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Why do we hate certain game companies.
The_Boo_Cat
Staff WriterMember UncommonPosts: 157
So, people won't play SOE games because they ruined SWG, however they did improve EQ2 which is a good game. People won't play EA games because they ruined UO yet now they have taken over Mythic people 'may' forgive them because they 'may' release a new SW MMO.
So, are people pissed at the companies that make the games or that they ruined a game they liked that had a very loyal fanbase?
SOE makes some good games...EQ2 being one of them. EQ is still going strong from what I can gather so why is there such hate towards them...is it just because they ruined SWG?
It just seems that people are willing to vilify SOE for ruining games while at the same time being willing to jump to another company with a record of doing the same thing...EA.
MMo's invoke really strong emotions...no doubt because of the time and effort we pour into them and I guess the answer to the above question will be that we go off our own experiences. I have nothing against SOE but I never played SWG. I did play UO and don't like the way EA has performed while in charge.
Also, maybe we should look at ourselves when blaming these companies (and I know I'm gonna get flamed for this) as we ask for selfish changes that suit us to the detriment of others, and other people do the same to the detriment of us. Eventually the game dynamic is ruined...but really its just many people getting what they asked for. Obviously the devs throw their own ideas in too but by this point their vision is all awry and doesn't fit with the changes we as players have demanded.
I guess what we should all remember is that companies are in it to make money and one of the basics of business is to give the customer what they want. Basically, be carefull what you ask for, you might get it...and so might the druids and the warlocks and the rangerrs and the jedi and the frigates........
I hope this makes sense...I didn't put much thought into the structure, just wrote it as it came to me.
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Neil Thompson
Staff Writer
MMORPG.com
Comments
Basiclly im a SWG veteran and during my years i put into it right before i quit when the NGE hit us i was mostly sick of how incompetent SOE's Gamemasters were and how intolerant they were to the community. It was pure Communist state on the forums anything they did not like they removed, if they banned certain people and theyre guilds protested in the game they picked those protestesters put them at 0 0 in Lok and had them stuck in the ground while battledroids toyed with them even though the jedis were given minus XP just for the pure fun of it. This is just one of the reasons why we hate SOE.
By the way the protest was against SOE for banning the entire jedi knight council both dark and light on Bria over 20 accounts on both sides for using a kind of deathmatch between the sides to proceed in the force ranking which SOE's incompetent developers had made impossible to climb in any other way and they even had GM's there that approved it for them but i guess big brother did not like it.
SWG Bria Light Jedi Knight Awok Pre Patch 9.
Eve Online - Deja Nay
I had to think about it for a minute.
I think what pisses me off about these companies is they could make their games so much better. But because of worrying about the bottom dollar, they miss out on what could end up being a great game. They could make their customer's so much happier, and in the end, that can't be anything but good for them.
I can understand why they want to go with the tried and true formula. The problem is, they seem to forget all these games that are doing that and FAILING....
So either way, they are taking a risk. So why don't they take a risk and make something damn good for a change?
So was that SOE or the division of SOE that ran SWG? EQ2 is also SOE and in my experience thay have great GM's. I've always found them helpful.
So, same company and 2 totally different experiences.
Some games do try to be different but they aren't appreciated for it...look at DDO...I love this game but all I hear is complaints that it should have been an open world adventuring game...it should have been turn based etc. Yes, it could have been but isn't that pretty much WOW...the combat in most games is really boring using the chain attacks over and over with no real strategy.
We ask for something different...we get it...we complain till its made into something we are used to. face it, most people don't like change.
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Neil Thompson
Staff Writer
MMORPG.com
I also think why Starwars galaxies had such a big rumble about it was because the game was simply the best, it had all the aspects that Hardcore MMORPG companies try to strive for even these days, Player housing, Female roles to inspire the girlish side of MMORPG like image designer dancer etc etc, Hardcore PVP base claiming, City building, PVE, Complexity, Lore, and a pvp system that fit both the ones that wanted it and the ones that didnot want it therefor not diffrent servers.
It also had its unique skill system not levels meaning you had a set number of points you could spread out over the diffrent kind of sheets that you wanted to be, the points could of course be given up at anytime without anycost but the cost to grind youreself up to the new sheet rack.
