Development Cycle Archive

Do you have any plans to try and maintain the current user base as well as attract new people and even try to get all the people that left to come back? It's getting harder and harder every day to find a solo group. Numbers are going down fast. It's pretty sad. I see no signs of it letting up. It doesn't help that there is not a single timeline for when anything is happening. For all we know you could shut down next month. If you don't start laying things out there will be no one left to see all these wonderful things in the future. Well, at least lag is better now that not many people play anymore.

Message Edited by Cotasnoova1 on 01-11-2005 10:38 PM

Actually i am rather concerned about tighter "community relations".

I saw in a year of playing SWG many changes being shouted down by players, claiming it was in their very own interest.
The thing i miss the most was a change to crafting that would have made the quality of resources really significant and therby might the competetion have increased.

Currently there is NO difference between the products which makes buying and selling a boring thing, no competetion, no risk, nothing of what makes being a businessman that thrilling. (Please understand it just as example, i don't intend to have something changed back in particular, it is just a general concern of mine)
People shouted loud enough, you were intimidated and changes it back. Unfortunately most of these shouters didn't view the change as "how could it enhance the GAME" but "how does it influence MY GAMEPLAY".

If you ask people "Do you want the taxes to decrease to 1 %" most would scream back "YES!" but it would not really BE what they want (a ruined economy state, unsafe circumstances for their children etc.) but they would belive that it is what they want.

Yes everyone has a voice, but please stop listening to those that scream the most and start to listen to those that speak the wisest. Sometimes you overheard the concenrs about the "1 % taxes" while many were screaming that they would want them.

EDIT: i should to add that i don't necessarly mean me with "the wisest"

Message Edited by AnmeldungStinkt on 01-11-2005 11:50 PM

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MajorXP wrote:

I know this might be slightly off-topic, but since we are discussing the website, do you anticipate us getting an equivalent to http://stationplayers.station.sony.com/? I would love the ability to chat with my guild while surfing.

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Station Players offers automatically updated character profiles, item databases, and much more. Additionally, every guild will also get their own free web site where they can post news articles, screen shots and guild specific forums. Premium services allow you to chat with your guild in-game, check to see who is online, and have your guild's activities immortalized in a "Wall of Fame".

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It's something we are discussing but don't have any definite plans for yet.

Message Edited by Calandryll_SOE on 01-11-2005 12:00 PM

Message Edited by Soln on 01-11-2005 05:17 PM

You will find you won't get honest feedback. You will also find a great many people unwilling to post on your semi useless boards for fear of getting a locked account.

First you don't listen to test center users on those boards. Don't tell me you all haven't heard the smugglers cry about auto pull from there crates!

You claim an inability to find "useful" information. That is what your correspondants are for. USE THEM TO FIND ISSUES TO FIX!

You are going to be banning peoples paying accounts for what political nonsense and religionous debates?

A) grow a pair. Who the heck cares what is said on a forum? Someone there should ask themselves if "this is good for the company?" Banning paying customers for saying G.O.D. or G.O.P. doesn't seem to me that it will help your shrinking revenue stream.

B) you have a staff of moderators to keep it clean. If they aren't doing the job or are understaffed (most likely understaffed) why not fire/hire new moderators?

I will be heading back to my old online friends of roleplayers to fill my stars wars foruming and most likely star wars needs entirely. I will only post in auctions if you want to silence your customers and remove something we all have enjoyed and found useful as a tool for the game you will succeed. This is a very stupid idea. Spend your time fixing day 1 bugs instead of useless crap like intentionally targeting your forum users. It isn't our fault JTL and everything else gets bad reviews and doesn't sell. Its your poor job as a developer/designer.

Where is the Combat revamp? How about you all work on that and not play forum cops. I want to know the status on that project. Its VERY important. The importance of this ranks up there with the image designer revamp. I mean what the heck? I cannot fathom the depth of mismanagement and misunderstanding you continue to display on a daily bases. YIKES! Your organization makes mine seem functional.

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Landlubber wrote:

A lot of very definitive promises there. This is nothing whatsoever against you, Calandryll - I fully believe you mean every word and wouldn't have posted it if you thought you couldn't deliver- but with all due respect, we have seen promises by the Developers before, and I for one am completely unwilling toput any moretrust in announcements, I'll judge your team by deeds.

And given that keeping most of these promises won't just depend solely on you, I really hope for you that this post won't come back to haunt you in the near or far future, because I don't think you'd deserve all the critisism you as the messenger would get for it.

So thank you a lot for the update, and we'll just keep our fingers crossed, okay?

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I believe the term is "Constructive Criticism". Calandryll never asked for your trust, the DEVS are simply communicating what their specific intentions are, as with anything in game or in the real world intentions do not always turn out as planned, but this at least gives you an idea of the direction they are headed. Play the game as though nothing is changing and you will find you will enjoy it much more. Goals are something to reach for, not a definate achievement. What was posted was not a "PROMISE" as you took it. It was simply stating the current game plan the Devs are taking, and can change as any plan may to accomodate unforseen events.

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Calandryll_SOE wrote:

I write my posts in Word and then try to copy them into a program that doesn't include style tags (the first post in this thread didn't have any did it?). I'll drop a note to the other devs to try to avoid them as well.

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I don't believe the postdid. I didn't have any trouble in quoting it. This is particulary an issue where the dev sets forth a

1:Toon Name

2: Server

3: Etc.

list of the information wanted, as in a bugs thread.

Wow. I can understand the newer players buying into this garbage, but some of you vets make me sick.

Anyway, CSRN(Current Sacrificial Red Name), you're telling us that you've wasted all this time planning out these new gestapo style forum rules, taking time away from the Combat Upgrade? See, this is the major complaint I have always had with you devs, priorities. Your priorities are so far out of wack it's ridiculous. For example the Jedi revamp. The big argument was that if you don't fix Jedi immediately, you'd lose so many players it's not even funny. Well, you broke Jedi even further, but that's beside the point. The point was that you do not and have never had a direction for this game, so you fill your time nerfing FWG5s and in game emails.

Well, let me go back on that a little. I've been here since these forums weren't even their own site. Back then, before release, you DID have a direction for the game. It was about the galactic civil war and it was looking fantastic. Jedi were extremely downplayed and they were so very hard to get and maintain. Im not hating Jedi here, I will eventually have one, but my point is that with just that one profession as an example, you have totally caved on everything that once gave this game great potential. Had you stuck to your guns and told people "tough sh%^", that's how it is," you would have lost people up front, but the game's principles would not have been compromised and it would be a lot stronger now because of it.

The problem is that this game has been so homogenized because of input from straight MMORPG players that it now just resembles any other. You should have just kept the game straight hardcore Star Wars, with almost total adherence to the continuity. That is why 75% of your players were here in the first place, and it is the sole reason that the people who are left are still here. We are rabid Star Wars fans. You don't realize that MMORPG players will move on when the next big game comes out. That's not opinion, it's happening right now. If you fix this game correctly, us Star Wars fans will NEVER leave. Do you understand that you would have to shut off the servers for good to get rid of us? I don't think you do, if you did, the game wouldn't be in such dire straights. Cater to US, not to EVERYONE who plays. If they like it they'll stay for a while, if not, well, they were going to leave in 6 months to a year anyway.

Also, please think ahead. Example: You released the droid interplanetary survey device and then made it obsolete 6 months later with the release of JTL and instant planet hopping. I can survey the entire galaxy, with stats for new resources, in less time than it takes for one survey droid to return to me with ONE planet's resources, and NO stats for them.

The entire game hinges on the combat upgrade and it's integration into the game and Star Wars in general. If the combat upgrade fails, this game will get shut down, guaranteed. Stop with the promises and other things trying to make yourselves look good and just get to work. Remember, we wouldn't care if you said one word to us just as long as you made this game great.

Priorities

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Calandryll_SOE wrote:

Off-topic Posts – Some of you mentioned you didn’t want off-topic posts to show up in the Dev. Tracker. I don’t know if we can do that, but in the meantime we’ll try to limit our off-topic posts. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for us to “chat-it-up” with you all from time to time though.

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Why not give Tiggs and Thunderheart a mod logging that they can use for Off topic posts, since mods do not show up on dev tracker? Just a simple OT-Tiggs or OT-Thundertheart for there forums handle would let everyone know.