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I think SOE we're right with "Vocal Minority"
Veiled_light
Member UncommonPosts: 855
With the Launch of Vanguard it's really shown me this.... Most people i know have said Vanguard is crap game and thats what most people said during betas and after release in game :P Now if i look at the amount of characters then i'd say the numbers are about 50-60k subscribers, and none of them need to subscribe right now because i can play without buying the game : I go into the game and theres sooo few people playing it's like worse than SWG. Yet every forums you get the same fanbois saying how amazing it is, this site for one is clogged by them : It's like they go to every site and try to convince themselves it's a good game when it's not. So this is the vocal minorit because most people don't like it but don't come to forums. Where as the small amount of vanbois will overpower everyone.
With WOW theres about 3 million players in the western world, but yet the forums seemed to be clogged by more people saying it SUCKS. Yet it's the most popular mmorpg EVER, so this proves to me that yet again the same haters clog up every forum. It only takes about 5 people to make it seem like a whole community tbh.
It's the same with EVE and alot of mmorpgs out there, anyways you get the message.
Comments
I'd say the difference when it comes to SWG is the servers simply don't lie.
Last time I created a new toon , probably around December, almost every server was listed as light. Only 3 servers were listed as medium. This was at peak times.
This certainly wasn't the case during pre-CU, or even post-CU.
Fan and official forum sites do in fact play host to a vocal minority. That doesn't mean the minority is completely unrepresentative; and more importantly, it doesn't mean the minority can't be greatly influential when it comes to public perception.
It seems SoE has a great deal still to learn about managing the vocal minority.
SWG Team Mtg.
Yes, people were leaving during pre-CU. I was one of them albeit for only a short time. However I left because SOE wasn't moving fast enough on adding more complexity and challenge to the game, not because of the gameplay itself!
Pre-CU was hurting because of neglect on SOE's part, not because of the gameplay IMO.
However, "hurting" is a relative term. By comparision to post-NGE, pre-CU (even at its worst) was by far a more vibrant community. The server listings at that time showed this.
With the holocrons all anyone had to do was grind professions and bam, they unlocked a jedi slot. But, there was a catch... permadeath. So jedi were, like the timeline of the story, in hiding. But this made the babies cry, so they took out permadeath, saber TEF's and nerf after nerf hit that drove people away. Then there was of course the promise of the Combat Revamp which was scrapped for the wow'ish Combat Upgrade. people actually started to come back to the game at that point. I know on my old server of sunrunner my friends list started lighting up like the rockefeller plaza christmas tree.
Everyone thought Kashyyyk was a joke, everyone wanted fixes to the base game... improvements... new things added for crafters... new storylines etc. But SOE went about their business lying to everyone while secretly working on the NGE. They barely gave the CU a shot before they scrapped it and shoved the crapfest of a game called the NGE down everyone's throat. Which in turn drove out the base of the game leaving the drama queen psuedo roleplayers and attracted the community elements that are there today.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
A drug addict will often try to hook other people on their drug so they might share the experience. The problem arrises when a person identifies too strongly with a game. Any argument against the game is seen as a personal attack, and they begin to behave like finatical missionaries. Yes it is one thing to be passionate, and another thing to be beligerent. Further more being egocentric about your views on the subject is a recipe for a bad attitude. Unfortunate as it is to concede these people cannot be reasoned with their blind faith is far too strong. They usually are so dependant on this blind faith that they will convince themselves of things that are blatantly wrong. Think of a hardcore fundamentalist christian. They lack the ability to conceive of Jesus as anything other then the messiah. Most people can change their perspectives. These people cannot. Fanatics are the loudest listen to the reasonable sounding people. Most people on the internet know better then to listen to fanatics. They are like talking to brick walls.
What was wrong with the original game or more explicitly the developement. One simple word procrastination. That was the motto for every problem in the game for well over a year. A problem would come out it would cause massive inbalances in the game, and the developers would put it off till the CURB which was not getting worked on. They were spending the time building two expansions. That is what hurt the game the most. You have to address problems as they come up not sit on your hands. How could people not get fed up with their professions being perpetually broken, and other professions being overly powerful. How could economic inbalances be allowed to persist for months on end. How could people stand to be starved of new features, and content. Alot of people could not, and finally had to leave.
Everyone said it on their forums. Balance the core game. Then fix the bugs. Then add some more content to the world. Then you can make your expansions. These were not unreasonable expectations. SOE rushed the product to market. The product arrived without proper profession balances. The product arrived with an excessive amount of bugs. The world was rushed, and had very generic content. Ninety percent of the dungeons were exactly the same. They were getting money for players to beta test so finishing the game should have been the first priority. Instead the first priority was to fire out expansions which did not solve any of the problems players had with the game.
SOE made a decission to make their money by bilking customers into buying expansions rather then keeping the players they had. The majority of people wanted the game balanced not rebuilt, and they wanted that done before any expansions were offered. Sony decided to ignore them, and that is when things began to go down hill.
Spells, magic, fantasy
- EQ2
Spells, magic, fantasy
- Vanguard
Spells, magic, fantasy
See the pattern?
I've encountered the whole "fanatical about a game" deal myself at times I think. A game appears to meet or cover over some deep emotional need and people lose their objectivity about it. It is hard to talk with people that are in that frame of mind. Constructive criticism can seem too threatening.
I like a lot of the folks that post on this site though I must say. I find there's a good cross-section of the gaming population: people that "hate" a particular game or company, people that "love" a game, and people that are able to balance pros and cons. I actually find that I can learn something from all these perspectives, and I respect other people's experiences.
Your comparison of game fanatacism to other forms of fanaticism also makes sense to me. The emotional dynamics can happen in lots of different contexts. I wouldn't, however, label someone a fanatic for having a certain belief about a historical person though. People that happen to believe in a "messiah" can be fanatics or they can be quite reasonable and balanced in my experience
About gaming specifically though, I'm sure there will be a number of psychological/sociological studies done on MMORPG games and gamers in the near future. Should be some interesting stuff. Might do one myself actually lol
ArcAngel
I've encountered the whole "fanatical about a game" deal myself at times I think. A game appears to meet or cover over some deep emotional need and people lose their objectivity about it. It is hard to talk with people that are in that frame of mind. Constructive criticism can seem too threatening.
I like a lot of the folks that post on this site though I must say. I find there's a good cross-section of the gaming population: people that "hate" a particular game or company, people that "love" a game, and people that are able to balance pros and cons. I actually find that I can learn something from all these perspectives, and I respect other people's experiences.
Your comparison of game fanatacism to other forms of fanaticism also makes sense to me. The emotional dynamics can happen in lots of different contexts. I wouldn't, however, label someone a fanatic for having a certain belief about a historical person though. People that happen to believe in a "messiah" can be fanatics or they can be quite reasonable and balanced in my experience
About gaming specifically though, I'm sure there will be a number of psychological/sociological studies done on MMORPG games and gamers in the near future. Should be some interesting stuff. Might do one myself actually lol
ArcAngel
No need to sign your own post, it's on your forum user name :
Anyways tbh haters come because fanbois clog up the forums. Personally i get pissed off at fanbois because they're sooo stupid they can't see the major game breaking faults of the game : Fine keep your love to a game to yourself but don't try con people into buying shit and pretend it's all roses.
I agree with the pattern in themes.
Vanguard's game design includes a better crafting system than EQ, player housing.. which sort of exsisted in EQ2, but not really and diplomacy, which I have not personally seen in an MMORPG before.
I was a day-one-vet of SWG, loved the game until NGE and hated SOE for what they did to the game. Yet I am playing Vangaurd and enjoying it. I am either an optomist or a masochist.
I also see a pretty good population on ThunderAxe. I have not been to the other servers yet.
Well one of the things we have to ask ourselves too is 'what kind of people visit these forums?' WoW is played widely among mainstream gamers, gamers who have not played many other mmorpgs and who are not interested in upcoming mmorpgs nor interested in browsing them. So on this website you arent going to see very many of the WoW playerbase... VG is being labeled as a more 'hardcore mmorpg' taking after games like EQ1 in that sense, so its not surprising that you get a lot of fans on this site, because those players who have been playing mmorpgs for a good while now are both the type of people who would visit this site and the type of people who would enjoy a game like VG.
But SWG... I really dont think its a vocal minority concerning SWGs NGE.
Just look at the NGE, seriously, and look at the server populations.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I agree with the pattern in themes.
Vanguard's game design includes a better crafting system than EQ, player housing.. which sort of exsisted in EQ2, but not really and diplomacy, which I have not personally seen in an MMORPG before.
I was a day-one-vet of SWG, loved the game until NGE and hated SOE for what they did to the game. Yet I am playing Vangaurd and enjoying it. I am either an optomist or a masochist.
I also see a pretty good population on ThunderAxe. I have not been to the other servers yet.
I was a Beta 3 tester:
Crafting was simplistic. This item iin ... that item in ... you get this item out. The crafting system in Vanguard sucks compared to what SWG had.
Player housing??? Yes vanguard has it .... but you can NOT place a house where ever you want to. Only restiction in SWG was you had to be so many feet from a static city or a POI. (I did notice (during the NGE) that a house was planted in the middle of the Gungan POI on Naboo .. so i guess $OE fucked that up too) Also in a player city only certain people can grant you permission to plant a house. Once you are outside and away from Cities and POIs ... SWG would let you plant a house anywhere.
You can play Vanguard ... hope you enjoy it. BUT, when Brad moves on to another project and leave Vanguard, $OE will take over ... and I will laugh my ass off at all you people for investing whatever amount of time and money ... just to have all you did ripped away by $OE. LOL
On other issue that people are talking about .. it is true ... the VOCAL minority seems to always wreck havoc. But as an MMO dev or one that manages an MMO, they need to understand this .... just because you got people complaining about a certain aspect of the game, is what their complaining about REALLY a game stopper?
Example ... People complained about buffs ... I liked buffs ... made it a more survivable game in the wild. Some people complain it wasn't fair to have buffs ... why? Because they were to lazy to find the people that made GOOD buffs ... so they were always inferior. Life's a bitch ... learn the game.
Another was AFK entertainers ... people complained about Entertainers being afk and making money. I never understood this ... how the hell does some afk entertainer that is giving you a buff or healing your wounds causing you not to enjoy the game?
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
I believe you can add Shadowbane and LOTR to that list ... I am sure there are more too.
/sigh of relief.
Thought it meant I was predisposed to testicular cancer for a second.
On a related note to your post
Business Boob: So what is your idea for a MMORPG?
Foolish Dev: A futuristic world, where Earth is just moving out into the outer solar system populating all the outer planets and moons with colonies. The Moon and Mars both have long established colonies and political conflict and a spirit of independance is sweaping over them. A corrupt and decadent Earth government wants to maintain a stranglehold...
Business Boob: What? No elves, no magic, no swords, that means no profit because it is not copying the template for most successful MMORPGs! Get the hell outta here! I want another EQ/WoW!
Shifty Dev: How about we copy everything from WoW but the title?
Business Boob: I like it except for the not copying of the title part! We will call it World of Spellcraft!
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
The vocal minority in this case is the haters... There are more haters in the VG forums then anyone else... Thats what the vocal minority is... The group that you hear the most on the forums.... The rest of them play the game, and a few try to get the message out that its not as bad as the haters say,
P,S. I don't play VG so I can't be a "fanboy"...(dumbass term anyway) I just read, because I don't play any MMOs atm...And its obvious many people hate/dislike VG and try to make excuses when it is clearly SoE they hate and not VG. Many of the VG haters havn't even played the release LOL,,,,,,,,
~Redslayer-Saga of Ryzom~ Active again!
~Kinch/Lotu-WoW~ Retired
True RedSlayer - Eve ~ Current Primary game
Here's what's unique about Vanguard:
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you're going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from "A" to "B".
Ted: That's right. That's - that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you're in trouble, huh?
[Hitchhiker convulses]
Hitchhiker: No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
Ted: That - good point.
Hitchhiker: 7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
Ted: Why?
Hitchhiker: 'Cause you're fuckin' fired!
This site is the Vocal Minority :S Most the peopel that play these mmorpgs don't even come to this site because they havn't heard of it or happy with their mmorpg. Theres 4.5 million WOW players from around the world (not including 3.5 china) and i don't see all them coming here. Thats because the only people i see posting about Vanguard is the same 10-20 people hyping it up.
Vanguard was release a unpolished mess, unfun to play and funny enough you can play without buying the game because thats another bug they havn't worked out. THe classes are all bland and not interesting and none of them have good spell effects or animations to make them look good. The artwork and graphics are very generic bland and boring. THe starting areas are horrible and the tutorials do nothing to make new players want to play the game.
THe quests were just go collect or go kill quests : Pretty boring and the community were a bunch of vanbois defending it.
Theres no excuse to releasing crap anymore.
+ you think it has over 250k subscribers?
Well theres only 264045 characters and 82756 of them are characters people have used to spam the character numbers up for some reason, all level 1's and all with names like asdadsafdsgfa. So now your left with 181289 and over have of these names i've checked look like ALTS, + on average each person has made about 2 characters ATLEAST, so this will balance out pretty well. So now your left with 906445 characters.
BUT Take into account that 217761 characters are levels 1 - 10, which means most of them have probally stopped playing! So if you do it this way there are only about 46284 active subscribers what will continue playing throughout the end of their free month and some probally wont. I know i made it past 10 and didn't carry on.
Look at both these ways Vangurd has between 50k - 90k active subscribers AT MOST.
Okay...
I get fed up with people trying to tell me that a game is crap and I shouldn't bother trying it. What they should be saying is that to THEM the game is crap and they aren't going to waste any more of THEIR time on it. DON'T speak for ME. Got it?
Now the reverse of this is also true. I can't stand it when someone tries to tell me that a game is the greatest thing ever released and that I am a fool if I don't give it a try. What these people should be saying is that the game is the greatest thing that THEY have ever seen released and that THEY would have been a fool if that had passed it up.
The world is made up of individuals with their own unique preferences. Gamers are the same. I may have loved Star Wars Galaxies as it was when it first launched, but that doesn't mean I have the right to verbally assault someone who claimed they hated it. I may have disliked the what the CU did to the game, but that doesn't give me the right to ridicule the ones who enjoyed the changes... And as to the NGE? I may think it's a piece of crap, and I may stand up to be counted with those who feel the same, However (and this may come as a bit of a shock to some), there are a handfull of Veterans who have given the NGE a chance and actually LIKE it. Does this mean that they deserve to be blasted to oblivion? No!
What does it mean?
It means that they have found the kind of gameplay experience that they have personally been looking for. The so-called vocal minority is made up of people who seem to begrudge others for enjoying something that they hate, or for continuing to pay for something that they refuse to.
What do I think? Hmmm... I think I have made that clear. I prefer the original vision of SWG, as it catered to what I want out of a MMO set in the Star Wars universe. I love Star Wars. I love MMOs. The classic SWG was the Star Wars MMO for me. But now it is gone... But guess what? There are other MMOs. And Star Wars is still there. I am buying Vanguard today. And I think I will watch Star Wars tonight.
I will try vanguard because what I have SEEN and READ of it personally sparks my interest enough to at least give it a chance. Will I stay with it? Who knows? If I leave it or stay with it, it will be because I would have made up my OWN mind, just as I have made up my OWN mind about SWG and SOE. I left it because it no longer attracts me as a player. But as one with a developer's mentality, I see all sorts of opportunities it has to become great again in its own right. And I speak honestly when I say that if SOE offered me a job as a design consultant for SWG, I would work for and with them without reservation.
I believe that the NGE was created with the best of intentions. But a lot of things in this world have been done with the best of intentions, which turn out to have been very big mistakes in retrospect. Hindsight is always 20/20. All SOE can do now with SWG is go forward and hope they can somehow find a way to revive their incapacitated game.
I agree with most of what you say. Particularily the part about hindsight being 20/20.
However, for many of us our foresight in Nov. '05 was equally as acute.
I agree with most of what you say. Particularily the part about hindsight being 20/20.
However, for many of us our foresight in Nov. '05 was equally as acute.
Not really. No it wasn't. There has never been anything put forward by the developers that has not been subject to change. At every step of the way, they have even said as much. Everything has always been, "This is what we want to do, but it's subject to change". The thing is, we the community (or at least many of us the community) have a tendency to forget the subject to change thing and behave under the assumption that since it comes from the keyboard of a redname that it must be written in stone.
Yes, SOE has broken promises on their hands. But how many of those were actual promises, written in stone, and not subject to change. Howm any of those were actually promises at all, containing the words "we promise"?
Most of the their so-called promises have actually been our expectations they did not live up to. The actual promises they have made us have been delivered on. They promised to include mounts, vehicles and cities as free inclusions in the months that followed the release of the game. They delivered. They had always promised that space travel and combat would be added in the form of a retail expansion. They delivered. They promised a combat overhaul. They delivered.
The NGE was done without preamble and there was nothing to truly prepare the players for it. But they made no promises in that regard. But they did promise that they would work to improve things. And a lot of players feel that they have delivered. They have promised that they will not pull another NGE-scale sweeping change on us. Well, seeing as the actual promises they have made have been kept thus far, I would say that there is a chance that they'll deliver on that as well.
Of course, I could be wrong.
SOE's problem is they refuse to realize that the issues with SWG have never been systemic. They have always been aesthetic. the Pre-CU system worked. The Pre-NGE system worked. Heck, even the post-NGE system works. What is now needed is a focus on aesthetics. They promised to do the expertise systems for all professions. Like them or not, when chapter 5 releases, all professions will have their expertise. They promised Star Warsy content. Well, now that the systems are in place, they must now deliver on that promise. If they must do it through purchasable expansions, then so be it. But they need to do it.
When this game returns to being a Star Wars game AND an MMO game, then I will consider returning. But for right now, it is just a game system with Star Wars elements thrown in. And there is a big difference between the two. It will never be the same as the pre-CU game I originally enjoyed. But then, maybe it doesn't have to be. As long as I can feel immersed in a Star Wars experience, I will enjoy it. But having ten thousand Jedi running around and all of these stupid particle effects and sound effects makes it really hard to immerse one's self in a Star Wars experience.
But hey! If they kick the particle effects to the curb, replacing them with apropriate animations, and bump the game's timeline forward to after Return of the Jedi, where the Jedi will have... ehem... returned, then I think many of the NGE's most glaring issues will be eliminated. And content? Heck, by resetting the game to post-RotJ, then the content writers will only be subject to the same guidelines as the expanded universe authors. And anyone who has read EU novels or played EU-based games can tell you that there is PLENTY of creative license being taken.
I don't claim to be right, I'm just posting.
DarthOlomew, I have a hard time accepting your assertion that the SWG team has historically delivered on its promises, and I suspect many others would have a hard time with that assertion too. Maybe I owe it to you to dissect your argument counterpoint by counterpoint, but I'll refrain and instead just say that on many of the biggest promises, they have failed to deliver. I'll agree with you that alot of what has happened is un-met expectations - but those expectations have been historically mismanaged by the Austin team - in so doing aren't those also a breaking of promises? Timeliness and quality are implied promises., delivery of an immersive Star Wars experience is an implied promise, probably among the most important promises in fact.
I think they've done more promise breaking than making, expectations let downs not withstanding.
Nevermind, you're right. These are expectations, nothing more. But this team has done a poor job with those expectations. However, at some point, a promise delayed can be called a promise unkept.
SWG Team Mtg.