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.
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
We are all here to help this game improve a complete system change was not needed. Changing crafting, yes the starter kit, yes adding quest based system, yes but not a complete system change.
Message Edited by RKO on 03-24-200609:47 AM
I respectfully disagree with your position on this. The profession system had fundemental flaws that couldn't be corrected and still be able to both balance the game and add meaningful content that made each profession really matter and be differentiated from the others. Was crafting absolutely the most amazing part of the game? Probably IMO. Can it still be a major part of the game? Hell yes.. and it will be. BUT that needs to be balanced with the fact that adventuring and killing things needed to have meaningful rewards as well to reach a more mainstream audience. I really hope you can see this point even if you don't agree with it.
Smed
Open a classic server then keep an eye on your statistics your playerbase will double over night.when i was bored with swg i simply would mess with my template you destroyed that with such a simplified game version.After all the time that has passed since NGE i cant understand your logic we simply dont like it and we honestly live in hope that you see sense.
DUS XOT
Dark Jedi
Imperial Ace
You close your eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone....
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.
this in fact is very true, but just because your hardcore doesnt mean you can attract the masses. ffxi does it very well. and you know why, cause they actually take the time to put in quality systems into the game instead of half arsed systems. just look at the bounty hunter system smed. your devs are adding a bounty hunter system that is totally exploitable. why do i feel its exploitable, because as soon as a person gets killed there will be a ton of bh's bounty checking whoever killed that person and kiling him quick cause they only have ten minutes. thats not very enjoyable fo those who are in the middle of pvp. oh and dont let me forget the fact that your introducing a bounty hunter system based on the gcw pvp system that you havent even fixed yet. now smed im not trying to get in you train of thought, but dont you think that if you goiung top make a bh system based off of the gcw, then the gcw should be fixed first so that people can enjoy pvp and be ok about bh's coming to kill them immediatly while in battle. i mean you guys just arent making sense with that.
the same thing with crafting and the same thing with gaining xp. you guys are fixing things in the wrong order and thats why were are pissed now.
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
How can that possibly be achieved with a shallow profession system (the shallowest of any MMO, including WoW) and a combat system that puts strategy on the back seat behind specials and heals that fail and is so fast that the person who gets the first shot in wins 90% of the time?
Combat is the most boring and uninteresting that it has ever been in this game, BECAUSE of how fast it is!
No, I didn't like the 25 minute heal wars fights of the CU game either, but what you have done is gone and made a combat system that is just as bad, for the opposite reasons because you went to the other extreme!
Kcocemag wrote: So what's the new expansion going to be?
We are not currently working on or planning an expansion. Period. Our only job right now is to make this game better.
Smed
This goes against what has been posted here on the boards. When the Devs introduced themselves to the boards it was stated that they were working on a expansion. They even went as far as to say it should be announced during E3 and that we could expect it shortly after. Until your post nothing has been stated otherwise.
Not denying that. I'm saying things have changed. It's that simple.
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.
this in fact is very true, but just because your hardcore doesnt mean you can attract the masses. ffxi does it very well. and you know why, cause they actually take the time to put in quality systems into the game instead of half arsed systems. just look at the bounty hunter system smed. your devs are adding a bounty hunter system that is totally exploitable. why do i feel its exploitable, because as soon as a person gets killed there will be a ton of bh's bounty checking whoever killed that person and kiling him quick cause they only have ten minutes. thats not very enjoyable fo those who are in the middle of pvp. oh and dont let me forget the fact that your introducing a bounty hunter system based on the gcw pvp system that you havent even fixed yet. now smed im not trying to get in you train of thought, but dont you think that if you goiung top make a bh system based off of the gcw, then the gcw should be fixed first so that people can enjoy pvp and be ok about bh's coming to kill them immediatly while in battle. i mean you guys just arent making sense with that.
the same thing with crafting and the same thing with gaining xp. you guys are fixing things in the wrong order and thats why were are pissed now.
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
Why EQ2 is so good while SWG is, IMO and alot of others, so bad ? If you guys changed the old system for something along the lines of EQ2, things would not be so bad around here... hell, maybe more people would play.
Currently playing : Under NDA MMO's are drugs. Waiting for the next SW MMO (i know it's comming) I have a feeling... a big announcement is comming... at the end of the month... Hologrind KILLED SWG. Gimme Classic Server with no Jedi. Thanks.
This is what was needed here to stop all these rumors,Lately Ive found it very unbearable to post or even read some parts of this forum because of all the rumors and "PRE CU FTW!!!" threads.
Ive played all Three systems and im sure ill get called a carebear for this or be told i sucked pre cu when in fact i didnt,but the nge is my favorite combat wise,However you are right about content Im CL90 and the last two weeks or so ive been so bored all i can do is run back and forth between houses,I love this game and High end content and profession fixes is definately what we need.
While i personally understand it takes time to get publishes out the long period between them lately is frustrating to everyone.
4 Issues I have
1.Can I get an answer if the Prepaid cards have been discontinued,They are becoming very hard to find and are my ONLY way of playing ,Alot of stores i go to tell me they arent coming back either this concerns me alot as its my only way to pay.
2.If there was a city purge even tho we all worked to get our metropolis cities why not lift some of the restrictions on citizen requirements so we can keep our civic structures like shuttleports,and cloners If there is a purge i stand to lose ALOT of people in my city and will probably end up as a lvl 2 village.
3.Decay,I'd keep that pvp only like planned and away from quest rewards but make it on standard craftable items,Its not easy to get something like a Lava Crystal Per say and i definately dont want to end up running quests 100 more times to get the whole guild one again lol.
4.This new bounty system,Someone like me is purely pve except for big weekend pvp events isnt there some way possible where we can get an option to "Opt in" at a bounty terminal so we cant be hunted if we dont want to be,I know plenty of people who want to and this new system will still be very much used but I personally want to see an option to say no to it.
Just my 2 cents,I dont post much since i am a supporter of the NGE and most people only want to hear "PRE CU FTW" lol.
In my opinion you guys are going in the right direction but we need more content and more stuff to do,Its been so quiet around here lately from most of the devs,Keep going in time i know this game will be even better.
000000000000000000000000000000'Darius Xavier / 'Sarah Carter 000000000000000000000000000000CL90 Jedi / CL90 Medic 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000DaRkGoDx NaEdE / NeDrIk XaViEr 000000000000000000000000000000 CL90 Spy / Master Trader 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000NTHR Leader 000000000000000000000000000000Playing SWG Since 12-22-03 000000000000000000000000000000Proud Non-Factor -I support Suing the SWG EMOlator team and continuing to move Forward Not back.
Smed wrote: I prefer it to the old combat system which I personally found dull. But that's just my personal opinion. Smed
Why didnt you have a poll about this, so as the players could tell you what they preferred? I think the best way to satisfy the CUSTOMERS would be to ask US. Dont you?
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
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.
this in fact is very true, but just because your hardcore doesnt mean you can attract the masses. ffxi does it very well. and you know why, cause they actually take the time to put in quality systems into the game instead of half arsed systems. just look at the bounty hunter system smed. your devs are adding a bounty hunter system that is totally exploitable. why do i feel its exploitable, because as soon as a person gets killed there will be a ton of bh's bounty checking whoever killed that person and kiling him quick cause they only have ten minutes. thats not very enjoyable fo those who are in the middle of pvp. oh and dont let me forget the fact that your introducing a bounty hunter system based on the gcw pvp system that you havent even fixed yet. now smed im not trying to get in you train of thought, but dont you think that if you goiung top make a bh system based off of the gcw, then the gcw should be fixed first so that people can enjoy pvp and be ok about bh's coming to kill them immediatly while in battle. i mean you guys just arent making sense with that.
the same thing with crafting and the same thing with gaining xp. you guys are fixing things in the wrong order and thats why were are pissed now.
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
Question, any chance Creature Handler will ever see the light of day again?
What I mean is, will we ever be able to control pets again?
I think it should be brought back, and as easy as it is to take on high levels now, CH's should be able to control up to level 100 pets, because Players could take on pets easily.
00000000000000000000 Andross Xavier 00000000000000000000Rebel Jedi 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 'Motoko Kusanagi 00000000000000000000 Master Munitions 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000Talca-Ra Inasto 00000000000000000000RETIRED 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 NTHR - SWG Division President 00000000000000000000 "Got himself a serious case of megalomania, huh?"
First I've seen of that.. but the truth is we were in the beginning stages of a new expansion.. we did the focus groups.. you guys clearly said "fix the game before you talk to us about an expansion" we listened and pulled everyone off that expansion. Is that direct enough?
Smed
im surprised in that case, im a bit worried about end game content since theres aparently a lot of time being invested in fixing the quest gap.. any chance to get a new dwb/vette style dungeon in the meantime, only harder?
part of "fixing the game" includes a ton of new content. It's just going to be included in game updates, not in an expansion.
I have a question which I believe is more than fair:
If this NGE was supposed to make this game easier to fix and implement things, why is each Publish getting further apart with no explanation why? Additionally why would you change to an every 2 month Publish Schedule without showing the respect to the community of ADVISING THEM OF SAID CHANGE?
Smed wrote: There is absolutely no truth to these rumors.
Why did I respond on FOH and not here? I just happened to see that thread last night... simple as that. At some point I can only deny nonsensical rumors on so many websites before it just plain becomes frustrating to me. It's the old "when did you stop kicking your puppy" trap..
I've also asked the Lucasarts folks to comment on this which you should see today some time (not sure when or where exactly).
I also want to say - I'm happy to discuss things that need to be done to make SWG better. What I will not do is respond to "go back to pre-NGE" threads or "please make 1 pre-nge server" threads. I've commented on those before.
Smed
Smed,
Please post your top 5 concerns from the player base.
Thunderhart has posted his, we would like to see if you understand what the main problems are in this game.
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
It is nice to see that most of my major concerns are yours as well.
The quest system, I think most people will agree, is far better than simply 'grind, grind, grind' as it was before. However there are some major holes that need filling. Specifically I would say between CL30-40 (hopefully the new Corellian quest series will answer this?) and CL50-70. RotW gives enough low level quests to go from approximately 40 to 50 and quite a few from circa 70 upto 80, which combined with Mustafar probably (at a guess) makes it possible to go from 70-(nearly)90. These are two big gaps which cause a lot of problems currently tho, and results in people looking for ways to abuse the system (Varactyl quest, Ral Mundi quest etc etc).
PvP...well the actual combat itself is much better than it was, but I have two concerns in this area. 1) WHY are we PvPing? We need factional bases of some sort, perhaps rewards for holding planets. A proper PvP ranking system with rewards would be nice too (and no I don't mean one where you can help kill 20 rebels and then lose all those points and more by one death, nor one that is weighted towards the person giving the deathblow). 2) The servers being unable to handle large scale battles. Recently on Eclipse over 200 people turned out for a PvP event that the servers just couldn't take. This resulted in a lag of 10 secs+ for everyone. Not fun. Would it be possible in the future for the special events team to be able to offer a 'PvP instance' which is capabale of supporting these kinds of numbers. Something similar to the original battlefield ideas crossed with an instance maybe?
Higher end content and 'end game' content, especially for Vets. This is something WoW does far better than you (and I haven't ever even played WoW). Instances and content that keep players coming back. Stuff that is a challenge and will take a full group multiple attempts at to even complete. Then loot drops from these instances that are a) very varied so people don't get fed up of getting the same things, b) include HIGHLY desirable items and c) have low drop rates. For example, weapons that are better than anything else that exists (within balanced reason) but will drop once in 20 runs or something. Naturally you would also need to make a list of the stuff that *could* drop available so people know and are thus tempted to keep coming back.
Finally, Entertainers and Crafters....well not much to add to what you said. Weaponsmith and Chef from the crafting side seem to be in a particularly bad way. Harvesting could also do with being returned to a state similar to how it was before to aid the gathering of huntables (current system is ridiculous). And well, whats the point in being an Entertainer right now? Damned if I know...
Anyway, again thanks for showing people that our concerns are yours as well. We just now need to see some of these concerns being addressed in a manner acceptable to use players.
-----
Ne'la Hi'had - Master Armoursmith, Master Merchant [VtS]Armour located at -1800 5385 in Neo-Rome, Naboo
John, from what has been reported at the focus groups, there was a HUGE cry for a rollback. From what I've read for the last 4 months on these forums there has been a HUGE call for a rollback.
Simple question. If you really listen to the requests of the focus groups and your playerbase, why has there not been a rollback?
He has answered this question about 5 different times.....
Look at his first post after the NGE hit... the answer is in there....
In short... The old system was not meeting the BUSINESS goals for the project.
Yes, and I as I posted ina previous response, IMO this was beacuse of piss-poor marketing/advertising, lack of content and bugs. It had nothing to do with the combat system.
Good Lord people, how come the old combat system is successful and works like a champ in every other MMORPG on the market, but it isn't good enough for SWG?
That's like saying round wheels are great, but we are going to go with square wheels because the look different and are harder to drive on.
in that case, im a bit worried about end game content since theres aparently a lot of time being invested in fixing the quest gap.. any chance to get a new dwb/vette style dungeon in the meantime, only harder?
