Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Great Expectations, Major Schedule Changes and making SWG the finest MMORPG ever
DarkHelmet-TIO
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:44 am
#1197
That is true, we are kinda shooting the messenger right now. Thunderpants is just here to give the bad news.
BLAME THE DEVS!
Hobbs_Nguyen
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:45 am
#1198
Anyone else notice how we have not seen any dev posts in the least? It's almost 10 AM their time, too. Usually we see something in the way of activity. My guess is they're all deep in quasi-thought over how to reverse this mass-exoduc.
And I would like to reiterate, I am not going to buy JTLS until the core game is repaired. My highest priorities are the combat balance, GCW and various profession revamps. I could care less about JTLS.
Now I am going to start saving money for system upgrades, so I can play City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. When that is complete, if the above requirements haven't been met in some physical form, I will be moving on to those games.
And I would like to reiterate, I am not going to buy JTLS until the core game is repaired. My highest priorities are the combat balance, GCW and various profession revamps. I could care less about JTLS.
Now I am going to start saving money for system upgrades, so I can play City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. When that is complete, if the above requirements haven't been met in some physical form, I will be moving on to those games.
Winnebago
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:49 am
#1200
I am absolutey disappointed in the Dev team on this one. I recently paid several hundred dollars and spent a valuable weekend at Fanfest, where I and hundreds of other people had access to key members of the Dev team, and we were given the impression that the Combat Balance was being worked on, day and night, with the intention of fixing numerous balance problems in SWG. I feel as if I spent 3 days being misled. I feel as if I paid money to be misled by people who I am paying to maintain and improve SWG. You guys work for Sony, but you also work for me. And I am extremely dissappointed with your conduct and what appears to be a wholesale mismanagement of your time and efforts. Are you going to recompense me and my 2 guildmates for the airfare, hotel costs, or registration fees associated incurred so that we could hear you use "wait for the Combat Balance" as a response to 80% of all questions? Are you going to somehow "unwaste" my time?
I am a co-leader in a Rebel Guild on Scylla with 121 members. Guildchat and voice has been filled with much speculation as to how things are going to change, and with each patch or hotfix, we have felt as if we are getting closer to a working system. Most folks are just spinning their wheels until the CB or the JTL launch, doing missions, maintaining their harvesters, etc... Face it, the game is in a state of poor management and it's core system (combat) is completely out of whack. I dread hearing the "I am quitting" chats on voice and guildchat. Way to to dissappoint everyone.
Jedi - Why on earth have you guys spent so much of your programming and development resources on fixing Jedi, who are supposed to be the smallest minority of players, by design. The hologrind system rewarded mindless grinding and treadmilling as no MMORPG system ever has before. Those of us who chose not to participate in it directly, as we saw it as stupid and boring, are out in the cold now, wondering if any other profession or playstyle will ever recieve the attention that they deserve. You have rewarded those players with either the mindless patience and lack of skill that it takes to unlock, or with the cash to go out and pay some moron for a Jedi account, with the keys to the castle. I cannot believe your total lack of responsiblity in your resource allocation. Jedi should have been last on your list. If you had told us that Jedi were being left in as they were before patch 9, in order to fix the game, I assure you, there would have been no argument from the community at large. We would have respected your decison to do the right thing.
Lastly - There are at least 2 other good looking MMORPGS coming out this year that a lot of players, regardless of our devotion to the coolness of Star Wars, are considering playing in addition, or instead of SWG. I suggest you get your ass in gear and suprise the hell out of us by getting your act together on the schedule we have been expecting you to be on.
I am a co-leader in a Rebel Guild on Scylla with 121 members. Guildchat and voice has been filled with much speculation as to how things are going to change, and with each patch or hotfix, we have felt as if we are getting closer to a working system. Most folks are just spinning their wheels until the CB or the JTL launch, doing missions, maintaining their harvesters, etc... Face it, the game is in a state of poor management and it's core system (combat) is completely out of whack. I dread hearing the "I am quitting" chats on voice and guildchat. Way to to dissappoint everyone.
Jedi - Why on earth have you guys spent so much of your programming and development resources on fixing Jedi, who are supposed to be the smallest minority of players, by design. The hologrind system rewarded mindless grinding and treadmilling as no MMORPG system ever has before. Those of us who chose not to participate in it directly, as we saw it as stupid and boring, are out in the cold now, wondering if any other profession or playstyle will ever recieve the attention that they deserve. You have rewarded those players with either the mindless patience and lack of skill that it takes to unlock, or with the cash to go out and pay some moron for a Jedi account, with the keys to the castle. I cannot believe your total lack of responsiblity in your resource allocation. Jedi should have been last on your list. If you had told us that Jedi were being left in as they were before patch 9, in order to fix the game, I assure you, there would have been no argument from the community at large. We would have respected your decison to do the right thing.
Lastly - There are at least 2 other good looking MMORPGS coming out this year that a lot of players, regardless of our devotion to the coolness of Star Wars, are considering playing in addition, or instead of SWG. I suggest you get your ass in gear and suprise the hell out of us by getting your act together on the schedule we have been expecting you to be on.
brittas
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:50 am
#1201
Poor show! If this game developing ideawere a movie it would go straight to video and miss the cinema release!
Shinjo_Kanzaki
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:51 am
#1202
Worldmaker2k4 wrote:
DrMonoxide wrote:
I'd say more than 300, 500+.
Well, consider it 503+.
It's amazing. I've never seen a single post cost a company an immediate $20,000 in earnings. This has to be a **edit**in' record.
i wonder what braniac decided to give thisthe green light and what their reactionwas when they realized the backlash that the player is expressing.
these mini publishes are starting to remind me of those old AOL commercials.
"new SWG 9.2 now 33% less lag, because we pissed off the majority of the player base!" 
Hoogie
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:51 am
#1203
Some words come to mind that were made a little over a year ago, something like:
We really wanted to add the features into the game at launch. But we felt they needed to be pushed back and could wait because we want what have now to work REALLY WELL at launch.
Refresh my memory any of you other old timers if you remember Ralph Koster or Hayden or whomever it was to make such a statement. They pushed back and held off on features over a year ago becuase they wanted the what they had to work really well at launch. And than we didnt get mounts and vehicles till like 6 months later.
ForceDisturbance
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:53 am
#1204
I'm not surprised at all that we have heard nothing. As I stated in a previous post, they are all hunkered down in the office somewhere hoping we'll cool down over the weekend and they can act like nothing happend. They aren't going to push us ahead of JTL and the almighty dollar. Nevermind that we are the loyal paying customers that have enabled them to collect a paycheck for the last year. They flipped us the big finger with this one and now they are banking on the fact that we'll accept thier slap in the face and continue to pump our $15 a month to them, like we always have. I'm as pissed off today as I was last night
Hobbs_Nguyen wrote:
Anyone else notice how we have not seen any dev posts in the least? It's almost 10 AM their time, too. Usually we see something in the way of activity. My guess is they're all deep in quasi-thought over how to reverse this mass-exoduc.
And I would like to reiterate, I am not going to buy JTLS until the core game is repaired. My highest priorities are the combat balance, GCW and various profession revamps. I could care less about JTLS.
Now I am going to start saving money for system upgrades, so I can play City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. When that is complete, if the above requirements haven't been met in some physical form, I will be moving on to those games.
Iefaot Womi ¤ IEBO
WaiVren
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:54 am
#1205
Not much left toadd. The current bugs that have plagued this game since beta have yet to be fixed, and now more code is going to be dumped into the mix. The only positive remarks to this announcement that stand out in my mind are from Jedi and dewds who don't care about immersiveness or the ability to pick a profession for the sake of the profession, rather than because it is the uber-template of the week.
This game had a lot of promise, but the current direction is downhill and accelerating. Many of the good aspects of this game have been removed because of griefers and abuse. I find it very frustrating that in a game marketed as an RPG, it is the leet kiddie crowd that benefits the most from the work of the developers. Judging from the history of changes, Roleplayers are on the very bottom of the priority list, with casual players in the middle and the leet dewds at the very top.
This is no longer Star Wars: Galaxies. It is Star Wars: Bounty Hunter vs. Jedi...With Some Other People
I know that our group is losing two people because of frustration with empty promises of bug fixes and frustrating game mechanics that are knee-jerk reactions to griefers and abusers (faction pet count, profession imbalance, etc.) I can only imagine how many other groups can say the same. And as the size of these groups diminish, so does the interest of the remaining players. That sounds like a cascading problem to me.
