Hudson indicates future investment for SWTOR

[DiamondDove]

According to Polygon, Hudson has indicated BioWare's on-going support for SWTOR: "Hudson...says that when he became GM of BioWare a year and a half ago, he was surprised to learn just how many people were still playing The Old Republic. “We want to keep investing in it,” he says."

 

Obviously those of us still playing made an impression on him when he returned as GM.

 

I'll let the comments flow now...

 

The original article is at https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/11/18214604/bioware-anthem-dragon-age-ea

[TrixxieTriss]

And in the year and half since he took over we have lost half the players. What does that say about their reinvestment program?

Basically they aren’t investing enough because it’s obvious to long term players that since he took over they have continued to take funds and talent from the game.

It’s become less fun, more grindy, less content, less QC and more mistakes that make more and more people leave every time they change something or don’t fix something they already changed and people hate.

Maybe he’s the one we should all be blaming for degradation of the game instead of Keith.

[DiamondDove]

Hi Trixxie, only us Aussies awake atm it seems

[TrixxieTriss]

Hi Trixxie, only us Aussies awake atm it seems

 

It’s 6pm in NY and 3pm in LA at the moment. More likely they are still at work or just getting home

[Lhancelot]

The only thing out of that massive advertisement/wall of text for Anthem that had any mention of SWTOR is this:

 

Regarding the developer’s potential role in the partnership between EA and Lucasfilm, neither Hudson nor Warner had much to say. “God, I wish I had something to give there,” Warner says. “I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan; KOTOR is one of my all-time favorite BioWare games. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything new to dish on. You never know. There’s a big pitch process, and Disney wants to take Star Wars in a certain direction. But I’d love to work on another Star Wars game.”

 

Instead, Hudson points to The Old Republic as an example of the studio’s commitment to supporting an online live-service game over a number of years. (Its last full-fledged expansion went live at the end of 2016, but Hudson teased in a recent blog post that 2019 could be the MMO’s “most exciting year yet.”) He says that when he became GM of BioWare a year and a half ago, he was surprised to learn just how many people were still playing the The Old Republic. “We want to keep investing in it,” he says.

 

and:

 

...Between heavy production on the next Dragon Age and Anthem’s ongoing live-ops support — not to mention the likelihood of another major update to The Old Republic — Mass Effect is still firmly in the pre-production phase.

 

Honestly nothing in that massive article makes me one bit interested in Anthem.

[TrixxieTriss]

The only thing out of that massive advertisement/wall of text for Anthem that had any mention of SWTOR is this:

 

Regarding the developer’s potential role in the partnership between EA and Lucasfilm, neither Hudson nor Warner had much to say. “God, I wish I had something to give there,” Warner says. “I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan; KOTOR is one of my all-time favorite BioWare games. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything new to dish on. You never know. There’s a big pitch process, and Disney wants to take Star Wars in a certain direction. But I’d love to work on another Star Wars game.”

 

Instead, Hudson points to The Old Republic as an example of the studio’s commitment to supporting an online live-service game over a number of years. (Its last full-fledged expansion went live at the end of 2016, but Hudson teased in a recent blog post that 2019 could be the MMO’s “most exciting year yet.”) He says that when he became GM of BioWare a year and a half ago, he was surprised to learn just how many people were still playing the The Old Republic. “We want to keep investing in it,” he says.

 

and:

 

...Between heavy production on the next Dragon Age and Anthem’s ongoing live-ops support — not to mention the likelihood of another major update to The Old Republic — Mass Effect is still firmly in the pre-production phase.

 

Honestly nothing in that massive article makes me one bit interested in Anthem.

 

Even mass effect and dragon age had more in the article than swtor and theyre basically dead games. There were really only 2 sentences in the whole thing about swtor and one was an example of how they “can” do an online game for a number of years. Not that they will continue swtor for a number of years to come.

 

“Wanting” to invest and already having or getting the funds from EA isn’t the same as saying it’s planned, we have the money and the talent to make the next swtor expansion epic.

 

I think the interviewer was trying to put a positive spin on swtor with his “own inclusion/assumption” that there would be another “major” update is just that, his OWN assumption. No where in the article did he get a quote from Casey confirming that or even hinted at it. Wanting to invest means nothing. The same as him saying he’d love to make another SW game.

 

If he had said, “we have big plans for swtor this year with another major expansion”.... then I would believe it.

But reading between the lines, it’s seems swtor is struggling for funds because Anthem, Anthem, Anthem and other projects in the works.

 

I hope I’m proven wrong, but I doubt it. Most of my long term predictions have born fruit around about the time I said they would.

All I’ve seen since he took over is a decrease in player population, quality, less content, more bugs, more grind and ultimately less fun.

Edited February 12, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[Lhancelot]

Even mass effect and dragon age had more in the article than swtor and theyre basically dead games. There were really only 2 sentences in the whole thing about swtor and one was an example of how they “can” do an online game for a number of years. Not that they will continue swtor for a number of years to come.

 

“Wanting” to invest and already having or getting the funds from EA isn’t the same as saying it’s planned, we have the money and the talent to make the next swtor expansion epic.

 

I think the interviewer was trying to put a positive spin on swtor with his “own inclusion/assumption” that there would be another “major” update is just that, his OWN assumption. No where in the article did he get a quote from Casey confirming that or even hinted at it. Wanting to invest means nothing. The same as him saying he’d love to make another SW game.

 

If he had said, “we have big plans for swtor this year with another major expansion”.... then I would believe it.

But reading between the lines, it’s seems swtor is struggling for funds because Anthem, Anthem, Anthem and other projects in the works.

 

I hope I’m proven wrong, but I doubt it. Most of my long term predictions have born fruit around about the time I said they would.

All I’ve seen since he took over is a decrease in player population, quality, less content, more bugs, more grind and ultimately less fun.

 

Right. If you read that article hoping it would bring some encouragement that SWTOR has a bright future that article definitely was not the place to go, lol. All I seen was a ton of Anthem propaganda, some ME and Dragon Age stuff.

Edited February 12, 2019 by Lhancelot

[TrixxieTriss]

Right. If you read that article hoping it would bring some encouragement that SWTOR has a bright future that article definitely was not the place to go, lol. All I seen was a ton of Anthem propaganda, some ME and Dragon Age stuff.

 

I speed read and the swtor section was so small, I had to actually reread the whole thing again and really slowly that time (which is really painfully slow for me).

 

There was more encouragement in the public statement Hudson made last year about 2019 being the biggest year yet for swtor (no details of course or more than those few words).

 

That article was just Anthem advertising and that’s all. I will say it was well written for a piece of propaganda. I even caught myself thinking Anthem sounds good. Then I gave myself a cognitive realignment (banged my head on the desk) and came out of the Anthem propaganda trance,

[TheAresian]

If we're not going to get anything about SWTOR, I'd be willing to take some positives on the next DA game. Anything out of BioWare that wasn't an ad for Anthem would be a positive at this stage.

[BellumEstBellum]

It's KOTOR with micro transactions (so it's desirable to investors), and it's a good draw for people who have become jaded by Warcraft. And it's a story heavy MMO, which is a good draw for people who generally don't play MMOs. I think if Bioware wants to have more stable numbers for SWTOR, they'll need to invest more into the end game content, if they just go the story route, they'll create a boom & bust economy, where the game booms during new story content, then bleeds numbers after that bit of story content.

[DavidAtkinson]

Like I said before.... just don't think too much about major things happening. Don't expect much and you won't be disappointed with this game anymore.

 

Log, play.. enjoy it until it's here. You never know what the future brings.

 

Anthem has to launch, some time needs to pass to see how well it does and after that maaybe we gonna see something about SWTOR.

 

No wonder Musco said April.

 

At the moment for me 6.0 is only wishful thinking. I think few years back in 4.0 era we already knew that there will be a 5.0 coming.

Edited February 12, 2019 by DavidAtkinson

[ShieldProtection]

I hope Anthem fails so hard like MEA so they can finally give enough resources to bioware to make swtor great again. And no, dont give me that "ea can shut down bioware if thats happens" EA needs all bioware studios to make core of the games EA sell on market, just like bioware needs EA for economic support.

 

It is the EA destroy everything they touch and always blames to poor developers for their own faults.

 

Apex Legends going to save the business for the most part, and that game literally got ZERO marketing. Apex is in 1st on twitch since days now and already hit 10m players, many twitch folks I watch saying we should buy the founder pack to support the development.

 

Respawn and Bioware basically everything EA have now, and EA's stocks already got hit since last year. EA have to get their crap together and stop blaming to developers, DICE will be the next studio eventually butchered by EA since EA's blog says they were unexpected sells BF5. and they blame to developers for it...disgusting.

 

or....

 

Microsoft is looking to buy new toys since a while now to expand and promote their failed XBOX status, it can actually make sense if you think about it. MS already buying new small studios recently so, they are preparing for something.

 

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/30/16932860/xbox-microsoft-exclusive-games-acquisitions-ea-valve-pubg

 

https://www.onmsft.com/news/xbox-in-the-game-why-a-microsoft-acquisition-of-electronic-arts-just-might-make-sense

 

So no, swtor is not going to die anytime soon. EA already started remastering their old games such as burnout paradise and red alert, they even hired back the famous "Hell March" music creator back to the studio for the remaster soundtrack.

 

Learning takes time, especially for companies like EA. Learning from mistakes can take years. EA is not dumb to shoot to their own foot, but they are corporate enough to shut down their own studios.

[ShieldProtection]

My god, now that I read the entire article,

 

that entire business is more complex and dramatic than the cold war era, holy crap.

[kodrac]

I hope Anthem fails so hard like MEA so they can finally give enough resources to bioware to make swtor great again. And no, dont give me that "ea can shut down bioware if thats happens" EA needs all bioware studios to make core of the games EA sell on market, just like bioware needs EA for economic support.

 

Think about the flaw in your logic though. Why would a publisher (re)invest in a studio that repeatedly puts out failed products? A shutdown is more likely to happen than more money handed over. The studio will stay open for DA and ME. This game is irrelevant. It's a pipe dream to think EA will give this old game any more funding regardless of Anthem's success or failure. Anthem has no influence on this game other than maybe manpower to get things out faster. They keep it going because it continues to make a profit. That or the license agreement will be what determines the game's fate.

Edited February 12, 2019 by kodrac

[DarthSpuds]

And in the year and half since he took over we have lost half the players. What does that say about their reinvestment program?

 

It tells us:

 

A) There's simply not enough investment.

Or

B) What investment there is has not been used effectively, or efficiently.

Or

C) Both A) and B).

 

I'm going with C.

 

SWTOR dragged players in, in the tens of thousands, for well executed, class-based story arcs.

 

Investing in PvP and Ops seems to me to be somewhat counter-intuitive.

Investing in a one-size-fits-no-one story seems to be counter intuitive.

Investing in badly executed story telling seems to be counter intuitive.

Bioware did ALL THREE.

 

And then still wonders why they continue to need to consolidate servers?

This shows a massive, and perhaps fatal, disconnect between Game Management and the Player-Base.

 

Now I am not saying don't invest in those things, but they should be ancillary to delivering well-executed, class/faction based story arcs.

 

All The Best

[Rion_Starkiller]

Think about the flaw in your logic though. Why would a publisher (re)invest in a studio that repeatedly puts out failed products? A shutdown is more likely to happen than more money handed over. The studio will stay open for DA and ME. This game is irrelevant. It's a pipe dream to think EA will give this old game any more funding regardless of Anthem's success or failure. Anthem has no influence on this game other than maybe manpower to get things out faster. They keep it going because it continues to make a profit. That or the license agreement will be what determines the game's fate.

 

There's a part of that article where the author points out that EA has encouraged (aka forced) BW to use Frostbite because EA owns it. RPG's do not easily work on a Shooter engine.

 

Pre-production on Dylan proceeded slowly, at first, as BioWare focused on hitting immediate milestones. Beginning with Dragon Age: Inquisition, Electronic Arts, the developer’s parent company and publisher, encouraged the studio to employ EA’s proprietary Frostbite 3 engine. The Dragon Age team struggled for years to acclimate to the unfamiliar tech, and satellite studio BioWare Montreal ran into similar issues while working on Andromeda, the follow-up to Mass Effect 3.

 

Frostbite had been built by EA DICE, the Stockholm-based developer behind the Battlefield series, to power first-person shooters. It was an odd fit for role-playing games, and — as detailed in the Inquisition chapter of the book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels — required many of the features typical of BioWare games to be custom-made from scratch.

 

Soooo as far as I am concerned, EA can blame themselves for some failures. I wonder if Frostbite is the reason the good doctors cashed out of BioWare when their 5 year contract with the EA acquisition was up.

 

 

Investing in PvP and Ops seems to me to be somewhat counter-intuitive.

Investing in a one-size-fits-no-one story seems to be counter intuitive.

Investing in badly executed story telling seems to be counter intuitive.

Bioware did ALL THREE.

 

 

Regarding PvP and Ops: These are things that many guilds are built around. By not having new pvp and operations content, these players lose interest over time and leave. Large numbers of players and guilds left. Guilds are the pulse of this game. I think Keith gets it, which is why we have had pvp, raids, conquests, and guild updates in the past few months. Unfortunately, there's a lot of things implemented that many of us players don't agree with, such as class/spec nerfs, pointless new gear grinds, slot-bound mods, more (bad) huttball maps, etc.

Edited February 12, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

[TrixxieTriss]

Soooo as far as I am concerned, EA can blame themselves for some failures. I wonder if Frostbite is the reason the good doctors cashed out of BioWare when their 5 year contract with the EA acquisition was up.

 

That would make a lot of sense. Nobody likes to be set up to fail, which it seems EA were doing by forcing frostbite on them.

[DarthSpuds]

Regarding PvP and Ops: These are things that many guilds are built around..

 

Then I suggest that a game that launched based on the strength of its class-based story ark, most key parts of which are only soloable was, perhaps, not the most logical choice for those guilds.

 

Bioware and SWTOR have, traditionally, done one thing really, really well - Story.

 

At a time of limited resources, and at a point where the quality of the "one thing they do well" has been allowed to slip what is the most logical area of the game to concentrate those limited resources?

 

Do they double down on Story and get back to doing that really, really well - perhaps even industry leading well?

 

Or do they tinker with PvP (about which players are NEVER satisfied), deliver Ops and add poorly balanced group content?

 

Do one thing well?

Or four things badly?

 

There is only one correct option from a long-term business strategy point of view.

Do one thing well.

 

Companies that try to be everything to everyone in terms of customer experience fail. That's a fact.

Companies that do one thing really well retain and grow their consumer base for that one thing. That's a fact.

 

Where we are now with SWTOR is because all of the major "where is the game going" decisions - almost since launch - have been directed at "being everything to everyone" and all that happens there is NO-ONE is ever satisfied.

 

There's a simple question that can be asked to determine if those decisions were correct.

 

How many servers did this game have at launch, how many does it have now?

Even allowing for server capacity increasing by a factor of 10 we are still down nearly 80% of original capacity.

 

All The Best

[DavidAtkinson]

Think about the flaw in your logic though. Why would a publisher (re)invest in a studio that repeatedly puts out failed products? A shutdown is more likely to happen than more money handed over. The studio will stay open for DA and ME. This game is irrelevant. It's a pipe dream to think EA will give this old game any more funding regardless of Anthem's success or failure. Anthem has no influence on this game other than maybe manpower to get things out faster. They keep it going because it continues to make a profit. That or the license agreement will be what determines the game's fate.

 

Forcing a studio that became popular and recognized for making epic/memorable RPG*s with great story to make shooter games with flying is good recipe for a failure...

 

These people aren't good at these kinds of games. Period...

 

If it fails it won't be because Bioware are inepts. They are forced to make something that they aren't good at....

[Ardrossan]

Think about the flaw in your logic though. Why would a publisher (re)invest in a studio that repeatedly puts out failed products? A shutdown is more likely to happen than more money handed over. The studio will stay open for DA and ME. This game is irrelevant. It's a pipe dream to think EA will give this old game any more funding regardless of Anthem's success or failure. Anthem has no influence on this game other than maybe manpower to get things out faster. They keep it going because it continues to make a profit. That or the license agreement will be what determines the game's fate.

 

His argument is literally 'when Anthem fails EA will put more resources into swtor because reasons'. I Laughed Out Loud when I read it.

 

During the consular storyline, I couldn't understand why BW would write the story in such a way that the Jedi Council would continue to send the consular to heal the masters if the consular just killed every master he was sent to heal. Logically, it seems like a gaping hole in the plot. Gradually I understood that they were cunningly applying fan-logic to the story: "Maybe this time he won't kill the master. Oops he killed that one. Well, maybe next time..."

Edited February 13, 2019 by Ardrossan