7.1 News and Big Changes at Bioware

I was just pondering what my next post on here was going to be when Keith actually dropped a proper "game update" on the official website. There are two major parts to it - one: We actually have a date for 7.1! It's going to launch on August 2nd. And two: After sixteen years, Charles Boyd is leaving Bioware.

I have to admit the latter was quite a shock to me. It always feels good when our MMOs have consistent leadership, and Charles was one of the people who provided that for SWTOR. He famously penned the original trooper story, which I know isn't many people's favourite, but I main a trooper so... come at me! I also suspect that him taking over as Creative Director at the end of KotFE played a major part in the overall narrative becoming more stable after KotET. I mean, people have different opinions on these things, but whatever criticisms I may have had of Bioware sometimes, I very much liked the overall narrative direction of the game throughout the last few years.

All that is without even going into the way Charles was present on social media and at conventions, always batting for the game and making it impossible to not be excited when you listened to him talk about whatever update was supposed to be coming up next. MMORPGs involve a lot of people, and it's rare that we as players really get to associate a name and face with a specific feature or direction, but Charles was definitely one of those rare creators that really stood out. I wish him all the best wherever he goes next.

As if to forestall some sort of "OMG, Charles is leaving, we're doomed" reaction from the fanbase, the news post then also takes a moment to remind us who's still there to take care of the game and who'll be taking over from Charles. No new Creative Director is mentioned, but it sounds like the closest people to his role will be Narrative Director Ashley Ruhl and Lead Writer Caitlin Sullivan Kelly. Ashley appeared in a recent developer talk at this year's Star Wars Celebration, which Swtorista posted on YouTube, and Caitlin has been responsible for writing some recent-ish story updates that I really enjoyed, such as the Secrets of the Enclave story for both factions and the Imperial Manaan arc. So while Charles' departure leaves them with big shoes to fill, at least they're not complete unknowns.

Personnel changes aside, while I'm happy to hear that 7.1 finally has a release date, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by the complete absence of any sort of acknowledgement of or explanation for how long it took to get us here. I can understand if Bioware doesn't want to engage with the more toxic and demanding parts of the fanbase directly, but it seems pretty obvious that the game's big anniversary hasn't really gone as planned so far, so some sort of comment on that would have been nice I guess?

However, it looks like their strategy is to continue to carefully avoid talking about the elephant in the room while hoping that it will simply go away if they continue to not look at it for long enough. One can only speculate that whatever it was that caused everything to be delayed quite so badly was either some sort of massive internal screw-up that's too embarrassing to talk about, or some sort of corporate interference that they're not allowed to comment on. (Former SWTOR content creator Kid Lee certainly had some interesting opinions on the latter on Twitter.) Whichever it is, it means that we as the player base remain largely in the dark about what exactly is going on at Bioware beyond generic reassurances that things continue to chug along. Let's see how 7.1 will pan out.