Commando Archive

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Holocron wrote:

SOE seems utterly indifferent to the wasted time, anguish and utter dissapointment these folks feel and it's your responsibility (SOE) to do whatever is in your power to make sure they know things WILL be improved, and a time frame of when.

I agree with the latter, but not with the former. To break it down:

Saying that we are utterly indifferent belies the existence of the correspondent program in the first place, the existence of these boards in the first place, and in fact the existence of this reply you are reading. I've seen utter indifference in Live games, and believe me, it doesn't look like this--and I suspect other online game vets will back me up on that.

Here's our commitment: things will be improved. They have to be prioritized relative to other issues in the service as a whole. We think we are doing that prioritization correctly, but that is part of why we have the correspondents, to help us in that process. Under normal circumstances, the process goes something like this:

• We identify that players have a concern


• We figure out where in the priority list addressing that concern falls


• We figure out how hard it is to address the concern (is it quick? does the solution offered by the correspondent or the boards work, or is it not viable for reasons of which they are unaware? does it not jibe with something else already in progress? there's lots of factors here)


• Sometimes the priority is "urgent." That means it gets fixed that day. This is very rare. On average, we see only 10-20 items like this in a week out of literally hundreds of possible candidates. In this case, it becomes a hotfix candidate.


• That doesn't mean that it makes it out immediately. You have to implement it. You have to make sure that it doesn't overlap with some other piece of code that you don't want pushed out yet. You have to see whether the list of hotfixes for that day or week already have so much risk that we're not willing to incur more. It is not unsuual for even these "urgent" items to get pushed off by as much as a week.


• Otherwise, it gets rolled into the monthly updates.

So that's your answer for "when." Unless it's truly urgent, it's done on a monthly basis. Now, monthly just happens to be how often we are scheduling updates right now. In the future, it might be slower, it might be faster, I don't know. There are significant tradeoffs to going each direction. We have to branch the code when we work on an update, and once we start committing to an update, it's difficult to extract just one fix out and move it over to a hotfix. Multiple times in the last month, we have moved fixes we've already made from the "next update" column to the "push this to Live right now" column, and it's never trivial. A few times, we've wanted to move stuff to the hotfixes, and have been unable to do sobecause they were simply changes that were too large to safely integrate.

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I wanted to take a moment to back track here. Holo, I really did not think through that comment well. It's unfair of me, and others, to make a blanked statement that anyone is "utterly indifferent". I also work for a software company and have been in high tech for years, in virtually every part of the business, and understand the difficulty you face. Especially in dealing with such a large audience of people, of which some will be happy and some will be angry, and many at varying degrees in between. Its a monumental effort to try to manage what is being managed here and I salute you.

That being said I do still think that a better job could be given when communicating what will or will not be done. For example, the feedback reports posted today are woefully vague in many many areas. My suggestion, take the risk to try to write these in a more complete fasion. reading them before posting to ask yourself (yourself being any number of persons in the document review process) if the playerbase will understand the response and leave reading with a clear picture of what to expect or not expect. "We're looking into that" is not sufficient. Something more like "We've researched this issue. Unfortunately we still need more time due to the complexity of this function. We expect this to take another # of weeks before we can determine if it needs fixed and how to fix it...."

Its common practice to avoid risk by not setting dates until you know for absolutely sure you can set them. I don't necessarily agree with this. I think you can publish intentions and targets with disclaimers. Then continue to follow up with progress, modifying targets as necessary. Although doing this does not imply that targets should not be accurate or strived for once set.

Just my thoughts

Raph,

Want more players on Test Center? Here's one suggestion that might help convince more than a few of us to go back (Nicoli_Boronov is another). I agree with possibly copying characters and other measures, but it won't get me back on Test Center. The following will.

Put a lid on the attitude many members of Test Center display. The arrogance and condescending attitude of many of them is a real put off. When I brought this up on the Test Center Board, not only was I flamed (and if you read my responses, you will note I tried not to lower myself to the same level), but for the next two weeks my posts on Test Centerwere followed around the forums and rated 1 Star no matter what the content was. One 'well regarded' Test Centermember insults people who take a position contrary to his, bumps his own posts with childish unrelated commentary, boasts of his connections to the Dev Team and seems pretty fond of foul language, yet because he is well regarded by a clique of players on Test Center, he is defended when people attempt to (reasonably in many cases, though many people resort to name calling as well) call him on that kind of behaviour.

Test Center has some great people on it, but my experience there was completely spoiled by a few folks who have decided that Test Center is a private playground where they are a 'testing elite'. I've got better things to do with my time than deal with High School drama during my leisure time. I don't mind submitting bug reports and testing things out, I've beta tested plenty of games and actually enjoyed it, but I'd rather continue just submitting bug reports and playing with the player base on a live server than deal with all that attitude.

Hassan al-Nasir

House al-Nasir

Oh, one other thing. A suggestion. I'd sticky your response here somewhere so everyone can have an understanding of what your commitment is. I think it will help ease some tension for those who really dont understand what it takes to get this stuff done.

"Maybe Sony will redo this as a single player game, because that's basically what it is right now as far as combat and grouping go."

That's pretty accurate.

Grouping in SWG is completely optional, unlike other games of it's nature. Since it's not required, people aren't any good at it, show no commitment to a group, and don't know how to be courteous to their fellow group mates. Telling everyone 5 minutes before you need to disband goes a long way.. I've grouped with one too many Master Profession Newbie in this game and I've almost given up on it.

