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Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game


CourtneyWoods

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We don't care that there are bugs. Bugs are, unfortunately, a part of games. We don't want bugs, but we understand that they come with the territory.

 

We care about you ignoring the community. We try to help you help us, but you don't seem to care. Why the stonewalling of your paying, bug-reporting customers?

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There are some excellent responses to the state of the game so I won't rehash what's already been said.

 

I've been a subscriber since pre-launch and for most of that time, I really enjoyed the game. I haven't played much in the last couple of months because most of my friends left for the exact same reasons stated above. We had/have a relatively large guild in WoW that raided regularly. When we started playing SW:TOR, we couldn't ever get enough people interested to even attempt the Operations here. I kept telling myself to "give it time" and Bioware will get it right and everyone will come back. About the time when everyone left is when Bioware decided to "clam up" and we had no feedback for many weeks. My hope for the future of the game started to wane then. Soon afterwards, the announcement came that the game would be going F2P. I've been monitoring the sparse communication about F2P and other content and the future looks bleaker and bleaker. The limitations placed on F2P/Preferred players don't encourage subscription, they practically require it in order to achieve a pleasant playing experience. I think most players may give the game a try but when they see how restrictive the game really is, they won't think about purchasing from the cash shop or subscribing, they'll just turn the game off and never look back.

 

The one main content update that is not specifically targeted at raiders or PvP'ers (i.e. HK-51) currently requires players to purchase a part that is only available in a free-for-all PvP area. Really? Players who chose to play on a PvE server chose so because they didn't want to PvP or wanted consensual PvP. I was pretty turned off by the idea of the "Gambling Boxes" and had thought about cancelling my subscription over it but I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt and try before making a decision. The issue about the HK-51 vendor is over the line though. The fact that you disregard another's players server preference and gate their content with a playstyle they don't enjoy just to provide content to another segment of the playerbase was really the last straw. If the vendor goes live in a PvP zone then you will have made my decision quite simple for me and I'll not be subscribing anymore.

 

Aubrac, i dont think you understand what a PvE server is. A PvE server is not one where you're barred from PvP, but a server that does not incentivate it everywhere. They all still have Illum/Tatooine (world PvP) and battlegrounds.

Getting the HK part will take you 20 seconds. get in and get out. Is this post really justified? The place will probably be deserted aswell.

 

If you're that worried just ask a couple of guildies to tag along with you for safety.

Edited by Nemmar
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Aubrac, i dont think you understand what a PvE server is. A PvE server is not one where you're barred from PvP, but a server that does not incentivate it everywhere. They all still have Illum/Tatooine (world PvP) and battlegrounds.

Getting the HK part will take you 20 seconds. get in and get out. Is this post really justified? The place will probably be deserted aswell.

 

If you're that worried just ask a couple of guildies to tag along with you for safety.

No, I don't think you understand. Many people choose a PvE server because they DO NOT ENJOY PvP! It doesn't matter that it may take 20 seconds. It doesn't matter that you may be able to go in there and not see a soul. The fact is that Bioware put a required component for content that is supposed to be for everyone in an area that will flag you for PvP when you don't desire to participate in PvP. Up until now, every player could just avoid the Outlaw's Den and never look back. Now you must enter the area if you wish to experience the new content that is marketed as being for fans of KoTOR and like minds.

 

Why give people a choice of what server type to choose if you're going to force them to flag for PvP if they want to experience the available content?

 

There's already a large thread on this topic and I won't derail this thread any longer. I've expressed my opinion about Bioware's seemingly "out of touch" approach to player's desires and choices so I'll leave it at that.

Edited by Aubrac
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Everybody has their own definition and limits as to what they'll pay.

 

/snip

 

(For the record, I also don't think many console games are worth buying for 50 euros. Console games have focused too much on pretty graphics and not enough on actual gameplay since the 360 came out. This has resulted in 100s of very beautiful but ultimately bland console games that fail to hold my attention. I now no longer purchase console games until they are reduced to £20 or less because I don't think they are worth the full price any more.)

