Star Wars: The Old Republic

Ladybird · August 17, 2012, 03:54:08 PM

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;571909It's been out for months. It's also now publicly acknowledged as a failure, so it's going Free To Play (i.e. Pay To Win).

There's no money in trying to be the biggest MMO in the market, unless your game is World of Warcraft. No, the good money is around fifth place, tenth place, that sort of area; lower revenue, but vastly lower costs.

WoW has had over a billion dollars spent on it's development by now. Trying to compete with that is insane.

flyerfan1991 · August 17, 2012, 04:55:27 PM

Quote from: Ladybird;572608There's no money in trying to be the biggest MMO in the market, unless your game is World of Warcraft. No, the good money is around fifth place, tenth place, that sort of area; lower revenue, but vastly lower costs.

WoW has had over a billion dollars spent on it's development by now. Trying to compete with that is insane.

Although the luster is off of WoW now. Unlike previous years, WoW's subscriber base has been in decline since the early part of Cataclysm. Mists of Pandaria is a big roll of the dice for Blizzard to stem the bleeding.

Bradford C. Walker · August 20, 2012, 12:43:40 AM

Quote from: flyerfan1991;572645Although the luster is off of WoW now. Unlike previous years, WoW's subscriber base has been in decline since the early part of Cataclysm. Mists of Pandaria is a big roll of the dice for Blizzard to stem the bleeding.

I'm one of those whose only reason to keep playing is due to my guild. If that goes, I'm gone. Cataclysm was a shitpile, and Pandaland looks to be more of the same. (Though, as a disaffected Horde player, I look forward to ganking Garrosh as much as Alliance players looked forward to ganking Staghelm during the Firelands arc of Cataclysm.) I've been increasingly disaffected since the end of Lich King, and been playing since Vanilla, so while I'll buy Pandaland and upgrade the account to allow access to its content, I am far more interested in Guild Wars 2.

James Gillen · August 20, 2012, 03:05:30 AM

Quote from: flyerfan1991;572645Although the luster is off of WoW now. Unlike previous years, WoW's subscriber base has been in decline since the early part of Cataclysm. Mists of Pandaria is a big roll of the dice for Blizzard to stem the bleeding.

I think a large part of it is the fact that in order to level through the early 60s, you still need Outland, which effectively means you need to time travel to before the Lich King got ganked. Too bad. I liked Outland.

Although I'm gonna pick up Pandaland just cause it's Pandaland.

JG

Ladybird · August 20, 2012, 08:41:14 AM

Quote from: flyerfan1991;572645Although the luster is off of WoW now. Unlike previous years, WoW's subscriber base has been in decline since the early part of Cataclysm. Mists of Pandaria is a big roll of the dice for Blizzard to stem the bleeding.

It is, but it's still the dominant game in it's genre. I don't think anything will really challenge it's former market position for a long time; the audience is just too fragmented. There are too many other good options these days (See also: the TTRPG market).

If Pandaland doesn't solve the problem, though, I could see it going F2P by the end of 2013. When they open up the expansion races in a forthcoming patch (5.04, iirc), they'll be in a great position to switch to a LOTRO-esque "quest pack" model.

flyerfan1991 · August 20, 2012, 08:35:01 PM

Quote from: Ladybird;573987It is, but it's still the dominant game in it's genre. I don't think anything will really challenge it's former market position for a long time; the audience is just too fragmented. There are too many other good options these days (See also: the TTRPG market).

If Pandaland doesn't solve the problem, though, I could see it going F2P by the end of 2013. When they open up the expansion races in a forthcoming patch (5.04, iirc), they'll be in a great position to switch to a LOTRO-esque "quest pack" model.

They'll need to do something, because it's becoming an increasingly hard sell to get a new player to the game. The cost factor involved is too high, even if Blizz goes into adding Wrath into the Battle Chest.

flyerfan1991 · August 20, 2012, 08:36:21 PM

Quote from: James Gillen;573942I think a large part of it is the fact that in order to level through the early 60s, you still need Outland, which effectively means you need to time travel to before the Lich King got ganked. Too bad. I liked Outland.

Although I'm gonna pick up Pandaland just cause it's Pandaland.

JG

There are days when I feel like WoW Insider is being deliberately myopic in ignoring the story continuity issues, because everybody there has been playing since before Cata, so they never notice the problems a new player would see.

Malleus Arianorum · September 01, 2012, 01:07:34 AM

I installed SWtOR and played around a bit. I like the Star Wars sound effects and graphics but I don't enjoy the combat -- too simple, too easy. It probably gets better later on as I'm just freeloading on the demo which stops at level 15.

To my surprise, my 6yo daughter likes playing it although she frequently needs help with buttons and understanding some of the text responses. She has a tremendous amount of difficulty with Jedi morality because, like the Sith, she deals in absolutes.

I've stopped playing it, but partly that's because I suspect that she's going to play through alot of the Jedi Knight storyline by herself, and I'm not particularly interested in doing that twice.