Predictions: 1m+ players 3 days out; how about in January 2013?

[ajax34i]

My complaint is that it fails as a service, too, because their CS is pretty bad.  It's single-player-game CS, not MMO CS; they don't have any tools to do anything and they expect us to "wait for a future patch" for everything.  I think that's EA's fault, though, not Bioware's.

[Fabricated]

What's weird is that I think the game is alright. I don't think it's terrible, because I've played plenty of other really shitty MMOs.

SWTOR isn't bad per se', it's just disappointing given the amount of money and time put into and and the studio behind it. I don't really have the same kind of beef with DIKUs everyone else does though, so yeah.

Personally I think if they had focused entirely on small-group content and story all the way to the end (with raids capping AT 8 people) rather than literally going for the WoW model they could've made basically what everyone would've been satisfied with; a new KOTOR game with social/group aspects.

[Paelos]

When I really distilled my issue with the game, it was that other people actually detracted from the game, rather than added to it. You would miss stuff or people would talk over your story in Vent. You didn't need other people at all for the best parts of the game.

The bad bugs and mindless planet quest repeating didn't help though.

[Rokal]

Personally I think if they had focused entirely on small-group content and story all the way to the end (with raids capping AT 8 people) rather than literally going for the WoW model they could've made basically what everyone would've been satisfied with; a new KOTOR game with social/group aspects.

I would argue that this is what they did with the game. The vast majority of resources went into story and small group content (heroic quests while leveling, flashpoints). SWTOR is a new KOTOR with social/group aspects. It also happens to have a monthly fee, which is why when your story ends (not unlike KOTOR), it's strange that they expect people to be interested in continuing to pay for a subscription to the game. It's simply not a good model for a subscription MMO.

I don't think an even-greater emphasis on story/small group content would have gotten them into a better position than they're in now. Raids already seem like an after-thought, but they're at least in the game and serve as repeatable group content for people that want to do them: something SWTOR's linear story design desperately needs if Bioware wants to encourage people to join guilds, make friends, and keep playing after their story ends.

On the plus side, SWTOR's design means it could make a pretty excellent F2P MMO if that day ever comes.

[Sjofn]

When I really distilled my issue with the game, it was that other people actually detracted from the game, rather than added to it. You would miss stuff or people would talk over your story in Vent. You didn't need other people at all for the best parts of the game.

I find this only partly true. This MMO is far better in a duo than any of the other MMOs I've duoed in, and generally speaking when I do anything bigger, it's with other people who are dorks like me, so we don't talk over the story (we don't really use voice unless we're raiding and ... we're not raiding), we don't whine about people not space barring to victory, etc.

[Fabricated]

Ehhhh, they didn't really. After Eselles there's literally no real story to the instances and no RP outside of the Foundry/Maelstrom Prison. False Emperor caps off a storyline but there's pretty much no interaction with it.

The raids all have their own stories, but no RP stuff and no real substance to them.

And pretty much none of the instances touch your characters' overarching stories. They should have more tightly integrated the individual character stories into the game but they're only vaguely connected in that the Flashpoints themselves have their own arc to themselves.

[Ingmar]

People talking over the story in voice is a rude people issue, not a game design issue, IMO.

[Kail]

People talking over the story in voice is a rude people issue, not a game design issue, IMO.

I'd argue that generally rude people issues ARE game design issues in an MMO.

[Paelos]

People talking over the story in voice is a rude people issue, not a game design issue, IMO.

Well, it's sort of the point that multiplayer enhances the experience. I did my story and then started to do flashpoints and ops. There was no story in FPs and Ops. After you've done them a bunch you just space through everything. Plus, the bugs. So really, multiplayer didn't add anything to my story part of the game, which was supposed to be the big pillar of this design. Once you got to a certain point, you were left with the same multiplayer options you had in WoW, only not as polished.

[Ingmar]

Did you ever try leveling in a duo? I think the multiplayer adds quite a lot to that part of the experience, really, because it takes the shared planet quest stuff and makes it both quicker and more entertaining as you fight over replies etc.

There's still plenty to keep me entertained til I get to the part of the game where I need the working dungeon finder, personally. Once that's in place, this game will scratch basically all my itches. It has more exploration than WoW without being a directionless sandbox, it takes my favorite feature of GW1 (companions) and makes it more interesting, and the story stuff is actually fun/interesting and not pants-on-Metzen's-head. The legacy stuff gives me a reason to play tons of alts and makes the later alts go quicker, too (giant presence bonuses turning companions into monsters.)

Granted, I don't really care about the sort of PVP this game offers and my group of players always is slow to hit raid type content - we never see the bugs because they're nearly always fixed by the time we start.

People talking over the story in voice is a rude people issue, not a game design issue, IMO.

I'd argue that generally rude people issues ARE game design issues in an MMO.

I think that's true, when you're talking about people you're not deliberately choosing to interact with, or people you're randomly assigned to interact with. If you're talking about doing content with someone you chose to do content with, and you ask them not to do something and they do it anyway, that's just them being dicks to people they're supposed to be friends with which I don't think you can pin on the game.

Like if someone breaks Slap's no spoiler on the guild line rule over and over again, that's not the game's fault for having a spoilable story.

[Kageru]

Surely the challenge level when duo'ing must be negligible? I mean duo'ing in any MMO with a friend is good fun. But if the challenge is based on comfortable soloing then duoing is  pretty much trivial from a game-play perspective. The one thing CoH had going for it (or something like Borderlands) is content scales to match numbers.

The largest problem they have made for themselves is expectations. SWTOR fans are going to expect substantial new content to continue the story for each class, be voice acted, well-written, cinematic and have the same graphic quality. I've no idea about the last but they've definitely increased the amount of effort to get new content out without substantially increasing the amount of time it takes to consume it. That's not a good trade off. If they give up on trying then the buildup was even more pointless, it's Tortage again.

[Sjofn]

It's not "duoing makes shit easy" as a factor for us. Duoing in other games is just not as fun. In other MMOs, the clickies don't count for both people, the drops often don't happen for both people, you both have to run your asses over to the quest dudes to hand in, you don't get any bonuses for duoing (you get bonus quest XP and social points and more credits/better chance at lewts in parties ... I even get bonus quest XP for quests that I'm not on). And frankly, the conversations in SWTOR are more interesting when you have another person there with you.

And if we want a challenge, there are the heroic quests to do together.

[Rokal]

There's enough heroic quests in every zone that duoing doesn't really feel like it ruins the balance of leveling content. Solo players just skip the optional heroic quests for the most part, but it seems like in every quest hub there will be at least one quest balanced well for 2 people (Heroic 2 and 4 quests). And like Ingmar/Sjofn said, having another player really does add to the quest conversations which you have to remember are a much bigger part of SWTOR than other MMOs.

SWTOR pulls off co-op KOTOR pretty well.

[Kageru]

Don't get me wrong. I love duoing. But I consider it a truism that all MMO's are better with a regular duo or group, PUG's suck in every MMO and soloing is mostly for the convenience.

Most games have stopped being retarded about the "clickies" only count for one thankfully. Apparently you can even see the difference between new and old LotRO content in this change. Same with XP penalties for being grouped.

Heroic 2's and social XP sound like semi-solutions to the need for levelling content to scale and something I'd hate as a soloist (especially on a ghost server). GW2's model of scaling mobs to people involved sounds better (if it works, balancing content is still going to be hard).

[Sjofn]

My point is, this is the only one I've played with Ingmar that we felt actively rewarded for duoing. We've duoed at least one pair in every MMO we've tried (except for RIFT, because Ingmar was bored with it about ten minutes in), and I think only CoX really came close in terms of "this is way more fun together than seperate" as we leveled up.

To be fair, LotRO sounds like it's gotten much more fun in small groups (the scenarios in particular), but I just cannot get into that game anymore for whatever reason, and it came too late for us in any case. I really liked LotRO when it first released, but Ingmar kinda dragged his feet on it, and then once he decided to get into it, I was over it. Poor LotRO. :(

[FieryBalrog]

It's not "duoing makes shit easy" as a factor for us. Duoing in other games is just not as fun. In other MMOs, the clickies don't count for both people, the drops often don't happen for both people, you both have to run your asses over to the quest dudes to hand in, you don't get any bonuses for duoing (you get bonus quest XP and social points and more credits/better chance at lewts in parties ... I even get bonus quest XP for quests that I'm not on). And frankly, the conversations in SWTOR are more interesting when you have another person there with you.

And if we want a challenge, there are the heroic quests to do together.

But the problem with this is, not everyone has the option of playing the game as a husband/wife (or whatever) team.

And if you don't have a dedicated team that groups, grouping is just broken in WoW derivative DIKUs, because of the XP mechanics, the questing, & the zone design. It is far more difficult than it should be to maintain a duo team in a game like this. As soon as one of you gets bored when the other's not on, the whole thing goes awry.

[Kageru]

Partly solved by leveling pacts (CoH, EQ2 I think) or level scaling (GW2). Level as you want and be scaled back to a zone appropriate level for when you game with your more casual partner, which incidentally reduces the issue of farming and power-levelling, is a good solution.

[Sky]

Personally I think if they had focused entirely on small-group content and story all the way to the end (with raids capping AT 8 people) rather than literally going for the WoW model they could've made basically what everyone would've been satisfied with; a new KOTOR game with social/group aspects.

You're nuts, obviously the only way to succeed would have been twitch mechanics with open pvp.

I agree with you, actually. It's pretty much as I figured it would be, a good game except where they tried to copy WoW. The diku mechanics are fine for supporting the questing and even the pvp for the most part.

I also agree the game is amazing mutliplayer, better than any other mmo besides stuff like Planetside. It's just too bad trying to keep synced up is such a hassle, but I can't entirely blame BWA on this one. If you don't play regularly or have rl friends playing, I don't know how to keep in sync with people. Nerd night was a pretty spectacular failure, I just can't commit to a couple hours on the same night every week for a video game. Which is too bad, I really enjoy TOR multiplayer a LOT. But outside of the few nerd nights we did and some farming with Furiously, I've mostly soloed except for area heroics here and there.

[Nebu]

I also agree the game is amazing mutliplayer, better than any other mmo besides stuff like Planetside.

I disagree.  Rift was a much better multiplayer game.  The world events were better, the class synergy was better thought out, the pvp was better, and the dungeon mechanics were FAR more interesting.  Rift just suffered from a terrible case of the blands. 

SWTOR classes are pretty dull as a whole leaving the rest of the game pretty uninteresting from a multiplayer standpoint. 

[Paelos]

Did you ever try leveling in a duo?

Yes, I leveled my entire way through my first character in a duo. It was fun, but still as isolationist as if we were playing solo. You had to be locked into one person, you had to be of similar level, and nobody could play outside of the duo. It felt restrictive at times rather than freeing due to the design.

[trias_e]

I agree on the multiplayer aspect of Rift being superior.   I also disagree in general about SWTOR being an amazing multiplayer experience.  At least in flashpoints, hard quests, and instanced PvP, (which is all I experienced).  I found the multiplayer component of SWTOR to be mediocre at best, and ended up avoiding other people for the most part except for PvP.

I think I may be in a minority here, but I found SWTOR combat to be it's strongest aspect, and it was probably the best out of the WoW-clones.  While I thought SWTOR class design was well done for solo, but didn't come together in a way that made for interesting gameplay at the PvP/group level.  PvP and group play just felt...mindless to me. 

[Nebu]

I think I may be in a minority here, but I found SWTOR combat to be it's strongest aspect, and it was probably the best out of the WoW-clones.  While I thought SWTOR class design was well done for solo, but didn't come together in a way that made for interesting gameplay at the PvP/group level.  PvP and group play just felt...mindless to me. 

I am with you 100% here.  I found classes to be built on solo play, which is what SWTOR excels at.  SWTOR is the best solo MMO experience I've played since AoC Tortage.  As a multiplayer game, SWTOR is flat.  I don't feel any kind of synergy between classes, just strong and weak builds. 

[Crumbs]

I think the question one has to ask oneself is, if this game were developed by Flagship Studios and called Hellgate: Space, would I still be giving it a pass?

[Lakov_Sanite]

The one thing that made me leave swtor more than anything as how I felt weaker as I levelled up.  It's not that levelling itself went slower but fights themselves started taking longer and for less reward. It's really a hard thing to lock down but it really made levelling dull and unfun.

[Sky]

The one thing that made me leave swtor more than anything as how I felt weaker as I levelled up.  It's not that levelling itself went slower but fights themselves started taking longer and for less reward. It's really a hard thing to lock down but it really made levelling dull and unfun.

I'm with you on that one. I still haven't finished the planet solo quest line on Ilum, because it was just taking so long every fight, for no real reason or fun return.

Nebu, you are pretty much the polar opposite as far as how you play mmo, so it's natural that we disagree on that aspect. Setting aside my own restrictions and the restrictive nature of regular grouping, having a group to quest with was a lot of fun. I've grouped more and enjoyed it in this game than all other mmo combined (not counting UO, but you know, different thing).

[Nebu]

Nebu, you are pretty much the polar opposite as far as how you play mmo, so it's natural that we disagree on that aspect. Setting aside my own restrictions and the restrictive nature of regular grouping, having a group to quest with was a lot of fun. I've grouped more and enjoyed it in this game than all other mmo combined (not counting UO, but you know, different thing).

We need to game more together.  I think you'd find that we're more alike than different.  I just tend to sacrifice sleep for gaming... which results in my having more time to grind levels. 

[Lantyssa]

Mechanics-wise, RIFT was better for multiplayer.  Social-wise, TOR wins for small, regular groups.  The feel is very heavily dependent upon what you look for in a game.  TOR works for me on that front as I build a character to suit my play style, but I enjoy duoing.

[Fabricated]

You're nuts, obviously the only way to succeed would have been twitch mechanics with open pvp.

I agree with you, actually. It's pretty much as I figured it would be, a good game except where they tried to copy WoW. The diku mechanics are fine for supporting the questing and even the pvp for the most part.

I also agree the game is amazing mutliplayer, better than any other mmo besides stuff like Planetside. It's just too bad trying to keep synced up is such a hassle, but I can't entirely blame BWA on this one. If you don't play regularly or have rl friends playing, I don't know how to keep in sync with people. Nerd night was a pretty spectacular failure, I just can't commit to a couple hours on the same night every week for a video game. Which is too bad, I really enjoy TOR multiplayer a LOT. But outside of the few nerd nights we did and some farming with Furiously, I've mostly soloed except for area heroics here and there.

I don't care about the DIKU style mechanics/loot...it's just that it's like the story just evaporates when you hit the end due to how they compartmentalized major story arcs and made it so neither the 'twain shall meet, when it would've been something really unique had they tied it all together and made it more personal.

Everything has its own contained story arcs:

Planet Arcs - clumsily written dialog trying to explain why people are talking to you. Yeah, it makes sense that Republic citizens are petitioning my Trooper for help. It DOESN'T make sense why some local douchebag town mayor is asking me to smuggle drugs back to him. Opposite is true for my smuggler. And why so many wanna-be criminals and shifty civilians think they can trick a Jedi into doing shit when they can kill you with their mind I have no idea.

Personal Arcs - Your own story, which no one else sees any part of nor can they really interact with it. A LOT was lost here for duoing/grouping with friends. If you're going to record 20 gigs of dialog it would have been cool to be able to have moral arguments/agreements between you, your friends, AND your companions.

Flashpoint Arcs - Random really. Some connect to overarching plotlines that touch planets and stretch across other FPs (False Emp/Illum, Maelstrom/Foundry/Esseles, Kaon/Lost Island), some are just whateverthefuck stories that are literally never referenced again despite their universe-shattering importance/scope (Directive 7, Athiss, Cademimu, etc).

Raid Arcs - Practically throwaway, with no connection to your characters in any way shape or form. Karagga and EC tie to a larger overarching storyline that'll be told through raids but I feel even less connection to it than I do to WoW raid storylines. You're just good guy #2041025, which is pretty much counter to everything else you've experienced so far where you're the hero or part of a group of heroes  going through dialog/RP and making light/darkside choices, etc.

And this is to appeal to the WoW side again, because "ugh, who wants to hear people talk??". I've already hit the "ugh just start hitting spacebar already" crowd on my new alt.

[Phred]

Ehhhh, they didn't really. After Eselles there's literally no real story to the instances and no RP outside of the Foundry/Maelstrom Prison. False Emperor caps off a storyline but there's pretty much no interaction with it.

The raids all have their own stories, but no RP stuff and no real substance to them.

And pretty much none of the instances touch your characters' overarching stories. They should have more tightly integrated the individual character stories into the game but they're only vaguely connected in that the Flashpoints themselves have their own arc to themselves.

Ya I can imagine the shit storm that would have occurred if they'd done this. It's not bad enough with the flashpoints being optional, making them part of the character's storyline would have been a disaster.

[Tannhauser]

These games really are better with friends.  I went from level 20 to 50 in Rift with a buddy and it was great fun.  Had fun in SWTOR the few times I could find a partner.  But solo, like others said, really gets tedious at higher levels.  I liked the crafting, companions, AH, space combat however it didn't offset the tedium.

LOTRO is also fun with a friend, especially one who keeps falling off ledges. 

[Fordel]

I think I may be in a minority here, but I found SWTOR combat to be it's strongest aspect, and it was probably the best out of the WoW-clones.  While I thought SWTOR class design was well done for solo, but didn't come together in a way that made for interesting gameplay at the PvP/group level.  PvP and group play just felt...mindless to me. 

I am with you 100% here.  I found classes to be built on solo play, which is what SWTOR excels at.  SWTOR is the best solo MMO experience I've played since AoC Tortage.  As a multiplayer game, SWTOR is flat.  I don't feel any kind of synergy between classes, just strong and weak builds. 

There's plenty of synergy, it just isn't specific deck building 'only one ultimate combo shall win the day'.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Any idea on current sub numbers?

[Ingmar]

Their quarter end call is on July 31st I think, probably hear something then. Otherwise, it is 'enough to make the merged servers crowded and busy' which is all I really care about.

[Amaron]

Any idea on current sub numbers?

We can only judge based on the server pops which are thankfully pretty visible.  Based on that all I can say is "more than EQ1 in it's prime".

[Evildrider]

Any idea on current sub numbers?

We can only judge based on the server pops which are thankfully pretty visible.  Based on that all I can say is "more than EQ1 in it's prime".

Well prime time on my server there is close 7-800 just on the combined imp and pub fleets.