An update on the development of SWTOR

[JakRoanin]

<sigh> there are more people who play story than not.

[Balameb]

14 minutes ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

DvL was just something they put up together when they realized that when you create an expansion with only story content people do not play it, so to keep people logging and playing they made people do the whole game again, the 8 class stories, all the fps and so on. 
Recurring issue that keeps happening, thinking making people play old content is actual "content", because they wasted all their budget on story and VA.

I don't dispute that. I only mentiones in regards to how to make a better seasons.

Neither seasons, nor DvL are expansions or 'content'.... in any game.

[krakadyla]

I really don't mind the maintena...pardon, "time for new opportunities". It would be a sort of interactive tombstone for Bioware, where new generations of gamers could come and experience the magic of long-gone great storytellers. 🙂

[xxSHOONYxx]

1 hour ago, sharpenedstick said:

DvL was a ploy to buy themselves development time. It was "play the entire game again eight times" and it was successful in terms of player participation because the rewards were amazing. So many free cartel items, neat titles, xp armor set, etc.

The sad thing is they did very little with the time they bought, largely because EA starved (and continues to starve) this game of resources, but also because the dev teams haven't been very good.

 

Unless EA made bioware to do 4.0 the way it was with only story and no mmo content, and as bad as EA is, could you fault them for not wanting to invest when it was largely the tipping point of the game decline? (unless you also count release when people reached max level and quit for barely any mmo content).

 

1 hour ago, JakRoanin said:

<sigh> there are more people who play story than not.

An mmo cannot be substained or even grow with just story. And story players are the ones that spend the least time online on average and smallest percentage of the "playing a minute ago" on steam. And many if not most before joining a mmo see if it's "dead" by checking the player count

[lukeisjedi]

I just read the new post. I'm glad that as of now plans are to keep updating and not go into maintenance mode. I hope that is true for the long term. I'm cautiously optimistic.

[TrixxieTriss]

22 hours ago, IntegrationArch said:

 We have them and a process that takes seconds on premisis can take hours in cloud.   Why increase the back end costs for a game that's

Because it will actually save EA costs. Not every company runs things the same as yours (what ever that is).

EA would only be doing this to save money. Cutting costs is their internal mantra. They also wouldn’t care about increased latency for players. They’ve already done that twice in the past when they closed the APAC data centre & forced an extra 150-300ms ping on APAC players. Then they moved the west coast server to an East Coast data centre which added another 60-100ms ping for people who were playing on the west coast servers.

EA is trying to divest swtor from BioWare. They would only do that if they wanted to save money or were so unhappy with BioWare that they are going to shutter them. Either way, a third party company isn’t going to have access to the same internal BioWare hardware. So the easiest migration is to a cloud server. 

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

An mmo cannot be substained or even grow with just story. And story players are the ones that spend the least time online on average and smallest percentage of the "playing a minute ago" on steam. And many if not most before joining a mmo see if it's "dead" by checking the player count

I’d like to add this one bit..  “a subscription based MMO cannot grow with just story” 

[TrixxieTriss]

4 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

<sigh> there are more people who play story than not.

True. But what happens when they finish the story? If it’s only story they are there for, they will run out of content faster than most developers can keep up in any game. 

People do come to MMO’s for the story, but they stay for the MMO aspects, especially if it’s a subscription based MMO. That means, raids, PvP, role play, crafting etc. If it’s only story & a solo RPG, then it’s not usually a subscription based game. You just buy the game outright & play through it a few times till you put it back on your shelf. 

If developers neglect or don’t plan the MMO parts of an MMORPG properly, those RPG story players leave after the story & only return when there is new content. Which breaks the funding & revenue model. Where as MMO content players will stay & keep playing the MMO content over & over while paying a monthly subscription.

BioWares earliest mistake with swtor was at launch when they didn’t plan or develop enough MMO content. It wasn’t until 1.2-2.x that MMO things started to come online properly. That’s why they lost so many players after a few months.  And it’s why EA panicked & made most of swtor F2P. That was EA’s biggest early mistake with swtor. They gave too much of game away for free & then got rid of paid expansions. 

Then you have BioWare who even stated during the 3.x period of the game, that PvPers were the most stable subscribers in the game because they stayed even when the story & raiders left in between their content drops. Sadly, BioWare then decided to shaft PvPers with 5.x & have continued to drive them away ever since (but that’s a whole other issue). 

5.x was BioWares second biggest mistake because it drove a bunch more MMO players from the game. Both PvPers & raiders left. And people who just wanted to causally play story content with friends couldn’t do so anymore because you didn’t get recognition if you weren’t the lead. They’ve been trying to recover from that ever since. 

[JakRoanin]

Well, I'm just saying that people who play the story (like me) usually have lots and I mean lots of Alts. I only have 10 PC's, and they are more than enough for me to keep up with the content I love.

[Nee-Elder]

33 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

But what happens when they finish the story? If it’s only story they are there for, they will run out of content faster than most developers can keep up in any game.

On this ^ point, we actually agree.  ( Although ESO seems to keep up quite frequently )

It's also why, for many years and even in beta testing, i have been urging BioWare to incorporate more sandbox  type elements into the game, so that PLAYERS can provide more of their own imagination-as-content more often  more easily.

That being said,  after reading  @KeithKanneg 's  OP and recent update , i've come to the conclusion that perhaps now is the time to finally---as Kylo so aptly says---let the past [mistakes] die .  In other words,  rehashing & re-blaming BioWare for all their many blunders, omissions, changes, nerfs, lackings, etc. etc.   has become utterly boring & moot now with the whole Broadsword news.

Better to look forward, into the future of SWTOR.

I just hope Broadsword appreciates GSF space as much as i do.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[TrixxieTriss]

33 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

Well, I'm just saying that people who play the story (like me) usually have lots and I mean lots of Alts. I only have 10 PC's, and they are more than enough for me to keep up with the content I love.

I’ve over 100 Alts. I can tell you they can’t make enough diverse story fast enough to keep me subscribed or playing without MMO content to keep me occupied. If this was only an RPG solo game, I would have abandoned it before 3.0 was released. I may have come back to play through Kotet/Kotfe once or twice, but then I would have left again. 

I was subbed for 10 years straight on multiple accounts. I’ve literally over 20,000 hours subbed play time in this game. When 5.x landed, I stopped subbing on all but 1 account. When 7.0 landed, I stopped subbing completely because they ruined the MMO components even more. I came back for 7.2 & unsubbed again for 2 months, until I realised that BioWare weren’t going to fix the glaring issues in PvP. And there literally isn’t enough story for me to bother subbing again till they either add more or fix PvP.  And the fact that I don’t even need to sub to play 99% of the game anymore, especially PvP, means I’ll probably never sub again unless they make some huge improvements to the game or gate a heap of new story. 

Edited June 22, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

12 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

On this ^ point, we actually agree.

It's also why, for many years and even in beta testing, i have been urging BioWare to incorporate more sandbox  type elements into the game, so that PLAYERS can provide more of their own imagination-as-content more often  more easily.

That being said,  after reading  @KeithKanneg 's  OP and recent update , i've come to the conclusion that perhaps now is the time to finally---as Kylo so aptly says---let the past [mistakes] die .  In other words,  rehashing & re-blaming BioWare for all their many blunders, omissions, changes, nerfs, lackings, etc. etc.   has become utterly boring & moot now with the whole Broadsword news.

Better to look forward, into the future of SWTOR.

I just hope Broadsword appreciates GSF space as much as i do.

Sadly my hope died because BioWare have repeatedly misrepresented themselves over the years. I need solid proof of intent now or evidence before I believe anything they say. I’m not being pessimistic, but I’m also not optimistic. I’m resigned to be neutral until they show me what they’ve got. If it’s good, I’ll be the first to praise them. So you could say I’m content to just wait and see what happens because they already broke my swtor addiction last year with the 7.0 release. I’ll be sad if they drop the ball at Broadsword, but at least I won’t be surprised or devastated if they do. 

[JakRoanin]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I’ve over 100 Alts. I can tell you they can’t make enough diverse story fast enough to keep me subscribed or playing without MMO content to keep me occupied. If this was only an RPG solo game, I would have abandoned it before 3.0 was released. I may have come back to play through Kotet/Kotfe once or twice, but then I would have left again. 

I was subbed for 10 years straight on multiple accounts. I’ve literally over 20,000 hours subbed play time in this game. When 5.x landed, I stopped subbing on all but 1 account. When 7.0 landed, I stopped subbing completely because they ruined the MMO components even more. I came back for 7.2 & unsubbed again for 2 months, until I realised that BioWare weren’t going to fix the glaring issues in PvP. And there literally isn’t enough story for me to bother subbing again till they either add more or fix PvP.  And the fact that I don’t even need to sub to play 99% of the game anymore, especially PvP, means I’ll probably never sub again unless they make some huge improvements to the game or gate a heap of new story. 

I don't think it's a competition. We all have different needs and find different things enjoyable. I loath PvP but that doesn't mean I want it gone from the game. Other people like it, that's fine. What I can't stand are people saying the Devs waste money on Story and Voice acting the reasons I adore and pay my sub for this game. My money is as good as anyone else's and I expect to get what I want for it.

[Blakinik]

1 hour ago, JakRoanin said:

I don't think it's a competition. We all have different needs and find different things enjoyable. I loath PvP but that doesn't mean I want it gone from the game. Other people like it, that's fine. What I can't stand are people saying the Devs waste money on Story and Voice acting the reasons I adore and pay my sub for this game. My money is as good as anyone else's and I expect to get what I want for it.

I 100% agree here.

I "dislike" PvP, GSF, Operations, and Nightmare mode stuff.  Reason Is I have found the group content generates a ton of anti-social type behaviors - especially when you have "pre-mades" which is a whole other topic.

I "like" story, story mode flashpoints, crafting (something completely neglected IMHO), and stuff related to that.  But I am not calling for them NOT to do development there - Its just if I was to choose I rather they do the areas I like.  I like these mostly because its my play style.  And I am an altoholic with nearly 100 characters.

Problem is our CM purchases, fees, and monthly subs all go to a general budget.  We do not have a choice where we would like development dollars spent.  I do think it would be really cool if they could setup something like that as a reason to sub or spend money on CC's, but not a development is the same either.  So PvP changes might be a minor code change or an extensive abut of QA testing to ensure there are no bugs.  Same in that I would love too have additional racial options of "droid" and some of the other races, but that would require voice over work, even if it was a bunch of sound effects or clicks.  Heck I would even like the option to do railship fighting as an alternative to traveling form one system to another.

Thanks,

Blak

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, JakRoanin said:

I don't think it's a competition. We all have different needs and find different things enjoyable. I loath PvP but that doesn't mean I want it gone from the game. Other people like it, that's fine. What I can't stand are people saying the Devs waste money on Story and Voice acting the reasons I adore and pay my sub for this game. My money is as good as anyone else's and I expect to get what I want for it.

I’ve never said that & never will. The VA & the story is what makes swtor unique as an MMO (beside being SW). 

I was trying to point out that without equal MMO development strategies & funding, the game loses/lost too many subscribers who would usually stay when the story only people leave in between story drops. MMO players keep the lights on when story people go looking for their next fix in other games.

This balance is something Bioware has struggled with. We won’t know until the game eventually shutters wether it was because certain devs swung one way with development or wether it’s because certain people higher up ham strung the development team’s ambitions. 

Sadly, when ever BioWare focuses on RPG Story, it nearly always completely drops the MMO ball. Wether it’s bad gearing systems, poor balancing, stupid bugs that prevent MMO progression or outright removing MMO centric systems that people were content with. Usually just so they can justify adding some RPG feature that not one story player asked for. That’s what the MMO players get sick of and makes them leave. Ruining their beloved parts of the game just so BioWare can justify changes that no one needed. Like reinventing the bloody gearing system every other year and trying to sell it to MMO players as content. 

MMO players aren’t really angry at the Story people for wanting more story or even at the financial cost to add it. They’re angry at BioWares misuse of the funds to change MMO systems to justify adding new story. 

Honestly, most pvpers like me didn’t want new maps and we didn’t really ask for a 3rd huttball map or so many new Arenas or Odessen proving grounds. All we wanted was a proper & fair gearing system, proper matchmaking, less bugs, better engine performance and some decent rewards for playing the content we loved. But every expansion since 5.0, BioWare has gone out their way to make it worse for us. They ruined gearing, they ruined engine performance, they add new bugs with every expansion, class balance gets worse, matchmaking is a joke and then they go and remove Ranked, the only skill based PvP system in the game.

Story has its place, but so does MMO content. 

[xxSHOONYxx]

1 hour ago, JakRoanin said:

I don't think it's a competition. We all have different needs and find different things enjoyable. I loath PvP but that doesn't mean I want it gone from the game. Other people like it, that's fine. What I can't stand are people saying the Devs waste money on Story and Voice acting the reasons I adore and pay my sub for this game. My money is as good as anyone else's and I expect to get what I want for it.

There are two different points though, there was already 1 and a half expansions that were solely dedicated to story. Story has been the only thing that was never thrown aside , while the MMO aspect of this MMORPG has been thrown through the window several times.

And they still spend money on VA and trailers on a level that does not correlate to the success the game has. Thus wasting the budget for the actual MMO part of the game. 
The trailers by blur were roughly 1m dollars each minute around 2017. On the 10 year joke anniversary think it was not done by blur, but the price is probably still around 1m a minute with inflation. Imagine those millions of dollars put into the actual game, maybe 7.0 would have gone out with r4 and manaan daily area or even more content, like they actually promised to begin with

[OlBuzzard]

The simple fact is that BOTH @TrixxieTriss and @JakRoanin are making VERY valid points.

** Using KotFE / ET as an example.  IMO it wasn't the solo players that created the problems (ESPECIALLY the mechanics of that era) but rather the fact that there was really little activity offered outside of that story!!  Before it was over with people were complaining (in just about every other thread) about solo players and the story line itself.  I personally liked the story ... BUT got tired of the fact that regardless of what character I played it was the same thing ... over and over again!  Then there was the gearing system.  But now I digress... back on theme.
** Then there is the whole PvP issue.  Even though I'm not directly connected to that aspect of the game I can testify to the fact that this has been an ongoing issue for YEARS!!  Seriously???  IMO this is just intolerable!
** So what do players do when they complete the story.  It advances .. so why doesn't the activities that surround it?  This is why I supported the segment (it's not an expansion)  Showdown on Ruhnuk.  There was even activity to be completed in order to get through the story.  IMO that is the correct way to do the game.  PLUS there was some additional content as well.  Should there have been more ...  YES!  Unquestionably.  BUT it WAS, however, a step in the right direction.  There are several ways to also make additional content / difficulty levels even with the current system.  That could easily be done through an assortment of locations on the map.  Each zone carrying with it an assortment of different mobs ...etc.  AND YES equipment drops should be available that can be upgraded (once equipment is found with the stats that a player wants).  It should be noted that is already being done in other games and it is working just fine!
** BUT what do players do in the meantime??  GS??  With REQUIREMENTS  for stuff that some don't want .. and rewards that (to a large extent ) are seen as mind-numbingly boring!!

BROKEN RECORD anyone????  That is EXACTLY what this reminds me of!!

(and in case anyone is wondering ... yeah I'm just plain flat frustrated!!!)  I feel like I might as well go outside ... find me a telephone post (some of you will remember what those are) ... and just talk away until I just simply pass out!  I'll get just as much accomplished!!

[/facepalm]

@JakRoanin I do partially agree with you.  Let's face it the story lines (all of them ...  not just one size fits all) .. that is the hallmark of this game.  Period.  Without the story there wouldn't be much like Star Wars.  It just wouldn't.

BUT ... then what do we do when the story is completed??  

[/old man begins running in circles screaming, pulling on the remnants of his head of hair]

One last thing @Nee-Elder.  You sir make a valid point!

[JakRoanin]

Just now, TrixxieTriss said:

I’ve never said that & never will. The VA & the story is what makes swtor unique as an MMO (beside being SW). ...

Story has its place, but so does MMO content. 

Sorry I didn't mean to imply you said that the post you originally replied to did. But still, MMO content has never been completely dropped from the game in favor of Story, even in KOTFE and KOTET. I admit because I have a severe disability I can't solo the VET Star Fortresses, and they were made to group. There are Heoric 4 missions I'll never see because nobody wants to do them. Same with Uprisings (which I'd love to do more of.

The problem isn't lack of group content. The problem is that people who complain that there is "too much story" don't want to play with Story people. 90% of the ones I've tried to play with on just VET FP's are rude, and unhelpful. So why should I group and care about MMO content. I let it be, and they let me be. 

[OlBuzzard]

1 minute ago, JakRoanin said:

Sorry I didn't mean to imply you said that the post you originally replied to did. But still, MMO content has never been completely dropped from the game in favor of Story, even in KOTFE and KOTET. I admit because I have a severe disability I can't solo the VET Star Fortresses, and they were made to group. There are Heoric 4 missions I'll never see because nobody wants to do them. Same with Uprisings (which I'd love to do more of.

The problem isn't lack of group content. The problem is that people who complain that there is "too much story" don't want to play with Story people. 90% of the ones I've tried to play with on just VET FP's are rude, and unhelpful. So why should I group and care about MMO content. I let it be, and they let me be. 

Running out of those reaction things again ..  

Right on!!!

[TrixxieTriss]

48 minutes ago, Blakinik said:

Problem is our CM purchases, fees, and monthly subs all go to a general budget

And not just the general budget for the game. The games income goes to paying the shareholders first, then EA executives, then BioWare Executives, then funding BioWares other games and projects. Then they let the drips of remaining income go to funding swtor’s general development. The problem is the money swtor makes has always gone elsewhere first. 

[xxSHOONYxx]

3 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

Sorry I didn't mean to imply you said that the post you originally replied to did. But still, MMO content has never been completely dropped from the game in favor of Story, even in KOTFE and KOTET. I admit because I have a severe disability I can't solo the VET Star Fortresses, and they were made to group. There are Heoric 4 missions I'll never see because nobody wants to do them. Same with Uprisings (which I'd love to do more of.

The problem isn't lack of group content. The problem is that people who complain that there is "too much story" don't want to play with Story people. 90% of the ones I've tried to play with on just VET FP's are rude, and unhelpful. So why should I group and care about MMO content. I let it be, and they let me be. 

There is a severe lack of content.
Star fortress and uprisings were done as an afterthought with reused assets, and not as in decorations, as in they grab a whole part of hoth/tattoine/a ship or something else and say "this is new", or the same exact "star fortress" but the boss name changes so it's "different".
Is not that people gather up in secret to run that content, is that no one cares or likes it because they see it for what it is. 
And people use vet fps to level, so they want things to go fast

[TrixxieTriss]

23 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

But still, MMO content has never been completely dropped from the game in favor of Story, even in KOTFE and KOTET

No, but they fundamentally changed too many MMO systems/echo systems & even casual group play with Kotet/Kotfe to make it single player centric. 

Even people like my wife & sister who weren’t big pvpers or Ops people felt cheated with those expansions because it took away our ability to play together in a group to progress the story. 

Where we were able to hang out together in a group doing our class or planet progressions, all of a sudden we couldn’t with the new content because only the lead or instance owner got recognition & progressed. So if we wanted to play together, we had to do exactly the same story content 3 times in a row to progress together. Which was a massive departure to how it was previously and extremely boring & annoying. That led to my sister quitting the game entirely. 

That put pressure on me to always be ready to help my wife because she wasnt the best player at the time. So I had to actually solo speed through most of the story with enough alts to be able to help her when she needed it. So I didn’t get to really relax & enjoy either expansion. 

With BioWares stupid gearing changes in 5.x and onwards, that killed off lowbie PvP. Which meant anyone who wanted to PvP as they lvld were out of luck if they didn’t want to wait hours. So any new pvpers were learning & still are in end game PvP. So the total lack of basic skills, tactics & strategy is appalling now. 

Bioware could have totally frozen the PvP part of the game in 4.x with no changes since & it would still be superior to what it is now. That’s the problem. It’s not that MMO content was totally forgotten, it’s that BioWare made stupid changes to it to suit RPG players who weren’t interested in it to start with. 

Edited June 23, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[JakRoanin]

@xxSHOONYxx It doesn't matter that anyone doesn't like it in this point. The point is that it is there! You said there were entire expansions with no MMO content that is objectively a false statement. I'm not saying its "good" I'm saying that it wasn't dropped, Players who love grouping didn't get abandoned. They just didn't like it.

I didn't like Shadow of Revan or the Hutt Cartel. But it's there and that's the truth.

Edited June 23, 2023 by JakRoanin
Clarity

[xxSHOONYxx]

14 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

@xxSHOONYxx It doesn't matter that anyone doesn't like it in this point. The point is that it is there! You said there were entire expansions with no MMO content that is objectively a false statement. I'm not saying its "good" I'm saying that it wasn't dropped, Players who love grouping didn't get abandoned. They just didn't like it.

I didn't like Shadow of Revan or the Hutt Cartel. But it's there and that's the truth.

You probably don't know because you said yourself you dont interact with mmo people, but i wish you knew how many people quit and guilds died on 4.0 because there was only story to do. 

By the same logic the next story expansion can be a book with no va or choices. And in this story you are a professional watcher of dry paint that is out to look on which planet the paint dries the slowest, and your arch nemesis is the paint company that doesn't want you to find out so they sue you. While they add 3 operations and actually pvp and gsf rehauls and add pod racing, pazaak and holochess. 
But hey, no one that likes story can complain, because story was not dropped, is still there! Doesn't matter that they spent 99% of heir budget on the MMO content

Edited June 23, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[JakRoanin]

I didn't say you had to like it, nor did I say you shouldn't complain when you don't I said that saying there was and is no MMO content in every expansion is false.