Lmao. I guess it’s going to be “exciting” just like 5.0 gear grind was

 

It makes you wonder just how well Anthem will do with him in charge when you consider how he ran this game into the ground.

I'm just waiting for them to reveal the details of the Javelin Command gearing system.

It's a valid question and I don't have a good answer for it except that I 'hope' it would still be maintained...but you're correct...EA has a history of closing studios (and games).

it is valids, but i also think the answer is simple, it still exists as its still making money.

EA isnt stupid, with all the failures and games losing money these days they arent going to kill off one thats actually making a profit while being largely in a maintenance mode stage for the last year.

The announcement of the pvp changes and verification of 6.x to me actually ARE an uptick in comparison. But lets be honest, it wouldnt take much to put out more than we have gotten so even if BW ceased to exist, it wouldnt be hard for EA to pick it up internally should they choose to do so.

Maybe thats thier plan, wishful thinking im sure but EA has to realize that this game could make more than it is with minimal support.

it is valids, but i also think the answer is simple, it still exists as its still making money.

EA isnt stupid, with all the failures and games losing money these days they arent going to kill off one thats actually making a profit while being largely in a maintenance mode stage for the last year.

The announcement of the pvp changes and verification of 6.x to me actually ARE an uptick in comparison. But lets be honest, it wouldnt take much to put out more than we have gotten so even if BW ceased to exist, it wouldnt be hard for EA to pick it up internally should they choose to do so.

Maybe thats thier plan, wishful thinking im sure but EA has to realize that this game could make more than it is with minimal support.

I see it more as an allowance as it still makes some margin of profit and that's cool. But I have the feeling that if it's just EA deciding, they'll probably see it as a bad investment and rather use the resources for something else.

For this game to become more than it is now, it would take quite an investment actually. I have no illusions that they are interested in that. Chances are they're also keeping it on at least till their open world SW game comes out in a year or two.

The problem also is that SWTOR is built in a highly modified engine that EA studios would not know anything about. So also there it may require an investment and the problem that if they move it to another team that they won't know how to handle it. It would require the same team who may not want to move that far to maintain it if they closed Austin down.

All in all, the logistics behind it may not be quite as simple.

I don’t think you understand the seriousness of the situation for Bioware. If Anthem fails, there probably won’t be a Bioware studio anymore, which means there won’t be anymore swtor, kotor or anything you “think” you want them to produce.

No studio means no games, period.

It's also possible that should EA shutter BW that SWTOR will live on as part of another studio ala Dark Age of Camelot with Mythic and Broadsword Studios. DAOC is just shy of 17 years old now and still running. The catch is, of course, DAOC doesn't have an ip agreement with an expiration date while everything Star Wars does. And if that were to happen there'd be no doubt in anyone's mind that this game would be in full maintenance mode until the ip agreement expires or it starts losing money.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if we get a Blur trailer in the fall then we'll have at least another 2 years of the game. Those things don't come cheap.

Yeah and they are a complete waste of the limited amount of money they have. Better that they don’t make expensive trailers like that and actually use the money to make playable content.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if we get a Blur trailer in the fall then we'll have at least another 2 years of the game. Those things don't come cheap.

Good point - I'm really hoping we get one now

Good point - I'm really hoping we get one now

Really? You’d like them to make a flashy expensive trailer instead of spending the money and resources to add playable content?

Really? You’d like them to make a flashy expensive trailer instead of spending the money and resources to add playable content?

EA has more money than they do employees capable of programming for this game, so hell yeah...that money wouldn't be spent on this game anyway.

You didn't get the principle right actually. Somebody who gets promoted until the state of total incompetence after already showing some incompetence before (here: as a producer of SWTOR).

We can only assume how far up the ladder he can still get before he shows 24/7 incompetence. :-)

My bad. I thought he already achieved that status here with SWTOR.

Really? You’d like them to make a flashy expensive trailer instead of spending the money and resources to add playable content?

Well I have to say that from my point of view the trailer was better than the in-game story so a new trailer doesn't sound entirely like a bad idea.

Of course I don't believe they have those resources anymore, so I'm not expecting it.

Really? You’d like them to make a flashy expensive trailer instead of spending the money and resources to add playable content?

I'd take it as a sign that they have both the confidence in the expansion as well as the resources not only to actually make the expansion but also a marketing push. They did a Blur trailer for KOTET and here we are nearly two years later with 6.0 on the horizon. Hence my prediction.

You can make a case that the money could be spent on resources in the game, but if the news doesn't get out to people, it won't increase profits. The game will survive on profit (and renewal of IP licenses), which can come from retained customers, new customers, returning customers, and cost reduction. Naturally I prefer the first three over the final option.

So, yeah, I kinda want it all

It's also possible that should EA shutter BW that SWTOR will live on as part of another studio ala Dark Age of Camelot with Mythic and Broadsword Studios. DAOC is just shy of 17 years old now and still running. The catch is, of course, DAOC doesn't have an ip agreement with an expiration date while everything Star Wars does. And if that were to happen there'd be no doubt in anyone's mind that this game would be in full maintenance mode until the ip agreement expires or it starts losing money.

History does set precedent, even with studios, in terms of how they operate their ongoing book of business.

They won't shutter a studio over a game failure. NCsoft does that, not EA. EA takes a different, and more typical corporate approach of simply reorganizing the relevant division and trying again. This is in fact how Bioware became the hub control for significant game development in EA years ago, including consolidation of it's MMO properties ... when they fully obliterated Mythic as an entity... though they retained it's live games. And a reorganization will be disruptive, but it is also a proven approach for EA.... so I really don't see them abandoning what has worked for them. Right now, I don't see Bioware being knocked aside and the gaming reigns handed to another studio.... but that could change on any given acquisition effort by EA. It really is an acquisition effort that players should be alert for.. because that is historically when EA will make the most drastic gaming operations and leadership change (letting the fresh acquisition have a crack at leading the relevant game division).

With respect to Anthem... I think what players should be watching for is how the earlier alpha reviews for the game settle in... because EA IS a company that will cut it's losses early on a new game and just shutter it if it does not appear to be performing to firm business objectives. The game space Anthem plays in is risky for EA.. so Anthem very well may never get out of the tube. Strictly in SWTOR terms... players should be rooting for an early termination of Anthem as that means freed up resources, and EA typically redeploys said resources rather than just lay them off. Of course.. what they redeploy to is a question mark... because EA clearly is doing better with game investments in the non MMO space.

... Strictly in SWTOR terms... players should be rooting for an early termination of Anthem as that means freed up resources, and EA typically redeploys said resources rather than just lay them off. Of course.. what they redeploy to is a question mark... because EA clearly is doing better with game investments in the non MMO space.

I agree with most of your post, except this. This part is something I strongly disagree with, and it doesn't align with my own experience and observations. If SWTOR having fresh life is the goal, then we should be rooting for Anthem to be a wild success.

If Anthem was to fail, especially early, it would almost certainly mean consolidation, lay-offs (this is a guarantee), and re-assignments. And not re-assignments to other fledgling products like SWTOR, but to ones that have the legs/chance to bring in meaningful cash. I.e., less autonomy for BW. If, on the other hand, Anthem is successful, that will make a strong case for devoting more cash and human resources to BW, from which will enable BW to deploy those resources to the projects it desires (Anthem/Anthem 2, ME, DA, "New Project X" (there's always one), and SWTOR to name the biggies that come to mind). I.e. more autonomy for BW...

I agree with most of your post, except this. This part is something I strongly disagree with, and it doesn't align with my own experience and observations. If SWTOR having fresh life is the goal, then we should be rooting for Anthem to be a wild success.

 

If Anthem was to fail, especially early, it would almost certainly mean consolidation, lay-offs (this is a guarantee), and re-assignments. And not re-assignments to other fledgling products like SWTOR, but to ones that have the legs/chance to bring in meaningful cash. I.e., less autonomy for BW. If, on the other hand, Anthem is successful, that will make a strong case for devoting more cash and human resources to BW, from which will enable BW to deploy those resources to the projects it desires (Anthem/Anthem 2, ME, DA, "New Project X" (there's always one), and SWTOR to name the biggies that come to mind). I.e. more autonomy for BW...

When Anthem launches it will free up a lot of devs since the initial development takes the most work. So regardless of Anthem's success resources will become available. Anthem's success will ensure BioWare's existence though and failure might put them on the chopping block. So it seems better for SWTOR that Anthem does well.

However, they will be working on DA4 next and I don't believe they will get that many resources to put into SWTOR anymore. Then again, they might get some resources back after Anthem is ready and that may be the reason why 6.0 has been delayed because they might a get a couple of resources back and that might help with making at least a half-decent expansion for next year.

This to me seems like deja vu.

A long time ago I played MxO (Matrix on Line) My 1st MMO

SOE started moving all the people from MxO over to work on their newest next best thing "The Agency"

MxO was a niche game. In the end with 'everyone' working on the Agency, the staff maintaining MxO was pitiful small, with no new almost everything, people were leaving like rats on a sinking ship. The game was shuttered July 31, 2009.

 

Not two years later on March 31, 2011, production was discontinued on The Agency after the closure of SOE's Seattle studio, and two other studios. The Agency never had a chance to fail, corporate card shuffling killed it before it was released, but the transfer of personal away from one game to work on another ended up with two games gone.

 

So, long story longer, you never know when a game will close. I thought Tabula Rasa was a great game. Gone in the twinkling of an eye. Enjoy what you have while you have it, whatever it is. Look to the strengths and try to over look weaknesses. I once had a Mustang Cobra. Strength - went fast. Weakness - couldn't pass two service stations in a row. For me back then the strength outweighed the weakness, now many years older I drive a Mazda:rolleyes:

Coincidentally, as of 2016, the person at the top of the chain in charge of SWTOR/Bioware (Samantha Ryan) is the same one that managed the dismantling of MXO.

It's not a if it's a when Anthem fails and yes SWTOR will be going down with it.

You see triple a gaming has been about to drive over a cliff for years now and look at E3 this year and the insane amount of garbage we got. Microsoft showed their normal Halo/Gears BS that everyone is tired of. Bethesda put the final nail in Fallout's coffin with Failout 76. EA just had a bad show. Ubisoft has that pirate game and Division 2 why I don't know after Division 1 lost 97% of it's player base.

And look at how EA is marketing Anthem no one has played it, no one has seen someone playing it other then some BS videos that look too good to be true. If you want the pulse of the gaming community on Anthem just go to Reddit, 4chan, or other big name sites. No one has anything good to say about Anthem other then fanbois.

As for SWTOR? People are asking for merges again. Barely anyone is playing. They have to direct sale over priced cartel market items as no one are buying gambling boxes anymore.

Oh look another one. I recommend taking the rant over to those threads.

Seems to be a common phenomenon among people nowadays, trying to cross bridges well before they get to them.

I don't doubt the sincerity of the OP, but man. People need to put things in perspective. It's a game. One way or another it will die. When it dies, we move on to a new game. End of story.

Why fret about crap you can't change?

I agree with most of your post, except this. This part is something I strongly disagree with, and it doesn't align with my own experience and observations. If SWTOR having fresh life is the goal, then we should be rooting for Anthem to be a wild success.

 

If Anthem was to fail, especially early, it would almost certainly mean consolidation, lay-offs (this is a guarantee), and re-assignments. And not re-assignments to other fledgling products like SWTOR, but to ones that have the legs/chance to bring in meaningful cash. I.e., less autonomy for BW. If, on the other hand, Anthem is successful, that will make a strong case for devoting more cash and human resources to BW, from which will enable BW to deploy those resources to the projects it desires (Anthem/Anthem 2, ME, DA, "New Project X" (there's always one), and SWTOR to name the biggies that come to mind). I.e. more autonomy for BW...

The sooner development on Anthem is finished (be it completed and released, or the plug pulled do to poor testing results as they have done in other game development) the sooner studio resources are freed up for other things.. like more content on SWTOR... which it is pretty clear they have been starving resources from.

Coincidentally, as of 2016, the person at the top of the chain in charge of SWTOR/Bioware (Samantha Ryan) is the same one that managed the dismantling of MXO.

non sequitur.

Really? You’d like them to make a flashy expensive trailer instead of spending the money and resources to add playable content?

It's called budgets.. and marketing money is never product production money. Also each department is important to a company's success.

It's called budgets.. and marketing money is never product production money. Also each department is important to a company's success.

Yeah.. this is something so many players seem to be unable to grasp ---> marketing budgets are separate and distinct from development budgets, and it is the marketing budget that funds things like digital trailers. This is particularly true for large game holding companies like EA. Marketing will certainly collaborate on planning and details with the studio on such a trailer, but the actual operating budget that would fund such a trailer is completely separate and marketing would sign a specific contract with an outside source for the actual design and production.

It's not Bioware's fault, but I'm gonna be busy with a certain upcoming game from Rockstar this fall that, if it's anything like the first one, will keep me busy for a loooong time and I'll only be checking the GTN every three days in SWTOR.

I hope Anthem does well. I'm not the target audience for it, so I'll probably avoid it.

This is sort of deja vu for me. I was still playing Red Dead until Skyrim and SWTOR came out, and I said the same thing about SWTOR that I am saying about Anthem. I was so infuriated that they made an MMO instead of KOTOR 3, and I avoided it for months. I didn't feel I was the target audience there, either. Finally gave it a try and SWTOR has taken over my life for more than six years.

With my luck with how Andromeda came out, after giving it an actual fair shake and falling in love with it after the public had pilloried it for inserting a transgender npc that has about 15 seconds of talking and a short paragraph letter, I'll bet I give Anthem a try and it will already have been crucified because there was too much pink on the armor and an "=" decal was unlockable to put on your helmet.

*Only partially joking about Andromeda. That crap made me sick (the reaction, not what they put in). I was more turned off by the extremely awful animations and character graphics for such a "modern" game and time.

EA has more money than they do employees capable of programming for this game, so hell yeah...that money wouldn't be spent on this game anyway.

How do you figure that? EA would have a budget for swtor, the same as any company has a budget for a department. To use other employees outside of the swtor team would be using someone else’s budgeted resources,

I can tell you from corporate experience, departments are very protective of their budgets.

Even if EA had this extra money to throw at the game (which is what making a trailer is), why wouldn’t you want them to spend it on playable content before a silly trailer you might watch a few times?

People, including yourself have been complaining there isn’t enough playable content or that Bioware aren’t releasing it fast enough. Why oh why, on God’s green earth, would you want them to waste that money when they could spend it on the content you do sorely need?

It makes absolutely zero sense to me. But if that’s what you want, you really can’t complain if they give that to you over content.

Trailers are all well and good and I throughly enjoy them too, when they have funds to make enough content, but their resources are limited

I can say I was extremely annoyed when I saw how much money and resources were obviously spent making the last 2 big trailers, because the content wasn’t close to enough, there were tonnes of bugs and the quality wasn’t there.

For me it’s always content and quality before spending money on trailers. Also trailers are pretty irrelevant if you aren’t going to advertise them to get new people to play.

I'd take it as a sign that they have both the confidence in the expansion as well as the resources not only to actually make the expansion but also a marketing push. They did a Blur trailer for KOTET and here we are nearly two years later with 6.0 on the horizon. Hence my prediction.

 

You can make a case that the money could be spent on resources in the game, but if the news doesn't get out to people, it won't increase profits. The game will survive on profit (and renewal of IP licenses), which can come from retained customers, new customers, returning customers, and cost reduction. Naturally I prefer the first three over the final option.

 

So, yeah, I kinda want it all

But tell me, when was the last time Bioware/EA advertised this game? Honeslty, I can’t think of one time in 6 years. Even at launch, I only found out about it second hand.

What makes you think that EA will all of a sudden change their stripes and reinvest in this game.

Bioware have limited and declining resources to keep this game alive. If it’s not apparent look, at the last 18 months and before as resources and invest have been declining,

Any money Bioware have, even if they go a boost to make an expansion, will not be enough to give people the content that so sorely want. Taking even $1 away from making content is a waste under the game’s current condition. I don’t even think the expansion itself be that much bigger than this next content patch,

I even have fears about an expansion making it live. EA are renound for closing studios and cancelling whole games at the drop of a hat. Bioware could easily spend 9 months making the expansion and Keith comes to work one morning to find out they’ve cancelled the expansion and are pulling support in the form of further developments.

Of course, that’s an extreme case, but I think it has more chance of happening than Bioware/EA ever marketing this game or boosting invest to a level it needs to continue past 6.x