far more interesting if they'd used the companions more as well.

I am surprised how little the companions figure into the story.  They're mostly along as a buff in PvE.  They need huge individual arcs.

Lot of writing and voice work on the hopes that you're using that particular companion in any given conversation/arc. I didn't get a mission from any companion other than Mako, because it just didn't make any sense to have anyone but Mako along with me.

There are actually quests for the companions, they're just tied to affection levels. After getting Vette to a certain level (around 3000ish) one of her 30s dialog clips ended with offering me a quest, which involved us tracking down some item from her past. I won't go into detail but it seems to be what you guys are looking for; they exist, they're just tied to high affection levels and probably character level or story progress (since quests don't scale in level, you must be this tall before they are offered).

Plus the armor just looks better on Empire.

What is that under your droid?

What is that under your droid?

I think a game that de-shitifies MMO combat has the potential to get those numbers again. TERA looks aesthetically awful and Korean MMOs aren't exactly known for being friendly, but I'm still pretty excited to check out the game after seeing a video of the combat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0ShwgsSPnE). Titan, from what little we know, also sounds like it is going to attempt to do an MMO without the boring combat. If SWTOR had the type of combat you see in that video, people would have a good reason to stick around besides the story.

DCUO was a step in the right direction, but that game had a lot of problems keeping it from being a massive success.

So you're another one of those people who didn't play the game at all, but came into a subforum to complain about it?

Out of interest, are you still posting in the WoW subforum?

Plus the armor just looks better on Empire.

Wow, I could not possibly disagree more. My main issue with the Empire visually is 90% of their armor looks stupid and/or assy.

What is that under your droid?

In one year, 150-200k subs.

Losses will be steeper if a good MMO comes along that is style #1 below, and those player types migrate to it.

A friend just bought this for me to play with her. Never have I jumped through so many hoops to download a game and seriously....I just gave you $60 and I have to download 25gigs at 30k/second?

Today is patch day so there were probably a lot of people hitting the servers. Or, you know, someone exaggerating something on the internet.

Lot of writing and voice work on the hopes that you're using that particular companion in any given conversation/arc.

WoW's numbers were high because of how they counted the Asian market as subscribers (where a player paying for 4 hours of subscription time at an internet cafe was counted as a 'monthly subscriber'), and because the game appealed to people that were not already "MMO players".

1. An MMO where players drive the content builds over time on community and interactions. Every login is different because players aren't static in how they interact (eg DAoC RvR). You need to interact with others a lot to enjoy the full dynamic of the game. Danger, exploration, cooperation are only as intense as the players want to bother making it.

2. An MMO where content drives the players starts shiny and ends in static boredom. Expansions delay but can't stop the inevitable decline. You don't need to interact with anyone and only new content is interesting. Rinse repeat becomes the dominant feeling.

No. Even just with US numbers a year after launch, WoW exceeded the global population of everything other MMO that it was compared too (Runescape wasn't really part of that comparison, except in some Powerpoints). EQ1 never got close to 1mm. SWG neither, and that one was the first that some people thought could do it. WoW got to 1mm handily, and that was on a like-by-like subscribers comparison alone. Then their EU numbers grew to the same level. After that, the rest of their global number included "everywhere else". But the markets and sub-license arrangements of questionable equivalency only made up half of the global number, which itself far exceeded the rest.

WoW got all of the traditional MMO players. The rest of the folks in this umbrella/medium found their niche in some other diku-inspired title like LoTRO or CoX, are on the sidelines waiting for GW2, or are playing something completely different like Eve. There aren't another 12mm gamers out there looking for something just like WoW but aren't playing WoW. They're already off playing other genres, or aren't core gamers at all and giving Zynga all their eyeballs and some money along the way.

A friend just bought this for me to play with her. Never have I jumped through so many hoops to download a game and seriously....I just gave you $60 and I have to download 25gigs at 30k/second?

A friend just bought this for me ....I just gave you $60

A friend just bought this for me to play with her. Never have I jumped through so many hoops to download a game and seriously....I just gave you $60 and I have to download 25gigs at 30k/second?

No MMOG will escalate to the next level until it stops being about buttonmashing combat.

Well DL speed must have picked up while I was sleeping so it was ready to go when I woke up.  Played for a couple hours and my opinion hasn't really changed, it's a fun single player game and they probably should have just made kotor 3-6 out of it but they're after that MMO $$$

Outlook past 30 days: Unsure.

Aren't all video games button mashing?

A friend just bought this for me to play with her.

it's a fun single player game

Depends. Do you think of Skyrim as button mashing really? To me, it's more involved than that. The combat is more fluid and engaging than target, 4-3-5-4-1-1-2-3-5-4-1-1-2, loot.

She must be thrilled.

The multiplayer dialog is maybe my favorite feature of the game I don't get to enjoy nearly as much as I'd like, especially now that my play time is back to normal. With holo participation, turn-ins are a snap.

The original prediction of 400k sounds good. 

But if we're going to talk about "waves," the only wave I can see this week is the wave of customer dissatisfaction.  I can't say it's unwarranted.  There's a difference between "normal amount of bugs at launch" and "bewildering things that made it to live and only get worse with patches."  I'm beginning to wonder if the lead designers of this game are Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.

She must be thrilled.

The multiplayer dialog is maybe my favorite feature of the game I don't get to enjoy nearly as much as I'd like, especially now that my play time is back to normal. With holo participation, turn-ins are a snap.

Depends. Do you think of Skyrim as button mashing really? To me, it's more involved than that. The combat is more fluid and engaging than target, 4-3-5-4-1-1-2-3-5-4-1-1-2, loot.

The original prediction of 400k sounds good. 

But if we're going to talk about "waves," the only wave I can see this week is the wave of customer dissatisfaction.  I can't say it's unwarranted.  There's a difference between "normal amount of bugs at launch" and "bewildering things that made it to live and only get worse with patches."  I'm beginning to wonder if the lead designers of this game are Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.

SAN FRANCISCO –  Shares of Electronic Arts Inc. fell nearly 3% to $17.75 on Thursday morning after an analyst with Brean Murray Carret & Co. cut his price target on the stock to $22 from $28, citing concerns about the recently released online multi-player game "Star Wars: The Old Republic." In a note to clients, analyst Todd Mitchell wrote that "creeping concerns" about the performance of "Star Wars" -- which was released in late December -- is causing him to trim his earnings estimates for the 2013 fiscal year. "Specifically, initial sales appear to be below expectations, and casual observation of early play is causing us to rethink our churn assumptions," Mitchell wrote.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/01/19/ea-falls-on-broker-concerns-about-star-wars/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxbusiness%2Ftechnology+%28Internal+-+Technology+-+Mixed%29

Not super helpful for bets in this thread since we don't know what the sales or churn expectations were.  

I mean big arcs specifically involving those companions. 

Reading the forums it sounds like they'll probably lose a lot of the PvP or PvE "achievement" oriented gamers and MMO veterans[...]

Do we still believe that the majority of players don't even read the forums?  In EVE, the ratio is, what, 1000 forum users to 250k accounts, and no clue what it is in WoW...

I cannot believe how unbelievably crushed all of us are. My guild just killed Hard Mode SOA after 4 hours of horribly buggy attempts. The 3rd crystal in phase 3 never popping the immunity. People going into mind traps @ the beginning of phase 3 and not being able to get out.

We FINALLY get him down after 4 hours and we get NO LOOT from the kill. Please bioware, I know all that we are going to get is automated responses from your CS (as I have never received anything but), so PLEASE look into this and give my guild some tangible reward for our efforts.

Lord, hard mode content already?

Hard mode raids?

Anyone surprised there's a substantial number of players racing for game and server firsts has never watched an MMO community at work before. That post was from today, so it's a current kill, though I've no idea where hard-mode SOA sits on the ranking.

Mind you extending the content through intentionally buggy raids was an old SOE standby.

Box sales numbers to me are lower than expected. (Than what I expected anyway)

Anecdotally I know a guy who was jazzed to play but ended up not even getting it after he heard it was mechanically just WoW. Another guy I know asked me if I was playing, I said no, then he said none of his friends were playing and expressed surprise because he thought it was going to be huge. I know a few people who I'm sure will stop playing in a few months.

I don't like predictions because I don't know anything about worldwide release plans but the game doesn't appear to be any sort of WoW-killer, at this point it looks to be moderately more successful than WAR.

...because?

So when Verant/SOE pulled the exact same shit, back in the day, it was all perfectly fine and nobody should have complained?

They are probably going to lose a fair amount of subs due to the sorry state of their PVP. 

1. They waited too long to develop Warzone brackets
2. PVP gear makes too much of a difference
3. Ilum is a sad joke with no clear vision for wtf they really want for open world
4. Faction imbalances cause the usual mmo gate camping activity to the under populated side
5. No competitive PVP brackets yet
6. Crowd control is PVP is ridiculous, and the Mythic people working on SWTOR apparently didn't learn that lesson
7. Not setting up multi-server warzone queueing was another bone head/warhammer mistake not learned

On the PVE side of the house I think they are doing well except for......

1. Biochem blows all other skills out of the water and is a must have
2. Player crafting (armor, artiface, etc) is worthless in the end game
3. Too many trash mobs in many of the quests/flashpoints/operations
4. The high end armors look horrible (sith inquistor helm looks like a cone head)

The game may not be doing as well as the analyist would like, but it has potential to grow over time if they pump out enough content, fixes, and new features.  I would play this game just for the PVE.

I think most folks are over estimating how many people will bail over PvP.

Most people haven't even TRIED PvP yet, they're all still leveling and junk.

But when are finished leveling and PvP is one of the few options left to them....

Same story, different MMO. PvP is why we can't have nice PvE games. 

I think most folks are over estimating how many people will bail over PvP.

You can have GREAT pve games.  Just stop adding shitty pvp to them as an afterthought.

Then that probably re-introduces the problem that organized high level PVE becomes a better path to PVP success than PVP.

And yes, in before "There could be no gear!"

Then that probably re-introduces the problem that organized high level PVE becomes a better path to PVP success than PVP.

Not so sure about that; at least in the sense that if the expertise is removed out of the equation is the poopsock level raid gear actually that significantly better from what can be obtained outside of it?

If it isn't better though you can bet the raiders will be crying instead!

Long term I don't know how it will play out but I still say it has a good chance for the #2 spot in North America which I believe LOTRO currently holds.

If it doesn't hold at least #2 it will have been a colossal failure.

As far as my WAR comment, I didn't mean the game would basically die in a year, rather that it wouldn't end up pulling close to WoW numbers.

I'm sure internally the expectations for SWTOR ranged from better than WOW numbers to a sizable percentage. (Say 30-50%) On paper it looks like it could potentially be bigger than WoW.

Worrying about people who blast through content miles above and beyond the regular population should be pitied, not catered to.

They just announced a couple big pvp fixes today.   Several ability responsiveness issues are supposedly identified and due fixed on PTS and they are nerfing scoundrel/operatives.   As long as they keep this stuff up I'm not ready to downgrade my estimates by much.   People will quit but many will come back in 6 months and new people will keep joining.

They shouldn't be catered to, but they are the trailblazers who tell everyone else what is coming. What BioWare wants is, "You suck BioWare because I've completed the content and it is so damn awesome I hate you for not having more of it". Instead, the message is, "You suck BioWare because the endgame content is badly bugged and completely unbalanced and just boring". A lot of players don't post on forums, but will look up what comes next and if all they are seeing is a constant stream of negativity then it impacts on their desire to actually do those tasks.

I'm sure that it will be fixed in time, but the disappointing thing is that despite all the money poured into SWOR, it's the same old story.

The number of people who will come back to a game further down the road is very small.

EA should just close down the forums and be done with it.

I shall do the customary  :ye_gods:

So in the process of leveling to cap how much game-time is class unique content? rather a lot of variance in the estimates being used on the official forums.

[citation needed]

One thing I've noticed so far, in reading your interview with Gamespot and reading about the game, [is that] it seems to be very focused. We have five classes, the heroic level set, and Neverwinter which is a huge city and you can do a lot with that. Is Cryptic going for a light content approach, like a lot of base content to start with, enough for a game, but light, and then looking to expand on it from there?

I'd say what we're trying to do, and having learned from Star Trek Online and Champions, let me tell you my philosophy before STO and CO. Coming out of City of Heroes we launched to great acclaim, we got a lot of publicity, everybody loved it, but we didn't have crafting and we didn't have PvP. All there was to do was fight. Over the years everybody pinged us on this. We added PvP and didn't really gain any subscribers. We added crafting and we gained roughly ten thousand subscribers for three months and then it went back down. So in the grand scheme of things, what I learned is, if you didn't have a feature at launch, you might as well never have it. Whatever you're going to have at launch defines you as a game.

Coming into the launch of STO and Champions, I made sure we had something for everyone. Here was the problem. By following that philosophy, nothing was polished. We ended up having lots of half-done features in some quarters. What I forgot was, inasmuch as a consumer or a player, if it isn't there at launch it might as well not be there, well if it's in half-done or half-done well, that's what you get remembered for. The fact that STO and Champions have gotten better since their launch, we've added content, we've fixed bugs, we've responded to players, all that stuff isn't as important or as forceful as that initial interaction with the game. So we have a very different mindset here. Right now, whatever we do, it's got to be the best possible quality we can. One of the ways of doing that is to focus your content. Make sure you understand what we're making. What is the game going to be and what isn't the game going to be? You're seeing that in the interviews. Here are the classes, here's where the game's going to be set, so that the stories, the quest, everything is entirely focused. We know what we're trying to make; we're not trying to make something for everybody.

No they won't. The history of MMOs has shown us one key thing - you get one chance, and that's it. The number of people who will come back to a game further down the road is very small. Only WoW managed to keep people coming back, and surely the utter size of the game and the fact everyone under the sun plays it has something to do with that.

In the eyes of the average person they have succeeded at their "one chance".

I guess this depends on your definition of the "average person" or success.

Cryptic Interview (http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/08/23/massively-exclusive-jack-emmert-speaks-about-neverwinter-and-a/)

I can say this: The people that I used to battle (and fear) in pvp are all gone.  I no longer see the names that I once looked for.  Either they have moved on to alts or left entirely.  Either way, the lack of connection with a character at endgame will have a negative impact on the long-term success of this title.

Maybe they're leveling up the operatives; isn't that the flavour of the month in PvP and the usual modus operandi?

It'd be interesting to hear their thoughts how comes --if the stigma of the launch day attaches to the game forever-- WoW isn't forever remembered as "that game with horrendous login queues, terribad loot lag and nothing to do at endgame because there's only one raid".

It'd be interesting to hear their thoughts how comes --if the stigma of the launch day attaches to the game forever-- WoW isn't forever remembered as "that game with horrendous login queues, terribad loot lag and nothing to do at endgame because there's only one raid".

This is another reason EA should just close down the forums and be done with it.

The Cryptic interview isn't talking about stability or login queues when they talk about what the game looked like when it launched. I don't believe having rocky launch or login queues actually has as big of an effect on peoples 'first impressions' of an MMO launch as people would have you believe. Nobody really cares that Aion had huge login queues, or that Rift had an almost flawless launch. People ultimately continued to play those games (or not) based on the game content. They're much more likely to remember and form a lasting opinion of a game based on a shitty UI or input lag than a 45 minute login queue.

http://www.mmo-junkies.net/statistics/

It's not a true value of subscriptions but can give an idea on the server loads. They basically assigned a metric to the http://www.swtor.com/server-status status page and have been plotting the status. So when you add more servers the count goes up and as less servers are full/heavy the count goes down.

0 = offline
5 = full

It's all defined on their FAQ page. The only thing is if the servers expand their concurrent connection capacity it would look like a downtick in server population.

Hello all,

Out of curiosity of the post-1st month numbers, in terms of balance, I thought 8pm GMT Sunday would be a good time to take a snapshot of the server I play on from both Empire and Republic sides and make a short comparison.

The method I have used for this empirical study was the /who system in combination with level range filters such as 1-9 10-13 14-17 and so on, and then doing a class analysis for level 50 where greater than 100 results were returned - such as 50 gunslinger, 50 juggernaut, and so on. In all cases but one this was sufficient, I will cover the one exception later.

This study was done on Hex Droid EU at around 8pm GMT.

So the raw data:

Total Players Online

Republic: 1007

Empire: 1905

An approximate 2:1 ratio of Empire to Republic players over all.

Interestingly the server population showed as "heavy" at the time, which sort of suggests that the server cap might be around 5000, or perhaps a little more, given that there is "Very Heavy" followed by "Full".

Currently Online Players by Level

Republic:

1-49: 777
50: 230

Empire:

1-49: 805
50: 1100

So we can see that while the numbers below level 50 are very close, there is a huge disparity between factions at level 50, in fact there are almost five times more Empire level 50 players than Republic.

None of this is particularly surprising given the player experience on the Republic side, however the only thing I did find surprising was the class distribution for level 50 characters currently on-line. For every advanced class in the game there were less than 100 results for a specific search combination of class and level 50. In fact the numbers ranged from as little as 13 online (Gunslinger) to as many as 95 online (Mercenary) with one exception: Sith Sorcerer. In fact the only way I could get an accurate number of sorcerers currently online at level 50, was to search by area, through every single area in the game (50 sorcerer belsavis, 50 sorcerer fleet, , 50 sorcerer palace, 50 sorcerer korriban, 50 sorcerer vault, and so on. Due to the nature of people moving around this means that the numbers for Empire side were a bit less accurate as it took a bit longer to gather the data, but the end result was that there were around 400 Sith Sorcerers online at the time of the study.

This was a number that surprised me, it meant that not only were there four times as many sorcerers as the next most populous level 50 class, but in fact there were nearly twice as many sorcerers online at level 50 than the entire combined 8 advanced classes at level 50 on the Republic side.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions on these numbers, I just found it interesting and thought I would share it.

