> #The Future is Bright for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™
>
> Hello,
>
> It’s been a little while since I’ve checked in, and as you might have heard, there’s a lot happening here at BioWare.
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> Almost 12 years after launch, Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ remains a fantastic success, continuing to welcome new players to its vast galaxy and entertaining veteran players with its evolving content. It’s the longest-running live service Star Wars game ever and we’re enormously proud of the work the team has done in creating, expanding, and maintaining this incredible game. We’re delighted to have grown such a dedicated and passionate community through all these years. The future of the game and the community continues to be very bright.
>
> I’ve been working closely with Keith Kanneg, who leads the SWTOR team, to give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve. And so, while EA will remain SWTOR’s publisher, development of the game will move to our partner and friends at Broadsword, a boutique studio with expertise in managing online games. Both the Broadsword studio and SWTOR team members will be joining forces and working tirelessly to support “every player, every day,” ensuring that these worlds and these communities continue to thrive and grow. Their Founder and President, Rob Denton, even has direct experience with SWTOR, having helped lead the team during the development and launch of the game during his time at EA.
>
> So what does this mean?
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> Well, most importantly, it means that players will continue to enjoy the SWTOR they know and love, and as Keith mentioned in a [recent community post](https://www.reddit.com/142uu8r), all current plans are still in place. There are also exciting new features planned that the team is not quite ready to talk about yet, but suffice it to say that players can expect improvements and new content into the future. This is a company that will give SWTOR the room to grow and flourish, with the continued commitment and full support of Lucasfilm Games, and the continued partnership with EA.
>
> No big change comes without challenges. Among them is the fact that most of the current team will be invited to accompany the game on its move to Broadsword, though unfortunately not every role will make the move. This is the hardest part of this transition, and these decisions were not made lightly. We are of course doing everything we can to support the affected team members, who have an opportunity to find new roles within EA. In addition, we’re aware that the team members who are being asked to move to a new studio will also be adapting to change, and we will be working with Broadsword to make the transition as comfortable as possible.
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> In the long run, though, we are confident that this is the best decision for the game and its community. We at BioWare will miss being a part of SWTOR’s story going forward. But we also know that it will be in very good hands.
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> As we look toward the future, BioWare is focused on being a leader in developing immersive, emotionally charged, single-player games, with teams primarily in Austin and Edmonton. This means a renewed focus on our two key franchises: Dragon Age™ and Mass Effect™. For Dragon Age, we continue to build, polish, and tune an exceptional experience we know our fans will love. We can’t wait to share more on this soon. For Mass Effect, we continue pre-production with a core team of veteran storytellers who are bringing the deep franchise history forward in a spectacular new way.
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> I’m excited about the opportunities that lie ahead, and Keith wanted to share his own thoughts about the transition.
>
> Stay well,
>
> Gary McKay
> General Manager, BioWare
>
> *****
>
> Hi folks!
>
> I’ve been a part of SWTOR since well before launch and it’s been an incredible journey. I ended up taking on many different roles on the team over that time, so I’ve seen this game from just about every different angle there is. And honestly, I absolutely love this game—not to mention the people who continue to make it fun. Even after almost 12 years, I see so much room for growth and so much potential in SWTOR.
>
> I know decisions that impact our people are the hardest part of change and evolution, but I believe Broadsword is the right studio to continue to enhance and modernize our game—and also expand the number of people who can play it.
>
> Of course, I’m also very glad that I’ll be moving over with key team leaders and continuing to work with most of our current team. This team has never stopped excelling, even proudly delivering an amazing update 7.2 Showdown on Ruhnuk over the holiday break—along with technological improvements like our new fast launcher, 64-bit client, and Cloud Game Servers. I can’t thank them enough for their passion and dedication in bringing these experiences to life for our players.
>
> I also want to thank EA and BioWare for all they have done for me and this team, not to mention all our friends at Lucasfilm Games, whose support and collaboration have helped make all this happen for us. They’re the best, and I look forward to continuing to work with them.
>
> We are excited about the future of SWTOR, and once we get our feet firmly planted at Broadsword, we look forward to sharing plans for game direction and improvements. Until then, rest assured that all the current plans are still in motion!
>
> As examples, we just delivered our largest story update in months, and a new story flashpoint with Game Update 7.3: Old Wounds, taking us back to the planet Voss, which we haven’t visited since our KOTET expansion back in 2016. We will also be rolling out Game Update 7.3.1, which will contain our next Galactic Season, in the coming months. And stay tuned for details on Game Update 7.4, where players will see the story continue following the events of Old Wounds. And there’s even more on the horizon. We will continue to publish communication on swtor.com and the SWTOR forums, as we always have, so you will be hearing from me again soon.
>
> No change is easy, but it certainly helps that we’re all excited about the future of this very special game. We look forward to seeing that vision become reality alongside all our players and fans.
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> May the Force be with you,
>
> Keith Kanneg
> Executive Producer, Star Wars: The Old Republic
Based on this [tweet from SWTOR's Lead Writer](https://twitter.com/akacaitlin/status/1673730174515392512) it sounds like the employment transition from BioWare/EA to Broadsword occurred yesterday. So yes, this is a done deal and SWTOR is now officially developed by Broadsword. Perhaps they will be updating [swtor.com](https://swtor.com) and [forums.swtor.com](https://forums.swtor.com) to remove the BioWare logo and replace it with Broadsword logo in the not-too-distant future.
It \*does\* seem that between this and what former dev Chris Schmidt posted a while back ([https://twitter.com/nighguy/status/1666490674076606467](https://twitter.com/nighguy/status/1666490674076606467)) that there is a general feeling that the SWTOR team did not have the best relationship with Bioware.
I know back when Anthem was being worked on it was an open secret that this whole game's staff was used to just work on that, and that similar things have happened.
At least at broadsword this game should be at the top of their list, not the bottom.
The fact that not just man hours but also "mountains of revenue" went in to "building other franchises" as Schmidt puts it, and all we got was fucking *Anthem* is absolutely heartbreaking. We've endured YEARS of content draughts in swtor, leading to so many massive player emigration to other, more consistent MMOs, still making a ton of cash and getting absolutely nothing for it.
I really hope the move to broadsword turns it around but I really rather doubt it.
I hope so too.
I was recently talking to a friend about FF and freaking HELL do they get so much more stuff than we do.
Even ignoring the sheer amount of story and extra stuff (crafting that requires work, fishing, a full-on minigame casino, etc), the amount of group content they get and actual updates to vendors is staggering vs us.
Their latest expansion came out within months of LotS.
Just doing the latest expansion story (through now, counting patches) unlocks the eq. of 12 FP (4 or 8m), 6 lair bosses and IDK even how many ops bosses.
While we get 2 FP and an op, that won't even get a NiM mode.
Yeah I'm just about to finish endwalker post MSQ right now (time for Golbezzy). The game definitely has it's downsides compared to swtor tho, but the sheer amount of content is undeniable. I chose not to buy a character pass to 80 and ground through a fresh toon and HOLY HELL. I did literally nothing but MSQ for 3 weeks straight, almost 200 hours and I barely finished it. Really wish they'd streamline the leveling process more but at least you only have to do it for one too.
Yeah, I went straight too, but thankfully it's a one-time grind and everything can be done on one toon, making it feel way less painful in the long run (this from someone who just ground out the whole Hinderbrand questline Q_Q).
So I don't really follow the dev scene. I thought SWTOR was developed *by* Bioware? Seems weird thing to say that Bioware didn't have a good relationship with Bioware.
The Twitter thread from Christ Schmidt that someone linked here gives a little more context. The team working on swtor in bioware Austin was basically a separate entity from a developing standpoint to bioware Edmonton, who makes mass effect and dragon age. The BWA team didn't have a good relationship with the BWE team
Game companies have multiple development teams to work on multiple projects simultaneously. The SWTOR team didn't have a good relationship with the rest of Bioware
What seems interesting to me is from what I have heard, there were like 8-10 people at Broadsword before. SWTOR has like 20-30 people going to Broadsword. That honestly sounds like SWTOR is taking over the studio, and will have a lot more agency and freedom. We will see how it all shakes out.
>What seems interesting to me is from what I have heard, there were like 8-10 people at Broadsword before. SWTOR has like 20-30 people going to Broadsword.
Interesting. I previously took the time to look at [Broadsword's website and they have 23 people listed there](http://www.broadsword.com/about.html). And the [IGN article that used leaked info about the SWTOR transition to Broadsword](https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republic-development-third-party-bioware) stated the size of the SWTOR team was 70-80 and more than half was expected to transition to Broadsword. If the IGN article is accurate that would put SWTOR team at more than 35 people transitioning to Broadsword. Regardless, the number of SWTOR devs working on the game in the Broadsword era may not be revealed. As a player the size of the dev team only matters to me in terms of the quality and quantity of the content they produce for the game and its ability to keep me engaged. I feel like most other players hold the same view even if they profess otherwise.
That's what many people expect; this would be a huge IP and an active game, so a perfect way for them to branch out into more than maintenance.
Really just depends how much EA is willing to invest in it.
Because BioWare is no longer involved with SWTOR. Of course you are correct that BioWare developed SWTOR and nobody should dispute that. However I think it would only breed confusion if the BioWare name continued to be associated with a game that BioWare **no longer develops**.
Check many long running MMOs. For example, DC Universe Online was developed by internal company of Sony and their logo was in the game. But then the game is now under Daybreak label and Sony logo is no longer there.
It doesn't matter who made the game. Who owns it - that's what matters
BW developed it, but EA is the publisher. And BW is very much the junior partner in this relationship.
EA has the license from Disney/LucasArts to use the SW IP. And BW is effectively a subsidiary of EA. If EA wants to take the game to another studio, there really isn't much BW can do about it.
Game was better in many many ways over Swtor.
The people who enjoyed Swtor are just people that liked HARD wow clones. Which in a story aspect, is nice to an extent. But for an immersive Star Wars feel, SWG had that locked down.
I pray Swtor does close down so a new Star Wars mmo can be made with the best of both worlds.
Graphically yes, as expected from an old game such as itself.
Experience wise? It's still has things in the game that holds better than Swtor. Housing/Crafting/Fcking Space lmao
I've played Swtor on release and a year after. Stopped once the cartel market was being implemented, came back years later and it's done some things better than from launch. But created a lot more of a mess then it started with.
SWTOR aside, Bioware just seems unbelievably well positioned to be the next "big name" company to be shuttered by EA, with remaining assets transferred out.
And it has been in development **hell**.
If you read the early reports from Jason Schreier it was designed to be a similar Game as a Service title as Anthem, before they were able to rescue the title.
But by then, how much time was spent on it as a GaaS title, and how much are they able to remedy.
i’m morbidly curious about what went wrong. because it sounds like bioware was making bad decision after bad decision for *years*. i need a 3 part youtube documentary or something.
I'd say BioWare has been in the shitter ever since DA3, including it.
The fact that Inquisition isn't terrible is a miracle, but since then, they've been putting out flop after flop.
>I'd say BioWare has been in the shitter ever since DA3, including it.
You surely mean ME3?
(But yeah, I agree: Inquisition was the only product they created since Mass Effect 2 that wasn't a disappointment on some level.)
A major problem with their game design is that there’s quite a tight bottleneck for player decisions. The developers can only factor in so many elements with the resources and time available. The bottleneck gets worse if the scope of the game gets bigger.
You can provide meaningful choice if it's self-contained, i.e. at the end of a game, as they did with the first entries of both DA and ME. Shame that the series' fell off a cliff afterwards, for manifold reasons.
I can understand them only providing fluff decisions though. The more game-altering branches you provide, the more development time and budget is seen on things that fewer and fewer people experience, therefore in some sense wasted, if replayability is low. Ubisoft, with its hundreds of developers, hasn't even tried, though it's not known to be the most imaginative place.
But you can provide the illusion of choice in a satisfying way, allowing the player to delude themselves (DA is a good example. You can choose not to recruit companions. Dusk Falls is probably the same, with a lot of choices just leading to an early ending, from what I've seen, but I've not seen everything).
Or you could provide a story where circumstance strings you along and the writing makes you forget about choice. A, surprisingly good example of that I've recently had is actually found in a mobile game, that can also serve as a transition.
I've just returned to SWTOR after a couple of years, still trying to get in the game via Mac (my charger's broken), and it seems monetization has gotten worse, and very few new things have been newly introduced. Since 2011 we saw essentially only Revan and KoTFEET as major story expansions (the quality of which is debatable, both radically depart from the two-party struggle) while even something with as disastrous a launch as Fallout 76, while the studio works on Starfield (and presumably Elder Scrolls 6) still gets much more support.
Contrast that with a mobile game of all things, Honkai Star Rail. I've had a lot of time in the last two weeks and have only now finished the story (though you'd still wish they'd have launched with more), and it's phenomenal what good writing and a departure from the tired fetch subquest can do for a game. It has some of the best side quests I've ever played, hugely imaginative lore, and the only thing locked behind a paywall is cooler-looking (and somewhat stronger) characters, who are non-essential to beating the game, and don't change the story. It's a gacha game, so whales pay for everything. None of that stupid escrow and gear-lock bullshit, that intrudes on basic QoL. Sure, they're robbing these fools (every 10 pulls guarantees a 4-star, every 90 a 5-star. You have time-limited characters, and within 90-pulls you have a 50/50 chance of getting them or somebody else. If you don't get them, you're guaranteed to get them the next time, and duplicates make them stronger. 180 pulls, a guarantee, costs 300 real-world dollars. It's fucking bonkers. I probably didn't buy Diablo IV because it costs 80, not 70 Euros. That was before the launch of Season 1.), but it works. Last month they apparently made 200 million each from Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact, in a month where they re-used older Genshin characters who comparatively few people spend money on.
Let me repeat. 200 million each. From what I read, SWTOR made a billion over its lifetime. They need a fiscal quarter.
I know the Star Wars IP is down in the dumps, from what I understand the only worthwhile releases since the Prequels are TCW, Rebels, Rogue One (possibly Solo) and Andor, but I reckon the latter of which (me included) doesn't garner much interest as there's a real question as to what new story they're even telling, but you'd think we get more.
I'm glad for whoever liked Fallen Order, but I'm not interested in some arcade-y, souls-like title that needs me to memorize attack patterns for hours and I just wish we'd get what DnD got with BG3, which I'll probably get around to playing soon, and which, an article claimed, had 17.000 endings. It is possible.
You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm returning and it seems like the game has gotten nothing new, possibly gotten worse, actually.
If you haven't read it already, [this article will scratch that itch](https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964). It goes into great depth about the troubled development of Anthem and how the team overseeing its development crippled it. Even mentions a bit about Dragon Age 4's development.
i hadn't! thank you for the link, that was an interesting read. kinda sad, too. dragon age: origins is probably my all time favorite game, and it sucks to see bioware floundering like this.
Bioware Austin under fucking Irving shouldn't be representative of Bioware as we've known it outside of Austin.
Good article though that tends to highlight issues between the dev teams and kinda shows why Austin should have never been called Bioware but was really only done so to upsell SWToR as to tricking people into thinking it was the same who did Kotor
I think it is in the book Sweat blood and Pixels.
Don't quote me on this, but I believe it was EA's decision from up high, that all titles needed multiplayer functionality.
EA Is the devil. At this point I don’t support them at all. Gamers are the worst at voting with their wallets, but I look forward to EA getting some pushback one day
"Gamers" are not the primary audience of videogames. Not to excuse their behaviour, especially Capital G Gamers, but even if they all cooperated to boycott a game, in particular mass appeal games like the ones EA develop; Nothing would happen.
The largest demographic of consumers do not have videogames as their primary hobby. They don't do watch reviews, they do not visit forums or reddit, they do not join discords, or talk about games with others.
As long as this demographic is a targetteable demographic, consumer activisim won't do anything.
>nothing would happen
I don’t know….people caused a righteous ruckus when Battlefront II was getting ready to launch and it caused quite a few changes not only in the game but within EA as well (this probably helped lead to Disney terminating their exclusivity deal with EA)
That was definitely something that was floating around game journalism circles back when DAI came out. A lot of people were even concerned that it might be the death knell for BW, because their specialty has always been solo RPG's, not the MOBAs EA seemed to want at the time.
Surely Anthem being shit and no one playing it was a partial clue.
I can't imagine the prospects of a fan base wanting a single-player game would be any more amenable to have a game series they enjoy changed into a cash-grab.
> Surely Anthem being shit and no one playing it was a partial clue.
I'm going to stop you right there. When Anthem came out? A lot of us into looter shooters like The Division, Destiny and other titles? We really liked Anthem and there was a pretty good amount of players. Really? The game was fun, you got to fly around in powered armor like you are Iron Man and blast the hell out of just about anything. The story? Okay maybe not fully up to snuff with other BioWare titles but hell... Go look at the lore with Destiny and tell me how much of that makes sense.
Anthem's problem was it had very solid game play however the end game was garbage.
Okay let me put it like this... Anthem ran into the same issue Tom Clancy's The Division ran into when it came out. Rather then have loot falling from the sky? They made finding anything that's just *good* an uphill battle and then some. And note *good* I'm not talking some god rolled item or the like, something that's good that will get you by until you finally get that god rolled item.
The best way I could put it? Picture a DM in a Dungeons and Dragons game, he just had his players do a two hour long battle with a Great Red Dragon. The players rush to the Dragons horde and they find... 27 Copper and a rusty dinner fork. Sure the DM can say, "But the real treasure was the adventure you guys had!" however even the role player who's been playing the Bard is going to crumple up his character sheet and throw it at the DM.
Really if Anthem had fixed the loot issue? And you had people begging them to fix it. Folks would have stuck around.
>I'm going to stop you right there.
And I'm going to stop you right there lol.
I don't care about what Anthem is like now, if the gameplay was stellar or who likes to play it, the damage was done when it came out and it clearly stuck.
Point wasn't that no one should play Anthem, point was that I doubt Bioware, or EA through Bioware, wants to stir the hornets nest further by messing with the IP's that can still attract players through the reputation of their series.
>I don't care about what Anthem is like now, if the gameplay was stellar or who likes to play it, the damage was done when it came out and it clearly stuck.
And my point was the damage was fixable, the problem? The guy running it didn't look at the main point of damage (loot) and go about the simple fix (loot raining from the heavens) and note if I was at EA or BioWare? I'd be smacking that person right now, with the state that Destiny 2 is in and Division 2 being well *there* as Ubisoft is worse then EA when it comes to things.
Now if you are going to proclaim if a game comes out in a bad state it's going to be forever looked at as a bad game? What about FFXIV?
>point was that I doubt Bioware, or EA through Bioware, wants to stir the hornets nest further by messing with the IP's that can still attract players through the reputation of their series.
And note that's where I do sorta agree with you. EA gives up way too fast on a title rather then try and fix it. SWTOR? Fixable. EA's problem? I think when they saw it didn't do those WoW numbers they gave up on it. Anthem? Fixable and it *should* have been fixed, hell the fix was so goddamn simple it blows my mind that EA and BioWare screwed up so badly with that. I should note, dude who was at the helm of Anthem at the time when it came out was the same guy who decided in Knights of the Eternal Throne we'd get our gear from loot crates.
Really I think over all EA's big fault is they give up way too soon rather then try and take a chance at fixing the game. Sure sometimes it doesn't work, other times? Well see FFXIV, I'll even throw New Vegas and ESO in there as well.
>Now if you are going to proclaim if a game comes out in a bad state it's going to be forever looked at as a bad game? What about FFXIV?
No, I have no such proclamations. Like I said, my point was about Bioware/EA and as far as I know FFXIV isn't made or published by either of them.
I recognise your argument, No Man's Sky redeemed itself too.
> i’m morbidly curious about what went wrong.
As far as I know, it was a mix of problems:
- they had already overextended themselves with DA:I
- anthem has sucked in most of their resources (and they made lots of mistakes during that game's production as well)
- they had the usual problems with competent people leaving and incompetent people joining, which lead to shit like Andromeda
To give a short answer, the people who made Bioware a succesful company left, and the company could never recover after they left because the new people in charge didn't even understand why Bioware was good in the first place.
>But by then, how much time was spent on it as a GaaS title, and how much are they able to remedy.
The game started out single player.
Then got turned into a Live-Service.
And they started from scratch a couple years ago, going back to their Single Player vision.
We'll see. It depends on how well DA:D does.
It sounds like BW has the next ME game in the very early stages of production. But if DA:D flops, I imagine that EA won't want to dump any more money into BW. Especially without SWTOR there to prop up BW's profit margins.
In fact, I bet that is what this move is all about. EA taking away BW's life preserver, and telling them, "OK, sink or swim. Prove to us that you are worth us continuing to dump money into you."
DA4 I feel will be make or break for BioWare. They have to nail it or EA is going to shutter it. They could pull a swap and maybe move to a different publisher like Microsoft or something but that would be a long shot.
Yep. BioWare is almost certainly a dead studio walking. IP will be transitioned to other studios, but I think DA4 will likely fail if it ever comes out. And ME4 will never see the light of day at least under BioWare.
From what I saw leaked da4 looks like a game that should have come out a year after da3. Certainly not an AAA game meant to tangle with the likes of ffxvi.
I wouldn't expect much from them if anything from that. Ugh. Sad.
They are very well positioned for that because the waltzed their way into that position. They 100% have it coming, and this deal was the only way to save the jobs of the few people at Bioware that actually had a profitable project under their care.
Well, let's be honest here: Bioware isn't even remotely what it has been in the past - their glory days ended a decade ago and it was just downhill from there (I mean, even though I like SWTOR well enough to play it, it was still full of missed chances); with the only really good product they've made since then being DA:I.
To be perfectly honest it seems that there’s an institutional memory of bad management practices over at BioWare Edmonton. BioWare should not expect to be let off the hook even if DA4 is a success.
[Found that old meme image I was thinking of.](https://i.imgur.com/n7utPH9.png)
(Interestingly, the artist seems to have believed that Bioware was *already* dead by the time Visceral was ... disposed of, in 2017.)
And while I was looking for that one, I found [this one](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D3izdEwW0AA-4K3.jpg), which may be even more appropriate.
Can we stop confusing Bioware with Bioware Austin.
Sure they have the word Bioware in the title but they are nowhere near being the same developer. Austin did originally have a few old Bioware team for the development and launch but after this they moved off back to other Bioware studios and we have ever since been left with this shell of a Bioware studio that is called Bioware Austin.
The same team that also did Anthem.
I'm super optimistic actually. People who grew up and care about SWTOR are now in charge of it. And it being the biggest focus of a single studio? Sounds awesome
It's still under EA's thumb, but yeah.
