Smuggler Archive
Thread: My report so far from Fan Fest
I know I will get flamed all to hell, but here goes:
I have been developing professionally since 1992. Although I primarly do not work in the gaming industry now, I have developed many parts of a 3d gaming server and client engine and I do uderstand all the concepts and complexities involed. I program in many different languages on different platforms. Not only is there a huge complexity by adding a 3rd dimention to things, but the complexity is quantified by adding a large scale networked environment shared by hundreds of thousands of users.
The reality is that it is a miricle that SWG even exists in the state that it does now if you consider all the technalogical changes that have occurred over the last 8 years.
Secondly, I have come to realize that the great majority of players are between the ages of 15-24 which is still very, very young. So, the majority of the customer base does not really have the experiece to make realistic judegements about things such as business, staff management, project plans, deadlines and prioritization because that takes years and years to learn. It is an incredibly difficult feat to make all these elemenets work together and to even survive, much less make a really great product which SWG is.
A year in development is nothing. There are requests in my business that have gone unfulfilled for over 2 years and are probably still another year away. When will it be done? Depennds.. nobody knows what other priorities will come up.
Saying this, I know that Green Marine and other devs have taken a lot of hell and they are still dedicated and focused on giving us some really great content. It is obvious to me that they really do love this game and they are going to do the most with it that they can.
In development there are issues called "maintainability". One sign of a good developer is that they will put off a feature in effort to "do it right" rather than put out a series of patches in which will not solve the problem and cause an maintenance nightmare.
MISTagent01 wrote:
Snikrop wrote:
MISTagent01 wrote:
Space will tide you over, I promise you that. If you want to boycott space until after our revamp, go ahead.
Just to highlight your statement, "If you give SOE the money for the space expansion, they'll fix your problems." Not, "you've been screwed since the beginning and they're going to tie your fix to spending more money." Fanboi.
I have no idea how that statement could be misconstrued as such, but if that is your opinion, you are entitiled to it. I'm going to buy space because I LOVE twitch-based combat, not because I feel like it might help along smuggler. If you saw and heard what I did at E3 and Fan Fest, you would understand. But you didn't. I hope this post has made you feel better in some way about the state of our profession. All I meant was that JtL is going to be something that will take your mind off of revamp in some small way, because it's going to be FUN.
Jeez, I have decided, that, per this post alone, I'm going to stop posting on the Smuggler threads. I try so hard to go to Fan Fest and get people to listen, and when I post my opinion and information that I have recieved, I get flamed. That's pure bull**** and I won't put up with that. Anything else I find out about the Smuggler Revamp I will be keeping to myself. After E3, I posted here about what I heard and what I asked. After FF, same thing. I think there's only asmall percentage of people that really even care, right now it sure feels like everyone else went smuggler to complain to SOE about how broken this game is and how they are liars, etc. I'm not going to be a part of that. Flame me all you want, call me an eternal optimist, but I truly believe that the Revamp is going to be great, and that the Smuggler community as a whole should stop b!tching about how we've been strung along, devs suck, blah blah blah, and look into the future. GM sent me a message earlier saying he's hoping to have a Formal Document to post within 2 weeks. Have a little faith, I know most of it has been washed away by empty promises, but the fact that the dev in charge of our revamp is here posting gives me a little ray of hope.
Not like my opinion matters, I'll not be posting here again. Thank you for making me see the light, as it were.
The smuggler forum is frequented mostly by mature individuals who attempt to be constructive both in the ideas they submit and the critisim they may lay down. I apologise on behalf of the community for you being flamed, but it really isn't a reflection on our way of doing things, or the way we comment about and treat each other.
Thank you for your post and for the information given in it. I hope you find it in yourself to get over one or twopeople's personal problems/opinions and view the smuggling community as a whole in a different light.
As for not caring, please take a look at our revamp threads - a lot of care, attention and effort has been put into that by many people. Again, thank you for the time you took to both at FF and in posting here.
Shrendyc wrote:
"We're sorry, smugglers - your revamp has been put on hold so Greenmarine, your dedicated developer, can work on the ranger revamp. Once he finishes with that, and finishes the 2nd chef revamp, he's be right back on your revamp, which is slated after the 3rd expansion entitled "Luke's 80th birthday bash". It was difficult to make that decision, and I know you are all angry, but we feel its in the best interest of thre game as a whole. We've discussed this internally and it seems like the right thing to do. I just wanted to shoot straight instead of string you along and mislead you (as outlined on page 24 of our customer service manual)."
Hey man I don't want to take away from smugglers getting their revamp asap. As much as I want to see ranger get one, we got some work before, and most of what we do have actually works. But for all the work and time rangers put into the outdoorsman and other ideas, I don't the devs thinking we sit around complaining and not doing anything.
So here is hoping the smugglers are getting some love real soon. And the crap about "XXXX dedicated dev" is just that, crap. Each dev is in charge of about 3-5 professions.
I understand your point, most people even the young ones understand your point. I think you are missing the other side. The dev's have been telling smugglers for almost a year "anyday now" just review the history of smuggler thread to understand my point. Its not a matter of things changing it is a matter of being told "for sure" and "needing love" for a long time and seeing nothing in return. Being told to work on an out line for a re-vamp in patch 9 for sure. Then oh wait patch 11. Then oh wait after JTL. That is poor customer service. I started my professional career in 90 and any company Ive worked with would never tell I client "for sure" every 3 months (key world is for sure not maybe or we will see)for a year only to say never mind. We would lose accounts and you would as well. The dev's are doing alot and yes its hard. But you do not tell your client base one thing and do another 3 or 4 times with out losing accounts and peeving people off. Read the history of smuggler thread..
SaraeItha wrote:
I know I will get flamed all to hell, but here goes:
I have been developing professionally since 1992. Although I primarly do not work in the gaming industry now, I have developed many parts of a 3d gaming server and client engine and I do uderstand all the concepts and complexities involed. I program in many different languages on different platforms. Not only is there a huge complexity by adding a 3rd dimention to things, but the complexity is quantified by adding a large scale networked environment shared by hundreds of thousands of users.
The reality is that it is a miricle that SWG even exists in the state that it does now if you consider all the technalogical changes that have occurred over the last 8 years.
Secondly, I have come to realize that the great majority of players are between the ages of 15-24 which is still very, very young. So, the majority of the customer base does not really have the experiece to make realistic judegements about things such as business, staff management, project plans, deadlines and prioritization because that takes years and years to learn. It is an incredibly difficult feat to make all these elemenets work together and to even survive, much less make a really great product which SWG is.
A year in development is nothing. There are requests in my business that have gone unfulfilled for over 2 years and are probably still another year away. When will it be done? Depennds.. nobody knows what other priorities will come up.
Saying this, I know that Green Marine and other devs have taken a lot of hell and they are still dedicated and focused on giving us some really great content. It is obvious to me that they really do love this game and they are going to do the most with it that they can.
In development there are issues called "maintainability". One sign of a good developer is that they will put off a feature in effort to "do it right" rather than put out a series of patches in which will not solve the problem and cause an maintenance nightmare.
SaraeItha wrote:
In development there are issues called "maintainability". One sign of a good developer is that they will put off a feature in effort to "do it right" rather than put out a series of patches in which will not solve the problem and cause an maintenance nightmare.
Don't suppose you noticed when they put up a revamp proposal earlier? The reaction that went through the forum once they saw?
They work hard, but that wasn't a 'do it right' revamp.
Now I've been receiving a few PMs and smugglers are being mentioned and their revamp by developers on the c-forum, which has not happened before. This attempt looks legit.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
While I can really agree with you I feel that the fact that GM isgoing to beworking on his plan for our revamp in his free time says alot. I dunno about you but that more than anything says how commited he is to us.
DrevenStrobe wrote:
Veela and Joras --
I want you to know that I have the greatest amount of respect for you guys and what you are reporting back from FF. However...despite all of the sincerity displayed by GM on the subject...they're only words. And that just isn't enough for THIS Smuggler...*taps himself on the chest*.
The delays aren't even an issue for me anymore. JustG could post 5 minutes from now, telling us that our revamp has been pushed back until next NEVER, and it really wouldn't even bother me. What does bother me is the fact that the devs seemingly don't care how low their credibility score gets with their player base. And right now, for me, that score is in the negative numbers.
How can they begin to repair this? I honestly don't know. How about starting with some documentation of the skills we have NOW. No development of anything new...just some simple documentation of the profession as it currently stands. Answer the long-standing issue about the current Spice downer. Give us some numbers on our Slicing percentages. Add some descriptions to our skill boxes...especially MASTER.
This isn't a knock on the hard work you and the other Smugglers at FF put forth to get some kind of answers. But, as I've said, you'll forgive me if I don't start celebrating just yet because a few red names show up in our forums. They still haven't told us anything new, and as far as I'm concerned, this just looks like a repeat of what's already posted in our Smuggler History thread.
They've got a long way to go before they start rebuilding some of the bridges they've burned. You have the answers that you need to let the past go. Well, the rest of us are still as much in the dark as we were before. It's time for the devs to bring that light to us. I personally am tired of chasing the light down that tunnel...
Message Edited by DrevenStrobe on 06-07-2004 12:59 PM