Smuggler Archive
Thread: The poor state of the game.
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RylanStorm
Thu Jun 03, 2004 3:39 am
#1
This is a moan. I'm fully aware it's a moan and I'm letting you guys know this so you can choose not to read it. I like many of you am angered, and upset by this mornings news and I wanted a place to vent. It's not constructive but it might make me feel better. Feel free to add your own stuff if you too are looking to unload some anger.
I played EQ for 4 years and eventually I realised I was chasing a carrot dangled from a stick. The closer I got to ending the grind the further they shifted the bar forcing me onwards. When I finally got to a point where I could sit back and have fun I realised what Id been chasing wasnt as fun as I'd thought. I quit soon after.
Now I feel like I'm chasing another carrot.
Yes, the game sucks but we're having revising the professions soon.
We're not revising the professions any more but were having a combat balance soon.
We're not having a combat balance soon but we'll be having revamps of classes soon.
We're not revamping classes soon anymore, but jump to lightspeed will be out soon.
We're not revising the professions any more but were having a combat balance soon.
We're not having a combat balance soon but we'll be having revamps of classes soon.
We're not revamping classes soon anymore, but jump to lightspeed will be out soon.
Everytime they give us something to look forward do and as soon as we get close they move it slightly further away. What happens if JTL isn't all its been hyped?
As I said in my other post I'm seriously considering putting my account on hold for 3 or 4 months now. I'm maxed out, I'm not confident in this team to make the right decisions, and I'm not confident that we're not being duped.
I just wanted to look at the State of the Game letter and give my review.
Howdy folks... that time again :-)
Last month we saw Publish 8: Droids Rebuilt reach its fruition, with a ton of new utility droids being added to the mix. We also saw two mini-publishes. Mini 8.1 focused on Image Designer enhancements and included some radical new looks for characters as well as a secure transaction interface that will extend to numerous other areas of the game.
Last month we saw Publish 8: Droids Rebuilt reach its fruition, with a ton of new utility droids being added to the mix. We also saw two mini-publishes. Mini 8.1 focused on Image Designer enhancements and included some radical new looks for characters as well as a secure transaction interface that will extend to numerous other areas of the game.
We've already been told it's going to be difficult to apply this to other professions any time soon.
Mini 8.2 saw the opening of the Death Watch Bunker, where there are some very tough hombres that are none too happy. There are rumors of awesome loot from this starting to trickle out into Live, including Mandalorian armor and Jetpacks!
Ok. Stop right there. There are no rumours on live that there is awesome loot coming out of the Death Watch Bunker. Every piece of Mandolorian Armour that's been built on the live servers so far has been comparable with the sets of padded armour being built in the first few weeks of live play. It's desirable but only in the same way a set of Stormtrooper armour is desirable. To my knowledge the Jetpack quest is still broken or waiting on a random drop which hasn't yet done so.
This year's E3 allowed us to demo Jump to Lightspeed, which was an amazing experience! This was the first time we had shown it to the public and we fully realized just how much fun it already is!! There were countless occasions where we would find ourselves plinking at Hutt Fighters from the turret of a YT-1300, or chasing a Tie Fighter through an asteroid field, and have to tear ourselves away to realize that we were indeed in the middle of a demo. I assure you, this is going to completely transform SWG while tying in seamlessly with the ground game. It is simply incredible!!!
Unless you come out with some salient details quickly I like many others will assume that this is a bolt on game to the original rather then something that integrates seamlessly with the ground game. Space cannot integrate seamlessly whilst their is still the option of instantaneous travel by clicking on a ticket. You have to make sure people fly to their destination manually, otherwise space will be filled with fighters only.
Atmosphere and immersion sometimes comes at a cost to efficiency. I agree it's a tough decision but this team has avoided making those tough decisions from the start and it's only been costly to the playability and longevity of this game.
To integrate seamlessly there will have to be gas mining in space, rare minerals to be mined from asteroids, BHs will have to be able to track marks through space. All of these things have been dismissed.
We will be doing a closed-invite Beta for JTL sometime between August and September. We really want to get a wide variety of players in the cockpit, so we are currently devising the numbers and groups for populating the beta. More on this from Bo'shek (Rich Vogel) in the near future...
Back on the ground, we are in the thick of Jedi Testing for Publish 9: Secrets of the Force. We are going to want to take an extra week or so to fully bake it in,
Do you seriously believe that we don't read the test center forums. Fess up, it's horribly horribly broken.
so it may be a bit more than two weeks from our last mini-publish (the Death Watch Bunker). We will keep you apprised at the progress, but we are currently targetting 6/22/04.
To test this massive system, we made a duplicate of the existing Test Server. We call it, originally enough, Test Center 2! We needed to create a large and robust test population, so we put together two groups and made them specific ranks.
- Existing Test Center players that were active within a certain period became Padawans.
- Existing Live Jedi that created characters on Test Center within a certain period became Jedi Knights.
Over the weekend there were in excess of a thousand simultaneous players on TC2! Much thanks to those of you logged in and helped us with testing. I would encourage you to continue doing so during the next couple of weeks, because we will be giving away starter packs, running some crazy tournaments and really trying to stress the system to its limits! Since Test Server 2 will be wiped at the end of the testing phase, it is really a free-for-all over there. Crazy. We may even try to set a bunch of Live Bounty Hunters loose at some time >:-)
Don't bother. The Bounty Hunters are being wholesale slaughtered on live servers by select groups of Jedi, Im sure hundreds of Jedi running around with their new Lightsaber damage type is enough to put off every hunter in the galaxy.
One of the more controversial changes that is occurring with Publish 9 is that characters who unlock their slots Between Publish 9 and Publish 10 will not be able to immediately convert to a Padawan. There are a number of reasons why we feel the need to do this, but foremost is a transition period between Force Sensitive and Padawan that will not be done until Publish 10: The Jedi Trials. If you do unlock you will be notified, but not able to convert until P10. If you do not unlock but are along the way, partial credit will be given. This has been discussed in the past few Friday Features.
Just so the devs can get a handle on this lots of people were looking forward to the end of the farce called hologrinding. It was only 2 weeks away and then we can start seeing people in cantinas who arent afk and medics in med centers who arent healing tumblers. Now we have to put up with another 6-10 weeks of it.
Looking forward, the three main systems that we are enhancing before Space are: Jedi, Combat Balance, and the Galactic Civil War (GCW). They are turning out to be extremely extensive (and extremely cool!). Accordingly, we want to focus as many resources as we can on them. This is challenging when doing parallel development of JTL, which in some ways is a completely new game. Hang on...thought it was intergrating seamlessly?
We have made some adjustments to the Live schedule, based on our desire to fully realize each system.
Before I reveal our schedule, I want to shoot very straight with you. When I say things can and will change, I mean it. If we feel that we need to focus more on a particular system, we are going to adjust the schedule to allow it. My job as Senior Producer is to ensure that the overall project is successful, no matter what. This means trying to focus our resources on where they are most needed while keeping them healthy and happy. This also means adjusting the schedule and moving things out when other things are in jeopardy.
We could take 4 different approaches in our communications with you:
- Not tell you anything
- Give you the party line
- Try to get everything done and not do them well
- Do things right and tell you the truth
I want to tell you the truth. I want you to know what our priorities are, and what we are working on, and why things change. I guarantee some folks are going to scan this entire schedule, find the one line in it that refers to them, and go off about it. The truth is that we want to polish our game as much as we can, and we don't want to put out half-baked publishes. Part of the pain of hearing the truth is that it changes.
Part of the pain is not hearing a truth we don't want to hear. Part of the pain is you not communicating with us for several months, then giving us the party line by saying smugglers were the class most in need of a revamp, fiting half a dozen other classes before us, and then telling us the truth for about 6 weeks and thinking that makes you saintly. It has been the strategy of this development team to ignore, disavow and lie for several months and this very recent period of truth is then followed by you standing on a sopabox as if you've always been honest?
Without further ado, I present you with our current schedule:
<SNIP></SNIP>
I'm not even going to start on how the next 3 months of the development schedule are dedicated to a class that aren't supposed to exist during this timeline. A class that is supposed to be a tiny fraction of the playerbase.
<SNIP></SNIP>
Hutt Casino
We are REALLY excited about this social adventure, but we are running into art and design restrictions. Space is looking amazing... and we want it to be even more so! We are very strapped for Art resources at this time and can't create everything we want for this adventure until after Space.
One last time. Is the space expansion being worked on by a seperate team, and if so why is the art department torn between the two?
Hutt Asteroid Base
For similar reasons, and we really want this to be something you reach by flying through space.
Smuggler revamp
We want to do this right too... and proper smuggling is very much augmented by space flight!
This I agree with. Smuggler is very much a space profession but this only reinforces my earlier point. A miner shifting 1,000,000 resources in his backpack can walk up to the starport, right click on his ship, select a destination and be there between 10 seconds and 2 minutes depending on the specs of his computer.
A smuggler, has to fly through space for several minutes?
Now I'm not suggesting you give us instantaneous travel during smuggler missions but it's time to make a tough decision. Stop people transporting so many resources and put a weight limit on smaller fighter class ships. It's laughable that I can't carry 60 dice in a backpack, yet someone can carry enough resources to build 500 city halls!
I know there will be some disappointment regarding the schedule shifts. Please remember that we want to open our schedules up to you as much as possible so you know what to expect. Live Service is an inexact science (to say the least!!) and will always include some shifts. Things have changed. They will continue to do so. We are giving you our best approximations. All along the way, smaller but vital enhancements are constantly being fixed and come out before and after these main publishes.
We are fully focused in making SWG the best MMOG there is out there. The game is very strong due to you, the players. Be very careful Gattis. The player base is rapidly becoming disenchanted. The next few months have some revolutionary changes occurring, and I hope you are as psyched as I am!!
Finally, some of the team is gearing up to head out to Anaheim this week for the Fan Fest! I can't tell you how excited we are to hook up with the players, and see you folks meeting with each other. There are some great things planned, including several panels where you can grill us on all sorts of topics. Please be gentle ;-)
Best,
- Gary Gattis
SOE Senior Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
SOE Senior Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
Rogue238
Thu Jun 03, 2004 8:23 am
#2
I hope the "wonderful players" don't turn into an "angry mob".
Please remember that we want to open our schedules up to you as much as possible so you know what to expect.
Yeah, if you're a Jedi wannabe.
WesBelden
Thu Jun 03, 2004 8:54 am
#3
Rogue238 wrote:
I hope the "wonderful players" don't turn into an "angry mob".
I disagree; it might be just what the developers need to shake them the hell awake. The sad thing is, I think they're very much on the ball and know exactly what they're doing - playingon people's desires and dreams and making vast amounts of money from doing so. So far, they've proved very capable at this.
Xeranx
Thu Jun 03, 2004 9:01 am
#4
The state of the game letter isn't up anymore. I really wanted to read it, but oh well.
WesBelden
Thu Jun 03, 2004 9:27 am
#6
Shrendyc wrote:
They took it down like the lying cowards they are.
Indeed. If they had any shred of decency, they'd at least offer smugglers a temporary solutiuon, fix some things, add a few spices or what not.
I really am distraught that because they've messed up their precious Jedi system so much that they need the extra time to fix it... I mean,really, what are they thinking?it's a class that's only supposed to be had by a select few, continuity wise it shouldn't even be in the game. Admitedly, the Force Sensativity is a nice thing, but the fact that it'll lead to so many people being Jedi afterwards is rediculous. I could go on about how making Jedi after being FS should be random and rare, but it's not what this thread is about.
Hope is a terrible thing; it is our greatest weekness and the developer's greatest weapon. I have hope that they'll change their minds and realise they've made a mistake and have their priorities wrong; I have hope that the combat balance and smuggler revamp will be done right and make the game finally what it should have been from the start; I have hope that JTL will be all that it claims to be and fully and seemlesslyintegrated; I have hope that this game will be finally as fun as I'd hoped it would be.
Despite my dispondencey, despite the feeling of sharp steel being rammedintomy back, I have hope... and the Devs know this.
Message Edited by WesBelden on 06-03-2004 09:29 AM
Oberathe
Thu Jun 03, 2004 10:36 am
#7
That sums up the entire problem I see with this game, right there.
RylanStorm wrote:
I'm not even going to start on how the next 3 months of the development schedule are dedicated to a class that aren't supposed to exist during this timeline. A class that is supposed to be a tiny fraction of the playerbase.
Aanu
Thu Jun 03, 2004 1:16 pm
#9
Awesome thread. I am a BH and clicked my way here though the BH forum. I found yourcomments right on the money. The carrot and the donkey analogy is spot on.This is my first online RPG and I can certainly see how the promise of fixes and improvements could keep people around. Its all sad and quite, quite true.
I want to add that this game is becomingKOTOR Online. Where Jedi only fear other Jedi, since noone else is equiped to challenge them, let alone track them. This whole Jedi Counsel is further evidence that only jedi seem to matter in the devs minds at this point.
Smugglers, I feel your pain.
-a
Neutral Imperial Agent
Gypsy13
Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:34 pm
#10
This saddens me. It's fairly apparent to the dev's that since SO MANY people were willing to holo-grind, so many more would still like to become jedi with a new system. I anticipate the new "jedi quest" system will be more time consuming...but appear less tedious to the naked eye...they are payed by the month, sigh.
I left this game 7 months ago and returned last week. I find it fun after the hiatus, but this game is still very broken one year after launch. I do not see how JTL can be extraordinary when its foundation is broken.
I really hope this game doesn't die...but the future looks very, very bleak in a galaxy far, far away....
ReptileSpit
Fri Jun 04, 2004 12:16 am
#12
The priorities of the devs are currently:
1.) Make Jedi players happy
2.) Make new ways for everyone to become Jedi
3.) Forget all the other broken/useless professions and content in the game.
That's it.
Veslac
Fri Jun 04, 2004 5:39 am
#13
Great post with alot of valid points and evidence to back them up. Im sure once this planned fan fest takes place, the devs will begin to understand just how disappointed, frustrated and fed up of their constant bs we are. I imagine they think it'll be a fun and friendly occasion, well i very much doubt that!
If any of my fellow swg gamers are attending this fanfest then I implore you to voice your displeasure and let the devs know exactly how unhappy we are that Jedi seem to be the only concernto them, and the lack of attention they give to the other professions is breeding agreat deal of resentment and distrust fromthe majority of gamers who pay good money and have a right to request needed improvements.
Give em Hell people, for they have brought it on themselves with their constant promises and failure to produce anything except a few useless updates, that do nothing but satisfy the minority temporarily.
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