Just a quicky. Let’s say that the TOR server merges are indicative of player population.  Let’s also say that at the peak, there were 1.7 million subscribers as EA/BW touted.

1.7 million over 211 servers = 8056 players per server

Now let’s use that number and go back to the current amount of servers, 23.

23 servers with 8056 players = 185,300.

A 90% drop in subscribers in under 6 months.  I am crossing my fingers that these numbers are wrong and that somehow BW has been able to boost those servers so that they can handle many more concurrent players.  Like 5 times more players.  Otherwise… holy jeez are we about to see one of the largest implosions in the history of online gaming.

Still, the advantages of free-to-play haven’t gone unnoticed by the developer. Asked whether it would be feasible to adapt The Old Republic to a free-to-play model, Lusinchi coyly suggests that the wheels may be in motion for a drastic change.

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” he says. “Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.” – Source

 

I’m both confused and happy with this statement.  A lot of the complaints when TOR launched were that it was essentially a F2P game with a subscription, so this mentality isn’t too far off.  I mentioned in a previous post that the game is already heavily instanced, which is a great advantage to any F2P game.  It’s also rather focused on the alt/casual playerbase, which again is the F2P market.

Population seems to be down to about 20% of launch, so I guess around 350k players based on their server counts.  It wasn’t like in the beta the red flags weren’t there, though like Diablo 3, they did next to no testing for high level content.  TOR did launch with completely broken level 50 content after all.  They have some good ideas, certainly, but how they actually implement them is still up in the air.

Now as to what you’d sell in a F2P game outside of planets/content, I say costumes.  The game is so focused on costumes, you could easily put some interesting stuff on there for people to buy.  Pets come next along with housing options.  There are quite a few places they can make some cash and still keep very good production values.

On the flipside, this would be the final failure of a subscription MMO and likely spell the doom of any new blood in the market, leaving just UO, Asheron’s Call, WoW and Rift as the players in the fantasy field.  2 of them are over 10 years old, WoW is nearly 8 so that makes Rift the last successful launch in the past 5 years.

Just off the bat, I want to point out how absolutely hideous the new web site design is for TOR.  Wow.

Anyhow, back on point.  1.3 features are coming around now, though there’s still no release date for the content.  I’d guess 6-8 weeks based on what they did in the past.

What’s new?  A LFG tool (not cross-server), character transfers (not sure if it’s free or not) and the Legacy system is being updated to provide faster experience gains for alts.  That’s it.

The LFG tool should work for everything, planets, flashpoints, hard mode flashpoints and operations.  I hope that works out well cause fleets are still completely empty right now.  Character transfers should be free and a pre-cursor to server merges.  Rift managed this fairly well.  Losing 25% of your player base in 6 months is normal but that means you have 25% more servers than you need.  The Legacy boost is weird.  Why make the only good content even less relevant?  Aren’t the majority of TOR players right now alt-majors?  Boosting experience gain cheapens that and makes content completely irrelevant.  They aren’t looking for experience gains, they are looking for experiences.

The more I read about TOR, the more I think it’s headed towards a F2P model for longterm success.  The game is incredibly modular, with a huge divide at level 50.  To me, it would seem best to just add new planets and storylines and charge people for access to them.  This way, your customers dictate the game direction (PvE, PvP, raids, planets, etc…).

Good news is that 1.4 will have more content.  Bad news is that it’s no where close to having a release date.

Bartle has quit TOR and gives a pretty solid explanation why.  His reasoning is the same as the majority of people, including myself.  The main difference is his method to reach that point.

Playing the game as a job certainly doesn’t sound fun but then again, he plays with a designer’s mentality.  He mentions the large disconnect between the 1-49 and level 50 game as the primary hurdle.  This is further expanded upon with the recent patch that further reduces the amount of content 1-49 and increases that at 50.

1.2 removed story and the rewards for completing high level content are not something people who care about story would want.

How do you spend months selling a game on story and unity, then put all your focus on the exact MMO tropes you’re trying to avoid?

Reports are out for SWTOR this quarter and their subs have dropped to 1.3 million from a high in Feburary of 1.7 million.  This is expected really, as a drop of 20% from the launch is a pretty good stat!

The real head scratcher though is what EA Bosses are saying about the drop.  Apparently, the casuals have not stayed with the game.  Now if you’ve played the game, the only people who are left are the casuals.  The entire point of the last expansion pack was to appeal to casuals.  The Legacy system is all about creating alternate characters, which is the exact definition of a casual player.  There’s nothing in there for hardcore players now, it’s all been consumed.

