John Smedley is sodding Palpatine, the players are the senate.... Now I think I'll leave it to your Star Wars knowledge on what happens next just like with the NGE.... They're just trying to seem like the good guys but the moment the senators start seeing that somethings gone wrong and try to do something about it, they'll be dissolved again.
It's thankfully unlikely. I think SWG took enough of a hit that the teams at SOE woke up and realized what needs to be done. They really need to appease the players now to keep them interested, and keep that community going, or the game is done.
It says a lot when people are playing your game because (a) "there's nothing better to play" or (b) "it's the only decent game of it's genre." Optimists might see both as good signs and praise, but the reality of the situation is that when something better comes along, those people are GONE (Tabula Rasa anyone?). Their hearts just aren't in the game. They're playing for the wrong reasons in terms of community.
The only other tied string here, and my what a powerful one it is, would be the community. The very thing which SOE is only now realizing the potential of and I'm sure it continues to kick itself in the ass for blatantly ignoring it. has undergone many drastic changes since the old days.
The problem is for many (cabal and current alike) that no matter what SOE does, it'll be too little too late. There's too much bad blood on Sony's behalf, and the name even irks some gamers outright. In the case of SWG, the game went FUBAR when the idiots in charge decided to scrap the old game and put up the textbook patchwork hack that is NGE, particularly since the old game wasn't really solid. Yoda say "Hacked code on top of hacked code does not a good game make."
If they want to make SWG viable again, they gotta bring back it's distinctive qualities while retaining some of the good effects of the NGE. The NGE hasn't been all bad, but the cost of the changes NGE brought was arguably way too high. Thus far, a little of this has happened with beast master and targeting, but there's still a ways to go before SWG even resembles the game that inspired such loyalty in the community.
Maybe these senators will be able to convince the devs of this, and maybe in a years time those kinds of improvements and retrofitting patches will make a SWG even better than the Pre-9 community. I remain skeptical. In my experiences with MMOGs, once that decline hits, nothing is ever the same. I think the NGE prematurely accelerated that feeling for many players and that's where all the angst lies.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz] AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
So basically this is like the correspondent program. These guys will let the devs know what the playerbase wants, and the devs will ignore them.
Yes, that sums it up. The Devs will continue to not get what the players want even when told by the Senators, which of course is back to pre CU with 32 professions, Jedi not given away to n00bies, real CH with three pets out and mounts that fight, player driven economy and crafted goods that trump loot drops, take the toons off of crack, bring back the old animations, and DEATH TO PARTICLE EFFECTS.
The whole thing is a joke, and a bad one. They're reinventing the wheel but it's still square...because it's the 9 "iconic" classes of the NGE, still.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
The thing i really hate about the free trial is the long updates. I downloaded the launcher some time ago [2 days ago] and im stll downloading it. And so you know my connection runs at 2MB a secomd.
Still when its downloaded im willing to give things a go who knows i amy actually like it.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." -- Jean Rostand
Well I for one am impressed. A Senator taking the time to respond to essentially was a thread of prattle. He did it positivly. He did it professionally. Thank you vary much.
As to the game. For all the past and obvious hatered for SOE I find SWGto be one of the best games for content, immersiveness and community. I am one of those who has chosen to return again. I find I am truely enjoying the game again. With the quality of Senetor I've seen here I'm sure the game will continue to improve.
But then again thats just my opinion as a paying gamer.
If the senator in this thread is a launch day vet like he says then he'll remember the old senate. I'm a pre-cu vet and would like to play pre-JTL, will the senate be communicating that to the DEVs? Would it even matter if they did and there were 200-500k subs to be had by doing it?
