I am frustrated just as much as the other guy, however, having managed software projects for over 10 years, I can tell you, the stuff they are releasing is stuff they had in the pipeline long time ago. Probably stuff that was on the roadmap before release.

 

They can do small things like class balances, and believe it or not, the classes are for the most part balanced. Still needs a few more tweaks but I am sure they are coming.

 

Any PVP content is going to be 1.5 or later. Content takes time to design, develop, test, beta, test again, release and through into this the stake holder influencing and politics and you got a hell of a long development cycle.

 

The game is great, it has a good foundation which is why I keep complaining but keep playing. Hoping they will make it better.

 

What often happens thoug is that at some point someone high up just throws in the towel even though the developers think and probably can make it better.

 

Just my humble opinion.. but keep the complaints coming. That is how things are noticed.

In my humble opinion MMO´s should never launch without the tools already developed to mass-transfer chars or merge server.

 

Low population is devestating for an MMO.

 

Customer are unforgivable.

 

SWTOR will never fully recover from this mistake.

 

I am still optimistic it will survive in the MMO world.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Sabredance

They had years and millions and still f*ked up. They do not deserve any patience from us or any loyalty either. And the game has one of the most piss-poor MMO foundations I have ever even heard of, let alone had the misfortune of playing.

honestly, besides James Ohlen last sad statement about Sorc Healers, I like the devs and their work. They got a bit behind, not being able to provide content and systems in time for people to get full of waiting for them. Still, I feel that most my complains about problems got solved in time (people don't exploit jump on voidstar, bike animation is no longer an issue, I don't get banned from WZs when I enter in the middle of one, I can change UI elements, etc...).

 

I'll stick around and play the game as long as it has people playing it. I still have hope

This game was launched 6 months to early. Simple as that.

 

The bugs it launched with is pretty unforgivable in an mmo world. Remember:

 

- 12v8 warzone

- Jump to character screen when joining a warzone

- Ilum lag

I am frustrated just as much as the other guy, however, having managed software projects for over 10 years, I can tell you, the stuff they are releasing is stuff they had in the pipeline long time ago. Probably stuff that was on the roadmap before release.

 

They can do small things like class balances, and believe it or not, the classes are for the most part balanced. Still needs a few more tweaks but I am sure they are coming.

 

Any PVP content is going to be 1.5 or later. Content takes time to design, develop, test, beta, test again, release and through into this the stake holder influencing and politics and you got a hell of a long development cycle.

 

The game is great, it has a good foundation which is why I keep complaining but keep playing. Hoping they will make it better.

 

What often happens thoug is that at some point someone high up just throws in the towel even though the developers think and probably can make it better.

 

Just my humble opinion.. but keep the complaints coming. That is how things are noticed.

 

Exactly.

 

From concept to design to coding/creating to QA to fixing to QA to fixing to release. It can be a long process depending on what is being created.

 

Players complain "It's rushed out and buggy" yet still complain "They are working too slow". I'm sure any company would love to be able to wave a wand and magically produce perfect content in 5 minutes^^

 

Regarding bugs creeping into a patch going live. Generally QA are given a list of things to test on the patch/content. If those all pass then the patch is released, Then if the patch on live turns up a new issue, that is added to the list for QA to test for in the next patch sent there way. Then, like the rateds, if a major issue arises then parts of the content update can be pulled for further work.

 

Add into the mix deadlines and things then have to be prioritzed.

 

A content patch is plsit between departments (or teams), one part may take longer than another to complete which can slow down other teams due to needing team A to complete x so team B can continue. Example Level designer may be waiting on certain art assets to be completed before they can continue. Which are generally raised in daily sprint meetings.

 

Albeit, content design can be sped up significatly with inhouse tools created specifically for creating content for the game.

Edited May 22, 2012 by kiwoo

Those things should have been planned for during the years they spent in production.

 

Not to mention the fact that they were told repeatedly in Beta that the things this game was missing would hurt it's success.

 

To release an MMO without a LFG tool, no interface customization, barely any guild features, no ranked pvp, the list goes on, in 2012?

 

It was not ready for release ( and yes I know that no MMO is ever ready for release but this one was less ready than others.)

 

I love the guys at Bioware, I really do but the choice to not include a group finder was pure and total developer arrogance. They had a vision that involved the fleet being the central hub and all grouping being handled there and that this would stimulate the community. They were warned repeatedly this would not work and it didn't.

 

Even now, they are repeating the same "we know better than you," mistake with the current, server-only plan for their new LFG tool. Part of it is listening to a loud portion of the community who are wrong and the other part is plain and simple developer arrogance.

 

Again, I'm a big fan of Bioware and I still love this game and want it to succeed but every day that passes I become more convinced that they need more people that understand MMO's on their team. Actually let me say they "needed" more people that understand MMO's on their team because I fear this one has missed it's chance. Most of the people who have left won't be back. That's the nature of the modern MMO player.

 

I just wish they had listened.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Sparklehorse

Those things should have been planned for during the years they spent in production.

 

Not to mention the fact that they were told repeatedly in Beta that the things this game was missing would hurt it's success.

 

To release an MMO without a LFG tool, no interface customization, barely any guild features, no ranked pvp, the list goes on, in 2012?

 

It was not ready for release ( and yes I know that no MMO is ever ready for release but this one was less ready than others.)

 

I love the guys at Bioware, I really do but the choice to not include a group finder was pure and total developer arrogance. They had a vision that involved the fleet being the central hub and all grouping being handled there and that this would stimulate the community. They were warned repeatedly this would not work and it didn't.

 

Even now, they are repeating the same "we know better than you," mistake with the current, server-only plan for their new LFG tool. Part of it is listening to a loud portion of the community who are wrong and the other part is plain and simple developer arrogance.

 

Again, I'm a big fan of Bioware and I still love this game and want it to succeed but every day that passes I become more convinced that they need more people that understand MMO's on their team. Actually let me say they "needed" more people that understand MMO's on their team because I fear this one has missed it's chance. Most of the people who have left won't be back. That's the nature of the modern MMO player.

 

I just wish they had listened.

 

 

Soon you'll even come to accept that Bioware ran Warhammer Online for 20 months before SWTOR went online.

 

Then the circle will be complete.

well it's not like they weren't warned over the servers, there was many huge post count topics on the pre-release forums telling them to be very careful of managing the servers and to have population control / merging on standby if it was needed.

Mythic had the same trouble with WAR when it was released to many servers and when the populations decreased they ended up with dead or dieing servers, instead of focusing on protecting the customers they had left and merging them together so players could play the game they went the Ostrich approach instead of loosing say 100k subscribers from natural fallout they lost way more due to people not having anyone else to play with and not wanting to reroll and do all the work again on another server and since Mythic and BW are under the same umbrella, heck they even work together on SWTOR they should have been ready.

 

I hate to say I told you so but BW I TOLD YOU SO!

 

The MMO and gaming community is not very forgiving or patient these days.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Brutalos

 

 

Soon you'll even come to accept that Bioware ran Warhammer Online for 20 months before SWTOR went online.

 

Then the circle will be complete.

 

I really wish you would get it through your head that this makes absolutely zero difference to me. I simply do not care.

 

I have made this very clear to you, when you sent me the nasty private message. When you pop up after every single post I make with this same nonsense. Let me spell it out for you.

 

I

 

DO

 

NOT

 

CARE.

 

It does not matter to me in the slightest who was running Warhammer online for 20 months before this game released. Warhammer online was ruined way before that point. I was there at launch. I played the beta. Not just the open beta, I tested for a year prior to release and the Mythic devs made the same mistake the Bioware devs did. They let EA force them to release too early and didn't listen to the beta testers.

 

Now can you please stop e-stalking me. Every single post I have made for the past two weeks has drawn an attack from you about this stupid "Bioware ran Mythic" crap that has ZERO impact on anything to do with whatever the current thread is about. It's bordering on creepy and is just sad.

 

I've tried ignoring you but for some reason this God-awful forum forgets to hide your messages.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Sparklehorse

Exactly.

 

From concept to design to coding/creating to QA to fixing to QA to fixing to release. It can be a long process depending on what is being created.

 

Players complain "It's rushed out and buggy" yet still complain "They are working too slow". I'm sure any company would love to be able to wave a wand and magically produce perfect content in 5 minutes^^

 

Regarding bugs creeping into a patch going live. Generally QA are given a list of things to test on the patch/content. If those all pass then the patch is released, Then if the patch on live turns up a new issue, that is added to the list for QA to test for in the next patch sent there way. Then, like the rateds, if a major issue arises then parts of the content update can be pulled for further work.

 

Add into the mix deadlines and things then have to be prioritzed.

 

A content patch is plsit between departments (or teams), one part may take longer than another to complete which can slow down other teams due to needing team A to complete x so team B can continue. Example Level designer may be waiting on certain art assets to be completed before they can continue. Which are generally raised in daily sprint meetings.

 

Albeit, content design can be sped up significatly with inhouse tools created specifically for creating content for the game.

 

If they are actually testing stuff, how does a bug like "companions are stuck with their weapons out" get missed? I mean a 5 year old playing the game for 2 minutes could point this bug out.

I mean wow it seems like some of you just want this game to die. Okay here's the reality of the situation, 1 server transfers come out it will bring back some of the players not a lot of them but some of them will come back. Servers will not seem so dead anymore I guarantee you there will be 5 really high pop servers. Swtor will not die in under 3years no matter what.

 

Prime example would be city of heroes. Its a BS game however they still have 7 lively servers and it has been running for years. The same thing will eventually happen with this game. Not too long after server transfers come out I'm pretty sure they will shut down a lot of the servers and reduce it to about 10 yr 12 of them. The game was released way before it was ready, knowing that I am willing to get by where the time you need. So you guys can say all the negative things you want about the company but once server transfers come out, there will be 4-7 servers as high pop as the fatman. Yes I am fine with that.

 

Btw it sounds like a lot of you want a game you can basically live n for 8 hours a day. I hate to break it to you that is not this game. They have a game for that it is called eve

Edited May 22, 2012 by Zergnaut

I think your trust is misplaced. There were rumors last year that the game was going to be delayed another year then all of a sudden it was announced to be launching in December. It seems obvious in hindsight that they had a meeting after initial testing on the alpha and realized this game had massive issues that would take years and another $100 million to fix. The thing was that even if they made all the changes there was no guarantee they'd make their money back as Pandaria was on the horizon. So they launched the game early realizing that Dec '11 was the perfect time to maximize box sales. This $60 x 2+ million copies made a large chunk of their initial investment back. After that it was just a matter of trying to keep the players happy so they could use their money to fix the game.

They had years and millions and still f*ked up. They do not deserve any patience from us or any loyalty either.

This.

I really wish you would get it through your head that this makes absolutely zero difference to me. I simply do not care.

 

I have made this very clear to you, when you sent me the nasty private message. When you pop up after every single post I make with this same nonsense. Let me spell it out for you.

 

I

 

DO

 

NOT

 

CARE.

 

It does not matter to me in the slightest who was running Warhammer online for 20 months before this game released. Warhammer online was ruined way before that point. I was there at launch. I played the beta. Not just the open beta, I tested for a year prior to release and the Mythic devs made the same mistake the Bioware devs did. They let EA force them to release too early and didn't listen to the beta testers.

 

Now can you please stop e-stalking me. Every single post I have made for the past two weeks has drawn an attack from you about this stupid "Bioware ran Mythic" crap that has ZERO impact on anything to do with whatever the current thread is about. It's bordering on creepy and is just sad.

 

I've tried ignoring you but for some reason this God-awful forum forgets to hide your messages.

 

 

Which message?

 

You mean this message?

 

In fairness Bioware has had complete control of Warhammer Online for the past 20+ months now.

 

So what you want to blame them or not blame them for in WAR probably depends on your point of view, I guess.

 

Although it's hard to argue they are blameless as much of that 100+ server to 3 server decline occurred under Bioware's direct control of the game.

 

 

Please spare me your hating nonsense. I have followed the development of this game since day one and you my friend are full of crap.

 

Please set your attention on your miscreant hater friends and don't bother with ridiculous private messages to people who actually have common sense. I was taught long ago by a very wise grandmother that people like you (liars) are to be avoided like the plague.

 

Take your bag of crap and sell it on another street corner 'cause this ***** ain't buying.

 

 

 

Pretty sure it wasn't me being "nasty".

 

I was just pointing out that Bioware had run WAR for 20 months before SWTOR, when you said they hadn't ever run WAR..... you then went on to call me a liar and insult me repeatedly for some reason.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Goretzu

Dude, this is an mmo forum. As sure as the setting of the sun, there will ALWAYS be massive amounts of crying and death rattles. When LotRO launched, the forums were filled to the brim with moaners. When LotRO went Freemium/Hybrid Pricing, the forums were full to the brim with death-calls. The same applies here, the same will apply to GW2. GW2 is pre-release so the hype and positivity is up, 2 months after launch, visit their forums. The same entitled whiners will be there in full force.

 

The modern mmo community, the one who doesn't want to play an evolving game, will always claim that the industry is stale and dying. The rest of us will continue to play, and watch the ever developing evolution of the game we love to play. It's a story as old as time.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Lunga

I am frustrated just as much as the other guy, however, having managed software projects for over 10 years, I can tell you, the stuff they are releasing is stuff they had in the pipeline long time ago. Probably stuff that was on the roadmap before release.

 

They can do small things like class balances, and believe it or not, the classes are for the most part balanced. Still needs a few more tweaks but I am sure they are coming.

(they are no were near balanced i dont know what software projects you was working on but if you think swtor's class's areb alanced your projects must of been awefully bad.)

 

Any PVP content is going to be 1.5 or later. Content takes time to design, develop, test, beta, test again, release and through into this the stake holder influencing and politics and you got a hell of a long development cycle.

 

(it dont take this long to fix and tweak even the miner of issues which it taking bioware months just to fix the little minor things)

 

The game is great, it has a good foundation which is why I keep complaining but keep playing. Hoping they will make it better.

 

(the game is sloppy its poorly designed poorly put together poorly developped and poorly maintained although it does have somenice features in the game like say the voices/sounds thats about it.

 

What often happens thoug is that at some point someone high up just throws in the towel even though the developers think and probably can make it better.

 

(players are not going to pay a subscription for a poorly designed lack of content game of course they will throwi n the towel some people are not stupid enough to keep playing garbage)

 

Just my humble opinion.. but keep the complaints coming. That is how things are noticed.

 

people are complaining but nothing is being fixed lool

I have played a lot of releases, and for their first MMORPG I feel that it has been a great deal better than every other release I have played, minus the annoyance of population. People are forever repeating things like, this is 2012, they should of looked at other games. The year has little to do with anything, in fact as technology progresses as does the complexity. Copy other games? Copy games that have been 10-15 years in the making and squeeze that into a 5 year development? Get real. They overlooked some things, get over it.

They didn't "overlook" anything. They set their priorities (ie. the story and full voice over) and followed their plan. People just need to realize that this is Bioware's game, and will be developed in Bioware's fashion. Story before everything else. If that's not what you're looking for in an mmo, GW2 and WoW are over there -->. Edited May 22, 2012 by Lunga

I am frustrated just as much as the other guy, however, having managed software projects for over 10 years, I can tell you, the stuff they are releasing is stuff they had in the pipeline long time ago. Probably stuff that was on the roadmap before release.

 

They can do small things like class balances, and believe it or not, the classes are for the most part balanced. Still needs a few more tweaks but I am sure they are coming.

 

Any PVP content is going to be 1.5 or later. Content takes time to design, develop, test, beta, test again, release and through into this the stake holder influencing and politics and you got a hell of a long development cycle.

 

The game is great, it has a good foundation which is why I keep complaining but keep playing. Hoping they will make it better.

 

What often happens thoug is that at some point someone high up just throws in the towel even though the developers think and probably can make it better.

 

Just my humble opinion.. but keep the complaints coming. That is how things are noticed.

 

Yeah,

 

Keep defending sub-standard developers (and I'm talking about the software part of it, not the actual content witch its great).

 

Look at Skyrim, Rift and how fast they're putting out new features.

 

That is because the software is someone focus in those outfit... Unlike EA/BW where they sub-contracted some 3rd rate company to do it for them... and they delivered only that the EA/BW management wanted.

 

As of right now... SWTOR is pretty meh until someone with guts take the lead, kick the lazy software devs and make a platform that is worth the money they put in it.

 

PS: Heck look at the quality of the platform used for ME3, even that was slow to load, messed eye coordination, crappy cover system, etc.

 

Note: I'm not going to boast on the interwebz because it is not relevant since you can't verify it.

Edited May 22, 2012 by IPaq

They didn't "overlook" anything. They set their priorities (ie. the story and full voice over) and followed their plan. People just need to realize that this is Bioware's game, and will be developed in Bioware's fashion. Story before everything else. If that's not what you're looking for in an mmo, GW2 and WoW are over there -->.

 

Of course they overlooked some things, if not there would of been no bugs. Hey, forget those bugs we have priorities such as implementing the quests. They lacked hindsight in many areas populations for example, how can you say that everything had been acknowledged pre-release.

They had years and millions and still f*ked up. They do not deserve any patience from us or any loyalty either. And the game has one of the most piss-poor MMO foundations I have ever even heard of, let alone had the misfortune of playing.

 

So did WOW, so did STO....should I continue? THEY.....ALL......START.......ROUGH!