 

Nice reply, and i understand the viewpoints, glad you saw my reaction as an opinion :)

and it's like you said, it's a personal opinion wether expectations are met or not, lets leave it at that ;)

 

about the console games, i couldn't agree more, that's the main reason i now buy second hand console games for 5 euro :p

 

e.g. i've always been a final fantasy fan, and spent hours on 7/8/9 to finish it properly with all secrets n such. when i then play the new abominations for PS3, i'm sooooo disappointed, talking about linear on the rail game, thats what they are now. in that point of view tor isn't on the rails as much as that game :p

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Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.

I think you're overestimating.

 

Free-to-Play goes live this Fall, and we are dedicated to getting Game Updates out to you every 6 weeks or so

Fall = November and beyond? Cool. And It's been longer 6 weeks.

 

We employ hundreds of QA professionals to ensure that our game is high quality, but sometimes bugs get through.

Really? I can't seem to find evidence of the said QA team anywhere. Sometimes bugs get through? How about most of the time bugs get through.

 

We test every step of the way as we develop the game or change to the game.

You could've at least made that a little bit more convincing.

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

Also, other Jedis like how they completely ignored hood toggle?

Edited by Bugattiboy
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While i have yet to encounter the end game issues that many other people mentioned above (due to the fact that I am leveling my first toon), I really am not looking forward to that.

 

However, I will say that I love this game. I love Star Wars. I love KOTOR (present tense, because it is still my favorite game of all time). So don't screw this up, Bioware. The amount of people you will be letting down if you do is probably orders of magnitude greater than what you think.

 

A few things I would like to see addressed are:

 

1. New playable races. (Nautolans people, we need Nautolans. You already have the models in game. Also, FYI, I'm fairly certain that most species in the Star Wars universe can learn galactic basic a.k.a English)

 

2. Guild ships. (or space stations, just something that members can dock with)

 

3. Player storylines extended at end game, or maybe a merging of stories into high level content.

 

4. Issues mentioned above, et al.

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While I am very happy to see this post and hope to see many many many more I can't help feel first that the three questions answered weren't anything new.

 

For a start I don't think there are many people who play MMO's that wouldn't pay 15 bucks a month if they felt they were getting value for money. If people were saying that the subscription was a problem it wasn't because 50c a day was too much and created a hurdle for them to be enjoying the game. They weren't playing the game or they weren't finding it fun so paying 15 bucks a month was a waste of money. But not nearly as much as playing something you don't enjoy was a waste of their time. As it stands free to play seems to be all about lock boxes and getting more money out of players by offering things that should be in the game for a subscriber in a low random generated way that costs people money to purchase. You want that helm you have to purchase a lock box and then you have a 3% chance to get it. Didn't get it this time buy another lock box!

 

But enough on what has been said and onto what I would like to know and there are some big things here.

 

Art Direction, lately we have seen an improvement to grass, facial emotions and shadows which are nice but doesn't detract that the game looks like a cartoon. Stylised was the word used which has lead to a game world that is not suitable for telling the detailed, rich and complex stories Bioware is famous for. My avatar is a little odd looking where I was given very very little choice in face so personally I find the nose too big the lips to big and the overal look far too familar with so many others out there. A major bug bear since you did such wonderful work on cutscens and conversations. I don't think any MMO out there even touches the multiplayer dialogues you have put in. And then there are the people I am interacting with and ment to be feeling something for, once again Im dealing with cartoons. All the emotion of the VO and the story is lost as I watch a cartoon with no realism to it die from me chocking or stabing or shooting it. Only I could be watching him goto sleep for all the impact the art direction offers. So are there any plans to have greater character customisation and more mature art direction?

