Originally posted by tillamook

A BioWare dev once said this, whether it means anything is up for debate.

 

Chris L'Etoile
Designer

The best MMORPG ever would have the fluid tactical combat of City of Heroes, the Elder's Game of (pre-NGE) Star Wars Galaxies, and the continuing story arcs of Asheron's Call 1 (*toots own horn*).

Genre is less important to me. I like lots of things, though I've had enough of all the ninth-generation Tolkein ripoffs, k thx.

Tillamook,

I wanted to say I'm always impressed of how much, interesting, data you're able to digg when it comes to MMO.

Though, I'm not sure what does means Elder's game of (pre-NGE) SWG, even if kind of a vet.

Looks nice, still can I have PANTS for my male character please? Or at least the choice.

Originally posted by Alindale

Originally posted by Gajari

I'm with the guy that made the first reply... what the hell does that mean, a SW game delivered on a plate?

I don't even think that makes any sense. Maybe the OP has some mental issues that are causing him to see the future and tell it via inane ramblings.

 

Please note the OP stated later on that English is not his/her native language.  I believe what the OP was trying to express, and I could very well be wrong, is that people that played SWG do not want any SW based MMO, they want a MMO based on SWG.  A new MMO based on the aspects that made Pre-NGE SWG beloved by the Vets.  As much as I would like that, as a SWG Vet I know it will not happen under any circumstance.  Bioware's style of game play is completely different than SWG and many of the sanbox features that were in SWG will not be in Bioware's upcoming MMO.  Still, I am looking forward to trying the game and seeing what it has to offer to the fans of Star Wars.

*EDIT* Edited due to not knowing the OP's gender and had assumed the OP was male.

Well Gajari your post made me really laugh but I feel sad for my English skills.

I do my best to improve it, (read books, watch tv, voice chat..) even it's really hard as I tend to think in multiple languages and well it gets messy, really!

Alindale, thank you for your words and try to explain what I was trying to say.  

For the story, when I first heard about SWG, long before launch, I was looking forward a mix of Dark Forces I (not Jedi Knight) with X-Wing. I was really disappointed by SWG combat system. But it let us chat and fight at the same time, so it was great.

I really liked the socialization, full med-centers and cantina's (before messy players cities). For me the hologrind and the CU was  a major blow to the game, it killed the social aspect. Players where able to heal themselves and well everybody was out macro-grinding.

I did play NGE for a few months but it was the death blow to SW. It could have been great with a real FPS engine. Sadly SOE, once again, delivered a half finished product.

Pre-CU SWG could have been THE MMO out there. For me it will always be Caveman Galaxies : cave dungeons and Janta owning a full equiped futuristic combatant with stone knives, dude!

Once again the marketing team is all wrong.

Most of the answers have been mentionned :

* Vets want HOT as a planet.

* Vets don't want NGE = broken semi-FPS gameplay

* Better merge server to keep players than expect huge come back. Focus on what you have guys.

* Vets liked socialization and crafting, both are dead.

* Vets don't want another WoW farming / grind game (Sith Waist anyone?)

* No boxes on shelves = no  new comers

* Vets will be back to try Hot, then leave when the trial ends. I know that's all my friends do. We log back, visit new places, kill a few mobs, take pics of us, our houses then we are done.

SOE has only 2 ways to bring back SWG to life

• Redo the actual engine and deliver a true FPS one, a mix of battlefront and planetside = new comers
• Bring back Pre-Cu servers, fix bugs and implement a SW feeling, no more Caveman Galaxies with janta's owning you with a stone knife, no more caves dungeons... geo bunker LOL! = (some) vets back

Edit: didn't mention the 3rd one = make a new game, as it's already being done.

See you around a cantina on october 21th...

SWG: SMED   ;)

Originally posted by Locklain

Yep, you are right but speculation sure passes the time while at work.

First I'd like to apologize for my English, as some might have guessed it isn't my mother tongue.

I didn't want it to sound negative. More like: be prepared it won't be THE SW game you (we) are expecting.

In fact I just wanted to warn the fans about a SW MMO. This way they won't be too desesperate when the core features will be revealed.

On top of that I have the uttermost respect for the quality of the games Bioware delivered so far. I'm pretty sure their MMO will be great.
 

I think Venge Sunsoar sums it very well:

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

However there is sooo much hype allready, that by the time it releases, people will be murdering each other for it.  There is no way any game company or anything short of god can live up to this.

Venge Sunsoar

And I mark my words : this no matter how polished Bioware SW MMO will be.

Why? Because players feels for SW universe. They care for it and so aren't using logic but memories of how "good" it was or I should say, "remember" it was.

When we see how SWG vets still feel about it, 5 years later, and the trend in WoW, AoC and WAR forums I predict the Bioware MMO forum will be a big mess with strong words and riots in the following months.

Players don't want a SW MMO they want their SW game delivered on a plate, huge difference.

Let the force be with Bioware community management team, I mean... the Sith side of the force ;)

Originally posted by Unfinished

Solid State Networks Inc. was the company responsible for the client distribution for AoC's Early Access Program. Their ''Torrent-Hybrid' was classic FAIL (yes capital letters fail). I could type pages of how poorly the tool was designed and performed, but I think it  can be best summed up by the fact you had to boot/run it via a command line prompt, I hadn't seen that in commercial software since before the birth of Hair Metal. The whole EA fiasco was the sign of things to come.

No point to this press release, it's not news, they have been 'teamed up with FunCom' for 6+ months. I guess its a 'look at me look at me, buy my stock!" type of press announcement.

Seems someone needs a big hug.

Whent smoothly for me and well download was fast even more really fast, regarding some others publishers and the size of the data.

Nice post.

Let me add.

• no levels
• possibility to have fun without ever fighting
• no 1 or 2 hits deathblows
• full character collision
• pets
• housing & guild halls
• pre-designed player cities plans
• ability to rent a room / appartment in an NPC city
• furnishing
• no travel time sink
• fully customizable character
• Items dyeing
• social clothing
• puzzles
• traps, random
• no invisible walls
• underwater exploration
• no BOP
• FPS ranged combat & console type combos melee
• voice chat with separate sound sliders
• nice auction system with proxy bid
• private vendors with access lists & fees
• Fully customizable UI, hide/show, move resize, texture anything
• Ability to bind any key & any function without even displaying the hotkey in toolbars.
• 1st a 3rd mouse look toogle with bindable mouse look toggle

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by lumache

While I know this really isnt this new directors fault, but an apology for being IGNORE, DELETED, MOVED, and outright BANNED from the forums for attempting to bring things like, THE MEMORY LEAK issues, Crashes, grouping issues and others to light on the forums would be a good place to start.  Furthermore, assurances that the forums will become a place where these types of issue are handled, addressed and OPENLY discussed rather than shot down and dealt with punatively would be even better. 

As long as I continue to see people like Rihnlann or whatever on the forums with disclaimers that while he can ban posters and move posts, his views might not be those of FUNCOM, I cant give them my gaming dollars. Well, they already have them until december, however I dont sign in or play the game.  The first few months experience really put me off Conan and FUNCOM in general. 

Where is the new game director to say 'Hey, we know some stuff wasnt done right and we aim to change that." ?  When I receive an apology email and a free month (after december), MAYBE I might be pursuaded to return to this game.  Now dont misunderstand me, I NEVER expect this will happen, though nothing short of this will do for me.  I suspect there are many more out there that feel the same way, most of whom dont post here or anywhere else. 

I wanted Conan to be the place I landed every evening after work and the place I found myself late saturday night smashing away on someones skull. I wanted a place to come and leave the outside world behind, but what I got was something quite different.  I still see this new game director claiming they have a wonderful world etc.... I dont see him admitting the game was a disaster at launch and should have been handled differently.  I dont feel like this guy is fully admitting the extent of the issues with the game and that they understand they alienated alot of folks.

At this point, I think thats the LEAST they need to do to start rebuild the relationships with their customers that they so carelessly and wantonly discarded in the opening months of this game.

Thats my 2Tin.

 

I couldn't have said it any better myself.

Gaute "Disaster" Godager has left the building. So Craig can be forth coming and express himself and admit that Gaute screwed up big time!

There is a good reason Gaute left (better described as he HAD to leave).

If you sell 800.000 copies and then couple months later, except for a couple servers, all game servers have turned into a ghost town. Then I call that a dissaster!

And all those players left for a good reason. And if you even want a small percentage of them back, then you better start with an Open Apology to the community that your predecesor screwed over their entire playerbase and litterly chased them out of the game.

As that is what happened. And it will be very, I repeat, it will be very very hard for Funcom to get even a small percentage of their customers back.

There is just so much that need to be done in that game, I don't even know where to start or where to end.

But I do feel for Craig tho. That he is the one that has to step in and clean up the mess Gaute left behind...... again.

Cheers

I agree the forum moderation is a disaster on the US part, inconsistent for the least. They need to hire pros...

I think they did apologize and there are limits Craig can't go over. Honestly could he really say : hey we screwed big time, Gaute work blows and blah blah blah... no can't do Sir.

Funcom needed a head they took Gaute. If you step back SOE didn't do half that with SWG.

Personally I'm giving Funcom a 6-12 months. Then I'll be back to check how things goes on so I can try my collector's edition mount I never had the level to try out, funny indeed.

Jumping on the proposal for questions to Stradden.

First even if I'm not anymore subscribed to AoC I can say, as many others players, I'm following the game closely and I do see the improvements  and more important better communication.

I'm parsing below the post I made when I quit the game the questions in blue are the ones I'm still asking.

For Now I have an issue with itemization as stats should matter in the near future. Unless there is social clothing how will you let players have their characters look like the way they want to?

For quite some time now, I saw no official word on the UI, which is still a major hindrance as the interface between the player and the game.

I'm still hopeless  for socialization, still not as much as WAR though...

By the way your customer service never actually answered my personal email, nor your community managers my PMs. In this I have some faith with you, as new Product Director, that the service will improve.

As a final note I did read the data about crafting changes and well I'm sorry but I'm not impressed nor even interested in so far.

Almost forgot : why don't you merge English US and European forums? US are dead and there are much less official posts than europeans ones.

Originally posted by lumache

The truth is something even more frightening : NOONE KNOWS what the stats mean or if they DO anything at all. Noone call tell you what WISDOM does or how it impacts your casting other than under intense testing GEAR that increases the stats has NO noticable effect on damage.

The same with melee.... how the hell can .1% even be in ANY game? I mean why even bother?
 

 ---------------------------------

Originally posted by alakram 
 

I remember now another reason I had to left AoC. I never understood the item stats and how they really working. I just picked my gear If i liked how it looked, haha. Anyway good asumptions. Im not sure if they work like this, but they probably do. Maybe not even AoC devs know how they work.

Well regarding the core gameplay of most MMOs, so AoC,  is loot (surprise bags) there is a serious issue there as players have no clue how good is their reward.

I'm confused how they pushed live tooltips with 0.1% display...

Old story, still same for shields hooks 1 feet behind the back.

Nice, can't wait!

I'm just sad I'm not part of the team that's working on this title :| ...would be something!

P.S: OP, thanks for the info.

Originally posted by lumache

You cant tell me that the masses, or lack there of will be drawn in by a change from .1% to .2% that is just equally useless. .1% has next to no effect, .2 has next to next to no effect.

My guess is it's just a tooltip display issue. If not then there is something to be done, seriously.

Couldn't resist to be the devil's advocate :

Bringing items from +25% to +50% is a 100% increase in their effect = x2 on their actual stats.

Also it would increase the global stats form 125% to 150% which is a 20% increase form now.

Don't forget you can make number say what you want depending on how you read them.

I guess now people enthousiasmed by the change would be less interesting when they'll see it's a .2 increase only.

My 2t.

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

 

I really have to disagree with that statement.  Whether you like WoW or hate WoW, you can't claim that only marketing gave Blizzard its incredible success.     No game - not LotRO, not AoC and not even WAR would have been able to do what WoW did even with 10 times the marketing.

Exactly what I was saying. LotRo has superior, wider diversity gameplay than WoW and with marketing on top it would beat it.

Certainly much of the hype was the result of Blizzard's track record.   But there was more to it than that.  Hellgate London had an impressive pedigree and look what happned there.  Hellgate was hype with nothing to back it up.

Hellgate isn't an MMO, comparison does not apply

The reason WoW was so successful was not due to marketing brainwashing players.   It was because for the first time ever, a MMORPG finally attracted mainstream gamers who refused to  touch the previous generations of MMORPG for nearly a decade.    Those gamers didn't play those MMORPGs simply because they didn't find them fun. 

So? I didn't say WoW is successful only because marketing. My statement is still it's what is making the difference in terms of subscribers between games of high quality.

Maybe WoW was not as much fun for hardcore, dedicated MMORPG players (like so many on these forums), but WoW was fun for a heck of a lot of gamers outside of the traditional MMORPG niche market.  

I'd say otherwise WoW is for hardcore gamers who like to grind for top end equipment. The casual par of WoW is very fast to burn, then you jump into the grin fest : raid, honor, PvP farming.

Blizzard knew this and they made certain to lift their NDA well before their release and let people play their game at conventions.    This was a marketing strategy but it never would have worked if WoW didn't have something to draw those players in.

I don't like the direction WoW has taken since it's release and I don't play it anymore, but ignoring the reasons WoW became successful is like ignoring the horrible failures of other MMORPGs we've seen.  The only way the genre will evolve is if everyone remembers the history of MMORPGs, both the successes and failures, and not try to make excuses for either.

I agree but Blizzard isn't the only one publishing well polished MMO. Even, it was the first to deliver a nearly bugless one. This was a big milestone in MMO evolution.

 

As a player I expect items to have a better description and an explanation of what are the real effect of each stats. This without having to browse through unofficial testing articles.

I do hope this is the first part that'll be fixed in the following updates.

Now I have  an issue withe the increase of effects of the equipment. I have the feeling this could turn AoC into another WoW where characters look isn't the choice of the players anymore.

I agree 50% is far from over 300% as in WoW but still the issue arises. Players will be going to choose their equipment (only?) for the stats.

With this increase there is an urgent need for social clothing or something like that. Unless AoC wants to take the WoW clone path.

Lastly, please, give us pants!

I checked the PvP gear and when I read

Vambraces of the Vanguard PvP Level 3
Level 80 Wrist +14.2 Physical Damage Modifier
+0.1% Slashing Invulnerability
+0.1% Piercing Invulnerability
+0.1% Crushing Invulnerability
+0.4 Defense Rating
+1.4% Chance of Offhand Attack

There is no way a "normal" player would grind or whatever for that kind of stuff ; unless maybe for the look... so they are another clone of "insert class".

I still think AoC has a nice potential but please, FunCom, do something, at least on displayed stats if nothing else.