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Were people led to believe that jedi were unlockable when the game launched?
ArcAngel3
Member Posts: 2,931
We've now heard a disclosure from a former SOE employee that the code for unlocking jedi was written after the game's launch.
So, what I'm wondering is this: Did SOE ever give people the impression that unlockable jedi were in the game at launch. If they did, did anyone pay subscription money and go about trying to unlock something that didn't exist?
I'll wait to hear if this happened before providing further information.
Comments
It's been awhile now, so my memory is beginning to fade a bit. But from what I can recall we were led to believe there was a way to unlock jedi from the start.
And with that incentive, a lot of people set upon the path of trying to figure out how to become a jedi. There was a lot of discussion on the subject back then.
Yes.
We were told repeatedly that Jedi were unlockable from launch on, and that by late September '03 that some players were "very close" to it.
But as we all know, Monika had a totally different and unique unlock experience than any other player who unlocked after.
Which means that unlock was not possible before Monika unlocked.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Also, it mentioned in the strategy guide that jedi was an attainable profession. I can't recall the exact wording as it's been a while since I've looked at the damn thing.
A Requiem For Argos, now available at e-book retailers.
Well, on the back of the black game box many of us bought at launch, it clearly states;
"Follow your own path with a skill-based advancement system, which accomdates your style of play, whether you become a bounty hunter or a dancer or a merchant or even a Jedi."
With in the flaps on the front of the box, it says, "...You may even decide to set yourself up on the path to become one of the ancient and mysterious Jedi Knights."
I think it is safe to assume that many players felt Jedi was attainable from day one if they believed what was advertised on the box.
O.k. that's what I thought. What it sounds like is that people were led to believe something was in the online video game, they paid to discover this, and couldn't do so for a time because it did not in fact exist. During this time they were paying for an advertised service that was not yet available.
Recently former SOE employee and game developer disclosed that he coded jedi into the game AFTER launch, not before: "Hell, I implemented the original Jedi System in 2 weeks after we
launched" (Rubenfield, 2008).
Honest marketting would have said, "at some point in the future we plan to make jedi an unlockable profession in the game." This is how NCsoft marketted their unlockable villain class recently released in issue 12 for example. People were told it was a future plan for the game. They were not led on some wild goose chase, all the while paying subscription fees for something that had not yet been coded.
It seems clear to me in the SWG case that consumers were knowlingly misled. Here is a user friendly definition of fraud that seems applicable:
"In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them – usually, to obtain property or services unjustly" (Wikipedia). Feel free to google your criminal code for a more thorough definition in your jurisdiction.
If you were led to believe that jedi were available at launch and you paid money to discover how to unlock them, and you now feel that you were defrauded, you have the option of reporting this to the white collar crimes division of the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission. Here are the links to make a report if you wish:
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
http://www.ic3.gov/
Another example of similar behaviour appears to be quests that were incomplete. When people were told in a quest to seek out a particular contact (that did not yet exist), they allege that SOE told them the quest was "working as intended." So, they paid subscription money and wasted time searching planets for things that had not yet been coded. They allegedly paid money for a service that did not exist based on misleading information. Anyone affected in this manner has the same options available to them.
Please note, these are issues not connected with the NGE. That is covered in other threads, although there are similar allegations of consumers being intentionally misled, and once again, the same recourse is available.
Please also note, the EULA provisions allowing game change DO NOT allow for fraudulent misrepresentation of the service people were paying for.
Another note, please be aware that the statute of limitations in California is 3 years, but begins when a victim "discovers" that a crime was committed. In the case of unlockable jedi, this disclosure was posted on the internet on June 12, 2008. Up to this point, the accusation that jedi was added later and that SOE had been stringing people along was, to my knowledge, merely speculation.
Last note, you will not have to pay legal fees to make a report, although you may be contacted by law enforcement agencies for information if they decide to pursue an investigation.
Proving your case will probably involve a copy of advertisment for jedi at launch, a receipt of money paid for the game and/or subscription time, and reference to the disclosure that jedi were not in fact available at launch.
If you don't have the proper documentation, you can still make a report, which may lead to an investigation that turns up evidence on its own.
For those that will feel the urge to tell me to stop whining about getting a game back, that's not what I want. What I want is that people who were lied to get their money back, and to see an end to the misleading of consumers in the MMO game industry.
P.S. I did not personally purchase subscription time to unlock jedi during this time period, nor did I personally purchase subscription time to search for non-existant contacts. I therefore will not be making a report as an alleged victim. This information is made available for those of you who did pay money under these circumstances and would like to see some accountability and possible restitution.
