BioWare expected players to take five months to hit SWTOR’s level cap

[Forsedar]

I just can't understand how that is even possible. Anyone who has played WoW (for example, other MMORPG experience would likely result in the same knowledge) for any meaningful amount of time could tell you how insane the assumptions they were working off of were.

SWTOR was designed to cater to a 'new' crowd of players. The "WoW Killer" comment was just created BY people who played WoW which makes no sense. Bioware wasn't like "hey lets make an awesome MMO more awesome than WoW!" They said "hey lets get some more people interested in MMOs with the Star Wars IP".

---------- Post added 2013-03-29 at 01:30 AM ----------

Sorry excuse that, I stupidly thought they were referring to the next expansion.

All good! It happens :P

[Deleted]

SWTOR was designed to cater to a 'new' crowd of players. The "WoW Killer" comment was just created BY people who played WoW which makes no sense. Bioware wasn't like "hey lets make an awesome MMO more awesome than WoW!" They said "hey lets get some more people interested in MMOs with the Star Wars IP".

What new crowd? MMO-RPGs are all very similar. They're catering to people who like/already play MMOs/RPGs which is why they tend to take a lot of the same established concepts and systems such as quests/instances/classes. The only "new" crowd this game was aimed at is the (likely small) percentage of people who enjoy BWs single player games and have yet to try an MMO and hardcore Star Wars fans who are in the same boat.

If they had done something vastly different (like a MMO-FPS in TORs setting) I'd see your point since there aren't many of those around. As it stands though they should have known what to expect, especially with experienced workers in their team even if it is a young "studio".

The fact is that they sorely over-estimated the amount and quality of content in the game. The fact that some of the endgame stuff was nigh unplayable and still remains unfixed to this day (Ilum) didn't help with retention.

[Stormcall]

It took me about a month to get my first 50, and this was playing fairly casually...

[Frenegade42]

WOOOOOOOOOOOW

What... The hell.
I could have told them in beta that it would take people a week or two to hit 50.
I had no idea they were that naive.

Maybe they read MMO Champion and figured all the university students/self made millionaires with a dog, 3 kids, wife and a busy social schedule only had time to play MMOs for 1 hour a week between snow boarding, parkour and updating their Facebook statuses would take 6 months to hit 50.

[facerollin]

Maybe they read MMO Champion and figured all the university students/self made millionaires with a dog, 3 kids, wife and a busy social schedule only had time to play MMOs for 1 hour a week between snow boarding, parkour and updating their Facebook statuses would take 6 months to hit 50.

One of the best posts I've see in a long time.

[Armourboy]

You know, had they put this thing out around the time of Vanilla or TBC I could of definitely understood them believing it would take players longer to consume it. However, anyone that had been watching the industry at all for the last 4-5 years should of seen what was happening and that wouldn't be the case. Today's MMO players aren't like players from 10 years ago, hell even 7-8 years ago. Then MMO's were much more about the social aspects of the game, and much less about the gameplay.

The reason people are calling BS on this statement is that every single player that touched it knew it wasn't going to take that long and if we knew it, they had to know it too. Unless they just walled themselves off from the rest of the industry, I just don't buy that no one internally didn't let them know.

Personally, I think its something they have been telling themselves for so long that they have started to believe it. People in Beta were telling them, they knew it wasn't going to take long, but they knew they had to get it out so they put their fingers in their ears and acted like they knew better. We know they knew it though because how many times did you read things where they were telling players how they should play it. They were doing their best to get people to slow down, bounce around classes, etc.

I'll just end my post with this, if they honestly thought this then they deserved to all get fired because it means no one there was watching the industry and doing any market research. People at the helm just flat out messed up, and it cost BioWare and EA both a ton of money, let alone reputation.

[SirRobin]

Actually I believe it. One thing I heard from all the Devs last year was that they never thought that people would sit and play the game for longer than 3-4 hour periods of time. It apparently completely blew their minds that people were playing for such long periods at once.

The problem with them believing that, however, is that they actually knew better. Two vets from Star Wars Galaxies, including its Jump To Lightspeed expansion, were actually in charge of making TOR until one of them "decided" to leave less than a year before launch. So if it is actually true? It shows just how delusional they became. Along with the GDC revelations a while back? Ugh... TOR was another example of a developer bullshitting themselves as much, if not more, as they were bullshitting their community.

Another six months, even another year, would not have changed that. BioWare thought they knew what the market wanted, hired devs who should have known better but bought into the delusion instead, and suffered the almost inevitable consequences.

So, at best, the article reveals just how delusional they actually became. At worst they are attempting historical revisionism along the same lines as what we got from Brad McQuaid about Vanguard.

[Korgoth]

To be fair it takes forever to kill a mob in SWTOR.

[Deleted]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/28/bi...-old-republic/

I'm blown away...like, completely blown away. The "We were an inexperienced studio" bit doesn't fly considering everyone running the show for the game had years (a decade or more in some cases) of experience working on MMO's.

Bright note is that subscriptions are apparently on the rise, so they must be doing something right.

The only thing I believe from the article is that their metrics are indeed correct in showing there were players going through content at a rate of 40 hours a week and even some ppl doing 80 to 120 hours a week. Those ppl are crazy to play a game in such manner. But that is another subject how "crazy" that is.

The rest... I don't believe a single word. BioWare expected players to play through the game and get to the endgame, on average, in about 3 to 4 months, maybe 5 months???? They hugely underestimated player's ability to consume content resulted from the team not being prepared for how fast players consume content in MMOs due to the studio's inexperience in the MMO genre???? Subscription numbers have been rising steadily since the business model change????

In my opinion the "real problem" was that the development of the game has taken far too long and the budget has run out, so they released the game. Well duh, EA pushed them, pressured them or whatnot on different things related to the game. Long loading times, pressing x number times an ability before it might activates, eyes that suddenly turn black or silver, easy flashpoints, easy operations, etc. During the development time they haven't watched how other MMOs were doing, in particular WoW???? Trion Worlds with Rift did a good job on that, didn't they? Correct me if I'm wrong in regards to that.

Why is it practically everytime they say/announce/tell something and then it's another /sigh, disappointment, letdown, scratching my head... oh and sometimes it's laughable too. But at the same time I feel sorry and not sorry for them... Sorry because damn EA were pressuring them in telling this nonsense and not sorry they brought it on themselves for allowing to be bought by EA while they started to work on Star Wars MMORPG back in 2005.

[notorious98]

not sorry they brought it on themselves for allowing to be bought by EA while they started to work on Star Wars MMORPG back in 2005.

The amount of wrong in that sentence is staggering. Allowed themselves to be bought by EA? They were already owned by Elevation Partners who sold them to EA. They really had zero choice in the matter. And they were bought a full 6 months before work even started on TOR.

[SirRobin]

The amount of wrong in that sentence is staggering. Allowed themselves to be bought by EA? They were already owned by Elevation Partners who sold them to EA. They really had zero choice in the matter. And they were bought a full 6 months before work even started on TOR.

Not exactly. While its true that BioWare was not independently owned and operated. Its hardly like the doctors were powerless. They could have fought it. Yet there are no indications of that. Also, EA announced the purchase of BioWare in October 2007. If I recall correctly. BioWare opened their Austin studio to make TOR in March 2006. Now while it may have been part of a larger ongoing scheme by Riccitiello, to make BioWare/Pandemic a more tempting purchase for EA, it still occurred well after BioWare started working on TOR.

Furthermore, EA even bought Mythic after BioWare started working on TOR.

[Deleted]

To be fair it takes forever to kill a mob in SWTOR.

Not on my Commando But on my Assassin yeah, so I just stealth past them ;D

[Deleted]

actually took me 4 months to get A character to level 50. ( had about 4 characters between 35-45 ) but i really like the lore. my 5th character i started took about a month
to get to 50. and my 2nd only 2 weeks

[notorious98]

Not exactly. While its true that BioWare was not independently owned and operated. Its hardly like the doctors were powerless. They could have fought it. Yet there are no indications of that. Also, EA announced the purchase of BioWare in October 2007. If I recall correctly. BioWare opened their Austin studio to make TOR in March 2006. Now while it may have been part of a larger ongoing scheme by Riccitiello, to make BioWare/Pandemic a more tempting purchase for EA, it still occurred well after BioWare started working on TOR.

Furthermore, EA even bought Mythic after BioWare started working on TOR.

I will concede that the studio had started writing story for the game. As for the doctors "fighting" this. They could have stepped down. That's about the extent of what would have happened. They were no longer in charge once Elevation Partners handed them $300 million to team up with Pandemic. Elevation owned their parent company, VG Holdings Corp. That sale would have gone through whether the doctors fought or not.

[Forsedar]

They were no longer in charge once Elevation Partners handed them $300 million to team up with Pandemic. Elevation owned their parent company, VG Holdings Corp. That sale would have gone through whether the doctors fought or not

This in this and age, money speaks louder. In the grand scheme of things, Bioware had little choice.

[notorious98]

This in this and age, money speaks louder. In the grand scheme of things, Bioware had little choice.

Especially when you consider it was nearly a 200% return on their original investment.

[Razael]

I was lol'ing while reading this on Massively.

[Rinse]

Either way,Anyone who played ANY MMO's before would actually know that it doesn't take that long. Developers that tune out what experienced players say and do are ignorant and are asking to fail. Many Asian MMO's fail due to not their lack of experience in the MMO world but from not watching what other MMO companies do and then reacting to it. WoW has done an insane job of not only watching other MMO's but also of individual employee's watching players streams and what not to actually get a feel for how players react to the MMO. If BIOWARE would have not deluded themselves and actually took some time to watch some of the BETA streams they would have known they needed a little something to keep players busy,Not alot just something that would last them and not take a large amount of time to develop.

All in all,BIOWARE did a decent recovery but should still learn from it's mistakes and better itself because pleasing the players equals more stockholders equals more money.

[Deleted]

Yep, I said while I knew about "EA buying BioWare/Pandemic for $860M" before posting. I simply used the headlines to keep it short. But I will keep that in mind next time when I make a post to provide a link too.

About BioWare had little choice, I guess I owe them an apology. But still it's shame to see how things have turned when BioWare needs/wants to give explanations/announce/say something SWTOR related. Why it practically has to be like that all the time? I know the answer, still...

[SirRobin]

I will concede that the studio had started writing story for the game. As for the doctors "fighting" this. They could have stepped down. That's about the extent of what would have happened. They were no longer in charge once Elevation Partners handed them $300 million to team up with Pandemic. Elevation owned their parent company, VG Holdings Corp. That sale would have gone through whether the doctors fought or not.

Actually they could have done quite a lot. BioWare was the prize in Riccitiello going back to EA in 2007. The "doctors" were BioWare. With the rep they had built up, they could have walked out and found plenty of backing for any new studio they chose to create. They didn't, they took the payout and drank the kool-aid. Can't blame them for it. Its a hell of a lot of money. But the consequences are on their shoulders too.

I also wouldn't say they had just started "writing" the story. Richard Vogel and Dallas Dickinson had a very frank presentation about what they went through during TOR's development at GDC in 2012. "The new studio is already underway with its first title" implies a bit more than just "started writing" too. By the by? We knew BioWare was using the HeroEngine as early as August 2006. Still over a year before EA bought BioWare.

You might be confusing when BioWare finally "announced" TOR. Which wasn't until October 2008.