Remove the rakghoul plague now

[Razitheoriginal]

Don't remove it, the event is fun.

 

-Raz

[KrittaB]

first world event problems

[Skolops]

You seemed to be stating that since you found some 20-30 names in the first 65 pages of the first thread opposed to this event, that that means that you'd continue to find roughly the same number of opposed if you kept going. By the looks of it, that isn't the case.

 

And I think you'd be hard pressed to find many pages where the number of unique names even hints at a majority for those opposed to this event in some way.

 

And from that statistically significant sample, ferroz, from his 350+ pages, he stated that he'd covered a 1/3 of one thread and the main one on how long this event will last, he got 32 names, less than a name per page. Perhaps far less depending on how many pages he covered in that other thread.

 

I am not sure if you saw, but I checked the first 10 pages of thread #3 and found an even greater proportion than I had in the 65 pages I did in thread #1. The numbers are certainly proving to be consistent, from all the checks I ahve done on it, not to mention my own experience of simply participating in these threads.

 

I also never claimed we'd find a majority. I've consistently said - before and after my research - that it is a minority, but a significant minority.

 

It may be less than one name per page, but remember that those pages are full of repeat posters. You may find only around 2 or 3 unique names per page in support of the event, for example. In fact, I suspect that that number is about correct.

[ferroz]

Really, then what was this about?

What is what about? I looked at the latter third of that thread: pages 16 to 23, and the 2 pages of the official thread about when the event was going to end.

 

in that time, we got another page or two in the previous thread and it got closed for being > 1000 posts.

[Runeshard]

I am not sure if you saw, but I checked the first 10 pages of thread #3 and found an even greater proportion than I had in the 65 pages I did in thread #1. The numbers are certainly proving to be consistent, from all the checks I ahve done on it, not to mention my own experience of simply participating in these threads.

 

I also never claimed we'd find a majority. I've consistently said - before and after my research - that it is a minority, but a significant minority.

 

It may be less than one name per page, but remember that those pages are full of repeat posters. You may find only around 2 or 3 unique names per page in support of the event, for example. In fact, I suspect that that number is about correct.

And I suspect that, even just on the forums, the opposing side represents about 10% of all those that have given their opinion on the matter. As for ingame the opposing side is most likely smaller even than that

[tehsaturn]

The best part last night was sky diving off the VIP area into the mass of bodies below @ the medical droid. BOOOM!!! 10/10 daily people infected.

This. Hilarious and fun. I was doing this as well. Too much fun.

[Resallaprov]

You may find only around 2 or 3 unique names per page in support of the event, for example. In fact, I suspect that that number is about correct.

 

This pretty much right here is why I finally posted in this thread.

 

I support the world event and look forward to more!

[Rouncer]

Thread number three!

 

Ferroz, you also forgot on your previous list, the only problem I personally had with the plague is the PvP flagging aspect if you hit or get hit by an exploder. Other than that, I'm fine with it, but like making suggestions for those who don't like the event. I'm still of the opinion that the fleets should be a "safe zone" from the plague. All the other planets, though, should be fair game.

 

 

No way. The event wouldn't be half as awesome if Fleet was excluded. A compromise position could be to add a few treatment pavilions inside of Fleet where free "treatments" were offered that removed the plague but didn't give immunity to getting it again. Maybe add information about the treatment facilities into the "TV" and "PA" Broadcasts about the outbreak.

[godjason]

excues me,i want to know, what level is required to participate this event?

[Gorgor]

The only problem with some of these suggestions is that you're looking at it from the standpoint of, at least it seems, a fully leveled player.

 

For example, if Hoth were "lost," as you put it, and required weeks' worth of effort to reclaim it, that shuts down the leveling process for everyone below level 40 or so. It means that a gigantic subset of players can't continue their gameplay until it's over. Even if they could continue to play by participating in the event, it is still problematic because it disrupts the storylines for that range of leveling.

 

Get thee to a nunnery!

 

I have no 50s, my higest is mid 30s and I've abandoned that one.

 

I am fully cognizant of the issues. Done right, you stop, or are stopped, from leveling, so you *must* help reclaim or reverse things.

 

It is precisely *because* your routine is forcibly interrupted that it is exciting. I have never been a 50 qny of the few times I've seen a live event and it didn't matter. I have seen people whine about it though, and wondered it these incompetents were even tje same species as me.

 

Get them, and thee to q "Boring"-flagged server. Get thee gone!

[Runeshard]

What is what about? I looked at the latter third of that thread: pages 16 to 23, and the 2 pages of the official thread about when the event was going to end.

 

in that time, we got another page or two in the previous thread and it got closed for being > 1000 posts.

 

You said a thrid of the thread, which thread are you referring to then? 5 pages is certainly not a third of any thread I've been given to understand were a part of this discussion.

[Skolops]

And I suspect that, even just on the forums, the opposing side represents about 10% of all those that have given their opinion on the matter. As for ingame the opposing side is most likely smaller even than that

 

You can suspect all you like, but the actual numbers that have been compiled via counting are closer to 25%. You're simply incorrect.

[Runeshard]

You can suspect all you like, but the actual numbers that have been compiled via counting are closer to 25%. You're simply incorrect.

The only actual numbers are the metrics BW collects. Your numbers are a small sample of something spanning several iterations and many different threads, I wouldn't put too much faith in them.

[Skolops]

Get thee to a nunnery!

 

I have no 50s, my higest is mid 30s and I've abandoned that one.

 

I am fully cognizant of the issues. Done right, you stop, or are stopped, from leveling, so you *must* help reclaim or reverse things.

 

It is precisely *because* your routine is forcibly interrupted that it is exciting. I have never been a 50 qny of the few times I've seen a live event and it didn't matter. I have seen people whine about it though, and wondered it these incompetents were even tje same species as me.

 

Get them, and thee to q "Boring"-flagged server. Get thee gone!

 

Here's the problem: if you stop to help, by the time you can get back to your class and planet story quests, you are overleveled for them - and if the event lasts for weeks, you're probably severely overleveled. Thus, you now need to go through these quests receiving virtually no XP or credit rewards - not to mention that all the gear that drops is useless to you -and it's extremely grindy and boring.

 

In a game without such a story-driven leveling experience, it could work. In SWtOR, it really can't.

[Lundli]

In any case, I think judging the support for the event from forumposts is a bad idea, many come here and post when they are annoyed or angry.. just look at the OP wich is now edited to read quite different from what it originally did (guess he's cooled off ) Edited April 18, 2012 by Lundli

[ConradLionhart]

Why is this thread being continued? The Rakghoul event will end on the 24th. Just 5-6 more days. There is no need to end it early. It will end soon enough. Edited April 18, 2012 by ConradLionhart

[Skolops]

The only actual numbers are the metrics BW collects. Your numbers are a small sample of something spanning several iterations and many different threads, I wouldn't put too much faith in them.

 

You keep changing your story, now, though. You were saying previously that the numbers in the threads were probably about 10%, but now you are saying it's the official numbers that must be low. The actual numbers from the threads - a total of over 3,000 posts, btw, which is a larger sample than they take for many presidential election polls! - seem to suggest that the number is somewhere in the 20 - 25% range. If we really wanted to know, we could count all 3,000 posts - but I frankly don't care enough to spend the time doing that!

 

By the way, of course the only numbers that matter to what ends up happening are the ones BW wants to use. That doesn't mean that the numbers we get from the threads aren't relevant to determining the general opinion ON THESE FORUMS.

[Skolops]

Why is this thread being continued? The Rakghoul event will end on the 24th. Just 5-6 more days. There is no need to end it early. It will end soon enough.

 

The only one who wanted to end it early was the original poster 3 days ago. The conversations going on at this point are largely unrelated.

[Skolops]

In any case, I think judging the support for the event from forumposts is a bad idea, many come here and post when they are annoyed or angry.. just look at the OP wich is now edited to read quite different from what it originally did (guess he's cooled off )

 

We can only really judge support amongst forum visitors from the forums. It's just too particular a player base to try and generalize beyond our little neck of the internet.

[halloandbill]

I find this new content to be quite nice, not perfectly executed but a step in the right direction. it isn't necessary to remove it straight away but I hope they take this as a learning experience and do a better job next time.

 

We're finally seeing some more content that can be accessed and enjoyed by more than lv.50s at endgame, and even better is that it ties into the whole fleet.

 

The "plague" part where people stand around is a bit odd though, not sure why they decided to reset the timers when you travel so you'd end up with people afking to get rewards (opposite of what they wanted to do in pvp).

 

In the future I would like them to focus less on passive rewarding, but requiring some degree of active participation for players to get rewarded. Break up the quests so you're rewarded each and every step, and when you've finished the chain you should be able to trade in for something straightaway, not the best things obviously but something. And maybe not so intrusive next time as to be forced to participate because someone ran up to you and exploded.

 

It's a step in the right direction in terms of content development for the life of the game, little things like this that changes the whole world over time is much appreciated in MMOs where things can grow stale really quickly.

 

This is what the game needs, it's a baby step right now, but it's finally going in the right direction in terms of growing as a better MMO. Change the world bit by bit, add in mini rotatable content every once in a while and you're well on your way to a more lively game where people can actually look forward to logging in to see what's happening now to the world instead of the same old dailies.

 

I want to elaborate on this post that Talyora made in the last iteration of this thread.

 

I agree completely and the event got me thinking, not about what is wrong with this event but on how Bioware went about learning from the possible mistakes of MMOs past to try to make theirs better.

 

If you were in WoW for the zombie invasion events you know there was massive "complaining" about said event. While many would like to write it off as whining and I was fine with said event and disagreed with their complaints, that does not make them valid.

 

So lets ask ourselves, what were the major complaints about that event and when Bioware decided to do something similar did they address them so as to negatively impact as few people as possible and in the smallest ways possible?

 

1. Complaint: NPC's getting infected therefore entire towns being taken over making people unable to quest, use the Auction House, or log into a city without having to fight off ghouls all over the place.
    
   Bioware response: Don't have the virus infect NPCs allowing people to still go about their business.
    
   
2. Complaint: People can chase other players around and infect them, with no option for the player to avoid being infected.
    
   Bioware response: Players will not be able to explode at will but it will be based on time or after a certain amount of time it will occur on death. In addition, the exploding animation will root players in place for a short time allowing those being "chased" to still get far enough away that they will not be infected.
    
   
3. Complaint: No way to avoid infection or to easily cure the infection without dying or having to interact with other players.
    
   Bioware response: Vaccines available at medical droids/stim vendors for a nominal fee that also cures the disease when applied.
    
   
4. Complaint: Players don't like being involuntarily infected as it eventually causes death, repair costs, and a corpse run.
    
   Bioware response: No death penalty except for the ingame time that it normally takes to call a "Medical Droid" for an in place resuscitation. The in place resuscitation will not add to the normal time penalty for repeated use of the in place option to revive in a small time frame. In addition we will, upon death, give players the currency used for the event as compensation.
   

 

If you look at it you can just see the amount of thought that went into making this event as pain free as possible for those that did not necessarily want to participate. I'm sure there will/have been wrap up meetings to discuss how events like this could be improved in the future and how to address some unintended consequences (like people just standing around in fleet to get DNA tokens) but overall they should be happy of how they implemented their first world event.

 

I know that amateur statisticians around here are starting to claim large amounts of people like/dislike the event based on these threads. I won't offer numbers as really Bioware are the only ones that really have a clue, but I will point to what is the normal M.O. for these forums when there is something that people do not like about a decision or change in the game.

 

Typically, the forum explodes with not just one but many threads relating to said change and those threads are normally negative in their nature. Leading to the moderators to have to close and redirect people to the designated thread for discussion constantly.

 

This has not been the case with this event You've had one long thread (and continuations) that's been heavily discussed my a relatively small number of people on both sides arguing back and forth. There have been some "Pop-In" commenters on both sides but really it's been the same people pushing this thread to its fourth iteration. My suspicion is that Bioware will be very pleased with how this event occurred with a relatively small amount of complaining compared to other things around here. I'd say they did exceptionally well making the event an overall positive one for the game and its player base.

 

Can they make it better? Sure, and I wouldn't be surprised to see such things as the vaccine persisting through death occurring the next time around. In addition they really should look into the involuntary flagging of players for PvP, but that sounds like a bug not a design choice.

 

I agree with Talyora that this is a nice first step in making the galaxy a more dynamic one and if Bioware has more of this planned for the future we're in good hands.

 

edit: formatting fail

Edited April 18, 2012 by halloandbill

[Nakazia]

I am not sure if you saw, but I checked the first 10 pages of thread #3 and found an even greater proportion than I had in the 65 pages I did in thread #1. The numbers are certainly proving to be consistent, from all the checks I ahve done on it, not to mention my own experience of simply participating in these threads.

 

Wow, really thought provoking, Keep spewing your useless thread check figures, It's not going to make any difference.

 

Bioware knows how many people are participating I'll bet. They know it's popular and that the large majority of players are having a blast with it.

 

I also never claimed we'd find a majority. I've consistently said - before and after my research - that it is a minority, but a significant minority.

 

Significant minority? Look at how many people quote your dozens of posts to invalidate your claims... A lot.

 

Now ask yourself why?

 

It may be less than one name per page, but remember that those pages are full of repeat posters.

 

Yeah, I'm shocked when I don't see your name on a single page multiple times.

 

You may find only around 2 or 3 unique names per page in support of the event, for example. In fact, I suspect that that number is about correct.

 

You've got some solid figures ... Anyone who's going to believe your gibbberish is out touch with reality and has no clue what a immersive MMO should be about.

[ferroz]

Why is this thread being continued?

because it went over 1000 posts, and since it's the thread people were being directed to, they're continuing to have discussion in it.

 

if you actually look at the posters 2 or so of them (-Slaughterhouse- the OP and oakamp) are actually calling for the event to be ended compared to the (at least) 30 or so that are in favor of having an opt out mechanism.

Edited April 18, 2012 by ferroz

[Runeshard]

You keep changing your story, now, though. You were saying previously that the numbers in the threads were probably about 10%, but now you are saying it's the official numbers that must be low. The actual numbers from the threads - a total of over 3,000 posts, btw, which is a larger sample than they take for many presidential election polls! - seem to suggest that the number is somewhere in the 20 - 25% range. If we really wanted to know, we could count all 3,000 posts - but I frankly don't care enough to spend the time doing that!

 

By the way, of course the only numbers that matter to what ends up happening are the ones BW wants to use. That doesn't mean that the numbers we get from the threads aren't relevant to determining the general opinion ON THESE FORUMS.

 

You must simply have misunderstood, I maintain that the numbers are close to 10%, with regards to these forums, when I mentioned Bw metrics I also meant their ingame metrics. Sorry if I was unclear.

 

Btw, those 3000 posts include a lot of repeat posters, Ferroz, Valkirus and you (with myself admittedly coming in 4th) were the major contributors to the second iteration of this thread for example. My point is it can't be equated to a poll taking with 3000 participants.

[halloandbill]

Good. I was mid-reply and lost my text out from under me!

 

Anyway, I like this event. I **want** disruption. I **want** to see NPC trainers and vendors fight for their lives in an invasion...and lose.

 

I **want** to see entire zones lost to a successful NPC invasion. I **want** to see it take an effort, even if it take weeks, to reclaim it.

 

Let those who don't go play on a "Boring"-flagged server.

 

Let those who don't slam a can of Spaghetti-Os and think themselves dining on fine French cuisine.

 

Get thee to a nunnery amd get away from me!

 

I completely agree that I'd love something like this as well, but I get where people don't like quest givers and such effected by the event. It's a fine line to walk for a developer.

[Gorgor]

Here's the problem: if you stop to help, by the time you can get back to your class and planet story quests, you are overleveled for them - and if the event lasts for weeks, you're probably severely overleveled. Thus, you now need to go through these quests receiving virtually no XP or credit rewards - not to mention that all the gear that drops is useless to you -and it's extremely grindy and boring.

 

In a game without such a story-driven leveling experience, it could work. In SWtOR, it really can't.

 

I'll put up with it in exchange for the excitement.

 

They also have the switches to autolevel things and can flip that on, too. And probably should. Class quests are notoriously easy lest some bozo not be able to get his ship or next companion.

 

But for those inflection points, I'd just as soon skip them entirely.

 

Seriously.

 

In doing tons of Pvp, I outleveled one series of class quests and ran throuh it on geay already. I acknowledge the issue but hink it a poor reason to disallow such grand-scale events.