Originally posted by Daffid011 However, SOE made a bad situation worse with all their marketing and distribution experience.
That's exactly it, it's just like the worst hockey team in the league recruting one of the worst players in the league and giving him the role to lead the team.
Originally posted by funnylumpy What was I've been trying to point out for people it's all about the cash and companies only care if players in a huge amount run away from their games which hasn't happened here so far..
It happened in beta, when FLS announced partnering with SOE, alot of beta testers left.
What was I've been trying to point out for people it's all about the cash and companies only care if players in a huge amount run away from their games which hasn't happened here so far..
Every company that has partnered with SOE has had to go into damage control mode right after making the public announcement. Each has made big press releases trying to calm the upset fanbase to ensure them that SOE would in no way control their game, etc etc.
To me that is openly acknowledging that yes they indeed do see people walking away from their game in numbers to make such statements before their games even launch. This isn't something isolated to MMORPG.COM either, this is their front page news.
Two of the three companies that got into bed with SOE were run no better than SOE itself, so birds of a feather kind of thing I guess. Time will tell about the last.
What was I've been trying to point out for people it's all about the cash and companies only care if players in a huge amount run away from their games which hasn't happened here so far..
Every company that has partnered with SOE has had to go into damage control mode right after making the public announcement. Each has made big press releases trying to calm the upset fanbase to ensure them that SOE would in no way control their game, etc etc.
To me that is openly acknowledging that yes they indeed do see people walking away from their game in numbers to make such statements before their games even launch. This isn't something isolated to MMORPG.COM either, this is their front page news.
Two of the three companies that got into bed with SOE were run no better than SOE itself, so birds of a feather kind of thing I guess. Time will tell about the last.
Only thing I can really say is..
I tried a lot of MMO's after the NGE... and every (I mean every single one) eventually SWG comes up in general chat. It might not be every day.. but it happens sooner or later. You'll have some people that dont' know what happened... and they'll be told.. perhaps not exactly the truth... but it will be very negative for sure.
I saw a lot of that when lotro opened... I'm not sure now because I haven't played that game in a long time. Heck even in DAoC now and then I'd see it come up in conversation.
So in the end its not even about the actual people who played pre-cu/cu. Its most definitely not about what gets posted on mmorpg.com.
There is a lot of negative word of mouth.. and when its being passed around in the various games out there. Even people who never read forums.. can "hear" about it.
So ya.. SOE is going to have a fallout on this for a very long time. When these things are being said IN MMo's.. obviously your potential customer base is hearing them. That in my opinion, is going to do far more long term damage to SOE and anyone that co-publishes with them.. than the NGE actually did.
I try not to talk about SWG... because I am past the saying negative things part. I just miss the last MMO I really enjoyed.. UO and SWG were it. The rest are just things I try to pass time in.
You aren't kidding about that, when I play CoH, Tabula Rasa and even when WoW, it gets brought up every single day especially in Tabula Rasa with its global server chat. Very same thing is being said in every conversation about SWG, 100% negative.
In the case of POTBS, no SOE didn't make the game and isn't responsible for how the gameplay turns out. However, SOE made a bad situation worse with all their marketing and distribution experience. They fouled up the patcher, the fouled up distribution for launch day in many ways, they trashed the preorder and early boarding, billing, etc. There was a giant laundry list on flying labs website about SOE issues. To me it seemed SOE did almost everything they could do wrong that would start this game off in the worst possible way.
The EQ and EQ2 expansions launched around the same time and didn't seem to suffer these same problems or maybe the people it affected are just that subdued it was business as usual.
ya know... if soe dorks up a game's start bad ENOUGH... they can buy the game a couple of months down the road, super cheap.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Originally posted by damian7 ya know... if soe dorks up a game's start bad ENOUGH... they can buy the game a couple of months down the road, super cheap.
Wait until they start shoving RMT and microtransaction scams into all of their games.
Originally posted by damian7 ya know... if soe dorks up a game's start bad ENOUGH... they can buy the game a couple of months down the road, super cheap.
Wait until they start shoving RMT and microtransaction scams into all of their games.
why not? the station pass' goal is to have a bunch of so/so - average MMOs on it for one price. rmt and microtransactions are the next logical step in the master plan.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
But, I was in beta for PoTBS long before the SOE involvement was announced and this game was messed up long before SOE took part. The descisions made during beta and prior to launch were horrid. They abandoned much of what they said this game would be.
