Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Great Expectations, Major Schedule Changes and making SWG the finest MMORPG ever
calomac wrote:
WHO THE !@$% CARES IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS CANCELLED!!!SOE DOSNT!only about one third of the games population come to the forums probably!So what if you leave?your not proving a thing other than the fact that you are whiners!if you did have your way then the game would be free and it would come with a computer that does all your work and comes with a chocolate covered strawberry!THE WORLD DOSNT REVOLF AROUND YOU WHINERS!IF YOU DONT LIKE IT THEN BITE ME!
Dude, your post is completely illogic. Try thinking before posting next time.
ps. Devs won't tip you or give you some ubers l33t kick ass guns to kiss their a$$ and go at war against unsatisfied customers. There's absolutely no purpose for reacting like that.
Freedom of speech ever heard of it?
ROFL
DarthBrundleFLY wrote:
Moriendor wrote:
DarthBrundleFLY wrote:
KebeRakar wrote:
I don't buy the arguement that the "Core game" chould be fixed before JTL comes out. JTL was supposed to be in the core game. so were Player cities, mounts and vehicles. Not only have we been paying for a buggy game, but we have been paying for a buggy game that is only half complete!
No one really cares if you buy the arguement or not you blew all credibility when you opened your mouth and stated that JTL was to be originally part of the core game, next time do a little research and you wont come off looking like a noob.
Sorry but thems the facts
Sorry but it may be you who needs to do a little more research. In the very early days it was in fact planned to launch the game with space content. I remember very well that the announcement that space would be added in an expansion was not very well received by the community.
Think again buddy...I have been around a while. Here's a link to Gamespys review of the game from E3 2002 for ya...
http://archive.gamespy.com/e32002/pc/swg/
At the end of the review on page 2 is the following...
How soon before we get to play? Well, if you're lucky enough to be selected for the beta at StarWarsGalaxies.com, you might be able to try the game out as early as July 15th, when a beta test goes live. After the developers have put the game through its paces, assuming all goes well, the game could be launched as early as December 2002. An expansion pack, allowing you to fly around in your own spaceships from planet to planet, will follow a few months after.
There was also video footage showing the game running on a Geforce 3 (The card of choice at the time) and a quick look at the EXPANSION of an x-wing flying over a star destroyer.
Whats that.....sorry I cant understand you...oh that's why, it seems your foot is firmly entrenched in your mouth.
/sigh ... from May/June 2001:
May was a huge month for us. In the middle of the month we revealed a new look to our site complete with the first in game screenshots. The community reaction was overwhelmingly positive. It was such a great feeling to sit back and watch all of our team’s hard work get that kind of praise. But that was only the start for us.
A vast majority of the fans seemed very pleased about our announcement to do the space expansion pack. Doing it as an add-on after the initial release allows us to focus on it and make it a full featured portion of the Star Wars experience, instead of something quickly thrown into an already ambitious game under a tight schedule. There were a few community members who had hoped that our initial release would include space. Hopefully they’ll find that the quality of the expansion will validate our decision.
At E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show), we intended to show the game four times behind closed doors to select members of the press. We wanted to generate a good buzz for the game. Instead we had to show it about a dozen times and we walked away with several of Best of Show nominations and awards from the press (see below). We went in thinking that the odds were too high against us to get even get nominated for anything at this early stage and with such a limited viewing. Perhaps we should have taken a lesson from Captain Solo’s quote at the top of this page.
The team is walking on cloud nine right now. But the producers are bringing us back down to get back to work on the game. We made a lot of promises at the convention and now it is time for us to make sure they happen. I’ll keep you updated on our progress.
~Kevin “Q-3PO” O’Hara
Community Relations Manager
Moriendor wrote:
DarthBrundleFLY wrote:
Moriendor wrote:
DarthBrundleFLY wrote:
KebeRakar wrote:
I don't buy the arguement that the "Core game" chould be fixed before JTL comes out. JTL was supposed to be in the core game. so were Player cities, mounts and vehicles. Not only have we been paying for a buggy game, but we have been paying for a buggy game that is only half complete!
