Making the next generation MMO

I haven't played SWTOR since the summer despite the fact the game went free three months ago.  Bioware as we knew it is dead with the exit of the original owners and now EA is going to squeeze every penny they can from this brand.  Their problem is they've destroyed most of the loyalty they've earned and only a great game will attract new sales.  (I'm only buying used EA games in my determination to never give them another penny).

As I look back on SWTOR, it is obvious the problem started with game design.  The funny thing is Bioware has experience with what I think will be the next generation of game design and I would be surprised if Blizzard doesn't have some of these options when it goes live.

1) Game engine - The game has to be able to rend new instances quickly and as seamless as possible.  The key is it has to be able to handle battles with a 100+ participants.  Every game states this is their goal but always forget it as they create their world.  THIS CANNOT HAPPEN IF  YOU WANT YOUR GAME TO SUCCEED!

2) Game design - Everything in the game should be designed to eliminate wasted time.  Give fun places to visit but allow players a quick way back into the action.  The world should be interspersed with interlinked safe havens surrounded with things to do.

3) Character models - Realistic models are nice but many times they add little and if they aren't done well can actually detract.  I always thought the SWTOR world should have been a mix of the Clone Wars cartoon style and realism.  I think fans would love it and put less stess on the game engine.

4) Abilities - Get away from ability trees and design something more like a Secret World with hundreds of different abilities and all of them have their uses.

1A) Design tools - This is the most important after game engine but I moved it to last as I wanted to expand the comment.  Make your design tools flexible so that a small design team can create a raid/flashpoint in under a month.

There is one thing that players can't get enough of and that is content.  After seeing Blizzard struggle to keep up for years it is obvious that designers can't work fast enough.  The answer is obvious - use your playerbase to create content.  A few examples prove it - First person shooter mods, the apple ap store, and WoW mods.  Bioware had a great example in the Neverwinter Nights games.

Many games have adapted to players hesitance to pay for a monthly subscription by going free to play.  They add trinkets to the game that add cosmetic value and some even trick players into gambling like EA does with their cartel coins.  It frustrates the playerbase as the value is limited.

Imagine instead if they added the ability for players to play as a DM and create a flashpoint/instance at endgame.  I always thought that EA messed up during the leveling process by not having 'episodes' on planets that just worked on your class story.  This episode concept would be extended at end game so people could create content for others that could be bought on the MMOs App store.  The players would buy content and keep 50% of the purchase price.  The company would review the content to make sure the design was sound and review the content for a rating.

One thing I'd still love to see is the ability for DMs that create these dungeons to be able to interact in the worlds they create.  Give guilds the ability to create Free Dungeons for their playerbase but only for active subscribers.  That would allow would-be DMs to create stories and attact players to make the MMO world more immesive.

Using SWTOR as an example lets say that a DM creates a mod and it starts from the guild capital ship.  Everyone meets there and queues the mod then enters the guild ship instance.  It ports them to the planet the DM created and he walks them through their adventure.  As it only works at max level, this is done for fun though I could see RP coins given that would be used at the MMOs store for specific vanity items.

People spend a lot of time on things like this and the only way to keep people paying for MMOs is  to up the content and the best way is to use their people.

1B) Massive PvP battles - Look to Planetside for an example but we don't want anything that large.  Look at offshoots like WoW's Alterac Valley or World of Tanks.  The key is that we want players to feel frantic but make it big enough so that strategy is necessary and big picture views are enabled for some.  Require players that join PVP are given specific roles (can be opt'ed in the queue system) in the command/player structure and set up the chat to ease interaction.  Don't give people the ability to opt out as they will and reward the commanders that succeed and make the world change based on victories.

The leveling story is secondary to all of the above though that isn't to say it isn't important.  The key is to give people things to do once they hit max level and never give them a reason to go elsewhere.  It would take a combination of population density and variety to work but the current system is broken and something like I described will fix it.

Free to play - is it worth it

I quit playing about 3 months ago when my subscription ran out and left them another nasty message because I could.  It said similar things to my other /ragequit as it frustrates me they pawned off a flawed game on the public as a money grab instead of making the hard choice two years ago to redesign.  My quiet protest is to never spend money on new EA games again (used games or ok though).

When free to play was announced I wrote:

The rewards are a nice mix of rewarding faithful subscribers along with trying to make sure people stay subscribed while they get the system ready.  As I’ve subscribed for 6 months with a short break and one month free after 1.2 launched I will have 4-6 x 150 coins right now.  This part is ingenious as my first thought is to unsub but I will get into the reasons why in a future post.  The reason it is smart is I currently have 600 coins and I can’t spend them if I leave the game.  It’s silly but it’s human nature and it is why F2P is a good method. 

The other hooks like the in game gift (it looks weak to me but will entice some) 200 coins for subscribing from now to launch and 250 coins for being active at launch are big enticements.  That leads me to believe that subscribers after F2P goes live will be getting around 100-150 coins per month and the cost per coin will be around a dime.  That gives people a reason to subscribe even if they aren’t playing because another way of looking at it is pre-buying cartel coins.  I expect EA/Bioware to make this obvious in the near future which will emphasize that playing now is like getting coins on sale.

As you can see, I got over my first inclinations and would have subscribed if I thought I could trust them that the cartel coins were going to be worth anything.  They never announced how much a coin would cost and I estimated it would be around $.10.  The reason I wanted to know that is if I was going to continue to subsribe to a flawed game I wanted to know how many coins I'd get for continuing through launch and the true value.  My thought is they'd reward loyal subscribers more than newer players.

The question I had in continuing my subscription was of my $15, what was the value in cartel coins.  I estimated $.10 per coin but I thought they were going to release that information so people could see the 200 coins was a great deal and encourage people to subscribe.  I didn't understand the depth of EAs disdain for their players.

At the same time they dropped the price of the game to under $10 that we paid $60, they hid the cartel coin price until just before the November launch.  I quit as I expected my coins to be worthless and was proved correct.  The value of a coin is a penny ($.01) or a tenth of what I expected.  Instead of rewarding their long time subscribers they gave us a fraction of the value.

The $60 you paid from August to November was worth $8 of cartel coins.  For a game that was tired I'm glad I didn't continue to invest in it in the hopes they were going to surprise me with improvements down the line.

I'm sure this view seems naive as businesses are there to make money but gamers are a fickle lot.  I'm not even going to try the free to play version (it's too gimped anyway) and will only go back if they give us the game we deserve.  In other words.  I'm not going back.

SWTOR goes free to play–What does that mean?

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In my last post I made the comment that EA’s July 31st, “press conference will tell us everything we need to know on what to expect from the game's future.”  What they announced was they were going free to play in the near future.  They also announced that subscriptions had slipped below 1,000,000 but were significantly above their breakeven of 500,000.  Because they didn’t give an actual number it makes me think the real number is closer to 500,000 and I’d bet 650,000 is probably good.  When you consider they’ve gone from 1.7 on 12/31 to 1.3 on 3/31 to .7 on 6/30 it is obvious the game was going to stabilize at a point below their breakeven.  MMO’s like DAOC, WAR, AOC, and Rift stabilized between 100-200k and if you figure that SWTOR has the star war fan factor I’d bet the number would have been in the 300k range.  I made a comment back in May that:

EA/Bioware is painfully aware of what happened last year with Rift.  In their first quarter they peaked at 600,000 subscriptions but two quarters later they dropped to 250,000 and are still falling.  The same trend happened with Warhammer - peak of 850,000 with a drop to 300,000 six months later and 175,000 within a year.   Age of Conan followed a similar pattern - peak of 700,000 with a drop to 410,000 in 4 months and around 100,000 within 8 months.

They’ve know this for a while as I’m sure they’ve been tracking subscriptions closely and the other titles subscriber loss is common knowledge.  That meant they needed to add additional sources of revenue to make money which is the reason for the free-to-play (F2P) announcement.

Bioware has been especially quiet for the last quarter and the reason is they’ve known they this has had to happen and they’ve been working frantically to implement it.  You can’t make an announcement like F2P without giving fans a reason to continue to subscribe until the new system is in place.

Here’s what they announced:

• A new Operation: Terror From Beyond
• A new Warzone: Ancient Hypergate
• 10 New Space Combat Missions for level 50 characters
• A Powerful New Companion – HK-51
• Subscription Players Earn Cartel Coins:
• Free-to-Play Option: Coming this fall

The F2P option is specifically designed to reward long time players and is designed to keep people subscribed until the fall.

