Exactly. I was upset about the price increase for maybe 5 minutes. Then I realized that I watch Netflix streaming and disc far more than I watch my cable TV. Netflix will increase to $16, cable TV was $56. So I cancelled the cable and saved myself $50/month. I have an antenna to watch local news and the occasional broadcast show. While the selection on Netflix streaming could be better I have found more things on it that I want to watch than I have time for, so it works for me.
I assume from the wording in the article that these questions are going to be answered "off the record" - I can't imagine getting actual straight honest on the record answers from these folks.
So here are my questions:
What happened with Chimera and Bloodfin? Unforseeable catastrophic failure of backups? Or did someone just fuck up royally and forget to do the data backup before the CU was applied?
Do the devs honestly feel that this CU is the best possible solution for balancing the game, or was the kludged up design of this the decision of folks higher up?
Do you actually use the feedback you get from people on Test Center or do you only listen to internal testers, and just leave Test Center up to give the community the illusion that they're helping? With every major publish hundreds of bugs, many game-breaking, go live. The vast majority of these bugs are reported on test center and discussed in the TC forums, yet get pushed live anyway. Or is it a matter of NEVER having enough time?
Whose idea was it to add all the magical particle effects? Have they been flogged yet?
Who thought it was a good idea to turn doctors into priests?
How were such horrible icons allowed to go live? Why was the decision made to re-do the icons anyway? No one asked for that. And, are they left over icons from EQ or something? No one uses a bow and arrow in SWG, yet that's what we get for our ranged firing icon.
The combat upgrade was originally supposed to, and was expected by the community to be just a balancing of the professions in a PVP environment. How did the PVP balance turn into a redesign of the entire combat system, both PVP and PVE?
Why was a level system implemented? One of the really unique things about SWG was that it was skill based, not level based.
As others have said, they took the unique skill based system out, and replaced it with a really generic and poorly implemented level based system.
You don't earn any XP if what you're fighting is more than 5 or so levels below you, and it's instant death if you fight anything above you.
Each profession has considerably fewer specials now. Pre-CU I had my 24 slot toolbar filled with TK moves, with a couple of slots reserved for food and such. After CU I can barely fill 12 slots with moves, foods, and other icons. So, battle now consists of doing a couple different specials and then hitting the "heal" button every so often.
Combat has slowed down tremendously - unless you're fighting something 50 or more levels below you all combat lasts about 3-5 minutes. So, that's 3-5 minutes of monotonously hitting the same 2 or 3 special move buttons over and over again - there really isn't any strategy to soloing anymore. Perhaps there is a bit more strategy when teaming up with other folks, I don't know, I haven't had the opportunity to do that.
Actually finding critters that are the same level as you, so that you can at least try to earn XP, is a bit problematic - remember, there's only a very narrow window in which you actually earn any XP. Now instead of spending the first half hour of a gaming session getting buffed up you'll spend it trying to locate something appropriate to kill. And while you search, you'll still be getting jumped by other mobs that are either too low of a lvl (but still take time to kill, therefore wasting your time) or you'll be jumped by something too high, and instantly die. So, the timesinks of combat are actually worse now than they were before.
Crafting is pretty much borked, because the artisans can't survey for their needed resources since they now get one-hit killed by kreetles. Right after the CU weapon vendors got bought out, with people respeccing their templates, but few weapon vendors are being replenished because of the resource problem. No weapons = no fighting, no playing (unless you're an unarmed brawler).
Entertainer professions are pointless since the lowest lvl entertainer can now give the same buff as the highest entertainer, and there's no distinction between the dancer and musician buff anymore. All entertainers give one type of buff - and inspiration buff.
Strangely, the medical professions now don't need medicine to do any healing. Finely crafted meds are a thing of the past, now all the average doctor/preist needs to do in SWG is pray/wave their hand and *sparkle* *sparkle* the patient is healed.
Speaking of *sparkle* *sparkle*, everything now seems to have "magical" particle effects attached to it. Punching, performing a combat special move, getting on your speeder bike, healing, qualifying for a new level, and many more things all have some rather un-needed, pointless, and un-Star Warsy particle effects associated with them.
All of the old, well designed, very functional icons have been replaced with some poorly designed fantasy style icons. The new icons fail miserably: each one has too many colors and too many shapes in too small of an area. The artwork is nice, but they don't work well as icons, too visually confusing. You basicly just have to remember what special you put in which button slot. Also, the icons are very fantasy oriented - arrows for ranged attacks, a horse for mounting your speeder bike. It's like they just used some set of icons designed for and rejected by the Everquest 2 team.
Design problems aside, the quantity of bugs is astounding, it's like playing a really really early beta release:
Waypoints dissapearing from the datapad
On a few servers all characters are the same height
The XP messages say things like "You earn 1050 points of type 12 experience" instead of naming the type of xp, like scouting.
There's tons more, but I'm not going to type any more because it isn't worth my time.
Basicly if you were thinking of coming back to the game to try out the Combat upgrade, don't bother. It isn't worth your time and money.
Here's an idea: don't play on a high population server. Unless all of your friends are on a super high-pop server, don't make a character there.
I play on Malygos, a low-pop server, and I've never been queued up to log in, lag is minimal, and the only downtime I've noticed happened a few weeks ago for one evening, when ALL of the servers were down.
Yet despite being a "low-pop" server I rarely have problems finding a group for a quest.
I agree. Most MMORPGs are the same thing, which is why I'm starting to tire of the genre. It's more fun to sightsee and check out the design than level up.
I think it's the stat driven combat/leveling that irks me the most. If I could have a MMORPG that had puzzles in it, reminiscent of Ico or Zelda, and had a fighting control equivalent to a fighting game like Soul Calibur, well that'd be just about perfect. I don't want time spent leveling to be the deciding factor of how good I am in game. Basicly, I want a twitch / platform / puzzle MMORPG.
Ooh damn, yeah, never buy that many months of a game in advance. In fact I try to stick with a monthly subscription. It's just too hard to gauge how much fun you're going to find the game in a month, let alone 6.
Because in every story about the DS, if the editors just say "DS" in their summary, then someone will post asking what the hell a DS is, and complaining that they should say Nintendo DS or Gamboy DS in the summary so that they know it's a game thing. One would think that the fact that it's posted in the games section, or perhaps even reading the article itself might be a big clue as to what a DS is, but I guess not.
Yeah, really, where are you buying books? The most expensive I've seen is $20-$25 for a brand new hard-cover at a chain bookstore. Unless you're talking about big specialty coffee table books or textbooks, but that's not usually what one picks up for leisure reading.
Visit the library, where books are free. Or go to a used bookstore. In my area there are used book stores that sell paperbacks for between $0.30 and $2.50. Lots of cheaper alternatives.
Actually, it's probably to impress the tree-huggers and vegans
And what does enviromentalism have to do with a purely social issue like regulating what games minors can buy? They are two totally separate issues. For what it's worth I'm a vegetarian and enviromentally minded left-leaning type, and I absolutely adore my violent videogames. The two issues are wholly unrelated.
It doesn't matter if you go to that link, it'll still redirect you to the add page until you've clicked on the advertisements and either subscribed or chosen the day pass.
Good lord... I could see saying "phat lewt" once as a stupid jab at all the leet-speaking power gamer guys, but they use it throughout the whole document, interchangably with the correct spellings. Ugh. Horrible, F.
(I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative)
How about this? I've never used Garage Band, so I can't really compare, but FL Studio seems like a good candidate.
http://www.fruityloops.com/
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. I was upset about the price increase for maybe 5 minutes. Then I realized that I watch Netflix streaming and disc far more than I watch my cable TV. Netflix will increase to $16, cable TV was $56. So I cancelled the cable and saved myself $50/month. I have an antenna to watch local news and the occasional broadcast show. While the selection on Netflix streaming could be better I have found more things on it that I want to watch than I have time for, so it works for me.
So here are my questions:
- Waypoints dissapearing from the datapad
- On a few servers all characters are the same height
- The XP messages say things like "You earn 1050 points of type 12 experience" instead of naming the type of xp, like scouting.
There's tons more, but I'm not going to type any more because it isn't worth my time. Basicly if you were thinking of coming back to the game to try out the Combat upgrade, don't bother. It isn't worth your time and money.Yes, this sums up the problems quite nicely.
isn't just based on levels and how can catass the most "rare" items. WTF? What language are you speaking?
Damn, what server are you on? I played on Bloodfin and Corbantis, and both had bad issues at times from being overloaded.
Yeah, it's mostly better now, but it damn well should be, the game has been out for what... a year and a half? 2 years?
Sheesh, just let it die.
Don't make any more movies. Don't make any more series. Let it rest. Replace everyone who has been involved. Then try again in 5-10 years.
Here's an idea: don't play on a high population server. Unless all of your friends are on a super high-pop server, don't make a character there. I play on Malygos, a low-pop server, and I've never been queued up to log in, lag is minimal, and the only downtime I've noticed happened a few weeks ago for one evening, when ALL of the servers were down. Yet despite being a "low-pop" server I rarely have problems finding a group for a quest.
I wasted a lot of time in college on iscabbs, and I didn't even go to Iowa state.
Actually, while very fun, I find it considerably less addictive and time consuming than other MMORPGs that I've played. This is a good thing.
I agree. Most MMORPGs are the same thing, which is why I'm starting to tire of the genre. It's more fun to sightsee and check out the design than level up. I think it's the stat driven combat/leveling that irks me the most. If I could have a MMORPG that had puzzles in it, reminiscent of Ico or Zelda, and had a fighting control equivalent to a fighting game like Soul Calibur, well that'd be just about perfect. I don't want time spent leveling to be the deciding factor of how good I am in game. Basicly, I want a twitch / platform / puzzle MMORPG.
Ooh damn, yeah, never buy that many months of a game in advance. In fact I try to stick with a monthly subscription. It's just too hard to gauge how much fun you're going to find the game in a month, let alone 6.
Because in every story about the DS, if the editors just say "DS" in their summary, then someone will post asking what the hell a DS is, and complaining that they should say Nintendo DS or Gamboy DS in the summary so that they know it's a game thing. One would think that the fact that it's posted in the games section, or perhaps even reading the article itself might be a big clue as to what a DS is, but I guess not.
Yeah, really, where are you buying books? The most expensive I've seen is $20-$25 for a brand new hard-cover at a chain bookstore. Unless you're talking about big specialty coffee table books or textbooks, but that's not usually what one picks up for leisure reading. Visit the library, where books are free. Or go to a used bookstore. In my area there are used book stores that sell paperbacks for between $0.30 and $2.50. Lots of cheaper alternatives.
Dur.
Actually, it's probably to impress the tree-huggers and vegans
And what does enviromentalism have to do with a purely social issue like regulating what games minors can buy? They are two totally separate issues. For what it's worth I'm a vegetarian and enviromentally minded left-leaning type, and I absolutely adore my violent videogames. The two issues are wholly unrelated.
Nice idea, but how will they enforce it on spam that comes from other countries?
It doesn't matter if you go to that link, it'll still redirect you to the add page until you've clicked on the advertisements and either subscribed or chosen the day pass.
That's a very good idea.
1930s: England begins to consider the possibility of a naval war with USA. I've never heard of this before. What happened?
Good lord... I could see saying "phat lewt" once as a stupid jab at all the leet-speaking power gamer guys, but they use it throughout the whole document, interchangably with the correct spellings. Ugh. Horrible, F.
So, what do you think of WILLIAM SHATNER's latest musical oeuvre "Has Been"?
Yes, of course, how DARE the employee demand a living wage.
(I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative) How about this? I've never used Garage Band, so I can't really compare, but FL Studio seems like a good candidate. http://www.fruityloops.com/
Yes! I bought an Indigo IO to do recording on my laptop, and the sound quality is just stunning.