Where are we going, and how did we get here?

[Pirana]

23 minutes ago, Pietrastor said:

That's the thing though, and the question of "how did we get here" - FFXIV and ESO launched around the same time as TOR having the same problems. FFXIV in particular being in worse state than TOR and ESO combined.  

Yet a decade later, the other 2 games are significantly more popular and turned around their reputations far greater than SWTOR ever did. And both have a far better outlook on the future than TOR

Both Star Wars MMO's made huge mistakes with most of those happening at launch, then you mix in the fact that a Star Wars MMO is a niche genre, fantasy games such as the ones mentioned in my previous post are far more desirable. This game was terrible at launch and should have waited at least another year before releasing, but investors wanted a return. This game made too many mistakes at launch, it's that simple, not including the amount of money that was invested in this game. People were leaving in droves after only a couple of months. 

 

[Lenlo]

Part of the problem is that SWTOR sort of exists in a gray zone in relation to Disney and it would cost tens of millions of dollars to resurrect a game that hasn't been popular in over ten years. Support from the House of the Mouse would help a lot.

[Lenlo]

11 hours ago, Pirana said:

Both Star Wars MMO's made huge mistakes with most of those happening at launch, then you mix in the fact that a Star Wars MMO is a niche genre, fantasy games such as the ones mentioned in my previous post are far more desirable. This game was terrible at launch and should have waited at least another year before releasing, but investors wanted a return. This game made too many mistakes at launch, it's that simple, not including the amount of money that was invested in this game. People were leaving in droves after only a couple of months. 

 

People left in droves because BioWare failed to merge servers and post launch support was a bad joke.

[Pirana]

22 minutes ago, Lenlo said:

People left in droves because BioWare failed to merge servers and post launch support was a bad joke.

At launch there were massive server queues, within a couple of weeks, additional servers were added which increased the server count to well over two hundred, people got to end game, realized there wasn't one, people left, then the consolidations occurred, I was there. The fact remains, if this game had anything close to resembling an actual end game, people wouldn't have left forcing those consolidations.

You got one thing right, support was terrible, it didn't matter if we contacted them on the forums or on Twitter, it was lackluster. At least two story lines were broke and couldn't be continued, that was only a very small area of the game that was incomplete. 

[Kryptonomic]

21 hours ago, Pirana said:

made huge mistakes with most of those happening at launch

Very much agreed on this. One of the issues, as BioWare admitted in various interviews over time, people "raced through the content." What they mean is they created an MMO and weren't prepared for the idea of "endgame." They just really didn't get that part of it. This stems in part from SWTOR originally having been KOTOR 3 and then moved into an MMO format.

They also, perhaps oddly, didn't anticipate, how much people would group or try to play content together given that it was an MMO. So queues were incredibly bad and servers were not optimized.

So notice two trends there: people raced through content (in BioWare's view) and they played together. It may sound odd to say it, but BioWare wasn't ready for that? Why? Because the overriding mentality was still a "single player game in a world shared with other players" which is a subtle (or perhaps subtle) difference from an MMO in some people's eyes.

Now, oddly enough, with servers not optimized, one of the reasons for that was because they anticipated so many players and so had a lot of servers. A whole lot. So the population they did have became distributed. But keep in mind they were still thinking of these players are largely "single players who might group up for story." So then you merge everyone into fewer servers -- and all the sudden those poor optimizations become clear quickly. And the queuing strategy that was a bit of an afterthought (if we're being honest) showed the chinks in its armor.

And let's even forget about the MMO parts for a second. Consider the story itself. BioWare realized people were, again in their terms, "racing through the content." Thus fully voice-acted content with huge story narrative and interconnections, plus companion interactions, plus decisions were "finished" by players much quicker than anticipated. BioWare originally planned on a much longer time for players to get through content.

But lots of players were "done" with the so-called vanilla story. Yikes! Now what? You have set expectations around deep story, interconnections, and full voice-acting. But ... you have no new content. And even if you did, you certainly don't have content that matches the scope of the first three chapters.

And this truly does go back (at least in my mind) to what I mentioned way upthread and a few of us have discussed: a conflicted and conflicting identity for the game from the start. That conflict at the studio level ultimately reflected itself in the broader community who had to navigate exactly what SWTOR was and how to engage with it, balancing the ideas of pre-existing games that were inspirations to it (Star Wars: Galaxies, KOTOR 1, KOTOR 2) and pre-existing games that it was a reaction to (World of Warcraft).

Edited February 9 by Kryptonomic

[Pirana]

53 minutes ago, Kryptonomic said:

Very much agreed on this. One of the issues, as BioWare admitted in various interviews over time, people "raced through the content." What they mean is they created an MMO and weren't prepared for the idea of "endgame." They just really didn't get that part of it. This stems in part from SWTOR originally having been KOTOR 3 and then moved into an MMO format.

They also, perhaps oddly, didn't anticipate, how much people would group or try to play content together given that it was an MMO. So queues were incredibly bad and servers were not optimized.

So notice two trends there: people raced through content (in BioWare's view) and they played together. It may sound odd to say it, but BioWare wasn't ready for that? Why? Because the overriding mentality was still a "single player game in a world shared with other players" which is a subtle (or perhaps subtle) difference from an MMO in some people's eyes.

Now, oddly enough, with servers not optimized, one of the reasons for that was because they anticipated so many players and so had a lot of servers. A whole lot. So the population they did have became distributed. But keep in mind they were still thinking of these players are largely "single players who might group up for story." So then you merge everyone into fewer servers -- and all the sudden those poor optimizations become clear quickly. And the queuing strategy that was a bit of an afterthought (if we're being honest) showed the chinks in its armor.

And let's even forget about the MMO parts for a second. Consider the story itself. BioWare realized people were, again in their terms, "racing through the content." Thus fully voice-acted content with huge story narrative and interconnections, plus companion interactions, plus decisions were "finished" by players much quicker than anticipated. BioWare originally planned on a much longer time for players to get through content.

But lots of players were "done" with the so-called vanilla story. Yikes! Now what? You have set expectations around deep story, interconnections, and full voice-acting. But ... you have no new content. And even if you did, you certainly don't have content that matches the scope of the first three chapters.

And this truly does go back (at least in my mind) to what I mentioned way upthread and a few of us have discussed: a conflicted and conflicting identity for the game from the start. That conflict at the studio level ultimately reflected itself in the broader community who had to navigate exactly what SWTOR was and how to engage with it, balancing the ideas of pre-existing games that were inspirations to it (Star Wars: Galaxies, KOTOR 1, KOTOR 2) and pre-existing games that it was a reaction to (World of Warcraft).

Pretty much. Looks like you were here close to launch so you remember the game from its beginnings. This game also didn't launch with a group finder, meaning that anyone that wanted to run flashpoints, had to meet on the fleet near the entrance before zoning in. What game doesn't launch with a group finder in 2011...  GW2 doesn't have a dungeon finder, but at least you can form groups using their LFG tool, then meet at the dungeon.

This game simply wasn't ready to launch and should have waited another year, but with how many years put into development and SWG's contract expiring, they felt it was the perfect time to launch SWTOR. 

When people compare this game to other game's launches such as the aforementioned FF14 and ESO's questionable launches, those games made the necessary adjustments, now both games are two of the best MMO's still on the market. There's too many issues to list as to why this game is in the state that it's currently in, but the red flags started at launch. This game has had a good run, and even if it continues to stay in maintenance mode with small content updates trickled in, it should still remain active for awhile longer, but it had the potential to be a lot more.  

[Pietrastor]

On 2/8/2024 at 1:27 PM, Pirana said:

Both Star Wars MMO's made huge mistakes with most of those happening at launch, then you mix in the fact that a Star Wars MMO is a niche genre, fantasy games such as the ones mentioned in my previous post are far more desirable. This game was terrible at launch and should have waited at least another year before releasing, but investors wanted a return. This game made too many mistakes at launch, it's that simple, not including the amount of money that was invested in this game. People were leaving in droves after only a couple of months. 

 

My point is that other uber-costly AAA MMOs releasing around the same time as SWTOR made exactly the same, if not worse, mistakes. Yet they IMPROVED and rectified those mistakes far better than TOR. People left in droves both FFXIV and ESO too short after each respective launch

[Pirana]

47 minutes ago, Pietrastor said:

My point is that other uber-costly AAA MMOs releasing around the same time as SWTOR made exactly the same, if not worse, mistakes. Yet they IMPROVED and rectified those mistakes far better than TOR. People left in droves both FFXIV and ESO too short after each respective launch

I'm aware of this and I've elaborated on why this game is where it's at now a few times in this thread among many other threads. ESO and 14 made the necessary changes and EAWare did not, this is a pointless discussion for anyone that has here from the beginning. We know why this game sits where it does, and it starts back at square one, launch, only for this company to compound mistake after mistake over the years. 

[Lenlo]

1 hour ago, Pirana said:

I'm aware of this and I've elaborated on why this game is where it's at now a few times in this thread among many other threads. ESO and 14 made the necessary changes and EAWare did not, this is a pointless discussion for anyone that has here from the beginning. We know why this game sits where it does, and it starts back at square one, launch, only for this company to compound mistake after mistake over the years. 

Anecdotally, there is also the issue of BioWare Edmonton and EA cannibalizing SWTOR's resources to make other titles like Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem. As well, SWTOR was actually profitable around the time of KOTFE and KOTET, but little of the revenue was reinvested back into the game.

I've said this before but I just don't see this game getting resurrected unless the Mouse gets interested. Write a fan petition to Dave Filoni maybe.

[Otowi]

If we could get Filoni and/or Favreau involved, I think things could improve a lot. 

They are very good directors and that can be seen in anything they are involved with, from TCW to The Mandalorian. And they care about the IP.

An entire expansion made by Filoni/Favreau would be really good I think.

Well, we can dream.

Edited February 9 by Otowi

[Pirana]

29 minutes ago, Lenlo said:

Anecdotally, there is also the issue of BioWare Edmonton and EA cannibalizing SWTOR's resources to make other titles like Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem. As well, SWTOR was actually profitable around the time of KOTFE and KOTET, but little of the revenue was reinvested back into the game.

I've said this before but I just don't see this game getting resurrected unless the Mouse gets interested. Write a fan petition to Dave Filoni maybe.

That's what we were told last year, whether or not that is what actually occurred, we'll never know. I've worked for Fortune 500 companies before, a lot of that stuff is PR, it's a moot point either way, the game has been passed off to a company whose only claim to fame was UO. The game is in maintenance mode, nothing is going to change that, but there is plenty of content to keep its head above water for quite some time and whatever little content gets released. 

If there's somehow a flurry of quality Disney Star Wars movies, this game could see a rebirth, but the Sci-Fi genre in MMO's is already a niche community compared to fantasy style games with mages, warriors, rogues, archers, etc., then you mix in this game's poor reputation which is nearly as bad as SWG's, it's unlikely things will improve. That isn't hyperbole either, almost everywhere I read, most people do not like this game and think it's only story driven, and no matter how many times I try to defend it on other platforms, noting that it's not the same game as launch, that there is plenty of end game now, people still don't want to give it another try. So after the first nine years of being a sub with this game, I come and go, if it grows again, great, it not, there are plenty of other good MMO's on the market. 

[SentinalMasterWW]

Ok back here after the stream, and honestly it's what I thought it was going to be. 

The stream honestly seemed like its only two purposes was talking about the new seasons and the Cartel Market. 

Here is a list of things I really didn't care about 

- New Stronghold, in Copero, with missions given 
- Red/Pink Metallic Dye ,
- Prime Centurion Armor Set,
- Gothic Master Armor Set,
- Green/Gold Enhanced Dye Pack (Metallic),
- New purple metallic dye coming with Season 6 Track 🤣 ,
- Copero Utility Bundle Cartel Market item,
- Date night with companions. 

Yeah that about sums it up, The last part is honestly just going to be a 5-10 minute mission that is mainly cutscenes. 

PVP Seasons at least has new flair this time around since the removal of ranked PVP. 

But still,

Where is PVP Revamps? Where is PVE Revamps? Where is fixing levelling and progression? Why do they not undo pruning and see that it is hurting their core gameplay loop? 

Players are literally just asking for MEANINGFUL content. I literally wasn't expecting this stream to have numerous game changing updates, but when your competitors are blowing you out of the water with theirs content drops, its not surprising people move over to them

I was hoping for at least one repeat one change, anything from big to small that would make the game better. Instead I get hit with meh content. When they release the patch notes, if there is Class tweaks that come with it and its good, than maybe its not a bad update. But starting the year off like this is not really a great start and doesn't give me hope. To me it sounds a bit harsh, but I think the Dev's really don't want to admit there is anything wrong with the game, and would rather focus on milking the Cartel Market, doing as little effort with PVP and galactic seasons, and sprinkling in a tiny bit of story. 

 

[Nee-Elder]

3 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Where is PVP Revamps? Where is PVE Revamps?

Where is  GSF anything?  Where is Crafting  anything?

*crickets*

3 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Players are literally just asking for MEANINGFUL content. I literally wasn't expecting this stream to have numerous game changing updates, but when your competitors are blowing you out of the water with theirs content drops, its not surprising people move over to them

Just compare what ESO gets to what we get here in SWTOR.

Really is such a shame tbqh.

3 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

The stream honestly seemed like its only two purposes was talking about the new seasons and the Cartel Market.

Welcome to SWTOR  in the 2020-  years.

Truly baffling to me.

3 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

To me it sounds a bit harsh, but I think the Dev's really don't want to admit there is anything wrong with the game, and would rather focus on milking the Cartel Market, doing as little effort with PVP and galactic seasons, and sprinkling in a tiny bit of story.

Because  they ( EA ) know the SW fan playerbase  will continue to accept the status quo.

BioSword is doing the best they can and obviously just wants to keep things as publicly positive as any rational/normal human employee would (and should) for their job $ecurity.

Internally though, well, let's just say i'd be very interested in how they talk during private DEV chats.

[Pirana]

11 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

Ok back here after the stream, and honestly it's what I thought it was going to be. 

The stream honestly seemed like its only two purposes was talking about the new seasons and the Cartel Market. 

Here is a list of things I really didn't care about 

- New Stronghold, in Copero, with missions given 
- Red/Pink Metallic Dye ,
- Prime Centurion Armor Set,
- Gothic Master Armor Set,
- Green/Gold Enhanced Dye Pack (Metallic),
- New purple metallic dye coming with Season 6 Track 🤣 ,
- Copero Utility Bundle Cartel Market item,
- Date night with companions. 

Yeah that about sums it up, The last part is honestly just going to be a 5-10 minute mission that is mainly cutscenes. 

PVP Seasons at least has new flair this time around since the removal of ranked PVP. 

But still,

Where is PVP Revamps? Where is PVE Revamps? Where is fixing levelling and progression? Why do they not undo pruning and see that it is hurting their core gameplay loop? 

Players are literally just asking for MEANINGFUL content. I literally wasn't expecting this stream to have numerous game changing updates, but when your competitors are blowing you out of the water with theirs content drops, its not surprising people move over to them

I was hoping for at least one repeat one change, anything from big to small that would make the game better. Instead I get hit with meh content. When they release the patch notes, if there is Class tweaks that come with it and its good, than maybe its not a bad update. But starting the year off like this is not really a great start and doesn't give me hope. To me it sounds a bit harsh, but I think the Dev's really don't want to admit there is anything wrong with the game, and would rather focus on milking the Cartel Market, doing as little effort with PVP and galactic seasons, and sprinkling in a tiny bit of story. 

 

Didn't get a chance to listen to the stream, but thank you for the cliff notes. None of this surprises me in the least, it's about what you would expect from a company with limited resources. What you have listed doesn't seem too difficult to develop and implement.

As mentioned above, this is Star Wars and some fans are willing to accept this as the norm, the days of anything resembling an expansion are gone, preaching to the choir here, but nevertheless. lol This makes sense considering what little this company has to work with. This game going ftp and introducing the CM played a huge factor as to why this game was able to get by those speed bumps early in the its lifespan and it hasn't changed, so they're going to keep investing in it. This is right on par with what some of us expected, just a matter of the particulars.

[Guyverarmor]

Something something small indie company something something.

But yeah, SWTOR will NEVER....NEVER...see an "Expansion" like what WoW, LOTRO, or FFXIV has. Hard stop, it won't happen. If you somehow believe that then you are deluding yourself.

Would I love it if we did? Hell yes I would, but I know it isn't happen. I will say though, really does amaze me that LOTRO somehow pumps out decent size expacs with multiple zones, quests, deeds (their version of achievements), dungeons and raids along with new items for their store as well as in-game. And from what I can tell, they have a smaller team that handles LOTRO and DDO.

If LOTRO's team can churn out good size expacs, but somehow an MMO that has one of the BIGGEST IPs attached to it cannot...then that's a failure on the devs and people working on the game. Period.

[Guyverarmor]

Just now, Guyverarmor said:

Something something small indie company something something.

But yeah, SWTOR will NEVER....NEVER...see an "Expansion" like what WoW, LOTRO, or FFXIV has. Hard stop, it won't happen. If you somehow believe that then you are deluding yourself.

Would I love it if we did? Hell yes I would, but I know it isn't happen. I will say though, really does amaze me that LOTRO somehow pumps out decent size expacs with multiple zones, quests, deeds (their version of achievements), dungeons and raids along with new items for their store as well as in-game. And from what I can tell, they have a smaller team that handles LOTRO and DDO.

If LOTRO's team can churn out good size expacs, but somehow an MMO that has one of the BIGGEST IPs attached to it cannot...then that's a failure on the devs and people working on the game. Period.

Oh, and redoing models too! Currently they are in process of re-doing High Elf and Elf models w/ Hobbits coming afterward. Along with class tunings, classes and races.

[SentinalMasterWW]

I've seen some discussions about certain topics and be people saying regarding the stream "It's what you expect". 

The general problem is that people become complacent with a mediocre product, people defend this game saying "oh the vocal people are just toxic". Partial truth to that, but in reality what people are vocal about myself included what were asking for it is literally just fixes to the game to make it better. Here is a list of things bioware could fix and you tell me if it sounds ridiculous to ask of a studio with a major IP attached to it. 

-Better PVP Seasons, with incentives for veteran players, possibly including a leaderboard and handing out flairs and extra rewards to top players.

-Better PVP Matchmaking, with limiting premades down to 4 players in warzones, and 2 in arenas. 

-Add new PVP maps and Modes, including more Arenas.

-Adding more to GSF, Why not add  ship customization with paint jobs? Why not add more gear to the vendor and maybe even add in a GSF season with unique rewards catered to that community. 

-Undo Class pruning and make classes feel fun again. 

-Fix levelling and progression. 

-Add NIM difficulty to operations that don't have one including R-4. 

-New operations and flashpoints, including bringing back 16 man operations.

- Finish the Mandalorian storyline at a more reasonable pace so we can get back to Republic vs Empire, and get Malgus back in the action.

-Add an Augment vendor to fleet that sells 312 Augments and MK-11 Augment kits, Than introduce a new 316 Augment for Crafters. 

-Increase the F2P Credit cap to 5 Mil, and make Preferred 10 Mil. 1 Mil credits is barely anything nowadays, and with inflation can barely buy you stuff off the GTN.

Really any one change of these following to the game would make it better, instead we get PVP seasons where once again they expect us to play the same maps to fill up a bar, and once that bar gets full. I quit PVPing for the week because I don't care, and there is no incentive for me to do so. 

PVE Seasons, where you start a new class and do 5 story missions on Korriban, not like you want to again given the horrible levelling process. 

Endgame is basically non existent, and is the reason why this game has a population of around 3-5K players at best currently, because why would they put time into the same old content over and over again. 

But why do this, when we can go back to Voss and do a cleaning minigame....

 

[ExarSun]

5 hours ago, Guyverarmor said:

Something something small indie company something something.

But yeah, SWTOR will NEVER....NEVER...see an "Expansion" like what WoW, LOTRO, or FFXIV has. Hard stop, it won't happen. If you somehow believe that then you are deluding yourself.

Would I love it if we did? Hell yes I would, but I know it isn't happen. I will say though, really does amaze me that LOTRO somehow pumps out decent size expacs with multiple zones, quests, deeds (their version of achievements), dungeons and raids along with new items for their store as well as in-game. And from what I can tell, they have a smaller team that handles LOTRO and DDO.

If LOTRO's team can churn out good size expacs, but somehow an MMO that has one of the BIGGEST IPs attached to it cannot...then that's a failure on the devs and people working on the game. Period.

Exactly this. LOTRO and their Dev Team have proven that great things and whole expansion could be made with a small budget, if you have a competent, caring and dedicated dev team. I am amazed at the turn-around and expansions they make. The opposite is being shown in SWTOR.

[Trlance]

Quote

Voss - oh my god...this is the worst...again very boring and worthless story - no character or world building or any imortant thing happening whatsoever. You could have brought Sel Makor - Shrine of Silence something connection, but no no....its some czerka nobodies searching for artefacts....its like a side mission in Vanilla Class Story.

^ this. And i heard Chains in the dark is similar because have this Kotor cutscenes too what almost always don't have voice acting. Shrine of Silence .. one of flashpoint if i'm correct who don't have ANY cutscenes.

Next what? Copero without story if i understand correctly. Then probably it will be same boring like Intepreter's Retreat. Next Hutta .. another old planet instead new one doesn't feel optimistic but looks like until i will play it i will never know.

Expansions story what i like: Kotfe, Kotet and everything before. Traitor arc (Umbara and so on), Echoes of Oblivion, Elom and Ruhnuk. The rest is little dull or worse (new Voss area like i said). That means for something good you must wait 2 years or more ..

When devs will learn finally and give us something little better than what i already play (Old Wounds)? Not mention every story is TINY progress and little information. I feel like devs don't know where they going with Swtor anymore and they just milk it with "whatever it takes" ..

~ Tsukito, Alliance Commander

Edited February 16 by Trlance

[Lenlo]

9 hours ago, Trlance said:

^ this. And i heard Chains in the dark is similar because have this Kotor cutscenes too what almost always don't have voice acting. Shrine of Silence .. one of flashpoint if i'm correct who don't have ANY cutscenes.

Next what? Copero without story if i understand correctly. Then probably it will be same boring like Intepreter's Retreat. Next Hutta .. another old planet instead new one doesn't feel optimistic but looks like until i will play it i will never know.

Expansions story what i like: Kotfe, Kotet and everything before. Traitor arc (Umbara and so on), Echoes of Oblivion, Elom and Ruhnuk. The rest is little dull or worse (new Voss area like i said). That means for something good you must wait 2 years or more ..

When devs will learn finally and give us something little better than what i already play (Old Wounds)? Not mention every story is TINY progress and little information. I feel like devs don't know where they going with Swtor anymore and they just milk it with "whatever it takes" ..

~ Tsukito, Alliance Commander

Welcome to maintenance mode.

 

[LeoAugustina]

Its going nowhere and its in maintenance mode, so many people are in denial about this. Come on, its 30 min of content every six month.

Mandalorian/Malgus thing is the most boring thing in SWTOR history by far. I'm sure in 2060, Magus still be planning things in his cell. IMP/REP was on track with 6.0, imperial side with a new, interesting  Empire (dark council working together, idiotic sith killed) with cool characters (Anri, Rivik, Krovos). All that is gone and now there is only those moron of Mandalorian that nobody cares. For 2 years so now it's over.

Edited February 16 by LeoAugustina

[Guyverarmor]

3 hours ago, Lenlo said:

Welcome to maintenance mode.

 

Sir, we don't say that around here. Gonna hurt some people's feelings.

But agreed, this is maintenance mode. It is what it is. Broadsword is only known for taking in MMOs for minimal updates if that and keeping them alive via random bug fixes and keeping the light on. That's it. As soon as I saw it being moved to Broadsword, EA didn't even NEED to say it for everyone to know it's maintenance mode.

My predictions: They finish out the 7.x storyline and with them saying "2025 will be a big year for em" awhile back, I think that means that they wrap up the story, end game story updates and at that point it just becomes one big space barbie sim. What hurts the most is that this game could have been SO MUCH BETTER! This game could have stood shoulder to shoulder with WoW and FFXIV... I 100% believe that. But EA and Bioware squandered every single opportunity. They pissed away the chance to make an MMO on one of the BIGGEST IPs in the world. It's like bankrupting a casino: You either are laundering money and get caught, or so extremely stupid and inept that the place collapses.