They also had a very good way to keep the jedi population down it was a very very tough grind to even become a jedi through holo grinding and then afterwards you faced several months even a year to become a jedi knight in pure grind, impossible for the casual player just to keep the numbers down and it really worked. You were given minus XP everytime you died and if you revealed to a NPC or any of youre friends that you were a jedi you was put onto the Bounty hunter charts and they could come and kill you several times before you dissapeared which could set you back weeks in skilltraining.
SWG Bria Light Jedi Knight Awok Pre Patch 9.
Eve Online - Deja Nay
Of course this isn't going to always work, but following the tried and true formula doesn't guarantee anything either.
I mean think about it? Back in the day we had our generic old games like PacMan and crap. Someone had to take the helm and make games like RTS or FPS. The people who started these companies prob just wanted to make fun games. This is why it seems like Indies are the only chance we might get at something ground breaking. Cause the larger corporations are to caught up in the dollar.
I don't understand it really either. Hate is such a strong word. I can understand some people disliking a few companies for some of the business models they had choosen to do.
To often do players forget an MMO company is a business. They are in it for the money. Plain and simple. If a good idea comes up to make more money then that idea is usually looked into. Hense SWG. Yes their ideas for the changes was good, but they screwed it up. It happens. MISTAKES HAPPEN. Companies are made up of people.. and people make mistakes. We arn't perfect you know.
To add to that. People continue to bash SOE. Yet they fail to see how generous they really are. Buying dieing games to do what they can to revive them. Without SOE those games wouldn't be playable now. This may not mean squat to you haters, but some people actually enjoy those games. So without SOE they'd be lost. See where i'm going?
On top of that you all blame SOE for SWG. When none of you even seam to realise that LA (LucasArts) made the call for the changes. Quote/Unquote "We wanted a more Starwars like feel and/or atmosphere for players to immerse in." SOE took action and made it happen. Now they've taken the abuse. It happens, but my god you people can hold a freaken grudge.
I loved SWG too, but shesh I moved on. Some of you seriously need to get a life beyond the dang computer. I mean that in a serious manner too. I believe you SERIOUSLY need professional help. You've got REAL problems OUTSIDE of the game.
I love what SOE has turned EQ2 into. It's an awesome game now, but just not my style anymore. IMHO they should have done an EQ1 remake with EQ2 game/graphic engine and lessened the grind = best game ever... a second time, but heck that's just me.
As far as other companies flopping.. well sometimes it happens.. they flop because the community insists on belittling companies that try new ideas. Then when those ideas are less then perfect everyone shuns them away without giving them a chance.
Then another problem is everyone wants freaken handouts. If the company doesn't give you a cookie on a golden platter you won't give them your "HARD EARNED" 15 freaken tiny pocket chump change bucks a MONTH.. A MONTH! Have you ever paid for a car? Car payments are 20-30 times more expensive then an MMO and lets be honest.. which one can you TRUELY enjoy more? Exactly.. STFU! Your 15 bucks is NOTHING compared to what you are getting.. you read that.. NOTHING.. so get over your self.
You either like the game or you don't.. if you want to whine.. make a blog like all the other losers out there that got nothing better to do but complain.
Don't even dare tell me "oh complainers game products better!" no.. no they don't.. 99% of it is falsefied or biased information. They make it WORSE. A person that improves a product is a person that goes in with an open unbiased mind and makes intelligent useful feedback TO THE COMPANY.. whining on these forums about a game or on the games offical forums = will not help. Be smart people.. type feedback worth reading.
[ Played ] 2Moons, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Everquest II, Guild Wars, HellGate: London, Lord of the Rings Online, Rappelz, RF Online, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Last Chaos
[ Playing ] Everquest II
[ Waiting ] Aion, Age of Conan
Could you provide linkage of some sort regarding this? I do not recall hearing a peep about this, and I damn well know something of this nature would have made it to the Lum diaspora at the very least, as many of them played SWG in the day.
Also, Communism != Totalitarianism.
As far as hating SOE? I don't. I played since the glory days of EQ, and while I'd characterize the GM's in SWG as ineffectual, if not totally useless, I think that was as much a problem with crappy GM tools, and a completely fubared database as it was lazy GMs, or poor CS policy.
I remember the Mystere(sp?) bannind from EQ, Conquest being banned for supposedly exploiting Sleeper, or Vex Thal, and the Ranger that somehow lost his epic to a bug, supposedly, and got told tough luck, until he made a snit about it on the EQRangers boards, and got it replaced. Those are the major CS "blunders" that I recall hearing about. I never really had a problem with them, back when each server had it's own GMs and Guides, or after when they went to a universal system.
Having worked CS before, I am well aware that A) Sometimes there is just nothing that you can do. You apologize, and that is it, really. It sucks to have to do it to, especially as a GM, because they almost all play the game too, and it's not the answer they would want to get either. And
A lot of people will lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. Many more will bend the truth to make their case look better. Even more act like little 2 year old shitheel children having a tantrum. Because of those three groups, most CS people burn out, and lose any empathy they may have had in the beginning, and become jaded, and cynical.
So when I get a no from a GM, I just thank them, and either suck it up, or if it is something worth pursuing, take it to email support. Then again, I'm not the type to file a report every time I die, and lose a little xp, either.
Sure, people get fired up about MMOs, especially on internet forums. But this has nothing to do with real hatred.
People are, will, and should voting with their wallets. For or against certain companies. That's all it is, despite the zeal you might see here and elsewhere.
It's nice to know that they're improving EQ2, but SOE has always given me a in it for the money only vibe. OBVIOUSLY game companies are in it for the money, but they should be doing something that they love and make money from it. I never really got those feelings that they really loved their games and really wanted them to be great, just wanting to make the next big money machine. Then you have the pricks like john smedley at the helm and bam
I don't have time to hate game companies! I'm much too busy hating oil companies, mining companies, insurance companies, news organisations, politicians, paedophiles, and everything pumpkin flavoured.
I think you wil find that we hate a company more if they had a great game and then it turned bad more than a company who just had a bad product from the beginning.
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
On the subject of hating SOE for the NGE and what it did to SWG I have a simple answer. SOE didn't offer a choice. They're lack of faith in their subscriber base disturbed me. Their lack of vision was their undoing.
Had SOE offered Legacy Servers with Character Transer service, they could have seen where the majority of subscribers preferred to stay, what version they liked best, and created more jobs to support different versions of the same game. The debacle did make MMO history.
A subscriber should have given the choice to migrate from verson 1 to the CU or again onward to the NGE and back again if they discover enough reasons and Pay $$ to go back. Charater Transfer service is a money maker that isn't exploited often enough for the right reasons.
Subscribers vote with their subscriptions fee. Forums shouldn't be offered if they will not be taken seriously. It only will damage their reputation if the crys of their victims go unheaded.
I can't say I've ever really seen any significant vitriol over any company but Sony, and I don't think that Sony deserves the hate that they get, so much as they deserve pity.
People decry that "Sony Ruined SWG" without really ever discussing what role Lucas Arts may have had in that change - Very rarely do I hear "Wait! It was only a couple months between CU and NGE! *NO* company can completely rework the foundation of the game that quickly!"
My belief is that Lucas Arts didn't like the way SWG was going, and pushed the NGE on SOE. SOE offered the CU as a stopgap to appease LA, and when things didn't change *enough*, LA stuffed the NGE down SOE's (and consequently the playerbase's) throats. The only real plausible explanation for me is that the NGE code was tested and ready to go when CU got pushed. If CU worked, no NGE.
Given that scenario, Lucas Arts ultimately trashed SWG, not SOE.
I think in the end, the Major Players (SOE and EA both) biggest fault is that neither one of them is truly in touch with what their customers want. They're both so focussed on chasing Blizzard, instead of trying to capture that share of the market that wants what Blizzard can't, or doesn't, offer.
Neither company looks at the disgruntled SWG populations, and does any research on what those players miss most about SWG (which really has nothing to do with classes, or combat - it's the Consensual PvP, the housing/bases, Entertainers, Doctors, Crafting lots of stuff to do BESIDES combat.), They don't take those concepts, weed out the weak points (building piles and piles of useless items to skill up Crafting, that you can only sell for a loss - Vanguard has the right idea with "Work Orders" - You build stuff to turn in to an NPC to gain skill), for one example.
I don't hate them, I pity them, and I feel sorry for myself, as a Gamer, that the companies just Don't Get It.
SOE pioneered the shoddy customer service that has become standard among MMO makers. They have been outright hostile towards their customers since EQ was released. The majority of the people hired by SOE to interact with their customers have no business doing so, primarily because they are incapable of acting in even a semi-professional manner.
