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So what exactly happened?
Bdonedge
Member CommonPosts: 59
I don't play SWG, but I had access to that station pass for a long time so I know what sony can do to 'F' up games.
Clearly they messed up when MMORPG makes its own category of forum about how they screwed up.
Was curious if someone could clarify for me because I'm generally curious.
Also, would you play another Star Wars MMO if they released one?
Comments
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no.
i don't see why everyone is so excited about bioware making a star wars mmo. regardless of who makes
it lucas arts will be involved. they approved of the nge. no thank you.
Well you can take your pick on who to blame , $OE or LA but here is how they did it.
They started out whit a game that was open and all the skills could be trained , up to your skill point amount. It have bugs as all MMO's do so they said they will fix these bugs , and it was called the CU , combat upgrade , first step in downgrading the game. then out of nowhere the NGE hits, it was like having somebody delete the game you had been playing and putting into a totally different game. It was to the point that I was wondering why they didn't just make it it's own game and call it SWG 2, really it was that much of a change in game play , well the whole game , other than the graphics. All of this happened because WoW was released and $OE/LA wanted to compete with it but ended up killing thier own game.
I am sure there is more to this train wreck of a time line but it about covers it.
"We have analyzed their attack sir and there is a danger. Should I have your shuttle standing by?"
(the players warned them....we are most certainly still on the attack)
"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances"
(The suits laughed us off....)
BOOM.
The effects are STILL being felt in the gaming world.
One day Smed and Torres will be held accountable.....I promise you somebody is going to bring up all those Fancy charts and promised revenues and throw it up in their face....one day...it will happen...and someone will eat their words....and someone higher up will look at the situation and decide who is...and who isn't....worth having on payroll.
In a CEO mind set, they go out of their way to insulate themselves from the "real world" of the company.....but you can only hide so long before EVERYONE is looking up the line and calling you a bad manager or boss....
They feel it..when they go into board meetings....
They sense it when they get new orders from higher ups....
They are just trying to pretend that it will just go away....but we won't let it...ever.
Faxx(er)
Wow sucks indeed. And so does the NGE.
no.
i don't see why everyone is so excited about bioware making a star wars mmo. regardless of who makes
it lucas arts will be involved. they approved of the nge. no thank you.
they approved of the NGE because they were told by SOE that it would get them over a million customers. At the time, SOE was regarded as THE expert in the field, as opposed to Lucas Arts, who had no knowledge of this field.
They therefore had no reason to assume the NGE wasn't the right way to go. Now, granted, they are guilty of trusting SOE and not doing their homework, but we are all guilty of that at one time or another.
They believed SOE when they said that the reason the game wasn't doing well was first due to the original design, then due to WoW, and the notion that WoW was successful because players are stupid. The fact is SWG was never successful precisely due to SOE's mismanagement of the game, and their reasons were designed to cover up that fact.
They succeeded in fooling LA and got the NGE approved. IT failed miserably, but they have still succeeded in spreading three myths: that it was the original design that hurt SWG, that WoW is successful because it's a simple game, and that LA is largely responsible for the NGE. All three are obuscations at the very least.
fishermage.blogspot.com
What I've been wondering is, if SOE are the ones who won't admit there's a problem, can't Lucas Arts force them to do something about it? This may be a stupid question but yeah, it's an honest one.
As for the iffy idea of Bioware doing a Star Wars MMO, I'm willing to cut them some slack because they usually churn out good games. Look up their library of released games, they have a healthy number of big name titles on their resume.
I'm not a WoW fan, but I have always respected Blizzard as a development group due to their efforts even before WoW. They came into the MMO business with no experience, no MMOs to their name, and came out dominating the field on release. Everyone keeps talking about a "WoW Killer," but nobody, AoC included, has even come close.
A good company with a good reputation such as Bioware and Blizzard can do alot of things. I'm not saying all their efforts are 10/10 or 9/10 on a review scale, but their final products are usually damn good.
Bioware has a good enough reputation that even the faintest rumor when it first came out of them doing a SW MMO was like the first whisper of the Second Coming.
Blizzard has such a good reputaiton that despite them taking notoriously look development cycles, players and fans learned to give them alot of slack. They knew that when it came out, the game will be good. Again, this was BEFORE WoW for Blizzard.
As for the OP's question whether I'd play another SW MMO...
