Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Great Expectations, Major Schedule Changes and making SWG the finest MMORPG ever
big_verd
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:42 pm
#768
Well, this is is **edit** but i'm sure most of you figured that out after the 36 pages of hate.... Heh i'm done with this POS game.
If the dev's don't care about it, why should i?
oh and me hell i ain't buying JtL i am just gonna download it 
Galacticspaceferett
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:43 pm
#769
Yo TH, you made a slight typo on the title of this post, try changing "finest" to "lamest". Sheesh.. a friggin year and we're back at square 1, the only thing thats keeping this game alive is the endless supply of optomistic lemmings still giving the dev team a thumbs up for scrambling to make that deadline due to obviously flawed planning. And if anyone asks "Well can you do any better?", my answer is simply yes, at this point I think anyone with a bachelors degree in common freakin sense could do better. Good luck fumbling and juggling the fan base devs.
NullTensor
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:44 pm
#770
WookieBounty wrote:
nolan007 wrote:
Brooks's Law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."
Interesting didn't know that...Thanks..
Its also more than a little trite. Brooks' Law assumues that the development staff is sized appropriately for the project. With the team divided to work on JTL it is no longer appropriately sized if it ever was. Remeber what the original release date was and how that was delayed? I imagine someone quoted Brooks' Law then as well.
At the rate at which bugs are being fixed it is pretty clear that the SWG development team is a little light on talent. Sure, hiring a few more heads won't get publish 10 out the door faster but once they have ramped up it will allow the development team to react more quickly to unexpected circumstances without impacting the project schedule.
Congratulations SOE, you are providing a prime example of how poor management can kill even the surest of projects. I hope that your competitors follow these boards closely and learn from the lessons that you clearly refuse to acknowledge.
Getoc
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:49 pm
#771
If u wanna do something for the combat / gcw u have to deal with the main reasons why people arn't fighting .
And that will be mindhits , frs farming , poisons and factional bases especially turrets and two pve things
Mindhits:
I couldn't be too hard to make the damage stimpacks u give rebels within the mountain clanthempark craftable so that there will be mindheal . meduse 35 and a base around 250 like it is now in the thempark sounds really fair . they shouldn't be accessable to novice medic at least pharma 4 should be needed
frs farming:
take them out of the gcw
poisons:
fix poison resistance food , install the new poison damage reduction spice , make poisons unstackable , remove spider venom
factional bases and turrets.:
turrets can only be destroyed when the base is vul. they can be damaged everytime but not destroyed. move the turrets out of their positions so that everytime when 4 turrets are active 2 of them will cover one so that attackers especially melee cannot position themself in a way that only one turret is fireing. increase turret range to 120 meters and double their ham .
pve:
please bring extremly high blast resis to quite a lot boss mobs like high level nightsisters because tis completly absurd that one melee prof could outdamage even complete groups just because nearly everything is vul to blast .
bring back nova troopers into the crackdown . make this craqckdown a real crackdown and btw these troopers should also autoattack every force player who shows force close to them
rework loot system:
is it possible to depend the chance of looting something usefull to the PC. i mean for example if a newbee loots an thug in moenia and this guy has been crafting before not fighting and especially not looting anything he should have an extremly high chance of looting something usefull but the guy who farms the NS stronghold once a day should have because of this permalooting a chance close to 0 of loting anything usefull and after a couple of days also his chance will increase .
Soneldar
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:50 pm
#772
Geral_Corasjo wrote:
*snip*
There's something out there that describes you 100%... Oh wait, I know what it is. The mindless, "yes man" consumer. Anything for the party line, hooah!
Forum3
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:50 pm
#773
GCW is why i played this game sience launch....i think you just lost yourself a customer
BossOG
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:52 pm
#774
verocit, i applaud you for a well thought out post.
however, you are gravely mistaken. you cannot market a game for the "5 year, 57 publish plan." you have to make the people playing your game happy or the big 5 year anniversary is going to be celebrated by the 1 or 2 hardcore starwars fans (that happen to have jedi characters because they are the only class that the development seems to appease to) that have stuck with the pathetic shell of a game that SWG is swiftly becoming. Why would anybody waste 5 years playing a game that is utterly boring and unappealing just to see the outcome?
Z-Axis
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:53 pm
#775
Just my 2 cents worth, not that it will change things. I totally disagree with this decision as it is a money making first and player satisfaction second solution. If you were truly interested in what the gaming community was saying you would postone JtL and fix the bugs and problems with the game. I mean geez harvesters, for example, haven't haven't been animated for a half a year. This is trivial but it is just an example of money first game second if you ask me.
I think its great that you have implimented some much new content in the game but seriously half of it doesn't work upon implimentation. Example, the intelligence badge for the "new" hermit quests is not spawning properly. These types of things are very frustrating. There has been a need for a complete overhaul of the bazaar system since beta, ie. seach capabitlites and better catagories. I don't even bother trying to use it anymore. Almost all interfaces need reworking. Having to access 5 different menus to work with harvesters is just plain annoying even if you do macro some parts of the process.
IMO i would much rather see a publish of nothing but bug fixes and games systems fixes than new content being added. Geez every prof has a list of problems thread associtated with it. All with long standing problems. I truly don't understand your reasoning here of adding more problems before fixing the existing ones, some that have been in place since the game was beta.
But in the long run this all may but a moot point for me as now you won't upgrade you payment system to handle new credits with longer expiration dates I will soon lose my accounts anyway. Since I was told you can't and won't do anything about this I guess you will also lose 2 more accounts. But its obvious that that matters little to SOE as they know they will have more ppl coming anyway.
GotBlueMilk
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:53 pm
#776
Verocit, there's a point past which it's no longer acceptable, past which someone has to admit that something has gone terribly wrong. Nobody wants this dream to come to life more than I do, but when do you say enough? When does someone out there admit that the Devs are understaffed to the task they have at hand? I can tell you one thing, it's gonna be a lot sooner than Publish 57. You're suggesting we spend $15 a month for 5 years and hope for the best? That's $900 -- I've already spent over $200 and it still doesn't work. What else would you buy for $200 and be happywhen it didn't work? 
Estevan_Starshard
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:53 pm
#777
Wait...wait........
Publish 10.2 gives the entertainers can perform for an NPC audience to get a new song and a new dance?
Wasn't it originally new songS and danceS? And what happened to the Hutt Palace?
Good lord....my faith in this game just took a huge hit....
Publish 10.2 gives the entertainers can perform for an NPC audience to get a new song and a new dance?
Wasn't it originally new songS and danceS? And what happened to the Hutt Palace?
Good lord....my faith in this game just took a huge hit....
Malicious1
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:57 pm
#778
soe wont be swayed this is obviously a corperate decision folks.
it also exemplifies soe policy of new eyecandy to cover a gravely unbalanced and resource starved dev team.
i have cancelled my 3 accounts,they can hobble onward alone for all i care,im done supporting a team that is decieptful when it suites them,vague 24/7,lethargic about game breaking issues,and generally so self absorbed that they no longer can see the game as it actually is.
harsh judgements ...yeah,and they have earned every one of them time and time again.
we will not subsidize the dev cost for jtl,why would we have faith in you to provide a space game that works when you have totally screwed the original just to get the expansion out the door?
soe had a a great franchise in swg that they have turned into a mockery,my advise to lucas is to pull the plug
One-of-Fourteen
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:57 pm
#779
Shiva420,
Every decision they make is going to consider the bottom line, revenues. Some players will be unhappy with what they do, and some players will just be unhappy. Other players will be happy no matter what they do.
The JTL revenue projections are critical to the way upper management will view the SWG team. They have to do everything to meet those goals. If they do not, then they are not doing their jobs, which is to make money for the stock holders.
As far as EQ and Planetside being more entertaining and having less problems, I guess that is subjective as well. The 10 to 15 bucks or so a month this game costs is nothing considering the hours of entertainment it provides. That's two drinks at the local pub in about a 2 hour time frame, providing you drink responsibly, lol.
Remember, most playersare playing the game, not trying to become forum jedis, lol. The devs can measure player satisfaction quite well by measuring account activity. These forums only play a small role in their hearing the voices of the community.
Again, it is just business.
Worldmaker2k4
Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:58 pm
#780
Verocit wrote:
Since I lost my hour-long really well thought out post to the ether, here's a just afew thoughts:
-Jedi Revamp is balancing Jedi combat. A combat balance.
1. -The Creators had a dream. To play in the Star Wars universe. To fight in the war itself. To fly in space. To be able to become a Jedi. Jedi and Spaceflight are contained within the broad envelope that is the GCW.
2.-Step back and look at the big picture. The Publish 57 picture. The 5-year outlook. These schedule changes take place, and will be completed, in the next six months. They are creating a game to endure, not to pander to the MTV generations quick-fix and me-want-now.
-JTL being called an "expansion" is a fallacy, I think. It's a completion of the whole. Jedi is also a completion of this whole.-Think of it like a pie-chart. The pie is, with equal thirds 1) Jedi, 2) Spaceflight, 3) Everything else. GCW/Combat is not part of this pie. It IS this pie. You cannot fix a pie that isn't all there yet. Unless you want a game that's about one slice. The vision is to have all these slices work together seamlessly.
-"If you're going through hell... keep going." -Winston Churchill
3. -Once the dream is complete, then they can fix it so they all work together, instead of it being a slap-on addition.
-The Devs are not trying to trick you. They are trying to help you. They lose sleep trying to make you happy.
-There is no possible way to please this many people all at the same time.
-Concede to the possiblity that the Devsknow what they are doing, and are smarter than you. It's possible, right?
4.-If you think they are just about the money, yeah, you're kinda right:but they are long-term investing. Making a lot of customers happy for years, rather than the few impatient ones happy for a few months.
-If you are thinking of quitting, or taking a break, maybe you should. But keep an eye on things, because that which is driving you away will be fixed. And by fixed I mean improved. And in that, right soon.
-...us trusting zealots will keep things tidy for you.
--Clove
Note the numbers, correlate my responses:
1. Yeah, you're right. Jedi does comprise one-third of this game's aspect. That's why it's based on the original Star Wars trilogy, where one-third of the entire Imperial Army were force users, and one-third of every dreg and smuggler in Mos Eisley cantina were sitting there floating their drinks over from the bar with their latent force powers. Good call.
2. This game shouldn't take five years to perfect after launch. We have communities that have shown more insight and production-quality templates and ideas for changes in this game in one week than the Dev team has put together in the last six months. Ever hit the smuggler board? If you haven't, I suggest you take that gibberish about how "long it takes" and shove it up somewhere uncomfortable. Aside from coding, the playerbase has LONG SINCE crafted perfectly usable suggestions and outlines, not to mention in-depth ideas for the Dev team.
3. Yeah, you're right. The Devs are automatically smarter than everyone in the customer base. Why? Because they have big, authoritative names like Q3PO, and Greenmarine. It's not like a good portion of the gaming community here isn't comprised of adults, some of whom even have a college education, and *gasp*... experience in programming and game theory.
4. I've been a paying customer in SW:G since launch. I've seen more bugs in this game than I ever dreamt of in EQ, Ultima Online, or any other multiplayer RPG. I've seen hotfixes, longfixes, shortfixes, dumb fixes, good fixes, and no fixes. But mostly, I've just seen shoddy-ass work and ridiculous priorities. And since I'm paying money to see them, you'd better damn well believe I'm going to **edit** my fool head off when I see those choices throwing my gameplay out the window.
I'm a dedicated Pistoleer (was a smuggler, but that profession is just lost in the abyss for SW:G), and I try to do a minimum of stacking. I also refuse to use Combat Medic, and I'm sick of Jedi to the point of never even wanting to bother getting one. Should I sit idly, log in once a week, get wasted in PvP, get outdamaged in PvE, and chase Durnis around Coronet for a few hours? I've done most every quest in this game. I've experience it all. Have a master weaponsmith (thanks, ruined economy), and a master doctor (yay for game-breaking buffs). I've done it ALL in this game, minus the Jedi carrot, and I refuse to eat it, because I know it's a **edit**ing bandaid on a head wound.
This game is broken. It needs fixing, to keep playerbase AS A WHOLE interested in the game until JtL. Some of you are so preoccupied with flying pretty ships that you're willing to sacrifice the rest of our gameplay because you have a vested interest in blowing the **edit** out of a million-credit starship with your brand new joystick.
Me? I just want to play the game I bought without wanting to log off in frustration every hour.