Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Great Expectations, Major Schedule Changes and making SWG the finest MMORPG ever
Xziac wrote:Ok folks I have some breaking news: According to this guy, in an interview on Gamespot.com it is said that the CB and GCW revamp will take one year to be made so don't hope to see it happen soon. Haven't had time to confirm it yet but I'm going to check it out soon. I just hope this is a big joke because if it's real, I might not be here long enough to see a dev answer...http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=GCW&message.id=224423
This interview was published (who knows when it was held), before their original announcement to the development schedule. But obviously, yes, if they stick to their schedule they say they hope to have the combat balance up and running around this time next year. And according to Haden the included updates to SWG for the ground game are pretty much only going to be the new races.
Haden also says their next expansion will be about the GCW. Whether that was their suppose Publish 11 about the GCW or even more following Publish 11 is any man's guess. They're not giving us the straight story in that regard. It wouldn't shock me if they did basically box Publish 11 as an expansion, considering the obvious monetary-driven decision making going on at SOE.
As far as the post from the President of SOE in regards to EverQuest... when was the last time the SWG playerbase got a memo from him?
for animosity amongst the player base.
P.S. Final disclaimer... things can and will change :-)
From Gary "JustG" Gattis' State of the Game letter some weeks back,
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/team_comments.jsp?id=61953&page=Team%20Comments
is the full article.
Hate to break it to ya' peeps, but uhhh, we were warned.
I still believe the Devs are working their fingers to the bone to get the game fixed,
but a game 2 years in development simply can't be re-written overnight. Priorities
got shifted. Simple as that.
To Thunderheart: I still believe in this game and what it will eventually become. Please,
do your utmost to get this train back on track. Let all the sweat, blood and I'm sure
enough language to make two truckers, four sailors and a drill instructor blush, be for
nothing.
'Till the servers go cold.....
P.S. I'm hoping the lack of info/response is because they've locked themselves in a conference
room somewhere trying to figure out a way to everyone happy. Maybe I'm just too optomistic :/
DavunFecari wrote:
For reasons many have already stated, buffs are way too powerful and just plain unrealistic, armor: forget it (shouldn't even be that much armor in the game anyhow.. only a small amount of people in the original movies and the new ones had armor, and it sure didn't stop blasters very well), the Mind stat is the only one anyone goes for, and makes pvp just plain boring and frustrating... I can go on here for hours on continuity alone.. let alone actual gameplay....
The fundamental problem with this game is that it was built upon an absurd design. The comprehensive modeling for everything is measured in terms of ridiculous 'extremity', with nothing being 'capped' at a reasonable level. When the dev's say that they "didn't expect armor and buffs to become so powerful", you have to sit back and wonder why they would ever think such an open-ended system was going to police itself. It's just crazy double-talk.
Instead of havingcharacter classes we havean open-ended skill system,one fraughtwith template-stacking abuses, vast imbalances, and all kinds of counter-intuitive, min-max'dabbling'. Instead of having doctor buffs that last a few minutes, and merely increase your stats by, say, 20%, wehave buffs that last for several hours and add 200 - 300% stat increases. Instead of armor, weapons, chef food, etc. that follow a Bell Curve with regard to effectiveness, we have nothing butitemsthat have been crafted, again, to a 200 - 300% increase over the base-level standard. Instead ofhaving just one hit point bar, we needlessly have three, making combatredudant, certain specials 'useless', and the targeting of specific hit point poolsa PvP nightmare. Instead of having several combat professions thatare fully functional, we have asmall handful of FOTM professions that are in no way balanced with the rest of the game. (Riflemanfiringfaster than pistoleers, while being able to run at top speed in full composite armor is just lame.) Instead of having an economy filled with amultitude of useful items, atvarying prices, we have an economy dominated by nothing but master-made items and over-the-top prices that nonew player can possibly compete with or afford. The list, of course,goes on and on and on....
How the dev's/management can sit there, in interview after interview, and talk about how great this game is, and how the fans just love it, is quite beyond my understanding. What is there to like about a game that has no semblance of order and absolutely no challenge?
Maybe we can just call this game, Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.
parlaquin wrote:
Hmm, I still think this is the best game out there. Cripes, I have plenty of fun the way it is, then again, I don't PvP. So, perhaps you PvP types have a point, I wouldn't know. Anyroad, just my 2 cents.
I am really getting sick and tired of people saying this.
Look, the Combat Balance is NOT going to affect PvP only. It is going to affect PvE and the crafting community as well.
Armor will be nerfed and more than likely certed. Same with weapons.
Buffs will be nerfed.
The HAM system will be revamped.
Now you ask, how does that affect anything other than PvP?
Well, here is your answer. Crafters make armor, weapons, buffs, and numerous other items that PvP and PvE players use. Those items will no longer be the same as they are now. A change will have been made. How people adapt to that change is yet to be determined of course. But things will change. Crafting will not be the same. Sure the process will probably remain the same, but the end product won't.
PvE. No longer will you be able to solo so many creatures in game. Those plains hunters that you annihilated yesterday, will give you some serious trouble tomorrow. Forget about soloing Rancor. Not gonna happen. You wanna take on the high level content? Group. Simple as that. Now what else does that affect you ask? CREDITS! The amount of income a player has. Which in turn affects how much stuff that player can buy from a crafter due to their now limited income.
Now, I am sure someone can explain better how it will affect the game systems other than PvP, but it is late and I just summed up what I already know from what I have read from the Correspondents.