Yes, I was lied to by Sony. I purchased SWG with the sole intent of being the first Jedi worldwide just like every other sucker out there.
Am I angry? no.
It's Sony, I half expected it in the first place.
I had to dust off my guide and take a look.
Actually, I can't find anything about player jedi's. Not even under the BH section I could find any mentioning about hunting jedi's, etc.
However, as I went through the guide I found other things that either were removed very early from the game or most likely never made it into the game. For example. There's mentioning of player owned AT-AT's, but it was also pointed out that the AT-AT would only be allowed in battlefields. The faction ranking system didn't stop at Colonel, it went all the way up to Surface Marshal, strange enough the Imperials had one more rank than the rebels (23 vs. 22)?
There's probably more stuff in there. I only get sad when I look in that guide, such a great game design that they managed to completely ruin
im pretty sure they had lawyers put in some fine print in the TOS we had to agree to everytime we logged in, soooooo save your breath on the fraud thing.....I even remember how they even said they would not be responsible for HDs that went poof even though they knew their program was to blame.....
I burned out a HD playing SWG; only had 512mb of RAM on my box, and SWG DEMANDED 750mb of memory, which meant that accessing virtual memory constantly to walk from the starport bay to the starport entrance thrashed the hell out of my HD.
Not to mention entering a cantina filled with hologrinders...
New box had 2gb RAM and that solved the thrashing problem.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
/shock
SOE has lied, LIED to us!
(it's actually shocking when SOE tells the truth. That's rarer than Jedi should have been in SWG, btw).
I've both read and understood the Terms of Service, more accurately referred to as the End User Licence agreement.
No fine print in the EULA gives a company permission to intentionally mislead customers and thereby take their money.
If you believe that someone can print themselves permission to take away your consumer rights, you've been misled.
SOE or its supporters have claimed many things on these boards and elsewhere that simply appear false.
Jedi were in the game at launch? False (now we know for sure thanks to Dan Rubenfield's recent blog). Yet people were searching for a way to unlock something that didn't exist, and paying money to do so.
Find specific contacts on certain planets to continue quests allegedly in the game? False. The contacts were never found, allegedly because they also didn't exist, yet people wasted time and money looking for them.
Squad Leaders and Rangers will get a revamp and be more important to the game? False. Shortly after this announcement they were deleted, and plans for their deletion were being implemented AT THE SAME TIME the revamp was being marketted (we now know thanks again to Rubenfield's blog, and other supporting evidence).
Creature Handlers can look forward to exciting loot items and new creatures to tame in the latest expansion? False again. Creature handlers were scheduled for deletion 15 days after the expansion went live. As the new features were being marketted plans for their deletion were already in development.
SOE can print a EULA that allows them to commit fraud? False...again.
They may be able to give themselves permission to do things in their EULA, but lie to you and take your money under false pretenses isn't one of them.
Yes, people believed Jedi was unlockable at release. There were articles written up about force sensitivity, and the ability for characters to become jedi. There were several pieces written on it, and went on to explain some of the system which ended up in KoTOR2
I have written about this before in this very forum.
Yes jedi was supposedly unlockable from the very start. During the closed beta SOE released a patch to the servers that accidentally made the hidden force sensitive bar visible. Testers then tried to manipulate the bar... things like watching then tipping entertainers made it increase while using profanity in open chat dropped it. There was a new patch shortly after that again hid the bar so there wasn't very extensive testing done.
Prior to the hologrind being implemented there were a number of interviews done with the developers and producers of the game. In that they said many people from LA were there in the SOE offices watching the metrics and watching a few select players that were very very close to unlocking. If I remember right they would come in thinking that for sure today would be the day and get disappointed when it didn't happen. After a week or two of this they decided to release the hologrind. Within 10 minutes of the servers going live on patch day someone ran out and killed a bol on Dantooine and magically unlocked. Within a few hours there were a number of jedi unlocked across the different servers.
Basically SOE and Lucas Arts couldn't bother with waiting so they rushed out the hologrind which was, in essence, the start of the end for Star Wars Galaxies.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Doesnt matter what the first jedi toke 6 months of 12hrs aday grinding.. who cares.
Why spend all your time digging through crap like this. If you want to sue someone, go after Funcom for all the lies about Age of Conan, you could make millions off that.
Besides, the game wasn't even stable 2 weeks after launch, doubtful that people couldn't even begin to try getting Jedi by then :P
Darkfall Travelogues!
Here is a video that states that Jedi were always unlockable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDSULK3MSu4&feature=related
Seriously, boo hoo! Two weeks without Jedi. Its like the lady who sued Mcdonalds for burning herself on hot coffee.
Darkfall Travelogues!
