Guild summit fail imho

That one boggled my mind too. If what he said was true, it makes me question where the priorities really lie since 1) he clearly said that "one person" was not tasked to work on the UI and 2) he worked on his own time (nights/weekends) to finish it in time to make the 1.2 patch.

On top of that there's this statement from the DarthHater article:

These two statements open up a world of questions in my mind.

1) Exactly how many people are tasked to work on the UI?

2) Why did someone have to work on his own time to work on the UI?

3) Why is only about half the changes going to make 1.2 (which is still weeks away)?

Think about this for a sec. The reason I point these out because we've been hearing over and over about the upcoming changes for the UI. Stuff that the vast majority of players have been asking for over and over. BW never downplayed this at all and even gave the strong impression that UI changes were a major priority. You see, as a developer, that the statements seem to contradict each other. If the UI is such a high priority, why did it take someone, on his own (that we have to assume was his own initiative) to work on the UI during his offtime?

While I don't know the exact makeup of staff at BW working on SWTOR, I do know that telling users (us) that a feature is a high priority (UI) and then state that it's being worked on by a developer during his off time and only about half of it will be ready many weeks from now is very discomforting.

Go back, when you can see the video of the conference, and watch that part again. It was obvious that most there didn't get it or didn't have time to think about what he said. On top of that, he asked for everyone to applaud that "one person" for doing this.

All I know that in my line of work, if I tell the users that a feature is a high priority and someone is working on it during off time, and only half of it will be ready weeks down the road, I will get a lot of stares and I sure won't get applause.

No, there are lots of reasons why someone wouldn't. One quick reason: I could be someone who's already doing something that they think benefits society better than making games and prefer sticking to my current career path over getting back into the videogame industry.

Because there is a process for getting changes made and then approved for deployment, and they know that they don't have time to get more than a certain number of them through that process.

One thing i don't like about the OP's comment is his Thread title Guild Summit being a failure.

This is kinda selfish considering your only looking into your own selfish need.

Calling it a guided PR?

Right Bioware is teaching all the guild leaders what to say during that 4 hour break.

There was a lot of positives in this summit. It was very informative.

Yet you call it a failure? Why not become a Guild Leader and register for the summit and tell them how you really feel then?

Don't stand back here calling it a failure when you are only viewing it from one perspective...

"Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold."
-Maurice Setter

....seriously? Give one side (the side that wins more often then not on my server BTW) a new race or even a better pvp mechanic? No wait, let's look at that one line right there....You want the reppies to have a definitive advantage over the imps because there are more of them on your server. You want to cheat. Yeah, a buff if you have less team mates then the opposing faction is one thing but you want a better mechanic to favor you.

Also...everything you mention would be ACTIVELY trying to push players towards playing Republic side. Nothing passive about it, changing the game (even in adding outfits as an incentive) is active.

Honestly, the reppies win more than they lose on my server (mirror imbalances and gun's firing twice aside) and you don't hear me complaining or asking for an unfair advantage. Actually you will hear me asking to remove the expertise stat....but according to the summit that ain't happening. What? I want to try my skill against others without being dependant on gear.

That horse left the barn long ago, apprently it's a standard in mmo's now that players are incapable of utilizing personal skill. Thus being so incompetent, we need "help" via some arbitrary gear check, nor is it limited to pvp.

For those that smile and think the grass is greener, the OP is correct, the game is NOT balanced.

Certain classes ARE more powerful due to graphics animation time, elemental resistances and DPS bonus output for debuffs.

During the "raw raw" guild meet, some things were nice that they said they "might do" while the scawfing of actual game breaking abilities and balance issues, were just laughed at... which left a very bad taste with me.

So to sum up.... Play Empire, be a Sith or Agent and you'll enjoy the game.... until you realize no one else is playing....

Can't answer everything you posted, but being a developer I can speculate on this.

Look up "Fed-Ex day", it's basically a concept where employees pick a pain point, and propose a solution that they came up with, on their own time.

For software development, it gives people who normally don't work on a section of code, a chance to share their ideas about that area.

This helps foster a feeling of ownership for the product you are working on.

It is a very very healthy practice for companies.

The guild Summit was more of a 1.2 presentation and an overview of what's coming to the game rather than a player driven feedback session.