Keith, why can't Bio follow Square Enix's example

[Eli_Porter]

Wow, what a slap in the face to the devs Icy. You think the situations are in any way comparable? And you think the devs don't care about the game, after Keith's recent line of communication?

 

I expected more from you, but I guess you prefer spending your unsub period being provocative and toxic instead of giving constructive feedback.

[Icykill_]

Wow, what a slap in the face to the devs Icy. You think the situations are in any way comparable? And you think the devs don't care about the game, after Keith's recent line of communication?

 

I expected more from you, but I guess you prefer spending your unsub period being provocative and toxic instead of giving constructive feedback.

 

Did you read my second blue post Or did you only read the first post.

 

Regardless I'm not being toxic or provocative and it certainly isn't my intent.

 

I also think my feed back is constructive because it's something that would help the game or I wouldn't have bother posting.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Icykill_

[Celise]

Hi Keith, (please mods, don't move this. At least until Keith sees the whole thread)

 

What's stopping Bioware and EA from following Square Enix's example of how they fixed FFXIV. They saw how important and iconic their IP is and took steps to rebuild it.

 

Star Wars is without doubt one of the biggest and iconic IPs in Pop Culture. I think if Bioware and EA were willing to spend the money like Square Enix did and the sort of money EA has put towards Battlefront 2 and then reboot swtor, it would be highly successful as long as they applied all the lessons learnt from here.

 

coming up with a new engine isn't as simple or as easy to get the money together as you may expect, it would take years to build a new engine from the ground up, the new engine needs to be compatible with the assets from the hero engine in order to save time rebuilding every asset; it means every piece of land, every tree, every rock, every table, every house and what not.

 

EA won't risk throwing money away on a gamble to give to bioware and see it fail with the new engine. besides the problem with this game isn't related to the game itself or it's engine, it's in the current dead end thinking that bioware are in right now; the destructive galactic command, the ever redundant cartel market, freeium players marginalised and so on.. bioware need to rebuild themselves first before they should consider rebuilding swtor otherwise the new game will be dogged with the same problems that we all face today and none of it will make any difference.

 

it goes beyond what square enix can do, there are a lot more factors to consider.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Celise

[Transcendent]

And you think the devs don't care about the game, after Keith's recent line of communication?

 

I think the distinction between the developers of the game and EA needs to be made. While I have tremendous respect for the developers of this game, I have zero respect for EA as a publisher. Absolutely BioWare is technically a studio of EA, but that's still an important distinction to make.

[DarthCDiv]

Yeah, no. Not happening.

[SteveTheCynic]

The silly thing is they could be making heaps more money if they invested. FF's subscription base is still climbing since they turned the game around 4 years ago. That doesn't happen if you aren't spending money to improve the game and add fresh content every 3-4 months. They are now over 7 mil subs. Even if they only get $10 a month that's $70 mil a month

This. When SE launched Stormblood (4.0, just recently), they had to add servers and impose character creation restrictions on older ones. One of the new-for-4.0 EU servers is now up to "old server" population levels. On early-start day for Stormblood, one of the old servers was so congested I couldn't even see anything about my characters there except their names.

 

Have we seen this level of excitement about SWTOR post-release? Ever?

 

(Oh, and even if "make it look beautiful" isn't the top priority for ARR, it *does* look beautiful. Night-time looks like, well, night-time - bright night, but night - rather than daytime with black skies like you find elsewhere. When the weather in ARR sets itself to ----ing with rain and blowing a gale, you can almost feel the rain pinging off your face.)

[merovejec]

the second largest subscriber MMO.

 

What you need to realize here is the "player base". FF is very strong in Asia and I think swtor has around 2% Asian players, if any, which means that they are outmatched in this race.

[merovejec]

EA is like how American Auto Manufacturer's were in the 70's. They don't care. Just slap some stickers on it, repaint the bumper, market it as the new model - and people will pay a premium. Never mind the fact the car is a POS and was vastly inferior to the foreign competition at that time.

 

Yes that is true, they took the Star Wars brand and though: heh doesnt matter what the game will be, SW brand will keep people at it!

[merovejec]

Geeez Icy, this whole thread feels like big marketing for FFIV

 

You made me download and try it now!! Problem is i have to slip playing it somewhere in my limited swtor (3 times per week) schedule!

[Vodamin]

FF14 runs like crap tho. It is very heavy on the videocrad, altho the graphics are not that impressive. Very very badly optimized game. I hope they never "fix" swtor that way.

[JattaGin]

Regardless I'm not being toxic or provocative and it certainly isn't my intent.

 

I think that you are very toxic here, albeit in a different way than the usual toxicity. You know that what you propose will not, can never happen. By naming Keith a couple of times in connection to something impossible, you add nothing positive or constructive. It's a bit hard to believe that you didn't intend provocation.

 

What exactly were you hoping to achieve with your post? What I take from it is that Swtor is terrible and FF is great. Yet, you are here, despite all you wrote. That's what I don't get. You apparently like the game enough to still be here after all these years. I thus assume you like the game. But you ask for a complete reboot. Maybe the game would become something you wouldn't like at all? Why risk this? Why not focussing on improving the current state of the game? Like, what Keith is trying to do at the moment (with an effort which is surely exhausting for him)?

 

You write a lot of good stuff here on ze forumz, but I am displeased with this thread and wished you wouldn't have made it. (Or make an off-topic post about the story of FF. But we had such a thread already back then, if I recall correctly.)

 

EDIT: As for the end of the world as shown in the video: When Swtor will be ending one day in the future, I want such an epic ending as well, please. The last story has to bring every char for whatever reason to one same planet and then this planet will blow up or something. I wouldn't mind if they copy the idea from FF.

Edited July 24, 2017 by JattaGin

[KendraP]

My experience all comes from swtor in the mmo world, and primarily bioware also in my other games (kotor and ME). I don't see them being able to have the resources to dump into completely revamping swtor.

 

The question also remains as to what most people enjoy. I came here for a sort of kotor 3 and am apparently one of the very few satisfied in this regard. After completing all the class stories I began looking for something else to do and turned to group content. Now I am a HM capable raider (on hiatus at the moment, because of personal reasons) who mains tanks, and dwebbles in guardian dps and scoundrel healing.

 

I would like a few of the more obvious and long standing bugs fixed. But I do not think a total revamp is even remotely feasible. If their money comes from subs, do they have enough subs? If from the CM are there enough people who pay to use the CM? The funding and resources (people, etc) have to exist for a massive overhaul. From a business perspective, the reward has to be worth the risk. Will they risk dumping more money and resources into something that is already turning a reasonable profit? Probably not. This is all pure speculation of course, but the logic I feel is reasonable.

 

It is also important to keep in mind that everyone enjoys different things. That is why I told my story. I started out as a solo/story player and am now very much into the more mmo aspects like pvp and ops. I will likely never be strictly into solo content again.

 

I did not particularly care for the kotfe/et story personally as it felt very.... out of character for my main (a light v jedi guardian) and did not include elements I feel would/should have been included (example: where was lord scourge? He by all reason should have been in a story focusing on the emperor.) That said this is very subjective feedback. I'm sure there are people that are far more... original with their character development and enjoyed having less obvious light vs obvious dark option which is what I feel theh were going for. It just felt bad to me. For a more enjoyable gray character story I would recommend the agent.

 

But as I said I am more into the mmo aspects now and as this is basically the only story centric SW game on the market I'm not leaving any time soon. I'd need a new sw game with very light side centric characters to pull me away. And it would need the same level of story and character immersion as in the ch 1-3 class stories. Which doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.

[Eshvara]

What you need to realize here is the "player base". FF is very strong in Asia and I think swtor has around 2% Asian players, if any, which means that they are outmatched in this race.

Why is this relevant exactly? Aion has a larger Asian player ASE, but a poor amount in the west. FfXIV is actually doing good in the west.

 

I think the distinction between the developers of the game and EA needs to be made. While I have tremendous respect for the developers of this game, I have zero respect for EA as a publisher. Absolutely BioWare is technically a studio of EA, but that's still an important distinction to make.

 

Pretty much this!

Edited July 24, 2017 by Eshvara

[Icykill_]

FF14 runs like crap tho. It is very heavy on the videocrad, altho the graphics are not that impressive. Very very badly optimized game. I hope they never "fix" swtor that way.

 

I'm guessing that's subjective to your PC specs.

[Vodamin]

I'm guessing that's subjective to your PC specs.

 

980ti. Not much of a spec problem. FF14 runs hot on the video. It is common knowledge.

[Nyla]

I always makes a difference between the devs and the guys that talk to us and the ones I call the suits, either from BW or EA.

 

I spent 10 years of my life developping softwares for audio recording, editing and mixing, my boss never understood what was necessary, I did my best but it wasn't enough. Without enough resources, you can makes things better for the users but only to a point.

 

In many big companies, there's a group of people that don't understand what's necessary to make great products. It's even more visisble when a product was launched and it gets bad/mixed reviews and/or when it's entertainment like games.

 

The suits at EA never understood what's necessary to make a great MMO and how to fix problems.

 

Despite not being a fan of what WoW became, there's something I will never forget about WoW and that EA should have tried to replicate, it's how they handled the first months post launch. WoW release was a complicated one with a lot of troubles. They worked hard to fix things, they did what was necessary to keep players and to change what was needed. If they didn't, they wouldn't have become the #1 so long.

 

Then there's SWTOR and EA. Sure they fixed some stuff but it took 6 months to get a group finder and the one thing they thought would save SWTOR, the F2P model, came a year after launch.

The thing, though, is they misunderstood completely the problem. When people at the end of their first 1-3 month sub left saying the subscription price was a problem, most of them never meant if it's free or cheaper, I will come back. They meant there's not enough good stuff in your game for that price, makes things better and add a lot more then I will stay. EA never understood that, they never understood they had to work on every part of the game all the time until it's great.

 

So to answer the thread question, the suits at EA don't understand. The product is launched, the DLCs will recreate some little interests, increasing profits then the income will stop to be enough and the game will get in maintenance mode with no new content for some times until it's closed.

They don't understand it gives them bad rep, it hurts the IP and mainly they don't understand they could have kept all thoses people interested at launch and get more through the years, making profits a lot more substantial...

[Icykill_]

980ti. Not much of a spec problem. FF14 runs hot on the video. It is common knowledge.

 

Fair enough, I don't know much about how hot the graphics cards run in the game. But you do know that is also subjective to multiple factors.

As a system builder myself, I know a system with the wrong setup can generate 10-20'c higher temperatures than it should.

Also some games just use more of the graphics cards power which isn't necessarily the games fault, it's often the graphics card or driver causing the over heaeting.

You also need to compare it to similar games using a modern game engine that relies more on the graphics card than the CPU for rendering. Remembered swtor is a CPU heavy game and hardly stresses the graphics card. We actually went for many years where the game suffered for lots of CPUs that weren't up to the job. God forbid you had an AMD CPU back then because swtor hates those older generation CPUs. The actual sweet spot for swtor is 4.0 Ghz or higher. Of course it's fine below 4Ghz, you just get a nice performance boost once you hit 4.0Ghz or higher,

But youve peaked my curiosity and I'm now thinking of putting my system through the ringer to see just how hot it runs.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Icykill_

[Alec_Fortescue]

Why bother? This is the only star wars mmo out there and it is generating so much profit they dont really have to bother / care about "saving" it. This is sad.

[Nyla]

Why bother? This is the only star wars mmo out there and it is generating so much profit they dont really have to bother / care about "saving" it. This is sad.

 

Considering how much money the movies made and how many players/subscribers a MMO can have, it's easy to see how big the progression can be and thus how much more money they could make for the company and its shareholders.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Nyla

[KendraP]

Again, it becomes a risk vs reward type scenario. If they are happy with the current profit they aren't going to bother risking running everyone off by changing everything up completely.

 

Yes high reward is worth high risk, but at some point it's just better to play it safe, and that's probably what they will continue to do.

[Nyla]

Again, it becomes a risk vs reward type scenario. If they are happy with the current profit they aren't going to bother risking running everyone off by changing everything up completely.

 

Yes high reward is worth high risk, but at some point it's just better to play it safe, and that's probably what they will continue to do.

 

Many things could be made to improve the game without a reboot.

 

As for the problem of who to please, that's another mistake they made/make. Either you focus somewhere all the time, making one kind of players really happy, hoping it will attract others people or you try to work on everything but then you have to work on everything all the time, not letting rot some parts for years.

 

 

I think too that's their mindset, EA seems quite conservative with how they handle their developments.

 

At same time, how they handle a game might have consequences for more than that game. I'm just some random player but here's a conclusion I made: I don't intend to ever bough another BW game. I was a BW fan, bought all their games for a long time, last ones were SWTOR, ME2 and DA2 then I stopped, nerver bought ME3, MEA, DAI and reduced how much I spend in SWTOR to the minimum.

Because they played it safe and made mistakes, they soon will get no more money at all from me.

[Transcendent]

Remembered swtor is a CPU heavy game and hardly stresses the graphics card.

 

It doesn't even attempt to stress my CPU to be honest Icy, it isn't exactly a new CPU either, I'm still using my Sandy Bridge.

[kimiko_tomiyama]

I gave up on miracles, as far as this game is concerned, a long time ago. BW is basically a dead man walking. EA won’t pull the plug as long as the company is in the black, but let’s be honest SWTOR has to make due with whatever capital in can raise in house. Rebooting or reinvesting in the game is just too risky for a game with licensed IP.

 

Credit where it is due. Eric is the developer meat shield. He gets a hate, and the majority not really deserved. Kieth has actually been around and interacting with the community. That is a welcome breath of fresh air.

 

I have no doubt they, and the other less known staff, will keep the Tortanic afloat for a while yet. I expect the game with slowly decent into a death spiral of less money -> less content -> less players -> less money.

[Orizuru]

Again, it becomes a risk vs reward type scenario. If they are happy with the current profit they aren't going to bother risking running everyone off by changing everything up completely.

 

Yes high reward is worth high risk, but at some point it's just better to play it safe, and that's probably what they will continue to do.

 

And I think that takes a backseat simply because EA/Bio doesn't have the resources to overhaul a game engine.

 

What the OP is asking for is basically to dump the existing game engine and designed a new one to replace it. Which is exactly how Sqeenix saved FF14 when they relaunched as a Realm Reborn.

 

When Square set out to replace the game engine in FF14 they were beginning with an engine they had developed specifically for the game. They already had a division of the company that was fully staffed with the resources needed to develop a game engine. EA/Bio licensed a game engine from another company (one that was still in beta, I might add) then customized it heavily for their game. Once the customization of the engine was complete, the resources that went into that aspect of the game were redistributed within the companies.

 

To expect EA/Bio to be able to do the same thing Sqeenix did, is a bit of a reach in my opinion because they do not have the expertise or resources that are required to fully develop a game engine on their own. There is no need to even evaluate the risk vs reward of a project when the company clearly lacks the resources to do the project.

[SteveTheCynic]

FF14 runs like crap tho. It is very heavy on the videocrad, altho the graphics are not that impressive. Very very badly optimized game. I hope they never "fix" swtor that way.

It's not worse than SWTOR, though. My six-year-old GT430 handles it, with shadows ON, about the same as SWTOR with shadows OFF.