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?
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
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.
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?
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
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!