James Ohlen discusses the challenges of building a Star Wars MMO.

[Superawesomerman]

Look he's the game producer who oversees everything. He won't go tell the specifics of what exactly the game bugs are unless asked. It's assumed that (just like every other MMO) this game has a few bugs to iron out. He mentions that they have to make sure they stay on top of weekly bug patches.

 

The picture is just as rosy as described because he mentions how big the challenges are. We, the forum people, know what the bugs are and considering what BW has already addressed as far as issues they're looking into, the situation really is not bad right now.

 

We're really blowing the few bugs out of proportion.

 

Son, I think you're ignorin the big pitture here. There's tons of bugs here they say they fixed, but they aint.

 

now, im not talkin about ilum, that there, well thats a whole other can of worms.

 

Im talkin about stuff like missions not bein able to be dropped. My log is stuffed tighter than dolly parton's shirt, there just aint no removin them bonus quests like they said. Speakin of chests, they aint none in outlaws den like they said. Now, might be they only come out on groundhog day, but lord, son, if they hardly come out, whats the point?

 

The man can only cry wolf so many times before we just let be.

[Malefactor]

Firstly, I would never bash a fellow Canadian. Except for Luongo.

 

Secondly, I agree that mindless bashing helps nothing, but I also know the difference between bashing and criticism.

 

Also: WHEN?

 

C'mon, tell me I don't love this game

 

I wasn't saying you, personally were doing it. Rather, that the thread has turned into that. I too know the difference between bashing and criticism, and stand by my statement that there's far too much of one, and not nearly enough of the other.

 

Also, nice to see a fellow Canadian

[PassionVsPeace]

For some reason I feel like they're just trying to save face, and their jobs along with it.

 

I hate to agree with all the nay sayers here, but the game is lacking.

 

The bugs are laughable at times, annoying at others. If storyline was so important, why were there so many cinematic bugs, such as the fairy sized NPCs during the cutscenes...

 

As for the missing tools....

 

This game should have shipped with them. They are NOT hard to put in compared to all the other work they did on this. If you mean to tell me that a LFG tool and random dungeon team generator are more difficult to develop than a map full of objects to interact with, you're pulling my leg. Its like building a space shuttle without a toilet. Don't tell me its not possible, we've been building toilets a lot longer than we've been building space shuttles. It can be worked in.

 

And about the engine...

This game feels way more like City of Heroes than any other game I have played. From animation to the UI, it plays and feels like City of Heroes. Anyone else notice this? I'd say what we're really playing is a modded version of City of Heroes, set in a star wars universe. This also explains why the graphics are sub par, the UI feels like its circa 2001, and the animations work incorrectly.

 

Don't get my wrong, I don't want this game to die. But I do feel that they have two roads they can take this game down without totally killing it. The first road is adding the content and features which would actually make this game an MMO, and in turn continue to charge the monthly fee. The other road is to make it free to play and just continue on with content in expansion packs that we can purchase later.

[ShaftyMcShaft]

you misunderstand the "no endgame raids" thing.

 

Endgame =/= raids.

 

infact I'd say alot of what went wrong with wow was that endgame = raids and nothing else for far too long.

 

That's why WoW has raids, and pvp, and achievements, and pets to collect, and holiday events etc etc. SWTOR has...broken raids and broken pvp and nothing else, and I don't think they've announced anything else they're planning for endgame progression yet.

[SamuraBob_Fl]

That's why WoW has raids, and pvp, and achievements, and pets to collect, and holiday events etc etc. SWTOR has...broken raids and broken pvp and nothing else, and I don't think they've announced anything else they're planning for endgame progression yet.

 

Newsflash:

 

Everything in WoW is broken too:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881711970

[Superawesomerman]

I dont live in the US and english is not my nat

 

ive language, I'm sorry if I have confused you by using words longer than four letters. I understand that some areas have issues with literacy but please, do not let that deter you in any way.

 

Playerbase means the intended target audience, FPS players are not the target audience, people who just want a new WoW are not the target audience. If those concepts are too complex for you, well...that's your problem then

 

Shoot son, its not the number of letters, its the way you stringin em together all crazylike. yer actin like people can't play more'n one kinda game. I guess mah questchin was a mite to rheeetorcal for the for'ner.

