Smuggler Archive
Thread: Just waxing intellectual on the future of SWG...what's YOUR opinion?
Honestly, if I hadn't joined Vode Inya and didn't enjoy being in a guild with them so much, I'ld have quit (again) with the slicing changes. I don't play my namesake and almost 2 year old toon anymore just because it's painful to me. Not that the slicing system is bad, it's actually quite nice, but the loot wh-ring requirements for high end slices... I've never been a loot wh-re. I'll never be a loot wh-re. It's not fun to me. To that end, I'll never even be able to slice my own weapons as good as someone who likes loot wh-ring. That bothers me as a master smuggler. It bothers me alot. Maybe we'll get high end slicing components as rewards for smuggler missions though. That wouldn't be that bad so I'll hope.
As for the jedi, I can't even form coherent thought about them. I always loved jedi. When I was younger, I would pretend to have force powers and go do stupid things (I don't do that anymore... really! It's true, I swear!). When I bought swg, I thought it would be really cool to be a jedi and actually used to read all the theory threads on how you unlocked Jedi but by the time hologrinding came out, I already had a profession I loved (smuggler) and another I was infatuated with (commando) both of which have never ever been what they could be or should be (though commando got closer then smuggler at one point). So I started hologrinding even though grinding is painfully boring in swg which eventually led to me dropping smuggler and commando to become a Pikeman (dot wh-re) and umm... I don't remember the other one (it was that important to me). Then the village was released and I thought, "Hey, I'll be a jedi now! Shouldn't be too hard cause I've been playing for so long and done so much." However, the free fs unlocks were based on how many proffessions you had mastered instead of longevity of character, exploration of the game world, devotion to a profession you love or any other mechanic which would reward long term players instead of short term afkers.
I got 1 free unlock so to be a jedi, I would have to wait another 15 weeks or almost 4 months just to become a padawan. That was a blow to me but hey, as US Marines say, "adapt and survive" so I began the fs quests and discovered they. are. the. most. tedious. and. annoying. quests. EVER. I quit swg shortly after as I couldn't come up with anything to do and the professions I loved kept getting looked over by the devs.
So here I am, back again after about 6 months of not playing swg. I came back just after the quadruple xp was turned off (bummer for me) only to discover the jedi population is insane now while my favored professions are just as bad off as they were (new slicing system for smuggs and combat system for commandos taken into consideration). Combat is definitely more fun since the CU as the micromanagement pre cu was getting out of hand and smuggler got some love (I honestly do love the specials now, especially last ditch though I wish it hit more as a master). Commando is just as bad as it was before though it is different. This makes me look at jedi again and even do a couple quests from the village. Here is the kicker though.
When I hear a lightsaber or forcepower, when I see the robes or saber hilts on a player, I cringe and wish I could morph every jedi into a standard player. This is from a person who has grown up loving jedi, a person who could become a jedi if he so desired (just need two more fs unlocks, one from this phase and one from the next) but a person who no longer has any desire to. All this player wants is for smuggler and commando to be fiixed, smuggler so we can freakin smuggle and commando so they can be on par with the rest of the ranged professions. Honestly, if those two things were done, the entirety of the rest of the player base would have to become jedi before I would quit swg again. However, I think this game will die before those two things happen.
I have no more faith in the devs. Every single design they've come up with has at least had an equal amount of stupidety as good. Most of the publishes have been ambiguous in my eyes, neither good nor bad because it had equality of both. I no longer believe the dev team (though single members of the team may very well be quite capable) has the capability to come up with a good system. Maybe it's not a lack of creativity though. Maybe it's a lack of fortitude to see good ideas through. Whatever the reason, I don't believe the devs can save this game from extinction. SWG is in decline and while it may be a slow decline, it is definitely in decline.
I'll stay as long as Vode Inya is active but when Vode Inya finally cashes in as all guilds eventually do, I will be moving fully to World of Warcraft (I already play that with my best friend. I quite like warlocks and the pvp is hella fun. I'm the bane of all mages).
My synopsis is this: SWG is dieing a slow death and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it because the dev teamhas no backbone.
Jedi are suposed to be underground, there should be some sort of way to keep them this way. Let me state that I don't like to make suggestions about other careers, it is annoying when Jedi and BH come in our forum and complain about what we are doing and how our moves should work... and the same goes with them. I just want to see this game follow the story, if they don't intend to do this... expand and change the universe like Baron said.
As the owner of a Jedi and a Smuggler character, I want to applaud the posts here. Most of the threads here are well thought out and written with minimal "nerf them" and "make me uber" junk. Its a refreshing vacation from 90% ofthe other boards who only think of themselves and not the game as a whole.
