Summer of SWTOR

[JediJonesJr]

i'll be around till 8/27/13 Then cancel, and remove game been here since beta hate to do it but i'm through with this game, shame really wanted to see it survive and flourish but shame the parent company does not have the same feeling.

[TheNahash]

We bought an expansion with not a bread crumb of content for PVP players like myself, not even new valor ranks. Makeb had zilch world pvp despite the big promises.

 

What made you think Makeb had to do with PVP?

I don't remember any big promises about PVP on Makeb. However, most areas on Makeb (if not all) can be accessed by both factions, so if it is PVP you want go hunt Reps/Imps there and if you're on a PVP server (which you should, since you're a PVPer) then you won't ever come across any enemies that are not flagged for PVP.

Some of these areas have resources that you need for dailies and Seeker droid missions, so I'm willing to bet there are always people of both factions around.

Why does there HAVE to be a reward? Isn't fighting another player rewarding enough?

 

That said, I agree with you that Bioware is really, really letting the PVP community down with 2.2-2.3

[Zsavooz]

i'll be around till 8/27/13 Then cancel, and remove game been here since beta hate to do it but i'm through with this game, shame really wanted to see it survive and flourish but shame the parent company does not have the same feeling.

 

Interesting date. ARR comes out on that day.

[justandulas]

What made you think Makeb had to do with PVP?

I don't remember any big promises about PVP on Makeb. However, most areas on Makeb (if not all) can be accessed by both factions, so if it is PVP you want go hunt Reps/Imps there and if you're on a PVP server (which you should, since you're a PVPer) then you won't ever come across any enemies that are not flagged for PVP.

Some of these areas have resources that you need for dailies and Seeker droid missions, so I'm willing to bet there are always people of both factions around.

Why does there HAVE to be a reward? Isn't fighting another player rewarding enough?

 

That said, I agree with you that Bioware is really, really letting the PVP community down with 2.2-2.3

 

I didn't say I think Makeb was about world pvp, but during the production videos I remember them saying how they knew they messed up Ilum wpvp and that pvp fans would be excited about some of the wpvp on makeb. I'm on a pvp server. Including leveling there and doing dailies, I can count on one hand the amount of pvp skirmish's I've had on Makeb. I don't need a reward for pvp, I enjoy the competition honestly, but at some point the development team has to show PVP some love and we have been by far the most neglected sub of BW's.

[DoctorWhoTardis]

Not a single cent of profit is put back into the game, It's how EA operates. You can find the evidence to support this claim easy enough if you choose to. It's how every single game under EA works, don't delude yourself into thinking SWTOR is somehow a special case. They operate the gaem at a bare minimum with no plans whatsoever in place to increase it's funding, ever.

 

Dreadful choice, this game and its users deserve more respect, at least commercially.

[Vaerah]

Dreadful choice, this game and its users deserve more respect, at least commercially.

 

EA is EA, you can't change them. They do like this, anyone who does not accept this many years long tradition of theirs may as well save themselves money and unsub today.

[WEIRDLITTLEBRO]

Thanks for the update Bruce. I'm personally relieved to see you guys making an attempt to be more transparent. As much as people will inevitably complain if they see a date that is too far off or a deadline that ends up getting missed, I've always felt that uncertainty is far more damaging overall. So please do more of these roadmap announcements. Because whether or not the changes are good or bad, it's better than not knowing. And it's better for you and your co-workers to get a sense for how people react before the update hits. That said, the fact that this only covers "content" updates and not convenience updates is misleading. Many of these issues are intertwined in the sense that they all affect players. So I think it would be beneficial for you to either include them all in the same roadmap, or at least VERY CLEARLY designate what types of content or features are NOT covered in this roadmap.

 

As far as what's covered in the current roadmap, I agree with a lot of my fellow posters that the gap in PvP updates is disappointing, but I stopped seriously PvPing a long time ago so here's one sub you're not going to loose by it at least.

 

What has been keeping me playing this game non-stop since launch is my guild. So THANK YOU so much for the new guild bonus. A lot more is needed to be done for guilds, but as a guild leader I'm glad to see any change from the devs that is going to encourage people to be active within guilds.

