Dancer Archive
Thread: Decisions
I've played other MMOGs, so I know the score. They're all centered around a grind, there's always levels and abilities to gain even if they disguise it well. SWG is no different in this, and it's not the grind that is causing me such problems. Other games start out with less content and build over time. Content is something I can be patient about, and to be honest I've still not seen everything SWG has to offer despite playing for almost 6 months.
There are parts of this game I love. This development team is the first one I've seen actually try very hard to implement things right. They didn't cut corners with mounts as EQ and DAoC did. Vehicles and housing are better implemented than any game I've seen. There are annoying bugs and issues, like chat and vendors going offline, resources disappearing, server crashes, daily reboots and other such things, but these I can look past. I can understand pushing off non-game breaking issues. I can live with bugs and crashes.
This is the first game I've experienced, however, that took a profession I loved and through a combination of the development team's action and inaction, ruined it. Completely ruined it to the point where everything it once was is pretty much gone and where once I loved playing and couldn't stop until the wee hours of the morning, now I have a hard time getting myself to even log in.
Every profession in this game that I can think of has either undergone dramatic improvements, is in the process of undergoing improvements or at least remained intact except dancer and musician. Even the Creature Handler profession, with its nerfing from being overpowered to be in-line is still a useful and fun profession to play (I know, I have one). Our professions, on the other hand, have been demolished for the very people they designed them for, the socializers. It's been a steady downhill slide for months with no end in sight.
I can even look past all of that if there was hope on the horizon that maybe things would improve. For a while I was fooled into believing just that...that the devs were aware of the problem and didn't like what was happening and were going to try to find ways to help us out. I was told to wait for player cities, to wait for the buff improvements, to join a player cantina. I did all those, and in fact on occasion do still find some joy in being a dancer, but this is not through any action of the development team or any improvements they have implemented. It is through those few remaining true entertainers finding one another and gathering in out of the way spots.
I still enjoy those occasions and there are people I still love to be with in this game.
But in the end, the one thing I find I cannot look past is the lack of communication and lack of action on the behalf of the development team. In the past few weeks, it has become apparent to me that in fact they do not care and they're probably just hoping the entertainer problem will go away on its own. I can keep telling myself that they know and will eventually do something to better our situation, but their silence speaks far louder than any words I can speak to myself. If they cared, if they saw it as a real problem, they would, at the very least, find the time to communicate with us. They have not. At this point I honestly believe they will not.
I have run out of hope.
There are still things I enjoy in this game. I can still find joy on occasion. Perhaps I could simply log in a few times a week for a good time. But my conscience is now stepping in the way. It simply will not allow me to continue to send money to a company that has so solidly trampled, and continues to trample, on my enjoyment of their product. I cannot look past their inability to even provide the smallest amount of communication to this profession. I cannot look past their apparent desire to sacrifice one profession for the playability of another. I cannot look past the clear evidence that there is no-one on that team championing the issues of entertainers, and my belief that there is no-one on that team that plays one as their main and as intended.
As such, my account stands cancelled.
According to their records, I will be able to play (and participate here) until February 11th. This is important to me as I made a commitment to complete the Galaxy Girls calendar and I shall. It also gives a bit of a time span where, if they actually do decide to communicate with us, I am able to reconsider my decision.
Barring that, and I very much doubt it'll happen, I shall finally exit the cantinas and leave them to the AFK populace on that day. I hope those true entertainers that remain are able to find the hope that escaped me. I hope that someday they actually do right by this profession.
If they do, perhaps I will be back.
Sincerely,
Javier
P.S. No, you cannot have my stuff. My clothes wouldn't fit you anyway.
This is indeed a very sad day for us all. Though I doubt the powers that be will care. Perhaps
they will notice that a total of 7 (yes seven) accounts were all cancelled on the same day.
For I, too, am cancelling my accounts. If someone as intelligent, upbeat and personable as
Pickles has finally lost hope with the status of the entertainers in SWG, then what can the
rest of us do but follow suit?
My hope is for the rest of you who continue to endure. My dream is that you finally get what
we all richly deserve and have been denied.
Goddess bless!
Shi
ShianseMoyle wrote:
This is indeed a very sad day for us all. Though I doubt the powers that be will care. Perhaps
they will notice that a total of 7 (yes seven) accounts were all cancelled on the same day.
For I, too, am cancelling my accounts. If someone as intelligent, upbeat and personable as
Pickles has finally lost hope with the status of the entertainers in SWG, then what can the
rest of us do but follow suit?
My hope is for the rest of you who continue to endure. My dream is that you finally get what
we all richly deserve and have been denied.
Goddess bless!
Shi
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Pickles -
You have been a huge source of inspiration for the community. Your work with the calendar renewed enthusiasm for the profession for many of us. I, for one, will miss your insightful comments and humor.
Mine account expires Feb 9th. I haven't cancelled yet, but I'm going to unless the devs pull a rabbit out of their y'sak before then.
As for the dev's silence on this issue, please see my post in vionerd's thread. I think it's a sign of panic, not lack of caring:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dancer&message.id=14590#M14590
All indications I see are that their current focus is strongly on improving droids and combat. Not that these are not worthy goals, but to focus exclusively on combat and droid crafting professions, all of which are in a state far better than ours, and not even take the time to communicate with us and give us hope, is astounding to me.
I would accept a simple statement from them that admits that there IS a problem with entertainers as admission of a problem is the first step to a solution, but they haven't even done that. They did it multiple times for droid engineers, telling them good things were coming and that they were listening. There was a dev on the BE forums several times telling them to hang on. They admitted publicly many times that chefs needed love. With us, it's complete silence.
Silence, to me, is no longer at all acceptable. It means they don't care. That is why I've cancelled.
- J
I know we aren't on the same server but I've always had the impression you were one of the few decent entertainers left. To have seen your train of thought in recent threads, it's not really a surprise to see this one. It is however a great loss to not just your server but the entertainer community.
You rightly say that the things that are keeping the profession alive aren't put there by the devs... it is player driven. This in itself is exhausting and not practical for everyone.We do need content; we do need communication about when and how it is coming. Unfortunately I don't see any of this coming soon either.
Personally I'm prepared to overlook it for now. My hope is that in a few months time you'll come back to SWG and find the entertainer profession is rich in enjoyment once again, and not that I'll be saying the very same as you.
Good luck.
I dunno, Javier. I can't argue that further silence is inexcusable, but they're too smart not to know or not to care. I think they see the devestation they've caused and they're not sure WHAT to do. They can't very well take holocrons out of the game now, but they can't deny that it's eating away at the heart of the game.
So much work was put into the design of this game to make it appealing to 'the rest of us,' not just the l33t-d00d shoot 'em up power-gamers. Then they throw in holocrons that appeal to no one but. Am I the only one that wonders if this holocron system was a cheap and desperate afterthought because they couldn't get the intended system to work?
A response may not come very soon - and if it comes after Feb 9th I'll never see it anyway. But I know that the devs have to be in meeting hell trying to figure out how to dig themselves out of this.
What is sadder is, I now have the sneaking suspicion that this sort of thing -- the dedicated, real performers quitting the game entirely -- is exactly what the higher-ups want. There aren't enough of us for them to bother fixing our profession in the ways we ask, and if they did they know it would completely infuriate 99% of the player base. They know if they just do nothing -- nothing at all, including not bothering to answer our correspondent -- the problem will go away, because most of us will.
I have too many friends in the game to leave any time soon. But like Kyorlana, I completely accept the fact that anything fun and good in the entertainment profession is going to have to come from me and my friends. It doesn't come from the developers, and from where I sit, it likely never will.
I've "made my peace" with that, as it were... but I can't expect everyone else to feel the way I do.
I will miss your well-written posts, my friend.
C