The little things are actually big.

tiefighter25 · January 2013

Although I'm not a huge fan (possible understatement) of SWTOR's new monetization model, I do think their Plan B has paid divends, at least for now.

All topics such as withheld content, x-pac vs DLC aside, there is no denying that the Cartel Shop has been at least somewhat succesful in increasing the game's revenues.

Many would just write it off that it only helps defray the (estimated) high development costs of the game, and doesn't do much to improve the possible future of the game. While that is a valid concern, as is that Makeb will be a huge paywall for the FTP players reaching the end of their class stories, there soes seem to be some definitive good news for SWTOR's future.

Many people, both those who enjoy the game and those who do not, have been concerned about the ongoing bugs, performance, lag, and optimization issues of the game. Now this is just conjecture on my part, but in the latest patch, a seemingly minor, undocumented patch improvement was the hopefully final squashing of the companion lightsaber bug.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=590010

It seems that after months, and with little fanfare, the bug was finally fixed. To me, that's a positive sign.

Whats more, if you do a little internet sleuthing (which is dangereous, since a little knowledge can be a bad thing) and take a look at Bioware Austin's employment oppurtunity section, it seems they are looking for engineers and programmers. (As opposed to monetization specialists and cartel item artists.)

http://www.bioware.com/careers/austin

It's my hope that the game's Plan B has paid enough dividends that EA has decided the game is worth reinvesting (albeit at a reduced level from previous projections) in and that the game does have a future to look forward to.

More importantly, a game where performance is increased and bugs are finally addressed.

Again this is only conjecture, but one can hope. As to my distaste for the cash shop business model, (and corporate double-speak and content withholding) as many have pointed out, no one put a gun to its customers' heads. Still, I hope that the game becomes more robust, and more non-cash shop content will roll out following the Makeb expansion.

*Just so it's not all rainbows and unicorns, I reserve the right to criticize their handling of the Cathar at a future date.

Anyway, thought I'd make a thread that the game's most enthusiastic fans could take away something hopeful in tone.

ktanner3 · January 2013

I am so going to miss seeing my jedi companion walking around with a lightsaber ignited up her body.

BadOrb · January 2013

Yeah I read that today aswell , all good. Glad to hear they are hiring again , you will note that they are also hiring testers to test out Makeb ( lets hope it's done well ). Another great thing is the fact that they have opened up a PTS character transfer service , well it's not open yet but it is there on the website . It will be opened soon enough , which I beleive is eary really as I thought it was only for Makeb. Maybe now it will be to test 1.7 too , who knows ?

I'm just glad we can now buy and sell the blue / cyan and red / orange crystals on the GTN , the level 10 end-game equivalent ones and ( on my server anyways ) they are cheaper than the pink / purple ones , who would have guessed that.

Overall I hope they do re-invest this Cartel Market money back into developing the game more.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

tixylix · January 2013

The game failed for one simple reason, level design.

Boring linear maps without any atmosphere until you get to Tatooine. I remember being on that Nar Shaddaa planet and it was meant to have all these different regions and they all looked the same, you couldn't tell what each one was. There was a lack of sound effects and atmospheric music, like you could stand under a stream of flying cars and there was no sound coming from them. In WoW you had that amazing background music that gave each zone so much feel, yet in SWTOR no music apart from combat and when you first land on the planet.

NPCs don't roam like they do in other MMOs such as WoW again, they all stand static, sometimes walk back and forth 5 paces but that is about it. Even when you had NPCs doing something, it was like they were locked into that constant state. I saw one Jedi constantly lifting another one up in the air on a starter planet....... like so odd :

They have those stupid class hangers you always have to run through, seriously I don't get that whole tedious way of traveling. The space game was worthless, they might as well have not included it and ships were worthless too, I don't see why they even had to be there as you couldn't do anything with them. So really they could have taken all that out and just put in a system like SWG where you run to a shuttle or the starport to travel and it happens with one click of a button.

The fleet stations were the most generic, ugly looking things ever that turned SWTOR into a hub based game and ultimately killed the game. They removed the players from the world and made every city feel dead because instead of people being in those cities, they just stayed in that one hub. There wasn't any reason to ever leave them either, the game had no world PVP, in fact the only time I ever saw it was on Tatooine and you could enter every instance or battleground from the fleet.

They said they adde them in there during beta because players kept getting lost........ how could you get lost in SWTOR? The maps were small and mostly linear and everything was clearly marked on the map. Instead we were left with dead cities that might as well not have been there and two copied and pasted fleet stations, like I wanna know who sells them or did one side steal the design off of the other? lol...

Bioware have never been known for their level design though, such an overrated developer whose last good game was BG2.

Tigasnake · January 2013

The little things really are big. I came back after 6 months and found Kira still with a bugged lit saber on the bridge of my ship. I was like "Wow.. 6 months later and they still didn't fix that?" Glad to hear it's fixed. I'll have to check when I get Jaesa soon. Kinda rerolled from my Knight a day after returning. Leveling as a Sith Warrior... I prefer Kira over Vette. =(

BadOrb · January 2013

Originally posted by tixylix
The game failed for one simple reason, level design.

Boring linear maps without any atmosphere until you get to Tatooine. I remember being on that Nar Shaddaa planet and it was meant to have all these different regions and they all looked the same, you couldn't tell what each one was. There was a lack of sound effects and atmospheric music, like you could stand under a stream of flying cars and there was no sound coming from them. In WoW you had that amazing background music that gave each zone so much feel, yet in SWTOR no music apart from combat and when you first land on the planet.

NPCs don't roam like they do in other MMOs such as WoW again, they all stand static, sometimes walk back and forth 5 paces but that is about it. Even when you had NPCs doing something, it was like they were locked into that constant state. I saw one Jedi constantly lifting another one up in the air on a starter planet....... like so odd :

They have those stupid class hangers you always have to run through, seriously I don't get that whole tedious way of traveling. The space game was worthless, they might as well have not included it and ships were worthless too, I don't see why they even had to be there as you couldn't do anything with them. So really they could have taken all that out and just put in a system like SWG where you run to a shuttle or the starport to travel and it happens with one click of a button.

The fleet stations were the most generic, ugly looking things ever that turned SWTOR into a hub based game and ultimately killed the game. They removed the players from the world and made every city feel dead because instead of people being in those cities, they just stayed in that one hub. There wasn't any reason to ever leave them either, the game had no world PVP, in fact the only time I ever saw it was on Tatooine and you could enter every instance or battleground from the fleet.

They said they adde them in there during beta because players kept getting lost........ how could you get lost in SWTOR? The maps were small and mostly linear and everything was clearly marked on the map. Instead we were left with dead cities that might as well not have been there and two copied and pasted fleet stations, like I wanna know who sells them or did one side steal the design off of the other? lol...

Bioware have never been known for their level design though, such an overrated developer whose last good game was BG2.

You clearly haven't played the game at all recently have you ? I hardly go to the fleet now i have a mail box GTN and storage on all my ships , so the ships are great. Plus I think you meant the orbital stations ? not the spaceports ? The orbital stations are a little bit annoying but again you haven't played in a while as in most cases you can now by pass the orbital stations and get straight to your ship. Also the planets are now thriving lots of full instances on my server and mine isn't the busiest. Maybe re try the game ? Or stop writting about the old swtor ? One or the other.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

simplius · January 2013

so they fixed companion bug again,,,what is it second or third time?

chances are good, that they will break it again in a coming patch

the cartel market must be booming, since they have money to hire new tech guys

but why fire the old tech guys then? they should know the code better

it will take months for the new guys to get familiar with this special case

as we all know,,the HERO ALPHA engine wasnt made to do this work

you cant build a good house on a bad foundation

FromHell · January 2013

the loading times are abysmal and the problem is the graphics and artstyles are ugly and low on detail, look at Age of Conan from 2009 which looks and performs hundred times better than TOR.

TOR has no meaningful crafting, no housing, no guild cities, no point in open world PvP, no day night change, dead static planets and mindless troopers shooting forever behind barricades.

EA needs to invest another 200 millions to fix all this.

Or give 200 millions to SOE, Trion or Funcom to make a proper SW MMO

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