 

I think yer confusin my down home talk with some kinna deeefishunsy upstairs, and let me tell you, im still sharper'n a leather-licked skinnin knife, and you think otherwise, well then you lookin more the fool to me.

 

Edit: retorcoral? Retorcorial? Damn them long words is hard.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Superawesomerman

[gtmach]

That's why WoW has raids, and pvp, and achievements, and pets to collect, and holiday events etc etc. SWTOR has...broken raids and broken pvp and nothing else, and I don't think they've announced anything else they're planning for endgame progression yet.

 

I think BW will think about pets and holiday events once the core experience is fixed. I'm not experiencing broken PvP. But they're working to fix the rest.

 

They already released a new content patch a week ago. And next one comes in March. WoW releases new content once in 6 months. I'm not butchering Blizz for that but they've had a long time to be as established as they are now so they can release patches the way they do.

 

SWTOR just launched....

 

There will be issues/bugs popping up all over. Even then it was credited for being one of the smoothest launches of MMOs out there, so imagine how horrendous some of those other launches were.

[SoulstitchMMO]

Why do they let James Ohlen keep talking? Jesus the guy is responsible for more /facepalm quotes than anyone I've ever seen.

 

SWTOR is an EA cash cow. That's about all. The game is fun, till you hit max level. Then what do you do? Where's all this massive single player content that they said was in the end game?

 

Rift had more end game content at launch than SWTOR.

[MrTijger]

Why do they let James Ohlen keep talking? Jesus the guy is responsible for more /facepalm quotes than anyone I've ever seen.

 

SWTOR is an EA cash cow. That's about all. The game is fun, till you hit max level. Then what do you do? Where's all this massive single player content that they said was in the end game?

 

Rift had more end game content at launch than SWTOR.

 

Idiotic post, Bioware started SWTOR long before EA was in the picture.

[Aisar]

"James Ohlen: I really wanted to bring in the three BioWare pillars to the online space. Those are represented by story, by the player's choice in story, and by characters. Those are the three big things that I felt weren't really well represented in the MMO space. I felt that it was the smartest course to go because it's something that Bioware is famous for. It's something that we're good at doing, and it was an area where we could innovate in."

 

Well there's your problem James, you focused on story and let everything else in the game slide when MMOs do not focus on story. Hope you learned a lesson there.

[EternalFinality]

You had to be in that zone though. So if you were leveling to 20 in Kalimdor too bad for a dead mines run.

 

People on my server are asking for fp groups in zones of a similar level. Or they go to fleet. A central hub for anyone who wants to run any fp no matter what. Honestly I've never had an issue getting a group in fleet for any instance as everyone congregates here for it. As they did for end game in Ironforge before LFG tool.

 

Bad example. Face the fact. All that tool did was make people lazy.

 

You think it's a bad example, but all you've shown is that WoW had MULTIPLE AREAS to quest and level in for each level range.

 

You've shown WoW had more content at launch than TOR. Fact is, it had far, far more.

Edited January 24, 2012 by EternalFinality

[Superawesomerman]

Idiotic post, Bioware started SWTOR long before EA was in the picture.

 

Lord, boy, you sure got a mouth on you.

[Superawesomerman]

You think it's a bad example, but all you've shown is that WoW had MULTIPLE AREAS to quest and level in for each level range.

 

You've shown WoW had more content at launch than TOR. Fact is, it had far, far more.

 

Explorin the world if warcraft made me feel like an injun huntin the trails of the mighty appalachians. Tor is like shoppin at walmart: you go getcher goods and straight to the checkout.

 

And once you been in one walmart, you been in 'em all.

[Syrellaris]

They are not capable to fix even the UI (resizable, movable, sortable items) within several months.

All this is standard in every UI or web page out of the box.

 

What do you expect them to do in 3 further months ?

 

Furthermore:

1)

The story is not worth hundreds of hours but only a few hours per char.

There are hundreds of hours of grind and running and recycled quests for every char.

 

2)

There is not much polishment at all.

The game is very primitive and rudimentary in every aspect except voice acting.

At least they have fixed the problem of getting trapped in polygons.

 

3)

Just today has been created a thread about how the story choices and diversity are a lie.

 

4)

Where are the tens of thousands of characters ?

There are only standard mobs that attack you blindly on approach.

 

You do realize it takes a lot longer to Completely redo a UI right then just the snap of a finger. Its coming soon, so stop beating a dead horse.

 

1) There is a total of 200 Hours worth of quests. This includes your class story and the story from the quests on each world. Per character. Not per class.

 

2) Performance has some issues yeah, but thats really all. They never intended for High res pixels to be visible all the time. So again, stop beating a horse that was already explained and dead. They are working on making it so we can have these high res at any time, but it will take some adjusting of there infrastructure and engine. Patience is key here.

 

3) There is only so much choice you can have. Its not always going to be a big impact in the world itself.

 

4) He means player characters

 

Really learn what your talking about before bashing it.

[Kelenae]

You have to read between the lines a bit, but I think it's the best and most honest interview he's given to date.

 

He says essentially, they spent most of their resources on story and voice acting, and they are happy with what they did there. But they realize that they're missing a ton of modern MMO features and people are bailing due to that. They're scrambling to catch up, but they're way overworked, and they're trying to plug the gap with rapid content releases.

 

All in all, a true story.

 

I agree with what you said here

 

You cant build a house without a Foundation. And that Foundation is story. Now they are working on finshing the rest of the house. They have most of the house done already. Pretty sure someone is gonna take my comment out of context but whatever.

[lucasomega]

Haha... Ohlen: I think that it's gone really well.

 

Typical corporate brainwashed BS. From other hand he can't tell either that things aren't looking so bright. So he has to feed some garbage to peoples.

 

I haven't seen a critic review below 70%... Even user reviews are above average overall. GOTY... "best MMO launch ever" has been said about it even.

 

Honestly, this game has been steadily improving since launch. It's way more stable, the bugs are getting fixed, and content/features are being added regularly. Really it's only been one month and they've done a lot (it's not like they could fix everything overnight).

 

Somebody is brainwashed by the forums. Oh well, not everyone is enjoying it, but most of us are.

[Malefactor]

Idiotic post, Bioware started SWTOR long before EA was in the picture.

 

Not to mention untrue. RIFT had 1 raid, and the same dungeons you did while leveling up in heroic versions, maybe 1 was a max level. Oh, and the Rifts you could summon that were bugged.

[Syrellaris]

That's why WoW has raids, and pvp, and achievements, and pets to collect, and holiday events etc etc. SWTOR has...broken raids and broken pvp and nothing else, and I don't think they've announced anything else they're planning for endgame progression yet.

 

Wow also had 6 years to patch all of that in..... Pet collection, raids other then a broken MC and onyxia, etc was all missing the first year...then gradually with each expansion and each content patch over a course of 6 years they patched it in.

[Syrellaris]

also for all wondering, avarage magazine review is a 8.2 or so. So its not doing that badly at all.

[Superawesomerman]

also for all wondering, avarage magazine review is a 8.2 or so. So its not doing that badly at all.

 

Hmmm, makes me wonder. How many of them reviewers played for longer'n a day? Hell, a bunch might have even been going off beta and not release.

 

Don't know the numbers myself.

[Superawesomerman]

40k repairs to bugged out OPS zones?

 

Lava boss when wiped on will 1 shot whole raid no matter where your at in game after you reload. killing everyone several times.

 

Pylons that use consoles that dont respond making it not possable to complete, killing everyone in raid several times.

 

cant pass out or roll on gear in normal OPS, its auto given to random person in Raid.

yeah,

 

i did both EV and Palace outa like 10 boss's i got nothing, was a great time spending all my creds on bugged out boss mobs and getting nothing , great game this will make people wanna come back everynight.

 

Raid/ops *** would you give a SAGE who wears light armor , Bounty hunter heavy Pants?

 

maybe if they where not trying to control everything in the game , they could have fixed some of the issues and added afew more things like Add-ons, LFG, Macros,

 

i already know they will close my thread like all the others , more control issues

 

Whoa son, slow your roll. We're mockin ohlen here, not the ops. Got a self fulfillin prophey there

[Superawesomerman]

I agree with what you said here

 

You cant build a house without a Foundation. And that Foundation is story. Now they are working on finshing the rest of the house. They have most of the house done already. Pretty sure someone is gonna take my comment out of context but whatever.

 

Heh, you got it all bass ackwards there, little trooper. The foundation is the engine. You get a good solid engine and you can make damn near anythin work. All the good story in the world aint gonna help.

 

You get into a car with a bad engine, that trip gonna be real short.

[Superawesomerman]

Blow 200 million, and still can't figure out why they can't kill WOW .

 

You be stretching a little in interviews too.

 

His full name is James "Dhalsim" Ohlen.

[ShaftyMcShaft]

Wow also had 6 years to patch all of that in..... Pet collection, raids other then a broken MC and onyxia, etc was all missing the first year...then gradually with each expansion and each content patch over a course of 6 years they patched it in.

 

And SWTOR was in development for six years. A lot of the trouble with patching stuff into WoW was trying to kludge them into the old architecture that was never designed to support them (like cross-server interaction, or flying mounts in the old world), and doing that while fixing old bugs and developing new content. Some features were just quality of life issues they didn't anticipate at launch until they saw how people play a game like this. Or new-ish ideas people came to expect from a game, like achievements. Those didn't get popular until xbox live put them in everything, so I can't expect blizz to anticipate a 'standard feature' years in advance. But there's no reason for BW not to put in achievements.

 

BW has no excuse. Starting from scratch, seeing everything WoW and every other MMO has done, mistakes and successes, and spending $200 million I figured they'd launch with a powerful and robust engine and instead it's the clunkiest piece of trash I've ever seen. The engine itself would be marginal in 2002. In 2012 it's shameful.

 

And to spend all that time developing leveling content...and then completely ignore the endgame. What?! You want people to subscribe for years. Even casual players are going to hit 50 in 2-3 months...what do you expect them to do once they do? Keep paying $15/month to level more alts?

 

Anyway, so if it's going to take 6 more years for SWTOR to get fixed...well, I'll resub in 2018.

Edited January 24, 2012 by ShaftyMcShaft

[Syrellaris]

And SWTOR was in development for six years. A lot of the trouble with patching stuff into WoW was trying to kludge them into the old architecture that was never designed to support them (like cross-server interaction, or flying mounts in the old world), and doing that while fixing old bugs and developing new content. Some features were just quality of life issues they didn't anticipate at launch until they saw how people play a game like this. Or new-ish ideas people came to expect from a game, like achievements. Those didn't get popular until xbox live put them in everything, so I can't expect blizz to anticipate a 'standard feature' years in advance. But there's no reason for BW not to put in achievements.

 

BW has no excuse. Starting from scratch, seeing everything WoW and every other MMO has done, mistakes and successes, and spending $200 million I figured they'd launch with a powerful and robust engine and instead it's the clunkiest piece of trash I've ever seen. The engine itself would be marginal in 2002. In 2012 it's shameful.

 

And to spend all that time developing leveling content...and then completely ignore the endgame. What?! You want people to subscribe for years. Even casual players are going to hit 50 in 2-3 months...what do you expect them to do once they do? Keep paying $15/month to level more alts?

 

Anyway, so if it's going to take 6 more years for SWTOR to get fixed...well, I'll resub in 2018.

 

world of warcraft was in development for around 5 years. So whats your point? Achievements existed long before that. Have you stopped to understand that achievements don't add anything end game wise, other then an annoyance? Unless of course you add in rewards for gaining achievements which really feeds the elitist attitude people have these days.

 

Things aren't perse popular when WoW does them. People just take them for granted. Fact is many MMO's and new games work on older mechanics. It does not have to be like wow you know to be good.

 

Fact is, this game has more end game then World of Warcraft had for the first 6 months. Hell it took them nearly 3 months on Blizzard side to add in a Dungeon for the lvl 40 people. Bioware took 1 month and added in a new operation and a flashpoint.

 

In march we will get a major update and in between we will get minor updates that fix a lot of stuff. Etc.

 

You are all jumping a hate train that does not exist. Simply because wow has it and spoiled the casual department with there easy to get into and easy to complete game (after TBC the game became playable so easy that players complained about how easy it was and they added hard mode which is.....Easy.)

 

So yeah.