The Old Republic, EA's biggest loss ever.

Apparently The Old Republic is the Star Wars brands, most over hyped, under delivered, property ever.

EA have posted a monstrous loss on the game and Lucasfilm have also said the associated merchandise (books, figures, etc) have not met original expectation.

HHhhhmmm. No S*%t Sherlock.

SWTOR was a re-skinned, poor mans WOW (I'm not a WOW person - can't see the attraction either - but they had 8 years up on SWTOR and it's a different genre). EA & Bioware were so bullish and deluded about their projected revenue they spent $300 million on making the game and another 100 on print and advertising; making it (hands down) the most expensive game ever made.

Dumb idea. Dumb game. Dumb distributors.

They should have spent $300 making some new films... or maybe get that live-action TV series going.

...lucky Disney came along. Let's hope they restore some dignity to the Star Wars brand - equal to the OT.

EA & Bioware make films?

I am sure WOW was considered a huge risk for Blizzard when it was in development too. People were firmly entrenched into Everquest. Risks need to be occasionally taken.

I still play SWTOR on occasion and do not necessarily consider it a total fail.
Playing the different classes and playing the class quest in particular was rather refreshing.
There is a new expansion coming up which looks promising.
It is a must play for any Star Wars gaming fan especially if you wanna see Darth Malgus kicking some butt.
With his PF coming up it might just spark some new interest in the game.

World of WarCraft

I'm wondering how many people actually play it.

I get where the problem is, it's basically WoW with some really detailed quests, which isn't really sustainable considering how much work is involved in making the quests.

What they should do, is cut out the multiplayer stuff and then release the game as a single-player game. It really really doesn't need the multiplayer, you can get through it just fine with your AI party members. I think people would actually play it that way, and if the MMO crashes, which it looks like it is, then it's a way for all the work not to be a total loss.

It is a fine game that's worth playing, but it's a terrible MMO.

Actually it was an awesome idea with great art, story and characters, too bad they just have a piss poor team implementing it.

There were alot of small nagging details that a crappy second hand company publishing a game shouldn't have had and they shouldn't have seen general release. Their team also pulled alot of just pure dip**** moves early on that were enough to convince me they didn't have the leadership to right themselves either. I'm guessing unless they've gutted their dev team and started over the same problems are still present a year into release.

I played it for quite a while. I'm a die hard SW fan, and I've been a gamer for many years. So I had all hopes and expectations up for this game. But it simply doesn't deliver. I didn't feel in a Star Wars environment whilst playing.

It's sad that the game didn't succeed. But you have to appreciate their attempt.

i dug the trailers...

Yea. They should have made an animated feature film instead.

I wanted to like this game, god knows I did but in the end it was one of the worst MMOs I've ever played.

EA lied and deceived fans all through the production cycle, even beta testers were more or less told that they weren't interested in what they thought because nearly all of the bugs and problems reported during testing were still present at launch.

And the launch itself had to be one of the worst handled rolling out of a Triple A MMO title ever.

EA, Bioware and the industry at large needed this wake up call!

STOP TRYING TO BEAT WOW BY BEING WOW YOU IDIOTS!!

automaton said:

i dug the trailers...

Click to expand...

The trailers were OFF THE PLANET!

Deedzy said:

I wanted to like this game, god knows I did but in the end it was one of the worst MMOs I've ever played.

EA lied and deceived fans all through the production cycle, even beta testers were more or less told that they weren't interested in what they thought because nearly all of the bugs and problems reported during testing were still present at launch.

And the launch itself had to be one of the worst handled rolling out of a Triple A MMO title ever.

EA, Bioware and the industry at large needed this wake up call!

STOP TRYING TO BEAT WOW BY BEING WOW YOU IDIOTS!!

Click to expand...

Well said. I'm not even a WOW player/fan, but damn, you have to respect it.

EA/Bioware were counting too much on the Star Wars brand and not enough on making a genuinely unique experience like Knights of the Old Republic.

I'm going to throw this out there, and I'm sure you guys will probably flog me for this; as a console player, I played The Force Unleashed (1) and loved it. The gameplay wasn't the main attraction, it was the story. If that story had been fleshed out by someone like Lawrence Kasdan, and turned into a film, I would have been the happiest I've been with Star Wars since the OT.

The only thing SWTOR had was the stories. Some really great stuff was written and put together there.

slamscaper said:

The only thing SWTOR had was the stories. Some really great stuff was written and put together there.

Click to expand...

Agree.
Raid mechanics were pretty weak when I tried to get into seriously.
But the stories were at times well done and the sith assassin class quest was just amazing.

Now from the statue collecting angle you can really get a feel of how incredible some of these characters can be made into .

slamscaper said:

The only thing SWTOR had was the stories. Some really great stuff was written and put together there.

Click to expand...

Yup, then after you finish those story lines you die of boredom.

There's no immersion whatsoever in this game. It's so bland and boring. There are far too many restrictions and because of this, the environments are not realistic at all. So many MMOs are like this today though. WoW's not nearly as good as it used to be either.

I just started playing it earlier this week, and I'm enjoying it, but I've also never played WoW either. So maybe that's why I like it.

I am also very early into the game though, and have a Sith Inquisitor level 8 and a Jedi Consular level 5.

I like the create a character, but will wait and reserve final judgement after I play through it quite a bit more. Luckily I only paid $14.99 for it new and get a free month of subcribed play.

I liked the detail of this game.It has created some of the most Awesome Characters in the Star Wars Universe..and it's not over just YET.

BioWare announced today that The Old Republic’s first expansion is to be called “Rise of the Hutt Cartel.” The expansion brings all the requisite level cap increases, new characters, new planets and other additions that you would expect to find in new content like this.

Getting into specifics, the level cap has been raised by five to 55. With the level increase, BioWare promises more abilities, skill points, gear and other bonuses as you grind to the new cap. The expansion is also adding the new planet of Makeb where the “Galatic Republic and Sith Empire fight for control over a powerful secret.” Finally, the addition of the Hutt Cartel will add more of the fully-voiced story content that TOR was best known for.

The expansion will launch in Spring 2013 for $19.99. Subscribers will be able to get the expansion for half-off at $9.99. Those who pre-order by January 7 will get five days of early access when the expansion launches. Non-subscribers will also become a Preferred Status player if they pre-order the expansion.

It will be interesting to see if this expansion helps BioWare gain more players and subscribers after the game sank earlier this year. If it doesn’t, the game could be in trouble. Disney, the new owners of LucasFilm, has already made it known that it doesn’t intend to pursue core games in the Star Wars universe. TOR launched before the acquisition, but Disney now holds the fate of the latest Star Wars MMO in its hands.

marvinmyles said:

I liked the detail of this game.It has created some of the most Awesome Characters in the Star Wars Universe..and it's not over just YET.

BioWare announced today that The Old Republic’s first expansion is to be called “Rise of the Hutt Cartel.” The expansion brings all the requisite level cap increases, new characters, new planets and other additions that you would expect to find in new content like this.

Getting into specifics, the level cap has been raised by five to 55. With the level increase, BioWare promises more abilities, skill points, gear and other bonuses as you grind to the new cap. The expansion is also adding the new planet of Makeb where the “Galatic Republic and Sith Empire fight for control over a powerful secret.” Finally, the addition of the Hutt Cartel will add more of the fully-voiced story content that TOR was best known for.

The expansion will launch in Spring 2013 for $19.99. Subscribers will be able to get the expansion for half-off at $9.99. Those who pre-order by January 7 will get five days of early access when the expansion launches. Non-subscribers will also become a Preferred Status player if they pre-order the expansion.

It will be interesting to see if this expansion helps BioWare gain more players and subscribers after the game sank earlier this year. If it doesn’t, the game could be in trouble. Disney, the new owners of LucasFilm, has already made it known that it doesn’t intend to pursue core games in the Star Wars universe. TOR launched before the acquisition, but Disney now holds the fate of the latest Star Wars MMO in its hands.

Click to expand...

Excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by core gamers? Are they not going to do any new Star Wars games?

To this day I'm still stumped as to the "disappearance" of Battlefront III - I know what happened with Free Radical, etc, but can't understand why they haven't optioned someone else to do one. The first two were huge money earners, so it seems a shoe in?

I don't know what he means. Star Wars 1313 will be a pretty hard-core Star Wars game. And with Disney now owning the property I would see an increase in Star Wars games. Possibly even a real KOTOR 3. BTW, Obsidian said they'd really like to do a KOTOR 3, like that's their dream project.