Musician Archive
Thread: What Question for the week of June 21?
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NewJedi
Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:56 am
#1
It's time to ask again what Question you'd like to propose for the week of June 21. I have my own candidate, but as always I'll defer to majority opinion here. My candidate:
"We'd like to ask Holocron, creative director for SOE, to hire a dedicated "Entertainer dev" who would be responsible solely for entertainers. We know SWG already has a talented and dedicated dev who spends part of his time on entertainer issues, but his time is also shared with other professions, and as a result he's spread too thin. We would respectfully request that you hire a programmer/dev who is solely responsible for Entertainer, Dancer, Musician, and Image Designer. (Not necessarily Acrobat, which strikes us as a quasi-combat profession.) This person would be responsible for a fundamental revamp of the entertainer to make our professions more engaging, fun, and integral to SWG gameplay. This person would also be charged with taking the lead in creating new songs and dances, in working with musicians, composers, motion-capture specialists, and others who make the content that ultimately drives our professions. So that's our question: would you please hire an entertainer-only dev?"
Just_Bri
Sun Jun 13, 2004 9:05 am
#2
I would include Polotician on that list. They may not derive from the Entertainer profession, but they are a social class all the same. And they need some love too.
Warplex
Sun Jun 13, 2004 11:03 am
#3
First thing that poped into my mind was "When can we expect dev time at all? Give us a firm date, and stick to it for a change!" Maybe include a nicer version of that into your requestfor an entertainer developer.
Ravanne_Esi
Sun Jun 13, 2004 11:10 am
#4
And if they hire someone for the entertainer DEV spot it should be someone who actually has a social life and understands being social means interacting with real people not just NPCs.
JohnMarble
Sun Jun 13, 2004 1:02 pm
#5
I just wish they'd let the devs talk. It's crazy. I remember when holocron was a pleeb, they let him talk, but it wasn't Sony. If I was a dev and I wasn't allowed to post, I know I would avoid even reading the forums. It would drive me crazy. Sony discourages communication between the dev team and the community.Hiring a Thunderheart might sound good on paper, but this whole routine with picking questions simply sucks;it isn't communication. Communication is give and take, not this stilted 1 question nonsense where they don't even understand what we're asking. I want the guy sitting here, talking. This is the 21st century, we're using a mode of communication unparalled in human history, andthey're making us use carrier pigeons.
sweatyclimber
Sun Jun 13, 2004 1:14 pm
#6
nj-
i think that question would be a waste. first they have said for 11 months that acrobat is a shelved prof. second it will never happen. I think along those line tho we should say something like this:
We the paying customers find it rediculous that you would pull resources from the current game to add to JTLS. We have been waiting over a year for some development time and yet you continue to ignore the social proffesions and every once in a while make it actually harder/ worse for us. WHEN WILL WE GET DEV TIME? We want hard dates that WILL NOT CHANGE. And we want it before JTL. Work on the game we pay for damit!
thats what I would suggest
Ravanne_Esi
Sun Jun 13, 2004 1:29 pm
#7
Actually asking any question is probably moot. TH will just answer any random question and not bother with what we actually want or need to have answered.
Gknee
Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:25 pm
#8
I would love to see our efforts move towards fixing the registration bug rather then a pipe dream of a "Dev" just for entertertainers. Idealy this game is for the GCW and such. I'm not putting Entertainers/Dancers/Musicians on a lower level but ultimately our class is not AS broke as others. Yes...we need new content. That is coming, I've done the Entertainer quests on TC. Yes..we need new interfaces for buffs. But they do work. Yes.. We want some recognition from the Dev. B ut I don't think they hate us..just we are the "good" kids who don't need their attention right now. I whole heartly believe that once the combat balance, GCW and space come around that the social classes will get some deserved love from the devs. I know as our correspondant you are trying to champion us..but please let's work towards getting things fixed and not telling them that they aren't doing their job.
NewJedi
Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:12 pm
#9
Gknee wrote:
but please let's work towards getting things fixed and not telling them that they aren't doing their job.
Hmm, I certainly didn't mean to imply I think anyone's not doing their job. I went out of my way to praise the person who's worked on our issues in the past -- he's a great guy and a hard-working and talented dev --but I also pointed outthat he's now spread way too thin. I wish I shared your optimism about our getting attention after Jedi and JTL. Even if the optimism is well-founded, we're talking about a seven-month wait minimum. And let's face it, JTL will be receiving huge amounts of attention well after Christmas. I honestly don't see the situation getting better until next year without more personnel.
Sweatyclimber, I think we basically agree on the kind of question that should be asked; we just differ on the particular approach. But I think you and I both may be outnumbered on this one. 
If people would rather ask a more focused question, e.g., on /register, that's certainly fine with me. I'll abide by the majority's wishes.
Gknee
Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:34 pm
#10
I think the question shouldn't be about "staffing" at SOE though. I really think it should have some revelance to the profession at hand. To say we haven't gotten content since launch is just not true. We've gotten buffs, and some really fun droids to play with. The upcoming Entertainer Quest is fun, (Although i failed my audition) Please..as the correspondant look at the big picture.
Cudayn
Sun Jun 13, 2004 9:22 pm
#11
Woo Hoo! My first post back on the Musician board since I started playing Durney again
( I wouldn't surrender skills on my most beloved character, so went to another server to play for a bit)
I see us entertainers as always being on the back burner as far as Dev time. Unfortunately most people play combat classes and you have to prioritize for the masses. However, we have been promised new songs for .......... wow, a long time now. And they were already supposed to be done.
I want to know where our new songs are personally. But your question, NJ, is a great one
If that question has been asked, and forgive me for not going and searching, then I would like to default to the Entertainer Dev question as with just those professions, there would be more than enough to keep one person busy a long time
Durney Kova
Master Entertainer / Master Musician / Master Image Designer / Novice Dancer
Khristen
Mon Jun 14, 2004 3:12 pm
#12
The idea of a dev devoted to the entertainer classes (and while I love Politicians, I'm not sure that making it a "social profession" kind of request is something that would be quite as beneficial) is a good one in many ways, but what would be more helpful is having someone with RL music knowledge--be that a dev or someone working directly with a dev--working on entertainer content. Whether this is something feasable or not, I really couldn't say.
Trying to get some kind of time-frame on an entertainer "revamp" is unrealistic. The development schedule is somewhat fluid anyway, and they've always been hesitant to release concrete time information for the simple reason that it can change too easily. If they say, "We have changes scheduled for the month after JTL is released" and some big snafu pops up that they have to redevote their energies to and that gets pushed back, people would be screaming. One of the main reasons that it is hard to get concrete information on many thingsis because they probably don't know themselves. That's not due to lack of planning or effort on their part, though. It's just the way things are when working on complex code. You try to change one thing and three others break. LOL The devs are working to improve things right up to, and sometimes after, a publish goes live. Many times things that hit Test Center are altered before they get to live, and you still hear people crying "nerf!" over it even though it was never in live.
I was lucky enough to be at Fan Fest and got to hear the entertainer/ID forum questions and answers. A lot of times, a request or a fix is simple enough (code-wise) that it could be snuck into a publish or a mini-publish without being a featured thing. Just because there isn't an Entertainer revamp scheduled anytime soon doesn't mean that things can't be added and fixed. Perhaps a question more focused along those lines would be more helpful in the long run than a staffing request that might be better received in a format different from the 19 questions. It's more a Q and A line than a request line, even if that request is phrased as a question. At least that's my perspective.
Echinacea
Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:48 pm
#13
I have another suggestion entirely: boycott asking a question. We have no questions that anyoneinvolved with the public relations side of the game seems to want to answer, or seems capable of answering in any fashion other than the equivalent to a pat on the fanny and being shooed back into the cantina, barefoot.
If you really must ask a question: What exactly is the difficulty in fixing the status of player cantinas, theaters and med centers being set to "on"/"staffed" status upon server reset?
Or: Is it likely that the player theater will get a redesign to make it functional as something other than a PvP sniper outpost in the near future (less than six months from now)?
I'd still rather make a statement by not asking a question at all, but I'm sure ThunderHeart would just lift one out of our forums again without going through their stated process of having one submitted by the correspondents.
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