Don't underestimate the financial grip France still has over many other contries in the world due to the CFA franc. The official language in these parts of the world is still french because of (neo-)colonialism.

Game has dyeing.

Currently there are several bugs in the new tax system, for example https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929958-the-fact-that-i-had-to-pay-25m-for-trading-10-adrenals-and-10-medpacks-to-my-raidmate-is-just-wrong-you-need-to-revert-this/#comment-9764812 https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929905-taxed-on-sending-credits-to-my-own-alts/#comment-9764810

Besides a potential low risk decision making of the suits based on all kinds of fallacies, the only other explanation i have for the lack of good sandbox games is that they don't fit to the skill- and mindset of most writers in game development. It seems like they often see themselves more like authors of a book and the players as readers. A sandbox design probably fundamentally contradicts how they see themselves. Like, there are "artists" and there is the rest. No offense to anyone, but maybe most of them also lack the necessary mental skills to develop functioning narrative systems that allow for maximum player agency. They probably would have to think more like a skilled programmer. There are good sandbox games out there (eg Kenshi and Rimworld), but for some reason, they seem to be only possible in low budget/indy game development. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E4nKWxSG8o

From my experience, it seems to be super easy to make money in this game. I came back about a month ago and started with roughly 1 mil, but i also bought some legacy unlocks at the beginning so realistically it was far less (100k iirc). Most of my characters are low level and didn't have well developed crafting skills. After one month, i have made roughly 2.5 billion, mostly via crafting. I also have everything augmented with purple 74 augments, solely through crafting. I never bought anything on the GTN except grade 11 missions when they were sold cheap. I didn't stress anything but i guess if i had, i could have made more credits. (i also traded my stuff entirely over the GTN)

Yes, and therefore it must change as it doesn't fit to the reality of our time anymore. All people should profit from AI/machines by having more free time etc. instead of having to worry about their income being transfered to less and less hands, while beating each other over a few crumbs. What i mean is that AI/machines are not inherently bad, they just don't fit to our economy and the mentality of many people.

I don't want to derail this most useful thread but the problem is not that AI will reduce jobs/work hours, that is what machines have been invented for. The problem is that it will reduce the income normal people have available. Currently, it leads to further transfer of wealth into less and less hands. The problem is the money that you got before because of being forced to sell your work to make a living, now remains at those who profit from that gain of efficiency from AI (eg your former employer). This would more and more lead to a paradox world with companies that produce goods and services that no one can buy (in theory ofc, but before it goes that far, there would happen something else probably 😉). As an artist, nothing stops one from doing art when your job has been replaced by AI. You could still sell it to interested people or make it just for fun. Maybe, even in the future, AI products/services are considered to be inferiour by some people and there is a market for "handcrafted" things. So people should stop crying "They took our jobs!" and start demanding income compensation; the money still exists, it just changed hands.

I think that's true; everything else would be wishful thinking of UBIsuits. "All players will freely move on to consume new exiting product" doesn't really work with MMO's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXdofnvc6xE

I don't think anyone will post any details until they have become facts, ie the ink on the potential contract has dried. Otherwise it could have legal consequences for EA/BW and personal consequences for the one who posts them. No one knows if the staff that allegedly will be employed by Broadsword will have to move to another city and/or has to work in the "Broadsword building". Offices can be rented in different cities. SWTOR could be a completely separate branch. What i mean is, we know nothing and that won't change until the negotiations are finished. Maybe people should just wait and see and not jump to hasty conclusions, for their own sanity.

I don't know how large the server population on the language specific servers is, as i'm lacking any metrics. I mean if it is needed/makes sense due to low population, servers must be merged regardless of server language. I'm a german player on the german server and i have definitely a problem when the server population is too low; i would have no problem with any lost comfort due to playing on an international server (actually i have zero just by playing on a german server) . But ofc that's just me. I don't remember that anyone complained when Mythic merged the last german Warhammer Online server with the EN/INT one.

The attempt to merge the EU servers, to merge three fundamentally different mother tongues after more than a decade of gameplay, will not work. And why? There could be simply additional ger/fr versions of the general/pvp/trade channels that people could ignore as they please. Players who are too ignorant to use the proper channels for their language could be ignored (together with an increase of the ignore list limit that was already suggested somewhere else). At least it would be much better than low population "ger/fr only" servers. When i returned, i was surprised to see the language specific servers still running.

EA is an investment company that invests into entertainment products. Based on their decision to hand over the project to a different studio, they don't seem to think that investing further into SWTOR would benefit them more than it could damage them. They must have analyzed the situation and the risk vs reward ratio wasn't good enough to invest further, yet it was obviously still a good product that others are interested into. Regardless how the contractual agreement between EA and Broadsword will look like, the fact that EA is willing to give SWTOR to someone else means that they are not interested into investing into it any further, therefore it would not matter if SWTOR remained at Bioware. I'm not high on copium or anything, but this could indeed have advantages for SWTOR's further development, for example don't underestimate the shackles of policies and bureaucracy in large companies. People who are on full doom & gloom mode seem to have a pretty biased view on the situation. Neither UO nor DAOC seem to be in "maintenance mode" but even if those ancient games were, it would mean nothing for SWTOR at this point. It would be in your interest to not accidentally forge your own self fulfilling prophecy just because you are angered and disappointed atm; you might regret it later.

Mythic had iirc a fixed 5 year license for Warhammer Online from GW which wasn't renewed for unknown reasons. The game had probably not the best subscriber numbers and high likely the new license deal between GW and Sega/Creative Assembly for WH fantasy played a major role too. GW is known to be very protective with their IP, eg every single quest text in Warhammer Online had to be sanctioned by them, according to ex mythic devs. I think no one outside of EA/BW knows the conditions of the SWTOR license deal and how much freedom they have. Maybe they can maintain existing games limitless, without additional costs and just can't create new ones, Or they have to pay per game they release etc pp. But afaik they just lost the exclusivity rights on SW games. PS: your text color makes everything more difficult to read

UO is about 26 years old, got many updates over the years, including rendering related ones. DAOC is 22 years old and got a bugfix and balance patch pushed to their PTS 3 weeks ago: https://darkageofcamelot.com I don't get what both have to do with SWTOR though, particularly when considering the leaks that parts of the BW staff will allegedly switch to Broadsword too. I still don't see how the game remaining at BW will be any different from Broadsword hosting/patching it. As i already wrote, expecting any further major (fully voiced) DLCs from BW is imo very unrealistic and wishful thinking, even if it remained in their hands. Very mature; i wish you good luck in finding catharsis while you revel in your anger 😙

Even when assuming that 99% played the game just because of the story (which is high likely not true, a source would have been nice), the decision to have voiceovers for every questline was not a smart one. The game was unfortunately designed to be primarily a themepark MMO in a sea of other themepark MMO's. Those must deliver new content all the time, or many players will loose interest. Regardless how much some people like it, the full voiceover decision made every new content more expensive and therefore less and less likely to happen. Apparently, the amount of players who valued the MMO for it's unique fully voiceover story feature was not high enough to keep the game at Bioware, so i'm not sure who you are angry at. If the game is transfered to Broadsword because it isn't that big of a cash cow anymore, keeping it at BW would not change anything at all; it wouldn't make it more lucrative/less risky to fund new story DLC with full VO. It also makes no sense to write that "the game will rot and die under broadsword" at this time and that UO and DAOC are games that no one plays. If they predicted SWTOR would die and has no potential, they wouldn't take it over. If UO and DAOC are played by no one, they wouldn't keep the servers running. Ofc everything under the assumption that Broadsword doesn't have a magical money tree in their garden.