You want people to test on the test server, but to truely be an effective test you need to allow people to copy over their high level charecters. it simply just does not make sense to not have that in place . IMHO thats why so many bugs creep thru, just not enough and enough variety of testing.

How to fix resolve: Stunned, knocked back, slowed, or CC'd in anyway once, resolve becomes full and you cant be stunned or controlled again until determination is off cool down. No more chain CC's and now players have to chose the right moment to CC someone instead of using CC's as a mainstay of their tactics. FIXED!

good job addressing the issues the community most wants to hear

 

 

 

 

 

oh wait, you didnt

Edited November 7, 2012 by cashogy

good job addressing the issues the community most wants to hear

 

 

 

 

 

oh wait, you didnt

 

Goodjob asking state-of-the-game questions.

 

 

 

 

Oh wait you didn't. The whole point of this thread is to ask questions and they will try answer the most popular.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

I have to say I like the idea of these state of the Game updates. I dont know if we will ever see another one, if any questions here will be answered or if it will fade into obsurity like so many other things. I have some questions and thoughts and I will put them in the order they are important to me.

 

1) New species. I am very bored with the playable species and dont really feel like I could create the character I wanted to play. Its hard to feel connected to what I see as a generic hero. Why have new more alien species not been introduced?

 

2) Kill, grind, que for flashpoints seems to be the end game content. What I feel we are missing is sand box and mini games. This kind of goes to point 1 if I can do other things other than the same dailys with a character and invest my time in house, guild, space ship and personalise him I will be more connected and want to play more. As is I am doing a few dailys and really dont feel conected to my characters so dont really care about him or the world he is in.

 

3) PvP really does not seem to work. Expertise sucks, basically I wont do PvP because of this stat and the fact that I will get slaughtered by a long time PvPer not because of skill but because my gear can not compete and the only way to get the gear is to PvP. Also with no world PvP, no objectives it leaves there to be no reason to PvP. This is normally one of the main end game events but most people view PvP in TOR to be broken. Open world PvP really needs a third faction but even without it there could be so much more with players fighting over a planet and actually taking and holding the entire planet gives bonus and rewards to the winning team.

 

To be fair this is a good game, however enough small things that I struggle with have added up that I bearly play and would be lucky to clock 2 hours a week. This then really does make me look at the sub prices, I dont think the sub prices would cause me to quit the lack of care about my character and what he has to do each week would cause me to leave the game.

You obviously haven't listed on point 3: you're now saying this fall, and not November. It's still too slow.

i waited over 3 years for this game to be released and when it was you messed up the servers that badly I left after just 1 day. now I have been back 2 weeks just after 1.4 was released and I am running into nothing but bugs and game freezes even when I log out the game my computer freezes up on me ? at the moment im considering returning to world of warcraft again. yes that game has bugs as well and the content is just getting worse with the release of the new pandaria expansion but atleast it is playable.

Hello Sir,

 

first thanks for stepping in.

 

Then if I had to write one sentence about your whole blog, you are either delusional, misinformed or have no clue at all at what makes a good MMO and what are the players expectations. Regarding your position I tend to think you are fully aware of all the above but voluntarily forgetting it.

 

Now specifically about your three main points. As mentioned by others:

1. The game in it's actual state isn't awesome. From the low performance of the engine to the lack of basic and commonly expected MMO features, to major design flaws, SWTOR has a lower standard than others available MMO and isn't evenly polished.
   
2. We all know the subscription fee was and still will be driving away people, because the quality isn't up to the asked price. BTW your F2P model is broken in its fundations.
   
3. The frequency of the game update is indeed too slow especially compared to others studios like Trion. Sadly you already failed at keeping up to your promise to deliver new content every 4-6 weeks. Furthermore the size of the content looks very thin compared to games like DDO, LotRo, Rift and so on.
   

 

Please allow me to go further. Whatever good is James Ohlen at managing projects, regarding how poorly he did in all the interviews and isn't regarded as the most talented producer, (from a player perspective), you might want not to mention him.

 

In your 3 chosen topics I saw none addressing the most important one being the communication between the players and the devs. Let me mention that as long as you'll keep with your actual way you're not going to deliver.

You have to implement a two way communication. Have the devs step in into the suggestion/PvP/Class... forums and discuss in a two way direction with the players. Don't forget there are also very talented people playing this game.

 

The best advice you should follow is simply fix your communication. And if you don't have any ideas about it, just copy what Trion is doing. Then proceed to the game issues.

 

Let's talk about the F2P model we're seeing on the PTS server, mind you?

 

In short, if you go live as is you're going to dig deeper SWTOR grave and write your name on the tombstone on top of it.

 

What you guys are thinking when doing things like making people pay for:

• More slot bars: when others F2P MMO have UI addons for free
  
• Unify gear color: when others F2P MMO have gear dyes for free
  
• Hide head slot: F2P MMO have hide back, shoulder, gloves... for free
  
• Prevent basic features like /who, emotes, use recall features...
  

 

Do you really think you're going to milk 3 million of players with that?

I can assure you, even the TOR vets won't come back when they'll see how limited they are.

Especially when they'll realise there's so few new content!

You are pretty well versed in the NGE fiasco and let's be realistic here: you won't earn more paying customers than what you had before with this F2P model. Don't make the same mistake twice, please.

 

Actually the main issue with your F2P model is that you request people not to pay for the content but for the tools required to enjoy it. Seems to me you are aiming sideways...

 

BTW I heard when you stated about delivering content faster and focusing less on V.O. content.

It's understandable but MMO wide, the V.O. story is what makes your game different than others.

And in the other fields you have less than them.

 

Anyway best luck to making the game better.

As a player it's all that matters.

 

Regards,

D.

 

Pretty much agree on everything he said. Also address issues such as,

 

-Chapter 4 of the class stories

-Same gender romances

-improving end game content(adding mini games such as gambling)

-reduce the number of bugs being released with every new patch you put out.

 

And please stop pretending that the game is awesome and that everything is alright , because the game clearly needs some improvements.

People stopped subscribing when they finished the content. If you gave them new content, they'd come back. Please hire some people, get some kind of budget and make some new content. Other games do it with far fewer resources. It's not that complicated.

No, I don't think you understand. Many people choose a PvE server because they DO NOT ENJOY PvP! It doesn't matter that it may take 20 seconds. It doesn't matter that you may be able to go in there and not see a soul. The fact is that Bioware put a required component for content that is supposed to be for everyone in an area that will flag you for PvP when you don't desire to participate in PvP. Up until now, every player could just avoid the Outlaw's Den and never look back. Now you must enter the area if you wish to experience the new content that is marketed as being for fans of KoTOR and like minds.

 

Why give people a choice of what server type to choose if you're going to force them to flag for PvP if they want to experience the available content?

 

There's already a large thread on this topic and I won't derail this thread any longer. I've expressed my opinion about Bioware's seemingly "out of touch" approach to player's desires and choices so I'll leave it at that.

 

And I chose a PvP server because I don't enjoy PvE. You don't see me threatening to quit because that gameplay style is "forced" upon me time and time again.

I have to ask about the super secret space project as well. Does it even still exist?

 

This is like double secret probation..

well for me it is not the 15 per month I subbed for 8.5+ years to City of Heroes.For me it is in part the community,In this game i have yet to find the same type of community of players. My big complaint of the game is the class content,First let me say I ENJOY the content for the JC and BH , I am running a shadow and a Merc, Now after I finish the class storylines,I do NOT want to do them again ,as if I did the JC as a sage,it would just be the same storyline like watching a remake of a classic movie,that may be ok but not as fun as the original. Total Recall comes to mind.I know this would be a LOT of work,but it would be nice to have a story line that plays more to the strengths of the sub class,and then have one that is playing to the strengths of the shadow. on a couple of the maps/missions I played my shadow a bit sneaky. and snuck into the area of the last boss/item,but they would not spawn until I went back and attacked a few mobs along the way. It would have been nice to get some bonus as a shadow sneaking to the end of the mission instead of Tanking to it.

So somehow your team of "hundreds of QA testers" missed the fact that crippling performance bugs existed in 1.4? There's no way. This game is nowhere near where you or the rest of the team think it is. That's why we're down to a handful of servers while population continues to drop. Even with the sketchy record of Star Wars games in general, I never expected this level of failure from something Star Wars and especially with the name Bioware on it.

 

Game-breaking performance bugs at launch were blamed on the players. Dev/support/CM communication was (and still is) piss-poor. New bugs are constantly introduced and go unfixed for months. The game has gone f2p, suffered multiple losses of staff, yet we're still given some Kool-Aid about how great the game is doing and how new content will come every 6 weeks. People are extremely bitter and tired of "Soon. Maybe."

 

Denial: not just a river in Egypt any more. I've said this before and I'll say it again. If you guys keep pretending that everything is hunky-dory, this project will go down in history as the biggest, most complicated, most expensive gaming failure of all time. We all know how Warhammer Online turned out. I don't know why you felt compelled to add that to your post. Maybe it's no secret why this game is failing too.

 

In closing, I would suggest a career change. If the people running this thing are as passionate on MMOs has been suggested, I can't even imagine how bad things would be if they stopped giving a rats @ss. The people running the show have shown that they're not gamers. They're not passionate and don't care. I was going to suggest a job in politics, but you're not really any good at lying either.

 

Why am I still here then? I still believe in the right hands this game could become everything that was promised and more. I have been burned over and over but I will at least bave my say and tell it like it is. But go ahead and censor me, I know the truth hurts.

When is BioWare going to learn that it was not the subscription that was driving players away, but that the quality of the game produced wasn't worth wasting 60$ + 15$ every month?

 

Goddamit...

When is BioWare going to learn that it was not the subscription that was driving players away, but that the quality of the game produced wasn't worth wasting 60$ + 15$ every month?

 

Goddamit...

 

Who knows.. perhaps the majority put into the unsubscriber box "I can´t afford paying 15$ a month".

Although, the "Unsubscriber´s thread" speaks a different language, right?

 

I don´t know. When I left the first time I said I´ll be back when they add a Space Sim and more open worlds like in SWG.

Now I´m back for finishing another class story, but that certainly won´t take forever. Another month maybe.

 

Regarding "The game is awesome" - well it has some awesome aspects and some highlight moments, but it´s far from "overall awesome". It has awesome potential, yes. It could be really awesome if they read the suggestion box and find out about the 10 most requested things, so.. maybe "awesome" after the first expansion/revamp.

 

Ilum: not awesome

Rail shooter instead of JTL: not awesome

No day night change, time frozen planets, 2006 graphics: not awesome

 

I tell you when I will think the game is awesome:

JTL/ Star Citizen like Space Expansion

Minigames like Nar Shaddaa casino, Pazaak, Swoop Racing

Vehicle Ground combat

10 warzones

DX 11, tesselation, high res textures, 64 bit multithread client

Day/NIght change on planets and dynamic events and a NPC population

No more exhaustion zones, no more corridor planet layout

 

 

Get to work and MAKE it awesome, then people will pay ANY price

Edited November 7, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst

http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/ea-artist-soon-to-be-laid-off-burns-ea-management-2803

 

Really, Jeff Hickman is really just a CSR? Wow, what's he going for next? Run for the Mayor of Detroit?

Edited November 7, 2012 by Thylbanus

Ah the meme continues. No Mr. Hickman, it wasn't "the price" of the subscription, it was "the quality of the service" for the price of the subscription that drove people away.

 

In some sense this is probably true, but I dont entirely agree. People were driven away, not by the subscription itself, but because they were tired of paying for the same-old-thing. Not enough new content was being released. Does going f2p fix this? No. But f2p is obviously intended to stall the decline in active players so that all subs are not lost. It's a good business move and makes perfect sense that they would put so much dev power into making it happen.

 

What I want to know is this: is BW just stalling us by creating f2p with the intention of soaking as much $$ as possible before the vast majority of players give up and move on? Or is BW really actually going to deliver more content? The best way to keep people happy and paying money would be new story lines/classes/factions/planets/wzs etc, not just perks and tweaks. Going f2p has bought BW some time to do this. Will they? BW: please focus your dev power on creating new content with as much zeal as you did to launch f2p!

 

I'm a relatively new player, so I'm still willing to pay, at least until I finish up all the story lines. But after that? No way will I pay just to grind the same old stuff over and over again. So in a sense, BWs story about subscription costs driving away players is true, but only to a point. F2p is a temporary fix and I believe they should come out and say it. I would feel really reassured if they did. Acknowledge your weaknesses and then improve!

 

Thank you for the state of the game article, looking forward to the next one.

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us and especially to mention the Oceanic servers. I hope if you do something about them it will be in consultation with the players who have organised themselves to help address the population issue (Gav Daragon players). I would hate to have to use an overseas server. But on that issue, you do realise your down times for maintenance in the US are in the wee hours of the morning and in prime time on Oceanic servers? I don't see why we can't be done in the wee hours of the morning too. Since the client updates itself after the server upgrade, being done at the same time as the US server seems to be solely for your benefit and not the (paying) players.

 

On the actual state of the game, you didn't really tell us anything that wasn't already in the dev forums, I'm sure you have more interesting things to say other than stock PR motherhood statements.

 

You are correct in the game is awesome and I love playing it. I've never played another MMO because no other genre ever interested me enough to learn how to. I play SWTOR for a few hours every day of the week and often 12hs/day on weekends. For me the $15/mth is trivial for the amount of fun I get from it.

 

If I could take this opportunity to ask for two things that would improve my playing experience no end.

1. Leave the chat window on the tab I put it on. Really, stop resetting the chat window tab at every opportunity, I have to change it a hundred times a day. I've indicated my preference by clicking on the tab, LEAVE IT ALONE.

 

2. Leave the damn camera position alone. I reposition the camera more often than I reset the chat window. Once I've indicated my preference of behind and above my head, that should be your new default position to reset to. I've tried using the default position to play and I honestly don't believe anyone can play this game with the camera in the default position of looking up your butt.

I just want to say that I really like the fact he's doing this, its the one thing I always loved about Age of Conan / The Secret World, FunCom is -not- quiet with what they are doing.

 

They come out and say "hey we're doing this, we're fixing that, we've read people are angry with this, we're testing it ourself and seeing how we feel about it, blah blah."

 

The difference is when FunCom releases a state of the game, I feel as if they have actually been paying attention to the community and not just pulling the biggest threads they can find and pretending those are the most pressing topics.

 

 

Very true, also playing TSW here and I love how they admit when it turned out something is not working as intended, like the open PvP objectives in Fusang, now what are they doing, revamping it based on player feedback and communicating back and forth in the forums on a near daily basis. That´s how it´s done!

 

Mind that they are far ahead with a 75vs75vs75 giant warzone I can play mostly lag free in DX11 + tesselation... something I can dream of in SWTOR.

 

Also, TSW Game Directors jumping into threads twice a week or more often.

 

At BW / TOR, when have JO or JH ever participated in any discussion on the forums? They avoid direct communication with players in every possible way.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst

This. The fact that they (Bioware et al) has decided this is THE REASON for why SWTOR has seen a significant decline in subs is just proof that they are continuing to perpetuate this falsehood. The product itself turned out to be lackluster and this is the reason subs have declined. There are plenty of MMOs that still utilize the subscription model and people still happily pay for it because the product is worth it.

 

It's just sad to see Bioware continue to find new ways to deceive themselves in order to explain away these "problems". If the Executive Producer and the rest of Bioware/EA believe that eliminating the sub and implementing contrived restrictions on access to the product will bring home the bacon, they're in for a rude awakening.

 

Sure there will be plenty of returners when F2P finally launches, but after being smacked in the face with the corralling restrictions which have been blatantly designed to make subbing a need instead of disguising it as a choice, they're going to barely last a week before going back to WoW, TSW, GW2, Rift, or EVE.

 

bleh. Anyway. You (Bioware/EA) get one shot at first impressions. This "State of the Game" is already off to a sloppy start.

 

This.

 

People continue to pay subscriptions happily if the game has substance and enough to do (in both content and just fluff/filler/sandbox elements), this game has none of this and instead has the dev team switching to a free to play instead of devoting time to fixing the core game design that is driving people away.

Hello, it's me again, I have a few other things I'd like you to add to the wish list that would make this game even more awesome.

 

1. Same sex romance. Just drop the gender restriction, that's all that's required. Remember, about 10% of the population aren't into the opposite gender and this is a part of the game that is denied to me, not by choice, but because it is repulsive. I don't mean that to be derogatory, I mean it in the same way straight guys feel about hitting on a dude. You'd also find about 25% would explore something they weren't able to do in real life.

 

2. Likewise, remove the clothing restrictions. I have access the the Security Key vendor who only sells specialty female clothing. What's with that? I should be able to wear what I want, and that vendor should sell something cool for both genders.

 

These gender restrictions could be character unlocks if need be. In my legacy tree you've allowed me to have same sex marriage and same sex off spring from that marriage. But no acknowledgement of that in game content. The legacy tree relationships should be reflected in game content somehow, so it is consistent storywise.

 

You don't have a problem with performance enhancing drugs (STIMS), they are a major part of the game and a major social taboo in real life. Gender restrictions are no longer a social taboo in real life, yet you embody this archaic moral thinking in your game. Be progressive. It's a virtual world for us to live out our fantasies, not to be constrained by real world taboos.

Edited November 7, 2012 by MarkusBiggus

Ok your 3 points ....point one the game is awesome is correct.

point 2 the subs were driving people away ...true

and point 3 the updates were too slow .....not true

 

I love the game but I see the problems and speak to players daily who share the same complaints.

 

The problem with the subs wont be fixed by F2P , that idea sucks, The guys who pay having to play along side

not paying people is going to drive them nuts and then drive then offline and unsub. If you wanted to solve this problem then a simple decrease in the monthly subs would have been enough.F2P is a terrible idea.

 

The updates speed is not an issuse the problem is the game is way too easy. You can get a level 50 in no time, hell you can do it solo within a few days, no help needed. I thought this was a MMO, you create these companions which just makes it so easy to level and do heroic missions that interacting with others online is not required. thats why people get to level 50 and start whining that they are bored and their story is finished, theyre playing the game like its some one player action playstation game. MMO is meant to be hard, its suppose to encourage you or basically make it so damn difficult to level up without the help of others that you have no choice but to team up and recently you get black hole comms for doing everything now, theyre being thrown at you from all directions, I did a hard mode flashpoint the other day and the dps had full black hole gear and man he was shocking, no idea how to play his role but heh he doesn't need to learn it , the gear is basically handed to everyone that logs in enough times a week.

 

PLEASE look at other MMO's and hire some gamers that can advise you better than the folk you have now.

 

Love the game but very worried

 

Ebán Sith Marauder

So somehow your team of "hundreds of QA testers" missed the fact that crippling performance bugs existed in 1.4? There's no way. This game is nowhere near where you or the rest of the team think it is. That's why we're down to a handful of servers while population continues to drop. Even with the sketchy record of Star Wars games in general, I never expected this level of failure from something Star Wars and especially with the name Bioware on it.

 

Game-breaking performance bugs at launch were blamed on the players. Dev/support/CM communication was (and still is) piss-poor. New bugs are constantly introduced and go unfixed for months. The game has gone f2p, suffered multiple losses of staff, yet we're still given some Kool-Aid about how great the game is doing and how new content will come every 6 weeks. People are extremely bitter and tired of "Soon. Maybe."

 

Denial: not just a river in Egypt any more. I've said this before and I'll say it again. If you guys keep pretending that everything is hunky-dory, this project will go down in history as the biggest, most complicated, most expensive gaming failure of all time. We all know how Warhammer Online turned out. I don't know why you felt compelled to add that to your post. Maybe it's no secret why this game is failing too.

 

In closing, I would suggest a career change. If the people running this thing are as passionate on MMOs has been suggested, I can't even imagine how bad things would be if they stopped giving a rats @ss. The people running the show have shown that they're not gamers. They're not passionate and don't care. I was going to suggest a job in politics, but you're not really any good at lying either.

 

Why am I still here then? I still believe in the right hands this game could become everything that was promised and more. I have been burned over and over but I will at least bave my say and tell it like it is. But go ahead and censor me, I know the truth hurts.

This. So much this.

 

Also... SGRA? Gonna talk about it sometime, or are we going to have to consult a psychic? Silence and "nothing new to report" says jack all.

 

Talk.

My big complaint of the game is the class content,First let me say I ENJOY the content for the JC and BH , I am running a shadow and a Merc, Now after I finish the class storylines,I do NOT want to do them again ,as if I did the JC as a sage,it would just be the same storyline like watching a remake of a classic movie,that may be ok but not as fun as the original. Total Recall comes to mind.I know this would be a LOT of work,but it would be nice to have a story line that plays more to the strengths of the sub class,and then have one that is playing to the strengths of the shadow. on a couple of the maps/missions I played my shadow a bit sneaky. and snuck into the area of the last boss/item,but they would not spawn until I went back and attacked a few mobs along the way. It would have been nice to get some bonus as a shadow sneaking to the end of the mission instead of Tanking to it.

 

I totally agree with you about the class content. It would be much better if the class story took the sub class into account so we could explore their special abilities more.

In particular. the stealthers I've played, Shadow and Scoundrel are penalised heavily for using stealth in missions. You don't get loot drops, or XP or credits for killing mobs, you just miss out entirely. If you could stealth in your mission and achieve it without being detected and get extra credits for doing that, that would really be something.

 

As a Jedi you are also encouraged to be a massive hypocrite, gaining Lightside points and affection with companions for upholding the pacifist dogma of Jedi. But in the next mission you'll have a massive bonus incentive to go kill 30 or 40 randoms for credit and loot, and wear the penalty if you don't.

Edited November 7, 2012 by MarkusBiggus

When is F2P actually going to start?