Pilot Archive
Thread: POLL: Will JTL Keep You Playing Until The Combat Upgrade?
Message Edited by Nerj on 11-01-2004 09:19 PM
I have invested too much time into this game to leave now. The one game that would draw me away from this one would be if someone could do a successful Forgotten Realms MMORPG. Other than that I think Star Wars is probably the best setting for an online game available.
So JtL is just a different type of grinding? Whee! I'll spend my time on games that areactually fun to play, kthxbye.
MyT_Chicken wrote:
Yup, I love space.....and when I get tired of grinding, its not like I loose out on much. I can always go on the ground and kill some more.
AnzelVincir wrote:
All space stations should be like the noob tutorial where you can walk around and gaze through the windows down at Tatooine or Yavin. Sorta an homage to Stanley Kubrick. Stations should have banking terminals, bazaar terminals, cantina's, medical centers, etc., etc., etc. Again, something we talked about in Beta that was pretty much ignored.
I also think we should be able to walk around in space stations, not just noob tutorials but make it a real place..... have bars and stuff in their. Maybe some new space stations for diffrent planets too.....
Veteran Reward. It takes up a lot? It takes up a slot in the datapad? Hmmm. Maybe we should consider dropping the word 'Reward' from this one... Seriously. Call it something else. Also, you should be able to enable auto-pilot and then walk around. That would rule!
Agreed, taking up a lot and datapad seems kinda theify, anyways i TOTALLY agree about the cruiseing in the Vet ships while walking around in it.
Hyperspace to a WP. Why on Tatooine can I not jump to a waypoint? I know that, "Jumping through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops" but come on! We really need this. Especially for grouping. Last night a few of my guild mates were going to help me with a mission that was already in progress. I gave them a WP to where I was and it took forever for them to reach me. They should have just been able to jump right to me.
As long as its hyperspacing to a groupmate i see no problem with "hyperspace to (playername)" but outside of a group is just plain not good, their would be no sense of traveling.
Space Should Be VAST. The sectors/quadrants seem cramped to me. Again, remember Elite? Another good example would be Independence War II. Basically you could use a jump-drive to get around but if you didn't have one you could literally fly all the way from point A to point B. I know there are performance and bandwidth issues. I'm just saying that I feel cramped...
We need more space sectors plain and simple, so i /agree.
Mining in Spaaaaaace. Wouldn't it be cool if there were resources you could only harvest in space? In Elite you could purchase a "Mining Laser" and collect ore to sell for profit. In X2 by egosoft you can buy mining installations to do the same. SWG is so resource-centric that the idea seems to fit right in.
Minging in space would be awsome, create some ships only surveyers can use, let them mine asteroids and give it a nice cool effect everyone can watch, put in some asteroid only resource they have to fly out and get, but theyd need it to be in higher quantity when actually mining it, the land surveying is too little, 13-14 units per survey.....
New Species Are Cheese. I don't want to offend any of my new Sullustan or Ithorian friends out there but jeeeeeez. With all that we had to choose from this is what we came up with? I know there is nothing that can be done but hey... had to say it.
their alright...... i really wanted chiss.....
That being said, i will deffintely stay for CB revamp.
AnzelVincir wrote:
I know that I b1tch and complain here on a regular basis but it's mainly because I know that I'll be here no matter what. No matter how bad the ground game gets I'm here for the long haul.
I had a horrible experience this weekend with a tier 3 Imperial mission for Storm Squadron but I joined an awesome guild on Corbantis and was able to finally get past it.
Right now the ground game is dead to me. I worked for over a year to get to Master BH and then Master BH/Master Pistoleer only to get ruled by some guy with a loin cloth and a stick. The economy on most servers is completely borked. Everyone is running around with the same armor. The only way for my profession can make any money is by somehow winning the 'loot lottery', or by doing Janta missions, etc., etc., etc.
Do I think JTL is perfect? Not even close.
The training is borked. I love (and hate) having the tiers and the missions setup the way they are, but not being able to train within your tier is a little messed up. You shouldn't be able to progress until you finish all of the missions in your tier but you should be able to train within your tier if you have the XP.
Can't really comment here, because it's seemed about right to me advancement-wise. If anything, I'd have to disagree.
Five titles at once? You should get a new title every time you finish a tier not 5 titles all at once for ACE. Also, you should be able to display your faction rank along with your name. Such as "Captain Anzel Vincir . This is something that we talked about in beta that wasn't ever even addressed.
Agreed, but I think it's a "window dressing" kind of thing that, in the end, is less important than a fundamentally sound game engine and play experience. I'd love faction rank, accolades, etc, over my head both on the ground and in space, but I can wait in favor of gameplay fixes. Only getting your five titles once you master is contrary to the ground game, so I suspect that's a bug. I'd expect it to be fixed once gameplay is fine-tuned.
Two new species for noob's only? Veteran players should be allowed to change their species... period. Especially when new ones are introduced to the game.
Apparently this is LucasArts' decision, not SOE's. Agreed, but moot.
Starship Terminals. The larger player cities should have private starship terminals that can only be used by citizens of that particular city. This would discourage people from living out in the wild like animals.
100% agree. Maybe restricted to Metropolis-sized cities.
All space stations should be like the noob tutorial where you can walk around and gaze through the windows down at Tatooine or Yavin. Sorta an homage to Stanley Kubrick. Stations should have banking terminals, bazaar terminals, cantina's, medical centers, etc., etc., etc. Again, something we talked about in Beta that was pretty much ignored.
Again, agreed, but it's something that adds to "cool" at the expense of developing "fun" and "balanced." I'd love to walk the space stations with you, but I'm glad development time was spent on polishing the gameplay mechanic instead.
Killscores and Rankings. Not sure how old everyone out there is but the very first 3D space simulation for me was Elite on the Commodore64. Since then there have been many copy-cats such as Privateer, I-War 2, and X-Tension/X2 by egosoft. In Elite you start off as a 'Novice' and as you kill more and more NPCs your rank progresses up to 'Dangerous', then 'Deadly', and finally 'Elite'. It would also be cool to have a badge that displays your kill stats like "...Has 234 confirmed kills" and titles like "Imperial Pilot - Deadly" instead of just "Ace".
See my comment about "five titles at once."
No Cargo holds! How can a DE put a storage module into a mouse droid but my TIE Bomber holds squat? Maybe just restrict it to looted items or maybe you have to choose between a weapon and a cargo hold. Again, this was brought up in Beta but for the most part it was just disregarded/ignored.
Agreed. This is one of my few complaints as well. Luke had some gear stowed on his X-Wing, I should be able to at least put a change of clothes or a spare capacitor in there... considering an MSE could conceivably hold a Fambaa in it's storage compartment (I have one in my bank).
Ship Classes. One of the coolest things about SWG is that there is more to do besides combat. There are Medics, Scouts, Chefs, etc. There should also be different classes of ships. Like repair ships, transports, mining ships, etc.
Agreed, but I think they wanted to focus on "fun" combat content for launch, and work on "utility" functions later. I expect these to be added down the road in future publishes.
Profession Specific Missions. As a Bounty Hunter I was really looking forward to rolling up on a BH Terminal and hunting my marks in space. I'm sure that smugglers had similar fantasies. This one really disappointed me...
100% agree. Would love to be able to chase an NPC mark (or even a Jedi, without death penalty), in space and blow em to bits.
Veteran Reward. It takes up a lot? It takes up a slot in the datapad? Hmmm. Maybe we should consider dropping the word 'Reward' from this one... Seriously. Call it something else. Also, you should be able to enable auto-pilot and then walk around. That would rule!
Agree with you on the auto-pilot thing, agree with the devs on the lot/item restriction. Sure, it limits some of my options for decoration/roleplay, but why should we expect a 250 item, no-lot storage house as a reward? The ship itself is just plain cool, and with autopilot like you suggest is more than worth it as a reward despite the lot/item restrictions.
Grouping is still cheese. There is much debate and complaint over the 'space instance' bug where you end up in a different/random instance of space. Also, you should be able to see the direction AND distance of other members in your group like in the ground game.
No argument. If there are bugs with grouping, it needs to be fixed. And group orientation needs to be addressed. Very hard to accurately guage where your wingmen are even when you aren't in the midst of a heated battle.
RADAR. The RADAR is something that many people complained about in Beta as well. Going back to my other favorite game, Elite, which had a much better RADAR where you could get a visual representation of whether the targets where above/behind, in front of/in back of you. Elite was written in the early 80's by two college students in England. The computer they had at the time had like 4 bits of memory. Come on devs. Let's work a bit on the RADAR huh?
Agree 100%. The radar is still befuddling to me. Not only in guaging the orientation of enemies to my own position, but just when I think I finally figured out which bar is my armor and which is my shield, I change my mind again.
Non-JTL Players Can't Board Multi-Passenger Ships. JTL should give you access to the Pilot Profession. The ability to own and pilot ships. Yes. Agreed. But I should be able to invite friends up into space on my Yacht! Or hire some poor shmuck who doesn't have JTL to be a gunner for me in my Aggressor. Maybe when they see how cool JTL is they'll consider buying it. Also, a lot of us have alts and aren't going to fork over the extra $30 just to be a passenger...
Partially agree. Non-JTL players should be able to launch as passive passengers on multi-ships, as a sort of preview of what they're missing, but shouldn't be allowed to gun.
No helmets for Rebels? I almost p'd my pants the first time I booted up my Imp helmet. As a kid Stormtroopers were always my favorite. I always favored the Imperials because their armor was the shiz, especially the TIE Pilots. The Rebel pilot helmet was the only cool piece of anything that the Rebels had. I am amazed that all of you poor Rebels are forced to get into your inferior little space-boats without anything on your heads...
Inferior space boats, my @$$. Why, I'll ram a proton torpedo up your exhaust shaft for that comment. But I do want a Rebel fighter pilot helmet to go with my jumpsuit, including the little button-thingey on the chest.
PvP for master? Yeah, there are 12's of posts on this one. PvP for Master = Bad... Very Bad...
Disagree/agree/disagree. I don't really thing it will be that big of a deal. It's not like PvP on the ground where you can really be put off by dying and some people are wishy-washy on the concept of killing a humanoid character. Blowing up a ship is a little different, play is a lot more balanced. Plus, by time it's required, you pretty well know your way around the controls and limitations of your ship. On the ground, you can master a combat prof a day after you register, and get your @$$ handed to you in PvP without a billion credit suit of armor and a backpack full of exploited or looted guns costing more billions of credits. And on the ground you also decay, lose buffs (and therefore downtime), etc. In space there really isn't such a huge penalty to dying, and more people will be on more even footing from the get-go.
Hyperspace to a WP. Why on Tatooine can I not jump to a waypoint? I know that, "Jumping through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops" but come on! We really need this. Especially for grouping. Last night a few of my guild mates were going to help me with a mission that was already in progress. I gave them a WP to where I was and it took forever for them to reach me. They should have just been able to jump right to me.
Jumping through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, kid... but I agree 100%.
Capital Ships. Anyone remember the opening scene to Ep IV? Or the ending scene to ROTJ? Come on. Even Wing Commander back in the 80's had capital ships. One of the disappointing things for me about SWG is the whole GCW piece. I was really hoping to zip around in my ATAT or ATST and blast rebels. With JTL I thought for sure that I would be able to dock with an Imp SD and run around in it with my new guild mates.
The capital ships you see from the planet surface have an innate ability to alway be on the other side of the planet from you while you're in space... they're there, but you can't see em with that big marble in the way
BTW, I agree. I wanna see Star Destroyers chasing Corellian Corvettes, or Vader's Dreadnought (the Executor?) with swarms of Tie Fighters around it, medical Frigates, Mon Cal Cruisers, epic battles between NPC capital ships that we as players can engage in with our fighters, both against the NPCs and other players.... hopefully a content publish soon down the road.
I also want you to show up at my Rebel base with an AT-AT in tow, riding in your AT-ST, but I want a turret or two on the base that'll make you think twice about coming too close.
Imperial Ships Fly Backwards! Is it just me or should the Oppressor and Aggressor be facing the other way? See how pimp the Interceptor looks? Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.
Uh, you lose me here
Mass and Chassis. I really don't like having mass tied to the chassis. I like having the idea of mass but we're going to end up with 'space composite'. A Rebel should be able to pimp his X-Wing even if he is an ACE and Imps should be able to pimp their Interceptors. I like the certs the way they are but there should be different variants of each chassis. Like 'X-Wing Advanced' or 'Heavy Interceptor'. That way every Imp Ace won't be flying an Oppressor and every Rebel Ace won't be in whatever their 'composite' is. Maybe put it in the equipment line. Along with "Level II Equipment" you could also have "Level II Spaceframe". Each chassis could be built with a different level 'frame' to produce a wider array of ships next week when we're all aces...
Agree on principal, but overall disagree. As I posted regarding the particular differences between an A-Wing and an X-Wing... my X will always have more firepower than any A, but there's no way in h3ll I could fit the best engines available into my X. I'll always be on the short end of the stick for maneuverability and speed, but I'll have a better offensive loadout. So it's a tossup... like Commando and Fencer were supposed to be on the ground... one hard to hit, the other hits like a ton of bricks. I think there's real balance there, and I think mass/spaceframe hardpoint restrictions allow that, yet still leave a lot of customization available for our final loadout.
Space Should Be VAST. The sectors/quadrants seem cramped to me. Again, remember Elite? Another good example would be Independence War II. Basically you could use a jump-drive to get around but if you didn't have one you could literally fly all the way from point A to point B. I know there are performance and bandwidth issues. I'm just saying that I feel cramped...
But you have not only X and Y to explore, but also Z (actually, I think for some reason the game is X and Z and Y is up, but, uh...). I do find it funny that sometimes immediately upon loading into space I get a message about turning around or hyperspacing, and I'm only 5k from the station. Maybe future hardware upgrades on both the corporate end and the consumer end will allow for bigger zones. I'm not enough of a tech-nut to know whether or not the volumetric area of the space zones is already pushing the limits of average consumer hardware bandwith capabilities or not. You and I might have awesome rigs, but Joe Q Public might not, and he still has a right to play as well, to an extent (if he's still on his Uber C-64 from back in the day, maybe he deserves to be screwed).
Mining in Spaaaaaace. Wouldn't it be cool if there were resources you could only harvest in space? In Elite you could purchase a "Mining Laser" and collect ore to sell for profit. In X2 by egosoft you can buy mining installations to do the same. SWG is so resource-centric that the idea seems to fit right in.
Agree. Already commented about this in another area though
Cash in Spaaaaaace. I do make some good cash doing the Imp story line but again as a BH I would really like to make some cash in space. Smugglers should be able to do the same. Tier 4 and 5 ship chassis alone are going for over (little finger to mouth) one meeelion credits. Ships and parts cost money yo, and you know Frietek (Master Shipwright on Corbantis) can't cook without that dough...
Agree, but check this out. Sure, we old-timers with millions in the bank are making comparatively little money out there in the great void, but n00bs are gonna make a relative killing compared to what you can accomplish with starting gear on the ground. Methinks it will balance out in the end.
New Species Are Cheese. I don't want to offend any of my new Sullustan or Ithorian friends out there but jeeeeeez. With all that we had to choose from this is what we came up with? I know there is nothing that can be done but hey... had to say it.
Well, customization of the Sullustans ranges from sleepy to stoned or somewhere in between, and the Ithorians are just plain weird... but I guess if you had to pick two, you could have done worse. Jawas and Ewoks just wouldn't jibe, IDs can already make you a whatever-Thrawn-is, and a lot of the other "cantina" aliens are just as weird as the Ithorians. Maybe Duros would have been a good choice, but I have no serious problems with the two choices (other than the fat Ithorian in whatever their Comp armor is called, dancing AFK in the Coronet cantina last night... I never need to see that again).
Bugged Missions. This is especially painful since advancement is directly tied to the new mission system. They need to be careful here. This is where they can really start to lose people.
I've been lucky enough to only have one minor bug on my missions so far, and that's when I hypered to the wrong sector in a frantic attempt to get away from a hot situation, went back to the correct one, and got neither the waypoint I was expecting nor a mission failure message. I just landed and reloaded the mission and it went smoothly from there.
Maybe you agree with some the above and maybe you don't. However I'm sure we all agree that JTL is not perfect. I'm also just as sure that JTL is probably the best game of this kind ever. JTL reminds me of a famous quote by Winston Churchill. "Democracy is the worst form of government known to man... Except for all the others". The same goes for JTL. "JTL is the worst MMPORPG space sim ever... Except for all the others".
No, JTL is not perfect but it will definitely keep me playing SWG 'till the CU.
JTL for me has put the Star Wars in SWG. Last night I was zipping around in my Interceptor with a few of my guild mates attacking a captured shuttle. There were X’s and Y's all over the sector. Space was lit up with the red (and green) hot glow of laser fire. The John Williams soundtrack was playing in my ear... and I thought, "Wow, this feels like Star Wars!” I can count on one hand how many times I've had that same feeling in the past 16 months. Up until now it's just been EQ in Space for me, except we weren't actually in space so I guess it would be more like Alien Karate Bounty Hunters vs. Jedi.
Agree 1137%. JTL is, more or less, Lucas' Star Wars.
Faction Gear. Man I feel so cool running around in my Imperial Pilot outfit and helmet. No, it doesn't provide any kind of protection on its own but who cares? My new armor has Twin Ion Engines! I really hope that after the CU they seriously consider revamping the GCW next. No more Composite...
Now you're talkin! Wait, where's my d@mn Rebel helmet?
Excellent System Performance. I was really worried how a game with so much action would perform over the wire. I am very very surprised at how smooth game play is. I'm constantly getting 30fps especially since there is no terrain in space. Excellent job.
It seems like the more they fiddle with it, the more the ground game regresses for me ping and framerate-wise, but it's been mostly smooth sailing in space so far.
Faster Load Times. I thought that by adding so much code that the game would take forever to load but for some reason mine loads way faster. Not sure how they did this.
The Devs are in tune with the Force, after all those Jedi revamps. Gotta be the only way.
Wide Array of Ships. Personally I would rather there have been more Imp and Rebel ships and NO privateer tree but hey that's just me. Aside from that I am really impressed with how many ships there are at launch. Do I want more? You bet your bofu I do but there are more than enough to get us started. Very well done.
Yup, certainly lots to choose from, and the customization is almost mind blowing. So much to learn, even when you think you have it all figured out. Can't wait to see more chassis styles added in down the road.
Ship Names and Customization. For the love of all that is HOLY I am so glad I can name my ship! I'm an Imp so I really can't customize it but it's so cool to fly by an X-Wing with green flames all over it. Now if we could only name our vehicles...
Another great point.
The Shipwright Profession Rules. I did this for a day or so on Beta and had a great time. I was seriously worried that ships would end up being like vehicles. I'm really happy with how I can customize my ship to make it faster, more deadly, etc. Now only if we had a Vehicle Engineer...
Definitely not your run-of-the-mill crafter profession. I'm seeing non-master stuff better than a lot of master stuff, and unlike guns and armor, there's more than one stat to worry about. You might not be so worried about mass, but I might be. Definitelya market for vastly different versions of the same thing, and all useful to someone.
