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

[Lakov_Sanite]

Lotta goal post moving in this thread.

Yeah, I always set my standards low so I won't be disappointed. Thus far, it's been working out pretty good.

[Paelos]

I still like the game a lot and will continue playing until I get tired of my alts, crafting, and dungeons (new content).

[Malakili]

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?

In other words, WoW was an exception and westerns don't actually like MMOs?  The drift of other genres to add RPG elements seems to have been a much bigger success across the board than the drift of MMOs trying to implement more session based gameplay, but maybe they will all meet in the middle eventually (Diablo 3?)

[Fordel]

What the fuck are you people talking about?

[Sky]

What the fuck are you people talking about?

Shh....don't interrupt the flow.

[Malakili]

What the fuck are you people talking about?

I dunno, I'm just going with it.

[murdoc]

Blah, I wrote this big long (for me) post about what I am loving about the game, but really it comes down to is - I like it a lot right now, they are making changes that are improving MY experience with every patch and if they keep doing that I'll keep resubbing.

I think you people picking sub 500k numbers for next year are crazy. Feel free to reference this in a year if you're right, but I'm just not seeing the drop off being THAT much. The vocal minority is not the measuring stick for this and a lot of you are treating it like it is.

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

[Nebu]

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.  

[01101010]

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.

[Nebu]

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.

I played DAoC for almost 6 years.  I don't expect any company to keep producing content at the rate that I consume it.  I just want some open-ended and engaging repeatable content to enjoy that isn't on rails.  This is why I usually default to pvp in games.  It keeps me interested in the game without requiring me to get 10 squiblink tails.  Lately we've been running hard modes with 2 and 3 people just to see what we can get away with.  More content would be great, but I'm still able to make mini-games for myself.

SWTOR is a great game.  It's just feels more sterile than I would have expected given its creator.  

 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Content does not have to be NEW and FRESH, it just needs to be repeatable.  PVP is repeatable content, raids are repeatable content but they just aren't enough anymore for a lot of people. Even if SWTOR did raiding and pvp exactly right(which I don't think they did) it still wouldn't be enough for the 11mil(whatever big number it is) crowd of online gamers out there, mostly because it's already been done to death.

MMO's look at raiding and pvp as part of the game these days and not as something to distract from the treadmill/main story/etc...when that is really what they've always been, distractions.  I think those things have been in mmo's so long that developers just assume they are part of the formula and don't try and imagine anything else.

People don't need to devour new raids and new dungeons to be enthralled with a game, sometimes they just want to do something different, change the pace of things.  

[Nebu]

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

This. 

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.

[Rasix]

Zzzzzzzzzz...

[Nebu]

Zzzzzzzzzz...

I'm bored at work.  Let me have some fun!

[Simond]

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.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21809.0 

[DraconianOne]

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.  

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.

[Modern Angel]

Lotta goal post moving in this thread.

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?

[Nebu]

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?

Generalize much?

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.

It will be interesting to see who stays after 3 months.  The speed of the dev team to make adjustments and fix the small things will contribute a lot. 

On a side note: I didn't really race to the endgame.  I was between semesters and had some free time on my hands.  I enjoyed the story and the trip.  As a single player game, SWTOR is well done.  I don't think we're all that different as gamers, I just had a few days off and don't typically sleep more than a few hours a night.  I'll bet it took me around 3-4 days played to hit 50.  I did nearly every quest in each zone.  Hell, I didn't even know I could skip the dialogue until my alt was level 10. 

[Modern Angel]

The word exact would tend to preclude generalization.  

More on point, MMOs are the pet rocks of the 00s: an inexplicably popular tapping of some really weird part of the Western zeitgeist. WoW was an aberration, coming at the exact right time with the exact right features. They're a spent force and anyone breaking ground on one today is fucking crazy.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[Modern Angel]

Playing online with other people isn't the same thing as MMO.

[Lakov_Sanite]

  Might as well be in star wars.

I think people like the idea of a world they inhabit with lots of other people, I just think the wow diku model is played out. Polish as much as you want it'll still be and old car you're tired of driving.

