Star Wars: The Old Republic supply artificially limited at launch

@Fire Walk With Me Article title is confusing..
Why not just "SW: OR limited at launch"

@Evin - Simple... Because a digital good cannot ever truly be limited... Hence the limit is artificial.

@Dummy00001 Your exactly right. But not only that, modern MMO makers are doing this gradual build up so that early leveling areas are not over run making it extremely difficult to gain experience and level up. Many people quit because they become frustrated and feel like they can't progress. Anyone who played FFXI at launch can attest to the memories of 25 people chasing down one rabbit in the forest...

@slickie
They're too busy pumping it into the "excuse" engine to be bothered with trivial stuff like that.

@slickie You are assuming that they'll even sell out of whatever artificial number they've decided to start with. I am willing to bet that you'll still be able to buy a retail copy well into the first month of release for this game. Personally, I will wait until it inevitably goes F2P.

@slickie I think I heard the trend for MMOs is that there are too many players the first month (that comes with the purchase of the game) and then a bunch of players leave. I think what they're doing here is skipping the hassle of having to buy a bunch of servers for a bunch of players that aren't going to resubscribe for the second month anyway. Let them get their copy later.

@Andrew12h Exactly! This isn't some startup, small company MMO. It's excuses.

@Tradio

Within a year.

@Tradio They said holiday this year, so November sounds good.

@Roofie

Nah, the truck just ran out of gas.

@DukeOAwesome323 I think you are underestimating the Star Wars fan.

If EA is purposefully limiting their own sales, I'd imagine it's for a good reason.

@DukeOAwesome323 Yeah, it's not like it already broke EA's preorder records or anything... oh wait.

At launch this game is going to be absolutely crammed.

@DukeOAwesome323
With the Star Wars AND Bioware name behind it, I have no doubt this is going to be pretty massive with sales and the amount of people playing. The question is will they be able to maintain the players afterwards. From what I have seen I would say yes

@D3m0sthenes KOTOR didn't have menial tasks?

TOR is basically the original games but with more people. Go here, talk to people, kill things, talk to other people, get XP/items.

How is that any different than Knights 1 or 2?

@jynxycat

Story mostly, and if it keeps the dated combat system I can't be sure if I can handle that.

Also I didn't kill any bunnies for hours on end in KOTOR.

@D3m0sthenes

You don't have any worries there, the bunnies will be strictly contextual to the Star Wars mythos, so... womp rats. Killing lots of womp rats for hours on end.

@D3m0sthenes

No worries. From what I've seen the story is fully intact and engaging, and there's no typical "go kill this" mission that doesn't evolve as you go. It's pretty frickin' sweet.

@JRMG EA isn't even making it, they have no real say over the game. Bioware is the one who is in charge.

You can't really program for a mass influx of people onto an insufficient amount of servers.

@JRMG
MMOs don't work the same way as regular video game development. Any and all MMOs are constantly tweaked, having features added and removed from launch until years and years later assuming the MMO is still around and being supported.

@jynxycat You are incredibly naive if you think that publishers don't have any say about the product and that the developer is the boss. Just sayin'.

@type2red You should of capitalized "Grammar Police" since you're using it as a proper noun. Duh.

@type2red

Your first sentence was a fragment and you double posted. Beyond that, you're golden.

@Gaddes Since they didn't announce how many copies they'll "release", I'm guessing they're planning on just releasing enough to cover the preorders. And since that number is still fluctuating, they can't right put out an exact number right now. Who knows though, if I preordered a game and couldn't get it until a a couple days/a week/a month later, I'd be pretty pissed and maybe not so inclined to buy it based on the circumstances.

@Mmmmz

"The gameplay itself is your standard grinding fare and there's nothing really to distinguish it from any other MMO outside of it being Star Wars."

This comment here makes me wary of the truthfulness of your comment. Do you mean that the quests are all "Kill X of Y" fare? Because they aren't according to many other testers and gameplay leaks- only the bonus quests are.

I wouldn't be so skeptical of your comment if it weren't for the fact that the last time someone went into the comments section of an article and started claiming they were in game testing and the game sucked, they changed their mind a few weeks later. Apparently they had "watched a lot of leaked videos".

@Mmmmz

So its only bad because it seems to close to Clone Wars in story? And if you'd at all followed Star Wars lore, you'd know that there have been Seperatists at many times in the Republics history. The clone Wars is just the best known because they were in the movies. Most of the wars the Republic fights are against Seperatists of one form or another.

@EMH
And how do you know those testers are legitimate?

You have choices but it is a very standard MMO. It also shares similarities with D&D Online in regards to its Quest system.

I never said it was totally linear either. By gameplay I mean the battle system. You know, what you PLAY. It's just typical grinding. A boss or such? Yeah, just grind it or form a party. No technique. Just mindless grinding for the most part.

That coming from a game that claimed to be different and better is anything but that.

Story-wise it's hard to complain because that's where MMOs always lack and that's the only appealing thing about SWTOR there is. The idea that it will continue to evolve and get new stories pumped in. But what good is that if the game is the same tired MMO crap with a Star Wars flair?

If the game was buy once and free to play with micro transactions, it'd be perfect. But $60 and at least $10 a month? ridiculous and I seriously wonder where they pissed away all their money because it's seriously lacking polish (And I don't mean bugs, the experience, the graphics, everything is lacking production values. Except the intro movies, they're neat but pixelated for some reason)


No one needs to take anyone's Point of View seriously. It's an opinion, take it in and decide where to go. I have no reason to want this game to suffer. I just liked Kotor a lot and after Kotor II and now this, it's just getting ridiculous how they squandered such a wonderful IP.

At the same time, every MMO sucks when it comes out. So, this could turn into something great, but right now it's very much so average with great potential.

@Doctor Who
Yes, but Kotor didn't focus on that as much, did it? It was about exploring other parts of the lore and galaxy.

The story is lacking and the gameplay is average. It doesn't remind you of clone wars just because they say the word separatists but the art is similar and everything is taking that story line into account in its own weird way.

It's not fresh, let's put it that way.

@Mmmmz
And again, the story is average. (Good by MMO standards, bad by Kotor standards) It's the gameplay that's the deal breaker for me because...um... that's what you do most of the time in a MMO...

Go figure, right?

Also, I didn't explore every character class yet and each one has its strengths and weaknesses. Some are supposed to be epic, but it's the battle system and grinding (grinding can be fun if done right, it's not here so far)

There are a lot of sidequests, though. So that is great. On average I am 4-6 levels higher than I should be because I'm always finishing the side-quests before doing the main one.

Still, I'm just not enjoying the game.