Musician Archive

I can't say I'm suprised.....

I will say I'm disappointed. More dissappointed in the fact that they released their schedule for new entertainer content when they launched....and every revision up til now has been trying to keep that "within a year" goal. This revision makes it a "5 more months....or more" proposition. There is only so much I can take 10 songs. I've already played each one OVER A MONTH.

With this, the fact that as a musician I cannot expect to be effective in the Vette or Deathwatch, and that our one saving grace in the combat focus of this game, buffs, has been replaced (Brandy), made more buggy (can't do music and dance together), been madeless convienient(30 sec nerf and 2 minute minimum), and they don't seem to want to address any of our buff issues in the near future (5/26 19 answers), I just don't see the point anymore.

I've tried combat classes....I don't enjoy them as much. I have a jedi padawan on TC2, and I'm not liking that either. I was an elite crafter and got bored. The only thing I still do other than music and a random off class is maintain my collection of weird uncraftable, unuseable stuff collected from around the galaxy. I may have to go IMP to do that theme park to get those items, but then when I've got it all.... what do I do.....? Gigs are not happening as fast as they once were, weddings are more seldom. We seem to be the only ones who care about this profession as a real viable way to play the game. Other professions use us for free healing, expect us to be buffing machines, and rarely even listen to the music.

For the first time I'm seriously thinking of hanging up my mando, stretching out on a couch inBrantlee Spondoon'soffice in the Coronet cantina, logging off and never coming back.

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Tralmek wrote:

I noticed a segment of the letter that said he wanted to be as open and honest as possible with us.I guess that's why they have taken the letter down for now? That's right, none of the links that have been posted to it work anymore...

Here it is as posted on the smuggler forums with the Jedi schedule snipped out because the main focus of the next three months is on the profession that doesn't even have a place in this timeline and is supposed to represent a small number of the player base.

Howdy folks... that time again :-)
Last month we saw Publish 8: Droids Rebuilt reach its fruition, with a ton of new utility droids being added to the mix. We also saw two mini-publishes. Mini 8.1 focused on Image Designer enhancements and included some radical new looks for characters as well as a secure transaction interface that will extend to numerous other areas of the game.

Mini 8.2 saw the opening of the Death Watch Bunker, where there are some very tough hombres that are none too happy. There are rumors of awesome loot from this starting to trickle out into Live, including Mandalorian armor and Jetpacks!

This year's E3 allowed us to demo Jump to Lightspeed, which was an amazing experience! This was the first time we had shown it to the public and we fully realized just how much fun it already is!! There were countless occasions where we would find ourselves plinking at Hutt Fighters from the turret of a YT-1300, or chasing a Tie Fighter through an asteroid field, and have to tear ourselves away to realize that we were indeed in the middle of a demo. I assure you, this is going to completely transform SWG while tying in seamlessly with the ground game. It is simply incredible!!!

We will be doing a closed-invite Beta for JTL sometime between August and September. We really want to get a wide variety of players in the cockpit, so we are currently devising the numbers and groups for populating the beta. More on this from Bo'shek (Rich Vogel) in the near future...

Back on the ground, we are in the thick of Jedi Testing for Publish 9: Secrets of the Force. We are going to want to take an extra week or so to fully bake it in,

so it may be a bit more than two weeks from our last mini-publish (the Death Watch Bunker). We will keep you apprised at the progress, but we are currently targetting 6/22/04.

To test this massive system, we made a duplicate of the existing Test Server. We call it, originally enough, Test Center 2! We needed to create a large and robust test population, so we put together two groups and made them specific ranks.

- Existing Test Center players that were active within a certain period became Padawans.

- Existing Live Jedi that created characters on Test Center within a certain period became Jedi Knights.

Over the weekend there were in excess of a thousand simultaneous players on TC2! Much thanks to those of you logged in and helped us with testing. I would encourage you to continue doing so during the next couple of weeks, because we will be giving away starter packs, running some crazy tournaments and really trying to stress the system to its limits! Since Test Server 2 will be wiped at the end of the testing phase, it is really a free-for-all over there. Crazy. We may even try to set a bunch of Live Bounty Hunters loose at some time >:-)

One of the more controversial changes that is occurring with Publish 9 is that characters who unlock their slots Between Publish 9 and Publish 10 will not be able to immediately convert to a Padawan. There are a number of reasons why we feel the need to do this, but foremost is a transition period between Force Sensitive and Padawan that will not be done until Publish 10: The Jedi Trials. If you do unlock you will be notified, but not able to convert until P10. If you do not unlock but are along the way, partial credit will be given. This has been discussed in the past few Friday Features.

Looking forward, the three main systems that we are enhancing before Space are: Jedi, Combat Balance, and the Galactic Civil War (GCW). They are turning out to be extremely extensive (and extremely cool!). Accordingly, we want to focus as many resources as we can on them. This is challenging when doing parallel development of JTL, which in some ways is a completely new game.

We have made some adjustments to the Live schedule, based on our desire to fully realize each system.

Before I reveal our schedule, I want to shoot very straight with you. When I say things can and will change, I mean it. If we feel that we need to focus more on a particular system, we are going to adjust the schedule to allow it. My job as Senior Producer is to ensure that the overall project is successful, no matter what. This means trying to focus our resources on where they are most needed while keeping them healthy and happy. This also means adjusting the schedule and moving things out when other things are in jeopardy.

