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Restitution for NGE, what I'd like to see
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You know, i've heard the "Never Forget" phrase applied to a few things in my lifetime. The holocaust... 9/11... basically some of the biggest tragedies in human history.
and now we're applying it to the SWG NGE...
Seriously? That's not at all a bit too far?
All depends on context.
There are little contextual areas where people have been known to "never forget" some perceived wrong.
Attempting to project this little wrong as equivalent to a much larger wrong and then chiding people who did not project that little wrong onto the larger one is intellectually dishonest.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Now, my point about the money in the paragraph above. How many rangers do you know that would have continued their subscriptions had they not been led on by a Revamp promise that came with documentation? How many would have forked over the cash during the time that the NGE was being developed had they known their time and money invested in the game would amount to nada because their very profession (the core reason for their playing that character) was deleted. No options - just gone. The money paid in subscriptions being used to fund development of the very thing that would rob them their hobbies.
I still to this day have yet to hear one person justify that bait and switch. And this time, there is proof. Correspondence and documents of the Ranger revamp and the oh soo permanent proof of NGE being without Rangers.
So get those "200,000+ disgruntled veterans" together and file a class action. Go on, prove to us all the might of the SWG vet. Oh, yeah, that's right. You really have none of this "power" you guys always claim to have.In other news, Big Bird discovered to be, in fact, a man in a giant costume. Disgruntled SWG vets enraged and threaten to boycott.
In my eyes this isn't about who has power to do what. It's not a pissing contest. It's also not about getting a "video game" back. It's about consumers having a right to accurate information about a service BEFORE they pay for it, not THE DAY AFTER they pay for it. Caps, for clarity btw, not shoutingDoes anyone really think it's o.k. to tell people the truth about a service only after you receive the money? Does anyone really think it's o.k. to knowlingly withhold this information about the service while it's being marketted? Does anyone really want online service providers to think they can do this?
That being said, I think Hollywood has kind of ruined the true logistics of the class action lawsuit. Its not a freebie. The lawyers representing such causes still in fact charge fees and those fees can be quite large. Now since you have taken such a personal interest in this - I will tell you what. Front up the retainer money and maybe we can get this thing moving along. While you are at it, land us Erin Brockovich so we can oogle during the sessions.
You know, i've heard the "Never Forget" phrase applied to a few things in my lifetime. The holocaust... 9/11... basically some of the biggest tragedies in human history.
and now we're applying it to the SWG NGE...
Seriously? That's not at all a bit too far?
All depends on context.
There are little contextual areas where people have been known to "never forget" some perceived wrong.
Attempting to project this little wrong as equivalent to a much larger wrong and then chiding people who did not project that little wrong onto the larger one is intellectually dishonest.
I agree, this approach feels very manipulative, but again that's no surprise. I certainly don't compare the magnitude of the NGE bait and switch to horrifying accounts of human tragedy. Again, see what I did for my day job if you like.It is possible, however, to be aware of larger issues, and involved in addressing them in one's day job, and at the same time, address smaller issues in one's free time that still have an impact on consumer rights.
I personally believe that there WILL be more cases of MMOs and other virtual world sims being taken to court when RMT / company run items stores become more common.
It is one thing to say a game is solely a "service" that a customer is paying for with their monthly fee. But, once a company starts selling virtual (in game) property for real money, a certain set of property rights will attach to the consumer. If say, $OE sells you a BFG3000 from their SWG store, and the next day, the BFG3000 doesn't work, or doesn't work as advertised because of an arbitrary game change, then $OE COULD be successfully sued, because the property you paid real money for was damaged. By putting a price tag on virtual property, you are making it, in effect, real property.
This is what $med and the azzclown circus do not see coming.
You know, i've heard the "Never Forget" phrase applied to a few things in my lifetime. The holocaust... 9/11... basically some of the biggest tragedies in human history.
and now we're applying it to the SWG NGE...
Seriously? That's not at all a bit too far?
EDIT: i apologize ahead of time if anyone takes offense to the references. I just believe "never forgetting" something should be reserved for truly important events in the course of one's/a peoples life/lives.
Wow. Ripped that one out of all of that did you?Never forgetting what a company has wronged you is important. If not, hey give me about $20,000 and I promise in return I will sell you some virtual property. Telling people about it so that they don't get bitten by the same offer is a moral obligation to me.
And they are right - pulling it out of the sentence and then relating it to human suffering when it was in the context of the pursuit of happiness as a consumer is a bit low. Unless it is your moral obligation to take words and attach them to other arguments that will always trump a conversation just in an effort to win said argument. If that is the case, why don't you pull some religion into this as well - really muddle up this thread about civil lawsuits and the rights of a consumer.
So does that mean if we play a full loot PVP game and I have an item taken from me I can charge that person with theft since it has a "certain set of property rights"? Can I sue the company for allowing it to happen?
Here's another fun point. IF a person was to sue and win against said company for there 1's and 0's not working properly and attach real value to the items, then the government can attach taxes and other forms of regulation on online games and items since they hold real world value.
Yes, 'm sure companies would just die to make a game that had those kinds of consequences attached to it.
"If we don't attack them, they will attack us first. So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike"
I wonder what would happen if everyone driving a BMW randomly found themselves driving a Kia.
I don't mind the reality check. However, I think you've been misinformed. The "Game Experience May Change During Online Play" is a disclaimer indicating that the service provider is not liable for the behaviour of other gamers in an online envirnoment. So far, I'm still in touch with reality.Also, if you read SWGs EULA, and understand it, which I do, there are statements that inform the consumer that portions of the EULA contradict state consumer protection laws, and are therefore not legally enforceable.
Also, marketting a service they were planning to delete, and withholding that information from the public until after money was received has lead to fraud allegations. The Criminal Code certainly supercedes any EULA in my jurisdiction.
So, it may just be you who have been misled to the point that you honestly believe you have no rights, and can therefore be exploited by unethical coporations. See the post above for an indication that this era of consumer ignorance and coporporate exploitation is coming to an end.
I hope that's all helpful. I certainly found all of this information very enlightening as I began to question what SOE supporters have been saying, and actually do some research.
You have to understand, some people have an awful lot to lose by being honest with you at this point, but I'm not one of them, thankfully.
Your leap from "Game Experience May Change During Online Play" to what you describe is beyond logic. I'm sorry. To me, game experience may change means game may change. Now where does it lead me to believe that asshats will change my game experience. Simply over reaching on your part.
I'm not here to defend SoE. Don't get me wrong. I finished unlocking my full template the day the NGE was announced. No one can be more disasppointed, trust me.
And about the Wookie Expansion thing, you are crying fraud? Sure funny I got an immediate refund for buying the expansion and the funny part is, they never deleted it off of my account. They simply gave me back my money. I don't see how you can claim fraud there.
There is a huge difference between UNETHICAL and ILLEGAL business practices. A lot of things all of these companies do is UNETHICAL. Not much, if any, is illegal. Case in point, search around the internet for Funcom's upcoming $15 a month MMORPG called AoC's EULA agreement. #5 on a very long list of items in their EULA is INGAME advertising. You got that right, people paying $15 a month to play AoC may also see ads INSIDE their game. To me, that is as UNETHIC as it gets except they take it even further saying EIDOS (the publisher for the game) has the right to sell your account id, name, address, phone number, etc to the advertisers of Age of Conan.
To me, that is far worse than anything SoE has ever done in regards to SWG. Yet, the only way to challenge this large companies is if you have a wallet willing to play $1,000,000 to an attorney for a retainer to challenge them.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Now see, Burntvet. Now you're getting close. If SWG had legal RMT back during pre-cu/cu, then the vets may have had something tangible to sue about. Unfortunately ( for the vets anyway ), Smed came up with all that later on.
You know, i've heard the "Never Forget" phrase applied to a few things in my lifetime. The holocaust... 9/11... basically some of the biggest tragedies in human history.
and now we're applying it to the SWG NGE...
Seriously? That's not at all a bit too far?
EDIT: i apologize ahead of time if anyone takes offense to the references. I just believe "never forgetting" something should be reserved for truly important events in the course of one's/a peoples life/lives.
Wow. Ripped that one out of all of that did you?Never forgetting what a company has wronged you is important. If not, hey give me about $20,000 and I promise in return I will sell you some virtual property. Telling people about it so that they don't get bitten by the same offer is a moral obligation to me.
And they are right - pulling it out of the sentence and then relating it to human suffering when it was in the context of the pursuit of happiness as a consumer is a bit low. Unless it is your moral obligation to take words and attach them to other arguments that will always trump a conversation just in an effort to win said argument. If that is the case, why don't you pull some religion into this as well - really muddle up this thread about civil lawsuits and the rights of a consumer.
mmm... the point i was more going for is that something you never forget should have such an impact that it's truly embedded into the psyche and has drastically impacted one or many lives. The examples i chose are simply because the phrase 'never forget' has been applied to them via mainstream media. It could very well be applied to many other personal events and/or other memorable global events.
I wholeheartedly dont disagree with the complaint at hand. I think attempting to make people 'never forget' it is a bit ridiculous, but that's just my 2cp. The downfall of SWG from grace should be remembered only to avoid making the same mistakes... not for the sake of mourning and griping w/o decisive action to remedy said condition. This isnt about muddling a concept... it's about being realistic in terms of end goals.
If the OP truly wants to make people never forget, take the matter to a medium where an official record of the matter is kept for eternity... ie. court. Chances i remember this thread and/or the SWG NGE movement 2 days from now... Nil.
You know, i've heard the "Never Forget" phrase applied to a few things in my lifetime. The holocaust... 9/11... basically some of the biggest tragedies in human history.
and now we're applying it to the SWG NGE...
Seriously? That's not at all a bit too far?
EDIT: i apologize ahead of time if anyone takes offense to the references. I just believe "never forgetting" something should be reserved for truly important events in the course of one's/a peoples life/lives.
If you can't handle hyperbole, perhaps the internet is not for you.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Haha excelent !
You just have sometimes to show people drastic losses for them to understand basic things ...
I guess if this would have happend we wouldn't talk about here all were busy sue, blame,hate, burn BMW down and declare the end of civil relationships, because a car is really something of importance lol
-----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)
You know, i've heard the "Never Forget" phrase applied to a few things in my lifetime. The holocaust... 9/11... basically some of the biggest tragedies in human history.
and now we're applying it to the SWG NGE...
Seriously? That's not at all a bit too far?
EDIT: i apologize ahead of time if anyone takes offense to the references. I just believe "never forgetting" something should be reserved for truly important events in the course of one's/a peoples life/lives.
If you can't handle hyperbole, perhaps the internet is not for you.
if for one second i thought he was being facetious, i wouldnt have posted that. Given his post history and the fact that 50% of the SWG Refugee forum index is comprised of OPs by Arc, i have no doubt he meant it 100%. He's pretty passionate about this
what should happen:
1. the game is shut down.
2.smed is fired.
3.kaz hirai apologizes for what happened and names a new lead for soe.
4.lucas arts apologizes. jim ward is already gone, good start. (i would say that george lucas apologizes but i believe him already lost in his delusions.....nuttier than a monkey turd)
5. lucas arts gets down on it's collective knees and begs koster to make a new star wars mmo. the game would be developed at raph's new company metaplace. raph would have a huge budget (60 million or so)
to hire a dream team of talent to create the game and to get it out the door in a reasonable timeframe (5 years). meetings with lucas would include raph,devs,george lucas and no corporate bean counters. use of the terms "roi" or "target audience" would be met with punishment involving lube and a plastic lightsaber.
while in development to further apologize kaz would release the pre-cu server code to raph who would be paid by lucas arts to put up free servers for the fans.
6.soe fanbots would be I.P. banned from these servers.....
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.
Was it wrong they changed the content the day after you resubbed.. Yes, but does, in all honestly, everyone fall into this category. If anything, they should refund the money from that month where people resubbed and couldn't change their sub because of time. Wait, didn't someone say they did this?
When it comes down it it.. it was a game. At most you lost a little bit of your free time. That's really it. They didn't "steal" anything from you, at most more than 15 bucks. What they did was wrong yes, but get over yourself. No one really cares anymore except the SWG "vets" who won't let something die which died a long long time ago.
Let it go, and give up. Your incessant whining will do nothing. It's intellectual masturbation.
So does that mean if we play a full loot PVP game and I have an item taken from me I can charge that person with theft since it has a "certain set of property rights"? Can I sue the company for allowing it to happen?
Here's another fun point. IF a person was to sue and win against said company for there 1's and 0's not working properly and attach real value to the items, then the government can attach taxes and other forms of regulation on online games and items since they hold real world value.
Yes, 'm sure companies would just die to make a game that had those kinds of consequences attached to it.
What you fail to realize, and that is perhaps not your fault, is that by doing COMPANY AUTHORIZED RMT for items, the COMPANY is assigning a dollar value to a virtual item. In the eyes of the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) this gives the buyer of the item certain rights. And, that "item" need not be a physical thing, it could be an idea, usage rights, anything. Now, the difference when it is the COMPANY selling virtual items, it is not the player saying "that item is worth $X" it is the COMPANY saying it is, because that is the price they put on it.
Now, when the COMPANY turns around and makes a game change, that renders an item the COMPANY sold to a player useless/broken/not doing what was implied when sold, they COMPANY is responsible and the player would be within his/her rights to sue, because the COMPANY sold them an item and turned around and made it useless, the loss of use of which ALREADY has a monetary value assigned to it. And the COMPANY can not have it both ways: it can not say "Yes, it is a real item we can sell for $X" and later "No, it is only a bunch of copyrighted bits and the player has no rights". That simple enough for you?
When a company puts a price tag on a virtual item and sells it, it becomes "real property" in the eyes of the law. Period. Yes, the various governments will likely get around to taxing transactions involving "virtual property". That deal where the one person spent $250,000 for a virtual island (in Secondlife I think?) got a lot of people's attention, including the various tax collection authorities who didn't get anything. Hasn't happened yet, because like everything else, the Law needs time to catch up.
As for the looting in PvP, that would fall under "assumed risk". So long as the player understood that PvP was possible, and that it was possible to loot in PvP and went to PvP anyway, the player is the one assuming the risk, so long as there is no server side system error.
And no, chances aren't someone would sue first, the company involved would likely settle and do an NDA to prevent anyone else for exercising their rights. They'd probably sue last.
Careful what you wish for here. Successful legal action against SOE would have a negative ripple effect through the other MMoG makers, and could kill this form of entertainment.
Everyone knows, even though some will not admit it, that NGE was a major mistake, the subscription numbers prove that. If SOE and LA would just swallow a little pride and give us a couple of pre-CU server with Jump to Light Speed, I would be more than happy.
Give us the option to choose which version we want to play and everyone can be happy.
*pictures the SOE legal team with all 25 lawyers in grey suits standing on one side of the courtroom and some nerd with a cheap lawyer on the other side and the inevitable laughter from the judge when he hears the prosecutions case*
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
the fanbois and fanbots can smell the death of their nge in the air.
after calling a law office today and talking to someone he looked over everything i told him and even checked out the main $OE boards. yes what they are doing is highly illegal and yes the game should be in a pre-cu state right now. $OE still has empire divided boxes for sale that is the game they made and even if they don't like pre-cu the law says they must maintain it.
i am calling back tomorrow but this case sounds like a winner for us vets.
All we need to do is get one sharky class action lawfirm hooked, and away we go. We won't get crap in damages (these firms take it all) but we can turn out the lights for the NGE.
Which is my goal, as I've stated openly: The end of the NGE.
You know, i've heard the "Never Forget" phrase applied to a few things in my lifetime. The holocaust... 9/11... basically some of the biggest tragedies in human history.
and now we're applying it to the SWG NGE...
Seriously? That's not at all a bit too far?
EDIT: i apologize ahead of time if anyone takes offense to the references. I just believe "never forgetting" something should be reserved for truly important events in the course of one's/a peoples life/lives.
If you can't handle hyperbole, perhaps the internet is not for you.
if for one second i thought he was being facetious, i wouldnt have posted that. Given his post history and the fact that 50% of the SWG Refugee forum index is comprised of OPs by Arc, i have no doubt he meant it 100%. He's pretty passionate about this
It's admirable in a way, despite the fact i disagree with his approach.
Not sure how that was actually even an answer to my statement. Hyperbole doesn't need to imply facetiousness. It still seems you have difficulty with the passion of others, and their free expression thereof. If so, the internet might not be for you.
fishermage.blogspot.com
SOE to this day refuses to do this. Thus, they invite being sued. True, it'd be better for all of us if the courts DIDNT have to get involved in the industry. But this is inevitable so long as irresponsible, unethical operators like SOE refuse to exercise restraint and common sense.
When the MMO industry becomes regulated like all others, blame SOE.
25 incompetents employed by SOE to attempt to match the productivity of 1 person who knows what they are doing? Sounds like business as usual in Austin and San Diego.
And, yes, SOE would have to overpay for lawyers to represent them. Who would be working strictly for the billable hours they can milk. No lawyer would EVER defend SOE on merit...
The laughter will come from the jury when Nancy McIntyre's interview statements are read to them.
SOE to this day refuses to do this. Thus, they invite being sued. True, it'd be better for all of us if the courts DIDNT have to get involved in the industry. But this is inevitable so long as irresponsible, unethical operators like SOE refuse to exercise restraint and common sense.
When the MMO industry becomes regulated like all others, blame SOE.
if it wasn't $OE it would have been ea or blizzard or fc.this isn't just about mmo makers this is about gaming as a whole. for a long time now we have been letting the makers step all over us and we smile and take it. we have fanbois who blindly follow the makers around claiming whatever game is good.
we have microsoft coming out with a system that fails 95% of the time and up's the price of games to $60 that is illegal.
we have ea coming out with buggy faulty titles and ea is still doing it.
we have $OE do i need to say any more?
you see we players should have rights and yet we don't. we have $OE killing a game that everyone liked to go after the 13 year old pvp warcraft kiddie. i believe we have rights i believe that we are the ones running the show. and i believe $OE can and must bring back the game that so many of us loved.