Originally posted by Squidi Originally posted by xPaladin
The levels in SWG are an artificial form of content. They're designed (in theory) to guide players from place to place, to experience the different planets worth of content as they level. Thing is, the planets are still practically sans-content. In order for the NGE to be a success, every planet in the game would have to rival Kashyyyk or Mustafar in terms of quests, POIs, and generally cool niches. So, in trying to address a big issue, they failed to acknowledge the smaller ones. This looks even worse in light of the FACT that they were aware of content being a #1 issue for a very long time.
I think they ARE addressing this with the legacy quests. Already, I've been to locations on Tattooine and Naboo that I rarely spent any time in (if any at all). Rori is about to get a really big POI itself. I believe the efforts are there to move this stuff onto the more adventurous planets, but the core three had to be taken care of first. Having an empty Endor is not nearly as bad as an empty Naboo. The big problem here is that many of you are vets with level 80+ characters and this content isn't designed for you and it won't be challenging or interesting at your level. I absolutely recommend taking an alt through the legacy quests at least once.
During my trial, I rolled a spy with the free character slot I was given. Since I was using an old account, I was able to get off the space station. I started the legacy quests and spent a couple days on it. It was actually doing the legacy quests that caused me to stop playing the game mid-trial.
Quests are a good thing, if done properly. In my opinion, the legacy quests were not. I found them to be incredibly boring and filled with pointless and risk free travel. I have quite a few ideas on how to improve them, and I think I will post that tomorrow, that will give me some time to form the thoughts into a coherent message.
The devs never made an honest effort to build PreCU up. They never made real efforts at balance. They never really attempted to add content. They never tried to fix bugs.
These are the reasons people left. SOE, being SOE, failed to deliver product. They released a buggy game they never finished. Then instead of working with what they had they decided to WoWify the game.
They never gave PreCU a chance. All they did was unbalance and break things. The deliberate bait-n-switch of Trials of ObiWan expansion was a flagrant grab at cash. These tactics would be a real issue in a brick and mortar company but since were online we can be ignored and banned.
Originally posted by InspGadgt I agree in the respect that something needed to be done. But the NGE was not it. Due to the NGE the game hemoraged players faster then it would have had they left it alone.
It was a calculated risk, I think, but they didn't spend enough time factoring in how greatly the public perception of a second CU being sprung on an ususpecting population would affect it. I don't blame the NGE for the player exodus. I blame SOE's apparent betrayal of trust - in actuality, I think they kept it from the players because the decision to launch it so soon wasn't well thought out. If they had more time, rather than trying to get the NGE launched for Christmas, maybe they could've done it better. I still say it was the NGE rather then their betrayal. We've delt with and been mad at SOE's betrayal of trust many times in the past but kept on playing. But add that to a system that didn't work well at launch and used a combat system that most of the vets were strongly opposed to and you have a recipie for disaster. And that's what they got. I didn't leave SWG because of the betrayal of trust...I was/am extremely pissed about it...but I left because they took out the diversity, took out my favorite profession, and implemented a poor combat system. If I want to play a shooter game I go play America's Army or Raven Shield, not SWG.
They needed to allow more testing time on their tweaks in search of balance and stopped putting such an emphasis on balance because there was no way they could ever truely achieve it under the old system. But that's all right. Most players were quite content with the way the balance was and played classes not because they were uber powerfull but because they were fun.
I don't know where you were during this time, but the SWG forums were whining as much as they ever did (I don't think Smugglers have ever stopped). Many people were thrilled with the CU because it brought back grouping and meant that they saw people in armor different than composite. I think a lot of people were upset at the loss of uberness though. It's usually better to not let people taste God Mode in the first place, lest they get upset when you take it away to make the game fair and more varied.
Yes people were whining a ton...people always do. But despite the whining people were still playing and enjoying it. The problem here is overreaction on the part of the devs as I state below. By never fully testing changes to push them out fast and satisfy their customers they neglected quality control hugely and their effect on other professions. Slowing things down yeah you would have still had the whining but it would have lessened the more things got fixed properly! I agree with you on the CU assessment. I enjoyed it much for those reasons. The only issues I really had with the CU was that the armor values were wrong. Scouts should have had kenetic protection against the critters that attacked them while scouting while the battle masters should have had the energy protection. Also since grouping was highly encouraged again decreasing the group size down to 8 was a big mistake. Especially for the CH's who between himself and his pets would take up half the group slots. Had they been slower with their testing to fully see what impact the changes were having there wouldn't have been this yo-yo patch/publish effect they had going. Also to bring excitement back into the game they could have started with just bringing back the GCW. The story arcs in the old GCW were a lot of fun and really helped make the game unique.
I think they stopped the story arcs because they required too much manpower when the game still desperately needed help. The first dozen publishes were adding in features promised on the box (creature mounts, vehicles, player cities) and revamping most of the classes (droid engineer, jedi, creature handler, squad leader, bounty hunter, chef, adding wookiee armor, the CU, etc). I think that with the NGE, they've finally got things to a managable level where they can once again turn towards things like content and events without worrying about how uber class X will ruin everybody else's fun.
I recall that's exactly the reason they stopped the story arcs...required too much man power. And if stopping them allowed them to truely fix the game I would have agreed with it, but it didn't. They said that reducing the professions in the NGE would make it easier to manage...yet with every publish they still manage to break things. Not only that but the problems are identified on TC by the players and reported. But instead of delaying the patch until all the problems are hashed out they push it live full of bugs. TC has become a show case for what's coming out next and not a place of true testing.
Quests are a good thing, if done properly. In my opinion, the legacy quests were not. I found them to be incredibly boring and filled with pointless and risk free travel. I have quite a few ideas on how to improve them, and I think I will post that tomorrow, that will give me some time to form the thoughts into a coherent message.
How far did you get in the Legacy quests? Tattoine was rather terrible. Basically involved driving 7k between two points. One part actually makes you drive 3k to a base, kill TWO guys, drive back, only to get a quest to drive back to the base!
Once you get to Naboo, the quests become a lot more dungeon orientated with far less travel (except outside Deeja Peek, which was annoying). They aren't all winners, but there are a few quests from Naboo and one from Corellia which have stuck with me. One involved following the steps of a spy who crossed the line, one was a dungeon filled with elite battle droids, a rancor, and a gold elite acklay, and another had me tracking down the whereabouts of lost hikers. There were a few really good quests in there mixed in with what is largely filler. Tattoine is almost all filler, unfortunately, but I feel they hit their stride on Naboo.
First, there weren't levels for lowbies to worry about. The levels were a side affect of shoddy CU implementation. I used the term "high level" because there's barely any other way to describe it.
A newbie wasn't going to have doctor buffs, high quality composite armor, and the skills required to take down creatures on Dathomir. If not level based, there was still an economy of capability. It was actually worse pre-CU because the crafters targeted high level equipment at outrageously inflated prices that vets could pay, but a newbie could barely afford even a modified CDEF pistol and some armor that wasn't crafter trash from somebody grinding to master. They didn't understand that you can't even wear composite due to the restrictions it puts on your HAM bars and would end up incapping themselves just doing simple attack skills.
There just wasn't enough stuff for players to do, thus content. I hit master smuggler a month and a half (?) after launch, and then had "nothing" to do. I more or less hung around, doing the occasional odd thing. I felt I was getting my money worth at least, because the rest of the environment (social/crafting) had plenty to do. I had my place.
The biggest change in the NGE is that the combat professions became less hybrid. Before, a smuggler could craft spices and slice equipment. Now they are just combat. However, they are slowly getting that stuff in the game, beginning primarily with player bounties. Publish 30, I think, should have smuggling entering the game for the first time in... well... ever. It remains to be seen how giving unique gameplay to each class will yield varied endgame material, but at least Bounty Hunters are taken care of at the moment.
But that's me. Instead, I could've been smuggling. Or raiding PvP bases (a la DAoC). Or questing. Or any number of other things that SWG never had and (unfortunately) will never have.
Questing is in the game - you've got the legacy quests, Kashyyyk, Mustafar, and space. PvP bases were in the game and are going to be revamped for a future publish, and like I said, Smuggling is set for a publish in the near future, though no details are available yet. The past six months have been spent getting the NGE working. I think they've finally turned the corner and are now focusing on adding new gameplay and content. That's a good thing.
Second, yeah, Jedi turned a lot of people (including myself) off once the holocrons entered the picture. But for the longest time, players (again including myself) were enfatuated with the notion of an organic Jedi system. Was it foolish? Sure, in retrospect. But a great many players hounded the Jedi boards posting theories and this and that. That is until the path was revealed, and the flood gates opened.
That is the problem all mysteries have. Once they are solved, they stop being fun. Lost would not nearly be as interesting as it is if we knew what was going on, and I dare suggest that once we do find out the big secret, we'll be quite disappointed. But it's the speculation and thrill of discover which drives it. The only problem is that it has to end some time - either because you figure it out or you get tired of not having answers. Jedi was a cliff that the game had to drive off of someday. That it got as far as it did is impressive, I think.
The stuff that they did add was decent, but they didn't add enough. Arguably, the game shipped with so little content that even their most admirable efforts could not possibly fill the void.
This is true. They shouldn't have launched with so many empty planets and instead concentrated on making them as filled and interesting as possible. Unfortunately, they rushed SWG out the door and have never really recovered from it. But that's not the fault of the CU or NGE. Those were attempts to recover. And like I said, I think the NGE has turned the corner. I think in another six months, SWG will have overcome the this very thing which has been keeping it back since launch.
Originally posted by Squidi Originally posted by KenshuAni
Quests are a good thing, if done properly. In my opinion, the legacy quests were not. I found them to be incredibly boring and filled with pointless and risk free travel. I have quite a few ideas on how to improve them, and I think I will post that tomorrow, that will give me some time to form the thoughts into a coherent message.
How far did you get in the Legacy quests? Tattoine was rather terrible. Basically involved driving 7k between two points. One part actually makes you drive 3k to a base, kill TWO guys, drive back, only to get a quest to drive back to the base!
Once you get to Naboo, the quests become a lot more dungeon orientated with far less travel (except outside Deeja Peek, which was annoying). They aren't all winners, but there are a few quests from Naboo and one from Corellia which have stuck with me. One involved following the steps of a spy who crossed the line, one was a dungeon filled with elite battle droids, a rancor, and a gold elite acklay, and another had me tracking down the whereabouts of lost hikers. There were a few really good quests in there mixed in with what is largely filler. Tattoine is almost all filler, unfortunately, but I feel they hit their stride on Naboo.
I did not get to any naboo quest. I vaguely remember having to go to Dantooine for something (involved going to a cave), but I'm fairly certain that was for one of my elder toons.
However, that isn't the point. A good movie/TV show, for example, has that first act that is designed to catch your attention. I guess the "rescue" from the empire by Han Solo was supposed to be the catch... However, that just turned me off, as I had rolled my toon with the intention of being an Imperial. So why would I leave with Han? I actually would have guided him to a bunch of STs and helped the STs to blast him out of the sky. Too bad that wasn't an option.
The initial quests should have been filled with interesting stories, not learning how to operate things. Learning to play the game should have been the function of the space station.
Aaarrrgh...I want to start typing out my ideas, but I don't have time and I need to organize them first.
Comments
During my trial, I rolled a spy with the free character slot I was given. Since I was using an old account, I was able to get off the space station. I started the legacy quests and spent a couple days on it. It was actually doing the legacy quests that caused me to stop playing the game mid-trial.
Quests are a good thing, if done properly. In my opinion, the legacy quests were not. I found them to be incredibly boring and filled with pointless and risk free travel. I have quite a few ideas on how to improve them, and I think I will post that tomorrow, that will give me some time to form the thoughts into a coherent message.
These are the reasons people left. SOE, being SOE, failed to deliver product. They released a buggy game they never finished. Then instead of working with what they had they decided to WoWify the game.
They never gave PreCU a chance. All they did was unbalance and break things.
The deliberate bait-n-switch of Trials of ObiWan expansion was a flagrant grab at cash. These tactics would be a real issue in a brick and mortar company but since were online we can be ignored and banned.
SOE sucks ass. Plain and simple.
Snake-Eyes
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The Bounty Hunter Juggernaut
Once you get to Naboo, the quests become a lot more dungeon orientated with far less travel (except outside Deeja Peek, which was annoying). They aren't all winners, but there are a few quests from Naboo and one from Corellia which have stuck with me. One involved following the steps of a spy who crossed the line, one was a dungeon filled with elite battle droids, a rancor, and a gold elite acklay, and another had me tracking down the whereabouts of lost hikers. There were a few really good quests in there mixed in with what is largely filler. Tattoine is almost all filler, unfortunately, but I feel they hit their stride on Naboo.
Once you get to Naboo, the quests become a lot more dungeon orientated with far less travel (except outside Deeja Peek, which was annoying). They aren't all winners, but there are a few quests from Naboo and one from Corellia which have stuck with me. One involved following the steps of a spy who crossed the line, one was a dungeon filled with elite battle droids, a rancor, and a gold elite acklay, and another had me tracking down the whereabouts of lost hikers. There were a few really good quests in there mixed in with what is largely filler. Tattoine is almost all filler, unfortunately, but I feel they hit their stride on Naboo.
I did not get to any naboo quest. I vaguely remember having to go to Dantooine for something (involved going to a cave), but I'm fairly certain that was for one of my elder toons.
However, that isn't the point. A good movie/TV show, for example, has that first act that is designed to catch your attention. I guess the "rescue" from the empire by Han Solo was supposed to be the catch... However, that just turned me off, as I had rolled my toon with the intention of being an Imperial. So why would I leave with Han? I actually would have guided him to a bunch of STs and helped the STs to blast him out of the sky. Too bad that wasn't an option.
The initial quests should have been filled with interesting stories, not learning how to operate things. Learning to play the game should have been the function of the space station.
Aaarrrgh...I want to start typing out my ideas, but I don't have time and I need to organize them first.