Darth Hater

Does the poll mean that people who have made up their what they're gonna play what class also know what their AC is? :-)

edit: Btw - please able me to comment without shoving me to a "thank you for commenting" site :p gotta find the point which I was in the podcast now.

I have to say, this might have been my least favorite episode of DH ever. No one seemed very happy to be there. It sounded like it was almost painful for the hosts to get through, like a chore or something.

That's ok. Everyone has their off weeks. It wouldn't kill you guys to brighten up a bit though.

I remember that the TOR devs have said they will use the instancing to get people out and playing as smoothly as possible. After the launch days are over and the majority of people are out of the starter area, that instancing will be off. Also what I gathered is that instancing won't be used throughout the game, just to make sure the game starts smoothly is all, it's not a permanent part of the whole game.

I admit I may be wrong or may change, this though is what I remember them saying. Sorry couldn't find the quote.

From everything I've read, it appears instancing will work like this:

*The smallest "red zone" - the point at which the server will start instancing - only comes into effect when MANY HUNDREDS of people are in the same area, at the same time. This tends to happen on launch day when millions of people hit the game at once - though BioWare are helping themselves by getting preorder purchasers into the game early on a descending scale, depending on what edition of the game they preordered (CE get in 7 days early, DDE gets in 5 (I think), and RE gets in 3 (again, I think).

*The larger planets (like Hoth, Tatooine, or Alderaan) only hit the red zone when many thousands of people hit the same area. Once again, this is something you tend to see more at launch, when people are progressing at roughly the same pace. (The hardcore will be at cap quickly, but the vast majority will be leveling less frenetically.)

*Once the population evens out (several weeks or a month+ into the game), the instancing won't be needed. Once people are out of the gate and on into the world, they WILL disperse. Some will PvP, some will PvE, some will craft, some will RP with a bunch of people in Coruscant, some will run off to find every datacron in the game, etc. People WILL FAN OUT to complete the content that appeals to them, and there won't be nearly as much overcrowding. (This happens in all MMO's. Crowds always even out over time, every time, without fail. Even in that 900lb gorilla MMO.)

Once that first wave gets through the launch and into the game, you'll see nothing approaching hundreds of people simultaneously spawning and questing in the starting areas, except in very rare circumstances (someone deliberately trying to get scads of people in the same place, at the same time).

If the starting areas don't reach the red zone until they see many hundreds of people in the same area at once, they will never get close to pushing that boundary again - until, and unless, an xpac hits.

Instancing is just a tool to allow BioWare to funnel people through the early game smoothly, on into the later game, until such time as hundreds and thousands of people aren't log-jammed right at the gate. That's all.

What's the problem with instancing? Guild Wars chat goes across all instances, and if you need to meet a group you can invite across zones, and if you need actually meet you just go to the later instance because it has the lowest pop.

It's not hard, I have played Guild Wars for a long time and I appreciate being able to run around the city without 2000 people standing in front of the storage containers.

As far as heading out into the wilderness, well, I get you point. GW was basically a single player game for me. However, do you want a lag fest while you are fighting Mandalorians? I don't think so.

I'm optimistic that instancing won't be all that big of an issue. Georg Zoeller's posts in the "Why U phasin Bioware?" thread have calmed my worries for the most part. Fewer than ten instances with several hundred players each doesn't seem like a big problem.
...

And what's so bad about playing healers? In PvE, you get to watch the whole fight instead of just focusing on meters or which way the boss is pointing. In PvP... we're just such obvious targets. Never a dull moment. :)

I'm surprised to see the Sith Marauder get so few votes. The Juggernaut OWNS the Sith Warrior class lol. When I get around to the Sith Warrior...I'll almost certainly be a Marauder.

did it in CO, AoC, APB, etc. and as long as there are enough channels switching for grouping purposes is a minor annoyance/inconvenience. it's the negative impact on community that bothers me the most about it. how they can be for this and against cross server pvp match-making seems kinda contradicting.

RIFT and WoW had queues to log into the game, which really blows. perhaps, by phasing only the starter areas around initial game launch, is the best way for BW to go about things, however, i'm wary of it.

I'd say you're right that this is probably the best way. There are going to be an unbelievable number of people playing this when it finally hits (what are we looking at just right now, 1.5-2 million preorders?). To the point that the choices are probably instancing on one hand, or playing on starting planets where the only time we see our characters move is a twitch every 2 minutes. Which I think would have been okay in an MMO a decade ago. But not these days. Not for this game.

I'm just hoping that between the limited instancing and the staggered head start, we'll end up with a pretty smooth launch. That's all I think that matters initially. I'd tend to say the community-building part of the game won't really start to kick in until (or even after) Coruscant/Dromund Kaas anyway. I think a lot of us are going to spend the first 10 levels gawking at everything. Then we hit the space stations and the initial flashpoints and really start to need other people.

Who knows though.

I'm a fan of instancing zones. If I play off hours I don't want to be on an empty server because they had to split the population into 4 servers so people could quest at prime time.

Nominated topic for next week: THE WALL OF CRAZY!

What would you make a development priority for post launch additional features?

Guild system, guild capital ships?
More Warzones?
More Operations?
Minigames?!?! Pazaak? Swoop racing? Multi player Space Rail Combat? (Or better non rail space combat?) Make some up?
More classes?
Quality of life stuff? Dual spec, UI modifications and addons?
Achievements?

What would you make a priority for development? Why? Pick something from the Wall and make your case!

More story is what I want after launch. Which could be in flashpoint or operation form.

Guild system I could not care less about (speaking as a guild leader *cough*).

Warzones as they are I think I'm okay with but they'll probably need more sooner rather than later. Although I'm not big into PvP, when I try thinking from the perspective of people who will, being able to queue from so early in the game is going to mean a lot of burn-out in a relatively short time-span, although maybe open world play will help with that.

Mini-games would probably be even lower on my radar than guild stuff. Even space combat (I actually enjoy what they have, much to my surprise). For me, the game on the ground is what really matters, hence my personal focus on more story-related content. And in past Bioware games, mini-games have been things I have to either get through grudgingly to continue (hi there Jade Empire) or that I outright skip if possible. In my final KOTOR run (just reached the Leviathan bridge) I've completely skipped pazaak and swoop racing.

I think they're fine class-wise for now. I'm even looking forward to playing classes twice. It sounds crazy, but I think the fact that you can play different alignments and that changing gender is a much more meaningful thing than simple appearance makes repeating classes more desirable than in past games. I already have two Smugglers planned, one a female light-side gunslinger and the other a male dark-side scoundrel. Completely different play-styles (cover versus melee/short range) combined with a different morality combined with drastically different voiceover (female versus male) and even different reaction/focus on/from companions. We'll see how it plays out.

Add-ons I could actually do without. UI modifications are a must I think, although I will likely use zero of them myself; I love the UI as it is.

In the end, I think on that list Achievements would be the one thing I would focus the most on. I think that's something that's really missing now. The Codex system is a great start to it I believe, the way you unlock entries (and xp) with both combat and exploration. I'd like that to go a little deeper.

But that's just my perspective. Others will have other points of emphasis.

Other things I would think about are continued item/gear implementation, and the development and integration of more high level content. I think (suspect) the game is basically finished from zero to 45 (or 50) so the important thing will be making sure that people have enough to do once they reach what they perceive to be the 'end'. Although I hope (and expect) that there will be a lot of people like myself who plan to play a lot of different classes, though I'll even have a 'main' for raiding.

Oh, and continued development/tweaking of the crafting system.

And new companions.

Although now I'm delving into far after launch stuff, major content patches and expansions.

Guild Capitol Ships definitely

Way too many people crying bloody-murder about Instancing. It will not be noticed after day one, and it'll give us a smooth launch. And the 15 mobs:200 players:10 instances scenario is waaaay hyperbolic, they already said it will be hundreds of players per instance. Not tens.

instancing is one of those things that if you've played a game that relies heavily on it, you might have a hyperbolic reaction to. I'm trusting that it will be only on the origin worlds and only when there are too many people to ensure a good experience. I, however am concerned that it might end up being relied on later in the game. The main reason I stopped playing GW1 when it was out is that everything was instanced including hubs. I really hope this doesn't happen.