DEV Responses :

Kurke_Aumea · Post by **Kurke_Aumea** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:27 pm

What you have to remember about SWG is how rushed it was to be released. Admittedly, it was supposed to be released around December '02 and February '03. When it was released in June '03, it was already pushed back heavily (though not as heavily as other games like Half-Life 2). Since the SOE developers were under the gun, they were rushed. I remember how many bugs the squashed in the last month and a half before release (I was a part of Beta 3). The whole problem with the beta testing is that none of the testers had enough time to reach the elite professions. I only was about halfway through rifleman before they ended beta testing. The "blue frogs" were never concieved until the Test Center was brought into full public use.

The fact that they didn't reach the elite professions probably prevented the devs from seeing the balance issues that would occur. In the end, the elite professions were only really tested internally by the devs or by veteran beta testers who had been around long enough to get there. On that same note, Jedi were only ever tested internally. No players ever tested Jedi.

I think another thing that didn't help SWG since its release was the fact that it seemed like the SWG dev team lost a lot of its initial devs and had to hire on new ones. Anyone remember Q-3PO? I remember he left not long after the release and TH kind of replaced him (I'm not sure if it was the same position, but it seems like the ended up doing the same things).

Also, I think the devs went in the wrong direction about six months after release. Early on in SWG's development, we were told that space wouldn't make it into SWG's initial release, but would be followed up in an expansion and would be the first priority after the game was released. Well, as development went on and other things were dropped, like player cities, mounts, and vehicles, space suddenly became an afterthought compared to these "essential" items. After release, focus was put on player cities, mounts, and vehicles. I give the devs credit, they came through successfully with these items.

But, while part of the team was working on finishing these dropped items, the rest of the dev team was supposedly tasked with squashing bugs. Where the devs went wrong was that they gave into the prfession crybabies. They gave in to those who cried that their profession was screwed over. Well, instead of listening to everybody and changing little things over time, the devs would make drastic changes to one or two professions at a time and end up screwing up the other professions. Their quest for quick fixes ended up srewing the game in the long run.

I think around the same time, dev team members were pulled from bug squashing to expansion work. Admittedly, space was a required expansion and I think most gamers were willing to wait for the bug squashing in order to see the space expansion. Of course, once the space expansion came, they started work on another expansion instead of bugs. This is where I feel the devs really went wrong. What's the point in having expansions when you have a broken game???

As more time went on, I think the devs made more rash decisions than fully thought out ones. Yeah, the CU and NGE all looked good on paper, but they didn't really test them the way they needed to. Instead, they listened to the most impatient people you will ever meet in this world: GAMERS. When you listen to impatient gamers, the games you work on will simply suck. I admit, as a developer you need to listen to your gamers to understand what they want, but you also need to take it all with a grain of salt. Gamers know fun, but they don't know programming.

Now, all of this talk about fixing bugs in six months is great, but it's too little too late considering the age of this game. This is talk that should have taken place two years ago...

Theep · Post by **Theep** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:10 pm

Kurke you should really come back to the game, bugs arent that bad really. And like all bugs, we can always find a way around them, just try it for like 3 mins.

Kurke_Aumea · Post by **Kurke_Aumea** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:50 pm

No. SOE will never see my money again.

Leviathen · Post by **Leviathen** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 12:49 am

I am quite glad to read a lot of what I did from them.

There is one large thing that I still am not sure they are understanding however, and that is the need for a star warsy feel.

The entire NGE was designed around it, but the proper feel for this game was being plunked into this strange world, find your own way around, its up to you. They still want to make you feel like you are relieving the movies. NPCs go out of their way to help us, we should go around and have to earn that help.

Other than that, like what I saw.

Kurke_Aumea · Post by **Kurke_Aumea** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 11:52 am

The whole Star Warsy feel thing has been an issue since the game was released. I don't think either the devs or the gamers knew what constituted that Star Warsy feel. Yeah, you need the characters and the weapons and the planets, but what else?

OK, throw in Jedi. Is it SW enough yet? No? Here, have vehicles and mounts. Is it SW enough yet? Have some SW quests. Oh, it's now SW enough yet???

I don't think the gamers would feel it was SW enough for them even if they could be Darth Vader. I think the devs have tried just about everything in the book to make it Star Warsy, but gamers will never be happy. Of course, that's the problem of dealing with the SW license and this timeframe in the SW universe. Had they made a prequal oriented MMO instead, they would have had more gray areas to mess around in.

I'm always curious what the gamer thinks the devs could have done to make the game more Star Warsy. What do you think?

Leviathen · Post by **Leviathen** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 1:04 pm

More star warsy for me would have meant taking up a job. Say joining the imperial army, being a smuggler and smuggling goods for money, being a mercenary for higher, joining the rebel alliance, etc.

Perhaps even setting up real shops like Watto's junk yard.

More politics, such as governments in each city and such.

Kurke_Aumea · Post by **Kurke_Aumea** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:14 pm

Leviathen wrote:More star warsy for me would have meant taking up a job. Say joining the imperial army, being a smuggler and smuggling goods for money, being a mercenary for higher, joining the rebel alliance, etc.

Perhaps even setting up real shops like Watto's junk yard.

More politics, such as governments in each city and such.

The devs tried all of those, but never followed through to the ends they needed to.

Leviathen · Post by **Leviathen** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 4:16 pm

They never follow through with anything/

Szul · Post by **Szul** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:06 am

Kurke_Aumea wrote:No. SOE will never see my money again.

heh Who you giving it to?

Yea, thats a loaded question.