Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Weekly Rountdable Discussion (Week Ending 1-18-04)
Like so many before me, and those to follow, I shall no longer play Star Wars Galaxies. I generally do not post on the forums very often, but read them on a daily basis. The serious lack of communication causing enormous disappointment has encouraged me to share my frustrations in a very public way.
When I first joined SWG I expected plenty of bugs and a lack of content. I too am a software developer and while I've never had to tackle such an immense and far reaching project, I can completely understand how issues slip through the process. You can never test for every possible issue.
Yet what kept me going, and what impressed me most, was how well the developers communicated with the player base through these forums. They explained how and why certain issue would take priority; overall I felt that the game improved dramatically over the first three months. Then as the game became more stable they began to add new features. Once again I was impressed by the speed in which these new features were added.
However during that time, the communication got worse and worse. I remember a few months ago when an outage happened, people on the SWG general discussion forum complained how they could not log in at all, myself included. "Knight Rider" syndrome became the best description of the problem. People were unable to log in to their server for over four hours! Again, being in the software industry I can see how things like this can happen, but what completely caught me by surprise was that not one person from SOE, not even a CSR ever explained what happened or apologized for the outage. Worse yet no one even offered a credit or some sort of compensation. In my mind I pictured the technical team working all night to resolve the issue, thus I forgave them.
Fast forward to today. The decision was made to close the general forum but replace it with new "improved" forums to help focus the discussion. Fine I can understand that I even became excited about posting my ideas for improvements in the "In Concept" forum. As of the writing of this post, there's still only one topic, which is locked, in the "In Concept" forum. The Dev's start a topic on the "In Live" forum entitled "Weekly Rountdable [sic] Discussion [insert date here]" According to the Dev Tracker there have been a total of four posts, all by TH in this "Roundtable" forum. Four posts over two weeks! Two of those posts are just to open the thread to begin with! Only, one post answered any questions. One post over two weeks! Another posts told a writer to "save it for the In Concept forum" Why? Users can not post anything in that forum, there are no topics!
Well, I've been wordy enough; I think the readers get my point. So long Star Wars Galaxies, you had so much potential but the lack of communication from your makers leave me no choice but to leave the game. I'd much rather spend my $15.00 each month to purchase multiple copies of the DVDs for Gigli, Ishtar, or possibly even From Justin to Kelly then to continue to play a game where communication is an afterthought. If I ran my company like SOE runs their games, I'd be out-of-business in a month.
With much regret while hoping this post doesn't get deleted,
SOU-Alum
P.S. Please don't respond to this forum with "Dude, can I have your stuff?" This forum is disorganized enough we don't need extra clutter. Besides I don't have anything worth more then a CDEF pistol anyway.
Georb79 wrote:
Here is a idea. Why dont you guys stop complaining about the forums changes and start posting your issuse. It seems childlke to keep complaining about the disscusion when they made it a mute point. Dont complain they arent comming back.
So instead of bashing this forum why dont you at least use it for something pertaining to the accual game play or mechanics not to w,hore a forum. I havent seen 1 resonable issuse in the game from the whinners on this forum about the game play. If you already posted them somewhere else. Then please repost it here and try to use this forum instead of complaing.
discussion
\Dis*cus"sion\, n. [L. discussio a shaking, examination, discussion: cf. F. discussion.] 1. The act or process of discussing by breaking up, or dispersing, as a tumor, or the like.
2. The act of discussing or exchanging reasons; examination by argument; debate; disputation; agitation.
There is no mention of complaining in that definetion. Soo I guess you guys are wasting reply's and creating more pages of worthless and not helpfull information. So grow up and follow the rules. They are not bringing the forumsback. So start putting your weekly problems with the game here and then make a judgement please give it a week dont expect them to cater to you, just post your problem or question and wait.
I posted my issues. Yet...the actual communication is the issue now...once again. TH is MIA, if he hasn't posted by Sunday there is a BIG problem. You see a few Pex posts, TH is no where to be found, No other devsare to be found,, Garva is going lock happy in the Core Systems forum. A little disappointing if you ask me. How about a post from TH saying..."My replies are coming guys, chill out." But not even that as of yet.
Like I said, if nothing has happened come Sunday then TH needs to be strung up by his ears along with a few other devs. But I think he will be coming back before then with a good load of info...
i think offensive mods are cool and everything, but further BH combat balancing should take the form of gadgets and perks and stuff. i dont really want to see the "arms race" of accuracy mods, speed mods, etc continuing any further than it already has. i consider dabblers to still be an issue, but i havent heard of any fair way to remove dabbling without reverting back to an EQ like class system. class war-- just say no!
i like a lot of the BH discussion ive heard recently in regards to player traps being installed in the investigation line.
i thought of perhaps one other cool BH "perk" that could be inteserted--
a "stealth camp". basically a normal camp in terms of regeneration, but when deployed, anyone in the BHs group and inside the campwill be invisible to player radar. i think something like this is a better solution to the BHs lack of defenses, and defense stacking by ubertemplates, because BHs would be given a first strike capability (they are supposed to be stealth trackers and stuff). a camp like this, in addition to BH player traps and existing weapon specials could really help out with the death mark system and jedi bounties without having to adjust weapon mods any further. also,i think, if something like this was added, BHs wouldnt feel so bad about having to grind out the survival line in scouts.
WARN THE JEDI. DON'T MAKE THEM FIND OUT THE HARD WAY
The Dev's and SWG don't tell you all...and it is VERY UNFAIR not to be WARNED that your Jediwill not only lose skills (this is documented) but your Jediwill also lose ALL credits and ALL items (inventory AND safe deposit items), except those items stored in a droid. THIS IS NOT DOCUMENTED AND YOU DO NOT DISCOVER THIS UNTIL PERMADEATH HAS OCCURED!!!
Aakhperkare wrote:
I posted my issues. Yet...the actual communication is the issue now...once again. TH is MIA, if he hasn't posted by Sunday there is a BIG problem. You see a few Pex posts, TH is no where to be found, No other devsare to be found,, Garva is going lock happy in the Core Systems forum. A little disappointing if you ask me. How about a post from TH saying..."My replies are coming guys, chill out." But not even that as of yet.
Like I said, if nothing has happened come Sunday then TH needs to be strung up by his ears along with a few other devs. But I think he will be coming back before then with a good load of info...
Let me ask you a question. If you owned SOE would you keep people on your payroll if they dont do anything? I dont think soo. They are trying to push out a huge publish and hammering out details. He said he will be reducing his time on the forums and if you had a question the fastest reply would be through your correspondent.
He is narrowing down information he is using the system like it was ment too. He cant take in 200,000 diffrent opinions. I shouldnt be explaining this to you. You should already know how a system like this works or you should have a idea of how something like this would work. I for one would rather no responses back for a week, to make sure that publish notes and everything goes smooth rather then him discuss a already dead issue.
Common sense all I ask
SUGGESTION TO STOP AFK COMBAT
I for one am tired of the AFK combat characters surrounding the cities of the majority of the starter planets.
I am not sure if this will even get read by anyone, but considering that lack of suitable places to post I thought I may as well voice my suggestions somewhere....
There are a growing number of players who we see AFK taking out the static NPC spawns - Coronet is a prime example of this. The majority of these players are not doing this for the combat XP (1XP per kill is not going to level you very quickly), they are doing it in the hope that the NPC will drop a crystal which can then be sold on the open market. This is a problem in my opinion because;
1. Low level mobs should be for low level players - it gives them a decent opponent and rewards and is a nice break from rill harvesting.
2. These mobs are the only chance that a low level player will have of looting something decent. Higher level players are able to fight marauders, force sensitive opponents and the like - just not AFK. Lets leave some content for other players can we?
3. It breaks immersion - I know some of you do not care about the immersion factor in the game, but it is important to me. I am fed up of seeing players fighting while AFK surrounded by corpses.
Solution - It would be great if the dev team could ensure that at random intervals a very high level NPC would spawn in these static spawn areas. The NPC could be non-aggro so as not to attack innocent bystanders and would pose no threat to players who are actually at the keyboard. However, those who are AFK and using the cycle target and autoloot commands will have a nasty surprise when they get home from school and find themselves in the nearest clone center.
JediMindslayer wrote:
EpiFett wrote:
THIS NEW FORM OF DISCUSSION SUCKS.
THERE IS NO DISCUSSION.
THERE IS NO FORM.
THERE IS NO FEEDBACK.
THUNDERHEART HAS ABANDONED THE PLAYERBASE AFTER CONVINCINGLY TELLING US HE WAS NOT GOING TO.
WHAT... THE... HELL...
BTW i totally agree with this poster.
The official post count has dropped about 9 million percent since the General Forum was turned off.
