Jump to content

livnthedream

Members
  • Posts

    1,673
  • Joined

Everything posted by livnthedream

  1. Bug fixes are 'next week'. Tomorrows downtime is just back end.
  2. not in terms of what it was expected to hit. based on the brand alone it was widely regarded by the game/mmo community to be the first western mmo to break 1m subs. when it didnt it was widely believed that the market just wasnt that large in the west. then came wow, which broke 1m while swg was struggling to keep 300k. based on the market, the ip, the developers, and who they had backing them, it was a failure regardless. in retrospect, if you want to base it entirely on sub nets across the market, you would be correct. however, based on the facts that sony/lucasarts were putting their money on, and what kind of numbers they expected to pull, it most certainly was. if it werent, things like the cu, and subsequently nge, wouldnt have occurred.
  3. i see where you are coming from. however, that kind of option completely breaks how the story here is presented. even if you take the special case of revan, who did make the change from jedi to dark jedi to full on sith lord the actual player character didnt get to make that choice. the pc was at best a shadow of revan and never became truly jedi nor sith. either way, with the way the story here is told, it wouldnt work.
  4. you didnt have the ability to go from jedi to sith in kotor
  5. i did a starter freebie weekend thing. i played through the starting zone area and decided between mechanics and the state that the game was in at the time that it wasnt for me. while its fine that you want to change gear often, the only thing stopping you is you. whether you want to change your mods to do it, or farm out new ones (heck, base 50 purples are cheap and more than sufficient for everything up to hardmode ops). also, your "one time credit sink" suggestion is blatantly false. if it were "good enough" then we wouldnt have had a 12% inflation in the first 3 months of the game. why exactly do you think bioware has added so many MORE credit sinks? im well aware of how appearance tabs work. rift uses essentially the same set up. appearance tabs were good fits for those games, THEY WONT BE HERE. they completely invalidate orange gear, and would wreck the existing economy. i understand you want them, because some other game did, that doesnt mean they will work the same way here as there because the 2 games were designed differently. this is really iffy, mainly because i remember naked raids from rift. it looks absolutely atrocious. i can understand some players wanting to remove belts, because they dont like the graphic, but the slope gets pretty slippery and generally falls into pure stupidity. if the majority of the playerbase had a bit of sense, if this wasnt the same era of 80% of cod clans having penii for symbols, i may agree with you. honestly though, unless the playerbase in general can show that it would be used responsibly, i cant agree. the only time gear dyes work correctly is when the gear itself is designed to be used with them. the gear here was not, and neither was lotro. dyes ALWAYS look like garbage otherwise. between color tone being off, and general mismatching, dyes are just ugly. the devs themselves have discussed WHY we dont have, and will likely never get a dye system. considering that we dont even have a "shoulder" slot, i dont really see how you can use those specifically as "ugly". i like the majority of gear in the game. i have yet to make a character and not been able to find a set of gear that i liked for them, even my republic toons! some i had to search harder for than others, and some are in need of more variety, but the devs themselves have stated that very same thing. i can even see how you would rather have the old system that you prefer instead of adapting to a new one, but thats now how design works. you cant just cherry pick mechanics from every "AAA" (i love how loosely you use that term btw) and expect a good game experience out of it. wow has come the closest to doing it, and it still has endemic problems that after 13 years of development they havent been able to fix. even going back and rereading the op, i agree with some of what you want. i agree that we should have the same gear customization options for companions as we do players, i agree that we need many more options for orange gear, preferably crafted, but available would be great, i even agree that some work can be done in terms of hotkeys/ui. its the lazy solutions that i object to. i firmly believe that if you want a special snowflake appearance that you should have to put forth a minimum of effort to achieve it. whether its finding a crafter to make you what you want, seeking out the skin itself, or filling those things with correct mods if you want 50 outfits. you already have solutions in game. even bringing up your mac vs pc, if the mac os is so much better then why is it such a tiny market share? there hasnt been an actual hardware difference in quite some time, you can effectively run os10 on practically any hardware, yet its still the extreme minority. if it was honestly so much easier to use and "efficient" one would think that the computer illiterate crowd (the majority) would be all over it.
  6. just to clarify, the highest evidence i have found says it topped out at 300k, and when it started losing 10k per week it was down to 180k-200k subs. just to add, also saying that we need space combat, ala jtl, was only a 50k sub net.
  7. while i can agree that illum isnt a sandbox, i believe that he was stating that illum should be part of what he was attempting to accomplish. im kinda wondering if you actually do, since based on what many consider "sandbox" there has NEVER been a sandbox game, which is arguably accurate. why? based on investor reports he is correct. ea sold the game based on projections of 1.2m, which they are still above based on concrete sources. you can make the argument that it wont be above that for long, but im kinda wondering what exactly your basis for that is since the vast majority of gripes can be met with decent evidence to the contrary. the game is losing subs, but i have yet to see any evidence, nor come across any myself, that can pin the "blame" on any reason, or even range of reasons.
  8. i havent really played lotro, so i cant comment on that. however, that exactly what you are saying. the orange system was designed to not only allow you to customize look, but stats also. with the melding of the two of course its going to be more complex, thats the nature of evolution. besides that, are you seriously complaining that moving mods is difficult? are you also making a serious argument that you MUST move all of your mods?
  9. it is already designed efficiently. you want to dumb it down in by removing the existing versatility.
  10. so you want to pay more for a generally worse product?
  11. yeah, cause the blog of the guy that was head dev for a number of years and wrote/designed most of it is a "fan site" just like that second thread that actually links to credible sources a number is completely biased for it. its nice to know that the only thing you actually took a look at was "wiki" and jumped to conclusions. even then, with its initial jump, huge ip, and veteran devs im not surprised it was thought across the market. that initial month alone it climbed to 2nd place for western mmos. dont get me wrong, it was very much proven to be a general "failure" within the market, both by size and by failing to meet its designed expectations. im not defending galaxies in the least, it was a general mess that swtor shouldnt copy, and if the forums are listened to, will get another nge that will be the deathknell of it, just as it was for swg.
  12. between veteran leadership, superb ip, and initial launch, that is what the general belief was. you can find it in many places if you choose to do a search. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Galaxies http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20945.500;wap2 http://rubenfield.com/?p=86 are all solid collected sources of information. most of which is first hand, although many of those also have links to the specific information you may want to look for. in general i was merely pointing out that his calling that argument into question was indeed invalid. as for on topic, there are a number of very valid concerns about "adding" sandbox to the game. in point of fact that very argument has been done to death. i personally dont care for it, and dont see a feasibly nor realistic way to add it without a fairly comprehensive redesign of existing features and content.
  13. its actually not a terrible comparison. prior to wows release swg was expected to be the first western mmo to break 1m subs. it had the money and the ip to do it. when it failed to reach those expectations and topped out at 300k it was widely believed that the mmo market was tapped, that there just really wasnt the playerbase to do it. then along comes wow, breaking 1m and continuing on without breaking a sweat and completely shattering the idea that the playerbase didnt exist. keep in mind that was when wow was in its infancy. at the time when there wasnt much of a market, or even really much of a market differential.
  14. im amused by this particular statement. mostly because its extremely close to a statement made by devs right before swg received the cu, and nge "upgrades". im also extremely amused by your dogged belief that the "majority" of the gaming community, especially here, are fixated on space exploration/combat when its been shown time and again its not. by the way, im still waiting on you to refute, or even acknowledge my previous post.
  15. i have a couple of issues. the biggest being that you dont need "space combat" for it to qualify as star wars. kotor, dark forces, jedi academy, shadows of the empire, etc all lacked space combat and still told good "star wars" stories. it is far from required. the next being, we, the space loving community, are very much a minority. pure market share and past sales examples prove it. the third one being i firmly believe, and have seen no evidence to the contrary, that this studio has neither the time, nor the money, to develop and integrate a space combat addon that would do the game justice. mostly because its been proven in the past to not be worth the cost. as to the ideas on grouping, i can understand where you are coming from, and even agree with you to an extent, but the playerbase has proven time and again it doesnt work like that. the path of least resistance will always be taken. its why in every game i have played with a queuing system you will get people who are not geared/specced for that role, or flat undergeared because they know that if they queue enough, someone will carry them. its been proven time and again, that even with having the option to "narrow" queue, its rarely used (outside of pissing matches where guilds will use it to force matches against each other) because it leads to a slower queue. whether its a direct cause and effect correlation or not, the evidence very much points that way.
  16. i never claimed that this is wow, merely used it as an example. vehicle combat is generally a very small niche. especially when the game caters to actual character building. the dungeons/raids that relied on mounted combat were generally disliked for this very reason. as to how important space combat is to star wars, and whether or not it pertains to the segment that the devs are trying to give us, is very much a large and varied topic. why though? we arent piloting fighters. in point of fact for everyone but smugglers and bounty hunters they arent even our ships. they belong to the government. what you suggest makes about as much sense as a police officer adding a body kit to his police cruiser. so you want more rewards for doing the same thing? or do you honestly want to rebalance the rewards so doing a good job now nets you the same rewards, but a worse job does not? do you honestly just run the space missions for the reward, or is a part of the reward actually playing the space mission? dont say "obviously" when your poor communication is what warranted the question. we already essentially have this anyway, thanks to the character selector menu. perhaps you should actually do new content then rather than the absolute minimum. all of the "new" gear from 1.2 has set bonuses tied to the armoring. not my fault, or biowares, that you refuse to utilize it. they have already stated why previous gear doesnt, and wont, be getting the same treatment. perhaps it is a "good" idea. however i dont see it getting enough use to actually make the time worthwhile, especially in the existing environment. the problem with your assertion is you are confusing in game economy for the real world economy. why many real world economic principles can be applied, not all of them can. in the real world businesses are in it to make money, where very often players are not. its the very reason why a great number of players will place things at the minimum bid instead of actually checking the market for fluctuations or placing accordingly. even as you stated, those who do "abuse" the market through scarcity (artificial or otherwise) it would completely destroy all of it. in the market system you propose buyers would have near infinite access to essentially all items or goods, while also enjoying extremely cheap items due to competition. however the down side is the number of people competing makes the crafters job infinitely harder to the point that not many will actually deal with the effort. the number of obtuse players far outweigh those who actually help to keep a solid market strong. as it is now you actually have a chance to get to know your fellow players because they are on your server. you know who is a douchebag by keeping on eye on trade chat, and you have a decent idea who the solid players are by guild tags and friend lists. in a cross server environment, you dont. you rarely see the same person ever again. this makes you essentially anonymous, as such, why would you possibly hold even a shred of respect for them? worst care you get kicked and get to queue again for a short wait to another dungeon. there is very little talking, and very much the attitude of "lets get this done so i can get fat loot", instead of "hey guys, lets get this done". so in your opinion pvp is a purely solo experience? there is no teamwork required at all to fully participate? simple, queue times. in every game i have played where they have split queues it slows the queue times down to the point that players will often use whatever method it takes to get the fastest queue, especially for pvp. i personally blame that on the "pvp" mindset, but thats really another long topic all on its own. using things like queue timing, to additional mods, essentially anything, to either get their advantage, or to get the fastest queue possible. either way, playing as a team is pretty blatantly how the pvp game was designed, based purely on abilities and class breakdowns. how is it random at all? all of the "changes" you want to make essentially turn the game into wow with lightsabers, which contrary to popular opinion, it really isnt. very similar, arguably too similar, but it isnt, as your changes document. the different ways that the devs are choosing to solve the games issues are very different from those chosen by the blizzard devs, and hopefully once they go live will be "proven" to be the better solution.
  17. the problem is you do want to guide development. you guys say time and again to let them know they are on the "right track" or "what players really want". besides the fact that those things change week to week, that becomes a basic majority vote and doesnt hold to what needs to be done in terms of software development. some things take longer than others, some are easier to do, and some things run into snags that end up taking much longer than was planned. its the nature of the beast and why we get answers like soon. the playerbase attempting to essentially tell bioware how to do their jobs is completely insane. going by something like torstatus and using server types as an example (yes, i know thats a stretch and woefully inaccurate, but it does illustrate nicely) we would virtually never see any new pvp development. the top 20 servers by population only contain 4 pvp servers (2 of which are rp) with the other 16 being pve servers (6 of which are rp) meaning based on "poll numbers" pve and rp vastly outnumber the pvpers. this is why polls fail. on top of this, actually giving the rabid fanbase (look at the flight sim group) any kind of "evidence" that they can take vastly out of context and they will use it as a rallying point for things that arent, and never were, intended.
  18. ^^ that is the problem with your entire idea. neither of us have no idea of either the inner structure nor the programming capabilities of the dev team. we have no idea what tech, or other hurdles may exist between what is doable and not doable, much less the time frame for it. you are hopelessly ignorant on the subject yet still feel the need to put forth your opinion in such a way as to judge the team for it. this is all before even looking at what you find important versus another person too. the devs have stated many times that they prioritize projects based on a number of factors, time spent, cost, number of players effected, "need" etc. they are much better judges of it than pretty much anyone in the community since they actually know what they have to work with and we do not.
  19. this is a terrible idea. the majority of the playerbase is hopelessly ignorant. the majority still dont know how stats actually work much less how development cycles function, and you want them to actively "decide" on whatever the current flavor of the week gripe is because of the latest massively article, or x game press release?
  20. what heaven is talking about is that no matter how many people are on a planet, they may or may not group with you. even on dk/coruscant you can have 50+ people on planet and still spend 30+ minutes to get another to do a heroic. shoving more players together will increase the chance of getting someone, but will not even come close to making it a certainty.
  21. many dont want this. there is a reason why vehicle combat is mostly despised in wow for example. this would require a rather large departure from the existing system, one that is very arguable whether or not it would actually be positive. there is very little evidence this would be a boon and worth the dev costs associated. this is possible with the existing systems. its also a solid idea. again whether its worth the dev cost is arguable. i disagree. there is no reason to add changes. especially if you are talking about paint jobs and such. interior is even arguable, but bioware has said that its coming since that is part of the "housing" experience. maybe. honestly i feel that space missions already give a ton of rewards. they are one of the best forms of credits per hour, and a great form of xp. even that "wasted" time you dont want to stay for, you still get great xp and cash based on kills. also, the entire mission is balanced around the time to pay out. so if this change was made it would have to be done with other balance changes in mind. this is actually a notoriously bad business practice. you give them what they need and what you think you can get away with. contrary to most most consumers, they are rarely actually right. a toggle is arguable. you do know there is already a sorter built into the existing gtn interface that does sort based on what you, and your companions, can wear. as a strait change to the gtn, no. i like having access to other patterns to buy for my other characters, or to resell. good thing they have already addressed this. again, you dont. i do. either because i like doing them, or because i need the tokens for other toons or to sell. what are you doing on planets that offer grey/green quests if you dont want to do them? even in fleet if you look at the level of the quest giver it will tell you the general level of the quest. there is no need for this change. this change would destroy the market for a number of people. this is only a change that is good for buyers, and not for sellers. there is a reason why different servers have very different economies. this is blatantly false, and can be shown in a variety of games. beside the basic fact that strangers generally dont work well together, strangers that have no reason to be civil (ie no real repercussions for being a dick) have even less reason to work well together. you should never queue into a group based activity by yourself and expect to do well. pvp is by design a group based activity. the fact that you want to punish those who are playing the game as designed is even more foolhardy. wow already exists, why would you want to turn this into it? hate pandas? most of these are the very same reasons as to why wow has become the roiling cesspit that it is today. with the lack of respect towards other players and gogogo dungeons to get your fat purples that mean nothing. this is a poor design path to follow.
  22. its not as simple as just buying the tech. different engines work and run in different ways. its a large part of the reason why it takes so long to develop games for it.
×
×
  • Create New...