Trion CEO Lars Buttler Dissects 38 Studios', BioWare's Shortcomings

Written by: Jason Winter (@winterinformal) | June 6, 2012 6:58 pm

56 Comments

If you were recently laid off by 38 Studios or BioWare, Lars Buttler thinks he knows why.

The Trion Worlds CEO voiced his opinions on the two companies’ recent failings, saying that 38 overreached itself while BioWare failed to deliver content for Star Wars: The Old Republic in a timely fashion.

38 Studios had a concept they couldn’t deliver on… It was too big of a scope. It was too much. It it just went broader and never narrowed. They never even came close to the finish line.

BioWare at least launched SWTOR, but Buttler believes that its slow updating pace — completely unlike Trion’s approach with Rift — has led to a rapid attrition of players.

In the case of Star Wars, I don’t think the business model was necessarily the issue, but I think it was content updates, and what to do in the game, and how you can play it without it becoming repetitive.

Buttler raises several points that seem valid, at least as observed from the outside of both companies. What do you think? Is Buttler on the mark or way off?

Trion CEO Lars Buttler Dissects 38 Studios', BioWare's Shortcomings

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2 comments

http://www.facebook.com/cody.banister.9 Cody Banister

I completely agree with Mr. Buttler concerning Star Wars: The Old Republic. While still a fun game that I hold an active subscription to, the content just isn’t being generated fast enough. However, the game only just started! It just needs a bit of time to grow; once the LFG finder and character transfers are enabled, it should ease BioWare’s troubles a bit.
- Old Ben
  
  > once the LFG finder [is] enabled…
  
  …SWTOR will, like WoW, become populated mainly by anti-social robots who treat other players like NPCs, since they can just press a button and be supplied with four “automatic friends” at any moment, instead of actually respecting other players and caring about their own reputation, or inviting their real-life friends to subscribe and play with them.
  
  But hey, at least in the context of Star Wars, maybe playing with robots makes sense.
  - http://www.facebook.com/cody.banister.9 Cody Banister
    
    Well, I don’t know about your experience with the LFG Finder, but since it has been released, I haven’t found much difference in the amount of community that was present before it became available, and now. People are still just as friendly as they were before, and I actively talk with people in my groups. I’ve made more than a few friends on the server that I transferred to, which also helped boost the server population.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  LFG and server transfers will help BioWare consolidate the players to easier to manage chunks.
  
  But after the massive BioWare layoffs and highly-modified, hacked together, hero engine for SWTOR, developing new bug free content is going to be a nightmare.
  
  At least Trion left the Rift “B” team of developers a solid (if raid buggy) development platform.
German Lopez

I think you guys nailed it. WOW has enough content and a solid gameplay experience to keep players happy, so it doesn’t need constant updates. It’s simply established enough to be an exception.

SWTOR is more like Rift in that the gameplay isn’t as good as WOW due to class design and combat issues, but, unlike Rift, it doesn’t have a massive amount of content. That’s why SWTOR is considered to be struggling while Rift is in a comfortable place.
Eaker82

I think he’s spot on, If i’m gonna pay for a game every month I should feel like my money is well spent[same really with anything]. Trion is setting the bar high and other’s can’t reach that. I’ve heard people[even gamebreaker hosts] about the bugs that come with the fast content but i’ve seen bugs with WoW’s content that took triple the time to come out, theres gonna be bugs nothings perfect.

WoW doesn’t get a pass in my eyes. Rift has been out for a little over a year and probably by there second[definitly third] anniversary they will have more content then WoW. WTF!WoW and ToR are in the same boat to me. They need to do something or they are going to fall behind fast.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209653272 Robin Gort

Who cares bout what mr. RIFT says about SWTOR though? RIFT isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. :’/
- http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo
  
  1. RIFT is shitting on all current MMO’s for content updates in quality and frequency. as far as getting your $15/mo worth, Rift is IT. blizz is decent but they are absolutely pathetic considering their manpower.
  
