Development Cycle Archive

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Thunderheart wrote:

...Clearly the community wants us to do a better job at delivering the game service and this reinforced our decision to make sure we have adequate resources on each update to the game.

The team’s goals are to increase the quality of the service... we agree with the community that our design and implementation process should continue to be improved...

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First off thanks for the update and congrads on your promotion.

Secondly, the Jedi are not an integral part of Star Wars, nor should they be put ahead of every other problem in this game. Publish 9 and 10 will be the publishes that have ruined this game. I am sorry, but the idea of walking around and seeing Jedi everywhere, killing everything, and generally being obnoxious is not very fun for a lot of people. Watching overt Jedi and their "gangs" farm other overts is not fun either. Once publish 10 is released, there is a very real fear that the economy will collapse, because everybody will be spending all their time on the quest.

Look at the damage hologrinding did to the game. We have junk guns/houses/equipment... flooding the market because people grinded their way through and dumped it all in the economy. Resource prices are sky high because people gathered all this stuff and then try to unload it at unreasonable prices.

Seeing as how this appears to be the plan now, it will be a long wait until anything is balanced and the game becomes fun again. I still cannot believe how much emphasis is being placed on one profession, while the other 30+ professions will be waiting a year to get their fixes (combat balance etc.). I truly hope the part you mentioned about sliding in smaller fixes hold true, and I hope to see them on test center soon.

I joined test center to be able to help the game become better. I did this after publish 9, because it was just demoralizing to log in that day and see what had happened. I am not blaming anybody; I am just stating my opinion. I fully understand the responsibilities of managing a project of this magnitude, and I now that not every idea gets heard and implemented. I also know that no matter what change is made; there will always be somebody unhappy with it. I am just asking that a little more time be spent gathering information from the majority of the players. When almost every board is complaining about the GCW, and combat fixes, I would assume it is in the interest of SOE to listen.

Once again this is not a rant, or a flame. I am just summing up my feelings about this game. I will continue to play it, because I love Star Wars. Notice, Star Wars, not Jedi Wars.

Thank you for your time.

Seeing as Jedi and CH got "balanced" (CH's MONTHS ago), can we expect these profs to be "un-balanced" until the balance ?

The Combat Balance will now be at least 1 year late if it goes live in November (we were told the CB would start in November 2003 for 3 months).

PvE in SWG is a joke - some templates can kill ANYTHING in the game.
PvP in SWG is a joke - some templates are extremely overpowered, some are almost useless
GCW is in a terrible state - you can take out 20 Large turrets in 5mins with a small group of people, bases can be destroyed by ONE person, minefields do hardly any damage. PvP is limited mainly to Jedi and Jedi hunters

We have constantly been fed the carrot of the fabled CB since October-ish last year, and it is constantly pulled back. Many players have only been carryinbg on with SWG because the CB has been promised "soon", to breathe life back into what is becoming an increasingly dull game.
Without the CB, a large percentage of players won't take the risk of purchasing JTL, because so many promises about the CB and the GCW revamp have been broken over and over again.

We were told that the development of JTL would NOT affect the scheduled updates, as the teams were seperate, again this was another lie - as you just admitted (I dont blame you, you're just delivering the news).

I have been pretty vocal persuading people to stay in SWG, as the CB was due, and should make things fun again, now, I doubt I'll still be here by JTL launch.

Message Edited by Virrago on 07-15-2004 01:48 PM

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Thunderheart wrote:

Great Expectations

Our next major update, Publish 10 will bring us “The Jedi Trials”. Finishing the revamp of the Jedi profession is a big task. Being a Jedi is a big part of the Star Wars experience and it is a big game system. To become a Jedi, there needs to be a known path with mysterious quests, new NPC’s, new NPC behaviors, new places and all the little things that will make The Jedi Trials a publish to be excited about. To accomplish this, the team has expanded the scope of publish 10 so there is more design time and more testing time (hence the big changes).

Are these changes to the jedi trials going to be as exciting as the Knight trials? Killing 12 high lvl random spawn mobs around the galaxy?

Not long after The Jedi Trials, we’ll be focused on the JTL Beta and integrating Space with the ground game. Meshing the live service with JTL is a big challenge since it means it will be the first time anyone has ever integrated a complete RPG and action Space game before.

Awsome sounds like a great idea.

The Jump to Lightspeed is currently on track for a later October launch, which is a relatively short time away. Prior to that, we’ll be finishing up the Jedi Trials (Publish 10) and right after that, we will begin integrating the ground game with Space, start the JTL Beta Test and get on with making the game we all want to play. The good news is that the Jump to Lightspeed beta registration site is opening later this week

So does this mena no more publishes till the JTL hits store shelves?

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Question reguarding current jedi. We have many problems. And all we were told is that most of what we have now is in reguards to what the combat balance will accomplish. Now that we are looking at early next year for this to happen. Are we just going to have to stay the way we are now. Or are you still fixing what is broken? Are robes ever going to have resists similar to what current armor has today, again like we were told by you that it would?

The JTL will bring in a whole new croop of players to be sure. But you are losing players on a daily basis on what the GCW is today. Which lets be honest here, does not exist. At least put back in the Battle fields on say publish 10.2a. And have them work. This could accomplise so much, at a little time expendeture for you.

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Thunderheart wrote:

Great Expectations

There are great expectations in the community for the upcoming Combat Balance and the Galactic Civil War revamp. These announced upcoming major features are pivotal to making the Galaxies experience more of a Star Wars experience. To deliver on these major features, we will need the full development team and re-assembling the team isn’t going to happen until after the upcoming Jump to Lightspeed expansion is shipped.

Delaying these critical features was not something we are doing for our convenience, but only to ensure they are done well. The team leadership has been discussing these changes, the future of SWG and the feedback from the community. Clearly the community wants us to do a better job at delivering the game service and this reinforced our decision to make sure we have adequate resources on each update to the game.

At the core of the discussions are our team goals. The team’s goals are to increase the quality of the service, make the game more fun and accessible and finally to make a much more intense Star Wars experience. In this, we agree with the community that our design and implementation process should continue to be improved and we want to assure our customers that it is our goal to exceed their expectations and make SWG the finest MMORPG ever.

Rather than continue to split the team’s forces and try to accomplish too many goals, we’re going to do a few things and do them right. Once the Jump To Lightspeed is complete, the team as a whole will be re-grouped. Then the combined team will accomplish the Combat Balance, the GCW and all the other improvements to the game.

What’s Ahead

To offset this very big announcement that will affect all of you, I will be immediately working with the correspondents and the community to develop a list of pre-combat balance fixes to get combat into a more enjoyable state. This will encompass many items planned for the Combat Balance, and will happen in a steady stream between now and JTL. The Combat Medic and Bounty Hunter changes that are coming in Publish 9.1 are the first of these efforts.

Between now and JTL is where I come in. Right out of the gate, I’ll be working with the community to develop plans for the Combat Balance and post them on the site; we’ll do a few features and I will continue to post updates. Later we will do the same for the GCW, the Squad Leader Revamp and all of the community issues on the table. In this, we can marry community expectations and development goals in a way that has never been done before with online games.

Our next major update, Publish 10 will bring us “The Jedi Trials”. Finishing the revamp of the Jedi profession is a big task. Being a Jedi is a big part of the Star Wars experience and it is a big game system. To become a Jedi, there needs to be a known path with mysterious quests, new NPC’s, new NPC behaviors, new places and all the little things that will make The Jedi Trials a publish to be excited about. To accomplish this, the team has expanded the scope of publish 10 so there is more design time and more testing time (hence the big changes).

Not long after The Jedi Trials, we’ll be focused on the JTL Beta and integrating Space with the ground game. Meshing the live service with JTL is a big challenge since it means it will be the first time anyone has ever integrated a complete RPG and action Space game before.

The Jump to Lightspeed is currently on track for a later October launch, which is a relatively short time away. Prior to that, we’ll be finishing up the Jedi Trials (Publish 10) and right after that, we will begin integrating the ground game with Space, start the JTL Beta Test and get on with making the game we all want to play. The good news is that the Jump to Lightspeed beta registration site is opening later this week

We appreciate your continued participation in the SWG community. Please continue to give us constructive feedback on our message boards as it helps us keep focused on your needs and priorities.

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Thanks for the update TH.

Enough's enough for me. I've waited and wasted enough money waiting for you guys to fix these issues and deliver this mythical combat balance.

I must say you guys keep promising all these things and rarely deliver. Good for your bottom line I suppose, keeping people sticking around. I'm tired of shelling out $$ to a game that is not improving and just get more boring every day.

I know you will say, "Stay around, things will get great eventually." Well in response, I say I've waited long enough and am not going to wait another year paying you money to make promises you are unable to keep. If you can't do it, hire more developers if those you have aren't enough.

Good luck.

When does KOTOR II come out?

Message Edited by stabboy on 07-15-2004 04:10 PM