I'm moving this over here before it gets jacked again from the SWG Community Forum. She pretty much puts everything out on the line. And people will wonder why the community is so rabid against SOE....
--- Copied from an earlier message (alias account), posted before Tiggs was sacked:
For any of you that were around since this game's launch, thing back to November 2003. Two years ago this month SOE introduced vehicles and player cities to SWG. This was a very exciting time, and arguably the pinnacle of this game's existence.
The day the player city and vehicle publish was to go live was very intense. There was a lot of excitement. Many of us were on the old Gorath Imperial IRC server talking about grand plans, wishing each other luck on getting our spots. Many had architects lined up to make city halls. A lot of us had our would-be mayors logged out right by where the politician trainer would be located when the server came up. A LOT of people did not go to work or school that day hehe.
Player cities actually came to define this game early on. It gave guild's a sense of pride and ownership. It gave folks places to gather. Gave us territories to defend/assault. This gave us rise to the GCW and the massive PvP that ensued.
But while all this was going on, there were many underlying problems that were creeping up on us slowly. See the game had only been out for a few months. People had not fully realized to what extent things could be crafted. We had not had many good resource spawns, and not substantial quantities either. Almost no crafters had any experimentation tapes, nor did they fully understand how the intricacies of the crafting system worked.
But over the next couple of months, people realized they could make armor that would resist 90%+ all damage. Or that they could make MIND poison that would kill everyone within a 30 yard radius in three ticks. Or they could make buffs that would more than DOUBLE our stats.
These were all items that for some reason or another were never capped before the game went live as they should have. This was a direct result of SOE's short-sightedness. They underestimated the resourcefulness of their player base.
Combine those factors with bugs and exploits (faction bases had MANY that took MONTHS to patch), unbalanced classes (TKA, CM, Rifleman) and eventually the revelation of HOW to unlock Jedi (effectively taking a huge part of the player base OUT of the game as they pursued the grind) - and you had the begining of the decline.
Before all this, the GCW was super addictive and I would say in November 2003 the majority of players were actively involved somehow. Not sure how many remember the battles at Maelstrom that went on for over 8 hours. Only reason it ended was because people had to leave to go to work or school lol. The game was FUN and MUCH more addictive then. Faction meant something. We had a LOT less faction hopping back then because the war was in full swing.
Well, the game kept deteriorating so SOE came up with the plan to fix it - originally called the Combat Revamp, later to be known as the Combat Upgrade. I was one who was privy to a LOT of the early documentation on the first CU. Let me first point out that the CU that did go live that you all call CU 1 is actually CU 2. There was another version of the CU prior to what you saw that IMHO was MUCH better, but for some reason or another they took it upon themselves to redo the CU before it even went live.
But the CU 1 that I was shown was the game I wanted. It was basically the same game we all loved, but solved the long-standing problems that revealed themselves since launch. Being able to target the mind pool was no longer going to be an advantage for only a handful of professions - each profession was going to get a move to be able to target each of the three pools. Weapons, armor, buffs, foods & drinks were all going to be capped. DOT's were going to be nerfed so hard they were going to be a nuissance, but not make or break in combat
All I want is answers - as I'm sure everyone else does who plays the game - about the things that has bothered the community for so long.
The SWG community is a very passionate - one could argue even rabid - community of gamers. I guess I consider myself rabid about how I feel about the game given that I own all the books to the D6 West End Star Wars game along with the D20 version from Wizards of the Coast. I have both played and GMed in both systems.
One thing about pen and paper RPGs that is different from MMORPGs is the playing community - in our case our playing group - has the ability to craft the game as we see fit. Community is a huge part of RPGs. You have to have a vibrant community in order to succeed.
You also have to be willing to LISTEN to your community and WORK WITH THEM. I know there has been cases where we've come across certain rules or guidelines that were suspect and had debates on whether to modify the rule to meet our needs or to eliminate the rule altogether. I don't like eliminating rules because I feel that opens a Pandora's Box of trouble; however, I am more than willing to LISTEN and WORK WITH my players to rectify perceived problems in a democratic and respective manner.
SOE has not done this with the Galaxies community at all. I've never in my life seen one company so hellbent on ignoring the people who PAY for the game, then PAY a monthly subscription to play it when there are obvious problems with how the system was pre-CU. It's as though we were good enough to play the game but not good enough to voice our thoughts as to how OUR GAME should be handled in the future. I have been developing software for over four years now (not long enough compared to others on Slashdot) and I can say - without a doubt - if my company totally ignored their customer base the way SOE has theirs we wouldn't be in existance anymore.
And yes, I did say OUR GAME. It is OUR GAME - the SWG Community's game - because we play in it and we shape it on each server as we see fit. This is the thing about MMO games. You the company can own the code, the copyrights, the trademarks, etc. but the people who inhabit these virual worlds also have a ownership stake in how the world is ran and its future course of direction. We see with our own eyes what is transpiring and what is worng. We make it known what is wrong, what needs to be fixed, and are willing to work with the company to make these changes happen. We did not ask for the CU nor did we ask for the NGE; we wanted the old system to be fixed through making the classes that were in the game work and some trimming of doc buffs.
We didn't ask for nerfing of classes nor have we ever wanted that. Look, some classes are going to be alpha in certain areas. That is the reality of the world, both virtual and physical. Some people are going to be "uber"; accept it, it's just how it is. There is never going to be a perfect balance in any game no matter how hard you try. Instead of nerfing classes to bring everyone into some sort of Marxist equality, why not add to the classes who are suffering abilites that can ONLY be done in those classes to make them more appealing to play.
Work with us. It's not difficult to understand. Don't pretend you know how to please us without talking with us. We've been wanting to help this game out for so long. My only fear now is that with this latest nerf bat to come down, SWG is on the last legs of life support.
I have a lot of feelings revoling around the current state of SWG. As someone who enjoyed the game before the great nerf known as the CU, I would like the following to be answered as detailed as possible (I'm probably going to get the standard company line but hey it's worth a shot):
1) What will the status of solo playing in the future? I am not an anti-social person by any stretch of the means. However, the game as it currently sits makes it near impossible to solo anything without a group. I, as I am sure most of the Slashdot crowd is, am involved in some sort of computer-related work and designating time for groups is something that I just cannot do given my professional and family responsibilites as well. While I think the ability to solo a Krayt Dragon is ridiculous, the ability should be present to solo other creatures and mobs without too much fear.
2) What are you doing now or are planning to do to address the economic situation being brought about by the removal of ADKs (Anti-Decay Kits for those not familiar with the game)? Decay is a natural part of the physical world with any item currently in the game and fosters the continued economic relationship between the combat and crafter classes. Removal of this as it stands seems to render the crafter class in the current version useless. Have you stopped to consider that by doing this you are fostering an environment where the crafter profession will be sub-standard?
3) Why are you removing the player bounties? What is your justification for doing so? Bounty Hunters now become just like the Commando class for the most part. Have you stopped to consider that Bounty Hunters play an intricate role in the game right now in that Jedi who expose themselves go on the terminals for bounty hunters to hunt down. The era in which this game takes place is between Episode IV and V; therefore, it makes sense that Jedi should still be in hiding since Palpatine and the Empire are still hunting down what Jedi survived Order 66.
4) Speaking of Jedi.....why are you unlocking them straight off the bat for everyone to play? Jedi are suppose to be extremely rare given the current time period in the Star Wars universe. A lot of people who put a lot of game time and effort into becoming Jedi feel cheated now that this is happening. Jedi should take LOTS of hard work to get once you become Force Sensitive; becoming Force Sensitive in the game should also be random in how it happens. How do you explain how you are going to control the population now that everyone and their mother can be a Jedi once they start out in the game?
5) What do you plan to do with the professions you are now eliminating, specifically Creature Handler? I know a lot of vets complained about the great "Pokemon Wars" in the original release of the game and the class got nerfed. Now that you release The Trials of Obi-Wan with Creature Handler-specific items only to eliminate this profession in the NGE is outrageous. How do you plan to address this? How do you compensate the people that have stuck with the game and played this profession?
6) For those of us who have only wanted the original game system fixed in terms of the bugs, why can't SOE make pre-CU systems for players to log into? I have yet to hear one reasonable explination of this. I would assume that the old base-code has been archived off somewhere. Dark Ages of Camelot has done this, why can't Galaxies?
7) Why the need to introduce a system that a lot of people I have talked to both in the current live system and test centers do not like at all nor asked for? Why the need to introduce the CU also given the fact that most people who tested it out - myself included - did not want? Why do you ignore your player community like you have who asked for the fixing of the skill tree professions for those that were broken and a reduction of doctor buffs in the first place?
8) Why not just kill Galaxies completely and start over from scratch - Star Wars Galaxies 2 - instead of adding new c
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I'm moving this over here before it gets jacked again from the SWG Community Forum. She pretty much puts everything out on the line. And people will wonder why the community is so rabid against SOE....
---
Copied from an earlier message (alias account), posted before Tiggs was sacked:
For any of you that were around since this game's launch, thing back to November 2003. Two years ago this month SOE introduced vehicles and player cities to SWG. This was a very exciting time, and arguably the pinnacle of this game's existence.
The day the player city and vehicle publish was to go live was very intense. There was a lot of excitement. Many of us were on the old Gorath Imperial IRC server talking about grand plans, wishing each other luck on getting our spots. Many had architects lined up to make city halls. A lot of us had our would-be mayors logged out right by where the politician trainer would be located when the server came up. A LOT of people did not go to work or school that day hehe.
Player cities actually came to define this game early on. It gave guild's a sense of pride and ownership. It gave folks places to gather. Gave us territories to defend/assault. This gave us rise to the GCW and the massive PvP that ensued.
But while all this was going on, there were many underlying problems that were creeping up on us slowly. See the game had only been out for a few months. People had not fully realized to what extent things could be crafted. We had not had many good resource spawns, and not substantial quantities either. Almost no crafters had any experimentation tapes, nor did they fully understand how the intricacies of the crafting system worked.
But over the next couple of months, people realized they could make armor that would resist 90%+ all damage. Or that they could make MIND poison that would kill everyone within a 30 yard radius in three ticks. Or they could make buffs that would more than DOUBLE our stats.
These were all items that for some reason or another were never capped before the game went live as they should have. This was a direct result of SOE's short-sightedness. They underestimated the resourcefulness of their player base.
Combine those factors with bugs and exploits (faction bases had MANY that took MONTHS to patch), unbalanced classes (TKA, CM, Rifleman) and eventually the revelation of HOW to unlock Jedi (effectively taking a huge part of the player base OUT of the game as they pursued the grind) - and you had the begining of the decline.
Before all this, the GCW was super addictive and I would say in November 2003 the majority of players were actively involved somehow. Not sure how many remember the battles at Maelstrom that went on for over 8 hours. Only reason it ended was because people had to leave to go to work or school lol. The game was FUN and MUCH more addictive then. Faction meant something. We had a LOT less faction hopping back then because the war was in full swing.
Well, the game kept deteriorating so SOE came up with the plan to fix it - originally called the Combat Revamp, later to be known as the Combat Upgrade. I was one who was privy to a LOT of the early documentation on the first CU. Let me first point out that the CU that did go live that you all call CU 1 is actually CU 2. There was another version of the CU prior to what you saw that IMHO was MUCH better, but for some reason or another they took it upon themselves to redo the CU before it even went live.
But the CU 1 that I was shown was the game I wanted. It was basically the same game we all loved, but solved the long-standing problems that revealed themselves since launch. Being able to target the mind pool was no longer going to be an advantage for only a handful of professions - each profession was going to get a move to be able to target each of the three pools. Weapons, armor, buffs, foods & drinks were all going to be capped. DOT's were going to be nerfed so hard they were going to be a nuissance, but not make or break in combat
I appreciate the plea for mod points.
All I want is answers - as I'm sure everyone else does who plays the game - about the things that has bothered the community for so long.
The SWG community is a very passionate - one could argue even rabid - community of gamers. I guess I consider myself rabid about how I feel about the game given that I own all the books to the D6 West End Star Wars game along with the D20 version from Wizards of the Coast. I have both played and GMed in both systems.
One thing about pen and paper RPGs that is different from MMORPGs is the playing community - in our case our playing group - has the ability to craft the game as we see fit. Community is a huge part of RPGs. You have to have a vibrant community in order to succeed.
You also have to be willing to LISTEN to your community and WORK WITH THEM. I know there has been cases where we've come across certain rules or guidelines that were suspect and had debates on whether to modify the rule to meet our needs or to eliminate the rule altogether. I don't like eliminating rules because I feel that opens a Pandora's Box of trouble; however, I am more than willing to LISTEN and WORK WITH my players to rectify perceived problems in a democratic and respective manner.
SOE has not done this with the Galaxies community at all. I've never in my life seen one company so hellbent on ignoring the people who PAY for the game, then PAY a monthly subscription to play it when there are obvious problems with how the system was pre-CU. It's as though we were good enough to play the game but not good enough to voice our thoughts as to how OUR GAME should be handled in the future. I have been developing software for over four years now (not long enough compared to others on Slashdot) and I can say - without a doubt - if my company totally ignored their customer base the way SOE has theirs we wouldn't be in existance anymore.
And yes, I did say OUR GAME. It is OUR GAME - the SWG Community's game - because we play in it and we shape it on each server as we see fit. This is the thing about MMO games. You the company can own the code, the copyrights, the trademarks, etc. but the people who inhabit these virual worlds also have a ownership stake in how the world is ran and its future course of direction. We see with our own eyes what is transpiring and what is worng. We make it known what is wrong, what needs to be fixed, and are willing to work with the company to make these changes happen. We did not ask for the CU nor did we ask for the NGE; we wanted the old system to be fixed through making the classes that were in the game work and some trimming of doc buffs.
We didn't ask for nerfing of classes nor have we ever wanted that. Look, some classes are going to be alpha in certain areas. That is the reality of the world, both virtual and physical. Some people are going to be "uber"; accept it, it's just how it is. There is never going to be a perfect balance in any game no matter how hard you try. Instead of nerfing classes to bring everyone into some sort of Marxist equality, why not add to the classes who are suffering abilites that can ONLY be done in those classes to make them more appealing to play.
Work with us. It's not difficult to understand. Don't pretend you know how to please us without talking with us. We've been wanting to help this game out for so long. My only fear now is that with this latest nerf bat to come down, SWG is on the last legs of life support.
I have a lot of feelings revoling around the current state of SWG. As someone who enjoyed the game before the great nerf known as the CU, I would like the following to be answered as detailed as possible (I'm probably going to get the standard company line but hey it's worth a shot):
1) What will the status of solo playing in the future? I am not an anti-social person by any stretch of the means. However, the game as it currently sits makes it near impossible to solo anything without a group. I, as I am sure most of the Slashdot crowd is, am involved in some sort of computer-related work and designating time for groups is something that I just cannot do given my professional and family responsibilites as well. While I think the ability to solo a Krayt Dragon is ridiculous, the ability should be present to solo other creatures and mobs without too much fear.
2) What are you doing now or are planning to do to address the economic situation being brought about by the removal of ADKs (Anti-Decay Kits for those not familiar with the game)? Decay is a natural part of the physical world with any item currently in the game and fosters the continued economic relationship between the combat and crafter classes. Removal of this as it stands seems to render the crafter class in the current version useless. Have you stopped to consider that by doing this you are fostering an environment where the crafter profession will be sub-standard?
3) Why are you removing the player bounties? What is your justification for doing so? Bounty Hunters now become just like the Commando class for the most part. Have you stopped to consider that Bounty Hunters play an intricate role in the game right now in that Jedi who expose themselves go on the terminals for bounty hunters to hunt down. The era in which this game takes place is between Episode IV and V; therefore, it makes sense that Jedi should still be in hiding since Palpatine and the Empire are still hunting down what Jedi survived Order 66.
4) Speaking of Jedi.....why are you unlocking them straight off the bat for everyone to play? Jedi are suppose to be extremely rare given the current time period in the Star Wars universe. A lot of people who put a lot of game time and effort into becoming Jedi feel cheated now that this is happening. Jedi should take LOTS of hard work to get once you become Force Sensitive; becoming Force Sensitive in the game should also be random in how it happens. How do you explain how you are going to control the population now that everyone and their mother can be a Jedi once they start out in the game?
5) What do you plan to do with the professions you are now eliminating, specifically Creature Handler? I know a lot of vets complained about the great "Pokemon Wars" in the original release of the game and the class got nerfed. Now that you release The Trials of Obi-Wan with Creature Handler-specific items only to eliminate this profession in the NGE is outrageous. How do you plan to address this? How do you compensate the people that have stuck with the game and played this profession?
6) For those of us who have only wanted the original game system fixed in terms of the bugs, why can't SOE make pre-CU systems for players to log into? I have yet to hear one reasonable explination of this. I would assume that the old base-code has been archived off somewhere. Dark Ages of Camelot has done this, why can't Galaxies?
7) Why the need to introduce a system that a lot of people I have talked to both in the current live system and test centers do not like at all nor asked for? Why the need to introduce the CU also given the fact that most people who tested it out - myself included - did not want? Why do you ignore your player community like you have who asked for the fixing of the skill tree professions for those that were broken and a reduction of doctor buffs in the first place?
8) Why not just kill Galaxies completely and start over from scratch - Star Wars Galaxies 2 - instead of adding new c