The Incompetence of Bioware is Astounding.

[twpotter]

Your comparison is specious. A valet service is nothing close to providing an MMO. You don't need to invest months of time and six or seven figures in cash in order to change your service. In fact, if you do provide an additional level of service that required even marginal investment you'd charge more. Your company is, I assume, run under objective standards - i.e. it can be seen when something was done incorrectly. Do you refund a customer that says the work wasn't done right when it was? Do you refund every customer that used your service last Saturday because 1 guy had a poor experience, that was actually his own fault, but he's now running around outside your service area with a billboard saying how you screwed him and everyone in there needs to be fired?

 

Do you take the word of someone that comes along 4 hours later and says this guy he knows had a bad experience at your service so now this new guy thinks he deserves something special? Or you offer a "buy 4, get the 5th free" deal. but a bunch your customers' complain that isn't good enough - they've been coming to you for years so they deserve the next 10 free? Oh, and you aren't allowed to change your price, ever, regardless of changes in costs. But you still need to keep giving away more and more free stuff. And, to top it all off, anyone that actually thinks you are doing a good job is just a suck up, an idiot, or probably someone you paid.

 

Because that's what goes on here - day in, day out. A few valid arguments and concerns but mostly a bunch of whining that the game isn't what they want and demands to change it immediately, insults and worse towards the devs and players who are actually enjoying the game (because they must be stupid to actually like it here, right?).

 

We rarely get complaints to be honest.. All cars are double/triple checked before hand over. If an employee regularly screws up they get the two warnings (retraining after each) and if a third time occurs, we let them go.

 

We employ on average around 70 people (so probably bigger than the staff looking after SWTOR) Whether we valet someone's prized Aston or a company fleet of Fiats, all must be returned to the customer to their satisfaction.

I can compare the two businesses quite easily. You do all that is in your power to keep your customers happy.

If you are good at what you do, you thrive and survive.

 

It would seem to me (IMHO) that Bioware plays the numbers game really well. By the time a player gets totally peeved off with all the game breaking stuff, more than enough new players have come into the game to make up for those that leave. If there were another Star Wars MMO out there it would be a different story, competition makes for better products/services.

 

I love Star Wars. I don't want to see the game die, after all its the only Star Wars MMO out there and i refer to my original post... the last 2 months have been the worst I've experienced in the almost 4 years of playing the game.

 

A conglomeration of bad things happening far too close together.

[Joesixxpack]

Once upon a time...

 

Your expectations are too high. L2maintenancemode.

[ElvisLegShaker]

I make better money than a dev...why should I bother? There are also games out there, not WoW, that are doing better than SWTOR because they don't have the issues many of us are speaking of. I am playing one of them right now when I am not attending guild functions here. Tbh the ONLY thing that keeps me logging into SWTOR is the fact my guild still has a presence, otherwise I'd be exclusively playing the other game exclusively.

 

What game are you playing? I'm (finally) looking for a new one.

[ekwalizer]

Red flag stuff all anyone may want to, but acting like Bioware broke a promise to released content this year is foolish.

 

I agree with a lot of what you said, but it definitely needs to be pointed out that around the release of SoR, they did promise to never go 14 months again without a new raid. February 4th, I believe will mark another 14 months.

 

Given that we know they are on vacation (which is understandable), I do not see a raid forthcoming by February 4th, 14th or 24th.

 

They also promised to fix OWPvP on Ilum. Instead of doing that they gave us the Gree event, which guarantees that OWPvP will never *really* return to Ilum.

 

I'm sure if I wasn't more interested in going to sleep I could think up more broken promises.

 

I actually "get" the no new raid stance from them, my biggest concerns right now are:

1.) Eight month subscription gimmick. If a product is in demand, no gimmick is necessary. If a product is not in demand (subscription hemorrhage), you need to fix the problems. Clearly, this return to story was rolled out poorly. And anecdotally speaking only, it does not appear to have increased subscribers. Quite the opposite actually.