[Modern Angel]

That's irrelevant, though. There will never be another sandbox/pvpcentric/whatever MMO with enough money behind it to reach big numbers. Which may be fine but that just reinforces that WoW clones *are* MMOs as far as the masses are concerned, since those niche games will never break into the wider consciousness. At some point, diku is MMO. That's what it is and no number of 30k sub games tweaking the model is going to change it now.

If you like MMOs, you'd better be praying GW2 (which has just enough variations on a theme to offer something quasi-new) does well. Otherwise it's going to be Titan and that's it.

[Merusk]

Lotta goal post moving in this thread.

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?

It's not WoW in space. It doesn't manage to keep the power curve between mob and player at the correct level, there's too much running and too many buttons for too few things.

The mechanics? Love 'em.  The execution? Flawed.

[Sky]

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.

I actually agree with you here. It seems a lot of what I hear is coming from people burned out on wow. 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! 

GW2 looks pretty awesome, but I'm betting the generic fantasy world will feel really tired at this point. Should be better than Rift's world, at least.

[DraconianOne]

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

Oh vey! How you say such a thing? We have pink butterflies and everything.

[Modern Angel]

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! 

Or maybe it's not a great game? I know it's tough to not consider oneself the arbiter of global taste but there is that possibility.

GW's world is weird. I don't care about their shitty story at all. But of all the MMO fantasy worlds I've played in, it's consistently the most visually well realized. I could wander aimlessly around GW for hours. I fully expect GW2 to be the same.

[Merusk]

No, it's a good game whose mechanics need tweaks.

* PC Power-vs.-mob:  Mechanics & abilities that one-shot 'normals' early-on scale down in power as you level.  ALWAYS A BAD CHOICE.
* Too.. Much... Running.  Expansive worlds are great. Speeders, great.  Designing a world so that riding your speeder takes as long to get to a quest hub as running did at level 1?  Not so great.
* Too..many.butans:  Yeah, we've argued this before and some want more.  I want fewer buttons that do more.  Having to juggle 9 buttons to DPS properly is bullshit.
* Ability cooldowns: If you're only going to give ONE interrupt, put it on a shorter timer.  Item #1 is less of an issue if I can interrupt more than every-other or every-third ability that fucks me up.

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.

[ajax34i]

I'll likely play this for 6 months, provided that they stick to the schedule of fixing UI issues and ability delays (they've made progress, I'm ok with it so far).  I have one character at 35 and 2 at 15, which I've abandoned (switched servers) and started a new character that is currently level 15, to give you an idea of my progress speed and amount of time played.  And yes I'm ignoring datacrons, crew skills, and other such time-wasting distractions, and I'm basically questing full time when I do play.

WoW, if I remember correctly, was on a 4-month cycle following each expansion, and this game may be the same way.  I think they're planning on catering to this cycle, so we'll see what they do with their expansion and patch cycles.  But so far they seem to be patching much more often than WoW.  More often than EVE, too.

BTW, WoW had funny quest dialogue too (more than this game, actually), but I'm quoting SWTOR one-liners like movie one-liners, and I don't remember doing that with WoW.  The fact that there's a voice delivering the line makes it a more easily-remembered experience.  "All I need to know how to spell is 'kill':  K Y Y Y L" was perfectly delivered and animated, heh.

[Modern Angel]

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.

[Rasix]

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.

Yes, all shit we knew day 1 of the pre-start.

[Sky]

Every great game I've played has been great despite having a ton of flaws. Skyrim has wonky combat and the world's shittiest UI and was still awesome.

Merusk, I'm on board with your list. BH didn't really have too many butans, just about right actually. I hit 22 with my shadow and suddenly had too many. Remapping a bit made it slightly better, but I get what people are saying now.

[Rasix]

Punch scoundrel has less than my BH, which is nice.  Still, I'm punching instead of using this shotgun, which is a bit odd.  At least I can retire all abilities tied to hiding behind chest-high walls.

[Paelos]

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.

From what it sounded like to me, you liked the game but got mad at it when it wouldn't run on your shitty rig.

[Modern Angel]

Yeah, I sure am mad. I can barely stand it.