Remember SOE's response to all those players that voiced their concern about the CU & NGE back then? SOE basically said "like it or f%$#-off"! Would you like to keep on paying a company that treats it's customers like that?
I remember Garva's post which contained a very similar statement that was stickied in the Jedi forum (don't remember if there was a general one) that received about 90+ pages within a half hour. Talk about the biggest backfire SWG ever received, a couple days later an EQ2 dev came in and said that he was warned by SWG devs about the community, his thread also backfired.
SOE didn't and still doesn't know how to handle their customers.
Re. your sig, "SWG Pre-CU to NGE is like your favorite guitar magazine changing to cello during your paid subscription with no refund offer," I read another similar analogy that really made me laugh. Sorry I don't remember the name of the guy that wrote it. Here's what he said:
"If I bought tickets to see Ozzy Osbourne and half way through the show, they replaced him with Englebert Humperdink, do you think I'd want my money back? You betcha" Lol, that really cracked me up, and made a good point I think.
I'm going to buy something special on the way home to celebrate this. Freeman is #2 only to Smed on my "excrement' list. Events like this are to be celebrated. Karma can be a real bitch sometimes. What goes around comes around.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Now Freeman can get that job working at a gas station like he is eminently qualified for...
Thats JUST what we need.. NGE gas... Wait thats Ethanol... Fudge he has allready been here.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. Samuel Adams
I'm going to buy something special on the way home to celebrate this. Freeman is #2 only to Smed on my "excrement' list. Events like this are to be celebrated. Karma can be a real bitch sometimes. What goes around comes around.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Now Freeman can get that job working at a gas station like he is eminently qualified for...
Thats JUST what we need.. NGE gas... Wait thats Ethanol... Fudge he has allready been here.
Unless the gas station is run by SOE (since they are going to need a new core business pretty soon) he decides that "No... the customer doesn't want gas in his car, he really wants this nice mixture of raw sewage, broken glass and rocksalt that is so much cheaper to produce...."
If Smed and his crew ran a gas station cars would explode after pulling out of the station. When people complained, they'd stonewall with "working as intended".
I was screwed over by the NGE, for sure and so were my mates, Force sensitives and what not. And i have moved onto greener pastures - SWG in its current state. Thats right, SWG is different now and so are those who are developing it. So perhaps you could take a little time to find out what its like, and if you cant be bothered to spend the money or time, what right do you have to continue to flame it at every chance, potentially drivng away new players.
the fact is if the game is good....any game...people will play it and ignore the posts. look at all the bad press
games like GTA get. does it stop them? no. because unlike the nge GTA actually has redeeming qualities.
arguing with a corporate fanboi is like teaching special education. even if you teach him something...at the end of the day he's still retarded.
Tbh I am glad that "now" they won't make a huge change to the game mechanics. I really don't want to see other people lose 2 years worth of progress. I didn't like it, and I don't wish it on anyone.
However, when the NGE first came out, and was unplayably broken, and destroyed player's characters and two years of progress, and ruined features in the new expansion, a rollback AT THAT POINT would have been the "right thing to do" in my mind. Now, it's far, far too late to be talking rollback. The option that SOE still seems to pass over is the "classic server option." Other games have made this work, and everyone has used the classic coke analogy. Why they always dig their heals in over this, I'm not sure I'll ever really understand. They said this isn't feasible because they got rid of the code. Frankly that's a hard statement to believe. No back ups for an MMO? They then said it isn't financially feasible to run two versions of the game. I bet they'd get volunteers to run a classic server, and some vets would play it "as is," bugs and all. For that matter I'm sure they could get some volunteers to debug it too. Since they didn't rollback when it would have been extremely welcome and ethical to do so, and since they refuse to consider classic servers, that only leaves trying to make the NGE appealing to a large population. That's been a long hard road, and not the one I would have chosen.
Actually now that they are down to about 30K or so subs it would be a good time to roll back. The most they would lose is 10-15k whereas when the NGE was instituted they lost somewhere around 200k. So if they even pulled in 20-30% of the Vets it would still be a net increase. Plus it is due to the current players that the NGE is still here at all. Keep up the good work cabalists.
I do try to have the same "effect", as it were, of people like Obraik, infact hes a friend of mine, plays on the same server, but i do find it unnecessary when someone makes a post proclaiming that SWG isnt worth the money. The reason i do reply to such posts are because they do hold a lot of sway, especially those among the MMORPG community who are experience in MMOs but new to SWG and so look here. I just want to make sure people get another side of it, especially since im a regular player. Those who criticise SWG intelligently usually have many valid points and i've no problem with that as i would hope i would have points to match those; which is good. And im active in trying to fix the game as it is, thats why i'd like people to know there isnt just a bunch of empty servers when you log onto SWG.
I went to the summits. I tried to engage them there and on the message boards. They wouldn't listen. All they gave anyone who begged them to do the right thing was grief and forum bans.
The NGE FRAMEWORK is the reason why the game sucks. This makes EVERYTHING they have done to "improve" the game content wise completely irrelevant.
They wouldnt listen because its unconstructive, the new devs see reason, and see that the only logical thing to do is to improve, not to make a huge change again and upset everyone.
you have a blog about how you hate SOE? ok
Which is exactly what SOE and LucasArsts would like you to beleive.
However, that said. There were indeed a lot of unconstructive critisism, but there were also some very valid critisism against the NGE/CU which SOE and LucasArts plain ignored in a very arrogant way.
Remember SOE's response to all those players that voiced their concern about the CU & NGE back then? SOE basically said "like it or f%$#-off"! Would you like to keep on paying a company that treats it's customers like that?
The thing is that SOE isn't "top-dog" in the MMO industry any longer, but they don't seem to realise that. And that is also whyh they are heading for a "belly-up" if they don't change their ways. A completely new top management team is probably the only thing that will save SOE and their bad reputation.
They say "pride goeth before the fall". Pride isn't one of the "seven deadly sins" for nothing. Look at how far SOE has fallen since 2005. After all this time, they STILL think that we are going to go away and let them "get over" what they did.
Not going to happen.
They have two new games coming out in the next year, DCMMO, and their Agency microtranscam game. I seriously doubt either bring in enough business to even make up for the continuing erosion of their ageing EQ games much less put them back to 2005 subscriber levels.
Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be John Smedley, to know that you are the most reviled single person in the MMO gaming industry. I wonder if he even knows this. Or even cares. How much further does SOE have to fall before HIS bosses notice and bring this up to him? And I wonder if they end up realizing, when the smoke and dust clears, and the remains of SOE are sold off for a fraction of what it was worth in 2005 to some company somewhere, that the CUNGE was the root cause?
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake.
So I cross him off the blacklist.
If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I was screwed over by the NGE, for sure and so were my mates, Force sensitives and what not. And i have moved onto greener pastures - SWG in its current state. Thats right, SWG is different now and so are those who are developing it. So perhaps you could take a little time to find out what its like, and if you cant be bothered to spend the money or time, what right do you have to continue to flame it at every chance, potentially drivng away new players.
the fact is if the game is good....any game...people will play it and ignore the posts. look at all the bad press
games like GTA get. does it stop them? no. because unlike the nge GTA actually has redeeming qualities.
Thats completely different, most real gamers loved it. If you think what other people post/say/advise doesnt affect people's choices, then you are mistaken.
Unless you accept the fact that if classic servers are done that everyone will leave the NGE ones, classic servers wouldn't be taking that game away from anyone.
Of course, that is exactly what will happen. If they opened up classic, the current servers would immediately empty and they'd get a nice chunk of returnees. The Devs would be forced to abandon NGE development as a result.
This is why it won't happen. To this day the Devs have this foolish, stupid pride in what they did with the NGE, and won't be proven wrong no matter what. Of course the accounting department should disprove that.
We pretty much have the story behind the NGE by now. It was created because a new studio manager came in (after Gordon Walton left), by the name of Chris Cao.
He hated the game as it was as did others. They decided that leaving it alone or doing Pre-CU or another combat upgrade was not an option. They literally had ZERO regard for the existing player base. Literally NONE. So they did the NGE and basically didn't give a shit what we thought about it, we were going to leave anyway.
But we were going to be replaced you see.
My God... It's good that the NGE failed. It would have destroyed the industry had it succeded in dumping one load of customers (keep in mind, we were still a top 10 MMO then) for another on a whim. All because apparently some egotistical, selfish jerks personally didn't like the game and didn't care if the players did or not.
I think that it's pretty clear now that Cao is the real NGE bogeyman.
No wonder he got so mad as to post that flame of us on the forums when, in early 2006, all they had to show for the awesome NGE were about 150K subscription cancellations and New York Times editorials calling them all scumbags.
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
If I can remember correctly, Smedley's apology wasn't about the actual releasing of the NGE, it was about the timing of the NGE release.
Even if Smedley had said "oops, seems the community doesn't like the idea" and they would have STILL released the god damn NGE at a later date and still not get a clue.
he is why our game is gone and why swg has been held hostage by the nge now
if he or soe wants to be forgiven then they open up classic pre-cu servers or roll the game back to pre-cu no if ands or buts. they do it and we come back.
after all 250k of my friends are not wrong about how much swg sucks.
I'd agree that Jeff Freeman should leave the gaming industry for two reasons.
1) He would make more money
2) He would never have to read a forum like this one.
Or... he could..
1) Make sure the next place he works at he is "in charge". That way what he does will be his fault instead of a duty someone "in charge" assigned to him.
2) He shouldn't sign a contract with his next employer. This way he could quit instead of doing his "job duties" thus not being sued for breach of contract.
3) Or get a 'respect' clause put in his contract. Which would allow him to avoid being sued because he quit instead of doing his assigned job duties.
At least that would be the advice off the top of my head.
Or he could call up Raph Koster and ask him if the job offer he mentioned on another site.. was still open.
Ya that's right.. Raph Koster defended Jeff Freeman.. how odd is that.
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
How do we know he wasnt making one like the old game? Why keep bashing on someone who has said "Yes i messed up". What we never screw up? At least he has come forth explaining things. Like when his Boss said too fix the game( cause they didnt like it was the reason). Notice the boss part?He pushed the NGE cause of pride thinking he could make it better...He has said how wrong he was..What more do you need? I mean not like we dont mess up...Unless your perfect.. It was a a game many thought was in need of fixing..Instead they reinvented it twice..Failed twice.. Nothing we say or do can change that past. So why keep beating him up about things he has acknowledged was wrong..we can not support games made by those still claiming they did no wrong....
He basically messed up one game, never had to addmit to it but has several times..Jeff took a risk and is solely blamed by many cause he chooses to post publically about it. What other dev has given us answers without seeming like a canned response? What other Dev has said they messed up big time, an regrets it? What other dev has come out an posted none Pr spin revolving crap ala Smed.?..Just Jeff as far as i know, an yet he is still getting flack because of it.. Makes sense to me . Ive chosen too forgive an move on..This still doesnt get SWG back on a classic server or even rolled back..So why worry..SoE is their own worst enemy they mess up just fine all on their own..
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
Freeman showed up at MY WEBSITE, and further explained himself, and frankly, revealed more about how the NGE came about than has ever been said before.
I could not believe how much crow he ate. Honestly the man deserves a 2nd chance. I don't think he would ever support a NGE again. Seriously. He literally took all my vitriol, and admitted I was right, he was wrong, and he was sorry.
I have never seen anyone else do that. If Smed, Cao, Heliass, Ward, McIntyre, McDaniel, Blair, and others want to recover their reputations, they might consider the same thing.
How can I not forgive him? At least he asked for it. Smed and the others haven't. Freeman can't give me my game back, he's not with SOE anymore. But Smed could. He won't. SOE will continue to die as a result. Classic SWG servers would be such a PR win for them they can't fathom the benefits.
I am not a bad person. I do not hate anyone contrary to popular belief. I don't even want Smed to be homeless. Well, maybe him, but I digress...
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
Freeman showed up at MY WEBSITE, and further explained himself, and frankly, revealed more about how the NGE came about than has ever been said before.
I could not believe how much crow he ate. Honestly the man deserves a 2nd chance. I don't think he would ever support a NGE again. Seriously. He literally took all my vitriol, and admitted I was right, he was wrong, and he was sorry.
I have never seen anyone else do that. If Smed, Cao, Heliass, Ward, McIntyre, McDaniel, Blair, and others want to recover their reputations, they might consider the same thing.
How can I not forgive him? At least he asked for it. Smed and the others haven't. Freeman can't give me my game back, he's not with SOE anymore. But Smed could. He won't. SOE will continue to die as a result. Classic SWG servers would be such a PR win for them they can't fathom the benefits.
I am not a bad person. I do not hate anyone contrary to popular belief. I don't even want Smed to be homeless. Well, maybe him, but I digress...
Hey Salvaje. Did Jeff somehow confirm that it was actually him on your site? If so, what he said over there was pretty helpful. Everyone else is so tightlipped about what happened. How in the world can he share so much detail without gettin crucified by the NDA police?
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake. So I cross him off the blacklist. If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
Freeman showed up at MY WEBSITE, and further explained himself, and frankly, revealed more about how the NGE came about than has ever been said before.
I could not believe how much crow he ate. Honestly the man deserves a 2nd chance. I don't think he would ever support a NGE again. Seriously. He literally took all my vitriol, and admitted I was right, he was wrong, and he was sorry.
I have never seen anyone else do that. If Smed, Cao, Heliass, Ward, McIntyre, McDaniel, Blair, and others want to recover their reputations, they might consider the same thing.
How can I not forgive him? At least he asked for it. Smed and the others haven't. Freeman can't give me my game back, he's not with SOE anymore. But Smed could. He won't. SOE will continue to die as a result. Classic SWG servers would be such a PR win for them they can't fathom the benefits.
I am not a bad person. I do not hate anyone contrary to popular belief. I don't even want Smed to be homeless. Well, maybe him, but I digress...
let me tell you something i hate anyone that likes the cu or nge. i hate the damn pilots who whined and got their action game in an mmorpg. i hate the whiners who cried and cried about jedi being too powerful. and i hate soe for stealing our game from us two times. they all should burn in the 9th circle of hell for what they did.
this is a war they started it when they lied to us about the curb and then started the cu. this is not just a war about the pre-cu but about gaming as a whole. look at how we the customers have been pushed around by the greedy devs. they take great games from us like swg pre-cu and turn it into more mindless wow clones. we have more and more kids and people who should not be playing video games coming in.
so why are we sitting back on this forum and doing nothing. we should be out there telling all the greedy dev's no more. we don't want wow clones we want games like the pre-cu. we don't want the kids or casual players anymore. we want our games to be hard.
i hope smed ends up homeless and broke for everything he did. and if any of you nge fanbois want to defend him feel free. i've got all my friends who will tell you all how much your wrong.
Mr. Freeman has told us his view of what happened at SOE during the time of the NGE.
He has also admitted he made a mistake and that he regrets it. All people are doing mistakes. People that regret their wrongdoings and are sorry for what they did,
are likely trying to avoid doing the same mistake again. And IMO, that’s all I, as an ex SWG subscriber, can ask for now: That a “NGE” never happens again, in any game. I will still avoid games that include people involved in the NGE, though Jeff Freeman is none of them anymore. It’s a pity Mr. Smedley doesn’t have the guts of Mr. Freeman.
If he had, we could have a few classic servers running and even I would eventually “get over it”.
Smedley is a higher up, he's a suit, he is not a gamer. Chances are they told him about what the plan was with the NGE and he just said "Ok." Before you give me the "But he plays WoW!!!!" My Stepfather who's in his 50's has an open WoW acc that his boss gave him. It's slowly turning into "Mike's Girlfriends acc." as the most he's done is gotten a Mage up to level 6.
And here's the thing the 'big' thing. If any of you where told "I want all of you to throw away this system and start a new one for this game." From 'your' boss, how many of you would really say "No I quit!" Granted Video Games are booming now and chances are it will be like the days of everyone and anyone making games like they did with the Atari 2600 back in the 80's. Still chances are many of you would go for that pay check... It's human.
Still thinking someone should go poor or homeless cuz they changed a game 'you' liked is insane.
Mr. Freeman has told us his view of what happened at SOE during the time of the NGE.
He has also admitted he made a mistake and that he regrets it. All people are doing mistakes. People that regret their wrongdoings and are sorry for what they did,
are likely trying to avoid doing the same mistake again. And IMO, that’s all I, as an ex SWG subscriber, can ask for now: That a “NGE” never happens again, in any game. I will still avoid games that include people involved in the NGE, though Jeff Freeman is none of them anymore. It’s a pity Mr. Smedley doesn’t have the guts of Mr. Freeman.
If he had, we could have a few classic servers running and even I would eventually “get over it”.
Smedley is a higher up, he's a suit, he is not a gamer. Chances are they told him about what the plan was with the NGE and he just said "Ok." Before you give me the "But he plays WoW!!!!" My Stepfather who's in his 50's has an open WoW acc that his boss gave him. It's slowly turning into "Mike's Girlfriends acc." as the most he's done is gotten a Mage up to level 6.
And here's the thing the 'big' thing. If any of you where told "I want all of you to throw away this system and start a new one for this game." From 'your' boss, how many of you would really say "No I quit!" Granted Video Games are booming now and chances are it will be like the days of everyone and anyone making games like they did with the Atari 2600 back in the 80's. Still chances are many of you would go for that pay check... It's human.
Still thinking someone should go poor or homeless cuz they changed a game 'you' liked is insane.
Sir it is totally naturally to get poor and homeless if you try to sell a broken product.
Fact is Smedley is just a middleman he don't produces any good, he don't put much in and has not that much of risk. He just buys Vanguard after SWG flops and then another title and so on and so on. This poor human being just thought he can shovel in money with the NGE.
But do we really need a middleman in our relationship with the developers ? "Smedley 's" are not needed, they interrupt the immediate relation between game developer and gamer and like vampires they try to suck any profit they see in this relationship, they try to wring any $ from the gamer andto wring any idea outa the poor developer.
Comments
I remember Garva's post which contained a very similar statement that was stickied in the Jedi forum (don't remember if there was a general one) that received about 90+ pages within a half hour. Talk about the biggest backfire SWG ever received, a couple days later an EQ2 dev came in and said that he was warned by SWG devs about the community, his thread also backfired.SOE didn't and still doesn't know how to handle their customers.
Re. your sig, "SWG Pre-CU to NGE is like your favorite guitar magazine changing to cello during your paid subscription with no refund offer," I read another similar analogy that really made me laugh. Sorry I don't remember the name of the guy that wrote it. Here's what he said:
"If I bought tickets to see Ozzy Osbourne and half way through the show, they replaced him with Englebert Humperdink, do you think I'd want my money back? You betcha" Lol, that really cracked me up, and made a good point I think.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Now Freeman can get that job working at a gas station like he is eminently qualified for...
Thats JUST what we need.. NGE gas... Wait thats Ethanol... Fudge he has allready been here.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Now Freeman can get that job working at a gas station like he is eminently qualified for...
Unless the gas station is run by SOE (since they are going to need a new core business pretty soon) he decides that "No... the customer doesn't want gas in his car, he really wants this nice mixture of raw sewage, broken glass and rocksalt that is so much cheaper to produce...."Thats JUST what we need.. NGE gas... Wait thats Ethanol... Fudge he has allready been here.
If Smed and his crew ran a gas station cars would explode after pulling out of the station. When people complained, they'd stonewall with "working as intended".
games like GTA get. does it stop them? no. because unlike the nge GTA actually has redeeming qualities.
arguing with a corporate fanboi is like teaching special education.
even if you teach him something...at the end of the day he's still retarded.
Could care less about that S.O.B.............
all i say is good and i hope he gets out of the game industry once and for all!
Actually now that they are down to about 30K or so subs it would be a good time to roll back. The most they would lose is 10-15k whereas when the NGE was instituted they lost somewhere around 200k. So if they even pulled in 20-30% of the Vets it would still be a net increase. Plus it is due to the current players that the NGE is still here at all. Keep up the good work cabalists.
I went to the summits. I tried to engage them there and on the message boards. They wouldn't listen. All they gave anyone who begged them to do the right thing was grief and forum bans.
The NGE FRAMEWORK is the reason why the game sucks. This makes EVERYTHING they have done to "improve" the game content wise completely irrelevant.
They wouldnt listen because its unconstructive, the new devs see reason, and see that the only logical thing to do is to improve, not to make a huge change again and upset everyone.you have a blog about how you hate SOE? ok
Which is exactly what SOE and LucasArsts would like you to beleive.
However, that said. There were indeed a lot of unconstructive critisism, but there were also some very valid critisism against the NGE/CU which SOE and LucasArts plain ignored in a very arrogant way.
Remember SOE's response to all those players that voiced their concern about the CU & NGE back then? SOE basically said "like it or f%$#-off"! Would you like to keep on paying a company that treats it's customers like that?
The thing is that SOE isn't "top-dog" in the MMO industry any longer, but they don't seem to realise that. And that is also whyh they are heading for a "belly-up" if they don't change their ways. A completely new top management team is probably the only thing that will save SOE and their bad reputation.
They say "pride goeth before the fall". Pride isn't one of the "seven deadly sins" for nothing. Look at how far SOE has fallen since 2005. After all this time, they STILL think that we are going to go away and let them "get over" what they did.
Not going to happen.
They have two new games coming out in the next year, DCMMO, and their Agency microtranscam game. I seriously doubt either bring in enough business to even make up for the continuing erosion of their ageing EQ games much less put them back to 2005 subscriber levels.
Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be John Smedley, to know that you are the most reviled single person in the MMO gaming industry. I wonder if he even knows this. Or even cares. How much further does SOE have to fall before HIS bosses notice and bring this up to him? And I wonder if they end up realizing, when the smoke and dust clears, and the remains of SOE are sold off for a fraction of what it was worth in 2005 to some company somewhere, that the CUNGE was the root cause?
After some correspondence with Jeff Freeman, I've decided not to be so hard on him anymore. Of all the principal figures in the NGE, he at least realizes what he did was wrong, and admits not realizing at the time the magnitude of the mistake.
So I cross him off the blacklist.
If only SOE's other figures would do the same. Well, if they did they'd give us our game back. At this point I think pride alone prevents that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
games like GTA get. does it stop them? no. because unlike the nge GTA actually has redeeming qualities.
Thats completely different, most real gamers loved it. If you think what other people post/say/advise doesnt affect people's choices, then you are mistaken.
Unless you accept the fact that if classic servers are done that everyone will leave the NGE ones, classic servers wouldn't be taking that game away from anyone.
Of course, that is exactly what will happen. If they opened up classic, the current servers would immediately empty and they'd get a nice chunk of returnees. The Devs would be forced to abandon NGE development as a result.
This is why it won't happen. To this day the Devs have this foolish, stupid pride in what they did with the NGE, and won't be proven wrong no matter what. Of course the accounting department should disprove that.
We pretty much have the story behind the NGE by now. It was created because a new studio manager came in (after Gordon Walton left), by the name of Chris Cao.
He hated the game as it was as did others. They decided that leaving it alone or doing Pre-CU or another combat upgrade was not an option. They literally had ZERO regard for the existing player base. Literally NONE. So they did the NGE and basically didn't give a shit what we thought about it, we were going to leave anyway.
But we were going to be replaced you see.
My God... It's good that the NGE failed. It would have destroyed the industry had it succeded in dumping one load of customers (keep in mind, we were still a top 10 MMO then) for another on a whim. All because apparently some egotistical, selfish jerks personally didn't like the game and didn't care if the players did or not.
I think that it's pretty clear now that Cao is the real NGE bogeyman.
No wonder he got so mad as to post that flame of us on the forums when, in early 2006, all they had to show for the awesome NGE were about 150K subscription cancellations and New York Times editorials calling them all scumbags.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
If I can remember correctly, Smedley's apology wasn't about the actual releasing of the NGE, it was about the timing of the NGE release.
Even if Smedley had said "oops, seems the community doesn't like the idea" and they would have STILL released the god damn NGE at a later date and still not get a clue.
sorry does not cut it
he is why our game is gone and why swg has been held hostage by the nge now
if he or soe wants to be forgiven then they open up classic pre-cu servers or roll the game back to pre-cu no if ands or buts. they do it and we come back.
after all 250k of my friends are not wrong about how much swg sucks.
I'd agree that Jeff Freeman should leave the gaming industry for two reasons.
1) He would make more money
2) He would never have to read a forum like this one.
Or... he could..
1) Make sure the next place he works at he is "in charge". That way what he does will be his fault instead of a duty someone "in charge" assigned to him.
2) He shouldn't sign a contract with his next employer. This way he could quit instead of doing his "job duties" thus not being sued for breach of contract.
3) Or get a 'respect' clause put in his contract. Which would allow him to avoid being sued because he quit instead of doing his assigned job duties.
At least that would be the advice off the top of my head.
Or he could call up Raph Koster and ask him if the job offer he mentioned on another site.. was still open.
Ya that's right.. Raph Koster defended Jeff Freeman.. how odd is that.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
How do we know he wasnt making one like the old game? Why keep bashing on someone who has said "Yes i messed up". What we never screw up? At least he has come forth explaining things. Like when his Boss said too fix the game( cause they didnt like it was the reason). Notice the boss part?He pushed the NGE cause of pride thinking he could make it better...He has said how wrong he was..What more do you need? I mean not like we dont mess up...Unless your perfect.. It was a a game many thought was in need of fixing..Instead they reinvented it twice..Failed twice.. Nothing we say or do can change that past. So why keep beating him up about things he has acknowledged was wrong..we can not support games made by those still claiming they did no wrong....
He basically messed up one game, never had to addmit to it but has several times..Jeff took a risk and is solely blamed by many cause he chooses to post publically about it. What other dev has given us answers without seeming like a canned response? What other Dev has said they messed up big time, an regrets it? What other dev has come out an posted none Pr spin revolving crap ala Smed.?..Just Jeff as far as i know, an yet he is still getting flack because of it.. Makes sense to me . Ive chosen too forgive an move on..This still doesnt get SWG back on a classic server or even rolled back..So why worry..SoE is their own worst enemy they mess up just fine all on their own..
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
Freeman showed up at MY WEBSITE, and further explained himself, and frankly, revealed more about how the NGE came about than has ever been said before.
I could not believe how much crow he ate. Honestly the man deserves a 2nd chance. I don't think he would ever support a NGE again. Seriously. He literally took all my vitriol, and admitted I was right, he was wrong, and he was sorry.
I have never seen anyone else do that. If Smed, Cao, Heliass, Ward, McIntyre, McDaniel, Blair, and others want to recover their reputations, they might consider the same thing.
How can I not forgive him? At least he asked for it. Smed and the others haven't. Freeman can't give me my game back, he's not with SOE anymore. But Smed could. He won't. SOE will continue to die as a result. Classic SWG servers would be such a PR win for them they can't fathom the benefits.
I am not a bad person. I do not hate anyone contrary to popular belief. I don't even want Smed to be homeless. Well, maybe him, but I digress...
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
Freeman showed up at MY WEBSITE, and further explained himself, and frankly, revealed more about how the NGE came about than has ever been said before.
I could not believe how much crow he ate. Honestly the man deserves a 2nd chance. I don't think he would ever support a NGE again. Seriously. He literally took all my vitriol, and admitted I was right, he was wrong, and he was sorry.
I have never seen anyone else do that. If Smed, Cao, Heliass, Ward, McIntyre, McDaniel, Blair, and others want to recover their reputations, they might consider the same thing.
How can I not forgive him? At least he asked for it. Smed and the others haven't. Freeman can't give me my game back, he's not with SOE anymore. But Smed could. He won't. SOE will continue to die as a result. Classic SWG servers would be such a PR win for them they can't fathom the benefits.
I am not a bad person. I do not hate anyone contrary to popular belief. I don't even want Smed to be homeless. Well, maybe him, but I digress...
Hey Salvaje. Did Jeff somehow confirm that it was actually him on your site? If so, what he said over there was pretty helpful. Everyone else is so tightlipped about what happened. How in the world can he share so much detail without gettin crucified by the NDA police?
Dude....giving you your game back would be repeating the same mistake again, and it would mean alienating their new players (there actually are some people that like the NGE...dunno why). Not to mention most of the vets wouldn't come back. They've moved on to other games or simply have such a hatred for SOE now that they wouldn't come back anyways. So the only thing keeping them from giving you your game back isn't pride, it's business sense. It was pride the first couple months when they could have rolled back. Now it's just business.
Can't be good business. Good business would be to offer classic servers and open your doors to the potentially greater market. So what they do is small peanut business.
Dunno anything about your correspondence with Jeff, Salvaje but from what he said here at this forums i think he just wanna be liked by the customers again and try to erase the stigma. To be fair thats understandable enough but does he is really clean of his weird class / level / quests / FPS in an MMO ideas and accept PRE CU game design as superior , an officially statement would do wonders even 2.5 years after.
I'm convinced he's sincere.
He didn't have to come to my website, take a beating (again) and explain (in great detail) his personal experience with it, the mistakes he made, and how he knows he f'ed up.
When he came here a few months back, I thought it was self serving. I"m convinced that I was wrong then to think so.
I honestly think he seeks forgiveness.
I think at this point he deserves it. So would the others if they'd do the same. Smed, Cao, Ward, Torres, McIntyre, et all still have `splaining to do.
Besides, thanks to Freeman, we now basically know what went on, what caused the NGE, and why it was done, and it wasn't really for any of the reasons we assumed. It basically happened because the new studio manager hated the game as it was, convinced others to go along with him, and they insulated themselves in their bubble of unreality and worked completely without regard to the players, in fact KNOWING that we were going to leave.
It was NOT forced on them by LEC. It was purely a SOE invention. It was done out of arrogance and deceit. It was done basically because a clique of people wanted to design a game THEY liked, the customers be dammed, because they are so smart, so talented, that, why MILLIONS will flock to their new game. I doubt Smed, Ward, etc even knew how SWG worked. Or bothered to find out. The fact that they and McIntyre bought into the "too much reading" spin that no doubt Cao and his cohorts sold them suggests that none of them enjoy games any more complex than rock paper scissors.
salvaje don't trust him and don't believe him unless he comes here and starts backing what we want. the return of our game. he is the one that pushed the nge on us he is why 250k players quit swg and are now on mindless mmos that deep down no one likes. people want freedom in mmos swg gave them that freedom and he is one of the ones who stole that freedom from us.
he has shown that he does not care about the game. if he did he never would have pushed the nge on us the same thing with the cu people too. we the players care about the game we the players should have full say in what go into games we want. i want our games back the ones we care about not this level based xbox friendly bs they hand out now it all sucks.
Freeman showed up at MY WEBSITE, and further explained himself, and frankly, revealed more about how the NGE came about than has ever been said before.
I could not believe how much crow he ate. Honestly the man deserves a 2nd chance. I don't think he would ever support a NGE again. Seriously. He literally took all my vitriol, and admitted I was right, he was wrong, and he was sorry.
I have never seen anyone else do that. If Smed, Cao, Heliass, Ward, McIntyre, McDaniel, Blair, and others want to recover their reputations, they might consider the same thing.
How can I not forgive him? At least he asked for it. Smed and the others haven't. Freeman can't give me my game back, he's not with SOE anymore. But Smed could. He won't. SOE will continue to die as a result. Classic SWG servers would be such a PR win for them they can't fathom the benefits.
I am not a bad person. I do not hate anyone contrary to popular belief. I don't even want Smed to be homeless. Well, maybe him, but I digress...
let me tell you something i hate anyone that likes the cu or nge. i hate the damn pilots who whined and got their action game in an mmorpg. i hate the whiners who cried and cried about jedi being too powerful. and i hate soe for stealing our game from us two times. they all should burn in the 9th circle of hell for what they did.
this is a war they started it when they lied to us about the curb and then started the cu. this is not just a war about the pre-cu but about gaming as a whole. look at how we the customers have been pushed around by the greedy devs. they take great games from us like swg pre-cu and turn it into more mindless wow clones. we have more and more kids and people who should not be playing video games coming in.
so why are we sitting back on this forum and doing nothing. we should be out there telling all the greedy dev's no more. we don't want wow clones we want games like the pre-cu. we don't want the kids or casual players anymore. we want our games to be hard.
i hope smed ends up homeless and broke for everything he did. and if any of you nge fanbois want to defend him feel free. i've got all my friends who will tell you all how much your wrong.
Mr. Freeman has told us his view of what happened at SOE during the time of the NGE.
He has also admitted he made a mistake and that he regrets it.
All people are doing mistakes. People that regret their wrongdoings and are sorry for what they did,
are likely trying to avoid doing the same mistake again.
And IMO, that’s all I, as an ex SWG subscriber, can ask for now: That a “NGE” never happens again, in any game.
I will still avoid games that include people involved in the NGE, though Jeff Freeman is none of them anymore.
It’s a pity Mr. Smedley doesn’t have the guts of Mr. Freeman.
If he had, we could have a few classic servers running and even I would eventually “get over it”.
And here's the thing the 'big' thing. If any of you where told "I want all of you to throw away this system and start a new one for this game." From 'your' boss, how many of you would really say "No I quit!" Granted Video Games are booming now and chances are it will be like the days of everyone and anyone making games like they did with the Atari 2600 back in the 80's. Still chances are many of you would go for that pay check... It's human.
Still thinking someone should go poor or homeless cuz they changed a game 'you' liked is insane.
Smedley is a higher up, he's a suit, he is not a gamer. Chances are they told him about what the plan was with the NGE and he just said "Ok." Before you give me the "But he plays WoW!!!!" My Stepfather who's in his 50's has an open WoW acc that his boss gave him. It's slowly turning into "Mike's Girlfriends acc." as the most he's done is gotten a Mage up to level 6.And here's the thing the 'big' thing. If any of you where told "I want all of you to throw away this system and start a new one for this game." From 'your' boss, how many of you would really say "No I quit!" Granted Video Games are booming now and chances are it will be like the days of everyone and anyone making games like they did with the Atari 2600 back in the 80's. Still chances are many of you would go for that pay check... It's human.
Still thinking someone should go poor or homeless cuz they changed a game 'you' liked is insane.
Sir it is totally naturally to get poor and homeless if you try to sell a broken product.
Fact is Smedley is just a middleman he don't produces any good, he don't put much in and has not that much of risk. He just buys Vanguard after SWG flops and then another title and so on and so on. This poor human being just thought he can shovel in money with the NGE.
But do we really need a middleman in our relationship with the developers ? "Smedley 's" are not needed, they interrupt the immediate relation between game developer and gamer and like vampires they try to suck any profit they see in this relationship, they try to wring any $ from the gamer andto wring any idea outa the poor developer.