If it were to be made a single player game kike you jokingly said, it would be a pretty damned boring one. Dunegon Seige or hell, even Progress Quest would be more fun!

Sorry for going off-topic on this post. I'm sorry the Commandos lost their Corrospondent, and I don't blame him.

There's going to be a serious balance issue in this game, and I'm not talking about skills and damage. Everyone will be a Medic, Weaponsmith, Creature Handler, Pistoleer, or Bounty Hunter. After reading all this crap about the Commandos and other Professions, those are the only ones people will choose.

Wow kike isn't censored. They missed a word.

Marshmallo I can honestly say that you have no idea what beta testing or a majority of beta testers are about.

Main reason a majoirty of testers siad it wasnt ready

1) Too many bugs actually there were less bugs in the final beta build than in the live release still not sure on why but i have been assured by fellow testers that i wasnt dreaming.

2) It lacked great amounts of content. Have you tried to do a cave/lair/dungeon yet?Containers dont work and there is no actual point right now.Have you seen an NPC running towards you scremaing help and being chased? In all of beta and live i havent yet I have in fact heard 2 accounts of these types and i play and read alot.

3) It was not yet a game that many wanted to pay for because it wasnt ready not because they hadnt figured out the quirks. If you were to manage to get a Dev drunk enough to be 100% open and honest I doubt they would tell you it was ready for release either. The choices were:

a)delay and get permanently shelved as a project

b) Delay and loose customer base due to delays and MMORPG competitors coming out very soon

c) Release and appease the PTB continue with the project and work hard and fast post launch to maintain a customer base.

Release was the PTB not the devs most people realise that it simply wasnt an option anymore to wait. What is and has been admitted by the devs as a major concern is the total lack of communication with its customers. Place a CS ticket I can tell you almost verbatum the response you will get. Try to play some of the more broken professions and see why people are cancelling. Many of them are frustrated by gamebreaking issues or inabilities not because they just want to complain.

If you bought a brand new car and nothing worked and the salesman told you ahh yeah we will get that fixed but didnt say anything else or when they would get to it would you be happy about it.

I have beta tested a few games i have seen far worse launches but i have never seen a worse dialogue or misunderstanding of the issues at hand.

Now after all that go back and read why some people are upset and then read the combat issue dev responses. Almost everyone i read was "We will get to it" " we are looking in to it" , Does that answer anything? No it merely fuels the fire as there are no actual answers to anything. I wish college had let me answer all my questions like that or my boss accepted that as a response. The responses were, much like the correspondants seem to be, a way to try to appease a not to happy customer base.

I wouldnt be upset if they were just upfront and honest but that is far from the case. If you think they are being upfront and honest prove it. I can show you about 30 beta testers responses that can nulify them we didnt write it, we cant fix it but we know how long things have been broken, and we know that everything should work correctly before you start to nerf things. What happens then is when you get around to fixing things the nerfed things have to be adjusted and readjusted then more things break. Makes 10x more work.

Wow, I just read through all these post, and have been reading the enite community boards for the past few hours.

I have for the first time watched a company commit suicide in a public place in the dumbest way possible.

I have just watched the beggining of the end of SWG. I can understand that during the free month they got more and more people to play, due to people like me that when they first played the game thought it was the shizzle madizzle, and told there buddy to go buy it.

Im just afraid my friends will sue me now for making them waste money on a broken product/brokenclasses/nerf happy DEVS/NO content/No anything game.

This is truly pathetic. They should just rename this game ENRON GALAXIES. What a joke this is.

I cannot believe I wasted 75 dollars on this game.

Thanks for all the work Gari...we appreciate it..

I know im signing up for Test Server..im gonna take a swing at trying to make this class work...I know it won't be easy...but i'll give it a try..

Ssepol Sunrunner/Test Center

All my post was for not..can't even get into Test Server..crashes before I even see the title screen..this is a bad omen..

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Garris wrote:
All my post was for not..can't even get into Test Server..crashes before I even see the title screen..this is a bad omen..

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what happens? does it just crash or does it say there was an error or what? Try doing a full scan

They only let 6 year old fan boys on the TC that test the classes and give them the thumbs up, and tell them everything is working as intended

Since they will never reply to your problem I will reply for them too you.

"we are sorry that you cannot get on the test server, but unforunatly you do not meet the requirments, here is a list of them."

1.) under 6.

2.) must be a yes sir fan boy

3.)no matter how bad a patch or nerf is you say yes sir, working as inteded.

4.) no IQ over 2 are allowed

5.) please refer to rule 2

6.)you must never ask for the test server to be free, even though we have employeed you to test our game, and will wipe your hard work at any moment.

7.) rule number 2 again, never forget that.

8.) you must never tell the the general public that the main devs are headed by kenneth lay, and that this is Enrons way to get back at america.

9.) refer to rule 2 please

Garibaldi:

QUOTE: "I view this as theft for unpaid services (the remaining 5 months)."

you would be incorrect my friend. the services are there for you, which you paid for in advance. YOU choose not to use the services that have been given to you, therefore, there is NO THEFT.

however, i do think that they should have refunded you for 5 months, because it's just good customer service policy.

We should all be playing for free now. This is nothing more than a beta test. At least Lineage 2 got the beta test concept right.