Rise of The Hutt Cartel: First Digital Expansion

[Bardarian]

also... george lucas apparently had a problem with wookiees being jedi or sith. idk, just saw it stated in a thread somewhere.

They could make some races unable to be sith / jedi. Like being a droid or something (same model as humanoids)

[katta]

They want us to show them proof of our doctorate in 3D Modeling before we are allowed to state the obvious with common sense. Instead of admitting that all the humanoid models in SWTOR are the same 4 shapes and reskins, that putting an animal face (which they already have in the game several places) takes all sorts of techno mojo to create, and that somehow new animations must be given for this...even though animations are tied to the class.

Ok, here's my evidence. I studied 3DStudio Max in high school. This was a looooong time ago. At that beginner level, with little knowledge, before all the awesome technology we have now, I created bipedal models and animated them. I could use the same file to create 20 different skinned models with the same animation if I wanted. All I do is reskin the entire file, which takes almost no time other than to create the skin, and then it's done.

Now to the few that disagree, please tell me how this is magically different in 2013 with highly skilled professionals...right. Common sense.

You dont qualify to answer, sorry.. You need to be a CS and QA person to be qualified to answer these questions.

---------- Post added 2013-01-22 at 05:43 PM ----------

I guess it's because I don't believe you're using the word 'lazy' right at all.

Cathar was the logical choice for a 1st extra species imo (would have prefered Wookiee myself). I'm happy to confess that like everyone else here I have absolutely no clue how BW judge 'ease' or 'cost' in creating a species. However at first glance it does seem like the cheapest choice.

Again though, selecting the cheapest realistic choice is not the same as being lazy.

I'm not defending BW but instead am asking you not to equate lazyness with cost efficiency.

How are you deciding Cathar to be the logical first choice? It isnt a logical first choice but a choice made because it would be super easy to add it compared to say wookies or other non-human alien race. They made that choice because they didnt want to have to do all the work it would take to do wookies or ithorians etc.

Thats being lazy.

Why should bioware be cost effective so much? According to them they still have almost 1 million subs so they are making a boat load of money that they shouldnt be making decisions on cost effectiveness as much. Remember 500,000 subs would break them even so an extra (500,000x15x13+layoffs) = all profit that they could add into the game.

Bioware now is greedy bastards that want to get as much money as they can from players without putting out much effort because they dont want to have to do the work involved. Thats being lazy in any launguage.

[Bardarian]

You dont qualify to answer, sorry.. You need to be a CS and QA person to be qualified to answer these questions.

Just so we are clear.

Are you proposing that Bioware created a NEW way to do 3d animation/modeling/texturing?

[Jamos77]

@Katta

You've lost me completely but it's all good. You believe that Bioware's developers are lazy and that's your right.

I believe that they made their choices based on economic factors and not lazyness but we can't all agree all the time.

---------- Post added 2013-01-23 at 12:12 AM ----------

Just so we are clear.

Are you proposing that Bioware created a NEW way to do 3d animation/modeling/texturing?

He/She was being sarcastic I believe. The recent Developer Interview had Rob Hinckle mention experience with CS and QA iirc.

[Redblade]

You've lost me completely but it's all good. You believe that Bioware's developers are lazy and that's your right.

I believe that they made their choices based on economic factors and not lazyness but we can't all agree all the time.

Same thing just different choice of words to define it, both is based in BW not wanting to make the extra effort. I'd agree lazy is a bit misleading though as it implies that they do it to extend their breaks or to play games instead of working, over doing it because it's the most efficient way to add a race that they can sell for cash in the shop.

They only really screwed up when they implied that Cathar has to sell well for any other races to be developed, again showing their intent with the "free" to play transition, as if announcing 5 more levels that everyone has to pay extra for just weeks after the transition wasn't enough.

[Psychlon]

Thats what I don't get about people defending the game.

It's like people like psychlon gladly bend over because it's what swtor asks them to do. Bioware: "bend over and give us your wallet" Psychlon "You are getting money so anything you say boss"

Everyone defending Bioware dosn't seem to get that. They seem to think it is some immense undertaking.

but apparently for bioware this is just too much of a brain buster.

Again you simply fail to understand the basic. I'm not defending Bioware by saying... hey guys it's super difficult to implement new races, I'm saying that from their point of view (how ironic... I can see their point while being branded narrow minded... /smirk) it doesn't make sense to implement (not meaning races but in general) something which costs a lot of money and only appeases a small group of players. What a "small" group of players is can only be answered by Bioware as they have all the metrics.

You probably shouldn't mix "economics" and "implementing a race" or just keep me off your ignore list to actually read all I'm saying and not nitpicking whatever serves your purpose.

Do you wanna know the most likely reason?
The first issues is that they probably only have about 5 cathar hair cuts in game, maybe 4 faces for male and female, and no additional things like scars or earrings. Now, this would be pretty easy to fix. You would just have to have a team invest some time into it. I doubt that this is whats really blocking them but its possible that they are just taking forever coming up with 30 hair cuts ect.
The second issue is what I think the problem is. They have to adjust their UI for character creation. Now, its possible that they didn't anticipate adding races when they were building the engine / character creation UI and they might have made it almost impossible to adjust. This is almost exactly what happened to WoW and their character models. People have been asking for humans, orcs, trolls, ect (vanilla models) to be updated to high definition textures, more intricate animations ect ect ect. However, when they created WoW they did not think they would have to go back and do that. So there are very serious technical issues with doing it. Its been "leaked" / speculated that in order to really "fix" the old races they would have to create a new set of old races, purge the accounts of ALL old race characters, and reconstruct their achievements and items and give them to a new replacement character of a new "old race"

While I think they would use the exact same hair cuts for any human like race, I thank you for a more logical approach to what holds them off from bringing it in.

As for my beef with the use of "being lazy/ to stupid".. if they have to redo the whole character creation and are effectively working on it, they are not being lazy or stupid but just have to lift a heavy weight of working hours to make it work.

From a player point of view I'd completely not understand why they did what you described in WoW, however at the time they created it it may have been the best/ only solution?!

http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...00#post5739500 i'd say it's safe to say non-basic speaking races will NOT happen. i would love trandoshans, but alas. it's too hard QQ. also... george lucas apparently had a problem with wookiees being jedi or sith. idk, just saw it stated in a thread somewhere.

Well I'm pretty sure they said always that species not being able to pronounce basic won't be in the game. That is their decision, we can take it or leave it. However that doesn't explain why we don't see more human like species more frequently.

Bioware now is greedy bastards that want to get as much money as they can from players without putting out much effort because they dont want to have to do the work involved. Thats being lazy in any launguage.

I'm sorry but you are just proving yourself wrong. If it's such an easy job to implement a new human-like race, they would do it because it requires 0 effort. Apparently it doesn't which is why they didn't implement it yet.

Same thing just different choice of words to define it, both is based in BW not wanting to make the extra effort. I'd agree lazy is a bit misleading though as it implies that they do it to extend their breaks or to play games instead of working, over doing it because it's the most efficient way to add a race that they can sell for cash in the shop.

They only really screwed up when they implied that Cathar has to sell well for any other races to be developed, again showing their intent with the "free" to play transition, as if announcing 5 more levels that everyone has to pay extra for just weeks after the transition wasn't enough.

I'm not sure that any company interested in making profits will increase anyones break and shortcut your output. This would mean that no one @Bioware is interested anymore in producing a game but rather use whatever softwar you already got and reskin/ ask money from players. However we do get more content in the future which would kinda seem as they are interested in prolonging the life of SWTOR.

Calling someone lazy is a very "lazy" attempt to explain something you have no idea about, (you not you specifially) which is my issue with some posts because they don't have any idea how Bioware is making decisions/ what their designers are doing. We see the tip of an iceberg and call it "small".

[katta]

Again you simply fail to understand the basic. I'm not defending Bioware by saying... hey guys it's super difficult to implement new races, I'm saying that from their point of view (how ironic... I can see their point while being branded narrow minded... /smirk) it doesn't make sense to implement (not meaning races but in general) something which costs a lot of money and only appeases a small group of players. What a "small" group of players is can only be answered by Bioware as they have all the metrics.

A small amount of players? Well maybe so but from the polls they had that small amount of players that wanted say wookies was much larger than the ones that wanted canthar.

Now why Canthar? Because they didnt want to deal with the problems that the other races would cause. They have said it themselves.X race is to hard to prevent clipping so we are giving you Y race because its 100x easier to add in since its basically done already. How can you not see that as them not wanting to do the work. Thats LAZY.

You probably shouldn't mix "economics" and "implementing a race" or just keep me off your ignore list to actually read all I'm saying and not nitpicking whatever serves your purpose.

Your the one going around in circles to suit your purpose as to make it look like they are not lazy.

While I think they would use the exact same hair cuts for any human like race, I thank you for a more logical approach to what holds them off from bringing it in.

All that stuff involves work, thats why they havent done it yet.

As for my beef with the use of "being lazy/ to stupid".. if they have to redo the whole character creation and are effectively working on it, they are not being lazy or stupid but just have to lift a heavy weight of working hours to make it work.

They picked the race that would take the least amount of work to make it added into the game as the new race. They didnt pick the most popular or even the 10th. They picked the one that was easiest for them.

From a player point of view I'd completely not understand why they did what you described in WoW, however at the time they created it it may have been the best/ only solution?!

Well I'm pretty sure they said always that species not being able to pronounce basic won't be in the game. That is their decision, we can take it or leave it. However that doesn't explain why we don't see more human like species more frequently.

WoW was made back when MMO's were not as popular as they are now, they also didnt have all the high tech that they do now. Their creation of charachters is not the same way that SWTOR characters are made. Back then it took more time to actually make a character to what it takes today, also adjustments are completely different.

I'm sorry but you are just proving yourself wrong. If it's such an easy job to implement a new human-like race, they would do it because it requires 0 effort. Apparently it doesn't which is why they didn't implement it yet.

There you go changing what I said to make it sound like I said something else just so you can prove what you said I said, which I didnt actually say wrong. I said without putting in as much effort. Not that it took no effort. But then again because it took some effort thats why it has taken them so long to do it. How long ago was canthar introduced as the new race? 6 months ago maybe? Then its not comming out for another 6 months so for them to make a reskin on a human it takes them over a year. LOL But no thats not being lazy.

I'm not sure that any company interested in making profits will increase anyones break and shortcut your output. This would mean that no one @Bioware is interested anymore in producing a game but rather use whatever softwar you already got and reskin/ ask money from players. However we do get more content in the future which would kinda seem as they are interested in prolonging the life of SWTOR.

How much of that content was actually completed before the game was launched or while they still had no intentions of F2P. I believe even Makeb was started before this time so that means that they had to go though almost all the development phases before they mentioned it. I also imagine that had people working on it back then also. SO again that will be at least a year just to finish a planet.

Calling someone lazy is a very "lazy" attempt to explain something you have no idea about, (you not you specifially) which is my issue with some posts because they don't have any idea how Bioware is making decisions/ what their designers are doing. We see the tip of an iceberg and call it "small".

Your saying we dont see everything but guess what. From what we see they are lazy. Yes if you see a tip of the iceberg you know there is an iceberg just not how big. We see the tip of laziness in Bioware its just we dont know how big it is. Either way its still there and you cant say its not just because we dont see it all.

[Redblade]

Calling someone lazy is a very "lazy" attempt to explain something you have no idea about, (you not you specifially) which is my issue with some posts because they don't have any idea how Bioware is making decisions/ what their designers are doing. We see the tip of an iceberg and call it "small".

My point was more along the lines that the general description was the same between them, just different choice of word, lazy being a poor one.

How BW makes decisions now is fairly easy to make an assumption about, least amount of cost for maximum amount of profit + longest amount of hype time for the least amount of player loss = winning concept.

[Psychlon]

A small amount of players? Well maybe so but from the polls they had that small amount of players that wanted say wookies was much larger than the ones that wanted canthar.

Now why Canthar? Because they didnt want to deal with the problems that the other races would cause. They have said it themselves.X race is to hard to prevent clipping so we are giving you Y race because its 100x easier to add in since its basically done already. How can you not see that as them not wanting to do the work. Thats LAZY.

So any MMO developement team which is not giving what you as a player want because it's too "hard" to implement is lazy? That's like... any company.

Your the one going around in circles to suit your purpose as to make it look like they are not lazy.

Frankly I put in the effort to find a reason why they are @ where they are. If your only conclusion is that they are lazy you could have left this thread several pages ago but for some reason you need to make everyone say "they are so lazy" which is why you are still here.

However implementing a race which according to you and several others requires very little amount of work & Bioware being lazy asses and just putting in minimal effort for maximum profit... , it doesn't add up and it makes no sense.

All that stuff involves work, thats why they havent done it yet.

So what are they doing with all their free time if they aren't doing anything apart from reskinning armor (though they don't add reskinned playable species... )

They picked the race that would take the least amount of work to make it added into the game as the new race. They didnt pick the most popular or even the 10th. They picked the one that was easiest for them.

There are more popular humanoid races on the list.... I still don't understand why they did pick Cathar, neither do you or maybe you can shed a light why they took Cathar over Togruta?

From a player point of view I'd completely not understand why they did what you described in WoW, however at the time they created it it may have been the best/ only solution?!

This one is actually part of my quote... maybe you want to edit your post.

WoW was made back when MMO's were not as popular as they are now, they also didnt have all the high tech that they do now. Their creation of charachters is not the same way that SWTOR characters are made. Back then it took more time to actually make a character to what it takes today, also adjustments are completely different.

What kind of "high tech" do they have now? What is the differences between WoW characters and SWTOR characters? Argroth reskinned a Sim's character, can't be "that" hard or is Sims so much more advanced?

There you go changing what I said to make it sound like I said something else just so you can prove what you said I said, which I didnt actually say wrong. I said without putting in as much effort. Not that it took no effort. But then again because it took some effort thats why it has taken them so long to do it. How long ago was canthar introduced as the new race? 6 months ago maybe? Then its not comming out for another 6 months so for them to make a reskin on a human it takes them over a year. LOL But no thats not being lazy.

How long ago was Makeb introduced?... Not sure but all this "advertising" happened before they implemented F2P.

You have to decide if it takes very little effort = 0 effort to implement Cathar or if it takes more work, you were the one saying that it takes very little effort as the race is "practically" fully existing in SWTOR. Your problem is exactly the same as mine... we don't have a clue what is delaying them to implement it but I don't think they are just too lazy to implement it. They can't be too lazy because they announced it already.

How much of that content was actually completed before the game was launched or while they still had no intentions of F2P. I believe even Makeb was started before this time so that means that they had to go though almost all the development phases before they mentioned it. I also imagine that had people working on it back then also. SO again that will be at least a year just to finish a planet.

You have no idea how much was completed before, you have no idea what actually had highest priority next to their F2P model but you assume that they need 1 year to finish a planet.

Blows my mind.

Your saying we dont see everything but guess what. From what we see they are lazy. Yes if you see a tip of the iceberg you know there is an iceberg just not how big. We see the tip of laziness in Bioware its just we dont know how big it is. Either way its still there and you cant say its not just because we dont see it all.

From what we see is that they made a promo video, after that they implemented F2P and due to it their schedule has changed = content being delivered later. We also know that they stopped delievering "huge" patches but rather take one "bigger" element and create a patch around it to deliver something every 6 weeks. As they didn't have a stop in their delivering schedule.. I guess Cathar is just somewhere down the line which may or may not mean that it took them exactly this amount of time to finish it. They may just hold it back for future patches. Not sure if this is called being lazy or "greedy" but I'd guess the latter.

My point was more along the lines that the general description was the same between them, just different choice of word, lazy being a poor one.

How BW makes decisions now is fairly easy to make an assumption about, least amount of cost for maximum amount of profit + longest amount of hype time for the least amount of player loss = winning concept.

BW made a lot of very poor decisions in my point of view. However, as much as we all discussed about their F2P system, Cartel Market etc. it just seems that it's profitable now. How it is going to be in the future we'll see. All I can see in the game is that the server are cracking, tons of people on the server on every planet (200 people on coruscant, 150 people on taris... etc.) and a frequent trading on the GTN = healthy economy. That's reality but if I'm reading here it sounds like Me and my guild would be the only players on the entire server.

[Redblade]

BW made a lot of very poor decisions in my point of view. However, as much as we all discussed about their F2P system, Cartel Market etc. it just seems that it's profitable now.

What makes you think that? You can't possibly know how many people are subscribed at the moment and how many don't pay a single dime.

How it is going to be in the future we'll see. All I can see in the game is that the server are cracking, tons of people on the server on every planet (200 people on coruscant, 150 people on taris... etc.) and a frequent trading on the GTN = healthy economy. That's reality but if I'm reading here it sounds like Me and my guild would be the only players on the entire server.

I have no doubt there are lots of players around, it's free and the stories are alright first time around, that says nothing about the revenue model of the game though. Personally I think their subscriber base has gone far below 500k by now and the bulk of the revenue stream through the cash shop is from the subscribers.

Doubt we will ever know the truth though as I'm sure they will hide it in the financial reports if I'm right, or more accurately, they will hide any truth about SWTOR in the financial reports unless it starts to make profits at the 1 million + subscriber rate.

[katta]

So any MMO developement team which is not giving what you as a player want because it's too "hard" to implement is lazy? That's like... any company.

No but a MMO development team that gives excuses that its too hard as to why they are not adding certain races is. Saying its going to take a while to add those races is different than saying they are too hard to do because of all the clipping issues etc as the reason they are not even trying to do them is being lazy.

Frankly I put in the effort to find a reason why they are @ where they are. If your only conclusion is that they are lazy you could have left this thread several pages ago but for some reason you need to make everyone say "they are so lazy" which is why you are still here.

My only conclusion isnt that they are only lazy. I also thing they are money hungry and all the decisions that the top brass make are based on money only and not about improving the game for the players. I also think most of the development team is underskilled for the positions they are asked to do.

However implementing a race which according to you and several others requires very little amount of work & Bioware being lazy asses and just putting in minimal effort for maximum profit... , it doesn't add up and it makes no sense.

So if it takes alot of work and skill to add a new race then why wouldnt they add a race that most of the people voted for? If you are going to have to do alot of work to add something then why not add what the people want instead of something else? Because adding Cathar compared to Ithoriams or Wookies is 100x easier, they are being lazy and adding an easy race to say they added a race to the game. Again if it was a race then they would have added in a popular race since they were doing one.

So what are they doing with all their free time if they aren't doing anything apart from reskinning armor (though they don't add reskinned playable species... )

That is a good question. Maybe they are playing the game instead of actually working on it. I imagine its easy to act like your working while your actually not in a video game. The boss sees you playing so he thinks your testing something when your actually not, then when they ask how it worked you can just say its fine. Maybe they are in the meeting making fun of all the people that purchased unlocks that didnt work. Maybe they turn off all the computers so they can save on electricity cost. No one knows but from what is seen ingame they are doing something other than working.

There are more popular humanoid races on the list.... I still don't understand why they did pick Cathar, neither do you or maybe you can shed a light why they took Cathar over Togruta?

Dont know. Are there actually any Togruta in the game? I know there are Canthars (Empire BH have them in their class quests) Maybe if there are no Togruta in the game they would have to do even more work than Cathars.

This one is actually part of my quote... maybe you want to edit your post.

Error on my part. Dont feel like fixing it but its not because Im lazy, theres just no profit in it for me to go and fix it. You should understand that.

What kind of "high tech" do they have now? What is the differences between WoW characters and SWTOR characters? Argroth reskinned a Sim's character, can't be "that" hard or is Sims so much more advanced?

I know SWTOR looks like it was made back in 2003 but it wasnt. If you dont think technology has advanced in the last 10 years then I dont know what to say.

How long ago was Makeb introduced?... Not sure but all this "advertising" happened before they implemented F2P.

You have to decide if it takes very little effort = 0 effort to implement Cathar or if it takes more work, you were the one saying that it takes very little effort as the race is "practically" fully existing in SWTOR. Your problem is exactly the same as mine... we don't have a clue what is delaying them to implement it but I don't think they are just too lazy to implement it. They can't be too lazy because they announced it already.

They anounced it . LOL That means they are working hard. Just like the SSSP they announced they were working on it so they have to be. Some dev even tested it and believe him your going to love it. But its so good that they have no clue when its going to be ready because they hvae so much more to add to it?

The reason they announce things it to hopefully keep the subs happy in thinking they are going to get something. You just have to wait for it whiloe you keep paying. I mean to give a deadline would mean that that actually have to work to try and meet it. And yes they could say they are looking to release MAKEB in May (for example) and then in March push it back a month or so and believe me people wouldnt be that upset. At least they know that its comming.

You have no idea how much was completed before, you have no idea what actually had highest priority next to their F2P model but you assume that they need 1 year to finish a planet.

Blows my mind.

When did they announce MAKEB? Spring of last year? So taking a wild guess since they planned on it being out in Fall that they started working on it. Now this is where greed plays with the lazyness. Maybe MAKEB is already done and they are just holding onto it to release it later. Either way they are not releasing it because they dont have to do more work. If they released it now then they would have to release something later. Wher as if they hold off on releaseing it they dont have to add stuff later, therefor not having to do more work.

From what we see is that they made a promo video, after that they implemented F2P and due to it their schedule has changed = content being delivered later. We also know that they stopped delievering "huge" patches but rather take one "bigger" element and create a patch around it to deliver something every 6 weeks. As they didn't have a stop in their delivering schedule.. I guess Cathar is just somewhere down the line which may or may not mean that it took them exactly this amount of time to finish it. They may just hold it back for future patches. Not sure if this is called being lazy or "greedy" but I'd guess the latter.

I wont go into this any more after this (well maybe but whatever). We will let you fill in the dates and answer
When was Makeb announced?
When was the first wave of layoffs?
Was the second round of layoffs a new set or just a delayed set from the first ones?
If the first wave was before the announcement of makeb and the 2nd round of layoffs was just an extention of the first then we can conclude that F2P was already in the works so any delays in the release of Makeb cant be because of F2P.

My dates could be wrong. If thats the case then ignore this.

BW made a lot of very poor decisions in my point of view. However, as much as we all discussed about their F2P system, Cartel Market etc. it just seems that it's profitable now. How it is going to be in the future we'll see. All I can see in the game is that the server are cracking, tons of people on the server on every planet (200 people on coruscant, 150 people on taris... etc.) and a frequent trading on the GTN = healthy economy. That's reality but if I'm reading here it sounds like Me and my guild would be the only players on the entire server.

Having subs pay even more money to make it more profitable doesnt help the game any. It just helps them make money at the subs expense.

[Jamos77]

That is a good question. Maybe they are playing the game instead of actually working on it. I imagine its easy to act like your working while your actually not in a video game. The boss sees you playing so he thinks your testing something when your actually not, then when they ask how it worked you can just say its fine. Maybe they are in the meeting making fun of all the people that purchased unlocks that didnt work. Maybe they turn off all the computers so they can save on electricity cost. No one knows but from what is seen ingame they are doing something other than working.

This needs to be quoted as it shows just how far apart we are. If you honestly believe that Bioware are doing the above then I say let's just forget this discussion and go our seperate ways. I wish you well but I can't discuss ludicrous arguments and remain sane.

Cheerio.

[Bardarian]

From a player point of view I'd completely not understand why they did what you described in WoW, however at the time they created it it may have been the best/ only solution?!

Honestly? I think it's because they did not get the fan base they built their game for. I think they intentionally set off to make a game very different from SWG, viewing 50k players as not viable, and instead focused on making a game that was a cross between kotor and WoW. I don't remember being anything other than human in kotor or there being serious space combat like freelancer. So Bioware probably thought, "okay, just make a few extra races that are a lot like humans. Its will save time and I doubt anyone will really care. Also, make space a minigame." So they focused on making a plot like a bioware RPG and a questing / leveling / crafting system like WoW. Just so its clear how off they were about the space decision, only 7% of players prefer the current system. They thought that everyone would love it. I am betting races were a similar problem. So they've got some parts of character creation baked into the game pretty hard.
Much like blizzard, it is probably pretty embarrassing to admit to being unable to fix something that most people think would be easy. But the fact is, if when you are making the engine, and you don't leave these sorts of things modifiable... It can be absolute hell to fix.

Btw, all you WoW players, is the main bag a 16 slot bag still? That was another issue where the primary bag was baked into the game (primarily so people couldn't delete / vendor it.) so its not really a bag like your other bags. Now, hopefully they've found a work around. One that I've heard was that they could make the current bag invisible/ unable to be interfaced with and put a new bag over it but apparently that would cause issues with addons ect.

[Psychlon]

What makes you think that? You can't possibly know how many people are subscribed at the moment and how many don't pay a single dime.

According to Bioware, F2P transition and Cartel Items are a hugh success. Now I could try to find a reason why Bioware is lying but I'm sure someone else will do a much better job than me

I have no doubt there are lots of players around, it's free and the stories are alright first time around, that says nothing about the revenue model of the game though. Personally I think their subscriber base has gone far below 500k by now and the bulk of the revenue stream through the cash shop is from the subscribers.

Doubt we will ever know the truth though as I'm sure they will hide it in the financial reports if I'm right, or more accurately, they will hide any truth about SWTOR in the financial reports unless it starts to make profits at the 1 million + subscriber rate.

I think the Makeb "thing" will show how much we will hear from SWTOR over the next few years.

No but a MMO development team that gives excuses that its too hard as to why they are not adding certain races is. Saying its going to take a while to add those races is different than saying they are too hard to do because of all the clipping issues etc as the reason they are not even trying to do them is being lazy.

Them saying that they don't add wookiees is being lazy, however they are working on something else instead, meaning they aren't lazy... . You can keep rolling it....

My only conclusion isnt that they are only lazy. I also thing they are money hungry and all the decisions that the top brass make are based on money only and not about improving the game for the players. I also think most of the development team is underskilled for the positions they are asked to do.

So if it takes alot of work and skill to add a new race then why wouldnt they add a race that most of the people voted for? If you are going to have to do alot of work to add something then why not add what the people want instead of something else? Because adding Cathar compared to Ithoriams or Wookies is 100x easier, they are being lazy and adding an easy race to say they added a race to the game. Again if it was a race then they would have added in a popular race since they were doing one.

I can tell you that since F2P hit, we have more people on the server, warzones are popping up faster and I have more frequent flashpoints for pre-lvl 50 charachters, not to tell that all lower planets are full of people you can group with. For me, they improved my game by being "money hungry".

That is a good question. Maybe they are playing the game instead of actually working on it. I imagine its easy to act like your working while your actually not in a video game. The boss sees you playing so he thinks your testing something when your actually not, then when they ask how it worked you can just say its fine. Maybe they are in the meeting making fun of all the people that purchased unlocks that didnt work. Maybe they turn off all the computers so they can save on electricity cost. No one knows but from what is seen ingame they are doing something other than working.

So you figure Biowares CEO is walking through the company, seeing everyone "busy" but with 0 outcome at the end of the month and he would just say.. hey cool guys, thx for playing?...

Dont know. Are there actually any Togruta in the game? I know there are Canthars (Empire BH have them in their class quests) Maybe if there are no Togruta in the game they would have to do even more work than Cathars.

There are tons of characters in the game which look humanoid, you probably should check it out.

Error on my part. Dont feel like fixing it but its not because Im lazy, theres just no profit in it for me to go and fix it. You should understand that.

so in fact you are being lazy

I know SWTOR looks like it was made back in 2003 but it wasnt. If you dont think technology has advanced in the last 10 years then I dont know what to say.

Actually it doesn't. The game may have missing features which games back in 2003 had but I absolutely like the graphic style they have for this game. If you like to check games back from 2003, try SWG and compare it with SWTOR.

They anounced it . LOL That means they are working hard. Just like the SSSP they announced they were working on it so they have to be. Some dev even tested it and believe him your going to love it. But its so good that they have no clue when its going to be ready because they hvae so much more to add to it?

They release content every 6 weeks, they released content every 6 weeks for the time after F2P... Cathar is most likely somewhere down the line to be released....

The reason they announce things it to hopefully keep the subs happy in thinking they are going to get something. You just have to wait for it whiloe you keep paying. I mean to give a deadline would mean that that actually have to work to try and meet it. And yes they could say they are looking to release MAKEB in May (for example) and then in March push it back a month or so and believe me people wouldnt be that upset. At least they know that its comming.

Frankly they can announce a lot. The reason I'm playing the game is not connected to all their promises. If they don't deliver new stuff and I'm getting bored I will drop the game. If developer can make you happy by announcing stuff they will implement soon... I hope you aren't easily frustrated.

When did they announce MAKEB? Spring of last year? So taking a wild guess since they planned on it being out in Fall that they started working on it. Now this is where greed plays with the lazyness. Maybe MAKEB is already done and they are just holding onto it to release it later. Either way they are not releasing it because they dont have to do more work. If they released it now then they would have to release something later. Wher as if they hold off on releaseing it they dont have to add stuff later, therefor not having to do more work.

Spring was like when they introduced Karragas Palace.... didn't know that we'll have Makeb at this point. It may/ may not be that you are referring to the datamined information which went viral but "spring" is a little too optimistic to make your claim of 1 year sound reasonable.

If the first wave was before the announcement of makeb and the 2nd round of layoffs was just an extention of the first then we can conclude that F2P was already in the works so any delays in the release of Makeb cant be because of F2P.

/stare

Having subs pay even more money to make it more profitable doesnt help the game any. It just helps them make money at the subs expense.

I'm kinda used to pay for more content from earlier MMO's... call me old or stupid but 10 bucks in 1 year for more content isn't that much to me. Does it matter if they made it sound like it would be for free?... If I wouldn't like the game... for sure.

[Kittyvicious]

Btw, all you WoW players, is the main bag a 16 slot bag still? That was another issue where the primary bag was baked into the game (primarily so people couldn't delete / vendor it.) so its not really a bag like your other bags. Now, hopefully they've found a work around. One that I've heard was that they could make the current bag invisible/ unable to be interfaced with and put a new bag over it but apparently that would cause issues with addons ect.

Yes. This is one of the programming issues that we can scratch our heads about, but we've been given a clear communication on why it has never happened. It's not a graphical or model related issue, which is abundantly easy to create. People act like 3D modeling is harder than brain surgery. A programming aspect, like you have mentioned with the creation screen, is a much more believable reason why they haven't put any new races in. Once they have solved it, it should be nothing to implement several new races.

WoW still has the same bag, which is why in Rift I was so excited to be able to upgrade it to something else.

[Mirve]

A small trailer about the Makeb xpac was released on the official site.
Still does offer any information at all on what will the expansion bring other than what we already know. Sigh.

[Jamos77]

A small trailer about the Makeb xpac was released on the official site.
Still does offer any information at all on what will the expansion bring other than what we already know. Sigh.

I liked the video. More info is needed, sure, but it shows a nice amount of Makeb (if showing no features).

Anyone check out the new pre-order bonuses?

Ingame goodies if you pre-order it seems.

EDIT: Check out those new screenshots. Beautiful imo

[edgecrusher]

A small trailer about the Makeb xpac was released on the official site.
Still does offer any information at all on what will the expansion bring other than what we already know. Sigh.

Apparently empire and republic will work together to defeat the Hutt Cartel. I'm quite curious as to the lore reasons for the partnership if that really is the case.

[Mirve]

I liked the video. More info is needed, sure, but it shows a nice amount of Makeb (if showing no features).

Anyone check out the new pre-order bonuses?

Ingame goodies if you pre-order it seems.

EDIT: Check out those new screenshots. Beautiful imo

The screenshots are good, ill give you that. I meant more substancial though, how many new WZs , FPs, will there be any OPs with it, any new gameplay modes? Class revamps , changes to mechanics etc. Thats in my opinion what matters most and the info that would make me pre-purchase it, not some pets , items or titles , or screenshots.

EDIT. I know that this video was likely never meant to show this stuff, but it would go a long way to quell alot of peoples fears and give people a idea wether they would like to purchase this or not.

[kalamitis]

NEW VIDEO!!!