Entertainer Archive

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MilesDavidson wrote:

Let me preface this post by saying that I am probably not a 'typical' player. The missus and I maintain and play 21 characters on 3 servers, some fully templated, others not. All are full characters and personalities, not 'alts' or buff bots.Each is mostly independant from the others, living diferent lives with diferent social groups and diferent goals across numerous guilds.

We maintain a total of 12 active accounts, some dating back to opening day 7/3/03.

I don't own a single 'uber' loot weapon, a single jedi character, my bank account has never exceded about 15 mil. at it's best. I have never 'camped' anything or AFK'ed any profession, or soloed (successfuly a krayt dragon. (I tried once just for sh!ts and giggles, hit and run style for a minute or so before being dealt a KD/dizzy and subsequently being eaten

I play SWG because I enjoy creating and living as a fictional person in a virtual world, a world that I have loved since spring of 1977.

All of old-timers remember the early days and some of the odd quirks of the game as it related to immersion. Pokemon-wars ? "This is curious" I thought. Not very Star Warsey, but I could accept it. Surely they would address it at some point. And they did, though with much community consternation. Running all over the planet ? No vehicles ? "This is curious" I thought. But this too was addressed (much more effectively than some other fixes, I might add...)

There certainly are alot of melee-types out there "this is curious" I thought. Not very Star Warsey, but heck it's a game and since the system seems to favor melee-types players are bound to gravitate toward them. And then came jedi, and 'uber' buffs and then 'uber' loot DOTs and solo groups and 1 on 1 slugfests with krayts and the buffbots taking over the cantinas, ad infinitum.

"this is curious" I thought, but hey there's a combat reballance in the works. Just relax and it'll all be good again...

The announcement of the upcoming reballance (now called the combat upgrade) really got me excited. Finally a return to normalcy and a full-bore focus on fixing and improving the elements of combat that were still lacking and also the elements that had become wanked by the prior 'fixes'

I read the CU documents and became even more excited. The vision that the dev team released seemed a utopia to those of us who had held out for so long. Redefining combat roles, offering a way to individualize our virtual persons without being pushed into FOTM templates to be effective, toning down armor and buffs to a less cartoony level and expanding upon the possibilities with factional garb, new weapons and such. Awesome !! Our prayers answered !!

Many of my IG friends griped about things, but I did my best to asuage their fears and encourage them to give it a chance. Wait and see, You'll like it in the end.

When TC opened I waited a day or so for a new character-builder program to show up and I checked out the new skill trees. Awesome !! I can see a million possibilities here.

Then I logged into TC....

I can tell you thruthfuly that I have never been as disappionted as I was that day. I was greeted by a hideously distracting UI. I realized that the one big draw for me in SWG (other than being Star Wars) was that the UI was so transparent in live. I could forget that I was playing a game and focus on BEING a person in the Star Wars universe. It gave just enough info to do everything you needed to do. NOw....this... Garish colors, huge fonts, (is it just me or does the colored "con" icon now look like a cartoon hand flipping me the bird? )

After about 5 minutes I logged off....

Then came all of the posts about how the combat system on TC is working. Character levels ? Tweetybirds for dizzy ? Other abomidable particle effects....I expected the highly publicized PEs to be improved blaster bolts, explosions and such. Durnis doing 800 damage to newbies but only 50 or so after you gain a few boxes...

"This is curious" I said, but hey, it's only in beta testing and these things will get fixed before live. Just wait it out. They can't ignore this much negative feedback.

The HoC chat revealed my Polyannaism. All of these hideous changes were intended and non-negotiable. All we would see would be little tweeks to their new system.

But the one word that has me all fired up right now is the word NO. Regarding chosing between new and old interfaces. No explanation, no discussion, no hope at all. The object of my ire now has a name....MALAKAREN
You, sir (or Ma'am) are an a$$. That one little 2 letter word, delivered the way it was, displays to all the arrogance and the disregard of your paying customer's concerns and desires. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I have to ask...A dev chat session that was obstensivly set up to answer community questions and sell us on the CU and all it's wonders...why was this fool invited to attend and represent SOE / SWG ? That one little word, alone and non-expanded-upon was the death knell to my "wait and see..it'll all be OK" attitude about this.

And now I see that we are stuck with it.....an ill-concieved level system, a faster-paced an tactical system that delivers the opposite (in spades) ,certification changes that irrepairably blurr the much touted definition of professional roles in the game and a UI that now dominates the game instead of allowing the characters and their lives to keep the forefront.

This is a sad day for me....

I'm not going to threaten to cancell my accounts, I'm not that juvenile, nor naive enough to believe that it will do any good. If I decide to do so it will be with no fanfare, just a few days writing goodbye letters to the many good people that I have come to call 'friend'. Then a few clicks later I can take comfort in the memories of the good times that this virtual world has provided me over these past 20 months.

I have now officially given up hope, but on the positive side....a man who has given up all hope is never disappointed by the future.

God bless, and maybe I'll see you all in June

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hPunkyh
ME, MM, MD Bloodfin
Ha ha..he he...you're so clever pulling my Nalargon away like that