No one really cares if you buy the arguement or not you blew all credibility when you opened your mouth and stated that JTL was to be originally part of the core game, next time do a little research and you wont come off looking like a noob.
Sorry but thems the facts
Sorry but it may be you who needs to do a little more research. In the very early days it was in fact planned to launch the game with space content. I remember very well that the announcement that space would be added in an expansion was not very well received by the community.
Think again buddy...I have been around a while. Here's a link to Gamespys review of the game from E3 2002 for ya...
http://archive.gamespy.com/e32002/pc/swg/
At the end of the review on page 2 is the following...
How soon before we get to play? Well, if you're lucky enough to be selected for the beta at StarWarsGalaxies.com, you might be able to try the game out as early as July 15th, when a beta test goes live. After the developers have put the game through its paces, assuming all goes well, the game could be launched as early as December 2002. An expansion pack, allowing you to fly around in your own spaceships from planet to planet, will follow a few months after.
There was also video footage showing the game running on a Geforce 3 (The card of choice at the time) and a quick look at the EXPANSION of an x-wing flying over a star destroyer.
Whats that.....sorry I cant understand you...oh that's why, it seems your foot is firmly entrenched in your mouth.
/sigh ... from May/June 2001:
May was a huge month for us. In the middle of the month we revealed a new look to our site complete with the first in game screenshots. The community reaction was overwhelmingly positive. It was such a great feeling to sit back and watch all of our team’s hard work get that kind of praise. But that was only the start for us.
A vast majority of the fans seemed very pleased about our announcement to do the space expansion pack. Doing it as an add-on after the initial release allows us to focus on it and make it a full featured portion of the Star Wars experience, instead of something quickly thrown into an already ambitious game under a tight schedule. There were a few community members who had hoped that our initial release would include space. Hopefully they’ll find that the quality of the expansion will validate our decision.
At E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show), we intended to show the game four times behind closed doors to select members of the press. We wanted to generate a good buzz for the game. Instead we had to show it about a dozen times and we walked away with several of Best of Show nominations and awards from the press (see below). We went in thinking that the odds were too high against us to get even get nominated for anything at this early stage and with such a limited viewing. Perhaps we should have taken a lesson from Captain Solo’s quote at the top of this page.
The team is walking on cloud nine right now. But the producers are bringing us back down to get back to work on the game. We made a lot of promises at the convention and now it is time for us to make sure they happen. I’ll keep you updated on our progress.
~Kevin “Q-3PO” O’Hara
Community Relations Manager
/Shakes Head
So what was your point...you just proved me right. The developers didn't say it would be in the initial release, the fans hoped it would based on SOE/Lucasarts hype promoting the upcoming game.
Master Bounty Hunter 
Lieutenant Imperial Army
** Warning Long Post Ahead**
It’s with some sense of disbelief I read the initial post by TH. I can hardly believe you actually had the gall to do this.
Well, first off I must say that of all the mistakes, bad calls and poor decisions of the development team so far this one stands out to me as the most glaring. (I believe the development team has made its fair share of mistakes, just as they’ve managed a lot of improvements on the game or the last year’s time).
The cause of the problem
First off, it seems clear to me that the reason behind the problem and the rather sad state of affairs origins in the developers level of ambitions: Starting to create on of the more (if not the most ambitious) MMOG expansion to date including a completely new game / combat system while the initial game is still in dire need of fixes, improvements and balancing. Top that off with the introduction of Jedi’s and a long list of subsequent changes, fixes, revamps and a level of Jedi content that is for more expansive than what is enjoyed by any other class in the game.. and doing it all at once. To put it bluntly, that level of ambitions have now backfired and were all, players and developers alike suffering the consequences.
The combat rebalance as the end of all woes in the game
Lets be honest here, for more than half a year you’ve chanted “It’ll all be fixed in the combat rebalance”.. “no need to worry” .. “no we can’t answer that now, no we won’t address or fix that now”.. “it’ll be part of the combat rebalance”.. “It’ll be here real soon”.. “just keep talking to your correspondents..”. We’ve heard these things SO many times by now that a lot of us are getting rather sick of it.
