So....... who do you think will attempt to make a SW MMO after this game crashes harder than SWG

No one. Triple-A MMOs are dead.

What TOR proves is something the industry was already coming to suspect (but after TOR had already had too much money sunk into development to abandon). You can't design a MMO that pleases everyone. If you try you just end up with a mess of code that tries to do too much and pleases no one.

The only future for MMOs is increased specialisation, niche markets, and much lower budgets.

Ah, didn't make it to vote.

Personally the flashing does not bother me - it's only cosmetic and does not make it any better/worse to hide the general unresponsiveness of the buttons.

The action bars feel disconnected from the game, as if there is always a tiny lag when using the buttons, be it by clicking or using hotkey. Compared to other MMOs I've tried recently anyway where they did a much, much better job with much more crisp responsiveness of the action buttons.

Bioware, why would you try to glean player consensus on a change to the game via a voluntary poll? On the forums, no less!

 

They're unscientific and won't give you an accurate representation of the entire player-base, only the expressions of a vocal segment of the population who frequent the forums.

 

I certainly hope you won't be making any further changes to the system based purely upon these results. Please perform an in-game poll of all accounts, using proper polling methodology.

Why? What would be the point? It would only give exactly the same info, but taking much longer and therefore delaying any changes. 3000 is more than enough for statistical significance. Do you really think that the new changes are only unpopular with people who read the forums, and overwhelmingly popular with everyone else?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Possibly more than any part of the game, UI is a very subjective topic

I don't recall any subjective opinion against cooldown displays as they looked like pre 1.1 at release. Maybe it was a subjective opinion of some developer who clearly doesn't play the game too much.

Ah, didn't make it to vote.

Personally the flashing does not bother me - it's only cosmetic and does not make it any better/worse to hide the general unresponsiveness of the buttons.

The action bars feel disconnected from the game, as if there is always a tiny lag when using the buttons, be it by clicking or using hotkey. Compared to other MMOs I've tried recently anyway where they did a much, much better job with much more crisp responsiveness of the action buttons.

totally! buttons feel like they're doin their own little thing....and while yer whatching those pretty button colours flash n pop n blink n fade *POW* ya get ganked! WTFs goin on!

my question is, if i die quicker than my buttons cool down, how am i suppose to use em? hahahahaha!

My favourtie iteration of the UI was the one available at release.

 

I found the first change was alright but it was difficult for me to determine when long cooldowns were over.

 

The second change is more visual but I find the flash really annoying. (I voted They're terrible in the poll)

 

IMHO:

 

1. Start with the original UI.
    
    
   
2. Currrently usable abilities should be normal brightness.
    
    
   
3. Unusable abilities, due to lack of resources or unmet conditions should be greyed out.
    
    
   
4. Abilities on cooldown should use the same cooldown timer that BioWare used in Dragon Age Orgins with the grey becoming bright in a clock face sweep animantion. ( I suggest this because the sweep down animation can be difficult to see once in gets to the bottom)
    
    
   
5. Use the sweep down animation for the global cooldown but it doesn't have to be flashy. Global cooldown happens after most abilities are activated, so it doesn't have draw attention to itself (most folks have the default .5 second delay set up and are activating the next ability before it is over anyway.)
   

 

I played last night on a new Consular and a 50th level Jedi Knight and the UI was only really annoying for the Jedi Knight. That's because the Consular only had 7 or so abilities on the tool bar -- the Jedi Guardian had 3 full tool bars plus the companion tool bar open and the flash was more annoyingly strobe like.

 

People who tried this out on the test server wouldn't have seen the full effect unless they had a high level character.

 

I believe a high prioirity on BioWare's list should be to enable the copying of existing characters to the test server. IMHO it is a lot to ask a paying customer to put the time in on a character that could be wiped at any time. The ability to copy existing characters would result in BioWare getting much better feedback from the PTS.

 

 

 

Keep up the great work and thanks for being so supportive of our concerns.

 

 

Alodar

Seriously? Bioware? Really? You cannot copy your existing lvl 50 to the testserver? How did you expect to collect real data? Are you basing your balancing, bug reports etc on non level 50's?

This is worrysome indeed!

I hope you do something about your developer problem, you have a seriouse lack of experienceproblem it seems... SO sorry to hear this I really am.. Thought this game was made by people with experience..

Ah, didn't make it to vote.

Personally the flashing does not bother me - it's only cosmetic and does not make it any better/worse to hide the general unresponsiveness of the buttons.

The action bars feel disconnected from the game, as if there is always a tiny lag when using the buttons, be it by clicking or using hotkey. Compared to other MMOs I've tried recently anyway where they did a much, much better job with much more crisp responsiveness of the action buttons.

I think one of the issues is that TOR is designed to be played with the next ability queued, replacing the need for an autoattack. Thus, you should be able to hit an ability that is on cooldown. This was the design behind the previous version of the interface. This proved unpopular with people who where used to MMOs without ability queuing.

The other MMO I know with ability queuing instead of autoattack is City of Heroes. In this MMO, clciking an ability on cooldown puts a green ring around it, so at least something happens imedietly, even though the ability isn't executed until it comes off cooldown.

However, CoH has no GCD. Every ability has it's own cooldown.

I don't recall any subjective opinion against cooldown displays as they looked like pre 1.1 at release. Maybe it was a subjective opinion of some developer who clearly doesn't play the game too much.

^ This

What is the point of making a poll for one day. You make a poll that lasts one day if you have like ten ppl to ask not when you got thousands. You would never get an accurate result.

You take people for being idiots by making a poll. You know this new patch is awful anyone with two brain cells could tell you its awful you dont need a poll to tell you this.

Now due to your inability to plan, test and implement yet again thousands of people have missed out this week on nearly a whole days worth of playing time which has been paid for.

Rather than making pointless polls to try and pretend like you care what you really should do is just apologise add a day onto everyones play time for essentially taking our money and doing nothing.

The tasks that need fixing are simple tasks not complicated. You just need to THINK!!! before doing things.

And because its a newish game doesnt excuse the ridiculous amount of issues that currently exist. You cant just say 'we are working hard trying to fix it'.

Professional people test these things out before releasing a product and charging people for it. Money grabbing conn artists charge people for an unfinished product.

And technically everyone should be able to claim money back on this service as it is just a massive breach of your statutory rights as a consumer.

Seriously? Bioware? Really? You cannot copy your existing lvl 50 to the testserver?

Character copying is notoriously difficult to implement, since it requires access to highly secured data. I don't know ANY MMO that has had this feature at launch.

I don't recall any subjective opinion against cooldown displays as they looked like pre 1.1 at release.

You obviously didn't read the forum then.

Now, IMO, this is developers trying to be TOO responsive to the forums.

During testing, people asked for customisation, but apart from that where largely content with the action bar icons. But when the game whent live there was some extremely vocal complaining on the forum (which you obviously missed). The devs responded by rushing out and making knee-jerk changes.

Hey everyone, thank you to all of you who gave constructive feedback here. We've closed the poll as we feel we have a good indication of your opinions. As I said previously, changes will be made to the global cooldown and we'll bring you more information when we have a solid timeline to share.

 

Possibly more than any part of the game, UI is a very subjective topic, so we understand the varied opinions expressed here. The long-term aim for The Old Republic is to give players flexibility in their UI choices and the changes coming for Game Update 1.2 will allow for more of that.

 

I wanted to also address concerns about the Public Test Server. We're working towards enabling character transfers so you can move your own character across and test new patches. Other ideas to allow the testing of high-level content have been explored, but ultimately character transfer is what we want to allow for everyone.

hi stephen,

Maybe an opacity scaling bar in the pref menu would be an idea? then everyone could set the opacity of the effect themselves from '0' (i.e. similar to the old effect) to '1' (the new effect).

gr

Character copying is notoriously difficult to implement, since it requires access to highly secured data. I don't know ANY MMO that has had this feature at launch.

yup! now if i am not mistaking, this requires an additional dedicated server on a massive multiple raid array (to backup and deploy in real time) just for this alone. not that they dont have the budget..... but it is a huge undertaking. imagine double-ing everybody's characters across every server..

hi stephen,

 

Maybe an opacity scaling bar in the pref menu would be an idea? then everyone could set the opacity of the effect themselves from '0' (i.e. similar to the old effect) to '1' (the new effect).

 

gr

im starting to wonder if these replies are scripted... i have read this reply before.....just someone else signed it..........lol

Ok, let me say my thing now.

I had issues with original UI cooldowns, but I got used to it and had no problems.

Then they implemented 1.1 - at first I was really glad, a bit later noticed some problems with skills that are nearly off cooldown, but nevertheless, I got used to it too and was perfectly fine.

Now 1.1.2 and once again new cooldown UI. At first it was chaos, I couldn't see a thing, in a couple of minutes I got used to it and now quite like how it's done. But still it is obvious that it will be changed again.

Now to get to my point: for the love of all that is holy, STOP CHANGING IT. Just pick one, any one of your UIs and stick with it. I don't mind a non-perfect UI, but please, please stop changing it every week making me(and other people) go through the process of adapting to something new. It really upsets me.

I have never seen a developer or what not just willy nilly change UI experience on a whim such as Bioware is doing.

I was not able to vote on the poll as it locked way way too fast, however I prefer the current iteration more than any previous.

The main issue is, UI experience will be different depending on the user, hence UI addons being so successful in other games.

Bioware.. no matter what you do.. half or more of your population will be unhappy with the design choice you make. Allow customization or you will be doing this keystone cop routine forever.

I like this global cool down display better than the second one. By my count there have been 3 versions of global cool down indication. Is it possible to make them a preference selection option so each player can select the style they prefer.

The 1st version was OK, I found the second version hard to tell when cool downs had finished. This version is very "bright". I really need more time to get use to it. But I do find it distracting.

A selector for the style of global indicator and maybe an "intensity" slider that another suggested for the "descending line" would allow everyone to set it how they like.

What is the point of making a poll for one day. You make a poll that lasts one day if you have like ten ppl to ask not when you got thousands. You would never get an accurate result.

Sure you can. If you ask 10 people, and 9 people hate it, then you can be confident you have an accurate result. The only reason you might need a larger sample size is if the result is close. Otherwise you are just wasting time collecting data when you could be working on solutions.

You take people for being idiots by making a poll. You know this new patch is awful anyone with two brain cells could tell you its awful you dont need a poll to tell you this.

Not true. Chatting on line with my guild last night, and most people where saying how much they liked the new interface. And you can see from the poll that there are a significant number of people who like it. Always on forums you will get people saying "this is the worst evah!" but it's very difficult to tell if this is significant or just the usual people who QQ about everything.

What the poll shows is that whilst some people like the new version, there are rather more people who don't, and hence it should be changed or reverted.

The poll was useful, but it has done it's job and so there is no point in keeping it open.

As soon as I started the first fight after the patch, I disliked the new UI. The problem is, (for me) its so bright that you cant see exactly what icons are underneath until at least half way through the cooldown.

When its a long term cooldown, its not a problem. However, the fact that the Global Cooldown causes all my icons to be barely visible for about half the time makes it really awkward to plan which button to hit next.

So, keep it on the long term cooldowns if you want, but return the GCD to the old method please!

The long-term aim for The Old Republic is to give players flexibility in their UI choices and the changes coming for Game Update 1.2 will allow for more of that.

1.2?

What about the people that can't play because they feel sick? Are we supposed to pay for something we cannot play?

yup! now if i am not mistaking, this requires an additional dedicated server on a massive multiple raid array (to backup and deploy in real time) just for this alone. not that they dont have the budget..... but it is a huge undertaking. imagine double-ing everybody's characters across every server..

Doubling/corrupting characters is exactly the sort of problem you can get if you don't do it properly. A number of the smaller MMOs handle character transfer fully manually.

So, what MMOs can you list that have launched with the ability to copy characters to a test server? WoW didn't even get a test server until it had been around for a year or so.