Development Cycle Archive

(not that I am of any stature to the game, and no that's not sarcastic, it's honest)

After thinking about it a couple of days I have reversed my opinion on closing the Discussion Board.

The first part of the reverse was the very brief closing that occured after it was first announced. When it was closed I thought about where I would go. I have to be honest and say that it immediately focused my attention to specific areas. I also checked the in concept board very quickly. I wanted to see what was being "thought about" right now and wanted to know what was "on deck" for development.

Shortly after they were closed, they were opened again. The result is that I looked at the discussion boards in a different context. I also saw posts suggesting how players thought the new process would turn out. Their opinions encouraged me.

If my understanding is correct the process of communication will be "channeled" and provide a "distilling" of opinions to provide a more focused community reply to what the devs are doing. The correspondents listen to specific player problems. They bring their ideas to each other and to devs on their private boards. TH (I think) champions the problems with the devs. The devs post to the "In concept" for a focused community discussion on the issues. The "In Concept" ideas are either rejected or refined to be brought into the development part of the process where the devs actually start work. At this time they also bring up the result in the "In Development" forum. Ideas are further refined here to an implementable stage. After it is ready for test, it is put on the Test Server and we know the process from here.

This process provides a logical, formal process to bring ideas to the devs, debate them, refine them and finally implement them all the while focusing the discussion on them. After thinking about it I have great hopes that the result WILL be a more focused communication between the players and the devs.

The only suggestion I would have to make it better would be to have a channel for "continuing" problems. An example of this would be a server that is always unstable or a problem that the devs think they have fixed that still occurs such as disappearing vehicles. The process described above works well for new ideas and debuging before deployment but we know and the devs admit that problems fall through the cracks. I would hope that the devs define a specific channel for this.

Although, the first thought is the Tech board that board is more focused on client issues. A bug forum sounds good BUT I would have concerns that it would turn into the gripe forum. So, I don't really have a good suggestion for this.

So, at this point I will give the devs AND Thunderheart the benifit of the doubt and try out this new system. But they have to show us the community that they are willing to work through the process the way it should be and listen to our concerns.

I hate to sound negative, but "increasing communication" and "limiting channels of communication" seem mutually exclusive. The discussion forum has always been the place to go when we had something to discuss that affected the game in general. The devs seldom read the galaxy forums. How are we supposed to have things discussed of a general nature without a general forum? Sure sometimes the discussion forum got carried away, but lots of good material got discussed there. Lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater shall we?

4. The SWG Discussion Forum will be removed to help focus game development discussions and make sure that community suggestions, comments and contributions are catalogued in forums that will be read and tracked by the development team. Please use your Galaxy forums for general SWG discussions.

And here's how that one came about:

Marketing type: "Hmmm.. the Discussion forum is allowing all forum readers to go to a single place and share their distaste for the lack of communication and horrendous quality control standards displayed by SOE. This will not do. gagging hasn't worked so let's balkanize them: tell them to post in their individual galaxy forums, split them up, weaken the vioce of the players... Also, if we are indeed going to open up the forums to non subscribers again, we can't have new and potential players seeing the state of the game and the disregard we have for users"

The galaxy forums are certainly not the right place to post about general game issues. We know, the devs know it, and the forum admins who will then happily lock threads know it.

We need to call their bluff: nominate a forum - a galaxy forum if needs be, of maybe the General Any Topic forum- as the new Discussion forum, and everyone post there.

Endie

i say keep the discussion forum alive... let players do whatever they wish on it... well, according to the agreement.

have your new boards ask specific questions/give specific discussion topics.. which is what it will do (from what I understand)

let us players bable on and on in the discussion forums, check in every so often for a good thread/idea

keep the real important discussion stuff in the developement and concept forums

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NovaKane wrote:

IMO the General Chat had degraded into lots of whining and name calling to the point that a vast majority of players did not want to go there. Watch the flames rise here even though I am not saying everyone there was a whiner or a name caller.

[more "I love the devs kissie kissie" stuff deleted]

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I am not flaming you for sweeping generalisations. I am not even flaming you for your "yes massah" obsequiosity. I am calling you an idiot because you cannot count. The Discussion forum that you say is so shunned has just shy of a millino posts. Your oh-so-popular other forums get closest to that with Jedi at a fifth of the number. Where do people like to discuss issues? Compare.

Endie

Wait a minute, the SWG discussion forumis being closed? I guess the Wookiees will never get a reply to the43+ page thread pointing out the many issues with the species:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=635248

I've seen other games do this, and it is usually related to someone in Marketing / Management pointing out that they are hosting a forum on their servers where a large number of playersrant and complain about one of their products.

Theres usually 2 things that happen after that

a) Either the forums close and move to an independant forum board,

or

b) they close the general forums and split up the complaints so on the face of it, it looks likes theres less complaints. At which point they allow non-subscribers to read the forums, as they wont be so put off

I think this is a bad idea, I think its moving to more of what Mythic do with their DAoC, and puts a great strain on the Correspondents, as they become the middlemen between their unhappy class and the devs. Unfortunately we already know that serious bugs that are identified on the test servers STILL make it into live, and that some professions have had bugs, and problems from launchwhich have not been addressed.

So do we think this new system will be better?. Better for SOE Management and Marketing maybe. For the players, No.

The removal of the SWG discussion board will invalidate the only suitable forum for posts regarding negativity within the game. Posting anywhere else will mark the topic as inappropriate for the the forum and will be closed. FIrst the message boards are barred to non-subscribers and now this. We are entitled to voice our opinions regarding a product we must PAY CONSTANTLY to use. Which ever board replaces this one will be the new home for my positive/negative feedback

well, this sure is screwed, I'm sure I was reading the general discussion forum when I was posting. Oh well

PLEASE TH Read this!

I want to talk about how to make it to Jedi, whyI think that the path dev as decided to use for ppl to get it is killing the game.

I want to unlock a FS Slot so a did let Go Master Doctor and Master Medic to do what my first holo told me (Weapon Smith). So i did grind it with not mucth fun beforeI was logging on and having fun doing it now it just suck. I love helping others and going on big hunt and all that good stuff. But now to get a JediI have to give all the fun stuff to grind professions thatI dont enjoy doing just to get a Jedi? Maybe getting Jedi is not an easy task but why it as to be boring?

So i decided to gave it up be cause it suck doing that and kills the game. I dont like walkiing in a cantina an see AFK Dancers and Musician Grinding because a Holo told them so. There is not as mutch interaction between the entertainers and us Fighters and Healers.

Before the Holo Crazyness there was allot of fun interaction between ppl in the Cantinas, It was a time of Great Joy. Every timeI needed mind healing it was a pleasure talking to them andI could even do business. Now you go in a cantina and you can hardly find someone you can talk with.

Heres whats I thinks how we should get a Jedi FS Slot.

A point system would be more effective and would not hurt the game.

You need to reach 1 millions Jedi PTS to get FS Slot for exemple (Long way to get it but at least you do it while enjoying it).

Each 1000 XP in any thing give 1 pts (Even after Caps so you can stick to your Profession and still get Jedi PTS by doing it)

Each Skill learn give 1 Pts

Each Mastered professions give1 PTS

Each Holo opened give2 PTS.

Each25 000 Credit earn give 1 PTS

Each 1000 Factionptsgive 2 PTS (to help the GCW)

Each Faction Rank give 1 PTS

Each Monthly story completed give 1 PTS. (the bage also counts for 1 pts)

Each static Quest give 1 PTS.

Also with all the data you have since launch can help you

So it can takes allot of times to get A FS Slot but you dont Kill the game by having to Grinds Profession!

For me the Holo madness is overI dont enjoy it and I dont pay to do unplasant stuff,I have been playing this game since launch and enjoyed it so far but the Holo grinding FS Slott kills me.

I will go back Master Doc and Master Riffleman soI can do PVP, PVE and selling Buffs to PPL.

Not that anyone cares.. but I prolly will wander off to another site. The Discussion boards are the only ones I 'hang out' in during the day at work. I'm just going to find something else to do. Prolly go see how stratics is posting news and how its discussion threads are.

After Friday, good bye all... its been entertaining.. till now.

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Thunderheart wrote:

I've summarized the issues and Ill be in a meeting this afternoon to talk about the changes and the SWG Discussion forum. Ill let you know what comes out of it.

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OK, TH... so, it's the day after, any news for us yet?

Yeah TH we need a reply...From what I can see now new forums are created (In Live, In Testing) and both of them are forums where only the devs can start threads...I dont disagree with that BUT you know that your community needs some general forums where we can also start threads and where we can discuss for the whole game (as suggested before like Bug forum, Ideas forum, Expansions forum etc)...

Manogr