Development Cycle Archive
Thread: 9.2 Publish Feedback: Wookiee Armor, Old Mos Espa Arena Swoop Track & Crafting Quests
jefmes
Thu Jul 29, 2004 12:48 am
#222
Chrysalide wrote:
Hello everyone,
We appreciate all the comments and feedback about the items in Publish 9.2, and I would like to follow up with a few of our thoughts regarding the Crafting Contractor quests.
The primary demographic for which these quests are designed is the junior crafter that is trying to work his or her way up to master the profession. The Crafting Contract system is intended to be an alternative for those that are trying to get experience at novice levels, but find it difficult to sell the items that they make to other players.
To this goal, crafters have had the option to use 'practice mode' on their crafting tools to earn slightly more experience at the cost of losing the prototype item that would normally be produced. This system is comparable to what we are trying to achieve with the Crafting Contractor quests. Filling the contracts may be a little slower, but the experience bonus is larger and the crafter will get a small credit reward (as opposed to no credit return in practice mode).
We wanted the main reward for these contract to be the experience bonus for completing the assignment, the credit rewards are intentionally on the low side. These are not quests from which you will make a profit, we still want the main source of income for crafters to be from selling items to other players.
We do not want to exclude intermediate or advanced crafters that want to take part in the system, and so your local crafting contractor will give you the option to choose the difficulty of your assignment. Keep in mind though, that since the primary return for these quests is the experience, master crafters may find the reward less satisfying.
I understand that this is not what many people had in mind for the crafting quests. That being said, and as some others have previously suggested, I think that having true "quests" for crafters is a fantastic idea (something sufficiently challenging and interesting, with an appropriately appealing reward). It is something that we have talked about, and it is something that I would love to be included with future content.
Again, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to participate and post your feedback. We do take all comments seriously and keep them in mind for revisions and future content.
That sounds like a good intent, and thank you for explaining that. However...from the few jobs I did (see my post, a few above this one), it seemed that the crafting xp reward, even for a difficult job, was much less than you'd get by practicing on each item. I could be wrong on that though, but it may be worth you guys logging in and trying a few yourselves to make some comparisons. I'd like to see this be a complete replacement of the totally abstract "practice" system eventually!
Message Edited by jefmes on 07-28-2004 12:51 PM
steveiulaw
Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:02 am
#223
On Crafting Missions:
The main reason for these missions was certainly supposed to be an alternative way to gain xp. But they missed the boat there. The mission says craft 5 amount of X items. When I'm finished, maybe I get a 20xp bonus. I could have crafted the same 5 items in practice and gotten more xp. There has to be real xp given for these missions. Using these missions is much more difficult than grinding, there should be a reward for that, not a penalty. You can't use a macro for these missions, you are crafting a variety of items instead of one item over and over (meaning a wider variety of resources needed), and you have to actually make the items, place them in the crate, and talk with the NPC. This all takes a much greater amount of time than grinding, is more difficult than grinding, and should be rewarded accordingly.
Reeslo
Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:10 am
#224
Vehicle dismounts warp you +/- 100m However, if you /wave;/pause 1;/dismount the problem is greatly mitigated?
I figured that stopping completely and then moving just a bit to some other direction while still on the bike the problem can be (almost completely) eliminated. Just a single tap on the arrow key, like when you type.
The problem something to do with the calculation of the coordinates from the increasing or decreasing speed of the vehicle. Emotes or other actions help also, because the effect is stored in the database with coordinates (I think they do not help when no one is around, right?). If anyone wishes I can give a small lecture on database structures
with my guesses about how SWG works
I figured that stopping completely and then moving just a bit to some other direction while still on the bike the problem can be (almost completely) eliminated. Just a single tap on the arrow key, like when you type.
The problem something to do with the calculation of the coordinates from the increasing or decreasing speed of the vehicle. Emotes or other actions help also, because the effect is stored in the database with coordinates (I think they do not help when no one is around, right?). If anyone wishes I can give a small lecture on database structures
with my guesses about how SWG works
teamdoa
Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:50 am
#225
Whats the point in race tracks when you cant even mod the bikes.
Neige
Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:23 am
#226
Done this, hope it can help
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=203842
Gawzeera
Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:11 am
#227
found this on the IGN forums. thought a couple of people may find it funny....
*Note* this is not my opinion nor was it meant as a flame to anyone here, I personally found this funny and thought others may to*
Why MMORPGs Suck
You want to know why MMORPGs all suck so much? I’ll tell you why: in a word, players. The f**king players are single-handedly responsible for f**king up every MMOG since Everquest. Until they are silenced or eliminated, MMOGs will continue to be the bastion of mediocrity they have always been.
