Game has died, Nowhere to go

[TUXs]

I'm addressing the white knights who patrol the forums trying to quell criticism of the game by turning a logical question upside down. To me they are just bioware employees who have regular accounts in the game. It's actually a common practice at many gaming companies.

I wonder if that's why we get so few actual YELLOW posts from Bioware

[robertthebard]

I wonder if that's why we get so few actual YELLOW posts from Bioware

 

I can tell you exactly why. In fact, I have to wonder why any dev, for any company posts on their forums, but most especially on BW forums, where a tweet about a personal preference results in death threats and harassment. However, on these forums, every word is dissected, every meaning twisted, portions are taken out of context with no link to the actual information, and then expressed to mean something that may well have not been what the (mis)quoted person intended.

 

How many times have you cosigned a post where someone called the devs a moron, or some similar diatribe? Welcome to part of the reason we get limited posts here. However, the Dev Tracker tells a very different story than what you're implying here.

[TUXs]

I can tell you exactly why. In fact, I have to wonder why any dev, for any company posts on their forums, but most especially on BW forums, where a tweet about a personal preference results in death threats and harassment. However, on these forums, every word is dissected, every meaning twisted, portions are taken out of context with no link to the actual information, and then expressed to mean something that may well have not been what the (mis)quoted person intended.

 

How many times have you cosigned a post where someone called the devs a moron, or some similar diatribe? Welcome to part of the reason we get limited posts here. However, the Dev Tracker tells a very different story than what you're implying here.

I was joking Bob...lighten up.

[Andryah]

I can tell you exactly why. In fact, I have to wonder why any dev, for any company posts on their forums, but most especially on BW forums, where a tweet about a personal preference results in death threats and harassment. However, on these forums, every word is dissected, every meaning twisted, portions are taken out of context with no link to the actual information, and then expressed to mean something that may well have not been what the (mis)quoted person intended.

 

How many times have you cosigned a post where someone called the devs a moron, or some similar diatribe? Welcome to part of the reason we get limited posts here. However, the Dev Tracker tells a very different story than what you're implying here.

 

Well stated Robert.

[robertthebard]

I was joking Bob...lighten up.

 

OK, but it's still true...

[peter_plankskull]

I can tell you exactly why. In fact, I have to wonder why any dev, for any company posts on their forums, but most especially on BW forums, where a tweet about a personal preference results in death threats and harassment. However, on these forums, every word is dissected, every meaning twisted, portions are taken out of context with no link to the actual information, and then expressed to mean something that may well have not been what the (mis)quoted person intended.

 

How many times have you cosigned a post where someone called the devs a moron, or some similar diatribe? Welcome to part of the reason we get limited posts here. However, the Dev Tracker tells a very different story than what you're implying here.

 

Don't act like that doesn't happen to every other forums of video games everywhere. Yes... its incredibly unfortunate that they received death threats, the insults, and bashing and their are some people waiting for that "GOTCHA" moment to slam Bioware, but that happens with loads of other forums. Besides... have you seen the new Konami catch phrase since they fired Hideo Kojima?

[lightSaberAddiCt]

Check it out, a Blizzard employee, here to try to drum up business for Diablo 3.

 

Lol...nice....I will have to remember that one:D

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I'm addressing the white knights who patrol the forums trying to quell criticism of the game by turning a logical question upside down. To me they are just bioware employees who have regular accounts in the game. It's actually a common practice at many gaming companies.

 

Logical like most of the OPs posts? Logical is most of the arguments put against him previously, illogical is the response he provides. Now he's not worth giving any more than a umadbro type response.

 

This is intentional masking of all the servers (except for Harbinger) having LIGHT status most hours of the 24 hr cycle. Why don't they go the extra step and just merge remaining East Coast Servers when they can't hold a Standard population anymore? The game is completely normal over at Harbinger. The other servers have long queue times and our only tool to instantly gauge that has been removed.

 

If it's such a conspiracy why did they neglect to remove the information from the forums? This is after all the easiest place for anyone truly measuring the metrics to get it as it doesn't require an account.

 

I mean it couldn't possibly be an error on their behalf due to the change to instances, nope - they MUST be doing it on purpose to fool us all! RAGE!

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I can tell you exactly why. In fact, I have to wonder why any dev, for any company posts on their forums, but most especially on BW forums, where a tweet about a personal preference results in death threats and harassment. However, on these forums, every word is dissected, every meaning twisted, portions are taken out of context with no link to the actual information, and then expressed to mean something that may well have not been what the (mis)quoted person intended.

 

How many times have you cosigned a post where someone called the devs a moron, or some similar diatribe? Welcome to part of the reason we get limited posts here. However, the Dev Tracker tells a very different story than what you're implying here.

 

Based on this post it paints a picture of the community team not doing that great of a job then if posters running around calling devs morons aren't properly dealt with.

 

I in fact have been guilty of the same thing in regards to rather over the top insults though towards the community team ( I have a bee in my proverbial bonnet about how poor of a job they do around here ) and I would wager it warranted a temp ban but all I got was yet another "no infraction point" warning. They seem almost too scared to enforce bans on people these days unless someone really goes over the top in gear of losing yet another supporter.

[robertthebard]

Don't act like that doesn't happen to every other forums of video games everywhere. Yes... its incredibly unfortunate that they received death threats, the insults, and bashing and their are some people waiting for that "GOTCHA" moment to slam Bioware, but that happens with loads of other forums. Besides... have you seen the new Konami catch phrase since they fired Hideo Kojima?

 

Reading comprehension is essential in a medium that requires reading for communication. Now, before you assume I'm just being snarky, or sarcastic, go back to my post and read it again, and point out where I said anything even remotely resembled "it only happens here".

[peter_plankskull]

Reading comprehension is essential in a medium that requires reading for communication. Now, before you assume I'm just being snarky, or sarcastic, go back to my post and read it again, and point out where I said anything even remotely resembled "it only happens here".

 

No, you didn't say it "only happens here" however you did say "especially BW forums" and I advise you to look to other forums.

 

For instance, the battlefield forums, sometimes entire pages have been removed, threads locked because the heat got so bad, and they absubloutly slammed bf4 at launch. However, throughout all that toxicity in general on that forums, not just specifically to the devs but to each other, they managed to actually bond with the community overall with the CTE, featuring maps specifically from player feedback.

 

I haven't really seen any bonding of the devs/community managers or working at all with the community together since KOTFE. They use to listen as when people complained about, for instance the lack of housing features, they did strongholds a year later, people wanted space combat, we got GSF a year later. However throughout all this time on KOTFE they haven't really been trying to bond with the community and only been going on what they want to do only, regardless of player feedback.

 

They may or may not receive as much negativity or toxicity as other forums, however, regardless that doesn't mean they should let a few bad apples ruin the tree. People want the game to improve, but instead they wish to stay in their little sheltered home and forget about feedback, regardless if its positive or negative.

 

Yeah its bad they received some of the toxicity they have, but its no reason to live in fear forever.

[Andryah]

They may or may not receive as much negativity or toxicity as other forums, however, regardless that doesn't mean they should let a few bad apples ruin the tree. People want the game to improve, but instead they wish to stay in their little sheltered home and forget about feedback, regardless if its positive or negative.

 

Yeah its bad they received some of the toxicity they have, but its no reason to live in fear forever.

 

It's not fear, it's corporate caution.

 

It's not a small business or sole proprietorship.... it's a corporation. Once a corporations employees receive death threats and other harassment, their legal team will really clamp down on who can post what and when.

 

Why? because if they do not do all reasonable things to protect their employees, they are in violation of both laws and ethics.

 

Blame the harassing haters, not the company. The company is simply protecting their employees.

 

I'm not defending poor communications practices by Bioware, I am simply stating that we have the players who harrased to blame for this.

 

By the way, I'm sure they hear and read the feedback from players. Just like they also run their analytics against their data warehouse to validate/invalidate what player feedback they receive. This is not 2004, when most game companies actually had to poll and discuss with their players in order to gain a view of what is happening inside a game. Modern day data gathering (from all sources, forum, social media, data warehouse behind the game, etc) is largely computerized.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Andryah

[tummiswtor]

Well 1-9 chapters Great

10,11 poor

12 - Again very nice.

 

Why many people blame KotFE - i dont know, we finally got a good story. I like more even 10,11 chapters than Revan expanasion. I hope next KotFE chapters and later expansions will be as good as now

[jubakumbi]

Yeah its bad they received some of the toxicity they have, but its no reason to live in fear forever.

 

It's bad they get any toxicity; that kind of thing is never called for and IMO only shows low emotional maturity.

 

I worked in the same building as the guys creating this game and made friends with a few of the people involved.

 

To be completely honest, I am actually surprised any of them make games, with all the hate they get.

It is a complete labor of love.

Developers of games like this work their butts off and get almost nothing but derision from the online communities that follow the games they make.

 

At this point, I am always surprised when a game maker will open the door to communication, knowing most of it is going to be emotionally charged drivel from people with no clue how technology or businesses actually function.

 

I do everything I can to limit my own personal interaction with other gamers nowadays to be honest; far too many are full of venom and toxic negativity about so many things.

 

I play games to relax and have fun - not tear down every single little thing that might, possibly, in some way, not be the perfect exact thing the way I want it.

 

After this thread and a couple of others like it, it's no wonder gamers have the reputation they do for being obnoxious know-it-all jerks.

 

Then again, watching people argue over the latest thing some talking said is not much different; we live in a world of maturity challenged humans.

[robertthebard]

No, you didn't say it "only happens here" however you did say "especially BW forums" and I advise you to look to other forums.

 

For instance, the battlefield forums, sometimes entire pages have been removed, threads locked because the heat got so bad, and they absubloutly slammed bf4 at launch. However, throughout all that toxicity in general on that forums, not just specifically to the devs but to each other, they managed to actually bond with the community overall with the CTE, featuring maps specifically from player feedback.

 

I haven't really seen any bonding of the devs/community managers or working at all with the community together since KOTFE. They use to listen as when people complained about, for instance the lack of housing features, they did strongholds a year later, people wanted space combat, we got GSF a year later. However throughout all this time on KOTFE they haven't really been trying to bond with the community and only been going on what they want to do only, regardless of player feedback.

 

They may or may not receive as much negativity or toxicity as other forums, however, regardless that doesn't mean they should let a few bad apples ruin the tree. People want the game to improve, but instead they wish to stay in their little sheltered home and forget about feedback, regardless if its positive or negative.

 

Yeah its bad they received some of the toxicity they have, but its no reason to live in fear forever.

 

I'm a veteran of a lot of gaming forums, and I know exactly what you're talking about. I used the BW example because that's an instance of a death threat that I knew of personally. It's sort of typical on forums, if not to that extreme, and that's why I'm surprised that devs post at all.

[Mowermanx]

It's not fear, it's corporate caution.

 

It's not a small business or sole proprietorship.... it's a corporation. Once a corporations employees receive death threats and other harassment, their legal team will really clamp down on who can post what and when.

 

Why? because if they do not do all reasonable things to protect their employees, they are in violation of both laws and ethics.

 

Blame the harassing haters, not the company. The company is simply protecting their employees.

 

I'm not defending poor communications practices by Bioware, I am simply stating that we have the players who harrased to blame for this.

 

By the way, I'm sure they hear and read the feedback from players. Just like they also run their analytics against their data warehouse to validate/invalidate what player feedback they receive. This is not 2004, when most game companies actually had to poll and discuss with their players in order to gain a view of what is happening inside a game. Modern day data gathering (from all sources, forum, social media, data warehouse behind the game, etc) is largely computerized.

 

I feel your post is a bit off because the poor communications practices became prevalent from 2.0 onwards, a very very long time before the incident in question, so trying to use that as an excuse or justification is misguided at best.

So your post does indeed come off as defending the poor communications practices by Bioware.

[MadCuzBad]

I feel your post is a bit off because the poor communications practices became prevalent from 2.0 onwards, a very very long time before the incident in question, so trying to use that as an excuse or justification is misguided at best.

So your post does indeed come off as defending the poor communications practices by Bioware.

 

A lot of people on these forums do that. He is not alone. It is a very strange phenomenon. I don't get it myself.

[peter_plankskull]

Well 1-9 chapters Great

10,11 poor

12 - Again very nice.

 

Why many people blame KotFE - i dont know, we finally got a good story. I like more even 10,11 chapters than Revan expanasion. I hope next KotFE chapters and later expansions will be as good as now

 

People blame KOTFE because its obvious they don't want to do a MMO anymore, they want to make KOTOR 3 instead.

 

IMO I think they should of honestly just let another studio takeover and actually flesh out KOTOR 3 since the main complaint of SWTOR in KOTFE is the lack of class stories and special dialogue that pertained to those classes. They even went as far as to not use voice overs in the alliance which imo is a cheap ploy to save on budget to hide behind nostalgia fans of the KOTOR series. If they truly wanted a fallback to the KOTOR series they would of had a option to voice the alliances giving players a choice to toggle it off or on.

 

Yes... the story is good...but it's just so disconnected from previous expansions and it just seems completely out of left field of the game... just stop making SWTOR Bioware, and flesh out KOTOR 3 with a actual game instead.

[robertthebard]

People blame KOTFE because its obvious they don't want to do a MMO anymore, they want to make KOTOR 3 instead.

 

IMO I think they should of honestly just let another studio takeover and actually flesh out KOTOR 3 since the main complaint of SWTOR in KOTFE is the lack of class stories and special dialogue that pertained to those classes. They even went as far as to not use voice overs in the alliance which imo is a cheap ploy to save on budget to hide behind nostalgia fans of the KOTOR series. If they truly wanted a fallback to the KOTOR series they would of had a option to voice the alliances giving players a choice to toggle it off or on.

 

Yes... the story is good...but it's just so disconnected from previous expansions and it just seems completely out of left field of the game... just stop making SWTOR Bioware, and flesh out KOTOR 3 with a actual game instead.

 

I'm not seeing the "out of left field" thing. Revan went somewhere at the end of KotoR. This could very well be where he went. In fact, the entirety of Chapt 3 for the JK? Moving the EE into the rest of the Galaxy could very well have been part of the plan.

 

Makeb was it's own thing, but this fits in with SoR fairly well. It's a continuation of that arc, as can be seen by meeting with Marr at the very beginning of Chapt 1.

[peter_plankskull]

I'm not seeing the "out of left field" thing. Revan went somewhere at the end of KotoR. This could very well be where he went. In fact, the entirety of Chapt 3 for the JK? Moving the EE into the rest of the Galaxy could very well have been part of the plan.

 

Makeb was it's own thing, but this fits in with SoR fairly well. It's a continuation of that arc, as can be seen by meeting with Marr at the very beginning of Chapt 1.

 

Come on... you have to admit that odd swap out of Vitiate/Valkorian is odd... and how they conveniently put you in carbonate for 5 years to set the world how they want it.

Not to mention how does one obtain and upkeep the size of the eternal fleet let alone keep it hidden from the galaxy when it's at war. On top of that it beats two of the largest factions in the galaxy spanning through 1000s of planets when Zakuul is simply one. I realize these two factions have weakened each other severely, and further sabotaged their selves by petty rivalries going on with another faction fighting them both, but it's just complete left field for a single planet to beat galaxy wide spanning factions.

 

It feels closer to KOTOR 2 than SWTOR at launch.

[IanArgent]

People blame KOTFE because its obvious they don't want to do a MMO anymore, they want to make KOTOR 3 instead.

 

IMO I think they should of honestly just let another studio takeover and actually flesh out KOTOR 3 since the main complaint of SWTOR in KOTFE is the lack of class stories and special dialogue that pertained to those classes. They even went as far as to not use voice overs in the alliance which imo is a cheap ploy to save on budget to hide behind nostalgia fans of the KOTOR series. If they truly wanted a fallback to the KOTOR series they would of had a option to voice the alliances giving players a choice to toggle it off or on.

 

Yes... the story is good...but it's just so disconnected from previous expansions and it just seems completely out of left field of the game... just stop making SWTOR Bioware, and flesh out KOTOR 3 with a actual game instead.

 

What do you want from SWTOR? It's still an MMO in that there is group content available. We will never again get 8x class stories, because that was a commercial flop. We might get 2x faction stories, if they can bring in enough money to pay for it. From that point of view, yes, doing what they can to shave costs off non-core content to be able to direct money to core content is a valid strategy.

 

They're still doing mulitplayer elements - 4.0 launched with Heroic Star Fortresses, which are low-end group content (that can be soloed with experience and gear, but that was true of most of the old flashpoints, too); they just added stuff for the PvP, and next month we get a new training tool for Operations. All the "old" content is still there for new players to encounter, too.

[peter_plankskull]

What do you want from SWTOR? It's still an MMO in that there is group content available. We will never again get 8x class stories, because that was a commercial flop. We might get 2x faction stories, if they can bring in enough money to pay for it.

 

It would be nice to have maybe 2x faction stories, however plenty of nodes to the character we play and our previous alignments of LI/DS choices coming into play would be nice. Right now we got a single story that doesn't make any sense for half the classes, and only partially for another two more classes. Not only that, but for the majority of the chapter our choices doesn't matter.

 

From that point of view, yes, doing what they can to shave costs off non-core content to be able to direct money to core content is a valid strategy.

Shaving costs off non-core content is fine if its unnecessary, however cutting voice acting, which made this game unique and was in since THE VERY START, is NOT a non-core element.

 

They're still doing mulitplayer elements - 4.0 launched with Heroic Star Fortresses, which are low-end group content (that can be soloed with experience and gear, but that was true of most of the old flashpoints, too); they just added stuff for the PvP, and next month we get a new training tool for Operations. All the "old" content is still there for new players to encounter, too.

 

To be fair those star fortresses are of low quality compared to flashpoints due to how repetitive it is. Mobs don't require tactics and for the most part just have there health raised and damaged slightly increase, different mechanic wise making me take a different approach. I don't even have to target mobs in a priority order and mobs for the most part are the same throughout the flashpoints with the same endless sky troopers. It just lacks variety and you don't have to approach a situation differently or learn any new mechanics besides the exarch fight, which is although requiring thought and input at first gets incredibly repetitive the third time around.

[TUXs]

People blame KOTFE because its obvious they don't want to do a MMO anymore, they want to make KOTOR 3 instead.

 

Yes... the story is good...but it's just so disconnected from previous expansions and it just seems completely out of left field of the game... just stop making SWTOR Bioware, and flesh out KOTOR 3 with a actual game instead.

Agreed. KOTFE lacks all "MMO" parts completely.

 

There was never a move away from "story" either, story had been a part of EVERY update (minus GSH and GSF)...KOTFE is just the first that dropped all multiplayer content entirely.

[TUXs]

I'm not seeing the "out of left field" thing. Revan went somewhere at the end of KotoR.

I was hoping he was finally dead...isn't that where he should have gone? Revan is more of a cartoon character like Kephass now than anyone meaningful.

[IanArgent]

Agreed. KOTFE lacks all "MMO" parts completely.

 

There was never a move away from "story" either, story had been a part of EVERY update (minus GSH and GSF)...KOTFE is just the first that dropped all multiplayer content entirely.

 

Star Fortresses; at least partially MP (half a flashpoint, basically). Two new PvP arenas this patch; MP. Eternal championship as an alternative training for ops content, leads to MP. The only thing they haven't added in the 4.0 cycle is an Operation.