Star Wars Galaxies - Patch Woes?

An anonymous reader writes "Now that Sony has restricted their Star Wars Galaxies forums to players only, it is unlikely that any non-players would know about the major problems happening with this game. The largest patch in several months was planned for release yesterday. A scheduled 4 hour downtime to install the patch turned into a 16+ hour downtime for most players, sparking a huge outrage in the SWG community. Sony's forums quickly became overloaded, and instead of responding to issues, the moderators went to work deleting as many complaint posts as they could. To make matters worse, once the servers did come back online, it seems that the patch has caused more problems than it has solved." Are complaints about SWG down to a vocal (unrepresentative?) minority, or is there a more general level of dissatisfaction with the game?

Comments

Deleted Posts?

[YomikoReadman]

I don't know where this guy got his information from, but I was on the Development tracker forum yesterday, and the only posts that were deleted from the patch error thread started by Q-3PO, Kevin O'Hara, were either flames or trolls. Each and everyone of the posts that were good, constructive criticisms, or a report of something that was a bug in nature without flaming was left up, and still is. As far as this patch being pretty borked, yea it is. However, SOE has been exceptionally open and apologetic about this, and the fans that have access to the site can get all of that from the announcement forum. For those that can't get in the forums, I'd recommend a fansite, such as for any of the info from the user-only forums, as they have posted a great deal of it.

Re:Deleted Posts?

[Crockerboy]

People crying about deleted posts on the SWG boards are usually not the brightest. The SWG boards have a peer moderation system sort of like here on slashdot

All new posts start at 1 star, and the default viewing level is 1 star. If you post a whine or other useless thread, you'll usually get peer moderated down to 0 starts so in affect it appears your "valuable contribution to the community" was deleted by a mod when in reality your fellow players have deemed your post worthless. Of course, you can read at 0 starts if you want to see the "OMG I AM QUITTING AND TAKING MY 300 GUILD MEMBERS WITH ME!!!!" posts.

Oh, I believe it's 1 star, might be two with the default threshold at two star as well..I stopped reading the official boards about 2 days after release because the people there made my brain bleed so I'm going by memory on the little details, but the system is as described..

Re:Deleted Posts?

[Metal_Demon]

I'm going by memory on the little details, but the system is as described

Actually you are completely wrong. All post start at zero stars or blank. The system is a 1 to 5 star system where 1 means u r t3h sux0r and 5 means u r0x0r my w0rld. There has often been the misconception that 1 star means people agree a little bit when in reality it means they disagree enough to let you know about it.

Obviously with all post starting at zero it does not work on a threshold system like /. posts are deleted they don't drop below your viewing level.

Re:SWG Players

[falcon5768]

thank god im geeky enough to have gotten that one. And that my girlfriends geeky enough to have dressed up as Lady Suburu :-D

Sounds like a huge over reaction

[truffle]

I used to be a hard core Everquest player, and I well remember the pain of sitting around waiting for the servers to come back off, fuming over "scheduled downtime" that went far over schedule.

Now that I'm no longer playing, I realize our ridiculous this is, it makes much more sense to simply do other things on a patch day. If you're upset that you can't get online to play your MMO, maybe you are taking the game too seriously.

I will say that I don't believe SOE's patching system is very well designed, it seems bizarre it takes them so long to patch the servers, I'm pretty sure I could design a better system for a new MMO game. I'm pretty sure upgrades without downtime are possible, and will in fact become an expected level of customer service in the future.

I may play Star Wars Galaxies some day. I'm thinking maybe two years from now, when I can buy SWG and two or three expansions for the same price it's available for now. When most of the major bugs and play balance issues have been resolved. This is the world of the MMO, launch is a two year long beta, better to wait it out and try it later.

Re:it's just a game..

[Kethinov]

It's just [fill in the blank]

OMG I am so sick of hearing people try to use this as if it were a valid argument!

MMORPG server down for 16 hours? Too bad! It's just a game.
Internet down for 16 hours? Too bad! It's just the internet.
Electricity down for 16 hours? Too bad! It's just electricity.
Water supply cutoff for 16 hours? Too bad! It's just water.
Your life's going to end in 16 hours? Too bad! It's just life.

This argument is a massive cliche! Just because it doesn't mean anything to you doesn't mean it's not important to someone else. And before you go flaming me, no, I don't play MMORPGs. I just find your argument tiresome, flawed, ignorant, and insulting.