Daniel Erickson thinks X-Server LFG is last resort

[Styxx]

Folks, If you are so afraid of random people in your groups, join a guild and group with only them. Problem solved and the rest of us can group with the x-server LFG tool if we wish.

 

I am in a Guild, on Imp side.. a Guild that takes quite some time away from me.

 

So, for my rep alts, I don`t want a Guild nor do I need one, but I want to gear them fairly fast. LFG tool would surely shave off some time.. and I don`t like grouping with jerks.

[thomasgallant]

The wording, in my view, implies something wrong. The average player is your average Joe, that will look for the path of minimal resistance and see only his/her goals .. will do almost anything to see them achieved, then "forget" of the ones who helped.

 

So, you see, there isn`t an "average" player to talk about ruined points of view, because it is the said average player that does it the most.

 

In my humble opinion. I admit it is a personal opinion based on loose statistics and observation. Our points of view are the same, except that I am applying the "And the average player stole his own money and heralded it as a great victory" approach

 

true the average person can easily become a jerk if given the opportunity to hide behind screen names or cross server lfg tools... hell i wont say that i am better than that..often i have become a complete *** when dealing with people in and out of the game..

 

it happens and sometimes we dont even notice till it is to late.. cross servers = bad..

[Styxx]

[snip]

cross servers = bad..

This we can agree on

[Dayshadow]

Daniel Erickson, Lead Game Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, in an interview:

 

 

How can a multi-million Star Wars online multiplayer game have a lead designer that is this clueless about running a successful MMO service?

 

Here's a clue, Daniel: I am not looking for some 'last resorts' in your service product. I want the convenience to play with millions of strangers, anonymously over the Internet, with the convenience of pressing a button and the magic happening.

 

A LFG tool is just that, a tool. It has to work 24/7. It has to work irrespective of US primetime, EU primetime, AUS primetime, Japan primetime, India primetime, Arab-Emirates primetime. It has to work for people working night-shifts, day-shifts, double-shifts, 1 job, 2 jobs, 3 jobs, not working at all or taking care of their baby.

 

A LFG tool works the better the bigger the population it can draw from. This is something that's obvious to everyone. Making it cross-server as a last resort is too late. This too should be obvious, at least to a Lead Game Designer.

 

World of Warcraft, a game you might think was at its best during Vanilla/TBC, put in theirs right after their subscription numbers had started to drop. Their subscriptions have since stabilized. Maybe that's a coincidence, or maybe they know a thing or two about running an MMO service and challenging your preconceptions.

 

It's typical Bioware idiocy. They keep pushing "their vision", but don't understand or refuse to understand that it's "our money". They pulled the ssame crap with Dragon Age 2. It's doesn't matter what they way. What matters is what we want. It's like opening a grocery story and only selling tofu and vegetables in Texas. The owner has a vision of healthy eating, but that's not what the customer wants. If they want to makes the most money they can't be this stubborn. I'm surprised EA hasn't stepped in and forced their hand.

 

People aren't going to keep paying for a single player game forever.

[BenjaminminU]

I completely disagree with cross server LFG, the first problem would be the jerks joining groups from other servers just to ninja loot everything to then disappear at the end, never to be seen again, whereas on single server people will gain a reputation making them less likely to be bad players.

 

Also with cross server if you meet a good unguilded player you won't be able to invite them to join the guild since at the end of the flashpoint they would just return to their own server.

[Altair]

An X-server LFG tool won't save the game, if the thing driving people away is something else.

 

X-sever LFG is very good at keeping a lot of dead servers "alive", but it not something that will magically make the game grow.

 

THIS ... Funny he would say that X-server is a last resort. Sorry SIR but you already started down that path months ago by not having a plan or a LFG tool avalaible at launch or the ability to merge servers or character transfers at launch. You ou there that are so against LFG tool because it destroys the "community" . Just what the heck do you mean by that? 13 people on fleet having to wait over an hour to queue up for pvp? Thats community? GW2 and the panda is going to kill this game. I would not be surprise about talk of an expansion at E3 this year. 1.3 alone is not going to save this game. 1.3 was needed at launch.

[Drobu]

And look what happened to the people playing World Of Warcraft when the LFG cross server was implemented. Instead of actual decent players, they became wordless, mindless idiots who cared for nothing but themselves. People who would need on loot they didnt actually need just to sell, or leave a group if a boss they fought didnt drop the loot they wanted, even when it was only the first boss. Why should they care about other people? It is not like they would ever see them again, and even if they did, they can just leave the group and LFG using the tool again.

 

Yes THAT is what you are promoting, the lack of moral fortitude, or willingness to be patient. So I vow here and now, the day cross server LFG is added, I am GONE!!!!!

 

I'll say this much. I run LFG a lot, and have ran dungeons with people from the same server, and you know what, nothing is said. Buff, tank pulls, /roll on loot exit dungeon. And I can guarantee you, though I might be wrong, the same thing will happen in SWTOR.

 

People run dungeons for one specific reason. Loot. Period. If I want to chat, I'll stay at the fleet. When you get right down to it, the group members are just using each other as an instrument to get the gear they need. These people aren't your buddies, sure you're on the same server, but they could probably careless about /party chat. They are there to play the best they can to make the run as smooth as possible. Not here about you're guilds progression, or recruiting needs.

 

FYI, you can't read tone, so no, I'm not ranting.....just stating the facts. =)

[mothear]

OP: I want change so I'll call the lead designer clueless.

 

Well that's another change request that will be ignored then.

[Bahamzero]

If the server merges/transfers come i dont think their will be need for cross server LFG and i actually hope they never make it cross server. Edited May 28, 2012 by Bahamzero

[zeuklie]

I'll say this much. I run LFG a lot, and have ran dungeons with people from the same server, and you know what, nothing is said. Buff, tank pulls, /roll on loot exit dungeon. And I can guarantee you, though I might be wrong, the same thing will happen in SWTOR.

 

People run dungeons for one specific reason. Loot. Period. If I want to chat, I'll stay at the fleet. When you get right down to it, the group members are just using each other as an instrument to get the gear they need. These people aren't your buddies, sure you're on the same server, but they could probably careless about /party chat. They are there to play the best they can to make the run as smooth as possible. Not here about you're guilds progression, or recruiting needs.

 

FYI, you can't read tone, so no, I'm not ranting.....just stating the facts. =)

 

The fact is not everyone play group contents for loot.

I play mmo because I like to play with other PEOPLE who respect each other, not to play with anonymous toons to

acquire more loots.

 

If the people treat each other as classes or rules, and not respect each other, I'd rather no to play the game.

I like to play the game, make more friends, run group contents together and achieve something great.

The gears are means for that, not the goal of it.

[SentinelDranoel]

Last resort because if they increase the server size, allow transfers and get rid of some servers; then you will not need an X-server finction.

[Deewe]

Why don't they give you two options. LFG (same server only) and LFG (Xserver). Why they have to settle for one or the other is beyond me. More options>less options

That would do the trick.

 

Hopefully the devs noticed this as some of us have been suggesting this option that would mitigate the issues.

[Wolfeisberg]

My experiences with the cross server with Rift and WoW, tells me it isn't as bad as people make it out to be. When I go from 1 dungeon per day to 4 or 5 dungeons after cross server, and may see 4 ninja looters in 7 days, yeah I will take that bad with the massive amount of good that got added. Going from 7 dungeons per week with 1 ninja looter per week, to 35 dungeons per week with 4 ninja looters, yup sign me up. Though in SWTOR I am lucky to get 2 flashpoints per week.

[kryator]

Yeah, because people acting like jerks NEVER happens in our trusted communities that we have established on our servers. No sir, every single person is of a strong moral fibre, no jerks here! Every single server is filled with countless of people that no only are happy to group up for anything at any time, but each and every one of these fine upstanding individuals acts in a selfless manner, and only selects 'need' when s/he actually needs said item in question!

 

For this reason, I refuse to see a cross server implemented! For it shall destroy the community we have all worked hard to establish by bringing in anonymous strangers from those... other servers we dare not mention in these parts.

 

ahah..beautiful, so true..beware of the x-server LFG tool of destruction.

[wutru]

Almost all of you are missing the point.

 

Swtor needs cross-server LFG tool. Why? Because it's population is too small now. If the LFG tool came out during launch, then it wouldn't need to be cross-server. Bioware dropped the ball on this one. The LFG tool should have been out from the beginning, and only for same servers.

[Styxx]

Almost all of you are missing the point.

 

Swtor needs cross-server LFG tool. Why? Because it's population is too small now. If the LFG tool came out during launch, then it wouldn't need to be cross-server. Bioware dropped the ball on this one. The LFG tool should have been out from the beginning, and only for same servers.

 

NO, it doesn`t, because we`ll get server merges reasonable close to LFG tool implementation, so we`ll get a good healthy pool of players on our own servers.

 

What comes afterwards, in 6 months time.. nobody knows. Not me, but not you either.

Edited May 28, 2012 by Styxx

[Gungan]

A cross server LFG tool doesn't magically create buttholes. That blame can be placed square on the parents. If you want to avoid buttholes at all costs, do the same thing you do in real life and stick to hanging out with your friends.

 

If you want to chat in a pug, I'm more than happy to oblige, but my top priority is always playing my best, because unlike some people around here, my definition of fun is "executing a task properly leading to victory."

Edited May 28, 2012 by Gungan

[Styxx]

I'll say this much. I run LFG a lot, and have ran dungeons with people from the same server, and you know what, nothing is said. Buff, tank pulls, /roll on loot exit dungeon. And I can guarantee you, though I might be wrong, the same thing will happen in SWTOR.

 

People run dungeons for one specific reason. Loot. Period. If I want to chat, I'll stay at the fleet. When you get right down to it, the group members are just using each other as an instrument to get the gear they need. These people aren't your buddies, sure you're on the same server, but they could probably careless about /party chat. They are there to play the best they can to make the run as smooth as possible. Not here about you're guilds progression, or recruiting needs.

 

FYI, you can't read tone, so no, I'm not ranting.....just stating the facts. =)

 

I agree 100%

 

A cross server LFG tool doesn't magically create buttholes. Bad parenting does that. If you want to avoid buttholes at all costs, do the same thing you do in real life, stick to hanging out with your friends.

I can`t. My friends are on imp side, while some of my alts are on rep side. And I can`t be hassled to join another Guild on a side I play "cos I want to". And I don`t like playing with idiots anymore than you do.

Edited May 28, 2012 by Styxx

[Gungan]

I agree 100%

 

 

I can`t. My friends are on imp side, while some of my alts are on rep side. And I can`t be hassled to join another Guild on a side I play "cos I want to". And I don`t like playing with idiots anymore than you do.

 

Then there really isn't any way for you to avoid all of them whether the tool is server restricted or not.

[Veluthurk]

I'm generally against xrealm LFG, but at present I'm conflicted due to not knowing in what manner BW is going to implement server transfers. If character transfers aren't successful in consolidating significant amounts of the population then any added delays waiting for xrealm LFG will result in further lost subs.

[tkinnunzero]

Added this to the post:

 

What really gets under my skin is the hubris. Does this Lead Game Designer never entertain the thought that maybe he could be wrong? Would he say the same thing if he thought there was a chance he had gotten it completely wrong?

 

If in 2 months, despite everything, X-Server LFG is added and someone wants to make the case that the game is on its last legs, well there's your money-quote, straight from the horse's mouth!

 

On the other hand, if in 2 months I'm on the outside looking in and see that patch 1.5 is going to add X-Server LFG, is that going to entice me to come back knowing that the Lead Game Designer is going for the game's last resort?

[Seregul]

Actually, there is a BIG difference. If you act like a jerk on the same server, you are accountable. People hear about a certain individual on a server who ninja's loot, or leaves a group that has only killed the first boss because it didnt drop the loot he wanted, people will hear about it and not want to join a group with that person ever again.

 

When it is cross server, there is no accountability. They can ninja loot, leave a group mid battle and not be held accountable because its likely they will never be seen again. But hey, if you want to delude yourself that this is the best thing for an mmo, then so be it. I will not stop you from thinking it is a good idea. All I can do is voice my own opinion, because I have had these experiences myself, and have left countless games when this cross realm server was implemented.

 

If you group with jerks like this, or are one, then I really feel sorry for you.

 

And how would you would prevent being randomly grouped with these people in a same server LFG, and why would that functionality be absent with a cross server?

 

I think it's far more likely that a cross server LFG diminishes your ability to exert authority over the players on your server, and that terrifies you.

[Maxkardinal]

Why people are so afraid of someone would leave the group after first boss got kiled?

 

The LFG tool will replace taht person.

 

Afraid someone will "need" your presious junk?

 

You cant "need" what you cant equip - i thought its a standart nowadays, isn't it?

 

Afraid someone will leave the group?

 

30 mins penalty will forbid random qutiing if person thinks group is "not looking good". And if person really need to quit because of real life issues - nothing will stop him/her

 

For community you have guild and /general on your server. Find groups yourself, if you care the company that much.

 

For easy and casula farming - there should be x-server LFG tool.

 

WoW already dealed with majority of problems which can accure during using LFG, so they can be predicted and avoided.

Edited May 28, 2012 by Maxkardinal

[wolfmith]

because the idea is to have lots of players on the same server. I think this is good and helps with controlling the crowd. When I report a player, I need to say which server I play. Other than that they can't look into it. You want hackers / cheaters to go immune with what they do ??? They're thinking on the consequences. Merging servers is the solution, there should be only a few different servers.

[Darkulous]

They just don't know how to make one right now and they're buying time. These guys made no secret that they wanted WoW type numbers. You're not gonna get those numbers with a grouping problem existing in your game. They wish they had the tool so they wouldn't have to deal with the nightmare of merging servers.