SWG
Submitted by Abalieno on October 14, 2006 - 16:52.
I was reading a promotional booklet about Company of Heroes (sublime game) and it starts with this (approximate translation):
A new point of view
In Company of Heroes you have to learn to see things from a military point of view. There aren't anymore houses, walls, city squares, towers. But refuges, covers, zones of fire, sniper spots.
[...]
When you see an opening or a crossroad you have to evaluate from where the enemy is going to approach and set your positions to intersect the zones of fire, so that it is impossible for the enemy to come near without suffering severe losses.
That pretty much summarizes why CoH feels great. Nothing in its concept makes it really stand out. It's yet another RTS, set in the WWII.
How it can be special? Because it feels great and plays in a way absolutely unique, as that excerpt demonstrates. It is great in the measure it moves AWAY from classic RTS gamey mechanics and TOWARD an immersive experience that doesn't delude expectations.
Not the absolute, faithful simulation. But selecting those few mechanics that "matter" more and are faithful to an immersive and yet fun experience. It is fun not because it simulates everything. But because what it simulates is a few "core" mechanics (covers, arcs of fire) that feel right and that you can approach from a "fresh" point of view (the military one, opposed to the classic RTS gamey strategies).
This pretty much summarizes again all my critics (and hundreds of posts on Grimwell) to SWG combat. Both before and after the New Genesis Evangelion.
Please notice that CoH is FAR from twitch. Which is what I tried to explain restlessly. You don't need twitch to get ranged combat "right". CoH is a demonstration of this.
Linking back to past comments:
The basic critics I was making is that when we "simulate" something in a game we surely cannot replicate every other element. But we should choose the elements and rules that we are going to use to "make sense" in the game world. So, even if choosing a few elements, they must be drawn from a reality. If there are going to be five basic mechanics, those five should be "life-like". Immersive. They should tell something concrete that matches the expectations.
Submitted by Abalieno on July 27, 2006 - 02:42.
Answer to that comment:
I can see your point about moving on too early from SWG, but in the case of UO, I was on there for two years after launch, and was in fact the only original team member left. :)
Let's agree on something: both UO and SWG were ruined by the fact that the original minds left. And it will be the same for EVERY mmorpg out there. Now and in the future. Dev teams change and things usually go right in the toilet. In particular those games with a so strong "imprinting".
Bring in more people with new ideas, that's good. But an high churn rate in the dev team will almost surely lead to a disaster. If people won't stick then nothing good is going to come out. Before or after the launch it doesn't change absolutely anything. It's in fact quite obvious that SWG was hurt in particular because it lacked a real direction. Every few months there was someone else at the wheel with a different idea about where to go.
It was your own game and there was noone in the world who could run it beside you. That's the only real truth. *You* killed it the moment you accepted to pass the duty. It's your own responsibility.
Actually I even think that you consciously or unconsciously built it so that the game would have rejected everyone else. Or you or noone else. Like some kind of DNA code identification system that started a countdown to self destruction as someone else tried to "violate" it. You definitely cheated SOE by handing them a crippled game that noone else beside you could have utilized productively.
I do think that not only SWG was rushed out, but that it was also flawed. But this doesn't change the fact that the only one who could have fixed those flaws were you and noone else.
Want to design new games every few months? Good, then DO NOT aspire to be a Lead Designer for a mmorpg. These games aren't waiting rooms where you sit for a couple of months before moving onto something else. A mmorpg is a life-job, if you have the opportunity and privilege to continue. It shouldn't be a walk in the park. Being a Lead Designer should be a daunting task that noone wants, not the easiest way to the game industry stardom.
Plus I only see two different kinds of game designers: the first is the "George Lucas type", who continues to make the exact same game over and over and over. The other is the one who make ONE great game that will be remembered and mimicked for a long time, while all the rest he tries just sucks so hard and is better forgotten.
I wrote that also thinking to what Gordon Walton said about TSO. I mean, you both had the opportunity to continue the development.
It would be different if you were *fired* from the respective projects. In that case it would make sense to "rant" about what went wrong and how things should have worked. But instead you both decided to drop the ball and leave it there. There's no privilege of ranting in that case.
That's too easy. Or you admit that things went wrong and you made a mistake and decided to flee away as quick as possible, or you could have taken the opportunity and kept working on those projects if they were something in which you still believed.
Imho a Lead Designer shouldn't move AT ALL. Stop. There's no "early" or "late". Or there is commitment, or things go to hell.
Or you build a game without personality and so derivative that everyone can lead it. That works too.
SOE did the right thing. Yes. They lobotomized the game because it was the only way for them to break that goddamn DNA lock you sneaked into it.
And *why* you put in that lock? Because it was the greatest way to demonstrate that you are unique and irreplaceable. Or, romantically, a "work of art" ;p
Submitted by Abalieno on June 14, 2006 - 08:31.
If you go look at the SWG category on this site you'll see that I wrote a whole lot about the NGE (the last radical redesign of the game).
My opinion basically was that I wouldn't have personally gone in that direction and dump the RPG-style of the combat in favor of something completely different. But I would still have moved away from that absurd and stupid kind of inconsistent, unimmersive "puzzle combat" with three bars and special shoots, to instead integrate more realistic elements that could make sense in a ranged combat. Like arcs of fire, covers, barrage fire and things like that. Patterns that make sense and are coherent with the setting, maybe even with a focus on formations and other tactical decisions (some elements taken out of "Jagged Alliance" could have helped).
I criticized strongly the way SOE brought over these changes, but at the same time I said that going toward a model of "twitch" combat whould have forced them to make it more consistent and move away from the retarded puzzle game. It's not that "aiming with the mouse" is "more fun". It's just that it is more consistent with the mechanics of "ranged combat". So more intuitive. So more fun because it speaks to you in a known tongue instead of through an arcane and abstract puzzle system that worked properly only in Raph's mind.
Problem is that the execution, when you do a twitch game in particular, is king, and the execution of SWG:NGE was AWFUL. For example it was rather frustrating to manage aggro since a creature you were attacking could pass near a neutral one and you could finish easily to pull both. In particular with the jerky movements and animations that the game has (and a problem shared by all SOE games). You really cannot hope to do "twitch" if the controls aren't perfectly smooth and if you don't do a great work on the movement and animations.
With the last patch the devs finally managed to partially fix this system by improving its usability. There are detailed notes explaining how the new targeting system works. The complete patch notes are also available.
If you read their explanation you may think that the system is still rather intricate and complicated, but I think I can do a better work and explain how it works in short (guesswork, though. I don't play the game from years).
With the "old" NGE system you basically had to target with your mouse as in a FPS and then shoot with the left mouse button, or use silly specials with the right, while switching them through an hotbar. This lead to the issues I explanied above since the game has no collision detection and the execution was really bad.
With the new system they introduce some sort of "safe lock", so that you don't shoot at things you don't want to. Basically you have still to target with the mouse and then press "X" to acquire it and lock it. Let's say that you are walking around and decide to shoot at something. With this new system first you target with the mouse (mouseover), then you press "X" to acquire it (the brakets around the target will change) and then you start to shoot with the mouse button. It's not a "full" weapon lock because you still need to "aim" while you shoot, so if you turn in the other direction you will shoot at the air.
Basically the "lock" is just there so that or you damage it if you aim well, or you miss. Without risking to hit things you didn't want to. Then with the "Z" key you can also cycle between the targets around you, classic style. But, again, when you fire you still have to aim.
My opinion is that these tweaks will help to make the original system usable. And it definitely wasn't before. So it's an improvement.
Darniaq is still convinced that collision detection is coming, while I'm still skeptical about this. Sure thing is that without it this system will continue to be crippled. Quoting the patch notes:
- Kneeling and Prone positions may be used in combat by using either an ability button (the buttons can be found in your command browser by pressing ";") or the slash commands (/kneel, /prone)
What's the sense and purpose of this without collision detection? It's when I can take cover behind an object that kneeling can make sense. Right now you can shoot (and get shot) right through solid objects, so why I should need to kneel? To be a better target?
Plus they seriously need to bind those actions to default keys, not the quickbar or slash commands. At least if they want to incorporate those actions consistently in the combat mechanics (as they should when collision detection will arrive, if it will arrive). Giving more relevance to the environment (like ducts that you have to crawl through, indoor) is the way to go.
There are other fixes that were long due, like making creatures attack at slower speed and slow down melee movement. Things looked ridiculous before. We'll see if the implementation is good this time and if the combat "looks and feels" decent. On the paper the changes are good.
Then there's a last thing that drew my attention:
Weapon Retrofit: Combat damage inflicted by all weapons in the game will be based primarily on the weapon's stats, rather than the character's level.
I wonder who the hell approved the design document where it was written that the character level affected the damage of a laser pistol. This was utterly retarded. I guess that the weapons still have level requirements on their own, so the system is basically the same. But at least it is more coherent.
Darniaq also mentions a veteran reward that allows you to insta travel by calling a shuttle anywhere in the world. I wonder if you just click on an icon and select the destination from a menu before being insta-ported, or if you really do see a shuttle coming and landing that you can board with your group. Because if it's the first case then it's superbly lame. If it's the second it's the coolest thing ever.
I suspect it's the first...
Submitted by Abalieno on March 28, 2006 - 13:39.
From FoH:
Talk about immersion killing. First thing I noticed about SWG and something I never really heard a good excuse for. I'm can be a jedi, master the force, wield all sorts of weapons, see Darth Vader(!), but this 3-inch bit of rock stops me dead in my tracks!
This always bugged me and everyone else. Noone tolerates the lack of jumping (and innatural boundary boxes) but, despite still criticized, in Guild Wars this problem isn't so terribly frustrating as it was/is in SWG. I think it's because this issue is part of a bigger problem.
