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Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game


CourtneyWoods

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Topic #3: Oceanic populations. Are we doing anything about them?

 

Answer: We are very aware of the concerns with the population levels on the Oceanic servers. The problem is pretty complex, as the solutions we have either split the populations further (like allowing Oceanic players to move to North American servers), or would force players to go to server types (PvP or RP, etc…) that they do not want to be on. Our current plan is to wait for Free-to-Play to launch and see what the influx of new players does to the populations of these servers. We will give it a little time and if we do not see significant improvement, then we will move ahead with the solution that offers the best playing experience for the Oceanic community.

 

 

With so many restrictions f2p offers, how can this help end-game PVE and PVP population on APAC servers? Enlight me on this please Mr "our game is awesome, and we know it"

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If at all possible one of the things I would like more then anything other then SGR with companions, would be different voices for the various species, not necessarily every class but I feel that different species would at least sound differently from each other. I do understand that it would be a fair amount of dosh to implement and also a lot of work, but I do just get somewhat tired of more of the same every time (not that I plan to ever unsubscribe though).
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Hi. I've never posted on one of these before, but I had what seems like a legitimate question which has thus-far been unanswered. Why hasn't this game come out for the Mac? I have friends who want to play with me but don't have PCs (as we PC games become more and more of a dying breed. Yes, I hate it too.) and the thing that is driving them away from the game is not the subscription cost. In fact, as professionals, many of us have the money to play the game with full subscriptions, but without a great PC with a better internet connection the game eludes many. So my question really is, has there been internal communications about bringing this game "multi-platform"?

 

Other than that, let me just say (and I'm sure I'll get properly trolled for this) that I love the game and the class stories continue bringing me back time and again. The quality of the updates are wonderful: we who enjoy the game know that you put hard work into these updates and it shows. Thank you for your continued work and your dedication to SWTOR and the community.

Edited by oldfieldnaturals
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You're going to kill the APAC servers if you wait too long (a couple of months after f2p is too long).

Do something about it. This whole answer without answering is total garbage, learn how to give proper answers.

 

They don't know how. It's been the same evasive crap since day 1. Even after what, a couple months ago that Joveth came out and said "We have a new plan and it [communication] is going to be much better going forward, not like when we lied to you all the first time", nothing has changed.

 

Don't hold your breath expecting them to answer the real questions. The questions they don't like or don't know how to answer without looking stupid are simply ignored. I thought they'd have figured out by now that ignoring the important questions actually looks worse. But...nope. Same old Bioware, same old talking a bunch without actually saying anything. They cherry-pick easy questions and stonewall on everything else.

 

My boss' 8 year-old communicates more effectively than they do.

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They don't know how. It's been the same evasive crap since day 1. Even after what, a couple months ago that Joveth came out and said "We have a new plan and it [communication] is going to be much better going forward, not like when we lied to you all the first time", nothing has changed.

 

Don't hold your breath expecting them to answer the real questions. The questions they don't like or don't know how to answer without looking stupid are simply ignored. I thought they'd have figured out by now that ignoring the important questions actually looks worse. But...nope. Same old Bioware, same old talking a bunch without actually saying anything. They cherry-pick easy questions and stonewall on everything else.

 

My boss' 8 year-old communicates more effectively than they do.

 

they know how, the NA/EU servers are proof enough of that. I believe you about your boss' daughter, EAware employees just don't communicate effectively enough to run any sort of business.

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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.

 

Sadly this... I am a huge Star Wars fan, you get my money cause of the name and I don't play as often as I used to on WoW. I started WoW just after open and quit when ToR came out. ToR is not even close to providing the entertainment that WoW does.... you guys need to draw people in not trick them into coming back to find out they have to pay for items they win in a roll. You guys have a good start but learn what keeps players going back to WoW, any player good or bad can play any part of WoW. Different layers of skill sets of raids, easy group forming. Can change factions quickly to get a new "feel" for the game. Fun=money, you might have to take a hit at the start (as far as profit) but it will make you another giant.

Another note....fix your crashes.....I spend more time relogging into the game from crashing to desktop more than I get to play....

Edited by Darindesh
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Your daughter doesn't have to worry about wrong communication causing a stock loss. Welcome to the world of investors.

 

EA and other stake holders want to see positive feedback but in a world of complaints they can't be bold, they can't spill thier plans for the future and they can't commit to issues that they can't confirm they can make... which after pulling out workers from new content to work other products, bug fixing, or system tuning, they can't commit to anything reliably.

 

The 4-6 week content update is brilliant political point that raised confidence. But no one beleives that these would be big updates, but then as F2P is taking longer and longer for release, the update has to look bigger.

 

What should have been F2P and Section X, now has to have HK51 as well as time is slipping out too fast.

 

EA care about investment return, if they don't get money from players they have to cut back on costs. Otherwise the investers act like player base and ***** and leave because they didn't get the returns that EA promised them.

 

'Yes Men' occur in business because they can say that they will get the results the employer wants for the budget the employer wants. If they didn't say they could, they wouldn't get the job when the last guy who couldn't supply the impossible was fired. The problem isn't that yes men are consistantly bad or even inept, it is that in saying you can you prioritise doing so over the quality and investment to the product.

 

Starwars is a beloved IP. Kotor is a beloved predecent. If you don't love them, what are the odds you will make more content that those who love them will enjoy.

 

Mr Hickman, a tattoo does not tell me you love Star Wars or have any commitment to making TOR great than earning a paycheck. I don't care about you, I care about the entertainment and friendship I have, and till now that has been enough to keep me subscribed. You made me care more about $15 a month than those things.

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And yet again you ignore the biggest topic on peoples minds, PvP. How this wasn't top of your list of reasons you went FTP is beyond me. Everyone I know who has quit, quit over PvP after the balance changes in 1.2. Everyone I know who would like to come back but won't, won't because PvP is still a big mess from 1.2. You should change that top point to read;

 

1. Our PvP was awesome. Now people hate it and don't want to play it.

 

You've even admitted it yourselves, you had no idea PvP was going to be so popular, so why are you not doing more about it? There are millions of avid PvP'ers out there and SWTOR could be a real home, but it will never be a home to those players if you keep on ignoring your existing ones. Serious changes need to be made to make PvP a hospitable environment again, which means you need to start seriously listening to your player-base.

 

Stop ignoring your PvP community, it's beyond a joke now. I can't even begin to describe how little respect I have for you as a games company after the way you've treated the PvP community, it's disgusting, it really is. If serious changes aren't made when FTP hits, I'm out of here, and I won't be the only one I can assure you. And that's not even counting all the potential FTP customers PvP will put off right from the get go given the state it's in now.

 

Ignoring the problem won't make it go away, it will however have serious repercussions for the game, like it already has...

 

This. Apparently, we have to continue bashing it through the DEVs heads because they're still not getting it.

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And yet again you ignore the biggest topic on peoples minds, PvP. How this wasn't top of your list of reasons you went FTP is beyond me. Everyone I know who has quit, quit over PvP after the balance changes in 1.2. Everyone I know who would like to come back but won't, won't because PvP is still a big mess from 1.2. You should change that top point to read;

 

1. Our PvP was awesome. Now people hate it and don't want to play it.

 

You've even admitted it yourselves, you had no idea PvP was going to be so popular, so why are you not doing more about it? There are millions of avid PvP'ers out there and SWTOR could be a real home, but it will never be a home to those players if you keep on ignoring your existing ones. Serious changes need to be made to make PvP a hospitable environment again, which means you need to start seriously listening to your player-base.

 

Stop ignoring your PvP community, it's beyond a joke now. I can't even begin to describe how little respect I have for you as a games company after the way you've treated the PvP community, it's disgusting, it really is. If serious changes aren't made when FTP hits, I'm out of here, and I won't be the only one I can assure you. And that's not even counting all the potential FTP customers PvP will put off right from the get go given the state it's in now.

 

Ignoring the problem won't make it go away, it will however have serious repercussions for the game, like it already has...

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

You hit it right their. Just like many other MMO's the pvp comunity is looked down on like we don't exist compared to everyone else and we get ignored. The guild I had played with for yrs has quit ( over a hundred payed subscription members) and now only a cple of us left and it is becouse PVP is seriously hurting. Lots of great suggestions in the forums for fixing and brining back world pvp but we here nothing.

 

So please Devs, let us know you hear us so we don't feel ignored and wake up cuz its not the paying that drove them away, its the fact that you abandoned us and fail to aknowledge us and the truth. its like you hear only what you want to hear and not the people like you need to because we play the game. loose us and loose your job. I understand their is a lot to read in the forums but the majority on this thread is telling you PVP needs a proper fix. get it right and you may get those who quit back.

Edited by Rydlin
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Well, I'm not a PVP'er personally, but one thing I can say is this: My guild used to be full of PVP'ing every day. Now nobody PVPs, ever. I used to hear abut how fun it was, now everyone just stopped. So even without experiencing it personally, I feel the above statement must be true.
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Hello everyone,

 

**snip**

 

Jeff Hickman

Executive Producer

Dear Sir,

 

in case you are wondering in others MMO people are getting two way communication and the producers after such posts usually step in to address the main concerns.

 

The choice is in your hands.

 

Regards,

D.

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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.

 

You're joking right? Have you tried Call of Duty? Or a game designed for PvP? Don't complain that a PvE game is forcing you to do PvE content....

 

Stop ignoring your PvP community, it's beyond a joke now. I can't even begin to describe how little respect I have for you as a games company after the way you've treated the PvP community, it's disgusting, it really is.

 

Have you not noticed how they make class changes based on PvPers whining about class imbalances? My Inquisitor has to face the target to knock them back now (which, due to the camera being unreliable, means many wasted uses of the ability), thanks to the "disgusting" treatment of the PvP community. PvP affecting PvE on a PvE game... That is disgusting...

Edited by Mevan
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Wow and i mean wow thats alot of smoke blown up my ***. Just sayin with the massive smuldering pile you guys truned this game into im guessing smoke isnt in short demand. Fix the game were over the bug story tiried of being told its all on our end and starting to get overly angry with you ppl. Love the game but the bugs you guys let in with 1.4 might kill this thing if you dont do something about them soon.
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I wonder if the issues with content and features aren't really an issue regarding the developers, but more about limitations with the game engine. Face it, they spent a lot of money on voice-overs and skimped on the most important part of an MMO; a scalable engine.

 

Games like EQ1 had more and better features at release than TOR and it was released in 99 and it still has subscribers even though it went F2P this year.

 

DDO which released in Feb 06 had integrated VoIP. I played DDO, couldn't stand WoW becoming the modern day baby-sitter. However, I left DDO when it went F2P, but the VoIP feature was awesome. I never had to worry about having the right voice client for groups or raids and then going through the setup up for everyones individual settings.

 

The executive who made the engine decision should go the way Burger King's exective went when they switched fries. The voice-overs are nice, but I'd have been just as happy with chat bubbles. Had I been in charge, only class (and maybe planet series) missions would have had voice.

 

After I read the WAR/Hickman article, I'll probably do the same thing I did with WAR, unsub/uninstall.

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For those who think that this is troll or hate post - please don't. I just had enough.

 

Game was incomplete from the get-go. I remember watching re-spawns deployed by shuttles on Ord Mantel, while there is no other nice cover for re-spawn on any planet, except maybe for Korriban when those monstrosities crawl out of the floor. Next planet you visit you won't see this cosmetics.

 

After second planet any planet falls into same pattern, nothing unique besides textures whatsoever. So we know what that means. Developers just pulled together what they had and released what they could. So we played stories, 'soul-numbed' (well said before on massively) by grinding levels on tedious tasks in-between, 'fascinated' with WoW-like combat (which I find revolting). We did it all.

 

We talked about all problems game has. We offered our feedback. We still do - look at posts in this thread. A bunch of bright fellas told you back in beta about game's problems. You did nothing.

 

And now, finally, you tell us: 'Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.'

Well, that's just great. No, game sucks. People play SWTOR for different reasons, but very little percent of subscription base - if any at all - plays it because it's awesome.

 

Then you wrote: 'The subscription requirement was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying monthly.'

Problems I mentioned above drive away huge number of people. Huuuuuge. Not subscription requirement. Don't try to make FTP conversion look as consequence and solution of game's problems. It is desperate try to make game profitable, that's what it is.

 

'The frequency of our Game Updates was way too slow.'

The quality of game updates way too low.

 

'People were leaving because we were not releasing new content fast enough to keep up with the pace at which it was being consumed.'

No one can cook updates fast enough. Players always consume content much faster then it is developed. It is quality of released content and new innovative features keep players busy and happy.

 

I won't even mention your answers to questions. Brrr.

 

I'm very sad to see such 'state of the game' article. To take reader for a fool is to show disrespect. You don't even admit real problems and talk about anything but true state of the game. Don't try to sell us car, please.

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I can understand why you have stated that you don't want to merge the servers for the APAC and force players onto a server type, but really, HAVE you read the forum topics on this issues? HAVE you read how many players and guilds WANT Mergers/Transfers?

 

Leave the servers up if it means that much to you, I think its great that you want to provide the option for those players who want a specific server type, But can't you at least consider transferring the ones that have requested a transfer?

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=548862

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=548871

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Hi Jeff I really enjoyed reading your introduction to this "state-of-the-game" thread. Especially how long you have worked on MMO's and what you have done within the industry since 2000 , I have played MMO's since 2000 weirdly and realise how much fun and stress you must have had. Also your background information about why some dev's leave/have left is very insightful as there have been a lot of threads about various dev's leaving and they have been mostly very negative.

 

Troll much?

Edited by tarkkonis
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I am a current sub and love the game with no plans to leave any time soon. One thing I think needs to be looked at is the end game gear design. I play a sith Sorc. as my main and my gear looks nothing like any sith I have seen in a movie, cartoon, art, or comic. I would rather look like a proper sith lord. Then a space wizard with plant life and skulls on me.
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I wonder if the issues with content and features aren't really an issue regarding the developers, but more about limitations with the game engine. Face it, they spent a lot of money on voice-overs and skimped on the most important part of an MMO; a scalable engine.

 

Games like EQ1 had more and better features at release than TOR and it was released in 99 and it still has subscribers even though it went F2P this year.

 

DDO which released in Feb 06 had integrated VoIP. I played DDO, couldn't stand WoW becoming the modern day baby-sitter. However, I left DDO when it went F2P, but the VoIP feature was awesome. I never had to worry about having the right voice client for groups or raids and then going through the setup up for everyones individual settings.

 

The executive who made the engine decision should go the way Burger King's exective went when they switched fries. The voice-overs are nice, but I'd have been just as happy with chat bubbles. Had I been in charge, only class (and maybe planet series) missions would have had voice.

 

After I read the WAR/Hickman article, I'll probably do the same thing I did with WAR, unsub/uninstall.

 

The engine is total garbage and everyone knows it. We're talking about a game released in 20 freaking 11 and we have performance cheats like sharding and 2D trees. Distant NPCs (even when 'distant' is across a large room) render at 4 FPS. Shadows kill performance and look terrible. I run the game on RAID 0 SSDs and the load times are ridiculous. Loading screens for everything, including when I alt tab out to check an email. Come on.

 

I had a thread going earlier this year where we, the community, actually found the sources of a lot of the FPS issues. Hundreds of posts, thousands and thousands of views. Not one dev or even CM response.

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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.

Ebán Sith Marauder

 

Keep in mind it could be said that a lot of players are more interested in the RP facet of the game rather than the mmo. Personally I have no interest in playing alongside a bunch of random strangers, and many swtor players feel the same way. I think it's great that I can play with my RL friends when they are online, but I dont want to have to stop playing and wait for a friend to come help me and I DEFINITELY dont want to be forced into MP with people I dont know or like or care about.. The game is nicely divided between RP and MP content, I dont want to be excluded from RP content

 

I think most of the fanboys out there would agree with me on this, the stories NEED to solo-able. On the other hand, I'm all for an increase in the level cap. I would like to see more RP content before I see more high level MP content, but if it would make the mmo-ers like you happy, I would be fine to see the devs create some higher level, more difficult MP stuff. Although I think they are already addressing that with Operations and such... but in any case, I think its fair to say a lot of people are happy that they can solo so much of the content.

Edited by VesstaraKai
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I wish people would stop turning on the best part of the game (the story and voice work) out of frustration with the engine. They had different teams working on them. They chose their engine in 2006. The decisions for combat, graphics, and end game content were not hindered by the story, stand and fall on their own.

 

The thing that keeps me hanging on in this game more than anything is hope that class stories will continue some day. Yes, I enjoy operations with my guild and that's important to the game, but they're more fun because I have a stronger feeling of attachment to the characters I play than I ever did in other MMOs.

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You're joking right? Have you tried Call of Duty? Or a game designed for PvP? Don't complain that a PvE game is forcing you to do PvE content....

 

 

 

Have you not noticed how they make class changes based on PvPers whining about class imbalances? My Inquisitor has to face the target to knock them back now (which, due to the camera being unreliable, means many wasted uses of the ability), thanks to the "disgusting" treatment of the PvP community. PvP affecting PvE on a PvE game... That is disgusting...

 

This. Thank you for defending the obvious intention of the game. When they said "we never expected PVP to be so popular", they meant that they didnt design the game to revolve around pvp, and so it shouldnt. PVP is fine and great as it is. Sure we could use some more warzones, but how about a little more content first, rather than making devs waste time tweaking and retweaking things that work fine the way they are?

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This. Thank you for defending the obvious intention of the game. When they said "we never expected PVP to be so popular", they meant that they didnt design the game to revolve around pvp, and so it shouldnt. PVP is fine and great as it is. Sure we could use some more warzones, but how about a little more content first, rather than making devs waste time tweaking and retweaking things that work fine the way they are?

 

thats right. Many other mmo's fail in this department and yes I hear the other play types and understand your issues. But what you have is 3 types of gamers (RP, PVE, and PVP) RP and PVE are given more and talked about more by the devs. PVP is getting next to nothing and no responses. This game had overloaded servers to begin with and as pvp was brushed aside so did a huge scale of players. The issue was never having to pay, it was the lack of PVP that drives us to play. And still no answers to the pvp community as this thread is over loaded with us complaining and want to be acknoldged that you hear us. If you devs don't know what to do here is an easy suggestion: make 3 seperate threads on suggestion to fix-1 what RPers suggest, 2 what pve suggest, and 3 what PVP suggest. And don't leave us hanging, make comments urself so we know we r heard. The majority of us post not to troll but what to help the game. We want the best gaming experiense but we don't get it and we feel ignored.

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