• 150 Cartel Coins – Every Month subscribed prior to July 31st
• 1000 Cartel Coins – Purchase of the Collector’s Edition
• Hero’s Banner – Purchase of the Collector’s Edition
• In Game Gift – Players that remain subscribed from August 1st – F2P launch
• 200 Cartel Coins – Every month subscribed after August 1st
• 250 Cartel Coins – Active subscribers at launch of F2P

As you can see, the rewards are a nice mix of rewarding faithful sgubscribers along with trying to make sure people stay subscribed while they get the system ready.  As I’ve subscribed for 6 months with a short break and one month free after 1.2 launched I will have 4-6 x 150 coins right now.  This part is ingenious as my first thought is to unsub but I will get into the reasons why in a future post.  The reason it is smart is I currently have 600 coins and I can’t spend them if I leave the game.  It’s silly but it’s human nature and it is why F2P is a good method.

The other hooks like the in game gift (it looks weak to me but will entice some) 200 coins for subscribing from now to launch and 250 coins for being active at launch are big enticements.  That leads me to believe that subscribers after F2P goes live will be getting around 100-150 coins per month and the cost per coin will be around a dime.  That gives people a reason to subscribe even if they aren’t playing because another way of looking at it is pre-buying cartel coins.  I expect EA/Bioware to make this obvious in the near future which will emphasize that playing now is like getting coins on sale.

They can do this because the companies goals are now more defined.  They now have two development teams – 1) to make content for Cartel Coins and 2) to provide content for people that continue to subscribe.  Both will be limited in their scope and have strict budgets based on expected revenues.  This discipline has been missing from the game designers since the games inception and I’m sure is a reason that EA wanted it.

The big questions is - what does this mean to people that are playing now and is this enough to keep people subscribing?  What can we expect?

My last post I listed a bunch of issues in the game and I will use a shortened version to predict what will happen:

Game Design:

• No scripting tools to make mods
• No threatmeter
• No guild tools
• Crafting system extremely basic
• WOW Auctionator functionality on GTN
• Alt crafting control
• Long Travel Times
• Game engine needs better optimization
• Limited ability to track abilities

Subscriber Only:

• Nothing to do at endgame

Now Free to Play:

• Simplistic Space combat
• Planets feel dead
• Planet design is too linear without obvious hubs
• Non Instanced dungeon design is bad (fight in and a fight out)

The reason many people played this game was because of the class stories.  They were mostly good but in actuality a small part of the game from level 1-50.  Now that 1-50 is free I really doubt we see any changes in that area.  All the F2P players can expect is what exists and the ability to buy XP boosters or trinkets that have no real impact on the game.  The good stuff will need a subscription.

EA/Bioware has made it clear they view the game from 1-49 as a failure and giving it away for free.  This news is actually good news for subscribers as it means the focus will be on creating content at level 50 like events, mini-games, operations, flashpoints, and equipment.  That is what will keep people subscribing and that is where most of the subscriber money will go.

The biggest question is game design.  Are they going to address any of these issues?  There really isn’t any payback other than giving everyone a more enjoyable experience and that is hard to quantify in the F2P world.  My suspicion is these items will get minimal funding until the next expansion which I’d expect to see in the fall/winter of 2013.  By then they should be pro’s at creating monthly events to keep the playerbase happy.

So that leads to the question of my future plans.  Despite Bioware’s missteps the biggest question players should ask themselves when considering to subscribe is --- Am I having fun?  Could I have more fun doing something else?  For me the inclusion of the LFG option has made the game fun.  The reason for my current hesitance to commit is trying to figure where the game is going.  I’ve been willing to invest money to help them improve the game while I had fun.  They are saying all the right things now that the game will be much closer to what we expect when F2P launches.  The issue is EA/Bioware has shown in the past they aren’t above lying.  Perhaps some of the comments were made with the expectation they were true at the time but their credibility needs a lot of work.

I know the CEO’s only goal is to stop the sliding revenue numbers in the game and he doesn’t care how it happens.  If that means lying to us once again, he’s ok with that.  On the other hand, the Cartel Coins seem like a decent investment and the game is still fun for me.  Am I offended enough by the possibility that they could be lying to unsub?  I really don’t have an answer right now and as my subscription runs out in a few weeks I have a bit of time to decide.

What makes an MMO successful and can/will SWTOR make necessary change

Back in February I mentioned the things that Bioware did right and wrong in the launch of SWTOR.  Over time my opinion has changed a bit in some areas but the thing that is frustrating is on the things they have fixed since the launch.  Here's a summary:

Game Issues

• No looking for Group
• No looking for Raid
• No scripting tools to make mods
• No combat log
• No way to adjust the interface
• No threatmeter
• No guild tools
• No guild bank
• Crafting system extremely basic
• Ability to Queue Crafting on an alt and have them mailed once complete
• Mailbox – Open all function (note: this might have been in game at launch)
• Mailbox – Remember alts for addressing / auto ship certain mats to alts
• WOW Auctionator functionality
• No way to control alt crafting (needed due to their intro of time delay crafting)
• Legacy bank
• Auction house difficult to use which limits use and popularity of crafting
• No Global chat channels
• No Bulletin boards
• Long Travel Times
• Spaceports waste a ton of time
• High learning curve for abilities and limited ability to track them
• Simplistic Space combat
• No easy way to get back to your spaceship
• Space travel between planets is too long
• Spaceships are lifeless and waste a huge opportunity
• Planets feel dead
• Static NPCs
• No central gathering point
• Planet design is too linear without obvious hubs
• Quest design is poor so it likely to rerun an area multiple times to finish everything
• No safe zones to travel through areas which makes travel even more difficult
• Non Instanced dungeon design is bad - Respawns mean a fight in and a fight out.
• NPC sound bites triggers on the player and not to a location
• Better functionality for character placement when entering a cutscene

Of this list the items listed in RED have been fixed.  Of these things, the interface and the LFG system are the most important.  These were great improvements but unfortunately it isn't enough.  The biggest problem for Bioware is the questing/game-engire issues are massive changes with very little return since most players have already gone through that content I doubt that will ever happen before an expansion.

The defense most SWTOR fanboys give in defense of the above is that it takes time to implement some of the advanced features I listed. That is true to some degree. When WoW launched quite a few of these features didn't exist. The thing was many of us were noobs and the genre itself kept our attention for 6 months. I know I almost quit but it was about that point that Blizzard released PVP. Our other options were Everquest 2, City of Heroes, and Starwars Galaxies. None of them were deep enough really steal market. If WoW launched today they'd find it a lot tougher to keep players.  The thing is that I really doubt the Blizzard exec's would release it without key features.


What features are needed these days?

• Robust crafting system that is viable to use and to make money
• A method to ease grouping
• Ability to modify game interface/create macro's (not including combat macro's)
• Guild management system
• Minigames so players have something to do with limited time.
• In game events like the holiday events in WoW.
• Emmersive questing that makes players a part of the story
• A world with a definitive bad guy to hate and characters you fear/love
• Robust PVP system that allows massive PVP battles

What game do we currently have from Bioware?


Eight similar single player games using a broken game engine, dead worlds, limited space combat, decent PVP and a good LFG system.


Is it enough to get by until Bioware can develop the rest of the game?  I doubt it.  It isn't because of lack of fans.  I think there are enough fans to support it but I don't think EA/Bioware is willing to take the risk to put more money into the game.  Everything they've done over the last 3 months appears like they've made the decision to abandon the game.


In the last 3 months the lead game designer, community manager, and most of the writers have left the team.  This doesn't bother me too much as I really think some of them were part of the problem.  I often wonder if any of them have ever played an MMO before.  There are so many obvious issues that anyone I'd think anyone that ever played an MMO would be screaming at their co-workers lack of knowledge in meetings.  Anyone that watched the Guild Summit in March could see their inexperience first hand.


My hope is that when subs started to drop in Feburary, EA brought in advisers to review the game.  It was quickly decided they had a train wreck and a plan was put in place.  It's obvious that at some point it was decided that drastic action was needed.  The exodus of people form the game could indicate one of two things: 1) Massive cost cutting while attempting to squeeze every penny from the existing playerbase or 2) Prudent cost control to support the level of subscriber base combined with reinvestment to grow the game in the future.


