well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.
I'm glad I've always been a Marvel fan I want SOE far away from anything that I enjoyed when I was a youngster.
I think when SOE sees things that connect to people's happy childhood experiences, they only see something they can exploit to turn a profit. They seem to try to milk it from every available angle, regardless of how this affects their customers, and with very little respect for the intellectual properties.
well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.
Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed. I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company. I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility. It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO. It was a real shock. Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems.
The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well. Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.
Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow? It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.
well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.
Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed. I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company. I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility. It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO. It was a real shock. Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems.
The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well. Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.
Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow? It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.
The division of Sony that SOE was under was Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures was a very backward company for the longest time, and Sony HQ never really questioned them or SOE because they expected losses in film/MMOs. That meant Smed could get away with sleeping on the job and not worry.
Now SOE is under Sony Games which is controlled in Japan. SCEI took over SOE after the launch of the PS3 because they wanted to use SOE for the platform. Now Smed has to deal with SCEI and wont get away with his usual antics.
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Aye, the poster you qouted is basing his post off 2 games. MXO was only purchased to help secure the rights to future WB properties (DCU). Vanguard was because Sigil had a somewhat finished game that could have been good but whole mismanaged. SOE bought them out after agreeing to a publishing contract because Sigil was headed down the toilet.
As I said before, the only reason for the SOE hate was a few SWG players got burned and felt the need to share thier pain with everyone. When they realized no one really cared, they started in on any game that was mentioned in the same sentance with SOE.
Actually, I have to agree with him- SOE really sucks when it comes to the whole "fun" thing. Which is kind of central to the whole GAME thing in my book lol.
I only played SWG for about an hour before I gave up in shock and horror at the ham-fisted jamming of a fantasy RPG gameplay into the freewheeling, open-ended universe of Star Wars.
However, I played EQ1, EQ2 and Planetside for years and years, so I have experience with 3 of the biggest games SOE has had. IMHO, SOE just messed up each and every one in the most clueless manner possible. For most of those years, playing their games really felt like I was working another job!
It took me years to figure out why playing an SOE game feels like you're grinding your life away in a wage-slave job that fits into an overcomplicated, would-be master plan that you can only see a small piece of.
It's because of one simple, blindingly obvious reason. All SOE Developers are ipso facto wage slaves grinding away at a corporate wage slave job. Therefore, everything they do at work involves fitting better into an overcomplicated, would-be master plan that they only see a piece of.
That's why everything they want players to do is like having a job in a corporate workgroup - "The Cleric will Heal the Warrior. The Wizard will Nuke the Opponent. The DPS will Do Melee Damage. The Warrior will Taunt the Mob to Keep its Attention. Any Others will do the Menial Labor to Support our Main Team. Go Team Fun." (For the record, I mainly play druids, paladins and enchanters- all hybrids, and therefore, all treated as the Menial Laborers in SOE's rigid little work teams. So I know whereof i speak.)
Would you go to a party where you were told you would be assigned a set little pigeonhole role and have to play it in the name of Having Fun? Not me.
But SOE devs have no options in their game design other than to have players have the same kind of rote-behavior roles in-game that the devs do at work. Then whatever happens, their suitmonkey bosses can tell THEIR bosses that Everything is Going According To The Plan. Their suitmonkey bosses do not understand what the devs are doing, nor do they care about anything but subscription numbers, which only reflect changes well after it's too late.
So players get tired of paying SOE to work an in-game job instead of having fun, subs slide, and SOE just scratches its head and says "Couldn't be OUR fault, because we're giving them the same kind of fun WE have. Must be WoW's item-centric gameplay. Let's put more items in our games to catch up!".
And that's how you screw up the (arguably) biggest science fiction, biggest fantasy, and only real FPS MMO's in the history of gaming. It's not some uber-complicated, larger-than-life reason. It's the simple, down-to-earth fact that SOE devs are assembly-line workers in a Modern Times environment, trying to sell dull, planned-encounter, rote-combat "Fun" to playerswho wanted the freedom to roam and discover new lands, new friends, new foes, new risks and rewards, and all the other elements that make an Adventure out of a game.
I feel very sorry for them, I really do. But I feel sorrier for all of the people I see who have been trained to expect being told where to stand, what to do, and when to do it in the name of having fun.
SWG is honestly about 80% SOEs fault in my opinion.
LA's involvment was one of negligence not really of evil corporate greed.
Also LA did nothing after the game flopped to bring SOE back in line.
Still SOE is the one who designed the game and pushed it out the door.
SWG is like meeting the hottest chick of all time and then have her give you every STD in the book and then she dresses a monkey up like a baby sues for child support and the judge says yes
well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.
What are these big successes? I can count Everquest and... uh... did i mention Everquest? The Smed was always part of Sony's MMOs. Verant was a Sony sub company of 989 Studios (previously known as Sony Interactive Studios America). He got lucky with EQ, and has been coasting on that success ever since.
I fully agree that SOE won't turn around until the Smed is gone. The problem is the guy is as slick as the sleaziest politician, so he is able to talk his way out of responsibility. Quite frankly, if he ever does find himself no longer at SOE, he could quite easily get elected to public office, probably a national one.
Ok i get i got my facts wrong with MxO. SWG is honestly about 80% SOEs fault in my opinion. LA's involvment was one of negligence not really of evil corporate greed. Also LA did nothing after the game flopped to bring SOE back in line. Still SOE is the one who designed the game and pushed it out the door.
LEC's problem has always been stupidity and incompetence. They would need to hire some competent people to run the place to ever advance to being evil.
Actually, I have to agree with him- SOE really sucks when it comes to the whole "fun" thing. Which is kind of central to the whole GAME thing in my book lol.
You are more right than you know. This is *the* fundamental difference between SOE and a company like Blizzard: SOE doesn't consider itself an entertainment company and Blizzard does. SOE looks to make money by scamming their players and Blizzard looks to make money by making their games fun (I know it's cool to bash WoW because it's so successful but the honest truth is that millions of people find it to be a *fun* game.).
SOE's movement towards item malls and micropayments for their games is a perfect example of this. In an item mall game the developers have to purposely make the game "unfun" so that you are forced to buy items from the item mall but in a game like WoW the developers make the game as compelling (aka fun) as possible to keep you paying your monthly fee. What game would you rather play--a game that is purposely made less fun or a game where fun and entertainment are the most important ideals?
I'm glad I've always been a Marvel fan I want SOE far away from anything that I enjoyed when I was a youngster. I think when SOE sees things that connect to people's happy childhood experiences, they only see something they can exploit to turn a profit. They seem to try to milk it from every available angle, regardless of how this affects their customers, and with very little respect for the intellectual properties.
Ack! I take back any nice posts I have ever said about you. Vertigo FTW.
I hope you guys do understand that everything that went wrong with NGE was not only sony fault, It was Lucas arts who did the work or asked SOE to make the changes. SOE made no changes that did not go thru Lucas arts 1st. Lucas arts have stated this as fact a couple of times but it is always seem to get over looked and SOE gets the blame for it. I am no SOE fanboy I have played some of there games in the past and they have made some mistakes along the way but to unfairly say they are to sole cause of the downfall of SWG is crazy.
FLAME ON as I know you will.
i hated waking up and logging in to find out the game had completly changed and my jedi was just a wet paper bag after all the work i did to get there. But you make a good point Star Wars is a 31 year old franchise that grosses more money than just about any of its kind. Lucas is very anal about it and if anyone thinks that LucasArts didn't have a head in the NGE, they are sorely mistaken. Granted Smedly is a cock sucker but he didn't single handedly destroy SWG he was just the rider of the black horse.
Originally posted by Peccavi Originally posted by WeaponX I hope you guys do understand that everything that went wrong with NGE was not only sony fault, It was Lucas arts who did the work or asked SOE to make the changes. SOE made no changes that did not go thru Lucas arts 1st. Lucas arts have stated this as fact a couple of times but it is always seem to get over looked and SOE gets the blame for it. I am no SOE fanboy I have played some of there games in the past and they have made some mistakes along the way but to unfairly say they are to sole cause of the downfall of SWG is crazy.
