Well, I guess Kotaku gave us their own Producer's Note. SWTOR could Shut Down

[scardera]

If SWTOR is closing, then why are there so many new ( or refurbished..) Cartel Market items? The new OP? Something doesn't add up.

 

why so many CM items? maybe to milk the last cows who pays for everything on the CM?

 

why new FP ? for the raider to keep paying for the sub...seriosly 1 new Ops in almost 3 yeras is not A LOT OF CONTEND

[MWidowmaker]

RIP Bioware

thanks for nothing EA

my expectations for the next Dragon Age are lowered to MA:A levels

[Quraswren]

Throwing SWTOR under the bus for Anthem is a really ****** thing to do. I could understand if it was some grand ambitious project but a loot grinder? Come on.

 

My thoughts too.

 

Anthem is what place in line of similar games like that now? They have Star Wars and a solid MMORPG with it and can't be bothered to really support it.

[peter_plankskull]

Throwing SWTOR under the bus for Anthem is a really ****** thing to do. I could understand if it was some grand ambitious project but a loot grinder? Come on.

 

EA has a tendency to kill studios whenever they don't meet the forced and ludicrous requirements of their expectations. They did the same thing to visercal in a seemingly awesome blend and cross of a dream come true, uncharted, a award winning, and fan favorite series beloved by sony fans all over, meets star wars. Then they go ahead and kill it for lootboxes...

 

I'm afraid Bioware will soon join the large graveyard of studios EA has killed if Anthem doesn't go well.

[kodrac]

I'm afraid Bioware will soon join the large graveyard of studios EA has killed if Anthem doesn't go well.

 

Which it probably won't. By the time it launches (bug ridden) the target audience will say "Meh, been there, done that".

[Pietrastor]

The reality is Bioware is in real trouble if Anthem doesn't succeed, though it's success doesn't guarantee SWTOR's success, it's failure very likely dooms it. A massive Anthem profit would mean more money for Bioware to spread around again.

But in case of Anthem's failure, TOR would literally be the only thing left in Bioware's corner against EA's wrath (ME franchise is already on hold and DA4 far too behind in developement). Hence why I think it would be unwise to completly halt developement of content for TOR and focus 100000% of all resources on Anthem. If they do it, TOR will be dead by mid 2019 regardless if the servers are kept on and if Anthem flops, they got zit, nothing, nada and EA would have no second thoughts about disbanding the whole studio.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Pietrastor

[SolarSaenz]

Its silly practice what they are doing in the end. If you need revenue, make an expansion, and make people pay for it. Illogical to make content so scarce and expect people to invest money in the game...

 

To play devil's advocate, they did that with Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan.

 

I guess those two expansions didn't generate enough sales/profit to try the same approach with Knights of the Fallen Story Line (), which is why they experimented with a "free for subscribers" model type expansion with KOTFE (and KOTET), which didn't work out so well either I guess.

 

After all, if the RotHC and SoR expansions made plenty of money, why "fix" something that isn't broken?

 

My guess is EA feels that they already invested too much into SWTOR (the $200+ million for developing the base game + any more money poured into it after launch), and it didn't perform nearly as well as they had hoped (remember, it was supposed to be a WoW killer). Also keep in mind, it seems like we've just been on a more or less steady decline since launch date.

So, from EA's point of view, EA might feel that investing a lot more money into the game at this point is kinda the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

As others have said, an MMO with the story telling of (the old) Bioware with the Star Wars license and lore of the (Knights of) the Old Republic behind it should have basically been a license to print money. But, alas, for reasons already discussed ad nauseam, it didn't go as planned.

 

It seems like the game is in a catch 22 situation or a chicken or the egg scenario.

SWTOR isn't making enough money to produce a significant amount of new content, so it drives players away.

but, SWTOR can''t attract new players and retain existing players because there isn't a significant amount of content being produced.

 

Those are just my personal thoughts and reasoning. I am not privy to the actual discussions EA has about this game.

[DarthSpuds]

To play devil's advocate, they did that with Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan.

 

I guess those two expansions didn't generate enough sales/profit to try the same approach with Knights of the Fallen Story Line (), which is why they experimented with a "free for subscribers" model type expansion with KOTFE (and KOTET), which didn't work out so well either I guess.

 

After all, if the RotHC and SoR expansions made plenty of money, why "fix" something that isn't broken?

 

To be fair to Bioware/EA I genuinely think that the prevailing trend of how players expected content to be delivered changed significantly between HC/SoR and KotFE/ET.

 

I think the model adopted for KotFE/ET was probably the correct way to go - content free to subscribers, and those subbed for extended periods got bonus chapters.

 

It wasn't the delivery model that let KotFE/ET down - it was the quality (lack thereof) of the content so delivered.

 

All The Best

[peter_plankskull]

It wasn't the delivery model that let KotFE/ET down - it was the quality (lack thereof) of the content so delivered.

 

All The Best

 

Quality, and quantity. Those continuous years of no ops, fps, and any real grouping activity did a number on the game.

[Pietrastor]

Quality, and quantity. Those continuous years of no ops, fps, and any real grouping activity did a number on the game.

 

And there were those simple developement mistakes too. Why, oh why, not put Star Fortresses into Tactical/Veteran Finder as standard Flashpoints??? Basically wasted content that people dropped as soon as most did the first round. Same goes for Eternal Chamionship. And restricting Preferred from Uprisings. They DID develop some new group content for both KOTFE and KOTET yet at the same time... did everything they could to make it look like they didn't even more so....

Edited January 29, 2018 by Pietrastor

[peter_plankskull]

And there were those simple developement mistakes too. Why, oh why, not put Star Fortresses into Tactical/Veteran Finder as standard Flashpoints??? Basically wasted content that people dropped as soon as most did the first round. Same goes for Eternal Chamionship. And restricting Preferred from Uprisings. They DID develop some new group content for both KOTFE and KOTET yet at the same time... did everything they could to make it look like they didn't even more so....

 

Well... ill admit I personally didn't really like star fortresses, but you do raise good points, and some I even forgot about. While I felt like star fortresses were repetitive since a lot maps repeated itself or were reskinned, im sure someone out there, somewhere loved them, the only problem is now no one does them, and the rewards for the weekly is meh. One single crate of your choice for doing 3 heroic star fortresses maybe if they gave you one of each type, it would be worthwhile.

 

I however... personally loved the EC looking back, it was a good test of your class knowledge, skills, and abilities. The only problem... its gated behind doing 9 chapters of kotfe....

 

Uprisings however.. .hrngnggh I disliked these a great deal. Reused assets, pure add spam, generally no tactics, simply rush in, do your rotation, and if your low on kolto. It's not even till matersmode where some basic mechanics come into play. Wouldn't hurt to open this up to more of the player base, maybe more people will do actual uprisings then, not just fractured 24/7.

 

Group content was sparse, and the quality was debatable, but all of that was made even worse due to lack of proper utilization of the group finder and needless gating of the community.

[Pietrastor]

 

Group content was sparse, and the quality was debatable, but all of that was made even worse due to lack of proper utilization of the group finder and needless gating of the community.

 

Exactly. They're really making it worse for themselves then it really is/was. Goes for Operations too - why is there no Group Finder Day for Toborro & Monolith (and Eyeless & Xeno too for that matter really)? As it is, both bosses are abandoned. Toborro used to be most popular Ops back in the day. Fast, good rewards, good alternative to longer Opses. Monolith was overtuned and gated behind SOR+Ziost so it never repeated the success of Toborro but a few fixes would remedy it.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Pietrastor

[Kyrra_T]

Not really sure why Kotaku has some magical wand that makes him/her see into Bioware's plans. "Reliable sources' means nothing if you don't know where it comes from.

 

All this sounds like is another way to make drama.

 

I'd love to see more development, more ops, more storytelling. Flipping out over rumors won't make any of that happen.

[Pietrastor]

Not really sure why Kotaku has some magical wand that makes him/her see into Bioware's plans. "Reliable sources' means nothing if you don't know where it comes from.

 

All this sounds like is another way to make drama.

 

I'd love to see more development, more ops, more storytelling. Flipping out over rumors won't make any of that happen.

For one, the article force Bioware to respond and gave us the first confirmation that 6.0 is in the works. That's bigger news than anything Bioware said in the past year so yeah, I won't complain. The lack of info was getting too much.

[DWho]

WUprisings however.. .hrngnggh I disliked these a great deal. Reused assets, pure add spam, generally no tactics, simply rush in, do your rotation, and if your low on kolto. It's not even till matersmode where some basic mechanics come into play. Wouldn't hurt to open this up to more of the player base, maybe more people will do actual uprisings then, not just fractured 24/7.

 

Maybe the solution there is to make them more "solo friendly" like heroics. Or make them "challenging" solo content as opposed to impossible solo content. They were put in place because group players complained they wanted more variety but it was not the variety they wanted so they are now gathering dust with only CXP speed runners doing them (hence the Fractured 24/7 effect). I don't like the idea of using a "Combat Droid" to make them easier to "solo" but perhaps creating a toned down version for a player and companion would get them into circulation.

 

Reusing existing models and maps is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when you are low on resources to provide content. Every little shortcut increases the ratio of play time to production time. I think there are several KotFE and KotET chapters (or really mixing a couple of them together) that would make reasonably good flashpoints for group oriented people and solve the complaint of "you can't group KotFE or KotET chapters" - which is not exactly true and the Master mode chapters make good pseudo flashpoints for groups of less experienced players). As for Operations, the battles against Vaylin, Arcann, and Valkorian could be made into pretty descent Operations with only a little extra content.

 

By reusing what you have for the various play modes to build content for the other modes could bring a surge in playable content. Throw in a little new stuff and you have a pretty good expansion. "Storyline" versions of Flashpoints and Operations could add significant "story"/RPG content and reorganizing the KotFE and KotET chapters into group content could add quite a bit of content there. You could even conceivably make "Hard mode" versions of the Class Chapter end boss fights into pseudo flashpoints. You also have lots of potential for adding whole areas to the existing planets just by putting together a new region with the same terrain and NPC models.

[Holocron]

Not really sure why Kotaku has some magical wand that makes him/her see into Bioware's plans. "Reliable sources' means nothing if you don't know where it comes from.

 

All this sounds like is another way to make drama.

 

I'd love to see more development, more ops, more storytelling. Flipping out over rumors won't make any of that happen.

 

Well what the article said closely matches up with what we've been experiencing with the lack of development on content and features, the delays, and the odd design decisions/positions. The article lifted the veil in a way, that allows us all to say "oooooh, now I get it..." rabble rabble rabble.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Holocron

[Holocron]

EA has a tendency to kill studios whenever they don't meet the forced and ludicrous requirements of their expectations. They did the same thing to visercal in a seemingly awesome blend and cross of a dream come true, uncharted, a award winning, and fan favorite series beloved by sony fans all over, meets star wars. Then they go ahead and kill it for lootboxes...

 

I'm afraid Bioware will soon join the large graveyard of studios EA has killed if Anthem doesn't go well.

 

and EA complained it was too gritty, lol. That's what fans were excited for!

[Rebamcfan]

I finally read this article, and I feel bad for the Bioware employees working on various games (specifically the Anthem but also for other games). Both EA and fans breathing down to their necks while they hope that the game could be a success/a life-saver is just awful, I really hope that they'll have at least some success.

[Anemone]

SWTOR could shut down because EA wants to appeal to the lowest common denominator by using a Destiny 2 clone? Color me unsurprised.

[TrooperRCH]

Does anyone else remember when EA thought they had the covenant "WoW killer" MMO, and were so sure of themselves, they took a dig at Blizzard by naming some ridiculous little Jawa companion "Blizz"?

 

Ya.. Me too. That was funny. WoW has a new expansion coming out I heard. Battle for Azeroth. I heard the 1.8 patch for The Division is awesome. I'll probably go check that out.

 

Bioware. Another great game developer destroyed by EA.

Edited January 30, 2018 by TrooperRCH
Because

[Costello]

SWTOR could shut down because EA wants to appeal to the lowest common denominator by using a Destiny 2 clone? Color me unsurprised.

 

Destiny 2 is hardly the massive success either, suffering from a lack of content and that buy to play. So going from SWTOR with a lack of content to a FPS which will no doubt suffer the same is rather unappealing.

[Manjaca]

Lets be Real. The Problem is EA!

This Company have very bad influence on the Gaming Industrie. And we the Players are the one who suffers. They destroyed so much Game Developers/Studios and Games. Think on WESTWOOD. And now Battlefront 2. The biggest fail in the gaming History.

 

I understand that a Company will make Money. And this is Ok. But the product has to be good. What we get from EA is, Lootboxes and RNG for big Real Life Money. The Support is bad, no or Little Content (SWTOR). They are arogant against the playerbase. Look at Battlefront 2 reddit history. Look at Bioware, Bioware before EA was good. Bioware (EA-Bioware) today is not very good^^

 

The golden Age of Games for the Gamers is past. 1 Addon in the year 2000 für 30 Euro is today 3-4 Dlcs for each 20 Euro.

[veritas_prime]

EAI agree the problem is EA. It is a large corporation, with little interest in providing meaningful value for their consumers, only in keeping shareholders happy. The article mentioned Dragon Age 4 being "live", whatever that means, which points to yet another franchise sure to be ruined by EA's greed (though I'd wouldn't necessarily state ME's demise was all on EA. Plenty of fault goes to Bioware). For SWtoR, that means less content, less updates, less resources, until they stop altogether. Not a shutdown, just a living death. Studios like CDPR (who by the way have their own issues) and single-player RPG's are becoming an extinct breed. And for all its problems and criticisms, Blizzard at least hasn't even thought about giving up on WoW.

[Foambreaker]

Because EA rammed CXP/RNG down our throats

Because EA killed the Empire and has Sith Saving the Galaxy

Because EA did the balance pass on classes

Because EA created 2 xpacs with no endgame content

Because EA dumped West Coast without telling us

 

This team killed the game.

[ZionHalcyon]

Looks like it will be true. Disney/Lucasfilm are dropping EA and are now talking with Activision and Ubisoft. Since BioWare is apart of EA's Worldwide Studios, SWTOR will definitely be shut down.

 

There are discussions supposedly, but there is nothing confirmed about EA being dropped.

 

It really all depends on whether EA really wants to keep the license or not. If they just wanted to be lazy and milk the property but not really devote any attention how to properly developing it, as they have been doing thus far, then it is reasonable to think that BioWare will be shut down and EA dropped.

 

The only bullet in the chamber they have right now left to use is the title being developed by respawn entertainment.

 

Frankly, if they want to see the license, one title isn't enough.

 

And developing another game from scratch will take too long.

 

If they had a brain, instead of pulling funding from SWTOR, they would double down. Fix the long-standing issues, go all out and try to bring in as many people as possible through marketing and other things.

 

At least then they are putting money into a game that already has the infrastructure build-up. And I seriously doubt any of us when given the prospect of the game either closing down or being retooled would take the game being closed down as the option.

 

But if EA considers the Disney license to be long gone, or else they just simply don't give a crap about it other than what they can milk out of it, something to be used up and disposed of when finished, Latin there is no way they put anymore money into SWTOR. And sadly, it seems like the latter is exactly what EA is.

 

One thing I will say. For all the talk of hate of EA, Gamers still buy their games.

 

If SWTOR goes under, I will never buy another EA game again. The person who complains about how EA Burns through companies and still buys their games is a hypocrite.