The development team seriously needs to look at the outcry from the community and adjust priorities accordingly. Fix what is already broken before adding new content.
brodiemcd
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:55 am
#1206
I, like most were/are excited about JTL...but I WILL NOT BUY THAT EXPANSION and spend more money on broken **edit** with the track record a year of playing and dealing with empty promises has brought. Fix what's broken first, stop being greedy and looking for people to buy more crappy games from you...they will have just as many problems...no doubt fixing your new babies issues will take precedence over the old. You set schedules and break them so often you sound like Whimpy from Popeye (If you keep paying and bare with us today, I'll gladly fix your problems on Tuesday"). The fact that this thread is over 53 pages and the JTL posts or interests aren't nearly the level of demand or protest should tell you we could give a crap about your expansion if the foundation for it is still broken!!!
Lying to customers once is tolerable as there are miscommunications...but SOE makes a policy of BS'ing their player base.
Second thing,
To keep the rant consice and targeted...please stop blaming the jedi revamp. I'm not a jedi (just a hologrinder that got shut out due to SOE BS before unlocking), but stop and think about your complaints. Having a Publish based around a profession is nothing new. Image Designers, Chefs, Droid Engineers, Artisans & Creature Handlers (mounts/vehicles), TK, and several others in the game have had publishes put out largely or wholely centered around their professions. Stop whining cuz they haven't gotten to yours yet. Only prof that appears to be INTENTIONALLY nerfed and screwed the longest ins BH. The problem is not with the Jedi profession or it's revamp but in the inconcievable amount of time they have drawn out fixing the professions in the game AND the fact they are pushing out fixing them collectively till after their "baby" is given birth. Those people that have posted that they should simply limit anyone else from unlocking from now on...not only is that a separate issue...but INCREDIBLY selfish and stupid. Just because you don't have the devotion to bust your ASS earning and spending tons of money and time to attain that goal and are obviously jealous others have, and are sickened because you see them...don't penalize others trying to get there. Restricting or banning people from that slot is not fair to those who have put in the effort and expense you haven't. Get over it. For the record the Jedi have been the first profession to be OFFICIALLY nerfed for the now pushed out CB.
I am in total agreement with nearly everyone on this thread that the root of the problem is in lies, empty promises, and greed surrounding the pushing out of one of the (if not the ONLY) most important FIXES for this broken game. Every time I think of this game visually in my head all I can see is some cartoon character trying to plug every hole of a sinking boat with all his toes and fingers (and not being successful).
With tons of new games out there coming out that are NON -SOE...this is quite possibly the stupidest move you could make Sony. Fix your $heeiiit!!!! Or you may lose more than you thought you'd gain.
I for one WILL NOT purchase any more of your sub standard Software til you fix existing problems...looks like I'm not the only one either.
Aracon
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:59 am
#1207
I really feel like putting a document together and sending it to the Better Business Bureau. I feel very, very scammed right now. If you developers would have been HONEST I could have had the chance to cancel my account months ago. I really just want to show them how SOE treats their customers.
TH even said he's known about this for some time. Where was this annoucement before June was up? You could have saved me 15 bucks.
You have scammed me, SOE.
Quinnt13
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:59 am
#1208
I think people need to keep in mind that this decision almost certainly was NOT made by the devs. Something like this most likely comes directly from top SOE management, or at least from higher level management than the devs. I'm not defending the devs, per se, but I just think that while we're all resoundingly angry at this delay, we need to direct most of our anger towards management.
That being said, let's hope all these angry posts and cancellations gives management some pause in this decision. I'd advise, at a minimum, that dev team use these posts/cancellations as ammunition to try to convince the management team to change their minds and make the CB/GCW revamps their #1 priority. We're probably past that point now, but hopefully something good can come of this.
Winnebago
Fri Jul 16, 2004 9:59 am
#1209
Should I presume that you are going to add programmers and art folsk to your team so that you can run 7 days a week until this problem is solved, or are you guys just gonna blow off early today and maybe think about making some hard decisions next week. I'm gonna presume that the lack of Dev response right now is due to the fact that you are all in a mega meeting where you are deciding to employ enough people to keep this game moving.