BioWare - BioDoc Rumours

I think this has been way over-interpreted. I'd bet my left testicle that the docs are still alive and well in BioWare Edmonton and Montreal, still earning 7 figure remuneration, and still thinking about how to streamline the next DA.

This story is a SWTOR story. That ship officially sank a few days ago when EA told investors that the project was a failure - in as many words. And now the studio is reverting to EA.

BioWare will die because it has turned away from everything that defined it … just not today.

I agree. I get the feeling that it's just the docs distancing themselves from Bioware Austin due to the whole SWTOR debacle, and this won't change a thing for their role in Bioware Edmonton.

-Sergorn
 
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It's like broken phone. Just two days ago I read that SWTOR was moderate success and now it's GIGANTIC FAILURE. Two days ago Bioware was one of the most successful companies and now everyone talking like it will be closed tomorrow.

You didn't say where you read this. In EA’s fiscal 2013 first quarter earnings call (July 31, 2012), SWTOR was described as "disappointing" and as "a miss" (see below).


John Riccitiello (EA CEO): "The disappointing results of Star Wars: The Old Republic were largely offset by a powerful performance from Battlefield 3 Premium service – although revenue-recognition rules will push this very significant EPS driver into our fourth quarter."

Ken Barker (Interim CFO): "Non-GAAP revenue for the fiscal year is expected to be between $4.10 and $4.25 billion. We are lowering the midpoint of our guidance from $4.30 billion to reflect current exchange rates and lower expectations of Star Wars."

Frank Gibeau (EA Labels President): "First, the game many of you have been tracking closely, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Although it launched well, subscriptions have been on a declining trajectory and have now slipped below one million. Last year we announced that the breakeven point was roughly 500,000 subscribers. And while we are well above that today, that’s not good enough."

"As John mentioned, the disappointing performance of Star Wars is largely offset by the great performance of our Battlefield 3 Premium service… We couldn’t be more pleased with how the diversity of our business allows us to make up for a miss on one franchise with a big hit on another."


***​

In fairness, SWTOR can hardly be seen as a flop or washed-up. Reviews were positive and the game has received lots of positive comments in regard to its story telling. The transition to free to play has begun, with the game now being available for $15.95 (USD), which includes one month's subscription. Some believe that SW:TOR could be a great performer with free to play. Others are more cautious. See:

Star Wars: The Old Republic could attract up to 50m monthly players says Wedbush

Sony Online Entertainment says SWTOR "fantastic game" and going free was the "right decision"

Roundtable: The Old Republic's Free-To-Play Future

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I don't remember where I read it, but here another one, that I read month ago or so:
Chief executive, John Riccitiello, added that the title was one of his company's top 10, but not top five, profitable titles.

"It's a business contributor, while important, is not as important as Medal of Honour or Battlefield or FIFA or Madden or The Sims or SimCity," he said, adding that he did not believe the Star Wars game warranted as much attention from investors as it was attracting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17989756

Also:

John Riccitiello (EA CEO): "The disappointing results of Star Wars: The Old Republic were largely offset by a powerful performance from Battlefield 3 Premium service – although revenue-recognition rules will push this very significant EPS driver into our fourth quarter."

He didn't said it was failure. He just expected more spectacular result.
 
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Wedbush and Patcher both said Star Wars: The Old Republic would never be F2P. Now there forecasting the game will attract 50 million subscribers. Love how they jump ship.
 
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Wedbush and Patcher both said Star Wars: The Old Republic would never be F2P. Now there forecasting the game will attract 50 million subscribers. Love how they jump ship.


To me, the rational way to look at this thing is to start with the recognition that we are where we are, which is, SW:TOR does attract a good number of players who generally seem to have positive things to say about the experience, but SW:TOR has not succeeded in keeping a majority of players for a term exceeding a couple to several months. There are complaints that lots of content updates have been promised but the additional content has not materialized. The staff cuts in Austin aren't going to make the updates appear any faster.

You also have the question of how to modify the existing game into a successful ftp. Commenters have pointed out that this could be particularly difficult with SW:TOR because it is different than your typical ftp model. Here, players are playing for story, and the question is how to implement ftp so that they are willing to pay for that.

There are other issues I won't get into because the important point is that its going to take a lot of good planning, and lots and lots of hard work, and probably some good luck for this thing to make substantial advances in the positive direction. None of those things are even close to being certain to happen. From an investment standpoint, I'd say caution is the order of the day.

There's a pretty big uphill battle to be fought here. I don't think it's realistic to simply expect that battle to be won without some pretty strong evidence that management is up to the task, and that management has enough troops at its disposal to get the job done. At this point we don't have that evidence.

We are where we are. Anything beyond that is a gamble.

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I have observed the doctors have been out of the loop for a very long time and have been focusing mainly on business matters such as merging with Mythic and selling themselves. The least thing they seem to have any direct involvement with was Jade Empire. David Gaider seems to have had the day to day/hands on designs of the games.

I see that Georg Zoeller has been gone since July 6.

In addition I think the move from 2D was to 3D was huge to the company as they tried to keep up with the times. In doing so they hired many people with 3D game development experience.

SW:ToR is a simple concept: repeat the success of SW:KotOR in a MMOG. They ivory tower approach to what is likeable hasn't paid off however - the number one grumbling I've heard is that the game is too easy. Well, SW:KotOR was too easy.

We here complained about that when they announced that parties fully recover if at least one character in the party is alive at the end of the battle. There was no need to drag a cleric along to try to get him to 7th level to get the spell and hope you don't need more than one. Just stand up and fight the next battle. you might as well have been playing Dungeon Siege.

Oversimplification has been a costly trend at the company for over a decade starting with the complaints the level 1 characters died too easily in Icewind Dale effecting BG2's development and getting starry eyed at the $$$ Diablo 2 was generating. This was a big disaster for Neverwinter Night's OC and the result was the economy was wrecked from the start and any game you developed after.

A wealthy society spends much of its resources on leisure because it can. When food, shelter, health and safety are taken care, societies crave challenge.

Developers fear too much negative reactions from the public and worry about the bottom line so they coddle their players and dumb down their stories without recognizing they crave the opposite.

These guys have been out of touch for a long time. Personally, I think they could be much more productive and beneficial if they unplugged their keyboards now and put their stethoscopes back on. That's what Ed Roberts did.
 
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About SWtOR:

The primary complaint most definitely isn't that it's too easy.

The top issues based on majority feedback:

Repetition of sidequests once you reach cap with one character
Quest design (not cutscenes, but quests)
Severe lack of meaningful endgame activities
Poor realisation of space combat
Very poor engine for PvP and large scale Operations
Promised but totally undelivered PvP zone known as Ilum
Long travelling times
Planets that are huge and barren - feeling dead

—-

Making a real KotOR using a traditional themepark model was never going to work. That would have been obvious to anyone with an understanding of what it takes to provide a fulfilling singleplayer experience. There are too many things that can't happen in an MMO like that - and it would take endless resources to provide that with any kind of longevity.

They clearly messed up on priorities. They should have kept the Hollywood voice over stuff for the class stories - and they should have expanded upon them. Then, they should have made sidequests function like they do in other MMOs. As in, don't spend millions on voice overs that people will barely want to hear even once.

Then, they should have spent much more resources on the endgame - and particularly in ways where they could stand out from the crowd. Primarily, they should have integrated a meaningful and perpetually interesting 3D Space combat segment with trading/piracy/PvP/blockades and that sort of thing. Something no other modern competitor can offer. Beyond that, they should have spent actual brain cells and resources on Ilum - and make THAT a perpetually meaningful and interesting zone to spend your endgame time in. Of course, that would require an engine suited for that kind of thing in the first place.

They failed, and deservedly so. It's really sad, because the game isn't all bad - and there's a lot of cool stuff in it. But I smell suit-guided design all over it.
 
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meh, Bioware has been fading fast, and the shine is off the name. I'm not sure if they are even relevant anymore in rpgs, at least in terms of future games I would be anticipating. Dragon Age 3 is their last shot and if its not a return of form, then bioware strikes out as far as I'm concerned.
 
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I can't see any basis for hope for DA3. They kept the same lead designer (and promoted him to boot). The devs have shown no contrition for the screw up in DA2. EA is still the shareholder, with the "tone at the top" being action-awesome, Call of Duty:Orlais. Their recent quote on the turn based combat of Ultima IV: "tactical and mind numbing". The question of the week blogs are "what pre-order bonuses would you like?" type things. The only thing going for DA3 is that expectations are now mega low, and fans will be "surprised and delighted" that you can equip armor again.
 
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About SWtOR:

The primary complaint most definitely isn't that it's too easy.

The top issues based on majority feedback:

Repetition of sidequests once you reach cap with one character
Quest design (not cutscenes, but quests)
Severe lack of meaningful endgame activities
Poor realisation of space combat
Very poor engine for PvP and large scale Operations
Promised but totally undelivered PvP zone known as Ilum
Long travelling times
Planets that are huge and barren - feeling dead

I agree that the top issue was not the game being too easy (with the Heroics, Flashpoints and Dailies it is actually quite easy to find a decent challenge) and also with your list but I'd like to add an important issue that I read about a lot and that I personally experienced as a negative also.

And that is a lack of community and socialization.

I played the game from launch for about six weeks and even back then it was hard/impossible to find groups at times. I'm not much of an MMO'er but my past experience with just about every MMO I've tried has been that -especially in the early days of the game- you spend more time grouped than solo. You usually get group/guild invites left/right/center. You spend lots of time in chat and so on.
No such thing in SWTOR.
The game was a solo affair from day one. It felt more like an online single player game with MP tacked on than an actual MMO.
If you needed a group you had to actively search (spam chat due to lack of a group finder back then) for groups and it was amazingly difficult at times. This resulted in the quest log quickly filling up with unfinished Heroics and Flashpoint missions which resulted in a no fun gaming experience because you always felt like you missed out on something.

I vividly remember that this was a major issue for a lot of people. I don't know if it has been alleviated somewhat in the meantime by the introduction of the group finder and server consolidation but even for someone like me who actually enjoys solo play more than MMO'ing there was too little MMO in SWTOR back in the weeks around launch.
 
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And it's nothing that WoW was launched 8 years ago. But you are right. It's failure. Bioware is failure. I'm dumb troll. And you are kind and well mannered man, that knows everything about game industry.
 
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To me, the rational way to look at this thing is to start with the recognition that we are where we are, which is, SW:TOR does attract a good number of players who generally seem to have positive things to say about the experience, but SW:TOR has not succeeded in keeping a majority of players for a term exceeding a couple to several months.

That's basically it yeah. The thing is that for all the talk about how they wanted a "real narrative experience" and what else in SWTOR... it's both its blessing and its demise. I've seen a lot of people coming to SWTOR who generally don't or never played MMOs before. They got the game, played one or two storylines... and then that's it they quit because that's the amount of their interest in the game, because the rest of usual MMO mechanics, raids and endgame content (nevermind the fact that it's lacking in quantity) is just not enough to make them want to stay.

I think it's also an attitude you can "feel" in many of the people who were clamouring for the game to become F2P. A lot of these didn't want to become F2P becasue they wanted it to "fail"... but because they want to go and play the storylines without having to bother with paying a monthly fee.

-Sergorn
 
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That's basically it yeah. The thing is that for all the talk about how they wanted a "real narrative experience" and what else in SWTOR… it's both its blessing and its demise. I've seen a lot of people coming to SWTOR who generally don't or never played MMOs before. They got the game, played one or two storylines… and then that's it they quit because that's the amount of their interest in the game, because the rest of usual MMO mechanics, raids and endgame content (nevermind the fact that it's lacking in quantity) is just not enough to make them want to stay.

I think it's also an attitude you can "feel" in many of the people who were clamouring for the game to become F2P. A lot of these didn't want to become F2P becasue they wanted it to "fail"… but because they want to go and play the storylines without having to bother with paying a monthly fee.

-Sergorn


Sounds like you're a current subscriber. I've been wondering whether the new on-line price of $14.95 (USD) has sparked an influx of new players. It actually seems like a pretty decent bargain to me given that the game comes with a 30 day subscription which, as I understand it, doesn't need to be activated until the new player advances past Level 15, using the "free trial" (only available to ppl who have purchased the game).

I'm not an MMO player - but I've read that one can pretty much choose to play SWTOR as a single player experience, and/or that the multiplayer parts can be enjoyable for MMO novices. The included 30 day subscription plus play to Level 15 trial would seem to provide a relatively long time for play without any limitations that might be introduced by the FTP model.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

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It's failure. Bioware is failure. I'm dumb troll. And you are kind and well mannered man, that knows everything about game industry.

Yes it is. Any game that claims it would never go F2P then barely 6 months later changes is. A $200 million dollar project that made even and maybe a little extra is a failure to stock holders.

Expectations were to high for the game. Going F2P means they can hopefully gain subscribers and more millions off of transactions. Stop thinking as a gamer this is business and all they care about is money.

As for Bioware which Bioware are we talking about anyways? Are we talking about Bioware Edmonton? Bioware Austin? Bioware Ireland? Bioware Mythic? Bioware Montreal? Bioware Victory? Bioware Sacramento? or Bioware San Francisco?

EA has diluted the Bioware brand to a point that you really can't associate Bioware of BG/NWN/KOTOR days with the Bioware today.

Feel free to post nonsense though. I'm waiting for your reply. Good day now.
For everyone else sorry for the long post enjoy the rest of your day.
 
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I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be as a 100% single player experience, especially to a non MMO player. The stories and cut scenes are pretty enjoyable, and might be as good as something you'd find in a SP game (though still constrained by MMO limitations). But the gameplay is still pretty repetetive MMO killing of very similar groups who are conveniently spaced apart and scaled to be an easy fight for your character. I don't think I would have found the experience to be very fufilling if it had been part of a single player game I played on my own.

I'm not an MMO player - but I've read that one can pretty much choose to play SWTOR as a single player experience, and/or that the multiplayer parts can be enjoyable for MMO novices. The included 30 day subscription plus play to Level 15 trial would seem to provide a relatively long time for play without any limitations that might be introduced by the FTP model.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

__
 
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I can't see any basis for hope for DA3. They kept the same lead designer (and promoted him to boot). The devs have shown no contrition for the screw up in DA2. EA is still the shareholder, with the "tone at the top" being action-awesome, Call of Duty:Orlais. Their recent quote on the turn based combat of Ultima IV: "tactical and mind numbing". The question of the week blogs are "what pre-order bonuses would you like?" type things. The only thing going for DA3 is that expectations are now mega low, and fans will be "surprised and delighted" that you can equip armor again.

Honestly I didn't think DA2 was that bad, they just needed a lot more time to flesh out the world with better (less linear) level design, a hell of a lot more side quests (real quests, not the reverse FedEx crap), more interesting factions and an ending that reflects your faction choices.

The production was super rushed, I think they finished the entire game in something like 18 months compared to 6 years for DA:O. A lot of stuff gets improved when you iterate over and over with a lot of testing. I was glad to hear that DA3 was delayed as perhaps the end result will be better.
 
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I played SW-TOR as a totally SP game and quite enjoyed it for several weeks. Then I got tired of the sameness. However, I would be willing to play more as a co-op MP with friends.
 
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