 

A Galaxy far far away filled with aliens and strange species. For what every reason the TOR universe seems a whole lot more human than the star wars universe. Players are basically painted humans, none of the planets seem to have their own culture of feel to them. Even Voss didn't have a feeling of an alien world. There seems to be a loss of star wars culture, as any Imperial player can tell you two imperial soldiers are talking about strange creatures the scouts picked off and wookies. Any yet despite all the story and lore it doesn't feel that Im in this world of alien species, its horribly human where at best we skim the surface of new cultures and seldom go deeper. When will we see more alien species to choose from and more detailed impactful story telling of the different cultures within the star wars universe. Maybe its the art dirrection but I feel I know far more about Krogan culture from ME or the plight of my Grey Warden from DA than I do about the Hutts or Trandoshian or wookies etc.

 

Story and Companions were the big thing pre-launch. Any question about the game were met with 4 basic replies, we aren't ready to talk about that, we have full VO, we have story or we have Companions. I don't think anyone would deny that BW did well with Story and Companions. But it seems that while it was a nice ride both are over now as there is limited repeative story and no use of Companions in end game content outside of the daily grind. And equally annoying nothing you seem to have done in the story carries over past a short mail and perhaps if you are lucky a different option right after you make the choice the next dialogue wheel but often as not the choice doesn't even effect what the person says to you next. One example

 

 

In the Sith Warrior Story you can be with Quinn when Baras tries to kill you both in an explosion, Quinn also be almost killed when Baras new apprentice attacks the ship while you are away. Get Quinn upto 10,000 affection, explain Baras could have done more to help him, help his promotion, side with him over other crew etc etc. And Still he will betray you. And because you can't replace him as a healer (and affection effects crafting) you still have to use him. And this is just one example of many times where the story happens in a set way no matter what you do.

 

 

And so we end up in the same problem of Dragon Age 2, where you don't feel like its your story you are just there to watch. So the point is two fold, will we be seeing more class and companion story and if so will it have some real effect on the game world or our characters? Cause at the moment you could space bar hitting 1 for everything with as much effect on either. With the light/dark/grey system being totally pointless bring nothing to the game except some cosmetic elements.

 

Finally when will we see Open world PvP and a meaning to PvP. And then how will you balace it with Battlemaster gear. Fight clubbing Huttball isn't everyone idea of fun and with the removal of Ilum it seems there is little to be said for PvP outside grinding out valour to get PvP gear. While ranked warzones are likely to make open world PvP even harder to enter for people that may not find the artificial confines of same faction fighting over alderaan as appealing. It will soon be a year since Ilum was removed and nothing appears to have been done on it. So when?

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With all due respect, Mr. Hickman, your post told me nothing about the state of the game.

 

You (once again) explained why the game was going free to play.

You laid out what you thought the problems were (welcome to 3 months ago).

You gave APAC some information (we're not doing anything until free to play, and then we have to evaluate, so hang in there for...well, for some undetermined length of time.)

 

When can we expect to see some actual new information about the state of the game? Your reputation on communicating with the player base is so tarnished at this point that you absolutely need to come forth and give out some real, concrete information on where this thing is heading.

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I made a similar thread months ago stating that the problem is not the subscription fee.

 

EA/Bioware are adamant in misreading the customer feedback, probably for internal reasons e.g. company politics. When cancelling their exit polls asks for the main reasons why you quit - and you can read this in two ways, namely:

 

I do not want to pay 15$ for an mmo.

I do not want to pay 15$ for THIS mmo.

 

Only one of these statements is correct, you can guess which one....

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First off: I love your tattoo. I love you.

 

Next, I wanna say that I love the game as is. I do not agree with a lot of the decisions the team has made in terms demanded by the vocal minorities here on the forums, but I still love this game, and I will never stop paying a sub to play the complete game, the way it's supposed to be and continue supporting BioWare. With that said, i wanna tell you that you can't please everyone, as you well know, and no matter what you do, if you update the game every week and give into every radical demand on the forums, people will still quit playing (hell, I'll do so if you go that far) so please, PLEASE keep in mind that this is your game and you once had goals and ambitions of what this game should be. These things have since been thrown out the corporate window. Saying again that I love this game and i love BioWare, I want to add that it would please me greatly if you went back to your roots with this game. Make it a story-based MMO once more and ignore the elitists and haters. Make it your game again!

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I wanted to post this here since the other thread was closed.

