Written by: (@garygannon) | October 9, 2012 3:43 pm

29 Comments

The SWTOR team are dropping like flies!

Daniel Erickson announces his departure from the Bioware team this week.

The gang also talks about patch 1.4 bugs, and we hear about what the community would like to see for future warzones and an expansion pack.

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  • http://twitter.com/Stone_LX9 Stone LX9

    It’s sad, SWTOR is dying a slow death. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/AndrewSoueid Andrew Soueid

      It had everything going for it pre-launch. Star Wars IP, People getting tired of WoW looking for something new, no other big MMOs releasing at that same time, and it’s BIOWARE! Yet, after all of that, they were able to somehow mismanage the game into an early death. I mean seriously if a guy like me that loves MMOs, loves Star Wars, and couldn’t wait for this game to launch quit, how do you expect to keep the casual gamer?

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

        Because the casual player tends to be less demanding. They don’t care about hype and expectations, they don’t care about company names – they just want to jump into the game, have a relatively quick and easy learning curve, and pretty much just have an enjoyable experience. For a lot of people SWTOR met (and continues to meet those needs). F2P will probably bring a few more in, but they will need to add more to the game than just a cash shop to keep it going for the long term.

    • http://www.facebook.com/Jamandos Joshua Lee

      It was to be expected, SWTOR was a failure since they decided to change it’s concept. Going from a hybrid sandbox/theme park game with an art direction of KOTOR I &II, to cut scene focused mmo with extremely limited choices and basically a hard copy of WoW. 

      Their original concept would have satisfied a larger audience because people are getting sick of the lack of choices in the theme park genre, plus star wars IP, plus the audience interested in the continuation of the KOTOR story line.  

  • Josh Osmer

    I wonder what LucasArts take is on the state of the game and it’s future. I have a sickening feeling of deja vu with when LucasArts came in completely destroyed SWG for me with the NGE. 

    There are so many similarities right now. Changes in the dev team. The dev team doing the opposite of what the player base has been asking for in regards to balance. I’m not 100% happy with this game, I was hoping it would be more like an SWG 2 (pre patch 9), but if LA comes in again it’ll only get worse. 

    Has anyone heard anything from LA about the game?

  • dragontheory42

    Its annoying to see so many people jump ship from what was suppose to be the mmo to set the course of future MMO’s about story and content.  If you were to rewind just even a year from today they had us with so much expectations that now its all just a bag of hammers.  Wheres all the content and updates and promises they made, well we know now where we stand so far.  I can only imagine that many more people left form the original team (not just the big names).  

  • http://twitter.com/Cpt_Badger Cpt.Badger

    From my experience, SWTOR has the worst dev team in the business right now.

    Played a TON of MMOs. Bugs ? Sure, in each and every one.

    BUT, SWTOR has to be the first subscription based MMO has been unplayble (due to performance issues introduced by the patches) for nearly a MONTH now.

  • AkumaShogun259

    It’s funny when Gary gets talked over. He is so mad with that fake smile lol
    Jim Lehrer of the gaming industry.

  • SDalLago

    I have a feeling that the the turn over at BioWare might just have som positive mpact n SWTOR.  At launch I had this overwhelming feeling that the people that made the game had no clue what the current MMO player base really wants in a game.  They bought into so many of the vocal minorities desires that fly in the face of the realities.  Foremost being that no group finder and single server only grouping builds communities when, in this day and age, it does the exact opposite.  I’m hoping that new perspectives might bring some more savvy minds to the equation and develop SWTOR into the incredible game it has the platform to become.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/SMGRLFM4UASOO7QO26HTHBLIOI Shawn

    Thats pretty much the dagger in the chest right there with Daniel Erikson leaving the team.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shawn-Hargrave/100003202374593 Shawn Hargrave

    well it took george zoeller leaving to get them to listen to the playerbase about bh interupts. That was such a ridiculous thing to have no interupt on a bh b/c he felt they didnt need it. Well george guess you were wrong eh?

    Erickson was a mouthpiece it seemed mr “absolutely” until james ohlen and gabe go the game will continue to be a pos. I cant figure out for the life of me how gabe still has a job? Most incompetent dev i have ever seen in my life..

  • Josh Rosenvelt

    I really loved the levelling in this game, was 2nd to none until GW2 released. I think the main problem was having to keep using voice acting for every quest, every FP/operation which is not easy to keep bringing out that type of content so quickly.

    It’s a good thing GW2 has been fairly successful until this point otherwise more companies would of been put off by doing big budget MMOs, it would mean players would be stuck with wow for another 5 years until Titan.

  • http://twitter.com/OldDren Christopher

    i just cant let swtor go, i love starwars IP, I tought i would love swtor more then anything, but ive not been playing for a while now i fear what f2p can do, but i hope so much everything will work out and we will have a solid game for starwars fans! please please! save my starwars game lol!

  • http://twitter.com/ByronLumley Byron Lumley

    NEW CONTENT IS GREAT. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

    I giggle how they keep saying it is common for people to leave, yet on their other MMO shows you so rarely hear about people leaving at the rate people have left Swtor. People may leave companies now and then, but the large and important amount leaving Swtor is def going to hurt the game, or at least change how the game would have been. Maybe the new people will be better cause the old ones IMO were not even that great.

    • Revanhavoc

      I think the most important thing to understand is, although I absolutely agree with you, and perhaps behind closed doors the Gannonator would agree with us too, it’s not at all in the interests of Justin and Larry to feed into the negativity and worry that fans, outside of hardcore fans, have been feeling for months.

      I mean, The Good Doctors are gone mainly because of this…The Good Doctors…

      The whole game was a big disappiontment. Yes, that’s why staff have left and are leaving. It’s not so much giggle-worthy for such a long time follower as myself, more like cringe-worthy.

      (Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 both contributed to the Good Doctors departure, Revan. But I say good riddence to “absolutely” Daniel “absolutely” Erickson. I never liked those “absolutely” abs anyway. Absolutely.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

    As far as adding mature setting, it KILLS MMOs… period…. WoW is the king cause it is for everyone… Age of Conan failed cause of the M rating. It can work for other games like mass effect, but NOT MMOs

    • David Alcon

      AoC had other problems other than a Mature rating. I would argue that there is a niche market where you could successfully have a blood & guts & tits MMO that is purely fueld by testosterone. AoC, however, fizzled out very quickly after leaving the starting island (Tortuga I think). Basically, they did not have the content at launch.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

        Correct – take the Witcher for instance. A highly regarded game, but certainly not one that will do the numbers of say an Elder Scroll game because of the mature content. You can’t have an MMO be as successful as WoW with mature content, but you can have a successful mature content MMO as long as it’s done properly. Perhaps the Venus Rising game will be one of the early testing grounds to see how something like that might go over. It’s certainly something to keep a watch on just for that.

  • IrishBrewed

    Still think ExBioware is going to fail at implementing free to play. Cant wait to see how that goes. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

       Ya so far I am bummed. I quit the game almost 2 months ago due to lack of content and seeing how you can barely do anything if you go F2P, I don’t see the point of coming back. They might get new players, but people who left have very little reason to come back since to raid or 5 man or even pvp looks like you would have to pay anyways. And I am sure most people quit cause they didn’t feel the game content was worth the $15 a month.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=747725054 Carlos Navarretti

    The only way I’d go back to playing that game is if they game me the possibility to JUST do the class quests in order to level. I loved the class quests. Found them amazing, honestly. But doing it all over again is a big no-no to me when not even the prospect of great end-game is there what with MoP being out and my thirst for raiding being quenched by it. 

  • bsqminus4ac

    That’s  really sad actually. I never thought Bioware would fail this epically (or even fail at all for that matter.). 

  • Jado Cast

    Hey BioWare, want me as a Fan Again.  Make an Epic KOTOR III, with multi-player party system, (maybe 4 in a party?) and I’ll snatch that game up.  You should of done that anyways.  GL  

    Hey Zenima!  History is about to repeat itself after ElderScrolls Online launches.  (See Bioware)  Just Saying.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=583541115 Matt Gilbert

    Of course there is an ordiance for Mature Star Wars! The original fans are OLD now!

  • Cyclops07

    It’s sad when you can honestly say that SWG pre cu was ten times better than Swtor despite all the years. In retrospect they should have shut down Swtor not Galaxies..though SWG was pretty bad for years as well. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

      Better or worse is a matter of personal preference and playstyle. SWG had no where near the numbers of WoW, GW1, and other similar games (nor ever would have), so you can’t say it was objectively a better game than anything else out there, especially considering how bug ridden the game was. SWG and SWTOR are on two ends of the spectrum – pure sandbox is never going to be anything but niche, pure themepark is not going to hold the attention of players for the long term. You need an appropriate mix of both in order to survive – WoW and GW show that – pretty much themepark games, but with a more open feel and extras that SWTOR is lacking right now. Fortunately, those things can be added in the game – it’s just a matter of the dev team making sure they get in before it’s too late.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R35J5EUERGS3E6JRIQMBCDTRRY Nathan I

    Justin doesn’t seem to understand that the exp/loot scaling in GW2 is not for powerleveling. It would be foolish for ArenaNet to do something like that. The whole idea of the exp/loot scaling is that you get MEANINGFUL but not OPTIMAL rewards. For example, one of my characters is around level 60 now and needs something like 95k exp to level. If I kill a level 60 mob I get around 60-70 exp. If I kill a level 6 mob, I get something like 10-15 exp. In most other MMOs, at level 60 I would need something like 30 million exp to level and each mob my own level gives like 1k exp while level 6 mobs gives like 3 exp. So in that other MMO I will make next to zero progress if I were to go to a low level area to help a friend. In GW2 I will make meaningful progress. The same thing with the loot drops, a level 80 running around in level 1-15 zones in GW2 can get loot from level 1 up to I think level 76. In other MMOs that level 80 would be getting level 1-15 loot exclusively, which is worthless to them.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shawn-Hargrave/100003202374593 Shawn Hargrave

      you have to understand justin and darthhater is nothing but carebears who pretend the game is bigger then wow and deny reality. Ill take gw2 over swtor anyday b/c gw2 devs are competent and want people to play thier game where as tor goes out of there way at times to make you not want to play and swtor devs are arrogant and just incompetent. At least when you hit cap in gw2 you dont quit due to lack of end game content. Gw2 pvp shows how lazy swtor devs are lol omg i was really shocked by gw2 pvp and realized even more then i did how sad and how stupid the devs are in swtor are. I wouldnt mind justin and those carebears on darthcarebear site theyre bucnh of ea cock sucks and everythings fine come play swtor lmao

      Justin even said in another rep show that its debateable if tor failed. LOL thats like saying its debateable how big the iceberg was that hit the titanic…./just shakes head 

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