On the general issue of whether or not the update process is followed...
We put this particular scheme into place because we believe that it's
the best way to keep you informed. Leaving aside for the moment the
issue of whether it is being followed, do you agree that IF it was used
correctly, it would be a good system?
I'm curious about your thoughts on that. If you feel it would not be, what changes would you make?
Separately, on the issue of whether it is being used--all titles are
required to use it, and all titles will. We're starting a general sweep
now of all the titles to ensure that it is being used. My belief is
that customers should expect to see things appearing on In Dev weekly,
if not daily, and that update notes for both In Test and In Live should
be detailed and accurate. In Test ones, in particular, should be
sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum
standard to which documentation should be provided.
I'll ask Brenlo, the director of community relations, to verify that this is happening.
In Concept is somewhat trickier, since tems there are by nature
speculative. But we instituted this process as a whole for a reason,
and it is modelled on the processes found in pretty much the rest of
the software industry (think of In Concept like Request for Comments,
and so on--it should all look familiar then).
-Raph Koster Chief Creative Officer, Sony Online Entertainment
"Separately, on the issue of whether it is being used--all titles are required to use it, and all titles will. We're starting a general sweep now of all the titles to ensure that it is being used. My belief is that customers should expect to see things appearing on In Dev weekly, if not daily, and that update notes for both In Test and In Live should be detailed and accurate. In Test ones, in particular, should be sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum standard to which documentation should be provided."
They should be, bet never seem to be. The phrase stealth nerf is used alot on the forums because of this, I dont know if it is the lack of communication between the departments but it is getting to be horrid. When was the last time you actuallyed played the game? I think if some of the people that run the show actually logged in and played the different professions they could realize how shakey the state of the game is. I and tons of people love this game, and what the game could be. But I am just loosing faith in the staff, issues like the combat xp conversion not being in the patch notes was a big one for me. It is sad when members of the player base post amazing ideas for what the devs could do to start to fix the games problems yet they seem to be ignored.. If only Glzmo's ideas were placed into the game.... You could fire half your staff and hire him impliment the ideas he has put forth and watch the players you have lost come back.
I was never around when you were, but I respect you for actually responding to the players in the forums this is some of the most interaction Ive seen in a long time, I urge you to come back into the Star wars galaxies world maybe you can help pound some sence back into the people that have the power to change things around here.
/ramble off /sleep
Message Edited by Yateswook on 09-11-200508:31 PM
If your gonna ban me, next time at least let me do something worth banning!
-----
My HAM, when it meant something...
gggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggg
ggggggggggggggggggggg <------ The bar that mattered most..
Holocron wrote: We're starting a general sweep now of all the titles to ensure that it is being used. My belief is that customers should expect to see things appearing on In Dev weekly, if not daily, and that update notes for both In Test and In Live should be detailed and accurate. In Test ones, in particular, should be sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum standard to which documentation should be provided.
I'll ask Brenlo, the director of community relations, to verify that this is happening.
Holocron you'll be my hero if this actually happens...
Message Edited by TheReborn on 09-11-200511:20 PM
gnnnndnnnng):ggggggggggggggggggggggggg) Wavelighter-X Imperial Colonel Elder Jedi :: Master Freelance Pilot I Support a Conversion Back to Pre-CU or CU
After reading your post i cant comprehend how SWG has turned into what is has, the "fun" factor of this game is down to allmost zero with all the nerfs to everything and especially this recent nerf to "aaukauns" which was the only mob that droped anything worth your playtime leaving one proffession "BH's" as the only ones that can get "good" loot. We could go hunt blacksuns for nice loot but all they drop is stuff for bounty hunters .What are we supposed to do go loot bones and eyeballs on kashayyk? Thats not the kinda fun players are looking for.
You obviously have a great understanding of "videogames" from the players point of view and a vision of what mmo's should be, so why has stuff like what i mentioned above been allowed to happen?
Apparently your depature has been catastrophic for SWG and seems like it could have played a big part in the "current" state of the game .Because it sure was an awsome game a year ago somthing sure happened along the way.
How about you come back for a few months and help get the wheels turning again?
Message Edited by Gamesanator on 09-11-200508:34 PM
..................................... Dark Jedi Knight/Gorath .....................................
In Test ones, in particular, should be sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum standard to which documentation should be provided.
Thank you so much for saying this, as a 2 year veteran of TC-Prime all we ask for is the knowlege of what to help your Q&A with. Well we like having a server that is not mothballed as well
Took Alot
Master Doctor/Bounty Hunter
Metropolis of Skystone, Tatooine on TC-Prime
________StarWars Galaxies ________ RETURN OF THE JEDI I am not a Jedi, because everyone else is....
Holocron wrote: On the general issue of whether or not the update process is followed...
We put this particular scheme into place because we believe that it's the best way to keep you informed. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether it is being followed, do you agree that IF it was used correctly, it would be a good system?
I'm curious about your thoughts on that. If you feel it would not be, what changes would you make?
Separately, on the issue of whether it is being used--all titles are required to use it, and all titles will. We're starting a general sweep now of all the titles to ensure that it is being used. My belief is that customers should expect to see things appearing on In Dev weekly, if not daily, and that update notes for both In Test and In Live should be detailed and accurate. In Test ones, in particular, should be sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum standard to which documentation should be provided.
I'll ask Brenlo, the director of community relations, to verify that this is happening.
In Concept is somewhat trickier, since tems there are by nature speculative. But we instituted this process as a whole for a reason, and it is modelled on the processes found in pretty much the rest of the software industry (think of In Concept like Request for Comments, and so on--it should all look familiar then).
The perception is that the more controverisal the change is the less likely it will be mentioned promonently or at all. Of course this perception is very subjective becuase controversial decisions are bound to vary between various players.
One only has to go back a couple of weeks though to wonder how something like the XP change happened with no notice to the playerbase beyond a change that was yanked off the test center and then returned unannounced.
Its only one example but its not the first one and it is an example of just the kinds of things that lead to distrust between players and the development teams. Sometimes you guys get it right. The GCW changes last year were discussed openly in the correspondent forums, changes made from the feedback, discussed openly In Development, and changes made based on feedack. If all the major changes were handled the same way I think you would see less friction. Unfortunately all too often the first time we hear of major gameplay altering designs is when they hit test center.
You remember admitting that you guys shifted the resources that was to go into the Smuggler profession to the crafting profession redevelopement dureing Beta when the introduction of the Smuggler profession was so late?
Remember that you PROMISED that Smugglers would have priority after Launch because we got so shafted in Beta?
Are you aware that over TWO YEARS that Smugglers STILL cannot Smuggle in the game?
Holocron wrote: On the general issue of whether or not the update process is followed...
We put this particular scheme into place because we believe that it's the best way to keep you informed. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether it is being followed, do you agree that IF it was used correctly, it would be a good system?
I'm curious about your thoughts on that. If you feel it would not be, what changes would you make?
Separately, on the issue of whether it is being used--all titles are required to use it, and all titles will. We're starting a general sweep now of all the titles to ensure that it is being used. My belief is that customers should expect to see things appearing on In Dev weekly, if not daily, and that update notes for both In Test and In Live should be detailed and accurate. In Test ones, in particular, should be sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum standard to which documentation should be provided.
I'll ask Brenlo, the director of community relations, to verify that this is happening.
In Concept is somewhat trickier, since tems there are by nature speculative. But we instituted this process as a whole for a reason, and it is modelled on the processes found in pretty much the rest of the software industry (think of In Concept like Request for Comments, and so on--it should all look familiar then).
If this were to take place, it would be ideal. However, they are not even close. Take a look at dev tracker yourself. TH and Tiggs go days/weeks without posting anything of substance. Patch notes will be wrong or include things that went live 3 releases ago. There are a few developers (Blixtev comes to mind) who will come on the boards, explain their thinking, ask for feedback, and LISTEN. But they are the exception. I honestly wonder what Tiggs does all day. Her job is community relations, and she does very little of it.
Let's be honest, WOW is eating your lunch. And since I am sure some SOE apologist will point out that people will get bored and their numbers will come down. Well even after that, they will still be eating your lunch. You have the most profitable movie franchise in history, and you are what number 4 or 5 (if that) in subscribers? If I had to sum up all the things that have gone wrong with this game in one word, I would choose Incompetence. Incompetence in design, Incompetence in implementation, and certainly Incompetence in communication. This game should be achieving the success that WOW is. Do you know that in the last three months, they have broken the game remembering your chat settings, and the game remembering your graphics settings. These are the most basic of systems and worked for two years, and they get broken NOW?
And one further comment on your Treadmills comment and how hard it is to get away from them. You don't need to look any further than your own game. Ground game is a TREADMILL. But space is not. Space is an interesting mixture of missions and grinding. Want to master in the ground game, go grind more xp in the exact same manner that you have ground to get there. Want to master in space, here are two unique missions that you have to do, in a place the mission system has never sent you. It's like night and day.
Holocron wrote: On the general issue of whether or not the update process is followed...
We put this particular scheme into place because we believe that it's the best way to keep you informed. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether it is being followed, do you agree that IF it was used correctly, it would be a good system?
I'm curious about your thoughts on that. If you feel it would not be, what changes would you make?
Separately, on the issue of whether it is being used--all titles are required to use it, and all titles will. We're starting a general sweep now of all the titles to ensure that it is being used. My belief is that customers should expect to see things appearing on In Dev weekly, if not daily, and that update notes for both In Test and In Live should be detailed and accurate. In Test ones, in particular, should be sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum standard to which documentation should be provided.
I'll ask Brenlo, the director of community relations, to verify that this is happening.
In Concept is somewhat trickier, since tems there are by nature speculative. But we instituted this process as a whole for a reason, and it is modelled on the processes found in pretty much the rest of the software industry (think of In Concept like Request for Comments, and so on--it should all look familiar then).
I'm not sure if this would be a programming nightmare but, would it be possible to place 'In-development/in-testing' instanced-quests/content on the live servers? I'm not trying to imply the negation of the test server, test server could do the hard copy Vs. instanced could test content on veteran players. Possibly give a limited amount of tickets and a time on access much like a corvette run.
Then have a madatory exit survey, that if completed in a mature, constructive manner, would make a player able to participate further in judging new content. I see it this way. If the development team has several proposals in the oven, you then expose a population to that content. Using the exit survey the development team will be able to decide on which proposals will be popular, and put time into.
Holocron wrote: On the general issue of whether or not the update process is followed...
We put this particular scheme into place because we believe that it's the best way to keep you informed. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether it is being followed, do you agree that IF it was used correctly, it would be a good system?
I'm curious about your thoughts on that. If you feel it would not be, what changes would you make?
I have to admit... I'm the kind of person who will go to log into the game and discover there's a hotfix, or even a Publish. I'm not the most well informed, because for the most part, I've been happy playing the game I've got.
However, having gone through some troublesome times with my professions (Tailor and Politician) I've found that I look to the forums for more information now (the BE cloth and crated colour issues especially).
So I think that the In Concept -> In Development -> In Testing -> In Live idea could be very useful if implemented properly. By this I mean, say the developers were deciding to throw some ideas about smuggler around. They could post such on the In Concept forum, stating clearly of course that it is In Concept... and I think you'd get a lot of the smugglers, ex-smugglers, and people who always wanted to be a smuggler but were turned off by the lack of smuggling giving their ideas on the topic. As well, anyone who might be affected by changes (pilots, factions, etc) will put in their .02 cents... and I think that you might get a pretty good idea of what the player base wants right there. Keeping it to one or two threads would reduce the amount of "trash" your developers on the project might have to sort through if they just searched the Smuggler forum (and they wouldn't get as much of a voice from the rest of the community).
Even this simple act of letting the community know what exactly the devs are spending their time on would be tremendously helpful, from a player's perspective. I mean, sure I know the devs are all working hard every day, but right now I'm just thinking they're concentrating on Mustafar- a place that doesn't hold much interest to me at all (which the devs would know, had a topic called "What planet do you want to visit next?" been put in the In Concept forum).
Ok, so the devs have gotten the go ahead from higher ups to work on Smuggler (and have ideas from the In Concept forum). So now they can post a couple times saying "we tried this, it didn't work, but this looks promising"... letting the playerbase know how things are going with the actual development. And when you finally take it to testing - let us know about the bugs- all of them if possible.
The In Live board... Use it as a follow up for what the finished product is. Sure, you have to move onto new Concepts, but spend a couple days/weeks fixing the problems that were left over instead of leaving the player base to work around the bugs for months.
Sayda Eol Sh'ria Tyen ---------------------------------------- Style By Design Clothing -200 4934, Tyrannia II, Naboo ~Like an angel from the underworld or a devil from paradise. (Formerly ~ Fortune's Lady)
You remember admitting that you guys shifted the resources that was to go into the Smuggler profession to the crafting profession redevelopement dureing Beta when the introduction of the Smuggler profession was so late?
Remember that you PROMISED that Smugglers would have priority after Launch because we got so shafted in Beta?
Are you aware that over TWO YEARS that Smugglers STILL cannot Smuggle in the game?
What happened Raph?
I have never been a person who couldn't wait to be a smuggler, however, I can certainly see why star wars fans would want to.
It is amazing the way that these people have been led on. The last set of "official" posts said that the smuggler profession was going to be more or less fixed by giving small fixes and additions here and there.
I thank the good lord that I am not one of the people whom have been waiting to be a cool smuggler since the game's launch.
I still have trouble understanding why smugglers were pretty much turned into a combat profession. Not too useful of one either, by what many people say (again, never played it). Perhaps to get hard core players to try out mastering the smuggler profession once they have tried out all the real combat professions.
IMO, I think that Smuggler is now deserving of an upgrade almost the size of an expansion (that will not be an expansion). I have to think that some of the people at SOE must feel this way too. How could they not. Smuggling combat should include things that help them "bypass" a real fight, by either escaping, or using a "dirty" tactic to end a fight quick. Why not add an attack that automatically incaps in PvP, or kills in PvE "hidden blaster first strike", but your chances of hitting is are like only 25%, and if you miss it you have to clone because the other player will blow you to pieces? (I'd say that you can't deathstrike anyone when using the attack)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read my fan fiction prequel prequel, here's a clicky: Star Wars Episode 0 Masks of Darkness The Sith mantle is passed to the next generation, the jedi make contact and discover this remnant of the ancient order of dark-side users. R2-D2 is born!
Holocron wrote: On the general issue of whether or not the update process is followed...
do you agree that IF it was used correctly, it would be a good system? Yes...but it's not...let's make some heads roll
Separately, on the issue of whether it is being used--all titles are required to use it, and all titles will. but they don't We're starting a general sweep now of all the titles to ensure that it is being used. seems to me that there should be some consequences when it's found that it's not. My belief is that customers should expect to see things appearing on In Dev weekly, if not daily, and that update notes for both In Test and In Live should be detailed and accurate. when we do they are in many cases flat out wrong...I know who's responsibility it is and they constantly threaten people with "dragons" in SWG friggin dragons man....wth? In Test ones, in particular, should be sufficient for Test Center players to test with, which sets a minimum standard to which documentation should be provided. again, should be...but isn't.
I'll ask Brenlo, the director of community relations, to verify that this is happening. why? who is this person who is unknown to the community at large? and why would you believe they wouldn't just lie again? wouldn't it be easier just to click over to the correct forums and see for yourself?
In Concept is somewhat trickier, since tems there are by nature speculative. But we instituted this process as a whole for a reason, and it is modelled on the processes found in pretty much the rest of the software industry (think of In Concept like Request for Comments, and so on--it should all look familiar then). again, go look at it. JC you people are so clueless.
where are our battlefields?
where is our smuggler revamp?
why don't rangers do anything?
why was the cu rushed out lightyears before it was ready?
why don't the community relations people ever convey the concerns of the community to those who can make use of the information?
why were we told Jedi would not be altered or adjusted in the CU?
why did Jedi get the shaft as a result of the CU?
why are we told vital missing things are bugs, when in fact they were removed purposely?
why are we then told that it would be unbalancing if we had them available?
why are we now forced to wait till november and the purchase of an expansion to have them available again?
why was it allowed for the hard work of thousands to be trivialized by a new post-cu mechanic that allowed people to do in weeks what it took us months, some even years to do?
why does the natural griefer profession now get their choice of running lucrative NPC missions OR griefing achievers, while the natural Achiever disciplines get no access to any type of lucrative missions?
why when the player base, initially rose up against the XP nerf were we told by a paid troll "that's the way it's gonna be" blah blah "games are supposed to be a challenge" blah blah blah
why did that troll not publicly apologize after the matter went over her head, and put the heat on her superiors, and recieve media coverage, other than saying "you already got my apology"
why didn't you release the information to the mother regarding the account of the player who killed himself, apparently partially motivated by delusions related to his what was referred to as an addiction, to EQ?
do these questions look fun?
truth is...you probably don't know the answers to any of these questions, and it's not your fault, but you will be lied to if you ask the people who could answer them on the SOE side, that is if you cared (which you might), and if you didn't do the intelligent thing and run as quick and as far from this thread and star wars galaxies as possible because it makes your soul ache (which I would probably do if I were in your shoes). Sorry dude...fun don't live here...those that are left are chasing a ghost that never was...pretty sad when you face reality and cut through the suit-speak...I guess your job is to make the next generation better....which would not be hard to accomplish if you pay close attention to the desires of your audience...I just can't imagine a once in a lifetime oppurtunity like the licensing of Star Wars will ever be bestowed upon SOE again...the credibility of the organization on all fronts is in the can...and so, in house IP is up against near hopeless odds.
One thing to say is that there is a fine line of imersion (sp?) Coming from a management background I can say this you either keep party B seperate from party A's decisions or you can involve party B into the process. Now from watching the things that happen with the development->live process I have to say it gets muddled big time. You can't keep mixing up involvement because party B will not like the fact that they are told half the story. You folks have discovered this big time when the devs pushed out the xp changes without telling a single subscriber that it was going live. This happens alot in the game. Your patch notes will have the infamous "stealth nerf" and depending on what it is you get a sliding scale of uproar from they paying public.
Now this is YOUR CHOICE this is SOE money thats making this game run but like I said party B will get angry if they expect to have the interaction with the testing and decision making in the game. The designers decided to involve the public in the first place which is a GREAT idea and can be a large task to watch but you have to keep the lines clear to keep everyone in the matter happy.
Just my 2c for what its worth
Message Edited by skippdogg on 09-12-200512:20 AM
RaReece DavisaR \`nnnn]nb[ggggggggggggggggggggg)
BUY MY SHIZZZ!!! Davis Enterprises LTD. ~3 N. Main~ Varia Naboo
The problem with this and many mmorpg's is they are making long term games without making long term plans for the game. This means devs have no plan to stick to when making changes. Without that plan and growing complaints for change the devs start making changes based on what the complaints are about. The problem is most complaints are from the dumb and lazy.
So the game slowly but surely gets dumbed down too the point where all those creative people, that Raph needs for players to create their own content, leave. Without the creative people the dumb and lazy begin too lose interest and leave as well even though they got the changes they wanted.
.What are we supposed to do go loot bones and eyeballs on kashayyk? Thats not the kinda fun players are looking for.
.Because it sure was an awsome game a year ago somthing sure happened along the way.
