Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Bioware acknowledges Ilum was a mistake, starts to phase out planet completely.
Monorojo
Member UncommonPosts: 411
In the latest test server patch notes, Bioware made the following changes to PVP. One directly affecting Ilum. The folloowing is a prime example of a developer listening to its fanbase and admitting to its own faults. Really have to give some credit to Bioware for doing this i think.
Undoubtely they will introdue another planet in its place that is actually suitable for world pvp. This is superb news!
General
Players can now build credit towards the Battle for Ilum daily and weekly missions by playing Warzones.
Warzones
General
Healers in Warzones now receive kill credit when a healed player kills an enemy.
Players affected by a Damage Over Time ability are no longer interrupted when interacting with objectives.
Battlemaster and Champion Commendations are now available on the PvP Vendor for Warzone and Mercenary Commendations. Champion Gear Bags are still available.
Valor gained from Warzones has been increased.
Medals are now worth 500 Valor and 10 Commendations. Players only earn Valor and Commendations for the first 4 medals earned each match.
Increased the Warzone AFK timeout from 60 seconds to 90 seconds
Comments
While it's disappointing that they couldn't come up with a solution, it's definitely better than forcing people to participate in a zone that is just flat out broken.
You missed one as well in my mind.
They are also basically saying, we've got a faction population problem, and we can't fix that either.
You have any facts suporting that they will indtroduce another planet or is this just pure specualation on your part? because the only facts im reading here is that "Biowars acknowledge Ilum was a mistake" and are letting people play Warzones instead...
That is what I take out of this information. I can see nothing that sugest they are doing annything but Turning Ilum into a ghost town and letting it die.... And putting their focus on doing Warzones instead..
There isn't any indication they are going to replace Ilum with another open PvP zone.
IMO, between the faction imbalances and the poor engine performance, I'd say they are giving up on open world altogether.
Also, I freaking love that they are adressing rewards for healers. I have been Speccing dps in warzones because it was impossible to get the same rewards as a healer.
Capping the medals at 4 and giving us proper kill credit will help a ton.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
Title SOOO misleading
Well theres one thing I do know, any one whos loves PVP will be saying good by Swtor and hello GW2.
Good for you
. But I would not lable the closing of Ilum as Superb news as the OP says.. It is actually a big step towards all the other competitiors in the industry. Not many of them have open world PvP. And now Swtor will join thier ranks even more. I really think that its going to be very hard for them to turn this boat around...
Its good that they are fixing bugs and trying to fix things. But when the core mechancis of the game is not Interesting, or Original what is going to make people play this game?? Where will they find new customers? Who is going to be playing this game a year from now?
Yes you and many others will play it but, how many people are like you? 200k-500k or more? Game will not die but I dont see that this game will have the subscribers that Bioware was hoping for, it I'm being honest here, there just isent enough there to warrent people to play this game over anny other run of the mill Themepark MMO. And with GW2 and TERA and older games going free to play.. Its going to be an uphill battle keeping players subscriptions.
Absolutely! Bye bye SW TOR! Hello GW2 and Secret World!
oh dear, im betting the replacement is called Lake Hoth or something and works on a timer
Ugh. Everytime someone brings up GW2 in a SWTOR thread, it only brings waves of angry SWTOR fans to the GW2 forum for payback. Please stop.
Yup, sensible objections.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Yes probably.. and all the people who love hardcore raiding dont sound to happy with the product either. So who is actually going to play SWTOR? what playerbase are they going for?
Single players who pick up the game play a month to max level and then Quit? Is this the audiance they were going for? I really cant get my head around who is the target audiance for this game? Star Wars fans? Im a big Star Wars fan but, Star Wars for me is Space, and there isent much space content in the game... I get more space content playing STO or EvE online..
Hard one to call but I personaly Feel that there is no big audiance for a game like this... It just dosent have annything special or Uniqe, and voice overs isent really Uniqe you get that in any single player RPG game these days....
Thing is, I don't think Bioware really knows either.
I've heard the accusation that SWTOR is a "WoW clone" levied at it many times, but the truth is, if it could match WoW and be in the TOR universe, they might actually have a fighting chance.
They have a long way to go to earn "WoW Clone" as most of the features and functionality in WoW aren't in the game, and what's there at the end is half baked.
While I applaud Bioware for essentially admitting the game and/or engine can't handle mass PvP, it's also a big step away from what this game could've ultimately been for PvP fans.
To be clear, they aren't closing Ilum, although it's about to become a ghost town I'm sure.
However, I don't think this is as permanent a step as the OP seems to think it is. They are completely revamping how PvP rewards are obtained in 1.2. Ilum might be a part of that.
This could also be a step to wait and see if the population imbalance sorts itself out in the long term. Give people a way to get their dailies done in the meantime and see what happems.
What I mean by scrapping Ilum and starting over with a new zone is that there are actually many problems with Ilum itself as a zone. It's too big for the amount of people that playe there, the bases are completely pointless, etc. They can take what they ahve hopefully learned with Ilum and come up with something better. I just don't think they can make Ilum into that something better.
I actually think the recent GW 2 news might have something to do with this. How could they hold up Ilum next to WvWvW and actually try to compete in that area? Honestly, Ilum is a small fraction of what Arenanet is doing with world pvp.
I don't think they should give up on world PvP, to be clear. I think they need to work a lot harder on it actually.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
Incorrect.
The daily/weekly quests for Ilum were "kill other player" quests that had to be completed on Ilum. It was problematic on some servers because of population imbalance to complete them.
This patch will allow players to count their warzone kills towards the Ilum quests, effectively killing off Ilum pvp.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
As someone who has been a staunch defender of this game, even I think this is a bit of spin sir....
"Fantastic" news?
They admit that they failed and they rather than trying to change it in any way to make it playable, or even announcing some planning stages of doing such, they instead admit defeat and give up on it?
that sir, is called failing.
Honestly with the Hero Engine I don't think open-world pvp is really possible in this game. On my server, Shadowlands ilum is I suppose I would say the pvp side of the planet is fairly active. In this, are at certain times, throughout the day the republic musters enough people to attack. Sometimes they can even hold center for a while. I can honestly say though if I was republic i'd have given up on those quests long ago, which creates a further gear disparity between the republic and empire, as even if the republic never goes to ilum we can still from crates.
Even in the few large battles that do happen though its a nightmare of a lagfest. There is a reason wz are all 8v8 and it is directly tied to the engine this game uses.
I'm in total agreement.
I'm afraid however they are up against a clock, and their window for maintaining their PvP player base is rapidly closing.
And you based this off what knowlege?
Gut intuition?
See, just because you've heard joe sam and tom talkin smack 'bout some graphics engine doesn't make it true.
So sir, how long have you worked with the hero engine?
I understand what you're getting at and I do support the fact that Illum is a failure and Bioware knows this. I don't think them doing these changes is outright coming out and saying Illum is a failure. As long as Illum is not completely removed from the game and never to be spoken of again it is not a failure. This statement is from the most basic and neanderthalic of definitions of course and is a prime weapon for many..
Unless Bioware comes out and states in formal form that Illum has been a complete let down to the development team and they send their apologies and ask for patience as they resolve the issue. You will just get flamed down.. for your thread title..
The facts are there tho, Indeed..
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
What? How do MVP bonus votes work then? What is the point of getting 8+ medals if you get the same reward as some nob with 4+?
I wonder how many lame players had to complain to get that implemented...
So, if not the engine... why does the game perform so poorly?
Since you seem to know, please enlighten us.
I highligted what tyou said there in Red. Because Why did they even try and Compete? The had a very Original IP. They could have gone in a totaly diffrent direction with this game.
I can personaly think of more then 10 things they could have done to seperate themselves from the rest of the Industry. With the strong IP that Star Wars is, they really had a chance to Turn everything on its head.. I mean just skip raids, Bgs and all the things that other MMOS have....
And Use the IP to make a Massive multiplayer game about something totaly diffrent. Im going to list a few things..
No factions, smuggling, Pod racing for ingame money and letting people Build their own like Anikin dose in episode IV. Every jedai have to struggle with the dark and the light side, Fable like system, going good or bad, depending on your actions. Space combined with ground fighting like the Last battle in Return of the Jedi. Deep crafting letting you custimize your own ship and Repair it. I mean Han SOLO spends like 30% of his time on Mellenium falcon trying to repair it. As mentioned in the movies a wrong lightspeed jump and you can end inside a moon or fly into a star. Learning pilot skills would be something they could have expanded and built on. Dogfight simulator. NO Real mmo have good dogfights in it, why not try and take advantage of this and be the first?
I can go on and list many more things but they would not have to do this game like they did. The fact of all the HYPE and the Star wars IP would have been enough to get the 2m bought boxes they had now. But when people started playing and got that OMG I never played an MMO like this before, what no mouse wheel endagame? what No BGs? OMG its got dogfights. OMG taking down that Deathstar with 250+ players was fucking EPIC.. SHit that Bounty hunter player is scanning me.. I will get cought if he see that I have my ship full of Smuggled goods. Dam this cool outlaw BAR reminds me som much of the first movie.. wait you can own your own BAR!! say WHAT!!!!
New things are exiting the same boring mechanics, that the devlopers have labled as standard are not. We the players see this but they keep thinking that "If we dont have all those things they have been doing now for the past decade, nobody will play it" when the real answer is "If they do have all the things we have been playing for the past decade we wont play it".....
I feel there is a serious misscomunication betwen players and devlopers, many people dont want what we have been getting for the past decade. But there are a few vocal people that make devlopers think that the best way to go is to give us more of the same.....