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What did they see?
FikusOfAhazi
Member Posts: 1,835
What did the people from SOE, who went against their peers, against thier loyal subscribers, against their fans, and against their own conscience, see in the NGE that most if not all the gaming community could not see. What about the NGE made them ignore all reason, and decide to go ahead with it. Thats the part that throws a wrench in the whole "we took a gamble on a bigger audience" line. It would make sense to me if the NGE was a decent, fun game with few bugs. My mind could accept that. However, the NGE in reality was horrible, buggy, immersion breaking, and just not fun. Yes, that is my opinion. Its also the opinion of the gaming community, reviewers, game developers, and business analyst. So, what im asking is....they did it anyway..they had to see something that everyone else has missed (not everyone i know)..so what was it? What made them think the NGE had, not only a chance to increase subs, but to reach millions? ummm....lol.
If only i could get an answer that my mind wouldnt vomit right back out due to it being completely illogical. Illogical for the reason that everyone else thought it to be crap..told them it was..told them it would fail..yet they disagreed to the point of gambling with hundreds of thousands of players enjoyment to reach millions that didnt exist. My mind wont accept this. So obviously im not seeing what they saw in it. Anyone got any ideas? I know what they have said. And like i said that would be perfectly acceptable IF the NGE was even a mediocre game. It wasnt. Even Smed said it wasnt to the point it needed to be to attract new players..months after it went live. So thats the thing that i cant seem to process.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Comments
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Doesnt makes sense at all to me either..If a bunch of people were waving millions at me i would at least try to give them the old game..No other game has generated so much love/hate as SWG..But i can say after SWG i havent found myself willing to give another MMO a shot based on how things were handled..Its like all of the money we gave them wasnt worth the little they get now..i guess we will never know why is the NGE still considered crap but yet still there..Heck i hated the CU but it was way better than the NGE..
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
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Well Fik, I can only take a shot in the dark here, but this is how I reasoned it.
$OE has a Dev focus group out to see why SWG is flat in sales. Dev's chime in about WOW as comparison. Analyst focus on how exit surveys state complex issues for many departures.
LAE asks why in the MMO world the great name of Star Wars is lagging way behind some dumbified fantasy game, raking in millions. They then point to the soaring sales of Battlefront II
$OE Dev's have massive lightbulb in head moment to Take SWG + WOW easy stuff + Battlefront II stuff = thats what gamers are playing, that's what we'll give them.
Problem now arises as they have no clue as to how to properly connect A to B and get C. So they grab copies off all three games, and contact the local ZOO to partake in a science experiment. 1/2 trained monkeys are given rubber hammers and begin to smash the games to bits. The monkeys however get carried away, and an orgy of violence ensues as bigger monkeys, attack the smaller monkeys, and hot monkey goo is traded. Sadly 2 monkeys were slain in the process and their body parts are mixed in with everything else. Clean up crews shovel everything into a wheel barrow for disposal, but enroute trip over a ruptured waste removal septic line spilling the wheelbarrow, and further contaminating the contents. A deranged psychopath escapes from the mental ward, and is seen screaming through the streets proffessing his love for Jar Jar Binks ( it turns out he was originally committed for giving a rave review to Episode one: Phantome Menace ) Stumbles accross the mess, and knowing it is a sign from above steals the entire pile knowing a virtual Jar Jar is inside somewhere. He bakes the mixture at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, and eats the cake waiting impatiently to crap it back out. After which he continues to squeeze, and fold, remixing the new substance. It is shaped into a dense brick and shoved one last time through a round hole, where it is then sliced thinly into disks. At which point the authorities break down the door, and an computer specialist pouring over the deranged mans computers, for evidence in the spam mail sent to George Lucas, discover the disks. After an analysis it is determined they contain some Star Wars content, and are confiscated by LAE lawyers claiming Trade mark rights.
LAE asks $OE about the new material, and $OE worried about any lawsuit, or having the license pulled over negligence, claim it's the new MMO concept for SWG.
They then try a test audience, however the only group available was from the 'Special needs' wing of the local mental ward, and for safety all subjects are severly medicated.
However oddly enough the material seems to play on a computer, and so a second test audience is selected. Yet again results were biased as the group of 12 year olds were suffering from such a sugar high, with Red bull overload, many crashed into sleep less than 1/2 way through gaining lvl 12.
So that's basically it. $OE and LAE sat around an asked how to draw an audience. Looked at the popularity of WOW, and Battlefront II. And somehow an abortion was born that we now have to agree wasn't probably made with the best of quality control.
Not too big of a conspiracy theory after all
Mankind is not limited by imagination, but the courage to reach....
Kids, plain and simple. They saw kids... SWG was many things, but it was not kiddie friendly. Lots of kids and teeneagers has moved from the concole world into the PC world, tons of them. Original SWG was too complex for kids and young teenagers, used to the more actionpacked console games, with less numbers and statistics, and more just fighting 500 mobs in a row. They saw a HUGE demographic completly untapped by the complexity of original SWG.
And thats it... They did not see it as better, just with a broader consumer base.. Adults play actiongames and console games as well, so that demographic would, in theory, still be there. But kids and teenagers dont play statistics and numbercrunching. They wanted both demographics. So.. Actiongame.
All I can see. They did not look at the quality of the game... They looked at demographics and consumer research. That is what the numbers said. There is a theory that the best way to make a product noone wants, is by consumer research. You will get pros and cons from alll sides of the spectrum, and the thin line in the middle where all agree create a product that interest none of them.
SWG is the proof of that theory
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
They saw other games, simple games. Then they thought "why don't we do the same thing!"
You really have to wonder what was going through their minds, like on Nov 14 2005 just before the NGE went live, some of them must have been thinking this was just a horrible idea. Maybe some devs stood up and tried to stop it, if they did they probably were out the door around the time of the CU, or typing up the resume by then for sure.
But I think it's a case of "the emperor has no clothes", no one had the balls to just come out with the truth, that the NGE would go over like a lead zeppelin and cost SOE millions. They must have been too afraid for their jobs to dare speak the truth, even Raph just coasted at his job for the last few years of his contract with SOE.
All in all though, the blame has to stop at Smedley's desk, he's the idiot in charge there, and SOE has had a shitty record the entire time he's been there. He's got to go for anything good to come out of SOE.
What they saw was dollar signs, the game is just so freaking boring now I tried twice to go back but I fall asleep after 20min or so My Jedi is lvl 81, lol never got him to 90.
Playing the current game is the worst gaming exercise I ever seen, getting xp is so slow the lag, run up to a volitor mound smack one all the rest just watch till its there turn, so much excitement,
Also how can they make any money from this game now they have to be loosing money, they have too.
The servers are freaking so empty its a joke Starsider MO empty, C-Net empty, Nabboo empty. Maybe 23 people on line how fun weee.
In fact they could combine everyone thats left on 2 servers Lets name these servers Smedsrevenge and Torres Folly.
Yes they ruined the best Game I ever played EVER.
Ajax
Ajax
They saw tens of millions of Star Wars fans and came to the conclusion that 200-250K Star wars MMO players were not enough.
Instead of blaming themselves for this (the lack of quality control, bugs, lack of content, over promising, under delivering, and the CU) they decided the players were the problem, and made the decision that it was OK to lose 90% of the existing player base because the new, simpler, instant gratification, easy and WoW like game would draw in some of those millions of Star Wars fans.
It was a deliberate decision, and Freeman has admitted here that this was the decision they made was done in that way. Given how they were saying one thing (speaking of CU profession revamps, and features in the expansion they were trying to sell us) while KNOWING they were doing something else (NGE), I believe that they are past the point of having committed a civil tort against us (ie: can be sued) but may have even committed a CRIMINAL act...
It'd be interesting to speak to a lawyer about this, now that we know that this was a deliberate act, that the existing customer base (many of whom had prepaid subscriptions) was deliberately acted against.
I think that class action against SOE should now be considered.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
That may be true of kids today, but I doubt it. I know that my brother, who was 13 when he started playing MMORPGs, was playing RPGs which require number crunching. I myself, who am 26 now played RPGs when I was a kid that required number crunching. In fact, I think your assessment is fair, as long as they don't include the many kids that do play RPGs instead of action games. So maybe your assessment could be partially true, but if we thought back to our younger days, we would know that even when we were kids, we played number crunching games...even if they were table tops.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
I believe that they aimed for consoles. Look at the changes that were made to the interface. Everything was dumbed down and everything were accessable from the new menu in the bottomright corner. They made made it easier to controll with a joypad. But once again they failed to realize the power of the community and with all the bad reviews out there, there were no idea to try it for consoles. Therefor they started adapting the game abit more for PC again..
Or
They didn't make as much money as they wanted on the game and decided to cut down on employees on this project. But with all the players around, they couldn't really cut down, so they made a version that they knew most players would hate and leave. And $OE could move there ppl to other projects..
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Then came wow, this offering had a huge player base un matched by any offering before .
They saw the Asian market and wanted those players to be attracted to this game.. The call went out from la what can we do to attract more players.
The developers set up different tests after focus group and la picked NGE .
They were not happy with the piece of pie they had they wanted more.
They did not count on was how many folks would walk away from the game entirely and how it would eventually affect their parent company of Sony.
They assumed because of Eula they could do anything they wanted with their title. They forgot about how many angry customers they would have and just what type of harm word of mouth a 100,000 x players + could reek havoc on them as a company, or future products.
The second mistake was after it was clearly noted NGE was a miss they did nothing to bring back old game , combine servers offer alternatives, was the 2nd blow that got them to where they are now.
With where they are now they still have lots of angry x customers that can do more harm to them then any Eula can.
The fact that after they realized it was a miss they did Nada to correct their mistake is part and parsale of the corporate mind set of soe/Sony that bothers so many folks even today.
I agree with Zoey.
____________________________
TheCore
Its pretty simple. They were unhappy with the declining numbers and revenue in the face of stiff competetion from WOW. So they came up with a plan that they thought would recharge SWG and bring them more customers. Alas, the plan was ill-conceived and back-fired on them, actually reducing their sub base long before it would have naturally dropped.
But in all fairness, there's yet to be a game that doesn't to through a bell curve in its subscription cycle, (maybe not EvE) and certainly no major game as managed to resurrect itself, (or create a really successful sequel for that matter)
All games have a limited life...and SWG reached its end ....perhaps a bit sooner than it should have...but the end was inevitable.
But...all of this is old news right, it all happened over a year ago..and they are not going to roll it back. Its time to let it go and move on to a new game guys.... you can find happiness again, trust me.....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
if all its true (i still believe they are criminals) then we need new laws to protect MMO customer rights. These case here is the precedence we need.
Its like you buyed a yacht and 2 months later you find yourself in a rowboat, something is definitely flowed and wrong here.
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
I've often wondered if they saw the success of Star Wars: Battlefront I / II as inspiration for the NGE, and hoped to capitalize on that audience. Both games sold well, especially II. While Jeff Freeman has said that then current players were not the 'target audience' for the NGE, SOE probably hoped to keep a certain percentage while drawing the Battlefront I / II players to the game.
History shows it didn't work.
Only the future will tell if anyone, much less SOE, learned anything from it.
It's not what they did that crosses the boundries of criminal fraud, deceptive advertising, etc, but HOW they did it.
TOOW and the game in general was a "bait and switch" operation. They also commited fraud in that they misrepresented the direction of the game to existing customers in order to get them to continue paying (and prepaying) all the while they were actually doing something completely different and completely counter to what they were SAYING publically.
We now have one insider on record on this forum that this was exactly what was going on, that they were developing the NGE and KNEW (which is important) their existing customer base (the one they were continuing to pretend that the CU was moving on, ranger revamp was coming, that they were marketing the expansion to, etc) was NOT going to like it and would likely mostly leave. Even worse, they WANTED them to leave, to make room for a completely different customer base.
What makes this illegal, as I said, is NOT what they did (they had every right to change the game, even I will admit that) but how they did it.
Had they been open about what they were going to do, then every customer would have had "fair warning" and could have made informed decisions based on the facts as to whether to re up prepaids, or to order the expansion.
They did not do this obviously, because while they wanted to dump the exising customer base in favor of a new, larger (and more profitable) one, they also wanted the EXISTING customer base to provide the FUNDING to develop it. SWG would have collapsed to sub 20-40K numbers almost immediately, they knew it, and couldn't afford to let the customers "in" on the deal until it was ready to be released, because they needed our money to fund it.
You see, motive and intent are at play here. Their motive was obviously to make more money. Their intent was to do it by willfully shafting their existing customers. They cannot in any way claim that they did it to enhance the game for their existing customers because we already, as I said, have one insider who has admitted that the veteran players were NOT a consideration in the NGE design, and that they knew that almost none of them would like it.
THAT is where they have most likely broken consumer protection laws in state, federal, and local levels in many areas. They misled people in order to receive ill gotten funding for the NGE development, then pulled a bait and switch. The bait were the promises of content, the promises of further profession revamps (ranger, smuggler, CH, etc) that were being talked about publically by SOE practically up to the NGE announcement itself.
That right there is the basis for both tort (civil liability) and possible fraud indictments (criminal liability). I am not a lawyer, but I'd sure love to discuss this WITH a lawyer. Other companies have certainly been sued and prosecuted for similar actions in the past.
SOE's only way out of this would have been if, in addition to offering refunds of the TOOW expansion, they had offered to allow anyone who wished to terminate prepaid accounts with a full refund of unused time. They did offer the TOOW refund, but never did on the prepaid time. It's now, of course, far too late for them to be able to do that and be in the clear.
Considering that a decent percentage of 200,000+ accounts probably at least used the 90 day prepaid option (I had at my peak 4 accounts, 3 of which were 90 day prepaid, and 1 was an annual prepaid), and a lot of people did the 6 and 12 month prepay, you are talking potentially millions of dollars in liability in ill gotten financial gain (by fraud and deception as I illustrated above) which is more than enough to get a class action lawyer's attention when you consider that damage awards can be multiplied in verdicts (treble damages).
About the only defense SOE will be able to mount to mitigate damages, ironically, is that they DIDNT gain from the NGE, that they lost tons of money because of it.
But they can't argue away the fraud and deceit they used to make far more money out of it by misleading the customers who prepaid than they were legitimately entitled to.
Yes, consumer protection laws do need to be made specifically for the MMO industry to protect us from unethical companies like SOE and LEC, but SOE and LEC may have broken EXISTING commerce and consumer laws. I'd love to discuss this with an attorney, particularly given Freeman's recent admissions.
Think of it this way:
Company X offers a monthly service which delivers a certain number of filet mignon steaks to you every month per account. They offer a discount on the rate if you prepay in advance for service.
However, while publically making promises to improve the existing service, and the product that currently exists, they are secretly developing a way to make a simpler, cheaper chopped sirloin substitute that they think would make them more money, and are planning to abrubtly substitute it for the filet mignon on a certain date, all the while continuing to take prepaid orders from customers who have been led to believe that their existing product and service would remain the same or get better. Even worse, they take prepaid orders for a special steak gift set (expansion) knowing that shortly after delivery it will be substituted with the new product.
Then they drop 2 weeks notice of the change, offer no refunds on unexpired prepaid time, but grudgingly allow people to return the "special gift set" (expansion), tell people to drop dead, and refuse to take calls from (forum ban) people who protest.
Nope, a company that did that would get sued and likely prosecuted. Why not SOE?
Maybe... If you consider yourself the average kid, a copy of the majority of kids out there. If you think a majority fo kids in the world like number crunching, tabletop RPGs and dislike action games and consoles, then who am I to argue. Go for it, I was way off base.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
My first experience with computer gaming (beyond the Atari 2600) was text based RPG's. My first experience with a RPG was pen and paper AD&D. I was 8 when I started playing text adventures, and 12 when I got into AD&D.
Pre-CU SWG was my first MMO, and is the standard I base my judgement of the genre on. What it had and what you could do in it are my baseline expectations for a MMO.
Unlike early computer RPG's, which have only gotten better, MMO's have been regressing since SWG was CUNGE'd. They are basically becoming single player RPG's with a sub fee that you play (sometimes) with other people.