Lying to customers, even over insignificant things, seems to be standard procedure for SOE. Throughout EQ's history, the term "Working as intended" became a running joke, because Gordon Wrinn would use it to deflect criticism of bugs and broken game mechanics that the developers just didn't feel like dealing with. The EQ2 developers lied about the Froglok race being implemented in the game for six months until they actually put in the quest to unlock Frogloks as a playable race. The lies throughout SWG's history are too numerous to mention, and many of those were from John Smedley himself. As someone else has already mentioned, there is also the borderline fraud of the SWG developers touting in game items available in the ToOW expansion, for professions they knew were going to be removed from the game shortly after it was released. They were forced to give refunds to people who bought the expansion prior to the announcement of the NGE. Those are just a few examples.
There is also the fact that SOE has yet to release a single MMO that wasn't a bug riddled mess at release. EQ had a poor release, EQ2 was a mess at release, and SWG has been a buggy mess since release.
The worst part of all this is that they could easily change everything that is wrong with the company. It would mean getting rid of several people, and a fundamental change in how they interact with their customers. Every couple of months, someone from SOE, usually John Smedley, will either post on one of the official SOE forums, or say in an interview, they they realize they need to make some changed in their communication and other areas, yet no change has ever came from it. They know what they need to fix, but they think just saying they are going to fix it is the same as actually fixing the problems.
I'm not willing to spend my money on products from a company that will allow their employees, while representing their company, insult their customers and lie to them. The problems at SOE go far beyone their inability to properly manage their games. Unfortunately those problems are unlikely to be addressed under the current management.
The problems don't lie with players asking for things, selfish or not. The problems lie with the folks who can actually implement changes are more worried about appealing to people who don't play the game, than the folks who actually do. Almost every change made to SWG, from release on, was aimed at people who weren't playing, usually over the objections of those that did. EQ2 was made a better game by making it more like WoW. It has been dumbed down to a great extent, and not for the benefit of the folks who were already playing it. "It was too complicated" has been said more than once by EQ2 developers.
There is a reason why EQ is still SOE's game with the most subscriptions (according to an interview with John Smedley a couple months ago), yet the company has a couple hundred thousand fewer customers total, across all their games, than they did just three years ago. The fact that they have as many customers as they do is just a testament to the willingness of gamers to buy buggy, unfinished products and be treated like crap from the companies offering them.
Your scenario has been claimed to be false by both former and current SOE employees. The head of 'Customer Relations' for all of SOE answered a direct question, asking if LucasArts forced the NGE on SOE, by saying that the folks at SOE conceived and developed the NGE without LucasArts forcing it on them. The NGE was SOE's baby, LucasArts just approved it.
Obee said it all when he pointed out that SOE is just so hostile towards the paying customer, and for no real reason. Ever since the endless Jedi patches post pub 9 I think I kept asking myself "Why are you doing this to me?" everytime a patch or expansion happened. Until I quit before the CU, by then I'd had so much smoke blown up my backside that if I didn't cancel I'd have had to of signed the Kyoto treaty on carbon emissions!
The point is they kept treated customers so badly for no logical reason, I don't know if they've changed but if they haven't then they need to. SOE was a behmoth of the industry until they implemented the CU in SWG, if they got back on track and used some common sense they could be that behmoth once more. They've cleaned up their mess with EQ and can turn VG around and are publishing PotBS so maybe thins might start etting better.
As for EA they've made massive screw ups but they don't try to rub salt into the wound like SOE. EA have had the luxury of SOE being the industry whipping boy for a few years. They have the chance to come out smelling like roses next year with much of their past bad reputation beshadowed by SOE. Besides I play BF: 2142 alot and love it, so I couldn't et on the EA hate bandwagon.
The other companies in the industry have screwed up but done their best to set it right and have done a fair job in that. Or they're just guilty of producing bland swords and sorcery clones.
"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
So, in summary the hate generated towards SOE is pretty much just to do with SWG and the NGE with a few extra jabs thrown in while we were at it anyhow?
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Neil Thompson
Staff Writer
MMORPG.com
I never played SWG and I hate SoE. My 3 years spent in PlanetSide helped awaken my senses to SoE's evil empire. SoE not only ruined the ok start PlanetSide was off to, ruined the game- but they completely neglected their product from the get go with a complete lack of interest in marketing it.
