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Austin Q&A

iamthehoyden

By iamthehoyden
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iamthehoyden

iamthehoyden

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The Austin Cantina Tour was a lot of fun. Lots of developers (who were friendly and talkative - might have been the beer ;)) and the community team (who is, as a whole, very young and bubbly). My take-aways - they play the game on the live servers, especially Dallas Dickinson who has 7 50s if rumors are to be believed and prefers dps roles. Second, if there is enough demand for an item or ability (like a moddable headset for head slots or name changes) you'll probably see it in the Cartel Market.

 

Highlights from the Q&A:

-- Larger number of guild member slots - reason it is limited is technical constraints. Don’t have any immediate plans to change it.

 

-- PTS plans – bringing current live characters over is in development.

 

-- The reason legacy names rather than first names were made non-specific is because it was easier technically (chat is based on first name uniqueness) and it was good for roleplaying.

 

-- Paid name changes – (first, legacy, guild) – on the radar, very likely coming.

 

-- UI elements for healers – mouse-over heals and debuffs – UI is constantly being tweaked and don’t be surprised if you see this change (system designer is a healer – he understood the pain).

 

-- Legacy is going to be improved and expanded.

 

-- Space expansion (I know there are a lot of people interested in this so here's the mostly verbatim answer.) - Dallas Dickinson - “Yes. Yes is the awesome answer. I cannot give you details. I cannot give you dates. You’re going to see something which is an expansion upon space combat relatively soon. …. You’ll see something soonish and after that I cannot say much more other than I think you’ll like it.”

 

-- Hood toggles – very very non-committal. :(

 

-- Final Question of the Night: Is the game capable of running large-scale battles? (i'm giving this mostly verbatim answer because I know this is important for the pvp'ers and everyone who gets headaches from lag on Fleet.)

Dallas Dickinson – “The short answer, well, the obvious answer, is not right now, but we have a number of initiatives in the pipeline that are all about performance. There are a number that are all about specifically large group of player performance. I can’t give you a timeline for these things. …… We have a few systems that are ridiculously heavy in terms of their performance both on the server side actually but also on the client which you guys are playing. And we are doing active optimization. We try to knock down the highest nail all the time and we’ve just run up against one of the highest nails in our game being actively worked on and it’s a significant improvement. I cannot give you a date because the work is not done and it’s very complex work on mats [my note: I may have this term wrong, so bear with me - it was hard to hear at times in there]. Mats are hard it turns out is what our engineers tell me but we know where the problem is especially when you talk about performance with many many players. …. We have at least one more major optimization that should help you with that."

 

Thanks for a fun night guys!

Edited by iamthehoyden
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Arkerus

Arkerus

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Really interesting. Thanks.

 

So we know the super secret space thing is coming...someday. That's a bonus.

 

 

As for large scale PvP, don't bet on it. That's a bummer but not enough to keep me from playing. I am more interested in WZs anyway.

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LrdRahvin

LrdRahvin

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The Austin Cantina Tour was a lot of fun. Lots of developers (who were friendly and talkative - might have been the beer ;)) and the community team (who is, as a whole, very young and bubbly). My take-aways - they play the game on the live servers, especially Dallas Dickinson who has 7 50s if rumors are to be believed and prefers dps roles. Second, if there is enough demand for an item or ability (like a moddable headset for head slots or name changes) you'll probably see it in the Cartel Market.

 

Highlights from the Q&A:

-- Larger number of guild member slots - reason it is limited is technical constraints. Don’t have any immediate plans to change it.

 

-- PTS plans – bringing current live characters over is in development.

 

-- The reason legacy names rather than first names were made non-specific is because it was easier technically (chat is based on first name uniqueness) and it was good for roleplaying.

 

-- Paid name changes – (first, legacy, guild) – on the radar, very likely coming.

 

-- UI elements for healers – mouse-over heals and debuffs – UI is constantly being tweaked and don’t be surprised if you see this change (system designer is a healer – he understood the pain).

 

-- Legacy is going to be improved and expanded.

 

-- Space expansion (I know there are a lot of people interested in this so here's the mostly verbatim answer.) - Dallas Dickinson - “Yes. Yes is the awesome answer. I cannot give you details. I cannot give you dates. You’re going to see something which is an expansion upon space combat relatively soon. …. You’ll see something soonish and after that I cannot say much more other than I think you’ll like it.”

 

-- Hood toggles – very very non-committal. :(

 

-- Final Question of the Night: Is the game capable of running large-scale battles? (i'm giving this mostly verbatim answer because I know this is important for the pvp'ers and everyone who gets headaches from lag on Fleet.)

Dallas Dickinson – “The short answer, well, the obvious answer, is not right now, but we have a number of initiatives in the pipeline that are all about performance. There are a number that are all about specifically large group of player performance. I can’t give you a timeline for these things. …… We have a few systems that are ridiculously heavy in terms of their performance both on the server side actually but also on the client which you guys are playing. And we are doing active optimization. We try to knock down the highest nail all the time and we’ve just run up against one of the highest nails in our game being actively worked on and it’s a significant improvement. I cannot give you a date because the work is not done and it’s very complex work on mats [my note: I may have this term wrong, so bear with me - it was hard to hear at times in there]. Mats are hard it turns out is what our engineers tell me but we know where the problem is especially when you talk about performance with many many players. …. We have at least one more major optimization that should help you with that."

 

Thanks for a fun night guys!

 

You do realize that Dallas Dickinson- whom you quote repeatedly, has quit BW, right?

 

:rak_02:

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Rogoo

Rogoo

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Dallas Dickinson – “The short answer, well, the obvious answer, is not right now, but we have a number of initiatives in the pipeline that are all about performance. There are a number that are all about specifically large group of player performance. I can’t give you a timeline for these things. …… We have a few systems that are ridiculously heavy in terms of their performance both on the server side actually but also on the client which you guys are playing. And we are doing active optimization. We try to knock down the highest nail all the time and we’ve just run up against one of the highest nails in our game being actively worked on and it’s a significant improvement. I cannot give you a date because the work is not done and it’s very complex work on mats [my note: I may have this term wrong, so bear with me - it was hard to hear at times in there]. Mats are hard it turns out is what our engineers tell me but we know where the problem is especially when you talk about performance with many many players. …. We have at least one more major optimization that should help you with that."

Thanks for a fun night guys!

 

This makes James Ohlen look really, really BAD.

 

What happened to the 5% ?

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LrdRahvin

LrdRahvin

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Oh really?

 

I think the demise of Mr. Dickinson is a bit premature ... :p

 

That linked post is dated Sept. and I distinctly recall a thread here with a link to dallas' LinkedIn page which has working with another BW refugee on a new prject that was much more recent than that. Ca'nt be arsed to lokk it up to link for you but if you're so inclined should be easy to check his LinkedIn page :p

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Urael

Urael

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That linked post is dated Sept. and I distinctly recall a thread here with a link to dallas' LinkedIn page which has working with another BW refugee on a new prject that was much more recent than that. Ca'nt be arsed to lokk it up to link for you but if you're so inclined should be easy to check his LinkedIn page :p

 

No you are thinking about Daniel Erickson. :p

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chuixupu

chuixupu

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-- UI elements for healers – mouse-over heals and debuffs – UI is constantly being tweaked and don’t be surprised if you see this change (system designer is a healer – he understood the pain).

 

Thank you whoever asked this question - this has been one of my pet peeves for a while. Would love to see some improvements soon.

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OMGrant

OMGrant

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After all the anger I've felt at Bioware over their "poor experience by design" F2P model, this post really put me in a better mood. It makes me happy to hear the game is still expanding, and the people I liked hearing from are still involved and working on it.

 

Seriously, thank you OP.

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iamthehoyden

iamthehoyden

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And, of course, no mention of SGRs. Typical.

Uluain, I have to apologize. I got home afterward and realized I could have cornered a CM team member and asked them what was up with the lack of communication. Really regretted not doing that, and I have to apologize.

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LrdRahvin

LrdRahvin

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Edit: Apparently my blonde moment extended to not quoting the above ^

 

Since I've finally decided to stop waiting for EAWare to fix the parts of/handling of the game that I have issues with and sub is running out in 5 days, you can go even one better (worse depending on your point of view pvp server vs pve server-wise)- you can have free AFK kills :p

 

That's even better(worse) then permission to gank away. Of course, being a pvp server player, I tend to think the forum here is a pvp forum(best part of the game for a while now imo) and permission/consent is not needed :) Either way, go nuts and gank away :p

 

:D

Edited by LrdRahvin
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