  2. Trion spent 50 million making Rift, they may have low sub numbers but they made over 100 million off the game, and they have several new projects now…they borrowed 100m to make rift and two other games…they made that investment back just off Rift…
  
  post launch performance…they can say what they want.
  - http://www.facebook.com/orlando.benjamin Orlando Benjamin
    
    That is if they can balance all the classes once and for all… watching 7 to Rogues out of 10 players is not cool…
    
    Oh wait… now the new sensation are the warriors… 7 of 10 players are warriors now…
    
    Healers are Healer and Mages are just puny cats…
    - Tyler Woidan
      
      Yet you have to admit that it’s a problem that will be actively worked on. And you’d post an entirely different comment about another situation within a month or two. The active attempts to fix the complaints is unbelievable out of Trion.
      
      And a spoiler, classes will NEVER be balanced in any MMO.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    The core development team for Rift is gone, they have moved on to other Trion projects.
    
    While Trion has a great reputation with Rift, time will tell if the new expansion can bring them above the 250k subscribers.
  - http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm
    
    Trion is scambling to release content to soften the constant sub loses they have, If the game had any success they woudn’t release anything this fast. Look at the light and understand Rift is a dead game and is slowly disappearing and the expansion isn’t gunna help.
Kodachikuno

Speaking as a former WoW player,I think WoW players are just used to mediocrity. The game play is ok, but once you’ve sunk 6 years into playing a toon, it’s just hard to walk away from. Firelands with it’s continued uninspired rep grinds and lackluster raids finally made me give it up.
Hopefully it gets back to being fun in panda land so i can come back.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo
  
  down to the nitty gritty, the WoW content is better and sustains you longer. no new raid in WoW is EVER cleared on the first day, most not even in the first TWO MONTHS.
  
  in SWTOR, you cna clear a raid in the gear you walk in with. you can do it all in a day…
  
  in swtor the raids DON’T WORK half the time(mechanic bugs and loot bugs)
  
  the gameplay and everyting else is better in WoW. in WoW you know what it is by now, you get what you expect when you log in. in SWTOR…it’s supposed to be a new game but it’s really just a worse version of WoW.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Osmer/100002680014995 Joshua Osmer
    
    Um what? Dragon Soul was cleared on normal mode the day it went live. My guild cleared it the first week and killed Morchok and Hagara on Heroic the 2nd week in 25′s. The gameplay and “Everything else” is NOT better in WoW and they have as many problems if not more than SWTOR has. They’ve just had 7 years to work out bugs, and now they’re going to start all over again with massive class changes.
    
    To this day Rhyolith will still turn untargetable/friendly on phase switch. How many bosses are going to be resurrected by Blizzard? CATA had both troll raids turned into crappy 5 man heroics. Shadow Fang Keep rehashed. Deadmines rehashed. Ony and Nef rehashed. Ragnaros rehashed and an assortment of other bosses who were just reskinned previous boss models. So impressive. SWTOR has more content right now at 6 months in then WoW did at the same time in their life cycle. People are just spoiled these days. I just retired from WoW, I have no desire to play pandaland. The problem is exactly what Koda said, people are reluctant to stop playing characters they’ve played for 7 years.
    - Old Ben
      
      WoW’s current player base is split into two main groups:
      
      1. Medium and (very few) long-term players who like repetition and / or are afraid of change (“oh, no, I’ll lose my character and won’t have any titles from 2005 to make me seem cool”).
      
      2. Short-term players who subscribe, play for 2-5 months, and cancel when they run out of new things to do.
      
      Very few of group 1 will switch to SWTOR, and the ones in group 2 can only be kept by constant updates or replaced by constant advertising. WoW’s advantage here isn’t that it’s “better”, it’s just that it was launched first, and that Blizzard invests a lot more in worldwide marketing.
      
      P.S. – I wouldn’t say Cataclysm merely “rehashed” content; it made most of it a lot worse. The reason why they completely removed the original Deadmines (instead of leaving the original version and adding the new one only in heroic mode – thus letting players see the full story) is that it would make it very obvious how the new one is so much worse. The original Deadmines felt like a “real” place. The new one just takes the same map and sprinkles some random weird creatures through it, sitting there, waiting to be killed.
      - jayremy
        
        I have to agree for the most part, not too much on the 1 and 2, mainly because I think there is a third, which is a group that is new to gaming or MMORPGs as a whole and just play because of the popularity/networked effect.
        
        The “new” types don’t know anything outside the box, because they haven’t tried it, probably aren’t “true” gamers or too accustomed to playing one game, one way.
        
