Slashdot Mirror
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?
wouldn't know, I cancelled a month ago.
:wq
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.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
There has been big issues with the SW:G forums since the start. Perfectly valid posts in the GENERAL DISCUSSION area are getting closed left and right if they complain about bugs or the crappy CSRs or anything like that. They are obviously well aware that public knowledge of what is said in the forums would drastically hurt their game sales, thats why the blocked all non subscribers. The "monthly" updates that are supposed to be continuing the story content are happening far from monthly. It's been what 3 months now, and the first continuation of the original story just came out in that patch yesterday. At first, they were doing a great job, patching and what not, but now they are really slacking off. Once I get my hands on FFXI I'm not so sure I won't be dropping my account.
Trust Your Technolust
I played it for a few weeks straight and haven't really been back to my character. When I was playing there were huge issues with all of the rebel and imperials that were logging on at 3:00PM on the dot and being immature. I didn't find anywhere near enough roleplaying in the game for what it's title is. That said I'm almost scared to go back into it seeing the bug issues are still fairly high.
Has anybody found the Key of the Twilight yet? I'm just sure it's on Tatooine somewhere
How is this really different than the other MMORPG's?
It surely isn't different than my experiecnes with E&B, EQ, or even ToonTown
Happily a non MMORPGer
It has been going on with Everquest for a while now and it is probably going to be what to expect from massivly multiplayer games in the future. As long as people keep coming back there is no reason for them to change. Plus it gives them (Sony) the opportunity to charge more money later for better service or more involvement with the players. You want better service? Upgrade to a $24.95 a month server/account and you can have it.
'Same speed C but faster'
SWG started out with a lot of promise, but it has degenerated into Creature Wars instead of Star Wars. In order to compete in PVP you HAVE to have a pet. Creature handlers are godly, with pets that no one player has any hope of defeating. Then of course you have the Bounty Hunters who do nothing but spam Eye Shot, since it attacks a pool that is unhealable. Those are the two biggest problems right now, gamewise. Too many creatures which are over-powered and need to be nerfed, and the mind pool which is unhealable and thus any attack other than mind is basically useless.
Simply put, in its current state, SWG sucks. I can't wait for EQ2 and/or Worlds of Warcraft. I'll be dropping SWG like a hot potato, unless things dramatically improve between now and then.
Not everyone is unhappy with the game. In fact, quite a few people (probably the 280,000 or so active players that don't use the SW:G fora, along with a significant percentage of forum users) are pleased with the game.
You should really look up the term, "vocal minority", and research why taking their whines as representative is wrong-headed.
.@.
It is just a game, and I don't play it in particular, but to me it seems valid for people to complain because they are paying ($16.95?) monthly for the service. A sixteen-hour outage no doubt cuts into people's playing time, and if it is out during the part of the day that they have time to play, it's a bummer. I think it's the same type of deal as when any other service goes down (like cable or satellite).
All rights reserved. All wrongs reversed.
I agree. I definitely won't be buying it now that I see stuff like this going on. Very unprofessional.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
I played SWG at launch and this kind of stuff is why I cancelled. Poor customer support, buggy junk, mod nazi's in their fourms, boring gameplay, etc.
Seriously, I know many people were looking foward to this game (I was) but if you don't like it cancel your account.
I wanted to be bounty hunting, and PvPing like they promised in the interviews a year before the game came out. Instead I ended up in a cantina talking to smokebacca. I won't pay for that kind of experence.
I am an active SWG player/addict, so I felt the pain of yesterday's patch as a user:
This is short-hand for, "the installation did not go very well". Most servers were up and down all day.
This is short-hand for, "instead of people logging in as they get home (trickling in), they were all waiting impatiently for the server to come on-line. The instant it did, the entire player-base tried to log in." This is a problem - it says that the login servers are underpowered. However, this is not what most complaints on the boards are about.
Armor appears to be non-functioning (which affects the Combat characters). Automated harvesters are acting strangely (which affects the non-combat characters). Bio Engineers can't sample without dying. All of these problems should have been detected in testing. Weapon damage appears to be broken.
SoE blew it, here.
Also known as, "Waaaaaah! Why aren't you talking to me! Waaaaah! Fix now! Waaaaah!"
