*****Official Star Wars: The Old Republic Thread*****

voorhees1979 said:
I did sub but I stopped as I wanted to wait for F2P. LVL 50 enough to finish the story lines? Story is all I care about I am not interested in playing after those.
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You are incredibly restricted though, even through the class story with a F2P account. If I was only interested in completing the story, only having 2 quickslot bars, and not even being able to unify colours or hide my character's/companion's helmet, for example, would drive me nuts.
 
Skyboat said:
You are incredibly restricted though, even through the class story with a F2P account. If I was only interested in completing the story, only having 2 quickslot bars, and not even being able to unify colours or hide my character's/companion's helmet, for example, would drive me nuts.
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Damn, cheers m8. May have to re-think my logic on that one then.
 
I'd be willing to pay (prob about £20 given the age of the game) to be able to play the story / campaign properly (i.e. proper number of quickbars, etc.) without any PvP functionality, which they could offer for extra. I'm sure there are plenty of KOTOR fans who would also pay upfront for that. Unfortunately this f2p release seems designed to make the game awkward and unpleasant unless you pay for basic functions to be unlocked.
 
The only potential problem with just playing for the story is that you only get 2 character slots and theres (currently) no way to buy more without subbing (and you're supposed to lose them when you unsub).

So unless you want to delete characters after finishing their story you won't be doing all 8 of them for free.


Biggest overall fail is that EA/BW constantly claim that something like 40% of people quitting the game said it was due to the sub cost (thats been their justification for F2P all along) but the entire F2P model seems designed to push you into subbing, especially if you are a returning player. New players that have never played the game with 4 quickbars and helm hiding etc might not be quite as bothered but people that used to play and know what they are missing are more likely to just bugger off again.

Of course there is the whole fact that EA/BW implying that the sub cost was the reason people quit and not the fact the quality of the game wasn't worth the sub kinda makes a mockery of the whole thing.
 
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Newbie007 said:
SWG's sub base was around 400,00 wasn't it not? Hardly huge and on a par with EQ's at the time (2004?), I still think EQ has been SoE''s biggest MMO to date. And from memory AoC dissapointed in intial sales, less than half a million in the 1st week. I don't recall the servers being rammed anyway - AoC was the last MMO prior to GW2 that I bought in the 1st month btw :) (it also launched in the summer of 2008 which was prior to Lich King being released so in theory you had a hell of a lot of bored WoW players to grab).

Still funny that all former SWG players still blame SoE for failures of SWG, they couldn't have done anything without Lucas Arts say so....!
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You band the number 400k around as if it is a derisory amount of subs. Was it about 500k subs that an EA spokesperson said would be enough to give TOR a healthy revenue stream, but 1mil would be serious money for them? Well, that game supposedly cost north of $200mil so imagine what SoE and LA were raking in from the 'miserly' 400k playing SWG.
The number is only seen as small when compared to the complete aberration of WoW subs.

I thought AoC had over a mill initial purchases? I could be wrong but I thought Funcom really trumpeted its launch sales figures.

It makes me smile a wry smile, when the subject comes up now of what a (non-WoW) MMO needs to survive. Sandbox or themepark but increasingly (even by people such as John Smedley!) a hybrid between the two of them. Well, guess what, SWG had a bit of that. It wasn't a total sandbox, there was the Rebel themepark, the Imperial Retreat, the Warren, the RIS armourline, the Marauder stuff on Endor, Nightsister stuff on Dath and numerous other bits and pieces all over the place (I vaguely remember something to do with Borvo the Hutt in Moeina?) Sure it needed a lot more, but if you used a current graphics engine, added some questlines on different planets, cleaned up the bugs, reverted to the original implementation of Jedi (permadeath!) and prayed that Disney would be more relaxed with their demands and less heavy handed on game direction, then SWG would be massive.
It'd have something for everyone: sandbox, questlines, PvP, Star Wars IP, free form space and the potential in capable hands to produce almost endless content.

It'll never happen though :(
 
Newbie007 said:
SWG failed because the player base isn't there, the NGE was implemented because sub numbers weren't great and they wanted to appeal to a broader audience.