We could take 4 different approaches in our communications with you:

- Not tell you anything

- Give you the party line

- Try to get everything done and not do them well

- Do things right and tell you the truth

I want to tell you the truth. I want you to know what our priorities are, and what we are working on, and why things change. I guarantee some folks are going to scan this entire schedule, find the one line in it that refers to them, and go off about it. The truth is that we want to polish our game as much as we can, and we don't want to put out half-baked publishes. Part of the pain of hearing the truth is that it changes.

Without further ado, I present you with our current schedule:

Jedi and more Jedi...just about ONLY Jedi for the next three months...

Hutt Casino

We are REALLY excited about this social adventure, but we are running into art and design restrictions. Space is looking amazing... and we want it to be even more so! We are very strapped for Art resources at this time and can't create everything we want for this adventure until after Space.

Hutt Asteroid Base

For similar reasons, and we really want this to be something you reach by flying through space.

Smuggler revamp

We want to do this right too... and proper smuggling is very much augmented by space flight!

I know there will be some disappointment regarding the schedule shifts. Please remember that we want to open our schedules up to you as much as possible so you know what to expect. Live Service is an inexact science (to say the least!!) and will always include some shifts. Things have changed. They will continue to do so. We are giving you our best approximations. All along the way, smaller but vital enhancements are constantly being fixed and come out before and after these main publishes.

We are fully focused in making SWG the best MMOG there is out there. The game is very strong due to you, the players. The next few months have some revolutionary changes occurring, and I hope you are as psyched as I am!!

Finally, some of the team is gearing up to head out to Anaheim this week for the Fan Fest! I can't tell you how excited we are to hook up with the players, and see you folks meeting with each other. There are some great things planned, including several panels where you can grill us on all sorts of topics. Please be gentle ;-)

Best,

- Gary Gattis
SOE Senior Producer, Star Wars Galaxies

Well there we have it. Hopefully they'll get back to their open and honest statements again soon and have this reposted.

-Lilo

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Hmm...

I checked the Dev Tracker today...

It looks like JustG has apologized to the smugglers for the delay until after JTL...he even told them that they had a dev who cared deeply about them.

Something must be wrong with my Dev Tracker, because it shows that noDev has showed up on the music boards to console us about the delay. Maybe a clean restart would fix my Dev Tracker so I can read our message?

/sardonictone_toggleoff

I really don't think I havemuch more to say right now. We are obviously considered to be below second-rate members of this game. If we were classified like passangers in the days of the Titanic, Jedi would be 1st class, and entertainers would be 4th class. While the 1st class people are helped into the boats to preserve their lives, the 4th class passangers are locked in steerage to die where no one will ever see or care.

If SWGwere the sinking titanic...

The Jedi would be above first class, and would be dedicated individual life boats at the expense of everyone else

The Rifleman, Commandos, Tera Kasi, Rebels, combat medics, Architects, doctors, rebels, Fencers, and Swordsmen of the game would be here. and would most guaranteed get lifeboats. Running tothe lifeboats would be smugglers, who are going to probably get oneabove the rangers, carbineers, etc. of second class. Theyweren't there already,but the life boat for them is being set aside for them by a certain green dev.

Message Edited by Warplex on 06-08-2004 01:30 PM

The links don't work because it was posted prematurely. They put it up for Correspondent comment a couple days ago, a bunch of us ranted about it, and then it immediately went up anyway -- much to my dismay.

But we're not the reason they took it down. They took it down because they hadn't cleared it with LucasArts.

So, as I mentioned above, JustG was correct in his post on the smuggler forums. They do have a Dev who cares a good deal about them. In fact, this developer gives the Smugglers reasons and encouragements to stay in the game. He promises there will be no more BS from the Devs to the Smugglers, that they will be straightforward from now on.

Now, I am not begrudging the Smugglers of anything, in fact I'm happy they're getting attention, just as I was when the ID's got attention. However, what I am PO'ed about is that the Devs are telling the Smugglers directly this is why we think you should continue playing and paying for this game but they apparently don't care one bit when Entertainers leave the game, because they haven't given us any reasons to stay in the game. They haven't made any promises to us about being straightforward from now on. They haven't even visited the Dance, Entertainer, or Musician forums for a long time. They gave us lip service in the past about AFK Macrotainers, they promised us months ago that new content would be added, but it is apparent they are perfectly happy to see us die alone, neglected, burned out, and unloved.

The only thing that keeps mostlive entertainers working our hardest to earn a living at our keyboards is our love for our profession and for our friends. We have no content, we have no worthwhile missions, we have dwindling audiences, all in all...the Entertainers are nearly extinct, their fire has gone out of the universe, and we are all that is left. People, we need some attention, and soon. I don't know what it will take...perhaps a Wookiee-esque protest, perhaps a mass PM'ing campaign to the Devs, perhaps an idea that has not yet been conceived.

Alright, now on that negative note, I'm off to write a paper on symbolism in "House of Sand and Fog." (For those of you who have seen it, you'll know exactly how much my perspective on life will have improved after watching it and writing about it...those of you who haven't seen it? You should. It's a very well-done movie, but terribly depressing.)

Love y'all and talk to you later!
-Lilo

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Warplex wrote:
Lilo's got me thinking: Why am i paying money for a game that ignores me?

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No Kora, you have not missed anything.....

but you have been missed!!

Fragpuppie Uber
Master Entertainer, Master Musician
Guild Leader - Performer United Professional Society (PUPS)
Band Leader and Booking Agent - Frag's Puppies
President and CEO - Fragpuppie Enterprises and Uber Instruments
Coronet, Corellia, Chilastra