War doch klar dass nichts Gutes dabei sein wird, die netteren Items werden brav für den Cash Shop aufgehoben.

Ahahaha - those of you who are still white-knighting Bioware really crack me up. This event is the type of content you can expect from now on, cheaply made stuff that anyone who understands their quest editor can put together in an afternoon. If some kids had made this for a highschool project I could understand, but they actually want money for this. 2 rounds of layoffs mean that hardly anyone who is talented is still around. The skilled guys have realized that the boat is sinking fast and are probably looking for new jobs or are already gone. The expensive contractors have been fired and left are those who don't cost too much and go with the corporate vision. Didn't you learn anything from Zeschuk leaving Austin and going back to Edmonton ? You can bet that he did it because he no longer wants anything to do with this game and because it makes him look bad as a designer. A world event reproducing mistakes in quest design on a scale that we haven't seen since the days of early Everquest - way to go Bioware.

Dass das mit den großen Versprechen nicht hinhaut, hätten wir eigentlich schon nach Patch 1.2 merken müssen. Naja EA hat also wieder ein gutes Studio gefressen, und jetzt wird auf jeden Studio-Ableger der Sticker Bioware geklebt, solange noch nicht alle Kunden gerafft haben, dass dort wo Bioware drauf steht nicht unbedingt Bioware drin ist. Bioware Austin...vielleicht bekommen wir dann auch noch Bioware Dallas, Bioware Los Angeles, Bioware Seattle...usw. Alles Studios mit neuen Gesichtern die nie etwas mit Bioware zu tun hatten, geführt von EA Managern die keine Ahnung davon haben was ein gutes Spiel ausmacht, Hauptsache die Kohle stimmt.

Well, Bioware Austin has little to do with Bioware Edmonton. Austin does not house the "real" Bioware people, but consists of leftovers from EA Mythic. The only real Bioware guy was Greg Zeschuk, the Bioware co-founder - who now seems to have thrown the towel and is probably returning to Edmonton. I think it's obvious that he no longer wants to have anything to do with this mess. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-10-bioware-co-founder-greg-zeschuk-quits-old-republic-dev-bioware-austin-report I wonder if he has already made an appointment at a laser clinic to have his Swtor tattoo removed. Lightsaber treatment incoming....

Apart from the failures in game design and the disappointment that was Ilum it was probably the lack of Star Wars atmosphere - or rather the lack of any atmosphere or character at all. The game is like the prequels, a squeaky clean, generic product without soul. Here's an example: When I came to Dromund Kaas and entered the Sith hq there was no feeling of threat or of manipulative Sith Lords watching your every step. Instead you had your feared Sith sitting in their small offices, doing what exactly ? It did not feel like the heart of evil but more like walking into the headquarters of a huge ministry or some global corporation - maybe walking into the EA headquarters feels like that. Instead of scheming Sith you had a lot of pencil pushers sitting in their cubicles doing nothing scary or evil at all. A rather cool or detached government ministry will probably have the same air to it. There is no evil there, just red tape and boredom. Its actually what I would have expected from the light side, since the Lucas prequels really stress that. The prequel jedi are a stoic bunch of guys who live in their ivory tower without understanding what is going on around them. And this detachment ultimately leads to their downfall. A certain bureaucratic coolness, with lives centered around traditions and regulations without passion. For the Sith I expected a much more vivid and passionate style, Instead you get towers of cold metal filled with little offices where Sith Lords slave away at their computers. The game is really missing all the little things that create an immersive world.

F2P worked for Lotro because it had a strong core game and tons of stuff to do (monster play, music, crafting, cooking, housing, skirmishes, events, horse racing and so on....) and was generally positively received. Lotro's problem was that elves and wizards was already covered by WoW and that many people did not want to buy another fantasy mmo. F2P did away with that hurdle, and many of those who tried Lotro stuck with it. Swtor is a different matter - it does not have the amount of variety Lotro has and the community feedback is also horrible. And by now most people have realized that Bioware Austin does not stand for Bioware quality but for EA's money making schemes. Also there is no strong core game, except for the class stories and no amount of variety.

Thing is that other games also don't really have something nice and shiny at the end. This is why other more successful mmos have multi-tiered raids, a deep player economy, more meta game stuff like housing and many other things. Just look at the number of content updates Rift got since they launched, unlike Swtor they listened to their community and managed to turn their initially dropping sub numbers around by constantly adding endgame content. Swtor did no such thing, they added the groupfinder way too late, EC is a really bad example for an exciting raid, the endgame armor models they added look terrible and legacy is expensive and mostly useless. In the meantime there is still no world pvp, Ilum is still broken, loading times got a bit better but are still too long and the game still does not feel like Star Wars.

I already felt like that in May after getting only 2 chars to 50. I still want to see some class stories, but I'm too worn out to have another go through the same old planet content.

Welcome to 50 and to the so called endgame. You might realize now why this game is bleeding subs and will become f2p. Probably best to twink a new character and play another class story.

Reminds me how easily they could have added more content: Huttball League and seasons - form your own team and name it. Win prizes like exclusive cosmetic items, speeders, pets, money.....you name it. Add some more Huttball maps and maybe add different rules to each map and you are good to go...... But noooo, one of the things they did right is being ignored and put on the backburner.

It will become a weak point once F2P rolls out. Why you ask ? Because people will plow through the character story and when they are done they have seen the best part of the game. And when they have done that for a few characters they will quit, no one will pay money for the crappy ops or the lackluster pvp.

Bioware Austin was EA from the beginning - this studio has nothing to do with the minds behind Kotor or Mass Effect and consisted for the most part of refugees from SWG and Warhammer - plenty of devs from 2 failed mmos, with Jeff Hickman in charge the future of Swtor looks bleak.

Der Teufel liegt im Detail - der Unterschied ist nämlich ob die Spieler sagen "Mich stört das Abo Modell" oder "Mich stört das Abo Modell WEIL das Spiel keine monatliche Gebühr wert ist". EA entscheidet sich hier für erstere Auslegung ihrer Umfrage. Die Erfahrungen mit meiner Gilder und die Forenpostings in vielen großen Web Communities zeichnen allerdings ein anderes Bild und die 2. Auslegung scheint demnach näher an der Ursache dran zu sein. Dazu muss man sich auch ein wenig die Demographien von MMO Spielern anschaun. Im Schnitt ist der typische MMO Gamer 33 Jahre alt, viele davon mitten im Berufsleben und oft auch mit Familie. In diesem Lebensabschnitt werden die €14.90 kaum jemanden kratzen, das Problem ist eben, dass die Spieler die Lust an Swtor verloren haben und ergo kein Geld mehr bezahlen wollen. Also nicht: "Ich bezahle nicht weil mich das Abo Modell stört" sondern "Das Abo Modell stört mich weil das Spiel keine €14.90 wert ist". Das ist ein gravierender Unterschied finde ich und ich bin mir auch sicher, dass viele bei EA das so sehen. Aber derzeit ist von der Firmenleitung folgende Parole ausgegeben: "F2P wird alles besser machen und Swtor retten". Und wie wahrscheinlich schon während der Swtor Entwicklung darf es keinen Widerspruch geben....wer nicht pariert - marschiert.

Wirklich witzig ist ja die Trotzhaltung von EA selbst. Hier wird mit allen Mitteln versucht, die eigentliche Wurzel des Übels, nämlich die verkorkste Spielmechanik, den Mangel an Abwechslung und das schlechte Design, schönzureden und alles auf das böse, böse Abo Modell zu schiebem. Jedenfalls hier ein Auszug vom Shareholder Meeting: diesmal von Frank Gibeau (President, EA Labels) Schon komisch. Ich war in einer Gilde mit ca 2-300 Mitgliedern (echte Spieler, keine Alts), im Mai 2012 waren davon ca 8 übrig - aber keiner hat aufgehört weil ihm das Spiel zu teuer wäre, sondern einfach weil er kein Interesse mehr an Swtor hatte. Ob das Spiel gratis ist, wäre ab diesem Punkt egal gewesen - das ist ca so als würde man mir Freikarten fürs Kino anbieten, aber nur für Filme die mich nicht interessieren. Die eigentliche Nachricht in der Umfrage ist nicht, dass 40% der Spieler nur wegen dem Abo-Modell aufgehört haben, sondern dass 40% der Spieler finden, dass das Spiel keine €14.90/Monat wert ist. Und das sollte den Verantwortlichen wesentlich größere Kopfschmerzen bereiten.

Meine Meinung dazu: EA hat nichts dazugelernt. Woran man das erkennt ? Ganz einfach, die Unterlagen des Shareholder Meetings von Anfang August sind im Internet für alle frei zugänglich. Und ich denke die Aktionäre sind EA etwas wichtiger als wir "kümmerliche" Spieler. Download hier: http://investor.ea.com/ Im Shareholder Meeting wird F2P ebenfalls nur vage als der große Wurf beschrieben, der Millionen von Spielern anlocken soll. Wie das gehen soll und aus welchem magischen Hut diese Spieler kommen sollen, bleibt unbeantwortet, aber die Alchemisten von EA meinen, dass es genügt F2P auf ein Spiel zu schreiben um Blei in Gold zu verwandeln. Die Logik von EA ist ca diese: "Obwohl wir unzählige Mitarbeiter gefeuert haben, wird es in Zukunft mehr und häufiger neue Spielinhalte geben"...... Hier mal der Artikel über dem Traum von den 2-3 Millionen Spielern. http://www.cnbc.com/id/48442437 Tolle Logik nicht - wenn ich 10 Hühner habe, die mir in der Woche 10 Eier legen und ich dann 5 Hühner abmurkse, werden mir die übrigen 5 Hühner 20 Eier legen. Aber es wird ja noch lustiger. Wer sich ein wenig mit dem who is who der Spielebranche auskennt, der kennt auch den Namen Michael Pachter. Selbiger ist ein Finanzanalyst und gibt oft seinen Senf zum Thema MMOs ab - und er bringt uns auch so tolle Meldungen wie "Dragon Age 2 wird sich über 4 Millionen mal verkaufen" (wie das ausgegangen ist, wissen wir ja, Dragon Age hat in den ersten 10 Wochen ca 2x soviele Boxen verkauft als DA 2, weil die Verkaufszahlen von DA 2 nach einer Woche in den Keller gerutscht sind, nachdem die Fans das Spiel als Schrott gebrandmarkt haben). Zurück zum Thema - also selbiger Herr Pachter meint jetzt, dass Swtor bis zu 50 Millionen Spieler anlocken könnte, dagegen ist EA mit 2-3 Millionen ja noch bescheiden. Und Herr Pachter muss es ja wissen, denn er ist Finanzanalyst bei der Firma Wedbush und trägt einen Anzug. Nachzulesen hier: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-01-star-wars-the-old-republic-could-attract-upwards-of-50-million-monthly-players-says-wedbush Aber wer weiß: vielleicht haben die EA Manager ja Merlin, Gandalf und David Copperfield gekidnappt und die zaubern im Verlies unter dem EA Hauptquartier nun einen Wunderpatch hervor der uns alle hypnotisieren wird.

I believe the whole development process must have been very secterian in nature. Where voicing any concerns or critique would get you a stern talking-to from your boss about your "negative attitude" and "lack of faith" in the vision.

http://www.huliq.com/10177/huliq-projects-dragon-age-2-sales-figures-will-exceed-45-million We all know how this played out: DA 2 was a trainwreck while Dragon Age had a very long shelf life thanks to the warm reception by most gamer communities thanks to being a far superior game in almost every respect. DA 2 only sold more units in week 1 but sales crashed once the news spread about how bad the game really is. DA on the other hand continued to have strong sales for over 10 weeks. Here is a nice comparison chart showing how over 10 weeks DA sold about twice as many units as DA 2. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.274668-Dragon-Age-2-Sales That is the same Michael Pachter who recently brought us this gem: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-01-star-wars-the-old-republic-could-attract-upwards-of-50-million-monthly-players-says-wedbush A financial analyst talking about mmos is the same as a movie critic who has not seen Citizen Kane or Gone with the Wind. I highly doubt someone like Pachter finds time for an mmo in his busy schedule. This all reminds me a bit of Star Wars Galaxies and the NGE - when the minds behind the NGE said "we will lose our core players, but the NGE will get us so many new players that it will hardly matter"...that didn't go too well, did it ? Let's try to find the point in Swtor's short timeline where they alienated their core audience and started bleeding subs like crazy: I think it was around 1.2 when everyone expected an awesome patch that would get the game back on track and provide long term motivation. Instead we got some useless perks and nothing really changed. But maybe it was already earlier - when I was in beta and my first experience of the game was whacking slugs in a tunnel I already thought that something was off, but I was sure that the late game stages would deliver....only they didn't. I still try to wrap my head around the fact that one the world's biggest publishers together with one of the most creative studios in game development managed to waste produce this trainwreck when they had the most valueable trademark in science fiction (or fantasy) combined with the biggest mmo budget to date available. How do you do this ? How detached from reality do you have to be to not realize that something is wrong halfway through your production stages. Did they never look outside or play other games between 2005 and 2012 ? Were the developers not gamers themselves ? Did the suits from management not realize how many mmos with stronger features had failed in the meantime ? Were the refugees they recruited from the smoking wreckage that is Warhammer Online just glad to have a pay cheque, but had not learnt anything from their past mistakes ? And this brings us back to my initial DA example. When you have a strong core game then you will continue to sell units and gain players by word of mouth alone through positive reviews in communities, forums, blogs and so on. This is where the real long term marketing potential of a game lies, not with the initial reviews of self proclaimed gaming mags (or rather fanzines) who live off publisher's ad money. And once the community thinks that a game is rotten you have already lost....

Planescape Torment Baldur's Gate 1+2 Ultima V, VI, VII (1+2) Skyrim Final Fantasy VII Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines Dragon Age Origins ...and many more...

Since we are currently talking about the meta game: Stuff I can do in Lord of the Rings Online: Explore and visit places from the book Fool around with the music system Go farming, gathering or crafting (without needing to fight) Decorate my house Visit one of the regular events like the season festival and play mini games - Summer festival starts this August Horse Racing Play some Skirmishes (ok that would be killing again, but these are fast and fun). Grind faction points for various rewards Go play as an orc in pvp for a while Many of these activities do no involve killing stuff and are a wonderful change of pace when you just want to have a relaxing game session.

Well I haven't unsubbed yet because I still want to play out a few of the storylines, but it's been like 3 months since I really put any significant amount of time into the game. I'm just waiting for a day when I'm really, really, really bored that I might finish some class stories. Since all the shortcomings of the game have already been discussed I will only post a few sentences about what bothers me the most. The atmosphere - this does not feel like Star Wars. Player models look bad - there is no middle choice between very skinny/slim/The Hulk/Fatso Not enough face customization. The long load times of the hero engine. Travelling takes way too long. Only 3 skill trees and no viable hybrid builds per class. Endgame armor looks horrible. Crafting feels cheap and you cannot be a pure crafter since so many recipes require raiding. Ops feel bland, take too long and have no interesting mechanics. FPs take way too long and feel like dungeons from 2004 WoW. PVP is unbalanced and some classes are not viable in pvp. No dual spec. Not enough loot variation in FPs and OPs. No interesting races - pick red/green/blue humanoids. After level 30 the grind starts to set in. Some planets are terribly boring - see Voss, Taris and Alderaan. Speeders are too slow. Space combat is a silly railshooter - no one finds these missions fun once you have done them 5 times. No variation in weapons - every class is bound to a single weapon type. No meta game - no racing, smuggling, gambling, exploring - only thing to do is killing. Gameplay is way too linear - no variation or choice where to go. Choices or being light/dark hardly matters at all. Quality of class stories varies way too much. Some are great, others are a snorefest. No housing, not even a customizable interior of your starship Everything feels way too instanced, absolutely no feel of an open, explorable world on planets. Legacy has hardly any effect on my gameplay, does not encourage the rolling of alts enough Warzones on planets feel silly, there is no sense of conflict when you can go everywhere like a tourist ...... Here are some games which got certain points right: Atmosphere - Lord of the Rings Online Crafting - Star Wars Galaxies Skillsytem - The Secret World Classes - Rift Character customization - Aion PvP - Guild Wars and GW2 (judging from beta) Graphics - Age of Conan, Aion Sound - Lord of the Rings (again) Economy - EVE or SWG

How does that guy want to play ? Given his mental state he is clearly unable to turn on a pc or install a computer game.

You wanna see a real character creation engine look at Aion. Even SWG had a better character creation page than Swtor.

Well they also have the advantage that they have a "real" team of designers, and not a hodgepodge of refugees from various failed mmos.

Explosive Conflict is the worst - who should believe that a crack team of Sith, elite bounty hunters, super agents are sent to deal with a simple military conflict that the Empire should handle with an ordinary planetary bombardment. It's all such incredible nonsense in terms of balance. Where do all these super-soldiers that 1 Dark Council Sith could never beat in 1 on 1 come from ? Why is a silly Trandoshan in an AT-ST such a threat and why can't the empire not take out 2 tanks on their own.

Creeeeepy....