Star Wars games have always been outsold by other games of the time, quite significantly in some cases. You only have to look at the best selling video game franchises of all time to see just how 'well' Star Wars performs, its even out performed by Harry Potter, and that has never had a decent game in its decade of existence (the 1st star wars title was released 20 years earlier for example).
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Wrong Again

SWG failed beacuse SOE/LA got greedy and wanted a player base like WOW's. They had a loyal player base from the start with a few 100K users who invested a lot of time and effort in the game, but both companies looked at WOW got the green eyes of jealousy and thought they could ride that pony home on the back of Star Wars IP. The game would still exist today if they had simply improved what they had rather than do CU and NGE which effectvely gutted everyone progress and efforts and left the vets chracters as shadows of what they were and shoul dhave been. Yes the player base would have only been several 100K but it would have been alive and well.

Again look at EvE that only has around 45k-50K players on at any given time (and that being generous, when I logged on yesterday there were 36K players online) yet that game has survived for many years and is still enjoyed. Reason for this is that it gives the players something they want and actually enjoyed. So far appart from the original SWG release pre CU/NGE the SW IP games have had too much reliance and the fact that it is Star Wars and not enough work to actually make them great games that anyone would like to play.
 
Thank you for contacting us regarding your Star Wars: The Old Republic Account.

In order to better protect your account, all Billing, Subscription and Account Security issues are dealt with via our Customer Service telephone support.
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:) I'm absolutely fuming.
 
wildman said:
Wrong Again

SWG failed beacuse SOE/LA got greedy and wanted a player base like WOW's. They had a loyal player base from the start with a few 100K users who invested a lot of time and effort in the game, but both companies looked at WOW got the green eyes of jealousy and thought they could ride that pony home on the back of Star Wars IP.
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Wrong how? In the fact the star wars franchise isn't hugely succesful in the gaming space? I'm not, a look at any sales figures will show you that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game_franchises

Or the fact you are agreeing with me in that sub numbers weren't that great so they pushed the NGE out to get more?

wildman said:
The game would still exist today if they had simply improved what they had rather than do CU and NGE which effectvely gutted everyone progress and efforts and left the vets chracters as shadows of what they were and shoul dhave been. Yes the player base would have only been several 100K but it would have been alive and well.
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Well SoE keep any ol rubbish going so it's highly likly that SWG would still be going in one form or the other if ToR hadn't ever been released. My guess is that is would have still been shut down with the original 400k numbers by LA with ToR's release though.

wildman said:
Again look at EvE that only has around 45k-50K players on at any given time (and that being generous, when I logged on yesterday there were 36K players online) yet that game has survived for many years and is still enjoyed.
Reason for this is that it gives the players something they want and actually enjoyed. .
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Totally different animal, CCP are a very small company and are quite happy with their 300,000 subs (by all reports), its also the most expensive monthly sub on the market to play from memory (if you dont get enough in isk to pay for your sub.

wildman said:
So far appart from the original SWG release pre CU/NGE the SW IP games have had too much reliance and the fact that it is Star Wars and not enough work to actually make them great games that anyone would like to play.
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SWG was just dull and apart from the hardcore star wars gamer no one else wanted to know and thats why you had a game like EQ be the no 1 performer for SOE and thats why the NGE went in to try to appeal to the non star wars fan. The biggest selling Star Wars video game title is Lego Star Wars, a game aimed at kids.
 
Are the people behind this game and the customer services just complete morons?

my first reply.

Thank you for contacting us regarding your Star Wars: The Old Republic Account.

In order to better protect your account, all Billing, Subscription and Account Security issues are dealt with via our Customer Service telephone support.
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3 days now, i just received my second reply to my ticket,

Thank you for contacting us regarding your Star Wars: The Old Republic Account.

In order to better protect your account, all Billing, Subscription and Account Security issues are dealt with via our Customer Service telephone support.
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Looks like im never getting my account back unless they actually get someone answering calls or someone with half a brain who actually reads these emails, someone will take this further, im pretty sure of it.
 
Xordium said:
4/10 ouch ... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-26-star-wars-the-old-republic-re-review
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I can find loads and loads of reasons why this "review" is complete and utter rubbish.
A lot of the "review" is looking from the perspective of a returning player who will suddenly miss things. But the new player who has never before played will not miss anything they have never had.
It fails to mention that the game is not only free, that a lot of the extras are one-time only purchases.

I won't go on. But me thinks this is the usual "Yer, bashing good" "review".
 
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