Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
NGE looked at from a total outsider.
Wizardry
Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
It took a very long time but after years of constant whining and my long time experience with a player base in many games i decided to do some homework.
The funny thing about Soe and there SWG game was that most agreed it was a very complete game,with expansive skill trees ,some decent updates and a battle system that played like a FPS.There players were decent looking as was the game world.The game world was also a decent size,really the game was quite complete.It had a skill system many species and professions.A dynamic player economy,ground vehicles as well as the space vehicles of course.They have added player housing along the way.In reality ,when you look at the depth of game play and design of the game it is quite good even for a non SWG fan.
Now the meat of the debate.
After unveiling what really went on and not dwelling solely on the NGE part ,it was as i pretty much thought it was.I would lay blame on the player base ,so much so i would say they can take blame for 90% of there complaints and look at there brethren who caused the later fiascal.
Even after smedley,who btw was by no means in this alone,offered up apologies i found them more as saving face and trying to mend the problems without laying blame as i am doing.After all i have nothing to lose,i can say whatever i feel is the truth and not something the player base wants to hear nor do i need to suck up to my directors or shareholders.
The whole fiascal ,for those who do not know is ALL about the JEDI class.This class was suppose to be the best class in the game,so no wonder SOE or perhaps verant as well made it a difficult class to unlock.Now here is where the player base is to blame.You see in my books and anyone with a sense of maturity knows full well you can NOT have your cake and eat it too.What ensued after the next few months was MANY players complaining the profession was TOO hard to unlock.SOE and there board pretty much acknowledged that they were losing subs because of the disgruntled players.
So like a good little SOE they decide to make changes removing the 3 death penalty system and just removing skill points.I think that is a kind of fair response by SOE in being you are gettign the elite class you should take care of it and not be allowed to use it like a noob.In essence there SHOULD be some kind of drawback for having the best profession in game,more so than just the time it takes to unlock it.Guess what happens?MOre subs are lost and more are STILL complaining..geesh it seems the whole player base wants the jedi class and easily handed to them like some item mall purchase.That is the two faced syndrome that ensued this long standing fiascal.This is why i said you can NOT have your whining then get your own way and continue to whine,,very lame in my books.
Guess what happens next?SOE once again bows to pressure because of still losing subs and makes the profession with just a series of quests to unlock it.I mean this pretty much shows they dumbed the game down totally and made the profession nothing desireable or earned or even rare and why? because they cried for it .This is called the NGE New Game enhancements.Soe basically made the game a LOT easier and of course allowed the jedi as a starting profession.
You see even after SOE did everything they could to please the constant whining about the jedi class,they were still losing subs.This is why there whole board decided that the game needed to be simplified as the player base was NOT backing up what they asked for.If the player base had begged for all the changes and showed there support through subs SOE would not have been given the impression the game was dying and needed change.At the time BEFORE the NGE they were steadily losing subs,that is NOT a player base showing support for what they asked for,that is a player base that is just like ALL other games very divided and caused there own demise.Just like other games you get a % that want everything simple and solo,they want to be able to get end game level in 2 weeks,where on the other hand just like the PRE NGE,you have another % that wants a challenge and continued depth in the game.
I have seen the exact same changes take forth in FFXI/VANGUARD and EQ2.the player base are the ones who are causing it,as they are calling out the games as being HARDCORE[how many times we heard this?]SO what do you expect the developer to do?It really appears very obvious that there hands are tied and could NEVER please there entire player base.This couldn't be any more obvious as with the SWG game.Before the changes you had happy challenged oriented players but the others were crying hardcore.Please them then you step on the toes of the hardcore,neither SOE or anyone could possibly fix a divided player base.I might add the combat upgrade was not at fault either as most just couldn't accept change at first but soon the subs recovered to normal after they acted mature and accepted some change to a great game.
IMO it is very sad to realize,this game would have flourished if they just made it a very simplified structure from the beginning[AKA WOW] that way they wouldn't need to make changes for the babies that claim challenge=hardcore.This won't be the last game to go through this that is for sure.
To sum up the whole fiascal i would say the average SWG fanbois was spoiled.They had one hell of a game,i think even the non fanbois would agree to that,i know i am sold as to the over all design of the game.Just because of the NGE they chose to forget the rest of the game witch was areguably among the best out there.I think that is a fact is it not ,shown by the passion old pre NGE fans have shown?You should not criticsize SOE for they made a great game. If you want professions/unlocking dumbed down made easier,you better be full aware of the fact the game will need some structure changes to coincide.I am sure it was never designed to be like horizons,where every single player is a dragon or in this case a jedi.This game was forever evolving even with there added instances and player housing,any sensible person realizes change to a game after it evolves over time.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Comments
Oh please.
First off the game didn't play like an FPS until the NGE. And secondly, there were a vocal group of rather whiny players going on about the Jedi thing back then, but in their defense SOE really screwed the pooch with how they implemented it. The fact is that the Jedi system like so much of the rest of the old game was never playtested to its fullest potential. They implemented things without realizing or even trying to realize just how it would affect gameplay. Of course people were upset.
You can blame it on the fanbois all you want to, it doesn't change the fact that they weren't the ones running the game and making the decisions about it. Its been known for a while that SOE did a bunch of marketing research where they were basically asking people who didn't even play the game what they wanted in an MMO.
Also you posted this in the wrong forum section.
http://mmo-hell.blogspot.com/
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/rejad
I would actually research more about the history of all the aspects of the game before you post something like this, because just from reading the second paragraph you dont know what your talking about.
<a href="http://Deadeyedave.gamerdna.com"><img src="http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/BARTL/Deadeyedave.png"></a>;
The NGE had little to do with the admittedly poor Jedi system that was already in place, nothing to see here, move along.
The NGE was about SOE/LA's pathetic attempt to make the game appeal to the same people that played WoW. See Nancy "Kill, Loot, Repeat" MacIntyre, see the obliteration of 2/3 of the game's classes, see the total neutering crafting got.
In addition to this poor design decision, The NGE was terribly implemented. Bugs, broken professions, the terrible FPS system.../puke. The devs as much as admitted that the NGE was something they threw together in a month or two.
Well it seems like they wanted to slim down the proffesion count as well.
32 combinations makes for a lot of thing to look after(balance/exploits/etc).
The thing that stands out to me is that the folks who did enjoy SWG seemed to like the total SIMS in Space theme....while everyone else was looking for a SW "game" with meat. They saw no reason a game should be focused around entertainers...the original SW trilogy sure wasnt.
Even ole Jar Jar would of said to Koster..."Whasa yousa tinkin?". Why didnt he give us fans a game? We got a SIM ,that was so fudged, they couldnt make time to add content.
I think the NGE would of gone a lot better had they not introed the FPS part...but alas they did. The classes could of been made up for in specialty trees.
Gave the game a shot twice....Pre-NGE and NGE.
All I can say is NO THANKS...if I want the sims or Bennie Hill, I will look to purchase the originals. Not some cheap imitation.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Wow, preCU played like an FPS...?
Wow.
And people who bring up the "32 professions are so hard to balance, I understand why they did it" are just flat out ignorant.
It's not hard to balance. How do I know this? Because 12 professions in the game were combat with another 2 that were semi-combat. You don't need to balance the rest; you just need to make sure they do what they're meant to do. There's nothing to balance between a droid engineer and a shipwright.
And the balance between professions was actually pretty good. It was the FUBAR'd HAM and doctor buff system that made the game retarded.
Unlocking Jedi via quests was not included in the NGE. One click jedi was included in the NGE. "Chose your profession". You have a boat load of "facts" wrong. Read the NGE devs blog, and see exactly why the NGE was implimented.
The player base was, and always has been, the last thing on $OEs mind when it came, or comes, to CHANGES. The player base was and IS always expendable. $OE couldn't care less about it's playerbase or what they have to say. THEN, or, NOW.
what is a fiascal?
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
That is exactly what i said or meant to say[don't feel like reading my post over again],yes i know it was not brought about in NGE.That was the whole point,many players were pissed at the longevity and hassle of unlocking JEDI,that is why SOE chose to start pleasing a lot of the whiners or the ones who wanted things easier.
Unlocking jedi via quests was the first step after the initial one whereby many were still not happy.They wanted it the easy route and SOE must have decided those players were of a majority more so than the others.Even so the ones that spent a lot of hard work unlocking JEDi,shouldn't be whining because like i also said it was a ploy to keep the casual players happy.The hardcore already had there jedi and now the others can have it too,i would say that was a no brainer for SOE.
I am sorry but the player base is exactly why they made the changes ,i have seen this also in other games ...Vanguard/EQ1/2 to witch i played them all.To say they don't care about there playerbase,ya that's why they are offering free 2 months game play?lol your just shooting off typical SOE hate.SOE has made TONS and i mean TONS of changes in there games and it was all about the player base.Players need to get off there hi horse and maybe pay attention to the chat channels where you will see easily the amount of players that ask for changes.If a player base starts to dwindle,then you can also bet the developer be it SOE or ANYONE,will contemplate making changes,that is my friends again a no brainer.No developer on earth is going to sit passive and allow there player base to dwindle without doing something,even if it means pissing off some of its subs.
Like i also said,it is quite possible there decision was the right one.It was the constant hate and forum flaming,bashing that didn't allow the changes to have a FAIR chance at regaining subs.Instead the flamers chose to whine,criticize and cancel there subs,in the meantime also trying there best to make sure others don't enjoy the game or create new subscriptions.This was what i gathered from the whole fiascal,that some of the player base ruined the whole game atmosphere for all,they didn't care if some of the players enjoyed the changes,they were thinking ONLY of themselves.
I play EQ2 now i can honestly say a lot of the changes i don't agree with,actually pretty much everyone of them,but i enjoy the core of the game.Heck even the EQ2 community is as bad as WOW's now ,i mean /2 channel chat is 10 year old syndrome all over again,but i get past all of that and pick out the positives and try to enjoy.I saw the ranger class and samurai class get totally nerfed in FFXI,but instead of stomping around like a little kid and crying about it,i again picked out the positives of the game and tried to enjoy it,others need to follow the same route and they won't get so pissed off the next time a change is made in a game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I believe it is a bottled beverage that when opened a little hand pops out and slaps you a much needed one.If one isn't enough it comes in 6/12 and now they got specials when buying a case of 24.enjoy,open as many bottles as you need.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I would suggest doing a good deal more homework, until you get it right.
fishermage.blogspot.com
I believe it is a bottled beverage that when opened a little hand pops out and slaps you a much needed one.If one isn't enough it comes in 6/12 and now they got specials when buying a case of 24.enjoy,open as many bottles as you need.
Just curious since you used the same word 4-5 times in your long well thoughtout statement. I did not figure you would write such a long indepth post with a horridly mispronounced/mispelled word, so I was curious if it was some new word I did not know of :P
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Sounds like an NGE apologist
OP, you must be a NGE era player. Your history on SWG is quite a bit off, especially since it's apparent you weren't around on or before late 2005.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
he doesnt really need it. He could calibrate the factology, but he is, in general, right. What he should have said/wrote tho was something close to "while i am blaming the player base the guilt is not directed at YOU, that after more then 3 years still bleed for losing your game". that would make a lot of difference.
