Star Wars: The Old Republic - BioWare’s Ben Irving on SWTOR’s 5th Anniversary and Future Plans - MMO

MikeB · December 2016

Star Wars: The Old Republic - BioWare’s Ben Irving on SWTOR’s 5th Anniversary and Future Plans - MMORPG.com

We sat down with Star Wars: The Old Republic producer Ben Irving to discuss the game's fifth anniversary festivities, Knights of the Eternal Throne, and the game's future.

Read the full story here

Harbinger1975 · December 2016

@MikeB, there are so many questions you should have asked. Like: There's be a general outcry about the lack of companions coming back in KOTET and the vague response about the timetable that it's going to happen (if it'll happen at all, which a fair number of us who play TOR believe that it won't based on the wording of Ben's last answer.). Or what about: When will see an update to PvP or GSF? Why are you guys afraid to ask the tough questions?

Are you afraid of pissing off people because you feel you HAVE to be politically correct?

MrMelGibson · December 2016

Gotta be honest. Most of these answers felt like pandering. They were very vague about a few things, I get that. But I think it's in their best interest to release some group content(besides more uprisings). There hasn't been a new Op(raid) in this expansion or even the previous expansion So you are basically gearing up to do raids from 2 expansions ago. Not very motivating to get your character geared. Uprisings are basically just really short flashpoints. Which is fine, but that is literally the only new thing besides the new storyline.

I love SWTOR and have been playing it off and on since beta. So I'm not trying to dismiss the accomplishments of this expansion. The story is really good and I definitely enjoyed it. I just worry there isn't much keeping people in game after finishing that story.

The way Galactic command works also really needs to get a second look by the developer. Because right now gearing is like opening a cash shop loot box. You never know what you'll get and from my experience most of what I've gotten is shit.

MikeB · December 2016

Harbinger1975 said:

@MikeB, there are so many questions you should have asked. Like: There's be a general outcry about the lack of companions coming back in KOTET and the vague response about the timetable that it's going to happen (if it'll happen at all, which a fair number of us who play TOR believe that it won't based on the wording of Ben's last answer.). Or what about: When will see an update to PvP or GSF? Why are you guys afraid to ask the tough questions?

Are you afraid of pissing off people because you feel you HAVE to be politically correct?

I asked about PvP (but not GSF, sorry!) as part of my MP content question. The interview was about the game's fifth anniversary, I just decided to squeeze in some extra stuff since I also wanted to talk about the game's future. BioWare's already commented on the companions not coming back via KOTET, btw. I suppose I could have asked more about that, but it had nothing to do with being afraid. It just wasn't on my list of questions.

Cogohi · December 2016

Just. Wow. 5.0 brought a gear reset and exclusively gates end-game gear behind a grind that would make Koreans blush. Meanwhile they're busy abandoning being Free-to-Play. This grind is only accessible if you pay the subscription fee.

Then they have the temerity to be surprised when the forums and reddit go nuclear.

Funny enough it seems that surprise turned into sheer panic. Musco was recalled from his Dec-to-Feb. vacation to head up the 2nd emergency livestream in an attempt to pacify the outcry.

Yes, they announced a change but nobody's even remotely happy about it. So when I see this line in reference to their plans...

Ben Irving said:

So far, the player feedback from that idea has been really positive.

Ben needs to lay off the shrooms.

DreadTooth · December 2016

Were there... specific questions, subjects, or was there key information, that was... off the table, as relayed to you by anyone?

It seems to be a... carefully steered and likely dictated Q&A.

Rosie cheeks, happy smiles, lies and all

feztonio · December 2016

LOLz. I was thinking of coming back the week between Xmas and New Years but from everything I read it looks like an unfun hopeless grind fest. Think I'll stick with WOW and Battlefield 1

eddieg50 · December 2016

flashpoints suck, they are to long and thus boring

heider89 · December 2016

tja not boring but. some a to long. i like uprising better

holdenhamlet · December 2016

I really wish they'd just take the profits and scrap the game and develop a new one- one with fun gameplay set in the skywalker era, which is the era everyone likes. Wishful thinking.

Loke666 · December 2016

holdenhamlet said:

I really wish they'd just take the profits and scrap the game and develop a new one- one with fun gameplay set in the skywalker era, which is the era everyone likes. Wishful thinking.

I don't think they actually have to cancel TOR to make a SW MMO in a different era, the IP is popular enough to hold more then one game.

But unless they get stopped getting inspired by clone wars they might as well skip it, otherwise we would just be doing cut scene quests for Jarjar.

MrMelGibson · December 2016

holdenhamlet said:

I really wish they'd just take the profits and scrap the game and develop a new one- one with fun gameplay set in the skywalker era, which is the era everyone likes. Wishful thinking.

I completely disagree. I find the skywalker era boring as hell. The Old republic setting is so much more interesting in almost every way. If they cancel TOR for a skywalker era mmo that would a mistake.

DreadTooth · December 2016

Loke666 said:

holdenhamlet said:

I really wish they'd just take the profits and scrap the game and develop a new one- one with fun gameplay set in the skywalker era, which is the era everyone likes. Wishful thinking.

I don't think they actually have to cancel TOR to make a SW MMO in a different era, the IP is popular enough to hold more then one game.

But unless they get stopped getting inspired by clone wars they might as well skip it, otherwise we would just be doing cut scene quests for Jarjar.

From my understanding, the Star Wars IP MMO license (prior to Disney) was for one MMO at a time. When SWG was nearing it's license end, SWTOR was already in production awaiting the license and had already procured the rights to it, starting at the end of SWG's license agreement.

Talkspot · December 2016

Harbinger1975 said:

@MikeB, there are so many questions you should have asked. Like: There's be a general outcry about the lack of companions coming back in KOTET and the vague response about the timetable that it's going to happen (if it'll happen at all, which a fair number of us who play TOR believe that it won't based on the wording of Ben's last answer.). Or what about: When will see an update to PvP or GSF? Why are you guys afraid to ask the tough questions?

Are you afraid of pissing off people because you feel you HAVE to be politically correct?

It's because they get a fee for these types of interviews, all questions are submitted my swtor, or at the very least pre approved.

Loke666 · December 2016

DreadTooth said:
From my understanding, the Star Wars IP MMO license (prior to Disney) was for one MMO at a time. When SWG was nearing it's license end, SWTOR was already in production awaiting the license and had already procured the rights to it, starting at the end of SWG's license agreement.

Yeah, but I can't really see why. 2 Star wars game would earn in more license money then one, there are certainly enough gamers and I am rather convinced that a lot of people would play both.

It could affect the earlier game negatively, but I don't think the impact would be truly great and if they used a different time period, style and mechanics most MMO SW fans would likely play both.

Heck, the possibilities are rather great, everything from a game about smugglers avoiding the empire to one only happening on a single planet (I would play a MMO exclusively on Mandalore during the Emperial era for instance).

There is no downside for Disney unless the license something really pathetic that hurt the IP.

MrMelGibson · December 2016

MisterZebub said:

Basically if they can't sell it to you in random loot boxes or get you to subscribe for a month for a few hours of new story, you can forget seeing new stuff as it just isn't profitable.

You don't have to pay for the expansions though. And I'll gladly pay a measly $15 a month to get all access. Never spend a penny more with loot boxes. If I really want something from them, i'll just buy them with in game currency off the auction house.

Bakgrind · December 2016

One of the sad things about SWTOR development team is that they are a two step forward four steps back kind of development team that just can't seem to dial in the proper mix of gameplay, xpac and player rentention. The game has come a long way since it's release and one can say that as far as character utility and game play ability is concerned it is better today than it was at launch.

For myself KOTFE just wasn't my cup of tea. I don't really care for episodic releases of story and like my expansions all at one time. And it was hard for Bioware to release a quality episode without breaking working aspects of the game.

And it really didn't promote player rentention because you could resub after all the chapters were released to complete the xpac. So after 2 years in beta and subbing for 4 1/2 yeas I quit the game after only playing 9 chapters of KOTFE.

KOTET from what I understand has a better story than KOTFE and players like that ( even if the story is shorter than KOTFE ), but then they fall into old habit of performing that self inflicted act of stupidity by introducing RNG into the game. It just amazes me how they continue to do that time and time again.

Another point is that they have not reintroduced the other companions back into the game and I fear that they wont make an appearance until 2018 which they could use as their "ace in the hole" not only to retain subs ,but to get people to re sub once Visceral Games releases their Star Wars game.

Wizardry · December 2016

Only one question was really geared towards the anniversary and what i got out of it was the same thing i got from his website blog....VERY little if anything.Well he mentioned 5 year players get a statue,that's ok IF you have somewhere to show it off?

Basically his entire blog was just a bunch of vague meanderings about how great the game is how great the SW universe is,loves this and loves that,,yada yada nothing to say really.

Really it sounds like Ben just keeps saying TONS OF STUFF going on with the anniversary but sidetracks to nothing but the obvious that is not really anniversary related.

I feel all over the internet,people are more concerned or talking about the last expansion and/or future updates,not many other than your typical cosplayers give a hoot about the game's 5 years.

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