Yes the game can be visually stunning. The tradeskill system is good. But other than that it was a massive dissapointment coming from a guy who was 1 of the few original members to thier forums when this game was but an idea.
Blame SOE all you want, but its misguided. This 1 was messed up before they were ever involved in the process.
Originally posted by damian7 ya know... if soe dorks up a game's start bad ENOUGH... they can buy the game a couple of months down the road, super cheap.
Wait until they start shoving RMT and microtransaction scams into all of their games.
why not? the station pass' goal is to have a bunch of so/so - average MMOs on it for one price. rmt and microtransactions are the next logical step in the master plan.
Im not defending SOE, no way. They are the devil. But, I was in beta for PoTBS long before the SOE involvement was announced and this game was messed up long before SOE took part. The descisions made during beta and prior to launch were horrid. They abandoned much of what they said this game would be. Yes the game can be visually stunning. The tradeskill system is good. But other than that it was a massive dissapointment coming from a guy who was 1 of the few original members to thier forums when this game was but an idea. Blame SOE all you want, but its misguided. This 1 was messed up before they were ever involved in the process.
The point isn't that SOE messed up PotBS. It's more that any game desperate enough to partner with them is in serious trouble. SOE has an absolutely horrible reputation within the community and anybody currently developing a game knows it so if they still partner up with SOE it means they don't have enough money to wait and get a deal with a decent publisher, their game is so bad no other publisher will touch it, or they just don't give a crap about their game.
Im not defending SOE, no way. They are the devil. But, I was in beta for PoTBS long before the SOE involvement was announced and this game was messed up long before SOE took part. The descisions made during beta and prior to launch were horrid. They abandoned much of what they said this game would be. Yes the game can be visually stunning. The tradeskill system is good. But other than that it was a massive dissapointment coming from a guy who was 1 of the few original members to thier forums when this game was but an idea. Blame SOE all you want, but its misguided. This 1 was messed up before they were ever involved in the process.
The point isn't that SOE messed up PotBS. It's more that any game desperate enough to partner with them is in serious trouble. SOE has an absolutely horrible reputation within the community and anybody currently developing a game knows it so if they still partner up with SOE it means they don't have enough money to wait and get a deal with a decent publisher, their game is so bad no other publisher will touch it, or they just don't give a crap about their game.
well, the good part is that, in a lot of people's minds, if a game is associated with soe (in any fashion) expectations for it ARE low.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Because the entire company of SOE is responsible for the mistakes of the past? Rather than any of the outstanding issues regarding each situation, or the fact that many of the things done was done with reason, but deserve more negative attention from the individual developers on each project.
1. EQ, it was "ruined" with some of the later xpacs. Blame SOE, but the truth is, that any game going through this long of a life cycle, with so many expansions, it's bound to happen.
2. EQ2, despite some people getting a short end of the stick and not liking it. It's fairly solid now, and has VASTLY IMPROVED under the ownership of SOE. IN fact it's honestly one of the top 3 fantasy mmos out atm in terms of quality, content, and future.
3. Vanguard, it too has improved, but it didn't fail because of soe, it failed because of sigil. It too has improved under SOE.
4. Planetside... who cares?
5. SWG... Lucas arts and SOE share blame. But the issue really was, that the game never really was that good to begin with, and it was obvious from the low subscription numbers. You can say "it was decent for a mmo!" Well guess what. Why did WoW succeed more? SW is the most well known, and popular franchise out there for sci fi. Why didn't it even come close to WoWs success, which was only known to RTS and roguelike games?
It really was never that good. It had some nice features, and it was liked by the few people that truely loved it(everyone ignores the fact, that the game wasn't universally loved, and had quite a bit of hate going for it).
LA realized that the game wasn't going to be the success they wanted it to be, and they pushed the change... The xpac, well i honestly don't think it was a scam on the part of SOE. I can see it more as a disconnect between the various parts of the company handling each thing. More like epic fail, then scam scam scam. But they are only human, i mean everyone wants to believe that game developers are smarter then everyone else, and hold them to higher standards. But really it's just not realistic.
6. MAtrix online....trash game that got changed into something acceptable. It still lacked content and it never recovered from the launch(when it was trash). But its fun now at least *shrug* not really SOE's fault.
What other company do people see as being perfect?
1. Ncsoft? no. IT has a ton of trash, and all of its games have been troubled. L2 through massive farmers and just plain bad game design. CoH massive nerfs and gameplay element changes. Dungeon runners... trash etc
2....blizzard? they are ruining wow as we speak, i really don't see how anyone could want them to be a dev. After all... Who really wants to play a "mmoesport"
3. turbine? epic failure of a company. I think we've all learned that Asheron's call, was merely luck.
4. EVEs devs? Made a good space game *shrug* people tout it as the best mmo, and then compare its features to other mmos. Too bad they haven't learned that fantasy mmos are not comparable to space/scifi mmos.
5. Gravity? lol
6. EA? Do i even have to explain this?
7. Mythic? Well this i could give you, but thats really ignoring the fact that, mythic, just like soe, has problems. Trials of atlantis, and the classic servers are big examples.
SOE hate is irrational, its made into a bigger deal that it is. The vast majority of SOE haters, actually hate them, because of what they've heard from other haters.
Theres no perfect, good, awesome, amazing, wonderful mmo company out there to compare soe to.
SOE is okay, but most of their mistakes happened, back when mmos were still just gimmicky small playerbase games, that weren't a serious part of any market.
Have soe reached perfection yet? Nope, far from it. They are living mediocrity. But when it comes to mmos... mediocrity is pretty damn good.
... SOE is okay, but most of their mistakes happened, back when mmos were still just gimmicky small playerbase games, that weren't a serious part of any market. Have soe reached perfection yet? Nope, far from it. They are living mediocrity. But when it comes to mmos... mediocrity is pretty damn good.
How about, before you practice thread necromancy, you actually take the time to read the thread?
In relation to THIS GAME SOE's mistakes are still quite recent (pre-release was only 8 months ago) and their performance would not even rate as mediocre.
I posted a link on post 53 that links to a number of other threads that detail it all.
No SOE hate - just a record of very poor service to THIS GAME and FLS.
the first 3 pages of a forum is necromancy? wow thats a new one for me. This merely was the best topic regarding SOE out of the ones i read.
I read the anti soe stuff for this game. And they did have problems with it. But was it done out of malice? Was it done from the company being a failure. Not as a whole. The problems caused by soe were. a lack of marketing(im at a mixture of saying, can you blame them? and "who cares the game still sucks, it wouldn't have mattered).
And poor shipping etc. This is actually a combo problem caused by every single company/factory/person that was on the inbetween, but its all soe, its all soe. its all soe. Right?
But when it comes to potbs, it has nothing to do with game development, and nothing soe could have done marketing or etc would have saved it. Which is why SOE should not have any sorta of negative words spread about it because of potbs.
In fact, SOE is going to save potbs, station pass access will keep this game alive a lot longer then it would have otherwise... too bad auto assault wasnt owned by soe as well!
Because the entire company of SOE is responsible for the mistakes of the past? Rather than any of the outstanding issues regarding each situation, or the fact that many of the things done was done with reason, but deserve more negative attention from the individual developers on each project. 1. EQ, it was "ruined" with some of the later xpacs. Blame SOE, but the truth is, that any game going through this long of a life cycle, with so many expansions, it's bound to happen. 2. EQ2, despite some people getting a short end of the stick and not liking it. It's fairly solid now, and has VASTLY IMPROVED under the ownership of SOE. IN fact it's honestly one of the top 3 fantasy mmos out atm in terms of quality, content, and future. 3. Vanguard, it too has improved, but it didn't fail because of soe, it failed because of sigil. It too has improved under SOE. 4. Planetside... who cares? 5. SWG... Lucas arts and SOE share blame. But the issue really was, that the game never really was that good to begin with, and it was obvious from the low subscription numbers. You can say "it was decent for a mmo!" Well guess what. Why did WoW succeed more? SW is the most well known, and popular franchise out there for sci fi. Why didn't it even come close to WoWs success, which was only known to RTS and roguelike games? It really was never that good. It had some nice features, and it was liked by the few people that truely loved it(everyone ignores the fact, that the game wasn't universally loved, and had quite a bit of hate going for it). LA realized that the game wasn't going to be the success they wanted it to be, and they pushed the change... The xpac, well i honestly don't think it was a scam on the part of SOE. I can see it more as a disconnect between the various parts of the company handling each thing. More like epic fail, then scam scam scam. But they are only human, i mean everyone wants to believe that game developers are smarter then everyone else, and hold them to higher standards. But really it's just not realistic. 6. MAtrix online....trash game that got changed into something acceptable. It still lacked content and it never recovered from the launch(when it was trash). But its fun now at least *shrug* not really SOE's fault. What other company do people see as being perfect? 1. Ncsoft? no. IT has a ton of trash, and all of its games have been troubled. L2 through massive farmers and just plain bad game design. CoH massive nerfs and gameplay element changes. Dungeon runners... trash etc 2....blizzard? they are ruining wow as we speak, i really don't see how anyone could want them to be a dev. After all... Who really wants to play a "mmoesport" 3. turbine? epic failure of a company. I think we've all learned that Asheron's call, was merely luck. 4. EVEs devs? Made a good space game *shrug* people tout it as the best mmo, and then compare its features to other mmos. Too bad they haven't learned that fantasy mmos are not comparable to space/scifi mmos. 5. Gravity? lol 6. EA? Do i even have to explain this? 7. Mythic? Well this i could give you, but thats really ignoring the fact that, mythic, just like soe, has problems. Trials of atlantis, and the classic servers are big examples.
