Smuggler Archive

Saw an interesting item on the "Items and Loot" forum about the comunication between UO and it's player base Check here before it gets deleted

Would you trust any answer the would give?

Seriously..

The only reason we really have to hope for a smuggling system of any sort, is that it would provide content to Bounty Hunters.

There is only one golden rule in SWG.

The only two professions that matter are Bounty Hunter and Jedi. The rest are a fringe element, there aren't even enough of them compared to Jedi and BH/Ranged/CM hybrids to justify any significant degree of attention UNLESS it adds to the BH/Jedi experience. Just ignore them, use correspondents to distract, defuse, devoice and further marginalize the more vocal among them, should things erupt for some reason or another.

(Oh, and let me emphasize, I am not saying the correspondents are deliberately serving this role, but rather that, alas, that is how they are ultimately being used by the game developers. Anyone have a link to Koster's essay/slideshow presentation on community relations? You can really see it in operation in all of its Orwellian ugliness here in the SWG community..)

Message Edited by Ciridian on 07-21-2005 05:51 PM

Message Edited by GoldMemberBria on 07-21-2005 05:50 PM

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GoldMemberBria wrote:

I agree with you Angus, but here is the thing...

Suppose Tiggs and TH were great communicators. Suppose they had exceptional knowledge of all things going on behind the scenes in development. So two months ago they came out and disclosed it all:

"We've got a lot of new bugs going into the upcoming publishes for you guys! we're going to screw up slicing so that smugglers are nothing more then "slice monkeys" for the loot campers, we're going to screw up crafting experimentation, we're going to screw up armor, and bio-clothing, and droids, and pets, and commando AOE attacks, and we're working hard to push all these things live just as fast as we can for you guys".

Would you be any happier that you had advanced knowledge of these things? Would it make you more satisfied if they told you the truth as to why they are not working to fix the bugs and why they are devoting 99% of their attention on Jedi and BH?

Seriously, to me communication is terrible, yes, that's true. When things are pushed through and the correspondents have no clue about them until they hit TC or go live, and there is no documentation, and community feedback has been ignored, that's really bad. But what is much worse is what's apparently going on behind the scenes. Whether or not they've communicated well with us, the fact remains that the game has gotten much worse to play over the last few months. I don't think there are many people who would claim otherwise. And that seems to be perfectly fine with those making these changes.

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Well, if anything, it would have saved me two months of subscription fees.

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AngusMacGregor wrote:

It amazes me how you've made posts somewhat recently saying thatyou are going to improve communication with the playerbase, and then it gets worse than ever.

Communication with the playerbase doesn't mean replying to people whining about their forum ranks, and ignoring all the professions who are having major problems.

Communication with the playerbase doesn't mean posting about Player Events and not much of anything else. Most of us would much rather hear about bugs that are getting fixed or how the scheduling is going on promised content. (ie. Smuggling missions)

Communication with the playerbase doesn't mean posting big smilies in threads just because they have your name in the title.

And mostly, communication with the playerbase doesn't mean not acknowledging major bugs in a "feature" that you've put in the game. (ie Slicing)

You've got people who have "Community Relations" in their title who do absolutely nothing to relate to the community in any real, meaningful way.Are they not doing their jobs, or are they told not to talk to us about most things? In either case, I would think that their positions are unneeded. Hire someone who will actually talk to us. It's gone past ridiculous and gone straight into outrageous.

I have little doubt that this thread will be unseen by you, because you'd actually have to come here to see it. However, I just got back from being banned for trying to get your attention in another forum. Nice customer relations, huh?

I can't help but put all of the blame on you, our SWG Dev Team, because I look at the EQ2 forums, and it seems likethat Dev Team, also SOE,has no problems with Community Relations in comparison.

Prove me wrong. I dare you. But don't blame me if I don't hold my breath.

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/QFE

the down side is that the rumor is city of villians is going to be a seperate game not an expansion so they are going to collect an additional $15/mo if you wish to play it.

as far as SOE goes... what I dont get is why is the customer service and dev team just a-holes in this game and yet in EQ2 you have to do a double take to wonder if its the same company.

you know in EQ2 you can have 6 toons on the same server?

did you also know that those that have station pass get that number extended to 10 toons and all the 'adventure packs' which are like expansions are free?

yet here is SOE in SWG stuck with nothing but jedi grinders killing the game, not giving anyone else an extra character even tho the jedi extra character has long been non-justified ever since the removal of perma-death.

we cant even get a SECOND toon on the same galaxy here. And I definitely dont want to hear any of that working as a team not stepping on other peoples toes crap because they specifically created jedi (some 45% of the population now btw) to be so non-interdependant that any interdependancy discussion is so out the window any dev trying to use it just looks like a big fat hypocrite.

What I think EEMAN wrote especially good is the part about the second character. Why do the Alpha-Class-Players ("Jedi") get that extra bonus?

oh they've been communicating, their little patch note, TT, FF, and maintenance drivel they always "communicate" to us.

Oh, you meant REAL communication. Sorry, this past week's "communication" has been devoted entirely to Jedi Hunting issues.

Out of depression I started playing EQ2 as well, although i hate elves slightly more than Jedi.
It's a shallow but fun game.
The thing is the CS is much better (partly because its a much more straight forward game)

Look at the Patch notes from wednesday and compare them to ours from Tuesday.

EQ2 - not that i care as much but, it's a perfect Publish

New Content
New Functionality (a lot)
UI Improvements (a lot)
Story Event - which will leave a high content zone in-game after it's through
Very few bug fixes - cause the game has almost none - they must be there but they don't bother me at all.

SWG
All bug fixes
and Balancing
New Bugs on seemingly unrelated Systems
No New Content

Same company??

About multiple Characters - it's not a service its a game design decision - single Char in SWG being is vital to the economy - (Jedi shouldnt even get Lots but should have to share them with the second character)
But since it seems the economy isn't of any interest to the Producers anymore, you are probably right.

Magnum

TIGGS/TH watch 7/21

TIGGS
online Time 7/21: about 30 minutes
Posts: 1 (standard bug-report-insult)

TH
online Time 7/21: 0 minutes
Posts: 0
Last Post two days ago was DEVbumping the playerevents - you know thats where PLAYERS make content, so the producers don't have to.

So much for we read the Forums all the time.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING ALL DAY?

Magnum

Message Edited by magnum1138 on 07-22-2005 03:47 AM

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AngusMacGregor wrote:

Well, if anything, it would have saved me two months of subscription fees.

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