An update on the development of SWTOR

[krackcommando]

3 hours ago, Samcuu said:

I'm in favor of reducing premades back to groups of 4 though, anything more than that is overkill. 

4 in WZs, 2 in arenas (the 2 in arenas would be completely new, but now that they have their own queue....)..

tbh, I don't think there's any hope for WZs. at this point (and it's been this way since 5.x at least), you're lucky if half your team and half the other team even wants to win. and on SF, at least, most of the premades even capable of carrying a team only queue to pop heads, often happily doing so between nodes and thus actively (if not maliciously) preventing their team from winning.

some of the WZs, tbf, are just terrible designs with straight-up asinine "rules" that prevent certain specs from using their core abilities (I'm looking at you, Quesh). E.g., if I were a warrior class, I would never do anything but DM on the garbage map. imagine herding 8 kittens in OPG. that WZ was DOA. waaaay too late in the game's lifespan to even dream of the cooperation something like that map requires...putting aside the frustratingly random nature of active node spawns and buffs.

even the "good" WZs are chinced by all the various mobility options and DCDs available to every single class/spec (more or less) in the game. For example, as unfair as it seemed/felt in 1.x when juggs were more or less the only class that could carry the ball and had ridiculously better skills for doing so (push, charge, leap) and the DCDs to really take dmg, now everyone has a teleport or a speed through fire ability. another example is CW where capping a node quickly is paramount. now, it doesn't matter which node is "near" or "far" from your spawn area. almost every class has enough movement abilities to get to the "far node" and prevent a cap. so much for the massive benefit of that one guy who ran carny just to ensure his team could get that cap. now just about anyone can get there. even with pruning, it's so simple to pick abilities that render various WZ maps obsolete. the only saving grace to all of this is the first point: more ppl either don't care about winning or are so incompetent/new that the ability to cheese the WZ maps doesn't even come into play.

[JakRoanin]

Not everyone would agree with that. Therefore, we are all entitled to have our own likes and dislikes.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

14 hours ago, Traceguy said:

That fact means nothing when

1. The SWTOR team is transferring from Bioware to continue development on the game.

2. Lead Director said the game is not going into maintenance mode

3. They just made the game 64-bit

4. They're moving to AWS very soon

5. They're working on Direct x12.

 

-

3-5 would be the biggest waste of time and money imagineable for a game that's both dying and going to maintenance

#1 would be a huge waste of resources when Broadsword could host SWTOR without the devs

I have to agree with you here. These are all very valid points that speak against the idea that they are moving SWTOR to Broadsword to put it into maintenance mode.

That would be a ridiculous amount of money to waste on something you know, to quote another poster, you're just putting out to pasture. And businesses are in the business of making money, not losing money.

And being as though they have yet to move it to Broadsword, but, they know they are, why on Earth would they spend more money in the future to make improvements they have not yet made (AWS servers/Directx12) for a game they're supposedly putting into maintenance mode?

Now, I'm not saying I think they are going to make this huge turnaround, and there's gonna be so much more new content, and they're gonna fix all the bugs, update crafting, overhaul PVP, Balance the classes well, new Operations, lots of new PVP maps, etc., and I'm keeping my expectations low, but I definitely don't think they're putting the game into maintenance mode or the game is about to die.

We may not be getting a lot more than we have been getting, but I don't think we'll be getting less either.

The upgrade to 64 bit is a really nice improvement. Game looks and sounds and runs better than it use to. And I have to give credit where credit is due.

Gotta call a spade a spade. A bad a bad, and a good a good.

[SteveTheCynic]

14 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

Precedence IS FACT.

Precedence is the order in which things should be done, and therefore a rule, not a fact.

Precedent (plural precedents, frequently pronounced very similarly to precedence) is "similar stuff that came before", and *is* a fact, but as @JakRoanin said, it is not a definitive predictor of the future.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

14 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

Precedence IS FACT.

Precedence is not a fact about what will happen in the future. Precedence is a fact of the past.

Your using the term as in the legal sense. Now I'm not a lawyer, but my background is in Law Enforcement and that term is used in the sense, and I'm just gonna quote the meaning -

"Precedent refers to a court decision that is considered as authority for deciding subsequent cases involving identical or similar facts, or similar legal issues."

I seem to recall something in the news about the Supreme Court over turning a very controversial law recently, and that was a Precedence. I think that precedence should have stuck, but it didn't, at least on the federal level. Thankfully, in this case, the state's get the final say on the matter.

Furthermore, this situation involves just the opposite of identical or similar facts. It involves completely new and a never before seen situation in this game, the changing of the guard.

The game being moved to Broadsword.

Now, you are quite right in saying that they are moving people from Bioware over to Broadsword and they will continue to work on the game. So in that sense, you are right, that is a similar state of affairs, but, you are failing to acknowledge that it won't just be those former Bioware people working on the game, there will also be new people from Broadsword that will also be working on the game with them.

Those former Bioware employees will be answering to new management and that new management will be in charge of the direction of the game overall. And that's where possible change might spring from. The former Bioware people won't be in charge of the game, just like they weren't when they worked for Bioware. Bioware management told them what to do, now Broadsword will tell them what to do.

If your argument regarding Precedence is solely based on the Precedence that games at Broadsword are in maintenance mode, that still doesn't change the fact that Precedence does not dictate the future, it dictates what has happened in the past. And none of those other games had the words "Star Wars" in them.

Could you be right, and they put the game into maintenance mode? - Sure you could be.

Could you be wrong about that? - Sure you could be.

I'm keeping my expectations low. But saying definitively what will happen in the future is one of the best ways of hearing God laugh and Fate doesn't give a rat's ass about precedence.

I base my position on one simple fact. I'm all out of crystal balls.

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[Kabires]

15 hours ago, Traceguy said:

That fact means nothing when

1. The SWTOR team is transferring from Bioware to continue development on the game.

2. Lead Director said the game is not going into maintenance mode

3. They just made the game 64-bit

4. They're moving to AWS very soon

5. They're working on Direct x12.

 

-

3-5 would be the biggest waste of time and money imagineable for a game that's both dying and going to maintenance

#1 would be a huge waste of resources when Broadsword could host SWTOR without the devs

 

They are doing this for newcomers. Nothing they wrote is about the players that are already levelled up in the game (continuing the story). The lead director is not a fool because the game is still on Steam, which is a huge market and Bioware developed hours and hours of gameplay, that can harvest the subs of newcomers. The points you mentioned, will take months, even a year (in the best scenario) to implement. In the meantime, probably there will be no story update.

[LJ_Gibbs]

10 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

I have to agree with you here. These are all very valid points that speak against the idea that they are moving SWTOR to Broadsword to put it into maintenance mode.

That would be a ridiculous amount of money to waste on something you know, to quote another poster, you're just putting out to pasture. And businesses are in the business of making money, not losing money.

And being as though they have yet to move it to Broadsword, but, they know they are, why on Earth would they spend more money in the future to make improvements they have not yet made (AWS servers/Directx12) for a game they're supposedly putting into maintenance mode?

Now, I'm not saying I think they are going to make this huge turnaround, and there's gonna be so much more new content, and they're gonna fix all the bugs, update crafting, overhaul PVP, Balance the classes well, new Operations, lots of new PVP maps, etc., and I'm keeping my expectations low, but I definitely don't think they're putting the game into maintenance mode or the game is about to die.

We may not be getting a lot more than we have been getting, but I don't think we'll be getting less either.

The upgrade to 64 bit is a really nice improvement. Game looks and sounds and runs better than it use to. And I have to give credit where credit is due.

Gotta call a spade a spade. A bad a bad, and a good a good.

Again... the "wastes of money" you mention... have been in the works for a while... they are not going to just abandon them. 

[LJ_Gibbs]

9 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

Now, you are quite right in saying that they are moving people from Bioware over to Broadsword and they will continue to work on the game. So in that sense, you are right, that is a similar state of affairs, but, you are failing to acknowledge that it won't just be those former Bioware people working on the game, there will also be new people from Broadsword that will also be working on the game with them.

 

New people that are replacing the people who are now working on Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

You lknow... people who have ZERO idea about SWTOR lol

[LJ_Gibbs]

9 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

Precedence is not a fact about what will happen in the future. Precedence is a fact of the past.

 

 

Precedence IS fact with the people that have been in charge of this game for the past 11 years.

I challenge you to name me more than 3 things that they actually did with the game that was not marred by delays or outright not ever done in the game.

Name 3 times they actually lived up to their word.

You know... like the same words you guys are hanging on with this... "Things will be different this time"....  "We believe them 100%"

[JakRoanin]

@KeithKanneg has not been in charge of this game for 11 Years! Please, give people some credit for having memories of their own. I started playing SWTOR 6yrs. ago and Ben Irving was in charge when I started. Okay, so just stop with the hyperbole. Also like I said, he now has new bosses, so that already changes something. But come on stop treating all of us like idiots we're not!

[LJ_Gibbs]

40 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

@KeithKanneg has not been in charge of this game for 11 Years! Please, give people some credit for having memories of their own. I started playing SWTOR 6yrs. ago and Ben Irving was in charge when I started. Okay, so just stop with the hyperbole. Also like I said, he now has new bosses, so that already changes something. But come on stop treating all of us like idiots we're not!

So.... he's been in charge for just over 50% of the time the game has been going (May 2017... May 2023 makes it 6 years.)... and... tell me what has happened that is so great under his watch?

So you are saying EA was the cause of ALL the horrible story content ideas (KOTFE and KOTET), EA was the cause of the issues with lack of new operations, issues with PVP balancing, bugs that continually do not get fixed for YEARS... I could go on.  So this was ALL on EA?

You're saying EA was the cause of changing how gearing works... introducing a convoluted currency system... backpedal and tell us there were too many currencies... and introducing MORE CURRENCIES?

Please enlightening me....

Edited July 1, 2023 by LJ_Gibbs

[SteveTheCynic]

2 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

Precedence IS fact with the people that have been in charge of this game for the past 11 years.

NO.

"Precedence" is inherently *NOT* a fact.  It is a rule: this thing is done before that thing, because "precedence" means "the order in which things should be done."

The word you're looking for is "precedent", meaning "a thing that came before that suggests that we should do it the same way the next time", and its plural is "precedents", which unfortunately sounds a lot like "precedence" if the speaker doesn't bother pronouncing the "t"...

But either way, the statement "Precedence is fact" is false.

[JakRoanin]

Post hoc ergo proctor hoc. is hardly ever true. EA controlled the money whoever does that has control period. New people control the money. What will they do with it? IDK! But I do know things will be different.

[xxSHOONYxx]

3 minutes ago, JakRoanin said:

Post hoc ergo proctor hoc. is hardly ever true. EA controlled the money whoever does that has control period. New people control the money. What will they do with it? IDK! But I do know things will be different.

The details of the deal were not even announced yet EA will still be the publisher.
Even if somehow broadsword bough the game instead of EA paying broadsword to work on the dev like a third party, you still have a lot of faith on a company that their president has that company on his rearview mirror because his sight is on his new company that founded a year ago

[JakRoanin]

No not faith, I'm just not judging yet. Faith isn't something for games and things.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

11 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

You know... like the same words you guys are hanging on with this... "Things will be different this time"....  "We believe them 100%"

Perhaps you didn't read all of the post.

21 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

Those former Bioware employees will be answering to new management and that new management will be in charge of the direction of the game overall. And that's where possible change might spring from.

 

21 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

Could you be right, and they put the game into maintenance mode? - Sure you could be.

Could you be wrong about that? - Sure you could be.

 

21 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

I'm keeping my expectations low.

Does any of that sound like I'm saying 100% to you?

 

11 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

Again... the "wastes of money" you mention... have been in the works for a while... they are not going to just abandon them. 

So your saying they're gonna spend all that money on Cloud servers and Directx12, even though they know that investment is going to do nothing other than make them lose a lot of money because they already started some of it?

Is there some law that says once you start a project you must finish it no matter what?

I guess Bioware has a policy of throwing good money after bad.

And obviously EA is also fine with losing a whole bunch of money. Cuz it owns both Bioware and Broadsword.

 

11 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

You lknow... people who have ZERO idea about SWTOR lol

Neither did Bioware when they firt got the contract. Gotta start somewhere.

Yeah, because it's impossible to work on new games. Not like someone could write Star Wars stories if they have never wrote a Star Wars story before. That's just impossible. I guess George Lucas was writing Star Wars stories and producing films while he was still in the womb.

Come one dude, Bioware hasn't done a very good job of writing Star Wars esque stories for a long time. They don't care about staying true to Star Wars. Since The Eternal whateverthehell story line, they're no better than Disney. Only Filoni has 'an idea about Star Wars.'

I hope some Broadsword people get a crack at writing some story content for the game. Maybe some of them might have a clue about Star Wars. Maybe some of them might give a crap about Lucas's vision. Bioware certainly doesn't. (The vanilla stories were good tho in and of themselves.)

As far as them the game going to Broadsword - At least there's some hope in that.

I have no certainty in anything. I just have Hope and I'm certainly willing to give someone else a shot at it.

Maybe you think Bioware 'gets Star Wars'. But I sure as hell don't. This crap ain't real Star Wars. It just has some of the sights and sounds.

Lightside Sith? Jedi using Force Lightning? Jedi getting married and having children? Mass murders who killed trillions, destroyed entire worlds and commited genocide and getting away with it because some idiot 'Cured' the Darkside with spells, so that makes everything they did fine? Jedi and Sith, Darksiders and Lightsiders joining ranks and being fine with each other? Dark Side Force Ghosts? Idiots like Revan using both sides of the Force? They don't even know what Balance in the Force means. They might as well just have named the game KOTOR 3. Same garbage ideas.

It's like they never even saw Episodes 1-6 or The Clone Wars series or even bothered to check what Lucas said on any of these things. They're just as bad as Disney.

I stick around because of the sights and sounds and getting to kill some Jedi with two Lightsabers that hum right and look cool and I like raiding and PVP. Well, I did like PVP, but they even screwed that up.

So yeah, I'm definitely cool with giving someone else a shot at it.

Edited July 2, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[xxSHOONYxx]

15 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

No not faith, I'm just not judging yet. Faith isn't something for games and things.

Don't get me wrong, i hope the game becomes better and gives me a reason to come back and proves me wrong.

But with with all the "information" (or lack thereof) we have been given about the deal, how big gaming/tech youtube channels that have been dealing with those corporations and know how they work better than us like LTT and AJS mocking the "new beginning" words or even wish for it to finally die so a new star wars mmo can be made, the information we can look by ourselves on linkedin like that broadsword founder and president doesn't even bother to list broadsword's webpage but he does write his new company page, and the reddit comments of ultima online and dark age of camelot players did when swtor players asked when ign news came out, is borderline naivety believe the words of new beginnings from people hat have broken their word before. 

Even the math just doesn't add up, there are less swtor devs than some weeks ago for the game because not everyone went to broadsword which means less content. Broadsword is not a big company that can shift devs around, if they shift 1-5 devs from their games to swtor the other games are run devless. 

[JakRoanin]

Like I said, I'm not judging. If it stinks, I'll say so. However, there's no evidence that it will and it might possibly get better. If that's naivety that's my business.

[eabevella]

Wow just after a couple of days and I have no idea what everyone's arguing about...

[JakRoanin]

I just don't understand the obsession with people screaming that the "game is terrible, the game is dead, nothing will change..." The game isn't in matinence mode, it's not dead, and while it needs a lot of work on all fronts a new development company might might, might, might be a good thing. Jee whiz Batman of you hate it that much why keep paying to scream about it.

[Nee-Elder]

1 minute ago, JakRoanin said:

I just don't understand the obsession with people screaming that the "game is terrible, the game is dead, nothing will change..."

They're trolling you.

Stop feeding them?

-----

*On-topic:  How long it'll be until we actually hear from original Broadsword Execs/Devs  themselves....? ( like Rob Denton )

[JakRoanin]

Yes, hearing for Broadsword would be nice. Having a united front is always reassuring.

Edited July 2, 2023 by JakRoanin

[OlBuzzard]

2 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

I just don't understand the obsession with people screaming that the "game is terrible, the game is dead, nothing will change..." The game isn't in matinence mode, it's not dead, and while it needs a lot of work on all fronts a new development company might might, might, might be a good thing. Jee whiz Batman of you hate it that much why keep paying to scream about it.

IMO ... there's kind of two sides to this matter:

** One that states that as a result of factual history a  precedent  has been established.  Please note that presentence is not fact ... but rather the established facts that thereby SETS or establishes that present (as a matter of repetitious historical evidence.   It is factual that the last few years have been rough.  BUGS (some have been actually game breaking) , varying degrees of content drought, PvP issues, being totally oblivious to community feedback when it was REQUESTED ... (what on earth ever happened to crafting??) ... just to name a few.  As such many have grown weary and have reached the end of their rope.
** The other side is that there seems to be a new directive in the game.  Many see this as a stronger change than what has been displayed in the past.  This isn't the normal change of a handful of personnel...  BUT a MAJOR shakeup in the chain of command and those held accountable at the end of the quarter for how things are ACTUALLY running.

For some of us:  We are taking a "wait and see" attitude.  Frankly we have been down this road before.
** Yes .. I agree .. there is something more than just the normal "we're going to make some exciting changes".  I'm sorry ... but the fact remains that we have heard that line RECENTLY.  GOOD GRIEF!!!  UGH!!
** NO ... I don't intend to blast the thunder out of the development team!  I have voiced my opinion more than once.  (Probably to the point where they can almost quote a couple of lines!)  GOOD!!  THEN WE UNDERSTAND each other!  

Please make no mistake about this.  I try to choose my words carefully (for the most part).  This is one of those times!!!  Simply because I am trying to be respectful of others doesn't mean that I won't do exactly what I'm saying!  I will give the team the opportunity to make their word good.  NO, I will NOT wait another year!  There are certain aspects of this game that could easily be changed (for the better in a matter of weeks).
** BUG SQUASHING should be at the top of that list (or at least close to it)
** The next GS series (are we up to 5 now for the NEXT one??)  A note to the team.  One of your staff started a post that was answered quite well.  IMO that is a good place to start.  There is no reason that couldn't be done in such a way that some old fashion fun be found along the way.  I personally thought that was one of the reasons for play SWTOR.  It use to be!!
** Some long-term goals shared with the community then set some short-term REACHABLE goals along the way that will encourage others to stick around.

No ... I don't expect that too much of this will be listened to! WHY? ... Call it skepticism if you like.  But, frankly it's been a while since there has been that much of an indication that anyone actually cared about what I thought about SWTOR!  THAT'S why!

...  OK ... I'll get off my soapbox now!

OH ... @Nee-Elder .. you probably have a COUPLE of good points as well!

Edited July 2, 2023 by OlBuzzard
error !! (oops)

[IzumiCurtis]

4 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

IMO ... there's kind of two sides to this matter:

** One that states that as a result of factual history a presentence has been established.  Please note that presentence is not fact ... but rather the established facts that thereby SETS or establishes that presentence (as a matter of repetitious historical evidence.

 

Are you trying to give Steve an aneurysm? (Sorry, that's all I could think when I saw that ...interesting... typo. XD)

 

More on topic, I'm doing the wait and see thing. (And being a ball of anxiety.)

[krackcommando]

21 hours ago, JakRoanin said:

Post hoc ergo proctor hoc. is hardly ever true. EA controlled the money whoever does that has control period. New people control the money. What will they do with it? IDK! But I do know things will be different.

what are you talking about? it's still an EA game. BW was always constrained by EA. they are EA. I don't think anything has fundamentally changed. same devs (only fewer). same ultimate "big man" that you answer to (EA). if you're happy with SWTOR, then you'll probably continue to be. If you're unhappy, then things will probably continue to suck.

 

1 hour ago, JakRoanin said:

I just don't understand the obsession with people screaming that the "game is terrible, the game is dead, nothing will change..." The game isn't in matinence mode, it's not dead, and while it needs a lot of work on all fronts a new development company might might, might, might be a good thing. Jee whiz Batman of you hate it that much why keep paying to scream about it.

it's not a new dev team, bruh. they're downsizing the current dev team and moving their "keepers" under the broadsword tentpole. which was apparently just constructed b/c they're supposedly doubling or tripling their employee to run this game (which, again, is a downsize from the supposed number of employees that worked on the game at BW).

a lot of work o all fronts is an understatement. it's an MMO that does nothing in a timely manner with the conspicuous exception of regularly releasing new cosmetics.