Development began at the end of 2005 when Lucas Arts came to Bioware to create a SW MMO. LA had been disappointed by its participation with SOE which, in 2003,  had resulted in an open, sandbox-type game. In terms of revenue, this game had not compared well with the World of Warcraft (also launched in 2005) which was a relatively closed, themepark-type of game.

LA therefore commissioned Bioware to make a similarly inspired themepark-type of MMO but around the SW IP.

Bioware insisted on certain terms:

Firstly, that the development and production schedule NOT be set by LA (LA had a bad reputation for insisting that its software partners release games according to its own marketing schedules that usually tied in with some film or DVD release which sometimes meant that games were released unfinished eg KOTOR 2). In other words, Bioware would set the release date and the game would come out when it decided the game was ready, not LA.

Secondly, that while Bioware would make a SW MMO to LA's specifications (ie. a themepark), it insisted that the game would be driven by features that were the particular strengths of Bioware: particularly voice-drive story.

In 2005, Bioware a small-to-mediu, sized development house. Individual games were created by individual studios withinj the company. So everyone knew everybody and what hey were doing, and management style was relatively relaxed. In this personal, individual driven environment, a feature-rich, innovative game began to take shape.

Bioware's contract to make a SW-game with LA - plus its own successful DA and ME IPs - made it a very attractive prospect for acquisition by a larger company - in this case, EA.

EA's reputation within the industry, especially amongst MMO games, was not high. It was known for buying smaller studios that owned valuable IPs or game licences, and essentially running them into the ground by providing marketing-led (ie. not feature-led) products that quickly and drastically devalued the value of the studio brand.

But EA had also learned its lesson. Not only did it decide to take a hands-off approach to the development of SWTOR but it also promised the development team vast resources, esepcially in marketing, to create the game their way. And when EA did put its oar in - like when John Riccietello, EA CEO, announced that SWTOR would be e cash-shop driven game in 2010 - he was quickly contradicted by the Bioware devs who informed him that the game would be subsriber driven and Riccietello had to issue a 'correction'.

So essentially, the Bioware team inside EA was in a superb position in 2007:

- It had the authority to create a SW MMO to its own specifications;

- It was free from any production timetable set-down by LA;

- It was provided with unprcedented levels of resources by EA.

It's at this point that the whole enterprise began to unravel and led, ultimately, to the release of a very poor game.

The problem was Bioware itself.

Having been a small, responsive company, Bioware was now a much larger entity. Not only was it charged with making an extremely large Star Wars game but it also had to put out other games in its ME and DA IPs.

No longer could one studio handle all this output. Work on SWTOR was distributed physically amongst a number of other Bioware studios, including non-Bioware studios in EA and third-party studios and developers.

This made the management of the game's development much harder to coordinate. Bioware's executives were not accustomed to multi-stream, multi-site project management. To make matters worse, what had previously been strengths - EA's hand-off approach to management and LA's schedule-free development process - meant that the production was not subject to any budgetary or timetable discipline. Development just wandered along with different studios doing thier own thing.

So a game that really should have taken about four years to produce approached eight years in production - and its budget expanded astronomically, into hundreds of millions of dollars.

These weren't the only problems. While the various developer teams were promised they could pack the game with new and rich features, Bioware weas never actually a technically proficient developmemnt studios. Kotor, ME and DA are - in terms of software, graphics and animation - very simple, very limited games compared with contemporary games of the time like Oblivion or Witcher.

And to make things work, it turned out that the technical skills equired to make a good non-networked SRPG are totally insufficient to make a good networked MMORPG. Bioware had no experience of such things as - just to name a very few - instantaneous PVP combat, player/system economy balancing, landscape design for multiple players etc.

By the beginning of 2011, it was obvious that - in business terms - a disaster was brewing. EA could no longer afford to keep shogvelling tens of mllions of dollars into the gam. Its own shareprice was plummeting and needed to be buttressed. It began to apply proper business scrutiny to SWTOR and found that the game, after seven years, was far from finished. Worse than that, key technical, graphic, animation, GUI and other features being developed by different studios did not integrate with each other. It was also obvious that Bioware did not have the managers capable of pulling these many different strands together any ime soon.

So EA laid down the law. It insisted that Bioware launch the game in whatever kind of state it could by the end of 2011. It sacked - or 'persuaded to resign' - Gordon Walton, the general studio manager (and the man whose project SWTOR had been from inception) and also Eric Brown, the CFO of EA. who had allowed the financial haemmorhage to go on.

During that year, the actual game took real shape - an exercise in bare-bones playability. The innovative and rich features were simply cancelled across the board. Stories were 'finished' and inserted into the game even if they were dull and made no sense; design details were reused over and over in every landscape (is there really only one type of tree across the whole galaxy?); character and mob animation was left unfinished; design and graphics were farmed out to third parties on the basis of price not ability... etc, etc. You know the rest.

And so,l because of intrinsic faults in the development process itself, a deeply flawed, essentially unfnished game was released.

Who is to blame?

EA for being hands-off and ploughing in tonnes of money? LA which, for once, didn't insist on some mad release date to fit in with its own merchandising shedules? Bioware's managers who had neither the technical skills nor the porject management experience to make the game in the first place?

All the parties were trying not to repeat the mistakes they had made in the past. The pity of it is, that left them free to make innovative, new mistakes in the future.

I can't help noticing the recent F2P proposals and server transfers have become a bit of a drama.

More assertions without adequate basis for conclusions. Bioware put out a good game. Like all MMO's when they first come out, the end game needs work. What's new.

The problem is they went with a copy/paste WoW job but then they made things worse by releasing it missing key features and buggy and just not fun. It's like one long hallway, especially nar shadaa and coruscant. SWTOR is the biggest gaming disappointment of all time. Just a big steaming pile of dog vomit draped over a lump of dog shit.

Originally posted by Ahnog

More assertions without adequate basis for conclusions. Bioware put out a good game. Like all MMO's when they first come out, the end game needs work. What's new.

Bioware put out a good game. Right. Thats why TOR still has its 200+ servers....

Oh wait.

Way too wordy.  Didn't read.  Everyone knows what went wrong wtih TOR and can make a short list that gets all of the major reasons.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Way too wordy.  Didn't read.  Everyone knows what went wrong wtih TOR and can make a short list that gets all of the major reasons.

One of the worst replys Iv read on this site, sorry frodo hah...

Very good information I think, a lot of the stuff I didnt know at all but it was very well worded and in basic readable form so I didnt have to crunch the information in my head for minutes wondering what the hell you were getting at. 

It got me thinking, what if...

What if in magical lala land SWTOR came out some how say in 2001, what kinda mass cult following would it bring?  Also what kinda staying power would the game have, I mean would all 215 servers still be full with everyone?

Also what if the game would have only taken 4 or 5 years to release, so say in 2009 the game went live?  What would have happened then I wonder.

Originally posted by Ahnog

More assertions without adequate basis for conclusions. Bioware put out a good game. Like all MMO's when they first come out, the end game needs work. What's new.

For me, the game's problems has nothing to do with end-game. This is a boring singleplayer RPG with too few MMO features, and I could never even get halfway to endgame.

Btw, OP. End of 2005 -> mid of 2012 = roughly 6.5 years, not 8. And the official release of WoW was in 2004, not 2005 (even though the EU version released in 2005).

Shorter next time, please, or a TL;DR version. I read through it all, and there's not that much information....

They created a Star Wars 'Wow-clone' with dialogue options which made no difference and on rails for space combat.

TOR had all the advantages you could ask for (great IP, biggest budget in gaming history, plenty of development time, large studio, significant marketing including fantastic trailers, etc.) and Bioware screwed it up by the way they designed the MMO itself.

Their arrogant and their fan boy killed the game. Ever notice nowadays bioware game are not what it used to be? And fan boy who defend bioware like it-could-do-no-wrong doesn't help either. A few bioware fan boy roaming this forum last year seem to have dissapeared along with tortanic, may they rest in peace.

Originally posted by channel84

Their arrogant and their fan boy killed the game. Ever notice nowadays bioware game are not what it used to be? And fan boy who defend bioware like it-could-do-no-wrong doesn't help either. A few bioware fan boy roaming this forum last year seem to have dissapeared along with tortanic, may they rest in peace.

You're telling me.  I don't know how Bioware got the notion in their head that their expertise is "voice driven story."  I mean, the games that put Bioware on the map, made them what they are today, had very little voicework at all.  And they were probably as much gameplay, character building, and RPG customization as they were story...if not more.

Bioware kind of reminds me of Square at this point.  Started out making great games that focus on gameplay and character building...but eventually wound up believing that they are a "cinematics" company.

Thank you Noncley, that was a very well written insight. Pretty spot on and logical analysis.

The thing that is most unforgiveable to BW/EA is that there were tons and tons of passionate followers who were giving several warnings and other great improvement suggestions all the while, but BW didn't listen.

You reap what you sow, as they say.

The funny story :

Some monthes ago, I received a mail from a private company that was hired by BW to gather some players opinion about how to improve the game, in a (paid) conference call format. Didn't take the time to see if this was legit or not, but it really seemed to be as the mail encouraged to ask Bioware directly about the authenticity of the proposal.

But even if they were offering 100 euros for that opinion sharing, I didn't replied. Why ? Because I spent hours and hours giving proper feedback during the beta, and all of it drowned in the forums flow with no followup.

Players all around the world told them how to make it a great game from very early on, but nobody at BW listened. And now they decide to wake up this late ? Sorry amigos, you don't push the brakes after the car crash.

Originally posted by Ghost12

Originally posted by Ahnog

More assertions without adequate basis for conclusions. Bioware put out a good game. Like all MMO's when they first come out, the end game needs work. What's new.

 

Bioware put out a good game. Right. Thats why TOR still has its 200+ servers....

 

Oh wait.

Yes, because any game with only 140 servers is a complete failure...oh Wait!

Originally posted by noncley

 In terms of revenue, this game had not compared well with the World of Warcraft (also launched in 2005) which was a relatively closed, themepark-type of game.

LA therefore commissioned Bioware to make a similarly inspired themepark-type of MMO but around the SW IP.

[...]

Secondly, that while Bioware would make a SW MMO to LA's specifications (ie. a themepark), it insisted that the game would be driven by features that were the particular strengths of Bioware: particularly voice-drive story.

Those are most important bits.

1. Copying on WoW

2. Targetting for huge-revenue that needed millions of subscibers

3. Heavy-story driven single player mechanic in mmorpg

Obviously you pointed out many other things that many seem very valid and I agree with almost everything- still I found those 3 above those that damaged them most.

Times of mmorpg's that will have huge fat millions of subs in NA & EU are long-gone.  They MAY happen of course, but betting on it while developing and making business plan like that = crazy.

After all was WoW developed in mind with achieving 12 millions of subs?  Or heck even 3 million?

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Way too wordy.  Didn't read.  Everyone knows what went wrong wtih TOR and can make a short list that gets all of the major reasons.

C'mon Frodo... you're smarter then this.

If you really can't focus enough to read a page of text (god forbid) then maybe it's not good to participate in the following discussion? Just saying.

The OP was actually a pretty good read.

Has anyone from Bioware or EA actually been given the boot post launch of SWtOR anyone know?

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Way too wordy.  Didn't read.  Everyone knows what went wrong wtih TOR and can make a short list that gets all of the major reasons.

 

C'mon Frodo... you're smarter then this.

If you really can't focus enough to read a page of text (god forbid) then maybe it's not good to participate in the following discussion? Just saying.

The OP was actually a pretty good read.

Has anyone from Bioware or EA actually been given the boot post launch of SWtOR anyone know?

SWTOR is a very simple case study.  It's not complicated at ALL.

1) Released too soon.  It had piss poor combat response and was missing key features a WOW clone should have such as group finders (not to mention cross server capability), rated PVP and guild tools

2) Poor priorities - failed to understand the genre/market and focused way too much on story for a MMO

3) Poor replayability for characters of the same faction. No alternate planets to choose from

4) Closed minded developers who couldn't see the flaws in the game as released and waited too long to finally address them

5) Space combat on rails

6) Too much phasing/sharding

1.3 will be the state of the game as it should have been released, minus some of the end game content that could have been added later.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Way too wordy.  Didn't read.  Everyone knows what went wrong wtih TOR and can make a short list that gets all of the major reasons.

 

C'mon Frodo... you're smarter then this.

If you really can't focus enough to read a page of text (god forbid) then maybe it's not good to participate in the following discussion? Just saying.

The OP was actually a pretty good read.

Has anyone from Bioware or EA actually been given the boot post launch of SWtOR anyone know?

SWTOR is a very simple case study.  It's not complicated at ALL.

 

1) Released too soon.  It had piss poor combat response and was missing key features a WOW clone should have such as group finders (not to mention cross server capability), rated PVP and guild tools

2) Poor priorities - failed to understand the genre/market and focused way too much on story for a MMO

3) Poor replayability for characters of the same faction. No alternate planets to choose from

4) Closed minded developers who couldn't see the flaws in the game as released and waited too long to finally address them

5) Space combat on rails

6) Too much phasing/sharding

 

1.3 will be the state of the game as it should have been released, minus some of the end game content that could have been added later.

 

 

 

Dude, those are things that are wrong with the game.

My post was about why they are in the game.

Originally posted by noncley

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Way too wordy.  Didn't read.  Everyone knows what went wrong wtih TOR and can make a short list that gets all of the major reasons.

 

C'mon Frodo... you're smarter then this.

If you really can't focus enough to read a page of text (god forbid) then maybe it's not good to participate in the following discussion? Just saying.

The OP was actually a pretty good read.

Has anyone from Bioware or EA actually been given the boot post launch of SWtOR anyone know?

SWTOR is a very simple case study.  It's not complicated at ALL.

Dude, those are things that are wrong with the game.

My post was about why they are in the game.

Which is why it is good to read the OP before participating in a thread.

Its simple. People wanted Star Wars not Star Quests.

Originally posted by eycel

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Way too wordy.  Didn't read.  Everyone knows what went wrong wtih TOR and can make a short list that gets all of the major reasons.

What if in magical lala land SWTOR came out some how say in 2001, what kinda mass cult following would it bring?  Also what kinda staying power would the game have, I mean would all 215 servers still be full with everyone?

SWTOR has very limited gameplay compared to the MMOs at that time. If it didn't die on its own in a year ot two, SWG would have buried it.