Of course I would, if SOE had nothing to do with it. Funny how SOE was once considered THE leader of MMOs. But that's years ago now.
I'm sure LA could if they really wanted to. LA has been notorious for grinding into dev teams for a variety of reasons. Even Bioware felt alot of it when they were working on the first KotOR.
But I'm figuring LA is focused on other bigger concerns. Like actually putting out a good game these days.
A far cry of the LA of the 90s that put out a shitload of good games in that decade.
I still miss my X-Wing / TIE Fighter series of games, and I'd love a glorious return to that franchise. The later Rogue Squadron / Leader series of games just didn't do it for me, pretty graphics or not. I don't like flying my space games in small bubbles that force me backwards instead of flying my own flight paths on a mission. I don't like rail shooters.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
SWG went downhill when Hayden Blackman was no longer the Producer, and Torres took over. This was around the time of the JTL expansion.
...i been thinking about something i keep reading....
how the devs all like to play wow...and how they love it...(and thus why they tried to imitate it...)
in wow.... if you don't go into the game WITH friends....you have much difficulty getting established with a good circle of them...because in wow, you can't fight and chat at the same time at all..and all ppl are doing is running to and fro on a kill quest.. (there are exceptions ppl)
I joined up to play with my old swg guild in there....and I got so bored and left out because i wasn't up to their lvl..etc...
the reason THEY like it is because they stay together and lvl up together....in that regard ANY MMO can be a blast....groups are always more fun if the group is a close knit of friends....
I bet the whole swg dev team started wow together...and played it together....as a big group effort....hell ya it would be fun then! but as a guy who has seen community at it's best in pre cu nge...and sorry but there is no stronger community than SL (it's a game built around chat so ya...cmon don't dispute this)....it's no wonder that they thought wow was THE game to imitate...
in swg, when we had ten ppl groups to go do hard grinds, it was THE BLAST of the month....couldn't stop talking about how much fun it was....
just wonder if that had some part of how they perceived Wow at the time.... just thinking out loud ppl
Faxx(er)
Heh, you could see the first signs of a shift towards loot gear in the Rage of the Wookies expansion.
* Introduced Clone Armor that was quite easy to attain. Don't need a crafter.
* Anti-Decay Kits. Biggest warning that I didn't heed at the time. Kept the rare, ultra powerful gear in the game indefinitely, which would no longer be destroyed given time and usage. I'm quite sure the exp.pack came out in the CU era, or maybe at the very tail end of the Pre-CU days at the earliest (and a big maybe).
* Very strong loot / quest reward gear, namely weapons. A wide variety of potent gear was available on Kashyyk. In general, they usually weren't far superior to well crafted gear. But in hindsight, one of the first indications to the shift towards loot / reward gear instead of crafted gear in the NGE.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Well damn.
Good ol' SoE, eh?
I'd be interested in playing a Star Wars MMO. I'm a Star Wars nerd and just think that it'd probably suck me in. Not really sure why I never gave SWG a try though..
The NGE = a poor version of WOW
Despite how wonderful the NGE supports tell us the system is, 98% of them spend most of their time playing WOW.
Sony wanted the WOW crowd. Which is a kick in the teeth to those of us who were loyal and didn't play WOW.
So now Sony doesn't have either audience. Who wants to play a buggy, miserable version of WOW? Especially when the real thing is out there?
Unfortunately instead of admitting they made a mistake AND ACTUALLY LISTENING TO THEIR PLAYERS, Sony called us names, made fun of us and told us off.
Sony spent more time and energy trying to refute their angry customers on boards and media that they didn't control than they did on trying to make something we wanted. It's a pity cause all that sound and fury could have really cleaned up the problems with SWG.
I *HATE* WOW. It's not a "world". It's just a map that slowly gets harder. If you go that way, it's too easy and you get no xp. If you go the other way, it's too hard and you're killed in 2 hits. If the place where you are now is boring, you're out of luck. The community is packed with 12 year olds (or people who act like they're 12) who take it WAY too seriously. I hate the fact that it's level based which leads to cookie cutter characters. If I want to try another class, I have to start all over again from the bottom. I hate that there are (were) only two sides and your race determined which side you were on. When I did play it, WOW was all about high end content. You MUST grind your character to the max level and THEN you can play the game. The quests came in three flavors: kill stuff, find stuff or gather stuff. After the third or fourth quest like this, you can stop reading and just go where the arrows point you.
I HATE Sony for making SWG a cheap WOW clone. If I wanted to play WOW, I'd take my money to Blizzard. Since they're going to force WOW on me, I'll just save my money.
You can Google to get a fairly in depth explanation as to what happened, and also various takes on what is known as the NGE. Basically I loved the game from 2003 up until the NGE hit. I could even tolerate the CU era, but the NGE was just horrible. I gave it a shot for a week and canceled my account, I went back sometime last year but most cities seemed deserted, so I finally uninstalled the game and washed my hands of it.
I'd play another Star Wars MMO. I would prefer it to be in the Knights of the Old Republic era, lots of opportunities in that era since very little is known of it, plus seeing Jedi around shouldn't be a problem as it became in SWG (considering the time line) which was really one of the polarizing things about SWG. If another Star Wars MMO were released I wouldn't buy it right away, I'd wait awhile and see the reviews.
Let me get this straight. Sony employees called you names?
Hmm....
Another indicator of the direction the game was going that was foreshadowed by RotW was that when you died on Kashyyyk, you didn't suffer the gear decay hit, which was 10% if uninsured, 1% if insured everywhere else.
Interestingly, the NGE actually devalued some of the quest reward weapons, particularly the melee weapons, making things like low power Xris Acid Sword skins loot drops off of Valerians and Skaak Tippers.
You can still get a premium price for some of these weapons simply as house decorations, not actual weapons you would use, because the skins are different and desirable.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Though they'll deny it, I believe some of the unkind words were coming from people on the SOE payroll be they angry programmers, customer service reps or whatever.
That said - they didn't do it publically. I believe a lot of these people got independent accounts.
Exhibit A - Rubenfield's blog, I doubt it's the first time he's told people off. I'm guessing it's just the first time he gave his actual name when doing so.
Don't forget when Torres went on Attack of the show and both him and host had a good laugh at all of us vets.... Infuriating was a polite word for it.
Faxx(er)
That's the fate of traditional MMOs where there's a focus on looted / rewarded gear. In one expansion pack, that gear is the next best thing to oxygen. When the next expansion pack comes about, not so anymore. Because you have to get the NEW & IMPROVED gear!
This is especially so with games that tie gear to levels, and subsequent expansion packs sometimes increase the level cap. When they increase the level cap, it's a surefire guarantee that your max level gear now will be heavily devalued.
I see it coming a mile away in LotRO, where I have an active account. Whenever Mines of Moria hits, so are new zones / instances / etc. They'll also raise the level cap to 60 (currently 50). They'll of course throw in more gear to entice buyers.
(But to Turbine's credit, they HAVE been throwing out alot of free, major content complete with quests, gear, etc.)
When my friends tell me that I need to PvP or do raids (I HATE raids) and get the best gear possible, I shrug and not really bother. Mines of Moria will make all their l337 gear right now on the same level as mine
My friend, I wouldn't even be upset at all.
Why so? While Torres may have had a laugh there, all that we have to recall (and I'm sure it was on their heads given time after the NGE hit) is the state of SWG and the greatly deminished playerbase.
They said their current stock of players were replaceable. When the NGE hits, their logic was that alot of us would leave, but we would be replaced by some rampaging horde, hopefully at WoW's expense.
Well, we left.
And we were never replaced.
Torres got his laugh alright. But he who laughs last, laughs best. And loudest
So anytime you think about his moment of glory on TV, think of the state of SWG and what they were aspiring to.
Brings a smile to my face, that's for sure.
If you're going to try to troll, try harder next time.
**Put some teeth into it!**
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
From another thread, I think this post answers your question very nicely:
Originally posted by Shohadaku
"SWG was failing to deliver WoW numbers.
Instead of blaming themselves for bugs, and things not fixed, they decided to cop-out and blame it on not being "iconic" enough, or not "fast action"
So then basically decided to change to a "Fast action" system but instead of taking the best route of designing a new game engine they just frankenstiened the existing one.
Like taking a bus and duct taping wings on it to make a plane instead of designing a plane from the start.
EVEN WORSE, is they totally lied to their player base the whole way. Launching NGE as a denied secret at a time they were revamping classes totally removed by NGE. A total bait and switch move.
They ruined years into my character with this pathetic marketing stunt. I am a pre NGE Jedi with a widened bung thanks to SOE.
I wills never buy another SOE game no matter what it is. No way is one cent of my cash going to a company that time and time again flat out lied to me."
Would I play another StarWars MMO? Yes, now that I can actually enjoy it again. For a while, everything StarWars gave me a bad feeling from my experience in this game. BUT, I will never play another SOE game as long as I live. They truly lost a customer for life here, and I know I'm not alone. Also, I will not play a StarWars MMO if Torres, Ward, McIntyre or any of the other NGE pushers at LucasArts are working anywhere near it.
The lead developer on the NGE just posted on his blog in June of this month calling players whackjobs and telling us to go eat d*ck lol, no kidding.
Shortly after the NGE the language was less vulgar but the same attitude was there. In media interviews players were criticized and accused of being whiners. One magazine article had a LEC or SOE rep telling readers to ignore the grousing diehards who just couldn't accept change.
Failing to accept change wasn't the issue. The issue was having most of our professions and years worth of ingame progress completely deleted. What made it worse is that some of these professions were just promised revamps, and many of us just purchased a new expansion with a number of features designed for the professions that were deleted. The expansion went live on Nov. 1, and on Nov. 2 LucasArts rep Julio Torres announced that the professions would be deleted on Nov. 15th!
I know that sounds unbelievable, but it's true. The NGE was in development for 2-3 months, and during this time SOE and LEC had two developer chats marketting the game. They never once mentioned the NGE, and continued to market the game and the upcoming expansion for the professions they were planning to delete.
I could go on about how the game systems didn't work when the NGE was released, but suffice it to say, combat, movement and chat were all busted to hell.
Then I could talk about how SOE and LEC tried to silence everyone, but that's in another thread
Nah, those who watched that show shouldn't be upset. Because I remember Torres showed exactly what NGE is - a buggy, crappy game.
Remember he tried to do the quest that spawn blue glowie of Obi-Wan? Yeh, that was bugged, and it was shown on TV no less...
So Torres and the host had their good laugh in the beginning of the show, but 10 mins into it I think we the vets were the one laughing... over their idiotic decision of the buggy, crappy game that is the NGE.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
This is the part that galls me: that Sony #1 lied and #2 INSULTED their customer base - especially when called on the lie.
They LIED to us. According to Wikipedia SOE is the first and only MMORPG to give refunds when it was discovered that the Trials of Obi Wan expansion wasn't going to give any of the new things they had been promising.
I was so stunned. They lied to us publically. They mocked us publically. Serious questions and problems about the NGE on the official boards were yanked down as TOS violations. Posts belittling, mocking and making fun of people who were upset tended to be left up.
Is that really what they thought of us, their loyal players? And I repeat, they did it publically.
The very crowd they were trying to catch was watching what they were doing to us. They saw in full view what awaited them if they stupidly came to SWG. Serious question: Would you play a game put out by a company so loudly and proudly putting the screws to their vets?
I couldn't believe it.
The ONLY thing I could come up with was that Sony wanted out of its LA contract (which was due to be renewed six months later) and was sabotaging their own game to make it easier.
But I was proven wrong when LA renewed the contract then praised Sony - which makes my future dealings with LA suspicious at best.
Sidenote: Another kick to the teeth is the fact that they still don't listen. After three years of everyone outside of their Dev team telling them how CRAPPY the NGE is, they're not even considering changing it back? There are so many things to be said here I can't even begin...
If you're going to try to troll, try harder next time.
**Put some teeth into it!**
I'm sorry, how is this trolling?
I was contemplating "out loud" in the forum because that is bizarre. I'm the freakin' OP and am still learning about everything.
Might want to look up the definition of troll again.
what i still do not get out of all this...
vets like me and many others keep telling SOE and LA, that if they put the Pre-9 pub back we will give them money.
no, we cont want your money is prety much what they are answering back....
even if it means proving them wrong about the NGE, who cares they will be getting much money in return.
ill even cut the numbers back down to 100 000 players would return, thats like 10times what they have now. what kind of a company will say no to 10x their money intake, specially a money hungry company like SOE
OM NOM NOM lol! I still can't believe Reubenfield had the balls to go out and tell us vets to go eat pole. Lol. And they say we are the crazy ones.