SOE did it, but LA allowed SOE to do it. Therefore it is mostly SOE's fault, but LA is not blameless. LA should never have trusted SOE with their license.
SOE did it, but LA allowed SOE to do it. Therefore it is mostly SOE's fault, but LA is not blameless. LA should never have trusted SOE with their license.
Actually i'm pretty sure it was Lucas Arts, upon seeing that incredible amount of subscribers for WoW, decided they wanted to achieve similiar numbers. LA then put pressure on SOE and demanded changes to accommodate those goals. SOE was of course eager to comply,speculating on much higher revenue as well, not realizing what outrage they would cause among their existing playerbase.
Anything associated with Lucas just has to perform better than the rest, LA is no exeption there.
To give you a little insight into LA back then:
That Star Wars license alone should've bought SOE millions of subscribers in the first place, and since they totally underperformed (which we realized right after Blizzard announced their numbers for the first time) SOE has to change that game into something able to compete.
You see this is just absurd. It assumes this is a zero sum game. That if we attack SOE, LA automatically gets the pass. Considering the fact that we all love to roast good ol nancy, I think that puts it to rest right there. I find it unbelievable that this straw man continues to ressurect itself. Nobody says LA is blameless. However what is said is that the NGE was a SOE brainchild, they developed it, they borked it, they declared war on their base, etc. The blame for Lucasarts is elsewhere, but still there.
Hang on a second.
I just want to understand something.
You guys are more pissed off because SoE made a crap change on your favourite game, rather than be upset with LA because they told them to do it?
"We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat." said Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts.
That's what LA wanted and that's what SoE delivered very professionally I would like to add, because the words of the lovely Nancy give a striking description of the new SWG, so SoE got it completely right (unfortunately for all of you).
If Lucas Arts didn't want a more accessible game, more "kill, get treasure, repeat", SoE wouldn't have made such a dramatic change to SWG in the first place.
So because SoE was the "assassin", then you think that who hired the assassin who killed the game is less criminal than who esecuted the deed?
I am buffled................
Also to those people who keep quoting various led designer of SWG as the truth keepers.
Yes, they are indeed talking the truth, but their truth doesn't make it the absolute truth.
What those people says is what they knew, but in business only the higher level of management know the real truth, any other staff , do as told by the top management, they don't necessarily have to know the reasons behind the decision or who decide it.
I made this thread specifically on a business point of view exactly for that reason, just to make you understand that those kind of decisions are taken at the highest levels, and what various SWG developers says should be taken with a pinch of salt.
A lead designer is responsible to design the game under guidelines given by the producer or project manager, he is not always part of the decision making.
Sometime the Lead designer is the same person as the Project manager, but that's happen in small companies, in big corporation that is less likely, because the hyerarchy is much more rigid and everyone knows only the minimun they need to know in order to get on with their job.
Going back to the SWG designer, I am sure that in his view who made the decision was his boss, who was obviously a SoE top manager, therefore it was a SoE decision.
But who told his boss to order the changes?
He probably doesn't know and quite frankly he doesn't have to know.
Yes SoE conceived and developed CU.
Yes SoE conceived and developed NGE.
Yes SoE took the blame being the developers as any serious comapny would do.
But the biggest sinner is Lucas Art which wanted a more Starwarsy game, without this decision, SoE would not have made the above. Not at least in such a dramatic way.
Damnit I enjoyed being Uncle Owen. Ever think that some people may WANT to play the game and explore the whole universe, rather than just know 10 famous people and call it a day?
LA is largely at fault. But SOE is not just hated for "ruining the game" The customer support they offer is by far the worst i have ever seen.
really as far as finanically goes...i Blame them both equally.
SOE- Messed up the game with the Jedi revamp. 30% of hardcore gamers left.( this was partially LA fault, as they felt holocrons were to vague and people were unhappy with them, so they forced SOE to find a way to change it)
LA- realized the cash cow they had was sinking, and needed to find out what could bring people back. realized that the success of games like WoW was the basic " kill, reward, repeat" method. so they "bastardized" the game to be like other MMO's.
how about this... SMEDLEY came out in public on the VANGUARD forums stating...
"2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players."
Lots of SWG players there and he had to state this as SOE bought out rights for Vanguard from Sigil.... well i deactivated my subscription...they took away Team PVP server...
enough for me to leave... as for their "no major changes"
SOE is full to blame....LA yes they get blamed too... but SOE is FULL BLAME... Smedley admitted it!
Why the hell do these SOE fanbois keep saying that the NGE was forced upon them... When Smedley himself has said that it wasn't?!?!?!
It was forced, mainly cause nobody ever got a real view of the NGE (read the Senator messages starting on page 2 of this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=387553 ) and could give any comment on it. A little later *POOF* it was suddenly here like: take it or leave it.
Why the hell do these SOE fanbois keep saying that the NGE was forced upon them... When Smedley himself has said that it wasn't?!?!?!
It was forced, mainly cause nobody ever got a real view of the NGE (read the Senator messages starting on page 2 of this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=387553 ) and could give any comment on it. A little later *POOF* it was suddenly here like: take it or leave it.
Here's what Martokk had to say:
I was there. Sushi and a couple of others were too.
We were basically just shown the station and little bits and pieces of special moves. For instance we saw the officer aerial bombardment and saw this as a sign as great things to come. Voice overs were also misleading as were the hopes of 120 new quests.
I guarantee anyone who went to that had a very different opinion of what we saw and what went live. Why this is still being held against us for two years is beyond me.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Yeah it's obvious to me that LA had a lot to do with the whole CU/NGE, I personally don't even think they really care about Star Wars all that much anymore--it's all about the money. If you consider the expansions, Rage of the Wookies came out same time as episode 3, was it completed? nah it was rushed and buggy--it is obvious that LA required that expansion to be released at the same time as their movie came out whether it was finished or not. next the Obi-Wan expansion, same thing...was supposed to release around the same time as episode 3 was released to DVD.
now another thing to look at, change to gameplay. it's obvious that LA is trying to draw in younger players, you can see it with the last 3 Star Wars movies, and you can see it with the games that have been released over the last few years. not only that, but they aren't as concerned with quality in my opinion, you can see that most of their previous games were pretty good quality, but now it seems that they are just throwing games out into the market. and instead of coming up with new games, sure there are exceptions, mostly it seems like they are just taking other games and slapping star wars onto it.
personally i don't care which company was "responsible", they're both at fault in my opinion
Yeah it's obvious to me that LA had a lot to do with the whole CU/NGE, I personally don't even think they really care about Star Wars all that much anymore--it's all about the money. If you consider the expansions, Rage of the Wookies came out same time as episode 3, was it completed? nah it was rushed and buggy--it is obvious that LA required that expansion to be released at the same time as their movie came out whether it was finished or not. next the Obi-Wan expansion, same thing...was supposed to release around the same time as episode 3 was released to DVD. now another thing to look at, change to gameplay. it's obvious that LA is trying to draw in younger players, you can see it with the last 3 Star Wars movies, and you can see it with the games that have been released over the last few years. not only that, but they aren't as concerned with quality in my opinion, you can see that most of their previous games were pretty good quality, but now it seems that they are just throwing games out into the market. and instead of coming up with new games, sure there are exceptions, mostly it seems like they are just taking other games and slapping star wars onto it. personally i don't care which company was "responsible", they're both at fault in my opinion
If you don't care who is to blame, why are you dressing this in a way to blame LA and exonnerate SOE?
All you are saying is that LA set agreed-upon deadlines, and SOE blew them. That makes it SOE's fault, not LA's.
All real evidence and admissions from the participants say it all came from SOE, was all their idea, direction, and implementation, and LA allowed it to happen -- pretty much the opposite of what you are saying.
Facts are the at the time SOE was bragging about the NGE and how it would revolutionize the feeling of the game for Star Wars fans... LA has blame, SOE has blame. They both suck. When is Ralph going to design a new game????
Why the hell do these SOE fanbois keep saying that the NGE was forced upon them... When Smedley himself has said that it wasn't?!?!?!
It was forced, mainly cause nobody ever got a real view of the NGE (read the Senator messages starting on page 2 of this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=387553 ) and could give any comment on it. A little later *POOF* it was suddenly here like: take it or leave it.
Here's what Martokk had to say:
I was there. Sushi and a couple of others were too.
We were basically just shown the station and little bits and pieces of special moves. For instance we saw the officer aerial bombardment and saw this as a sign as great things to come. Voice overs were also misleading as were the hopes of 120 new quests.
I guarantee anyone who went to that had a very different opinion of what we saw and what went live. Why this is still being held against us for two years is beyond me.
If you read the thread further you see folk still talking about pre-nge and wishing they had never got the nge. $OE wake up and smell the bacon, your current player base don't like the NGE but continue to play because it is Star Wars.
Think of the money you could make with classic servers.
I think a lot of vets would be willing to start all over on a classic server, let the NGE folk keep their game, but let us have classic.
If they merge servers due to poor subs, they could use the free ones for classic swg, worth giving it a shot to see what happens.
So that means if a patch was made *Cough* NGE *cough* that messed up the game its the developers fault, is it not?
LA is publisher, SOE is developer.
SOE comes up with idea, LA either approves or disapproves. SOE implements idea. Idea, and its implementation, flops. SOE fans flood the boards everywhere to blame LA. A couple of people actually spend time to try and find out what happened. SOE is forced to admit it was all their doing. This information comes from Smedley himself, Brenlo, Director of Communications for SOE, and former designers Jeff Freeman, as well as GreenMarine, and more. SOE fans still flood the boards with rumors and innuendo and secret conspiracies of how LA "forced" SOE.
How LA, a company that has made 20 Billion in it's lifetime, managed to "force" SONY, a company that takes that much in in eight or nine months, is anyone's guess. Jedi mindtrick or something.
So that means if a patch was made *Cough* NGE *cough* that messed up the game its the developers fault, is it not?
LA is publisher, SOE is developer. SOE comes up with idea, LA either approves or disapproves. SOE implements idea. Idea, and its implementation, flops. SOE fans flood the boards everywhere to blame LA. A couple of people actually spend time to try and find out what happened. SOE is forced to admit it was all their doing. This information comes from Smedley himself, Brenlo, Director of Communications for SOE, and former designers Jeff Freeman, as well as GreenMarine, and more. SOE fans still flood the boards with rumors and innuendo and secret conspiracies of how LA "forced" SOE. How LA, a company that has made 20 Billion in it's lifetime, managed to "force" SONY, a company that takes that much in in eight or nine months, is anyone's guess. Jedi mindtrick or something.
*Lucas Arts TM and copyright infringement and the use of Jedi Mindtrick made by anyone outside of the Lucas Arts (TM) or by Lucas himself may be penalized by death*
Remember friend, the walls have ears!!
/joke off.
Alright Thought it was the other way around, I appreciate the actaul fact reply other than flame.
So that means if a patch was made *Cough* NGE *cough* that messed up the game its the developers fault, is it not?
LA is publisher, SOE is developer. SOE comes up with idea, LA either approves or disapproves. SOE implements idea. Idea, and its implementation, flops. SOE fans flood the boards everywhere to blame LA. A couple of people actually spend time to try and find out what happened. SOE is forced to admit it was all their doing. This information comes from Smedley himself, Brenlo, Director of Communications for SOE, and former designers Jeff Freeman, as well as GreenMarine, and more. SOE fans still flood the boards with rumors and innuendo and secret conspiracies of how LA "forced" SOE. How LA, a company that has made 20 Billion in it's lifetime, managed to "force" SONY, a company that takes that much in in eight or nine months, is anyone's guess. Jedi mindtrick or something.
*Lucas Arts TM and copyright infringement and the use of Jedi Mindtrick made by anyone outside of the Lucas Arts (TM) or by Lucas himself may be penalized by death*
Remember friend, the walls have ears!!
/joke off.
Alright Thought it was the other way around, I appreciate the actaul fact reply other than flame.
Well, we are just fellow seekers of truth on a very foggy path.
So that means if a patch was made *Cough* NGE *cough* that messed up the game its the developers fault, is it not?
LA is publisher, SOE is developer. SOE comes up with idea, LA either approves or disapproves. SOE implements idea. Idea, and its implementation, flops. SOE fans flood the boards everywhere to blame LA. A couple of people actually spend time to try and find out what happened. SOE is forced to admit it was all their doing. This information comes from Smedley himself, Brenlo, Director of Communications for SOE, and former designers Jeff Freeman, as well as GreenMarine, and more. SOE fans still flood the boards with rumors and innuendo and secret conspiracies of how LA "forced" SOE. How LA, a company that has made 20 Billion in it's lifetime, managed to "force" SONY, a company that takes that much in in eight or nine months, is anyone's guess. Jedi mindtrick or something.
I'm afraid SOE was doing what LA wanted, which was for SWG to be more "accesable" to the WoW crowd. Nancy McIntyre (who worked for LA, not SOE) was the one saying no one wants to be Uncle Owen and mindless kill/loot/kill was what they wanted for SWG.
Both outfits are responsible for the mess.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
So that means if a patch was made *Cough* NGE *cough* that messed up the game its the developers fault, is it not?
LA is publisher, SOE is developer. SOE comes up with idea, LA either approves or disapproves. SOE implements idea. Idea, and its implementation, flops. SOE fans flood the boards everywhere to blame LA. A couple of people actually spend time to try and find out what happened. SOE is forced to admit it was all their doing. This information comes from Smedley himself, Brenlo, Director of Communications for SOE, and former designers Jeff Freeman, as well as GreenMarine, and more. SOE fans still flood the boards with rumors and innuendo and secret conspiracies of how LA "forced" SOE. How LA, a company that has made 20 Billion in it's lifetime, managed to "force" SONY, a company that takes that much in in eight or nine months, is anyone's guess. Jedi mindtrick or something.
I'm afraid SOE was doing what LA wanted, which was for SWG to be more "accesable" to the WoW crowd. Nancy McIntyre (who worked for LA, not SOE) was the one saying no one wants to be Uncle Owen and mindless kill/loot/kill was what they wanted for SWG.
Both outfits are responsible for the mess.
Nancy McIntyre was a marketing person, she was just giving the company line AFTER LA had approved the changes that SOE came up with. It is well established that LA said at most "make the game more fun," because people were leaving the game. SOE convinced LA that a redesign was the answer, instead of fixing what wasn't working. SOE had mismanaged the game so badly that they needed to blame all their problems on design, as opposed to what the facts were, which probably was something more akin to taking the money and putting it into SOE's other games, notably EQ2, which was the game that got the A-List development staff.
We have heard it from Smedley, Brenlo, Freeman, and GreenMarine that in no way did LA "force" the changes. They obviously were unhappy -- but everything else came from SOE, who convinced LA that this was the way to go. At any rate, this is what all admissions and evidence shows.
What is interesting is those of us who followed this thing know where the "Players don't wanna be UNcle Owen, they wanna be Luke or Han," came from...some guy that posts with Smedley on the Fire of Heavens Boards. Someone produced that page where it was said on the Official SWG boards. Sorry to say I forget the guy's Screen name and so on, but I'll never forget it because the guy was so sycophantic. he literally said the exact same thing we heard nancy McIntyre say to the NY Times. fascinating.
Once again, for the sake of clarity, LA never should have approved of it, in taht way they ARE responsible, but it was all SOE's idea, development and implementation. No one "forced" them to do any of this. At leaast this is what ALL the actual evidence says. Plenty of rumor, inuendo, and poisoned words going the other way, just no facts.
Lucas Arts went sour on the changes and SOE denied any faults.
A huge internal conflict resulted and scarred public relations for good on the game's title.
Most of the blame went to SOE as it was the development company.
Both are responsible, but the reason i defend LA is the fact that they backed up and got angry at SOE for not trying to correct what happened to the NGE.
Every company makes mistakes. No company is perfect, just as no individual person is perfect in this world. No matter how much we'd like to believe otherwise. So we must contend and deal with those we are given. Like stated, Lucas Arts owns Star Wars.. so if we want to see anything Star Wars again... we must support ol' George and his company to produce more. So Naturally... SOE would grab the blame. SOE did alot wrong.. so don't leave them out of the blame... both were equally placed wrong.. but LA did ask for change.. and SOE has hardly answered that request.
Everquest - 2000 - '02 Anarchy Online - '01-'02 Earth and Beyond - '02-'04 Star Wars Galaxies - '03-'06('07) World of Warcraft - '04-'07 Age of Conan - '08 - shelved. -Waiting on- Star Trek Online SW: The Old Republic
Lucas Arts Chose a poor time period for SWG limiting its ability to make interesting story content. If it were placed before the original trillogy or after it would have given more story opportunity and no story restricting jedi to near extiction. .
Lucas Arts didn't pick the time period SOE did. I remember reading one of the interviews with one of the developers who said they thought after the fact that it was probably a mistake. Game should have been New Jedi Order or pre movies Old republic. Unfortunately they picked a time period with no flexiblity for everything else they tried to do.
AS for who's fault this game is, there's enough to go around, but mostly I blame SOE for not fixing exploits in anything resembling a timely matter and for creating new bugs/exploits every patch released.
Further I blame SOE for releasing a game that didn't have functioning classes (bio engineer, droid engineer, pistoleer) etc etc. You should never release a game where the MAJOR professions/classes don't even work. All around SOE bungled SWG on so many levels that you can't even point to one thing.
I will say that they got certain ideas right, entertainer profession (too bad you could afk macro it, how stupid was that?) And crafting with harvesters etc.
The game was ambitous, I think too ambitious for what they delivered and instead of fixing things so that basic gameplay was working they focused instead too much on new technologies. It's a shame because if the game had been ironed out properly it probably would be the number 1 mmo out there. I don't trust SOE to do anything right considering how fundamentally screwed up SWG was at the management level, not even the production level. The game was just so incredibly mismanaged it confounds me how it is still around today.
Comments
fishermage.blogspot.com
Anything associated with Lucas just has to perform better than the rest, LA is no exeption there.
To give you a little insight into LA back then:
That Star Wars license alone should've bought SOE millions of subscribers in the first place, and since they totally underperformed (which we realized right after Blizzard announced their numbers for the first time) SOE has to change that game into something able to compete.
I just want to understand something.
You guys are more pissed off because SoE made a crap change on your favourite game, rather than be upset with LA because they told them to do it?
"We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat." said Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts.
That's what LA wanted and that's what SoE delivered very professionally I would like to add, because the words of the lovely Nancy give a striking description of the new SWG, so SoE got it completely right (unfortunately for all of you).
If Lucas Arts didn't want a more accessible game, more "kill, get treasure, repeat", SoE wouldn't have made such a dramatic change to SWG in the first place.
So because SoE was the "assassin", then you think that who hired the assassin who killed the game is less criminal than who esecuted the deed?
I am buffled................
Also to those people who keep quoting various led designer of SWG as the truth keepers.
Yes, they are indeed talking the truth, but their truth doesn't make it the absolute truth.
What those people says is what they knew, but in business only the higher level of management know the real truth, any other staff , do as told by the top management, they don't necessarily have to know the reasons behind the decision or who decide it.
I made this thread specifically on a business point of view exactly for that reason, just to make you understand that those kind of decisions are taken at the highest levels, and what various SWG developers says should be taken with a pinch of salt.
A lead designer is responsible to design the game under guidelines given by the producer or project manager, he is not always part of the decision making.
Sometime the Lead designer is the same person as the Project manager, but that's happen in small companies, in big corporation that is less likely, because the hyerarchy is much more rigid and everyone knows only the minimun they need to know in order to get on with their job.
Going back to the SWG designer, I am sure that in his view who made the decision was his boss, who was obviously a SoE top manager, therefore it was a SoE decision.
But who told his boss to order the changes?
He probably doesn't know and quite frankly he doesn't have to know.
Yes SoE conceived and developed CU.
Yes SoE conceived and developed NGE.
Yes SoE took the blame being the developers as any serious comapny would do.
But the biggest sinner is Lucas Art which wanted a more Starwarsy game, without this decision, SoE would not have made the above. Not at least in such a dramatic way.
Damnit I enjoyed being Uncle Owen. Ever think that some people may WANT to play the game and explore the whole universe, rather than just know 10 famous people and call it a day?
I do Agree with the OP,
LA is largely at fault. But SOE is not just hated for "ruining the game" The customer support they offer is by far the worst i have ever seen.
really as far as finanically goes...i Blame them both equally.
SOE- Messed up the game with the Jedi revamp. 30% of hardcore gamers left.( this was partially LA fault, as they felt holocrons were to vague and people were unhappy with them, so they forced SOE to find a way to change it)
LA- realized the cash cow they had was sinking, and needed to find out what could bring people back. realized that the success of games like WoW was the basic " kill, reward, repeat" method. so they "bastardized" the game to be like other MMO's.
how about this... SMEDLEY came out in public on the VANGUARD forums stating...
"2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players."
Lots of SWG players there and he had to state this as SOE bought out rights for Vanguard from Sigil.... well i deactivated my subscription...they took away Team PVP server...
enough for me to leave... as for their "no major changes"
SOE is full to blame....LA yes they get blamed too... but SOE is FULL BLAME... Smedley admitted it!
Why the hell do these SOE fanbois keep saying that the NGE was forced upon them... When Smedley himself has said that it wasn't?!?!?!
SOE knows what you like... You don't!
And don't forget... I am forcing you to read this!
Because they CAN.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Ask yourself this... What kind of un-informed person would it require to actually even BE an SOE fanboi? The question lies in the answer.
It was forced, mainly cause nobody ever got a real view of the NGE (read the Senator messages starting on page 2 of this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=387553 ) and could give any comment on it. A little later *POOF* it was suddenly here like: take it or leave it.
It was forced, mainly cause nobody ever got a real view of the NGE (read the Senator messages starting on page 2 of this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=387553 ) and could give any comment on it. A little later *POOF* it was suddenly here like: take it or leave it.
Here's what Martokk had to say:
I was there. Sushi and a couple of others were too.
We were basically just shown the station and little bits and pieces of special moves. For instance we saw the officer aerial bombardment and saw this as a sign as great things to come. Voice overs were also misleading as were the hopes of 120 new quests.
I guarantee anyone who went to that had a very different opinion of what we saw and what went live. Why this is still being held against us for two years is beyond me.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Yeah it's obvious to me that LA had a lot to do with the whole CU/NGE, I personally don't even think they really care about Star Wars all that much anymore--it's all about the money. If you consider the expansions, Rage of the Wookies came out same time as episode 3, was it completed? nah it was rushed and buggy--it is obvious that LA required that expansion to be released at the same time as their movie came out whether it was finished or not. next the Obi-Wan expansion, same thing...was supposed to release around the same time as episode 3 was released to DVD.
now another thing to look at, change to gameplay. it's obvious that LA is trying to draw in younger players, you can see it with the last 3 Star Wars movies, and you can see it with the games that have been released over the last few years. not only that, but they aren't as concerned with quality in my opinion, you can see that most of their previous games were pretty good quality, but now it seems that they are just throwing games out into the market. and instead of coming up with new games, sure there are exceptions, mostly it seems like they are just taking other games and slapping star wars onto it.
personally i don't care which company was "responsible", they're both at fault in my opinion
If you don't care who is to blame, why are you dressing this in a way to blame LA and exonnerate SOE?
All you are saying is that LA set agreed-upon deadlines, and SOE blew them. That makes it SOE's fault, not LA's.
All real evidence and admissions from the participants say it all came from SOE, was all their idea, direction, and implementation, and LA allowed it to happen -- pretty much the opposite of what you are saying.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Facts are the at the time SOE was bragging about the NGE and how it would revolutionize the feeling of the game for Star Wars fans... LA has blame, SOE has blame. They both suck. When is Ralph going to design a new game????
It was forced, mainly cause nobody ever got a real view of the NGE (read the Senator messages starting on page 2 of this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=387553 ) and could give any comment on it. A little later *POOF* it was suddenly here like: take it or leave it.
Here's what Martokk had to say:
I was there. Sushi and a couple of others were too.
We were basically just shown the station and little bits and pieces of special moves. For instance we saw the officer aerial bombardment and saw this as a sign as great things to come. Voice overs were also misleading as were the hopes of 120 new quests.
I guarantee anyone who went to that had a very different opinion of what we saw and what went live. Why this is still being held against us for two years is beyond me.
If you read the thread further you see folk still talking about pre-nge and wishing they had never got the nge. $OE wake up and smell the bacon, your current player base don't like the NGE but continue to play because it is Star Wars.
Think of the money you could make with classic servers.
I think a lot of vets would be willing to start all over on a classic server, let the NGE folk keep their game, but let us have classic.
If they merge servers due to poor subs, they could use the free ones for classic swg, worth giving it a shot to see what happens.
Lucas arts = Development
SOE = Publisher
YES YES??
So that means if a patch was made *Cough* NGE *cough* that messed up the game its the developers fault, is it not?
LA is publisher, SOE is developer.
SOE comes up with idea, LA either approves or disapproves. SOE implements idea. Idea, and its implementation, flops. SOE fans flood the boards everywhere to blame LA. A couple of people actually spend time to try and find out what happened. SOE is forced to admit it was all their doing. This information comes from Smedley himself, Brenlo, Director of Communications for SOE, and former designers Jeff Freeman, as well as GreenMarine, and more. SOE fans still flood the boards with rumors and innuendo and secret conspiracies of how LA "forced" SOE.
How LA, a company that has made 20 Billion in it's lifetime, managed to "force" SONY, a company that takes that much in in eight or nine months, is anyone's guess. Jedi mindtrick or something.
fishermage.blogspot.com
*Lucas Arts TM and copyright infringement and the use of Jedi Mindtrick made by anyone outside of the Lucas Arts (TM) or by Lucas himself may be penalized by death*
Remember friend, the walls have ears!!
/joke off.
Alright Thought it was the other way around, I appreciate the actaul fact reply other than flame.
*Lucas Arts TM and copyright infringement and the use of Jedi Mindtrick made by anyone outside of the Lucas Arts (TM) or by Lucas himself may be penalized by death*
Remember friend, the walls have ears!!
/joke off.
Alright Thought it was the other way around, I appreciate the actaul fact reply other than flame.
Well, we are just fellow seekers of truth on a very foggy path.
fishermage.blogspot.com
I'm afraid SOE was doing what LA wanted, which was for SWG to be more "accesable" to the WoW crowd. Nancy McIntyre (who worked for LA, not SOE) was the one saying no one wants to be Uncle Owen and mindless kill/loot/kill was what they wanted for SWG.
Both outfits are responsible for the mess.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I'm afraid SOE was doing what LA wanted, which was for SWG to be more "accesable" to the WoW crowd. Nancy McIntyre (who worked for LA, not SOE) was the one saying no one wants to be Uncle Owen and mindless kill/loot/kill was what they wanted for SWG.
Both outfits are responsible for the mess.
Nancy McIntyre was a marketing person, she was just giving the company line AFTER LA had approved the changes that SOE came up with. It is well established that LA said at most "make the game more fun," because people were leaving the game. SOE convinced LA that a redesign was the answer, instead of fixing what wasn't working. SOE had mismanaged the game so badly that they needed to blame all their problems on design, as opposed to what the facts were, which probably was something more akin to taking the money and putting it into SOE's other games, notably EQ2, which was the game that got the A-List development staff.
We have heard it from Smedley, Brenlo, Freeman, and GreenMarine that in no way did LA "force" the changes. They obviously were unhappy -- but everything else came from SOE, who convinced LA that this was the way to go. At any rate, this is what all admissions and evidence shows.
What is interesting is those of us who followed this thing know where the "Players don't wanna be UNcle Owen, they wanna be Luke or Han," came from...some guy that posts with Smedley on the Fire of Heavens Boards. Someone produced that page where it was said on the Official SWG boards. Sorry to say I forget the guy's Screen name and so on, but I'll never forget it because the guy was so sycophantic. he literally said the exact same thing we heard nancy McIntyre say to the NY Times. fascinating.
Once again, for the sake of clarity, LA never should have approved of it, in taht way they ARE responsible, but it was all SOE's idea, development and implementation. No one "forced" them to do any of this. At leaast this is what ALL the actual evidence says. Plenty of rumor, inuendo, and poisoned words going the other way, just no facts.
fishermage.blogspot.com
People know that if they want to play anything new SW related they have to deal with LA.
So they are in denial and keep a mental wall up when it comes to LA.
LA has as much or more blame for any changes as does SoE.QED
SOE wanted change.
Lucas Arts wanted change.
They both signed on it and SOE changed the game.
Lucas Arts went sour on the changes and SOE denied any faults.
A huge internal conflict resulted and scarred public relations for good on the game's title.
Most of the blame went to SOE as it was the development company.
Both are responsible, but the reason i defend LA is the fact that they backed up and got angry at SOE for not trying to correct what happened to the NGE.
Every company makes mistakes. No company is perfect, just as no individual person is perfect in this world. No matter how much we'd like to believe otherwise. So we must contend and deal with those we are given. Like stated, Lucas Arts owns Star Wars.. so if we want to see anything Star Wars again... we must support ol' George and his company to produce more. So Naturally... SOE would grab the blame. SOE did alot wrong.. so don't leave them out of the blame... both were equally placed wrong.. but LA did ask for change.. and SOE has hardly answered that request.
Everquest - 2000 - '02
Anarchy Online - '01-'02
Earth and Beyond - '02-'04
Star Wars Galaxies - '03-'06('07)
World of Warcraft - '04-'07
Age of Conan - '08 - shelved.
-Waiting on-
Star Trek Online
SW: The Old Republic