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Speculation on the departure of Koster
SioBabble
Member Posts: 2,803
OK, let's have some fun here.
Why did Koster leave SWG when he did?
I've got my own theory, but I want to hear yours. Cabalist, are you out there reading? 
My theory is that when the game launched, the Jedi unlock system had not yet been determined, and Koster had his own ideas about it, which were rejected by LA because it wouldn't get glowbat wielding asshats in the game soon enough.
In beta 3, we speculated endlessly on how it would work. The thought was you'd have to do tons of quests, explore all over the place, master multiple professions, attain rank in the GCW, someone even suggested that your chat would be monitored for leet speak and profanity and it would preclude you from unlocking.
As it turned out, it was very pedestrian indeed, and the person who predicted it would deal with mastering multiple professions was the one on target. You needed only to grind five random professions, determined when you created your toon. The LA marketing clowns probably insisted on the holocron system, to guide your path, and Koster balked at it. So he was kicked upstairs and out of the way.
As we know, the unlock profession goalposts changed as the game ws transformed into grind those professions to unlock your Jedi, and more and more "random" professions beyond the "free" four professions of the holocrons were added to deal with the growing population of glowstick wielding asshats.
Finally, the devs just threw up their hands and gave us the Village system, which acknolwedged implicitly that the way to the glowstick was to grind like mad...only they wouldn't make you mess up your toon by dropping skills and grinding up new ones to do it. They also explicitly made the combat route a bit less pure grindy than the crafting route.
So, what do you think caused Koster to be politely led away from his creation?
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Comments
Jedi was only part of the issue. That wasn't enough in my opinion. My theory?......
SWG launches. Raph Koster laments that 'all the usual suspects' showed up, meaning the MMO crowd and not a broader based Star Wars fan base. While SOE might have been happy with the numbers, Lucas Arts wasn't, feeling that their potential audience was far greater than 200k subs. LA demands Koster be removed from the project, but SOE likes Koster so they give him a better position within SOE. He is a great asset (imo). LA starts to interject changes (easier Jedi), but that doesn't increase numbers so they start to float an idea that later becomes the NGE. LA hoped this design would attract the Star Wars fans. Well, not only did this fail, but it alienated the 200k + current subscribers.
Of course in that time, WoW was released. I don't think the NGE began as a response to WoW. I think planning for the pre-NGE had begun before WoW became the success it did. The pre-NGE design latter morphed into the WoW-esque format.
Koster finally leaves SOE because he sees the direction that corporate MMOs are headed in. His style of game play, and the games he designs, incorporate a lot of player agency -- not a design that the majority of current MMO players are comfortable with. He can only pursue the types of games he likes via an independent company.
So that's my long-winded speculation.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
Here some reminders
The Story So Far
If there was ever a can't-miss idea in the history of video games, it would have to be Star Wars Galaxies. Unfortunately, the launch of the game in June 2003 brought those sky-high ambitions crashing down to Earth. Galaxies was designed by ex-Ultima Online people who firmly believed in the "role-playing" MMO philosophy, grounded less in organized quest content and focused more on providing a stage for people to role-play their Star Wars fantasies.
In this, Galaxies succeeded. The game's non-combat systems (including crafting, player housing, and the in-game economy) were well-designed and fun. If your ambition was to run a weapons shop on the outskirts of Mos Eisley and perhaps spend your evening attending a fashion show in Theed, Galaxies had it covered. For those whose ambitions stretched beyond being Princess Leia's dressmaker, though, there were very few stars or wars in Galaxies.
These conflicting expectations set the stage for all of the game's subsequent issues. The remainder of the game's history through November 2005 was a tragic saga of a development team desperately trying to rebuild a game and deliver the Star Wars experience fans expected -- in a game that wasn't designed for it. The launch of the Jedi, for example, was an unmitigated disaster (detailed in our Saga of Star Wars Galaxies feature). The October 2004 release of Jump to Lightspeed introduced space combat to the game and was a rare triumph, but ultimately served to highlight just how broken the ground combat game was. read on: http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/721/721114p1.html , older articel thou, but pretty well sums it up.
Koster is all talk and he's never delivered...
Koster did deliver my friend, get your facts straight, it was corperate greed to took over and misguided players who didn't like the world Koster helped creating, to much freedom for them made them hate the game early one while we VETS enjoyed our nichy game. Maybe you didn't know but the orignal feel of SWG was mostly developed by Koster's team, you know the version most Disgrunted VETS seem to miss, so please don't talk about Koster is all talk and never delivers as you need to understand why it was that he COULDN'T deliver no more. But fact remians he did deliver.
OP have you even been following what Koster is up to now? Read his book? Listen to any of the speeches hes given over the years?
If anything he left SWG because it was too nichy, the man is all about getting as many subscribers as humanly possible. It is very clear that Raph Koster is all about bringing games and game playing to the masses, he views modern mmos as being too limiting in thier mass appeal for several reasons.
-Unintuitive UI's
-Overly complex gameplay
-Heavy system requirements
-Requirement of a seperate client application.
