HammersteinSW Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) As long as they have guys in management who have their heads in the clouds and dream of millions of subs this will not improve. I remember reading an article in 2009 which stated that Bioware expected 5 million subs in the first year of Swtor - not even WoW came remotely close to that. And I think this gives us a pretty good picture of the mentality there - with all the guys on the lower rungs of the ladder being too afraid of constructive criticism because the high-ups have ordered a company wide "think happy thoughts and ignore problems" policy. If someone is to be fired then it is the group of yes-men around Rich Vogel (the guy behind the SWG NGE) and Vogel himself, as well as some of the former WAR staff. How do you expect to create a successful mmo if you hire staff from 2 of the worst failures in mmo history (refering to post NGE in case of SWG). And now they are even hiring some analysts, when any mmo nerd can tell them what is wrong with their game. Edited May 22, 2012 by HammersteinSW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rekkx Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Hope they did not reduce the "secret space project team". Not unless the only guy who was that team got canned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkulous Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Hope they did not reduce the "secret space project team". Eh, that was just another Marketing ploy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orlesian Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I certainly hope that things do not turn for the worse. It is sad for those who lost their jobs, but I hope things will work out and BioWare will make great things with SWTOR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obie_Wan Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I'm pretty sure that David Hunt has replaced Stephen Reid. He's been making a lot of posts that kept people informed about the Augment feature coming in at 1.3. Although there's still an absence in active communication with the PVP department. Time is not on BioWare Austin's side, they've had some successes but it's eclipsed by the failures resulting from their hubris. Blame whatever you want, make up whatever excuses you want, but it will not change the fact that something went horribly afoul when you lose this much of the subscribing player base and have so many near empty servers less than 6 months into release. There needs to be an earnest effort in keeping players informed about what's coming up, so they can have feedback, instead of keeping tight lipped about everything and then drop it out at the last minute and then looking surprised when a lot of the player base are disappointed because it wasn't anything they wanted. We can't call it deceptive practices since they guaranteed us nothing, only ambiguous descriptions and promises. It's a skillful act, but it garners them no benefit because in the end isn't the goal supposed to be about keeping as many players happy as possible? It's folly to take solace in the assurance of the die hard player base who remains subscribed despite whatever malign failings goes their way when the general player base is leaking away. BioWare Austin needs to start being honest, humble, engage the community, and most importantly they need to actually start doing what they claim to be doing: "Listening to the community and giving them what they want". Being tight lipped and avoiding community participation in shaping upcoming features is neither listening to the community, nor giving them what they want. However I'm sure that BioWare Austin and the die hard fans here will strike me down and claim I'm completely wrong on all levels. Things are clearly still alright in the offices of BioWare Austin, am I right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxdragonragexx Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 You know what? This can only be a good sign. Sometimes companies see their product needs a change, and the earlier they execute such changes the better. People might be better off in different positions. Guess game development is all a big strategy game itself. In a MMO, firing people usually means that the game is losing severe amounts of subscribers. They cannot afford to pay the ones they have. Which means content production will decrease in the future. This has always happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roalmo Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 ... BioWare Austin needs to start being honest, humble, engage the community, and most importantly they need to actually start doing what they claim to be doing: "Listening to the community and giving them what they want". ... am I right? Yup. Sure are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Ravenhurst Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) In a MMO, firing people usually means that the game is losing severe amounts of subscribers. They cannot afford to pay the ones they have. Which means content production will decrease in the future. This has always happened. Didn´t know that.. sounds bad then. So lay off definitely means "not replacing the people that got laid off" ?? In this case it would probably not look so good for all the planned exciting future content. Edited May 22, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kllashaa Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) Didn´t know that.. sounds bad then. So lay off definitely means "not replacing the people that got laid off" ?? Correct. In many US states, you legally cannot replace people you laid off with new people in the same position unless you can legally prove that your company's financial situation has changed for the better. If this layoff was a long time in the planning, it probably is not hugely bad news for TOR. If it's reactionary, then we should be worried. Edited May 22, 2012 by Kllashaa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedWolfs Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I'm pretty sure that David Hunt has replaced Stephen Reid. He's been making a lot of posts that kept people informed about the Augment feature coming in at 1.3. Although there's still an absence in active communication with the PVP department. Time is not on BioWare Austin's side, they've had some successes but it's eclipsed by the failures resulting from their hubris. Blame whatever you want, make up whatever excuses you want, but it will not change the fact that something went horribly afoul when you lose this much of the subscribing player base and have so many near empty servers less than 6 months into release. There needs to be an earnest effort in keeping players informed about what's coming up, so they can have feedback, instead of keeping tight lipped about everything and then drop it out at the last minute and then looking surprised when a lot of the player base are disappointed because it wasn't anything they wanted. We can't call it deceptive practices since they guaranteed us nothing, only ambiguous descriptions and promises. It's a skillful act, but it garners them no benefit because in the end isn't the goal supposed to be about keeping as many players happy as possible? It's folly to take solace in the assurance of the die hard player base who remains subscribed despite whatever malign failings goes their way when the general player base is leaking away. BioWare Austin needs to start being honest, humble, engage the community, and most importantly they need to actually start doing what they claim to be doing: "Listening to the community and giving them what they want". Being tight lipped and avoiding community participation in shaping upcoming features is neither listening to the community, nor giving them what they want. However I'm sure that BioWare Austin and the die hard fans here will strike me down and claim I'm completely wrong on all levels. Things are clearly still alright in the offices of BioWare Austin, am I right? What you said. Anyone know if Georg Zoeller is in or out? Just curious after how he handled the healer changes in the run up to 1.2. Clearly Bioware must now have the metrics, that they got the metrics that lead to 1.2 wrong. I mean what metric matters more than paying customers? The customer metrics clearly show they are doing it wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razot Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Brace for impact! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shepardcomander Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Hope they did not reduce the "secret space project team". They only mentioned the existence of a "secret space project". They never mentioned a team to implement it. Since they only talk about things after they're confirmed and they've never mentioned the team... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiowaWyoming Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Anyone else get the feeling that we're standing on Alderaan and a small moon just appeared? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaveRun Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I heard stephen reid got laid off... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalolo Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Didn´t know that.. sounds bad then. So lay off definitely means "not replacing the people that got laid off" ?? In this case it would probably not look so good for all the planned exciting future content. It's never a good sign when a company fired some employees. Are they gonna replace them, we won't know, but sure it's a bad sign for the people who like this game: Less people working at BW, less content release, less bugs fixing etc... Like BW likes to say: Stay tuned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oredith Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 they need to actually start doing what they claim to be doing: "Listening to the community and giving them what they want". Being tight lipped and avoiding community participation in shaping upcoming features is neither listening to the community, nor giving them what they want. exactly. XXX,XXX people saying [class] is terribly unbalanced and needs fixing XXX people say, can we have [pet] as a pet? bioware has thus far elected to address the 2nd question, over the first. lets hear what Bioware's response was to the healer debacle, and the lies that were told to the players, now that we have the metrics too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerokTalram Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) Didn´t know that.. sounds bad then. So lay off definitely means "not replacing the people that got laid off" ?? In this case it would probably not look so good for all the planned exciting future content. IANAL but I am pretty sure yes it does legally. The whole premise of a layoff is that you have no longer have work for them to do or can't afford to pay them. So if you actually do hirer someone to replace the person, they may have a case for wrongful dismissal. If you want to fire someone for cause, you should fire them not lay them off. Edited May 22, 2012 by JerokTalram Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Ravenhurst Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 They only mentioned the existence of a "secret space project". They never mentioned a team to implement it. Since they only talk about things after they're confirmed and they've never mentioned the team... True.. they said nothing about teamsizes. But in the video James Ohlen was pretty excited about "huge plans about space" so these huge plans can´t be realized by a team that has been "laid off". Hey that space stuff can bring 100K´s of new subs if it´s done right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nytak Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 But they're not - and worse, they transferred a few good devs (who didn't get fired) to other projects in EA. That doesn't show a commitment to rework the game - that shows they're just cost-cutting and bringing development down in line with reduced revenue. Yeah, pretty much how I interpret it. When you look at the recent sub loss, it seems to me that the new projections for this game call for a reduced staff in order to sustain development with projected long term subscription revenue. Without the layoffs, then SWTOR would cost EA money to keep running, rather than generate revenue. I can't think of any company that will keep a service going w/ a negative cash flow, let alone EA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phlem Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 We'll probably never know, but some devs have been oddly silent lately. I'm usually not one for tinfoil hats, but the 400k sub loss, EA placing this game in priority below Tiger Woods, and EA just being pure evil... I'm wondering if EA will do to BioWare what they did to Westwood Studios... EA should have kept their noses out of SWTOR. I had a feeling early on that EA meddling in SWTOR would not be a good thing. Losing 400,000+ subs in less then 2 months netting a 20% loss in active subscriptions isn't very promising. Here are my problems with the game right now. 1) Class favoritism by the devs resulting in ridiculously over powered classes in PvP while gimping other classes into almost absolute uselessness. 2) Legacy system is 98% stupid. The only things people use it for is unlocking the races for each faction, and unlocking the GTN terminal for their ships that hardly anyone uses (ships). That on top of it really being nothing more than a credit sink. 3) PvP, not sure really where to start with this. Buffing classes that did not need to be buffed, while nerfing other classes into the ground. There is zero continuity to class balance in PvP right now. 4) Hackers and exploiters are still running rampant in PvP. This is probably one of the main reasons why ranked warzones were put on hold. 5) Layoffs are never a good sign when you are trying to make something successful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razot Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Anyone else get the feeling that we're standing on Alderaan and a small moon just appeared? LOL Nice one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElitehunterDS Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 It seems the people laid off were from the QA team. Tell me, how essential is a QA team for success? Going offsite, cost less and quality is better, sad but true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gurugeorge Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 This is in line with what the EA guy said in that interview recently. Basically, SWTOR is profitable, but not as big a hit as they thought, therefore it's going to go on maintenance mode - less eople working on it, so bugfixes will be slower, updates slower. Things will get done, but just ... slower. If the game makes even less money, "maintenance mode" will turn into "skeleton crew". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim-ONeil Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 IANAL but I am pretty sure yes it does legally. The whole premise of a layoff is that you have no longer have work for them to do or can't afford to pay them. So if you actually do hirer someone to replace the person, they may have a case for wrongful dismissal. If you want to fire someone for cause, you should fire them not lay them off. This is a pretty misinformed posting. Please don't post unless you know something about it. Most companies (and especially large companies) have a "work at will" policy. This means that aside from the protected statuses (termination based on discrimination, etc) both you and your employer have the right to terminate your employment for any reason at any time. Being "Laid off" by a company like EA is much better than being "fired". These employees received a severance package while many people in similar situations did not. The only way you would have a case for wrongful termination is if you could prove that you were let go because of one of those protected statuses. And for the record wrongful termination is one of the hardest cases to win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinnermin Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 I hope they didn't lay off the guy that was supposed to add BASIC FUNCTIONS to right clicking a name in guild or chat. How long has this game been out? I can't right click a guildie's name to whisper them?? I can't right click (or left click) in chat to whisper a player on my friend's list but I can if they aren't a friend? *** are you doing?????????? what a joke....lol...I type this as I sit in an empty, silent fleet....for the umpteenth day in a row. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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