Commando Archive

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nerfherder321 wrote:

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aeuralis wrote:

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nerfherder321 wrote:

i remember a couple months ago...i heard...taht Lucas Threatened to Pull the game away from SoE if they did not shape up (hire more people etc) and give the game to obsidian. I was all for the Pulling the game and working on SWG2, which could have been made by taking this game, changing the engine, changing the models and time frame, but keep everythng they have now (like space and jedi)

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The CURB is in essence SWG 2.0

Message Edited by aeuralis on 03-01-2005 11:22 AM

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except with the same jedi system.. are they really changing the engine? b/c thats the major limiting factor in this game

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I cannot comment further then this, NOTHING related to combat is coming though the CURB unchanged. NOTHING.

I say nothing because i cannot think of one thing that is not being changed.

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aeuralis wrote:

I only know what i see, and I KNOW that the popluation of Bria has dropped BIG TIME. I can see it everytime i go to Cnet starport. I saw it really drop about the time WOW started. Last July , on average there were about 150-175 people in cnet starport. Now there are on avereage 20-30. some of that is due to space and the starport wait changes. But not all of it. Last july there were average of 5-8 docs buffing, now it is rare that there are 3. I know they say that they have gained not lost people but i tell you that i see a MASSIVE difference in Bria's population. I know that of the 78 people on my friends list, 67 of them have quit/canceled since WoW was released.

So they can say what they want, the facts on bria don't seem to support their statements.

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aeuralis wrote:

I only know what i see, and I KNOW that the popluation of Bria has dropped BIG TIME. I can see it everytime i go to Cnet starport. I saw it really drop about the time WOW started. Last July , on average there were about 150-175 people in cnet starport. Now there are on avereage 20-30. some of that is due to space and the starport wait changes. But not all of it. Last july there were average of 5-8 docs buffing, now it is rare that there are 3. I know they say that they have gained not lost people but i tell you that i see a MASSIVE difference in Bria's population. I know that of the 78 people on my friends list, 67 of them have quit/canceled since WoW was released.

So they can say what they want, the facts on bria don't seem to support their statements.

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The same holds true for my chosen server (Shadowfire) - we've always been a small server anyway, but since WoW was released there have been days when Cnet is utterly deserted, I mean not a single person to be found.... so yeah, I think your reasoning on WoW impacting on the population here on SWG is valid, and as much as SOE might want to deny it, it seems strangely coincidental that changes the player base have been screaming for over many months only seem to have been looked at once WoW came out and populations thinned.

BUT, how much of this is down to people deciding that they're going to go play WoW for now (I believe Garvin himself put it in one of his posts a while back that if people were getting that jaded and fed up with SOE and waiting for the CU that they SHOULD take a break from SWG and try other games) andare keeping their accounts active here while waiting for the CU to finally come out, and then come back into the fold then ??

(I know I fall into this category, I havent actively played SWG since early December, I log on to check e-mails, pay maintenance on my buildings and 10 minutes later I'm gone, I'm waiting on the CU, and if that doesnt address how a 169 point prof gets his @$$ routinely handed to him by a 92 point prof, then I'm hitting cancel and saving myself $15 a month)

Druce Bayne

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RotorofCorRng wrote:

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garvin wrote:

...Starnick or any of the Sandbox testers should be able to testify that disagreeing will not get you kicked out no matter how vocalyou are...

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I will address this comment. As an Alpha, I have been very vocal, and pushed the envelope on one thing that ticked me off. I am still in Alpha when I thought I was a goner.

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aeuralis wrote:

Both posts were responces to the Devs continuing to delay things and saying just trust us.

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Well, all I am going to say is I've never trusted a "Dev" on any game I've ever played. I learned that lesson a long time ago. You express your displeasure as often and as much as you can get away with or nothing, I mean nothing will happen. In the end is simple business,time vs money. Anything else they say is just PR. Unfortunatly that doesnt just apply to SOE, it applies to every gaming company out there. I know people are going to say, "well mithis" or "well (insert any other gaming company" cares. It is bull, it is all about time and money and how good people are with PR.

I am not saying is right, I am just a realist on this subject.

Until then keep pushing for the stars .

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cybersword26 wrote:

I find aeuralis statements very distrubing. Garvin and now starnick praising SOE no matter how long delays are that all of it will be worth it. Now to hear the utter disappointment by the newest sandbox tester saying that there is little communation and the devs are not listening to the testers. If the devs knew what was best for the game then why do we even need a CU, its was there design wasn't it. Looks like we are going from one broken system to another.

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Let me qualify my statements for a moment. I don't know that they arn't listening to us, they just aren't posting responces to our questions. As for your last statement, I don't think the the CURB when it gets released will be a broken system. I ,at the moment, I have some very big questions about it. Questions that i don't have reasonable answers to.

Now that is not to say that i will not have answers to them soon. Do you watch the DEV TRACKER? If you do you will notice that there are alot of DEV posts that you cannot see in the last week. I cannot see them either, they have been posting in the correspondents forum alot. My hope is that by the end of the week they will get around to answering the concernsthat the communityhas. But that may not happen. One thing is certain that the CURB will work. The question is it a system that we can live with?

PS: My concerns are not about commando because i have not seen the new plan for commando but i should soon.

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cybersword26 wrote:

I find aeuralis statements very distrubing. Garvin and now starnick praising SOE no matter how long delays are that all of it will be worth it. Now to hear the utter disappointment by the newest sandbox tester saying that there is little communation and the devs are not listening to the testers. If the devs knew what was best for the game then why do we even need a CU, its was there design wasn't it. Looks like we are going from one broken system to another.

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Don't get me or Starnick (if I can speak for him) wrong...we aren't Praising SOE...we do agree that the changes that SOE has made and the dedication they appear to be putting into the project is great, I haven't (and I haven't seen Starnick) said the delays were a good thing...Personally I don't like the delays and I have more then often complained about the lack of communication to the public. I do believe the Devs when they say that the delays were unavoidable and I do think they have good reasons for the delays, but, I'd be more confortable with those delays if there was a more open dialog of communication going on...If I had my way, the major details (without specifics since they always change) would be revealed to the public already and any little change would be announced as often as possible to keep you all in the loop (the good and the bad)...If you knew the reasons for the delays you'd likely feel better about them.

Part of the reason why I'm unhappy with the delays isn't because I think that SOE is stalling...it's more that they just keep adding more and reworking various concepts...while this is a good idea to prevent further issues later down the road, to me there comes a time when enough is enough and testing needs to begin...so far SOE has made a lot of decissions BASED on our forum input...I'd like to see a lot more decissions made on actual tester input...

So please...don't confuse praise with understanding...we "understand" the reasons for the delays...I'm not happy about them, but I do think there are valid reasons and that SOE does want to make SWG better for all of us...They want to make SWG the best game for us, I just wish we'd have more of a hand in it then just forum input at this point...

I try to remain optimisic about this whole project because if I give into pessimism it won't accomplish anything (and it's chased more then one Dev from the Commando forums in the past)...Pessimism is typically seen as complaining without offering substance...in otherwords, to be upset with an issue, but not offer any valid suggestions on possible ways to fix the issue. The devs hear plenty of complaints, so much so, that they have to spend time digging through all of them trying to find the great suggestions for fixes that we know are out there. We don't need more pessimists...We need more optimists with ideas that the Devs haven't heard before...

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aeuralis wrote:

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cybersword26 wrote:

I find aeuralis statements very distrubing. Garvin and now starnick praising SOE no matter how long delays are that all of it will be worth it. Now to hear the utter disappointment by the newest sandbox tester saying that there is little communation and the devs are not listening to the testers. If the devs knew what was best for the game then why do we even need a CU, its was there design wasn't it. Looks like we are going from one broken system to another.

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Let me qualify my statements for a moment. I don't know that they arn't listening to us, they just aren't posting responces to our questions. As for your last statement, I don't think the the CURB when it gets released will be a broken system. I ,at the moment, I have some very big questions about it. Questions that i don't have reasonable answers to.

