The layoffs have me confused more then anything else. Help?

That is all real positive and I really hope you are right and they keep a steady dev cycle going to improve and grow the game. However my mind keeps snapping back to WAR. This feels exactly like how they did WAR. Yeah I played it and it got better over time albeit at a slow snails pace. But it was just a slow death and it felt like one.

I think the Reid thing makes me the most worried. Yeah his job will be replaced, but that is the scary part. I remember in WAR the went through many downsizes of their community relations manager and team. Towards the end I remember getting an email from the CRM, a housewife from Wisconsin I believe, talking about getting a few interns in and wanted to know what I might like to see in the game.....

Anyways I am trying to stay positive, but honestly it is real hard right now.

Well, like I said, we aren't at the point of net downsizing yet. If that were the case, Bioware Austin wouldn't be hiring at the same time it was doing layoffs. Though I think Warhammer Online just ran its course. Compared to SWG (my old stomping ground. I still shudder with dread when I hear "Smedley"), it had a pretty good run.

Now, if you want to know what a dying MMORPG looks like, look at SWG. That thing was a nightmare.

Actually, I wasn't that surprised. But then again, I read the shareholders' materials for the latest quarter.

(http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/07/ea...ember-30-2012/) Found this online, seems like a pretty good summary.

EA announced to the shareholders (and others) that it was going to be restructuring its employees so that there were going to be layoffs of up to 500-1,000 employees (puts the 200 from BioWare Austin in perspective, eh?). However, that's because EA is currently trying to refocus onto their online and digital offerings. Before the layoffs, their employees numbered 9,200 with one in eight being engineers. After the layoffs, they're planning to employ 9,700 employees with one in two being engineers.

But you know the trolls. They'll ignore the majority of the details to change the story from "EA growing workforce & restructuring to employ more engineers, will layoff some current workers" to "EA (...) will layoff some current workers". Then imply that this means the game is dying, or that there will be no more meaningful content.

Honestly, I wish people would actually read the news stories or the shareholders' materials before the fly off the handle predicting doomsday. It'd save us time, keep the forums a bit cleaner, and make it a bit easier for people with real questions and legitimate concerns (such as a time-frame to expect 1.3 on the test server. I've tried twice to ask that question in the topic about the 1.3 preview video, and the only response was someone tying it into their whining about the game.) to actually use the forums. You know, what the forums were designed for. Instead of a place for the community to interact and disseminate information about the game, it's become a sounding board for trolls who seem to need SWtOR to fail in order to justify their unsub to themselves.

Bioware at the very least needs to make two General Discussion forums- one for subscribers & one for both subscribers and non-subscribers. Then bar non-subscribers from the rest of the forums. This is getting ridiculous.

If you were to pay attention, those job postings have been on the website for a month or more, which means they really aren't reactionary postings unless this is the one and only area of business in which BW has amazing foresight, although I doubt it.

It can basically be assumed that those are simply the postings they regularly make to deal with their high turn over rate, but hey, haters gonna hate, right?

Actually, I wasn't that surprised. But then again, I read the shareholders' materials for the latest quarter.

Snippity snip

Bioware at the very least needs to make two General Discussion forums- one for subscribers & one for both subscribers and non-subscribers. Then bar non-subscribers from the rest of the forums. This is getting ridiculous.

I hope your financial analytical ability is more reasoned and thought out than your game mechanics ability.

Because, to the best of my knowledge, the requirement for posting on these forums is having current paid for gametime on your account. So it would seem that you are suggesting that when somebody cancels their recurring subscription they should no longer be able to post on these forums even though they are still allowed to log in to the game

Haters, trolls, and doom-sayers don't like facts. While TOR has had problems, especially server density (or lack thereof), EA is changing the way they do business. Layoffs here are part of the bigger picture.

Thanks for posting this.

I hope your financial analytical ability is more reasoned and thought out than your game mechanics ability.

Because, to the best of my knowledge, the requirement for posting on these forums is having current paid for gametime on your account. So it would seem that you are suggesting that when somebody cancels their recurring subscription they should no longer be able to post on these forums even though they are still allowed to log in to the game

I'm saying that you make TWO general discussion forums in order to manage the trolling. It's gotten to the point that general users have a hard time using the forums themselves. If they find another way to fix this, great. More power to them. But as it is now, the general discussion forum serves primarily as a sounding board for trolls. That's not their intended purpose, and hurts what they were designed for.

I'm saying that you make TWO general discussion forums in order to manage the trolling. It's gotten to the point that general users have a hard time using the forums themselves. If they find another way to fix this, great. More power to them. But as it is now, the general discussion forum serves primarily as a sounding board for trolls. That's not their intended purpose, and hurts what they were designed for.