They said they would spend more time in the profession forums (they dont)
They said they would spend more time in the server forums (only if you are from eclipse)
They said there would be greater and more efficient communication (there isnt)
basically, they fed us a bunch of horse poopy just to justify the closing of the general forum.
maybe theyt are getting ready to fire Thunderheart and do away with the community correspondant altogether.
or worse... they are replacing Thunderheart with ABSOR or ABASHI.... god save us all....
am i in the minority, because in the past few months i have not seen Thunderheart post 1 piece of useful information or tell me anything i didnt already know? All i see is him asking for more info or saying he is compiling some list ornote or poststhat never see the light of day. Most of the information comes on patch day. The patch nots have a one line blurb that tells me nothing. IE "Improved Crafting" or " Changed Armor Schematics"...
Nearly any information i get about this game comes from other players
Georb79 wrote:
Aakhperkare wrote:
I posted my issues. Yet...the actual communication is the issue now...once again. TH is MIA, if he hasn't posted by Sunday there is a BIG problem. You see a few Pex posts, TH is no where to be found, No other devsare to be found,, Garva is going lock happy in the Core Systems forum. A little disappointing if you ask me. How about a post from TH saying..."My replies are coming guys, chill out." But not even that as of yet.
Like I said, if nothing has happened come Sunday then TH needs to be strung up by his ears along with a few other devs. But I think he will be coming back before then with a good load of info...
Let me ask you a question. If you owned SOE would you keep people on your payroll if they dont do anything? I dont think soo. They are trying to push out a huge publish and hammering out details. He said he will be reducing his time on the forums and if you had a question the fastest reply would be through your correspondent.
He is narrowing down information he is using the system like it was ment too. He cant take in 200,000 diffrent opinions. I shouldnt be explaining this to you. You should already know how a system like this works or you should have a idea of how something like this would work. I for one would rather no responses back for a week, to make sure that publish notes and everything goes smooth rather then him discuss a already dead issue.
Common sense all I ask
That's why i said by Sunday. The supposed weekending.
Pay a little attention is all I ask...
Naufragus wrote:
am i in the minority, because in the past few months i have not seen Thunderheart post 1 piece of useful information or tell me anything i didnt already know? All i see is him asking for more info or saying he is compiling some list ornote or poststhat never see the light of day. Most of the information comes on patch day. The patch nots have a one line blurb that tells me nothing. IE "Improved Crafting" or " Changed Armor Schematics"...
Nearly any information i get about this game comes from other players
I can't believe I am saying this to Naufragus but. . .
You are correct. TH has not posted useful information since, in my approximation, the beginning of December. Maybe the end of November.
Most useful information I have gotten has been from profession correspondents OR players in specific professions boards. Unfortunately, since I don't visit EVERY board I am not aware of all the changes.
For example, I saw a chef post in this bog of feces that they are putting in a chef change with the next major patch (?). Another example, is a while back when the invincible template was nerfed did we even GET an announcement AT ALL from TH about it? I don't recall one. Not even one from the BH correspondent was posted. I heard about it most and first from the other players testing it.
Although I doubt any of the correspondents have gotten decent feedback lately in their forum.
Communication is now a one way stream that is probably redirected to /dev/null.
Xader_Vartec wrote:
Although I doubt any of the correspondents have gotten decent feedback lately in their forum.
Should be:
Although I doubt they will admit it I doubt any of the correspondents have gotten any decent feedback lately on their forum.
Guys if you have a question about proffessions go to there forum threads. Yes This month is Chef revamp and some DE additions and changes. Also we are going to be expecting Combat phase 2 implementation. I dont know what this is going to be yet. People are egerly waiting on test center for this info. Their were a few snags in the update for test center soo they are hammering them out. As we speak. You have to remember they have a internal server and everything must test out ok there first before release onto any server including test center. Be Patiant. It is comming with in the next week. Let them hammer out there problems internally and wait until TC update.
If you guys really wana help create a character on TC and help them out hammering out more bugs when this update goes there. It will prevent silly bugs from arising. So stop asking for a hand out and help yourselves by joining the test center and hammering your bugs out. Yes I know you pay to test stuff out. But would you rather this make it to live and then whine all day about it?
BTW SOE guys here is a idea. If people are complaining about playing and paying for beta whynot offer playing time on the test Center for free every monthTherefore you can get what you want (Increase in TC server population) and people can get what they want to beta test for free.
Georb79 wrote:
If you guys really wana help create a character on TC and help them out hammering out more bugs when this update goes there. It will prevent silly bugs from arising. So stop asking for a hand out and help yourselves by joining the test center and hammering your bugs out. Yes I know you pay to test stuff out. But would you rather this make it to live and then whine all day about it?
A hand out? Are you serious? A hand out? We do pay for this you know. So I hardly call it a hand out...