State of the Game

[RoninaThorstone]

Ugh mmo politics make me angry! I played from early release to patch 1.2 and I left because my guild left. And I'm not going to lie I do want to come back but all the doom and gloom and negative press really gets to me. When I play an mmo I go in for the long haul and I'd hate to put time in and maybe find out that it might be closing down in a year example. Sigh not sure what to do

Come back as a f2p account, upgrade it a little, play every now and then.

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 02:51 PM ----------

while macros can be debated addons needs to be allowed in some way if you as a developer don't provide the functionalities that addons would, and I'm not talking boss mods that simplifies encounters but instead ways to change the look of your UI, quick gear swaps, bag organization, buff/debuff look, proc tracking in positions that feel comfortable to the player and so on

On this point, EA should sell addon/macro ability as cash shop items.

They could make serious money and everyone would be happier for it.

[Clattuc]

Anyone who comes back, and anyone who "upgrades a little," will be Preferred, not F2P. Preferred status ain't too bad.

Macros and addons are the kinds of new development that will depend entirely on whether TOR's new revenue model brings in enough to pay a decent team. EA is done investing startup money in this title, that's for sure.

[RoninaThorstone]

Anyone who comes back, and anyone who "upgrades a little," will be Preferred, not F2P. Preferred status ain't too bad.

Macros and addons are the kinds of new development that will depend entirely on whether TOR's new revenue model brings in enough to pay a decent team. EA is done investing startup money in this title, that's for sure.

Preferred is still a f2p account. As in it doesn't have a monthly subscription. And as for upgrades, I was more thinking unlocking epics, a few character slots, event gear, 2 more action bars. That sort of thing. Once you have that + preferred (which the person I quoted would have. I kind figured it was implied when he said he was an exsubscriber) you can pretty much coast and drop a dollar here and there when you want to pvp or raid.

edit: also, I certainly hope that EA thinks 500k subscribers is enough to devote some time to making a few addons.

[Crabsy]

I honestly have no problem dropping 15$ a month for a game I enjoy I just get nervous about bioware and ea bashing and X company will fail ect. I guess I get to much into the corporate side of things and forget about the actual game. I wish I could just turn that part of my brain off that reads into corporate stuff.

[Kelimbror]

I have to admit that I understand wher you come from, but nevertheless its no need for Addon-API. When you ask for a even more custimizable Interface it could be done on there side. I would also wish for Option on Buffs/Debuffs. Would love to see only my Debuffs on my target - would make the track of dots and hots way easier. Button highlight for Proccs like WOW would be awesome and so on and so on.

However, all these things could be made by them..

Let me pause to lol at that last statement. They haven't even shown they can update frequently enough to satisfy most people, have lost a lot of their employees, and are scrambling to release F2P...but you want them responsible for addons? Just the potential bugs that would go live gives me nightmares thinking about it.

I am one person who thinks that the way they handled the UI customization was a great start. Like, super great. It would not be so hard to add some additional features to make the UI fully customizable using the scheme they already have. I would be a huge supporter of them doing specifically that.

But beyond that style of 'addon'...noooooo. Be careful what you wish for. (even though they will never devote the resources to do it anyways) I think the point of having moddable parts to games has become engrained in the culture. It really opens up segments of the community to have their own work shine, make the game more attractive/efficient, with minimal effort from the company.

Reasons why any games launch without addon/modding support these days are beyond me.

[Redblade]

hm, this thread is still about current state of the game, or? this way he has its 4 bars... And even with 2 Bars this game is playable. Onyone can pay a subscription or cartel coins to get more.. *shrug*

You try to perform in PvP with only two bars, let me know how it pans out for you.

I have to admit that I understand wher you come from, but nevertheless its no need for Addon-API. When you ask for a even more custimizable Interface it could be done on there side. I would also wish for Option on Buffs/Debuffs. Would love to see only my Debuffs on my target - would make the track of dots and hots way easier. Button highlight for Proccs like WOW would be awesome and so on and so on.

However, all these things could be made by them..

I don't disagree, however they didn't give the player those options/features and they didn't give an addon API, hence the game is lacking from the modern players point of view.

Please don't get me wrong here, I would actually love to see these feature. Same like visible art for stances/active barrels on the different classes. But I don't think it is something we will see in the next few updates. In long run I rather have the expectation that they have to do something like that to show they are still enhancing the game

Point was that they promised this already back in Jan/Feb and you come here and say "Will not happen", while I don't disagree that it probably won't happen it's however something that should already have happened.

[SirRobin]

I remember Jeff from WAR. Paul and "The Hickman" were the public face of WAR like Daniel was for TOR. While this letter may include a bit to much "spin." Its not like I could really blame him for it. He was brought in after Gordon "decided" to leave and the death starring began. He is just trying to make the best of a bad situation. In fact, we need more communication like this. Though I would prefer less spin in the future.

[Deleted]

Stopped reading at ''Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.''.

Hilarious.

[Clattuc]

Preferred is still a f2p account. As in it doesn't have a monthly subscription.

I naturally appreciate the semantic quibble, however, SWTOR has three account statuses: F2P, Preferred, and Subscriber. Each has its own set of features. Only new accounts who don't spend any money will have the set of restrictions associated with F2P status. Everyone else will either have the improved access of a Preferred, or else the full access of a Subscriber.

[RoninaThorstone]

I naturally appreciate the semantic quibble, however, SWTOR has three account statuses: F2P, Preferred, and Subscriber. Each has its own set of features. Only new accounts who don't spend any money will have the set of restrictions associated with F2P status. Everyone else will either have the improved access of a Preferred, or else the full access of a Subscriber.

Yes. We all know that.

[Deleted]

Doesn't contradict it at all. People are less likely to do something that costs money than something that's free.

It DOES contradict itself.

It wasn't a secret that SWTOR had a monthly fee, the 2.4 million people that bought the game early on must have been incredibly ignorant to now know that it did. So knowing that it did have a monthly fee when they bought it, why did they leave if they think it's so awesome and want to play it like bioware claims? They know it would cost money but they still they bought it, they loved the game and want to play but they still left, and they did so because of the subscription fee. That is quite literally the spin they're trying to put on this.

You know what's actually logical, they bought the game, fully knowing it had a subscription fee, but found that the game wasn't worth paying a subscription fee for, so they stopped playing and stopped paying. Unless you seriously want to argue almost 2 million people didn't know SWTOR was gonna have a sub fee when they bought it.

And now they're coming out with F2P, but if the game wasn't worth paying for to begin with how is that going to help them when it clearly wasn't the payment in itself that was the problem but what the players got relative to what they paid was causing them to leave?

[anyaka21]

You should be more than sufficient with 4 bars. o0 Also remember, just because you have a specific spell, don't mean that it is still good to have them in your slots. Like missle blast for bounty hunter in ~20ish level. There are heals that just dont math out good, and so on and so on. "Sprint" is a one-click a year thing and can also save space...



I'm very happy that ther are no Addons or Macros. For me Addon are one of the main reason I started to dislike WoW. They simplifiy way to much, be it rotation helper, boss mods or other things.. Even more, they open a API to the game that can be exploited...

Will not happen, afaik they already stated that respecc will have no cost when you have a active subscription - and with legacy you can enable the function to respecc everytime and everywhere you current are. No need to visit the curator or pay credits after 1.5

I think you've missed the point about bars. Even if you have all 4 up, you need different bars for different situations. Granted, if you only play a dps class, then your options are limited, but if you play a class that can tank, or heal, then you need to prioritize different buttons. And the same would hold true in a pvp situation as well, different abilities are the key to winning.

Add that it is more about customization as well, the ability to be able have the right bar set-up in the right situation at the drop of a hat. If I'm soloing on my Sage/healer, then dps is primary, with heals 2ndary. If I'm in a FP, heals primary, dps situational, cc and possibily travel options - force speed, speeder - 2ndary, depending on whether it's a speed run or catch up, or whatever. Pvp, I want my cc's, stuns, escapes, dps, heals, I need all of them.

My personal thought, I'd like all 4 bars not to be tied to each other. With maybe 4 incarnations at each slot

What a bar add-on would do would allow for that kind of customization. If given into the hands of the community, someone could do it. Add that, though I'm not that far yet, what goes along with that allowable customization is a gear swapping. Tanks will need different gear than a dps class.

I can kind of agree on the how much customization and macro's/add-ons and kinds that are allowable. It did have a massive effect on WoW as a whole. Boss mods, dps meters, etc... They were game changers. It became a game of one-upsmanship that overall didn't have a positive effect on the game. The players would make a boss mod to make a boss fight easier, WoW would try to make the next boss patch harder to try and up the add-on makers. Players would whine about dps scrubs, vote kick if they felt the brand new 80 in a heroic should be kicked because his dps wasn't up to par even though he was a fresh level, etc... Those things ended up being bad for the game.

[Rimrot]

"I'm very happy that ther are no Addons or Macros. For me Addon are one of the main reason I started to dislike WoW. They simplifiy way to much, be it rotation helper, boss mods or other things.. Even more, they open a API to the game that can be exploited..."

