What can SE learn from Bioware's failing Star Wars MMO?

[Denmo]

Although I agree with this, my only statement would be: Surely there is enough room in the world for 99 instant gratification MMORPGs and 1 (FFXIV) that is not.

Unfortunately, if SE wants to attract any new players, they're going to have to gear 2.0 to have at least SOME instant gratification.

[Gramul]

Unfortunately, if SE wants to attract any new players, they're going to have to gear 2.0 to have at least SOME instant gratification.

Card games.

[Hirmu]

Unfortunately, if SE wants to attract any new players, they're going to have to gear 2.0 to have at least SOME instant gratification.

There's a difference between catering to "instant gratification" -group and creating content in the game that can be done when you feel like it. In these kinds of threads the thought always comes up that there's this "casual group" that needs to be addressed or the game will fail and it'll have no players and will wither away and die.

Of course the big money is there in the casual land, but it's also a place packed with competitors and a huge chance of hurting your company's reputation, not to mention the fact that your game will most likely die in 1-2 years. But not everyone has to go there, since there's also an ever growing mass of players who are sick of the spoonfeed-consept and want something different.

Every business needs to differentiate it's product somehow and target a spesific group of customers. They don't need to aim for the maximal profit no matter what and I can very well see a place for FFXIV somewhere in the middle ground. It will never be as big as the casual MMOs and it doesn't have to be, just as long as it's not too hardcore.

There's also the slippery slope of giving in to the whine. You can just look around this forum and see that someone always thinks the game is too unforgiving, the RNG is too dominant, they're upset that getting relic is too frustrating and whatnot. Of course some people have good points, I'm not saying that, but if you were to actually try to please everyone, you'd have another SW:TOR -case on your hands.

I've rambled a bit, but my point is that many people will be pissed about the game no matter what, but the most important thing here is to make the game for someone, not everyone, and then stick to that vision. There's plenty of players out there for pretty much every type of game.

[Antipika]

TOR was pretty crappy lol. I was max lvl on 2 characters b4 the free trial even ended.

You're just as bad as people saying XIV sucks after completing one leve.

You may like or not like a game, but at least make an effort to try and distinguish something that is "crappy" and something that "you don't like". SWTOR is not "crappy". It has downsides, but a lot of good parts as well. We are still talking about over a million subscribers (unless someone prove with a trusted source that there is less)...

[Celia]

You're just as bad as people saying XIV sucks after completing one leve.

You may like or not like a game, but at least make an effort to try and distinguish something that is "crappy" and something that "you don't like". SWTOR is not "crappy". It has downsides, but a lot of good parts as well. We are still talking about over a million subscribers (unless someone prove with a trusted source that there is less)...

There is a significant difference between having two character as max level and completing one levequest.

[Antipika]

There is a significant difference between having two character as max level and completing one levequest.

>b4 the free trial even ended.

And how is that different from experiencing the game? It's like getting PL'd in XIV from 1 to 50 and say "lol XIV, I got 50 before my free trial was over and the game sux"...

Unless Bioware made massive changes regarding leveling, I started playing back in december when the game started, getting level 50 took "some" time (provided that you were doing quests and actually reading the text). So twice 1>50 in less than 30 days mean that little to no content was played the way it should have been played (i.e. reading text, going through certain areas etc.). I won't even talk about anything end-game related.

Also if you level not one, but two characters to 50 in less than 30 days, without PL/help, it means that you played hardcore for a bit and that you at least *slightly* enjoyed the game (or have serious issues for playing something you really hate).

[Eekiki]

Also if you level not one, but two characters to 50 in less than 30 days, without PL/help, it means that you played hardcore for a bit and that you at least *slightly* enjoyed the game (or have serious issues for playing something you really hate).

Well, I haven't met a person yet that truly enjoys level grinding. It's accepted by most MMORPG veterans that "the real game begins at the level cap", so many people rush to get there as quickly as possible.

[Ingolf]

Unfortunately, if SE wants to attract any new players, they're going to have to gear 2.0 to have at least SOME instant gratification.

I don't see the issue with some instant gratification. As long as there's content for the hardcore players too.

[Biggs]

Look, ever since Yoshi publically stated that Star Wars's problem was launching the game without enough content (which, while true, it still had more content at launch by far than XIV originally did), and that 2.0 would launch with more content than that, I have taken a few deep breaths and decided to let the man do his job, since he appears to know what he is doing.

[Velhart]

Look, ever since Yoshi publically stated that Star Wars's problem was launching the game without enough content (which, while true, it still had more content at launch by far than XIV originally did), and that 2.0 would launch with more content than that, I have taken a few deep breaths and decided to let the man do his job, since he appears to know what he is doing.

Star Wars all in all is not a bad game by any means. It had an extremely good storyline, the combat abilities were fun (On Bounty Hunter at least.), and the multiple world structure was pretty neat and only makes the possibilities endless for the game. The main problem is as everyone said, the end game is lousy. It is almost like they fully focused on the RPG perspective and not as much on the MMO perspective. It is boring, dull, and overwhelming if you are planning to go full hardcore on it. Dungeons got boring and you didn't care about reading through the storyline dialog you read millions of times. The regular dungeons are not casual friendly also. On a bigger dungeon (not raid), you are looking at a good few hours to finish one.

Star Wars may start to truly shine in the future, but I don't believe it will ever get the numbers it was hoping to make.