I, too, miss the days of 2003. The game was innocent. It was adventurous. Every day I logged on provided some new thrill or some place I had never seen. Every skill was hard earned, and you were proud of even your newly obtained newbie titles. I would reckon every veteran of the game can recall those days and would remember them fondly. Sadly, those days are gone to never return.
As a respectful person, I feel ashamed when I get attacked in public by NPC or PC and have to respond accordingly with my Jedi. I don't want anyone in this game to "lower" or not as well offas me. I extend heartfelt thanks to all professions and what they can provide to our little universe.I do my best to help others, and try equally hard to remain unseen. I want Jedi to remain mystical, but I am afraid its a lost cause. I want any and all professions to fulfill their full potential role, and I am saddened by how the game is altered by whiners and nerf callers.
It seems this is the only forum where thoughts and ideas can be shared without the excessive flammatory remarks. I am not exactly sure why, but it is nonetheless true. Truly mature individuals seem to gravitate here. I have played (actually played) well over half of the professions in this game at one time or another and can't begin to express how happy I was to return to Smuggler.
I hope by seeing both sides of the coin that I may be able to add positive insight and welcome any criticism to my thoughts. In the end, my only true goal is to make this game fun again for all who are playing it.
/salute
Veela... I totally agree, its getting to the point where you can't throw a stone now without hitting 20 Jedi. I see everyone going combat just so they can get Jedi. Crafters are few and far between much like rangers.... and smugglers are starting to full into this hole was well... feels like we're dying breed
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
The CU isn't the problem. I like the CU. Sure, some of the things don't make sense (I have no idea what the heck a pistoleer could do to make someone stop in their tracks for around 10 seconds but still remain fully capable of combat) but as a whole, it did a fairly decent job of balancing out the standard elite professions.
Jedi, however, are. Jedi are a group of people who have been given a reward for playing this game the same way they would any other MMO, by running around and committing genocide on rats, lizards, kittens, and cows.
It has been said that playing Jedi shouldn't be for everyone. Most Jedi would agree with this.
What's my solution? Hire digital actors. Pay them $10 a hour to play the game, create dynamic quests with dynamic quest rewards. Hire, say, a dozen per server. Given the ammount of money SOE is raking in off of subscriptions, this can't put too much of a dent in their wallet. It would also be unprecedented (at least in multi-server RPGs; systems like this are in place on the oldMUSHes, MUDs, otherMU*sand on EVE) and would get player interest way up. When Jorgo the Hutt logs in on Dantooine, crowds of people will be sure to show up and see what they can do for the up-and-coming crime boss. Maybe today Jorgo found out that all of the droideka he ordered as palace guards were faulty, so he wants you to track down the guy that sold them to him, before he starts killing people in a homicidal rage.
As roleplayers with particular skillsets, you'd have a number of options to help out in this.
1.) Say you're an entertainer. You might find it in your best interests to use your skills to try to calm Jorgo down.
2.) Maybe you're a droid engineer. You might consider talking Jorgo into having a look at the droideka. Maybe you could repair some of them for him. Maybe you'll repair them and keep some. Maybe you'll damage them beyond repair. Maybe you repair them and use them to attack Jorgo.
3.) Perhaps you are a bounty hunter. Jorgo can give you a mission for the deadbeat who sold him the faulty droids. You can then go off and try to fulfill your contract before the other 50 bounty hunters do the same. Your probe droid says that the bio signature is on Lok, but from there, some sort of interference is keeping your droids from tracking this particular mark...
4.) You could be a smuggler. You hear from the bounty hunters that the mark is on Lok, and you decide to partner up with one of them. You talk to one of Nym's guys (your smuggler mission contact--He's been programmed with extra dialog optionsjust for today's event)about Jorgo's recent aquisition and eventually figure out that he knows nothing. Great. You intuit that the next most likely place to look would be the cave at the base of Mout Chaolt. You and the bounty hunter assemble a team of adventurers and set out. You battle through some exceptionally powerful droids in the cave at the volcano to find that the mark isn't there. Disappointed, you convince the rest of the group that you're out of luck, but you motion to the ranger to stick around...
5.) The smuggler sliced into the databank and found some information that the droid salesman spends time bathing in one of the sulphur pools nearby.The directions were vague, but you, as a ranger, could probably do a decent job of tracking him, so you set up to pick up the trail. When you find them, the smuggler with you negotiates terms to get him off planet and away from the bounty hunters scouring the planet for him. You call in every combat-capable person in every allied guild you can think of--there's going to be a battle at the starport...
