Will Macro's be addressed in the CU? I personally think it would be a great way to get in there a make the "Recusive Macro" go away. I mean you would have the Heart and soul of the game on the Operation Table. Any comment is better then none. But I'm currious.
Thanks
Nope. What we are going to do there is unknown at this time.
If you can't stand the waiting and would be happier quitting till things are fixed, you should and you shouldn't feel guilty about it. I was told to pass that along and I chose not to because it sounds extreme to me. It's true though I guess, if you aren't having fun, no reason to have an active account until things are improved for us.
Currently, prof revamps are scheduled to be before the GCW, but that could change at any time. I have no idea about dates... because they aren't sure things yet. Order is a little more stable, but that can change too.
I don't rock at the Bake Sale thing myself, but I know that's our only choice for those of us who choose to stick it out. I'd like to make a positive impact on the rest of the player base and preserve our Ent community as much as we can until things are handled... if you can't or don't want to, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. You can always come back.
1) We do take the unattended macroing issues seriously, and this ability will go away, but we are not going to address it this month. It is a big technical change, and takes a serious amount of development and testing. It is being done by a different team than the Combat Upgrade folks so it is not gated by that effort.
2) Yes, the other professions (including all Ents) are scheduled to be revamped right after the Combat Upgrade and before the GCW. This is our stated development strategy. When we start that process we will engage with the community on the design in the In-Development section of the website to ensure what gets done enhances the gameplay and fun within the Ent professions.
3) There is another team doing fixes on all the professions not covered in the Combat Upgrade in the meantime to address immediate issues, bugs and low (dev) cost enhancements. We will being doing some interim fixes to the Combat Upgrade professions too, as warranted. With over 30 professions they have a lot of ground to cover but Ents willl be getting their share.
4) SWG as a whole is an entertainment experience which integrates lots of gaming and social elements. It is intended to have an entire series of compelling and fun activities. Not all of these activities are working the way you or we would like them to. I don't think it is healthy or appropriate for people to continually do things that make them frustrated or angry. This seems like common sense to me, but common sense appears less common all the time as I get older. When I'm not having fun at something, but I still love it at some level, I take a break. This seems better than driving myself to an emotional breaking point. I would hope the same for our customers, as I don't like it when people leave us angry. I would rather people took a break, than got to their breaking point with us, because when they get to that point, there is no chance they will ever come back (it is a divorce, not a breakup).
All the devs, myself included, work every day to try and improve the fun within SWG. We all get sad when we see people leave the game because we couldn't fix it fast enough to save them from leaving. We don't want anyone to leave the game, we want them to enjoy the SWG that so much of our effort and emotion is invested in.
I think that unattended macroing doesn't belong in our game and it will be removed. I have committed us to this, and I remain committed to it. When more people play AFK than ATK, we haven't done our job very well, and we need to fix that.
Thanks for listening. We haven't forgotten your issues and we will work to ensure the Ent professions provide the social gaming experience you deserve.
BTW, one of the two characters I'm spending all my play time on is an Ent (dancer/muscian). I get that the experience needs help, and the challenges of the cantinas. That experience does not match the first two months of the game and I'd love to get back to something closer to that original experience (or better).
Shaizann wrote:
Thank you for your concise explanation of the developer view of things, SOETyrant. It's certainly not the case for me that I'm no longer having fun playing an SWG entertainer, but the experience is curtailed by its many flaws. The most glaring of which is the ability to macro the professions functionality. In additinon to that we need a fun and engageing methodology for Entertainer Healing mechanics to work on. The passive idea just does not work as intended in the present game environment.
I just do not understand why you folks just came to this understanding. We've been jumping up and down for ages trying to get comment or attention on these issues. Don't get me wrong,I'm very pleased to hear from you, but "what took ya so long?" Perhaps it is the "Jedi Blinders" or something similar. Another thing that worries me is that you are only one person on the team, and I am concerned that the other members of the team may not be as commited to the elimination or AFK play (an SWG-wide problem, not just an entertainer problem) or our issues in general.
