AusGamers recently published an interview with Austin BioWare’s General Manager, Matt Bromberg. During the interview, one interesting tidbit was revealed:
AusGamers: In terms of the content going forward — at the press conference you guys talked about [new] stuff coming out — is there a kind of quantifiable volume that you can talk about, in terms of what you would like to see by the end of the year, and then maybe the first quarter of next year?
Matthew: Well we’re committed to: about every six weeks, doing a major update for the game — which would be a new Warzone, a new Operation, a new Flashpoint, a new event — and to doing that on a really frequent cadence, every six weeks. So we’re going to stick to that.
We’ve heard BioWare’s talk about more frequent Game Updates many times in the past, but this is one of the first times where we’ve seen an actual time length made note of. Is six weeks an ambitious goal for a company that hasn’t veered anywhere close to this schedule in the past, especially after the company’s layoffs? Perhaps, but it also appears that BioWare is organizing their content updates in ways to help assist them reach this goal.
Instead of placing Terror from Beyond, Ancient Hypergates, and Makeb within the same major Game Update like many players assumed, the company has split them up, and seems intent on offering them separately, along with other minor updates. This effectively turns one update into three, also leaving room for one of those updates to be issued when SWTOR goes free to play this fall.
Will this be effective at keeping the playerbase interested? It’s hard to say exactly. Games like RIFT and The Secret World also have ambitious update schedules, and players do seem to appreciate the consistent content rolling in, but then again– it’s not always possible to keep up an ambitious schedule (TSW is already having some difficulties in doing so). There’s also the fact that while Flashpoints, Warzones, and Operations are good to see, a large portion of SWTOR players are actually more interested in story, which is obviously more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to produce.
I guess we’ll just have to see if BioWare is able to keep up this six-week schedule. Actions speak louder than words for many fans and followers of the game at this point.
Make sure and check out AusGamer’s full interview with Matt Bromberg.
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