Already back in November or September when you first introduced the combat rebalancing chant it seemed a bit to good to be true. In the previous six months fixes to combat and profession related problems were slow in coming and all too often of a poor quality once they hit the live server. Personally I couldn’t help wonder how you would be able to pull this off when you seemed to be struggling with even basic fixes, but in all fairness you just pulled off the rather extensive creature handling rebalance. It looked like the dev team might finally be finding their feet and pull off some major changes to really make SWG all that it could have been.
But alas…
After the CH rebalance the class that had previously ruled the galaxy was reduced to a shadow of its former self. It was explained that this was done simply as the first part of the combat rebalance aimed at January… the CH’s wouldn’t be all that useful for a couple of months but that was accepted as a necessary step in the greater scheme of things.
With January approaching you, the developers were strangely quite about the actual content of the combat rebalancing. Surprising really since you had otherwise shown a lot of effort previously to inform you players of what you were up to, what you were planning and generally good in engaging the player base in discussions about possible changes. Now, facing the biggest change and modification of the game system since launch, you were quite as the grave. And then the combat rebalancing were rescheduled for the first time.
All in all the players were disappointed, but took it fairly well (some were furious some happy.. most accepted that something this big didn’t happen overnight). A new ETA was given. We were told that yes it would take long.. but you wanted to do it right, no cutting corners or half solutions.. you were still set on fixing every combat related issue in the game with one big fix. Well, in the mean time the issues facing a lot of the combat players grew and grew. PvP became increasingly the exclusive domain of mind damaging professions. The less PvP oriented players were shut out to an increasing extent from the GCW due to lack of PvP oriented templates. Bugs were rampant; a lot of specials still didn’t work. A lot of the old problems from launch still prevailed (/waves to the squad leaders and pikemen out there).
The new date for the wonderful fix-all rebalance was hastily approaching, and once again there was no word from the dev’s. No actual suggestions for changes and fixes, we were asked to provide our visions for the different professions, but it never became more than a one way communication of lot lists of ideas and suggestions from the players. The developers never really reported back on the various issues except for limited issues through the correspondents. At least nothing that resembled more than the limited fixes and stop gabs that the developers had previously explained they wanted to avoid since it would lead to a poor end result.
Then about a week or so prior to the supposed ETA of the rebalance hitting the test server, JustG’s now infamous state of the game letter appeared, casually mentioning that the combat rebalancing was pushed back 3-4 months time. People were less than impressed. But at least the letter provided a clear idea of what the devs were aiming for and when. One thing that really had me worried back then was that doing the programming, planning and designing for such a major change is certainly not done over night; it would (will?) take months. At first I thought that since it was being rescheduled in the 11th hour the vast bulk of all that work must have been done and ready.. surely they would be able to give us the parts of this new wonder system that was done. But there was nothing except minor bug fixes. I can’t help but question if the developers have even started on the combat rebalance. They continue to tell us its moving along but takes time, they continue to ask us for input.. but we hear next to nothing concrete in return. Except for the brief glimpse of the changed ham system, there is not one single fact that even suggests that the dev’s have even started working on this massive undertaking that has resulted in almost all combat related problems to be brushed of with a ‘wait till the combat rebalance’.
I truly hope I’m wrong, but I’ve become too jaded to take the word of the dev’s at face value by now. If have truly been working on this for the last six months, show us something, please prove to us that your not just stringing us along .. I can’t believe you can have been working on this for 6 moths now with nothing to show for your effort?
Now, with this post the rebalance has been postponed yet again. For over half a year now you told us “wait until the combat rebalance”. According to the new schedule, by the time you actually get down to doing this, you will have left these issues and problems to fester and hamper our game play for over a year.. That’s a long time considering the game is only now about a year old. Of course, by now its hard to actually believe you when you claim it’ll be done after the release of JTL. We’ve been brushed off three times now, for over half a year, how can you expect us to believe that things will be any different in another half a year? With JTL planned to be released in the fourth quarter of the year, there can’t really be any doubt that the first couple of months following the release will be eating all the dev’s time in order to fix the various issues that always follow the release of a MMOG product like this. At the earliest the dev’s can be expected to have even a fair chance at another big project by around the New Year. Then you actually have to do the work of the rebalance, something that has so far taken you 6 months. So, by my guestimate I can’t see the combat rebalancing happening before February or so. That is if all goes smoothly with JTL.
