ZakiBasara
-
Posts
15 -
Joined
Content Type
Forums
Blogs
Events
Articles
Downloads
Gallery
Posts posted by ZakiBasara
-
-
Hate to break it to you guys, but it is likely going to be dead on Satele Shan when even former Harbinger players transfer to the other east coast server due to the fact that most of the population of the former west coast servers has quit playing (by force or by ping or both) and Satele Shan is now a ghost town.
-
As it stands, providing players with the monthly releases of the ongoing KotFE story is the guiding vision and direction for the game, and if that direction does well throughout the next seven months, then I'm sure it will continue beyond the current 16-chapter KotFE story into ongoing chapter-by-chapter releases for future stories as well.
They might continue to sporadically release Warzones and even Operations as time goes on, but like the old space-on-rails minigame or the upcoming Eternal Championship feature those will probably be tangential side-content to the new core of the game: the chapter-by-chapter story updates.
It might not be a vision the more MMO-minded fans are fond of, but it is a clear and defined vision. The reason talk about Ops, WZ, Eternal Championship, etc. is less clear is because those are being relegated to a minor role in the grand scheme of things.
And this is being relegated to a dead game because of this "clear and defined vision" (which I don't agree is clear or well defined at all) as long time players leave in droves. It isn't just a matter of not being "fond". Even so, if they released ENOUGH story to keep us occupied, many of us would continue to pay. But they aren't even doing that...
-
Sad to say, but the failure of two consecutive events (Rakghoul and Bounty) in the touted December calendar -- and the nominal dev response directly following these failures -- has eroded my last bit of enthusiasm for this game. In a few weeks my subscription payment comes due, but this time there's practically no inclination left to renew.
It's not a lightly made decision. A CE owner and subscriber since launch, I had originally purposed to remain a SWTOR subscriber to the very end. Despite the game's staggering pre-release hype and months of initial bugginess, I came to appreciate The Old Republic for its own merits: fully-voiced questing, original orchestral score, rich scenic visuals, and an ever-widening array of costume pieces to personalize player characters and their companions. More than that, here was a chance to delve into a unique Star Wars era in hopes of recapturing some of the glory of SWTOR's classic forerunner (and a personal favorite), Knights of the Old Republic.
However, missteps and spotty communication by the developers throughout 2015, culminating in a Fallen Empire 4.0 expansion which actually removed game content and made absolutely no provision for customizing new companions' outfits, leaves me highly doubtful about the team in charge. Scant public testing of big updates; lingering bugs from closed betas; known issues with no timetable for repair; damaging exploits unaddressed for weeks on end; and knee-jerk overcorrections to ill-advised changes in game mechanics, followed by eerie official silence -- all of it has chipped away at my confidence in SWTOR's developer team and sapped my desire to log in any more, even just for a peek at the trade net (despite its broken search function). I'm finally fed up and can no longer justify paying regularly for this kind of service.
It's incredibly disheartening. I've got great memories and screenshots from playthroughs across my legacies, clutch warzone victories, sweet buys and sales on the GTN, and lavishly-appointed strongholds. Yet the same old mantra of "choices that matter" and underwhelming promises of announcements "breaking all precedents" stir up a gnawing feeling of a missed opportunity for this game -- a Star Wars game, at that -- to have been truly spectacular, as befits its brand.
How ironic then that The Force Awakens, hoped to draw new players to SWTOR, actually played a part in clinching this for me. Opinions on the movie greatly differ, but speaking strictly for myself, the film delivered on its hype big-time. Watching The Force Awakens was a sheer delight for this Star Wars fan, a degree of satisfaction never quite attained through SWTOR and a far cry from my feelings of late toward it.
No "loyal subscriber" rewards program of droids and jetpacks will compensate for the past 4 years of loyalty and goodwill held toward The Old Republic, squandered by its overseers. To paraphrase what someone on the forums once declared, the only choice that truly matters in this game is whether to pay or not: message heard loud and clear. For the sake of remaining subscribers, I sincerely hope all technical issues will be sorted out swiftly. As for KotFE, as long as the plot stays fairly unalterable and story companions' costumes remain unchangeable, it'll be the same playing it out as watching it on YouTube.
That's what I think most people don't understand... "it'll be the same playing it out as watching it on YouTube." Why should that be? It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, it might be BETTER to watch it on YouTube, because 1) it's free and 2) no BUGS!!
