Development Cycle Archive
Thread: FINAL RESOLUTION ON DECAY: 1% Decay will be gone with the Imperial Crackdown
The issue of PvP and decay is a key issue and I’d like to go under the hood and share some insights as to how things happen. It will make us stronger as a community and I think it will be an enriching experience.
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In late November 2003, the developer who was at the heart of GCW development came to me and said, “we’re doing the Imperial Crackdown and its going to be a great time to make some GCW changes. What do players want so that it is easier to play PvP?” Right of the top, I said, “Well we have to get rid of PvP decay and make insurance way more affordable.” He told me, “Ok, give me a few days to look at the code and see what our options are.” I said Ok and waited for him to get back to me. He wrote up a basic design document and said, “Insurance is easy to tweak, but the PvP decay is going to be difficult. There doesn’t seem to be a clear line between PvP and PvE dying.” I think we should be able to do it for PvP, but it’s going to be a lot more difficult. If I can’t get the PvP decay pulled out by the time we finish the Imperial Crackdown, I’ll be able to do it when we do the GCW revamp. We have plans to develop that, but you will have to check with Runesabre on the scheduling for that.”
Towards the end of December, I spoke with many players through many channels and we even teleconferenced in a few people in our company on different teams who play the game (Many thanks to Jester, the GCW Correspondent and his hard work and involvement). I worked with Jester to find out what the GCW issues were and PvP insurance and decay mitigation was always right at the top. Since that time, the developer who had built SWG’s PvP system had to leave the team for personal reasons and that development item was reassigned. The days and weeks went by and as we neared the Test Centerpublish for the Imperial Crackdown, I received my monster file full of code change notes and started editing them down and creating the patch notes. I came across the notation, “pvp death penalty reduction” and added it to the patch notes. I wrote up the patch notes, did the publish summary and Q-3PO posted it on the web site. From there, the feature change was re-scheduled to be handled with the GCW changes. We discovered that my post had the “1% decay lifted announcement” and that is when I posted my “errata thread”.
So the development team heard and listened.
With the Imperial Crackdown comes a major shift in design development. Players who are engaged in factioned play and die a factioned death with no longer suffer insurance loss or 1% decay. Players should get insurance as they normally do and they will be covered.
This is a basic overview for how things changed. I’d like to thank the team for having this position and giving a voice to the players, the team’s constant involvement with me and specifically thanks to JustG, Runesabre, Shug_Ninx and Q-3PO for always reading the boards and changing the path of development based on positive player posts and thoughtful community input.
Thanks TH and to the rest of the team for listening and reacting 
One question: does this apply to general dueling deaths?
A Little Bit Of Pain Never Hurt Anyone