Bioware Insists that Star Wars: The Old Republic has a Bright Future

[T0@st]

A BioWare Austin developer is openly discussing the transfer of their long-running "Star Wars: The Old Republic" MMORPG to an external studio—games news sites picked up on insider information earlier this month alleging that the studio and its parent company (EA) were holding meetings with Broadsword Online Games. An EA spokesperson responded to the leak (at the time) and explained: "We're evaluating how we give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve, which includes conversations with Broadsword, a boutique studio that specializes in delivering online, community-driven experiences. Our goal is to do what is best for the game and its players." It seems that the involved parties have agreed upon terms for "handing off" responsibilities, according to a developer's recent declarations.

Keith Kanneg - the Executive producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) - has this week provided a comprehensive update about future plans on the game's discussion board: "Appreciate your patience with us as we continue to navigate the future shift of SWTOR's development team to a third party studio. We're working through the changes right now so I'll share with you the details I have. With 7.3 now live, our priority is continuing to prepare for Game Updates 7.3.1 and 7.4 along with planning for 2024 and 2025 with a focus on content and continued modernization initiatives." It is interesting that Broadsword is not named or directly referred to.




He produced a mini FAQ session - presumably in response to community debates - and acknowledges that his team is moving out of the BioWare office: "We are already a remote team with staff working from home throughout the US and beyond. That said, our physical presence will still be remaining in Austin and we will be securing a new office space here." Kanneg addresses whether SWTOR is getting scaled back into a maintenance mode: "Absolutely not. As I've said before, we are working on future plans including more story and modernization initiatives for the game. We've upgraded the game to 64-bit, and are working on moving the servers to the cloud, and there are more content and tech updates on the way. Moving to a third party studio would allow us a lot of creative freedom, and we're very much looking forward to the opportunities that will be open to us." EA will remain involved in a limited capacity: "Similar to what we have said a few times now, it means nothing changes. The SWTOR team continues to be in control of the development and direction of the game with EA providing publishing and player support."


Kanneg emphasized that upgrades made to technical underpinnings will improve the game's health in the future: "We will have to reassess timelines, but we have every intention of moving forward with migrating our servers over to the cloud. We are also continuing with our evaluation regarding the APAC server as well." He signs off: "To close, I know that when something like this happens it can bring on feelings of doom and gloom. This isn't the beginning of the end, this truly is a new beginning for us. As you can imagine there are quite a few moving parts right now but we have a lot to talk about in our future. You can expect 7.3.1 towards the end of the summer, with the story continuing in 7.4 on its heels as we enter the holidays. Also on the tech side, we are working on further updates such as improved integrations with Steam and updating to DirectX 12. We'll start talking about all of this and more in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Game Update 7.3 is now live, and I'll be right in there with all of you going through the new story and Flashpoint on all my characters. Thanks for your patience with this, everyone. You'll be hearing from us again soon."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[FreedomEclipse]

If there is anything I have learnt is that whenever EA has to say something along the lines of "Trust us bro". Im ready to throw a cute fuzzy little kitten at the picture of 'hit x to doubt' button that I have hanging on the wall without even needing to or waiting to hear the rest of whatever EA need to say.

And I can highly recommend that other people do the same....except with no cute kittens...because that would be quite a catastrophe.

But i digress... Approach with extreme caution and have a dumpster of salt that you could just flip all over the floor when it comes to EA.

 

[ZoneDymo]

yeah ok sure

 

[sethmatrix7]

Had a lot of fun on this game at one point

 

[R-T-B]

Had a lot of fun on this game at one point

Same, but more due to the facts my friends played it than the game if I am being honest.

 

[dirtyferret]

yes, just like when one significant other says to another "you have a bright future but I think we should see other people" is a true sign of a rock solid relationship. Maybe EA should simply come out and say "It's now SW:ToR, it's us"

 

[NC37]

The game is in better hands if it is not in control by EA or Bioware who ran it into the ground. Biggest reasons TOR has failed:

-Refusal to listen to the community and ignored it for 6+ months before even realizing there was critical flaws which the community reported
-Greed which directed attention from endgame and healthy game environment to profiteering off casuals with more money than brains
-Dumbing down content to make it more "accessible" to a comatose chimp
-Bringing in a 10yr old to write stories where everything always explodes
-Unable to have any clear long term story focus outside of bringing back slain villains to kill again and rehashing the same base plot structure
-Insert about a dozen other issues here

But mostly the most important one:

-COPIED EVERY STUPID AND TERRIBLE DECISION BLIZZARD MADE AFTER LICHKING WHICH CHASED AWAY THE LONG TIME PLAYERBASE TO THE POINT THEY HAVE NEVER COMPLETELY RECOVERED

How to save TOR:

-Return it to pre-Cartel market game and forget the rest of it even existed. Restart the story from there, then don't ascribe to moronism.

Though I do have to appreciate one thing. TOR effectively retired me from MMOing and I found such a disgust for MMOs as a whole that I'll likely never play them again and thus have more time to do more meaningful things in life.

 

[LabRat 891]

I give it a year before they shutdown TOR's servers and wrap the studio into another, or just fire them all.

we miss you, Origin, Westwood.

we miss who you used to be, DICE, Bioware.

we will never trust a word EA says, ever.

 

[cbb]

Lol, yeah, nothing says "dead game walking" better than this! handoff to someone else and corpos insist it has a long & bright future?? Might as well grab the shovels and start tossing dirt on the coffin now. Tbf, I haven't played it in years, some changes lost my interest, although the oldest/early parts are still kinda fun (i.e. start a new sith toon, hear Paul Darrow (Kerr Avon)'s voice again). Nice responsive client, good initial stories...usual corp chasing profits down the usual trail tho.

Honestly, the headline almost reads like something from The Onion.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I was a die hard fan of SWTOR when it was released, and I enjoy playing it tremendously, however, after 15 years, I cannot take seriously that outdated, 20 years old cartoonish graphics, cheesy and non believable story lines, outdated gameplay and specially the bloated interface that look almost as worst as a Japanese website. Almost.

 

[Vayra86]

.....aaaand its gone