Smuggler Archive
Thread: The events of the last 3 days have been intresting.
Makris wrote:
I think there are too many Star Wars nerdsthat willkeep this thing alive. You get a development license from Lucas Arts? Instant cash. Andthere's too much of fan base to kill it. The only thing that would kill it is Lucas Arts. It all depends on what's in the fine print.
The trick for them is to reel in the non-SW Nerds. That's where marketing comes in. That's also where the license holder dictates what can go where. Jedi sells. The time we live IRL is EP I - III which is Jedi centralized. The young gamers want to be Jedi.
The good news is the Jedi character is pretty much complete (other than FRS - which is developed).
EDIT: /slap the speller
Message Edited by Makris on 08-11-2005 06:10 PM
You are absolutely right. Lucas License means extra cash. And that is where the people in charge stop thinking. They find a spring spouting money but no one ever thinks to dig into the well that lies beneath it.
Makris wrote:
I think there are too many Star Wars nerdsthat willkeep this thing alive. You get a development license from Lucas Arts? Instant cash. Andthere's too much of fan base to kill it. The only thing that would kill it is Lucas Arts. It all depends on what's in the fine print.
Right, but.. consider the facts here.
* Star Wars is a social phenomena with tens of millions of fans worldwide.
* SWG is currently clocked at 255k unique accounts, down from it's all time peak of around 400k subscribers.
* If you assume that every main has one secondary account, cut that 255k number in halfto get the actual number of individual account holders. And so on.
So obviously, this game is hurting, and that train of logic just isn't working. Sure, new accounts roll in, but people quit as well, rendering the gains null and void.
Makris wrote:
Again, I say prove it. If you can show me update or publish notes that says "We'd like to apologize to/thank the community for complaining and whining. We had no idea you had it that bad. We are now delivering (delivered content)" I may agree with you. Hopefully there's very little chance that we can find such notes.
It is a simple principle of logic that one cannot prove a negative supposition. We don't need to "prove" anything here, you're the one who is claiming that the "Shiny Happy People" approach will work - when there are many here who've tried it and been ignored and lied to. You're a newcomer, you weren't there... I regret to inform you that our experience contradicts your theories.
There are many cases where they thank players for their constructive help. For example, in the rubberbanding issue, there were players that walked the Support team through the issue. If you'd like me to pull out those notes I'd be happy to.
Oh that's rich. Do you know how many MONTHS that problem went on before it was fixed? They were content to ignore the issue for about a YEAR before they got around to fixing it. If they needed players to show them what was wrong, then they are not only damned liars but incompetent to boot. I can assure you that this was not something that was fixed on account of people politely asking "please fix this" every day for months.
And in case you haven't noticed, they thank us for things that didn't really happen. How many times have they thanked us for our patience - regardless of the fact that we've run out. Who, specifically, ARE these players they allegedly thank? You know, we used to use a similar trick as disc jockeys. We'd play a song and say "This one is by request of Bob on the West Side" or "Dedicated to Lisa in Amherst" etc. Thanking a vague, nebulous player base for something they finally get around to doing doesn't lead me to believe it was the result of friendly discourse. If it takes that long to do something, harping is the only way it'll ever get fixed.
If your method works, why haven't YOU personally been responsible for a great number of changes? Remember - none of us are claiming that negativity works better - simply, it's all they deserve now. The burden is on them to re-earn our trust.
Shaan'ti Hokai (Kauri) 
Makris wrote:
People can cry and whine, but developers can't read their minds and find out why.
I understand what you are doing Makris and what you are saying. I was you a year plus ago when we got our revamp pushed back the first time because the Village, the CU and the GCW were more important.
I also understand what you mean when you say- can't we do this without flaming everyone. We should be civil.
I DID all that- and right now I'm angry- no, I'm PISSED. We're ALL pissed. I've paid $210 bucks (including the expansion) while waiting for them to come out and say yes or no to smuggling- Hell, they even had some threads up like they were really gonna do it too.
Now, it's great that you can be civil. I was the same way. Right now though, I think we need to work through this.
You need to acknowledge that we have a right to be angry. Yes, we DON'T have to flame people that come in here but we DO have a right to be mad, man and people have to start recognizing that- and real quick too.
Message Edited by HOTDOG on 08-11-2005 08:40 PM
HOTDOG wrote:
I understand what you are doing Makris and what you are saying. I was you a year plus ago when we got our revamp pushed back the first time because the Village, the CU and the GCW were more important.
I also understand what you mean when you say- can't we do this without flaming everyone. We should be civil.
I DID all that- and right now I'm angry- no, I'm PISSED. We're ALL pissed. I've paid $210 bucks (including the expansion) while waiting for them to come out and say yes or no to smuggling- Hell, they even had some threads up like they were really gonna do it too.
Now, it's great that you can be civil. I was the same way. Right now though, I think we need to work through this.
You need to acknowledge that we have a right to be angry. Yes, we DON'T have to flame people that come in here but we DO have a right to be mad, man and people have to start recognizing that- and real quick too.
Message Edited by HOTDOG on 08-11-2005 08:40 PM
/agree
WE have Earned the right to be angry. More so than any Jedi, who may claim they have earned rights to exceptional treatment because of exp or earlier death penalties.