Okay. So where do Jedi fit into this picture? Let's say you're the Droid engineer. In the Digital Actor Diary (DAD) for your server, you have been noted as being a consistantly shifty, funny, and really cool roleplayer. A CSR contacts you and offers to unlock a force sensitive profession for you. You pick senses. When you finish your senses grind, a flag goes up and the server's Jedi Master digital actors come and contact you. It is then that you begin your trials...
Bzzzz wrote:Blizzard didn't create a new category of MMO, they just raised the bar much higher than SOE was willing or ableto match. Their published sales figures and subscriber counts reflect that. All I've ever seen regarding SWG is character-counts, which grossly inflates the number of subscribers at any given point. I'm willing to believe that they'd had decent blips around retail and expansion releases, though.But more importantly, and where I think we agree is that given current trends, the population doesn't have anywhere to go but down. Some hardcore SW fans will happily stay, others will throw their hands up and go Jedi, and the rest will pack it in for MMO #473.-Zz
I never said they created a new category of MMO. I said they created a new category of population. And the only numbers I've seen out of any MMO that are worth looking at are Active Subscribers. And yea, SWG, and ALL (red that, ALL) MMOs, lost about the same number of subscribers, at least proportionally, when WoW came out, but guess what, after that initial loss, which was not very large by any means, all the MMOs plateaud and have remained pretty much steady since then.
Devs won't listen to the numbers. They don't mean jack when it comes down to it, unless you have about 100 other figures to back them up, and have been interpolated and extrapolated into every possible outcome.
everyone can use the numbers to argue their side. That's just the way it works. Numbers are meaningless. No point in discussing them, as the Devs sure as hell aren't going to listen to that.
When it really comes down to it, most economist types that have looked at MMOs believe the market is flooded. The only reason WoW has managed to not yet plateau is because they have attracted A. Blizzard fans in general, and B. Fans of dumbed down, easy to follow systems. Case in point. My cousin, found EQ FAR too complicated to grasp. He is obsessed with WoW.
Raanan wrote:
My synopsis is this: SWG is dieing a slow death and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it because the dev teamhas no backbone.
Axob wrote:
I wonder what stage of management is responsible for this.... SOE or Lucas Arts....
My money is on SOE
I'm just coming back to this game after not playing since late 2003. Since then, I've played PlanetSide, City of Heroes, America's Army, and for the past 8 months, World of Warcraft all with sequential but equal intensity. I loved this game back in the fall of 2003 when I started playing it. It sucked up a lot of time and needed a lot of work, but I figured I'd give it time until Sony unscrewed the combat, PvP, and Jedi system.
So here I am.
The Combat Update is over. I got some nifty decorations from Sony for logging in for the first time in a billion years. I got to respec my character. Whoah -- space looks great...
...and standing over there is EddieMoney the Jedi Padawan. (W.T.F.)
...and look, there's 6 Jedi in a melee royale outside the Theed Starport.
The Jedi population and overall Jedi aspect of this game is broken. That's the bad news.
The good news is that this thread has to be the single most concentrated collection of coherent, well-spoken, literate, and cool game forum posts in the history of the net. Seriously, coming back from World of Warcraft (and the associated forums) and reading this thread, I feel like I just graduated third grade and just found myself in a Master's Program on internet game discourse.
Even if the Smuggler profession wasn't my favorite, this thread would have single-handedly justified my in-game career choice. You guys rock, and can all see the writing on the wall. If this game is the Titanic, the liferaft with all the Smugglers will undoubtedly be the coolest.
Now bring on the Empire to clean house and blast the Jedi back into line with the lore. If you aren't a hermit on Tatooine or an ugly green thing in a remote swamp, you should be fearing for your life with every freakin step you take.
Ternque01 wrote:
Raanan wrote:
My synopsis is this: SWG is dieing a slow death and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it because the dev teamhas no backbone.
Excellent statement. I wonder what stage of management is responsible for this.... SOE or Lucas Arts.... The master or the apprentice?
Okay, I don't say this often, but I'm actually leaning towards LA.
Evidence for this conclusion:
- SOE at least has some interaction with the players.
- LA devs, when they do speak to the press, speak as if they have NO concept of what's even going on in game, let alone what players want.
- LA is supposed to have final say, and also, can come in and say, "do this" with anything and everything dealing with the game.
Therefore I conclude that it is probably MOSTLY (but maybe not all) the doing of LA, particularly some evil troll in marketing.