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.
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