EA Studies WoW While Prepping SW: TOR Launch
EA is studying the initial days of World of Warcraft as it prepares to launch BioWare's upcoming MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The love-hate relationship between Activision-Blizzard and Electronic Arts isn't anything new: we've already heard both sides of the story in regards to launching Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR) and how the upcoming MMORPG could potentially hurt/benefit the genre. EA seemingly has a lot riding on its shoulders right now, and it's naturally looking at the industry's flagship MMORPG – World of Warcraft – as a model on how to launch a massive, virtual world, and how to keep it interesting in the following months.
"We've actually studied WoW pretty carefully," CFO Eric Brown said at the Citi 2011 Tech Conference on Wednesday. "We spent a lot of time studying the first twelve months or so of WoW, and just to be clear here, when they initially launched, they did not launch in dual geographies. They went North America only."
Brown added that the TOR team is paying close attention to WoW's initial customers, and is applying that knowledge to the first wave of TOR subscribers. More importantly, the team wants to ensure the best experience possible in the initial days – including limiting the number of copies sold at launch so that the servers aren't flooded with new users to the point that gameplay becomes intolerable. As we've seen in the past, a horrible experience means a negative viral effect across the board (like Anarchy Online's initial launch), thus pushing away potential customers. Naturally both EA and BioWare want a positive "YOU MUST PLAY THIS!" viral effect.
"We really want to make sure that the first group of users into Star Wars has the best experience," he said. "For example, when they log on, they have instant access. [Even] when they're playing in a densely-populated world, the bandwidth and response time is excellent. So quality of service is really important to us."
As for the post-launch plans, BioWare has that covered, keeping in tune with its "rich, detailed post-launch detailed plan" for its crop of console games. "[BioWare] has built in a very extensive development plan to make sure there is enough content coming out in intervals," he said. "We haven't specified it, but industry norm is 18-24 months. And the idea there is to keep the game fresh and interesting for all of the players."
As seen with Blizzard's Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft, TOR gamers are expected to burn through the new MMORPG's content rather quick, and will likely wait on the sidelines until the next expansion pack is released. That said, BioWare may need to take Blizzard's new route of releasing short bursts of content to keep those gamers from cancelling their subscriptions until the next major release.
>get outta the house. go talk to some girls...
Don't think my wife would be happy with that...
On the flip side, I also want it to fail. Why you might ask? Because then I wouldn't be tempted to destroy my social life (Like I sorta did with WoW). If it sucks, I'll pass it by, and not ever think twice about it -- if It's epic, than I'll constantly be reminded and tempted to play it...which, well, you know how that'll go.
get outta the house. go talk to some girls...
Well, that may have been the case with WoW before, but for 2 straight quarters since Cataclysm's release WoW has lost nearly 1 million subscribers, with the first 600,000 coming before Rift's release.
Right now Bobby Kotick is WoW's worse enemy. Ever since the merger and Vivendi naming Kotick the CEO of the gaming division, WoW has been completely different as has Blizzard. EA should only look at WoW right now for how NOT to do something.
>get outta the house. go talk to some girls...
Don't think my wife would be happy with that...
I am still waiting for GW2, its going to be revolutionary! No more needless grind, Persistent world that suffers cause and effect (No more respawning mobs that stay put on their path) awesome classes and art work, fantastic gameplay and real pvp!
Luckily LOTRO will keep me grinding until I am released from the Grind Mill.
Mark my Words, EA will stuff this game, 100% Guaranteed!
exactly my thoughts on this as well
Or just make the content challenging, instead of 'drool on the keyboard' easy and it'll last longer than 8 hours. Its not about 'instant gratification', or '100% server uptime'. Its about forming an interesting community. There was nothing special about WoW except for the community (which they subsequently destroyed late WOTLK/Cata, which is why its bleeding subs badly). But keep it up with the phasing/instancing/sharding of the player base, don't allow the community any viable method of filtering out the jerks, and continue to put the focus on gear over teamwork, and see just how quickly yet another MMO can go down the drain.
You're so wrong. The people who complain that the content is too easy are the ones who don't try hard mode. I played wow a lot when it came out, raided hardcore and spent way too many hours. Now, myself and most of my guild would much rather spend an hour or two getting through content that isn't "bash your head against a wall" difficult. We put enough time into the game and now want to relax and have fun in the community you spoke of. Going back to hardcore isn't an option for us and that is what NORMAL mode is for. Hard mode is for everyone else who wants a challenge.
Wow is bleeding subs because it's just too old, people are bored of it and don't have the insane number of hours to put into it anymore. I doubt that any MMO will have as many subs as WoW did.
What are girls?
Cataclysm at launch was a huge step back in the right direction for WoW, and they've already taken tremendous leaps backwards.
-Flying mounts (bye bye world pvp)
-Dailies (bye bye economy)
-Arenas (bye bye balance)
-Dungeon finder (bye bye social network AND front-of-the-instance pvp)
Universally hailed as a good thing, the effect of those "improvements" was insidious indeed.
I did, got married and I'd rather be playing these games.