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phlacc

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Posts posted by phlacc

    Bioware - you're (mostly) good. EA - you should know better.

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    This post is inspired by this post.

     

    "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."

    - Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the Mario and Zelda series and chief designer of the Nintendo Wii, DS, and 3DS

    It would be so convenient from an accounting perspective if an immersive, visually stunning world with complex mechanics capable of accommodating the experiences of a small nation's worth of people could be started and finished on demand according to whatever arbitrary schedule you assign them when you first set out to build them.

     

    Unfortunately, it isn't - These things are done when they're done, and not a second beforehand. Even more unfortunately, someone didn't tell this to the VP of "suck shareholder's *****" acting as liaison between BW and EA. The VP of SSHD might not buy into the quote at the top of this post, but here's one he should know and understand very easily:

     

    "First impressions matter a lot."

    - Everybody, ever.

    While the effect is kind of mitigated because of the patching that we've come to expect from MMO's, you still don't get to make a second first impression. This one's been preeeeeeeeetty mixed. Do you guys remember Shadowbane and Final Fantasy 14? Those games had potential, got pushed out the door, and sucked ***.

     

    Then they tanked.

     

    To EA, which has a long tradition of moving away from being a game company and towards being a company that deals in games, the idea of "Let's make a good product" just caved to "Let's make a good Q4 2011."

     

    I'll bet you a gorillion dollars that the 12/20 release was a business decision, not a design decision and that Bioware wanted to beta test for at least another quarter before pushing this game out the door.

     

    All parties mentioned would be better off for it, both from gameplay experience and medium+long-term financial perspectives if they did.

     

    Showstoppers like /getdown, the disconnect between the animations and activations of abilities, the countless places and times you need to use /stuck...

     

    You think game devs want to push out a game in this state? You think BW is sleeping easy right now? Hell no. Those guys care about this stuff more than you do because it's their job to do so. For those of you who don't quite fully understand what that means, people's careers and livelihoods rely on the success of this game.

     

    But EA signs the checks, and the previously mentioned VP said something along the lines of

     

    "Bro bro bro, I really don't care what you creative types think - we gotta get this game out before the holidays in 2011 no matter what. There is no way we can miss a Q4 release - our figures are lookin terrrrrrrrrrrrrribad and shareholders are nooooooooot gonna be happy if the Star Tre-- sorry, I know you types get upset about that-- Star WARS project needs another delay bro. Bro, you TRUST me on this, cha? I got an MBA, I know how this stuff works, bro! We good? We good. I know we good. Remember: holidays 2011, or it's your ***. PAYCE!"

     

    This guy's job is to do and say **** like that. And Bioware can't really say no, because Star Wars licensing is expensive as hell. If you want a Star Wars MMO, it's either going to come from EA or Activision - and Activision's already got their hand up Blizzard's ***, so they're good on the MMO thing.

     

    Bethesda, Blizzard, and Valve are pretty much the Bee's Knees when it comes to this whole "game design" thing, and they know something that jagoff, or really any jagoff who had any decision-making power at EA regarding SWTOR doesn't:

     

    Games aren't widgets.

     

    So EA, shame on you. This is really disappointing, but you've got enough people on the hook to make the NPV and IRR analysis on this decision favorable so you probably won't care.

     

    But somewhere along the line you forgot how to be a video game company and just turned into a company dealing video games.

     

    That's ****ed.

     

    Bioware:

     

    Great job. You are using my favorite franchise and your game is very, very, very fun, not to mention gorgeous. You've broken the mentality of "the game starts at level cap" by adding your signature robust storytelling and I love you for it. I've never wanted to roll an alt in any other game, but given how compelling your writing and storytelling is I want to do so here.

     

    Even the parts I hate (C2-N2) make me laugh because of how much I love to hate them.

     

    It.

     

    Whatever.

     

    HOWEVER:

     

    There is an entire genre of games we all grew up playing designed around players' ability to correctly execute inputs/capitalize on mistakes with make-or-break timing windows of 1/24 to 1/60 of a second. Everyone remembers Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, MvC, and Soul Calibur. The more hardcore amongst you might also be aware of Guilty Gear and Melty Blood.

     

    Characters were made and broken by their animations and activation of every single move in their arsenal, from the weakest jab to the strongest super.

     

    The "minor" discrepancies between user input and animation, or even the differences between class mirrors' abilities' damage activations/animations are as big of an issue as there can be from a competitive perspective. You say you're actively looking at it, but oh man is this going to blow up in your face once the charm of PVE wears off unless you iron out the disconnect between player input and ability activation.

     

    Fast.

     

    All of your potential PVP balance changes are going to be based on faulty data otherwise. It would be super cool if you got Troopers on par with Bounty Hunters, to start with. That's the biggest discrepancy there is at the moment.

     

    On a final note, please don't ban me.

     

     

    All that effort and you haven't said anything that hasn't already been said. Only a month into this, these posts just getting pathetic.

     

    Play the game or don't. It's that simple. If you think the game has potential, but sucks right now, then go away and come back later. If you liked the game, but are already level cap and bored, then go play something else until more content comes. Man, it isn't hard to figure out!

     

    And to the guys like the OP who feel that they need to write a really LONG post that seems heartfelt but are really posts saying, "This is what you should do, Bioware, because I've put a lot of thought into it, my posts looks smart, so I know what I'm talking about", to you guys, I say, "Go build your own damn MMO". Who knows? Maybe we'd all like it.

    This is why BW fails

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'll agree that this game does need to evolve, but it's only been out for a VERY short time, why not just give BW the chance to figure things out. It's not like Blizzard had much figured out when they did their first MMO, WoW. They even didn't think it was gonna be as good as it is.

     

    And to the OP, I read your "credentials", and it seems your career focus is in IT, not development. I mean really, "Director of Software", it looked more like you were the company's assistant and made sure everybody was just doing their jobs. LOL

    Took an arrow

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I approve of this! Do not listen to the weird looking creature above me with no sense of humour.

     

     

    Hey, just because you say you have a sense of humor, doesn't mean it's a good one LOL

     

    Seriously though, that poster is right, just let it die!

    why i think its better if EXP Was not given in Warzones

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    First off the exp you get from a warzone win is equal to that of about 2 side quests

    but warzones of course take much less time and a quest would only be that short if you skip all the conversations. In theory someone could pvp from 10-50 purely without doing any quests and still be a viable level 50 by having pvp gear then getting carried in flashpoints.

     

    Lowering the amount of exp would also be nice but getting rid of it would be the best solution in my eyes.

     

    Thoughts?

     

    Just asking, but why does this bother you? Is it that PvPer's might be able to level faster?

    For all you young-ins

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by phlacc

    Since we're remembering the the good old days of gaming. It was rare, but before the rise of the internet, if you needed a patch for a game you actually had to snail mail for it to the developers. And they would send you a floppy disk.

     

    Games back then were actually finished before they hit the shelves though because who the hell wanted to wait two weeks to get a patch. LOL

     

    There also BBS boards, but man, the dial-up back then........

    MMO Community: Quick to remember mistakes

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Guys it seems really simple and it is actually logical. If you can get some in 7 days early then you should be able to get all in 5 days early. And as the OP pointed out BW will gain HUGE amount of credit for allowing everyone in for the Max advertised Early access amount.

     

    For those that say it is free.... please do not be naive, the early access is a marketing ploy and it was used to sell pre-orders. Most of us that bought into that advertising feel very strongly and correctly that we BOUGHT early access. Call us suckers if you want .. but this could turn ugly for BW if they piss off those suckers by denying some what they feel they have bought.

     

    Tomorrow is very important for you BW. Please reconsider allowing EVERY pre-order access. Or at least stop advertising pre-orders and early access in every corner of your web page.

     

    Thanks,

     

    Right, until the servers crash and have to be shutdown for maintence, then you'll be back on these forums crying about that.

     

    And to the OP, "Our beloved community...", who are you kidding? MMO communities have sucked ever since the youtube generation got involved LOL

    bit pissed and EA/bioware they had resources to do way better but decided not to

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Hewwos.

     

    I actually approve highly of the way they roll-out the early access. Saves us from cluster****.

     

     

    How ever, i don't approve of the none 24/7 Invation Email. Sorta a boomer...

     

     

     

    And about one or two Racks of Servers. I don't think so... We very well can assume that they got at least 150 Servers running. STO had somewhat around 124 on launch, which kinda didn't seem to be enough still. And STO had not even half as much Pre-Orders world wide.

     

    Wouldn't it be more servers though? I'm just guessing, but aren't there clusters and clusters of game servers, then authentication servers, database servers, and so on and so on...

     

    I'm pretty damn sure it's nothing like us setting up a home game server. LOL

    TOR community, listen to me!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I command one or all over you to hand over your early access to me right now! I was not fortunate enough to get in today, so you will, or atleast one of you will HAVE to hand over access. That is all.

     

    Hehe, kidding of course. I wish I was in today, maybe tomorrow.

     

    So, besides all the whiny posts today, how is early access? Everything running smooth? Questions for people who got in.

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