I'd like to see the list of features they cut in order to get the release build. The article is really vague and can be interpreted in either direction. To me he is just saying, "I would have liked the project to have been smoother." The article doesn't address the brick wall at 50, and then there are some silly things like talking about having the companions to address Social gamers from the Bartle Index. I guess that means they included the restrictive static worlds especially for the Explorers, identical armor for everyone at end game for the Achievers, and Killers have the whole game as their oyster (that's all there is to do really).
This and the comments made by the design team on the panel at PAX concerning hardcore gamers have me wanting to piss in the coffee pot at Bioware.
The way it launched had all the hallmarks of a parent coming on down from on high. From the statements from bioware guys that it will launch when its ready to it launching right before christmas in the US in the state it was.
My guess is EA looked at how much time and effort had been expended into SWTOR and said, enough is enough. We own bioware, and thus it will launch before christmas in the US, no matter if things are still not working properly or areas are not fully implemented. Its launching. Anyone who disagrees, the door and the end of your employment here is -------->>> that way
The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg. Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on. Hire me. I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place. I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it. Thanks.
They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good. Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs. Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad.
Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems. But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment? Why? You couldnt handle that? What the hell has happened to Bioware?
Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget? You've failed in EVERY regard. Its a fair mmo. Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here. Man alive this is sad.
No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.
Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.
And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.
Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.
Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?
That's silly.
Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr. They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.
The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg. Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on. Hire me. I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place. I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it. Thanks.
They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good. Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs. Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad.
Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems. But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment? Why? You couldnt handle that? What the hell has happened to Bioware?
Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget? You've failed in EVERY regard. Its a fair mmo. Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here. Man alive this is sad.
No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.
Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.
And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.
Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.
Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?
That's silly.
Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr. They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.
Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.
The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg. Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on. Hire me. I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place. I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it. Thanks.
They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good. Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs. Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad.
Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems. But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment? Why? You couldnt handle that? What the hell has happened to Bioware?
Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget? You've failed in EVERY regard. Its a fair mmo. Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here. Man alive this is sad.
No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.
Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.
And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.
Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.
Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?
That's silly.
Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr. They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.
Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.
Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good.
The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg. Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on. Hire me. I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place. I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it. Thanks.
They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good. Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs. Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad.
Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems. But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment? Why? You couldnt handle that? What the hell has happened to Bioware?
Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget? You've failed in EVERY regard. Its a fair mmo. Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here. Man alive this is sad.
No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.
Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.
And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.
Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.
Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?
That's silly.
Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr. They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.
Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.
The problem with hiring a non-professional voice actors is simply that it's not very manageable. How would you handle casting calls, etc. if you open it up to thousands or tens of thousands of non-professionals? It's much easier and faster to work through agencies and pick someone who is proven. And those people tend to be unionized.
The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg. Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on. Hire me. I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place. I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it. Thanks.
They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good. Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs. Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad.
Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems. But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment? Why? You couldnt handle that? What the hell has happened to Bioware?
Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget? You've failed in EVERY regard. Its a fair mmo. Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here. Man alive this is sad.
No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.
Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.
And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.
Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.
Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?
That's silly.
Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr. They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.
Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.
Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good.
Tell us more about how good the game is again?
EA/BW has used professional actors/musicians/atheletes/etc in their other games. These professionals have a base standard industry pay rate. Because EA/BW has used professionals before, I can bet you they are under contract to use professionals in the future.
To hire non-professionals would be concidered "scabbing" and you can bet dollars to donuts there would be noise about it.
Besides, no one would take the schlub at $8hr seriously. Try it. Go into some company in the Entertainment Industry and try to sell yourself as a voice-over actor for $8hr. See what happens
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
The scope wasnt really any greater than any other kind of mmorpg. Other than the voice overs, which they obviously spent too much time on. Hire me. I can do all sorts of imitations and I was in theater in college with leading roles all over the place. I'll work for 8 bucks an hour to do it. Thanks.
