Bioware Community Manager for Star Wars: The old republic, Joveth Gonzalez took the forums last night with a farewell speech. We do’t know who will take his place yet, or what it will mean for the SWTOR Community, but this is the 3rd community manager Star Wars: The old republic have had since it was first announced. We don’t know either if more BioWare layoffs is on the way, but Joveth Gonzalez tweets he is leaving his position at BioWare to follow new opportunities. And for those of you asking, I’m moving on to a new opportunity. More details, as always, SOON (TM) — Joveth Gonzalez (@Joveth) February 25, 2013
Joveth Gonzalez
BioWare Says Repair Costs Being Recalculated Due To Community Concerns
Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez made a post on the official swtor forums about the raise in repair cost we saw with Game Update 1.7. Many players were frustrated about this issue, as it was increasing repair costs by at least 33%. Before game update 1.7, repair costs were based on the shell of the item, and didn’t account for the level of the mods inside. Now they fixed it to properly account for all components. This made running operations very expensive for people with high end gear, and some people including some of my guild mates had to stop doing this content due to this. Clearly there is room for improvement, and it needed re-evaluated. Good on them for that. Hi everyone, Thank you all for your feedback on the changes to repair costs introduced with Game Update 1.7. Upon review, we agree with you that repair costs did become too high with this…
News on the Oceanic Server Population Issues
It’s no secret that the Oceanic servers didn’t get a server merge. This means they are basically dead now. Most people on the servers have been asking for a merge or for free transfers, but with f2p coming out, Bioware have been hesitating giving players this option. This has off course been frustrating for players down under, but BioWare are now looking for a solution to the problem. Today Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez made a post on the official forums giving an update on the issue and starting to re-open the dialogue: Hi everyone, I know it’s been a while since we’ve updated this thread, and I wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten about our Oceanic players. Now that we’re at a more stable point in time (post Free-to-Play transition and post holidays), we wanted to re-examine this issue. We’re going to be completely honest with you: there…
BioWare on Grade 7 Ship parts costs
With Game update 1.6 new Heroic Space Missions saw the light of the day, and with that also new tier 7 ship parts. These are of course supposed to help players complete these new challenging missions. To get these new upgrades you need to spend hundreds of Daily and Fleet Commendations or just purchase them on the Cartel Market. This have off course sparked a huge debate with players crying “Pay 2 win”. Today Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez made a forum post with feedback from Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert indicating that BioWare is looking for solutions to reduce the gap between the two paths: Hi everyone, I’ve spoken to the design team about the issue of Grade 7 ship upgrades and the cost in game (resources and time) versus the cost on the Cartel Market, since this concern was raised by a number of people on our forums. Our Lead Designer for the game, Damion Schubert, has this to say: Unfortunately, there…
BioWare do listen – 4 quickbars for Preferred Status Players
Yesterday, Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez revealed that due to feedback ( huge an ongoing QQ’ing), Preferred Status Players will receive two extra Quickbars to use when playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. I honestly think they could have given only one extra bar and it would have made 90% of the people happy. The extra bar is just icing (yes, some will argue they never should have been restricted at all). I’m all for constructive criticism when it’s needed, but I hope people will stop and give credit when it’s due. They obviously are trying to appease the fans, while still maintaining a successful business model. As you know, we take player feedback very seriously and we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for being a part of our Free-to-Play transition. When Game Update 1.5 was on PTS, we heard your feedback and increased Quickbars for Free-to-Play Players,…
The Dwindling Dev Tracker
Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez talks about the communication from BioWare on the Forum tracker. He also hints at new blogs incoming tomorrow? Check it out here, or read our copy pate below. Joveth Gonzalez While we appreciate all kinds of constructive feedback, as Allison pointed out, the forums are only one small measure of communication. Do keep in mind that while some days it seems that there isn’t any forum activity from us, we’re busy hopping around, taking a look at the SWTOR subreddit, Twitter, Facebook, and responding to PMs. Consider that our fanbase is large and spread across various social media sites, and you can see that we strive to make sure that they are covered, no matter where our fans are. We’re also working on some new community blogs that we’ll be posting in the upcoming week or so, in addition to our standard weekly blogs that…
A Message from the Community Manager
Community manager JovethGonzalez Took the stage yesterday as he posted a rather lengthy post on the official forum. The post updates the community on the future plans of the community team, without really saying much. He does go on promising more communication from the team in the future. The last few months have probably been crazy at Bioware and has been very hard on the staff. But at this point, all we want/need to hear is about the future of SWTOR for paying subscribers. We want to know what is in the works for Operations, flash points, space “secrets”, Warzones, class balances and designs, dual spec, world pvp, achievements, expansions?, pazzak and other mini-games, and a million other requests and possible upgrades that could come to the game. With respect and gratitude, we would love to hear about any of these as soon as possible!! We need to know that Bioware (and especially EA) hasn’t given…
Jedi Council Podcast – First Interview with Joveth Gonzalez Since Taking Over
Hosts Brian and Jason interview Joveth Gonzalez, Online Community Manager to tell us more about SWTOR and what he’s up to since taking over this new position in the community. You can listen for yourself here. The Jedi Council asks Joveth a little about his background and history in video games and he shares some information about the companies he has worked for, projects he has worked on and more. It’s a great chance to learn more about Joveth and the games he has worked with. He talks about how he came to BioWare and why he loves BioWare games. They also ask him about the direction of the new community team, the changes that have taken place in BioWare community team and how it all works. Joveth breaks down what the different teams do and how they bring us information as well as how they process information that is…