 

My thoughts and perceptions, not that my opinion is important, but I wanted to chime in.

 

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.

 

I agree with this statement, but only CONDITIONALLY. It depends on what part of the game you look at.

 

Limited physics (at least until overload was changed), overall Star Wars experience, ability to play as a truly evil character, full VO, storylines, environmental graphics, choreographed combat, mob animations, sound, some of the armor designs, modifiable armor...IMO the best in the industry hands down. There are other games that do have quality features similar to some of these, but overall I think SWToR does it the best.

 

Space combat, game changes for the sake of one type of gameplay that hurt another, anemic crafting, GTN and Groupfinder, lack of customization, lack of standard modern MMO features (transfer, dual spec, chat bubbles, guild perks, achievements (though codex and exploration, as well as titles helps), glitchy combat and special activation, linear pathing on many planets, some horrendous armor designs, bugs that persist since launch are just some of the many items that I consider some of the WORST in the industry.

 

This ends up putting the game in the middle of the road IMO. What it does right it does the best. What it does wrong it does so wrong it is almost laughable. And in the end it hits a middle mark as a result.

 

 

2. The subscription requirement was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying monthly.

 

Again, I agree conditionally. Based on rhetoric around the net, testimonials from prior players, general game feedback web wide that I have seen it seems this is a true statement...but not exactly completely accurate. The overwhelming sentiment seems to be that players did not feel the game was WORTH 15 dollars a month. That is quite different than the insinuation that the commitment to the sub alone was the cause. The game simply did not offer an acceptable value for 15 dollars a month compared to other games on the market.

 

 

3. The frequency of our Game Updates was way too slow. People were leaving because we were not releasing new content fast enough to keep up with the pace at which it was being consumed.

 

Again, partially correct IMO. Frequency was a huge factor, but focus of those updates, when they did come was also an issue, as was the emptiness of the game based on choices made early on in development with respect to expected game performance, and the lack of movement on consolidation until it was essentially too late.

 

Server consolidation alone could have stemmed a need to move to F2P until much later IMO...at the very least it probably would have stemmed the losses substantially.

 

I find these statements accurate from a very narrow point of view, and smack more of wishful thinking than actual informed intuition. Whether or not they accept what I see as the REAL reasons for losses behind closed doors is unknown. After all, spin has been a tradition since launch, and I feel it is likely this statement is no different.

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Hi Jeff Hickman! I am glad to see you releasing this State of the Game letter. I look forward to future letters on this topic, thanks! I have been a big fan of yours for years and appreciate the excitement and enthusiasm you bring to your MMO's. I agree with all your points and am glad to see you are hearing the community, I understand that you cannot address every concern of every player, but I think the issues that you did bring up hit home for me as the most important ones.

 

1.) I think the game is awesome!

 

2.) I want less bugs with updates and want faster fixing of bugs still in game since release! Get Crackin!

 

3.) I want more content, keep it comming as the current content is simply phenomenal!

 

Send our thanks to the team for all they do to make this a fantastic gaming experience, we sure appreciate 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...

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Oh wow, another post that tells us absolutely nothing while at the same times telling us how thankful we should be for how much they communicate with us.

 

1. People want to play this game TO A POINT. They want to get whatever classes they like up to 50, finish the story, and be done.

a. People do not want to play your operations, they are not engaging

b. People do not want to play your daily quests, they get stale and boring

c. People do not want to play your rail shooter, they want 3d combat

d. People want to play PVP, you admit it's most played content in the game... so you take away OWPVP, only give 1 wz, and still no official start to season ONE.

 

2. LOLOLOLOLOL this has to be a troll. This is the most bugtastic game I have ever played. The technical aspects of the game are probably killing you more than anything else. Single threaded engine lolwut? Crash to desktop, memory leaks etc. From day one this has been your number one problem and it's all because you're a bunch of greedy little piggies that launched 6 months too early because MONEY MONEY MONEY.

 

3. How about "populations IN GENERAL," this game has been fading fast and your reaction has been laughable. It's like no one on your team has ever managed an MMO before (yeah I heard you say DAOC lol) From launch this was an absolute joke. Launched with about 5x more servers than needed, used massively outdated tech, took months too long contracting servers once the game started to die.

 

You basically nailed the three biggest problems on the head but from a slantwise angle, I still don't think you have any clue what's actually wrong with your game and why FTP is not going to fix 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...

 

This this this this this. They took out OWPVP and added ONE wz in the past year. Still no start to season 1, still no implemention of Outlaws den, just some random space you can screw around in if you want, still no dueling in certain areas or dueling zone on fleet, PVE gets how many tiers of gear, pvp gets the shaft. Instead of adding content to PVP they make it ten times more grindy than any other game so that it just takes drastically longer to gear out.

 

And that's before you even get to problems with FOTM and OP classes and terrible balance.

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The question on the testing got me wondering...how do they expect to reduce the number of bugs discovered through testing when they still refuse to copy or update their PTR model so that more players can actually test there? Community has been asking for months now so that more people can get on PTR. Right now its pretty slim pickings over there hardly anyone is logging on and only 1 16 man guild and a few 8 mans (including a pug group) has been testing the new content. There are many threads on the PTS forums begging for char copies or a blue frog system to be put on the PTR to help test the game with a broader audience. The small sample of testers on the PTS is not enough and if they would increase the number of testers I'm sure they would catch more bugs before releasing to live.
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Ah the meme continues. No Mr. Hickman, it wasn't "the price" of the subscription, it was "the quality of the service" for the price of the subscription that drove people away. In fact, your patch 1.4 "quality of life fixes" forced me back to World of Warcraft. Fix your game and tell us the truth. :cool:

 

EDIT: You know keeping legitimate complaints from your management only keeps them in the dark. SWTOR is not in the state they think it is. If you continue to delete posts that describe problems (like the graphics issues which make it near impossible for me to play your game since patch 1.4) they will continue to write fluff and spin pieces. You are fooling no one. :mad:

 

^^^

 

it's not paying $15. i know it is easy to blame the economy and the difficulties coming up with a subscription fee. but, i just don't see it that way.

 

the content dried up. 3 WZ's since launch, a year later we have.....4. 4 of the same maps, same game. how bout a capture the flag, floating/spawning objective, etc. etc.

 

i've done the same FP's about 50 times.

 

it's NOT $15. it's the lack of content in PvE and PvP, OWPvP, LAG, graphics issues, and the unbalance/CC's in PvP.

 

this game was absolutely AWESOME pre 1.2...somewhat because it was "new", but mostly because of the PvP and the challenge of FP's. i can solo 4 FP's and duo all but LI (and we almost did!!).

 

that's my problems with SWTOR, NOT 15 friggin dollars.

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Hello everyone,

 

Please discuss the Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game blog in this thread!

 

 

Dear Bioware

 

I am a huge star wars fan and subscriber since launch, however due to the lack of attention to PVP i feel like I am almost being forced to leave your game for Guild Wars 2. Here are the 2 main factors.

 

1. THE LACK OF NEW PVP MAPS...yes in caps its that important.... the lack of new maps is abhorrent it is constantly and i repeat constantly driving away players every week form a very active guild VOLITION on The Bastion. Please Please fastrack Hypergates to get it in soon or else you will lose further players. 2nd PLease Please implement another couple maps like a NEW HUTTBALL map or make a map that is TEAM DEATHMATCH style. Also Please implement CROSS SERVER RANKED ... unranked is fine in server but Ranked is ridiculous you have 1 team just roll every other team or you have no teams quing at all to the point where my build has to field 2 teams and que at the same time to get matches and switch players in teams to get them evenish... The team ranking system is worthless if you have one 2200 ranked team ****** the 1000 ranked teams .. why rank them if thers only 3 on server ??? how does that help matchmaking at all??? Implement Cross Server for RANKED so we can get fast ques, properly matched lvl teams, and we can HAVE FUN and feel like you care about your PVP community.

 

in short... MORE MAPS...Cross Server Ranked Please you will find that SOOO many players come back !

 

2. WORLD PVP ... is horrible since you took out any incentive to go to Illum to battle... also WHY DONT I GET VALOR FROM KILLING OPPOSING FACTION PLAYERS IN BLACK HOLE OR ANYWHERE IN WORLD PVP????? there is literally NO INCENTIVE to World PvP at all..??? on a PVP SERVER ... some kind of problem here people. PLEASE PLEASE bring ILLUM back of soemthing very similar and give us valor for killing players in world pvp.

 

In closing.. There are SOOO many players that pvp ... and nearly every single one of us feels left out by Bioware in alost every aspect of what you have done for the game including updates and fixes. You have gutted world PVP (Illum nerf) and you have neglected to add more than 1 new pvp map in 1 YEAR???? ... this is why you have such massive drop offs in players subs...

 

Nearly every single player i talk to in our server in guild and out of it says they have no problem paying a subscription if Bioware cared at all about is PvP community.. 1 map for 1 year is completly unacceptable.

 

Please Please help me help Volition help The Bastion and Help your game.

 

NEW MAPS FIRST... not just 1 new map .... 3 new maps minimum.

 

ILLUM BACK SECOND and valor for world kills with that

 

CROSS SERVER RANKED THIRD..

 

if you do this they will come!

 

thank you for your consideration... If any of these changes come in the next 6 weeks I will stay ... If not myself and My 26 active player guild will be moving to Guild Wars 2.

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Dear Jeff,

 

Are you talking to your players or your investors? The investors may be gullible, but your players are the ones in the game. They know better, so stop talking down to them.

 

Let me break this up for you:

 

1) People are willing to pay $15/month for a game.

2) Those who left did so because SWTOR wasn't (and still isn't) worth $15/month.

 

Many public-facing BioWare employees have maintained that the game is awesome, people love it, etc. Before you are able to resurrect this beast, you're going to have to accept that your game design has some major flaws. The players have known this since week 1 (that's why so many left), so please stop blowing smoke at us.

 

Now the expectation is people will pay to overcome a crippled F2P experience? This is very short term thinking. It may provide a quick infusion of cash, but those players will hit the same walls that drove away subscribers. So far, I've heard nothing to make me think the team there has objectively assessed "the state of the game."

 

An honest discussion about what didn't work in the game will go much further towards building player confidence than this persistent PR spin.

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Also have to disagree with why you think players were leaving the game.

 

They left due to lack of content AND that the game was not 'worth' $15/mo to them. It had nothing to do with them not wanting to pay or not being able to afford a sub to play the game.

 

Now, I'd also like more specifics on what you're doing with the performance issues. On Sunday night several in our OP, myself included had multiple disconnects from the server and latency in the 18 to 20k range. Had this happen a couple weeks in a row now. I've also experienced these same disconnects from the server in HM FP's.

 

I love the game and intend to stay subbed. But, let's not blow smoke up everybody's butt. It needs a lot of work and much more content on a regular basis or people will not come back.

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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. Now for my two main wants for the game.

 

1. Speech bubbles.

2. Story quests progression ( chapter 4 onwards )

 

I realise that speech bubbles where in the beta , but someone pointed out that they caused performance issues. I believe they should be able to be turned off and you could make them localised ( maybe tied to the /say function ? ). Anyway the main reason why I want these is to make the game more fun and more like my type of mmo , tbh at the moment just using general chat doesn't cut it , for the fun factor at all and I'm used to games such as PSO , PSU etc.

 

As for the class story quests progression , well I understand that many really love end-game but for how long ? I believe that we should be looking at at least a whole new chapter per year and yes that probably is 2 planets worth per year and I realise that will be tough to do but i assure you it will keep and bring subs to this game.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

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First off: I love your tattoo. I love you.

 

Next, I wanna say that I love the game as is. I do not agree with a lot of the decisions the team has made in terms demanded by the vocal minorities here on the forums, but I still love this game, and I will never stop paying a sub to play the complete game, the way it's supposed to be and continue supporting BioWare. With that said, i wanna tell you that you can't please everyone, as you well know, and no matter what you do, if you update the game every week and give into every radical demand on the forums, people will still quit playing (hell, I'll do so if you go that far) so please, PLEASE keep in mind that this is your game and you once had goals and ambitions of what this game should be. These things have since been thrown out the corporate window. Saying again that I love this game and i love BioWare, I want to add that it would please me greatly if you went back to your roots with this game. Make it a story-based MMO once more and ignore the elitists and haters. Make it your game again!

 

I am not trying to insult this person, and we are all probably guilty of doing this at one point or another: Making statements like 'the vocal minority'. That is presumptive. Often I see and myself do this where we make statements on behalf of other players. So maybe a public poll is better. Make polls about different aspects of the game and let people vote and see the results. If players dont visit forms make an ingame way to vote on server topics.

 

One way to do this is be honest with players. We know you guys have been hemorrhaging staff nearly as fast as subs, so make a pole like this. " What would you like to see next: Pick one: A) Space combat PvP in 6 months, B) A new PvP battlefield in 2 months, C) A new FP in 3 months" That way youre letting us know what you can do in how much time then you let us decide which way for DEVs to go. This relieves you of the burden of people like me who get grumpy because we got better looking grass but huge lag due to a patch. I am sure if you had a poll asking if players gave a damn about how good the grass looked, you could have saved yourself some time and money.

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I just want to say that I really like the fact he's doing this, its the one thing I always loved about Age of Conan / The Secret World, FunCom is -not- quiet with what they are doing.

 

They come out and say "hey we're doing this, we're fixing that, we've read people are angry with this, we're testing it ourself and seeing how we feel about it, blah blah."

 

The difference is when FunCom releases a state of the game, I feel as if they have actually been paying attention to the community and not just pulling the biggest threads they can find and pretending those are the most pressing topics.

 

I wish Jeff had browsed every forum, actually read some of the pressing issues, and commented on them. We already know about your content plan, we know about f2p, we know why the devs left, the only real info you gave us is that you are aware of APAC server issues.

 

You didnt touch on a lot of other things people are angry about, and I am only going to list ONE because its the most concerning to me right now.

 

When this game came out the Operative / Scoundrel classes Concealment / Scrapper tree had a 3 second knockdown, and burst of the gods. This needed to be addressed, and it was.They were nerfed. Then nerfed again. Then nerfed so badly that they are horrible. Then comes along 1.4 and everything you took from them you just gave to assassins. Is it not overpowered since a sith class has it?

 

Just -one- skill I'd like to look at in particular, for a comparison from each class. Backstab V Maul.

 

Backstab

base damage :1198 (max at 50 in standard green gear)

Cooldown : 12 seconds

Talents to increase damage : meticulously kept blades : 30% crit damage, waylay 4%damage.

Acid Blade : only appliable every 12 seconds out of stealth since backstab was nerfed to 12 secondsd from 8.

 

Maul

base damage: 1981 (max at 50 in standard green gear)

Cooldwon : 0

Talents to increase damage: 30% damage from duplicity (only a 9 sec internal CD fully talented, t1 talent), 30% crit damage from induction, t3 talent)

 

Holy hell. I am not even going to touch on the fact that volitic slash is spammable damage on par with shiv, discharge does double lacerates damage and ignores armor (internal damage), and the fact my deception assassin now has, after 3 crits (2 off volitic alone) same base damage resist as my guardian, and 25% more out of stealth / on use of blackout.

 

I am in no way saying nerf assassins, I think the changes were great for them. I am saying look at what you do to other classes before being huge hypocrites and giving it all + more to another class after taking it away.

 

So to sum it up, Id like to see issues people care about, but have heard nothing on covered, not things we already know.

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I'm glad to see them finally talking with the community and addressing some of the questions. So with that being said: when can we see some more story material. I have two 50's and an alt fast approching 50 and am getting bored running dailies and rolling alts to keep the game intresting. When will we see the class story lines continue and a raise in the level max? :)
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