1.2 really should have been 1.0

[Calimwulf]

Well Rift and LotRo weren't in a beta state after launch and Wow wasn't that bad either. Even less if you consider Wow raised the bar regarding MMO quality.

 

(Edit) BTW IMHO 1.2 will also bring more issues being:

 

- Making classes less iconic and blurring classes frontiers (BH with choke or lightning)

- Removing some of the separation between factions with same faction vs same faction warzones

- Making some species less iconic and less epic: Sith Jedi, Chiss on Republic.

OK, and here we go with people revising history.

 

LoTRO had most of the options that are being requested like player housing and such added well after the release and it was no where near as stable at release as TOR. It still didn't have LFG tools last time I logged in and while there was guild housing with chests, there is no way it could be called a guild bank.

 

Rift was the most stable launch of any MMO I had ever experienced, but it was constantly being patched and the queues were ridiculously long getting in. There was at least one patch a day, for both head start as well as the first couple of weeks of launch. They also put out patches one day where the next patch was a hot fix to fix the stuff they had broken in the last one. It was funny actually.

 

If you are going to make comparisons then at least don't make up facts.

 

As far as the rest of that, it is just fluff, and there is no way to know what is happening at the class level until we see the notes and take the toons out for their spins when 1.2 is released on PTR.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Calimwulf

[Scoobings]

Well, I wouldn't want to work on the "copy whatever someone else is doing" team.

 

You still run into the same problems. You start off copying the current standard in LFG, for example. Meanwhile, while you're just beginning to code, your competitor is finishing a six month long process of recoding the system to meet a new standard. So they release it, and you start over. Two months later, after all the flaws in their original design are shown, they re-patch it. Yours still isn't done, but now you need to rip out half what you've done to try to play catch-up. Etc.

 

Multiply by dozens of features and dozens of competing games. Now add in any desire you might have to actually do something new and leapfrog the competition.

 

Remember your total development window is 3-5 years, and the longer it is, the more your game has to earn to recoup the costs...AND the further ahead your competitors are getting, AND more, new, competitors are appearing.

 

"Quality of life" features, like guild banks, are much more easily added after launch, when the core gameplay features are locked down, and when you can judge how many of YOUR players want them. Not all games have the same target audience or need the same features.

 

When WoW shipped, it was lauded because it had in-game maps, which was a huge jump over EQ, which had some mapping add-ons late in life but usually just had people asking "Where is blah?". In early WoW, quest givers and receivers were marked by little circles. Quest areas were NOT marked, and you couldn't tell what quest a dot was for by mousing over it on the map. Over time, the maps became more sophisticated, quest areas were marked as well, and you could mouseover creatures to see if you needed to kill them for anything. SWTOR's map is on-par with the standard of around 2007-2008, when WAR first added region markers, BEFORE WoW did, I might note. They're not on par for 2012, but they probably will be before 2013.

 

Every hour you spend on one thing is an hour you're not spending on something else, and no matter HOW good you are at optimizing time usage, you will inevitably pick 'a' over 'b' and have to deal with fans of 'b' saying, "Why did you ship A? We want B!"

 

People that don't understand this are ignorant and should take steps to correct their ignorance; people that can't understand it are morons who should take steps to remove themselves from the gene pool.

 

Granted the job would be pretty boring, but probably neccessary if that's what it took to resolve the issue of major issues that are considered a standard from falling through the cracks.

 

I'm simply suggesting that MMO companies are too far behind the curve when it comes to developing features that players expect. For instance, people would freak out if there were no guilds etc.

 

They are on the ball about bringing in features players expect (they being the industry) just not fast enough. Something needs to be done to make development more fluid. If a company can figure that out, and they are able to release a game that has most of the features WoW does with some of their own inginuity then they'll be rolling. The million dollar question (literally) is how do you do that. One thing we can all agree on is BW obviously doesn't know.

[Tallyhoe]

Once you're level 8 legacy you can pay to unlock races.

 

Or were you talking about having an instant level 50?

 

Not an instant 50. And I know I can pay to unlock them.. but I ALREADY have an operative. and no desire to relevel and regear it just to have a new race. I wish legacy was already in the game when I decided to level it about the middle of January. I kind of wanted a mirakulok or something different.. which is why I was hoping for a race change..

[jarjarloves]

OK, and here we go with people revising history.

 

LoTRO had most of the options that are being requested like player housing and such added well after the release and it was no where near as stable at release as TOR. It still didn't have LFG tools last time I logged in and while there was guild housing with chests, there is no way it could be called a guild bank.