FLAME ON as I know you will.
i hated waking up and logging in to find out the game had completly changed and my jedi was just a wet paper bag after all the work i did to get there. But you make a good point Star Wars is a 31 year old franchise that grosses more money than just about any of its kind. Lucas is very anal about it and if anyone thinks that LucasArts didn't have a head in the NGE, they are sorely mistaken. Granted Smedly is a cock sucker but he didn't single handedly destroy SWG he was just the rider of the black horse.
Actually, the participants (lead designer and lead gameplay designer, both former SOE employees) have pretty much told us how much LA had to do with it.
LA said, "make SWG successful and/or more fun." In response, SOE developed the NGE. LA trusted SOE to know what they were doing (bad mistake there) and approved of it. Boom, headshot.
The problem with SOE (and several other online game companies) is that they don't LISTEN TO THEIR CUSTOMERS.
Blizzard does - and I can't help but wonder if this is one of the reasons why WoW (a mediocre game) is leading the pack. I couldn't believe how Blizzard responded to me as a customer. When I quit SWG, all I got was a lame card where I put checkmarks on the stuff I didn't like. With Blizzard, I got a box allowing unlimited comment...and they asked me if I wanted emails when they made those changes!!!
What a switch. When Sony lays people off, they start in customer service. Every study has shown that people will HAPPILY pay more for customer service. I can't help but wonder what the Sony Dev Team thinks of Blizzard's customer service. I'm guessing Smed whines to them constantly (though I have no evidence to support this.)
Anyway - my point is that Sony could be given WoW and they would send that game right in to the crapper along with most of the other games they have because of their business philosophy. It's like putting a model T engine in a Porsche - the engine driving it sucks, so no one is going to want it.
All this said - I don't know how much control DC is going to maintain over the project, how many people are going to get fired at SOE, how many business practices are going to get thrown out the window and so on.
I'm not a DC fan, but I think this does have some potential - to be great or garbage. It remains to be seen.
well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.
Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed. I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company. I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility. It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO. It was a real shock. Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems.
The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well. Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.
Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow? It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.
The division of Sony that SOE was under was Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures was a very backward company for the longest time, and Sony HQ never really questioned them or SOE because they expected losses in film/MMOs. That meant Smed could get away with sleeping on the job and not worry.
Now SOE is under Sony Games which is controlled in Japan. SCEI took over SOE after the launch of the PS3 because they wanted to use SOE for the platform. Now Smed has to deal with SCEI and wont get away with his usual antics.
Let's hope that someone can put some breaks on the crazy train before it does even more damage.
I hope you guys do understand that everything that went wrong with NGE was not only sony fault, It was Lucas arts who did the work or asked SOE to make the changes. SOE made no changes that did not go thru Lucas arts 1st. Lucas arts have stated this as fact a couple of times but it is always seem to get over looked and SOE gets the blame for it. I am no SOE fanboy I have played some of there games in the past and they have made some mistakes along the way but to unfairly say they are to sole cause of the downfall of SWG is crazy.
FLAME ON as I know you will.
Yes Lucas Arts was as much to blame; however, the crap product SOE turned SWG into was SOE's developer's handy work.
The original DC Universe announcement was ALSO when they announced the NGE changes to SWG, and SOE said specifically that SWG and a 'twitch' based targeting system was going to be the 'testbed' for DC Universe's 'new' targetting system.
The developers that took Sony down the NGE road (behind other developer's backs) and SOE are the ones that are very much still in control of SWG and DC Universe, so how good do you think it could possibly be?
They still don't listen to the players, and instead cater to the 1-2month 'me pwnz u' crowd instead of the loyal customer base that was paying their bills.
SWG is trying to 'fix' things, but yet still listens to the players that don't give a crap about the game.
The economy of SWG is broken, loot > crafting, death is meaningless... And SWG's developers will not even 'consider' fixing any substatial aspect of the game, because decay is a dirty word for SWG players, even though every other MMO developer understands the necessity of a 'consumable' market to have a stable economy.
EVEN AFTER THIS MANY YEARS, SWG developer and SOE don't care or don't get it, and both are just as sad and scary.
SOE originally didn't have 100% of the blame, but after this many years and continuing to SCREW their games up for this long, they deserve every bit of hate and anger they have created since then. If SOE had any 'sense' they would have fixed SWG and other games they feked up a long time ago. (Everyone remember the cool fighting system of MxO? Yet, Sony ripped that out, along with any identiy the game had.)
SOE and Sony are the biggest con artists in the business. I feel sorry for people that have bought into the PS3 lies as well, especially when a $400 PC Laptop from Walmart is faster than a PS3 when it comes to gaming power. Good thing Sony killed HD-DVD, so they could continue to charge $400 for blu-ray players, that is the only reason a lot of people buy PS3s is because it is the same price as a stand alone blu-ray player. Sad, freaking, sad...
(Let alone the root kits, and how Sony won the Blu-Ray war - which was the DRM encumbered High Def format, and the DRM of Blu-Ray is specifically why MS fought with Sony and ended up backing HD-DVD, bu the DRM sold it to the studios and now people have the most DRMed media format in history. Brilliant, aye?)
lets just face it dcu will suck only do to $OE having anything to do with it
it will be a watered down mmo game not a world but a game. and $OE will try to go after the joke casual market that is already failing.
we have already told $OE what everyone wants worlds like pre-cu swg. and if they do not give us those worlds then we will keep doing what we are doing untill $OE shuts down.
You know what? I think there's alot of people who play SOE games and never admit it. I'm sure people will play/bitch just like they do did with SWG. EIther way they gettin paid. /shrug oh well.
Why would anyone need to pay to play their games , They keep giving them away for free , most still don't play.
no kidding, I logged into my old EQ2 account for five minutes, logged back out. Same with the SWG trials. Guess I'm just done. But mostly I was referring to Vanguard, seems there are a group of players who play it, but may never admit they do.
Comments
well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.
I'm glad I've always been a Marvel fan
I want SOE far away from anything that I enjoyed when I was a youngster.
I think when SOE sees things that connect to people's happy childhood experiences, they only see something they can exploit to turn a profit. They seem to try to milk it from every available angle, regardless of how this affects their customers, and with very little respect for the intellectual properties.
Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed. I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company. I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility. It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO. It was a real shock. Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems.
The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well. Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.
Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow? It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.
Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed. I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company. I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility. It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO. It was a real shock. Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems.
The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well. Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.
Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow? It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.
The division of Sony that SOE was under was Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures was a very backward company for the longest time, and Sony HQ never really questioned them or SOE because they expected losses in film/MMOs. That meant Smed could get away with sleeping on the job and not worry.
Now SOE is under Sony Games which is controlled in Japan. SCEI took over SOE after the launch of the PS3 because they wanted to use SOE for the platform. Now Smed has to deal with SCEI and wont get away with his usual antics.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Actually, I have to agree with him- SOE really sucks when it comes to the whole "fun" thing. Which is kind of central to the whole GAME thing in my book lol.
I only played SWG for about an hour before I gave up in shock and horror at the ham-fisted jamming of a fantasy RPG gameplay into the freewheeling, open-ended universe of Star Wars.
However, I played EQ1, EQ2 and Planetside for years and years, so I have experience with 3 of the biggest games SOE has had. IMHO, SOE just messed up each and every one in the most clueless manner possible. For most of those years, playing their games really felt like I was working another job!
It took me years to figure out why playing an SOE game feels like you're grinding your life away in a wage-slave job that fits into an overcomplicated, would-be master plan that you can only see a small piece of.
It's because of one simple, blindingly obvious reason. All SOE Developers are ipso facto wage slaves grinding away at a corporate wage slave job. Therefore, everything they do at work involves fitting better into an overcomplicated, would-be master plan that they only see a piece of.
That's why everything they want players to do is like having a job in a corporate workgroup - "The Cleric will Heal the Warrior. The Wizard will Nuke the Opponent. The DPS will Do Melee Damage. The Warrior will Taunt the Mob to Keep its Attention. Any Others will do the Menial Labor to Support our Main Team. Go Team Fun." (For the record, I mainly play druids, paladins and enchanters- all hybrids, and therefore, all treated as the Menial Laborers in SOE's rigid little work teams. So I know whereof i speak.)
Would you go to a party where you were told you would be assigned a set little pigeonhole role and have to play it in the name of Having Fun? Not me.
But SOE devs have no options in their game design other than to have players have the same kind of rote-behavior roles in-game that the devs do at work. Then whatever happens, their suitmonkey bosses can tell THEIR bosses that Everything is Going According To The Plan. Their suitmonkey bosses do not understand what the devs are doing, nor do they care about anything but subscription numbers, which only reflect changes well after it's too late.
So players get tired of paying SOE to work an in-game job instead of having fun, subs slide, and SOE just scratches its head and says "Couldn't be OUR fault, because we're giving them the same kind of fun WE have. Must be WoW's item-centric gameplay. Let's put more items in our games to catch up!".
And that's how you screw up the (arguably) biggest science fiction, biggest fantasy, and only real FPS MMO's in the history of gaming. It's not some uber-complicated, larger-than-life reason. It's the simple, down-to-earth fact that SOE devs are assembly-line workers in a Modern Times environment, trying to sell dull, planned-encounter, rote-combat "Fun" to players who wanted the freedom to roam and discover new lands, new friends, new foes, new risks and rewards, and all the other elements that make an Adventure out of a game.
I feel very sorry for them, I really do. But I feel sorrier for all of the people I see who have been trained to expect being told where to stand, what to do, and when to do it in the name of having fun.
A DC Comic MMO by SOE? Finally something the Jestor Rodo can play with his mask on...
I wonder how long the DC game will be going before the Super Villian "Meatlump" the all mighty shows up.....
Looks like I get to save myself $50 +$15/mo.
Not giving $OE any more money.
Ever.
Ok i get i got my facts wrong with MxO.
SWG is honestly about 80% SOEs fault in my opinion.
LA's involvment was one of negligence not really of evil corporate greed.
Also LA did nothing after the game flopped to bring SOE back in line.
Still SOE is the one who designed the game and pushed it out the door.
SWG is like meeting the hottest chick of all time and then have her give you every STD in the book and then she dresses a monkey up like a baby sues for child support and the judge says yes
What are these big successes? I can count Everquest and... uh... did i mention Everquest? The Smed was always part of Sony's MMOs. Verant was a Sony sub company of 989 Studios (previously known as Sony Interactive Studios America). He got lucky with EQ, and has been coasting on that success ever since.
I fully agree that SOE won't turn around until the Smed is gone. The problem is the guy is as slick as the sleaziest politician, so he is able to talk his way out of responsibility. Quite frankly, if he ever does find himself no longer at SOE, he could quite easily get elected to public office, probably a national one.
LEC's problem has always been stupidity and incompetence. They would need to hire some competent people to run the place to ever advance to being evil.
You are more right than you know. This is *the* fundamental difference between SOE and a company like Blizzard: SOE doesn't consider itself an entertainment company and Blizzard does. SOE looks to make money by scamming their players and Blizzard looks to make money by making their games fun (I know it's cool to bash WoW because it's so successful but the honest truth is that millions of people find it to be a *fun* game.).
SOE's movement towards item malls and micropayments for their games is a perfect example of this. In an item mall game the developers have to purposely make the game "unfun" so that you are forced to buy items from the item mall but in a game like WoW the developers make the game as compelling (aka fun) as possible to keep you paying your monthly fee. What game would you rather play--a game that is purposely made less fun or a game where fun and entertainment are the most important ideals?
Ack! I take back any nice posts I have ever said about you. Vertigo FTW.
i hated waking up and logging in to find out the game had completly changed and my jedi was just a wet paper bag after all the work i did to get there. But you make a good point Star Wars is a 31 year old franchise that grosses more money than just about any of its kind. Lucas is very anal about it and if anyone thinks that LucasArts didn't have a head in the NGE, they are sorely mistaken. Granted Smedly is a cock sucker but he didn't single handedly destroy SWG he was just the rider of the black horse.
Actually, the participants (lead designer and lead gameplay designer, both former SOE employees) have pretty much told us how much LA had to do with it.
LA said, "make SWG successful and/or more fun." In response, SOE developed the NGE. LA trusted SOE to know what they were doing (bad mistake there) and approved of it. Boom, headshot.
fishermage.blogspot.com
The problem with SOE (and several other online game companies) is that they don't LISTEN TO THEIR CUSTOMERS.
Blizzard does - and I can't help but wonder if this is one of the reasons why WoW (a mediocre game) is leading the pack. I couldn't believe how Blizzard responded to me as a customer. When I quit SWG, all I got was a lame card where I put checkmarks on the stuff I didn't like. With Blizzard, I got a box allowing unlimited comment...and they asked me if I wanted emails when they made those changes!!!
What a switch. When Sony lays people off, they start in customer service. Every study has shown that people will HAPPILY pay more for customer service. I can't help but wonder what the Sony Dev Team thinks of Blizzard's customer service. I'm guessing Smed whines to them constantly (though I have no evidence to support this.)
Anyway - my point is that Sony could be given WoW and they would send that game right in to the crapper along with most of the other games they have because of their business philosophy. It's like putting a model T engine in a Porsche - the engine driving it sucks, so no one is going to want it.
All this said - I don't know how much control DC is going to maintain over the project, how many people are going to get fired at SOE, how many business practices are going to get thrown out the window and so on.
I'm not a DC fan, but I think this does have some potential - to be great or garbage. It remains to be seen.
Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed. I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company. I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility. It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO. It was a real shock. Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems.
The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well. Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.
Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow? It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.
The division of Sony that SOE was under was Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures was a very backward company for the longest time, and Sony HQ never really questioned them or SOE because they expected losses in film/MMOs. That meant Smed could get away with sleeping on the job and not worry.
Now SOE is under Sony Games which is controlled in Japan. SCEI took over SOE after the launch of the PS3 because they wanted to use SOE for the platform. Now Smed has to deal with SCEI and wont get away with his usual antics.
Let's hope that someone can put some breaks on the crazy train before it does even more damage.
Yes Lucas Arts was as much to blame; however, the crap product SOE turned SWG into was SOE's developer's handy work.
The original DC Universe announcement was ALSO when they announced the NGE changes to SWG, and SOE said specifically that SWG and a 'twitch' based targeting system was going to be the 'testbed' for DC Universe's 'new' targetting system.
The developers that took Sony down the NGE road (behind other developer's backs) and SOE are the ones that are very much still in control of SWG and DC Universe, so how good do you think it could possibly be?
They still don't listen to the players, and instead cater to the 1-2month 'me pwnz u' crowd instead of the loyal customer base that was paying their bills.
SWG is trying to 'fix' things, but yet still listens to the players that don't give a crap about the game.
The economy of SWG is broken, loot > crafting, death is meaningless... And SWG's developers will not even 'consider' fixing any substatial aspect of the game, because decay is a dirty word for SWG players, even though every other MMO developer understands the necessity of a 'consumable' market to have a stable economy.
EVEN AFTER THIS MANY YEARS, SWG developer and SOE don't care or don't get it, and both are just as sad and scary.
SOE originally didn't have 100% of the blame, but after this many years and continuing to SCREW their games up for this long, they deserve every bit of hate and anger they have created since then. If SOE had any 'sense' they would have fixed SWG and other games they feked up a long time ago. (Everyone remember the cool fighting system of MxO? Yet, Sony ripped that out, along with any identiy the game had.)
SOE and Sony are the biggest con artists in the business. I feel sorry for people that have bought into the PS3 lies as well, especially when a $400 PC Laptop from Walmart is faster than a PS3 when it comes to gaming power. Good thing Sony killed HD-DVD, so they could continue to charge $400 for blu-ray players, that is the only reason a lot of people buy PS3s is because it is the same price as a stand alone blu-ray player. Sad, freaking, sad...
(Let alone the root kits, and how Sony won the Blu-Ray war - which was the DRM encumbered High Def format, and the DRM of Blu-Ray is specifically why MS fought with Sony and ended up backing HD-DVD, bu the DRM sold it to the studios and now people have the most DRMed media format in history. Brilliant, aye?)
lets just face it dcu will suck only do to $OE having anything to do with it
it will be a watered down mmo game not a world but a game. and $OE will try to go after the joke casual market that is already failing.
we have already told $OE what everyone wants worlds like pre-cu swg. and if they do not give us those worlds then we will keep doing what we are doing untill $OE shuts down.
Why would anyone need to pay to play their games , They keep giving them away for free , most still don't play.
no kidding, I logged into my old EQ2 account for five minutes, logged back out. Same with the SWG trials. Guess I'm just done. But mostly I was referring to Vanguard, seems there are a group of players who play it, but may never admit they do.