tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64661336915130825692024-03-13T04:17:25.322-07:00Force MeridianForce Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-49559586913371803012011-03-21T16:56:00.000-07:002011-03-21T16:56:37.179-07:00Surprise! Unscrupulous Folks Target SWTOR DevoteesFolks. As the old adage goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. <a href="http://www.swtor.com/community/member.php?u=848450">Allison Berryman</a> dropped by the forums today to kindly remind us not to fall for beta scams:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">It has come to our attention that there are multiple individuals and sites claiming to sell testing accounts, “beta keys,” or other offers of access to our Game Testing Program.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><b>All of these offers are false. BioWare is not issuing invites to Game Testing via any method other than those we outline here on SWTOR.com.</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">We must caution you that these offers are often scams designed to steal your money, credit card information, or identity. While we understand that you are eager to participate in Game Testing, your security is extremely important, and attempting to participate in these offers could put you in very real danger.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Furthermore, the sale of accounts with access to the Game Testing Program is strictly prohibited by the Game Testing Agreement.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><b>We closely monitor the activities of all accounts involved in the Game Testing Program</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">, and are quick to notice accounts that change hands. In the event that an account in the Game Testing Program does change ownership, we immediately take action to the fullest extent possible, including permanently banning the account from the Service.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">When we send out invites to the Game Testing Program, the first step is receiving an e-mail from</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><a href="mailto:no-reply@bioware.swtor.com" style="color: #708bc3; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">no-reply@bioware.swtor.com</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">. After you receive this e-mail, you will also be able to see the invitation and further instructions at</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><a href="http://www.swtor.com/tester" style="color: #708bc3; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;" target="_blank">www.swtor.com/tester</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">(if you are logged in to your account). You may encounter e-mail scams that indicate you have been invited to the Game Testing Program - please make sure to thoroughly examine the e-mail and don't click any links unless you are sure it is authentic (make sure to expand the information about the sender, and check for spelling errors or other tricks that scammers often use). If you receive an e-mail and are in doubt or are concerned about its validity, please forward your concerns to</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><a href="mailto:bwacommunitysupport@bioware.com" style="color: #708bc3; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">bwacommunitysupport@bioware.com</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">If you discover a scam pretending to offer access to the Game Testing Program, please forward all relevant information to us at</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><a href="mailto:bwacommunitysupport@bioware.com" style="color: #708bc3; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">bwacommunitysupport@bioware.com</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">. Your security and the security of your fellow community members is important to us, and we appreciate your help.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span></blockquote>It goes without saying, but don't fall victim to scams like these!Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-85069456825199113732011-03-15T06:26:00.000-07:002011-03-15T06:36:18.797-07:00Whack-A-JawaPAX has come and gone, and I'm officially more stoked than ever. <br />
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There was a flood of great news, and the Taral V Flashpoint was really something to watch. I'm sure you've seen the official one, so make sure to also check out the Darth Hater folks working their magic. Hate on!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/te6w1tsnV8M?fs=1" width="480"></iframe><br />
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We also got to listen to a number of devs shed some new light on several systems. Out of all of the goodness though, leave it to me to focus in on one tiny part - the healing. I've got a few choice quotes below courtesy of a <a href="http://darthhater.com/2011/03/12/pax-east-daniel-erickson-interview/">Darth Hater interview with Daniel Erickson</a>. Read on!<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Daniel had the following to say regarding healing:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #ff5a00;"><strong>There was some speculation on the forums about the healing capacity of each class when it comes to healing in a group. By showing off the Scoundrel as the healer, is that basically saying that the healing paths, regardless of which one of the ones you go, are all competent healers? Is the Consular healer and the Scoundrel healer on the same page for healing a Flashpoint?</strong></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Absolutely, although they heal very differently. The actual game play for them and the way that the healing feels -- and without seeing the class breakdowns, it is kind of hard to explain -- can be very different. The Scoundrel can stack various heal over times on somebody. He can actually go on his Trooper and drop three of the heal-over-time medkits on him and then kind of leave him alone for a minute, get back in, try to take some people off, go from cover, do that sort of thing. So it is a different approach than maybe you might have for the Consular, who might be taking more of a direct "Hey, hit that guy, hit that guy, hit that guy. . . ."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #ff5a00;"><strong>Whack-a-mole.</strong></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Yeah! Different classes really play their healers differently -- which is really fun. You can obviously also be as much healer or not. And this is something that is kind of a little odd, but when I go Inquisitor healing path, I don't put it all in there. I don't actually go dedicated. I actually find it works really well for how I play to maybe bring my healer CC, for me, and then do a little bit of healing on there, and then actually go a little more like, let's do some damage and get to stay in the fight.</span></blockquote>And if I might draw your attention to two more bits from a <a href="http://darthhater.com/2011/03/13/pax-east-james-ohlen-interview/">Darth Hater James Ohlen interview</a> as well:<br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #ff5a00;"><strong>One of the unique things about the setup is that it is a Republic Flashpoint and you have it set up so the Smuggler is the main healer for the group, and the Consular is throwing rocks and beating things up with telekinesis. Making sure that all the healers are viable is something that you are showing here. We also heard that because of game testing the Bounty Hunter and the Trooper are now getting healing trees. Are all these trees comparable? Could a Bounty Hunter come in and do the same thing the Smuggler is doing in Taral V in regards to being the main healer in a Flashpoint?</strong></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Yeah. We are always adjusting the game with play test feedback. We want people to easily be able to get a healer into their group because one of the problems with forming a group is making sure you have the right balance and if there aren't enough healers, then you're going to wait a long time before you can get into a Flashpoint. And that is not very fun.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">We wanted to make sure that you get that healer as soon as you want to. We're looking at making the Trooper and Bounty Hunter to be able to spec into a healer. It will probably stay that way until ship, but you never know. We're doing lots of balance changes and modifications as we continue to balance the game and get feedback, which will probably continue until after we launch the game. We probably won't make any big changes like taking a class from being a healer to not being a healer. But yeah, we're always tweaking things.</span></blockquote>And:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #ff5a00;"><strong>Once again, we're talking about the healing added to other classes, and there are PvP specs on some of these classes so all classes can be viable in PvP. You have a lot of flexibility whenever your advanced class choice is made. Is there an instance of that where you can speak to that hybridization and that flexibility? The ability to pick a class and you can be a PvP spec, you can be a DPS spec, or maybe there is a healer spec. Do all the classes have this flexibility in them?</strong></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Yeah... pretty well. Even within an advanced class you're able to spec into different roles so each class has a lot of different choices. If you're the Sith Warrior, you can go with the Juggernaut role where you have the heavy armor and you have the single lightsaber. But even then you can spec into a role where you can do more DPS, or you can go with the double lightsabers where you're very much more about the DPS. Though, of course, he can't actually heal. He is not someone you can heal with. We made sure that they're all PvP viable because obviously you don't want to pick a class or an Advanced Class and then not be able to engage in PvP or in any of our raids or Flashpoints. You need to be able to play the character you chose in any of the game play situations.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span></span></span></blockquote>Ok, so the game looks fabulous right now. Spell effects, animations, everything's come a long way. But this is BioWare, and that stuff was really going to be a given. How do folks feel about the healing, as it has been described? <br />
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<b>What we know</b>:<br />
<ol><li>The current dev intention is for all healing classes to be equally capable of healing</li>
<li>There will be some differences between healing styles</li>
<li>The <b>Smuggler / Imperial Agent</b> may be more HoT-centric in their healing approach. This does not mean they won't be able to adequately heal directly as well. It fits the cover system, in a way. Toss your HoTs out, and duck back behind your cover. Their heals consume Energy.</li>
<li>The <b>Consular / Inquisitor</b> may be more direct in their healing approach. It sounds like they have some beneficial CC capabilities also, according to Daniel. That's not to say the other 4 don't as well, of course. Their heals consume Force Points.</li>
<li>The <b>Trooper / Bounty Hunter</b> is a wild card right now. We've seen both classes rely heavily upon shields in their tanking role, so it's possible that shields may play into their healing style as well. Their heals... well, I'm assuming the Bounty Hunter's heals actually generate heat. And the Trooper, I'm not sure on. Do they somehow consume "ammo"? Healing on these classes is still brand new, so this may change. </li>
</ol><div>Ohlen had two bits though that make me somewhat nervous:</div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"We're looking at making the Trooper and Bounty Hunter to be able to spec into a healer. It will probably stay that way until ship, but you never know."</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">We probably won't make any big changes like taking a class from being a healer to not being a healer."</span></li>
</ul><br />
Undoubtedly, I'm reading too far into the first quote, but it seemed that they may not be set as to how the Trooper / BH will handle their healing duties. The second part worried me more, of course. When the Bounty Hunter was added to the Empire faction, I was pretty much sold right there and then. So faction-wise, Imperial healers are looking at those options. <br />
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Now, the next question really is going to be what's more important to you - the story of your given class or how they actually go about their healing. As crazy as I am about Bounty Hunters, I really think that if the story on the Inquisitor or Agent really captured my attention, I would be just as likely to try them out. As long as each healer is equally capable (I'm looking at you, beta-testers!), I may default to storyline differences to make my final choice. I'd hate to get my hopes up now though, and find out that come launch, those other options (Trooper and Bounty Hunter) have been removed from the pool of potential healing classes. <br />
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Lots of things to watch as we continue to move closer to launch!</div>Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-7355805909904637292011-03-09T19:11:00.000-08:002011-03-10T18:06:53.265-08:00A Prelude of What's to Come...? Guild Information ExtravaganzaAs you've probably noticed, BioWare gave the community a little pre-PAX treat in the forum of a slick new <a href="http://www.swtor.com/guilds">Guild Headquarters</a> page.<br />
<blockquote><span style="color: #f9d648;">Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of the new <a href="http://www.swtor.com/guilds" target="_blank">Guild Headquarters (HQ)</a> as well as the Pre-Launch Guild Program. Many members of the community have already been organizing guilds on the forums, and we’re now happy to provide the tools to officially register and reserve your guild’s name. In this new section of the website, you can search for an existing guild to join or you can create a new guild and begin recruiting members. When <i>Star Wars</i>™: The Old Republic™ launches, you may be able to import your guild directly into the game, subject to availability and meeting certain <a href="http://www.swtor.com/guilds/faq#criteria" target="_blank">criteria*</a>.<br />
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Every guild gets its own guild mini-site on <a href="http://www.starwarstheoldrepublic.com/" target="_blank">www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com</a>, complete with information about the guild, its recruitment status, and its own public and private forums. Create or join a guild now and you’ll have the opportunity to have your own space to socialize and organize before the game launches. Every guild is automatically entered into the searchable guild database, which makes it easy for players to find their ideal guild. Get your guild together early and get ready for The Old Republic!<br />
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To learn more about guilds in The Old Republic, check out the <a href="http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/guilds" target="_blank">Guilds Game System</a> page for details, and to search for or join a guild, visit the <a href="http://www.swtor.com/guilds" target="_blank">Guild HQ</a> now! Also be sure to visit the <a href="http://www.swtor.com/guilds/faq" target="_blank">Guilds FAQ</a> for answers to commonly asked questions.<br />
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*Conditions and restrictions apply. See <a href="http://www.swtor.com/guilds/faq" target="_blank">Guilds FAQ</a> for full details.<br />
