If I was going to put all my heart into creating something that was going to cost $200 million, take several years to complete and be enjoyed only by me it wouldn't matter if anyone else hated it. But if I put that same heart, money, and timeframe and knowingly release it to a vocal and exacting demographc you better believe that I'd be checking the thougths, criticisims and opinions of said demographic every step of the way.
Besides, we've all seen what 'artistic integrity' can do for a game's sales, right?
In the end, you never know how the if the product will be a success or not. There's no guarentee in any of this. If there were, all these games since WoW would have been massive successes.
Big projects have multiple departments. So yes, If I spent years to develop art,music or story for SWTOR, then I found out that my core company I work for (EA) put a slop job of a graphics engine together to the point where mass multiplayer wasn't even possible (and revenue would be cut because nobody would play this game), then yes .. I probably would resign too.
Still hoping for Illum 2.0? Keep hoping. (thanks EA for the slop job)
Easy to have that philosophy now. But when put into the situation???
Did EA create the railshooter? Did EA chose the Hero Engine? Did EA think it's a cool idea to have planets frozen in time with stiff NPCs?
Get over it, BW dropped the ball, EA is a freakin' publisher and not the game developer
As easy as it is to blame EA, this post is exactly right.
EA gave Bioware plenty of TIME and MONEY to create a great MMO, Bioware just royally crapped the bed on this one. If anything the Doctors were asked to leave not the other way around.
Here is the thing that bothers me with this entire situation. They dump millions into voice acting, and for years we were told by BW fan boys on here and other sites that the voice acting and story was what was going to make people subscribe. We are not even at the 1 year mark and we've seen BW devs say that voice acting is too expensive and they seemed to hint that future story expansion wouldn't have it or as much of it. You are telling me no one could see that coming?
I've played five toons to level 50, after the first week I tuned out the voice overs. The stories are alright, but all way too short. The Jedi Knight Story line is so much more epic than the rest of them that after playing that one the others seem a little bit underwhelming (note - Karpyshyn who no doubt wrote the JK story line as it lines up with his Revan novel left BW shortly after SWTOR was released). So story is this big thing, but it takes less than a month of resonable play to finish one of the eight big stories.
You might say - but they have end game right? Let's look at this logically, the game was hyped to be story based play, so not one that should have been extremely focused on endgame, so lacking a strong endgame experience might be expected. However since launch they have added almost zero story to the game that was not in the form of a flashpoint or Ops. Yet the people most inclined to play OPs are those least inclined to care about story and especially inclined to care about all eight of the profession stories. Even with these new Ops and flashpoints the amount of conetent out there to grind endgame and do the monotonous gear grind is really small, and often broken. It seem with each new patch rewards either break or get nerfed. Leaving even the hardest core raiding guilds dissatisfied and shaking their heads.
So tell me someone please, how are any of these poor design decisions, conflicting prioprities and shortsighted plannings EA's fault? Clearly there are problems in the BW dev team that are deep to the core. Hell when you have a dev that comes out and says the fans are stupid for wanting more species (Erikson) you clearly have a problem.
People are angry about this game because it didn't do anything great, it did a lot of mediocre things at best. And since launch has ruined a number of these things. Look at the server merges, the naming issues that arose because of that. Legacy surnames were once unique, somthing the player base in beta was livid about and the devs refused to budge, but now they are non-unique not because of the player base because the devs painted themselves into a corner with server merges. HK-51 and the Cathar have been dangled in front of players faces for a long time, yet it has become pretty evident that at least the Cather will be something that players have to buy in the new item shop.
I'm sorry, any frustration the Doctors feel based off of fan disappointment in their games ultimately falls at their feet, either for allowing EA to steam roll them and being too concerned about losing EA's money to say anything (compliance) or by being negligent members of the BW staff.
SOE makes mistakes, and they tend let people pull their strings a bit much, but Smedley is a decent guy (although makes poor business decsions which gives SOE the bad rep) - when new games gets releases, by competitors, he always wishes them well, unlike EA who wants the games "to rot to the core"
Smedley is a decent guy? Since when? Since he admitted the NGE was a mistake? Before that, the hatred for this guy on these boards was beyond anything EA has conjured since.
Do not confuse his business blunders with his good sense of humanity, read the rest of the post you quoted
He apologised for the NGE even though it was LA who made it happen. See a previous post of mine in this thread showing Julio Torres of LA highlighting the NGE. There are no videos or articles on the internet, where Smedley is talking about the NGE in the same delight as JT did. The only thing Smedley is quilty of the NGE for, is allowing it to happen, and not taking a stand against LA.
