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SOE Management: Out of Touch with the SWG Community
Wepps
Member Posts: 1,322
The SWG Development Team Management: out of touch with the community, out of touch with Star Wars continuity
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I have previously sent reports from the trenches, some of which have been published in the past. This one addresses comments from the Associate Producer, and Community Relations manager, Rich Vogel. In bold is his letter to the community; my comments for each topic defines the problems that we as players and correspondents see on a daily basis, which have been taking the product to new heights of quality failures.
It is now 10 months since release. I will state here that the majority of us who have experienced Star Wars Galaxies feel now that, even with many of the additions to the game that should have improved it towards a better game-play experience, it is in fact worse-off now than it has been at any point in the history of its development.
I'm very excited to talk about the direction of Star Wars Galaxies in 2004. We've got some great things planned for the game this year.
Let me start by talking about 2003. In late June, the team released the initial boxed version of Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. The game was highly anticipated and had a high bar to reach. To make our dates, we had to make some tough decisions regarding game features. It took several months, but I'm pleased to say that we have delivered on our promised post launch features (Mounts, Vehicles, Player Cities and Dark Jedi). Each has been well received by the fans.
In fact, there was tremendous feedback concerning mounts and vehicles, as well as player cities, each of which should have added significant flavor to the game. However, the problem wasnt lack of external content, but two issues which this development team refused (and still refuses) to address.
The first is that each of these implementations is rife with bugs and game-play issues. In fact, each new addition of content to the product geometrically increases the number of bugs experienced. However, there is no serious effort made on any scale to eliminate the bugs. Instead, if a problem arises, they remove the code to a given feature indefinitely.
I cite the example of the /citywarn command. This command allowed officers of a player city to ban a player from the city. The player would then be given a set period of time to exit the area, before they would gain a Temporary Enemy Flag, and be gunned-down by the city occupants. This was a reasonable method of controlling players who were griefing these city members/guild members. On one occasion, the citywarn was used improperly, where a guild member had banned a CSR from the city, and the guild members proceeded to kill the CSR. It is one of the most notorious screenshots in SWG history! Rather than take it with a grain of salt, the developers acted childishly and removed the feature entirely, and indefinitely. This is common in SWG.
Secondly is the definition of content itself. Historically, this team identifies content as a new place to go to collect new item drops, or some new addition to the game as described above. In most products this might seem reasonable, perhaps in the case of player cities, mounts, and vehicles you would find some content. Nevertheless, because of the nature of the game itself, a player finds himself or herself attempting to identify with their created character, and applying it to the Star Wars Universe. In most cases, this is simply not possible. The argument, for example, that Smugglers dont actually SMUGGLE anything has existed since Beta, and is simply not being addressed at an appropriate level, and this issue will be discussed further, later on in this article.
The game had a bit of a rocky start, but I feel my team resolved the most pressing issues in good time. The biggest Customer Service complaints and most gating bugs were put to the top of the list and most of them were resolved within a few days as "Hot Fixes".
Most of the gating bugs were NOT addressed within a few days of release. In fact, it wasnt until October when the release-bugs started to be hot-fixed to an appropriate degree. Here, the issue wasnt that these bugs werent being addressed, but that with each new additional patch there were hundreds more which went live, and the feedback concerning these bugs became overwhelming. Even at this date, there are in existence hundreds of release-date bugs which are simply not addressed. As each patch goes live, hundreds more are added, and it follows they too are not addressed. The game is currently reaching a crescendo of game-stopping and gating bugs that the developers just will not consider for fixes.
To address this issue, rather than pursue the hot-fixes as one might expect, the main forum was closed to avoid the plethora of issues getting further public attention. A new forum was opened in which you must own the product, and/or be a member of the Fan Club in order to participate. Now, if you do not own the product, you do not see the problems with pervade every aspect of the game-play environment. All you see on the outside is what the developers deem an appropriate statement. Statements such as these, that I am commenting on here, are typically not in-line with the reality of the situation (to say it politely).
Since this time, the communications between the developers and the community has diminished to the point of non-existence. The developers began, at this time, to add several posts a week each. However, nothing is ever said. Each announcement proves that they are not listening to the community. Huh? seems to be the word of the day. When communications are in order, the developers announce some fix or addition that has nothing at all to do with the particular issue in discussion, nothing that has to do with the communitys request, and nothing to do with Star Wars continuity. The community feels like theyve been had, in this respect.
The Wookie players, for example, have been complaining since release that they have no defenses in-game, and are nothing more than targets for armored players. Their request? To give the Wookies better natural defenses. Simple, and matches what one might expect from knowledge of the Star Wars universe. The developer response? Create several sets of Wookie Armor, all of which violates continuity. Who ever heard of Wookies wearing armor?
Another example: The Bounty Hunter community has been arguing that Mandalorian Armor (ala the Fetts) should be added to the game to an extremely limited degree as a reward for a very difficult task, and that this armor should be rare, unique, and designed for use by the Master Bounty Hunter only. This you might expect from your knowledge of the Star Wars universe. Nobody really wants to see tons of Fett clones running around all over the place. Recently, Mandalorian Armor HAS been added to the game, in fact it is on the Test Center at the time of this writing. It is not only going to be common in the game environment, but it is also going to be allowed for everybody, not just Bounty Hunters.
These types of failures in the decision-making process of this development team are prevalent within Galaxies. The community is fed-up with this nonsense.
Major exploits have been closed within two days, hundreds of illegal auctions have been closed, and hundreds of cheaters have been banned from the game.
Wrong. In fact there are (at least) 4 separate major exploits being perpetrated by Jedi Players alone, to avoid being hunted by Bounty Hunters in particular. These exploits have been reported en-masse since November, when we first encountered a player utilizing one of these exploits. Those who have been campaigning for the removal of these players, and a proper fix to the bugs being exploited, have been ignored. There has been no feedback whatsoever in these 6 months concerning these exploits, and today they are so widely used that they have practically been termed as features by the Jedi player community.
We have greatly improved the stability for our game worlds, chat servers and support systems.
Wrong again. In fact, game stability was better at release than it is currently. Major issues with crashing are being ignored, lag issues are tremendous in many locations, and the database is daily and randomly removing items from players inventories on a level never before experienced, and certainly holds true for ANY game I have played in the past. There also has been no feedback whatsoever on this issue.
Hundreds of other enhancements and bugs fixes were added as part of the monthly publishes. We had to enact some "nerfs" (changes made for game balance that generally are not in the favor of the individual player) for the greater good of the game, but the code enhancements and fixes clearly outnumbered the "nerfs" by a huge percentage (see the complete update notes from any given publish).
Nerfs. For the greater good of the game, droids were removed in their great combat abilities so that no one player may take on high level creatures or NPCs and get away with exploiting in this manner. This means no more gaining more experience than you should, and no more item and money rewards outside your level simply by owning a droid.
We listened to the community, and now added the Droid Invasion and Droid Engineer revamp, whereby the new droids are still 1-hit by any creature or player in the game.
If this is better for the game, then why would they institute Doctor Buffs at such a level that any player, at whatever skill level, can hunt very high creatures and NPCs in the game-play environment without being in any serious danger? Yet they still hold to the concept that tough droids are BAD.
Confusing, isnt it?
Knockdowns were reportedly BAD, because those with these skills would dominate the field of battle. So, they nerfed the ability of Bounty Hunters to knock other players down utilizing only Bounty Hunter skills, while leaving all others to maintain their knockdown abilities at their current level.
If the ability to knock down an opponent was so BAD, why wasnt the ability made equally useless across the board?
Each nerf follows this seeming disparity between reason and the reality of the game-play. These negative changes have never followed a single conceptual basis of development ideology, but seem to apply only to certain professions after being declared bad for the game in general. However, they do not carry-over to a general state of concept. If knockdowns were bad, for example, why did they leave them in for everybody else but Bounty Hunters?
It follows that people have then been taking advantage of the confusion that this development team seems to be experiencing. In no case have they followed-through to a conclusion. For that matter, they have not yet completed anything they claim has been implemented.
As an example, the warping, rubber-banding, and other serious problems concerning the Vehicles implementation have NOT been addressed. And we are several months from this implementation. There is never any feedback, and there are never any fixes to the issues. Simply, more and more being added with each passing hot-fix and/or publish.
Another of our big objectives post-launch was to quickly add content to the game. While we are always driving to add more (and have an aggressive plan to do so every month), we currently have a good depth of content.
No, in fact this development team has no idea what the definition of content is, as was stated above. Content, in this form of game design, and in the Star Wars saga, resides within the professions themselves. A player logs on for the first time, and they have already made up their mind what they intend to do. They have seen the movies, they have read the books, and they want to play a character based upon Han Solo, Talon Kaarde, Boba Fett, or perhaps any given Jedi. Yet, they find themselves in an environment where they are completely the opposite, or nowhere near what they expected, after having a solid feel for what their character should be able to do or interact in the game.
A player identifies with their associated character in the game environment. The profession they choose, then, needs to be closely related to what the potential player expects after seeing the movies and reading the books. This identification takes place through the concept of Purpose. The applied purpose of a given profession in the game-play is where the content resides.
The example of the Smuggler above is an excellent one. The Smuggler doesnt actually smuggle anything. The Smuggler makes illegal substances, slices weapons and armor for better performance, terminals for better payout, and so forth. The Smuggler implementation is that of a crafter with very bad pistol skills, not what you might expect from watching Star Wars .and its BORING!
Another example is the Jedi, who were implemented in such a manner that they are forced to kill everything in sight to level-up their character. There IS no Jedi content, only killing creatures.
In fact, only the Bounty Hunter in this game has any content to speak of. The Bounty Hunter has a unique missions system designed around them in which they accept a bounty on an NPC target, and then must go hunt the target down to accomplish the mission. Yet, now that Jedi bounties are implemented, not only is the Bounty Hunter typically incapable of completing these bounties due to the tremendous imbalances in combat aspects of the game, but any given player of Master Bounty Hunter template has second-rate combat skills, rendering them useless in a fight versus any other player that has expended 1/3 of the skill points required to build a character capable of defeating a Bounty Hunter in combat.
Therefore, the Bounty Hunter, being the only profession with a true purpose, true identity in the game itself, is only partially implemented to date.
A person, then, looking to be a Smuggler is quite disappointed. This holds for Bounty Hunters, who are looked upon as laughable weaklings, and Jedi who are simply so commonplace in the game now that the continuity itself has been broken.
Given what people know by witnessing the Star Wars saga, one might expect that if the development team failed anywhere, it would have been in that the Bounty Hunters and Smugglers would be too much fun, and too many people would be playing those parts.
This is not the case, instead, its quite the opposite.
Players can easily find six different types of mission terminals, hundreds of story driven NPC quests, dozens of dungeons and after our next publish, the three major Themeparks (which all will function correctly and offer good rewards). Additionally, our live event team is in the game nearly every day promoting and enhancing player hosted events and well as running their own.
Since release, any given quest has traditionally returned junk. The time spent, and danger involved in completing these quests, missions, and themeparks is NOT rewarded. Often enough, players receive broken items as a result of a quest, little to no monetary rewards, and are often outmatched, or on the other hand not challenged by the given quest.
Its Risk versus Reward, and Risk is winning.
A player, for example, will find himself or herself conversing with an NPC quest-giver. The player then spends several hours pursuing some missions associated with that quest-giver, and in return is rewarded minor credits, and/or basic level weaponry or other items that already have significant damage to them, and have no useful purpose. In fact, I am so grieved by these items, that I simply delete them. Nobody wants to purchase them, even the junk dealer, and their sole purpose seems to be to fill the items database with garbage, contributing to the tremendous problem of items disappearing out of player inventories on a regular basis.
In this case, the development team began to implement some better missions and rewards, but never finished the process, and wont discuss anything let alone this issue. All you hear is that they are adding more content this month, and every month , but this game has traditionally been devoid of content. As stated above, purpose should be defined in a given profession, and that purpose applied to a unique missions system. This being said, content doesnt exist.
At the end of 2003, we improved our community communications pipeline and have the many of top issues of the profession correspondents added to the current development schedule. Nearly every design meeting has your assistant community manager, Thunderheart, attending to fight for the will of the players.
At the end of 2003, they offered more forums in which player issues are ignored. The argument that this system works has been put forth by the development team, yet in each and every circumstance, the result has been negative. The communications between developer and community traditionally flows in one direction only, and that means that we hear about game additions, which are supposedly addressing our issues, yet these additions were never requested and generate much negative feedback. (Which is then systematically ignored)
Thunderheart came to the SWG community from outside. When he arrived, he seemed full of spirit and the work ethic, and immediately set out to pursue gaining knowledge of the product. Almost immediately, he began forming personal opinions about each given profession to the point of the community no longer being able to reason with him in any manner. He now ignores the vast majority of complaints, and has a negative effect on communications.
It has been said that no profession issues reach the development meetings without first passing his approval. Recently, he commented to the current Bounty Hunter correspondent, that the Bounty Hunter profession was overpowered and warranted no fixes. Yes, this is the same Bounty Hunter profession that players laugh at in the game environment, because of their weakness and game-breaking issues.
Thunderheart very quickly became a detriment to the community, an obstacle to communications, and his presence in the development life-cycle has an extremely negative effect on the issues put forth by the correspondents.
Our latest addition includes a Jedi Correspondent. Based on the feedback we are getting, we are making plans for a complete Jedi system revamp. This will take many months, but the first step will be to work with the community to see what they like and don't like with the current system.
Considering there were no Jedi at all in the game until November, and there are some 33 other professions that have major problems due to the above, and also given that the Jedi community is the smallest community in the game how are many months of Jedi revamping warranted? Why is it being done now instead of in-order like it should be?
There are so MANY issues yet to deal with concerning the other professions, yet each in turn has been ignored for 10 months, or systematically nerfed to being a pointless pursuit of satisfactory game-play.
The priorities since release have been either non-existent, or have been completely skewed in terms of their underlying reasoning.
See? We gave you the BIG THREE that we promised at release, Vehicles, Mounts, and Player Cities. What they arent telling you is all the broken promises. They plan this, then forget that, and as a result people are downright angry with them. The following is an excellent example.
Going forward, 2004 is looking to be a great year for us. With the launch and post launch features behind us, we can concentrate on three major elements. The first is adding more content and features to the game. We are solidifying our monthly publish schedule and I'm excited by the things that are coming up. Expect to see a new publish Theme every month and well as a new dungeon. This will include the Imperial Crackdown this month and the Droid Invasion next month.
It may be looking like a great year for the SOE people, but the players are leaving.
It was argued, for example, that the Imperial Crackdown would simply give content to the Rebels, where it wasnt needed. At this time, often you will find a highly skilled uber-template rebel stomping all over Imperial cities wiping out all the troopers for faction points. I just dont see the continuity in this. In fact, very little of what is implemented is actually thought-through to a logical conclusion. This fact is a typical example of ignored feedback resulting in negative implementations.
Rather than making reasonable and timely changes, fixing bugs and game-breaking exploits, and adding true content in the form of professional identification and purpose, we are moving very rapidly towards (what we thought was) the Combat Pass. The Combat Pass was supposed to correct the issues surrounding the main concept of the game-play, combat itself. The imbalances and horrible bugs have left us, as the community, wanting. Not wanting more, but wanting OUT. The Combat Pass, more than any other issue in the past, is the one thing that the players were truly looking forward to as a publish.
As of this writing, you will notice that there is no more comment concerning the Combat Pass Publishes. This is because SOE has again failed to produce for the players that which they deem reasonable fixes and content, and that which they promised. The Combat Pass is on-hold indefinitely.
Why? The Jedi Revamp. The one major issue that breaks the game for almost every player is put on hold to fix the smallest community in the game. Its likely the combat fixes will not arrive until the Space Expansion, and the community is so very discouraged by this policy of ignorance that we are simply not going to buy into this expansion.
Truthfully, if the amazing number of game-breaking bugs and exploits cannot be corrected by then, and the professions each addressed according to their individual needs, on what basis will a potential customer purchase this product? On FAITH? On the basis of it being STAR WARS?
Perhaps. This last is the reason why many of us stayed for so long. We are STAR WARS FANS, we are certainly not SWG fans, because SOE is simply not providing STAR WARS, but their warped version of the Star Wars Universe.
The question arises on a daily basis in the forums WHERE IS LUCAS? Why isnt he stomping somebodys guts out?
In fact, Lucas has gotten so BIG that it is becoming unmanageable. When they were a small group of intelligent go-getters with a vision, they were the ultimate expression of the needs of the community. They provided for us, in 1977, the pinnacle of films. They maintained continuity from this film to the books, and the fans have been very pleased.
Their failures began in Phantom Menace, when it was popular for a film to have an overly-comical side-kick involved. Rather than address the needs of the Star Wars fans, they attempted to address the apparent needs of everyone else. In Attack of the Clones, their failures continued with the over-abundance of FX, so much so that the story itself is lost in the light show. They are becoming more and more mismanaged, and the original genius is being lost in dazzling displays of lightsabers and explosions.
SOE is no different. They are a huge game company, that tells the world that they give the players what they want, when in truth they are doing nothing more than taking peoples money and resting on their laurels. We require a better management of this deal.
George, if you are listening, Episode III does not need massive FX, and it does not need Jar-Jar. It needs an excellent storyline played out in a galaxy of genius concepts. Do you remember?
SOE, if you are listening .oh, sorry, carry on.
Our next priority is working with the community to enhance the quality and fun of the existing systems and professions. Several of them are getting revamps including the Droid Engineer, Smuggler and Chef (see update notes). Our Lead Designer is making certain that every designer has time scheduled to deal with community issues that come up.
Weve heard this before. In fact weve been hearing this for 10 months, with little to no positive result. I find nothing new in the previous statements made in this letter. These things are precisely what the community wants to hear, but they have yet to come through in a satisfactory manner in anything they have promised, or anything the community has requested.
Our final priority is to release a first-rate expansion involving crafting and flying space ships. The work I've seen so far shows that the team is focusing on the fun factor of space combat. It will likely be a few months before we talk more about Space, but I think the players are going to enjoy the experience.
Actually, this development team has deluded themselves into thinking that the players are actually having fun with the product in its current state. As stated previously, they have systematically ignored the community issues, and refuse to address the negative feedback.
Statements from the development team in the past have suggested that they move only on those issues that they feel are properly reported. Anything negative is ignored. Surely they can see that a FIX is required for something that is broken, and reporting something that is broken is likely to be...negative in some manner?
Their ignorance in this matter is a serious issue. If the development team refuses to address the negative aspects of the game, the game will never even begin to approach a working state.
Notice here that the Space Expansion comes AFTER professional issues have been addressed. There is no possible way, given what they have done to date, that they will be able to accomplish this task. The simple ones have been beyond reach for them, but what is being stated here is impossible for this development team to achieve.
I'm very confident that SWG currently represents the bar in MMOs.
In fact, so are we. And this is not a statement to be proud of, given the current state of MMOs at this time. The community, including my opinion and those who have discussed this issue with me, agree unanimously that SWG has reached the point of being
The Best of the Worst.
No more, no less, and nothing to be excited about. It is simply the bar by which customers of this genre have been forced to pay for sub-standard products.
The game concept of SWG is one of the finest, if not THE finest, in gaming history. Yet, they refuse to take it seriously enough to provide the best implementation possible. The management is proceeding under antiquated community management guidelines, put forth by Koster and Vogel, and they do not address the fans of Lucas.
To back that claim up, a few weeks ago we created a Win Back program where we gave free playtime to those who discontinued their account. We also offered Buddy Keys for players to give their friends to try before they buy. I expect us to offer the Buddy Keys again in a few months. I think you'll find that the game is worth playing and sticking with.
Each person that returned during this program that I was acquainted with personally, and spoke with, had the same comment. NOTHING HAS CHANGED POSITIVELY.
Now, why would a game company give away free play-time to show potential return customers that nothing is any different?
This was very poorly timed, and very poorly thought-out. Truthfully, I cannot bring myself to believe that this management felt that returning players would actually be impressed, and reactivate their paying accounts, when they have done nothing to add anything positive to the game-play.
Each that I spoke with found nothing at all addressed, concerning the reasons why they left in the first place. Every one of them cancelled their account again after a week, or less, of experiencing the same-old.
May the Force be with us all!
Actually, it WILL BE. It was recently announced that ALL players will be able to gain force sensitivity.
We know what this means. You must pursue this aspect of the game to compete. All players by the end of 2004 will have force abilities to some degree.
This is continuity?
Give us a break. (and I dont mean yet another break in the continuity of the saga)
Rich Vogel
Executive Producer
Star Wars Galaxies
SWG management has some very serious problems. Firstly, they have been incompetent in the direction and application of the development lifecycle of Star Wars Galaxies.
It has been, and still is, my opinion that this product will never even approach customer expectations until this management staff has been replaced with intelligent and reasonable individuals, capable of addressing the needs of the community, and not acting childishly when looking at the feedback.
They have been out of touch with the SWG community, and this apparently will not change. They have violated the continuity of the Star Wars Universe, as described, with each passing publish. They have not taken seriously the game-breaking and gating crashing issues, exploits, bugs, and other game-play failures. It has become necessary for Lucas and SOE to directly address the underlying reasons why this is the case, and those responsible for this failure will need to be replaced before the game even begins to reach a state of adequacy.
Those of us who are Star Wars fans are downright furious with how Galaxies has been managed, and its time for a change.
Some may disagree, but simply contacting the Better Business Bureau will show the feedback that has to date defined the SOE product. No other company that I am aware of would sit still for such a publicity failure without addressing appropriately those responsible.
The game was not ready at the June 2003 release date. After 10 months, it is still not ready for release. It isnt even ready to be directed towards a state of readiness.
As fans of the Star Wars saga, we require the removal of those responsible. Koster and Vogels policies do not address the needs of the community, and do not take seriously the ramifications of their policies. Rather than yet another set of professional management, what is required here is a team of intelligent, engineering-minded go-getters like Lucasfilm in the heady days of A New Hope. What we truly need is a Star Wars fan running the show!
If nothing is done, the game will forever be bogged-down in a committee, called by the director to accomplish a task that has nothing to do with the needs of the SWG community.
Wepps
Former Bounty Hunter Correspondent
Star Wars Fan Extraordinaire
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Comments
An excellent post. This article should be required reading for anyone considering playing this game.
SWG was a bold experiment. Unfortunately, that experiment has failed.
Bring on CoH !!
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Frodo has failed. Bush has The Ring.
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"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." -- Batman
Very good review.
The offical SOE letter sounded a lot like Baghdad Bob's "The Americans are not in Baghdad..."
Wepps, you should forward this review to Lucasarts and everyone else u can think of....although the chances of Lucasarts responding will be the same chance SWG will turn for the good...
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
To give an example of the kinds of treatment that the players are getting from this incompetent management team, I offer up the following post and commentary.
This morning, I am reviewing the BH forum, and this post comes to my attention. This is the SECOND TIME THIS WEEK where a player was actually banned from the game for simply....killing a Jedi player.
The first was a poster know as battledroid01. This one is from another BH, whose crime appears to ONLY be pursuit of the Jedi hunts, which were implemented in this game according to SOE's own policy.
This type of disgraceful behaviour has gotten way out of hand. Read for yourself:
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
BTW, the first post was deleted several times by the board moderators, who lately have taken it upon themselves to ban anybody from the forums who offer up any criticism of the developers, and lock down any posts that are a negative tone.
I luckily got the previous post before it was deleted.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
that was just like my post (about MODs taking the post down)
This was way back when Gamespy wrote the 3 month article about how bad the game really was.
I posted the link and was banned for three days (including server play). I played 2 more momnths after that simply because my husband and I wanted to grind out a Jedi.
The only satisfaction I have from SWG is the fact that we got a nice downpayment for our Ford Focus cause of our account we sold on ebay.
We sold that account with increadible joy. We never sell mmorpg accounts...but we felt it was the only thing we could do to actually feel like we had somehow gotten a word in against SWG.
About once a month as Im driving that car, my husband and I would joke about how if it wasn't for Raph Koster we wouldnt be driving this car.
Moonroof, satelite radio, thewhole nine yards. COuldnt afford the monthly payments if we hadnt given our SWG to ebay and, in turn, give it to the Ford dealer.
So, with that, I thank SWG
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Hiya Wepps.....Makes a change to see your posts elsewhere other than the BH forums
.
SOE have lost all direction with where they are going with Swg. Bugs and inbalances to professions are still evident months after launch. Vehicles which are little more than a graphical change to seeing your character running have the same level of bugs introduced at launch.....thats just one but we all know there are many more.
I'm a mbh on eclipse and on the first jedi hunt we came across to afk'ing rooftop jedis...hunt over. Second jedi promptly ran to the nearest stretch of water with the speed of a mountain gazelle and promptly logged.
Took us all of 30 minutes to discover these 2 exploits...why the hell didn't the dev's see this coming during trials???
I think they get to the point and think "hell put it in anyway"
Pan
This post has to be, without a doubt, the best assessment of SWG as a game that I've ever read. Anyone planning on buying the game or coming back to it read carefully. NOTHING has gotten better. It's still a slap-dash game that quickly loses it's appeal after about an hour of gameplay.
Do yourselves a favor, leave it on the shelf. If a Star Wars fix is what you need, just watch the movies again.
Sadly, SWG is the best example of Sticking a Popular title to a mmorpg and expect miracles to happen.
I guarantee you Raph Koster has smacked himself on several occasions when making this game as it will probbaly haunt him for years to come.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Heyas
Yeah, Raph. I gave him the benefit of the doubt in beta, and judging by the dedicated and hard-working attitudes of that development team then...I recommended that people purchase the game.
I don't like being made a liar.
That's pretty much the extent of my 'personal' problems with this guy, but if any of you ever read his dissertation on 'How to Manage an Online Gaming Community', you will find that he single-handedly wrote the book on how to mistreat the customers, and get away with it. The entire presentation was all about this in particular.
What's ironic is somebody actually posted it just after release, and he jumped in and stated that "you are reading it out of context", but as time has gone by, he has held to this outdated and outrageous policy. This is what is wrong with the product, and this is why I state, in full conscience, that he and his management staff HAVE TO GO before anything decent will ever come of it.
After witnessing his only two applications of this policy, and how they turned out, I can safely say he isn't qualified to manage a lemonade stand.
This goes for most everybody on that management staff, including Thunderheart.
LOL do any of you remember that great mini-series decades ago..."I Claudius"?
I was just watching it tonight, and got to the parts where Sejanus (played by Patrick Stewart) was running Rome for Tiberius. This one scene comes up, where all these wealthy landowners are standing outside the Emperor's doorway, and Sejanus comes out. He quiets them down and says..."give me all your petitions I promise the Emperor will see them." Then proceeds to disappear them LOL. This reminded me so much of Thunderheart I was LMAO! It never occured to me before.
Kurt Stangl came in hot and burned himself out. He's down to answering 1 question a week now, and that's usually pedantic cut-and-paste responses which tell the profession in question nothing at all.
And what exactly does Haden Blackman do? He supposedly is the Lucas end of this deal, dealing with continuity. Instead of enforcing the continuity in this product, they've been making things up as they go along, then Haden rushes off and makes a new comic-book that changes the continuity to justify the mistake in the game! What the hell is that!
And again, WHERE IS LUCAS?
/shrug
Maybe he is Tiberius in this role. Kept in the dark, all the power in the hands of those that have no good intentions for Rome. Maybe he was perfectly happy in that condition?
Well, his followers aren't...
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
hehe
I refuse to believe that Lucas has any hand in this mess
But ive been wrong before lol
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
That was a post that hits the mark.
I find it so surprising and dissapointing that the Devs consistantly misunderstand (deliberately or not) and stick their fingers in their ears and sing lalalalalalalala when people voice concerns or report bugs. It realy felt that they didnt give a damn about us and were happy to keep takign the cash whilst the ship slowly sank into the murky depths of mediocrity.
grr
It's ironical!
They seem lately to make excellent changes, then remove them after listening to the wrong people. Novatroopers, for example. They add them, and they represent what my view of an Imperial Crackdown is...the control of Rebels who single-handedly take over towns.
A friend of mine noticed them and was telling me about them, so i went and located some, and sure enough they were very tough hombres. They were not going to be taken down by an single player. The next day? They removed them.
Why waste time adding them, if you are just going to remove them within a couple days? Wasted time again. And what's with them and melons? They seem to have more problems with the newbie melons than anything else. This publish: another melon issue addressed
Then they come up with the idea of actually reducing wait time at starports, a great fix for some bounty hunter problems. Then, they change their minds for some lame reason and only allow it to shuttles, useless to bounty hunters.
Now, I read Gary Gattis recent posting concerning 'the plan' and think this states what I feel is finally moving in the right direction. But, it is so replete with disclaimers that the schedule is going to change that I find myself in the same boat. Thinking that they are simply telling the community what the community wants to hear, but they have no intention of following through.
The community wants action not words, but in the case of the bounty hunters they don't even get the words which is disgraceful policy on their part. They have alienated the BH community and ignore those issues, and my friend is correct in stating that "until smugglers and bounty hunters are fixed and working as you might expect in the movies and books, this game will never start to move in the right direction".
Its all about these 2 professions. These are the ones most useful and feared in the star wars universe, but in the game they are lame and restrictive. And there seems to be no mention of improving the condition of these 2. However, its overly important to them to fix the image designers and squad leaders?
Very poor decision making, lack of proper priorities, and inability to stick to what they say they are going to do is pissing everybody off. It's no wonder that their gaming division lost hundreds of millions in profit this quarter, and its no wonder sony in general lost 50% of their profit potential over the same period.
They are simply alienating their customer base across the board, and the management is under the false impression that this is somehow GOOD to alienate even more.
They need some brains, not more professional managers there in order to see a real difference in this quarter, but they are just too dumb to see that the problem exists in the way it is being managed. They will continue down this road indefinitely, and regardless of the consequences. This is the price of incompetence.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Right on Wepps!!!!
Night'Hawk BH Traq Server - ExSWG Player
Wepps:
"I will state here that the majority of us who have experienced Star Wars Galaxies feel now that, even with many of the additions to the game that should have improved it towards a better game-play experience, it is in fact worse-off now than it has been at any point in the history of its development."
Strictly your opinion. Which is good and fine. But according to the majority, according to the accountants, your opinion does not hold true. SWG is suffering (mostly because of the poorly implimented Jedi). But SWG is most definatly not doing worse now than it did during it's entire time being out. One obvious proof is the fact at day 1 of release SWG was 100.100% unplayable. Right now May 2004 SWG is definatly playable heheh.
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MMORPG games I've played:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
Star Wars Galaxies:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/capt_xplororor
More games:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
I like that. Once again, whenever anyone cannot refute my facts, proofs, and evidence with facts, proofs, and evidence..... they resort to name calling and making things up. In this case calling me a paid SOE employee.
So tell me, how can you tell over the internet who I work for? Where I work?
BTW, using your arguement, then ALL SWG bashers must work for Mythic, Funcom, MicroSoft? Can I from now on claim, make up, and say En1Gma works for MicroSoft?
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MMORPG games I've played:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
Star Wars Galaxies:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/capt_xplororor
More games:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
LOL
that was priceless
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Wepps said:
Then they come up with the idea of actually reducing wait time at starports, a great fix for some bounty hunter problems. Then, they change their minds for some lame reason and only allow it to shuttles, useless to bounty hunters.
They put this up to a vote for the community. There was an overwhelming majority that voted for a lowered shuttleport time, same starport time, and no change to the trade routes (how you can only jump to certain planets from other planets). I voted for lower times all around and no limit to where you can go (tatooine to yavin? sure), but I was outvoted.
The community wants action not words, but in the case of the bounty hunters they don't even get the words which is disgraceful policy on their part. They have alienated the BH community and ignore those issues, and my friend is correct in stating that "until smugglers and bounty hunters are fixed and working as you might expect in the movies and books, this game will never start to move in the right direction".
Its all about these 2 professions. These are the ones most useful and feared in the star wars universe, but in the game they are lame and restrictive. And there seems to be no mention of improving the condition of these 2. However, its overly important to them to fix the image designers and squad leaders?
The BH will have some updates for jedi missions(which are currentlybroken again) in the jedi updates and much more stuff in the combat revamp. Smugglers asked to have their revamp pushed back so that it would be done right. Image Designer and Squad Leader have been near usless from the beginning. BHs and Smugglers acctually could do things, and can still do things.
Very poor decision making, lack of proper priorities, and inability to stick to what they say they are going to do is pissing everybody off. It's no wonder that their gaming division lost hundreds of millions in profit this quarter, and its no wonder sony in general lost 50% of their profit potential over the same period.
They are simply alienating their customer base across the board, and the management is under the false impression that this is somehow GOOD to alienate even more.
They need some brains, not more professional managers there in order to see a real difference in this quarter, but they are just too dumb to see that the problem exists in the way it is being managed. They will continue down this road indefinitely, and regardless of the consequences. This is the price of incompetence
I agree that those above the Devs have no idea what is needed to make the game run well and be entertaining (whoever thought up the idea of holocrons should be dragged into the street and beaten without being told why). The Devs are getting better at getting the players what they want while still keeping the game fair. challenging, and fun.
And I wish I could have gotten to see the Novatroopers. Never got to see one in game (saw a few screenshots though).
They are getting better, but they had just better keep their word and keep up with what they have planned up to the Space Expansion and they will have turn this game around.
Waiting For: something good
Games Tried: SWTOR, Star Trek Online, EQ, EQ2, Earth and Beyond, Planetside, Lineage 2, Eve Online, WoW, City of Heroes, City of Villians, Auto Assault, Fallen Earth
Star Wars: Galaxies - Ibra Olasi (Valcyn Server) [Dead, screw you SOE]
I agree. Just after I published the original post, the developers seemed to FINALLY get the picture, and started making much better decisions.
The Jedi revamp looks great, though there will be more Jedi than you can shake a spraystick at. Aside from the problem of force user population control, there is a lot of good coming.
I've seen the trailer, and the Space Expansion looks like ass, though. And this is why we are all waiting for better quality product? Because of ass-looking SE? It's not a very hard call for me to make. Near the end of January I cancelled my account. At that time, the developers honestly didn't have a stinkin clue. Now it seems that they actually started to listen to the community, but Bill Clinton type polling of all the liberals isn't going to make the country better.
There are things they should be looking at outside every profession and their mother wanting to look like Boba Fett. In my opinion, every violation of the continuity should cost a producer $32,000 out of thier meeting-bonus. This is Star Wars. Violating canon constantly in the name of worse-gameplay makes no sense.
The potential players of this product, and those that left, are not playing because of this issue. It's not Star Wars no matter what the box says. This is typical Kosteritis that these developers are suffering from. Give the people minimal Star Wars, create the core community (those players stupid enough to continue to pay top industry dollar to play a broken product on the merit of its name), then start filtering in slowly the fixes.
Work in progress my eye.
Consider this. In 18 months, the 15 developers of DAoC put out an excellent idea in the form of a working product. Does Mythic Entertainment auto-nerf everything in sight because a few clowns whine on the forums? No. They take their time, because for the most part the game is nearly perfectly balanced. How can this be?
...since SOE has over 60 developers (4 times as many) and it took them twice as long to put out a piece of garbage. It is still imbalanced and getting worse every day. They are ignoring the problems causing people to leave to put out a Space Expansion that, right now, still looks horribly unplayable.
Back to the original sentences. They are taking steps to fix it properly. Probably because their necks are no longer holding their heads on completely and the axe is falling. Get people in the game or get punted onto the street, where many of the management belongs. They lost WAY too much money this last quarter and their jobs are now in jeopardy.
Koster/Vogel had no business in this project. They needed better talent than that, i mean, how many MMOs need to be ruined by their incompetence before they are no longer asked to speak at the Austin Game Developers Conference?
These guys constantly talk about why something cannot be done. Then I look at the boys from Mythic who will be talking about why they are wrong and it can be done.
Who do YOU trust?
The problem with Austin is that they are catering to the 'core community'. Those people stupid enough to hang around in the hopes that SWG will one day be fixed. Too many products like this have pissed me off for the last time. (Mainly because anybody that f***s with Star Wars needs to have their almonds roasted over a hot fire). It's not about what can be accomplished anymore, but what these guys can get away with. I vote we give Austin to Mexico and move on. Give them San Jose too while we're at it.
How many of you remember fondly the days of EQ release? lol
Hey, that was a GREAT GAME! It was an innovative concept from Verant, well balanced, very playable. It had its problems, but people were confident in the proper fixes in a relatively short-time. Then Verant sold-out to SOE, and SOE ruined it. They took to nerfing everybody in sight, and to hell with the bugs.
When I was playing EQ, I kept a notebook of all bugs I ran into (from release day). That notebook had very small fonts, and still it was halfway full. Last fall I reinstalled it and started to play again. What did I find? Every single bug in that notebook WAS STILL THERE! Typical SOE. They simply do not understand the value of actually making a working product.
Another vote? How many here actually think that EQ2 will do very well with Koster as Chief Creative Officer?
The problem is in the management, and I am dead set against the precedence that Koster/Vogel, and SOE in general have been setting in the industry. In my opinion, their actions are criminal in that they shove broken products down the customers' throats, and have no intention of fixing them properly. They see the bottom line at the end of the month, and nothing more.
What we need is a set of gamers with ADD running the show. They will know what is fun, and they will know how not to be bored.
Oh well, back to work.
I'll leave with this. The customers expect a quality product. They haven't been getting that, anywhere in the MMO industry lately, and the customers are ticked off because of it. But SWG should have been the greatest product in the history of the genre. Instead, we got Kostermer Service again.
The so-called Industry Leaders are leading the show down all the wrong roads. Just deathblow them and let's move on to better things. SOE wouldn't know how to run a car wash, let alone manage a complex community. Let them die. The people that will be moving in to pick up the MMO industry pieces will likely learn from SOE's mistakes, and do a better job.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
In today's spirit of necroing, I offer up this mess
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Thought you quit SWG? If so, isn't it about time to move on with your life? Hell, it was time for you to move on when you still played mate hehe what game ya playing now? How good could it be if you're still beating this quite alive horse? Every night on Naritus Mos Eisley is full of new players and old alike, and not sure if you know this but it's really fun to be new in this game.
With SWG and EQ2 I want for nothing in video games, and what I get is everything I could want. I admit I guess I'll have to wait a year or so till I realize what all the flaming fuss is about. I know in my heart you are sparklingly intelligent, but that fact and the fact that you quit and are still here on a third party forum complaining don't really go hand in hand, do they?
Looks like you didn't read any of the thread AA.
Not that I'm surprised or anything. Fanbois typically don't, especially when they are new and the graphics are still selling them....
On second thought that's not true. You read the title I'm betting.
It's a simple matter of pointing out the facts. Fact one, there is a lot of interesting discussion in here you will ignore because the title of the post is critical of your new religion. Yet you will take the time to troll it, and I'm thankful because the thread lives as long as you adorn it with your comments
So I'd like to take the time to thank you for your commentary, even though none of it had anything to do with the discussion at hand.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
WTF my husband and I???? I hope your wife posted all this En1Gma! lmao
WOOOO THREAD NECRO!
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas