My guess? Jedi get cut from SW:sRPG right before launch, with promises to add them ‘soon’, and then Darth Vader gets removed 6 months in because he was causing too much lag. Lightsabers get reworked every month, each rework a little more broken then the one before it. Mobs will blind you while a story element is playing, then root you as the escort NPC runs ahead, followed by a stun when you are asked to press the big red button to blow up the deathstar (it’s a daily quest).
I could be wrong.
Hardcore Casual 
I don’t think it’s actually possible for me to have less hope about that game.
But I do hope that whatever Bioware considers “Live Services” has little impact on the game itself.
Hmmmm…
I would say that SWTOR has hit a snag. My usual suspect has always been server side issues.
It’s not easy to create a multi-user system in any industry. And gaming is one of the hardest.
With the emphasis on “online” stuff lately I would say that Bioware is trying to balance high user to server ratios with profitability/lag.
And possibly failing… if their last online guy left it tells me that the Development engineers sold production engineers up a creek.
This is THE issue with a bankable title. You know users will come in droves early. What you don’t know is how to support high loads economically. If your software client-server infrastructure scales poorly to user loads… your costs skyrocket and your customer sat plummets.
These are the kinds of REAL game crafting issues that Tobold etc SHOULD be discussing… but much like building a house no one wants to spend quality time designing plumbing and wiring.
Worrying about staircases when you have to go to the bathroom in the home is shortsighted.
“You know users will come in droves early. What you don’t know is how to support high loads economically.”
More importantly, whether or not it is worth it to put the resources into solving this problem. Look at Warhammer, and count their servers at launch and servers now. Players will come in droves, but will they stay long enough to bring in the revenue needed to keep those servers up?
But as for my opinion on SWTOR, I’m inclined to agree with an article I read off of MMORPG.com about it. If it is successful, we’re only going to see more Theme Park MMO’s supported by big budgets. If it fails, then it will ward off big name titles for a while and smaller companies will move to fill the void.
That comment thread on Massively is quite scary.
If an author writes a poor book or a director makes a terrible movie or a band releases a disappointing CD, their fans will usually just write it off and hope the next one’s better. It takes a series of really bad releases before interest wanes and people stop looking forward to the next one, and even then they mostly just feel a bit sad that so-and-so’s lost his mojo and can’t really do it any more.
In gaming, though, it seems like one “failure” makes you an idiot forevermore and if you still have the gall to go on making games after disgracing yourself you become fair game for being treated like a war criminal.
Are there actually any game developers/producers who are generally popular with gamers?
As for SW:ToR, I really couldn’t be any less interested in it than I already was so it makes no nevermind to me who they employ.
It’s a brutal thread, yea.
I think the hate for WAR failing is pretty deep. You have the people who wanted DAOC2 and were disappointed. You have Warhammer IP lovers who were disappointed. And you had all those who took the devs word before release and were disappointed. That’s a lot of fail rolled into one game, and when you are one of the major reasons behind it, well, people remember the name.
I think failures draw more attention to the individuals involved while successes tend, not always mind you, to be attributed to the entities involved. I personally can’t name anyone involved in Bioware’s successes, but if this game fails, I’m sure a lot of names will be getting tossed around.
I don’t know the full story about War.
But it sounds like this:
They had quality issues
They did not “get” the games audience
They certainly did not challenge WOW
They failed on a slow news month
They did not set reasonable expectations
When disappointment set in they communicated arrogantly
So if I read it right… it was a continuous rolling fail wave.
And if the failboat sails and you are the vocal spokesman you DO get some mud on ya!
But… But…
What does this SAY about Bioware? right now?
If you have a bankable title… people should be lining up to kick this puppy in the goal.
Yet, they keep silent on release AND for something that is supposed to happen THIS YEAR they have yet to get a more open beta going.
Latest news they are recruiting in Austin for part time testers of SWTOR… what does that tell ya? they can PAY for local testers but they can’t support a FREE open beta….
Just funky if you ask me.
ROFL
KEKEKEKE
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