 

Rift was the most stable launch of any MMO I had ever experienced, but it was constantly being patched and the queues were ridiculously long getting in. There was at least one patch a day, for both head start as well as the first couple of weeks of launch. They also put out patches one day where the next patch was a hot fix to fix the stuff they had broken in the last one. It was funny actually.

 

If you are going to make comparisons then at least don't make up facts.

 

As far as the rest of that, it is just fluff, and there is no way to know what is happening at the class level until we see the notes and take the toons out for their spins when 1.2 is released on PTR.

don't forget LOTRO also only had 1 town and 0 PVP.

[LizardSF]

They are on the ball about bringing in features players expect (they being the industry) just not fast enough. Something needs to be done to make development more fluid. If a company can figure that out, and they are able to release a game that has most of the features WoW does with some of their own inginuity then they'll be rolling. The million dollar question (literally) is how do you do that. One thing we can all agree on is BW obviously doesn't know.

 

The thing is, and we're getting more off-topic than usual, while a computer HARDWARE engineer from, say, 1960 would have virtually no idea what to do with a modern computer motherboard and would pretty much need to relearn everything from scratch, a PROGRAMMER from 1960 would need a few months to a years retraining, at most, to function in a modern software development environment. (Not counting time needed to learn a particular API or toolset, just to learn the techniques and tools of development *itself*.) He would be able to learn C++ or Java as quickly as he learned FORTRAN or COBOL in 1960.

 

That's.... not good. Our computers are tens of thousands of times more powerful than they were a decade or two ago, but programmer productivity is barely higher. Sure, I don't have to hand-code an event loop to program in Windows now, the way I did when I learned Mac Pascal back in 1989, but that kind of boilerplate stuff was never the real bottleneck in development; the actual functionality was, and that's just as much work to code now as it's ever been. All the buzzwords and methodologies haven't really changed development in any way that keeps pace with the hardware.

 

It's not just about MMOs. What you're asking for is a fundamental shift in how software is written, not just a new language or new tools or a new way to prioritize tasks, and I don't see it coming any time soon. (Of course, by definition, world-changing paradigm shifts ONLY happen when you're not looking for them.)

 

That BW is a)delaying 1.2, and b)asking people to come test it at their HQ, is a really positive sign. The "patch, whoops, emergency patch" pattern we've seen is evidence of a broken testing and release process; they're at least trying to fix it.

[Mallorik]

Welcome to every MMO that tries to compete with WoW rather than make a good, unique game. They release too soon and numerous things that should have been in from the getgo take months to roll out. Especially when a company like EA is on the label...

 

It has nothing to do with wow, every mmo gets pushed out too early, i cant think of one that hasnt been, including wow. Daoc was pushed out half finished and nobody had even heard of wow.

 

Rift is the only mmo i can think of that wasnt completely unfinished when it was released but it still took them a few months to really polish it and bring it up to current mmo standards.

 

And btw 1.2 isnt going to bring swtor up to current mmo standards anyway. Biowares obsession with catering only to the super casuals is just slowing down the inevitable and it is never good for a game when the devs have to be forced into bringing their game up to current standards by heavy losses of subs, few games ever rebound from that.

[DarthRavnos]

That BW is a)delaying 1.2, and b)asking people to come test it at their HQ, is a really positive sign. The "patch, whoops, emergency patch" pattern we've seen is evidence of a broken testing and release process; they're at least trying to fix it.

 

I totally agree with this point. BioWare's regression testing is getting better for sure.

[Gruuns]

Dear OP, Less QQ. Welcome to the world of paid for MMO's! Get over it and play the game. I played WoW for 6 years and im still waiting for them to fix 30 things that have been broken since Vanilla. and those things are just with the rogues.

[Trolltar]

It has nothing to do with wow, every mmo gets pushed out too early, i cant think of one that hasnt been, including wow. Daoc was pushed out half finished and nobody had even heard of wow.

 

That's interesting that you mention DAOC. I always considered it to be one of the best MMO launches I had taken part in. Because when you logged in, the game more or less worked. I didn't think it was a whole heck of a lot of fun. But it mostly worked.

 

Where my favorite MMO of that time, Anarchy Online, had been out an eternity and still didn't work.

[Mallorik]

That's interesting that you mention DAOC. I always considered it to be one of the best MMO launches I had taken part in. Because when you logged in, the game more or less worked. I didn't think it was a whole heck of a lot of fun. But it mostly worked.

