Super Secret Space Project

[Andryah]

Take RvR, it was rushes in and was badly designed, I think anyone with any RvR experince could have told them that, but they wanted it in for release and it was going ahead no matter what......... and within 5 month it was removed entirely.

 

This is a false criticism IMO.

 

There is no RvR in this MMO, and never was (so far). There is sanitized set piece PvP in groups. Even Illum was not true open RvR. I use DAoC as the standard of measure here (not the three factions, but the complete open field nature of it, with realm incenting objectives). No such animal exists in this PvE MMO.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Andryah

[Goretzu]

This is a false criticism IMO.

 

There is no RvR in this MMO. There is sanitized set piece PvP in groups. Even Illum was not true open RvR (I use DAoC as the standard of measure here (not the three factions, but the complete open field nature of it, with realm incenting objectives). No such animal exists in this PvE MMO.

 

Yeah they were very careful to refer to it as "the artist former known as RvR", mostly I think because they knew what they were trying to rush in was incomparable to anything in DAoC or WAR (DAoC had no realm incentives for a looooong time btw, neither did WAR, if indeed they do now they were bugged and turned off again last I heard).

 

Never the less it was RvR, just very badly designed RvR in the scope of a solitary RvR basin.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Goretzu

[Andryah]

Even the world only Modern AAA MMORPG needs to listen to its players.......... or it does if it wants to KEEP them anyway.

 

They do listen. All MMOs listen. Not putting a feature into an MMO does not mean they do not listen. That's a false equivalency. Quite a few things have been patched into this MMO due to request/suggestion of the player base. True for all MMOs actually.

 

You are using absolute and false standards of judgement and criticism.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Andryah

[TUXs]

You know you are taking an extreme viewpoint here TUXs. He did not say that.

 

And in point of fact... I think you would agree that there is a lot of immature and inappropriate "criticisms" expressed in the forums. Enough of it to cloud true constructive criticism and feedback IMO.

 

Fine...I'll concede that I despise it when people resort to insulting posters or calling people names - that ends all arguments and does nothing but provoke people.

 

Yes, there is some inappropriate behavior here, but it's easy enough to ignore and finding GOOD and worthwhile posts/suggestions is easy as hell. I don't think a few extremists can possible post enough 'anger' or 'hate' to cloud truly constructive feedback.

[Andryah]

Yeah they were very careful to refer to it as "the artist former known as RvR", mostly I think because they knew what they were trying to rush in was incomparable to anything in DAoC or WAR (DAoC had no realm incentives for a looooong time btw, neither did WAR, if indeed they do now they were bugged and turned off again last I heard).

 

Never the less it was RvR, just very badly designed RvR in the scope of a solitary RvR basin.

 

Your are reaching and exaggerating on the basis of the name of a personality on the MMO development team.

 

Face it. Illum was never RvR because there were never any Faction (realm) consequences to play it or not play it. TSW is closer to RvR by any reasonable definition. SWTOR is simply contrived PvP for the individual PvPer, where there is some advantage to grouping. No more, no less.

 

I would enjoy some real RvR mechanics in this game. But Illum was not it, and I certainly am not holding my breath for it. It's a PvE game. Until I see something other then sanitized PvP instancing... I'll play the game for what it is.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Andryah

[Goretzu]

They do listen. All MMOs listen. Not putting a feature into an MMO does not mean they do not listen. That's a false equivalency. Quite a few things have been patched into this MMO due to request/suggestion of the player base. True for all MMOs actually.

 

You are using absolute and false standards of judgement and criticism.

 

Again I suspect not. I think they had a vision and followed it, without really listening. Certainly they have listened to things since (like the UI), but as I said it was mostly stuff they knew and wanted to change and they listen to things because of that, or stuff that was really annoying a massive amount of people for no real reason (travel changes).

 

Again with the RvR revamp it seems we'll be served a fait accompli.

[Goretzu]

Your are reaching and exaggerating on the basis of the name of a personality on the MMO development team.

 

Face it. Illum was never RvR because there were never any Faction (realm) consequences to play it or not play it. TSW is closer to RvR by any reasonable definition. SWTOR is simply contrived PvP for the individual PvPer, where there is some advantage to grouping. No more, no less.

 

There was faction based concequences, just not very well designed or good ones, it was "RvR", just probably the most poor example of it ever seen in an MMORPG.

 

And again factional concequences add to RvR, but they don't make or define it (as any orginal DAoC player would know ).

[Andryah]

Again I suspect not. I think they had a vision and followed it, without really listening. Certainly they have listened to things since (like the UI), but as I said it was mostly stuff they knew and wanted to change and they listen to things because of that, or stuff that was really annoying a massive amount of people for no real reason (travel changes).

 

I'm confused.

 

You admit they have patched things in that were asked for since launch... but they don't listen suggestions (because some things asked for in beta did not go live)??

[TUXs]

Again I suspect not. I think they had a vision and followed it, without really listening. Certainly they have listened to things since (like the UI), but as I said it was mostly stuff they knew and wanted to change and they listen to things because of that, or stuff that was really annoying a massive amount of people for no real reason (travel changes).

 

Again with the RvR revamp it seems we'll be served a fait accompli.

 

I think you're both right.

 

Andryah is correct, they HAVE proven they do/will listen...multiple times in fact.

 

But I also think you're right about them having their original "vision", and no matter what feedback they received (during development and for months following release), they were moving forward with whatever THEY wanted, despite their customers. In fact, I think their attitudes is one of the main reasons so many have "moved on".

[Andryah]

And again factional concequences add to RvR, but they don't make or define it (as any orginal DAoC player would know ).

 

As an original and long playing DAoC player, I disagree with you. It was always about leveling up to play RvR and RvR had consequences to a realm... but more importantly there was genuine Realm pride driving multiple large scale RvR actions pretty much 7/24 across huge interconnected zones. The consequence of objectives developed the realm pride into creation and persistence.

 

No such animal has ever existed in this MMO so far. Honestly, given the state of the MMO player base these days, I'm not sure anyone can recreate true RealmVRealm style play again. EVE kind of has a lock on the audience for this sort of thing, and 8 years of faux wars in WoW have trained half a generation to not even know it if they saw it.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Andryah

[ItchyThePenguin]

Seeing as how we've never once had any true interaction from them, why do you assume it wouldn't be rational or intelligent? Or do you classify any criticism as "immature"?

 

Of course not! There's nothing wrong with some good old fashioned criticism! In fact, I welcome criticism so long as it lucid, intelligent, and well thought out. If you're going to offer criticism then it has to be done in a constructive manner and in such a way that meaningful discussion is facilitated.

 

That being said, I personally feel that a majority of the so called "complaints" that run rampant through these forums are not done in this manner. People on these forums all to quickly resort to petty insults that do absolutely nothing to facilitate any sort of discussion. A lot of the lengthier threads here are riddled with people throwing insult after insult at one other and solutions are rarely offered, let alone discussed.

[Goretzu]

I'm confused.

 

You admit they have patched things in that were asked for since launch... but they don't listen suggestions (because some things asked for in beta did not go live)??

 

Again, as I said, they seem to have been things they were going to do anyway (no one believes they were happy with the release UI, they just didn't have time to sort it before the Live date - as many have said another 6 months in Beta would have made SWTOR a different and much better game), or the travel changes which were a pure no brainer in that they achieve nothing as they were and annoyed almost everyone.

 

Even on the PTS they don't seem to listen to much outside their "chosen" testers.

[SturmUndSterne]

Of course not! There's nothing wrong with some good old fashioned criticism! In fact, I welcome criticism so long as it lucid, intelligent, and well thought out. If you're going to offer criticism then it has to be done in a constructive manner and in such a way that meaningful discussion is facilitated.

 

That being said, I personally feel that a majority of the so called "complaints" that run rampant through these forums are not done in this manner. People on these forums all to quickly resort to petty insults that do absolutely nothing to facilitate any sort of discussion. A lot of the lengthier threads here are riddled with people throwing insult after insult at one other and solutions are rarely offered, let alone discussed.

 

Which, of course, is the entire point of my original response.

 

The Devs don't come to the forums anymore, because all they see are the same people complaining about the same things - and whenever anyone posts something to the contrary, the ad hominem attacks and vitriol begins about being a "fanboy" and being "blind" to EA's faults.

 

if people would actually have constructive conversations without calling names or being insulting, they may be more inclined to read.

 

We can't act like spoiled brats and expect to accomplish anything. For anyone with children, you know that the second a tantrum is thrown, whatever the kid wants is completely off the table. Failure to do this teaches the child that tantrum = you get what you want, so they're more inclined to throw one in the future.

 

I think the devs are just waiting until we yell ourselves out on the grocery store floor before picking us up and giving us the communication we deserve. Unfortunately, the forumtrolls will never go away long enough.

[TUXs]

Of course not! There's nothing wrong with some good old fashioned criticism! In fact, I welcome criticism so long as it lucid, intelligent, and well thought out. If you're going to offer criticism then it has to be done in a constructive manner and in such a way that meaningful discussion is facilitated.

 

That being said, I personally feel that a majority of the so called "complaints" that run rampant through these forums are not done in this manner. People on these forums all to quickly resort to petty insults that do absolutely nothing to facilitate any sort of discussion. A lot of the lengthier threads here are riddled with people throwing insult after insult at one other and solutions are rarely offered, let alone discussed.

 

I agree. But I also understand that, for some people, posting on these forums isn't a "common" thing and many times, those "rants" are a result of months of frustration. I try to be forgiving of peoples 'tone' when they're frustrated. Rather than attacking the player, I try to figure out the gist of their complaint and proceed from there.

[Andryah]

A lot of the lengthier threads here are riddled with people throwing insult after insult at one other and solutions are rarely offered, let alone discussed.

 

I pretty much agree with this. Even when we get a good discussion going on a topic, with real and fairly objective pros and cons.... people come flying in with crazy hyperbole and silly perjoratives and insults (though these are much fewer now days with the 5 strikes law in the forum).

 

Personally, IMO if you are going to criticize something, you should do so objectively with some coherant and believable data to support your criticism AND you should offer solutions for said criticsim. All that said....none of us should expect game changes to result from any suggestion we make. Want it? SURE Expect it? NO.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Andryah

[Goretzu]

As an original and long playing DAoC player, I disagree with you. It was always about leveling up to play RvR and RvR had consequences to a realm... but more importantly there was genuine Realm pride driving multiple large scale RvR actions pretty much 7/24 across huge interconnected zones. The consequence of objectives developed the realm pride into creation and persistence.

 

No such animal has ever existed in this MMO so far. Honestly, given the state of the MMO player base these days, I'm not sure anyone can recreate true RealmVRealm style play again. EVE kind of has a lock on the audience for this sort of thing, and 8 years of faux wars in WoW have trained half a generation to not even know it if they saw it.

 

Then you'll remember that DAoC was sorely lacking in those things orginally, so at what point did DAoC get "RvR" in your opinion?

 

WAR was lacking even more for even longer, at what point did that finally get "RvR" in your opinion?

 

SWTOR had RvR, just horrible and stunted RvR, but RvR is what it was, no matter how much you try to pretend it wasn't.

 

DAoC didn't even really invent RvR (although it coined the phrase and the trademark) factional EQ PvP servers really did that.

[TUXs]

I think the devs are just waiting until we yell ourselves out on the grocery store floor before picking us up and giving us the communication we deserve. Unfortunately, the forumtrolls will never go away long enough.

 

Dude...seriously?! You HONESTLY think they're just trying to teach us a lesson??? The people you call trolls, are actual paying customers...of which 2 million+ have left. Your assumption that it'll all get better if the complaints stop is just bizarre!

[ItchyThePenguin]

Which, of course, is the entire point of my original response.

 

The Devs don't come to the forums anymore, because all they see are the same people complaining about the same things - and whenever anyone posts something to the contrary, the ad hominem attacks and vitriol begins about being a "fanboy" and being "blind" to EA's faults.

 

if people would actually have constructive conversations without calling names or being insulting, they may be more inclined to read.

 

We can't act like spoiled brats and expect to accomplish anything. For anyone with children, you know that the second a tantrum is thrown, whatever the kid wants is completely off the table. Failure to do this teaches the child that tantrum = you get what you want, so they're more inclined to throw one in the future.

 

I think the devs are just waiting until we yell ourselves out on the grocery store floor before picking us up and giving us the communication we deserve. Unfortunately, the forumtrolls will never go away long enough.

 

Exactly! And even when a BioWare employee actually takes the time to reply to something it's not at unusual for some people to insult the employee!

 

And as the oldest of five kids I completely agree with the part in bold!

 

 

I agree. But I also understand that, for some people, posting on these forums isn't a "common" thing and many times, those "rants" are a result of months of frustration. I try to be forgiving of peoples 'tone' when they're frustrated. Rather than attacking the player, I try to figure out the gist of their complaint and proceed from there.

 

Oh, sure, sure, I can agree with that somewhat. But, in my opinion, frustration is no excuse for a lot of the immature and vitriolic nature of a lot of these complaint posts.

 

I pretty much agree with this. Even when we get a good discussion going on a topic, with real and fairly objective pros and cons.... people come flying in with crazy hyperbole and silly perjoratives and insults (though these are much fewer now days with the 5 strikes law in the forum).

 

Personally, if you are going to criticize something, you should do so objectively with some coherant and believable data to support your criticism AND you should offer solutions for said criticsim. All that said....none of us should expect game changes to result from any suggestion we make. Want it? SURE Expect it? NO.

 

Unfortunately, I think that you may be right, Andryah. Even if we could all behave ourselves and calmly an rationally discuss a given topic I doubt that we would see much result from any discussion.

[Andryah]

Dude...seriously?! You HONESTLY think they're just trying to teach us a lesson??? The people you call trolls, are actual paying customers...of which 2 million+ have left. Your assumption that it'll all get better if the complaints stop is just bizarre!

 

I think you missed the point that was being made.

 

You cannot reason with the tantrum thrower, until tantrum passes and sanity returns. This not only true with chilren, its true with adults as well. All he was saying is they are waiting out the tantrum behavior. Really, not so much waiting it out as much as refusing to engage until a sane conversation can be had. Even today... a year after launch and when most of the really bad tantrum throwers are long gone.... any thread in the forum here a developer actually posts any content (which is usually in the PTS forums now days).. it's gets more then it's fair share of drive-bys, rages, and tantrums.

[United_Strafes]

The whole "SWG" talk always makes me laugh, like 5 ppl played that game, I never even heard of it until this game got released.

[TUXs]

The whole "SWG" talk always makes me laugh, like 5 ppl played that game, I never even heard of it until this game got released.

 

Just to add to that...

 

Having played the game and being a HUGE fan of the space portion of it, in all my time getting Ace pilot status (multiple times) on several toons, I can count the number of other players I actually randomly encountered in space on my hands. It was AMAZING!!!! But there was nothing to do and too few people did it. I just fear that even IF Bioware introduces something similar, it'll be greatly underutilized by the majority of people.

[Andryah]

Having played the game and being a HUGE fan of the space portion of it, in all my time getting Ace pilot status (multiple times) on several toons, I can count the number of other players I actually randomly encountered in space on my hands. It was AMAZING!!!! But there was nothing to do and too few people did it. I just fear that even IF Bioware introduces something similar, it'll be greatly underutilized by the majority of people.

 

I agree with your assessment that if they make space in this game like SWG space, it will be under-utilized ..... AND over-criticized.

 

But at least we know where half of the SWG alumi will be. The other half will be in the forums complaining about wanting player generated cities on deserted planets.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Andryah

[Goretzu]

I agree with your assessment that if they make space in this game like SWG space, it will be under-utilized ..... AND over-criticized.

 

But at least we know where half of the SWG alumi will be. The other half will be in the forums complaining about wanting player generated cities on deserted planets.

 

 

I'll never understand why people think Bioware EA couldn't make a much BETTER version of JTL, it's pretty clear where JTLs weakness were, it wouldn't be too hard to avoid them and build on its strengths and indeed add new strengths entirely.

 

It's not like JTL was in any way perfect. Why do people have such utter lack of any faith in Bioware?

Edited December 3, 2012 by Goretzu

[DarthVespid]

The OP does make some great points, however Sturm has

basically "Hit the nail" in regards to developers engaging in

discussions covering unreleased new content.

 

... they simply do not for the reason of liability and fault.

 

However, it seems to me that the main point being made by

most of the replies in not only just this thread, but many other

posts on a variety of topics is this:

 

EA/Bioware claims to listen to and adhere to Customer Feedback

and Suggestions (as any company/Corp. selling sweet nothings would),

however the end result and production reflects anything BUT

what the provided Customer Feedback suggests.

 

Most of us, (not all) have openly stated that we "wanted" a

more open style, free space SWG JTL form of interactive

starship (space) content. However, I do recall early

remarks made by EA/BW that they never intended to copy

or emulate a similar system as SWG JTL for their own

space content as they wanted to provide a newer, more

fast paced, story driven, personal starship experience.

(In truth I find that entire direction of space content to be

hypocritical seeing as the entire game dynamic is a

storymode WoW clone!)

 

Now whether or not they delivered on this or were considered

to be "successful" in this endeavor is not for me to say, nor

will I presume on behalf of the player base. Instead I will let

the current state of the game factor in the above claim to

Customer Feedback...

 

The largest cost development MMO of our time themed

after one of the greatest sci-fi franchises of our time

doomed to fail within the very first year of its release,

only to be forced into a desperate Free to Play market

in a fleeting attempt to recoup incredible developmental

costs and profit loss.

 

... the writing is on the wall...

... and I think you know how the story ends...

We the Customers continue to ask for apples and they, the

Developers, continue to provide oranges. Yet no one at EA/BW

seems to recall that another Starwars themed MMO provided

those same oranges that no one wanted. The end of this tragic

story... the customer set sail to far away MMOs to search for

apples of their very own, while the abandoned developers who

did not heed their warnings drowned in a sea of oranges.

 

The End...

 

[ and to the earlier reply of taking an 8 mo. break to lessen

ones expectations and find enjoyment in the game again...

I am right there with you! I too recently came back but I

approached my return much like I would a Jason Statham

movie... never to expect an oscar winning performance or a

screenplay story of any merit... just some mild entertainment

to fill the time.]

 

See you all in game...

[TUXs]

I'll never understand why people think Bioware EA couldn't make a much BETTER version of JTL, it's pretty clear where JTLs weakness were, it wouldn't be too hard to avoid them and build on its strengths and indeed add new strengths entirely.

 

It's not like JTL was in any way perfect. Why do people have such utter lack of any faith in Bioware?

 

Uh...have you played this game?!

 

My faith in Bioware ever doing anything "better" than someone else did, is long gone. Don't get me wrong...I enjoy this game, but I don't think there's even a slight chance Bioware could do better than JTL did. I hope I'm wrong...I'd love to be pleasantly surprised by Bioware.