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

[Threash]

Was i the only one who wanted Rift in space?

[Thrawn]

Was i the only one who wanted Rift in space?

I wanted EVE in space.

[Sjofn]

Was i the only one who wanted Rift in space?

That would've been fine too, really, provided the "utter lack of any soul (har) whatsoever" part was fixed. I liked the game pretty well mechanically, and my chainmail dress wearing derp of a man-elf was sort of adorable to me for some reason, but man did I just not give a flying fuck about anyone or anything in that game. Apparently I need to give at least the tiniest shit about a world to play a game for longer than a month. I think it bugged me partly because there was potential for that, but ... for whatever reason, it utterly failed to grab me.

[Rasix]

Was i the only one who wanted Rift in space?

Rift's flexibility with its class/soul system would be a definite upgrade, but I'm pretty sure Bioware was far enough down their current path before Rift was released.  Their overall quality would have been an improvement as well.  

The rest of Rift? I don't know.  There's enough wrong with that game that's mired in traditional MMO thought.  Just the thought of Rift at level cap was enough to have me lose interest.

At least on a casual hour a night pace, I think I'm going to end up getting more out of SWTOR.  Won't be playing as much with others, but this MMO (and pretty much all others), I'm not playing it for the community.  SLAP are nice folks to talk to though, and it's always nice to complain to someone about Corso.

[Modern Angel]

The funny thing is that I thought Rift's endgame was totally fine for what it was. It was just really tired. Really, really tired.

[Sjofn]

SLAP are nice folks to talk to though, and it's always nice to complain to someone about Corso.

Corso is practically our mascot.

[Amaron]

From a success point of view it seems like they've cleared most goal posts that previous attempts like AoC/WAR/LoTRO/etc failed on.    The only thing left is to push out a fairly big content patch in about 30~45 days.   They made a pretty big media push this last week that implies 1.2 is coming soon with goodies.   So far they've implied big crafting changes, full item modularity, ranked warzones and probably something else are coming out Soon™.

[Mattemeo]

Corso is practically our mascot.

I think more along the lines of burning effigy...

[Lantyssa]

With less effigy.

[UnSub]

As EA's most expensive project ever, 2m box sales isn't a great result. If it turns out to be 5m at the end of February, that's a different story, but at the end of the first 4 - 6 weeks that isn't great for SWOR.

For any other title: incredible. But not for SWOR. Not for US$200m plus whatever % Lucasarts is taking of the revenue.

[Simond]

How many boxes did EA's previous Next Big Thing MMO sell in the same time? Wasn't it about one and a half million?

[UnSub]

Going back to my old blog:

The original EA reports trumpeted that 1.5 million WAR boxes were sold to retailers. On the back of this, 1.2 million boxes were sold to players of whom 800 000 activated accounts. In three months it has gone from 800 000 active subscribers to 300 000 subscribers (and who the heck knows what is going on with the 400 000 boxes bought but not activated). Comparing launch to December 2008, WAR has seen active subscription numbers decline by 62.5%.

[Amaron]

As EA's most expensive project ever, 2m box sales isn't a great result.

It's amazing as far as box sales go.   The question is how many will stay subbed and will they get long term growth.    Everyone was thrilled with even less box sales on WAR/AoC.   Both games were sloppy trash and predictably flopped on retention.   That's clearly not going to happen here though.

[Kageru]

As EA's most expensive project ever, 2m box sales isn't a great result. If it turns out to be 5m at the end of February, that's a different story, but at the end of the first 4 - 6 weeks that isn't great for SWOR.

For any other title: incredible. But not for SWOR. Not for US$200m plus whatever % Lucasarts is taking of the revenue.

One analyst gave 35% as an estimate, Bobby Kotick said "Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars", so whatever the real number is it's going to be a healthy slice of the action.

[jcthebuilder]

As EA's most expensive project ever, 2m box sales isn't a great result. If it turns out to be 5m at the end of February, that's a different story, but at the end of the first 4 - 6 weeks that isn't great for SWOR.

For any other title: incredible. But not for SWOR. Not for US$200m plus whatever % Lucasarts is taking of the revenue.

How is 1 million+ subscriptions not a great result? Making $150 million dollars a year is nothing to sneeze at.

[tmp]

As EA's most expensive project ever, 2m box sales isn't a great result.

For what's essentially PC-only release?

To put it in perspective, the estimate numbers for PC versions of Battlefield 3 and CoD 3 are 1-1.35 mil. (sure, it is quite different genre and "vgchartz, lol" but still)

[Modern Angel]

Everyone was thrilled with even less box sales on WAR/AoC.

