Development Cycle Archive

Oh and just in case you are looking for general SWG discussion and enjoy the email way, you perhaps should check the Stratics Yahoo group :-)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/swgalaxies/

Sorry Joshua if that may end up in some subsribing email spam :-)

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R2DADROID wrote:

That Thunderheart wrote:

"The big challenge is getting past the mirage of the SWG Discussion forum. For the most part, when players post ideas, especially really good ideas, there is a need inside to be acknowledged and you want to believe that your ideas are being heard."

There were many discussion besides 'idea' threads in the general SWG forum.
There is no place for ALL players to go to discuss GENERAL SWG subjects.

"Thats not to say open discussion shouldnt be encouraged because thats how really cool ideas are incubated and grow. The question is how best to foster that."

The best place to have general SWG related discussions would be in a general SWG related forum.

It doesn't matter if it were KNOWN that devs would not monitor ideas posted in the general forum, we could still discuss ANY other general topic we wanted to.

Let us talk, let us whine, let us have great discourses on the general meaning of SWG - who cares?

"I understand, that the Discussion Forum ist not usefull as a Development tool. But players need a general discussion forum. The server-forums are not general discussion forums, they are server releated. We need a forum to have general discussions and ask questions."

I agree, but SWG discussion isn't the answer. We have most game topics covered. All the professions, the GCW, PA's and TC all have Correspondents that can involve their respective parts of the community....."

You could NEVERcover EVERY topic that people might want to discuss.

I don't know how many times I've been asked to fill out demographic information at various websites so they could focus content, services, advertising, etc.

Inevitabley (sp) there are several responses I have to answer with 'Other'because there was no possible way they could list EVERY response to the questions.

Just try submitting a bug report or CSR ticket and you'll run into this with the dropdowns. Only there is no 'Other' response so you are forced to leave it blank (if permited) or just guess what they want or pick a random response just to submit the thing.

If the general SWG discussion forum is specified as 'General' only then people will be able to discuss general topics.

If a general SWG discussion forum is not the answer for general SWG discussions, then by definition there is no answer.

"Suppose a player has an idea, but it is on an issue that is not a listed topic in one of the new forums. Where, if anywhere, do they post that idea?

Likewise, suppose a player is troubled by some aspect of SWG they feel needs improvement. Where, if anywhere, do they post that concen?"

That's not necessarily the point of a general SWG forum, although some queries might find themselves there. Then label them as 'off topic' since they deal with development.

Otherwise some sort of Suggested Improvements forum would be warranted or General Development threads in the Development forum.
And monitoring would be required.

You know people would also go there to complain about problems.
And you know SOE doesn't want that.

But closing the only general SWG discussion forum for the rest of us isn't the answer either.

"As for the ideas, players need to save them and post them when the idea comes up, otherwise the reality is that their ideas probably wont be included - - timing is everything."

Players need to save their ideas that the devs haven't thought of yet and post them when the devs post a thread concerning something the devs haven't considered......

"Still, ideas can grow and be saved for a time when they are appropriate and can be considered into the processs."

That's just the point (concerning development ideas) - they can't grow without discussion.

But besides that fact, removing the main means of discussing SWG-general but non-development topics alienates the player base and reduces the communal feeling of the shared SWG experience. And that is a very large part of and a very strong draw for most online game communities.

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(No, I didn't mean to usethe large font on my 'NO!' post. Cutting and Pasting from Word messes up something with the html coding in the Reply textbox and I had to move it to Wordpad to try stripping odd formatting out so I could post it. It did NOT appear that way when I was editing it and I did not know it would do that. I hate when people enter their entire post witha large font and wouldn't do that - I LIKE CAPS.....)

sorry

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You couldnt be more wrong.

People will have every chance to make constructivesugestions inits appropriate thread or Forum.

What IS cut off is a area where unconstructive rants,whines, flames and troll posts outnumbered constructive posts 100 to 1.

Personally, if they would have asked for my opinion on how they could have corrected the problem, I would have told them to start enforcing the rules and ban all the makers of the unconstructive posts.

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ok so if you have 100 negative poststo 1 positivecomment you think thats our fault as players? i have owned this game since launch initailly turned it on played about 15 hours of game timequit for 4 months (cause running everywhere with bugs at every corner was no fun) recently came back to alot of same bugs then and now am bh and cant even do what i am intended to do. droid tracking gets so bad its not even funny not talking about jedi. im talking about inv 1 takes about 3 min for droid to track inv 2 about5 minutes for droid to track getting better but droid gets worse hmmmm. inv 3 took me 10 to 15 minutes a track by the time i get to the planet with the mark, mark has moved to ANOTHER PLANET. woohoo start over again and dish out cash for rides most expensive places being the common place for our marks.. also tk's are woopingour butts out there as a bh societyeven with60% comp armor and good shield. BH 3-0-1-4 and dabble in pistoleer 1-3-2-2 to get the defense WE need. would boba phet have ever survived in this faulty world? naaa he'd be a ranger or in the dirt the second he got novice bh cause tk's are hunting for us now. most of these complaints from me and others need to be fixed its not like the cost of the game every month is going down. or even that i have seen what they intend to do about the 6 month droid bug for bh.i do like alot of the features to this game and would love to see everything there in game working now before more content. like space, looks pretty cool but if you havent fixed the huge profession bugs by then who will be in it>? so many already leaving seems because they havent gotten any real answers just idea's that might happen and small brief ones at that. i pay for this game with everyone else i would like to see your intentions rather than idea's like the death mark system. someone sent same basic post to you guys asking and complaing about same stuff and your responce was death mark. and that was pretty much it i know if i had the stuff in front of you that you do i would understand the meaning of death mark system but i dont how about some real answers. when you fixing bh bugs that wont even allow us to do what you siad we could do on the box. i never remember seeing after first year of game play bh might be debugged. if that were tha case we wouldnt be here 6months since launch last real answer...were working on it and from now well implement patches over the next few months to fix.....woohoo more wait to fix last comment.. i love the game possibilities you guys have done a good overall job it seems at fixing most big bugs except the bh's there it seems you just keep making worse.

master marksman, master scout, medic, and pistoleer

Personally, I think it's time to start drafting letters to the SOE execs, detailing our issues with this game and with the development staff. Eliminating the general discussion forum is a stupid idea. What does the development staff hope to gain by forbidding us from discussing SWG topics with players from all Galaxies? Because forbidding us from doing so is exactly what they've done. I swear, SWG has the worst customer service of any company I've ever dealt with.

Dev Rule 113: If there are too many customer complaints, close the complaint department.

SOE execs could care less. It would be the same waste of time that it is informing the dev's. The only way to get this resolved is to form together as a community and get this out to the public! Inform well read magazines that are followed by mainstream gamers. Hit their wallet, that is the only thing that they really care about!!

They are killing these forums so future players can't see whats messed up, as long as it is kept quiet, they have the power. Make it public, make them fear us instead of them laughing at the fact that we are still paying them $15 bucks a month and letting them rape us.

Could we get an explaination of the new HAM system that will be going in with the next big patch as one of the first items to fall under this new policy? Also the new weapon/combat system. These are by far, the biggest change to the game since release and will drastically change the game, we need to know how.

Here are the issues with the new HAM special system that most everyone needs explained.

1) How is the amount of HAM the special cost now determined (will character stats effect it)?

2) How does player stats (Consitution and Stamina) effect the regeneration of the new HAM system or does it at all?

Here's some questions about the new weapon cert system (novice, master) and combat system?

1) With the new novice and master level weapons, what will happen to the current weapons in the game? This effects nearly every player in the game, crafters, combat professions, and even people who just have the more basic weapons for protection. Will they still work, will they be considered master level weapons, or is it just stuff we are suppose to toss away under the new system?

2) What changes to weapons in general will be happening to balance the weapons?

3) When do you plan on posting information about the new combat system and the new specials each profession will have?

Thanks TH.

I have a few comments I’d like taken into consideration with the proposed changes to the forums. I will discuss each new and existing forum point by point, and post general comments in another thread.

This might end up being a little long, so grab a beer and some smokes.

I understand that the intent of these changes is to focus attention and discussion in a controlled manner on current and future development. Something that has been haphazard at times in the past.

And I believe that these changes COULD provide a clearer and more informative means of collecting information from players.

This could provide unprecedented communication, if executed properly and USED properly by devs and players alike, that we have not seen the likes of since beta. I am extremely excited by this prospect and genuinely hope that these changes DO produce the results intended.

However, I believe there are several issues that need to be addressed before these changes can provide a truly effective means for communication between the general public and developers.

The developers can disseminate the initial information merely by posting a new thread in one of the forums.

But to get these posts in front of the players, collect responses from them, and provide additional information when needed is the challenge – this should be a closed feedback loop (no pun) where information continues to flow in BOTH directions.

Not exclusively from the top (devs) down or from the bottom (players) up. And not arbitrarily, but continually through all stages of the process as needed from either end.

The changes to the forums as stated in the Development thread consist of the following items:

1) "Discussion" forum – eliminate and shunt ‘general’ discussions to server forums

2) "Announcement" forum – unchanged, current form

3) "In Concept" forum – add for brainstorming specific development topics

4) "Development" forum – renamed, current form

5) "Test Center" forum – unchanged, "In-Test" threads

6) "Released" forum – something many of us would like to see if Recent Updates can’t cut it

1) "Discussion" forum

First off, let me say that I think shunting general discussions to the server forums is a very bad idea. I will expand on this in another post because I don’t want to dilute this post with a seemingly unrelated discussion.

But this forum is the only free and open exchange routinely used by most ALL forum participants. By this I mean that most people read this forum, so most questions and other information posted here is easily absorbed by the public. An all-purpose general forum is a collective of nearly ALL forum participants.

Removing it will be taking away a place where we ALL can go to discuss things.

Yes, it might be considered by some to be largely negative, but enough good comes from it to warrant NOT throwing out ‘the bath water’.

2) "Announcement" forum

The Announcement forum is somewhat informative but sparse. Thank goodness. This means we can find things and read what is important to us. And you can stickie threads if you want to track them.

Some people check the forum, but not many I know of since there is limited information available. This is largely due to the fact that there really aren’t that many announcements being posted. As a result, anything really important that IS posted there will likely be missed – like Thunderheart’s posting of these changes, NOT in the Discussion forum where everyone would see them.

Important posts from this forum need to be propagated to other appropriate forums where they will be seen by players. A few of these have sometimes been posted or stickied to other forums where I’ve seen them. But I just checked my server forum and most of the forums I monitor, and I don’t think I saw more than one of these announcement stickied anywhere.

Don't expect people to know what's going on if they never see an important post.

3) "In Concept" forum

The Concept forum sounds like an excellent step towards collecting comments from players to provide an interactive form of involved development – if implemented in a way that also provides information BACK to players when asked for.

One of the MOST frustrating situations is being given information from the devs 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hand that is vague, incomplete or otherwise doesn’t make sense to the people who are actually playing a specific aspect of the game. Then players trying to ask questions or get clarification and receiving NOTHING in return.

There is no way that constructive discussion on any subject can take place if one party does not have the information necessary to intelligently evaluate what they have been given and construct a useful response.

What usually happens in this case is that several conflicting yet false assumptions are made and heated arguments ensue that are not based on fact.

There IS the possibility that this MIGHT produce SOME sort of useful dialogue, but in most cases so much time and effort is wasted debating non-issues, that it’s hardly productive. I’ve been there, in the DE forum, discussing ‘The Official DE Plan’ that was given to us, and it did not work very well at all.

When players ask for feedback or clarification from the devs, they must receive the information needed so they can make informed decisions and discuss proposals intelligently, or this new system will not create clear channels of communication but more confusion and strife. This isn't so much of a problem during brainstorming, but definitely can be in other areas of the development process.

Relevant posts from theConcept forum should be propagated to other appropriate forums so that they receive adequate exposure to the public. This is the only way most people will see them and respond to them. Players cannot be expected to keep up to date on THREE or more profession forums, ONE or more server forums, the Announcement forum, theConcept forum, the Development forum, the Recent Updates forum, theTesting forum, the Dev Tracker forum, any Trade forums AND the Test Center forum for information on the game – propagate relevant threads to the proper place(s) so people can see them and respond. If there is a thread about droids they should be co-posted or linked in the DE forum as separate msgs, not just one combined 'links' msg. Merchant and vendor threads should be co-posted or linked in the Merchant forum.

I would expect all the normal functionality available in the other forums like stickied threads by players, etc.

4) "Development" forum

The Development forum is very informative. It includes threads of all kinds, dealing with dev responses to many, many issues. It’s also very apparent that it’s very unclear where issues are being or should be posted.

The latest post in the Development forum when I wrote this was "Vendor and Bazaar issues…" posted by Blair on 01-04-2004 06:45PM. Anyone who reads this post is informed:

"We’ve been having problems with vendors and the bazaar on several servers over the last 12 hours. We’ve repaired the problem on all servers wiht the exception of Bloodfin and Eclipse.

We brought down Bloodfin and Eclipse earlier to try to resolve the problem but were unsuccessful. Bloodfin and Eclipse are now up but without functional bazaars or vendors.

We are actively working on this problem."

I scrolled through TWENTY pages on the SWG Discussion forum, Merchant forum, Bloodfin forum and the Eclipse forum – all of the places people would need to know this information. This post was available in none of those places. Of course, posting this thread is the SWG Discussion forum - a GENERAL discussion forum - would have been seen by most forum participants.

Then in the SWG Discussion forum there was the post "Vehicle Publish Issues & Questions" posted by Thunderheart on 01-03-2004 06:01PM which is not in the Development forum.

Very confusing, hit-or-miss approach to disseminating information to players. I hope that problems such as these can be ironed out and policies set on where, when and how issue and development threads will be posted so that everyone sees them.

Which brings up another point, will the Development forum be used for posting issues, or development focus threads? If both are posted in the same place will it be confusing or distracting to players who are supposed to be paying attention to the development threads? Will development threads get lost in all the other issue threads? Questions that need to be answered before changes are made.

Let me reiterate points made about the In Concept forum that apply here also.

Important posts from this forum need to be propagated to other appropriate forums where they will be seen and responded to by players.

Communication needs to be a two way street when players ask for more information or clarification.

I would expect all the normal functionality available in the other forums like stickied threads by players, etc.

5) "Test Center" forum

This forum is a server forum. I have not extensively used it, but it appears to serve the purpose quite well. They collect bug reports on the forum, and there are even player events held on TC.

I had some questions about In-Testing threads which were not clearly explained in the forums Announcement and Development posts, but nowI see there is an In Testing FORUM so they have been answered.

But this is just such an example of incomplete or erroneous information being passed to players. And if we had actually discussed these changes BEFORE they were made (grrr), there would have been a degree of confusion and player questions which would have needed responses by the dev team for clarification - the In Testing forum was not listed in the Announcement and Development posts.

6) "Released" forum

I only include this forum as a suggestion because the Recent Updates section just ain't cutting it.

This section is supposed to contain the Patch Notes presented during login for each update to the server or client side software. But there appear to be several problems or inadequacies with the current system.

When I went to the Recent Update section while writing this, the only changes listed were the December 23rd Patch Notes.

There have been one or two small updates as I've logged in since Dec 23, and none of these are listed.

If I want to look up Patch Notes from previous patches to see if or when something went live, that information is unavailable as far as I know. If it is available somewhere else, why is it listed in two separate places instead of just one place where it would be easier for people to find?

Perhaps I wanted to check the date a certain patch went live to see if a problem I'm having started on or around that date.

Why not just list all Patch Notes in a forum setting similar to the Announcements forum so that the information is always available to all players?

We also have a problem with 'stealth nerfs' as they are called. Changes that went live but were not listed in the Patch Notesduring login. This situation can be most aggravating to players, and undoubtedly result in a large volume of frivolous bug reports and tickets being submitted because people think that, since the changes weren't listed, they must bebugs.

Whether these types of changes are intentional or not, the fact that they aren't listed causes problems on both ends of the line.

We need FULL DISCLOSURE of release issues to avoid confusion and discord.

I've also had several problems over the last week or two with the formatting of Patch Notes presented during login. Since the listing wasn't formatted to the size of the window it was being listed in, and you cannot resize the window, I had to scroll left and right while reading rather long notes. Talk about annoying.

Having full documentation for Recent Updates would also help players keep track of which changes have gone live, just as In Testing threads help them keep track of which ones are on Test Center, and In Development threads should allow them to see which issues are currently being worked on.

This new system of addressing developments issues sounds like an exceptional attempt to change the way the player base and the devs interact with each other.

I am very enthused by the dedication to communicate with the players and I'm glad something is finally being done about some of the apparent shortcomings of the current system.

I hope that the new system can be polished to provide the most open and responsive exchange of ideas and information for everyone that is involved with it.

I have a few general concerns about changes to the forums I'd like to discuss.

The first, and most obvious issue I have is with closing the general SWG Discussion forum.

With a dev moderated forum such as the Development forum and the new In Concept forum, only devs can create threads. This means that only YOUR topics will be discussed. None of the topics that WE wish to discuss. I understand that the purpose of these forum is to discuss development issues.

Shunting general discussions to the server forums is NOT an outstanding idea. The server forums are fragmented groups of players.

The SWG Discusion forum is a collective of players from all servers, all professions, all play-styles. In this melting pot, many good ideas are debated. And even if this is not the 'official' forum for development, these ideas do migrate to other forums.

I've met people and had discussions on the general forum that I never would have had on any other forum.

Removing it will be a dis-service to all forum users.

That's all I'm going to say at this point on the subject because I intend to post a separate thread on this subject. (boy do I....)

These designated developmental stage forums, and their threads and topics need to be focused narrowly enough that the information gathered is suitable for the purpose intended.

I hope that we are careful enough when posting threads that their scope is not so broad as to make them useless. Listing several topics in the same thread that are not thoroughly defined, not understanding the question or what it means, asking the wrong questions, giving the wrong answers to questions, etc.

This seems to be a problem quite often. If we are looking for focused information on a specific topic we can't post a thread asking, as an over exaggerated example, "Tell us everything that is wrong with this....." because we will get nothing but a mish-mash of jumbled ideas with no direction or purpose.

As a note, the Development forum seems filled with general issues. If this remains as is, will this forum be able to focus adequate attention on development or will it be diluted by other secondary issues listed there? Will we even SEE the development threads, or will they scroll several pages down and get lost???

I mentioned this before, but I'm going to mention it again since it's a general issue with the forum changes:

Threads posted on any of these developmental forums that relate to any particular profession or other specific topic that has its own forum need to be co-posted or linked in those other forums such as DE, Merchant, GCW or whatever they may be.

You want feedback don't you?

Then make these threads visible to as many people as possible so that you get a real representation of forum participants instead of just a small segment that may be the only ones following the developmental forums.

And I guess lastly, for now anyway, all these related forums need to be very centralized.

Spreading them all over the place will only make it hard for players to contribute to them as items move through the development process.

They all need to be grouped together on the Forums / Message Boards page and on the side menu from the main site page - ideally in exactly the same form and order as on the Message Boards page.

Missing and mixed up items on the Forums list on the side menu only make it confusing for people to find and use the particular forums they are trying to reach.

And they need to be accessible - remember until a day or two ago the 'Development' forum link in the side menu on the main page took us to the Discussion forum instead of the actual Development forum. Any problems such as this need to be remedied much quicker than three months down the road.

That's all I came up with overnight when I first heard about these changes.

(that WEREN'T posted in the general discussion forum BTW.......)

If I come up with more, I'll post them.

Because I really want this new system to work.

If I read the 'Announcement' properly:

The new forums, and existing forums that will be used to focus attention on current development and solicit feedback from players will only have threads posted by DEVELOPERS.

What this effectively means is that we will ONLY be discussing topics picked by THEM and no other topics.

Useful, and focused to be sure, but limited in scope for GENERAL discussions.

What about spontaneous discussions, comments, and suggestions from the general SWG player base???

What about the Star Wars Correspondent or the Community Correspondent or other specialized correspondents or any of the other avenues of communication that take place in the SWG Discussion forum???

All our general comments should go to the Galaxy forums???

Does everyone readthe server forums? NO!

Do general discussions deal with server events or issues? NO!

Would general discussions on Galaxy forums be on topic? NO!

If I post a question to my Galaxy forum, will I be reaching the general public? NO!

Will the specialized correspondents be able to cover 25+ forums? NO!

Will KStarfire be able to post "Top 5 Species Issues" or "Discussion with Dev on General Issues" or "The Top 5 Things that would improve the Star Wars feeling in SWG" to 25+ forums and collect useful feedback from all users?

Will Thunderheart be able to post "Vehicle Publish Issues & Questions" or "Crafters, Harvesters and Rare Resource Spawns" to 25+ forums and collect useful feedback from all users?

Will JustG be able to post "Commodities Server Issues" or any other Corr or Dev post general info to25+ forums and collect useful feedback from all users?

NO! NO! NO!

Will general discussions be heard (by Corr, Dev or other players) if posted elsewhere?

NO!

Yes, you MIGHT be able to find most of these posts and info on Dev Tracker, or the Development forum, or elsewhere.

Do you know WHY people usually don't read those forums? (myself included)

Because they're too cluttered with other stuff of LIMITED interest to most players - they are NOT usable by most players - you cannot stickie threads - you cannot track threads that you want to watch - you cannot start your OWN discussions or talk to the rest of the general public.

Shunting general discussions to the Galaxy forums only segregates and seperates the public.

Perhaps that's what they want.

It does not promote communication between players or player community.

It just dirties up the server boards with things unrelated to those servers.

Yes, there is alot of whining and moaning and unconstructive discussion on the Discussion forum.

But THROUGH all of that, ideas form and coalesce and trickle down to other forums.

And eventually, something GOOD does come of it.....

sorry

as many bugs and issues that there are in the game, and they're worrying about changing the forums? that seems like a misplaced priority to me.