Both of these are possible and frankly the answer is probably both options.  The real question is does EA have a plan and are they planning to reinvest.  EA/Bioware's communication has gotten increasingly worse since Stephan Reid was let go.  My suspicion he was let go is so EA could keep things quieter and have less impact on their stock price.  On Tuesday their silence will end as they have to announce their results for the the quarter ended on June 30th.  I'm interested in two things: What is their long term plan and what is the current subscription number?  If they don't answer either question it means they aren't planning on reinvesting as it would be stupid not to release that if they have good news.  I doubt they are that dumb so at the very least I expect lip service on the future plans.


The big news will be subscription numbers.  I really doubt they will give out easy to decipher numbers as the people playing for free will somehow be included.  My server usually has between 1200-1500 people online during the evening which leads me to believe that we've got around 12000-15000 subscribers.  Since there are a total of 27 servers worldwide that equates to about 500,000 subscribers.  If the numbers are truly that low we will never hear about it.


There are some people that still think the numbers are over a million which is patently ridiculous.  I can't imagine them being higher than 750,000 which would mean about 27,000 subs per server.  I guess we will see on Tuesday.


It's no lie to say this press conference will tell us everything we need to know on what to expect from the game's future.

A funny thing happened when I played 1.3

My last post is over a month ago and I thought I'd post what is happening in the game since the release of 1.3.

When the game was released I made many posts about what was wrong with the game.  The biggest flaw I ran into was a lack of community and any guild tools to encourage people to play together.  That was an issue in the early days of WoW but at the time there were many mega guild that formed on most servers that helped with the issue.  The other thing was the playerbase was continually growing so there was always people around eager to play.


With SWTOR's playerbase shrinking this has been an issue since the game was first released.  To this point the patches have done little to address the situation.  

• 1.1 was a content patch that added a few new flashpoints and new endgame.  Since most people weren't able to group up this content was mostly ignored.  
• 1.2 was called Legacy and was a massive update to the game which fixed many bugs included at launch and added a ton of content.  Many looked to it to save the game and somehow it acquired the nickname, 'The Jesus Patch'.  It mainly focused on adding the core innovation the designers included in the game which was to link all your characters on a server into a legacy.  The higher your legacy the more rewards you could get.  Unfortunately most of the 'rewards' were silly/overpriced and the content unreachable which caused a mass exodus from the game.
• 1.3 was called Allies and added one thing - a group finder.  At the same time they merged servers which put player population to levels that hadn't been seen since launch.  To those that remained in the game and actually used this feature it was like playing a whole new game.

Prior to 1.3 I played in 2 flashpoints total. Trying to form a flashpoint as dps was a frustrating exercise that took hours and usually ended in disappointment.  I tried to get into operations but because my gear wasn't good enough I was stuck at endgame.

That was the experience of most and as the playerbase continued to shrink it only got worse.

With the launch of 1.3 the playerbase issue was fixed and suddently it was easy to find flashpoint groups.  I've easily played in a hundred flashpoints in the month since 1.3 was released.  The funny thing is though the single player experience is still badly flawed and the game engine is one of the worst I've ever seen, the flashpoint experience is amazing.  Whoever put this together did an amazing job especially if you play flashpoints as you level.

My current situation is I have two level 50 toons that are ready for operations and am leveling a Republic toon mainly through flashpoints as I try to improve my tanking skills.  1.3 was a true game changer and made everything accessible.  It saddens me that this wasn't included at launch as I'd bet the game would sill have a million+ subscribers with an engaged community.

There are many other issues that plague the game (a ridiculous amount but that is for another post).  Players are willing to overlook a lot as long as the game is fun and accessible and there is a promise of future fixes.  When Ultima was launched there weren't any other options for online play.  If people wanted to play online they only had one choice which allowed them to make mistakes and learn on the job.  As competition arrived many companies failed because they ignored a simple concept I call the Fun to Total Playtime ratio (FtTP).  

The idea is simple and it is the sum of the 'fun' a player has in there limited game time.  For example, if someone only has 90 minutes to play (which is a max for most casual players) they have a few choices.  Here's an example of what I mean:

The beauty of most Xbox games is you turn on the machine and you are gaming.  The same is true of devices like the 3DS or even Ipads.  Gaming on a computer is different in that just getting your PC optimized to play the game can be a chore.  The experience has to be something better than Xbox or people won't put up with the hassle.

In the example above you can see that for most games the 'fun' is a constant but for MMOs it comes in spurts as you are able to experience content with other gamers (I'm ignoring everything but Flashpoints in WoW/SWTOR for the moment).  Before 1.3 most of your time was spent on the fleet looking for a group until it was past time you could finish a flashpoint which meant you'd start crafting, working the GTN, or leveling an alt.  It was a frustrating experience so is there any question why people left the game to other, more accessible games?

With 1.3 people could find a group within 10 minutes (this excludes leveling groups but that is a different issue).  The fun you could find int SWTOR went from being worse than playing a mindless game like TinyTower all night to as good as any Call of Duty type shooter in terms of player engagement.  It made SWTOR a new game.

If  you can't tell, patch 1.3 has re energized me. I'm having fun and I'd bet most people that have tried group finder feel the same.  There are dark clouds on the horizon but many of the 'idiot' designers that ignored the principles of FtTP are gone.  I just hope it isn't too late.

I resubbed for a month and cancelled

A few weeks ago I renewed my subcription for one simple reason - player transfers.  It had nothing to do with improvements to the game.  It was worth $15 to me to transfer my toons during a 'free transfer' time and not wait until paid transfers when I'd probably need to pay $25 per character.  This was an easy decision.   One thing it has allowed me is to post on the SWTOR forums and while I initially tried to stay positive, playing the game for a few levels on my alliance toon reminded me of the many fatal flaws in the game.  here's a few of my posts.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4471973#post4471973
05.26.2012 , 08:54 AM | #116
I'd be surprised if their release isn't in mid to late June. Keep in mind that they server two masters - the playerbase and their shareholders. They want to make sure the patch is ready but they want their subscription numbers to look as positive as possible when the quarter ends.

This patch doesn't have a lot of content additions so as long as the LFG system is working it should be good to go. I doubt it stays in beta for very long as there are really only a few things to test and the playerbase isn't really that helpful.
I'm sure they want to release the patch around June 20th in hopes that people that have left the game will come back and resub so their numbers spike. That will allow them to report to the investment community that the game is stabilizing and with the things they are adding in the future they expect it to grow from here. Despite what they've said publically this will also have a huge impact on their share price and that will help them convince EA to continue investing in the game. That's really the only road to long term success.

EA / Bioware's actions are so easy to predict it isn't funny.  The finance guys have been running the release schedule for a long time.  This was my response to a thread today that was complaining the game was being released too early.

1.3 going live has nothing to do with it being ready.  I predicted weeks ago that it would go live before the end of June for one reason only - they want to be able to attract as many people back with a new patch and things like 'free 7 days' for former subscribers by the end of the quarter.  That will allow them to give out higher subscriber counts and hide the true number from investors.  Their stock has already taken a beating and they want to make sure the subscriber number is as high as possible to avoid it going lower. 

This patch is being released early for the same reason the game was launched early - to maximize EA's stock price.  This game is too important to EAs share price to simply be released, 'when it is done'.  If you doubt that, consider that they releasing  an internal patch that will never hit the PTS.  The furor that occurs when the bugs that we all see every day on the PTS  will be frustrating to watch as it could have been avoided if they were able to take their time and  listen to feedback.

I've already unsubbed again and wait for the day that Bioware has the freedom to make the game better.  Until then my feeling from the day I resubbed remains. 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4611041#post4611041
06.12.2012 , 03:16 PM | #143 EDIT REPORT POST QUOTEI re-upped 5 minutes ago. My anger towards EA/Bioware for rushing the game out hasn't abated but I'm willing to give them another $15 as my toons are on a server that can transfer. I'm also anxious to get into the test server and take a look at the LFG and see how it affects the game.
I could stay mad at them and refuse to re-up but who am I hurting? My $15 isn't going to make or break them and like all of us, I really wanted this game to succeed. If I think the game has improved and grouping will be viable then $15 is a small price to pay to find out.

I'm ever hopeful and will return if it ever happens.

Just for grins this is two other posts Ive made in the last month.  The first is what happened when I tranferred and it was my luck that my destination server for my Empire toons was the same as my Republic server (there's only 8 slots and 8 classes on each side.

06.13.2012 , 04:10 PM | #43 EDIT REPORT POST QUOTE
At launch I picked Keller's Void for my 8 Empire toons and Jedi Covenant for my 8 Republic toons. My thought was if they gave us 8 slots and each side had 8 classes this would be the best option. 

Fast forward 6 months and after playing all the classes through the first planet (and 8 through chapter 2 with 3 of them level 50) I find out that Keller's Void is moving to Jedi Covenant. I spent an agonizing afternoon yesterday figuring out which Republic toons to delete. It wasn't the end of the world as I've spent a lot more time on my Empire toons but it still was a bit frustrating. The only positive was since I used the same names on both I didn't lose that in the transfer. 

I'd love to have a few more slots though.

The last post is my ultimate feeling about the game in response to a well thought out post that detailed the lack of cohesivenss in the game and the fact much of it was subbed out due to Bioware's lack of expertise.

When I am feeling pessimistic about the game my thinking is similar to what you state in your post. It feels like sometime last year the SWTOR team made a status presentation to senior management who realized that there was little integration between the teams. To fix the issues would have taken another year and they couldn't do that. Investors had already assumed that SWTORs 2012 cash flows would prop up EA's already dismal profits and the delay would have killed them (worse than is happening now). They had to patch things together to make the system work and sold it knowing we'd buy it.

I'm just hoping that EA/Bioare keeps the faith with those of us that have continued to pay our monthly subs. If not then I hope Lucas pulls the property and gives it to someone who can develop something worthy of its fans..

I think that pretty much sums it up.

I cancelled my SWTOR subscription today

I cancelled my SWTOR subscription today.  I spent way too much time telling them why but I felt I needed to do it for my anger at EA/Bioware and not because I think it will have any impact.  Here's what I wrote:

I really liked the single player aspect of the game but the developers totally failed in trying to make a immersive world.  Planets felt empty, playing through the game a second time for my legacy was a chore as there were no alternate paths, travel/spaceports were poorly implemented, and poor map/ quest designs made it seem like you spent most of your time running around a world trying to get around obstacles instead of having fun.  The game's engine didn't seem to be able to handle the load as it the game lagged at times especially when more than 10 people were in the same area.  That is pretty much inexcusable for a game that calls itself a multiplayer game.   

It really feels like you knew this game was poorly designed so you released at a time when  Star Wars/Bioware fans would buy it so you could maximize getting your investment back from box sales alone.  The developer conference in March pretty much confirmed it was released early as there were many comments like "we would have liked to get that into the release but didn't have time."   This game is a failure mostly of the designers that didn't have a good clear cut vision of what was needed, a game development team that couldn't get an engine to work, and upper management that cold-heartedly exploited the love of the brand names to maximize profit for developer mistakes. 

I know I'm not alone in my feelings and despite that I still want to love this game.  I just can't wait any longer for it to improve so I'm cancelling until I hear from those patient enough to stick around that things have been fixed. 

FWIW I have loved Bioware and all its products since Baldur's Gate and have bought every game they've released since that time.  It is apparent that EA cares little about protecting the name that Bioware built over the years.  The Bioware tradition of making sure their products are of the highest quality is no longer a priority so I will no longer purchase any of their products without first waiting a month or two to make sure this doesn't happen to me again.

 I'm not really sure anything else needs to be said.  I have 1 day left on my subscription (I didn't realize it but the they applied the 30 free days before I paid last month) and I'm not even sure I will log in.  It's not like there's anyone online for me to say goodbye.

I may post on this in the future as I hear of new developments but it will be spotty and most likely will eventually stop.

Swtor Layoffs begin

EA announced they were planning to lay off about 10% of its workforce in April and it appears they've finalized the SWTOR specific layoff.  We don't know the exact numbers but I've heard the SWTOR team has about 400 people so anything above 100 would be catastrophic and a clear sign they have given up. Here's the official announcement:

Hey folks, since you’re reading this you may likely have heard that we’ve done some restructuring here on the SWTOR team. Sadly, we are bidding farewell to some talented, passionate and exceptionally hard-working people who helped make SWTOR a reality. Impacting people’s lives this way is always very hard, but we’re ensuring the affected people are treated with dignity, fairness and respect.

Looking back at launch, we all came together and did something historic. We executed one of the largest, most successful and stable launches of any MMO yet in industry history. That is not an easy feat for any development team or company and we are humbled and honored by our fan community’s strong support both at launch and beyond.

Looking forward, the studio remains vibrant and passionate about our many upcoming initiatives for Star Wars: The Old Republic. We still have a very substantial development team working on supporting and growing the game, and we feel we are in a strong position, with your continued involvement and feedback, to continue to build Star Wars: The Old Republic as one of the most compelling and successful online experiences in the world today. There are many strong initiatives planned for cool new content and new features that we’re excited to tell you about in the upcoming weeks and months.
Rest assured that we remain dedicated to delivering a high quality service in SWTOR to you, our fans, and we will continue to support and grow Star Wars: The Old Republic over the weeks, months and years to come.
Thanks,
Greg and Ray

As I said in the article a few weeks back SWTOR subscriptions are going to fall past the 1.3mm they current have to at least 800k by year end.  That's the best case in my opinion and could go as low as 500k (I doubt it goes lower than that unless Bioware pulls the plug or really does some stupid things).

We've heard the break-even is between 500,000 and 1,000,000 subscription so it is obvious they are planning for the worst.  The unfortunate thing is the game has mostly fixed cost so if they are laying off that people in the content creator group is a sign that they are putting the brakes on future development.

Looking at it another way let's assume that it is 100 people and they cost $100,000 each.  That's a savings of $10,000,000 annually which would reduce the breakeven to 10MM / ($15 x 12 months) or 55.6k subscriptions.  It's a nice start but it's not enough to save them.  That's where closing 60+%
 of their servers would be helpful but unfortunately they don't have the code developed to make this happen.

Sadly, I think it may be safe to say that any chance this game had at having a large market share is gone.  What remains to be seen is if they can remain a minor player or become gaming's latest cautionary tale of what happens when management and the developers are out of touch with the reality of their business.

The Hero Engine - the answer for everything

Someone on the forums asked the question why we needed the fleet as a hub and the posts that followed mostly agreed that the fleets were stupid.  This was my response:

I have a feeling using the capital cities as hubs was their original thought then they realized they needed a place to gather that took up fewer memory resources. The reason I feel that way is why else wouldn't they have a speeder go from the Dromund Kaas Spaceport all the way to the Citadel. There's a natural chokepoint between the two and I think the designers originally envisioned this as a gathering place. Also think about the quests after each chapter where they send you to the fleet and then your next quest immediately sends you back to Dromund Kaas.

If you've never experienced it the quest after each chapter is a 30 minute time waster that consists of catching a speeder, running through town, catching another speeder, running through the spaceport to your ship, exiting the planet, loading the fleet, running to the quest objective, getting a quest taking you back to Dromund Kaas, running back to your ship, reloading space, reloading Dromund Kaas, running through the spaceport, getting on a speeder, running through town, getting on another speeder, running to the Citadel, and finally talking to the guy who gave you the quest in the first place.

Wouldn't that design decision make a lot more sense if the Empire's hub was on Dromund Kaas? Despite what many think the games designers aren't stupid. They wouldn't do that if there wasn't a really good reason and that's because Dromund Kaas was initially the Empire's hub. By the time they realized they needed to add a fleet it was too late to change the quest design (I'm pretty sure talking to the guy on the fleet activates your account's legacy when you finish the first chapter with your first character).

I get the feeling that late in the design phase they realized that Dromund Kaas took up too many system resources and if you had more than 15 people in the city player's systems slowed to a crawl. So they added patchwork answer of using a lower resource intensive fleet instead of capital cities as a gathering point. As someone else mentioned, everything in the game is meticulously crafted but the two fleet hubs are almost identical and it is almost like they were quickly put together.

Almost every issue in the game goes back to the fact that they 1) made the worlds too big with too much information and 2) the games engine gets bogged down. Every design decision is based on that.

• Why don't they have mods? Anyone that has played wow knows that too many mods slow down the game.
• Why don't they have an ingame dps/threat meter? It will slow down the game.