Let's put on our thinking caps and figure out why different box sales inspire different levels of excitement for different companies!

[Shatter]

I think a lot of players are now holding out for GW2 if they werent already, TOR has turned into a stepping stone for a lot of people.  I know my large guilds conversations have turned from what are we doing tonight in TOR to "hey whos planning to play GW2?".  I planned to play TOR long term but I dont see that happening anymore and nothing in their posts about upcoming content and fixes makes me want to sub long term(1+ years) such as a major Ilum and world PvP overhaul.  However I will probably continue to sub for now cause there isnt anything else I want to play in the meantime.  I didnt expect TOR to do well because of a good launch, etc but it was dependent on what they did over the months after launch and they are pretty much failing at that as well.  Considering we are almost 2 months since head start began...what have they done since?  To top it off their CS is a joke and their communication with the community is equally as bad. 

[Zetor]

Everyone in my guild is going to play GW2, it's a given... but we knew this even before SWTOR went into beta. I don't think any of us expect to stay subbed for more than 3-4 months, and honestly it's worth paying at least a month or two of sub just to experience the various storylines (the game's strongest point).

I had good experience with SWTOR's CS, but then again I was reporting a bug and not a player. 

[Sjofn]

There are people in my guild I am sure will try GW2 when it comes out (myself probably included) but I don't think there are many (if any) that are thinking that will be their next big "thing."

AND NO I AM NOT COUNTING ANY OF YOU F13 PEOPLE

[Surlyboi]

Fuck GW2.

The next MMO I'm even vaguely interested in is TSW.

[Typhon]

"... is TSW".  I'm so sorry for you.


(for no other reason than my intuition tells me it's going to be ass)

[tmp]

(for no other reason than my intuition tells me it's going to be ass)

I expect it to be a Funcom game. No more, no less

[Surlyboi]

(for no other reason than my intuition tells me it's going to be ass)

I expect it to be a Funcom game. No more, no less

Bingo. Funcom makes assy games, but they're fun for a hot minute or two.

[Ingmar]

By the time GW2 comes out maybe I'll have talked the rest of the guild into even trying SWTOR at all.

[Ghambit]

TSW is placed right where it needs to be to pick up the TOR scraps after 3 months.  And 3 months after that, GW2 cleans up the scraps from both... and on and on.

[Ingmar]

TSW won't be cleaning anything up. It won't even be a blip on the radar.

[eldaec]

You're assuming it ever gets released.

[Venkman]

Heh. More people will play Planetside 2 than will even know about TSW.

GW2's entire audience is whoever has been holding their breath for the last five years. It's gonna get buried between all the marketing budgets from ME3 to D3.

There's too many good games, heck, too many good PC games, for people to blindly stick around in a genre just for the Next Big Thing. That boat sailed in Nov 2004. TOR has nothing to fear except itself, if it has already peaked. Even WoW isn't the anchor/magnet it used to be.

TOR was pretty much it for the 1/4-billion dollar MMO dev budget game. Us vets are nowhere near a big enough market anymore, not when compared to gambling f2p in browsers. Heck, Facebook games don't even need to evolve back through all the steps core video games took to get here, because smartphone apps have reset the bar back to zero again. We'll be playing vector-based ME12 on our ocular implants before we see another company-killing big-ass-budget AAA MMO like WoW again.

[Rendakor]

Until Blizzard releases Titan.

[Riggswolfe]

You know, this isn't the thread for it but I don't get the excitement for GW2. It looks kind of neat but GW1 wasn't exactly inspiring and it's bland fantasy world #20212340250820384.

[Ingmar]

Man, what? GW had some of the most creative monster visual design of any game I've ever played, it is pretty emphatically NOT the same generic stuff repeated over again. And they actually did a pretty damn awesome fantasy Asia and fantasy Africa, which are things that most other companies haven't even touched.

[Zetor]

GW1 also innovated in a lot of gameplay areas (the entire concept of a flexible skillbar, an almost-flat power curve, balanced pvp, etc etc.) that haven't really been replicated since; that makes me very hopeful they'll do GW2 'right'. Heck, that entire companion thing everyone's digging in SWTOR (and later on possibly LOTRO with their skirmish soldiers)? GW did it in 2006, and IMO did it better.

[Cyrrex]

Heck, that entire companion thing everyone's digging in SWTOR (and later on possibly LOTRO with their skirmish soldiers)? GW did it in 2006, and IMO did it better.

First...okay, fine.  Better?  Haha.  GW's "companions" were just bots that filled out your group.

[Lakov_Sanite]

And swtor companions are just wow pets with equipment slots.