Ranger Archive
Thread: To Calculus and all my fellow Rangers
I was originally going to send this as a PM to Calc only, but what the heck
/tar Submit Post button
/click target
/burstrun for water to put out flames
Hello Calculus,
First wanted to say it is a pleasure to have a great place to chat like this forum, and you as a correspondent.
I just wanted to bring to light my feelings on the current state of the Ranger forum regulars and the profession. The Ranger group has done an outstanding job of collecting lots of information and ideas, i.e. Outdoorsman and Modular Traps. It is quite apparent to my that a some of the "Old Timers" on the forum have a mind set of "we did this already".
I feel that if we take that stance, and not continue to look at the profession and ideas the Dev's and many new Rangers who come to the forums will either ignore us or choose another profession. I am not saying that we throw out what has been done, or trying to imply that you have not done a great job or should stop being our representative or that we should be a **edit** disturbing group.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but much has changes in the last 6 or more months, I know because I had quit the game in December. I am not referring to change for the better but change in systems and how other professions interact with each other. I know they have been modified some along the way but the latest version of the Outdoorsman is dated 01/18/04, the stealth was started on 3/30/04 and looks highly iffy to be implemented, and the traps posts I can not easily find. Some of the Old Timers do not look very favorable on people posting new ideas or ones that have buried for a time. I for one find it very concerning and feel that if this continues the profession will be stagnant for years to come. I think we need to keep looking at ideas, at least every 3 months, the major ideas. I also feel we need to push TH and the Dev's for some direction even more today then actual changes to be done in the next few month. Without some direction in what they want Rangers to be how can we even comment on the GCW stuff or CB.
I do not want to post this in the open, the result of that would probably spell my end of even checking this forum from the resulting comments that would be made.
I agree Monsofo. I have been toying with the idea ofmoving the SOTP, Dev Feedback, and Outdoorsman threads in the Ranger Links thread. I think they are outdated, and while they have good ideas, we need to work on keeping things fresh, not just pointing to old threads and saying "that's what we want." We can certainly still reference those threads, but it seems that basing our requests on those threads only accounts for the old Ranger's feelings, and not the new.
/duck!
i'm glad you posted this monsofo, rather than just sending it to calc...
it really agitates me when people are too critical of a post, whether it be an idea or aquestion... i can only hope i never fall into that...
i'm hardly an "old-timer" when it comes to posting on these forums, but i can see how it might appear that way to someone new... i do, from time to time, post links todiscussions (usualless than a weekfrom the last posting)when an idea has alreadybeen the source of much cogitation... my thought is that the discussion is still valid, and that the person posting their ideas can get an idea of what stage the discussion is in... i'm definitely not trying to silence or frighten away any newcomers... i really hope that is not the affect it has...
in the past i've tried summing things up, but i invariably miss a point or two, and i hate not giving the right people credit... is there a better way to go about this that i'm missing?
.... You are too tired to burst run ....
So I guess I will have to walk back to this thread. Kago, I don't know if there is a better way from what you have been doing. It is a good idea to direct people to the current discussion thread about ideas that are brought up. The main problemto me is the fact that way too many of those threads arefar too old IMHO. Like I said we don'd need to scrap them, but if you really take a good hard look at many of the ideas from the original threads (and so many thanks to Nraas for putting that together) a lot of the stuff is a little too outdated for current game mechanics. I can't speak for the authors but I can guess that they might even possibly agree.
Ifeel we need to revisit a discussion on the ideas, and for pete's sale not every week, or even every month, or even every 2 months. But much of the basis for the complacency of the proffesion IMHO is the fact that our major "revamp" idea is going on 6 months old, and dont think for a second the Dev's and TH don't notice that.
Please understand when you read my first post, it was originally intended as a pm to Calc. Just before sending it to him, I said what the heck (copy and paste then take a chance). The point I can make to every Ranger is this game evolved so quickly, not alway for the better, that it is very hard to have an up-to-date manual let alone not look at major stuff like a revamp any less than 3 or 4 times a year when a profession is in such dire need of one.
I chose to come back to SWG for 2 reasons, an IRL friend begged me to rejoin caused he missed my humor, good nature, and 800,000cr tips (well ok I had a few drinks that night) AND because Ranger is what I wanted to be after I made my money as a Master Doc due almost completely to the wonderfull Rangers I had met in game. Thanks (so far) for proving me right.
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
/duck!
PS.
/ta Calculus;
/rescue;
I should probably hot key that in this thread
We get scattered information and rumors, vague promises, and not much else.
When we took the initiative regarding where we wanted Ranger to go, we provided the outdoorsman. And nothing yet.
Ideas, new and old, good and bad as long as they point to our common goal, are productive.
SHAW wrote:I totally agree with you Mansofo. I know I am one of the newer members of this forum, but I have taken alot of time to read most of the proposals that have been made, and other than the stealth discussions none of the older ones have really been updated recently. I feel that many of the old timers now have the wait and see attitude, and while I can understand why this is happening, I think we must realize that since we have a good deal of time to wait we need to make sure that we refine and improve what we have on the table. We need to show the Devs that what we want is REALLY IMPORTANT TO US!!!, and that we are willing to wait but they better be willing to listen when the time comes. I know that most rangers who write on this forum pride themselves on being cooperative and patient, but we have to remember that complacentness often looks like laziness. I know my views to some look pretty radical, but we all share this view, the ranger profession needs work. I personally want to see us get what we want when it is our turn.WKD is the Clan fo' ME!!!
I agree Shaw, with one caveat. We used to be you. Click on Fred's name, click on see all posts, click back to October, and you will see yourself. Wait 5 months, and you will be us.
I do agree with the new idea point, but please don't say the onld ideas are outdated. (wince) Do you know how many months of work have been spent polishing those ideas? When in 5 months people start saying that about your ideea then you'll be forgiven for grumbling a bit hehe.
"complacentness often looks like laziness."
Ouch.
"I know my views to some look pretty radical"
Not at all, you are talking about the PvP aspect right? That has always been very strongly pushed. We have some RL Rangers in here (or we did) and I think and they certainly want to see Ranger reflect more of those skills. We pushed these PvP concepts so hard in fact that the developers came back to us and basically said: No PvP. You are the ultimate creature profession. THAT created an uproar and a TON of discussion. The distillation of all those discussions (months of them) was the Outdoorsman proposal - a way to convince the devs that we could have a greater role in PvP support while still staying true to their vision for us. That's why we keep sending you there.
I do agree with you however that we need to keep the discussions going hot and heavy. I wish we knew when the developers were actually going to peek in our forum so we could errupt in a passionate storm of ideas. It's hard to keep up a storm like that for 11 months lol. And one thing I think most of us are afraid of is that when someone posts an idea, like farms, and we don't say "Look here" a developer might read that post and only see that one person's idea, and not know to look at the posts that contain the other 50 ranger's points of view. We don't want them to look at the idea either and think that only one person likes that idea just because the other people havn't bothered posting the same response to it for the 10th, 20th, or 50th time. A lot of people, including me, LOVE the idea of traps in PvP. But posting my same viewpoint on the subject every week gets tiring. I'd rather talk about my repeated and failed attempts to find the Gorax. Damn him.
However, that mean that if the devs look into our forum they will never see my viewpoint unless they are directed to the older posts. So it is not just you we are directing to the old posts, it is anyone who reads your post. Hopefully someone with the power to make all our dreams come true! 
There are certain posts that really dig into the wounds, so just be aware of them lol. Any posts that repeat the ideas that Holocron promised us in the "Ranger feedback" thread are usually flamed because 1. the person didn't even bother to read the red name sticky and 2. We were supposed to get this 8 MONTHS AGO and we are NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT! Or at least that is how I feel about those posts. Lure traps, Bearclaw traps, Hunting blinds that don't disband in combat... Gah! Okay, I'm over it.
One more point for the "self-proclaimed noob." No one who has reached novice Ranger (actually no one who has reached Master Scout, also a great profession) can be considered a noob. not even a self-proclaimed one.
sorry. You are now a respected member of a community, and ALL your ideas count. When we are grumpy with you (or any Ranger) it is like being grumpy to a sibling. We may flame but always with underlying love, affection, and respect.Edited for lack of page breaks. AUUUGG! MY EYES!
Message Edited by Vorpaks on 06-11-2004 07:55 AM
. Also, keep in mind that GM isn't the Ranger dev right now (who is,I don't know). GM is a JTL dev.