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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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Checobacca
Wing Commander
Posts: 5879
Registered: 11-22-2004


Checobacca

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Smed wrote:


AtomosSkywarrior wrote:


Atobe wrote:

TurboXWing wrote:
Hi Smed,

d) What are you going to do when the rumoured SWG emulator hits with none of this NGE rubbish on it and the majority of your playerbase jump ship to move there? THEN will you get rid of this virus you introduced in November? Too little, too late I'm afraid. You have it within your power to fix the game now, to admit it wasn't really in the best interest and get it sorted. I for one will think more of SOE if they do that rather than watch this runaway train smashing thru barrier after barrier.. because the end of the line is drawing ever closer.


What they're going to do is get a judge to order any such SWG emulation shut down faster than you can say "injunction".  Such an open and clear-cut violation of copyright law will get the owners and operators of any such game sued and put out of business so fast they won't know what hit them.

I'd bet money that SOE and/or LucasFarts lawyers are already hard at work polishing up their legal sledgehammers for just such an eventuality.

Sorry to burst y'all's bubble on that one.




Good luck with that. The emulators are in different countries. US law does not apply.

 







ROFL

Ok. Without engaging in the obvious "we'll bust out our lawyers and sue people" rhetoric let me be blunt - if someone can write a SWG server emulator that's any good please apply for a job here because you have to be pretty damn good. You also better be able to know SQL pretty well and have an oracle database and a ton of other important stuff. This emulator stuff is nothing more than a hobby for some really smart people. You don't seriously think we're worried about this do you (and I mean that in a very positive way btw)? I take it as the ultimate compliment. Now, if some genius ever actually pulled it off.. well that would be another matter entirely. In EverQuest a couple of really smart guys made something called ShowEQ which basically showed off a bunch of stuff we didn't intend for players to see. I ended up hiring the key developer of that program. He's a really smart programmer named Roy Eltham. He actually broke our encryption. He's still here.
Smed


glad to know u have a sense of humor, I broke SWG encryption im 17 will you higher me? ill work for 35k dealing with community relations


ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
_______________________________________________________________  
--------This spot for Sale--------
--------  Checobacca  k  Ice-man' --------
 ---I came back for the community---
---Ill leave again when the EMU servers go acive---
_______________________________________________________________
gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
03-24-2006 11:59 AM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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NINBW
SWG Ensign
Posts: 156
Registered: 08-14-2004



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This is just a quick responce to the "Cnet was always crowded before" Yes, in thw old days Cnet was always crowded, we had 10 min shuttle waits, and remember how we used to complain? Yes it was a social time as well but most of the forum posts about that were "Make the wait shorter!"
 
 People spamming stuff for sale,I was often one of those, and we had complaints about the lag and other issues related with that. So in comes global vendor search and the spamming is greatly reduced.
 
And the biggest  drop in population  in Cnet and other areas is the  removing of buff lines and people looking for them. If there is anything I do like about this new system is that i can log on and go do whatever i want and if my wife needs me to log off and do something, I dont have to get pissed about losing 10k and a buff that I've only had for 10 min. I am sure that many of  the old time Vets have had that happen  a few times and it gots really annoying  when it did. The other  aspect was getting a group together and because of the  line it took planning and coordination and still invaribly someones buff ran out in the middle of the warren or geo cave etc.
 
Now we can be more spontanious, "Hey you want to join us on a HK run?"   "Ok lets go!", not "Ok give me 30 min to run to Cnet and get a buff"  you get the idea...


JOBAN
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03-24-2006 11:59 AM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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ArkonPhoenix
Jedi
Posts: 4272
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ArkonPhoenix
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Smed wrote:


Tiberius- wrote:


Smed wrote:


dee-oh-gee wrote:

The truth is the community morale won't improve until the game does. Communication can't fix this. Improvements to the game can. The fact is our communication has improved.. people don't neccessarily like the message is all. I get that. So do our community folks. My preference is that all the posts in the gameplay forum are discussing gameplay balance.. and in-game issues.. but they won't until we get the game to a baseline fun level. We're not there yet. We know that. We're working to fix it. There is no other answer.

Smed

Wow. An offical representative saying the game is hurting. This does give me hope. Not much. But some. We have seen in the past that what is said may not come to pass. Be aware Smed, the community will hold you to the above statement.





The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.

At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.

Smed


Mr Smedley -

With all due respet, you have ALREADY failed. One only needs walk through any starport in the game to realize this. What you call "rhetoric" is the community outcry of seeing an exemplary MMO essentially scrapped and replaced with a pale imitation. This isnt "counterstrike" - there's a reason that 99% of MMO's use "turn based combat" - its because it makes the game accessible to people of all ages, people who dont have lightning reflexes or flat out dont enjoy the "FPS" style of play.

The old interface system was INTUITIVE  - this one is not - i shouldnt have to press 3 keys to open a radial menu on an inventory item in my back pack.

Your general message seems to be "yes, we hear you. We know you dont like what we are doing and we are going to continue with it anyway so shut up" we wont. Period.

I understand completely  - you did the math under the CU and pre-cu systems and saw that the game was losing more players than it was taking in - and you decided that you needed a major change to bring in new players. While thats a well thought out plan, the implementation leaves MUCH to be desired.  If your people can't market Star Wars - then perhaps they shouldn't be in marketing. This  is a built in audience. You fail to realize that MOST Star Wars fans are 30 and older we saw the originals in the theatre the FIRST time. Yet you are marketing to the wrong age group. The last 3 movies didnt have anywhere near the cultural impact the first three did.

Dont buy it? Look at the servers! Where once you could stroll through Cnet and see 20 or 30 players - you dont see ANY.

Its time for change. again. If you cannt go back, then go forward and give us a workable turn based combat system. I lead a guild that boasts 400+ members - of which maybe 10 are left  - the significant majority of whom left because of these changes. and please- be aware - its not only HOW you presented the NGE  - its WHAT you presented that casued the upraor. If you had rolled out a more workable system, a more accessible one - you would not be where you are now.

Please, admit that you have to "make the game better" - by doing what the commuinty wants.

Earlier in this thread you "called out" one of the other posters. Well I;m calling you out. My challenge is  - email EVERY user who EVER had a SWG account with a poll - which of the three combat systems do they prefer? GO from there. It may not bring a flood of new players into the game but you would certainly get back a loot of what you lost. PLEASE - do this - or .. resign. Really. Its time.

Apologies in advance - not intended as a flame or troll - just one man stating his opinion.






Let me address your point head on. - SWG never attracted the size audience that the Star Wars license delivered in the first place. One of those reasons was combat wasn't exciting enough. We have done enough research on the people who quit or people that didn't purchase the game to know this is a hard, brutal cold fact. Could we have gone a different direction with the combat? Yes. Could we in the future change this direction? Yes. Do I think we will? No. Why? Because I don't believe that this will be an issue if we solve the other half of the equation - making the professions feel different... and making the content really exciting. If we asked you all to rank Combat vs. the loss of professions, I'm betting the loss of professions will "win" every time... I don't think the new combat style is the main thing that people are bothered by. It's the broad strokes changes to the rest of the game. What we've done is to get the game to a much more basic level that we can build on. I submit to you that if we achieve our other goals, this style of combat won't be an issue. The fact is the data we have suggest that for the people that DO sign up for the game they like the combat. For the people that don't, combat isn't the main issue we're losing them.

Smed


Again, yes its not (entirley) the combat system that is the problem, its the cookie cutter professions that are mostly to blame. For the love of the force, let us specialize in weapons, specials and skill mods again. Jedi used to be so cool, we had five professions to choose from and we could only max out in two and a half of them. You had to make sacrifices for the skills you wanted, it was very straight forward and fun to make a unique charatcer. It wasnt about making the uber template, it was about roleplaying your toon and getting to use your skills the best you can.


I just hit a bunch of buttons and hope everything works out.

Click here for "Arkon’s Ideas and Suggestions for SWG".
03-24-2006 11:59 AM  

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Re: A bit of news around the SOE rumors and SWG
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Altyrell
Trivia Challenge Winner
Posts: 9458
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Altyrell
PA: NDA - ECW
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oh & Smed... you need an "Actual" SIG....

d Lord Vincent Takaab Blackbird (Altyrell) ~MEOW~.
03-24-2006 12:00 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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topfuel
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Posts: 4874
Registered: 06-15-2005


topfuel
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Server: Bria

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Smed wrote:

ROFL

Ok. Without engaging in the obvious "we'll bust out our lawyers and sue people" rhetoric let me be blunt - if someone can write a SWG server emulator that's any good please apply for a job here because you have to be pretty damn good. You also better be able to know SQL pretty well and have an oracle database and a ton of other important stuff. This emulator stuff is nothing more than a hobby for some really smart people. You don't seriously think we're worried about this do you (and I mean that in a very positive way btw)? I take it as the ultimate compliment. Now, if some genius ever actually pulled it off.. well that would be another matter entirely. In EverQuest a couple of really smart guys made something called ShowEQ which basically showed off a bunch of stuff we didn't intend for players to see. I ended up hiring the key developer of that program. He's a really smart programmer named Roy Eltham. He actually broke our encryption. He's still here.
Smed

No offense Smed, but I don't think they are interested in working for you.

They have already busted your puny encryption...All your bases are belong to them.

TOLMOCK BALOPY IS WATCHING.

Me = Sodapop
03-24-2006 12:00 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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meeuki
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Posts: 7468
Registered: 09-10-2003


meeuki
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Smed wrote:


Dr-J wrote:

Smed wrote:





The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.

At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.

Smed



This is what I don't get. You had 20 some servers running and that wasn't enough to support the business? What were the plans that everyone in the universe would be a sub?
Was it actually a plan to focus on the target market of players whom want a simplified game? These are the kind of players that are fickle and wouldn't have lasted.
To me Smed this system may be better and probably would have been fine to the players that left, but you are right sir...presentation is everything in buying and selling of goods...you took our full Coke you sold us and gave us back just the can.
Whatever happened to finishing something before presenting it to your buyers. How could a game actually make it live that didn't support the largest profession SWG had (crafters)?...and then to put it off some 6 months? Why not just have finished it, marketed it to the new players with nice rewards, Beta it all over again...and then put it to live. I thought you said you had kids? I hope your tactics with raising them is a little smarter than the approach to the CU/NGE. I have only been a parent for 2 years and I know that I have to approach my son a certain way about things he doesn't want...make it fun, reward him for his actions...only then will HE get involved in things he may be suspect of or not like.
I still love this game, but we need to do something faster than the current plan. The tourniquet is filling full of blood and a lot of players on our server are either only complaining or only PvPing. Can't we come up with some fun things to do in the mean time to reward those of us whom have stayed. WE are your best tool for getting the word out that this game is going to be better and to drive players back and/or get new recruits. Let us help SMED, but it will take possibly some fun Events in game to have it happen. Think outside of the box. They don't have to be the typical "meet here and fight oppossing players...and hey, look there is Darth Vadar". The one thing I am sure of is that your building is FULL of creative minds that could use a break...maybe this might be what they all need to get their feet below them again and attack your TO DO list for this game. LETS HAVE SOME FUN.





1) Yes we had 20 servers.
2) Yes there were more people playing
3) No, they weren't remotely full.. and they were getting less full by the day.
4) IMO we probably need a server merge at some point.

#3 is the reason we needed to make this change in the first place.

Smed




Ohhhh if only that "some point" for a server merge were now. Many people are leaving simply because they don't have anyone to play with and don't want to reroll their toons on another more populated server. I really believe the game is much more fun now, and I think the low pop servers prohibit people from experiencing that. For what it's worth, I would hope that a merge happens sooner rather than later, complications and difficulties associated with it aside.

Replicant.NonStopDisco.Kettemoor
Tactic.Ycoto.Kettemoor
ATM.Gorath
make server transfers free you crooks!

03-24-2006 12:00 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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Kcocemag
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Posts: 1130
Registered: 07-11-2004


Kcocemag

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Smed wrote:


Kcocemag wrote:


Almagill wrote:


Distiler wrote:
"I'm going to call you out on this - I'm going to say you are flat out incorrect on this. Our communication has been terrific. I can't say you neccessarily like what we've been saying, but I think our community people and our devs have been much more active than before. I never liked that system of correspondents before (they did a great job..don't get me wrong) but I prefer direct communication.

Smed"

Who is giving you the reports about how is community going ? cause it's really lying to you.
Salute.




Got to agree on that one.

John, go look in the dev tracker, discount the posts that are there for one liner replies and 'locked as off topic' posts and see just how much genuine communication is going on.

TH is getting reamed by us forum trolls daily as he often doens't have the info we want and when he say she'll try to ind out can't come back with what he still hasn't got.

We've had a dozen devs post "Hi there" threads and then vanish after posting a couple fo "thanks, love you too"'s . Now SOME are carrying on discussion with players via PM's and that might be great for them but it gives the public impression that nothing is happening.

Others, well, they come in, ask us for feedback, we give it.... the next we hear from them "Oh I moved onto another project..."

Communication has to be a two way street and it has to be worth something to both sides. (qv your comment earlier in this thread about not replying to the 'go back to teh preNGE' posts. They're not valuable to you, they don't communicate anything that is going to help. etc)


My biggest beef on the communication issue is the fact that TH seems to be in the dark most of the time. I cannot even count the number of posts I've read that say somethign to the affect of

"I'm trying to get that information right now. Your concerns are being passed on to the dev team as we speak. And I cannot and will not post any information until I know for sure, without a doubt that there is no way in hell that the information can ever be construed as incorrect."

While that's all nice and good, this process of one guy who seems to be the gopher for a pack of programmers and developers seems a little flawed. Now don't take this the wrong way.......I think TH does a excellent job, but I would prefer to see more direct interaction with the team behind the scenes.






They can't spend all day every day on the boards guys. They poke their heads up.. engage in dialouge.. put their heads down to work.. rinse.. repeat.

Smed

Nobody is asking for all day everyday. A comment or two per day takes no more than 10-15 minutes tops. And you cannot honestly tell me that these guys, yourself included, cannot spare a lousy 15 minutes per day.


...................
= Rups Kcocemag =
...................
=Clubbing baby Ewoks since 1985=
...................
If you can read this, then you don't need glasses.

03-24-2006 12:00 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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patchman70
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patchman70
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Smed wrote:




ok. Here are my top 5. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean this is the order things are being done.. just my personal ones and what I see being big issues with the community.

1. Crafting - I know crafters are pissed.. we're working on a system that I hope will be a good balance between the crafting centric system we had before and the loot drop system we have now. The truth is this needs to be balanced.

2. New quests for the mid-levels - there's not enough of them now. The team is cranking on it.

3. PvP - Not nearly enough of it - I don't like what we've done to faction bases. Personally I think this is a big part of what this game needs to be about. Then again, I'm personally a PvPer so that's a big deal to me.

4. Entertainers - I realize a lot of people don't like the idea of entertainers being in combat. To a lot of people this IS why they went into entertaining in the first place. I like where we're going with it and want to make sure it's balanced properly.

5. Higher end content - There's a lack of really interesting high-end content in the game. A lot of the vets have maxed out and we need to make sure there's still enough to do.

Smed

#1 is crafting to you? in 4 months since NGE nothing has been added... is 4 months to short? try years for just droid engineer... Since you make gathering hide so hard... armorsmith is not great. Weaponsmith? since the game is based on level the weapon doesn't matter too much unless you get the new loot.... hmmm

You might communitcate that to your dev's see below...I feel we aren't treated better then the worst profession, crafter. Wait We are crafters...

Janis Si'ind Greedy Engineer - Si'ind Shipwright
scotchie Greedy shipwright - Si'indicate Droids 2005, 5634
New Pratia, naboo
To quote Uncle Owen on the nge "give us one more season"
goatt_13 "HEY LEY'S PLAY MONOPOLY, BUT SKIP THE RENT PART!!!"
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"Kind of ironic hey? You can get killed and your swoop totaled .. your swoop stays totaled but your armor is unharmed and automagically appears on your clone. "
03-24-2006 12:00 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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TheIzeman
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Posts: 6262
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TheIzeman
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This just in

Smed wrote:


Dr-J wrote:

Smed wrote:





The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.

At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.

Smed



This is what I don't get. You had 20 some servers running and that wasn't enough to support the business? What were the plans that everyone in the universe would be a sub?
Was it actually a plan to focus on the target market of players whom want a simplified game? These are the kind of players that are fickle and wouldn't have lasted.
To me Smed this system may be better and probably would have been fine to the players that left, but you are right sir...presentation is everything in buying and selling of goods...you took our full Coke you sold us and gave us back just the can.
Whatever happened to finishing something before presenting it to your buyers. How could a game actually make it live that didn't support the largest profession SWG had (crafters)?...and then to put it off some 6 months? Why not just have finished it, marketed it to the new players with nice rewards, Beta it all over again...and then put it to live. I thought you said you had kids? I hope your tactics with raising them is a little smarter than the approach to the CU/NGE. I have only been a parent for 2 years and I know that I have to approach my son a certain way about things he doesn't want...make it fun, reward him for his actions...only then will HE get involved in things he may be suspect of or not like.
I still love this game, but we need to do something faster than the current plan. The tourniquet is filling full of blood and a lot of players on our server are either only complaining or only PvPing. Can't we come up with some fun things to do in the mean time to reward those of us whom have stayed. WE are your best tool for getting the word out that this game is going to be better and to drive players back and/or get new recruits. Let us help SMED, but it will take possibly some fun Events in game to have it happen. Think outside of the box. They don't have to be the typical "meet here and fight oppossing players...and hey, look there is Darth Vadar". The one thing I am sure of is that your building is FULL of creative minds that could use a break...maybe this might be what they all need to get their feet below them again and attack your TO DO list for this game. LETS HAVE SOME FUN.





1) Yes we had 20 servers.
2) Yes there were more people playing
3) No, they weren't remotely full.. and they were getting less full by the day.
4) IMO we probably need a server merge at some point.

#3 is the reason we needed to make this change in the first place.

Smed



Smed wrote:


Mavrick65 wrote:


Smed wrote:


dee-oh-gee wrote:

The truth is the community morale won't improve until the game does. Communication can't fix this. Improvements to the game can. The fact is our communication has improved.. people don't neccessarily like the message is all. I get that. So do our community folks. My preference is that all the posts in the gameplay forum are discussing gameplay balance.. and in-game issues.. but they won't until we get the game to a baseline fun level. We're not there yet. We know that. We're working to fix it. There is no other answer.

Smed

Wow. An offical representative saying the game is hurting. This does give me hope. Not much. But some. We have seen in the past that what is said may not come to pass. Be aware Smed, the community will hold you to the above statement.





The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.

At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.

Smed


It is not getting there and never will whilst the NGE is here and as for slower sub losses that makes sense considering the low number who are paying.Also the people who paid a year in advance have been hung out to dry as you laid no compensation package to refund them.

You will never turn this around unless you work in the old system and accomadate it with the current content and that sir is your only option,you also might want to consider completely closing the servers down for a week and fixing them compensate people with free playtime and for god sake purge the servers.






Let's get this out of the way right now - SWG in no way has a low sub base. That's just not the fact. The truth is it's still the #4 game in North America (WoW, EQ2, EQ, SWG). I'm sure this will bring the naysayers out of the woodwork, but it's just a fact.

I also totally disagree with our assertion that we can't make this game the biggest and best MMO out there. We still have a full dev-team on this game and we're going to absolutely push ourselves until we achieve our goals. Noone is going into coasting mode on this game. Period.

Smed


Arent these two a little contradictory?

Izeman /Paemak\Marcell
\\ [ [ [-V- engeance- ] ] ] //
Imperial Hitman n Elder Bounty HunternLord of the Cloak
"Ize's Stuff Vendor on Lok at -Vengeance- Mall: Waypoint -5961 -1586"

03-24-2006 12:00 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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Sucture
SWG Petty Officer
Posts: 51
Registered: 02-26-2005


Sucture

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Checobacca wrote:


Smed wrote:


AtomosSkywarrior wrote:


Atobe wrote:

TurboXWing wrote:
Hi Smed,

d) What are you going to do when the rumoured SWG emulator hits with none of this NGE rubbish on it and the majority of your playerbase jump ship to move there? THEN will you get rid of this virus you introduced in November? Too little, too late I'm afraid. You have it within your power to fix the game now, to admit it wasn't really in the best interest and get it sorted. I for one will think more of SOE if they do that rather than watch this runaway train smashing thru barrier after barrier.. because the end of the line is drawing ever closer.


What they're going to do is get a judge to order any such SWG emulation shut down faster than you can say "injunction".  Such an open and clear-cut violation of copyright law will get the owners and operators of any such game sued and put out of business so fast they won't know what hit them.

I'd bet money that SOE and/or LucasFarts lawyers are already hard at work polishing up their legal sledgehammers for just such an eventuality.

Sorry to burst y'all's bubble on that one.




Good luck with that. The emulators are in different countries. US law does not apply.

 







ROFL

Ok. Without engaging in the obvious "we'll bust out our lawyers and sue people" rhetoric let me be blunt - if someone can write a SWG server emulator that's any good please apply for a job here because you have to be pretty damn good. You also better be able to know SQL pretty well and have an oracle database and a ton of other important stuff. This emulator stuff is nothing more than a hobby for some really smart people. You don't seriously think we're worried about this do you (and I mean that in a very positive way btw)? I take it as the ultimate compliment. Now, if some genius ever actually pulled it off.. well that would be another matter entirely. In EverQuest a couple of really smart guys made something called ShowEQ which basically showed off a bunch of stuff we didn't intend for players to see. I ended up hiring the key developer of that program. He's a really smart programmer named Roy Eltham. He actually broke our encryption. He's still here.
Smed


glad to know u have a sense of humor, I broke SWG encryption im 17 will you higher me? ill work for 35k dealing with community relations


And its "hire", not "higher"... Your fired.........................
03-24-2006 12:01 PM  

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Re: A bit of news around the SOE rumors and SWG
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BigRay
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Posts: 740
Registered: 07-04-2003



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Heya Smed. Beta 2 subscriber here. A look at my account will show that I have left and come back multiple times. Why? Because it's Star Wars. There are other games that have better execution of the fundamentals like combat and questing. If we all wanted to play the "best" MMOG, truth be told we wouldn't be here. But this is Star Wars.

I'm with you on the business side of things. It was probably a hard blow for SOE and LucasArts to see a relatively new IP like Warcraft come along and blow everything else out of the water. Especially when SWG had the prequel movies to ride on. So yeah I agree that SWG should be much bigger than it is, purely because of its license. I mean, Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon.

In my estimation the biggest problem has been the lack of a true, enduring vision for the game. After multiple combat changes, changes to and removal of entire professions, the back and forth with item decay - it just seems like there's a lot of shooting from the hip going on. It kills confidence.

If you truly want to stick with the NGE philosophy, then I say go for it. But STICK WITH IT! Don't change your mind in 3 months! See it through to the bitter end.

The crown jewels of the Pre-NGE game were JTL and the crafting economy. Now they are ... what?

Crafting needs to be restored to its prior glory. There is room for crafting and insta-grat to coexist. Why not make crafting and entertaining secondary skills, a la World of Warcraft? After all, you could say that a secondary skill for Han and Chewie were ship munitions and modifications; Lando ran a mining business, didn't he? Hell even Darth Vader was a droid engineer before he respeced into a Sith Lord

JTL needs to be a bigger part of the game too. Doesn't it seem like everybody in Star Wars is some kind of pilot, even if just a cargo runner? Tie some ground and space missions together. Let's get some cool cutscenes with our ships entering and exiting the atmosphere when we land or take off.
03-24-2006 12:01 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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Smed
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Posts: 131
Registered: 05-03-2005



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gladiatory2k wrote:


Smed wrote:


KrackenOne wrote:


Smed wrote:


RKO wrote:


Smed wrote:


jon_arner wrote:
i think you can answer this Smed:
 
will we ever see a lock on target system agen? Will we ever get a skill sytem simmular, or like the one we had before? And do you think this gaem feel like Star Wars?





1) No target lock is planned or being discussed.
2) There will be additional skills for each profession, but not like the system before. I realize this is contriversial but there it is.


Smed

man this game is never going to get better.

why can't you do these things?

Message Edited by RKO on 03-24-200609:26 AM






Why can't we do these things?

1) Target lock - Believe it or not we talked long and hard about this one. If you seriously sit down and think about the nature of the NGE style of combat, it means that people need to be able to use actual skill to hit. If you take that away you need to go back to the more turn based system we had before. It just plain wouldn't work. Now you can make a legitimate argument that we shouldn't use this style of combat. I have no defense against that argument because nearly every other MMO out there uses that style of combat and clearly it works. What we are trying to do here is create a new style of gameplay. Does it work? Well.. for some people it does, and for others it doesn't. That's the truth. For myself, I prefer it to the old combat system which I personally found dull. But that's just my personal opinion. The reality is we've changed to the new system and we're moving forward. It isn't that we can't add target locking.. it's that wer'e not going to because there isn't a way to do it that wouldn't reduce the skill level needed.

2) The more rigid profession system we've switched to just doesn't lend itself to a skill system that's like what we had before.

Smed

OK.... i understand the reasoning behind Target Lock and the FPS programming/dynamic.  I do not understand the The "more rigid profession system we've switched to just doesn't lend itself to a skill system that's like what we had before.", reasoning at all. what advantage does lack of choice and individualization present/offer SOE to do this?






The answer here is it has the advantage of not being a min/max system. You won't end up with everyone being one particular combination in order to play pvp.

Obviously this is in *theory* in practice.. we ain't there yet.

Smed

that's funny, instead you come up against 6 professions in pvp. To be honest, yeah there were flavor of the month templates before, but that didn't mean that EVERYONE had the same template. I knew a TKM that was quite effective against Pre-cu Jedi. I knew a carbineer that would be deadly with the states he laid down, one guild on our server showed the benefit of a talented Squad leader in PVP. You played to your desires and you played what was right for you. Pre-nge this was even truer, NGE just killed this diversity. It was up to you if you knew how to win. I had a fight with a bounty hunter that lasted an hour while we were working each other down, now the fights last 3 mins tops. Not very fun PVPwise.





Unfortunately your point here is currently valid and we need to work on differentiation of the professions and differentiation within professions if we're going to succeed. That's being done now.

Smed
03-24-2006 12:01 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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RyFord
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Posts: 9726
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RyFord
PA: Dark
Server: Radiant

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Smed since ur a big time PvPer could u please go overt on Radiant and stnad in Theed. Some of us would like a word with u

Nekroz Darksoul - J-Timberlake


Slaves of Wykyd

03-24-2006 12:01 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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emovamalla
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emovamalla
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SMED, this is BY FAR a better allocation of your time than sending 5000 donuts out.

Thanks for tripling your post cost just in an hour today.

Foginock ~ 12pt Master Architect ~ 12pt Master WS ~ 12pt Master Artisan
Haciv ~ Master Powers ~ 4440 Defender ~ 3002 Enhancer ~ 4000 Healer
Vicah ~ Master BH ~ Master Pistoleer ~ 4000 CM

03-24-2006 12:01 PM  

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Re: A bit of news arround the SOE rumors and SWG
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Mavrick65
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Posts: 1741
Registered: 01-02-2004


Mavrick65

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Smed wrote:


AtomosSkywarrior wrote:


Atobe wrote:

TurboXWing wrote:
Hi Smed,

d) What are you going to do when the rumoured SWG emulator hits with none of this NGE rubbish on it and the majority of your playerbase jump ship to move there? THEN will you get rid of this virus you introduced in November? Too little, too late I'm afraid. You have it within your power to fix the game now, to admit it wasn't really in the best interest and get it sorted. I for one will think more of SOE if they do that rather than watch this runaway train smashing thru barrier after barrier.. because the end of the line is drawing ever closer.


What they're going to do is get a judge to order any such SWG emulation shut down faster than you can say "injunction".  Such an open and clear-cut violation of copyright law will get the owners and operators of any such game sued and put out of business so fast they won't know what hit them.

I'd bet money that SOE and/or LucasFarts lawyers are already hard at work polishing up their legal sledgehammers for just such an eventuality.

Sorry to burst y'all's bubble on that one.




Good luck with that. The emulators are in different countries. US law does not apply.

 







ROFL

Ok. Without engaging in the obvious "we'll bust out our lawyers and sue people" rhetoric let me be blunt - if someone can write a SWG server emulator that's any good please apply for a job here because you have to be pretty damn good. You also better be able to know SQL pretty well and have an oracle database and a ton of other important stuff. This emulator stuff is nothing more than a hobby for some really smart people. You don't seriously think we're worried about this do you (and I mean that in a very positive way btw)? I take it as the ultimate compliment. Now, if some genius ever actually pulled it off.. well that would be another matter entirely. In EverQuest a couple of really smart guys made something called ShowEQ which basically showed off a bunch of stuff we didn't intend for players to see. I ended up hiring the key developer of that program. He's a really smart programmer named Roy Eltham. He actually broke our encryption. He's still here.
Smed


But john does it not show you how much we love the old game version when there are people out there trying to bring it back.


DUS   XOT
Dark  Jedi
Imperial Ace
You close your eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone....
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggqXen5nnhnn5nn
 
03-24-2006 12:01 PM  

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