I will not deny that the pre-cu game had its problems. They were numerous. It was still the best MMO I have ever played, issues and all. But to entirely throw that game out the window and replace it with the CU, and then the NGE...well that's just ridiculous. I was even a supporter of the CU at first...until I saw its impact on the game.
And the way $OE shows such complete disregard for its player base is insane. It is not so much that they only care about money...that is not it. They are a business and are supposed to care about money. They run their company worse than the government runs...well anything. That is pretty pathetic. They have run that game into the ground and it is sad. It is a very, very sad thing to see the promise that the game had be wasted. While it is just a game, it is something I spent a lot of time and money on and it is sad to see it ruined.
The NGE is just aweful. It is not the game I loved. That game is gone.
Originally posted by Cereth Those must be some pretty "rose colored glasses" you're wearing. When you're looking at a turd through them, do you see a flower?
Do you look back at pre-cu and see a flower?
I don't. Pre-CU needed balance & tweaking. I look back and see fun gameplay, adventure, population, unique characters, growing player cities, hundreds of hours of fun & friends that play.
And see this is where this all got bad.
We saw and HEARD Devs promising things then... we had people, growing , busy -- economy, choices, reading... rare Jedi and people all over the freaking place.
It was a world, with all its issues it was NOTHING or NOT NEAR as bad as the NGE has been. If they had just called in the big guns then to step up the games issue and bug fixes we may not be having this convo right now.
The fact of the matter is NOW there is many people that regret doing this, Obrail, Pirrg or any NGEr can even argue that.. to many people have stated CLEARLY they wished they never did this.
That alone should speak volumes to people of how bad it is. If it does not then those people need to stay away from any business managment in thier lives. To deny this as a failure or mistake is just foolish. Most people know, sure they do not want to admit it.. who would?
None the less, We had somthing special then... all the bugs or issues we just did. If they had figured out how to make that work then it would have made it -- it may have gained more subs and did alot better... but they chose to play "experimental game change time" and now they are paying for it.
There is nothing good that came from the NGE other then alot of people being able to spend more time with thier family's. For that I should thank the NGE I guess... but that is about it.
From all extremes across the web and the real world they fucked this up bad, we know it, they know it... now it's just a matter of time before the players that are left deal with it.
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Originally posted by Cereth Those must be some pretty "rose colored glasses" you're wearing. When you're looking at a turd through them, do you see a flower?
Do you look back at pre-cu and see a flower?
Your replies are getting weak if that is all you have.
We saw potential back then, more so then now obviously lol... and SOE even thinks so.
Look at who has jumped ship and you can figure that one out... but you have use logic and common sense to see this.
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Originally posted by BaronJuJu Looks like they pulled the article: "I've temporarily pulled the Article. Rest assured that it will be back up within a short period of time. Looking over the article it doesn't meet certain criteria, namely. It doesn't do the site or the audience justice. In other words it can be better, and I don't believe in sub par work. Sincerely,
Cheif Editor MMOCraft.com"
I hope to god the "Cheif" Editor fixes his title. That site simply is proven to be junk.
Originally posted by haxxjoo Originally posted by BaronJuJu Looks like they pulled the article: "I've temporarily pulled the Article. Rest assured that it will be back up within a short period of time. Looking over the article it doesn't meet certain criteria, namely. It doesn't do the site or the audience justice. In other words it can be better, and I don't believe in sub par work.Sincerely,
Cheif Editor MMOCraft.com"
I hope to god the "Cheif" Editor fixes his title. That site simply is proven to be junk. Did anyone save the original article somewhere? I didn't get a chance to read it and it would be useful to to read the original before SOE bought off.. er... I mean... talked to MMOCraft...
SWG Tempest: Cardo Dycen RIP Eve: Cardoh Dycen I support random drug testing for all SOE employees
Originally posted by BaronJuJu Looks like they pulled the article: "I've temporarily pulled the Article. Rest assured that it will be back up within a short period of time. Looking over the article it doesn't meet certain criteria, namely. It doesn't do the site or the audience justice. In other words it can be better, and I don't believe in sub par work. Sincerely,
Cheif Editor MMOCraft.com"
I hope to god the "Cheif" Editor fixes his title. That site simply is proven to be junk.
Did anyone save the original article somewhere? I didn't get a chance to read it and it would be useful to to read the original before SOE bought off.. er... I mean... talked to MMOCraft...
It was just basically the same thing everyone's heard before, but had about 50 spelling and grammar mistakes.
Heres the original grave. Its the best article of the truth ive ever seen biased or whatever anyone thinks
I recently had the opportunity to revisit Star Wars: Galaxies in the form of the Veteran Trial.
Let me begin by saying that the game is By Far- better than when I left the game in January. However, I have to say that the game still isnt better than it was last March, not by a long shot.
The game has far more bugs than it ever did in the Classic or Pre-CU form, not only that, but the bugs are far more noticeable than they were then.
What are the major things wrong with the game at this point?
The Interface: Very subpar on design, more difficult than the original to maneuver and understand.
Buggy as all get out, some windows just simply disappear off the side of the game forcing a UI reset.
Customization is very limited. Are the Developers deliberately trying to force the way they like to see their game laid out on thousands of people? WOWs interface has the best customization options of any game Ive ever played. Perhaps SOE should take some notes on that aspect of WOW instead of the other blatant ones theyve taken.
The game curser comes free of the game forcing you to log out and then back in.
The Control set: This is the part that really angers a lot of players, new and old alike.
The blatant attempt to force people to use the FPS style control set from the NGE is very obvious.
The controls are lack luster, counter-intuitive and buggy.
Again theres no real customization that works well. How about just simply giving the choice to use the original control scheme? They have one named to imply that its the original control scheme, however it isnt even close , not to mention that in order to get the control scheme back to the true original form still takes a monumental amount of handpicked customization. And when youre done with all of the handpicked customization, the controls still dont work properly!?
Cant they do any better?
The Content: While there has always been discontent over the amount, or lack thereof, of content in Star Wars: Galaxies, the game has hit a true low in high end content. When I first started to play Galaxies in 2004 there were enough people playing that a group could easily roll their own content. However with fewer and fewer people subscribing, theres simply not much to do. The ever increasing emptiness of the SWG online world makes what content there is in the game not very fun.
Baron Waste Land: Quite honestly the game world is a baron waste land at this time. Player cities that once housed hundreds of thousands of players sit as a reminder of how loved the game once was. Players spent millions of hours collectively loving, nurturing and decorating these virtual cities. Sadly only a spars population remains to enjoy the talent put forth in there creation.
The Simplification: While I can agree that there was a learning curve to the original SWG game play, it was not That difficult to learn [it was one of my very first MMOs and I learned it just fine, as did hundreds of thousands of other devoted players]. Do the Developers really think that their paying customers are morons that require an over simplified over guided tour of their vision? The blatant Copy Cat attempt to try, in vain, to get the World of Warcraft player base is embarrassing. The thought Id like to put forth to SOE is that Leaders do not follow think about that statement.
The Problems with Classic SWG Lazy Development: The developers have said too many times to count that the game was too difficult to continue development in the original form. Buy yet they redesigned the game twice in a short time span. The claim that they could not balance 32 professions is an obvious misrepresentation. Not only was it possible to balance the professions, it would have taken much less effort than a complete redesign of the game [NGE] and one half assed effort at a balance pass [the CU].
The Alpha Class Misnomer: The making of Jedi as a starting class was based on a claim that Alpha classes dont work in games and that it was a huge failure. The other claim is that everyone had figured out how to achieve the secret method by which to obtain Jedi, so all people would eventually be a Jedi anyway.
If Alpha classes were such a failure, then why have they been put back in the game in the form of the GCW rank system? Clearly with the difficulty of getting the rank of General and the new skills and equipment available at that rank will make General somewhat of an Alpha. The Rank decay is eerily similar to the Jedi death penalty system ,without the death part. On the everyone had figured out the path to Jedi argument, the only reason that people figured it out quickly is because you gave them the path via Holocrons creating tens of thousands of HoloWhores, people that did nothing but grind professions in order to gain Jedi. Then you took out most of the penalties of having the alpha Jedi, hmm, wonder why it didnt work anymore?
Impossible to Balance: Completely untrue. If the developers had spent the same amount of effort on balancing the original game as they have over the last year polishing the turd that now exists as SWG, the game would be fantastic. My opinion is that they deliberately tanked the game in order to make an attempt to justify changing it into what we have today. Id be more than happy to debate any mechanic aspect of the classic SWG that the developers would like to claim as hopelessly un-fixable. Buffs, Armor, Weapons, and class defense and damage were all easily fixable by changing the formula that governed those systems and would only really require that they actually know how to use a simple tool the calculator.
Not Looking Back: The developers claim that theres no possibility that Classic servers will ever return. My guess is that they know that a vast majority of players of SWG would never play the NGE version of the game given a choice. Quite simply theres a zero percent chance that the NGE can ever win toe-to-toe verses the classic version and placing a Yugo next to a Corvette would force them to see that they have been dead wrong .
The Classic [Pre-Cu] game is coming back, whether SOE does it or not. Theres several Emulators in varying stages of development as I write this. SOE has the unique advantage of putting Classic servers up as a subscription service gaining millions of dollars in doing so, not to mention saving some face with the entire MMO community. Lets check the math
Lets assume that the Classic version gathered 100,000 players, an easy goal for something so blatantly popular.
14.95X100,000= 1,495,000 per month X12= 17,940,000 per year. Thats almost 18 million per year! Let me repeat 18 MILLION U.S. DOLLARS PER YEARfor simply not only saying sorry but actually doing something to prove that you are in fact sorry!
In Closing Avoid the NGE version of Star Wars: Galaxies at all costs, its simply a waste of money. The lack luster attempt at making the love child of Battle Front and World of Warcraft doesnt work. The lack of players playing this game tells the true tale of how good this game really isnt. Its simply not worthy of a subscription fee of any kind.
Originally posted by dontchathere Heres the original grave. Its the best article of the truth ive ever seen biased or whatever anyone thinks
I recently had the opportunity to revisit Star Wars: Galaxies in the form of the Veteran Trial. Let me begin by saying that the game is By Far- better than when I left the game in January. However, I have to say that the game still isnt better than it was last March, not by a long shot. The game has far more bugs than it ever did in the Classic or Pre-CU form, not only that, but the bugs are far more noticeable than they were then. What are the major things wrong with the game at this point? The Interface: Very subpar on design, more difficult than the original to maneuver and understand. Buggy as all get out, some windows just simply disappear off the side of the game forcing a UI reset.
Customization is very limited. Are the Developers deliberately trying to force the way they like to see their game laid out on thousands of people? WOWs interface has the best customization options of any game Ive ever played. Perhaps SOE should take some notes on that aspect of WOW instead of the other blatant ones theyve taken. The game curser comes free of the game forcing you to log out and then back in. The Control set: This is the part that really angers a lot of players, new and old alike. The blatant attempt to force people to use the FPS style control set from the NGE is very obvious. The controls are lack luster, counter-intuitive and buggy. Again theres no real customization that works well. How about just simply giving the choice to use the original control scheme? They have one named to imply that its the original control scheme, however it isnt even close , not to mention that in order to get the control scheme back to the true original form still takes a monumental amount of handpicked customization. And when youre done with all of the handpicked customization, the controls still dont work properly!? Cant they do any better? The Content: While there has always been discontent over the amount, or lack thereof, of content in Star Wars: Galaxies, the game has hit a true low in high end content. When I first started to play Galaxies in 2004 there were enough people playing that a group could easily roll their own content. However with fewer and fewer people subscribing, theres simply not much to do. The ever increasing emptiness of the SWG online world makes what content there is in the game not very fun. Baron Waste Land: Quite honestly the game world is a baron waste land at this time. Player cities that once housed hundreds of thousands of players sit as a reminder of how loved the game once was. Players spent millions of hours collectively loving, nurturing and decorating these virtual cities. Sadly only a spars population remains to enjoy the talent put forth in there creation. The Simplification: While I can agree that there was a learning curve to the original SWG game play, it was not That difficult to learn [it was one of my very first MMOs and I learned it just fine, as did hundreds of thousands of other devoted players]. Do the Developers really think that their paying customers are morons that require an over simplified over guided tour of their vision? The blatant Copy Cat attempt to try, in vain, to get the World of Warcraft player base is embarrassing. The thought Id like to put forth to SOE is that Leaders do not follow think about that statement. The Problems with Classic SWG Lazy Development: The developers have said too many times to count that the game was too difficult to continue development in the original form. Buy yet they redesigned the game twice in a short time span. The claim that they could not balance 32 professions is an obvious misrepresentation. Not only was it possible to balance the professions, it would have taken much less effort than a complete redesign of the game [NGE] and one half assed effort at a balance pass [the CU]. The Alpha Class Misnomer: The making of Jedi as a starting class was based on a claim that Alpha classes dont work in games and that it was a huge failure. The other claim is that everyone had figured out how to achieve the secret method by which to obtain Jedi, so all people would eventually be a Jedi anyway. If Alpha classes were such a failure, then why have they been put back in the game in the form of the GCW rank system? Clearly with the difficulty of getting the rank of General and the new skills and equipment available at that rank will make General somewhat of an Alpha. The Rank decay is eerily similar to the Jedi death penalty system ,without the death part. On the everyone had figured out the path to Jedi argument, the only reason that people figured it out quickly is because you gave them the path via Holocrons creating tens of thousands of HoloWhores, people that did nothing but grind professions in order to gain Jedi. Then you took out most of the penalties of having the alpha Jedi, hmm, wonder why it didnt work anymore? Impossible to Balance: Completely untrue. If the developers had spent the same amount of effort on balancing the original game as they have over the last year polishing the turd that now exists as SWG, the game would be fantastic. My opinion is that they deliberately tanked the game in order to make an attempt to justify changing it into what we have today. Id be more than happy to debate any mechanic aspect of the classic SWG that the developers would like to claim as hopelessly un-fixable. Buffs, Armor, Weapons, and class defense and damage were all easily fixable by changing the formula that governed those systems and would only really require that they actually know how to use a simple tool the calculator.
Not Looking Back: The developers claim that theres no possibility that Classic servers will ever return. My guess is that they know that a vast majority of players of SWG would never play the NGE version of the game given a choice. Quite simply theres a zero percent chance that the NGE can ever win toe-to-toe verses the classic version and placing a Yugo next to a Corvette would force them to see that they have been dead wrong . The Classic [Pre-Cu] game is coming back, whether SOE does it or not. Theres several Emulators in varying stages of development as I write this. SOE has the unique advantage of putting Classic servers up as a subscription service gaining millions of dollars in doing so, not to mention saving some face with the entire MMO community. Lets check the math Lets assume that the Classic version gathered 100,000 players, an easy goal for something so blatantly popular. 14.95X100,000= 1,495,000 per month X12= 17,940,000 per year. Thats almost 18 million per year! Let me repeat 18 MILLION U.S. DOLLARS PER YEARfor simply not only saying sorry but actually doing something to prove that you are in fact sorry! In Closing Avoid the NGE version of Star Wars: Galaxies at all costs, its simply a waste of money. The lack luster attempt at making the love child of Battle Front and World of Warcraft doesnt work. The lack of players playing this game tells the true tale of how good this game really isnt. Its simply not worthy of a subscription fee of any kind.
Thank you for preserving it before it was retracted. I can see why they did that, SOE probably had a major hissy fit for the truth being posted.
I would of kept the same message but much softer, sugar coated delivery so it wouldn't be pulled.
SOE failing to maintain ANY relation with it's customers has done the most damage. Their refusal to even work with the playerbase towards common goals is unbelievable. It's as if they try to figure out what would anger customers the most, then go with it.
Well you and I may accept it as common knowledge that the NGE is awful, but many others do not. SOE P.R. stuff still talks about how "great the NGE is doing!" Not an exact quote mind you, but this is the party line that SOE keeps pumping out--even in a recent interview with MMORPG staff. Also, many people are still posting on the SWG boards telling vets that they have no reason to "whine," and still other posters who are longing for someone to play with tell us, "come on back, it's getting better!"
I found it validating to be reminded of the empty cities that yes hundreds of thousands of people spent years building and personalizing. I also found it validating that someone put in print the fact that the NGE UI has windows that move off the screen requiring a HUD reset. That was driving me nuts. Also if you're going to give examples of bugs, where do you start? One of the senators in SWG posted a known bugs and issues thread that is 17 pages long when copied into Word!
To me, the article was validating for players that got burned, and a reality check for those that say, "the NGE is doing wonderfully, come on back and have yourself a ball." Ya riiiight.
Originally posted by ArcAngel3 Well you and I may accept it as common knowledge that the NGE is awful, but many others do not. SOE P.R. stuff still talks about how "great the NGE is doing!" Not an exact quote mind you, but this is the party line that SOE keeps pumping out--even in a recent interview with MMORPG staff. Also, many people are still posting on the SWG boards telling vets that they have no reason to "whine," and still other posters who are longing for someone to play with tell us, "come on back, it's getting better!" I found it validating to be reminded of the empty cities that yes hundreds of thousands of people spent years building and personalizing. I also found it validating that someone put in print the fact that the NGE UI has windows that move off the screen requiring a HUD reset. That was driving me nuts. Also if you're going to give examples of bugs, where do you start? One of the senators in SWG posted a known bugs and issues thread that is 17 pages long when copied into Word! To me, the article was validating for players that got burned, and a reality check for those that say, "the NGE is doing wonderfully, come on back and have yourself a ball." Ya riiiight. ARC3
Sorry I don't see any reports though anywhere on the web of how well the NGE is doing.
From the president of the company wishing he had not done this, to Freeman, Raph and may others condeming this version of the game and the method it took.
In short, the NGE is the failure we predicted, knew was going to come and now people are just starting to accept or deal with it.
Ironic that it took a year instead of the said "6 months" alot of us thought it would. But based on SOE forcing this thing to continue explains getting what bucks they can while they can....
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Originally posted by ArcAngel3 Well you and I may accept it as common knowledge that the NGE is awful, but many others do not. SOE P.R. stuff still talks about how "great the NGE is doing!" Not an exact quote mind you, but this is the party line that SOE keeps pumping out--even in a recent interview with MMORPG staff. Also, many people are still posting on the SWG boards telling vets that they have no reason to "whine," and still other posters who are longing for someone to play with tell us, "come on back, it's getting better!" I found it validating to be reminded of the empty cities that yes hundreds of thousands of people spent years building and personalizing. I also found it validating that someone put in print the fact that the NGE UI has windows that move off the screen requiring a HUD reset. That was driving me nuts. Also if you're going to give examples of bugs, where do you start? One of the senators in SWG posted a known bugs and issues thread that is 17 pages long when copied into Word! To me, the article was validating for players that got burned, and a reality check for those that say, "the NGE is doing wonderfully, come on back and have yourself a ball." Ya riiiight. ARC3
Sorry I don't see any reports though anywhere on the web of how well the NGE is doing.
From the president of the company wishing he had not done this, to Freeman, Raph and may others condeming this version of the game and the method it took.
In short, the NGE is the failure we predicted, knew was going to come and now people are just starting to accept or deal with it.
Ironic that it took a year instead of the said "6 months" alot of us thought it would. But based on SOE forcing this thing to continue explains getting what bucks they can while they can....
I should have quoted the post I was replying to for context. Sorry bout that. Anyways, we need only look to the most recent SOE interview with MMORPG.com to see that some of their P.R. people are still pumping out garbage about the NGE doing just fine thank you. I always appreciate it when someone points out that this is just spin control (e.g. b.s.), and that there are some real problems with the NGE. That's why I liked the article referred to by the O.P.. Your reply here also does a good job of highlighting that a number of SOE people (past and present) have acknowledged that something has gone awry. I like it when people tell it like it is, without trying to frame things in a manipulative way, for their own ends. If you don't start with reality, it's hard to go forward.
Comments
I will not deny that the pre-cu game had its problems. They were numerous. It was still the best MMO I have ever played, issues and all. But to entirely throw that game out the window and replace it with the CU, and then the NGE...well that's just ridiculous. I was even a supporter of the CU at first...until I saw its impact on the game.
And the way $OE shows such complete disregard for its player base is insane. It is not so much that they only care about money...that is not it. They are a business and are supposed to care about money. They run their company worse than the government runs...well anything. That is pretty pathetic. They have run that game into the ground and it is sad. It is a very, very sad thing to see the promise that the game had be wasted. While it is just a game, it is something I spent a lot of time and money on and it is sad to see it ruined.
The NGE is just aweful. It is not the game I loved. That game is gone.
I don't. Pre-CU needed balance & tweaking. I look back and see fun gameplay, adventure, population, unique characters, growing player cities, hundreds of hours of fun & friends that play.
And see this is where this all got bad.
We saw and HEARD Devs promising things then... we had people, growing , busy -- economy, choices, reading... rare Jedi and people all over the freaking place.
It was a world, with all its issues it was NOTHING or NOT NEAR as bad as the NGE has been. If they had just called in the big guns then to step up the games issue and bug fixes we may not be having this convo right now.
The fact of the matter is NOW there is many people that regret doing this, Obrail, Pirrg or any NGEr can even argue that.. to many people have stated CLEARLY they wished they never did this.
That alone should speak volumes to people of how bad it is. If it does not then those people need to stay away from any business managment in thier lives. To deny this as a failure or mistake is just foolish. Most people know, sure they do not want to admit it.. who would?
None the less, We had somthing special then... all the bugs or issues we just did. If they had figured out how to make that work then it would have made it -- it may have gained more subs and did alot better... but they chose to play "experimental game change time" and now they are paying for it.
There is nothing good that came from the NGE other then alot of people being able to spend more time with thier family's. For that I should thank the NGE I guess... but that is about it.
From all extremes across the web and the real world they fucked this up bad, we know it, they know it... now it's just a matter of time before the players that are left deal with it.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Your replies are getting weak if that is all you have.
We saw potential back then, more so then now obviously lol... and SOE even thinks so.
Look at who has jumped ship and you can figure that one out... but you have use logic and common sense to see this.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Did anyone save the original article somewhere? I didn't get a chance to read it and it would be useful to to read the original before SOE bought off.. er... I mean... talked to MMOCraft...
SWG Tempest: Cardo Dycen RIP
Eve: Cardoh Dycen
I support random drug testing for all SOE employees
Did anyone save the original article somewhere? I didn't get a chance to read it and it would be useful to to read the original before SOE bought off.. er... I mean... talked to MMOCraft...
It was just basically the same thing everyone's heard before, but had about 50 spelling and grammar mistakes.
Heres the original grave. Its the best article of the truth ive ever seen biased or whatever anyone thinks
I recently had the opportunity to revisit Star Wars: Galaxies in the form of the Veteran Trial.
Let me begin by saying that the game is By Far- better than when I left the game in January. However, I have to say that the game still isnt better than it was last March, not by a long shot.
The game has far more bugs than it ever did in the Classic or Pre-CU form, not only that, but the bugs are far more noticeable than they were then.
What are the major things wrong with the game at this point?
The Interface:
Very subpar on design, more difficult than the original to maneuver and understand.
Buggy as all get out, some windows just simply disappear off the side of the game forcing a UI reset.
Customization is very limited. Are the Developers deliberately trying to force the way they like to see their game laid out on thousands of people? WOWs interface has the best customization options of any game Ive ever played. Perhaps SOE should take some notes on that aspect of WOW instead of the other blatant ones theyve taken.
The game curser comes free of the game forcing you to log out and then back in.
The Control set:
This is the part that really angers a lot of players, new and old alike.
The blatant attempt to force people to use the FPS style control set from the NGE is very obvious.
The controls are lack luster, counter-intuitive and buggy.
Again theres no real customization that works well. How about just simply giving the choice to use the original control scheme? They have one named to imply that its the original control scheme, however it isnt even close , not to mention that in order to get the control scheme back to the true original form still takes a monumental amount of handpicked customization. And when youre done with all of the handpicked customization, the controls still dont work properly!?
Cant they do any better?
The Content:
While there has always been discontent over the amount, or lack thereof, of content in Star Wars: Galaxies, the game has hit a true low in high end content. When I first started to play Galaxies in 2004 there were enough people playing that a group could easily roll their own content. However with fewer and fewer people subscribing, theres simply not much to do. The ever increasing emptiness of the SWG online world makes what content there is in the game not very fun.
Baron Waste Land:
Quite honestly the game world is a baron waste land at this time. Player cities that once housed hundreds of thousands of players sit as a reminder of how loved the game once was. Players spent millions of hours collectively loving, nurturing and decorating these virtual cities. Sadly only a spars population remains to enjoy the talent put forth in there creation.
The Simplification:
While I can agree that there was a learning curve to the original SWG game play, it was not That difficult to learn [it was one of my very first MMOs and I learned it just fine, as did hundreds of thousands of other devoted players]. Do the Developers really think that their paying customers are morons that require an over simplified over guided tour of their vision? The blatant Copy Cat attempt to try, in vain, to get the World of Warcraft player base is embarrassing. The thought Id like to put forth to SOE is that Leaders do not follow think about that statement.
The Problems with Classic SWG
Lazy Development:
The developers have said too many times to count that the game was too difficult to continue development in the original form. Buy yet they redesigned the game twice in a short time span. The claim that they could not balance 32 professions is an obvious misrepresentation. Not only was it possible to balance the professions, it would have taken much less effort than a complete redesign of the game [NGE] and one half assed effort at a balance pass [the CU].
The Alpha Class Misnomer:
The making of Jedi as a starting class was based on a claim that Alpha classes dont work in games and that it was a huge failure. The other claim is that everyone had figured out how to achieve the secret method by which to obtain Jedi, so all people would eventually be a Jedi anyway.
If Alpha classes were such a failure, then why have they been put back in the game in the form of the GCW rank system? Clearly with the difficulty of getting the rank of General and the new skills and equipment available at that rank will make General somewhat of an Alpha. The Rank decay is eerily similar to the Jedi death penalty system ,without the death part. On the everyone had figured out the path to Jedi argument, the only reason that people figured it out quickly is because you gave them the path via Holocrons creating tens of thousands of HoloWhores, people that did nothing but grind professions in order to gain Jedi. Then you took out most of the penalties of having the alpha Jedi, hmm, wonder why it didnt work anymore?
Impossible to Balance:
Completely untrue. If the developers had spent the same amount of effort on balancing the original game as they have over the last year polishing the turd that now exists as SWG, the game would be fantastic. My opinion is that they deliberately tanked the game in order to make an attempt to justify changing it into what we have today. Id be more than happy to debate any mechanic aspect of the classic SWG that the developers would like to claim as hopelessly un-fixable. Buffs, Armor, Weapons, and class defense and damage were all easily fixable by changing the formula that governed those systems and would only really require that they actually know how to use a simple tool the calculator.
Not Looking Back:
The developers claim that theres no possibility that Classic servers will ever return. My guess is that they know that a vast majority of players of SWG would never play the NGE version of the game given a choice. Quite simply theres a zero percent chance that the NGE can ever win toe-to-toe verses the classic version and placing a Yugo next to a Corvette would force them to see that they have been dead wrong .
The Classic [Pre-Cu] game is coming back, whether SOE does it or not. Theres several Emulators in varying stages of development as I write this. SOE has the unique advantage of putting Classic servers up as a subscription service gaining millions of dollars in doing so, not to mention saving some face with the entire MMO community. Lets check the math
Lets assume that the Classic version gathered 100,000 players, an easy goal for something so blatantly popular.
14.95X100,000= 1,495,000 per month X12= 17,940,000 per year. Thats almost 18 million per year! Let me repeat 18 MILLION U.S. DOLLARS PER YEARfor simply not only saying sorry but actually doing something to prove that you are in fact sorry!
In Closing
Avoid the NGE version of Star Wars: Galaxies at all costs, its simply a waste of money. The lack luster attempt at making the love child of Battle Front and World of Warcraft doesnt work. The lack of players playing this game tells the true tale of how good this game really isnt. Its simply not worthy of a subscription fee of any kind.
no wonder though it was removed - did any1 really think soe would leave this as is?
Now I see why it was pulled. Ugh, what a mess.
Copied every generic rant he could find and pasted it into one document. Yeah, bravo on the brillant piece there.
"If we don't attack them, they will attack us first. So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike"
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Arakat Mularos(Bloodfin)
I would of kept the same message but much softer, sugar coated delivery so it wouldn't be pulled.
SOE failing to maintain ANY relation with it's customers has done the most damage. Their refusal to even work with the playerbase towards common goals is unbelievable. It's as if they try to figure out what would anger customers the most, then go with it.
Well you and I may accept it as common knowledge that the NGE is awful, but many others do not. SOE P.R. stuff still talks about how "great the NGE is doing!" Not an exact quote mind you, but this is the party line that SOE keeps pumping out--even in a recent interview with MMORPG staff. Also, many people are still posting on the SWG boards telling vets that they have no reason to "whine," and still other posters who are longing for someone to play with tell us, "come on back, it's getting better!"
I found it validating to be reminded of the empty cities that yes hundreds of thousands of people spent years building and personalizing. I also found it validating that someone put in print the fact that the NGE UI has windows that move off the screen requiring a HUD reset. That was driving me nuts. Also if you're going to give examples of bugs, where do you start? One of the senators in SWG posted a known bugs and issues thread that is 17 pages long when copied into Word!
To me, the article was validating for players that got burned, and a reality check for those that say, "the NGE is doing wonderfully, come on back and have yourself a ball." Ya riiiight.
ARC3
Sorry I don't see any reports though anywhere on the web of how well the NGE is doing.
From the president of the company wishing he had not done this, to Freeman, Raph and may others condeming this version of the game and the method it took.
In short, the NGE is the failure we predicted, knew was going to come and now people are just starting to accept or deal with it.
Ironic that it took a year instead of the said "6 months" alot of us thought it would. But based on SOE forcing this thing to continue explains getting what bucks they can while they can....
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
Sorry I don't see any reports though anywhere on the web of how well the NGE is doing.
From the president of the company wishing he had not done this, to Freeman, Raph and may others condeming this version of the game and the method it took.
In short, the NGE is the failure we predicted, knew was going to come and now people are just starting to accept or deal with it.
Ironic that it took a year instead of the said "6 months" alot of us thought it would. But based on SOE forcing this thing to continue explains getting what bucks they can while they can....
I should have quoted the post I was replying to for context. Sorry bout that. Anyways, we need only look to the most recent SOE interview with MMORPG.com to see that some of their P.R. people are still pumping out garbage about the NGE doing just fine thank you. I always appreciate it when someone points out that this is just spin control (e.g. b.s.), and that there are some real problems with the NGE. That's why I liked the article referred to by the O.P.. Your reply here also does a good job of highlighting that a number of SOE people (past and present) have acknowledged that something has gone awry. I like it when people tell it like it is, without trying to frame things in a manipulative way, for their own ends. If you don't start with reality, it's hard to go forward.
ARC3