Welcome to a special edition of Rodian Rants, special in the case that I hardly wrote any of it. Like I keep telling my son, the best way to get on in life is to grab hold of the coat tails of someone more talented than you and ride them all the way to the top. This week, I’ve managed to snag an interview with the forum legend that is BadMisterFrosty and as a result, the whole column seems to glow with interesting points, well made arguments and a general feeling of all round professionalism that you won’t normally find on these pages.

In case you don’t know who on earth BMF is, look no further than last week’s column and the heartfelt poem that I dedicated to him. You really ought to read his five reports on various aspects of the game that can be found here:-

Report#1: Purple versus Black
Report#2: Diversity and the Role Schizophrenia
Report#3: Fighting the User Interface
Report#4: Improvise A Galaxy
Report#5: The Empire Strikes Back

I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed putting this article together. Generally speaking, SWG related interviews are always with the people who develop the game and any sort of player contributions are always in the form of an informal player spotlight. I plan to do a few more of these over the next few months and finish off by trying to get a red name to comment on them. Well see how it goes.

So here we have it, the full interview with BadMisterFrosty. I played around with this in the first draft of the article but on the whole, it seems to work a lot better in its original state.

Enjoy:-
What other MMO's do you play/have you played?
Over the last years, SWG was my focus. In over the year I didn’t play SWG, I was a wanderer between worlds.  I started into MMOs with Dark Age of Camelot and played a lot of betas and trials until now, including for example EverQuest I and II, City of Heroes, Eve, Anarchy Online and Vanguard.

BMF, wandering the MMO worlds like Caine from Kung Fu

How does SWG rate amongst them?
That’s a difficult question. With efforts at the right places and an influx of new art and variety, SWG could go up a lot, probably higher than it ever was (well, not contesting WoW though) – still, I think it basically has ignored the large MMO and Star Wars target audiences. It went too far on attracting either the Jedi Pwnage Crowd or Hobby Economist Simulation players. Ordinary Joe, who liked KOTOR and Battlefronts and shows interest in MMOs (and that’s a few millions more thanks to WoW) were more or less ignored. It seems, they tried it with the NGE and now they see its failure as a proof that it isn’t possible to attract more players. It’s not that the general idea of the NGE was a huge mistake, its execution was.

SWG offers some high quality models and textures and has successfully solved several difficult technical things, like multi-seat vehicles or POB ships and so forth you won’t find so easily in other games. It ruins it with lack of polish and variety, with its probably broken light-engine and things like that. Its strength is, that it never felt so much like the Level-Grind-Treadmills other games push you through, goading you from one instance into the another raiding for the next ubar armor.

SWG Uber Armor: Ditched by SOE due to public outcry

SWG fails at the last 10% which is missing to turn a game element into a robust, game relevant element. It’s like building the golden gate bridge and leaving a gap of 5 meters in the middle. Those few meters are the difference between driving around with vehicles pointlessly and the thrilling GTA gameplay. Those few meters is the difference between a cryptic stat mod attachment only those who read all the guides understand and a crafted cortosis-alloy from reverse engineered parts to enhance the armor against lightsaber damage, much easier to understand. It’s the difference between a Wookiee who goes berserk among enemy lines and the Imperial Wookiee General. It’s the difference between high quality modeled Star Destroyers with Interiors in the TRE files and the same thing as a stage for Pilots in the game. Unlike WOW and similar games, SWG could be a game anyone could enter at any time without the feeling to totally stay behind forever (because of daunting 100 levels and ultra armor of Doom you need to camp eight years). It could offer one of the best “Elder Game” games which starts early, because it already has the general approach and the various aforementioned elements like vehicles, space, crafting, player cities and so forth. It cannot reach WoW regarding instance raids and should not try it.

I understand that you used to be a correspondent, how did you find that experience and why did you chose to leave?
It was fun to discuss with the other correspondents or senators. But there was also an instant suspicion in the regular forums towards anything you write. I cancelled due to a number of reasons, in the game and in the forums, therefore resigned orderly from the senate.

Would you consider being a senator?
I have rejected. Being a senator puts you in the other camp in the perception of many forum users, which makes things complicated. I wouldn’t be able to write my reports the way I do. The plus of a senator is that there is an extra channel to communicate. However, it wouldn’t be possible to communicate my reports through this channel. I also don’t want to make surveys and be forced to ask for Trandoshan boobs.

Playlizard: Jam packed with Trandoshan boobies

How would you rate our current community rep, GreyPawn?
He does a great job so far regarding direct communication with players. It is good to have the “new player” perspective directly brought to the developers as well.

What's your favorite color? Purple? hehe!

Interesting that purple stands for »something-in-between« in color theory, because it’s neither blue nor red. It fits to SWG in many regards, not only that the art direction obviously loves purple or what I pointed out with the first report.

Did you ever expect to see your forum reports be such a smash hit with the players?
Quite the contrary. I originally wanted to peek into SWG for a month and report some issues I have with the game while I am around – to have some nice discussions with Neopythia and others who accidently click on the thread.

How did it feel to see them so universally well received?
I was of course totally overwhelmed by the feedback and it was cool to see so many people on the same side and not act like cats and dogs. I noticed that my name and “purple” showed up now and then which is of course pretty cool. Thank you all.
Do you find it frustrating that your reports aren't being acted on by the senate?
Not at all. I came with no expectations. It would be interesting to see how a discussion would evolve about the reports in their forums though and what they draw from it (if anything). The developers know about the reports though. At least the first few ones.

You have a unique style of presenting your views in these reports. How did that come about? Have you used that before?
I hoped the Purple Mandalorian would hit people like a brick, just like the whole issue did to me all the years. Yeah, I did use pictures before but I haven’t invented pictures in posts

A sample of the BMF Style™, more than just a picture

I see a lot of posts that seem to have adopted this style - I call it 'Frostifying'. How do you feel about that?
If this has inspired a few to use pictures to help communicate something, this is a good thing. Using a kind of caption on images helps to open up longer posts and make them more accessible (otherwise you are killed by a wall of text). Magazines work that way too.

Zion, the Munitions Senator, frostifying his posts to great effect

How much feedback have you received privately from the SOE team regarding these reports?
I had contact with GreyPawn who also said he send the link around, which was really cool. I haven’t talked to other SOE team members. I received a lot of PMs by other forum users, nice words, request to send them the mods I use (where I would explain that it’s all mock-ups), people offering help or send pictures they think could be useful or err… interview requests

Do you feel the development team are reacting to the feedback received via the forums?
I believe the developers have reacted to the community all the time in one way or the other. It’s not so much about single opinions than about overall trends and moods. Opinions and the kind of threads that are created or even the direction in one thread is influenced by too many factors. Sometimes the first few answers determine the whole direction of it. Or a topic “reminds” others to start something about that as well or create side-threads or counter-threads and so forth. Yet, for example listening to the forums caused the majority of changes of the Jedi profession, notably how it evolved from a Diablo-alike ‘Hardcore’ mode (where the extra character slot was made for originally) through its different incarnations. Players often don’t know what they want though and at times, the developers probably just don’t want to do certain things for whatever reasons they have.

Do you believe that the senate program is working?
It depends what is meant by working. There are certain intrinsic problems, like the huge focus on professions who usually strive to improve independently from each other. Each area, no matter how large or small has also the same weight (unity rings as important as your gimped profession). And areas like GCW which overlap with other areas will always have it much more difficult to get their issues addressed when everyone must agree on everything (whereas a Commando Senator can care less about the internal changes of Entertainer).
They now need to submit their bills within a 150 limit. I think it’s good to have a limit in general when it is guaranteed that a developer will read them. However, I think it is also possible to keep up with a few threads in the senate forums, when they are indeed written concisely. I also wonder what role GreyPawn plays in this whole feedback mechanism.

Has GreyPawn thrown the senate in the bin?

Do you mod your client? If so, what's your favorite mod?
Someone started with these weapon-replacement mods (usually around Lightsabers) years ago and I immediately examined it and was probably the first who brought AT-AT walkers into the game by this method. At one point I have changed all the UI sounds. I later created my own UI color sheet with a black background, white font and red highlight color. Looked cool, but doesn’t work anymore. I admit that I played around with Tatooine color maps recently and replaced a few Tatooine house textures. My goal was to make the light appear more scorching, textures more bleached towards white. To my surprise I saw that the textures have a very cool quality and closer to what I expect from Tatooine, but something else gives them this muddy brown / purplish look you see in the game. I believe there are a few hidden “artistical bugs” or there is something broken with the light-engine (or art direction wants it that way).

What's your favorite aspect of SWG?
The license above all of course. It’s difficult to single out one aspect in gameplay. SWG is full of good things, but there is always a catch (which makes it so difficult to communicate things). I like the fact for example, that vehicles are so usual, that you can have multi-seat vehicles or POB ships. Then again, vehicles are not really game relevant, do not enhance quests (like GTA does so marvelously) and so forth. Graphics still look great. Models and textures often have a very high quality. But then there are graphical bugs in the sky box, light-engine sucks, what I mentioned about diversity or art direction.
Raph Koster is a personal hero of mine, what do you think about him and his version of the game?
I appreciate a lot that he shares his opinions and gives insights or explains things. I like that he shows his vision or overall »design sense«. You know what you can expect from him. Metaplace sounds amazing. However, SWG was released way too early. Something like Infamous Dragon Example would be super cool to have or other things that make a world dynamic (aside the resource system). Unfortunately, not much made it to the game. I remember those things as the Outcast-PVP idea, mayors creating own laws for their cities and such. I also wondered, what happened to triggered quests (e.g. Rancors attacking a village). But it all turned out to be a random generated, empty world that did not provide enough tools or “wordly” things to make up for the lack of deliberate and unique design and content. It totally missed Star Wars (colonize Dune Seas!?).

SWG would have been ready if it wasn’t for Raph spending all his time at the pie shop

What are your thoughts on the SWG Emu?
At the moment it’s Jedi for Jedi. Maybe interesting things will come out of it later. I like to see a Classic Trilogy or a KOTOR setting. Maybe I’ll end up working for a server myself.

What profession is your main character in the game?
Officer. That’s the guy in the sig (or how he would look like). He is imperial since the beginning but currently has to deal with Punk subordinates. Literally. Last time my Pet support was a Zabrak female with a Mohican haircut. I don’t know why the devs deny me a decent Stormtrooper or TIE bomber airstrike (that’s quite a large minus on the profession, especially when they have all, they need to make this happen). Ah, I need an eye-patch. Yep, I needed to drop that somewhere
What other parts of SWG do you intend to report on next?
I like to write about an issue, where I have Tron (the movie) in mind. It’s that the game has become so schematic (go to A, click on B, remove points of C, go back to D, loot value+35, attach it to socket F on item G which can be placed in slot H). It’s a bit inaccessible to write about that as it needs quite a bit of explanation (about what a metaphor is, how it works, graphical representation and so forth). I don’t know if I should do it. But it’s a huge issue which already lurked in the other reports (whenever immersion is involved).

If I gave you in-game credits, will you do one on the No-Trade fiasco?
I have noticed a few threads about it, but I am a bit disconnected on all the itemization. Usually, No-Trade has some good reasons, but it’s of course bad that you can’t place those things in your house (as far as I know). There seems to be some inconsistency, so folks wouldn’t understand why no-trade applies in this case but not in another

.
How would you describe the health of the game as it currently stands?
Undecided. As I answered in the first question, I believe it’s realistically possible to make this a late success (wasn’t Runescape such a strange game that did it?). At the moment I noticed WoW players discovering SWG in our fan-forums. The groundwork they are doing with Chapter 7 sounds promising (like instances and the accomplishment system). However, I don’t know exactly what to think about concentrating the whole server in Aurelia. The whole approach sounds a bit like instance-raids for ubar armor, I believe that’s the wrong direction. I would have preferred instances behind static city doors as scalable indoor adventures around Hutt Casinos, Rebel hideouts, critters hiding in sewers or secret imperial Intelligence bureaus and things like that. More like City Of Heroes. I also have the feeling that the lack of an expansion (for over two years) and the noticeable lack of developer resources won’t help to achieve the goal to grow the game. Compared to other games from LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment, SWG sometimes looks like the red headed step child. All these things are pretty counter-intuitive to those mammoth (»leading«) companies with a license of this caliber. However, most players seem to be confident with the work of the development team.
Thanks again BMF!!
You’re welcome.

So there we have it readers. It didn’t come as a surprise to hear that BMF had an invite into the senate and that he turned it down. I agree that the dynamics of his posts would change for the worse. Hopefully, I’ll be able to interview a senator soon and find out how they feel about that too.

Take care of yourselves readers, I guess that’s what you’re best at.
SuperFurry – 25th September 2007
Email me: SuperFurryGalaxies@hotmail.com