Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Should Force Sensitivity be a known path or a mysterious one?
rYsyn
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:15 am
#14
JustG wrote:
Should the method of becoming Force Sensitive be a mysterious, unknown mechanic orone that is visible and known to everyone?
Well, that is really up to you. Do you want Jedi all over ther place or do you want them to be rare?
As it is right now, I think there are already to many Jedi (at least on our server) and frankly the thought of having more is becoming a huge distraction from the game.
This game is turning away from what brought me to it, a STAR WARS ENVIROMENT and is now become a THE PATH TO JEDI game.
Frankly I am a little disappointed, the way you guys first introduced Jedi was a disaster and I think you really need to figure out a way to make becoming a Jedi as UNKNOWN as possible. But here are some thoughts that I came up with for the statges:
- Must be the highest rank on either Side of the GCW
- Must have been playing the game for at least 6 months
- Must have completed thier factions Main Theme Park
- Must complete all the Pre-Jedi Trails (what ever you determine this to be, they they are HARD and must be soloed)
Whatever you do, I think allow Jedi to dabble in non Jedi professions has to be ended. That is just my opinion.
Jenden
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:17 am
#15
Most definately mysterious. Have clues so your just not shooting in the dark, but have it be mysterious. Maybe have a random npc somewhere say something to passing by characters that leads them to the first quest, then that quest leaving clues to the next, but nothing straightforward (and preferably something thats dynamic enough that you can't just jump on one of the fan sites to find out exactly where to go/what to do).
Burnham
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:17 am
#16
Known but difficult
"Mysterious" just causes there to be a long time before a well known path appears.
"Mysterious" just causes there to be a long time before a well known path appears.
Arconis_Runicblade
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:18 am
#17
It should be a combination of both... these series of quests should be of epic proportion and unrelated to faction.... should start out slow but get very hard requiring a full group to do it. These should not be done solo... by no means should this be doable as a solo act...
and when I say epic I don't mean go kill this and go that...
Put a story behind it....
A dark Jedi has thretened to kill a peaceful village, you are asked by that village to defeat the dark Jedi...
now the Dark Jedi NPC is not just a Dark Jedi Master NPC but a special named NPC that is much more powerful then a normal DJM...
things like that... make it mysterious and fun, but make it epic and story based... this is the content we all have been waiting for make it an exciting story that all of us can enjoy.
IgescaStorm
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:18 am
#18
It should be a mix ofa really long path of interesting quests (with hints and not like the Hermit!!!!!) and some hidden things, like it was assumed by players for the old path.
A random checklist for everyone... but not too much!
I am more for good and fun quests.
(i do not believe, that you can manage it, because you prooved that the team is impotent to make story, but anyways...)
Twiggy_Gorath
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:22 am
#19
Howmany customers do you guys need to hemorrage until you finally 'get it'?
Here's my stance: I've been playing over a year and I want to play a jedi. I won't buy *any* expansion until you make good on this one game system that someone with an actual life (read: no more than 10 hours of available playtime a week) had no chance at all of becoming.
If at the end of the introduction of publish 10 I'm still finding this a powergamers pursuit, I'll personally be done with SWG, permanently. I'm already down to gametime cards now as there is no way on Earth I'll allow a recurring charge to my credit card, not knowing the game's direction from one week to the next. I could care less about your veteran gifts since the only gift I ever wanted was to play a jedi in your game, likewise goes my excitement towards your 'space expansion'.
JustG, what kind of question is that really that you pose? The powergamers don't care either way - but I suspect that the handful of 24x7-pg's that are running around killing everything they can with a lightsaber don't solely support the game so what do YOU think the rest of the people want?
This is utterly depressing, since by your question it appears you guys have not even designeda system to allow FS attainment, much less coded any part of it.
Blah, this is like banging my head against a wall. SOE either doesn't care because they're just doin so well (I really doubt that, there wasnt ONE 'light' server a year ago -check now during your peak times...), or are following some strategy of stringing players along while the real focus of the effort on the live team is JTL (more likely and I'd put money on it).
But yeah, I'd make it hard so your powergamers are happy and keep offering 14 day free trials to whoever you can. (Free trials are not a good sign, old mmog's like Ultima Online offer free accounts or temp reactivations on veteran accounts to get body count back on those servers....). We wouldn't want any SW purists to be upset either by all the lightsabers, because the purists along with the powergamers pay all the bills right?
Besides, you guys already tried the 'mysterious' route HAHAHAHAHA! Grinding every profession in the game (or perhaps not) and boy weren't people all impressed with that implementation of mysterious game systems?
I know this msg will be skipped over and ignored but I sure feel better for getting it off my chest heh
Twig
Metroid
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:23 am
#20
No matter how hard you make something, everyone will do it eventually, and ALSO complain about it in the process. Making something too difficult to play just results in the few who cant handle it whining until its changed, ruining it for the people who can.
Keep it hidden. Make people have to figure out their path to the force.
grommond
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:24 am
#21
I'd be happy with the path as a mysterious one, provided a player always has something to do to move forward. For example:
A path which had a player seek out a Jedi at a known waypoint who became your "mentor" and guided you with enough direction that you could always move forward but you never know what you'll have to do next is mysterious.
Having to happen upon a random waypoint out in the middle of nowhere which is a dynamic spawn for each player isn't mysterious; It is bordering on griefing the players. 
What you want to prevent is folks doing monotonous things without any idea if they are on the right path or not.
I'd be ok with it taking 12 months to unlock my slot provided it was an amazing amount of content that kept me interested. Think of it as a mini-game in and of itself where at the end you become a padwan. Based on how I've seen dynamic content work in this game, I'd much rather have it as static content, perhaps with randomized waypoints which were told to the players -- similar to what was done with the last part of the monthly story.
Don't make opening dependant on kill hundreds of any one thing in the hopes that you will finda certainrare loot item.Don't make it dependant on mastering professions. Don't make it dependant on wandering km upon km of wasteland hoping to happen upon an element of your quest. Don't make it campable. Make sure everything is no-trade.
So I'm starting to ramble but in short:
Mysterious doesn't mean random in appearance to the player.
Thanks,
Trick
Arcnaver
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:24 am
#22
Your Kidding me Right?? Now you want to know if it should bea mystery?
(no one person will ever know how they unlocked there fs slot........psssst its the holocrons)
It should have Always been a mystery!
AllSixteenHalos
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:27 am
#23
complete and utter mystery. i enjoyed it back at launch where every little npc dialogue was confusing the hell out of people.
drop an npc that moves around that starts the quest. no holocrons.
make it a REWARD to unlock again...
Message Edited by AllSixteenHalos on 07-10-2004 12:27 PM
Forceguy77
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:29 am
#24
First off, every person in the game that are already a jedi are going to say "keep it mysterious" seeing that they already unlocked and it would no longer effect them. like others said before me, this game is screwed up story-wise already and if you make jedi impossible to unlock then you will lose even more people who only bought this game to play as a jedi, like me. My opinion does not truely count anyways, the devs will do what they wish about this subject due to the fact that your going to have practically a split decision.
NexusSyndicateFounder
Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:33 am
#26
Arconis_Runicblade wrote:
It should be a combination of both... these series of quests should be of epic proportion and unrelated to faction.... should start out slow but get very hard requiring a full group to do it. These should not be done solo... by no means should this be doable as a solo act...
and when I say epic I don't mean go kill this and go that...
Put a story behind it....
A dark Jedi has thretened to kill a peaceful village, you are asked by that village to defeat the dark Jedi...
now the Dark Jedi NPC is not just a Dark Jedi Master NPC but a special named NPC that is much more powerful then a normal DJM...
things like that... make it mysterious and fun, but make it epic and story based... this is the content we all have been waiting for make it an exciting story that all of us can enjoy.
I agree that it should be a combination of both, but that Dark Jedi thing is just another "kill this, kill that". I think there should be things in the game that I can remember from very early in the game. Things where a random Twi'lek girl would come up to you in the desert screaming, she'll give you a disc, and then be shot by stormtroopers. You're left with a data disc in your hands having no idea what to do with it. With this you'll need to figure out what to do, where to go, who to talk to. Of course there should be things to kill along the way to keep it exciting. Have Imperial troops try to stop you, put bounties on players heads that are getting closer and closer to unlocking with the new system. Make it a challenge.
Make the path a puzzle and not a killing spree