The Game is Actually Kinda Doomed and Why

    Two weeks ago I made the first discussion, as far as I'm aware of, regarding the potential problems with the game.

    There, I talked about a dropping player base due to a lack of end game and inflation in markets. Some agreed with me while others quickly shot down the conversation with excuses like, "it's still only in beta, why are you complaining" and "no one told you to get grind to max so fast and get burnt out." And now the forum is littered with complaints about these same issues.


    The game has now launched officially. There weren't any updates, no change really except that it is announced as a full fledged game, which it is not. I do think that they should've waited for a big bundle of updates and rolled them out as the official launch. But this isn't a complaint or whining thread.


    I played this game since day 1 of beta, and I enjoyed the grind (pre-level 40), before it got a little repetitive, but got excited again when I was nearing level 55 before being thoroughly let down with the current end game content, like many others. These are just common trends I see. I think that those who don't realize that this game already has major issues regarding content is rather short-sighted.


    The next expansion will take some time and I don't place any blame on SoulForge. The game just released and will need much time to update. This currently leaves players at level 55 in limbo however. When the next expansion comes, it will stay for quite a while and actually offers very little. The Primal raid is the crown jewel of the update, but still only leaves end game into a one boss grind and possible pvp. This is something many people don't consider. If you don't feel fulfilled now, the next expansion will be a long wait and won't guarantee you the ideal end-game you dream about.


    I think updates are naturally slow to come by from a small team such as GameForge and I really appreciate them bring this game to Western servers. However, the game itself is poorly designed content-wise. Slow updates will bleed out players who grow uninterested, the new updates will bring hype but not enough content to retain players for more than one or two months. I don't necessarily see Soulworker becoming a dead game, but it will be stagnant for sure, comprising of only hardcore player-base who thoroughly enjoy the game and genuinely don't care about its flaws.


    i for one, am not one of these players and will be taking my leave. I have enjoyed my time here with the amazing/unique graphics as well as the combat system.

    As farewell to this game, I leave you all with several myth busters:

    • Being a new game doesn't make the problems less real. The amount of updates needed to satisfy and retain the 'average player-base' is absurd and almost impossible to do anytime soon.
    • Grinding too fast doesn't mean the lack of end-game is not an issue. All players eventually reach end game, if it isn't satisfying, players will quit. Rather, those who grind heavily early on expose the problems that the rest of the community will face later on.
    • Always be critical during betas, that's what they're for. Let's not forget that this game skipped an alpha, cbt, and basically had a pseudo-official launch. Problems are here, and they are staying.

    Final Notes:


    I am NOT complaining and asking the studios to do something. In fact, I feel their position and understand that there is little they can do.

    I am NOT calling this game shit. I enjoyed my time here and I just don't see myself sticking with it.

    I respect those who genuinely enjoy this game because I can see through their forum posts that they are really passionate players.

    I hope many others will acknowledge these problems and decide whether or not they want to continue playing this game.

    Those who deny these issues or turn a blind eye will justify a declining player-base as normal.

    You expected to much in to little time. However please stop to assume everyone has the view on the topic as you. You don't know, nor do you presented any analysis based on research that allow someone to come to this conclusion. Surely the palyerbase will declining, it does for most games however.


    Other then hat there is nothing more to say the: Bye.


    On a side note. I consider GF problem being to big. Startups are normally very flexible compared to big company. I can't tell how often I heard "being as flexible and innovativ as a startup" nowadays...

    Your post is fair and reasonable although I do not like the title very much. I disagree that the game is "doomed".


    What I'm gonna say now isn't necessarily directed towards you, but as a general comment.

    Korean games are grindy and repetitive by nature. Expecting Blizzard levels of content and expansions is delusional. I agree that the game needs content, but so does almost every other mmorpg. It's a common problem in this industry.


    I personally enjoy the game a lot even in its current state. If you don't appreciate the game's virtues more than you dislike its flaws then you are probably better off playing something else. Nothing wrong about that.

    We're going to be following a release schedule likely provided by Lion Games. Games like these do not push out content quickly and you can certainly see it happen on Korean and Japanese servers. There isn't even a single expansion yet, by the way. Many people speculate that Golden Citadel will be released with a few weeks in which we may see primal follow after another few weeks. If it is based off Korea's development schedule then we will see Jin before receiving character advancements, etc. While your post is quite insightful there are still some points you do not understand. Lion Games is the publisher, they publish and localize content and assist in providing an income for the developer. Lion Games will provide them content to release and Gameforge can do whatever with it as long as it does not violate the contractual agreement between them.

    On the bright side ... my spider sense is telling me that I/we might have stumbleupon one of the most devoted community of players of all times. Literary ESSAYS of text everywhere you look. You people are as devoted and as "for the cause" as it gets 8o

    Not to mention the game is doomed to glitches and shit. Like my game won't even let me see the servers now, they are all supposedly crashed and has been like this for five days now.

    Quote from Alzii

    We're going to be following a release schedule likely provided by Lion Games. Games like these do not push out content quickly and you can certainly see it happen on Korean and Japanese servers. There isn't even a single expansion yet, by the way. Many people speculate that Golden Citadel will be released with a few weeks in which we may see primal follow after another few weeks. If it is based off Korea's development schedule then we will see Jin before receiving character advancements, etc. While your post is quite insightful there are still some points you do not understand. Lion Games is the publisher, they publish and localize content and assist in providing an income for the developer. Lion Games will provide them content to release and Gameforge can do whatever with it as long as it does not violate the contractual agreement between them.

    Why are you saying lions games is the publisher, game forge is the publisher they are the ones that do the translations and localisation. Lions games are the developers the just send game forge the content so it can be translated. Also why do you keep bringing up contractual agreements, no one knows what is in them so we can not say what will and will not violate the agreements so they should not be used as a defense or excuse by players. But if we are going to speculate on contracts i highly doubt the contract contains anything about when content is released.

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    Going into full release without any new content updates or major bugfixes is quite possibly the worst mistake they've made so far. It'll only get better from here..............right?

    In beta everyone excused everything with "it's still in beta". Now the game is "released" and it's still the same as it was before. Nothing changed. We won't be getting any detailed patch notes. We still don't have the favor system and any vendor interaction is going to waste. We don't have Jin and Iris either. And the marketplace is inflating more and more because they fail to do anything at all against the gold sellers. You see, when you HAVE TO buy either illegal gold or cash shop items to get the money needed to pay for anything that's on the marketplace (weapon upgrade chips anyone?) the game will slowly be drifting towards what I'd consider pay2win. You have to either be incredibly lucky or spend your entire days doing nothing but farming to be able to keep up with all the whales controlling the economy with ridicolous prices. Day 1 of open beta I blocked some bots in Rocco Town. I came back a week later to find those same bots still standing in the same spots spamming their advertisements. And at their rates... a lot of people won't care if it's legal or not. A lot of people will buy - or have bought - from these services. Why do you think people are willing to pay stupendous amounts of dzenai for anything? Inflation is happening. It's going to get even worse and it's going to be this game's downfall for everyone that isn't a whale.

    Quote from senkankuji

    Going into full release without any new content updates or major bugfixes is quite possibly the worst mistake they've made so far. It'll only get better from here..............right?

    We can only hope. I'm still running into the exact same issues I had back in beta. Mind, I started the week before beta ended and I can't see any difference between now and then.


    Sometimes, I can't click into the NA server, other times, I get no characters loading on the server (often after trying to switch characters) and quit game becomes unresponsive causing me to Alt+F4 out. I've had the game outright crash when I try to repair my gear several times regardless of the area I am in. These are all issues that should have been ironed out during the beta.


    We still have tons of gold selling bots in Rucco Town. I really hope they are looking into this, but as fun as the game is I shouldn't have to put up with illegal gold sellers drowning out conversations in any game. Hyperinflation in the game's economy is running rampant with no end in sight.


    Trying to stay optimistic here, but it's difficult when there are so many little things that just add up to general frustration- having the game crash three separate times in one gaming session is three times too many. That said, I'll probably be sticking around for the short term to see where things go.

    You guys seriously need to try working on releasing software in the future. You will understand a lot of what's going on here. Regarding those beta complains:

    Quote from Nitros

    Tbh, this only means we get the rewards. It's more an internal thing fir GF. They have to produce actual new content now.

    In other words, for us being out of the beta means that we can except them to work on new content.

    • It does not mean we get it fast.
    • It does not mean there are no bugs anymore, it means GF is fine adding new content in the future even with the exiting bugs fixed later.

    There is nothing unusual about it. It fact, this is a completely normal software lifecycle.

    Quote from Nitros

    You expected to much in to little time. However please stop to assume everyone has the view on the topic as you. You don't know, nor do you presented any analysis based on research that allow someone to come to this conclusion. Surely the palyerbase will declining, it does for most games however.


    Other then hat there is nothing more to say the: Bye.


    On a side note. I consider GF problem being to big. Startups are normally very flexible compared to big company. I can't tell how often I heard "being as flexible and innovativ as a startup" nowadays...

    Why are you so triggered? He literally sums up the issue SWO has in general. Don't be a little baby who can't accept literal facts. Do you really think this game with literally no content releases in the last 1 1/2 year in Japan will keep MANY people excited over a long period of time? No. That's not how it goes as most western people are getting tired by it a lot faster than hardcore asian grinders.

    Thumb up to the Thread creator, you summed everything up perfectly as I would've done if I actually still cared about the game as much.

    ~ Guild Master of Cool <3 ~

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    As discussed in my thread, SW just needs some endgame content that's fun to play. I've played a bunch of Dungeon Crawler/MMO games and I didn't mind farming in Closers, Elsword, MapleStory, PSO2, Monster Hunter, etc. . .

    Even in those games I was essentially running the same few things over and over, but I didn't mind it because those same few things were fun. Not only were they fun, but I felt like I could get better at them to contribute more to my entire team if I ran with others.


    In SW, I ran all the raids and lost interest. Iron Castle was actually pretty fun the first time, but only because the boss had the single mechanic where you activated the barrier for the exalted status.


    I like SW's style better than all the others games mentioned above, it could just use some more entertaining endgame content.

    Fact? What facts? Where are the numbers? I see no facts, I just see the standard lopsided arguments that a brought up every time. I have seen so many "the game is dead" threads and even the MMORPG I played over 10 years ago is still alive.


    Yes I am super annoyed by threads just bad talk everything without good arguments. Especially if this a wall of text I an summ op in a few lines. The whole first post ist just "I bored, no content to play. What's to come is also boring. Leaving." I mean fine for you, but why should I care?

    • JP doesn't mater, we are not JP.
    • The past? We are not living in the past.
    • How do you know there isn't anything happening? SW just got a huge popularity boost in KR according to this KR player. I even heard abut a new raid coming out.

    Sure SW needs more content. But those kinds of threads are like "Nothing happend within one week after release, surly this game is dead. I can look into the future, so I know". You get one character and one area per year if you are lucky in the game where I came from. If they got like Primal Raid, Job Advancement, Level 60cCap + areas as well as two new characters in just 1 1/2 year that's a lot.

    So were are those facts? There are none and that's what so annoying about these kind of threads.


    And yes, now I am triggered. So please don't trigger me any more with those "facts".

    Fact is SW is currently losing more players then it is gaining on steam at least. Just last week steam charts had SW at an 8% loss (about 400 players) now it is at a 13% loss (740 players). No i wouldn't say the game is dead but it sure is losing players an a fairly high rate most likely do to the various issues and people getting bored. This isn't even counting the loss of players that were using the standalone client.


    So get triggered all you want, it doesn't make what people are saying any less true.


    Reference: http://steamcharts.com/app/630100

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    @edit


    Edit by 25arp26, advertising

    Quote from Lyl023

    @edit

    Are you advertising a private server on an official platform? Please don't. I don't think anyone has to explain to you as to why.

    As for Nitros' post, I think he/she has some valid points here that the game has only officially been out for a week. However, I have played numerous titles that were a week into launch and provided end-game content that was repetitive yet fun.

    Soulworker did indeed get a massive popularity spike in Korea, but it was not due to the game suddenly being fun, it was due to a great PR move removing work from a claimed radical feminist. Where as other competitor titles such as Closers decided to keep her work in their game.


    Edit by 25arp26