Logs, Meters, and Devs – Oh My!!

Everybody wants damage meters!!  OK, so not everyone.  But a significant portion of the player base does.  So with that said lets address what should be obvious.  Most beliefs about BioWare’s plans for a combat log are generally incorrect or blatantly wrong.  So instead of theorizing further lets break down what BioWare has actually come out and said.

Before SWTOR released Georg Zoeller said:

“Not at this point, but it’s something very high on our priority list,” and “Umm and we’re not against it, it’s just right now not in.  Will it make it in for launch?  We don’t know at this point but it’s very high priority. “

And roughly two weeks ago Georg Zoeller came back to say:

“Finally, I’d like to acknowledge, again, that we do understand that there is a desire for players to get more detailed information what happens to their character in combat. We agree with those requests and are working on various ways to, optionally, get more detailed data on your combat performance.”

The “your” being italicized was exactly how Georg wrote it.  One of your eyebrows should have slightly raised at that btw.  No one’s ever suggested an implementation of a combat log with that connotation to the best of my recollection before.  It’s an eyebrow raiser.

The probable theory is that BioWare is considering a personal log that doesn’t display your information to anyone else in game.  This would provide details such as how you died, damage done (dps), and healing throughput (hps) to be measured, tracked, and recorded. But the implications from Georg’s choice of phrasing is that no one gets that information except for you.

The upside to such a system would be that a player who performs poorly on an encounter won’t have their dirty laundry aired for everyone else to see.  But the larger question is whether BioWare feels that such a step is necessary.  Especially considering George Zoeller also said:

“Umm what I can tell you is there’s no conspiracy where we’re like we’re hiding this so people aren’t discriminating against other players.”

The fact however is this.  BioWare has stated that they fully plan to implement a method for players to get information about their combat performance in game.  And no one has any hard evidence to show otherwise at this time. The relevant questions then become when will this be implemented and how will they do so?

Sadly I cannot answer those questions for you, but I do feel that BioWare has gone out of their way to postpone this because they are attempting to release something new that isn’t currently present in any other MMO.  What the end result will be however is anyone’s guess.  I just wish it would get here sooner rather than later.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…