Goals for Addressing Server Concerns

[Glower]

This is worse than vaguebooking...

 

We are doing announce to announce you about our next announce. Hey Xzibit!

Edited December 16, 2014 by Glower

[Suromir]

So your "promised update by the end of the year" is to tell us we have to wait for an update??

 

Sorry....Eric. This is nothing but talking in circles and telling us what you already did...it is NOT the "promised update" you...promised. No matter how you want to spin it for PR, sir.

 

And you wonder why so many criticize you guys.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Suromir

[MiaRB]

So your "promised update by the end of the year" is to tell us we have to wait for an update??

 

Sorry....Eric. This is nothing but talking in circles and telling us what you already did...it is NOT the "promised update" you...promised. No matter how you want to spin it for PR, sir.

 

And you wonder why so many criticize you guys.

 

this is why so many devs from so many games shy away from saying anything at all. they say something, circumstances change, then they get people like you posting this type of stuff. "you promiced!!!!"

[Glower]

this is why so many devs from so many games shy away from saying anything at all. they say something, circumstances change, then they get people like you posting this type of stuff. "you promiced!!!!"

 

Sounds like this is for the first time for swtor devs. Yeah right...

[BadOrb]

If I lose my toon names with a mega server merger I'm outta here. Thanks for the fish.

 

Yeah the same here , really can't handle going through all that yet again. Easy solution ( well the idea of a solution ) is to have a unique number for every user , it can be hidden and then keep all our character names as is. I think PSO2 does that pretty well really.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[Raphael_diSanto]

Honestly, I've never understood why character names need to be unique anyway. There are MMO systems out there that use systems wherein each player has a unique ID (and you can use that to send tells or mail or whatever), but the names of their characters don't have to be.

 

I much prefer the freedom of those systems.

[Raansu]

Honestly, I've never understood why character names need to be unique anyway. There are MMO systems out there that use systems wherein each player has a unique ID (and you can use that to send tells or mail or whatever), but the names of their characters don't have to be.

 

I much prefer the freedom of those systems.

 

The legacy system can do exactly that.

[Savej]

So your "promised update by the end of the year" is to tell us we have to wait for an update??

 

Sorry....Eric. This is nothing but talking in circles and telling us what you already did...it is NOT the "promised update" you...promised. No matter how you want to spin it for PR, sir.

 

And you wonder why so many criticize you guys.

 

This is basically what he said he would do in his prior comments. What we ended up getting is more than I thought we would. But I'm disappointed that he's expanded the time frame from Bruce in early Oct saying "maybe by 3.0" to "sometime in 2015".

Edited December 16, 2014 by Savej

[Drockter]

The legacy system can do exactly that.

 

From what I understand, the Legacy names are not unique.

 

IIRC; you cant have the same character name, but can have the same legacy name (personally I have thought this is backwards).

 

My Legacy name is what I want to be unique... since that identifies my account... I also think we should be able to friend legacies, whisper legacies, etc. I find it odd that if I start a new character, I essentially have to copy down my friends list, and re-friend them. Friends/Ignores should be legacy wide. For that matter, they should be faction neutral.

[Raphael_diSanto]

From what I understand, the Legacy names are not unique.

 

IIRC; you cant have the same character name, but can have the same legacy name (personally I have thought this is backwards).

 

My Legacy name is what I want to be unique... since that identifies my account... I also think we should be able to friend legacies, whisper legacies, etc. I find it odd that if I start a new character, I essentially have to copy down my friends list, and re-friend them. Friends/Ignores should be legacy wide. For that matter, they should be faction neutral.

Yeah, I'd love that.

 

I'd also love for them to make custom chat channels invite-only and cross-faction. But I've been beating -that- dead horse for years. (Since closed beta, really)

[Drockter]

custom chat channels invite-only and cross-faction.

 

I'm on that bandwagon...

 

Honestly, I hope this is what he meant with the social component of the update.

[Raphael_diSanto]

I'm on that bandwagon...

 

Honestly, I hope this is what he meant with the social component of the update.

 

I hope so too. It would be even MOAR AWESOME if they made custom channels cross-server, as well. Hell, even EQ did this, 15 years ago.

 

I play MMOs for the social aspect. I tend to solo, mostly. But I solo while chatting to my friends who are also usually off soloing. I'm very talkative, what can I say?

 

And I'd love to invite friends who are on a different server into my chat channel, so we can all chat it up while making little pixel guys fall over.

[DomiSotto]

Personally I hope, if regional mega servers really should happen, that they don't enforce localization. Optional transfers yes, but if they enforce regions (e.g. for legal purposes, or simply maintenance windows) with forced transfers I'm definitely out.

 

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that people have to transfer somewhere, all I want is that they open an option to transfer from a EU to NAM or vice-versa for those who would want to and would happily pay for it.

 

The other pet peeve of mine is having only one Legacy Name.

 

I am kindda hoping that we can have first name and last name for each character that shows up on the name tag independent of the Legacy Name that has to be unique or an account number/ID. That would be totally awesome. I understand, the mailing might become a bit of a headache though.

 

I dunno, I am not going quit or anything no matter what they do, even if I have to rename each and every one of my characters.

[Savej]

The main issue with non-unique names is "how do you send commands to a user" - how do you send tells or invites or ignores to a user if you can't see his unique identifier in a chat window? And how can you give a player a unique id based on a legacy name without compromising their privacy if a player wants to keep two character's separate for whatever reazon? Other games solved this but it's a programming hurdle which touches many different systems.

 

Personally, I would give every character a license plate - make it visible on mouse over in chat or as a toggleable option on name plates. Send tells and ignores and emails to the license plate #s and not the character name. Then everyone could have whatever name they want to which is really how it should be. Players could then choose to share their license plate id's amongst some or all of their characters or generate unique ones for each character. Systems like that are much easier to build into a new game than phase into an old one, but some have done it and I have a feeling this one is moving towards something like that.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Savej

[BadOrb]

So we already have megaservers , will they now become super-megaservers ? Noticed lots speaking of megaservers you see and we are on them now.

 

Anyway , let's hope whatever it is they do that it works really well.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[Drockter]

The main issue with non-unique names is "how do you send commands to a user" - how do you send tells or invites or ignores to a user if you can't see his unique identifier in a chat window? And how can you give a player a unique id based on a legacy name without compromising their privacy if a player wants to keep two character's separate for whatever reazon? Other games solved this but it's a programming hurdle which touches many different systems.

 

Personally, I would give every character a license plate - make it visible on mouse over in chat or as a toggleable option on name plates. Send tells and ignores and emails to the license plate #s and not the character name. Then everyone could have whatever name they want to which is really how it should be. Players could then choose to share their license plate id's amongst some or all of their characters or generate unique ones for each character. Systems like that are much easier to build into a new game than phase into an old one, but some have done it and I have a feeling this one is moving towards something like that.

 

See I think a unique Legacy name would accomplish this... for example; STO does this... there can be 100,000 Bob's... but only 1 bob@drockter.

 

I can friend @drocter, or pm @drockter... whichever character he is on.. would get the PM... they are still my friend... I can still see if they are online (even online in another faction).

[LyraineAlei]

See I think a unique Legacy name would accomplish this... for example; STO does this... there can be 100,000 Bob's... but only 1 bob@drockter.

 

I can friend @drocter, or pm @drockter... whichever character he is on.. would get the PM... they are still my friend... I can still see if they are online (even online in another faction).

 

That is what I have a main issue with having things like @username or legacy names that are fully unique. What if that other player just wants to play the game without his/her friends knowing s/he is even online?

[Heezdedjim]

See I think a unique Legacy name would accomplish this... for example; STO does this... there can be 100,000 Bob's... but only 1 bob@drockter.

That ship has sailed, when they changed Legacy Name to be non-unique. And it never was globally unique anyway, only per-server. So it never provided a globally unique handle like the one in STO does. They could have put something like the @Handle in from the start to make all these renaming problems into non-issues. But they didn't, so now they have a problem that they'll have to deal with in order to make further merges painless and allow everyone to play in the same namespace with existing names.

 

The most obvious alternative would be kludging the server name into the mix somewhere, like they did with guild names during the past merges, except for everyone. So you would be "Bob Drockter@Jung Ma" or whatever.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Heezdedjim

[Drockter]

Is it just me, or was this whole naming system a little short sighted?

 

Ok... So;

 

Character Names are not unique

Legacy Names are not unique

 

Lets go with the @Handle mentioned... why not use the account name then... those are definitely unique. Give the player the option to set the handle (must be unique across the entire game (all servers), minimally they will have their account name as their handle?

[Heezdedjim]

Lets go with the @Handle mentioned... why not use the account name then... those are definitely unique. Give the player the option to set the handle (must be unique across the entire game (all servers), minimally they will have their account name as their handle?

I think they're more likely to add a new in-game handle and require people to set it, to keep it distinct from the account name that you use to login to the game. They've gone to some lengths to keep the various forms of player identity separate from each other already, and exposing the login name to other players inside the game is not going to go over well with a lot of people.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Heezdedjim

[azudelphi]

When...every dev post I've ever seen basically says "No cross-server". Believe it or not, cross-server is harder than a merge.

 

And I didn't say it was easier. I merely said it's possible. Not probable, not likely, nor deluding myself into a false sense of hope that this is what they are working on... merely saying that within the tech Bioware has alluded that they could do it with sufficient resources allocated to working that type of system within the engine's architecture.

 

That's all...

[LyraineAlei]

I think they're more likely to add a new in-game handle and require people to set it, to keep it distinct from the account name that you use to login to the game. They've gone to some lengths to keep the various forms of player identity separate from each other already, and exposing the login name to other players inside the game is not going to go over well with a lot of people.

Agree

I can see mine now on my main: Lyraine Alei@LyraineAlei

 

Eugh, no. And I would loose all of my legacy names, Darkwaters, Alei, Giaious... A few others I don't remember offhand and away from the game, to be replaced by one legacy name.

(The below is not in direct response to the quoted)

And one Legacy name? *shudders* That would make a large, ugly tree that I wouldnt be able to show who is/isn't also friends with whom.

 

Ex. Lyraine and Marockluxson (will be renamed eventually) are married. Lyraine is friends with Sophria, Aishilynne, Chisher, Spryte, Eizzey. Marock is friends with Nysteria, Pixil, Posheri, Miri-esire.

 

Of course, not enough "Allies" spots there alone, but wait, it gets bigger.

 

Spryte and Chisher are married, Aish is their daughter. Eizzey and Posheri are in an on-off relationship, with Eiz being the sister of Ahnauh. Eizzey and Aish get along great, but Chisher disapproves of his daughter's friendship with a smuggler.

 

Sophria and Aidelais are child and parent, but Ad works for Spryte, and So dislikes Sith. So adopted Pixil's little sister, but Pixil doesn't like that So's a bounty hunter. Pixil and Jarote are brother and sister, and Jarote and Sophria are allies.

 

See? I have pages going on and on like this, in a paper notebook, because the current set up of the legacy tree doesn't expand as far.

Edited December 16, 2014 by LyraineAlei

[Drockter]

I think they're more likely to add a new in-game handle and require people to set it, to keep it distinct from the account name that you use to login to the game. They've gone to some lengths to keep the various forms of player identity separate from each other already, and exposing the login name to other players inside the game is not going to go over well with a lot of people.

 

With the new name, again the war begins over who got whos name because they signed in first.

 

This is why I think they were a little short sighted with names... legacy should have been the "unique" ID across all servers... already in game, player controlled, not linked to account name in anyway that others can see.

 

Well, we'll see what comes next

[Drockter]

I see what you are saying LyraineAlei... but honestly, if in order to move forward we have to create a system that works for you specifically, It'll never get done.

 

I admire your RP skills, but that shouldn't hold up improvements for the rest of the population.

[Raansu]

So we already have megaservers , will they now become super-megaservers ? Noticed lots speaking of megaservers you see and we are on them now.

 

Anyway , let's hope whatever it is they do that it works really well.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

 

What we have right now are not megaservers. That crap was PR talk to make it seem less bad when they dropped from 150 US servers to....8 because almost all their servers except like 4 of them were completely empty. I remember some people were saying they'd log in and there would be maybe 2 people max on the fleet and their daily for pvp would take them a month. They'd be lucky to get 1 queue pop a night.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Raansu