First off, those stating that nothing will change are correct.  The way the system works in most corporations, the CEO is the top manager of the company, but he answers to the board.  The chairman of the board, Probst, now doubling as CEO, is the top dog.  Probst, who leads the board, which makes most of the executive decisions for the corporation, will now also take the decisions he made with the board and carry them out as CEO until they find a replacement.

The earnings report for the 1st quarter of 2013 will come out by the end of April, which means they're already pretty much calculated.  With Riccitello being suddenly fired (and "mutually decided it was time to part ways" is as close to actually saying "we fired him" as I've seen in a major corporate memo without the fired person being charged with a crime), then you can guarantee that EA's profits will be way less than the forecasted numbers.  Bad earnings reports on top of some of the more idiotic things that have happened on his watch, and some of the stupid statements that have come directly out of his mouth are a recipe for this kind of corporate beheading.

Now if someone over at Sony would just see this as a sign to finally throw John Smedley off the ledge....

I'm still on the fence with this one.  I enjoyed the Ultimate Alliance games, so this one should be a no-brainer, but there's a few technical aspects of the game that are stopping me from buying a starter pack (I don't see an issue with spending a little money up front if I'm not actually being charged for the game itself).  As others have stated, there's the issue of inventory space (or lack thereof), and I'm wondering if, like the God-awful SWTOR free-to-play model, you'll have to buy what is otherwise considered basic perks of a game, like inventory and travel abilities.

My other concern is the control scheme.  Now, I haven't had the opportunity to get hands-on with this game (hopefully I will before launch), but it seems like it's click to move, click the baddie and continue clicking to fight.  That doesn't strike me as immersive combat.  

As a Marvel fan, I hope that my concerns are eliminated once I get a chance to play.  

The problem with this thread is that War Z is being taken as a serious game in the first place.  It isn't.  I feel pity for the people that were suckered into buying it, but that doesn't change the fact that this "game" was a hastily cobbled together con-job meant to capitalize on Day Z's popularity.  There is no way that a game company with any concern for their reputation, or any kind of QA system whatsoever, would drop such a kick-in-the-nuts of a product on the market.

Hammerpoint put just enough effort into this Cleveland Steamer to make it appear as though there was a presentable product here, and then listed all the features they thought people would want to draw hype and get pre-orders.  You will never see most of what was promised.  Go read the interview that (now defunct) Gamespy had with one of the "developers."  http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-war-z/1226980p1.html

For those who bought WarZ and are now trying to defend it: You got duped, it's OK to admit it.  It happens with games, though usually not to this extent.  Don't make yourself look like a complete assclown by trying to legitimize an obvious ripoff simply because you fell prey to it.  Steam did the right thing by customers when they offered a full refund for the WarZ, but they still need to put guidelines into place to keep this from happening again. 

Honestly, hold off on playing this DLC if you haven't tried it out, and don't pay for it yet.  There are a number of issues with it that need addressed before it'll be worth sinking any money into.  The mainframe is nice, however, the costs for the abilities are ridiculous, because you "rent" the abilities.  The T4 abilities and mods cost over 3100 marks a piece every month.  If you don't grind up the marks, you lose the top level of abilities.  In a game that's already a bit of a grindfest, the last thing it needs is a system that requires a monthly grind.  Between this system and the and the way the new missions were set up, it's obvious that SOE's aim is to push up replay badge sales on the marketplace.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by stratasaurus

Originally posted by Zylaxx
Why blame EA?  Why not blame the people who created arguably the worst MMO clone in modern history?

Am I the only person on here that is sick to death of reading the word clone over and over to discribe everything?  Do fans of other genres have to put up with this crap?  I don't recall ever seeing thousands of posts on fps forums about how every single game is a clone cause it uses guns or whatever.  Fracking annoying.

You missed the decade in which everything was a Doom clone. Even though Doom was a clone of Wolfenstein 3D. Weird, huh?

 

LOL.  We're now into the third decade of FPS clones.

[mod edit]

Read the quotes at the bottom of the article:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-04-swtor-creative-director-daniel-erickson-leaves-bioware-austin

Despite having one less idiot who thought that simply trying to improve on the WoW model would somehow translate to monumental success, the studio still needs to make a great deal of changes to entice people to give TOR another shot, and simply going F2P won't change that.

Personally, if Dickinson is still there, I won't waste my time checking it out when it goes F2P.  The game will likely remain hopeless until he's gone as well.  It amazes me that Dickinson has now helped to completely fuck up not one, but two Star Wars-themed MMO's.  

Erickson being gone solves part of the problem, but TOR still needs a lot of things that it likely will not get in order to be anywhere near the success it was hyped to have been only months ago.

     I don't take anything away from Blizzard.  While I do not personally care for WoW, even the most ardent hater would be a complete idiot to try and dissmiss what Blizzard has accomplished.  WoW took the best ideas out there in the MMO genre at the time, built on them, had an IP that was popular itself, but also coincided with the releases of most popular fantasy film franchise, The Lord of the Rings, and locked in the people who flocked to it.  It was a perfect storm of MMO goodness for millions of online gamers.

     That said, the reason that no other company has reached the level of success that Blizzard has is simple.  Every AAA MMO title to launch since has tried to replicate what WoW did.  They've taken the blueprint that Blizzard mastered, and tried to improve on it.  This will never work.  You cannot copy something that is already popular, and expect it to succeed.

     As myself and others have stated before, it's the Coke II mistake every time a gaming company tries this.  Coke II was Coke that tasted like Pepsi, and it failed miserably.  Why?  Because everyone who drank Pepsi kept drinking Pepsi, and everyone who liked Coke didn't want Coke that tasted like Pepsi.  The same rule applies here.  People who enjoy the WoW model and have already invested years in their WoW characters are not likely to start all over on a new game that plays exactly the same.  And players who don't care for the WoW experience aren't going to stick around either.  Adding to this problem is the amount of content that WoW has built up through the years.  New games at launch have nowhere near the amount of content that WoW players are used to.  So, people who leave WoW and other games to play whatever new game comes out often blow through the game's content, get bored, and return to whatever they were playing before.

     If game companies want be in any way competitive with what WoW has accomplished, the first thing they need to do is NOT COPY THE BLIZZARD MODEL.  Companies need to innovate MMO's that don't feel like "just another WoW clone."  Throw out conventional MMO wisdom, and build an online experience from scratch, or at least from a templet that doesn't look anything like Blizzard's monster.  Deliver an interesting, original, fun experience, and players will come.  Continue to try copying what's dominated the genre for the last 8 years, and you can expect to be F2P a year after the game launches.

Originally posted by Kabaal

It’s Star Wars!

That was enough to try the game, not to keep playing.  How many times have we heard this one?  We should buy every game that comes down the line, no matter how mediocre, or worse, simply because it has lightsabers and Bounty Hunters?  I don't think so.  This reason fails on basic logic alone.

Free Transfers & Permanent Free Trials are Coming!

They're a reason to resub once they appear, not to keep playing.  Neither of the ideas will fix the issues the game has.  Free transfers may fix population issues, but it won't fix the uninspiring combat system, or help give the game a unique identity that the game has yet to find. 

Free trials are simply a way for EA to pad the game's subscription numbers.  Most people who were intending to play the game have already done so, and the generic MMO experience the game offers will entice few new players to pay for this game in the wake of new MMO's launching in the next few months.

PvP is Fun*

PvP is fun, but it so limited in TOR that it's more repetitive than anything else.  They need to fix the PvP system, mostly with server transfers, to keep players from getting stuck in the same WZ every time.

Playing With Others

I can do that in any other game. In TOR it cant be done unless re-rolling to one of the most populated servers, which are also now rapidly losing numbers of people online. *see Free Transfers  Working on more group oriented activities is actually the wrong way to go.  Let's face it, this game would be far more popular if Bioware simply accepted the fact that TOR is a single-player game with a multiplayer option, and developed the game as such.  Add in the transfers and the group finder tool, and going forward, concentrate on story content, Flashpoints, and PvP, and allow the use of multple companions in PVE and Flashpoints.

Expanding Your Legacy

Legacy is one of those tacked on features that mean nothing other than some stuff we don't need. My Legacy level is already 50 and i gain nothing more than someone who has a Legacy of 25 and even it gave nothing of worth other than the multiple group buffs.  Legacy will be a better system once they actually provide real bonuses for players with high legacy levels, as Kabaal points out, which needs to happen soon.  Offering these skills at reasonable prices would be helpful as well.

Kabaal critiqued this article well, so I added my thoughts to his rather than repeat him. 

The truth is that SWTOR just isn't that great of an MMO in the classic definition, but if Bioware were to make the combat system a little more exciting, enhanced the ability to play the game solo by allowing multiple companions to be used at one time, and opened up the worlds for exploration, they could easily find themselves with a highly successful game.  If the game remains the generic MMO experience, with no real identity of its own, however, it will continue to falter as it has thus far.

Originally posted by moreblahblah

This will give all those people Bioware layed off something to do while looking for a job.

I doubt that.  Most of them will avoid the game like the plague.  I fully agree with those saying that "free to 15" is a way to pad the sub numbers.  It may bring in a few more subs, but not enough to be worth the effort, unless you had an alterior motive, which EA has an abundance of in declining sub numbers.

     There will be no official return of SWG.  Sony will never re-open the game, nor would LucasArts allow that to happen.  Their licensing agreement for SWG ended in 2011, and neither party will have an interest in revisiting that embarrassment.  This new project has been rumored to have something to do with Boba Fett, but nothing really concrete has surfaced.  What very little has leaked out has given no indication that it's an MMO.

Whatever the game is, the one thing you can be absolutely certain of, is that it will NOT be the return of SWG. 

Period, end of story.

     I'm already not a fan of these PR friendly, softball interviews, which are put together by big game companies and gaming sites even more often than the Obama administration and NBC news, but it's even worse when Daniel Erickson does them.  Even in the easiest format possible for a person to have an interview that reflects positively on both them and the company they represent, he still somehow manages to come off as a douchebag.

Here are few tips for Erickson, because he seriously needs them:

1.  The people who play, or have played, the game know when your answers are bullsh!t.

Example:  "Legacy was the big hit. Players are making all sorts of new species-class combinations, rolling out their Legacy powers and flying around with their rocket boots. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive."

One look at the SWTOR forums when update 1.2 went live completely disproves this point.  Of the long list of complaints people had, the biggest were that there was too much focus on legacy, that the cost of the items and abilities you could get from legacy cost too damn much, specifically abilities like rocket boost, and that many of the abilities themselves were weak and not worth spending any credits on.  If the feedback had been so overwhelmingly positive, there wouldn't be a need for server transfers, because the game would not be hemoraging subscriptions.

2.  Exaggerating the accomplishments that you're proud of makes you look like a tool.

Example: "1.2 was huge.  It was almost like re-shipping the game but without the ability to wipe and start over."

Now, I grant that update 1.2 was big, but to the point where it was like re-shipping the entire game, with voice overs, entire planets and all?  Really?  I mean, are you retarded?  If this were even remotely true, then I weep for the underwhelming updates to come, now that an unknown portion of the game's staff has been reassigned or laid off.

3.  When asked to even hint about future content, especially in a game struggling to retain players, any answer that starts with the word, "No" is the wrong answer.

Example:  MMORPG: Where would you like to take the event system from here? Can you give us any hints as to what players may see in 2012? 

Daniel Erickson: No hints!  

When players that you really need to keep subscribed are on the fence about whether or not to continue playing, and are looking for any info that might reassure them that something interesting is coming, you don't dismiss a question out of hand that could easily catch their interest.  Even a bad joke of an answer to the question, such as, "Cute furry little space kittens" is still a better answer than, "No hints!"

     The sad part about this interview is that it isn't the worst that Erickson has done.  In fact, when compared to the live Q&A he did at a game conference before the game launched, where he openly started mocking a questioner he dissagreed with, this is actually a good PR interview for Erickson.  Is there any wonder that they sometimes have communication issues with the SWTOR community?  The worst part is that the next person in line to do PR for the game is likely Dallas Dickinson, and anyone who remembers his comments from shortly after the NGE, where he proclaimed that SOE was receiving "mostly positive feedback" from the community, already understand that Dickinson is even worse.  

Unfortunately, there is no chance of this happening.  The actual reasons being:

   1. LucasArts would never sign off on allowing SOE to re-open the servers.  They chose to give license to EA/Bioware for SWTOR, and both LA and SOE had long planned to close SWG once SWTOR launched.  SOE was given the license for Star Wars: The Clone Wars in lieu of the SWG license.

   2. The disaster that came from the NGE was a massive black eye to both companies, and the failure is what actually led to LA tapping Bioware to make SWTOR (for better or worse).  Neither company would be at all willing to revisit the now-legendary embarrassment that SWG became.

   3. There is likely a contractual agreement between LA and EA/BW that would prevent SWG from being reopened.  Outside of the Clone Wars, which is a F2P game aimed at children, there is likely a stipulation that LA is not allowed to license a competing Star Wars MMO to a company other than EA for a certain period of time, and re-opening SWG would likely violate that agreement.

Now, there may be other options that I'm not able to discuss on these forums, but there is no chance in hell that SOE will ever be firing the SWG servers back up.  In fact, it's quite likely that the SWG servers have either been scrubbed or scrapped altogether, negating any possibility of SOE ever reconstructing the game.

     I must disagree with the OP's overall premise here, and say that MMO's should move even further toward solo gaming.  Now, I'm sure that to the classical MMO purist, this might be the last thing you'd want, but unfortunately, the clasical MMO purists are now a fairly small cross-section of the total population of gamers.  In order to attract the most potential customers in the relatively competitive MMO market, a game must accommodate the widest selection of players, hence why new MMO's are attempting to cater to not only the veteran, group-oriented MMO player, but also to potential new players to the genre that grew up playing primarily solo console games.

     The trouble is, companies have yet to strike the right balance of pleasing solo players, while still offering group play.  This is mainly because they're still trying to incentivize group play to please old-school MMO gamers, tying endgame content almost exclusively to group-oriented content.  Once you've completely leveled up in most MMO's, you're forced into grouping for instances/raids to continue progressing. 

     This is where new MMO's fail.  The second that grouping is required to continue progressing, you've obviously lost the solo gamer.   Solo gamers don't have the time, or don't wish to take the time, to assemble a group of strangers every time they wish to progress.  This is much less of an issue with instanced PvP, so long as there are no population, balance, or gameplay issues that dissuade players from participating, and this is where the bulk of group oriented content should be focused. 

     In terms of PvE, however, having content that scales to the size of the group, or allowing players to have NPC's/pets/companion characters to aid them in endgame raids/instances, while still having the option of running them the traditional way, would allow MMO's to retain more solo-minded players, while still giving group oriented players the option of playing the way they like. 

     There are a lot of other things that must go into a formula for retaining both solo and group oriented players, but in the context of this thread, giving the maximum amount of options for players to enjoy the game will always be a far better strategy than forcing players into one style of play.  

     What EA/BW needs to do with this game is simply embrace the "single-player game with a multiplayer option" label that SWTOR has received from many gamers.  Simply from a business perspective, going further to cater to single-player gamers would attract and retain far more players than TOR has in its current state, thereby generating more revenue under any system.  These changes in design would be a strong start: 

   Flahpoint difficulty scale to the size of the group, including for a single player

   Adding an enjoyable open-world PvP experience that players can join in whenever they like

   Using Operations and PvP instances as group-oriented content

       If these changes were to be implemented, along with revising the combat system and making planets A LOT more open-world, debating whether SWTOR should be F2P, B2P, or subscription will be much more relevant, because as it stands now, it will make little difference.

And yes, I do play SWTOR, though for how much longer remains to be seen. 

Decent write-up, but for the life of me, I don't see how the crafting changes for custom items didn't make the list.  Most were expecting to be able to "level up" the schematics they purchased from their crew skill trainer to orange quality, and have the ability to reverse engineer looted orange items for the chance to learn the schematic, neither of which happened.

There were misleading statements made by Devs early on in the testing of update 1.2 that led to this confusion.  Though the devs later clarified those statements, many did not get the memo, and were pretty upset with the system that was implemented.  Many people are upset because there are many items that people would like to use for their appearance, but those items do not have orange quality schematics.  Many of the low level gear sets for jedi/sith characters have no orange schematics for gloves or boots.

Overall, this dissapointed a lot of players, and definitely should have been on the list, and fairly high on it.

     The game is just shy of being four months out of launch.  It is already offering a free week to new players, and as of next week, current subscribers with a level 50 character on their account will get a free month.  How quickly do you have to be losing subscribers to hand out that much free time this early in the game's life?  Update 1.2 has already generated more firestorms than problems with the game it was intended to fix.  It's not looking good so far for EA/BW.

     Isn't this browser-based, facebook game fad over with yet?  I mean seriously, how many more of these low-cost, quick shot money-makers that die off within a few months need to be released before the A.D.D. FB crowd stops playing them?  Hopefully not many more, because those "Amy found a pig!" messages were seriously getting annoying until FB added a way to block them.  As for Garriott's theory that a game that keeps your interest for years is somehow inferior to a game that can be figured out iwithin minutes, at which point you are asked for your credit card # goes to show that he doesn't understand as much about gaming as he apparently likes to think he does.

Who could possibly contain their excitement for Ultima: FARMVILLE?!  

I sure as hell can. 

     Once again I'm given proof that I have next to nothing in common with people who play WoW.  That isn't meant as an attack, I'm simply stating that everything people like about WoW, I usually think is terrible in terms of gaming, and everything most of them seem to hate, like the Mists of Pandaria, I think sound interesting.   If you already have elves, dwarves, and bipedal bulls as playable races, then why the hell would it bother people to have pandas? 

      I think, given what's already in the game, that playing a big, badass samurai panda not only sounds fun, but also fits into the game perfectly.  I just don't understand how players who run around as dwarves with giant-ass hammers are suddenly appalled at the idea of there being kung-fu pandas in the game.  One is not any more or less silly or childish than the other when you really think about it. 

     If you're already playing WoW, and have been for some time, I don't really feel that MoP is going to be the deal-breaker when there have been bigger changes to the entire game and its mechanics that have been made, and those weren't enough to cause you to leave and never return.  While some players apparently have a serious hatred of cute, furry creatures, it's my opinion that overall, the WoW community is making a mountain out of a panda hill.  

     I'm sorry, but I have to go with dissapointing here.  I think that the initial year's box sales, as I've stated before, easily hits 1.5-2 million, possibly all the way up to 3 million.  The problem is that the "200 hours" of game time will not actually turn out to be 200 hours, and people who dive into their next character class of the same faction are going to find out quickly that about 75% of the "original story" for the same faction is exactly the same.  Those cutscenes are going to wear on players seeing them repeatedly, both in quests and endgame content. 

     Once you max level a couple toons, and the replayability of questing and leveling wears off, you're left with endgame, which is the same ol' grind as it is in any other gear-based game.  Players who love being the mouse on the wheel will be happy with raiding, others will enjoy the PvP and that will keep them subbed.  For the players who came looking for epic story, well, they're going to be dissatisfied once they run out of said story.  I would be quite impressed if EA/BW is able to punch out new story content additions at a rate that will satisfy the players who are interested in following a continuous story rather than repeating the same content over and over to gear up for the next level of content.

      I'd say at the end of year one, roughly 2-2.5 million boxes will be sold, and that's a success right there, but TOR will not retain more than 2/3 of those players at most, unless of course EA/BW are johnny on the spot with content updates, and adding features that players are screaming for after launch.  If the community is listened to, and systems and tweaks are made effectively, while adding new story content at a quick pace for each class, EA can easily blow my prediction out of the water, and get my subscription dollars. Power to them if they do.  I don't expect that to happen, obviously, which is why I voted Dissappointing.  Here's hoping I'm wrong.

(On a side note, the Beta invite that I recieved last week, confirmed, DL'ed the client for, and then was told two days later was sent to me by mistake did not foster any newfound confidence in EA for me.  I'm just sayin'....)