226 réponses à ce sujet

[Sajji]

Anybody see this? It's all over gaming news. Apparently lots of people got laid off from Austin...staff of TOR.

[Elhanan]

It is a bit old by now. The SWTOR forums have been discussing this all week; see General Discussion and Dev Tracker for info.

http://www.swtor.com...219#edit4435219


http://www.swtor.com...163#edit4447163

Modifié par Elhanan, 26 mai 2012 - 07:17 .

[LTD]

200 people, including entire QA team fired. Ouch.
Guess it isn't anymore up to debate wether EA views TOR a failure or not.

[The Jackal]

LTD wrote...

200 people, including entire QA team fired. Ouch.
Guess it isn't anymore up to debate wether EA views TOR a failure or not.

Where does it say 200 people?

and it's it's still for debate.

[crypticevincar]

The same thing happened with Matrix Online. Staff was let go that worked on live events. No live events, fan base went down, which led to more staffing cuts. Eventually no more 'Chapters' were added to the story, more cuts and it was shut down. I hate to see it happen with online games that people seem to genuinely enjoy.

[Blacklash93]

SWTOR sounds like it's been moderately successful as far as MMO's go, but obviously moderate success isn't gonig to pay off the huge investment Bioware put into developing the game.

[LTD]

JasonRocker wrote...

LTD wrote...

200 people, including entire QA team fired. Ouch.
Guess it isn't anymore up to debate wether EA views TOR a failure or not.

Where does it say 200 people?

and it's it's still for debate.

Everywhere except the official press release. Check Something Awful forums or news off any major gaming site or..you know, internet.
As a ground rule, if you want to find out about ongoings of a firm doing so heavy sugar coating they call mass firing of people "Bidding fond farewell with dignityb and respect and hugs" in their press releases, you might want to try and dig the actuial info from a source interested in giving you actual info!

Approx one third of the BW's Austin team got fired.

SWTOR ended up having such a tainted reputation over smallest of malfunctions that could have been easily fixed. Had they just bit the bullet and done some server merging somewhere around January, half of their playerbase hadn't turned into ex-playerbase.

Modifié par LTD, 26 mai 2012 - 01:17 .

[The Jackal]

LTD wrote...

JasonRocker wrote...

LTD wrote...

200 people, including entire QA team fired. Ouch.
Guess it isn't anymore up to debate wether EA views TOR a failure or not.

Where does it say 200 people?

and it's it's still for debate.

Everywhere except the official press release. Check Something Awful forums or news off any major gaming site or..you know, internet.
As a ground rule, if you want to find out about ongoings of a firm doing so heavy sugar coating they call mass firing of people "Bidding fond farewell with dignityb and respect and hugs" in their press releases, you might want to try and dig the actuial info from a source interested in giving you actual info!

Approx one third of the BW's Austin team got fired.

SWTOR ended up having such a tainted reputation over smallest of malfunctions that could have been easily fixed. Had they just bit the bullet and done some server merging somewhere around January, half of their playerbase hadn't turned into ex-playerbase.

Last I checked from at least my warcraft days. Somethingawful forums was not an offical new's site. Actually they were ran by a bunch of people known for the infamous trolling and extreme fan boi's of Blizzard.

I read nearly every article they have on this. Unless you are inside the company with undisclosed information. Well when there's smoke their is fire.

It's not a major gaming site it's a site where gamer's come to discuss games..

[Elhanan]

SWTOR appears fine to me; at least the game does.

The Forums have the worst vocal community I have seen in forums, but I usually do not wander much off the Bioware brands. But vocal does not equate to majority; still has 1.3 million players.

And folks keep posting QQ because the game does not have X or Y like WoW or some other some such MMO, and I really care less. These are often the same complaining the game is just like WoW, so nothing will ever make these sd excuses happy anyway. And when they cheer the layoffs of staff, they lose any form of credibility with me.

So I re-sub and play my three characters, and hopefully get good enough to play my fourth.

Modifié par Elhanan, 26 mai 2012 - 02:24 .

[MingWolf]

I saw the news on google finance. Not sure if it's actually 200 people or what-not, but it is Bioware Austin, and from what I've read, it is likely attributed to subscriber counts and sales results.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

More than 1.3 million have bought this game, but how many are still playing and how many copies has been sold lately? Is the Bioware Reputation increased or decreased by this game?

Answer my questions for clarification.

Modifié par Imperial Sentinel Arian, 26 mai 2012 - 06:07 .

[DarkDragon777]

Perhaps next time they'll think twice about making a game of such low quality and poor concept.

[Sajji]

An attributing factor into this, along with obvious other factors, is Mass Effect 3's ending and the business practices of day one, cut from the disc dlc, dev lies about the ending (based off of actual quotes...there are many to choose from if desired) and Origin malware. I've seen many, many comments reguarding how people were going to cancel their subs and what not because of Mass Effect 3.

Without a doubt it has played some sort of role. Especially not good when the game is already struggling. I feel bad for those people...hopefully those cut can land on their feet and find stable work soon.

38 Studios, now 200 from Austin. And EA just cut tons of people from marketing a few months back, too.

[C9316]

Should've just made KOTOR 3...

[Chromie]

Kinda late OP.