        I am also willing to bet at least a coupe hundred thousand subs in WoW are just left running even though people aren’t playing the game at all or just a day or so out of the month. They likely not see $15 as much, also seeing how quickly >50% of the playerbase buys pets and mounts the first few days it goes for sale even if they never use the dang things.
      - Old Ben
        
        > I think there is a third, which is a group that is new to
        > gaming or MMORPGs as a whole and just play
        > because of the popularity/networked effect.
        
        Those are kind of included in #2. Since they’re short-term players (who don’t have much invested into their characters), they tend to leave the game after finishing all the “endgame” content, and only come back if there’s a new expansion or big patch.
        
        The difference between Blizzard and BioWare (when dealing with “high churn” players) is that Blizzard advertises all over the place, so while they lose players quickly, they get new players (almost) as quickly, which is why the total number of subscribers “only” dropped by 11% (1.2 million) over the past 12 months.
        
        > I am also willing to bet at least a coupe hundred thousand subs
        > in WoW are just left running even though people aren’t playing
        > the game at all or just a day or so out of the month.
        
        Blizzard knows that new (post-WotLK) players rarely hang around for a full year, that’s why it tempts them with the annual pass (make them commit to 1 year of payment before they realize they’ll lose interest after two months). It helps to pad the numbers on paper, too (although the servers are still deserted, because they aren’t actually playing).
        
        > also seeing how quickly >50% of the playerbase buys pets
        > and mounts
        
        They don’t. You’re mixing up profits and units. Remember that Asian players pay much lower subscriptions (based on actual time played). This means that a (relatively) small number of western players buying pets and mounts can mean a 50% increase in Blizzard’s profits for that month. It doesn’t mean 50% of players actually bought those pets and mounts.
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        The majority of WoW players simply don’t care about other MMOs. They like playing WoW and they love playing with their friends. They have heard over and over again about the next WoW killer.
        
        After a few months you find this next WoW killer is crap, or with Rift, raiding was buggy as hell and lost a significant number of hardcore raiders.
        
        By the time SWTOR went live, the WoW player base is understandably skeptical about how long the next great MMO will last. Now with the amount of hate direct at the end game of SWTOR, their views are cemented. If a company can screw up a Star Wars MMO, what do you want them to think.
        
        Same thing is going to happen with GW2, after a few months it’s going to be next to impossible to find any guildies that want to run harder end game content. Explorable mode dungeons, world bosses, good luck finding anyone after the hardcore GW2 players have finished experiencing the content.
        
        While I do have my venerable Resto Druid who has the Undying title, my hot new character is a Goblin Mage, who smokes the dps in raids.
        
        Deadmines felt like a ”real” place. Unless you feel the Goonies was real, Deadmines was just simply fun to run. Vanessa is also much more of a badass than her father.
      - Old Ben
        
        The real WoW killer is NPC #50051.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/2LCIYLFDZ6DH3IR2I7IY6ANQSU REMCO Estimating
        
        My favorite thing, as a Huntard, was to stalk and tame rares.
        
        So when they were all placed within a few hundred feet of the quest hub in Firelands, I knew some of the design choices were now being made by new designers that do not see “fun” the way I do.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      Blizz clearly wrote off Cata. They skipped over an entire tier of content and put Dragon Soul out there to wrap up the expansion.
      
      I’m going to have so much fun killing Allie Pandas, its going to be the best. Pandas are going to be driven from the Battle Grounds.
      - Old Ben
        
        > Blizz clearly wrote off Cata. They skipped over an
        > entire tier of content and put Dragon Soul out there
        > to wrap up the expansion.
        
        On the contrary. If you read their roadmap from 2003, they crammed two expansion’s worth of material (Maestrom set and Plane set) into Cataclysm. Deepholm was supposed to be a level 90 area, Firelands was supposed to be level 100, etc..
        
        Of course, those ideas were supposed to be developed by the original designers, not murdered by the post-WotLK team…
        
        Pandaria is just more of the same, from the same people who brought us Trial of the Crusader, recycled Zandalaris, recycled Deadmines, recycled Shadowfang Keep, mandatory Therazane, the brilliant Dragon Soul and the unforgettable Thrall “Elemental Bonds” quest line. I really mean unforgettable; I’ve been trying to forget it for ages and I just can’t.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/2LCIYLFDZ6DH3IR2I7IY6ANQSU REMCO Estimating
        
        after I did the elemental bonds questline, and got My lvl 165 cloak, for what amounted to doing nothing….I decided to look into other MMOs.
        
        -I’m just not looking for Dire maul v2, and I’m sure that option is on their table.
      - Old Ben
        
        Baby Jesus will cry when they decide to “update” Karazhan.
  - http://www.facebook.com/Drannath Matthew Leahy
    
    One thing I’ve noticed more in MMOs that are currently in the works, is that they are going tri-faction, or older MMOs are implementing it. Mythic proved a decade ago that tri-faction games balance themselves. One side gets on top, other two team up. Why are other people ONLY JUST NOW FINDING THIS OUT!
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Come on back to MoP. The amount of content in Pandaria is amazing, with a diverse type of gameplay. Hopefully Blizz has learned their lesson with raiding, hope to see some beta raids within the next few weeks.
  
  My concern with MoP is the story is not as compelling as defeating the forces of the Lich King or thwarting the evil plans of Deathing. Hopefully the story breaks out once you hit level 90.
  
  Another concern is the quest mobs are much harder, I don’t think players will be facerolling through the content like they did with Cata. This may turn off some of the carebears.
http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo

there was a gamasutra article about investors being worried about swtor, a former bioware employee in the comments section predicted this mess.
http://twitter.com/Virg_Ilio Virg_Ilio

People are just afraid of change. Blizzard gets away after so many screw ups ONLY because the players are afraid to go somewhere else or play something else that is new and goes too far from the WoW formula. It is just like breaking up, people get afraid of doing it and those who do can’t stop thinking about their EXes.
Sathure

It’s not the finite gameplay that keeps MMO players playing. It’s how REPEATABLE it is.

Pumping out content after content is such a losing model. You need to make your game fun and enjoyable down to it’s core. It needs to be repeatable. You need things that you can do over and over and over and not get bored right away. WoW didn’t launch with a crap ton of content. It didn’t have any raids at launch. Molten Core and Ony weren’t added until Patch 1.1. WoW kept players with the stupid random stuff people could do.

World Design, combat mechanics, overall layout help this out. Even just overall random things like Fishing competitions, or random events. It needs to be repeatable.
- MMO_Doubter
  
  I agree about repeatable content being very important for long term interest. WoW made a small step in the right direction with the cooking and fishing dailies. I would have gone with having a different crafting skill featured each day. This would make each day a little different and more interesting.
  
  Even more valuable than repeatable content, though, is UGC. Player made content WILL be major source of content in the future for MMOs. Any popular game with strong modding tools has MANY players creating new content at virtually no cost to the company.
http://profile.yahoo.com/FPXO267IVAHL3MK4HRRNRQPNDA Bush Swanson, The American Dre

I played wow and it was like man if i have to go through barrens one more time this is silly. I got swtor and i liked it and got to 50 but now its like just pvp and thats kind of not worth 15 a month so i unsubscribed. i wonder if ffxiv 2.0 will be fun
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  When I level my Pandarian Hunter, I plan on staying in the Eastern Kingdoms until level 60.
http://www.facebook.com/elias.rowan Elias Rowan

WoW gets away with it because of it’s age. When it came out, that sort of time-frame for updates was more than acceptable and was the usual. It was also, as people have said, the replayability of the game. If you got bored waiting on your main, roll an alt and get a different starting area with different quests. Explore zones with quests you skipped your first time around. There were just more things to do. Now, as has been said, they keep getting away with it because of the investment people have put into their characters. The trend we’ve been seeing is, when WoW releases new content, people log back in until they’ve finished (a couple months maybe) and then they move into the log in once or twice a week to raid and then go play something else. Players are bored with the game and everyone constantly complains about the rehashing but, as has been said, they have so much time invested into their characters at this point they can’t let it completely go. Hell I can’t even let it completely go. And I am really really sick of the game. My character, though…

One of those bad habits that has about 7 years of hooks.

SWTOR just does not have the things needed to keep players going through the wait. The individual class story quests are not enough alone to make alts fun. Every single other quest is exactly the same. You can do something new maybe twice. Once on the Republic side. Once on the Sith side. And then you’ve seen it all.
The content is far far far too easy and if you can’t complete it it’s because of the bugs… that aren’t going to be fixed anytime soon enough to make it worth continuing to try to beat. Because it’s completely broken.

It just doesn’t have what’s needed to justify such long waits between updates.
- Justin Bania
  
  Absolutely true. When i caught myself doing this I decided to just delete all of my toons and leave yo see if I ever got the urge to come back.
  
  I never did.
  
  It was actually pretty liberating in a way. I’m not saying go and delete all your WoW characters, but if you leave WoW stop and think before you return if you would roll a new character for all the new stuff and run through the treadmill again to gear it. Does that sound fun to you? If no, then you don’t need to go back because it is still the same game.I babbled on, sorry.
- http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm
  
  they should just remake the game or shut it down at this point, I loved SWTOR and all but i feel like im playing a beta still.
http://www.facebook.com/orlando.benjamin Orlando Benjamin

Well, right now you have nothing, the LFG Tool gives you people that get in and get out of your life very fast, but right now you have NOTHING!!!!

by the way this was suppose to be a reply but somehow, i screw it up!!! No worries bioware is also screwing things up… I guess i can get away with it…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Doyle-Hargrave/1182733324 Doyle Hargrave

Its not the amount of updates its the qaulity of updates.Swtor thinks a custom UI and lfg tool is “new content” Since 1.1 there updates have been shit.This will not bring people back lol. Oh did you hear 6 months in now you can tab target correctly!! this exciting new feature is coming in 1.3!

Jason is right on the money tor takes to long to do anything and when they do something its something that everyone else has as a standard feature already.

Ive waited for 6 months for some open world pvp and still this is all there is? We still cant even choose the warzones lol. Ive unsubbed its very hard to believe that swtor is a star wars game very very sad…..
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Kinda odd, Rift talking about SWTOR, last I heard Rift was killed by SWTOR and Rfit was down to 250k subs.
- Tyler Woidan
  
  Yeah, RIFT is a completely new IP… Star Wars is Star Wars. In terms of success with the IP they’re working with, I’ll take Trion. Can you imagine SWTOR with the work ethic and production level of Trion’s RIFT? Sure wouldn’t be as many grumbles I’m sure.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    For sure, I was just sad when Rift went from 800k subs to 250k subs.
    
    BW really did screw it up, the Star Wars IP was built for pay for the box, free to play for mods and cash shop for cosmetic items.
    
    You are so right, Trion would have released new SWTOR level 50 content every few weeks.
    - http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm
      
      Ya I agree, If you watch over the rift server status from the in-game list and on the website, if you were over 500k subs you wouldn’t ever have low pop servers 24/7 and theres a couple medium and the odd high pop.
      
      Like its dick move to say, but its the truth, Rift is dead and Trion is scrambling to releases stuff to keep pple entertained and the expansion wont help the game, maybe for a 3 months than they flop again. If the game was sem-successful they wouldn’t scramble to release stuff so fast.
  - http://www.facebook.com/chaz.rpg Chaz Davis
    
    Bioware can make good games with or without a popular IP backing them up, Kotor was a great game, but the Mass Effect saga was also amazing, save the last 10 minutes.
http://www.facebook.com/krister.holmberg Krister Holmberg

haha next up Cryptic tells Blizzard how to make mmo games

Swtor is certainly not the game I hoped it would be but the subs for swtor must be 3-4 or even 5 times that of Rift.
jayremy

Funny how it is Trion saying things about Bioware, Trion with Rift is only one step higher on a stairway of a hundred steps to be saying such about MMO titles and success. Both MMOs copied the same generic formula WoW used still a watered down EQ, nothing truly innovating the “MMORPG-sphere”.

Mike does bring up a good point, though I think the answer could be simple and stated in a vulgar way, I wont, but something WoW players should ask themselves. I think WoW many-to-most players are new to gaming or MMORPG more than any other game demographic out there next to CoD.

They don’t demand the same boundaries pushed that many may expect and get from places like at E3 for example. Blizzard being Activision->Vivendi sell outs, and just taking WoW to cash cow status. Many of the WoW demographic are either stuck to it because of it’s networking, career, and popularity or are okay chasing an artificially inflated carrot, that changes minimally. Don’t be offended by truth I was a carrot chaser myself and played way too much WoW, after quitting and playing other games I obtained a better perspective on games.

One of the reasons why I still like Trion currently way better than Blizzard, in present stance basically judging a company on it’s merit and passion Trion > Blizzard. I used to be a die hard Blizzard fan, which I why I have no lover for them anymore, they let me down big time. Like back when before TBC and early TBC even, they had free server transfers and there wasn’t this sense of corporate greed and giving little for what people pay.

Still though in the long run I am skeptical if Trion ever truly blows up, they may follow the same path as any meritable/passionately run business is likely to give into the money side.
Men_In_Tights_Too

I guess we will see what sort of shape Rift is in after GW2 launches, right Lars?
Jason Williams

Look at the size of his skull.

There must be at least 5 brains inside, or a good gallon of goo!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Vic-Coleman/100000230803712 Vic Coleman

Because Swotor shipped with a broken AH, a nearly unplayable end game, and having many big issues that WOW and most MMO fixed years ago.
Key Foster

Im playing both (sub’ed), and you can not only see but feel that lots of people are in WOW (thats a biggy), you can’t really feel that in SWTOR. If the end game content was better and ilum was not broken then i really believe they would not be going through a lot of negative crap. I like both by the way. Maybe when i get into a high population server in TOR ill feel better. But TOR could be sooooo much better that what it is, I wont go into what would fix everything, but I know I can literally fix all the problems.

Not to mention timing. If TOR would have come out this summer or even winter 2012 it would have been perfect. But the rushing to bring it out was REALLY BAD!

Funny how they stressed not bring it (TOR) out until it was done but brought it out unfinished anyway. Darn share holders and some the people at EA, stay out of the developers way, at least then you would have the money making title you want, QUIT PUSHING PEOPLE!!!.
- Old Ben
  
  > you can not only see but feel that lots of people are in WOW
  
  You might have 50 or 100 characters standing by the mailbox in front of the AH (though only in the afternoon – it seems most WoW players go to bed at 10 p.m. these days), but 99% of the game world is completely empty.
  - Key Foster
    
    Yeah, i can go with that but im focusing mostly on feel. swtor doesnt feel as alive as wow. But i still love playing both.
Sklys

Like they say, “hind sight is 20/20″
http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm

Bulter will be in the same situation when the Storm Legion Expansion flops after WoW & GW2 own Both P2P & B2P markets. His company has made as many mistakes as SWTOR / BioWare did and they suffered for it.

It may be a dickest way to say it, but BioWare is still a bigger & better company than Trion ever could and he has no right to talk about success and such, when his own companies has had no success in the very same market. Maybe if Blizzard or Arena Net talked about it than you could say “Ya they have had success in the market”.
http://profile.yahoo.com/A25YQ3HO7U4LIHIHWSLG63WCYI Nisarg Shah

I wouldn’t say blizzard is getting free pass anymore. They did have net subscription loss during the period of cataclysm. And one of the major reasons for it was lack of content for casual players. And we are seeing that continue in 2012 as well because of lull period with the most lacklustre rehashed raid ever.

People are actually quitting wow instead of only complaining on forums. So yes, I wouldn’t say blizzard is getting a free pass anymore. Its just that their playerbase is so overinflated due to china’s numbers. But wow in NA and Europe is significantly facing a decline.
InvaderMig

The health of Rift, or lack there of is due to how painfully generic the game is. That being said, you can not deny that from a purely technical standpoint, what Trion accomplished with Rift is commendable. Their game was far more feature rich(AH and quality of life features), and polished than Swtor. Not to mention they were far faster in responding to any problem that occurred in their game, and they have a much smaller team than BioWare does. It certainly does come off as a bit cocky to say what he said, but I know he must be thinking, “If we had your god damn budget to put together an MMO, and the Star Wars IP, we’d blow your fucking game out the water.” I would be inclined to agree with that imaginary statement. =P
- InvaderMig
  
  Now if only ArenaNet could have been given the IP and budget, I think Swtor would be the best MMO ever made.

Trion CEO Lars Buttler Dissects 38 Studios', BioWare's Shortcomings

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