My fellow Ecliptians, or Ecliptonians, Eclipites … you people. As we gather today, at least three combatants are deployed across the galaxy in the war on Terror. (Grumpy will cease with the President Bush routine, as he doesn’t want to put anyone to sleep by announcing, with dramatic pauses, that War is Difficult, Peace is Good, Families are Important and Vanilla is a Flavor.)
Grumpy came to an important realization the other day. True, he risked toppling Modern Society by engaging in independent thought, something he had resolved not to do in 2004. Try as he might, he could not shake the feeling that SWG’s near future will be like the last breath of a dying man.
Problem #1 – The whole Jedi mess. If someone tries to tell Grumpy that the designers put more thought into this system than Grumpy does about where to stop for a cocktail on Friday night, they should be beaten with their own severed limbs.
Grumpy tried to distill all the problems he sees with The Road to Jedi and The Road to Jedi Master into a few paragraphs and failed. So he’ll save this discussion for a full post. You may want to skip it — it won’t be pleasant. *insert your own concerns about the BASIC PROFESSION STRUCTURE here*
Problem #2 – The GCW. Apparently, for us non-jedi, the GCW is supposed to occupy our time, as we while away the hours battling for the future of truth and freedom. Now, Grumpy is admittedly new to SWG’s PvP system, and he has a lot to learn about its nuances and intricacies, but Grumpy is no stranger to PvP games, some really great PvP games. And he can safely say that the GCW is bullsh*t. They’ve just about choked any incentive to PvP out of this GCW with item decay, TEF issues, problems with bases and turrets and everyone is off doing clicky clicky anyways.
And the storyline? H*ll, Grumpy fell asleep during Act I and couldn’t give a slumrat’s ass what Alderaan is whining about now.
Problem #3 – Content and Loot. Grumpy will just be blunt. Loot is the only true content in online gaming. What little loot there is in this game is largely CRAP. Grumpy has a stack of +1 Bull-whatever Experimentation tapes and plates. Those plus 4 bucks would buy Grumpy a cup of Starbucks coffee. Ya ya ya, the POIs are interesting in a “I’ve got nothing better to do tonite” kinda way. And, sure, his gf and all her “friends” love to get badges and squeal over each other’s bios. SHOW GRUMPY THE GD LOOT. Btw, the good loot? It’s nerfed to h*ll faster than Saddam scurrying underground.
Problem #4 – IN GAME Support. An oxymoron around here, as you all have discovered by now. Besides the plethora of stories about disappearing resources, stock, houses, factories, EQUIPPED items, (and we ALL have had it happen to us) yadda yadda yadda, there are other issues that either are never addressed or are dealt with after such a lengthy period of time, no one can remember the details and surely wouldn’t have any remaining solid “proof”. Two examples.
Few months back, Grumpy ran into a guy duping items through the bazaar. Grumpy talked to the guy, as he was kind of scratching his head at first about exactly was going on, and while the asshat didn’t openly admit what he was doing, it was obvious after some head scratching what he was up to. The bribe he offered Grumpy was the tip off. Grumpy doesn’t really care what everyone else does, but duping credits or items can break a game (as in…No one will be playing this game, it’s that broke). So Grumpy /reported his ass and notified the CSR team so they could watch. Poor, naive Grumpy. Not even two weeks ago, Grumpy ran into the SAME GUY doing the SAME THING, probably with the SAME BAZAAR TERMINAL.
Example two. Grumpy was hanging out in a cantina and some jagbag had a text afk macro involving pedophilia and **edit** rape. Grumpy thinks, w-t-f and asks others in the cantina who the asshat was. None of them had heard, having ignored the jag hours ago but knew his bit and some had /reported him for a few nights straight. One of the new musicians figured maybe the entertainers didn’t know how to properly /report someone, so he went to CSR chat to notify Team Customer Service. Poor, naive musician.
Naturally, Grumpy was curious how this was all going to pan out. Maybe a CSR SWAT team would show up and Swarm! Swarm! Swarm! before filling out the requisite twenty pages of paperwork for a permanent account ban. So Grumpy hung out healing the entertainers, enduring the Wacko Jacko-esque text macro. THREE HOURS LATER, nothing had been done. Grumpy’s no moral barometer, but he did wonder what in the h*ll could be more important than popping into one of the Eclipse cantinas and typing /ban Jagbag?
Grumpy can hear the Lucas ass lickers now. It’s not that easy to design a MMORPG. Give it time.
Actually, it is that easy. Witness…
#1 Open up jedi as a secondary profession for all. Jedi for the people! Might as well, players won’t stick around for long without it.
#2 Ditch overt/covert. It’s not working. On any level. You wanna play Star Wars with other catasses? Then choose a side.
#3 Pay someone to design loot. That’s all they do. Lots of it. Tons of it. Throw the d*mn loot all over. Randomize the whole d*mn thing. Pay some high school kid to write a story. There’s your d*mn content.
#4 Every server must have an in-game VISIBLE on /who server-wide 24/7. All they have to do is run and get the real CSR dude when there seems to be a problem. The real dude can decide if he should cut his coffee break short or not.
O ya, and don’t bother telling Grumpy that Sony actually plays their own game. Cuz if they do, the dying man could be on his death rattle.
The Grumpy Master Architect ©