[Elhanan]

Imperial Sentinel Arian wrote...

More than 1.3 million have bought this game, but how many are still playing and how many copies has been sold lately? Is the Bioware Reputation increased or decreased by this game?

Answer my questions for clarification.

Over 1.7 million purchased the game; 1.3 million are remaining at that posted time. I do not know how many units were sold, though.

The stories included are great, but perhaps not implemented as seamlessly as KOTOR. But this is a different setting, as a MMO and single player game will have varied designs.

As far as rep, that is seemingly impossible to determine. There are as many vocal Haters on those forums as are here for various reasons, as well as supportive fans. Personally, Bioware has earned my trust over the 12+ yrs I have purchased their products and been on their forums, and has not lost it because they will not let me have my fave pet, free perk, etc.

For me, it has been worth the investment of time and funds, but my subs were all gifts. If one is willing to spend ca.50 cents per day on entertainment, then I recommend seeing for yourself. Currently, Bioware has been offering Free passes to test the game, though I do not follow the latest sales tactics that closely.

I enjoy it, and I do not even get into all the PvP aspects or Social grouping the game has to offer.

[Chromie]

Elhanan wrote...

Over 1.7 million purchased the game; 1.3 million are remaining at that posted time. I do not know how many units were sold, though.

I enjoy it, and I do not even get into all the PvP aspects or Social grouping the game has to offer.

This perplexes me. Fine you like the stories, imo, there is a lot of bad writing I can't believe what Bioware did to Revan!

But what is the point of playing only the story? Once that is over there is nothing else if you don't pvp or are social active? Even Blizzard is trying to change WoW and having it be more social at least in Panderia. I've never played an MMO with such a horrible community and by horrible I don't mean people who are vulgar I mean people just don't talk at all it makes me miss Barrens chat.

[Elhanan]

Each PC has four Companion storylines to pursue, if desired, as well as any Alts. And for me, Revan is still a mystery; I accept nothing on face value since KOTOR.

[bEVEsthda]

My own feelings have always been that there aren't as much room for MMOs of this kind. I did my best to warn EA about this years ago. My influence as an anonymonous (and usually very critical) poster is not great though.
The game seems fine enough. It isn't the problem and never will be. The problem is that WoW have basically already sewed up everybody who could be interested in subscribing to such game.

(If one wants a spectacularly successful MMO, then one needs to do something entirely new, and interesting.)

It's much the same with CoD and multiplayer. CoD hit a lode with their multiplayer. It doesn't mean that it's a good idea for every game to have multiplayer of a similar kind.

Personally, I think EA/Bioware should let the game continue to simmer. It's a fine game and if Origin is modified, so it's not such a hurdle, TOR could eventually build up a following that is worthwhile. (But of course, they may not have the freedom of supporting that option much, financially).

[Morroian]

Sajji wrote...

An attributing factor into this, along with obvious other factors, is Mass Effect 3's ending and the business practices of day one, cut from the disc dlc, dev lies about the ending (based off of actual quotes...there are many to choose from if desired) and Origin malware. I've seen many, many comments reguarding how people were going to cancel their subs and what not because of Mass Effect 3.

This is a long bow and almost certainly simply not true. The fact is the full dev team had remained employed up until these layoffs and that was unsustainable with the current level of subs.

[goofyomnivore]

Over 1.7 million purchased the game; 1.3 million are remaining at that posted time.

The average server pop is 350 players. I'm sure many of those 1.3 have canceled but their pre paid time hasn't run out yet, so they can technically tack that on to make it look nicer. You're kidding yourself if you think TOR has a healthy population, and their zillion servers spreading that thin population out isn't helping.

Consider also the game had 350k~ players on at peak times at average in Jan/Feb and now it is down to 76K~. They've lost way more than .4 million players.

The fact EA themselves said TOR is no longer a flagship franchise to them tells me enough of how successful they think it is

Modifié par strive, 26 mai 2012 - 11:20 .

[In Exile]

Skelter192 wrote...

But what is the point of playing only the story? 

Having fun?

Once that is over there is nothing else if you don't pvp or are social active? Even Blizzard is trying to change WoW and having it be more social at least in Panderia. I've never played an MMO with such a horrible community and by horrible I don't mean people who are vulgar I mean people just don't talk at all it makes me miss Barrens chat.

That's because a lot of TOR players don't want an MMO - they want KoTOR 3, and they're paying a subscription fee for a watered down version.

[Blastback]

greengoron89 wrote...

C9316 wrote...

Should've just made KOTOR 3...

Stole the words right out of my mouth.

And once again, whether or not KotOR 3 ever gets made has never been Bioware's decision.  Lucasarts controls what happens with the Star Wars licence.  They were working on KotOR 3 at one point, but canceled it, supposedly to focus more on the Force Unleashed 2.

[Parsnip_Root]

It is a real shame.
The Old Republic is an amazing MMORPG, probably the best one ever made but it's thanks to misinformation spread by EA haters who will automatically hate and smear anything just because it has an EA logo and Activision's marketing muscle that The Old Republic cannot get the fame it deserves.

Still, the game has far more subscribers than most MMORPG's. What's needed is perhaps a really cool update or expansion pack and perhaps that will breathe new life into the game.