We're both vets so lets stop BSing eachother OK? The last senate dit bugger all and was disbanded by Smed because he didn't like it for whatever reason. Why would any vet believe that this new senate will be any different? Because SOE DEVs say so? Your problem is that the vast majority are far to sceptical to believe you, and we both know it. This senate will be no different than the last, and the game is going in the wrong direction for it to get back its playerbase and we both know that too.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
If the senator in this thread is a launch day vet like he says then he'll remember the old senate. I'm a pre-cu vet and would like to play pre-JTL, will the senate be communicating that to the DEVs? Would it even matter if they did and there were 200-500k subs to be had by doing it? We're both vets so lets stop BSing eachother OK? The last senate dit bugger all and was disbanded by Smed because he didn't like it for whatever reason. Why would any vet believe that this new senate will be any different? Because SOE DEVs say so? Your problem is that the vast majority are far to sceptical to believe you, and we both know it. This senate will be no different than the last, and the game is going in the wrong direction for it to get back its playerbase and we both know that too.
I do remember the "Senate" for Pre-CU. As a Bounty Hunter, Wepps was our Senator (Representative, Correspondent), latter replaced by Tanks.
As for your question about the "roll back"....quite simply and honestly, "no", to both parts of your question.
I don't believe any amount of sales projections (perhaps outside of larger than WoW) will presuade SOE to allow SWG to "scrap" 2 years of work, and start over with what was given at launch and up until one year latter.
Real quick, for the record....I haven't, and won't, BS anyone here.
You and I agree when it comes to the bitterness and skepticism that many player seem to almost "hold on to" when it comes to anything SOE/SWG related. I will NOT pretend it's unfounded.
Why did Smedley disband the former "Senate entities"? I cannot, nor will not try to answer for him. What I do hold to be true is the fact that the Dev teams prior to our current team, in hindsight, appear to have been held to a very different set of "rules". I believe the former "Senate entities" were more for show, and less for actual player input, feedback, and implementation.
If I didn't truely believe that the current Senate was going to have a direct, positive impact on the game itself, I would not have invested a fraction of the time and effort already put forth.
Precedence is the key. Many SWG players that have been gone for so long have a limited view of what has transpired since they have been gone. For many of these players (not all), the precedence is, "Don't trust the Devs, SWG sucks, the NGE sucks, nothing will even compare to Pre-CU". For players such as myself, because we have been actively involved in the game trhough all the changes, the differences are striking and cannot be ignored. The precedence for current players focuses less on the idea that a "Dev is a Dev", and more on what has actually been done. As I stated previously, and I apologize in advance if I sound like a recording now, the responding player Community voted, the Devs delivered. The first time, I admit even I was skeptical, but then it happened a second time, a third and a fourth. These statments are not my opinions, they are facts that can be verified on the SWG forums. If the time were taken to find these post, a player could see the very "timeline" of things changing.
The 'new" Devs are introduced slowly
Some old Devs leave
The "new" Devs hold brainstorming threads to see where the Community wants them to focus attention
The Devs hold polls
The Community respons
The Devs implement
It's just that simple.
That said, I do hope that anyone reading this understands that I'm not trying to portray SWG as "fixed, back and better than ever". In all honesty, there are some things that still need changed or addressed. Some of the very changes being made within the "Bug Bash" are not very popular within a few Communities. However, a few unpopular changes do not "make the game".
What interest me most about your post is where you said, "...and the game is headed in the wrong direction for it to get back it's playerbase and we both know that too". This leads me to believe that you are either a current player and have fundemental conflicts with recent changes, or your an older player who sees no solution outside of the "roll back". If you will allow me, I'm going to assume your the former.
So let's talk about this for a second...let's talk about the previous SWG playerbase and a "roll back". I have talked to many older players on a player created forum for my home server of "Shadowfire". I have found that the "roll back" playerbase is divided. Some "roll back" (RB) players says they would come back to SWG in a second if a "classic server" were offered, while others say it has simply been too long. They have moved on to something else and wouldn't trust SOE with anything, ever again. So there is a wide misconception that the idea of a "roll back" would bring "everyone" back. In fact, I believe that making a huge change BACK to Pre-CU, at this point and with so much time passed, would be no different, yield negative effects, and result in server player loss, just as the introduction of the NGE caused. Essentially, RB players are asking SOE/SWG to do the very thing that was done to them witht he introduction of the NGE. It's because SWG learned from it's mistakes that a "roll back" will never take place.
While many RB players find themselves "stuck in time" (for lack of a better description), the game has progressed and grown. Generations of players have joined SWG and stayed. SWG has a new playerbase, it's a mixture of old and new, but one thing has remained....the dedication of the Community. I feel confident in saying that no other MMO, currently on the market, has a playerbase as passionate about a game, as SWG. Even RB players are still feel passionately about SWG, even while inactive.
The moment RB players stop asking the current Dev team to atone for past trangressions (they didn't even contribute to), that, my friend, is the moment they may actually be willing to give SWG another, if even last, chance.
The thing i really hate about the free trial is the long updates. I downloaded the launcher some time ago [2 days ago] and im stll downloading it. And so you know my connection runs at 2MB a secomd.
Still when its downloaded im willing to give things a go who knows i amy actually like it.
OUTSTANDING! Welcome back!
Once you get registered on the forums, shoot "Tucheck" a PM. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to give you my Guild Vent info, and we can take it from there.
My Guild is named "Shadows of 9". We are a group of Pre-9 players that made the decision to play SWG again.
Basically, I joined a player created forum just to keep in contact with old firends. As time went by, I would talk about the "happenings" going on within SWG. The ridicule and "fan boi" insults became less frequent and were replaced with curiosity. Then, one night, out of nowhere, of the normally 529 "offline friends" in my friends list....one logged in. It was Isso, an old friend that vowed she would NEVER return. Well, one thing lead to another, a Vent was then needed, someone had a city, someone else had resources, then we had a group....baddabing baddaboom, we had a Guild.
Not all members of the forum Community decided to "give it a try", and even of those that did, we lost two. So it can be said that the new SWG isn't for everyone, but I know that on any given night, our Guild has the talent, and the numbers, to go "toe to toe" with the Rebellion anywhere in the Galaxy!
And my friendlist seems to "light up" more and more with each passing week.
I myself quit just before the C/U/R/B, it was after I had a chat with Thuderheart over now defunct station chat (not sure if it's working now). All he would say is "I can't tell you anything except that it's really exciting!", which knowing TH didn't fill me with euphoria so I left before it became Everquest Wars Galaxies. My GF stayed and kept playing until the NGE was sprung on her, then she quit. I'm one of those people that will never trust SOE and wouldn't return even if there was a rollback. I would play if the server was hosted by someone else and SOE had nothing to do with it.
I can see you believe this will make a difference and I hope it does for the current players, since it makes no difference either way to me now and I hope it improves for them. It just angers many of us to see them ressurect the features they tore out in the CU and NGE, then call it new. Many of us only see it as confirmation that they know they screwed up and know what the customer wants but they refuse to flick that rollback switch. Probably because they don't want to alienate the subscribers they have left, they learnt the hard way but refuse to admit their mistakes.
Good luck with SWG in the future.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
Comments
It says a lot when people are playing your game because (a) "there's nothing better to play" or (b) "it's the only decent game of it's genre." Optimists might see both as good signs and praise, but the reality of the situation is that when something better comes along, those people are GONE (Tabula Rasa anyone?). Their hearts just aren't in the game. They're playing for the wrong reasons in terms of community.
The only other tied string here, and my what a powerful one it is, would be the community. The very thing which SOE is only now realizing the potential of and I'm sure it continues to kick itself in the ass for blatantly ignoring it. has undergone many drastic changes since the old days.
The problem is for many (cabal and current alike) that no matter what SOE does, it'll be too little too late. There's too much bad blood on Sony's behalf, and the name even irks some gamers outright. In the case of SWG, the game went FUBAR when the idiots in charge decided to scrap the old game and put up the textbook patchwork hack that is NGE, particularly since the old game wasn't really solid. Yoda say "Hacked code on top of hacked code does not a good game make."
If they want to make SWG viable again, they gotta bring back it's distinctive qualities while retaining some of the good effects of the NGE. The NGE hasn't been all bad, but the cost of the changes NGE brought was arguably way too high. Thus far, a little of this has happened with beast master and targeting, but there's still a ways to go before SWG even resembles the game that inspired such loyalty in the community.
Maybe these senators will be able to convince the devs of this, and maybe in a years time those kinds of improvements and retrofitting patches will make a SWG even better than the Pre-9 community. I remain skeptical. In my experiences with MMOGs, once that decline hits, nothing is ever the same. I think the NGE prematurely accelerated that feeling for many players and that's where all the angst lies.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz]
AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
Yes, that sums it up. The Devs will continue to not get what the players want even when told by the Senators, which of course is back to pre CU with 32 professions, Jedi not given away to n00bies, real CH with three pets out and mounts that fight, player driven economy and crafted goods that trump loot drops, take the toons off of crack, bring back the old animations, and DEATH TO PARTICLE EFFECTS.
The whole thing is a joke, and a bad one. They're reinventing the wheel but it's still square...because it's the 9 "iconic" classes of the NGE, still.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
The thing i really hate about the free trial is the long updates. I downloaded the launcher some time ago [2 days ago] and im stll downloading it. And so you know my connection runs at 2MB a secomd.
Still when its downloaded im willing to give things a go who knows i amy actually like it.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
Well I for one am impressed. A Senator taking the time to respond to essentially was a thread of prattle. He did it positivly. He did it professionally. Thank you vary much.
As to the game. For all the past and obvious hatered for SOE I find SWGto be one of the best games for content, immersiveness and community. I am one of those who has chosen to return again. I find I am truely enjoying the game again. With the quality of Senetor I've seen here I'm sure the game will continue to improve.
But then again thats just my opinion as a paying gamer.
If the senator in this thread is a launch day vet like he says then he'll remember the old senate. I'm a pre-cu vet and would like to play pre-JTL, will the senate be communicating that to the DEVs? Would it even matter if they did and there were 200-500k subs to be had by doing it?
We're both vets so lets stop BSing eachother OK? The last senate dit bugger all and was disbanded by Smed because he didn't like it for whatever reason. Why would any vet believe that this new senate will be any different? Because SOE DEVs say so? Your problem is that the vast majority are far to sceptical to believe you, and we both know it. This senate will be no different than the last, and the game is going in the wrong direction for it to get back its playerbase and we both know that too.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
As for your question about the "roll back"....quite simply and honestly, "no", to both parts of your question.
I don't believe any amount of sales projections (perhaps outside of larger than WoW) will presuade SOE to allow SWG to "scrap" 2 years of work, and start over with what was given at launch and up until one year latter.
Real quick, for the record....I haven't, and won't, BS anyone here.
You and I agree when it comes to the bitterness and skepticism that many player seem to almost "hold on to" when it comes to anything SOE/SWG related. I will NOT pretend it's unfounded.
Why did Smedley disband the former "Senate entities"? I cannot, nor will not try to answer for him. What I do hold to be true is the fact that the Dev teams prior to our current team, in hindsight, appear to have been held to a very different set of "rules". I believe the former "Senate entities" were more for show, and less for actual player input, feedback, and implementation.
If I didn't truely believe that the current Senate was going to have a direct, positive impact on the game itself, I would not have invested a fraction of the time and effort already put forth.
Precedence is the key. Many SWG players that have been gone for so long have a limited view of what has transpired since they have been gone. For many of these players (not all), the precedence is, "Don't trust the Devs, SWG sucks, the NGE sucks, nothing will even compare to Pre-CU". For players such as myself, because we have been actively involved in the game trhough all the changes, the differences are striking and cannot be ignored. The precedence for current players focuses less on the idea that a "Dev is a Dev", and more on what has actually been done. As I stated previously, and I apologize in advance if I sound like a recording now, the responding player Community voted, the Devs delivered. The first time, I admit even I was skeptical, but then it happened a second time, a third and a fourth. These statments are not my opinions, they are facts that can be verified on the SWG forums. If the time were taken to find these post, a player could see the very "timeline" of things changing.
It's just that simple.
That said, I do hope that anyone reading this understands that I'm not trying to portray SWG as "fixed, back and better than ever". In all honesty, there are some things that still need changed or addressed. Some of the very changes being made within the "Bug Bash" are not very popular within a few Communities. However, a few unpopular changes do not "make the game".
What interest me most about your post is where you said, "...and the game is headed in the wrong direction for it to get back it's playerbase and we both know that too". This leads me to believe that you are either a current player and have fundemental conflicts with recent changes, or your an older player who sees no solution outside of the "roll back". If you will allow me, I'm going to assume your the former.
So let's talk about this for a second...let's talk about the previous SWG playerbase and a "roll back". I have talked to many older players on a player created forum for my home server of "Shadowfire". I have found that the "roll back" playerbase is divided. Some "roll back" (RB) players says they would come back to SWG in a second if a "classic server" were offered, while others say it has simply been too long. They have moved on to something else and wouldn't trust SOE with anything, ever again. So there is a wide misconception that the idea of a "roll back" would bring "everyone" back. In fact, I believe that making a huge change BACK to Pre-CU, at this point and with so much time passed, would be no different, yield negative effects, and result in server player loss, just as the introduction of the NGE caused. Essentially, RB players are asking SOE/SWG to do the very thing that was done to them witht he introduction of the NGE. It's because SWG learned from it's mistakes that a "roll back" will never take place.
While many RB players find themselves "stuck in time" (for lack of a better description), the game has progressed and grown. Generations of players have joined SWG and stayed. SWG has a new playerbase, it's a mixture of old and new, but one thing has remained....the dedication of the Community. I feel confident in saying that no other MMO, currently on the market, has a playerbase as passionate about a game, as SWG. Even RB players are still feel passionately about SWG, even while inactive.
The moment RB players stop asking the current Dev team to atone for past trangressions (they didn't even contribute to), that, my friend, is the moment they may actually be willing to give SWG another, if even last, chance.
Thank you
OUTSTANDING! Welcome back!
Once you get registered on the forums, shoot "Tucheck" a PM. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to give you my Guild Vent info, and we can take it from there.
My Guild is named "Shadows of 9". We are a group of Pre-9 players that made the decision to play SWG again.
Basically, I joined a player created forum just to keep in contact with old firends. As time went by, I would talk about the "happenings" going on within SWG. The ridicule and "fan boi" insults became less frequent and were replaced with curiosity. Then, one night, out of nowhere, of the normally 529 "offline friends" in my friends list....one logged in. It was Isso, an old friend that vowed she would NEVER return. Well, one thing lead to another, a Vent was then needed, someone had a city, someone else had resources, then we had a group....baddabing baddaboom, we had a Guild.
Not all members of the forum Community decided to "give it a try", and even of those that did, we lost two. So it can be said that the new SWG isn't for everyone, but I know that on any given night, our Guild has the talent, and the numbers, to go "toe to toe" with the Rebellion anywhere in the Galaxy!
And my friendlist seems to "light up" more and more with each passing week.
I myself quit just before the C/U/R/B, it was after I had a chat with Thuderheart over now defunct station chat (not sure if it's working now). All he would say is "I can't tell you anything except that it's really exciting!", which knowing TH didn't fill me with euphoria so I left before it became Everquest Wars Galaxies. My GF stayed and kept playing until the NGE was sprung on her, then she quit. I'm one of those people that will never trust SOE and wouldn't return even if there was a rollback. I would play if the server was hosted by someone else and SOE had nothing to do with it.
I can see you believe this will make a difference and I hope it does for the current players, since it makes no difference either way to me now and I hope it improves for them. It just angers many of us to see them ressurect the features they tore out in the CU and NGE, then call it new. Many of us only see it as confirmation that they know they screwed up and know what the customer wants but they refuse to flick that rollback switch. Probably because they don't want to alienate the subscribers they have left, they learnt the hard way but refuse to admit their mistakes.
Good luck with SWG in the future.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis