Very limited content at ARR launch :( ?

[Dawiichan]

Sorry but that statement is Moronic! To say there is no hardcore content in WoW is like saying FFXI was full of skill required fights, wich was the exception not the norm, there is plenty of hardcore content in WoW, unless by hardcore you mean time consuming content....... In wich case there is also that type of content in WoW, unless you can aquire every pet in the game in a mere month.... or be part of the 1% of the top arena teams... or the very minority that actually completes hardmode content at current level... There are alos lots of drops that are 0.01% or 1% drop rate that are still relevant today etc etc.

Please inform yourself before you make stupid comments like that, Wow is very casual friendly, but it is also hardcore friendly, i bet you anything that WoW hardcore community is more than double of that of XI and XIV combined, and 10 times more skillful too Unless tank and spanks are you know challenging.... as grinding is to you guys

Time consuming does not equate "Hard" can we agree on that ?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hardcore?s=t

Hardcore has nothing to do with difficulty. Such an easy to understand statement was made, yet you completely missed it.

[Starlord]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hardcore?s=t

Hardcore has nothing to do with difficulty. Such an easy to understand statement was made, yet you completely missed it.

Not to mention he seems to like to call people stupid a lot -.-

[Yves]

@ Ciodolfus and Xatsh:

I made a comment earlier that WoW may have found the grey area between casual and hardcore but that since it's so hotly debated and polarized it likely hasn't. This is a fact displayed in your debate.

@ just Ciodlfus:

You really need to look back and analyze things from an unbiased standpoint. When it comes to potentially revolutionary concepts XIV really did try to cut their teeth. Like I said, they whiffed bad. But the idea of the surplus system was to try and keep players advancing at a pace that didn't penalize more casual players. The problem is that it wasn't supposed to penalize hardcore players, either. But it did. And this is why it sucked. The concept itself is an attempt at finding the pulse of the gray area. Many developers are trying to do this and each in their own unique way. I would say that, in theory, if XIV could have balanced it more to where it wasn't penalizing players but wasn't giving away free EXP we would be looking at an evolution.

Aside from that they tried to create variety in new ways like context-sensitive damage for ranged attacks (you REALLY have to go back to find references to this.) This isn't particularly new - it's been done before - but not with the attempted depth that they (yet again) whiffed on. Again, not new but a different concept.

Don't get me wrong - I hated the way these things were done. But I could appreciate what they tried to do. Concepts go a long ways - even if they fail. Ever hear of anyone calling timing-based passing routes "Air Coryell" in modern American football? Nope. It's called a "Westcoast Offense" and was pioneered by Bill Walsh...who was an assistant to Coryell. He took a concept that ended up not working, reworked, revised, and created a new system. The same thing can be said of the Wing-T which evolved into the offset-I commonly used today. Or even the original 4-6 which evolved into the 5-technique 3-4 and 4-3 schemes today.

Take a step back and, if you have some foresight, will see that they tried radically new approaches. Many games do this - they just tend not to fail as badly.

[XxOstiaxX]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hardcore?s=t

Hardcore has nothing to do with difficulty. Such an easy to understand statement was made, yet you completely missed it.

Not to mention he seems to like to call people stupid a lot -.-

Because i did not mention one activity that was hardcore in WoW... As in time consuming and requiring dedication to stay on top of it..... Nope did not do that at all.

Let's be honest, you just got all upset because i called Wow hardcore community more skillful than the XI one did you not ?

[Yves]

Let's be honest, you just got all upset because i called Wow hardcore community more skillful than the XI one did you not ?

Let's be honest, arguing about "skill" or utility regarding videogames is pretty absurd. It's like the debate of whether or not golf is a sport. Who cares? If you like something, keep on doing it (so long as it doesn't infringe on others).

I like both peanut butter and nutella on my toast and don't give a damn if my friend says its gross. I'm not about to stop enjoying my Wednesday breakfast because of his opinion.

[UmJammerSully]

No crystal tower at launch. No problem.

No chocobo raising. Fair enough.

But no Free Companies at launch!? That's really disappointing. This should be prioritized way over PvP in my opinion considering that you really get very few features with linkshells.

[Yves]

No crystal tower at launch. No problem.

No chocobo raising. Fair enough.

But no Free Companies at launch!? That's really disappointing. This should be prioritized way over PvP in my opinion considering that you really get very few features with linkshells.

Honestly, I feel the opposite: let the community build/rebuild before we start locking people into groups and competing against each other. I know it seems exciting but we have to let things gel before we can even start setting things in stone. It also poses the problem of locking out returning/new players, too.

Discretion may be the better part of valor here.

[Lux_Rayna]

That was good in 2002. Not now. Lot of people left SWTOR because of lack of endgame content. Players (new ones) won't wait, if after couple of months, there isn't enough, they will leave.

Customers are way more volatile today unlike one decade ago.

True that we have no idea on how much content will be actually in at release timing (or at 30 days after release (end of free month)). End of the free month, 2nd month (end of first paid month) and end of 4th month (end of 90 days billing period) will be deadlines for SE to deliver.

If within 60~120 days after release there isn't enough content (real content and not farm hamlet defense all day long to get a relic), people will leave, it's as simple as that.

No..people left SWTOR because it was overhyped. That's all there is to it. Every mmo in existence (practically) has followed this formula. What killed SWTOR is that it did not meet the insane hype it was given, causing ppl to leave in disappointment. Everyone keeps claiming it was because of lack of endgame content, but honestly it just wasn't a good game. I've never heard of lack of endgame content killing a game upon release. Maybe after a year or so, but ppl dont abandon ship that fast on a game thats enjoyable. SWTOR just sucked compared to the hype, and the convenient excuse was "lack of endgame content". Hype killed SWTOR, and nothing else.

Customer volatility can be avoided if you keep expectations in line. SWTOR's marketing team was stupid and decided their brand name could carry any amount of hype they gave it. Clearly they were incorrect. Then again they've never really made a great MMO before so its an easy mistake to make. Lots of franchises come into the MMO biz thinking a brand name will do it. BUZZ! You actually have to make a good MMO. SWTOR was just a flat-out disappointment. And it wasn't because of endgame content. The game just didnt live up to anyone's expectations after the silly hype campaign.

Trust me. If a game is well-made and is legitimately fun, people will wait as long as they have to for new content. They'll want to be in the game JUST to be in the game. Endgame content spam is what crappy F2P MMO's do to keep ppl addicted to their cash shops. A well-made game does not have to do that. There's hardly any endgame in FFXIV but I love playing it just because. I need no reason. It's fun. And im guessing Yoshi gave us insanely long Relic Quests for a reason. That should keep most of us occupied for quite some time. There are some hardcore ppl with relics completed already, but the rest of us will still be working on them, playing with SMN, and getting our gear ready for the next big content release.

[XxOstiaxX]

No..people left SWTOR because it was overhyped. That's all there is to it. Every mmo in existence (practically) has followed this formula. What killed SWTOR is that it did not meet the insane hype it was given, causing ppl to leave in disappointment. Everyone keeps claiming it was because of lack of endgame content, but honestly it just wasn't a good game. I've never heard of lack of endgame content killing a game upon release. Maybe after a year or so, but ppl dont abandon ship that fast on a game thats enjoyable. SWTOR just sucked compared to the hype, and the convenient excuse was "lack of endgame content". Hype killed SWTOR, and nothing else.

Customer volatility can be avoided if you keep expectations in line. SWTOR's marketing team was stupid and decided their brand name could carry any amount of hype they gave it. Clearly they were incorrect. Then again they've never really made a great MMO before so its an easy mistake to make. Lots of franchises come into the MMO biz thinking a brand name will do it. BUZZ! You actually have to make a good MMO. SWTOR was just a flat-out disappointment. And it wasn't because of endgame content. The game just didnt live up to anyone's expectations after the silly hype campaign.

Trust me. If a game is well-made and is legitimately fun, people will wait as long as they have to for new content. They'll want to be in the game JUST to be in the game. Endgame content spam is what crappy F2P MMO's do to keep ppl addicted to their cash shops. A well-made game does not have to do that. There's hardly any endgame in FFXIV but I love playing it just because. I need no reason. It's fun. And im guessing Yoshi gave us insanely long Relic Quests for a reason. That should keep most of us occupied for quite some time. There are some hardcore ppl with relics completed already, but the rest of us will still be working on them, playing with SMN, and getting our gear ready for the next big content release.

People do jump ship if there is no content to do in a game, for example FFXIV Bombed hard because it was a bad game, but they still had around 50K users after the first month, then that number started going down, because there was really nothing to do in the game, there was no purpose to overcoming the grind..... People that where able to put up with the horrible U.I and lag left because there was absolutely nothing to do at end game, that is not to say that people also left because of game mechanics and lack of auction house etc etc. But to say that lack of content is not a major reason, is pretty idiotic, swotors problem was that as you played your own arc of the story, and every single class had it's own distinct storyline and quest related content, by the time you got to cap, they all converged in to literally one, and the content available at cap was very lackluster by numbers and quality, also PVP play's a major role in the dip that swotor has seen in it's subscription, the huge unbalanced across classes was very detramental to the game, and PVP brings a lot of players but it also brings huge balancing problems.

Was swotor overhype ? Dunno, i got about what i expected from the game, a Kotor feel in a MMO setting, really great voice acting, and a quest based leveling up experience, could it have been developed better ? Sure, was it a success on release ? Yes, is it a success now ? Yes, will it be a success in the future ? Who knows.

[Lux_Rayna]

People do jump ship if there is no content to do in a game, for example FFXIV Bombed hard because it was a bad game, but they still had around 50K users after the first month, then that number started going down, because there was really nothing to do in the game, there was no purpose to overcoming the grind..... People that where able to put up with the horrible U.I and lag left because there was absolutely nothing to do at end game, that is not to say that people also left because of game mechanics and lack of auction house etc etc. But to say that lack of content is not a major reason, is pretty idiotic, swotors problem was that as you played your own arc of the story, and every single class had it's own distinct storyline and quest related content, by the time you got to cap, they all converged in to literally one, and the content available at cap was very lackluster by numbers and quality, also PVP play's a major role in the dip that swotor has seen in it's subscription, the huge unbalanced across classes was very detramental to the game, and PVP brings a lot of players but it also brings huge balancing problems.

Was swotor overhype ? Dunno, i got about what i expected from the game, a Kotor feel in a MMO setting, really great voice acting, and a quest based leveling up experience, could it have been developed better ? Sure, was it a success on release ? Yes, is it a success now ? Yes, will it be a success in the future ? Who knows.

This is only an issue with bad games. That is really all there is to it. A good game never has that issue, because ppl enjoy playing it. A bad game has to give reasons for ppl to play (like new content), otherwise ppl wont put up with it. Both SWTOR and FFXIV were bad games, which is why their lack of endgame content continued to hurt them. Lack of endgame content is NORMAL for new releases, and everyone mmorpg player who would bother putting in serious time knows this already. The casual crowd doesn't matter because most of them wont even get to enjoy endgame content anyways, or take so long to get through it new content will be forthcoming immediately (as in my case). Like I said, the endgame content (or lack thereof) never ever ever kills a game. Ever. The avg human with avg brain capacity understands an MMO is not an infinite world. Content will run dry, you will have to wait for new stuff to be made, etc etc. Thats the very nature of MMO's. There's no such thing on this planet as an endless stream of new endgame content. That being the case, if we KNOW this, then it is impossible to claim a lack of endgame content is ever the problem with new releases. It can't be.

The only problem EVER is that the game sucks. And when the game sucks, you need another ostensible reason for playing, which more often than not, comes in the form of available endgame content. As we can see, the root of the problem is always fun. If it is a good game (ie fun), lack of endgame content will never matter. Its a part of the MMORPG genre. If the game sucks (SWTOR and FFXIV say hi), then endgame content is the only thing that can salvage it. A lack of which will have more ppl leaving than staying.