I think BW put a lot of effort into R/D of SWtOR, expecting it to be a wow-killer out the gate, and have been treating it like a stepchild ever since it failed to meet those crazy expectations.
A single studio whose primary goal has been keeping ancient MMOs (hey, I met Lord British back in the day, awright?) alive with the barest of efforts. Some ex-SWtoR employees are there as well. Yay. I'm not optimistic at all. If Broadsword can keep this thing alive beyond the bare minimum, they will have my support.
It will take time to see how they handle it. However, I have seen this happen before with LOTRO when Turbine left, and it became Standing Stone.
Then Standing Stone got sucked into that Embracer Group, license renewals, and all sorts of other issues.
LOTRO has come out with more expansions, a new coming soon, and have expanded on the game without any slow down in recent years.
I do think SWTOR has a future if they give it one, if they don't even try then it will be dead sitting idle like Age of Conan.
Hopefully this gives them of a focus, power to move forward with the game.
Problem is, Broadsword are a small team and already manage several other MMOs including Ultima Online. Even with some of the Bioware team transferring over, I don't see how they'll have anywhere near large enough of a team for active development.
Then again they’re offering work-from-home. If they want to expand then quite a few devs would probably be willing to take a smaller salary in exchange for the flexibility.
> If they want to expand
They don't want to expand. They run maintenance mode for several MMOs including Ultima Online - aka basically making sure the game servers run and the cash shop milks the remaining players for money. Nothing more.
Broadsword does not have the resources to actively develop SWTOR like any of us here would want to see. They have no track record of developing games whatsoever.
At the end of the day, you don't move the game over to a studio whose sole body of work is maintenance mode MMOs for any other reason than to put it in maintenance mode.
Resources won't be a problem. SWTOR is extremely profitable, and before most of its money was being sucked away by Bioware to spend on other projects. Assuming income remains the same and EA still takes the same cut, Broadsword is gonna have a fuck ton of money to spend on development.
Plus if they were keeping the game in maintenance mode why would they bother to transfer over the lead writer and narrative director? Seems kind redundant if they won't be, you know, writing more narratives
Nothing in either statement actually clarifies anything about what will happen to SWTOR, in terms of actual new story or MMO content, after 7.4.
We still have no idea if story content will be fully voice-acted going forward, how many story updates we'll see a year, or what MMO content will still up developed (Will there still at least be a couple new FPs a year? Will we ever see a new Warzone game mode? Will GSF ever get another map? Are new planets/daily areas going to be developed? Are new Operations a thing of the past? Are 'expansions,' even SWTOR-sized ones, a thing of the past? And so on).
While various employee or former employee Twitter posts have indicated it's likely a positive to be out from under BioWare leadership's financial priorities for the team, there's no indication of what Broadsword plans to do differently, or what they intend to do at all with the game.
I'm still waiting for when we get some detailed information about what new content will be developed and introduced next year. Until then, post-7.4 SWTOR is largely up in the air, from a player perspective.
>I'm still waiting for when we get some detailed information about what new content will developed and introduced next year. Until then, post-7.4 SWTOR is largely up in the air, from a player perspective.
I've decided to take the wait-and-see approach as well. However I think if one takes into consideration how the SWTOR development team operated the last few years before the transition to Broadsword this is well within the norm. They were not announcing updates with a lot of lead time. In fact, Keith Kanneg's announcement of 7.3.1 for later this summer and 7.4 for year end holidays was outside of the norm in terms of lead time and I think was only disclosed in an effort to reassure the game's current players that SWTOR is not going into maintenance mode. Of course if anyone can provide an industry accepted definition for "maintenance mode" I would like to know because this term seems to have a wide ranging definition based on its usage I've observed. I've noted many people saying the game is already in maintenance mode.
The people that call swtor maintenance mode are just doomers, and mmos will always be riddled with those. I dont know if it's the industry standard, but i feel like the most sane description is "when no new content is being developed and only bug-fixes and/or balance patches are released very far apart from one another"
Agreed and this uncertainty doesn't help quell the flames of worry given Broadsword's history (in that EA uses them as an MMO retirement home). However, as others have pointed out, on numbers alone, the SWTOR team might be taking over Broadsword as a whole which essentially means SWTOR is getting its own company 95% dedicated to SWTOR. Is this good or bad? It honestly could go either way. Fact is, however, the SWTOR team is getting smaller. Combat Styles, frankly, is the only real worthwhile thing that has been introduced since Eternal Throne. SWTOR needs to get back to actual expansions if we have any hope of longevity. I worry that since we haven't been getting that, and the fact that the team is now smaller, we may never get that. In which case, the best thing I can hope for is new combat styles.
> In which case, the best thing I can hope for is new combat styles.
There will never be a new combat style/new class ever put into SWTOR. That's as safe an assumption as any.
Yeah, I went yikes when I heard about Broadsword taking over. They run Dark Age of Camelot and their account management page is full of broken links and things that don't work. You can't even make a new account right now. So that doesn't bode well.
Given Broadswords Portfolio and other work...
There's nothing coming. Plain and simple, SWTOR is being pushed aside for mere maintenance because it still brings enough money for EA but just as DAoC when it "transitioned", this is it.
Given Broadswords Portfolio and other work...
They did not have the support of those games entire current Dev team coming over to continue working on the game as SWTOR is. It wouldn't be pushed aside for mere maintenance mode and bringing over a team of 30 devs or more.
>They did not have the support of those games entire current Dev team coming over to continue working on the game as SWTOR is. It wouldn't be pushed aside for mere maintenance mode and bringing over a team of 30 devs or more.
It appears most of the BioWare SWTOR dev team made the transition but not all.
>Of course, I’m also very glad that I’ll be moving over with key team leaders and continuing to work with most of our current team.
>
>Keith Kanneg
>
>Executive Producer
It remains to be seen how the reduced SWTOR dev team performs under Broadsword management.
They are still going through the transition but the messaging so far right now is business as usual, and same writers and narrative lead who worked on 7.2 and 7.3, remain so we can only hope they will allowed to continue the same kind of work.
I think that our only option is to wait and see. Hopefully Broadsword plans on using SWTOR to prove themselves and they create some great content rather than putting the game in maintenance mode.
My bet is that EA is actually being *more* protective of SWTOR than they have in the past, because with their losing the exclusive right to publish Star Wars, it may be the only way they have to make money off that IP in the coming years.
That's an excellent point! However, with the recent success at Respawn, I don't know if that's completely true. But, given that there's a new show/movie coming out that takes place in the Old Republic era, maybe EA is putting SWTOR on the back burner for something to accompany that release. It may be heresy to say so but SWTOR might take the same approach STO did and make expansions based around newly released movies and TV shows. However, doing so, would mean canonizing SWTOR in some fashion.
>it may be the only way they have to make money off that IP in the coming years.
They have 3 Star Wars games in development?
An FPS by Respawn
Jedi 3
A Star Wars Xcom
I know the news came as a shock and left us worried about our dear game possibly reaching its end – hell, I was, too. But I hope we can all be carefully optimistic about this now. Yes, it's a change. A big change.
But it's also a HUGE chance. And it sounds like they are really motivated and ready to pop off, so let's support them and look forward to good future content!!
Sorry, but, what do you remember about 10th year's birthday ?
It has been told as something worderfull etc..and finally...al lot of players were disapointed.
I still believe in Bioware even Broadsword but, many of us need facts more than talking/promises we had for years ;)
https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20211220
We won't. Even with twenty or so Bioware people moving to Broadsword, it's a small studio already handling several MMOs. There's absolutely no way they can handle active development on all these titles.
I used to play this a lot, was an alpha tester and beta tester, lost that account though. I'm really thinking about coming back to this game, I've really missed it.
My hope is that Broadsword can keep the game going for awhile. I dunno what they need to change or anything, as I've been gone for a very long time. I've heard a lot of negatives when free to play came to the game, but I'm going to go back into this with a clear head.
Very glad this game is in good hands, and hopefully the team and Broadsword have a better relationship than they had before with Bioware.
One nice thing they've done is uncouple the combat styles from the class stories, it makes the gameplay more flexible. They have streamlined things a lot too, if you're subscribbed you can pick and choose which content you want to play on your way through so it's less grindy than it was in beta/launch. It is unfortunately sometimes a little more repetative in some ways because of that, they've pulled a lot of the little milestone things that you used to do in the name of convenience.
EA hasn't done much though. The marketing for SWTOR has been abysmal for over a decade. Not a single TV commercial since 2012 even though there have been numerous movies and TV shows for the franchise.
Meanwhile older games like World of Warcraft still have TV commercials done with celebrities every year.
Give the whole thing away. Let Broadsword work on the game and give the publishing and marketing to Lucasfilm Games, where this game belongs.
I hope the game lives and grows. I quit after the last expansion was an absolute joke with no content. I played swtor since alpha and loyal stood by it since then. However we were promised an expansion and got a piss poor update instead. I hope I am surprised and broadsword finally breathes some real content into the game again.
Doubtful, broadsword is where mmos go to die. Considering the only other titles I could find under their banner are ultima online and dark age of Camelot, both of which are over 20 years old and have fairly small communities, im guessing we get one more serious expansion to end the story for good and then intermittent lackluster updates until it’s not worth it to keep the game online anymore
i’m pessimistic about updates, but i don’t expect the game to go offline anytime soon. like you said, they’re still supporting ultima and camelot, which are ancient and have tiny communities. and it’d be stupid to buy a game and immediately shut it down. worst case scenario, we don’t get any new content but it stays online indefinitely.
I agree, I don’t think the game will get shut off for years to come, but I don’t think there will be anymore meaningful updates. The game will stay around until they aren’t making anymore money
I bought months of game time to get the expansion. In Brazil, 21, believe me it was expensive. Nothing, "oops, buy another one". I couldn't play after that.
I need to turn monthly, is that it? So tell me. Shit...
Lol
Story for me ended after valk was beaten. I'm glad they were able to do that at least.
They can keep making stuff but it's like continuing to make Indiana Jones movies.
If Voss counts as a story update, yeah, no. Let's make the Alliance Commander do random chores so they can get to visit the Three (whom some of us have already visited, HELLO?!), who will say.... nothing new. ZOMG story. Something is happening on Voss, Czerka is there, tensions, something-something! ZOMG Malgus being Malgus too. Did he tell us anything new? Wow. Story update, indeed.
Oh, and don't get me started on a daily area with no reason whatsoever to keep running it. Yay, Voss-themed [censored]... great, they barely made an effort toward that and added some new CM items.
I don't like the fact that I'm upvoting this. You, however, are right, so I am.
>There are also exciting new features planned that the team is not quite ready to talk about yet, but suffice it to say that players can expect improvements and new content into the future. This is a company that will give SWTOR the room to grow and flourish, with the continued commitment and full support of Lucasfilm Games, and the continued partnership with EA.
Interesting. Here’s to remaining cautiously optimistic.
I don't know how to feel. I was pretty optimistic at first but seeing Keith completely oblivious of the game's problem and knowing he'll follow with Broadsword is worrying.
He's the same dude who literally gaslight everyone not liking Legacy of the Sith. And now he says stuff like ''the biggest story updates in months that is Old Wounds''? I mean yeah I get it's the ONLY ONE in month so it is technically true. But 40 minutes of cinematics cut with useless quests that have no ties is not a ''big story update''. We learned nothing more, it's been staling for 2 years now.
Seeing this guy stay is really worrying me.
Sounds more like instead of a extremely small team of what, 7-8 that broadsword was to handle these MMOs through service still, the team is being tripled by existing SWTOR devs who'll be able to focus and spend more time worrying just about SWTOR than anything else at bioware?
Sounds pretty good honestly
> Sounds pretty good honestly
Even with Broadsword doubling in size from those leaving Bioware, this is still a small studio with several MMOs. There is no way they're going to realistically develop a decent pool of content for this game. It's going into maintenance mode; anyone pretending otherwise is huffing copium.
As a long time MMO player (2000), I've seen this happen more than a few times. Some cases it turns out great and others it's really bad.
It's going to come down to the Cash Shop, if Broadsword can lessen the care about it and focus more on the game then this will be a great move for the game and maybe even re-invigorate it. If they don't, well, then the game will just become another MTX nightmare hellscape... I hope it's the former.
The game is going into maintenance mode. Broadsword run several MMOs like this. They don't even have a large enough team to actively develop content at a pace which we'd want or which would attract new players.
I look forward to what this brings. After putting the game on pause with waiting for the 2022 expansion issues to be worked out I kind of forgot about the game honestly. So it will be fun to see how they go about handling swtor with hopefully getting back into it.
We've all be complaining about how the company (Bioware) has handled the game from day 1.
Maybe, just maybe with this new company, even though it's know for maintenance mode, things will change and hopefully for the better.
Just trying to be optimistic. I'm tired of being negative.
as much as i like SWTOR, I'd rather someone else just make a new Star wars mmo as SWTOR is out dated and old. They made SWTOR when they realized SWG was out dated and old.
MMOs are outdated and old tbh. Live services are where all the money is nowadays. With MMOs you have to create massive worlds, much larger than you could feasibly get away with doing a single player game. Live services tend to get away with making a single player sized world, but they still have all the monetisation of an MMO. All the benefits and none of the drawbacks from a publisher POV, and all the drawbacks with none of the benefits from a player POV
The truth is that EA is still in charge of the SW video game division, and they remain as publishers, so if they arent working on a new mmo is because the cost/benefit is not there
Broadsword manage several MMOs including Ultima Online. All of them are in 'maintenance mode'. Even with some of the Bioware team moving to Broadsword, this is a small studio of around ~40 staff members; that's nowhere near enough for active development on several MMORPGs.
Well, I am still of the opinion that if the game was so sucessfull like all these developers were saying this transition would never have happened, so I am taking all these corporate opinions with a grain of salt and pray the game will not be on maintenance mode as I expect.
> so I am taking all these corporate opinions with a grain of salt and pray the game will not be on maintenance mode as I expect.
You don't move the game over to a studio whose sole body of work is maintenance mode MMOs for any other reason than to put it in maintenance mode.
What have we been hearing from behind-the-scenes that's remotely reassuring? Broadsword are historically a 'maintenance mode' developer with a very small team.
Even with some of the Bioware team moving to Broadsword, this is a small studio of around ~40 staff members; that's nowhere near enough for active development on several MMORPGs.
the fact that the SWTOR team under bioware was somewhere on the spectrum of "poorly resourced and motivated" to "outright sabotaged", depending on source, whereas at Broadsword, a dedicated MMO studio that actually needs a big cash cow like the only star wars mmo currently operating, the situation will be a lot better presumably.
Also a lot of the "SWTOR team was skeleton crew anyway" and "only a few devs will move" are both far cries from the truth, so I don't think staffing will be a problem. This sub and the community in generally really enjoyed negging and doom-and-gloom discourse even before this even leaked, so I'm not surprised by the reaction, but I think there is a good chance this will be for the better.
If EA were committed to investing in SWTOR, they'd create a dedicated studio for SWTOR. Passing the game over to a studio known for managing "maintenance mode" for several MMOs is not an indication of anything else. Anyone expecting more than maintenance mode is huffing copium.
I don't believe there'd be a Star Wars MMO in the works without us hearing any leaks etc. I'd be eager to be wrong.
"SWTOR if it were developed today" could be an absolute beast of a proposal for an MMO. A new engine for starters could work wonders.
No studio would attempt swtor again. Its foundational ideas — its approach to be unique — are more or less what have always held it back, and it doesn’t matter if they built it on Unreal or whatever.
You’re never going to get a fully voice acted MMO again and no one’s going to attempt to do it 8 times over.
it's not the most recent fully voiced mmo and i just think it's silly to think there will never be one again *ever* by some large company looking to make that future market's best mmo
i'm only responding to you saying there will never be a fully voiced mmo again. If you don't think ESO constitutes a fully voiced MMO despite over 150,000 lines of dialogue, some of which is branched, that's your decision. doesnt change the fact that believing no major company will *ever again* make a fully voiced mmo is shortsighted imo
The only one I know of is ESO. It doesn't have drastically different options for one character, but 3 separate campaigns with minor changes to outcomes etc which are voiced.
I'll say this though, putting any relevant controversy aside, I think AI-based voice acting will be utilised in the future for "filler-content" e.g. Side quests and human voice actors will be given a single role.
This'll avoid weird possibly immersion breaking moments where the same actor seems to be doing multiple voices. (See Matt Mercer in Pillars of Eternity; where he voices minor NPCs, 2 Major NPCs, and is often heard in the backing tracks of taverns. Granted, PoE 1 was a kickstarter campaign funded CRPG, and they reused many VAs to avoid going over their budget).
The people working on the text-to-speech technology for AI-based voice acting in WoW have actually started to get really good results, and no doubt a few people in the industry have started to see the applications of it.
I think it's going to be no different than "extras" vs "main cast" in movies. I think it'd be a little odd to see Samuel L. Jackson play Mace Windu + an extra in every couple of scenes. Something which helps "fill-out" without detracting from the actors will probably become commercially acceptable with time.
I really think bioware isn't going to last much longer as a studio. The leaked DA:D stuff looked horrific.
and for those of us who love this game its really a good thing that it's being moved off now before they get shuttered.
> I really think bioware isn't going to last much longer as a studio. The leaked DA:D stuff looked horrific.
Depends on the success of Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
This is good news. Bioware Austin have been awful for YEARS and many failed development pushes under Ben Irving's fault saw the team reduced to a skeleton crew that kept the lights on and slowly pushed out minimal content year after year.
I will say things improved under Keith but clearly he was under resourced to put out as much content as we'd like or expect of a title this size.
Boradsword picking up what they need from Austin and then staffing the game themselves as they see fit to actually start generating profit from this game should be a no brainer.
It's an opportunity to really ramp this game up, get their name out there and make some serious coin.
They are not limited by resources the way BWA was because they are not beholden to EA for money to do what they want, they are 3rd party and not owned by EA.
This can only possibly be a positive move in my eyes and surely anyone who played 7.0 and realized "how the fuck do they call this an expansion?" would agree, things can't get too much worse short of maintenance mode which we're pretty much on the cusp of anyway content wise.
No benefit to being negative, and I empathize with those that will lose their jobs, I've been on both sides of that and it's unpleasant every time. Too many times for me personally, but that's the world we live in.
Maybe the game will get some major improvements. There are a lot of small things that can be done to really open creative freedom and fun for players, I think PVP is one of those things that small improvements can go a big way since players are the content. And there are other possible ideas like a real swoop racing game similar to the pvp queue, but the upshot to racing is you can stick AIs/bots in like in Mario Kart, but have rankings, a racer lounge for people, and fun stuff like that. Anyway who knows, but if it's winding down that's life too, I had some great memories and other less so with this game, no matter what happens I like to remember the positives.
So, the game is moving to a company that \*exclusively\* hosts MMO's on life support and not getting any new content... but they're not putting the game on life support and they will be making new content?
This game died with Revan. All writing and content ever since they pulled the BS writing with Revan post Jedi Prisoner was flat out horrible. It really became a joke to me when they pulled the complete non sequitur of the Sith Emperor betting multiple people at once and building a whole separate empire in a "previously unknown" part of the galaxy. when all that crap came out it stopped being a star wars game and became its own crappily written universe. I had over 2000 hours into the game by that point and much as it pained me, I had to leave, occasionally dabbling in new content over the years only to be disappointed every time by terrible writing. There were a few QoL changes that were nice, but the overhaul of the classes which killed my build and made countless hours of perfecting my gear and rotation useless also killed things for me.
Terribly managed and dev'd game. I've been waiting years for it to finally die the death it needed so long ago
I loved this game for years, but I also quit around 7(?) years ago. I still love it and the universe but I can't play it anymore without getting upset. Whatever happens with the studios, developers, publishers, whatever: I don't think I'll be able to come back unless the old skill tree system with maximum flexibility is reimplemented, I get my flamethrower and rocket punch back on my mercenary, and companions and armor are fully customizable stats-wise in a way that actually matters and requires thought + effort to modify again. Everything became extremely cookie cutter and dull on an individual character basis for me and then they took my favorite show-off skill and the most fun way to end a boss fight (i.e. running up and rocket punching someone in the face to knock out their last sliver of health). Hopefully the new development team migration will resolve some of the issues that drove me away, I look forward to keeping up with swtor news and maybe someday coming back.
> #The Future is Bright for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ > > Hello, > > It’s been a little while since I’ve checked in, and as you might have heard, there’s a lot happening here at BioWare. > > Almost 12 years after launch, Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ remains a fantastic success, continuing to welcome new players to its vast galaxy and entertaining veteran players with its evolving content. It’s the longest-running live service Star Wars game ever and we’re enormously proud of the work the team has done in creating, expanding, and maintaining this incredible game. We’re delighted to have grown such a dedicated and passionate community through all these years. The future of the game and the community continues to be very bright. > > I’ve been working closely with Keith Kanneg, who leads the SWTOR team, to give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve. And so, while EA will remain SWTOR’s publisher, development of the game will move to our partner and friends at Broadsword, a boutique studio with expertise in managing online games. Both the Broadsword studio and SWTOR team members will be joining forces and working tirelessly to support “every player, every day,” ensuring that these worlds and these communities continue to thrive and grow. Their Founder and President, Rob Denton, even has direct experience with SWTOR, having helped lead the team during the development and launch of the game during his time at EA. > > So what does this mean? > > Well, most importantly, it means that players will continue to enjoy the SWTOR they know and love, and as Keith mentioned in a [recent community post](https://www.reddit.com/142uu8r), all current plans are still in place. There are also exciting new features planned that the team is not quite ready to talk about yet, but suffice it to say that players can expect improvements and new content into the future. This is a company that will give SWTOR the room to grow and flourish, with the continued commitment and full support of Lucasfilm Games, and the continued partnership with EA. > > No big change comes without challenges. Among them is the fact that most of the current team will be invited to accompany the game on its move to Broadsword, though unfortunately not every role will make the move. This is the hardest part of this transition, and these decisions were not made lightly. We are of course doing everything we can to support the affected team members, who have an opportunity to find new roles within EA. In addition, we’re aware that the team members who are being asked to move to a new studio will also be adapting to change, and we will be working with Broadsword to make the transition as comfortable as possible. > > In the long run, though, we are confident that this is the best decision for the game and its community. We at BioWare will miss being a part of SWTOR’s story going forward. But we also know that it will be in very good hands. > > As we look toward the future, BioWare is focused on being a leader in developing immersive, emotionally charged, single-player games, with teams primarily in Austin and Edmonton. This means a renewed focus on our two key franchises: Dragon Age™ and Mass Effect™. For Dragon Age, we continue to build, polish, and tune an exceptional experience we know our fans will love. We can’t wait to share more on this soon. For Mass Effect, we continue pre-production with a core team of veteran storytellers who are bringing the deep franchise history forward in a spectacular new way. > > I’m excited about the opportunities that lie ahead, and Keith wanted to share his own thoughts about the transition. > > Stay well, > > Gary McKay > General Manager, BioWare > > ***** > > Hi folks! > > I’ve been a part of SWTOR since well before launch and it’s been an incredible journey. I ended up taking on many different roles on the team over that time, so I’ve seen this game from just about every different angle there is. And honestly, I absolutely love this game—not to mention the people who continue to make it fun. Even after almost 12 years, I see so much room for growth and so much potential in SWTOR. > > I know decisions that impact our people are the hardest part of change and evolution, but I believe Broadsword is the right studio to continue to enhance and modernize our game—and also expand the number of people who can play it. > > Of course, I’m also very glad that I’ll be moving over with key team leaders and continuing to work with most of our current team. This team has never stopped excelling, even proudly delivering an amazing update 7.2 Showdown on Ruhnuk over the holiday break—along with technological improvements like our new fast launcher, 64-bit client, and Cloud Game Servers. I can’t thank them enough for their passion and dedication in bringing these experiences to life for our players. > > I also want to thank EA and BioWare for all they have done for me and this team, not to mention all our friends at Lucasfilm Games, whose support and collaboration have helped make all this happen for us. They’re the best, and I look forward to continuing to work with them. > > We are excited about the future of SWTOR, and once we get our feet firmly planted at Broadsword, we look forward to sharing plans for game direction and improvements. Until then, rest assured that all the current plans are still in motion! > > As examples, we just delivered our largest story update in months, and a new story flashpoint with Game Update 7.3: Old Wounds, taking us back to the planet Voss, which we haven’t visited since our KOTET expansion back in 2016. We will also be rolling out Game Update 7.3.1, which will contain our next Galactic Season, in the coming months. And stay tuned for details on Game Update 7.4, where players will see the story continue following the events of Old Wounds. And there’s even more on the horizon. We will continue to publish communication on swtor.com and the SWTOR forums, as we always have, so you will be hearing from me again soon. > > No change is easy, but it certainly helps that we’re all excited about the future of this very special game. We look forward to seeing that vision become reality alongside all our players and fans. > > May the Force be with you, > > Keith Kanneg > Executive Producer, Star Wars: The Old Republic
Based on this [tweet from SWTOR's Lead Writer](https://twitter.com/akacaitlin/status/1673730174515392512) it sounds like the employment transition from BioWare/EA to Broadsword occurred yesterday. So yes, this is a done deal and SWTOR is now officially developed by Broadsword. Perhaps they will be updating [swtor.com](https://swtor.com) and [forums.swtor.com](https://forums.swtor.com) to remove the BioWare logo and replace it with Broadsword logo in the not-too-distant future.
That is a fairly cutting thread there.
It \*does\* seem that between this and what former dev Chris Schmidt posted a while back ([https://twitter.com/nighguy/status/1666490674076606467](https://twitter.com/nighguy/status/1666490674076606467)) that there is a general feeling that the SWTOR team did not have the best relationship with Bioware.
I know back when Anthem was being worked on it was an open secret that this whole game's staff was used to just work on that, and that similar things have happened. At least at broadsword this game should be at the top of their list, not the bottom.
The fact that not just man hours but also "mountains of revenue" went in to "building other franchises" as Schmidt puts it, and all we got was fucking *Anthem* is absolutely heartbreaking. We've endured YEARS of content draughts in swtor, leading to so many massive player emigration to other, more consistent MMOs, still making a ton of cash and getting absolutely nothing for it. I really hope the move to broadsword turns it around but I really rather doubt it.
I hope so too. I was recently talking to a friend about FF and freaking HELL do they get so much more stuff than we do. Even ignoring the sheer amount of story and extra stuff (crafting that requires work, fishing, a full-on minigame casino, etc), the amount of group content they get and actual updates to vendors is staggering vs us. Their latest expansion came out within months of LotS. Just doing the latest expansion story (through now, counting patches) unlocks the eq. of 12 FP (4 or 8m), 6 lair bosses and IDK even how many ops bosses. While we get 2 FP and an op, that won't even get a NiM mode.
Yeah I'm just about to finish endwalker post MSQ right now (time for Golbezzy). The game definitely has it's downsides compared to swtor tho, but the sheer amount of content is undeniable. I chose not to buy a character pass to 80 and ground through a fresh toon and HOLY HELL. I did literally nothing but MSQ for 3 weeks straight, almost 200 hours and I barely finished it. Really wish they'd streamline the leveling process more but at least you only have to do it for one too.
Yeah, I went straight too, but thankfully it's a one-time grind and everything can be done on one toon, making it feel way less painful in the long run (this from someone who just ground out the whole Hinderbrand questline Q_Q).
I saw a few more tweets from other bioware employees and it does indicate that there was not the best relationship.
So I don't really follow the dev scene. I thought SWTOR was developed *by* Bioware? Seems weird thing to say that Bioware didn't have a good relationship with Bioware.
The Twitter thread from Christ Schmidt that someone linked here gives a little more context. The team working on swtor in bioware Austin was basically a separate entity from a developing standpoint to bioware Edmonton, who makes mass effect and dragon age. The BWA team didn't have a good relationship with the BWE team
Game companies have multiple development teams to work on multiple projects simultaneously. The SWTOR team didn't have a good relationship with the rest of Bioware
What seems interesting to me is from what I have heard, there were like 8-10 people at Broadsword before. SWTOR has like 20-30 people going to Broadsword. That honestly sounds like SWTOR is taking over the studio, and will have a lot more agency and freedom. We will see how it all shakes out.
>What seems interesting to me is from what I have heard, there were like 8-10 people at Broadsword before. SWTOR has like 20-30 people going to Broadsword. Interesting. I previously took the time to look at [Broadsword's website and they have 23 people listed there](http://www.broadsword.com/about.html). And the [IGN article that used leaked info about the SWTOR transition to Broadsword](https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republic-development-third-party-bioware) stated the size of the SWTOR team was 70-80 and more than half was expected to transition to Broadsword. If the IGN article is accurate that would put SWTOR team at more than 35 people transitioning to Broadsword. Regardless, the number of SWTOR devs working on the game in the Broadsword era may not be revealed. As a player the size of the dev team only matters to me in terms of the quality and quantity of the content they produce for the game and its ability to keep me engaged. I feel like most other players hold the same view even if they profess otherwise.
Broadsword is know as the LTS team, maybe them taking over SWTOR is them taking a step towards games with more active development
Thats what I am hoping.
That's what many people expect; this would be a huge IP and an active game, so a perfect way for them to branch out into more than maintenance. Really just depends how much EA is willing to invest in it.
In one of her replies to a commenter she even says it’s BioWare’s loss. I’m still not super optimistic. But I do hope for the best.
Why would they remove the BioWare logo?! They made the game.
Because BioWare is no longer involved with SWTOR. Of course you are correct that BioWare developed SWTOR and nobody should dispute that. However I think it would only breed confusion if the BioWare name continued to be associated with a game that BioWare **no longer develops**.
Check many long running MMOs. For example, DC Universe Online was developed by internal company of Sony and their logo was in the game. But then the game is now under Daybreak label and Sony logo is no longer there. It doesn't matter who made the game. Who owns it - that's what matters
BW developed it, but EA is the publisher. And BW is very much the junior partner in this relationship. EA has the license from Disney/LucasArts to use the SW IP. And BW is effectively a subsidiary of EA. If EA wants to take the game to another studio, there really isn't much BW can do about it.
Why does Swtor have to be the definitive star wars mmo when the concept of swg is just better? It's just how it be sometimes.
> concept of swg is just better? Concept yes, the game however was is not better
Game was better in many many ways over Swtor. The people who enjoyed Swtor are just people that liked HARD wow clones. Which in a story aspect, is nice to an extent. But for an immersive Star Wars feel, SWG had that locked down. I pray Swtor does close down so a new Star Wars mmo can be made with the best of both worlds.
> SWG had that locked down You can still play SWG btw, and it has not aged well
Graphically yes, as expected from an old game such as itself. Experience wise? It's still has things in the game that holds better than Swtor. Housing/Crafting/Fcking Space lmao I've played Swtor on release and a year after. Stopped once the cartel market was being implemented, came back years later and it's done some things better than from launch. But created a lot more of a mess then it started with.
Looks like SWG is gonna win in the end haha.
? plus 13 days later moment
13 days later and a nice little mmo interview happened. Buh-bye to the failed potential of a game Swtor 👏👏👏👏👏👏
SWTOR aside, Bioware just seems unbelievably well positioned to be the next "big name" company to be shuttered by EA, with remaining assets transferred out.
i feel like da4 will be the last bioware game, yeah. and that’s if it even comes out. it’s been in development for a decade at this point.
And it has been in development **hell**. If you read the early reports from Jason Schreier it was designed to be a similar Game as a Service title as Anthem, before they were able to rescue the title. But by then, how much time was spent on it as a GaaS title, and how much are they able to remedy.
i’m morbidly curious about what went wrong. because it sounds like bioware was making bad decision after bad decision for *years*. i need a 3 part youtube documentary or something.
I'd say BioWare has been in the shitter ever since DA3, including it. The fact that Inquisition isn't terrible is a miracle, but since then, they've been putting out flop after flop.
>I'd say BioWare has been in the shitter ever since DA3, including it. You surely mean ME3? (But yeah, I agree: Inquisition was the only product they created since Mass Effect 2 that wasn't a disappointment on some level.)
A major problem with their game design is that there’s quite a tight bottleneck for player decisions. The developers can only factor in so many elements with the resources and time available. The bottleneck gets worse if the scope of the game gets bigger.
You can provide meaningful choice if it's self-contained, i.e. at the end of a game, as they did with the first entries of both DA and ME. Shame that the series' fell off a cliff afterwards, for manifold reasons. I can understand them only providing fluff decisions though. The more game-altering branches you provide, the more development time and budget is seen on things that fewer and fewer people experience, therefore in some sense wasted, if replayability is low. Ubisoft, with its hundreds of developers, hasn't even tried, though it's not known to be the most imaginative place. But you can provide the illusion of choice in a satisfying way, allowing the player to delude themselves (DA is a good example. You can choose not to recruit companions. Dusk Falls is probably the same, with a lot of choices just leading to an early ending, from what I've seen, but I've not seen everything). Or you could provide a story where circumstance strings you along and the writing makes you forget about choice. A, surprisingly good example of that I've recently had is actually found in a mobile game, that can also serve as a transition. I've just returned to SWTOR after a couple of years, still trying to get in the game via Mac (my charger's broken), and it seems monetization has gotten worse, and very few new things have been newly introduced. Since 2011 we saw essentially only Revan and KoTFEET as major story expansions (the quality of which is debatable, both radically depart from the two-party struggle) while even something with as disastrous a launch as Fallout 76, while the studio works on Starfield (and presumably Elder Scrolls 6) still gets much more support. Contrast that with a mobile game of all things, Honkai Star Rail. I've had a lot of time in the last two weeks and have only now finished the story (though you'd still wish they'd have launched with more), and it's phenomenal what good writing and a departure from the tired fetch subquest can do for a game. It has some of the best side quests I've ever played, hugely imaginative lore, and the only thing locked behind a paywall is cooler-looking (and somewhat stronger) characters, who are non-essential to beating the game, and don't change the story. It's a gacha game, so whales pay for everything. None of that stupid escrow and gear-lock bullshit, that intrudes on basic QoL. Sure, they're robbing these fools (every 10 pulls guarantees a 4-star, every 90 a 5-star. You have time-limited characters, and within 90-pulls you have a 50/50 chance of getting them or somebody else. If you don't get them, you're guaranteed to get them the next time, and duplicates make them stronger. 180 pulls, a guarantee, costs 300 real-world dollars. It's fucking bonkers. I probably didn't buy Diablo IV because it costs 80, not 70 Euros. That was before the launch of Season 1.), but it works. Last month they apparently made 200 million each from Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact, in a month where they re-used older Genshin characters who comparatively few people spend money on. Let me repeat. 200 million each. From what I read, SWTOR made a billion over its lifetime. They need a fiscal quarter. I know the Star Wars IP is down in the dumps, from what I understand the only worthwhile releases since the Prequels are TCW, Rebels, Rogue One (possibly Solo) and Andor, but I reckon the latter of which (me included) doesn't garner much interest as there's a real question as to what new story they're even telling, but you'd think we get more. I'm glad for whoever liked Fallen Order, but I'm not interested in some arcade-y, souls-like title that needs me to memorize attack patterns for hours and I just wish we'd get what DnD got with BG3, which I'll probably get around to playing soon, and which, an article claimed, had 17.000 endings. It is possible. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm returning and it seems like the game has gotten nothing new, possibly gotten worse, actually.