Any comment you could give with regard to a soft-timeline would be appreciated. Although I know that it is hard to do so given many players take any timeline as a hard and fast promise. I hope I can get a slot in the Combat Upgrade (the activity formally known as the Combat Rebalance, go marketing spin, go!) to help work my input as an entertainer main on how some of the battle fatigue/mind wound mechanics work.
I think we made the initial announcement on our intent to remove unattended macroing within 60 days of my joining the project. Not everyone on the team (or in the game) is going to be happy about this change. In fact, your current irritation is just going to be moved to another group of people who are just fine with AFK play when we make this change.
Through Publish 9, 10 and JTL, our development schedule was "on the rails". Combat Upgrade does not need a huge part of the team to succeed, so now our plan is to operate on several different development tracks, which is why we are fixing bugs and adding the new loot mechanic. We will have an announcement about our development process in a couple of week giving more visibility into this.
While I am only one person, I am setting the direction for the game development moving forward (in conjunction with our team leaders and LucasArts). We (the combined team at SOE and LucasArts) will drive the game to be more fun, more accessible and more Star Wars.
Concerning future publication times. Almost every time we give a timeline we lie. And we *never* do it intentionally. Poop happens, that is we have emergencies, unanticipated challenges, the bugs take longer to resolve than planned and just the general friction and chaos you could associate with any large multi-location team organization combined with the large city of people who are our audience. Going forward you will see us state our development strategy, and when we are ready to work on something it will show up in the In-Concept, In-Development sections of the website. We will engage the community on the majority of the development we do. And most importantly we need to publish things when they are actually done, that is working as designed with a very high quality level.
Removing unattended macroing is a priority item. But it's not simple to do, so it needs both a fair amount of resources and time.. I will push to get it in progress soonest is what I can promise.
Xyrdre
Dancer Correspondent
Posts: 1931
Registered: 03-06-2004
PA:
LIVE Entertainment
Server: Ahazi
Thanks for bringing these together into one easy to find post.
Sticky this one, says I. Until there's additional news, it might be nice to keep all of this easy to locate.
Deila Karlossi , Dancer Correspondent
Coming to a Galaxy Near You! Tour dates on Ahazi, Bria, Chilastra, Europe-Inifinity, Flurry, Kauri, Radiant, Tempest, Test Center... with new dates to be announced!
Another thing to add, this problem is not only a Entertainer only problem. Recursive macro's also include things like:
Docter - Buffbots
Starport Spammers
Tumblers for Medics
AFK Surveying
Scout Survival Camping
Image Designer Macro Grinding
Combat spawn campers
And just about any thing else that can be automated for AFK play.
All of these things need to be tested to make sure they can no longer be automated. People will abuse the system, im sure many other companies have watch SWG to see what they want to do with there games so not to repeat a mistake made elsewhere.
Yso'met - certified entertainer quest helper (Starsider) Cinod Agewiv - cantina crawler (Bria) iMaul - Sith Lord for the rest of us (Eclipse, name nicked from here)
merchant spammers defanitly and most importantly the AFK entertainers too. watched the Cantina Crwalt XII few mins agho they really made me wanna go and try to kill all the AFK ppl maybe SOE too but i mean its kinda sad to see it happen.
oh and slightly related point if the merchant is using a spambot and is master merchant would that be ok or should all spamming in general die too?
---space for rent to a good home---
--i am hi'tu hele...or so i am told--
uberchief wrote: merchant spammers defanitly and most importantly the AFK entertainers too. watched the Cantina Crwalt XII few mins agho they really made me wanna go and try to kill all the AFK ppl maybe SOE too but i mean its kinda sad to see it happen.
oh and slightly related point if the merchant is using a spambot and is master merchant would that be ok or should all spamming in general die too?
I would really like to see them implement a way to either /addignore specific spambots, or just turn them all off like AFK chat. Some of us just hate commercials
Mo'Ste Elosk ------------------------------------------- Empires crumble... Alliances fade... Unions disolve... The only constant in the galaxy is Music. (Playing something else until our professions are important enough to actually have to PLAY them.)
yeh i avoid Cnet for that reason but i am master merchant so i have the ability to piss peopl off using my adbark bot affectionatly called spambot but i dont and i doubt my business suffers because of it
---space for rent to a good home---
--i am hi'tu hele...or so i am told--
They used to have a command to remove NPC chatter, Including random npcs, bots, and people you were talking too, such as quest givers, factional recruiters, stormtroopers searching you. This was all on TC im positive when the ignore afk players came around. So the fact that it ignored everyone just went over the top but the code is there to do such a thing just needs time to tweak it. Maybe Ignore everyone you didnt iniate a conversation with, or specificly talks to you. So NPCs you need to talk to would work but not the bots....but I guess then the bots would be pointless as everyone would ignore them...quite a problem.
Okyy Entertainer To The Stars (Master Entertainer, Master Dancer, Master Musician, Image Designer 4340) Sunrunners Orange Twi'Lek Male Dancer Combat Sandbox Alpha Tester from TC
Sunjammer
Community Contributor
Posts: 249
Registered: 09-19-2004
Me neither. I'd love to know what genius came up with the idea of a spambot. As if the AFK macrospammers weren't bad enough--them at least you can /addignore.
What I would like to see is a billboard droid rather than a barker. Instead of spamming spatial, you would /ex the droid and see a text message in the description field, written by the owner. Maybe they could even have a holo light show, like entertainer droids, to call attention to themselves.
J.
Umiio "Umi" Panwanga • Rodian party girl • Bria Iba'onchab • Gets boarded sometimes • Chimaera
This random sig quote is brought to you by Harry Potter In Fifteen Minutes: SNAPE: EVERYONE SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE GODDAMN HELL UP. I want two rolls of parchment on WEREWOLVES by tomorrow, including what WEREWOLVES look like, how to detect WEREWOLVES in the faculty of a British boarding school for wizards, and the definition of the Latin word “lupus.” CLASS DISMISSED!
Maisland
Pilot
Posts: 810
Registered: 01-17-2004
PA:
Llamas of Destruction
Server: None Chosen
Sunjammer wrote: Me neither. I'd love to know what genius came up with the idea of a spambot. As if the AFK macrospammers weren't bad enough--them at least you can /addignore.
What I would like to see is a billboard droid rather than a barker. Instead of spamming spatial, you would /ex the droid and see a text message in the description field, written by the owner. Maybe they could even have a holo light show, like entertainer droids, to call attention to themselves.
I agree. I would much rather have a droid that put on a lightshow that I had to examine to read the ad than to have a spam-bot that I can't addignore.
MDEUK
Sr. Community Member
Posts: 583
Registered: 10-30-2004
PA:
GBX
Server: Bria
I'm so looking to 2005 and no more recursive macros - it will be back like SWG was in the old days - a lot more fun and a lot more interaction between people!
Wow, one of my questions made it to a Stickied Thread.... /cheer
Nice post to, I read the forum a lot while I'm at work, and try to keep up to date, but some of those posts I had not read before. Very nice centerized area for everyone to see. Strange though....I think SOE is doing a nice job (personal opinion); but it kinda strikes me as strange that reclusive macro's are so important to them, yet we doing see anything being done about them.
It may be a huge time sink for the Devs to fix and test the macro system, but I think that anything hurting this game should be in the top 5 of things to fix. Reclusive macro's are hurting this game, not just entertainers, and it is frustrating to me why they keep saying it's important, but continue to do nothing about it.
Macro's are good for this game, but the fact you can loop them and stay online indefinatly bothers me. Its not so much the fact you can loop the macros, its the fact you stay online even if your not spamming.
If SOE would make an effort to make the auto-logoff function better I would be happy. If they could make it so that if there is no USER input for 20mins then it kicks you off the game. Basically meaning if you don't move your mouse or actually type for 20 mins it kicks you off. That would be a fix in my eyes.
Thats just my 2 cents, and I hope everyone realizes that regardless what SOE does, people will find a way around it....thats what people do unfortunantly. But like I said, changing the auto-logoff would be a HUGE step in the right direction....
Egri : Zabrak - Master Medic / Master Doctor / Master Pikeman -
JeCy
Pilot
Posts: 2215
Registered: 07-22-2003
Server: Chimaera
If people put the spam droids in a spot that didnt get high trafic but for when you wanted to shop, like in a bazzar sqaure or in a player city, they wouldnt be half as anyoying. When im going to shop i like an add.. generally bazzar squares are out side of the beaten path and when you are in one its good to have an add. Perhaps maybe they oculd make um work only in bazzar sqaures,. you are in there to shop.. soo thats when you would want an add right??
all you have to do to ignore badly places spam-bots is examine it and then add the owner to ignore its not hard, not sure why everyone has a problem with it..
The day that recursive macro's are gone will be the day entertiaining becomes fun again and the ones that know what they are doing will make good money cuase tons will quit... which will be a good thing : )
AFK - unattended macroing This will be going away soon. There will be some issues around losing the ability to do things with recursive macros or while AFK which will need to be addressed as part of this effort, but overall it is better for the game environment to not have this as a sanctioned behavior.
No real new news, but it is nice that we are hearing it more and more often.
AFK - unattended macroing This will be going away soon. There will be some issues around losing the ability to do things with recursive macros or while AFK which will need to be addressed as part of this effort, but overall it is better for the game environment to not have this as a sanctioned behavior.
No real new news, but it is nice that we are hearing it more and more often.
This says "Unattended Macro....." Which I agree should go away. Reclusive (looping) macro's should stay in the game. There are a lot of good uses for looping macro's. Going AFW (Away for Weeks) is not one of them.
Egri : Zabrak - Master Medic / Master Doctor / Master Pikeman -
The two are not so easily separatable technologically.
It can be done, the code is already there. If I stand still for (I think) 30 mins, I go LD, but if at anytime I type, or move the mouse, or anything, my timer starts over.
It is very possible to make these conditions apply to Macro's. While a Macro is issueing commands, the user is actually "moving". I understand what you are saying, but I just think it would be far better to destroy Unattended play vice Reclusive macro's.
Your right, it may not be easy to do, but I think everyone can agree, Reclusive Macro's do have very good uses. I just don't like the fact reclusive macros are going away, They help out is so many projects and tasks within this game. Whatever SOE does, I will support it, I just hate to see some tasks become even more "painful"
If SOE can track 3rd party Macro's, there has got to be a way to track in game macro's and put a stop to Unattended play.
Egri : Zabrak - Master Medic / Master Doctor / Master Pikeman -
Xyrdre
Dancer Correspondent
Posts: 1931
Registered: 03-06-2004
PA:
LIVE Entertainment
Server: Ahazi
Truth is, I think that's really the goal here. To stop unattended "play", that is.
Looking at recursive macros is one approach to find a way to stop all that AFKin', but may not be the be-all, end-all answer. That's something that I've been pushing for on the Correspondent boards all along - that we do not lose sight of the end-goal, that of stopping (as much as possible) AFK automation of the game, and making sure that whatever method is used to achieve that goal will in fact accomplish it. Again, as much as possible.
As all of the debate since July has shown, there may not be a simple answer. There's a bit of a tangled web of issues and concerns, and none but the devs really know what the code can or cannot do in it's current state, and what the fallout effects of altering that code may be. It may not be as easy as it seems, intuitively. Kinda wish it was.
At the end of the day, the devs still seem to be dedicated to finding an answer to stopping the rampant AFK throughout SWG, as evidenced in the recent line comment by Tyrant. The specific method by which that happens, and the timeline, are still unknown, but it is still being addressed. And that is a Very Good Thing (tm).
Deila Karlossi , Dancer Correspondent
Coming to a Galaxy Near You! Tour dates on Ahazi, Bria, Chilastra, Europe-Inifinity, Flurry, Kauri, Radiant, Tempest, Test Center... with new dates to be announced!
When I'm not having fun at something, but I still love it at some level, I take a break. This seems better than driving myself to an emotional breaking point. I would hope the same for our customers, as I don't like it when people leave us angry. I would rather people took a break, than got to their breaking point with us, because when they get to that point, there is no chance they will ever come back (it is a divorce, not a breakup).
