Community Relations Archive
Thread: We the Community
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Ech0Witch
Fri Oct 07, 2005 3:20 am
#1
We the community are tired and bored. I don't expect any Dev to read this thread or even take note of it, but I will write it all the same.
Every time I log in now I am finding that SWG is becoming quieter and quieter. The only exceptions to this being the Dant MO, and Mos Eisley. One being the primary grinding spot, the other being the newbie starter area.
We the community are tired of being messed about and ignored. Below are the list of things that SOE need to focus on to placate us, the people that pay your wages.
1) Better communication
Communication from SOE sucks. Whenever there is going to be any work done on the server we get 12-18 hours notice. This is unacceptable, especially for those people in Europe who find that the downtime is in the middle of their day. If they have a day off work to play they have wasted a days play because the server is down.
We need much more notice of downtimes than 12-18 hours. I work as a System & Network Administrator and I am required, (except in emergency situations,) to give at least 1 weeks notice of any scheduled downtime. SOE need to give more notice, or arrange a specific date and time every week to schedule downtime.
Also, keep us appraised of whats happening behind the scene's. At the moment we are treated like mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed poodoo. Gives us information, let us know about stuff thats happening that we might be interested in. Tell us about things you'd like to see, whats on the planning boards, whats been changed. Even if you start on something and it changes later on we want to know. We might be disappointed, but we could say that we were at least kept in the loop.
2) Bugs
This is one of the biggest bones of contention for every single player. I've heard people saying 'We are paying to play a beta'. Personally Im inclined to agree. There are some enormous bug's in this game. Some only affect specific individuals or groups, (such as no premium or flawless pearl's dropping,) whereas others affect everyone. SOE needs to focus on fixing all of the known bugs BEFORE releasing any further expansions or major overhauls to the game. Fixing the pearls bugs, the professions bugs, environment bugs, quest bugs, etc, will go a long way towards fixing the rift between SOE and its customers and will likely entice more people to come back to the game.
3) Server Performance
Bria is a perfect example of a degradation of server performance of late, but there are numerous problems with lag across all of the servers. Even with double the minimum ram I and many people like me still suffer lag when we shouldn't. Servers seem to keep failing, and some sections of the game, (Dantooine on Chimaera during this week,) have crashed entirely. The best thing to do would be replace the existing servers with much better performance servers so as to improve performance. (I have played other MMORPG's and do not suffer lag in any of them.)
4) Artwork
Whilst the design of the worlds, and everything in them is fine, we come again to the problem of cloning. When you look at other MMORPG's they have numerous types of armour and clothing. We have had the same types of clothing since release, and have only recently had an increase in armour types to break the Composite cloning. We need to have new clothing and armour to better separate the looks of players in game, and also so as to get people back to being tailors and armoursmiths.
5) Weapons
The pre-cu system of weapons was one that I loved. Despite new weapons being added I am personally, (and Im not alone in this feeling,) disappointed with the current system regarding weapons. Or more specifically that weaponsmiths can not create higher level versions of weapons. For example imagine player A loves the CDEF pistol design, but so as to compete for damage he must upgrade to higher level weapon. Would it be that difficult to allow Weaponsmiths to make weapons by level and then select a weapons look ? For example, a WS makes a level 54 (maximum level) pistol, and chooses the CDEF pistol or DL-44 design. Thus the user of the weapon can maintain the look that they want but can still do level 54 weapon dmg. This would likely placate a lot of players who miss the old pre-cu system of weapons.
6) Furniture and decorations
One thing that SWG has over any of the other MMORPG's that I have played, (other than its huge number of emoticons,) is the capability to own a house and furnish it. But we have had the same styles of buildings, and worse still, the same styles of furniture for a long time. Architects need something more to offer their customers, so new furniture, and/or the ability to change the colours of the existing furniture would be immensley helpful to this much overlooked profession and aspect of the game.
7) Quests
Many of these are broken, many of these are boring. Simply put Im going to suggest pinching WoW's idea. Have quests chain linked, and pointing to specific locations. Give xp bonuses for completing certain quests. Have quests take people to locations in SWG that few seem to go to anymore. When was the last time someone went to Mos Taike other than to see the Spynet Operative ?
If needs be remove all of the low level crappy quests and replace them with new and improved decent quests, that give xp, a nice amount of cash, and maybe a reward. Tag these quests with a level indicator so non level capped players will know if they will be able to complete the quest or not. (Colour coding like in WoW would be fine as well.)
8) Feedback
Listen to the customers more. Remember that without us, SOE lose a lot of money and you guys are out of jobs. Sorry to sound so harsh but thats the way of business.
The customer is ALWAYS right !!! (First rule of Customer Service.)
Perhaps some weekly or monthly chat forum where the board mod's, Tigg's, TH, and a dev or two sit and chat to the players. Listen to what the players want to see in the game. Listen to their idea's. Frankly you guys number some dozen to two dozen people, which only gives you 1-2 dozen possibilities of idea's. We number some quarter of a million, giving us a much larger capacity to come up with idea's. Sure some of it might be crap, but some of it might be gold dust. And some of it might be the diamond dust that steals people back to SWG away from other games.
Conclusion
Star Wars Galaxies is a game based on the greatest phenomenom of the 20th and 21st century. Thus it has a lot to live up to. It does this in many ways. Everyone I know who has moved to mostly playing games such as WoW still say that they remain playing SWG because of the community and roleplay. And thats the most important part about SWG. It is a true MMORPG. It is not some bog standard combat game. It is a roleplay game with combat. The entertainer professions and huge number of emotes that people can do show that quite clearly.
SWG still has enormous potential it just needs work.
Every time I log in now I am finding that SWG is becoming quieter and quieter. The only exceptions to this being the Dant MO, and Mos Eisley. One being the primary grinding spot, the other being the newbie starter area.
We the community are tired of being messed about and ignored. Below are the list of things that SOE need to focus on to placate us, the people that pay your wages.
1) Better communication
Communication from SOE sucks. Whenever there is going to be any work done on the server we get 12-18 hours notice. This is unacceptable, especially for those people in Europe who find that the downtime is in the middle of their day. If they have a day off work to play they have wasted a days play because the server is down.
We need much more notice of downtimes than 12-18 hours. I work as a System & Network Administrator and I am required, (except in emergency situations,) to give at least 1 weeks notice of any scheduled downtime. SOE need to give more notice, or arrange a specific date and time every week to schedule downtime.
Also, keep us appraised of whats happening behind the scene's. At the moment we are treated like mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed poodoo. Gives us information, let us know about stuff thats happening that we might be interested in. Tell us about things you'd like to see, whats on the planning boards, whats been changed. Even if you start on something and it changes later on we want to know. We might be disappointed, but we could say that we were at least kept in the loop.
2) Bugs
This is one of the biggest bones of contention for every single player. I've heard people saying 'We are paying to play a beta'. Personally Im inclined to agree. There are some enormous bug's in this game. Some only affect specific individuals or groups, (such as no premium or flawless pearl's dropping,) whereas others affect everyone. SOE needs to focus on fixing all of the known bugs BEFORE releasing any further expansions or major overhauls to the game. Fixing the pearls bugs, the professions bugs, environment bugs, quest bugs, etc, will go a long way towards fixing the rift between SOE and its customers and will likely entice more people to come back to the game.
3) Server Performance
Bria is a perfect example of a degradation of server performance of late, but there are numerous problems with lag across all of the servers. Even with double the minimum ram I and many people like me still suffer lag when we shouldn't. Servers seem to keep failing, and some sections of the game, (Dantooine on Chimaera during this week,) have crashed entirely. The best thing to do would be replace the existing servers with much better performance servers so as to improve performance. (I have played other MMORPG's and do not suffer lag in any of them.)
4) Artwork
Whilst the design of the worlds, and everything in them is fine, we come again to the problem of cloning. When you look at other MMORPG's they have numerous types of armour and clothing. We have had the same types of clothing since release, and have only recently had an increase in armour types to break the Composite cloning. We need to have new clothing and armour to better separate the looks of players in game, and also so as to get people back to being tailors and armoursmiths.
5) Weapons
The pre-cu system of weapons was one that I loved. Despite new weapons being added I am personally, (and Im not alone in this feeling,) disappointed with the current system regarding weapons. Or more specifically that weaponsmiths can not create higher level versions of weapons. For example imagine player A loves the CDEF pistol design, but so as to compete for damage he must upgrade to higher level weapon. Would it be that difficult to allow Weaponsmiths to make weapons by level and then select a weapons look ? For example, a WS makes a level 54 (maximum level) pistol, and chooses the CDEF pistol or DL-44 design. Thus the user of the weapon can maintain the look that they want but can still do level 54 weapon dmg. This would likely placate a lot of players who miss the old pre-cu system of weapons.
6) Furniture and decorations
One thing that SWG has over any of the other MMORPG's that I have played, (other than its huge number of emoticons,) is the capability to own a house and furnish it. But we have had the same styles of buildings, and worse still, the same styles of furniture for a long time. Architects need something more to offer their customers, so new furniture, and/or the ability to change the colours of the existing furniture would be immensley helpful to this much overlooked profession and aspect of the game.
7) Quests
Many of these are broken, many of these are boring. Simply put Im going to suggest pinching WoW's idea. Have quests chain linked, and pointing to specific locations. Give xp bonuses for completing certain quests. Have quests take people to locations in SWG that few seem to go to anymore. When was the last time someone went to Mos Taike other than to see the Spynet Operative ?
If needs be remove all of the low level crappy quests and replace them with new and improved decent quests, that give xp, a nice amount of cash, and maybe a reward. Tag these quests with a level indicator so non level capped players will know if they will be able to complete the quest or not. (Colour coding like in WoW would be fine as well.)
8) Feedback
Listen to the customers more. Remember that without us, SOE lose a lot of money and you guys are out of jobs. Sorry to sound so harsh but thats the way of business.
The customer is ALWAYS right !!! (First rule of Customer Service.)
Perhaps some weekly or monthly chat forum where the board mod's, Tigg's, TH, and a dev or two sit and chat to the players. Listen to what the players want to see in the game. Listen to their idea's. Frankly you guys number some dozen to two dozen people, which only gives you 1-2 dozen possibilities of idea's. We number some quarter of a million, giving us a much larger capacity to come up with idea's. Sure some of it might be crap, but some of it might be gold dust. And some of it might be the diamond dust that steals people back to SWG away from other games.
Conclusion
Star Wars Galaxies is a game based on the greatest phenomenom of the 20th and 21st century. Thus it has a lot to live up to. It does this in many ways. Everyone I know who has moved to mostly playing games such as WoW still say that they remain playing SWG because of the community and roleplay. And thats the most important part about SWG. It is a true MMORPG. It is not some bog standard combat game. It is a roleplay game with combat. The entertainer professions and huge number of emotes that people can do show that quite clearly.
SWG still has enormous potential it just needs work.
Message Edited by Ech0Witch on 10-07-2005 11:45 AM
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