We realize that the recent Combat Upgrade has caused quite a stir. Yes, we've seen the petition. Yes, we're reading your emails very carefully.. in fact I've responded to many of you personally. From our perspective the Combat Upgrade was a crucial thing for us to do for the long term health of the game. In order to make the experience in SWG more diverse and to breathe new life into this game we felt it was important for us to entirely overhaul the current system and to make sure that it's balanced properly. Are we finished? Not by a longshot... by doing this what we've effectively done is to provide a new baseline to add a lot of new content into the game in a very short time, and to make sure that the professions really mean something in the game. We recognize there are problems that have arisen from this, and what I'd like to ask your help in doing is to target these problems so that we can knock them down very quickly. As you've seen in the last few days, the team is working tirelessly towards fixing any problems that have arisen.. and with your help we're confident we can get the rest of them taken care of as well.
Please understand that we love this game too.. our goal wasn't to upset the existing userbase.. but we do recognize that changing a game does inherently mean some people aren't going to like that change. What we're trying to do is to insure that we can accomplish a lot of what you've all been asking us to do (things like Galactic Civil War) in really cool and meaningul ways.. and frankly speaking, we just couldn't do that with the old combat system in place.
What would really help us is to give us ideas on how we can improve the new system and cool things you would like to see us do in the near term. We aren't going back to the old system, but with your help I'm confident in a few weeks you're going to feel this was the right call. Obviously you are our customers, and you pay the bills around here... we're trying to make changes that are going to make your experience better in the long run. Please bear with us while we make that effort, and give us a little time to respond and address your concerns.
As I have heard, you have lost a large amount of your userbase. You have turned this game into something completely different. This is no longer the Star Wars Galaxies we all used to know and love. You took the uniqueness out of this game and made it more like EQ2 and WoW. You have made thousands of people cancel their subscriptions, and you have broken many friendships that existed over this game.
As it stands, You have a few options to get back atleast some of the thousands of canceled subscriptions. One would be to open a new Pre-CU Server. There have already been threads created asking for comments about this idea. Even if a Pre-CU server was opened and recieved no future patches, people would still love to come back and play on it. People are also willing to start completely fresh on this new server. This was an idea that was tossed out by a thread in the old CU Discussion forum I believe.
The other idea would be to.. well.. Completely roll back to Pre-CU. I know that this is probly not going to happen, given all the time that the development team has invested into the Combat Upgrade, and the Episode 3 coming up that you are hoping can bring you some more players. So I do not expect you to make this decision.
I myself will be cancelling my subscriptions soon as well, the reason is not that I hate the CU.. I have been playing it, and although I do disagree with it, It will not be my main reason for quitting. My main reason will be that all the friends I have, all the people I used to play with and have strong friendships with have quit the game. Most of them have gone onto World of Warcraft. I will most likely be joining them there.
When you put the CU Up for testing, many said they did not like it. You put up 2 different polls, both which recieved an 80% Negative feedback. Then you decided to push out the CU Earlier than anticipated, full of bugs. You did not listen to most of your player base, and now you have lost a good portion of them. You had players protesting in the servers, you had threads scattered all over the forums with negative opinions. I now hear that stores are beginning to take SWG off their shelves. Wether or not this is true, this is the reputation that has been given to the SOE Name. You did not listen to your customers, and now it has had a large impact on the company. You have destroyed what was once a unique and fun game, and many people will remember about what happened to the great game that used to be Star Wars Galaxies.
if you guys had taken the time to listen to our feedback from the begining, and include players in the alpha testing phase of the CU instead of letting us be alpha proof readers we woul never be having this conversation, and SWG mighta been salvaged. Instead you gave us the shaft, you took over a 100 of the top community members of this game and you told them that you don't need their help, don't want it, and you know what you're doing. Then you foolheartedly plowed through us, our tons of complaints, huge amounts of outrage, and pushes this to live EARLY! That my friend is bad play, very very bad play, and a horrible buisness move. You told your customers you don't care what they want, and now you are shocked when they leave in mass droves? And it took you two weeks after the implementation to finally realize that we hate it.
Now you expect us to what? Wait another year and 9 months for another fix? A fix to your broken attempt at fixing the game that will innevitably be a failed fix. I spent 7 months trying to represent the armorsmith community to provide feedback for your company, and I was given the shaft more times then I can count, ignored more times then I wish, and feelt like screaming at a brick wall when the CU was on test center and things needed to be fixed. I can list off a dozen issues with my profession that could have been taken care of during alpha testing if players where allowed to alpha test, then another dozen that we would have been screaming about since then. Resource requirements, factory times, faction costs, inability to check harvestors and factories without risking limb or life, lack of armor customization kits that wher promised to us, lack of intuitive experimentation, innevatable sky rocketing of armor prices while their uses plummet. Tons of issues, all which could have been avoided and overcome months ago, instead you guys where too busy playing in your little sandbox to let the players get their fingers on it and get the feedabck that you have ignored.
What makes you think saying you will fix the bugs will keep anyone here? You have had endless amounts of false promises, remember the quote we heard for a year "When it's done". What happened to that? For a year and a half you chanted it, "when it's done".... "when it's done" then we pushed it back for JTL, then you give us that is half crap not even close to done garbage.
I wish this wasn't buried way low but if you are reading our posts, then maybe someone will come across it, but I doubt it.
And btw, I'm glad I got canned trying to raise issues to my profession, you screwed us over and your pompouse developers couldn't take 30 seconds out of their busy schedules to acknowledge we where even existing. Then you go and ban me for 7 days because I couldn't keep my opinions about how bad this CU is to myself. I hope you are proud of what you have done, you have killed my beloved game and replaced it with garbage that won't last 6 months. Good game devs, good game.
I'd really like to hear about the progression of discussions about allowing all professions to count for the respec system.
I truly believe that is something that should be implimented.
Honestly, it's only been a few days since this was acknowledged as something being discussed... I'm just eagerly awaiting a change in that regard, because I'm holding off playing my favorite character until I can use the respec system to make him what I think he should be in this "New" game. (Time to go back to Master Smuggler... and I'm done ever needing xp again)
I'd also like to discuss the armor certs. I just want to see all armors equipable by all, but if you don't have the profession cert, you will have full (Greater) hinderances.
I don't think Players should have to have certain professions in order to equip armor and have some fun. Any Imperial should be able to equip some Storm Trooper Armor and role-play a bit of fun... Honestly, most of the time, you need extras to just show up and play the role of a Storm Trooper. It could be anyone, they just have to act the part... not necessarily fight the part. Plus, a big hobbey of many Star Wars Fans is collecting things... one great element of this game has always been the ability to collect all these great Star Wars props and actually get to run around wearing them, playing with them... I think the armor should stay open to all... the penalties associated with them seem like a good idea, I just don't think they require the speciffic Cert in advanced combat professions.
Balance can be reached with the encumberences... I don't think it would be a problem opening up that freedom.
That's all I'll mention...
Some may think I'm just being negative, but if I was just being negative, I wouldn't be sticking around, I wouldn't care to make sure that this game is still one that I can enjoy.
What needs to be done is what the dev team is very capable of. That is, putting out alot of changes in a short time. When JtL was in beta, there were constant changes to that. But with this on the live servers, we haven't had one update in the last 3 days. Yet there is a new expansion coming? The real problem is we have portions of the old system that are currently clashing with the new system. This needs to be fixed, before any new expansions get released. If not, we run the risk of having the same problem with the new system that we've had with the old one.
....developingnew content without fixing the content that's already in the game.
That has been the number one problem with this project from day one. The mobs in the game needs to be balanced WITH the CU, as it is now....there are alot of problems. The CL system is fine, except that it's TOO strict. Players are use to a great deal of freedom in this game. Being forced to have to grind a certain type of mob at a certain type of level just doesn't appeal to the type of gamer that likes the CU.
We don't mind bugs, we DO mind bugs that go a very long time without being repaired.
Thanks for the thread, at least we know you're listening.
Message Edited by CyberData4 on 05-03-200507:41 PM
Wow nice post, even though I have always supported the Combat Upgrade it's nice to see that even the President cares.
Indeed. Thank you much for the response to our concerns.
"That's what I expected. The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you can do that is because you can do it in the toilet." - Ender Wiggin
------ Elyssa Alexander (Elder Merchant Correspondent) 12pt. Master Structures Trader / Elder Jedi / Mayor, City of Metropolis Shop Crazy Durni, Inc., now open in Metropolis, Corellia (885 -6605 Gorath)
"Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it." "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
i find the CU actually somewhat enjoyable but some problems i do have are
Loss of jedi skills do to the first respec UI. this is a HUGE issue for me as ingame support refuses to help me. I lost over 25 respec points and the loss of 7 skill points that were once used. I should be able to go back to what iwas before respec im not asking to go to something more then what i was. If i had X boxes at respec i should be able to have those exact same boxes if i do not like my current template. No response from Tiggs/Th or anyt other dev that ive seen addresses this. I did see where people who diddnt even use respec UI were granted a fix but people who used the system as intended cannot.
specials.. while im glad its no longer smash x button as fast as you can the delay to use any special is boring needless to say .. mostly for melee.... im not sure how to fix it but i would at least be open to some kind of change
thanks ahead
Masik Dreamweaver
m"The scientific name for a person that doesn't either run from or fight its enemies is corpse."m
