Creature Handler Archive

Well, I hopped back on to SWG for a month to forestall character wipe and see what's up in the 'hood, stretch my pets' legs, knock the rust off the harvesters, etc.

It sure looks like it will be a 1-month stay. The CURB terrifies me ... every 'big change' to this project has exhibited the same symptoms: inadequate testing, rush to deployment, slow and ineffective bug resolution. The fact that they've once AGAIN diluted their focus by working on ANOTHER expansion I won't buy before completing vital core game fixes tells me that the same mismanagement team is in charge of this project, and the very talented coders and artists who work on the project are still being held hostage to a very marketing/sales-driven management philosophy. Quality not only isn't Job One ... it isn't even on the task list.

Worst experience so far is working with my pets regularly ... my GOD, I'm a "Master" creature handler and I can't even get the idgit critters to stay in formation .... they run off and attack things with all the discipline of a new puppy. Ok, I can see that behavior if I was a Novice and the pet was new, but a CL 70, full-grown pet should NEVER, and let me repeat this ad nauseum, NEVER run away from a Master who has given it a 'stay' or 'formation' command. That is simply horrific game design and coding.

So, it's nice to see a couple of the 'regulars' I've run into, but after this month I'm afraid Kzin the CH/Pistoleer will be back in mothballs for six months in hopes that that's enough time to make measurable progress in recovering from the mess the CURB is going to make. But as a veteran CH, the 'we'll fix you soon' song got old very early in '04 after the Disaster Nerf ... so my patience for that was expended long ago.

Good luck folks ....

I will bet that you won't be missing much, Kzin. I am outta here in about a months time. This game just doesn't seem salvagable with the developers it has...

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jopenack wrote:

Rumor has it 2 devs left ver recently, just about the time that they scrubbed the combat upgrade they were working on for months and went with a quick push with this "new curb" the marketers told them to go with.

Judging by who left I think this is more than a rumor and explains alot

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Funny you mention this, cause I keep hearing that this is NOT the CU we were supposed to get, and what we were supposed to get was a lot better. People keep saying that they spent a year and a half working on what is on Test right now... if that is a year and a half worth of work, ummm, well, they need to find a new job

Went to Lok to check my outpost house .... killed when my CL 66 ran off and got me into a firefight despite repeated follow/formation commands.

Master Creature Handler .... and your pets obey you about as well as granny's Pekingese.

Broken, broken, broken ... how on earth do they believe they have time for expansions?

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EsclavoTKM wrote:

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jopenack wrote:

Rumor has it 2 devs left ver recently, just about the time that they scrubbed the combat upgrade they were working on for months and went with a quick push with this "new curb" the marketers told them to go with.

Judging by who left I think this is more than a rumor and explains alot

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Funny you mention this, cause I keep hearing that this is NOT the CU we were supposed to get, and what we were supposed to get was a lot better. People keep saying that they spent a year and a half working on what is on Test right now... if that is a year and a half worth of work, ummm, well, they need to find a new job

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