These kinds of comments about a game are so dumb.. But, Dave, why are they dumb? Because YOU DO NOT EVER HAVE TO USE THEM, IT IS 100% BY FREAKING CHOICE..

[Leadsop]

But you do.

Because when addons like DBM and others come around, the devs have to (and did with WOW) design bosses to not only be difficult, but also to "beat" DBM or the games become faceroll.

Add to that the requirement that MANY guild require certain addons.

I agree. GLAD Star Wars has no addons. They aren't necessary. In some cases, they are detrimental.

The SWTOR UI and its options and information contained within are perfectly acceptable. My only complaint is that the GTN is a little clunky, but that's fixable without the need for addons.

[zorkuus]

But you do.

Because when addons like DBM and others come around, the devs have to (and did with WOW) design bosses to not only be difficult, but also to "beat" DBM or the games become faceroll.

Add to that the requirement that MANY guild require certain addons.

I agree. GLAD Star Wars has no addons. They aren't necessary. In some cases, they are detrimental.

The SWTOR UI and its options and information contained within are perfectly acceptable. My only complaint is that the GTN is a little clunky, but that's fixable without the need for addons.

Personally I don't miss having addons but I'm not against them, and addons certainly wouldn't be one the the main reasons I would leave a game (or starting to play one for that matter). There are more pressing issues at hand in the game than some goddamn addons and those would be my reasons for quitting the game if I did.

[OneSent]

To be perfectly honest, when the game launched without any addons or macro support, I thought to myself "Ok, no big deal. It's a good idea to make sure the core game plays well first, but I'm sure that stuff will come later on." Yet, here we are, almost a year later and not a single word on macros or addons (or chat bubbles/sitting in chairs!).

I think it's safe to say at this point, that their engine is not capable of nearly half the stuff people have been asking for. Especially macros and addons. Bioware has known it from the start, but who's going to admit to that? It's not exactly something you can fix in a patch.

And now that we have a significantly smaller portion of servers, I would love to see some cross-server integration for warzones and flashpoints to sort of cut down on the queue times during non-peek hours or just play with different names and faces. I was against that in the beginning because I was naive enough to think there would be server community in this game. But hell, any server communities that were built were destroyed by the 2 mega-merges.

In the end, the limitations of their hardware is what's keeping them from expanding this game. It sucks, because a lot of us see things happening in other games and wonder "How come Bioware isn't doing that?". But apart from shutting the game down for a few months to upgrade/change their hardware, there's not much we can do about it, unfortunately. I would love to be wrong about this, but I think the truth is quite obvious now.

[Edge-]

Because when addons like DBM and others come around, the devs have to (and did with WOW) design bosses to not only be difficult, but also to "beat" DBM or the games become faceroll.

DBM doesn't do anything that an attentive raid leader doesn't already do. Remembering/calling out timers and cooldowns is not something that's terribly difficult or game changing. People have been doing it since long before DBM existed.

I can't really think of any bosses specifically designed to "beat" DBM though. And the only addon they've really cared about in recent years that's similar to DBM was the one they disabled that would draw 3d shapes on the ground to tell you where to stand ect.

Depending on what kind of API access they grant, they can limit this kind of behavior in addons (as far as I've heard from those who know more about addon development than I do).

[RoninaThorstone]

I can't really think of any bosses specifically designed to "beat" DBM though. And the only addon they've really cared about in recent years that's similar to DBM was the one they disabled that would draw 3d shapes on the ground to tell you where to stand ect.

And that only because it was ruining ICC.

[Edge-]

And that only because it was ruining ICC.

Well, ICC was out at the time, but that kind of addon would have ruined any encounter they designed that had any sort of positional requirements.

[anyaka21]

Personally I don't miss having addons but I'm not against them, and addons certainly wouldn't be one the the main reasons I would leave a game (or starting to play one for that matter). There are more pressing issues at hand in the game than some goddamn addons and those would be my reasons for quitting the game if I did.

And I haven't left either for lack of this support. What I'm saying and have been saying is that if you put the API in the hands of the community but with limitations then as a development, in a way, it could free up their time to work on updates, expansion stuff, and bug fixes. And UI customization would be number 1 thing I'd give to the community. Placement of available bar slots, reloading ui including button configuration so some could switch roles reload a button config and be good to go. With 1.5 with subs beginning able to respec without cost, this would be a huge quality of game improvement and help to speed up runs and the time it takes to start a FP or ops.

Along with that a one button gear swap to speed things up and maybe some saved specs to allow for faster transitions. Again these are quality of game/life adjustments that would help preserve the community and give them more reasons to build improve and keep their toons growing.