Star Wars: The Old Republic will kill WoW - outsourced to Broadsword

[Major_Blackhart]

Hmm. This thread is 12 years old. Honestly, I'm just surprised this game lasted as long as it did.

 

[Zariusz]

Hmm... maybe i should finally finish my Imperial Agent character, looking at this now and on that pathetic Legacy Of The Sith scam expansion makes me think that this game doesn't have many days left on this world. Maybe i will even try to extract my Sith Warrior model so i could use it in Jedi Academy like i saw on some videos, though i have no knowledge of Blender lol.

 

[Crispy]

how dated it felt

Back to LoTRO, I go.

 

[leuMOX]

how dated it felt

Back to LoTRO, I go.

LoTRO feels modern!
Hmmm, or maybe I should say, "LoTRO feels modern in comparison to SWTOR"

 

[Rahdulan]

Rusty on suicide watch:
https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republic-development-third-party-bioware

Star Wars: The Old Republic Going Third-Party as BioWare Focuses on Mass Effect and Dragon Age​

It's preparing to be taken over by Broadsword Online.​

BY REBEKAH VALENTINE

UPDATED: JUN 6, 2023 4:05 PM

POSTED: JUN 6, 2023 3:00 PM

EA is nearing an agreement to move the ongoing development and operation of MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic from BioWare to third-party studio Broadsword Online Games, IGN has learned.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Broadsword and EA have signed a letter of intent, with the deal expected to be finalized as soon as this month. The agreement would see The Old Republic handed over to current Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot developer Broadsword Online, which is run by former Mythic Entertainment co-founder and BioWare VP Rob Denton, who previously worked on The Old Republic in its early days.
After the publication of this story, EA addressed the news in the following statement:
“Almost 12 years after launch, Star Wars: The Old Republic remains a success and continues to grow its dedicated and passionate community. We’re so proud of the work the team has done, and the future of the game and the community continues to be very bright. 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.”
Currently, roughly 70-80 people are part of the core development team of The Old Republic, more than half of whom are expected to move to Broadsword. Those remaining with EA would have an opportunity to look for roles elsewhere within the company, but may otherwise face layoffs.
The Old Republic will continue to see planned content updates, such as the upcoming patch 7.3 and the next PvP season, with more expected down the line. EA will remain as the game's publisher, while BioWare will focus its resources on single-player games such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The two series announced new games in 2018 and 2020, respectively, but details for both have been scarce ever since and Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in particular seems to be suffering from an exodus of senior leadership. Its QA workers voted to unionize last year
STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC IS LEAVING BIOWARE. IMAGE SOURCE: IGN.

A new hope​

The Old Republic was first launched in December of 2011, and IGN gave it a 9/10 in our review at the time. It was initially released as a subscription game but was converted within the first year to free-to-play after a steep subscription drop-off, and has remained that way ever since to steady success.
The Old Republic is still being updated regularly, with numerous expansions over the last decade, and while it never quite reached the heights of competitor World of Warcraft, it did achieve nearly $1 billion in lifetime revenue as of 2019. Last year, its creative director Charles Boyd left the company after 16 years.
The Old Republic remains a popular period within the Star Wars universe, with Lucasfilm acknowledging it as a potential setting for future movies and shows. A remake of the original Knights of the Old Republic is currently in development, but its status is unknown after being delayed indefinitely.
One way or another, the Old Republic is on the cusp of a new era.

In case we needed official confirmation of life support.

 

[Infinitron]

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/930077-follow-up-on-swtor-development-update/

Hi all,

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.

We also want to address some of the common questions we are seeing.

What’s changing for players after this shift happens?

For all of you, not much is changing at all. Players will continue playing the game and swtor.com and the forums will continue to remain online and a source for players to get news and updates. Support for SWTOR will remain unchanged and players can continue to utilize the EA Support Page or in-game tools for assistance.

Will the SWTOR development team be moving out of Austin?

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.

Is the game heading into 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.

What’s going to happen to my account? My Cartel Coins?

Nothing will change on this front. Everything will remain the same with your in-game accounts and any purchases you make.

What does EA remaining the publisher on record mean for the game?

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.

What will happen to moving servers to the cloud?

That is still happening. 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.



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.

-Keith


Note: We will be locking this thread to keep any informational updates in one place, but you all are free to continue discussion in the original update thread.

 

[ind33d]

i'm actually concerned about SWTOR getting shut down, it would be hilarious if the only good content bioware has made in the last fifteen years becomes inaccessible like destiny 2

 

[Infinitron]

End of an era: https://blog.bioware.com/2023/06/27/bright-future-for-swtor/

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, 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

 

[Rahdulan]

Some PTS changes under the new management so far mainly to combat in-game inflation.
https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929143-73-credit-economy-initiative-updates-and-the-gtn/
https://forums.swtor.com/topic/930929-731-credit-economy-initiative-update/#comment-9775348

When we open up 7.3 content on the PTS, players will be able to see the following adjustments:

• We’re retiring the Tax Evasion Guild Perk, it will no longer be available in future rotations.
• Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.
• Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.
• Many items will have adjusted Vendor sale values.

These changes are largely motivated around reducing GTN tax avoidance and adjusting credit inflow from item sales. However we’ve got a suite of changes that rely on these coming in our next phase, which I am going to reveal a little bit earlier as there will be further adjustments to these numbers as a result.

We’re actively exploring a complete overhaul of our Galactic Trade Network system! This will include a lot of things I cannot talk about yet as they will come after 7.3 but am very excited to reveal soon. Make sure you check out our livestream on May 3rd at 1pm CT / 6pm UTC and follow here on the forums for more information as we get closer.

When this overhaul happens we’re going to be converting the GTN Commission Fee to a Progressive Tax starting lower than our current fees but reaching a higher threshold than our current fees. The exact numbers will be released at a later time, but the Transaction Fees implemented in Secure Trade, Mail, and COD are a flat tax meant to mirror the highest bracket in the GTN to encourage using the network. Whenever Taxes are updated in the GTN those changes will be applied accordingly here as well.

When 7.3.1 is live you will see the following:

• Quick Travel costs will now take into account your player level. This is largely to help players at lower levels.
  • The maximum cost matches our current maximum around level 35.
  • The minimum cost matches our current minimum around level 17.
  • The cost per distance matches our current cost at level 80.
• Trade and Mail fees are now driven off of the Galactic Trade Network Median Sales Data
  • This means that these will be based on the server and the specific sales on that server, this data already exists within the game so it's not a clean slate.
  • Select items have their fees removed (the previously changed consumable gameplay items and a list of over 3000 lower value items that were traded regularly on the GTN since 7.3). We may make continued adjustments here in the future.
  • Items that have not been traded on the GTN may not have a fee until they have been traded for some time. This enables the game to determine the appropriate fee value.
• The Galactic Trade Network Buyout Price Limit has been increased from 1,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000.
  • This is to allow trade of higher value items.
  • Additional changes to the GTN will come in future patches.

 

[warralek]

Reinstalled SWTOR yesterday to see if everything is ok with my account after Darth Malgus server change to cloud.

At first I really thought SWTOR is going to full maintenance mode, already small dev team got even smaller and being transferred to Broadsword (game was already in semi-maintenance mode after KOTET flop), but after more Bioware layoffs I'm getting a feeling Bioware is done and SWTOR actually may survive and outlive Bioware. DA:D may be the last Bioware game we see (at least under EA ownership), I wouldn't be surprised new Mass Effect getting transferred to some other studio.

As for SWTOR I was surprised to read Keith post where he said we can expect DX12 in 2024 ... will that mean some better performance and finally some big pvp object-oriented battles (like old Ilum) or just they gonna slap DX12 as marketing trick ... we will see but I'm pretty sure we will continue to get some small expansions every two years or so.

 

[Calovar]

Some PTS changes under the new management so far mainly to combat in-game inflation.
https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929143-73-credit-economy-initiative-updates-and-the-gtn/
https://forums.swtor.com/topic/930929-731-credit-economy-initiative-update/#comment-9775348

When we open up 7.3 content on the PTS, players will be able to see the following adjustments:

• We’re retiring the Tax Evasion Guild Perk, it will no longer be available in future rotations.
• Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.
• Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.
• Many items will have adjusted Vendor sale values.

These changes are largely motivated around reducing GTN tax avoidance and adjusting credit inflow from item sales. However we’ve got a suite of changes that rely on these coming in our next phase, which I am going to reveal a little bit earlier as there will be further adjustments to these numbers as a result.

We’re actively exploring a complete overhaul of our Galactic Trade Network system! This will include a lot of things I cannot talk about yet as they will come after 7.3 but am very excited to reveal soon. Make sure you check out our livestream on May 3rd at 1pm CT / 6pm UTC and follow here on the forums for more information as we get closer.

When this overhaul happens we’re going to be converting the GTN Commission Fee to a Progressive Tax starting lower than our current fees but reaching a higher threshold than our current fees. The exact numbers will be released at a later time, but the Transaction Fees implemented in Secure Trade, Mail, and COD are a flat tax meant to mirror the highest bracket in the GTN to encourage using the network. Whenever Taxes are updated in the GTN those changes will be applied accordingly here as well.

When 7.3.1 is live you will see the following:

• Quick Travel costs will now take into account your player level. This is largely to help players at lower levels.
  • The maximum cost matches our current maximum around level 35.
  • The minimum cost matches our current minimum around level 17.
  • The cost per distance matches our current cost at level 80.
• Trade and Mail fees are now driven off of the Galactic Trade Network Median Sales Data
  • This means that these will be based on the server and the specific sales on that server, this data already exists within the game so it's not a clean slate.
  • Select items have their fees removed (the previously changed consumable gameplay items and a list of over 3000 lower value items that were traded regularly on the GTN since 7.3). We may make continued adjustments here in the future.
  • Items that have not been traded on the GTN may not have a fee until they have been traded for some time. This enables the game to determine the appropriate fee value.
• The Galactic Trade Network Buyout Price Limit has been increased from 1,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000.
  • This is to allow trade of higher value items.
  • Additional changes to the GTN will come in future patches.

Except these changes do nothing but fuck with new accounts who don't have dozens of billions of credits in their legacy bank. What caused the inflation was the rampant win trading in ranked pvp (which has been shut down by removing ranked) and selling Cartel Market items on the GTN for ridiculous sums. Lastly, you have credit sellers taking advantage of the whole situation. They'll need to implement more draconian measures to actually fix the inflation and not merely treat it.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

this is so damn awesome.
i wanted to give this a spin again after years, just to realize the sad state it was into. downloaded, i still remembered id and pass, i knew it was going to ask me a code sent through email so i quintuple checked it was the right one and hell yeah, i still own the invite to beta from 2011. i also spent money on this, just a month of sub, i felt like a generous god. so all i had to do was wait for this emailed code. and waited. and waited. and waited. it never arrived. so i went to the website to login there, it also asked me for an emailed code. and waited. and waited. and waited. it clearly doesn't work. and now time for the true surprises: ea, the colossus, the immense, the invincible, doesn't own online support. at all. you either ask on a forum where people have less power than you, or make a fucking intercontinental phone call with absolutely no guaranteed result.
all for something completely unnecessary, uncalled for, which could be solved with 5 lines of code.
insult to injury: all the "supposed" workarounds (because there's no solution at all) are obsolete. the help page you're sent to freezes instantly and grows to 1 gb of ram.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

new large patch, i might make another attempt, why not? and in fact it works! i can finally log in to my favourite star wars blokes, and find out that some of the limitations paid accounts lifted are now back in place anyway. i paid a monthly subscription to have some privileges forever. not anymore, they're back.
i don't understand how these people haven't still been burned at the stake.

and login through the site still doesn't work, so i can't change my email and this shit could happen again anytime.