Just glad I don't play SWG anymore the way it is tbh. And the more I read stuff from SOE summits and the like, the more happy I am that I've walked away. There is such a disconnect between customers, devs and management it boggles the mind. Arc
What, the fact that the president of the company makes a "I know we suck at understanding what you want" post after every meeting with a player of the game makes you think they don't, uh, understand what players want? Smed really, really means it this time! He's sorry he hit you baby, and promises never to do it again. I know he said that the last few times, but he REALLY means it this time. He only hits you becuase you say things that upsets him (like wanting pre-NGE servers).
I don't know if it is more sad that a friggen game company has such an abusive relationship with its customers, or that there are some customers that actually continue to play the abused girlfriend that thinks her abusive boyfriend is going to change for real this time (not you ArcAngel3, some of the respondents to Smed's post on the official temporary forums).
I am not trying to defend Smed by any means, but perhaps he is correct in saying that they can not go back to Pre CU. Perhaps the real reason they will not go back is that their hands are tied , buy LA. Just my impression of all the post that I have read by him in the past year.
Though it would be wise, if they just came out and told us the whole story.
Why Smed? … tell us why we can not go back to Pre CU, or servers.
Posts like that one from Smed show why SOE should have never been trusted with the Star Wars IP in the first place. It's absolutely disgusting that this is the type of service they're still providing, and people still pay for it. I wish everyone would just cancel their accounts, let SWG die and hopefully someone else could come along and make a true sandbox game based on the Star Wars universe. It doesn't need to be in the 1-6 genre, it just needs to be Star Wars.
Smed says they'll put up a poll in the near future to determine priorities that the community wants...
Where are they placing this poll? On their website? The website that hosts the "vocal minority"?
So, the way it works with SOE is when they run a poll and get the feedback they like then it's "working as intended". If they don't like the feedback then they can simply blame it on the "vocal minority"?
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
I think its time for a new aproach. The "we are sorry for the(fill in unpopular publish here)" speech has been photocopied so many times the words must be fading.
I love how they say pre-cu is impossible and never list a reason why. I'd like that responsibly addressed before the discussion could continue. Is that really to much to ask?
Smedley has NEVER said he was sorry for or that the NGE was a mistake or a bad thing to happen to SWG.
What he HAS said it that they "implemented the NGE wrong. They should have notified the playerbase better." and "the NGE was needed."
That is ALL this fool has said....... Nothing more and nothing less in regards to if they made a mistake or not.
My question is .... if the NGE was needed so FUCKING bad .... then why is the playerbase hovering around 10K instead of 350K or 500K or even WoW like at 8 million??????
Seems to me that when 350K people walk out on what was and should have been the best and longest lasting MMO in gaming history .... some VERY VERY bad mistakes were implemented that drove the playerbase away.
Star Wars fans are devoted to Star Wars unlike any other game, movie, or genre. Until now at least. LA hasnt realized this yet but the backlash will get them too.
I love how they say pre-cu is impossible and never list a reason why. I'd like that responsibly addressed before the discussion could continue. Is that really to much to ask?
It isn't impossible .... games is software. I work for a software company. We keep ALL versions, patches, and add-ons (anything we write is saves) so we can go back to any rev and look at it if we have to ... for any reason. But it usually centers around fixing bugs.
Could $OE and LA open preCU servers??? Hell yes they could. But they won't and nor will they admit they could. Why??? Because, not everyone, but alot of people would go back for preCU AND this would show what a HUGE mistake people made at both $OE and LA. It would also show how much money they lost due to the CU and to a greater extent the NGE. Don't you think the bean counters would see that and pass that info along to higher Execs? Then they would be asking "Why did we have to lose 100 Mill over the course of the last 15 months?"
I love how they say pre-cu is impossible and never list a reason why. I'd like that responsibly addressed before the discussion could continue. Is that really to much to ask?
It isn't impossible .... games is software. I work for a software company. We keep ALL versions, patches, and add-ons (anything we write is saves) so we can go back to any rev and look at it if we have to ... for any reason. But it usually centers around fixing bugs.
Could $OE and LA open preCU servers??? Hell yes they could. But they won't and nor will they admit they could. Why??? Because, not everyone, but alot of people would go back for preCU AND this would show what a HUGE mistake people made at both $OE and LA. It would also show how much money they lost due to the CU and to a greater extent the NGE. Don't you think the bean counters would see that and pass that info along to higher Execs? Then they would be asking "Why did we have to lose 100 Mill over the course of the last 15 months?"
While I agree with what you saying it's till just your speculation and best guess answer. I'd like an answer on why from SOE. If they want people to participate in a dialogue about the NGE you must first have the dialogue on why you wont give them what they really want. I will never go to the NGE version until at least that is explained and I have a feeling most people in the Pre-CU crowd are still expecting that answer.
Personally I think SOE is stagnant, and they need a leadership change. I think Smed KNOWS that as a CEO his career is in danger of becoming stagnant if he stays at SOE.
I'm predicting we will see a new CEO at SOE within a year.
How long has Smed been at SOE? Personally I think SOE is stagnant, and they need a leadership change. I think Smed KNOWS that as a CEO his career is in danger of becoming stagnant if he stays at SOE. I'm predicting we will see a new CEO at SOE within a year.
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
Last weekend we had our first ever Influencers Summit. It was a lot of fun, and I have to say I learned quite a bit. We deliberately brought people in that were some of our biggest criitics. We wanted to hear directly from them and understand the issues they had.
At one point I spent an hour or so talking with a group of the Star Wars Galaxies players that had come. It was a very interesting and enlightening discussion, and I wanted to thank all of them for their candor.
I wanted to make sure I close the loop on that discussion because I walked away with some new priorities.
Here are my thoughts:
1) Content is the single biggest thing people playing SWG want. - this surprised me. From our perspective we had thought revising the systems in the game (i.e. expertise revamps) was a bigger deal. While they did say this was important, I was susprised they ranked this higher than working on PVP. 2) This lead to a discussion about involving the community in the decision making process. They pointed out that we do a lousy job at this, and they're right. As such, you can expect a poll in the near future to help us prioritize things for the next 6-12 months. 3) Guild Management tools in SWG aren't up to snuff - I went ballistic when I heard you can only manage your guild through the terminal. We need to fix this. 4) Server consolidation - we need to fasttrack this - it's a very hard problem, and the team has had other priorities. 5) We need to explain ourselves and the thinking behind changes a lot better 6) Once we got past the "please bring back the pre-NGE servers" (no, we're never going to do that) the discussion really got down to brass tacks. Many people ask me why I don't post a lot here, and the simple answer is that it's hard to follow a thread when many of the posts end up being "bring back pre-NGE servers" and other issues we've moved past. Please don't misunderstand me on this - I get why some people want this. It's just that it isn't possible and at some point if we're going to move the game forward new ideas are at the top of the list of things we should be discussing. That's my view anyways.
Smed
So...pre-cu isn't possible eh? Hmm...We need to ask ourselves why he believes pre-cu isn't possible.
You beat me too it with putting it up. But allow me to rant for a bit here...
First and formost what the hell is wrong with Smed and the SWG Team? By that I mean with the big number one on his list, Content, and his 'surprise' that we wanted content more then redoing systsms in the game, and his bigger 'surprise' that PvP is ranked lower then Content...
For 3 years that has been one of the top things players have gone on about. The lack of Content in SWG, oh before you tell me "There was the Jedi Grind and Krayt Hunting." That's great but for some players that's not what we wanted. As someone that's been a DM/GM in Pen and Paper RPG's for years you need to hook your players into quests. You need to have a nice reward at the end of the Quest. SWG got it right somewhat with Rage of the Wookiee's, have your players go out and do a Quest and get a good useful reward from it, at the sametime keep a balance of Quested/Loot items and Player Made items. Expertise was fine when they where putting new content into the game. The day they dropped that was the day that the Playerbase started to get bored...
So now they have a game that outside of Expertise there's really nothing to do. Some systems like Space have had nothing new in over a year. Quest lines that the players did like haven't had anything new with them in next to forever. And don't get me wrong I'm not a pvp hater, however PvP isn't the end all to any game. Infact most of SWG's faults can be led back to PvP, I was a MBH Pre-NGE and I remember how the Jedi and BH Boards would be filled with "Nerf BH/Jedi!" Posts. The CU was due to players screaming about the PvP system (Knockdown/Dizzy, Mind Damage, Comp Armor and the like.) The Dev's don't see that outside the hardcore players, most games have alot of players that do PvP 'now and then' not 24/7.
For number 2, gee ya think you guys are doing a bad job? You've been doing a bad job on talking to your playerbase from Beta till now! As a old UO Player I saw EA do the samething, untill a Dev came along by the name of MrTact. Unlike the old Dev's who would just talk when there was a new patch coming out. MrTact went onto the boards, ask the players "what do you want in UO?" Blizzard does that and that's why WoW's playerbase likes them. Other games do that as well... Now I may tick a few of you off but yes Tiggs didn't do a good job at it. Raph is 50/50 (I still remember him from UO as well.) I mean the Dev's need to stop acting like everything they are working on for SWG is like working on something at Area 51. Your players want to know what's going on with the game, things like the NGE would have gone over better if you had just come out and told us why you did it in the long run... Telling us "We believed it was cool!" is a cop out. And I am one of those NGE/Star Wars 'fanbois' but ya know when you guys don't talk to us we get pissy as well...
Better Guild Management? Again it took all of you this long about something like that? For godsakes SWG was a 'next gen' MMO and Ultima Online has a better Guild Management system.
Server Consolidation is a big deal and should be top of the list. Not only that you guys should do what EQ/UO/WoW and other games have done. Make one Server the 'RP' Server and make another a 'PvP' Server. Beileve me as an RPer it's hard to find players to do stuff with, let alone RP with.
And yeah you need to explain yourselfs about the changes. Again this brings me back to the "Your not working at Area 51" thing. You work on a friggen MMO. You need to tell your players 'why' your doing changes. If you had come out and said 'why' you are doing the NGE. Maybe some of the 'upset vets' wouldn't be so upset. If you had given us a real plan of what you guys want to do with SWG and where you want it to head in the next year or two some of us would be a bit less upset.
And lastly, yes you guys are going to have players screaming for a rollback or a server that's Pre-NGE. Hell there are still players on UO that are screaming for a rollback or Pre-Trammel servers. Hell you have gamers that scream about how some FPS's where 'better' 9 patches ago. You need to enforce your fourms, you need to tell players flat out it's not going to happen every day if you have too.
I'm sorry but I've gone from NGE Supporter to Pissed off Vet. I feel the changes can lead to good things with SWG (ground flight) however after reading Smeds message it's clear to me that Smed has little to no clue as to what the players want. And tho we have told him things that we want (Content, Server Consolidation, Guild Tools and the like) I get the feeling we'll see another Restuss and more expertise stuff...
How long has Smed been at SOE? Personally I think SOE is stagnant, and they need a leadership change. I think Smed KNOWS that as a CEO his career is in danger of becoming stagnant if he stays at SOE. I'm predicting we will see a new CEO at SOE within a year.
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I dont think you actually appreciate the innovation (or money) involved in Station Exchange. They are running two (EQ2) servers for station exchange.
They have just passed the one year mark, and released the findings. The results are that they made 500k in one year on posting fees. They have also monitored the item/gold sales on the non exchange servers, and found that there was an initial drop when the exchange servers opened.... but that third party sales recovered, and are comparable to those on the exchange servers. This puts the estimated market (for the 30 EQ2 servers) at ~7.5M per year.
The other result that came from this is a 30% drop in customer support requests (overall). This is because the #1 issue (before this) had been related to fraudulent, or problematic item/gold/character transfers.
So, despite your claims that he hasnt done anything unique... he has in fact brought massive new revenue streams to the company, while decreaseing overhead costs at the same time.
I mean the Dev's need to stop acting like everything they are working on for SWG is like working on something at Area 51. Your players want to know what's going on with the game, You work on a friggen MMO.
Exactly, I used to say that ingame all the time, $OE act as if everything they did in SWG was a top secret project that we were not allowed to know anything about until it was out. Totally crazy way to run a game.
Smed is a moron if he thinks real SWG fans are gonna buy into the crap he is speaking. Smed stopping speaking shite and just put on some classic servers you twat!
I dunno how long hes been in this industry and quite frankly I don't give a crap, but I hope he knows when he retires or whatever, all hes gonna be remembered for is how he allowed SWG to be destroyed, and the way he dumped on his loyal customers.
Whatever he achieved in his life will all be forgotten apart from the big steaming dump he did on SWG and 200k+ customers. Bravo, well done.
As much as i want the old system back this post reminds me that it probably never will happen.So that being said i want to know why precu is impossible..he contradics himself by saying SOE needs to listen but they must get past teh PRECU FTW stuff..Well the majority post PRECU this and that..Jeez do we have to spell it out for you Mr.Smedly???
Mr.Smedly i know it will be a cold day in Hell before you'd ever respond here cause you dont like hearing or reading the truth but what the hell im bored and No other games appeal to me so this is more fun than the NGE...
My opinions...............i was active for 3 years mostly for the first 2 but here goes my rants....
FPS- Just doesnt work for this game cause your system is the suck..I play FPS's for fun ie battlefront ect but when i have time i want my RPG to be exactly the way SWG was at the start..My choices my way nothing forced on me and at my pace..Precu was all those things an more.Your game doesnt mold well with that and i dont want it too..Precu combat was very enjoyable for me i had more fun in those 2 years than in the 30+ years ive been gaming..Ive never played a game for more than a year till SWG hit..Bugs and all it was the most fun ive ever had..
Player feedback polls-Only would work on a None SOE site or Ingame(course now it be 10k instead of 300k+)a bit late for that now but why would our opinions matter now?? they havent in the last 3 years??
Precu-Is the Only way your game will be populated again be it rolled back or a classic server or 10
Content- you guys removed 32 professions the crafting system and the Tef system which in turn removed a ton of content for alot of people..so you took out content and cant figure out how to put it back in??
Precu not possible-Why????????? If the EMU ever makes it or even if it doesnt they did it with allmost no resources why cant you the mighty money pit of $OE???We want a None PR response we have read your standard cookie cutter responses since the godawefull CU..
Game Changes- When will you developers realize we dont like seeing years of work change or lost over night cause you dont see the fun in camps or the Options of being anyone we want...This freedom we had Precu was the biggest part of its draw for me.
Dont flippin matter what I think-- Regaurdless of what i say it still dont change a darn thing so why would it now..It didnt in april of 05 when i made my first post questioning the CU changes and again nov of 05 when we got the New Garbage Enhancements.I was too busy enjoying SWG to care about posting till those 2 dates..Why cause in my opinion thats when the game died..it started to copy a popular game but did it very bad...
When will you Ever actually listen- Oh wait you actually have to now cause we did Vote with our Feet...10k players in the NGE must make you proud..cause obiviously 300k vets was too much to handle..Now you have a easy game and a Easy crowd to control..Good Job!!!
How long has Smed been at SOE? Personally I think SOE is stagnant, and they need a leadership change. I think Smed KNOWS that as a CEO his career is in danger of becoming stagnant if he stays at SOE. I'm predicting we will see a new CEO at SOE within a year.
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I kinda disagree with this.
How old is Smed? Judging by his pic I'd say maybe mid-40's.
If he's an ambitious man (which I assume he is) then he's gotta know that he may have peeked in his career if he stays at SOE. Peeking in your mid-40's has got to be embaressing for any CEO. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he's been shopping his resume around.
It's also possible that he may be given a gentle nudge out of the nest by SOE. I doubt SOE would fire him because it would be assumed that he screwed up, and I'm sure SOE doesn't want the public to believe they have internal problems - particularily with management.
My only fear is that SOE hires someone internally. Someone who shares the same vision as Smedley.
I love how they say pre-cu is impossible and never list a reason why. I'd like that responsibly addressed before the discussion could continue. Is that really to much to ask?
How long has Smed been at SOE? Personally I think SOE is stagnant, and they need a leadership change. I think Smed KNOWS that as a CEO his career is in danger of becoming stagnant if he stays at SOE. I'm predicting we will see a new CEO at SOE within a year.
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I dont think you actually appreciate the innovation (or money) involved in Station Exchange. They are running two (EQ2) servers for station exchange.
They have just passed the one year mark, and released the findings. The results are that they made 500k in one year on posting fees. They have also monitored the item/gold sales on the non exchange servers, and found that there was an initial drop when the exchange servers opened.... but that third party sales recovered, and are comparable to those on the exchange servers. This puts the estimated market (for the 30 EQ2 servers) at ~7.5M per year.
The other result that came from this is a 30% drop in customer support requests (overall). This is because the #1 issue (before this) had been related to fraudulent, or problematic item/gold/character transfers.
So, despite your claims that he hasnt done anything unique... he has in fact brought massive new revenue streams to the company, while decreaseing overhead costs at the same time.
If you read my post again you will see I stated we got schemes to milk more money from us rather than new and unique games. We want games that pull us into the world, entertain us like none before, allow us to do things we couldn't do in any other game and Smed comes up with lets become gold sellers and cut them out of the market, yea, thats just awesome.
How long has Smed been at SOE? Personally I think SOE is stagnant, and they need a leadership change. I think Smed KNOWS that as a CEO his career is in danger of becoming stagnant if he stays at SOE. I'm predicting we will see a new CEO at SOE within a year.
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I kinda disagree with this.
How old is Smed? Judging by his pic I'd say maybe mid-40's.
If he's an ambitious man (which I assume he is) then he's gotta know that he may have peeked in his career if he stays at SOE. Peeking in your mid-40's has got to be embaressing for any CEO. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he's been shopping his resume around.
It's also possible that he may be given a gentle nudge out of the nest by SOE. I doubt SOE would fire him because it would be assumed that he screwed up, and I'm sure SOE doesn't want the public to believe they have internal problems - particularily with management.
My only fear is that SOE hires someone internally. Someone who shares the same vision as Smedley.
Do you honestly think there is a gaming company out there that wants the baggage that would come with Smed? He is a king at SOE, at any other company he would not be. Even he has to know how he is viewed by gamers and that is a hole he dug for himself.
I love how they say pre-cu is impossible and never list a reason why. I'd like that responsibly addressed before the discussion could continue. Is that really to much to ask?
Impossible means "It would not be profitable."
Is that really the case? I always thought putting the pre-cu game against the NGE would show someone made a colossal mistake that wouldn't help their job security (i.e. Smed).
I love how they say pre-cu is impossible and never list a reason why. I'd like that responsibly addressed before the discussion could continue. Is that really to much to ask?
Impossible means "It would not be profitable."
Is that really the case? I always thought putting the pre-cu game against the NGE would show someone made a colossal mistake that wouldn't help their job security (i.e. Smed).
I don't get that either. The code is there, backups of pre-cu or even the CU have got to be at $OE unless they are complete mongols. Bring back a few classic servers, everyone starts from scratch and see what happens I would say. It can't cost that much to transfer some players from the lowest populated servers and then implement the pre-cu code. They might piss off about 1k players on that server but it never stopped them dumping on 250k+ players before did it.
Pre-cu with JTLS would be the dogs bollocks. JTLS was a top notch expantion to SWG.
Comments
I don't know if it is more sad that a friggen game company has such an abusive relationship with its customers, or that there are some customers that actually continue to play the abused girlfriend that thinks her abusive boyfriend is going to change for real this time (not you ArcAngel3, some of the respondents to Smed's post on the official temporary forums).
.
Though it would be wise, if they just came out and told us the whole story.
Why Smed? … tell us why we can not go back to Pre CU, or servers
John Smedley beat up my grandmother.
I like it when $med posts this kind of stuff.
It makes me laugh.
Posts like that one from Smed show why SOE should have never been trusted with the Star Wars IP in the first place. It's absolutely disgusting that this is the type of service they're still providing, and people still pay for it. I wish everyone would just cancel their accounts, let SWG die and hopefully someone else could come along and make a true sandbox game based on the Star Wars universe. It doesn't need to be in the 1-6 genre, it just needs to be Star Wars.
so...
Hey Smed, I can't hear you, there's 300 thousand people calling you an asshole.
OMG I can see where this is going already...
Smed says they'll put up a poll in the near future to determine priorities that the community wants...
Where are they placing this poll? On their website? The website that hosts the "vocal minority"?
So, the way it works with SOE is when they run a poll and get the feedback they like then it's "working as intended". If they don't like the feedback then they can simply blame it on the "vocal minority"?
...and he sounds sooo sincere.
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
I think its time for a new aproach. The "we are sorry for the(fill in unpopular publish here)" speech has been photocopied so many times the words must be fading.
I love how they say pre-cu is impossible and never list a reason why. I'd like that responsibly addressed before the discussion could continue. Is that really to much to ask?
Smedley has NEVER said he was sorry for or that the NGE was a mistake or a bad thing to happen to SWG.
What he HAS said it that they "implemented the NGE wrong. They should have notified the playerbase better." and "the NGE was needed."
That is ALL this fool has said....... Nothing more and nothing less in regards to if they made a mistake or not.
My question is .... if the NGE was needed so FUCKING bad .... then why is the playerbase hovering around 10K instead of 350K or 500K or even WoW like at 8 million??????
Seems to me that when 350K people walk out on what was and should have been the best and longest lasting MMO in gaming history .... some VERY VERY bad mistakes were implemented that drove the playerbase away.
Star Wars fans are devoted to Star Wars unlike any other game, movie, or genre. Until now at least. LA hasnt realized this yet but the backlash will get them too.
It isn't impossible .... games is software. I work for a software company. We keep ALL versions, patches, and add-ons (anything we write is saves) so we can go back to any rev and look at it if we have to ... for any reason. But it usually centers around fixing bugs.
Could $OE and LA open preCU servers??? Hell yes they could. But they won't and nor will they admit they could. Why??? Because, not everyone, but alot of people would go back for preCU AND this would show what a HUGE mistake people made at both $OE and LA. It would also show how much money they lost due to the CU and to a greater extent the NGE. Don't you think the bean counters would see that and pass that info along to higher Execs? Then they would be asking "Why did we have to lose 100 Mill over the course of the last 15 months?"
It isn't impossible .... games is software. I work for a software company. We keep ALL versions, patches, and add-ons (anything we write is saves) so we can go back to any rev and look at it if we have to ... for any reason. But it usually centers around fixing bugs.
Could $OE and LA open preCU servers??? Hell yes they could. But they won't and nor will they admit they could. Why??? Because, not everyone, but alot of people would go back for preCU AND this would show what a HUGE mistake people made at both $OE and LA. It would also show how much money they lost due to the CU and to a greater extent the NGE. Don't you think the bean counters would see that and pass that info along to higher Execs? Then they would be asking "Why did we have to lose 100 Mill over the course of the last 15 months?"
While I agree with what you saying it's till just your speculation and best guess answer. I'd like an answer on why from SOE. If they want people to participate in a dialogue about the NGE you must first have the dialogue on why you wont give them what they really want. I will never go to the NGE version until at least that is explained and I have a feeling most people in the Pre-CU crowd are still expecting that answer.
How long has Smed been at SOE?
Personally I think SOE is stagnant, and they need a leadership change. I think Smed KNOWS that as a CEO his career is in danger of becoming stagnant if he stays at SOE.
I'm predicting we will see a new CEO at SOE within a year.
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
First and formost what the hell is wrong with Smed and the SWG Team? By that I mean with the big number one on his list, Content, and his 'surprise' that we wanted content more then redoing systsms in the game, and his bigger 'surprise' that PvP is ranked lower then Content...
For 3 years that has been one of the top things players have gone on about. The lack of Content in SWG, oh before you tell me "There was the Jedi Grind and Krayt Hunting." That's great but for some players that's not what we wanted. As someone that's been a DM/GM in Pen and Paper RPG's for years you need to hook your players into quests. You need to have a nice reward at the end of the Quest. SWG got it right somewhat with Rage of the Wookiee's, have your players go out and do a Quest and get a good useful reward from it, at the sametime keep a balance of Quested/Loot items and Player Made items. Expertise was fine when they where putting new content into the game. The day they dropped that was the day that the Playerbase started to get bored...
So now they have a game that outside of Expertise there's really nothing to do. Some systems like Space have had nothing new in over a year. Quest lines that the players did like haven't had anything new with them in next to forever. And don't get me wrong I'm not a pvp hater, however PvP isn't the end all to any game. Infact most of SWG's faults can be led back to PvP, I was a MBH Pre-NGE and I remember how the Jedi and BH Boards would be filled with "Nerf BH/Jedi!" Posts. The CU was due to players screaming about the PvP system (Knockdown/Dizzy, Mind Damage, Comp Armor and the like.) The Dev's don't see that outside the hardcore players, most games have alot of players that do PvP 'now and then' not 24/7.
For number 2, gee ya think you guys are doing a bad job? You've been doing a bad job on talking to your playerbase from Beta till now! As a old UO Player I saw EA do the samething, untill a Dev came along by the name of MrTact. Unlike the old Dev's who would just talk when there was a new patch coming out. MrTact went onto the boards, ask the players "what do you want in UO?" Blizzard does that and that's why WoW's playerbase likes them. Other games do that as well... Now I may tick a few of you off but yes Tiggs didn't do a good job at it. Raph is 50/50 (I still remember him from UO as well.) I mean the Dev's need to stop acting like everything they are working on for SWG is like working on something at Area 51. Your players want to know what's going on with the game, things like the NGE would have gone over better if you had just come out and told us why you did it in the long run... Telling us "We believed it was cool!" is a cop out. And I am one of those NGE/Star Wars 'fanbois' but ya know when you guys don't talk to us we get pissy as well...
Better Guild Management? Again it took all of you this long about something like that? For godsakes SWG was a 'next gen' MMO and Ultima Online has a better Guild Management system.
Server Consolidation is a big deal and should be top of the list. Not only that you guys should do what EQ/UO/WoW and other games have done. Make one Server the 'RP' Server and make another a 'PvP' Server. Beileve me as an RPer it's hard to find players to do stuff with, let alone RP with.
And yeah you need to explain yourselfs about the changes. Again this brings me back to the "Your not working at Area 51" thing. You work on a friggen MMO. You need to tell your players 'why' your doing changes. If you had come out and said 'why' you are doing the NGE. Maybe some of the 'upset vets' wouldn't be so upset. If you had given us a real plan of what you guys want to do with SWG and where you want it to head in the next year or two some of us would be a bit less upset.
And lastly, yes you guys are going to have players screaming for a rollback or a server that's Pre-NGE. Hell there are still players on UO that are screaming for a rollback or Pre-Trammel servers. Hell you have gamers that scream about how some FPS's where 'better' 9 patches ago. You need to enforce your fourms, you need to tell players flat out it's not going to happen every day if you have too.
I'm sorry but I've gone from NGE Supporter to Pissed off Vet. I feel the changes can lead to good things with SWG (ground flight) however after reading Smeds message it's clear to me that Smed has little to no clue as to what the players want. And tho we have told him things that we want (Content, Server Consolidation, Guild Tools and the like) I get the feeling we'll see another Restuss and more expertise stuff...
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I dont think you actually appreciate the innovation (or money) involved in Station Exchange. They are running two (EQ2) servers for station exchange.
They have just passed the one year mark, and released the findings. The results are that they made 500k in one year on posting fees. They have also monitored the item/gold sales on the non exchange servers, and found that there was an initial drop when the exchange servers opened.... but that third party sales recovered, and are comparable to those on the exchange servers. This puts the estimated market (for the 30 EQ2 servers) at ~7.5M per year.
The other result that came from this is a 30% drop in customer support requests (overall). This is because the #1 issue (before this) had been related to fraudulent, or problematic item/gold/character transfers.
So, despite your claims that he hasnt done anything unique... he has in fact brought massive new revenue streams to the company, while decreaseing overhead costs at the same time.
Exactly, I used to say that ingame all the time, $OE act as if everything they did in SWG was a top secret project that we were not allowed to know anything about until it was out. Totally crazy way to run a game.
Smed is a moron if he thinks real SWG fans are gonna buy into the crap he is speaking. Smed stopping speaking shite and just put on some classic servers you twat!
I dunno how long hes been in this industry and quite frankly I don't give a crap, but I hope he knows when he retires or whatever, all hes gonna be remembered for is how he allowed SWG to be destroyed, and the way he dumped on his loyal customers.
Whatever he achieved in his life will all be forgotten apart from the big steaming dump he did on SWG and 200k+ customers. Bravo, well done.
As much as i want the old system back this post reminds me that it probably never will happen.So that being said i want to know why precu is impossible..he contradics himself by saying SOE needs to listen but they must get past teh PRECU FTW stuff..Well the majority post PRECU this and that..Jeez do we have to spell it out for you Mr.Smedly???
Mr.Smedly i know it will be a cold day in Hell before you'd ever respond here cause you dont like hearing or reading the truth but what the hell im bored and No other games appeal to me so this is more fun than the NGE...
My opinions...............i was active for 3 years mostly for the first 2 but here goes my rants....
FPS- Just doesnt work for this game cause your system is the suck..I play FPS's for fun ie battlefront ect but when i have time i want my RPG to be exactly the way SWG was at the start..My choices my way nothing forced on me and at my pace..Precu was all those things an more.Your game doesnt mold well with that and i dont want it too..Precu combat was very enjoyable for me i had more fun in those 2 years than in the 30+ years ive been gaming..Ive never played a game for more than a year till SWG hit..Bugs and all it was the most fun ive ever had..
Player feedback polls-Only would work on a None SOE site or Ingame(course now it be 10k instead of 300k+)a bit late for that now but why would our opinions matter now?? they havent in the last 3 years??
Precu-Is the Only way your game will be populated again be it rolled back or a classic server or 10
Content- you guys removed 32 professions the crafting system and the Tef system which in turn removed a ton of content for alot of people..so you took out content and cant figure out how to put it back in??
Precu not possible-Why????????? If the EMU ever makes it or even if it doesnt they did it with allmost no resources why cant you the mighty money pit of $OE???We want a None PR response we have read your standard cookie cutter responses since the godawefull CU..
Game Changes- When will you developers realize we dont like seeing years of work change or lost over night cause you dont see the fun in camps or the Options of being anyone we want...This freedom we had Precu was the biggest part of its draw for me.
Dont flippin matter what I think-- Regaurdless of what i say it still dont change a darn thing so why would it now..It didnt in april of 05 when i made my first post questioning the CU changes and again nov of 05 when we got the New Garbage Enhancements.I was too busy enjoying SWG to care about posting till those 2 dates..Why cause in my opinion thats when the game died..it started to copy a popular game but did it very bad...
When will you Ever actually listen- Oh wait you actually have to now cause we did Vote with our Feet...10k players in the NGE must make you proud..cause obiviously 300k vets was too much to handle..Now you have a easy game and a Easy crowd to control..Good Job!!!
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I kinda disagree with this.
How old is Smed? Judging by his pic I'd say maybe mid-40's.
If he's an ambitious man (which I assume he is) then he's gotta know that he may have peeked in his career if he stays at SOE. Peeking in your mid-40's has got to be embaressing for any CEO. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he's been shopping his resume around.
It's also possible that he may be given a gentle nudge out of the nest by SOE. I doubt SOE would fire him because it would be assumed that he screwed up, and I'm sure SOE doesn't want the public to believe they have internal problems - particularily with management.
My only fear is that SOE hires someone internally. Someone who shares the same vision as Smedley.
Jeff Freeman
Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I dont think you actually appreciate the innovation (or money) involved in Station Exchange. They are running two (EQ2) servers for station exchange.
They have just passed the one year mark, and released the findings. The results are that they made 500k in one year on posting fees. They have also monitored the item/gold sales on the non exchange servers, and found that there was an initial drop when the exchange servers opened.... but that third party sales recovered, and are comparable to those on the exchange servers. This puts the estimated market (for the 30 EQ2 servers) at ~7.5M per year.
The other result that came from this is a 30% drop in customer support requests (overall). This is because the #1 issue (before this) had been related to fraudulent, or problematic item/gold/character transfers.
So, despite your claims that he hasnt done anything unique... he has in fact brought massive new revenue streams to the company, while decreaseing overhead costs at the same time.
If you read my post again you will see I stated we got schemes to milk more money from us rather than new and unique games. We want games that pull us into the world, entertain us like none before, allow us to do things we couldn't do in any other game and Smed comes up with lets become gold sellers and cut them out of the market, yea, thats just awesome.Smed will only leave SOE when he is fired. His whole career is based on EQ and even that is giving him a lot of credit. Rather than trying to make unique and inventive games, we get nickle and dime concepts like the Station Exchange. Increase your profits by making good games, not SOE, they rather have you pay for an expansion every 6 months that replaces the in-game content that you would normally get with a MMO.
I kinda disagree with this.
How old is Smed? Judging by his pic I'd say maybe mid-40's.
If he's an ambitious man (which I assume he is) then he's gotta know that he may have peeked in his career if he stays at SOE. Peeking in your mid-40's has got to be embaressing for any CEO. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he's been shopping his resume around.
It's also possible that he may be given a gentle nudge out of the nest by SOE. I doubt SOE would fire him because it would be assumed that he screwed up, and I'm sure SOE doesn't want the public to believe they have internal problems - particularily with management.
My only fear is that SOE hires someone internally. Someone who shares the same vision as Smedley.
Do you honestly think there is a gaming company out there that wants the baggage that would come with Smed? He is a king at SOE, at any other company he would not be. Even he has to know how he is viewed by gamers and that is a hole he dug for himself.
Is that really the case? I always thought putting the pre-cu game against the NGE would show someone made a colossal mistake that wouldn't help their job security (i.e. Smed).
Is that really the case? I always thought putting the pre-cu game against the NGE would show someone made a colossal mistake that wouldn't help their job security (i.e. Smed).
I don't get that either. The code is there, backups of pre-cu or even the CU have got to be at $OE unless they are complete mongols. Bring back a few classic servers, everyone starts from scratch and see what happens I would say. It can't cost that much to transfer some players from the lowest populated servers and then implement the pre-cu code. They might piss off about 1k players on that server but it never stopped them dumping on 250k+ players before did it.
Pre-cu with JTLS would be the dogs bollocks. JTLS was a top notch expantion to SWG.