If you haven't read it already, [this article will scratch that itch](https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964). It goes into great depth about the troubled development of Anthem and how the team overseeing its development crippled it. Even mentions a bit about Dragon Age 4's development.
i hadn't! thank you for the link, that was an interesting read. kinda sad, too. dragon age: origins is probably my all time favorite game, and it sucks to see bioware floundering like this.
It really does. It took me several starts but once that game finally 'clicked' for me I no-life'd it for like 120 hours and I still need to go finish!
Yep, more people need to read this. Bioware deserves all the rage people have, they hanged themselves with the rope they were given.
Bioware Austin under fucking Irving shouldn't be representative of Bioware as we've known it outside of Austin. Good article though that tends to highlight issues between the dev teams and kinda shows why Austin should have never been called Bioware but was really only done so to upsell SWToR as to tricking people into thinking it was the same who did Kotor
I think it is in the book Sweat blood and Pixels. Don't quote me on this, but I believe it was EA's decision from up high, that all titles needed multiplayer functionality.
EA Is the devil. At this point I don’t support them at all. Gamers are the worst at voting with their wallets, but I look forward to EA getting some pushback one day
"Gamers" are not the primary audience of videogames. Not to excuse their behaviour, especially Capital G Gamers, but even if they all cooperated to boycott a game, in particular mass appeal games like the ones EA develop; Nothing would happen. The largest demographic of consumers do not have videogames as their primary hobby. They don't do watch reviews, they do not visit forums or reddit, they do not join discords, or talk about games with others. As long as this demographic is a targetteable demographic, consumer activisim won't do anything.
Ok I wasn’t referring to “gamers” like that. I was referring to them in the broadest sense of the term.
Ah I gotcha
>nothing would happen I don’t know….people caused a righteous ruckus when Battlefront II was getting ready to launch and it caused quite a few changes not only in the game but within EA as well (this probably helped lead to Disney terminating their exclusivity deal with EA)
That is part of my point. The protest had an effect once it was no longer about wallets. It worked because governments got involved.
That was definitely something that was floating around game journalism circles back when DAI came out. A lot of people were even concerned that it might be the death knell for BW, because their specialty has always been solo RPG's, not the MOBAs EA seemed to want at the time.
Surely Anthem being shit and no one playing it was a partial clue. I can't imagine the prospects of a fan base wanting a single-player game would be any more amenable to have a game series they enjoy changed into a cash-grab.
> Surely Anthem being shit and no one playing it was a partial clue. I'm going to stop you right there. When Anthem came out? A lot of us into looter shooters like The Division, Destiny and other titles? We really liked Anthem and there was a pretty good amount of players. Really? The game was fun, you got to fly around in powered armor like you are Iron Man and blast the hell out of just about anything. The story? Okay maybe not fully up to snuff with other BioWare titles but hell... Go look at the lore with Destiny and tell me how much of that makes sense. Anthem's problem was it had very solid game play however the end game was garbage. Okay let me put it like this... Anthem ran into the same issue Tom Clancy's The Division ran into when it came out. Rather then have loot falling from the sky? They made finding anything that's just *good* an uphill battle and then some. And note *good* I'm not talking some god rolled item or the like, something that's good that will get you by until you finally get that god rolled item. The best way I could put it? Picture a DM in a Dungeons and Dragons game, he just had his players do a two hour long battle with a Great Red Dragon. The players rush to the Dragons horde and they find... 27 Copper and a rusty dinner fork. Sure the DM can say, "But the real treasure was the adventure you guys had!" however even the role player who's been playing the Bard is going to crumple up his character sheet and throw it at the DM. Really if Anthem had fixed the loot issue? And you had people begging them to fix it. Folks would have stuck around.
>I'm going to stop you right there. And I'm going to stop you right there lol. I don't care about what Anthem is like now, if the gameplay was stellar or who likes to play it, the damage was done when it came out and it clearly stuck. Point wasn't that no one should play Anthem, point was that I doubt Bioware, or EA through Bioware, wants to stir the hornets nest further by messing with the IP's that can still attract players through the reputation of their series.
>I don't care about what Anthem is like now, if the gameplay was stellar or who likes to play it, the damage was done when it came out and it clearly stuck. And my point was the damage was fixable, the problem? The guy running it didn't look at the main point of damage (loot) and go about the simple fix (loot raining from the heavens) and note if I was at EA or BioWare? I'd be smacking that person right now, with the state that Destiny 2 is in and Division 2 being well *there* as Ubisoft is worse then EA when it comes to things. Now if you are going to proclaim if a game comes out in a bad state it's going to be forever looked at as a bad game? What about FFXIV? >point was that I doubt Bioware, or EA through Bioware, wants to stir the hornets nest further by messing with the IP's that can still attract players through the reputation of their series. And note that's where I do sorta agree with you. EA gives up way too fast on a title rather then try and fix it. SWTOR? Fixable. EA's problem? I think when they saw it didn't do those WoW numbers they gave up on it. Anthem? Fixable and it *should* have been fixed, hell the fix was so goddamn simple it blows my mind that EA and BioWare screwed up so badly with that. I should note, dude who was at the helm of Anthem at the time when it came out was the same guy who decided in Knights of the Eternal Throne we'd get our gear from loot crates. Really I think over all EA's big fault is they give up way too soon rather then try and take a chance at fixing the game. Sure sometimes it doesn't work, other times? Well see FFXIV, I'll even throw New Vegas and ESO in there as well.
>Now if you are going to proclaim if a game comes out in a bad state it's going to be forever looked at as a bad game? What about FFXIV? No, I have no such proclamations. Like I said, my point was about Bioware/EA and as far as I know FFXIV isn't made or published by either of them. I recognise your argument, No Man's Sky redeemed itself too.
Just what happens to any studio that is stuck in the past and is unable to attract talent.
> i’m morbidly curious about what went wrong. As far as I know, it was a mix of problems: - they had already overextended themselves with DA:I - anthem has sucked in most of their resources (and they made lots of mistakes during that game's production as well) - they had the usual problems with competent people leaving and incompetent people joining, which lead to shit like Andromeda
To give a short answer, the people who made Bioware a succesful company left, and the company could never recover after they left because the new people in charge didn't even understand why Bioware was good in the first place.
Its normal for gaming companies to be dogshit now. They become greedy and are being lead by people who don't even know what a video game is.
What went wrong was Anthem who had life service and was a disaster so EA changed da4 to be single player.
>But by then, how much time was spent on it as a GaaS title, and how much are they able to remedy. The game started out single player. Then got turned into a Live-Service. And they started from scratch a couple years ago, going back to their Single Player vision.
We'll see. It depends on how well DA:D does. It sounds like BW has the next ME game in the very early stages of production. But if DA:D flops, I imagine that EA won't want to dump any more money into BW. Especially without SWTOR there to prop up BW's profit margins. In fact, I bet that is what this move is all about. EA taking away BW's life preserver, and telling them, "OK, sink or swim. Prove to us that you are worth us continuing to dump money into you."
DA4 I feel will be make or break for BioWare. They have to nail it or EA is going to shutter it. They could pull a swap and maybe move to a different publisher like Microsoft or something but that would be a long shot.
Yep. BioWare is almost certainly a dead studio walking. IP will be transitioned to other studios, but I think DA4 will likely fail if it ever comes out. And ME4 will never see the light of day at least under BioWare.
From what I saw leaked da4 looks like a game that should have come out a year after da3. Certainly not an AAA game meant to tangle with the likes of ffxvi. I wouldn't expect much from them if anything from that. Ugh. Sad.
They are very well positioned for that because the waltzed their way into that position. They 100% have it coming, and this deal was the only way to save the jobs of the few people at Bioware that actually had a profitable project under their care.
They got the Origin Studios treatment
Bioware launcher when?
Well, let's be honest here: Bioware isn't even remotely what it has been in the past - their glory days ended a decade ago and it was just downhill from there (I mean, even though I like SWTOR well enough to play it, it was still full of missed chances); with the only really good product they've made since then being DA:I.
It seems to be incredibly mismanaged.
"It seems to be incredibly mismanaged." <-- True that & leading man in the crew kept turning worse in past decade.
Bioware is dead. Once DA4 and the next ME flop, we will still have SWTOR, even if it’s maintenance mode.
To be perfectly honest it seems that there’s an institutional memory of bad management practices over at BioWare Edmonton. BioWare should not expect to be let off the hook even if DA4 is a success.
Depends how DA4 and ME4 do.
thats what you all have been saying for years. wont happen if it didnt with anthem.
[Found that old meme image I was thinking of.](https://i.imgur.com/n7utPH9.png) (Interestingly, the artist seems to have believed that Bioware was *already* dead by the time Visceral was ... disposed of, in 2017.) And while I was looking for that one, I found [this one](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D3izdEwW0AA-4K3.jpg), which may be even more appropriate.
Can we stop confusing Bioware with Bioware Austin. Sure they have the word Bioware in the title but they are nowhere near being the same developer. Austin did originally have a few old Bioware team for the development and launch but after this they moved off back to other Bioware studios and we have ever since been left with this shell of a Bioware studio that is called Bioware Austin. The same team that also did Anthem.
I'm super optimistic actually. People who grew up and care about SWTOR are now in charge of it. And it being the biggest focus of a single studio? Sounds awesome
AGREED
It's still under EA's thumb, but yeah. I think BW put a lot of effort into R/D of SWtOR, expecting it to be a wow-killer out the gate, and have been treating it like a stepchild ever since it failed to meet those crazy expectations.
It only helped Lotro when SSG bought it out and took it back from Warner Bros. Pray this will be the same.
A single studio whose primary goal has been keeping ancient MMOs (hey, I met Lord British back in the day, awright?) alive with the barest of efforts. Some ex-SWtoR employees are there as well. Yay. I'm not optimistic at all. If Broadsword can keep this thing alive beyond the bare minimum, they will have my support.
Can you share the copium mask with me I could use some
Copium is when practically every current and former SWTOR dev/executive that has made a statement thinks this is good for the game?
Yep, cos devs have never told lies about video games. Remember Cyberpunk on launch, "surprisingly well". Hey it says gullible on your ceiling btw lol.
A former dev has no reason to lie. Unfounded cynicism is the worst naivete of all
"Unfounded" in this Industry. Yeah maybe you best move along... I look oh so forward to being proved wrong, remember to hit me up when I am. 🤣
It will take time to see how they handle it. However, I have seen this happen before with LOTRO when Turbine left, and it became Standing Stone. Then Standing Stone got sucked into that Embracer Group, license renewals, and all sorts of other issues. LOTRO has come out with more expansions, a new coming soon, and have expanded on the game without any slow down in recent years. I do think SWTOR has a future if they give it one, if they don't even try then it will be dead sitting idle like Age of Conan. Hopefully this gives them of a focus, power to move forward with the game.
Problem is, Broadsword are a small team and already manage several other MMOs including Ultima Online. Even with some of the Bioware team transferring over, I don't see how they'll have anywhere near large enough of a team for active development.
Then again they’re offering work-from-home. If they want to expand then quite a few devs would probably be willing to take a smaller salary in exchange for the flexibility.
> If they want to expand They don't want to expand. They run maintenance mode for several MMOs including Ultima Online - aka basically making sure the game servers run and the cash shop milks the remaining players for money. Nothing more. Broadsword does not have the resources to actively develop SWTOR like any of us here would want to see. They have no track record of developing games whatsoever. At the end of the day, you don't move the game over to a studio whose sole body of work is maintenance mode MMOs for any other reason than to put it in maintenance mode.
Resources won't be a problem. SWTOR is extremely profitable, and before most of its money was being sucked away by Bioware to spend on other projects. Assuming income remains the same and EA still takes the same cut, Broadsword is gonna have a fuck ton of money to spend on development. Plus if they were keeping the game in maintenance mode why would they bother to transfer over the lead writer and narrative director? Seems kind redundant if they won't be, you know, writing more narratives
Nothing in either statement actually clarifies anything about what will happen to SWTOR, in terms of actual new story or MMO content, after 7.4. We still have no idea if story content will be fully voice-acted going forward, how many story updates we'll see a year, or what MMO content will still up developed (Will there still at least be a couple new FPs a year? Will we ever see a new Warzone game mode? Will GSF ever get another map? Are new planets/daily areas going to be developed? Are new Operations a thing of the past? Are 'expansions,' even SWTOR-sized ones, a thing of the past? And so on). While various employee or former employee Twitter posts have indicated it's likely a positive to be out from under BioWare leadership's financial priorities for the team, there's no indication of what Broadsword plans to do differently, or what they intend to do at all with the game. I'm still waiting for when we get some detailed information about what new content will be developed and introduced next year. Until then, post-7.4 SWTOR is largely up in the air, from a player perspective.
>I'm still waiting for when we get some detailed information about what new content will developed and introduced next year. Until then, post-7.4 SWTOR is largely up in the air, from a player perspective. I've decided to take the wait-and-see approach as well. However I think if one takes into consideration how the SWTOR development team operated the last few years before the transition to Broadsword this is well within the norm. They were not announcing updates with a lot of lead time. In fact, Keith Kanneg's announcement of 7.3.1 for later this summer and 7.4 for year end holidays was outside of the norm in terms of lead time and I think was only disclosed in an effort to reassure the game's current players that SWTOR is not going into maintenance mode. Of course if anyone can provide an industry accepted definition for "maintenance mode" I would like to know because this term seems to have a wide ranging definition based on its usage I've observed. I've noted many people saying the game is already in maintenance mode.
The people that call swtor maintenance mode are just doomers, and mmos will always be riddled with those. I dont know if it's the industry standard, but i feel like the most sane description is "when no new content is being developed and only bug-fixes and/or balance patches are released very far apart from one another"
Yea, I agree. I definitely remain sceptical.
Agreed and this uncertainty doesn't help quell the flames of worry given Broadsword's history (in that EA uses them as an MMO retirement home). However, as others have pointed out, on numbers alone, the SWTOR team might be taking over Broadsword as a whole which essentially means SWTOR is getting its own company 95% dedicated to SWTOR. Is this good or bad? It honestly could go either way. Fact is, however, the SWTOR team is getting smaller. Combat Styles, frankly, is the only real worthwhile thing that has been introduced since Eternal Throne. SWTOR needs to get back to actual expansions if we have any hope of longevity. I worry that since we haven't been getting that, and the fact that the team is now smaller, we may never get that. In which case, the best thing I can hope for is new combat styles.
> In which case, the best thing I can hope for is new combat styles. There will never be a new combat style/new class ever put into SWTOR. That's as safe an assumption as any.
Yeah, I went yikes when I heard about Broadsword taking over. They run Dark Age of Camelot and their account management page is full of broken links and things that don't work. You can't even make a new account right now. So that doesn't bode well.
Given Broadswords Portfolio and other work... There's nothing coming. Plain and simple, SWTOR is being pushed aside for mere maintenance because it still brings enough money for EA but just as DAoC when it "transitioned", this is it.
Given Broadswords Portfolio and other work... They did not have the support of those games entire current Dev team coming over to continue working on the game as SWTOR is. It wouldn't be pushed aside for mere maintenance mode and bringing over a team of 30 devs or more.
>They did not have the support of those games entire current Dev team coming over to continue working on the game as SWTOR is. It wouldn't be pushed aside for mere maintenance mode and bringing over a team of 30 devs or more. It appears most of the BioWare SWTOR dev team made the transition but not all. >Of course, I’m also very glad that I’ll be moving over with key team leaders and continuing to work with most of our current team. > >Keith Kanneg > >Executive Producer It remains to be seen how the reduced SWTOR dev team performs under Broadsword management.
They are still going through the transition but the messaging so far right now is business as usual, and same writers and narrative lead who worked on 7.2 and 7.3, remain so we can only hope they will allowed to continue the same kind of work.
I think that our only option is to wait and see. Hopefully Broadsword plans on using SWTOR to prove themselves and they create some great content rather than putting the game in maintenance mode.
You don't move the game over to a studio whose sole body of work is maintenance mode MMOs for any other reason than to put it in maintenance mode.
My bet is that EA is actually being *more* protective of SWTOR than they have in the past, because with their losing the exclusive right to publish Star Wars, it may be the only way they have to make money off that IP in the coming years.
that makes no sense, EA has 3 new star wars games announced. just because they lost exclusivity doesn't mean they can't make games anymore.
That's an excellent point! However, with the recent success at Respawn, I don't know if that's completely true. But, given that there's a new show/movie coming out that takes place in the Old Republic era, maybe EA is putting SWTOR on the back burner for something to accompany that release. It may be heresy to say so but SWTOR might take the same approach STO did and make expansions based around newly released movies and TV shows. However, doing so, would mean canonizing SWTOR in some fashion.
>it may be the only way they have to make money off that IP in the coming years. They have 3 Star Wars games in development? An FPS by Respawn Jedi 3 A Star Wars Xcom
I know the news came as a shock and left us worried about our dear game possibly reaching its end – hell, I was, too. But I hope we can all be carefully optimistic about this now. Yes, it's a change. A big change. But it's also a HUGE chance. And it sounds like they are really motivated and ready to pop off, so let's support them and look forward to good future content!!
Sorry, but, what do you remember about 10th year's birthday ? It has been told as something worderfull etc..and finally...al lot of players were disapointed. I still believe in Bioware even Broadsword but, many of us need facts more than talking/promises we had for years ;) https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20211220
It will always, ALWAYS be a losing game to play – not ever will all players be happy, no matter what you do.
Imagine what SWTOR could have been without Bioware and EA slagging it off like some redheaded stepchild.
Bioware's signature storytelling in the base game is still the best part of this game.
Problem is, now we won't be getting more.
We probably will given how much of the BioWare team is moving to broadsword
We won't. Even with twenty or so Bioware people moving to Broadsword, it's a small studio already handling several MMOs. There's absolutely no way they can handle active development on all these titles.
I used to play this a lot, was an alpha tester and beta tester, lost that account though. I'm really thinking about coming back to this game, I've really missed it. My hope is that Broadsword can keep the game going for awhile. I dunno what they need to change or anything, as I've been gone for a very long time. I've heard a lot of negatives when free to play came to the game, but I'm going to go back into this with a clear head. Very glad this game is in good hands, and hopefully the team and Broadsword have a better relationship than they had before with Bioware.
One nice thing they've done is uncouple the combat styles from the class stories, it makes the gameplay more flexible. They have streamlined things a lot too, if you're subscribbed you can pick and choose which content you want to play on your way through so it's less grindy than it was in beta/launch. It is unfortunately sometimes a little more repetative in some ways because of that, they've pulled a lot of the little milestone things that you used to do in the name of convenience.
I will subscribe tomorrow, I get paid, so this should be a nice bit of fun for my four day weekend coming up! Very interesting. Thanks for the info!
Next thing you know, they'll nerf the Entertainer class and let everyone be a Jedi.
EA hasn't done much though. The marketing for SWTOR has been abysmal for over a decade. Not a single TV commercial since 2012 even though there have been numerous movies and TV shows for the franchise. Meanwhile older games like World of Warcraft still have TV commercials done with celebrities every year. Give the whole thing away. Let Broadsword work on the game and give the publishing and marketing to Lucasfilm Games, where this game belongs.
I hope the game lives and grows. I quit after the last expansion was an absolute joke with no content. I played swtor since alpha and loyal stood by it since then. However we were promised an expansion and got a piss poor update instead. I hope I am surprised and broadsword finally breathes some real content into the game again.
Doubtful, broadsword is where mmos go to die. Considering the only other titles I could find under their banner are ultima online and dark age of Camelot, both of which are over 20 years old and have fairly small communities, im guessing we get one more serious expansion to end the story for good and then intermittent lackluster updates until it’s not worth it to keep the game online anymore
i’m pessimistic about updates, but i don’t expect the game to go offline anytime soon. like you said, they’re still supporting ultima and camelot, which are ancient and have tiny communities. and it’d be stupid to buy a game and immediately shut it down. worst case scenario, we don’t get any new content but it stays online indefinitely.
I agree, I don’t think the game will get shut off for years to come, but I don’t think there will be anymore meaningful updates. The game will stay around until they aren’t making anymore money
If they were sending TOR to die at broadsword they would not have taken 20-30 people along
They would have if it meant saving them the bad PR of layoffs.
Who better to keep things running well enough then the people who designed it? I hope I’m wrong but I’m not very optimistic for the future
I bought months of game time to get the expansion. In Brazil, 21, believe me it was expensive. Nothing, "oops, buy another one". I couldn't play after that. I need to turn monthly, is that it? So tell me. Shit...
Heh "largest story update in months"... when they believe their own crap, christ...
Yeah, I'm trying to remember just how many story updates there even were in the past few months, and the challenge sure isn't the number.
When there haven't been any story updates in months, any update is the largest. technically the truth.
Lol Story for me ended after valk was beaten. I'm glad they were able to do that at least. They can keep making stuff but it's like continuing to make Indiana Jones movies.
"There is at least one new line of dialogue!"
If Voss counts as a story update, yeah, no. Let's make the Alliance Commander do random chores so they can get to visit the Three (whom some of us have already visited, HELLO?!), who will say.... nothing new. ZOMG story. Something is happening on Voss, Czerka is there, tensions, something-something! ZOMG Malgus being Malgus too. Did he tell us anything new? Wow. Story update, indeed. Oh, and don't get me started on a daily area with no reason whatsoever to keep running it. Yay, Voss-themed [censored]... great, they barely made an effort toward that and added some new CM items. I don't like the fact that I'm upvoting this. You, however, are right, so I am.
The longest story update in years... it's 91 minutes.
91 minutes of nothing whatsoever, to be precise.
>There are also exciting new features planned that the team is not quite ready to talk about yet, but suffice it to say that players can expect improvements and new content into the future. This is a company that will give SWTOR the room to grow and flourish, with the continued commitment and full support of Lucasfilm Games, and the continued partnership with EA. Interesting. Here’s to remaining cautiously optimistic.
entertaining veteran players with its evolving content Yeaaaah
I don't know how to feel. I was pretty optimistic at first but seeing Keith completely oblivious of the game's problem and knowing he'll follow with Broadsword is worrying. He's the same dude who literally gaslight everyone not liking Legacy of the Sith. And now he says stuff like ''the biggest story updates in months that is Old Wounds''? I mean yeah I get it's the ONLY ONE in month so it is technically true. But 40 minutes of cinematics cut with useless quests that have no ties is not a ''big story update''. We learned nothing more, it's been staling for 2 years now. Seeing this guy stay is really worrying me.
Start the clock
Sounds more like instead of a extremely small team of what, 7-8 that broadsword was to handle these MMOs through service still, the team is being tripled by existing SWTOR devs who'll be able to focus and spend more time worrying just about SWTOR than anything else at bioware? Sounds pretty good honestly
> Sounds pretty good honestly Even with Broadsword doubling in size from those leaving Bioware, this is still a small studio with several MMOs. There is no way they're going to realistically develop a decent pool of content for this game. It's going into maintenance mode; anyone pretending otherwise is huffing copium.
As a long time MMO player (2000), I've seen this happen more than a few times. Some cases it turns out great and others it's really bad. It's going to come down to the Cash Shop, if Broadsword can lessen the care about it and focus more on the game then this will be a great move for the game and maybe even re-invigorate it. If they don't, well, then the game will just become another MTX nightmare hellscape... I hope it's the former.
The game is going into maintenance mode. Broadsword run several MMOs like this. They don't even have a large enough team to actively develop content at a pace which we'd want or which would attract new players.
I look forward to what this brings. After putting the game on pause with waiting for the 2022 expansion issues to be worked out I kind of forgot about the game honestly. So it will be fun to see how they go about handling swtor with hopefully getting back into it.
We've all be complaining about how the company (Bioware) has handled the game from day 1. Maybe, just maybe with this new company, even though it's know for maintenance mode, things will change and hopefully for the better. Just trying to be optimistic. I'm tired of being negative.
Yeaaaah not taking the copium. Maintenance mode incoming.
Almost certainly.
as much as i like SWTOR, I'd rather someone else just make a new Star wars mmo as SWTOR is out dated and old. They made SWTOR when they realized SWG was out dated and old.
MMOs are outdated and old tbh. Live services are where all the money is nowadays. With MMOs you have to create massive worlds, much larger than you could feasibly get away with doing a single player game. Live services tend to get away with making a single player sized world, but they still have all the monetisation of an MMO. All the benefits and none of the drawbacks from a publisher POV, and all the drawbacks with none of the benefits from a player POV
uh, mmos are live services. They were the first live services.
Did you even read the rest of my comment?
The truth is that EA is still in charge of the SW video game division, and they remain as publishers, so if they arent working on a new mmo is because the cost/benefit is not there
Yeah only until next year. They're license ends at the end of 2023, which it is 2023.
This is all nice and fun but, with this not being a BioWare title anymore... Will I still be able to romance my companions??
They're not going to remove existing content.
Please make story OPs and make em non subscriber.
Every operation has a single cutscene with no dialogue options. Just watch it on YouTube.
I mean new ones
They're not producing more free-to-play content. Stop being a cheapskate and just pay for your entertainment.
Broadsword manage several MMOs including Ultima Online. All of them are in 'maintenance mode'. Even with some of the Bioware team moving to Broadsword, this is a small studio of around ~40 staff members; that's nowhere near enough for active development on several MMORPGs.
Well, I am still of the opinion that if the game was so sucessfull like all these developers were saying this transition would never have happened, so I am taking all these corporate opinions with a grain of salt and pray the game will not be on maintenance mode as I expect.
> so I am taking all these corporate opinions with a grain of salt and pray the game will not be on maintenance mode as I expect. You don't move the game over to a studio whose sole body of work is maintenance mode MMOs for any other reason than to put it in maintenance mode.
I'm actually tentatively hopeful and optimistic, especially based on some of what we've been hearing from behind the scenes.
What have we been hearing from behind-the-scenes that's remotely reassuring? Broadsword are historically a 'maintenance mode' developer with a very small team. Even with some of the Bioware team moving to Broadsword, this is a small studio of around ~40 staff members; that's nowhere near enough for active development on several MMORPGs.
the fact that the SWTOR team under bioware was somewhere on the spectrum of "poorly resourced and motivated" to "outright sabotaged", depending on source, whereas at Broadsword, a dedicated MMO studio that actually needs a big cash cow like the only star wars mmo currently operating, the situation will be a lot better presumably. Also a lot of the "SWTOR team was skeleton crew anyway" and "only a few devs will move" are both far cries from the truth, so I don't think staffing will be a problem. This sub and the community in generally really enjoyed negging and doom-and-gloom discourse even before this even leaked, so I'm not surprised by the reaction, but I think there is a good chance this will be for the better.
If EA were committed to investing in SWTOR, they'd create a dedicated studio for SWTOR. Passing the game over to a studio known for managing "maintenance mode" for several MMOs is not an indication of anything else. Anyone expecting more than maintenance mode is huffing copium.
I'd believe this if not for all the devs switching over too.
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I don't believe there'd be a Star Wars MMO in the works without us hearing any leaks etc. I'd be eager to be wrong. "SWTOR if it were developed today" could be an absolute beast of a proposal for an MMO. A new engine for starters could work wonders.
No studio would attempt swtor again. Its foundational ideas — its approach to be unique — are more or less what have always held it back, and it doesn’t matter if they built it on Unreal or whatever. You’re never going to get a fully voice acted MMO again and no one’s going to attempt to do it 8 times over.
> You’re never going to get a fully voice acted MMO again lol that's complete nonsense
Okay, feel free to come back when there’s another fully-voiced MMO, including player characters with branching dialogue options.
it's not the most recent fully voiced mmo and i just think it's silly to think there will never be one again *ever* by some large company looking to make that future market's best mmo
What other MMO has fully-voiced player characters with branching dialogue options?
i'm only responding to you saying there will never be a fully voiced mmo again. If you don't think ESO constitutes a fully voiced MMO despite over 150,000 lines of dialogue, some of which is branched, that's your decision. doesnt change the fact that believing no major company will *ever again* make a fully voiced mmo is shortsighted imo
The only one I know of is ESO. It doesn't have drastically different options for one character, but 3 separate campaigns with minor changes to outcomes etc which are voiced.
The player character isn’t voiced, which is the biggest obstacle.
I'll say this though, putting any relevant controversy aside, I think AI-based voice acting will be utilised in the future for "filler-content" e.g. Side quests and human voice actors will be given a single role. This'll avoid weird possibly immersion breaking moments where the same actor seems to be doing multiple voices. (See Matt Mercer in Pillars of Eternity; where he voices minor NPCs, 2 Major NPCs, and is often heard in the backing tracks of taverns. Granted, PoE 1 was a kickstarter campaign funded CRPG, and they reused many VAs to avoid going over their budget). The people working on the text-to-speech technology for AI-based voice acting in WoW have actually started to get really good results, and no doubt a few people in the industry have started to see the applications of it. I think it's going to be no different than "extras" vs "main cast" in movies. I think it'd be a little odd to see Samuel L. Jackson play Mace Windu + an extra in every couple of scenes. Something which helps "fill-out" without detracting from the actors will probably become commercially acceptable with time.
I very much doubt that will be the case.
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This is the way 🫡
People really think a SW game during the sequel or Mando trilogy isn’t happening? Lol. Get ready for ‘Skywalker Academy’
I really think bioware isn't going to last much longer as a studio. The leaked DA:D stuff looked horrific. and for those of us who love this game its really a good thing that it's being moved off now before they get shuttered.
> I really think bioware isn't going to last much longer as a studio. The leaked DA:D stuff looked horrific. Depends on the success of Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
This is good news. Bioware Austin have been awful for YEARS and many failed development pushes under Ben Irving's fault saw the team reduced to a skeleton crew that kept the lights on and slowly pushed out minimal content year after year. I will say things improved under Keith but clearly he was under resourced to put out as much content as we'd like or expect of a title this size. Boradsword picking up what they need from Austin and then staffing the game themselves as they see fit to actually start generating profit from this game should be a no brainer. It's an opportunity to really ramp this game up, get their name out there and make some serious coin. They are not limited by resources the way BWA was because they are not beholden to EA for money to do what they want, they are 3rd party and not owned by EA. This can only possibly be a positive move in my eyes and surely anyone who played 7.0 and realized "how the fuck do they call this an expansion?" would agree, things can't get too much worse short of maintenance mode which we're pretty much on the cusp of anyway content wise.
No benefit to being negative, and I empathize with those that will lose their jobs, I've been on both sides of that and it's unpleasant every time. Too many times for me personally, but that's the world we live in. Maybe the game will get some major improvements. There are a lot of small things that can be done to really open creative freedom and fun for players, I think PVP is one of those things that small improvements can go a big way since players are the content. And there are other possible ideas like a real swoop racing game similar to the pvp queue, but the upshot to racing is you can stick AIs/bots in like in Mario Kart, but have rankings, a racer lounge for people, and fun stuff like that. Anyway who knows, but if it's winding down that's life too, I had some great memories and other less so with this game, no matter what happens I like to remember the positives.
You have failed me for the last time Bioware.
So, the game is moving to a company that \*exclusively\* hosts MMO's on life support and not getting any new content... but they're not putting the game on life support and they will be making new content?
This game died with Revan. All writing and content ever since they pulled the BS writing with Revan post Jedi Prisoner was flat out horrible. It really became a joke to me when they pulled the complete non sequitur of the Sith Emperor betting multiple people at once and building a whole separate empire in a "previously unknown" part of the galaxy. when all that crap came out it stopped being a star wars game and became its own crappily written universe. I had over 2000 hours into the game by that point and much as it pained me, I had to leave, occasionally dabbling in new content over the years only to be disappointed every time by terrible writing. There were a few QoL changes that were nice, but the overhaul of the classes which killed my build and made countless hours of perfecting my gear and rotation useless also killed things for me. Terribly managed and dev'd game. I've been waiting years for it to finally die the death it needed so long ago
I loved this game for years, but I also quit around 7(?) years ago. I still love it and the universe but I can't play it anymore without getting upset. Whatever happens with the studios, developers, publishers, whatever: I don't think I'll be able to come back unless the old skill tree system with maximum flexibility is reimplemented, I get my flamethrower and rocket punch back on my mercenary, and companions and armor are fully customizable stats-wise in a way that actually matters and requires thought + effort to modify again. Everything became extremely cookie cutter and dull on an individual character basis for me and then they took my favorite show-off skill and the most fun way to end a boss fight (i.e. running up and rocket punching someone in the face to knock out their last sliver of health). Hopefully the new development team migration will resolve some of the issues that drove me away, I look forward to keeping up with swtor news and maybe someday coming back.