The evil is borne until the message boards of any given product. These may be
the company-run boards, or they may be third-party boards run by a stupid
news site with its lips too firmly planted on the developers’ a**es to say
anything interesting or meaningful. On these message boards, you’ll find every kind of no-life retard you could possibly imagine, as well as a few even Tim Burton couldn’t imagine. You’ll find twelve-year-olds, twelve-year-olds claiming to be thirty, thirty-year-olds who have the functional intellect of a
twelve-year-old and live in their parents’ basement, men claiming to be women, women claiming to make sense, and everyone claiming to have ideas that are actually worth a damn, if only someone would just listen to their unique, innovative, and exceptionally important idea that is, in reality, none of those things.
In short, on the message boards you will find degenerate wastes of oxygen that
a more civilized society would have euthanized years ago.
These f**tards’ implement of destruction is constant, unrelenting, obsessive
whining. There is no issue about which you will not find thousands of people
whining on all sides.
Imagine for a moment that you are a developer.
Now, consider graphics. If you do not improve graphics with your new product,
you’ll find thousands of f**kheads whining that it looks like crap on their < this part is true will all new games...
brand new KForce 99000 Ultra Platinum Gold Silver MCMXVIII video card, on
which they just spent their entire life savings: $75.
On the other hand, if you do improve graphics, you’ll find thousands of
different f**kheads (and, bizarrely, some of the same ones) whining that they
can no longer play your game on their overclocked Atari 2600. Those whose <same as above
systems can run the game will complain about the poor performance of your
bleeding-edge graphics engine with all the settings turned up. Or, they’ll
complain that the new graphics are ugly. Or that they’re too different from
[other games / the last game]. Or that they’re too similar to [other games /
the last game].
Planning to have sound in your game? You poor **edit**. Half of the budding
Beethovens on the boards will weigh in with their “extensive musical
knowledge” (read: they bought a CD once) and complain that you don’t have enough music. Or “good” music (read: Marilyn Manson). Or that the music is not sufficiently “dynamic”. The rest will b**ch about the music being “intrusive” or “disruptive”, but will refuse to exercise the option to turn it off. They
will repeatedly demand you put an MP3 player in the game.
Gameplay. Woe is the MMORPG developer who dares touch gameplay in any way whatsoever. Make combat slower (or, heaven help you, turn based) and tens of thousands will whine that the game is boring. Make gameplay faster, on the other hand, and some Vietnam veteran with no arms who plays by hitting keys with a stick he holds between his teeth will complain that he can no longer keep up. (You heartless son of a b**ch, you.)
Don’t even suggest anything that could be considered “twitch” gameplay, lest
you summon the very demons of hell to set the message boards alight. “Twitch” is a word used by sh*thea^H^H^H^H players that, when applied to gameplay, means “having to press a key or look at the screen during combat.” In fact, you’ll find a remarkable amount of outrage if you even suggest that players be at their keyboards while “playing”.
The bottom-feeders inhabiting the message boards form quite a few different
cliques. The most obnoxious, vocal, and smallest of these are the
self-appointed “roleplayers”. These are people who claim to have cut their
teeth on pen-and-paper RPGs though almost to a person, have never actually played one and who are appalled, absolutely appalled, at the concept that people might “disrupt” their roleplaying by committing such atrocities as discussing real life, not saying “thee” and “thou” frequently enough, and naming their characters “Hitomi” when they must know that there were no Japanese people in medieval England!
Another pile of human excrement you’ll encounter is the “purists”. They will
insist regularly and loudly that your game is not a “real” RPG. They are
entirely incapable of defining a “real” RPG when pressed to do so, but will
point out that, like pornography (a subject on which they’re well-versed),
they’ll “know it when they see it.” These people will “invent” witty new
acronyms for your game like “MMOSUCS” and use them over and over,
oblivious to the fact that nobody else cares. Do not mistake these people for the roleplayers; these people were weaned on Final Fantasy 7 and consider
roleplaying “**edit**”.
The “programmers” are a truly pathetic bunch of imbeciles. All of them
claim to be seasoned coder veterans. Meanwhile, back in reality, it turns out that the extent of their programming experience consists of glancing through “Teach Yourself to be Bjarne Stroustrup in 30 Seconds Flat” at the bookstore. They’ve never written a line of code in their lives, and if they claim to have worked on games, what they mean is that they managed to compile some source code for an asteroids knock-off that they found on the internet.
