fer gads sakes man, all the swg stuff was on a test server, and i remember hearing about it before it went live the cu didnt just magically appear one day when i woke up. Listen to you guys contradict myself makes me sick, example is in this thread, IE. Soe buys games and runs em on a skeletal crew, sooooo....they tried to change a game that was dieing anyways to make it better and everyone flips cause there trying to do something,
All they did was try to change a game that was dying anyways to make it better, you say. An interesting way to think of what SOE did in SWG. Here's what you seem to be missing. I don't have time for a complete list so a summary will have to do:
They advertised revamps for squad leaders and rangers, and new features for Creature Handlers. People paid for all that was advertised in a new expansion. Immediately after payment was received for things promised in two dev chats, all of the professions mentioned were deleted. People felt badly misled. Customers discussed a class action lawsuit and were given a refund for the expansion. However, SOE, as far as I know, kept all of the subscription money people paid to enjoy the features that SOE deleted.
Many people, as a result, feel that a gross injustice was done, and that it hasn't been duly compensated to this day.
That's one issue. Another is what SOE did the virtual community that was SWG. They encouraged people to build their characters, make friends, get married, build cities and communities, unlock the mystery of the jedi etc. People of course did all of this. Then on one day, all of this was nuked by something called the NGE. Most of the professions people mastered were were simply deleted. The quests they had been working on for years (yes years worth of actual quests) were removed from the game. All of this quest progress was negated. Those that unlocked the mystery of the jedi, found that it was all for nothing. Most of their force powers were also deleted, and jedi became a starting profession. Many of the new items in the new expansion were rendered useless. Combat attributes that they modified ceased to exist. Again, simply removed from the game. Buy the new expansion to tame new creatures they were told. Then creature handler was deleted. The announcement for all the deletions came just 2 days after the relase of the expansion with all the new creatures to tame.
If that's not enough information for you. LEC and SOE told everyone they were making the game better. In addition to the problem of misleading marketting, and all of the losses I've mentioned, the NGE rendered chat and movement systems both broken. Combat abilities simply didn't fire, and heals healed enemies.
If that's still not enough for you, we could talk about how people were invited to provide feedback on these changes on the forums. However, when they did, their feedback was moved, locked or deleted and they were banned from posting.
I could go on, but if anyone doesn't get the picture yet, I expect they simply don't want to.
Yea don't undestand people that cant grasp what you just said...
And SOE's customer service is a freakin joke lol. They yell at customers for disagreeing with how their games are panning out. Its just horrible, im even surprised at the amount of people still playing their games.
I also had first hand experience with credits just going poof same with my friend. SOE did nothing and said we must have spent them. Yet we log off one day from mission gridning and then next day we log on and wow 5m credits gone.
Now that I have a bit more time, I can also comment on the claim that all this "SWG stuff" was put on a test server. The NGE was announced on Nov. 3 (I believe). It went live on Nov. 15. That's 12 days on test. During that time people pointed out all of the broken features and incredible losses they were going to experience. Even one SOE staff person attempted to speak out about the NGE fiasco. Her post was deleted within moments and she was never heard from again. We assume she was terminated, fired I mean. I think she now works on Lotr, and I'm glad for her.
As for how this all related to Potbs. Well I remember the day I heard that FL was going to partner with SOE. The NGE fallout was still on full boil. People warned them about associating with SOE in light of their practices, but apparently FL didn't listen. More's the pity.
Drove 120km today to buy this game today and I was excited to try to play this game because when I tried Pirates of Caribbean Online from Disney was very fun and I noticed that this game also a sea battle game which I think I could have something different from WOW clone games.
When I start installing the game, I found one thing makes me disspointed immediately and I felt being threw into the north pole in such fine weather. What makes me lose my excitement? I noticed 3 letters SOE. Gosh, if I knew this game is from SOE then I could save my time to drive 120km to buy this game.
What the heck, I am sick of playing F2P atm so I tell myself, ok, one more try, anyway, I have one month to play, just tell myself I bought a single game.
Why I don't like SOE? Simple enough. Too many commercial and everything they are doing just like F2P, they want to rip off players. The website or launch screen just a boo. Anyway, I am not anger, I am going to give a try at this game or I will play Pirates of Caribbean Online later.
omg...another one of these posts...if you do a forum search there are already several threads about the same topic. This is just going to turn into another flame fest like all the others.
I just wanted a sum up of why this company is hated so much. The other threads kind of drop things about it, but don't really explain where the hate if coming from directly.
Obviously this company was hate pre-PoTBS and I'm tryin to find out why.
It's probably the longest story ever written. Seriously. Like, 1000-page epic. It goes back around 10 years I think and has been a non-stop roller coaster ride since then. Suffice it to say, they've done plenty to step on and piss off everyone who has ever dared to give them money over the course of recent history, save those few poor souls who still play their MMOs.
exactly.
those that say "oh all you people hate soe because of swg, get over it" are people that have no idea what they're talking about. look at all the games on the station pass, each one probably has a laundry list of things which all go back to soe having zero respect for the players as shown by lies as recent as smed's last lil interview.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
omg...another one of these posts...if you do a forum search there are already several threads about the same topic. This is just going to turn into another flame fest like all the others.
I just wanted a sum up of why this company is hated so much. The other threads kind of drop things about it, but don't really explain where the hate if coming from directly.
Obviously this company was hate pre-PoTBS and I'm tryin to find out why.
Here is the short version.
SOE historically and ritually admits to not caring one iota about its players. They do really bad things, and make really poor choices. To top that off, when called out on said bad things and choices...they tend to enjoy telling everyone that they are either stupid, or unneeded. Either one is pretty awful a thing to say to ones support beam.
Oh, and they also like to buy failing IP's and then ignore them completely...forcing them to survive on skeleton crews who do little more than add a tweak here and there whilst drawing in profit over the fact they have no one to pay for its upkeep.
That statement is true i guess, but only if you are one of those people who thinks the world would be better off if The Matrix Online and Vanguard would have just died vise going on the Station Access. Why should it matter that people are actually still playing those games and like them, reguardless of how much updating they get. Better to say screw them and just shut the games down.
I guess the question comes down to, Is it better to force a game to survive on a skeleton crew or just shut down. My view is if people want to play it then it is worth keeping alive.
it goes back to a question of quality then.
i'm sure there are people that still just watch a black and white television and only have those channels available to them via bunny ears antenna.
does it make them wrong? maybe, maybe not.
will other people actually understand why? (if we know these people have the money to easily afford a new TV and cable/satellite and they consciously choose to stick with what they have cuz they like it.)
i don't think i would understand why they do it.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
As someone who treats SOE as just a service provider and takes or leaves their service here is my version of "events". Probably similar to the other ones but maybe with more flair and possibly shorter.. lol okay flaterring myself over now..
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away a group of developers from lucas arts and Soe made a decision to revamp a system actualy abut 6 months after release but it took them 2 years to actualy do the revamp and then they released it. Peole got mad at them because they didn't like "change" and left. Most people to be honest have forgotten about it or taken it in perspective and gone on with their lives. Others however with more vindictive personalities and unable to let go of the past and who have not learned the art of "forgivness" have decided to continue on a 3 year long vendetta towards this faceless corporation in an effort to try to "hurt them back". I would honestly ignore it. All the qualities they exhibit are not positive or good human traits and that should go a long way to helping you realize that this hatred is at this point well baseless. The past is the past WAAAY past and they have chosen to not move on. I think part of the issue is also the fact that the cause of their hatred and to their utter total disgust the object of their vendetta still is alive and kicking. Albeit not as popular as it was when released however they fail to acknowledge things like the fact that the customers were leaving anyhow so its likely that no matter what sony did with the release of WoW the client base would not be much larger then it is now as people moved on to newer games in bright new shiny boxes. The hate has a reason however it is out of proportion at this point in time and should not exist and dominate certain message boards and permeat every thread as it at times does. Ignore it as trying to understand it will leave you confused and possibly with far less brain cells as you are unable to solve this strange phenomenon with any rational explanation or solutions because at this point its an irrational hate based on pure emotion and nothing more.
a long time before swg was put into retail, people had issues with the way SOE treated it's customers.
some people don't understand that swg has very vocal supporters who miss one of the very few non-restrictive class/level games that was out. those people seem to not understand that it's NOT just swg, they just seem to notice the swg complainers because it's cool to bash on them.
and everyone wants to be the cool internet loser.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
fer gads sakes man, all the swg stuff was on a test server, and i remember hearing about it before it went live the cu didnt just magically appear one day when i woke up. Listen to you guys contradict myself makes me sick, example is in this thread, IE. Soe buys games and runs em on a skeletal crew, sooooo....they tried to change a game that was dieing anyways to make it better and everyone flips cause there trying to do something,
guess you missed the post a couple above yours about soe not being able to actually deliver on the "hey we're publishing potbs", eh?
or, you were never around when SOE reps, essentially have both lied to their players and told their players "we don't care what you say, we don't need you, not now, not ever"?
must be nice to just ignore facts and just make up things to complain about, eh boogs? soe has an incredibly garbage name in MMOs for MANY reasons spread out over MANY games.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
The troubles with $OE started way before swg. I played EQ on a pvp server dark versus light for 2 years till $OE finally bought out the game. One day I logged on to find out half my guild was now my enemy and $OE had changed the server to team pvp without any notice or feedback . the server went from being the third highest population to the lowest in one month as did the other pvp server that was dark versus light I left EQ soon after and started playing DAOC. I have never played another sony game and soon as they took over part of POTBS I stopped beta testing it and decided i would not play it even though I had been waiting to play at release.
fer gads sakes man, all the swg stuff was on a test server, and i remember hearing about it before it went live the cu didnt just magically appear one day when i woke up. Listen to you guys contradict myself makes me sick, example is in this thread, IE. Soe buys games and runs em on a skeletal crew, sooooo....they tried to change a game that was dieing anyways to make it better and everyone flips cause there trying to do something,
guess you missed the post a couple above yours about soe not being able to actually deliver on the "hey we're publishing potbs", eh?
or, you were never around when SOE reps, essentially have both lied to their players and told their players "we don't care what you say, we don't need you, not now, not ever"?
must be nice to just ignore facts and just make up things to complain about, eh boogs? soe has an incredibly garbage name in MMOs for MANY reasons spread out over MANY games.
Yeah I remember that, wasn't it Julio Torres doing damage control after the NGE went live? I think he just cracked at the keyboard one day and type to the complaining VETs bitching at him "If you really don't like the NGE that much you should quit and leave these forums, good luck". So guess what happened, yup they quit and SOE lost even more subs. Then ofcourse there's the infamous fanfest footage when Julio was attempting to blow some more smoke up backsides, but by now SOE had managed to anger most of the NGE fanbois,
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
WoW well I guess SOE Can never do anything right heck they even managed to get a lot of people using their mind control rays to after they felt burned over eq open up their wallet against their own free will to pay for swg and expansions for two years then
I stand corrected lol
Yes and every "NGE fanboi" hates the game which is why they are busy not saying much and playing it except for a few who would complain about anything even if SOE sent them a gold bar in the mail they would probably complain that it was heavy or something
Anyhow its entertaining to read .. an irrational hate based on making the same mistake twice by the looks of it and of course blaming the company for it.
Most people just move on. The vocal minority does not a case make.
Frankly, I think SOE does their best. Even with SWG, pre-NGE people where complaining, that's the reason why NGE even existed. I played for a month or two around retail and haven't played it since NGE began, I didn't like the game.
SOE did make mistakes, I'm sure they acknowledge that. I was part of the Planetside Community, and well, it seemed we where getting sidelined for their bigger titles such as EQII and SWG. It's even more ironic to think that they where putting the effort into updates for one of the aforementioned games that the playerbase wouldn't like. In large part, one of the reasons SOE gets a lot of flak is the same reason why Blizzard gets a lot of complaints. They are the biggest targets.
A person pays for SWG and a one year subscription, cost is about $150 more or less. Also add in time investment.
Then one day during that year, SOE/LA make a drastic change to the game, which the customer does not like, and the customer cannot get a refund for the unused months.
Yes people accept the burn and move on.
But yet there are those that take the burn and become proactive in informing others.
But it is just a game...
Why let's take the car example then. Lease a car, take the car back in because it doesn't run right, only to get another car back you didn't want.
Oh wait, cars are much more expensive than just a game. True, but is $100 something people can just give away and not be bothered? Doesn't apply to everyone. Also that doesn't take in the time investment. And there is the matter of principles.
And one last item, is there anyone who is willing to admit that they will tell others that purchasing a one year subscription with SOE related games is a good deal?
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
Okay...first off...whoever said "whats so great about SWG pre-nge/pre-cu?"
Well, the skill system. The skill system was awesome. You could change your skills any time and you could grind up whatever profession tree you wanted with complete odds and ends of the 32 professions. Whatever you wanted! You could be a doctor and heal/buff people and make BANK or you could go up just enough in medic (before doctor) to heal yourself with your Bounty Hunter skills. It was awesome and the combinations were almost limitless. I have yet to see an MMORPG be as free as that and it's a damn shame because i think that was one of the prized elements of SWG. And its not like grinding up the skill trees were easy...it'd take a good bit of time and people naturally change their minds all the time so it was great!
The best thing about it though was that REGARDLESS OF LEVEL YOU COULD PLAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS! No matter what, your friends who may have been lower or higher level you would still benefit from being in a group with them and would get some type of xp. You could always join up with your friends and do whatever you wanted together. I twas a awesome. No worries about who has outleveled who because most of the time depending on what skills you had (ie. a heal or a stun, etc) you coudl still be beneficial and have a good time. It was very socially inclined.
Second...combat. The combat was honestly better the first time around. You could queue up multiple attacks like in Knights of The Old Republic and the combinatinos you could use to defeat your enemy were limitless and actually took considerable intellect and planning if you wanted to succeed. It was pretty fast paced too to be honest especially in the higher skill trees because timing for attacks decreased which meant you atttacked a lot faster. It was almost like hitting a button and executing the attack each time you hit the button, almost like real time except more RPG based...IT WAS GREAT!
Third....population. After everyone felt stabbed in the back (go figure::: most of SWG's fans were loyal to SWG and most including me had invest about 3-4 years of TIME into that game as well as 50+48x14.99 dollars. But the most valuable aspect really lost in the equation is TIME. Sure 800 bux is a lot to have lost, but the amounts of time gathering valuable items, buying houses, making cities, friends, guilds, w/e was practically rendered valueless because) EVERYONE LEFT! There was nothing anybody could do to stop the devs and when the sh** hit the fan...everyone left.
Most people were able to cope with the CU, but the NGE is truly unforgivable. Click combat? 9 professions INCLUDING JEDI??!! They lost their minds.
SWG and the NGE SOE implemented is the greatest catastrophe in MMORPG history and that's a fact!
Ill tell you the one thing Im waiting for, not out of malice or hatred, but out of morbid curiosity to see it happen.
Im waiting for Smedley to make SOE crash and burn, and then jump ship with all his earnings. Or else to run it into the ground and have it go bankrupt..
I dont think Ill ever go back to another SOE game. Ever...
Here is but a small list of lies SOE told the players in Star Wars Galaxies to get them to keep paying....
Folks tend to have short memories and some werent around for all the lies. So here's a list of lies SOE has told us. Also please consider sticking this
1. SWG wont launch until its ready - SOE repeatedly told us this game wont launch until its ready to go. This early on was to include space, JTL wasnt ever supposed to be an expansion. Lets also not forget key components not included at launch like player cities, vehicles, and jedi. As a beta player, I still remember the notice in beta forum that the game was going gold in 2 weeks. Everyone agreed it was a huge mistake but SOE ignored us.
2. Jedi - We all know that jedi was NEVER possible at launch. Yet SOE made post after post dangling that carrot and offering encouragement. They told us to get married, explore every world, build a home, etc. It made some think that jedi was some random amazing quest to be discovered. Soon though we learned the truth when SOE patched in several .tre files with obvious jedi implications 5 months after launch. Then the day after a patch several unlocked all at once.
3. Rebel Theme Park - Sorta ties into # 1 as it wasnt ready either. However SOE repeatedly lied about the theme park. If you recall, it was broken after Han's quests. Han tells us to seek out Lt. Lance on Dantooine, but there isnt any Lt. Lance anywhere. SOE tells us its working as intended despite nobody having found Lt. Lance after months and month of looking (my guild personally had several major expedition searches done over many weekends looking for him). Suddenly we learn the truth after a patch...Han now tells us to seek out Ackbar on Dantooine and the once empty abandoned rebel base now has several rebel nps in there. My guild who had followed the game for years in development was soooo pissed off they immediately disbanded and quit.
4. two part lie -
A. The Combat upgrade (curb) was top priority - Remember how SOE told us over and over again that the CURB was its number 1 focus. It would be first to get completed over the JTL expansion.
B. There were two separate teams working on JTL and the CURB.
We later learn both are lies. JTL gets pushed over the combat fixes AND we find out the CURB team has been merged with the JTL team. Whats really insulting is SOE goes on a PR campaign and tells the public that we players demanded JTL first. Another fat lie as every poll posted strongly stated we wanted the CURB first.
5. Combat Revamp - whatever you want to call it, this was meant as a reward for the vets who stayed around and played a broken game. Talk about a slap in the face when SOE announces the CU...a system as the devs told me at Celebration 3 was meant to "have a more broad appeal". This was SOE's 1st attempt at screwing over its current community for the wow crowd. All the promised fixes never happened. The armorsmith rep quit and was banned after he started a massive protest over changes they never asked for. In fact the CU brings in many more bugs than it fixes and never balanced anything.
6. The CU is here to stay - Smedley comes and makes his first post on swg forums asking for calm and patience. He states that in 6 months the cu will be working as intended so give them time to make things right. FAT LIE...during that time the NGE is either in design stages or already being worked on.
7. FRS - CU disables the end-game for jedi, our force ranking system. SOE tells us its being worked on. Later they state its al most done and just awaits final approval from LA. Of course we learn there wont ever be a FRS system and the nerfs we've been getting oover the past 6 months were done on purpose to weaken jedi into a regular class. For me personally, this is one of the more disgusting lies as it was obviously done to keep us jedi players paying.
8. Jabba Palace disappears - The last patch before the NGE garbage makes Jabba's palace completely disappear. SOE acts surprised and promises a fix is coming..another fat lie as we learn why after the nge hits. Jabba's palace was taken out to implement th new nge quests.
9. village breaks - Same patch breaks the village and the old man stops visiting people. SOE again lies to cover its tracks and tells us its being looked at. Of course it was just a cover for the nge.
10. Expansion - SOE presells an expansion with several promised features. One desired item is a creature handler necklace that will allow for the taming of higher lvl pets. Im not sure if that necklace was ever found but it didnt matter because 1 stinkin day after the nge launched Torres of LA announces the revamp of the game and removal of over 24 professions.
11. starter kit - SOE tells us the starter kit is an eroneous listing and will be removed. They deny the rumors of impending changes.
12. SOE tells us fixes will be faster. SOE says the whole reason behind the nge was to make balancing the game easier and would allow for faster publish fixes. In fact, it has slowed the game down to a crawl as publishes now seem to come every 4 months as opposed to almost monthly before the nge.
13. smuggler revamp - this one could have its own page on broken promises and lies.
14. Capitol ships - a dev at a fanfest shows the players capitol ships he has been working on. Later on SOE tells (months and months later) that it was just a dev fooling around with his laptop and this was never being considered. Of course SOE could have tol the players this months earlier rather than ignore the posts asking for more information. To flyboys, the capitol ship dream was their FRS system...ie end-game content they so very much wanted. It didnt hurt SOE to once again lie a little and let people keep paying while they waited for features that would never ever happen.
15. profession revamps - ranger comes to my mind foremost because my alt was a master ranger for years. It was painful to see rangers slowly dwindling in numbers as the profession remained broken forever. I still recall one of the camo kits (i think it was for Lok) required a type of meat to contruct, only problem was that meat didnt even exist ! And the final tease, SOE says ranger is the next revamp coming in the next publish...oops the next publish turned out to be the NGE.
Then there were the professions that got sorely needed revamps weeks before the nge hit. Why did SOE even bother to revamp squad leader if they were going to turn around and remove the profession entirely a few weeks later ? Maybe it was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.
16. Broken quests - How many times did SOE tell us a fix was in the works and it either never came or it took a year to do. And even when they finally did fix something like the Hermit quests, they turn right around and re-break them weeks later. My personal pet peeve for broken quests was the ones at the gungan sacred place. It pissed me off that not only were the quests incomplete, one of the npc's chat bubble was blank ! How tough would it have been to code in some simple words ? These quests were broken in beta, remained busted through launch right up to the nge.
The NGE broke several old quests as well. When I tried the 21 day free trial I started the krayt skull quests, some of my favorites with a great storyline. I got to the last part where I needed to talk to Darklighter only to my surprise he has no chat option. The NGE is 1 year old and Im assuming this quest remains broken, pathetic.
17. 6 month promises - Smedley has repeatedly made the 6 month promise for fixes. His very 1st post following the CU debacle asked the players to give SOE 6 months to get things fully working. He then makes the same promise after the NGE launches, needing 6 more months. Ironically, the post after nge is almost identical to the cu one (asking for time to fix things) and yet somehow the gullible desperate players buy into it AGAIN. Later SOE promises major revamps to each profession each coming within a month or two o each other. Later after MONTHS of no publishes and silence (the swg forums were literally rioting), SOE announces yet ANOTHER series of profession revamps. Typically, the pathetic player base thanks SOE devs in posts for answering their concerns. A year into the NGE, it remains broken, unfinished, with no end in site.
18. Item Conversion - Recall that the players were very concerned over losing their gear with the coming CU. We were repeatedly told that everything would convert properly. If you had an exceptional weapon with amazing stats, it would convert to an equal type of weapon for the CU. They were full of crap though and not only did our exceptional weapons and armor NOT convert properly, in many cases we now couldnt even equip them anymore !!!
CA's and AA's didnt convert because SOE took out several stats like dizzy, knockdown, the poison and disease resists, etc. Players that spent years and millions of credits to collect were overnight ruined. The final insult in classic SOE fashion, SOE adds in melee def and ranged def clothing that tailors can craft. They didnt even bother to take into account the thousands of players who spent their credits by the millions to get these things as ca/aa drops. A +12 melee def tape would possibly sell for 15-20 million, 1 day after the cu and a player now can buy a shirt with +17 melee AND ranged defense !!! So much for really being concerned with ca/aa conversions.
RIS Armor - Not only did the conversion for this armor become crap, it also got very common. I and some friends of mine were the few around who had even had any ris armor. Before the revamps, RIS armor was something one could try and get as a trophy to their hard work and dedication. Plus it took real skill to get. You had to know where the components dropped. You had to know spawn rates. You had to know where to find the giant dune kimos. You had to find addon components like shards to boost the completed armor's stats. In essence, it was a lot of hard work for players that yet again was totally tossed out the door. My ris helmet once had offers of 15 million credits, suddenly its for sale on vendors for 15k bleh.
BE Tissues - nge takes out bio-engineers and their tissues that make chef foods better. Now something that was once extremely common is the rarest most sought after item by crafters. And since food is a consumable, eventually there will be no more bio tissues around.
The theme here of course is SOE didnt give a damn about how their revamps would hurt or help their CURRENT community. I seriously doubt based on the evidence that they even looked at the changes, much less tried to ensure the conversion wouldnt screw us.
19. pearl drops - sometime into the cu pearl drops got really messed up. At first, over a weekend flawless and premium pearls are dropping like crazy and not just off krayts. Soon SOE hotpatches a "fix" in to correct whatever they were trying to fix before and the pearls stop dropping. Now premiums and flawless dont drop anymore. SOE responds to player concerns by telling them its working as intended. Later they admit there "might" be a problem but there were other things more important to fix. SOE lies and promises its being looked into.
According to my source, the pearl drops were broken or gated on purpose. This was done to remove the elite power items so jedi could be better balanced for the nge. I hear sometime after the nge the premium pearls were added back in but flawless never came back.
20. Gating content - According to a source who wrote a letter to CBS newsbag, SOE purposely gates its content to finish it. In other words, SOE breaks something to hide the fact that it remains unfinished. Why would SOE do this ? Well according to this person, it was done to basically use player subscription fees to pay for the finished development of that content. This source reported that this was done repeatedly for EQ1 expansions. Devs would then lie on the forums claiming that a fix was being worked on when in fact it was busted on purpose.
This of course is outrageous but not unexpected by SOE. To take subscriber money and finish something that the money from the expansion was already supposed to have paid for is unforgivable. Smedley responded on some other site he posts on that this was a fabrication and SOE had (allow me to quote) never once released an unfinished product to the public LOL. This same person later admits the nge is unfinished...oh and the CU is unfinished...my oh my how the lies grow.
I'm not new to the MMO scene. I'd just like to know why eveyone dislikes SOE so much.
What did they mess up in the past to give them such a bad name? Just a quick summary would be much appreciated.
aside from the lies I posted, there was another reason for the hatred of SOE.
You see mmo's have a set of cardinal rules.
1. Never change the core mechanics of an MMO.
2. Use subscription revenue to fix bugs and add content to game
Players expect that a developer will always follow these two simple rules. Its why we are willing to invest our time and money in an MMO.
If rule number 1 is broken, why would any player bother spending hundreds or thousands of hours improving their character if the developer is going to basically delete that toon tomorrow ?
If rule number 2 is broken, why would we pay a company to use our money for something else ?
What SOE did was take star wars galaxies player money and use it to develop an entirely new game in secret ! This new revamp of the game completely destroyed 3/4 of the available classes to choose from. It destroyed just about everything in the game.
SOE broke both cardinal rules so of course the players were absolutely stunned and angry over this. And yes whenever I can, I will make it a point to warn anyone else away from a SOE game. After all, they cant be trusted. I certainly wont ever bother playing any of their games again.
I didn't play SWG, and I don't have a problem with the company. I haven't had any negative experiences with them out of the two games I played for about a year each (EQOA and EQ2). EQ2 was very poorly received at launch, and they used feedback to reshape it into a pretty good game. I think a lot of people are cheating themselves by holding grudges and refusing to play SOE games.
I didn't play SWG, and I don't have a problem with the company. I haven't had any negative experiences with them out of the two games I played for about a year each (EQOA and EQ2). EQ2 was very poorly received at launch, and they used feedback to reshape it into a pretty good game. I think a lot of people are cheating themselves by holding grudges and refusing to play SOE games.
And I think you will be in for a bunch of heartache when they pull an NGE on whatever SOE game you are putting time into.
that's an interesting list. wonder if someone has a list like that, which covers all the games on the station pass?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I didn't play SWG, and I don't have a problem with the company. I haven't had any negative experiences with them out of the two games I played for about a year each (EQOA and EQ2). EQ2 was very poorly received at launch, and they used feedback to reshape it into a pretty good game. I think a lot of people are cheating themselves by holding grudges and refusing to play SOE games.
Based on SOE not cancelling subs when i cancelled them, twice now; from personal experience, i'd have to not agree with your post, from a purely financial/trust perspective; much less from a "list of games soe has dorked over" viewpoint.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Comments
I can explain the hate simply,
SWG!
All they did was try to change a game that was dying anyways to make it better, you say. An interesting way to think of what SOE did in SWG. Here's what you seem to be missing. I don't have time for a complete list so a summary will have to do:
They advertised revamps for squad leaders and rangers, and new features for Creature Handlers. People paid for all that was advertised in a new expansion. Immediately after payment was received for things promised in two dev chats, all of the professions mentioned were deleted. People felt badly misled. Customers discussed a class action lawsuit and were given a refund for the expansion. However, SOE, as far as I know, kept all of the subscription money people paid to enjoy the features that SOE deleted.
Many people, as a result, feel that a gross injustice was done, and that it hasn't been duly compensated to this day.
That's one issue. Another is what SOE did the virtual community that was SWG. They encouraged people to build their characters, make friends, get married, build cities and communities, unlock the mystery of the jedi etc. People of course did all of this. Then on one day, all of this was nuked by something called the NGE. Most of the professions people mastered were were simply deleted. The quests they had been working on for years (yes years worth of actual quests) were removed from the game. All of this quest progress was negated. Those that unlocked the mystery of the jedi, found that it was all for nothing. Most of their force powers were also deleted, and jedi became a starting profession. Many of the new items in the new expansion were rendered useless. Combat attributes that they modified ceased to exist. Again, simply removed from the game. Buy the new expansion to tame new creatures they were told. Then creature handler was deleted. The announcement for all the deletions came just 2 days after the relase of the expansion with all the new creatures to tame.
If that's not enough information for you. LEC and SOE told everyone they were making the game better. In addition to the problem of misleading marketting, and all of the losses I've mentioned, the NGE rendered chat and movement systems both broken. Combat abilities simply didn't fire, and heals healed enemies.
If that's still not enough for you, we could talk about how people were invited to provide feedback on these changes on the forums. However, when they did, their feedback was moved, locked or deleted and they were banned from posting.
I could go on, but if anyone doesn't get the picture yet, I expect they simply don't want to.
Yea don't undestand people that cant grasp what you just said...And SOE's customer service is a freakin joke lol. They yell at customers for disagreeing with how their games are panning out. Its just horrible, im even surprised at the amount of people still playing their games.
I also had first hand experience with credits just going poof same with my friend. SOE did nothing and said we must have spent them. Yet we log off one day from mission gridning and then next day we log on and wow 5m credits gone.
Now that I have a bit more time, I can also comment on the claim that all this "SWG stuff" was put on a test server. The NGE was announced on Nov. 3 (I believe). It went live on Nov. 15. That's 12 days on test. During that time people pointed out all of the broken features and incredible losses they were going to experience. Even one SOE staff person attempted to speak out about the NGE fiasco. Her post was deleted within moments and she was never heard from again. We assume she was terminated, fired I mean. I think she now works on Lotr, and I'm glad for her.As for how this all related to Potbs. Well I remember the day I heard that FL was going to partner with SOE. The NGE fallout was still on full boil. People warned them about associating with SOE in light of their practices, but apparently FL didn't listen. More's the pity.
Drove 120km today to buy this game today and I was excited to try to play this game because when I tried Pirates of Caribbean Online from Disney was very fun and I noticed that this game also a sea battle game which I think I could have something different from WOW clone games.
When I start installing the game, I found one thing makes me disspointed immediately and I felt being threw into the north pole in such fine weather. What makes me lose my excitement? I noticed 3 letters SOE. Gosh, if I knew this game is from SOE then I could save my time to drive 120km to buy this game.
What the heck, I am sick of playing F2P atm so I tell myself, ok, one more try, anyway, I have one month to play, just tell myself I bought a single game.
Why I don't like SOE? Simple enough. Too many commercial and everything they are doing just like F2P, they want to rip off players. The website or launch screen just a boo. Anyway, I am not anger, I am going to give a try at this game or I will play Pirates of Caribbean Online later.
I just wanted a sum up of why this company is hated so much. The other threads kind of drop things about it, but don't really explain where the hate if coming from directly.
Obviously this company was hate pre-PoTBS and I'm tryin to find out why.
It's probably the longest story ever written. Seriously. Like, 1000-page epic. It goes back around 10 years I think and has been a non-stop roller coaster ride since then. Suffice it to say, they've done plenty to step on and piss off everyone who has ever dared to give them money over the course of recent history, save those few poor souls who still play their MMOs.
exactly.
those that say "oh all you people hate soe because of swg, get over it" are people that have no idea what they're talking about. look at all the games on the station pass, each one probably has a laundry list of things which all go back to soe having zero respect for the players as shown by lies as recent as smed's last lil interview.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I just wanted a sum up of why this company is hated so much. The other threads kind of drop things about it, but don't really explain where the hate if coming from directly.
Obviously this company was hate pre-PoTBS and I'm tryin to find out why.
Here is the short version.
SOE historically and ritually admits to not caring one iota about its players. They do really bad things, and make really poor choices. To top that off, when called out on said bad things and choices...they tend to enjoy telling everyone that they are either stupid, or unneeded. Either one is pretty awful a thing to say to ones support beam.
Oh, and they also like to buy failing IP's and then ignore them completely...forcing them to survive on skeleton crews who do little more than add a tweak here and there whilst drawing in profit over the fact they have no one to pay for its upkeep.
That statement is true i guess, but only if you are one of those people who thinks the world would be better off if The Matrix Online and Vanguard would have just died vise going on the Station Access. Why should it matter that people are actually still playing those games and like them, reguardless of how much updating they get. Better to say screw them and just shut the games down.
I guess the question comes down to, Is it better to force a game to survive on a skeleton crew or just shut down. My view is if people want to play it then it is worth keeping alive.
it goes back to a question of quality then.
i'm sure there are people that still just watch a black and white television and only have those channels available to them via bunny ears antenna.
does it make them wrong? maybe, maybe not.
will other people actually understand why? (if we know these people have the money to easily afford a new TV and cable/satellite and they consciously choose to stick with what they have cuz they like it.)
i don't think i would understand why they do it.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
a long time before swg was put into retail, people had issues with the way SOE treated it's customers.
some people don't understand that swg has very vocal supporters who miss one of the very few non-restrictive class/level games that was out. those people seem to not understand that it's NOT just swg, they just seem to notice the swg complainers because it's cool to bash on them.
and everyone wants to be the cool internet loser.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
guess you missed the post a couple above yours about soe not being able to actually deliver on the "hey we're publishing potbs", eh?
or, you were never around when SOE reps, essentially have both lied to their players and told their players "we don't care what you say, we don't need you, not now, not ever"?
must be nice to just ignore facts and just make up things to complain about, eh boogs? soe has an incredibly garbage name in MMOs for MANY reasons spread out over MANY games.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
The troubles with $OE started way before swg. I played EQ on a pvp server dark versus light for 2 years till $OE finally bought out the game. One day I logged on to find out half my guild was now my enemy and $OE had changed the server to team pvp without any notice or feedback . the server went from being the third highest population to the lowest in one month as did the other pvp server that was dark versus light I left EQ soon after and started playing DAOC. I have never played another sony game and soon as they took over part of POTBS I stopped beta testing it and decided i would not play it even though I had been waiting to play at release.
guess you missed the post a couple above yours about soe not being able to actually deliver on the "hey we're publishing potbs", eh?
or, you were never around when SOE reps, essentially have both lied to their players and told their players "we don't care what you say, we don't need you, not now, not ever"?
must be nice to just ignore facts and just make up things to complain about, eh boogs? soe has an incredibly garbage name in MMOs for MANY reasons spread out over MANY games.
Yeah I remember that, wasn't it Julio Torres doing damage control after the NGE went live? I think he just cracked at the keyboard one day and type to the complaining VETs bitching at him "If you really don't like the NGE that much you should quit and leave these forums, good luck". So guess what happened, yup they quit and SOE lost even more subs. Then ofcourse there's the infamous fanfest footage when Julio was attempting to blow some more smoke up backsides, but by now SOE had managed to anger most of the NGE fanbois,
Some classic SWG footage.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
WoW well I guess SOE Can never do anything right heck they even managed to get a lot of people using their mind control rays to after they felt burned over eq open up their wallet against their own free will to pay for swg and expansions for two years then
I stand corrected lol
Yes and every "NGE fanboi" hates the game which is why they are busy not saying much and playing it except for a few who would complain about anything even if SOE sent them a gold bar in the mail they would probably complain that it was heavy or something
Anyhow its entertaining to read .. an irrational hate based on making the same mistake twice by the looks of it and of course blaming the company for it.
Most people just move on. The vocal minority does not a case make.
Frankly, I think SOE does their best. Even with SWG, pre-NGE people where complaining, that's the reason why NGE even existed. I played for a month or two around retail and haven't played it since NGE began, I didn't like the game.
SOE did make mistakes, I'm sure they acknowledge that. I was part of the Planetside Community, and well, it seemed we where getting sidelined for their bigger titles such as EQII and SWG. It's even more ironic to think that they where putting the effort into updates for one of the aforementioned games that the playerbase wouldn't like. In large part, one of the reasons SOE gets a lot of flak is the same reason why Blizzard gets a lot of complaints. They are the biggest targets.
It's "cool" to hate SOE. It's the "in" thing to do, so like sheep, people do it.
Also I suspect that there is a lot of teenage angst against SOE as a petulant child levys his anger against his parents.
Well look at this way then...
A person pays for SWG and a one year subscription, cost is about $150 more or less. Also add in time investment.
Then one day during that year, SOE/LA make a drastic change to the game, which the customer does not like, and the customer cannot get a refund for the unused months.
Yes people accept the burn and move on.
But yet there are those that take the burn and become proactive in informing others.
But it is just a game...
Why let's take the car example then. Lease a car, take the car back in because it doesn't run right, only to get another car back you didn't want.
Oh wait, cars are much more expensive than just a game. True, but is $100 something people can just give away and not be bothered? Doesn't apply to everyone. Also that doesn't take in the time investment. And there is the matter of principles.
And one last item, is there anyone who is willing to admit that they will tell others that purchasing a one year subscription with SOE related games is a good deal?
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
Okay...first off...whoever said "whats so great about SWG pre-nge/pre-cu?"
Well, the skill system. The skill system was awesome. You could change your skills any time and you could grind up whatever profession tree you wanted with complete odds and ends of the 32 professions. Whatever you wanted! You could be a doctor and heal/buff people and make BANK or you could go up just enough in medic (before doctor) to heal yourself with your Bounty Hunter skills. It was awesome and the combinations were almost limitless. I have yet to see an MMORPG be as free as that and it's a damn shame because i think that was one of the prized elements of SWG. And its not like grinding up the skill trees were easy...it'd take a good bit of time and people naturally change their minds all the time so it was great!
The best thing about it though was that REGARDLESS OF LEVEL YOU COULD PLAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS! No matter what, your friends who may have been lower or higher level you would still benefit from being in a group with them and would get some type of xp. You could always join up with your friends and do whatever you wanted together. I twas a awesome. No worries about who has outleveled who because most of the time depending on what skills you had (ie. a heal or a stun, etc) you coudl still be beneficial and have a good time. It was very socially inclined.
Second...combat. The combat was honestly better the first time around. You could queue up multiple attacks like in Knights of The Old Republic and the combinatinos you could use to defeat your enemy were limitless and actually took considerable intellect and planning if you wanted to succeed. It was pretty fast paced too to be honest especially in the higher skill trees because timing for attacks decreased which meant you atttacked a lot faster. It was almost like hitting a button and executing the attack each time you hit the button, almost like real time except more RPG based...IT WAS GREAT!
Third....population. After everyone felt stabbed in the back (go figure::: most of SWG's fans were loyal to SWG and most including me had invest about 3-4 years of TIME into that game as well as 50+48x14.99 dollars. But the most valuable aspect really lost in the equation is TIME. Sure 800 bux is a lot to have lost, but the amounts of time gathering valuable items, buying houses, making cities, friends, guilds, w/e was practically rendered valueless because) EVERYONE LEFT! There was nothing anybody could do to stop the devs and when the sh** hit the fan...everyone left.
Most people were able to cope with the CU, but the NGE is truly unforgivable. Click combat? 9 professions INCLUDING JEDI??!! They lost their minds.
SWG and the NGE SOE implemented is the greatest catastrophe in MMORPG history and that's a fact!
Ill tell you the one thing Im waiting for, not out of malice or hatred, but out of morbid curiosity to see it happen.
Im waiting for Smedley to make SOE crash and burn, and then jump ship with all his earnings. Or else to run it into the ground and have it go bankrupt..
I dont think Ill ever go back to another SOE game. Ever...
My hatred dwells from the destruction of SWG.
Here is but a small list of lies SOE told the players in Star Wars Galaxies to get them to keep paying....
Folks tend to have short memories and some werent around for all the lies. So here's a list of lies SOE has told us. Also please consider sticking this
1. SWG wont launch until its ready - SOE repeatedly told us this game wont launch until its ready to go. This early on was to include space, JTL wasnt ever supposed to be an expansion. Lets also not forget key components not included at launch like player cities, vehicles, and jedi. As a beta player, I still remember the notice in beta forum that the game was going gold in 2 weeks. Everyone agreed it was a huge mistake but SOE ignored us.
2. Jedi - We all know that jedi was NEVER possible at launch. Yet SOE made post after post dangling that carrot and offering encouragement. They told us to get married, explore every world, build a home, etc. It made some think that jedi was some random amazing quest to be discovered. Soon though we learned the truth when SOE patched in several .tre files with obvious jedi implications 5 months after launch. Then the day after a patch several unlocked all at once.
3. Rebel Theme Park - Sorta ties into # 1 as it wasnt ready either. However SOE repeatedly lied about the theme park. If you recall, it was broken after Han's quests. Han tells us to seek out Lt. Lance on Dantooine, but there isnt any Lt. Lance anywhere. SOE tells us its working as intended despite nobody having found Lt. Lance after months and month of looking (my guild personally had several major expedition searches done over many weekends looking for him). Suddenly we learn the truth after a patch...Han now tells us to seek out Ackbar on Dantooine and the once empty abandoned rebel base now has several rebel nps in there. My guild who had followed the game for years in development was soooo pissed off they immediately disbanded and quit.
4. two part lie -
A. The Combat upgrade (curb) was top priority - Remember how SOE told us over and over again that the CURB was its number 1 focus. It would be first to get completed over the JTL expansion.
B. There were two separate teams working on JTL and the CURB.
We later learn both are lies. JTL gets pushed over the combat fixes AND we find out the CURB team has been merged with the JTL team. Whats really insulting is SOE goes on a PR campaign and tells the public that we players demanded JTL first. Another fat lie as every poll posted strongly stated we wanted the CURB first.
5. Combat Revamp - whatever you want to call it, this was meant as a reward for the vets who stayed around and played a broken game. Talk about a slap in the face when SOE announces the CU...a system as the devs told me at Celebration 3 was meant to "have a more broad appeal". This was SOE's 1st attempt at screwing over its current community for the wow crowd. All the promised fixes never happened. The armorsmith rep quit and was banned after he started a massive protest over changes they never asked for. In fact the CU brings in many more bugs than it fixes and never balanced anything.
6. The CU is here to stay - Smedley comes and makes his first post on swg forums asking for calm and patience. He states that in 6 months the cu will be working as intended so give them time to make things right. FAT LIE...during that time the NGE is either in design stages or already being worked on.
7. FRS - CU disables the end-game for jedi, our force ranking system. SOE tells us its being worked on. Later they state its al most done and just awaits final approval from LA. Of course we learn there wont ever be a FRS system and the nerfs we've been getting oover the past 6 months were done on purpose to weaken jedi into a regular class. For me personally, this is one of the more disgusting lies as it was obviously done to keep us jedi players paying.
8. Jabba Palace disappears - The last patch before the NGE garbage makes Jabba's palace completely disappear. SOE acts surprised and promises a fix is coming..another fat lie as we learn why after the nge hits. Jabba's palace was taken out to implement th new nge quests.
9. village breaks - Same patch breaks the village and the old man stops visiting people. SOE again lies to cover its tracks and tells us its being looked at. Of course it was just a cover for the nge.
10. Expansion - SOE presells an expansion with several promised features. One desired item is a creature handler necklace that will allow for the taming of higher lvl pets. Im not sure if that necklace was ever found but it didnt matter because 1 stinkin day after the nge launched Torres of LA announces the revamp of the game and removal of over 24 professions.
11. starter kit - SOE tells us the starter kit is an eroneous listing and will be removed. They deny the rumors of impending changes.
12. SOE tells us fixes will be faster. SOE says the whole reason behind the nge was to make balancing the game easier and would allow for faster publish fixes. In fact, it has slowed the game down to a crawl as publishes now seem to come every 4 months as opposed to almost monthly before the nge.
13. smuggler revamp - this one could have its own page on broken promises and lies.
14. Capitol ships - a dev at a fanfest shows the players capitol ships he has been working on. Later on SOE tells (months and months later) that it was just a dev fooling around with his laptop and this was never being considered. Of course SOE could have tol the players this months earlier rather than ignore the posts asking for more information. To flyboys, the capitol ship dream was their FRS system...ie end-game content they so very much wanted. It didnt hurt SOE to once again lie a little and let people keep paying while they waited for features that would never ever happen.
15. profession revamps - ranger comes to my mind foremost because my alt was a master ranger for years. It was painful to see rangers slowly dwindling in numbers as the profession remained broken forever. I still recall one of the camo kits (i think it was for Lok) required a type of meat to contruct, only problem was that meat didnt even exist ! And the final tease, SOE says ranger is the next revamp coming in the next publish...oops the next publish turned out to be the NGE.
Then there were the professions that got sorely needed revamps weeks before the nge hit. Why did SOE even bother to revamp squad leader if they were going to turn around and remove the profession entirely a few weeks later ? Maybe it was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.
16. Broken quests - How many times did SOE tell us a fix was in the works and it either never came or it took a year to do. And even when they finally did fix something like the Hermit quests, they turn right around and re-break them weeks later. My personal pet peeve for broken quests was the ones at the gungan sacred place. It pissed me off that not only were the quests incomplete, one of the npc's chat bubble was blank ! How tough would it have been to code in some simple words ? These quests were broken in beta, remained busted through launch right up to the nge.
The NGE broke several old quests as well. When I tried the 21 day free trial I started the krayt skull quests, some of my favorites with a great storyline. I got to the last part where I needed to talk to Darklighter only to my surprise he has no chat option. The NGE is 1 year old and Im assuming this quest remains broken, pathetic.
17. 6 month promises - Smedley has repeatedly made the 6 month promise for fixes. His very 1st post following the CU debacle asked the players to give SOE 6 months to get things fully working. He then makes the same promise after the NGE launches, needing 6 more months. Ironically, the post after nge is almost identical to the cu one (asking for time to fix things) and yet somehow the gullible desperate players buy into it AGAIN. Later SOE promises major revamps to each profession each coming within a month or two o each other. Later after MONTHS of no publishes and silence (the swg forums were literally rioting), SOE announces yet ANOTHER series of profession revamps. Typically, the pathetic player base thanks SOE devs in posts for answering their concerns. A year into the NGE, it remains broken, unfinished, with no end in site.
18. Item Conversion - Recall that the players were very concerned over losing their gear with the coming CU. We were repeatedly told that everything would convert properly. If you had an exceptional weapon with amazing stats, it would convert to an equal type of weapon for the CU. They were full of crap though and not only did our exceptional weapons and armor NOT convert properly, in many cases we now couldnt even equip them anymore !!!
CA's and AA's didnt convert because SOE took out several stats like dizzy, knockdown, the poison and disease resists, etc. Players that spent years and millions of credits to collect were overnight ruined. The final insult in classic SOE fashion, SOE adds in melee def and ranged def clothing that tailors can craft. They didnt even bother to take into account the thousands of players who spent their credits by the millions to get these things as ca/aa drops. A +12 melee def tape would possibly sell for 15-20 million, 1 day after the cu and a player now can buy a shirt with +17 melee AND ranged defense !!! So much for really being concerned with ca/aa conversions.
RIS Armor - Not only did the conversion for this armor become crap, it also got very common. I and some friends of mine were the few around who had even had any ris armor. Before the revamps, RIS armor was something one could try and get as a trophy to their hard work and dedication. Plus it took real skill to get. You had to know where the components dropped. You had to know spawn rates. You had to know where to find the giant dune kimos. You had to find addon components like shards to boost the completed armor's stats. In essence, it was a lot of hard work for players that yet again was totally tossed out the door. My ris helmet once had offers of 15 million credits, suddenly its for sale on vendors for 15k bleh.
BE Tissues - nge takes out bio-engineers and their tissues that make chef foods better. Now something that was once extremely common is the rarest most sought after item by crafters. And since food is a consumable, eventually there will be no more bio tissues around.
The theme here of course is SOE didnt give a damn about how their revamps would hurt or help their CURRENT community. I seriously doubt based on the evidence that they even looked at the changes, much less tried to ensure the conversion wouldnt screw us.
19. pearl drops - sometime into the cu pearl drops got really messed up. At first, over a weekend flawless and premium pearls are dropping like crazy and not just off krayts. Soon SOE hotpatches a "fix" in to correct whatever they were trying to fix before and the pearls stop dropping. Now premiums and flawless dont drop anymore. SOE responds to player concerns by telling them its working as intended. Later they admit there "might" be a problem but there were other things more important to fix. SOE lies and promises its being looked into.
According to my source, the pearl drops were broken or gated on purpose. This was done to remove the elite power items so jedi could be better balanced for the nge. I hear sometime after the nge the premium pearls were added back in but flawless never came back.
20. Gating content - According to a source who wrote a letter to CBS newsbag, SOE purposely gates its content to finish it. In other words, SOE breaks something to hide the fact that it remains unfinished. Why would SOE do this ? Well according to this person, it was done to basically use player subscription fees to pay for the finished development of that content. This source reported that this was done repeatedly for EQ1 expansions. Devs would then lie on the forums claiming that a fix was being worked on when in fact it was busted on purpose.
This of course is outrageous but not unexpected by SOE. To take subscriber money and finish something that the money from the expansion was already supposed to have paid for is unforgivable. Smedley responded on some other site he posts on that this was a fabrication and SOE had (allow me to quote) never once released an unfinished product to the public LOL. This same person later admits the nge is unfinished...oh and the CU is unfinished...my oh my how the lies grow.
To the OP: You have unleashed a torrent. Many here have mixed up their real lives with MMOs and are still devastated by what SOE did to SWG.
I for one, an "Elder Creature Hander" got screwed as much as any. I just don't give them any more money.
Simple.
moveon.org
aside from the lies I posted, there was another reason for the hatred of SOE.
You see mmo's have a set of cardinal rules.
1. Never change the core mechanics of an MMO.
2. Use subscription revenue to fix bugs and add content to game
Players expect that a developer will always follow these two simple rules. Its why we are willing to invest our time and money in an MMO.
If rule number 1 is broken, why would any player bother spending hundreds or thousands of hours improving their character if the developer is going to basically delete that toon tomorrow ?
If rule number 2 is broken, why would we pay a company to use our money for something else ?
What SOE did was take star wars galaxies player money and use it to develop an entirely new game in secret ! This new revamp of the game completely destroyed 3/4 of the available classes to choose from. It destroyed just about everything in the game.
SOE broke both cardinal rules so of course the players were absolutely stunned and angry over this. And yes whenever I can, I will make it a point to warn anyone else away from a SOE game. After all, they cant be trusted. I certainly wont ever bother playing any of their games again.
I didn't play SWG, and I don't have a problem with the company. I haven't had any negative experiences with them out of the two games I played for about a year each (EQOA and EQ2). EQ2 was very poorly received at launch, and they used feedback to reshape it into a pretty good game. I think a lot of people are cheating themselves by holding grudges and refusing to play SOE games.
And I think you will be in for a bunch of heartache when they pull an NGE on whatever SOE game you are putting time into.
They have screwed up just about every game they touch. An MMO now only has to put an SOE logo on their box and they will loose customers.
The biggest reason I heard for not buying POTBS in the beta was "I don't want to give SOE any more money because they are idiots".
Click on the link in my sig.
****WARNING: extremely long list!
that's an interesting list. wonder if someone has a list like that, which covers all the games on the station pass?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Based on SOE not cancelling subs when i cancelled them, twice now; from personal experience, i'd have to not agree with your post, from a purely financial/trust perspective; much less from a "list of games soe has dorked over" viewpoint.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?