SWTOR (named TOR-tanic by some of the Internet) was a massive undertaking—and expensive too. It was the most hyped MMO since World of Warcraft. Even more so possibly. BioWare + Star Wars? It seemed like it was going to be perfect. But the game couldn’t be everything to everyone and released in an age where paid MMOs are dying—well, that left the game in a questionable state. With Star Wars: The Old Republic going free-to-play soon, a lot of people are interested in just exactly how the game is doing. Executive producer Jeff Hickman has released a post addressing player concerns in an attempt to alleviate them.
Hickman claimed that the game had three large issues, specifically:
1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.
2. The subscription requirement was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying monthly.
3. The frequency of our Game Updates was way too slow. People were leaving because we were not releasing new content fast enough to keep up with the pace at which it was being consumed.
He claims BioWare made decisions based off of those issues, like going free-to-play this fall, and trying to get out game updates every 6 weeks or so—quite a challenge indeed. But he assured players that the remaining team has accepted the challenges and “tackled them head on”. Hickman addressed rumors of some developers leaving the team, it boiling down to a lot of different reasons. He assured fans that “it is difficult, but the studio and game live on and thrive as we change, actually thrive because we change”. Hickman also said that the key people were still there to carry the BioWare flag.
He also addressed the fact that game update 1.4 had a lot of bugs, citing that they have put new measures in place to help catch major bugs before a patch is released. Hickman lastly addressed Oceanic server populations, which have been frustrating low, and said that the problem is very complex, adding that the problem won’t be addressed until after free-to-play is launched to see what the influx of potential new players does to the populations of those servers.
Hickman implied that he will continue with State of the Game posts in order to answer player questions and assuage fan concerns.
Source: SWTOR