I have to disagree here...the Devs ARE responding to our questions...Blixtev recently responded to 2 of my biggest issues over in the CU forum (he even dropped hints on interesting Commando changes I never even expected)...The Devs have been very forthcoming with responses to many Sandbox questions...more so then I've ever seen them do publically...We've had direct responses from the actual programmers responsible for the CU. There doesn't seem to be a day that doesn't go by that some CU programmer is responding multiple times to various Sandbox tester questions/concerns. There was a period around the holidays that communication slowed down, but recently we in the CU forums found out why (which is what I think might be addressed in a public dev post that MIGHT come this week...again...MIGHT be posted...my guess is that it would be on Thursday or Friday since that seems to be their typical announcement days for an announcement of this type). Being new to the Sandbox you may not have noticed a lot of the past interaction, but you should be able to see that Blixtev alone has been very forthcoming. We have, in the past, tried to avoid getting to much programmer responses as we don't want to pull them away from actually doing programming on the CU, but occasionally folks like Blixtev pops in to answer a few questions...more so then he probably should. That combined with the Dev/Programmer interaction via the Correspondent forum (which unfortunately you can't see) shows a huge increase in SOE/Player interaction.

Now that is not to say that i will not have answers to them soon. Do you watch the DEV TRACKER? If you do you will notice that there are alot of DEV posts that you cannot see in the last week. I cannot see them either, they have been posting in the correspondents forum alot. My hope is that by the end of the week they will get around to answering the concernsthat the communityhas. But that may not happen. One thing is certain that the CURB will work. The question is it a system that we can live with?

PS: My concerns are not about commando because i have not seen the new plan for commando but i should soon.

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In relation to the subscription comments. I, as well as Aeuralis, have noticed a drop in population.... well it seems that way. While reading through the rest of the posts a couple more things came to mind.

1) How many of these new subsriptions stick around when there are no medics healing in med centers... just healing tumblers and ignoring the new players confused by the system? People that have experience can grind professions in a day. How many new players will have someone to partner up with in a game that has skill progression at such an insane rate. Novices and Mid levels have a hard time in many aspects due to the master vs. novice ratio. I am willing to bet that a good many of these new subscriptions won't stick around because of the way the atmosphere and the extreme "grind till you drop" mentality that the game system's current state promotes above all. Not many group with them and take the time to help.

2) I get sick of these "masters" that don't know a damn thing about their profession because they skipped past those boxes. How many CM's took the time to learn what warning shot, from marksman, on their route to 600+ tickpoisons did? Or did they just train ranged support I-IV all at once because they had combat xp banked? There is less longevity to play time as I mentioned above, there is no real awe to being a master at something because it is so quickly attained. I remeber the first time I threw up my master commando tag and it was an achievement back then. People felt value to seeing that tag, now you see it everywhere... master this master that, or someone just picking an interetsing title from one of their masteries.

3) Coronet seems way down from normal on any server I have toons on... well a good percent of the population is now spread out a ton. Some are in space for JtL, even more are out throwing grenades at quenkers/baz nitches, and anyone stop to think how many (seeing as many phases as the village has gone through) are out having to stay ungrouped and alone because they are waving glowsticks at critters? Why go to C'net for buffs? There are 20 scattered around in player cities doing the buff bot thing in Medical Center cities, afk, and just having to pay a minimal fee at the door. Many have quit I assure you, these new subscriptions may be rising but that is the effects of the holidays which came to an end and a lot were slowly trickling out their Christmas money. How many of these new subscriptions are continuing to log in on a daily basis?

4) There is a serious lack of info coming out. Frankly, the new weapons info was cool to look at (even if it was in 1000 places in the forums already under the heading .tre pics etc), but spreading it out 2 in 3 weeks? Umm no thanks, they were pictures of no relevance as it does not give any information about the CURB. New weapons are expected, we need to hear some of the unexpected to keep interests peaked. The armor FF was a good example. Good info on top of pics. The two weapons FF's should have been one and were a stall tactic. Where is the announcement that Tyrant taunted a smuggler with and has yet to be delivered? What is the deal with some of the changes being popped out (even if most are good) with no discussion or warning? Where are these quick fixes for proffesions that were to be coming out before the CURB?

