LordJestR Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 Every game I played, single or multiplayer, there always people complaining on the forums about lack of communication from the devs, It's like these deluded souls felt that they should be updated on every single thing the devs are working on. It's frankly mind boggling. I mean you can be fans but don't be so obsessed. it's unhealthy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nothing_Shines Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 I like how the self-proclaimed "community ambassador" can't be bothered to read a reasoned post from a fan of the game asking for better QA on their multimillion dollar game "upgrade" and dialogue with the player base. Why do you still have that in your sig? Oh, that's right, you hope it will trick newcomers into thinking you're something more than just another subscriber so they'll back down when you start white knighting or being dismissive of voiced concerns. Some of the things the OP brought up haven't really affected me, but some have and I can certainly appreciate the desire to be heard by the devs on these matters. I had plans to lay out something similar about all the issues I have encountered but frankly, what's the point? They don't care if old players are dissatisfied or leave. This will be shouted down by fanboys and/or ignored by the devs like all the rest of the threads with such concerns because everything is perfect and Bioware can do no wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxtarii Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 Have some ice scribbler jerky, it'll make you feel better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan_Cousland Posted November 6, 2015 Author Share Posted November 6, 2015 Have some ice scribbler jerky, it'll make you feel better "Hey, Revan, have some Ice Scrabbler." "WHY?!?!?" "Because you get a little genocidal when you're hungry..." "*munch*" "Better?" "Yeah." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan_Cousland Posted November 6, 2015 Author Share Posted November 6, 2015 Bugs happen. I recommend you try not to get worked up over it as it's not at all a big deal. My friend.... entire elements of the game that are directly paid for are not working, and the expansion shows "bugs that happen" that leave it occasionally unplayable, let alone that it can disregard our efforts, leaving the future of our campaigns that are NOT reversable in question. I have a hard time not getting upset at a paid product having that status. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swedguy Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 Absolutely great post. Here's hoping they start paying attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan_Cousland Posted November 6, 2015 Author Share Posted November 6, 2015 Absolutely great post. Here's hoping they start paying attention. That's all I want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Transcendent Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 I remember those four hours. Four hours, of driving through the fall hillsides and turnways, past state borders and towns that always seemed to have at least one good diner by the road. It wasn't the roadway that caused the drive to be memorable, but rather, the cause; after spending over five hours on the phone with Best Buy's customer support and corporate line, I was going to be damned if I was going to let a four hour drive to their home office stop me from getting my Collector's Edition, paid in advance and in full, of the new MMO coming out. No, I would not miss out on this quasi-spiritual sequel to a game series I used to play among and along my friends, called Star Wars: The Old Republic., That was one of my first memories of my time with The Old Republic, a battle to get my $150 game that literally took me to the doorstep of one of the biggest electronic retail chains in America. The funny thing was, it was worth it to me. The game was glorious. I had never played a MMO before, or at least, never extensively. I had experience with Bioware games as many of my friends had, with Jade Empire, the obvious Knights of the Old Republic, even Neverwinter, the surprise hit Dragon Age: Origins, and my personal favorite, Mass Effect. It was my first experience with roleplaying that sealed the game for me as an actual element to my life. I have long been a dreamer- or at least, that is the optimistic and romantic way of saying I was always distracted in life, wishing to write tales of swashbuckling adventure, or harrowing action, sublime fantasy, whatever tune struck a chord at the time. Here was my chance. I found a community of fans, of fellow nerds, of people who wanted to create and share adventures with each other, while enjoying amazing storylines and awesome new twists to a galaxy we loved, and no matter how long ago it existed, it was never so far far away. In fact, the only thing that often kept me from my new-found pastime was a faulty security key from a certain special edition of the game. I have been with the game since then, having enjoyed a fought-for Early Access, having survived countless inter-player drama, having earned my Founder title and VIP wristband, just as many on this very website have, or the literal hundreds of other accolades and signs of devoted time and energy and adoration from fans that countless others have acquired. In truth, I have spent too much time, perhaps, in these digital planetscapes, and certainly too much money (I admit to being a loving sucker for Cartel packs). Still, the latter point mattered little, as I had found a way to enjoy myself, express myself, and make friends that have lasted the entirety of The Old Republic's lifespan, even getting invited to (and attending) a wedding two swiftly connected flights away. Without any doubt, though, this personal