[PHILLIPSCLAN]

Just gonna say that bioware is no more just in name as soon as the doc's left it became EA and there is where all the attention to detail that this game needed went down the pan. Bioware pre takeover produce some of the best games ever and continued to do that now thou, EA bought them it is all going to pot !!!

[Stncold]

IWe should see a new warzone every 90 days or so.

 

Now you're just being ridiculous. You know what a new warzone every 90 days is?

 

A rushed out, buggy, poorly tested and imbalanced warzone. You know what I really like about TOR? The only Warzone that's even remotely bad is Voidstar, and all of the warzones have a unique mechanic to them.

 

Compare that to WoW, where some BG's have blatant faction bias(AV- Ally have a better starting area/can get to Horde base quicker, Twin Peaks-Horde base is easier to turtle in due to one entrance being covered in water which slows down attackers, Silvershard Mines- Horde start closer to the lava cart, which control of usually decides the winner), or are just the same mechanic on a different map. WSG and TP, AB and Battle for Gilneas, AV and IoC.

 

No sir.. I'd rather have some done right and tested right, instead of something churned out every 3 months that was likely just mismashed together and not tested well like you seemingly want.

 

I definitely agree that BW could pay a lot more attention to pvp content, and churn it out quicker. I would love cross-server queues and some form of open world(even if it's just small-scale so the engine doesn't crap itself), but I don't want it rushed. There's too many instances of MMO devs rushing out poorly done pvp content in an attempt to appease the PvP crowd, and it never ends well. I have a few specific examples in mind, and I'm sure there are some other longtime MMO vets thinking of the same ones.

[Gravestrike]

[*]Significant graphical upgrades

 

This is good news.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Gravestrike

[spectreclees]

This is good news.

 

As long as it means performance tweaks to make the game run better I am all for it.

 

However, if this turns into another: WE IMPROVED SHADOWS GUYS! Only to find in the patch that shadows have not changed at all and have made many turn them off because of huge performance hits. Then, take me off the list of people who want graphical updates.

[jedip_enguin]

The only part that has me genuinely curious is the 'Significant Graphical Upgrades' line.

 

The game is already a bit of a grinder even on relatively high end machines, so will there be some serious performance optimisations included at this time or is this just something for the folks with triple GPU behemoths to look forward to?

[WillCaedes]

Hello everyone,

 

My name is Bruce Maclean and I am a Senior Producer here at BioWare Austin. I know there have been a lot of questions around the forums about what kind of content you can expect from us this year and so I’m here today to give you all a bit of information about what we’re working on bringing to you this summer!

 

First up, Game Update 2.2, which is currently targeted for launch on June 11th:

• Nightmare Mode Terror From Beyond. It’s got vicious new mechanics and is definitely not for the faint of heart. I’m very excited for you to see the new gear that comes with this, which uses a new appearance system we’ve developed for armor and weapons called ‘Scrolling UVs’.
  
• New Guild Bonuses! Players in guilds currently receive a +5% experience bonus, but now every 5 active players in the guild will add an additional 1% bonus to XP and reputation, up to a maximum bonus of 10% each.
  
• Crafters can now craft Underworld gear! But don’t RE that piece if you are still using it…
  
• Unified fleet chat channel for each faction, for easier group finding without having to hop between instances.
  

 

We’ve seen a lot of requests for a rerun of our Double XP weekends. Well, okay! We’d like to help you stay cool in the heat of the summer with three weekends starting June 22nd and continuing through July 7th. The third and last weekend will actually start early on Thursday the 4th of July, in case you are enjoying a long Independence Day weekend.

 

By July 9th Ops groups will have had four weeks to cut their teeth on Nightmare Mode Terror From Beyond. That’s when we will launch Nightmare Mode Scum and Villainy as a part of Game Update 2.2.2! New mechanics and unique loot for you.

 

July 23rd look for a return of the Relics of the Gree Event for a nice two week long run. Per community request the Event will scaled up to level 55 on this next run!

 

August 6th is our target date for Game Update 2.3, which we are working on right now and will be our biggest update since 2.0. Some of the bigger parts of this update are:

• New Flashpoints
  
• New Daily Area
  
• New Recurring Event
  
• Significant graphical upgrades
  

 

This isn’t an exhaustive list, and we are also working on some longer term stuff. Sometimes we have been averse to discussing specific dates well in advance, because we aren’t going to release anything unless we feel it is ready to go live and we don’t want to upset folks if we move a date back. Well I think we should just tell you what date the teams are shooting for, and if we don’t hit them we’ll just tell you why. Radical thinking, I know. As we get closer we’ll have a lot more juicy details on these - keep your eyes peeled to the forums and SWTOR.com for more information. Also, for those who are curious about the next updates to PvP, I will just say… apart from minor tweaks (like stunbreak abilities cooldown being reset on death in 2.2) you should look forward to Game Update 2.4. /rubshands

I see you all learned your lesson, mostly, from the **** storm that was 2.1 customer side. However I would like to point out as some other commentors have that we did not miss the fact that you missed the latest cartel pack launch and intend instead to launch it in 2.2 (at least this is our suspicion, and given your track record it probably isn't too far off mark.) Whatever happened to "2.2 will have no Cartel Market content?" Hmm? But then again, lest we not forget the great FUBAR that was the "Collections" system that was described to us by Cory Butler.

 

Ah well, all in all an extremely lackluster set of patches and future updates. *shrugs* I might check the graphical tweaks but again I can't really trust Bioware with something like that because when you launched 1.4 I LOST performance on something that was supposed to IMPROVE performance. Yeahhh. Not amused.

[Grinamdord]

I feel so bad for SWTOR developers. They try to get content out to their players, address concerns and be more transparent, and all they get is bashing. I saw good work, great game, keep the info coming. Illegitimi non carborundum.

 

(address PVP ASAP, it's killing your game)

Edited May 27, 2013 by Grinamdord

[sandisrd]

Hi,

 

Graphic improvements, this is incredible, and lots of other new stuff coming, I'm really looking forwards to all this, thank you BW very much.

 

Note: Seriously people, all you know is complain and mew about everything, you all are bunch of immature people, I've just get sick reading these stupid posts, TOR is a quality (and of course there is always a room for improvements), moreover, you probably call your posts as negative feedback, somehow I see this as a constant bash, nothing more...

 

Thank you!.

[terzappi]

I feel so bad for SWTOR developers. They try to get content out to their players, address concerns and be more transparent, and all they get is bashing. I saw good work, great game, keep the info coming. Illegitimi non carborundum.

 

(address PVP ASAP, it's killing your game)

 

Do you really think a NIGHTMARE mode of a 10 month old operation is a new content? They are simply destroying the community. If they really want to be more transparent, then they have to be honest with the community and explain why they are letting this game die. All the content we have seen up to now was leaked by torhead more than an year ago. Maybe they aren't intersted in this game and the "depopulation" is in their wall of crazy

[CommanderKeeva]

Hi,

 

Graphic improvements, this is incredible, and lots of other new stuff coming, I'm really looking forwards to all this, thank you BW very much.

 

Note: Seriously people, all you know is complain and mew about everything, you all are bunch of immature people, I've just get sick reading these stupid posts, TOR is a quality (and of course there is always a room for improvements), moreover, you probably call your posts as negative feedback, somehow I see this as a constant bash, nothing more...

 

Thank you!.

 

Well they might as well stop lying that would be the start. They promised a "new content-packed patch 2.2" (their exact words. There is nothing in 2.2 that can qualify as "new content". TfB Nightmare Mode is the only addition to PvE but it's accessible to such a little percentage of the population base (or maybe they think every player has a set of min/maxed Underworld gear and is in a top-end raiding guild) that it will only keep a very small fraction of the players occupied. Even so, it's not "new content", it's old content with with 2 new mechanics per boss.

 

Same goes for Nightmare Mode S&V and the Gree event at 55.

 

There is nothing until August that the average PvE player could look forward to. Even then, the "new flashpoints" might just be hard mode versions of Colicoid War Game and Red Reaper.

 

There is nothing until October that PvP players could look forward to.

