Cutter wrote on Dec 20, 2011, 14:03:
Nomaar wrote on Dec 20, 2011, 12:13:
Cutter wrote on Dec 20, 2011, 11:43:
You're going to see big drops in pops at the 3 and 6 mo. period.
Completely disagree. This is the first MMORPG since WoW that has legs. The subscribership will be growing for a good while and will reach several million fairly shortly. The in-game buzz -- not the bullshit on the forums -- confirms this. It has all the addictive elements you normally associate with an MMORPG, and a rich storyline that differentiates it from other titles. The PvP combat mechanics also have staying power, they just need to beef up the PvP content. Plus, Bioware has retained its entire development team and seems well-prepared to add a lot of new content fairly quickly.
I beta tested Age of Conan, Rift and Warhammer Online, and I could see pretty soon those titles would sputter out in a few months. This is entirely different--the same thing ain't happening here. We'll see in six months.
What legs? There's zero exploration to speak of - trains go off the rails more than this game. A ton of recycled content - as has become EABioware's norm now - the PvP is nothing great, very limited dungeons/PvP maps, weak crafting system. Weak arcade space combat mini-game. The novelty is the voice-over stuff which when done once, twice tops, will just be something else to skip through. The entire way this game is setup isn't developer friendly to banging out new content quickly so that's a major roadblock. In short it brings nothing new to the genre and takes a few steps backwards in some key areas.
They really would have been much better off banging out a KOTOR 3 and 4 for the time and money this thing has taken. This is not a game built to last. And only the hardcore Star Wars nuts will stick around for any length of time. Within a week you can hit max level easily. And withing a month see and do all there is to do. So how exacly is this going to last? No, this game has buzz because it has a 100 million dollar marketing push behind it. All the PR in the world though won't give it the legs it doesn't have.
Not just to pick on SWTOR because I think this model for the genre is basically over and done with anyway - yes even for GW2, which still appreards to be doing it better, but it's still too limited. If I had the means I'd be developing a new (slightly larger scale) NWN style game now. That's the way to go for the future!
Couldn't have said it better myself. On top of that, I tested the beta for 4 months. I watched in disbelief as they inexplicably removed popular features like the "unify colors" setting which makes Trooper worth playing, removed planetary GTN terminals which killed the economy, nerfed Commando and increased the difficulty to the point of making some quests nearly impossible to solo. All the while you got the sense that the devs couldn't care less about what we thought, because there was hardly any communication from them, and you could almost feel the arrogance. But back to your points, you're 100% right. Once people realize this is essentially KOTOR 3 with a few multiplayer elements sprinkled in and the brand novelty wears off, you'll see the number of subs start to plummet. I doubt many people will be paying the ridiculous $14.99/mnth fee for what is essentially a single player game for very long. It has no legs, IMO.