SWTOR move to new devs - What we know, what we don't, and reasonable assumptions

[Shayddow]

With the fast growing capabilities of AI I don't think that the expense of VAs will be critical to new development.  As much as I hate to see machines replace people, the owners are in it for the money and if they can make money by using AI, they will use it. Just as Disney used CGI and a "replacement" Luke in Mandalorian, they dubbed Vader's voice via a form of AI in Kenobi, etc. 

I'm more concerned about the reduction of 50% of staff if it is going from 80 to 40 as in the initial post on IGN.

I'm hoping that as they sign the papers and cross all the t's and dot the i's, they will keep us players in on the loop for the pure mechanics of this change so we can continue to play our characters - i.e. what is going to happen to the various servers, what this will mean for people who play thru Steam (I'm old-school so I play thru server-login, but I did briefly play thru STEAM during the conversion process that was majorly glitchy that was 7.0.) 

[Khoxion]

8 hours ago, manlymandayruin said:

First of all, yes. I am very angry and have every right to be. I got the news out of nowhere that they are bricking an mmo that ive invested into, and has been my favorite mmo for more than a decade. And to your comment: “expecting any further major (fully voiced) DLCs from BW is imo very unrealistic and wishful thinking, even if it remained in their hands.” 

How is this unrealistic? Am i missing something? The last content came out last year. How is it so far fetched to expect more? 

EA is an investment company that invests into entertainment products. Based on their decision to hand over the project to a different studio, they don't seem to think that investing further into SWTOR would benefit them more than it could damage them. They must have analyzed the situation and the risk vs reward ratio wasn't good enough to invest further, yet it was obviously still a good product that others are interested into.

Regardless how the contractual agreement between EA and Broadsword will look like, the fact that EA is willing to give SWTOR to someone else means that they are not interested into investing into it any further, therefore it would not matter if SWTOR remained at Bioware.

I'm not high on copium or anything, but this could indeed have advantages for SWTOR's further development, for example don't underestimate the shackles of policies and bureaucracy in large companies. People who are on full doom & gloom mode seem to have a pretty biased view on the situation. Neither UO nor DAOC seem to be in "maintenance mode" but even if those ancient games were, it would mean nothing for SWTOR at this point.

It would be in your interest to not accidentally forge your own self fulfilling prophecy just because you are angered and disappointed atm; you might regret it later.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Khoxion

[Stradlin]

14 hours ago, Char_Ell said:

This is incorrect.  Broadsword Online Games is not owned by EA but BioWare is owned by EA.  Broadsword was formed as an independent studio shortly after EA decided to close Mythic Entertainment and apparently has some rights to use the

I suppose nobody   knows the finer details of their relationship. Put it this way though - it isn't Broadsword that charges me for a monthly UO subscription, it is EA. If I want to buy 3 month gametime token instead of monthly sub, I do it from EA's store. If I want to buy some of the UO's expansions or cosmetic items or their version of "cartel coins", I do it via EA store. EA pays the bills and salaries. EA takes the  profits.  EA is the publisher, Broadsword devs these games for  EA. 

EA would never just..hand TOR away to a place where they'd not have a complete control over it.

I'd guess there is no financial side to this from Pov of Broadsword. Something seemingly huge like a tiny, tiny "independent" dev studio sudenly taking 40 new employees, a Star Wars license to worry about, all of that... these things are risks, rewards and investments that remain for EA to consider. In practical terms, I am certain EA has as much control over what Broadsword does as they do with different BW studios. Its not like Broadsword could ever ditch EA and find a new publisher, all of the games they run are owned by EA.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Stradlin

[jedimasterjac]

4 hours ago, Shayddow said:

With the fast growing capabilities of AI I don't think that the expense of VAs will be critical to new development.  As much as I hate to see machines replace people, the owners are in it for the money and if they can make money by using AI, they will use it.

this support for AI is soul-crushing. People clamoring for the day when actual talent can be replaced with emotionless, generic, computer-generated voices. Thank God! The future is here!

Edited June 8, 2023 by jedimasterjac

[Stradlin]

Lots of talk here about Ultima Online, figured some folks here might be curious to read up about what this magnificent ancient living dead actually is.

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929833-ultima-online-by-broadsword/

[Char_Ell]

6 hours ago, Stradlin said:

I suppose nobody   knows the finer details of their relationship. Put it this way though - it isn't Broadsword that charges me for a monthly UO subscription, it is EA. If I want to buy 3 month gametime token instead of monthly sub, I do it from EA's store. If I want to buy some of the UO's expansions or cosmetic items or their version of "cartel coins", I do it via EA store. EA pays the bills and salaries. EA takes the  profits.  EA is the publisher, Broadsword devs these games for  EA. 

EA would never just..hand TOR away to a place where they'd not have a complete control over it.

I'd guess there is no financial side to this from Pov of Broadsword. Something seemingly huge like a tiny, tiny "independent" dev studio sudenly taking 40 new employees, a Star Wars license to worry about, all of that... these things are risks, rewards and investments that remain for EA to consider. In practical terms, I am certain EA has as much control over what Broadsword does as they do with different BW studios. Its not like Broadsword could ever ditch EA and find a new publisher, all of the games they run are owned by EA.

Yes, you pay EA to play Ultima Online because EA is the game's publisher and thus handles the money transactions for UO.  Same applies to DAoC for that matter.  It's just Broadsword Online Games employees are not EA employees.  BioWare employees are EA employees because EA owns BioWare.  If SWTOR transitions to Broadsword then in all likelihood EA will continue to collect SWTOR's subscription fees and cartel coin revenue just like it currently does for UO and DAoC.  Maybe you are not aware but 3rd party developers used to be fairly common in the video game industry.  However with the significantly increasing costs of game development over the past 20 years it's much harder for independent studios to stay independent.  BioWare was an independent studio until EA purchased them in 2007.  BioWare developed games for multiple publishers (LucasArts, Microsoft, 2K Games) before it was acquired by EA.

I'm not sure what you mean by "there is no financial side to this from Pov of Broadsword."  I agree Broadsword taking on SWTOR would be a big change with it associated risks and rewards.  EA would provide whatever level of funding for SWTOR that is contractually agreed upon between Broadsword and EA and I have to think there would be bonuses specified for SWTOR hitting certain financial targets.  Of course EA should also be able to reduce Broadsword funding if SWTOR financial performance does not meet contractually defined levels as well.  Anything Broadsword wants to do with SWTOR would also need to have some level of approval from Lucasfilm Games which shouldn't be materially different from what BioWare already does.  My understanding is anything added to SWTOR, from cartel market items to story and characters, has to be reviewed and approved by Lucasfilm Games and/or Lucasfilm Story Group before being added to SWTOR.

[akdonkey]

I'm curious if there will be a server move. If so will there be merges and if there are merges how many alts will we be able to have or keep? That cloud server test comes to mind. 

[Ardrossan]

13 hours ago, akdonkey said:

I'm curious if there will be a server move. If so will there be merges and if there are merges how many alts will we be able to have or keep? That cloud server test comes to mind. 

A server merge combining SS and SF would be a good idea. I'm wary of it because the last time i had to delete two dozen characters before I could log in, but if the new server has sufficient capacity it could work, and it would be extremely helpful for maintaining some kind of group play, especially after the inevitable mass exodus.

[Darev]

2 minutes ago, Ardrossan said:

A server merge combining SS and SF would be a good idea. I'm wary of it because the last time i had to delete two dozen characters before I could log in, but if the new server has sufficient capacity it could work, and it would be extremely helpful for maintaining some kind of group play, especially after the inevitable mass exodus.

If they do that, I'll have 140 (or so) characters on the same server.

[Ardrossan]

On 6/8/2023 at 4:42 AM, jedimasterjac said:

this support for AI is soul-crushing. People clamoring for the day when actual talent can be replaced with emotionless, generic, computer-generated voices. Thank God! The future is here!

Agreed. I'm not completely anti-AI, I've experimented with Midjourney and ChatGPT, but this approaches the fear that the writers guilds have of AIs replacing them. Even if they could reproduce the male smuggler's voice perfectly, or a convincing facsimile, I wouldn't want them to--just pay them what they're worth! 

The attitude is a good example of the conservative, entitled nature of this forum: "just give me what I want and who cares about the labor of the workers[1] who created my entertainment". 

[1] Some of the workers anyway. I have no sympathy for execs of any kind, or PR flunkies whose job is to lie to players and spout propaganda. People like that always end up on top.  

[Ardrossan]

5 minutes ago, Darev said:

If they do that, I'll have 140 (or so) characters on the same server.

lol I thought I had a lot with 60. I'm already looking back and wondering how I managed to replay the same story 8+ times. I've replayed the ME trilogy 6 times and even that was a struggle. 

[Darev]

5 minutes ago, Ardrossan said:

lol I thought I had a lot with 60. I'm already looking back and wondering how I managed to replay the same story 8+ times. I've replayed the ME trilogy 6 times and even that was a struggle. 

I'd max out toons on the older servers all the time when I wanted to go through the story again.  20 toons here, 20 toons there....when the server merges happened, many went to SF, the rest went to SS.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, Darev said:

If they do that, I'll have 140 (or so) characters on the same server.

Similar for me too.