Development Cycle Archive

on the main website the newest topic is:

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Geonosian Bio Lab Now Open on all Galaxies
A secret Geonosian Bio Lab is rumored to be operating somewhere on Yavin IV. The Imperials, the Rebels, and criminal syndicates want to steal the Lab's technology. Join the search for the hidden bunker. For more information, go here.
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is there supposed to be a link "here"? there is not one..........

thanks!

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GuntherSlag wrote:
This may be posted already, I didn't read through to find out but I think it's pretty important. I really love this game and appreciate the hard work the devs have put into it, but I fear this article sums up the state of the game dead on. I know the devs want this game to succeed as much as we do, so I'd be very interested in hearing what they think about it. Thanks for any responses.

http://www.stratics.com/content/mmogweekly/mmog/vol58.php

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I still haven't recieved an adequete response to the stelth nerf on the scatter/launcher/FWG5 pistols.

I invenst $30 a month in this game (2 accounts) but I consider that investment to be trivial. I willingly choose to invenst that money and can readily afford it. What I do not consider trivial, and what I do consider important, is the time I invest in this game. My time is valuable to me, and if I spend it making guns, I expect to be able to sell them at a future date.
On of the key features of an MMORPG is that it takes place in a persistent world. The gamespace exsists wheather I am there or not, and the actions I perform while there can have a lasting effect on that world. If I invest my time in something and it is rendered "worthless" then that breaks the continuity of the game. How then, can I trust that current and future actions won't be made worthless.
Yes, I am here to be entertained, and yes ultimately everything in the game is a digital abstraction stored in a computer somewhere, but that in no way lowers the importance of that continuity. I play the game acording to the mechanics that have been created, I did not exploit or work around those mechanics when I made the guns. I expect those mechanics to remain consistent. If a gun can me mass produced and sold on moday, I expect to be able to mass produce and sell more on tuesday.
To invalidate my time spent in the game, without any ackowledgement or compensation is completely disrespectful. If I cannot rely on the mechanics to remain consistent, nor on SOE to make up for any lack of consistancy that it knowingly and intentionally causes, then one of the key features of the MMORPG is lost. There no longer is persistance to the degree that I need in order to enjoyably play the game.
Prenerf T21s arestill in the game, prenerf probots are still in the game. Why then a sudden and unanounceremoval of these guns? How was I suposed to anticipate this? How can I trust thatit won't happen again? Does it really make sense to cause me too question weather I should continue to invest my time in this game? Were it not for my PA, I would have left allready. Now I need to decide weather that comrodery makes up for the lack of trust I now have in the game.
It doesn't matter how politly you say "tough luck", you're still saying "tough luck." how long will you continue to say it?

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LeBob wrote:

on the main website the newest topic is:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Geonosian Bio Lab Now Open on all Galaxies
A secret Geonosian Bio Lab is rumored to be operating somewhere on Yavin IV. The Imperials, the Rebels, and criminal syndicates want to steal the Lab's technology. Join the search for the hidden bunker. For more information, go here.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

is there supposed to be a link "here"? there is not one..........

thanks!

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mmaughme wrote:

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GuntherSlag wrote:
This may be posted already, I didn't read through to find out but I think it's pretty important. I really love this game and appreciate the hard work the devs have put into it, but I fear this article sums up the state of the game dead on. I know the devs want this game to succeed as much as we do, so I'd be very interested in hearing what they think about it. Thanks for any responses.

http://www.stratics.com/content/mmogweekly/mmog/vol58.php

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Interesting read. And entirely factual. Pretty much sums up what I posted above. And once again, I have to ask when the Devs will take notice.

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1. When is Dolovite Iron going to drop on the Corbantis server? It has been well over 4 months (if not longer) that this spawned.


2. Can all resources drop ever twoweeks?(rare ones included) With this, I mean have all of the resources spawn every two weeks, but in those two week drops, make the stats change.


3. Why do some resources spawn on servers for weeks at a time but one the other servers, those same resources never spawn. Is this bad code that does this and doesn't know which server has not seen the resource in a while?

I don't know who decides to have the resources spawn, but someone needs to look at the system in which they do spawn. Waiting for 4 months for a single resource to spawn is outrageous.

I want to know what the Devs, or rather SOE in general, are going to do to assure us this game will endure.

There was once a time we had an extremely active guild. Now, on a good day, we have MAYBE a dozen people logged on. Of these, only eight or so are on regularly. It's extremely difficult to find a group to do anything these days. Shops are empty across the galaxy. My own shop, which is always stocked with goods, is running low on customers.

Within my guild, people are unhappy. There's a lot of discontent. Guild chat often contains derogatory conversations regarding SOE. Comments regarding the stupid holocron system. Comments regarding vehicles disappearing. Comments regarding buggy professions. Comments regarding bugs that have been with us since launch. Our holo-grinders are getting frustrated, having mastered some 20 professions to date without having yet opened their FS. One, who's currently grinding through BH, has been getting pissed in chat over the bugs, over having to wait an hour for his mark, over having to wait endlessly for the shuttles.

Shuttle waits are miserable. The official Dev and CSR support for the shuttle wait is that it "provides an opportunity" to chat with other players. It's a stupid comment, to suggest that we need a forced means of socializing. Further, when folks do gather at star ports and shuttles, they're mostly quiet. If they talk at all, either either smalltalk between folks who already know one another, or bitching about the wait. I state this from experience. I spenda lot of time in shuttle ports, travelling the galaxy setting up harvesters or collecting DNA.

Further, there's the ongoing profession nerfs and profession imbalances. CH is damn near unplayable these days. Entertainment professions are pointless, given 80% of the entertainers, musicians and dancers in the galaxy are AFK. May as well give is NPC entertainers for all the interaction provided by the AFK holo-grinders.

Then there's the holo-grind itself. While I realize the Devs are overhauling the Jedi system, it's too late in coming. It's amazing that for three months users have complained about the holocron system, saying it's ruining the game. What depresses me is that the Devs waited so long to accept the user complaints. Game mechanics aside, there's an arrogance in SOE that has frustrated and angered many of the players in the game. There's a discussion going on in the CH forum right now, discussing the "us vs. them" attitude of the CH versus the Devs. Many professions, many players, feel "us vs. them" when dealing with Sony. We have Devs who promise us improved communication, yet rarely post responses to user comments and complaints. We have CSRs running around clothing threads, without apparently realizing that customer dissatisfaction it, itself, useful feedback.

Why does Sony fail to recognize that the player base is, at large, unhappy? Why are there no customer satisfaction polls? Why are the servers lightly loaded, even during prime time? When first launched, SOE was proud to annouce some 260K subscribers. Where are the current subscriber numbers? How many active players do we currently have? Not subscribers -- active players. For example, how many unique logins occured last week?

I see a lot of in-game talk about the game dying a slow and painful death. I see screaming and yelling and complaining and threats to quit and announcements of account cancellations in the Forums, yet the Devs and CSRs continually disregard these as rantings and ravings -- again ignoring the fact that negative feedback is still feedback. If your player base is so unhappy, you need to ask yourselves why. Yet I don't see this being done.

So again I ask Sony, where are your assurances to your subscribers that this game is a) worth playing, and b) will survive? How many active players do you currently have? How are you going to keep people from bailing ship when Middle Earth, EQ2 and Warhammer are released?

Krayt Pearls: Jedi require them and yet Jedi are solitary people. Doesn't make sense to me that we should have to use our mains to go hunt for or save up to buy pearls for millions of credits to supply our Jedi who are--in keeping withthe storyline--not seekers of wealth.

How was it the Jedi were expected to craft their own sabers in all the movies when we never heard word one of this need for such a hard to find item?

Note--I haven't opened my FS slot yet (ya, as if I ever will. damn grinding is never ending).

So, look at changing the requirement to allow for the use of another component of high quality or make some baby dragons that a single player would be able to hunt. (Yes some can solo krayts now, but that was never intended as these are one of the few "raid" level encounter mobs in SWG.)

Vinaddar