I'm so disheartened by the "we're looking into this" followed by "we aren't fixing this right now" messages. "This will be addressed at a future date, not sure when, I'll get back to you with more info"... followed by silence.
Really good feedback threads (like this one)... ignored. But by all means, get RIGHT ON the response about the Bronze/Silver/Gold packs the first day you're back from vacation. Please! By all means, don't let something about the Cartel Market go by without attending to it immediately!
Sub is up soon, and I won't be back. YouTube is a better deal.
-
They were all on vacation. Apparently, they just got back.
They might want to rethink these ridiculously long holiday vacations. I can't help but wonder how many customers they lose just because of these vacations.
EA Mythic did the same thing which is part of why Warhammer Online failed. That first Xmas right after launch the devs felt they deserved a long vacation because they worked long and hard on the game. Well, guess what, that just meant that all their hard work went down the drain.
MMO devs just can't take long vacations. A lot of people don't get weeklong vacations much less monthlong vacations. For Xmas and New Years some people just get like 2-3 days max.
Many of the Devs that ruined Warhammer came to work on SWTOR and have done their best to ruin it, too - in more ways than just long vacations.
-
They say that they all get read - it would be useful to have a "read by XYZ or 99/99/9999" flag.
That is wishful thinking, I imagine. I just don't know that I believe in the "we read all the stuff" claims that Eric makes. It is difficult to see where they seem to pick up on anything but the most beat-over-the-head items that have 75 threads on the same topic (that everybody bashes people for when they start a new thread, but that's all that seems to work with Bioware!). So frustrating.
-
Good question!
In talking with the team, they have been making quite a few changes to the Cartel Market and packs since 4.0 launched. There are even more changes coming when the new pack launches in February.
As a part of those changes, the decision was made that BSG packs will now be consistent with the shipment packs in that they will be embargoed after a period of time. We do realize this change may be sudden but it is all a part of the evolving nature of the changes the team has been making to the Cartel Market.
I hope that clears up any confusion.
-eric
This does NOT clear up confusion because you didn't say anything! You talked in a circle about announcing a decision because a decision was made and making a change because you're making changes. How does that explain a complete reversal of what you advertised with the launch of 4.0?
It would clear up confusion if you said:
1. No one bought the packs when available all the time, so therefore it seemed best to give items more of a "limited" feel by making them actually limited.
2. Too many people were buying packs (this I would find hard to believe, but it is possible?) and we decided to limit the availability for (fill in the blank with the team's reason) reason.
3. We found the system didn't work as we intended and people complained about the BSG packs being too available.
Something... along those lines... THAT would be an explanation. "Because the team decided" isn't an explanation... we know they decided that because you announced it. You wouldn't be announcing it if they hadn't decided it... so it really isn't any explanation at all.
-
You are doing the same thing and that's a shame..... You only have job posting That list every Bioware game not just swtor and have people claiming look they no one working on swtor there chasing away NM raider hahaha. Please they said raid will come just not right now and you all can not except that period. How many time do the dev have to say we have not forgotten the MMO end game for you guys to realize there still working on that
Except no... they are not working on that. They have said that. No new end game content until the end of next year when they finish trickling out this story a little bitty bit at a time.
All of 4.0 is going to be story, story, story. 5.0 will be all the mmo bits and things like that. So just have patience. It's all coming
They have not said anything about 5.0, much less "all the MMO bits". But keep holding your breath if you wish. Maybe the game will still be around for a 5.0... next December or perhaps in 2017...
-
Expertise stat is useless outside of PvP so you are sacrificing power or other stats in the name of expertise. I would suggest that if your PvP gear is better than your current PvE gear, you need new PvE gear...
-
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised this hasn't received a response with a Yellow B (yet?). I hope it will at least get read though, because there are some good ideas in here from the OP and many others!
-
I was attempting to post an "Interstellar Regulator's Sniper Rifle Aurek" and every time I would attempt to list it for sale it would say: "Auction House Error: fee mismatch". It gave me this error despite changing the duration of the sale, until I selected 6 hours. It only would change the deposit amount for 6 hours and allow me to list. 12 hours is broken, 1 day, 2 days, etc.
-
Vanguard, Matrix Online, Fury, Pirates of the Caribbean, Free Realms, Tabala Rasa, SWG, Shadowbane, EQOA, Asherons Call 2, Need for Speed World, and Chronicles of Spellborn. I'm sure there are others but this is off the top of my head.
Warhammer, City of Heroes... just to add a couple more...
-
They have always had story content and other parts of the game running concurrently. Even if not updated as frequently as they should, updates to -most- of that content occurred. Then they decided to focus only on story. We can all make guesses about why - budget, lack of staffing, player "metrics" etc. but we don't really know and Bioware will never just come out and say those things even if they are true. So we've got what we've got: an MMO that is focusing more and more on a single player story driven experience. That decision in and of itself is fine - if you provide enough story so that there is any reason to repeat it other than having nothing else to really do that is worthwhile or matters in the long term of the player's gaming experience.
Anyone who is new to the game or returning will not necessarily understand or agree with the complaints of long time players, because there IS a lot of stuff to do in the game. The problem lies in the fact that none of it is new or worth repeating at a certain point. You have to have one or the other... new or worth repeating. Without at least one of those things being true of your game, you won't keep long term players and subscribers around. Every single person has a different threshold of what is "enough" to keep them entertained. To act like just because you are satisfied that someone is "entitled" because they aren't is just silly. It's a subjective thing, and to argue about "I'm happy, why aren't you?" is just a waste of time. Further, to say "If you don't like the game, leave" is all well and good until the people saying that find themselves without a game to play because they encouraged people to bail rather than put forth ideas on how to keep more people around and playing instead.
The story for KotFE is new, but not repeatable or substantial enough to ride out for the next 8-9 months alone, especially when there will be less story content than was given with the launch of KotFE (1/9th of what we got in October). Most people played through 9 chapters in a matter of a couple of days at the longest, hours at the shortest. One ninth of that every 4 weeks is supposed to be enough to sustain this game for most of the next calendar year? I argue that it just isn't... no matter how much you love it. Without having other things to occupy your time, you will move on to something else - either cancelling your subscription or riding it out in the hopes that something else comes along to renew your interest. But people will only ride out a subscription like that for so long, typically - especially when there isn't anything new on the horizon but a couple of hours of story a month (at best). It is a very unique player that stays subbed to a game they aren't really playing, but obviously by people who have posted in this thread it does happen in this game. Probably not enough to sustain long term development though.
I think the original points made in this thread are valid for the most part, particularly about bugs. People are constantly begging on the forums for bug fixes... to companion romances, the GTN, mechanics in operations that are broken, not being able to progress your class story line forcing someone to manually advance you to the next quest, broken events that are published and hyped as part of an "action packed month of events", etc. The player base shouldn't have to beg for fixes, but even when they do those fixes don't seem to come. When Bioware starts to act like they don't care enough about their game to fix the parts that are broken, they can expect at some point we will start following their lead and quit caring as well.
I think for a lot of people, certainly those posting in this thread and other places on the forums, we've reached that point. It wouldn't take much to turn it around, but it definitely takes -something- to amend some of the discontent. The continued silence in response to thread after thread on this forum and the "We can't fix this" messages are speaking loud and clear to many, and they aren't saying anything good to the player base. It doesn't have to be that way.
-
Will send you a message in-game when I'm able. My raid team is at the same level of progression as you are (with the exception that we have cleared both SM operations). We just downed Bulo in HM last night and are now going to be working on HM Sword Squadron.
I won't be around this weekend, but we raid on Mon/Wed from 8 - 11pm server time. If you are interested in talking more about this, send in-game mail to Xofie or Halfmint.
Thanks!
-
It has come to my attention that when Eric made his original post, people who exploited started to sell their gear to vendors to buy it back later. Presumably after their suspension. Please make sure to erase vendor buy back lists so these people cannot cheat the system to get their ill gotten gains back.
Disclaimer: I dont know how long after you sell something to a vendor will the option to buy said item back lasts. Weather this is even possible, I dont know. But they were talking about it on fleet and bragging that is how they will get their ill gotten rewards back.
So be advised, if this is indeed possible, you may want to erase the vendor buyback lists.
Hadn't even thought of that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention though so that I can abuse this exploit, should I ever need to do so. (Pssst: this is why they don't want you talking about this on the forums. Hope you don't get banned for seeking punishment for others that has nothing to do with you).
@Eric - Character Renaming / Clean up?
in General Discussion
Posted
They are not going to announce anything else BEFORE the merges happen and the servers are down. Why would they? They have at least stated why they are keeping quiet about it, and I support that - as enough people are actively trying to game the system and get names already without having more details.
You'll know when the rest of us knows - when the servers come back up and you see how many names you've kept or lost and start choosing replacements for those that need it.