TOR Is the Old Republic going to be a bust?

The people who put out info like that more than likely are being paid by World of Warcraft to keep people from leaving their game to try SWTOR. I Played the game for about two hours at the convention. It was EPIC! When the game is released I am afraid I will have to set an alarm to remind me to eat..... hehe

 

From what I've seen it'll probably be a great success, if for no other reason than that it does the one thing no MMORPG has really managed to do yet: Actually be an RPG where you play a character as opposed to just having an electronic avatar you use for grinding levels and loot. I know many single-player RPG fans who thus far have despised the "lack of character" in MMOs completely that are quite interested in ToR. And the "best ever first five-day preorders" for Electronic Arts? Bear in mind this is the company that puts out the insanely popular Madden Football every year, as well as a host of other popular franchises.

 

I guess that really depends on what you consider a bust. Do they have to eventually beat WoW's subscription numbers to be a success to you? Or does the game just have to turn a profit to be a success to you? Or is it somewhere in the middle? EA's, Bioware's, and Lucas' answer is going to be different than any single gamer who follows the game, most likely.

Short term, I don't think it will be a bust. Long-term is another question. If they make dumb decisions a year or two after launch, then sure, anything's possible.

People will say to that argument, "Well, it's Bioware, they won't make a single decision that is that bad."

I say to that, Bioware has definitely earned the benefit of the doubt over the years so I will give you that until they prove otherwise. But I don't like to be blindly faithful to many things in life, that's how you get taken advantage of.

All that being said, I do think the game will be a huge success. I don't know if it will take a year or two or maybe even three. But when the game launches and it has time to fully mature, they find out what the majority of the people playing the game want and add in new features down the road, I think it will be the number 1 MMO in the Western market. I don't think it will happen month one or even year one. But I think it will have to grow over time and WoW's population will have to decrease slowly over time, some if not a lot of those players matriculating over to SwTOR.

So, if I had to take a stab in the dark... I'd say no, it's not going to be a bust.

 

I'm praying it's not a bust. Last decent SW game I've played was the FORCE UNLEASHED. 2nd one was a massive disappointment.

 

KOTOR was excellent, KOTOR II was OK but not a patch on the first.
TFU was excellent, TFU 2 was too short and to me seemed unneccessary.

I'm not bothered about waiting for a game, the longer it takes I think the better it will be because it means the developers are working on it to add mre to it and fix/improve things. THe longer we wait, the better the finished product.

Look at Valve, they make great games. If I have to wait until 2016 to see the next Half Life game I will wait because I know Valve will deliver as they have with their other games and sequels.

As for whether it will go bust, it's hard to say. Galaxies had huge interest when it started and then it faded away. I still play it but I sturggle to find any new players who have entered or anyone low-level because few people play it now. As with most games, I think the success will come down to the repay value. The bigger the game and the more there is to do, the longer people will play it.

 

At this point, I'm assuming we'll never see it.

I don't think that's necessarily true. Over time, the people who work on it change. The longer you take, the more changes you can make and they might mess things up.

 

We may never see the supposed re-release of Half Life 1 (Black Mesa), but we will get Half Life 3 or something franchise related. Valve won't abandon their most popular title with no resolution. I think it's most likely they're working on a new Source engine and will go from there.
Look at the hints in Portal 2 about it, Valve must be working on something.

Maybe, but rushing things can be equally problematic. Look at KOTOR II, it was never properly finished because they rushed to release it before it was ready.

 

How much will this game cost to play?

 

I'm almost certain this game will not be a bust, in both the short term and the long one.

I think the release for the game has been very carefully planned out. Since it will be released a month or two after the new Blu-Ray box set of all 6 films and the new Clone Wars series on tv starts, it's just another pull to bring people into the game. I think it's clear that they have seen what mistakes were made with Galaxies, plus they now have a wide range of current MMOs as reference points on what to do and what not to do. People have noted close similarities between this game and WoW, but that is only because those aspects of an RPG are successful. The team behind TOR have also importantly picked up on things that WoW lacked, mainly decent story elements and making the lines between solo and group play more ambiguous.

