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Co-Founder Zeschuk flees SWTOR

13

Comments

  • MumboJumboMumboJumbo Member UncommonPosts: 3,219

    I love "top comments" There's genius out there.

    I watched the original movies recently again, and they are such enjoyable films, even if they are not as magical as when I saw them as a kid. But I can't wrap my head around how they'd be a good choice for a themepark classes-levels-trinity type of game? :(

    I think an MMOFPS or 3rd person shooter mmo style Mass Effect MMO could have done comfortably enough?

  • toddzetoddze Member UncommonPosts: 2,150
    Originally posted by keithian
     

    The question is, why would someone enjoy the demise of something people enjoy? The old argument used to be because someone felt they were somehow obligated to save people money. Now that it is going free to play, that no longer applies so people really need to find something better to do.

    1) As long as people enjoy it as an online rpg thats fine, I dont enjoy their game hurting.

    2) But I am thrilled that this game tanked because it was advertised as an mmorpg.

    These games are now played just like you would any run of the mill offline rpg. play it for a month or two then you are looking for something else to play. Well actually offline rpg's dont even last that long anymore, you are lucky to get 30 hours in those now, but thats is another can of worms that urks me to no end.

    I am fine with online rpg's I have nothing against them. We really need to branch this genre off into 2 directions. Online rpg's and mmorpg's. For some god forsaken reason when a game gets called an online rpg the fans throw a major piss fit. A true MMORPG is and always will be a game for a niche group of gamers. Just because you make a game in an online enviroment does not make it a mmorpg. MMORPGS are not solo fests, mmorpgs are not a compilation of instanced zones, mmorpg's are not a linear story, but we have all heard this song and dance before.

    Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
    Now Playing: N/A
    Worst MMO: FFXIV
    Favorite MMO: FFXI

  • PsychowPsychow Member Posts: 1,784

    Nowhere in the original "news" story is the word "FLEE" used. Yet the OP seems to think it's important to sensationalze it. I wonder why.

     

  • TrionicusTrionicus Member UncommonPosts: 498

    Everytime I see another "has left Bioware" posts I start involuntarily laughing, I was positive I had more self control than that, apparantly not.

     

    I can't even tell if we're past the trainwreck part and just counting victims or if the real fall is yet to occur. Either way THANK YOU GHOST12 for sharing, you've just made my day.

  • TeknoBugTeknoBug Member UncommonPosts: 2,156

    It's a sign that they're not liking what EA is doing. The same reason why half of Infinity Ward left after launching Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, they weren't happy with what Activision has been doing.


    Originally posted by zymurgeist
    Been there seen that. Bioware is done. The reverse midas touch of EA lives on.
    In other words, EA has crap hands, everything they touch turns to shit.

    image
    image

  • YakkinYakkin Member Posts: 919
    Originally posted by Psychow

    Nowhere in the original "news" story is the word "FLEE" used. Yet the OP seems to think it's important to sensationalze it. I wonder why.

     

    Considering the supreme arrogance of Bioware when they were touting SWTOR as the greatest thing in the world, this feels more like karma to me. :3

  • MephsterMephster Member Posts: 1,188
    Should of never ever joined forces with EA, ever! Now they are paying the price... 

    Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!

    http://www.grimdawn.com/

  • KyngBillsKyngBills Member UncommonPosts: 452
    Originally posted by Aviggin

    I'm glad that their cut-and-paste mentality wasn't rewarded as well as they expected. They sold loads of copies because of the name alone, and they didn't even have all of the basic MMO features that people expect. The storyline's all seemed rather dull for the most part, as well, which was supposed to be their biggest selling point along with 100% voice acting -- which just happened to be 100% overdone to the point they weren't even that exciting to watch after the starting zone. The voice acted crap side quests all over the place was an unnecessary money sink for the devs, which should have been trying to improve their combat system to be more fun and faster-paced as I would have expected from a Star Wars game.

    I, like many others, had such high hopes for this game, and look what they did to it by half-assing every other feature just to bring in 100% voice acting.

    Third time's the charm, and the faster this game closes down, the faster we can get another studio making another SW MMO. Or maybe they'll just give up entirely on MMO's at this point.

    I hope the License does get one more MMO chance...I guess it will, simply based on the amount of Boxes and Subs sold in SWTOR...But this seems like such a waste...The game was set in an amazingly great time-period to capture everything Star Wars, and still allow folks to be Jedi...Still can't believe they messed it up like they did...But they did...No question they did...

    You were dead on in your assessment...In retrospect,  they should have allowed BioWare to continue with the KOTOR Franchise, and given the MMO License to someone else...BioWare is a great gaming Company...But they obviously were not ready for the MMO Big Leagues...They made some really terrible decisions...image

  • IstavaanIstavaan Member Posts: 1,350
    Alot of the people who worked on swtor worked on  WAR and both games will never see an expansion.
  • YakkinYakkin Member Posts: 919

    Part of me wonders what exactly was going on behind closed doors.

    The resources they had were immense, they had a lot of time to get it ready...

    SERIOUSLY, nearly $200 million dollars to develop it, and over 4 - 5 years to make it, the hell went wrong?

  • noncleynoncley Member UncommonPosts: 718
    I think we must accept that in terms of EA's marketing and financial objectives, SWTOR has disastrously underperformed for the company, far worse than the massaged publicly-released figures reveal. We may never know just how badly for a long time. It's my personal belief, though only based on anecdotal and observational evidence, that subscriber figures never were in the region of '1.8 million active accounts' but, at best, were probably around 500,000 paid subscriptions just after launch and are now well below 200,000.
  • PsychowPsychow Member Posts: 1,784
    Originally posted by Enigmatus

    Part of me wonders what exactly was going on behind closed doors.

    The resources they had were immense, they had a lot of time to get it ready...

    SERIOUSLY, nearly $200 million dollars to develop it, and over 4 - 5 years to make it, the hell went wrong?

     

    They fell in love with the voice overs.

     

    Had they only done the voice overs for the main story quests, flash pints and main quest chains in each zone, they could have used the money spent on voice over on the other "filler" quests on somethign else. Maybe a better crafting system, better space combat, bettter (insert almost anything)...etc. 

  • KarteliKarteli Member CommonPosts: 2,646
    Originally posted by Psychow
    Originally posted by Enigmatus

    Part of me wonders what exactly was going on behind closed doors.

    The resources they had were immense, they had a lot of time to get it ready...

    SERIOUSLY, nearly $200 million dollars to develop it, and over 4 - 5 years to make it, the hell went wrong?

     

    They fell in love with the voice overs.

     

    Had they only done the voice overs for the main story quests, flash pints and main quest chains in each zone, they could have used the money spent on voice over on the other "filler" quests on somethign else. Maybe a better crafting system, better space combat, bettter (insert almost anything)...etc. 

    It wasn't the stories that got people turned away, so much as it was everything else in the game lacking for an MMORPG.

     

    The engine blows chunks and is substandard, requiring a NASA computer just to play Illum with a decent frame rate (also would require a dedicated air conditioning unit to cool the computer with the sloppy inefficient engine).  The interface is full of bugs and extremely limited, only 2 windows open at once, non movable?.  GTN is abyssmal, world isn't seemless, load screen from the 90's EQ engine (load the whole zone in at once, rather than segments on the fly, like in newer games).  UI was not changeable.  Mods prohibited.  Chat/combat filteres not very flexible and lacks background numbers, like those in combat.  Etc Etc Etc...

     

    For most players, I'd say the stories were a nice addition for a MMORPG - it's how they got implemented that was annoying, with all the instancing, phasing, and otherwise disassociation the player had with what was happing in real time in the game world.

     

    With a revamped engine / interface, stories would be a nice diversion from 3D space minigames, Star Wars arcades with more minigames, Swoop racing, casinos, cantinas where roleplayers meet.  All this with otherwise normal MMORPG activities like dungeons/flashpoints, raids, etc.  None of the things gamers wanted ever came to pass - what was left was an inferior WoW clone (with regard to non-story game interaction basics), with even worse customer service than Blizzard.  Not good.

     

    EA Bioware just promised everyone a full course meal and after hours of waiting (8 months in game time), all we got was bread.  The bread was really good, but it's not enough to prevent people from getting up and going somewhere else for a meal.

     

    edit added: As to Voice-overs preventing a decent game from coming out, I'd have to say either their system wasn't very versatile, or it had really shitty management.  Probably both though.  Once you get the basics down, adding more voicers isn't nearly (or shouldn't be) as bad as adding and testing the very first one.   If it requires hours to add another minute of cutscenes then something is very wrong in the system engineering process, which is the core to a game, even before any development takes place (new or additions).  Given the time and money spent on this project, there was no good reason for not having a top notch game engine & interface, with tight controls.

    Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
    Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.

  • SpottyGekkoSpottyGekko Member EpicPosts: 6,916

    Now to me, the most interesting snippet of this news article is the fact that the good doc was replaced by Matthew Bromberg.

     

    Mr. Bromberg was a guiding light (President and CEO) at Major League Gaming until he moved to Bioware Austin. So he is no doubt an expert on all things eSport.

     

    What does that mean for the future of SW:TOR ?

  • KarteliKarteli Member CommonPosts: 2,646
    Originally posted by SpottyGekko

    Now to me, the most interesting snippet of this news article is the fact that the good doc was replaced by Matthew Bromberg.

     

    Mr. Bromberg was a guiding light (President and CEO) at Major League Gaming until he moved to Bioware Austin. So he is no doubt an expert on all things eSport.

     

    What does that mean for the future of SW:TOR ?

    It means Star Wars fans get another business professional in change of the biggest IP in the world.  Someone who knows how to make money, push papers, and put new spins on how cool the new rails space missions will be?

     

    PVP is fubar.  PUG's vs premades were allowed from the start.  Premades now can queue and squish some PUG's while waiting for a ranked battle to start.  Class imbalances are prevalent.  Gear helps to turns any eSport prospect this game had into a joke.

     

    It's more money for Mr Bromberg though, so why not take the job.  I can't say it's good for a resume though, unless he is close to retirement anyways.

    Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
    Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.

  • Tawn47Tawn47 Member Posts: 512
    Originally posted by Omnifish
    Originally posted by Kakkzooka
    Originally posted by keithian
    Originally posted by tiefighter25
    Originally posted by keithian
    Originally posted by Kyleran

    I think you'll seen more fallout soon, despite what the fans want to believe this title is really underperforming compared to the lofty expecations expected for it and heads are going to roll.

    This really was supposed to be the WOW killer folks, failing at that there's going to be a lot of shock and awe for a while.

     

    What do you care what the fans think? If they are enjoying the game who gives a crap.

    What do you care what K. thinks? If he enjoys dicussing what is happening to Bioware Austin who gives a crap?

    The question is, why would someone enjoy the demise of something people enjoy? The old argument used to be because someone felt they were somehow obligated to save people money. Now that it is going free to play, that no longer applies so people really need to find something better to do.

    I can only speak for myself but the "enjoyment" (which it really isn't for me . . . it's more a sense of relief) is in seeing a shoddily made product, designed soley with greed in mind, fail. I'm extrememly happy this title is tanking. It serves to hold water to the argument that if this MMO were successful, other companies would be encouraged to cut corners and create the next LCD (lowest common denominator) MMO. This will cause other companies to reasses the quality of their product before they put it out to market. Maybe we'll have less MMOs marketed in the near future (in my opinion that's a very good thing as the market is super saturated), but there will be companies who come up with ideas that warrant laying out the huge expense an MMO requires to design.

    It's a shame that people are losing their jobs, however, these same people have eyes and ears and can assess whether or not they're attached to a project that is a dog. And SWTOR had fleas since two years ago. There were innumerable arguments and facts demonstrating this.

    Apart from the fact that outside this website there are people enjoying the game.  So your argument just makes you look selfish and delusional. 

    Delusional because noone in the history of anything throws money at something with, 'new ideas'.  In your scenerio the likely reality, if all these games failed due to your nonapproval, would be noone with investment money would put it into gaming. They'd go find something else with better prospects.  I'm sure if that happened you'd come back on here and complain about there not being enough choices at the moment.

    That a few people enjoy a product says little about the quality of said product.  Pick anything, youll find someone who likes it and someone who hates it.  Thats said, generally speaking, you'd have to be delusional to think that SWTOR was healthy and well prior to the F2P announcement.

    If people never invested in new ideas, nothing new would ever happen - your point is pretty ridiculous.

    SWTOR failing is good news for MMO's.  Sure, there may be less investment, but the market is pretty saturated with half-baked mmos at the moment and I'd be happy to see more quality and less quantity (and no, we do not need big investment to make quality mmo's - if anything the opposite is more often the case).

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Ever notice how, for developers, the fifteen minutes of fame happens only after they quit?

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

  • ZigZagsZigZags Member UncommonPosts: 381
    Originally posted by keithian
    Originally posted by Kyleran

    I think you'll seen more fallout soon, despite what the fans want to believe this title is really underperforming compared to the lofty expecations expected for it and heads are going to roll.

    This really was supposed to be the WOW killer folks, failing at that there's going to be a lot of shock and awe for a while.

     

    What do you care what the fans think? If they are enjoying the game who gives a crap.

    Because here at mmorpg.com we are a community of like minded people (people who love mmo games). That being said, we would like to save you money and time so maybe one day we can interact with you in a game that deserves both our time and money. SWTOR was just short of a criminal scam in my opinion. Save yourself.

     

    Dragnon - Guildmaster - Albion Central Bank in Albion Online

    www.albioncentralbank.enjin.com

  • k-damagek-damage Member CommonPosts: 738
    Originally posted by zymurgeist
    Been there seen that. Bioware is done. The reverse midas touch of EA lives on.

    Reverse midas touch ... I love that term :)

    This should start to go viral as a meme. Everything EA touches turns into pooh.

    ***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****

  • SandboxSandbox Member UncommonPosts: 295
    Originally posted by k-damage
    Originally posted by zymurgeist
    Been there seen that. Bioware is done. The reverse midas touch of EA lives on.

    Reverse midas touch ... I love that term :)

    This should start to go viral as a meme. Everything EA touches turns into pooh.

    Sorry, that title is already taken, or given to, John Smedley years ago.

  • ButtskiButtski Member UncommonPosts: 187
    it has termed the game's performance "disappointing."
  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529
    Originally posted by Icewhite
    Ever notice how, for developers, the fifteen minutes of fame happens only after they quit?

    Some 'developers' are more equal than others. :P

    Peter molyneux, Hideo Kojima, Suda 51, Miyamoto etc

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.

  • AlotAlot Member Posts: 1,948


    Originally posted by k-damage

    Originally posted by zymurgeist Been there seen that. Bioware is done. The reverse midas touch of EA lives on.
    Reverse midas touch ... I love that term :)

    This should start to go viral as a meme. Everything EA touches turns into pooh.


    Instead of "reverse Midas' touch" couldn't we just use the "Anti-Midas"?

    Like: "EA is like the anti-Midas, everything they touch turns into [mod edit]

  • gboostergbooster Member UncommonPosts: 712
    Originally posted by tixylix
    It's not EA's fault SWTOR is shit, Bioware had the freedom to develop the game and failed. I'm surprised it's taken this long for Bioware to be exposed, always thought everything they've made since BG2 has been shit.

    I don't know, they have made some great solo RPGs since then. Dragon Age was great fun, Mass Effect was kinda cool. Nothing has been up to the level that the Dungeons and Dragons games they made 10+ years ago. .

    As for SWTOR. It is obvious using that formulae for an MMO is a huge fail. If they had just released the game as a three part series like Mass Effect it would have been considered one of the greatest single player games ever. I still think the biggest reasons they forced it to be an MMO was part Blizzard $$ envy, but mainly because of piracy. Subscription fees are the greatest DRM ever.

  • TruthXHurtsTruthXHurts Member UncommonPosts: 1,555
    He probably wanted a nice quiet familiar place to off himself.

    "I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"

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