Livestreams, Misinformation and Tone Deafness.

     Keeping the community healthy and happy, while trying to maintain the surprise and sense of wonder with each new addition to their game is one of the major balancing acts that EA Bioware tries to do when dealing with overall fan base of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Sometimes they succeed, most of the time it seems that what they measure what success is and what is truly considered to be a success are on opposite sides of the galaxy. The fan base deserves more and better than what they are being given which are uninformative live streams, misinformation and apparent tone deafness when it comes to the major questions that players have about their beloved video game.


     For a while now since Twitch.tv has really become a major platform to get information out, the developers and the community leader at Bioware have used Twitch as way to fire off tidbits of information on the upcoming changes to the game. The issue of this situation is that the information given to the public to consume and therefore analyse is painted with the biggest, most broadest brush they can come up with. I am not sure who is responsible for allowing how much time each of these broadcasts should be, but they need to go back to the drawing board and understand that 30 minutes is not enough time to deal with all of the tomfoolery while dealing with the chat function of Twitch and get out the information that is required for people to be satisfied. Twitch is a streaming platform the average person watching shows on Twitch pay more attention than the average Television viewer. The developers have a platform where they can go on for 60 to 90 minutes and there will be thousands of viewers glued to which ever device they are watching on waiting for the precious information that they tuned in to get in the first place. Limiting the stream to 30 minutes plus a few more for overflow is just not cutting it. More time needs to be dedicated to this format if the company is serious about trying to connect and listen to its players.


     Speaking of the information that is provided in the broadcasts.....well let us just say that if it was not for the internet the amount of information that would be passed by the developers would be next to nil. The Old Republic streams just have not enough substance that players want. Trying not to beat the dead horse in the room but if Bioware is more like Blizzard in dealing with the player base and more open to the changes that are coming in the game, more and more players would give Bioware some slack. It is understandable with the developer streams, that they paint the broad strokes of what is coming to allow the player to discover what has been done in the new update. However with all of the information that is disseminated by again Blizzard who is the gold standard when it comes to dealing with their player base. Is Blizzard perfect? No. However in comparison to what Bioware has done thus far they are light years ahead of the competition. What Bioware needs to do is give concreate details about what is coming on the live stream maybe not the minute details but enough information to have people excited for the upcoming changes. Rather than having the fan base go what the hell was that.... I got NO information from that stream what so ever. This is especially bad when this past week Bioware decided to start a stream with the story team and spent pretty much the entire time talking about already known subjects rather than giving a glimpse of what is to come in the upcoming chapters to the Knights of the Fallen Empire (KotFE).

     What really needs to happen on these streams is information that the player base that can come away with feeling like they got something out of the broadcast. As it was stated it does not need to be a minute detailing of all of the changes that are happening, that is what patch notes are for. However more details than the broad strokes that are being given at the current time need to be given. One of the major issues that has been coming up that players have been very vocal about is the lack of high end operations for players that have already gone through all of the content that was presented in the first 9 chapters of KotFE. Personally the scenario was already in play after this stopping point and that was the Star Fortresses. Bioware had already developed the solo and heroic versions of the Star Fortresses, all they needed to do is to develop an operation level Star Fortress which would have been easy to work with and story wise could have been the overseer of the previous 6 Star Fortresses. They could have even invented a couple of new companions to put behind the wall of the Operations that they could acquire through the grind of the operations. This would have given the higher end players something to shoot for. This also could have given incentive those who may not have done operations in the past to attempt them for the first time and move from the single player aspect to the more traditional role of the MMO. For the story stream they need to highlight story information aspects of the upcoming chapters give a more focused idea of what is going on, rather than waxing lyrically about their favorite characters and waste the time they are allotted. The business they are in is about gaining more subscribers and bringing in more money. In order to do this they have to appeal to the customer base. This base is a well informed internet generation of content watchers. They do not have the patience or the time to deal with situations that provide no semblance of information when the stream's intent is to provide information.

     The lack of information that is being presented and the seemingly lack of concern for the questions that the player base is asking for is a cause for concern in the confidence of the player base in the developers to actually listen to what is being shouted into the void. The old standby of we cannot tell you about it yet on almost every issue or the long winded stories about something that has happened in the past and not focused on what is being asked is quickly losing their charm. It is time for the developers at Bioware to start saying something like "The first operation for KotFE is in an early alpha stage and we expect the operation to go to test servers by such and such date" This is real information that players can use. This is information that if they are going to blow by the such and such date, the developers can go "While in Alpha testing we discovered a few bugs in the system or the fight has not quite fit up to our standards so we are pushing the beta test back a couple of weeks. We will give you more information on this new date." For the longest time developers have acted like politicians and not really answer the questions they have been asked. Under the non-disclosure agreements that companies put people under it makes it hard for developers to give out real good information. However when put in front of a medium that is supposed to have feedback and access to parts of information. Information needs to be provided, otherwise there is no point in having these kind of forums especially online. These sessions where information is supposed to be given needs to have more preparation involved and have contingency plans for when the really good questions that will open the well spring of information in order to have the balance that they want. Right now Bioware is acting tone deaf and trying to drown out the high end operation players by giving gifts and and hyping things that are not even in play yet. Players are feeling like the developers do not care. They really want an update to the high end content. Not something that has already been discussed several times a couple of months back.

     Real Information... that is what the players want. Quit giving the players the run around.