Why? I wondered. Why make a game if you're not going to market it? Who do you expect to buy your game? People who stumble upon it like a back door to a porn site? One answer kept coming up. SoE was NEVER selling PlanetSide, they were selling All Access Pass. This is why SoE is so quick to pick up ever wayward and bastard MMO project out there... to beef up the selling point of it's All Access Pass.
Basically what SoE is doing is tacking on a bundle of inferior products to it's flagship line of EverQuest to fetch a premium price subscription. I hate that because the quality of these games suffer when a publisher knows they can just run them on the cheap, bundle them together, and still get top dollar for them. It's like they think they're so brilliant- like asking a child if they'd prefer a single dollar bill to a handful of shiny pennies- and so far they're getting away with it... which really pisses me off.
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. ... There's a bad moon on the rise.
Could you provide linkage of some sort regarding this? I do not recall hearing a peep about this, and I damn well know something of this nature would have made it to the Lum diaspora at the very least, as many of them played SWG in the day.
Also, Communism != Totalitarianism.
ill try to dig something forward it was several years back though
SWG Bria Light Jedi Knight Awok Pre Patch 9.
Eve Online - Deja Nay
Could you provide linkage of some sort regarding this? I do not recall hearing a peep about this, and I damn well know something of this nature would have made it to the Lum diaspora at the very least, as many of them played SWG in the day.
Also, Communism != Totalitarianism.
ill try to dig something forward it was several years back though
here are some links from it lots of stuff to read though.
http://www.freegamecam.com/groupnews/read.php/5479/5/10/mmorpg
SWG Bria Light Jedi Knight Awok Pre Patch 9.
Eve Online - Deja Nay
Your scenario has been claimed to be false by both former and current SOE employees. The head of 'Customer Relations' for all of SOE answered a direct question, asking if LucasArts forced the NGE on SOE, by saying that the folks at SOE conceived and developed the NGE without LucasArts forcing it on them. The NGE was SOE's baby, LucasArts just approved it.
* Points to the poster above me*
"Lying to customers, even over insignificant things, seems to be standard procedure for SOE. "
I'm sorry, I've done software development in a former life (I still do a bit of it in my current position, just not nearly as much as before).
The short span of time between the rollouts of CU and NGE is completely insufficient for the development and testing of code with the breadth and scope of the changes that were implemented in NGE unless the code changes in NGE were developed in parallel with the code changes in CU.
Which leads to an interesting conundrum...
Q: What software developer would code heavily on two independent projects (the second being a rip'n'replace for the first) for the same product at the same time, with the intent to roll them out within 60-90 days of one another?
A: None of them, unless they were forced to.
Coding 'assets' (Programmers) are too valuable a resource to have them do more than bugfix projects that Management already set at date for obsolescence.
There's something very fishy there...You simply don't keep programmers dedicated to CU programming once you've determined that NGE is 'the big push', and that NGE will launch within 60-90 days of the CU Launch. It just doesn't make business sense, and if there's just ONE thing that Sony's shown you can count on from them, it's that decision making is based on business logic and return on their investment.
They can come out and say 'That's not how it was!' all they want, but until they develop the honesty and transparency to say 'That's not how it went down...it went down like this instead, and here's who drove each effort, and why we did it this way.', then anything else they say on the matter is suspect.
We hate certain game companies when they ignore and/or abuse the player base. When a company respects the player base, we respect them.
If you are not being responded to directly, you are probably on my ignore list.
Mob Rules...
Let's be honest here at least half of people who spew the venom at SOE and it's contemporaries are bandwagon jumpers.
You all know the script..My brothers, best friends sister doesn't like SOE so neither do I. People love to pile on to feel a part of something larger themselves. Yep mob rules, i mean how many of the haters have actually had a negative experience with said company maybe half?!. For whatever reason Individual thought seems to be out of fashion these days.
Now I'm not making light of fundamental game changes ( SWG) because it sucks to be handed a new game after it's been out 2 years. Trust me I've seen this first hand ( The CoX I5 / ED debacle) but at some point you need to move on.. So while SWG vets have a legitimate beef at some point you've got to let it go. I mean how many years has it been now?.
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.