Not when it mattered anyway.

 

Take a look at that article. How bioware didn't learn that story could never carry the game by itself is beyond me. They relied so much on story to the detriment of the game, that this game went F2P nearly faster than any other game (except one I know of) but to then years later to go back to that same warped mentality of story only in kotfe/kotet.

 

It just boggles the mind they thought story only would be the lifesaver of swtor. It couldn't do it at launch and it didn't do it years later.

 

You have to have story. We all know that. It's a major piece of the MMO puzzle but there are other major pieces as well. All those pieces together make a nice pictures but when you start losing pieces and forgetting where some are the pictures gets screwed up and what do you do with a puzzle missing pieces? You throw it away and find something else to do that has all the pieces.

 

Kinda like what the majority of the 1.7 million gamers did here. They found something else to do that has more of the major pieces.

 

EXACTLY! Players want a complete puzzle! A complete puzzle caters to all aspects of design and types of play. It's a must for any mmo to be successful. When you start giving players a puzzle missing a lot of pieces, then the players aren't going to be interested in completing it. That's when the puzzle gets put in a box in the garage to never be seen again, and that's what has happed to swtor, albeit slowly.

EXACTLY! Players want a complete puzzle! A complete puzzle caters to all aspects of design and types of play. It's a must for any mmo to be successful. When you start giving players a puzzle missing a lot of pieces, then the players aren't going to be interested in completing it. That's when the puzzle gets put in a box in the garage to never be seen again, and that's what has happed to swtor, albeit slowly.

 

And dumbing down the game and deactivating planetary quests as a default over the last few years removed even the small amount of “puzzle” still in the game (vanilla content) because new players don’t know it’s there or need to do it to lvl. Everything is now about end game and power lvling to get there. There is no puzzle or even challenge anymore and it’s boring for new players and they don’t even get to end game before they leave the game.

 

Steps on how to kill an MMO after release.

 

Don’t listen to what players actually want

Don’t add enough content and any new content added is stuff players didn’t ask for or want

Don’t fix bugs

Cater to only part of the games community and neglect the rest of it for years

Switch focus from the biggest part of the community to get new players in by changing the direction and format of the game. Alienating the 2 biggest parts of the games community.

Switch focus back to the 2 neglected, but now greatly reduced parts of the community. Alienating the new players they tried to attract.

Switch to trying to focus on all parts of the community. But don’t release enough content because there now isn’t enough money or resources available to do this properly. Alienating and pissing off all 3 major parts of the remaining community.

Don’t balance classes

Don’t properly ban, discourage or stop hackers and cheats

Dumb down the game for the lowest denominator players to be able to play it.

Keep ignoring the fan base and long term players

Don’t communicate with players

Become super arrogant when you do communicate

Lie or mislead when you communicate

Rehash old mistakes that didn’t work the first time

Allow server populations to die and not consolidate in a timely manner

Close regional servers

Continue to give even less content

Have bad customer service people

Have no in game moderators

Produce sub par content compared to previous content

Keep introducing more bugs and never fix them

Make the game F2P and give too much away

Then remove too much F2P options after establishing the above F2P model

Spend too many resources on Cash shop rubbish at the detriment of actual playable content.

 

Did I miss any?

Edited February 17, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

This is a decent read about what was going on during that time if you are interested (and maybe thats where you got your info from).

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/bioware-gdc-panel-star-wars-the-old-republic/

 

bioware simply made way to many mistakes. Too many assumptions.

I agree that how they handled the launch amounts to BW's 'original sin' with this game, one that, in many ways, they have been struggling to recover from ever since. They really didn't seem to do their due diligence upfront in understanding the space they were entering into with an MMO -- which is a particularly glaring oversight when they had one of the largest video game budgets ever and the backing of an industry giant like EA.

 

But all that being said, and even as someone who dabbled in MMOs since late '99 (with Everquest and SW:G) and then subbed to WoW for 7 years straight once it launched, I have to admit I am still sympathetic to BW being surprised by this:

 

• Still, Ohlen expressed the team's shock at how fast players were playing through SWTOR's content. "[40 hours a week] was the average! We actually had people doing 80 to 100 to 120 hours a week, which I can't even comprehend."
  

 

That stat really is mind-boggling to me as well. So yeah, it was absolutely naive of BW to think it would take people three months to hit end-game, and it was a monumental (and foreseeable) mistake on their part to launch with only one Op, no Group Finder, no ranked PVP, and an unfinished Legacy system . . . but I can also understand why they thought the "170-180 hours of content" they put out at release would give them some sort of buffer to roll that stuff out post-launch.

Edited February 17, 2018 by DarthDymond

its really strange how they could not make swtor to something bigger, come on its star wars how many million fans are there out there? Problem is this game was a mess from beginning, me and many other really didnt get sticked to this game. Alot of things that many knows about is the main problem, this game if it was handle right, could be one of the best mmo with alot of players. I mean Neverwinter ( wich is pretty fun ) and others like Cabal and so on, have more players and this mmo i mentioned havent got the same PR änd so on. I hope it will be a " swtor 2" if ubisoft or activition do it, maah it will be the same as now, either of them can make games. Look at COD for many years it was ****, and Ubisoft with theirs Far Cry, or the "fantastic" The Division. But atleast they listnen in some way on us players. sry if this post is to much hate, dont mean it that way, just how i feel.

Sorry to renew an old thread, but as this game was launched before Disney bought Lucas arts and before each was given the exclusive licence how do we know swtor is even included in that exclusive licence? For all we know swtor maybe the one game EA/bioware can keep

I don't usually link this kind of stuff, but if anyone in the MMO community watches the Bellular gaming news channel, he put out a really good video the other day discussing this topic. He's one of the few professional, impartial reporters in the gaming community that I fully endorse giving some attention to.

 

 

The TL;DNR of it is this: SWTOR isn't the only EA Star Wars game over the last several years to be a 'bust'. We don't know the specifics of what EA paid for their Star Wars licence, but for a title like Star Wars, it was probably a lot. A lot to the point that they'd have to be pumping out some very successful Star Wars games to actually make any money back from it. Similarly, Disney is depending on the company they've given exclusive Star Wars rights to, to expand their franchise into the gaming community. All in all, it doesn't seem likely that the present arrangement is benefiting either company.

 

In any case, yeah. When the license expires in a few years, that's probably it for SWTOR. It doesn't seem likely to me that it will be renewed, and certainly not for the sake of SWTOR. If it's not renewed, we can be certain that in the least no new content will be produced, assuming the servers remain up at all. That's not any kind of schadenfreude on my part, it's just looking at things realistically. Fortunately 'a few years' is likely all the time you need to do whatever you still want to do in this game. Maybe we'll even see one more expansion before the end.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Genaya

I don't usually link this kind of stuff, but if anyone in the MMO community watches the Bellular gaming news channel, he put out a really good video the other day discussing this topic. He's one of the few professional, impartial reporters in the gaming community that I fully endorse giving some attention to.

 

 

The TL;DNR of it is this: SWTOR isn't the only EA Star Wars game over the last several years to be a 'bust'. We don't know the specifics of what EA paid for their Star Wars licence, but for a title like Star Wars, it was probably a lot. A lot to the point that they'd have to be pumping out some very successful Star Wars games to actually make any money back from it. Similarly, Disney is depending on the company they've given exclusive Star Wars rights to, to expand their franchise into the gaming community. All in all, it doesn't seem likely that the present arrangement is benefiting either company.

 

In any case, yeah. When the license expires in a few years, that's probably it for SWTOR. It doesn't seem likely to me that it will be renewed, and certainly not for the sake of SWTOR. If it's not renewed, we can be certain that in the least no new content will be produced, assuming the servers remain up at all. That's not any kind of schadenfreude on my part, it's just looking at things realistically. Fortunately 'a few years' is likely all the time you need to do whatever you still want to do in this game. Maybe we'll even see one more expansion before the end.

 

Wow, it's been a while since I saw this thread.

 

SWTOR most certainly has several years left, whether it's 2, or 3 or 4 we don't know, but definitely more than 2 I'd say. What will become of the game thereafter? I don't want to think about that honestly, because losing SWTOR is going to hurt a lot. This has always been my go-to game, there hasn't been another game out there like this one made me feel. So I want to enjoy it for as long as I can.

 

As to what you said about EA: it is my belief that EA never should have gotten the Star Wars license. They're incredibly ill-suited for it and don't have enough experience in regards to rpg-focused games to make successful ones. Bioware however, did have a lot of experience with the franchise and has produced epic games with incredible stories. Yet wherein lies the issue? The fact that EA is their overlord. Had Bioware been under a different company with a different ethos, Bioware's creativity and talent would have been used in full and come into full expression. But under EA they're subdued, under EA they are held back.

 

I would compare Bioware coming under EA to a beautiful block of marble falling into the hands of a butcher. They're going to use the completely wrong tools and carve up the stone into a shadow of what it could be. Whereas if the marble had fallen into the hands of a sculptor, it might have become a beautiful piece of art.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Ylliarus

I just woke up from a lovely sleep, grab my phone and Google shows me a link to this article:

 

http://www.cinelinx.com/game-rumors/item/11988-report-disney-lfl-talking-with-2-new-game-developers-for-star-wars.html

 

According to this article, Disney and Lucasfilm are unhappy with what EA has been doing with the franchise in the gaming world and are supposedly looking at ways to take the exclusive right to make Star Wars games away from them. Instead, according to the article, they are considering to give the right to make Star Wars games to Ubisoft or Activision.

 

So this is yet another rumour/article that shows there is a storm going on behind the scenes that we are barely aware of. But the important question I want to ask is what this will mean for SWTOR. If EA loses their right to make Star Wars games does that mean Bioware will have to shut down Star Wars The Old Republic? Or is there a possibility that the SWTOR title will be taken over by Ubisoft or Activision and continue under their care?

 

Disney should consider Ubisoft, i mean if you look at Assassin's creed and if you put the MP aspect of watchdogs 2 aside. Ubisoft could easily build an MMO scaled game in single player mode with more than 100+ hours of play in a single playthrough. Uplay DRM aside, Ubisoft have the capability to really do something nice for Star Wars, something EA seem incapable of doing if it isn't full of microtransactions.

 

Activision has in the past been able to put together games, shooters, RTS and the like. they could do something Star wars in there without the microtransactions.

 

EDIT: Also, to be clear, I am reading in the posts that there was another poster who had been spamming the forums with the same rumour earlier. To be clear, I am not that same poster and I wasn't aware there had been a poster spamming the forums with this rumour. I do apologise however for unknowingly and unwillingly spamming the same rumour they spammed. Had I known that something of the sorts had happened I would not have made this thread!

 

Can't be proven by your word alone and no amount of arguing will change that.

 

It would be shutdown, or receive no more updates or content, is the most likely thing. Being an mmo that kinda requires more content constantly to keep it going it's not exactly easy to switch it somewhere else.

 

If it were to happen that EA lost it I might be surprised if they changed it to somewhere else, but unlikely since it is EA's game even if with Star Wars IP. With LotRO the new devs bought out the rights to develop it etc, so it is plausible Disney may go that kind of route but I don't know the specifics of their contract with EA.

 

Nothing will happen with SWTOR until one of two things happens;

1. there isn't enough players around to sustain the server, website and studio costs anymore. End result is that the game is shut down.

2. If there are just enough players to keep things going, but not enough to get developers to return, SWTOR could be held in maintience mode until the exclusive star wars contract ends.

 

Disney went with EA because at the time Bioware was coming off the back off good success with Mass Effect and Dragon Age, SWTOR was also looking bright at the time. It was a bad deal from the start, EA were never ever going to lift a finger unless the Star Wars game delivers large amounts of money in return and BFr2 proved to be a disaster from the start and it never really got out the mediocrity EA put it in. that whole lootbox debacle probably caused more trouble than it ever solved for EA, especially since EA can't capitalise on the whole point of the lootbox. Ever since then BFr2 has quietly sank without a trace.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Celise

Disney should consider Ubisoft, i mean if you look at Assassin's creed and if you put the MP aspect of watchdogs 2 aside. Ubisoft could easily build an MMO scaled game in single player mode with more than 100+ hours of play in a single playthrough. Uplay DRM aside, Ubisoft have the capability to really do something nice for Star Wars, something EA seem incapable of doing if it isn't full of microtransactions.

 

Activision has in the past been able to put together games, shooters, RTS and the like. they could do something Star wars in there without the microtransactions.

 

I haven't played the new Assassin's Creed game yet but I have heard much about it, much good to be precise. I personally was more thinking of Zenimax and Bethesda, I mean, look at The Elder Scrolls. I wish SWTOR had success like that (and ESO is my second favourite MMO). They're churning expansion after expansion out for that game and it shows in how popular it is. They celebrated 10 mil players last year? I imagine that number has gone way up since then. If Bioware was under them I bet SWTOR could have been revived.

 

Can't be proven by your word alone and no amount of arguing will change that.

 

How would you expect me to prove it? Ask the FBI or CIA to upload a file of my internet activity?

 

Besides, this thread is a year old, it was resurrected (for some reason) this night. I looked back and the poster in question hasn't been active (I believe, I haven't done a thorough investigation) since then while I, on the other hand, have been active a lot.

 

Besides, if I may be so bold, to whom would I be obligated to prove I am not him/her? If someone doesn't want to believe me that is their problem and not mine. Correlation is not causation.

 

Also, I have posted it back then and I will post it again:

Ylliarus is an independent entity. It does not exist in this universe and it simultaneously does. We are an enigmatic enigma, an unknowable mystery. To attempt to comprehend us, is like looking into the void. You will see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing. But the void will stare back at you and you... will become us.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Ylliarus

And dumbing down the game and deactivating planetary quests as a default over the last few years removed even the small amount of “puzzle” still in the game (vanilla content) because new players don’t know it’s there or need to do it to lvl. Everything is now about end game and power lvling to get there. There is no puzzle or even challenge anymore and it’s boring for new players and they don’t even get to end game before they leave the game.

 

Steps on how to kill an MMO after release.

 

Don’t listen to what players actually want

Don’t add enough content and any new content added is stuff players didn’t ask for or want

Don’t fix bugs

Cater to only part of the games community and neglect the rest of it for years

Switch focus from the biggest part of the community to get new players in by changing the direction and format of the game. Alienating the 2 biggest parts of the games community.

Switch focus back to the 2 neglected, but now greatly reduced parts of the community. Alienating the new players they tried to attract.

Switch to trying to focus on all parts of the community. But don’t release enough content because there now isn’t enough money or resources available to do this properly. Alienating and pissing off all 3 major parts of the remaining community.

Don’t balance classes

Don’t properly ban, discourage or stop hackers and cheats

Dumb down the game for the lowest denominator players to be able to play it.

Keep ignoring the fan base and long term players

Don’t communicate with players

Become super arrogant when you do communicate

Lie or mislead when you communicate

Rehash old mistakes that didn’t work the first time

Allow server populations to die and not consolidate in a timely manner

Close regional servers

Continue to give even less content

Have bad customer service people

Have no in game moderators

Produce sub par content compared to previous content

Keep introducing more bugs and never fix them

Make the game F2P and give too much away

Then remove too much F2P options after establishing the above F2P model

Spend too many resources on Cash shop rubbish at the detriment of actual playable content.

 

Did I miss any?

 

I thought it relevant to point out this post was 11 months ago and nothing has changed since then and the same mistakes are still happening.

Why does Disney have to give exclusive rights to a single company? Star Wars should be up to anyone who wants to make a game. Yeah, there would be a lot of crap games, but there would also be plenty of good games that could come out of that.

Why does Disney have to give exclusive rights to a single company?

 

They don't have to. They simply chose that route. There are reasons to have exclusivity agreements. One is that it simply makes things easier to manage and keeps a profit-loss ratio on the positive side.

 

Star Wars should be up to anyone who wants to make a game. Yeah, there would be a lot of crap games, but there would also be plenty of good games that could come out of that.

 

Yes, but therein lies the problem. You can get brand diminution if there are a "lot of crap games." That being said, that's one of the arguments. Another argument is to your point which is that you might get more people trying out more things that are Star Wars related. Also brand diminution can occur with even just one game that's perceived as very bad, whereas that might be mitigated if people have more options.

 

That said, you also have to look at things from a business point of view. There is also management overhead and legalities around having multiple contracts. That means more cost centers and more legal fees. It also keeps profits from being distributed too much. The more agreements you have with more companies, the more you have to divvy up the profits.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Kryptonomic

Sorry for reviving this thread,

 

But EA had a 10 year contract and if I recall correctly that contract will expire in 2020 which in reality gives them about one more year and I don't see Disney doing anything until the contract expires. From a legal standpoint, it would seem cheaper and simpler for Disney just not to renew the contract with EA.

But EA had a 10 year contract and if I recall correctly that contract will expire in 2020 ...

 

Basically. It's actually 2023. The contract was a ten-year exclusive deal signed in 2013.

Sorry for reviving this thread,

 

But EA had a 10 year contract and if I recall correctly that contract will expire in 2020 which in reality gives them about one more year and I don't see Disney doing anything until the contract expires. From a legal standpoint, it would seem cheaper and simpler for Disney just not to renew the contract with EA.

 

I would kind of hope that a different and better company would get the Star Wars license. A company that understands how to make a game and how to work with the players and not against them, a company that knows how to make stories and make them unforgettable. And frankly? I'd hope that company would buy Bioware from EA honestly. Like I said before, with the right tools the marble block that is Bioware can be cut into a beautiful sculpture by the right sculptor, the same goes for SWTOR. #savebiowarefromEAsbutchersknife

I would kind of hope that a different and better company would get the Star Wars license. A company that understands how to make a game and how to work with the players and not against them, a company that knows how to make stories and make them unforgettable. And frankly? I'd hope that company would buy Bioware from EA honestly. Like I said before, with the right tools the marble block that is Bioware can be cut into a beautiful sculpture by the right sculptor, the same goes for SWTOR. #savebiowarefromEAsbutchersknife

 

Hey Yll, read this article if you haven't already, you enjoy story-mode on this game so you might find it really interesting. It goes into detail how KOTFE and KOTET were added, why they were added the way they were, and gives lots of other info about stuff like companion story development too.

 

This may get taken down by the SWTOR team or perhaps it belongs more in "Off Topic." Not sure. I was originally going to post this here as a thread, but instead I posted this article:

 

A SWTOR Context

 

Obviously there is a lot of sentiment around the game, it's current development, and it's possible future. I've found in a few of these conversations that people do appreciate a bit of context. Historical context is often the best of all. So that's what the above is.

 

It's not White Knight content; it's not so called "Hater" content. It simply is what it is: providing some context, at least from one person's point of view. If curious, I also have some posts on SWTOR regarding testing. None of this reveals any internal details of the current team nor any details of internal operations, both now and in the past.

 

The definitive story on SWTOR will likely be published at some later date. And it certainly won't be by me.

Hey Yll, read this article if you haven't already, you enjoy story-mode on this game so you might find it really interesting. It goes into detail how KOTFE and KOTET were added, why they were added the way they were, and gives lots of other info about stuff like companion story development too.

 

Thanks! I have just read the article and found it incredibly interesting indeed! A lot of it reaffirmed my own thoughts and observations in regards to KotFE and KotET, basically how it was repurposed KOTOR 3 content.

 

I kind of wish Bioware had kept the original story idea, that with the 1 Jedi and 1 Sith campaign and then episodic content from the point of view of a different character. That would have been hella cool, especially if you different classes would have been added with the episodic content.

Electronic Arts (EA) losing their Star Wars licence would be the best thing ever. EA is the sole reason that there is no Knights of the Old Republic 3 (KOTOR3).

Electronic Arts (EA) losing their Star Wars licence would be the best thing ever. EA is the sole reason that there is no Knights of the Old Republic 3 (KOTOR3).

 

And if that means shutting this game down as soon as they do? Are you cool with that?

Considering Disney's priorities (maximization of shareholder value), they're not going to license Star Wars to anyone I would want to buy a new game from.

Competition for a product forces companies to make the product better. Giving exclusive licenses to anyone is a bad idea from a quality point of view.

And if that means shutting this game down as soon as they do? Are you cool with that?

 

They already pissed on our SWTOR experience with their server relocation. So I would not care nearly as much.

Fake news.

I thought it relevant to point out this post was 11 months ago and nothing has changed since then and the same mistakes are still happening.

It's the month of New Years Trixxie...the Devs are spending time with family and friends

Honestly it's probably EA that would like out more...

 

Disney is pocketing/pocketed whatever EA is paying/paid them to hold exclusive license - which is probably far from chump change... and Mickey inc. isn't really a gamer, so I doubt they care much beyond that... they washed their hands of it a long time ago, small potatoes for them.

 

Everything EA makes under the IP turns to poodoo so they probably aren't due that many milestone payments... and that is probably a tactic to minimize their losses and run the contract down at this stage - ergo cancelling everything and reportedly refusing BW permission to do another KOTOR (if you believe the reports).

 

After the exclusive licence runs out you'd think TOR would be safe under a new agreement until some other studio/publisher decided to make a new SW mmo, at which point it'll go the way of SWG... Well as safe as you can get being part of the trigger happy EA. They might decide this game is not profitable enough tomorrow lol.