Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Team Comments – Gordon Walton, Studio Manager
Message Edited by GamerFeedJeff on 08-13-2004 03:14 AM
Thank you for your honesty!
SOETyrant wrote:
WiskeDarkmoon wrote:
I find it very amusing that you would actually admit you got bored and stopped playing. Props for honesty anyway
Why do the rednames alwasy choose the dumbest posts and questions to respond to? Answer: easier than saying something with substance that you just have to deny and "rework" later im guessing.
I also find it very amusing that with all the problems this game has you are splitting your attention between SWG and some unnamed new game. To me this speaks volumes about the real problem, a serious lack of manpower or organization on the Dev team. Throw in them using development time for an add on that we will all have to pay for, and its obvious to me that the Dev team is stretched to thin.
Dont you think its a bit of problem that you got bored of playing so fast? How can you possiably know any of the real problems if your not playing? yah yah i know your playing again, doesnt change the fact that the game still has alot of the same problems a year later.
Patented answers and witty remarks got really old six months ago. How bout you actually tell us something that your are doing right now to change the dev process and get some of our pressing problems fixed.
Im absolutey sure you wont respond, but thats my two cents anyway.
Substance, not BS is what we need.
Stop spending Dev time to sell us an add on, fix the Core systems now!
You don't sound amused actually.
My job is to run the studio, not just SWG. But SWG is where I am concentrating the vast majority of my time.
I agree that there is a lot of work to do on SWG to make it more accessible, more FUN and filled with significantly more Star Wars content.
There are changes being made to our development and QA processes for SWG. This doesn't mean that things will get better overnight, it just means we are working for the players as best we know how to.
I'd rather let what the team does do most of the talking.
You may not agree with everything we do or the order we do it in, but the entire team really wants the game to be better experience for the players. It is why we work on games in the first place.
Kudos for answering one of the more colorful posts rather then selecting the easy one. /tips hat
However in the last year only shows fun being taken away, the trend points to grind & time sinks. You guys did make a couple steps recently so again, kudos! I like to just show a few of the "fun" things given to end game after profession master, no surprise you got bored.
- We saw factional pets armor ratings removed
- We saw factional pets take perma death
- We saw factional pets limited to one per player
- We no longer see factional pets = less Star Wars feeling (mind you AT ST should have always been limited to 1 per officer+ ranked players)
The reasons given were they were overpowered, in a game in it's infancy when a master combat profession was still a rare things the Dev team failed to look at the future. Only pet worth having is an AT ST, not for fighting, to group with for higher paying missions.
We also have composite clone wars, all dressed the same for a year now but in a variety of colors. Some players, despite clear disadvantages, still wore factional armor just to get a more Star Wars feel. This is one thing that should have been a priority so we see squads of stromtrooper players out there with armor rating at par with composite. Same goes with Rebels. This with a few NPC factional troopers restored and off perma death would make a lot of FUN in the GCW alone and even give neutrals a Star Wars feel.
We did get HQ's and some factional dungeons that could be converted to one side or the other. Instead of players taking these static dungeons over they use them for faction farms as the NPC's don't stand a chance and I believe are still buggy anyways. The HQ themselves been through several problems and still exist today, never has a GCW patch went through without a hitch. Things like, /gcw never working, turrets being useless, players just bypassing defenses running inside, shifting vuln times for almost a year and the list can go on. Even now we had broken scanners since at least patch 9 giving countless covert exploiting. Do we ever get a word on this? Did we ever get any compensation for still trying to have some GCW content? Honestly, I don't know why people want to come at 3am for turret busting (which is still simple despite HAM increases which are buggy) or even destroy them as people will eventually just give up trying to place these overpriced novelty items.
However, now that you guys included jedi almost officially in the GCW and turned regular ranged professions to nothing more then meatlump xp as they don't stand a chance, guys with brass knuckles stand a better chance... it's almost completely backwards. Jedi should have their own secret battle behind the scenes, range should be the strongest GCW profession. If your data is correct and 50% of the player base does become jedi, then almost all remaining combat profession will have to take up jedi at least a hybrid in order to compete. This will soon be turned into KOTOR online, and as jedi wear no armor and craft their own weapons... there's two professions you can remove. No, not everyone will be jedi but anyone that wishes to even the playing field will have almost no choice. Perhaps some rebalance will come but we all know that is several months away at the least. What has it been? Almost six months for this jedi revamp... that is just sad.
Timeline has been thrown out the window ever since you put in the episode 1 & 2 battle droids and rediculously more powerful then they actually are. Right now this would be more in sync with that timeline, just change the Imperial theme park, rehue the Stormtrooper to Clone Troopers it would at least make some sense with droids & jedi.
Instead of having the Dev team play 4 hours doing random things every Friday morning to find something they like to see done, how about throwing them all into the end game. Half tot he crafting/entertainer profesions if they enjoy and the other half in the GCW split between Rebel & Imperial. Grind out faction, place a base, grind out more faction to have some defenses. Buy lots of junk resources to repair those defenses, and you'll need them as your own base guards will attack them. If Imperial don't bother buying anything under a medium size turret as an AT ST "guard" will destroy it. I challenge you guys to try this, then you will see why there is posters like the one above. Perhaps if you feel the frustration and understand first hand we can really see some changes, sure your time is restrained but a little here, a little there all adds up.
Thank you.
Kudos for answering one of the more colorful posts rather then selecting the easy one. /tips hat
However in the last year only shows fun being taken away, the trend points to grind & time sinks. You guys did make a couple steps recently so again, kudos! I like to just show a few of the "fun" things given to end game after profession master, no surprise you got bored.
- We saw factional pets armor ratings removed
- We saw factional pets take perma death
- We saw factional pets limited to one per player
- We no longer see factional pets = less Star Wars feeling (mind you AT ST should have always been limited to 1 per officer+ ranked players)
The reasons given were they were overpowered, in a game in it's infancy when a master combat profession was still a rare things the Dev team failed to look at the future. Only pet worth having is an AT ST, not for fighting, to group with for higher paying missions.
We also have composite clone wars, all dressed the same for a year now but in a variety of colors. Some players, despite clear disadvantages, still wore factional armor just to get a more Star Wars feel. This is one thing that should have been a priority so we see squads of stromtrooper players out there with armor rating at par with composite. Same goes with Rebels. This with a few NPC factional troopers restored and off perma death would make a lot of FUN in the GCW alone and even give neutrals a Star Wars feel.
We did get HQ's and some factional dungeons that could be converted to one side or the other. Instead of players taking these static dungeons over they use them for faction farms as the NPC's don't stand a chance and I believe are still buggy anyways. The HQ themselves been through several problems and still exist today, never has a GCW patch went through without a hitch. Things like, /gcw never working, turrets being useless, players just bypassing defenses running inside, shifting vuln times for almost a year and the list can go on. Even now we had broken scanners since at least patch 9 giving countless covert exploiting. Do we ever get a word on this? Did we ever get any compensation for still trying to have some GCW content? Honestly, I don't know why people want to come at 3am for turret busting (which is still simple despite HAM increases which are buggy) or even destroy them as people will eventually just give up trying to place these overpriced novelty items.
However, now that you guys included jedi almost officially in the GCW and turned regular ranged professions to nothing more then meatlump xp as they don't stand a chance, guys with brass knuckles stand a better chance... it's almost completely backwards. Jedi should have their own secret battle behind the scenes, range should be the strongest GCW profession. If your data is correct and 50% of the player base does become jedi, then almost all remaining combat profession will have to take up jedi at least a hybrid in order to compete. This will soon be turned into KOTOR online, and as jedi wear no armor and craft their own weapons... there's two professions you can remove. No, not everyone will be jedi but anyone that wishes to even the playing field will have almost no choice. Perhaps some rebalance will come but we all know that is several months away at the least. What has it been? Almost six months for this jedi revamp... that is just sad.
Timeline has been thrown out the window ever since you put in the episode 1 & 2 battle droids and rediculously more powerful then they actually are. Right now this would be more in sync with that timeline, just change the Imperial theme park, rehue the Stormtrooper to Clone Troopers it would at least make some sense with droids & jedi.
Instead of having the Dev team play 4 hours doing random things every Friday morning to find something they like to see done, how about throwing them all into the end game. Half tot he crafting/entertainer profesions if they enjoy and the other half in the GCW split between Rebel & Imperial. Grind out faction, place a base, grind out more faction to have some defenses. Buy lots of junk resources to repair those defenses, and you'll need them as your own base guards will attack them. If Imperial don't bother buying anything under a medium size turret as an AT ST "guard" will destroy it. I challenge you guys to try this, then you will see why there is posters like the one above. Perhaps if you feel the frustration and understand first hand we can really see some changes, sure your time is restrained but a little here, a little there all adds up.
Thank you.
SOETyrant wrote:
People have a right to their opinions, and I don't have to agree with them to understand their position. So long as the feedback is constructive I like getting it, no matter how piercing it might be at first read. And I rarely get grumpy, though I am a little terse from time to time.
But just beating up mobs and doing it again, and again, and.... I'm also pleased with the hints that the GCW will be more emphasized - that's what the movies/books are all about - not hunting and playing the Humongous Merchant Economy Game. (don't get me wrong, god bless the merchants, but I feel completely bound by having to grind money to armor myself and get around, afford buffs, just to beat up mobs to grind money to armor myself..../repeat) - not that I can't do something about it, and in fact I will be playing more of the faction challenges, I just wish that most available missions weren't redundant faction camps with a few npcs in them. A different skin on an animal lair, is what it comes to. Welcome, Tyrant. You're talking the talk so far on the boards.
SOETyrant wrote:
WiskeDarkmoon wrote:
I find it very amusing that you would actually admit you got bored and stopped playing. Props for honesty anyway
Why do the rednames alwasy choose the dumbest posts and questions to respond to? Answer: easier than saying something with substance that you just have to deny and "rework" later im guessing.
I also find it very amusing that with all the problems this game has you are splitting your attention between SWG and some unnamed new game. To me this speaks volumes about the real problem, a serious lack of manpower or organization on the Dev team. Throw in them using development time for an add on that we will all have to pay for, and its obvious to me that the Dev team is stretched to thin.
Dont you think its a bit of problem that you got bored of playing so fast? How can you possiably know any of the real problems if your not playing? yah yah i know your playing again, doesnt change the fact that the game still has alot of the same problems a year later.
Patented answers and witty remarks got really old six months ago. How bout you actually tell us something that your are doing right now to change the dev process and get some of our pressing problems fixed.
Im absolutey sure you wont respond, but thats my two cents anyway.
Substance, not BS is what we need.
Stop spending Dev time to sell us an add on, fix the Core systems now!
You don't sound amused actually.
My job is to run the studio, not just SWG. But SWG is where I am concentrating the vast majority of my time.
I agree that there is a lot of work to do on SWG to make it more accessible, more FUN and filled with significantly more Star Wars content.
There are changes being made to our development and QA processes for SWG. This doesn't mean that things will get better overnight, it just means we are working for the players as best we know how to.
I'd rather let what the team does do most of the talking.
You may not agree with everything we do or the order we do it in, but the entire team really wants the game to be better experience for the players. It is why we work on games in the first place.
I find it amusing that people bash the gang that is working so hard on this game (and the expansion) just because they don't like some of the things the devscame out with.
I have to admit...I don't like everything that has come out in all the publishes....But unlike some people, I understand that coding, recoding. and re-recoding things is not really the easiest thing to do, especially when you are trying to keep things balanced/fun.
Just blindly bashing the people at SOE that work on SWG is not right, but that's just my opinion.
I will also admit some of the "nerfs" as people call them, seem a little harsh or unfair....But mostchanges they have come out with has been for the better, in the long run. It's making the game more fun, at least for me.
Now, I know that some people will not appreciate what I say, but deal with it.
Just steer free of the "Combat Balance" response and you'll be ok.
antares
master pikeman
Sraecru wrote:
SOETyrant wrote:
CMDRbarbere wrote:
I really hope the unannounced game you are working on is not SWG2.
No. (I love saying that!)
Seems to me we have plenty of work we can do on SWG without running off to do a second version!
This statement alone makes you my hero.
/agree