Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Friday Feature Errata... Part 2...
Obviously, you've missed the most obvious aspect of SWG. It's a game and it's meant to be fun. If I wanted to sweat for recreation I'd be taking up a hobby. All I want to do is kill stuff, loot stuff, harvest stuff and buy uber stuff and craft some decent stuff. I don't want to crack out a calculator every time I play a game to figure out if I'm getting the maximum value for my in-game efforts.
DarthTaulon wrote:
JustG and Thunderhart,
Don't youtwo (and other devs) realize that the kiddies don't want the decay penalty because they want to mindlessly run around and kill things. I mean, if you are on the opposite side they just open fire, period, then kill or be killed instantly. There is no conversation before hand, just a mindless shoot out that comes out of nowhere. They love this. This is what fuels their already rampant teenage angst.
You see if they have a penalty like decay or some kind of loss, well, they get angry and shout and stomp their little feet like little kids do. They learn this when they are young and when their parents give in to their every whim. So, naturally, they would expect it here.
Which again, makes me wonder why they just don't go to a game like Planetside or Counter Strike or any of the twitchy shoot 'em ups. Oh, that's right, because it's not "STAR WARS". *yawn*
Yes kids, I know there are a lot of bugs to fix and well sometimes a game doesn't go the way you want it to.
Yes, I'm sure we are going to hear the old "I'm paying you to do your job lololol!" and "s t f u cuz you devs don't know nothing". *long yawn*
Please let's just give them some positive encouragement, some ideas, and a some constructive feedback instead of the old "I'm just gonna leave this stupid game!" or the classic "If they include (insert new feature here) I'm just gonna cancel my subscription and then spend my days hanging out in the forums just to look like a schmuck with no life".
I have heard those phrases for far too long and in way too many games and you know what......YOU PEOPLEARE STILL HERE.
((I still think the best and most effective penalty for death, like others have said, is through wounding, not decay.
Insurance - large wounds and battle fatigue after cloning
No insurance - huge wounds and battle fatigue after cloning
It would slow down clone wars in PvP. It would help healers not have to rely on tumblers and intentionally combat medic mind diseased people for healing experience. It would result in more income and appreciation for healing classes, but at the same time not take huge bites out of the very expensive custom armor. That armor is decaying through use.
As for tailors, since items can be worn at 0, decay isn't helping them, anyway. And I would be willing to bet that tailors make *much* more money from people buying new clothes for new looks and styles than they make from a combat focused character, anyway. Those people are wearing armor most of the time, anyway; they don't care if they are stylish under it or not.
I think wounding would be much better for the game overall than decay. *shrug*))
I'm just wondering who that plays this game WANTS decay? If you do want decay, please post and let us know why. I see pages and pages of reaons why people do not want it, I would like to see the reasoning of the people that do want it.
On another topic, I love how "old dude" says people are stomping there feet and crying when they don't get there way. How do you suggest that people protest to something that they do not like, other then voicing there opinions to the people that make the decisions. Maybe in your perfect world, everyone just sits back, shuts the hell up, and takes whatever people stuff down there throats. Last I checked we live in a world were money talks, and since we (the community) make up the money, we get to talk. Another thing no one gives a rats ass about spelling/grammer/punctuation in a forumn. If you are so **edit** concerned about proper formatting of a post, why the hell are you the only one who made yours in that ugly hard to read color. I would have thought you were more the "everyone must conform" type.
Ok Devs, I'm going to spell it out this morning. I'm going to clear up this mystery ofwhy it may appear to you thatthe player base has turned on you. The thing is, we aren't dumb and actually we are pretty observant. We know that the primary purpose of us being here is to have fun and that the primary purpose of you being there is to provide content to us at the absolute slowest and most longest lasting way.
You know, when you came up with this one percent delay you outdid yourself, I mean who could have imagined how huge of a time sink you were creating with a little iddty bitty one percent. And I'm just talking armor, you can't just walk down to your local armorsmith and buy a good set off the rack unless you are extremely lucky and caught him on a day he just made a new batch...There was a time I needed a new helm and traveled two planets to no avail and ended up having to order. And those hard to get skilltapes, it was rare you even got to put them on a brand new piece of armor cause your armor you just bought a day ago was already degraded a nice piece. And those sneaky lil crafting kits, those were your most evilly devilish plot, I have to hand it to you, allowing them to go up to 99.xxx percent and they would still completely destroy your armor, wow, pure genius on your part. The problem is that after a couple months of this devilish little time sink of yours, the players started getting so beat up by it that many stopped even doing PvP. If we saw overwhelming numbers approaching, they stopped declaring and became spectators because that one percent decay was just too too much of a time sink and we were going to avoid it at every instance when we could.
Then came the big announcement, the one percent decay in PvP was being removed. You have no clue as to what huge news this way. There was rejoicing through out the galaxy, everyone was getting ready to get back into PvP full bore, no longer did they have to be spectators, they would jump in again. Everyone who had seen the decline in PvP since the decay was put in finally thought you actually listened to them, it was a amazing thing.
I don't know why you reneged, I'm guessing someone said no, we can't remove one ofthe best time sinks we have come up with, if we remove it we have to come up with another to replace it like faction grinding or something. To me, when you reneged on removing this time sink, I no longer felt like a rebel fighting Imperials, I felt like I was a rebel and the enemy was the developers of this game, that how deep it cut me. Because lets face it, the only benefit to PvP and the GCW is my fun, there are no other rewards as game elements. So you are attacking my fun, not the imperials, you, and that makes you the enemy.
I think a lot of people are seeing you as the enemy also. Its not a good position to be in, especially when these people are your clients and pay the bills. To be honest, I cancelled my account to send you a message because I don't think you are hearing us other ways. Now I have a lot of friends in game that are telling me don't go, please don't go, we don't want to see you go, and I'm between a rock and a hard place. I really like the people I have met in this game but at the same time, I play it to have fun. So I'm going to ask you to cut us some slack. We really do like playing but the costs in time sinks you created to even participate in the GCW are huge and I don't think its asking too much if you cut them back some so we can play, and have fun... with the game we are paying to play...
Thank you Gary.
Anyone who has read some of my posts knows that I do not shy away from letting the Dev team know how I feel about proposed changes. I was vocal--well, verbal I suppose since this is typed--about the CH changes and other issues, and more recently the Crackdown.
My point is that we have a right to voice our concerns, but JustG is right that we cannot expect anyone to be perfect or 100% error free. Mistakes and miscommunications will happen. Butas long as people like JustG are willing to say Yes, we made a mistake, then we should be understanding.
I believe that TH's presence is overall a very good one for the game and have no doubt that he is busting his tail to do his job. So despite our differences of opinion, I am thankful that he is here.
Vinaddar
I was so so impressed with DarthTaulon's post, I just had to see what constructive comments he had to say in his other posts. Here is a small sample of the great posts this guy has added to make this forumn great.
He is an absolute MORON kiddie.
I shrug it off like I do to all the mouthy kids in games who think they need a little attention because mommy and daddy ignore them at home.
I think Jedi running around in composite armor is the most retarded looking thing I have ever seen.
The devs should be slapped in the face for coming up with this insane holocron profession grinding system for unlocking jedi.
If its so tuff to be a jedi like all the kiddies claim then why cant we all get a shot at it?
Man, what a better way to kill continuity than seeing kids with retarded names.
A couple hints: Proper period use and caps lock. Since you work full time, maybe you should take some night courses on sentence structure and keyboard use?
I am not a shrink, but you can easily see some issues here. 1) You must have some issue with kids, or your parents, or your age, or something, cuz you keep talking bad about these "kiddies". 2) You seem to have some issue with mentally handicapped people, I'm sure they do not appreciate your insults 3) You seem to have a lot of issues with the way devs handled jedi, and probably that you can't achieve it.
I've been racking my brain for a compromise somewhere. The Development Team says 1% insured decay is a valuable game mechanic, and the player community wants it gone. There has to be a middle ground somewhere....
How about....
Each week you get a certain number of deaths.... perhaps only 1 or 2 at most... that will act like the 3 free newbie deaths you got at the beginning of the game? Die more often, and it will cost you, but the random occassional 'oh, I was AFK and the Overt Rebel TKA had me Kd'ed and Warcry'ed before I could blink.' wouldn't cost you?
JustG wrote:
(I posted this in the original thread, but I am afraid it will get overlooked.)
Folks,
I have to step in, as Senior Producer, and take some responsibility here. The 1% decay removal was communicated to TH. We then revoked that change without telling him. He posted erroneous information to you, and it is my fault. I have apologized profusely to him, and now I am doing so to the community.
Here is why we revoked that change:
We want the GCW to be everything it can be. We want factional PvP to be fun and exciting. We understand that as players, you don't want the 1% decay. We think it is an important game mechanic in the right situations, but we want to remove it from factional battles.
Our plan is, in the next publish (NOT Imperial Crackdown, which is due soon, but the following publish) to have a factional perk that you can purchase with faction points. This perk will give you 24 hours of no decay on insured items for factional deaths.
Now as to your harsh words and attitude towards Thunderheart... I understand your frustration. But you have to know that every morning, the first person I talk to is TH, to find out about the current hot issues. He comes with us to almost all of our high-level meetings and represents "the voice of the players". He has tremendous passion for the game, and for you, and for his job. He fights for your issues, heart and soul, day in and day out. His job is to know your desires and represent them to us. And I think he does his job **edit** WELL.
It kills me to see how harsh some of the player population is towards him, because I know in no small part, we are responsible for any misinformation that you receive from him. No one is perfect, and things happen very rapidly from time to time. Miscommunications are going to occur. Don't kill the messenger. Please be forgiving, or direct your wrath towards a more guilty party (me).
Again, my deepest apologies for any misinformation regarding item decay from PvP. I take full responsibility. We love this game, as you do, and want it to be everything it can be. With your help, we will get there.
Best,
- Gary
Gary,
What a stand up thing to do /bow...The reason that people we hard on TH is that this is not the first time a statement has been modified....also your explanation on the reasons for the change...if you did this more ...we would not have such a angry player base.
Lowar
I decided to send my last post by e-mail through different channels in SOE.
Hey, it may be dirty pool to address the devs and then also go over their heads so they are questioned by other channels for their operation, but I'm willing todoall I can to see what I deem as serious concerns be addressed...
Perhaps anyone else who has made a non-fractional post, that is complete in itself, that addresses the issues here, you may also want to consider doing the same thing.
Mariki wrote:
Ok Devs, I'm going to spell it out this morning. I'm going to clear up this mystery ofwhy it may appear to you thatthe player base has turned on you. The thing is, we aren't dumb and actually we are pretty observant. We know that the primary purpose of us being here is to have fun and that the primary purpose of you being there is to provide content to us at the absolute slowest and most longest lasting way.
You know, when you came up with this one percent delay you outdid yourself, I mean who could have imagined how huge of a time sink you were creating with a little iddty bitty one percent. And I'm just talking armor, you can't just walk down to your local armorsmith and buy a good set off the rack unless you are extremely lucky and caught him on a day he just made a new batch...There was a time I needed a new helm and traveled two planets to no avail and ended up having to order. And those hard to get skilltapes, it was rare you even got to put them on a brand new piece of armor cause your armor you just bought a day ago was already degraded a nice piece. And those sneaky lil crafting kits, those were your most evilly devilish plot, I have to hand it to you, allowing them to go up to 99.xxx percent and they would still completely destroy your armor, wow, pure genius on your part. The problem is that after a couple months of this devilish little time sink of yours, the players started getting so beat up by it that many stopped even doing PvP. If we saw overwhelming numbers approaching, they stopped declaring and became spectators because that one percent decay was just too too much of a time sink and we were going to avoid it at every instance when we could.
Then came the big announcement, the one percent decay in PvP was being removed. You have no clue as to what huge news this way. There was rejoicing through out the galaxy, everyone was getting ready to get back into PvP full bore, no longer did they have to be spectators, they would jump in again. Everyone who had seen the decline in PvP since the decay was put in finally thought you actually listened to them, it was a amazing thing.
I don't know why you reneged, I'm guessing someone said no, we can't remove one ofthe best time sinks we have come up with, if we remove it we have to come up with another to replace it like faction grinding or something. To me, when you reneged on removing this time sink, I no longer felt like a rebel fighting Imperials, I felt like I was a rebel and the enemy was the developers of this game, that how deep it cut me. Because lets face it, the only benefit to PvP and the GCW is my fun, there are no other rewards as game elements. So you are attacking my fun, not the imperials, you, and that makes you the enemy.
I think a lot of people are seeing you as the enemy also. Its not a good position to be in, especially when these people are your clients and pay the bills. To be honest, I cancelled my account to send you a message because I don't think you are hearing us other ways. Now I have a lot of friends in game that are telling me don't go, please don't go, we don't want to see you go, and I'm between a rock and a hard place. I really like the people I have met in this game but at the same time, I play it to have fun. So I'm going to ask you to cut us some slack. We really do like playing but the costs in time sinks you created to even participate in the GCW are huge and I don't think its asking too much if you cut them back some so we can play, and have fun... with the game we are paying to play...
If only the DEV would read this post and have the steel to reply to it.
Lowar,
Please don't encourage them to play the good cop, bad cop thing. The shifting blame thing is like a shell game to drawn attention away from the issues. It is irrellevent who the messenger is, all that is rellevent is the issue at hand, the decay issue, period.
Do you really honestly, in your heart, believe that this was just a communications problem? Really? Even with the first rounds of excuses that made no sense and the changing stories? The weeks of repeated announcements of the decay being removed? Now I don't blame them at all for trying to draw away the attention but I would like to stick with the issue, the time sink that is the 1 percent decay. That is all that matters to me.
Thanks Lowarzek,
I just want them to get real with me as I have tried to get real with them.