Not squashing bugs and a complete lack of content was the reason SWG declined.
Now who was responsible for both? Oh, that's right.. $OE!
If you are the developer and I am the publisher, I want to see your publish plans ahead of time. I want to see your schedule. I want to see how many resources are assigned to what. And then I want you to explain why everything. And then, I will sign-off. Or not.
So, who is to blame if you do what?
How about if you, as the developer, once or maybe even twice planned the right thing, but I said no? And I can, because I am the publisher.
Point being, there's somewhere between shared responsibility and ultimate accountability you're missing.
If you could not log in, that was all SOE. Otherwise? There's a developer/publisher relationship working.
Well, first let me say this: Freeman, you may or may not have had a big hand in the NGE, but the damage of the NGE and the loss of the ONLY game on the market that actually offered me something more than a themepark "diablo/koreangrind/dungeonromp/Whack-A-Mole" type of play has made me weary. If such a game ever arrives again, I just can't risk having you or any of the other SOE devs that in their mind thought that "this part of the NGE is fun!!". I would not buy that game if any of those people were even within a gastanks distance of the developement.
What about that first one, pre-CU? Those devs were ok?
As for LEC and SWG? When SWG was released, guess what games were advertised on Star Wars websites, Star Wars magazines, Star Wars comics and Star Wars books? Not SWG. It was barely advertised..And yet it became quickly one of the top MMORPG's until WoW launched with a massive Add campaign(wich also featured adds in Star Wars magazines..).
Yeh, publishers handle that stuff, not developers.
By the time they started advertising SWG, it was too late, the game had been CU'ed and later NGE'ed, and too many pissed off customers were around.
Don't over-think this problem of who is to blame. It's so simple my 6 yr old knew what the problem was and currently still is. When a company, any company, forgets about the people who brought them to the dance, lies, cheats, steals, and decieves, then game over.
100% of the blame should be laid at the feet of SOE. Heres how I came to this point:
1. If you have integrity, you will make products that work.
2. If someone tells you to do otherwise, and you dont have the character of conviction, then you are a worthless piece of human waste.
3. If you sole motivation is profit at any means necessary then your destined to have a seat next to the devil.
For the failure of SWG look no further than the office of John Smedley. Sony needs to clean house starting with "Smed" in order to begin to earn the trust of the player-base. Until then, I will remain on the I HATE JOHN SMEDLEY CAMPAIGN.
Yes, realisticly I can. Alot of those droping numbers were from other SoE fuck ups, things like the xp nerf or the root changes kept pissing more players off for no good reason. Adding to the game instead of constantly re-working the games basic systems or undermining it's strengths (adding more and more loot to the detrement of the crafting economy) would have been a better move. Then throw in the fact that SWG, as alot of us have found out since the NGE, was a very unique game that players would have come back to because there is little else on the market that has all the PreCUs features or even the CUs features.
and all that is even before going into the way they did the NGE.
This was the point I tried to make earlier, when I said the NGE wasn't really the problem, but rather all the things that lead to that point.
But, the NGE is a problem and was a problem then just as the Combat Dumb-Down was a major problem. You took an all-encompassing game that PvErs, PvPers, and even Role Players could all become completely immersed in and which everyone loved, even if they bitched about bugs, and tried to convert it into some kind of Guild Wars/ World of Warfairies/ FPS.
In the end you only succeeded in retarding a game that was probably the best platform for next generation MMOs to a point where very few thought it was worth paying for to play the game. That is truly screwed up and now SOE has one grand reputation. That reputation is not the fault of SOE customers. That reputation is one earned by SOE, LAE, and all of the upper management involved.
I can not imagine a situation where any developer involved would be proud of what they have now made out of Star Wars Galaxies. So you have been at SOE a long time. Whose fault is that?
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
I just wanted to say thank you Mr. Freeman for taking your time to post here. Your posts have in some areas cleared things up quite a bit, though in others may have clouded a little. I just hope that nobody has to go through all the crap no matter what side of the fence you were on that came with the NGE ever again. I think all involved have learned alot.
I do have a question though... although I do not know if you can answer it.
I have seen in a few of your posts that you refer to aCreative Director or lack there of. Now I have a few thoughts on this.
Was Raph made an exec. to move him from the project? In order to move the game in a different direction?
You guys... have the most cynical minds. I assume he was made Executive Creative Director (of All The Company) because they wanted him at that level.
They waited until after SWG launched.
The game wasn't taken in a different direction: we knew we had JtL to do right now. Plus a handful of "post launch features" like vehicles, mounts, and player cities: not implemented as "a different direction", but as they were only moved to post launch for lack of time.
To me it dose not make a whole lot of sense to promote such a key position without having anyone in mind to replace them. My guess that that is your point. If so I would have to agree.
Seems they either thought that since the game was launched, we were ok. Or that since we had months of work to do before anyone got creative on us, they had months to hire a replacement.
So my question is as far as you know SWG still dose not have it's own CD? In one of your posts you stated:
Cao has been the Studio Creative Director the whole time he's been there, dual-wielding as SWG's CD 'cause it needed one.
I don't know about now. Couldn't say. When I was there we usually had Lead Content and Lead Systems. The CD authority was easily assumed by a producer, but the consistent creative direction? On a small team, a Lead Designer will do (JtL had Lead Designer , Lead Content Designer, and Lead Systems Designer, with the LD providing creative direction, and producers managing production).
Yes, realisticly I can. Alot of those droping numbers were from other SoE fuck ups, things like the xp nerf or the root changes kept pissing more players off for no good reason. Adding to the game instead of constantly re-working the games basic systems or undermining it's strengths (adding more and more loot to the detrement of the crafting economy) would have been a better move. Then throw in the fact that SWG, as alot of us have found out since the NGE, was a very unique game that players would have come back to because there is little else on the market that has all the PreCUs features or even the CUs features.
and all that is even before going into the way they did the NGE.
This was the point I tried to make earlier, when I said the NGE wasn't really the problem, but rather all the things that lead to that point.
Well if you are saying that the NGE wasn't the only problem I'd agree, I'll even agree that the NGE was the latest (and by far bigest) symptom of an overall lack of consistant vision and bad management of SWG.... but none of that makes the NGE any better or SoE and LA any better for changing the core design of the game out from under customers that had wanted the old core design and waiting to annouce it untill right after one last cash grab from those players who liked the old system.
The game wasn't taken in a different direction: we knew we had JtL to do right now. Plus a handful of "post launch features" like vehicles, mounts, and player cities: not implemented as "a different direction", but as they were only moved to post launch for lack of time.
Dundee,
I understand (or at least that is what I infer) you are talking about the time frame right after launch, but eventually and well before CU/NGE era, the game did head in a radically different direction--namely away from staying true to the Star Wars canon. (i.e., making Jedi easier to obtain, the way iconic starships were handled in JTL, the TEF changes in the spring of 2005, the CU, all the crap from the prequels that came in with RoTW, and of course the death blow to Star Wars immersion, the ToOW/NGE combo punch) and toward a more generic MMO with superficial Star Wars skins.
Before your recent posts here, I had always assumed this was a deliberate decision that SOE made, slowly trying to break out of restrictions basing a game a on a well loved IP forces upon you. However, I have to wonder, (assuming I believe the things you are telling us) was this a mere accidental drift away from the original design because of the lack of a creative director? If it wasn't an accident, who would normally make such a high level shift in direction of the game?
P.S. I do hold you responsible, well least partially, for the way the ships were handled in JTL (i.e. rebel players in X-wings were not attackable by imperial players in Tie fighters and vice versu) since you were the lead person and I brought this issue up to you in beta and you defended the design in a hotly debated thread about that and players in faction flight uniforms not being overt. But I could see how a creative director making everyone else toe the line on staying true to the movies could have shown you the error of your ways, which is why I say partially.
Aikes couldn't say it any better. My friends and I truly got depressed after the NGE.
I really want to hear a representative admit it. Does SOE only care about money? Or do they actually for once care about the players?
Thanks, but I doubt we will ever get honest answers. Those people responsible can not be proud of their "achievements" in SWG as it is at this point. They all know that the pre-CU system is much better. They will never ever admit it. Why? If they ever admit they screwed up, then a finger must be pointed. If fingers point, heads must role. Since most of the blame falls on the shoulders of upper management and developers, they certainly don't want to toss one another under the bus. They would rather sink the whole damn ship then be man enough to say, "I was wrong. I take responsibility for what went wrong and this is why I and we as a team went forward with this major set of revamps even though we knew that very few liked it."
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
Aikes couldn't say it any better. My friends and I truly got depressed after the NGE.
I really want to hear a representative admit it. Does SOE only care about money? Or do they actually for once care about the players?
Thanks, but I doubt we will ever get honest answers. Those people responcible can not be proud of their "achievements" in SWG as it is at this point. They all know that the pre-CU system is much better. They will never ever admit it. Why? If they ever admit they screwed up, then a finger must be pointed. If fingers point, heads must role. Since most of the blame falls on the shoulders of upper management and developers, they certainly don't want to toss one another under the bus. They would rather sink the whole damn ship then be man enough to say, "I was wrong. I take responcibility for what went wrong and this is why I and we as a team went forward with this major set of revamps even though we knew that very few liked it."
Nice quote on your sig -- Good to see somthing I did made it to a few people lol...
(adamrk) alt post account ..lol
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
P.S. I do hold you responsible, well least partially, for the way the ships were handled in JTL (i.e. rebel players in X-wings were not attackable by imperial players in Tie fighters and vice versu) since you were the lead person and I brought this issue up to you in beta and you defended the design in a hotly debated thread about that and players in faction flight uniforms not being overt. But I could see how a creative director making everyone else toe the line on staying true to the movies could have shown you the error of your ways, which is why I say partially.
Obviously, we went with a very quest-driven thing with JtL. I think that necessitated some freedom from PvP.
The arguments to force PvP there were too shallow, I thought: in that they just called for overt/attackable status. To do it, I think we'd have had to redesign what "content" was in JtL. Much less reliance on quests, much more on... I don't know, a system that never got designed, because we went with the quest-thing.
Otherwise, I don't think it would have felt very true to the movies at all, but more like getting ganked upon launching into space, being blocked from playing the content, getting frustrated: versus flying an X-Wing, shooting TIE fighters, like Star Wars, even if occasionally you were forced to ignore a TIE-Advanced with a goofy name.
I do applaud you Mr. Freeman for having the guts to stand in front of the SWG mmorpg.com firing squad.
Some ruthless, immature SOB's here. So I'll try and be constructive.
The "golden age" of SWG, for me, was right after Jump to Lightspeed.
We had vehicles, mounts, space combat, player cities, no professions had been lost, no major systems changed.... If I remember correctly it was after this point that the Combat Upgrade came out and things really began to slip.
As I've said in another post...
"I will agree that the game needed more to do, a LOT more to do then grind missions/professions (for combat people).
crafting and social game was great, should go back to how it was on day 1. without the bugs, of course.
The "theme parks" were OK in terms of content but too few and far between
The real problem was that the devs always shot for the bottom mark "just good enough" solution to the bugs/balance issues
adding tons of new quests and a quest driven tutorial and tons of new theme parks and "dungeons" and planets etc would have been a great idea
a GREAT idea if they DIDN'T ruin the rest of the game in the process by destroying 90% of professions, adding stupid level system, combat upgrade BS. etc
fix the problems, add new content, fix the problems, add new content..... rinse and repeat
do NOT pull a 180 and change 90% - 95% of the games core systems
Try this SOE and Lucasarts. Go back to pre-combat upgrade. pre nge. remove jedi from the game, or make them SO hard to play and open to be GANKED by every player and NPC if they even try to show off their saber or powers in public, make them bounty hunter targets if they do.
then spend your time and money adding quests, theme parks, dungeons, group and solo CONTENT, new planets, new missions/mission types... quests quests content content content
leave the systems alone, just fix the bugs, balance the professions, and add content. like every other MMO would"
as for JTL if you make it twitch based combat you can still do the quests and travel without making a standard Tie Fighter take 30 hits to destroy.... the imperials are SUPPOSE to have crappy ships, just tons of them. Give Imp players a little squad of NPC's that follows them around.
I dunno. I guess it's just me beating a dead horse, I'm just sad about the direction the game took.
Again though, applaud you Mr. Freeman for taking the time and having the courage to do this.
Obviously, we went with a very quest-driven thing with JtL. I think that necessitated some freedom from PvP.
The arguments to force PvP there were too shallow, I thought: in that they just called for overt/attackable status. To do it, I think we'd have had to redesign what "content" was in JtL. Much less reliance on quests, much more on... I don't know, a system that never got designed, because we went with the quest-thing.
Otherwise, I don't think it would have felt very true to the movies at all, but more like getting ganked upon launching into space, being blocked from playing the content, getting frustrated: versus flying an X-Wing, shooting TIE fighters, like Star Wars, even if occasionally you were forced to ignore a TIE-Advanced with a goofy name.
Thanks for responding.
The issue isn't necessarily reliance on quests, but rather JTL's basic design of the professions being Rebel Pilot, Imperial Pilot, and Neutral Pilot. Once that dynamic was set up the conflict with the Star Wars cannon was bound to happen. If you had made Pilot a single profession or (or multiple professions) and then used various quests and non-faction specific ships to advance that would have been fine. Once people reached master pilot, (or sooner if they felt lucky) they could go get their faction specific ship, and risk the penaties. The factional quests, and risk of PvP attack, could have been for after you are leveled up.
You can't set up your systems to be in conflict with the basic principle of the cannon, even if that means the alternative is unfun to some or even most people. If you fail to abide by this principle, you don't even have a Star Wars game, even if its generically fun. Prior to SOE shooting itself in foot with CU and in the head with NGE, the fundamental conflict with the cannon is the real reason the game was never a mega sucess. You either screw over the cannon and get the NGE or some different heresy or you are faithful to it and you turn off the casual players and even people accustomed to more conventional MMOs.
They roughed up continuity a bit to be sure, but would you really rank that above slow bug fixing and a lack of content additions in the hierachy of reasons Pre-CU didn't take off wildly?
Nice quote on your sig -- Good to see somthing I did made it to a few people lol...
(adamrk) alt post account ..lol
Thank you for the use of your words. I use it because I could not have said it any better and it is a very true statement. It fits my own view of the situation.
After you typed that wonderful string of text, sharing it and giving you credit where credit is due was the very least I myself could do.
It is too damn bad that game developers don't do the same. The SWG team should be giving credit to World of Warfairies, Guild Wars, and Counter Strike. The sad thing is that SWG was a better product, but now it is much worse then ant of the MMO's or FPS style games SOE seems to have felt the need to try to mold it into.
Common Freeman, give credit to the other gaming companies. Everyone knows SOE doesn't have developers with enough imagination to create original stuff anymore anyway, so just fess up.
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
They roughed up continuity a bit to be sure, but would you really rank that above slow bug fixing and a lack of content additions in the hierachy of reasons Pre-CU didn't take off wildly?
For the more diehard Star Wars fans it probably was.
The issue isn't necessarily reliance on quests, but rather JTL's basic design of the professions being Rebel Pilot, Imperial Pilot, and Neutral Pilot.Once that dynamic was set up the conflict with the Star Wars cannon was bound to happen. If you had made Pilot a single profession or (or multiple professions) and then used various quests and non-faction specific ships to advance that would have been fine. Once people reached master pilot, (or sooner if they felt lucky) they could go get their faction specific ship, and risk the penaties. The factional quests, and risk of PvP attack, could have been for after you are leveled up.
Ahh, might have been some requirements there of which you are unaware...
You can't set up your systems to be in conflict with the basic principle of the cannon, even if that means the alternative is unfun to some or even most people.
Ack! "Unfun to most people" is no alternative at all. At risk of drifting off the topic of Who is to blame, really? and into more general design...
If you fail to abide by this principle, you don't even have a Star Wars game, even if its generically fun. Prior to SOE shooting itself in foot with CU and in the head with NGE, the fundamental conflict with the cannon is the real reason the game was never a mega sucess. You either screw over the cannon and get the NGE or some different heresy or you are faithful to it and you turn off the casual players and even people accustomed to more conventional MMOs.
The issue isn't necessarily reliance on quests, but rather JTL's basic design of the professions being Rebel Pilot, Imperial Pilot, and Neutral Pilot.Once that dynamic was set up the conflict with the Star Wars cannon was bound to happen. If you had made Pilot a single profession or (or multiple professions) and then used various quests and non-faction specific ships to advance that would have been fine. Once people reached master pilot, (or sooner if they felt lucky) they could go get their faction specific ship, and risk the penaties. The factional quests, and risk of PvP attack, could have been for after you are leveled up.
Ahh, might have been some requirements there of which you are unaware...
You can't set up your systems to be in conflict with the basic principle of the cannon, even if that means the alternative is unfun to some or even most people.
Ack! "Unfun to most people" is no alternative at all. At risk of drifting off the topic of Who is to blame, really? and into more general design...
If you fail to abide by this principle, you don't even have a Star Wars game, even if its generically fun. Prior to SOE shooting itself in foot with CU and in the head with NGE, the fundamental conflict with the cannon is the real reason the game was never a mega sucess. You either screw over the cannon and get the NGE or some different heresy or you are faithful to it and you turn off the casual players and even people accustomed to more conventional MMOs.
We got that as "not star warsy enough".
Oh Hel no you did not say that... omg slap big time.
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Mr Freeman, As I read through your varying replies I see you bringing out many of the interoffice political relationships and how they can impact decision making. Example, the publisher nixing ideas or gameplans you might have. I have always been curious about the inner workings of the day to day routine and development of a company like SOE.
Not having to use SOE in particular due to NDA and what not I would appreciate one day if you could explain the dynamics(in general) of what working in a large company like that is like. Just make it a blog entry. I would find that quite fascinating. Maybe some others would then understand that its not just make a decision and run with and there are many steps to go through pushing any idea or change through.
BTW, posting here does indeed humanize you and lets people get some of their angst out of their system. I can appreciate you liked and disliked some aspects of the NGE. I'm just glad that some details of the events that transpired are somewhat explained. Oh, I dont hate you either btw. I dont care much at all for SOE/Sony or LA much these days but in the end its all about having to do ones job.
Look at no point did the swg players ask for the nge, or inadvertly ask, i recall them asking for bug fixes to combat and a few other things like lag etc, broken quest's, much of which still exsist's.
I recall the same thing, xacova. That has been essentially what the players have ALWAYS been asking for from the very beginning. However, I stand by my statement that in NO point in SWG's history has any change or addition to the game been met with anything on one front or the other but outrage.
you can hardly blame the swg player's at all for the things that have gone wrong.
I do not hold the players DIRECTLY responsible. But indirectly, the failure of the community to simply accept that the game was how it was and simply either roll with it or leave is potentially what encouraged the suits making the decisions to think, "Jeez. Nothing we do anyway is going to make them happy, so we might as well just push this through and hope for the best.
Before the CU, we had the pre-CU system. Players grumbled. SOE gambled. Everyone lost.
Before the NGE, we had the CU system. Players grumbled some more. SOE gampled some more, and again, EVERYONE lost.
And today, we have the NGE, Players are still grumbling, SOE is still gambling, and everyone is STILL losing.
If the players would STOP grumbling, maybe SOE would stop gambling and we can all start winning. But hey. We know it won't happen, because MMO players can't resist the urge to grumble and tell devs how to do their job. After all, they pay $15 per month, so they own the game and the devs work for them. Right?
Not so. SOE answers to a parent company, which in turn answers to its investors. So SOE's developers are merely puppets on the strings of other puppets whose strings are being pulled by the majority shareholders on some board of directors, in JAPAN!
So technically, SWG belongs to people who are shelling out WAY more than $15 per month. The game is being run on computer systems paid for by their money. It is their signature on the checks the devs receive, not ours. And that money comes from far more sources than just MMO products.
$oe and lucas pass the blame on who is responsible, yet players go on the forum's like there employee's from sony when there not and defend them till there typing fingers are sore, when they should really get on with criticising the game's weak points and there are too many now to be resolved, they should let soe or lucas arts take full responsability for there errors.
Criticism? That's all there really has been since the beginning. Not enough action. Jedi too hard to get. Combat sucks. This is Star Wars, not Pet Wars! PvP sucks! Jedi Sucks. Entertainer Sucks! This sucks! That sucks! SOE Sucks!
That is the voice of the community. And if that is all I had coming at me from all directions, I'd tune it out too.
There has yet to be a single thread started by a dev or another SOE rep that has not degraded into a flame war between those who have made it up in their mind to hate everything and anything SOE does, no matter what, and those who are in favor of supporting SOE's efforts. Before those threads get locked or end up falling to the bottom, the discussion is inevitably way off topic.
This happens every time they try to communicate anything.
sorry darth you have been reading there forums to long, and may be corrupted by reading post's that defend the crap they made, but in time im sure you will be purged of this affliction soon.
Uhm... Right... and I got banned from those forums for kissing their butts? I spoke my mind. I voiced my observations of what THEY have done wrong. It clearly rattled their cages and ruffled their feathers, because according to the new forums, I am banned FOREVER.
See the thing is that the time I have been away, I have opened my mind to the possibility that everyone involved with SWG, including the players, have had a role in the game's downfall. And really, the majority of those who are here in this forum are not here for an alternate means of communicating with their former fellow SWG players. No. most are here just so they can gripe about SOE in a forum SOE has no control over. Does it help SWG any more by griping about SOE here than it did by griping about them in their own forums?
You are clueless as to what some of this is about.
O'rly?
If you think that the NGE can be saved and make the game better then you sir need to wake up and take a look around as they are now working on ways to merge whats left of the community onto a few servers.
