An update on the development of SWTOR

[codydmaan]

Uk how much all of us Love swtor! 

How many friendships weve made. 

How much it has been apart of our lives.

 

 

I truly hope this isnt the end.

[OlBuzzard]

13 minutes ago, codydmaan said:

Uk how much all of us Love swtor! 

How many friendships weve made. 

How much it has been apart of our lives.

 

 

I truly hope this isnt the end.

Well said!

Sure we're frustrated!  (Who wouldn't be!!!! )

And yes ...  there's reason for genuine concern!  Yes, I am serious about my thoughts on the entire matter (see my posts if needed).  This isn't about a single incident that occurred overnight!  Things just finally came to a focus point as a result of repeated disappointments (and all the other stuff we've discussed).  

That being said:  What happens next is up to someone else!

[Lyriel]

7 hours ago, Jett-Rinn said:

I will say this is great news for PVPers, because thanks to Broadsword DaoC has some of the most solid PVP out there...

 

 

... which came at the expense of the PvE that was once in the game, because PvP requires less content creation. Not the direction I would personally like to see for story-driven SWTOR under their stewardship.

[Darev]

23 hours ago, Traceguy said:

They're moving to AWS soon. The days of going offline will forever be no more

I really hope you're being sarcastic.

Ask anyone involved in Enterprise level IT about AWS servers.   They are far from perfect.

[Darev]

On 6/6/2023 at 7:17 PM, codydmaan said:

I hope everyone starts to buy sub month to month now cuz ill feel bad for those who buy 6 month subs when game goes offline

Thank you for posting this.    While I didn't hit the "Cancel" button I absolutely switched my two accounts to month by month.  Thankfully one had just over 30 days, and one had just over 50 days left.

[Darev]

So, on to my two most pressing questions.

...since I haven't read all 14 pages of posts....

@KeithKanneg

1)   What happens to our unspent cartel coins?  Do they just vanish?  After the move is there going to be a CM to spend them in?  This is only really a concern as to if I go on a spending spree NOW, or just keep holding on to them until after this is over.

2)   is there going to be any actual new content developed / released after the transfer?   I'm not talking about small stuff, but actual new story content / Operations / Flashpoints / etc?

@KeithKanneg Sorry buddy, but without knowing this stuff, in advance, people, including myself, are far more likely just to ride it out until the current servers go offline, have a big party, and never come back.

Most may not even wait that long.

 

This is one case where no matter what you see online, more HONEST information about the future of this game is better.

I've played this game since day 1.   I registered this forum name the first day we could, over a year before the game launched.  This was, and would still be, a LONG TERM hobby of mine.

 

So..."Wait and see" is not going to work for me.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Darev

[Sappharan]

7 hours ago, Jett-Rinn said:

I will say this is great news for PVPers, because thanks to Broadsword DaoC has some of the most solid PVP out there...anyway, I just don't think the sky is falling...just like it wasn't falling Eleven years ago or Eight years ago or Five years ago or Last year.

...Maybe.  Few corporations are going to acquire IPs without banking on some anticipated measure of profitability, but never underestimate that none of us is as dumb as all of us.  Corporations make disastrous decisions all the time.  Id est, if one community loses, I suspect all of us lose.

[Whykara]

4 minutes ago, Darev said:

people, including myself, are far more likely just to ride it out until the current servers go offline, have a big party, and never come back.

You won't even notice the change in dev teams. Your cartel coins will be fine. 

What I'm interested as well is how the switch to AWS is gonna happen. We can assume with certainty that it will happen with 7.4, so still under BioWare. Will it just be an under-the-hood change that players won't notice, like 64bit, or will it bring a restructuring of the current servers? I guess we'll see. 

[Traceguy]

33 minutes ago, Darev said:

I really hope you're being sarcastic.

Ask anyone involved in Enterprise level IT about AWS servers.   They are far from perfect.

They may be far from perfect, but they are 10 trillion times closer to perfect than the potatoes in Bioware's server closet 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Traceguy

[Char_Ell]

20 minutes ago, Whykara said:

What I'm interested as well is how the switch to AWS is gonna happen. We can assume with certainty that it will happen with 7.4, so still under BioWare. Will it just be an under-the-hood change that players won't notice, like 64bit, or will it bring a restructuring of the current servers? I guess we'll see. 

Not sure why you're convinced 7.4 will be the switch to AWS servers.  7.2.1 was the update for the 64-bit client.  7.3.1 could be the planned switch to AWS servers.  Keith Kanneg wants everyone to know that things are progressing as planned but still remains to be seen if plans to move servers to AWS will proceed as originally announced last December.  At this point I'm not taking anything past 7.3 for granted.

[Bigfallenstar]

4 hours ago, TonyTricicolo said:

Well, we are kept in the dark with no communication like a buncha mushrooms fed dribbles of dung. We are left with only our speculation.

And yet, you and majority of everyone here jumped to the worst speculation possible. This is what happens when fear, mistrust and the doom bringers are left unchecked. No one here knows what Broadsword is going to do with the game. Stop listening to the doom bringers who keep saying maintenance mode because they've been saying stuff like this since 1.0.

[CrazyScruffy]

18 minutes ago, Bigfallenstar said:

And yet, you and majority of everyone here jumped to the worst speculation possible. This is what happens when fear, mistrust and the doom bringers are left unchecked. No one here knows what Broadsword is going to do with the game. Stop listening to the doom bringers who keep saying maintenance mode because they've been saying stuff like this since 1.0.

You don't think we want to be positive about this change? It is incredibly hard to excited. What we can see and know about Broadsword, and the fact that half (and most likely even less than that) of the current devs are staying on... with how about new content, balancing and the thousand other issues are already happening with the current team. It raises serious doubts it can be more successful than now, and the best we can hope for is that BS does put it in maintenance mode and keeps it alive for a few years. 

I will grant you that there has and always will be the "sky is falling" group of players. But this time is 100% different. It is understandable that there are doom bringers because it doesn't feel great this time

[jedimasterjac]

1 hour ago, Char_Ell said:

Keith Kanneg wants everyone to know that things are progressing as planned but still remains to be seen if plans to move servers to AWS will proceed as originally announced last December. 

The last time they gave news about AWS they didn’t even confirm they intended to go through with it. 

[Sappharan]

2 hours ago, Darev said:

This is one case where no matter what you see online, more HONEST information about the future of this game is better.

I've played this game since day 1.   I registered this forum name the first day we could, over a year before the game launched.  This was, and would still be, a LONG TERM hobby of mine.

 

So..."Wait and see" is not going to work for me.

He is probably not legally allowed to tell us more.  Adjusting to change has never been something I have enjoyed, and I suspect most would agree that change always brings about uncertainty, but I am encouraged that his message was more hopeful than you seem to be. 

Sure, I can comprehend the bad side, and it makes one wonder what upside BioWare sees in dumping a profitable franchise.  I can also understand why shedding some bloat could be good for BioWare and Broadsword both.  This does not fill me with confidence for the future of the game either, but that largely depends on Broadsword's management of the game.  Remember when NCSoft straight killed coh?  BioWare could have done that.  They didn't. 

I was pretty pessimistic before, but that was before reading the second developer (or moderator) post on this.  Unfortunately, all we CAN do is wait and see...but if the current players remain loyal to the game, there could be a lot of life left.  There is more information about this to come.  There must be.

[Char_Ell]

1 hour ago, jedimasterjac said:

The last time they gave news about AWS they didn’t even confirm they intended to go through with it. 

On 2023 May 9 Eric Musco said "... Shae Vizla was also another scale test for us having our servers "in the cloud" and so this test also helps drive us towards the goal of getting our service and our servers all onto AWS."  I'm not aware of anything else that has been said regarding server migration to AWS since then and in my view that was confirmation BioWare was still planning to move SWTOR to AWS.  He also surprised me by mentioning the possibility of a fresh start server.  I've got no idea where BioWare Austin's collective heads are at with the server situation.  Given what I've observed playing on three servers it doesn't make sense to me to be adding any new servers to the game.  I wonder if BWA are considering some kind of consolidation of existing servers in combination with addition of a new server for APAC.  Perhaps they're holding off on the AWS move to wait and see how the player population is impacted by the transition to a different developer.  Does anybody know if UO and DAoC are hosted in AWS?  As you can see I have lots of guesses but no real clue.

[OlBuzzard]

2 hours ago, CrazyScruffy said:

You don't think we want to be positive about this change? It is incredibly hard to excited. What we can see and know about Broadsword, and the fact that half (and most likely even less than that) of the current devs are staying on... with how about new content, balancing and the thousand other issues are already happening with the current team. It raises serious doubts it can be more successful than now, and the best we can hope for is that BS does put it in maintenance mode and keeps it alive for a few years. 

I will grant you that there has and always will be the "sky is falling" group of players. But this time is 100% different. It is understandable that there are doom bringers because it doesn't feel great this time

This is kind of where I'm coming from.

Before this announcement there was already a general consensus of the LIST of disappointments and what could (essentially) be called broken promises.  No ..  I don't think it's a good idea to list them.  BUT that list goes back several months (perhaps more than a year).

I agree that we shouldn't jump to conclusions.  Then came the thread/announcement.  For myself (and a number of others) we have been placed into the position of trying to decide what / who to believe.  

Conclusion (for now) .. based on the HISTORY of what we have seen in game since before 7.0 ... there is just not a heck of a whole lot we can depend on.  Hense my insistence that if we are to stick around, we need something a little more tangible than just a community post.  I honestly don't think that this is unreasonable.

This is still a Star Wars based game (well sort of).  I'll go out on a limb (at the risk of catching flack AGAIN) ... and say that I would probably stay a while longer and enjoy the game IF there was a good reason to do so.  That reason needs to be a good one.  

I have enjoyed many of the story lines from SWTOR.  (Yes, I know we don't have the individual class stories anymore... different topic on another day).  I'm curious to see what is next.  BUT ... that being said .. my sub runs out in August.  It will not be renewed if things continue as they are now.  It's just that simple.  I'm certain that there are a number who will continue to stay.  That is their choice.

It should be noted that I had read something about the announcement before it was posted in the forums  (I don't remember where so please.. respectfully don't ask).  I do know that regardless of who posted the thread regarding this matter I would have still responded much the same way.  I refuse to grab up the pitchforks and start a fire to round up and burn the heretics.  

I've probably worn out my welcome by now... so I'll just leave this alone for now.

Best of luck to everyone!

Edited June 9, 2023 by OlBuzzard

[juliushorst]

On 6/7/2023 at 11:20 PM, KeithKanneg said:

We have more stories, modernizations, and MMO content already being planned out beyond 7.4.

I just hope that "MMO content" is not 7.0's "You'll either learn to like raids or you'll have miserable time".

[Shayddow]

Quote

What I'm interested as well is how the switch to AWS is gonna happen. We can assume with certainty that it will happen with 7.4, so still under BioWare. Will it just be an under-the-hood change that players won't notice, like 64bit, or will it bring a restructuring of the current servers? I guess we'll see. 

This is what concerns me.  If they combine just the European Servers I'd be o.k. If they combine both North American servers I'd exceed the # of characters allowed.  

We need to know these answers so we can plan for the move accordingly. (If they combined servers, you know how hard it is to complete bonus missions on Coruscant heroic in Black Sun territory? Don't even want to think about it.

Also - whether anything will change in price structure (many people play because $ U.S. $ 15.00 a month isn't a great deal of money when compared to other means of entertainment).  

Also whether forums will change. I like the forums structure here, frankly, I took a look at UO and DAoC and gawds, it basically looks like what it is, a game from 1997. 

Although DAoC does have French and German sections, I didn't count much activity on those. Granted, the ones here aren't large either. 

[TonyTricicolo]

10 hours ago, Bigfallenstar said:

And yet, you and majority of everyone here jumped to the worst speculation possible. This is what happens when fear, mistrust and the doom bringers are left unchecked. No one here knows what Broadsword is going to do with the game. Stop listening to the doom bringers who keep saying maintenance mode because they've been saying stuff like this since 1.0.

I just can't be as optimistic as you are. Over the years I have become jaded. It is my default defense mechanism and it most certainly stems from mistrust because I know the "game", what part we players play in it, and how it's played. My intuition tells me that even if (BIG IF) Broadsword turns this game around that this is my departure point. I'm done. It's childish and naïve to believe that after 11years it's going to get better. It's not and I'm not going to spend another 11 years hoping. I lived through SWG and now Swtor. This ain't my first rodeo. I feel the horse bucking I'm getting off before it throws me off. Savvy?

Edited June 9, 2023 by TonyTricicolo
Punctuation, usage, spelling, and grammar.

[Vyzra]

Gotta throw in my thoughts, reading all these comments that want to hope but don't really trust what is being written.

I'm gonna quote Chris Schmidt, that posted on Twitter. He was a Dev of Swtor until 2022 and what he wrote is giving me high hopes:

Quote

 

"For SWTOR: This is a Good Thing

For BioWare: This is a Big Loss"

 

TL;DR for those not wanting to read his post: Swtor brings in money and that money did not completely go back to Swtor, but also financed other Games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The moment Broadsword takes over, all that money goes into their pool and Swtor will be one of their biggest projects.

 

On another note: What is happening right now with Swtor happened in similiar fashion to another game and SUCCEEDED!

Those that play Lord of the Rings Online might remember the time when Standing Stones took over. (Standing Stones has only one other Game called Dungeons and Dragon Online)

I remember clearly the panic over "the game is gonna die".

That old behemoth of a game experienced one of the best expansions in it's life, the moment the smaller company took the reigns.

It still gets big updates, the Devs over there try to tackle the problems that an old game like Lotro has (seriously it's older than Swtor and lags so much, that Swtor in comparison runs smoothly as silk^^)

Did they succeed getting all the old bugs and the lags out? By the stars, No. But they are trying and doing babysteps so it doesn't crash the whole game.

 

So in short: Give them a chance, have some patience. This is good news!

And now have a loverly weekend 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Vyzra
fixed grammar mistakes. English is not my first language^^

[DIVAvonFarstar]

4 hours ago, Shayddow said:

This is what concerns me.  If they combine just the European Servers I'd be o.k. If they combine both North American servers I'd exceed the # of characters allowed.  

The attempt to merge the EU servers, to merge three fundamentally different mother tongues after more than a decade of gameplay, will not work.

Edited June 9, 2023 by DIVAvonFarstar

[CrazyScruffy]

17 minutes ago, Vyzra said:

I'm gonna quote Chris Schmidt, that posted on Twitter. He was a Dev of Swtor until 2022 and what he wrote is giving me high hopes:

. The moment Broadsword takes over, all that money goes into their pool and Swtor will be one of their biggest projects.

As I and others have stated, Chris is a huge reason the game is in this state. So really we take what he says with a very small grain of salt. 
 

and no, that pool of money will mainly go to EA still and fund their other games. Don’t expect EA to start pouring more money into TOR. This move isn’t to give them more money (notice half if not more of the current devs are losing their job)

Edited June 9, 2023 by CrazyScruffy

[Whykara]

29 minutes ago, CrazyScruffy said:

and no, that pool of money will mainly go to EA still and fund their other games. Don’t expect EA to start pouring more money into TOR. This move isn’t to give them more money (notice half if not more of the current devs are losing their job)

Yes the money will still go to EA. But EA is funding SWTOR's development. They are currently giving Bioware (not Bioware Austin, but Bioware in general) a certain amount of money a month/year, idk, and they can use this money to develop the game. If I understand Chris Schmidt's twitter post correctly, Bioware has not been using the money the got for SWTOR to develop SWTOR, but they have been using these resources to fund their other projects. 

If the funding from EA stays the same and Broadsword will be receiving the same amount of resources as Bioware did, more money will inevitably go to the development of SWTOR, because it will be solely used for this game, instead of Mass Effect or Dragon Age.

But please correct me if I'm wrong or I have misunderstood the Chris Schmidt thread. 

[jedimasterjac]

7 minutes ago, Whykara said:

Yes the money will still go to EA. But EA is funding SWTOR's development. They are currently giving Bioware (not Bioware Austin, but Bioware in general) a certain amount of money a month/year, idk, and they can use this money to develop the game. If I understand Chris Schmidt's twitter post correctly, Bioware has not been using the money the got for SWTOR to develop SWTOR, but they have been using these resources to fund their other projects. 

If the funding from EA stays the same and Broadsword will be receiving the same amount of resources as Bioware did, more money will inevitably go to the development of SWTOR, because it will be solely used for this game, instead of Mass Effect or Dragon Age.

But please correct me if I'm wrong or I have misunderstood the Chris Schmidt thread. 

More or less, yes. It’s possible that some of the revenue goes straight back to BioWare or that it all goes to EA and is then redistributed or whatever else. Whatever the specifics, CS is saying that SATOR is a major source of revenue for BioWare but that decision-makers within the studio (and NOT EA) are unwilling to invest in SWTOR. 
 

I’d imagine the revenue for Broadsword would be leagues beyond whatever they’re making currently, so if their plan really is to expand and reinvest, it could be beneficial. Not to mention the fact that neither of their other projects would really need the investment. 
 

I’m still pretty pessimistic about the overall prospect, and it would require Broadsword to be willing to do… a lot. But it is a possibility. 
 

It even makes one wonder if this is some sort of internal push on the swtor side. But it’s so hard to know, and that’s only speculation, and the concrete facts we have are far more disconcerting - for the future of the game and for the development team itself, who are seemingly very much being screwed over. 

Edited June 9, 2023 by jedimasterjac

[Khoxion]

36 minutes ago, DIVAvonFarstar said:

5 hours ago, Shayddow said:

This is what concerns me.  If they combine just the European Servers I'd be o.k. If they combine both North American servers I'd exceed the # of characters allowed.  

The attempt to merge the EU servers, to merge three fundamentally different mother tongues after more than a decade of gameplay, will not work.

And why?

There could be simply additional ger/fr versions of the general/pvp/trade channels that people could ignore as they please. Players who are too ignorant to use the proper channels for their language could be ignored (together with an increase of the ignore list limit that was already suggested somewhere else). At least it would be much better than low population "ger/fr only" servers.

When i returned, i was surprised to see the language specific servers still running.