The loss of a half million exp might indeed be a hard pill to swallow, how much more then is the millions of exp and hundreds of hours poured into a game that rewards you by promising to revamp your profession for two years with no delivery on these promises.
Then with the implementation of the CU (which is nothing more than putting a Star Wars "skin" on the Everquest II game) we are finaly given a complete revamp of our profession, which includes nothing that the smuggler comunity at large has been asking for in the past two years. We can indeed now select what type of slice we want for weapons/armor. Now that max caps and loot drops have made it prohibitivly expensive, and essentialy "balanced" out of legitiment usefullness. This is NOT in the spirit of what we have asked for, these many long months. This is a poorly camoflauged attempt to placate our "customers" who want specific slices, more so than we Smugglers, who would by majority seem to have prefered content changes, "We want to Smuggle!", they cry. The entire Underworld tree could have been revamped to allow us access to some sort of NPC "fence" that we could use to trade in contraband goods. From shady pawn brokers at Novice, to Hutts at Master Smuggler!
Obviously Everquest II has no equivelent to the smuggler, and therefore, SOE has no bases to use for the profession, other than two years of suggestions from the player base, that still have not been taken into serious consideration.
I have suffered long for my love of Star Wars.This GameCan't even keep it's Timeline straight. We have EP3 Content and a Dearth of Jedi, during a time when the Empire Ruled and the Jedi were almost destroyed! How can I enjoy being a cocky and domineering Imperialist or a Struggling and determined Rebel, when the greatest conflict in this game is between Jedi (yes that is a very plural Jedi) and Bounty Hunters (who have only Jedi as a player option to hunt).
tralita_tusnami wrote:
Yes the last 3 days have caused a rift between the smugglers and the dev's like never before. Yes I was near the center or baicly the center, by default, when Thunderheart used a tip he "HIJACKED" from ingame. Am i bitter? NO. Am I watchfull and hopefull that the events wont happen again? YES. Our senior members of this forum are leaving these forums and gamein flocks of hundreds and thousands, and were left holding the bag. I do not believe, that it can get any worse as a comunity in general feeling or content. TIGGS has appoligised and that is all we can ask for, we need to drop this and take steps to show the DEVS that were not a bunch of whiny 12 year olds. We need to center on getting our goal, which is to be able to smuggle.
I CHALLENGE each and everyone of you smugglers to do the unthinkable and actualy listen to the message that WES has put out there, he did not say one bad thing about the devs and he even tried to get the comunity back on track. WE NEED TO GET BACK ON TRACK WE NEED TO TAKE WES'S MESSAGE AND TURN IT UP 10 FOLD. EVERYTIME THE DEVS SEND US A BAD MESSAGE, OR WHAT NOT WE NEED TO LOOK AT IT AS YES, WERE TAKING OUR LUMPS BUT WERE ALSO GIVING BACK TO THE COMUNITY IN A POSITIVE MANNER. When they send us grapes we make wine, when they send us viniger we make salad dressing.
We need to pull togeather and blind them with goodness, this is definatly going to be hard on my part for i dont have a single good bone in my body, and i feer neither do most of you lot. BUT we need to make a shining example how good a comunity can become, Ive been around this game sence september 03 and seen every bit of dammage we have taken. We need to make the best of this situation. THE DEV'S CAN IGNORE US INDEFFINATLY IF ALL WE DO ISWHINE AND COMPLAIN, BUT SHOW OUR LOVE FOR THE GAME IN A POSITIVE MANNER, AND THEY MIGHT THROW US A BONE. My grandmother used to say "You catch more bee's with honny than you do with salt" we need to DO this as a COMMUNITY, or this game will go the way of the dodoo bird.
THANKS
I agree with you for now Tralita. We must keep trying on to be possitive and constructive when something goes wrong (which is almost all the time).
The reason I say for now is that I have been patient for 2 years and it's starting to wear very THIN!!! I will do my best to help out in discusions (positivaly) of course but we'll how long that will last until I go completly bonkers.
The first thing you do (well, I do anyway
) when confronted with a really angry person who's yelling something is to either calm them down so I can understand whatever the hell it is they're saying, or, if they're a lot bigger than me, I'll back the hell away . Shouting people down rarely works, unless they're physically/mentally weaker than you, or you're friends and have a rapport/are kinda joking around anyway.You can still voice your concerns, the fact that you're very upset, how long you've been feeling this because of inaction in various development areas; you can do all that in a way that states it as fact, without getting agressive and alientating the person you're trying to communicate with.
Whether you choose to do so of course is entirely up to each individual and some find they're unable to because the emotions running through them are so very strong. I always try my best to adhere to the above, but then that's just me.
Edit: I can't spell
Message Edited by WesBelden on 08-11-2005 08:15 PM
I think that's good advice, Wes, and well said.
I also think that most of us here have followed that advice (so much so, maybe to a flaw) for the past two years. And it's gotten us jack sheet.
We've also been witness to the whole frickin BH/Jedi mess. Are they folllowing your advice and remaining calm, professional, constructive, and rational? I'd say no. Are they seeing results by whining, yelling, screaming, kicking and making the most noise? Sure looks like it it to me.
Our current attitude is not simply derived from all the lies and deception, but combined with several factors. Including watching the squeaky wheel getting the grease in BH/Jedi land.