SWTOR: Random Complaint thread. F2P means P2Win

[Ambrosia]

I agree with most of what was said in the previous page, especially about the mismanagement. As far as the perfect storm for the game? I would say the entire genre. This has been slowly building up since 2005 when the majority of the large companies gave up on the creativity aspect of making an MMO and an RPG go hand in hand, but instead copy EQI/EQII/WOW while maybe adding one new thing to the table. It hit its peak around 2009 and it has been crashing down since then (especially these large P2P projects that took half a decade or longer to make). This includes the tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars as well as the man hours and resources needed to make such projects.


There was a new rumor posted a couple of days ago in Massively as well on the official forums in regards to a certain "whistle-blower." It might be made up though. However in the past there have been a couple of whistle-blowers that ended up being pretty accurate. One with the coming of NGE to SWG and one with SWTOR. Note that on the official forums, they allowed the post to continue for a couple of days before locking it out stating that a similar topic was already made. The biggest tidbits were:


I. Daniel Erickson and James Ohlen are no longer with the company (or soon to be). They did not specify if they left on their own accord or if they were fired.

II. The game will transition to the F2P model with a fluff cash shop using a new type of currency as well as having the Legacy System be part of that cash shop.

III. The cash shop will also include buyable content/quest/companions.

IV. This has been stated in the past but (one) of the reasons SWG was shut down was because the top E.A. suits and L.A. did not want the game to be a direct competition with SWTOR. Granted the game took a massive hit when they introduced NGE and subscriptions dropped from 300k down to 25k (reported). But they could of easily kept the game running.

NOTE:

26 July annual stockholders meeting / 31 July earnings conference

[Ambrosia]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=509853

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game...alking-papers/


Mike Schaffnit from GameBreaker.TV

Larry Everett from Massively.com

Justin Lowe from DarthHater.com

Ed Park from Taugrim.com


Anything in () are my comments.


The show clocks in at 55 minutes. It was posted on July 24, 2012. They talk about what is currently happening at BioWare Austin as well as what possible changes/impacts may be in store in the near future for the first 30 minutes and then go on with their Friday Q&A afterwards for the remainder of the show.


MS 1:53
A new round of layoffs is going off over at BioWare Austin. Good luck to those of you who were affected and lost your jobs, we really wish you the best and hope you land on your feet as soon as possible.


MS 3:03
Do we have any word on the actual number of layoffs that came around this time or anyone specifically that was affected?


LE 3:11
We do know that a lot of the community team was laid off (probably a combination of the forums and twitter teams). A lot of the community team was laid this time around.


JL 4:36
Services... are now gone as well along with... as Larry said... many of the offsite community reps that are now gone as well (Some jumping around). I think the biggest news that many people have been talking about in regards to layoffs actually has to do with the fact that we haven't heard who the new GM, the new studio GM.

I think that is the biggest thing, I think going forward, fans should sort of look to and look for news on that. By far that is the most important news out of this entire thing with Vogel stepping down and since Gordon left, as far as the studio is concerned, going back and forth who is actually running the studio. I think fans should look towards that in the new direction for SWTOR going forward.


Ed 6:01
There is a tremendous push to get a game polished and ready for launch. It is reasonable to expect some staff reduction, contractors being let go etc. because... getting the baby out the door is one thing. I think what is really curious is that there were 2 layoffs within a fairly compact period of time, and it makes you wonder why didn't they just do it once back in May instead of hitting the news twice. It creates this perception that there is something going on.


Ed 6:47
The staff's needs have shifted a bit, but it is important for them to make sure that the community understands what capabilities still resides within BioWare and what their commitment level still is to SWTOR. I saw some statements from E.A... and they basically said that they are still committed to the game, but they didn't really unpack that. Yes we've had some layoffs, here are the reasons why.

Here is what you can still reasonably expect from the BioWare team with respect to SWTOR, being a little bit more clear in getting ahead of the rumor mill would have been a really good thing to do.


MS 7:25
That is what players are really scared about, is them losing out on content, right?


LE 7:33
It would be really nice to know... we know that for instance that Georg left and that Rich Vogel left as well. Who is in charge? Who is in charge of this area? Who is in charge of that area? Who is in charge of the places I am interested in, and am I going to see the content I want to see still, is the big question that fans are asking. And right now we don't know.

Community reps were the heaviest hit, we know that other departments were hit as well. Some writing staff was let go and possibly others. We don't know where everybody else sits. As part of the community, I want to know that my needs are still going to be met. That is one thing that hasn't... only in the broader perspective has that even been addressed. I think it needs to get a bit more granular.


MS 8:32
What needs? What needs are you concerned that haven't been addressed?


LE 8:41
Am I going to get the content that I was promised? In what specific areas are we still going to see... the continuation of story that they said. Is it still going to be done in a timely manner that they expected it to. As of right now they are a bit behind as far as what they conceptually thrown out as far as a timeline for their updates. They are still behind on that. Is this going to make that even more behind that it already is. Some of those questions need to be answered that aren't.


JL 9:35
They kind of not really said much. Contrary to BioWare's belief about promising content, they really do need to get out there and show that content and be a little bit more proactive with the community to let them know what is on the horizon.

They showed a trailer of HK-51, that piece of content that we've known about for quite some time. It is only a CG trailer; it has nothing to do with gameplay. So for the fans, for everybody else, the trailer looks cool... but it does nothing for people who are currently in the game. They have to figure out of at least hopefully in the next couple of weeks showing off some more of that 1.4 content and beyond to at least keep that play base.


Ed 11:15
A lot of what BioWare had to do was to put in the parity features that people would have expected from launch. Things like the group finder, the interface editor, more usable auction house those types of things as well as server transfer. Part of what BioWare have been investing in is in infrastructure or functionality to bring the game up to parity and adding some new content that has been talked about for a while. In my opinion, the last 2 updates have been mostly getting the game up to parity. The problem is they are trying to build up the parity feature set, people do want this, but they also want the content. Do they have the broad enough, deep enough, resources to do this? There is a lack of clarity about the leadership team.

Who is driving the bus? Who is making the calls now? Until these things get sorted out, it leaves the game in a state of uncertainty. There is a binary switch, you are either sufficiently committed to making the game worth subscribing to or you are not. For BioWare it would help to just clarify. I know they said they are committed to the game, but until it is unpacked... they need to give a picture of the road going forward. We need the confidence and reassurance that they are going to continue to invest in the game enough that we have something to look forward to down the line.


MS 16:01
What does that say with all of these layoffs coming off? If there is not enough content for players, is this going to affect the amount of content we are going to see over in the course of the next 6 months?


JL 16:13
I don't think anybody can really answer that except for BioWare. Considering the other round of layoffs, according to the rumor mill, from anywhere from 150-200, and then this latest one from 25-50. It is going to come down to E.A. and BioWare. With all the offsite layoffs and their community staff basically being gutted along with everyone else, it is hard for them to push much.

I think the question is, what this future looks like here going on forward as far as the community staff is concerned and their marketing teams pushing that out enough... breaking into some new grounds. I just don't know if they currently have the staff to do it.


JL 19:05
From what I saw, it seemed like mostly people who were on contracts; especially the offsite leads and then also some of the creative services people who were on contract as well were also let go. There is also the numbers of people who were basically not added into this as well.

Those that are having their contracts expired, the soft layoffs, because they are not actually being hired back on for the future. Maybe if you start adding them into... it starts looking more like a bleak picture. I’m sure E.A. is not going to want to give us those numbers either.


Ed 20:10
Has there been a shift in management structure philosophy for the game? If it is, what is it?


LE 22:23
They are saying two different things here, which is kind of a little odd. Guess what, we are going to let a whole bunch of people go, but we are going to produce things faster because we let all of these people go. So the people that are left; by the way here is your notice you are going to be working twice as hard.


JL 23:43
With what they have now, can they really produce stuff going forward at that rate that they claim? Whether you want to call it BS on it or not, that is up to you. Game Developer Studios and Publishers do this ramp-up early on. So a lot of this content is already prepared and plotted out. So for them looking forward, I could totally buy that they will be putting out more content now than they ever have been because a lot of that time was built up and they hope that intrigue period; that 1st 3-6 months would buy them enough time so that they would have a nice train of content coming out forward.

It is more what about what happens when they start needing those extra people let’s say at the end of the year. Their deployment team, a lot of those people apparently were let go in the first rounds. So who knows exactly how quickly they will get all these builds and be able to cope with all the stress associated with that? You cut half the staff, and then you have to work double time going forward.


MS 25:21
New ways to play almost insinuates with the way the market is going, a F2P game doesn't it?


LE 25:35
No developer/producer in their right mind is going to take that completely off the table when we are dealing with the F2P market rising exponentially. Nobody is going to take that off the table; that would be stupid. There was a recent interview on CNBC with John Riccitiello that talked about... E.A. stocks... they talked about briefly about SWTOR and how it was a little slower than they intended for it to be. It was really interesting is that he kind of sidestepped the whole question about subscriptions and went to go on and talk about the F2P market in general. He wasn't talking about SWTOR specifically, but why would he sidestep subscription and talk about F2P when the question was about SWTOR.


Ed 29:09
Going F2P is definitely something a company should consider from a customer acquisition standpoint because not everyone is going to fork out the $50 or whatever the purchase fee is upfront. The main challenge with F2P is if you don't have the purchase fee goes away what is the model, is it still going to be a subscription so there is no purchase fee but there is a subscription model or is it no purchase fee no subscription model and then you have a cash shop etc.

The real question is depending on which flavor F2P that BioWare would look at for SWTOR how would that impact the way the game is designed and the existing content. If you go F2P for example, that in itself is a significant body of work aside from whatever content/writing/creation that may be underway already. If they go F2P another then that is another kind of access not directly adding content... but supporting a different financial model which can affect the rate at which content is cranked out.


(If the above is accurate, then that “may potentially” mean that the team was reduced from 400 down to 150. 200 from the first round and 50 in the second round).

[Dantrag]

Poor star wars

[Lucavi]

Poor nothing. You make a game to pander to rabid fans and this is what you get. Star Trek Online was no different.

[Alderaan]

I miss the days when every discussion didn't revolve around suits and quarterly earning reports.

[Lucavi]

Pick something relevant to talk about and people will probably talk about it.

Ball's in your court, bro.

[Ohemgee]

Its sad that the only news people report on is how the ship is sinking.

[vrumpt]

Its sad that the only news people report on is how the ship is sinking.

There isn't any other news. The only thing we have other than that is the shitty companion nobody wants in the form of a CGI trailer. Its been 4 months since we've seen any news of new content and this droid is a fucking joke.

[ringthree]

Its sad that the only news people report on is how the ship is sinking.

There isn't much information coming out of SWTOR besides that kind of stuff.

The next patch doesn't really have much meat to it. Not enough meat to overcome the negative news coming out of the business side of things.

[Ohemgee]

So the rebooted version of FFXIV seems to be better than SWTOR already.

Hurray.

[Cleverness]

People thought the original 14 launch was gonna be good too, lets just remember that. Until the 2.0 game is actually out and they can play it they are stupid for believing in any hype about a game that SE has already managed to massively fail at once.

[Lucavi]

Its sad that the only news people report on is how the ship is sinking.

You find us some new, positive, super-happy-fun-time news and we'll get to talking about it. Bioware hasn't even released any new info about new content, so what do you expect us to do? Blame the company and no one else.

[Lordender]

Honestly?

Did anyone else expect a different outcome with this game than what happened?

WoW had lost 2+ mil subs around when SW:TOR released.
Rift wasn't doing great nor bad, it was just meh all around.

This game was 7 years old right out of the box(gameplay wise) because it followed WoW almost the the T except it had a cool companion system, better story where choice matters. I expected nothing good out of this game, I knew right after that first month ended they would plummet faster than a 650lb guy who just ate 5 combo meals @ Mcdonalds for lunch.

Can't follow the WoW model anymore, its been beat to death to the point where even Blizzard has trouble keeping subs 2+ weeks out when new content releases.

[Ohemgee]

I'm glad I played SWTOR though. I enjoyed some of the story lines. Definitely not up to par with KOTOR or even KOTOR2, but I've always enjoyed Star Wars games.

[Eldelphia]

There isn't any other news. The only thing we have other than that is the shitty companion nobody wants in the form of a CGI trailer. Its been 4 months since we've seen any news of new content and this droid is a fucking joke.

I'm sorry but that's utter bs. New planet, new op, level cap, new warzone etc All of that news is not 4 months old. And a lot of people I play with want HK. Why is it so hard just to walk away from something you don't enjoy? Is SWTOR perfect? No. But enough people are enjoying it right now for me to have a good time.

[Lucavi]

Post links or your words will fall on deaf ears quickly. I haven't heard anything from Bioware about this game (other than reports of people being dumped from the ship faster than the titanic) aside from a new Droid companion in at at least well over a month.

[vrumpt]

I'm sorry but that's utter bs. New planet, new op, level cap, new warzone etc All of that news is not 4 months old. And a lot of people I play with want HK. Why is it so hard just to walk away from something you don't enjoy? Is SWTOR perfect? No. But enough people are enjoying it right now for me to have a good time.

It wasn't given a date at may as well be never announced at all. All they said was that that stuff is coming "this year". Past that there has been no word of what of it is in 1.4 or later, and there have been no previews for 1.4 at all. We were promised nightmare tier for EC a long time ago and have never got it. Our guild has had HM EC on farm for over 2 months now. The roof crashing down on Bioware has completely stalled anything coming out of their studio as far as I can see. We haven't gotten new content in over 4 months. It looks this is going to be over a 6 month lull in content before we get any new stuff, and for all we now it could be a Droid I never talk to and a new difficulty for a raid I've run probably 30 times now.

Yes I'm angry with BioWare and I have every right to be at this point. I'm not saying I don't enjoy playing with my guild every week, that much I enjoy a lot, but as far as content is concerned Bioware needs to deliver.

[Lucavi]

Still waiting for those links from him, since he thinks its so easy to "call out" people who are preaching truth.

[Eldelphia]

Its been 4 months since we've seen any news of new content and this droid is a fucking joke.

Oh now we're down to 1 month and not 4... which is a completely different thing. We had a game update and server transfers 1 month ago. That was 1.3. HK is coming before the next major update. We've had a bunch of small crap. 1.4 is likely to be 2 months if it follows the existing pattern. http://youtu.be/puEm_arBSWE is all coming soon... so I don't see the issue. This game is growing slowly for sure but they're 8 months old and you can't expect it compete with other games of 7-10 years old.

I just don't get why its worth bashing .

[Eldelphia]

We're getting new content updates every 3 months and minor bits and pieces inbetween. Does it feel slow? Yes. Do I want more content? Sure. But you do no one any favours exaggerating. 1 month =/= 4 months.