Development Cycle Archive

Well, as someone who is making their first post here, but has read hundreds of them already, my personal suggestion on how to submit information to the developers would be to have a form of "blind post" or just being able to submit feedback on recent developments directly to the dev team. For instance, you have a "submit feedback" option on the main page of starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com, right? Well, just add an option that allows that feedback to be sent to the dev team or something like that. Basically, the point is to keep the submitted opinions out of circulation from the general public.

Why? The reason is simple: In the end, if some idea is posted publicly, it is inevitable that someone will make an argument for why this, that or the other thing doesn't work, and then someone else will pipe in about how "dumb" that is or something along those lines, and the good ideas will just plain get lost in the morass of silly little "flame" battles on the forums. Therefore, the devs will just stop reading the posts, and no good ideas will reach them, just out of sheer frustration from trying to weed through the crap to get the cream.

Something that would be nice when submitting feedback would be that we get some sort of notification that our ideas/recommendations have been read. It is very frustrating to think that you might take the time to submit information, and you don't even know that it reached the intended target.

Another thing that would be nice is an official announcement on the main page that there are new ideas/developements that are going into place on the test center. I only rarely check the "In developement" and "In testing" pages because they don't update very often. Some sort of announcement on the main page, to flag that there are new things afoot would be good.

Lastly, even though I personally think this will be a big hassle for the developers, but a very welcome thing to implement anyway, would be to allow us to submit our thoughts on proposed changes in the game system, before they go in place. For instance, I have yet to find anyone in game who enjoys the most recent changes made to the Creature Handler profession. This was implemented with only the smallest of warnings to us, indicating that there would be "balancing changes" to the profession, without giving any specifics as to what changes were going to be made. Because of this incomplete information, I've been working very hard ever since the latest patch went into place to make my character able to function effectively under the current rules. Had I had any preparatory knowledge ahead of time, I would have saved a lot of that time and effort. Personally, I feel there were changes that needed to be made to the system in regards to the CH profession, but I have a vastly different view of how they should have been changed. But I'm not a developer, am I? However, my point is that there are some changes that players do not actually want made to the game system, or they have an idea that might actually be better for the greater gaming community (or at least more acceptable). We as the public should have a say in what game we want to play, shouldn't we? After all, we're the ones paying for it, right? All I know is, many non-CH characters felt that CH was too powerful, posted so quite a bit in various forums,and so the CH profession was given a serious nerf. Basically, they complained a lot, and were given what they wanted. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? The problem with this concept is that there will always bea squeaky wheel, but it's the others who are silent that just might be the majority. You can't please all the people all the time, but you certainly can keep a majority happy. After all, there will always be an "uber" combat profession in this or any game, no matter what, so why constantly make changes to each profession until none of them are effective? Listening only to the most recent set of complaints spoils the game for those who didn't have complaints in the first place, in my opinion.

So, all that said and done, if there is going to be a major revamping of a profession, shouldn't we as the players have the right to know what those changes are, and vote whether or not we want them? This goes back to my first point, about having a means of submitting info to the devs directly, so there isn't an argument. Simple votes, perhaps with some commentary, but little more is needed, in my opinion. Simply enough, the majority of voters win. Much like in the real world, if you didn't take the time to vote, you don't get a say in the changes. It seems the only fair thing to do for me.

The counter-argument I can see to my comments above is that you could just log on to the test center and see the changes first-hand, but is that seriously a way to let the public know what is going on? I have spent nearly 3 months making one character the way I like it. I really don't want to spend 3 months or more on the test center, just so I can get scrambled up sooner than other players by design changes. I'm currently unaware of ways that these test center players can submit comments to devs, but if there isn't a form of "direct contact" on there, then I would also suggest that such a thing be implemented as well. However, for those of us who want to just play the characters we started, a means of seeing detailed changes would be nice.

I have other thoughts, but none of them are applicable to this thread, so I'll end here.

