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Preparing Article - Seeking Comments
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Hello everyone,
I'm writing an article on SWG and the concept of making large changes to an existing game after launch. I wanted to get some thoughts from you guys before I publish it.
What do you think of the theory and then specifically how it has been applied to SWG?
Thanks in advance,
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
The most important thing is the reason WHY they are making the changes. Many people believe that it is solely for the purpose of being a launch title for the Playstation 3, and while this certainly may be a factor, no profit based company would attempt to alienate their existing player base, which might just sink the whole game, just to be available for console.
A lot of research is needed to get an accurate portrayal of all the factors that led up to this decision. Constant complaints from the community, from bugs to imbalances to cries that the game wasn't "Star Warsy" certainly helped the game go in this direction.
It's disastrous. I've had this discussion many times, even in SWG beta with a certain developer I ran into on Rori.
Though it says on the box that "game experience may change during play", what I find is that the MMO industry unlike many others is driven by TRUST and QUALITY, neither of which SOE has provided recently.
This isn't to say they haven't turned over a new leaf. To me, that remains to be seen.
But, back on topic, making major core changes to an existing online game should NEVER be warranted, assuming the thing works at all in the first place.
SWG initially WORKED, and had much potential. What happened here was what I perceive to be the following circumstances:
1 - SWG released, players not happy.
2 - SOE's SWG team misperceived why that situation occurred.
3 - They were diverted by cries for Jedi.
4 - At the same time they were running amok trying to balance the Galactic Civil War.
People were all over the place on what needed to be done to the game, and as a result we had the largest development team in the industry not focusing on specifics. They went willy nilly into the problem, and just made it worse by default of many developers not knowing what the others were doing.
Eventually, they cleared their expansion schedules and started concentrating on combat and suddenly it dawns on them that...they've really fouled it up by now.
Hence, the first Combat Upgrade.
Now, seeing that this was coming, I took about 11-12 months off and did other things, and came back afterwards. My judgment was that the CU1 was exceptional. It did a lot to improve the game.
What has always been missing though is immersion. It's never been Star Wars, because the characters you play have no actual purpose, with the exception of Bounty Hunter, and that game play was never delivered to the rest of the professions.
When they came-to, they realized that that immersion could never be realized in the old system and still provide some minimum of balance, and now we get CU2, or the NGE.
Two major core changes within a year, and you now have a customer base that's just not going to trust you anymore. People need to know that all the time they spent mastering their profession would return something of greater value than anything in the game itself...true mastery of that profession. A deep understanding of what the character in question can accomplish.
Making a major change such as this forces veteran players back to n00b status, and nobody is ever happy with this sort of thing.
A good example, Everquest: In that game, even through 10 full expansions, the core game is still the same as it was week-one release. This doesn't make the game boring in any way, because that core combat system was exceptional right out of beta. The attention to detail that Verant provided allows for such an experience, that to change it would be criminal, in more ways than one. Simply put, Everquest was nearly perfect. It only required additional content in the environment.
SWG in its current state is barely passable, but there is no immersive content to speak of. In this case, even given the above, I feel it's warranted if the developers can find NO OTHER WAY to provide that game that players have been seeking for more than 5 years now.
But in a general MMO management condition, these kind of changes should NEVER occur, they violate trust, and SOE has done this several times already in this one product.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Sweeping changes in any MMOG after launch is bad. Changes do not equal growth or added content. You don't need to change fundamentals of a game to add content.
It shows that the developers lacked a vision and/or the integrity to hold steadfast to it, and didn't properly test a product before release, probably relying on free labor to do so, which always results in an inferior/incomplete product.
When players buy a game based on it's current description and invest a lot of time leveling their characters and building their characters, they really deserve a full refund if desired, if sweeping changes fundamentally effect their character or playstyle.
It's fraudulent to sell a product that doesn't deliver what it was advertised to do, so changing a product after release, to the point where it no longer offers the same things that it originally did, is ethically wrong, if not accompanied by the offer of a complete refund, including all monthly fees paid as well as the cost of the original game.
"We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
Brad McQuaid
Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh
I hope at least a portion of your article focuses on how SOELA implemented these changes, whether you believe they were needed or not. To fundamentally change the game, not just tweak or alter some game mechanics, with two weeks notice is completely unacceptable. Not to mention to do so when players had just purchased the latest expansion 'Trials of Obi Wan'.
With all respect AA, I can't see that SOE/LA designed the NGE to placate the community complaints. I would imagine that SOE/LA would've included the community in testing, in the least more then two weeks from release.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
What went wrong is quite simple.
SOE started out CORRECTLY targeting my demographic, the generation X crowd. We grew up with Star Wars and were the biggest fans of it.
Many of us were heavily involved during the early development phase. I was having email conversations with the devs back as early as 1999 about the game. Guilds had formed long before the beta forums had even begun.
Beta began and we were again heavily involved with the developers. I on several occasions had indepth conversations with developers about features and long term goals of the game. One night I was out doing what the devs had requested of us...find and document POI in the game. I had found the gungan sacred place but bugged it because the missions were broken. 5 minutes after I submitted a bug report a dev spawned in and chatted with me for 20 minutes. He told me how the missions were purposely broken because they were a chain quest that would lead to access to the gungan underwater city...how cool I thought.
The game launched and quickly grew to 400k players. Yes there were issues but we gen Xers for the most part loved it. The ones who quit were the ones you hear now on the forums saying how much they love the NGE. They didnt like SWG pre-cu because frankly it wasnt targeted to them. The complexity would never appeal to them.
The game started to sour on my generation when SOE got greedy and broke the cardinal rule in mmorpgs....keep your vets happy.
SWG was a dissapointment to SOE. They had predicted it would be the first mmorpg in North America to hit 1 million players. It never came close. So SOE started to conduct those infamous focus groups and surveys to find out why it flopped. They didnt ask us gen Xers, they asked another group...the ones who left. Their main reasoning for leaving was simple.....JEDI.
So SOE added in the holocron hints and the game was never the same.
Every single change since then has been to the detriment of the former target audience. They got rid of permadeath. They added points of interest into th datapads. Anything to make the game easier and therefore more appealing to the younger players who had previously left.
Still the game floundered and so SOE started the CU. Again, more changes designed to make the game appeal to someone other than the core audience. They stripped down crafting as it was mostly despised by the kiddies due to its complexity. They added loot that always appeals to that crowd. Which for many was the final straw as it broke a long standing promise to have player crafted goods as always better.
In short, SOE got greedy and went for another type of gamer when they didnt get their 1 million players from my generation. And what they never understood, and still dont is they could have reached that mark if they had just fixed the dang game. Hell, to the day I left (Oct 30 2005) the gungan sacred place remained busted.
The article below backs up my belief that SOE did a huge mistake by changing the game too much. They should have been happy with their 400k players. Instead they got greedy and ironically will end up with zero very soon.
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1468&Itemid=35&limit=1&limitstart=0
Jeff Hickman
My rant is about how, as game developers, the fact that we often make changes to core pieces of our games after we launch. It's a critical error. Weve made changes to our games that were core changes and, while I cant say they were detrimental to our game, they probably didnt achieve the goals we wanted them to achieve.
As we make these games, we attract a certain type of player. They come to our game because of the things we put in there. The core functionality, the systems, the gameplay we put in, and then for whatever reason, because we see another game that looks really cool, thats maybe doing better than us, or we want to change our billing structure to make more money, or whatever the reason happens to be, we come out and make a systems change to our game, and what does it do? It alienates our current players. The people who are playing our game right now.
We go out and say, 'you know what, we want more of those players, we want that 3.5 million from that game over there.' So instead of sticking to the thing that our players really love, we start changing it. And now were alienating the players playing our game, losing our subscribers. The 3.5 million who are over there playing that game, theyre happy. Theyre playing that game already. Were not attracting them or, its very difficult to attract them. So the chance that youre taking as a developer making those changes is so huge. And you see it happen all the time. If you look at the games out there, theres not many big games or small games that have not made that error. So, thats my rant.
The article is more about the concept of change midstream than the actual mechanics. I am not an avid SWG player and it wouldn't be fair to comment in any depth on them.
