Squad Leader Archive

Greetings again everyone! As promised, I just read this e-mail about 10 seconds ago and here it comes directly to you. This is a personalized letter to me, so I'm not sure if the other correspondents got it or not. Either way this will quell the fears of peopel who think I am not relaying information. This is a direct copy-and-paste and I don't know why my e-mail messed up the formatting, but I figure if I take 30 more seconds to edit it, someone will spaz! So here it is:

CaptainVemnox,

This is an update on the current state of correspondents and should let
you
in on what is happening from your help. You should know me as Xahn
from the
boards, I'm currently one of the community representatives for Star
Wars
Galaxies. I've been working with our community for about 2 years and 8
months, so I've been there since we've opened the boards.

The reason we opened the correspondent positions up is because we've
felt
that we've been failing on getting the major issues for the professions
from
the community to the designers. I know at this point it's been
somewhat of
a disappointment because you haven't seen any progress. This should be
changing very shortly. Next week you should see a post in your
profession
that outlines all the issues you've brought up from your first week
(we're
probably only going to get through one list a month) and the answers
that
were given from our design meetings with your questions and
suggestions.

I want to thank you for putting in all the effort you have so far, and
also
for your patience. This has not been easy for you, and we're working
as
hard as we can to get the feedback that you deserve. The coming posts
should answer your questions that you've brought up, and they should
also
start changes in motion regarding those questions and comments. I
can't
promise they will come right away. Some will come quickly, others will
have
to take a back seat as we work on our fixes/updates/promised features.
At
the least, you'll get the opinion from what the designer of your
specific
profession thinks about that issue. I think you'll be very please with
this
result.

We've accomplished a lot this week, and I think you're going to be
really
pleased with the results. I can't stress to you enough how much we
appreciate your work. Many of these issues would not have been brought
to
light without you.

Forgive me for making this somewhat of a form letter, but I've just
flown
back from Austin today, and I'm dead tired. I just wanted to update
you
guys on what's going on. I figure even though I'm dead, you deserve to
know
what's happening and the changes you've started. Look for more
next
week, I'm going to be compiling the list from the design meetings we've
had
into a more postable format and get those out to your boards as soon as
I
can.

LOL Ibet he wrote that to all of the Correspondents

But cool anyway. Looks like Squad Leader will be changing to the better in the near future.

Ugh....if there was ever a justification for me dropping squad leader, this is it.

Check the other forums; every one of the correspondents got the same e-mail(and were properly formatted I might add). Xahn says they are working hard, but doesn't bother to tell you on exactly what. For as long as that e-mail was, and as full of useless "hang in there, you're doing a good job, changes are on the way!" talk, he could have BRIEFLY updated you on some of the specific stuff. I see e-mails like that ALL the time where I work, it's what gets sent when the sender has to send SOMETHING, but doesn't really care if it has any real info or not, because they don't really value the opinion of the person who is getting it.

No offense(although I'm sure some will be taken), but why didn't they make Volatris correspondent again?

"Next week you should see a post in your
profession
that outlines all the issues you've brought up from your first week
(we're
probably only going to get through one list a month) and the answers
that
were given from our design meetings with your questions and
suggestions."

Did you miss that part, BenedictAmber?

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BenedictAmber wrote:

I see e-mails like that ALL the time where I work, it's what gets sent when the sender has to send SOMETHING, but doesn't really care if it has any real info or not, because they don't really value the opinion of the person who is getting it.

No offense(although I'm sure some will be taken), but why didn't they make Volatris correspondent again?

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The person(s) who are getting that email includeseveryone who reads these boards... There might be truth to what your wroteI suppose, lol.

Your last line is offensive and inappropriate. Volatris has written many good posts that I like, and I think he would probably make a good correspondent, but if your in any way implying that if he was our current correspondent that somehow our class would be fixed and we would not have any problems your sadly mistaken. SOE has rounded up these correspondents not to get feedback from us as they posted, but to be a buffer between a (sometimes)irate user base and their development team. If someone from SOE was monitoring these boards they would get hammered regularly and they know this. Poor Vem is just the fall guy. If Volatris gets the next rotation, unless his timing is lucky, he willlikely be getting grief from this community as well...

If you feel like the class is not getting the attention it deserves, take it out on SOE. We should support our correspondent and be hammering SOE to readand respondall of thethreads we've written.

Duncaen Starstriker

Starsider

>"If you feel like the class is not getting the attention it deserves, take it out on SOE. We should support our correspondent and be hammering SOE to readand respondall of thethreads we've written."

Agreed. If you cannot provide positive feedback as to what exactly I am doing so terribly wrong or not doing at all, at least say it before saying an ignorant statement. And like the quote above, if you don't like it - don't sit here and say it where they won't see. Click the link at the top and tell them. Be mature about it.

Hah!

Poor Vem. He works hard and makes a lot of suggestions to the DEVs. At least one of those suggestions gets him picked on by people like me. Then others come along and say he isn't working hard enough, and that is why we aren't getting fixed already. Hah. HAH, I say. It can't be both at the same time...it can't be that he isn't doing anything AND he's doing things that make people take issue with him. Anyway...this stuff about Vem not doing enough gave me a couple ironic chuckles.

Move out Squad Leaders...let's march on SOE's offices, not Vem's. "Stay on target!"

--Ze'ev

/steadyaim SOE

/volleyfire SOE

:-D

This is just my humble opinion, but I don't think much any class is going to take each and every suggestion from every person that posts and automatically fix it. There are a lot of classes in the game and a lot of bugs aside... personally, I have more problems that they more or less released a beta that that they aren't fixing things right away. I beta-teted for WC3, and I know how betas go... devs try something radical and see how players like it and then decide what to do with it. Well, that won't work with a fully released game. They don't need to piss people off by playing with radical patches. They'll sit down and discuss it for each class, I'm sure, and tweak everything one step at a time until people stop complaining (relatively.) The fact is, though, people are complaining everywhere right now. If the devs favour one class over another, you know they're going to REALLY get shot down by every other class.

On the other hand... **edit**, it's been awhile.

But there's nothing we can do about it. Shouting at the devs won't help too much more, I don't think. Not to say everyone should stop complaining... we don't want them slacking off. ;} But keep in mind the developers are developing professionally and there is a VERY wide user base to please out there, a lot of which don't even use these forums. I'm seeing a fair amount of hotfixes that are trying to set balance away from overpowered characters, ie CHs and exploiting players. These things are important to get out of the way, because they really stack up over time. If we have exploits levelling every player that uses them up to Master Whatever in a day or so, then suddenly no one in SWG has any point to level or play the game. Oops. No money. Well, that didn't last long. And, granted, that's an extreme exaggeration... there's not an exploit for everything and every class. But you see my point. Buffing a skill and fixing it with professions.... well, that'll help satisfy the players, but it will satisfy them in two weeks as much as it will right now. It won't bust the business.

On the other hand... Why am I not seeing the most broken professions being played with on the Test Center? Why is it SOE's working on the relatively working professions instead of those that seem most trampled? A bigger layer base that's playing them isn't an excuse, to me.

So, yes. I'm playing both sides here, I know, because some things the devs are doing make little sense to me and because some things do. At the moment, the only thing I can really *commend* SOE on is making a great... well, *basis* for a game, and being polite with their replies. I may not like all of them, but they're not yelling at us to shut up and wait at the same time. ;P They're promising things. Le'ts just hope SOE in a company that keeps to their word.

(On a side note, Amber, that comment was a little uncalled for. I loved Volatris's posts, but Vem has been doing as good a job as a correspondent can do at this point. He chose to get the report out quickly rather than format it, and he specifically mentions this in his post and, if I remember right, apologizes for it. I don't agree with everything Vem says about what's good in the game and what's not, but when it comes down to what's important, he's being quite objective. I don't see him having failed in any way. And, if he has, bashing the correspondent will do even less than bashing SOE. Just my two cents.)

I share ArkticRed's observation, it looks like the devs keep tinkering with the powerful/working professions like Bounty Hunter and Creature Handler whilevirtually ignoringSquad Leader and some of the elite melee professions that horribly broken.

I don't understand their logic, shouldn't they fix what's broken first?

I think many (if not most) of us would agree the the correspondent has a difficult (if not impossible) job. I humbly offer the following suggestions to everyone:

1.) Bear in mind that the corredspondent doesn't know any more than we do. He passes on everything he hears and he's supposed to compress everything we say.

2.) It isn't the correspondent's job to be an apologist or PR person for the dev's. They have their own staff for that function. The correspondent is NOT the proper target for our frustrations.

3.) We must be free to disagree with the correspondent and make ourselves heard. The difficult part for the correspondent is listening without over considering their personal impressions. Some problems, for example, might be more problematic for some players (due to character archetype or playing style) than the correspondents personal character.

That being said. I'm all in favor of more polls and topic discussions. The SL is driving me nuts personally. I can't figure out the point. I don't really add anything substantial to the group. I can add just as much leading groups without the title and provide other skills to boot. I'm hanging in there and just praying this class acutally becomes beneficial to have in a group.

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BenedictAmber wrote:

No offense(although I'm sure some will be taken), but why didn't they make Volatris correspondent again?

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