It figures. A couple of TH groupies would show and say how it is a great idea. So I guess EVERYONE else is wrong about the bad taste this leaves in your mouth..

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ShrewLWD wrote:

Quote:

If a critical issue comes up, Ill be able to open a focus thread on the "In Live" forum so we can track everyones comments.

My concern with this is....WE are the ones who find issues more often. When houses were disappearing... the general DEV response was..."your maintenance ran out". If the thread hadn't swelled to the size it did, would that still be the same response, even today? (Yes, I realize that in every instance that did happen, but the rate it dropped by to get to zero turned out to be the issue)

It BECAME a critical issue because of the ground swell of posters experiencing the same bug.

Warping (which, btw, STILL exists) of riflemen/rangers...another issue.

Vehicles autostoring...

[insert issues found by players]...

How will you make a determination that something needs to be escalated to critical if the voices are scattered?

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The forums really aren't intended to be our main outlet for reporting issues. Don't forget about submitting customer service tickets in-game. SOE has a ticket based customer service system, so if enough tickets are submitted on the same issue, it is flagged as a priority.

I know you're going to respond with some cynical story describing some incident where some ticket was ignored or not addressed in a timely manner. There are always exceptions and bad experiences, but if you've never worked in a ticket based service environment I'll just have to say "trust me", it does work.

idiots, this has got to be the single worst thing theyv ever done. Hopefully theyll have the brains to undo it, oh, but theyd never admit they **edit**ed up.... not if it killed them.


why cant you just have people that are "general corrispondants" that read threads and forward the ones they decide are important and need DEV attention? This way, the devs dont need to read anything but what theyr SENT. Then they can make more usfull replies, MORE replies, and actually get to ignore the truly usless crap. See, 95% of the posts are usless crap, but that 5%? Needs MAJOR attention, and it'll never get it under this new system. It almost never got it on the old system, but atleast it was possible.

This is the devs having the corrispondants to there job, that way theres less for them to ignore later. God the way this board is run and the CS for this game has got to be the worst iv ever seen.

To quote the DE forums, "were looking into it", heh, been looking into it for...well, when did the game come out? a day after that.

oh I almost forgot, this move? Its going to have a very fun effect, the number of exploits used will SKYROCKET. Why? More people will sign up for paysites, theres no way they'll be able to get general information from these boards anymore, so theyll go elsewhere. Most of them will goto paysites, 20$ for one year isent bad when you consider the alternative.... not to mention the faqs and **edit** they have one there, fun things like "get novice pistoleer in 3 hours, from scratch!", this will upgrade the grinding speeds of those people, thus increasing the jedi rate/burnout rate.

for those of you that dont know, you either get jedi, or give up after grinding so much. Either way theres a change of scenery, either a lightsaber, or a new game.

heh

I've never been really critical of the dev's or mods until this move was made. First off I enjoy the game and try to take a very responsible attitude towards posting to try to make it better. I'm not above flaming if I see stupidity proudly declared. Right now I'm burning up about the Discussion boards. This is by far one of the slickest moves ever made to shut up the vocal critics and it's also one of the most manipulative CS ploy's I've ever seen. People support this move? Why? Because sometimes foolish people said foolish things? Thats what having a discussion is all about. I'm sorry people but we have to reach down the trousers and grab the proverbial orbs when it comes to this move. Scream it loud and scream it proud...Do Not Close The Discussion Boards.

I am amazed by the people that support this move. Sheep have more guts. This is a bad idea and we're being manipulated into believing that it's going to make things better. It won't. Limiting the channels of communication to "focused" threads is a lame and I mean really lame way of getting some of the more vocal critics off the backs of the SWG team. This is SOE corporate culture and it stinks.

Finally, should SOE do this I would suggest that the customers that care about the game and it's management contact LucasArts and voice your concerns. This is not just an SOE issue. It's about something that many of us care about and want to see improved. Closing avenues of communication is NOT a way to improve the game.

removing the discussion board = worst. idea. ever.

At the moment we dont even get repsonses to any of our CSR/bug reports, never mind talking to an actual help person online (god forbid, like most games!). now lets cut off the only communication we have going at all. GREAT idea.

And 100% dev-run boards never work, they build up dust. ive seen it before. It will get old one thread per week, people will quickly lose interest and stop visiting that forum

as for this statement: "Please use your Galaxy forums for general SWG discussions.", thats just sad. all that tells me is "we dont want too many players getting together on issues to complain and make a fuss." leave this forum up, and have one or two people scan through it daily to GET the topics for the "in concept" board for more formal, localized discussions.

Dont like hearing all the bad stuff posted on the general board? then address the issues! I understand it takes time, but some of these are getting REALLY old now.

bah.

The in concept forum sounds like a great idea, but it does not giev eplayer the ability to create ideas for the game. I personally think there is a lot of creative input out there that is not utilized. I think the inconcept forum is a step in the right direction however.

The problem is Hitokiri is that we've lost our voice. The new forums are good ideas and I want to see them working however the discussion boards are/were a cross server communication tool that provided people with the genesis of good ideas and understanding. My question to you is what if you have a question or commenet thats not pertinent to the topics posted in those forums. You could try your galaxy and maybe get an answer but I would contend that 100000 people looking at a problem and trying to come up with an answer is alot better than 2000-4000. You can't limit communication and call it improved.

Thunderheart -

God knows you don't read all of those negative threads you're trying to weed out. So why are you so worried about them?

If it is because you want to see the constructive threads, remember that you are taking away our power to post.

You won't see ANY of them, good or bad.

But no one at SOE cares what I think.

i agree with the idea this will help communications, as most of the general dsicussion threads were repeats or rants....but... The only point of continition i have is that if something is an unpopular idea and people want to put in there views you will have 40 page threads in the "in development" section or also in the "In concept" section...the general was good for those kinds of threads, were something was supported by the general game play populus..

TH you know that players find the new issues minutes after the servers are up after a patch or generally speaking when the issues appear!

It will be extremely late to open a thread when you find an issue...you know that and something should be done. I understand that probably Marketing press you to close down the SWG Discussions but something should be done...As it was suggested before you can open more new "free to open threads" forums with more aggressive deletion of irelevant posts (Bugs, Ideas and Expansions forums as a start).

Think about it...The fact that you had a really tough debate shows that you know that you are not doing the best. Do it...

Manogr

Hello,

first of all, what lets you think that you get less spam in such a Forum? You have less Topics, but you will have thread-sizes even bigger than they were in the CH-discussion.

People will be more upset, cause they now think "hey, they will definetly read this, and because I am the only one who is right, I have all the right to be upset and call everybody names if they dont what I suggest". This will result in hijacked threads and a lot of useless spam. Because Ideas may grow within the discussion only if everybody is able to follow those threads it may be a good way to simply delete everything that is not on topic. Because it is no vote, postings like "Yeah, I agree" will be rather useless and should be either not allowed or, much better, simply deleted by someone.

My biggest concern so far is, why do you think changing the channels for communication will generate communication? Since two months there are some really major issues with architects blueprints. The whole Architects-Forum and the Correspondant try to get only a comment from the Devs about it, but there is silence. This problem is the same for other classes (not for all maybe, but for those I play).

Thats why I would like to see a place within those "New Forum" where correspondants can post their top5 issues and urgent "postpatch issues" they collect from the professions-forums. That way the professions can get feedback and it should not be too much work for a Dev to comment such postings once every one or two weeks like "Issue 1 is no Issue, works as intended. Issue 2 we are working on, no ETA yet...." and so on.

It is ok to discuss new feautres, but at the moment there are a lot of existing issues which should also be taken care of, and I am missing this in your concept.

Read ya.