GDC: BioWare's Walton on Adding Space Combat to Star Wars Galaxies & Customer Retenti

Here is an interesting read for all you space junkies out there

http://darthhater.com/2010/03/12/gdc-bio...retention/

Confirms that suits don't know what the fuck they are talking about.

As a more or less dedicated ground pounder even I liked JTL.

Seriously, they don't make as much of a metric shit-ton of sales than they think they will and apparently the expansion is a failure.

Points against Bioware and TOR for employing the jackass.

Well if it was not for space then SWG would not be a game today, at the NGE there pretty much only was pilots around because there game had not been messed out, also space is starwars, some fancy pant dude that does not know about that stuff should not really speak his mind about it because no one in SWG was forced to do space either, it was a game in the game as well as ground was a game in the game.

Just because he got his experience from the the Mos Eisley Cantina where people there never actually have been anywhere but at the cantina talking about that sky is falling down and do nothing but RP and RP only instead of experiencing the galaxy.

awesomesauce ... tor will either have kotor style arcade turrtet shooting of a few ships . An space ship boarding actions . Or It's going to be cut scene stuff with set outcomes . At least from the indications shown by bioware so far.

Disspaointment and could well ruin tor before it even launches ... :bravo:

If JTL didn't make the gobs of money they expected it to, it's because WoW was released right after JTL was. When JTL came out, most of my SWG friends at the time were playing WoW betas.

All this angst he claims JTL generated amongst SWG subscribers? I've never seen it! The only one I ever met that didn't like JTL was Ghent, and that was only because the gameplay was weak compared to XvT.

Not only is Lucasarts clueless about every misstep they've taken for the past few years, it seems they are commissioning companies with employees who think precisely the same way.

Actually Walton was the guy that got canned by SOE/LA for not wanting to release the CU until it was ready instead of shiping to go with EP3. He proved to be right which is why Bioware hired the guy. Oddly enough, he also managed to push back the release date by a year to make the game more polished.

JTL on the business side did nothing for SWG as they hoped. They view it as an experiment that went bust and I guess they don't ever want to repeat it. Of course it failed because it went up against WoW.

You never heard too many people complain that they didn't like JTL because they were all off playing WoW. It wasn't the huge hit it should have been and flight sims in general aren't done anymore. For some reason those games just died out.

So yeah, lets not expect there to be space in TOR. Lets expect a lot of dialog, cut scenes and mission running.

Ya I'm not playing TOR.

Actually Walton was the guy that got canned by SOE/LA for not wanting to release the CU until it was ready instead of shiping to go with EP3. He proved to be right which is why Bioware hired the guy. Oddly enough, he also managed to push back the release date by a year to make the game more polished.

JTL on the business side did nothing for SWG as they hoped. They view it as an experiment that went bust and I guess they don't ever want to repeat it. Of course it failed because it went up against WoW.

You never heard too many people complain that they didn't like JTL because they were all off playing WoW. It wasn't the huge hit it should have been and flight sims in general aren't done anymore. For some reason those games just died out.

So yeah, lets not expect there to be space in TOR. Lets expect a lot of dialog, cut scenes and mission running.

In which case I'll be glad to watch it fail. It doesn't need a JTL or XvT style gameplay but Star Wars isn't the same without space.

In which case I'll be glad to watch it fail. It doesn't need a JTL or XvT style gameplay but Star Wars isn't the same without space.

Whos says they aren't adding space? They just want to find a better way to show it than having a Starwars galaxies style.

Whos says they aren't adding space? They just want to find a better way to show it than having a Starwars galaxies style.

I was responding directly to what Arch said. Quit fanboying it up and you'd have realized that

If this SW MMO fails it will be a long time before they do another one. I am hoping for a good game but we will have to see when it comes out. The fact so many space sims have failed in the past, JTL included, means no more space sims. Be sad if SW MMOs go the way of the dodo too. They will just stick to crapy console games.

These people will only fund what they know will sale, ie what is currently selling. MMOs are just too costly for the little guy to make and it is the little guys that do everything new and cool. It is hard to believe the MMO genre failing entirely but I see them sucking and being unoriginal for a long time.

Watch ... Tor will end up being kotor made into a mmo . instead of plugging in random npc's you picked up to form a group in the console kotor ... you swap that out for online players . then have the arcade shooter tutor for space with some cut scenes an presto you got tor .

I hate you guys...

The fail of JTL was not because of JTL... they hired a new dev team to do JTL which made it work... took 4 years though before they added something to it though with an exception of ROTW which added combo missions with ground and space in one.

Anyhow SWG failed due to various reasons, mainly neglecting bug fixes and swapping those with revamps and combat upgrades = no additional content added to the game, they tried to add content with expansions and expansions only it does not really work that way, you need to add in content in between the expansions as well as well as keeping up the bug fixing.

Adventure planets they had Endor, Yavin and Dathomir, but the thing is that neither of the planets had any adventures bound to it other than heading somewhere and kill stuff basically, they could had been full of quests and adventures if they just did something about it as it is.

I really hope that SW:ToR would be SWG2 in many ways but also in its own unique way, as it is it is both Lucas Arts, Bioware and Electronic Arts behind it whom each got there niche of expertise in making games and the big plus to that is that they do not got a MMO to focus on now other than what they are building which means it would get all the attention,

Seriously hoping the full package with SW:ToR with both advanced space, advanced planet side stuff and many more features as well.

If this SW MMO fails it will be a long time before they do another one. I am hoping for a good game but we will have to see when it comes out. The fact so many space sims have failed in the past, JTL included, means no more space sims. Be sad if SW MMOs go the way of the dodo too. They will just stick to crapy console games.

These people will only fund what they know will sale, ie what is currently selling. MMOs are just too costly for the little guy to make and it is the little guys that do everything new and cool. It is hard to believe the MMO genre failing entirely but I see them sucking and being unoriginal for a long time.

Oh, I dunno. I know of at least a couple in development (space sims) so I suppose there still is a chance. I find it hard to believe they'll discount space out all-together. Whether its twitch, arcade style or more of an RPG style I have no clue but I don't see them writing off a good portion of the Star Wars fan base. And that is what they're going after - the Star Wars fan base, and not really the MMO base.

I was responding directly to what Arch said. Quit fanboying it up and you'd have realized that

umm i'm not fanboying i'm just stating a fact