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General: MMOWTF: 2006 MMOWTF Awards
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Always outspoken, Dan Fortier returns to MMORPG.com with his MMOWTF column. Today, he's handing out his awards for the best of the worst of 2006.
Welcome back to the 2006 MMOWTF Awards. Despite threats and plummeting approval ratings, I'm still your host for this weekly jaunt into forbidden territory. This week, we tally up all the votes that you placed and give out some punk cards to the losers in each category. I painstakingly counted each and every post/ballot and finished a mere couple of hours before the forums were the victim of a database failure. Each of the categories will show the game you voted for followed by my choice. Now without further ado, let's see how you voted:
Read the column here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
No surpirse - The members have no love for SWG. When it first came out I had no qualms with it, as everyone else.
I had no idea it was loathed that much though..
My Brute - Dare to challenge?
Im surprised DARK AND LIGHT didnt get any more hate than it did.
The devs still owe me money for the month i paid without even getting into the game.
I pretty much gave up after the 6th letter i sent them..
I managed at least to cancel the subscription .
-Semper ubi sub ubi!
always wear underwear
You might as well announce that SWG has received a special "Llifetime Dechievement" award and shelf it for these kinds of competitions. With as much hate as it's generated, it wll continue to "win" for many more years.
I miss early SWG too. /sniff
LOL well I posted this up on the official SWG forums and it lasted all of 3 minutes before being deleted. Should have added in a forum Nazi category.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
(warning - not all of the above is metaphorically accurate)
SWG Veteran and Refugee, Intrepid server
NGE free as of Nov. 22, 2005
Now Playing: World of Warcrack
Forum Terrorist
What was that about Lord of the Rings? This game isn't released yet, why should that end up on your list?
Thanks for insulting us and blaming us for their major mistake.
<sighs> I missed the voting.
Well, I have to agree, there's definetly a bunch of stinkers in the bunch. The two points I would offer are these though. DAoC is not and never was a bad game, the PvE was not inspiring, but it was always about the PVP which simply was the best that I've ever experienced. That said, I agree that the game is dying hard and has been for some time. Trials of Atlantis, while not nearly as bad as NGE in SWG, really did that game in and lost Mythic a lot of following. The other point is that SWG was really a good game in it's old form. The CU wasn't that bad, but the NGE was stupidity of epic proportions. The part of that stupidity that makes it worse is that the game had fans, they made changes, the game lost fans, and they, for some strange reason, seem to want to KEEP their changes, LOL. Good riddance SWG, the game deserves to die the death it's earned which really hurts those of us who would like to see a good stable and fun Sci-Fi MMO out there.
I guess I'm really happy that I never bothered with DnL, from the sound of it, I'd probably still be pissed off to this day.
2006 really has been a dark year for MMO gaming. Hopefully some of the "lack of sucess" learnings will make their way around the industry and help mold futur offerings. Hey, one can only hope for the best, right?
How did the vets/players get blamed, did I misread something?
I would think that Lucas Arts is probably the underlying "owner" for the changes anyhow, since they are the sole owner of the creative rights to anything Star Wars in nature. Maybe my perceptions are off, but that's the way it seems to me.
How did the vets/players get blamed, did I misread something?
I would think that Lucas Arts is probably the underlying "owner" for the changes anyhow, since they are the sole owner of the creative rights to anything Star Wars in nature. Maybe my perceptions are off, but that's the way it seems to me.
Nope, it was SOE. It's their game. LEC only promotes it. Do you think Lucas films deals with defective Hasbro Star Wars toys? They don't. But they do spend some of their own advertising dollars to promote the products based on their IP.
Excellent stuff...Dark and Light might be the worst game I have ever had the displeasure of logging into.
Die, DnL, die!
SWG but the other votes and picks are pretty much what I would choose.
SWG must be really bad to beat most of those! Will we see an 'SWG
award' for worst of the worst in the future?
Great job and I really enjoyed this.
It's good to see SWG & SOE getting all the awards they deserve. You came darn close with your picks to match my runner's-up, let's just hope that next year SWG isn't around to sweep all of the awards again, although SOE will always be a leader...
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
I am not shocked that SWG took home so many awards. There is a fundamental difference between a tragedy, and simple folly. A tragedy always strikes a deeper accord with people then a bungle. There will always be a plethora of games that will launch of poor quality. There is nothing uncommon about that. What is uncommon is for a game to launch successfully, have a vibrant population, and be sufficently different to be notable. Then for said game to do two massive, and radical rewrites. Bringing about a massive customer revolt, and exodus. The tragedy is that a viable product with a secure future as mmorpgs go was totally destroyed, and most likely killed. Simply due to a obscene amount of greed. A lesson in being thankful for what you got.
Were that not bad enough the product they used to replace the previous one. Not only came at the destruction of the previous one destroying virtual characters. A cardinal sin in MMORPG developement. The product was of drastically inferior quality. So inferrior infact that the developer confessed that it was at best beta quality. They of coarse expect their customers to pay for the honor to bug test their product, but refuse to take any suggestion as to design.
Just for good measure toss in the SOE propoganda machine to run smear campaigns, and toss out labels on former customers. Try to defraud people with a expansion that is stripped down three days later. Allow your developers to go to war with the world, and anyone who disagrees with them. Yeah name calling, and lieing to people really brings about positive results. A childish mentality if I have ever seen one.
Take if for what you will, but I think we will hear about SWG for years to come, and aslong as it lingers it will consume most worst of lists. You have a developer who knows not the meaning of ethics, or even simple decency. They behave in a beligerent manner at best, and at worst criminal. Their prime offense being this game will not help matters either. Star Wars is a huge franchise with dedicated fans, and worse the game mechanics were designed for hardcore MMORPG players. So they took two groups that are prone to obsession, and crucified their messiah. I think its miraculous that nobody ended up dead over this entire fiasco.
The end result is that you have alot of players with a axe to grind, and someone to vent against. Really it dosen't help matters that SOE, and SWG deserve every bit of it. Nor does it help that SOE keeps the bloody corpse out on the lawn for all to see. That only serves to stoke the resentment. Toss in the rest of SOEs misdeeds over the past couple years, and you got a recipe for prolonged hate. Being a big developer really only serves to hurt in this reguard.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
SWG is a worse case than the other contenders.
Dark and Light failed from the get go (as did Matrix and Auto Assault).
Unlike those games it once had a huge following, and was even at one time the #2 most played MMO in North America, second only to EQ1.
Unlike DAoC, it underwent radical changes twice, with the second one so radical the core game was unrecognizable, and that trauma was never mitigated by classic servers.
Basically it's the tragedy of all mismanagement tragedies, because it contains every single sin:
1. Massive and well known IP
2. Multiple radical changes to core design and gameplay
3. Shameless amoral wretches for developers (SOE) who even went as far to promote features of a new expansion they were trying to sell for professions/game mechanics they KNEW they were taking out, days before they announced it.
4. Enough pissed off former players to make a respectable subscriber base for ANY MMO not named World of Warcraft.
At least SOE can say they won a lot of awards for SWG and I think they are all justified so congratulations for being the biggest "winner". I couldn't agree more. The game went from great to crap. I never even thought it was possible.
Yet still, and I don't know why, I think I am going to do the trial to see what is the current state of the game.
No, I don't think they deal with defective toys, but if they decide that the Chewbaca action figure looks better in a pink dress with a red basket, it's their right to change it. The community that loves star wars so much and buys these toys for their kids would be in an outrage, Chewbaca is a wookie, a tough creature of sheer power, he doesn't belong in a dress, we won't buy this crap. LEC responds, we don't care, we like the cuter and more cuddly Chewy, he stays. Their toy sales go into the dumper, people toss out their old toys, no longer needing upgraded blasters and utility belts and Millenium Falcon toys to go with their Chewy. Sales are down, the community is mad, no one subscribes to Star Wars action figure collecting any more. This is what happened to SWG in a nut shell, I can't think that SOE would honestly make this change, take a huge hit on their game and not at least use their learnings and drift back to some semblance of the old ways. I am just saying it seems like SOE probably doesn't take as much fault as one would think. Take for example Vanguard, the agreement between Sigil and SOE is that Sigil maintains IP rights, SOE puts their label on the box and runs the servers, more or less. If Sigil makes a change, folks might be quick to dump that change on SOE, but it may in fact be Sigil that did it and due to their agreement, SOE can not "blame" the bed fellow they publish the game with. This is of course just food for thought because the fact remains that someone flew the death star over the SWG universe and blasted it. The good news is, even though a million voices cried out in pain, they were not silenced.
PS. The game as it stands now seems that it needs a title change to "Star Wars: Battlefront Online" because it sure plays like battlefront and not like any other MMO. I guess that's where my suspicions lie with the game changes.....