If it were up to me, it would take the crafting, open world sandbox, class less system of SWG, the storytelling, voice acting, and cutscenes of SWTOR, and the graphics of Battlefront. But Hey, 2023 is right around the corner...

You'd have my sub!

Go back and revisit the old cutscenes and put them into the kotfe style. That will make the game at least feel more cohesive.

I would for sure quit the game. I hate the "see the back of my head while I sit here mute" crap if that's what you're talking about.

I would for sure quit the game. I hate the "see the back of my head while I sit here mute" crap if that's what you're talking about.

Oh hell no. Not talking about that.

Here's some examples:

• https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--7VT5IYgPv8/VpP4eaOsL_I/AAAAAAAACuQ/ghXAzBbTmhA/w1200-h630-p-nu/KotFE%2Bchapter%2Bone%2Bintro%2Bscreen.jpg
  
• https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4BAlSz8K1cg/VwFEGloXnpI/AAAAAAAAC_M/ghuz_UqLY8sHtk1Wg_jW0oormxJMNhl1A/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/KotFE%2Bchapter%2Beight%2Bintro%2Bscreen.jpg
  

See the chapter title splash?

Would be nice if at the beginning of each new chapter, we get that in the vanilla game at a bare minimum.

Don't hold out hope for any meaningful post-launch support of any title if EA is involved. *eyes Anthem*

It's funny, isn't it? First Andromeda gets frozen after like 2 months of planned 'content' and support is canned because the game was memed to death (though I enjoyed it). Then the Battlefront 2 debacle happened, arguably their worst because Disney stepped in. Now it's a pretty damn successful game and continues to receive great support almost 2 years later. Then Anthem happens and while EA has stated that support will continue, there's been radio silence. Maybe they just need time to restructure since it was a huge mess. The other day, the guy behind No Man's Sky said that that's exactly what BioWare needs to do while they work through everything, to take all the feedback and work vigorously and quietly.

We'll see in a few months where that goes, I'm not as blatantly pessimistic. Just don't go to the subreddit.

If it were up to me, it would take the crafting, open world sandbox, class less system of SWG, the storytelling, voice acting, and cutscenes of SWTOR, and the graphics of Battlefront.

This is what I need. This is the only way I’ll feel like I am fully part of Star Wars.

The road to becoming a Jedi/Sith shouldn’t be handed to you at character select, it needs to be difficult. Having the fastest ship in the galaxy shouldn’t mean you have it because the story gave it to you, but because you built it, modified it, and made it a legend all on your own. Etc.

I have dreamed of SWG type game with Battlefront graphics and SWTOR/KOTOR story for ages. Hope I live to see it, but if I were a game developer, making a game like this happen would be my #1 priority.

I believe at one point they wanted to kill off the game, EA that is, to avoid conflicts with their own SW titles.

I believe they thought the game would be dead by now with no support during the whole Anthem development and subsequent release.

I believe something changed when we got to this point and the game was still there, still profitable, and still moving forward.

MMOs have been ignored for the most part by most companies of late in favor of the quick bucks on mobile and other play for weekend and finish them titles with very little replay value. There have been some exceptions to that rule such as FF and ESO, and i think the fact that this game is still here, and the success of those that have gotten proper attention, might have actually convinced EA to do something with SWTOR.

Do i think we will see that in 6.0, no, too soon and it was probably something previously planned that was on the scrap heap resurrected... but i do think there is a future.

The problem has never been BW, its EA... and i think EA might have finally figured out they were ignoring a potential gold mine.

Well see, i could be 100% wrong, but it really is hard to mess up a SW title, and EA somehow managed to nearly do it.

I believe at one point they wanted to kill off the game, EA that is, to avoid conflicts with their own SW titles.

I believe they thought the game would be dead by now with no support during the whole Anthem development and subsequent release.

I believe something changed when we got to this point and the game was still there, still profitable, and still moving forward.

MMOs have been ignored for the most part by most companies of late in favor of the quick bucks on mobile and other play for weekend and finish them titles with very little replay value. There have been some exceptions to that rule such as FF and ESO, and i think the fact that this game is still here, and the success of those that have gotten proper attention, might have actually convinced EA to do something with SWTOR.

Do i think we will see that in 6.0, no, too soon and it was probably something previously planned that was on the scrap heap resurrected... but i do think there is a future.

The problem has never been BW, its EA... and i think EA might have finally figured out they were ignoring a potential gold mine.

Well see, i could be 100% wrong, but it really is hard to mess up a SW title, and EA somehow managed to nearly do it.

I see it a little different. EA just wanted to squeeze SWTOR for $$$ and had essentially otherwise given up on developing it since the Launch didn't happen how they wanted (despite that team asking for 6 more months and being told no). They jumped the gun, ran off anyone on the team who wanted to continue doing class stories (including the 2 founders of Bioware) and then installed bean counter producer after bean counter producer to maximize profits with no real investment into the game.

Then came the cancellation after cancellation of games when they got the SW IP, and the underwhelming battlefront series.

More than anything, I think that changed the calculus. There were rumors that Disney was investigating terminating the agreement and the legal ramifications of it, especially when the time period hit that the games should have been released, and instead we kept hearing about SW cancellations.

Something changed around that time. They hired a new producer - Keith, who was the first guy to try to reach out to the players in a long damn time. Of course, he's since gone into hiding as an angry mob skewered him alive on the forums over the Kotfe debacle - mostly because he was trying to make excuses for his team over abandoning the player's individual stories. But even with that, he still was out there more than any of the producers.

Other things changed under his watch too. I long have been hard on Eric Musco. I don't know what it was like working under those producers, but Eric just came across very poorly, and at times when a community manager needed to step in and step up, he either was nowhere to be found, or even managed to make matters WORSE (like blaming the community for a crazed stalker who came after one of the devs, and threatened not to communicate with us any more). For all I know, maybe it was the stress of the work environment back then. You would only see him really about 2 months before a big release to be a marketing hype man otherwise.

But under Keith, I have to say Eric is like a new man. He's different. He's active, engaging with the community, and doing and being everything a community manager should be. He's won me over, and I will admit in some of those low times I did call for his firing. I wouldn't say that now - he's finally got it and is doing the job in spades. The communication level compared to before is off the charts. And that's under Keith's direction.

I think EA needs to prove now that they know what they are doing with the SW License. And with so many projects cancelled, they have needed to let go of the reigns a bit and allow what they have left to just make good games. Fallen Order looks amazing for instance, and even Amy Hennig from the cancelled project ragtag wondered how it was allowed to get made since her project got cancelled due to the inability to find a way to monetize it (cash shop, loot boxes, etc). I think with SWTOR already existing as a game, they are also releasing the reigns on this game and hoping for a payoff from the expansion so they can use it as leverage with Disney to keep the license.

In other words, they NEED SWTOR now. They cancelled almost everything else. So with Disney keeping a close eye, now they need to show they can do something worthwhile with the licenses.

I think that more than anything is why the renewed investment now. Time is ticking with the contract set to expire in 2022 and it taking at least 3 years to fully develop a game.

And if you want to read an article on this, here ya go: https://screenrant.com/disney-star-wars-ea-games/

If it were up to me, it would take the crafting, open world sandbox, class less system of SWG, the storytelling, voice acting, and cutscenes of SWTOR, and the graphics of Battlefront. But Hey, 2023 is right around the corner...

Sounds kinda like what SWG was originally envisioned as (graphics aside). I recall one of Raph Koster's post-mortem articles about SWG, talking about something to do with ideas they had (or he had) to do with making series of story quests. I don't know if he ever aspired to do cutscenes and voice acting, but I would guess he would have thought it to be the right direction for fulfilling a star wars fantasy.

I don't know if I'm portraying Raph Koster's stuff entirely accurately, but I like the concept of it anyway.

I see it a little different. EA just wanted to squeeze SWTOR for $$$ and had essentially otherwise given up on developing it since the Launch didn't happen how they wanted (despite that team asking for 6 more months and being told no). They jumped the gun, ran off anyone on the team who wanted to continue doing class stories (including the 2 founders of Bioware) and then installed bean counter producer after bean counter producer to maximize profits with no real investment into the game.

 

Then came the cancellation after cancellation of games when they got the SW IP, and the underwhelming battlefront series.

 

More than anything, I think that changed the calculus. There were rumors that Disney was investigating terminating the agreement and the legal ramifications of it, especially when the time period hit that the games should have been released, and instead we kept hearing about SW cancellations.

 

Something changed around that time. They hired a new producer - Keith, who was the first guy to try to reach out to the players in a long damn time. Of course, he's since gone into hiding as an angry mob skewered him alive on the forums over the Kotfe debacle - mostly because he was trying to make excuses for his team over abandoning the player's individual stories. But even with that, he still was out there more than any of the producers.

 

Other things changed under his watch too. I long have been hard on Eric Musco. I don't know what it was like working under those producers, but Eric just came across very poorly, and at times when a community manager needed to step in and step up, he either was nowhere to be found, or even managed to make matters WORSE (like blaming the community for a crazed stalker who came after one of the devs, and threatened not to communicate with us any more). For all I know, maybe it was the stress of the work environment back then. You would only see him really about 2 months before a big release to be a marketing hype man otherwise.

 

But under Keith, I have to say Eric is like a new man. He's different. He's active, engaging with the community, and doing and being everything a community manager should be. He's won me over, and I will admit in some of those low times I did call for his firing. I wouldn't say that now - he's finally got it and is doing the job in spades. The communication level compared to before is off the charts. And that's under Keith's direction.

 

I think EA needs to prove now that they know what they are doing with the SW License. And with so many projects cancelled, they have needed to let go of the reigns a bit and allow what they have left to just make good games. Fallen Order looks amazing for instance, and even Amy Hennig from the cancelled project ragtag wondered how it was allowed to get made since her project got cancelled due to the inability to find a way to monetize it (cash shop, loot boxes, etc). I think with SWTOR already existing as a game, they are also releasing the reigns on this game and hoping for a payoff from the expansion so they can use it as leverage with Disney to keep the license.

 

In other words, they NEED SWTOR now. They cancelled almost everything else. So with Disney keeping a close eye, now they need to show they can do something worthwhile with the licenses.

 

I think that more than anything is why the renewed investment now. Time is ticking with the contract set to expire in 2022 and it taking at least 3 years to fully develop a game.

 

And if you want to read an article on this, here ya go: https://screenrant.com/disney-star-wars-ea-games/

Also entirely possible, we both agree that there was some paradigm shift at one point, the reasons dont matter really but it suggests that where it goes from here should be very different than where it has gone in the past. At least, i hope that to be the case.

Sounds kinda like what SWG was originally envisioned as (graphics aside). I recall one of Raph Koster's post-mortem articles about SWG, talking about something to do with ideas they had (or he had) to do with making series of story quests. I don't know if he ever aspired to do cutscenes and voice acting, but I would guess he would have thought it to be the right direction for fulfilling a star wars fantasy.

 

I don't know if I'm portraying Raph Koster's stuff entirely accurately, but I like the concept of it anyway.

Raph Koster. Ugh, that name still pisses me off.

He singlehandedly put a bullet into SWG and most don't realize it.

It started when the game went live and Carbineer and Creature Handler were slightly overtuned - mostly carbineer because there was an infinite knockdown trick that was bad news. For creature handler, they weren't overpowered, but people were competitive and having fun with them.

However, there was a small group of players who complained about both.

Carbineer's knockdown was an obvious need to be fixed. Creature Handler could use a slight lowering of DPS in terms of balance, but it was a sandbox and people were loving it.

So what happens?

Does the SWG team nerf just that?

NOPE. The team DESTROYED Carbineer as a viable profession, and also killed much of what made creature handler fun, saying "I only intended this for people to have and keep pets, not battle." Nevermind that the mechanics allowed you to sell a tamed animal to someone else for pet keeping.

So because of this, it kicked off a toxicity in the SWG community that led to it being recognized as the worst community in MMOs of that era - whiny, self-entitled, HORRIBLE.

All because of Raph.

Not just because of this one change. But because he KEPT DOING IT.

After the first time, the community then smelled blood. They would demand a profession get nerfed, and next update, Raph would have that profession nerfed into OBLIVION. I called it the Nerf Wars. And he did it EVERY TIME.

It was because of this disaster of a policy that the community got out of control, and also because of it was the reason there ended up being a CU and an NGE in the first place.

All because Raph couldn't just figure out what needed to be done himself, or if the community found a unique way to play a profession in a SANDBOX that wasn't out of balance or hurting anyone, and instead would just destroy profession after profession based on who was screaming the loudest and what profession's head they were screaming for next.

He took this great game he built - and then proceeded to systematically destroy it with his stupid leadership...

Raph Koster. Ugh, that name still pisses me off.

 

He singlehandedly put a bullet into SWG and most don't realize it.

 

It started when the game went live and Carbineer and Creature Handler were slightly overtuned - mostly carbineer because there was an infinite knockdown trick that was bad news. For creature handler, they weren't overpowered, but people were competitive and having fun with them.

 

However, there was a small group of players who complained about both.

 

Carbineer's knockdown was an obvious need to be fixed. Creature Handler could use a slight lowering of DPS in terms of balance, but it was a sandbox and people were loving it.

 

So what happens?

 

Does the SWG team nerf just that?

 

NOPE. The team DESTROYED Carbineer as a viable profession, and also killed much of what made creature handler fun, saying "I only intended this for people to have and keep pets, not battle." Nevermind that the mechanics allowed you to sell a tamed animal to someone else for pet keeping.

 

So because of this, it kicked off a toxicity in the SWG community that led to it being recognized as the worst community in MMOs of that era - whiny, self-entitled, HORRIBLE.

 

All because of Raph.

 

Not just because of this one change. But because he KEPT DOING IT.

 

After the first time, the community then smelled blood. They would demand a profession get nerfed, and next update, Raph would have that profession nerfed into OBLIVION. I called it the Nerf Wars. And he did it EVERY TIME.

 

It was because of this disaster of a policy that the community got out of control, and also because of it was the reason there ended up being a CU and an NGE in the first place.

 

All because Raph couldn't just figure out what needed to be done himself, or if the community found a unique way to play a profession in a SANDBOX that wasn't out of balance or hurting anyone, and instead would just destroy profession after profession based on who was screaming the loudest and what profession's head they were screaming for next.

 

He took this great game he built - and then proceeded to systematically destroy it with his stupid leadership...

To be fair to Raph Koster, I'm pretty sure he's admitted to them missing the mark in various ways and has gone into pretty great detail about the history of the game on his blog over the years. Something that most game leaders don't take the time to do, or have the humility to go into detail about their mistakes.

Here's one of his articles where he talks about it (I think this is the final one): https://www.raphkoster.com/2015/04/27/did-star-wars-galaxies-fail/

And there's quite a lot of "we screwed up" admitting in there.

He's admitting to some things but not the core things that made the game tank. The Nerf wars were a symbol of his bad leadership. In that one sense he is finally correct, he failed the game. Which is incredible because he designed one hell of a game in the first place, and then proceeded to tear it down completely once it went live.

That's where the thing he mentions in the article about leadership may come in.

I think everyone had good intentions towards me in promoting me to Chief Creative Officer. I certainly was into the idea of a big promotion!

My moving off the team resulted in a massive loss of institutional knowledge, and most importantly, left the team without a clear vision of what the game was. You can’t make changes faithful to the experience if you don’t know. This is my fault for failing to convey the vision adequately to everyone; I can only plead enormous scale, and yes, inexperience in working at that scale. I’ve often gotten the critique that I over-collaborate, for example, instead of providing firm direction. That can easily turn into a splintered image of the game. I was also given the normally excellent advice, “Don’t hover over your old team, they need to learn to lead themselves.” Under most circumstances, it’s utterly true. The fact that it wasn’t in this case can be attributed to the fact that I didn’t really train a replacement. It wasn’t until there was more team turnover and the developers were active players of the game who really loved it and therefore understood it, that we saw some things change.

The impression I get (if I'm interpreting it correctly) is that when he took on the role of Chief Creative Officer, the in-the-trenches team lost a ton of knowledge about the details and direction of the game. And from there, he failed to convey accurately what his vision was for the game.

Sounds like the Peter Principle in action, mixed with the team losing the main guy who was most competent/knowledgeable in the position he was at before being promoted. So a double whammy.

That's where the thing he mentions in the article about leadership may come in.

 

The impression I get (if I'm interpreting it correctly) is that when he took on the role of Chief Creative Officer, the in-the-trenches team lost a ton of knowledge about the details and direction of the game. And from there, he failed to convey accurately what his vision was for the game.

 

Sounds like the Peter Principle in action, mixed with the team losing the main guy who was most competent/knowledgeable in the position he was at before being promoted. So a double whammy.

Sounds a hell of a lot what happened with swtor after the launch. They main guys left or were moved or fired. That left people without the direction and with Ben Irving to guide them. As more people left, the worse things got because Ben didn’t know what he was doing.

Sounds a hell of a lot what happened with swtor after the launch. They main guys left or were moved or fired. That left people without the direction and with Ben Irving to guide them. As more people left, the worse things got because Ben didn’t know what he was doing.

Yeah, I can see what you mean. I wouldn't be surprised if the same general thing happened.

This was posted by Trixx in another thread.

IMO... EVERYONE should take the time to see all 3 parts to this.

Trixx ... i hope you don't mind. Feel free to have it removed if you like. BUT IMO ... this really is worth the time to watch all 3 parts.

OH.. and just in case your Japanese is a bit rusty ( or as in my case virtually non existent) ... there is a provision made for English translated subtitles.

You also have other producers like Square Enix. They really messed up FFXIV but we’re smart enough to listen to their players after and then put a real effort into fixing it.

 

Here is part one of the a 3 part series on how Square Enix fixed FFXIV.

The death and rebirth of FFXIV online

 

It’s worth watching.

IMO... there is still a lot of positive potential that has yet to be tapped in this game. There is a lot that was done right (even if some still don't like it). Yes there is a lot that can be learned and should be done differently. What I'm afraid of is that some of the hard core ... "do it my way or else".. will continue to harp on everyone an belittle the development team as we have seen so much of lately.

Yes some mistakes have been made. We need to get past that and focus HOW to fix things. I know that several players have made a number of really good suggestions in the areas of PvP ... PvE content (and related areas to content) .. Companion issues that need to be addressed , excessive grinding , BUG squashing, Solo player concerns as well as insuring multiple levels of difficulties, newly added Ops and other sound suggestions as well.

6.0 has already been determined ... the release is not that far off. It make take a couple more segments after that... 6.1 / 6.2 / 6.3 ... who knows.

I'm just not quite ready to give up... Not yet !

All of us .. players / BW and EA ...( all of us ) need for this to work !