5) I noticed a bug on my friends list last night, I now haveseveral that I can not delete after they quit because that "name does not exist" since they deleted their toons before quitting. My friends list is down from 84 or so to 13 left. Very sad... guild from 14 to 3 active. Tell me subsriptions are on the increase, I will believe it. Listen when I tell you though that those subscriptions are not hanging around long... and more veterans are leaving daily due to the lack of communication. I do realize sometimes some posters flame them and forget they are people as well behind the forum nicks... it is inappropriate and wrong. It is also inappropriate to continually ignore the need for information for their communtiy veterans to have hope and new information to keep their interest peaked. Excited players are much more likely to be more positive about their favorite game rather than a simply content player on standby always having a shadow looming wondering when a trickle of information will come.

*Edit* Bad spelling

Message Edited by Knightcrest on 03-01-2005 01:09 PM

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garvin wrote:

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aeuralis wrote:

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cybersword26 wrote:

I find aeuralis statements very distrubing. Garvin and now starnick praising SOE no matter how long delays are that all of it will be worth it. Now to hear the utter disappointment by the newest sandbox tester saying that there is little communation and the devs are not listening to the testers. If the devs knew what was best for the game then why do we even need a CU, its was there design wasn't it. Looks like we are going from one broken system to another.

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Let me qualify my statements for a moment. I don't know that they arn't listening to us, they just aren't posting responces to our questions. As for your last statement, I don't think the the CURB when it gets released will be a broken system. I ,at the moment, I have some very big questions about it. Questions that i don't have reasonable answers to.

I have to disagree here...the Devs ARE responding to our questions...Blixtev recently responded to 2 of my biggest issues over in the CU forum (he even dropped hints on interesting Commando changes I never even expected)...The Devs have been very forthcoming with responses to many Sandbox questions...more so then I've ever seen them do publically...We've had direct responses from the actual programmers responsible for the CU. There doesn't seem to be a day that doesn't go by that some CU programmer is responding multiple times to various Sandbox tester questions/concerns. There was a period around the holidays that communication slowed down, but recently we in the CU forums found out why (which is what I think might be addressed in a public dev post that MIGHT come this week...again...MIGHT be posted...my guess is that it would be on Thursday or Friday since that seems to be their typical announcement days for an announcement of this type). Being new to the Sandbox you may not have noticed a lot of the past interaction, but you should be able to see that Blixtev alone has been very forthcoming. We have, in the past, tried to avoid getting to much programmer responses as we don't want to pull them away from actually doing programming on the CU, but occasionally folks like Blixtev pops in to answer a few questions...more so then he probably should. That combined with the Dev/Programmer interaction via the Correspondent forum (which unfortunately you can't see) shows a huge increase in SOE/Player interaction.

Now that is not to say that i will not have answers to them soon. Do you watch the DEV TRACKER? If you do you will notice that there are alot of DEV posts that you cannot see in the last week. I cannot see them either, they have been posting in the correspondents forum alot. My hope is that by the end of the week they will get around to answering the concernsthat the communityhas. But that may not happen. One thing is certain that the CURB will work. The question is it a system that we can live with?

PS: My concerns are not about commando because i have not seen the new plan for commando but i should soon.

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Just to add to this...last week there were over 30 Dev/Programmer responses (not posts, but actual responses)to our questions/concerns (all the testers) in the CU forums...And that's not including posts by TH or Tiggs. How often do we see that type of interaction in the public forums (something I definitely wish there was more of). So SOE interaction is there. There were much more then 30 posts made by the devs in the Correspondent forum on top of that). Of those posts, there were several that were Commando specific in response to my concerns/questions and some of the concerns of others.

The Concerns that I speak of aren't because of what we know...it has some to do with what we don't know because we need to wait to see how it works when testing starts...My concerns have mostly to do with being impatient to gain understanding on a few things while waiting for testing to officially start. Blixtev more then responded to my concerns in a way that made me feel more comforable in waiting a bit longer...