Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Great Expectations, Major Schedule Changes and making SWG the finest MMORPG ever
Odysius
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:02 am
#872
Hey Oblox, ever hear of a promise?
if im not mistaken a combat balance had been promised and is now being pushed back a minimum of 5-7 months,..........
some peeps like pvp,.
me being one and i understand why peeps are mad for a balance not being near,.
ch's got nerfed and pvp lived a short while,.
decay got introduced and pvp died all together for quite a while,.
and now jedi are temporarily revitalizing the urge to pvp(cuz people wanna kill em),.
if combat isnt revamped and eqaulized in some manner pvp will die Again.
or hey!! why dont we release aspace exspansionand kill pvp all together?
btw,......
Who will need a Jedi ranking system when there wont beanyone to pvp?
Odysius
Master Doc
Master Swords
Jedi as well,.
Rachtor
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:03 am
#873
No offense TH but I thought the whole idea of having these major publishes was so that everyone wasn't divided in their actions but working together. And the correspondents and all this other stuff you have going made me really feel like everyone here finally had things organized. It seemed like everyone was getting their turn, although some people would complain their turn doesn't come fast enough.
But I have stuck with it and stuck with you guys through this trying time. I couldn't wait for publish 11 even though it was still a while off, because it was something that would make the game FUN for me. But now with this announcement I can feel truly dissapointed.
I don't want JTL I want a combat rebalance. I was even convincing my friends to start playing SWG again since the game is so much better and very close to the right path! I don't know what I'm going to do with my account at this point, I don't want to cancel cause I'll miss all my friends....but to continue paying for this game knowing that everyone at SOE decided what they did...well that doesn't feel right either.
I truly hope you all decide to change your mind and push back JTL until after the combat balance. It's what your customers want.
I've done enough work in Customer Service to know what your entire letter was going to say in the first paragraph. I thought the Combat Balance was already decided on and being coded and all this stuff. But in your post you make it sound like there is all this room for development that we will have input on. Well duh, there is room for developement cause everyone is doing JTL and since we can't give feedback onJTL since it's not releasedyou got nothing else to do but listen about Combat Balance stuff.
That's just SOE's way of softening the blow I'm sure though.
*sigh*
Kylania
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:09 am
#874
Gruenpflanze wrote:
TH, may you eplain the meaning of this sentence:
TH:"The other side of that is that JTL has been in production since January. We can't delaysix and half months of work for something that really makes Star Wars what it is."
Reading it carefully, I ´m quite sure this is, what this sentence grammaticaly tells us: "We can´t delay six month of JTL-coding (since January till now) for something (i.E.:the COMBAT BALANCE), that really makes STAR WARS what it is. !!?!?!?
"Something" can´t be the JTL, because that wouldn´t make any sense.
Reading it out ofcontect carefully you're right. But what he's referring to with "something that really makes Star Wars what it is" is space not Combat Balance. He'd mentioned that higher in the post of his you quoted.
I think the more ironic part of it is that they are perfectly willing to delay a year and six months of paid game time for two things that make Star Wars what it is but that we'd been playing happily without for some time. Sad thing is that while space expansion should be pretty neat, Jedi (the other thing and the current main and only item on the plate) has been bungled from the beginning, really does NOT fit with the timeline of Star Wars (they are making Star Wars Galaxies something that Star Wars isn't.) and simply is causing nothing but problems. There's a small handful of happy Jedi out there, but most every Jedi i've heard of hates it. There's a reason the Jedi forums have hundreds of thousands of posts more than other professions and it's NOT because they are happy about their profession.
Malicious1
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:11 am
#875
soe fails to see an important fact those of us leaving arnet gonna buy jtl either,so they get the double loss,as well as many of us have several charactors.
thats alot of lost revenue to the old game and the new.......soe need to fire there marketing team.or get one that has graduated from something other then acme school of marketing
Tonster
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:13 am
#876
Thunderheart wrote:
downertool wrote:
so can we get a timeline kinda thing to show what is coming out when, like when JustG made a state of the game letter that showed what was in publishes and mini pubs
like this
The development cycle still has momentum and we still have some other important items, big and small, coming out of the pipeline.Here is what still lies ahead:
Publish 10 is slated for the end of August, but one of the reasons for these delays is to make as much room as possible for extra implementation and testing time.
Before publish 10, we plan on launching the character transfer system
In Publish 9.2 We’re publishing Wookiee armor sets #2 and #3, new crafting quests and the second swoop race
Publish 9.3 will bring us the third swoop race
Publish 10 will be the Jedi Trials.This will be the new gateway to the Jedi profession that will by a mysterious path to unlocking Force sensitivity.
Publish 10.1 is going to bring us an exciting surprise and also a list of Correspondent requests
Publish 10.2 is focused on the entertainers which features a unique new game experience where entertainers, Dancers and Musicians can perform for an NPC audience for the reward of a new song and dance.
Why waste time on Swoop race tracks (which only a few people have a chance of winning anyway) and rubbish like a new song and dance for Entertainers when there's sooo much which needs fixing? I don't understand that. We'd MUCH rather have all the millions of bug fixes, Smuggler revamp etc before any of that. Fix the stuff that's already there before adding more. Any other workflow is ridiculous and only going to further compound the problems!
Given the problems that exist already and have done for many many months without being touched, is it really reasonable to think something as complex as the JTLS expansion isn't going to cause a lot more? JTLS will surely delay the GCW and CB until next year at the very least. Instead, between patch 10 and JTLS how about using that time to do the CB?
What goes on in these Dev meetings?
Dev1: "OK, so what shall we work on next? Smugglers being nigh on useless? Overts being massacred by Jedi? The huge lag? The GCW being non-existant? Bounty Hunters being unable to kill their Jedi targets? Private chat channels which aren't private?"
Dev2: "I know, how about we give the Dancersa new dance?"
Dev1: "Yes of course, that's it, that's what the game needs. Do it!"
Dev2: "Oh, and while Smugglers are so useless let's also make them targets for Bounty Hunters, as let's face it, they need something they can kill."
Dev1: "I want your babies."
Madness, absolute madness 
Odysius
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:16 am
#877
Bah!
I enjoy playing my Jedi,.
Just got on the BH boards tonight beforeI logged(not on purpose)and Im sure it'll make for intersting play in the morrow's grind;
COMBAT BEFORE SPACE!!!
Sue_Rouge
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:21 am
#878
I can't believe what I am reading here!
You keep pushing new professions to the game and fixing new systems instead of removing bugs from the old.
Jedis are definitely NOT an atmospheric factor ofStarWars at your timeline. Why didn't you chose a timeline like KotoR? There are a few hundred Jedis active, but thousands of people waiting for their professions (Entertainer, Pistoleer, Squad Leader, Commando, etc.)to get fixed for more than ONE YEAR.
Don't you think about who is playing a jedi? At this moment only people who have the nerves and time to grind up to 30 professions. They will level their jedi to master, play for one or two weeks and quit the game because they search for the next time sink on the next online game where they can level, level, level or grind, grind, grind....
You are punishing all the players who played their professions starwars-like without grinding and who hoped, that their professions get fixed soon. Instead you are fixing the profession of the jedi first to stupid grinding that did a whole lot of damage to this game.
I have the feeling that this whole Jedi-rush is for marketing purpose only. You want to make advertisment for this game with cool lightsaber swinging jedis and that is the reason you work on the jedi instead fixing the ranged combat professions who are A LOT MORE VITAL for the starwars feeling than any jedi farming Nightisterswill everbe.
You tell us that the whole team will work on CB after JTL...
Either you are lieing to us or you trust in the holy ghost to fix this game.
Do you really think JTL will be the FIRST bugfree addon EVER?
You pronounced that it will be shipped with many spaceships missing and that a lot of JTL content will be updatet AFTER the initial launch of JTL. Who will develope this content? George Lucas?
JTL will launch and you will have to update and bugfix it for months. And I bet the next Expansion is planned already and after bugfixing JTL this will be the the most important project, because you earn money with an expansion pack but not with the CB.
Whoever made the decision to first introduce the jedi system, then launching and fixing JTL and in a future, far, far away fix all the other profesions has never played this game himself. You have a lot of luck that no other MMORPG is out at this time who can challenge SWG, but it is just a question of time. And I would like to see you fix the vital professions who make this game so special first and THEN go and publish new stuff.
I'd rather pay a few bucks more per account if you would fix this game before releasing new bug-infestet add-ons like JTL.
With this decisions EVERY player MUST get their jedi,becausemost of the otherprofessions are bugged.
Personally I wouldprefer toplay a Squadleader in my team, or a doctor, or a dancer (I have all these professions on my 3 accounts) and support one or two jedis in my group. But with this "first jedi, second nothing, .... years later the other professions" attitude you force every player to become a jedi too, because no one wants to play a profession which is only bugged and not usefull to a group. Rewarding grinders now means rewarding solo-play style. No one needs a mmoprg when solo-style is the musst succesfull style. When the benefit for 3 jedis ina group is bigger when a 4th jedis joined instead of a Squadleader or a Doctor or a Pistoleer or any other profession than you will completly destroy groupplay.
I am really sad about your decision towards marketing instead of group-oriented player community.
Hoping that you will understand that your long-term customers will not be grinders or pvp'ler but people interessted in group-playstyle with rpg elements. Your game just don't fits for the other styles on the long run.
I really love this game and the ideas that originally formed such a colorfull professions list. Please remember the intentions you had before getting consumed by the dark side of making money 
Greets,
Sue Rouge
(Cologne, Germany)
gm_al
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:22 am
#879
IN SOE, THE BIGGEST LIARS GET THE BIGGEST PROMOTIONS.
LET YOUR MONEY TALK. NOW.
Massadonious
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:23 am
#881
After reading through close to 40 pages of replies, I am in agreement with pretty much all of them (except for you dillusionists that think it's going to get better. News Flash: It wont)
I went BH a while back to helpfix the dev oversight that was Publish 9. I figured if I could kill a few Jedi, my time on the game would mean something.
I haven't even made it to Invest 3 yet, and I can now see that time, and not to mention, money, was wasted.
The Combat Rebalance was the only hope that my toon could actually be an effective BH, without having to retool to one of these Fencer/TKM/BH hybrids. Even then, I don't think I could be effective. I might as well just run Janta missions 24/7, because that's the only thing I can do effectively. Hunting Jedi? Forget it.
Now, I have to bide my time playing JTL,watching Slave 1/Millenium Falcon clones battle it out in space?
Sorry, but my money is better spent elsewhere.
I will wait until Publish 10 to see the influx of the new Jedi. If it comes to the point where not only the BH community, but the rest of the non-Jedi community can't handle them, I'm gone. Maybe sooner if the current Jedi continue to be the wankers they are.
If it comes to that point, I will NOT re-subcribe, I will NOT buy JTL, and it's going to take a big, big leap of faith to get me to come back, with WoW and other games on the horizon.
Great job, SOE. Way to think of your pocketbooks, instead of your brains.
Daveydje
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:26 am
#882
I am very disappointed... *sigh* Although not totally surprised...
The problem (as a number of people have pointed out) seems to have started when the split the team for JTLS, and didn't leave enough people on the core game. I'm inclined to blame SOE more than the Devs for this though. I mean, we know SOE have no business sense... We're talking about Sony.. A company thats trying to launch a 'digital music player' that won't play MP3s...
Seriously, you guys crack me up! ... Anyway... Back to SWG...
My guess would be a large stone tablet dropped from SOE executive top floor saying 'we want an expansion pack for we see money in it, and we want it NOW!'... Closely followed by the large stone tablet saying 'we want Jedi in game, for we see money in it, and we want them NOW!'... I mean, I always wondered what the Devs opinions on Jedi actually where?.. Are they keeping them in game cause they truly, honestly, believe they should be there, or because they are told by 'a suit' that "Jedi mean money" and HAVE to be there... not that I imagine we will ever fine out...
Soo... after this car crash of an announcment, and my inital furious anger, I need to decide 'where does this leave me?'. I like the idea of a GREAT Star Wars MMORPG... But until one comes along, I'm stuck with SWG or nothing... So... I'll probably stick around until JTLS, and if that's actually good (crossing fingers and toes), I suppose I'll spend my time in space until the ground game gets sorted...
*sigh* Although not totally surprised...The problem (as a number of people have pointed out) seems to have started when the split the team for JTLS, and didn't leave enough people on the core game. I'm inclined to blame SOE more than the Devs for this though. I mean, we know SOE have no business sense... We're talking about Sony.. A company thats trying to launch a 'digital music player' that won't play MP3s...
Seriously, you guys crack me up! ... Anyway... Back to SWG...My guess would be a large stone tablet dropped from SOE executive top floor saying 'we want an expansion pack for we see money in it, and we want it NOW!'... Closely followed by the large stone tablet saying 'we want Jedi in game, for we see money in it, and we want them NOW!'... I mean, I always wondered what the Devs opinions on Jedi actually where?.. Are they keeping them in game cause they truly, honestly, believe they should be there, or because they are told by 'a suit' that "Jedi mean money" and HAVE to be there... not that I imagine we will ever fine out...
Soo... after this car crash of an announcment, and my inital furious anger, I need to decide 'where does this leave me?'. I like the idea of a GREAT Star Wars MMORPG... But until one comes along, I'm stuck with SWG or nothing... So... I'll probably stick around until JTLS, and if that's actually good (crossing fingers and toes), I suppose I'll spend my time in space until the ground game gets sorted...
KnightTyme
Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:34 am
#884
This is sad. Really just don't know what to say, but this is sad.