 

2.) HK-55 as a companion. "Decisions are going to matter". The staff made a "decision" to very obviously perma-kill HK-55. Now they go back on this "decision" less than 6 weeks later based on forum nerd rage. What's worse they double down on this reversal by tying him to a subscription carrot. It just seems to me that if they really wanted to bring him back they could have a cut scene of Koth and T7 restoring him. I doubt many people are interested in another HK-51 style scavenger hunt, I just hope whatever they do is better than "here is a token in your email for HK-55". I would have much rather he stayed dead though. His death was good story-telling.

 

3.) Decisions do not in fact matter. I won't get into spoilers but I have played the 9/16ths of the available expansion every way possible and there is really only one noticeable difference but the outcome is exactly the same following every "decision point". Someone will say, "Well it isn't finished, the decisions will start mattering later". And I must remind them that we are more than half way through this "season"; there have been plenty of opportunities for decisions to matter. Ok, one spoiler:

 

 

Why did we have no option at all to let Tanno Vik kill Tora? I liked the idea of "working with" Tanno on my Merc. Don't get me wrong, I killed him on my Commando. But in that scenario we get 2 light side options that both have the same outcome (Tora leaves with you) and a darkside option to kill Tanno which still results in the same outcome; Tora goes with you. It should have been Lightside 1: Negotiate with Tanno to free Tora. Lightside 2: Kill Tanno to free Tora. Darkside: Let Tanno kill Tora. That would have been "meaningful" because you don't know how useful to the crew she is at this point or what her larger role in the story might be.

 

Here is a decision that actually mattered, the Trooper decision to save Jaxo (Darkside) or let her die (Lightside) in the vanilla story. I cannot think of a single situation on any other character that was so gut wrenching. Not even close. And certainly not in this expansion.

 

 

4.) Too many disassociated companions. Simply put, in the current game there is no attachment to companions. My contacts window is a mile long and I only actually use one companion. My crew-skills window is flooded with 2-10 influence companions and I have to spend time digging through that to find some higher influenced to run crew skills on. It's just a mess. Also we have tripled our companion inventory (23 available, up from 8), have an entire base worth of people working for us, but can still only send 6 companions on crew skills.

 

5.) 250k influence is ridiculous. I'd actually be fine with this for new companions, but the thought that my old companions "like" me 1/25th as much now as they did in 3.x is just silly. Vanilla companions should be scaled up in influence to their previous "level". So if they were at 10k, they should be at 250k. If they were at 1k, they should be at 25k. Or does Bioware really want Qyzen Fess, as soon as I unlocked him, to like my Mercenary as much as his wife Mako (when I finally find her)?

 

6.) NiM loot vs HM loot is self explanatory as an issue.

Edited December 19, 2015 by ekwalizer

[Costello]

The sad thing is that the community is attacking each other yet the vast majority of people that post actually want the game to be a success and are annoyed at how the devs seem determined to make it as difficult for the players to enjoy the game or keep them returning to the game.

 

I have friends who used to play who have gone on to MMO pastures new, none of them bothered to post in the forum why they were quitting. There view was the game is bad, the devs don't care I'll just unsub. Which by the number of sales in the first week and the number of subs now is the vast majority if players.

 

Even when I say to them come back they tell me the game is bad from mechanics to anything to do in end game. And my come back is ah but there is SOR, its a sort of one story fits all with a guy that you remember we defeated in the foundry flashpoint 3 and a bit years ago.... Ok not the best as the story is more about rehashing someone who should never have come back.... But we also have Kotfe its about 10 hours of new story. Once again its one story for both sides, its a stand alone set in two new area, no they aren't very big areas and the story is very bland at the moment mostly captures, running running running and some recruiting. No obviously there is no resolution and because its stand alone so any events or old planets almost completely ignore it...but then you get to grind companion influence .... oh they have been changed no more gear..... and then you get to grind alliance rep by doing heroics we did 4 years ago....

 

Fanboi's I salute you finding such to be amazing. But really the state of the game would be comical if it wasn't giving people no reason to sub. Even the devs know this so they put some HK content in behind a pay wall, which I promise will be a massive disappointment when it turns out he has 4 attacks cant equip any gear and the mission is balanced accordingly and has about as much effect on the game and Nico did. That is to say none. They just have to hope that people will be optimistic enough to hold out subbing for the rewards as few can possibly be keen to spend more time rehashing the same old content.

[Nothing_Shines]

HK-55 is going to be just as pointless as Nico turned out to be.

 

Nico gave us a two minute one-sided convo and a single "mission" to make the drunk a mixed drink so he'd join us (or you could just press a button and get him instantly).

 

Now, not only has he contributed NOTHING to the Alliance, but he might as well not even exist. He didn't take over as our pilot or do anything beyond give Hylo a thrill up her leg. Why is here?

 

He doesn't recognize T7-01, HIS OWN DROID from the Return trailer that plays at the beginning of the game and neither does T7 recognize him! T7, whose background includes being notable for never having had a memory wipe. Not even one throw away line or 30 second cutscene. NOTHING.

 

T7 = Surprised. Master = Found older, drunk master.

Nico: "T7! I haven't seen you since you jumped ship with that smoking Jedi Knight after the Battle of Korriban. What's it been? Fifteen years? Have you seen my ship? 'Cause I can't seem to find it.

You (back turned): ...[silent protagonist text]

[dscount]

*Giggle*

 

Please.. HK-55 was them throwing us a BONE to shut up the masses ************ about some REAL SUB rewards. The funny part is not a lot of folks care.

 

I think it was LAZY... picking a companion that was already designed and created as a reward. LOL

[Ceinwyn]

HK-55 is going to be just as pointless as Nico turned out to be....

 

I'd take HK-55 over that drunk bum any day of the week. But that's just me

[Xo-Lara]

I'll take them both. I imagine that it's going to take some time to get some steam going behind the many stories and interactions they have available for them to work on. Probably why you need to have one story for every player, companion stories will be far more extensive than they were in the past when there were 8 separate player stories.

[rasputein]

I'll take them both. I imagine that it's going to take some time to get some steam going behind the many stories and interactions they have available for them to work on. Probably why you need to have one story for every player, companion stories will be far more extensive than they were in the past when there were 8 separate player stories.

 

id be willing to bet my last dollar that you never get more "extensive" companion stories.

[Xo-Lara]

More extensive companion interaction seems the be the best use of the alliance system. It's a bit too complicated to say it's just for grinding up an influence number.

[ekwalizer]

More extensive companion interaction seems the be the best use of the alliance system. It's a bit too complicated to say it's just for grinding up an influence number.

 

If there were going to be *any* companion interaction we would have already seen some of that. That really is all it is for. it's a big casual hamster wheel.

Edited December 20, 2015 by ekwalizer

[peter_plankskull]

Perhaps I can turn the tables and be optimistic instead. Maybe... just maybe... they delayed the chapter 10 release to release a FP at the same time and other various new content, story with comps, interactions with comps, and maybe new repeatable group content.

[rasputein]

Perhaps I can turn the tables and be optimistic instead. Maybe... just maybe... they delayed the chapter 10 release to release a FP at the same time and other various new content, story with comps, interactions with comps, and maybe new repeatable group content.

 

if all that happened in the next patch id fire up a 6month sub, but it isn't going to happen:(

[thelordofhate]

Wow, BW... over 14 pages of vitriol, and I'm yet to even see you incompetents ACKNOWLEDGE that this game is BROKEN, and needs to be fixed immediately. If you even showed a little bit of concern for your players, that might be something, but you are ignoring us. How long do you think you can stay in business when you break the game in the most heinously stupid ways, and then act like NOTHING IS WRONG? I have seen nothing, not ONE thing from you guys that even tells us that we have a reason to keep playing.

[KLGChaos]

I wouldn't want to respond to a bunch of screaming players lashing out either. It's like children throwing a tantrum, especially when there's name calling involved. I'm a returning player, so I haven't hit the end game yet, but I know the MMO landscape well. I started with FFXI, moved to WoW, then briefly to SWTOR before going on to The Secret World, Wildstar and then FFXIV.

 

I've learned that with MMOs, the best thing you can do is cycle your games. You will always hit a grind wall in these games, especially if you play a lot, and especially in smaller games with fewer developers and resources to work with. I learned that with TSW. It follows the same model as SWTOR l. I have a lifetime sub and went back to the game after a year old to find there were just two small content packs released for it. No new dungeons or new raids (though they finally did get around to doing that). It sucked, but I also realized that these games aren't WoW or FFXIV. They don't have nearly as many subscribers, and even those two games, with all the money they make, have three months (or more) before content updates.

 

Sadly, the "we want it now" mentality that rules most gamers is not sympathetic to the MMO genre. But I've come to understand that things don't just magically appear-- developers need money, resources, man-power and time for content.

 

So, if you're that upset with the game, maybe it is time to take a break, like I do whenever I hit a wall in an MMO. Play something else and come back when there's more content. It's better than sitting in a forum and calling developers incompetent.

[GalacticKegger]

I wouldn't want to respond to a bunch of screaming players lashing out either. It's like children throwing a tantrum, especially when there's name calling involved. I'm a returning player, so I haven't hit the end game yet, but I know the MMO landscape well. I started with FFXI, moved to WoW, then briefly to SWTOR before going on to The Secret World, Wildstar and then FFXIV.

 

I've learned that with MMOs, the best thing you can do is cycle your games. You will always hit a grind wall in these games, especially if you play a lot, and especially in smaller games with fewer developers and resources to work with. I learned that with TSW. It follows the same model as SWTOR l. I have a lifetime sub and went back to the game after a year old to find there were just two small content packs released for it. No new dungeons or new raids (though they finally did get around to doing that). It sucked, but I also realized that these games aren't WoW or FFXIV. They don't have nearly as many subscribers, and even those two games, with all the money they make, have three months (or more) before content updates.

 

Sadly, the "we want it now" mentality that rules most gamers is not sympathetic to the MMO genre. But I've come to understand that things don't just magically appear-- developers need money, resources, man-power and time for content.

 

So, if you're that upset with the game, maybe it is time to take a break, like I do whenever I hit a wall in an MMO. Play something else and come back when there's more content. It's better than sitting in a forum and calling developers incompetent.

I personally agree based on your description of MMOs, which is spot one. Your perspective should also apply to this game in a more nebulous way as this is no longer an MMO. So players who played it as an MMO, had their game turned upside down, and are pissed because of it, should also heed your sage advice and take a break. Edited December 21, 2015 by GalacticKegger

[KLGChaos]

I personally agree based on your description of MMOs, which is spot one. Your perspective should also apply to this game in a more nebulous way as this is no longer an MMO. So players who played it as an MMO, had their game turned upside down, and are pissed because of it, should also heed your sage advice and take a break.

 

Yeah, I've been hearing it's going the more single player route. I'm fine either way as long as the story is good.

[JourrnoRush]

Yeah, I've been hearing it's going the more single player route. I'm fine either way as long as the story is good.

 

The story is good, I guess. Not worth $15.00 a month imo.

[Tsillah]

OK, here we go -

I still take time to play despite levelling up over 60 characters (I know, I'm so 1337 ), and while I love getting my achievements, I purposefully don't go on OPs where they demand you have to have one. So, don't tell me what I've done, especially when I haven't done it. And I'd appreciate it if you asked my opinion, if not my permission, to speak on my behalf.

Nothing new? I know, it's been said before that the "replayability" of the new story isn't great, but you really can't say there's nothing new right after an expansion, no matter how short it is.

You've never went past SM OPs, but you are complaining of the lack of endgame content. I'll just leave that comment as is, I don't think it needs anything else.

Something something complaint about companions when you say you only do PvP? Do you bring them out just to look at them between matches?

"Speaking as a founder..." - wow, that old chestnut. Talk about flexing your achievements at random people.

 

Man, I love the irony of people using their right as a subscription holder to use the forums, to rant about how the subscription isn't worth anything. "Might as well start walking", but walk REALLY slowly, and tell us ALL about it while you do.

 

Oh, and "2gether"? Are you too busy to actually type "together", pressing that extra one key, or do you think it adds some credibility to your forum "cred" to do that?

 

Hehe, I like you. Very daring to use reason and logic in a place like this

[Nyla]

EA/BW and many MMO companies don't really understand how to make successfull MMOs.

While it's understandable from smaller companies, it's not, coming from EA/BW.

 

When you release a MMO and don't get a huge success, you don't follow the single player way, ie firing most of the devs team, either you deal with it like Square Enix did with FFXIV or you keep most of the dev team and work double time to correct and fix things (sort of what Blizzard did with WoW launch).

 

The way chosen by EA/BW leads to only one outcome, a slow decline. With less people in the teams and new people replacing previous team members, you can't correct and fix enough things, you can't produce enough new content. This means you upset parts of your playerbase, even each time you do something useful because to do that useful thing you had to pull resources from other parts.

 

The obvious problem is money but it shouldn't be a problem for EA.

MMOs and single player games aren't the same kind of beasts. Single players games are mostly one shot, the most important is the release. MMOs are long life games, the release is important but what you do after even more, especially when there are problems. If you make a MMO, you have to be ready to invest more money if you don't get the wanted results.

That's how it works in other business, either you admit you failed and stop or you want to success and you have to do what's necessary. Thinking that a small team with fewer resources will manage to make your live product suddenly a success is complete stupidity.

 

There should be so many heads rolling at the decision level for this game, considering all the mistakes that were made. It seems to me from outside there were too many heads with inflated egos trying to pull the game in their own direction which led to all thoses incoherent decisions.

 

F2P was not the solution post launch because when people said the game wasn't worth, the problem wasn't the price but the content. Going F2P didn't improve your game it only enabled cheap customers to try your average game.

 

You don't change directions all the time like headless chickens, you don't go the ranked warzones and NiM operations way at some point then change to the single player story way a year later. You go one way, or the other, or both at same time if you have the resources but not one way then the other way.

 

Anyway, headless chickens can't think, so it's a lost cause...

[Jay-Kor]

I wouldn't want to respond to a bunch of screaming players lashing out either. It's like children throwing a tantrum, especially when there's name calling involved. I'm a returning player, so I haven't hit the end game yet, but I know the MMO landscape well. I started with FFXI, moved to WoW, then briefly to SWTOR before going on to The Secret World, Wildstar and then FFXIV.

 

I've learned that with MMOs, the best thing you can do is cycle your games. You will always hit a grind wall in these games, especially if you play a lot, and especially in smaller games with fewer developers and resources to work with. I learned that with TSW. It follows the same model as SWTOR l. I have a lifetime sub and went back to the game after a year old to find there were just two small content packs released for it. No new dungeons or new raids (though they finally did get around to doing that). It sucked, but I also realized that these games aren't WoW or FFXIV. They don't have nearly as many subscribers, and even those two games, with all the money they make, have three months (or more) before content updates.

 

Sadly, the "we want it now" mentality that rules most gamers is not sympathetic to the MMO genre. But I've come to understand that things don't just magically appear-- developers need money, resources, man-power and time for content.

 

So, if you're that upset with the game, maybe it is time to take a break, like I do whenever I hit a wall in an MMO. Play something else and come back when there's more content. It's better than sitting in a forum and calling developers incompetent.

 

Hit the nail on the head here and couldn't agree more, I've come to the realisation that MMO's suck, period. And I'll never sub to another one, I'll re sub to this when the next chapter comes out and that's it. I hope to hell this new open world Star Wars RPG that's being recruited for right now is something that can satisfy as much as KOTOR 1 and 2 did for the fans.

[KLGChaos]

Hit the nail on the head here and couldn't agree more, I've come to the realisation that MMO's suck, period. And I'll never sub to another one, I'll re sub to this when the next chapter comes out and that's it. I hope to hell this new open world Star Wars RPG that's being recruited for right now is something that can satisfy as much as KOTOR 1 and 2 did for the fans.

 

My biggest fear is that DA:I was another game marketed as fairly open world and it was populated with nothing more than fetch quests and location hunts, which grew boring quickly (and kept me from playing through a second time). Hopefully, there's more to the new SW game than that.

[peter_plankskull]

I wouldn't want to respond to a bunch of screaming players lashing out either. It's like children throwing a tantrum, especially when there's name calling involved. I'm a returning player, so I haven't hit the end game yet, but I know the MMO landscape well. I started with FFXI, moved to WoW, then briefly to SWTOR before going on to The Secret World, Wildstar and then FFXIV.

 

I've learned that with MMOs, the best thing you can do is cycle your games. You will always hit a grind wall in these games, especially if you play a lot, and especially in smaller games with fewer developers and resources to work with. I learned that with TSW. It follows the same model as SWTOR l. I have a lifetime sub and went back to the game after a year old to find there were just two small content packs released for it. No new dungeons or new raids (though they finally did get around to doing that). It sucked, but I also realized that these games aren't WoW or FFXIV. They don't have nearly as many subscribers, and even those two games, with all the money they make, have three months (or more) before content updates.

 

Sadly, the "we want it now" mentality that rules most gamers is not sympathetic to the MMO genre. But I've come to understand that things don't just magically appear-- developers need money, resources, man-power and time for content.

 

So, if you're that upset with the game, maybe it is time to take a break, like I do whenever I hit a wall in an MMO. Play something else and come back when there's more content. It's better than sitting in a forum and calling developers incompetent.

 

Well thought out post for the most part, however you have to remember... this is Bioware. The reason why players are screaming and lashing out is because of the lack of content and fixing the bugs over the last few weeks. The Devs do not communicate with this community AT ALL for whatever reason, and the last bug they REFUSED to fix. What are we paying for again...? because I guess quality content isn't it, as they didn't fix the rakghoul event. They didn't even give compensation for being lazy, and on top of that, THIS IS ONE OF THERE BIGGEST PROMOTIONS THEY WILL EVER GET. For the first time in FOREVER, I have actually seen the Harbinger server at "very heavy" and they welcome all these new players by showing they refuse to fix the rakghoul plague.

 

You said it yourself, that you're a returning player and haven't got to end game content. No offense, but as shown in your post, you're quite capable of a constructive argument, but I don't think you can judge the content without hitting end game and a returning player. To players regularly keeping up with this game when the new expansion rolled around, the ONLY thing we got was a very nice 6-8 hour story, start fortresses, 4 year old recycled content, and recruiting companions. As mentioned before, the story was FANTASIC, however, lets be honest, the start fortresses... just suck. They are practically the same layout every time... same mobs in the same spot... same difficulty... however its solo and its not worth the effort. With end game operations, the rewards are totally worth it, and each new run is different due to the variables of different players. Each new run isn't exactly fresh, and it is different, for better or for worth, compared to boring, copy pasted, Deja vu like start fortresses. There is a fine line between making old content relevant... such as they did with EV, KP, and EC, (almost to relevant) and making it THE new meta, and ONLY way to progress.

 

EDIT- After further review in another post... I found out you were gone for THREE YEARS. You have LOADS of new content to do, what... 7 new flashpoints... 5 new raids... 4 more story quests and a small individual one time in each... vast new worlds... dailies... 6 new planets. I think you should look at the content difference of SOR and KOTFE and notice there's barely anything fresh in the mix.

 

Wow, BW... over 14 pages of vitriol, and I'm yet to even see you incompetents ACKNOWLEDGE that this game is BROKEN, and needs to be fixed immediately. If you even showed a little bit of concern for your players, that might be something, but you are ignoring us. How long do you think you can stay in business when you break the game in the most heinously stupid ways, and then act like NOTHING IS WRONG? I have seen nothing, not ONE thing from you guys that even tells us that we have a reason to keep playing.

 

14 pages may seem like a lot, but its common now for the responses time. I think there was like what... 42 pages of complaints about romances not registering before a actual dev post?

Edited December 21, 2015 by peter_plankskull

[onegoldpls]

MMO's era is over. No matter what a game developers make, it will loose majority of players very quickly and die eventually. I'm pretty sure EA and other big companies will never deal with mmos ever again

It doesn't even worth to fix swtor anymore because this game needs entire rework including the game engine itself. They will release last chapters and just let it go

Edited December 21, 2015 by onegoldpls