This isn't a civil matter, thus no lawsuit. Fraud is a criminal offence. Also, you don't seem to be aware of what's at issue here, so I'll break it down for you.
I'm highlighting an apparent pattern of deceptive marketting around the SWG game, whereby people were led to believe things that were not true, and they paid money based on those falsehoods.
Examples include statements like, "buy the new expansion to get new creatures for creature handlers." when this marketting took place, the NGE was well in development, and it would delete creature handler.
Other marketting around this time was to Rangers and Squad Leaders. They were promised revamps and that their professions would be more important in the game. When this marketting was done, the NGE was in development, and it would delete Ranger and Squad Leader.
Another example would now be, buy StarWars Galaxies and unlock a jedi knight. People bought the game, bought subscription time, and went about searching to unlock something that didn't exist. The patch files that immediately preceded jedi unlocks allegedly appeared 5 months into the game btw, not after 2 weeks. So, people spent 5 months trying to unlock something that didn't exist. Rubenfield says he took 2 weeks to code jedi, but it appears that he didn't start this project until well after launch. Let's look at some dollar figures for that. Let's say 100000 people bought the game hoping to unlock a non-existent jedi. What did the game cost at release? Do the math. The answer will be in the millions of dollars. Then do the math for subscription fees. What was a miminum subscription fee. It was about $15 dollars here in Canada. I can do that Math: 100000 x 15 x 5 months = 7 million 500 thousand dollars. Are you with me?
Another example would be here: "Rebel Theme Park ... SOE repeatedly lied about the theme park. If you recall, it was broken after Han's quests. Han tells us to seek out Lt. Lance on Dantooine, but there isnt any Lt. Lance anywhere. SOE tells us its working as intended despite nobody having found Lt. Lance after months and month of looking (my guild personally had several major expedition searches done over many weekends looking for him). Suddenly we learn the truth after a patch...Han now tells us to seek out Ackbar on Dantooine and the once empty abandoned rebel base now has several rebel nps in there. My guild who had followed the game for years in development was soooo pissed off they immediately disbanded and quit." (Admriker444)
How much subscription money was spent trying to look for non-existant contacts that these guys were told to keep searching for?
Let's do some math around the Trials of Obiwan marketting. It was clearly marketted for the CU version of the game, even though SOE and LEC had already decided to replace the CU with the NGE. They didn't tell their customers this of course. Game population estimates around the time of Trials of Obi-wan are somewhere between 160 and 180 thousand people. How many of them bought more subscription time based on the misleading trials of obiwan marketting. Let's assume only half of these people bought additional sub time. What's 80000 x $15 for the minium subscription: 1 million 200 thousand. This by the way is a low estimate.
So, we're talking about repeated alleged incidents of misleading information being shared that led to millions of dollars of revenue.
You can try to miminize this if you like, but the information speaks for itself.
The only problem with mass lawsuits is no one makes out except the lawyers, let me guess, your a lawyer.
As far as the unlocking goes, it was known from day one that you were "suppose to be able to" but it was also known it would take months to accomplish. So even thou some guy said he didn't code it till weeks after isn't proof of anything. He may have coded something of relivance and it could have been in the game under another code, but they decided to change it. There is nothing here because in the end you have to "prove" that is the case and in this case sense you can't prove they didn't have it there "only word of hear say" you point is nill.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
A bit out of topic, but to compare this with the mcDonalds lawsuit, SignusM, read this:
http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm
Sony stole my game from me when the NGE came out.
The whole 'oh no SOE lied that people couldn't immediately achieve Jedi argument is pretty sad'. The original random system was excellent until they caved into the masses and said yes if you grind out every profession you will unlock.
The original system was that when a character was made there was 4 unknown professions that you had to Master in order to 'unlock' your Jedi, shortly after this system went into place the very first Holocrons showed up and were originally very rare and they also showed a profession that you needed to Master in order to unlock.
The Jedi 'grind' started when SOE changed the system yet again because so many people were simply using all resources to grind out their Jedi. This in effect made the Holocrons useless and they continued to be useless until the CU I believe when Jedis could use them to restore some 'Force' and I believe there was a cooldown as well.
One of the absolute first Jedis was only a few weeks after release and was on the Scylla server, SOE and a gaming magazine company contacted him and tried to get him to basically announce his Jedi status to everyone by doing an article. He refused, remember this is back in the 'Lightsaber TEF' days and he wasn't strong enough to protect himself against anyone who would come along and gank him just because they could.
Let this game die please, so another developer will make and improve on a once very good game.
As I stated earlier, this is a criminal matter. This isn't about a lawsuit, it's about law enforcement to protect consumer rights. The only people that benefit from this are consumers.
