Reason for lack of content

[TUXs]

My point EXACTLY Tux.. James is the bomb it seems doing everything now. LOL

 

ERIC Musco - maybe someone should remove or update that page?

James is a freaking GOD!!! I didn't realize he WAS Austin

[Arvydys]

>KOTFE

>New Content

 

Pick one.

 

Most of KotFE is based on doing stuff already in the game. Besides a linear story that lasts 6 hours max content and a basic KDY solo FP everything else is the same. Now you just grind old Heroocs for crates and more influence on comps that now have 250k vs 10k Max Plus that was released in October. Now look at any other MMO Expac and say this is sufficient content with a straight face.

 

Combine SoR and KotFE and compare with Warlords of Draenor (WoD released around same time as SoR)

 

Sadly the industry standards have gone down and I don't think Bioware is doing quite as bad compared to the competition as most think.

[LegionAlpha]

KOFTE = New Content

 

All those cinematics, all those new chapters weren't created in 6 hours you know, at least developers expended half 2015 doing that. That's my point.

 

Yes its a pretty easy fast burn content, tedious and boring.... still is new content.

 

Now i want to especulate too, my guess is those experienced endgame developers were moved to a different project (with more priority and importance), those new post jobs, are for people who are gonna keep the game in permanent maintenance mode....yes, they are gonna release new chapters, a new warzone here and there, fp maybe but that's all, their best staff is not working on this anymore, again just my guess... As Musco confirmed they don't have future plans for new operations.

 

Zorz guild knew that and just moved on.....

 

Drone alert! get out bw drone.

[LordHartigan]

Trust me, the moment I get HK-55 back I'm off. I won't even be able to talk on the forums when my sub runs out.

 

I'm not burned out because of playing too much. If anything I want to enjoy the game as much as possible. But it's the state the game is in now (broken companion stories for example) and the lack of communication that's bothering me: that's what's got me burned out.

 

I would tend to agree with you. I took a pretty good hiatus (a few months from SWTOR). Picked it up again w/ KotFE. From a story stand point I liked it. Totally unique take on the emperor. That take a few days for me to get through with my schedule, then got the Destiny bug for a few weeks and am back to logging some time with SWTOR the last few days. Long story short, I agree the lack of news is kind of odd. Prior to the break I took I had played SWTOR religiously since launch and in that time BioWare I thought did a decent job of actively communicating about issues and updates, but we haven't heard much since KotFE dropped in Oct. and certain happenings are what I would call ominous in terms of SWTOR long term future.

 

First the number of people leaving the development team. As noted, maybe that was just the length of their contract. The question is/was there a plan in place for SWTOR to continue after that? Or is this the end of what they expected the life of the game to be? The other ominous thing for SWTOR I think is Disney. A lot of SW history went away when Disney bought the ip. Development stopped on 1313, no more EU, etc., but SWTOR remained relatively untouched. I really don't expect that to continue. Disney I think will want most anything with Star Wars' name attached to it to be of the utmost quality. I don't think money is the issue here, as another alluded to. It's Disney. They have money coming out their giant mouse ears and I think at some point they're going to want a better chunk of the MMORPG pie. I like SWTOR cause I like SW and don't get me wrong BioWare has done an admirable job with it, but it is starting to look a little dated. I can certainly see a company like Disney wanting to start on a new slate. Longer story short, I think these things could spell the end of SWTOR sooner than later.

Edited January 7, 2016 by LordHartigan

[Divona]

Clearly they have a shortage of talent and folks are bailing for bigger and better things. Wouldn't you? The ship is sinking and nobody is showing up to help bail them out. In the IT world word of mouth is very dangerous. I was reading the EA Wife post about her hubby that worked for EA and can totally agree (Word of mouth) that EA is toxic to work for at this point if you want to have a life. Not sure how that ties back into BW, but I would suspect they are treated worse than EA employees since they are the red headed step child of EA.

 

 

I do agree that something happened in Bioware Austin team in 2015. It could have been layoffs from EA directly which i doubt myself so that leaves just contracts ether ended or most of them decided to leave seeing no other options to work under EA.

We wont know in detail what was the real case but facts are here that a lot of old senior game designers are gone and actually making their own game. This clearly states that they wanted to work on same things as in past that is making games be it MMO or some other genre in game industry. The first big layoff after 2012 was because of how badly total subs took hit so fast thats clear also.

Knowing how EA has closed down many great game offices in past its not hard to belive that it was EA has some busness logic how they operate.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Divona

[Swedguy]

I would tend to agree with you. I took a pretty good hiatus (a few months from SWTOR). Picked it up again w/ KotFE. From a story stand point I liked it. Totally unique take on the emperor. That take a few days for me to get through with my schedule, then got the Destiny bug for a few weeks and am back to logging some time with SWTOR the last few days. Long story short, I agree the lack of news is kind of odd. Prior to the break I took I had played SWTOR religiously since launch and in that time BioWare I thought did a decent job of actively communicating about issues and updates, but we haven't heard much since KotFE dropped in Oct. and certain happenings are what I would call ominous in terms of SWTOR long term future.

 

First the number of people leaving the development team. As noted, maybe that was just the length of their contract. The question is/was there a plan in place for SWTOR to continue after that? Or is this the end of what they expected the life of the game to be? The other ominous thing for SWTOR I think is Disney. A lot of SW history went away when Disney bought the ip. Development stopped on 1313, no more EU, etc., but SWTOR remained relatively untouched. I really don't expect that to continue. Disney I think will want most anything with Star Wars' name attached to it to be of the utmost quality. I don't think money is the issue here, as another alluded to. It's Disney. They have money coming out their giant mouse ears and I think at some point they're going to want a better chunk of the MMORPG pie. I like SWTOR cause I like SW and don't get me wrong BioWare has done an admirable job with it, but it is starting to look a little dated. I can certainly see a company like Disney wanting to start on a new slate. Longer story short, I think these things could spell the end of SWTOR sooner than later.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're disappointed with SWTOR. Just looking at the latest financial report posted by SWTOR Economics, BW's finance has been dropping for the past 2.5 years. And this is a Star Wars game we're talking about, and I'm surprised they've let an EU game be around for as long they have.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Swedguy

[Ghisallo]

KOFTE = New Content

 

All those cinematics, all those new chapters weren't created in 6 hours you know, at least developers expended half 2015 doing that. That's my point.

 

And by BW's own words that is the least expensive thing for them to make, line o code for code (cut scenes and voice acting). So what does the following tell you...

1. there is so little of it they are serializing it so that people do not blast through it in a weekend.

2. all of the actual playable content (heroic missions, FPS and OPS) are recycled old content using level sync and bolster.

 

Now i want to especulate too, my guess is those experienced endgame developers were moved to a different project (with more priority and importance), those new post jobs, are for people who are gonna keep the game in permanent maintenance mode....yes, they are gonna release new chapters, a new warzone here and there, fp maybe but that's all, their best staff is not working on this anymore, again just my guess... As Musco confirmed they don't have future plans for new operations.

 

Well first he didn't just say OPs... he said no new PvE period. BW is very specific. To them story is not PvE... it's story. So as an example the solo quests on Rishi and Yavin, that is PvE. No PvE also means none of that. Now since they are posting for actual Star Wars game designers, my suspicion is as follows.

 

1. Since July I have said that this expac is an experiment. Their budget has been restricted BUT they are under orders to grow none the less based on earnings call statements by the CFO. Look at the design of the expac and what do you see? A game that will look HUGE to new players but decidedly small to existing players in terms of playable repeatable content from soloing all the way to ops. BUT we have the serialized story and fluff rewards, that I also called once I saw the rewards leading up to KotFE launch. the hope being "get new subs while minimizing existing player loss on said restricted budget. It was a gamble from day 1

 

2. based on 1 they had it set p that after KotFE launched some people would be let go and others transferred to other projects.

 

3. they can't rightly transfer people back from Mass Effect Andromeda and as such they are now in a pickle. Regardless of the rationalizations some will use to try and deny it the gamble appears to have failed and now they may be finding themselves putting up job postings to try and minimize the damage.