One thing to also note is that WoW as a game has peaked already. Since the latest expansion hit, the game has seen a sloping loss of players who have canceled their subscriptions (including me) each quarter. Blizzard has even had to release these figures, somewhere near 600,000 in the last quarter if I recall correctly. Even these figures may be eschewed and Blizzard might want to hide that they have lost even more players than they admit. They try to put it down to people going on holiday over the Summer months, but if I was to go on holiday for 1 or 2 weeks, I wouldn't go and cancel my subscription to then have to renew it when I got back, and I'm fairly certain the hundreds of thousands who did quit are more likely in my position.

I would not be surprised if SW:TOR does become the new WoW over the next 2 years, with only a few million loyal subscribers staying with Blizzard.

 

Sorry to say, but Blizzard has stated that WoW isn't done yet, and won't be for a few more years: http://geek.pikimal.com/2011/08/30/blizzard-denies-that-world-of-warcraft-has-peaked/

It always peaks when a new expansion is coming out. 11 million was the amount of players before Cataclysm hit, it only went up to 12 million because of the hype for Cata and old WoW players wanting to check it out. So it lost about 600,000 players. That's nothing when it still has 11.1 million players in the game still.

SWTOR will be a big hype when it's first released, bringing in about 500,000, maybe a million players. But, after a month or two, you know players will hit the level cap, get bored, and go back to WoW due to a new patch or expansion coming out. WoW will never die (at least not in the next few years).

 

500.000 to a million players is not a big hype. Average MMOs can get that kinda crowd with such a promotion campaign. they said they need 2 million and from there buidling up. I hope they do it. But if not, then not. To be truthful, the latest output by LucasArts did not thrill me. A flop might be the best thing we can get in the long run . . . I just would love to play on in the Kotor era, so I hope it is not this one . . .

 

The main thing for TOR is to attract players who are not SW fans or maybe even MMO fans. I got Galaxies having never played an MMO because it was a SW game, but WoW gets players who aren't just into fantasy and playing MMOs. It is not a brand like LOTR Online, ST Online or the DC MMO, it is a general fantasy game and so it has broader appeal.

Because SW is a brand with loyal followers it will sell with them, and sell with those wanting to check out a new MMO and see how it compares. But TOR will have to offer something new and different and keep it going in roder to sustain a big player base.
The problem with Galaxies was that it changed its format too much too fast and it upset people, plus it then was no longer as good as it used to be (not for a long time after numerous updates anyway). It's not in most people's interest to pay a lot of money for a game you may only play a couple fo times a year, so they will most likely quit.
How long I play ti will depends on how much it changes and whether it becomes repetitive and tedious as Galaxies did.

 

If the game is fun and interesting, I don't understand how it won't succeed. Especially bearing the Star Wars title.

If SWG is considered a success then this will be a blowout.

[EDIT] I also think it's awesome that a studio is putting out $300 million + on a game. Video games are nearly as big as films nowadays, and maybe it will force other companies to follow suite.

 

This is true, the majority of loyal SW fans will at least try TOR but I doubt this is enough to make it a huge success, they need to attract players from other MMOs. Hopefully, the features they have will provide sufficient difference to WOW and others to make the transition worthwhile.

 

What Betas showed make it pretty doubtful we get what was promised, actually. Especially nobody seems to think it is "all about story" but rather more of "raid another Sith tomb, really?" chain of events.

 

They are not going to spoil the story for Betas.... You are getting limited, closed off scenarios so they can test mechanics, not plot points.

 

Actually no. What I watched was simply the beginning of the game as it looked. First mission, level one and from there up the ladder. Nothing limited. It was the game. I heard people made it up to level 12 - 13 and played the campaign to that extend. The guy I watched as he played beta took his time.

 

indeed

 

srsly?

 

I was expecting some interesting discussion over the present state of TOR, but no, it's just a lame bit of thread necromancy for a thread that's nearly 2 years old.

 

I really hate what TOR has done to Star Wars lore. It created a bunch of expies of movie characters whose fates are a mystery with no resolution in sight.

 

Soooooo, what does 2013 have to say about this topic? Was SWTOR a bust?

 

From a certain point of view

 

TOR definitely had a slowing down period, forcing it to adapt the Free to Play option. But since then I have seen a large upswing in the number of people playing; not only FtP, but also subscribers. It has become a lot of fun again.

 

I haven't played in over 6 months, however the other day I got an email stating they were planning to do 'server consolidation' and that the Asia-Pacific servers were getting merged with the West Coast North American servers. So I'm guessing as far as Asia-Pacific is concerned there isn't enough traffic to warrant maintaining separate servers.