Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Great Expectations, Major Schedule Changes and making SWG the finest MMORPG ever
Doctor13 wrote:
Je suis navré de vous le dire en français, mais celà est pour vous montrer que certains pigeons europeens en ont aussi plein le cul de vos annonces en bois.
Depuis le début toutes les personnes paient pour une Beta version et au final je trouve ça vraiment scandaleuxde se foutre autant de la gueule du monde, de plus se permettre de faire des annonces et des plannings alors que l'on sait pertinament que vous ne tiendrais pas vos objectifs peu être considéré comme de la publicité mensongère.
Voilà à ce rythme je pense que vous n'aurais bientot plus grand monde sur votre MMO.
YEAH!! er...WHAT HE SAID!
or
I have no idea what that means but it doesn't sound positive SOE.
Schedule changes of this magnitude and this frequency are simply not acceptable.
The problem is not just the delay itself (bad as it is in itself), but the inability of the managers to foresee it, or the unwillingness to share it in a timely manner with your paying customers.
Most important task of a project manager is to match resources to objectives to ensure that the project is on time and on budget. You announce a roadmap and one month later you have to postpone a very major part of the project by 6-8 months. How exactly do you think that reflect on your abilities as a project manager? (Obviously, this is not directed at TH, as he is not the project manager.)
Do the decent thing: accept resposibility, apologize, and offer to your customers as a gift as partial compensation. How about giving 1 month free service to everyone?
It wouldn't be a full compensation but at least it would hit SOE where it hurts: at the bottom line. Maybe that would teach them to get it right next time.
Incidentally...do you really think that pulling tricks like that will incent people to buy JTL when it comes out?
Rubicon47BC wrote:
Doctor13 wrote:
Je suis navré de vous le dire en français, mais celà est pour vous montrer que certains pigeons europeens en ont aussi plein le cul de vos annonces en bois.
Depuis le début toutes les personnes paient pour une Beta version et au final je trouve ça vraiment scandaleuxde se foutre autant de la gueule du monde, de plus se permettre de faire des annonces et des plannings alors que l'on sait pertinament que vous ne tiendrais pas vos objectifs peu être considéré comme de la publicité mensongère.
Voilà à ce rythme je pense que vous n'aurais bientot plus grand monde sur votre MMO.
What he said...... I think
Double damnation! I need to reply faster.
Thunderheart wrote:Great ExpectationsThere 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 weekWe 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.
How about fixing the dam game and make it fun again for your customers! and stop giving all your love to these dam Jedi!
Look at the time line this game is in, WE SHOULD NOT SEE JEDI EVERY WHERE WE GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FIX THE DAM GAME!
).
Dynonychus wrote:
Well, I'll have to say that it's a good bit you're doing character transfer first, because from the sounds of things, you are going to have to consolidate servers and shut some down to make a playable population on any of the remaining ones (oh, and incidently saving yourself some money). Good job.
The-Deadman wrote:
wow, some people get really mad, your gonna give yourselves some heart problems, calm down, seriously..
glad that JTL is being focused on, i cant wait for it, should be loads of fun
CB and GCW should be good, cant say i see any problems with the game now appart from CM's with their mean diseases, but if you are clever, you can still come out on top
good job devs, cant wait for all the new features
Dear Kurt,
I want to start by saying well done for you recent promotion, however its a shame that you have to start by breaking news that is going to cause the biggest outrage known to this game.
I'm going to try my best to keep this constructive; I love this game, like it’s a member of my family!! And i want to see it grow and develop like you, however if you felt this way then you would not have made this post - or rather you would not have let the board room politics effect the production schedule.
We all know this focus on JTL and Jedi is a financial decision, rather than a game improving one. The reason i say this is due to the current state of the game (i.e. MAJOR imbalances across the board) people are canceling their accounts daily (probably by the thousand). Now this is a state of emergency to the suits, who only see their bottom line decreasing - their instant reaction is to attract new customers. How are they doing this? JTL, ‘Easy to get’ Jedi and 14 day free trials in the mean time. However what the suits don't understand is that these cancellations are a form of protest and that most of these people will gladly return to the fold if you can balance out all combat and improve the GCW (i.e. the Endgame) This is and should continue to be an amazing beautiful game, however stupid corporate decisions are ruining its development.
We all know that WoW and EQ2 are out soon, I've signed up for the WoW beta same as most of your other subscribers. We all know how good Blizzard are, and i suspect their beta will work better than SWG's launch version. And i suspect the suits are aware of this too therefore they need to dangle a carrot in front of everyone to keep them thinking about SWG and keep them paying their subscriptions up till the JTL when they (correctly) assume everyone will be infatuated with the game (Again)
What the suit's don't realize is that MMORPG players don't think like that, we are all more intelligent than your average consumer and we can see through what you are trying to pull here. We also have the Internet to communicate our fears and feelings, and we do communicate and band together. We are not happy and we will find ways to get your attention. We will get what we want as we are customers not sheep - THIS GAME DEPENDS ON US AS YOU KEEP REMINDING US!
We have been playing a borked game since launch, and the SWG have even admitted this on many occasions, granted MMORPG's are never perfect at launch, and often need a good few months's to mature. But in over a year SWG has not matured, it has merely expanded and moved sideways. Yes we have a little more content; yes we have Player cities and mounts, but as every player will tell you these 'offerings' should have been in the game at launch.
The thing that makes me laugh the most is that you are going to sell JTL as an amazing new product in all the shops, and loads of completely new people will join in and happily go though their 3 month n00b period before they are enlightened like the rest of us. The suits don’t care about this because they will have another big input of new subscribers, and will be probably planning their next big release.
A number of people have suggested that you hire another dev tem to work specifically on these URGENT changes, can you not give us reasons why this is not an option? I'm sure you can out source this sort of thing! THIS IS A DESPERATE SITUATION AND IT NEEDS A DESPERATE SOLUTION!
We all know that there will be no suitable mass boycott of the game as it is too hard to implement, there will be lots of people doing solo protests in-game and the general attitude of most players is now very anti-SOE. How do you think this will effect all the n00bs who sign up to play an 'amazing new' JTL game!! They are not going to stick about long when all the veterans start telling them about all the issues.
This post could actually go on for paragraphs as the more i think about the MAJOR ISSUE the more upset i get. For example yes i agree that Jedi was too hard to get and the holo grind was WAY too hard, but publish 9 is slowly ruining this game for me. Up until the last publish i had seen 5 Jedi EVER, now i see 2-4 a day. This game is supposed to be all about the community and interaction of professions with e the GCW being the end game - you have now turned this into JEDI WARS, especially as Jedi are now actively encouraged by the game mechanics to PvP against non-Jedi! FFS Jedi are supposed to be rare, like Super rare. Obviously you've got to have Jedi in the game but i suspect that by xmas 25% of the population will be Jedi surely that is FUBAR even to you guys who obviously want to encourage people to be online as much as possible. I think the only solution you have left to you now is BRING BACK PERMA DEATH!! Maybe not 3 but certainly give Jedi a death cap so that they are not so gung ho!
It has been suggested on my server that we may actually start Legal action against SOE, as the laws are significantly different here in Europe. In effect we have been sold a product that does not do what it is supposed to do. And has continued to not meet its promised for over half a year. I don’t know how serious people are, but i really want you to think about it!
I’m not going to leave this game in a long while as i have been lucky enough to pick a profession that has had a little love recently (Bh) but There is only so many times i can assure my friends that its all going to be alright, coz' the CB will sort everything out!!
Please do something, I know you love this game, and I also know that your post was painful for you! (I also suspect your secretly on our side Kurt)
Yours Hopefully
Jac Sparrow / Ian Jeffs(RL)
Euro-Farstar