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Game Update 7.4.1c coming April 3 ×

Alandross

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  1. For about 4 months of dev time or so this is roughly what I expected (which isn't really a good thing). Unfortunately no hype at all about 6.0 or any bigger content or features, that's either a really bad sign or they are just completely clueless how to push out MMO content and get momentum building (even a little), or both. "We heard feedback from some of you indicating you missed having a more “traditional” expansion and you’d rather wait so it all comes at once. I like having updates released regularly versus waiting long periods of time in-between patches. " Who cares what you want, you've been trying this and it's been failing. Sadly they likely got most of their resources pulled for Anthem and there's a small (though probably unlikely) chance they may get more resources back after it's launched, if SWTOR still exists. I really hope it exists, the old content is still fun, I like the strongholds (though have waited forever for a damn Alderaan castle option, I mean come on, they have all the assets and it would be amazing), and I have a lot of accrued outfits and mounts etc. Would hate for all that to disappear and I hate it when any MMO dies fully. Unfortunately they don't seem to be fixing their mistakes, other MMOs have shown it's never fully too late to turn an MMO around... even with limited resources smart usage of it in a way that the community clearly wants would really go a long way. instead we get more of the crap we don't care about and messages that say they hear that we want X but they don't want to do it. I mean come on. I'm pretty tolerant and forgiving with MMOs, have played so many and a lot of the most popular are overrated in my opinion. Now I'm on the edge of being lost to SWTOR, after playing since Beta, firing up on day one, and staying sub'd for a lot of the time, even while not playing, to keep supporting the game. Get your ***t together Bioware. There's so much greatness of SWTOR, despite all the bad that can be pointed out. Don't let it die. Do some community good will, give people what they want, even if you have limited resources.
  2. You have a bit backwards, not that I disagree they may pull resources away from SWTOR (and have) and won't give it back, but it won't be because Anthem launches. The initial game launch is where the bulk of resources are needed (even in a maintained game like Anthem will be), that's why they've been pulling resources from other projects for years, part of the whole Andromeda story and one of the many things that screwed it's chances. In reality this is nothing new, this is how game dev works. New games need a bunch of resources, especially if it's a high profile project, so other teams are pulled from until launch and then some resources are free dup afterwards (though usually in an initial burst and then trickling back, but in live games this is a bit different). The reality is Bioware is in real trouble if Anthem doesn't succeed, though it's success doesn't guarantee SWTOR's success, it's failure very likely dooms it. A massive Anthem profit would mean more money for Bioware to spread around again. Unfortunately times are not good for Bioware right now. A long chain of knocks have been slowly building up. DA2 being something people didn't like overall (I liked it a lot but I was the minority), ME3's ending controversy, DA:I was received very well initially but degraded overtime (I absolutely loved it and the writing and characters for the main content, companies, and best side content is genuinely top notch, but the open world merge attempt with their normal style just confused a lot of players and really wasn't compelling to many), ME:A was a bomb (a very underrated game with some serious flaws, mostly that it doesn't live up to bioware quality even if the issues most people had are rampant in games like Bethesda's), then of course they dropped Andromeda, I still think that was a mistake. Continued fixes and some quality DLC (like a free one to start off) could have really brought out some of the great parts of that game and proved they were willing to stick with their games. That leads us to now... Bioware is very much a victim of it's own success. They've been around making some of the most memorable games in all of gaming history. Other game studios simply don't have that baggage. For example if Witcher and Witcher 2 had come out after WItcher 3, those games would have been received very differently. CDR is eventually going to hit downs like any studio does, especially as they try to scale up (which they have already, I mean The WItcher 3 had twice the budget of MA:E). The reality is when you make something of a very high quality and very liked it's really hard to keep living up to that, Bioware did for the most part for a very long time, EA or no EA it's unlikely any company will live up to that, especially if you push to new IPs, new formats, and are class leading in your style. Unfortunately Bioware made too many mistakes and after making too many successes, a really bad combo. The communities have turned toxic, partially because Bioware made some mistakes and partly because people are jerks and who knows why groupthink turns sour sometimes. SWTOR likely was on the decline for the past 2-3 years, the reality is MMOs usually are on a rollercoaster of ups and downs, sometimes the downs being long and scary. If anything we've seen many cases where MMOs can turn things around. ESO is a great example, mediocre at launch and they managed to improve the game and capture people's attention enough to give it another try. SWTOR actually is a good story in it's first couple years in fact. It launched, people came and played, finished the story content and found almost no endgame MMO content and were leaving rapidly. Their switch to F2P with the Cartel Market saved the game, despite a lot of naysayers. The year or two after that the earning reports for EA showed off SWTOR's turnaround like a shining jewel. Of course they also continued some relatively decent content too, including new endgame content, flashpoints, ops, etc... that in combination with the constant stream of the Cartel Market saved the game. They need to make another shift to save it again. Ironically I think their pattern at first was better, not really sure why they shifted, especially away from a paid expansion type content every year (like other MMOs). In any case the last year of serious lack of content what pretty telling... Likely they've bleed too many users and too much revenue so they had to downscale, which of course results in less content and less happy players. They need Bioware and EA to risk pushing some more money in it. Likely the OP reference that they've thought about stopping development has been thrown around for years now, so not a surprise at all. I really hope SWTOR doesn't die, I hope it can get to some sort of typical MMO content update cycle... there's a lot of great things in this game even if there were some serious mistakes. With that said at this point for Bioware overall Anthem needs to be a mega success for the sake of SWTOR and honestly the Mass Effect franchise as well as to put the next Dragon Age on it's best footing (though likely I think the next Dragon Age will come out even if Anthem bombs, but beyond that who knows). Long rant but I've been in the game industry for over a decade now and a lot of people don't realize that every studio they love goes through this sort of thing and the right sequence of events can take the best studio down. A lot of people blame EA and it surely deserves some of the blame but Bioware was under EA when Mass Effect 2 started dev and finished, the most liked game of that franchise, as well as while Origins was under it's last 2 years of dev. Also the Bioware owners sold it to EA, so if you think EA are jerks for selling out their player bases for profit then blame the Bioware owners who made the same decision. In the end that's what companies do, these aren't friends hanging out, they are companies and have always been driven by profit, just sometimes that aligns with things we personally like and sometimes they don't. Profit means more game dev so often that's a good decision for the company even for people who love the content they make, but like anyone they can make mistakes like we do too.
