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

[ajax34i]

I don't know about a year from now, but the new servers they added post-launch to relieve population stress, which were sitting at Standard during peak time prior to Christmas, reached Heavy and Full yesterday.  So their subscriber numbers are still increasing.  I'm hoping they add more servers, get their shitty UI and tech support improved, and then figure out itemization issues.  But, all these things are usually low priority for devs everywhere.

Currently the UI is shitty enough that I've decided "screw group content" and am going to go for DPS specs and characters and solo.  I'll think about tanking or healing when they fix the UI, I don't want to have to fight it.

[Stabs]

The lack of a LFD tool is almost a dealbreaker for me. I just spent 5 hours in Imperial Fleet crafting but with an eye on the chat for a suitable group - nothing. Yesterday with a tank and healer we tried to fill a group for the level 10 beginner instance (which is excellent) and got one person after 15 minutes of spamming.

I'm aware of the general recommendations, I used to play and group often in the old days but it just doesn't cut it any more. It's easier to find decent pugs in frikkin Eve than this game.

I enjoy soloing in it as if it were KOTOR 3 but once I'm quested out I'll let my sub lapse until there's a LFD tool.

[ajax34i]

I've seen the LF1M - Healer messages for the higher instances, but the level 10 one can be done without one, so I think people just walk up to the entrance, invite anyone they see there, and go.  Twice now I just walked up to the entrance and got invited and got in within 5 minutes, and one of the two was without a healer (the only death was to being thrown off a bridge).

Tanks - there seem to be plenty on my server.  Dunno if they're any good at it, but the tank-capable classes get non-ugly companions, get the female/romance companion early, and have pretty good stories.  Healer classes, on the other hand, get ugly companions, have to wait till 40+ for a pretty face, and possibly even have itemization issues with their main tank companion.  So...

[Sky]

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

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

Also, Quesh was difficult? Someone should've let me know, the only reason I didn't put the jedi champ on farm status was lack of a chest next to him.

[Fabricated]

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.

[01101010]

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.

I loved that one... 

And with 8 hour maintenance times, they best be doing some major fixes. The bugs on the Consular Act 1 finisher area were severely draining the coolness of it.

[Simond]

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

[Miasma]

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

FIFA 12 at number one?  Screw your crazy euro numbers!

[Ingmar]

"Data" is sort of a strong word for that.

[Merusk]

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.

[Sky]

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

[Reg]

It's strange, he wasn't one of the major trolls in the giant prerelease thread.

[Mazakiel]

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 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. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

MMO's troll themselves, all you need to do is give them enough room to burn.

[apocrypha]

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

This is my plan also. Normally I alt the crap out of MMOs but I've found myself liking my fat Sith Sorc so much that I don't want to play anyone else yet.

I'm also intrigued that I think of them as "anyone" rather than "anything". That's never happened to me in an MMO before.

[Cyrrex]

Yeah, I feel the same way.  In fact, I feel like the whole story is going on just for me, and all you fuckers are just background noise.  I don't think I've played any other MMO besides this where I could tell you exactly what the hell I was doing and why.

[Spiff]

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."

That's where I'm at as well.
So it all depends on what else will be on offer between now and then, which is telling in itself; it's not a sinking ship, but hardly a rocket shooting for the stars either.

Wildly guessing for 600k in a year, whether I'm one of them depends on how miraculous their patching will be and if GW2 is on the horizon.

[Zetor]

I'm playing this as a single-player game with some occasional co-op content bits, and for that it's def. worth the price of admission. I've just completed the trooper story +  Republic planet content and currently playing through Act 1 of the consular story -- there's a lot of class stories left, not to mention the entirety of the Imperial planet content. I will probably play 1 month after the free month is up, *maybe* 2. After that it's back to F2P stuff (COH, maybe LOTRO if their LFD functionality actually works) for me until GW2 and/or the WOW panda expansion are out.

(PVP suckitude / control / UI issues annoy me, but I can deal. Heck, PVP issues at launch were universal for every MMO except for maybe Guild Wars)


edit: to actually answer the thread's question - 400k

[VainEldritch]

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

That's how I've played every MMORPG since UO, guilded or not. The game must first and foremost be about my character, who he/she is and how they live. SWTOR takes this to a whole new level and I find a nice progression in the time spent grouping for content as I level up. Even more delightful, I've not yet had a bad PUG - people have been polite, responsive, friendly and accommodating. What the hell is going on? I can only assume the vast majority of cretins save their monosynaptic drivel for the forums as I´ve yet to see it in game. 

For subs, I'll say 2 million, because I really want this game to be around for a very long time and be successful... and somehow saying "2 million" here will make that happen. In my head.   

[Sky]

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 also have the 6 month sub.

REALLY sucks being back in a normal routine, got to play maybe an hour last night and Furi and I were just getting into the swing of decimating Belsavis.

So my apparently rapid leveling will be beaten back to my normal levels of taking forever as everyone passes me by  The saving thing is that I'm hesitant to play alts because I don't want to get the stories mixed up, so I want to finish out Komoto's class story before I start in with something else. Wish they had a lifetime sub, honestly. This is my LotRO.

[amiable]

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).  My friends and family guild had 8 people on last night, which was unheard of.  There is talk about actually trying the raid game because we have a nice group mix (2 tanks, 2 healers, 5 dps types).

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. 

4 person dungeons are a godsend for small F&F groups.  For some reason getting 4 people on at the same time is an order of magnitude easier than getting 5.

I think this game will have some problems retaining hardcore folks though, as there is no way they are going to be able to put out end game material of similar quality in a timely enough manner to please them (I'm looking at the folks who have been 50 for a week). 

I don't seeing it unseating WoW so much as WoW just entering a slow decline phase with both games having mediocre numbers.

[Paelos]

I'm in for the 3 month sub. That will give them enough time to see how their content production cycle looks. I think they need smaller updates every quarter with the large updates at least every 6 months.

By small I mean balancing, tweaking, and possibly adding dungeons or nodes to existing planets. By large I mean entirely new planets with all the story trimmings that take at least 20 hours of playtime per character to get through the questlines.

[ajax34i]

Monthly sub, and I'll continue to play for probably 6+ months (usually takes that long to level up a bunch of alts), if they fix the UI and responsiveness issues within a reasonable amount of time (a month) and then look at itemizations for companions (techblades heh).

[Sjofn]

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. 

[Riggswolfe]

I'm on the 3-month sub plan. I really love this game though am curious how it will hold up once I am done with the story-line for a character which will happen by the end of this week I am thinking as my highest is 49 1/2.  Will Ilum, alts, end game flashpoints and potentially raids be enough to hold me or will I miss the story stuff to much?

[sam, an eggplant]

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

They're tough as balls if you're underleveled. If you're a mere 2 levels over the mobs, you'll cream em. Levels really matter in SWTOR.

[Ingmar]

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.

[zardoz]

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.

Depands one the heroic quest. I could solo some on my way to 50 and then run into some that wipe a 4 player group.

As an exemple now. As a scoundral I can solo without a problem all 3 heroic 2+/4 quest on belsavis. Stealth/Sneak + "vanish" helps a lot.
However on Ilum the 2+ heroic seems impossible because disappearing act resets the encounter with the elite + 2 strongs and I really need my cc for this fight.

General speaking sith inquisitor mobs are very difficult and *gasp for some of them you need a human group......

[DraconianOne]

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. 

Interesting - my Scoundrel is currently humping and drinking his way across the universe too. He's such an antidote to the otherwise dry Republic. They're all "For the good of the Republic" and he's all "You got the credits, I've got the time."  Except when it's female and its "Hey pretty lady! I know we're in the middle of a war-torn planet, surrounded by poisonous swamps with pirates, killer mutants and insane Sith knocking on the door trying to kill us... but do you fancy having dinner? I know this really great little cantina." 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."

Quite frankly, as long as they keep the Smuggler dialogue up, I will play this game until they shut the servers down. I'm easily amused - so sue me!  

[Sjofn]

One of the conversation rolls Ingmar won on the Esseles with his jedi resulted in him shrieking he was heading for the escape pods.


And he wonders why they haven't made him a master yet. 

[Rasix]

Hmm, maybe I should actually play my Mr. Darcy in space that I rolled Republic side.  Sounds like my bounty hunter with a superiority complex.  Then I can be even more a noob, all over again. 

I'm seriously never going to hit 50 in this game.

[tmp]

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."

The one conversation roll my smuggler won on Esseless was whether to do things the efficient way or the nice way. And she was the only one who wasn't very nice

(well, and then also the one where she got to say "it's a harsh galaxy, people die~" in response to the Y U NO GOOD? from the npc about it )

[Hayduke]

400k in a year I think.  Star Wars is damaged goods as this point.  It still sells a lot of toys, but I think people overestimate its appeal nowadays way too much.  Hardcores will breeze through the content too fast.  PvPers will be disappointed when they find out just how bad the PvP is.  Casuals will be instantly drawn to the idea of 8 unique storylines in the game, but find themselves exasperated once they realize that the class quest probably makes up a tenth of their actual leveling experience.

I do enjoy the game though and think I'll probably go for a three month sub.  I could be way off base.  But the game feels very beta in quality, and it feels even more on-rails than WoW which I don't like.  Better UI, character customization (some interesting iconic SW races would be great, especially for Republic), getting rid of ability lag, more warzones, and various quality of life fixes (like having companions remember when you turn off their abilities) would all be major improvements.

[Thrawn]

A little later to the thread I know, but I'm going to bet on 400k being a little optimistic.

Unless they release a lot of really impressive patches the game is too full of obvious issues.  Once all of the players crying "BIOWARE STORYLINE" in the face of any criticism play out a few different characters they will likely be done and gone.  Their are simply too many other good games to play for SWTOR to be so mediocre in so many areas and expect to grow.  SWTOR right now doesn't offer any better gameplay than many free to play games that are available so why pay a monthly fee?

[Furiously]

I wonder if Star Wars episode 1 in 3D will have a trailer for SWTOR before the movie.

I'd go 400-700K subs in a year, unless their patch speed is horrid then 250K.