Entertainer Archive
Thread: Documentry of AFk and MACROS *For those who do not go into the dancer forum*
Page 1 of 1
Blamj
Fri Jan 07, 2005 7:45 pm
#1
Hello there, I just came up with the idea to express the problems of the Entertainer professions *elite professions included*. I have beleived that our complaining on the forums isn't reaching the developers so I have choosed to give them a visual representive of our problems in the afk... entertainer profession
the highlights.
-Forums messages video recorded, Correspondent opinions.
-Afk entertaining in the cantina
-The spirit of the Cantinas with Afk entertainers
-Me trying to contact a CS representive.
-Showing of how buff bots ruin our profession.
-The showing of ATK-Buff Bots in the flim and how they're not any better.
-The Afk entertainers taking only 20% portion of the cantina.
-How the use of spamming macros distrup the game.
The length.
I am looking at a 10 minute film.
The goal
To make the develops realize that there is a MAJOR issue with Afk entertainers in this game and by eliminating AFk entertainers and fixing our profession
The Tought Squid Squad Leader Taulek ready to serve!
the highlights.
-Forums messages video recorded, Correspondent opinions.
-Afk entertaining in the cantina
-The spirit of the Cantinas with Afk entertainers
-Me trying to contact a CS representive.
-Showing of how buff bots ruin our profession.
-The showing of ATK-Buff Bots in the flim and how they're not any better.
-The Afk entertainers taking only 20% portion of the cantina.
-How the use of spamming macros distrup the game.
The length.
I am looking at a 10 minute film.
The goal
To make the develops realize that there is a MAJOR issue with Afk entertainers in this game and by eliminating AFk entertainers and fixing our profession
The Tought Squid Squad Leader Taulek ready to serve!
LeBob
Fri Jan 07, 2005 7:52 pm
#2
Read the thread in this forum entitled "From TH & SOETyrant - Recursive Macros" please.
The devs are very aware of the problems with unattended gameplay. Thanks for you effort though.
Beery
Sun Jan 09, 2005 7:32 pm
#3
"Read the thread in this forum entitled "From TH & SOETyrant - Recursive Macros" please."
That was weeks ago. Nothing has been done since then.Reassurances are no longer enough.
I think a documentary is a great idea.
LeBob
Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:56 pm
#4
Actually
AFK - unattended macroing
This will be going away soon. There will be some issues around losing the ability to do things with recursive macros or while AFK which will need to be addressed as part of this effort, but overall it is better for the game environment to not have this as a sanctioned behavior.
AFK - unattended macroing
This will be going away soon. There will be some issues around losing the ability to do things with recursive macros or while AFK which will need to be addressed as part of this effort, but overall it is better for the game environment to not have this as a sanctioned behavior.
was one week ago....... it's not like they can just decide one day to do this and then the next day it's done.
Beery
Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:21 am
#5
"was one week ago....... it's not like they can just decide one day to do this and then the next day it's done."
It was NOT one week ago. They firsttold us over twomonths agothatAFK macroing would be going away. For an Entertainer Correspondentto claim that it was first said only a week ago (and that I'm expecting a 24-hour turnaround)is sophistry. You should know better.
Check this out:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dancer&message.id=41025#M41025
Posted November 5, 2004 by SOETyrant:
"1) We do take the unattended macroing issues seriously, and this ability will go away, but we are not going to address it this month. It is a big technicalchange, and takes a serious amount of development and testing. It is being done by a different team than the Combat Upgrade folks so it is not gated by that effort."
It comes to something when the correspondent (the person who is supposed to bethe voice of the customer) is defending the excruciatingly slow development of the game and covering up fordeveloper apathy.
Message Edited by Beery on 01-10-2005 06:38 AM
LyteFoot
Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:49 am
#6
Beery do you program? Do you program for SOE? Unless those two items are true you have no idea the effort involved, the project schedule, or the actual plans. I can tell you as a programmer that works on some very distributed client/server systems that even if this were priority number 1 it could still take many months to fix. Changing something as core as the scripting language and communications layer is very fundemental and affects almost all the remaining code in the application.
Panthu
Mon Jan 10, 2005 8:59 am
#7
Beery wrote:
It comes to something when the correspondent (the person who is supposed to bethe voice of the customer) is defending the excruciatingly slow development of the game and covering up fordeveloper apathy.
Or the Corr is able to see private dialog and has had more updates on the subject in places the general community can't see but isn't allowed to speak on it. The comment from a week ago marks a change in the development that is being discussed. Being a Glowie, I can see some of that discussion, but only the active Corrs know everything that a player can know about this subject right now and even that is sure to be limited given the nature of the topic. The Devs just don't tell all every step along the way of their decision making and it wouldn't help if they did.
Some things are still being worked out, there has been a renewed commitment in the Public Forums which the Corrs are being consulted about. LeBob is not defending slow development or covering up anything. He is passing along the true statement that a change happened a week before his post and the Dev post in the general forums marked this. If it didn't actually mark anything, Sart wouldn't say it did. He isn't like that. No corr is.
We have four active Corrs in the Ent Community at all times plus Glowies. There is not a conspiracy, we would let you know if things were not going along as they should.We Ents have more safe guarding than even the Combat communities most likely. 
Warryyr
Mon Jan 10, 2005 10:23 am
#8
From my perspective (can't see Corr forums, though) I'd say the following statement is true:
Development/revisions to this game for the benefit of (most) professions was largely non-existant in 2004.
This is why so much has backed up for the Devs. This is why additional help was needed in 2005.
Look back at the first 3 quarters of 2004. Through September. Sure, there were some fixes put in here and there. But nothing really got done. Nothing that helped the many professions with the many issues that had existed since 1/1/2004, if not at Launch.
Focus was predominantly placed on JTL, Droid Engineers, and Jedi. Only when it was too late did the Devs realize they were in way over their heads.
Then, KABOOM - JTL pushes the Combat Balance off the schedule until 2005. Players FREAK. Devs attempt damage control, and start actually publishing fixes to annoying little problems, to reinstill a sense of faith in the game's ability to get fixed and work as it should. It was like they finally woke up. 30+ professions complaining about nothing getting done didn't work, it took them admitting where Development stood to get them in gear. Devs asked what simple fixes could be done to help out our professions. There was a flurry of little fixes. Ours finally came about late December 2004, the %TT message in setperform was fixed, as was /register. In general, though - once the hubbub died down over the CB delay, things went back to their sluggish self. Fixes kept appearing, though - which is really one of the biggest things this game needs.
So anyways, where does our macro fix come into play? Somewhere back in time, months ago, when it was initially presented to the public. It's been worked on, I'm sure - well not too sure, but it's at least being considered. The problem is that the current focus has shifted from JTL (though JTL continues to at least get some attention for fixes continually). We are now in the Combat Upgrade/Revamp/Balance focus. This game's development is VERY one-track minded. Rarely do we see several huge efforts at once. Only one BIG update, then some fixes. This will hopefully change. We need a Publish where 5 professions get fixed/revamped, AND massive bug fixes, AND some new game content thrown in. Now that's a Publish.
They need to get a LOT of stuff going at once, and make SURE it doesn't hose the game for 2 weeks while they patch the hell out of the system, STILL leave some stuff screwed up, then move on, then fix what was left later on, when it's a massive problem.
So - my point. Yes, this was all mentioned months ago. No, it hasn't gone anywhere. Yes, more resources are now working on this game, and yes - we may get looping macros taken out sometime. However - expect the CU to command full attention. After that, Smugglers. After that, the many many other professions that begged for help in 2004 and got nothing. Somewhere in all of that, *maybe* we'll see looping macros fixed. It's been stated that the AFK issue is a pretty high priority for them, as is non-combat content. It's all based on priorities, and unfortunately in IT, massive production code problems take priority over all other efforts. And SWG has had nothing but huge and as-yet unfixed production problems due to horrible testing on recent publishes.
They skimped on testing to make up for time that JTL ate up. That's my theory. And it's biting them hard right now. The worst thing one can do is to push untested code to Live, then wait to see what happens. Unfortunately, the only thing to do is preach "patience" and "give them time." Most of that ran out somewhere around August 2004, but things HAVE to happen this year for this game. They know it. We know it. The financial analysts know it (why else would they hire on more help? They have an image problem, that's why. That's why we've got Callandryl attempting to patch up relations with the community).
They just need to get it all together, already. And they need to stop breaking the game with issues that persist 3 months, then finally get fixed, then break again because they adjust the color pallete of Talus' twilight lighting effects. Once they can stay focused and actually muti-task, we'll get the AFK problem fixed.
Panthu
Mon Jan 10, 2005 10:44 am
#9
*hugs teh Wook*
I know. Believe me, I feel the same stress over these things that you do. You know that. Sart knows this all from the non-Corr side as well and only fairly recently has been able to see any behind the scenes going on with this. He does know the history though (from both sides now) and he has been involved with all recent movements on this issue since his term started (including his reference to last week).
All I'm saying is, you can trust that LeBob is passing on what he sees as much as he is allowed to at this point and if there was a problem, he would be on the side of our community and not "covering up for the Devs." He wouldn't do that. None of the rest of us with blue-ish tags would let him even if he tried, but he wouldn't do that.
Just a friendly reminder, the Corr to Dev communication usually goes that way - Corr to Dev. The Ent Corr does a stellar job of keeping that communication open from his side and does a wonderful job of communicating our community concerns to the Devs. When things are not happening that we feel should be, the Ent Corrs have always let us know. In this case, something is being done so that is what the EC is letting us know.
LeBob
Tue Jan 11, 2005 1:37 am
#10
The statement I quoted was from a week ago at the time I quoted it. Yes they have been saying similar things for quite a bit longer time. I was exaggerating when I implied that anyone thought the change could be done in a day. I am not in opposition to a documentary. I just do not want to see anyone spend too much of their time on trying to make the devs aware of an issue that I and the other corrs already know the devs are aware of the issue.
Thanks for the feedback.
Warryyr
Tue Jan 11, 2005 8:57 am
#11
Panthu wrote:
*hugs teh Wook*
I know. Believe me, I feel the same stress over these things that you do. You know that. Sart knows this all from the non-Corr side as well and only fairly recently has been able to see any behind the scenes going on with this. He does know the history though (from both sides now) and he has been involved with all recent movements on this issue since his term started (including his reference to last week).
All I'm saying is, you can trust that LeBob is passing on what he sees as much as he is allowed to at this point and if there was a problem, he would be on the side of our community and not "covering up for the Devs." He wouldn't do that. None of the rest of us with blue-ish tags would let him even if he tried, but he wouldn't do that.
Just a friendly reminder, the Corr to Dev communication usually goes that way - Corr to Dev. The Ent Corr does a stellar job of keeping that communication open from his side and does a wonderful job of communicating our community concerns to the Devs. When things are not happening that we feel should be, the Ent Corrs have always let us know. In this case, something is being done so that is what the EC is letting us know.
I completely trust LeBob, no doubt. I know all you Corrs work so hard, and I wish they'd at least give you a free year's subscription or something 
I also know how IT is, in that bugs can bog you down and turn things into a nightmare. When you've got code that needs to get done, yet your coders are working on problems that've been plaguing them for months and finally can no longer be pushed aside, then you've got people who can't work on moving forward.
I've been hit hard with bugs before, and it's no fun, and it takes waaaay too long to sort it out sometimes. But, I see promise in the development of this game - things are happening. It's just a matter of time before they get things really moving along, and then I'm pretty confident we'll see things improving, and projects like removing looping macros completed. It's gonna get done, and sooner than we think, I suspect. They're going to get this stuff going like it should've been going for awhile.
I really think this is going to be a great year for this game, and I can't wait to see what's in store. I just have that residual bitterness that'll go away when we personally see things happen that help us with our problems.
Beery
Thu Jan 13, 2005 8:44 am
#12
Warryyr wrote:
"The worst thing one can do is to push untested code to Live, then wait to see what happens."
I thought that was standard operating procedure at SOE. You mean they're supposed to test it before taking it live? Surely you jest.
Beery
Thu Jan 13, 2005 8:49 am
#13
Warryyr wrote:
"I see promise in the development of this game - things are happening. It's just a matter of time before they get things really moving along"
I'm afraid that 'things happening' at this late date is too little far too late. By the time they get this game turned aroundeach server population is likely to be in single digits. It seems to me that this game has been a screw-up from start to finish, and I think most people who worked on it will probably claim they took 3 years off to travel rather than include it on their resume.
Page 1 of 1