Just how badly do forumites want Pazaak? Pretty damned badly, apparently!

That's what I've noticed, too - this was more of a "do I have the patience to sit here and do this kind of format?" kinda post.

I think Bioware knows we want Pazaak. What none of us seem to know, for certain, is why such an obvious add wasn't put in the game from the start.

My guess is that decision-makers - probably only one or two - have either serious butthurt about the concept of gambling or don't have the intellectual wherewithal to figure out how to make it happen around the globe's various gambling laws. (It can't be THAT difficult. Look at how many hold 'em games are available for Android and iFruit.) -bp

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that about the time that F2P happened, the game was in dire straits in terms of existing issues and they had to prioritize. And in that list of priorities, mini-games didn't rank that high.

Once they got most of the bugs fixed, and got the SSSP finished and got the other half dozen other things that they were working on mostly done, they had time to sit back and see what else they could do.

That's when they decided to do Legacy Banks, Housing and Mini-games and Guild Ships.

I can only counsel the players to have a little bit of patience. Look where we were a year ago and look where we are now and imagine where we'll be in a year's time.

... I could link a different post to every word ...

Under MOST circumstances, I would agree with the entirety of this post. MOST. But we're talking about a mainstay feature of the Star Wars universe

...that the developer already has experience with, knew its popularity and even had an acceptable client ready to go (unless Obsidian got pissy about its IP or there were glaring incompatibilities between HeroEngine and Odyssey).

Let us know when you can link a different POSTER to each word. A single obsessed blowhard posting again and again on the subject is not evidence of any substantial desire for the feature in the player base, and your results could be caused by one such blowhard -- I didn't bother to click through and check (life's too short.)

And I believe we are all aware of such forum blowhards.

Sorry, but pazaak is not a mainstay of the Star Wars universe. I would comfortably bet that only a small percentage of Star Wars fans could even recognize it, much less remember the rules. It has no presence in the movies or TV shows, or any video game outside of the Bioware series. Even in the EU, it is barely mentioned. Pazaak has been a part of the Star Wars universe since 2003 with its introduction in Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. Star Wars as a concept has existed since 1977. Pazaak, therefore, has existed in the Star Wars universe for nearly 30 percent of the time we've even had the idea to tickle our fancies and tease our imaginations. Pazaak is not AS ubiquitous a mention as Sabaac, or as old, but it's been there for a while now. So don't get too comfortable with that bet.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be added, just that it's not nearly as important to the universe as you suggest. Or as trivial as YOU suggest.



"Glaring incompatibilities" is an understatement.

In short: Software doesn't work like that. In the vast majority of situations, you can't copy code from one game to another. I'm aware it's not a simple copy-paste, nor was it ever reasonably inferred I believed that. But if it makes you feel better, I agree that one simply can't copy code from one engine to another. For your own clarification purposes, I was referring to whether or not the former engine could handle what the latter did when presenting the feature 11 years ago.

In long: Game code is almost always tied very tightly to a particular framework (often referred to as the "engine"). Even in cases where you can copy code from one engine to the other, it is nearly always a bad idea, as it is a recipe for bad performance and unexpected bugs. Even if the SWTOR and KoTOR engines were similar, using KoTOR code would still be largely useless as KoTOR is a single-player game (all code runs on the local PC) and SWTOR is an MMO (UI code runs on local PC, game event code runs on the remote server). To port the KoTOR code to SWTOR, you'd need to split the code into client and server parts, create an interface between them, integrate that interface with the existing game communication, and then test it thoroughly. In the end, you'd end up re-designing everything except for the easiest parts of the game. And the effort of trying to keep those parts intact would likely be more expensive than if you'd just done it from scratch in the beginning. Which begs the question: Why wasn't it done from the beginning? Or during any major expansion? Why does a seemingly easy minigame to implement still get the Cold War treatment from On High? Are you not curious at all? -bp

Sorry, but pazaak is not a mainstay of the Star Wars universe. I would comfortably bet that only a small percentage of Star Wars fans could even recognize it, much less remember the rules.