What happened during development!?

This is probably gonna sound like a hate post, it isn't, it's a harsh honest appraisal from my perspective, backing a question that really needs answering.

Bioware formerly announced SWTOR 3.5 years ago (October 2008, rumours were abound in late '06) and Bioware stated that story writers had been working on the project for 2+ years at that point, so at launch the game ahd been in development for over 5 years probably more towards 6 years. EA purchased Bioware in 2007 but this SW MMO was already in development at that point and would have already had a massive amount of cash thrown at it due to project funding negotiations with LA when they decided they wanted another SW MMO, so its safe to say that the game design was 1st drafted ~2005

So my question is what the heck happened? that amount of development time, and we get a cut down KOTOR with an IRC channel and an MMO frontend on it. Something seriously changed direction late on in the games development cycle such that I would say alot of the development at that point was effectively thrown out the window. EA stated that SWTOR cost them about ~$80million, thats quite possible as typically the lions share of a budget is allocated at the start of a project thus prior to EAs involvement since LA nor Bioware was likely aware of what the future held at the time this game was sanctioned. This is probably why there appears to be such disparity with the typical US$150-200 million that most games analysts put on the cost of this game. So a follow on question: is that ~350k subs break-even figure that EA throw around just for return on their own investment?

So we have a game thats been in development since 2005-06, had more than double what most other games get spent on it, has about 10hours worth of voice over dialogue sound files on an otherwise rudementary basic-features-only cookie cutter MMO game model on a 3rd party game engine, we have the after thought of a drunken friday night out that is the space combat mini-game, loads of half finished stuff such as dark/lightside alignment and companions and we have the 4 main classes with 20 talent trees (5 per base class) sub-dividing those 4 classes into 8 advanced classes with 3 trees each (1 tree is common between both Adv classes per base class).

Lets look at a contemporary alternative: Rift by Trion Worlds
Development: Started 2006, similar to SWTOR although SWTOR probably started a bit earlier
Budget: Initially reported as over US$50million - well thats alot less than EAs SWTOR contrbution alone
Game Engine: 3rd party as are most modern MMOs
Launch: March 2011: 8 months before SWTOR with arguably slightly less endgame content
Base-Classes:4 (same as SWTOR)
Talent trees:8 per base-class (3more than SWTOR)
Advanced Classes: 224 (player selects any 3 trees from the pool of 8 for the base-class resulting in 56 Advanced Class combos for each base-class)

Both games started development roughly the same time as each other so comparison at a point shortly after their launch seems the best, for that its the 6 month mark as thats where SWTOR is at:

(some of the following is subjective and personal opinion)
Interactive dynamic environments? Rift yes, SWTOR no - rift spawns and zone invasions, SWTOR is 100% static
Storyline: Rift sort of, SWTOR yes - SWTOR akin to reading a book in places (good and bad)
Sense of immersion: Rift yes, SWTOR no - SWTOR feels like you're on a train ie your just along for the ride.
Sense of grand scale/living world: Rift yes, SWTOR no - Rift is largely free roam, SWTOR narrow corridors with nice scenery, exactly the same as KOTOR 6 years ago, tatooine is a partial exeption.
Free Roam Exploration: Rift yes, SWOTOR no - SWTORs "I'm on a train, I cant complain" well actuallly I can complain as there is no possibility for adventure or exploration
Crafting and Player economy: Rift no, SWTOR no - I've been spoiled with the systems of SWG and EVE that anything less feels frankly like playing shop with a 3yr old.
Combat: Rift yes, SWTOR yes - they both use the same tried n tested hotkeys gallore approach
Alternative gameplay: - Rift yes, SWTOR ish - Rift adveture+exploration, SWTOR space (cringeworthy I know)
LFG: Rift yes, SWTOR no - its coming but frankly they took 8 months longer than Rift so it should have been in at launch.
Ingame Events: Rift yes, SWTOR yes - the ones in Rift are in addition to the rift spawn and zone invasion systems.
X-Sever PVP: Rift yes, SWTOR yes - I dont pvp so I cannot comment on either.
Additional post launch patches/content: Rift every 4-5weeks typically, SWTOR sporadic at best.
Addons: Rfit yes, SWTOR no - like them or loathe them there is no denying that the basic supplied action bars in MMOs are always next to useless due to sheer number of keybindings required.

I could go on and on and the harsh truth is that Rift would tend to win or be equal to SWTOR on all the key features that we have come to expect as basic requirements for modern MMOs, the surprising fact is that SWTOR lacks so many of these and the ones it does have it has pretty much made a mess of. I must make it clear, I dont play Rift anymore as that game wasn't quite as fresh as I was hoping but it is certainly far more advanced in design than this game and has a reasonable degree of longevity and replayability to it and right now I'm taking a break from MMOs as this one has somewhat deterred me from the genre. Of course the above is somewhat subjective and open to personal opinion and interpretation.

The bottom line for me, and the reason I unsubbed is sadly that lightsaber and blaster graphics just dont make up for the otherwise mundane bottom of the range simplistic copy-paste MMO game model that is lurking underneath regardless of subscription costs. If you want Star Wars graphics and story especially relating to the KOTOR era then this game is worth a look, but for anyone not so attached to that or that wants a reasonably well done MMO then I honestly would recommend staying away from this product. Rift is considered middle of the road and somehwhat of a measuring stick in the MMO community atm and is clearly leaps and bounds ahead of this game both in terms of design, coherent finished features, polish and responsive proactive development.

Star Wars is arguably the biggest IP on the planet and the brand new flagship MMO game for that IP is 1/10th as succesful as the 8year old aging behemoth that is WoW. People say "oh xyz game was rubbish at launch also" surely the defining point that seperates humans from everything else is that we learn from our mistakes!? perhaps the games industry is exempt from that and we have to wait 5 years for this game to be at the same level of game xyz when that was 5years post launch. We got something that should've taken ~3years and about US$30million to make that is now seemingly having to have its financial performance fabricated to keep shareholders happy.

I agree with everything you just wrote, I could add the fact that the PvP aspect of the game, the one you did not experience as you are not into it, is also miles behind everything, even WoW. You specify that Rift has X-realm PvP (does it? I don't play that game) and that TOR also does. Correction: TOR has no such thing yet. So one more big thing it lacks, be it good or bad, at last for the crap populated servers this would be a plus.

To get back on what I'd add to your post: PvP is dead boring, the "carrot" for it is some War Hero gear that requires you to play like a mad man to get it in a reasonable amount of time, the system is copy/paste from WoW with specific items designed for PvP (the gear), a stat that helps PvP (called expertise in this game). There is absolutely NO innovation in the PvP of TOR. Add to that the fact that this game simply has NO World PvP whatsoever or any kind of incentive to do world PvP and what do you get?

I am also not at all happy with the way PvE is handled in this game: scripted events, in a maze called an Operation / Flashpoint, that you need to come and repeat each time in order to maybe get some kind of shiny purple crap. Seriously, in 10 years since this has been arround (or more) nobody can come up with something fresh? Even with all the crapload of money put into this game?

Disappointed is an understatement.

Cross-server PvP is planed for SWTOR, but not yet in the game.

op, i can only imagine that SWTOR wishes you the best of luck in your future endeavors.






















can i haz?

Good post, I agree with everything.

Its such an insult to claim this game has "space combat"

EA happened.

/thread

My guess is Bioware had game designs set, then they were changed by either EA and LA, or both to fit a more modern MMO business model.

Here's the problem: There is no "MMO Business Model" EVERY GAME, EVERY SINGLE GAME THAT has tried to recreate WoW, or anything like it has completely BOMBED. So you have to ask yourself which guy said it would work, because clearly it hasn't, for many years.

People need to stop developing crap and start understanding why MMO's fail so hard. Look at Tabula Rasa, look at The Matrix Online, find out what happened to them that made them go away and work up from there. Where's Ralph Koster when you need him...

How come exploration and the overused buzzword "living world" are like so important all of a sudden? those features were never one of swtor selling points or even mentioned as relevant features of the game, honestly, I bought this game expecting a Standard MMO with Story and Dialogue ala Mass Effect, and Im satisfied with my experience so far, not sure if they will have enough content for me to keep playing on the following months however.

There are plenty of things that swtor promised and couldnt deliver, but they never promised us "organic" and "living" worlds, deep exploration and all that crap, which has no replay value for me anyway, once you explore a world, done, no value in doing it again.

fixed that for you.

also, tl;read 1/2.

They played it too safe is what happened. Someone, somewhere figured that "WoW with lightsabers and VO" would be enough to make this compete and possibly even dominate in the MMO market. Maybe when they began to develop the game that was a viable option. But now? This game looks, plays and feels like a WoW clone that walked out of 2008 - only with instead of features that are traditional to MMOs we get 10+ hours of VO, a fair chunk of which is either alien gargling and or NPCs telling you to go get 10 space bunny tails.

I don't understand how people who have been playing MMO's since the birth of the genre can sit here and tell me with a straight face that this game, based on its MMO featureset, is better then older games (WoW, Aion, Rift) and comparative to new ones (Tera, GW2)

Strip the IP out of this and you have nothing. Literally, this game without Star Wars could not stand on its own legs with gameplay alone. This is the problem. The IP only carries you so far. At some point, people want to play an actual good game. Outside of leveling, I cant think of anything this game does better then any competitor on the market.