I beta tested SWG. During that time i found and gave feedback of more than 300 bugs.Some little bugs, some anoying bugs, some ugly bugs, but only a few game stopping bugs. Truth be told SOE didnt fixed most of them and rushed the game out but....there were not de facto that many real game breaking bugs. also i'm not saying the dev team was autist . they just had so many interdependant systems and mechanics in the game that by fixing one they ended up affecting others.
the game did in fact tried to please ...all i would say. It gave the players : ranged combat, melee combat, crafting, social interaction, various degrees of character development, action for the action oriented minded, roleplaying for the rpg oriented players, pve, pvp, factions, player cities, character individuality in almost infinite aspects, not only by the skills but appeareance ; we had players in armor or in suits, in shorts, in sandals and boots, barefooted, using guns , hammers, rifles, flamethrowers, instruments, having pets, with no petsm an achievement system that basicly had- at first- no impact on the game but allowed others to see that the characters had "been around" ...
list is to big to even make. Almost anything that a person can think about being possible in a game WAS in the game.
the game also gave the chance of playing "regular" characters or a "alpha" class. And in may aspects make that in the way it should. Was hard to reach it at first. even misterious and included harsh penalties. Again as it should be. It is the uncle ben parker metaphore "with great power comes great responsability". And unlike the urban mythos that the game didnt had a way to unlock a jedi since early start . Not saying it had since the release ...but it is also a void point because not only the player was not supposed to start the game and become a jedi in the next week, but also because the first times were of game consolidation and "in game" development of social networks and economy.
But the system was there . it was tweaked so much that for 2 times, not one but 2, they messed up and we had a "visible force sensitivity bar", and players saw what it change it... tipping , doing quest, exploring ,,, and probably there were more aspects but they hotfixed it- nevertheless some time after, it was visible again because i guess they were still changing the system.
But they suffer from pair pression. LA wanted to see a jedi, players wanted to see a jedi, the media wanted to see a jedi. So they implemented a dumbed (yet time consuming ) unlock system - the holo+prof grind- that was developed and coded in about 2 weeks.
and they were , in a way, betrayed by the players, the also betrayed themselfs. They had made this "wonderful sandbox virtual world" were the player could be exactly what we wanted. If the player dream was to be a master of unarmed fighting techniques and of 1 hand sword fighting, then we should be a TKA/fencer, because that was his "dream", not become one to stack defensive bonuses. the skill based system was there so th eplayer had the possiblilty of be what he would like to be, not to mix -max the over powered flavor of the month template.
and that human characteristic ruined the game. Instead of just fixing the game adding content, forced the developers to come with ways to keeping some degreee of balance. people stacked defenses, so they changed the way defenses stacked, they become weapon class dependant, working when the player used a ranged or melee weapon, but players rapidly went ahead and combined things like pistoleer/carbineer and rifleman, or fencer/tka/swordsman. new fix, now defenses only worked and holding a 1 hand or 2 hands weapon. that was not enough since people started to bypass it by combining pistoleer and fencer, rifleman and swordman.. the time that the dev team passed creating ways to balance , the players passed bypassing those same corrections.
Naive i Know. the history of mankind shows that the masses are always ready to alienate their dreams for whatever is valious, and the broadest denominator to be power (and mostly power= wealth). In a religious sense , to exchange their soul for a chance of being the king of the hill, or in SWG terminology , the big man on campus. Any way we cant solely blame the devs . There is a long line of famous personalities trough times that tried to promote equalitarism... from Jesus to Karl Marx. They all failed so makes sense some guys making a game would also fail. No news there, so lets move along...
oh wait.. we can't. Because that analogy can be broaded up . the professin grind. Joe has always been a smugler since day 1, until the day joe knows that he can be a jedi if he gets a holocrom and/or master some professions, so he starts mastering them. Now paul and Kurt normally would resort to joe to slice their weapons, They go to joe but , alas , joe is a doctor now... ok. so next day kurt and paul ask Joe to buff them, but joe is a entertainer now, next day a weaponsmith, then a armosmith, next week a chef, and even a bounty hunter, complaining why he can't master it just by killing or crafting stuff with a macro instead of taking this dumb missions that force him to launch droids ....
Because there were hundreds of joe's, the servers economy almost crash, it is not apparent, at first there is this boom, since we have players equiping themselfs at alarming rate in diferent ways, according to the professions they try to master. because everyone changes profession so fast, most of the times they never really produce anything. taking my example, Joe was a good smuggler, but a bad weaponsmith or armorsmith- he just wanted to master the thing, not PLAY IT.
