Originally posted by ForumPvP

Originally posted by RavingRabbid

When I log in there are still plenty of people still playing and enjoying the game. Is the game perfect? Not by any stretch, but neither are any games out there right now.

No matter what you think of SWTOR or any game on this site, I find it rather funny and naive that many of the forum users expect any game's leadership to come out publicly and blast thier own game. They arent any better than politicians.

Well what about telling the truth.

Like for example,we have tried to do everything to fix ability delays,but it is not possible to fix it ,because of engine or whatever....

instead of lies that its fixed.

And now because its not possible to fix it we will do some changes to gameplay,some instant actions will be channeled now,animations removed or whatever...

But telling lies and denying that there is problems just gives the picture that they think that Star Wars fans are idiots and you can say whatever you like to them and they will buy it.

But what is going to happen is that people starts to think that Star Wars is full of shit,hear me Disney.

 

While I agree with you in principle that everyone should tell the truth. Truth is very subjective to variying ppl especially in the gaming industry. I believe the game is doing good when I log in, you believe the opposite. Any game leadership's job to is to put as much positive outlook as best as possible. What you suggest is industry suicide and no one in thier right mind would do that. Do you not think that they dont know behind the scenes whats going on? Im not just talking about SWTOR but any game. i dont need some PR person to confirm for me what I already know in any game.

Hickman says a lot in that posting but there are no real fresh insights to be found.  Beyond the soft committment to rolling out new content every six weeks, it's hard to tell what SWTOR's future direction will be.  Are they going to continue building on the game's unusual (for the genre) strength's-- the storylines?  Or are they going down the path of more traditional MMO development with a focus on endgame group activities?  Will the players who sub get future updates for free or will they be sold through the cash shop a la DCUO's packs?

The primary failing of the game-- and why I left for Rift-- is that beyond the stories, beyond the FPs and Warzones, there is nothing new, dynamic or interesting for me to do.  Crafting could scarcely have been made less interactive or more dry.  With the potential brain drain that's happened at their studios, what are the chances we'll see new systems like a ranked Swoop racing circuit?  Pazaak tournaments on Nar Shadaa?  Customizable ship interiors or exteriors?  Heck, even collecting random holocrons with tidbits of lore from the period between the last KOTOR game and this one would be a welcome diversion from the kill, kill, press 1 for good, boss battle, romance your companion, kill a few more flow of this game.  I do have the urge to play my characters again because I enjoyed their stories, the companions, and group play but the producer's post doesn't reassure me that they have made or plan to make any substantive changes to broaden TOR's gameplay.

And people thought Ericksen was bad...

Where's Greyhoff with he's Iraqi Defense Minister Meme? With Hickman in charge it's the same old Mythic, 'actually everyone loves the game as it is, were going under that assumption that subs are bad, anything that doesn't fit that idea is wrong', bollocks we had with WAR.

It's the same arguement that comes up with the recent SOE F2P launches again: If not enough people are subbing to your game because they don't enjoy it, why do you think they'll start paying for bits and bobs of an unenjoyable game?

Logical fallacies allround.

Originally posted by RavingRabbid

Originally posted by ForumPvP

Originally posted by RavingRabbid

When I log in there are still plenty of people still playing and enjoying the game. Is the game perfect? Not by any stretch, but neither are any games out there right now.

No matter what you think of SWTOR or any game on this site, I find it rather funny and naive that many of the forum users expect any game's leadership to come out publicly and blast thier own game. They arent any better than politicians.

Well what about telling the truth.

Like for example,we have tried to do everything to fix ability delays,but it is not possible to fix it ,because of engine or whatever....

instead of lies that its fixed.

And now because its not possible to fix it we will do some changes to gameplay,some instant actions will be channeled now,animations removed or whatever...

But telling lies and denying that there is problems just gives the picture that they think that Star Wars fans are idiots and you can say whatever you like to them and they will buy it.

But what is going to happen is that people starts to think that Star Wars is full of shit,hear me Disney.

 

While I agree with you in principle that everyone should tell the truth. Truth is very subjective to variying ppl especially in the gaming industry. I believe the game is doing good when I log in, you believe the opposite. Any game leadership's job to is to put as much positive outlook as best as possible. What you suggest is industry suicide and no one in thier right mind would do that. Do you not think that they dont know behind the scenes whats going on? Im not just talking about SWTOR but any game. i dont need some PR person to confirm for me what I already know in any game.

Well,how i read this:

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it,they love ability delays,they love small worlds(not worlds,rooms),they dont want to roleplay,they dont want to sit on chairs they dont  want to swim they dont want space combat they dont want day/night cycles they dont they love they.......

Gee i cant continue,but what that guy is trying,makes more damage than good.

While someone there at EA is still denying their mistakes,till then those wont get fixed,ever.

Originally posted by Lugors

Where is this hidden population of people who have never played SWTOR and will come out of the wood work for F2P?  The initial release had TV ads and a full marketing push from EA to get people buying.  Of those 2.4 million who had the initial financial investment in the game, only 25% stuck around by the 1 year mark. 

Now people who will have nothing invested in the game but the download time will be so enamered that they will suddenly subscribe?  It's the same exact game it was a year ago!  The former sub is not the target here because the F2P will just give you a nuetered experience that you weren't gonna pay for anyways.

Indeed.

This erroneous belief that F2P will save the game, and allow them to make money in smaller amounts, off of people who don't want to pay for a subscription, is a smokescreen.

A smokescreen for the current subscribers that they're desperately trying to keep subscribed. "Look once the F2P conversion is finished, we'll be making lots of new content!". Undoubtedly they will. All sorts of new stuff for the cash shop. Stuff that even subscribers won't get for free. They just don't want people who are already on the edge of leaving, to lose hope in the future of this game.

What this game is now, is what this game is going to be, for the immediate future anyway. Will EA eventually put together an expansion for it? I'm sure they will. But has anyone seen any concrete reason to believe they're working on that now? They still won't pin down a date for F2P going live.

Originally posted by Kert

Originally posted by Lugors

Where is this hidden population of people who have never played SWTOR and will come out of the wood work for F2P?  The initial release had TV ads and a full marketing push from EA to get people buying.  Of those 2.4 million who had the initial financial investment in the game, only 25% stuck around by the 1 year mark. 

Now people who will have nothing invested in the game but the download time will be so enamered that they will suddenly subscribe?  It's the same exact game it was a year ago!  The former sub is not the target here because the F2P will just give you a nuetered experience that you weren't gonna pay for anyways.

 

Indeed.

This erroneous belief that F2P will save the game, and allow them to make money in smaller amounts, off of people who don't want to pay for a subscription, is a smokescreen.

A smokescreen for the current subscribers that they're desperately trying to keep subscribed. "Look once the F2P conversion is finished, we'll be making lots of new content!". Undoubtedly they will. All sorts of new stuff for the cash shop. Stuff that even subscribers won't get for free. They just don't want people who are already on the edge of leaving, to lose hope in the future of this game.

What this game is now, is what this game is going to be, for the immediate future anyway. Will EA eventually put together an expansion for it? I'm sure they will. But has anyone seen any concrete reason to believe they're working on that now? They still won't pin down a date for F2P going live.

 

 

you only need look at what ea did with warhammer to know how swtor is going to go.

I don't know why people even say the stories are awesome. I got a Jedi Knight to level 40ish, and every other class to around 15-30 or so, and there was nothing overly exciting happening whatsoever in any of them. Sith Inquisitor had the most compelling start, but it just dragged on and got so boring. With all other game system being equally dull, I dont even know how they managed to keep it going this long. lol

I will admit, though: I really liked Huttball or whatever. That was fun for a while. I also really liked the first Flashpoint on either side, though afterwards they seemed to dip in quality.

Originally posted by Aviggin

I don't know why people even say the stories are awesome. I got a Jedi Knight to level 40ish, and every other class to around 15-30 or so, and there was nothing overly exciting happening whatsoever in any of them. Sith Inquisitor had the most compelling start, but it just dragged on and got so boring. With all other game system being equally dull, I dont even know how they managed to keep it going this long. lol

I will admit, though: I really liked Huttball or whatever. That was fun for a while. I also really liked the first Flashpoint on either side, though afterwards they seemed to dip in quality.

agreed they arent a patch on the kotor stories (or other sprpgs like the witcher series, mass effect series or first dragon age).  I played a trooper, my god that story was boring (although not as twee and dull as my GW2 stories)

Only story ive enjoyed in a mmo was in tsw.  But then that had boring same old dungeon grind endgame so i stoped playing.

Jeff Hickman and James Ohlen. Two of the biggest bungling idiots in the gaming world, and they're all EAware has left to throw at the game.

Cue Imperial Death March.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by 7star

Before we begin, let me introduce myself for those of you who do not know me. My name is Jeff Hickman and I am the Executive Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have been working on the team for about 2 years now and was responsible for most of the Live Services and ultimately the launching of our award-winning game.

When we decided to go Free-to-Play earlier this year, we had weeks of discussion with everyone on the team about where we thought the game was going, what we thought was going right and what was going wrong. We uncovered a lot of issues, but three things really stood out:

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.

2. The subscription requirement was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying monthly.

I'm not a SWTOR hater.  I enjoyed leveling my character but felt the game was severely lacking to pay a sub for.  I didn't think end game was "awesome" at all.  I will return as a F2P player to level alts here and there.  Something I refuse to pay any  company a sub for.

 

What the fuck is this guy smoking?  I assume he's posting this misinformation in hopes of keeping his job.

 

Many people thought leveling their first character per faction was great.  Leveling an alt of the same faction was 90% repeated content.  That is NOT awesome.

 

The game released with horrible ability delays.  PVP was far from awesome on release.

 

The game released without  group finders.  That was not awesome.

 

They patched Ilum and hundreds of players exploited it for massive "honor" or whatever they call it.  There was no rollback.  Not much awesome there.

 

Their model was based on massive amounts of voiceovers.  Even using them for simple fetch/kill quests.  It proved unsustainable.  Not so awesome.

 

They allowed players to customize their appearance until they hit end game where if you wanted the best gear, you had to look foolish.  Not an awesome to be found.

 

They released a star wars game with the limited single player, "on rails" space combat.  The lack of space combat onm release hurt SWG, why make the same mistake?  Space combat in SWTOR is not awesome.

 

I could list tons more but I won't.  The fact is that the game was not awesome enough for me to pay them a monthly sub just to level alts.  Going F2P won't change my opinion on that.  There is literally nothing in SWTOR that is worth a sub of any price to me.  SWTOR at the level cap is far from awesome.

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by Aviggin

I don't know why people even say the stories are awesome. I got a Jedi Knight to level 40ish, and every other class to around 15-30 or so, and there was nothing overly exciting happening whatsoever in any of them. Sith Inquisitor had the most compelling start, but it just dragged on and got so boring. With all other game system being equally dull, I dont even know how they managed to keep it going this long. lol

I will admit, though: I really liked Huttball or whatever. That was fun for a while. I also really liked the first Flashpoint on either side, though afterwards they seemed to dip in quality.

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one regarding the Flashpoint qualities. When I played the first FP, I was blown away by the quality, choices, and all the various trappings. But after that, the rest seemed just thrown together.

The class stories were overrated, in my opinion. The trooper story started out pretty good, but lost steam. The ending was just pitiful. By that time, even actively avoiding spoilers in other classes, I pretty much knew every companion and plot twist just by being in a small guild. I had no interest in playing any other class.

The voiceovers - one of the main selling points of the game - were sometimes just awful to the point of immersion-breaking. The NPCs were very bland.

Don't get me entirely wrong, it was OK for what it was supposed to be. But it's just not for me, as hard as I tried for it to be my MMO home.

Originally posted by Po_gg

Originally posted by Elikal
tl;dr... did he say anything WHEN the f2p conversion happens??

Nope, just the plain old "this Fall".

Only a wild guess, but since technically fall is cca. 6 weeks more, and he said "getting Game Updates out to you every 6 weeks or so", I think they will goofing with the conversion until the next letter on dec.21 :) (and maybe secretly hoping that the mayan was right, so they don't have to put much effort in it :D )

I recieved an email yesterday stating I have some sort of Cartel points stored since I played the game at launch, but I need to be a paying subscriber to use them before it goes free-to-play in November.

" 

You have earned Complimentary Cartel Coins for your prior paid subscription months! Cartel Coins are a new virtual currency coming with the launch of the Free-to-Play option this November.

Visit the Cartel Coins Ledger page to see how many Complimentary Cartel Coins you have already earned! This new web page is located in the "My Account" section of the website.

Get ready to visit the Cartel Market loaded with coins to spend this November - and turn these golden coins into valuable items such as pets, vehicles, XP boosts, and more! Remember, you must return as a Subscriber to take advantage of this golden opportunity!

"

Take that as you will. Not gonna log in.

Originally posted by Aviggin

I don't know why people even say the stories are awesome. I got a Jedi Knight to level 40ish, and every other class to around 15-30 or so, and there was nothing overly exciting happening whatsoever in any of them. Sith Inquisitor had the most compelling start, but it just dragged on and got so boring. With all other game system being equally dull, I dont even know how they managed to keep it going this long. lol

I will admit, though: I really liked Huttball or whatever. That was fun for a while. I also really liked the first Flashpoint on either side, though afterwards they seemed to dip in quality.

If he said our stories are awesome then I would be inclinded to agree. They weren't all good but many of them were. They made the missions and some of the gameplay better because of it. WoW, EQ2, Rift, Vanguard, WAR, Aion, etc all had much more dull questing because they didn't have the story and conversations that SWTOR had. Of course that was only really enjoyable for so long. If not playing casually you got very tired of the missions and saw conversations as just an excuses to give you a menial task. Flashpoints were great, Operations were great, space missions were.. ok... the first few times but they got old pretty fast. And so will the content that will take them 4-6 months to make.

Before reading anything, I find it comical that Bioware has decided to release their "State of the Game" on election day.

Way to bury your release when people might be actually be paying attention to something slightly more important then the state of SWTOR.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
OG
all they need to do is get Paul barnet involved and the circle is complete.

Bwuahaha... I laughed so hard I almost suffocated... Oh god yes, that would be the final, ironic move they "need" to do.

They're still trying to save face by claiming SWTOR was a failure due to having a subscription fee? Honestly, who do they think they're fooling? It's insulting. The fact that people chose, "I don't want to pay an ongoing subscription fee," when they canceled their subscription, doesn't mean they aren't willing or are unable to pay a subscription fee. But hey, keep lying to your userbase!

Originally posted by mmoguy43

WoW, EQ2, Rift, Vanguard, WAR, Aion, etc all had much more dull questing because they didn't have the story and conversations that SWTOR had.

TORs VO suddenly made killing 8 mobs helluva more epic and more fun than reading a quest text in EQ2 to do the exact same thing?

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by mmoguy43

WoW, EQ2, Rift, Vanguard, WAR, Aion, etc all had much more dull questing because they didn't have the story and conversations that SWTOR had.

 

TORs VO suddenly made killing 8 mobs helluva more epic and more fun than reading a quest text in EQ2 to do the exact same thing?

 

It didnt. Such generic dull quests dont need elaborate voiceoers and cutscenes. That money is totally wasted and could have been used for more elaborate and deeper class quest stories. Much more bang for the buck and many more satisfied customers.

Needless to mention - same thing was said long before launch. Though whole experience of generic quests and slim and very scarce class quests turned out much worse than anyone thought it would back then.

Replayability is worst than any MMO i have played, that includes Korean grinders lol. Unfortunately it is reflected in sub numbers.

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by mmoguy43

WoW, EQ2, Rift, Vanguard, WAR, Aion, etc all had much more dull questing because they didn't have the story and conversations that SWTOR had.

 

TORs VO suddenly made killing 8 mobs helluva more epic and more fun than reading a quest text in EQ2 to do the exact same thing?

 

Story in an RPG is what holds the entire thing.

Most RPG are 'Go to X -> Talk to NPC 1 -> Go to Y -> Do ABC'

It is the char / story that makes you want to do the above action.

Planescape Torment is one of the best RPG ever made even though it has some god-awful game mechanics because it has the best story in a computer game ever.