SOE hate is irrational, its made into a bigger deal that it is. The vast majority of SOE haters, actually hate them, because of what they've heard from other haters. Theres no perfect, good, awesome, amazing, wonderful mmo company out there to compare soe to. SOE is okay, but most of their mistakes happened, back when mmos were still just gimmicky small playerbase games, that weren't a serious part of any market. Have soe reached perfection yet? Nope, far from it. They are living mediocrity. But when it comes to mmos... mediocrity is pretty damn good.
Oh look, the official SOE Apologist talking points memo.
Oh look, the official SOE Apologist talking points memo.
Indeed.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
I definatly find swg more enjoyable now and much more colorful and animated, do you guys really miss doing 200 piket missions where you stand there and spin and kill repetativley? Would someone please tell me what was so great about swg pre-cu, it was horrid, bug ridden, unbalanced for pvp, exploits galore
The tier system? was this what made swg great? (truly everyone had the same dang build In the same mix of professions)
The meaningless caves? was this what made it so great? (nuttin to do except sit at the bottom and run a looping kill/loot macro)
I realllly cant think of anything that made swg great pre-cu, except that it had the name swg,
I truly dont think most of the people that logged in after cu really tried to play it through and as for a lot of people they were already venturing into other mmo's and used the cu to jump ship to play what they got into full time.
The big thing i seen that the cu did was add content , filled gaps (like used the caves as part of the storyline and made them useful and stopped all the aa atachments that fell down there so farmers wouldnt sit there for hours) Made the storyline of which that is starwars more colorful and put you in the storyline instead of ploppin ya on tat , here ya go kill a million whomp rats, yer here to kill rebels or the empire, hope ya can feel starwarsy.
the first 3 pages of a forum is necromancy? wow thats a new one for me. This merely was the best topic regarding SOE out of the ones i read. ...
The last post before yours is a month old. You may have noticed this forum has little activity now - which speaks volumes.
Originally posted by Bladin
... I read the anti soe stuff for this game. And they did have problems with it. But was it done out of malice? Was it done from the company being a failure. Not as a whole. The problems caused by soe were. a lack of marketing(im at a mixture of saying, can you blame them? and "who cares the game still sucks, it wouldn't have mattered). And poor shipping etc. This is actually a combo problem caused by every single company/factory/person that was on the inbetween, but its all soe, its all soe. its all soe. Right? ...
FLS contracted Platform Publishing (SOE) to do this job for them.
Do you know what that means?
It means they pay them money (or give them a share of the takings - which is the same thing business wise) to perform a function.
Who cares if it was "out of malice"? Who cares if it was "a combo problem caused by every single company/factory/person that was on the inbetween"?
The job was not done properly and it was SOE's job to do that job and see it was done right.
Have you ever contracted someone to perform a task for you?
If that task was NOT done properly (or at all) would you accept the excuse "We didn't do it out of malice! One of our employees was having a 'bad day'!"
This is business.
Should SOE "have any sorta negative words spread about it becuase of potbs."
In terms of Development and Game Design? No.
In terms of Marketing, Distribution and Account Management Services? YES.
It does not matter if PotBS was good or bad - Platform Publishing (SOE) was contracted to perform a task - a task they performed poorly.
When they signed up with Platform Publishing (SOE), many folks asked them if they considered the "backlash" that SOE carries with them.
Their response was that it was definitely worth it, since SOE has the distribution process "down cold". I repeat...."down cold".
Well, when boxes don't get into stores (and not a few, mind you, but A TON of stores)...and, plenty of preorder boxes don't have their head start codes......and, boxes STILL aren't on the shelves in Spain (resulting in the shutdown of the Spanish server, according to a recent dev interview), one has to wonder what "down cold" means for FLS and SOE>
I'm sure that FLS, when signing the contract, knew they would lose potential players due to the SOE "backlash". I'm guessing they assumed SOE would distribute the game so well, it would make up for the potential lost playerbase. That doesn't seem to have happened.
Hence, the blame for poor distribution laid on SOE.
Comments
Every company that has partnered with SOE has had to go into damage control mode right after making the public announcement. Each has made big press releases trying to calm the upset fanbase to ensure them that SOE would in no way control their game, etc etc.
To me that is openly acknowledging that yes they indeed do see people walking away from their game in numbers to make such statements before their games even launch. This isn't something isolated to MMORPG.COM either, this is their front page news.
Two of the three companies that got into bed with SOE were run no better than SOE itself, so birds of a feather kind of thing I guess. Time will tell about the last.
Every company that has partnered with SOE has had to go into damage control mode right after making the public announcement. Each has made big press releases trying to calm the upset fanbase to ensure them that SOE would in no way control their game, etc etc.
To me that is openly acknowledging that yes they indeed do see people walking away from their game in numbers to make such statements before their games even launch. This isn't something isolated to MMORPG.COM either, this is their front page news.
Two of the three companies that got into bed with SOE were run no better than SOE itself, so birds of a feather kind of thing I guess. Time will tell about the last.
Only thing I can really say is..
I tried a lot of MMO's after the NGE... and every (I mean every single one) eventually SWG comes up in general chat. It might not be every day.. but it happens sooner or later. You'll have some people that dont' know what happened... and they'll be told.. perhaps not exactly the truth... but it will be very negative for sure.
I saw a lot of that when lotro opened... I'm not sure now because I haven't played that game in a long time. Heck even in DAoC now and then I'd see it come up in conversation.
So in the end its not even about the actual people who played pre-cu/cu. Its most definitely not about what gets posted on mmorpg.com.
There is a lot of negative word of mouth.. and when its being passed around in the various games out there. Even people who never read forums.. can "hear" about it.
So ya.. SOE is going to have a fallout on this for a very long time. When these things are being said IN MMo's.. obviously your potential customer base is hearing them. That in my opinion, is going to do far more long term damage to SOE and anyone that co-publishes with them.. than the NGE actually did.
I try not to talk about SWG... because I am past the saying negative things part. I just miss the last MMO I really enjoyed.. UO and SWG were it. The rest are just things I try to pass time in.
You aren't kidding about that, when I play CoH, Tabula Rasa and even when WoW, it gets brought up every single day especially in Tabula Rasa with its global server chat. Very same thing is being said in every conversation about SWG, 100% negative.
ya know... if soe dorks up a game's start bad ENOUGH... they can buy the game a couple of months down the road, super cheap.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Wait until they start shoving RMT and microtransaction scams into all of their games.
Wait until they start shoving RMT and microtransaction scams into all of their games.
why not? the station pass' goal is to have a bunch of so/so - average MMOs on it for one price. rmt and microtransactions are the next logical step in the master plan.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I can't understand why any gamer would still defend $$OE. But maybe they aren't, maybe they are $$$OE employees, or hired people.
Im not defending SOE, no way. They are the devil.
But, I was in beta for PoTBS long before the SOE involvement was announced and this game was messed up long before SOE took part. The descisions made during beta and prior to launch were horrid. They abandoned much of what they said this game would be.
Yes the game can be visually stunning. The tradeskill system is good. But other than that it was a massive dissapointment coming from a guy who was 1 of the few original members to thier forums when this game was but an idea.
Blame SOE all you want, but its misguided. This 1 was messed up before they were ever involved in the process.
I agree that this game will stand on its own two legs based on the design choices flying labs made.
However, it didn't help to have the legs cut out from under them with the terrible job that SOE did with advertising and distribution.
Wait until they start shoving RMT and microtransaction scams into all of their games.
why not? the station pass' goal is to have a bunch of so/so - average MMOs on it for one price. rmt and microtransactions are the next logical step in the master plan.
live gamer
yeah
The point isn't that SOE messed up PotBS. It's more that any game desperate enough to partner with them is in serious trouble. SOE has an absolutely horrible reputation within the community and anybody currently developing a game knows it so if they still partner up with SOE it means they don't have enough money to wait and get a deal with a decent publisher, their game is so bad no other publisher will touch it, or they just don't give a crap about their game.
Friends don't let friends play $OE games....................................
The point isn't that SOE messed up PotBS. It's more that any game desperate enough to partner with them is in serious trouble. SOE has an absolutely horrible reputation within the community and anybody currently developing a game knows it so if they still partner up with SOE it means they don't have enough money to wait and get a deal with a decent publisher, their game is so bad no other publisher will touch it, or they just don't give a crap about their game.
well, the good part is that, in a lot of people's minds, if a game is associated with soe (in any fashion) expectations for it ARE low.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Because the entire company of SOE is responsible for the mistakes of the past? Rather than any of the outstanding issues regarding each situation, or the fact that many of the things done was done with reason, but deserve more negative attention from the individual developers on each project.
1. EQ, it was "ruined" with some of the later xpacs. Blame SOE, but the truth is, that any game going through this long of a life cycle, with so many expansions, it's bound to happen.
2. EQ2, despite some people getting a short end of the stick and not liking it. It's fairly solid now, and has VASTLY IMPROVED under the ownership of SOE. IN fact it's honestly one of the top 3 fantasy mmos out atm in terms of quality, content, and future.
3. Vanguard, it too has improved, but it didn't fail because of soe, it failed because of sigil. It too has improved under SOE.
4. Planetside... who cares?
5. SWG... Lucas arts and SOE share blame. But the issue really was, that the game never really was that good to begin with, and it was obvious from the low subscription numbers. You can say "it was decent for a mmo!" Well guess what. Why did WoW succeed more? SW is the most well known, and popular franchise out there for sci fi. Why didn't it even come close to WoWs success, which was only known to RTS and roguelike games?
It really was never that good. It had some nice features, and it was liked by the few people that truely loved it(everyone ignores the fact, that the game wasn't universally loved, and had quite a bit of hate going for it).
LA realized that the game wasn't going to be the success they wanted it to be, and they pushed the change... The xpac, well i honestly don't think it was a scam on the part of SOE. I can see it more as a disconnect between the various parts of the company handling each thing. More like epic fail, then scam scam scam. But they are only human, i mean everyone wants to believe that game developers are smarter then everyone else, and hold them to higher standards. But really it's just not realistic.
6. MAtrix online....trash game that got changed into something acceptable. It still lacked content and it never recovered from the launch(when it was trash). But its fun now at least *shrug* not really SOE's fault.
What other company do people see as being perfect?
1. Ncsoft? no. IT has a ton of trash, and all of its games have been troubled. L2 through massive farmers and just plain bad game design. CoH massive nerfs and gameplay element changes. Dungeon runners... trash etc
2....blizzard? they are ruining wow as we speak, i really don't see how anyone could want them to be a dev. After all... Who really wants to play a "mmoesport"
3. turbine? epic failure of a company. I think we've all learned that Asheron's call, was merely luck.
4. EVEs devs? Made a good space game *shrug* people tout it as the best mmo, and then compare its features to other mmos. Too bad they haven't learned that fantasy mmos are not comparable to space/scifi mmos.
5. Gravity? lol
6. EA? Do i even have to explain this?
7. Mythic? Well this i could give you, but thats really ignoring the fact that, mythic, just like soe, has problems. Trials of atlantis, and the classic servers are big examples.
SOE hate is irrational, its made into a bigger deal that it is. The vast majority of SOE haters, actually hate them, because of what they've heard from other haters.
Theres no perfect, good, awesome, amazing, wonderful mmo company out there to compare soe to.
SOE is okay, but most of their mistakes happened, back when mmos were still just gimmicky small playerbase games, that weren't a serious part of any market.
Have soe reached perfection yet? Nope, far from it. They are living mediocrity. But when it comes to mmos... mediocrity is pretty damn good.
In relation to THIS GAME SOE's mistakes are still quite recent (pre-release was only 8 months ago) and their performance would not even rate as mediocre.
I posted a link on post 53 that links to a number of other threads that detail it all.
No SOE hate - just a record of very poor service to THIS GAME and FLS.
Not that it matters.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
the first 3 pages of a forum is necromancy? wow thats a new one for me. This merely was the best topic regarding SOE out of the ones i read.
I read the anti soe stuff for this game. And they did have problems with it. But was it done out of malice? Was it done from the company being a failure. Not as a whole. The problems caused by soe were. a lack of marketing(im at a mixture of saying, can you blame them? and "who cares the game still sucks, it wouldn't have mattered).
And poor shipping etc. This is actually a combo problem caused by every single company/factory/person that was on the inbetween, but its all soe, its all soe. its all soe. Right?
But when it comes to potbs, it has nothing to do with game development, and nothing soe could have done marketing or etc would have saved it. Which is why SOE should not have any sorta of negative words spread about it because of potbs.
In fact, SOE is going to save potbs, station pass access will keep this game alive a lot longer then it would have otherwise... too bad auto assault wasnt owned by soe as well!
Oh look, the official SOE Apologist talking points memo.
Indeed.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
I definatly find swg more enjoyable now and much more colorful and animated, do you guys really miss doing 200 piket missions where you stand there and spin and kill repetativley? Would someone please tell me what was so great about swg pre-cu, it was horrid, bug ridden, unbalanced for pvp, exploits galore
The tier system? was this what made swg great? (truly everyone had the same dang build In the same mix of professions)
The meaningless caves? was this what made it so great? (nuttin to do except sit at the bottom and run a looping kill/loot macro)
I realllly cant think of anything that made swg great pre-cu, except that it had the name swg,
I truly dont think most of the people that logged in after cu really tried to play it through and as for a lot of people they were already venturing into other mmo's and used the cu to jump ship to play what they got into full time.
The big thing i seen that the cu did was add content , filled gaps (like used the caves as part of the storyline and made them useful and stopped all the aa atachments that fell down there so farmers wouldnt sit there for hours) Made the storyline of which that is starwars more colorful and put you in the storyline instead of ploppin ya on tat , here ya go kill a million whomp rats, yer here to kill rebels or the empire, hope ya can feel starwarsy.
playing eq2 and two worlds
{ Mod Edit }
The last post before yours is a month old. You may have noticed this forum has little activity now - which speaks volumes.
FLS contracted Platform Publishing (SOE) to do this job for them.
Do you know what that means?
It means they pay them money (or give them a share of the takings - which is the same thing business wise) to perform a function.
Who cares if it was "out of malice"? Who cares if it was "a combo problem caused by every single company/factory/person that was on the inbetween"?
The job was not done properly and it was SOE's job to do that job and see it was done right.
Have you ever contracted someone to perform a task for you?
If that task was NOT done properly (or at all) would you accept the excuse "We didn't do it out of malice! One of our employees was having a 'bad day'!"
This is business.
Should SOE "have any sorta negative words spread about it becuase of potbs."
In terms of Development and Game Design? No.
In terms of Marketing, Distribution and Account Management Services? YES.
It does not matter if PotBS was good or bad - Platform Publishing (SOE) was contracted to perform a task - a task they performed poorly.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
POTBS was published the same way I have seen any mmo put out with the exception of wow.
playing eq2 and two worlds
Then you need to look more closely at the business arrangements these companies make.
PotBS is still wholly owned by FLS.
SOE is the Distributer / Publisher / Account Manager in North America and Europe ONLY.
In other parts of the world there are diffent publishers and account managers.
In Australia it is Telstra Bigpond / Game Arena.
This is very unusual.
In the case of other MMOs the publisher will often have part ownership and rights to the IP.
Some MMOs are self published (EvE I think)
In most other cases the Publisher has worldwide distribution rights.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
And don't forget:
When they signed up with Platform Publishing (SOE), many folks asked them if they considered the "backlash" that SOE carries with them.
Their response was that it was definitely worth it, since SOE has the distribution process "down cold". I repeat...."down cold".
Well, when boxes don't get into stores (and not a few, mind you, but A TON of stores)...and, plenty of preorder boxes don't have their head start codes......and, boxes STILL aren't on the shelves in Spain (resulting in the shutdown of the Spanish server, according to a recent dev interview), one has to wonder what "down cold" means for FLS and SOE>
I'm sure that FLS, when signing the contract, knew they would lose potential players due to the SOE "backlash". I'm guessing they assumed SOE would distribute the game so well, it would make up for the potential lost playerbase. That doesn't seem to have happened.
Hence, the blame for poor distribution laid on SOE.