 

So yeah, I can understand why people are pissed.

 

P.S.: Another lie. They explicitly stated that 2.2 wouldn't be a Cartel Market patch. Another Cartel pack is up on the PTS right now planned to release with 2.2. It angers the players when PvE and PvP is suffering with a very serious lack of new content but they keep pushing out more and more Cartel stuff.

[LordArtemis]

It angers some players....lets be clear on that.

 

That doesn't mean those players concerns should not be addressed, nor does it mean the concerns are not important. But when a group of players desiring a certain type of content attempt to stifle another type of content they can create conflict inside the community.

 

PVP players have every right to be upset considering the lack of ranking updates. I don't agree with some of the over emotional posts that talk about lies and the like...my opinion naturally, but despite that the complaint is justified and something needs to be done as soon as humanly possible.

[CosmicKat]

I feel so bad for SWTOR developers. They try to get content out to their players, address concerns and be more transparent, and all they get is bashing. I saw good work, great game, keep the info coming. Illegitimi non carborundum.

 

(address PVP ASAP, it's killing your game)

 

They work for a billion dollar company on a game making many millions of dollars per month.

 

They are doing what they get paid, by us, to do. Sympathy for their "plight" is neither required nor deserved. Which isn't to say they deserve the opposite, but they aren't saving lives or doing what they do out of the goodness of their hearts.

[Jandi]

Hi,

 

Graphic improvements, this is incredible, and lots of other new stuff coming, I'm really looking forwards to all this, thank you BW very much.

 

Note: Seriously people, all you know is complain and mew about everything, you all are bunch of immature people, I've just get sick reading these stupid posts, TOR is a quality (and of course there is always a room for improvements), moreover, you probably call your posts as negative feedback, somehow I see this as a constant bash, nothing more...

 

Thank you!.

 

Yeah, lets lump every single person with anything negative to say about anything into the same over-emo nerdraging category.

 

If you want to talk about stupidity, you should reread your own post.

 

The state of PvP is a valid concern, even though I don't PvP at all really.

 

The state of story content, which was the number one selling point of this game for every single Kotor fan, is shining with it's complete and utter absence. Are we to expect 4h of story every 18 months? Since launch, we got Makeb which has more mission terminals than story missions. The entire state of the war is explained IN A CODEX ENTRY! Yeah, SWTOR is a story driven MMO with regular story updates, uhuh.

 

And what about PvE? More dailies? ENOGH. Upgrade section X and the black hole instead of making NEW daily areas. No one is going to care that it's a new daily area after they've done it once, then it's just something you do to get credits. You might as well put a farm of target dummies that grant you 10k every 10minutes of bashing on them and no one would care.

 

New Flashpoints? What does that mean, exactly? Completely new or more added to lvl55? We learned from Kaon and the Isle that they do absolutely nothing for the PvE crowd after one or 2 weeks. Furthermore, if they add mechanics that require a hint of a brain, they get flamed and then they nerf them to stupidity and we have yet another loot pinata and nothing more.

 

What about the performance of the game? With Makeb, they should put the recommended specs listed in the website as minimum. And they are working on improvements? To what? Making bloom a bit bloomier? Unless they do some heavy optimization, those improvements are a waste of time to MOST players. Oh and while we are on the subject of graphics, why is that my Marauder looks like a red ball of mist while in combat? I get the idea behind visualization of states but CMON, you can't even see the character, just a balls of effects running around, it's moronic.

 

People are upset for a reason and the server loads are pretty indicative of it. The game is awesome but don't kid yourself about how the dev team is losing the crowd rapidly. It's not their fault that EA, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to abandon the game to near maintenance mode but do not claim that there is no cause for resentment, even if you don't agree with the way it's presented.

[justandulas]

I feel so bad for SWTOR developers. They try to get content out to their players, address concerns and be more transparent, and all they get is bashing. I saw good work, great game, keep the info coming. Illegitimi non carborundum.

 

(address PVP ASAP, it's killing your game)

 

Who you should feel sorry for is the PVP sub. We bought an expansion with not a single crumb of development for us, and now are told to wait until october. PVP in this game is amazing, fast paced, action packed and fun as all hell.... but their dev team doesn't seem as passionate about SWTOR as the community is. One new wz every 18 months isn't cutting it. Is the SWTOR pvp team just down to Gabe now or are they pocketing EA's money and running to vegas every weekend? Because it isn't translating into the game for sure. How you launch your first expansion, and totally ignore half the community, and then tell them to sub for a year post expansion to get the content (2.4) we should have had at makeb's launch.

 

I love SWTOR, but I unsubbed for the first time since the game launched because the direction it is going is not a good one. Recycled content, more boring dailies, cartel packs, more raids that 5% of the population does is not what I consider good content. Pazaak, swoop bike racing, SSSP, new class chapters, multiple new wz's, multiple new fp's and ops. These are things that are content. With the way instancing works too, I really don't see why we don't have player housing yet since it seems all but childs play to add it with instancing so heavy.

Edited May 27, 2013 by justandulas

[vadess]

Hi Bruce Maclean,

 

A lot of the content added looks awesome! Can't wait to sink my teeth into the new operation as well as the new warzone. I do have one concern, though.

 

It would be cool if 2.2 and other patches would cater more to the RP community. Patch 2.1 clearly showed people want more customization. Why not build upon that and give us more of that? For example, ships that are more interactive; let players choose their own ship, buy a house in the city areas of planets; improve the animation of emotes so when I type /hug my character will actually hug who I'm targeting; have chat bubbles, and a way to add say who you're actually married to in the legacy family tree as my character in her RP story hasn't been married to Quinn for a long time. Note these changes don't have to come to all servers; instead, they can be catered to RP-specific servers so the people who love to RP, believe me there are some players who do only that as soon as they log in, have the tools to do so and don't have to make the game work for them so they can have fun immersing themselves in a role in the Star Wars universe.

[NightBlizzard]

Who you should feel sorry for is the PVP sub. We bought an expansion with not a single crumb of development for us, and now are told to wait until october. PVP in this game is amazing, fast paced, action packed and fun as all hell.... but their dev team doesn't seem as passionate about SWTOR as the community is. One new wz every 18 months isn't cutting it. Is the SWTOR pvp team just down to Gabe now or are they pocketing EA's money and running to vegas every weekend? Because it isn't translating into the game for sure. How you launch your first expansion, and totally ignore half the community, and then tell them to sub for a year post expansion to get the content (2.4) we should have had at makeb's launch.

 

I love SWTOR, but I unsubbed for the first time since the game launched because the direction it is going is not a good one. Recycled content, more boring dailies, cartel packs, more raids that 5% of the population does is not what I consider good content. Pazaak, swoop bike racing, SSSP, new class chapters, multiple new wz's, multiple new fp's and ops. These are things that are content. With the way instancing works too, I really don't see why we don't have player housing yet since it seems all but childs play to add it with instancing so heavy.

 

You keep posting on this thread - saying the same thing over and over and over again. There are 63 pages and I think you're in at least half of them. Repeating your plight over and over again isn't going to do you any good.

[chuixupu]

They work for a billion dollar company on a game making many millions of dollars per month.

 

They are doing what they get paid, by us, to do. Sympathy for their "plight" is neither required nor deserved. Which isn't to say they deserve the opposite, but they aren't saving lives or doing what they do out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

The people at the top of the corporate chain are making millions, sure....but the most of the people doing the majority of work on the games? Hell no. They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but nobody goes into video game design for any other reason than that they enjoy video games, want to make them, and hope that people will enjoy what they make.

[DataFoxIre]

People are upset for a reason and the server loads are pretty indicative of it. The game is awesome but don't kid yourself about how the dev team is losing the crowd rapidly. It's not their fault that EA, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to abandon the game to near maintenance mode but do not claim that there is no cause for resentment, even if you don't agree with the way it's presented.

 

I for one really want Bioware to come out and give us the true state of this game...

 

I feel more and more, that the game is on its last legs. Blotware is doing nothing more than spinning more carrots, hoping we take the bate and hang in till the day they pull the plug on the servers... Game Over...