Why not just take the entire war to the virtual world then? That would be awesome!
"Tonight at eleven we'll have live coverage from the war in Iran. The US Special Forces have cornered the insurgents into de_dust after dominating them 4-0 in a de_dust2 tournament. 12 year old Mikey Thompson who leads the USSF says he's confident about the outcome as the insurgents are all 'camping awp wh0res'."
The number of posts in each profession category shows the Jedi interest to be 10-20x that of other profession in most cases. Does it concern you at all that most of your subscribers will create new Jedi and that's all you will see in the game? Based on the link above this doesn't seem unreasonable does it? Is this why you recently announced a second character slot per server for all subscribers? So at least people would create other professions?
/end of question
I would just like to say how stupid an idea I think this is personally. Thank god I ebayed my Jedi. If I hadn't already, I would be trying, but of course it would be worthless.
I see this move as the equivalent of firing all the management from a business. It only happens when things get really bleak. It's a last ditch effort to stem the hemmoraging but comes with a lot of negative side-effects. Obviously, you do not have any alternatve to save the game.
I see you having two types of subscribers at this point:
1. The veterans who hung around because they liked the game the way it was.
2. New subscribers reached through the tireless efforts of the LucasArts marketing machine.
Seems to me your probably getting a very good influx of group #2. Unfortunately they aren't sticking around very long. You don't have enough of group #1 even left to care about angering them all into quitting. So you have nothing to stop you from doing anything to make the game more fun for group #2.
Good luck, though I doubt it will work. Especially since the general tone on the forums is that your new combat system is more awkward than the last.
This article makes alot of good points. You blind zealots just cannot see it objectively anymore.
The biggest point to me is the new software installation. If I want a new MP3 player for Windows what do I do? I get on the net and search for 'winxp mp3 player', right? Regardless what what piece of crap site I end up at I will be able to download install.exe or the like that I can simply double-click. THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE EXPECT!
Now that uncle Bob wants a new mp3 player for Linux he will most likely do the same thing, right? So he gets on the net and searches for something like 'linux mp3 player'At this point he will be lucky to end up at a site he can download a binary from. Even if he is lucky enough not to be staring blankly at something like this: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-fedora.html or this http://downloads.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.8 .1/rpm/fedora/fc3/vlc/, I can almost gurantee that whatever packaage he downloads will have additional dependency requirements.
If he was zealous he spent awhile searching around for something like xorg-x11-XFree86-glue-Mesa-libGLU-4.4.0-2 . . .
But now uncle bob is rebooting back into Windows . . .
"WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft pledged Thursday to use new powers granted by Congress to pursue terrorist suspects relentlessly, intercept their phone calls, read their unopened e-mail and phone messages and throw them in jail for the smallest of crimes.
"If you overstay your visas even by one day, we will arrest you; if you violate a local law, we will hope that you will, and work to make sure that you are put in jail and be kept in custody as long as possible," he said in a speech to the nation's mayors."
The concern is is who can now be considered a suspect with these new laws which they "pledged to use." Agree or disagree I think most agree it's broad. Alot of the people this will affect are probably just as american as you.
Advice to fellow americans (who may have come here from Mid-East): Don't speed.
Microsoft is probably one of the richest (ONE of the richest? No way!) corporations in the entire software industry. Every few years (FEW years? Please.), they produce another OS and sell hundreds (HUNDREDS? Oh, c'mon now!) of copies making thousands of dollars ( THOUSANDS!? You stretch the truth, sir.) each time. They produce a word processor and spreadsheet that can only be used on their OS, and charge people for that. They charge a cut for the total cost of almost all PCs that are sold. Isn'rt it time they stopped charging people for everything, and realised that there are more important things than money in the world?
I'm sorry. I just can't stand to see someone exaggerating MS' position in the software industry like this...
The truth is no matter how anyone wants to sugar coast it is this: Using Napster is stealing. I realize this and continue to employ Napster and many other "illegal" uses of the Net. I have a comfortable income and could easily afford to purchase these things. Why don't I? This country has problems. This is no longer the United States of America, call it the Corporate United states of America. I for one will not sit back and let the top 5% get fatter and fatter while the rest of the country (the people who REALLY make this country run) work themselves to death. I find it eerily reminiscent of mid-evil times or even ancient Egypt. We are essentially endentured servants in this country. If I can in any way, even a very small one take away from this system, I will! This entire country has become far too apathetic. We, our parents and our grandparents let this happen. We let them take away our free speech and our right to this and that through our own selfishness. We are to concerened about our own little worlds. "Well as long as it doesn't infringe on MY rights." Too many people said this about too many things . . . Stealing software in my opinion is nowhere near the level of action that will have to be taken to get these rights back, but every "revolution" has to start somewhere . . . The citizens are supposed to run this country. This is a Democracy. What went wrong?
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just take the entire war to the virtual world then? That would be awesome! "Tonight at eleven we'll have live coverage from the war in Iran. The US Special Forces have cornered the insurgents into de_dust after dominating them 4-0 in a de_dust2 tournament. 12 year old Mikey Thompson who leads the USSF says he's confident about the outcome as the insurgents are all 'camping awp wh0res'."
By looking at your forums it's obvious there is much more interest in the Jedi profession than any other: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg?category.id=nge _testing_boards
/end of question
The number of posts in each profession category shows the Jedi interest to be 10-20x that of other profession in most cases. Does it concern you at all that most of your subscribers will create new Jedi and that's all you will see in the game? Based on the link above this doesn't seem unreasonable does it? Is this why you recently announced a second character slot per server for all subscribers? So at least people would create other professions?
I would just like to say how stupid an idea I think this is personally. Thank god I ebayed my Jedi. If I hadn't already, I would be trying, but of course it would be worthless.
I see this move as the equivalent of firing all the management from a business. It only happens when things get really bleak. It's a last ditch effort to stem the hemmoraging but comes with a lot of negative side-effects. Obviously, you do not have any alternatve to save the game.
I see you having two types of subscribers at this point:
1. The veterans who hung around because they liked the game the way it was.
2. New subscribers reached through the tireless efforts of the LucasArts marketing machine.
Seems to me your probably getting a very good influx of group #2. Unfortunately they aren't sticking around very long. You don't have enough of group #1 even left to care about angering them all into quitting. So you have nothing to stop you from doing anything to make the game more fun for group #2.
Good luck, though I doubt it will work. Especially since the general tone on the forums is that your new combat system is more awkward than the last.
This article makes alot of good points. You blind zealots just cannot see it objectively anymore.
8 .1/rpm/fedora/fc3/vlc/, I can almost gurantee that whatever packaage he downloads will have additional dependency requirements.
The biggest point to me is the new software installation. If I want a new MP3 player for Windows what do I do? I get on the net and search for 'winxp mp3 player', right? Regardless what what piece of crap site I end up at I will be able to download install.exe or the like that I can simply double-click. THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE EXPECT!
Now that uncle Bob wants a new mp3 player for Linux he will most likely do the same thing, right? So he gets on the net and searches for something like 'linux mp3 player'At this point he will be lucky to end up at a site he can download a binary from. Even if he is lucky enough not to be staring blankly at something like this: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-fedora.html or this http://downloads.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.
If he was zealous he spent awhile searching around for something like xorg-x11-XFree86-glue-Mesa-libGLU-4.4.0-2 . . .
But now uncle bob is rebooting back into Windows . . .
"WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft pledged Thursday to use new powers granted by Congress to pursue terrorist suspects relentlessly, intercept their phone calls, read their unopened e-mail and phone messages and throw them in jail for the smallest of crimes. "If you overstay your visas even by one day, we will arrest you; if you violate a local law, we will hope that you will, and work to make sure that you are put in jail and be kept in custody as long as possible," he said in a speech to the nation's mayors."
The concern is is who can now be considered a suspect with these new laws which they "pledged to use." Agree or disagree I think most agree it's broad. Alot of the people this will affect are probably just as american as you.
Advice to fellow americans (who may have come here from Mid-East): Don't speed.
Microsoft is probably one of the richest (ONE of the richest? No way!) corporations in the entire software industry. Every few years (FEW years? Please.), they produce another OS and sell hundreds (HUNDREDS? Oh, c'mon now!) of copies making thousands of dollars ( THOUSANDS!? You stretch the truth, sir.) each time. They produce a word processor and spreadsheet that can only be used on their OS, and charge people for that. They charge a cut for the total cost of almost all PCs that are sold. Isn'rt it time they stopped charging people for everything, and realised that there are more important things than money in the world?
I'm sorry. I just can't stand to see someone exaggerating MS' position in the software industry like this...
The truth is no matter how anyone wants to sugar coast it is this: Using Napster is stealing. I realize this and continue to employ Napster and many other "illegal" uses of the Net. I have a comfortable income and could easily afford to purchase these things. Why don't I? This country has problems. This is no longer the United States of America, call it the Corporate United states of America. I for one will not sit back and let the top 5% get fatter and fatter while the rest of the country (the people who REALLY make this country run) work themselves to death. I find it eerily reminiscent of mid-evil times or even ancient Egypt. We are essentially endentured servants in this country. If I can in any way, even a very small one take away from this system, I will! This entire country has become far too apathetic. We, our parents and our grandparents let this happen. We let them take away our free speech and our right to this and that through our own selfishness. We are to concerened about our own little worlds. "Well as long as it doesn't infringe on MY rights." Too many people said this about too many things . . . Stealing software in my opinion is nowhere near the level of action that will have to be taken to get these rights back, but every "revolution" has to start somewhere . . . The citizens are supposed to run this country. This is a Democracy. What went wrong?