Wow this "Event" is by far the biggest Hustle I've ever seen in a Video Game.

You slap in the Faces of every loyal Subscriber you had in the past Years to force us to make everything that we did

AGAIN!

How can you look in a Mirror?

Everything what you give us are things that are already in the game, the only thing whats new is Armorset with the Exp Boost and let me guess you get the Set AFTER the Event is over.

The Companion is absolutely useless we have already over 20 and can only use 6 of them for crafting.

The Mount is a Mount... boring. 110% speed doesn't matter how it look.

For over a Year now Players ask you or new Operation, you know SWTOR is a MMO after all and what did you gave us? Single player Story and now after the story is over you have nothing for us. So you bring this "Event" to spend our time with everything the Community has already done!

Shame such a shame

Please tell me this wasn't a reference to the L/D thing.

 

You know, your community would cut you guys a lot more slack if you just stopped keeping people in the dark. Do you think the L/D thing went over well today? Now imagine you (yes, Ben, that means you) had provided us with a roadmap for the next year and the community:

 

• 
   
  
• Knew the expected drop date of new Operations content.
  
• Knew the expected drop date of KotFE Season 2.
  
• Knew when we could expect a new PvP map.
  
• Knew when you were going to do a new GSF map.
  
• Knew what your plans were WRT class balance and when they would be going out onto the PTS.
  

 

And - instead of hyping up this PoS as something special, if it was instead dropped on us in an offhand manner as "something to fill the time between now and the next major content drop" - don't you think the community would be a little less volatile?

 

Who runs your meetings bro? Do you not have a corporate culture where someone in the room is able to stand up and say "guys, this is a terrible idea"? Because if you guys truly are "Gamers", someone in that room must have wanted to say it.

 

How hard would it have been to create some type of reward - maybe a cool weapon, mount or title - for people who don't want to redo this stuff, but have already done most of it and just want to finish up the bits they have left.

 

Instead of creating a situation that completely laughs in the face of your longest, most loyal customers.

 

Not like I care about this thing, so I'm not affected - but the decision making needs a review if you're even remotely concerned about how you are perceived as a development team. People are split on whether you guys are evil or inept. Don't you want the community to respect the work you guys do? The product you provide?

 

If I had the privilege - and it should be treated as such - of being a part of the MMO (<-lol) based on the world's greatest IP I know I would care.

 

Just saying man, you guys continue to step on your crank, and it's hard to understand why. There were at least 10 other ways I could think of (to shamelessly recycle content to keep this cash cow going with minimal investment in, I dunno, MMO content) that wouldn't have pissed off 90% of your subscribers. Why is it so hard for you guys?

 

One last thing, if you actually even read this....

 

"Focus on Story".... What does this mean exactly? It doesn't seem like a focus on story to me.

 

Dread Masters were story. The whole Malgus chain was an awesome story. Epic **** Ben. Truly, epic.

 

You seem to have sold us on "story" but really meant "single-player". Because you're asking us to go all in on KotFE. OK - I'll buy that....

 

But how is Eternal Championship "story"? How is this light/dark circus "story"?

 

You want to focus on "story"? Go nuts. But at some point, when you're talking to the ducks, spend a moment thinking about the fact that whether you regret it or not, you are working on an MMO. And there are a few of us that like MMO's. We like doing things with others. We like having our guilds be "relevant". We like grouping up and destroying the biggest meanest BAMFs you guys can dream up.

 

You've lost reams of paying customers that feel this way. I doubt you've lost many people who thought there wasn't enough "story" in this game.

 

The forums have plenty of white knights who applaud your "new direction" and insist you guys are doing it based on metrics and RoI. But I'm not stupid and I assume you aren't either. We both know your long-term projections can not be trending in the direction you'd like. Anyone who logs into the game knows this, if they are being honest with themselves. The value prop just isn't there.

 

Maybe for 2017 you can focus on "customer retention", and start acting like this is the MMO it was supposed to be, stop hyping recycled 2012 content, stop abandoning 2/3 of your player base at every turn, stop pretending your player metrics aren't a direct result of design decisions you have made and try to "Focus" on keeping those of us that are still here, here instead of assuming our replacement will be just as valuable to you.

This post should absolutely be addressed by Mr Irving. It speaks for me and many, many others

I don't care what winds up happening with the event, but with the inept design decisions that led to it continually driving away players, it needs to be answered for

Now as often as you DO listen to the community, i plead you listen to the community's current 84 pages of hate mail towards DvL expansion

This is what devs think of that 84 pages ... TL;DR

The Open Letter is nothing but a try to keep us chilled.

But enough is enough.

How about the Dev. Team now writes an open letter and explain why it slaps the longtime players in the face?

Oh i'm sorry forgett that you guys from the Dev. Team don't give a ***** about your Community.

Please explain why you didn't integrate existing Legacy information into this achievement.

Also, as you are also a gamer, please explain how you would be incentivized to help new players in this event when you yourself have been penalized for participating (forced to delete, forced to transfer, forced to purchase a new character slot). These initial steps to join the event are not community positive. Shouldn't the new event have a focus on encouraging players to play together?

Please tell me this wasn't a reference to the L/D thing.

 

You know, your community would cut you guys a lot more slack if you just stopped keeping people in the dark. Do you think the L/D thing went over well today? Now imagine you (yes, Ben, that means you) had provided us with a roadmap for the next year and the community:

 

• 
   
  
• Knew the expected drop date of new Operations content.
  
• Knew the expected drop date of KotFE Season 2.
  
• Knew when we could expect a new PvP map.
  
• Knew when you were going to do a new GSF map.
  
• Knew what your plans were WRT class balance and when they would be going out onto the PTS.
  

 

And - instead of hyping up this PoS as something special, if it was instead dropped on us in an offhand manner as "something to fill the time between now and the next major content drop" - don't you think the community would be a little less volatile?

 

Who runs your meetings bro? Do you not have a corporate culture where someone in the room is able to stand up and say "guys, this is a terrible idea"? Because if you guys truly are "Gamers", someone in that room must have wanted to say it.

 

How hard would it have been to create some type of reward - maybe a cool weapon, mount or title - for people who don't want to redo this stuff, but have already done most of it and just want to finish up the bits they have left.

 

Instead of creating a situation that completely laughs in the face of your longest, most loyal customers.

 

Not like I care about this thing, so I'm not affected - but the decision making needs a review if you're even remotely concerned about how you are perceived as a development team. People are split on whether you guys are evil or inept. Don't you want the community to respect the work you guys do? The product you provide?

 

If I had the privilege - and it should be treated as such - of being a part of the MMO (<-lol) based on the world's greatest IP I know I would care.

 

Just saying man, you guys continue to step on your crank, and it's hard to understand why. There were at least 10 other ways I could think of (to shamelessly recycle content to keep this cash cow going with minimal investment in, I dunno, MMO content) that wouldn't have pissed off 90% of your subscribers. Why is it so hard for you guys?

 

One last thing, if you actually even read this....

 

"Focus on Story".... What does this mean exactly? It doesn't seem like a focus on story to me.

 

Dread Masters were story. The whole Malgus chain was an awesome story. Epic **** Ben. Truly, epic.

 

You seem to have sold us on "story" but really meant "single-player". Because you're asking us to go all in on KotFE. OK - I'll buy that....

 

But how is Eternal Championship "story"? How is this light/dark circus "story"?

 

You want to focus on "story"? Go nuts. But at some point, when you're talking to the ducks, spend a moment thinking about the fact that whether you regret it or not, you are working on an MMO. And there are a few of us that like MMO's. We like doing things with others. We like having our guilds be "relevant". We like grouping up and destroying the biggest meanest BAMFs you guys can dream up.

 

You've lost reams of paying customers that feel this way. I doubt you've lost many people who thought there wasn't enough "story" in this game.

 

The forums have plenty of white knights who applaud your "new direction" and insist you guys are doing it based on metrics and RoI. But I'm not stupid and I assume you aren't either. We both know your long-term projections can not be trending in the direction you'd like. Anyone who logs into the game knows this, if they are being honest with themselves. The value prop just isn't there.

 

Maybe for 2017 you can focus on "customer retention", and start acting like this is the MMO it was supposed to be, stop hyping recycled 2012 content, stop abandoning 2/3 of your player base at every turn, stop pretending your player metrics aren't a direct result of design decisions you have made and try to "Focus" on keeping those of us that are still here, here instead of assuming our replacement will be just as valuable to you.

This post should absolutely be addressed by Mr Irving. It speaks for me and many, many others

 

I don't care what winds up happening with the event, but with the inept design decisions that led to it continually driving away players, it needs to be answered for

Yeah, this definitely needs to stay up top until we get a response - very well put.

I know I'm in the minority here, for a number of reasons. First, I'm likely older than most here. Second, I couldnt care less about PvP, Ops or Raids. Third, I only started playing this game a few months ago as I didnt have a laptop that could handle it till then, but thanks to my new AwesomeLappy1000 here I am. So, all of that is to preface the following.

I have been a very long term fan of BioWares. Stretching waaaayyyy back. You people get it, for the most part, and get what people enjoy. You generally strive to do amazing things in your games no one else has.

Therein lies the root of your problems as well.

The class stories are PHENOMENAL. The interactions with the companions are first rate generally, at least through the JK storyline ( I cant be the only one that wanted to punch Rusk in the mouth every damn time he spouted off numbers though).

KotFE...sigh. Its...mediocore, really. The loss of my original companions was heartbreaking. The letter from Kira almost brought me to tears. The lack of the story paying homage to your choices, your relationships, from the past is truly sad.

Bioware has a habit of painting itself in to a cornor with really fantastic ideas and then getting to a point of 'ummmm...what now??'

Ruining the galaxy for this fallen empire story was a mistake. It was done to be able to rope everyones different characters in to the same narrative. Basically, this is the Mass Effect 3 color choices all over again. Star Wars, in any era, NEEDS Jedi and Sith, light and dark, Republic and Empire (whatever they want to go by in each era) and those that skirt the boundaries. This KotFE narrative? While decent on its own, and has some interesting characters (Vailyn) and some totally uninteresting bad guys (Arcann) it falls flat as nothing else we have done now matters, nothing we do will matter, and the companinons that mattered to us are gone.

Heres something that will come as a surprise to many, many writers out there. This is good not just for BioWare but all game developers the world over and to a degree, TV and movie writers as well.

We dont need the threat of the end of the world to motivate us.

How many doomsday weapons did you guys come up with in the main class stories? Then more in the subsequent releases? Then...you actually destroyed the known universe and replaced it with a 'bigger bad'. From a gaming perspective, I understand that. You want bigger threats and challenges for the player to tackle. But come on, you guys are Bio-freaking-Ware...do something different. Smaller scale, personal stories > end of the world cardboard cut out stories every time.

Connect the player to the story emotionally, you are good at that so FOCUS on that. Make the choices actually matter, make the story specific to the choices. Just as ME 1 had the most emotionally resonant story for Mass Effect, so too do your initial class specific stories here. ME Ive replayed a dozen times, ME 3 just once. DA1 a dozen times, never even finished this last one.

KotFE is heartbreaking as a gamer, and a lover of stories. I will finish it with my JK and hope Kira resurfaces and has an actual role and actual interactions with my character based on our established relationship. To be honest, if she does reappear and the past relationship is played off as nothing...I may not even finish KotFE and just go back to the class stories.

Sincerely,

Old semi-casual-semi-hardcore gamer fan

Please tell me this wasn't a reference to the L/D thing.

.

they probably laughing at us now for believing that they will have new content

Please tell me this wasn't a reference to the L/D thing.

 

You know, your community would cut you guys a lot more slack if you just stopped keeping people in the dark. Do you think the L/D thing went over well today? Now imagine you (yes, Ben, that means you) had provided us with a roadmap for the next year and the community:

 

• 
   
  
• Knew the expected drop date of new Operations content.
  
• Knew the expected drop date of KotFE Season 2.
  
• Knew when we could expect a new PvP map.
  
• Knew when you were going to do a new GSF map.
  
• Knew what your plans were WRT class balance and when they would be going out onto the PTS.
  

 

And - instead of hyping up this PoS as something special, if it was instead dropped on us in an offhand manner as "something to fill the time between now and the next major content drop" - don't you think the community would be a little less volatile?

 

Who runs your meetings bro? Do you not have a corporate culture where someone in the room is able to stand up and say "guys, this is a terrible idea"? Because if you guys truly are "Gamers", someone in that room must have wanted to say it.

 

How hard would it have been to create some type of reward - maybe a cool weapon, mount or title - for people who don't want to redo this stuff, but have already done most of it and just want to finish up the bits they have left.

 

Instead of creating a situation that completely laughs in the face of your longest, most loyal customers.

 

Not like I care about this thing, so I'm not affected - but the decision making needs a review if you're even remotely concerned about how you are perceived as a development team. People are split on whether you guys are evil or inept. Don't you want the community to respect the work you guys do? The product you provide?

 

If I had the privilege - and it should be treated as such - of being a part of the MMO (<-lol) based on the world's greatest IP I know I would care.

 

Just saying man, you guys continue to step on your crank, and it's hard to understand why. There were at least 10 other ways I could think of (to shamelessly recycle content to keep this cash cow going with minimal investment in, I dunno, MMO content) that wouldn't have pissed off 90% of your subscribers. Why is it so hard for you guys?

 

One last thing, if you actually even read this....

 

"Focus on Story".... What does this mean exactly? It doesn't seem like a focus on story to me.

 

Dread Masters were story. The whole Malgus chain was an awesome story. Epic **** Ben. Truly, epic.

 

You seem to have sold us on "story" but really meant "single-player". Because you're asking us to go all in on KotFE. OK - I'll buy that....

 

But how is Eternal Championship "story"? How is this light/dark circus "story"?

 

You want to focus on "story"? Go nuts. But at some point, when you're talking to the ducks, spend a moment thinking about the fact that whether you regret it or not, you are working on an MMO. And there are a few of us that like MMO's. We like doing things with others. We like having our guilds be "relevant". We like grouping up and destroying the biggest meanest BAMFs you guys can dream up.

 

You've lost reams of paying customers that feel this way. I doubt you've lost many people who thought there wasn't enough "story" in this game.

 

The forums have plenty of white knights who applaud your "new direction" and insist you guys are doing it based on metrics and RoI. But I'm not stupid and I assume you aren't either. We both know your long-term projections can not be trending in the direction you'd like. Anyone who logs into the game knows this, if they are being honest with themselves. The value prop just isn't there.

 

Maybe for 2017 you can focus on "customer retention", and start acting like this is the MMO it was supposed to be, stop hyping recycled 2012 content, stop abandoning 2/3 of your player base at every turn, stop pretending your player metrics aren't a direct result of design decisions you have made and try to "Focus" on keeping those of us that are still here, here instead of assuming our replacement will be just as valuable to you.

Well said.

If this is the "new, non-chapter" content we were told about... then it comes pretty close to outright deliberate dishonesty.

Please explain why you didn't integrate existing Legacy information into this achievement.

Isn't it clear? That would have taken effort. This way it just takes metrics.

Well said.

 

If this is the "new, non-chapter" content we were told about... then it comes pretty close to outright deliberate dishonesty.

That's kind of true. Rather than non-chapter, this basically requires you to do all chapters.

Ben,

First of all, nice letter full of doublespeak, and go no where, do nothing. I am surprised you count yourself, as well as others at Bioware as gamers. If you were truly gamers, you would have already fixed the myriad problems in the game already. I have a list of things that needs to be fixed. Starting with the credit spammers. Switch the game back to subscription only may help the problem. Barring that, then F2P should have a limit word count to type in, as well as no ability to send mail, or whisper. Or at least send mail free. Next thing to fix is the writing of the Jedi Counselor story line. It reads like a 2 year old wrote the story. After that, fix all the places where people can get stuck, and smooth it out so they don't. Then fix the other things that really need to be fixed. Oh, and something fun, stop catering to the pvp'ers. They should be ignored. You have done your level best to nerf all but the top pvp'ers in the game, and have catered to them. Fix what you broke, and stop the pvp'ers from whining all the time.

Second, calling this thing that starts tomorrow a new event is a joke. It is just a way to make everyone upset, and drive more people away. Instead of the new "event," make a new raid. Do it on Ziost. This way, you will show us that you really care, and want to do something that nice.

Third, after KotFE is done, please, for the love of all that is holy, go back to individual class missions, and class story lines. This might bring back some people.

Fourth, consider allowing people to write their own responses to conversations, and allow for the NPC to react to what the PC says. This could make for some interesting conversations. However, there should be a limit to what is said, and how, but it would make the game more interesting if you could tell the person to go sit and swivel on a vibro-knife blade.

thank you for you post ben. I think you guys should really think about server cross overs for war zones.

Why? This game needs CONTENT, not cross server anything.

Please tell me this wasn't a reference to the L/D thing.

 

You know, your community would cut you guys a lot more slack if you just stopped keeping people in the dark. Do you think the L/D thing went over well today? Now imagine you (yes, Ben, that means you) had provided us with a roadmap for the next year and the community:

 

• 
   
  
• Knew the expected drop date of new Operations content.
  
• Knew the expected drop date of KotFE Season 2.
  
• Knew when we could expect a new PvP map.
  
• Knew when you were going to do a new GSF map.
  
• Knew what your plans were WRT class balance and when they would be going out onto the PTS.
  

 

And - instead of hyping up this PoS as something special, if it was instead dropped on us in an offhand manner as "something to fill the time between now and the next major content drop" - don't you think the community would be a little less volatile?

 

Who runs your meetings bro? Do you not have a corporate culture where someone in the room is able to stand up and say "guys, this is a terrible idea"? Because if you guys truly are "Gamers", someone in that room must have wanted to say it.

 

How hard would it have been to create some type of reward - maybe a cool weapon, mount or title - for people who don't want to redo this stuff, but have already done most of it and just want to finish up the bits they have left.

 

Instead of creating a situation that completely laughs in the face of your longest, most loyal customers.

 

Not like I care about this thing, so I'm not affected - but the decision making needs a review if you're even remotely concerned about how you are perceived as a development team. People are split on whether you guys are evil or inept. Don't you want the community to respect the work you guys do? The product you provide?

 

If I had the privilege - and it should be treated as such - of being a part of the MMO (<-lol) based on the world's greatest IP I know I would care.

 

Just saying man, you guys continue to step on your crank, and it's hard to understand why. There were at least 10 other ways I could think of (to shamelessly recycle content to keep this cash cow going with minimal investment in, I dunno, MMO content) that wouldn't have pissed off 90% of your subscribers. Why is it so hard for you guys?

 

One last thing, if you actually even read this....

 

"Focus on Story".... What does this mean exactly? It doesn't seem like a focus on story to me.

 

Dread Masters were story. The whole Malgus chain was an awesome story. Epic **** Ben. Truly, epic.

 

You seem to have sold us on "story" but really meant "single-player". Because you're asking us to go all in on KotFE. OK - I'll buy that....

 

But how is Eternal Championship "story"? How is this light/dark circus "story"?

 

You want to focus on "story"? Go nuts. But at some point, when you're talking to the ducks, spend a moment thinking about the fact that whether you regret it or not, you are working on an MMO. And there are a few of us that like MMO's. We like doing things with others. We like having our guilds be "relevant". We like grouping up and destroying the biggest meanest BAMFs you guys can dream up.

 

You've lost reams of paying customers that feel this way. I doubt you've lost many people who thought there wasn't enough "story" in this game.

 

The forums have plenty of white knights who applaud your "new direction" and insist you guys are doing it based on metrics and RoI. But I'm not stupid and I assume you aren't either. We both know your long-term projections can not be trending in the direction you'd like. Anyone who logs into the game knows this, if they are being honest with themselves. The value prop just isn't there.

 

Maybe for 2017 you can focus on "customer retention", and start acting like this is the MMO it was supposed to be, stop hyping recycled 2012 content, stop abandoning 2/3 of your player base at every turn, stop pretending your player metrics aren't a direct result of design decisions you have made and try to "Focus" on keeping those of us that are still here, here instead of assuming our replacement will be just as valuable to you.

Well put.

Also in line with focusing on Story, I would like to know how Speed runs and having a companion tied to light and dark side choices helps improve the story for anyone.

I suspect the space bar is the most used key in the game at the moment. Its not about the story its about racing through the items on a list to get free stuff. Somewhat whorish behavior.

But for those that aren't space baring through just for the achievements and do want to see the story they are left with a choice do I go light or dark and then your really tied to it. Whats the point of having a light dark event if I go grey. So even they may as well just space bar through cause its no longer about the story its about which companion you hope to get and the future state of the galaxy. Though as I have no idea as a lightside sith if I want the galaxy to be light side or dark cause I have no idea what the consequences will be.

There has to be a better way to get people into the story than speed runs or light vs dark side choices being tallied.

Hi there!

 

My name is Ben Irving, Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don’t often make posts in the forums, in fact, this may be my first ever post. Despite that, our whole team, myself included try to digest all of the internet for SWTOR information – The forums, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Recently there have been questions and concerns around the quality of our releases and the ongoing support for SWTOR and I wanted to stop by to address those concerns.

 

First off, I want to apologize for some of the issues you have experienced in the last couple of months. The monthly chapter release schedule is new and it has come with some unexpected bugs. It has caused problems for some of you and I want to say I am sorry. At our core, the SWTOR team are all gamers, just like you. We empathize with the excitement of wanting to play a great game only to be blocked by a problem. We spend all of our energy striving to make SWTOR the best game possible and when bugs and other issues get in the way of your player experience, we take it to heart. We are committed to doing better and I think Chapter XII: Visions in the Dark shows we are serious about listening to your concerns and making meaningful changes to address them - a high quality chapter, released on time that we hope has met the expectations of our players.

 

Onto the future. Is SWTOR going to receive ongoing support? The answer is absolutely yes.

 

It's worth starting with the things we have already announced, we talk about them on the monthly Producer Live Stream but I think they are still worth mentioning. We had the launch of Knights of the Fallen Empire – 9 incredible story driven chapters, 14 companion recruitment missions, Star Fortress, 5 new player levels, 30 flashpoints upgraded to be challenging again, 50 operation bosses upgraded to be challenging again, too many heroic quests to count, a revamp of the 1-60 levelling experience and a huge number of quality of life improvements. More recently we have kicked off our monthly chapter cadence and our third installment – Chapter XII: Visions in the Dark – was just released. That cadence will take us through most of the year ending with Chapter XVI, our story finale for Knights of the Fallen Empire. In addition to all the monthly chapters we have built great supporting content – Recruitment missions to explore the galaxy with some of your favorite companions, the Odessen Proving Grounds Warzone, the Rishi Cove Arena, the Eternal Championship and new levels for crafting. That’s actually more content following a major expansion than we have ever released and the team is really excited for all of you to play it.

 

The harder part to address, because you have to take my word for it, are all the features and content we are working on that we haven’t yet announced. If you follow Charles Boyd or Paul Marino on social media you may have seen some hints of this. The team recently visited our MoCap studio to create new animations. Charles Boyd spent a week at our VO studio recording more lines of dialogue for future story content. The two most exciting things to share are that our writers are deep into the plot summaries for the next season's worth of chapters and we have started the early design phase for new, non-chapter, content. You all know the drill here, I can’t talk about any of the specifics (yet) but what I can say is that we have some REALLY cool stuff to talk about later this year and the whole SWTOR team can’t wait to announce it. Soon. TM.

 

Knights of the Fallen Empire is the most successful expansion we have ever produced. It received critical acclaim from press and fan sites but most importantly, it has been successful because all of you have supported us through the expansion launch and the release of the monthly Chapters. In the eyes of all of our partners, SWTOR is a huge success. BioWare supports this game. EA supports this game. Lucasfilm supports this game. Disney supports this game. In fact, for a game that has been live for almost 5 years, we are receiving an incredible amount of support from all of our partners. It’s both amazing and humbling.

 

If there is anything I would like people reading this to take away it’s this: SWTOR is absolutely being supported into the future. We have a lot of content coming over the next few months and even more exciting things to talk about later this year. All of us here at BioWare appreciate your ongoing support and we are committed to providing the best experience possible.

 

It’s because of you, our players, that this game continues to thrive. Thank you for playing Star Wars: The Old Republic.

 

Ben Irving

Wouldn't exactly call all of them "incredible" some of them have been really boring.. and the so call 5 level is a joke, really. We get to max level even before we can get into half of the expansion, give us 10 or more and then we can talk about how great new levels are

Third, after KotFE is done, please, for the love of all that is holy, go back to individual class missions, and class story lines. This might bring back some people.

 

Fourth, consider allowing people to write their own responses to conversations, and allow for the NPC to react to what the PC says. This could make for some interesting conversations. However, there should be a limit to what is said, and how, but it would make the game more interesting if you could tell the person to go sit and swivel on a vibro-knife blade.

LOL do you know how much code that would be??? I love how you drop the idea down like it's SO SIMPLE.

You can always spot the non programmers...

hi there!

 

My name is ben irving, producer for star wars: The old republic. I don’t often make posts in the forums, in fact, this may be my first ever post. Despite that, our whole team, myself included try to digest all of the internet for swtor information – the forums, reddit, facebook, youtube, etc. Recently there have been questions and concerns around the quality of our releases and the ongoing support for swtor and i wanted to stop by to address those concerns.

 

First off, i want to apologize for some of the issues you have experienced in the last couple of months. The monthly chapter release schedule is new and it has come with some unexpected bugs. It has caused problems for some of you and i want to say i am sorry. At our core, the swtor team are all gamers, just like you. We empathize with the excitement of wanting to play a great game only to be blocked by a problem. We spend all of our energy striving to make swtor the best game possible and when bugs and other issues get in the way of your player experience, we take it to heart. We are committed to doing better and i think chapter xii: Visions in the dark shows we are serious about listening to your concerns and making meaningful changes to address them - a high quality chapter, released on time that we hope has met the expectations of our players.

 

Onto the future. Is swtor going to receive ongoing support? The answer is absolutely yes.

 

It's worth starting with the things we have already announced, we talk about them on the monthly producer live stream but i think they are still worth mentioning. We had the launch of knights of the fallen empire – 9 incredible story driven chapters, 14 companion recruitment missions, star fortress, 5 new player levels, 30 flashpoints upgraded to be challenging again, 50 operation bosses upgraded to be challenging again, too many heroic quests to count, a revamp of the 1-60 levelling experience and a huge number of quality of life improvements. More recently we have kicked off our monthly chapter cadence and our third installment – chapter xii: Visions in the dark – was just released. That cadence will take us through most of the year ending with chapter xvi, our story finale for knights of the fallen empire. In addition to all the monthly chapters we have built great supporting content – recruitment missions to explore the galaxy with some of your favorite companions, the odessen proving grounds warzone, the rishi cove arena, the eternal championship and new levels for crafting. That’s actually more content following a major expansion than we have ever released and the team is really excited for all of you to play it.

 

The harder part to address, because you have to take my word for it, are all the features and content we are working on that we haven’t yet announced. If you follow charles boyd or paul marino on social media you may have seen some hints of this. The team recently visited our mocap studio to create new animations. Charles boyd spent a week at our vo studio recording more lines of dialogue for future story content. The two most exciting things to share are that our writers are deep into the plot summaries for the next season's worth of chapters and we have started the early design phase for new, non-chapter, content. You all know the drill here, i can’t talk about any of the specifics (yet) but what i can say is that we have some really cool stuff to talk about later this year and the whole swtor team can’t wait to announce it. Soon. Tm.

 

Knights of the fallen empire is the most successful expansion we have ever produced. It received critical acclaim from press and fan sites but most importantly, it has been successful because all of you have supported us through the expansion launch and the release of the monthly chapters. In the eyes of all of our partners, swtor is a huge success. Bioware supports this game. Ea supports this game. Lucasfilm supports this game. Disney supports this game. In fact, for a game that has been live for almost 5 years, we are receiving an incredible amount of support from all of our partners. It’s both amazing and humbling.

 

If there is anything i would like people reading this to take away it’s this: Swtor is absolutely being supported into the future. We have a lot of content coming over the next few months and even more exciting things to talk about later this year. All of us here at bioware appreciate your ongoing support and we are committed to providing the best experience possible.

 

It’s because of you, our players, that this game continues to thrive. Thank you for playing star wars: The old republic.

 

Ben irving

KotFE...sigh. Its...mediocore, really. The loss of my original companions was heartbreaking. The letter from Kira almost brought me to tears. The lack of the story paying homage to your choices, your relationships, from the past is truly sad.

I feel you. The treatment of the majority of original companions that you actually care about is awful.

I have a list of things that needs to be fixed. Starting with the credit spammers. Switch the game back to subscription only may help the problem. Barring that, then F2P should have a limit word count to type in, as well as no ability to send mail, or whisper. Or at least send mail free. Next thing to fix is the writing of the Jedi Counselor story line. It reads like a 2 year old wrote the story. After that, fix all the places where people can get stuck, and smooth it out so they don't. Then fix the other things that really need to be fixed. Oh, and something fun, stop catering to the pvp'ers. They should be ignored. You have done your level best to nerf all but the top pvp'ers in the game, and have catered to them. Fix what you broke, and stop the pvp'ers from whining all the time.

 

Second, calling this thing that starts tomorrow a new event is a joke. It is just a way to make everyone upset, and drive more people away. Instead of the new "event," make a new raid. Do it on Ziost. This way, you will show us that you really care, and want to do something that nice.

 

Third, after KotFE is done, please, for the love of all that is holy, go back to individual class missions, and class story lines. This might bring back some people.

 

Fourth, consider allowing people to write their own responses to conversations, and allow for the NPC to react to what the PC says. This could make for some interesting conversations. However, there should be a limit to what is said, and how, but it would make the game more interesting if you could tell the person to go sit and swivel on a vibro-knife blade.

I like the suggestions regarding how to deal with credit spammers. Limiting their ability to communicate would be quite a useful way to shut them down. However, this limit should not be applied to all F2Pers, since, surely, with all your precious "metrics" that have been accumulated, it should be relatively easy to identify a profile of the spammers and place these limits on legacies that are fitting the profile. E-mails that have lots of nonsense in their subject lines should be an obvious red flag as well as messages being sent out with the same subject each and every time. Grammar, usage and spelling errors should also factor into the analysis.

I, too, am tired of the PVP whining and catering. I have found PVPers to be a bunch of snobbish, cliquish, arrogant ***** and this is a reason why I rarely PVP anymore on my 65s. Something that may help with this could be for allowing players to opt-out of arena warzones or to make it so they have to opt-in to them. That is where the irritating behavior is most pronounced based upon my observations. However, I have no idea of how to handle that from a coding perspective, as I am a historian and not a computer programmer.

I agree with the second point. I won't be participating in this "event."

I also agree with the SirTwist's third point. However, I have not been through all the class missions on Rishi, the only one I find intriguing is the Sith Inquisitor's continued quest for immortality. That is the only one with an ongoing thread Imp side--haven't done Rishi yet with all my Pub toons, but the JK one was a real boring snoozer. However, this likely has more to do with my personality being very Nox-ish: lusting for power and all that.

I suspect the space bar is the most used key in the game at the moment.

This is one of the most accurate, and funny, statements I've ever read

Hi Ben my Name is Sebastian,

I bought your Game ( even the CE) because i believed in your Company and do love the Star Wars Univers.

But today after a long Time i decided to Quit your Game and due to the Way you (BW) treated us customers, i will estimate that a Giant Meteorite directly hit you headquarters and annihilate you hole Team which will put a Smile on my Face and help ignoring every Product your incompetent Team might produce in the Future.

Kartell market is your only priority, the Chapters fail to impress ( the last one you did even kill a Companion withouth giving the Player a choice, a Companion you sold customisation for......) , No new Content , beeing stuck in a treadmill forced to play the long existing Content again and again and again.

The only Thing that did hold me into your Game for the last Month has been my Guild Grp. which i really like playing with and im utterly gutted to dissapoint all of them now by leaving the Game. But i simply cant take any more of your "Content" and every Bill for monthly Subs. makes me mad as Hell.

Thanks for ruining a brilliant License and a 2 Year Raiding Guild / Friendship.

I have a few refinements on what I wrote. I have played other games, and I will say the level of service I have gotten from them has far exceeded the level of service I have seen out of Bioware/EA. we, as players, once a credit spammer has been reported as being a credit spammer, should be handled in the following fashion. This is only for credit spammers.

One, that spammer gets immediately put into an ignore list just for spammers, and across legacy. This list will, on occasion be emptied.

Two, an in game moderator will appear, after three reports. and essentially delete the character, ban their ip address, etc.

Three, the account that was used will also be deleted, banned, and never to be used.

I should not have a whole list of tickets just on credit spammers, that are still open. This is nothing but BW's BS. Other games, this would not happen, at all.

Another idea, and just a thought, for PVP, if the abilities are too "good," in pvp, instead of nerfing one class, or two, or all, just use anti-bolster type thing in pvp matches. If you are certain level, it doesn't affect you. If you have some gear, but not a full set, at 65, then it does somewhat affect you, but only to a degree. Full gear, ranked, etc. you are very affected by this. All health is the same, in the match. Lowest person's health is what everyone will have. Armor rating, etc. will factor into how much healing or damage you are putting out. As well as other things. Also, the medpacs and adrenals are nerfed, a little, as well. The medpacs will heal you up to full, but over time. The adrenals should be akin to adrenals, and only give a slight boost for 30 seconds. And you can't spam the medpacs.

Oh, and give us our companions back, in the Knights of the Fallen Empire crap. I don't want to lose any companions I have built a relationship with over time. I might have to go "recruit" them, but it should be something like this happening:

"Hey stranger, long time no see, want to join back up, and have some more fun?"

"We did have a lot of fun, let's do it again, and this time with style."

And so on. You should not have to do more than that if you have a high affection level with them, 20+. 10+ you have to convince them you are back, and good to go, but that is a conversation. At no affection level, never heard of them, etc., then you have to do their stuff. Again, this would not be a problem with a few good writers on staff, or even a few decent ones.

One last note, I still say that it would be fun to go up to someone, in game, and instead of just three answers, you should be able to something like in Fallout 4, or even write your own part, where you can say something like, "So and so, (your companion) has placed on you a thermal detonator. Because I think you are a waste of time and space, I'm going to do the universe a world of good by walking out of the room, and hitting the button." Walk out of the room, and hit the button, and the building begins to collapse. Then you run out, and when you are safe, you pant, look at your companion, "tell me that it was just one, and not the whole room, or building."

"It would have been a long, boring, painful, conversation anyway, so the whole building had to come down."

"I love it when you think further ahead than I do." +9 billion affection points.

Or something like this. See, this would be fun, it would make things easier, as well. You won't have to put up with people you don't like, and so you take them out. Easy-peasy.