Smed, why is it that the dev team and you are always avoiding this one question?
Will we ever see Clothing and Armor Attachments drop again? Crafters right now are getting screwed because they can't get any more experimentation points since they aren't dropping.
Someone from the dev team please answer this question.
Smed
Implement it right away and man what a lift in population. or at least ACTIVE population you would see. I know people luv loot, especially when it helps them.
Allow me to respectfully disagree with your point here - Star Wars as an IP is every bit as capable of delivering a WoW level audience. The reason it isn't is the game needs to be that good. No, not the SAME game.. but it needs to be that good and polished. Everyone thinks we are trying to make SWG like WoW or EQ2. That's completely not the case. Yes, we're going to a more rigid class based system and are doing more linear content.. but that's where the similarities end IMO. In theory we still have an incredibly deep and rich system based MMO that can deliver some world class gameplay once we live up to your expectations.
Smed
Smed
You are correct about Star Wars being capable of delivering a WoW level audience. What you cant seem to grasp is that SOE has failed at this for 3 years now. The sad thing is you have done it to yourselves, hell you even had a huge headstart on the competitor that crushed you. I have been a launch day vet because I love Star Wars. This was my first and last MMO, had I just been a MMO fan I would have left with the rest. The community has tried to help SOE get on the right track but we are constantly ignored and lied to. Then instead of listening to the player base you scrap everything that made the game what it was.
The devs have stated that they can not give us a combat log because the game now moves to fast. Thats real close to why the NGE will never work as designed. LAG. You have designed a system that is more suited for a offline console game and not a huge world simulation with thousands of players. Thats why specials and heals misfire. You have scraped ques and your servers can not handle the real time action that you have forced on us. While not my favorite style of MMO, the NGE might sound good on paper, but you will never be able to deliver quality with the latency that come with MMOs.
Thank you to those who has reply saying that the whole thing with the "Secret Project" was from Swede... hopefully Smed will comment on the fact that Light has SHINED on the "Secret Project" subject...
(oh & Pres. Smed.... what about 2 - 6... any comments???)
please link to this post you're talking about and I'll try and find out what it refers to.
Smed
Swede bowed out of spearheading some issues, and speculations snowballed from there...
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
You can solve a lot of the #1 and #5 problems by reintroducing the crafted item enhancements into the game that so many players worked for Pre-CU and even during the CU. Creating a bunch of static quests, although they are a lot fun, won't solve this issue as they usually can only be done once, or get boring fast. There needs to be aspects to the game that keep a player continuously busy. Thats the great thing about having the crafted item enhancements and other good loot in the game as there was Pre-CU. It created a lot of high-end content that in some form could never be accomplished. To some extent there was no best weapon - yet players sent many hours at the Geo Caves, hunting Nightsisters and so on. If you go to the Geo Caves now, you'd most likely find it empty. It's not too hard to figure out why - who wants to kill the Acklay and loot an organ? I know I don't.
Now during the NGE, the best weapons and armor can be obtained within a day with fairly little ease. There is also little diversity in the area of weapons that players use now. In the past a player choose from going to kill the Acklay or NS hunting or Krayt hunting. Usually you wouldn't get the best weapon or enhancement that you were looking for but you got something that made a better than average weapon. That of course, didn't stop a player from going out hunting again and again. Now, it's just a matter of doing a simple quest or getting some cube components and you can have the best weapon in the game.
Very glad to hear your thoughts on PvP as well. What has been done to factional bases is extremely disappointing, especially since raids on my guild's city were very common - with the ultimate goal of destroying our factional bases. Sure they had their problems, but they also helped stir up PvP as well as make it interesting. Since the removal of factional bases there haven't been any raids on our city
Can't wait to see the new bases introduced, or at the very least see the old ones fixed (so they have walls and NPCs again). It'd be especially cool if we could fortify our cities with walls, turrets etc.
Also do you plan on making some form of a ranking system for PvPers? That'd also introduce high-end content to the game as well as spice up PvP by giving players goals and rewards from PvPing. This once again is something that can never quite be accomplished and is always something a player will have to work towards - rather than achieve in one night.
I've asked the devs to jump in - Rogue 5 - go ahead and bust out your current target live date (I will now wait as the dev team sends someone to beat me up). Last I heard mid-April with it going to test in early April.
Smed
................... = Rups Kcocemag = ................... =Clubbing baby Ewoks since 1985= ................... If you can read this, then you don't need glasses.
I have a few questions I would love to get answered with more than the standard we are working on it now response with no further info.
1. When will XP for creatures and NPCs be increased so those of us who don't like quests and get back to hunting?
2. Will we be able to modify our templates? And i dont mean you give us items that make us different, we want to be able to use our 250 skill points any way we want to and have parts of dif skill trees like before.
3. Since SOE has changed these in the past why are we getting the old its very hard or technilogicaly imposible to do this answer? We arent stupid little kids, software can be modified anyway you want to, it just takes the will to do it.
I NEVER said I was trying to do the emulator. I've been keeping tabs on it, and what they've done so far is pretty impressive. The challenge will be handling the massive amount of data re-construction. Analyzing packets is the EASY part.
What I am saying is that anyone with a few years of experience in the IT industry will know c/c++ and SQL.
When I say experience, I don't mean the computer counter at BestBuy/Fry's or the help desk at some call center.
Oh, Mr. Smedley. Maybe THIS will get your attention:
"I am a disturbance in the force..." Aviatrix, Master Bounty Huntress
"Oh, No! I've been shot!" AVX, Master Droid Tinkerer - AVX Industries Loot vendor located at: 4892 2251 (Obsidian Point, Rori.) Droid vendors located at: 5132 1745 (95m SE from Obsidian Point Shuttleport) Stocking Combat, Entertainer, Crafter, Astromech and BH Droids. Yes, I make Mando Helms and Jetpacks.
I actually think this is something that will make things a lot better. I'm not sure where it is in the pipeline of things to do, but I think having mobs not all bunch up will fix a lot of what people complain about. Unfortunately this is not a simple technical problem to solve. It sounds like it is, but on the server side the single biggest frame rate killer is collisions for a lot of reasons I won't get into. We need to solve this problem. I don't have an ETA yet though.
Smed
I'm impressed - the president of SOE is giving out more technical information about what the problems are than the people who ACTUALLY work on the product. Hats off - I personally would love to see more technical style posts about problems, because it gives us a reason behind things, instead of the usual spin.
STEN EX-Leader of SMEG, RIP Proud ex-member of EEVIL, RIP
Sadersam wrote: What i really like to know smed, is how do u feel about having people pay for beta. I mean really u know the game as it is right now is borked, and u are promising all these changes and fixes yet Soe is taking monthly subs for a game that is knowhere finished.
I know this is a loaded question, but I think the community deserves an answer. I know this is one of the things I've been upset about for a while.
Yes it's a loaded question, but I'll answer it. I think people that believe they are paying for a beta quit. Am I happy with the state of the game? No way. Do I think it's entertaining for a lot of people? Yes, or we wouldn't have subscribers. Is it good enough? Not yet.. no.
So no, I don't think people are paying for a beta. Again, I'm sure by the very nature of the question that you'll disagree.. but there it is.
BTW!!! TELL LUCASARTS TO UPDATE THIER WEBSITE ON TRIALS OF OBI-WAN..ITS STILL ADVERTISING TAMABLE CREATURES ON MUSTAFAR AMONG OTHER THINGS...AND thier site on SWG still refers to the old system
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
dr. sensei wrote:
Ok ...how? You say it is being done...how is it being accomplshed?
this is a good question. i would also liek to know what you are doing to make this change can we get some specific on what we can look forward to. al we know is you guys are going to give us new abilities, but thats not going to help much if everyone is still getting the same abilities. to differentiate us we have to be able to be different, lol
See, this isn't the kind of communication that they like. It obviously isn't iconic enough to just tell us what they're working on, only that they are working on something. What that something is, we dont know, but they'll get back to us about it at some point in time.
You must have balls the size of church bells... and I personally think this is EXACTLY what the community needs from someone of your stature. Unedited, straight, non-political answers... I seriously applaud you for this.
Those of you who can't read between the lines of what Smedley is trying to say:
SOE DID NOT *edit* this game up... the changes were forced upon THEM just like us players.
Furthermore - SOE is working its asses off to get its true character back into our gameplay, and give us back what they already knew we loved. He admits the new system is not what it should be, needs improvement etc. That makes it pretty damn apparent that SOE wasn't the mastermind behind this the NGE, etc.
On the other hand, can we blame a company for trying to stretch its demographic and increase revenue? Not if we have any sort of brains...welcome to the real world, and the world of business.
Smedley is right... this game wasn't appealing to the mass audiences the way it should have, and the powers that be decided to take a calculated gamble. This sort of stuff happens all the time.
I think we should try our best to support SOE in what they are trying to do... continue to **edit** (constructively) about what we'd like to see change, and learn how to handle changes that may or may not occur.
It might be better for SOE as a company to sit back and let you all think that LucasArts forced this stuff on us. Guess what, they didn't. We all sat around a table and read the same data.
Smed
Valid point Smed... but I hardly think SOE were the genius' that decided on the timing. I think it was quite obvious that the Mustafar expansion, and most importantly the Starter Kit were in direct alignment to the release of Episode 3 - which SOE gained absolutely zero residuals from.
While SOE would obviously love to cash in on the success of the film, I don't think as a gaming company you were confident in the release date of the changes.
However, if you are claiming that ALL of these decisions - including timing, how it was rolled out, etc. were in fact a group decision - I think you either owe the players who have been paying since November their money back, or at least a much more valid reason for why we have been given this shell of a game.
You have constantly admitted to *edit*ing up our game in this thread. While the FUTURE intentions are good IMO, the fact remains that we're beta testing for the next 6 months until you get things "right" -- at least in your eyes.
You're admitting to giving us half of what we've had... yet still continue to charge us the full $14.99 per month fee. This should likely be about $9.99 at this point (hell, it might even raise subs). Monthly subscription rates aren't used to create games, they are used to keep them supported, marketed, and and maintained.
|Elder Bounty Hunter|
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DRAYGO BONG
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NARITUS
Don't Drink Grape Gatorade - Your Poo Turns Bright Green
i feel you there smed, and i dont think i can really say much about the chppoing of the professions. but im really more concerned about the diversity as everyone else is really. we would really liek to see what your plans are for making us more diverse. that would be a nice thing to see for us all.
