I wonder if the thread would have been so large and so full of warm thoughts towards Jeff Freeman if it had been not about him but about his former colleague Dan 'Om Nom Nom' Rubenfield?
jeff is (and will remain) the only person i forgave for the nge hornswagle. while i hate the rest i still wouldn't want to see them die. i just want to see them leave the mmo development world. and maybe kick them in the balls.
This just in from the Ducks Originally Posted by Maximilius
In respect, honor and celebration of Jeff Freeman's life and contributions to the worlds of entertainment and creativity, the Duck Staff would like to officially enshrine his life and morn his death with the placement of the Jeff Freeman Memorial Fountain in Theed City Square, or the now Jeff Freeman Memorial Square.
We would like everyone - Star Wars Galaxies players, Star Wars fans, Gamers and casual commonalities alike - to join us in rejoycing in his spirit, and eternally respect his name. On behalf of everyone here at Duck - Thank you, Jeff.
I personally would also like to extend my deepest and most humble thanks to Kyle, who's idea and work it was to create the Memorial. You, sir, are a true visionary. I would like to say I'm very proud and honored to be a part of a team who's compassion and resolve is stead fast. With the most compassionate regards, The Duck Team. Image of Fountain below. image.ocdsoft.com/images/6j7bxxn86ncxmeagi6z.jpg
awesome. the spirit of the pre-nge community lives on. now if i could figure out how to make that duck work...
I wonder if the thread would have been so large and so full of warm thoughts towards Jeff Freeman if it had been not about him but about his former colleague Dan 'Om Nom Nom' Rubenfield?
Suicide is awful regardless, of course. That said, I doubt it. Jeff took the time to come out of hiding and put himself in the line of fire in an effort to answer questions and clear the air. He flat-out admitted that he was not thinking of existing players when playing his part in the NGE, and openly regretted it. None of us (yourself included ) had gotten anything resembling an apology for the NGE being implemented prior to that. It was Smed saying "We fucked up the timing was all. The changes were great, and you're all idiots for hating them." Dan's comments weren't too different from that, though he did say he pointed out to management that going from 32 professions to 9 would cost them all their subs. But it was more of "the changes themselves were good, and you're all a bunch of douchebags for not realizing it." No, I do NOT want Dan to kill himself, nor does any other self-respecting member of the human race. But given Dan's general lack of contrition, I'd guess the turnout would be less.
Also, we're familiar with what modules Jeff coded. Personally, I'm less familiar with what pre-CU responsibilities Dan had, and whether or not he's even proud of them. While, per Jeff's brother, the overall shittiness of people toward Jeff regarding his NGE involvement had nothing to do with his death, I know at least I feel a little guilt that I never took the time in life to say "thanks" for what he did for pre-CU. He showed up here and other places and gave us all ample opportunity to do so. Some people did do that, and I do feel bad that I wasn't one of them (though I guess I did on the oboards as a general "thanks" to the devs after JTL was released). Jeff was extremely proud of what he did in pre-CU, and he had every right to be - Creature Handler was awesome, and I spent more time in JTL after it was released than anywhere even in real life. Dan was involved in things as well, but I don't know what things, nor have they been posted anywhere that I'm aware of.
If you don't know what things 'Dan was involved with' - and many vets do - then why make this long, irrelevant post? May I recommend you edit or delete it?
If you'd read my "long, irrelevant post", you'd see there was more to it than that. You asked a question, I answered it. I had more to say than you wanted to hear, so... meh. If it's rhetorical, then say so.
Oh, and please enlighten me if you'd be so kind as to what Dan worked on pre-CU.
Only guy to have the stones to come here and talk to players because he seemed to really love what he did for a living. We lost a good one, rest in peace.
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
In a desire to respect Jeff and his family, and the intention of this thread, I've begun another thread to talk about assigning blame in the face of tragedy. You can read it here if you like:
I respect Jeff because he went out of his way to engage us. Took the bullets, but still pressed forward. Talked to me when he had no real need to. And proved to me that he really HAD learned the lesson of the NGE, it wasn't just posturing like Smed's non apology apologies.
He deserved all the respect in the world for that, as the ONLY person involved with the NGE man (or woman) enough to admit he'd been wrong and wish he could take it back. Look, everyone makes mistakes. America is a forgiving country, we respect and even revere people who make mistakes, take their second chance and make good on it, we ROOT for it even. We don't like to believe the worst of people, at least I don't.
I'm in the middle of taken a break from SWG...actually I think I have moved on just for the fact that after 5 years, it's just time to play other games and focus on other things. I rarely even browse the forums anymore (once every couple weeks now) so needless to say, I don't stay up to date with the news.
I took an hour or two reading over all his posts, laughing at quite a many, but also realizing I was wrong to judge him the way I did, like so many, based on the false information spread by those who didn't understand. I'm amazed at the fact he was able to keep his composure after being bombarded with posts of hate and anger in which he constantly had to repeat himself over and over again. I found myself reading his words and developing a high respect for the man...only to have myself remind me that he is gone now. It was somewhat surreal. However I understand he is no longer in pain and I hope those who were in his life find the peace they need.
Some think the constant hate he received from the misconception that he was solely responsible for the NGE still had a minor part to play with his decision to take his life but I disagree. When I was police, majority of my interaction with people was them telling me how awful I am. How I'm purposely singling them out for a variety of reasons (I'm racist, sexist, a wimp, a loser, etc) and called every single curse word you can imagine, insults, threats, etc...it's a very thankless job. People believe that no matter what wrong they are doing, they are not to blame. But to this day, I never took any of that home, and I heard this stuff pretty much everyday. Never once did anything they say, any of their insults, get or mean anything to me because they were just strangers who had no idea who I really was. So I would like to believe that Jeff was able to do the same. I'm sure whatever reasons he had to do what he thought he needed to do are far beyond our understanding.
With all being said, here's to you Jeff. A good man who went to early. Though many miss him we know he is resting peacefully where there are no deadlines, bugs, or numbers to worry about. He's now free to be what he needs to be. Take care Mr. Freeman.
I wonder if the thread would have been so large and so full of warm thoughts towards Jeff Freeman if it had been not about him but about his former colleague Dan 'Om Nom Nom' Rubenfield?
Mr. Rubenfield is a complete douche bag, but I don't wish death upon him, or for his family to suffer. I have the same opinion of the Smed, I don't wish death upon him, or for his family to suffer in any way, but I do wish he'd find a job in an industry that would limit the amount of damage he is doing to the MMO industry.
Mr. Freeman's death is a tragedy, more for his family than anyone else. His wife and kids never did anything to anyone, as far as I am aware, so I can't see why anyone would take any sort of pleasure out of the tragedy of Mr. Freeman's death.
None of this changes the type of company SOE is, so anyone trying to manipulate this tragedy to create sympathy for SOE or its employees is nothing more than scum.
It's a crime when talentless jerks like Rubenfield are able to show up as producer of SWG, utterly destroy it, then depart whilst the mess he made lingers on.
As I've said, I personally made my peace with Freeman a long time ago, he didn't HAVE to go out of his way to explain what happened, how, why, and what he learned from it, but he did. No other NGE figure has stepped up and done the same, and Smed, Rubbenfield, and Torres deserve all the scorn we can give them unless and until they do so.
I don't wish death or any harm upon those three. But I do want them publicly humiliated and blackballed from the industry unless they do.
It's a crime when talentless jerks like Rubenfield are able to show up as producer of SWG, utterly destroy it, then depart whilst the mess he made lingers on. As I've said, I personally made my peace with Freeman a long time ago, he didn't HAVE to go out of his way to explain what happened, how, why, and what he learned from it, but he did. No other NGE figure has stepped up and done the same, and Smed, Rubbenfield, and Torres deserve all the scorn we can give them unless and until they do so. I don't wish death or any harm upon those three. But I do want them publicly humiliated and blackballed from the industry unless they do.
That isnt enough. We still dont get the old SWG back, and the emulator has a long way to go before being fully functional. If they arent going to help bring the old SWG back, then I hope they suffer an equal amount to the combined amount that customers have suffered.
It's a crime when talentless jerks like Rubenfield are able to show up as producer of SWG, utterly destroy it, then depart whilst the mess he made lingers on. As I've said, I personally made my peace with Freeman a long time ago, he didn't HAVE to go out of his way to explain what happened, how, why, and what he learned from it, but he did. No other NGE figure has stepped up and done the same, and Smed, Rubbenfield, and Torres deserve all the scorn we can give them unless and until they do so. I don't wish death or any harm upon those three. But I do want them publicly humiliated and blackballed from the industry unless they do.
That isnt enough. We still dont get the old SWG back, and the emulator has a long way to go before being fully functional. If they arent going to help bring the old SWG back, then I hope they suffer an equal amount to the combined amount that customers have suffered.
{ Mod Edit }
Oh, they have suffered, and a lot of it has been BECAUSE of the NGE. Look at SOE, they had over a million subs back in November 2005 across all their games. Today they have, what, 350-400K across all their games?
SOE also competes with raw nuclear waste, lawyers, and members of the US Congress for least popular.
It's so bad that when other publishers get in bed with them those publishers LOSE business because of it.
Smed even has suffered. The man is literally the most hated person in the whole MMORPG industry, maybe not by the developers (which would be bad) but worst of all, by MMO CUSTOMERS. If any site had the guts to have a fan award category for "Public Enemy #1" Smed would win hands down, by such a huge margin that it wouldn't even be a competition.
IMHO, he hangs on to his SOE job because he's unemployable in the rest of the industry, hiring Smed would mean failure simply on his reputation for ruining games, releasing unfinished junk (which he had well before the CUNGE fiasco) and shitting on players. Any other MMO company he managed would immediately become "SOE II".
As for the others... Torres may still work at LEC, don't know, but I doubt he has much of a role like he had. none of the others have produced anything that you could remotely call successful and likely won't.
Are YOU going to buy or play anything with Rubenfield, Cao, Smed, or Torres in the credits?
Nope, and neither will I. Neither will thousands of others. Simply put these people are "out" of the MMO industry whether they realize it or not.
And not just because of word of mouth and the SWG vets. The fact that every single one of them are incompetent fools alone ensures that anything they touch will be Fail.
It's a crime when talentless jerks like Rubenfield are able to show up as producer of SWG, utterly destroy it, then depart whilst the mess he made lingers on. As I've said, I personally made my peace with Freeman a long time ago, he didn't HAVE to go out of his way to explain what happened, how, why, and what he learned from it, but he did. No other NGE figure has stepped up and done the same, and Smed, Rubbenfield, and Torres deserve all the scorn we can give them unless and until they do so. I don't wish death or any harm upon those three. But I do want them publicly humiliated and blackballed from the industry unless they do.
That isnt enough. We still dont get the old SWG back, and the emulator has a long way to go before being fully functional. If they arent going to help bring the old SWG back, then I hope they suffer an equal amount to the combined amount that customers have suffered.
{ Mod Edit }
Oh, they have suffered, and a lot of it has been BECAUSE of the NGE. Look at SOE, they had over a million subs back in November 2005 across all their games. Today they have, what, 350-400K across all their games?
SOE also competes with raw nuclear waste, lawyers, and members of the US Congress for least popular.
It's so bad that when other publishers get in bed with them those publishers LOSE business because of it.
Smed even has suffered. The man is literally the most hated person in the whole MMORPG industry, maybe not by the developers (which would be bad) but worst of all, by MMO CUSTOMERS. If any site had the guts to have a fan award category for "Public Enemy #1" Smed would win hands down, by such a huge margin that it wouldn't even be a competition.
IMHO, he hangs on to his SOE job because he's unemployable in the rest of the industry, hiring Smed would mean failure simply on his reputation for ruining games, releasing unfinished junk (which he had well before the CUNGE fiasco) and shitting on players. Any other MMO company he managed would immediately become "SOE II".
As for the others... Torres may still work at LEC, don't know, but I doubt he has much of a role like he had. none of the others have produced anything that you could remotely call successful and likely won't.
Are YOU going to buy or play anything with Rubenfield, Cao, Smed, or Torres in the credits?
Nope, and neither will I. Neither will thousands of others. Simply put these people are "out" of the MMO industry whether they realize it or not.
And not just because of word of mouth and the SWG vets. The fact that every single one of them are incompetent fools alone ensures that anything they touch will be Fail.
Yeah. Right. They are "out" of the industry. That still doesnt make ME feel any better.
Like I said (and was edited, but hopefully not before I got a few views) - if the rest of this super spirit squad offs themselves, I doubt anybody in the gaming community would care. Because to ME, never making a game again and dying are the exact same thing - you get out of my life forever.
I want those people OUT of this industry so they cannot harm others as they harmed us. That doesn't mean I want harm done to them at all. After all, the world needs ditch diggers and fast food managers too.
Odd that most here were usually baashing this guy to no end and now make him out to be a saint. I never got that upset about theNGE, just didnt like it and moved on. But some of you were literally calling for his and other devs head on a platter, and now act so upset about his passing. Rather shallow of most of you I must say.
Odd that most here were usually baashing this guy to no end and now make him out to be a saint. I never got that upset about theNGE, just didnt like it and moved on. But some of you were literally calling for his and other devs head on a platter, and now act so upset about his passing. Rather shallow of most of you I must say.
I don't make him out to be a saint. He did some bad stuff with his involvement in the NGE. He was right there with the others pushing for it, designing parts of it, etc. But amongst compassionate, civilized people there is a thing you might have heard of, forgiveness. Freeman alone amongst the "NGE bastard gang" at SOE admitted his role, admitted he was wrong, stated in VOLUMES that he understood why it was wrong and why it was wrong even had it worked, genuinely apologized and actually ASKED for forgiveness.
None of the other guys (Rubbenfield, Cao, Torres, Smed, McDaniel et all) have done anything of the sort.
Cao's last words amounted to a "F-U for ruining our perfect game concept you a-holes!", Rubbenfield much the same just less confrontational.
Odd that most here were usually baashing this guy to no end and now make him out to be a saint. I never got that upset about theNGE, just didnt like it and moved on. But some of you were literally calling for his and other devs head on a platter, and now act so upset about his passing. Rather shallow of most of you I must say.
I keep hearing this saint thing. Would you care to point to exact posts where this occurs?
The running theme I see and read here is that he screwed up, he apologized and we are sorry for his passing. Especially for his family. Well, save for the occasional troll post that seeks to feed a deep psychological need to draw attention to oneself in any misdirected way possible.
Odd that most here were usually baashing this guy to no end and now make him out to be a saint. I never got that upset about theNGE, just didnt like it and moved on. But some of you were literally calling for his and other devs head on a platter, and now act so upset about his passing. Rather shallow of most of you I must say.
I keep hearing this saint thing. Would you care to point to exact posts where this occurs?
The running theme I see and read here is that he screwed up, he apologized and we are sorry for his passing. Especially for his family. Well, save for the occasional troll post that seeks to feed a deep psychological need to draw attention to oneself in any misdirected way possible.
I completely agree. There seem to be a few that do not bother to read the posts in the thread before making the same uninformed statements. Rather ignorant of them I must say.
"Yeah. Right. They are "out" of the industry. That still doesnt make ME feel any better.
Like I said (and was edited, but hopefully not before I got a few views) - if the rest of this super spirit squad offs themselves, I doubt anybody in the gaming community would care. Because to ME, never making a game again and dying are the exact same thing - you get out of my life forever.
The latter just gives me a little grin."
Classy. This is what I am talking about. "if the rest of this super spirit squad offs themselves, I doubt anybody in the gaming community would care."
Freeman was right in that group for the majority of SWG vets out there. While some of you here may have corresponded with him and "forgave him", whatever that means, you are in no wy the majority, not even remotely close.
You literally wish someone dead because of a game? A game.
Some of you really need to get a F'ing life.
I dont wish the guy making my hamburger dead when he screws up my order. I dont wish the autoworker dead whe my car breaks down, but you inbreds are making jokes about when someone "offs themselves", all because they ruined your GAME.
Freeman was right in that group for the majority of SWG vets out there. While some of you here may have corresponded with him and "forgave him", whatever that means, you are in no wy the majority, not even remotely close.
So you upstage utter stupidity with blind ignorance? Nice job. If you'd spent more than 5 minutes on this board, even in this thread, you'd know the majority of people did not wish harm on him or his family. A couple of raving lunatics come out of the woodwork, and you want to paint everyone with the same brush. What you're trying to do is remove a legitimate grievance by calling everyone a psycho. I believe there is a fanboi rule for that somewhere.
you'd know the majority of people did not wish harm on him or his family
Wrong. I wasnt blind to the past 2 years of bashing and hatred directed at the Dev team at SOE, were you? Or you just dont want to admit it now?
The guy, as well as other devs were bashed to no end, still are. People wanted them dead, out of a job, careers ruined etc. Paint it however you want, the few of you on this board who "forgave him" do not represent the majority of bloodthirsty tools out there who had a hate for him and the dev team that was downright scary. Again, its just a game.
As for a legitimate grievance, all I am saying is many of you were the same wishing ill will on him, deny it if you like, but it true.
as for fanboi commnet, not really sure what you are talking about to be honest, /shrug
you'd know the majority of people did not wish harm on him or his family
Wrong. I wasnt blind to the past 2 years of bashing and hatred directed at the Dev team at SOE, were you? Or you just dont want to admit it now? The guy, as well as other devs were bashed to no end, still are. People wanted them dead, out of a job, careers ruined etc. Paint it however you want, the few of you on this board who "forgave him" do not represent the majority of bloodthirsty tools out there who had a hate for him and the dev team that was downright scary. Again, its just a game. As for a legitimate grievance, all I am saying is many of you were the same wishing ill will on him, deny it if you like, but it true. as for fanboi commnet, not really sure what you are talking about to be honest, /shrug
There was bashing. There was hatred. And I'm not disputing that there were some asshats who wanted someone dead as a result. Your claim that those asshats are the majority, however, is what I called blind ignorance, and I always will. They deserved the bashing. They deserved the insults. If you screw up that badly at your job, would you expect to be doing it much longer? How does that screw-up look on a resume once you're fired for incompetence from your existing position and are looking for another job as a game designer? They deserved to be called out in every way, EXCEPT wanted dead. Nobody with an ounce of humanity wanted anyone dead. Yes, those people existed, but they were far and away in the minority.
This is all irrelevant anyway, as Jeff's own brother stated his suicide had nothing to do with the NGE. And those few who celebrate his death as some sort of "revenge" for destroying SWG can go crawl back under their rocks now; they made their point.
Comments
jeff is (and will remain) the only person i forgave for the nge hornswagle. while i hate the rest i still wouldn't want to see them die. i just want to see them leave the mmo development world. and maybe kick them in the balls.
awesome. the spirit of the pre-nge community lives on. now if i could figure out how to make that duck work...
Suicide is awful regardless, of course. That said, I doubt it. Jeff took the time to come out of hiding and put himself in the line of fire in an effort to answer questions and clear the air. He flat-out admitted that he was not thinking of existing players when playing his part in the NGE, and openly regretted it. None of us (yourself included
) had gotten anything resembling an apology for the NGE being implemented prior to that. It was Smed saying "We fucked up the timing was all. The changes were great, and you're all idiots for hating them." Dan's comments weren't too different from that, though he did say he pointed out to management that going from 32 professions to 9 would cost them all their subs. But it was more of "the changes themselves were good, and you're all a bunch of douchebags for not realizing it." No, I do NOT want Dan to kill himself, nor does any other self-respecting member of the human race. But given Dan's general lack of contrition, I'd guess the turnout would be less.
Also, we're familiar with what modules Jeff coded. Personally, I'm less familiar with what pre-CU responsibilities Dan had, and whether or not he's even proud of them. While, per Jeff's brother, the overall shittiness of people toward Jeff regarding his NGE involvement had nothing to do with his death, I know at least I feel a little guilt that I never took the time in life to say "thanks" for what he did for pre-CU. He showed up here and other places and gave us all ample opportunity to do so. Some people did do that, and I do feel bad that I wasn't one of them (though I guess I did on the oboards as a general "thanks" to the devs after JTL was released). Jeff was extremely proud of what he did in pre-CU, and he had every right to be - Creature Handler was awesome, and I spent more time in JTL after it was released than anywhere even in real life. Dan was involved in things as well, but I don't know what things, nor have they been posted anywhere that I'm aware of.
If you don't know what things 'Dan was involved with' - and many vets do - then why make this long, irrelevant post? May I recommend you edit or delete it?
If you'd read my "long, irrelevant post", you'd see there was more to it than that. You asked a question, I answered it. I had more to say than you wanted to hear, so... meh. If it's rhetorical, then say so.
Oh, and please enlighten me if you'd be so kind as to what Dan worked on pre-CU.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
Only guy to have the stones to come here and talk to players because he seemed to really love what he did for a living. We lost a good one, rest in peace.
"Hurray, finally a game where I can fulfill my lifelong dream of taking emotionally dead women and finding the most financially viable means to exploit their bodies with the ultimate goal of making them Hugh Hefner's personal furniture."
This is really sad news. My prayers goes to his family and friends.
Jeff was the only one from the NGE team that had the balls to come forward and explain and apologize for the NGE. He earned my repect by doing that.
Thank you Jeff.
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
In a desire to respect Jeff and his family, and the intention of this thread, I've begun another thread to talk about assigning blame in the face of tragedy. You can read it here if you like:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/205871
sympathy to his to family, was a pretty forward guy , came here answerd questions, rip dundee
I respect Jeff because he went out of his way to engage us. Took the bullets, but still pressed forward. Talked to me when he had no real need to. And proved to me that he really HAD learned the lesson of the NGE, it wasn't just posturing like Smed's non apology apologies.
He deserved all the respect in the world for that, as the ONLY person involved with the NGE man (or woman) enough to admit he'd been wrong and wish he could take it back. Look, everyone makes mistakes. America is a forgiving country, we respect and even revere people who make mistakes, take their second chance and make good on it, we ROOT for it even. We don't like to believe the worst of people, at least I don't.
Jeff was 1,000X the man John Smedley is.
I guess it is true that only the good die young.
I'm in the middle of taken a break from SWG...actually I think I have moved on just for the fact that after 5 years, it's just time to play other games and focus on other things. I rarely even browse the forums anymore (once every couple weeks now) so needless to say, I don't stay up to date with the news.
When I saw today that Jeff took his own life...it shocked me. I really wasn't that familiar with him though. I remember people posting that he was basically brainchild of the NGE way back and that was about it. Then I read an article about his death on gamepolitics.com ( http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/10/03/star-wars-galaxies-developer-commits-suicide ) and in there was a link to escaptistmagazine.com: ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/op-ed/801-SWG-NGE-Crying-Freeman ) which had an article about his true involvement with the NGE and quotes and links to his explanations on this very forum.
I took an hour or two reading over all his posts, laughing at quite a many, but also realizing I was wrong to judge him the way I did, like so many, based on the false information spread by those who didn't understand. I'm amazed at the fact he was able to keep his composure after being bombarded with posts of hate and anger in which he constantly had to repeat himself over and over again. I found myself reading his words and developing a high respect for the man...only to have myself remind me that he is gone now. It was somewhat surreal. However I understand he is no longer in pain and I hope those who were in his life find the peace they need.
Some think the constant hate he received from the misconception that he was solely responsible for the NGE still had a minor part to play with his decision to take his life but I disagree. When I was police, majority of my interaction with people was them telling me how awful I am. How I'm purposely singling them out for a variety of reasons (I'm racist, sexist, a wimp, a loser, etc) and called every single curse word you can imagine, insults, threats, etc...it's a very thankless job. People believe that no matter what wrong they are doing, they are not to blame. But to this day, I never took any of that home, and I heard this stuff pretty much everyday. Never once did anything they say, any of their insults, get or mean anything to me because they were just strangers who had no idea who I really was. So I would like to believe that Jeff was able to do the same. I'm sure whatever reasons he had to do what he thought he needed to do are far beyond our understanding.
With all being said, here's to you Jeff. A good man who went to early. Though many miss him we know he is resting peacefully where there are no deadlines, bugs, or numbers to worry about. He's now free to be what he needs to be. Take care Mr. Freeman.
Offending post was removed. Erasing my post.
Mr. Rubenfield is a complete douche bag, but I don't wish death upon him, or for his family to suffer. I have the same opinion of the Smed, I don't wish death upon him, or for his family to suffer in any way, but I do wish he'd find a job in an industry that would limit the amount of damage he is doing to the MMO industry.
Mr. Freeman's death is a tragedy, more for his family than anyone else. His wife and kids never did anything to anyone, as far as I am aware, so I can't see why anyone would take any sort of pleasure out of the tragedy of Mr. Freeman's death.
None of this changes the type of company SOE is, so anyone trying to manipulate this tragedy to create sympathy for SOE or its employees is nothing more than scum.
It's a crime when talentless jerks like Rubenfield are able to show up as producer of SWG, utterly destroy it, then depart whilst the mess he made lingers on.
As I've said, I personally made my peace with Freeman a long time ago, he didn't HAVE to go out of his way to explain what happened, how, why, and what he learned from it, but he did. No other NGE figure has stepped up and done the same, and Smed, Rubbenfield, and Torres deserve all the scorn we can give them unless and until they do so.
I don't wish death or any harm upon those three. But I do want them publicly humiliated and blackballed from the industry unless they do.
That isnt enough. We still dont get the old SWG back, and the emulator has a long way to go before being fully functional. If they arent going to help bring the old SWG back, then I hope they suffer an equal amount to the combined amount that customers have suffered.
{ Mod Edit }
That isnt enough. We still dont get the old SWG back, and the emulator has a long way to go before being fully functional. If they arent going to help bring the old SWG back, then I hope they suffer an equal amount to the combined amount that customers have suffered.
{ Mod Edit }
Oh, they have suffered, and a lot of it has been BECAUSE of the NGE. Look at SOE, they had over a million subs back in November 2005 across all their games. Today they have, what, 350-400K across all their games?
SOE also competes with raw nuclear waste, lawyers, and members of the US Congress for least popular.
It's so bad that when other publishers get in bed with them those publishers LOSE business because of it.
Smed even has suffered. The man is literally the most hated person in the whole MMORPG industry, maybe not by the developers (which would be bad) but worst of all, by MMO CUSTOMERS. If any site had the guts to have a fan award category for "Public Enemy #1" Smed would win hands down, by such a huge margin that it wouldn't even be a competition.
IMHO, he hangs on to his SOE job because he's unemployable in the rest of the industry, hiring Smed would mean failure simply on his reputation for ruining games, releasing unfinished junk (which he had well before the CUNGE fiasco) and shitting on players. Any other MMO company he managed would immediately become "SOE II".
As for the others... Torres may still work at LEC, don't know, but I doubt he has much of a role like he had. none of the others have produced anything that you could remotely call successful and likely won't.
Are YOU going to buy or play anything with Rubenfield, Cao, Smed, or Torres in the credits?
Nope, and neither will I. Neither will thousands of others. Simply put these people are "out" of the MMO industry whether they realize it or not.
And not just because of word of mouth and the SWG vets. The fact that every single one of them are incompetent fools alone ensures that anything they touch will be Fail.
RIP.
i misread this as jeff goldbloom....i was very upset.
but still RIP.
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
That isnt enough. We still dont get the old SWG back, and the emulator has a long way to go before being fully functional. If they arent going to help bring the old SWG back, then I hope they suffer an equal amount to the combined amount that customers have suffered.
{ Mod Edit }
Oh, they have suffered, and a lot of it has been BECAUSE of the NGE. Look at SOE, they had over a million subs back in November 2005 across all their games. Today they have, what, 350-400K across all their games?
SOE also competes with raw nuclear waste, lawyers, and members of the US Congress for least popular.
It's so bad that when other publishers get in bed with them those publishers LOSE business because of it.
Smed even has suffered. The man is literally the most hated person in the whole MMORPG industry, maybe not by the developers (which would be bad) but worst of all, by MMO CUSTOMERS. If any site had the guts to have a fan award category for "Public Enemy #1" Smed would win hands down, by such a huge margin that it wouldn't even be a competition.
IMHO, he hangs on to his SOE job because he's unemployable in the rest of the industry, hiring Smed would mean failure simply on his reputation for ruining games, releasing unfinished junk (which he had well before the CUNGE fiasco) and shitting on players. Any other MMO company he managed would immediately become "SOE II".
As for the others... Torres may still work at LEC, don't know, but I doubt he has much of a role like he had. none of the others have produced anything that you could remotely call successful and likely won't.
Are YOU going to buy or play anything with Rubenfield, Cao, Smed, or Torres in the credits?
Nope, and neither will I. Neither will thousands of others. Simply put these people are "out" of the MMO industry whether they realize it or not.
And not just because of word of mouth and the SWG vets. The fact that every single one of them are incompetent fools alone ensures that anything they touch will be Fail.
Yeah. Right. They are "out" of the industry. That still doesnt make ME feel any better.
Like I said (and was edited, but hopefully not before I got a few views) - if the rest of this super spirit squad offs themselves, I doubt anybody in the gaming community would care. Because to ME, never making a game again and dying are the exact same thing - you get out of my life forever.
The latter just gives me a little grin.
I absolutely disagree.
I want those people OUT of this industry so they cannot harm others as they harmed us. That doesn't mean I want harm done to them at all. After all, the world needs ditch diggers and fast food managers too.
Odd that most here were usually baashing this guy to no end and now make him out to be a saint. I never got that upset about theNGE, just didnt like it and moved on. But some of you were literally calling for his and other devs head on a platter, and now act so upset about his passing. Rather shallow of most of you I must say.
I don't make him out to be a saint. He did some bad stuff with his involvement in the NGE. He was right there with the others pushing for it, designing parts of it, etc. But amongst compassionate, civilized people there is a thing you might have heard of, forgiveness. Freeman alone amongst the "NGE bastard gang" at SOE admitted his role, admitted he was wrong, stated in VOLUMES that he understood why it was wrong and why it was wrong even had it worked, genuinely apologized and actually ASKED for forgiveness.
None of the other guys (Rubbenfield, Cao, Torres, Smed, McDaniel et all) have done anything of the sort.
Cao's last words amounted to a "F-U for ruining our perfect game concept you a-holes!", Rubbenfield much the same just less confrontational.
I keep hearing this saint thing. Would you care to point to exact posts where this occurs?
The running theme I see and read here is that he screwed up, he apologized and we are sorry for his passing. Especially for his family. Well, save for the occasional troll post that seeks to feed a deep psychological need to draw attention to oneself in any misdirected way possible.
I keep hearing this saint thing. Would you care to point to exact posts where this occurs?
The running theme I see and read here is that he screwed up, he apologized and we are sorry for his passing. Especially for his family. Well, save for the occasional troll post that seeks to feed a deep psychological need to draw attention to oneself in any misdirected way possible.
I completely agree. There seem to be a few that do not bother to read the posts in the thread before making the same uninformed statements. Rather ignorant of them I must say.
"Yeah. Right. They are "out" of the industry. That still doesnt make ME feel any better.
Like I said (and was edited, but hopefully not before I got a few views) - if the rest of this super spirit squad offs themselves, I doubt anybody in the gaming community would care. Because to ME, never making a game again and dying are the exact same thing - you get out of my life forever.
The latter just gives me a little grin."
Classy. This is what I am talking about. "if the rest of this super spirit squad offs themselves, I doubt anybody in the gaming community would care."
Freeman was right in that group for the majority of SWG vets out there. While some of you here may have corresponded with him and "forgave him", whatever that means, you are in no wy the majority, not even remotely close.
You literally wish someone dead because of a game? A game.
Some of you really need to get a F'ing life.
I dont wish the guy making my hamburger dead when he screws up my order. I dont wish the autoworker dead whe my car breaks down, but you inbreds are making jokes about when someone "offs themselves", all because they ruined your GAME.
So you upstage utter stupidity with blind ignorance? Nice job. If you'd spent more than 5 minutes on this board, even in this thread, you'd know the majority of people did not wish harm on him or his family. A couple of raving lunatics come out of the woodwork, and you want to paint everyone with the same brush. What you're trying to do is remove a legitimate grievance by calling everyone a psycho. I believe there is a fanboi rule for that somewhere.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
you'd know the majority of people did not wish harm on him or his family
Wrong. I wasnt blind to the past 2 years of bashing and hatred directed at the Dev team at SOE, were you? Or you just dont want to admit it now?
The guy, as well as other devs were bashed to no end, still are. People wanted them dead, out of a job, careers ruined etc. Paint it however you want, the few of you on this board who "forgave him" do not represent the majority of bloodthirsty tools out there who had a hate for him and the dev team that was downright scary. Again, its just a game.
As for a legitimate grievance, all I am saying is many of you were the same wishing ill will on him, deny it if you like, but it true.
as for fanboi commnet, not really sure what you are talking about to be honest, /shrug
There was bashing. There was hatred. And I'm not disputing that there were some asshats who wanted someone dead as a result. Your claim that those asshats are the majority, however, is what I called blind ignorance, and I always will. They deserved the bashing. They deserved the insults. If you screw up that badly at your job, would you expect to be doing it much longer? How does that screw-up look on a resume once you're fired for incompetence from your existing position and are looking for another job as a game designer? They deserved to be called out in every way, EXCEPT wanted dead. Nobody with an ounce of humanity wanted anyone dead. Yes, those people existed, but they were far and away in the minority.
This is all irrelevant anyway, as Jeff's own brother stated his suicide had nothing to do with the NGE. And those few who celebrate his death as some sort of "revenge" for destroying SWG can go crawl back under their rocks now; they made their point.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum