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Biophilla's Pre CU CU Era Scrapbook
firefly2003
Member UncommonPosts: 2,527
This letter is one of many posts on the old SWG Forums which is in the Biophilla's Pre-CU CU Era Scrapbook which is here at files.filefront.com/Biophilias+Scrapbook+v51zip/;9779531;/fileinfo.html
In the scrapbook contains the protest about the NGE, and forum posts from Previous Devs and the "Smedster" himself...
The letter below is a sample of what is in the scrapbook..
This letter was made in Nov 02, 2005 from a player named DeltaXi65
To the Developers,
While I cannot claim that I speak on behalf of the entire community, I do believe that my comments here will reflect much of what most of the veterans of this game feel at the release of the upcoming "game enchancements" information today.
To start off, for those who don't know me, I am a veteran SWG player. I tracked the game prior to release, and pre-ordered the Collector's Edition on the first day. I have played this game since day one. I own three accounts, all of which I have leveled myself. One is a Jedi, the others are non-Jedi characters. Two of those accounts are currently active (for the time being). I served as the Scout Correspondent from July 2003 until February of 2005, being the second longest serving Correspondent in the game. I attended the first Fan-fest in Anaheim (I live in Washington, DC) and I attended the Correspondent Summit in Austin, where I met Julio, Tiggs, and reintroduced myself to many of the rest of the design team that I had met at Fan-fest, including Thunderheart, Keldarin, GreenMarine (no longer with SOE) and many others. I alpha tested Jump-to-Lightspeed, and beta tested Rage of the Wookies and the Trials of Obi-Wan. I do believe that all of these experiences lend significant emphasis and credability to the opinions I want to express here.
I have reviewed the FAQ, as well as Julio's letter to the community. While it took a while to understand the magnitude of what is happening here, I have come to grips with it.
These game changes, in my opinion, represent a serious breach of trust with the community and fail to take into account the efforts that the veterans of this community have made in the game.
It is a slap in the face to announce these changes - changes which may take effect within three weeks or less to the game - ONE DAY after a new expansion that many of us have purchased copies of, some multiple copies of, was released. The dust has not even settled on The Trials of Obi-Wan, and now we are being presented with changes that will completely change the way the game looks, feels and is played. In my mind, this is little better than a virtual bait-and-switch perpetrated on the entire community.
I am well aware of the development process, thanks to my work as a Correspondent. I know that these changes must have been in the pipeline for months, particularly if all of the coding will be completed in less than one months time. The Combat Balance/Upgrade/Revamp that I assisted with and helped to shape in Austin at the Summit and throughout the process took over a year and half to develop, code and complete. Yet this entire process was done in secret, including all of the PR preparations made by Tiggs and the SOE Community Relations staff, and sprung on the community without an inkling two days after the expansion was released.
In real life, I'm a lobbyist, and I've been working in Washington for 10 years. So I've seen a lot of conspiracy theories come and go. And If I were a cynic, I would say that this was a carefully timed announcement, designed to hit the community right after the expansion was released, so that SOE and LEC could have gotten the money for the expansion from as many veterans as possible, hoping that that capital would keep the game going through the massive wave of cancellations from those same veterans when changes of this magnitude were announced. And once all the veterans are gone, marketing could focus on bringing new players to the game, who had no knowledge of the previous two years and wouldn't have a problem with what you've done here. I hope to God that that's just the anger talking here, because if any part of what I've said is just true, it would represent the biggest rip-off of an entire gaming community in the history of the gaming industry.
I feel cheated and ripped off. And I think I speak for a large portion of the community when I say that.
And this is how I feel strictly based on the timing of the announcement. The actual changes you are proposing are worse.
Changes of this magnitude, less than 6 months after changes of a similiar magnitude, make it hard for me to accept that this game will still be Star Wars Galaxies. If anything, these game enchancements seem to be attempting to turn SWG into some kind of amalgamation of World of Warcraft, Planetside and Knights of the Old Republic. This isn't why I play SWG, and isn't why I've stuck with this game for two years.
And while I recognize that we veterans will receive "elder" buffs and status in the game, that's not enough. How do you begin to repay someone for the hundreds and thousands of hours they've spent playing this game, building up credits, skills, guilds, equipment, etc. and then wiping away everything they've accomplished in less than a month? I can't tell you the number of days I've taken off work to play SWG, or ignored a deadline or got an extension on a project just to stay out a bit later in a great XP group. All of that is for naught - you are invalidating most of what I've accomplished in the game in two years and in return, I get a special buff. That's not enough.
Rangers were promised a complete revamp less than a month ago, with outlines and changes that got many of them excited about the game again. Now, Rangers have been removed. The profession that I advocated on behalf of for nearly two years, Scout, is gone. The hours and hours I spent writing and rewriting guides for the community on the profession are now worthless.
And worse than the fact that the changes can't begin to compensate for what I'm losing, you're destroying what has kept most people in this game as long as we've been here - the community.
And its already happening. I recently cancelled my World of Warcraft account (even after the news of their new expansion) to come back to SWG full time, and one of the main reasons I cited was the community. My guild on Bloodfin, which is comprised of approximately 60 players with probably close 150 accounts all-together has almost fallen apart IN THE SPAN OF FIVE HOURS. Just looking through my ventrilo, I see people with comments of "5 accounts cancelled", "3 accounts cancelled", "Anybody want to buy 100 mill credits", "3 Jedi for sale cheap, will take food for trade". These are all veteran gamers, guild leaders, beta testers, the kinds of players that MMO designers listen to and make games specifically for - and they're all unhappy. Not a single person I've spoken to is happy right now.
This entire process is fatally flawed. It's flawed because there have been consistent promises made to this community by the Community Relations staff that major changes to the game would be discussed in the community and that we would have some kind of say over them. There's a reason why there are "In Dev", "In Testing" and "In Concept" forums on these boards. But they weren't used here.
Do you even understand the magnitude of what you're doing? If you don't right now, you will when you get the metrics back on how many accounts were cancelled today.
Stop this process now. Get community feedback. Ignore the focus groups and the exit polls and LISTEN to your community. Focus groups and polling is all well and good - I use it myself. But nothing beats getting out in and amongst the actual people who play this game and hearing what they think about this. Make these changes gradual. Do them a little at a time, so that people can get used to them and integrate them into their playstyle. The game was made in a day, it doesn't need to be remade in a day.
Better yet, don't go forward with the changes at all - save them for Star Wars Galaxies II - The Search for More Money. (I hope you all get the reference).
For the sake of all of us who have put so much into this game, and even for those players who simply log in once in a while, kill a few stormtroopers but pay their $15 a month for it, reconsider these changes and allow the community a chance to respond and contribute to the process.
This is our game. It is our money and it is our free time. Respect us. Give us the opportunity to affect this process in a meaningful, cooperative way. It is the very least that we have earned through our dedication and loyalty to this game.
Biophilla's Pre-CU Cu Era Scrapbook at files.filefront.com/Biophilias+Scrapbook+v51zip/;9779531;/fileinfo.html
Comments
That link when you want to load something it will open a new window so you can view whatever you wanted to look at just a little info. In the content of that site or link there is old forum posts by Smedster regarding the NGE and his lies plus other infamous DEVS like Chris Cao , Helios, John Freeman, and Good Ol' Toliet Boy (tm) plus all the original devs and much more its like this person whoever it was decided to save all this great info and the past in a way and it is quite interesting to read thru all of this again especially the reads about the NGE almost brings a tear to my eye
Here are some of the Smedster's posts about the NGE and his lies...
<Mod edit>
www.soesucks.net/index.php
Wow, great letter.
It really does make sense the way the pushed the expansion then changed the gameplay.
I am sure there was a devious scheme involved.
did you look at the link there is plenty of more interesting information in there plus even a guid to SWG leet speak
And a past post about Jeff Freeman concerning the NGE this is what the player said.....
Ryford
Hey I remember you. You were that guy saying this thing is "just so much fun" right? I think I read your blog once.
Can you do us all a favor and go get all the people who left and force them to agree with you so that there is actually a population on each server? kthx in advance
www.soesucks.net/index.php
In the event someone's going to drop some feces on this thread or otherwise disregard it as pre-cu propaganda, I can vouch for his statement as absolute truth all the way through.
I spoke with him in game a day after NGE went live and we lamented briefly about the removal of Scouting professions and abilities outright.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz]
AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
Wow, this is two years old? - amazing.
Account has been stolen, why would someone want to steal my account?
IMO SWG would have kept its 250-300K playerbase if they kept the same system and introduced the expansions and actually ADVERTISED. Advertising is a very important part of gaining customers, they did a little advertising when Rage of the Wookiees came out but that was it, last ad I saw before that was in spring of 2003 advertising for the game before its launch which led to me buying it otherwise I wouldn't have bought it if I never saw the ads and probably to this day I would have said "wtf is SWG?".
The original SWG (or even the CU) would have been awesome with these added collection and new planets. There was always something to do back then with its sandbox environment and player run economy, now loot items dominates the economy and credit inflation is through the roof. The schematic loot rewards would have been nicer if we were still able to loot and use ackley bones, venom, krayt tissues, rancor teeth, etc. that made each weapon or armor different in quality along with different smuggler slicing chances. Anything nowadays doesn't have a whole lot of interest from me, everyone in the game can have the same thing you can so there's no such thing as being unique anymore.
its a shame , 2,5 years later and this letter feels like written yesterday about $OE's new insults towards the p(l)ayerbase.
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
if you want to download the whole scrapbook it's here
^that's an updated version too. Read more about it <Mod edit>
Yeah I remember that post when it happened. Years later and he summed up EVERYTHING perfectly before the NGE even hit.
Props to SOE/LA, they should hold a seminar on how to lose 95% of your customerbase in less than 3 months...
But hey, nobody plays SWG anymore (at least no one that counts) but the game is easier to figure out... Lmao.
Tecmo Bowl.
That was a great post by Brisc. I was a denizen of the Scout Board on the old official forum, so interacted with him a great deal.
The idiots at SOE never got the message...that their customers were impervious to their pathetic attempts at Jedi mind tricks, and many of them were smarter than anyone at SOE could ever hope to be.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Ahh, Biophilia's scrapbook. Its like the Ark of the Covenant to the SWG world. I make a point in giving the man thanks for what he did in those final days before the forums were lost.
Oh and if they keep wiping out links to the book around here - just google for Biophilia and scrapbook. It can be found or reference too on nearly every precu slanted forum.
Sorry folks my links were wiped by the mods and got a warning even though they are not what they think it is just because it said one word doesnt mean it is....... Im pretty sure with the posts here to different links and such and the download for Biophilla Pre-CU scrapbook you can go to this site as well to view it under the SWG forums there under the name of Pre-Cu Scrapbook www.soesucks.net/index.php
Here is another little piece some of you might remember on Nov, 02 2005 The letter is from Juilo Torres and the announcement of the NGE..
Greetings Star Wars Galaxies Players, Fans, and Other Denizens of the Galaxy:
My name is Julio Torres and I am the Producer on Star Wars Galaxies for LucasArts. We wanted you, the great members of the Galaxies community, to be the first to hear some exciting news about the current and future plans for Star Wars Galaxies!
Over the past year we have been working hard to respond to feedback we have gotten from players, fans, focus groups, and other research. This feedback has ultimately centered on one key area: the game does not feel like a heroic Star Wars experience. Currently, the early game has a steep learning curve and there is no clearly defined path of advancement or adventure. Many of our fans who bought the game did not see enough Star Wars style action early-on and ultimately left our world. It is our goal to change this and improve the experience for all players.
We are introducing a series of game enhancements to Star Wars Galaxies this month that include both significant enhancements to the live game as well as a completely redesigned experience for new players. The primary areas of focus include combat and profession and character development. The combat depicted in the Star Wars films, fiction, and canon that we have all come to know and love is fast-paced, action-packed, and visually intense. In order to stay true to the Star Wars fiction as well as to make the combat system more engaging, we have shifted the turn-based paradigm towards a much more engaging fast-action combat system where you control every move! After receiving feedback from members of the community, conducting extensive focus tests, and evaluating the combat systems of other games in the genre, we are confident this new fast-action combat truly delivers what players, fans, and gamers have come to expect from a Star Wars experience.
As mentioned earlier, combat is not the only area where we decided to focus our improvement efforts. We have also improved and brought more clarity to the profession and character development system.
Changing a live game is never easy. We realize that players do not like to have their experience altered. These enhancements will take some getting used to and for that reason we lined-up some incentives for the current players to enjoy as our thanks for your loyalty to our game.
We value our community and want you to stay with us. Our goal is to continuously improve the Star Wars experience, the one we all know and love from the films and fiction; action-packed, story-driven, Star Wars fun. With these features and enhancements we are setting the stage for incredible things to come for Galaxies with more announcements happening in the coming months.
I'd like to thank you all for your continued support of Star Wars Galaxies and for making it one of the premier gaming experiences online today.
May The Force Be With You,
Julio Torres, Producer - LucasArts
Damn, that was a blast from the past. Rereading that reminds me of how absolutely angry I was when I wrote it.
I went back with a couple friends last year and tried to get back into SWG again, but it just wasn't the same. The community was dead, and that's what kept so many of us playing.
Oh well - glad to see this letter is still floating around out there. I think it had the record for page views back on the old SWG forums.
B
Brisc, you old devil you!
I'm afraid the rancor/graul pens are not what they once were when new master scouts were sent to clean them out as part of the inititiation ritual.
You're right that the community is the reason to keep at a MMO when you grow tired of the grind, or whatever silliness and stupidity the developers/publishers see fit to impose on the people who pay their salaries.
Community kept me in SWG for the run and the destruction of the community in the NGE was one factor among many for not sticking around.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
First of all, yeah Bio's scrapbook is really amazing. I read it once in a while, especially when some SOE defender tries to rewrite history. Even though SOE tried to remove the b.s. they spread in the old forums, it's all been preserved for posterity. Excellent work.
This letter from Torres is an excellent example. Allow me to highlight just some of the b.s.. Here's what Torres said in his marketting pitch:
Maybe they wanted to sell it to someone other than SWG players."
This point is repeated later in this exchange between a disgruntled vet and Mr. Freeman:
Player: "They wanted to know why people WEREN'T playing, not why they were. They threw out everything that made the game worth a damn to cater to a mythical audience that never was interested in the first place."
Freeman: "Yes, we've been over this. Can't you just put it in your sig or something?"
Too bad they didn't listen. The post on the old forums very clearly predicted everything that has come to pass. It also gave them a reasonable alternative to pursue instead of the NGE. Too bad they didn't listen. Oh well, you really did your part in trying to prevent the madness. My thanks.