The programmers get into long, heated, stupid technical arguments over
subjects about which they know absolutely nothing, and which are not even relevant to the game. Often, they’ll be arguing about different programming languages without even realizing it. (Visual Basic “users” are notorious for this.) Programmers also incorrectly diagnose every technical problem they perceive, real or imagined, using vague, generic terms that demonstrate their utter ignorance of not only the game’s code, but fundamental concepts of
programming.
Their analyses are usually about as reliable as reading tea leaves. If you’re
foolish enough to publicly speculate about the cause of a problem, you can be
sure that every one of the programmers’ diagnoses will present a different
mutually exclusive and utterly impossible conclusion, centered on your
hypothesis.
There are the realism and anti-realism camps to contend with. The realism
retards argue for permanent death, unrestricted PvP (which occasionally makes
them allies with the PK camp see below), requisite eating and drinking,
“realistic” loot drops from monsters, and absolutely no rapid means of
transportation. The anti-realism crusaders (who will call themselves
“advocates of gameplay”) support light death penalties (and would support removing death altogether if they thought there was a chance in hell they could get away with it), no PVP, no eating or drinking, plate armor dropping from rabbits, and no travel whatsoever. These groups clash frequently and violently, and never accomplish anything but to prove that yes, they really can be that stupid.
As if it weren’t bad enough that literally thousands of people will whine
every time something deviates from Everq^H^H^H^H^H the norm, there is a group of meta-whiners to contend with: the anti-whining whiners. These people, every last one possessing no more than the intellect of the average eight-year-old, will shriek and gesticulate wildly any time someone dares to question any aspect of the game, whether or not the complaint is legitimate. These people are almost palpably desperate to prove how “mature” and “wise” they are, so they often quote bogus credentials, misquote famous people, and say things like “It is a B-E-T-A”, “If you don’t like it, then leave! Less lag for me!” and, ironically, “Stop whining.”
This “whining squared” group, as I like to call them, would be the first
f**king dumba**es to read this essay and make a “joke” by saying “but you’re
just whining about people whining about whining!” It’s a miracle that these
people can find their way out of the child pornography sites long enough to
reach the message boards, let alone figure out how to operate them
properly. On second thought, it’s less of a miracle and more of a sign of the apocalypse. The real miracle is that they’re even able to operate a computer without opposable thumbs.
Changing class dynamics really causes the vermin to come out of the woodwork. The whining is based on the same psychological principle as being stuck in traffic: you think all the other lanes are moving faster than you. Any
decrease in the perceived “power” of a class results in no small amount of b**ching and moaning from that class. Increase the power of that same class, however, and the roar of jealousy from every other class is deafening. There is no way at all to avoid this situation when making changes to the game, so expect to see it regularly.
The Playerkiller/Non-Playerkiller crowd create an interesting dynamic. The NPK group is generally comfortable with PKs, as long as they’re on their own server. The PKs, however, are infuriated at the prospects that (a) not everyone enjoys PvP combat, and (b) they will not have the opportunity to make these people “enjoy” PvP combat. This leads them to insist upon unrestricted PvP on all servers, at which time the overwhelming NPK majority proceeds to tear them new as*holes. Any rational person knows that few developers would willingly bring upon themselves the fury of the “carebear brigade”, so the argument is pointless, having already been decided a year ago by the developers. The PKs never learn their lesson, and move from game to game, demanding “hard core” PvP, not getting it, and leaving
frustrated and screaming, “see you in Shadowbane, n00bs!”
There is a special breed of imbecile that only lurks message boards, rarely
posting anything at all. How do they cause trouble, you ask? These people are
“professional ranters”. Confident in the knowledge that being a writer for a
website gives them a “unique perspective” and makes them right about
everything, they do not hesitate to spit out the most inane, mind-numbing
tripe you’ll ever have the misfortune to read.
Some ranters were genuinely insightful and funny, but all of them have
retired. The only function now served by the ranters of old is for people to falsely claim some sort of connection to them as a “guest writer” or, heaven
help us, an “avid reader” in a desperate attempt to gain even the tiniest scrap of legitimacy for their site and/or message board posts. Naturally, these claims
are, in a word, bullsh*t, and the Great Ranter of yore wouldn’t be caught
dead associating with these inbred degenerates.
The final, most contemptible group is also not to be found on the public
message boards. This group is the “cynical veterans”. These people can only be found posting their pseudo-intellectual crap on the tiny, hovel-like forums of
their rant site of choice. They turn up their noses at the “great unwashed
masses” on the mainstream boards, yet somehow manage to actually be more
ignorant, cliquish, and childlike than any of them.
The cynical veterans’ claim to fame is that they have played every MMOG since UO and probably read “The Rantings of Lum the Mad” regularly. Typically, these people submitted dozens of articles to Lum, none of which were even remotely coherent enough to be published. After the departure of Lum, they scurried off to various wannabe sites authored by their fellow rejects. Having failed to achieve fame on the front page, they take to the message boards, where they write rambling, disorganized posts with many long sentences and big words that they had to look up in an online thesaurus. You will often see them parroting “I disagree with what you said,” in reference to a very old post made on the LtM boards by someone with an actual job. It was a tired insult almost immediately, but lacking a triple-digit IQ to call their own, the cynical veterans still consider it riotously funny and clever.
Every last one of the cynical veterans professes to be tired of the “xp
treadmill” and repeatedly threatens to leave the genre entirely. As a rule,
however, they are emotionally incapable of actually doing so, and will
continue to purchase every new MMOG released without fail. It is, in fact, the only thing in their lives at which they have not failed.
On the bright side, fully 3/4ths of the posts and sites will be almost
entirely unintelligible, thanks to the rampant ignorance of their authors. You will be treated to a mauling of the English language on a level that, before the
internet, could only be achieved by throwing a book into a wood chipper.
There are a few people (four, to be exact) who can legitimately use the defense that English is not their native language. The rest, however, can only blame themselves, having read nothing for the last ten years besides Harry Potter books and “you hit the oozing bandersnatch for 50 points of slashing damage!” What is genuinely terrifying is that many of these people really did graduate high school that stupid. Do you really think it’s a good idea to allow people this inept to pump gas?
Over time, you’ll begin to realize that every d*ckhead believes that he (and make no mistake, it’s always a “he”) is the only person alive
who knows how to make your game “right”. But the real problem is not that they all think they know the solution; the problem is that they’re all alive.
“Fine,” you are thinking to yourself. “You’ve accurately and fully addressed
the cause in all its sundry forms, but what are the effects?” That’s an
easier question to answer. The effects are twofold:
First, the publishers read all this crap. Now let’s be honest, the publishers
aren’t any smarter than the f**kwits writing this drivel, or they wouldn’t be
working in publishing. So they see this overwhelming pressure from the
screaming retar^H^H^H^H^H players to maintain the status quo, and it slowly
dawns on them that every time something deviates from Everq^H^H^H^H^H the norm, the players squeal like pigs being slaughtered. So what do they conclude? “For God’s sake, don’t touch anything!” The result of this is out-and-out refusal to fund or even entertain any proposal whose title is not an anagram for “Everquest”, and nothing changes.
The second effect plants the genre suicide where it will work the most harm
in the very offices of the developers themselves. They are the real victims
here. Left to their own devices, they are more than smart enough to create a
good game. But in addition to caving to pressure from the publishers, the
developers commit the cardinal sin: they listen to the players. They see
literally thousands of people whining about everything and suddenly, their
faith in themselves is shaken. They don’t feel qualified to make rational
decisions on their own. How could they possibly be smart enough to even
consider, much less understand, all the effects of any one change? They can’t
fathom making any sort of change without getting the permission of the players
first. They’re terrified of the consequences of any attempt to do so. “What if
they don’t like it?” they think. “We’ll have spent all this time and money for
nothing!” So they do the only thing that seems safe: exactly what they did
last time.
What are we left with? A bunch of sameish-looking, sameish-playing,
sameish-sounding games that haven’t put forth an original fundamental design
concept ever. Bullsh*t level schemes laying down artificial, ridiculously
steep barriers to progress because after all, “what will we ever do if they’re able to see right away that we have no content?” Players who get pissed off when things don’t change, and even more pissed off when they do. Developers pulled in all directions, moving in none. And publishers insisting that the chicks’ breasts be made bigger. How f**king great for us.
If you read this far, you’re probably nodding to yourself in awe of the
clarity I’ve bestowed upon this subject. Maybe you even laughed about “those stupid players” I described.
Well, news flash, jacka*s: I was talking about you. That’s right, you are the
problem. So are all your pathetic “friends” online. And so are all the
sh*tsticks in your “guild”. And all those d*ckheads on the message boards you
troll every day of your miserable, worthless life. You are all responsible
for making the MMOG genre suck. Do you want it to not suck any more? Here’s how you can help:
**edit**.
Keep all your “bright ideas”, all your “concerns”, and all your “thoughts” to
yourself, dumba*s, and for the good of humanity, cancel your internet service
or just go kill yourself. Your parents would like their basement back.
You want to know why MMORPGs all suck so much? I’ll tell you why: in a word, players. The f**king players are single-handedly responsible for f**king up every MMOG since Everquest. Until they are silenced or eliminated, MMOGs will continue to be the bastion of mediocrity they have always been.
The evil is borne until the message boards of any given product. These may be
the company-run boards, or they may be third-party boards run by a stupid
news site with its lips too firmly planted on the developers’ a**es to say
anything interesting or meaningful. On these message boards, you’ll find every kind of no-life retard you could possibly imagine, as well as a few even Tim Burton couldn’t imagine. You’ll find twelve-year-olds, twelve-year-olds claiming to be thirty, thirty-year-olds who have the functional intellect of a
twelve-year-old and live in their parents’ basement, men claiming to be women, women claiming to make sense, and everyone claiming to have ideas that are actually worth a damn, if only someone would just listen to their unique, innovative, and exceptionally important idea that is, in reality, none of those things.
In short, on the message boards you will find degenerate wastes of oxygen that
a more civilized society would have euthanized years ago.
These f**tards’ implement of destruction is constant, unrelenting, obsessive
whining. There is no issue about which you will not find thousands of people
whining on all sides.
Imagine for a moment that you are a developer.
Now, consider graphics. If you do not improve graphics with your new product,
you’ll find thousands of f**kheads whining that it looks like crap on their < this part is true will all new games...
brand new KForce 99000 Ultra Platinum Gold Silver MCMXVIII video card, on
which they just spent their entire life savings: $75.
On the other hand, if you do improve graphics, you’ll find thousands of
different f**kheads (and, bizarrely, some of the same ones) whining that they
can no longer play your game on their overclocked Atari 2600. Those whose <same as above
systems can run the game will complain about the poor performance of your
bleeding-edge graphics engine with all the settings turned up. Or, they’ll
complain that the new graphics are ugly. Or that they’re too different from
[other games / the last game]. Or that they’re too similar to [other games /
the last game].
Planning to have sound in your game? You poor **edit**. Half of the budding
Beethovens on the boards will weigh in with their “extensive musical
knowledge” (read: they bought a CD once) and complain that you don’t have enough music. Or “good” music (read: Marilyn Manson). Or that the music is not sufficiently “dynamic”. The rest will b**ch about the music being “intrusive” or “disruptive”, but will refuse to exercise the option to turn it off. They
will repeatedly demand you put an MP3 player in the game.
Gameplay. Woe is the MMORPG developer who dares touch gameplay in any way whatsoever. Make combat slower (or, heaven help you, turn based) and tens of thousands will whine that the game is boring. Make gameplay faster, on the other hand, and some Vietnam veteran with no arms who plays by hitting keys with a stick he holds between his teeth will complain that he can no longer keep up. (You heartless son of a b**ch, you.)
Don’t even suggest anything that could be considered “twitch” gameplay, lest
you summon the very demons of hell to set the message boards alight. “Twitch” is a word used by sh*thea^H^H^H^H players that, when applied to gameplay, means “having to press a key or look at the screen during combat.” In fact, you’ll find a remarkable amount of outrage if you even suggest that players be at their keyboards while “playing”.
The bottom-feeders inhabiting the message boards form quite a few different
cliques. The most obnoxious, vocal, and smallest of these are the
self-appointed “roleplayers”. These are people who claim to have cut their
teeth on pen-and-paper RPGs though almost to a person, have never actually played one and who are appalled, absolutely appalled, at the concept that people might “disrupt” their roleplaying by committing such atrocities as discussing real life, not saying “thee” and “thou” frequently enough, and naming their characters “Hitomi” when they must know that there were no Japanese people in medieval England!
Another pile of human excrement you’ll encounter is the “purists”. They will
insist regularly and loudly that your game is not a “real” RPG. They are
entirely incapable of defining a “real” RPG when pressed to do so, but will
point out that, like pornography (a subject on which they’re well-versed),
they’ll “know it when they see it.” These people will “invent” witty new
acronyms for your game like “MMOSUCS” and use them over and over,
oblivious to the fact that nobody else cares. Do not mistake these people for the roleplayers; these people were weaned on Final Fantasy 7 and consider
roleplaying “**edit**”.
The “programmers” are a truly pathetic bunch of imbeciles. All of them
claim to be seasoned coder veterans. Meanwhile, back in reality, it turns out that the extent of their programming experience consists of glancing through “Teach Yourself to be Bjarne Stroustrup in 30 Seconds Flat” at the bookstore. They’ve never written a line of code in their lives, and if they claim to have worked on games, what they mean is that they managed to compile some source code for an asteroids knock-off that they found on the internet.
The programmers get into long, heated, stupid technical arguments over
subjects about which they know absolutely nothing, and which are not even relevant to the game. Often, they’ll be arguing about different programming languages without even realizing it. (Visual Basic “users” are notorious for this.) Programmers also incorrectly diagnose every technical problem they perceive, real or imagined, using vague, generic terms that demonstrate their utter ignorance of not only the game’s code, but fundamental concepts of
programming.
Their analyses are usually about as reliable as reading tea leaves. If you’re
foolish enough to publicly speculate about the cause of a problem, you can be
sure that every one of the programmers’ diagnoses will present a different
mutually exclusive and utterly impossible conclusion, centered on your
hypothesis.
There are the realism and anti-realism camps to contend with. The realism
retards argue for permanent death, unrestricted PvP (which occasionally makes
them allies with the PK camp see below), requisite eating and drinking,
“realistic” loot drops from monsters, and absolutely no rapid means of
transportation. The anti-realism crusaders (who will call themselves
“advocates of gameplay”) support light death penalties (and would support removing death altogether if they thought there was a chance in hell they could get away with it), no PVP, no eating or drinking, plate armor dropping from rabbits, and no travel whatsoever. These groups clash frequently and violently, and never accomplish anything but to prove that yes, they really can be that stupid.
As if it weren’t bad enough that literally thousands of people will whine
every time something deviates from Everq^H^H^H^H^H the norm, there is a group of meta-whiners to contend with: the anti-whining whiners. These people, every last one possessing no more than the intellect of the average eight-year-old, will shriek and gesticulate wildly any time someone dares to question any aspect of the game, whether or not the complaint is legitimate. These people are almost palpably desperate to prove how “mature” and “wise” they are, so they often quote bogus credentials, misquote famous people, and say things like “It is a B-E-T-A”, “If you don’t like it, then leave! Less lag for me!” and, ironically, “Stop whining.”
This “whining squared” group, as I like to call them, would be the first
f**king dumba**es to read this essay and make a “joke” by saying “but you’re
just whining about people whining about whining!” It’s a miracle that these
people can find their way out of the child pornography sites long enough to
reach the message boards, let alone figure out how to operate them
properly. On second thought, it’s less of a miracle and more of a sign of the apocalypse. The real miracle is that they’re even able to operate a computer without opposable thumbs.
Changing class dynamics really causes the vermin to come out of the woodwork. The whining is based on the same psychological principle as being stuck in traffic: you think all the other lanes are moving faster than you. Any
decrease in the perceived “power” of a class results in no small amount of b**ching and moaning from that class. Increase the power of that same class, however, and the roar of jealousy from every other class is deafening. There is no way at all to avoid this situation when making changes to the game, so expect to see it regularly.
The Playerkiller/Non-Playerkiller crowd create an interesting dynamic. The NPK group is generally comfortable with PKs, as long as they’re on their own server. The PKs, however, are infuriated at the prospects that (a) not everyone enjoys PvP combat, and (b) they will not have the opportunity to make these people “enjoy” PvP combat. This leads them to insist upon unrestricted PvP on all servers, at which time the overwhelming NPK majority proceeds to tear them new as*holes. Any rational person knows that few developers would willingly bring upon themselves the fury of the “carebear brigade”, so the argument is pointless, having already been decided a year ago by the developers. The PKs never learn their lesson, and move from game to game, demanding “hard core” PvP, not getting it, and leaving
frustrated and screaming, “see you in Shadowbane, n00bs!”
There is a special breed of imbecile that only lurks message boards, rarely
posting anything at all. How do they cause trouble, you ask? These people are
“professional ranters”. Confident in the knowledge that being a writer for a
website gives them a “unique perspective” and makes them right about
everything, they do not hesitate to spit out the most inane, mind-numbing
tripe you’ll ever have the misfortune to read.
Some ranters were genuinely insightful and funny, but all of them have
retired. The only function now served by the ranters of old is for people to falsely claim some sort of connection to them as a “guest writer” or, heaven
help us, an “avid reader” in a desperate attempt to gain even the tiniest scrap of legitimacy for their site and/or message board posts. Naturally, these claims
are, in a word, bullsh*t, and the Great Ranter of yore wouldn’t be caught
dead associating with these inbred degenerates.
The final, most contemptible group is also not to be found on the public
message boards. This group is the “cynical veterans”. These people can only be found posting their pseudo-intellectual crap on the tiny, hovel-like forums of
their rant site of choice. They turn up their noses at the “great unwashed
masses” on the mainstream boards, yet somehow manage to actually be more
ignorant, cliquish, and childlike than any of them.
The cynical veterans’ claim to fame is that they have played every MMOG since UO and probably read “The Rantings of Lum the Mad” regularly. Typically, these people submitted dozens of articles to Lum, none of which were even remotely coherent enough to be published. After the departure of Lum, they scurried off to various wannabe sites authored by their fellow rejects. Having failed to achieve fame on the front page, they take to the message boards, where they write rambling, disorganized posts with many long sentences and big words that they had to look up in an online thesaurus. You will often see them parroting “I disagree with what you said,” in reference to a very old post made on the LtM boards by someone with an actual job. It was a tired insult almost immediately, but lacking a triple-digit IQ to call their own, the cynical veterans still consider it riotously funny and clever.
Every last one of the cynical veterans professes to be tired of the “xp
treadmill” and repeatedly threatens to leave the genre entirely. As a rule,
however, they are emotionally incapable of actually doing so, and will
continue to purchase every new MMOG released without fail. It is, in fact, the only thing in their lives at which they have not failed.
On the bright side, fully 3/4ths of the posts and sites will be almost
entirely unintelligible, thanks to the rampant ignorance of their authors. You will be treated to a mauling of the English language on a level that, before the
internet, could only be achieved by throwing a book into a wood chipper.
There are a few people (four, to be exact) who can legitimately use the defense that English is not their native language. The rest, however, can only blame themselves, having read nothing for the last ten years besides Harry Potter books and “you hit the oozing bandersnatch for 50 points of slashing damage!” What is genuinely terrifying is that many of these people really did graduate high school that stupid. Do you really think it’s a good idea to allow people this inept to pump gas?
Over time, you’ll begin to realize that every d*ckhead believes that he (and make no mistake, it’s always a “he”) is the only person alive
who knows how to make your game “right”. But the real problem is not that they all think they know the solution; the problem is that they’re all alive.
“Fine,” you are thinking to yourself. “You’ve accurately and fully addressed
the cause in all its sundry forms, but what are the effects?” That’s an
easier question to answer. The effects are twofold:
First, the publishers read all this crap. Now let’s be honest, the publishers
aren’t any smarter than the f**kwits writing this drivel, or they wouldn’t be
working in publishing. So they see this overwhelming pressure from the
screaming retar^H^H^H^H^H players to maintain the status quo, and it slowly
dawns on them that every time something deviates from Everq^H^H^H^H^H the norm, the players squeal like pigs being slaughtered. So what do they conclude? “For God’s sake, don’t touch anything!” The result of this is out-and-out refusal to fund or even entertain any proposal whose title is not an anagram for “Everquest”, and nothing changes.
The second effect plants the genre suicide where it will work the most harm
in the very offices of the developers themselves. They are the real victims
here. Left to their own devices, they are more than smart enough to create a
good game. But in addition to caving to pressure from the publishers, the
developers commit the cardinal sin: they listen to the players. They see
literally thousands of people whining about everything and suddenly, their
faith in themselves is shaken. They don’t feel qualified to make rational
decisions on their own. How could they possibly be smart enough to even
consider, much less understand, all the effects of any one change? They can’t
fathom making any sort of change without getting the permission of the players
first. They’re terrified of the consequences of any attempt to do so. “What if
they don’t like it?” they think. “We’ll have spent all this time and money for
nothing!” So they do the only thing that seems safe: exactly what they did
last time.
What are we left with? A bunch of sameish-looking, sameish-playing,
sameish-sounding games that haven’t put forth an original fundamental design
concept ever. Bullsh*t level schemes laying down artificial, ridiculously
steep barriers to progress because after all, “what will we ever do if they’re able to see right away that we have no content?” Players who get pissed off when things don’t change, and even more pissed off when they do. Developers pulled in all directions, moving in none. And publishers insisting that the chicks’ breasts be made bigger. How f**king great for us.
If you read this far, you’re probably nodding to yourself in awe of the
clarity I’ve bestowed upon this subject. Maybe you even laughed about “those stupid players” I described.
Well, news flash, jacka*s: I was talking about you. That’s right, you are the
problem. So are all your pathetic “friends” online. And so are all the
sh*tsticks in your “guild”. And all those d*ckheads on the message boards you
troll every day of your miserable, worthless life. You are all responsible
for making the MMOG genre suck. Do you want it to not suck any more? Here’s how you can help:
**edit**.
Keep all your “bright ideas”, all your “concerns”, and all your “thoughts” to
yourself, dumba*s, and for the good of humanity, cancel your internet service
or just go kill yourself. Your parents would like their basement back.
PoilDeCarotte
Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:27 am
#228
After having read "Why MMORPG sucks", I don't dare to say another word.
And I will have to stop participating on these boards... and even read posts.
Each time I come here, I have the impression to loose my money, to play a 100% broken game.
Each time I log into the game, I have fun.
So, I'll stop reading and just have fun.
Message Edited by PoilDeCarotte on 07-29-2004 01:40 PM
Jeanine2003
Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:55 am
#229
Dear Kurt,
i dunno if you ever noticed that there are alot of people not posting on the boards cause they are sitting in front of their PC's, playing and enjoy one of the best mmorpg and try to help you Dev Guys ingame by writing bugreports insteed of complaining and whining on the boards? Im here since start of Beta3 and never was a big fan of writing on boards, the Forum is a Comunication Medium for me to get Infos from your Development to see what happend to the Bugs im reporting ingame and that way it isnt fair to call us fool or lazy cause we dont have a387850 + 1 spamming post counter on the board... the stupid counter means nothing to me cause a low counter with productive posts are more helpfull as a high counter made with forum spam and l337 sp34k......
Thats why i would like the ingame poll system cause the people who have a clue about this game are ingame and playing the game and not psoting on the boards
Just think about it and tell us your thoughts
Greetings from aGerman SWG Fan and former Betatester
ps.: sorry for my bad english i still try to do my best
Erillion
Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:04 am
#230
Very funny post - I absolutely enjoyed my coffee break reading that piece if MMORPG wisdom.
HHmm ... somehow it sounded like a post from a cynical veteran :-) LOL
Have fun
Novarider
Beery
Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:12 am
#231
"Oh my god wookiee messed over again! I saw the new armor and It is stupid! I cant belive the new armor look like a freaking bull!"
I like it. The only problem I see with it is that the fade effect seems to be messed up on it (at least on my computer). If I go a few yards away from the wookiee wearing itit starts to look as ghostly as if it was a mile away.
Erillion
Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:17 am
#232
Crafting mission feedback:
Increase monetary reward to at least2 credit per resource unit used- the usual price for buying some grind resource. Yes, this COULD be used as a method to get money (resource mined ..0.5 cpu, sold here 2 cpu) ... but if you consider that this would involve running your own harvester farm, getting power for it, crafting the specified items and putting it into a crate and talking to the NPC ... then the player would still earn less than when he runs missions in a solo group all day long on Dantooine.
SIGNIFICANTLY increase the crafting bonus for doing such a mission ("Practice" mode = 5 % bonus. Make it 20 % or more while doing these missions !!)
Right now I wont see a reason why novice crafters should do these missions ... and for sure no masters. Its NEITHER a help in levelling up for newbies without going broke nor is it a kind of content for the experienced crafters.
GOOD EXAMPLE for a crafting quest : RIS armor (if we dont think too hard about the ridiculous drop rate of GDK scales).
BAD EXAMPLE for a "crafting" quest : Jetpack in DWB (does not work even if you DO have all the parts, which DO have a ridiculously low drop rate - solution : send in an unwilling group of players time and time again and give them THEIR items back until finally the bugs are worked out - Betatesting on live servers YEAH).
A crafting quest means that you gain something that not everyone can do ... crafting unique items, getting a badge (Recognized for professionalism in a crafting profession), getting a unique title, getting a non-craftable unique display item etc.
Have fun
Novarider
(Novice Medic , Master Architect)
Beery
Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:17 am
#233
"Thats why i would like the ingame poll system cause the people who have a clue about this game are ingame and playing the game and not psoting on the boards "
Rubbish! Most of the people whoplay the game rather than post on these forumshaven't got the sense to figure out that anything is wrong with the game. They also haven't the critical sensibilities that would allow them to care about improving the game. Not only do theyNOT have a clue, butthey don't care enough about the gameto get out of the game and check out these forums. If you think an in-game poll will turn these apathetic players into useful feedback-givers, you have another think coming.
Message Edited by Beery on 07-29-2004 08:21 AM
YllibEromlib
Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:27 am
#234
i'm just wondering if anything was done with planet spawn rates with the patch? I was on Endor last night and there wasn't nearly as many MOBs and lairs as there had been in the past few weeks.