March 12 Interview in Venturebeat with Dallas Dickinson:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/13/star-wars-the-old-republic-was-built-to-thrive-in-a-wow-world/

Dickinson said that they won some and lost some in trying to scale up to full production with this kind of scope. He believes they did well in the voice over and writing development cycle, as well as outsourcing of art for both character and environment. Where they didn’t do so well, he said, was in the build pipeline (what gets done and by whom), data tables (tracking), and software scripting

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

Originally posted by Corehaven

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting  in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.

Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.

And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.

Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.

Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?

They got the core of the game wrong: The combat, group content, challenge and everything else that goes into an MMO to make it great was completely lacking.

If they had used their voiceover and writing funds to actually create a good core, then they might have had a WoW-killer on their hands. Didn't Bioware create NWN? How could they have fucked up this game so royally? EA might have been the publisher, but they weren't the ones responsible for designing the game.

When you see all of the other WoW clones die and wither away to f2p, you don't create a lesser quality WoW clone with voice acting and cut scenes; those weren't the features that WoW was lacking.

Originally posted by //\\//\\oo

They got the core of the game wrong: The combat, group content, challenge and everything else that goes into an MMO to make it great was completely lacking.

If they had used their voiceover and writing funds to actually create a good core, then they might have had a WoW-killer on their hands. Didn't Bioware create NWN? How could they have fucked up this game so royally? EA might have been the publisher, but they weren't the ones responsible for designing the game.

When you see all of the other WoW clones die and wither away to f2p, you don't create a lesser quality WoW clone with voice acting and cut scenes; those weren't the features that WoW was lacking.

 

 

 First WoW clones aren't withering away. They're raking in the cash. Second what's wrong with the core wouldn't be helped by throwing money at it. They built the core the way they intended to. If you don't like it it's not because they tried to please you and failed. It's because they weren't even trying to.  

For once in his life Dallas Dickinson is right about something. Those are the reasons why SWToR and almost every recent MMO didn't launch in the condition they should have. You have to get the production part of the game right or no matter what you're designing it's going to have issues.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 

 

 First WoW clones aren't withering away. They're raking in the cash. Second what's wrong with the core wouldn't be helped by throwing money at it. They built the core the way they intended to. If you don't like it it's not because they tried to please you and failed. It's because they weren't even trying to.  

For once in his life Dallas Dickinson is right about something. Those are the reasons why SWToR and almost every recent MMO didn't launch in the condition they should have. You have to get the production part of the game right or no matter what you're designing it's going to have issues.

  They are. It's called perfect competition: As your competitors tend to infinity your profit tends to zero. It was a stupid design decision. They didn't have to try and please me, but millions of others who have had their fill with WoW and other clones in the genre. They didn't realize that most of their subscriber base would have come from WoW and would have diminishing returns with respect to the same combat content etc.

If you're going to cater to the same crowd, you have to include all of the amenities i.e. all of the features that their last game had. Using the perfect compeition concept, you have to either deliver a perfect product of the same kind, or create a NEW product. They did neither. The cutscenes and voiceacting are mere fluff. You don't play a game when you sit and listen to a story, you watch a movie.

If people wanted to watch movies and not play games, they'd have bought a subscription to netflix, or whatever else is popular nowadays and gotten more out of it.

Production had nothing to do with SWToRs failure, but its core design. I don't care how well you produce a napkin, in the end, it's just a napkin and will lose to the other trusted brand names that have been producing napkins for decades. 

---

Originally posted by Hauvarn
Does anybody remember how big a deal ability delay was when the game launched?  You see anyone posting about it now?
And you guys say they aren't listening or fixing their game.

---

 
Anyone who cared about it left already, so no posting about it. Fixing a leak requires it to stuff it completely. Tweaking a few hindrances equals only filling half the leak size, while water still streams in.

No they are not listening. What many drove away: They even claim they never intended to have fluid gameplay. And it took an epic thread and lot of publicity to move their precious schedule to actually make it somewhat bearable with ability delay and hotfixes. It's not even remotely "fixed". Animations still override GCD / CD which leads to ability delay.

Now the same old story with texture quality and 1.2 - Half assed and still below average.

Or how about the Armor designs? We made sure to get the best designs - (outsourced them for $$ savings to china?) Then getting up about "taste" and how awesome they are.

How about the 4th pillar? The awesome cinematics / story? - Stop everything, walk to face to face range, talk 4 loop animations, use weapons your class even does not have, walk away. (poorly would be not fitting at all).

No, SWTORs problem is the don't get it. They continue to lie and douche bag everything people point out.

Originally posted by Skuz

Originally posted by ignore_me

I'd like to see the list of features they cut in order to get the release build. The article is really vague and can be interpreted in either direction. To me he is just saying, "I would have liked the project to have been smoother." The article doesn't address the brick wall at 50, and then there are some silly things like talking about having the companions to address Social gamers from the Bartle Index. I guess that means they included the restrictive static worlds especially for the Explorers, identical armor for everyone at end game for the Achievers, and Killers have the whole game as their oyster (that's all there is to do really).  

This and the comments made by the design team on the panel at PAX concerning hardcore gamers have me wanting to piss in the coffee pot at Bioware.

 

Here you go:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=363056

lol trueness

The way it launched had all the hallmarks of a parent coming on down from on high.  From the statements from bioware guys that it will launch when its ready to it launching right before christmas in the US in the state it was.

My guess is EA looked at how much time and effort had been expended into SWTOR and said, enough is enough.  We own bioware, and thus it will launch before christmas in the US, no matter if things are still not working properly or areas are not fully implemented.  Its launching.  Anyone who disagrees, the door and the end of your employment here is -------->>> that way

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Corehaven

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting  in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.

Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.

And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.

Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.

Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?

 

That's silly.

Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr.  They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.

Originally posted by fadis

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Corehaven

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting  in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.

Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.

And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.

Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.

Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?

 

 

That's silly.

Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr.  They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.

Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.

Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said.

Well thats a kick in the balls to those who want to play something long term, which is the aim of the mmorpg genre is it not?

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by fadis

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Corehaven

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting  in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.

Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.

And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.

Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.

Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?

 

 

That's silly.

Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr.  They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.

Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.

Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good. 

Tell us more about how good the game is again?

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by fadis

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Corehaven

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting  in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.

Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.

And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.

Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.

Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?

 

 

That's silly.

Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr.  They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.

Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.

The problem with hiring a non-professional voice actors is simply that it's not very manageable. How would you handle casting calls, etc. if you open it up to thousands or tens of thousands of non-professionals? It's much easier and faster to work through agencies and pick someone who is proven. And those people tend to be unionized.

Originally posted by noncley

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by fadis

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Corehaven

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting  in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.

Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.

And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.

Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.

Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?

 

 

That's silly.

Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr.  They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.

Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.

Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good. 

Tell us more about how good the game is again?

EA/BW  has used professional actors/musicians/atheletes/etc in their other games. These professionals have a base standard industry pay rate. Because EA/BW has used professionals before, I can bet you they are under contract to use professionals in the future.

To hire non-professionals would be concidered "scabbing" and you can bet dollars to donuts there would be noise about it.

Besides, no one would take the schlub at $8hr seriously. Try it. Go into some company in the Entertainment Industry and try to sell yourself as a voice-over actor for $8hr. See what happens

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by noncley

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by fadis

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Corehaven

 

The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg.  Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on.  Hire me.  I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place.  I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it.  Thanks. 

 

They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good.  Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs.  Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad. 

 

Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems.   But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment?  Why?  You couldnt handle that?  What the hell has happened to Bioware? 

 

Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget?  You've failed in EVERY regard.  Its a fair mmo.  Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here.  Man alive this is sad.

No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting  in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.

Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.

And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.

Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.

Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?

 

 

That's silly.

Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr.  They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.

Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.

Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good. 

Tell us more about how good the game is again?

EA/BW  has used professional actors/musicians/atheletes/etc in their other games. These professionals have a base standard industry pay rate. Because EA/BW has used professionals before, I can bet you they are under contract to use professionals in the future.

To hire non-professionals would be concidered "scabbing" and you can bet dollars to donuts there would be noise about it.

Besides, no one would take the schlub at $8hr seriously. Try it. Go into some company in the Entertainment Industry and try to sell yourself as a voice-over actor for $8hr. See what happens

Oh its not that couldnt have done it.  I played a fan made game called Wing Commander Dark Saga recently and its voice overs were excellent.  Some of the best Ive heard in a game.  I seriously doubt they were being paid 75 bucks an hour.  Or being paid at all. 

But you are right in that Bioware has done exactly what you've said and?  Thats where the money went.   Thats why the game is lacking. 

Originally posted by Corehaven

Originally posted by PyrateLV

EA/BW  has used professional actors/musicians/atheletes/etc in their other games. These professionals have a base standard industry pay rate. Because EA/BW has used professionals before, I can bet you they are under contract to use professionals in the future.

To hire non-professionals would be concidered "scabbing" and you can bet dollars to donuts there would be noise about it.

Besides, no one would take the schlub at $8hr seriously. Try it. Go into some company in the Entertainment Industry and try to sell yourself as a voice-over actor for $8hr. See what happens

 

Oh its not that couldnt have done it.  I played a fan made game called Wing Commander Dark Saga recently and its voice overs were excellent.  Some of the best Ive heard in a game.  I seriously doubt they were being paid 75 bucks an hour.  Or being paid at all. 

 

But you are right in that Bioware has done exactly what you've said and?  Thats where the money went.   Thats why the game is lacking. 

Thats where using non-professional people can be gotten away with. The company that makes that game is probably an Indy company (or some guys in their basement) that have never used a professional entertainer (actor/athelete) to put voices in their game. So they have never signed a Union or Industry contract

Its like once you sign a contract to use professionals to voice your game, you cant go back. They get their hooks in and dont let go. Kinda like the Mob.

Well they will let go, but not without alot of pain and scarring.

Originally posted by Elikal

GAH! When will developers learn! "SWTOR was built to thrive in a WOW world". THAT is why you fail.

I remeber very well how MMOs worked when WOW was launched, and back then, Blizzard purposefully broke at least 50% of MMO conventions. Before WOW most quest givers had no "!", few had radar or did even direct to the quest goal area, bosses had hours or days of respawn rates asf. What made the success of WOW back then was that radical change WOW made in many details and subsystems, and NOT just copying the WOW of it's day, Everquest I, but working on the flaws which had made EQ1 a hardcore niche game. That brough WOW to a mass market audience.

And sorry, SWTOR is just a BAD WOW copy attempty. Many, many things which I liked in WOW were entirely absent in SWTOR. The cool and beloved player hubs, the attention to detail, the mood and atmopshere of the zones, dungeon finder aka no idle waiting, meaningful factions, asf. I am really no WOW fan, but SWTOR missed to add a lot of what made WOW good, and copied only the lame parts. You don't defeat a top MMO just by "making it similar". You have to innovate not imitate, to paraphrase a perfume ad. ;)

"Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said." THIS is SO wrong! They totally failed to keep people.

Blast. They have no understanding that a game also needs soul, heart, something you can feel. This game is so damn cold, technical and sterile in so many areas. That is what they didn't get. I'd say it lacks the "feminine touch". It's a house not a home. All is planned rationally and counted in metrics and statistics. Only that numbers don't make something alive! Bah...

very well written and dead on, not that the previous posts were any less viable. It is a sterile cold world with very little socialization if any at all. Playing on advabced planets with 15 people, deleting your heroics for lack of ever completing them? Past Alderaan, I have yet to complete a 4 man heroic. It's hopeless. I spent a good part of my day on the official SWTOR forums arguing about the "Jesus" 1.2 patch because they will not let us know when it will actually be released. Who cares, it adds very little to an already mundane experience. I sunk a great deal of time into this monstrosity and feel violated having done so. I need a shower!

Originally posted by noncley

Originally posted by ktanner3
 

Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.

Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good. 

Tell us more about how good the game is again?

Why would I waste my time doing that? Play it or don't play it. I could care less.

Originally posted by Elikal

GAH! When will developers learn! "SWTOR was built to thrive in a WOW world". THAT is why you fail.

I remeber very well how MMOs worked when WOW was launched, and back then, Blizzard purposefully broke at least 50% of MMO conventions. Before WOW most quest givers had no "!", few had radar or did even direct to the quest goal area, bosses had hours or days of respawn rates asf. What made the success of WOW back then was that radical change WOW made in many details and subsystems, and NOT just copying the WOW of it's day, Everquest I, but working on the flaws which had made EQ1 a hardcore niche game. That brough WOW to a mass market audience.

And sorry, SWTOR is just a BAD WOW copy attempty. Many, many things which I liked in WOW were entirely absent in SWTOR. The cool and beloved player hubs, the attention to detail, the mood and atmopshere of the zones, dungeon finder aka no idle waiting, meaningful factions, asf. I am really no WOW fan, but SWTOR missed to add a lot of what made WOW good, and copied only the lame parts. You don't defeat a top MMO just by "making it similar". You have to innovate not imitate, to paraphrase a perfume ad. ;)

"Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said." THIS is SO wrong! They totally failed to keep people.

Blast. They have no understanding that a game also needs soul, heart, something you can feel. This game is so damn cold, technical and sterile in so many areas. That is what they didn't get. I'd say it lacks the "feminine touch". It's a house not a home. All is planned rationally and counted in metrics and statistics. Only that numbers don't make something alive! Bah...