Dulfy - SWTOR Celebration Cantina Q&A on Group Content

[Ghisallo]

what I meant was the EA Q4 transcript share holder is when they were mention

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/2459907847x0x891475/580FDCA8-6FAF-46CF-9B03-8C583A5F5E61/EA-Transcript-2016-05-10T21_00.pdf

lucky I found where they were mention for you.

 

Extra content obviously was dominated by Ultimate Team, but also FIFA Online 3 in Asia continues to grow, which falls in that. We saw continued growth of our original Star Wars product, Star Wars: The Old Republic, as well as extra content associated with (other games) The bulk of that, though, is on the components I just mentioned, really drove the outsized performance in the quarter for extra content.

 

extra content meaning money

 

That one mention was in the Q&A, not the actual prepared comments. It is the Prepared comments that are the foundation of the Guidance given later. Here is the Prepared comments btw.http://investor.ea.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=ERTS&fileid=891297&filekey=4AF03BFD-62B7-4DC0-B475-AF1D3A6E302A&filename=Q4_FY16_Prepared_Remarks.pdf

 

When you read that and then the answer in context you see another path for increasing revenue. After the launch debacle, when some people were exaggerating the cost of voice over story BW said that was actually the cheapest content they produced for the game. So part one this expac has been the least expensive of the various content types in the game.

 

Part 2 is the lay offs and transfers they did off the SWTOR team. So yeah they are making more profit BECAUSE they cut expenses. Not growth. If it was from growth they would have noted it front and center like they did in Q3. Since it is a new quarter something akin to "we have gained on the subscription highs of Q3" or as they have in the past, again front and center, "we have seen a decrease in subscription rates however microtransaction revenue has increased by X%." Gaining profit via cutback is not something that typically encourages budget growth.

 

This is important for anyone who understands the importance of the prepared comments in terms of helping to, in summary, justify the guidance for the near to medium term. Now is it written in stone? No. But when you also take into consideration the fact they said at the Cantina Q&A that now they can only do one type of content at a time, vs multiple content types like in the past, we have further confirmation that the way EA has chosen to increase SWTOR revenue is via restricting budgets, not expanding them. Again further evidence of profit without growth.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Ghisallo

[Shwarzchild]

If that's a true Q and A it's definitely eyebrow raising.

 

My biggest criticism for the developers as it stands now is that they constantly seem without direction. The first step, in my opinion, is to go back to publishing a road map. Not giving the community a sense of where the game is going does nothing but fuel the angst that's already inherent inside an internet based group of peoples. Having the community be blind forcefully is a recipe for never curbing the problems they have with the reactions they get from us, and only exacerbating them.

 

The pvp map thing is interesting. It's a comment that misses the reason why people were complaining. The largest concern is that they let PvP lay untouched for an insane amount of time. Far too long until they started making some much needed changes. They let that part of the community degrade into an unhealthy mess. Then, when they did release new maps, they weren't well received due to bugs (rishi), or the fact that they shoved Odessen down our throats. By having Odessen pop so often (and yes there's definitely reasons why it popped so often i.e faction imbalance), it furthered the unhealthy environment by eliminating diversity. Diversity of maps is what adds to the fun, if not creates a foundation for people to have fun in. Add into the mix the ranked season being abused with no action taken from swtor staff, and you have a complete negative reaction to the developers again.

 

Regarding operations, of course that section of the community is angered and feels betrayed. Bioware stated they wouldn't go so long without new raid content again, and then turned right around and did the exact opposite at the very next opportunity. It's hard to not hold some level of animosity towards someone when they tell you one thing, but do another right away. And, that feeling isn't some easy thing to just wash away especially since there's been very little in the way of actual action.

 

Finally, I truly believe that Bioware (if this Q and A is legit), misinterprets the community. I've always felt that Bioware goes from one extreme to the other and constantly fails to find a middle ground. Kotfe is a great example of this, or at least from the perspective of this Q and A. The monthly model is fine as is for the story portion. Where Bioware seemingly, or maybe this specific person seemingly, misunderstands is that if the story released only takes 1 hour, without stimulating other areas with fresh ideas and content, the community is forced back down.

 

The hard truth for this bioware employee, or person in the know, needs to face is that the reactions they've received in negative lights are because of a perceived lack of direction by the community. They seem unorganized. They don't seem to be able to find a true center point for balancing content in game, and they have said a great many things over the history of this game and then gone against those things in huge ways with little explanation. Granted, there's definitely some negative feedback that's just trash. They're lacking goodwill after everything while barely rebuilding it.

[Menetes]

Apparently, this was a private Q&A that someone sent to Dulfy.

 

Let the hate flow through you.

 

Best non answer ever;

 

The negative reaction was off the scale and even though we announced the next working day, the damage was done and it overshadowed the entire release of Shadow of Revan and as a result it ruined the build up to the expansion. From then on we were no longer able to announce specifics in advance. So when we are not giving info or are staying silent on certain topics. This is the reason why. We know what everyone wants, and we try to plan ahead in the best way.

 

>We couldnt keep up with our own deadlines, so instead of just giving more realistic timelines, we're just not going to bother. So get screwed, m80s.

 

>We know what everyone wants. REALLY. REALLY. You know what everyone wants? So you know what everyone wants and you ignore 99% of it. Nice, so glad i unsubbed.

 

I used a referal link to play with a friend for a week, so dont give me the hurr u r subbed 2 post.

[Menetes]

WOW. I actually feel bad for the devs....

 

Booooooooooo

 

No mercy!

 

<3

[CrazyOldMystic]

I do not believe this is real, as the language alone would not pass well for the Bioware Employee. The other thing is if it is real, I get the feeling this q & a was done under the condition of silence. In which case someone is being a well you know. Its got a feel to it like a internet troll.

[gabigool]

I don't even recall the SoR announcment "incident" it references.

 

/shrug

 

That said, I don't really know if "Yes we've begun work on new operations, we'll update you once we have more info" is really something they could get burned on. Sure the debate would move to "when?" but that has to be healthier for the community than what currently exists.

[Menetes]

I don't even recall the SoR announcment "incident" it references.

 

just cut and paste the reaction every month when they break more stuff in patches and release content that has lots of bugs, then amplify by like 1 gorillian.

 

The two ops they released were buggy until like the end of last year, i thinkt there are still some minor issues.

[merovejec]

Staying subbed right now....

 

Dont stay subbed, thats what most people do. I have been stupid enough to be subbed all this time, but that ends now, when my current sub runs out.

[Nothing_Shines]

Except he specifically referred to them announcing something for SoR, having to delay a single day, and them catching hell for it and that it was that one incident that torpedoed them ever talking to the community about their plans again.

 

One - *** is he talking about? I don't remember that at all.

 

Two - people were pissed about a whole host of crap when SoR dropped. Skills were changed. Disciplines showed up. Early access week had people spending millions to pay for skill upgrades only to have BW decide to make all skill upgrades free when SoR went wide and they refused to refund people. World drops were eviscerated. Chests stopped dropping credits. Both operations were FUBAR and/or exploitable for months. Rishi datacron hunt was bugged up the wazoo. The Revan solo fight was broken. All of Yavin was portrayed as a joint imp-pub op yet no cross-faction ops or daily runs. The story was beyond stupid (zombie revan and ghost Revan with a plan straight out of Final Fantasy). And all that is just off the top of my head. I'm sure if I thought about it for a bit I could come up with more.

 

The fact that he's talking about two years to make two PVP maps being some gift from on high and then his rambling on about rooms where things are being worked on instead of dropping the corporate double speak and just answering the question, makes me wish this wasn't real. But my guess is that it was an actual conversation had with someone from BW that was supposed to be off the record shooting the ***** where they still didn't think they could speak freely.

 

As for ops or fps, whatever "group content" is coming is odds on favorite NOT new fps or ops. The teams that did the fp and ops work were fired, moved over to other games last year. Expect something more along the lines of SF/EC - soloable, but ion to groups.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[merovejec]

Read it this morning.

 

Of course it makes sence what they say, but its still very very overdone. The SoR thing, please??? Dont think that it made such an impact. The way people are pissed and leaving now is a much severe impact than what must have been during the SoR thing.

 

About the people working on this and that, here and there, what kind of statements are those?? Those people have no idea how to talk on meetings and presentations. How hard can it be to say, we have a team of 3 people working on a operation, 5 people working on PVP stuff and 12 people working on new Cartel Market things?? They can say start dates, when they started working on what, or what the current focus at least, since they say that are doing one thing at a time.

 

Story seems to be the constant focus anyway, which delays all other stuff. I understand the arguments, but NO WAY that they cant say any more info on what is in works now, there are so many ways they can say it without revealing stuff and pleasing the community at the same time.

[PennyAnn]

just cut and paste the reaction every month when they break more stuff in patches and release content that has lots of bugs, then amplify by like 1 gorillian.

 

The two ops they released were buggy until like the end of last year, i thinkt there are still some minor issues.

 

No, there are still some pretty major issues. Tuning imbalance making some of the end bosses incredibly too easy vs. earlier bosses that just were poorly tuned. Then there are the graphical bugs, like in Underlurker. Or the strange "this doesn't always happen but sometimes it does" bugs with Master & Blaster where Blaster never lowers his shield and remains immune to damage halfway through the fight. Or someone getting all the bombs on them instead of them being on several members of the raid and they take millions of HP in damage in a single shot. Or the 16m HM bug for ALL RAIDS, where if it is a single instanced boss, you can infinitely respawn inside the door and return to battle. Or if it is not a single instance boss, GOOD LUCK getting all 16 of your people into the same instance of the raid, even if you summon everyone to the same door and enter at the same time.

 

I could go on. And on. All of these things have been reported, none of them have been fixed.

 

These people not only aren't going to be producing future raid content, they can't even be bothered to fix the obvious bugs in the raids they have. That part of the game is over. It just is! Find something else to enjoy about the game or go to a superior raiding game like Final Fantasy, or even WoW's new expansion.

 

I also don't understand why people keep subscribing if all they really care about is raids. I continue to subscribe and support the game because there are other aspects that I still enjoy about the game and it continues to be worth the subscription price. I haven't completed any of the recent chapters on any of my characters, but I have enjoyed the parts I've played through so far. If story was all that I liked though, I would definitely unsub and get the whole thing for $15 in a sitting. That's absolutely what I intend to do once I've wrung out the last drops of satisfaction that I can from other parts of the game. If that's where you're at then I dunno why you feel like you HAVE to keep subscribing? Do you think your $15/month will make raids more likely? I would think that it's fairly obvious that nope, that's not the case.

 

I would hate to see this game die, but I don't think it's going to. I think the Cartel Whales are keeping the lights on for the forseeable future while Bioware cuts corners and saves money in order to live on Cartel Whale income nearly alone.

 

But I just don't think it's going to move forward in the same fashion it always has for the last 4 1/2 years... I think it will be what we've got right now and not much more. I said it in another thread, and I'll repeat it here... for what it's worth: The future of the game is the main single player storyline, featuring really nice cinematic story telling starring your characters decked out in the Cartel Market's finest shiny trinkets with bouts of lame combat in between. While you wait for new "chapters" (more like "episodes"), you have other side games you can partake in such as: Operations, Flash Points, PvP, GSF, Seeker Droids, Macro Binoculars, Strongholds, Conquest, the Eternal Championship, and SWTOR's amazing EVENTS (that never change or get new rewards)... and a host of other half completed or abandoned game features that we had high hopes for and still pretend to care about!

 

Not new to the game? We're not about to tell you that nothing that you hope for lies in your future. Just keep paying us and waiting, please. We'll even let you post about your hopes and dreams on the forums if you stay subscribed! Sincerely, Bioware.

Edited July 19, 2016 by PennyAnn

[Jesseriah]

I readed it too and when i think about it, it really seems to me they are overstrained with what they do.

Oh and by the way, it really makes me wonder why every question is about "OP OP OP OP" and nothing else. Why cant there be questions about other things of the game? Like improvements of the character editor for example (more faces, aging and so on). Is "More OPs!!!!" really the only thing people interested in? -_-

[merovejec]

I readed it too and when i think about it, it really seems to me they are overstrained with what they do.

Oh and by the way, it really makes me wonder why every question is about "OP OP OP OP" and nothing else. Why cant there be questions about other things of the game? Like improvements of the character editor for example (more faces, aging and so on). Is "More OPs!!!!" really the only thing people interested in? -_-

 

Check other MMOs, have you seen WoW? I just made a few toons there and not much choices when it comes to faces, hair etc. That area is just fine, or at lvl with competition. What swtor lacks is updates in other areas than Story. PVP got 2 maps, GSF nothing, Group Content Nothing, so they should be updated now.

[Menetes]

Heres a TLDR btw for anyone who cba to read it;

 

We are sick of everyone complaining, so now we have an excuse not to tell you that theres no multiplayer content coming for at least a year.....

 

YOURE WELCOME, PLAYERS : DDDDD

[Menetes]

No, there are still some pretty major issues. Tuning imbalance making some of the end bosses incredibly too easy vs. earlier bosses that just were poorly tuned. Then there are the graphical bugs, like in Underlurker. Or the strange "this doesn't always happen but sometimes it does" bugs with Master & Blaster where Blaster never lowers his shield and remains immune to damage halfway through the fight. Or someone getting all the bombs on them instead of them being on several members of the raid and they take millions of HP in damage in a single shot. Or the 16m HM bug for ALL RAIDS, where if it is a single instanced boss, you can infinitely respawn inside the door and return to battle. Or if it is not a single instance boss, GOOD LUCK getting all 16 of your people into the same instance of the raid, even if you summon everyone to the same door and enter at the same time.

 

i quit the game 2 months ago, just came back to play with a friend. i didnt want to get flamed at for saying the ops were still broken ^.^, but i also didnt realise they were STILL this bad.

 

enjoy your ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''content'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

[Eres]

I think, that devs should consider, that between two oposite directions, there are many ways in dealing with things.

Once, many dataminers did their job in promising new content, but in time, devs become more secret.

Well, ppl still want to believe! And "We are doing smth great" won't work.

Players want confirmation that they won't be bored to death, that they will play with friends and that game isn't stuck.

 

The best solution - arts. Arts of smth devs work on, simple dialogs what will come, ideas, desires. Ppl want to feel that game they are spending time is alive.

Detailed information on new pvp map isn't necesary, as twits "It's amazing I nearly give birth to a child". And yeah, players HATE word "Awesome" from nearly every twit now =D

 

BTW. Bio(if you'll ever read it), you should consider that there are many passionate fans that screams at football matches "You have too left legs", "You are looser for misssing a ball"(etc), but they really feel for the outcome, they sincerely want there favs to win. Same in the game(not just trolls), there are those who'll say many harmfull things, but they still want for a game to be perfect.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Eres

[DarthMaulUK]

Funny how someone like Blizzard are/were so open about their new expansion and revealed 200% more than Bioware did last year. I guess that what happens when you have a PLAN and roadmap to follow.

 

Using Shadows of Revan really is a lame duck. That expansion was an untested bug fest and released over a holiday just to ensure it hit those EA financials in time - regardless of having the final boss battle bugged - broken bolster in pvp, huge amounts of lag due to lack of polish. That's why people were so angry and the silence over the holiday period was deafening.

 

And maybe if Bioware communicated on a more regular basis (as promised every single bloody year!), the blow could have been softer or managed. But no. Utter nonsense.

Edited July 19, 2016 by DarthMaulUK

[Alssaran]

Funny how someone like Blizzard are/were so open about their new expansion and revealed 200% more than Bioware did last year. I guess that what happens when you have a PLAN and roadmap to follow.

 

Stop right there. Blizzard has the habbit of announcing more features than they can actually implement. Take a look at the initial WoD announcement. The trailer and interview contain so much stuff that didn't make it into the final game. They had to cancel an entire raid tier too. Blizzard's WoW department has the terrible habbit of announcing too much. Using WoW as a positive example for announcements is a bad idea.

 

It's also something entirely different. Legion was announced after HFC. It was announced in August 2014 (GamesCom), and HFC released in June 2014. There were no spoilers. Many things they'd announce now might spoil chapter sixteen. I'm almost certain that Bioware will be on Gamescom as part of an EA booth, and that they will announce something new during the Cantina Tour in mid-August.

 

Using Shadows of Revan really is a lame duck. That expansion was an untested bug fest and released over a holiday just to ensure it hit those EA financials in time - regardless of having the final boss battle bugged - broken bolster in pvp, huge amounts of lag due to lack of polish.

 

It's amazing that people still think that this bit of the interview is genuine. Not only would no CM ever say that the community is at fault for everything, but the idea that "he made a suggestive face after not outright denying there is nothing in the works" is hilarious. The answer is nonsensical, way too long, and just plain wrong. The question: "Are you working on operations?" would almost certainly be answered with: "We have nothing to announce at this present moment.", and not with a three paragraph slugfest of nonsensical rambling with a suggestive face at the end.

 

They haven't announced anything during major conventions and the Cantina presentation, but they suddenly spill the indirect coffee when some random person is asking them in private?

 

And maybe if Bioware communicated on a more regular basis (as promised every single bloody year!), the blow could have been softer or managed. But no.

 

It's nice to be young and naive.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Alssaran

[Exly]

It's amazing that people still think that this bit of the interview is genuine. Not only would no CM ever say that the community is at fault for everything, but the idea that "he made a suggestive face after not outright denying there is nothing in the works" is hilarious. The answer is nonsensical, way too long, and just plain wrong. The question: "Are you working on operations?" would almost certainly be answered with: "We have nothing to announce at this present moment.", and not with a three paragraph slugfest of nonsensical rambling with a suggestive face at the end.

 

It's nice to be young and naive.

 

Haven't you ever heard of a thing called alcohol. If the person being interviewed had enough of it in them, then it would explain why we got the answers that we did, and why they were delivered in the manner depicted.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Exly

[rklontz]

The SoR issues have nothing to do with them saying they are working on a new ops and other multi-player content. The only thing it could possibly have an impact on is of they give a date.

[Keypek]

Delaying an announcement or missing a release date will annoy people and create negativity but it'll be forgotten about as soon as the content is released and people are playing it.

 

The real reason there was so much backlash with SoR was the fact it had game crippling bugs, end game gear exploits known about in beta but still released and then punishing players for it, and the unplayable lag in the new ops because they were so poorly optimized at the time especially in 16m raid groups which essentially killed 16m raiding. (16m bulo anyone? or the wookie after him?).

 

I think what irritates people, or at least myself, is that the game could be so good. But usually ends up disappointing or stringing you along with a promise of a carrot you actually want but never get.

[jimmorrisson]

QUESTION: “Why do so many questions go ignored for so long, it becomes hard to try and defend the dev team and Bioware. Why cant you just say ‘there will be more group content’ or ‘there will be more ops’ “

 

 

ANSWER: “It all comes down to Shadow of Revan. We announced we would release info on a new expansion and when the date of the announcement came, we had issues and had to delay the announcement.

 

The negative reaction was off the scale and even though we announced the next working day, the damage was done and it overshadowed the entire release of Shadow of Revan and as a result it ruined the build up to the expansion.

 

From then on we were no longer able to announce specifics in advance. So when we are not giving info or are staying silent on certain topics. This is the reason why.

 

I do not blame them.

Way to go players.

Edited July 19, 2016 by jimmorrisson

[Savej]

Message board explosions are quickly forgotten. Most people don't remember the SoR announcement delay. And every patch, every expansion that has any bugs at all is called "the buggiest ever" - but most people couldn't now list more than a couple of the bugs from ROTHC or SOR or 4.0's chapter 1 (which was actually mostly bug free but got called out as a buggy mess by many posters at the time) and will say they were much better than they were right after we get 5.0. From a lot of the useless whining and vitriol here, I would certainly understand if BW shut these forums down.

 

But it's not like BW has ever been particularly good at posting info about upcoming plans or releases. And even post 4.0 they told us about a few things that later had to be pushed back or repealed. So I can't subscribe to that SoR's-hiccup-defined-our-mute-policy whether or not a BW person even used that line.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Savej

[LyraineAlei]

Delaying an announcement or missing a release date will annoy people and create negativity but it'll be forgotten about as soon as the content is released and people are playing it.

 

The real reason there was so much backlash with SoR was the fact it had game crippling bugs, end game gear exploits known about in beta but still released and then punishing players for it, and the unplayable lag in the new ops because they were so poorly optimized at the time especially in 16m raid groups which essentially killed 16m raiding. (16m bulo anyone? or the wookie after him?).

 

I think what irritates people, or at least myself, is that the game could be so good. But usually ends up disappointing or stringing you along with a promise of a carrot you actually want but never get.

 

Ditto. They announced delaying Chapter XVI too.

[FlavivsAetivs]

Yeah I remember the SOR release and it was buggy as ***. 4.0 was comparatively clean, (albeit Shadows' abilities are still pretty badly bugged).

 

~ Eudoxia