Megaloz Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) This makes me sad. I have a couple of things to say, and I am probably going to be called a biodrone for it, but whatever, I feel bad for Stephen Reid. He seemed to do his job with enthusiasm, and cared about the game. I personally enjoy the game. It's not perfect, and I understand the complaints, so I hope that this allows them to start making some improvements in order to grow again (or at least stabilize). I don't understand why so many are rooting for the game to fail. It seems to me that if it does that it could spell the end for AAA MMOs, since investors will be very wary to put any money into them. All we will get are rehashed Korean Grinders (TERA) or bargain-basement games (TSW). I can understand if you don't like the game personally, but actively trying to cause it to fail is something else entirely. Were not rooting it to fail...we just hate the fact that they are making it fail because we wanted it to succeed. If it does end up truly failing, i think it will put a stamp on the industry to wake the hell up and pay attention to the community and what we really want...which is....freedom, choices, options.....not hands tied behind our back and guiding us to one path in the life of our playing experience....let us loose! Stop limiting us to what we can do, just give us the damn tools and let us make our own story, our own journey. WoW is WoW, other companies need to just suck it up and realize that WoW is untouchable and should stop trying to mimick them. Just make a god damn good game and people will come....that is all. Edited May 23, 2012 by Megaloz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakkip Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I wouldn't read too much into the layoffs. As I posted in another thread they have a fairly high turnover rate from what I understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeramieCrowe Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I wouldn't read too much into the layoffs. As I posted in another thread they have a fairly high turnover rate from what I understand. Interesting. And might actually have more to do with the current economy than state of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stenrik Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) On the other hand, how do you make a small community like this one who demands to know every little detail, and even if they did, would still complain they don't know enough, feel like they know enough and were communicated to? I think many people here needs to look up the word "communication"... Now, before you go all ballistic on me and call me "fanboi", please know that I've complained about the lack of information of what they're doing in their revamp of open-world PvP... That's about the only thing I can think of that they haven't actually "communicated" on, not even a "we can't talk about it yet". Because, make no mistake: "we can't talk about it yet" IS communication. Just not the communication people want to hear... Yeah, I mean, I understand that they can't make promises they can't deliver (well, they can, but the community would be [and is] mad when it happens). But still, a lot of this info came buried in 3rd party interviews when it could've been delivered quicker. More vague hints would also be better than NOTHING. I am very happy to have "early summer" as a guideline for transfers than silence. Also, more polls and ways to make the community be (or at least FEEL) listened to. I've seen other games do something like a "guaranteed content poll" for even small fluff elements, but it's still a great way to make the community feel involved. I wouldn't read too much into the layoffs. As I posted in another thread they have a fairly high turnover rate from what I understand. Yeah, that's the way the game industry works, especially for those involved in early development (concept art, etc...) Edited May 23, 2012 by Stenrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgelling Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) I wouldn't read too much into the layoffs. As I posted in another thread they have a fairly high turnover rate from what I understand. It's different when there's no one coming into the new job because it's been eliminated - that's not turnover that's layoffs. Apparently the dev team is "still substantial", but that means smaller, which means it's not turnover. It's definitely not turnover when people are suddenly locked out of the building Edited May 23, 2012 by jgelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakkip Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Interesting. And might actually have more to do with the current economy than state of the game. I don't know about economy, but, from how I understood it it's like around a 80-95% turn over rate over two years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) On the other hand, how do you make a small community like this one who demands to know every little detail, and even if they did, would still complain they don't know enough, feel like they know enough and were communicated to? I think many people here needs to look up the word "communication"... Now, before you go all ballistic on me and call me "fanboi", please know that I've complained about the lack of information of what they're doing in their revamp of open-world PvP... That's about the only thing I can think of that they haven't actually "communicated" on, not even a "we can't talk about it yet". Because, make no mistake: "we can't talk about it yet" IS communication. Just not the communication people want to hear... This is really not the case... As a guild leader, I have regular meetings with my guild to let them know what is going on... Even if there is little to nothing going on. We all know there HAS to be a ton going on at BioWare right now to get these updates ready for us... Fact is, communication has been absolutely brutal. The only updates we've been given for the last few weeks have been cryptic and vague and essentially feeding the community a "word salad" and no meat in the hopes of trying to keep them quiet. People understand that what we will see come the next patch is not always what is being worked on, but communication WHAT is being worked on and what the plans are in a way that is not completely condescending to the player community is something that should not be too much to ask for. A MMO needs community to thrive; the devs of this game need to collaborate with that community in a healthy and symbiotic way in order for the game to move in a productive direction. Edited May 23, 2012 by LeonBraun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeramieCrowe Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I don't know about economy, but, from how I understood it it's like around a 80-95% turn over rate over two years. Yikes. That is really high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zergnaut Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) Yikes. That is really high. This is very true it is just like being an engineer. The company hires a bunch of engineers to develop a product. Once the product has been released they fire 80 percent of the people. Edited May 23, 2012 by Zergnaut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toweleeeie Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I hope it is was the community reps and the art team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psi_overtake Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 This is really not the case... As a guild leader, I have regular meetings with my guild to let them know what is going on... Even if there is little to nothing going on. We all know there HAS to be a ton going on at BioWare right now to get these updates ready for us... Fact is, communication has been absolutely brutal. The only updates we've been given for the last few weeks have been cryptic and vague and essentially feeding the community a "word salad" and no meat in the hopes of trying to keep them quiet. People understand that what we will see come the next patch is not always what is being worked on, but communication WHAT is being worked on and what the plans are in a way that is not completely condescending to the player community is something that should not be too much to ask for. A MMO needs community to thrive; the devs of this game need to collaborate with that community in a healthy and symbiotic way in order for the game to move in a productive direction. http://dulfy.net/2012/05/21/patch-1-3-the-details-we-know-so-far/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=patch-1-3-the-details-we-know-so-far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyDiggler Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 from one of the articles posted in this thread "BioWare used the Colonel John Boyd fighter pilot model of decision making, which says that the winner of a dogfight is the one who makes the most decisions the fastest. A development team is like a fighter pilot, said Dickinson, in that good decisions made slowly can impact a project fatally" this must of not sunk in well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeramieCrowe Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 This is very true it is just like being an engineer. The company hires a bunch of engineers to develop a product. Once the product has been released they fire 80 percent of the people. Except that they didn't do that at launch. This was specifically mentioned by James Ohlen, that they kept all the employees from pre-launch into post-launch. Usually, turnover is caused by people leaving voluntarily (except in the case of lay-offs). Makes you wonder why so many left voluntarily... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeonBraun Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) http://dulfy.net/2012/05/21/patch-1-3-the-details-we-know-so-far/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=patch-1-3-the-details-we-know-so-far As a guild leader, active community member, I'm on these forums daily... The above link is not communication from the devs... It's not the Devs interacting with the players. The above link is 3rd party information... As is most of what the community has had to discover for themselves in the last while here. Edited May 23, 2012 by LeonBraun spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkscape Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) This is what he had to say in an email to me. (yes this is a throwaway just in case) They laid off 25% of the staff (not contractors), including your favorite community manager, and going to be 1/3 by the time they are done. About 100 people gone from every department. The game is dead, the design direction has no clue what they are doing and never has. MMO decisions being made by people who have never played and don't like MMO's and just blatantly not listening to the people that do know what they are talking about. EA has basically given up on the game, it will not recover from this. (yes this is a throwaway just in case) Quoted from another site. Edited May 23, 2012 by Darkscape Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakkip Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Except that they didn't do that at launch. This was specifically mentioned by James Ohlen, that they kept all the employees from pre-launch into post-launch. Usually, turnover is caused by people leaving voluntarily (except in the case of lay-offs). Makes you wonder why so many left voluntarily... In my opinion the reasons for that were likely a premature release date. Hitting the Christmas market took precedent over completing the product. Not saying I disagree per se... having a copy in the kids Christmas stocking is more likely then buying it in the post Christmas Jan/Feb blues. I imagine they kept on most everyone to finish out content they had planned on putting in before release. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeramieCrowe Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 In my opinion the reasons for that were likely a premature release date. Hitting the Christmas market took precedent over completing the product. Not saying I disagree per se... having a copy in the kids Christmas stocking is more likely then buying it in the post Christmas Jan/Feb blues. I imagine they kept on most everyone to finish out content they had planned on putting in before release. *shrugs* It launched more complete than any MMO before it. I don't think, for a second, that content was released any earlier than planned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psi_overtake Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 As a guild leader, active community member, I'm on these forums daily... The above link is not communication from the devs... It's not the Devs interacting with the players. The above link is 3rd party information... As is most of what the community has had to discover for themselves in the last while here. You're also not working with large departments on future content and features that may or may not be completed at certain times depending on a number of variable factors, as well as having your own superiors and players pulling at you in opposite directions. It's not so easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drudenfusz Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Guess this means SWTOR is going down... the game has still many issues, but it seems like BioWare take forever to get the fixed, subs are dropping, and now the cutback staff... looks to me like it is becoming a vicious circle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bielduwyn Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Well, judging from Stephen Reid's LinkedIn page, we've lost him for starters. Because really, what MMO needs a community manager eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakkip Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 *shrugs* It launched more complete than any MMO before it. I don't think, for a second, that content was released any earlier than planned. I'm not talking compared to anything else (Although I disagree with you). I am talking in terms of compared to itself. I have a fairly long laundry list of items. 1) Not enough quickslots for all my abilities over several classes 2) Ilum - I think given the choice, BW/EA would have liked Ilum to be something more than what it was. The whole area felt like they had to have SOMETHING there and just threw together what they could with limited programming hours. 3) Stuck way too many places in the world 4) PvP WZ's basic copy and paste from WoW (Arguable) 5) No ability to modify the UI (Arguable) 6) 2 short OPS 7) Single levelling area after starting planets for any given level range 8) The list goes on but you get the idea I think to discount that they wanted to hit the Christmas market is being somewhat naive. If the possibilities are: A) the game happened to perfectly finish and coincide with a Christmas release OR B) they spent the last few months jamming in as much as they could to make the Christmas release I'd tend to vote the latter of the two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkulous Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 As a Star Wars fan and MMO player, I really wanted this game to succeed. I talked it up and got many Guildies in WoW to play this game. I've been very critical of BW because I cared about the future of this game. I think the layoffs marked today as the official date of the Tortanic. If it goes FTP in the future, I'll come back. There are some fun things in this game still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leggomy Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 So what is going on with 1.3 now? They STILL have no ETA on when it will release. No maint this week either meaning nothing getting fixed. Are we looking at the end of SWTOR after only 6 months? I have not posted in quite some time I come back and read not only is 1.3 still most likely months away but they are laying off people left and right. The 1.3 patch has not even hit the PTS yet. Its almost the end of May. Honestly how could they have handled this game any worse? I do not see how someone can take the worlds favorite sci-fi franchise and have it fall on its face so hard. Why is it taking months to add new content? Why cant they hire people who can do this stuff? Why arent the head guys being fired? The two CEOs of this company should have been the first to be laid off. They are an embarassment. I am truely speechless over everything that has went down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bielduwyn Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Also: In this topic: Scores of people who bought this game expecting it to be SWG2. And people who fail to realise that TOR is still churning a profit for EA/Bioware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drudenfusz Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Well, judging from Stephen Reid's LinkedIn page, we've lost him for starters. Because really, what MMO needs a community manager eh? I am fine with him going, hadn't showed up much on the forums anyway (just like the community manager before him). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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