There was everywhere a lack of detail and attention, you could sit, but only displaced from the chair, on the thin air. There was a sitting animation but you would stand up by rotating in the wrong direction, melting with the back of the chair. The space shuttles used to fly right through the ceiling of the shuttle station, you could bring a huge pet in a tiny corridor with two thirds of the body going out of the roof, you could walk right through chairs and tables, run up and down terrain with absurd inclinations, reach every place without any limitation (if within the boundaries of the zone), the laser of your weapon would shoot at unrealistic angles, the animations and models had constant clipping issues, the NPCs were often stuck half buried in the city walls and everyone could start an impromptu classic dance as a skilled master dancer at any time. Race-specific animations, what are they?
The problem is much, much bigger and encompassing. It's a problem of consistency.
The whole world was just generic wilderness, most of what you saw was graphic fluff, you could disable most of the "environment". Everything was just somewhat randomly generated around you, without really "existing". There was no geography, no roads, paths, environments. It was just generated terrain, but featureless and inconsistent. A "space", but not space with a sense or justification.
This isn't a problem of "content". It's not about a lack of POIs distributed around the world. Before I canceled for the first time I was following one of the quests for the first events and I had to walk through half a zone. A spread of nothingness, dull terrain, hills and mountains. I was a ranger so I could just walk in a straight line. The world just didn't exist, it was a technical feature but it wasn't there to offer something, to offer consistency or something you could relate to. It was supposed to be "pretty", but with no substance. Even the POIs didn't help in any way, again they didn't help to create any kind of geography. A POI was usually just a building spawned somewhere with a few NPCs standing around it. They were dots on the world, but not "world" themselves.
These being all basic structures on which the whole game was built-up and engineered, problems that the game will always drag around, without the possibility to free itself from them.
The combat was also affected by all this.
If you ask me what was the biggest flaw in the original SWG I'd answer: lack of consistency. It is what makes the game "unresponsive", hard to decipher. The combat was hard to figure out because it reacted in unpredictable ways. It was based on odd variables and mechanics that you wouldn't expect and that you would find hard to fully understand and manipulate. And those who managed to get past this barrier would become invulnerable, exploiting the hell out of the system.
Everything was connected to that basic point. Lack of consistency and similarity to patterns that the players expected from the game. The lack of Star Wars-y feel and iconic classes was a drift of the same problem.
The "language" of the game felt alien, and not familiar as the Star Wars universe the players used to know (and hype and anticipate). A problem of communication.
Submitted by Abalieno on March 25, 2006 - 07:47.
I distilled a few interesting parts from the flood of posts from Smed on the SWG boards. Now that I'm gone through it I think I should have organized it better, dividing the general considerations from the discussion about the specific changes. This is what I have right now:
Our communication has been terrific. I can't say you neccessarily like what we've been saying, but I think our community people and our devs have been much more active than before. I never liked that system of correspondents before (they did a great job..don't get me wrong) but I prefer direct communication.
--
The truth is the community morale won't improve until the game does. Communication can't fix this. Improvements to the game can. The fact is our communication has improved.. people don't neccessarily like the message is all. I get that. So do our community folks. My preference is that all the posts in the gameplay forum are discussing gameplay balance.. and in-game issues.. but they won't until we get the game to a baseline fun level. We're not there yet. We know that. We're working to fix it. There is no other answer.
--
The SWG community has been voting with it's feet since the NGE came about. Either we end up being right about our ability to turn the ship around and make a game that's BETTER than it was before, or we were wrong and we fail. Either way we were losing subs before the NGE and believe it or not, we are losing them at a slower rate than before. I'm not going to pretend we didn't lose a bunch of subs from this. We did. And I don't think the game is where it needs to be yet to aquire new subs. But it's getting there with each and every publish.
At the end of the day there are a lot of people in this community that wonder why we did this? Why did we "deliberately" try and piss people off. Obviously that wasn't our intent. This is a business and we needed to improve the results of the business. Did we make a mistake? Maybe.. but only time is going to tell on that one. One thing is certain. We made a mistake with how we presented it to the community, and for that I'm sorry. I still think it was a needed thing though. It's not as simple as "you should have just fixed the things we were complaining about". That doesn't address the very real fact that what we had was a hardcore game that wasn't going to attract the mass audience that the Star Wars IP brings to the table.
--
I respectfully disagree with your position on this. The profession system had fundemental flaws that couldn't be corrected and still be able to both balance the game and add meaningful content that made each profession really matter and be differentiated from the others. Was crafting absolutely the most amazing part of the game? Probably IMO. Can it still be a major part of the game? Hell yes.. and it will be. BUT that needs to be balanced with the fact that adventuring and killing things needed to have meaningful rewards as well to reach a more mainstream audience. I really hope you can see this point even if you don't agree with it.
--
Allow me to respectfully disagree with your point here - Star Wars as an IP is every bit as capable of delivering a WoW level audience. The reason it isn't is the game needs to be that good. No, not the SAME game.. but it needs to be that good and polished. Everyone thinks we are trying to make SWG like WoW or EQ2. That's completely not the case. Yes, we're going to a more rigid class based system and are doing more linear content.. but that's where the similarities end IMO. In theory we still have an incredibly deep and rich system based MMO that can deliver some world class gameplay once we live up to your expectations.
--
SWG never attracted the size audience that the Star Wars license delivered in the first place. One of those reasons was combat wasn't exciting enough. We have done enough research on the people who quit or people that didn't purchase the game to know this is a hard, brutal cold fact. Could we have gone a different direction with the combat? Yes. Could we in the future change this direction? Yes. Do I think we will? No. Why? Because I don't believe that this will be an issue if we solve the other half of the equation - making the professions feel different... and making the content really exciting.
--
Let's get this out of the way right now - SWG in no way has a low sub base. That's just not the fact. The truth is it's still the #4 game in North America (WoW, EQ2, EQ, SWG). I'm sure this will bring the naysayers out of the woodwork, but it's just a fact.
I also totally disagree with our assertion that we can't make this game the biggest and best MMO out there. We still have a full dev-team on this game and we're going to absolutely push ourselves until we achieve our goals. Noone is going into coasting mode on this game. Period.
--
The only answer I can give you on trust is that we have to earn that trust by continuing to make forward progress. That's it. We know that.
--
What exactly was the difference between most of the combat professions? There really wasn't one unfortunately. Adding meaningful content for over 30 professions just wasn't something we were capable of. We bit off more than we could chew. Also, the fact that a person who had seen the movies won't know what most of those professions were presented a real problem for aquisition.
--
You will never hear me saying the people that are complaining aren't passionate about wanting things to be like they were before. In fact, if there is one big lesson I've learned from all of this it's how NOT to go about making big changes in a game
--
I don't like trying to pass the buck. I may say stuff you disagree with, but I don't want to try to imply something that's not true. You may all believe that early on with the NGE we were just "spinning" things. We weren't.. we honestly believed (and still do) that we could make the game better and convince you all that this was the right direction.
--
I actually think this is something that will make things a lot better. I'm not sure where it is in the pipeline of things to do, but I think having mobs not all bunch up will fix a lot of what people complain about. Unfortunately this is not a simple technical problem to solve. It sounds like it is, but on the server side the single biggest frame rate killer is collisions for a lot of reasons I won't get into. We need to solve this problem. I don't have an ETA yet though.
--
we've lost some dev team members. A lot of new companies have sprung up in Austin and we lost some key people... new people take time to ramp up. Simple as that. NCsoft and others are losing people too. This is a competitive job market. Seriously competitive.
Not from Smed:
We recognize that the current profession system doesn't allow for any real level of character differentiation. As such, we're currently working on an "Expertise" system, that grants the players "points" to spend on specialization. The expertise system gives the profession system a similar feel to what we had pre-nge as far as character customization goes. The tech for this system is being developed for the next publish (this won't be visible to you guys). The publish after that, we're looking at pushing out the first two professions's worth of expertise trees, with two professions targeted for every publish after that. Generally speaking, we'll have three trees for each profession to choose from, including a GCW tree and a "path" tree that will hold things like "dark" and "light" side powers for Jedi, for instance (or droid specializtion, vs poisons for Bounty hunters - for instance).
--
(about the respec NPCs that will be added)
Starts 100k credits and goes up to 25 million i think.
--
Lots of talk about the "secret" project which really isn't a secret anymore. We are doing a playable demo for E3 and Swede is working on the team that is putting that together. The project is actually going to be larger then just the demo and become a new themepark with a GCW theme (lots of Rebels v. Imperials) to it, which will be put into the game in publish 29.
The intention of this themepark is to cover our bases with E3 and develope a new set of repeatable, high end content for all of you.
The expansion team, which is no more, is now working on nothing but high end content that will be sent out in our regular publishes.
--
(about collision detection)
We are still working on it. It is a huge change to the core game, so we want to make sure it is solid before we roll it out in a publish.
--
Animations - We will be doing some significant work on our animation system in the upcoming months. The collision system we are working on will allow us to get jumping into the game.
--
We're going to put the stuff that's clearly SW in first. We're going to modify or retrofit the best of what was fun but not completely SW in second. We're going to remove or eliminate those things that clearly aren't SW.
And, we're going to do it all at a pace that ensures quality and fun.
--
SWG is no longer striving to be a world simulation.
There would be so many things to say about all this.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 20, 2006 - 05:40.
First of all EQ 2 is growing quite well and is doing great as a business. SWG wasn't in that condition.
"There's a reason that we did this. The story … is kind of getting lost here…the game was losing subscribers. We had to make this game more accessible to a wider audience or eventually we would not have a business,"
And:
What actully happens is called "Market Research". This involves multiple focus groups (not like putting up a web poll.. actually a 3rd-party company with a one-way mirrored room where dev people can watch how people react to the game.. then they ask those people a number of questions). In addition to this surveying the existing userbase via volunteer surveys (which was done before and after the NGE btw). Those focus groups also included different populations including existing users.
This is Totally Retared (TM). If that's what happened I'm not surprised of the total clusterfuck. And, again, you deserve every little bit of it.
Polls, surveys, outside consulting. If this is the trend, it may be as well the tomb of the genre.
What a total waste of money and resources. Mmorpgs need competent authors with a sincere passion. Not hamster experiments.
Submitted by Abalieno on December 27, 2005 - 07:42.
FoH's forums are dead once again, but before passing out someone linked the scans to PC Gamer's review of the latest changes in Star Wars Galaxies:
IT'S: Buggy - Desolate - Back to the drawing board
IT'S NOT: Got any depth - Fun - The way forward
27% - Disatrous
"Gives SWG more problem then ever"
And more:
"What a heap of junk"
"A failed attempt at resuscitating a dying game. Too many bugs and frustrating action."
"ABANDON SHIP: with a diminishing number of players, you may never group with others on a regular basis, thus missing out on the high quality adventures that exist out there somewhere."
"CRYING IN THE TERRAIN: Terrain plays a more integral role in combat now. You cannot attack through rock, which seems sensible enough. Infuriatingly, the reverse is not true. Mobs always appear to hit you even if they are hiding behind buildings or solid lumps of land."
"COMEDY COMBAT: A redesigned combat system with make-believe damage numbers makes it impossible to work out how much punishment you are inflicting. It's an attempt to move the game from stat-watching to faster-paced action. Sounds good in principle, fails in practice."
"CLASS WAR: Classes are only given an handful of combat skills throughout the entire game. This makes combat a dull and repetitive stream of default attacks, a special move than a swift heal. Repeat."
"Thirty-four professions were culled into nine 'iconic' classes. With no option to chop and change professions the classes are more nondescript than ever. Each of the combat classes are virtually identical, with no customization options to suit differing players' needs. Abilities granted every few levels are now merely replaced with higher ranked versions of the same ability when you level up."
"Jedi (the game's only real melee class) are at disadvantage and ranged classes fail altogether because it's impossible to keep a target singled-out when faced with more then two mobs that are close together."
"The crafting aspect of the game remains similar, but the demand for items has almost disappeared. The weapon you use no longer makes much difference: a level 16 DH-17 carabine will kill your target as fast as a level 80 Krayted T-21 rifle. The abolition of item decay limits Traders to one-time customers rather then the repeat sale economy of the past. Money will soon be just a figure with no actual value, driving crafters out of the game."
"There are no heroic characters in the tradition of the Star Wars universe, just your average Joes going through repeat missions on Mustafar, with nothing else to do."
"Welcome to a game that has lost its identity, where everybody is nobody."
"Nobody could have expected a total massacre of an two-and-a-half year old game in two weeks."
And more:
Influenced by: Star Wars, Benny Hill
Alternatively: World of Warcraft, 94%
OUCH!
Now to maintain a glimpse of balance in the Force I guess I'll have to link Darniaq's optimistical hopeful "review".
If that's the popular sentiment, I guess we have to reconsider the comments that followed the announcement of those changes. Back to discussing whether "change is good" or not.
The problems pointed out by PC Gamer are the same that I collected and listed just by reading the impressions of the players on various forums:
These changes don't seem to be for the better of the game. And, in particular, the implementation is terrible.
Which is exactly what I wrote in my comments as all this was announced:
My point of view is exactly the opposite. It's the context (completely changing a live service) to be useless and the content (the specifics of the changes) to be relevant.
It's only the quality of the implementation to matter here. If the quality is very high, the dissatisfaction would be easily reabsorbed. If the quality is poor, instead, you'll simply fail to get both new and old customers and the context would be branded as "not convenient" for future, generalized references and commonplaces formed out of thin air that will be very hard to discard.
It's really this simple.
What was important was to consider the resources available and figure out if there was enough "space" to do a very good work or not. SOE made its choice. We'll see the results. These results should be always considered for the specific game and the specific changes. Not generalized and standardized as absolute principles.
I don’t support “change” just for the sake of it, in the same way I do not support fancy ideas with no foundation. What I’d like to see is working actively to deliver what was planned and adjust what you are creating with what you learnt along the way.
The truth simply depends on how “change” is executed and not “whether change or not”. I hate this generalization about “change”. If *this* change is well executed the players will finally reward it, if it sucks the game will pay an harsh price. The same would apply if we were talking about a brand new product.
People are RAGING against the NGE but what I read in the complaints is about NPCs shooting through walls, melee being retarted, and huge problems with the controls. Yes, they are hating "change", but they are hating it because it's, once again, an half-assed, incomplete *implementation*. IMPLEMENTATION. And yes, this is the fucking problem of SWG since day 1. They dragged the game in every direction possible, finishing nothing.
I said it in the past and I'll repeat it. The HUGEST problem of SWG is the high churn rate of the developers. Starting from Raph. The game switched hands like the cheapest whore and its current status is NOWHERE SURPRISING. But there isn't anything to learn from here, if not that without commitment, long term and STABLE commitment, you go nowhere. This is why it's so important the managment in a company to keep things together.
On the same lines were the comments from TerraNova I quoted:
The problem is that SWG's chief problem from the beginning has been poor implementation, poor communication, poor service. Koster's design ideas went wrong when they got awkwardly stitched in late Beta to counterposing designs, when the center could not hold. They went wrong when they went live in a horribly unfinished state, with an underresourced live management team desperately trying to keep a very leaky ship afloat.
Unfortunately, the live management team seems to have ignored another long-standing criticism of SWG by many observers: that their design and implementation process is a disastrous mess. Never more so than with the NGE: whatever it is conceptually, in practice, it's roughly on par with an alpha build of a MMOG.
And more or less the same is what Darniaq observed:
"For the most sweeping change to ever hit an MMORPG, SOE effectively gave the players a few days of notice. They didn't seek opinions. They weren't testing it for months on the public Test Servers. They didn't have a long dialog with the players. They basically made the announcement, pushed the code to the Test Servers two days later, and as usual for them, regardless of what the players found on the Test Servers, the entire game was patched with it shortly thereafter."
"As such, they have received a lot of complaints. These criticism though, from game forums to traditional mass media to industry professionals, are less about the changes to the game and more about SOE's handling of it."
"This system is both completely different and nigh incomplete. The reason there's not much to say yet is because so much is left undone. Even true collision detection is not yet in, nor is it slated for another six months."
"That the players pay for how poorly they are all implemented can't mean we forget that they're being tried at all."
After these changes were announced I criticized three specific points:
1- How the transition was handled (communication with the players) (1, 2, 3)
2- Overall design (choices made nowhere solid or convincing) (1, 2)
3- Implementation (1, 2, 3, 4)
ALL three of these went terribly wrong as I feared. But the "change" itself wasn't an issue. If not in the equation: change = increasing risk.
What was important was to consider the resources available and figure out if there was enough "space" to do a very good work or not. SOE made its choice. We'll see the results. These results should be always considered for the specific game and the specific changes. Not generalized and standardized as absolute principles.
Then, sometimes, it's also possible to hear some positive comments:
Still having fun in SWG. Not only the first fun I've had since the game came out, but this will probably be the longest I've been subscribed. Despite any problems with the NGE. I didn't want to be a fucking moisture farmer, I wanted to be a badass Sith and crush Rebels under my heel. It's too bad crafting is getting shafted so hard, but the focus on crafting all this time shafted the entire game.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 22, 2005 - 23:36.
Still on TerraNova someone linked a recent post (12 September) from Raph on SWG boards about the communication with the players and their plans to improve it.
Truly amazing if compared to what happened in the last weeks.
(link)
Hey there everyone--
Lots to reply to in the above, but I figured you're less interested in rehashing the past and more interested in concrete things that we will do to improve things.
I wanted to let you know that I spoke this morning with Alan Crosby, who recently became our director of community relations, about the update process. For those who do not know, the position of director of community relations is a relatively new one here at SOE, one that we've been planning on having for a while. Alan's job is to enforce community policies across all the titles--and one of the first is the update process, which includes the whole In Concept->In Dev->In Testing thing.
I didn't mean to give the impression that this process is fully in place across all the games, or even working at peak on the games where it is implemented. It's not. That's why we have Alan in this position now.
The plan is to have this system roll out across all the games in the coming weeks, and along the way, fix it on any games where it exists but is not being used to its full intent.
To reiterate: our goal is
* prospective changes should be discussed in advance of implementation to gather community feedback
* as implementation proceeds, the changes are documented and posted to In Development as they are completed
* when ready, these detailed notes are posted as a source of information for testing
* when propped to Live, the notes are updated with any changes necessary, and posted as the latest update
* a history of updates is maintained to serve as documentation for added features
As you have pointed out, some of this is not happening. The objective is to make it all happen and become habitual, as soon as possible.
Not everyone seems to agree at SOE.
This confirms my suspects about it being nowhere planned.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 16, 2005 - 09:15.
Not from me. I was busy in my first DarkSpire run in DAoC and getting mad at Mythic (and, once again, congratulating the artists, that place is another masterpiece).
The bad impressions are coming from SWG and with a few things that still annoy me even if I'm not playing the game:
You still canNOT sit on the beds (benches, chairs). Just as in the beta all that time ago, I sat in midair about 7 feet away from the bed. It was vaguely amusing.
What the hell. What the fuck! I thought they fixed this in January. No. Characters still sit in the air. It tells a lot about the rest of the execution.
I'm not totally sure but I've read that if you download the trial and try to connect you have to download another 200Mb patch.
On day 1.
--
FIND A BOMB AND DEFUSE IT! Follow this glowing blue fairy thing!
Walk for 1 minute, click once, walk back 1 minute.
Yeah, shot through walls. Stuff meleeing me from 20 ft away.
--
Most force skills don't even have an animation, the enemy just turns into a corpse as soon as you click the right button on it. Some other don't even work.
--
It's simply *impossible* to shoot a mob between some dead bodies due to the retarded target system. You try to shoot but instead you target the dead bodies and start looting them while you are getting shot.
--
12k+ ham bars. It feels like playing a pinball.
--
Anything you "target", your character LOOKS at. So this means as I move the mouse around, my characters head is twitching madly as it looks at dozens of different things for a tenth of a second at a time.
--
My favorite part of last night was standing in front of Mos Eisley cantina and saying that the game looks like a piece of shit now, everyone moves all stupid and everyone's heads snap left and right all the time, and several folks shouting ADAPT! and THIS IS BETTER you just have to get used to it and give it a chance!
I then proceeded to shout, "Are you fucking blind, look around you and how people are moving - especially people FIGHTING. It looks like shit, plain and simple. Get used to what? People in a near fetal position gliding across the Tatooine sand on invisible rollerskates?"
Aside from the many UI and control issues, they need to turn down what craptacular speed boost they put in, because animations are so fast that the server can't even keep up.
And then, they need to actually sit down and do some real work on melee, because it's pathetic.
--
melee is almost impossible. I had several mob AI run from me from melee range. I had several on Endor do the classic run-1Km-away-and-then-back-again-bug. Hadn't seen that since year1.
--
you can hit in melee facing your enemy backwards.
--
Even if you use your saber block, you wait out the root, then snare the other guy, he snares you, you both half-step your way towards each other (well, the Jedi gimps towards the gimpy ranged person, as they continue their kiting) and eventually - you get rooted again. And pummeled. Eventually ranged wins, because in the midst of all this running and gimping around - guess what - Jedi does 0 damage to their target, or they get a couple saber throws in that do a few slivers of damage. The ranged person has ample time to let that regen while they continue their snare/root/kite technique.
--
I can no longer be a dancer and make my own clothing and that royally sucks.
--
Within the first 10 minutes you meet C-3P0, R2-D2, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and get chased by Vader. It's worth nothing that Solo throws in a random "kid" about every other sentence. You also get to have a laughably easy turret shootout with TIEs moving at about 1mph, and take down some nonresponsive storm troopers that seem to be in the advanced stages of Parkinson's.
--
You just point at an object that the game deems as "shootable" and left click. The camera controls suck, frequently making it difficult to see since your character gets in the way of aiming. I also had occasional problems with the camera clipping out of the station and showing the stars outside. Objects in the game and in your inventory also flicker pretty badly.
--
So we know that they removed the decay. Once again people leave around their vehicles littering the place and lagging everyone.
--
Crafting is now also a bitch, because of the difficulty in turning off mouselook mode. This tosses you back to staring at your worthless crosshairs every time you sell an item on your vendor.
--
Using force run or force heal puts the character in combat, even without aggressive mobs in a 4km range. You are stuck in it. The only way to get out of combat is to search for a friend to duel or go shot a mob.
--
the right-click specials system.... So how do I clear a special so I don't fire it off accidently? Or better said, how the hell can I /peace anymore? Hitting ESC only brings up the HUD. If you target some objects -- let's the say a bank terminal, which I'm testing in another window as I type this -- and right-click, you fire off that special and start combat. And you fucking stay in combat...
--
As soon as I logged in, my server announced it was shutting down. I tried to sit down to log out, but it put me into combat mode and wouldn't let me leave. I ran around for a bit, watching random "-SNARED-" and "-LEVEL UP-" text come out of my character's head for no apparent reason. Then the server kicked me off.
--
The Officer buffs don't work on the group but affect only the Officer.
--
Well, it seems that since I posted my last blurb one of the medics four healing abilities now works.
--
Loot! Just like in the star wars movies, kill thousands upon thousands of small, inoffensive creatures and then rip their brain from their head. What do you do with the brain? Why you sell it to a fence of course!
--
There were at least a couple of "obj_value[skill_luck]=3" or whatever lurking about, the "Select profession" button (according to the text) was not called that (it was "Next"), and there were quite a few graphical glitches. And it still has all of that "I can't run underneath this spaceship because the transparent model extends to the ground" shit that I remember from my subscription days. Thanks for stressing the point that it's more 2.5D than 3D, except in space.
Slow: Not just the space combat, but the lag, and controls in general.
First of all, it's 3rd person with the "person" off to the side, so you end up running "sideways" because you're trained to move forward into the center. Anger!
Second of all, the switching between mouselook and interactivity is, as others have pointed out, inconsistent - frequently, the game will decide it should switch to the other when you would assume it would not. And ESC is dangerous, because it will close some dialogs, not just switch the modes.
Third, interaction sucks; Aiming the tiny cursor is hell when your target is obscured by big damage numbers. Targeting a conversation choice is hard when it's relative to an NPC going through animations.
Shooting through walls is bad, meleeing from far away is bad. Not being able to sit on a chair properly after more than two years is even worst.
Consistence, pls. No game based on ranged combat can have the *pretence to exist* without an even rudimental Line of Sight check.
The most comedy value comes from Smedley himself:
While the scope of the new enhancements is large, it's built upon a very powerful underlying engine that gives us the ability to enhance the game in meaningful ways rather quickly.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 14, 2005 - 21:39.
What would you do if this is the last day before the world's end?
Tomorrow the discussed radical changes to SWG go live. Some classes will be wiped while others transformed. For sure it will be one of the most traumatic days after the announce itself. On the Q23 thread there's a post describing the last day in SWG as we know it, like a parody :)
--
Kahar The Mad
Well tomorrow is the big day here in SWG land. I have logged onto both the test servers and the main servers..Just to see...here is what I found....
- On the test servers -
Jedi are slowly realizing they just got screwed by a telephone pole. The jar of vaseline they handed to the jedi is basically 'a new lightsaber' wooohoo...
Jedi have populated to the point where it looks like a cockroach infestation at a Tiajuana hotel. You turn the light on over CNET and about 300 of them scatter on instinct and there are usually 4 actual alternate classes sitting there.
Bounty Hunters have been seen sitting together for warmth. Most of them are looking at the weapons they have bought and can't figure out what the hell to do with them. Most are overheard saying "what do you wanna do?"
"I dont know what do you wanna do"
"Lets do a NPC Bounty"
"Sure"
At This point they stand walk 100 feet away grab the misison and turn and shoot the guy standing 100 feet away from the terminal.
They then sit down again and repeat the cycle.
Crafting classes are still confused as to what exactly they are supposed to be making.
- On live Servers -
Creature Handlers are staging a protest. I think alot of them are actually putting a physical price on the devs heads. However alot of them have rallied and are selling CL10 Pets at about 2.5 to 10 million per.
Bioengineers are sitting in front of thier manafacturing stations staring in disbelief.
Most have take on the Rainman personae. And have dubbed Black Tuesday as "Heavens Gate" Im not sure what this means but I have heard purchases of Koolaid, and jello pudding have gone up.
Sales on merchants, look like Big Lots, in a agressive take over has placed their spokeman Jerry Van Dyke in charge of marking the prices.
Bounty Hunters have declared this day Jedi Love day. This is where the Jedi, All levels and abilities are hunted. Bounties are flying off the Terminals faster then cards in a rolodex in the middle of Katrina.
Jedi in game are being hunter in the last few hours like Sam Neil in jurassic Park. Jedi are trying desperately to Grind out thast bit of xp they can. While the Full Template Jedi keep screaming "Dont go into the long grasses" as another Bounty Hunter takes out the padawan with a round from his carbine.
Smugglers are pushing Drugs on the newbs at a alarming rate. Most of the newbies in game are walking around in a permanent purple haze and a few can be seen begging more from the smugglers.
Dancers, and musicains are huddled together against the coming night crying each other to sleep as if a guard is gonna come inside the cantina soon and drag one of them away for an execution.
Carbineers are found screaming at the top of there lungs "No Brady Bill"
Riflemen and Rangers are trenched in with supplies of food, bandaids and annuals of Deer Hunter Weeklys.
Pistoleers are screaming "They will take my gun when they pry it from my dead hand!! Or when the server comes down!!!"
Terras Kasi are prancing around singing "I get to be a Jedi"
Pikemen and Fencers...See Terras Kasi
Politicians and Mayors of towns are see in the streets screaming "There is no need to be alarmed!!! Citizens!! All will be fine!!! Trust the Government!!!"
Other than that... Things are business as usual.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 11, 2005 - 17:36.
I was reading an italian forum about the latest changes in SWG, mostly because it's a type of community usually less conditioned, and I found a considerable number of "I quit!" posts. I consider these more important and I say that they are less conditioned because it's unlikely that someone working on the game reads their opinions. There's nothing to demonstrate, noone to convince. Still, the tone of the comments is the same I can find on the usual boards. Most of them are definitely pissed off, almost enraged. I tend to believe this because they really write only to confrontate with each other and vent their honest disappointment. So I tried to delve a bit deeper on the reasons, trying to put a line between the emotive reactions and the actual valid points.
Now this doesn't pretend to be a deep analysis of this phenomenon. It's just a vaporous glance to some of the reactions just out of the curiosity. It would require too much time to do this better. In general what I notice, more than the critiques to the gameplay or the changes to the classes, is the rage against SOE. The players are really pissed off, they feel cheated. This comes before everything else, even before the game itself, and it depends on a number of reasons, some of which I already commented. This radical change is happening all at the sudden and way too quickly. The previous Combat Upgrade was already traumatic but it was carried along, the players were part of its progress, they saw it coming, they saw it pushed back to after the release of JtL. So, good or not (and I'm between those who didn't like it at all), the players were aware and part of what was happening. They had time to "digest" it. Now the situation is completely different and I wouldn't be surprised if this was an experiment also about the community. Like a social test to see how the masses react to the most traumatic thing possible. Instead of endless announces and delays, long test periods and rebalances, everything is pushed out without notice and without giving the players enough time to even understand what is going on. But maybe I'm seeing too much into this and the reasons are not so elaborate as I think...
