Pistoleer Archive
Thread: What were the Devs thinking
Page 1 of 2
JBadaboom
Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:40 am
#1
Okay I was wondering if the devs ever took a business class or even know who there primary customers are. Now this post is not just for pistoleers but I am a master pistoleer and hav enot figured out how to send this to all the other forums. Now with most profesions being broken from day 1 and jedis being rather new I was wondering why them first. The big problem is that the majority of people are nto jedi. The jedi do not keep the game funtioning. They are just a reward for countless and mindless hours of grinding. But the weaponsmiths, armorsmiths, chefs, pistoleers, rifleman.......and so on make up the back bone of the game. So with the two jedi revamps coming up I was trying to figure out what the devs were thinking. Basic business tells you to target the majority of the minority. If you have 3 people asking for a nissan and 100 asking for a ford at your car dealership, you go buy some damn fords. It is that simple. I belive that the game will not last till the jump to lightspeed expansion. With the combat rebalance not slated untill after august I think the amount of players will leave before it even comes out. Why is that? well the fact that several new games are coming out that threaten this game big time. The two big ones is Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft. I am not sure how well Everquest 2 is doing but from all that I have read about WoW it is ready to be launched now and it is still in beta. Let us not forget the other dangers to this game looming over head in Halo 2 and Halflife 2. The devs may have just singed swg to an early demise or at least a game with 2,000 jedis per server and nothing else 
. I enjoy this game but I have to face facts and say that when WoW comes out I will be heading there unless the combat Balance is awesome and comes out before.
Feorwoar Athe
Phoenix Flame Warrior
Master Pistoleer
BH pistols
. I enjoy this game but I have to face facts and say that when WoW comes out I will be heading there unless the combat Balance is awesome and comes out before.Feorwoar Athe
Phoenix Flame Warrior
Master Pistoleer
BH pistols
MetallicaJunkie
Fri Jun 11, 2004 6:00 am
#2
/agree
I must say though, if you post this anywhere else, best to keep it off the jedi forum. Those guys really don't like it when we point out they're not supposed to be here. I mean hell, the reason they need fixing now is because they were never fully coded to begin with, their code was dropped halfway through when the devs decided that player jedi was a bad idea.
At the moment all jedi place themselves top. They're more important and come first above the other players, despite the fact that almost half the jedi on most servers aren't currently played by the people that unlock 
Plus, the devs see the jedi as better and more loyal customers as they've obviously put more time into the game than us, yeah, of course devs...
Plus, the devs see the jedi as better and more loyal customers as they've obviously put more time into the game than us, yeah, of course devs...The devs made a business decision many months ago to activate the redundant jedi coding and make a few random players into jedi and install this grinding system which has kept many subscriptions paid, the jedi revamp is not really to fix jedi, but to allow a chance for those of us that didn't grind to get our jedi, which they really as a good business move as after all, we couldn't have Star Wars game without jedi everywhere...
I fear that the combat balance delays in favour of jedi revamps will be the /deathblow to this game, though many will not move to Everquest2 (still SoE) or World of Warcraft (because it's crap :smileyvery-happy
but rather City of Heroes, just for a nice change and to play something a little different.
but rather City of Heroes, just for a nice change and to play something a little different.Those are my thoughts anyway. The jedi/grinders among you may now flame away
ratlif
Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:52 pm
#4
CoH? lol thats a laugh, after a month your like ..duh....that game is boring.
I think they need to stop adding all this crap to the game and fix what is broken.
YAY cater to 10% of the population in jedi... while the rest of the broke professions have to wait... and wait... and wait...
Think about it, once the jedi revamp comes....expect 2 more patches to fix that...then the combat balance...great...how well will the combat balance work when there are combat professions that don't work period because of broken specials?
Then about 2 patches to fix the rebalance...then guess what? JTS... after that is settled in, then they will go back to fixing all the professions?
Thats id say a good year later?
This game has gone back into beta. Jedi = redone completely combat = redone completely professions=being redone... add that all up, and this game will look nothing like it was when it went live.
I think they need to stop adding all this crap to the game and fix what is broken.
YAY cater to 10% of the population in jedi... while the rest of the broke professions have to wait... and wait... and wait...
Think about it, once the jedi revamp comes....expect 2 more patches to fix that...then the combat balance...great...how well will the combat balance work when there are combat professions that don't work period because of broken specials?
Then about 2 patches to fix the rebalance...then guess what? JTS... after that is settled in, then they will go back to fixing all the professions?
Thats id say a good year later?
This game has gone back into beta. Jedi = redone completely combat = redone completely professions=being redone... add that all up, and this game will look nothing like it was when it went live.
BZebub
Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:43 pm
#5
iagree as well. i can't believe they're gonna fix jedi in 2 publishes and "every other profession that affects combat" in one publish.
Randonb
Fri Jun 11, 2004 6:49 pm
#6
It's not my job to defend development decisions, and I'm not going to try. There is one element that is missing from these threads, and that is the following:
The jedi publishes weren't given priority soley for the benefit of jedi and maintaining jedi-wannabe accounts. I'm sure it was a factor, but there is more to it. Pretty much everybody hates the hologrind, even non-hologrinders. Head on over to the entertainer forums and see how they are coping. They're miserable. It's a little hard to understand for us combat-types, but those socializers over there are in agony. I don't get it either, but they are. It also isn't any fun when you want to hunt with your friend, but you can't because he/she is hologrinding. 
That said, I personally think the Combat Balance should have taken top priority anyway.
So does most of the community according to a forum poll done a month ortwo ago (coming in 2nd after JtL, anyway). So the reason for scheduling it this way was probably internal. Perhaps they were getting a lot of jedi stuff in the form people fill out upon cancelling an account, or they decided the hologrind was worse for the health of the game than some of the players would like to believe. I don't know what they were thinking, I'm only speculating.
I just wanted to remind people that there is going to be some non-jedi benefit from the jedi publishes. Trying to find the silver lining isn't necessarily popular, but it can make life a little happier. If it's any consolation, I heard that the "sandbox" that the CB will be testing in (consider it a TC3, for only a handful of carefully selected players) should go up at the same time as Publish 10. What's more, I'll be there, and reporting back whatever they let me.
biwan:
BZebub
Fri Jun 11, 2004 7:10 pm
#7
you are right about that, randon. just from an outside perspective, it seems totally screwed up. you can't judge the devs until you've been in their shoes...
i'll be very happy to be rid of the hologrind, but we all know it was something that shouldn't have been implemented from the start.
i do feel very sorry for the entertainers. at least we get to see a different sight every now and then, get killed by new and interesting enemies...
anyways, there's nothing we can really do at this point. of course, they are still "reviewing the schedule"......?
Rockweaver
Fri Jun 11, 2004 7:23 pm
#8
If you were an Entertainer, you were one of six or more per Cantina, would you be happy if suddenly 30 people showed up, setup macros with "Please Heal me and Pay me!!!!1" and stood in the entry way distracting people from the entertainment you actually wanted to provide? You'd be irked too.
I agree that getting rid of the Hologrind was priority #1. People were playing the game for the wrong reason, and the system practically ENCOURAGED cheating and exploiting to get through it quicker. So this was a smart move by the devs to help get rid of those ideals.
I just think we need to take Publish 9-11 as One Big Push, to get the game up to the standards that we expect. The Devs were Naive in many ways, but they have learned a great deal. A game of this scale has never been attempted before, and I feel that in 2005 we're really going to be having the time of our digital lives.
I agree that getting rid of the Hologrind was priority #1. People were playing the game for the wrong reason, and the system practically ENCOURAGED cheating and exploiting to get through it quicker. So this was a smart move by the devs to help get rid of those ideals.
I just think we need to take Publish 9-11 as One Big Push, to get the game up to the standards that we expect. The Devs were Naive in many ways, but they have learned a great deal. A game of this scale has never been attempted before, and I feel that in 2005 we're really going to be having the time of our digital lives.
TheWok
Fri Jun 11, 2004 10:24 pm
#9
Randonb wrote:
The jedi publishes weren't given priority soley for the benefit of jedi and maintaining jedi-wannabe accounts. I'm sure it was a factor, but there is more to it. Pretty much everybody hates the hologrind, even non-hologrinders. Head on over to the entertainer forums and see how they are coping. They're miserable. It's a little hard to understand for us combat-types, but those socializers over there are in agony. I don't get it either, but they are. It also isn't any fun when you want to hunt with your friend, but you can't because he/she is hologrinding.
No problem there. Remove hologrinding, put in the quests, move along to other issues. Come back later after the combat balance and the numerous needed profession revamps (smuggler, squad leader...the list goes on) and THEN do the Jedi revamp.
Hologrinding problem taken care of, people can still become Jedi, and everyone gets their professions fixed/finished/revamped much, much sooner.
Personally, I despise what hologrinding did to the economy. But I'd rather live with the hologrinding and see the combat balance sooner. I don't think I'm the only one either.
As it is, we've lost hologrinding, which is wholly a good thing. But this Jedi revamp should not be anywhere close to priority one.
Katana_Blade
Fri Jun 11, 2004 10:57 pm
#10
Randon, I have a problem with what you just said. in Your first paragraph you made it sound like EVERYONE is hologrinding. first of all I'd say a majority of players are trying to play their professions just because they like them. Not because "when they master they will unlock their FS slot." Or at least I'd like to believe thats the way it is. Maybe I'm just naiive. I play pistoleer because I enjoy pistols. I'm not going up the pistoleer tree because its part of my hologrind (which I, personally, refuse to do.)
On a second not. Dont you think itd be a good idea to fix the professions people have to grind to become a jedi before fixing jedi. Whats worse then grinding a profession? Grinding a broken profession. (Granted after pub 10 there will be no more holo grinding this was just ironic and I wanted to point it out.)
On a second not. Dont you think itd be a good idea to fix the professions people have to grind to become a jedi before fixing jedi. Whats worse then grinding a profession? Grinding a broken profession. (Granted after pub 10 there will be no more holo grinding this was just ironic and I wanted to point it out.)
Randonb
Sat Jun 12, 2004 3:47 pm
#11
I'm not sure what I was getting at came across clearly enough. Of course not everyone is hologrinding - it's an itty bitty percentage (part of the reason for that is that we all know it is going away). Yet at the same time, a few people hologrinding does affect the people around them. That's the point I was getting at - that everybody benefits from the hologrind disappearing, though admittedly not as much as having working attacks. I want to disrupt this self-destructive attitude that "this publish is 100% worthless, and this publish is the only one I care about, even a little bit."
Of course the CB is important. If I may say so, I'm pissed off that it has taken so **edit**inglong. On the bright side, if half as much effort goes into it as is going into this jedi stuff, we could be in for a great publish.
And while it's no laughing matter, reading your post put this amusing image in my head.. flying my YT-1300 with a bumper sticker on the back that reads:
What's worse than grinding a profession?
Grinding a broken profession.
As a matter of fact, somebody should put that in their signature. I think that would be a riot.
Message Edited by Randonb on 06-12-2004 05:50 PM
SunLao
Sun Jun 20, 2004 6:31 pm
#12
I'm not having a lot of luck with the search on these forums. Can someone point me toward the last official "red-name" post or announcement that says when the mythical Combat Balance will be in game?
- Shooting pistols in SWG since June 26 27, 2003 -
PoilDeCarotte
Mon Jun 21, 2004 3:05 am
#13
SunLao wrote:
I'm not having a lot of luck with the search on these forums. Can someone point me toward the last official "red-name" post or announcement that says when the mythical Combat Balance will be in game?
- Shooting pistols in SWG since June2627, 2003 -
Is sheduled for Publish 11.
Publish 9: 22nd june (normally).
About 6 weeks later, Pub 10 (so, it would be beginning of August).
So, I do not expect Publish 11 before middle - end of September...
Page 1 of 2