 

Where my favorite MMO of that time, Anarchy Online, had been out an eternity and still didn't work.

 

Yeah it did work, and it did have most things the opposition had, but it was still really really unfinished. There were no rewards or reason to pvp. There were no horses/taxis remember how long it took to get somewhere? Yeah those were all things that eq1 didnt have at the time anyways, but they were all things daoc was supposed to have and didnt have so people went back to eq in droves and daoc lived on but not nearly as successful as it could have been had they not lost all those people in the first place.

[WLpride]

I have to say that currently the fact is startling to know that the amount of production they have going right now is slated to continue.... indefinitely they say.

 

Certainly the stated "minimum" amount of subscriptions of 500,000 has been met, and I don't personally see that low of a playerbase anytime soon. So ya, unless EA starts working on a new MMO anytime soon, I don't see the pace of patches slowing so that means a good chance of seeing more major patches either paid or not it should be impressive.

 

I'd imagine a steady slew of new planets yearly, we hear some interviews talk about the team to start focussing on keeping hardcore players interested in playing. I think that sounds like a good path to take, whether that means complex Operations or not remains to be seen.

 

Will they refocus on PvP on Ilum or other planets? It's obvious that at least nearly 50% of players are interested in having PvP in their game routines. Investing in PvP will not be lost-cause and would likely provide huge payoff in player-enjoyment. That's just my thought...

 

At the end of the day (or year in business sake), SW:TOR is a success and it was indeed suggested by EA themselves to be a decade-long project. However ALL MMO succumb to maintenance-mode and dissinterest will that happen to SW:TOR development? Layoffs would shurely indicate that.

[SvnStrSlm]

Its just so funny that even now after all the years of MMO release people are naive, or maybe just uninformed, and make these post. How many times does it need to be stated that bugs and exploits WILL NEVER BE FULLY CAUGHT UNTIL AFTER LAUNCH! It is impossible to test for all the possible events that can cause a code to crash. Oh but silly me i forgot that everyone here is a programmer and KNOWS how easy these fixes are. Oh stupid people.

[va_wanderer]

I also think beta ends with 1.2 and we get the game they wanted to release but didn't have time to do.

 

Pretty much this. You know Bioware got forced to release this one early for the holiday business. I've looked at this as the price I pay to make sure the game actually comes out properly.

[necrohealiac]

Don't feel like reading 12 pages, so if this has already been said, good job person. It's an mmo, EVERY mmo released to date, was pretty much in "Beta", for atleast 3-6 months, i see it as giving them more funds to help build the game they wanted, and so far from the looks of patch 1.2 bioware is doing a quick job getting it out there, and a good job. Obviously you haven't played much MMO's.

[savagepotato]

Its just so funny that even now after all the years of MMO release people are naive, or maybe just uninformed, and make these post. How many times does it need to be stated that bugs and exploits WILL NEVER BE FULLY CAUGHT UNTIL AFTER LAUNCH! It is impossible to test for all the possible events that can cause a code to crash. Oh but silly me i forgot that everyone here is a programmer and KNOWS how easy these fixes are. Oh stupid people.

 

Have you ever run Eternity Vault?

 

Soa has been a non stop parade of bugs from the getgo, and is still extremely problematic. Take your pick on any number of endgame encounters both hardmode and operation that have been horribly bugged without any effort whatsoever made in resolving them.

 

One hundred percent reproducible bugs, that happen every single time you do the encounter, not touched.

 

You can't build a game with a blisteringly frustrating bugged endgame and leave it sit for three months.

 

Add to this the frustration of the months of "beta" tests which were really just a combination server stress test / marketing blitz. No actual testing or fixing actually took place by my approximation.

 

Now you have a PTS without character copies, very useful testing methodology once again.

[CrazyOldMystic]

"Welcome to every MMO that tries to compete with WoW rather than make a good, unique game. They release too soon and numerous things that should have been in from the getgo take months to roll out. Especially when a company like EA is on the label..."

 

This player nails it perfectly. I have already seen posts of people talking about the decline of mmos as a whole, and this is the primary reason why. You get some bean counter, and some hot shot collage kid at EA who says we must copy wow, its the quickest way to make a allot of money. The only problem is they seem to miss the practical point, which is that wows set up worked for wow, because it was based ON Warcraft. For that world for that lore it was perfect.

 

Now lets take a look at swg could you pick a more unique game design for the star wars universe, and a game design that gave you the feel of the star wars universe perfectly. Now all the years I played that game Ive heard so many rumors about what caused the whole mess . That wiped out a whole lot of aspects of that game. What I do know and I think most would agree with me on, is if that mess had not happened, and if the devs of swg would have been given the support by both soe and lucas arts not pulling the license. I think it would still be here today. It would still be the top star wars mmo. If EA and Bioware wanted to copy a mmo they should have looked hard at swg, and then put a twist on it to fit this era in the star wars universe.

[RobNightfall]

So you couldn't have cancelled during the first 30 days?

 

I got exactly what I paid for and I've enjoyed playing this game since release. Fortunately your 3 month sub is almost up, so we can move our separate ways and you can complain about the next game you buy for 3-4 months (I'm sure D3, Tera, GW2, etc... forums will love having you...)

 

Have you seen some form of refund available to multi-month subs? Because I'm on a 6 month sub and feel just like this guy. I would love to get $30 plus tax at this point. Otherwise, I'll keep playing here and there and wait for better games.

[RabidPopcorn]

The argument against this seems to be on the lines of:

 

"every MMO is like this, deal with it"

 

See the problem?

[BlackZoback]

The argument against this seems to be on the lines of:

 

"every MMO is like this, deal with it"

 

See the problem?

 

Don't see them offering any solutions, so yes that all the argument needed.

 

Things have deadlines, and they stuffed all they could in before that time period. If you can't accept that an MMO will be in "beta" for 3-6 months after release, you need to find another genre of games to play.

 

Or you can just accept reality, and get on with your life.

Edited March 17, 2012 by BlackZoback

[Thaed]

Yes, in an ideal world 1.2 would have been in on release. But I'd imagine that financially, Bioware/EA couldn't wait until April 2012 to release their game.

[Sarfux]

Should have, would have, could have..

 

but it wasn't

 

just be glad you are getting all the sexy stuff very soon and the game is doing remarkably well

[NoxiousAlby]

I also think beta ends with 1.2 and we get the game they wanted to release but didn't have time to do.

 

Agreed and legacy should have been released after 1 month, most players have multiple characters by now and it will take a sadomasochist to delete one and reroll just for an unlocked race.

[Vislo]

Sorry but I don't like the way BW has been selling us on this big patch like it's a content upgrade when it really should have been in the launch of the game. Most of the features / fixes should have been implemented from the get go. I'm beginning to feel like I paid for 3 months of beta testing. Anyone who flames this posting should really take a step back and think for a min.

 

Yes, I've been through a couple other big MMO releases but this one is different. Take CyberTech for an example. Three months it took them to put our rare item in game to make things that we by now already have from doing FPs and OPs. EV is still broken and HMs just now started dropping the right loot (sort of).

 

A developer at the conference was surprised (himself) that there was no "ready check" already in game. The /roll feature took 3 months, quests are still broken, the Legacy system isn't in game yet which was advertized to be ready for release ect ect.

 

So what is BW going to do for all of us that have paid for a game that isn't as advertized? In the "real world" if you purchase something and you find it's not what was advertised you bring the item back. I paid for 3 months right off the bat because I always loved BW games and thought this game was a slam dunk because of BW and the content. Well I'm feeling a bit ripped off at this point. Maybe by the end of my 3 months the content I paid for will be in game... Maybe not who knows at this point.

 

What's BW going to do about this? So far all they've done is offer up a "founders title".

If I bought a car and when I got it home found out the brakes didn't work, the fuel line was not connecting the engine to the tank and the seats were missing I'd be a little PO'ed if all they offered me was a new hood ornament.

 

That's essentially what they've done.

 

I know I'm not the only one that feels this way. People in my guild and on our server all have reflected the same concerns as well as a laundry list of others. So what are you going to do BW?

That's an interesting question and I think some of it has to do with EA

[Dego_Locc]

lol..

[Samborino]

I've been having a blast for the last 3 months. What's really funny is you could have played the real Beta free and known exactly what was coming on release day, in fact, you could have pre-ordered and played during the head start and if you didn't like what you saw /cancelled your order and not had to pay a dime. Then again, I'm sure you did play in beta and head start. Don't tell me you didn't know what you were getting for your $$$, because that's a damned lie and everyone knows it.

 

This^ there was nothing stopping you from cancelling your preorder during early acess and not paying a dime.

 

There were supposedly 1 million ppl playing during early access so thats quite a few as well.