Smuggler Archive
Thread: Well guys.. we get shafted again..
Eavik wrote:
I don't know...I'm starting to think postponing...err, I mean moving smuggling missions out to a long term implementation might be a good thing right now.
Look at what they are doing for bounty hunters. They decided to add a little content to the NPC bounty missions by making the marks harder to kill and have them drop better loot. What kind of loot? Premium crystals and lightsaber clothing attachments of course.
At this point - I just have to laugh. How can anybody sit around and think this is a smart idea? "Well, we've screwed it up so much that no BH really wants to go through the hassle of hunting Jedi anymore, so lets make the NPC missions more fun. I know! How about if the drop really cool items...that they can't use themselves...but can sell...to the Jedi they were supposed to be killing...who will now be even harder to kill with all this great loot."
I would hate to see what they would come up with forour smuggling missions. "Go talk to Luke Skywalker and smuggle a crate of Jedi Robes!"...maybe if they keep putting us off, they'll finally hire somebody that has a clue. Bah, who am I kidding.
That not exactly how it happened with the BH Master marks..
Blixtev played BH and decided the Master Marks ARE LAME.. so he went into his office on a weekend and changed it and put some nice loot on them too. Do we have a Dev or any other Red Name playing actualy a smuggler who can say: Wow.. this islame!
I highly doubt it.
Dont get me wrong i all in for Bug fixes.. but to say we not going to put in new content for the next publishes, and then announce BH Master Mission upgrade, Valerian Missions revamp and House packaging is plain and simple... wrong.
Further more, i n my opinion our small riot and Tiggs flaming is not mainly coz we got postponed.. ehm.. put on a longer term implemantion.. its coz the non extistant communication and that Tiggs triedto play some fancy word games with us. She might had forgoten that we arent 13 years with a glow stick. Many members of the SMugglers community are definatly somewhat older and know the difference between baby talk and a discussion.
Message Edited by Thomen on 07-28-2005 09:11 PM
Message Edited by Thomen on 07-28-2005 10:31 PM
TashunkaSapa wrote:
Taln2 wrote:
That was more of a problem of the guys at Blizzard sorely underestimating just how popular WoW was going to be, and amazingly enough, they didn't lose much momentum even during that fiasco. Hell, how many games ever have to be pulled from the shelves for a few weeks just to contain the popularity? WoW did!
I'm sorry - anyone who buys that line is naive. Blizzard made 300,000 copies, they ought to have expected to have that many players. Companies don't make product they don't intend to sell. At any rate, if the unexpected response was an issue, why did they ship another 300,000 copies before they decided to suspend further production?
And if it was a case of unexpected response... that also means unexpected income - which should have been used to improve the server infrastructure. But they were clearly pinching pennies. Adding more servers didn't solve the problem, so that excuse was gone.
Sure, marketing might've stepped in pre-emptively, but it was a christmasseason release and demand surged dramatically especially after the game got golden reviews. It's becamelike the "cabbage patch kids" or "tickle me elmo" of the gaming industry. They made enough in what time they had, sure, but they sorely underestimated how well it would sell in the US - that's an important distinction because the US is not very big into MMOGs. So, yes, they contributed more resources to the Asian markets because they knew the MMOG would sell better there (as it historically has, and continues to as WoW broke about1.7 million+ customers in Korea and China combined).
But two facts remain. First,the woes created by thatproblem were ultimately resolved in about a month. And secondly, it didn't slow the game's momentum down a bit - Blizzard recently posted that they're up to 3.5 million subscribers worldwide, the vast majority of which are likely single players (no need to buy second accounts since one account can hold many characters). SWG, OTOH, has 250k subscribers worldwide and a majority of those are multiple account holders.
Yeah, there's a pretty big difference, I would say.
Eavik wrote:
Look at what they are doing for bounty hunters. They decided to add a little content to the NPC bounty missions by making the marks harder to kill and have them drop better loot. What kind of loot? Premium crystals and lightsaber clothing attachments of course.
Shaan'ti Hokai (Kauri) 
Taln2 wrote:
But two facts remain. First,the woes created by thatproblem were ultimately resolved in about a month.
That's not a fact - because four months after launch, there were still those problems. That's why they kept issuing comp days, and that's why I quit.
Do you think I'd have quit WoW to come back to SWG if WoW was truly being run better? Sure, SWG still has problems - but WoW's just as bad, if not worse because they have no excuse. Sorry, but "victims of their own success" doesn't cut it for me. Hire better/more staff, upgrade the systems, do whatever's necessary - money shouldn't be an issue to Blizzard.
As for those who say "Well SWG was like that in the early months, too"... consider this - Look at all the things SWG still needs to fix. If WoW started out the same, and has Community Staff that's just as apathetic and server teams that are even more incompetent, what makes you think WoW will be any different in two years than we are now?
I can't remember the last time SWG was down for as long as WoW is every Tuesday - and their scheduled maintenance still doesn't seem to prevent a lot of unscheduled downtime.
Sorry, maybe you like it that way - but it's not for me, and you cant ignore that things are as I described them. I don't care how many subscribers they have, it's no indication of quality (look at AOL, anyone with a shred of computer knowledge considers them a joke but they're still the #1 ISP). If anything, more subscribers = more money = LESS reason to have an excuse for failing to deliver.
How many subsrciber had SWG the year after launch? alot more then they do now, i bet. Ánd they found excuses for NOT delivering what they promised. it will never be different. I m not saying WOW is better.. Blizz is to incompetent to write proper netcode that wont RESET my WLAN Router.
TashunkaSapa wrote:
If anything, more subscribers = more money = LESS reason to have an excuse for failing to deliver.
Message Edited by Thomen on 07-28-2005 11:39 PM
TashunkaSapa wrote:
Do you think I'd have quit WoW to come back to SWG if WoW was truly being run better? Sure, SWG still has problems - but WoW's just as bad, if not worse because they have no excuse. Sorry, but "victims of their own success" doesn't cut it for me. Hire better/more staff, upgrade the systems, do whatever's necessary - money shouldn't be an issue to Blizzard.
If anything, more subscribers = more money = LESS reason to have an excuse for failing to deliver.
Well in a perfect world that might be true, but "more money" doesn't always equate to perfect results, even in the best of circumstances. If SOE is not proof enough of that for yourtastes, then Ineed not point any further than Microsoft to prove that point wholeheartedly. At any rate I'm not saying Blizzard is necessarilyperfect, just that if they were as bad as SOE is, they would most definitely not be selling as many copies and unique subscriptionsas they currently are.
I'd love to continue this debate but I fear I have to cut it off here, since I'm becoming increasingly worried that the thread will get deleted or locked for talk of "politics." Meh.
So to add to the original post.. um.. down with Tiggs! yarr.