They did do well with voice overs except its obvious they blew a huge chunk of budget on it which I wouldnt call good. Writing is decent enough as any mmorpg but it wouldnt be all that fantastic WITHOUT the voice overs. Art and character models are not all that special, and some of the armor is laughably bad.
Sure the other crap he mentioned is likely one of their big problems. But wait, you outsourced the the art and environment? Why? You couldnt handle that? What the hell has happened to Bioware?
Bioware, for a game with this kind of budget? You've failed in EVERY regard. Its a fair mmo. Give me that budget, and I with absolutely no experience will direct a mmo at least twice as good as what you've done here. Man alive this is sad.
No you wouldnt do it for $8 an hour. Once you are hired to do any type of voice-over acting in the Entertainment Industry you will be contracted to Industy (Union) Wage requirements.
Meaning you cant get paid less than what your contracted wage is locked in at.
And Professional Voice Actors, even at the low end of the Industry Standard, dont come cheap.
Thats why it cost EA/BW so much. You CANT just pay "some guy" $8hr to voice your AAA game.
Besides, what fool would take $8hr over somewhere along the lines of $75+hr (day rate of $750 for a 10hr day)?
That's silly.
Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr. They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.
Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.
Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good.
Tell us more about how good the game is again?
EA/BW has used professional actors/musicians/atheletes/etc in their other games. These professionals have a base standard industry pay rate. Because EA/BW has used professionals before, I can bet you they are under contract to use professionals in the future.
To hire non-professionals would be concidered "scabbing" and you can bet dollars to donuts there would be noise about it.
Besides, no one would take the schlub at $8hr seriously. Try it. Go into some company in the Entertainment Industry and try to sell yourself as a voice-over actor for $8hr. See what happens
Oh its not that couldnt have done it. I played a fan made game called Wing Commander Dark Saga recently and its voice overs were excellent. Some of the best Ive heard in a game. I seriously doubt they were being paid 75 bucks an hour. Or being paid at all.
But you are right in that Bioware has done exactly what you've said and? Thats where the money went. Thats why the game is lacking.
EA/BW has used professional actors/musicians/atheletes/etc in their other games. These professionals have a base standard industry pay rate. Because EA/BW has used professionals before, I can bet you they are under contract to use professionals in the future.
To hire non-professionals would be concidered "scabbing" and you can bet dollars to donuts there would be noise about it.
Besides, no one would take the schlub at $8hr seriously. Try it. Go into some company in the Entertainment Industry and try to sell yourself as a voice-over actor for $8hr. See what happens
Oh its not that couldnt have done it. I played a fan made game called Wing Commander Dark Saga recently and its voice overs were excellent. Some of the best Ive heard in a game. I seriously doubt they were being paid 75 bucks an hour. Or being paid at all.
But you are right in that Bioware has done exactly what you've said and? Thats where the money went. Thats why the game is lacking.
Thats where using non-professional people can be gotten away with. The company that makes that game is probably an Indy company (or some guys in their basement) that have never used a professional entertainer (actor/athelete) to put voices in their game. So they have never signed a Union or Industry contract
Its like once you sign a contract to use professionals to voice your game, you cant go back. They get their hooks in and dont let go. Kinda like the Mob.
Well they will let go, but not without alot of pain and scarring.
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT Playing: Skyrim Following: The Repopulation I want a Virtual World, not just a Game. ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
GAH! When will developers learn! "SWTOR was built to thrive in a WOW world". THAT is why you fail.
I remeber very well how MMOs worked when WOW was launched, and back then, Blizzard purposefully broke at least 50% of MMO conventions. Before WOW most quest givers had no "!", few had radar or did even direct to the quest goal area, bosses had hours or days of respawn rates asf. What made the success of WOW back then was that radical change WOW made in many details and subsystems, and NOT just copying the WOW of it's day, Everquest I, but working on the flaws which had made EQ1 a hardcore niche game. That brough WOW to a mass market audience.
And sorry, SWTOR is just a BAD WOW copy attempty. Many, many things which I liked in WOW were entirely absent in SWTOR. The cool and beloved player hubs, the attention to detail, the mood and atmopshere of the zones, dungeon finder aka no idle waiting, meaningful factions, asf. I am really no WOW fan, but SWTOR missed to add a lot of what made WOW good, and copied only the lame parts. You don't defeat a top MMO just by "making it similar". You have to innovate not imitate, to paraphrase a perfume ad.
"Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said." THIS is SO wrong! They totally failed to keep people.
Blast. They have no understanding that a game also needs soul, heart, something you can feel. This game is so damn cold, technical and sterile in so many areas. That is what they didn't get. I'd say it lacks the "feminine touch". It's a house not a home. All is planned rationally and counted in metrics and statistics. Only that numbers don't make something alive! Bah...
very well written and dead on, not that the previous posts were any less viable. It is a sterile cold world with very little socialization if any at all. Playing on advabced planets with 15 people, deleting your heroics for lack of ever completing them? Past Alderaan, I have yet to complete a 4 man heroic. It's hopeless. I spent a good part of my day on the official SWTOR forums arguing about the "Jesus" 1.2 patch because they will not let us know when it will actually be released. Who cares, it adds very little to an already mundane experience. I sunk a great deal of time into this monstrosity and feel violated having done so. I need a shower!
GAH! When will developers learn! "SWTOR was built to thrive in a WOW world". THAT is why you fail. I remeber very well how MMOs worked when WOW was launched, and back then, Blizzard purposefully broke at least 50% of MMO conventions. Before WOW most quest givers had no "!", few had radar or did even direct to the quest goal area, bosses had hours or days of respawn rates asf. What made the success of WOW back then was that radical change WOW made in many details and subsystems, and NOT just copying the WOW of it's day, Everquest I, but working on the flaws which had made EQ1 a hardcore niche game. That brough WOW to a mass market audience. And sorry, SWTOR is just a BAD WOW copy attempty. Many, many things which I liked in WOW were entirely absent in SWTOR. The cool and beloved player hubs, the attention to detail, the mood and atmopshere of the zones, dungeon finder aka no idle waiting, meaningful factions, asf. I am really no WOW fan, but SWTOR missed to add a lot of what made WOW good, and copied only the lame parts. You don't defeat a top MMO just by "making it similar". You have to innovate not imitate, to paraphrase a perfume ad. "Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said." THIS is SO wrong! They totally failed to keep people. Blast. They have no understanding that a game also needs soul, heart, something you can feel. This game is so damn cold, technical and sterile in so many areas. That is what they didn't get. I'd say it lacks the "feminine touch". It's a house not a home. All is planned rationally and counted in metrics and statistics. Only that numbers don't make something alive! Bah...
GAH! When will developers learn! "SWTOR was built to thrive in a WOW world". THAT is why you fail.
I remeber very well how MMOs worked when WOW was launched, and back then, Blizzard purposefully broke at least 50% of MMO conventions. Before WOW most quest givers had no "!", few had radar or did even direct to the quest goal area, bosses had hours or days of respawn rates asf. What made the success of WOW back then was that radical change WOW made in many details and subsystems, and NOT just copying the WOW of it's day, Everquest I, but working on the flaws which had made EQ1 a hardcore niche game. That brough WOW to a mass market audience.
And sorry, SWTOR is just a BAD WOW copy attempty. Many, many things which I liked in WOW were entirely absent in SWTOR. The cool and beloved player hubs, the attention to detail, the mood and atmopshere of the zones, dungeon finder aka no idle waiting, meaningful factions, asf. I am really no WOW fan, but SWTOR missed to add a lot of what made WOW good, and copied only the lame parts. You don't defeat a top MMO just by "making it similar". You have to innovate not imitate, to paraphrase a perfume ad.
"Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said." THIS is SO wrong! They totally failed to keep people.
Blast. They have no understanding that a game also needs soul, heart, something you can feel. This game is so damn cold, technical and sterile in so many areas. That is what they didn't get. I'd say it lacks the "feminine touch". It's a house not a home. All is planned rationally and counted in metrics and statistics. Only that numbers don't make something alive! Bah...
very well written and dead on, not that the previous posts were any less viable. It is a sterile cold world with very little socialization if any at all. Playing on advabced planets with 15 people, deleting your heroics for lack of ever completing them? Past Alderaan, I have yet to complete a 4 man heroic. It's hopeless. I spent a good part of my day on the official SWTOR forums arguing about the "Jesus" 1.2 patch because they will not let us know when it will actually be released. Who cares, it adds very little to an already mundane experience. I sunk a great deal of time into this monstrosity and feel violated having done so. I need a shower!
I think we all wish publishers would focus on "fun" more than: metrics, demographics, user-acquisition, retention, monetization, virality, tutorial-optimization-funnels, drop off rates, session times, churn-rates, feature usage, A/B test-mechanics, segmented-marketing, payment-conversion-rates, whale catching etc.
I seriously doubt "all the money" went to voicovers.... do a little bit of math. If they even spent $1 million on voiceovers.... @ $100/hr, that would be 10,000 hours of voiceover work.
There's residuals to be calculated too.
Yeah, exponential decreases are difficult to calculate.
I would write Mr. Dickinson and his companions the old saying: "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."
EDIT: As a sidenote, I just watched a GW2 vid, and some dude was making an underwater fight. He just rand along the woods, and then jumped into a lake. And under the water he had a sort of harpoon, he iced the enemies and had some net to stun them. THAT is such a great example, what went wrong with SWTOR. They said, hey we don't NEED underwater. There would be no logical reason to add underwater. And that is their mistake. They just calculated and made charts and formulae, and everthing "not really needed" was canned. But that is what makes a world a world. That I can swim into that river and dive into that lake. Yes, it isn't *needed*. But it adds to flavour, makes believable and is fun. SWTOR just so neglected these things. It is just one tiny example, but for me it stands for many other issues.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
They removed the chaotic evil / neutral / good part of gamers. Anyone who rather would want to walk below a bridge or just jump off in the middle or dance across / block the road / rather than just plain walking over it?
Oh look it's coruscant, how awesome would it be if i could *
A. Walk all the way up the spaceport and jump / glide down to the senate plaza.
B. Use my speeder to shortcut a straightline to General Gaza office an knock on the Window
C. Explore a secret entrance on the Top / lower levels by carefully jumping down some levels
D. Bioware: Oh look it's coruscant, how awesome a view. Now let's [only] walk 20 meters to the NPC.
The way it launched had all the hallmarks of a parent coming on down from on high. From the statements from bioware guys that it will launch when its ready to it launching right before christmas in the US in the state it was.
My guess is EA looked at how much time and effort had been expended into SWTOR and said, enough is enough. We own bioware, and thus it will launch before christmas in the US, no matter if things are still not working properly or areas are not fully implemented. Its launching. Anyone who disagrees, the door and the end of your employment here is -------->>> that way
As someone who worked closely with the developers for over a year I can assure you that is exactly what happened....and it happened in February of 2011.
Up to that point the developers were very receptive of our ideas about the game and what direction changes should be made to make for a better game. Then out of the blue at the end of February, Allison Berryman posted a message on our private tester forum that they no longer wanted any feedback or discussion about gameplay mechanics if they were'nt already included in the build we were playing. It came with a threat that if we did not conform to the new rules that we would either be removed from the program or the program would be shut down completely.
This came as quite a shock to all of us testers. There was never any impression before this day that our thoughts and concerns were'nt valued. This was so counter to the way that we were treated in the past that it didn't make any sense. Now in retrospect it makes perfect sense.
Another thing that comes to mind is how far behind they actually were in development. Each build we played opened up a bit more of the game world for us to explore. At first we could complete the starter and capital planets. The starter planets were very polished bug wise, but the capital planets felt unfinished, and many of the voiceovers were not included in the cutscenes.
This trend continued with each build...the new areas felt unfinished and a bit of polish was added to areas we previously had access to.
