What I want. A gamer's perspective.

[CoNfuSioN_]

Dear Bioware,

 

Let me start off by saying that this game is fantastic in a lot of aspects. To be honest, I'm new to mmos entirely, so this game was the draw that brought me to the genre. I've made quite a few friends, some good buddies that I have a friendship with that I would consider equal to "real life pals".

 

The Star Wars lore was the hook that drew me in. Swinging my staff or sword three times the size of my character's body didn't appeal to me, and probably never will. However, loading up my trusty blaster rifle, powering on my lightsaber, using the force to hurl someone off a bridge, these things do.

 

Considering this is the only mmo game in town for the "mmo experience", and Star Wars, I feel compelled to stick with this game and do what I can to make it better, so let me give you some of a more "hardcore gamers" perspective.

 

It can be summed up in five words.

 

I want content, not fluff.

 

Rated Warzones are content. Legacy family trees are fluff.

 

Cross server ques are content. New emoticons are fluff.

 

Server transfers and/or merges are content. Founder titles and dumb pets are fluff.

 

 

Speaking of that "mmo experience" mentioned earlier, I would like some of that too. The Deadweight (an aptly named server now), is home to a 50 battlemaster guardian, a 50 battlemaster Vanguard, a 44 commando, and a 39 Scoundrel. Unfortunately, if I could log on with all my alts, I could double the population of the republic fleet on a Sunday evening.

 

I don't get ques in sub 50, unless I'm willing to wait an hour for a que pop. In 50 pvp, it's slightly better. I only have to wait 20-30 minutes during primetime. Right now, as we speak, I'm datacron hunting because I've given up on a que pop.

 

Heroic content is a joke while leveling. 3 months ago, while leveling my Guardian, you could actually find a group for this. Now, you're lucky if there are more than 1-2 other people on each planet on any given occasion.

 

Flashpoints are only worth discussing at the 50 level, because then you and your clan can play them together. Same thing with Operations. The sub 50 ones only see action when the poor guy dumb enough to roll a character on our server asks around in fleet chat for two hours to get a group together, if he even does.

 

The pvp content is finally at four different warzones, but Ilum is dead. I would love to enjoy those four warzones if people were actually online.

 

What's bioware's answer if I want to take my time invested to another server to enjoy the "mmo experience"? Roll a new toon. Well soon here, bioware can roll a new customer.

[Kaphik]

None of your examples are content. You just want instant grouping.

[CaptainDil]

I agree. Bioware is slower than Rainman

[Powderhorn]

I'm actually one of the guild mates that the OP is talking about, and our guild has this same conversation at least once a day while we try to figure out what we should do. We've become a very tightly knit group of people, originally through being the best PvP guild on the server to now being the only guild on the server.

 

I unsubscribed today, and in the comments, this is what I posted:

 

I feel as if the game has been terribly mismanaged. The developers have used bait-and-switch tactics to try to string subscriptions along (such as promising rated warzones and ripping them out the eve of the patch), incomplete content (the 1.2 patch was touted as the "Legacy Patch", and everything involved in it has been fluff, and even THAT has been left incomplete, with more "promised to come"), and terrible balance issues (tanks and force users in general appear to be the "anointed classes" of BioWare).

 

Server populations are abysmal, whenever I log in I find myself "waiting to have fun" instead of actually "having fun". I'm waiting fifteen, twenty minutes for a single warzone queue to pop, and that's in prime time hours. If I'm on off-peak times, there won't be one... period. As for PvE content, I can only do the same daily quests so many times before I step off the hamster wheel and say, "Wow, it's still spinning just fine without me".

 

The developer interaction with the community has been entirely unsatisfactory. Either the involvement is limited to silence that would do a monk proud, or involvement through smoke and mirrors (such as not actually answering questions, but answering something that was never even asked.) There are no dedicated staff members to be "advocates" for each of the classes, so there's a feeling that I can't help but to share that nobody particularly "cares" about my class.

 

Fixes to these various issues have been promised for weeks, but, is it fair to ask players to pay for content that does not yet exist? Content that may well never exist? Until I see a change in the management climate in regards to this game, I cannot see myself supporting it further.

 

If you would like to contact me about these concerns, I would be perfectly happy to discuss them with you further. I'm sure numerous ideas could be brought to the forefront free of charge, such as picking out members that are active in each class forum and using them as mouthpieces to the management of the game to address community concerns.

 

You can reach me further through the e-mail for this account, and I will be happy to discuss issues and suggestions further.

 

Sincerely,

___________________

May the Tech be with you.

 

PS: I have discussed this letter with my guild, and one guild mate in particular asked me to add in a further note as well. He believes your priorities are in the wrong area, and should be refocused from "fluff" (legacy, pets, terrible models) to "content" (rated warzones, server transfers, server merges, and more warzones). This issue was also mentioned earlier in my letter as an issue I have as well.

[CoNfuSioN_]

None of your examples are content. You just want instant grouping.

 

Content, as I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong, I am new to the genre) is something that has a tangible difference on the way and how a game is played. By that definition, rated warzones, cross server ques, and transfers, would not only enable me to enjoy the current content, but new content.

 

You must have a different wishlist. Coming from a populated server I imagine?

 

By the way, I don't want "instant grouping", I'd like some sort of grouping at all. I haven't been able to get my imaginary friends to subscribe yet.

Edited April 30, 2012 by CoNfuSioN_

[Elfa]

Stephen already said that sever transfers are on the way in early summer. Just hang in there man and come over to Krayt Dragon when it happens, we look forward to having you there.

 

As for the fluff vs content suggestions, well, I feel your pain there but some people like fluff and they have to try and give everyone their happy stuff if you get my drift.

 

Stay strong man and use the time to get those last two guys to cap and remember, this is only the beginning.

[Frostvein]

God forbid the man wants people to play with.

[Darth_Moonshadow]

Technically, server transfers and merges are services, not content, but I get your idea.

[Perringaiden]

Couple of points here, from someone who has been playing MMO's for some years now, though I'll try to relate to other 'hardcore' genres.

 

1. Cross Server LFG is bad. Like the public CS servers without Punkbuster, it encourages people to use the "Who cares about the other players, I won't see them again, so I can rip them off, cheat hideously or just treat them like ****." In-server LFG is good, but only if the server population is high enough to ensure smooth and relatively short queues. I agree on the server merges/transfers for low pop servers, if only to create a better community so that cross server LFG isn't required.

 

2. Legacy Family Trees are fluff... but things like the Alt Chapter 2 buffs aren't, for an 8 man raiding team. If your 1 JK is absent on the night, then you miss a significant buff. The first screen of the legacy display can live or die, but the Chapter 2 buffs are a massive benefit to 8 man raiding, and makes encounter design magnitudes easier. PVP currently doesn't see the same issues, because if you have a random enough group then you'll have all 4 buffs, but once Rated Warzones come in, you'll have the same issue if your 1 JK doesn't turn up.

 

3. Not everyone is a "l337 hcore pwner". Those 'fluff' items you don't like, are what keep a large portion of the population playing. MMO's are not a genre that can cater to a single style of play, because there aren't enough subscribers to justify the continuous outlay of development resources. So they have to provide a 'little something for everyone'. You may not like them spending time making what you'll never use, but if they don't, you won't get the things you do want, because the game will folder under the cost vs lack of subscribers.

 

So before you decide what is and isn't "content", spare a thought for the other players. If you had sufficient players on the same server as you, you'd want for none of the 'content' you want. While some of what you've listed definitely are good features (not Content, which is defined as that "fluff" you hate) and server merges will help the game enormously, those things you personally don't like will get other players who are more casual to play the game, and you'' get your MMO experience. BioWare isn't stupid, they just think bigger than most players, and have a broader view of what's needed.

 

TL;DR: What's content or fluff to you is reversed for other players, and satisfying 80% players 60% of the way is better than satisfying 10% of the players 100% of the way.

[CrunkShizzle]

I agree. Bioware is slower than Rainman

 

hey i like rainman

 

[Skidrowbro]

Sounds like the OP would like something more like Diablo 3, which is more of an online game that you can play with buddies. Not an MMO

[dprijadi]

TL;DR: What's content or fluff to you is reversed for other players, and satisfying 80% players 60% of the way is better than satisfying 10% of the players 100% of the way.

 

agreed 100%

 

one insignificant stuff for a player might be a core feature to another..

 

so i do not agree to nerfing one aspect and sacrificing another..

[johnduane]

Sounds like the OP would like something more like Diablo 3, which is more of an online game that you can play with buddies. Not an MMO

 

Yes because god forbid an MMO would provide people to play with.

 

 

There's a simple solution to people who are adamantly against cross-server LFG. Don't use it. Continue to group with the people you do now and you have nothing to gripe about. But just as some of us are told to "give a thought" to people who enjoy non-substantive fluff for our subscription, you can give proponents of the x server lfg a thought just as easily. At the very least, you'll be able to spam General with much more uniqueness since everyone else will be running the content.

[GalacticKegger]

agreed 100%

 

one insignificant stuff for a player might be a core feature to another..

 

so i do not agree to nerfing one aspect and sacrificing another..

It's all about maintaining game balance based on numbers and analytics we as mere players do not have access to. Nerfing one aspect and sacrificing another is just the nature of the MMO beast. There really isn't any way to avoid it.

[Gungan]

Couple of points here, from someone who has been playing MMO's for some years now, though I'll try to relate to other 'hardcore' genres.

 

1. Cross Server LFG is bad. Like the public CS servers without Punkbuster, it encourages people to use the "Who cares about the other players, I won't see them again, so I can rip them off, cheat hideously or just treat them like ****." In-server LFG is good, but only if the server population is high enough to ensure smooth and relatively short queues. I agree on the server merges/transfers for low pop servers, if only to create a better community so that cross server LFG isn't required.

 

Complete nonsense on the cross server LFG comment. I've never had an experience like you describe using an x-server LFG tool in 3 different games now. Maybe the problem is actually you?

Edited April 30, 2012 by Gungan

[davidpop]

Sounds like the OP would like something more like Diablo 3, which is more of an online game that you can play with buddies. Not an MMO

 

Sadly that is what alot of people want these days...

 

I really dont know why people insist on playing mmos, when they clearly dont like them, and no you dont, if you think traveling for 10min to get to where you are going is to much, then you dont like mmos.

[bmhale]

I feel your pain, OP. Much like you, I too am a first-time MMO player, and I immensely enjoy playing the game. My RL friends started an Imperial guild, and it grew well beyond just us. Now it seems that several of them have gone inactive... sigh. At least our core group (my RL friends) are mostly still active.

 

Our server is indeed small, OP, and its future is hazy at best.

 

The upcoming "limited" free server transfers will either beef up The Deadweight or collapse it entirely... we won't really know until they say exactly who will be granted a transfer. I'm hoping it'll be given to the members of the ridiculously overpopulated server that so many have decided to re-roll on (you know the one), allowing them to bring their avatars to "Light" servers only. More likely, though, it'll be given to us, and our server's players will end up transferring to "Standard" servers. Kind of like a merger, except that you aren't forced to go to any particular server.

[gakha]

Complete nonsense on the cross server LFG comment. I've never an experience like you describe using an x-server LFG tool in 3 different games now. Maybe the problem is actually you?

 

Agree/Disagree, in WoW when they first put the cross server cues I ran across a few instances where someone would ninja everything. The vast majority of players though were decent people to run an instance with. And then blizzard added the feature to prevent ninjas, which just made it nicer. The biggest problem with cross server ques (or ques in general) is baddies, which you aren't going to do away with by running around the imperial fleet spamming for a PUG either.

[Gungan]

Agree/Disagree, in WoW when they first put the cross server cues I ran across a few instances where someone would ninja everything. The vast majority of players though were decent people to run an instance with. And then blizzard added the feature to prevent ninjas, which just made it nicer. The biggest problem with cross server ques (or ques in general) is baddies, which you aren't going to do away with by running around the imperial fleet spamming for a PUG either.

 

Yeah, a PUG is a PUG. Doesn't matter what pool you get the people from, there's never any guarantee with a PUG. Yes, I've carried pugs as a healer multiple times. I've also carried them as DPS when the other DPS were vastly inferior.

 

Maybe it's a generalization on my part, but I think the people who aren't able to carry a weak PUG complain the most about dungeon finders.

[RachelAnne]

Yeah, a PUG is a PUG. Doesn't matter what pool you get the people from, there's never any guarantee with a PUG. Yes, I've carried pugs as a healer multiple times. I've also carried them as DPS when the other DPS were vastly inferior.

 

Maybe it's a generalization on my part, but I think the people who aren't able to carry a weak PUG complain the most about dungeon finders.

 

Not really...

 

Playing my Druid at wow I did end up healing, tanking and dpsing multiple times and without me we would had never seen some of the endbosses - thats not the problem. Even in a guild you will have to play for players that have a lower skill, even at TBC when I was raiding in a high end guild at europe, this was the case and I never complained.

 

The issue is just the behaivour and nothing else.

 

To get bombarded by comments like "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG" , getting ninja pulls of kids who have no patience at all, stolen the loot you deserve as someone is on a "all mine" philosophy and last but not least the stupid kick system and never ending spam of dps meters by the worst players I have ever seen is what keeps you away of that tool.

You need to understand that playing games is not for everyone a job, to help bad players is fine but to be treaten like **** in almost every run is not.

 

If you build a group yourself, then you can skip such behaivour and thats why grouping must stay away of an automation and now that addons are at Tor this is more important than anything else to keep the fun at this game.

 

 

Regarding the OP.

 

A dungeon finder in general is not content, thats like saying the new log in screen is content...

 

The legacy stuff is indeed content, as it does give you something new that you can work on.

 

I always laugh when people at wow said that the LFD tool and the multiple ways of running a dungeon is content... in the end its not. If you run a dungeon once the content is pretty much clear, what keeps you playing is stuff that you can encounter every day new again, like the story´s at Tor - different classes, new zones or stuff you can unlock after a while. But those things will always have an end, as for Tor I have not yet finished every class so there is still enough content left.

Content at an MMO is pretty much always coming to an end someday, especially if you are into an new release for a longer time, Look at wow, you have no new content for almost a year there and yet people keep playing and actually think they have new content because they can after running the raid in easy, now run it in normal and after in hardcore and then again in 25 instead of 10 men runs etc.

 

Ranked Warzones alone aint content either, its just a system.... but if BW would manage to balance it right, better than wow, then this would be a reason to play further for pvp players - as the competition that comes out of it, is not really content but something many people are intrested in.

 

We at wow did run Warsong for many months in the old pvp system and didnt need anything else, the competition kept us going and just that. You dont need a new Wz, Arena or whatever every time - just a working pvp system that puts equal skilled players against each other with the chance to improve your standing every now and then.

[chimunga]

I love fluff. But I also understand it for what it is. It's Bioware saying: "Hey Guys! We don't have any real content ready yet, but we;re working on it, so... for your patience, have this cute lil' Tauntaun to follow you around and put a smile on your face."

 

Not everyone is hardcore. While the Legacy system does have some hangups (i.e. The family tree, and exorbitant prices for silly social emotes), I'm fine with it. It's different and new, and I think BW takes a bit of pride in it.

 

So, while I do love new content, I'm happy with being distracted by a little bit of fluff while I wait. It's better than nothing.

[Maltuvion]

I was - along with my guild - in the same situation as you. Legacy 27, full rakata, both unyielding and infernal titles etc...

 

With 8 people from my old guild we decided to reroll on The Red Reaper. Start from scratch, switch faction, see the other side. It was worth it.

 

I won't launch into a lengthy diatribe about what we've accomplished on the new server, but it exceeds anything we did on the old - and we had fun all the way, rather than only at 50 during raids. It is literally an entirely different game.

[Powderhorn]

For many of us, taking the MM out of MMORPG makes us question as to why we should pay a monthly fee to be allowed to play this game. I feel the people who said that we merely want Diablo 3 or some other such naive comment didn't actually get the purpose of the post: There is nobody to play with. Maybe Diablo 3 WILL be a better sell, simply because dead servers won't be an issue, but I digress.

 

I feel like the community, particularly on low pop servers, can be embodied in a man dieing of thirst in a desert, and BioWare is a sultan saying, "Don't worry, in a few months there will be a bountiful feast of liquid delights!" In the end, it's probably just a mirage, but we'll be dead by then anyway, so who cares?

 

Maybe if enough people say this is a massive issue and drop subscriptions over it, BioWare will act. I hope they a least care about lost subs.

[jgelling]

The ironic thing is the OP is demanding *features* and calling actual content fluff, although in fairness the content he's talking about isn't exactly game-deciding. That said, the *features* he's asking for seem reasonable enough. Edited April 30, 2012 by jgelling

[Distracted]

Rated Warzones are content. Legacy family trees are fluff.

 

Cross server ques are content. New emoticons are fluff.

 

Server transfers and/or merges are content. Founder titles and dumb pets are fluff.

 

These opinions are just that. Everyones opinion will be different, so there's no point trying to pass off these opinions of yours as fact. My opinions would be almost the exact opposite, except on the case of server merges or transferes. They are neither content nor fluff.