Tl;dr version: Player ratios: Empire 2:1 Republic, Level 50: Empire 5:1 Republic, Sith Sorcerer 4:1 Next Biggest Class, Sith Sorcerer 2:1 Entire Republic Level 50 population

Super Tl;dr: There are a lot more Empire players, and there are a crap lot of Sith Sorcerers compared to every other class in the game.

They just announced a couple big pvp fixes today.   Several ability responsiveness issues are supposedly identified and due fixed on PTS and they are nerfing scoundrel/operatives.   As long as they keep this stuff up I'm not ready to downgrade my estimates by much.   People will quit but many will come back in 6 months and new people will keep joining.

You just don't get 400 level 50's online at a time by being FOTM this soon after release, hell I doubt there's that many people that know what the FOTM class is. 

As added support of this theory, Jedi Sages get the same abilities (technically, if you ignore a few animation delay issues), yet almost nobody plays Sages.

Only one of my sage abilities has a "long ass wind up time," and it is an equally long-ass wind up time as a sorcerer. It's the AE knockback. My rock fliinging has to travel to the target, but it cannot be interupted in an infuriating way like the knockback can. The interupt is the same, the instant DoT is the same, the stun is the same, etc.

A lot of people will walk away from the game thinking they had a good time and they got more than their money's worth out of it.   They'll find more content in patches and expansions compelling.  The largest majority of people will quit over missing quality of life features that can easily be added in a patch.

Re: sage v sorceror.  The first time someone told me that there's a jedi ranged dps class based entirely around throwing pebbles at bad guys, I thought they were joking.  It would seriously be cooler if sages just shot rainbows out their ass.  I have to believe that's at least part of the reason behind the disparity.

Re: sage v sorceror.  The first time someone told me that there's a jedi ranged dps class based entirely around throwing pebbles at bad guys, I thought they were joking.  It would seriously be cooler if sages just shot rainbows out their ass.  I have to believe that's at least part of the reason behind the disparity.

I was planning on going Shadow anyways, but the feel of it is reinforcing that decision.

for pure "fun" factor the Sorc and Powertech are neck and neck.

Main gripe is the lack of interrupts. Fighting a sage is tough because I barely have the dps to stay ahead of their heals when I can't interrupt them (maybe 1 of 3). And of course the bigger issues of how defense and shielding is being handled, but that's beyond a class issue.

I just finished the consular story, and it was... different. In the trooper storyline I felt like I was playing Shepard from Mass Effect 2.5, saving the universe one planet at the time. Straightforward and action-packed, not many plot twists to speak of.

The consular one was heavy with subtle machinations and politics and it felt I was playing someone behind the scenes instead of the badass soldier collar-grabbing Darths and burninating the empire - I'm not sure the story translated well to a MMOG, is all.

Powertech and Merc really get screwed in the interupt dept from what I'm aware of.  They do make up for it in damage though.

I've been doing even amounts of pve/pvp on my sorc, and am lightning spec'd. It's not optimal, but it's fun.

In my vanguard pvp spec I have my main interrupt on a 6 second cooldown, charge (also interrupts) on a 30 second cooldown, neural surge (aoe stun+interrupt) on a 45 second cooldown, and cryo grenade on a 1min cooldown... I can usually lock a healer out of doing any heals (except for instants and one tick of healing trance) for a looooong while. The main interrupt has a 4-second lockout too, which means that hitting something like Tracer Missile / Dark Infusion / Thunder Strike (are there any pvp sorcs speccing lightning instead of madness?) with it can ruin someone's day.

I really like the consular story (up to mid of act 3 so far). It's more of a drama than action movie, and in SW terms perhaps closest to the Revenge of the Sith with its stretches of buildup and focus on character interactions. And they even have the "TKing fag" parts :why_so_serious:

The female consular VA is generally great too; both the overall tone and the way she manages to put emotions in her lines when appropriate that feel genuine, rather than ham-fisted.

Powertech and Merc really get screwed in the interupt dept from what I'm aware of.  They do make up for it in damage though.

You doing a split build?

Otherwise the interrupt is 8 seconds reuse and Storm (our charge) is 15 second reuse.

Powertech has an interrupt on an 8s cd, can be talented to 6.  As well as a 1min cd stun and 45s cd aoe stun.  Rocket charge and grapple interrupt also but we can't use either in close range.

Mercs and commandos don't get interrupts, vanguards and powertechs do.

Mercs and commandos don't get interrupts, vanguards and powertechs do.

e: the most interrupt-heavy encounter I had so far was the last fight in the trooper storyline. Two silver elites who SPAM heals at each other. Ended up having to get one to temporarily LOS the other and use all my interrupts in succession (incl. charge and harpoon), my long cooldown that resets my stun and use the stun again so the interrupt was up again. 'Course then I wasn't specced for the 6-second interrupt, would've made it easier.  :awesome_for_real: I suppose commandos deal with that encounter by CCing one of the mobs and bursting the other.

Project has a long-ass windup time for Consulars but the Inquisitor mirror is instant.  While it can't be interrupted, it is possible, comically enough, to use space vanish to prevent the rock from hitting you if you can activate it before the rock actually reaches you.  Compare to Telekinetic Throw, which is also rocks but those arrive functionally instantly.

It's also a problem because Project has a lot of talents that modify it or have procs associated with it.  Two that don't play well with the animation and travel time are Particle Acceleration procs and Force Potency charges.  Both of those only trigger when the damage is applied to the target, not when the ability is cast.  Because of this, the proc or charge can expire before the target is actually hit and thus not apply, even if you cast the ability before the buff wears off.  That may sound like a nitpick, but it happens a lot more than you think when you're having to deal with that 1.5 second global cooldown, and it's something Inquisitors don't have to deal with.

This sounds like assassin/shadow bitching, which has nothing to do with the number of sorcerers.

That and more people prefer lightning to rocks.  Personally I get a bit bored with the LIGHTNING BOLT LIGHTNING BOLT LIGHTNING BOLT but it still seems more people like it aesthetically than the rocks.

Actually, speaking of "coolness factor" I feel fucking retarded as a sith warrior. My jedi knight equivilents (that aren't exactly the same) feel a lot less stupid.

Doesn't need to be invisible; they could so some sort of concussion wave that has a white or blue-ish glow instead of the boulder

We're not done improving combat responsiveness!

   

• As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
• We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
• We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
• We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.

You misunderstand, my sith warrior looks fine if she's standing around not doing anything, but almost all of her fighting animations are doofy (she looks like she's just flailing wildly with her lightsaber, which is kinda lame), and her regen animation makes her look like she's trying to fart.

I also feel like the Empire, for the most part, has way shittier looking armor, too.

Actually, speaking of "coolness factor" I feel fucking retarded as a sith warrior. My jedi knight equivilents (that aren't exactly the same) feel a lot less stupid.

I also feel like the Empire, for the most part, has way shittier looking armor, too.

LOL @ the comments
http://www.heroengine.com/2011/11/heroengine-meets-starwars/

Good to see that Bioware made the choice of using the Hero Engine for its superior technological capabilities and well-functioning design and not because it was made by a friend of the guy running the company… oh wait.

It may be more efficient to bring some of the Hero Engine devs over to add / patch in the "improvements" into whatever modified version SWTOR has.

Hit up Vhashik when I'm on.  I've still got a lot of patterns to go, but I'm collecting some good oranges and can make some nice outfits.  (Plus I can show you what she wears to see if you like it.)

I do wear a light armor headpiece, because I don't like any of the medium helms, and I like the look of the circlet.

Honestly, it's mostly the light/medium armor I was thinking of when I said that (I also turn off helmets 99% of the time). My IA has had a parade of fugly (already! He's only level 15!), and my manquisitor's gunslinger pal has had the same problem.

I find the sith warrior story fine, I didn't really expect to be much more than an errand girl. I'm playing her cold-but-not-necessarily-cruel, which means Vette has no idea what to think of me (I'm nice to the Little People! Oh, except when they FORGET THEIR PLACE. I give people a chance to walk away! Oh, but I murder the fuck out of anyone who doesn't take that chance! It's a good time.). I also think I get along better with Zash not because of her rank, but because she has learned what so many Sith could stand to learn: You don't have to be a gigantic douchebag all the time. She's still a manipulative, backstabbing, kill her own grandmother if it gets her more power Sith, but there's no reason to be unpleasant about it.

The company launched “Star Wars” in late December, and reported it has sold through more than 2 million units of the game and now has about 1.7 million active subscribers playing the online multiplayer title, which Brown said represents a mix of users who already have signed up for a paid subscription and users who have given their credit cards over, but have not yet had their paid plans kick in.

The CEO reported it as a current 1.7M subs and growing, so I'm guessing that he's anticipating a draw from all their advertising efforts.

We'll see.

I'll stick the no-punctuation review here. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5323-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic)  He hates all mmos so it's what you expect.

You needed card details to play the game (as per the typical MMO set up) so those numbers read "We sold 2 million boxes and 1.7 million of them were actually used". The useful numbers will be this time next month.

You actually think 300k people paid for the game and didn't play? :oh_i_see:  Good lord.

They sold 2 million copies.  1.7 million decided to sub past the "free" month.  300k didn't.   Today, 1 Feb. 2012, there are 1.7 million subs.  End.

The company launched “Star Wars” in late December, and reported it has sold through more than 2 million units of the game and now has about 1.7 million active subscribers playing the online multiplayer title, which Brown said represents a mix of users who already have signed up for a paid subscription and users who have given their credit cards over, but have not yet had their paid plans kick in.

Based on my guild of over 150 players at launch and having over 50+ players online per day we are down to mid 20's nightly online.  Last night was in the teens.  We can hit 30+ on weekends.  I know of a number who admitedly quit due to Ilum and BS PvP.  People are definitely logging in less or playing alts, we even formed a republic guild.  I know a number of people who signed up for the 3 month deal, I think that will be an interesting hurdle for them and sub retention.  

There's even a pazaak table that you can click on at the beginnig of Esseles flashpoint iirc... except when you click on it you only get an error about not being possible to join 'at this time' or something to that effect.

The future is farmville...

Easter egg? fuck that. Blizzard is realizing people want more 'game' than treadmill and panda expansion is adding pokemon which while a stupid minigame is at least depth beyond raiding for many.  The future is farmville, bioware/ea needs to realize this.

Yes, I agree, more depth. The more mini-games, side-games, and distraction collection things you put in the game, the better. It adds content and lets people determine their own level of involvement.

I'd play a pokemon MMO; hell I'd probably buy a new phone if it offered Pokemon

If this game maintains more than 400k subs after 6 months it will be due to either some significant content additions or the Star Wars franchise.  I'm bored with the endgame already and the game has been out barely a month.

Schild enjoys making fun of me because I'll play anything labeled an MMO.  Maybe he's making fun of me because I play them and then complain about how they're all the same. 

I get it.  Now I know why he's making fun of me.  I'm an idiot. 

I wasn't making a dig at you, I was (belatedly) following up on lakov and Paelos' comments up-page.

Lotta goal post moving in this thread.

So SWTOR becomes a data point on the grand MMO experiment.  Here is a summary of what SWTOR has reminded me of:

- Too sandbox = niche
- Too on rails = niche
- Players see leveling as a gateway to content rather than the game itself. 
- PvP has a bigger following than I had previously considered
- Licensing a household name isn't enough. (I'l also looking at you Star Trek, WAR, Matrix, DCUO, etc.)
- Being good at one type of game may not predict success in another
- The MMO industry is a nepotistic cesspool where the same ideas continually rise to the surface.
- Voiceovers and story are cool once.
- Having an NPC companion can be as annoying as it is helpful (see also GW and any other MMO with pet classes)
- MMO's are as reliant on gameplay mechanics as they are UI streamlining
- The little things (mini-games, crafting, a thriving economy, appearance tab, housing, etc) do matter. 
- If your game is on rails, try not to add a mini-game that is also obviously on rails. 

I'll see what else comes to mind.  I like lists, remember?

What the fuck are you people talking about?

What the fuck are you people talking about?

3 month mark will be a good indicator of what direction the numbers will go imo.

Totally agree.

The first trip from 1-50 is awesome.  That will keep some players busy for 2-3 months.  The second trip to 50 is still fun providing you do it on a different class and in the other faction.  For some reason, it's just not as shiny and new as the first trip.  You start to recognize the classic MMO elements and some of the rushed bits.  The third and fourth trip to 50 you start to ask yourself why you're doing a 3rd and 4th trip to 50 only to realize that it's because you're sick of WoW and there isn't another MMO to play besides Rift.  This is the point that I'm at.  

SWTOR is a great single player game set in a world with other people.  Unfortunately, I think it also has the stickiness of most single player games.  Not good if you're trying to make money through a subscription model.

I doubt any game company/development team would even have the remote possibility of keeping up with your kind. I have no problem with your dedication or leveling speed, hey...it's your choice to do that stuff. But to expect a game to continue to release stuff at the clip you burn through it is just not feasible. You should know that by now. It's almost as if the game would have to be in some sort of shadow stasis for a year and release with an expansion already out as well as one in the barrel.

Content does not have to be NEW and FRESH, it just needs to be repeatable.  

Zzzzzzzzzz...

The space missions were a perfect example.  Let me fly around and complete the objectives.  Randomly spawn where the objectives are.  Let me customize the ship a little.  Give me an appearance tab so that I can redo content to get the look I want.  There are many ways to keep me going in the game that aren't on a treadmill.  Just allow me a few options to carve my own path.

Totally agree.

The first trip from 1-50 is awesome.  That will keep some players busy for 2-3 months.  The second trip to 50 is still fun providing you do it on a different class and in the other faction.  For some reason, it's just not as shiny and new as the first trip.  You start to recognize the classic MMO elements and some of the rushed bits.  The third and fourth trip to 50 you start to ask yourself why you're doing a 3rd and 4th trip to 50 only to realize that it's because you're sick of WoW and there isn't another MMO to play besides Rift.  This is the point that I'm at.  

SWTOR is a great single player game set in a world with other people.  Unfortunately, I think it also has the stickiness of most single player games.  Not good if you're trying to make money through a subscription model.  

Lotta goal post moving in this thread.

So let me see if I follow. People that were in beta said, "Not so bad, not so great. Probably a couple months of fun in here" only to have everyone shriek at them "NO WAY STAR WARS 4EVER I LOVE WOW IN SPACE".

Now those exact same people are saying, "Huh. This is sort of samey and there's only a couple months of fun in here."

Who possibly could have imagined?

It'll be interesting to see how many people are like you and how many are like me - who has 4 days /played on his main and only just dinged 35 (even after skipping half the planets on the way up). I'm going to be playing this game for a long, long time.

Srs.

So let me see if I follow. People that were in beta said, "Not so bad, not so great. Probably a couple months of fun in here" only to have everyone shriek at them "NO WAY STAR WARS 4EVER I LOVE WOW IN SPACE".

Now those exact same people are saying, "Huh. This is sort of samey and there's only a couple months of fun in here."

Who possibly could have imagined?

I disagree. I believe there's still a real desire to play online with other people, I just think after 11million people play a game for five years, they don't always want to play the same exact game re-skinned and tweaked.

GW2 looks pretty awesome, but I'm betting the generic fantasy world will feel really tired at this point.

I feel kind of bad that so many can't enjoy a great game like TOR because of that, and at the same time folks are asking for more WoW to be put into it!  :uhrr:

I really don't know what the hair up your ass about the game is, but it's tiresome.  There's critiquing and commentary then there's whiny bitching.  Guess what you've been doing.

Hi, I actually enjoyed the game while I played it and I haven't posted about it in ages. I'm just pointing out that, for an increasing number of people, it turns out that it wasn't Star Wars Jesus. Which, note, isn't some out of the blue thing on my part; that's the topic of conversation the past day in this thread. It was an above average game with some needed tweaks and a slew of technical issues... which means it probably isn't a great game. Great games don't have the issues this game does.

Hi, I actually enjoyed the game while I played it and I haven't posted about it in ages. I'm just pointing out that, for an increasing number of people, it turns out that it wasn't Star Wars Jesus. Which, note, isn't some out of the blue thing on my part; that's the topic of conversation the past day in this thread. It was an above average game with some needed tweaks and a slew of technical issues... which means it probably isn't a great game. Great games don't have the issues this game does.

swtor is not in the same league as skyrim

to have everyone shriek at them "NO WAY STAR WARS 4EVER I LOVE WOW IN SPACE".

Your comprehension is low today even for you.  Good grief, man.  No DIKU related level issues in SWG? YA DON'T SAY.  

I was not commenting on a design, just how it was more fitting for my group. I find myself playing more and more games that simply do not have levels, or gating mechanisms. SWTOR is now falling to the wayside because of it. For me.

You can spin it any way you feel like to make snark comments.

This never actually happened.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82533/seinfield.gif)

Is there any chance at all the the people who are miserable will finally quit the game and go away?

Is there any chance at all the the people who are miserable will finally quit the game and go away?

Levels are keeping me from playing with my friends, part of that, is because we have lives. When a friend gets on, one of us normally has to play the catch up game, and by the time we do that, our evening time frame is over.

Me and my leveling partner can only commit 2-3 nights a week for 2 hours or so each night, but it's definitely the most enjoyable way to play the game. Turning the leveling experience into real co-op experience is fresh enough to make the game interesting. When I play my solo alt, a Republic character, I get bored quickly and wonder why I'm playing. It's going to take us forever to get to the level cap but as long as I'm looking forward to playing the game I don't mind staying subbed for however long that takes.

If you're finding the game boring you might want to try starting a new character with a friend or two and seeing whether that keeps you interested. Of course, it all falls to shit as soon as people start logging in and leveling by themselves causing a constant 'catch up' cycle of boring solo play, but maybe you and your friends have more self discipline than I'm giving you credit for.