• Why are planets dead? They can't add random NPCs to add flavor as it would slow down the game.
• Why is Ilum world PVP gone? PVP battles on that planet turned the best PCs frame rates to single digits.
• Why is there a fleet? It was a design decision to allow a place for hundreds of people the meet.

They have never said it but I'd bet they have a big team working on making huge changes to the engine so that at some point (probably the first expansion), they won't be hamstrung by the engine and the designers can fully develop the game as they first envisioned. It is pretty much the reason for everything.

SWTOR subs vs other similar titles

I was listening to a podcast and they gave me inspiration to compare SWTOR with the first few months of some of the biggest releases in the last few years.  This is how it graphs:

I found it interesting that this graphs shows just how successful the SWTOR launch was with sales eclipsing all three of the other titles. Unfortunately it seems to be mimicking the same decline.¹

Only hardcore fanboys will argue with the statement that SWTOR's subscriptions will continue to fall in the next quarter.  The big question is whether it will experience another 50% reduction like occurred with its predecessors.  That would equate to subscriptions of approximately 700k.  As the only change to the game we can expect in the next few months is the Looking For Group feature I'm afraid the answer will be yes as that won't encourage players to come back.

One thing that will be interesting is the announcements we see in June-July that come from EA/Bioware in their attempt to stop the bleeding.  Frankly I'm shocked that no one in a lead position on the SWTOR project has been "reassigned" yet.  One thing that has been protecting them is that EA didn't want to show any displeasure to the project managers for fear of spooking the investors.  Now that the investors are spooked we may see big changes in the game's leadership which will no doubt have a big impact.  Whether that will be a good thing of a bad thing for the player base is impossible to know.

¹ In case it isn't clear, the purple line is the combination of all 3 titles (Rift, Age of Conan, and Warhammmer).

Funny SWTOR rant post from Eurogamer

I read an article at Eurogamer about SWTOR that was interesting but the best part was the comments as some people obviously put a lot of time into them.  The consistency of their feelings makes me really wonder where the designers heads were when they developed the game.  Here's some of my favorites:

I think this guy sums up a lot of people's feelings which is a bad sign for the August profit call:

Well if you turn up to a party and there is no one there, and the people there are all upset because the party is shit, you're gonna want to leave; whether you are a casual party-goer or hardcore party master. Umm did that make any sense?

I am playing SWTOR and basically the game feels very empty and quiet. I am only playing it co-op until all the story is done, pretty casual maybe. I did play WoW fairly hardcore until it broke me and pretty serious in general about my gaming. So this guy at EA can suck my left nut when I quit my subs when I run out of story and there is nothing but a few daily quests left...

Someone else picked up on executive's comment that is a perfect metaphor for SWTOR:

"Star Wars: The Old Republic: it's more important than Tiger Woods PGA Golf."

This guy hit many of the same things that has upset me:

I was one of the hopefuls that wanted this to be the best thing since bacon. Bought the CE and all. Unfortunately i didnt find what i was looking for.

The negative points that really put me off were these:

1) Levelling was way too quick. And once you got there, there wasnt that much to do. Most of the time i was just getting into the storyline of the current zone, you know, when it really starts to get good, and then you realise you're way above the level of the zone, more than halfway through the next zone's lvl range, and can pretty much skip it and move onto the next! Some zones were pretty nice, and the story was great but you ended up skipping it entirely coz it just got too easy and the gear was too low level.

2) Lack of diversity when levelling an alt. My first toon was a BH, and it was awesome. My second one was an IA, and i was a bit irked that i had to play through the same zones right after going through them not so long ago with my main. Then i started a SW and beside the starting zone, the rest of the planets were the same! Yes i know the story makes the difference, but i still feel that there should have been more options. If the game was truly story driven, then you should have had real "left or right" choices that make you take completely different routes, even if you're dark/light in both.

3) Maps were sickeningly linear. You couldnt really go out and explore the world. There was a path, and you had to run on it. The SWTOR World is huge as it has so many planets, but you never really get an idea of this size as you're always running on corridors. The planets do become quite open as you level further, but i just dont like to have run around a set path with every toon for 200 times each time i quest in that zone. I missed the freedom of choosing if i wanted to climb that thing over there or just wander off in a direction for more then 10 mtrs.

$) Mounts. All the money for very little speed. 'nuff said

I really hope that the devs keep working hard on this and make it into something that can keep players having fun. In my opinion, they just launched the game and they're already trying to catch up with demands of players. Personally, i think that if the levelling speed at launch was 50% of what it is now, they would have given themselves more time to work on fixes, and more time for people to enjoy the content.

I might reactivate 6 months from now if i'm in the mood to see what has been improved, but not for now. 

This guy was upset that the executive claims about the titles launching in the next few months:

"They're not the Star Wars fantasy. It's not the big expansive universe that appeals to so many people worldwide."

And exactly where is this 'big expansive universe' in your Star Wars game, Mr. Gibeau? I wasn't able to find it while bashing tedious mobs through the sterile pipeline planets, where there was nothing to discover or explore, nothing to make me feel I was in the galaxy far far away.

"You continually perfect the experience."

So obviously you will get rid of the horrible FPS engine and the over-instanced planets, where the players watch loading screens as much as they play, and where you almost never see anyone because most of the servers are emptying and the instances isolate players from each other. Obviously you will also add the day/night cycle because a MMO in the year 2012 without one is just unforgivable.

And while you are at it, just change everything. Change the art direction to something that actually makes the world and the characters look personal and living. Change the gameworld so there is something fascinating and inviting in the planets. Give the game at least a little bit of soul and atmosphere.

Because with this clinical, tasteless wreck, it's shameful you use the words like "perfection" and "expansive" in the same sentence.

A slightly different take from above with similar themes:

There were a number of things that put me off the game, and they all add up:

1) The amount of walking. See: Alderaan as the worst offender. The constant back and forth at spaceports, Coruscant, the list goes on and on. Yes, ok, some of the scenery is nice, but 20 hours later and not much of relevance happening = dead bored.

2) no real sense of impact. Complete a mission, come back 5 minutes later and it's all spawned back. Every time. Granted this is a staple of MMOs, but having come from Mass Effect 3, seeing ME3's DNA here and then have it all totally squandered. Meh... since all the servers are instanced anyway, can't we have dynamic world states...

3) The uselessness of the upgraded speeders. Seriously, after 200,000 credits later, the speeder level 2 is only marginally faster than the 50,000 level 1. The benefit is not proportional to the cost.

4) Stupid independent taxi systems. *cough* dromund kaas *cough*

5) The repeated colour-swapped content across classes. It's absolutely no fun to go through as an alternate class on the same dark or light side, 7 times out of 10 the story ends up at the same place, and it was a fight to go through half these storylines the first time.

6) The space missions. Fun at first, but there's only 5 real levels in the entire game, counting both dark and light sides, all others are variations of the core 5 with ships swapped around or the difficulty increased. Dead boring by level 50. Sapce should have been much closer to a cross between Star Trek Online and X Wing vs Tie fighter than Star Wars Rebel Assault. It would go a long way to add some sense of exploration and it's an easy way to remove the linearity of the ground missions. 

I really didn't have a point with this other than to say that outside the SWTOR bubble opinions on this game are pretty much the same.  The only thing that varies is your willingness to put up with a shoddy effort to play in the Star Wars universe.

At times EA/Bioware is just dumb (LFG)

As I stated a few posts ago my subscription ends on June 23rd and I'm hoping for an announcement of new features if I'm going to continue.  My current goal is to get my Empire characters to max level so I can play through the class story.  Right now I've been able to accomplish this with 3 characters (Bounty Hunter, Imperial Agent, and Sith Inquisitor).  This has highlighted an issue that I'd only read about up to this point and that is the frustration of what to do that comes at level 50.

When you hit max level you get 2 quests that point you to Ilum and Correlia and you can start dailies.  If you include the Belsavis dailies it can take 2-3 hours to complete and will give you a daily credits of around 250k.  This is nice and after a week you have enough credits to buy everything you need and the commendations will upgrade your gear so you can start doing heroics.  It's at this point where you have issues.

My operative has upgraded all her gear and now is ready to start doing heroics.  My choices are either to sit on the fleet and spam general chat hoping someone will want to run heroics or run dailies.  I can't do both because there isn't a global chat feature in the game and as I take the 2-3 hours to run my dailies I will never know if someone on the fleet wants to run a heroic.  I might join them if I knew but there's currently no way to do this in the game.

Simple solution: Create a global chat channel.  Considering they already have chat channels I find it hard to believe it would take more than 10 developer hours to implement this.  Instead we are 6 months into the game and have to make a choice - play the game or sit idle on the fleet to find a heroic.

Even if they implemented the solution I suggest there is another problem.  The best example is when you are doing dailies on Belsavis.  I've complained in past posts that the map/quest developers made huge mistakes by making quest chains linear instead of circular.  One thing I didn't mention in that post is even if you were aware someone wants to run a heroic, you are faced with a choice of spending 15 minutes to get to the heroic then running it and spending another 30 minutes getting back to the point you stopped doing your daily.  I may be exaggerating a bit but not by much.  This means that even people in large guilds have only certain points of their daily playtime when they are available to run a heroic or they will end up wasting a lot of time in travel.

Simple solution: I actually thought this would be a much tougher challenge until I started PVP.  Bioware has been surprised by how popular PVP is in the game and there's a simple reason for it.  When you queue for PVP you can do your dailies until a box appears asking you to join.  Once you click OK you are ported to the PVP realm.  After the match is done you are ported back to the exact same spot you were when you joined.  I leveled through PVE and figured the reason Flashpoints didn't do this is because the coding wasn't available.  Imagine my surprise as I joined a PVP group while doing my dailies on Belsavis and when it finished I was returned to the same spot I left.  It can't be that hard to modify this code for PVE.  That would allow people to continue to play the game as you spam the new global chat channel to find others for the group.  Bioware already even has an EXIT button coded for flashpoints which seems to be tailor made way to tell the server to return the player to their original location.  The programming time on this wouldn't be as simple as a global chat channel but I'd be surprised if it took more than 100 hours to accomplish.

These two changes would have a HUGE improvement on the  game.  They've had 5 months to do these two simple things but have totally ignored it.  After being max level for a short while I certainly have more empathy for the level 50s who quit.  I know that patch 1.3 will include a looking for group feature which I'm sure will be great but this is only one of a hundred issues that need attention and the LFG feature is the only thing that will be included in that patch.  We haven't even been given a time frame on 1.3 so I wonder if it will happen before the end of June.  With 6 month subscriptions running out in July/August, Bioware better be working on more than just LFG.

I know the standard response from the Bioware defenders is WOW didn't originally have these features but if that game launched today they would lose subscribers too.  The dumbest part of this whole thing is if the people at the top of the development chain aren't doing the simple things it makes me wonder if they will be able to fix the game before it is too late.

It's official - Star Wars: The Old Republic has 1.3 million subscribers

I wrote a few weeks ago describing the lengths that EA has gone to keep their current subscribers.  I'm sure EA realized a long time ago that their biggest hurdle was going to be their profit call for the quarter/year ended on March 2012.  That's because the game was released in December and which meant that the December profit call would have good numbers.  Everything they've since that time has been done to make the March numbers look as good as possible.

That's why 1.2 was realized in April.  That's why a free month was given.  That's why they had a guild summit in March.

On the surface it appears their efforts were unsuccessful as the the LA Times is reporting that current subscribers dropped from the January number of 1.7 million to 1.3 million in April.  This is even worse when you consider that a large percentage of people only kept their subscription in April because they got a free month if they were subscribed on the 25th (FWIW, my subscription ended on the 23rd and I was seriously considering cancelling but re-upped to get one month free.  I will reconsider on June 23rd depending on features added in that time).

The most interesting statement from the LA Times article is that SWTOR needs 1 million active subscribers to pay for operating costs to keep the game running.  Keep in mind this means that at 1 million subscribers they aren't getting any payback for the cost to develop the game.  This level only keeps the lights on to pay for the month to month costs.  If you consider that 1 million subscribers equals $15 million in revenue a month, that means their operating costs are around that level which equates to about $180 million annually.

That's a big problem.  EA/Bioware is painfully aware of what happened last year with Rift.  In their first quarter they peaked at 600,000 subscriptions but two quarters later they dropped to 250,000 and are still falling.  The same trend happened with Warhammer - peak of 850,000 with a drop to 300,000 six months later and 175,000 within a year.   Age of Conan followed a similar pattern - peak of 700,000 with a drop to 410,000 in 4 months and around 100,000 within 8 months.

One of the lead developers on the game recently said they are spending all their development time on a looking for group feature.  Given the numbers above that is no doubt a lie.  A few weeks ago I stated that the 10% reduction in staff was a sign that upper management was taking proactive steps in preparation for the May profit call.  If 1 million is the break even for operating costs then the #1 priority of the SWTOR team is reducing operating costs and that means server transfers / merges.

That's actually a good news.  One of the biggest issues facing the game right now is even though there are 1.3 million active subscribers, they are spread unevenly over 200+ servers.  With the number of people that are playing they only really need about 100 servers which means they are paying for twice as many servers as they need to and getting to this level will not only reduce costs but go a long way in addressing one of the biggest problems in the game.

As for me I need some information that both server merges and a looking for group feature will be in the game by the end of the summer or I'm going to let my subscription lapse.  I'm sure many other people that still have faith in Bioware feel the same.  The next 3 months are vital if the game is going to have a future or the August profit call will be fortunate to hit 500,000 active subscriptions.  If that happens EA will be losing at least $3 million on the game every month¹, so drastic action will need to take place in June/July or the 10% drop in EA's stock that happened today will seem mild in comparison.  Anyone who's ever been in a publicly traded company knows that spells doom for any project and development will be severely curtailed which would kill any remaining hope for the game.

¹ - I arrived at this number by starting with their number of 1 million people needed to break even which would mean a monthly operating costs of around $15 million.  If the subscription number plummets to 500,000 monthly revenue would drop to about $7.5 million.  One of the reasons many developers get into MMOs is because costs are pretty fixed in terms of support and developer costs.  The only savings I can see is bandwidth along with servers (if they can get the programming to work to make this happen) but there is no way they can reduce costs enough to totally offset the reduction in revenue.  That means the monthly loss on the game will be anywhere from $3 million  (assuming bandwidth/server costs are 30% of total) to 7.5 million (no cost reductions).

My prediction of layoffs comes true

Last week I made this point -- http://tor-men-tor.blogspot.com/2012/04/ea-profitibility-real-reason-for-free.html.

I do hope Bioware is able to fix this mess before headquarters is forced to tell them to start tightening their belt. The first clue will be if we hear about downsizing in the next few months. It will be especially bad if it is released before the May conference call as that means they are proactively making changes which means internally they know thebattle is over and upper management is working to save their jobs.

A few days later this was posted in the interwebz -

EA is planning to cut a significant number of jobs, it's been claimed, and 'poor' performance of big budget titles such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and Battlefield 3 are said to be the cause.

According to multiple sources, EA is is planning to layoff between 500 and 1,000 people, which is between 5 - 11% of total company employees.

This is standard damage control for any big company as they are just trying to get through their year end  profit call without being told they need to cut back on development.  Development is what will help the company grow and the only thing that can save SWTOR at this point.  Only time will tell if they are successful.  If not you can put a fork in the game.

Finding the fun - MMOs at max level and the motivation to roll an alt

I remember when I hit 60 in WoW for the first time.  I was an officer in my guild and taking my time getting to max level but as a few of the other players hit 60 I started to feel like I was being left behind.  I think I was around level 54 when I started and played non stop for a few days until I got there.

In Vanilla WoW leveling was an entirely different proposition.  The game launched in late November 2004 and though I played 2-3 hours a night and many more on the weekends it was almost May when I made my final push to 60.  The leveling experience had been magical to that point.  Blizzard had created a world where the exploration was half the fun and if you didn't like something it was only a matter of going over the next hill to perhaps find something you did like.

The questing felt a little more ominious in the 50s and the storylines were darker and less fun.  Most people finished leveling near Blackrock Mountain but I decided to go a different route and went to Azshara where I ground out mobs as I looked for questgivers.

In hindsight Azshara was a bad choice as it is now obvious that they threw a bunch of mobs there, added 2-3 quests and moved on as they were running out of time.  There wasn't a city nearby, replenishing was tough and nobody went there.  MMOs, like life, are more fun when the experience is refreshing and Azshara was anything but refreshing.  When I killed probably my 5000th Naga I was a bit surprised to see my character light up and receive the message, "You are now level 60".

I was happy.  I had spent more time on this game than anything I'd ever played to that point and now I had reached the end.  I looked around and realized the place was empty.  No bells went off, no parades were held in my honor.  Just a simple 'ding' and live went on as normal.  The creatures I killed respawned and when I annonced it in guildchat I got the usually series of  "Grats!" but it all felt hollow.  When I hit max level the overriding question on my mind was, "What now?"

That question dogged me for weeks afterward.  I joined with the few brave souls and tried the end level dungeons like Stratholme and Scholomance but we found were weren't nearly good enough to beat them.  As I struggled for weeks to figure out what to do, a depression set in and I quit as officer of the guild I had helped made the largest on the server.  As it was difficult to find something to do I did what most everyone did at the time.  I rolled an alt.  Actually I rolled many alts.  Henna, my paladin was the first to 60 but I had left Shribryn behind at 38 (and rolled Henna when it was apparent that druid was broken) so it made sense to start playing her again.  That day I also rolled a mage (Kelyn), rogue (Rinda), and warlock (Lemhi) and suddenly the game was fun again.  I was now an altoholic.

It is obvious from playing SWTOR that at least some of the design team had the exact same experience as me.  The problem is they weren't listening very well.

SWTORs worlds feel dead, 90% of the quests are exactly the same the 2nd time through, and those worlds felt more like Azshara than Westfall the first time through.  Rolling an alt in SWTOR is an exercise in rapidity that is grating.  Combine that with WoWs a similar focus on creating inaccessible content at max level and you have a situation ripe for disaster.  The sadest thing is the designers had no idea just how quickly people would blow through content which shows just how ill prepared they were for what is needed to design a good game these days.

One of my favorite memories in an MMO was when I first started playing WoW was when my first character (Shri'bryn) hit level 5 and the quest giver at the tree house told me it was time to leave the nest.  It actually felt a little scary.  The exit from the area had two level 60 NPCs guarding a small crevice that was the young druid's only link to the outside world.  As I walked past the world outside opened up before me and I was excited to experience all it had to offer.  Subsequent characters weren't as intense a feeling but exciting nonetheless.  For all the praise Blizzard has gotten over the years for their design innovations, this simple fact was the key to their success.  Not Raiding, Not Instances, Not Crafting, Not LFG, and Not PVP.  The simple fact that questing was exciting drew people in and the rest eventually took care of itself.

Until SWTOR can duplicate this they will never be the hit they expected when the game was designed no matter how many features they add.  If they don't do something soon they won't have enough subscribers to pay for it.

Good and Evil in Roleplaying

As I play through the Star Wars universe one thing continually bugs me and that is the concept of good and evil.  It is mostly based on the dark and light sides of the force and the real problem behind it works well when you are creating a movie with a set storyline but is frustrating in a world filled with real people.  There are decision points throughout the game that aren't clear as to what is good and what is evil and many times I will see +dark or +light pop up on my screen and think to myself... really?

In the climatic scene in the first film, Luke Skywalker along with hundreds of other Republic pilots attack the deathstar.  Now imagine there's a young boy named Billy on the deathstar that recently graduated from school and needed a job.  Billy's lived on a planet dominated by the Empire his whole life and when the opportunity is given to join a top secret project with great pay he jumps at the chance.  He works hard and sends his paychecks back to his ailing parents with the hope that someday he can afford to start a small business back on his homeworld.  Luke and his X-Wing crush Billy's dream in a single shot and his parents are left with nothing but memories.

Is Luke's action good?  No.  Is it evil?  No.  The determining factor in how you view the act is individual point of view but the act isn't inherently one or the other.

This happens over and over in games and unfortunately most times the best rewards come from playing the extremes and in real life no one is an extreme.  Look to actions like the torture at Guantanamo, the Russian revolution, carpet bombing Germany or the Crusades and you will find well meaning people making decisions that ultimately in retrospect can be viewed as evil but it also depends on your point of view.

That's where Star Wars: The Old Republic really messed up.  They decided to use the paragon system from Mass Effect 2 when a much better alignment system had been in use by World of Warcraft for almost 10 years.  The paragon system works ok in a single player game but it is a bit funny that even Bioware changed the system in Mass Effect 3 making SWTOR look dated in comparison.

I would have much preferred a system with the following factions at launch:

Light/Dark
Republic/Empire
Mandolorian
Hutt

Only Force sensitive people would even have access to the Light/Dark tree as it is currently stupid that classes like Troopers and Bounty Hunters get light or dark points.  Either way it isn't like they can use the force.

It's too late to change but it frustrates me every time my Agent is faced with a decision.

EA Profitibility & the real reason for the free month

Just did some quick math on EA and posted it on the forums in response to someone:

Originally Posted by Rooks_THX
They're not doing it to retain subscribers. They're doing it to pad the numbers for the shareholders report. They know the ship is sinking, and instead of actually trying to fix it, they're telling the passengers everything is fine, just to remain in their cabins, while the captain and crew run for the lifeboats.

This is very true. EA's year ended on March 31st and their annual report will be coming out during the first part of May. They have already banked their revenues for the 1st quarter so the freebies given in April won't hit until their next fiscal year. 

When they have a meeting with the investor community in May the biggest question will be how many subscribers do you currently have in SWTOR since the 1.2 patch? Considering that annual revenue for EA last year was about $3.5 billion and based on their last conference call SWTOR's annual revenue should equate to $300+ million ($15/month x 12 months x 1.7 million subscribers from last report) it is a huge part of their business. 

EA has spent a ton of money for infrastructure, programming, support and advertising on this game and it will have a huge effect the entire company if this game appears to be heading down the same path as Warhammer. The difference between SWTOR and that game is the amount of money invested and if it looks to be failing investors will crucify the stock which will cause some really tough questions from the board. 

EA realizes all of this and are hoping to buy as much time as possible to fix the issues before the board tells them to make drastic changes to improve shareholder value. I hope they are successful because despite everything else, EA/Bioware make a lot of game I like and I want that to continue.

Despite the fact that I didn't get a free month, I do hope Bioware is able to fix this mess before headquarters is forced to tell them to start tightening their belt.  The first clue will be if we hear about downsizing in the next few months.  It will be especially bad if it is released before the May conference call as that means they are proactively making changes which means internally they know thebattle is over and upper management is working to save their jobs.

SWTOR's loyal customers?

Patch 1.2 hit yesterday and after I started playing I went into a funk.  It was cool to finally move the screen around, nice to easily make my gear match my chestpiece design, and fun to play around with my legacy.  After that I started to play the game again and realized that while that was nice it did little to impact the core of the game and the issues with quest design came rushing back.  

SWTOR's key selling point since launch has been the class stories and right now I've got my agent through the whole thing with my warrior, inquisitor, and bounty hunter sitting between chapter 2 and the ending.  This has been the sole reason I've been playing for a while but suddenly it just didn't seem worth it anymore.  As I was questing I saw someone mention that we get a free pet so I went on the forums to check it out and this is what I found:

We appreciate the support of our community throughout the development of the Legacy game update. As a ‘Thank You’ gift, we are giving all active subscribers (as of April 12, 12:00PM CDT, 5:00PM GMT or April 21, 12:00PM CDT, 5:00PM GMT) the in-game Legacy reward: the Legacy Tauntaun Ram Pet*, sure to be your new best friend!

If I stopped reading there I would have been happy but this next section upset me to no end:

A SPECIAL GIFT FOR OUR LEVEL 50 PLAYERS – 30 DAYS OF PLAY TIME ON US!
As a thanks for being one of our most valued players, every active account with a Level 50 character as of April 12th, 2012 at 12:00PM CDT / 5:00PM GMT, will receive thirty (30) days of game time** in appreciation for your support and loyalty.

This struck and nerve with me as I currently have 8 Imperial toons on my main server level 48, 48, 44, 43, 37, 34, 33, 22 not to mention the 4 Republic toons on my alt server all over level 10.  I also spent quite a bit of time leveling a character on the test server to level 21 to help Bioware improve the game.

I really don't care about the money but the implication that somehow I'm less loyal because I don't have a level 50 makes me mad.  Is the money the level 50s spent the last 4 months somehow better than mine?  As normal I went to the forums so see if others shared my feelings and saw that many others have the same complaint.  Quite a few of us easily could have gotten to 50 if we had even a days warning that we'd get a free month by doing so.  But that's not the point.  People that only have 1 toon at level 23 but have payed their subscription every month is doing as much to support the game as anyone.  This is my first comment on the forum:

This free month thing really has upset me. I know I've got more game hours than 99% of players out there I just decided to start an alt when I finished my character's story. I currently have 2 48s, 1 44, 1 43 and a bunch of lower level alts. I have leveled every profession to 400 as well

Once I heard about the legacy rewards I set a goal of getting the 1 of each of the 4 classes to the end of the 2nd chapter so I would have all the buffs. I've also spent a ton of time on the test server in the last month that I could have spent leveling but decided to spent time there instead as it would help the game.

I have been waiting for this game for years and I really want to like it. I actively avoided getting to 50 because the forums were filled with complaints that after hitting 50 the game became intolerable to play. Now because I stopped a few levels short of 50 I'm being told indirectly that I'm not a valued customer?

 I know this isn't rational because we are only talking about $15 but I feel disrespected. I'd like to think I can get over it because like I said earlier I really want to like this game. The sad thing is there is no doubt in my mind that some will quit over this and it's just another example in a long string of Bioware's mistakes that I'm trying to ignore.

After stewing on it a little more I decided to look up my subscription and saw that I was signed up through April 23rd.  This surprised me as I thought I had a 6 month subscription.  With my frustrations in SWTOR and Diablo 3, The Secret World, and TERA on the horizon for the first time, I'm actually thinking of quitting.  This prompted this comment on the forums: 

I'm surprised this has upset me as much as it has and it actually caused me to look at my subscription for the first time since I signed up in December. I found it ends in 11 days and automatically renews unless I change it. Right now I'm planning on cancelling before then unless Bioware responds in proactively to this matter.

After spending months defending a game that was obviously released early and is still missing many key features I was willing to be patient until this. It just shows again that the people in charge are out of their depth and further proof this game will never be what we all hope. Please prove me wrong.

Of course the trolls are out in force betlittling the comments of the people that are angry about it.  I chose one in particular to respond:

i can feel simpathy with the people that just started playing for like a week or 2 a 3 that they dont get the free month but i dont feel simpathy for the ones that are here from dat one or even earlyer u guys had WAY enuf time to get 50 so stop complaining

I'm happy that you made it to 50 before the deadline. I have two characters at 48 who finished the 3rd chapter and didn't bother leveling them further because of the well known issues at end game. Instead I chose to play how Bioware suggested by focusing on my legacy and right now the total level of my characters on my server is 303 (an average of level 37.9). In addition, I've got every profession leveled to 400. In other words, it would be difficult for anyone to have played more than I have and not hit 50.

Like most, the $15 doesn't bother me. It's the implication that somehow people that chose to focus on their legacy are somehow less loyal than people that focused on one character. People say things like "I don't feel SYMPATHY for people that didn't hit 50" are missing the point. This game has been hemorrhaging players for months and can ill afford PR snafu's like this. If you want a better game, you should hope for increased subscriptions not mock those that are considering leaving. After all, WoW didn't add things like LFG, rated battlegrounds, and guild banks just because it improved the game. They did it because they had a huge playerbase and those revenues meant they could afford to try to make the game better.

I was hoping to get into operations after 1.2 hits but this is making me reconsider. My server is already low population and this isn't going to help. I'm going to give it a week and if Bioware's response isn't good enough I'm planning to leave. I hate it because I love the Star Wars universe but there comes a point when change is necessary. I don't expect anyone to care but once thousands of other people like me leave perhaps you'll understand why it matters.

 Sadly this is my feeling right now and it will spell the short lived career of this blog.  I hope Bioware surprises me.

Where have all the players gone?

MMO subscription numbers from 1997 to 2012

Looking at the graph on the right you can see that MMOs have been in decline for the last few years.

There's no one good answer but part of the reason is because of the type of different players that makes up the MMO player base.  To keep it simple I break them into two types - hardcore and casual.  Hardcore gamers are about 10 % of players and were the ones playing Ultima back in 1997.  Then the 2nd wave of MMO's came out it attracted the casual gamers and this was especially true in the World of Warcraft.  When WOW was launched in late 2004 there were about 6 million people subscribing to an MMO of any type.  Fast forward a year and the total number jumps to over 12 million with about half of them playing WoW.

Keep in mind that during this time we also saw the release of games like City of Heroes and EVE Online which attracted players that had never considered playing a fantasy based MMO in the past.  The one thing about all of these players had in common was that they were "noobs" and had no preconceived notions / experience playing an MMO.  I remember this time very well and someone I used to raid with summarized it very well in the quote - "There will never be another time in gaming history like Molten Core."  I've repeated this a few times since then and many people misunderstand it as an insult.  What it means is suddenly there were thousands of players on ever server in the game that not only wanted to raid but were willing to do what ever was necessary to "beat the game".  To beat Molten Core it meant countless hours of menial tasks so you could acquire the stats needed to beat the individual bosses.  Many of the buffs were small incremental adjustments that didn't matter much but the playerbase attacked them with a vengence.  My personal favorite time waster was a shoulder enchantment that probably took 10 hours to grind and gave you around a 2% reduction to fire damage.  The toughest was grinding an entire set of pre-raiding Best-in-Slot (BiS) gear that could only be attained by running the same 4 dungeons over and over and easily took 100 hours in total to complete (lfg ubrs/lbrs/scholo/strat).

The key to finishing Molten Core was getting into a good guild and guilds made players jump through all sorts of hoops to gain entry.  The most common was to require applicants to have a set of BiS gear and this had all sorts of implications.  The most important was it made the end game dungeons extremely popular and it was easy to find a group.  No other game had made playing an MMO that was as approachable and this fact drove the game's success.  Every month WoW added another 300-400k players which was the fuel for the whole engine and it gave guilds incredible power but in the end it was exhausting and not sustainable.

Ultima and Everquest vets scoff at the notion that WoW was difficult but that's only true if you are a hardcore gamer.  Hardcore gamers don't mind running dungeons over and over.  Casual gamers do it for fun and to noobs, Molten Core was an adventure on a grand scale.  Even with all the hard work many casual gamers never finished Molten Core or ever beat the first boss in the next raid, Blackwing Lair.  By the launch of the first expansion, the game had grown to 8 million subscribers and while some casuals were determined to do what was necessary in Burning Crusade many more had determined that it wasn't worth the effort and started to treat the game as a social event instead of a raiding game.  WoW didn't hit a wall though because over the next 2 years they added another 4 million subscribers hitting a peak of 12 million subscribers by the end of 2009.  It would be pretty easy to argue that WoW hit its saturation point at this point.  Everyone that was interested in a game like World of Warcraft had tried it which meant that most anyone that was interested in an MMO had gone through an MMO grind.

MMOs live on grinds.  Grinds can be equipment, levels, materials or things that don't help you raid like achievements or in-game pets.  Computer gamers vary greatly in age but are centered from 16 to 48 and a large portion of this group went through the MMO grind in 2005-2009.  From that point forward most of the new blood were in the 16 - 22 range and entered either during their high school or college years.  The key takeaway is as time goes forward the player base has gotten increasingly tired of grinding.

Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, noticed the trends and worked to make the game less grindy in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  Once again they were ahead of the curve and any game that ignored this lesson paid for it with poor sales and a quick exit.  Despite all the complaints on the internet, the majority of gamers want to maximize their fun to time played ratio and most don't find grinding a good use of their time.

Looking at the growth graph I put at the top of this article, you can see that MMOs are at a cross road.    Part of the reason is after 7 years of playing, people are really tired of the World of Warcraft and nothing else has come close to duplicating its features.  Games like SWTOR, Rift, and Warhammer hoped to do this but so far WoW has lost more subscriptions than these games have in total.  While it is possible that a mega hit could change this trend my suspicion is the number will continue to decrease until someone figures out a way to make the genre fun again.

PS - A few years ago I ran Molten Core with a friend and regaled her with tales of all the different bosses when I first ran the game.  I'm sure she was bored to tears as it is hard to imagine a place being tough when you can run it solo.  As we killed boss after boss without losing even a fraction of our health it began to make me sad and was another reminder that MMOs are more about the online friendships and less about the pixels.  If more developers realized this we'd have less game failures.