Mr.Freeman i respect the job you guys do really i do its hard to please so many different people.So what i dont understand is the Why? the Game was flawed yes but the combat system animations and the complexity werent.When you remove the core gameplay of something then implement a less superior system you'll get tons of massive cancellations..The WoW clone you guys did during the CU wasnt the answer.the First CU that never made it couldve been, it seemed to adress some of the top complaints.I didnt agree with all of them but i couldve gotten along with them(those were mind stims-Armor caps-Buff Caps ect)
So, I don't work for SOE any more. That's my disclaimer.
The combat system we shipped with did have some issues. I thought them more related to ancillary systems interacting poorly with the main combat system (healing, buffs, weapons, armor... dots, maybe). My preference was to fix those issues rather than revamping the whole thing, but that wasn't my decision to make. I went right to working on JtL, then right to RotW aftter that, so I wasn't even in the loop on what decisions were being made, let alone why.
The point of Dvol's post was that the CURB, which was ditched for the CU, was supposed to address the players' complaints of the combat system. The developers working on it communicated pretty well with the players on the forums, up until the CU was announced. The CU brought a bunch of changes that nobody asked for, nor wanted. Sadly, it didn't decimate the subscription base like the NGE did, or we likely wouldn't have had the NGE. The CU, while a radicle change, against the community's wants, didn't make the game unrecognisable, which the NGE did.
We'll never know if the CURB might have done what the CU and NGE was intended to do. It would have been a major change, with the consent and input of the community. Unfortunatly, certian WoW playing executives decided that the game should be remade in WoW's image. When remaking the combat system to be more like WoW failed, they decided to remake the entier game, ripping out everything that was fun and replacing it with a crappy FPS style combat system, a loot based economy, and a rigid class based progression system.
A years worth of wasted development later, and SOE still thinks they can make it a success (or are at least willing to lie about that to certain selected 'cynical' customers).
Yep obee exactly
I know you dont work for SOE i just thought since your the only one with the intergrity to actually respond you could shed more light on the subject..I understand the whole NDA things you have to follow..I just enjoy reading opinions even if i dont agree with them at all.If you cant or dont want to respond its not a big deal at all .i enjoyed reading your responses to other post and thought id throw you out some of my lousy Q's..
Even the NGE would have been more successful (and a very different set of changes, I imagine), if current players had been included in the design and development. Even if that meant making a less-fun, less-radical new game, it would have been a million times better to kill the anti-marketing (and a billion times better to have the marketing reinforced with current-player endorsement).
But those are easy to spot with 20/20 hindsight. I know SOE thought they would get a slew of new subscribers that potential success was why you took the risk of the NGE. I agree SOE had no way to know how many new players they would get, but surely, SOE knew the players would scream bloody murder over the changes. The people at SOE are not stupid. I think that SOE waited until the 11th hour to annouce them, makes it pretty obvious it was just trying to milk out as much subscribtion dollars from the players they had decided to abandon.
Possible wrong, too. I mean, potentially, player-dev collaborative design might have resulted in very little change and angry players, and even more anti-marketing starting before anything was even out of development. I think I'd have to consider that "and damned if you don't" might be the alternative, depending on what sort of relationship you have with your players. Thankfully, not my call, that.
I think the this depends on to what extent SOE would have been willing to actually accept and incorporate what the players were telling SOE. In my experience, the few times you really tried this, you just ended up ignoring what the players told you anyway and being frustrated that we didn't like what you were proposing (that last part is obviously an assumption on my part, but it seemed that way to me). Since at least JTL, SOE was trying to take the game in the direction of being a "game", rather than a Star Wars simulation what most players wanted. It kinda of hard to come to some agreement when you have totally different goals. But to give you a couple of examples:
1. The Snappy Movement. The overall import of the comments was we didn't like it, don't make the change. Your view was we have to change it to fit the new CU. You kept tweaking it to try to make it less snappy, but we didn't want snappy we wanted the fluid and realisitc movement we had. This went back and forth, at that point I was really worried that the CU would not be well received if the players and devs couldn't agree on something that minor.
2. The CU. You guys did a poll on the forums every so often for the month or two it was in open beta, it routinely got 80% negative ratings up until the day it was released. But you still went forward without addressing the fundamental issues most players had about the CU.
If you used this same sort of approach with an more open development of the NGE, I think we would have ended up with the same result, although perhaps not as much hate. Although SOE would have been critized for solicting feedback, but not be serious about listening, but that is better than being accused of defrauding people.
I don't think most of the fundamental aspects of the NGE would have been acceptable to most of the players. To make the NGE acceptable to the players SOE would have to have given up on:
1. Removing classes and removing the ability to mix and match professions;
2. The changes to Jedi; (This would have been really critical both because it essentially forced a very invested and motivated group to be vehemently against the changes, and because it showed disrepect for the Star Wars canon.)
3. Most, but not all, of the interdepency changes. I think you probably could have gotten away with a bit more viable loot, provided there were still active markets for all crafting professions and non-combat professions.
I think most of the community would have reluctantly swallowed the combat changes, especially if they felt like you were being reasonable with the more drastic changes. No one would have liked them of course and you would have lost some subcriptions. It would have been like the CU. Most people would feel like it was stupid change and bad for the game, but it didn't destroy what they fundamentally liked about SWG, and most would have stayed and in time perhaps accepted the changes.
But I really doubt SOE would have been satisfied with the amount of changes the players would have been willing to accept. Ultimately, SOE would probably have just thrown up your hands and said, ok we tried to comprimse, we are going to have to do it our way.
Annnnnyway...
Adapting IPs from movies, television, or books to MMOs sucks. The dramatic elements which make the stories work in the original medium, often don't work for MMOs. The Chosen One in all its incarnations, for example.
I totally agree. The main thing to consider is that adhereing to the IP is more imporant than what the developer thinks what is the best design. The game must be fun, but only within the confines of the IP. And the more people know about and like IP, the closer the game must adhear to it. That one of the problems with the Star Wars IP. people love it so much that any deviation is tantamount to sacrilege.
Sometimes the same is true for turning a novel into a screenplay, but Hollywood is allowed to make whatever changes are necessary. Game developers are not. We're just not taken that serious.
Maybe that is the view in the industry, but in my IMHO its more that in MMORPG, you are creating a virtual world of the IP that people live in. A movie is a one time experience. A deviation from a book in a movie is a one time experience. It annoys you, but the scene passes and the movie ends. In a MMO, the deviation is a part of the fabric of the game world. Its persistent and continues to destroy your immersion and enjoyment of the game.
I sitll believe that even radical changes are possible, with the cooperation and consent of the current players. But we won't see anything as radical as the NGE ever again anyway
I hope you are right. However, I think its important that SWG fail as a lesson to MMO developers that if you undo the acheivement of your players mid game there is hell to pay. While SWG continues, I think there is the tempation, that MMO developers will take the wrong lessons from the NGE fiasco.
Sorry for the long post. Dundee I have enjoyed reading your posts and getting your pespective. Please continue to enlight us. lol.
Vanguard is just one of them. I still remember first days of EQ2, SWG, MxO...
However, EQ2 became a great game now, MxO maybe doesn't have tons of players but it's fun for Matrix fans. But, SWG went worse and is still going worse.
If you want to compare Vanguard and SWG, please remember this:
The combat system we shipped with did have some issues. I thought them more related to ancillary systems interacting poorly with the main combat system (healing, buffs, weapons, armor... dots, maybe). My preference was to fix those issues rather than revamping the whole thing, but that wasn't my decision to make. I went right to working on JtL, then right to RotW aftter that, so I wasn't even in the loop on what decisions were being made, let alone why.
The point of Dvol's post was that the CURB, which was ditched for the CU, was supposed to address the players' complaints of the combat system. The developers working on it communicated pretty well with the players on the forums, up until the CU was announced. The CU brought a bunch of changes that nobody asked for, nor wanted. Sadly, it didn't decimate the subscription base like the NGE did, or we likely wouldn't have had the NGE. The CU, while a radicle change, against the community's wants, didn't make the game unrecognisable, which the NGE did.
The NGE wasn't the summation of a string of victories and consistent creative direction. Any direction would be ok, if it's consistent.
By the time you get around to thinking, "Ya know what we ought to do?" and what comes next is a radical redesign of everything... that is not the problem. The problem is everything that brought you there.
We'll never know if the CURB might have done what the CU and NGE was intended to do. It would have been a major change, with the consent and input of the community. Unfortunatly, certian WoW playing executives decided that the game should be remade in WoW's image. When remaking the combat system to be more like WoW failed, they decided to remake the entier game, ripping out everything that was fun and replacing it with a crappy FPS style combat system, a loot based economy, and a rigid class based progression system.
As I said, I was out of the loop. WoW certainly is a good game. Again it sounds like inconsistent creative direction. Or kind of like none.
A years worth of wasted development later, and SOE still thinks they can make it a success (or are at least willing to lie about that to certain selected 'cynical' customers).
They have to keep maintaining it, and would like to make it better. I couldn't go to work every day feeling hopeless, personally.
The combat system we shipped with did have some issues. I thought them more related to ancillary systems interacting poorly with the main combat system (healing, buffs, weapons, armor... dots, maybe). My preference was to fix those issues rather than revamping the whole thing, but that wasn't my decision to make. I went right to working on JtL, then right to RotW aftter that, so I wasn't even in the loop on what decisions were being made, let alone why.
The point of Dvol's post was that the CURB, which was ditched for the CU, was supposed to address the players' complaints of the combat system. The developers working on it communicated pretty well with the players on the forums, up until the CU was announced. The CU brought a bunch of changes that nobody asked for, nor wanted. Sadly, it didn't decimate the subscription base like the NGE did, or we likely wouldn't have had the NGE. The CU, while a radicle change, against the community's wants, didn't make the game unrecognisable, which the NGE did.
The NGE wasn't the summation of a string of victories and consistent creative direction. Any direction would be ok, if it's consistent.
By the time you get around to thinking, "Ya know what we ought to do?" and what comes next is a radical redesign of everything... that is not the problem. The problem is everything that brought you there.
I disagree, The idea to radically redesign everything WAS the problem. The game was mismanaged and many problems were ignored, or at the very least put at so low a priority as to never get fixed, while development was focused on making 1 on 1 PvP 'balanced'. The solution to that wasn't a revamp, it was to listen to what the community wanted, which from the begining was more directed content, and work on that. Unfortunatly for all involved, the folks in charge decided the path to victory was revamps and making Jedi more accessible. Prior to the NGE, the game was fixable and had many things you can't find in other games on the market. Now the game is another in a long line of WoW knockoffs with a crappy pseudo FPS combat system. Had it not been a Star Wars game, I don't think the game would still be around after the NGE.
We'll never know if the CURB might have done what the CU and NGE was intended to do. It would have been a major change, with the consent and input of the community. Unfortunatly, certian WoW playing executives decided that the game should be remade in WoW's image. When remaking the combat system to be more like WoW failed, they decided to remake the entier game, ripping out everything that was fun and replacing it with a crappy FPS style combat system, a loot based economy, and a rigid class based progression system.
As I said, I was out of the loop. WoW certainly is a good game. Again it sounds like inconsistent creative direction. Or kind of like none.
It was mismanagement more than inconsistant creative direction. It is still the case to this day. I agree WoW is fun, but for people who want to play a WoW type game, why play a bug ridden, empty, unfun version of WoW, when you have the option of playing WoW? Everything that made SWG's gameplay different than every other game on the market was removed.
A years worth of wasted development later, and SOE still thinks they can make it a success (or are at least willing to lie about that to certain selected 'cynical' customers).
They have to keep maintaining it, and would like to make it better. I couldn't go to work every day feeling hopeless, personally.
There is nothing they can do to the game with the current core system that will make it successful. The only way to fix it would be by doing another revamp and that has been ruled out. Ruling out another revamp is probably the first management decision that isn't completely moronic. Another revamp might make the game better than it is now (though past experience would indicate it would likely make the game much worse), but it wouldn't bring more people back than it would cause to quit..
One thing that could be done to reduce the amount of anger towards SOE in general would be for the folks in charge to direct their employees in Austin to act a bit more professionally towards their customers and be much less hostile towards them. Just because some of their customers act childish is no excuse for the folks representing SOE to act just as childish back. That behavior has been a problem since the CU and has gotten much worse since the NGE. That is one of the major factors contributing to the still massive amount of anger found among the folks who are still subscribed to the game.
Originally posted by ObeeI disagree, The idea to radically redesign everything WAS the problem. The game was mismanaged and many problems were ignored, or at the very least put at so low a priority as to never get fixed, while development was focused on making 1 on 1 PvP 'balanced'. The solution to that wasn't a revamp, it was to listen to what the community wanted, which from the begining was more directed content, and work on that. Unfortunatly for all involved, the folks in charge decided the path to victory was revamps and making Jedi more accessible. Prior to the NGE, the game was fixable and had many things you can't find in other games on the market. Now the game is another in a long line of WoW knockoffs with a crappy pseudo FPS combat system. Had it not been a Star Wars game, I don't think the game would still be around after the NGE.
From launch, the game followed a course which eventually took it to the NGE. You're saying something else should have happened at that point.
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
It was mismanagement more than inconsistant creative direction. It is still the case to this day. I agree WoW is fun, but for people who want to play a WoW type game, why play a bug ridden, empty, unfun version of WoW, when you have the option of playing WoW? Everything that made SWG's gameplay different than every other game on the market was removed.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
Originally posted by ObeeI disagree, The idea to radically redesign everything WAS the problem. The game was mismanaged and many problems were ignored, or at the very least put at so low a priority as to never get fixed, while development was focused on making 1 on 1 PvP 'balanced'. The solution to that wasn't a revamp, it was to listen to what the community wanted, which from the begining was more directed content, and work on that. Unfortunatly for all involved, the folks in charge decided the path to victory was revamps and making Jedi more accessible. Prior to the NGE, the game was fixable and had many things you can't find in other games on the market. Now the game is another in a long line of WoW knockoffs with a crappy pseudo FPS combat system. Had it not been a Star Wars game, I don't think the game would still be around after the NGE.
From launch, the game followed a course which eventually took it to the NGE. You're saying something else should have happened at that point.
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
It was mismanagement more than inconsistant creative direction. It is still the case to this day. I agree WoW is fun, but for people who want to play a WoW type game, why play a bug ridden, empty, unfun version of WoW, when you have the option of playing WoW? Everything that made SWG's gameplay different than every other game on the market was removed.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
I think you two are talking about the same thing, just from different sides of the coin. It was just so frustrating to watch your friends leave the game because the promises made about the initial combat revamp were pushed aside so the dev team could focus on getting JTL out. Even worse was watching something completely out of touch with what the players wanted being dumped on test center as fait accompli instead of the fixes we had been asking for for months.
As a side note, can you tell us who runs SOE Austin and has that person been the same since SWG shipped?
Originally posted by ObeeI disagree, The idea to radically redesign everything WAS the problem. The game was mismanaged and many problems were ignored, or at the very least put at so low a priority as to never get fixed, while development was focused on making 1 on 1 PvP 'balanced'. The solution to that wasn't a revamp, it was to listen to what the community wanted, which from the begining was more directed content, and work on that. Unfortunatly for all involved, the folks in charge decided the path to victory was revamps and making Jedi more accessible. Prior to the NGE, the game was fixable and had many things you can't find in other games on the market. Now the game is another in a long line of WoW knockoffs with a crappy pseudo FPS combat system. Had it not been a Star Wars game, I don't think the game would still be around after the NGE.
From launch, the game followed a course which eventually took it to the NGE. You're saying something else should have happened at that point.
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
It was mismanagement more than inconsistant creative direction. It is still the case to this day. I agree WoW is fun, but for people who want to play a WoW type game, why play a bug ridden, empty, unfun version of WoW, when you have the option of playing WoW? Everything that made SWG's gameplay different than every other game on the market was removed.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
From reading some of your other posts, I'm thinking we're not really disagreeing all that much. I was taking your 'The NGW wasn't a bad idea' as the NGE as implemented wasn't a bad idea. It is clear from your other posts you mean the initial idea of the addition of the newbie area (space station) was a good idea but the revamp wasn't so much (even if we disagree about how 'fun' the current combat system is). I agree with that.
By mismanagement, I mean that a lot of development time was wasted working on fixing things that weren't broken and things that the folks in charge knew were not going to make it into the game. The profession revamps being worked on prior to the NGE is a good example of mismanagement. Once the decision to implement the NGE was made, all development should have focused on it. It wasn't until around a month before the NGE went live that the developers stopped discussing the Ranger revamp (along with the other profession revamp that was supposed to happen at the same time). The info about the NGE was leaked and denied about two months before that (along with the Starter Kit showing up and disappearing from online retail sites). The entire CURB development time was wasted because someone (I'm assuming it was a management decision) decided to implement the more WoW like CU, even though what was known to the playerbase about the CURB was responded to very positively.
More recently, an entire year worth of development time has been spent working on PvP related things when only around a fifth of the current playerbase has any desire to engage in it. That would fall more into creative direction, but the fact that most of the current playerbase wanted more PvE content came as a surprise to the president of the company (along with what he posted around this time last year) indicates that the folks in charge of the company wanted that to be the direction of the game.
I do think what was implemented as the NGE was an extremely poor business decision. I also think the way it was inflicted on the customers (announced a few days after releasing an expansion and only giving two weeks notice) was a major breach of trust. The whole situation has damaged SOE's reputation and their reaction to the hostility from the customers is to be openly hostile and unprofessional back.
Originally posted by ObeeI disagree, The idea to radically redesign everything WAS the problem. The game was mismanaged and many problems were ignored, or at the very least put at so low a priority as to never get fixed, while development was focused on making 1 on 1 PvP 'balanced'. The solution to that wasn't a revamp, it was to listen to what the community wanted, which from the begining was more directed content, and work on that. Unfortunatly for all involved, the folks in charge decided the path to victory was revamps and making Jedi more accessible. Prior to the NGE, the game was fixable and had many things you can't find in other games on the market. Now the game is another in a long line of WoW knockoffs with a crappy pseudo FPS combat system. Had it not been a Star Wars game, I don't think the game would still be around after the NGE.
From launch, the game followed a course which eventually took it to the NGE. You're saying something else should have happened at that point.
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
It was mismanagement more than inconsistant creative direction. It is still the case to this day. I agree WoW is fun, but for people who want to play a WoW type game, why play a bug ridden, empty, unfun version of WoW, when you have the option of playing WoW? Everything that made SWG's gameplay different than every other game on the market was removed.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
I think you two are talking about the same thing, just from different sides of the coin. It was just so frustrating to watch your friends leave the game because the promises made about the initial combat revamp were pushed aside so the dev team could focus on getting JTL out. Even worse was watching something completely out of touch with what the players wanted being dumped on test center as fait accompli instead of the fixes we had been asking for for months.
As a side note, can you tell us who runs SOE Austin and has that person been the same since SWG shipped?
The CURB wasn't pushed aside for JTL, it was postponed because SOE decided to go with the CU instead. That was one of the first major indications that development was being aimed at folks who didn't play, at the expense of those who did (the reaction to what was known about the CURB was very positive, the CU reaction was not).
Originally posted by ObeeI disagree, The idea to radically redesign everything WAS the problem. The game was mismanaged and many problems were ignored, or at the very least put at so low a priority as to never get fixed, while development was focused on making 1 on 1 PvP 'balanced'. The solution to that wasn't a revamp, it was to listen to what the community wanted, which from the begining was more directed content, and work on that. Unfortunatly for all involved, the folks in charge decided the path to victory was revamps and making Jedi more accessible. Prior to the NGE, the game was fixable and had many things you can't find in other games on the market. Now the game is another in a long line of WoW knockoffs with a crappy pseudo FPS combat system. Had it not been a Star Wars game, I don't think the game would still be around after the NGE.
From launch, the game followed a course which eventually took it to the NGE. You're saying something else should have happened at that point.
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
It was mismanagement more than inconsistant creative direction. It is still the case to this day. I agree WoW is fun, but for people who want to play a WoW type game, why play a bug ridden, empty, unfun version of WoW, when you have the option of playing WoW? Everything that made SWG's gameplay different than every other game on the market was removed.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
I think you two are talking about the same thing, just from different sides of the coin. It was just so frustrating to watch your friends leave the game because the promises made about the initial combat revamp were pushed aside so the dev team could focus on getting JTL out. Even worse was watching something completely out of touch with what the players wanted being dumped on test center as fait accompli instead of the fixes we had been asking for for months.
As a side note, can you tell us who runs SOE Austin and has that person been the same since SWG shipped?
The CURB wasn't pushed aside for JTL, it was postponed because SOE decided to go with the CU instead. That was one of the first major indications that development was being aimed at folks who didn't play, at the expense of those who did (the reaction to what was known about the CURB was very positive, the CU reaction was not).
The original combat revamp started in Dec 04 I think when they nerfed CH and all mobs so that they would be ready for the revamp that was to occur in a few months time. TH repeatedly posted how there were two teams working on the game, one for JTL and one for the live game and that they would remain this way. The revamp kept getting pushed back, and during the summer TH finally posted that the focus for both teams was going to be JTL. This was the final straw for many of my friends who left at that point, the just got tired of being lied to and having the broken game put on the back burner for expansions. Trust me, I know this because I came very close to quitting at that time myself.
By mismanagement, I mean that a lot of development time was wasted working on fixing things that weren't broken and things that the folks in charge knew were not going to make it into the game.
I think a Creative Director would have had a better plan. So resources (meaning "people") would be assigned to do A, B, and C so that D, E and F could roll out in time for G, H and I... rather than scatter-shot revisions, revamps, and so on, getting stomped somewhere between design and deployment: that sounds like an easter egg hunt for things to fix.
The profession revamps being worked on prior to the NGE is a good example of mismanagement. Once the decision to implement the NGE was made, all development should have focused on it. It wasn't until around a month before the NGE went live that the developers stopped discussing the Ranger revamp (along with the other profession revamp that was supposed to happen at the same time). The info about the NGE was leaked and denied about two months before that (along with the Starter Kit showing up and disappearing from online retail sites).
Keep in mind, the NGE was a lot of changes, with a lot of decisions about what would be implemented, made at different times. They knew there'd be a starter kit with something in it long before they knew what.
The entire CURB development time was wasted because someone (I'm assuming it was a management decision) decided to implement the more WoW like CU, even though what was known to the playerbase about the CURB was responded to very positively.
Could go either way there: Management decision to do it, but there should have been a clear and consistent creative direction to say this is what we need to do with combat for this game.
It's having no personality of one's own that makes a person look around for someone popular to emulate.
More recently, an entire year worth of development time has been spent working on PvP related things when only around a fifth of the current playerbase has any desire to engage in it. That would fall more into creative direction, but the fact that most of the current playerbase wanted more PvE content came as a surprise to the president of the company (along with what he posted around this time last year) indicates that the folks in charge of the company wanted that to be the direction of the game.
Based on forum feedback: it's all complaints about the gut-shot systems, very little there from people saying they just want more to do. So that is a little surprising. Honestly!
In spite of the fact SWG has been content-starved all of its life - at any other time that'd have to be a duh, more content! - just after the NGE cauterized so many systems it's unexpected that content is still up there.
Otherwise, SWG has also always struggled with delivering a sense of the Galactic Civil War, and NGE removed some of the system there too, I think. PvP is seen as an endless-content system... I dunno, easy to make that mistake..
I do think what was implemented as the NGE was an extremely poor business decision.
I put that solely in the realm of creative direction: 'cause it never should have come to that, and even if it did come to something like it, maintaining the creative integrity would have meant building from the existing game rather than replacing it.
I also think the way it was inflicted on the customers (announced a few days after releasing an expansion and only giving two weeks notice) was a major breach of trust.
I agree, that was shitty.
I was ashamed of myself for a while there. My sympathy for the players wouldn't have changed anything - I still would have done my job, etc. But I still found myself conscience-stricken at having been so impenitent.
The whole situation has damaged SOE's reputation and their reaction to the hostility from the customers is to be openly hostile and unprofessional back.
Based on forum feedback: it's all complaints about the gut-shot systems, very little there from people saying they just want more to do. So that is a little surprising. Honestly!
In spite of the fact SWG has been content-starved all of its life - at any other time that'd have to be a duh, more content! - just after the NGE cauterized so many systems it's unexpected that content is still up there.
Otherwise, SWG has also always struggled with delivering a sense of the Galactic Civil War, and NGE removed some of the system there too, I think. PvP is seen as an endless-content system... I dunno, easy to make that mistake..
The forums are only about minor technical details, since everyone who was looking for something bigger left long ago. So what's left is the hardcore vets, who have been there and done that, and now just amuse over details.
SWG has had content problems. Yet during pre-cu era, forums were overflowing with hundred pages long threads outlining possible scenarios for content, ranging across all professions. Obviously, they can't be implemented as such, but at one time, before the word of CU broke out, forums were only about content discussion, balance whining was constrained to some profession forums.
Even profession forums were discussing profession-specific content, not mechanics.
And while GCW should at some point bring some long-term dynamic content, it doesn't in SWG. The reason is simple: Nobody is going to spend time anymore for an achievement, that can be wiped in a single publish. Not in SWG. Everyone has learned the lesson by now.
When I wen back during free trial, I looked up my old guild. GCW in current form is about exploiting the systems for rank grinding. Bases, NPCs grinding, fight-clubbing or its equivalent - that's it. While this has always been present, it never was to such extent.
There's simply nothing anyone would consider worth doing anymore. Like the saying goes, fool me 28 times, shame on me, fool me 29 times, shame on you. In SWG, things changed 27 times too many for any shred of trust to be left. So why bother trying to achieve something taking 6 months, when it'll be gone next week.
By mismanagement, I mean that a lot of development time was wasted working on fixing things that weren't broken and things that the folks in charge knew were not going to make it into the game.
I think a Creative Director would have had a better plan. So resources (meaning "people") would be assigned to do A, B, and C so that D, E and F could roll out in time for G, H and I... rather than scatter-shot revisions, revamps, and so on, getting stomped somewhere between design and deployment: that sounds like an easter egg hunt for things to fix.
The profession revamps being worked on prior to the NGE is a good example of mismanagement. Once the decision to implement the NGE was made, all development should have focused on it. It wasn't until around a month before the NGE went live that the developers stopped discussing the Ranger revamp (along with the other profession revamp that was supposed to happen at the same time). The info about the NGE was leaked and denied about two months before that (along with the Starter Kit showing up and disappearing from online retail sites).
Keep in mind, the NGE was a lot of changes, with a lot of decisions about what would be implemented, made at different times. They knew there'd be a starter kit with something in it long before they knew what.
The Starter Kit listings were worded exactly the same as they were after it was announced (ie., they listed the whole "9 Iconic Professions" as one of the features). They already knew they were removing Rangers and Creature Handlers (among others) yet they continued working (or at least giving the appearance of it) on the Ranger revamp until well after they claimed the Starter Kit was not a real product. Either they continued to work on things they knew were going to be removed, or they were purposely lying to their cutomers that they were doing so to hide the fact that the NGE was on its way.
The entire CURB development time was wasted because someone (I'm assuming it was a management decision) decided to implement the more WoW like CU, even though what was known to the playerbase about the CURB was responded to very positively.
Could go either way there: Management decision to do it, but there should have been a clear and consistent creative direction to say this is what we need to do with combat for this game.
It's having no personality of one's own that makes a person look around for someone popular to emulate.
The game had its own 'personality', but WoW had more customers so they decided that personality was less of a concern than trying to draw people away from WoW with a poorly implemented knock off. John Smedley said that both the CU and the NGE were the result of looking to attract customers from WoW.
More recently, an entire year worth of development time has been spent working on PvP related things when only around a fifth of the current playerbase has any desire to engage in it. That would fall more into creative direction, but the fact that most of the current playerbase wanted more PvE content came as a surprise to the president of the company (along with what he posted around this time last year) indicates that the folks in charge of the company wanted that to be the direction of the game.
Based on forum feedback: it's all complaints about the gut-shot systems, very little there from people saying they just want more to do. So that is a little surprising. Honestly!
In spite of the fact SWG has been content-starved all of its life - at any other time that'd have to be a duh, more content! - just after the NGE cauterized so many systems it's unexpected that content is still up there.
Otherwise, SWG has also always struggled with delivering a sense of the Galactic Civil War, and NGE removed some of the system there too, I think. PvP is seen as an endless-content system... I dunno, easy to make that mistake..
Many developers make that mistake, even though all existing evidence points towards PvP appealing to a small percentage of MMO players.
I do think what was implemented as the NGE was an extremely poor business decision.
I put that solely in the realm of creative direction: 'cause it never should have come to that, and even if it did come to something like it, maintaining the creative integrity would have meant building from the existing game rather than replacing it.
John Smedley posted that the NGE was a business decision. He believed the NGE would retain most of the, at the time, current players and attract the WoW crowd. It was a very poor business decision considering both of those things failed to happen. It wasn't a lack of creative direction that caused the NGE, it was the failure of the game to attract a large enough audience. Well, that and the fact that WoW changed the parameters of how success is quantified. Mr. Smedley admitted that WoW played a big part in the NGE, or at least its success did.
I veiw the idea of looking at how much money the other guy must be making and trying to (poorly) immitate him as a business decision since money, not some grand creative idea, was the motivation.
I also think the way it was inflicted on the customers (announced a few days after releasing an expansion and only giving two weeks notice) was a major breach of trust.
I agree, that was shitty.
I was ashamed of myself for a while there. My sympathy for the players wouldn't have changed anything - I still would have done my job, etc. But I still found myself conscience-stricken at having been so impenitent.
The whole situation has damaged SOE's reputation and their reaction to the hostility from the customers is to be openly hostile and unprofessional back.
Oh, I understand.
That last point is the reason I no longer subscribe (nor will I until it is corrected to my satisfaction) to any SOE products, even though EQ2 is the only MMO that has held my attention for more than a month since I left SWG. The NGE, while a slap in face, wouldn't have prevented me from playing other SOE products I found fun. The persistant blaming of the customers, open hostility, and unprofessionalism by the SWG 'community team' will.
The Starter Kit listings were worded exactly the same as they were after it was announced (ie., they listed the whole "9 Iconic Professions" as one of the features). They already knew they were removing Rangers and Creature Handlers (among others) yet they continued working (or at least giving the appearance of it) on the Ranger revamp until well after they claimed the Starter Kit was not a real product. Either they continued to work on things they knew were going to be removed, or they were purposely lying to their cutomers that they were doing so to hide the fact that the NGE was on its way.
Ah... Nah, there was a decision to present new players with those nine options, long before the decision to go class based.
I don't think I can talk about how we imagined that might have worked.
The game had its own 'personality',
But it doesn't matter, if there's no - let's call it a Creative Director - to what they call "hold the vision". That person knows the game has it's own personality, what that personality is, and ensures design and development proceeds accordingly. That person ensures the rest of the team understands the game. And even if some emergency thing derails the careful plans that had been made, he ensures the response is appropriate to that game.
but WoW had more customers so they decided that personality was less of a concern than trying to draw people away from WoW with a poorly implemented knock off. John Smedley said that both the CU and the NGE were the result of looking to attract customers from WoW.
Maybe a Creative Director would have been railroaded off-course, into doing WoW-things for a game that wasn't WoW... but we'll never know, because there wasn't one.
Many developers make that mistake, even though all existing evidence points towards PvP appealing to a small percentage of MMO players.
What was it, 20%? That's not extremely small. Assuming the other 80% have PvE content, then a single system that many people want isn't a bad thing to pursue at all... especially if there are ancillary activities fueled by the PvP interaction.
Also there are "systems designers" and "content designers": It's not like a designer is taken off making quests to work on PvP, or vice versa.
Though a GCW system not strictly PvP might be a more appropriate system...
John Smedley posted that the NGE was a business decision.
Na... Haven't you heard? A designer talked him into it!
He believed the NGE would retain most of the, at the time, current players and attract the WoW crowd. It was a very poor business decision considering both of those things failed to happen. It wasn't a lack of creative direction that caused the NGE, it was the failure of the game to attract a large enough audience.
But I think a creative direction post launch would have improved SWGs retention dramatically.
The number of subs and the rate at which that number was dropping made that a much less risky gamble.
Well, that and the fact that WoW changed the parameters of how success is quantified. Mr. Smedley admitted that WoW played a big part in the NGE, or at least its success did.
Yeh, and I'll give you that's not a creative direction issue.
That last point is the reason I no longer subscribe (nor will I until it is corrected to my satisfaction) to any SOE products, even though EQ2 is the only MMO that has held my attention for more than a month since I left SWG. The NGE, while a slap in face, wouldn't have prevented me from playing other SOE products I found fun. The persistant blaming of the customers, open hostility, and unprofessionalism by the SWG 'community team' will.
They must be getting terribly frustrated.
By community team, you mean forum moderators? Or has Thunderheart some kind of posse now? Or you just mean devs in general, talking to players on the forums?
Many developers make that mistake, even though all existing evidence points towards PvP appealing to a small percentage of MMO players.
What was it, 20%? That's not extremely small. Assuming the other 80% have PvE content, then a single system that many people want isn't a bad thing to pursue at all... especially if there are ancillary activities fueled by the PvP interaction.
Also there are "systems designers" and "content designers": It's not like a designer is taken off making quests to work on PvP, or vice versa.
Though a GCW system not strictly PvP might be a more appropriate system...
That has been one of the big problems with the post NGE direction of development, it has been focused on adding to the PvP GCW, when a majority wanted more PvE GCW (and non GCW) content. The direction of development post NGE was schizophrenic, but the one constant was a focus on expanding PvP. The current PvE game is a joke.
With the current SWG dev team's size, I'm not too sure if there are enough people to work on seperate systems anymore. Since the decision to focus on adding the talent system, the major publishes have been limited to the talent system for two professions and a handful of bug fixes. They quit expanding the Legacy series of doing the same three quests over in different areas, and after the limited smuggling system was 'finished' they announced they would no longer add content for specific classes. They even recently changed the descriptions of the class items that had yet to have the intended quests attached to them (it is now claimed they were only ever intended to be house decor, which is a flat out lie).
John Smedley posted that the NGE was a business decision.
Na... Haven't you heard? A designer talked him into it!
Well, the former Lead Designer and the former Lead Gameplay Designer did have a role in convincing "The Man" that changing the combat system was a good idea. I believe one of those guys still thinks the pseudo FPS combat system is more fun than the old system, but there's no accounting for taste.
He believed the NGE would retain most of the, at the time, current players and attract the WoW crowd. It was a very poor business decision considering both of those things failed to happen. It wasn't a lack of creative direction that caused the NGE, it was the failure of the game to attract a large enough audience.
But I think a creative direction post launch would have improved SWGs retention dramatically.
The number of subs and the rate at which that number was dropping made that a much less risky gamble.
Well, Chris Cao was made "Creative Director of Star Wars Galaxies" sometime after the NGE and that did little to change the schizophrenic development of the game. Much of the post NGE development seems like someone has been throwing darts to find that one thing that would make people like the game.
Well, that and the fact that WoW changed the parameters of how success is quantified. Mr. Smedley admitted that WoW played a big part in the NGE, or at least its success did.
Yeh, and I'll give you that's not a creative direction issue.
That last point is the reason I no longer subscribe (nor will I until it is corrected to my satisfaction) to any SOE products, even though EQ2 is the only MMO that has held my attention for more than a month since I left SWG. The NGE, while a slap in face, wouldn't have prevented me from playing other SOE products I found fun. The persistant blaming of the customers, open hostility, and unprofessionalism by the SWG 'community team' will.
They must be getting terribly frustrated.
By community team, you mean forum moderators? Or has Thunderheart some kind of posse now? Or you just mean devs in general, talking to players on the forums?
The folks labeled "SWG Community Team" (yeah, they're the forum mods, but they need to be distinguished from the swgmod00x sockpuppets) are the ones who seem to be the most hostile, probably because they interact more than the devs do. The only two developers (Chris Cao and Helios) who were generally hostile towards any part of the community have been promoted off of the SWG project. Chris Cao got promoted to Creative Director of the entire Austin studio shortly after his post that you did not comment on in you blog, and Helios is now Lead Designer 3 or 4 for the DC Comics game (having a large turnover of devs due to management interference doesn't bode well for that game). I still think Mr. Cao's infamous post was a result of the number of crafters and entertainers requesting he not have any part in what was going to be revamps of their professions (based on his earlier posts that insulted them). Thunderheart's 'you must have emotional problems if you were upset by that post' response in that thread was the final staw for me, built on a tower of straws.
I don't find a company employee(s) changing their customer's posts, to say something the customer didn't intend, or changing a customer's forum handle to "I_suxxors" to be very professional (and the editing of posts is unethical to boot). I don't know if it is a company policy to allow that sort of behavior, or if is a result of the folks in charge of the 'community team' not really caring about what happens on the SWG board anymore. Either way, the result is the same, I'm not spending any money on any product that is connected to SOE.
I do think SOE could greatly reduce some of the anger directed at them by keeping devs who have a habit of saying stupid things away from the forums, and replacing the entire "SWG Community Team" from Thunderheart on down. They would also need to have a set of standards for interacting with the community to prevent things from getting to the point they have been for some time.
I keep reading responses from Dundee that there was no creative director which seems quite remarkable to me. I know Raph was the holder of the vision until just after launch, but you got to be kidding me that nobody after him was holding the reins, that is just crazy.
The folks labeled "SWG Community Team" (yeah, they're the forum mods, but they need to be distinguished from the swgmod00x sockpuppets) are the ones who seem to be the most hostile, probably because they interact more than the devs do.
Sometimes popping-in, re-introducing oneself for the umpty-jillionth time, describing the dawn of a a whole new era of openness and communication, only to be disappeared within months and come off looking like a dick again can make a dev mighty shy.
The only two developers (Chris Cao and Helios) who were generally hostile towards any part of the community have been promoted off of the SWG project. Chris Cao got promoted to Creative Director of the entire Austin studio shortly after his post that you did not comment on in you blog,
Minor correction: Cao has been the Studio Creative Director the whole time he's been there, dual-wielding as SWG's CD 'cause it needed one.
and Helios is now Lead Designer 3 or 4 for the DC Comics game (having a large turnover of devs due to management interference doesn't bode well for that game).
The folks labeled "SWG Community Team" (yeah, they're the forum mods, but they need to be distinguished from the swgmod00x sockpuppets) are the ones who seem to be the most hostile, probably because they interact more than the devs do.
Sometimes popping-in, re-introducing oneself for the umpty-jillionth time, describing the dawn of a a whole new era of openness and communication, only to be disappeared within months and come off looking like a dick again can make a dev mighty shy.
The last time a "whole new era of openness and communication" was supposed to dawn, all but about two devs disappeared after that thread died. One of the devs decided to be a jackass and make a post about how many lines of code he wrote that day, thus letting the community know that nobody at SOE understood what the customers were asking for. The community wanted (and still does) to know about what changes/additions the devs were planning so they could be discussed BEFORE the changes hit the Test Center, where they were usually set in stone with maybe a minor tweak or two. That is something the folks at SOE Austin still don't seem to understand. The entire Austin Studio should be forced to spend a couple weeks with the EQ2 team so they can learn how to communicate with their customers in a way that, most of the time, doesn't piss off large portions of the customers.
The only two developers (Chris Cao and Helios) who were generally hostile towards any part of the community have been promoted off of the SWG project. Chris Cao got promoted to Creative Director of the entire Austin studio shortly after his post that you did not comment on in you blog,
Minor correction: Cao has been the Studio Creative Director the whole time he's been there, dual-wielding as SWG's CD 'cause it needed one.
I can't say that Mr. Cao did a very good job of maintaining a creative vision in his time as SWG's CD (discounting the neglect the non combat professions recieved). Helios' month in that position was too short to indicate if he would have done much better.
and Helios is now Lead Designer 3 or 4 for the DC Comics game (having a large turnover of devs due to management interference doesn't bode well for that game).
Cynical!
You're the guy who said the problem, from the begining, with SWG was a lack of a creative vision. I don't see how changing a large portion of the design and development team (at least twice!) of the DC game helps maintain a creative vision. I will also say that SOE's current fixation on immitating WoW (in a vain attempt to immitate its success) never gave me much confidence that the game had a change even before they started to play musical developers.
Comments
[quote]Originally posted by Obee
The CU, while a radicle change, against the community's wants, didn't make the game unrecognisable, which the NGE did.
[/quote]
Fixed?
SWG Team Mtg.
The combat system we shipped with did have some issues. I thought them more related to ancillary systems interacting poorly with the main combat system (healing, buffs, weapons, armor... dots, maybe). My preference was to fix those issues rather than revamping the whole thing, but that wasn't my decision to make. I went right to working on JtL, then right to RotW aftter that, so I wasn't even in the loop on what decisions were being made, let alone why.
The point of Dvol's post was that the CURB, which was ditched for the CU, was supposed to address the players' complaints of the combat system. The developers working on it communicated pretty well with the players on the forums, up until the CU was announced. The CU brought a bunch of changes that nobody asked for, nor wanted. Sadly, it didn't decimate the subscription base like the NGE did, or we likely wouldn't have had the NGE. The CU, while a radicle change, against the community's wants, didn't make the game unrecognisable, which the NGE did.
We'll never know if the CURB might have done what the CU and NGE was intended to do. It would have been a major change, with the consent and input of the community. Unfortunatly, certian WoW playing executives decided that the game should be remade in WoW's image. When remaking the combat system to be more like WoW failed, they decided to remake the entier game, ripping out everything that was fun and replacing it with a crappy FPS style combat system, a loot based economy, and a rigid class based progression system.
A years worth of wasted development later, and SOE still thinks they can make it a success (or are at least willing to lie about that to certain selected 'cynical' customers).
Yep obee exactly
I know you dont work for SOE i just thought since your the only one with the intergrity to actually respond you could shed more light on the subject..I understand the whole NDA things you have to follow..I just enjoy reading opinions even if i dont agree with them at all.If you cant or dont want to respond its not a big deal at all .i enjoyed reading your responses to other post and thought id throw you out some of my lousy Q's..
Vanguard is just one of them. I still remember first days of EQ2, SWG, MxO...
However, EQ2 became a great game now, MxO maybe doesn't have tons of players but it's fun for Matrix fans. But, SWG went worse and is still going worse.
If you want to compare Vanguard and SWG, please remember this:
3 years old SWG vs 17 days old Vanguard.
The NGE wasn't the summation of a string of victories and consistent creative direction. Any direction would be ok, if it's consistent.
By the time you get around to thinking, "Ya know what we ought to do?" and what comes next is a radical redesign of everything... that is not the problem. The problem is everything that brought you there.
As I said, I was out of the loop. WoW certainly is a good game. Again it sounds like inconsistent creative direction. Or kind of like none.
They have to keep maintaining it, and would like to make it better. I couldn't go to work every day feeling hopeless, personally.
Jeff Freeman
The NGE wasn't the summation of a string of victories and consistent creative direction. Any direction would be ok, if it's consistent.
By the time you get around to thinking, "Ya know what we ought to do?" and what comes next is a radical redesign of everything... that is not the problem. The problem is everything that brought you there.
I disagree, The idea to radically redesign everything WAS the problem. The game was mismanaged and many problems were ignored, or at the very least put at so low a priority as to never get fixed, while development was focused on making 1 on 1 PvP 'balanced'. The solution to that wasn't a revamp, it was to listen to what the community wanted, which from the begining was more directed content, and work on that. Unfortunatly for all involved, the folks in charge decided the path to victory was revamps and making Jedi more accessible. Prior to the NGE, the game was fixable and had many things you can't find in other games on the market. Now the game is another in a long line of WoW knockoffs with a crappy pseudo FPS combat system. Had it not been a Star Wars game, I don't think the game would still be around after the NGE.
As I said, I was out of the loop. WoW certainly is a good game. Again it sounds like inconsistent creative direction. Or kind of like none.
It was mismanagement more than inconsistant creative direction. It is still the case to this day. I agree WoW is fun, but for people who want to play a WoW type game, why play a bug ridden, empty, unfun version of WoW, when you have the option of playing WoW? Everything that made SWG's gameplay different than every other game on the market was removed.
They have to keep maintaining it, and would like to make it better. I couldn't go to work every day feeling hopeless, personally.
There is nothing they can do to the game with the current core system that will make it successful. The only way to fix it would be by doing another revamp and that has been ruled out. Ruling out another revamp is probably the first management decision that isn't completely moronic. Another revamp might make the game better than it is now (though past experience would indicate it would likely make the game much worse), but it wouldn't bring more people back than it would cause to quit..
One thing that could be done to reduce the amount of anger towards SOE in general would be for the folks in charge to direct their employees in Austin to act a bit more professionally towards their customers and be much less hostile towards them. Just because some of their customers act childish is no excuse for the folks representing SOE to act just as childish back. That behavior has been a problem since the CU and has gotten much worse since the NGE. That is one of the major factors contributing to the still massive amount of anger found among the folks who are still subscribed to the game.
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
Jeff Freeman
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
I think you two are talking about the same thing, just from different sides of the coin. It was just so frustrating to watch your friends leave the game because the promises made about the initial combat revamp were pushed aside so the dev team could focus on getting JTL out. Even worse was watching something completely out of touch with what the players wanted being dumped on test center as fait accompli instead of the fixes we had been asking for for months.
As a side note, can you tell us who runs SOE Austin and has that person been the same since SWG shipped?
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
From reading some of your other posts, I'm thinking we're not really disagreeing all that much. I was taking your 'The NGW wasn't a bad idea' as the NGE as implemented wasn't a bad idea. It is clear from your other posts you mean the initial idea of the addition of the newbie area (space station) was a good idea but the revamp wasn't so much (even if we disagree about how 'fun' the current combat system is). I agree with that.
By mismanagement, I mean that a lot of development time was wasted working on fixing things that weren't broken and things that the folks in charge knew were not going to make it into the game. The profession revamps being worked on prior to the NGE is a good example of mismanagement. Once the decision to implement the NGE was made, all development should have focused on it. It wasn't until around a month before the NGE went live that the developers stopped discussing the Ranger revamp (along with the other profession revamp that was supposed to happen at the same time). The info about the NGE was leaked and denied about two months before that (along with the Starter Kit showing up and disappearing from online retail sites). The entire CURB development time was wasted because someone (I'm assuming it was a management decision) decided to implement the more WoW like CU, even though what was known to the playerbase about the CURB was responded to very positively.
More recently, an entire year worth of development time has been spent working on PvP related things when only around a fifth of the current playerbase has any desire to engage in it. That would fall more into creative direction, but the fact that most of the current playerbase wanted more PvE content came as a surprise to the president of the company (along with what he posted around this time last year) indicates that the folks in charge of the company wanted that to be the direction of the game.
I do think what was implemented as the NGE was an extremely poor business decision. I also think the way it was inflicted on the customers (announced a few days after releasing an expansion and only giving two weeks notice) was a major breach of trust. The whole situation has damaged SOE's reputation and their reaction to the hostility from the customers is to be openly hostile and unprofessional back.
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
I think you two are talking about the same thing, just from different sides of the coin. It was just so frustrating to watch your friends leave the game because the promises made about the initial combat revamp were pushed aside so the dev team could focus on getting JTL out. Even worse was watching something completely out of touch with what the players wanted being dumped on test center as fait accompli instead of the fixes we had been asking for for months.
As a side note, can you tell us who runs SOE Austin and has that person been the same since SWG shipped?
The CURB wasn't pushed aside for JTL, it was postponed because SOE decided to go with the CU instead. That was one of the first major indications that development was being aimed at folks who didn't play, at the expense of those who did (the reaction to what was known about the CURB was very positive, the CU reaction was not).
I'm saying it never should have come to that point at all.
We may be talking about the same thing... What do you mean by mismanagement? At what level and how so and etc.?
To my mind, changing a game completely from one thing to another is an issue of creative direction.
Working on one thing when the game needs another, likewise. As it indicates a misconception as to what the game really is.
I think you two are talking about the same thing, just from different sides of the coin. It was just so frustrating to watch your friends leave the game because the promises made about the initial combat revamp were pushed aside so the dev team could focus on getting JTL out. Even worse was watching something completely out of touch with what the players wanted being dumped on test center as fait accompli instead of the fixes we had been asking for for months.
As a side note, can you tell us who runs SOE Austin and has that person been the same since SWG shipped?
The CURB wasn't pushed aside for JTL, it was postponed because SOE decided to go with the CU instead. That was one of the first major indications that development was being aimed at folks who didn't play, at the expense of those who did (the reaction to what was known about the CURB was very positive, the CU reaction was not).
The original combat revamp started in Dec 04 I think when they nerfed CH and all mobs so that they would be ready for the revamp that was to occur in a few months time. TH repeatedly posted how there were two teams working on the game, one for JTL and one for the live game and that they would remain this way. The revamp kept getting pushed back, and during the summer TH finally posted that the focus for both teams was going to be JTL. This was the final straw for many of my friends who left at that point, the just got tired of being lied to and having the broken game put on the back burner for expansions. Trust me, I know this because I came very close to quitting at that time myself.
Keep in mind, the NGE was a lot of changes, with a lot of decisions about what would be implemented, made at different times. They knew there'd be a starter kit with something in it long before they knew what.
Could go either way there: Management decision to do it, but there should have been a clear and consistent creative direction to say this is what we need to do with combat for this game.
It's having no personality of one's own that makes a person look around for someone popular to emulate.
Based on forum feedback: it's all complaints about the gut-shot systems, very little there from people saying they just want more to do. So that is a little surprising. Honestly!
In spite of the fact SWG has been content-starved all of its life - at any other time that'd have to be a duh, more content! - just after the NGE cauterized so many systems it's unexpected that content is still up there.
Otherwise, SWG has also always struggled with delivering a sense of the Galactic Civil War, and NGE removed some of the system there too, I think. PvP is seen as an endless-content system... I dunno, easy to make that mistake..
I put that solely in the realm of creative direction: 'cause it never should have come to that, and even if it did come to something like it, maintaining the creative integrity would have meant building from the existing game rather than replacing it.
I agree, that was shitty.
I was ashamed of myself for a while there. My sympathy for the players wouldn't have changed anything - I still would have done my job, etc. But I still found myself conscience-stricken at having been so impenitent.
Oh, I understand.
Jeff Freeman
SWG has had content problems. Yet during pre-cu era, forums were overflowing with hundred pages long threads outlining possible scenarios for content, ranging across all professions. Obviously, they can't be implemented as such, but at one time, before the word of CU broke out, forums were only about content discussion, balance whining was constrained to some profession forums.
Even profession forums were discussing profession-specific content, not mechanics.
And while GCW should at some point bring some long-term dynamic content, it doesn't in SWG. The reason is simple: Nobody is going to spend time anymore for an achievement, that can be wiped in a single publish. Not in SWG. Everyone has learned the lesson by now.
When I wen back during free trial, I looked up my old guild. GCW in current form is about exploiting the systems for rank grinding. Bases, NPCs grinding, fight-clubbing or its equivalent - that's it. While this has always been present, it never was to such extent.
There's simply nothing anyone would consider worth doing anymore. Like the saying goes, fool me 28 times, shame on me, fool me 29 times, shame on you. In SWG, things changed 27 times too many for any shred of trust to be left. So why bother trying to achieve something taking 6 months, when it'll be gone next week.
Keep in mind, the NGE was a lot of changes, with a lot of decisions about what would be implemented, made at different times. They knew there'd be a starter kit with something in it long before they knew what.
The Starter Kit listings were worded exactly the same as they were after it was announced (ie., they listed the whole "9 Iconic Professions" as one of the features). They already knew they were removing Rangers and Creature Handlers (among others) yet they continued working (or at least giving the appearance of it) on the Ranger revamp until well after they claimed the Starter Kit was not a real product. Either they continued to work on things they knew were going to be removed, or they were purposely lying to their cutomers that they were doing so to hide the fact that the NGE was on its way.
Could go either way there: Management decision to do it, but there should have been a clear and consistent creative direction to say this is what we need to do with combat for this game.
It's having no personality of one's own that makes a person look around for someone popular to emulate.
The game had its own 'personality', but WoW had more customers so they decided that personality was less of a concern than trying to draw people away from WoW with a poorly implemented knock off. John Smedley said that both the CU and the NGE were the result of looking to attract customers from WoW.
Based on forum feedback: it's all complaints about the gut-shot systems, very little there from people saying they just want more to do. So that is a little surprising. Honestly!
In spite of the fact SWG has been content-starved all of its life - at any other time that'd have to be a duh, more content! - just after the NGE cauterized so many systems it's unexpected that content is still up there.
Otherwise, SWG has also always struggled with delivering a sense of the Galactic Civil War, and NGE removed some of the system there too, I think. PvP is seen as an endless-content system... I dunno, easy to make that mistake..
Many developers make that mistake, even though all existing evidence points towards PvP appealing to a small percentage of MMO players.
I put that solely in the realm of creative direction: 'cause it never should have come to that, and even if it did come to something like it, maintaining the creative integrity would have meant building from the existing game rather than replacing it.
John Smedley posted that the NGE was a business decision. He believed the NGE would retain most of the, at the time, current players and attract the WoW crowd. It was a very poor business decision considering both of those things failed to happen. It wasn't a lack of creative direction that caused the NGE, it was the failure of the game to attract a large enough audience. Well, that and the fact that WoW changed the parameters of how success is quantified. Mr. Smedley admitted that WoW played a big part in the NGE, or at least its success did.
I veiw the idea of looking at how much money the other guy must be making and trying to (poorly) immitate him as a business decision since money, not some grand creative idea, was the motivation.
I agree, that was shitty.
I was ashamed of myself for a while there. My sympathy for the players wouldn't have changed anything - I still would have done my job, etc. But I still found myself conscience-stricken at having been so impenitent.
Oh, I understand.
That last point is the reason I no longer subscribe (nor will I until it is corrected to my satisfaction) to any SOE products, even though EQ2 is the only MMO that has held my attention for more than a month since I left SWG. The NGE, while a slap in face, wouldn't have prevented me from playing other SOE products I found fun. The persistant blaming of the customers, open hostility, and unprofessionalism by the SWG 'community team' will.
Ah... Nah, there was a decision to present new players with those nine options, long before the decision to go class based.
I don't think I can talk about how we imagined that might have worked.
But it doesn't matter, if there's no - let's call it a Creative Director - to what they call "hold the vision". That person knows the game has it's own personality, what that personality is, and ensures design and development proceeds accordingly. That person ensures the rest of the team understands the game. And even if some emergency thing derails the careful plans that had been made, he ensures the response is appropriate to that game.
Maybe a Creative Director would have been railroaded off-course, into doing WoW-things for a game that wasn't WoW... but we'll never know, because there wasn't one.
What was it, 20%? That's not extremely small. Assuming the other 80% have PvE content, then a single system that many people want isn't a bad thing to pursue at all... especially if there are ancillary activities fueled by the PvP interaction.
Also there are "systems designers" and "content designers": It's not like a designer is taken off making quests to work on PvP, or vice versa.
Though a GCW system not strictly PvP might be a more appropriate system...
Na... Haven't you heard? A designer talked him into it!
But I think a creative direction post launch would have improved SWGs retention dramatically.
The number of subs and the rate at which that number was dropping made that a much less risky gamble.
Yeh, and I'll give you that's not a creative direction issue.
They must be getting terribly frustrated.
By community team, you mean forum moderators? Or has Thunderheart some kind of posse now? Or you just mean devs in general, talking to players on the forums?
Jeff Freeman
What was it, 20%? That's not extremely small. Assuming the other 80% have PvE content, then a single system that many people want isn't a bad thing to pursue at all... especially if there are ancillary activities fueled by the PvP interaction.
Also there are "systems designers" and "content designers": It's not like a designer is taken off making quests to work on PvP, or vice versa.
Though a GCW system not strictly PvP might be a more appropriate system...
That has been one of the big problems with the post NGE direction of development, it has been focused on adding to the PvP GCW, when a majority wanted more PvE GCW (and non GCW) content. The direction of development post NGE was schizophrenic, but the one constant was a focus on expanding PvP. The current PvE game is a joke.
With the current SWG dev team's size, I'm not too sure if there are enough people to work on seperate systems anymore. Since the decision to focus on adding the talent system, the major publishes have been limited to the talent system for two professions and a handful of bug fixes. They quit expanding the Legacy series of doing the same three quests over in different areas, and after the limited smuggling system was 'finished' they announced they would no longer add content for specific classes. They even recently changed the descriptions of the class items that had yet to have the intended quests attached to them (it is now claimed they were only ever intended to be house decor, which is a flat out lie).
Na... Haven't you heard? A designer talked him into it!
Well, the former Lead Designer and the former Lead Gameplay Designer did have a role in convincing "The Man" that changing the combat system was a good idea. I believe one of those guys still thinks the pseudo FPS combat system is more fun than the old system, but there's no accounting for taste.
But I think a creative direction post launch would have improved SWGs retention dramatically.
The number of subs and the rate at which that number was dropping made that a much less risky gamble.
Well, Chris Cao was made "Creative Director of Star Wars Galaxies" sometime after the NGE and that did little to change the schizophrenic development of the game. Much of the post NGE development seems like someone has been throwing darts to find that one thing that would make people like the game.
Yeh, and I'll give you that's not a creative direction issue.
They must be getting terribly frustrated.
By community team, you mean forum moderators? Or has Thunderheart some kind of posse now? Or you just mean devs in general, talking to players on the forums?
The folks labeled "SWG Community Team" (yeah, they're the forum mods, but they need to be distinguished from the swgmod00x sockpuppets) are the ones who seem to be the most hostile, probably because they interact more than the devs do. The only two developers (Chris Cao and Helios) who were generally hostile towards any part of the community have been promoted off of the SWG project. Chris Cao got promoted to Creative Director of the entire Austin studio shortly after his post that you did not comment on in you blog, and Helios is now Lead Designer 3 or 4 for the DC Comics game (having a large turnover of devs due to management interference doesn't bode well for that game). I still think Mr. Cao's infamous post was a result of the number of crafters and entertainers requesting he not have any part in what was going to be revamps of their professions (based on his earlier posts that insulted them). Thunderheart's 'you must have emotional problems if you were upset by that post' response in that thread was the final staw for me, built on a tower of straws.
I don't find a company employee(s) changing their customer's posts, to say something the customer didn't intend, or changing a customer's forum handle to "I_suxxors" to be very professional (and the editing of posts is unethical to boot). I don't know if it is a company policy to allow that sort of behavior, or if is a result of the folks in charge of the 'community team' not really caring about what happens on the SWG board anymore. Either way, the result is the same, I'm not spending any money on any product that is connected to SOE.
I do think SOE could greatly reduce some of the anger directed at them by keeping devs who have a habit of saying stupid things away from the forums, and replacing the entire "SWG Community Team" from Thunderheart on down. They would also need to have a set of standards for interacting with the community to prevent things from getting to the point they have been for some time.
Minor correction: Cao has been the Studio Creative Director the whole time he's been there, dual-wielding as SWG's CD 'cause it needed one.
Cynical!
Jeff Freeman
The last time a "whole new era of openness and communication" was supposed to dawn, all but about two devs disappeared after that thread died. One of the devs decided to be a jackass and make a post about how many lines of code he wrote that day, thus letting the community know that nobody at SOE understood what the customers were asking for. The community wanted (and still does) to know about what changes/additions the devs were planning so they could be discussed BEFORE the changes hit the Test Center, where they were usually set in stone with maybe a minor tweak or two. That is something the folks at SOE Austin still don't seem to understand. The entire Austin Studio should be forced to spend a couple weeks with the EQ2 team so they can learn how to communicate with their customers in a way that, most of the time, doesn't piss off large portions of the customers.
Minor correction: Cao has been the Studio Creative Director the whole time he's been there, dual-wielding as SWG's CD 'cause it needed one.
I can't say that Mr. Cao did a very good job of maintaining a creative vision in his time as SWG's CD (discounting the neglect the non combat professions recieved). Helios' month in that position was too short to indicate if he would have done much better.
Cynical!
You're the guy who said the problem, from the begining, with SWG was a lack of a creative vision. I don't see how changing a large portion of the design and development team (at least twice!) of the DC game helps maintain a creative vision. I will also say that SOE's current fixation on immitating WoW (in a vain attempt to immitate its success) never gave me much confidence that the game had a change even before they started to play musical developers.