  3. This is what having a cyertech and artificer is for... you can pump out a full set of green armorings, mods, and enhancements very fast (especially with a level 55 sending out 5 companions)... you could even pre-make all of them before running up, I often will make sets about 7 levels or so apart, though this fast might wait even longer. With a companion like treek class quests are even easier than before, even undergeared.
  4. I'm intrigued. I do think this will probably be a good step forward, basic skill trees were a bad idea and most MMOs simply copied WoW since it did it and was so big (not that WoW invented skill trees of course, I personally am not a fan of WoW). WoW solidified so many bad things that seemed novel but were genuinely bad and lazy design, like replacing kill grinds with quest grinds, skill trees that didn't mean anything since people will find an optimal spec and mostly just stick with it (with a few exceptions). The only game that did skill trees right in my opinion was Rift and that was because you could mix and match so many that it truly meant there were many ways to go and they all had pros and cons. I think this will create better spec'd people (if not better at know their spec, but we'll see)... This reminds me a lot of the classic EQ with a basic level progression and then a ton of Alternate Ability points to use to customize your strengths and utility in some cases. I hope this is also a precursor to the ability to switch specs like roles in Rift.
  5. Agreed... people have pointed out flaws with the prestige system for a while now. I think it should be a vote up system (basically a like system) so you can vote people up but not down (to prevent people harassing others to get there's an edge).
  6. So though it wasn't perfect I really miss reputation and cartel certs with the new Star Cluster Night Life pack. It really gave me a reason to get more and more crates to try and max out my rep and to get certs to get key pieces of equip from a previous pack (and ***especially*** unique pieces) even if I don't get what I want in my actual packs. I especially liked the cool unique mounts and weapons in the Bounty Supply merchants... I have spent many cartel certs on them. Getting that alternate currency to still get cool things is a very good consolation if I don't get what I want from my packs. There was one flaw with the previous system, the reputation trophys, when you max out any extra ones mean nothing. If you added a way to sell those to a merchant for cash or even an alt currency used to buy cartel certs that would be wonderful. To be completely honest after two hypercrates with the new pack I really am not motivated to keep dumping cash when in the past at least I worked towards an alt currency and reputation that got me cool things.
  7. Calling people <Company> Employee has got to be the lamest insult of a history of lame insults on web forum battles lol. Since when did being constructive be bad, the post you quoted seemed fairly respectful and constructive.
  8. So to actually respond to the OP (which I don't think was a troll post for the most part, maybe a little): I think that's a valid question. I think there are a lot of players that would like them to market the game and actually have a presence, it might excite people some too.
  9. To be clear I meant the target of your quote, the quotes don't chain here (probably for the better). I am of agreement. I don't feel entitled to them though I want it (legacy transfers). I still remember when you couldn't transfer servers in MMOs lol... those were the days I'm glad to have any option *shrug*.
  10. Wanting server transfers to be free and thinking that their current first pass of server transfer costs isn't unreasonable aren't mutually exclusive. Some games charge less, some games charge more. Hence the drama that this is crazily priced is a bit ridiculous, though it's perfectly fair to constructively request something of more value.
  11. There's nothing wrong with being "entitled" to something. People have turned that into a curse word, as if it inherently is bad. It's simply a word that has a meaning and in this case it seems to be used. You feel entitled to legacy server transfers, or so it would seem.
  12. So when talking about the last gen they are weak outdated computers both on the graphics and CPU end. As far as PS4 and Xbox One... they are roughly a low end CPU with a mid-range video card: The CPUs for both is based on AMD next gen economical and power friendly CPU line, read the ones they use for affordable laptops and to compete with the Atom processor Intel uses in mobile devices (and previously in netbooks). The GPU in the PS4 (which is better than the one in the Xbox One) is about equal with a ATI 7850 (with more memory bandwith but it's unlikely that will be the bottle neck, but who knows)... which is a $200 video card. The CPU is best described as: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/05/27/week-in-tech-hands-on-with-those-new-games-consoles/ So less than a quarter power of a $200 CPU... let's be generous and value it at $60, though it probably would compete more along side a $40-$60 price range. So being generous the two biggest pieces are $260 worth of hardware. The Memory is a bit expensive being GDDR 5, 2GB of that would already be on a 7850.. but you can get video cards with 3g or so of GDDR 5 and they don't max out that much memory, or run into CPU bottle necks. In short, at best the PS4 and Xbox One are equal to or less than a mid-range gaming machine made right now... and that's considering they don't come out until the end of year when newer hardware will probably be out and the existing stuff will be cheaper.
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