Char_Ell
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Posts posted by Char_Ell
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27 minutes ago, septru said:
If I was APAC and BioWare removed the dedicated APAC servers without a heads up, warning, or acknowledgement of any kind where my ping was ~20ms and replaced it with clearly inferior US based server where my ping is ~200 or higher and try to pretend like it was anywhere as good as before, I would hold a really big grudge too. Not only was this move a giant middle finger to the APAC community, but BioWare's continued silence on an issue instead of showing any remorse is just more salt on the wound.
This is false and wasn't the server transition that TrixieTriss referred to. Plenty of warning was given when SWTOR closed the APAC servers in 2013.
2013 August 13 - APAC servers merged into North American servers
TrixieTriss refers to the 2017 server merge where BioWare did not notify SWTOR players in advance that NA West servers physically located on U.S. west coast, the servers with the lowest latency for APAC players and thus generally preferred by APAC players, would be moving to east coast data center until after they brought the servers up on the day the transition occurred. This is what TrixieTriss refers to and won't forgive them for. And truth be told I'm still irritated by how that was handled as well.
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5 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:
I believe they won’t need to merge with an AWS setup. Think of each server being an instance on a physical server. With a setup like that, there is no reason they can add cross server queues on SS & SF for group content like PvP, Flash points & operations.
When the servers get migrated to AWS, they will be virtual and on the same hardware. If the hardware goes down, both servers go down. So this redundancy idea will be a moot point by then.
So you're predicting cross server queues for NA and separately for EU servers when servers transition to AWS? It would be cool but I'm not expecting it.
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3 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:
Without proof of any bans, I’m looking at the simplest explanation based on the evidence at hand, which is how I’ve explained it.
I provided my observations in the post that microstyles linked to. You seemed to ignore the info I provided back then and I will not be surprised if you continue to ignore it. There is no statement from BioWare about any action against credit sellers that I'm aware of. There is also no statement from BioWare that they observed credit sellers adjusted their rates due to the incoming economic rates. You choose to believe that credit sellers adjusted the rates upward in advance of the economic changes they saw were in the works. I believe credit sellers lost a bunch of credits and thus hiked their rates and it's likely they lost those credits due to unannounced BioWare action against them. Both scenarios are plausible. I don't know why you think yours is the simplest to believe. It seems simple enough to believe BioWare finally took much needed action against the credit sellers. 🤷♂️
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18 hours ago, microstyles said:
The dates he shows where credit seller prices started going up coincide with when I saw the prices in the market going down. Even if you don't think bioware banned sellers, something happened. It's extremely hard for me to believe the tiny QT costs and repair fees had any significant impact on the economy compared to credit seller prices quadrupling.
It seems TrixieTriss does not think BioWare took any action against credits sellers in mid-March. Just note her explanation for what happened has no more evidence backing it up than yours. It's just what she chooses to believe.
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3 hours ago, Rol_Khavos said:
Rather, replace the current tax system which is based on set values independent of the asking price to one based on what the seller is asking for. The larger the price asked, the more the tax, with the desired sell price that BW wants an item to go for factoring in the price+percentage tax. This would encourage a downwards trajectory on market prices and no penalize those who seek no profit in aiding others.
In other words you want player-to-player trades and in-game mail COD sales to use same taxation system as the GTN?
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I wonder if BioWare has painted themselves into a corner with the AWS migration and the possibility of an APAC server for the game. I feel like BioWare has created a situation where APAC players have gotten their hopes up with the test of an APAC server in the production server environment and continued references to APAC server being evaluated. I don't know what options AWS can offer in terms of server infrastructure that BioWare are evaluating but if one considers the simple option of adding an APAC server to the game in addition to the existing servers what will happen? How many APAC players would transfer from Satele Shan and Star Forge to the new server? I feel Star Forge would be fine but I'm not so sure about Satele Shan since it seems to have significantly less active players than Star Forge. SWTOR could end up with 2 low pop servers in this scenario. But if BioWare doesn't do something that gives APAC players lower latency than what they currently get I think this would result in a lot of angry APAC players.
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6 hours ago, akdonkey said:
I see the Dev post that the server getting moved over to a cloud is still happening. My question is this. Will that move create another server move to one larger server? Or will there still be the separate servers we have now? If that server merge does happen what about characters on the other servers? How many will we be allowed to carry over? Or do you even have any info on this yet? I have many alts on two servers. I would likely downsize so that info would be great soon as possible.
Good questions. I suspect BioWare is not yet ready to provide answers regarding what will happen when they migrate SWTOR servers to Amazon Web Services. My sense is the studio transition has caused the AWS migration to drop on the priority list though Keith Kanneg made it clear they still plan on making the transition to AWS.
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1 minute ago, LJ_Gibbs said:
LG/LSG have no idea this game exists and don't care what it does with it's story.
I'm not sure how you came to believe this. At the 2019 San Diego Cantina meet-and-greet Keith Kanneg shared a story with me how the SWTOR team had created a new speeder mount and had submitted it to Lucasfilm for review and approval as per the usual process for content being added to SWTOR. The Lucasfilm team rejected adding the mount to the game and Keith could not understand why. It wasn't until the movie trailer for The Force Awakens showing Rey on a speeder on Jakku that Keith realized that the mount they had submitted was quite similar to Rey's speeder. Keith figured Lucasfilm rejected the mount because they didn't want it to look like SWTOR had the mount before it was officially revealed.
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Any thoughts on this statement from Keith Kanneg's update post today? I know Lucasfilm Games/Lucasfilm Story Group could be perceived as a restraint on the devs' creative freedom but I'm sure that is not going to change with the transition to 3rd party studio. Is it, as Chris Schmidt's serial posting on Twitter seems to imply, a matter of BioWare Edmonton holding BioWare Austin back by using SWTOR revenue for Edmonton projects and reassignment (usually temporary?) of SWTOR dev resources to Edmonton projects? I am not sure what to make of Keith's assertion here.
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28 minutes ago, TonyTricicolo said:
I appreciate your candidness in the other thread, but I'm still skeptical because for the last few years all we've heard was big things were coming and not to worry about this and that. To be quite frank, I don't believe anything you guys say anymore.
And yet you are still here, still paying to play SWTOR. So as long as you keep paying to play I think Keith Kanneg and the rest of BioWare Austin (soon-to-be Broadsword Austin?) can live with you not trusting what they say.
So Keith Kanneg is basically telling us nothing is really changing where SWTOR development and player experience is concerned in the near-term. Only time will tell how this studio change actually impacts the game over time. I know for me Galactic Seasons and gear progress have been the systems that have kept me engaged. After four Galactic Seasons and more than a year into current gear progression I've found gearing and GS are losing their luster.
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22 minutes ago, Whykara said:
Even if it was a recent change, nobody buys Tier 1 and 2 gifts anyway.
I purchase Tier 1 gifts.
I don't recall which patch lowered Tier 1 green gifts from 200 to 20 credits each and Tier 2 green gifts from 600 to 60 credits each but it happened since 7.0. Obviously the OP noticed BioWare reverted these back to their original credit values. I do not see any mention of this change in 7.3 patch notes and I do not recall any patch notes mentioning when the cost was lowered either.
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15 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:
I doubt the credit sellers care all that much, because people will be buying more credits from them to make up for all the extra credits they now have to pay in taxes.
To the credit sellers, it's all free money anyways.
Based on what I have observed in fleet chat, within 2 days of 7.3 go-live credit sellers more than doubled their US dollars price to purchase a billion credits. This makes me question your assertion that credit sellers don't care all that much. I have to think that credit sellers will see reduced sales from yet another big jump in the price to buy credits from them this year.
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22 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:
BioWare could easily address the gifting or free give away aspect of the game by making any “gifted items” (with out payment) become Bind 2 Legacy.
I like this idea but I wonder if it's one of those "easier said than done" things.
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7 minutes ago, ceryxp said:
With respect, bollocks. Mine is not an edge case. This was discussed at length when on PTS, how these changes would affect give-aways, charity, trading between friends, etc., and BW did not care. If there are no credits involved then there should be no tax whatsoever.
Agreed. I failed to mention that I thought taxing character-to-character trades and in-game mail attachments where no credits were being exchanged to other players was going too far and did not seem to be in alignment with Eric Musco's stated objective for the credit economy. But they decided too move forward with this change anyway.
On 2/10/2023 at 1:11 PM, EricMusco said:It is very important that we make these changes slowly and that we monitor their impacts closely.
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42 minutes ago, ceryxp said:
These trade taxes have made it nearly impossible for me to trade things from my preferred account to my main account. So, what I did instead was list the item on the GTN for 1 credit buyout. I queued up the search on my other account (I have two computers and dual-box) so that the moment I listed on one I could refresh the search on the other and buy it right away. Annoying to have to wait an hour, but with these changes this is the only way I can move things between my accounts.
With respect, my guess is this is an edge use case that BioWare may have accounted for but still decided they needed to move forward with. I'm sure you understand that SWTOR does not have a mechanism to link accounts. The game has no way to tell your preferred account is for the same person as your premium account. It just knows that it needs to apply the 8% tax to in-game mail attachments if the recipient is not on the same account as the sender.
EDIT: That being said, I wanted BioWare to only tax credit transactions, not transactions where no credits were being transferred. For a reason that I don't believe they communicated, BioWare decided non-credit transactions needed to be taxed as well. And unfortunately this new functionality is not working as intended and creating a lot of angst.
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1 hour ago, JepFareborn said:
I'm trying to do the Season 3 mission - "<Seeking Artifacts>" and I went to both Droid Seeker areas on Tatooine (Outlaw's Den & StarDream crash site) and the Macbinoculars do not reveal the designated loot icon locations or Red Text message alert on screen. ? ? ? ?
I tested on Star Forge, Imperial faction with a Juggernaut. I could use my seeker droid in Outlaw's Den but not at Wreck of the Stardream. So I don't think this is a bug but rather because this is first day of the game week and there are many players going after this objective. It's likely the area was just depleted and no longer scannable by seeker droids after someone found the rare item. I don't know how long it takes for the seeker droid area to "respawn" and become scannable again after the rare item in the area has been discovered.
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I just tested and the functionality has not changed for me. There is a 100 credit fee for sending attachments or credits to an alt. If I send 10,000 credits to an alt the fee is 100 credits. If I send 1 million credits to an alt it's 100 credits. This is the same as how it worked prior to 7.3.
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You need to use your Juggernaut's specific interrupt ability called Disruption.
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I believe the technical term for this is "bug".
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1 hour ago, jedimasterjac said:
The last time they gave news about AWS they didn’t even confirm they intended to go through with it.
On 2023 May 9 Eric Musco said "... Shae Vizla was also another scale test for us having our servers "in the cloud" and so this test also helps drive us towards the goal of getting our service and our servers all onto AWS." I'm not aware of anything else that has been said regarding server migration to AWS since then and in my view that was confirmation BioWare was still planning to move SWTOR to AWS. He also surprised me by mentioning the possibility of a fresh start server. I've got no idea where BioWare Austin's collective heads are at with the server situation. Given what I've observed playing on three servers it doesn't make sense to me to be adding any new servers to the game. I wonder if BWA are considering some kind of consolidation of existing servers in combination with addition of a new server for APAC. Perhaps they're holding off on the AWS move to wait and see how the player population is impacted by the transition to a different developer. Does anybody know if UO and DAoC are hosted in AWS? As you can see I have lots of guesses but no real clue.
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20 minutes ago, Whykara said:
What I'm interested as well is how the switch to AWS is gonna happen. We can assume with certainty that it will happen with 7.4, so still under BioWare. Will it just be an under-the-hood change that players won't notice, like 64bit, or will it bring a restructuring of the current servers? I guess we'll see.
Not sure why you're convinced 7.4 will be the switch to AWS servers. 7.2.1 was the update for the 64-bit client. 7.3.1 could be the planned switch to AWS servers. Keith Kanneg wants everyone to know that things are progressing as planned but still remains to be seen if plans to move servers to AWS will proceed as originally announced last December. At this point I'm not taking anything past 7.3 for granted.
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6 hours ago, Stradlin said:
I suppose nobody knows the finer details of their relationship. Put it this way though - it isn't Broadsword that charges me for a monthly UO subscription, it is EA. If I want to buy 3 month gametime token instead of monthly sub, I do it from EA's store. If I want to buy some of the UO's expansions or cosmetic items or their version of "cartel coins", I do it via EA store. EA pays the bills and salaries. EA takes the profits. EA is the publisher, Broadsword devs these games for EA.
EA would never just..hand TOR away to a place where they'd not have a complete control over it.
I'd guess there is no financial side to this from Pov of Broadsword. Something seemingly huge like a tiny, tiny "independent" dev studio sudenly taking 40 new employees, a Star Wars license to worry about, all of that... these things are risks, rewards and investments that remain for EA to consider. In practical terms, I am certain EA has as much control over what Broadsword does as they do with different BW studios. Its not like Broadsword could ever ditch EA and find a new publisher, all of the games they run are owned by EA.
Yes, you pay EA to play Ultima Online because EA is the game's publisher and thus handles the money transactions for UO. Same applies to DAoC for that matter. It's just Broadsword Online Games employees are not EA employees. BioWare employees are EA employees because EA owns BioWare. If SWTOR transitions to Broadsword then in all likelihood EA will continue to collect SWTOR's subscription fees and cartel coin revenue just like it currently does for UO and DAoC. Maybe you are not aware but 3rd party developers used to be fairly common in the video game industry. However with the significantly increasing costs of game development over the past 20 years it's much harder for independent studios to stay independent. BioWare was an independent studio until EA purchased them in 2007. BioWare developed games for multiple publishers (LucasArts, Microsoft, 2K Games) before it was acquired by EA.
I'm not sure what you mean by "there is no financial side to this from Pov of Broadsword." I agree Broadsword taking on SWTOR would be a big change with it associated risks and rewards. EA would provide whatever level of funding for SWTOR that is contractually agreed upon between Broadsword and EA and I have to think there would be bonuses specified for SWTOR hitting certain financial targets. Of course EA should also be able to reduce Broadsword funding if SWTOR financial performance does not meet contractually defined levels as well. Anything Broadsword wants to do with SWTOR would also need to have some level of approval from Lucasfilm Games which shouldn't be materially different from what BioWare already does. My understanding is anything added to SWTOR, from cartel market items to story and characters, has to be reviewed and approved by Lucasfilm Games and/or Lucasfilm Story Group before being added to SWTOR.
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7 hours ago, Stradlin said:
Broadsword isn't any more or less "EA" than Bioware, both are studios EA owns. Generally and comparatively speaking Broadsword def isn't much of a crown jewel among EA studios ofc,.
This is incorrect. Broadsword Online Games is not owned by EA but BioWare is owned by EA. Broadsword was formed as an independent studio shortly after EA decided to close Mythic Entertainment and apparently has some rights to use the Mythic Entertainment name since http://www.mythicentertainment.com/about.html has Broadsword plastered all over it. Rob Denton apparently worked some sort of deal with EA to continue operating Ultima Online (inherited by Mythic from Origin after Origin's closure) and Dark Age of Camelot after EA closed Mythic and Broadsword was formed to take on those games. EA is still the publisher for Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot.
10 hours ago, mCion said:What we can reasonably assume:
1- Most current devs will immediately leave, be fired, or quietly search for a new job. As mentioned, career wise going from having EA and BioWare in your resume to Broadsword is a major downgrade. Many will jump ship as soon as possible, whether it's now or in a year.
2- SWTOR will likely get no story updates, just events under the new devs. It is likely that 7.4 (done under BioWare) will be the final major update for the game. This is based on Broadsword's current handling of the games that are under their umbrella.
3- SWTOR will likely not die/shutdown for a moderate to long time. This is based on the two games that Broadsword handles, they are still going almost a decade later after they took over.
4- Any other major changes to the game are unlikely to happen under BioWare. 64 bit and AWS are probably the last major updates to the game we'll see. There will be little incentive for BioWare to develop requested features like Nim R-4 or non critical features like a crafting revamp. These changes or non-story features may happen under Broadsword.
1) Largely agree. I certainly think yesterday's leaked news about EA having discussions and signing letter of intent with Broadsword Online Games to take over development of SWTOR had a demoralizing impact on many players and in all likelihood SWTOR devs too. Who knows how devs will respond but if I were in their shoes I would certainly be updating my resume and looking for other career opportunities.
2) Too soon to say what updates beyond 7.3 will occur under BioWare or potentially Broadsword. I know Keith Kanneg stated "All future content updates are also moving forward as planned, including 7.3.1 and 7.4." However I think Keith Kanneg was able to say that yesterday because he hadn't been told to stop any development work by his superiors since yesterday's news was not supposed to go public nor be made known to SWTOR devs. With yesterday's news I feel there is no certainty where SWTOR's future development is concerned. Keith Kanneg effectively decided to announce two additional releases before the announced 7.3 even went live which is very much out-of-character for BioWare Austin.
3) At this point in time I do not have any confidence to predict SWTOR's future development. I think what many people are not taking into account is the SWTOR is a licensed IP for EA whereas Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online are IP's owned by EA. Having an IP licensing cost makes a real difference when it comes to operating financials for a game. Why did EA close Warhammer Online instead of just letting it run in maintenance mode like Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot? I have to think Warhammer IP owner Games Workshop had something to do with it. Was Lucasfilm Games aware that EA was having conversations with Broadsword to take over operation of SWTOR? If not, then Lucasfilm Games might not feel very happy to have found out thru a leaked media report. EA needs to keep good relations with Lucasfilm Games if they want to continue developing other Star Wars games besides SWTOR.
4) This is more of a restatement of item #2. After yesterday's leaked report I do not know what major changes will be made to the game by BioWare. I know they've been planning on moving servers to AWS but I'm not sure if that still makes sense to do. Not sure why you even mention NiM R-4 when Eric Musco finally came out and said that NiM R-4 is not on SWTOR's roadmap. The unfortunate reality of yesterdays leak is it created a lot of uncertainty about SWTOR's future among the player base and probably the dev team too.
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Unplanned server outage is not a bug.
An update on the development of SWTOR
in General Discussion
Posted
Someone else that gets into the nitty gritty as well. Yes, it's as you say but no, I did not specify that level of detail as the move of the pre-merger servers from west coast to east coast and the subsequent merger of those servers into the current five servers was all part of the 2017 server merge project.