But what did Bioware do? Did they take the good parts of SWG and expand on it? No, Bioware-EA did what they always do: they tossed EVERYTHING out of the window and started with their own absurd idea to shoehorn a SW MMO into their KOTOR concept. Nobody wanted SWTOR to be SWG2, but LEARN what was good, adopt those concepts which were good, not totally IGNORE EVERYTHING! You see there is a way between "copy SWG" and totally ignore it!
Isnt this what Sony did with Everquest 2 compared to 1? Yet that was not a failure. Do you not think that maybe it's not the idea of totally changing a game style, but rather how it ws actually done that was the problem. I think Everquest 2 showed that it is possible to take an idea/story.gaming setting and produce a decent game that is totally different from it's original. I always thought EQ2 was a decent game (from 2 years of play experience).
Honestly not surprised after SWTOR and SIM5 and ME3 and MOHWA...
The EA hate train has been rolling really, really hard since Ricci took over.
With all due respect, but I can't agree here. First, the outrages against EA are overall not worse than against others, it just seems so, because EA produces simply more games. Also: HELL EA DESERVED IT.
Sorry to yell. Just felt that way. I mean, heck, EA crapped and ruined *every single series* they touched.
EA is like a reverse King Midas. Like to King Midas all things he touched transformed into gold, under EA's hands all gold turns to shit. Dragon Age, Mass Effect, SWTOR, SimCity - all based on the most prosperous and biggest chances to make epic games, partially based on the cool IPs, partially based on the great previous experience.
DA and ME had great first parts. SWTOR had SWG as referrence what people loved in a Star Wars MMO. SimCity had great previous incarnations. And yet, somehow EA managed to turn EVERY SINGLE ONE of them artistically and creatively into shit. At least RELATIVE to their potential. Sure, none of these games under EA were shit, but they were shit in relation to what they COULD and SHOULD have been given the tons of money and tons of previous experience. Nobody has such a big chance to make epic games out of Dragon Age, Mass Effect, SWTOR and SimCity and none screwed so royally.
And the failure was always the same. A vast potential was narrowed down in scope in art and creativity down to a boring, simplistic lowest common denominator. A shallow watering down, playing safe and running behind what some desktop boss thinks is hyper hyper. Best example of what is wrong with EA is how they treated the Ultima RPGs. Ultima VI and VII before EA were EPIC games. But as soon as EA got their hands on Ultima, suddenly Ultima VIII had consolish jump elements. Why? Because Super Mario was so succesful and EA thought, hey why not add a SuperMario jump element? And to hell if that fits to an Ultima RPG. Same with Ultima IX. At the time 3d with Lara Croft became a success and suddenyl EA thought, hey why not make the new Ultima like Lara Croft in 3d, and to hell if that fits to Ultima. EVERYTHING in Ultima was BROKEN and tossed out of the fucking window to shoehorn Ultima into a Super Mario and then into Lara Croft. THAT is what always HAS been wrong about EA and apparently still IS wrong.
It was the problem with SWTOR. "Oh look, our dialogue heavy KOTOR won awards, let's make the MMO the same way." And to hell with everything people loved about SWG and open world Star Wars MMO. So SW the MMo was forced down the single player story idea, no matter if that made any sense.
It also is now the problem with SIm City 5. "Oh look Farmville and Online Facebook games are so popular, let's shoehorn Sim City into some Facebook-Farmville style game!"
It's always these shitty CEO/Boss/desktop ideas of people who have NO CLUE what made these games great or don't care and shove their absurd ideas into games. That's whats wrong with EA: they totally lack any empathy and respect for their games. They always want to follow some perceived trend, always greedily thinking, oh if we follow THIS trend we will get even MORE money instead of jus the fuck STICK with what was WORKING and being respectful to the game series, but oh no some desktop smartass thinks he knows it ALL better and all must be tossed over and shoehorned into some mindfuck idea.
For EA I can only say, they are not part of the solution, they are the problem!
So if Riccitiello steps back - good riddance. And let him take the entire bosses with him.
Elikal, SWG was one of the biggest flops in MMO history but still fanboys bang on about how it was such an "awesome" game, it wasn't. Why would anyone in their right mind copy a complete fuck up of a game? it doesn't matter that you and a few others cannot get over the fact that its gone, you don't copy a bad idea just because... though its still playble if you know where to look. The vast majority of gamers do not want to play Luke's uncle the boring moisture farmer, Theed City Architect or Twi'lek frigging dancers but millions love playing story driven games like KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age so which format would you copy?
The problems with SW:TOR was the scope of the project and the crappy engine they bought not the fact that it wasn't SWG2 but Bioware and Riccitello promised WoW profits and the EA board did not see any such thing add to that the outcry of ME3, DA2's failings, the recent Sim City cock ups and the past few years of losing money the board thought it was probably time for a change.
I am not talking about some crude things like money, I am talking about CREATIVITY, I am talking about DREAMS. SWG was a roaring success. Creativity-wise. People who played it, loved and and we SWG players still live from the memories! It shaped people! SWG was, in terms of creativity one of the greatest MMOs since UO. But it was lacking, yes.
But what did Bioware do? Did they take the good parts of SWG and expand on it? No, Bioware-EA did what they always do: they tossed EVERYTHING out of the window and started with their own absurd idea to shoehorn a SW MMO into their KOTOR concept. Nobody wanted SWTOR to be SWG2, but LEARN what was good, adopt those concepts which were good, not totally IGNORE EVERYTHING! You see there is a way between "copy SWG" and totally ignore it!
A VAST number actually loved playing Uncle Owen. 5 million Farmville players loved playing Uncle Owen. 80% of Ultima Online's players loved playing Uncle Owen, had a farm, a shop and were VERY happy with just that! But I wrote that 200 times, and apparently humans simply do not learn.
And so we are like in Groundhog Day. Doomed to see the same failures over and over again.
ENJOY!
while I can agree that SWG did have some creativity when it first released , this game is by no means considered a success by majority of mmo players back then. This game was a bug ridden mess and the continual decline in subs for it is what caused the entire NGE and combat overhaul. I played the first two months of release myself and was maxed out chasing stupid holocrams for jedi myself when I decided to go back to DAOC which felt like it had about 150% more purpose to playing. SWG it was craft build a house and grind skills to unlock a force slot...
Obviously the market is happy with his stepping down , their stocks are up by like 2.5% or something right now . Never know you might get lucky and they might change their strategy of keeping customers isntead of running them away.
If you truly believe any of that no wonder you are eternally miserable with whatever game you play. Mass Effect creatively captured the imagination of millions of players, SWG did not, infact it pissed hundreds of thousands off, so they left and SOE made radical changes because of this, yeah I'd say it was a roaring succes creatively. Also read Sovraths post he said it more eloquently than me, what you are proposing would have been an even worse fate than what SW:TOR already suffered. Stop living in the past SWG was a failed experiment and should be shown in any game development classes as to what not to do with a famous franchise. And modern MMO's are making more money and being played by more players than ever before, yep what miserable failures.
I love when people comment on things they have literally NO idea what the hell they're talking about.
PRE World of Warcraft, the highest subscriber number any MMO acheived was in the low 600 thousands. That was Everquest. SWG released in june of 2003, about a year and a half before WOW released, and was very popular, with between 300-400k subscribers. That would be like a game coming out now and getting 6-7 million subscribers against wows 10 million. So yes, it was very succesful. What killed the game was NOT sony or SOE, it was in fact Lucas Arts. When WOW released in 2004 and subsequently became super popular, Lucasarts wanted a part of that pie and because lucasarts always retains creative control of the star wars IP, they forced SOE to release what ended up being called the "New Game Enhancements" which completely revamped the entire purpose, style, feel, etc of the game. This pissed off the existing playerbase and within a couple months of the NGE the subs were down well below 100k.
So no, SWG wasn't a failed experiment and your ignorance of the facts does not validate your frankly poor argument about modern mmo's.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
And nothing will change. One suit will be replaced by another and the people he will answer to will remain the same.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
CEOs would like to find a way to charge you for the air you breath if they could. That is not likely to change. What needs to change is the attitude of the BUYER when they go out and continually purchase sub par product. EA is not the only company that produces less than the best for our dollar spent. They are however one of the most noted. While, in my opinion, EA has done some things right they have also made terrible mis-steps. Until we the consumer are willing to hold their feet to the fire, they will likely not change.
The EA hate train has been rolling really, really hard since Ricci took over.
apparently Larry Probst (which will take Ricci's place temporarily) was even worst than Ricci when he was CEO. The hate train will never stop for them unles EA is sold to better people. Hell i think even Nexon would do better, they should have sold EA to nexon when they offered to buy them.
The real problem are the people who still buy EA stuff.
I have a friend who i warned not to buy Simcity 5, but he bought it anyways saying that hes stomach would cringe when he read about the DLC.
He still bought it despite hes own bad feelings WTF?
That is humanity. We don't learn from our mistakes (as a whole) or we don't care. Take your pick.
We might be the smartest animal on this planet, but at the same time we are the biggest idiots on this planet.
Is he enjoying the game? If so, you can't really fault his decision. If not, is he angry he spent the money? If not, you still can't fault him. I'd actually like to hear his side of such a story.
Anyway, IMO the real problem isn't people buying games that they want to buy, it's those who can't ignore what they don't want to buy. Those are the ones that have the problem, everyone else is rather content, whether they're buying or not buying.
There are no whales to save here, games and the companies that make/produce them come in all shapes and sizes, your dollars ( your own) are all that matter here, you put them in what you're willing to support, the end.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The EA hate train has been rolling really, really hard since Ricci took over.
apparently Larry Probst (which will take Ricci's place temporarily) was even worst than Ricci when he was CEO. The hate train will never stop for them unles EA is sold to better people. Hell i think even Nexon would do better, they should have sold EA to nexon when they offered to buy them.
It's not going to happen because EA's problem isn't tied into any specific person or position, but instead to their entire business model and corporate practices. Nothing short of complete restructuring could hope to fix EA.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Originally posted by RefMinor Is F2P working for SWTOR?
Returned after half year aprox and full of players everywhere. But true, there is only 1 PVE server even if updated to sustain more players at same time.
But wondering what you consider under "working"? For me F2P in any game mean horde of cheap people, usually with bad manners, not caring about anything ... in worst case will recreate new dummy account.
[quote]Originally posted by Sovrath [b][quote] Originally posted by Elikal
Their issue with SWToR is that, after the story content, there really isn't much to do. Couple that with the set pieces that are their worlds (bioware has always made set pieces) and a botched job with their pvp world and after one finishes their story they essentially "finish the game". Unless they are interested in alts. [/b][/quote]
I loved the storylines and graphics of Swtor, it was the fact that pvp upscaling <max lvl was unbalanced as sh*t, stunwars all over in pvp and it felt even more restricted as a themepark then that Blizzard fantasy game, imagine that. :P
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
If you truly believe any of that no wonder you are eternally miserable with whatever game you play. Mass Effect creatively captured the imagination of millions of players, SWG did not, infact it pissed hundreds of thousands off, so they left and SOE made radical changes because of this, yeah I'd say it was a roaring succes creatively. Also read Sovraths post he said it more eloquently than me, what you are proposing would have been an even worse fate than what SW:TOR already suffered. Stop living in the past SWG was a failed experiment and should be shown in any game development classes as to what not to do with a famous franchise. And modern MMO's are making more money and being played by more players than ever before, yep what miserable failures.
I love when people comment on things they have literally NO idea what the hell they're talking about.
PRE World of Warcraft, the highest subscriber number any MMO acheived was in the low 600 thousands. That was Everquest. SWG released in june of 2003, about a year and a half before WOW released, and was very popular, with between 300-400k subscribers. That would be like a game coming out now and getting 6-7 million subscribers against wows 10 million. So yes, it was very succesful. What killed the game was NOT sony or SOE, it was in fact Lucas Arts. When WOW released in 2004 and subsequently became super popular, Lucasarts wanted a part of that pie and because lucasarts always retains creative control of the star wars IP, they forced SOE to release what ended up being called the "New Game Enhancements" which completely revamped the entire purpose, style, feel, etc of the game. This pissed off the existing playerbase and within a couple months of the NGE the subs were down well below 100k.
So no, SWG wasn't a failed experiment and your ignorance of the facts does not validate your frankly poor argument about modern mmo's.
SWG was a failed experiment no matter how much you liked the game, it was 1: Star Wars so it should have attracted a magnitiude of numbers above EQ but didn't 2: it was such a buggy mess it was lossing players faster than any MMO previously thus the NGE. Blizzard never caused the NGE a busted game caused the NGE SOE did not have a clue as to how to fix the game so rushed out a stupid game update that pissed of the few remaining players it had left. SWG fans are like the preverbial kid who's had their toys taken away and don't they remind us every day on MMORPG.com. Also please refrain from the insults it only undermnines your argument from the start.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
SWG was a failed experiment no matter how much you liked the game, it was 1: Star Wars so it should have attracted a magnitiude of numbers above EQ but didn't 2: it was such a buggy mess it was lossing players faster than any MMO previously thus the NGE. Blizzard never caused the NGE a busted game caused the NGE SOE did not have a clue as to how to fix the game so rushed out a stupid game update that pissed of the few remaining players it had left. SWG fans are like the preverbial kid who's had their toys taken away and don't they remind us every day on MMORPG.com. Also please refrain from the insults it only undermnines your argument from the start.
You obviously weren't playing the game at the time because this is total nonsense. But this is the internet so all it really takes to be an expert on something is a keyboard.
SWG was a failed experiment no matter how much you liked the game, it was 1: Star Wars so it should have attracted a magnitiude of numbers above EQ but didn't 2: it was such a buggy mess it was lossing players faster than any MMO previously thus the NGE. Blizzard never caused the NGE a busted game caused the NGE SOE did not have a clue as to how to fix the game so rushed out a stupid game update that pissed of the few remaining players it had left. SWG fans are like the preverbial kid who's had their toys taken away and don't they remind us every day on MMORPG.com. Also please refrain from the insults it only undermnines your argument from the start.
The problem with SWG was the learning curve, that alone created a niche that the Ip really didn't fit into, not to say it wasn't a Star Wars experience, it just wasn't all action and flash. It had a deepness I feel is sorely lacking in this genre today, the game did fine in numbers in terms of it's gameplay demographic, it was the IP that caused the problem that could never be fixed (even when 'dumbing the game down). The core wasn't designed for what they tried to turn it into.
All that aside, if a AAA game like SWG ever did resurface, I think it would fair a much better chance with MMO's being in the limelight that they are. The key would be an original Ip, or one with less emphasis on action and excitement. As well as better tools to lead those who need to be. The design incorporates so many playstyles, and represented them quite well. Even casual/social gamers (ie farmville types) had something to do.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by Psychow CEO of Fortune 500 company -----------> Pizza Delivery guy.
A pizza delivery guy with several million worth of golden parachute, and a hundred mill in assets.
Now that sounds like a fun gig, to me.
"Your pizza is two hours late and you're really really really upset? You'll have me fired?" (urinates on the flowers, drives away)
My retirement, not looking quite so sweet
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.
I got the news yesterday. Hopefully new leadership in place will place EA in a better status as opposed to in the hot seat it has been in for the past year or so. It makes me glad I steered clear of ME3, and DA2. One thing that would be good is if the new CEO would let the smaller companies within EA, like Maxis and Bioware, do their own thing more or less. When those guys were doing their own thing, they made excellent games. Not so much as soon as the big corporation started butting in and interfering so-to-speak. Hopefully the company has learned from its history and will not be doomed to repeat it.
what did Bioware do? Did they take the good parts of SWG and expand on it? No, Bioware-EA did what they always do: they tossed EVERYTHING out of the window and started with their own absurd idea to shoehorn a SW MMO into their KOTOR concept.
personally i found this past comment troubling pre-SWTOR release
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....
Originally posted by vadess40 I got the news yesterday. Hopefully new leadership in place will place EA in a better status as opposed to in the hot seat it has been in for the past year or so. It makes me glad I steered clear of ME3, and DA2. One thing that would be good is if the new CEO would let the smaller companies within EA, like Maxis and Bioware, do their own thing more or less. When those guys were doing their own thing, they made excellent games. Not so much as soon as the big corporation started butting in and interfering so-to-speak. Hopefully the company has learned from its history and will not be doomed to repeat it.
I wonder how many more careers need to be destroyed before the gaming community is satisfied with their bloodlust...
Destroyed? I'm pretty sure the guy got a several million dollar gold parachut and will probably be more then capable of of getting a job or at least make money doing lectures, if not kept in a advisery position. Yes i weep for the guy. Sure he had help getting EA to win the evil company of the year award last year but he did do his part.
Ok I Am Confused As Why This Is Not Under General Gaming? The Poster Who Is An Mmorpg Staff Member Even Could Only Have One Reason For This ANd Most Get Banned For Making A Post That Baits Others To Make Negative Comnents. That Is The Only Reason I See Putting This Under Swtor. Not Once In TheStory Does It Mention Swtor! Btw Sorry About The Caps Razr New Update Sucks!
Elikal, SWG was one of the biggest flops in MMO history but still fanboys bang on about how it was such an "awesome" game, it wasn't. Why would anyone in their right mind copy a complete fuck up of a game? it doesn't matter that you and a few others cannot get over the fact that its gone, you don't copy a bad idea just because... though its still playble if you know where to look. The vast majority of gamers do not want to play Luke's uncle the boring moisture farmer, Theed City Architect or Twi'lek frigging dancers but millions love playing story driven games like KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age so which format would you copy?
The problems with SW:TOR was the scope of the project and the crappy engine they bought not the fact that it wasn't SWG2 but Bioware and Riccitello promised WoW profits and the EA board did not see any such thing add to that the outcry of ME3, DA2's failings, the recent Sim City cock ups and the past few years of losing money the board thought it was probably time for a change.
I am not talking about some crude things like money, I am talking about CREATIVITY, I am talking about DREAMS. SWG was a roaring success. Creativity-wise. People who played it, loved and and we SWG players still live from the memories! It shaped people! SWG was, in terms of creativity one of the greatest MMOs since UO. But it was lacking, yes.
But what did Bioware do? Did they take the good parts of SWG and expand on it? No, Bioware-EA did what they always do: they tossed EVERYTHING out of the window and started with their own absurd idea to shoehorn a SW MMO into their KOTOR concept. Nobody wanted SWTOR to be SWG2, but LEARN what was good, adopt those concepts which were good, not totally IGNORE EVERYTHING! You see there is a way between "copy SWG" and totally ignore it!
A VAST number actually loved playing Uncle Owen. 5 million Farmville players loved playing Uncle Owen. 80% of Ultima Online's players loved playing Uncle Owen, had a farm, a shop and were VERY happy with just that! But I wrote that 200 times, and apparently humans simply do not learn.
And so we are like in Groundhog Day. Doomed to see the same failures over and over again.
ENJOY!
You know...I hate EA just as much as the next guy, but I don't really think they can be held completely responsible for SWTOR's core design, and its failings. I mean, SWTOR was designed by Bioware, and it is very much the Bioware formula, they even stated on multiple occasions that they wanted SWTOR to be the successor to the KOTOR series. So I really think that Bioware was responsible for the core design of SWTOR.
As to why it failed...well I think that boils down to one simple fact with a lot of implications:
Some games just are better of being single player.
SWTOR's problem was that it tried to marry the "modern" Bioware voice and story heavy game with WoW, but this cost both "aspects" of the game a great deal and the end result was a game that was worse than both its influences.
For example, in order to preserve the "heavy story" feel, Bioware made extensive use of instancing, but this wound up doing a lot of damage to the MMORPG feel of the game.
Since the game was an MMORPG, Bioware wanted to offer a lot of different character choices, but wound up having to create large, expensive storylines for each of these classes in order to maintain their "heavy story" feel. This wound up driving costs through the roof, and I think it also drove the quality of the game's storytelling down. Most people agree that some of the class stories are decent, but many are sub-par...when something gets too big, it's almost impossible to keep up a good level of quality.
Bioware also wanted to have more "traditional" MMORPG conceits like dungeons and raids for longevity, and they added their trademark story telling to these. But the problem is that, that story is only interesting the FIRST time you go through it...and given MMORPG players' tendency to rush through dungeons, many players found themselves pressured to skip cinematics they have never seen just to not aggravate the group.
These are just a few examples, but I think you can see the SP parts of the game clash with the MMORPG parts of the game over and over. SWTOR is simply a game that has no harmony between its parts...it seems to be actively working against itself all the time.
Comments
Isnt this what Sony did with Everquest 2 compared to 1? Yet that was not a failure. Do you not think that maybe it's not the idea of totally changing a game style, but rather how it ws actually done that was the problem. I think Everquest 2 showed that it is possible to take an idea/story.gaming setting and produce a decent game that is totally different from it's original. I always thought EQ2 was a decent game (from 2 years of play experience).
while I can agree that SWG did have some creativity when it first released , this game is by no means considered a success by majority of mmo players back then. This game was a bug ridden mess and the continual decline in subs for it is what caused the entire NGE and combat overhaul. I played the first two months of release myself and was maxed out chasing stupid holocrams for jedi myself when I decided to go back to DAOC which felt like it had about 150% more purpose to playing. SWG it was craft build a house and grind skills to unlock a force slot...
Obviously the market is happy with his stepping down , their stocks are up by like 2.5% or something right now . Never know you might get lucky and they might change their strategy of keeping customers isntead of running them away.
I love when people comment on things they have literally NO idea what the hell they're talking about.
PRE World of Warcraft, the highest subscriber number any MMO acheived was in the low 600 thousands. That was Everquest. SWG released in june of 2003, about a year and a half before WOW released, and was very popular, with between 300-400k subscribers. That would be like a game coming out now and getting 6-7 million subscribers against wows 10 million. So yes, it was very succesful. What killed the game was NOT sony or SOE, it was in fact Lucas Arts. When WOW released in 2004 and subsequently became super popular, Lucasarts wanted a part of that pie and because lucasarts always retains creative control of the star wars IP, they forced SOE to release what ended up being called the "New Game Enhancements" which completely revamped the entire purpose, style, feel, etc of the game. This pissed off the existing playerbase and within a couple months of the NGE the subs were down well below 100k.
So no, SWG wasn't a failed experiment and your ignorance of the facts does not validate your frankly poor argument about modern mmo's.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Let's party like it is 1863!
The real problem are the people who still buy EA stuff.
I have a friend who i warned not to buy Simcity 5, but he bought it anyways saying that hes stomach would cringe when he read about the DLC.
He still bought it despite hes own bad feelings WTF?
That is humanity. We don't learn from our mistakes (as a whole) or we don't care. Take your pick.
We might be the smartest animal on this planet, but at the same time we are the biggest idiots on this planet.
apparently Larry Probst (which will take Ricci's place temporarily) was even worst than Ricci when he was CEO. The hate train will never stop for them unles EA is sold to better people. Hell i think even Nexon would do better, they should have sold EA to nexon when they offered to buy them.
Is he enjoying the game? If so, you can't really fault his decision. If not, is he angry he spent the money? If not, you still can't fault him. I'd actually like to hear his side of such a story.
Anyway, IMO the real problem isn't people buying games that they want to buy, it's those who can't ignore what they don't want to buy. Those are the ones that have the problem, everyone else is rather content, whether they're buying or not buying.
There are no whales to save here, games and the companies that make/produce them come in all shapes and sizes, your dollars ( your own) are all that matter here, you put them in what you're willing to support, the end.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's not going to happen because EA's problem isn't tied into any specific person or position, but instead to their entire business model and corporate practices. Nothing short of complete restructuring could hope to fix EA.
Returned after half year aprox and full of players everywhere. But true, there is only 1 PVE server even if updated to sustain more players at same time.
But wondering what you consider under "working"? For me F2P in any game mean horde of cheap people, usually with bad manners, not caring about anything ... in worst case will recreate new dummy account.
F2P is ruin for QUALITY gaming. Period.
It was just a matter of time. I just hope someone who actually cares about gaming community, and not only profit, get's the position.
It's a longshot, but I can atleast hope.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
[quote]Originally posted by Sovrath
[b][quote] Originally posted by Elikal
Their issue with SWToR is that, after the story content, there really isn't much to do. Couple that with the set pieces that are their worlds (bioware has always made set pieces) and a botched job with their pvp world and after one finishes their story they essentially "finish the game". Unless they are interested in alts.
[/b][/quote]
I loved the storylines and graphics of Swtor, it was the fact that pvp upscaling <max lvl was unbalanced as sh*t, stunwars all over in pvp and it felt even more restricted as a themepark then that Blizzard fantasy game, imagine that. :P
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
SWG was a failed experiment no matter how much you liked the game, it was 1: Star Wars so it should have attracted a magnitiude of numbers above EQ but didn't 2: it was such a buggy mess it was lossing players faster than any MMO previously thus the NGE. Blizzard never caused the NGE a busted game caused the NGE SOE did not have a clue as to how to fix the game so rushed out a stupid game update that pissed of the few remaining players it had left. SWG fans are like the preverbial kid who's had their toys taken away and don't they remind us every day on MMORPG.com. Also please refrain from the insults it only undermnines your argument from the start.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
You obviously weren't playing the game at the time because this is total nonsense. But this is the internet so all it really takes to be an expert on something is a keyboard.
The problem with SWG was the learning curve, that alone created a niche that the Ip really didn't fit into, not to say it wasn't a Star Wars experience, it just wasn't all action and flash. It had a deepness I feel is sorely lacking in this genre today, the game did fine in numbers in terms of it's gameplay demographic, it was the IP that caused the problem that could never be fixed (even when 'dumbing the game down). The core wasn't designed for what they tried to turn it into.
All that aside, if a AAA game like SWG ever did resurface, I think it would fair a much better chance with MMO's being in the limelight that they are. The key would be an original Ip, or one with less emphasis on action and excitement. As well as better tools to lead those who need to be. The design incorporates so many playstyles, and represented them quite well. Even casual/social gamers (ie farmville types) had something to do.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
A pizza delivery guy with several million worth of golden parachute, and a hundred mill in assets.
Now that sounds like a fun gig, to me.
"Your pizza is two hours late and you're really really really upset? You'll have me fired?" (urinates on the flowers, drives away)
My retirement, not looking quite so sweet
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.
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....
But the real question is will EA continue to win the vote for the most evil company of the year?
This will never happen
Destroyed? I'm pretty sure the guy got a several million dollar gold parachut and will probably be more then capable of of getting a job or at least make money doing lectures, if not kept in a advisery position. Yes i weep for the guy. Sure he had help getting EA to win the evil company of the year award last year but he did do his part.
You know...I hate EA just as much as the next guy, but I don't really think they can be held completely responsible for SWTOR's core design, and its failings. I mean, SWTOR was designed by Bioware, and it is very much the Bioware formula, they even stated on multiple occasions that they wanted SWTOR to be the successor to the KOTOR series. So I really think that Bioware was responsible for the core design of SWTOR.
As to why it failed...well I think that boils down to one simple fact with a lot of implications:
Some games just are better of being single player.
SWTOR's problem was that it tried to marry the "modern" Bioware voice and story heavy game with WoW, but this cost both "aspects" of the game a great deal and the end result was a game that was worse than both its influences.
For example, in order to preserve the "heavy story" feel, Bioware made extensive use of instancing, but this wound up doing a lot of damage to the MMORPG feel of the game.
Since the game was an MMORPG, Bioware wanted to offer a lot of different character choices, but wound up having to create large, expensive storylines for each of these classes in order to maintain their "heavy story" feel. This wound up driving costs through the roof, and I think it also drove the quality of the game's storytelling down. Most people agree that some of the class stories are decent, but many are sub-par...when something gets too big, it's almost impossible to keep up a good level of quality.
Bioware also wanted to have more "traditional" MMORPG conceits like dungeons and raids for longevity, and they added their trademark story telling to these. But the problem is that, that story is only interesting the FIRST time you go through it...and given MMORPG players' tendency to rush through dungeons, many players found themselves pressured to skip cinematics they have never seen just to not aggravate the group.
These are just a few examples, but I think you can see the SP parts of the game clash with the MMORPG parts of the game over and over. SWTOR is simply a game that has no harmony between its parts...it seems to be actively working against itself all the time.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?