Development Cycle Archive
Thread: New Team Comments
Incoming Imperial Transmission to Developers (garbled):
This is Imperial Warrant Officer Terranah.........under attack.......superior numbers of rebel forces converging on all fronts.....atst fleet in flames, storm trooper force reduced by 66 percent........war is lost.......repeat....war is lost..........OH GOD.....my hat.........
End Transmission
Regardless of all the common issues that we all share with the current state of SWG, I believe that this is a great, great game. You don't really want to hear a bunch of complaining. I don't mean for this to come off as a negative post. I don't think that it does, but you never know. I just want to voice my opinion of what the near future should bring to this game.
I was really hoping that since the vehicles, mounts, and player cities are now IN, that you would concentrate on getting everything running smoothly, correctly and continue to balance everything... without adding too much new content. I am hoping that still WILL be your main focus.
It seems to me as though the game now has the great skeleton of what was imagined. I would think that this is a great point to focus (almost entirely) on the large task of fixing all the bugs (or realisticly as much as possible) and balancing out all the Professions.
This IS a great product. Rely on what you have already put in and now improve what is there by fixing the mistakes. Besides the things that were left out (Some things related to the Professions, such as DE and Smuggler) try not adding anything monumental in.
I understand that you have different departments that are working on things that have nothing to do with other departments that the players may find more important. So, new textures, little frills, and additional (non-groundbreaking) items shouldn't cause problems.
Basically, sticking with the "Theme Patch" idea... for the next few big patches, you should really have the "Theme" be, "Get What We Have Running Smoothly and as Near Perfect As Is Possible".
Your Marketing People (after they finish wiping the tears away from laughing at my thoughts) can certainly come up with a better Title for this Theme, but the notion is true, none the less.
The great game is in place... I recommend sticking to what is there and pounding out the kinks. I bet your customer base would respond with longevity from a display of loyalty... as opposed to the typical mentality of "add new things so that we keep their interest". At some point, the players that are brought in like that, WILL turn their attention elsewhere. If you DON'T focus on the other players that are here now and WANT to play this for years and years to come, then they WON'T be here for this game at that point either.
I hope that this makes sense to you.
MTFBWY
- Omadda Szool
Kauri
- Omadnay
Test Center
Shug,
I would like to thank you for sharing the team's plans and I'd like to congratulate the team for, what I believe, to be the most stable and impressive MMO game I have ever played. From launch to date() I have only seen the server inaccessible 3 times, and most game stopping bugs squashed fairly quickly. This is unheard of with other MMO's I have played. Most people complain about all sorts of issues under the two Tatooian Suns, and there are obvious issues (professions) but you guys aredoing a greatjob.
I just wanted to say that "most" of the community, which unfortunatley the whiners here aren't included in are very impressed with this game. (Sorry folks, but most SWGers don't visit the forums. Prob cause they hate whining like me) I look forward to SE and just so you know this is one customer who (patiently awaiting some Smuggler and DE love) enjoy's paying his 15$ a month to play this game.
I sort of agree. SWG has, to me, been the most stable MMORPG in this short a time frame since release of the several I've played.
HOWEVER, the stability has been DROPPING since release, not increasing. For several months I never crashed one single time. Now it's a rare day I don't crash 3-6 times in a 2-3 hour session. Mounts were added, and seemed to be fairly stable. Then the Vehicle Publish occured and nonCH mounts have been broken since. I'm afraid to see what the Space Expansion will break.
We're how many months into 'release', and they're completely redoing Combat and Creatures, 2 of the core sections of the game. Crafting at least appears to be working (mostly) as intended.There're still problems with Bounty Hunter as a profession apparently, and Smuggler as a profession has the devs so confused they're redesiging it for the 2nd time.
These are symptomatic of serious issues that need to be addressed before additional code is layered on top of the existing problems. This approach (add new features rather than fixing known problems) is what's causing Microsoft to catch so much grief in the press and among the IT world. While it's a good idea to want to make as much money as Microsoft has, repeating all of their mistakes is NOT what I would suggest as a business plan.
Please address the known and long-standing core issues before adding new ones.
Thanks, and happy holidays!
Sorry, wish this forum had a user edit capability ...
Here's something specific from the post I'd like to address:
"we'll hopefully take some time to enjoy the holiday season, zipping around Tatooine or Naboo with the rest of you on our newly-purchased landspeeders or kaadu" ...
Better make that "landspeeders" only. Kaadu have been broken as nonCH mounts since the vehicle publish went live. Several other nonCH mounts reporting the same problem (Difficulty Level 1(-1) and "You cannot call a pet in a private building" error message) have been addressed but not mottled kaadu. I've /bugged it, I've reported it in the forums, many other people are reporting the problem, but I've seen no acknowledgement of the issue much less any indication that it will be addressed. Everyone appears to be acting as if all mount and pet issues have been fixed. They have NOT, and it troubles me that the LucasArts Producer himself is unaware of the problem enough to include it in his plans for the holiday - sort of like Bill Gate's PC crashing when he plugged in a USB device while trying to show the joys and wonders of his new Plug and Pray...err Play operating systema couple years back. How embarrassing!
hi! its great that you guys are fixing/making professiins more interesting, but i noticed you didnt mention anything about bounty hunter. Bounter Hunter IS good, but not worth the skill points. Ive been trying to get ahold of a person who CAN do something, and i finnaly have. BH is the harderest, proefession to get, besides jedi. A Master pistoleer/MTKA/and Master smuggler, can easy waste a MBH. BH should have more interesting aspects to it. Another thing is, a BH has a special pistol, special heavy weapon, but does not have a special carbine. Bh should also be able to track players 
The whole point of being a BH is to kill people, and track them down. I think players shold always have an ability to hire a BH to kill someone. BH missuions should pay more, since all the costs to transport, ect. BH needs a special armor, only BH can wear. I know i sound totaly wining, but i need to tell someone about it that can do something. THX for reading this in advance!
* something toatally off subject: SWG should have a ice planet 
sssoka wrote:
* something toatally off subject: SWG should have a ice planet
Hoth!! Although all that never-ending white would wind up killing my eyes.
Shug_Ninx wrote:
A new Team Comments is up at the following link:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/team_comments.jsp?page=Team%20Comments
It provides a sneak peek at the upcoming months. Enjoy.
Haden Blackman
LucasArts Producer
this seems to be targeted at people who have quitplaying or people that are thinking about starting playing
cuz we already knew this lol
Lodacai wrote:
Haden said: We're already hard at work on the Space Expansion. The design and feature set are almost locked down, so we hope to be able to start sharing more information about the expansion later next year.
Locked down? With zero community input? Hard to say if this is something to look forward to, or to dread. Maybe we've advanced past the point of wanting pre-release community input, but it's a big risk to assume you are designing a game system the way most of the community want's to play it.
Will we finally move away from "teleportation" style travel on city-to-cityand planet-to-planet shuttles?
Will all travel finally involvethe far more realistic shipboard socializationtime, rather than stand-around-the-starport socialization time?
Will you be incorporating "snow-speeder" style low-altitude atmospheric flight? Oftimes my landspeeder almost seems like it would be allowed, if only 50 feet higher on the Z axis and moving 22 m/sec instead of the swoop max of 17 m/sec. Just enough to "feel" faster and flighty.
Ah well, it's almost locked down so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Lodacai
I agree with you, i'm kinda scared, that we have not heard anything about the design plans of the Space Expansion. It seems like the Space Expansion should add a whole new dynamic to SWG, but for some reason I have the feeling it will be just like the current game we have now, just in Space.
-red
I'd just like to point out that, despite many promises to the contrary over the past six months, there is still no mention of any work to fix the dozens of problems with the Bounty Hunter profession.
(And don't tell me we're coveredin the "Combat Professions", because you specifically told us we were nota combat profession when you passed us over many months ago in the first profession feedback.)