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A few questions.....hoping on honest answers
Reklaw
Member UncommonPosts: 6,495
I keep reading VETS have won.
Now I have to ask what is it WE have WON?, I am a VET but I continue to mostly see losses within this genre.
Let me explain, we continue to see games in this genre to be more and more dumped down, this for me is a loss and in no way a WIN.
We continue to see game-worlds becoming more little small places on some parts of a map (mostly can't even go anywhere what you see on the map) Again no win here for me. Guessing certain VETS might consider this a win for some reason.
We continue to see more and more feature's holding our hands, again far from a win from my point of view.
Instead of seeing more open seamless type of worlds we see more and more instance's into these games, where is the WIN here?
We getting less and less option in how we can play games in this genre, again to me a lose and again no win situation here.
Can I become a full time crafter until cap lvl in most MMORPG or recent released MMORPG?, NOPE again no win situation for me.
Can I build my own house?, decorate it, show it of to my friends?, let my friends enjoy each other houses?, thankfully some newer games have that option, though they just not visually appealing to me, but compared to how it was done in SWG most of them are still very limited in how we are able to have a house.
So what exactly have VETS won over the last couple of years, cause I count only losses when I look at most recent MMORPG or released MMORPG after SWG. Doesn't mean I ain't enjoying some of the later games after SWG, but I definitely don't see that I have won anything in terms how I thought these games would evolve.
I am still hoping by understanding and seeing how tech has evolved to hopefully after 3/5 years we finally will see more games with more depth then we see recently. But so far even a few upcoming MMORPG again proof to me I at least have not won a thing but continue to lose certain aspects that made pre-cu SWG such a great game TO ME.
Comments
We haven't actually won anything, we can't play SWG pre CU any more now then we could six months ago. There is widespread belief and in my opinion delusional that the bitching and whining from ex-swg players has led to Lucasarts and Bioware teaming up to give us the game we want... Leaving the antichri...I mean SOE out in the cold.
There were rumours about SWG2 as a Lucasarts/Bioware venture for a 2010 release around the the time of the CU on the official forums before we all started bitching about it, around the time tiggs left iirc. So I am starting to think that the new game was on the cards from around about the time the CU went live and games like WoW started going live and eating into SWG's subscriber base.
SWG as we played it, was before its time in its complexity. Unfortunately for us Star Wars is a mass market IP, but SWG was not a mass market game. So it was inevitable that Lucas would try again to create a strong Star Wars MMo.
You are right though, newer MMo's don't have the depth that SWG had in terms of housing, crafting and freedome to move through the game world as we see fit. With each new release I die a little inside when I note the failure to implement even some of the things that made SWG a great game.
I live in hope that Bioware can make a game that mixes the freedom of SWG with the content of something like WoW.
SWG dies, SOE and the current players lose
SWG dies without any classic servers being released. SOE, the current payers and the vets lose
in short...we all lose
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Agree completely but you did forget to add that Smeds still has a job. That would have gotten you an A+
I dont feel the players have won anything. When WoW launched and with its success they forever changed they way MMO's are beeing developed. I guess WoW isnt a bad game. Its just not my cup of tea. But all inovation and creativity stopped with WoW.
Maybe now after so many years of failing to copy WoW's success will we see developers again start to be inovative and creative?
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
buddy we won the second we decided not to pay for crap. end of story. helping others to make this decision is just icing on the cake.
maybe we won't have another swg. maybe we will. whats important is to stick to our beliefs and not settle for crap.
only when the industry colapses will innovation resume. as long as a dev team can successfully pitch a wow clone to suits we will have to deal with it.
Speaking of WoW...I genuinely believe they are not the end-all of online gaming. This market will continue to expand. Niches will continue to be filled. Where there is a demand, there is a supply. I don't think sandboxes are dead, just vastly under-represented in a flooded market of WoW clones. But like any creative enterprise, you can only copy things so many times before the novelty wears off.
"If you don't take care of your customers somebody else will."
Well buddy........ for me it is a loss to not be able to enjoy the game anymore in the way i used to enjoy the game, for me it is a loss that so many games are crappy. You however seem to have a strange way of feeling what a WIN is.
Seriously I know of so many games I will not buy-play or sub to, should I know consider each game I dislike and not play to be a win. In my world it is common sence to not play something you dislike, definitly not a win, like i said pure common sence, and yes I know there seem to be individuals who play games they dislike so perhaps for those type of people it is a win cause somehow they must be forced to play a game they dislike and when they finaly escaped from being forced to play they might consider it a win, as thats the only way how I could imagine your so called wins.
only when the industry colapses will innovation resume. as long as a dev team can successfully pitch a wow clone to suits we will have to deal with it.
Only when the industry collapes will investors withdraw their investments. Aslong developer still can keep people playing their games investors will see means to invest into those games, will these games have no people playing then investors would see no reason to invest in these games.
Well buddy........ for me it is a loss to not be able to enjoy the game anymore in the way i used to enjoy the game, for me it is a loss that so many games are crappy. You however seem to have a strange way of feeling what a WIN is.
Seriously I know of so many games I will not buy-play or sub to, should I know consider each game I dislike and not play to be a win. In my world it is common sence to not play something you dislike, definitly not a win, like i said pure common sence, and yes I know there seem to be individuals who play games they dislike so perhaps for those type of people it is a win cause somehow they must be forced to play a game they dislike and when they finaly escaped from being forced to play they might consider it a win, as thats the only way how I could imagine your so called wins.
so its better to constantly lament the passing of the good times? i will never forget what soe/la did to us and its fun to tweak their noses, talk about the good times, and inform our fellow gamers to stay away from soe but at the end of the day soe screwed themselves. perhaps you just enjoy crying in your beer a little too much.
This is NOT me talking, this is YOU talking in how you try to interpret my post, which kinda shows either you kinda lack the understanding of what I meant or I am simply not clear enough in expressing myself in English.
I agree I don't think anything has been won on this front , SOE continues making games and gaining subscibers. There is very little to like about what options MMO gamers have to pick from . The community is worse off than it was in 05 , They grow more and more jaded as more and more flops are released.
I think those making these victory claims are only playing the schoolyard bully role on these forums. For some reason they think it stirs up the pot , Causing current players grief . I'd however have to disagree , It just gives outsiders more reason to look at the VETs as a lunatics crazed over a lost game .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Nobody won anything. We lost our game, SOE lost a bunch of money and what remained of their reputation (which was already pretty bad prior to the NGE), LEC lost a bunch of money, and the small number of current players who actually enjoy the current version of SWG are going to lose their game. More importantly, every existing and potential MMO player lost because SOE and LEC kept SWG alive long enough for a replacement to be released, which will make other companies more inclined to NGE their own products.
Yes, the NGE was a failure, a major one at that, but it didn't cause SWG to shut down (though it did drive the subscription numbers low enough that it was a possibility). Given time, the lasting legacy of the NGE will become that it greatly reduced costs, and thus will become a more attractive idea for other companies.
I am glad that you refer to the vets as a whole mmo community and not just the people who played SWG pre cu. It is sad indeed that the genre is going backwards since most of the features that you mentioned are avoided from newer mmorpgs.
I could not believe my eyes when i saw after many years SWG, a 3D sandbox game (having features that had been declared as "impossible" from the creators of other mmos) alive and breathing. It was short though since the ammount of its subs was not enough to satisfy the producers of the game.
The shut down of SWG pre cu marked the end of mmorpgs as a genre and after that i am sad to see that the upcoming KOTOR online will Just have "mmo elements".
At last we were lucky to experience MMORPGS as they should be. That's just what we have "won" in my opinion.
In my own humble opinion, ANY of the following are "win conditions":
- SWG NGE gets shut down
- Those responsible for approving it are gone from the industry
- A sandbox game is released
- Any of the existing SWG "private projects" are released
I would consider any one of those things happening as a win for us vets.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
I hate to say this, but the "win" for me is that Sony is finally getting one upped.
The game changes were awful. But what truly pissed me off is how Sony responded to it's vet community. It insulted us, belittled us, made fun of us - and did it all OPENLY and PROUDLY.
The Sony marketing plan was basically "We have the only Star Wars MMO, so where else are you going to go?" *giggle, giggle, giggle*
Well now there *is* another place to go. I'm curious to find out just how big that "vocal minority" really is (since Sony won't release the numbers). I'm betting it's more than 51% of the old player base (meaning that Sony is lying when it calls us the "minority".)
I'm also happy to see the NGE apologists going in to panic. After years of free reign on boards sympathic to Sony where NGE lovers talked down to us, told us to get over ourselves and other mean things, it feels good to say it back to them. The Sony boards are alive with sour grapes and the funny thing is that a lot of these posts are being left up. Once upon a time, you couldn't even question the NGE or suggest playing another game on the Sony forum.
It's nice to know that we (the Vets) were right. If the NGE was such a great game, they wouldn't be panicked. It's nice to think that there might be a place where old SWG vets would be welcomed rather than shunned an impuned.
It's also nice to think that these Sony Devs, who we had no way getting to (other than cancelling our accounts) might finally get the pink slips they have coming to them. It's nice to think that the people making the decisions at Sony might finally get pulled in by their higher ups to answer for some of the things they've done. From where I've been sitting, SOE has been getting away with a lot of terrible things for years.
So after years of laughed at, made fun of, treated like garbage, talked down too and so on it's quite a relief to think that the people who did all the above might finally get what's coming to them.
It's a small victory though. I doubt the new game will be anything like the game I love - but that's not going to stop me from enjoying the Sony Titanic sink....
Sorry bud but that is totally false information . I don't know how long you've been following the progress of this topic on these boards. But the attacks started when VETs started bashing and insulting current players back in 05 (anyone remember the target audience insult posts?), since then there has been a war between the two sides. Which led to the creation of the VET Refugee board you see today(and the creation of quite a few non censored sites). This is largely why I've been at Odds with a segment of the VET community for a long while now(though I rarely comment on the subject anymore). But as you see they are at work again with all these "" I R WINNAR""ELEVENTYONE!!!111>>> posts.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
That's two different issues: playable Star Wars based MMO and existence on the market sandbox-type MMORPG.
in terms of the first issue I belive vets won, because they voted by their feet (=$$$ not paid subscriptions) and their voices, which widely discredited current SWG (other customer's opinions means a lot in the game market). As the result they got a development of another Star wars based MMORPG.
second issue is more complicated. I personally don't think Bioware game will be sandbox type. They rather follow their path of offline KOTOR, which was very succesfull, then old SWG. But there are several MMORPG games in active development which are going by the path of old SWG in some way. TO name a few: Fallen Earth.
Sorry bud but that is totally false information . I don't know how long you've been following the progress of this topic on these boards. But the attacks started when VETs started bashing and insulting current players back in 05 (anyone remember the target audience insult posts?), since then there has been a war between the two sides. Which led to the creation of the VET Refugee board you see today(and the creation of quite a few non censored sites). This is largely why I've been at Odds with a segment of the VET community for a long while now(though I rarely comment on the subject anymore). But as you see they are at work again with all these "" I R WINNAR""ELEVENTYONE!!!111>>> posts.
How is anything Tzimiscechi said that you highlighted in red "totally false"? The NGE apologists ARE going into panic. If you go now, you'll see the General Star Wars board almost totally filled on the front page with threads about the new MMO, and if you read them you'll notice most of them are either in denial or asking "What about our game?" Here's the link: forums.station.sony.com/swg/forums/show.m.
NGE lovers have had over 2.5 years of free reign on boards sympathetic to Sony, including Sony's own boards (obviously), and this one. We all know why this "Veteran Refuge" board was created - to separate us from the teeming masses of millions who would have played the NGE if they only could weed through us grumps. And once upon a time, you couldn't say boo about the NGE on their own boards - they still silence a lot of people, even those just wanting to give an idea, if the post says anything negative about the current state of the game.
It wasn't much of a "war" at first, since almost everyone outside of that original focus group hated the changes and what they brought and represented. The target audience "insult" posts were valid, and I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise. By the devs own admission, the game was too complex, too hard to get into, and the object was to simplify the game. The existing audience either loved the complexity, or was not intimidated by it to the point of quitting. The posts in question were mostly against the mythical player base SOE was seeking, and the inference that these people and hence anyone who would want to play SWG were stupid and not capable of learning. Quite frankly, those who play the NGE should be livid at SOE just on that basis alone: "Here, we made your game dumb enough for you to play it. Keep paying!"
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
Sorry bud but that is totally false information . I don't know how long you've been following the progress of this topic on these boards. But the attacks started when VETs started bashing and insulting current players back in 05 (anyone remember the target audience insult posts?), since then there has been a war between the two sides. Which led to the creation of the VET Refugee board you see today(and the creation of quite a few non censored sites). This is largely why I've been at Odds with a segment of the VET community for a long while now(though I rarely comment on the subject anymore). But as you see they are at work again with all these "" I R WINNAR""ELEVENTYONE!!!111>>> posts.
I might grant you that in the early days, there were shots taken from both sides at each other.
That said, usually these posts were taken down by the Mods. But I remember when the CU was released. They put up a couple of threads for issues and left it up for 1-2 weeks, after which they took them down and from that point on ANY criticism or complaint about the CU was promptly taken down. Meanwhile people who loved the CU were free to say so and tell everyone what they thought of the people who didn't. This is one of the reasons that I left the game.
I wasn't around when the NGE came out - but I had friends who were still playing SWG and they showed me some of the responses they were getting.
It is clear that anyone towing the Sony line had a LOT more leeway than those who didn't. Maybe not on some of the smaller boards, but definitely on the bigger ones.
Sorry bud but that is totally false information . I don't know how long you've been following the progress of this topic on these boards. But the attacks started when VETs started bashing and insulting current players back in 05 (anyone remember the target audience insult posts?), since then there has been a war between the two sides. Which led to the creation of the VET Refugee board you see today(and the creation of quite a few non censored sites). This is largely why I've been at Odds with a segment of the VET community for a long while now(though I rarely comment on the subject anymore). But as you see they are at work again with all these "" I R WINNAR""ELEVENTYONE!!!111>>> posts.
How is anything Tzimiscechi said that you highlighted in red "totally false"? The NGE apologists ARE going into panic. If you go now, you'll see the General Star Wars board almost totally filled on the front page with threads about the new MMO, and if you read them you'll notice most of them are either in denial or asking "What about our game?" Here's the link: forums.station.sony.com/swg/forums/show.m.
NGE lovers have had over 2.5 years of free reign on boards sympathetic to Sony, including Sony's own boards (obviously), and this one. We all know why this "Veteran Refuge" board was created - to separate us from the teeming masses of millions who would have played the NGE if they only could weed through us grumps. And once upon a time, you couldn't say boo about the NGE on their own boards - they still silence a lot of people, even those just wanting to give an idea, if the post says anything negative about the current state of the game.
It wasn't much of a "war" at first, since almost everyone outside of that original focus group hated the changes and what they brought and represented. The target audience "insult" posts were valid, and I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise. By the devs own admission, the game was too complex, too hard to get into, and the object was to simplify the game. The existing audience either loved the complexity, or was not intimidated by it to the point of quitting. The posts in question were mostly against the mythical player base SOE was seeking, and the inference that these people and hence anyone who would want to play SWG were stupid and not capable of learning. Quite frankly, those who play the NGE should be livid at SOE just on that basis alone: "Here, we made your game dumb enough for you to play it. Keep paying!"
Right because anyone who decides they like a game is "dumb" . Just because SOE was moronic enough to blab about nonsense such as that doesn't mean it's a valid argument . If anything it shows a lack there of , When you resort to bashing a player/ base you've already lost the argument. I thank you for proving my point though , Your response is exactly what I was referring to, in how these dumb arguments begin in the first place.
Current players have "free reign" because they are subscribers , Their topics have nothing to do with us as ex-players. Hence why the seperation was put in motion to begin with , the constant Hijackings caused that , Not some iron hammer toting moderator.Of course those that argue otherwise, are just looking for another reason to play the victimized card .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Good post, pretty much sums up my own feelings.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi: We were decieved by a lie; we all were. It appears that SOE is behind everything, including the NGE! After the death of CU, the NGE became their new apprentice."
Well to answer the questions of the orignal poster you first have to define what we were fighting for. Since I can't speak for all the vets I will try and define what my goals are and have been since the NGE went live. It became clear almost instantly that we were never going to get the pre-CU game back from SOE...they way in which they announced the NGE and then brought it live all within a couple weeks meant that they had painted themselves into a corner and couldn't back away. They had to move forward with their new game enhancements at all consts because their argument was that the old game was so fundamentally flawed as to make it completely unworkable and for them to bring back pre-CU in any meaningful way would be to refute that assertion.
It also became clear that there was never going to be any legal action taken against SOE. The only conceivable legal action that could have been taken was removed from consideration when SOE decided to offer refunds for expansion that was released right before the NGE. Other vets continue to bring up the possibility of bringing legal or even criminal action against SOE but realistically neither is going to ever happen.
So, what were we left with? What could people who were outraged by what SOE had done to their playerbase actually do? It's simple: keep the issue alive within the mmorpg community and make sure that SOE doesn't get away with (or even worse) profit from screwing over loyal customers. Now, if just a handful of us had left the game over the CU and the NGE we probably wouldn't have gotten very far but the fact that the game lost hundreds of thousands of players meant that we weren't a handful of angry vets like Smed wanted everybody to believe but were a substantial group of players who were pissed off at what happened.
Well then, what did we win if we didn't get our game back and SOE never got sued? Since those weren't realistic goals in the first place those things don't matter at all. What we accomplished is the fact that no other game has had an NGE since SWG. Also, SOE now has one of the worst reputations in the gaming community and unfortunately for them it's not just because of SWG...they have screwed over players in all of their games in one way or another. It's to the point now where you can go into any other mmorpg and mention SOE and get dozens upon dozens of negative responses. There is a not insignificant number of people that won't play any game connected to SOE which has hurt their platform publishing business (Vanguard and Pirates of the Burning Sea anyone?) and you'll see that almost every time Smed is interviewed these days he is *still* doing damage control over something that happened three years ago. SOE is also apparently unable to make enough profit from their monthly subscription fees and are desperately scrounging around for other sources of revenue like their card games, item malls, and micropayment schemes they are getting ready to implement.
Like I said earlier, I don't speak for all the vets and we don't all share the same goals but make no mistake, we have been successful whether you want to admit it or not.
I might grant you that in the early days, there were shots taken from both sides at each other.
That said, usually these posts were taken down by the Mods. But I remember when the CU was released. They put up a couple of threads for issues and left it up for 1-2 weeks, after which they took them down and from that point on ANY criticism or complaint about the CU was promptly taken down. Meanwhile people who loved the CU were free to say so and tell everyone what they thought of the people who didn't. This is one of the reasons that I left the game.
I wasn't around when the NGE came out - but I had friends who were still playing SWG and they showed me some of the responses they were getting.
It is clear that anyone towing the Sony line had a LOT more leeway than those who didn't. Maybe not on some of the smaller boards, but definitely on the bigger ones.
The Oboards are a different subject entirely , If that is what you were referring to then my mistake . SOE boards have always been tightly moderated, Mostly where complaints are of concern . They love their fans that will take up for them no matter what the issue , But those people are as much representatives of current players as some here are representatives of the pre-cu community.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Right there is the key to what the disgruntled SWG vets have actually accomplished. For everyone who claims we have no effect on anything and are just pissing into the wind, the folks at SOE feel differently. Not differently enought to actually do anything about it, but enough to pay lipservice to it. Not just the folks at SOE either. When the deal with SOE was announced, Flying Labs put up a FAQ about the publishing deal that included a large portion about the NGE and SOE's non-involvement with development. The Smed himself felt the need to promise that SOE would have no hand in Vanguard's development, on the old Sigil pre-release Vanguard board. When SOE bought Sigil and took over Vanguard, the Smed once again promised that there would be no NGE of Vanguard.
If only the folks at SOE would actually follow through with all of the 'We know where we have screwed up in the past and are going to do better from now on' promises... Thus far it has only been words.