Rise of The Hutt Cartel: First Digital Expansion

[Redblade]

Oh I agree 100% with that no doubt. Some of the best and inovative games come from people who are looking to make a great game, not make a game that will sell well. Unfortunately there are plenty of games that don't operate under that principle. Instead they operate under the free-market principle that truly good games will succeed financially and unsuccessful games will not. And that is the type of thinking that gives us Madden and CoD. Is it wrong? From our perspective (the type of gamer that comes to forums to discuss things) the answer is yes, it is wrong. But from the numbers perspective, we are wrong. And the numbers all correlate to a bunch of people who we might say, "don't know any better", and ran out to buy whatever the new Football or Military FPS game is.

I'd claim that designing a game only based on what's the popular purchase is bad numbers wise as well, if CoD only included popular guns for example, at some point down the line it wouldn't have options at all. The customer often doesn't know what it is they want until they have it available, basing your design on what sells well and what the customer says he wants is at it's core asking the wrong question.

[WarpedAcorn]

I'd claim that designing a game only based on what's the popular purchase is bad numbers wise as well, if CoD only included popular guns for example, at some point down the line it wouldn't have options at all. The customer often doesn't know what it is they want until they have it available, basing your design on what sells well and what the customer says he wants is at it's core asking the wrong question.

Now you're quoting the spaghetti sauce speech guy! =)

[Redblade]

Now you're quoting the spaghetti sauce speech guy! =)

Perhaps to some extent, only because he's right though...

Edit: Thx for the tip btw, listened to three of he's books last couple of weeks, well worth time investment.

[Repefe]

Using Cathar as a deciding feature for new races is another stupid decision made by BW tbh. They should release race that ppl are interested in. Nothing against Cathar, but they sure are missing a large crowd pleasing potential. It's really expensive to make another race, lets do one that ppl are not interested in. Takes a genius to make that move.

[WarpedAcorn]

Using Cathar as a deciding feature for new races is another stupid decision made by BW tbh. They should release race that ppl are interested in. Nothing against Cathar, but they sure are missing a large crowd pleasing potential. It's really expensive to make another race, lets do one that ppl are not interested in. Takes a genius to make that move.

I think they want to hit the furry niche. =0

But yeah, not sure why they originally wanted to go with Cathar except that they would probably be the easiest to do skins and models for. The excuse I heard way back in the day for not having Rodians or Wookiee's available was that it would screw up the romance options for companions. But those romances are optional and I guarantee the the person who gets to play a Wookiee has NO problem missing out on a goofy romance.

[Capt Froggy]

Im guessing they were not finished with the Cathar race at start and threw in Cyborgs instead to finish off the races to begin with.

[Mcstunner]

I think they want to hit the furry niche. =0

But yeah, not sure why they originally wanted to go with Cathar except that they would probably be the easiest to do skins and models for. The excuse I heard way back in the day for not having Rodians or Wookiee's available was that it would screw up the romance options for companions. But those romances are optional and I guarantee the the person who gets to play a Wookiee has NO problem missing out on a goofy romance.

if they want to please the furry niche, they should add the juhani sub species of cathar. it's got that furry vibe to it.

i like cathar, but i'm disappointed that they'll just have the bland, normal class voices. i wanted a cathar with a thick russian accent, like the lore say they're supposed to have.

[Armourboy]

They ever add a Mon Cal, I would buy it as fast as they put it up of course part of me figures we would be stuck with all Mon Cals being red or something.

I also think its rather disappointing that a game 8 years older than SWTOR figured out how to do it pretty well, and yet they can't seem to pull it off.

[Haruss]

I may be ignorant and what not but... Can someone explain to me what exactly is so super expensive about making a new race? AFAIK, races don't have unique quests, voice overs or any other kind of Content. And Cathar don't have any clipping issues, it's just humans with different nose and ears (and texture). Yeah, there are customization options, but it ain't like there's 23845793 different customization option for every race and I can't imagine it being a task requiring more than one modeler working on couple different ear/face shapes for few weeks and texture artist throwing in some make up and scars...

[Zokonorb]

I may be ignorant and what not but... Can someone explain to me what exactly is so super expensive about making a new race?

Races with such small differences like in SWTOR, nothing, there's nothing that is even remotely super expensive about it. It's a bad attempt at an excuse for the cash grab of selling cathar separately to players.

And now they're holding potential future races hostage if people don't pay for cathar. inb4 the next race they deliver is another re-coloured human.

[Whitepepper]

...basing your design on what sells well and what the customer says he wants is at it's core asking the wrong question.

Market research, aka asking the customers what they want, is one of the most effective design tools there is for any company. For you to say that companies shouldn't ask for customer input is outright laughable. Without market research you could possibly put up a clothing store in the middle of a nudist colony. The store would fail because you didn't ask any questions about consumer wants and needs.

[Redblade]

Market research, aka asking the customers what they want, is one of the most effective design tools there is for any company. For you to say that companies shouldn't ask for customer input is outright laughable. Without market research you could possibly put up a clothing store in the middle of a nudist colony. The store would fail because you didn't ask any questions about consumer wants and needs.

More often than not the customer doesn't know exactly what it is he wants, asking for input is all well and good if you ask the right questions, "what do you want?" is not it. Same as drawing conclusions based on the popularity of one optional race sales when there are many factors deciding why some players like one race over another.

[Repefe]

You can't really ask customers what they want They have no clue what they want. But you can show them and ask them if they like what you are showing them or not. Even asking them why they like something makes little sense. Usually they don't really know why they like it, so they make up stories. I like it because ... and what follows is a lot of made up bs.

Maybe BW did their research and out of all the possibilities Cathar came up the best option. I just hope it was not a research with one option and no alternatives

[Kittyvicious]

Races with such small differences like in SWTOR, nothing, there's nothing that is even remotely super expensive about it. It's a bad attempt at an excuse for the cash grab of selling cathar separately to players.

And now they're holding potential future races hostage if people don't pay for cathar. inb4 the next race they deliver is another re-coloured human.

Exactly. Not to mention that the Cathar are ALREADY IN THE GAME. They blatantly profess that they believe the people who give them money are idiots, which is why I don't give them money. All the body types in this game are the same. There are only a handful of customizations you can have with each race.

It's pretty telling that they refuse to give even their subscribers anything of substance. This is two major things that were supposed to be free of charge for subscribers that have turned into pay only options. I honestly don't understand how anyone can try and explain it otherwise. Reality check.

[Psychlon]

Reality check.

... for people which think that EA would leave the opportunity to cash in by introducing 20 existing races into the game. You can't call them moneyrobbers when they could easily make tons of money with something like this but I guess.. they are just too "stupid" to see it. Correct?

EQ2 didn't introduce that many species in over 4 years to the game, according to their developer it would be a big time investment (I guess they must be wrong then).

Two reason why Cathar are a bad choice... I haven't even seen them mentioned in any of the "what race you want to see" threads/ polls and taking an unpopular race as sample to see how frequently Bioware is going to introduce a new race. They should have taken a kick-ass race which is high in the polls. Would have attracted much more people.

However since some people seem to know so well what it takes to get a new race into the game, why don't they share their technical knowledge you surely need to make such a statement?!

[Armourboy]

... for people which think that EA would leave the opportunity to cash in by introducing 20 existing races into the game. You can't call them moneyrobbers when they could easily make tons of money with something like this but I guess.. they are just too "stupid" to see it. Correct?

EQ2 didn't introduce that many species in over 4 years to the game, according to their developer it would be a big time investment (I guess they must be wrong then).

Two reason why Cathar are a bad choice... I haven't even seen them mentioned in any of the "what race you want to see" threads/ polls and taking an unpopular race as sample to see how frequently Bioware is going to introduce a new race. They should have taken a kick-ass race which is high in the polls. Would have attracted much more people.

However since some people seem to know so well what it takes to get a new race into the game, why don't they share their technical knowledge you surely need to make such a statement?!

Several races can't be that hard because some of the are already companions which means that being they are already showing gear the work is done. Cathar is no different, why its taking them that long to introduce is beyond me, the modeling should of been mostly done from the games release due to Aric Jorgensen being a Trooper companion.

As far as making money from them I don't have an issue, thats something normal to F2P games. Whats not normal is holding other races hostage to make sure you sell enough of the first one.

Also EQ2 may not have added many, but they had a fairly large choice from the start if I'm remembering right.

[Kittyvicious]

Several races can't be that hard because some of the are already companions which means that being they are already showing gear the work is done. Cathar is no different, why its taking them that long to introduce is beyond me, the modeling should of been mostly done from the games release due to Aric Jorgensen being a Trooper companion.

As far as making money from them I don't have an issue, thats something normal to F2P games. Whats not normal is holding other races hostage to make sure you sell enough of the first one.

Also EQ2 may not have added many, but they had a fairly large choice from the start if I'm remembering right.

Don't try and use logic with someone who won't apply any of their own. It's far too convenient to disregard every criticism and hand your money over to the company instead of questioning the 'authority'. Just put them all on ignore and it's amazing how much smarter the forums seem. It's nice not to have to read ridiculous excuses as to why BiowarEA has made the latest bungle of a decision.

This game is starting to be as bad as the new movies were for this franchise...where people turn out in droves for the IP, only to leave thinking what the fuck just happened. Only in this case, it's like they made 10 new movies instead of three because the wtfs won't stop coming. It's kinda sad that people would rather try and silence those voices for fear that it will affect them.

[Baar]

Several races can't be that hard because some of the are already companions which means that being they are already showing gear the work is done. Cathar is no different, why its taking them that long to introduce is beyond me, the modeling should of been mostly done from the games release due to Aric Jorgensen being a Trooper companion.

As far as making money from them I don't have an issue, thats something normal to F2P games. Whats not normal is holding other races hostage to make sure you sell enough of the first one.

Also EQ2 may not have added many, but they had a fairly large choice from the start if I'm remembering right.

You throw that out the window when you allow customization.

[Jamos77]

You throw that out the window when you allow customization.

I understand what you're saying but surely the Cathar customization options won't be too different to the human shapped form? Afaik Cathar have the same shape, size and posture as the humans. Also no facial appendages (Lekku, tentacles, giant BF trunks etc). We'll see when the Cathar are released but imo once we spend 1 minute playing around with the customization options we'll all ask ourselves why the process took so long and was so 'expensive'.

It'll be hard to justify what BW said once the Cathar are released and we can all see the results. I very much doubt they'll answer those specific questions though post Cath-Launch. Now had they been working on Wookiees....(elongated forheads, no boots, no gloves) then I could have understood the whole 'more time and more money to make' argument. As it is I just don't see it.

[Psychlon]

Several races can't be that hard because some of the are already companions which means that being they are already showing gear the work is done. Cathar is no different, why its taking them that long to introduce is beyond me, the modeling should of been mostly done from the games release due to Aric Jorgensen being a Trooper companion.

As far as making money from them I don't have an issue, thats something normal to F2P games. Whats not normal is holding other races hostage to make sure you sell enough of the first one.

If we follow logic here.. they don't need to care how many they sell from the first species because there is 0 effort to introduce another one because we already have several species as companions.

The only reason why it seems "easy" is because we have the character model already in the game. If you know anything beyond that, please share your knowledge but just because I think something to be easy doesn't mean that it actually is, especially if I have no idea about the technical part but I'm sure Kitty knows exactly how much manhour they would have to lift to introduce another species as he is so far above anyone else, he just has to know. Maybe it just takes that long because they need to modify all cutscenes in which you potentially should see a Cathar standing next to you?.... Who knows but I definately agree that the introduction of this species is in no way compensating for the time it takes them, wheter it takes so much time or not.