The Yacht! Yes it takes up a lot. Yes it takes up a slot in your datapad. But to quote that annoying chick from Friends (hey I'm married I was forced to watch it), "OH. MY. Gaaawd!” I almost wept the first time I stood up in my ship and walked around in it as I flew though space looking out the window. I had a post about this in beta as well. I'm a developer by trade and I'm way impressed with the multi-passenger ships in general. Again, you should be able to enable auto-pilot and then walk around. Again, that would rule!
Already named mine The Love Boat.
Grouping. Yes there is a lot about grouping that needs to be fixed but wow is it fun. As mentioned before I was having a real problem with my first Tier 3 mission. Doing that mission by myself was truly miserable... but doing it with my guild mates was awesome. Still way too long of a mission, but awesome.
Remember hunting pickets with 20-man groups, no buffs, and CDEFs? Those were the days. So are these.
Incredible Music and Sound. This is almost cheating for the Devs. You're making a space sim and you just happen to have the musical stylings of John Williams and sound effects of Ben Burt? Yeah, that's not even fair... but it's awesome regardless.
I'm so immersed I could just drown
Travel is a Dream! In my first few days back at launch I remember being chased (and killed) by a pack of wild kreetles while doing a delivery mission for like 300 credits. I remember how pumped I was the first time I booted up a Carrion Spat... then a Swoop. Now I'm hopping around the galaxy in my Interceptor like some kind of yahoo. Way cool.
And now every starport is no-wait like Theed
Combat is actually fun. No more running around spamming stopping shot while some guy punches me and does more damage than my pistol does to him. No more causing more damage to myself than to my enemy by just shooting my weapon. Combat is really really fun. Here's one for all of you. When you get to tier 3 go back to your original trainer and take a duty mission. There's nothing like blasting Tier 1 ships out of space with one shot. Gets old real quick but super-fun for a few minutes.
Yes, when we can no longer kill ourselves by using our own attacks without buffs, ground combat should reall geta kick in the butt as well. Duelled a n00b with my X-Wing and blasted him to oblivion with two shots. I was apologetic (don't know my own strength, as Bullwinkle used to say), but he was thrilled.
Tiers and Content. Yeah, I know some of the missions are bugged. I know that some people hate the tier system. Heck, I hate the tier system at times... but it is good for the game. After I maxed out my template and did the majority of the quests I became really, really bored with the ground game. I all but stopped playing. JTL has given me a reason to join a guild and has given me a reason to actually log into and play a game that I'm paying for each and every month.
I like the tier/ quest-mission unlocking a lot and would like to see something similar to this added on the ground as well.
SOE made a huge gamble by focusing on JTL rather than fixing the problems that they already had. I know that a lot of people were really upset by it including myself. Obviously they were betting that JTL would occupy everyone long enough to give them more time with the CU.
I think time will show the gamble paid off. While we're all out blasting Ties and Black Suns and Rebel terrorists, the devs are at this very moment in their secret laboratory culturing the code for the CU. I'm totally jazzed.
So I guess my question is this. What do you like/dislike about JTL and is it something that will keep you playing until the Combat Upgrade?
rexan wrote:
EV500 wrote:
Nope, the beta was the straw the brole the camels back.
Your missing out. The beta is just that, a beta. The final game is very nice.
From a technical standpoint (art, does it work, does it look good etc...) its fine. But lots of developers can do that (heck I can do that and I normally restrict myself to computational modelling), the balance and content are what matters.
Blizzard (ignoring WoW for the moment), sid meiers, bioware etc... make really good games because they are willing to spend 3 months tweaking and balancing before it gets published after the core technical features work. With SWG the technical stuff worked but like a week and half before launched they pushed a whole bunch of fairly significant balance changes live, and in that regard I'm somewhat suprised (and in truth appauled) that they would release the game in its current state. All of the technical stuff works, but the numbers on a spreadsheet are what balance the gameplay and items and another couple of weeks tweaking numbers on a spreadsheet and tossing out ideas that don't work (like the current implementation of "mass") would have done the game a world of good.