Another odd point is if the stats take into account the free 30 days people got for re-subbing when the last patch came out.  I’m going for yes, which further boosts the numbers.

At the end of the day though, I’m still hopeful that they can keep around 1 million subs for the long term. Guild Wars 2 is due in a few weeks, Diablo 3, The Secret War and the WoW expansion.  TERA has launched too, further diluting the pool.  TOR needs to succeed otherwise BioWare might go the way of the dodo.

SWTOR patch 1.2 hit and then bugged out the servers.  People got a free day of play.  Those players who were not level 50 and didn’t get a free month of play now do – pending the fact that they are at legacy level 6.  On top of that, I got an email this week saying I can play for free until Saturday. Then if I re-sub by the 22nd, I get another free month.

Holy bananas Batman!  I’m certainly not against free play time and correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t SWTOR < 4 months old?  Had I kept my original sub, I would have payed for 3 months and gotten 2 free ones.  I think only FF14 comes close to value for dollar in that regard.

1.2 added the Legacy system (which was supposed to be in at launch), a new dungeon and a new raid.  There are some changes to crafting, in order to make it actually worthwhile to do at 50.  Up until this point, every system in the game stopped providing value at 49.  Then you needed to grind dungeons for anything useful.  PvP still has some serious issues, though gearing is a bit better.  Some guild tools are in, which again, should have been in a while ago.  Still a broken AH 😦

I don’t necessarily want SWTOR to fail – quite the opposite in fact.  The entire subscription MMO market is depending on some moderate success for this game, otherwise we won’t see another until Blizzard’s Titan (if that’s not F2P to start).  Mind you, if it does fail, I wouldn’t mind Rift taking up the players.  They are putting out patch 1.9 shortly, with even more content – fishing is in!  How is it that they are so friggin’ agile in development, with admittedly fewer resources and the two big boys on the block are on 4-6 month cycles?

Perhaps not today but once the next WoW expansion hits and 2 months go without any additional content we’re going to see a shift in the MMO space.  Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, Rift and the entire F2P market all have faster content machines and charge less to access it.  WoW costs ~180$ per year and you’re lucky if you get 2 content patches (there have been 3 since Oct 2011 – 18 months).  You’re paying 60$ per patch or you could be paying 20$ per for Rift, 10-20$ for any F2P game.  Heck, Grimrock is giving me dozens of hours of content for 15$.

Come on BioWare.  Show us you can manage an MMO.  Show us you want our money.  Show us you invested in more than voice overs and actually planned ahead.  Please.

So patch 1.2 for SWTOR is around the corner and one of the much bally-hooed features is being removed at the last minute (the patch is today, the message yesterday) – ranked PvP.  This is the ability of the game to group players based on their rank (PvP level) and therefore let fresh (level 0) 50s have a chance against level 60 (in PvP terms) 50s.

The cool thing SWTOR did for PvP from 1-49 is that the playing field is fairly even.  Everyone has the same HP, power levels are the same, weapons are adjusted to be pretty close, same with armor.  Basically, the only real difference between a level 8 in PvP and a level 45 is the amount of skills available.  It’s not uncommon for a level 12 Bounty Hunter to go on a rampage.

What SWTOR does poorly (and I admit all PvE games do this) is include a PvP stat that increases your damage done, damage absorbed and healing done/taken.  By 15%, per stat. To get that gear, you need to be max level in PvP and have enough tokens to buy it.  Which you should easily have from the amount of time it took to get there.  The difference is that on an even playing field, you have a ~50% chance of winning, which grants higher PvP experience.  When you start putting fresh 50s in a zone with “old” 50s, you get washes.  I’ve seen 3 people try to kill a single player (who was not getting healed) and all of them died.  This isn’t a performance issue, this is a stat issue.

WoW and Rift both allow ranked PvP but they also allow cross-server PvP, which SWTOR doesn’t.  I’m guessing that’s the true hurdle here – which is also why there’s still no LFG tool.  Interestingly, TERA announced this week they will have an LFG tool, making SWTOR the only subscription based PvE MMO on the market without that feature.

Oh, and 1.2 is 6 weeks late.  Here’s hoping the legacy stuff they put in keeps players in their seats.