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To discuss the Pre-Launch Guild Program, please use <a href="http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=271765" target="_blank">this thread</a> in the Guild Hall forum. To report bugs, please use <a href="http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=271767" target="_blank">this thread</a> in the Website Feedback and Support forum. Please note that some words and phrases, particularly some relating directly to <i>Star Wars</i>, are restricted. If you feel your desired guild name is restricted in error, please contact us using the <a href="http://www.swtor.com/support" target="_blank">site support form</a>.</span></blockquote>So far, all of the reaction that I've seen regarding this has been overwhelmingly positive. As <a href="http://moonendor.blogspot.com/">Ayane</a> points out though, there are some interesting bits in the <a href="http://www.swtor.com/guilds/faq">FAQ section</a>. <br />
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<blockquote><div class="question" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 3px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: yellow;">Is my guild* guaranteed to be transferred into the game and what are the criteria our guild needs to meet for the transfer?</span></div></div><div class="answer" style="color: #8f9299; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 3px;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6466133691513082569&postID=735580590990463729" name="criteria" style="color: #708bc3; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: underline;"></a>All guilds that meet the following criteria will get transferred into the game: 1) At the beginning of Phase 3, the guild leader must log in to the website and verify that their guild remains active and wants to be imported; and 2) <i><b>The guild has at least four members who have pre-ordered the game by the time we initiate the import</b></i>. Details about <em>Star Wars</em>: The Old Republic pre-order program will be provided at a later date.</div></div></blockquote>Emphasis mine. A clever way to not only make sure that SWTOR is pre-ordered as much as possible, but also that there's a certain level of commitment among the guilds who are signing up ahead of time. Four seems to be a reasonable enough number for most guilds. <br />
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A 500 member cap is about average right now, so folks in guilds who run the risk of exceeding that will probably institute a no-alt policy at first, which is par for the course. Now I'm even more curious to see what sort of information is revealed at PAX!Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-386120057086772122011-03-06T08:30:00.000-08:002011-03-06T08:48:45.755-08:00NEWSFLASH: BioWare is Listening!Ahem.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IQO9iXcw1-w/R1SAxAynrqI/AAAAAAAAABg/7NQx3F52hLI/s1600-R/lives+others.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="153" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IQO9iXcw1-w/R1SAxAynrqI/AAAAAAAAABg/7NQx3F52hLI/s200-R/lives+others.bmp" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georg Zoeller hard at work?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>So, as if there was ever any real question as to whether or not BioWare is actually listening to us, Georg was kind enough once again to sprinkle Zoeller Dust™ all over the forums.<br />
<br />
I hadn't really planned on touching on this after Georg's first post two days ago, because it seemed to go without saying. However, after Georg went and wrote himself not one, but two, novella-length forum posts about the subject, the natural thing to do seemed to be to chronicle his decent into madness!<br />
<br />
And finally on an unrelated note, <a href="http://swtor.com/community/member.php?u=59">Alexander Freed</a> drops by the forums to chat a bit about the Imperial Agent.<br />
<br />
More after the jump to lightspeed!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Last Friday, Georg's Zoelley-sense was in full tingle-mode. After SWTOR forums user <a href="http://swtor.com/community/member.php?u=524047">Cem_Dikyol </a>wondered aloud whether BioWare "cares about what people think," Georg <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5600228#edit5600228">sprang into action</a>:<br />
<div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Interesting post, and while we certainly discussed some variations of this in the past, maybe I can give you an idea of how we approach this.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Short version: Yes we do.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Long version:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Developers definitely read the forums. The Community team also actively scours them for interesting, important, controversial issues and surface them to us as developers.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Do we 'listen'? Yes, definitely - although listening / taking into consideration is only half of what people expect. The other half is that we take their feedback and act upon it, and this is where things get tricky.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Naturally, this being a game forum, there are a lot of strong opinions. If we acted on all of them, we would make a schizophrenic game. There is also a lot of "I think you should do feature X, who is with me?" type-posts. Agreeing to such a question is easy, especially if you don't have to weigh it against whatever other feature you might have to cut for that... as we do whenever these discussions happen internally.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">As for the negativity, standard forum dynamics like flame wars, trolling, etc... we've learned to see past that. Most of us have been in games for a long time, and BioWare has run forums ever since the days of Baldur's Gate (I started there as a fan...) We know how things work and we know how to read the forums without getting distracted by the dark side of them.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">I also don't want to lie to you; we don't use these forums to get you to tell us how to make a game. We use the forums to understand what the community cares about. We also use them as a 'canary in a coal mine' to detect things we might have misjudged or where we are not sure about (Jedi Wizard anyone?).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Frankly, at this point in development, we definitely don't use the forums as a source for feature ideas anymore. We're not at the point in development where we would add new features out of the blue anymore.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">For actual feedback about game details and how it plays, we mostly rely on our tester feedback and the metrics we gather from the test (which often speak more clearly than you can express in a feedback email). There have certainly been situations where posters on the general forums have brought up angles on things that we hadn't considered before, which is great - but the majority of actionable feedback definitely comes from our hands-on testers (a group of players we are continually expanding). Maybe we should do little summary of what kind of changes we have made based on tester feedback at some point in the future.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Lastly, the best way of getting us to read your post is:</span><br />
<ul style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Make a well thought out point.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Write in plain English/German/French language, use paragraphs and use punctuation. Don't post a wall of text. And don't write extensively in a color other than the default. </li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Be clear in your post about what is your opinion and what is fact (to your knowledge).</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Give a precise topic title.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Make sure your name on the forum doesn't get associated with being the troll/bully/red stapler guy - we don't have time to read all threads and we're definitely more likely to pick threads from people that have a good track record.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't try to bait us into answering using aggressive language to create artificial conflict ("I think everyone who doesn't like Feature X should die"). If you do, you probably ruin your chance of getting an answer, because we don't like to reinforce such behavior.</li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Hope this gives you a little insight.</span></blockquote><br />
Poor Georg. Clearly cracking under the pressure, he followed everything up yesterday with a post about... <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5606857#edit5606857">Narwhales and Double Rainbows</a>?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Since I've decided to entertain you with philosophical ramblings about game development and forums while Stephen and crew are carrying tons of boxes to some kind of unmarked high tech van heading to the east coast....</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 5px;"><div class="smallfont" style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 2px;">Quote:</div><table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0"><tbody>
<tr><td class="alt2" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-style: inset; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: inset; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: inset; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-style: inset; border-top-width: 1px; color: #b0b0b0; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><div>Originally Posted by <strong>Drakos</strong></div><div style="font-style: italic;">This was what I really wanted to get to. I think that our "needs and wants" are conflicting, contradictory, and many. We wanted so much in the beginning, and clung to that. Obviously the game wasn't going to have it all, and when it became clear that it wouldn't, people complained and gave the illusion of the entire community being dissatisfied..</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">This is a good summary.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Making games, much like any other form of creative entertainment, is not a democratic process. The developers make the majority of decisions based on experience, testing, market research and sometimes gut feeling long before players ever get their hands on them.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Forums, just like focus tests, large scale game tests (like the ones we are running), general market research and any kind of other feedback are a tool in the box to gauge how you are aligned with a certain subgroup of potential customer (on forums usually the very vocal and engaged early adopter). Forums are awesome if you are willing to listen and understand how to find content of value in the sea of... well let's say opinions and forum posts ("First!").</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Especially on video game forums, a large number of people are designers in their heart (which seems curious - on movies, do people fancy themselves directors or writers?) and there are many who seem to think 'if they just did this, the game will be awesome...'</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Let's take an example, purely theoretical:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><br />
<ul style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Some games in the genre you are developing in have a feature, e.g. 'Downloadable Double Rainbow Narwhales with lasers'</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If you go to the forums, it's easy to find a poll where the majority of people say 'we want this, it's an important feature for the genre'.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are fancy, you look at the IP database and notice that the majority of people that voted on the poll was from Poland. Poland being an important market for the game, you decide that you need to have 'Downloadable Double Rainbow Narwhales with lasers' in your game.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">You assess the cost of manpower and assets of adding the feature to the game, roughly $2M. Still, Poland being an important market for your game, you decide to go ahead.<br />
<br />
(Repeat this cycle 50 times until you realize that in fact there is <i>always </i>a poll with a majority of people saying 'Yes, this is a critical feature, it is absolutely vital' and you realize you are now out of money and have to cut 'Single Rainbow Unicorns' now, another vital genre feature.)<br />
</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">You release the game and it doesn't sell well at all in Poland. Doing further research, you realize that with your Narwhales being downloadable and Poland still being an 80% retail disk based market, the people that were on your forums from Poland were not a good statistical sample of the overall audience. </li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">So yeah, that's not how to make a game.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Obviously, it can be said for any game that wasn't successful that 'the developers should [not] have listened to [the forums/the internet/the market research|]'. Hindsight is always 20/20, but BioWare in the last 15 years has fared well with using fan feedback as part of the development process - in addition to market research, focus groups and experience.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Ultimately it is this:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">The general preconception on forums is that features are what make or break a game. People in the industry know that it's not as simple as that. Features, I would say, are not even half the equation; making the features work together, in a way that makes sense and creates fun and engaging gameplay, within budget and resource constraints and to a high standard of quality (all while working in a constantly changing industry and identifying and targeting a large enough audience to be commercially successful)... that's what makes or breaks you.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">We use the forum to understand the elite, early adopter audience that is very vocal about what they want. We employ an entire community team centered around them to help us understand what they feel is important. If we didn't care for the feedback, there'd be much easier ways for us to get PR.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Forum information is a starting point for us. If Stephen notifies us in his community updates that "We have identified that in fact a large number of players in our community would like to single wield lightsabers as a DPS Jedi Knight", we take note, but we don't immediately act.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">We evaluate the cost and impact of the change ("Redesigning a class role, potentially requiring new animations, visual effects and audio, potentially removing time for us to make other changes, $$$ in QA time"), and if the team agrees that it is feasible and will make the game better, validate by putting a prototype up for the studio to play.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">If that passes, we put it in front of testers. If that passes, we execute the change... and you get to play it at PAX East.</span></blockquote>We wish you a speedy recovery, Georg! It's always a pleasure to read your posts, and it'd be shame if they carted you off to the madhouse so close to launch! <br />
<br />
And as promised, Alexander drops by and <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5608017#edit5608017">gives a bit of insight into the Imperial Agent</a> from a "story/flavor" perspective:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Lots of interesting discussion in this thread, and I thought I'd jump in and address a few points from a story / flavor perspective. Forgive me if I don't bring up specifics of abilities and Advanced Classes much--combat design isn't my department, so I don't want to speak out of turn.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">It's true that the Empire doesn't have a pure military class--if you want to be the guy in the trenches, working alongside his fellow soldiers and making tough calls before charging into glory, the Republic Trooper is your best bet. Imperial Agents (again, from a story perspective) tend to work independently in the field and when they work with the Imperial military, it's as an outsider with power; think of the relationship between the KGB and the Soviet military.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">On the other hand, Imperial Agents do work within a clear government hierarchy. There are mission briefings and orders received and orders given. Like Moff Tarkin, the Imperial Agent serves the Empire in a official capacity, meets with powerful Imperial leaders and takes steps to ensure security behind the scenes. You won't see many Agent class quests that come down to "assault this position and secure it for the Empire," but you can certainly play with a combat style that focuses more on cover, marksmanship and ambushes than on stealth and close-quarters combat.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">If the sense of commanding troops is important to you, you might want to take a look at the Sith Warrior as well. Think about Darth Vader--he's making military decisions alongside high-ranking officials much of the time, and other times he's leading the charge alongside stormtroopers. That's an aspect of the Sith Warrior class, too--even though he or she won't be carrying a gun, the Sith Warrior certainly has a place among officers and grunts.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Of course, nothing's stopping you from trying all those classes out and seeing which you like! Or playing them all, for that matter...</span></blockquote><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100524042342/starwars/images/9/90/Dengar-TESB30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100524042342/starwars/images/9/90/Dengar-TESB30.jpg" width="193" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ouch!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I guess as of right now, I find myself less concerned about the "flavor" of the Imperial Agent, and more about how healing will be handled with the class. With Bounty Hunters getting a bit of love now in the healing department, I'm curious if the Imperial Agent's toolkit will be reworked to reflect this. Will the Bounty Hunter get the <a href="http://r2-db.com/skill/78/kolto-injection">Kolto Dart</a> skill, and the Agent will stick with probes of some sort? <br />
<br />
Maybe they'll model Bounty Hunter healing after <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dengar">Dengar</a>? Clearly, he was a man who knew how to sling a good bandage or two!<br />
<br />
At any rate, it's great to see the amount of communication between fans and devs ramping up... As <a href="http://torreporter.com/author/adaram/">Adaram</a> asks, might we be <a href="http://torreporter.com/2011/03/05/bam-are-we-entering-marketing-end-game/">entering the "marketing end-game</a>" finally? <br />
<br />
<br />
<div><br />
</div><div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div></div>Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-78747062082699207322011-03-03T17:34:00.000-08:002011-03-03T17:39:36.753-08:00Ib'tuur Jatne Tuur Ash'ad Kyr'amur...?It really goes with the territory, doesn't it? When you follow a game this far out, you inevitably <i>think </i>Class X is really going to be the class for you. Then one day, a developer diary is released, or some tidbit of information is put out, and everything changes. <br />
<br />
By now, many of you have had the chance to watch the Bounty Hunter. A Kubaz scoundrel, the burnination of Tusken Raiders and a variety of Bounty Hunter approved gadgets... All of which are great, but... the kicker to me was this snippet from today's <a href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/115/1153371p1.html">IGN PC interview</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://itsallfreeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Bounty-Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://itsallfreeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Bounty-Logo.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The quicker picker-upper?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>IGN: As development continues, would you be able to provide any details as to how the Bounty Hunter's changed? How have his primary skills evolved and what tend to be the most effective skills once a large amount has been unlocked?</b></span></b></span></span></blockquote><blockquote><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>Zoeller</b>: Here are some examples of recent changes to the class: the introduction of the Bodyguard skillset which adds a healing and support role to the class [and] the addition of talent choices to create synergy between blasters and tech attacks. There aren't really 'most effective' skills for any class, as what is effective varies between encounters, different builds and whether or not you are in a group or not. </span></b></span></span></blockquote>They just went and added heals to one of the most iconic classes in the game... Did this revelation change anyone's mind, as far as their class of choice for launch? I previously had settled on the Sith Inquisitor more or less, to be specced heavily into healing, but now this totally changes it for me. As a kid, Boba Fett was my absolute favorite character (and action figure, for that matter), but I had originally decided against the Bounty Hunter in SWTOR as I hadn't planned on tanking. Now, they're pretty much the jack of all trades. What will their healing be like? <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kolto">Kolto</a> Bombs perhaps? The Imperial Agent already uses Kolto Darts, will we see something similar using Kolto? <br />
<br />
Nothing is set in stone (although, some people <i>are</i> set in Carbonite), so this too is subject to change, but...<br />
<br />
Things just got a whole lot more interesting. Can't wait to see if anything else is revealed during tomorrow's Friday update, and with PAX coming up next week, who knows what's in store... I'll have to make sure to stop by <a href="http://mandaloriangirl.wordpress.com/">MandalorianGirl's neck of the woods</a> and see what she thinks about things. <br />
<br />
If you haven't yet seen the video, check it out!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='400' height='360' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RLzwCuflNYo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-77822788459697025102011-03-01T18:38:00.000-08:002011-03-01T18:45:59.064-08:00Dr. Strangezoeller: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Lack of Auto-attacks<a href="http://swtor.com/community/member.php?u=602498">Darth Zoeller</a> was once again up to his usual shenanigans today, stopping by the forums to chime in on the forum post and poll <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=268395">regarding the lack of auto-attacks</a> in SWTOR:<br />
<br />
Georg <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5571096#edit5571096">states</a>:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">I think it is worth noting in this context that the game is relatively forgiving about the timing of your button presses / clicks, and therefore this particular concern about not having auto attack should be a non issue.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">To ensure equal ability activation timing (and therefore DPS potential) between players with high and low latency, the game will, during the execution of an ability, allow you to 'queue up' the next activation (within a reasonable time window).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">This ensures that your character is able to seamlessly move from one attack to the next without the player losing precious milliseconds by not exactly hitting the end of the previous ability/attack (something that would, in the end, force the player to spam buttons/clicks).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Naturally, moving/jumping etc will abort such queued up attacks/ability activations at any time.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Our testers have consistently lauded the absence of auto-attack as positive so far..</span></blockquote>And when asked what he had meant about "queuing," Georg <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5573787#edit5573787">clarifies</a>:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">This is really a technical feature, not a gameplay mechanic. Basically, instead of requiring you to precisely mash a button to time the end of a cooldown of a previous ability, we give you a (small) window in which the game accepts button/click input while your previous ability is still executing.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">It actually removes the need to closely watch the cooldown bar/UI as you can instead time your button presses with what action you see your character perform on screen (e.g. I'm close to the end of my previous attack, I can now hit the next attack and it will seamlessly execute - I don't have to wait until my character has fully finished his current move). Again, more fluid, more action-y, less vulnerable to latency.</span></blockquote>Personally, I enjoyed the combat in Age of Conan, for example. One of the issues would be folks simply macroing all of their attacks out, but George stated that he could "see a number of solutions" this this problem. How many of them involved Force Choking players into submission? The two most important factors for this to be successful to me at least, are that the system must feel "fluid" (i.e., attacks flow into one another and don't feel jarring) and it should not penalize those who for whatever reason, have a higher-than-average latency. Here's hoping we get a few peeks at combat in more detail next week during the PAX festivities! <br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.torocast.com/index.php/editorials/itemlist/user/65-ericmusco">Musco</a></b> over at TOROcast has summarized this topic in a great blog post entitled "<a href="http://www.torocast.com/index.php/editorials/item/436-attacking-is-no-longer-automatic">Attacking Is No Longer Automatic</a>." I definitely suggesting stopping by there and reading his thoughts on the matter. <b>Musco </b>has actually played the game, and he seems satisfied with the combat system so far.Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-52603706819620696072011-02-27T13:01:00.000-08:002011-02-27T13:01:54.078-08:00A Rose by Any Other Name...Community strongman <a href="http://swtor.com/community/member.php?u=602498">Georg</a> has been busy once more, doling out information left and right. Today, he had a few choice quotes regarding how character names will be handled in SWTOR:<br />
<br />
Will we see <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5557141#edit5557141">multiple Darth Vaders</a> running about?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">As you probably already have guessed, well known names from the extended Star Wars universe will not be available to players, so you don't have to worry about running into Darth Vader.</span></blockquote>And what about <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5560271#edit5560271">hyphen/apostrophe-usage</a> in our names?<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Yes to hyphens.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Yes to apostrophes.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">No comment - yet - on titles or surnames and the like...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">... I'm sure we'll talk about such things at some time in the future though</span></blockquote>There we have it. Does this change anyone's prospective names? Are you planning on including any hyphens or apostrophes now?Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-43721935765426592852011-02-24T17:30:00.000-08:002011-02-24T17:30:14.219-08:00Community Artist Spotlight - reddingThe SWTOR boards have no shortage of talented writers and artists, and one user in particular who has been very active as of late is <a href="http://swtor.com/community/member.php?u=98183">redding</a>. Redding has contributed a number of images to the <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=191401">Big Art Request Thread </a>(now in its third iteration). Here is just a sampling of the SWTOR-themed images redding has contributed:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/index.php?level=picture&id=283"><img border="0" src="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/thumbs/283-wookie_female.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/index.php?level=picture&id=279" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/thumbs/279-wookie.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/index.php?level=picture&id=285" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/thumbs/285-rancor-jedi.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/index.php?level=picture&id=298"><img border="0" src="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/thumbs/298-krayt-dragon-jedi.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Make sure to check out redding's <a href="http://www.sharpfish.net/gallery/index.php?level=album&id=2">Star Wars Gallery</a> too!Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-52041808985965301212011-02-23T16:01:00.000-08:002011-02-23T16:01:09.953-08:00"Sell All Grays" Part 2: Electric Boogaloo<a href="http://swtor.com/community/member.php?u=602498">Georg Zoeller</a> was back in full effect on the forums, continuing to respond to the discussion regarding Companions being able to sell off lower quality items. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5524326#edit5524326">Georg said</a>:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">We're really looking more at this as the movie equivalent of a menial task.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">If it doesn't matter to the story at hand, movies rarely show people doing the boring tasks of their daily routine (brewing the coffee before drinking it, searching for the remote in the couch before turning on the TV) in real time. Why? Because they focus on the heroic, interesting stuff, they focus where the action is.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Same for us - we want to you focused where the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><i>entertainment</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">is, not held up simulating repetitive tasks for the sake of simulation.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Now, don't get me wrong - a certain amount of simulation is often helpful to ease the player into the world and make them feel at home ("Hey, I know how this works - it's just like ....!") - but we are definitely focusing a lot more on the not-so-standard, action, romance or story heavy elements of your experience.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">In this specific case - your companion is a vital part of your character. Without her (or maybe a group member instead), your combat effectiveness and options are reduced, your downtime lengthens and, well, you are without a companion.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Example: As a Shadow, your enemies' position relative to you is of tactical importance in battle. Without a group member or companion to distract or engage an enemy, it is very hard to get into an advantageous position behind the target during battle to use some of your more devastating opening moves.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">So, to counter your suggestion that this should take more time - we don't see a good reason for that. Making the less interesting parts of MMO game experience (like, eh, selling grays) take a long time at the expense of the interesting parts (like introducing fleshraiders to your lightsaber, shooting first or even dancing with your companion next to the sarlacc pit) is not the design philosophy we're going for.</span></blockquote>Hey, Sarlacc dancing is something I can get on board with! A fair number of people have expressed concerns that many traditionally social interactions are going to be supplanted completed between our Companions and our Ships. Well fret not, because <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5530158#edit5530158">Georg is on the case</a>!<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">You are right, players need a reason to return to social hubs from time to time.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Here are some reasons why 'selling grays' is not that reason in The Old Republic:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">- Players have no incentive to interact with other players when selling grays. You're just forcing them to return to a hub. There are better reasons (e.g. trainers, turning in quests, etc.) that reward the player for doing the same thing, which creates a much more positive attitude to begin with.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">- It's something you have to do with high frequency and creates implicit dependencies, that we then have to balance. In TOR, whenever you go into combat, you usually fight a substantially larger number of foes than in other MMOs. As a result, your inventory fills up quicker. We obviously can adjust drop rates down to change that, but that also means that if we address drop rates for any other reason, we implicitly change the frequency at which you have to return to town.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">- Frankly - nobody has ever told me "Man, I went to town to sell grays, it was soooo awesome!"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">To address your concerns, here's a small list of reasons for you to return to a social hub in TOR, and as a bonus, how we view each reason from a player perspective:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><ul style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Various vendors. Positive: I get to buy stuff.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Crafting benches. Positive: I get to make stuff.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Banking access. Positive: I don't pay bills there? </li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Trainers. Positive: I get to learn new stuff.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Quests / Follow-up quests. Positive: I get rewards.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Meeting friends (much easier at a known location than randomly in a snowstorm on Hoth). Positive: I meet friends.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Spaceport access. Neutral.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Medcenters. Neutral, arguably negative (I failed).</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Speeder Transportation Service. Neutral.</li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Your inventory still fills up with items, so it's not like you never have to return to town. Probably Neutral: since I get a lot of credits for the non gray stuff.</li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Lastly, adding a feature to the game ('companions sell grays') and then balancing it in a way that it becomes undesirable to the player by the meas of penalties ('can't use companion for a long time') would be bad design. When you create a feature for a game, it is either strong, stands on it own and has been designed to account for potential issues, or you don't do it. You don't add it and then try to balance it out with something negative.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Ultimately, it's not like this is a super ground breaking feature. It's just different from what other MMOs do and I can see how that is out of the comfort zone for some. That's fine - every once in a while someone needs to question these kinds of conventions, or we'd still be stuck with 'lose half a level' XP death penalties as the genre standard.</span></blockquote>Well, has he soothed your fears sufficiently, if you were worried about this? Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-49621211160301945402011-02-22T09:17:00.000-08:002011-02-22T09:17:29.057-08:00Toiling Away for Your Guild<div style="text-align: left;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-swzTL9-ADOQ/TWPetUONjyI/AAAAAAAAACE/EsKBaNKxc0k/s1600/crafting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-swzTL9-ADOQ/TWPetUONjyI/AAAAAAAAACE/EsKBaNKxc0k/s1600/crafting.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peons hard at work.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="http://swtorcrafter.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/how-can-a-guild-best-support-their-crafters-in-star-wars-the-old-republic-mmo/">SWTORCrafter asks today</a>, "How can a guild best support their crafters in SWTOR?" While this largely depends on the game, I feel that much of the onus is actually on the Crafter in this scenario. The Crafter and their crew must first explain why it is in the best interest in the guild as a whole to assist you in your endeavors. <br />
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Let's take EVE Online, for example. In EVE, my corporation and I would regularly sponsor “Mining Operations” for the benefit of the entire Corp. In EVE, almost 95% of every item or ship that you see floating around in space was <a href="http://www.eveonline.com/faq/faq_01.asp">originally made by a player</a>. It was a lot easier for people in EVE to understand how the raw minerals that we were gathering could directly benefit them because the same raw materials that we were extracting from space rocks, could then be used to craft any number of things. As a Tailor or a Leatherworker for example, how would you convince the plate-wearing Tank that he really needs to give you a hand? The answer hopefully is that the Tank is an awesome person and would gladly help you regardless, but not everyone is so lucky.<br />
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Much of it depends on what all we'll be able to craft <a href="http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/crew-skills">using our Crew Skills</a>. With three of the skills still locked away in the depths of BioWare mountain, it's unclear for example, if the <b>Armormech </b>Crafter will be able to craft all wearable armor or not. The skill is defined on the Official SWTOR site as having "the ability to work with hard metals and electronic shielding to construct <i>all types</i> of personal armor." If they do indeed craft armor for everyone, convincing others to assist you will be much easier.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_doDjAgHc_Q/TWPvcLdJK0I/AAAAAAAAACI/vBHNpgEYWI0/s1600/scavenging.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_doDjAgHc_Q/TWPvcLdJK0I/AAAAAAAAACI/vBHNpgEYWI0/s320/scavenging.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Scavenging Missions UI</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Another great feature of the Crew Skills system is that not everyone even wants to craft, or even gather for that matter. As a Crafter, you'll want to quickly identify those people in your guild and work out some sort of exchange. Some of them may be more than willing to hire out their own Companions' services, running <b>Scavenging </b>missions for you while they're offline. This could end up working to everyone's advantage, as long as your guildmates have a free Companion. <br />
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While you can still go out and Gather resources yourself, it sounds like the bulk of this can be offloaded to your companions. We may not need to organize a "Guild Crafting Night" per se, but I think that it'd still be a great idea to do so. Some of my most enjoyable MMO moments have come out of random events like these, because of the people I was with at the time.Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-54913176269501141362011-02-21T04:50:00.000-08:002011-02-21T04:50:29.650-08:00Of Pixels and ShiniesYouTube user <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/logun24x7">Logun24x7</a> has posted a video chronicling not only how SWTOR's graphics have progressed until now, but also showing how they stack up compared to other MMOs. <br />
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Have a watch.<br />
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<center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OskRij8AYaU?fs=1" width="480"></iframe></center><br />
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While he probably could have found better photos for the other MMOs, they're really of no concern to me. The bottom line is: SWTOR is looking good, and it's exciting to see how the art direction has matured.<br />
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If anything, this really highlights the need for a robust Character Creation system. We've seen several different body types shown so far (skinny, muscular, and rotund), which is promising, but it will all come down to the face. What varieties of "decals" will we be able to use for each character? How will our character's alignment (Dark Side vs. Light Side) ultimately influence how we'll look?<br />
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As Logun states, with other MMOs, your character is usually seen from the "chase cam" perspective. While face customization has always been important to folks, it's arguably more important in SWTOR simply because of the amount of time we'll be spending looking at our mugs during cut-scenes.Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-65562831456262533652011-02-20T18:35:00.000-08:002011-02-21T07:06:31.117-08:00"Sell All Grays"<a href="http://swtor.com/community/member.php?u=602498">Georg Zoeller</a> stopped by the main <a href="http://swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5506085#edit5506085">SWTOR forums today</a>, as he has been doing fairly frequently lately, and dropped this tidbit regarding Companions:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">In TOR, you indeed have the option to command your faithful (or scornful) companion to make a trip to the nearest market to lighten your backpack and fatten your wallet by selling objects of purely monetary value.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">As you command your (possibly hateful or even loving) companion to do so, which they will only agree to if you are not engaged in hostile activities and they are convinced your life is not in immediate danger, they will arrange for quick transport to the closest market and return after a short while (roughly a minute, subject to tuning) with your hard earned money.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">It is assumed you trust your (trustworthy) companion in so far as to accept whatever they tell you in regards to the prices they negotiated and will not undermine your (purely professional) working relationship with them with potentially insulting questions about taxes, fees, union dues and other applicable fees.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #f9d648; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">In other words, yes you can do that.</span></blockquote>I can get on board with that. It's clear that BioWare wants the Companion to be something more than just a mobile DoT effect. I don't want to read too far into <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/11/12/massively-interviews-bioware-on-swtors-crafting-and-pvp/">Daniel Erickson's comments</a> regarding "setting up shop," or "opening your own business," but it seems like the Crafting aspect has the possibility of being much deeper than the system in many other MMOs. I appreciate a player-driven economy, and I do hope to see some sort of option available to throw myself into that role when SWTOR launches.Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-5018702514817368762011-02-20T10:38:00.000-08:002011-02-20T16:00:11.660-08:00The Joys of Beginning AnewIt's about that time again. Coffee is brewing. Knuckles have been sufficiently cracked. Mynocks have been gently plucked from exposed wiring and several Ewoks have been punted for good measure. <br />
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And now, I breathe new life into this oft-neglected little journal. <i>Fiat lux! </i>Well, no. On second thought... <i>Fiant tenebrae!</i> <br />
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Like most of you, I've been following SWTOR since October of 2008. In that time, I always had an urge somewhere in the recesses of my mind to put pen to paper, so to speak, and write a bit about what we were seeing. I've done a proper job on procrastinating though, so flash forward to now. There still aren't nearly as many SWTOR-centric blogs as I had imagined, so I figured, "Why not?" While we're certainly not first out of the gates, there's quite a bit of room in which to maneuver and so far, I'm in good company. <br />
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Interests-wise within the game, I expect to focus quite a bit on crafting and PvP. I've done the raiding scene in a number of other games, and while I'm not going to rule out participating in SWTOR Raids, I'm certainly more interested in the smaller-scale flashpoints. The Companion Skills system really piqued my interest as a dedicated crafter, so expect to see a few posts here and there regarding that. <br />
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So for the meantime, pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable. There's quite a bit of work to do on the site to make it presentable, but I suppose the default styles will have to do for now. Cheers for stopping by, and I do hope to make it worth your while to return eventually.Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6466133691513082569.post-18808995862457138642008-10-21T20:38:00.001-07:002011-02-20T15:53:45.619-08:00And So It Begins...Star Wars MMO? Based on the Old Republic era? Developed by BioWare?<br />
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Oh my...<br />
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Well now the waiting game begins. Undoubtedly, following this game will eat up a fairly good chunk of my time. I've told myself numerous times, "Ok, I'm going to sit this one out and not follow it too closely," only to find myself pouring over forums, scouring developer posts for tidbits, and pressing F5 on update days. I'm going to probably keep this blog on the back burner until I really have the time to talk about SWTOR, and especially until we have more information to go on. <br />
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So at any rate, I'm staking my claim to this corner of the universe for the time being. <br />
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Until we meet again.Force Meridianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02336794891660171539noreply@blogger.com0