I think it IS arguable that SOE, and those within SOE/LEC who knew the NGE was coming that were involved in the discussion and marketing of the TOOW expansion quite possibly DID engage in criminal fraud, yes.
The deception must have either been likely to or have actually resulted in "injury" or "damage" to the plaintiff. Typically, the damage is money.
Since they offered refunds for pre-orders, there's no damage from that.
Of course they offered that refund to head off any legal trouble because they were in the wrong.
Originally posted by Rekrul
Originally posted by Dundee
If you have to blame an individual, blame the CEOs. The buck stops there, and that's why they make the big bucks.
Extra! Extra!
Freeman says: BLAME SMED.
At least this is how it will, once again, get misinterpreted.
Originally posted by ShiloFields Fair enough, then: 1. Who made the decision to make jedi a starting profession and thereby invalidate in the in game efforts of the pre-nge Jedi and who implemented it?
The person who implemented it is guilty!? Of course, you didn't think that someone involved, even if only following orders, with the parts of the NGE that really screwed over the players would get at pass from us did you? Admittedly, the person that makes the decision is more culpable of course, but your premise was that it was unfair to blame the entire SWG team. My point was that none, or at least very few of the SWG was truly innocent with regard to the NGE. The person that implemented this essentially invalidated all of time and efforts in SWG and you won't me to not blame them?
6. Who knew about any of the above aspects of the NGE and didn't tell the players?
But my guess is, if there is any SWG team member that the players have heard about they fit in one of the above categories. I am not saying the people that fit in those categories are evil or should have their careers ruined, but you can't credibly claim they don't deserve the blame for the NGE.
Well, then blame everyone for the NGE. Well I do of course. But your contention is or was that its completely unfair to blame the entire SWG team for the NGE. I can agree with you to the extent there were team members that didn't fit in one of the above categories. For example, if some one just was just aware about the change to fps like combat, but not aware of the profession/crafting/jedi changes until after the NGE was annouced publicly, that person should be ommitted from the blame for the NGE. I am just not sure any person like that on the team exisits. If there is, this is your opportunity to exonorate them.Anyone that didn't break the law is guilty, too? I wasn't suggesting anyone broke any laws. But in terms of who the players can rightly fully blame, if a member of the tema knew about what SOE planned to do and didn't tell us, I think they deserve part of the blame for the NGE. I feel like SOE ripped me off by making the decision to screw over the players and not telling us until the last minute, of course after SOE had milked several additonal months of subcriptions from me. Again the person that was ordered to kept their mouth shut about this plan deserves less blame than the person that made the decision to keep the NGE, but that doesn't mean they are blameless.
Certainly there are degrees of blame. But you came here and said it was unfair for us to blame the whole team for the NGE. Maybe that is true, if there are individuals on the team that didn't know anything (or at least not anything about the parts of the design that undid player acheivement) about the NGE until it launched. You would know that better than us.
If your point is that we should only blame the specific individuals thats that made the decision(s) to go forward with the NGE and not those that implemented it and kept it a secret, I think you need to see what happened from our perspective.
A person or persons decided to screw us over. A person or persons actually did the screwing over. A person or persons kept it secret while we were continuing to pay SOE subscription dollars after you had decided to screw us over, in essence paying you to screw us.
But just blaming SOE/LEC is not enough. Everyone that ever posted a "this is overpowered" or "that is unbalanced" post or thread is also to blame. My .02
And here is mine: Doctor buffs of the secondary stats were overpowered, and they were a major factor in unbalancing the combat system. Super armor resists and super damaging weapons contributed as well but they were secondary effects: without the uber buffs, those were possible but not necessarily practical. The buffs made them practical, and consequently universal.
This is a point that was pointed out repeatedly on the forums that should have been listened to. Just because something was posted on the forums does not mean it was wrong. Yes, there was endless selfish whining. But there were also clear-minded calm discussions with closely reasoned arguments, illustrations, and even lots of supporting math.
That is why someone at SOE wised up and came up with a brilliant concept of "employing" correspondants to organize the issues relating to all aspects of the game. These players where the voices of reason to the SOE staff from TH to the Developers to the publishers to Smedley on what needed to be addressed.
Of course the forums are a hodgepodge of posts, ideas, beliefs, rants, flames, trolls and all other sorts of activities.
Blaming any player at all for swg state is a joke. Save the correspondants I guess and even that is just junk. Players complaining on the forums affecting the outcome of development decisions is a joke. The correspondant program was implimented to give SOE an optimum feedback on all 32 professions in a clear and concise way. They maintained stickied top 10 issues for the professions for the developers to address. They had properly composed suggestions to improve the game.
SOE CHOOSE what feedback was practical and what to be addressed and when. Out of all the correspondant I knew most felt it was a like talking to a wall. Issues in test brought to light by correspondants went unheaded by developers and publishers. Patches came out with known issues. The CU came out dispite the Armorsmith, Weaponsmith and Shipwright correspondant even remotely on board. In fact all 3 of those players took their accounts and immediately resigned from the program, shutting down there cities and shops in protest of the CU. On my server these 3 all gamed. All 3 where "Professional" crafters and community minded. All 3 where serious and never irrational. They always helped other players. They ran very great crafting operations. Always where polite ingame. Ran a tempest radio show. They did a TON for SWG and Tempest. Did they even get heard at all?
SOE is at fault because they didn't listen to the feedback at all from current customers. If you want to believe the players had any sort of affect you go ahead. I dont know how you come to that conclusion but I feel alot of it was either TH not doing his job or the devs and publishers ignoring the feedback they got out of there own program to filter the junk.
Yeah.. they were asking for it. Dressing all slutty... flirting with all the guys.
Shayde - SWG (dead) Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled - Some deluded SWG fanboi who pities me. I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too. 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Originally posted by kobie173 Originally posted by matraque Players for the most part.
You're an idiot.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi. It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi. It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'. It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content. It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes. It was players whining about profession A beating profession B. It was players whining about other players. It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it. It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing. It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have. It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'. It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
Every single mmo released has had no end of players whining about one thing or another. Look at wow and all the whines about shamies, then about hunters, then about paladins, then warlocks, etc etc etc. The players are free to express what they feel is unbalanced or not entertaining about a game. However it is the developers of the title that have to have a clear vision of where they are going, then stick to it. Not sure if you had ever played swg in the beginning or not but other than whines about things like Combat Medics sitting on the bottom floor of bases throwing mind poisons through the ground and walls of the structure they were in to ranges further than what a rifle could reach (which was clearly an exploit) or some other minor quibbles there was no whining about jedi etc.
Most of the discussions about jedi were people trying to figure out the mysterious path. Things like the little girl in espa who showed up from time to time to hand off a disk because she was being chased by stormtroopers etc, things like not using profanity in spatial chat because the proggy actually tracked everything said... there were theories about tipping entertainers even having something to do with unlocking the jedi slot. However SOE, without people whining saying they wanted their jedi now, thought people were taking too long, and I quote from memory "We would come into the office every morning and watch the statistics there were so many people sooo close to opening up their slots we had some pools going to see which one would open first. But then we were always let down because no one opened it." So they made a patch, made some changes and someone walked out and killed a bolle on dant and tada they were a jedi.
The changes made to SWG were not the result of the players whining Smedley, it was because you and yours had no vision of where the game was going and grew impatient with the players doing the worst thing imaginable. They were playing the game and having fun God forbid, so you had to just go out and kick over their sand castles. How's that NGE treatin ya by the way? Enjoying your empty servers?
*whether or not you are in fact John Smedley, blixtev or chris cao I do not know. But it is just like them to pass the buck onto their customers as being the reason that THEY went out and THEY made the changes that drove away the vast majority of players.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
Elder Jedi is now impossible to get.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It's still there, jedi players are whining because jedi is too weak, as they say.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
Now, there is no melee. They just changed the way melee and ranged, plus in PreNGE there were still Riflemen and Pistoleers who were active in PVP/PVE.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It's still same, no content no bug fixes at all
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
Read above.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
Now it's A (commando) beats ALL.
It was players whining about other players.
Still, it was the first time I see racist people on my server in NGE and they were only 13 yo.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It's still same, people whine and want information about next 10 publishes.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
Still same, people think devs owe them so they have to make whaetver players want.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
Still same, I have many items that many other players don't have and they whine.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
Still same, on jedi or commando forums you can see at least 20 new threads about "balance"
It was players whining about any number of things.
Same
Nothing has changed with NGE or CU, other than game itself.
Let me guess, you 'read' what you wanted to 'read' and skipped the rest? Apparently you read to "He's right" part, and quit. So I'll repaste it, and I'll put in bold so you won't miss it AGAIN:
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
So much of this just shines as the truth. Most of the whining came from people that PvP'd. If player A got owned by player B it was always a balance issue. It was never because they may have sucked. The whining Jedi were always the loudest though. These people whined and whined because they just HAD to be jedi. This jedi obsession was never more evident than the hologrind. Even after they got jedi they whined even louder about perma death. So SOE had to take that away. Cant have these obsessive people unhappy can we. Then the hologrind was to hard so we needed the village. Once again catering to the I HAVE to be a jedi crowd. To all the people that say SOE never listened to its players you are very wrong. Not only did they listen but they acted on it. They gave the loudest whining people what they wanted. They let you be a jedi from day 1. To bad SOE listened to the wrong people.
This isnt the only reason SWG is what it is today. SOE 's lack of direction was pretty obvious early on. They should have just shut down those damn forums and focused on making the game better rather than trying cater to whining assholes. Fixing bugs, adding content, and focusing on the GCW should have all been taken care of long before playable jedi were added. Their vision for SWG changed so many times it is no wonder the game has stayed in the same state of a bug ridden mess that it has been in for years.
Originally posted by kobie173 Originally posted by matraque Players for the most part.
You're an idiot.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi. It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi. It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'. It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content. It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes. It was players whining about profession A beating profession B. It was players whining about other players. It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it. It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing. It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have. It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'. It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
More use of the relevancy fallacy, but at least you end up in the right. It had nothing to do with player whines, and had everything to do with directionless, visionless, incompetent management that chose to listen to the wrong whines, or used those whines to justify bad game development.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
More use of the relevancy fallacy, but at least you end up in the right. It had nothing to do with player whines, and had everything to do with directionless, visionless, incompetent management that chose to listen to the wrong whines, or used those whines to justify bad game development.
Where Ransom73 misses the point, is the fact that the CU and the NGE were both made for people who weren't playing the game. Neither were intended for the people who were playing the game. Both were made to attract the folks who play WoW, thought 'reading is too hard', or were confused by not having the game decide what skill they learned next. That is the really sad part of people defending the CUNGE, or blaming the people who were playing before the changes were made. SOE and LucasArts thought the game was too difficult for people to get into.
Yes, currently paying players, SOE and LA think you're an idiot and they made the game easier so you wouldn't be confused by having choices or needing to read stuff. That is who the game is being aimed at now, stupid people. That is the main reason they wait until things are pretty much set in stone before revealing new publishes. They don't care what you think because they think you're too stupid to have any useful input.
Where Ransom73 misses the point, is the fact that the CU and the NGE were both made for people who weren't playing the game. Neither were intended for the people who were playing the game. Both were made to attract the folks who play WoW, thought 'reading is too hard', or were confused by not having the game decide what skill they learned next. That is the really sad part of people defending the CUNGE, or blaming the people who were playing before the changes were made. SOE and LucasArts thought the game was too difficult for people to get into.
Yes, currently paying players, SOE and LA think you're an idiot and they made the game easier so you wouldn't be confused by having choices or needing to read stuff. That is who the game is being aimed at now, stupid people. That is the main reason they wait until things are pretty much set in stone before revealing new publishes. They don't care what you think because they think you're too stupid to have any useful input.
QFE.
They wanted players who never write on forums, never whine about game etc.
However, they couldn't. It's right NGE brought some 12 years old players and they are the 90% of community who actually log on game and play, but all whines, cries on forums are still from old players who played CU or/and PreCU.
Making NGE bug free, great balanced, big content won't change anything. Game is far from getting new players because of WoW and incoming other MMOs. And current "whiners" will always whine because of what SOE did to their games. Even NGE has a good part, people will call it bad. Because it's bad for us.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
More use of the relevancy fallacy, but at least you end up in the right. It had nothing to do with player whines, and had everything to do with directionless, visionless, incompetent management that chose to listen to the wrong whines, or used those whines to justify bad game development.
Where Ransom73 misses the point, is the fact that the CU and the NGE were both made for people who weren't playing the game. Neither were intended for the people who were playing the game. Both were made to attract the folks who play WoW, thought 'reading is too hard', or were confused by not having the game decide what skill they learned next. That is the really sad part of people defending the CUNGE, or blaming the people who were playing before the changes were made. SOE and LucasArts thought the game was too difficult for people to get into.
Yes, currently paying players, SOE and LA think you're an idiot and they made the game easier so you wouldn't be confused by having choices or needing to read stuff. That is who the game is being aimed at now, stupid people. That is the main reason they wait until things are pretty much set in stone before revealing new publishes. They don't care what you think because they think you're too stupid to have any useful input.
What is ironic (but not Iconic) is that they didn't even realize WHY WoW is popular. WoW isn't popular because people are stupid, and it's a stupid game, WoW is popular because it is not a broken game.
What they chose to do is copy aspects of WoW's interface and gameplay, but still produced a low quality wreck. That guaranteed that the NGE would fail. Had they fixed the bugs, fixed the broken professions, and added story-driven content, all would be well now. Unfortunately, SONY decided SWG wasn't worth the budget, and refused to commit the resources required to make a successful product, and thus predicably, they failed. We have to look at the CUNGE as primarily a costcutter (or deliberate destruction, which is always a possibility) -- an attempt to fix the game on the cheap, something which unfortunately can't be done, because it angers customers, creates bad blood, and cuts of more and more funds as you go on.
What is ironic (but not Iconic) is that they didn't even realize WHY WoW is popular. WoW isn't popular because people are stupid, and it's a stupid game, WoW is popular because it is not a broken game. What they chose to do is copy aspects of WoW's interface and gameplay, but still produced a low quality wreck. That guaranteed that the NGE would fail. Had they fixed the bugs, fixed the broken professions, and added story-driven content, all would be well now. Unfortunately, SONY decided SWG wasn't worth the budget, and refused to commit the resources required to make a successful product, and thus predicably, they failed. We have to look at the CUNGE as primarily a costcutter (or deliberate destruction, which is always a possibility) -- an attempt to fix the game on the cheap, something which unfortunately can't be done, because it angers customers, creates bad blood, and cuts of more and more funds as you go on. Weak investment produces weak results.
This is in line with my feelings as well as adding in the fact SWG had NO direction. It constantly changed at the whim of whomever was in charge it seems. They could never seem to stick with one direction and go with it. It was a constant radical change of direction that would in turn make it so that the corresponding publishes for the next 6 months or more had to fix what the change brought about. So instead of fixing the core elements which were broke before the radical change we would spend the next 6 months or more waiting for things to get fixed from the latest radical change. As a result the core game got neglected. People got tired of it. This is why SWG was bleeding subscribers.
Plus add in SOE seemed to have no desire to use or hire the manpower needed to fix the game. So stuff would stagnate, yet more people would leave. It was a never ending cycle. Somebody in power never put their foot down and put the game in one direction ever.
What is ironic (but not Iconic) is that they didn't even realize WHY WoW is popular. WoW isn't popular because people are stupid, and it's a stupid game, WoW is popular because it is not a broken game. What they chose to do is copy aspects of WoW's interface and gameplay, but still produced a low quality wreck. That guaranteed that the NGE would fail. Had they fixed the bugs, fixed the broken professions, and added story-driven content, all would be well now. Unfortunately, SONY decided SWG wasn't worth the budget, and refused to commit the resources required to make a successful product, and thus predicably, they failed. We have to look at the CUNGE as primarily a costcutter (or deliberate destruction, which is always a possibility) -- an attempt to fix the game on the cheap, something which unfortunately can't be done, because it angers customers, creates bad blood, and cuts of more and more funds as you go on. Weak investment produces weak results.
That goes to something I've said all along. When developing a game, there are two approaches:
1) Identify your target audience, understand what they like, what they find fun, what they don't. Develop for them. This takes skill -- you have to see the appeal of the game AND know where to draw the line. "X is fun, but it reduces gameplay options down the line. If we don't have X, we get Y and Z which is more fun over all". This is the Blizzard model. They analyze a genre and create a game that appeals to the core audience -- they refine the "fun" part and remove most of the "not-fun" part. They don't innovate much, but they are masters at taking the best a genre has to offer and refining it.
2) Develop a concept you (as in your designers) think is fun, and hope an audience exists for it. (Call that the CCP/EVE way). That's how new genres are born. It's much more risky, but can be more rewarding. Tends to be more niche.
What happened with the CU and the NGE was that SWG had developed the second type of game (sort of -- UO was the first virtual world, and SWG was UO 2.0 version developed towards the Star Wars license. I'd say the MMORPG market was too new for (1) to be a valid choice -- especially for SOE, who didn't want the game to compete with EQ and EQ2) --- they didn't like their numbers, especially after WoW crushed the market. So they tried a do-over --they tried to create a game that appealed to the WoW market.
They ran into two significant problems:
1) They didn't understand the WoW market.
2) You don't get do-overs in the MMORPG business. You don't get to say "We're starting over, come try our game". It doesn't work. Especially when, as I noted with number one, your attempt to hit the market sucked because you didn't understand it.
They knew they were sacrificing the virtual world playerbase -- the destruction of investment was enough by itself. The massive change in gameplay was just a kicker. In the end, SOE still hasn't grasped the MMORPG market. They got lucky with EQ (good timing) and have been surfing that ever since.
Comments
Since they offered refunds for pre-orders, there's no damage from that.
Of course they offered that refund to head off any legal trouble because they were in the wrong.
Extra! Extra!
Freeman says: BLAME SMED.
At least this is how it will, once again, get misinterpreted.
Pfffht that isn't news, I already blaime Smed
The person who implemented it is guilty!? Of course, you didn't think that someone involved, even if only following orders, with the parts of the NGE that really screwed over the players would get at pass from us did you? Admittedly, the person that makes the decision is more culpable of course, but your premise was that it was unfair to blame the entire SWG team. My point was that none, or at least very few of the SWG was truly innocent with regard to the NGE. The person that implemented this essentially invalidated all of time and efforts in SWG and you won't me to not blame them?
But my guess is, if there is any SWG team member that the players have heard about they fit in one of the above categories. I am not saying the people that fit in those categories are evil or should have their careers ruined, but you can't credibly claim they don't deserve the blame for the NGE.
Well, then blame everyone for the NGE. Well I do of course. But your contention is or was that its completely unfair to blame the entire SWG team for the NGE. I can agree with you to the extent there were team members that didn't fit in one of the above categories. For example, if some one just was just aware about the change to fps like combat, but not aware of the profession/crafting/jedi changes until after the NGE was annouced publicly, that person should be ommitted from the blame for the NGE. I am just not sure any person like that on the team exisits. If there is, this is your opportunity to exonorate them.Anyone that didn't break the law is guilty, too? I wasn't suggesting anyone broke any laws. But in terms of who the players can rightly fully blame, if a member of the tema knew about what SOE planned to do and didn't tell us, I think they deserve part of the blame for the NGE. I feel like SOE ripped me off by making the decision to screw over the players and not telling us until the last minute, of course after SOE had milked several additonal months of subcriptions from me. Again the person that was ordered to kept their mouth shut about this plan deserves less blame than the person that made the decision to keep the NGE, but that doesn't mean they are blameless.
Certainly there are degrees of blame. But you came here and said it was unfair for us to blame the whole team for the NGE. Maybe that is true, if there are individuals on the team that didn't know anything (or at least not anything about the parts of the design that undid player acheivement) about the NGE until it launched. You would know that better than us.
If your point is that we should only blame the specific individuals thats that made the decision(s) to go forward with the NGE and not those that implemented it and kept it a secret, I think you need to see what happened from our perspective.
A person or persons decided to screw us over. A person or persons actually did the screwing over. A person or persons kept it secret while we were continuing to pay SOE subscription dollars after you had decided to screw us over, in essence paying you to screw us.
This is a point that was pointed out repeatedly on the forums that should have been listened to. Just because something was posted on the forums does not mean it was wrong. Yes, there was endless selfish whining. But there were also clear-minded calm discussions with closely reasoned arguments, illustrations, and even lots of supporting math.
That is why someone at SOE wised up and came up with a brilliant concept of "employing" correspondants to organize the issues relating to all aspects of the game. These players where the voices of reason to the SOE staff from TH to the Developers to the publishers to Smedley on what needed to be addressed.
Of course the forums are a hodgepodge of posts, ideas, beliefs, rants, flames, trolls and all other sorts of activities.
Blaming any player at all for swg state is a joke. Save the correspondants I guess and even that is just junk. Players complaining on the forums affecting the outcome of development decisions is a joke. The correspondant program was implimented to give SOE an optimum feedback on all 32 professions in a clear and concise way. They maintained stickied top 10 issues for the professions for the developers to address. They had properly composed suggestions to improve the game.
SOE CHOOSE what feedback was practical and what to be addressed and when. Out of all the correspondant I knew most felt it was a like talking to a wall. Issues in test brought to light by correspondants went unheaded by developers and publishers. Patches came out with known issues. The CU came out dispite the Armorsmith, Weaponsmith and Shipwright correspondant even remotely on board. In fact all 3 of those players took their accounts and immediately resigned from the program, shutting down there cities and shops in protest of the CU. On my server these 3 all gamed. All 3 where "Professional" crafters and community minded. All 3 where serious and never irrational. They always helped other players. They ran very great crafting operations. Always where polite ingame. Ran a tempest radio show. They did a TON for SWG and Tempest. Did they even get heard at all?
SOE is at fault because they didn't listen to the feedback at all from current customers. If you want to believe the players had any sort of affect you go ahead. I dont know how you come to that conclusion but I feel alot of it was either TH not doing his job or the devs and publishers ignoring the feedback they got out of there own program to filter the junk.
All around SOE is at fault not the players.
eqnext.wikia.com
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
There were high stat armors (90%), high buffs, DoTs etc.
But can you tell me, which one was HARD to get? How did they make unbalance?
In other games, you have to spend hours, days, weeks to get a good item, because all others are loot based, SWG was the only one with player based
If they made NGE or CU because of these whines, who can tell me:
Why NGE has 1,2k DoT per second? (that's higher than PreCU stat)?
Why NGE has 97% resist armor?
Why NGE has buffs which make you 170% health and action (I'm not even counting other stats which helps your dmg/defense)?
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
Every single mmo released has had no end of players whining about one thing or another. Look at wow and all the whines about shamies, then about hunters, then about paladins, then warlocks, etc etc etc. The players are free to express what they feel is unbalanced or not entertaining about a game. However it is the developers of the title that have to have a clear vision of where they are going, then stick to it. Not sure if you had ever played swg in the beginning or not but other than whines about things like Combat Medics sitting on the bottom floor of bases throwing mind poisons through the ground and walls of the structure they were in to ranges further than what a rifle could reach (which was clearly an exploit) or some other minor quibbles there was no whining about jedi etc.Most of the discussions about jedi were people trying to figure out the mysterious path. Things like the little girl in espa who showed up from time to time to hand off a disk because she was being chased by stormtroopers etc, things like not using profanity in spatial chat because the proggy actually tracked everything said... there were theories about tipping entertainers even having something to do with unlocking the jedi slot. However SOE, without people whining saying they wanted their jedi now, thought people were taking too long, and I quote from memory "We would come into the office every morning and watch the statistics there were so many people sooo close to opening up their slots we had some pools going to see which one would open first. But then we were always let down because no one opened it." So they made a patch, made some changes and someone walked out and killed a bolle on dant and tada they were a jedi.
The changes made to SWG were not the result of the players whining Smedley, it was because you and yours had no vision of where the game was going and grew impatient with the players doing the worst thing imaginable. They were playing the game and having fun God forbid, so you had to just go out and kick over their sand castles. How's that NGE treatin ya by the way? Enjoying your empty servers?
*whether or not you are in fact John Smedley, blixtev or chris cao I do not know. But it is just like them to pass the buck onto their customers as being the reason that THEY went out and THEY made the changes that drove away the vast majority of players.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
Elder Jedi is now impossible to get.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It's still there, jedi players are whining because jedi is too weak, as they say.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
Now, there is no melee. They just changed the way melee and ranged, plus in PreNGE there were still Riflemen and Pistoleers who were active in PVP/PVE.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It's still same, no content no bug fixes at all
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
Read above.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
Now it's A (commando) beats ALL.
It was players whining about other players.
Still, it was the first time I see racist people on my server in NGE and they were only 13 yo.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It's still same, people whine and want information about next 10 publishes.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
Still same, people think devs owe them so they have to make whaetver players want.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
Still same, I have many items that many other players don't have and they whine.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
Still same, on jedi or commando forums you can see at least 20 new threads about "balance"
It was players whining about any number of things.
SameNothing has changed with NGE or CU, other than game itself.
There is still player whines in same ways.
Severius:
Let me guess, you 'read' what you wanted to 'read' and skipped the rest? Apparently you read to "He's right" part, and quit. So I'll repaste it, and I'll put in bold so you won't miss it AGAIN:
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
So much of this just shines as the truth. Most of the whining came from people that PvP'd. If player A got owned by player B it was always a balance issue. It was never because they may have sucked. The whining Jedi were always the loudest though. These people whined and whined because they just HAD to be jedi. This jedi obsession was never more evident than the hologrind. Even after they got jedi they whined even louder about perma death. So SOE had to take that away. Cant have these obsessive people unhappy can we. Then the hologrind was to hard so we needed the village. Once again catering to the I HAVE to be a jedi crowd. To all the people that say SOE never listened to its players you are very wrong. Not only did they listen but they acted on it. They gave the loudest whining people what they wanted. They let you be a jedi from day 1. To bad SOE listened to the wrong people.
This isnt the only reason SWG is what it is today. SOE 's lack of direction was pretty obvious early on. They should have just shut down those damn forums and focused on making the game better rather than trying cater to whining assholes. Fixing bugs, adding content, and focusing on the GCW should have all been taken care of long before playable jedi were added. Their vision for SWG changed so many times it is no wonder the game has stayed in the same state of a bug ridden mess that it has been in for years.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
More use of the relevancy fallacy, but at least you end up in the right. It had nothing to do with player whines, and had everything to do with directionless, visionless, incompetent management that chose to listen to the wrong whines, or used those whines to justify bad game development.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
More use of the relevancy fallacy, but at least you end up in the right. It had nothing to do with player whines, and had everything to do with directionless, visionless, incompetent management that chose to listen to the wrong whines, or used those whines to justify bad game development.
Where Ransom73 misses the point, is the fact that the CU and the NGE were both made for people who weren't playing the game. Neither were intended for the people who were playing the game. Both were made to attract the folks who play WoW, thought 'reading is too hard', or were confused by not having the game decide what skill they learned next. That is the really sad part of people defending the CUNGE, or blaming the people who were playing before the changes were made. SOE and LucasArts thought the game was too difficult for people to get into.
Yes, currently paying players, SOE and LA think you're an idiot and they made the game easier so you wouldn't be confused by having choices or needing to read stuff. That is who the game is being aimed at now, stupid people. That is the main reason they wait until things are pretty much set in stone before revealing new publishes. They don't care what you think because they think you're too stupid to have any useful input.
They wanted players who never write on forums, never whine about game etc.
However, they couldn't. It's right NGE brought some 12 years old players and they are the 90% of community who actually log on game and play, but all whines, cries on forums are still from old players who played CU or/and PreCU.
Making NGE bug free, great balanced, big content won't change anything. Game is far from getting new players because of WoW and incoming other MMOs. And current "whiners" will always whine because of what SOE did to their games. Even NGE has a good part, people will call it bad. Because it's bad for us.
Good to see that your eloquent, well thought out debating skills transfered here from the official forums.
To a large degree: He's right.
It was players whining about the preceived difficulty to obtain Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived difficulty in being a Jedi.
It was players whining about the perceived melee / ranged 'balance issues'.
It was players whining about bug fixes taking precidence over content.
It was players whining about content taking precidence over bug fixes.
It was players whining about profession A beating profession B.
It was players whining about other players.
It was players whining about wanting information, when they had no real right to it.
It was players whining about the developers owing them something, when the developers owe them nothing.
It was players whining about Player A having something they didn't have.
It was players whining about the myth known as 'balance'.
It was players whining about any number of things.
The Star Wars Galaxies An Empire Divided 'community' was the king of the world when it came to whining. The SWG 'community' is still the king of the world in terms of the dysfunction that is 'what the players want!!!'. Hell, the SWG 'community' is the most dysfunctional 'community' out there, with the possible exception of the WoW boards. But if you get that many people in one area, the nutjobs are bound to appear. The SWG 'community' is without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of whiney diaperpoopers of ANY game out there.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with SOE. Maginified, that fault lies with Thunderheart, Callyndrall, Tiggs, Brenlo, or whomever was saddled with the Community Relations jobs. Corrospondents didn't matter, they were never listened to anyway. They were a peace offering; a carrot. But the job of filtering the noise from the players to the developers was the job of the CR department, along with 'keeping the peace' on the official forums. I don't think any one of us will argue that they played favorites on the forums. It didn't matter how eloquent or well put your post was, if your name wasn't <favorite player of the month for Thunderheart>, you weren't getting heard. TH was over is head from the beginning. He went from a player that ran a fan site to the CRM of THE most anticipated MMO ever, with the most rabid of fan bases, with the largest fan base, and the MMO with the highest expectations of any MMO ever.
More use of the relevancy fallacy, but at least you end up in the right. It had nothing to do with player whines, and had everything to do with directionless, visionless, incompetent management that chose to listen to the wrong whines, or used those whines to justify bad game development.
Where Ransom73 misses the point, is the fact that the CU and the NGE were both made for people who weren't playing the game. Neither were intended for the people who were playing the game. Both were made to attract the folks who play WoW, thought 'reading is too hard', or were confused by not having the game decide what skill they learned next. That is the really sad part of people defending the CUNGE, or blaming the people who were playing before the changes were made. SOE and LucasArts thought the game was too difficult for people to get into.
Yes, currently paying players, SOE and LA think you're an idiot and they made the game easier so you wouldn't be confused by having choices or needing to read stuff. That is who the game is being aimed at now, stupid people. That is the main reason they wait until things are pretty much set in stone before revealing new publishes. They don't care what you think because they think you're too stupid to have any useful input.
What is ironic (but not Iconic) is that they didn't even realize WHY WoW is popular. WoW isn't popular because people are stupid, and it's a stupid game, WoW is popular because it is not a broken game.
What they chose to do is copy aspects of WoW's interface and gameplay, but still produced a low quality wreck. That guaranteed that the NGE would fail. Had they fixed the bugs, fixed the broken professions, and added story-driven content, all would be well now. Unfortunately, SONY decided SWG wasn't worth the budget, and refused to commit the resources required to make a successful product, and thus predicably, they failed. We have to look at the CUNGE as primarily a costcutter (or deliberate destruction, which is always a possibility) -- an attempt to fix the game on the cheap, something which unfortunately can't be done, because it angers customers, creates bad blood, and cuts of more and more funds as you go on.
Weak investment produces weak results.
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Plus add in SOE seemed to have no desire to use or hire the manpower needed to fix the game. So stuff would stagnate, yet more people would leave. It was a never ending cycle. Somebody in power never put their foot down and put the game in one direction ever.
That goes to something I've said all along. When developing a game, there are two approaches:
1) Identify your target audience, understand what they like, what they find fun, what they don't. Develop for them. This takes skill -- you have to see the appeal of the game AND know where to draw the line. "X is fun, but it reduces gameplay options down the line. If we don't have X, we get Y and Z which is more fun over all". This is the Blizzard model. They analyze a genre and create a game that appeals to the core audience -- they refine the "fun" part and remove most of the "not-fun" part. They don't innovate much, but they are masters at taking the best a genre has to offer and refining it.
2) Develop a concept you (as in your designers) think is fun, and hope an audience exists for it. (Call that the CCP/EVE way). That's how new genres are born. It's much more risky, but can be more rewarding. Tends to be more niche.
What happened with the CU and the NGE was that SWG had developed the second type of game (sort of -- UO was the first virtual world, and SWG was UO 2.0 version developed towards the Star Wars license. I'd say the MMORPG market was too new for (1) to be a valid choice -- especially for SOE, who didn't want the game to compete with EQ and EQ2) --- they didn't like their numbers, especially after WoW crushed the market. So they tried a do-over --they tried to create a game that appealed to the WoW market.
They ran into two significant problems:
1) They didn't understand the WoW market.
2) You don't get do-overs in the MMORPG business. You don't get to say "We're starting over, come try our game". It doesn't work. Especially when, as I noted with number one, your attempt to hit the market sucked because you didn't understand it.
They knew they were sacrificing the virtual world playerbase -- the destruction of investment was enough by itself. The massive change in gameplay was just a kicker. In the end, SOE still hasn't grasped the MMORPG market. They got lucky with EQ (good timing) and have been surfing that ever since.