Also, it isn't heresay when the game designer discloses that his former company's marketting of the game was not an honest reflection of the game's content.
Further, the jedi issue is one of many. Other issues have similar former employee disclosures and other evidence supporting a fraud allegation.
If you didn't feel burned by these people, that's fine. This post is for those that did feel this way, and who want to do something about it.
Also, this situation in no way resembles the McDonald's incident, in that there was no criminal charge of fraud in that case.
The back of the original game box said something to the effect that: "Perhaps even unlock the secrets of the jedi" or something like that.
It was printed on the original box when the game started even though according to the angry programmer, the jedi system didn't go in to effect until two weeks after the game began.
I should add on a personal note here, the game was a great game in it's day for sure, not perfect thou there where a ton of issues that needed to be fixed and never was. Do I feel screwed? No, because as with any MMO it could be cancelled, changed, whatever, it is a virtual world. I do feel betrayed because I was a loyal subscriber and fan, however I wasn't screwed out of anything I enjoyed my time there while the game was in it's original concepts.
Luckly I am (as others here) able to divide my reality from my fanatasy. Star Wars is as real as me being a millionair, however it was a fun experiance in a game that represented a fictional universe. Am I dissapointed in the outcome, hell ya who isn't? Still it was their choice, like it or not and I will definitly not be on a side of "lets burn them at the stake" when there is nothing wrong to begin with. They changed the game, get over it move on, new games on the horizon. The old SWG is long gone and will never come back. I accepted it and so have many, we might relish the past, but that is in no way equal to trying to sue to get it back. I say, you need to re-define your own definition of reality as it seems sir, you have lost it.
After some changes I actually enjoyed it for awhile, but sadly now? No, it has been turned into a forced grinding fest that other MMO's are doing, so I left for good. Sure, back in the day, it was a blast. Sadly even if today SOE announced the return of the original concepts, we would all go back, see it , love it for about a week then start complaining yet again about all the things "still broken". SWG was great because it was the first MMO that really had it all, collecting, fighting, farming , questing and even another whole seperate element added later being space combat. There is no equal out there to this date and in the end, this is the whole issue. So many MMO's content is lacking vs such that was once SWG. The live in game housing was top notch yet not one dev company out there today will do that concept , why? Who knows, technical issues, design choices it really is again not up to us. You want to make it up to you, do what you have heard allready a million times, make your own MMO.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
I should add on a personal note here, the game was a great game in it's day for sure, not perfect thou there where a ton of issues that needed to be fixed and never was. Do I feel screwed? No, because as with any MMO it could be cancelled, changed, whatever, it is a virtual world. I do feel betrayed because I was a loyal subscriber and fan, however I wasn't screwed out of anything I enjoyed my time there while the game was in it's original concepts.
Luckly I am (as others here) able to divide my reality from my fanatasy. Star Wars is as real as me being a millionair, however it was a fun experiance in a game that represented a fictional universe. Am I dissapointed in the outcome, hell ya who isn't? Still it was their choice, like it or not and I will definitly not be on a side of "lets burn them at the stake" when there is nothing wrong to begin with. They changed the game, get over it move on, new games on the horizon. The old SWG is long gone and will never come back. I accepted it and so have many, we might relish the past, but that is in no way equal to trying to sue to get it back. I say, you need to re-define your own definition of reality as it seems sir, you have lost it.
After some changes I actually enjoyed it for awhile, but sadly now? No, it has been turned into a forced grinding fest that other MMO's are doing, so I left for good. Sure, back in the day, it was a blast. Sadly even if today SOE announced the return of the original concepts, we would all go back, see it , love it for about a week then start complaining yet again about all the things "still broken". SWG was great because it was the first MMO that really had it all, collecting, fighting, farming , questing and even another whole seperate element added later being space combat. There is no equal out there to this date and in the end, this is the whole issue. So many MMO's content is lacking vs such that was once SWG. The live in game housing was top notch yet not one dev company out there today will do that concept , why? Who knows, technical issues, design choices it really is again not up to us. You want to make it up to you, do what you have heard allready a million times, make your own MMO.
Thought I would join in on the fray here.
And as for your final comments there, chaintm. I see an aweful lot of "I's" in those paragraphs. You are more than entitled to post your experiences and beliefs. That being said, you have no right to assume how I feel or to assume you know my experiences or beliefs nor marginalize my issues with the game with some inability to determine real life from fantasy. I view my time as an investment and as more and more evidence comes out - it has become all the more clear that SOE didn't "just mess up" they made an active decision to deceive their community and then knowingly chose them to be expendable for an audience that they did not yet have. Bad business practices. Possibly more.