testament, this editorial on my time spending far too much time and credits on dye modules and armor pieces matters little to the average reader here, and this is something I do not think I can argue. I understand, TL;DR. Still, it is my hope that, out there on the other side of a computer screen framed by empty cans of Red Bull and carpeted with broken wrappers to Mackintosh Toffee, there might be an employee of Bioware who reads this. Who reads this, and then listens. Something needs to change. The Knights of the Fallen Empire could have been what we all had hoped for. With a focus on new characters and storylines, with the ability to create level 60 characters and jump into the new content, with so many accessible and open flashpoints and hard modes and tacticals and even new group finders and social quality-of-life improvements, we'd be once more able to forge a new path in the galaxy far, far away with extensions of the epic tales we've already played through, not to mention the newfound content for roleplayers to jump into (sorry PvP'ers, I guess it wasn't 'all' of us). But it isn't working. Despite the quality of the campaign, and the genuine awe and zeal of new Bioware tales, the game has become an almost laughable series of missteps and quality control boggles during recent months; - Level 60 character tokens not working, and worse, not being refunded in a timely manner for those affected. - Companions whose romance stories have been seemingly randomly forgotten due to a bug, leaving our character stories sometimes held for literal years missing a prime component. - Companions missing; Torian, Scorpio and Xalek for the most part, with reports of miscellaneous others. - Special weapon animations failing to work during combat, entire weapons and gear blanked and becoming textureless. - Numerous players stuck on certain characters, or unable to load specific characters. - Companion 'confusion': Vector talks with Kaliyo's voice, Bounty Hunter companions summoning wrong companions, Sith Warrior companions glitching out during summon. -Subscribed players being listed and treated as preferred. - Players unable to reload back into chapters, various glitches and bugs keeping players from being able to finish chapters, similar but rarer issues with old content from before Knights of the Fallen Empire. - Companion gifts not working as intended, and/or ignoring romance flags for affection tables. - Class missions missing from basic 'vanilla' game content. - Countless instances of visual lag at heightened graphics settings. (This has been in place since before 4.0) - The companion terminal being unusable. I know there are a lot more bugs than these, and I know there are a lot more that people fail to report. These bugs are keeping people from, in the least, enjoying the game, and at worst, keeping players from continuing stories they are paying through subscriptions to experience, and even people unable to play the characters they gave good money to play. Alone, this is troubling. Alone, this is disappointing, but these issues are not alone. There is a distinct lack of communication right now on the forums. I checked the most recent pages of the various bug threads on the forums, and of them, only 4% had Bioware responses. Not only that, but if my understanding is correct, then when bugs were brought up during recent live streams, they were either outright ignored or told they were not being addressed during the livestream. This cannot stand. You are going to upset your fans, more so than they already are. You are going to lose customers. You are going to lose our faith, and our dollars, in your endeavors. No one in these threads want you to fail, the mere fact that they, and even I, for that matter, are here shows you, Bioware, that we want you to succeed, but this launch has been a parade of QA issues, and failures in community communication. One of those two faults, if not both, needs to be addressed, either in better testing, or better communication with your customers to help try and alleviate the concerns they have. I know, I know, it is at times a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation with fans, but trust me here, while some measure of 'market research' may show that silence can avoid fan backlash, the backlash is already here. I used the very last of my 60 day time cards this week, but after that, I am done. With me, are four of my friends and fellow players in my closer play group until these issues are addressed, as we just cannot support the combination of missteps, mistakes, and reticence that has befallen our favorite game, and at this point, we do not know if we can speak any louder than our wallets, than our patronage, and there are others on these forums expressing the same. Please, Bioware, talk to us, talk to your fans, speak to us about these issues, show us that our faith has not been misplaced. Please. Because something needs to change. And if it is not you, then it will have to be us. - A very dedicated customer, player, and fan Eloquent. There really isn't anything aside from knowing how you feel that I would want to add to that post, so very well written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hillerbees Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 I agree with you OP that the bug are annoying. The quantity and variety of them in this update seem excessive. What would be nice is a full list of them by Bioware in their Known Issues thread so that at least we know they are aware of them and then a rough timeframe that they would expect to fix them in. And I don't mean "soon" TM. Over all I liked the story in KotFE even though I disagree that any of our decisions have yet to have any meaningful impact on the central story....I'm doubting that will happen as we all have to end up at the same place on the far side and tangents all cost too much money. My biggest dislike is that the devs seem to think its ok to throw a ******** of companions at us (most of which cannot be outfitted with any new costume) and that will keep us happy. Eric needs to get back in here and talk to us in an honest and open way. I hope Bioware are not taking their eye off the ball and focusing now on their "other" Star Wars game into the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikahrone Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 (edited) I agree with you OP that the bug are annoying. The quantity and variety of them in this update seem excessive. What would be nice is a full list of them by Bioware in their Known Issues thread so that at least we know they are aware of them and then a rough timeframe that they would expect to fix them in. And I don't mean "soon" TM. Over all I liked the story in KotFE even though I disagree that any of our decisions have yet to have any meaningful impact on the central story....I'm doubting that will happen as we all have to end up at the same place on the far side and tangents all cost too much money. My biggest dislike is that the devs seem to think its ok to throw a ******** of companions at us (most of which cannot be outfitted with any new costume) and that will keep us happy. Eric needs to get back in here and talk to us in an honest and open way. I hope Bioware are not taking their eye off the ball and focusing now on their "other" Star Wars game into the future. I dont think at all that they think like that, because not being able to outfit companions will pretty much effect ther CM sales as that was one of the reasons for buying CM armors. Also, people wanted more "alien" stuff. Unfortunately, if models dont resemble human model enough, no outfit for you (except companon customization slot). Thats the tradeoff. Edited November 6, 2015 by Mikahrone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluroq Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 No one in these threads want you to fail, the mere fact that they, and even I, for that matter, are here shows you... Speak for yourself. I want them to fail and, for the better of all of us, I want them to lose their exclusive Star Wars contract, because anything that EA touches turns into ****. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
publicenemies Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 EA considers tor a miss they invested 180 million in battlefront 3 which is going to be piece mealed out with a season pass costing all players over a 100 bucks for the game and pass. Does anyone believe they invested a 180 mill this year into tor? The end conversations on the xpac make you wonder sinces tors BIG selling point was a voiced mmo. Heres my biggest gripes with tor 1. No viable open world pvp raiding capital cities 2. Lack of a free roam open space like swg had ( they could have made a fortune selling ships this way instead of that joke gsf turned out to be) 3. No playable wookies,rodians,trandoshans 4. Reps/imps are friends holding hands against a new revan replacement 5. Rep side needs to be made more appealing 6. 3rd faction is needed desperately in this game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veronyka Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Can I have your stuff please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Journ Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 My thoughts exactly Paid a 120 bucks on 3 Level 60s and watched them Disappear sitting on a level 1 wishing it was world of warcraft free to play and eating a 120 bucks worth of beer and pizza Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan_Cousland Posted November 7, 2015 Author Share Posted November 7, 2015 Can I have your stuff please? I believe that selling an account os against Terms of Service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orchestration Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 "Missable" content being introduced was not fun., had to roll an new character and drag it through to the new missions just because I missed a side quest in a tower and that was before I was given a message about the planet becoming unplayable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deyjarl Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 - Level 60 character tokens not working, and worse, not being refunded in a timely manner for those affected. Curious what is considered a timely manner for this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deyjarl Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) Something needs to change. The Knights of the Fallen Empire could have been what we all had hoped for. But it isn't working. Then goes to list a bunch of bugs that actually really have no affect on the general style or game feeling. Sounds like someone that has gotten bored with a game looking for excuses and others to blame. Edited November 19, 2015 by Deyjarl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunderstriken Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 - A very dedicated customer, player, and fan Hey I'm your biggest fan!!! Now that I've got your attention, let me list all the ways in which I despise you and your product. I'm not really sure that's how being a fan works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brewberry Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Communication is tricky business, it can cause problems. Lack of communication is guaranteed to cause problems. Years back I managed the QA department in a medium sized company making business administration systems. When I got there customer support barely had time for anything but answering customers. Customers were not happy with the level of quality and were reluctant to implement new releases without thorough inhouse testing of their own. Every customer experiencing bugs would call customer support to report, complain and ask for solutions. The customer support staff, being the genuinly helpful people that they were, rushed around the office grabbing hold of developers for answers. Interrupting developers concentrating on other work and eating their valuable time. This is obviously not a very effective scenario. To improve this situation I recommended 3 simple steps. Continously updated and official known bugs list including each bugs priority and estimated date it would be fixed at least for high priority bugs. Customer support is not allowed to contact/interrupt development team unless a bug of top priority occurs. Implement a weekly meeting between customer service, development team and QA to discuss new incoming bug reports and prioritize them. Some in the company were quite reluctant to publish an official known bug list including eta for fixes, sales department more than any. Within a month the pressure on customer service was wastly reduced. They also reported customers expressed increased confidence in us as a software provider because it was transparent how bugs were prioritized and handled. Development team drastically improved their bugfix turnover reporting they were able to work without constant interruptions now and consequently plan their day better. The number of open tickets in the system were also drastically reduced since developers and customer support actually met and discussed new tickets avoiding multiple tickets in the system regarding the same problem Developers stated this was also very helpful as it was now much easier to a get a good overview of the current outstanding bug situation. This situation continued to improve over time. I didnt do much but faciilitate communication. Most people will accept a bug not being fixed immediately as long as it is not system critical, and as long as they can be confident it is actually being handled. The worst you can do in this situation is make a customer feel ignored. I dont presume to know how QA works in Bioware, nor the pressures their emplyees face. I am however quite sure, like most other software providers the take on QA is top - down. Meaning it is investors, laywers, accountants and sales people that set the tone for quality assurance. There are few companies in the world where quality assurance is truly approached down - up. Meaning you set the bar for what level of errors is acceptable, and you organize everything else in order to guarantee such errors are avoided. One example of such a company might be NASA. I think they are not willing to let space shuttles drop from the sky because they dont have the best possible quality assurance program they can think of. I feel for the people working in such an environment as the top - down approach described above. You have no friends. Your customers dont like you because they are not getting what they want when they expect it. And your management/investors constantly pressure you to do things you know will in turn affect your customers negatively thus making the situation even worse. At the end of the day the rate at which you can produce new software and fix bugs is related to how much cash you are willing to throw at it, and the quality of your process. Perhaps the current speed of fixing bugs is all we get. Perhaps the financial situation does not allow more. Perhaps Bioware are as good as they can be when it comes to development and QA process. That is not for me to say. For the record I am aware there is a Known Issues list in the bug report section of the forum. In my book it is however lacking. There are no estimated dates nor any priority listing other than stating they are looking to fix this asap. I am also not confident the list includes older bugs reported in earlier releases that has not been fixed yet. If you are going to build customer confidence you need to not magically remove bugs they have reported even if they are old and have low priority. Also, some low priorty bugs should be upgraded over time to avoid leaving customers the impression you are unable to fix it. I for one feel for you OP, in that you clearly care a lot about this product but feel like you are being ignored. I will never understand software companies reluctance to be totally transparent about their known bugs and how they are being handled. I guess they fear some might use that as arguments vs them. For my part i tend to trust people and companies that demonstrate honesty and transparency. Brewberry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asroha Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 <snip>... and a very well written letter that was worth the read... Nicely put, OP. I hope someone at Bioware reads this. I have posted on countless threads about things like companions being way OP to the point of being broken, as well as many of the other things you have listed here. No fixes, and not a peep from Bioware... Those of you who think this "story content" won't end up being a revolving door, I feel for you. The game is now a very simplistic version of its former self. This is now a single player game, so much that grouping is discouraged to the point of just not being necessary. I do hope that those who do stay are able to find people to play the game with, FP's and OP's will be a real challenge to not only find people to play, but also to find people who know how to play their chosen class. If all the people that remain want a game experience that involves very little interaction and a lot of cutscene-watching, this is now the game for you. I can't imagine, or foresee this game being captivating to play, or have any real replayability at all, despite playing through the story with a different class. KotFE would have been awesome as a stand alone feature vignette, though. Something to show us to tie everything together, but as an actual gameplay storyline... NOT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikahrone Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Nicely put, OP. I hope someone at Bioware reads this. I have posted on countless threads about things like companions being way OP to the point of being broken, as well as many of the other things you have listed here. No fixes, and not a peep from Bioware... Those of you who think this "story content" won't end up being a revolving door, I feel for you. The game is now a very simplistic version of its former self. This is now a single player game, so much that grouping is discouraged to the point of just not being necessary. I do hope that those who do stay are able to find people to play the game with, FP's and OP's will be a real challenge to not only find people to play, but also to find people who know how to play their chosen class. If all the people that remain want a game experience that involves very little interaction and a lot of cutscene-watching, this is now the game for you. I can't imagine, or foresee this game being captivating to play, or have any real replayability at all, despite playing through the story with a different class. KotFE would have been awesome as a stand alone feature vignette, though. Something to show us to tie everything together, but as an actual gameplay storyline... NOT. In other words....in worst case scenario game will be SAME as before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunderstriken Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Nicely put, OP. I hope someone at Bioware reads this. I have posted on countless threads about things like companions being way OP to the point of being broken, as well as many of the other things you have listed here. No fixes, and not a peep from Bioware... ..... I do hope that those who do stay are able to find people to play the game with, FP's and OP's will be a real challenge to not only find people to play, but also to find people who know how to play their chosen class. I get why you might hold the opinion that companions are OP, but I can't understand how you presume it should be "fixed". I don't like the swirls in the sky of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night, but I would never presume that what someone created solely for the enjoyment of others is broken because I don't like personally, much less expect it to be "fixed" by changing it to what I would prefer. Bioware created the companions in the way they wanted to them to function. Do you honestly believe they just assigned random values to the companions? Of course not, they made the companions function in the manner they want the companions to function. For you to come along and insist they did it wrong and should fix it simply because you don't like it is ridiculous. Ironically, you talk about absolutely brain dead companions being over powered to the point of game breaking because it removes all challenge, yet close your post by saying that actual living breathing players are going to make endgame too challenging because they won't be perfect right off the bat. Pick a lane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xintross Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 I remember similar days. Only mine were roughly 12 years ago with the launch of Star Wars Galaxies. I do in fact remember my first moments with that game and many countless moments from the seemingly incompetent SOE devs at launch, all the way up until EA's non-competition agreement had the game shut down. I do remember the first days, weeks and months of SWTOR as well. I remember having been very hyped for a "new" Star Wars MMO... At least until I jumped into the open beta in November, a month before SWTOR's launch. The game was a lot more shallow than anything I was used to and was honestly an incomplete mess. I don't want to make one of "those" posts, but MANY of the problems I saw in this game's beta are still around today. I hold no ill-feelings towards the developers of either SWTOR or SWG as I'm certain the downfalls of both games is more related to poor management, publishers and ultimately, money. It just saddens me greatly that neither game ever really had a chance to really come to its full potential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan_Cousland Posted November 7, 2015 Author Share Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) Then go to list a bunch of bugs that actually really have no affect on the general style or game feeling. Sounds like someone that has gotten bored with a game looking for excuses and others to blame. I have to disagree... like, completely. Missing or glitched companions, the inability to use level 60 character tokens paid for, missing/broken weapons, broken character stories, lagging graphics? How does none of that qualify as having an affect on style or game feeling? I think you're reaching here, friend. You're of course welcome to your opinion, but these are genuine issues countless others besides myself have reported here on this very site, and how can any of that have to do with any 'boredom'? If only I could show you my play logs, you would happily see I am still on most days (and will continue to do so until I run out of sub time), but sadly, I cannot enjoy the new content due to the glitches expressed, nor can I create level 60's to try it in a new, fresh and 'unburdened' toon. Sorry, but... just no. I don't know if you are being defensive and, honestly, I do not care for your cause, but you're reaching at best here, my friend, and it's not helpful to a discussion about the issues stated. I would happily discuss any objections to my 'open letter', but I don't see any logic with your claim. Edited November 7, 2015 by Nathan_Cousland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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