Originally posted by ArcAngel3 Originally posted by miagisan Originally posted by Athela Originally posted by Obee Originally posted by Athela I think the man deserves credit for finally putting some of the huge missing puzzle pieces together. The whole timeline of events never made sense. To me, letting everyone know that Sony and Lucasarts have always had the ability to give classic servers to fans just like every other company has who respect their own games and customers, just huge the incredible ability of Julio and Smedders to lie and be smug about it. Suckers. By the way, in case you hope Julio (undoubtedly the "producer" who went "whoooummpf") got laid off by LA recently or ever, he is in this clip http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/14943 for the Force Unleashed looking slimy and Wormtonguelike. Julio of the "it isn't technically possible" to do rollbacks. Julio of the "the game was too difficult." Julio and Smedders just need to be the ones nailed here and forever after. They had the ability to order the changes and the b**** to be eternally smirky about everything.
Actually, Mr. Torres was the only person at either SOE or LEC to say that a classic server was possible. He said they actually had some extra servers and could have a classic server up and running in a day or two, but he added that they weren't going to do it. The producer Mr. Rubenfield was talking about was more likely to be Grant McDaniel (Rogue_5) or the SOE SWG lead producer before him. Mr. Torres was probably at the LEC offices at the time the folks at SOE were conceptualizing the NGE. Don't take any of this as a defense of Mr. Torres, he is a grade A moron who has been promoted way past his ability and should never, ever, be allowed to be anywhere near any type of promotion of any product ("If you don't like it, by all means go play something else"). I'm not sure where everyone is getting the whole 'We don't have the code' thing from. The closest thing the Smed ever said to that was that it wasn't technically possible for SOE to maintain two separate codebases (which more than likely meant it would cost them too much to do so). I don't recall anyone ever claiming they didn't have the code. I think this has become more of an urban legend in the vein of 'Tiggs stood up for the players and was fired for it!'. Tiggs never did that, but a post by a player has been falsely attributed to her and everyone seems to have forgotten that she was lying to us and defending the NGE right along with the rest of the weasels at SOE up until she was fired, for whatever the real reason was. SOE and LEC both are in major need of housecleaning. Of the two, SOE is much more likely to see one since their company has been moved to a different Sony division a couple months ago. Unfortunately, I think it is unlikely that the Smed will be shoved out the door, which means that any housecleaning that does get done would leave intact one of the major reasons that SOE is the dismal company it is today. I agree that both the Smed and Mr. Torres need to find some other industry to infest, hopefully one where they cannot cause much harm. There are several folks at their respective companies that need to go along with them.
Julio stated in his G4 interview that they could run the classic servers. He did in fact later say it wasn't "technically possible." I am hunting down the quote as we speak.
its not technically possible he said cause you would have to maintain 2 different codes, the pre and post nge, as well as provide support for each Shortly after the NGE came out, people wanted a rollback to a functional and preferred version of the game. I remember the initial response to us on the official forums was that the old code was not maintained. People expressed disbelief, understandably, and it now appears that this disbelief was justified.
The second response I remember from SOE was that it was not financially feasible to run two versions of the game at the same time. Many of us responded, it's not financially feasible NOT TO run two versions. Many used the classic coke analogy. We were dismissed, as usual. The sheer idiocy of that theory is dispelled by Station Pass.
Running SWG classic and SWG NGE would be the same as running two separet games; something they already do. Any excuses are just excuses. They didn't want to run two games because it would prove more people wanted to play the classic version, which would cost Smedley his job, It would prove that it wasn't the game design but it was his mismanagement of the game pre-CU that led to shrinking subs.
Today, 80% of active players in Galaxies are veterans who were in the game prior to the new game enhancements (NGE). It’s true that many players reacted to the new direction of the game by clicking cancel in the days immediately following the NGE announcement and in fact, our unique usage dropped by 10%. The NGE has now been live for five weeks, the cancel rate has returned to average levels, and we’re seeing many former players return to the game and over 100,000 new players join Galaxies through the 10-Day Trial. Additionally, the third expansion pack, Trials of Obi-Wan, released November 1 is being enjoyed by tens of thousands of veteran Galaxies players.
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Additionally, remember the horrible timing of the ToOW release with the NGE? ToOW came out just before the NGE. How does a huge company that has released many expansions and products 'accidentally' make a huge mistake like that, especially with such a momentous change? They knowingly advertised items and extras for professions they knew full well were going to be removed soon because they knew they would lose vet accounts. Pushing the expansion out at the right time meant an extra boost of cash they might otherwise not gain if they released it later.
::Ex-Pikeman Correspondent:: Kauri Player (and Pikeman) from July 2003 until NGE |combatUpgrade::alpha :: JTL::beta :: RotW::beta :: ToOW::beta|
Dec 27, 2005: THE GALAXY REMAINS STRONG Today, 80% of active players in Galaxies are veterans who were in the game prior to the new game enhancements (NGE). It’s true that many players reacted to the new direction of the game by clicking cancel in the days immediately following the NGE announcement and in fact, our unique usage dropped by 10%. The NGE has now been live for five weeks, the cancel rate has returned to average levels, and we’re seeing many former players return to the game and over 100,000 new players join Galaxies through the 10-Day Trial. Additionally, the third expansion pack, Trials of Obi-Wan, released November 1 is being enjoyed by tens of thousands of veteran Galaxies players.
Man, that chunk of spin has so many flipping holes.
'80% of players are vets' = 'Yes we lost 250,000, but we gained 65,000!'
'Cancel rate has returned to average levels' which we know now was 10,000 players a month. Well, when you have 250,000 playing, and 200,000 cancel at once, you obviously can't keep losing 200,000 a month now can you?
'100,000 new players join via the trial'... depends on what they mean by the word 'join' (which I suspect simply means 'try'). So 100,000 people gave the NGE a shot. Of course they did, the NGE was getting SO much noise that it's actually surprising that more people didn't DL it to see what the fuss was all about. Doesn't mean they liked it.
'ToOW is being enjoyed by tens of thousands of veteran Galaxies players'... Interesting they ad the 'November 1st' date in there. Since pretty much everybody who player Galaxies bought ToOW, it would seem this was proof only tens of thousands were actually playing the game.
To me this press release went way beyond 'the cup is half full' and went straight to 'Hey there's still a few drops left in the cup! Hurray!'. And the fact that they said these things and expected people to be excited about this PR garbage once again leads me to believe they think their players are flipping morons.
".. SWG in general, and the NGE in specific, is basically the Derek Smart of MMO discussion." The BEST quote from all these exchanges. (Right after "OM NOM NOM") I didn't get the reference -- care to explain it for we ignorant folks?
There always was this smug vibe from the devs back in the day...now we know why. What a real shame. At least he spilled his gutz. Maybe his shrink urged him to do it!
Some SOE supporters joined the thread telling us what a lovely apology was written, how dare we overreact. They were of course referring to the second or subsequent revision. So, I posted the original in that thread. See above.
Well after reading it, it seems to be a good insite to a very disturbed man lol....
Interesting no one has had the "Balls" to adress the Eat Dick comments or the original blog OM NOM NOM.
Scott Jennings did (at Broken Toys). He edited his post after Mr. Rubenfield edited his though. There was little to no chance of Massively doing so. Can't risk access to SOE by posting anything that might be too critical (pretty much like MMORPG.com).
There always was this smug vibe from the devs back in the day...now we know why. What a real shame. At least he spilled his gutz. Maybe his shrink urged him to do it!
The SWG devs had a very bad habit of assuming that their customers were children, when in fact many of them were professionals, in a wide variety of fields, to include IT.
Many of them identified obvious dysfunction at SOE as revealed by the product they presented to the public.
I could tell, and I only have a passing familiarity with this as a non-techie ISP manager, that they were not following rigid code change procedures when processing updates and patches. They have basically admitted that they were not insisting on code documentation as they put this thing together, meaning that they have to reverse engineer code, which is much more time intensive than proper documentation would have been in the first place.
It's pretty obvious that developers were allowed to lapse into bad habits because SWG managment wasn't insisting on high standards in this area. I strongly suspect that the managers had very little IT background, probably people pulled in from the business/marketing side with no line IT experience at all. Which means that they probably didn't know how to lead the devs and insist on high standards, or they didn't care, because they were too focused on meeting deadlines that were just not appropriate for software development.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
The SWG devs had a very bad habit of assuming that their customers were children... ...they were not following rigid code change procedures when processing updates and patches. They ... were not insisting on code documentation... ... developers were allowed to lapse into bad habits because SWG managment wasn't insisting on high standards in this area ... they were too focused on meeting deadlines that were just not appropriate for software development.
Unrealistic deadlines set by marketing and management are the usual suspects when it comes to poor code.
::Ex-Pikeman Correspondent:: Kauri Player (and Pikeman) from July 2003 until NGE |combatUpgrade::alpha :: JTL::beta :: RotW::beta :: ToOW::beta|
I've had been looking at really old interviews and posts about Galaxies before the Rubenfield post, trying to figure out what went wrong, essentially. The more I read those , and then re-read Rubenfields post, the long lost question of who is responsible for the NGE distills. Note the lines in his post which he kept in over several versions (I have 3 saved)
"However we made a mistake. ...Somewhere during the discussions it was strongly recommended that we streamline our characters. People wanted something simpler, more direct, more accessible. We told them "if you do this you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant. It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch."
So the finger pointing which has always been a puzzle is solved for me, at least. The SOE team came up with the FPS combat and the LucasArts people, in the persona of Julio Torres, pushed for the nine iconic characters. If you listen to Julio after the NGE, he is unusually defensive and determined there will be no change back to the previous game, he talks about how difficult the game was, for people to play (also the "Strident woman on one of the post NGE videos is very clear that the game was too hard".
Note he says "we told them" which has to mean LucasArts, that changing the base game and losing everything that made it special would lose subscribers.
I don't recall LucasArts ever promoting the game much at all before this and suddenly there they were, oh look we have a Star Wars game. Also, the changes were pushed to coincide with the Release of the last Star Wars film. So certain was LucasArts that this was how to play. I fear for a new LucasArts mmo based on Star Wars, and how messed up and simplistic it would be, if Julio was in on the ground floor making it. I hope that LucasArts is doing it alone if they're doing one, so nobody can be blamed but them for utter mediocrity.
Originally posted by Athela I've had been looking at really old interviews and posts about Galaxies before the Rubenfield post, trying to figure out what went wrong, essentially. The more I read those , and then re-read Rubenfields post, the long lost question of who is responsible for the NGE distills. Note the lines in his post which he kept in over several versions (I have 3 saved) "However we made a mistake. ...Somewhere during the discussions it was strongly recommended that we streamline our characters. People wanted something simpler, more direct, more accessible. We told them "if you do this you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant. It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch." So the finger pointing which has always been a puzzle is solved for me, at least. The SOE team came up with the FPS combat and the LucasArts people, in the persona of Julio Torres, pushed for the nine iconic characters. If you listen to Julio after the NGE, he is unusually defensive and determined there will be no change back to the previous game, he talks about how difficult the game was, for people to play (also the "Strident woman on one of the post NGE videos is very clear that the game was too hard". Note he says "we told them" which has to mean LucasArts, that changing the base game and losing everything that made it special would lose subscribers. I don't recall LucasArts ever promoting the game much at all before this and suddenly there they were, oh look we have a Star Wars game. Also, the changes were pushed to coincide with the Release of the last Star Wars film. So certain was LucasArts that this was how to play. I fear for a new LucasArts mmo based on Star Wars, and how messed up and simplistic it would be, if Julio was in on the ground floor making it. I hope that LucasArts is doing it alone if they're doing one, so nobody can be blamed but them for utter mediocrity.
That is quite possible, but it is far more likely that a discussion between Julio, Grant McDaniels, Jim Ward, Smedley, and SOE/LA marketing JOINTLY came up with the stripping of the professions. Remember, each SOE game has a profession structure similar, as does WoW (and most games for that matter).
I feel it was the suits who came up with the idea, but not necessarily LA alone. The design team, who knew the game slightly better, realized that it would be a disaster.
From what I have heard from various sources, it was a JOINT decision and was corporate and marketing. Those sources feel SOE and LEC were equally to blame.
There always was this smug vibe from the devs back in the day...now we know why. What a real shame. At least he spilled his gutz. Maybe his shrink urged him to do it!
The SWG devs had a very bad habit of assuming that their customers were children, when in fact many of them were professionals, in a wide variety of fields, to include IT.
I absolutely agree with this. One of the key problems with SOE is - ironically - that the company allows the Developers to communicate directly with the Subscribers. Which means:
they communicate when the hell tney like;
they communicate half-truths and downright lies because they don't understand, as a proper marketing executive does, that you always tell the truth to your customer;
and they react in a possessive and defensive way not simply to addressive criticism but also constructive criticism.
And it also means that they cannot 'tone down' their voice, that of cubicle-aggressive twenty-to-twenty-eight year olds working on a SW franchise, while we, they assume, are fourteen-year old kids sent to bother them and make them look bad.
What SOE always needed was a proper Communications and Community Service Manager with authority equivalent to a Producer who would schedule regular Dev communications bulletins once a week; ensure they they replied to salient questions and ideas as part of their worksheet; and made sure the customer was addressed in a responsible, reliable and respectful way.
Fishermage: "That is quite possible, but it is far more likely that a discussion between Julio, Grant McDaniels, Jim Ward, Smedley, and SOE/LA marketing JOINTLY came up with the stripping of the professions. Remember, each SOE game has a profession structure similar, as does WoW (and most games for that matter).
I feel it was the suits who came up with the idea, but not necessarily LA alone. The design team, who knew the game slightly better, realized that it would be a disaster.
From what I have heard from various sources, it was a JOINT decision and was corporate and marketing. Those sources feel SOE and LEC were equally to blame."
Julio.
In the kitchen.
With the lightsaber.
I think Julio could get an easy pass from Jim Ward who was, from what I could see, a very casual gamer. Rogue5 was in the Mustaphar test server with his little Rodian outfit, hanging around the Mensix Mining facility pretty happily until about halfway through testing, then he got sort of gruff. He never seemed comfortable with dealing with what the changes wrought, he never came across as sure that it was super stuff. I thought at one point he was guilty but now I don't think so. Smedders, who I am mercilous on, has really just mumbled a line or two now and then saying yeah, NGE, great stuff, rah rah. So...we wait and see who else squeaks.
I appreciate all of the PM's I received on this....some of the perspectives were interesting to say the least. I have been asked to kind of back off by a couple friends and since I respect them I'm going to do so.
It really wasn't my intent to stir the pot, or to cause grief. I truly miss the game Raph Koster brought us, and I honestly don't think we will ever see it's like again. I do want to finish up by saying That Rubenfield and Torres deservs everything they get out of this, neither one of them should be working as janitors at a development house much less designers.
I will be posting on other forums on this site, but this is my last post on the Veteran refuge. It's time to let go and move on. The reckoning that so many of us have been waiting for is finally coming home to roost, may it be as unforgiving and duplicitous as SOE was to the best community any MMO has ever seen.
Originally posted by todeswulf I appreciate all of the PM's I received on this....some of the perspectives were interesting to say the least. I have been asked to kind of back off by a couple friends and since I respect them I'm going to do so. It really wasn't my intent to stir the pot, or to cause grief. I truly miss the game Raph Koster brought us, and I honestly don't think we will ever see it's like again. I do want to finish up by saying That Rubenfield and Torres deservs everything they get out of this, neither one of them should be working as janitors at a development house much less designers. I will be posting on other forums on this site, but this is my last post on the Veteran refuge. It's time to let go and move on. The reckoning that so many of us have been waiting for is finally coming home to roost, may it be as unforgiving and duplicitous as SOE was to the best community any MMO has ever seen. Todeswulf out.
hmmmm. Sounds as if you were threatened...who could possibly want you to "back off" when ou didn't really say anything. Who could have gotten grief for anything you posted?
I appreciate all of the PM's I received on this....some of the perspectives were interesting to say the least. I have been asked to kind of back off by a couple friends and since I respect them I'm going to do so. It really wasn't my intent to stir the pot, or to cause grief. I truly miss the game Raph Koster brought us, and I honestly don't think we will ever see it's like again. I do want to finish up by saying That Rubenfield and Torres deservs everything they get out of this, neither one of them should be working as janitors at a development house much less designers. I will be posting on other forums on this site, but this is my last post on the Veteran refuge. It's time to let go and move on. The reckoning that so many of us have been waiting for is finally coming home to roost, may it be as unforgiving and duplicitous as SOE was to the best community any MMO has ever seen. Todeswulf out.
People say "this is my last post" all the time. Next thing you know, they're drawn back by some tremor in the Force. See ya soon.
I appreciate all of the PM's I received on this....some of the perspectives were interesting to say the least. I have been asked to kind of back off by a couple friends and since I respect them I'm going to do so. It really wasn't my intent to stir the pot, or to cause grief. I truly miss the game Raph Koster brought us, and I honestly don't think we will ever see it's like again. I do want to finish up by saying That Rubenfield and Torres deservs everything they get out of this, neither one of them should be working as janitors at a development house much less designers. I will be posting on other forums on this site, but this is my last post on the Veteran refuge. It's time to let go and move on. The reckoning that so many of us have been waiting for is finally coming home to roost, may it be as unforgiving and duplicitous as SOE was to the best community any MMO has ever seen. Todeswulf out.
Oh really? Friends you say? You mean possible 'friends' at Escapist that you meantioned before? Do you speak of powerful 'connections' that are asking you to back off'? You really haven't posted much here that warrants any such 'warnings' but if you are in a more sensitive situation that I and others not privy to, then all I can say is, "Bah-bye."
Comments
Actually, Mr. Torres was the only person at either SOE or LEC to say that a classic server was possible. He said they actually had some extra servers and could have a classic server up and running in a day or two, but he added that they weren't going to do it. The producer Mr. Rubenfield was talking about was more likely to be Grant McDaniel (Rogue_5) or the SOE SWG lead producer before him. Mr. Torres was probably at the LEC offices at the time the folks at SOE were conceptualizing the NGE. Don't take any of this as a defense of Mr. Torres, he is a grade A moron who has been promoted way past his ability and should never, ever, be allowed to be anywhere near any type of promotion of any product ("If you don't like it, by all means go play something else").
I'm not sure where everyone is getting the whole 'We don't have the code' thing from. The closest thing the Smed ever said to that was that it wasn't technically possible for SOE to maintain two separate codebases (which more than likely meant it would cost them too much to do so). I don't recall anyone ever claiming they didn't have the code. I think this has become more of an urban legend in the vein of 'Tiggs stood up for the players and was fired for it!'. Tiggs never did that, but a post by a player has been falsely attributed to her and everyone seems to have forgotten that she was lying to us and defending the NGE right along with the rest of the weasels at SOE up until she was fired, for whatever the real reason was.
SOE and LEC both are in major need of housecleaning. Of the two, SOE is much more likely to see one since their company has been moved to a different Sony division a couple months ago. Unfortunately, I think it is unlikely that the Smed will be shoved out the door, which means that any housecleaning that does get done would leave intact one of the major reasons that SOE is the dismal company it is today. I agree that both the Smed and Mr. Torres need to find some other industry to infest, hopefully one where they cannot cause much harm. There are several folks at their respective companies that need to go along with them.
Julio stated in his G4 interview that they could run the classic servers. He did in fact later say it wasn't "technically possible." I am hunting down the quote as we speak.
its not technically possible he said cause you would have to maintain 2 different codes, the pre and post nge, as well as provide support for each
Shortly after the NGE came out, people wanted a rollback to a functional and preferred version of the game. I remember the initial response to us on the official forums was that the old code was not maintained. People expressed disbelief, understandably, and it now appears that this disbelief was justified.
The second response I remember from SOE was that it was not financially feasible to run two versions of the game at the same time. Many of us responded, it's not financially feasible NOT TO run two versions. Many used the classic coke analogy. We were dismissed, as usual.
The sheer idiocy of that theory is dispelled by Station Pass.
Running SWG classic and SWG NGE would be the same as running two separet games; something they already do. Any excuses are just excuses. They didn't want to run two games because it would prove more people wanted to play the classic version, which would cost Smedley his job, It would prove that it wasn't the game design but it was his mismanagement of the game pre-CU that led to shrinking subs.
Simple as that.
fishermage.blogspot.com
This is all quite interesting. Think on this, I must.
Definitely an interesting read and confirms many suspicions.
Recall this news item from SOE: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/loadNews/4293
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Dec 27, 2005:
THE GALAXY REMAINS STRONG
Today, 80% of active players in Galaxies are veterans who were in the game prior to the new game enhancements (NGE). It’s true that many players reacted to the new direction of the game by clicking cancel in the days immediately following the NGE announcement and in fact, our unique usage dropped by 10%. The NGE has now been live for five weeks, the cancel rate has returned to average levels, and we’re seeing many former players return to the game and over 100,000 new players join Galaxies through the 10-Day Trial. Additionally, the third expansion pack, Trials of Obi-Wan, released November 1 is being enjoyed by tens of thousands of veteran Galaxies players.
----
Additionally, remember the horrible timing of the ToOW release with the NGE? ToOW came out just before the NGE. How does a huge company that has released many expansions and products 'accidentally' make a huge mistake like that, especially with such a momentous change? They knowingly advertised items and extras for professions they knew full well were going to be removed soon because they knew they would lose vet accounts. Pushing the expansion out at the right time meant an extra boost of cash they might otherwise not gain if they released it later.
::Ex-Pikeman Correspondent::
Kauri Player (and Pikeman) from July 2003 until NGE
|combatUpgrade::alpha :: JTL::beta :: RotW::beta :: ToOW::beta|
Man, that chunk of spin has so many flipping holes.
'80% of players are vets' = 'Yes we lost 250,000, but we gained 65,000!'
'Cancel rate has returned to average levels' which we know now was 10,000 players a month. Well, when you have 250,000 playing, and 200,000 cancel at once, you obviously can't keep losing 200,000 a month now can you?
'100,000 new players join via the trial'... depends on what they mean by the word 'join' (which I suspect simply means 'try'). So 100,000 people gave the NGE a shot. Of course they did, the NGE was getting SO much noise that it's actually surprising that more people didn't DL it to see what the fuss was all about. Doesn't mean they liked it.
'ToOW is being enjoyed by tens of thousands of veteran Galaxies players'... Interesting they ad the 'November 1st' date in there. Since pretty much everybody who player Galaxies bought ToOW, it would seem this was proof only tens of thousands were actually playing the game.
To me this press release went way beyond 'the cup is half full' and went straight to 'Hey there's still a few drops left in the cup! Hurray!'. And the fact that they said these things and expected people to be excited about this PR garbage once again leads me to believe they think their players are flipping morons.
Some responses are surfacing from other sites such as Broken Toys and Massively =
brokentoys.org/2008/06/12/good-apollo-dear-god-the-internet-it-burns-iv-srsly-dude/
www.massively.com/2008/06/16/dredging-up-the-past-the-star-wars-galaxies-nge-re-examined/
".. SWG in general, and the NGE in specific, is basically the Derek Smart of MMO discussion."
The BEST quote from all these exchanges.
(Right after "OM NOM NOM")
The BEST quote from all these exchanges.
(Right after "OM NOM NOM")
I didn't get the reference -- care to explain it for we ignorant folks?
fishermage.blogspot.com
For Derek Smart- try looking up Battlecruiser 3000AD
fishermage.blogspot.com
There always was this smug vibe from the devs back in the day...now we know why. What a real shame. At least he spilled his gutz. Maybe his shrink urged him to do it!
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/185167/page/6
Post number 55.
Some SOE supporters joined the thread telling us what a lovely apology was written, how dare we overreact. They were of course referring to the second or subsequent revision. So, I posted the original in that thread. See above.
Well after reading it, it seems to be a good insite to a very disturbed man lol....
What a( Insert 4 leater word here )
To funny isnt it
Interesting no one has had the "Balls" to adress the Eat Dick comments or the original blog OM NOM NOM.
Interesting no one has had the "Balls" to adress the Eat Dick comments or the original blog OM NOM NOM.
Scott Jennings did (at Broken Toys). He edited his post after Mr. Rubenfield edited his though. There was little to no chance of Massively doing so. Can't risk access to SOE by posting anything that might be too critical (pretty much like MMORPG.com).
The SWG devs had a very bad habit of assuming that their customers were children, when in fact many of them were professionals, in a wide variety of fields, to include IT.
Many of them identified obvious dysfunction at SOE as revealed by the product they presented to the public.
I could tell, and I only have a passing familiarity with this as a non-techie ISP manager, that they were not following rigid code change procedures when processing updates and patches. They have basically admitted that they were not insisting on code documentation as they put this thing together, meaning that they have to reverse engineer code, which is much more time intensive than proper documentation would have been in the first place.
It's pretty obvious that developers were allowed to lapse into bad habits because SWG managment wasn't insisting on high standards in this area. I strongly suspect that the managers had very little IT background, probably people pulled in from the business/marketing side with no line IT experience at all. Which means that they probably didn't know how to lead the devs and insist on high standards, or they didn't care, because they were too focused on meeting deadlines that were just not appropriate for software development.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Unrealistic deadlines set by marketing and management are the usual suspects when it comes to poor code.
::Ex-Pikeman Correspondent::
Kauri Player (and Pikeman) from July 2003 until NGE
|combatUpgrade::alpha :: JTL::beta :: RotW::beta :: ToOW::beta|
I've had been looking at really old interviews and posts about Galaxies before the Rubenfield post, trying to figure out what went wrong, essentially. The more I read those , and then re-read Rubenfields post, the long lost question of who is responsible for the NGE distills. Note the lines in his post which he kept in over several versions (I have 3 saved)
"However we made a mistake. ...Somewhere during the discussions it was strongly recommended that we streamline our characters. People wanted something simpler, more direct, more accessible. We told them "if you do this you will lose all 200k subscribers. It is that significant. It was explained that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch."
So the finger pointing which has always been a puzzle is solved for me, at least. The SOE team came up with the FPS combat and the LucasArts people, in the persona of Julio Torres, pushed for the nine iconic characters. If you listen to Julio after the NGE, he is unusually defensive and determined there will be no change back to the previous game, he talks about how difficult the game was, for people to play (also the "Strident woman on one of the post NGE videos is very clear that the game was too hard".
Note he says "we told them" which has to mean LucasArts, that changing the base game and losing everything that made it special would lose subscribers.
I don't recall LucasArts ever promoting the game much at all before this and suddenly there they were, oh look we have a Star Wars game. Also, the changes were pushed to coincide with the Release of the last Star Wars film. So certain was LucasArts that this was how to play. I fear for a new LucasArts mmo based on Star Wars, and how messed up and simplistic it would be, if Julio was in on the ground floor making it. I hope that LucasArts is doing it alone if they're doing one, so nobody can be blamed but them for utter mediocrity.
I feel it was the suits who came up with the idea, but not necessarily LA alone. The design team, who knew the game slightly better, realized that it would be a disaster.
From what I have heard from various sources, it was a JOINT decision and was corporate and marketing. Those sources feel SOE and LEC were equally to blame.
fishermage.blogspot.com
The SWG devs had a very bad habit of assuming that their customers were children, when in fact many of them were professionals, in a wide variety of fields, to include IT.
I absolutely agree with this. One of the key problems with SOE is - ironically - that the company allows the Developers to communicate directly with the Subscribers. Which means:
they communicate when the hell tney like;
they communicate half-truths and downright lies because they don't understand, as a proper marketing executive does, that you always tell the truth to your customer;
and they react in a possessive and defensive way not simply to addressive criticism but also constructive criticism.
And it also means that they cannot 'tone down' their voice, that of cubicle-aggressive twenty-to-twenty-eight year olds working on a SW franchise, while we, they assume, are fourteen-year old kids sent to bother them and make them look bad.
What SOE always needed was a proper Communications and Community Service Manager with authority equivalent to a Producer who would schedule regular Dev communications bulletins once a week; ensure they they replied to salient questions and ideas as part of their worksheet; and made sure the customer was addressed in a responsible, reliable and respectful way.
In other words, a Nerd Wrangler.
I think Jeff Freeman summed it up best.
mythicalblog.com/index.php/quickpost/what
http://mmo-hell.blogspot.com/
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/rejad
Fishermage: "That is quite possible, but it is far more likely that a discussion between Julio, Grant McDaniels, Jim Ward, Smedley, and SOE/LA marketing JOINTLY came up with the stripping of the professions. Remember, each SOE game has a profession structure similar, as does WoW (and most games for that matter).
I feel it was the suits who came up with the idea, but not necessarily LA alone. The design team, who knew the game slightly better, realized that it would be a disaster.
From what I have heard from various sources, it was a JOINT decision and was corporate and marketing. Those sources feel SOE and LEC were equally to blame."
Julio.
In the kitchen.
With the lightsaber.
I think Julio could get an easy pass from Jim Ward who was, from what I could see, a very casual gamer. Rogue5 was in the Mustaphar test server with his little Rodian outfit, hanging around the Mensix Mining facility pretty happily until about halfway through testing, then he got sort of gruff. He never seemed comfortable with dealing with what the changes wrought, he never came across as sure that it was super stuff. I thought at one point he was guilty but now I don't think so. Smedders, who I am mercilous on, has really just mumbled a line or two now and then saying yeah, NGE, great stuff, rah rah. So...we wait and see who else squeaks.
I appreciate all of the PM's I received on this....some of the perspectives were interesting to say the least. I have been asked to kind of back off by a couple friends and since I respect them I'm going to do so.
It really wasn't my intent to stir the pot, or to cause grief. I truly miss the game Raph Koster brought us, and I honestly don't think we will ever see it's like again. I do want to finish up by saying That Rubenfield and Torres deservs everything they get out of this, neither one of them should be working as janitors at a development house much less designers.
I will be posting on other forums on this site, but this is my last post on the Veteran refuge. It's time to let go and move on. The reckoning that so many of us have been waiting for is finally coming home to roost, may it be as unforgiving and duplicitous as SOE was to the best community any MMO has ever seen.
Todeswulf out.
hmmmm. Sounds as if you were threatened...who could possibly want you to "back off" when ou didn't really say anything. Who could have gotten grief for anything you posted?
Verrrrrry interesting.
fishermage.blogspot.com
People say "this is my last post" all the time. Next thing you know, they're drawn back by some tremor in the Force. See ya soon.
Oh really? Friends you say? You mean possible 'friends' at Escapist that you meantioned before? Do you speak of powerful 'connections' that are asking you to back off'? You really haven't posted much here that warrants any such 'warnings' but if you are in a more sensitive situation that I and others not privy to, then all I can say is, "Bah-bye."