SWTOR Launch Date Confirmed!

Kiith

You can't give out about EA for making their name on franchises/sequels though. That's how most of the big publishers do it. They have their franchise/money maker, and then they will invest in other smaller titles...which is exactly what EA do. I'm not their number 1 fan at all, and they had a long period of being the 'devils' of gaming, but they've improved significantly over the last few years.

At the end of the day, they are a business. If their developers are not meeting their targets, they have to eventually say enough is enough. Sucks to get a game pushed out early, but it's always going to happen. And there's nothing to say that this is what's happening with The Old Republic.

I'm defending EA? What is this, bizarro land?

Shiminay

I believe the initial plans were a Q1 2011 release, so we're talking about 10ish months of extra dev time that's gone into it.

nix

How have they improved?

They whore out sequels way before they have to, before the game is even dated, and they add very very little to their sequels. The only reason they do this is to make a ****load of cash. They don't let any of their games grow in terms of competitive/community, which is what online PC gaming is all about (or used to be).

If they only did it with a few of their games i wouldn't mind, but they do it with ALL of there games, not one excluded.

Except "Ultima online" which lets face it, is so dated it costs nothing to run and they get bragging rights on what im predicting is thee oldest online MMO still going..

Apologies for derailing thread, ill stop..

December 22nd, yeah wooooooo !

ZeitgeistGlee

As far as I remember the game was actually aimed for release in mid 2010, before BioWare decided to completely redo the Jedi classes (including storyline aspects) and several other major elements of the game.

@Doc Lucky you mate, I've got a feeling your loot drops would be enviable. :P

Shiminay

You're raising a pretty valid point nix, there's very little new IP from EA, but there's very little new IP from anyone outside of the indie scene which is very disappointing.

Look at all the major AAA releases this season: Deus Ex, Skyrim, Arkham City, MW3, Assassins Creed, Demon Souls, BF3, Saints Row 3 - all are sequels. It's a trend at the moment when times are tough and it's difficult to justify millions of dollars on a new project that may not perform. You also get a new EA sports game for every title they have every year when the updates could just as easily be DLC or gods forbid, free!

However, given that Star Wars Galaxies was such a flop and knowing that, as you said, if it's not as good as WoW on day one, this will flop, all parties concerned are absolutely committed to making this work, so I don't think it's fair to say that EA are pushing some sort of "greed" based agenda other than "OK guys, we're way over time here, we have to get it out the door as people are getting impatient and it's starting to cost us a lot of money." They're already employing 200 support staff in Ireland where wages are quite high and who aren't really doing any work (they are supporting people on Beta they told me) and so are a giant money sink. That's not an unreasonable way of looking at it, big and rich as EA are, we're talking about a lot of zeros - this is big business and the ability to earn money means the ability to make more games.

nix

Ah i know stuff like that costs money, but they could have saved money by not jumping the gun so soon, atleast wait until beta is over and wait for a thumbs up from the devs before you start setting up customer support centers and making jobs with no work until release.

Careful planning, instead of rushed planning.

A December 22nd release date sounds like a "lets rush it out for Christmas", from the bits and pieces ive been reading, it wont be ready come Dec 22nd. And its gonna be a very **** Christmas for alot of their employees.

But ill hold off judging until the week after release, im just saying with EA's trend, its likely gonna get fooked.

Raphael

Nah, this game's not being rushed out - this has been the window for a while now, ever since it slipped the spring release. Having played it (granted, for only 20 minutes PvE and 15 minutes PvP) it's more or less done, and the beta atm is ironing out bugs and balance, plus stress testing serverside software.

Frankly, while I'm far from EAs biggest fan, their enormous vats of money have made The Old Republic a way better game than it would have been without it - stuff like the full voicing, or the ridiculously extended development period - things like these need a huge amount of capital, which EA can, and did provide. They're not gonna rush it out for a christmas release, because box sales are meaningless for an MMO. And, from what I've heard about this games budget, box sales will never make back their investment.

What EA want is to sell subs, not boxes. And selling subs is best served by letting Bioware make the best game possible, and releasing it when it's done. Which, I'm pretty confident, is what has happened.

nix

Ok but ill remain skeptical and shifty eyed at EA >_>

Why did they rush out Warhammer online if that's the case though?

Venom

nix wrote: »

Ok but ill remain skeptical and shifty eyed at EA >_>

Why did they rush out Warhammer online if that's the case though?

Maybe because Warhammer was a piece of crap that was more hype than gameplay and at some stage the product either ships or becomes another Duke Nukem.

ZeitgeistGlee

If I recall correctly it to try to capitalise on the market before Blizzard released the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Obviously time has shown how much of a backfire that was.

I actually think SWTOR's protracted development schedule has been in direct contrast to what happened with WAR. EA pushed WAR out at least six months too early with too many key features missing and promises broken, then spent two years trying to undo the damage with little success. Now with SWTOR BioWare seem intent on polishing it to the nines before being willing to release. EA seem to be have learned from their mistakes.

Personally I think BioWare have been as playing a dangerous a game with release as Mythic did. Mythic released too early and fans with disappointed with the half-complete nature of the game despite all the hype Mark Jacobs built up. By comparison the hype around TOR which has been present for so long, and indeed reached fever-pitch at several points has been dying off in the face of constant delays and BioWare's treatment of the fanbase with regard to Red/Green Zones, beta and just general communicativeness.

Ironically BioWare could release the game only to find response it that aside from full-voicing it does nothing new or particularly interesting in the face of better looking and more innovative competition (GW2 comes to mind). I genuinely hope that SWTOR knocks the socks off everything it comes up against but I'm no longer certain it'll be an automatic winner outside of a massive launch.