I am going to address the last point. SHUT UP AND LET THEM DO THEIR JOB! It is patently obvious that things went wrong down SWG, way. The thing to remember is that their developers only have 24 hours in a day. If they spend any time at all talking to us (or posting on their forums), then they are not spending nearly enough time fixing the problems! Kevin "Q-3PO" O'Hara promised us a post-mortim, and we can hold him to that, but let's wait until *after* they get the things fixed.
Yes, most of us have paid money to play this game.
Yes, most of us wanted to play last night.
Yes, every single character type that I can think of in SWG got hammered by some kind of bug from this patch.
... but SoE has a good track record, when compared to companies like Blizzard.I fully expect daily patches from SoE until the problems are resolved. Has Blizzard even put patch 1.10 for Diablo II out on Battle.net, yet? What is it, now, 14 months?
There's been more than one occasion for me personally where the vocal minority on particular issues with games have been parallel to my own views on the same subject. Sometimes it may be wrong-headed from a generalistic perspective, but there ARE people for whom the negative opinions might hold some weight.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
SWG players are paying a monthly fee. If the game is not playable because of developer incompetence then the player should get a refund. You don't see google working at 50%....if the player can't play their game 24 / 7 they're getting ripped off.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
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.
---
I support spreading santorum
It's difficult to compare Blizzard's Diablo 2 and SOE's SWG. First off, you pay for it to be playable. with D2, it's not monthly charges so they are making little to know money off of battle.net. D2 was still playable when it first came out, unlike SWG where many things were not ready for it's launch. A player paying a monthly subscription fee should be getting those updates if the producers want them to continue paying. With D2 on the other hand, the player has already payed, and aren't shelling extra cash out to fix problems, or implement unimplemented materials.
What seems to plague many online games is that the game is pushed into publication with large problems.
Siphon Only Numbskulls' Yen.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
But to buy a game for $50, and then have to pay another $15/month pisses me off. If I need to pay a monthly charge to use the game, then give it away for free. It's not like you get $50 worth of stuff in the box, that's for sure.
When I buy a game like Warcraft III, if Battlenet is down, I can still play the game without a network. And if I'm paying a monthly fee to use a game, it had better be there when I want to play it, not at the convience of some programmers. In this respect it is directly analogous to Cable TV or telephone service - I am buying a service. If the service is unavailable when I want it, then I am being ripped off.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
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.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
The main issue that killed the game for me was the animal pets. In SWG you can easily become a Creature Handler and with a few quick words train a pet to fight and die for you. A creature Handler can have three pets out at once and they will all fight to the death for him without question. This type of power makes the creature handler (the most non-star wars profession) the most powerful profession. The best part is you store your pets in a data pad and call them out when you need them (Can we all say Pokemon). P.S. the word Pokemon is filtered out of post on the official SWG boards seems like they have a problem with the similarity of their pets to Pokemons.
In the star wars movies the only combat creatures where the used in arenas and controlled with chains and energy sticks or used as pack animal. I don't remember Luke reaching for a pocket PC and calling out a two-story tall creature to help him defeat the Empire, maybe I missed that part.
BTW there are droid engineers in the game but they can only have one droid out at a time and can easily be killed by a low level animal pet. Gee, never realized that in the battles with the droid armies there was one engineer per droid somewhere near by controlling each droid.
If you have not purchased the game and are thinking about it, just remember that when SWG first came out its boards where open to all to read, then as players started voicing their concerns about the game they shut off the boards to only those that have already purchased the game.
patch turned into a 16+ hour downtime for most players, sparking a huge outrage in the SWG community
;)
Of course they were outraged! I mean, if you've been playing a game like this hours and hours everyday, chances are you don't have friends anymore and your girlfriend/boyfriend dumped you. What are you to do when the server is offline is nobody is talking to you anymore?
People who get pissed off need to understand that things do happen which will extend patch downtime. Do the numbers ... 16 hours' downtime for something which you pay 12-15 dollars a month works out to around 25 cents. Go watch TV or spend some time with your friends and family.
"...why taking their whines as representative is wrong-headed."
Ok, I've got a whine for you - Star Wars: Galaxies makes serious departures from the plot, story, and history of the Star Wars universe, fails to capture key elements, and fails to deliver any sense of existing in a Star Wars galaxy.
1) The Empire is Xenophobic. They don't accept aliens. In SW:G, not only can any race (including wookiees, at the time a slave race who lacked a "general" presence in the galaxy) join the Empire - and advance to ranks equal with Humans.
2) Wookiees. Kashyyyk, at the time of the game, is under Imperial blockade. No wookiees are allowed to leave the planet, and large portions of the population are being sold as slaves or used for slave labor.
3) Dathomir is supposed to be a virutally unknown planet, with almost NO visitors until Han wins it in a sabaac game, and takes Leia there in the attempt to win back her heart and convince her to marry him.
4) The faction system of the game prevents Rebels and Imperials alike from having ANY negative impact on "neutrals", ceasing for there to be ANY reason to have a Rebllion in the first place. Why rebel against a government who can't affect you, doesn't have draconian anti-alien policies, and is essentially just a figurehead?
How many serious breaches of Story are needed before we can call this pure rubbish, whose affiliation with Star Wars is no more than the name and a Look n' Feel?
Worse than Force Commander, worse than the Star Wars Christmas Special. And how does VI/LA handle it? Close the boards, delete negative posts, continue to promise that all is well, Jedi is in, and the Space Expansion is coming soon.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
I was on the forum last night and I saw a post where the title goes something like 'fixing bugs should be a priority not deleting posts'. Guess what it has a 5star rating when I was reading it, and I went ahead to give it a 5star rating because it expresses a lot of sentiments I had about the game. For those of you who dont know the SWG forum has a rating system where readers can apply 1 to 5 (best) stars on any given post except you cant rate posts by devs.
Next thing you know the webpage refreshes and it has a 1star rating with a post by a dev on the bottom saying the thread has been locked !
Not only are SWG devs deleting, locking posts, they're also 1starring them! How low can this get?
Don't count on it! I tried it. Turns out training was, and still is, broken. There's a 'bug' disallowing you to save your control setup, and oh, most people have trouble logging on.
They have the same policy of deleting posts. I've sworn off MMORPG until someone else goes a decent one.
I'm not saying that it's not important to some people, I understand that completely. But if something important to me is not available for a time, I don't sit around and complain about it until I have it back, I find something else to do for a while. If it's something I'm paying for, I would politely request a refund for the time I wasn't able to use it. It just seems like some people have nothing better to do then gripe and complain about things every chance they get.
Bioware have locked certain parts of their boards to players only who have the appropriate serial key.
And they are one of the best companies in so far as developing patches, communicating with the player base as well (ie. Bioware Wednesday) and taking feedback, as well as juggling development issues and business decisions.
This game pretty weak by all accounts (no I am not a player but I am interested in RPGs and MMORPGs). If there is no method of playing it without paying for the online subscription then the game should be reasonably priced.
If they're going to patch the server then patch the server. But do it properly! Schedule the outage. Minimise your downtime and test your bloody patches first!
Most of the issues that exist with this game should have been ironed out with extensive Q&A and beta testing. But it hasn't been. And now the community is paying the price and doing the beta testing for them. The community has every right to be outraged at a crappy planning and development lifecycle.
I wouldn't be suprised if everyone winds up leaving for the new MMORPGs that are coming out in the next 12 months (FF, EQ2, WOW, Matrix Online, etc. etc.).
If you really want to express your outrage, express it where it hurts them the most - the hip pocket, and cancel your account.
If the post went from 5 stars to 1 star, then that means that a lot more people disagreed with the post than agreeded with it. As for a mod locking the post, why did they lock it? offtopic, wrong forum, flaming, trolling, bumping? I have seen dozens of posts locked, and this is usually why.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
Yes I was playing SWG, my first MMORPG at that. I played for about 2 monthes but I was astonished by how many bugs there are in the game, and how the patches never seamed to help. Needless to say I have stoped playing the game and may never play a MMORPG again. Compair them to PC Games, on a normal game that you but it costs the same up front but you dont have any of the patches or bugs to deal with, and they are only a one time fee.