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AscendingSky

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I was wondering when someone was going to post about this. That's actually pretty bad because Larry and the folks over at Massively OP were big fans of the game. They would even defend it when everyone else was criticizing it.

 

Add that to the fact that the population on the servers I play on is noticeably smaller and it appears this game has reached a critical moment.

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It's very easy for the devs to dismiss player feedback here in the forums in a patronizing 'just wait, they'll see how good it is and come around in time' so it's very nice to see feedback happening in the press in a way they can't censor or pass off to higher ups.

 

The additional 100 levels was, to me, mind boggling and the complete opposite of what they need to do to address everyone's concerns around the failed experiment known as CXP. I get that they need to save face and won't roll back - there's obviously too much time invested and, I suspect, future code branched off this base but to really embrace the 'when you're in too deep to escape go deeper' mindset is just....foolhardy.

 

I have 25 alts on one server alone - I've barely touched them since CXP and playing my main doesn't even register as fun - its an obligation centred around whatever has the highest CXP payoff. Been here since beta but CXP and the rinse/repeat storyline between KOTET and KOTFE (basically the same recycled story with a strong female lead) has left me heading back to SWG emulators and console shopping.

Edited by Sir-steve
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I get that they need to save face and won't roll back - there's obviously too much time invested and, I suspect, future code branched off this base but to really embrace the 'when you're in too deep to escape go deeper' mindset is just....foolhardy.
Cue Doc Brown ... Marty! :D

 

Lest I digress. A similar quote from the movie 'The International' lends proper perspective to this debacle: "When there is no way out, find a deeper way in." If this statement is true and there truly is no way out, then there really is nowhere for this to go but down. I too have been here since beta, and I too find this painful to watch. Especially for how much I put into this game's coffers.

 

Anyway, the article is pretty spot on imho with everything except Galactic Command's merits. It's a lottery-based single-player RPG achievement system and has no place in the MMO space as either a multiplayer progression system or a loot disbursement system. It's a cheap square peg they're trying to fit into a round hole.

Edited by GalacticKegger
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I was wondering when someone was going to post about this. That's actually pretty bad because Larry and the folks over at Massively OP were big fans of the game. They would even defend it when everyone else was criticizing it.

 

Add that to the fact that the population on the servers I play on is noticeably smaller and it appears this game has reached a critical moment.

 

I was passed the link to the article from a friend of mine in the RP community on Ebon Hawk. She's decided to move on to ESO. Other people who commented on her post about the article have moved on to other MMOs as well. When even players who are primarily roleplayers are dropping subscriptions because the system for gearing is just so damn terrible that they don't even want to deal with it and find it frustrating, you know it's bad.

Edited by AscendingSky
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I was passed the link to the article from a friend of mine in the RP community on Ebon Hawk. She's decided to move on to ESO. Other people who commented on her post about the article have moved on to other MMOs as well. When even players who are primarily roleplayers are dropping subscriptions because the system for gearing is just so damn terrible that they don't even want to deal with it and find it frustrating, you know it's bad.
To be fair, I don't think it's just about gearing. A lot of folks like me primarily play for the story.

 

However, as others have pointed out, it's a massive grind without a massive drop of new content. So anyone that does care about gear is forced to do content that has been out for years. Repeatedly. And that's just bad design all the way around.

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Good riddance. I've read his articles because he's a respected author but I never really enjoyed the articles too much. I especially remember his interview with the BIoWare devs where he mispelled Kephess as Kephas. Seriously, if he really was as big of a raider as he claimed, he'd have known how to spell the boss. In any case, it's a little unexpected that he quits but not very surprising. Edited by Jerba
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... where he mispelled Kephess as Kephas. ...

IMO that's a bit nitpicky. FWIW "Kephas" is really close to Ciphas (TFB council fight) so maybe he conflated the two.

 

Also, was it an actual meatspace meeting or did they chat over email? Could have been a cut&paste quote. Would not surprise me in the least that Boyd pooched it.

 

Regardless let me just pull this howler from the article:

Maclean explained: “We knew that in order to do this right we would have to go back to the core game and change it. We would have to change the way the core game felt. Change it to less of -- as it was at the time -- more grindy-leveling MMO game to a BioWare storytelling game, to change the core game into an RPG.

:eek: oh... mah... dog...

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