Aside from the issues of being stiffed for a year with a sub par, broken game system there’s several other reasons why I find your decisions to be ill considered:
The player-developer relationship.
After this, how can you expect us (the players) to take anything you say seriously? I know you’re carefully to state that nothing is set in stone and schedules might change. But three times in a row? Were talking about a “delay” of over a year or more! With your approach to combat related problems having been ‘wait until the rebalance’ and your subsequent reschedules how can you expect the players to take your words serious anymore? How can you expect players to be interested in the development, to provide feedback and to look forward to improvements to the game?
The Jedi
I don’t have a Jedi character, but I’m sure that the Jedi class needs changing and fixing. But hey!.. so does other classes. We are already facing a situation in game where people are beginning to seriously wonder why anyone would want to play anything but a Jedi? Why would anyone be less than they can be, why be cannon fodder for a class that is so clearly stronger, gets more dev attention, gets the largest amount of unique content and on top of that is so central to the star wars saga. You decision to prioritize the Jedi class over the combined sum of all the other combat classes sends a very clear message to players “Be Jedi or be gone”. It is as if you are doing everything you can to downsize the ‘other classes’ while encouraging people to become yet another Jedi?! Is that really your vision of the game?
The quality of the game
So, you just told us you’re delaying the rebalance for another 6 months or so. Do you find it acceptable to leave this game in a state you yourself have admitted to being problematic for yet another 6 months? Of course your solution to this is now to make a handful of stopgap fixes and changes. The very thing you wanted to avoid 6 months back. This is what you described at as an uneven and unstable table?! Do you really feel it is acceptable to leave the game broken for 6 months and then leave it for another 6 months in the state of an uneven and unstable system?
In conclusion, I’m still shocked that you can get yourself to do this. That you even consider it is beyond me. Well, you do what you must, but I do hope you will reconsider; you’ve done so before when the player base spoke out. Now is the time to do so again. I don’t know who has the final say so in the matter. Maybe it’s not the developers but the ‘some other group, company or department’ I’ve no idea. But whoever is making this happen doesn’t really matter; the effect will be the same to the players, the quality of the game and the relationship between the developers and the players
/CLAP
I have read a ton of reviews from major magazines like EGM, Computer Caming World, GamePro, etc; gone over reviews from major internet sites on the game and even watched the X-Play (TechTV) review. The one thing I have found in common to just about every review I read was they considered the game boring. I play other mmorpgs and a mmofps and in those games SWG when ever brought up gets torn apart, Its rare for anyone to find much good to say about the game and I couldn't even give a close number to how many times I have heard people say, " I canceled my SWG account and never plan on going back". The reason I mention all this is mainly because these things are what help people to decide whether or not they are goin to pay for a game. Im sure marketing plays a role but i believe these factors have a larger influence including the simple word of mouth(players telling other players).
Its clear that SOE/LUCASARTS wants JTL to ship in October because this is the start of the holiday shopping season. But the problem i see that is more important then making the holiday sales is having a buyer base. With what has been expressed on these two threads about your announcement your losing alot of customers that wont come back and others who refuse to buy an expansion for a core game in which "The combat balance alone is the single largest player issue"-posted by TH on 1/23/04- that is now even being delayed further. Also with even non-SWG players getting negative feedback, from what was mentioned in the above paragraph, how many copies of JTL does SOE/LUCASARTS expect to sale. Yes SWG is offering a free trial period to try to lure more people into the game and I even noticed today that the price of SWG had dropped at Target (not sure if this was SOE/LUCASARTS decision or if Target just wanted them off their shelves). Is this enough for JTL to have a strong enough release to justify the losses. JTL is only an expansion that still requires the SWG core. I am no marketing genius, by far, butI amsure if SWG coregame had a more of a positive feedback with players and reviewers that JTLwillhave astronger initial sales regardless if its released holiday season or not.
