DEV Responses :
Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 2:05 pm
Some quotes from Sned and DEV Team today:
The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.
At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.
Smed
Why can't we do these things?
1) Target lock - Believe it or not we talked long and hard about this one. If you seriously sit down and think about the nature of the NGE style of combat, it means that people need to be able to use actual skill to hit. If you take that away you need to go back to the more turn based system we had before. It just plain wouldn't work. Now you can make a legitimate argument that we shouldn't use this style of combat. I have no defense against that argument because nearly every other MMO out there uses that style of combat and clearly it works. What we are trying to do here is create a new style of gameplay. Does it work? Well.. for some people it does, and for others it doesn't. That's the truth. For myself, I prefer it to the old combat system which I personally found dull. But that's just my personal opinion. The reality is we've changed to the new system and we're moving forward. It isn't that we can't add target locking.. it's that wer'e not going to because there isn't a way to do it that wouldn't reduce the skill level needed.
2) The more rigid profession system we've switched to just doesn't lend itself to a skill system that's like what we had before.
Smed
We are not currently working on or planning an expansion. Period. Our only job right now is to make this game better.
Smed
we've had a plan to completely get rid of most of the structures in the game from players that aren't around any more. It's in limbo because it's time-consuming and needs to be done just right (imagine the riots if we deleted active players's structures by accident). The team just has other stuff they are concentrating on atm.
Smed
ok. Here are my top 5. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean this is the order things are being done.. just my personal ones and what I see being big issues with the community.
1. Crafting - I know crafters are pissed.. we're working on a system that I hope will be a good balance between the crafting centric system we had before and the loot drop system we have now. The truth is this needs to be balanced.
2. New quests for the mid-levels - there's not enough of them now. The team is cranking on it.
3. PvP - Not nearly enough of it - I don't like what we've done to faction bases. Personally I think this is a big part of what this game needs to be about. Then again, I'm personally a PvPer so that's a big deal to me.
4. Entertainers - I realize a lot of people don't like the idea of entertainers being in combat. To a lot of people this IS why they went into entertaining in the first place. I like where we're going with it and want to make sure it's balanced properly.
5. Higher end content - There's a lack of really interesting high-end content in the game. A lot of the vets have maxed out and we need to make sure there's still enough to do.
Smed
Why did I respond on FOH and not here? I just happened to see that thread last night... simple as that. At some point I can only deny nonsensical rumors on so many websites before it just plain becomes frustrating to me. It's the old "when did you stop kicking your puppy" trap..
I've also asked the Lucasarts folks to comment on this which you should see today some time (not sure when or where exactly).
I also want to say - I'm happy to discuss things that need to be done to make SWG better. What I will not do is respond to "go back to pre-NGE" threads or "please make 1 pre-nge server" threads. I've commented on those before.
Smed
SWG never attracted the size audience that the Star Wars license delivered in the first place. One of those reasons was combat wasn't exciting enough. We have done enough research on the people who quit or people that didn't purchase the game to know this is a hard, brutal cold fact. Could we have gone a different direction with the combat? Yes. Could we in the future change this direction? Yes. Do I think we will? No. Why? Because I don't believe that this will be an issue if we solve the other half of the equation - making the professions feel different... and making the content really exciting. If we asked you all to rank Combat vs. the loss of professions, I'm betting the loss of professions will "win" every time... I don't think the new combat style is the main thing that people are bothered by. It's the broad strokes changes to the rest of the game. What we've done is to get the game to a much more basic level that we can build on. I submit to you that if we achieve our other goals, this style of combat won't be an issue. The fact is the data we have suggest that for the people that DO sign up for the game they like the combat. For the people that don't, combat isn't the main issue we're losing them.
Smed
Part of "fixing the game" includes a ton of new content. It's just going to be included in game updates, not in an expansion.
Smed
The expansion has been put on a back burner.
The truth is we were in the beginning stages of a new expansion.. we did the focus groups.. you guys clearly said "fix the game before you talk to us about an expansion" we listened and pulled everyone off that expansion.
1) Yes we had 20 servers.
2) Yes there were more people playing
3) No, they weren't remotely full.. and they were getting less full by the day.
4) IMO we probably need a server merge at some point.
#3 is the reason we needed to make this change in the first place.
Smed
We need to work on differentiation of the professions and differentiation within professions if we're going to succeed. That's being done now.
Smed
We are expecting to get Publish 28 to Test Center late next week. Right now it looks like Publish 28 will hit the live galaxies on April 18th.
Grant "Rogue_5" McDaniel
SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
The reverse engineering system planned for the trader revamp will replace things like clothing and armor attachments. In the mean time, it's unlikely that we will add content that will be replaced with an upcoming publish. So the short answer is we don't plan on adding too much to trader until we do their revamp.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
We recognize that the current profession system doesn't allow for any real level of character differentiation. As such, we're currently working on an "Expertise" system, that grants the players "points" to spend on specialization. The expertise system gives the profession system a similar feel to what we had pre-nge as far as character customization goes. The tech for this system is being developed for the next publish (this won't be visible to you guys). The publish after that, we're looking at pushing out the first two professions's worth of expertise trees, with two professions targeted for every publish after that. Generally speaking, we'll have three trees for each profession to choose from, including a GCW tree and a "path" tree that will hold things like "dark" and "light" side powers for Jedi, for instance (or droid specializtion, vs poisons for Bounty hunters - for instance).
That's the plan.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
On the GCW:
We have a large scale GCW battleground as well as a PvP leaderboard and rewards/advancement system in the pipe.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
The current loot game within SWG is in direct opposition to the trader profession. That's why we're changing what traders are and how they operate so that they operate in congruence and harmony with the current loot game. While no concrete plans have been made, I suspect schematics, mass harvesting, factory crafting and similar aspects of the current trading game to be adapted to something more suitable.
-Helios Titan
Slicing type gameplay will return with the reverse-engineering game for traders. GCW bases (not to be confused with battlefields) will be making a combeback in an upcoming publish. One of the systems guys is looking into updating these as we speak. Faction pets are coming back as part of GCW expertise trees (see my post above).
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
Here's a bold goal -
Let's get all the bugs out of the game within 6 months. Maybe we won't hit it, but that's what we're shooting for.
Smed
Will you ever make if so that we can respec without using kits/destroying toons...?
Respec NPCs are going with pub 28.
-Helios Titan
Hi everyone,
Lots of talk about the "secret" project which really isn't a secret anymore. We are doing a playable demo for E3 and Swede is working on the team that is putting that together. The project is actually going to be larger then just the demo and become a new themepark with a GCW theme (lots of Rebels v. Imperials) to it, which will be put into the game in publish 29.
The intention of this themepark is to cover our bases with E3 and develope a new set of repeatable, high end content for all of you.
The expansion team, which is no more, is now working on nothing but high end content that will be sent out in our regular publishes.
SpaceRancor
what about mini expansions like eq2?
Not until we have improved this game by a lot. Will we do content like this? Yes.. although maybe not all in one bunch.. but you will get more content.
Smed
Specials not firing is entirely unrelated to this issue. FPSs use mostly UDP. SWG doesn't really use UDP. UDP uses small, fast packets that don't rely on being delivered 100% of the time, because they constantly get resent with updated information. You need a lot more bandwidth for UDP based gaming, generally because you constantly need to send updated about traveling projectiles, etc.
The problem with specials not firing has to do with a timer on the client. It's essentially a problem with trying to fire a special while another attack is still executing (like a default left-click attack). That's why you can let off the mouse for a short while and the special will fire.
As you see, we have identified the issue and the programming staff is investigating a fix. Specials not firing is a problem with a client timer. Please see my above post for details. Aside from that, we are investigating the possibility of slowing combat down a smidgeon - not by much though.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
We have had discussions about relaxing the requirements for civic structures. We have not made a decision on this yet, but are aware of the consequences involved in a structure clean up pass.
We are still investigating if/how/when we reintroduce pvp decay into the game.
The only time you will be eligible to have a bounty set on you is if you defeat another player in PVP combat.
We do not have any plans for this to be implemented.
David Jones
Associate Producer
Star Wars Galaxies
I would submit to you that just because we're adding back elements of the pre-nge gameplay that what we'll end up with at the end of the day is a WAY better game than we had before.
Smed
No plans involving creature handlers are on the books.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
On XP Current State in the Game:
We are working on a fix for this. We understand this is an important community issue and are working to solve it as quickly as possible. We are looking into getting the xp for creature kills raised.
Grant "Rogue_5" McDaniel
SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
On GCW content will be for both PvE and PvP GCW participants
That is just the High End Content that will be coming out for Publish 29. We want to do alot of different types of content for people to do at the high ends. Some of them would be things like class specific story arc missions, new dungeons similar to the DWB, PvP battlefields, GCW ranks and rewards systems, etc. Basically, we really want to give our high end players a lot of different choices of what they want to do when they log in.
SpaceRancor
Creature Handler:
A pet skill will be added at some point, it's just outside the current Pub planes.
Sned
NPCs will be stationed in some cities that allow you to change your profession for a price. As a gift for publish 28 everyone gets one respec from the NPCs for free. The NPCs work essentially the same as the respec devices.
Animations - We will be doing some significant work on our animation system in the upcoming months. The collision system we are working on will allow us to get jumping into the game.
Grant "Rogue_5" McDaniel
SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
------------------
If you would like to ask a question to DEV Team:
Please join us on Wednesday, Mar 29th, for a House of Commons with the developers of Star Wars Galaxies at 5pm PsT / 8pm EsT in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC.
You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client, such as mIRC, ircle, xchat, or whichever you prefer. Connect to irc.stratics.com port 6668 or whichever server is closest to you:
stratics.frws.com port 6668, USA - Colorado
irc.glowfish.de port 6668, EU - Germany
stratics.afraidyet.net 6668, USA - Atlanta
irc.epaxsys.net port 6668, USA - Colorado
You may also connect through our handy Java link which may be found right here. You must have Java installed to use this which can be downloaded from the Java homepage.
General chat relating to SWG will take place before, during, and after the chat in room #starwars. We hope to see you there!
Issele,
SWG Stratics NE
The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.
At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.
Smed
Why can't we do these things?
1) Target lock - Believe it or not we talked long and hard about this one. If you seriously sit down and think about the nature of the NGE style of combat, it means that people need to be able to use actual skill to hit. If you take that away you need to go back to the more turn based system we had before. It just plain wouldn't work. Now you can make a legitimate argument that we shouldn't use this style of combat. I have no defense against that argument because nearly every other MMO out there uses that style of combat and clearly it works. What we are trying to do here is create a new style of gameplay. Does it work? Well.. for some people it does, and for others it doesn't. That's the truth. For myself, I prefer it to the old combat system which I personally found dull. But that's just my personal opinion. The reality is we've changed to the new system and we're moving forward. It isn't that we can't add target locking.. it's that wer'e not going to because there isn't a way to do it that wouldn't reduce the skill level needed.
2) The more rigid profession system we've switched to just doesn't lend itself to a skill system that's like what we had before.
Smed
We are not currently working on or planning an expansion. Period. Our only job right now is to make this game better.
Smed
we've had a plan to completely get rid of most of the structures in the game from players that aren't around any more. It's in limbo because it's time-consuming and needs to be done just right (imagine the riots if we deleted active players's structures by accident). The team just has other stuff they are concentrating on atm.
Smed
ok. Here are my top 5. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean this is the order things are being done.. just my personal ones and what I see being big issues with the community.
1. Crafting - I know crafters are pissed.. we're working on a system that I hope will be a good balance between the crafting centric system we had before and the loot drop system we have now. The truth is this needs to be balanced.
2. New quests for the mid-levels - there's not enough of them now. The team is cranking on it.
3. PvP - Not nearly enough of it - I don't like what we've done to faction bases. Personally I think this is a big part of what this game needs to be about. Then again, I'm personally a PvPer so that's a big deal to me.
4. Entertainers - I realize a lot of people don't like the idea of entertainers being in combat. To a lot of people this IS why they went into entertaining in the first place. I like where we're going with it and want to make sure it's balanced properly.
5. Higher end content - There's a lack of really interesting high-end content in the game. A lot of the vets have maxed out and we need to make sure there's still enough to do.
Smed
Why did I respond on FOH and not here? I just happened to see that thread last night... simple as that. At some point I can only deny nonsensical rumors on so many websites before it just plain becomes frustrating to me. It's the old "when did you stop kicking your puppy" trap..
I've also asked the Lucasarts folks to comment on this which you should see today some time (not sure when or where exactly).
I also want to say - I'm happy to discuss things that need to be done to make SWG better. What I will not do is respond to "go back to pre-NGE" threads or "please make 1 pre-nge server" threads. I've commented on those before.
Smed
SWG never attracted the size audience that the Star Wars license delivered in the first place. One of those reasons was combat wasn't exciting enough. We have done enough research on the people who quit or people that didn't purchase the game to know this is a hard, brutal cold fact. Could we have gone a different direction with the combat? Yes. Could we in the future change this direction? Yes. Do I think we will? No. Why? Because I don't believe that this will be an issue if we solve the other half of the equation - making the professions feel different... and making the content really exciting. If we asked you all to rank Combat vs. the loss of professions, I'm betting the loss of professions will "win" every time... I don't think the new combat style is the main thing that people are bothered by. It's the broad strokes changes to the rest of the game. What we've done is to get the game to a much more basic level that we can build on. I submit to you that if we achieve our other goals, this style of combat won't be an issue. The fact is the data we have suggest that for the people that DO sign up for the game they like the combat. For the people that don't, combat isn't the main issue we're losing them.
Smed
Part of "fixing the game" includes a ton of new content. It's just going to be included in game updates, not in an expansion.
Smed
The expansion has been put on a back burner.
The truth is we were in the beginning stages of a new expansion.. we did the focus groups.. you guys clearly said "fix the game before you talk to us about an expansion" we listened and pulled everyone off that expansion.
1) Yes we had 20 servers.
2) Yes there were more people playing
3) No, they weren't remotely full.. and they were getting less full by the day.
4) IMO we probably need a server merge at some point.
#3 is the reason we needed to make this change in the first place.
Smed
We need to work on differentiation of the professions and differentiation within professions if we're going to succeed. That's being done now.
Smed
We are expecting to get Publish 28 to Test Center late next week. Right now it looks like Publish 28 will hit the live galaxies on April 18th.
Grant "Rogue_5" McDaniel
SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
The reverse engineering system planned for the trader revamp will replace things like clothing and armor attachments. In the mean time, it's unlikely that we will add content that will be replaced with an upcoming publish. So the short answer is we don't plan on adding too much to trader until we do their revamp.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
We recognize that the current profession system doesn't allow for any real level of character differentiation. As such, we're currently working on an "Expertise" system, that grants the players "points" to spend on specialization. The expertise system gives the profession system a similar feel to what we had pre-nge as far as character customization goes. The tech for this system is being developed for the next publish (this won't be visible to you guys). The publish after that, we're looking at pushing out the first two professions's worth of expertise trees, with two professions targeted for every publish after that. Generally speaking, we'll have three trees for each profession to choose from, including a GCW tree and a "path" tree that will hold things like "dark" and "light" side powers for Jedi, for instance (or droid specializtion, vs poisons for Bounty hunters - for instance).
That's the plan.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
On the GCW:
We have a large scale GCW battleground as well as a PvP leaderboard and rewards/advancement system in the pipe.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
The current loot game within SWG is in direct opposition to the trader profession. That's why we're changing what traders are and how they operate so that they operate in congruence and harmony with the current loot game. While no concrete plans have been made, I suspect schematics, mass harvesting, factory crafting and similar aspects of the current trading game to be adapted to something more suitable.
-Helios Titan
Slicing type gameplay will return with the reverse-engineering game for traders. GCW bases (not to be confused with battlefields) will be making a combeback in an upcoming publish. One of the systems guys is looking into updating these as we speak. Faction pets are coming back as part of GCW expertise trees (see my post above).
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
Here's a bold goal -
Let's get all the bugs out of the game within 6 months. Maybe we won't hit it, but that's what we're shooting for.
Smed
Will you ever make if so that we can respec without using kits/destroying toons...?
Respec NPCs are going with pub 28.
-Helios Titan
Hi everyone,
Lots of talk about the "secret" project which really isn't a secret anymore. We are doing a playable demo for E3 and Swede is working on the team that is putting that together. The project is actually going to be larger then just the demo and become a new themepark with a GCW theme (lots of Rebels v. Imperials) to it, which will be put into the game in publish 29.
The intention of this themepark is to cover our bases with E3 and develope a new set of repeatable, high end content for all of you.
The expansion team, which is no more, is now working on nothing but high end content that will be sent out in our regular publishes.
SpaceRancor
what about mini expansions like eq2?
Not until we have improved this game by a lot. Will we do content like this? Yes.. although maybe not all in one bunch.. but you will get more content.
Smed
Specials not firing is entirely unrelated to this issue. FPSs use mostly UDP. SWG doesn't really use UDP. UDP uses small, fast packets that don't rely on being delivered 100% of the time, because they constantly get resent with updated information. You need a lot more bandwidth for UDP based gaming, generally because you constantly need to send updated about traveling projectiles, etc.
The problem with specials not firing has to do with a timer on the client. It's essentially a problem with trying to fire a special while another attack is still executing (like a default left-click attack). That's why you can let off the mouse for a short while and the special will fire.
As you see, we have identified the issue and the programming staff is investigating a fix. Specials not firing is a problem with a client timer. Please see my above post for details. Aside from that, we are investigating the possibility of slowing combat down a smidgeon - not by much though.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
We have had discussions about relaxing the requirements for civic structures. We have not made a decision on this yet, but are aware of the consequences involved in a structure clean up pass.
We are still investigating if/how/when we reintroduce pvp decay into the game.
The only time you will be eligible to have a bounty set on you is if you defeat another player in PVP combat.
We do not have any plans for this to be implemented.
David Jones
Associate Producer
Star Wars Galaxies
I would submit to you that just because we're adding back elements of the pre-nge gameplay that what we'll end up with at the end of the day is a WAY better game than we had before.
Smed
No plans involving creature handlers are on the books.
-Helios Titan
-Lead Systems Designer, SWG
On XP Current State in the Game:
We are working on a fix for this. We understand this is an important community issue and are working to solve it as quickly as possible. We are looking into getting the xp for creature kills raised.
Grant "Rogue_5" McDaniel
SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
On GCW content will be for both PvE and PvP GCW participants
That is just the High End Content that will be coming out for Publish 29. We want to do alot of different types of content for people to do at the high ends. Some of them would be things like class specific story arc missions, new dungeons similar to the DWB, PvP battlefields, GCW ranks and rewards systems, etc. Basically, we really want to give our high end players a lot of different choices of what they want to do when they log in.
SpaceRancor
Creature Handler:
A pet skill will be added at some point, it's just outside the current Pub planes.
Sned
NPCs will be stationed in some cities that allow you to change your profession for a price. As a gift for publish 28 everyone gets one respec from the NPCs for free. The NPCs work essentially the same as the respec devices.
Animations - We will be doing some significant work on our animation system in the upcoming months. The collision system we are working on will allow us to get jumping into the game.
Grant "Rogue_5" McDaniel
SOE Producer, Star Wars Galaxies
------------------
If you would like to ask a question to DEV Team:
Please join us on Wednesday, Mar 29th, for a House of Commons with the developers of Star Wars Galaxies at 5pm PsT / 8pm EsT in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC.
You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client, such as mIRC, ircle, xchat, or whichever you prefer. Connect to irc.stratics.com port 6668 or whichever server is closest to you:
stratics.frws.com port 6668, USA - Colorado
irc.glowfish.de port 6668, EU - Germany
stratics.afraidyet.net 6668, USA - Atlanta
irc.epaxsys.net port 6668, USA - Colorado
You may also connect through our handy Java link which may be found right here. You must have Java installed to use this which can be downloaded from the Java homepage.
General chat relating to SWG will take place before, during, and after the chat in room #starwars. We hope to see you there!
Issele,
SWG Stratics NE
