What happened during development!?

Agreed.

Thanks @Thannate.

I was shocked that they locked it so fast. I am a huge fan of the franchise and have invested thousands of dollars in the StarWars brand.

I really tried to give this game the benefit of the doubt. I wanted this game to be world beating. Heck I got 5 of my friends (not fans) to sign up for launch.

I thought it was a pretty innocuous, well intended post.

First off, I don't take it personally. But I do appreciate what these developers have done making this game. And having been involved in development projects myself involving programming and media production, I know that a lot more goes into these things than most people would realize.

And while others on this forum spend their time bashing the developers (regardless of how calm and unprovocative they try to be as they misrepresent what happened), I'm one who intends to stand up for them when I think it's pertinent to do so.

And I did read through the entirety of your post, I just didn't feel the need to respond to the rest of it. Your line-by-line comparison of SWTOR vs. Rift, for example, was also loaded with opinion. What good is that? And after claiming the assessment would be "honest", we have that 10 hour blip in there.

And you still aren't even understanding what happened during development. Did you read that first article I linked out to, "How BioWare Wrote SWTOR"? These aren't just audio assets. They're crucial points to a lot of the game. It doesn't just involve the audio team and some VO producers... it involves the game designers, content designers, script writers and editors, animators, world designers and so forth. It encompasses many more teams than just "sound".

Scripts have to be checked for things that can be done or cannot be done. The game design team has to analyze those to find out which things can be done with the engine, what things the engine can be expanded to handle, and what things are not even possible. Think about the Temple mission on Voss, for instance. That involved quite a bit of special effects work that wouldn't really be standard stuff. So the game design team has to take the script work and then set about changing the engine or making those special effects happen so that it matches up with the scripted work, etc.

Or the Trooper missions where you wind up controlling your entire squad of companions in one mission, rather than the usual player + companion formula. Or missions a few worlds later where you end up controlling several squads of soldiers during a coordinated attack. Those things have to be set up and planned, perhaps coded into the machine so that they function, and so forth.

When I find "honest assessments" of the game that make sense and don't just completely ignore reality, I really don't have a problem with it. But short-shrift drive-thru comparisons with other games sometimes deserve to be corrected.

If the Hero Engine is so easy to make a game out of... how about prove it? Go download it for free, set it up, and create even ONE chain of missions in an environment you set up and build. You don't have to do professional voice overs, just use a headset and record your own voice. Build the assets. Make the changes to the game engine so that you can make it do what you want it to do. Design the mission environment and populate it with natural objects, mobs and NPCs. Set up the game map with triggers so that players know where to go without just having to hunt all over the place without direction. Try developing a simple branching process where your choice in one scene affects what happens in other scenes. How long do you think it would take you to do that? When can we expect to download and run through your game level?

Go find out, and then come back and let us know how easy it was and how you finished it in a single night's work. Some of us will still be here from time to time when we aren't playing...

Finally, we already know that all of those 200,000 lines didn't make it into the game. For those that actually wanted to learn about how the game WAS made, there were instances where the VO work looked good on paper, made it through script approvals and so forth, went to VO for recording, post processing, and only once it was inserted into the game engine did it appear that it was worded in a wrong way. So then they'd have to go back to script, rewrite, re-record, re-post, and follow up.

And we have no idea how many of those 200,000 lines were released with the 8 character stories of chapters 1-3 or the supporting side missions. Those 200,000 lines might include all of the VO work for chapters 4-9 or 4-12 as well. Certainly it includes all of the audio involved in the flashpoints and operations that have been released and have yet to be released, as well as the random conversations you ride past on various planets with just a few NPCs talking to each other.

What is for certain is that this game isn't done yet. They haven't released everything. We're just waiting for the next round of story content... and predictions of TOR's demise are quite a bit premature...

@ Kubernetic

You can't possibly be apologizing for the people that ruined the game that we all wanted to spend the next 5 years playing can you?

That is like crapping on someones doorstep, lighting it on fire and then ringing the doorbell to ask if you can borrow some toilet paper.

Facts are mere inconveniences to a well-trained doomsayer.

$200

Clicky

On this I will support Kubernetic. There is a lot of programming related to VO and intact I think they stated recording in anticipation of expanded content. You can argue whether the amount of voice was worth it or not. I think Kubernetic thinks it is. I enjoyed my leveling experience on my one toon till 50. Can't seem to get anyone interested in helping me put Darth Malgus down so guess I won't know how it ends.

I did as much research as I could on the game and it was all in regard to PVP. Which was vastly over hyped as far as emphasis and how good it was.
My issues are client server, that FPS and delays are happening, that I have to do anything with my computer to accomodate the game, loading is a bear and aggravating. And although I have some satisfaction in content of the game --but all I do is WZ endlessly so I am completely nonparticipatory on any other aspect of the game once Ilum was destroyed (cause it couldn't handle people doing what they should be doing in a battlefield). But this game wasn't enough for my guild of 60 excited people who started the game 57 quit effectively halfway through March. And even my limited technical issues remain I PVP I want good response from the game a lot of work, money and time went into it. And even though I know nothing about programming I swear that if I had Star Wars, whatever million dollars and 5 years I would damn sure have a game that would blow people's minds or work myself to death-literally trying. This game needed a year more of work and more due diligence before it's release.

I like the animations, light sabers and music when I am killing stuff.

At some point the developers sat back from their computers and white boards, and started patting themselves on the back. Unfortunately for us, no one bothered to interrupt their party and tell them that the game wasn't finished yet.

I will make this my last statement. "what happened?".

They thought about shortsided ROI instead of the long term. The shareholder's needs were put ahead of the customer's enjoyment. The result was a game that was great for the first month but the mmo consumer is sophisticated (some will not like that word but it is true in the sense that people have been exposed to multiple games and can compare features even if they are brutal in those comparisons) and voracious. They thought they had a product that was good enough to launch and they underestimated the consumers of that product in terms of their: wants, needs and patience.

What happened?
Someone lost the big picture.

It's like a red thread which can be found all through their sources, their communication, their patchnotes, their development.

Easy one: Patchnotes as in "XYZ is now fixed/corrected".
i.e. "no credit for warzone win" "companion earpiece/implants" "you can RE now orange pieces without an armoring inside".
"Oh - there was a miscommunication. It wasnt planned to be released now"
"Eeeeehhhh. *HOTFIX*"
"You can only RE oranges without armoring which are non crafted items" - "Yeah, but we can RE BM/WH gear" - "I mean you can only RE oranges without armoring which are non crafted items AND the current endgame orange craftables".
I dont think the people who wrote those reponses are stupid. They probably looked it up and gave the answer to the best of their knowledge. But their source was outdated / wrong / whatever.

If we look at the recent podcast:
"This is Daniel Erickson coming at you at Lead Designer"
"Daniel: I am like, "What are you doing with rocket boots?" "We’re going to put in rocket boots!" and I am like, "I don't remember anything in the design-” and they’re like, "Rocket boots!" And I’m like, “Alright, alright.”"
"Daniel: [...] and they said, "Look what we can do?" and I am like, "Okay, are we doing it?" And they’re like, "Yeah!" Alright, we are going to brawl."
Their _lead_ designer doesnt know what the legacy strike team is working on prior to the LEGACY patch? Sure I understand freedom in development etc. But it's not like there are no legacy design features missing. (btw rocket boots are awesome!)

Server transfer/merger mess. "We need time, we dont have the technology". Ok fair answer. Except, that they've stated that legacy was a core feature prior to launch - that it interconnects with every other thing.
Well... except with server transfers. That just doesnt really work out with legacy. So they designed the legacy without server transfers in mind. "The way you save your legacy data on a server - keep in mind we will probably allow character transfers!" (for PTS, for Asia-Pacific, ...)

All of their individual teams seem to be awsome.
The story is awesome. The instances are entertaining. The PvP is basically fun (let's ignore Illum^^). Legacy is decent. Crafting is decent but seems to be very low priority. Event team seems to be good. The engine team did some good improvements (atlasing, ability delay reduction (not removal!), low quality options).
But when you look at the intersections of these points: group finder, crossrealm technology, transfers / mergers.
It just falls apart. Stuff doesnt work together. Different teams seem to work with different prototypes - features getting lost during building the final patch etc.

That one guy who visits everyone and make sures they keep in mind that they dont work alone and need to have their stuff working with the stuff other teams of the studio created. The one who makes sure SOMEONE in the whole company knows where each different different "strike team" is focusing on atm. What is included in the next patch.
That guy. He's missing.