I am very concerned over the number of people claiming to cancel their accounts, with players not feeling good about a core game and with a few huge titles in the near future how many of the current community are goin to migrate to these new titles w/o looking back regardless of how well JTL does or not. I would suggest one of two things to keep this from happening:
1) Pull all the devs now from JTL and have all efforts put toward Combat Balance, then split the teams again to finish the jedi quest and JTL which may only be delayed a few months (less if its true that the CB has already been worked on).
With out the combat balance pub 10 is only goin to add a greater number of jedi's to the game, which is a huge mistake with combat being out of balanced already. Plus I personally can't understand what the logic is to adding force sensitvity skills to an imbalnce system, all this will end up doing is throw the whole system further out of balance frustrating even more players toadd to the already too numerouscanceled accounts.
2) Drop monthly charges and/or add SWG to SOE's All Access Pass.
I'm not saying do this permanetly just long enough to keep the accounts active till JTL and the Combat Balancehave both been implemented. There arealot of cancelled accountsdue toplayers feeling that they are paying full price for a game that feels like its in a state of beta testing where their money could be going toward something else. An added benifit from the All Access Pass is that players already paying for games such as EQ or even Planetside may figure for the small additional cost to try out SWG and to do this they will have to pay for the core game(which makes money vs. free trials). Yes the idea of dropping the monthly rate or adding the game to the All Access pass means there will be lessrevenue coming in from SWG but isnt the same happening with cancelled accounts anyways. Atleast with active accounts SOE/LUCASARTS still has a chance tomake right bythe players, where as cancelled accounts your not always going to get that second chance. In the long run the more accounts you can keep active now the better the chances are for SWG/JTL to be the best MMORPG in the future.
As consumers, in which we all are including the staff of SWG/SOE/LUCASARTS, faith in a company is crucial to future purchases. With out it most consumers are hard pressed to continue to spend thier hard earned money toward products from that company. If a car ,for instance, was purchased and the manufacturer admitted for a year there was a problem with out fixing the problem wouldn't you as the consumer look to invoke the lemon lawto getyour money back and to replace the product with something else(most likely from anothercompany who you now have more faith in).
I truly hope that this post is looked at and thought about carefully. As of right now the only thing that keeps this game going is the STAR WARS name but SOE/LUCASARTS needs to realize that not all Star Wars Fanatics are gamers and not all gamers are Star Wars Fanatics. I'm sure there are manyplayers feeling that they have been fed incorrect info purposely or have had tactics usedsuch as the veteran reward(which wasmentioned inMays newsletter)to stretch out accounts. This willlose alot of faith in SOE/LUCASARTS. This is all about a game, players play games to enjoy and unless they are doing that they will move on.
ShadowViper
Been playing as of July 2003
I am sorry to have to repost this but it is clear that the majority of the people viewing this thread are skipping to th last page. And someone on the staff of SWG is messing with the posts.
Please for the love of god bump back the second part of the jedi revamp and get the balance out prior to JTL.
Miquel Lopez
Gamespot
No idea, didn't see a place to email them.
Chris Cook
Game Informer
Again, no idea, didn't see a way to inform them.
DarthBrundleFLY wrote:
Moriendor wrote:
DarthBrundleFLY wrote:
Moriendor wrote:
DarthBrundleFLY wrote:
KebeRakar wrote:
I don't buy the arguement that the "Core game" chould be fixed before JTL comes out. JTL was supposed to be in the core game. so were Player cities, mounts and vehicles. Not only have we been paying for a buggy game, but we have been paying for a buggy game that is only half complete!
No one really cares if you buy the arguement or not you blew all credibility when you opened your mouth and stated that JTL was to be originally part of the core game, next time do a little research and you wont come off looking like a noob.
Sorry but thems the facts
Sorry but it may be you who needs to do a little more research. In the very early days it was in fact planned to launch the game with space content. I remember very well that the announcement that space would be added in an expansion was not very well received by the community.
Think again buddy...I have been around a while. Here's a link to Gamespys review of the game from E3 2002 for ya...
http://archive.gamespy.com/e32002/pc/swg/
At the end of the review on page 2 is the following...
How soon before we get to play? Well, if you're lucky enough to be selected for the beta at StarWarsGalaxies.com, you might be able to try the game out as early as July 15th, when a beta test goes live. After the developers have put the game through its paces, assuming all goes well, the game could be launched as early as December 2002. An expansion pack, allowing you to fly around in your own spaceships from planet to planet, will follow a few months after.
There was also video footage showing the game running on a Geforce 3 (The card of choice at the time) and a quick look at the EXPANSION of an x-wing flying over a star destroyer.
Whats that.....sorry I cant understand you...oh that's why, it seems your foot is firmly entrenched in your mouth.
/sigh ... from May/June 2001:
May was a huge month for us. In the middle of the month we revealed a new look to our site complete with the first in game screenshots. The community reaction was overwhelmingly positive. It was such a great feeling to sit back and watch all of our team’s hard work get that kind of praise. But that was only the start for us.
A vast majority of the fans seemed very pleased about our announcement to do the space expansion pack. Doing it as an add-on after the initial release allows us to focus on it and make it a full featured portion of the Star Wars experience, instead of something quickly thrown into an already ambitious game under a tight schedule. There were a few community members who had hoped that our initial release would include space. Hopefully they’ll find that the quality of the expansion will validate our decision.
At E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show), we intended to show the game four times behind closed doors to select members of the press. We wanted to generate a good buzz for the game. Instead we had to show it about a dozen times and we walked away with several of Best of Show nominations and awards from the press (see below). We went in thinking that the odds were too high against us to get even get nominated for anything at this early stage and with such a limited viewing. Perhaps we should have taken a lesson from Captain Solo’s quote at the top of this page.
The team is walking on cloud nine right now. But the producers are bringing us back down to get back to work on the game. We made a lot of promises at the convention and now it is time for us to make sure they happen. I’ll keep you updated on our progress.
~Kevin “Q-3PO” O’Hara
Community Relations Manager
/Shakes Head
So what was your point...you just proved me right. The developers didn't say it would be in the initial release, the fans hoped it would based on SOE/Lucasarts hype promoting the upcoming game.
lol I think you just proved yourself wrong with this rather illogical statement. The devs made it seem like space would be part of the initial release in the early days (whether by "saying" or "promoting" ... where's the difference anyway?). The players had every right to assume that this was indeed going to be the case.
My point: It was wrong of you to attack the original poster and to totally deny the "fact" ("fact" as in information that was available back then)that space was originally supposed to be a part of the core game. Here's another quote (from the E3 2001 awards):
Best PC Game
Star Wars Galaxies (Sony Online Entertainment/LucasArts)
Far from the cacophony of the show floor, a small and non-descript 15x20 foot room hosted what was one of the most talked-about demos at the show: Star Wars Galaxies. Going into the room, most journalists were only mildly enthused by the idea of LucasArts building a persistent-state Star Wars universe. But coming out of the demo, journalists couldn't stop talking about Star Wars Galaxies…for days on end. LucasArts, in partnership with Sony Online, the creators of EverQuest, revealed a game that is epic in scope, rich in potential, and simply breathtaking to look at. Set across a span of time that encompasses all the Star Wars movies, the game will have 8 playable species and just about anything else you can think of. For instance, the brief demo included a photo-realistic C-3PO walking along the Tatooine desert, not to mention a complete space combat component that puts X-Wing to shame. While Galaxies is admittedly early in development, it only took 15 minutes in that small room to convince our judges that the force is back with LucasArts.
-- Geoff Keighley, Associate Chairman, Game Critics Awards; Editor in Chief, GameSlice
If they don't choose to do this and continue on the announced path, then this is a message which we hear you LOUD and CLEAR, which your actions are telling us: WE DON'T CARE ABOUT THE PLAYER BASE, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, END OF STORY, DON'T BOTHER US.
Is anyone in agreement?
Ofonn
Message Edited by JSpeedFreak on 07-18-2004 10:03 PM