Occam's Razor.

Never worked on AoC. Sorry that you don't understand even an iota of how game dev works. Don't worry little soldier, one day you'll climb out of your helpdesk cubicle and into an actual technology field and realize the folly of your ill-spent youth. It's also the wiser company and man who spends his time developing quality, and not quantity. Hello Valve.

If you're in any way familiar with the industry, you should know better. The engine was chosen circa 2006 when there had already been rumblings of EA purchasing BW since 2004, or at least looking into the possibilities. The fact is, BW knew they were going to have the bank roll due the publishing relationships they had, as well as the funding firm backing them fully (EP). This was indeed a lazy and incompetent move by BW.

Yeah man, I made collages in kindergarten too and they are time consuming! Whew! Oh you meant college, sorry I got all excited about making a collage of failure from the bulk of posters in this thread and hanging it on my wall and... what were you talking about? Oh. Wait. Good lord this is difficult to read. Yes, I'm well aware of the population fluctuation due to game release. However, after 1/3 and 1/14 there is still a declining trend in the number of subscribers logged on concurrently. It did not level off, although as they get lower and lower it does seem to be tapering closer to what will probably be their "6 month" player base, and then decline further after that. It's not growing, that much is certain.

Did you even take the time to read how the data is collected? Seriously, if you're not going to take 30 seconds to educate yourself just depart from this thread.

I've already realized the same from you. Projects are measured in manhours. You cannot purchase more time but if a project is projected to take 1000 manhours from a certain skillset, often employing one or two additional developers can reduce the customers time to receive a product while still taking the same number of manhours. You can't just throw more people at a situation constantly, that's for certain, however you can put an engine into development for a year or two and begin work on non-engine required tasks. It's amazing what you can do when you learn how the process works isn't it? Any more advice from me and I'm going to have to start charging you my hourly consulting fee.

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us Proof that the average number of people playing at any given time is in fact dwindling. It could be that everyone is still paying but just not playing. However, Occam's razor is a fine for the current situation in swtor.

I love quoting myself for those who have little to no reading comprehension Hero engine was not built FOR swtor. It was built to for hero's journey and then turned into a mass usage tool so that indie developers could have a lower cost of entry and less risk to develop their game in a limited scope while still having the architecture to support something that is multiplayer. When you have the kind of bankroll that EA/BW have. You have zero excuse not to have a custom engine designed for you. So yes, it is in fact lazy and incompetent.

Oh snap, credentials time. I've shipped 3, one of them with a company we're all well acquainted with. My turn. How many have you shipped, what were they, and where is your name in the credits?

Yes, because your amazingly complex and next gen mmo is so far above the level of understanding of anyone who has used or developed in Hero Engine for more than 5 minutes. Seriously. You're still in the kiddy pool, one day you'll get to the big kids pool but you're not there yet and have a lot to learn. The fact an Engine's main tout is that it's easy to develop in is the developer of said engine trying to cover up for it's plethora of deprecated and poor design. Also, RE: engine being developed for WoW. I was referring to the wc3 engine being developed and modified for blizzards purposes, not that the engine was developed brand new specifically for WoW. Also, you can apparently still post after your time has run out and you haven't resubbed.

I RP a sith, it's against my nature to give you anything.

DOTA2, Dark Souls, UOSA(uosecondage.com), and DAoC. WoW is boring, SWTOR is just plain bad, and LoL is for bads who can't play DoTA.

But you did, and that's enough for me.

I'm not typically one to post a long-winded blog about why I quit, I would rather just troll you in the forums and then fade silently into the night with my troll supremacy intact. However, I really wanted to like this as an MMORPG*. Most of my friends are playing it, and even some of my former MMORPG* associates who are typically of the same mind as me. I feel somehow invested, at least in some small part, in this game in that it was the first MMORPG* since WoW released that I followed and tried to force down my throat until I liked it. That being said, without pontificating too much, there are some key issues I feel are problematic in capturing the holistic experience of an MMORPG*. 1.) Sharding/Phasing was overdone. I say that like it is dogma, and perhaps some people would choose to offer an opposing opinion, but I'm going to say that I'm right on this one. It puts a small population onto a large world, thus giving the illusion that the world is vast and empty. Unfortunately, General Chat being populate does not solve this problem. 2.) Client. Ability Lag. If you say you haven't experienced it, the only thing that means is you don't have fast enough reactions to notice it. It's great that this flaw in design doesn't have an effect on your lethargic style of gameplay, but it is is very real and existent for all customers who can thing several moves ahead. 2b.) Single-threaded Client. Dear people saying "ALL MY CORES ARE RUNNING": Multicore does not equal multithreaded. It is, in fact and in no part fiction, a single threaded client architecture. There is nothing to dispute here, it's fact. There is no real reason to not have built your own client BioWare other than you wanted to hurry up and try for the MMORPG WoW-Lull before expansion moneygrab. This smacks of a slovenly approach to what you should have tried to make your magnum opus**. 3.) Incomplete Features. While I don't begrudge you the exclusion of some more technical feats like LFD since you couldn't even write your own engine I can't very well expect you to have the technical prowess to accomplish such a feat. I can begrudge you the lack of some basic features that games should ship with. For example, combat log, customizable UI (pick one: scalable, movable, fully customizable), adequate textures (not talking about just the high-end crowd here), a functional Auction House, and a working ticketing system. These are just a few things that any game should ship with as they are integral to the entire design of the game. You have a backfacing combat log to measure your encounters and balance, you will have UI, you will have an Auction House, you will have a customer support ticketing system. 4.) Customer Service. This one is a very sore subject among many, and rightfully so. I put in a ticket for an item and received a generic reply update one day, three days later the ticket was closed. I wasn't that concerned with it, mostly because I just wanted to see what their CS would do. The CS department is abominable. I'm typically least concerned with outside of game items, but this one is so horrid that it was the first MMORPG* to make my list for this debacle. 5.) Lack of Effort/Innovation. In reality the only thing innovative was the voice acting. Most of it was good, but it grew tiresome after level 25. My spacebar took a beating with this. Outside of that, you used poor copies of almost everything else in the industry only you decided to do it worse. Maybe the innovation is to put out a mediocre game based on past gamer "street cred", which you had from me with BG/2 DAO KOTOR NWN. That is lost now with the "mass effecation", or should I say "mass defecation", that you've incorporated into anything since your prodigy child Mr. Knowles left. Did you really forget what made you money? Did the ridiculously huge response to DAO and subsequent nerd-infused ****** cannon fired into your hearts not wake you from this dream of rapidly producing voice acted, massively redundant and uninspired games? 6.) Fixing Beta Problems. So, I beta tested. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Not really. Honestly though I filed several glaring bug reports and concerns during beta, almost none of which were addressed and are being actively touted as flags of failure on the forums. Unpaid employees told you what was wrong, some of us even offered potential code snippets on how it might be fixed. Yet you ignored it. That's my short list, not encompassing the opportunities I feel they missed out on. I guess I'll have to make my own game for those to actually see fruition in totality being represented inside of one game. Right fanboys? So, I've quit. The game has a lot to work on and who knows, maybe in a few years it might be an acceptable game deserving of a thumbs up from me, although I doubt it. BioWare, the street cred has run out. You're producing Triple A garbage in comparison to your earlier feats of brilliance. I'd like to invite you to check out T2A Ultima Online for what an MMORPG should strive to accomplish in its simplicity yet depth of gameplay and interactiveness with the world that no voice actor can ever hope to capture. Good Luck. * - I use the term MMORPG loosely when referring to SWTOR. It doesn't feel, in my opinion, how an MMORPG should feel. The only thing Massive about it is the landmass, which only makes it feel empty and hollow. There are other qualms but it's again my opinion and no up for debate. ** - In regards to the magnum opus comment. You spent a currently estimate 500 million dollars on this game. It should really have been made the crown jewel of your gaming empire with that kind of budget and the level of development put into this piece. Yet, you still came nowhere near capturing the greatness of BG/2, NWN, KOTOR, or DAO. -Tokee

This is WarHammer Online's questing system with updated graphics. It is not new.