Texas

I'm in the big state of Texas from the 14th until the 24th and I just so happen to have found some internet access.

During my down time away from training I am reading the book Smartbomb, a very good read for any gamer, and I'll have a review when I get back to normalville.

Update: 10 Nov, 2006 - Edited post and applied labels.

Poll shows Star Wars Galaxies NGE plans not popular

Star Wars Galaxies NGE seems to be taking a beating not only on the message boards, but in random internet polls. Discount the validity of such polls and pass it off as just "whiners who haven't tried it yet", but there is a lot of people talking.

People are sick of changing with no promise that when and if things get better in Star Wars Galaxies that they won't just up and change it again. No amount of bribing or promising from the Star Wars Galaxies development team can sell this vocal crowd.

It is human nature to despise change and Broken Toys has a good discussion why.

Smedley spins the Star Wars Galaxies NGE

Next Gen has an article/interview up with SOE head honcho, John Smedley. (bad link, removed)

" 'We got a lot of feedback about what was wrong and what wasn't. We saw early on that people weren't satisfied with the combat, so we decided to try something pretty radical.' "

Hold on here... the MULTIPLE complaints from BETA TESTERS didn't give you a clue before you launched the game? Chalk one up for not caring about the feedback from beta testers. Another reason professional beta testers should be used to initially test an MMO. If you are paying them I would sure as hell hope you were listening to them.

"The original design of the game was very much influenced by the Richard Garriot (Ultima Online) and Brad McQuaid (early EverQuest) schools of MMOG design. That is to say that the very best experiences in the game would come from massive time investment, trial and error and endurance of hardship. The rewards that come from that are significant but highly exclusive."

I was around on day one and early on they were staying as far away from the EQ model as possible and stealing only the skill idea from UO. Massive time investment, trial and error and endurance of hardship... three keys to avoiding making EQ2 (oops).

"Along those lines, it was incredibly difficult to become a Jedi. In fact, the mechanism for which it is accomplished (which was secret for a long time) is that a character has to master five specific professions (out of more than 20), and those professions were selected for that character secretly by the game at the moment of creation. The player never knew which specific five would unlock the Jedi path. It was an incredible time sink, to say the least."

Bad decision to have Jedi in the game as playable in the first place. You don't decide to place the game in the "old" movie timeline and then destroy the immersion with a thousand Jedi running around. Jedi should of always been NPC only... or even better... special event characters. The new "force sensitive" class is going to be overplayed... welcome to Star Wars Jedi Online!

" 'It's mixed. It's very positive [feedback] from the people who are actually playing it. And we also have the expected push back from the people who haven't actually logged in to try it," says Smedley. "Once people get in there, it's overwhelmingly positive. It's the "the sky is falling" crowd on the forums that's still going to take some converting. I understand that. These are big changes.' "

Maybe... just maybe... people are sick of you redesigning the game they've invested so much time into. Not to say these changes aren't needed, but not understanding why that vocal minority is RIGHTFULLY pissed is a sure shot to alienate even more players.

"There's a quote about the original design of Galaxies that says it was too much like living the life of Uncle Owen (the moisture farmer) and not enough like the life of Luke or Han Solo. We want to deliver more of the heroic Star Wars experience."

Actually early on Star Wars Galaxies was all about being Stormtrooper #245 or a moisture farmer. Not everyone wanted to be a hero... they wanted to live among heros. Sadly most players want to "change the world" when they are playing an MMO. Unfortunately this is not possible and making classes that stand out in the movies detracts from the immersion factor. Not everyone in Star Wars is a bounty hunter or Jedi, but in Star Wars Galaxies NGE it will be quite the opposite.

My suggestion for Digg

Digg.com is a great tool. It takes control of the news and puts it in the hands of the users. Everything on the site is controlled by the users. Submissions only make the front page through the repeated "digging" of the user base. Comments on storues are moderated and sorted by the voting of other users.

The problem is that many features of Digg are lost on the new Digg users. Many only use the site for quick links to news articles or spam the submission queue with every story they find. This is fine because of the very nature of Digg, but so much can be done to educate the many new users and make it a better site!

My suggestion comes from and is inspired by countless video games. The idea of a "newbie tutorial" that must be completed before a users sign up is complete and their account is activated.

The tutorial would walk the new user through the following...

• What items to look for in a story before submitting it. Is the story recent? Is the story related to the category it is being submitted under? Is the link direct to the source or is it through another website? Many other questions could be asked of course.
• Next it would walk users through the actual "digging" for stories. It would need to explain how to look past the front page and get into the many submissions and explain how stories get to the front page.
• Finally the tutorial would walk the new user through how to moderate and rate comments. This is by far the most overlooked area of Digg currently. The tutorial would provide examples of good and bad comments and the user would have the chance to rate each comment in order to receive an activated account.
  

This tutorial could also be available for anyone that has signed up within the last 6 months; which has been Digg's greatest period of growth. I understand that not every Digg user comments, submits, or even "diggs". A lot probably come just for the quick links, but an account is not required to do this. If they sign up for an account they should understand how to use the site. Lack of knowledge or lack of initiative... a tutorial would help.

Update: 6 Nov, 2006 - Updated post and applied labels.

Star Wars Galaxies NGE video

OK back to gaming for a bit. There is this video floating around showing off some of the new combat in Star Wars Galaxies New Gamer Experience. What I gained from the video.

1. Collision detection does not exist for projectiles.
2. You can not dodge incoming fire as it tracks directly to you after being fired.
3. Click... click... click... my wrist is hurting already.
4. "Hide behind the boxes kid"... ROFL... and get shot over and over. The illusion of using your surroundings is almost there.

Conclusion

People jumped way off the deep end when they got their hands on this thing at AGC and heard the rumors. Hype is a bad thing that is starting to kill this announcement. I still feel its what the game needs, but they need to refine it more.

I could possibly have all these systems wrong with no hands on experience, but I like to stir the pot.