Now this all sounds normal, but keep in mind our test group started in January of 2011 and continued up to release. There just seemed to be a lot of last minute cramming being done.
** on a side note, the fleet stations were not added until September of 2011. Instead of going with cantinas as the social hubs, they went with this idea instead. We all pushed for cantinas as social hubs but I guess this was the most time effective solution. Prior to the fleet stations, they were simply small stations that acted as a bridge between the starter worlds and the capital planets.
Originally posted by noncley What strikes me as so odd is that all the features the team seemed to want to have in the game - the same kind of features that players are asking for now - were deliberately cut out in order to bring the game to market even faster. And yet the game was in development as far back as the end of 2005? That's seven years ago. Why did the game take so long to make and yet, it seems, still be in such an incredible rush at the end?
MMO games take a long time to develop, WoW was started in 1998 before they released it in 2004, Tabula Rasa was in development from 2001 until 2008. The rushing at the end, I dunno, they had 2 freaking years of closed/open beta testing, I don't know why half the stuff people complained about made it through to live- which seems to happen with every game these days.
If that's what Dickinson things is wrong with the game then I don't think it will ever be 'fixed'.
But then again, does he really want to fix the game. The key quote is here:
Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said.
To me that would suggest they know it is important to keep their current customers happy by fixing things rather than lose them and try to get new ones later. Could go either way I guess.
I agree I took that as, if we can keep our current subscribers in the end they'll stay, talk up the game, and get their friends to play too.. Word of mouth is a powerful tool.
As someone who worked closely with the developers for over a year I can assure you that is exactly what happened....and it happened in February of 2011.
Up to that point the developers were very receptive of our ideas about the game and what direction changes should be made to make for a better game. Then out of the blue at the end of February, Allison Berryman posted a message on our private tester forum that they no longer wanted any feedback or discussion about gameplay mechanics if they were'nt already included in the build we were playing. It came with a threat that if we did not conform to the new rules that we would either be removed from the program or the program would be shut down completely.
** on a side note, the fleet stations were not added until September of 2011. Instead of going with cantinas as the social hubs, they went with this idea instead. We all pushed for cantinas as social hubs but I guess this was the most time effective solution. Prior to the fleet stations, they were simply small stations that acted as a bridge between the starter worlds and the capital planets.
Thanks for posting this. It explains much of the flawed design, and as an opponent of the Fleet, it doesn't surprise me that ths was a last minute fix. I have posted on the SWTOR forums repeatedly about those Stations and how they do not help the players.
This game will be in subscribed Beta for another 2 years.
You're still insisting it failed. It didn't. Your entire premise is based on a falsehood. "As your competitors tend to infinity your profit tends to zero." So there are an infinite number of MMOs? No. So there are an infinite number of Sci-Fi MMOs? No. So there are an infinte number of Star Wars MMOs? No. The game as no direct competition.
First off: You don't understand what "as x tends to infinity, y tends to 0" means. It means as x gets large, y gets small.
If you build your business model around competing with a large number of products, then it is probably bad, unless you have a cost advantage.
My argument is that their core design doesn't stray far enough from the pack to be considered anything different.
It is in the same ballpark as WoW in function, but only has a subset of the features for the same price (it's an inferior product).
If SWTOR filled a different niche and wasn't in direct competition with WoW, Rift, etc. then I would have no argument, but it does. It's a themepark MMO a la WoW that is set in the Starwars universe instead of Azeroth. The only difference is that it has "interactive" cutscenes, which actually constitute less of the content than the actual gameplay, which is comparable (or arguably worse than) WoWs.
So, it might be a VERY MODERATE financial success, but I think it was an economic failure, because they could have made something better as economic profit takes opportunity cost into account.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Comments
lol trueness
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
The way it launched had all the hallmarks of a parent coming on down from on high. From the statements from bioware guys that it will launch when its ready to it launching right before christmas in the US in the state it was.
My guess is EA looked at how much time and effort had been expended into SWTOR and said, enough is enough. We own bioware, and thus it will launch before christmas in the US, no matter if things are still not working properly or areas are not fully implemented. Its launching. Anyone who disagrees, the door and the end of your employment here is -------->>> that way
That's silly.
Of course EA can hire him at $8/hr. They aren't required by law to hire someone from a union to do voiceovers.
Sure you can hire some joe from the street for that, but if you want quality talent you have to deal with the unions.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Keeping people playing an MMO game is less expensive than acquiring new players, they said.
Well thats a kick in the balls to those who want to play something long term, which is the aim of the mmorpg genre is it not?
Yeah, sure., If you're not in a paid gang, you're no good.
Tell us more about how good the game is again?
The problem with hiring a non-professional voice actors is simply that it's not very manageable. How would you handle casting calls, etc. if you open it up to thousands or tens of thousands of non-professionals? It's much easier and faster to work through agencies and pick someone who is proven. And those people tend to be unionized.
EA/BW has used professional actors/musicians/atheletes/etc in their other games. These professionals have a base standard industry pay rate. Because EA/BW has used professionals before, I can bet you they are under contract to use professionals in the future.
To hire non-professionals would be concidered "scabbing" and you can bet dollars to donuts there would be noise about it.
Besides, no one would take the schlub at $8hr seriously. Try it. Go into some company in the Entertainment Industry and try to sell yourself as a voice-over actor for $8hr. See what happens
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
Oh its not that couldnt have done it. I played a fan made game called Wing Commander Dark Saga recently and its voice overs were excellent. Some of the best Ive heard in a game. I seriously doubt they were being paid 75 bucks an hour. Or being paid at all.
But you are right in that Bioware has done exactly what you've said and? Thats where the money went. Thats why the game is lacking.
Thats where using non-professional people can be gotten away with. The company that makes that game is probably an Indy company (or some guys in their basement) that have never used a professional entertainer (actor/athelete) to put voices in their game. So they have never signed a Union or Industry contract
Its like once you sign a contract to use professionals to voice your game, you cant go back. They get their hooks in and dont let go. Kinda like the Mob.
Well they will let go, but not without alot of pain and scarring.
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
Played: UO - EQ1 - AO - DAoC - NC - CoH/CoV - SWG - WoW - EVE - AA - LotRO - DFO - STO - FE - MO - RIFT
Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
very well written and dead on, not that the previous posts were any less viable. It is a sterile cold world with very little socialization if any at all. Playing on advabced planets with 15 people, deleting your heroics for lack of ever completing them? Past Alderaan, I have yet to complete a 4 man heroic. It's hopeless. I spent a good part of my day on the official SWTOR forums arguing about the "Jesus" 1.2 patch because they will not let us know when it will actually be released. Who cares, it adds very little to an already mundane experience. I sunk a great deal of time into this monstrosity and feel violated having done so. I need a shower!
Why would I waste my time doing that? Play it or don't play it. I could care less.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
It has a price but not a value.I think we all wish publishers would focus on "fun" more than: metrics, demographics, user-acquisition, retention, monetization, virality, tutorial-optimization-funnels, drop off rates, session times, churn-rates, feature usage, A/B test-mechanics, segmented-marketing, payment-conversion-rates, whale catching etc.
Hopefully we'll get some good games this year.
I seriously doubt "all the money" went to voicovers.... do a little bit of math.
If they even spent $1 million on voiceovers.... @ $100/hr, that would be 10,000 hours of voiceover work.
There's residuals to be calculated too.
There's residuals to be calculated too.
Yeah, exponential decreases are difficult to calculate.I would write Mr. Dickinson and his companions the old saying: "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."
EDIT: As a sidenote, I just watched a GW2 vid, and some dude was making an underwater fight. He just rand along the woods, and then jumped into a lake. And under the water he had a sort of harpoon, he iced the enemies and had some net to stun them. THAT is such a great example, what went wrong with SWTOR. They said, hey we don't NEED underwater. There would be no logical reason to add underwater. And that is their mistake. They just calculated and made charts and formulae, and everthing "not really needed" was canned. But that is what makes a world a world. That I can swim into that river and dive into that lake. Yes, it isn't *needed*. But it adds to flavour, makes believable and is fun. SWTOR just so neglected these things. It is just one tiny example, but for me it stands for many other issues.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
They removed the chaotic evil / neutral / good part of gamers. Anyone who rather would want to walk below a bridge or just jump off in the middle or dance across / block the road / rather than just plain walking over it?
Oh look it's coruscant, how awesome would it be if i could *
A. Walk all the way up the spaceport and jump / glide down to the senate plaza.
B. Use my speeder to shortcut a straightline to General Gaza office an knock on the Window
C. Explore a secret entrance on the Top / lower levels by carefully jumping down some levels
D. Bioware: Oh look it's coruscant, how awesome a view. Now let's [only] walk 20 meters to the NPC.
As someone who worked closely with the developers for over a year I can assure you that is exactly what happened....and it happened in February of 2011.
Up to that point the developers were very receptive of our ideas about the game and what direction changes should be made to make for a better game. Then out of the blue at the end of February, Allison Berryman posted a message on our private tester forum that they no longer wanted any feedback or discussion about gameplay mechanics if they were'nt already included in the build we were playing. It came with a threat that if we did not conform to the new rules that we would either be removed from the program or the program would be shut down completely.
This came as quite a shock to all of us testers. There was never any impression before this day that our thoughts and concerns were'nt valued. This was so counter to the way that we were treated in the past that it didn't make any sense. Now in retrospect it makes perfect sense.
Another thing that comes to mind is how far behind they actually were in development. Each build we played opened up a bit more of the game world for us to explore. At first we could complete the starter and capital planets. The starter planets were very polished bug wise, but the capital planets felt unfinished, and many of the voiceovers were not included in the cutscenes.
This trend continued with each build...the new areas felt unfinished and a bit of polish was added to areas we previously had access to.
Now this all sounds normal, but keep in mind our test group started in January of 2011 and continued up to release. There just seemed to be a lot of last minute cramming being done.
** on a side note, the fleet stations were not added until September of 2011. Instead of going with cantinas as the social hubs, they went with this idea instead. We all pushed for cantinas as social hubs but I guess this was the most time effective solution. Prior to the fleet stations, they were simply small stations that acted as a bridge between the starter worlds and the capital planets.
I agree I took that as, if we can keep our current subscribers in the end they'll stay, talk up the game, and get their friends to play too.. Word of mouth is a powerful tool.
Thanks for posting this. It explains much of the flawed design, and as an opponent of the Fleet, it doesn't surprise me that ths was a last minute fix. I have posted on the SWTOR forums repeatedly about those Stations and how they do not help the players.
This game will be in subscribed Beta for another 2 years.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
You're still insisting it failed. It didn't. Your entire premise is based on a falsehood. "As your competitors tend to infinity your profit tends to zero." So there are an infinite number of MMOs? No. So there are an infinite number of Sci-Fi MMOs? No. So there are an infinte number of Star Wars MMOs? No. The game as no direct competition.
First off: You don't understand what "as x tends to infinity, y tends to 0" means.
It means as x gets large, y gets small.
If you build your business model around competing with a large number of products, then it is probably bad, unless you have a cost advantage.
My argument is that their core design doesn't stray far enough from the pack to be considered anything different.
It is in the same ballpark as WoW in function, but only has a subset of the features for the same price (it's an inferior product).
If SWTOR filled a different niche and wasn't in direct competition with WoW, Rift, etc. then I would have no argument, but it does. It's a themepark MMO a la WoW that is set in the Starwars universe instead of Azeroth. The only difference is that it has "interactive" cutscenes, which actually constitute less of the content than the actual gameplay, which is comparable (or arguably worse than) WoWs.
So, it might be a VERY MODERATE financial success, but I think it was an economic failure, because they could have made something better as economic profit takes opportunity cost into account.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert