Zilvafein
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Posts posted by Zilvafein
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Range dominates the 10-49 brackets and I dont care what we have at lvl 50. Stop already talking about l2p..telling me things like someone would play the first time an mmorpg.
Uhm, its not true you know?
Sure, it has been a challenge for me as an assassin, a tough one too at times. But any stealth class can get close quite easely, and can stealth cap doors, and can cap turrets and so forth.
In case of say a juggernaut/jedi knight: They have an ability to jump up to a target, in Huttball this often means jumping up to a ranged enemy and then further on, which can make you score in huttball, or let you throw to that assassin/jedi operative/republic version shadow who stealthed into position.
Really, the only place where ranged have a rather clear advantage over non ranged is at Ilum. In every single warzone the mellee classes all have something worthwhile to contribute with.
And if you stopped thinking the game in terms of 1 vs 1 where the goal is to kill each other, rather than to win the match, then you'd realize this too.
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Hello there!
I was wondering if there is plans for new reciepees or anything else to make the crafting skills a little more useful? As it stands right not it is by far easier to grind the epic material than it is to learn the reciepees. And the epic loot are quite simply, superior to the best a crafter can presently make.
This would not be an issue had it not also been easier to get. For example:
To make an advanced enchantment you need to disassemble a an enchantment till you crit, then you need to make enough of the superior (blue) version and disassemble those until you crit. Thats the reciepe, then you need several rare ingredients ontop of this, whose gathering time is roughly an hour per mission, only gotten on a crit.
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Not every "doomsayer" thinks the game is going to lose every last subscriber. Not everyone that thinks the game is going to fail is a "doomsayer".
Success for an MMORPG by my standards is actually gaining subscriptions at some point. Over 2 million copies sold. SW:TOR will never see numbers like that again. In fact, SW:TOR probably won't even maintain half of that through the first year.
If they are using constructive critism, and there are plenty to critize, then its not being a doomsayer. A game does not need 2 million subscriptions to be a financial success, and its too early to say wether or not it can maintain the numbers or not.
I stand by my comments.
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*rubs head slowly*
You know, this is what I hope:
1) That the doomsayers are wrong.
2) That bioware will fix some of the more horrible issues in the game and in custemor support.
3) That bioware will include more basic features (like an emote for lying down, sitable chairs, chat bubbles etc. for the RP crowd, a graphic engine that does not suffer from these issues for the PvE and especially the PvP gamers.
4) That people, doomsayers and fanboys alike, actually stop crying doom on one hand saying its likely the end of the game and that everything will crash and burn. And that fanboys will stop claiming that everything will grow and be golden.
This is what I think will happen:
1) Fanboys and doomsayers will keep being ignorant.
2) The game will remain a positive source of income for Bioware/EAgames.
3) The game will lose a large number of subscribers and become significantly smaller than it is right now.
4) That the game is very unlikely to die.
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Consider this:
When WoW released their "warzones" there was a rank grind. And let me tell you, it was an incredible time sink. The amount of time you had to put in to get Grand Marshal or High Warlord was insane (I never achieved either).
But when I saw people with those titles, I WAS FREAKING AMAZED. It was an impressive feat, IMO, that people had the determination to play that much.
The difference is, if you didn't play games, you LOST RANKING. There was a consequence to not playing. It made the rank meaningful.
The consequence was that unless you did'nt have a job, or did'nt take your study/school seriously, you could'nt get the rank. It was an abysmal system and a horrible design philosophy. I played during that one too, got the rank "sergeant major" and thats about how much I bothered with that horrible, horrible idea of a system.
And it did'nt require skill back then to get the title either, it simply required that you spent a lot of time on this. As such it was as meaningless as the title you complain about, in fact, moreso, because it meant that this was an example of a player who had spent so much time repeating the same thing, over and over again, that it could have been spent far better elsewhere.
If anything BW's present system is leaning too much towards the same faulthy philosophy of spending a lot of time on meaningless repetition, but its far superior to the version you had in the original introduction of the BG's in wow.
As for rated warzones carrying titles? Sure, if the game gets popular enough, but right now there are enough things stopping that, as well as enough things stopping "serious" PvP. The lag each time a new figure is loaded for example (if you don't know what I mean, go to your ship, put autowalk on, open your backpack while walking. nothice the split second lag? Thats a scripting faulth -until such issues are fixed you'll see limited competition).
Regards
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PvP just means "player vs player" and the term is far older than the games you listed, they just put an additional factor onto it, defined what pvp was in their games. It does not make it the only valid definition.
I mean, if you claim to being that older experienced person, then by now you should have realized this? I mean, it does'nt take any real education in the etymology of the term "PvP" to figure out what its meaning is.
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1. Get 400 synthweaving.
2. Do some (hint: A LOT OF) HM FP groups. Pray the Biometric Crystal Alloy drops.
3. Pray no one needs it or you win the roll.
4. Repeat #2 until you get another Biometric Crystal Alloy.
5. Do Underworld Trading over and over and over and over til you get 16 Denebrillan Star Silks.
6. Make your Rakata Bracers and Belt.
7. RE the bracer and belt and pray for a new schematic.
8. If you don't get a new schematic or get the wrong prefix, repeat this list.
9. If you crit, repeat this list until you crit and get an aug slot.
10. Once you get a prefixed crit with aug slot Rakata bracer and belt, congratulate yourself.
11. Drop synthweaving like a bad habit.
Good luck
And this is also the thing you can do with most other equipment making skills, only skill worthwhile out there right now is the one drugging yourself up with.
Everything else? Well, suffice to say that the mods and enchantments you make are limited to version 22, you can buy the epic version of 23 from a vendor without needing the hassle to disassemble a very very large amount of crafted materials.
...and you will actually make money as you work for the tokens to get the version 23 items, whereas just alone learning the version 22 epic variants is going to cost you for at around 50.000 credits in worth of crafting materials. Unless your very lucky.
As the guy I quoted said:
Good luck.
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Good point, I actually included Oceanic players for my estimate.
Issue with including the Oceanic players is that they get even less custemor support than the EU's, one of them mentioned a patch being around 7 pm her time, just to make an example. Until bioware finds a way to do more rolling maintenance on their servers it may be an issue for some of their players.
General issues include a rather poor communication skillset from bioware, frequent closing of threads (this one will likely be closed as well) and an inability to help players create a positive community.
Issue for PvE players is that there is'nt all that to content yet, offcourse this can also be exaggeratted a bit, its true for all games that really dedicated PvE players will burn through the content faster than its possible to generate it. With a speed factor of at least ten, likely a hundred. -Think of the trying to make a new and interesting concept for the players, the planning of the dungoen, the graphic design of it, the scripts, the bug testing, the time in test servers etc. Easely takes ten or hundred times as much time as playing through the content.
-As such the "lack of content" may be taken with a grain of salt, not that there is'nt a concern to address mind you, its just that people always will have some issues in this field.
Issue for PvP players is that there is'nt any rated matches, it lacks the "e-sports" formula thats popular elsewhere, it lacks premade teams facing premade teams (for good and bad), it has a focus that forces the player to face an uncertain period of time before said player can compete on an even footing with other players. However, this is the question of accomplishment, how much are you going to let players work to feel it is an accomplishment to gather their resources versus how long will it take to get frustrated. This is a personal issue, and is very hard to balance. This holds true wether you are WoW, EQ2, AoC, WAR or well, SW:TOR.
Issue for roleplayers (like myself) is smaller, most of us also enjoy one of the two above but frequently have smaller requirements, give us the ability to do emotes, a /random x-y roll (for example 1-100), chat bubbles and furniture we can use and sit down on and you did most of the work allready.
And a franchise like Star Wars has a greal appeal for roleplayers, all Bioware needs to do is enable the emote features allready existing in the game and add a few minor things. As a roleplayer though I must state that even in the story of MMO's this game could do with a bit more support. Suprising really as Bioware frequently presents itself to making roleplaying games (something blatantly untrue when we speak of singleplayer games, a singleplayer story is not a RPG, its an adventure game, actual roleplay requires at least two human players involved and thats it).
If we look at it overall though, then there is a slightly worrying issue that the game may not have a few flaws, but a lot of small flaws spread out over a vast area. Worst perhaps is'nt even in the game at all, but in Biowares method of dealing with the fanbase and Biowares lacking ability to communicate, in detail, what each patch does and what issues are being fixed. Its almost as if they are trying to "stealth fix" issues believing it better that we "don't know about them" than that we see they are there "making us aware of them".
...only the flawed philosophy in this is that players talk to each other, a lot. So the bugs do get known. Simply put, my criticsm there is that Bioware lacks clarity and open communication, but then again, they are a part of EA games who supported SOPA so I guess it all fits. Yes, the last one was a snide comment, no, its not intented to discuss that part.
Regards
Lars
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One can only hope ^^
No, not really something to hope for. Not if it means its not worked out and solved.
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While I can appreciate where you are coming from I must say that i'm actually quite happy about this one. Its not in the middle of EU primetime as the last two patches.
That being said, BW should try to find a system in which they can apply maintenance on the servers according to timezones. Sure, the players who (like me) have characters on both US and EU servers won't be able to play on both again until the patches have been applied to both, but we're a miniority group.
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Let me spell it out for you. MY JOB is to interpret financial results and press releases. Statements contained in press releases are AS OF THE DATE OF THE PRESS RELEASE (February 1). FINANCIAL RESULTS are filed SEPARATELY or as an EXHIBIT to the PRESS RELEASE.
Simple enough?
Also, financial statements (IS/BS/SCF and notes thereto) typically do NOT contain "subscription base" numbers, as those are NOT financial numbers and CANNOT be audited by accountants (and thus, cannot be submitted for filing to the SEC). Subscription numbers are OPERATIONAL numbers, which are stated by the filing company, and released through other means including press releases, or periodic monthly management account filings to the SEC.
I work with communication, and I have a word for you: Apples and oranges, you are unclear in your definition of success. You are being critized for claiming that the game is successful without making a description on what you term as a success.
Here is how subscription numbers work:
They are a measure of active subscriptions.
Thats it. They are not a measurement of how many players play the game, they are not a measurement of long term success, they are a measurement that it has a successfull launch. The long term success cannot be measured before the initial months hype has died out and before we have seen if those subscribers stick around or not.
Really, for a guy that works with financial results you should know to be a little more clear, the initial success is indisputeable, but your original post implied the long term success, which we cannot be certain of yet.
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Bioware. I am an extremely loyal player of your game, however you are pushing me to the point of subscription cancellation with the frequency of your illtimed server shut downs. I realize the importance and value of updates and corrections, but to shut down at Midnight on a West Coast server when everyone who actually WORKS during the day might be playing is just plain disrespectful.
While I do, to a point, appreciate and understand where you are coming from it is not exactly primetime at that point. And its a maintenance that, for once, is'nt smack down in european primetime.
Personally, i'd say its an improvement, especially if they can keep it at very fast maintenance efforts like that one.
Also, since you work during the day, should'nt you... you know, sleep during the night on weekdays anyway?
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I am not sure you can play both. As far as I know, you can choose but once chosen you have to stick to that side (NA/EU)
I am an EU player, I have characters on both EU and NA servers.
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ok ill admit im a little tired and i skimmed thru your post
but , put yoruself in biowares shoes, yes a mantainance on a saturday is a crappy choice , but it doesnt matter at what hour you do your mantainance, you are GOING to piss someone off
Hello there LaVolpex, and thank you for your input.
I should note at first that the saturday maintenance was'nt exactly a scheduled one, thankfully. So its not every week that Europeans have to experience this a saturday. That being said, yes, there is a way to avoid it. You can for instance do seperate maintenance for european and american servers. The server hardware is located both in Europa and in the States thus making this quite possible. They have chosen to do it simultaneously, intentionally. This has, I read, to do with giving everyone a fair chance in terms of "world first" kills and such.
I find such a choice quite disagreeable, as the people who chase the "world first" kills are a miniority of the playerbase compared to the players adversely affected by the policy.
You don't have a leg to stand on here OP. The Saturday patch was to fix a problem with error 9000 and people getting booted from the game to the character screen over and over again. So because you were denied a whopping 4 hours of game time on a Saturday so that hundreds, maybe thousands of players could have an enjoyable experience, you think you have a right to complain?TL;DR -- Get over it. BioWare cannot and SHOULD NOT try to make everyone happy. It's impossible.
Hello there Selvendar, and thank you for your input.
Now, quite obviously I am in disagreement with you here on a few points. Firstly with the belief that this is an issue only affecting a few players. By the number of topics concerning this issue, that is the issue of poor communication as well as primetime maintenance, it should by now be quite self evident that this is an issue that hundreds, and much more likely thousands, of players experience on a regular basis. (pardon me mimicking your words, no ridicule intented I assure you).
Secondly, you mentioned the reason for the servers downtime. And I thank you for your illumination as to why the servers have been down, though I do wonder why you where told what the fix was about when it seems that Bioware did not mention this to anyone else in the topics they created on the subject. As seen here and here.
Thirdly and finally, when there is a concern I believe that I have a right to voice said concern, in a calm and constructive manner that it may be addressed, please note that it is my concern that I seek to be addressed. This merely requires feedback, something that there are quite a few asking for at this time.
I should also note however, that all these "hotfixes" are applied in european primetime, instead of say when they are finished. This goes to imply a conscious descision to at times postpone applying hotfixes, letting players play with said issues, until they take the servers down to maintenance. Something that then will coincide with their largest player base (that is, the US players) -incidentially, this policy means that their european playerbase is unlikely to grow much, thus ensuring where their largest player base is. I find the buisness model quite... innovative, though i'm unsure wether I find it a constructive one.
I hope that I have answered your post in a satisfactory manner. Thank you for taking your time to participate in the topic.
Regards
Lars
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My problem with maintenance time threads is primarily that they're really boring and predictable.
You know, there is this saying about where there is smoke...
Or in other words, some of these issues are actually very valid concerns, sure, people could (and should) be more constructive about it. But still valid concerns.
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Nice wall of text, Lars.
Admittedly I had neither the time nor the interest to examine the entire wall, but hopefully BW is paying someone to care enough about what you have to say. Someone would need to be paid a lot to endure that, but BW has a decent budget.
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My advice, Lars, move to a different time zone or convince enough people to play in your timezone.
If you neither had time nor interest. Then why did you bother responding? Apart from demonstrating that you answer barely fit the context of the topic that is.
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Buy a clock...?
Not always scheduled or communicated very well when the servers go down though. A much bigger issue is the timing of downtime/maintenance.
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4: Information about the patches and what happens during maintenance to avoid frustrated players.
5: Seperate maintenance/patching (outside emergency patches and hotfixes) for european and american servers so that we'll stop hearing about this issue.
And for the rest I say:
A defection quest could be cool. "Join the dark side" would suddenly have a new meaning.
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Also, try not to over-dramatize the situation, guys. You act like this is some world ending travesty and your lives are forfeit because of it.
Thank you for your input, you are however not really contributing to the debate here. It is intented to be constructive, it does not help to say "chill out" or to make claims on what others are saying.
Let us not overdramatise it either, what I intented with this topic is to have a calm and rational debate on how to address the concerns there is around patching and server downtime. Specifically its an issue when maintenance is set in the middle of primetime.
Sure, I can understand patches coming out needing to be applied ASAP, thats fine really. Just tell us what they are fixing and we can also lean back and be relieved and say "oh, glad thats solved now"
Only, that is not what is happening. The downtime is just occuring in the middle of the european primetime, consistently, so its not applied "as soon as the solution has been found" it is applied in a set timeframe. Which means its not an ad-hoc fix, but rather a fix that has been applied with an intented timing.
Seriously, it's like most of you do nothing -but- complain just to complain simply because your entire life (maybe) revolves around being able to log in on a tuesday afternoon to play a MMO. At least I hope that isn't the case.Now, now. Please note that a constructive debate, where we granted are critical, is not the same thing as having no life outside an MMO. (and on a sidenote: Its a saturday the servers where down this time, not a tuesday).
Had it been american servers I believe you would see the exact same reaction. It would be american players complaining that its in primetime, and european players claiming that the american players should just "chill, its no big deal" etc.
In fact, I would believe that the people who right now tell EU players to chilll would be amongst the loudest, while the players who are most dramatic about this on the EU side might in a similair fashion be loud about telling others to "chill".
Regards
Lars
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I applaud you for your initiative!
Big thumps up from me here, and to stress one thing that may cause some friction immediately, as is seen plainly on these forums: The implied attack on another player that does not do so directly.
Example:
Server goes down in EU primetime, EU player complaints (wether valid or not, is not the discussion here obviously).
American player goes: Well, its not a big deal. I would suck it up.
Implied: "suck it up (loser)" or "your just a whiner".
A solution could perhaps be to make EU and US centric subforums for feedback to regional specific issues.
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Well, this specifically calls out to the people who call the game bad and compare it to WoW. Comparing it to WoW is a terrible mistake.
I agree, comparing the game to wow is not a good thing, it should be judged on its own merits, however, this:
When WoW falls, which will be soon, SWTOR will be standing over it with a bloodied sword.Means that you are doing the comparison yourself allready. You are in effect calling SWTOR the "wow killer" a line that has been heard so many times in the past that its really growing old. Why can't we just judge a game on its own merits and flaws?
For the rest of your post I would agree to an extent, I would say that the first three months are trial and error and wherein the big bug fixes should appear.
This does however not mean that we should not remain critical, as long as we also remain constructive that is. That is the alpha and omega I believe, to be constructive. And this game does have features to be highly critical of, mainly such things as lacking communication from bioware to the players as to why, oh for example, they are taking down a server in european playing time, a saturday. It gets much easier to accept the downtime if we know what it is about.
Or the way that there is a frequent "discuss the topic here" post, which links to a topic that turns out to be closed (which then defeats the whole point of having a link saying "discuss this article here").
I still believe that SWTOR has tremendous potential, but as an european custemor there are also things which concern me, these concerns should in my mind be raised, in a calm and rational manner so that they may be addressed (wether this is to solve an issue or logically dismiss it, either is fine. Both shows that they listen to my concerns).
Yours sincerly
Lars
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None of the above, I am a roleplayer. I make my own story with other likeminded people, though I also enjoy the other aspects of the game, especially the story, these are secondary to me.
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I cancelled my sub half an hour ago.
this is the message i saw when i cancelled: You have 20 days of play time remaining. When your play time runs out, you will no longer be able to play. Please sign up for a recurring subscription plan or redeem a Game Time Code.
So, basically that means you have 20 days to convince me to keep playing.
I suggest the rest of you who are dissatisfied with the service, graphics, maintenance times, bugs etc. do the same.
Show Bioware that you won't stand for it. Make them work to keep you, instead of letting them leech off your bankaccount just because you were too lazy to do something about it.
I hope it was possible for you to give them a reason as to why you cancelled your subscription? It is important that they recieve custemor feedback so that they may improve on the game.
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Ok, I do have this point to make.
I understand the frustration of not being able to access a game at your appropriate time zone due to maintenance times. I get that with some free time that you have that you want to play the game.
However, if this is the system that Bioware has seen to work then it likely won't change for some time, also if you would like it to change then give them some time to change it. let them optimize the process.
I am a firm believer in allowing people to improve the progress, and as I see it the first three months are always a trial and error process. However, that being said there are still concerns to be raised, in particulair on the period of patching as well as on the rather lacking communication.
For the time being, is not being able to play this game due to Bioware patching in fixes and content really such a bad sacrifice? I'm sure you can find some other activity to do. ***? Watch some movies? Hang out with friends (The ones who aren't on the internet)? Pay attention to your girlfriend/boyfriend?As you read my post I am sure you will note that I am concerned that this form of action will drive away european players, which will lead to less funding of the game, and a poorer scene for us all.
Don't whine and moan about something about a game that at this point in time is still a baby in the game world. One month is nothing. I get the frustration, but it honestly isn't as huge of a deal as people make it out to be. The only reason it is seen as such is because that is the impression you give off.I am a firm believer in constructive but critical debate when trying to improve a game. I do also disagree with whining and moaning, that is why I have made a point out of asking for a constructive debate. Please keep to this, claiming that I "whine and moan" or putting off problems as just this, will not lead to a constructive debate.
You may not agree, and this is indeed your perogative and I have to respect your opinion, even if I disagree with it. But please let us keep it constructive.
Be patient. Be understanding. I doubt that is a very difficult thing to do. Personally, if I was faced with said time zone issues, I would suck it up.This is not a constructive comment my friend, and you cannot express yourself on this beyoind theory. If you want to experience the same thing, that you say european players should just "suck up" then I recommend taking your primetime, once per week (at a time where you would otherwise enjoy the game) and then don't do it. Just to experience "sucking it up".
Acknowledge the fact that "Hey, they do this for a reason. If I have to sacrifice a few hours of playtime then so be it. It is worth it in the long run because they are optimizing the game that I enjoy playing."I would love to do this, however as you undoubtly read my original post (I will be polite and assume you did), the issue is that there is a poor communication. Accepting the bug fixes on a saturday is easy to do, provided we know what issues have been fixed and dealth with. Having to guess about the issues leaves us frustrated.
Seriously. Don't act like all of you know their world among the gaming industry more than they do. You don't work in it (Unless some of you do, in which case you have a stronger standing).I don't make this claim, I make the claim that the communication so far is rather poor. I do this from the standpoint not of working in the gaming industry, but from working with communication (albeit in a different language, I apologize in advance for my poor grammar).
Thank you for your comment.
Lars
Connectivity Issues
in General Discussion
Posted