Metaplaces is the next stage in his efforts to bring online gaming to everyone.
Raph is not, absolutly not the man you want to go to to create a niche game, everything he has written for the past 5 years has had to do with expanding market share, he is one hundred percent focused on the market and the cash. Thats not to say that his ideas are bad, they are not, he has a very analytical view of fun and how to increase peoples gaming value.
Do not belief that if it wasnt for LA and SOE that Koster would have injected far more depth and complexity in to the game, it is completely the opposite, Raph is about simplification, I think it was the development of SWG that brought him to that conclusion, that and the realization that content creation costs far more than its enjoyment would warrent. Will Wright has made the same observation, which explains Spores key design elements. Everything Koster has worked towards in print, code and design has been moving towards simplification.
I'm not in any way suggesting that that is a bad thing, its just not what many of us want for SWG. Koster left a huge imprint upon SWG, but I do believe that it was an epiphany for him, and changed his ideas as to how to approach the market, I don't think Raph personally ever really cared that it was a Star Wars specific IP, he would have made the same game with any IP at that time in his game design career.
We do know he didnt agree with the NGE, NOT because he didnt like the design but because in his words "Ya dance with the ones that brung ya". It was the principle of completely changing game direction that bothered him, not that the game actually needed change or that he disagreed with the changes themselves, which he may or may not have, we dont know because as far as I know he's never said anything about it.
I think Raph left because he has an idea that he wants to make into reality, so being where he was in his career and financial reality he decided that there was no time like the present.
Simple as that.
-Gooney
Koster is a forward-thinker, far ahead of both the technology and business of MMOs. We can hope that one day, both will catch up with him.
Koster creates games. He does not maintain them. SWG was complete ( it was out at least ) which was his job. It was up to the dev team to add to and maintain the game.
I don't claim to be right, I'm just posting.
Koster gave his reason for leaving SOE. It was the NGE.
When SOE did that, the handwriting was on the wall that he had no future with SOE.
Besides, why take on the taint that SOE was acquiring with the NGE ? Koster leaving when he did escaped guilt by association that other Devs acquired.
Even the hamsters left SOE after the NGE (some speculate that the gerbils that replace them have caused lag issues) but I think the question was why did Koster leave SWG and take another position with SOE. It might have had something to do with a pay raise.
I don't claim to be right, I'm just posting.
Even the hamsters left SOE after the NGE (some speculate that the gerbils that replace them have caused lag issues) but I think the question was why did Koster leave SWG and take another position with SOE. It might have had something to do with a pay raise.
He probably left for the reason he has given. He has publicly said that he took the Creative Director position because he thought he would be able to have some influence on all of SOE's games. He also said the primary reason he left SOE was because he was wrong and he had no influence on the creative direction of the company and its games. He did say that the NGE played a role in his final decision to leave the company.
My interpretation of it was that he thought he was being promoted to help the company creatively, but that SOE management promoted him primarily to keep him out of the way and keep him away from the competition. SOE management (quite wrongly) blame the original game system of SWG for the game not being WoW. They completely ignore the fact that the game has been horribly mismanaged since release (and likely before) and that the folks in charge of development thought they knew better what the customers wanted than the customers themselves did. SOE management had no intention of ever making another 'wordly' MMO and Mr. Koster thought he would be able to influence SOE's future MMOs to be more 'worldly'. He was promoted by people who knew what types of games he makes, and who don't believe there is a big enough market for those types of games.
Tossing a large sum of money at someone, who makes products that you don't think can be successful, in order to prevent them from making such a product, so as to prevent the potential product from competing with your own products, which are the type of products you think can actually sell very well in the market, is the type of convoluted logic and bad business sense that seems to epitomize SOE.
my theory on why he left?????
The NGE.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
He actually STATED the reasons why he left... And yes, the NGE was, he said, a major reason, maybe even the main reason why he left...
Well, my intent (and this is my bad) was to speculate on the reasons he left SWG for the SOE creative job.
I think the second poster got it right...that LA was not happy with the numbers and told SOE to get Koster away from their IP. I suspect the CH debacle heavily influenced LA's stance. The problem with CH is that unlike most of the high end professions at launch, it mostly worked, therefore the powergamers gravitated toward it and you had poke-wars for the first five months or so of SWG, until the Great Nerf of CH.
Why he left SOE? Obviously his stated reason, the NGE, because of the betrayal of the players it represented. If anything violated his rule that you can't take things away from your playerbase, the NGE certainly qualified. I also suspect it was because his role as "creative director" wasn't having the impact he wanted. Probably because the damn accountants squelched anything he tried to do.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Well, my intent (and this is my bad) was to speculate on the reasons he left SWG for the SOE creative job.
I think the second poster got it right...that LA was not happy with the numbers and told SOE to get Koster away from their IP. I suspect the CH debacle heavily influenced LA's stance. The problem with CH is that unlike most of the high end professions at launch, it mostly worked, therefore the powergamers gravitated toward it and you had poke-wars for the first five months or so of SWG, until the Great Nerf of CH.
Why he left SOE? Obviously his stated reason, the NGE, because of the betrayal of the players it represented. If anything violated his rule that you can't take things away from your playerbase, the NGE certainly qualified. I also suspect it was because his role as "creative director" wasn't having the impact he wanted. Probably because the damn accountants squelched anything he tried to do.
Leaving SOE
So, by now people have seen the news. Yes, it is true I am leaving SOE.
Why? Well, I’ve been here for gosh, almost six years maybe? It’s been a good ride, and I think we’ve gotten to do some really fun and interesting work. But I am getting interested in doing some stuff that is a bit off the beaten path — really, anyone who has been reading the blog can see that! — and while SOE feels it’s really cool stuff, it’s just not where they are at right now. My contract was up, and it was the right time to poke my head up and look around, that sort of thing. It’s all quite friendly, and actually, I hope that I’ll work with SOE again in the future, because there’s a lot of wonderful talent here and a lot of cool technology, and a lot of friends.
So, sometime soon here I’ll be off on my own. Nope, no announcements about plans or anything. I don’t have a new studio in my back pocket, I don’t have a job lined up, any of that. And… we’ll see what comes. I’m thinking sleeping in next week sounds good.
Oh — the old email still works, for now. You can always post a comment or use the email addy at the bottom of this page to reach me, too.
All sort of anti-climactic, huh?
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Koster leaves Sony Online
Creative boss departs; SOE says strategic goals of company and man "don't match."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146555.html
koster left SOE before or during the time of the CU...had nothing to do with the nge (date wise)
Did you even read the above linked articles about Koster leaving $OE? This occured in March 2006....4 months after the NGE went live. It is not a secret on how Koster felt about the NGE and how the playerbase was treated.
THere is a good article on the escapist that someone pointed out to me. For some reason, i can't find the link...
But, all in all... i think Koster mentions somewhere that he was too ambitious on SWG and that he took part of the blame for that.
Found it:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_55/329-Raph-Koster-on-Fire.3
"Fundamentally, SWG was launched too early from a game design point of view. It may not have been from a financial point of view - there's considerations like how much had been spent, how soon it would earn back the investment, that sort of thing - but most systems in there were first-pass at best. The place where that was most obvious was in the relative lack of content at launch. The tools simply came on too late to make the volume of content needed, and even though a heroic final push tried to populate the game with distinctive content, it just wasn't anywhere near enough.
"A large chunk of the blame lies with me, for being over-ambitious with the design. I don't think there were all that many fundamental problems with the overall design itself - some, sure, but nothing like the closed-economy debacle in UO, for example. [The systems] were first-pass, but mostly conceptually solid. (I am sure current and ex-SWG players will want to argue this point in detail, but hey, this is an interview, and there's no room to give my detailed postmortem on every system! Yes, I still think something like HAM [the threefold Health-Agility-Mental damage system] could work, but yeah, it was probably too complicated.)"
eqnext.wikia.com
He was also promoted outside the SWG project shortly after launch, so he had little say in SWG since before JTL.
Oh, and his "Jedi system" was that there were 4 and they were NPC's. Brilliant thinking that would have made the game last much longer and healthier.
And as far as attracting "The usual suspects", it was they had ZERO promotion to detract from the fact that they were launching before it was done. They hoped to get a modest base, fix a few bugs, then follow up with a big commercial push to get the vast majority of computer users who never heard of an MMO. They never did.... until they needed it after the nge exodus.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
When you're a creative guy at a company, and the execs at that company are (in your opinion) really screwing up the project you created, there are two things you can do:
Quit and try to immediately find somebody that will stick to your creative vision more closely. This means giving up a paycheck, abandoning the project you sank years of your life into, and starting from scratch again.
Stick it out and try to convince them of the error of their ways. Work from inside the system. Hope your vision ultimately prevails.
I don't know for sure, but that seems logical in this situation. Raph stuck it out long after he knew how badly things were going, hoping to help be part of the solution. But at some point, he realized there was no saving the ship and he hopped in a lifeboat.
It was *never* a well managed project, even when he was there, but he's the creative guy, that's not his responsibility. Or if it was, what typical SOE boneheaded executive decisionmaking THAT was.
If SWG was complete when it launched i'll eat my hat..kosters a blowhard along with the other game making gods
But this is a common situation, not just SOEs folly. In game development , as well as other software projects, the lead developer often acts as project manager and just as often has no real training as such. This situation increases the likelihood of scope creep, cost overruns, schedule slide and releasing an incomplete, buggy product.
The business is slowly learning. We (gamers) can help incourage them by refusing to tolerate incomplete, buggy product.
But this is a common situation, not just SOEs folly. In game development , as well as other software projects, the lead developer often acts as project manager and just as often has no real training as such. This situation increases the likelihood of scope creep, cost overruns, schedule slide and releasing an incomplete, buggy product.
The business is slowly learning. We (gamers) can help incourage them by refusing to tolerate incomplete, buggy product.
I agree.
Furthermore, I strongly suspect that Smedley's background is in sales/marketing, which also leads to utter stupidity in project management.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi