117037-do-you-think-this-game-might-actually-die

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Basing any shutdown or change of funding model decision on the success of Drop 3 would be monumentally stupid. Drop 3 is half of an infrastructure patch and simply doesn't have the content to draw back large numbers of people. Worse, it's expected when WOW is releasing a major expansion and SW:TOR their large content update. Better to pin the hopes on Drop 4 when people start getting bored of WOW and TOR again. Management has some hard choices to make. The #hardcore mantra has really done them a disservice. Yes, there needs to be some challenging content but having that be so pervasive through the levelling experience turned off soooo many people. Just changing the marketing is not enough, they need to go over the content with a fine toothed comb to figure out where the less than keypress perfect players are getting into trouble.


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The bugs were not the main problem, enjoyable content for the majority of players are. Lore - is not fun to everyone PVP - is broke Dailies - are dailies, and adding 1-2 dailies zones each patch is not content to keep people entertained for months and months\ Alting - not fun and grindy Quests - just like all games pretty boring, there was only one fun quest i found on dominion that was the one where you fly the spaceship. Housing - one thing for non-hardcore that is fun, the only problem with this though is some of the best items are only gotten from hard content that casuals won't see Path - i have only done soldier path but it doesn't seem to enthralling to me to be honest Dungeon Normal dungeons - are fairly good, but no real reason to run them, xp is low and really gear while leveling is less critical to be BiS you can level fine with other gear. Veteran dungeons - people are not running them once they are attuned because they can get gear good enough for raiding from the AH. If they were you know the guys at Wildstar could say thats like 10,000 veteran dungeons cleared in October, I doubt this is happening, in the very least not with the LFG tool. I have heard of guilds running them just for fun, but again does not appear to be the norm. In my guild only time they are run is for attuning people. Adventures / Vet adventures - lets just face it calling a dungeon something else doesn't make it something else they are just EZ mode dungeons, having run maybe 25-50 of them only getting 1 upgrade is not a good sign, I like how they made WOTW so you didn't have to wait for objectives that caused you to fail and get bronze/silver instead of gold RAIDS While fun are not for everyone, 3 nights x 3 hours is a lot of time investment for the majority playing the game probably and those people are not hardcore. Other than housing I can't see what would make people who are not raiding stay. The PVP community is effectively dead, if you were not raiding I don't see what would make people stay. If you RP you could just as easily do that in any other MMO, mud, or in real life. That is player content not game content, albeit you may take into account game lore to set up the RP.


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No. And no its not going fail2play. Heres my response from another thread. Mamatereza, on 24 Oct 2014 - 01:00 AM, said:

Now that we've heard FICTION, how about FACTS. 1. "Imho if they had close to 100k paying subs they would be extremely happy." -WRONG Its been clearly stated by Donatelli they not only have 100k subs but MORE in a blatent interview on MASSIVELY -- 2. "They would remain as it is as a team and waited for Megaservers, Drop 3 and other improvements to bring ppl back. Sadly there is no such thing in the horizon."- WRONG - There is big drops with tons of improvements coming. Its been said by Moore and Donatelli. It's called NOVEMBER (it comes after the month of October) 3."I m not saying WS could not be a great game in the long term and bring ppl back, but in its current state and with the current sub numbers it cant go far."-WRONG - Clearly stated they have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS (as in more then one 100k just to help you along here) and they are very happy with that and can't wait to get more. 4.", WS needs to turn to B2P ASAP!"-WRONG

It has been stated by Donatelli in the same massively interview they have no plans whatsoever to go B2P or fail2play


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You are wrong. SWTOR is fine and this is second game I keep paying for. First one is Wildstar. Unfortunately, I can't play Wildstar atm, I have to upgrade my toaster first. But still, my sub is active because I don't wanna let Wildstar die. People keep complaining about going f2p as if it was something bad. Think about f2p as advanced model of trial. For getting full access you still wanna pay a sub, but you can decide if you want to by playing awesome game for couple month. Remember, most money gaining games atm are f2p -- World of tanks and LoL.


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Oh come on, 2 weeks? I was late to the party by a month and there were still people in low level zones and I was always meeting players while leveling (which took me another month). The population problems started 2 months not 2 weeks after the game's release. So while the population might have started dropping about 2 weeks in I wouldn't say it was drastic at that time. When it comes to the game dying I think it might have already died for me. It appears that there is no Polish guild on Jabbit on the Exile side or at least no active ones as I am in a Polish guid with no one to play with. I will come back after drop 3 to see if anything changes but I don't really want to play with international crowd. Then again, I don't think the game will die completely. It's very popular nowadays to convert to f2p when things get really bad. And if the game will get in a state where it needs saving f2p will probably do just that because it's an awesome game with great mechanics.


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Straight from the wiki: Free-to-play (F2P) refers to video games which give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying. 1-20 is NOT a significant portion. Not even close. If you had access to all of vanilla(1-60) you might have something but 1-20 at this point is a stupidly small amount of content. Even less overall once WoD comes out.


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Do you mind elaborating on this, Carp? I've never played League, because I've heard it's just a PvP game. What's their current business model like?


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It's "free to play up to level 20", not "free-to-play up to level 20". It's just a description of the trial account - and it's for trial accounts only. You can't access any under 20 characters after purchasing the game and cancelling a subscription.

I wholeheartedly agree here.


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The game has been in development for years and is Carbine's sole product. The box sales would have to have more than made up for the money invested and salaries paid over the years to turn a profit. I don't know if current subscriptions and CREDD sales are keeping Carbine afloat, but NCSoft just laid off 60 Carbine employees. Also, you can be sure that the megaserver move was, in part, a cost-saving measure.


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I look at WS as having a great deal of potential, but I've also come to look at it as a paid beta. I don't get upset about it as I'm having fun within the limited context of what i can access. Though its been frustrating and annoying being in a PvP or Adventure que for 3 hours or more at a stretch without a single pop, ok with things for now. That will change if this gets more grindy than what I've encountered so far (my top char is 22 level now). The grindy starts to show when there's nothing to break up the routine, which is what not having anything pop is doing to my friends and I. Most what my 2 friends and I lament is that there's no PvP pops. Though I hear constantly in Thayd/Illium how pops are near instant, its always with the 50s saying it. If that is the vast majority of the player base, its already a niche game rather than a "healthy" game. Healthy games have new blood coming in regularly to replace those who leave. The need for more aggressive change is pretty apparent IMO. As far as your worries go, my humble advice is change is the nature of the universe, we condemn ourselves to misery only when we fight against it.

I agree, the likelihood of a hybrid model in the future is IMO near certain. I know that creates a lot of knee-jerk resistance among the fans but as I've said before, I don't care what payment model a game has, so long as I get a good product in the end.

I think PlasmaJohn nailed it here. Management has to rethink the grindy/"hard-core" structure they launched with, the market replied with a very loud and definitive voice as to what they thought about it, and that's something Carbine must respond to with changes. The vocal minority of fans are not going to like how those decisions land. Not to sound insensitive or hostile, but that's just the tough love they're going to have to learn to live with or leave. Its not a single thing that will change either, it'll be a flat out over haul done in stages. The Fans (trying to remain polite/respectful here) shouting down any discussion of changes and claiming it's perfect as is with only minor tweaks needed (else it's "just as dumb as WoW) are doing the game a disservice.  Some of those changes will cost a few Fans to lure in several hundred new players, but that's exactly the sort of action that will save the game.

Luminai is a good example of how a anemic influx of new players is choking off the game. You have my sympathies for facing the difficulties on Luminai that are your lot, but I'm not entirely certain letting transfers go both ways would've done all that much. It would've mitigated the extent to what you deal with, but I sincerely doubt it would fix them. Lumanai's woes are indicative of core issues with the game, not the server or player base in the game right now. The server merger helped some elements of population, but people pinned way too much hope and optimism on what's essentially damage control and overhead reduction. As PlasmaJohn said above, there are going to be some hard choices coming and IMO Carbine is better served to state what they're considering changing and a estimated time frame. There'll be some hue and cry to follow, but without change, the other servers will eventually go by way of Luminai's current problems.


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Maybe so, but I was responding to the assumption that the company is currently doing well enough on box sales and subs. Lay-offs in and of themselves are one thing, lay-offs, combined with server merges a few months after launch are another. I don't think the game is dying, but it's not in its happy place at the moment, and Carbine is going to have to turn that around soon. Megaservers are a start. The rest we'll probably see next month with Drop 3 and, hopefully, free trials and marketing up the wazoo.


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