Community Relations Archive

By keeping secrets/not talking straight forward to the player base, you're killing it. The more secrets you keep, the less money you will earn. This isn't the pentagon. This isn't some top secret weapons project. It's an online game, designed to keep subscribers happy. Keeping secrets about upcoming changes is NOT keeping us happy. Got some keen concept/quest idea? Post it. Got an idea when the FRS will be back? Post it. Got some huge issue happening in game that a nerf is going to happen? Post it!

Keeping us in the dark is the wrong answer. We pay your bills. You're suppose to keep us happy. If you lose our subscription, you're losing your stability, and all reasons to keep secrets. What is the point? Why all the secracy. Hinting about content you plan to bring to the game does NOT spoil it. It makes people WANT to stay. Why oh WHY should we stay if all we hear is "expansions might come, monthly content will come." Text book outsourced answers are NOT what we want to hear. We want something to be excited to keep playing for. Silence is the wrong answer. The answers posted in most of these "Dev chats" are complete trash because THEY DO NOT OFFER HOPE. Your eld game community, mostly made up of Jedi who have earned their place in the game, are hanging on by a thread hoping you guys will fix things like Flawless/Premium Pearl/crystal drops, the FRS, smuggler quests, the GCW, high level LOOT and more. So much stuff left up in the air because you guys don't have a direction, or at least you do not have one that you're showing us.


Drop the NDA, TELL us, the customers, the investors, the ones who keep your very livelyhood in check, what is going on. We NEED to know this stuff in order to remain customers. Don't treat us like it's a top secret weapons project. It's not. Honesty and Integrity keeps the bills paid. If you do not have a PUBLIC forward plan, how do you expect the game to have any sort of financial future from your customers.

Here, here. Not sure what they think they are achieving by keeping things to themselves. Maybe they think some other company will steal their ideas or something.

You don't become a prosperous company by sharing your secrets. Gates didn't get rich by open-sourcing Windows. Some things need to remain hush-hush, trade secrets are one of them.

Imagine I told you what your girlfriend likes that you didn't know. That would defeat the purpose of me being there, wouldn't it?

Yeah, don't tell us about the smuggler/FRS revamps, Blizzard might steal it.

Message Edited by Mcafeevsd on 10-28-2005 05:12 AM

Message Edited by Mcafeevsd on 10-28-2005 05:12 AM

Star wars lore is hardly secret anyway, just tell us!

Fact

As far as what I'm talking about though, give us GENERAL ideas of whats going on, IE: "Yes the FRS is expected to return in the window of January-February publish" "Our idea is to have the power of Jedi increase as they move up the ranks (Not much details mentioned but some hints.) Pearls are going to return in Publish 27, in a new form of cubes/crystals combined with a 50% chance of being perfect...whatever. Our view of how Jedi should work is currently broken right now, we will be increasing their power, to do so we're turning off the BH terminals, since BH are grossly overpowered. The expected return time is blah. We are going to change the way to get to Jedi in publish BLANK, it will be changed to be more of a quest/timed random event that requires X amount of trials to be done." Just SOME hope. Right now they give us "We don't know. Eventually. There is lots of quest in the -X- expansion." Bait & Switch, toss and dodge, fluff and buff. You can't BS a BSer.


All I'm asking for right now, is for them to put that dumb NDA aside, tell us what we can expect to happen, so I can have some hope so I dont have a reason to unsubscribe my account and just WAIT for the change I want to happen by luck. I know many others are like me. Some don't unsubscribe, which is the sleeper account thing that SOE depends on to run business, the player doesnt play but maintains their account of fear of losing their work/missing something (Sorry guys, the devs of every mmorpg know your bluff.)


Basically we just want the communication channels opened up. I know in Asheron's call, once a month they publish an "in concept" where they outline everything that they're working on and their idea behind it (IE: Changes to war magic to make X spell more powerful, and nerf X item that was overpowered), then we can see more teaser details during the "teaser", and then finally full details when it is coded/published. In all honesty SOE gives us nothing solid to hang onto besides "HANG ON TIGHT THE NEXT EXPANSION WILL BE GREAT!" that anyone can advertise.


These expansions offer my character nothing. I've used more supplies, I've lost more credits, I've gotten nerfed harder and harder. The quest items are no use to my character, the ones that ARE I have to spend days on end in game fighting with people for, and risk losing the very friends I play the game to hang out with. Right now most of us, all we have to hang onto the game is friends, that's it. PVP/PVE/Loot gets old. We need "play Security" by being told brief details on what their goal is with us. Not just "HEY GUYS, PUBLISH 24 JUST CAME OUT AND SL NOW 1SHOT JEDI, HAR HAR HAR SUCKERS!"


Know what I mean? Have I honestly made any sense?

I can see why you'd be afraid of WoW stealing ideas, but you know what? WoW is a completely different genre of game. It's medival/monsters. SWG is STAR WARS, Space, ranged laser weapon combat, lightsaber combat, and melee. You will never see someone in WoW with a lightsaber, because Lucas himself will chase the idea and sue the pants off of him. The very ideals behind star wars are copywritten and fiercly protected by Lucas, 21st Century Fox, and more.

So what they put in a battleground, the idea of an area/arena to fight in is NOT an original idea no matter how well its implimented. That's like copywriting the taste or smell of something. You just can't do it. The only real competition SWG has for content is other SW games. I know before JTL, Battlefront won my heart with the vehicle/fighter wars. I played Beta of JTL and it won me 100% instantly.


We just need SOLID, Defined, and direct contact with the developers. Or at least LET the corrispondants speak for what they've heard without fear of being removed. Let the developers tell us what is going on with the FRS, pearls, and Jedi overall, without a textbook lawyer answer.


Nobody really wants indepth Every single detail on screen so it can be stolen cuz its not coded yet. We want concepts mentioned in greater detain than "it will return eventually."

If you have no plan for the FRS, or whatever, just be honest with us. Don't string us along with false hope. We have no hope in you already.

Bump.

There is one great reason for an NDA with a company like this. What they finally push to production may not at all match what they had players test. The NDA prevents expectations, which prevents lawsuits.



Rimy Yca U-S-A Underlord

Sometimes, nothing is a cool hand.

Freedom OF speech does not mean freedom FROM speech.

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I8TheWorm wrote:
There is one great reason for an NDA with a company like this. What they finally push to production may not at all match what they had players test. The NDA prevents expectations, which prevents lawsuits.

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QFE

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Ratel wrote:

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I8TheWorm wrote:
There is one great reason for an NDA with a company like this. What they finally push to production may not at all match what they had players test. The NDA prevents expectations, which prevents lawsuits.

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Which prevents feedback, which means **edit**e gets rolled out to live, which results in the situation we have now.

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Nah, they don't even listen to TC feedback, what makes you think they'd listen to beta testers too?