My fondest memory of something like this happening is about a week before the NGE hit SWG (which was absolutely and literally a bomb on the userbase -- no inclination or hints at what it was) a guy came to the forums spelling out exactly what the new patch with Trials of Obi-wan would be and everyone laughed at him and told him how stupid he was.  His post was even locked.

I still smile at the thought of how he was graciously warning us a week ahead of time what would really happen in very convincing detail.  Makes you wonder who it really was, too.

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but it was fan feedback from the day we opened the forums that encouraged us to design it for the fans the way it is and that included making it more like Kotor then an MMO like Wow

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Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by DeaconX

"but it was fan feedback from the day we opened the forums that encouraged us to design it for the fans the way it is and that included making it more like Kotor then an MMO like Wow."

That line annoyed me... either a huge majority of beta testers were saying the exact opposite things that I was saying, or the above is just bs...

Yeah I have no idea what "fans' were telling them to make the game like KOTOR.  And really, since the VO part of the game is essentially what makes it like KOTOR, and VO is far and above the most major part of this game...I don't think it would even be possible for "fan feedback" to have changed the direction of the game.  It clearly meant to be more KOTOR-like from the start.

As a person who was part the beta test from pretty early on I can tell you they DID NOT listen to our feedback at all. We told them, multiple times, the problems the game had.

One small example I vividly remember was the space combat. You could maybe find 1 post in 20 that liked the space combat in the game and the "rails" aspect of it. But it always felt like they had a release date to meet and couldn't make any real changes other than some small ones here and there. Many of us even told them don't release it with the space combat get it right and release the space combat part later. That's just one example, so any big issues that were raised died on the vine so to speak.

Now if they listened to the forums and designed a game a certain way, then had no way to change some things that were clearly not working, for whatever reason, that's on them.

Originally posted by kellian1

As a person who was part the beta test from pretty early on I can tell you they DID NOT listen to our feedback at all. We told them, multiple times, the problems the game had.

 

One small example I vividly remember was the space combat. You could maybe find 1 post in 20 that liked the space combat in the game and the "rails" aspect of it. But it always felt like they had a release date to meet and couldn't make any real changes other than some small ones here and there. Many of us even told them don't release it with the space combat get it right and release the space combat part later. That's just one example, so any big issues that were raised died on the vine so to speak.

 

Now if they listened to the forums and designed a game a certain way, then had no way to change some things that were clearly not working, for whatever reason, that's on them.

Is really sad.

i must admit i'm a true hater. i really enjoy reading how the boat is sinking so fast. 

And i'm a hater and  not just  a "leaver" because I dont have any game to come back, as my main game SWG was closed in favour of this garbage.

But the only thing I enjoyed of SWTOR was the space...was so dumb, so... how can you call it?, lame...that was even cute. If EA/BW would introduced more stupid games like that (a pod racer minigame, the galactic mahong, some kind of dejaric battles, even a TCG) i will be more entertained than with the game itself. 

The point of what I'm saying is the game and the quests are so boring that space is actually fun just for not to be looking at those lifeless worlds and endless loading screens.

This person has a horrible grasp of the english language.  My BS meter is going crazy, even though my hope is that the game does go F2P.

You're right...I don't believe him.  You know how many pretenders post seemingly accurate information only to get debunked later?  The percentage is really high...I think in the 90 percentile.

People get a kick out of being "famous" by pretending to be someone important.  The real truth is that no one knows except top brass and they don't play games or visit forums.  Think about it...

Originally posted by uohaloran

My fondest memory of something like this happening is about a week before the NGE hit SWG (which was absolutely and literally a bomb on the userbase -- no inclination or hints at what it was) a guy came to the forums spelling out exactly what the new patch with Trials of Obi-wan would be and everyone laughed at him and told him how stupid he was.  His post was even locked.

I still smile at the thought of how he was graciously warning us a week ahead of time what would really happen in very convincing detail.  Makes you wonder who it really was, too.

I remember that. I believe it was two weeks before the bombshell announcement. No one believed him because the CU wasn't that long before and it didn't seem possible that SOE would change the game a second time in just six months. 

Originally posted by nachofoot

You're right...I don't believe him.  You know how many pretenders post seemingly accurate information only to get debunked later?  The percentage is really high...I think in the 90 percentile.

 

 

People get a kick out of being "famous" by pretending to be someone important.  The real truth is that no one knows except top brass and they don't play games or visit forums.  Think about it...

Some times the truth stares you right in the face, " All you have to do is Open your Eyes "

              " Charlie Mike "

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Originally posted by Bardus

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Originally posted by nachofoot You're right...I don't believe him.  You know how many pretenders post seemingly accurate information only to get debunked later?  The percentage is really high...I think in the 90 percentile.     People get a kick out of being "famous" by pretending to be someone important.  The real truth is that no one knows except top brass and they don't play games or visit forums.  Think about it...

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EALouse shown all of us that crow taste like crow, not chicken. He embarrassed everyone that doubted him which pretty much was everyone at the time. I don't know for any fact if this new insider is genuine or not but I do know from past experience that making my own assumptions without facts only gets me caught with my pants down. Think I'll take the time will tell approach on this guy before making an ass of myself.

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Originally posted by lizardbones

 

Just because they get the F2P thing right doesn't mean they didn't lie about being part of the EA team. The same could be said of EA Louise. For all we know, they could be employed at EA, but they are part of the cleaning staff and they're poking through papers laying around on desks.

 

EAlouse nailed everyword he said. And still there is people saying he was a fake.

I don't know if this guy is a real employee of Bioware/EA or not, but as others says we can't not close our minds at the fact he could be saying the truth.

The game is not in it's bests, and the talks about Free to play are over the desk.

the thing there is : Will be the pay for everything (STO model) or cosmetic + content payments (DCUo model) the model chosen by BW/EA? This guy saids pay for everything and i belive it too.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07...yoffs-rumored/   ... So we are all pretty upset here. we know Daniel and Jimmy many more are next round of layoffs. EA blames us and to some extent they're right to. but it was fan feedback from the day we opened the forums that encouraged us to design it for the fans the way it is and that included making it more like Kotor then an MMO like Wow. ...

 

What does Kotor bring to the table?

• You can build your character according to a D20 ruleset (a mix of levels and skills, but the bioware version had some limited options). To those that don't know D20. It has some similarities to D&D 3.5 edition rules. DDO and NWN show how much character customization is posssible with such rulesets.

• In Kotor you couldn't have only conversations with quest givers but also with lots of other NPCs (e.g. merchants).

• Kotor offered more than just 3 dialog options on conversations.

• Kotor allowed you to train your party members ("companions") as well. If that was too cumbersome for you the system could handle that for you.

• The hacking profession offered more interesting options (e.g. using surveillance cameras to look beyond closed doors, activate a facility's defenses on successful hacks, etc.).

• Despite the limited crafting options Kotor's crafting felt like it involved the player more (at least Kotor2 had more options than Kotor1). Go to a workbench, dissassemble some stuff, reassamble some stuff, etc.). In SWTOR you just send your companions on a mission and that's it.

• You had more combat options with a party of 3 (yourself and two "companions") in regards to strategy and tactics. In SWTOR you just have to hope that your only companion doesn't mess up too much.

That's only a few things that come to mind. If Bioware would some day release a Kotor3 I might still be tempted to buy it.
 

I like how... however it ended up happening... the players "asking for more KOTOR and less MMORPG" somehow resulted in a final product that was both a watered down version of the KOTOR single player game and a watered down MMORPG.  And really, what makes a good single player RPG and what makes a good MMORPG are almost on opposite sides of the spectrum from each other.  Nobody on the development team could recognize that they were headed for a train wreck?  "We've got a $500 million dollar budget and the Star Wars IP.  We can pull this off easy!  We're BIOWARE, damn it!"

I actually think it would be fascinating to see how they arrived at some of the decisions they did.  Taking out for a second the misrepresentation, arrogant attitude, and interaction with fans, here you have experienced game makers who by all rights should know what works and what doesn't arriving at a place where both the MMO and SRPG features were underdeveloped.  And they were cool with it.

It is true BTW that there was a massive anti-WoW element during the game's development that took the position "If WoW has it, we don't want it."  Except, instead of being about all the core elements of WoW, they were saying this about all the elements WoW added over the years to add life to the setting, facilitate raiding and PvP, and improve the general quality of life (dual spec, for example).  In that sense I can sort of understand where a comment that they tried to make it less like WoW had come from.

Even so, the gameplay and character progression systems are still based off of WoW (or whatever WoW was based off of if you're one of those type of folk), not the KotOR games.  It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.  That's all on EA and/or Bioware, not on the fans.

Originally posted by kellian1

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by DeaconX

"but it was fan feedback from the day we opened the forums that encouraged us to design it for the fans the way it is and that included making it more like Kotor then an MMO like Wow."

That line annoyed me... either a huge majority of beta testers were saying the exact opposite things that I was saying, or the above is just bs...

Yeah I have no idea what "fans' were telling them to make the game like KOTOR.  And really, since the VO part of the game is essentially what makes it like KOTOR, and VO is far and above the most major part of this game...I don't think it would even be possible for "fan feedback" to have changed the direction of the game.  It clearly meant to be more KOTOR-like from the start.

As a person who was part the beta test from pretty early on I can tell you they DID NOT listen to our feedback at all. We told them, multiple times, the problems the game had.

 

One small example I vividly remember was the space combat. You could maybe find 1 post in 20 that liked the space combat in the game and the "rails" aspect of it. But it always felt like they had a release date to meet and couldn't make any real changes other than some small ones here and there. Many of us even told them don't release it with the space combat get it right and release the space combat part later. That's just one example, so any big issues that were raised died on the vine so to speak.

 

Now if they listened to the forums and designed a game a certain way, then had no way to change some things that were clearly not working, for whatever reason, that's on them.

Working with the mindset of not implementing/testing something that's not finished lead the game to its actual state. Some devs were really listening although the leads, for very specific reasons, avoided most of the needed changes.

There was even a dev post that stated they weren't looking for player feedback, only bug reporting. It caused some trouble on the forums. So they used the beta forums not for game play feedback but for bugs/exploits data.

“EA blames us and to some extent they’re right to. But it was fan feedback from the day we opened the forums that encouraged us to design it for the fans the way it isand that included making it more like Kotor then an MMO like Wow,” he stated mentioning that gamers actually wanted SWTOR to be more like Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR), a single player role playing game by Bioware before it was acquired by EA, rather than World of Warcraft (WoW).

ROFLMAO

These guys can't be serious.  With a quote like that it leads me to WISH this game fails even harder.  Seriously when I read this I had a Derp moment.

Do they not realize how much negative reaction this game got for being a WoW clone?  Everyoen and their mother knows SWTOR was a WoW clone with story tacked on.  They thought the IP would carry the day but were sorely mistaken.  I wish this company nothing but the worst from here on with stupid half witted comments like that.

One look at any forum,  INLCUDING thier own would of shown countless posts claiming things werent right, from the game engine used to its disregard to any innovation whatsoever.  To top it off Biofail releases a half finished pile of steam sh*t with half of the features an MMO released back in 1999 had.  Literally the whole game was level via boring cutscene quests, run dungeons and/or PvP to get better gear.  Like a crappy F2P Asian game releases with that amount of content in 6 months of development.  Biofail is a joke!

I always said this game wasn't good enough not to be F2P in a year.

Quote: Originally Posted by xXBlademasterXx

Rumor - A currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth.

Don't put stock in rumors. Games with far far smaller populations have continued to be pay-to-play for years.

LOL.  But those games didnt cost $500 million to make either.  I say put the game out of its misery already, its been a tortanic struggle to keep subs.

Originally posted by JYCowboy

Originally posted by knighthammer

Its not going free to play, i overheard a phone call, full transcript

 

 

[Erickson answers the phone after comandeering a work desk]

Erickson: [sounding official] Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal.

Voice: What happened?

Erickson: [getting nervous] Uh, we had a slight sub malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

Voice: We're sending a squad up.

Erickson: Uh, uh... negative, negative. We have a mad ex employee here now. Give us a few minutes to lock him down. Large bloke, very dangerous.

Voice: Who is this? What's your operating number?

Erickson: Uh...
[Erickson shoots the phone]
Erickson: [muttering] Boring conversation, anyway.

Don't try to make Erickson out as a hero.  Han might have shot him ... in the old days.

 

Yes, Erickson's no hero.

Erickson: "1,8 million? !.2 million? You're far too trusting, princess. You maye proceed  with the operation.

[CUT SCENE]

Luke: 'What is it, master?'

Ben: 'I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if two hundred thousand subscribers tops cried out and then suddenly were still'.

Originally posted by gervaise1

Whether the post is by a Bioware person or not it is clear, from what Bioware has previoulsy posted, that f2p will have been / is being considered as an option. Does this mean the game will be going f2p? No. EA will have considered a whole range of options: increasing the monthly sub; decreasing the monthly sub; paid for DLC; reducing the number of servers to 1; closing the game and paying LA whatever they have to; porting the game to mobile phones; annual lsubscriptions; lifetime subscriptions ..... anything and everything will be on the table whether the game is making money or not.

Doesn't mean anything will happen.

The way the post is written? Well if it is from a Bioware employee then this may well be deliberate.

The legacy system is hard so that it can be made an cash shop item - well that was obvious. Pretty sure it was discussed here; was certainly discussed on the VN forums.

The fact remains however that f2p - to work - requires people; and not just anybody but people who spend money. EA will have their own data but to put things in perspective the data Zynga have released can be used:

- last quarter Zynga reported that average revenue doubled to an average of 33 cents for the quarter

- previoulsy Zynga have said that most revenue comes from 5% of the playerbase - the other 95% paying nothing.

EA said SWTOR needed 500k monthly subs to break even - say $7.5M/30 days or about $23M/quarter. (Sure it is less now.)

Using the Zynga numbers - and this is just to put things into perspective (a bit if fun):

- SWTOR will need 69M "subs" per quarter each paying an average of 33 cents to break even.

69 million!

Or if they only have 500k subs they need to be about 140 times better than Zynga at generating revenue via micro-transactions. Every month. And deal with the inbuilt churn that f2p games have.

EA will have done these type of calcs - they will have used their own data and a whole range of sub numbers, average revenue numbers, bronze/silver/gold type sub memberships. And got some scary answers I suspect - probably why nothing has happened so far - or rather why the focus is on getting the number of subs needed to break even down. If they get it to 200k or whatever then f2p will probably never arrive.  

 

 

I am going to repeat my earlier post with the attached link about Zynga's recent profits: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174638/Zynga_stocks_nosedive_after_a_disappointing_quarter.php

Free to play is no guarantee of making money - hence the reason some old games remain p2p. Get a dedicated following who will stick with something regardless even if updates don't exist. As long as developers talk about 'great plans' that they would 'love to tell folk about but ...'.