My guess is they want to give it more than 24 hours before deciding who gets to come.

They already decided who was invited. All that's left is who they are picking from those that applied.

http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20120201

We've already invited guilds of various backgrounds and sizes to the Summit, from Endgame to Role-playing to PvP guilds, but we've got some space left for additional guild leaders who wish to attend.

What I've been asking, to no avail, is HOW were the guilds, whom they've already invited, selected?

They should have been preparing for that question the moment they decided to select anyone at all.

As some of you have been asking about our criteria for the selection of guilds who we've already invited to the Guild Summit, here's some insight.

Guilds were selected with the ultimate aim of ensuring we had a broad representative mixture of guild sizes, playstyles and geographical locations at the summit (with the assumption that no-one might turn up of their own accord). We have guilds from all types of playstyles, large guilds (2,000+ members), small guilds (20 members) and guilds from across North America and Europe. (Note: many guilds are multi-national; our invites were for guild leaders, who were mostly located in NA/EU.) Guilds were also selected because of their constructive and critical feedback during testing of The Old Republic, both pre-launch and post-launch.

Beyond that, we won't be commenting further on our selection criteria. We've invited a large number of guild leaders, but naturally we could not invite everyone - hence our decision to allow interested guild leaders to attend if they chose to. Further dissection of the selection criteria will only lead to speculation and argument. I can assure you that no guild leader is being invited to Austin because they are 'friends with a developer' or anything similar.

It should also be noted that none of the criteria detailed above are exact guidelines on the selection of guild leaders who apply to attend the summit, beyond the general idea that we still want to have a mix of playstyles, guild sizes and locations. (Please note, we did not ask for a guild membership number as part of the application process.)

The initial aim of this thread was to announce the Guild Summit and to answer any questions regarding it. While I can appreciate people's varying opinions on the summit, turning this thread into a continuous argument about the summit's existence or our potential motives is not productive.

Everyone's views have now been clearly stated and noted. We'll be happy to answer further questions about the summit itself, but back and forth arguments have no place here.

As some of you have been asking about our criteria for the selection of guilds who we've already invited to the Guild Summit, here's some insight.

 

Guilds were selected with the ultimate aim of ensuring we had a broad representative mixture of guild sizes, playstyles and geographical locations at the summit (with the assumption that no-one might turn up of their own accord). We have guilds from all types of playstyles, large guilds (2,000+ members), small guilds (20 members) and guilds from across North America and Europe. (Note: many guilds are multi-national; our invites were for guild leaders, who were mostly located in NA/EU.) Guilds were also selected because of their constructive and critical feedback during testing of The Old Republic, both pre-launch and post-launch.

 

Beyond that, we won't be commenting further on our selection criteria. We've invited a large number of guild leaders, but naturally we could not invite everyone - hence our decision to allow interested guild leaders to attend if they chose to. Further dissection of the selection criteria will only lead to speculation and argument. I can assure you that no guild leader is being invited to Austin because they are 'friends with a developer' or anything similar.

 

It should also be noted that none of the criteria detailed above are exact guidelines on the selection of guild leaders who apply to attend the summit, beyond the general idea that we still want to have a mix of playstyles, guild sizes and locations. (Please note, we did not ask for a guild membership number as part of the application process.)

 

The initial aim of this thread was to announce the Guild Summit and to answer any questions regarding it. While I can appreciate people's varying opinions on the summit, turning this thread into a continuous argument about the summit's existence or our potential motives is not productive.

 

Everyone's views have now been clearly stated and noted. We'll be happy to answer further questions about the summit itself, but back and forth arguments have no place here.

In short, you have only selected those guilds which are plenty of fanboys who defend this game till the end.

I suggest you one thing, take a look to the PvP forums and then consider re-designing the entire Open PvP of this game. You HAVE TO DO IT, but before GW2 gets on market or you will silk like the Titanic did.

As some of you have been asking about our criteria for the selection of guilds who we've already invited to the Guild Summit, here's some insight.

 

Guilds were selected with the ultimate aim of ensuring we had a broad representative mixture of guild sizes, playstyles and geographical locations at the summit (with the assumption that no-one might turn up of their own accord). We have guilds from all types of playstyles, large guilds (2,000+ members), small guilds (20 members) and guilds from across North America and Europe. (Note: many guilds are multi-national; our invites were for guild leaders, who were mostly located in NA/EU.) Guilds were also selected because of their constructive and critical feedback during testing of The Old Republic, both pre-launch and post-launch.

 

Beyond that, we won't be commenting further on our selection criteria. We've invited a large number of guild leaders, but naturally we could not invite everyone - hence our decision to allow interested guild leaders to attend if they chose to. Further dissection of the selection criteria will only lead to speculation and argument. I can assure you that no guild leader is being invited to Austin because they are 'friends with a developer' or anything similar.

 

It should also be noted that none of the criteria detailed above are exact guidelines on the selection of guild leaders who apply to attend the summit, beyond the general idea that we still want to have a mix of playstyles, guild sizes and locations. (Please note, we did not ask for a guild membership number as part of the application process.)

 

The initial aim of this thread was to announce the Guild Summit and to answer any questions regarding it. While I can appreciate people's varying opinions on the summit, turning this thread into a continuous argument about the summit's existence or our potential motives is not productive.

 

Everyone's views have now been clearly stated and noted. We'll be happy to answer further questions about the summit itself, but back and forth arguments have no place here.

It so happens that one of the guilds with devs playing in it a Imp guild has been selected to go to Austin...

So with your logic, anyone who cannot afford to fly from, let's say, Russia to Texas is not a true starwars fan and is in fact a troll.

 

Seriously?

 

Also, what about those who weren't invited by Bioware, and didn't get one of the limited available spots?

Did u not read my post i said OR will support the idea of a summit. Never said you had to go did I. I am in japan and cant go but i am glad the are putting in the time and money to do this for everyone.

So Seriously if you weren't invited then look a little further thru these post and see how BW said everyone will still be include in someway shape or form. you dont have to be there to help the internet is a great tool!

It so happens that one of the guilds with devs playing in it a Imp guild has been selected to go to Austin...

Blind conjecture isn't productive. Then again, it's also possible. Look up World of Warcraft, Uther, Crusaders of Apathy. We absolutely had developers in that guild, though events were blown out of proportion. So I'll take any "preferential treatment" claims with a serious grain of salt. Because I believe that the developers *should* be players, and not locked inside the towers of their castles...

Then again, I hear that Lord British's estate was up for sale... and it actually has towers.

Browsing the topic I stumbled on the below posts.

1. They've spent somewhere between $80 and $300+ million dollars on development of this game across the lifetime of everything associated with every company working on it and advertising it.
   
2. They took SIX YEARS from concept to go-live.
   
3. The game was in some form of closed beta for OVER ONE YEAR, beginning circa October 2010.
   
4. Just about every single major design problem or major feature that is MISSING was identified pretty much in the first 4 months of closed beta. And repeatedly burned into the forums.
   
5. Not a single major design change was made, and not a single major feature was added, in the entire time that the game was in closed beta.
   

None of us are being too harsh. Harshness is deserved, because BioWare Austin ignored people that they should have been listening to, and instead, listened to those who gushed heaps of disengenuous praise that excused mediocrity and who attacked anyone who even remotely uttered a possible hint of criticism.

 

Perhaps they're finally willing to listen. Hopefully before it's ultimately too late. Perhaps they're not willing to listen. Perhaps it's merely a large publicity stunt. I'm willing to keep an open and hopeful mind. Because after all the money they've spent on the game... they're likely the last, best hope we will have for a very, very long time, for a proper Star Wars property MMO.

 

No one in their right mind will try to do it, ever again.

Obviously, there has to have been some discussions on what positive business outcome is a desired end goal for BioWare Austin. Because BWA has already had well over a year of highly valid closed beta tester feedback on issues that have NEVER been addressed, which seem to be also be repeated ad nauseum, predictably, across the live forums. The coloquial definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. So why is BWA soliciting additional feedback on the game, in person, when they already have an overwhelming amount of it about the same subject? Why in person? Why not have a lower cost video conference and/or GoToMeeting type of a situation?

 

I do apologize, but some of us are highly skeptical and critical, because so much has been ignored, glossed over, or been outright denied, for over a year, only to have those same issues be at the forefront of what players continue to expect and demand... to say nothing of some direct comments by BWA that basically told us that we *were* being ignored (Ohlen, 9/23/11, Gamasutra). Now, we get a notice that "the SWTOR community" is NOT being ignored. That's a good thing... but which is it?

 

 

 

Communication with your customers, especially two way, is a VERY good idea. Hold the event, in some form, no matter what people say.

 

 

 

This is a significant business decision, as the cost of airfare alone could be monumental. Thus, I return to my original questions; what does BWA hope to get out of the event, that they could not already accomplish, via the myriad of other communications that they've already received?

 

 

 

So... like many things related to this game... this was only a partial release? ::sigh::

 

 

 

Is this a Summit, or a SWTORcon? Basically, let us know the business drivers behind holding the expensive in-person meet, what BWA intends to get out of the event, and what BWA intends to *give* out of the event, and be truly above-board with all aspects of the event, and the success of the event will take care of itself.

 

Yes, some of us are highly critical, but that's because we believe in the STAR WARS IP, and want BWA to achieve great things with it. We don't want to see BWA stop with "good enough" or something mediocre.

 

Good job. You're not done, yet.

I'll say it again, Bioware has set up a great opportunity to not (publicly) fail with this event.

 

After the summit, Stephen Reid can post this :

 

The summit went great! We really were unprepared for the turn out, and were overwhelmed by the sheer number of applicants. many issues were discussed like:

 

1. Something already covered numerous times on the boards.

2. Something already covered numerous times on the boards.

3. Something already covered numerous times on the boards.

4. Issue that's been reported since early beta.

5. Something already covered numerous times on the boards.

6. Issue that's been reported since early beta.

7. PVP is the 10th circle of Dante's Hell.

 

Now that the guild summit is over, we know what we need to work on, and will do so. Everyone thank the guild summit!

 

*Everyone then thanks Bioware for the guild summit.

Whatever you like it or not, for some people this is exactly how TOR looks like at this point.

You BioWare/EA/LA, go plenty of time (since dec 2005), a budget over 4 times LotRo/AoC and delivered poorly.

You keep giving us the feeling that you don't listen to us, the players. Or would you like us to say: you still fail to understand what needs, not only to be fixed but also, to be totally revamped.

Please allow me to ask this very question:

Aren't you also interested in players that don't join guilds? Don't you like their $$$ too?

And as I pointed earlier in this very thread:

If the game is so awesome, why over 300k (15%) players didn't activate their accounts yet or left the game, the first month after launch? Why most of the servers went from either full or heavy down to roundly 4 heavy/full at peak time?

If you want some great feedback, start invinting people like the two I quoted. These are the ones that will give your real raw info without the useless bull***. Grab a chair for, Dresossk, RoyalNala, JCinDE, Sagarys, Zandog, Linoire, Carheadbutt, Xenofire. Don't trust me? Check their post in the clicky.

These are people that loves SW+MMO but don't eat buzz words gaping at you like brainless sheeps. These are people that take the time to give constructive and well thought feedback. These are people that want SWTOR to be better, great would I say.

This is if you want to truly deliver, as an old sage saying:

In the 2012 MMO market being fair will make you starve. Being as good as others MMO, which you are far from it will barely maintain you fit. You have to be better in every aspects of the genre.

(Edit) BTW I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed by you guys.

Sounds wonderful and an excellent forum to explore new directions the game could take. I'm terribly impressed with the developers for hosting something like this and being willing to discuss the game face to face with leaders within the player base.

I've been to a lot of the No-Cal MMO studios and here's a fun fact: Do people realize that Blizzard studios has bullet-proof glass at it's HQ? Unsurprisingly many MMO companies are afraid of their players.

Bravo Bioware.

Great idea and I'm definitely all for an annual guild summit. Q&A, feedback and community building are all integral to improving the game.

BUT

It is waaaaaaaaaaay too soon. Too short notice. Too soon after launch. Too close to major tweaks and patches (Op nerf, KP, Ilum PVP). Too soon to be the planned out polished forum it could be.

Short notice ensures that only locals can attend. So a majority Texan CST view will be represented which is cool for Texas but not so much for any other timezone, let alone language. We don't need to have translators there, but a French guild leader who speaks english, for instance, could plan a trip to Austin if given some notice. And I could come from Colorado. I have friends I would love to visit there. But less than a month's notice prevents a representational cross section of the population and highlights the fact that this is being rushed out the door.

Also, a lot of people aren't halfway to 50, myself excluded, so only the biggest star wars fans who are hardcore mmo players and texan, will be there. That is not so bad, just its only going to be texans.

Next time give at least 3 months notice and come out of this with something valuable to show the community to encourage the most valuable ongoing participation. Yearly is cool, breakout cities would be nice later as well. Then you could increase the survey population and build a real fanbase in other cities besides Austin.

That is all.

So much flaming from the vocal minority.

I look at this event as Bioware coming out and saying "Hey guys, were a little in over our heads here as far as what you want from us, were gonna sit down and figure this out". You can only get so much info from the player base via forums before you want to punch someone due to the trolls ruining good arguments or derailing forum topics altogether.

Hopefully the imput taken from this "summit" is taken to account on all fronts. There are multiple "tiers" of each gametype (PvE, PvP, and RP) and hopefully all these styles will be rrepresented on equal footing

Also, I can't wait to see how the community imput will be recieved from this. I hope there is some type of live stream or internet broadcast I can watch to see whats happening with this!

As some of you have been asking about our criteria for the selection of guilds who we've already invited to the Guild Summit, here's some insight.

 

Guilds were selected with the ultimate aim of ensuring we had a broad representative mixture of guild sizes, playstyles and geographical locations at the summit (with the assumption that no-one might turn up of their own accord). We have guilds from all types of playstyles, large guilds (2,000+ members), small guilds (20 members) and guilds from across North America and Europe. (Note: many guilds are multi-national; our invites were for guild leaders, who were mostly located in NA/EU.) Guilds were also selected because of their constructive and critical feedback during testing of The Old Republic, both pre-launch and post-launch.

 

Beyond that, we won't be commenting further on our selection criteria. We've invited a large number of guild leaders, but naturally we could not invite everyone - hence our decision to allow interested guild leaders to attend if they chose to. Further dissection of the selection criteria will only lead to speculation and argument. I can assure you that no guild leader is being invited to Austin because they are 'friends with a developer' or anything similar.

 

It should also be noted that none of the criteria detailed above are exact guidelines on the selection of guild leaders who apply to attend the summit, beyond the general idea that we still want to have a mix of playstyles, guild sizes and locations. (Please note, we did not ask for a guild membership number as part of the application process.)

 

The initial aim of this thread was to announce the Guild Summit and to answer any questions regarding it. While I can appreciate people's varying opinions on the summit, turning this thread into a continuous argument about the summit's existence or our potential motives is not productive.

 

Everyone's views have now been clearly stated and noted. We'll be happy to answer further questions about the summit itself, but back and forth arguments have no place here.

What an incredibly liquid, not-really-informative, and sad attempt to stop our prying into this subject. I'm not hard to please, nor am I critical of this event...I actually believe this is a GOOD idea and a step in the right direction.

But I gotta say it: Guys, your PR sucks.

Not just in this thread(which, I'm sorry, Stephen, but what did you expect? A ton of posts of people worshiping the idea?), but in the way I've seen this whole thing handled. The way you started this was badly handled.

There's not much that can be done about it now other than sit on the clogged pot and smell your own crap. Sure you can spray an air freshener, but those poo-particles are still going up your nose...

People have stated that one of the attending guilds is one that some of the developers play on. You can say all you want about not playing favorites, but that's a pretty bright flashing light that says otherwise. Just saying for that one.

Also, you picked guilds based on their constructive and critical feedback Pre- and Post-Launch? Ignoring the fact that if a dev's guild leader would give that anyway...what makes that so different than another player/guild-leader, myself included, who filled out every survey that popped up(even when it caused my death) during beta, and submits bug reports every time one is found...what? Just because I'm actually playing and enjoying the game instead of being overly vocal I get passed over?

Growing up, I learned a really good lesson in school from one of the coolest teachers I had that she would share when one of her students was caught with chewing gum. I have used this in various situations of my life such as at the movies or a night at the bar. If you care to listen, I shall share this wisdom with you, with appropriate adjustments to this situation, so that you may pass it on:

Either you pay for everyone, or you pay for no one.

If you go out drinking with a few friends and decide you're only going to buy drinks for one of them, do you seriously expect the others to NOT take offense to this? Do you seriously expect them to take "Well, they picked out a drink I really liked" as an answer?

This is your player base right now in this thread. We are your pissed off drinking buddies who see you paying full tab for one of us, but expect the others, whether we can pay for drinks to drink with you or not, to sit and watch the activity without being able to say a word or even be acknowledged.

If we got the money, apparently it's all cool, but we're still taking the hit to our wallets where that one friend doesn't.

I'm not enjoying my freakin' Martini with this sort of crap going on. Just so you know...

 

...

 

If you want some great feedback, start invinting people like the two I quoted. These are the ones that will give your real raw info without the useless bull***.

 

...

 

Don't trust me? Check their post in the clicky.

These are people that loves SW+MMO but don't eat buzz words gaping at you like brainless sheeps. These are people that take the time to give constructive and well thought feedback. These are people that want SWTOR to be better, great would I say.

Thank you very much. I've tried to offer them fully honest and forthright feedback for the last year or so that I've been playing. If they want a preview of what I'd suggest, they need to go back and pull all of my posts from the beta forums.

Oh wait... here's the list that I'd discuss with them, though in person, or on a different forum post, or electronic mail, in much more detail...

THIS is a design for a STAR WARS "fully-realized online world"... and is the criteria of what I, and many others, measure this game by. Ask yourself which of these criteria SWTOR meets. In my opinion, SWTOR should:

 

1. Portray the grand MILLION STAR SYSTEM STAR WARS universe, not a million square inch one that this "feels" like.
   
2. Offer MULTIPLE planets that have level appropriate content to allow players true LEVELLING FREEDOM, rather than forcing levelling "on rails" from one single exact planet to another.
   
3. Offer MULTIPLE ZONES per planet that offer a truly unique environmental feel.
   
4. Offer MULTIPLE CHARACTER STORIES per class or sub-class, not a single one.
   
5. Be designed around SOLO play for basic on-target levelling necessities.
   
6. Offer MULTIPLE secondary grand sweeping GROUP storylines.
   
7. Portray DYNAMIC GALACTIC-SCALE events, perhaps with a news system, in conjunction to the story lines we experience first-hand.
   
8. Have an intra and extra-stellar GALACTIC COMMERCE system that we can participate in.
   
9. Have piracy, political intrigue, and full-fledged DIRT-TO-VACCUUM ACTION, akin to X-Wing, Wing Commander, Elite, X3, EVE, and Privateer.
   
10. Offer dynamic random quests or "jobs" that we can use to grow our character, in addition to the primary story lines.
    
11. Offer incentives to actually socialize in the game, not just randomly chat and listen to planet-wide insults.
    
12. Offer multiple companions that don't actually look like every single companion that others get.
    
13. Offer a complex character creation system that allows us to truly be unique.
    
14. Offer customizable user interface elements to allow us to experience and interact with the game in a comfortable manner within appropriate constraints.
    
15. Offer features to enable casual players to experience the story that their subscriptions also pay for, in an accessible and approachable manner.
    

[/Quote]

 

There's plenty more where those came from... and yes, I do realize some of those have been addressed... slightly. Or might be addressed. In the future. Partially.

 

If they hold a summit, it better not be with gushing fanboys, but real critics that have real suggestions about real issues. If it's with gushing fanboys, then it's nothing more than one big PR stunt designed to inflate EA stock by drumming up marketing publicity.

 

If you want to *improve* a product, you listen to *your critics*, not merely those that are already happy.

Reading the forums makes me sad...so much paranoia and unreasonableness...

Seems to me that people just want to flame and bash on the Dev's no matter what they do.

There are well over a million players. Is it reasonable to think that anything they do will satisfy everyone? Even the majority?

I applaud them for taking steps to better the game even if it doesn't satisfy everyone, because that's impossible.

Let me also add that I'm not a blind fanboy. The game is fun, but definitely could have been better at launch, needs improvements and is far from perfect. I'm just glad they're working on it and are clearly not ignoring us.

If you go out drinking with a few friends and decide you're only going to buy drinks for one of them, do you seriously expect the others to NOT take offense to this? Do you seriously expect them to take "Well, they picked out a drink I really liked" as an answer?

 

This is your player base right now in this thread. We are your pissed off drinking buddies who see you paying full tab for one of us, but expect the others, whether we can pay for drinks to drink with you or not, to sit and watch the activity without being able to say a word or even be acknowledged.

If we got the money, apparently it's all cool, but we're still taking the hit to our wallets where that one friend doesn't.

 

I'm not enjoying my freakin' Martini with this sort of crap going on. Just so you know...

ROTFLMGDAO!!! I soooo love that analogy.

I've stated before, I'd buy Georg Zoeller a round or two, and even James Ohlen. I'm a very harsh critic, but I'm fair. I certainly don't hate the devs, I know what they put up with.

Now... hmm... a Kiwi-Strawberry/Vodka/Creme de Banana/Bacardi 151 martini... or a Guinness... not sure which...

As some of you have been asking about our criteria for the selection of guilds who we've already invited to the Guild Summit, here's some insight.

 

Guilds were selected with the ultimate aim of ensuring we had a broad representative mixture of guild sizes, playstyles and geographical locations at the summit (with the assumption that no-one might turn up of their own accord). We have guilds from all types of playstyles, large guilds (2,000+ members), small guilds (20 members) and guilds from across North America and Europe. (Note: many guilds are multi-national; our invites were for guild leaders, who were mostly located in NA/EU.) Guilds were also selected because of their constructive and critical feedback during testing of The Old Republic, both pre-launch and post-launch.

 

Beyond that, we won't be commenting further on our selection criteria. We've invited a large number of guild leaders, but naturally we could not invite everyone - hence our decision to allow interested guild leaders to attend if they chose to. Further dissection of the selection criteria will only lead to speculation and argument. I can assure you that no guild leader is being invited to Austin because they are 'friends with a developer' or anything similar.

 

It should also be noted that none of the criteria detailed above are exact guidelines on the selection of guild leaders who apply to attend the summit, beyond the general idea that we still want to have a mix of playstyles, guild sizes and locations. (Please note, we did not ask for a guild membership number as part of the application process.)

 

The initial aim of this thread was to announce the Guild Summit and to answer any questions regarding it. While I can appreciate people's varying opinions on the summit, turning this thread into a continuous argument about the summit's existence or our potential motives is not productive.

 

Everyone's views have now been clearly stated and noted. We'll be happy to answer further questions about the summit itself, but back and forth arguments have no place here.

So basically, you've gotten to the point where your just going to give us the finger and tell us to enjoy? Once again, you prove to be an amazing tactician, Stephen. Bravo.

So basically, you've gotten to the point where your just going to give us the finger and tell us to enjoy? Once again, you prove to be an amazing tactician, Stephen. Bravo.

Please don't shoot the messenger.

I remember SOE did this 3 times and I got invited. At first it wasnt a pleasant time as all it was doing was bringing out the whinners to come out in the open and fight with the devs over broken crap.

It never failed every time this happend. In the end yes alot got worked out and fixed until the xpack GOD came out.

To everybody complaining about why should they pay. Get real here and stop being a whinning baby. if your invited its your option to go and pay. Over seas people umm get a life and dont expect them to shell out cash to fly you over here.

I can see this summit is just going to be like the SOE one. A giant pissing match with everybody complaining, complaining, threatning to quit if so and so isnt fixed, demanding compensation for flying out, free months, and everybody saying PVP rules over PVE so screw PVE.

So basically, you've gotten to the point where your just going to give us the finger and tell us to enjoy? Once again, you prove to be an amazing tactician, Stephen. Bravo.

Have you listened to yourself!? Stephen said it like it is. Grow up, stop crying foul on everything they do. Are you asking Bioware to fly every player to the show to ask their questions!? This is great news and everyone should realize this is great steps to take. It will only benefit all of us.

Yeah, he has gotten to the point to tell you that your type isn't welcome here. Because your negative, unconstructive, you don't help the community and you think your "entitled" to something others have.

I work customer service and on rare occasions we do let someone know whats up, cause in the end the company doesn't want that "type" of person anyways as it's just not worth it.

There's plenty of other games out there and I don't see many inviting players to meet up and talk.

You are a example of why they are selective. I would never want someone like you talking for me.