The doctors left because their "senior exec" consultancy contracts were up and they did not feel like working for someone else, for a salary, at the company they used to own. (And one of the reasons you know this, is that had they left early, a penalty clause would likely have kicked in, and they BOTH left at the same time).
This is a very common occurence in the corporate world.
All the rest is a bunch of hot air, it was about the money (them not getting the profits anymore) and the control (which they did not have any longer).
Listen, I'm not saying SWTOR is a great game and the fans are wrong. What i am saying is in general, MMO fans, at least teh one who cant find a mmo they like, exxagerate how bad games are. They cite bugs/graphics/ and all other kinds of stuff and the only solutions they give are mostly ones that cannot be done because of technical limitations.
They also tend to forget that not all MMOs are meant to cater to them. If you hate themeparks, emphasis on story, cutscenes and linear gameplay then TOR was not targeted towards you and if you bought it expecting somthing different than that then it was your fault and not Bioware's. That would be just as silly as a player who buys Darkfall and then complains about being jumped and looted, which by the way DID happen. Some players really need to learn how to be smart consumers.
Is SWTOR a failure? Yes, because they set such high expectations on the game and did not meet those expectations, in my eyes, they failed. But would I call the game horrible? No. Would I call the game a completed disaster, No.
I agree. I don't think the game is horrible by any means. I just wish Bioware had released the game as a single player coop and avoided this genre and its fanatics all together.
The graphics are fine, the gameplay is fine. If you took the hype and scope of this game away and compared it to other video games, this game rocks. But because of the expectations and just based on the fans of this genre, this game appears to be the worst game ever made.
The mentality of a lot of people here is basically "I hate the game, therefore it must fail." Misery loves company.
So to say the two docs may have left due to fan negativity is very possible. But not because of how crappy SWTOR, but because it wasnt popular and that the fans are so bitter.
And for me, I could never be a game developer. Becuase to spend years of my life dedicated to creating something. And then haev that something be crapped on by people who are so bitter as to exaggerate the negatives and be so disrepctful to teh devs. i couldnt handle it. i would want to jump thru the screnn.
Me too. Gamers have always been a little passionate about their favorite hobby, but the MMO fanatics are sometimes worse than fans of NFL franchises. At least the NFL fans ROOT for their home team and don't wish for them to fail.
Listen, I'm not saying SWTOR is a great game and the fans are wrong. What i am saying is in general, MMO fans, at least teh one who cant find a mmo they like, exxagerate how bad games are. They cite bugs/graphics/ and all other kinds of stuff and the only solutions they give are mostly ones that cannot be done because of technical limitations.
They also tend to forget that not all MMOs are meant to cater to them. If you hate themeparks, emphasis on story, cutscenes and linear gameplay then TOR was not targeted towards you and if you bought it expecting somthing different than that then it was your fault and not Bioware's. That would be just as silly as a player who buys Darkfall and then complains about being jumped and looted, which by the way DID happen. Some players really need to learn how to be smart consumers.
Is SWTOR a failure? Yes, because they set such high expectations on the game and did not meet those expectations, in my eyes, they failed. But would I call the game horrible? No. Would I call the game a completed disaster, No.
I agree. I don't think the game is horrible by any means. I just wish Bioware had released the game as a single player coop and avoided this genre and its fanatics all together.
The graphics are fine, the gameplay is fine. If you took the hype and scope of this game away and compared it to other video games, this game rocks. But because of the expectations and just based on the fans of this genre, this game appears to be the worst game ever made.
The mentality of a lot of people here is basically "I hate the game, therefore it must fail." Misery loves company.
So to say the two docs may have left due to fan negativity is very possible. But not because of how crappy SWTOR, but because it wasnt popular and that the fans are so bitter.
And for me, I could never be a game developer. Becuase to spend years of my life dedicated to creating something. And then haev that something be crapped on by people who are so bitter as to exaggerate the negatives and be so disrepctful to teh devs. i couldnt handle it. i would want to jump thru the screnn.
Me too. Gamers have always been a little passionate about their favorite hobby, but the MMO fanatics are sometimes worse than fans of NFL franchises. At least the NFL fans ROOT for their home team and don't wish for them to fail.
So 1.5 million people are dumb consumers, and 500k are smart?
I do not mind themeparks, and I like story, cutscenes and linear gameplay. The main problem with SWTOR is just that it did not get much attention from the devs as it is basically restrictive without much enhancement and its design is more of a console / single player with multiplayer options type game than a themepark MMO worth spending $15 per month. Story, cutscenes and linear gameplay does not suit a MMO
They should have made it like Red Dead Redemption or Mass Effect 3, where the main single player game was story, and that other players could drop in and play co-op with you, and then have Operations, Flashpoints and Warzones as the multiplayer gameplay, and then every few months dish out some DLC.