Jeff Freeman hints that the team is under hard crunch. I'm sure noone would feel surprised but, well, *I am*. Why the hell you would have the need to rush out something huge and so absolutely fundamental like this new transition? It doesn't make ANY SENSE. This is probably the most delicate moment ever for the game at the exclusion of launch. And they are rushing out, they are on a hard crunch and they announced the whole thing when it was already all decided and with just a two-weeks notice. No communication, no significant explanations. Just a fact: "All your base are belong to us".
I could go on forever wondering about the reasons behind all this inconceivable absurdity but, again, I wouldn't be surprised if the real one would be really simple and linear:
This year, the release of Episode III has fueled significant growth for the title and indeed it's the release of the final Star Wars that has prompted the timing on these changes. "It's great to have a movie like Episode III that gets people excited. We tried to time these changes with the release of the DVD," says Smedley. "There will also be a big marketing push that follows as well.
Have you noticed this? Have you noticed how extemporary is it? Without the usual months of preorders? I think that what is going on could be only the result of a marketing manoeuvre. From various posts on the boards we know that the "proof of concept" about the new twitch combat has been worked since forever. Basically since the players themselves started to claim a merge between Planetside and SWG after the obvious failure in the practice of the concepts of the HAM system. But then from Jeff we know that the steering point that concluded into the announce of the NGE goes back to just "a few" months ago. Maybe I'm too naive but I believe that the whole "the changes were deliberately released after the cash-cow of the new expansion had been milked" (this one "fished" from a comment) may not be so deliberate and preplanned. Maybe it's all the consequence of a number of coincidences and different teams working on different parts of the game as autonomous units (which is already a glaring issue). Maybe the devs tried to push for the idea for a long time, working on two or more fronts. The live game, the Combat Upgrade, the new expansion all while the proof of concept of the twitch crazy idea was being developed. And then they all did a huge effort trying to "pitch" this idea to the "Managment" and this took more and more time. Till the point where the Mangment saw this "Planetary Alignment" between the problematic status of the game (and its not so stellar performance), the crazy idea that the devs were trying to pitch and the release of the DVD version of the very last episode of the series. The game, at this point, was probably in stagnation and without many other hopes since no new movies are expected to give another external sale-boost. The release of the DVD was probably seen as a last occasion to readily pick up or just leave behind. I'm sure that it's at this point that the managment went "Hoooooooooph" and finally said, "What the hell. Let's just do it."
Something I've learnt is that the reality is the result of awful compromises. But or you accept them, or you do nothing. This is one. As I commented elsewhere what matters from now onward is solely the quality of the changes. And this remains a risk because the quality doesn't come with guarantees. It is never safe. This while the whole discussion was derailed through various fancy transitions to "whether change or not". Which is a moot point. Empty, redundant. These are the discussions that risk to trigger polemics that do not go anywhere.
I've already derailed enough but my point was to isolate the very first problem perceived by the players, the fact that they feel cheated, and figure out the reasons. Because I'm still naive and I always think that there are always some justifications, somewhere. And so I try to convince myself that all that is going on isn't driven by an evil mind but just the result of a bunch of coincidences and compromises that, while do not fit with our ideals, are still necessary for the reality. And someone, at some point, has to choose. And I don't think that choosing with some courage is to blame. *Even* if the result won't be satisfying.
The players feel cheated and I totally understand and justify them. SOE recently launched an expansion that not only will be half broken and unbalanced as the NGE will be pushed live in just a few days, but that was also marketed to hand out rewards like the special necklace and the exclusive pets for the Creature Handler that are being removed just a few weeks after they were introduced (and bought). SOE deliberately (in this case) decided to not say anything about what would have happened just a few days later. The same for all those players that were able to endure the grind to become a Jedi and unblock the second character slot. The same slot will be now open for every player and in the same way everyone will be able to start as Jedi. The JtL expansion is now free. Some classes were grounded, others were stripped out of their identity and others were simply erased. The combat mechnics changed genre.
OF COURSE the players feel pissed off. No surprise here. They got ganked.
But again this is part of the risk that SOE decided to take. I wrote down some of the reasons why I think these compromises have been so particularly awful and what is left is simply a daring choice. What matters is now about how the game will move from this point. The current designers have inherited an overambitious mmorpg and the "fathers' guilt". Some things were broken, some others not. Choices have been made and the designers decided to accompany the conversion of the combat with a replan and consolidation of the classes that could trigger an endless discussion alone. It's not really easy to discern some decent patterns to organize all that is going on to figure out the actual real, unbiased status of the game and potential development from now on. One thing is sure, though, the current players are sick to play a game still in beta that keeps shapeshifting. And from now on you can be sure enough that they will remain unreasonable and won't provide unbiased and reliable feedback on the status of the game.
This is why I tried to start digging (only very superficially) to find some patterns. I think I've already covered how the players feel, the reasons why they feel so and the whole problem about the communication, timing and execution of these changes. So what about the actual game on its own? This is a short, uncomplete and superficial list:
- Many players are worried about the increasing dependence of the game on ping and framerate which could become an insurmountable barrier, in particular in a game that wasn't planned accordingly.
- Quickbar combat+First Person Shooter style = clunky and lame. Very lame. The controls are felt problematic and using many types of attacks and effects through hotkeys is appropriate for an RPG style of combat instead of a FPS. The current mix is frustrating and alienating many players.
- Inconsistences in the combat mechanics, too much abstraction. Ex. In the tutorial the players is instructed to hide behind some boxes while the laser beams of the stormtroopers go right through them. Lack of appropriate AI and mechanics.
- Doubts about the scaling possibilities of the FPS combat at the higher levels (both PvP and PvE). FPS combat + levels = problematic. (Tess has a comment about Diablo, though. Which was also referenced by SOE more than the FPS combat)
- The combat is faster but still not wrapped up around the new style and polished. All the characters and NPCs move awkwardly, the animations are mostly broken or not consistent and targeting becomes frustrating under these conditions. Forcing the players to just fire approximately with the autoattack for the best result.
- The freedom and flexibility in how the profession system worked, while maybe mostly only apparent (due to standarized templates and such), was a major feature of the game that is going to be completely discarded.
- Complete lack of customization within the same class.
- Crafters roles at risk due to the complete removal of item decay and customization/personalization.
- Direct unbalance between the classes: it is expected that most players will now become jedis to fill a world of jedis. Which kills both an healthy diversification (the "world" aspect as the unique trait of this game) and the entire perceived setting.
- Heavy bias in the classes and general outlook toward the rebels. No distinction between typologies of classes (again "rebels vs imperials"). Even the tutorial is rebel-biased. If Smed is expecting to make PvP viable in this game and focus again on the Galactic Civil War, this seems a glaring overlook that will seriously undermine the future of the game and its possibilities.
- Many problems still in the perception of the classes. Some of them have been stripped of their identity and main role (instead of consolidating and adding versatility). Ex. Bounty Hunters not being able to hunt players anymore, Jedis losing some key features, Smugglers not smuggling (slicing and production of spices being cut), Officiers not being able to lead groups (removal of "rally point") and more.
- Inconsistence and excessive simplification (and abstraction) of the level-based system. Ex. Using a pistol will "level" even your skill with a sword.
- The specific, independent quests for each class are shaping the game as a single player, minimizing the strong social aspect that was both a strength and weakness of this game.
- The quest rewards that the new characters acquire along the way and that seem to have an important role, aren't accessible to respecced ones.
- The UI is really ugly and looks more like a gross proof of concept that something finalized. (apologies to the artist/designer but I'm being honest. Some players have referenced Pit Fighter)
These are some of the points I've isolated even if I'm sure I missed many more. Each of these would require a deeper analysis on its own which would go beyond the scope of what I'm doing here. This was an attempt to narrow what isn't working and what is probably more problematic but still urgent to solve. If SOE decided to go radical they definitely cannot stop now and must remain committed to go through each of those points and provide effective solutions. If they stop here they'll just produce another half-assed system that will need another major redesign in less than a year. It already happened and noone needs more of these predictable fuckups. And the consequent negative admission that "change is bad".
To conclude I just wonder what would have happened if SOE already ebayzed all its games as it will eventually happen. Maybe you remember someone menacing the "creative corner". Some players speak already of fraud. What could have happened if the players had actually directly paid for those characters, skills and items that are now being scrapped or emptied of their main value? I believe this question is threatening enough without further comments...
P.S.
A direct fix I would suggest:
I don't care if this breaks the current balance. This MUST be in and the rest of the game tweaked accordingly. If a player is engaged in melee he shouldn't be able to use his ranged weapon. The very first thing the opponent would do is to block the weapon. Receiving laser bolts in your eyes for two minutes straight isn't conceivable. So give every character defensive melee skills and knockback attacks, but ranged combat should remain ranged. The melee combat should be fleshed out as an independent system with its own "twitch" type of gameplay (give a look that what Bethesda is trying to do with Oblivion for decent twitch-y melee combat). Or removed entirely.
And for the comedy value give a look to this thread (and notice the date). This one also.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 9, 2005 - 12:23.
This is one standard comment on FoH's boards. Nothing too deep and elaborate but there's some truth in it.
Dyscord:
Sounds like what I was afraid of. They implemented a interface and combat set like a FPS. The problem is this FPS is Wolfenstein 3D instead of Half-Life 2. Actually, I'm sorry, Wolfenstein had an enemy AI at least and it didn't take 5 minutes to kill a nazi soldier. The SWG world isn't made for this psedo FPS combat. Even the most uncreative FPS have shit everywhere to hide behind, etc. SWG is barren, really barren. Hell, the engine sucks so much shit you couldn't display that much junk anyway. Its a good start of a good system jammed into the worst possible game.
It's a god damn shame. It sounds like they have the beginings of something interesting. But thats just it. THE BEGINING. Not THE WE'RE PATCHING IT LIVE THE 15TH! If they were to work from this base and leave it in development for another year and a half to make a new game, maybe they'd actually have made something fun.
I don't even think adding chaingun wielding robotic Hitler would help.
It brings up some of my scepticism about the implementation. To not even consider the basic, fundamental problems like the netcode and the engine and all the mechanics that would need to be completely rewritten (PvE AI? Environments? PvP?).
It's like being a child and trying to push a square form piece into the triangle-shaped hole.
I wouldn't be surprised if in a week SOE discards the project as a bad (or too good) dream.
(Some more harsh feedback and summary here. Again about the -lack- of jumping, inappropriate NPC AI, ugly UI, animations and much more.)
Submitted by Abalieno on November 7, 2005 - 01:59.
I'm not sure if I wrote it clearly enough here but what is fundamental in the choice to go twitch is to incorporate progressively gameplay elements that aren't too abstract and that MAKE SENSE. Like adding elements that can give the perception of the space a decent value. And this only because we are human beings who like games that simulate experiences that we can understand and relate to. This isn't about fancy design hypothesis, this is a nature we cannot negate.
Twitch is good not because you have to break your mouse to play effectively:
Ethic:
I aim and left-click on a trooper and my laser pistol fires and hits. Click, click, click as fast as I can.
It feels like it will be a click-fest during combat.
But because it integrates a pattern (you have a pistol, you have to aim at target, and shoot) that people can relate to. That is somewhat visceral. Not made up, constructed or abstracted.
Now there's a video that has been linked and that shows what I fear about this last change. But this "danger" goes beyond the problem pointed in that video.
In fact a decent (and fun) simulation of ranged combat isn't just about the one element of aiming. That's probably the less important one. The combat in "Jagged Alliance" (a tactical game) was great and realistic, but it didn't include aiming, or at least not directly. But it included many, many other fundamental gameplay elements that are totally missing from SWG. Like arcs of fire, rates of fire, positioning and range. In particular the environments become a strong part of the gameplay and don't just sit there as empty boxes with walls. The place sets the strategy, the situation. You can use walls and objects to take cover, hide, barrage fire. And then camping a zone, sending out other people while you cover them and so on.
ALL these elements are what make a game fun. Often just a different environment and layout is enough to present a whole new situation that you'll have to study and solve. But this can happen only because there are *many* elements that come into play and that you have to consider. The good FPS aren't those game that limit the action to a dull but frenetic clickfest, but are those that integrate all those elements right into the gameplay. The "first person" becomes then an optimal way to remove the abstractions and feel and understand directly the scope of the gameplay. These types of games are more successful because of the lack of abstraction and the presence of gameplay elements that are felt more natural.
Now the core point is about trying to integrate all those basic elements that the players expect from a situation like the ranged combat. It's totally irrelevant if we build a system that is twitch, or one that is turn based or something else. We still need to integrate those elements that make sense, that the players can understand and use easily.
So it's a terrible, superficial mistake to consider "twitch" as just "aim and click". The player who made the video is complaining about the blaster bolts following the target, but he is not complaining because it's simply ugly to see. But because this implies that the movement, positioning and range are elements completely irrelevant in the game.
This is why I believe that the very first priority should be about readding some of the elements I listed above to the gameplay. And it's also the reason why the current games try to incorporate more and more of those visceral elements of the reality, like the physical consistence and all the new physics engines that are now trivialized as nothing more than a trend. And this is also why I believe that Prey is an extremely interesting game that will introduce some truly new and interesting patterns into the genre.
Which also brings back to my: "The graphic is the game"
These games need to renounce progressively to interfaces and abstraction to incorporate those elements (that cannot be lost or discarded) as a direct feedback and type of gameplay.
"Twitch" doesn't mean that the game will be dumbed down. But a superficial implementation of twitch could do that.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 6, 2005 - 07:05.
There's an article on IGN delving on some interesting points even if it's obviously siding SOE. These are my highlights:
The official line on these changes is that both SOE and LucasArts think that the new Galaxies is how the original game should have been released. Sony Online producer Dallas Dickinson was in town to show the game off and told us that they'd gotten tons of feedback from all kinds of sources "telling us essentially that Star Wars Galaxies did not deliver on the Star Wars fantasy. It didn't make you feel like you were part of the Star Wars universe."
Well, this is a rather common point of view and it's sort of predictable that those points would have been recovered to justify this huge change. Ubiq writes about a compact with the players, while I wrote about the communicative pact. The main difference here is that from Ubiq's point of view the developers are breaking the compact because they are fundamentally changing the original concept of the game with another one. While what I wrote is that the "communicative pact" between the devs and players was already broken as the game came out and provided a type of game with mechanics *already* too alienated and abstracted from the established archetypes and cultural values and myths of Star Wars.
From this point of view this last "turn over" could be considered as a way to actually restore that pact that was broken long ago. Hence deserving the risk.
"The existing game is in a bad place and it has been. We try to give it as much attention as we can, but we're allowing entire systems and professions to atrophy and that's just going to continue going down in that direction
This is outright. The comment doesn't try to justify the previous work and instead digs it without remorse. I agree in particular with the concept of atrophy that can be easily extended to many other situations and mmorpgs. Atrophy and stagnation are two widespread flaws that are already deep-rooted in the mind set of the developers. While this is mostly rhetoric once again used to justify the sweeping changes, the intention to dare and not just let the game follow its course is precious.
Yeah, it's a big problem with the game when developers don't know where you'll be or if you'll be having fun 30 minutes into your gaming experience. "That was a huge turn off to people that tried the game and quit or people that got told not to play the game. The only people left were hardcore MMO players that understood the genre and were willing to accept its failings."
In one word: accessibility. This says that one of the fundamental flaws of the original system was in its lack of accessibility. I totally agree. So why and how the new one is suppposed to be better?
An over the shoulder 3rd person view like you've seen in Resident Evil 4 on the consoles that at first glance acts like any skill based action game. It means instant understanding of how the system works, which to SOE and Lucas mean more people likely to stay and pay… er, play.
See the pattern?
To begin with this can be interesting and better than a straight shooter in First Person, if the controls and the interface are well adapted and polished. The over the shoulder 3rd person view appeals me and could be an optimal blend between the "twitch" gameplay and group-oriented action.
But what is actually important is again the focus on the accessibility. I've already commented that decision to go "twitch" isn't a guarantee of a better system. A whole lot will depend on the implementation and polish of all parts (it's really not trivial, we go from the graphic engine to the controls, UI and gameplay interactions), but it's true that "twitch" will bring the game one step closer to its goal and will help to solve the problems explained in the paragraph above: the accessibility.
Complex and abstract games aren't easy to understand and relate to. I wrote a whole lot about this. While the "type" of game isn't determinant for its quality, the decision to go twitch will basically force the designers to integrate and develop a type of gameplay that is more direct and natural. Which is what truly matters, whether twitch or not. In the past I ranted strongly against the trend in SWG to add classic rpg elements like class roles, sparkling "spell" effects and other immersion-breaking features that just clashed with this genre. The twitch combat, while nowhere mandatory to translate the Star Wars univers in a good game, is already a guarantee that the gameplay will be more understandable, more easy to parse and to get, more appropriate for this game.
What I wrote above about the "communicative pact" still applies here. It will be probably easier for the players to adapt themselves to these new radical changes than how it was for new players understand and accept the first combat system (grammar fails me here, but the sense should be clear).
We don't need to just invent mathematically ideal formal systems, but we need formal systems that are also appropriate for the simulation we want to render. The myths and expectations are stronger and have an higher priority than the abstraction and perfection of a formal system. The idea of a "twitch" combat will remove the weight of the previous HUD-heavy gameplay that used a very high level of abstraction that was nowhere direct and intuitive (I wrote something similar while "reviewing" what we know about Vanguard). What is sure is that, if the implementation is good, the players will surely reward this choice.
Apparently it was difficult creating special content for 34 different classes, which I'm guessing anyone can see is a ridiculous balancing and content creation task that never should have come about in the first place. "We looked at the professions and said we have 34 widely disparate professions in the game. None of which get all of the attention that a profession deserves in a game this type and many of which don't resonate to the Star Wars universe. I mean, what is a pikeman and why is it something in the game?" So with that thought in mind, they've folded all of the 34 professions down into nine professions including Jedi, bounty hunters, spies, officers, smugglers, commandos, entertainers, traders, and medics. "We ended up with these nine very iconic character types.
The necessity of a reasoned consolidation is obvious here and it's another of those comments that are nowhere new. On the other side I remember Raph being sad because he wasn't able to fit even more roles into the game, like the "mechanic" and even the "writer".
As everyone else I'm perplex about using Jedis as a starting class. If anything I would have unblocked it just for those players subscribed for more than two years. It could have been a "cheap" but effective way to reward those players that had to suffer all these painful transitions. But then I would also have tried something different to try to retain their "rarity". Maybe one day I'll collect my ideas and write down how I would have implemented them.
The idea to use iconic character types is both good and bad. Good because it provides an answer to the question above: "what is a pikeman and why is it something in the game?" Using iconic types will help to understand and relate to the game in a more direct way but it's also important that the gameplay is fleshed out so that each class will "feel" and play differently. Then it's bad because it could easily bring to dull stereotypes. The same could be said about the will to make the player feel like an hero. I don't think that's a direct necessity. Star Wars is more subtle than how it appears and its strength isn't that superficial like a simple hero's journey. I think people here underestimate the efficacy of this setting.
And finally a note about the two professions getting discarded, rangers and creature handlers:
The only other profession we didn't absorb into one of these iconic templates is the creature handler and only 1% of our players play that character type.
So, while it seems that elements of the rangers will be absorbed by the other nine archetypes, the creature handler profession will be dropped just because of a lack of popularity. And you cannot blame the devs for this choice.
In general I approve this new plan more than how I did with the previous Combat Upgrade. Changes are always good even if I would have appreciated more the will to build on top of what was there already instead of directly tear down big parts of the game. I don't see this process as easy. As I said this need some serious work not only on the design, but also on the controls, the client and the interface. Adapting the whole PvE content to the new system and so that it is fun to play will be another huge and hard accomplishment that could easily fail.
But at least I think they are finally moving in the right direction. Let's hope that the initial result will be acceptable and that the game can finally settle down and start to evolve on more solid premises.
Please do not rush it. It's too important to go wrong.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 4, 2005 - 13:38.
Consolidating two comments (one on F13, one here) to summarize my point of view concisely:
--
My current opinion:
1- SOE is handling this transition in a pissy-poor way.
2- "Twitch" isn't a guarantee of "good".
I think these are good points. About the first what is really odd is not that they are discarding all Raph's work, but that they are dismissing even his current one. You know, every time they had some conflict with the playerbase Raph was there for post mortem, mea culpa and consequent promises. This time I find really hard to excuse what is going on and he isn't probably going to say a word. But even if he doesn't say anything it's obvious that he is restraining.
About the second I'm just sceptical. My opinion is identic to Haemish on multiple points (community got shitted upon, the game needed this, and if it goes wrong it will be at least worth it) but the promise of "twitch" isn't enough for me to be confident about the new overturn. A system is never better than the other, it's just about how you pull things together and we have zero guarantees that the game will be better this time. "Twitch" for me is just a pretty cover.
I do hope that things will go well and the game will be good. But, for now, we cannot say that it's what is going to happen.
--
As I told a guildmate that left SWG about the same time I did, SWG has (always had) a lot of great ideas, but unfortunately poor execution.
I totally agree.
Hell, even Raph would totally agree. SWG needed reiterations and needed Raph to commit to the game and drag it along when his view was more needed, instead of fleeing to greener, well-protected pastures.
The point is *exactly the opposite* of the one you write there. We have no concrete reasons to assume that SWG is going to get a better execution now. And what is happening for sure is that a lot of those great ideas are going to be erased.
This is similar to what I wrote about Blizzard. This is a radical change and I'm all for it. For the fact that a radical change was needed, not specifically what they decided to change and how. But whatever will happen cannot be related to the past. And we have still no guarantees that it is going to be better. There's no evidence that it will be good.
What actually worries me isn't the change. But the fact that if the change will be executed badly, people will believe that change is bad. Always.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 4, 2005 - 03:02.
I was writing down some notes so I could wrap up more in details my thoughts later on. But there's so much to discuss, so many perspectives. The impact of these changes on the rest industry whether good or bad, the reaction of the players, how SOE is handling this change (timing, reasons, details), in particular from the point of view of the communication, wonder what Raph is thinking, how he feels about his work being erased and compromised with one simple gesture, why he isn't ranting about how SOE is handling the transition like he did in the past (And not limited to this example). And finally the design, of course.
It's just overwhelming and writing about everything just would require too much work. So I'll just copy the notes as they came out naturally without trying to cover all the points.
To begin with, my biggest surprise and doubt is about how this whole thing is being handled. In particular the letter from the producer sounds so artificial and distant from the actual perception of the players. With a so big change incoming that is going to sweep the whole game like a tsunami, you just cannot pretend to exhibit a good smile and state that everything is going to go well. That's really just not appropriate. The PR fluff in these cases is useless. Let's talk about what the hell is going on, instead. Why so much work has been put in the expansions and CU when now all is going to be wiped. Let's talk about this sudden decision with just a two weeks forewarning. Let's talk about the complete isolation of this shadow ongoing development from player's feedback, correspondents and general discussion. Let's talk about all that was written till today that clearly contradicts the new stance. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
The communication of this whole transitons lacks efficacy. There are way too many doubts and incoherencies. This is a complete U-turn. But what is surprising isn't about the new changes. What is surprising is an overturn of the whole attitude, something that needs a reason that cannot be limited just to the game. This is a radical change for SOE as a whole that must be excused in a way or another and there must be something going on that we don't know.
The reaction, instead, is nowhere surprising (mixing randomly those points I consider valid, mostly Haemish):
You all know how much I hate SOE. But I have to give them props, this is the gutsiest thing I have ever seen an MMOG developer do. They have gutted the entire game, which has the HUGE financial risk of alienating their entire current player base, and it sounds like they have started from scratch. If it works, they will have redeemed themselves in my eyes. If it doesn't, it was still gutsy, it's just worthy of ridicule.
Gee I'm glad you guys are impressed. The rest of us, like me, that rebuilt this apparent shithole from the ground up after they gutted the playerbase the first time basically logged in today to watch most of my 390+ member guild discussing quitting.
I'm not surprised that the communities we've made over the past 2 years mean shit to SOE, or this venue apparently. My only hope is that Haemish will hire on to shoot me in the fucking head if I ever pay SOE another cent.
Julio Torres, refused to listen to the customer base for 2 years straight. To date, they've barely addressed the Top Whatever Lists of items the community is telling them over and over and over again are their concerns. The number one thing that consumers have begged for are standards and content. At the end of the day, their answer has continually been to destroy the work and efforts of the playerbase and rewrite everything (especially the ruleset), again. Disdain for their players has been a rampant theme from every CS or programmer I've met, easily three sentences into any conversation
The community of Star Wars DID just get shit upon. But, and I'll try to be clear, it's become painfully obvious that the size of the community for SWG was not what either SOE or Lucasarts wanted. You weren't bringing in the money. It was a dying game, dying way too soon before it's time. No one official has said it, but it's the feeling that has been out there for a while. Lots of things have been tried. They released the Jump to Lightspeed. More Wookies. A completely revamped but still MMOGy combat system. None of it seems to have made enough difference in the wallet.
My thoughts are that if this DOESN'T work long-term, SWG will be dead in a year. This is the kind of all-or-nothing change that will either work or kill the game for good. I'd guess that a quarter of the player base will not like it just on principle. Some of them may like it once they play it (if it doesn't suck monkey balls). But keeping on the current pace was probably going to kill it in a year or two anyway. These games, despite what people would have you believe, do not have infinite life cycles.
They were listened to? Is that why the community reps -- the correspondents -- have never heard of this? Is that why many of them logged in yesterday to learn that the profession they represet no longer exists?
There were volumes of posts in what needed changing prior to the first CURB. The system they had WORKED. It needed tweaking, not re-writing. They strung along the CU "Alpha Testers" for months, and eventually pushed the first CU on the player base (after changing direction on it halfway thru it's development) so fast that it's a wonder it got tested at all.
All the players have ever wanted were meaningful professions that actually did what their name represented (smugglers who SMUGGLED, for example) and a less buggy game. SOE seems to want to use the existing community as some kind of fucked up Pavlov's Dog experiment for all of these different game engines and mechanics. They clearly don't give a crap about the communities that the players have built over the past 30 months.
To add to what Shockeye said, yes, this was a pigfucker way to announce it to the audience. There would have been whines no matter what, but to say "Here's an expansion, SURPRISE BITCHES!"
That's some good, quality pigfucking right there.
My considerations, instead, start from a comment by Krones:
While the combat system sounds far more promising than the previous incarnations, it may be a little too late.
I don't agree with that. Many players will be back to check how this will go. If the game is actually good (the "twitch" idea is at best a superficial envelope, what will matter is below) they will stay and drag in more and more players. If the game *deserves* a success, the success will come, maybe slowly but steadily. The problem is simply whether a complete redesign and a shift of pace could still lead to a good product that is coherent, consistent and valid. Not compared to the previous version, on its own.
In fact I think I don't agree with anyone this time. Darniaq wrote how these changes follow the same binary of the discussion on Grimwell but I don't really agree with that. My principle while discussing there was again that the aim should be about *valorizing* and streamlining what the game had already. Concisely: build on top of what was before, moving parts of the design so that they could be more consistent.
This is why I suggested to not separate the roleplay professions, the same that Darniaq wrote in his recap but that isn't actually present in the new design. In fact I clearly remember that this was my very own idea. Darniaq proposed to consolidate the professions into one, while I was fighting to demonstrate that the "roleplay" professions should be an added layer accessible to everyone, instead of an exclusive focus cutting out the other "hemisphere" of the game (mostly the combat). Today we see that Darniaq's idea got accepted, while mine wasn't.
The same basically happened with the combat. Darniaq and Sky strongly supported a twitch based combat inspired to Planetside while I didn't see this as something viable and I proposed a middle path. A compromise that again was aimed at streamlining what it was already available instead of alienating the current mechanics to overturn everything and replace it with something completely different. My idea was rather simple: keep the RPG combat but integrate it with more concrete and believable elements (compared to fancy icons and sparkle effects). Like the arcs of fire, Line of Sight, taking cover behind objects, smoother and natural controls etc...
And then I proposed to streamline the PvE, the LFG tools and so on. All ideas that were just discarded. Now I'm not whining because Darniaq's idea were appreciated while mine rejected (my real goal would be to have them discussed, that's what would make me really happy). But again I cannot say that I support what is happening to the game. For sure I'm excited and I anticipate these changes. For sure this is way better than no ideas and changes at all. But it's still not something I would have personally suggested and that makes me rather bewildered.
I didn't expect SOE to work behind the scenes on something like this. It's sort of hard to believe it was a project going on from more than one year. It looks way more like a "coup de main" also considering all the work wasted on the CU and the two PVE expansions. What I mean is that this doesn't seem anywhere planned. It seems instead extemporary and impulsive and I really cannot believe that it's all smooth and there isn't some sort of drama involved behind the scenes with people running and screaming "I quit!" along the corridors of SOE headquater. It surprising to read that this change will be rolled out in two weeks and not as an optional server, but as a definite choice that will be imposed to everyone.
Don't get me wrong, I *strongly* support the determination to make radical choices instead of branching the game into optional rulesets that go nowhere and just make the game even harder to maintain and improve. Those choices and their courage is fundamental to create good games. But then these are those fancy thoughts I keep raving about and despite I strongly believe in their validity I also don't expect them to be accepted by bigger companies. Instead they are doing this and I'm positively surprised. They aren't sitting on their asses while watching the game sinking in its problems, nor they are gliding on the surface, scared to do anything else. Instead they go more radical than how I would ever expect. And this is good. This keeps things alive, good or bad, but alive. It rises the interest, people talk again about the game, polemize. This conflict fuels the creativity and puts the premises about what will follow. This disquietude is always good, no matter about the actual design or my opinions about the details.
So, while I could still criticize the design and how SOE is handling this transition, I do appreciate that there's the will to dare and keep things alive and kicking. And even if this will end in another colossal clusterfuck with fireworks, it will still be better than drowning in a monotonous mediocrity. Enjoy the ride!
Submitted by Abalieno on November 3, 2005 - 00:18.
On Jeff Freeman's blog I wrote:
"You know?
Just yesterday I was looking at the categories on my website and I saw SWG down there. And I was also thinking that even on the forums it's all too quiet about the game.
I was wondering if it was the time for an announce who could rise the interest again outside the game."
I didn't see a press release confirming this, but Jeff is enough for me. From F13:
Ok, so I'm here at SOE's Austin studio and I've played the new build of SWG which is going to be pushed onto test on Friday...with no real press. Basically they went through, ripped out 80% of the classes, left in the following: Force Sensitive, Bounty Hunter, Officer, Smuggler, Commando, Spy, Trader (all the tradeskills - 4 base sets now - Domestics, Structures, Munitions, Engineering), Medic and Entertainer. Here's the deal. Left click shoots - you have to aim. Right click fires off a special ability.
No more auto attack.
No more hotkey combat.
Once collision detection goes in, this will probably be the game I play. There's actual skill involved now. You can run from people and they can't just autohit you.
I don't know how else to explain it other than SOE has done the right thing. They've revitalized combat in an MMOG. It's a huge step in the right direction. Do I think they'll perfect it here? No. But it's by far the most interesting thing a studio has done. They've taken a gamble, and from what I've seen it's paid off. In other words, they've added the "Wars" back to Star Wars. It's been in the works for over a year now. In fact, the expansions could probably be called smokescreens for the launch of the real game. It'll shake things up.
Cons? 90 levels. The exp curve isn't bad though.
Good? Lots of neat skills such as Orbital Strike, theft from NPCs, working stealth for spies, fencing goods in the field for smugglers, and above all - combat based at least 75% on skill. It isn't quite Unreal Tournament, but it's nowhere near the crap combat we've dealt with for 10 years.
When it rolls out in a few weeks I'm hoping some of you will actually take the dive again with me and see where it goes, if for no other reason than to support innovation. In all seriousness, almost all the changes are for the better. Before anyone else says it - yes, it was shocking to me that SOE took this angle on restructuring an MMOG first. Even moreso that Lucasarts supported it. Ding. Grats.
This is not something that will be done a week or even a month from now. From what schild can gather, we're looking at 6 months or more before this is rolled out to every server. The entire game is changing. No "classic" servers, everything will be the revamped game.
In order for them to implement collision detection, every art asset in the game has to be gone through. That's why we're looking at 6+ months.
Space combat will stay the same.
And from another source that wasn't linked (I'm writing in real time):
Posting from SOE Headquarters here in Austin, Texas..
You thought the Combat Upgrade was a big change? How about a complete *rewrite* of the combat system?
New classes, streamlining of ALL classes, an entirely new interface.. this is NOT the SWG we've come to know. Changes are huge and sweeping.
The best part?? It's FUN! It's intuitive, engaging, and outright fun to play. When my time on the computer was over, I was seriously disappointed that I had to get up and let someone else on. A ton of changes in place, and not all of them will be well received. But.. this hits Test Center on Friday, and you'll all see what's up.
What do you all think? Ready for another big change?
Player classes are being condensed. Nine classes instead of 35. Combat is *completely* different.. point, left click to shoot, or right click for your chosen special. It's faster, more engaging, and MUCH more "Star Warsy". Much more quest based to level.
Well, this should all be on Test Center on Friday. I *highly* recommend everyone log in when it's time and test it for yourself with a new character. I'm thinking that this is what the Combat Upgrade SHOULD have been.
Creature Handlers and Bio-Engineers.. will be no more. sad
The other classes will be condensed.. one "medic" profession, one "entertainer" profession..
Classes are as follows:
Commando
Bounty Hunter
Officer
Trader
Spy
Smuggler
Medic
Entertainer
and Force Sensitive.
Yes, you'll be able to start as a Jedi.
Now I know why Raph is turning in his grave despite he is not dead :)
Let me digest this for an opinion. Because right now I just have my mind boggled.
Submitted by Abalieno on June 14, 2005 - 21:07.
Jeff Freeman becomes "Lead Systems Designer" of the Live team on Star Wars Galaxies. Don't ask me what it is.
You know, jumping barrels and climbling ladders: it's Donkey Kong.
Submitted by Abalieno on May 10, 2005 - 20:28.
From SirBruce on Grimwell the news that even the executive producer of SWG is taking off to land somewhere else unspecified:
I just got an email from Rich Vogel saying he has left SOE as his contract was coming up for renewel and he wanted to move on. Given that he was still representing SOE at GDC, he must have made the decision about that time, perhaps at the same time Gordon Walton and Johnathan Hanna left. He had been Executive Producer of Star Wars Galaxies.
Let me know when the part B of the news will be available.
For now I still notice how "the movement of devs is inversely proportional to the health of the game". Already covered.
(I cannot form a better principle in english but I do not mean that the movement of devs is a sign that something is going wrong. What I believe is, instead, that the movement of devs is the CAUSE why the game won't be good. Just as a precisation.)
Submitted by Abalieno on May 9, 2005 - 12:42.
These two comments have the same purpose of explaining my point of view on Star Wars Galaxies and the latest changes. The first part was written after the second in order to pin down better my reasons.
The rest is in the filth.
--
It's not about the bad timing of the publish, the bugs, the rollbacks. While these are the most evident manifestation of the problems (and the first focus and concern of SOE right now, I have no doubts), I cannot care less about them. They are completely irrelevant from my point of view because I'm looking at something else. I'm criticizing a part that was never put under discussion by SOE, nor it is now. And, still, it's the real, but less evident, source of all this mess.
I'm not criticizing the execution here, I'm criticizing the approach. If the approach is wrong the execution can even be perfect but the result will be awful no matter what. No matter how much time they'll dedicate to fix all the problems. Because the mistake happened on a different, previous level. What I'm pointing out isn't about those problems that SOE already acknowledged, I'm pointing out problems that they completely negate. That aren't questioned. There's a direct difference of opinions here that I'm trying to underline. I'm not jumping in the bandwagon of the players criticizing the CU. I'm on a different position, a position that is nowhere popular or widely shared. A position that didn't change in the last year and largely anticipated the problems of the game because, no matter of the dedication and restless work of the dev team, the direction was wrong.
The origin of all the rants I wrote and I write now is still the same. It's the same crusade I carried on against Raph, against the independence of the "formal systems" from their context. This last CU isn't probably credited to Raph, but it carries over and exaggerates his original mistake: the negation of the existence of the cultural patterns existing before you start to shape a "symbolic shared system" (like the Star Wars universe) into a specific form (like a game, in this case). The problem of the "Star Wars proper feeling" doesn't depend on whether something was in the movies or not. It's not a limit of references but a limit of patterns and expectations. If Lucas plans a new episode and throws in stormtroopers healing each other and casting fireballs I'm going "WTF?!" even if that's actually "official". There are cultural, implicit rules everywhere, they exist even if they aren't manifest. These still represent patterns that must be respected because they are the true nature of the myth. They are its essence. Everyone knows if something fits or not depending on the coherence (self-consistence) with its own symbolic level.
There's a technical term that, for sure, I didn't invent: "the communicative pact". It describes exactly these same points:
Through their cinematographic possibilities, the audiovisual language they use, both fiction films as well as documentaries can create different kinds of reality effects (realism, authenticity, actuality, believe). Since we are talking about an ‘effect’, we are stepping away from the structural analysis and bring the relation between the film and the spectator into play. This relationship is a complex one. [...]
Before reality comes into play, wether we watch a fiction film or a Documentary, there has to be a specific pact between the film and the spectator. This is a communicative pact, in which first the contact between the film and the spectator has to be established before there can be further developments. Then the spectator can start his ‘inferential walks’: he compares that what is (re-)presented by the film with his own experience and knowledge of the world, or of a possible world. These walks lead the spectator to expectations of possible developments in the story (fictional or factual); he draws conclusions and has new expectations when the story comes with new elements.
The same "communicative pact" that was screwed up multiple times. Not because the game betrayed its promises (but that's what happened with the CU), but because the game HAD TO respect (there's NO choice) a pact that already existed between the players and the Star Wars universe. A preexistent pact that was never acknowledged and considered.
"Irrelevant" details, like the example on Grimwell's thread about the rancor summoned in a 5'x5' trunnel, *destroy* those very basic rules that noone cared to recognize and consider important. While they matter ZERO on the formal system, they are EVERYTHING in the relationship of communication between the players, the game and the "symbolc shared system". Something that Raph always |