What else can they do? Would you go back even if they did a pre-NGE or pre-CU rollback? A few might, but most have convinced themselves that it is too late for SOE to make any good moves. They made their bed, and now they have to sleep in it. They are committed to the course they have chosen. I only regret that they couldn't have been this committed to the original system, but it is a moot point now.
Oh yeah... saved...lol saved from being in to much debt because they are operating in the red right now Im sure.
Well considering the official forums are packed with a lot of people not playing the game, the revenue should still be pretty much up there.
For another one of your clueless comments such as "The devs have actually now said they will listen" I dare say to you - "Are you freaking high? Are you that clueless as to how many times this was said? Do you have any idea that Mr. Smedley himself even said they were over 2 years ago? Do you even think that SOE can "ALL OF A SUDDEN NOW FIX THIS??"
Yes. It's a matter of choice. I choose to believe that it is possible for them to fix the situation. Maybe not for you and others like you who enjoy your angst so much that you just can't wait to pounce on anyone who has found it within themselves to recognize the conflict within and let go of their hate. Those who have managed to do this are either enjoying themselves in-game, or have quietly moved on to other things.
Are you that clueless as to what has happend???? Do you even know what the phrase "Track record" means?
Don't patronize me, Iskareot. I have been a part of the SWG community for as long as there has been a community to be a part of. I've walked both sides of the line and have walked the line itself. I know what has gone down. I know it better than many may think.
I see this and I see a NGEr that is blind to the reality of what has happend and what is going on.
The NGE did not affect my playstyle, directly. My character was an Energy Resource Salesman. What I did before the Cu and the NGE, I was able to do after the NGE. But I know full well what it did to a lot of other players, and I was angry at SOE for them.
Soon you will post that the server mergers are because the game is soooo full and doing well that they want to focus all thier money on just a few servers.. or some crap.
You really don't know a thing about me, do you?
Look at my profile on the official boards. 61 of the topivs I started survived the transition from the old forums to the new. Read them, and maybe you'll get better insight into what I have been about.
I sometimes wonder how some of you people see what you do... or better yet try to make it sound good to some of us... that is just amazing.
No more amazing than some of us vets trying to make Pre-CU sound as great as we have made it out to be. It had loads of its own problems, too. And the 1.5 years it existed, it got no closer to seeing them solved than the NGE has. And even had the NGE and the CU before it never come along, it is likely that there would still be just as many problems plaguing the system.
The Pre-CU, the CU and the NGE have all been broken. Just in different ways.
Some of the folks I have seen here either adapted to the CU or knew nothing else. Those who didn't adapt ridiculed you guys for having done so. And now you guys ridicule those who have adapted to the NGE or those who have never known anything else.
It is a shame. You guys can't dare to let others get away with saying they like something about the NGE or that it can succede, because if you did, then you can't bang your chests and say "I'm right and you're wrong anymore." For you, SWG HAS to fail. It just has to. You clearly don't want it to become successful again. If you did, you would be on the official forums fighting to be heard, as I wish that I still could be...
I got myself banned. I have only myself to blame for that. If I had it to do over again, maybe I would have done it differently, but the dice have been rolled and have turned up snake-eyes. I grumbled. I gambled. I lost.
P.S. I do hold you responsible, well least partially, for the way the ships were handled in JTL (i.e. rebel players in X-wings were not attackable by imperial players in Tie fighters and vice versu) since you were the lead person and I brought this issue up to you in beta and you defended the design in a hotly debated thread about that and players in faction flight uniforms not being overt. But I could see how a creative director making everyone else toe the line on staying true to the movies could have shown you the error of your ways, which is why I say partially.
Obviously, we went with a very quest-driven thing with JtL. I think that necessitated some freedom from PvP.
The arguments to force PvP there were too shallow, I thought: in that they just called for overt/attackable status. To do it, I think we'd have had to redesign what "content" was in JtL. Much less reliance on quests, much more on... I don't know, a system that never got designed, because we went with the quest-thing.
Otherwise, I don't think it would have felt very true to the movies at all, but more like getting ganked upon launching into space, being blocked from playing the content, getting frustrated: versus flying an X-Wing, shooting TIE fighters, like Star Wars, even if occasionally you were forced to ignore a TIE-Advanced with a goofy name.
I actualy really enjoyed the set up that JTLS had for the missions and leveling of pilot and the non forced PvPer. Even before the NGE I was still doing a duty mission every time I loged on and helping other members of my guild with there missions or taking out the corvette. I wasn't fond of the way reverse engineering worked for making much better components to shipwrights, it was a loot system not a crafter one but the actual combat and missions I had great fun with. I did dislike the fighter spaceships added with RotW though, they should never have had the mass and handling they were given, was really silly that the jedi starfighter was an infinitly better ship then an A wing ...... I had the same complaint about flint tiped wookiee pikes being better then a virbro pike though ...... that type of stuff just doesn't work in a Sci Fi setting
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
Comments
If you are the developer and I am the publisher, I want to see your publish plans ahead of time. I want to see your schedule. I want to see how many resources are assigned to what. And then I want you to explain why everything. And then, I will sign-off. Or not.
So, who is to blame if you do what?
How about if you, as the developer, once or maybe even twice planned the right thing, but I said no? And I can, because I am the publisher.
Point being, there's somewhere between shared responsibility and ultimate accountability you're missing.
If you could not log in, that was all SOE. Otherwise? There's a developer/publisher relationship working.
Jeff Freeman
I remember!
Jeff Freeman
Don't over-think this problem of who is to blame. It's so simple my 6 yr old knew what the problem was and currently still is. When a company, any company, forgets about the people who brought them to the dance, lies, cheats, steals, and decieves, then game over.
100% of the blame should be laid at the feet of SOE. Heres how I came to this point:
1. If you have integrity, you will make products that work.
2. If someone tells you to do otherwise, and you dont have the character of conviction, then you are a worthless piece of human waste.
3. If you sole motivation is profit at any means necessary then your destined to have a seat next to the devil.
For the failure of SWG look no further than the office of John Smedley. Sony needs to clean house starting with "Smed" in order to begin to earn the trust of the player-base. Until then, I will remain on the I HATE JOHN SMEDLEY CAMPAIGN.
http://johnsmedleysucks.usgameroom.com
But, the NGE is a problem and was a problem then just as the Combat Dumb-Down was a major problem. You took an all-encompassing game that PvErs, PvPers, and even Role Players could all become completely immersed in and which everyone loved, even if they bitched about bugs, and tried to convert it into some kind of Guild Wars/ World of Warfairies/ FPS.
In the end you only succeeded in retarding a game that was probably the best platform for next generation MMOs to a point where very few thought it was worth paying for to play the game. That is truly screwed up and now SOE has one grand reputation. That reputation is not the fault of SOE customers. That reputation is one earned by SOE, LAE, and all of the upper management involved.
I can not imagine a situation where any developer involved would be proud of what they have now made out of Star Wars Galaxies. So you have been at SOE a long time. Whose fault is that?
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
I really want to hear a representative admit it. Does SOE only care about money? Or do they actually for once care about the players?
If you did care, you wouldn't have adopted such a touchy subject like Star Wars.
Shame on you Freeman and all your friends at SOE.
And even if this bans me, damn you, damn you to hell.
They waited until after SWG launched.
The game wasn't taken in a different direction: we knew we had JtL to do right now. Plus a handful of "post launch features" like vehicles, mounts, and player cities: not implemented as "a different direction", but as they were only moved to post launch for lack of time.
Seems they either thought that since the game was launched, we were ok. Or that since we had months of work to do before anyone got creative on us, they had months to hire a replacement.
I don't know about now. Couldn't say. When I was there we usually had Lead Content and Lead Systems. The CD authority was easily assumed by a producer, but the consistent creative direction? On a small team, a Lead Designer will do (JtL had Lead Designer , Lead Content Designer, and Lead Systems Designer, with the LD providing creative direction, and producers managing production).
So I don't know what the team structure is now...
Jeff Freeman
Well if you are saying that the NGE wasn't the only problem I'd agree, I'll even agree that the NGE was the latest (and by far bigest) symptom of an overall lack of consistant vision and bad management of SWG.... but none of that makes the NGE any better or SoE and LA any better for changing the core design of the game out from under customers that had wanted the old core design and waiting to annouce it untill right after one last cash grab from those players who liked the old system.
Dundee,
I understand (or at least that is what I infer) you are talking about the time frame right after launch, but eventually and well before CU/NGE era, the game did head in a radically different direction--namely away from staying true to the Star Wars canon. (i.e., making Jedi easier to obtain, the way iconic starships were handled in JTL, the TEF changes in the spring of 2005, the CU, all the crap from the prequels that came in with RoTW, and of course the death blow to Star Wars immersion, the ToOW/NGE combo punch) and toward a more generic MMO with superficial Star Wars skins.
Before your recent posts here, I had always assumed this was a deliberate decision that SOE made, slowly trying to break out of restrictions basing a game a on a well loved IP forces upon you. However, I have to wonder, (assuming I believe the things you are telling us) was this a mere accidental drift away from the original design because of the lack of a creative director? If it wasn't an accident, who would normally make such a high level shift in direction of the game?
P.S. I do hold you responsible, well least partially, for the way the ships were handled in JTL (i.e. rebel players in X-wings were not attackable by imperial players in Tie fighters and vice versu) since you were the lead person and I brought this issue up to you in beta and you defended the design in a hotly debated thread about that and players in faction flight uniforms not being overt. But I could see how a creative director making everyone else toe the line on staying true to the movies could have shown you the error of your ways, which is why I say partially.
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
Nice quote on your sig --
(adamrk) alt post account ..lol
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
The arguments to force PvP there were too shallow, I thought: in that they just called for overt/attackable status. To do it, I think we'd have had to redesign what "content" was in JtL. Much less reliance on quests, much more on... I don't know, a system that never got designed, because we went with the quest-thing.
Otherwise, I don't think it would have felt very true to the movies at all, but more like getting ganked upon launching into space, being blocked from playing the content, getting frustrated: versus flying an X-Wing, shooting TIE fighters, like Star Wars, even if occasionally you were forced to ignore a TIE-Advanced with a goofy name.
Jeff Freeman
i had to get in on this....
I do applaud you Mr. Freeman for having the guts to stand in front of the SWG mmorpg.com firing squad.
Some ruthless, immature SOB's here. So I'll try and be constructive.
The "golden age" of SWG, for me, was right after Jump to Lightspeed.
We had vehicles, mounts, space combat, player cities, no professions had been lost, no major systems changed.... If I remember correctly it was after this point that the Combat Upgrade came out and things really began to slip.
As I've said in another post...
"I will agree that the game needed more to do, a LOT more to do then grind missions/professions (for combat people).
crafting and social game was great, should go back to how it was on day 1. without the bugs, of course.
The "theme parks" were OK in terms of content but too few and far between
The real problem was that the devs always shot for the bottom mark "just good enough" solution to the bugs/balance issues
adding tons of new quests and a quest driven tutorial and tons of new theme parks and "dungeons" and planets etc would have been a great idea
a GREAT idea if they DIDN'T ruin the rest of the game in the process by destroying 90% of professions, adding stupid level system, combat upgrade BS. etc
fix the problems, add new content, fix the problems, add new content..... rinse and repeat
do NOT pull a 180 and change 90% - 95% of the games core systems
Try this SOE and Lucasarts. Go back to pre-combat upgrade. pre nge. remove jedi from the game, or make them SO hard to play and open to be GANKED by every player and NPC if they even try to show off their saber or powers in public, make them bounty hunter targets if they do.
then spend your time and money adding quests, theme parks, dungeons, group and solo CONTENT, new planets, new missions/mission types... quests quests content content content
leave the systems alone, just fix the bugs, balance the professions, and add content. like every other MMO would"
as for JTL if you make it twitch based combat you can still do the quests and travel without making a standard Tie Fighter take 30 hits to destroy.... the imperials are SUPPOSE to have crappy ships, just tons of them. Give Imp players a little squad of NPC's that follows them around.
I dunno. I guess it's just me beating a dead horse, I'm just sad about the direction the game took.
Again though, applaud you Mr. Freeman for taking the time and having the courage to do this.
My old Master Rifleman with all the shiny new weapons available now, plus...
No levels cr*p !!!
Rifleman / Commando / Scout / Bounty Hunter... its up to you
No loot kit, loot should only be schematics, treasure maps (remember them?) or quest clues.
Drop the buff %+
Entertainers in cantina's / camps.... enough said
but some NGE features...
Legacy quest
New quest content
Cool downs, no macro fights or instant armor changes
No instant 1000pt heal - Heal available in 15secs - Master TKA/Doc's are screwed
need to target the Bad Guy's, (no click and macro)
SWG day 2 vet... not played since nge
-------------
Blasting Stormtroopers beats bashing Goblins, come on EMU
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Thanks for responding.
The issue isn't necessarily reliance on quests, but rather JTL's basic design of the professions being Rebel Pilot, Imperial Pilot, and Neutral Pilot. Once that dynamic was set up the conflict with the Star Wars cannon was bound to happen. If you had made Pilot a single profession or (or multiple professions) and then used various quests and non-faction specific ships to advance that would have been fine. Once people reached master pilot, (or sooner if they felt lucky) they could go get their faction specific ship, and risk the penaties. The factional quests, and risk of PvP attack, could have been for after you are leveled up.
You can't set up your systems to be in conflict with the basic principle of the cannon, even if that means the alternative is unfun to some or even most people. If you fail to abide by this principle, you don't even have a Star Wars game, even if its generically fun. Prior to SOE shooting itself in foot with CU and in the head with NGE, the fundamental conflict with the cannon is the real reason the game was never a mega sucess. You either screw over the cannon and get the NGE or some different heresy or you are faithful to it and you turn off the casual players and even people accustomed to more conventional MMOs.
SWG Team Mtg.
Nice quote on your sig --
(adamrk) alt post account ..lol
Thank you for the use of your words. I use it because I could not have said it any better and it is a very true statement. It fits my own view of the situation.
After you typed that wonderful string of text, sharing it and giving you credit where credit is due was the very least I myself could do.
It is too damn bad that game developers don't do the same. The SWG team should be giving credit to World of Warfairies, Guild Wars, and Counter Strike. The sad thing is that SWG was a better product, but now it is much worse then ant of the MMO's or FPS style games SOE seems to have felt the need to try to mold it into.
Common Freeman, give credit to the other gaming companies. Everyone knows SOE doesn't have developers with enough imagination to create original stuff anymore anyway, so just fess up.
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
Ack! "Unfun to most people" is no alternative at all. At risk of drifting off the topic of Who is to blame, really? and into more general design...
We got that as "not star warsy enough".
Jeff Freeman
Ack! "Unfun to most people" is no alternative at all. At risk of drifting off the topic of Who is to blame, really? and into more general design...
We got that as "not star warsy enough".
Oh Hel no you did not say that... omg slap big time.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Not having to use SOE in particular due to NDA and what not I would appreciate one day if you could explain the dynamics(in general) of what working in a large company like that is like. Just make it a blog entry. I would find that quite fascinating. Maybe some others would then understand that its not just make a decision and run with and there are many steps to go through pushing any idea or change through.
BTW, posting here does indeed humanize you and lets people get some of their angst out of their system. I can appreciate you liked and disliked some aspects of the NGE. I'm just glad that some details of the events that transpired are somewhat explained. Oh, I dont hate you either btw.
I recall the same thing, xacova. That has been essentially what the players have ALWAYS been asking for from the very beginning. However, I stand by my statement that in NO point in SWG's history has any change or addition to the game been met with anything on one front or the other but outrage.
I do not hold the players DIRECTLY responsible. But indirectly, the failure of the community to simply accept that the game was how it was and simply either roll with it or leave is potentially what encouraged the suits making the decisions to think, "Jeez. Nothing we do anyway is going to make them happy, so we might as well just push this through and hope for the best.
Before the CU, we had the pre-CU system. Players grumbled. SOE gambled. Everyone lost.
Before the NGE, we had the CU system. Players grumbled some more. SOE gampled some more, and again, EVERYONE lost.
And today, we have the NGE, Players are still grumbling, SOE is still gambling, and everyone is STILL losing.
If the players would STOP grumbling, maybe SOE would stop gambling and we can all start winning. But hey. We know it won't happen, because MMO players can't resist the urge to grumble and tell devs how to do their job. After all, they pay $15 per month, so they own the game and the devs work for them. Right?
Not so. SOE answers to a parent company, which in turn answers to its investors. So SOE's developers are merely puppets on the strings of other puppets whose strings are being pulled by the majority shareholders on some board of directors, in JAPAN!
So technically, SWG belongs to people who are shelling out WAY more than $15 per month. The game is being run on computer systems paid for by their money. It is their signature on the checks the devs receive, not ours. And that money comes from far more sources than just MMO products.
Criticism? That's all there really has been since the beginning. Not enough action. Jedi too hard to get. Combat sucks. This is Star Wars, not Pet Wars! PvP sucks! Jedi Sucks. Entertainer Sucks! This sucks! That sucks! SOE Sucks!
That is the voice of the community. And if that is all I had coming at me from all directions, I'd tune it out too.
There has yet to be a single thread started by a dev or another SOE rep that has not degraded into a flame war between those who have made it up in their mind to hate everything and anything SOE does, no matter what, and those who are in favor of supporting SOE's efforts. Before those threads get locked or end up falling to the bottom, the discussion is inevitably way off topic.
This happens every time they try to communicate anything.
Uhm... Right... and I got banned from those forums for kissing their butts? I spoke my mind. I voiced my observations of what THEY have done wrong. It clearly rattled their cages and ruffled their feathers, because according to the new forums, I am banned FOREVER.
See the thing is that the time I have been away, I have opened my mind to the possibility that everyone involved with SWG, including the players, have had a role in the game's downfall. And really, the majority of those who are here in this forum are not here for an alternate means of communicating with their former fellow SWG players. No. most are here just so they can gripe about SOE in a forum SOE has no control over. Does it help SWG any more by griping about SOE here than it did by griping about them in their own forums?
I didn't think so...
O'rly?
What else can they do? Would you go back even if they did a pre-NGE or pre-CU rollback? A few might, but most have convinced themselves that it is too late for SOE to make any good moves. They made their bed, and now they have to sleep in it. They are committed to the course they have chosen. I only regret that they couldn't have been this committed to the original system, but it is a moot point now.
Well considering the official forums are packed with a lot of people not playing the game, the revenue should still be pretty much up there.
Read this:
"In a prison of our own making"
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?topic_id=213058
Yes. It's a matter of choice. I choose to believe that it is possible for them to fix the situation. Maybe not for you and others like you who enjoy your angst so much that you just can't wait to pounce on anyone who has found it within themselves to recognize the conflict within and let go of their hate. Those who have managed to do this are either enjoying themselves in-game, or have quietly moved on to other things.
Don't patronize me, Iskareot. I have been a part of the SWG community for as long as there has been a community to be a part of. I've walked both sides of the line and have walked the line itself. I know what has gone down. I know it better than many may think.
The NGE did not affect my playstyle, directly. My character was an Energy Resource Salesman. What I did before the Cu and the NGE, I was able to do after the NGE. But I know full well what it did to a lot of other players, and I was angry at SOE for them.
You really don't know a thing about me, do you?
Look at my profile on the official boards. 61 of the topivs I started survived the transition from the old forums to the new. Read them, and maybe you'll get better insight into what I have been about.
No more amazing than some of us vets trying to make Pre-CU sound as great as we have made it out to be. It had loads of its own problems, too. And the 1.5 years it existed, it got no closer to seeing them solved than the NGE has. And even had the NGE and the CU before it never come along, it is likely that there would still be just as many problems plaguing the system.
The Pre-CU, the CU and the NGE have all been broken. Just in different ways.
Some of the folks I have seen here either adapted to the CU or knew nothing else. Those who didn't adapt ridiculed you guys for having done so. And now you guys ridicule those who have adapted to the NGE or those who have never known anything else.
It is a shame. You guys can't dare to let others get away with saying they like something about the NGE or that it can succede, because if you did, then you can't bang your chests and say "I'm right and you're wrong anymore." For you, SWG HAS to fail. It just has to. You clearly don't want it to become successful again. If you did, you would be on the official forums fighting to be heard, as I wish that I still could be...
I got myself banned. I have only myself to blame for that. If I had it to do over again, maybe I would have done it differently, but the dice have been rolled and have turned up snake-eyes. I grumbled. I gambled. I lost.
The arguments to force PvP there were too shallow, I thought: in that they just called for overt/attackable status. To do it, I think we'd have had to redesign what "content" was in JtL. Much less reliance on quests, much more on... I don't know, a system that never got designed, because we went with the quest-thing.
Otherwise, I don't think it would have felt very true to the movies at all, but more like getting ganked upon launching into space, being blocked from playing the content, getting frustrated: versus flying an X-Wing, shooting TIE fighters, like Star Wars, even if occasionally you were forced to ignore a TIE-Advanced with a goofy name.
I actualy really enjoyed the set up that JTLS had for the missions and leveling of pilot and the non forced PvPer. Even before the NGE I was still doing a duty mission every time I loged on and helping other members of my guild with there missions or taking out the corvette. I wasn't fond of the way reverse engineering worked for making much better components to shipwrights, it was a loot system not a crafter one but the actual combat and missions I had great fun with. I did dislike the fighter spaceships added with RotW though, they should never have had the mass and handling they were given, was really silly that the jedi starfighter was an infinitly better ship then an A wing ...... I had the same complaint about flint tiped wookiee pikes being better then a virbro pike though ...... that type of stuff just doesn't work in a Sci Fi setting
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete