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ChrisCao and Helios deals deathblow
Hauken
Member UncommonPosts: 649
So in last night postathon by the devs on the SWG forums. Devs ChrisCao and Helios killed off crafters and no combatants profession. Stating they are moving away from a simulated world type of game.
That was the last nail in the coffin for alot of players.
Game should be dead in less than 2 months.
/discuss
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
Comments
Well, at least we know the real SOE game plan for SWG:
Isn't it Iconic? Don't You Think?
what surprises me is it took this for non-combatants to wake and smell the coffee. Of course the game is moving away from non-combat roles. It has been since the CU almost a year ago.
It reminds me of the ex-master creature handlers holding out hope CH will return. Its not listed in any publish plan, devs have repeatedly stated its not a priority, and IF it does come back it wont be a seperate profession but simply an ability to have a few pets.
SWG has been dead for four months now. Unfortunately the body was left out to rot, occasionally Smed comes along and kicks it and says "See it's still alive, it just moved". ChrisCao and Helios are just trying to see if they can sell off some of the body parts.
SWG deserves to get a decent burial instead of the ghoulish treatment it currently is receiving.
I always knew in the pit of my belly that the Entertainer and Artisan trees of professions were doomed from the time that the CU hit. But I allowed smart, fun people like Erillion to tell me what I wanted to hear (that it would be okay in the end and might get better than before) rather than what I understood was going to happen (two full and incredibly rich categories of play slowly sunsetted into unimportant, unappealing secondary roles). This was my mistake and my fault. I knew better. But I wanted to believe.
Of course, I couldn't keep up even a thin pretense once they ushered in the NGE. But a lot of people needed to believe so badly that they kept fooling themselves. Because really, Smed never had anyone who didn't WANT to be fooled in the dark. It was all just a matter of how badly you needed to believe it would get better and how far you could stretch your willing suspension of disbelief.
Creature Handlers were strung along by Smed's saying that they'd be back in the game, but they had to be plugging their ears with their fingers and singing "LALALAAAA!!!" at the top of their lungs not to hear repeated assertions by the DEVs that they had no plans to put CH back into the game -- ever. It really was up there on the wall for all of us to see.
Now there is a similar lack of doubt for entertainers and traders about their continued role in the game. Chriscao and Helios made no bones about their opinions that noncombat professions weren't in line with their perceptions of what is Star Wars. These are guys who must have slept through most of the original trilogy and just read some reviews on the prequels, because I'm pretty certain that neither of them would know Star Wars if it stuck a thermal grenade up their asses and detonated it.
Helios stands on record as not having any use for politicians but as targets for assassins. Funny, but I think the Emperor, Princess Leia and Mon Mothma (politicians all) might have something to say about that . Trust me, it doesn't get much more iconic.
Chriscao goes on record with the stunning assertion that while they missed out on driods, droid engineers weren't Star Warsy. Well damn. Anakin Skywalker, droid engineer extrodinaire and future Dark Lord of the Sith might dispute that opinion. What could be more Star Wars than Darth feckin Vader?
Good old Chriscao goes even further to say that entertainers aren't Star Warsy either and that no one thinks of entertainers when they think of Star Wars. If this were REALLY the case, then why is it that so many people can tell you not only which entertainers were in which movies, what happened to them, what their NAMES were but can actually give you a list of some of their song titles? Sorry, man, but when the Cantina song from the original movie score makes it to the pop charts the year the movie comes out, it's hella Iconic. And yeah, it really did. People danced in discoteques to that damned song. True story.
Sorry, guys, but no matter what Smed and his merry band of Star Wars wannabes tell you, TONS of people loved doing their own take on Uncle Owen. Some people loved DE so much that they turned down the starring role as a jedi to keep doing it. And not every dancer was slated to be rancour snacks. That was just Jabba's girls. Wouldn't want to be one of them. We don't need to stretch into the Expanded Universe to find most of the old professions, though you might want to remember that those poor, heroic bothan spies never made so much as a cameo in any of the movies. To quote Chriscao... "they were implied".
If that justifies something not being carried forward into the new game or something being given diminished importance, then maybe he should have put that statement where it actually belonged. SPIES were implied. Droid engineers were featured, central, heroic characters. And before anyone pulls Leia out of their asses as a spy.... just don't. Because by that reasoning, every rebel was a spy because they had to stay on the downlow.
Sure, this new pack of devs seems to have a vision now. But too bad for the game, because their vision is singularly NOT Star Wars.
_______________________
Kote lo'shebs'ul narit
"SPIES were implied."
I assume you mean by the intro to Episode IV. Where it says "rebel spies stole.."
We actually saw what I'd term one spy in Episode IV that's the little guy that snoops on Luke/Ben and the droids. Then shows the troopers where they went (the bay the falcon was in).
But I mean I totally agree with everything you said.
Obviously we know who built 3PO... (as you stated).
Just like people who tell us CH should never have been in the game. In my mind the guys who took care of Jabba's Rancor and cried when luke killed it were CH's.
Someone also tamed and trained Tauntauns or however its spelled. Sorry I read the book around when the movie (empire strikes back) came out so actual spelling is a tad hazy for me.
All I really know is the game died for me not so much because they took away my profs (ch/be) or the CU or NGE.
The game died for me because my 100'ish person long friends list vanished.
The city I lived in is empty and the other cities I dealt with our empty.
There was an interview on one of the sites a while back. One of the SOE people said they learned two things:
1) They needed to communicate upcoming changes better.
2) A lot of people like creature handlers.
I don't even remember who it was just always struck me funny.
Especially since they were never really gonna bring back CH or communicate.. but know that they should. Then they wonder why the game is dying/dead.
Kinda like Smed's wonderful logic of how cancellations have slowed down..
No crap there aren't many people left to cancel..
(edited for spelling. Fixing old error and creating new ones to maintain balance.)
Ok, so this is what i don't get....The Dev's want to give people Star Warsy Stuff, wants everyone to "live" the Star wars experience and become the heroes of the movies..right? Their logic..get rid of the sandbox type game, eliminate crafters, entertainers, creature handlers etc....focus on combat, jedi and gunslingers...right?
I would argue that in order to truly live the Star Wars Experience, to be a hero, you need to have ordinary people, a virtual world....What fun is it now to be a Jedi Knight when there are 30 jedi knights all around you? Jedi were protectors of the people....so don't you take away from that when you remove the people?
Part of playing the role of a hero or a villain is the people around you...the ordinary run off the mill peeps that are the heart and soul of the galaxy.
I just don't get it, I really don't...The devs will soon realize that in a way, Uncle Owen was just as Star Warsy as Luke, Han or even Leia....but they'll realize this too late I'm afraid.
Soon we'll all be playing the game we once loved again and not giving SOE or LA a penny for it.
Yeah, Antarious, I know what you're saying. It's like a sig I saw a while back, that parodied a WW2 truism.
When they nerfed CH, I looked the other way.
When they nerfed HAM and ruined riflemen, I didn't say a word.
When they nerfed resources and crippled craftsmen, I closed my eyes.
Now they're coming for me and there isn't anyone left on my friends list to object.
As for the spy thing, I suppose there's a thin enough line between informant and spy that they could build a case on the alien who ratted out Luke to the empire in Mos Eisley. But I don't think they're really all that interested in legitimacy to actually go any farther than they already have. It's really all too clear that they arbitrarily chose professions they felt like working with that they figured would cover their bases and shoehorned them into what they knew about Star Wars after the fact.
Any attempt to slim down to actual Iconic roles used in choosing what made the final cut would have dropped Medic, and that's a fact. It's the only original proffesion tree that got less movie time than creature handler. What time it got wasn't even portrayed by an organic sentient. I stress original, because, let's face it -- Spy isn't really even a vague hat tip to Scout and Ranger trees. Spy is a new take on the fantasy game clone rogue/theif archetype, repackaged to wear a Star Wars skin.
_______________________
Kote lo'shebs'ul narit
Game is over.
Cancel and sell your toon now.
Truthfully and I may be alone here...
The only reason I played SWG is because Raph Koster was on the project. Beyond that the game was advertised as "skill based".
I always felt that was wrong because the game was what I termed a class/skill game at release. You were required to have certain things to get certain places which to some degree locked you into a class.
As compared to UO where (until power scrolls) you had 700 points to spend. A "tree" like swords, maces or any other was 100 points at Grand Master. So you could have 7 grand masters (hence the old term 7x gm) or some other allocation.
Obvously in SWG we had less points and the entry level things cost more. The novice box cost etc etc
Again defense stackers got around that .. well whatever.
I'll always agree that there could have been a lot more to SWG.
I'll never agree with the direction SOE & LAE took it tho. My biggest gripe is that rather than finish and fix what they started with. They just made it a new game or clone of other games.
When SWG came out at that point in time it would have been a great success. Its box sales and subscriber numbers had to be pretty high up of the MMO's out then.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that LAE/SOE compared SWG to WoW...
You can't compare any game well any game mostly released in the US to WoW.
So they went and tried to copy some aspects of WoW or EQ1/EQ2.
Problem as I saw it was... The people who liked those kind of games already have one or ones they like. There was no reason for them to go to the same exact game with a different skin.
The only way to compete with a game that is taking 5 to 7 million subscribers (I have no idea where wow is at now I don't play it) is to be... different.
At this point in time as much as I hate Electronic Arts...
If they said oh by the way we are redoing the graphics in UO with (insert some nice 3d engine)...
I would so seriously be back in UO with at least one of my old accounts so fast my head with spin.
I have some hope that Vanguard will be a good game... but its still a level/class game.
I like Brad and what I see from Sigil but I ... didn't really even put much time into EQ until 2002 after I got done with UO. Granted I played off and on from beta/release but not that much.
Well between work and the time I did spend in UO I didn't have much for EQ .. it wasn't that I didn't like the game.. it just wasn't me.
What Vanguard is offering that appeals to me is .. player owned houses and at some point the ability to form player cities. That is the thing that may get me into that game... but if UO had new graphics I still wouldn't go to Vangaurd.. just because its a class based game with levels.
I always knew in the pit of my belly that the Entertainer and Artisan trees of professions were doomed from the time that the CU hit. But I allowed smart, fun people like Erillion to tell me what I wanted to hear (that it would be okay in the end and might get better than before) rather than what I understood was going to happen (two full and incredibly rich categories of play slowly sunsetted into unimportant, unappealing secondary roles). This was my mistake and my fault. I knew better. But I wanted to believe.
Of course, I couldn't keep up even a thin pretense once they ushered in the NGE. But a lot of people needed to believe so badly that they kept fooling themselves. Because really, Smed never had anyone who didn't WANT to be fooled in the dark. It was all just a matter of how badly you needed to believe it would get better and how far you could stretch your willing suspension of disbelief.
Creature Handlers were strung along by Smed's saying that they'd be back in the game, but they had to be plugging their ears with their fingers and singing "LALALAAAA!!!" at the top of their lungs not to hear repeated assertions by the DEVs that they had no plans to put CH back into the game -- ever. It really was up there on the wall for all of us to see.
Now there is a similar lack of doubt for entertainers and traders about their continued role in the game. Chriscao and Helios made no bones about their opinions that noncombat professions weren't in line with their perceptions of what is Star Wars. These are guys who must have slept through most of the original trilogy and just read some reviews on the prequels, because I'm pretty certain that neither of them would know Star Wars if it stuck a thermal grenade up their asses and detonated it.
Helios stands on record as not having any use for politicians but as targets for assassins. Funny, but I think the Emperor, Princess Leia and Mon Mothma (politicians all) might have something to say about that . Trust me, it doesn't get much more iconic.
Chriscao goes on record with the stunning assertion that while they missed out on driods, droid engineers weren't Star Warsy. Well damn. Anakin Skywalker, droid engineer extrodinaire and future Dark Lord of the Sith might dispute that opinion. What could be more Star Wars than Darth feckin Vader?
Im curious to Erillion's stand on SWG now. He was always a passionate defender of the game and while I disagreed with him 99% I respected his opinion.
I recall he was a Droid engineer as I was (my alt anyway). I wonder what he thinks of Chriscao's statement that droid engineers arent starwarsey and would rather have droids as a race to choose from instead.
Personally, if I had still been playing that statement would have sent me over the cliff to cancel. I loved my droid engineer and played him 99% over my jedi main 1%. I would give anything to play him again and run my mall in a game world where I was needed and appreciated
Though I couldn't post because I have no active accounts, I did keep an eye on all of the red names, and especially smeds posts, as I'm sure many of the players that left and couldn't post anymore also did... And I thought it was pretty funny to see Smed trying to break the ice and not be cryptic. These guys finally are being open about the fact that the game has suffered and is at an all time low.
SMED himself went as far as to say "IMO we'll probably need a server merge". NO SHIT! Wow! You finally found out that on top of the fact that the NGE sucks, that even the players who would deal with it were just plain out bored of the ghost towns and nobody to do anything at all with. Yes, a server merge is needed, welcome to 3 months ago Smed! You guys are just now realizing the domino effect that happened as a result of the game feeling "empty".
Well, personally, I'll hold out. When it becomes a clean game again, and it becomes fun to level a new toon, maybe i'll buy the game again. I like PvP. And when I left a few months ago and got rid of my last account (which was a respec jedi, after 2 elder accounts), it was a mess, it was stupid, and hardly anyone was there. I, and everyone else I know, only logged on for HK-47, then logged out. FUN! NOT!
When they make it fun and cool to level again, when there's a server with an actual population that feels like an MMO, and most importantly when PvP is fun again (I mean bases, big battles, not the boring 5v5's in front of theed that are more predictable than water coming to a boil), then I'll go buy the game again and play.
But hopefully by now, they realize that the old playerbase that has left is still watching, and feel that nothing is satisfying them as much as the old game did. They know that we're watching to forums to see what real progress is being made and that we aren't paying them their 15 bucks a month until it's fun. They thought we'd just keep paying and suck it up. They were wrong and now the game population reflects that.
When the news first broke that Smed had posted on some EQ guild website as opposed to the SWG boards I ended up clicking on a few links to that place and reading other posts there. If you read the comments of his chosen peer group you can see the direction the game is heading right now. Posts full of derision for the "losers who play SWG" and talking about how "everyone" expects to be a hero in a Star Wars game and not a "dirt farmer". Of course none of those toadies play SWG now or ever, but they are experts on what an MMO is all about...as if there is only one playstyle and they define it.
I simply find it very interesting that this is Smed's chosen peer group and most of what they are saying he is implementing. None of them are playing, but he is breaking his neck to make the game the way they describe it. If you haven't poked around those forums and read some of the posts from Smed's friends I encourage you to do so...its very enlightening. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if that place is where Smed got his infamous "focus group" that yielded the NGE.
Here is the link. Explore the posts a bit and I think you will find it interesting to say the least. LINK: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/18739-soe-loses-star-wars-mmog-license-chief-creative-officer-allegedly-4.html
See, that's the thing, right there. We are defying their publicly stated predictions that we'd be crawling back and licking up what they left us of the game. Somehow, I really think that they honestly believe that if they just keep that ship on course that the iceburg is going to turn out to be nothing but an illusion that they can sail right through. But we haven't all come running back. So they're playing this massive game of chicken with us, hoping irrationally that at that last second, before they can sink their ship that we'll do just what they said we would.
I don't know what is less rational, the company that publicly says that its vets will come crawling back or the vets that stubbornly stand back and wait for the company to give them back their game. I don't think either thing will happen. I think the ship is going to strike iceburg and sink. Neither they nor we will get what we want out of this. But they don't leave us any choice.
Who with any dignity would go back to spend money with a company that not only refuses to supply us what we used to buy from them, but who publicly laugh at us for having given them our money to begin with? It defies all rational thought. Even if you look at SWG as an addictive product, when you swap out someone's drug for something they're not hooked on and don't like, they're not going to keep buying from you. Even if there isn't another dealer that carries the drug you used to sell them.
Yeah, I'm quite sure that Smed's little minions know we're still standing back in the lurkers' section watching them. I'm pretty convinced a lot of what was said in those posts was directed at us. I even suspect that some of the things we write on sites like MMORPG.com actually gets read by these guys. But in the end, I don't think that as far as the WE vs THEM contest of wills goes that there is going to be any satisfactory conclusion as far as SWG goes.
The only war we can hope to win is the bigger one, when and if SOE's ship sinks, that warns other publishing houses not to make the same mistakes that SOE has committed. And to be brutually frank, I think even that victory is only going to be a partial one, as I really don't think that the decision makers in most of these gaming companies have the intelligence to figure out exactly what things SOE has done that led them to this sorry state of events. After all, these are the geniuses saying "there is no market for the virtual sandbox".
But I think that even a small victory is better than the state of the gaming market right now. So here I am. Living Luke Skywalker dreams of overcoming something that seems impossibly large. But instead of enjoying this in a game and paying good money to do it, I'm being annoyed as hell and dealing with it in a real life, unglamourous and utterly unexciting manner. Free of charge.
Funny, huh?
_______________________
Kote lo'shebs'ul narit
It is rather funny that they seem so sure there is no market for "sandbox" mmo's when at the same time EvE continues to grow and is very much a sandbox style game..
It was pointed out before that soe missed the boat with wow's success, if they had played it smart they would have fixed up the original game then mass marketed it focusing on the skill based system and sandbox playstyle the market is filled with disillusioned wow players that are looking for something with more depth and freedom.
The more I think about it the more I feel that these changes have nothing to do with getting a new playerbase and everything to do with making all the games they run similar enough to allow for greatly reduced staff in a move to save money.
There is no more us verses them, by reading the red posts yesterday we can see clearly no matter what they are moving forward in the direction they intend on going.
The arrogance of the powers that be there wanted to achieve a historical happening which at the 4 month mark of nge did not go as intended.
Reguardless of lack of forsight, finished product release of expansion then this, the fact they did it anyway will have long term consequnces for their company as a whole..
There will also be short term consequnces for all other mmorpgs out there as well as new ones coming out.
There long term ablity to sway customers to their offerings will be a hard road to tow given all the x swg folks with long memories of what they did to their game, will have a direct affect on no matter how wonderful there next game will be , there will be tons of skeptisim and bad press.
With other companies x swg folks that use to do the 3 / 6 month pre pay will most likely think long and hard about a long term commitment to any game given what they expearinced at soe. The second part new up coming mmorpgs might experaince is the lack of ability x swg folks or even other long term gamers will not have the tolerance to deal with sloppiness for long term play knowing full well it takes a while to get the kinks out.
So in answer to who wins, not sure it's a stalemate, if we the players learned anything then maybe we will be more warry of the next offering that sounds to good to be true and the release is sloppy........
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that 99% of the people bitching right now, used to say the same things. They used to say they hated SWG because they didn't want the game to be a second job.
Even Admriker who claims to have loved SWG, if you go back and find his earliest posts, years before the CU hit, he was saying the game was awful and he was quiting. I challenge anyone to find one post from Admriker that has something positive to say about SWG.
If I had more time, or thought anyone would actually read it, I'd probably be able to find a bunch more people that are doing the same thing.
That is why you take the forums with a grain of salt. Usually they are populated by people who are not happy with the game for some reason. My experiences with AO in the early days and COH have lead me to believe that MMO Forums are like this. However recent history with SWG has now created a situation where everyone is reading the forums and not playing the game. Hence the giant DEV postings there this weekend, they knew that everyone was reading it.
As for the second job idea, well to have a good experience in an MMO, you need to invest time into it. If you can't invest time into the game, you will not be playing it. This can be traced back to MUDs, and eventually Pen and Paper games, there is no instant gratification here. However with the changes WOW did with the rest function really should be played up more. Look, I can go to sleep/work/school and come back to the game and still have a chance to level up at the same rate as someone playing during that time. Not instant, but a lot better then nothing. Personally, I think that is WOW's best kept secret, and I'm hoping that more MMOs do that in the future.
SWG toons.. 50 cents or 3 for a buck!!!
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
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swggpdiscussion&message.id=637246#M637246
"... I'm not saying this is happening, but what if crafting became an expertise tree that you could take on top of your normal profession? Like you could choose Politician, or Munititions Trader, or whatnot on top of being a Spy, etc..." --Helios_SOE
Edit:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swggpdiscussion&message.id=637385#M637385
"Helios, if you do that, me and my five accounts, which have been around a very long time will be definitely gone!! In fact, if you guys keep stating things like this even hypothetically on the forums, I think I may be gone." -- One-of-Fourteen
"Like I said... I'm not saying that's what's happening. I was giving that as a hypothetical example of a circumstance in which it would be wasteful to invest precious time on a new feature addition that would become irrelevant in a couple of months. " -- Helios_SOE
Waiting on: Pirates of the Burning Sea and Pirates of the Carribean Online
I took up your challenge, Jodokai, I FAILED...
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion.cfm/load/forums/loadforum/433/loadthread/14485/setstart/1/loadclass/103
"...
This game was advertised by SOE as casual gamer friendly (anyone remember that). Now all we see is SOE playing to powergamers by releasing dungeon after stupid dungeon in a vain attempt to keep thos powergamers happy with something to camp for a few weeks. How about fixing the Gungan Sacred place SOE ? Its been broken for a year now. Nope, gotta add a dungeon so powergamers don't quit like everyone else already has.
Bye Bye SOE, you've seen the last of my dollars ever again."
-- admriker444, 6/04/04
Starting with this post and reading his catalog of work, it's easy to think that admriker444 might have an unhealthy condition that seems to be getting worse.
However, he wasn't the only one I found who was criticising SWG Pre-CU, yet are still hanging around to continue attacking it.
It is surprisingly fun to read through some of the old posts on this forum, but it's also a bit disheartening to wake-up to the possibility that many of the people you thought were up in arms over the NGE fiasco are actually up in arms just for the sake of being so.
That is not a bandwagon I wish to be part of.
-d
Waiting on: Pirates of the Burning Sea and Pirates of the Carribean Online
Then count us rangers as part of that 1%. No matter what gripe you may have about the game - being taken entirely out of it does tend to give you a reason to bitch.
In all actuality, I did leave at the CU because it wasn't what I liked (yes - I tried it out on the TC for as long as they had it up). I actually believed their last minute dialogue about the Ranger revamp. Contributed ideas and was intent on coming back (even posted defending SOE for its possible turn around- you can find in these forums) despite my displeasure of the CU. That REVAMP was a smokescreen and I have yet to hear one person defend that action. You can't. It was a lie.
Here is the stick of it. Since launch - have people had a reason to gripe? Yes. 100% yes. SWG's history is plague with screw ups, pushes that should have waited, fotms, and most importantly piss poor decision making. It was launched incomplete and seemed ot be pulled in many directions.
Still, apparently the community and the setting kept them coming back everyday. Does that mean that they should have been silent? Taken what is given them without voicing their opinions? I think not. Why did they end up over here voicing them? We all know that answer and even Smed admits to it. Their forum tactics are ruthless and self serving. I have seen THE best points raised on their sites without malice and then watched them removed in less than hours. They end up over here because SOE has shown with its current management to have little regard for the thought of its once flourishing community. The ONLY way they started paying attention was when the subs started dropping and the negative press started rolling in. AND where do you think this information comes from? From players past and present - information posted on other sites like mmorpg. This forum here may be full of rumors but it also has its truths. The truths helped cause this current tide shift that we are all watching unfold.
Dig me up all you want. But let me save you the trouble. PReCU had issues with bugs, content and profession neglect. I still played it into the wee hours off the morning on a nightly basis. CU - I left. It wasn't the CU I was told about and then it was pushed to Live WAAAAAAAAY too early despite our posts in their bug threads. NGE - it KILLED rangers, wasn't what the paying customers at that time wanted and seeing as it was funded with their money - you'd think they would have been asked. Even if the NGE was the route they should have taken - it was pushed out to live far too early as well. It killed crafting, Jedi were useless and the rest well you can find in your searching of posts. NO one in the industry has inflicted such a large scale change on their players and I assure you it won't happen again (atleast by anyone outside of SOE).
Admriker may always have been on the negative side of things but you know what - that doesn't make his points at this current time invalid. I don't always agree with him but he brings up points and starts dialogue. Were people to be silent - how much more of doormats would the people of SWG be?
I'm sorry, but his posts are invalid when he's just saying the same thing he's been saying for over two years only with different specifics. I can totally understand people having criticisms of the game, leaving then deciding to come back later on, only to be disappointed again. Heck, I've played the game off and on myself because of frustrations I've run into (Though, I've never felt the need to log onto forums and whine about it 'til the NGE.) However, in Admriker's case his theme is consistent:
Pre-CU - "This game sucks and could be so much better. Everyone quit, no one's playing. The devs are idiots. They'll be lucky if they ever get another dime out of me."
CU - "This game sucks and was so much better. Everyone quit, no one's playing. The devs are idiots. They'll be lucky if they ever get another dime out of me."
NGE - "This game sucks and was so much better. Everyone quit, no one's playing. The devs are idiots. They'll be lucky if they ever get another dime out of me."
All that changes are the specific points as to why "It sucks. Everyone quit. The devs are idiots. I'm not paying for this," and those he apparently pulls from whatever the FOTM forum complaint is.
I only use Admriker as an example because he takes it to the extreme and makes a perfect illustration, but I'm seeing enough of this type of behavior looking at the history of this forum to agree with Jodokai 100% on his assessment and to cast some serious doubts, in my mind, on credibility of the Anti-NGE crowd as a whole.
Are there real reasons to dislike SOE, NGE and the way things are handled with SWG? Definetly.
Am I ever going to read someone whose post consists of "This game sucks and was so much better. Everyone quit, no one's playing. The devs are idiots. They'll be lucky if they ever get another dime out of me," and consider them to be anything more than a person who likes to have people hear them whine? Probably not.
-d
Waiting on: Pirates of the Burning Sea and Pirates of the Carribean Online
@Duggo & Jodokai
Kinda funny, but you won't find a single post by me trashing the pre-CU game. Why? It's simple. I was so damned happy playing it that I didn't have the time or inclination to bother with any forums other than the official Station forums, and that I used to publish RPs I'd done while playing the game. I was a VERY satisfied customer.
You'll note that my debut here on MMORPG.com was a serious bitchfest about the CU. I honestly didn't like it. At that point, I was a salvageable customer though, and amazing players like Erillion convinced me to give it another go. I did. And I adjusted. It was never the game I loved before after that point, but it was (barely) sufficient to retain my monthly sub fees for the two accounts I had. You'll also notice, that while I did end up coming around to support people in trying the CU (because while it didn't really make ME all that happy, I COULD see how it might float someone else's boat) I was candid about those things I didn't like.
The NGE is a whole different game and a whole new attitude. I hate it. I hate how it was done. I refuse to support it. I refuse to endorse trying it to new players. I feel it was the final dealbreaker from SOE and LA to its customer base. And I am very candid about every last bit of this opinion in all of my postings. Do I defend the right of those who feel differently to express their opinions? Hell yes, I do. Do I feel they're making a good purchase? Not on your life. But that's not mine to judge and if it makes them happy, let them be happy.
There. You're not going to be able to lump everyone into your case this time. I'm sorry. I'm not the only exception.
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Kote lo'shebs'ul narit
Wow. Can you believe that it actually isn't always all about you, Azh?
I agree that the claim of 99% is exaggeration, but the trend is prevalent enough to make me consider that all the bitching and moaning flooding this forum isn't necessarily what meets the eye. And where I would once read someone's scathing editorial on the state of affairs at SOE and say, "right on, I totally relate," now I don't know if I can really relate at all or even want to.
It now seems to me that people want to hate SOE and SWG. I don't. I want to enjoy the game. I want there to be a resolution that makes me say, "ok, cool, now I can pick up where I left off," or "good enough, now I can at least have fun again." But it appears that the people posting a lot of the hate really don't want any sort of resolution at all, they just want a whipping boy that they can gang up on and sling stones and arrows at.
That's just what I'm seeing, and it doesn't sit well with me.
-d
Waiting on: Pirates of the Burning Sea and Pirates of the Carribean Online