BioWare at this moment...

[Bellrae]

Someone on the SWTOR forums posted what I thought might be an interesting question: what do you think life is like currently at the BW offices? Patch 1.1 from a PvP standpoint and with the AA seems to have been poorly executed. Having worked on a few pretty large software dev projects when things went bad with a client the internal rage could be heard throughout the entire building.

So as there are many of you who are in the software dev business and play MMOs and post here, what do you think life is like for these guys right now?

This topic is about the day in the life of a Bioware employee. Discuss that topic without stoking the fires of hell. (IE. Don't discuss game bugs, etc as that just starts a snowball effect of shite posts.)

Thanks,

Cula

[Deadanon]

Bioware is over their head now in issues that are coming up. Their solution is pretty much the same as Mythic did with Warhammer. Ignore it for weeks even if they are gamebreaking. After all - Mythic is now part of BIoware and many of the Warhammer Online crew that failed so miserably is working on SWTOR.

But no matter of all the issues. SWTOR is IMO just a single player RPG with very weak MMO features. Even the 8 story arcs are one player driven both in execution and in content features (all same class get same named companion and are helping the same sick jedi master). So to be fair - I can not really bothered with the other issues.

[Decan]

I would say they are looking at things and trying to work out how to correct them. They are reading the forms and checking out the feedback. If your person that thinks they are ignoring their customers then you know nothing about business. It is in their best interest to keep you coming back and playing the game so you pay them a monthly fee so they make more money.

Do you really think wow was any different, people just think that company will be like wow is now right off the bat.

[Rakoth]

I am a Quality Assurance Lead on a development team for a desktop application.

I can tell you with certainty, that every issue that you all found, they have found. All those issues were examined and analyzed and the decision was made that the game would be better with them then no game at all.

I tend to concur with them. While my experience has been sometimes frustrating, it has been most of the time very good. Minor annoyances to the user do not offset the millions of dollars lost to delay things.

I would say some employees are working... 60-80 hour weeks and it's not an environment I would enjoy.

(I have many very close friends that have worked at EA, 80 hour week near / right after a release would be normal).

If they follow regular games, they would be down to 20-30 hour weeks, decompressing after months of crunch time, but I am not sure an MMO is ever "done".

Here is what I believe: The team that was slated to work on bug fixing is working at 80 hour weeks, the team working on content is down to 30 after the release, but I could be way off.

[Gerion]

It's not so much bugs that are ruining TOR for a lot of people (though there are some pretty aggravating ones out there). It's the terrible design decisions they are making.

[Fannyd]

My god these threads are boring. Just give it up.

People are really enjoying this game - making thread after thread criticising pointless little things and making totally over-the-top claims isn't going to make them enjoy it less.

[Trollsbane]

I'm sure they are working on everything like crazy.

I'm also sure they are intelligent enough to know that gamers, especially of the MMO variety (and more precisely, the small minority that is always the loudest), are a fickle bunch of whining assholes that can never be pleased and are usually waiting to jump on a trolling bandwagon and leap like an angry lion at every self perceived misfortune they encounter that doesn't fit into their utopian special snowflake thought process.

[Encarn]

Having a great time personally. Guild is growing and we are shifting from 8-man to 16-man Ops steadily. Sure, we have lost about 15% of the guild from launch, but I was actually predicting closer to 25%. People come and go, as they do in every other game.

So far, I have found nothing personally that makes me wish to quit the game. Perhaps your community is not as strong as the Emperor thought?

[Bellrae]

My god these threads are boring. Just give it up.

People are really enjoying this game - making thread after thread criticising pointless little things and making totally over-the-top claims isn't going to make them enjoy it less.

I asked a simple question about what life must be like right now at BW, how in the F'ing hell is that a 'over-the-top claim'? I've never worked for a gaming company, only dot.coms. My experience has been that when clients are as pissed off as the user base is in this game, the internal frustrations go through the roof. So would it be like this at BW? Or is BW calm and just deal with it?

As for people enjoying the game, good for them. I'm glad that they're enjoying the game. At times I've really enjoyed the game. At times I've wanted to delete it off my computer and just chalk up the 60 bucks like a night out for beers and never think about it again.

[rabbimojo]

It's not so much bugs that are ruining TOR for a lot of people (though there are some pretty aggravating ones out there). It's the terrible design decisions they are making.

Sure, though not many can do any better, sadly.

If being a gamer has proved anything to me, it's that most people do not understand Thing One about what makes games fun. This is just as true of developers as random forumites.

Hopefully Bioware has someone insightful on the team who can pull things together. Hopefully their missteps have been business-limited best efforts, rather than genuinely poor insight. If not, well, they'll have good company in the MMO graveyard.

[Deleted]

[Wargon]

I sense an extremely large amount of pressure to get things right.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Likely they are fully invested in content updates, work on an expansion likely won't start until sometime in summer.

[Blackmist]

They're probably realising right about now why certain things work the way they do in WoW.

[ZeroWashu]

So as there are many of you who are in the software dev business and play MMOs and post here, what do you think life is like for these guys right now?

Bottom developers: Where is that promised vacation now that we shipped.
Team Leads: I wonder if my family will stick recognize me.
Q&A: This is what you get when you sign off on stuff instead of letting us test it.
CMS (Change Management Group) : You know, pushing code from your personal library just doesn't work. Oh, you still don't acknowledge it.
Mid level management : All I have is a bunch of whiners who can't code
Upper Management: At least we got out bonuses
CSRs: What I would do to work for a company that knows how to run a MMO, let alone have coders who can.


Exploit Early Exploit Often.

[Pancaspe]

Well, somebody at Bioware decided the approach should be to close all Forum threads, no matter what the subject.

So it seems they are hiding under the desk, hoping the storm blows over.

[Deleted]

I'm sure Bioware was keen on pushing out the patch just before the ~1 month mark.

Aside from that, my only major gripe with the game is its poor performance, especially with lots of people on screen. It makes even the small scale PvP a real pain, let alone Ilum.

[Elite Peon]

I'm sure Bioware was keen on pushing out the patch just before the ~1 month mark.

Aside from that, my only major gripe with the game is its poor performance, especially with lots of people on screen. It makes even the small scale PvP a real pain, let alone Ilum.

Sadly your only grip with the game is one they can only control in a small way since the games performance is based on the Hero engine that simutronics updates ...sadly they went with a company to make there engine who has never mad a successful game and the games they did make were text based MMO's in the early 90's ...im not sure the performance will ever get fixed but what I would like is for Bioware to cute off simutronics and just take over the game engine stuff .

[ghostprotocol]

The intention of all that trolling is to make them panic and do something stupid. I hope bioware is in full control and proceeding as planned for the game, mmos are multi-year endeavors, not a 1month thing

[vizzle]

The intention of all that trolling is to make them panic and do something stupid. I hope bioware is in full control and proceeding as planned for the game, mmos are multi-year endeavors, not a 1month thing

If the rest of their plans are as ill-thought out as Ilum was, I don't know what to think of the future of this game. It can't be denied that Ilum was a total failure in concept, and the fact that they let it happen just makes me wonder how little research is actually done before decisions are made. Maybe they need to hire a WoW veteran on their board so that they'll stop making the same mistakes WoW made.