Star Wars Galaxies: Q-3P0 talks about the level grind

Q-3P0 dropped a note in the Star Wars Galaxy boards to respond to concerns from [b]Khaldun[/b] on the level grind:

Khaldun, I think you are reading a little bit too much into the question. The game addresses level grind issues more so than almost any other MMO out there.
I'm not saying blame the players. I'm saying some people come in with a perception of how these games are supposed to be played based on game like EQ and DAOC. SWG certainly has ways in which it can be played like those games, but there is much more to it. The question is what are the best ways to let people know that.

Currently in SWG, I could become a scout, hunt creatures on one portion of a single planet, sell their skins, and repeat until the end of time. Never get involved in the battlefields, factions, crafting, house building, and dozens of other game systems. I could then say, 'hey this game is just another bug hunt.' It's not. How do we encourage those people to try new things?

This isn't a huge issue. The manual, tutorial and other players will certainly show new players that there are a lot of different things to do.

The purpose of the Query's is for us to involve you in some of the design discussions that are happening in the office. As a community, you can't say, 'Hey let us be a part of the discussions' and then accuse the game of being flawed because we let you in the discussions.

quote:
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When MMOG developers start to say, "The players are the problem", that usually is synonymous with "We ran out of ideas, or our ideas didn't work very well, so we're going to blame you for it."
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We didn't run out of ideas, our ideas are in most of the cases working out well and we aren't blaming the players. We're trying to think of how we can most effectively communicate the scope of the game to the players. Word of mouth may work fine.
Sorry I was not clearer on this point.

-Kevin O'Hara
Community Relations Manager

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