 

They eventually work out of it and grow. Two problems here I think are expectations were too high, especially from the old SWG crowd (who I am a part of) after having their soul ripped out by SOE and wanting something to replace the awesomeness of Pre-CU SWG. The rest are just ignorant (notice I did not say stupid, but rather ignorant) people who THINK they know about computers and programming, but really do not know jack.

 

I am as frustrated as everyone with server population, among a myriad of other things. The difference is that I a long with the patient ones understand that constant crying about it WILL NOT speed up the R&D process.

Exactly.

 

From concept to design to coding/creating to QA to fixing to QA to fixing to release. It can be a long process depending on what is being created.

 

Players complain "It's rushed out and buggy" yet still complain "They are working too slow". I'm sure any company would love to be able to wave a wand and magically produce perfect content in 5 minutes^^

 

Regarding bugs creeping into a patch going live. Generally QA are given a list of things to test on the patch/content. If those all pass then the patch is released, Then if the patch on live turns up a new issue, that is added to the list for QA to test for in the next patch sent there way. Then, like the rateds, if a major issue arises then parts of the content update can be pulled for further work.

 

Add into the mix deadlines and things then have to be prioritzed.

 

A content patch is plsit between departments (or teams), one part may take longer than another to complete which can slow down other teams due to needing team A to complete x so team B can continue. Example Level designer may be waiting on certain art assets to be completed before they can continue. Which are generally raised in daily sprint meetings.

 

Albeit, content design can be sped up significatly with inhouse tools created specifically for creating content for the game.

 

No. What you are describing here "team A needs to wait for team B" is hit-head-against-desk situation in a company that wants to do fast things. I've been a software engineer for a long time now and I can tell you this, in your code and also organization you need to have things decoupled.

And also QA needs to write continuous integration scripts.. not click-click all day...

From what I noticed, the game is rushed.. there are elements developed with strong coupling that cause a lot of bugs... i.e. recent matrix cube thing, spell-animation, etc... which is BAD!!!

It seams like money is the issue here.. money sets the deadline not developers.

I like how blizz handles stuff.. "it's ready when it's ready" cause the can do whatever the heck they want now

I am frustrated just as much as the other guy, however, having managed software projects for over 10 years, I can tell you, the stuff they are releasing is stuff they had in the pipeline long time ago. Probably stuff that was on the roadmap before release.

 

They can do small things like class balances, and believe it or not, the classes are for the most part balanced. Still needs a few more tweaks but I am sure they are coming.

 

Any PVP content is going to be 1.5 or later. Content takes time to design, develop, test, beta, test again, release and through into this the stake holder influencing and politics and you got a hell of a long development cycle.

 

The game is great, it has a good foundation which is why I keep complaining but keep playing. Hoping they will make it better.

 

What often happens thoug is that at some point someone high up just throws in the towel even though the developers think and probably can make it better.

 

Just my humble opinion.. but keep the complaints coming. That is how things are noticed.

 

According to the armchair developers, coding and scripting, while producing frames and models takes 3 or 4 days, max.

 

Its amazing how out of touch people can be with reality. I don't know their exact development process, but I do understand software development. Easy fixes are never easy and new content is even harder to develop and release without a ton of testing (even if that testing is mostly internal).

Edited May 22, 2012 by Arkerus

They didn't release the game and go "Oh man, we didn't notice all these issues". If that's what you think happened, you're pretty naive. Armchair developers... Some bugs can be missed, sure, but they're not "overlooked". All games have some bugs, it's the nature of design and development. Skyrim has them, BF3, Batman Arkham, Lego series, etc.

 

Bioware set priorities before launch. The server pop issue is not an oversight, it's a decision made to have a smooth launch. Ask Funcom what happens to a game that launches rocky. Ask any dev team. The launch for SWTOR was amazing, now they just have to deal with pop drop off, which is another issue entirely. If they released with limited servers, crashes would be systemic. Lots of good that would've done.

 

I swear, with the mmo communities today, you're f****d if you do, f****d if you don't. It's an organic type of game development. Name me one, just ONE mmorpg that has launched EVER that had zero bugs, and zero issues. I've been a part of many launches, and BY FAR SWTOR was the smoothest. Overly harsh criticism of mmo developers is par for the course for modern gaming communities. Entitled and poorly informed, they scream at the top of their lungs when their pet system isn't included, or worse yet, not included as they envisioned it at launch.

 

I'm an mmo player, and I understand that a game like this needs to be fleshed out over a longer period of time. If you can't grasp that concept, mmos are simply not for you, period. Tons of awesome single player and multiplayer games out there for ya. I hear Diablo 3 had a fine launch... Ooops. My bad.