SWTOR at the end of the day is not a MMO like WOW or LOTRO.
On the other hand, Bioware's decision to emphasize story over gameplay was rational, because Bioware never has been very good at gameplay. The problem is, mmos are all about gameplay.
Lucasarts just gave the IP to the wrong studio.
This is complete and utter nonsense. I've played BG to KOTOR to DA to ME, I had little problem with the gameplay in those games. In fact, they were games that managed to combine good story with fun gameplay. But hey, whatever, to each their own, I guess.
Bioware games have always been radically unbalanced and far too easy, with gameplay that could never stand on its own apart from the attractions of story and rpg elements. Case-in-point: how well is ME3 multiplayer doing?
I'll buy that. Star Wars fans are bat shizz crazy. You couldn't possibly make them happy.
Meh... MEhhhh (jerry lewis nerd voice) but buuuut... Jedi are like gawds.. they can force pull a staaaarship. meh, meeeeeh.
But buuut, you made Jedi the only class anyone wants to play, they are too powerful, meh meeeeeeh...
Why did you nerf jedi, they have to be GAWDLYKE! I'm quitting!! meh meeeeeeh!!
Anybody that buys star wars as the greatest 'sci fi' of our generation is gulping the kool aid by the barrels.
Actually your assertion is quie incorrect.
People were quite happy with SWG pre NGE, even when Jedi back then was not an easily obtainable thing.
Funny how everytime the make a star wars mmo more "Jedi-ly", the shitter it gets and the more pissed off fans are.
I think people just prefer playing smugglers vs bounty hunters end of the day.
"People" That's not very exact.
I would say at least as many people tried SWG at launch and hated it, as there were that subscribed. At least.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I think it's unfortunate that Trent Oster would put himself in a position where people feel like he's speaking for the doctors in blaming the fans. Nobody will care about his comment when Beamdog releases BGEE, but people will remember it if/when the docs return and start up a new company with some of the cash EA paid them for BioWare after the non-compete is up.
I would add that BioWare's relationship and interaction with many of its fans took a turn for the worse well before TOR turned out to suck ... the landscap and dev-fan relationship has changed since BioWare's successful games of the late 90s/early 00s, and the people of that generation at BioWare did not necessarily evolve in the right directions to stay "hip". Instead a number of them looked like ever more condescending gods deigning to step down from their throne and tell the people, "It's your fault for screwing it up, not ours."
The only sad thing is that SWG was shut down, a 10 year older game with a 10 times better concept.
I don' t care about these "gaming gods" never played anything from Bioware except SWTOR.
This has nothing to do with the bugfest that was SWG.
Plus, your ignorance is showing.
It isn't his ignorance that is showing. You see, with SWG they were trying to innovate, and innovation represents a higher level of complexity. TOR, on the other hand, had the ambivalence of retrospect to draw upon and still totally, in every way, failed.
The only sad thing is that SWG was shut down, a 10 year older game with a 10 times better concept.
I don' t care about these "gaming gods" never played anything from Bioware except SWTOR.
This has nothing to do with the bugfest that was SWG.
Plus, your ignorance is showing.
It isn't his ignorance that is showing. You see, with SWG they were trying to innovate, and innovation represents a higher level of complexity. TOR, on the other hand, had the ambivalence of retrospect to draw upon and still totally, in every way, failed.
I love it when people say SWTOR failed. Failed what? Failed to create a story drive MMO? No. Failed to create a loyal player base? No. Failed in creating a Star Wars theme? No. Failed to create the #2 sub based MMO in existence? No.
SWTOR only failed in some people's minds because they had some really bizarre expectations. Chat bubbles? Sitting in chairs? Useless!
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
I love it when people say SWTOR failed. Failed what? Failed to create a story drive MMO? No. Failed to create a loyal player base? No. Failed in creating a Star Wars theme? No. Failed to create the #2 sub based MMO in existence? No.
SWTOR only failed in some people's minds because they had some really bizarre expectations. Chat bubbles? Sitting in chairs? Useless!
I don't consider what they produced story-driven. What they actually produceed was a timeline what gave you the illustion of choice, rather than true innovation. However, it was all an obfucastion and you had no choice. I have said this before, but what they tried to do was create was a low-maintenance cash cow. Some people get it, some do not.
