Did you know I ran a couple UO emu's before joining SOE?I think they challenged early and let that dog lay..An no i didnt know you did UO EMU's..you did that i presume cause you also didnt agree with the changes made to that game? or am i wrong in that assumption?
As soon as the first UO emulator was functional, Richard Garriott, who was the head guy for Origin Systems, publicly said he thought it was great and that he approved of them. That was what caused EA's brief legal challenges to disappear about as soon as they happened (they sent out a few cease and desist orders, but they never follwed through).
SOE has had a different approach. They threaten to sue, and then they hire the folks who developed the emulator (as happened with the first two EQ emulators). The only public statement, about the SWG emulator, made by anyone officially connected to SWG, was Mr. Smedley's post claiming he asked LucasArts to 'go easy' on the SWGEmu developers.
since we have an open summit here, i like to join uninvited :P
Jeff, this made me reading it over and over again, finally a question popped..:
You said: >>It's a big team. At one time, 70 people. That made for over 70 opinions about anything, >>at any given time.
Thats not matching previously "learnings": Are you saying that every single "dev" (these 70 people DO contain non-devs too) was involved in decisions ?
Cant believe that. We say here in Europe translated: "Too many chefs ruin the meal."
I know your answer would be now "I said opinion, not decisions", so let me clarify my question: Were all 70 people constantly heard?
Is it correct (if yes) to say then, that the sume of changes (aka NGE) was "approved" by the majority of the devs in charge at the given time?
You said: >>I very much disliked a combat system in which a guy ran up to his target, pressed a >>function key, saw particle effects, ate a sammich, pressed a function key, more particle >>effects, drank some wine, and otherwise played his particle-effect generating toolbar >>until the target turned into a corpse.
That makes me (sorry) almost positive that you obv. didnt know what the "real" pre-CU combat was like ?!
If you do what you described above, you would be simply dead in PVE and lame in PvP. Wasnt it more the way, that you had to CONSTANTLY watch WHAT you press WHEN and that you were asked to IMMEDIATLY clear queue (backspace) to react/counter a move of your foe?
Wasnt the old, queued combat system more of strategy to play with "chains" bearing the risk of becoming wrong, need of cancel and requeue actions macthing the "new" combatsituation better?
I think that a "mouseclick till doc comes"-system is much MORE dull and unexiting ?
Maybe im just too old for that shit and need to leave the field to winedrinking, sammy-eating mouseclickers :P ...
And the last question: When the NGE went live and the general direction customer went was "SUX, please roll back", why wast it rolled back? No, its not the 34598 version of the generic question, i want to give you some answers (choose the most matching) so you can see, what i "want" to hear actually:
a) No...let time go on, thats always with changes: Customer never want new things, let them get used to it, then we see...
b) No way, i (CEO?) want this system cuz its the only one we can build on in future
c) I wasnt paying gazillion of dollars to have them whining now - customerbase will rotate and the "new customer" will love it (remark: that didnt work well cuz of the word spreaded "through customers generations")
I do not buy people at SOE dont like what was done or the way it happened. They admit they choose to push for the NGE. There is developer blog entries to prove it so. They sold it to LA. LA bought it hook line and sinker.
It's a big team. At one time, 70 people. That made for over 70 opinions about anything, at any given time.
That dev blog was mine, in reference to the combat interface. It was not in reference "the NGE", but the clicky combat system which I did - and still do - find to be more fun than than what SWG had at the time.
I very much disliked a combat system in which a guy ran up to his target, pressed a function key, saw particle effects, ate a sammich, pressed a function key, more particle effects, drank some wine, and otherwise played his particle-effect generating toolbar until the target turned into a corpse.
Otherwise, SOE as the developer developed, and LA as the published approved or didn't, as ever has been the case.
But anyway, many people have left now - on to other projects or on to other start-ups in town. Fairly common in the game industry for folk to move off of old projects and onto new ones.
Maybe the people who are left at SOE don't like what happened or how it went down? Why is that hard to buy?
I missed this response to my post. I am not saying ever single developer bought into the NGE as the games savior and that the current staff liked or disliked the NGE.
I agree that Clicky style combat is fun. I have throughly enjoyed many Click based combat systems. You where not around for my NGE review when it came out. I did 10 hours testing the first day and got past the "Its going to Blow" bug. I found after alot of testing that it was months from being ready to go out on live servers. I supported the viability and still do of an FPS MMO star wars games. Heck it makes alot of sense for a star wars game with ranged weapons to be a point and aim game.
You all had to know that the NGE simply wasn't close to ready for public launch. I am guessing that was mentioned by quiet a few developers and someone had to have said, "We can polish and fix it over the next few months" Did anyone believe this to be true given the history? Alot of promises where made to the effect of true collison detection and fixing NPC's firing through wall, floors, etc would be fixed by lead developers and Smedley himself.
After all the crux to the NGE was the enhanced combat system with a balanced fun fast paced system. Based on that fast fun model dev's took decay off. They capped crafters output. They put a loot table higher then the crafters caps. They got rid of stacking, buffs and made everything ready for a FPS type MMO shooter, however, they never delivered on a true FPS game did they? No one saw that vision through? No one thought that releasing an FPS where the only thing FPS is you and not the rest of the games NPC was a wrong? That most people in the games community and probably around the developer community where declaring the NGE beta at best?
Where was the dev team on releasing a product with there names on it unfinished in a beta state? It is a failed team. A team does what is in the best interests of everyone involved. It is a collective effort. The dev team here didn't act in there own best interest. What was the rush to get the NGE out with less then 2 full weeks of an open beta? When the outcry was blosterous and loud over the NGE why didn't the team delay its launch?
So as a team they failed. The NGE is pretty much universally said to be a good idea gone bad. You don't see a lot of vets here disputing that even Pre-CU needed some fixing? So we had a previous team that everyone agreed had some real large ingame issues still in the live game implimenting a new system, that to no ones surprise that played swg had some serious issues.
So we all seem to be agreeing that some people in the dev team spoke up and probably are still on the staff now. So who is responsible to listen to his/her teams feedback on there project, take the constructive critizism and correct the course? Well on this project at the time of the NGE there where a few people on the dev staff who could have and should have at least delayed the NGE till it was ready. Chris Cao, Helios, Smedley, You, Lucas Arts own people.
I am not saying you ruined swg with the NGE or that you maybe did tell them the NGE needed more work. Or that anyone of them didn't say I like pre-cu better. They don't always get to make the business decision on what gets developed or put live. What I have a huge problem with is not standing up when you know something is not ready for public release and pushing it out dispite widespread public outcry. Now you are seeing why there is a disconnect here?
People are skeptical about any SOE, Helios, ChrisCao, Jeff Freeman game because you held a position to fix the issues before they came to live and didn't. So the next time you are under pressure to deliver and its getting down to the wire what do we all think is likely to occur with the SWG team members?
I see a lot of folding and caving to "feed there families" after all its just a game right?
I see alot of I am just 1 man. If you can get fired from a job because you stood up against something you thought was wrong you probably are better off not working there. I get the real impression that people where penalized (IE TIggs) for speaking up. That is a failed team and failed management if that is occurring. Its culturally the fundamental reason SOE has gone from the Number 1 developer of MMO's to 3rd or 4th in market share.
Okay... As much as I hate the NGE version of SWG, I think that it is high time that a lot of this angst went away. It's almost like people are feeling that SOE did it as a way of making some sort of personal attack. No matter who was or was not involved with the NGE, it was a BUSINESS decision. SOE didn't just look at me enjoying my classic gameplay and say, "Hey... let's change the game so much that we make DarthOlomew want to quit. Well, I quit when it happened. But my reasons were divided between dislike of the changes and financial practicality. I eventually came back. I've worked in a few different corporations, and I see bad deals go down all the time with destructive consequences simply because of stupid decisions made by people in high position with no real practical knowledge of what they are making decisions about. The devs who WERE involved with the NGE clearly did not have their finger on the pulse of the community when they decided what said community really wanted. Personally, I hold Kurt Stangl responsible for that. As community relations director, it should be his responsibility to not only bring news to the community, but to also carry the concerns of the community to the developers working on the systems in question. Maybe he did this and the developers simply blew it off, thinking "get out of here Kurt, you are no developer, what do you really know?".
I never looked at the situation as SOE not understanding how the community would view the changes. I think they knew full well the community or at least most of it would hate these changes. Perhaps they didn't realize the community would be this vocal and generate as much "anti-marketing" as Dundee puts it, but they knew we would hate it, but felt it was worth the risk to try and bring in a larger number of new subcribers. That made the decision to trade us for another set of players. That is the only logical explanation for developing it completely in secret. By developing the changes in secret they got to milk several months of subcription dollars out players they had decided to intentionally abandon.
Okay... As much as I hate the NGE version of SWG, I think that it is high time that a lot of this angst went away. It's almost like people are feeling that SOE did it as a way of making some sort of personal attack. No matter who was or was not involved with the NGE, it was a BUSINESS decision. SOE didn't just look at me enjoying my classic gameplay and say, "Hey... let's change the game so much that we make DarthOlomew want to quit. Well, I quit when it happened. But my reasons were divided between dislike of the changes and financial practicality. I eventually came back. I've worked in a few different corporations, and I see bad deals go down all the time with destructive consequences simply because of stupid decisions made by people in high position with no real practical knowledge of what they are making decisions about. The devs who WERE involved with the NGE clearly did not have their finger on the pulse of the community when they decided what said community really wanted. Personally, I hold Kurt Stangl responsible for that. As community relations director, it should be his responsibility to not only bring news to the community, but to also carry the concerns of the community to the developers working on the systems in question. Maybe he did this and the developers simply blew it off, thinking "get out of here Kurt, you are no developer, what do you really know?".
I never looked at the situation as SOE not understanding how the community would view the changes. I think they knew full well the community or at least most of it would hate these changes. Perhaps they didn't realize the community would be this vocal and generate as much "anti-marketing" as Dundee puts it, but they knew we would hate it, but felt it was worth the risk to try and bring in a larger number of new subcribers. That made the decision to trade us for another set of players. That is the only logical explanation for developing it completely in secret. By developing the changes in secret they got to milk several months of subscription dollars out players they had decided to intentionally abandon.
That is the biggest problem with it.
It was developed in secret because they knew the current players wouldn't like it, so that they could benefit from those subs to fund it's development. They then marketed and sold an expansion based on benefits to players who played professions (CH) they knew were being taken from the game. That is tantamount to fraud and is why they offered refunds for TOOW.
It can be argued though that the subscription time from when they decided to NGE and the announcement also should be refunded as it was revenue gained fraudulently...
And you are right, they willfully traded us for another type of player they hoped to be able to attract with "flash bang" and "instant gratification" (see starter profession Jedi). They knew a lot of the vets would be going away which is why they lied to us by posting concepts about how the CU would be further developed (Ranger revamp for one) even though they had no intention of ever following through.
What they didn't realize was the anti-marketing by the now very pissed off and very vocal MAJORITY of customers, which turned out to be a well educated, successful bunch including a reporter for the New York Times who wrote an article excoriating SOE's lack of ethics, would blow everything up in their faces.
Our outrage kept the new flood away. Well, it played a part in it anyway, the NGE sucking balls is the primary reason, but SWG so quickly became infamous overnight for being run by people with the business ethics of Enron and became toxic.
Add to this their piss poor terrible PR run by Nancy McIntyre (reading is bad, no one wants to play what they created themselves), Smed (we're gonna beat WoW!), and Torres (who can forget the horribly bugged game blowing up in his face on national TV) was completely and utterly ineffective at countering our vocal and public outrage. In fact, PR was so inept that about all it accomplished was throw gasoline on the raging fire.
They were doomed the second they decided to go with the NGE and nothing done since matters.
Further revamps of the NGE are a waste of time. Rearranging the deck chairs isn't going to solve the problem of a gash in the hull that is letting in water (or in our case gushing subscribers).
I think they challenged early and let that dog lay..An no i didnt know you did UO EMU's..you did that i presume cause you also didnt agree with the changes made to that game? or am i wrong in that assumption?
I played UO for years, so can't really complain about that. I just wanted to make my own game, different game systems altogether. I didn't start with "standard" UO game-systems and then modify them, in most cases. I implemented my own game system designs.
Primarily because I was a disgruntled EQ player, actually.
Wished i could do the same but unlike you i cannot program..I just try to enjoy the game as the Dev who made it intended.If i dont i go elsewere but here lies the big problem.No other game exsist now like Galaxies Precu..Its all the same Boring balanced Loot kill loot WoW clone..Kinda like the CU was but i cannot change it back like you could with UO..I personally didnt care for UO cause the whole Fantasy realm.Not my cup of tea..So you as a gamer knew how it felt to have a game change on you so you changed it to what you wanted it to be? But as a Dev you didnt look past your own experiences with massive changes?intresting and thanks for the responses..
But if you don't care that the people you blame actually have anything to do with what you are blaming them for....
I actually do. I don't like blaming people that have nothing to do with the decision to trash the old system. I blamed you for the blog post mostly (And that post is still strange to me, but misinterpretation happens when we communicate in post form). But, NDA and silence will continue to harm those who are not deserving.
I blame Smed and Ward, something in their management structure allowed what happened to happen. The CEO is responsible for the corporate climate, right? Well, then they are both responsible for what happened on November 15, 2005.
LA had to sign off on a complete change to a game with their IP, right?
Smed had to sign off on a complete change to one of the titles in his company, right?
Ward and Smed are the only two people who I know deserve blame for the NGE. BUT- do they deserve all the blame, is my question.
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii. --In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses. --The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence! --CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
It was the team they paraded out on the forums after the NGE launch. Wouldnt call it their 'fault' though, they were just doing their jobs. However, that isnt an excuse imo. They were supposed to be part of the playerbase too. But i guess its not worth losing a job over right?
It is definitely unfair to say every bit of every change in the NGE was the fault of every developer on the project at the time.
Different people had their own personal opinions about every aspect of the NGE, in as much as any one dev knew every detail of every change, or even just every change.. You're talking about some people who only made quests for the new tutorial space station. Some people argued against many of the NGE changes as you'd have wanted them to (and think no one did). Others expressed opinions against many changes you'd hate, but not all of them. Others argued for things you'd have liked along with things that you wouldn't. Such is the nature of teams.
At least one was transferred off the project at his request, because he didn't want to do to you what the NGE was about to do (He wasn't the only one, either; but there wasn't a place for everyone to be moved and they couldn't very well move everyone off the project anyway).
If the universe is so completely insane that I ever faced this choice again, I would quit rather than being a part of it. But that's only because I have this experience behind me.
Even so, right. I think expecting all devs to quit is too much, especially ones lacking the experience to recognize an Elephant Walk shaping-up. I wouldn't think any less of a dev choosing to feed his kid over going all Norma Rae for you.
Well, I can say this to you now.
Thank you for your honesty. I am now pretty satisfied with your response and now understand much much more then I did previously with this whole experience.
In a way what you said here makes me feel better about my choice to go "rouge" on SOE if you will and quit... I stood my ground, ranted and told everyone that this would not work and NOT to follow down this path. I explained why, asked for people to try to listen and use common sense.
I feel pretty good at how it turned out on that prediction, however this is not what I wanted to happen.
I don't blame everyone for trying to get off that boat nor would I have wanted to be on it.
I think the best thing that can happen now is people see this, the NGErs see this and take it with a grain of salt now and accept it.
Know that they paid into this.... know what was going on (Or at least know more now) also know that... I hope they are mad knowing what was going on, I hope they realize why not to pay for this anymore and accept this instead of expecting more.
Call it anger or whatever you may wish...but I am glad to see a person that helped make this mess say those things finally.
(DO not be ashamed...for once you made sense and acually gained alot of peoples respect for those statements Im sure).
At some point the fanbois will realize what to do... until then we have this mess....... at least I can understand one more devs real feelings on the topic.
Cheers...
______________________________ I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process..... SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
It was the team they paraded out on the forums after the NGE launch. Wouldnt call it their 'fault' though, they were just doing their jobs. However, that isnt an excuse imo. They were supposed to be part of the playerbase too. But i guess its not worth losing a job over right?
It is definitely unfair to say every bit of every change in the NGE was the fault of every developer on the project at the time.
Different people had their own personal opinions about every aspect of the NGE, in as much as any one dev knew every detail of every change, or even just every change.. You're talking about some people who only made quests for the new tutorial space station. Some people argued against many of the NGE changes as you'd have wanted them to (and think no one did). Others expressed opinions against many changes you'd hate, but not all of them. Others argued for things you'd have liked along with things that you wouldn't. Such is the nature of teams.
At least one was transferred off the project at his request, because he didn't want to do to you what the NGE was about to do (He wasn't the only one, either; but there wasn't a place for everyone to be moved and they couldn't very well move everyone off the project anyway).
If the universe is so completely insane that I ever faced this choice again, I would quit rather than being a part of it. But that's only because I have this experience behind me.
Even so, right. I think expecting all devs to quit is too much, especially ones lacking the experience to recognize an Elephant Walk shaping-up. I wouldn't think any less of a dev choosing to feed his kid over going all Norma Rae for you.
Well, I can say this to you now.
Thank you for your honesty. I am now pretty satisfied with your response and now understand much much more then I did previously with this whole experience.
In a way what you said here makes me feel better about my choice to go "rouge" on SOE if you will and quit... I stood my ground, ranted and told everyone that this would not work and NOT to follow down this path. I explained why, asked for people to try to listen and use common sense.
I feel pretty good at how it turned out on that prediction, however this is not what I wanted to happen.
I don't blame everyone for trying to get off that boat nor would I have wanted to be on it.
I think the best thing that can happen now is people see this, the NGErs see this and take it with a grain of salt now and accept it.
Know that they paid into this.... know what was going on (Or at least know more now) also know that... I hope they are mad knowing what was going on, I hope they realize why not to pay for this anymore and accept this instead of expecting more.
Call it anger or whatever you may wish...but I am glad to see a person that helped make this mess say those things finally.
(DO not be ashamed...for once you made sense and acually gained alot of peoples respect for those statements Im sure).
At some point the fanbois will realize what to do... until then we have this mess....... at least I can understand one more devs real feelings on the topic.
Cheers...
Dundee,
Man that sums it up and makes things crystal clear for me.I understand things alot better now being as i have youngins myself..All things aside its a good lesson in the field of hard knocks.Customers come away more informed and developers have a record of what not to do..Too bad no one at SOE will fix things they have a bad habbit of being their own worst enemy from my point of view anyways..For me to play the NGE it would have to be PreCU gameplay they can call it what ever they want and still change it..I think its way too late for that tho..and its sad the game couldve been one of the best....thanks again
I've read too many posts on the NGE and basically have to wonder what project management system was in place at SOE?
It surely wasn't followed through. If it was there would have been an immediate alarm bell ringing at SOE HQ when the screams from the test server introduced shortly before live introduction was made available. It was at that point the project should have been referred upward for review. If it was (and sadly I suspect it was) and the recommendations from the project manager ignored then welcome to your result SOE and LA. Names besmirched forever in my eyes.
My suggestion to MMO developers? Study PRINCE2 project management and follow it to the letter in whatever game you are on, even if it doesn't give you the result you want, it gives the result that preserves your projects and as a by product, your name.
My qualifications? Not important but I am accredited with PRINCE2 and that has sufficient controls to stop crap like the NGE in its tracks preserving financial security for the companies involved. But only if it's followed top down.
I really get the impressions that the MMO industry has NO project management skill base or that they only play lip service to it - this is a fairly reasonable conclusion given the number of failed projects and disappointed customer base.
I really get the impressions that the MMO industry has NO project management skill base or that they only play lip service to it - this is a fairly reasonable conclusion given the number of failed projects and disappointed customer base.
All indications seem to point to that being true. By no means does it seem limited to SWG. We could produce a list that would run off your screen of MMO projects that clearly show signs of weak commitment to project management and to software development process. I've even seen (game) industry insiders confirm that.
I'm done with MMOs until this market grows up a bit. I might be at retirement age before that happens.
Okay, Mr. Freeman. You've been quite sporting about answering the questions you can and acknowledging the questions you cant answer for whatever reasons there might be. I appreciate your position. It was your job. So many people here act like they have never had a job where some idiot boss shows up and demands something you know is ignorant but hey...he's the boss. So, get at it right? I understand that totally.
So, I wont quibble about the blame and who said what and why. Just had some general questions.
PreCU in its last known state before the CU was getting decent but many of the things that were broken at launch remained broken then and to this day still are. I was just wondering why the game was never really brought into a state of solid gameplay? Bugs/specials rarely fixed. I'm just going to make an assumption that most of the "powers that be" would rather spend money on coding expansions and new features to drag in new players rather than fixing current gamecode?
Just always felt like SWG-PreCU was a game that never really got finished. Was it really too much for the dev team to handle? Was the base code too hard to work with? So often it seemed like something like a special firing would break something oddly unrelated. I could either attribute this to a bad framework for the gamecode or inept programmers breaking things accidently or carelessly as they piddle about in the game code.
I speak of this from a very minimal understanding of coding and what is involved so maybe my interpretation of events is a bit skewed. Just curious.
Assigning blame is pointless at this point. You can assign blame of the NGE till the end of time, and to whomever you like. It will do nothing though. What needs to happen is a solution. And its been 2 years I think since Pre-CU was last active, and people are still calling for it to be brought back. That says something itself.
So keep blaming whoever you want, I am tired of hearing it. Find a solution, either e-mail someone once a week asking to bring back pre-cu, and be nice about it.
At this point, SWG's "Golden Era" is part of history. Its a footmark on how to not treat your customers.
Blame Smedley, Freeman, Ward, Koster, or whoever the hell you want, it does nothing. The decision was made, and the decision was enacted. What you need now is a solution to give you the game you want back.
Dartholomew sorry but to let go would mean i forgive SOE and i really dont forgive them.
Im not a banner wearing and talk about it all the time but im very anti SOE when it comes to games, ie i expect it to be shit and im normally not proven wrong (look at VG)
The line of the original post "we wont do it again" yes coz how can you screw up what has already been screwed up, there is no nowhere left for them to go.
Its an empty promise, not that they wont do it but they cant do it, well there is one way to lose all that small playerbase they have.
Dump jedi from starting prof.
That would kill the game in its tracks and lose those 50K of jedi pretend vet kiddie players
Good morning, since we have an open summit here, i like to join uninvited :P Jeff, this made me reading it over and over again, finally a question popped..: You said:
>>It's a big team. At one time, 70 people. That made for over 70 opinions about anything,
>>at any given time. Thats not matching previously "learnings":
Are you saying that every single "dev" (these 70 people DO contain non-devs too) was involved in decisions ? Cant believe that. We say here in Europe translated:
"Too many chefs ruin the meal." I know your answer would be now "I said opinion, not decisions", so let me clarify my question:
Were all 70 people constantly heard? Is it correct (if yes) to say then, that the sume of changes (aka NGE) was "approved" by the majority of the devs in charge at the given time?
My feeling was to say that it is unfair to say, "SWG Developers were dumb to think some thing", as though all of the developers have a shared mind.
You said:
>>I very much disliked a combat system in which a guy ran up to his target, pressed a
>>function key, saw particle effects, ate a sammich, pressed a function key, more particle
>>effects, drank some wine, and otherwise played his particle-effect generating toolbar
>>until the target turned into a corpse. That makes me (sorry) almost positive that you obv. didnt know what the "real" pre-CU combat was like ?!
The NGE didn't replace pre-CU combat. I know what it was like. My personal preference would have been to fix some issues with it way before JtL launched, rather than ever replacing it.
Maybe im just too old for that shit and need to leave the field to winedrinking, sammy-eating mouseclickers :P ...
And the last question:
When the NGE went live and the general direction customer went was "SUX, please roll back", why wast it rolled back?
No, its not the 34598 version of the generic question, i want to give you some answers (choose the most matching) so you can see, what i "want" to hear actually: a) No...let time go on, thats always with changes: Customer never want new things, let them get used to it, then we see... b) No way, i (CEO?) want this system cuz its the only one we can build on in future c) I wasnt paying gazillion of dollars to have them whining now - customerbase will rotate and the "new customer" will love it (remark: that didnt work well cuz of the word spreaded "through customers generations") Thanks
I can't tell you anything SOE hasn't already told you, though I think your answer is around somewhere.
Okay, Mr. Freeman. You've been quite sporting about answering the questions you can and acknowledging the questions you cant answer for whatever reasons there might be. I appreciate your position. It was your job. So many people here act like they have never had a job where some idiot boss shows up and demands something you know is ignorant but hey...he's the boss. So, get at it right? I understand that totally.
I've protested the blanket condemnations of the entire development team for entire the NGE, and the statements that I personally engineered it, promoted it, pushed it, sold it, insisted on it until both companies caved to my will; and every change in the NGE sprung forth from my evil heart.
So, I wont quibble about the blame and who said what and why. Just had some general questions.
PreCU in its last known state before the CU was getting decent but many of the things that were broken at launch remained broken then and to this day still are. I was just wondering why the game was never really brought into a state of solid gameplay? Bugs/specials rarely fixed. I'm just going to make an assumption that most of the "powers that be" would rather spend money on coding expansions and new features to drag in new players rather than fixing current gamecode?
It's a matter of prioritizing a bug fix vs. a new thing: sometimes a new thing keeps a subscriber longer than fixing a bug. Expansions definitely bring in more new people than bug fixes. 'Course you want to do everything, but you can't.
Just always felt like SWG-PreCU was a game that never really got finished. Was it really too much for the dev team to handle? Was the base code too hard to work with? So often it seemed like something like a special firing would break something oddly unrelated. I could either attribute this to a bad framework for the gamecode or inept programmers breaking things accidently or carelessly as they piddle about in the game code.
I'm gonna pass on that one.
I speak of this from a very minimal understanding of coding and what is involved so maybe my interpretation of events is a bit skewed. Just curious.
Thanks
I wrote AI and pets and I can tell you it wasn't all bad coding. Some of it was bad design. :P
I really get the impressions that the MMO industry has NO project management skill base or that they only play lip service to it - this is a fairly reasonable conclusion given the number of failed projects and disappointed customer base.
Some projects are better managed than others. JtL was a dream.
Games are creative works though, and creativity is difficult to schedule.
I think the real solution is going to be to take as long as it takes, or cancel it and start work on something else.
Good project management may, at best, ensure it only takes as long as it takes.
I really get the impressions that the MMO industry has NO project management skill base or that they only play lip service to it - this is a fairly reasonable conclusion given the number of failed projects and disappointed customer base.
Some projects are better managed than others. JtL was a dream.
Games are creative works though, and creativity is difficult to schedule.
I think the real solution is going to be to take as long as it takes, or cancel it and start work on something else.
Good project management may, at best, ensure it only takes as long as it takes.
Name a human endeavour that doesn't involve creativity. Movies and television series are scheduled all the time. I agree that the software title should be 'finished' before the decision to ship is made, but that's not a valid execuse for ACME software studio expecting an unlimited amount of time and monkeys.
I wonder if those developers who leave SOE leave "SOE" out of their portfolio?
I know I would have to think twice over hiring anyone from the SOE rank and file. To me, it just doesn't matter who takes over as "lead" developer at SOE-SWG because no matter what they do, they will never be able to sort out the cluster fudge that has been created there already.
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
Name a human endeavour that doesn't involve creativity. Movies and television series are scheduled all the time.
And... movies go over-schedule and over-budget all the time, too. They also have a long shelf-life post-launch i which to recoup any additional money spent waiting to launch them until they are done. If they run out of money in development, they go in a can until more money can be found - sometimes they stay in that can, but other times they do re-emerge.
Games have one shot: launch. If they cost more to make than that gets them, then they'll likely never make a profit. There's no movie channel or tv network syndication or DVD release for games.
Television shows can hit a deadline, but those actors frequently work some crazy hours. If they're nailing it time and again, it's because they're making the same thing over and over and not involving much creativity.
"NFL Roster Change 200x" might be comparable.
I agree that the software title should be 'finished' before the decision to ship is made, but that's not a valid execuse for ACME software studio expecting an unlimited amount of time and monkeys.
Oh, sorry. Unlimited, no. Didn't realize I was arguing the crazy position.
I'm very much curious about the average poster in this thread. I know I'm not the usual demographic for an MMO - I'm 32, have a couple kids, with another on the way. I've been in professional jobs for 11 or so years, and have been a manager for several of those.
So I am intimately familiar with "Here's your new parameters. Go."
I've argued until I'm blue in the face why a change in process was a bad one. And my manager has told me "I know. And I agree with you. But I took it to my boss, and he decided that things won't change." And then you know what I did? I went out, and I sold the change to people. I explained to them why it was a good thing. I told them how it would help them, I did the best I could with what I had. Because I didn't agree with it, but it was what I was working with. And when I could, I made small changes here and there to guide it closer to what I envisioned, and then later, I prepared little reports that explained how the choice impacted us. But by then, it was too late.
So I believe Freeman when he says that he didn't like it, but he did it. I even buy the original post to some degree - maybe Cao likes it, maybe he doesn't. But his position supports it, so he has to do the best he can with what he has, and try to make people like it. And no, he's not going to quit his job over it. He may be actively pursuing *new* jobs, and will take one in a heartbeat, but in the real world, you don't just quit for your principles unless you can truly afford to.
Freeman said what his vision of the NGE was - some small changes, some updates, some new systems. Obviously, his vision didn't go in. He was given what his vision would now be, and he worked it. Again, I sympathize. The fact that he's in here, taking all the shit he's taking from people who are bitter (and make no mistake - I am bitter. I think the decisions made were short-sighted, misinformed, and sometimes out right hubris, and they killed the glory of SWG), and just telling us what he can. That's hard. Dude has no reason to do that, except that he really means it. He's not a corporate shill, he's not even an employee at this point. He's just a guy telling us what he can.
Who am I? @Lorechaser on CoH Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner) Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry) ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO And many more.
I'm very much curious about the average poster in this thread. I know I'm not the usual demographic for an MMO - I'm 32, have a couple kids, with another on the way. I've been in professional jobs for 11 or so years, and have been a manager for several of those.
I'm 38. I have two teen boys. I was divorced for 13 years or so , vowed never to marry again, and now have been re-married for almost 11 months, exactly. I worked blue-collar jobs 'til I managed to create a database design position out of a boxes-moving position. My hobby was BBS door game programming before Windows and the internet came along, then designing/implementing/running a couple of UO emu's for a few years. Then Sony hired me for SWG as a world builder, after not hiring me as a Systems Designer, and put me to work on systems.
I implemented the "lair" system, which is what made a pile of leaves and some mobs (creatures, npcs, etc.), made more mobs when you shot the leaves, spawned some more at half-hitpoints, and so on... you know how it worked. It also "packed up" all the mobs (and the pile of leaves) when no players were around, so as not to have masses of critters out in the wilderness when no players were anywhere near.
Then AI for creatures and NPCs, and the baby taming, training, growing, etc. pet system: then mangled it to support faction NPC s and droid-"programming".
I also did the first CH revision: the one that stopped them all running around with three grual maullers (or whatever the most broken-balanced pet of the day was) with the barest of CH skills.
Yeah, nerf. But c'mon!
Then post launch, off to JtL. Then RotW after that.
Back to Live, I worked on Live Bugs. Fixing them, this time.
Then the NGE came along.
So I believe Freeman when he says that he didn't like it, but he did it.
Well, "it" was a lot of things. I liked some more than others.
I even buy the original post to some degree - maybe Cao likes it, maybe he doesn't. But his position supports it, so he has to do the best he can with what he has, and try to make people like it. And no, he's not going to quit his job over it. He may be actively pursuing *new* jobs, and will take one in a heartbeat, but in the real world, you don't just quit for your principles unless you can truly afford to.
Cao earned my loyalty quick, too. I wasn't looking to quit.
Freeman said what his vision of the NGE was - some small changes, some updates, some new systems. Obviously, his vision didn't go in.
I wasn't speaking of the NGE, there, but of the post-launch combat system fixes. My preference was for some minor things, but I worked on JtL and a revamp was put in motion.
He was given what his vision would now be, and he worked it. Again, I sympathize. The fact that he's in here, taking all the shit he's taking from people who are bitter (and make no mistake - I am bitter. I think the decisions made were short-sighted, misinformed, and sometimes out right hubris, and they killed the glory of SWG), and just telling us what he can. That's hard. Dude has no reason to do that, except that he really means it. He's not a corporate shill, he's not even an employee at this point. He's just a guy telling us what he can.
I appreciate that, even though I'm not all as innocent with regard to my NGE enthusiasm as you describe there.
Wouldn't have made a difference, but I wish now I'd found it harder to ignore the vet players.
Okay, Mr. Freeman. You've been quite sporting about answering the questions you can and acknowledging the questions you cant answer for whatever reasons there might be. I appreciate your position. It was your job. So many people here act like they have never had a job where some idiot boss shows up and demands something you know is ignorant but hey...he's the boss. So, get at it right? I understand that totally.
I've protested the blanket condemnations of the entire development team for entire the NGE, and the statements that I personally engineered it, promoted it, pushed it, sold it, insisted on it until both companies caved to my will; and every change in the NGE sprung forth from my evil heart.
Its hard to tell if you are agreeing with my statement or just reiterating your position. I will assume agree.
So, I wont quibble about the blame and who said what and why. Just had some general questions.
PreCU in its last known state before the CU was getting decent but many of the things that were broken at launch remained broken then and to this day still are. I was just wondering why the game was never really brought into a state of solid gameplay? Bugs/specials rarely fixed. I'm just going to make an assumption that most of the "powers that be" would rather spend money on coding expansions and new features to drag in new players rather than fixing current gamecode?
It's a matter of prioritizing a bug fix vs. a new thing: sometimes a new thing keeps a subscriber longer than fixing a bug. Expansions definitely bring in more new people than bug fixes. 'Course you want to do everything, but you can't.
Just always felt like SWG-PreCU was a game that never really got finished. Was it really too much for the dev team to handle? Was the base code too hard to work with? So often it seemed like something like a special firing would break something oddly unrelated. I could either attribute this to a bad framework for the gamecode or inept programmers breaking things accidently or carelessly as they piddle about in the game code.
I'm gonna pass on that one.
Heh, I suppose thats an unfair question. After all word does get around.
I speak of this from a very minimal understanding of coding and what is involved so maybe my interpretation of events is a bit skewed. Just curious.
Thanks
I wrote AI and pets and I can tell you it wasn't all bad coding. Some of it was bad design. :P
Craptastic forum ate my previous reply....grrrr
I read above that you worked on lair systems. In the Ranger forums we were always talking about hunting wild lairs verses mission lairs. Wild lairs after all usually held alot more spawns. I myself hated running to and from mission terminals. I refused to actually. What I did wonder about was that when someone was on a desolate planet like Talus where there wasnt much player traffic that there would be very very few wild spawns.
See, one day I was on Tat hunting for some good OQ eggs. At the time I couldnt find many lairs and said well... guess I will just use the terminal. I went and got about a dozen missions, got the eggs and the cancelled the mission. After doing so many of them the area would explode with natural spawns. Was just wondering if that was by design or just a freak of code. Basically something to wake the server up and say hey there are players here?
Comments
Did you know I ran a couple UO emu's before joining SOE?I think they challenged early and let that dog lay..An no i didnt know you did UO EMU's..you did that i presume cause you also didnt agree with the changes made to that game? or am i wrong in that assumption?
As soon as the first UO emulator was functional, Richard Garriott, who was the head guy for Origin Systems, publicly said he thought it was great and that he approved of them. That was what caused EA's brief legal challenges to disappear about as soon as they happened (they sent out a few cease and desist orders, but they never follwed through).
SOE has had a different approach. They threaten to sue, and then they hire the folks who developed the emulator (as happened with the first two EQ emulators). The only public statement, about the SWG emulator, made by anyone officially connected to SWG, was Mr. Smedley's post claiming he asked LucasArts to 'go easy' on the SWGEmu developers.
Good morning,
since we have an open summit here, i like to join uninvited :P
Jeff, this made me reading it over and over again, finally a question popped..:
You said:
>>It's a big team. At one time, 70 people. That made for over 70 opinions about anything,
>>at any given time.
Thats not matching previously "learnings":
Are you saying that every single "dev" (these 70 people DO contain non-devs too) was involved in decisions ?
Cant believe that. We say here in Europe translated:
"Too many chefs ruin the meal."
I know your answer would be now "I said opinion, not decisions", so let me clarify my question:
Were all 70 people constantly heard?
Is it correct (if yes) to say then, that the sume of changes (aka NGE) was "approved" by the majority of the devs in charge at the given time?
You said:
>>I very much disliked a combat system in which a guy ran up to his target, pressed a
>>function key, saw particle effects, ate a sammich, pressed a function key, more particle
>>effects, drank some wine, and otherwise played his particle-effect generating toolbar
>>until the target turned into a corpse.
That makes me (sorry) almost positive that you obv. didnt know what the "real" pre-CU combat was like ?!
If you do what you described above, you would be simply dead in PVE and lame in PvP.
Wasnt it more the way, that you had to CONSTANTLY watch WHAT you press WHEN and that you were asked to IMMEDIATLY clear queue (backspace) to react/counter a move of your foe?
Wasnt the old, queued combat system more of strategy to play with "chains" bearing the risk of becoming wrong, need of cancel and requeue actions macthing the "new" combatsituation better?
I think that a "mouseclick till doc comes"-system is much MORE dull and unexiting ?
Maybe im just too old for that shit and need to leave the field to winedrinking, sammy-eating mouseclickers :P ...
And the last question:
When the NGE went live and the general direction customer went was "SUX, please roll back", why wast it rolled back?
No, its not the 34598 version of the generic question, i want to give you some answers (choose the most matching) so you can see, what i "want" to hear actually:
a) No...let time go on, thats always with changes: Customer never want new things, let them get used to it, then we see...
b) No way, i (CEO?) want this system cuz its the only one we can build on in future
c) I wasnt paying gazillion of dollars to have them whining now - customerbase will rotate and the "new customer" will love it (remark: that didnt work well cuz of the word spreaded "through customers generations")
Thanks
Claude
It's a big team. At one time, 70 people. That made for over 70 opinions about anything, at any given time.
That dev blog was mine, in reference to the combat interface. It was not in reference "the NGE", but the clicky combat system which I did - and still do - find to be more fun than than what SWG had at the time.
I very much disliked a combat system in which a guy ran up to his target, pressed a function key, saw particle effects, ate a sammich, pressed a function key, more particle effects, drank some wine, and otherwise played his particle-effect generating toolbar until the target turned into a corpse.
Otherwise, SOE as the developer developed, and LA as the published approved or didn't, as ever has been the case.
But anyway, many people have left now - on to other projects or on to other start-ups in town. Fairly common in the game industry for folk to move off of old projects and onto new ones.
Maybe the people who are left at SOE don't like what happened or how it went down? Why is that hard to buy?
I missed this response to my post. I am not saying ever single developer bought into the NGE as the games savior and that the current staff liked or disliked the NGE.
I agree that Clicky style combat is fun. I have throughly enjoyed many Click based combat systems. You where not around for my NGE review when it came out. I did 10 hours testing the first day and got past the "Its going to Blow" bug. I found after alot of testing that it was months from being ready to go out on live servers. I supported the viability and still do of an FPS MMO star wars games. Heck it makes alot of sense for a star wars game with ranged weapons to be a point and aim game.
You all had to know that the NGE simply wasn't close to ready for public launch. I am guessing that was mentioned by quiet a few developers and someone had to have said, "We can polish and fix it over the next few months" Did anyone believe this to be true given the history? Alot of promises where made to the effect of true collison detection and fixing NPC's firing through wall, floors, etc would be fixed by lead developers and Smedley himself.
After all the crux to the NGE was the enhanced combat system with a balanced fun fast paced system. Based on that fast fun model dev's took decay off. They capped crafters output. They put a loot table higher then the crafters caps. They got rid of stacking, buffs and made everything ready for a FPS type MMO shooter, however, they never delivered on a true FPS game did they? No one saw that vision through? No one thought that releasing an FPS where the only thing FPS is you and not the rest of the games NPC was a wrong? That most people in the games community and probably around the developer community where declaring the NGE beta at best?
Where was the dev team on releasing a product with there names on it unfinished in a beta state? It is a failed team. A team does what is in the best interests of everyone involved. It is a collective effort. The dev team here didn't act in there own best interest. What was the rush to get the NGE out with less then 2 full weeks of an open beta? When the outcry was blosterous and loud over the NGE why didn't the team delay its launch?
So as a team they failed. The NGE is pretty much universally said to be a good idea gone bad. You don't see a lot of vets here disputing that even Pre-CU needed some fixing? So we had a previous team that everyone agreed had some real large ingame issues still in the live game implimenting a new system, that to no ones surprise that played swg had some serious issues.
So we all seem to be agreeing that some people in the dev team spoke up and probably are still on the staff now. So who is responsible to listen to his/her teams feedback on there project, take the constructive critizism and correct the course? Well on this project at the time of the NGE there where a few people on the dev staff who could have and should have at least delayed the NGE till it was ready. Chris Cao, Helios, Smedley, You, Lucas Arts own people.
I am not saying you ruined swg with the NGE or that you maybe did tell them the NGE needed more work. Or that anyone of them didn't say I like pre-cu better. They don't always get to make the business decision on what gets developed or put live. What I have a huge problem with is not standing up when you know something is not ready for public release and pushing it out dispite widespread public outcry. Now you are seeing why there is a disconnect here?
People are skeptical about any SOE, Helios, ChrisCao, Jeff Freeman game because you held a position to fix the issues before they came to live and didn't. So the next time you are under pressure to deliver and its getting down to the wire what do we all think is likely to occur with the SWG team members?
I see a lot of folding and caving to "feed there families" after all its just a game right?
I see alot of I am just 1 man. If you can get fired from a job because you stood up against something you thought was wrong you probably are better off not working there. I get the real impression that people where penalized (IE TIggs) for speaking up. That is a failed team and failed management if that is occurring. Its culturally the fundamental reason SOE has gone from the Number 1 developer of MMO's to 3rd or 4th in market share.
You have to be able to stop bad mistakes.
I never looked at the situation as SOE not understanding how the community would view the changes. I think they knew full well the community or at least most of it would hate these changes. Perhaps they didn't realize the community would be this vocal and generate as much "anti-marketing" as Dundee puts it, but they knew we would hate it, but felt it was worth the risk to try and bring in a larger number of new subcribers. That made the decision to trade us for another set of players. That is the only logical explanation for developing it completely in secret. By developing the changes in secret they got to milk several months of subcription dollars out players they had decided to intentionally abandon.
That is the biggest problem with it.
It was developed in secret because they knew the current players wouldn't like it, so that they could benefit from those subs to fund it's development. They then marketed and sold an expansion based on benefits to players who played professions (CH) they knew were being taken from the game. That is tantamount to fraud and is why they offered refunds for TOOW.
It can be argued though that the subscription time from when they decided to NGE and the announcement also should be refunded as it was revenue gained fraudulently...
And you are right, they willfully traded us for another type of player they hoped to be able to attract with "flash bang" and "instant gratification" (see starter profession Jedi). They knew a lot of the vets would be going away which is why they lied to us by posting concepts about how the CU would be further developed (Ranger revamp for one) even though they had no intention of ever following through.
What they didn't realize was the anti-marketing by the now very pissed off and very vocal MAJORITY of customers, which turned out to be a well educated, successful bunch including a reporter for the New York Times who wrote an article excoriating SOE's lack of ethics, would blow everything up in their faces.
Our outrage kept the new flood away. Well, it played a part in it anyway, the NGE sucking balls is the primary reason, but SWG so quickly became infamous overnight for being run by people with the business ethics of Enron and became toxic.
Add to this their piss poor terrible PR run by Nancy McIntyre (reading is bad, no one wants to play what they created themselves), Smed (we're gonna beat WoW!), and Torres (who can forget the horribly bugged game blowing up in his face on national TV) was completely and utterly ineffective at countering our vocal and public outrage. In fact, PR was so inept that about all it accomplished was throw gasoline on the raging fire.
They were doomed the second they decided to go with the NGE and nothing done since matters.
Further revamps of the NGE are a waste of time. Rearranging the deck chairs isn't going to solve the problem of a gash in the hull that is letting in water (or in our case gushing subscribers).
Primarily because I was a disgruntled EQ player, actually.
Wished i could do the same but unlike you i cannot program..I just try to enjoy the game as the Dev who made it intended.If i dont i go elsewere but here lies the big problem.No other game exsist now like Galaxies Precu..Its all the same Boring balanced Loot kill loot WoW clone..Kinda like the CU was but i cannot change it back like you could with UO..I personally didnt care for UO cause the whole Fantasy realm.Not my cup of tea..So you as a gamer knew how it felt to have a game change on you so you changed it to what you wanted it to be? But as a Dev you didnt look past your own experiences with massive changes?intresting and thanks for the responses..
I actually do. I don't like blaming people that have nothing to do with the decision to trash the old system. I blamed you for the blog post mostly (And that post is still strange to me, but misinterpretation happens when we communicate in post form). But, NDA and silence will continue to harm those who are not deserving.
I blame Smed and Ward, something in their management structure allowed what happened to happen. The CEO is responsible for the corporate climate, right? Well, then they are both responsible for what happened on November 15, 2005.
LA had to sign off on a complete change to a game with their IP, right?
Smed had to sign off on a complete change to one of the titles in his company, right?
Ward and Smed are the only two people who I know deserve blame for the NGE. BUT- do they deserve all the blame, is my question.
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
It is definitely unfair to say every bit of every change in the NGE was the fault of every developer on the project at the time.
Different people had their own personal opinions about every aspect of the NGE, in as much as any one dev knew every detail of every change, or even just every change.. You're talking about some people who only made quests for the new tutorial space station. Some people argued against many of the NGE changes as you'd have wanted them to (and think no one did). Others expressed opinions against many changes you'd hate, but not all of them. Others argued for things you'd have liked along with things that you wouldn't. Such is the nature of teams.
At least one was transferred off the project at his request, because he didn't want to do to you what the NGE was about to do (He wasn't the only one, either; but there wasn't a place for everyone to be moved and they couldn't very well move everyone off the project anyway).
If the universe is so completely insane that I ever faced this choice again, I would quit rather than being a part of it. But that's only because I have this experience behind me.
Even so, right. I think expecting all devs to quit is too much, especially ones lacking the experience to recognize an Elephant Walk shaping-up. I wouldn't think any less of a dev choosing to feed his kid over going all Norma Rae for you.
Well, I can say this to you now.
Thank you for your honesty. I am now pretty satisfied with your response and now understand much much more then I did previously with this whole experience.
In a way what you said here makes me feel better about my choice to go "rouge" on SOE if you will and quit... I stood my ground, ranted and told everyone that this would not work and NOT to follow down this path. I explained why, asked for people to try to listen and use common sense.
I feel pretty good at how it turned out on that prediction, however this is not what I wanted to happen.
I don't blame everyone for trying to get off that boat nor would I have wanted to be on it.
I think the best thing that can happen now is people see this, the NGErs see this and take it with a grain of salt now and accept it.
Know that they paid into this.... know what was going on (Or at least know more now) also know that... I hope they are mad knowing what was going on, I hope they realize why not to pay for this anymore and accept this instead of expecting more.
Call it anger or whatever you may wish...but I am glad to see a person that helped make this mess say those things finally.
(DO not be ashamed...for once you made sense and acually gained alot of peoples respect for those statements Im sure).
At some point the fanbois will realize what to do... until then we have this mess....... at least I can understand one more devs real feelings on the topic.
Cheers...
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
It is definitely unfair to say every bit of every change in the NGE was the fault of every developer on the project at the time.
Different people had their own personal opinions about every aspect of the NGE, in as much as any one dev knew every detail of every change, or even just every change.. You're talking about some people who only made quests for the new tutorial space station. Some people argued against many of the NGE changes as you'd have wanted them to (and think no one did). Others expressed opinions against many changes you'd hate, but not all of them. Others argued for things you'd have liked along with things that you wouldn't. Such is the nature of teams.
At least one was transferred off the project at his request, because he didn't want to do to you what the NGE was about to do (He wasn't the only one, either; but there wasn't a place for everyone to be moved and they couldn't very well move everyone off the project anyway).
If the universe is so completely insane that I ever faced this choice again, I would quit rather than being a part of it. But that's only because I have this experience behind me.
Even so, right. I think expecting all devs to quit is too much, especially ones lacking the experience to recognize an Elephant Walk shaping-up. I wouldn't think any less of a dev choosing to feed his kid over going all Norma Rae for you.
Well, I can say this to you now.
Thank you for your honesty. I am now pretty satisfied with your response and now understand much much more then I did previously with this whole experience.
In a way what you said here makes me feel better about my choice to go "rouge" on SOE if you will and quit... I stood my ground, ranted and told everyone that this would not work and NOT to follow down this path. I explained why, asked for people to try to listen and use common sense.
I feel pretty good at how it turned out on that prediction, however this is not what I wanted to happen.
I don't blame everyone for trying to get off that boat nor would I have wanted to be on it.
I think the best thing that can happen now is people see this, the NGErs see this and take it with a grain of salt now and accept it.
Know that they paid into this.... know what was going on (Or at least know more now) also know that... I hope they are mad knowing what was going on, I hope they realize why not to pay for this anymore and accept this instead of expecting more.
Call it anger or whatever you may wish...but I am glad to see a person that helped make this mess say those things finally.
(DO not be ashamed...for once you made sense and acually gained alot of peoples respect for those statements Im sure).
At some point the fanbois will realize what to do... until then we have this mess....... at least I can understand one more devs real feelings on the topic.
Cheers...
Dundee,
Man that sums it up and makes things crystal clear for me.I understand things alot better now being as i have youngins myself..All things aside its a good lesson in the field of hard knocks.Customers come away more informed and developers have a record of what not to do..Too bad no one at SOE will fix things they have a bad habbit of being their own worst enemy from my point of view anyways..For me to play the NGE it would have to be PreCU gameplay they can call it what ever they want and still change it..I think its way too late for that tho..and its sad the game couldve been one of the best....thanks again
I've read too many posts on the NGE and basically have to wonder what project management system was in place at SOE?
It surely wasn't followed through. If it was there would have been an immediate alarm bell ringing at SOE HQ when the screams from the test server introduced shortly before live introduction was made available. It was at that point the project should have been referred upward for review. If it was (and sadly I suspect it was) and the recommendations from the project manager ignored then welcome to your result SOE and LA. Names besmirched forever in my eyes.
My suggestion to MMO developers? Study PRINCE2 project management and follow it to the letter in whatever game you are on, even if it doesn't give you the result you want, it gives the result that preserves your projects and as a by product, your name.
My qualifications? Not important but I am accredited with PRINCE2 and that has sufficient controls to stop crap like the NGE in its tracks preserving financial security for the companies involved. But only if it's followed top down.
I really get the impressions that the MMO industry has NO project management skill base or that they only play lip service to it - this is a fairly reasonable conclusion given the number of failed projects and disappointed customer base.
All indications seem to point to that being true. By no means does it seem limited to SWG. We could produce a list that would run off your screen of MMO projects that clearly show signs of weak commitment to project management and to software development process. I've even seen (game) industry insiders confirm that.
I'm done with MMOs until this market grows up a bit. I might be at retirement age before that happens.
Let the buyer beware indeed.
SWG Team Mtg.
So, I wont quibble about the blame and who said what and why. Just had some general questions.
PreCU in its last known state before the CU was getting decent but many of the things that were broken at launch remained broken then and to this day still are. I was just wondering why the game was never really brought into a state of solid gameplay? Bugs/specials rarely fixed. I'm just going to make an assumption that most of the "powers that be" would rather spend money on coding expansions and new features to drag in new players rather than fixing current gamecode?
Just always felt like SWG-PreCU was a game that never really got finished. Was it really too much for the dev team to handle? Was the base code too hard to work with? So often it seemed like something like a special firing would break something oddly unrelated. I could either attribute this to a bad framework for the gamecode or inept programmers breaking things accidently or carelessly as they piddle about in the game code.
I speak of this from a very minimal understanding of coding and what is involved so maybe my interpretation of events is a bit skewed. Just curious.
Thanks
Assigning blame is pointless at this point. You can assign blame of the NGE till the end of time, and to whomever you like. It will do nothing though. What needs to happen is a solution. And its been 2 years I think since Pre-CU was last active, and people are still calling for it to be brought back. That says something itself.
So keep blaming whoever you want, I am tired of hearing it. Find a solution, either e-mail someone once a week asking to bring back pre-cu, and be nice about it.
At this point, SWG's "Golden Era" is part of history. Its a footmark on how to not treat your customers.
Blame Smedley, Freeman, Ward, Koster, or whoever the hell you want, it does nothing. The decision was made, and the decision was enacted. What you need now is a solution to give you the game you want back.
Dartholomew sorry but to let go would mean i forgive SOE and i really dont forgive them.
Im not a banner wearing and talk about it all the time but im very anti SOE when it comes to games, ie i expect it to be shit and im normally not proven wrong (look at VG)
The line of the original post "we wont do it again" yes coz how can you screw up what has already been screwed up, there is no nowhere left for them to go.
Its an empty promise, not that they wont do it but they cant do it, well there is one way to lose all that small playerbase they have.
Dump jedi from starting prof.
That would kill the game in its tracks and lose those 50K of jedi pretend vet kiddie players
Heres hoping huh?
My feeling was to say that it is unfair to say, "SWG Developers were dumb to think some thing", as though all of the developers have a shared mind.
The NGE didn't replace pre-CU combat. I know what it was like. My personal preference would have been to fix some issues with it way before JtL launched, rather than ever replacing it.
I can't tell you anything SOE hasn't already told you, though I think your answer is around somewhere.
Jeff Freeman
Jeff Freeman
It's a matter of prioritizing a bug fix vs. a new thing: sometimes a new thing keeps a subscriber longer than fixing a bug. Expansions definitely bring in more new people than bug fixes. 'Course you want to do everything, but you can't.
I'm gonna pass on that one.
I wrote AI and pets and I can tell you it wasn't all bad coding. Some of it was bad design. :P
Jeff Freeman
Some projects are better managed than others. JtL was a dream.
Games are creative works though, and creativity is difficult to schedule.
I think the real solution is going to be to take as long as it takes, or cancel it and start work on something else.
Good project management may, at best, ensure it only takes as long as it takes.
Jeff Freeman
Some projects are better managed than others. JtL was a dream.
Games are creative works though, and creativity is difficult to schedule.
I think the real solution is going to be to take as long as it takes, or cancel it and start work on something else.
Good project management may, at best, ensure it only takes as long as it takes.
Name a human endeavour that doesn't involve creativity. Movies and television series are scheduled all the time. I agree that the software title should be 'finished' before the decision to ship is made, but that's not a valid execuse for ACME software studio expecting an unlimited amount of time and monkeys.
SWG Team Mtg.
I wonder if those developers who leave SOE leave "SOE" out of their portfolio?
I know I would have to think twice over hiring anyone from the SOE rank and file. To me, it just doesn't matter who takes over as "lead" developer at SOE-SWG because no matter what they do, they will never be able to sort out the cluster fudge that has been created there already.
"SWG was a world, now it's just a game" -adamrk-
"When the game was good, you didn't have to ask where the population was, because it was everywhere. When the game was good you didn't have to ask which server had population, because they all did. When the game was good you didn't have to beg friends to give it a try, because they were already playing. " - Salty Pete
Games have one shot: launch. If they cost more to make than that gets them, then they'll likely never make a profit. There's no movie channel or tv network syndication or DVD release for games.
Television shows can hit a deadline, but those actors frequently work some crazy hours. If they're nailing it time and again, it's because they're making the same thing over and over and not involving much creativity.
"NFL Roster Change 200x" might be comparable.
Oh, sorry. Unlimited, no. Didn't realize I was arguing the crazy position.
Jeff Freeman
kthxbye
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE
Posting in a legendary thread.
This thread delivers.
I'm very much curious about the average poster in this thread. I know I'm not the usual demographic for an MMO - I'm 32, have a couple kids, with another on the way. I've been in professional jobs for 11 or so years, and have been a manager for several of those.
So I am intimately familiar with "Here's your new parameters. Go."
I've argued until I'm blue in the face why a change in process was a bad one. And my manager has told me "I know. And I agree with you. But I took it to my boss, and he decided that things won't change." And then you know what I did? I went out, and I sold the change to people. I explained to them why it was a good thing. I told them how it would help them, I did the best I could with what I had. Because I didn't agree with it, but it was what I was working with. And when I could, I made small changes here and there to guide it closer to what I envisioned, and then later, I prepared little reports that explained how the choice impacted us. But by then, it was too late.
So I believe Freeman when he says that he didn't like it, but he did it. I even buy the original post to some degree - maybe Cao likes it, maybe he doesn't. But his position supports it, so he has to do the best he can with what he has, and try to make people like it. And no, he's not going to quit his job over it. He may be actively pursuing *new* jobs, and will take one in a heartbeat, but in the real world, you don't just quit for your principles unless you can truly afford to.
Freeman said what his vision of the NGE was - some small changes, some updates, some new systems. Obviously, his vision didn't go in. He was given what his vision would now be, and he worked it. Again, I sympathize. The fact that he's in here, taking all the shit he's taking from people who are bitter (and make no mistake - I am bitter. I think the decisions made were short-sighted, misinformed, and sometimes out right hubris, and they killed the glory of SWG), and just telling us what he can. That's hard. Dude has no reason to do that, except that he really means it. He's not a corporate shill, he's not even an employee at this point. He's just a guy telling us what he can.
Who am I?
@Lorechaser on CoH
Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner)
Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry)
ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside
Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO
And many more.
I implemented the "lair" system, which is what made a pile of leaves and some mobs (creatures, npcs, etc.), made more mobs when you shot the leaves, spawned some more at half-hitpoints, and so on... you know how it worked. It also "packed up" all the mobs (and the pile of leaves) when no players were around, so as not to have masses of critters out in the wilderness when no players were anywhere near.
Then AI for creatures and NPCs, and the baby taming, training, growing, etc. pet system: then mangled it to support faction NPC s and droid-"programming".
I also did the first CH revision: the one that stopped them all running around with three grual maullers (or whatever the most broken-balanced pet of the day was) with the barest of CH skills.
Yeah, nerf. But c'mon!
Then post launch, off to JtL. Then RotW after that.
Back to Live, I worked on Live Bugs. Fixing them, this time.
Then the NGE came along.
Well, "it" was a lot of things. I liked some more than others.
Cao earned my loyalty quick, too. I wasn't looking to quit.
I wasn't speaking of the NGE, there, but of the post-launch combat system fixes. My preference was for some minor things, but I worked on JtL and a revamp was put in motion.
I appreciate that, even though I'm not all as innocent with regard to my NGE enthusiasm as you describe there.
Wouldn't have made a difference, but I wish now I'd found it harder to ignore the vet players.
Or well... I wish a lot of things.
Jeff Freeman
It's a matter of prioritizing a bug fix vs. a new thing: sometimes a new thing keeps a subscriber longer than fixing a bug. Expansions definitely bring in more new people than bug fixes. 'Course you want to do everything, but you can't.
I'm gonna pass on that one.
Heh, I suppose thats an unfair question. After all word does get around.
I wrote AI and pets and I can tell you it wasn't all bad coding. Some of it was bad design. :P
Craptastic forum ate my previous reply....grrrr
I read above that you worked on lair systems. In the Ranger forums we were always talking about hunting wild lairs verses mission lairs. Wild lairs after all usually held alot more spawns. I myself hated running to and from mission terminals. I refused to actually. What I did wonder about was that when someone was on a desolate planet like Talus where there wasnt much player traffic that there would be very very few wild spawns.
See, one day I was on Tat hunting for some good OQ eggs. At the time I couldnt find many lairs and said well... guess I will just use the terminal. I went and got about a dozen missions, got the eggs and the cancelled the mission. After doing so many of them the area would explode with natural spawns. Was just wondering if that was by design or just a freak of code. Basically something to wake the server up and say hey there are players here?