I'm operating with the assumption that they believe what they are doing is for the good of the game and looking at how they approached, if they should have approached it at all and how they communicated all this to the community. Finally, my I'll state my opinion on if (or how best to) change midstream.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Heck SWG is a lession in making large changes to a game. They made the CU, stating that it would make the game better. However after implementing it, they lost many subscribers. Many of the changes in the CU did not take well to the game that many of the players were used to playing. For what ever reason, many of the players left. Basically showing that large changes to a live game are not easy to implement, and are not good in the long run. Because once you have made one change, the likly hood of another large change is increased.
These large changes have caused SWG to basically become a laughing stock of the MMO community. Even the NGE will not bring back what it could of been. It may not even be enough to keep current customers. The main problem here is that there is a communication disconnect between the developers, publishers, and player base. This is hampering the gathering of data to see what the large changes could be used to fix.
The issue isn't that they change the game. The issue is that they've done it twice in 6 months.
Not only that.. but they claim they have been working on this new system for over a year... which makes all the crazy changes of the first CU, and all the maltreatment of the community 6 months ago careless bordering on vindictive.
They've had this new system in the works secretly for a long time, yet during that time they...
1. Gave us a horrible Combat Upgrade full of bugs. A system that invalidated many many professions.
2. Sold us two buggy expansions.
3. The last expansion was shoved at us TWO DAYS before they announce these sweeping changes.
4. Promised us many profession revamps for, and even completely changed a class that NO LONGER EXISTS.
5. Ignored bugs.. yet added things that are no longer even applicable.
To emphasize.. they did ALL OF THAT when they knew they'd be replacing the system 6 months later.
It doesn't matter how good the new game is, or how bad. It is the rampant lies and mistreatment of the PEOPLE WHO PAY THEIR PAYCHECKS.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Suggested article title -
Star Wars: A New Dope
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Greetings,
I am going to try and keep it very moderated and try and best I can to keep my personal views of soe from creeping into these comments for you to consider.
Wide spread and sweeping changes to an existing game title come at known risk of alienating there existing customers. It is often a calculated risk in hopes of making an existing product that has a well known name more successful. The purpose is always stated to make for a better gaming experience for the players.
These changes usually follow a development process and at some juncture require testers to give input and feedback to help the team make it a crisp clean gaming experience.
What SOE has done with the New Game Enhancement is disregard the entire process of player input. So much so that they only real changes to this lastest change is debugging coding issues in the game. They setup a development process to improve communications with its game community and choose not to follow those processes. It was a slap in the face to the community as a whole. I as a member who watched the first combat upgrade thought that after the last time SOE would learn a serious lesson about the importance of acknowleding the community.
When you appoint correspondants to professions and make representatives of there classes for the community both on the forums and in the game and choose to ignore there very poigneted concerns you get the response you see today on there forums. It is without a doubt the single biggest problem corporate America especially in the gaming community faces. Do you sacrafice your existing players for the promise of new customers. Many other industries suffer the same problems. Whether it is SBC who refuse to give existing customers the rates a new subscriber can get or SOE deciding to go a different direction with its flagship science fiction MMO title. The decision is clear and obvious. When you can so evidently see through the decision and the company refuses to state the intentions it enrages people, mainly people of character and substance.
Instead of saying we are unhappy with the direction of the game. We want more customers and believe these changes will attract more subscribers they are force feeding us bullshit about this being better for us all. As if I don't know when I am being told something is good because it is good for THEM. Honesty is something this upgrades lacks. It is why is its doomed to fail.
Consumers dispite how stupid people think they are can smell bs. When you lie, code in secret, release expansions just before announcing the game is changing, don't follow through on promises. When you are not upfront with people and expect the sheep to fall into line you have major problems in your corporate structure.
Fundamentally what soe lacks is a true leader who is responsible and has principles. I doubt highly this article would even be necessary if SOE simply followed through on what it has stated publically to its community and to the media. There development philosophy was sound and resulted in a slightly improved relationship with its remaining members. This last change I think ruined any remaining credibility soe has with its customers or the media. When it finally comes down on SOE it will be fast and ruthless. Sony is going to notice this because the Star Wars titles death in America won't go unnoticed. When it finally does it the Sony board it will just look outside of itself to see the sick delussional methods used to fix this titles problems. No rational man can look and say "Oh you ignored your own development processes and the revamp failed Shocking!"
These are my thoughts not yours... use them as you wish...
Exactly.
This SHOULD have been the biggest MMORPG ever. Instead it has been re-designed TWICE.
What does that tell you?
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
My thoughts are less antagonistic toward SOE.
Without some measure of change, any entity reaches a pinnacle and then descends.
In game terms, a released game without change will reach a saturation point, where no further growth will occur. At that point, the game population will deteriorate over time.
SOE's perspective, as far as can be observed, is one of prolonging that trend as long as possible. They initiate change BEFORE the community demands it. Preemptively it would seem, and in many cases certainly not perceived in any way positive. They initiate change with the vision that it will increase their subscription base. Only time can tell their success or lack thereof.
With regard to WHAT is changed, that sometimes leaves me scratching my head in disbelief. But... I'm not the one saddled with expectations and financil goals either.
Only time can bring the truth of these things to light. So... we shall see
I'm coming in late to this discussion, but I wanted to say some things.
I believe that a game like this should have one visionary who dictates
what he wants the game to be and that vision should be obeyed, otherwise
you get all these mixed signles we seem to be getting from SOE, where they
want to keep jedi rare, then all of the sudden everyone can be a jedi, then
they want to take them out and now they are a starting profession.
You take a big risk with one person being the creative force behind a game,
but if the person is very creative, the game will be more cordinated, have
a singular vision about how things should be in this little universe and I
believe there woun't be a need for major changes to the core game when
most of the mechanics within the system are probably built to support and
bring to life the vision, the theme, of what this little universe is about.
I hope to build a game software company someday, and make games like
Bethesda's 'Morrowind' and 'Oblivion'. I want to be the one to dicate what
my worlds will be like, and if they fail, it will be on my shouldrs alone. I
will not accept input from players. That can be a dangerous road to go down,
since you can't please everyone and everyone has their own idea of what
makes a game good or bad.
I feel confident that my vision of how my games should be are inline with
may other pc gamers. I believe that confidence in one's own creativty is
what could have saved SWG if one person alone, a creative person, had
had full control over how that little universe we call SWG had been formed.
IMHO you should operate on the assumption that SOE is doing this for its bottom line, not for the good of the game or its players.
Basically all the veterans could leave the game and SOE wont be bothered much, if this is compensated by 2 million newbies, most of them consoleros.
Ever since WoW came out I had the feeling that Sonys execs were mesmerized by the number "4+ million subscribers" and kept thinking, DARN THAT COULD HAVE BEEN US !
So they will do just about anything ... dumbing down, changing, recoding, change the game mechanics, rape the timeline, push patches out too early ... to reach this goal of increasing their subscriber base tenfold.
Their reputation IS already quite bad, so they have nothing to lose. In German gaming magazines SOE was non-existent expect for expensive multi-page ads... while WoW, Daoc, EVE etc. got all the free coverage they could hope for. THAT is scary for SOE. THAT is the reason they risk such radical changes ... they have nothing to lose in the case of SWG.
Have fun
Erillion
PS:
And their little trick with the overpriced Trial of Obi Wan expansion (false advertising, milking the veterans one last time) went too far ... even SOE recognized that and offered the money back policy after a storm of protest and talk about a court case. So I suggest you couple that topic of radical changes in game system with the cynical business practises of Sony.
I don't play SWG, but I did play EQ2 when they changed mobs to more solo and the CU. I think it ruins the game. I think this, because by the time the devs change a game when its launched they're in panic mode. They make hasty decisions, which leads to unforeseen problems. Of course, I don't mean little nerfs, but I mean full blown knock you outta your socks changes. Now, if these changes are thought out over of a long period of time they can be good. Unfortunately, it is of my opinion that devs do not give a lot of thought into many expansions, or "upgrades" as they have the suits breathing down their necks to get out a product. No matter the condition.
The whole thing had probably gone down better if they had announced it sooner and had existing players play and test it. This thing will probably be very buggy once it goes live, at least it feels buggy on test center, I doubt it will be different once it goes live tomorrow. This will make even more people angry, like objects disappearing during conversion or your krayted ALR turned to a crappy CDEF rifle
.
It was obvious something had to be done, a lot of people were simply disappearing from the game (logging in less and less to the point where you never see them appear on your friends list anymore), but this drastic change might not have been the smartest thing to do
.
You're retarded.
IMHO you should operate on the assumption that SOE is doing this for its bottom line, not for the good of the game or its players.
Basically all the veterans could leave the game and SOE wont be bothered much, if this is compensated by 2 million newbies, most of them consoleros.
I fully agree with Erillion - SOE doesn't have anything to lose. Most likely they are aiming to launch for PS3 around 2006-2007. Current customer base is only alpha/beta testing this new product. When game it is going to be released for PS3, it is going to be only big MMORPG for PS3 - and only MMORGP that you can play with both PC and PS3. It is going to have millions of potentials customers - who haven't never played MMORPGs, and thus don't have preconception from SOE.
"I know I said this was my last post, but you my friend are a idiotic moron." -Shadow4482
From the perspective of a player of a generic game then...
PERMANENT CHANGES
1 - Nerfs = bad. Sometimes even improvements are bad if they change too much.
I took the time to learn the game and now it changed. I can expect little to no reward for doing this again.
2 - Additions of 'zones' or environment are good, changes to existing zones are bad.
I took the time to learn the area and now it changed. I can expect no reward for doing this again.
3 - Changes to the core design are disastrous.
I'm just a complete n00b again with no advantage for playing previously. Sometimes, I can't even use the existing equipment it took millions to purchase in the first place. This means all time-spent achieving has added up to little reward, and this can sometimes be more than a year of effort on the part of the player.
TEMPORARY CHANGES
In any way, a temporary change that adds additional content is good. This assumes that it is applied bug-free and doesn't create game-stopping circumstances.
Example: World of Warcraft recently implemented their typical temporary holiday content (event) and that was very good, except that on the day of the holiday itself the content removed itself from the game, as the automated removal code had been set improperly by date. They brought the servers down to add it back in for Halloween, and the servers remained down following another foul-up that caused them 6+ hours downtime depending upon the realm in question. That's bad.
I hold that this general viewpoint of players' opinion concerning permanent versus temporary change is entirely reliant upon their perception of trust in the game company. If the game company has a reputation of bug-free, excellent content changes, then they can get away with it, but still will always lose a percentage of their existing playerbase when making permanent design changes.
Temporary changes in the form of events are almost always a good thing, reliant only upon the company's ability to provide the event without major disruption. This is due to the fact that if the content does not meet the standards of the players, well, it's going away shortly anyway and this situation is at least acceptable to the players regardless of their viewpoint of the content presented in the event.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Here is my simple opinion:
Tweaks and balancing that doesn't change the core function of the game should be done by the game developer in order to enhance and improve gameplay. Content additions and tweaking should also be done.
However:
any change that drastically alters the play of the game for the current subscriber base should be given serious questioning and, if felt necessary the question "Should we just release a new game" should be raised.
For example: The CU in May made some core changes to the game but, in the end, it was still essentially the same game. The question should have come up "is this radical enough to warrent a new game" and the answer would have been "nah, it's still the same gameplay"
Now this NGE release (Note: I have NOT played it, I am going based on what I have read):
Major alteration to gameplay both combat and non combat aspects.
Reduction and even elimination of entire professions
The question should have been raised: Should we just release a new game
The answer should have been "YES!"
This would have done two things:
1) Kept current players happy and avoided a PR nightmare of near-biblical proportions. People who never even heard of SWG now have gotten the word to steer clear of it.
2) Given them much-needed "NEW PRODUCT" visibility. Releasing a change or expansion gets you some visibility but nothing on the level of releasing a new title:
SWG: The Clone Wars
or
SWG: The New Republic
Would have been a fantastic title for the NGE. It would have gotten rid of the need to explain the presence of numerous jedi players as both those timelines had Jedi.
Would have been a solid basis for a game in the Star Wars universe.
And "TNR" would have been a fantastic title to encourage players to migrate to the new game from the old if that was your goal..
Bottom line: Any change that drastically alters the core operation of the game should raise the question 'should we just release a new game' and at some point that answer should be 'yes'.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
They should move the timeline to about 50 years after the last movie. I think i read somewhere that the galaxy sprawled with jedi after the emperors second fall.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
If SOE spent more money on a development team and less on an in-house public relations team the game would be in far better shape.
And frankly SOE abuses the pr concept. Public relations professionals are the go-between communication boxes from a company and its customers. SOE however uses its pr professionals as propoganda tools and ignores feedback.
Look at what they did with the expansion. Players suspected something odd was going on when a starter kit showed up on several game sites. SOE has Tiggs state publicy that its a typo (which technically it was as the description was for KOTOR). Essentially SOE denied any such product and then launched an expansion knowing full well changes were coming.
None of this matters and SOE will continue to use pr professionals to spin their way out of trouble. The next group of players to buy them game for the holidays wont be aware of SOE's past behaviors. Therefore when the NGE is bugged and certain classes are overpowered, the players will actually trust SOE when they say fixes are on the way.
Nobody will be left to say "umm yeah right, what about those smuggler changes and the ranger ones, and capitol ships, and the hint of another droid revamp, etc"
In the end SOE wont change its way of doing business. There are really only two ways to bring about the changes we players need...
1. govt oversight - usually helpful but rarely a good thing for costs will rise. Game companies promise a working product and a govt agency ensures it complies before game is launched to public. Really its no different than other toy products, cars, food, etc. Most follow some guidlines.
2. competition - more games mean more choices. I bet 1/3 of the players who still play SWG do so because its only one of a few sci fi mmorpg out there. However in this day our politicians have seemed to forgotten monopolies are illegal and let companies like EA and SOE buy up the competition.
Please everyone, read what Lepidus is trying to do here... Refrain from the fanboisms *cough* AA *cough* and stick on topic, this is an important issue to address and I thank Lep for taking it on...
Objectively looking at any product on the market, would such overhauls like EQ2 and SWG even be remotely acceptable? Would you accept the fact if Apple told everyone, "Look, we are changing the internal mechanics of the iPod, so please update your iPod accordingly as the old version will no longer work or be supported, and please be patient while we work out the bugs while you still pay for iTunes and your iPod as regularly scheduled"... We are not talking about updates, but complete overhauls... Apple couldn't get away with it, neither should these half-ass game developers... It points to a fatal weakness in that product, and poor implementation and planning with everyone who was involved with the product...
Why are they doing this? Money is the only answer... WoW came along and changed everyone's perspective on the MMO genre, and everyone wants a slice of the Blizzard pie now... Changing SWG or EQ2 mid-stride to entice the millions of WoW players in counter-productive... #1, It looks really bad, and #2, It alienates the existing playerbase... Aside from the reasons for revamping anything (such as getting ready for console release, and this is indeed the reason for SWG's change, no matter how you slice it), #2 will always happen and is not acceptable... You can't disregard the wishes and well-being of your existing playerbase EVER!!!! Existing playerbases should be the 'golden nugget' of any company, it's called residual/repeat business and is the bread and butter for any MMO developer...
So is it worth risking the loss of your 'golden nugget' in order to attract some of the millions of new MMO'ers? The answer is a resounding NO!!!!! Its bad business practice, and goes against the core ideals of a rudimentary level of customer service and customer satisfaction... Businesses need to take risks, but never at the expense of a paying customer... People approach this as a 'delicate' issue and find all sorts of reasons to talk their way around massive updates like SWG & EQ2... For once it is at least satisfying to have an issue that is literally black and white... There is no gray area when it comes to consumers rights, especially long time subscribers...
One last example... Subscription based services depend on repeat business, stating the obvious here... What would happen if the Economist magazine (reputable magazine dealing with global economics) all of sudden said, "We are undergoing a massive change to appeal to teenagers and younger people, and will be making our magazine easier to read and understand, and taking a consiserable amount of depth out of our magazine to reach a larger audience"... This would never happen, you know why? Because the Economist, like other smart businesses would simply release a completey different product for this new target audience, and leave their existing subscribers alone...