As for the loyal following -- generally speaking, all of the quality players have left. They figured it out and chose not to be insulted.
I love it when people say SWTOR failed. Failed what? Failed to create a story drive MMO? No. Failed to create a loyal player base? No. Failed in creating a Star Wars theme? No. Failed to create the #2 sub based MMO in existence? No.
SWTOR only failed in some people's minds because they had some really bizarre expectations. Chat bubbles? Sitting in chairs? Useless!
Failed to create a story driven MMO .... Bioware created a story yes; not necessarily an mmo though.
Created a loyal player base? To early to say.
Creating a Star Wars theme - OK.
Created the #2 sub based MMO in existence. Stop buying into the day 1 hype. Even on day 1 it was only true for the western market and you excluded titles like e.g. CoD (people pay a sub for the mmo part of several games these days). Today - maybe, maybe not. Come November-ish it will be lost in the noise.
Financially SWTOR has failed to deliver. EA shareholders are not interested in story they are interested in $$$. As head of a large part of EA that has now released several financially sub-par titles the Docs failed to deliver. And there has to be a question over the whole of EA Bioware.
Mailboxes! Heal bot han solo alikes! Tanking boba fett alikes! Inabilty to travel by vehicle on a planet unless you've walked there first! Having to manually walk / fly half way around the universe to tell people you've completed a task!
Originally posted by superniceguy All the troubles started when they joined EA. There could have been no negativity if they were not with EA. EA are the root cause
^ I would have to go with this. It all started with the EA merge.
I'd say the article is dead wrong. People RESIGN when things go wrong. They RETIRE when things go right! Oh is that why Jason West & Vince Zampella left Infinity Ward?
Comments
In the end, you never know how the if the product will be a success or not. There's no guarentee in any of this. If there were, all these games since WoW would have been massive successes.
Easy to have that philosophy now. But when put into the situation???
And owned by EA. Imagine.
Just like a lot of people don't hold the opinions of those who bought MoP in very high regard. Don't take it personal.
Edit: Sorry for the numerous back-to-back replies..
Here is the thing that bothers me with this entire situation. They dump millions into voice acting, and for years we were told by BW fan boys on here and other sites that the voice acting and story was what was going to make people subscribe. We are not even at the 1 year mark and we've seen BW devs say that voice acting is too expensive and they seemed to hint that future story expansion wouldn't have it or as much of it. You are telling me no one could see that coming?
I've played five toons to level 50, after the first week I tuned out the voice overs. The stories are alright, but all way too short. The Jedi Knight Story line is so much more epic than the rest of them that after playing that one the others seem a little bit underwhelming (note - Karpyshyn who no doubt wrote the JK story line as it lines up with his Revan novel left BW shortly after SWTOR was released). So story is this big thing, but it takes less than a month of resonable play to finish one of the eight big stories.
You might say - but they have end game right? Let's look at this logically, the game was hyped to be story based play, so not one that should have been extremely focused on endgame, so lacking a strong endgame experience might be expected. However since launch they have added almost zero story to the game that was not in the form of a flashpoint or Ops. Yet the people most inclined to play OPs are those least inclined to care about story and especially inclined to care about all eight of the profession stories. Even with these new Ops and flashpoints the amount of conetent out there to grind endgame and do the monotonous gear grind is really small, and often broken. It seem with each new patch rewards either break or get nerfed. Leaving even the hardest core raiding guilds dissatisfied and shaking their heads.
So tell me someone please, how are any of these poor design decisions, conflicting prioprities and shortsighted plannings EA's fault? Clearly there are problems in the BW dev team that are deep to the core. Hell when you have a dev that comes out and says the fans are stupid for wanting more species (Erikson) you clearly have a problem.
People are angry about this game because it didn't do anything great, it did a lot of mediocre things at best. And since launch has ruined a number of these things. Look at the server merges, the naming issues that arose because of that. Legacy surnames were once unique, somthing the player base in beta was livid about and the devs refused to budge, but now they are non-unique not because of the player base because the devs painted themselves into a corner with server merges. HK-51 and the Cathar have been dangled in front of players faces for a long time, yet it has become pretty evident that at least the Cather will be something that players have to buy in the new item shop.
I'm sorry, any frustration the Doctors feel based off of fan disappointment in their games ultimately falls at their feet, either for allowing EA to steam roll them and being too concerned about losing EA's money to say anything (compliance) or by being negligent members of the BW staff.
Do not confuse his business blunders with his good sense of humanity, read the rest of the post you quoted
He apologised for the NGE even though it was LA who made it happen. See a previous post of mine in this thread showing Julio Torres of LA highlighting the NGE. There are no videos or articles on the internet, where Smedley is talking about the NGE in the same delight as JT did. The only thing Smedley is quilty of the NGE for, is allowing it to happen, and not taking a stand against LA.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Coming from you I find it to be a compliment. Thanks!
The doctors left because their "senior exec" consultancy contracts were up and they did not feel like working for someone else, for a salary, at the company they used to own. (And one of the reasons you know this, is that had they left early, a penalty clause would likely have kicked in, and they BOTH left at the same time).
This is a very common occurence in the corporate world.
All the rest is a bunch of hot air, it was about the money (them not getting the profits anymore) and the control (which they did not have any longer).
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
So 1.5 million people are dumb consumers, and 500k are smart?
I do not mind themeparks, and I like story, cutscenes and linear gameplay. The main problem with SWTOR is just that it did not get much attention from the devs as it is basically restrictive without much enhancement and its design is more of a console / single player with multiplayer options type game than a themepark MMO worth spending $15 per month. Story, cutscenes and linear gameplay does not suit a MMO
They should have made it like Red Dead Redemption or Mass Effect 3, where the main single player game was story, and that other players could drop in and play co-op with you, and then have Operations, Flashpoints and Warzones as the multiplayer gameplay, and then every few months dish out some DLC.
SWTOR at the end of the day is not a MMO like WOW or LOTRO.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Bioware games have always been radically unbalanced and far too easy, with gameplay that could never stand on its own apart from the attractions of story and rpg elements. Case-in-point: how well is ME3 multiplayer doing?
"People" That's not very exact.
I would say at least as many people tried SWG at launch and hated it, as there were that subscribed. At least.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I think it's unfortunate that Trent Oster would put himself in a position where people feel like he's speaking for the doctors in blaming the fans. Nobody will care about his comment when Beamdog releases BGEE, but people will remember it if/when the docs return and start up a new company with some of the cash EA paid them for BioWare after the non-compete is up.
I would add that BioWare's relationship and interaction with many of its fans took a turn for the worse well before TOR turned out to suck ... the landscap and dev-fan relationship has changed since BioWare's successful games of the late 90s/early 00s, and the people of that generation at BioWare did not necessarily evolve in the right directions to stay "hip". Instead a number of them looked like ever more condescending gods deigning to step down from their throne and tell the people, "It's your fault for screwing it up, not ours."
I'd say the article is dead wrong. People RESIGN when things go wrong. They RETIRE when things go right!
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
It isn't his ignorance that is showing. You see, with SWG they were trying to innovate, and innovation represents a higher level of complexity. TOR, on the other hand, had the ambivalence of retrospect to draw upon and still totally, in every way, failed.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
I love it when people say SWTOR failed. Failed what? Failed to create a story drive MMO? No. Failed to create a loyal player base? No. Failed in creating a Star Wars theme? No. Failed to create the #2 sub based MMO in existence? No.
SWTOR only failed in some people's minds because they had some really bizarre expectations. Chat bubbles? Sitting in chairs? Useless!
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
Having my morning coffee.
Thanks for ruining my computer screen!
I don't consider what they produced story-driven. What they actually produceed was a timeline what gave you the illustion of choice, rather than true innovation. However, it was all an obfucastion and you had no choice. I have said this before, but what they tried to do was create was a low-maintenance cash cow. Some people get it, some do not.
As for the loyal following -- generally speaking, all of the quality players have left. They figured it out and chose not to be insulted.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
Failed to create a story driven MMO .... Bioware created a story yes; not necessarily an mmo though.
Created a loyal player base? To early to say.
Creating a Star Wars theme - OK.
Created the #2 sub based MMO in existence. Stop buying into the day 1 hype. Even on day 1 it was only true for the western market and you excluded titles like e.g. CoD (people pay a sub for the mmo part of several games these days). Today - maybe, maybe not. Come November-ish it will be lost in the noise.
Financially SWTOR has failed to deliver. EA shareholders are not interested in story they are interested in $$$. As head of a large part of EA that has now released several financially sub-par titles the Docs failed to deliver. And there has to be a question over the whole of EA Bioware.
Mailboxes!
Heal bot han solo alikes!
Tanking boba fett alikes!
Inabilty to travel by vehicle on a planet unless you've walked there first!
Having to manually walk / fly half way around the universe to tell people you've completed a task!
Badly done more linear wow in space.
You shouldn't. They are rolling in money and i believe they are actually happy to leave EA.
Oh is that why Jason West & Vince Zampella left Infinity Ward?