A sick consequence is that all this profession swapping starts to affect the the social interdependencies of the game. Paul and Kurt normally talked to joe a lot, but now all of them just grind professions... sometimes they are even sleeping and their macros working... this triangule can be multiplied by hundreds. at the same time the devs did not wanted an a spontaneous army of jedis, so they increase the number of professions mastered... kind of " DAMN, if he put the reqs really high, maybe half of them goes back to whatever they liked"... result;: people start to master things faster and faster... in the players mind....hell why have holocroms... just master everything and I'll have my jedi slot .
at that point people start to actually quit. Many times we forget that large amount of players quited before the CU, because the game had become a void profession grind. People complain, they get this ideia of aurelia and some quest that allow you to be jedi without much need of profession mastering... like "hey you can get there in the way you want by trading exp " .... it takes some time... probably from all the systems was the best in the sense it was clear to the players and they could have some "fun" playing the game they way they preffered....
while all of this was happening, we had player complaints. it was to hard, to complex, take to much time, there was no balance, it lacked content, crafter were making a fortune, then combat professions were making a fortune, then was decay, then jedi were uber, then jedis were not uber, then the secluded grind destroyed the player interaction, then jedi shouldnt be massified, lightsaber tef and visibility, permadeath, bounty hunter missions, the force ranking system, exp loss, the aurelian grind, macro'ed combat. "bosses " not dropping lot, med buffs, no buffs, ... people complained about everything and anything, and left..
... surprised they simplified everything and put what was left at 1 click a way (nge)?
and yes, I do know that not all players fit in this analysis. But the problem is, a vast majority of them do. The guy that liked his pet and loved to be a creature handler doesnt, myself that despite starting the game on 26 june 2003 only mastered markmans, scout, brawler, pistoleer and Bounty hunter, and even today never played a jedi also dont' fit, and you , yes, you that post here, and want your game back, probably also don't fit... but guess what, from those 250 K that quited, maybe only 20% actually gives themselfs to the trouble of posting about the game...
I can anticipate someone telling me "was not really like that "-and then they try to explain me whatever happend based on their vision . I get that a lot. I normally smile. The difference between me and those people is that i hold 2 masters in History and they normally don't. I actually published some works and they dont. And also have a license that allows me to teach history.
Despite what many think, history is not supposed to be shaped by the general public. people like me actually passed 4 to 5 years studying things like theory of history, historiography, metodology, learning how to get distance from the events and learning how to reduce our own personal feelings or views about a subject . And , when facing a complex reality, to isolate an aspect and actually develop over it. that is what i did here.
That is what the OP did also- not sure if it was his clear intention but that was what he did.And as someone that actually lectured history at universitary level, if I asked a written report about SWG, I would probably give the OP a decent grade. Because he isolated a problem, and formulated a explanation based on it. he just did not got the factology right.
Now , having said that, fisher, now you can tell me i'm being arrogant or having a prejudice. last week i was not, and think you kind of understood that after some , actually for me interesting, talk. On this i do accept. it is a common trace to people with my formation, not only common but even to a point needed. like an olimpic contender that wants to be the best and win a medal , a history researcher needs that ideia of being better (not as a person, rather a "professional" of his field) at giving an explanation than the other, or else there is no need to review historical knowledge, that is per si subjective and to a point relative - unlike other forms of knowledge, most of them of mathematical or exact natures.
the history of SWG and it's fall is to be honest full of twists, silences and shadows. But believe me, If i had to write a book about it, the jedi implementation, manegement and the thirst of players for it would be a pyvotal or central axis of the downfall. Mostl because it involved everything that was bad with the game and multiplied it many times. It become the "black hole" of SWG.
Well it seems like they wanted to slim down the proffesion count as well.
32 combinations makes for a lot of thing to look after(balance/exploits/etc).
The thing that stands out to me is that the folks who did enjoy SWG seemed to like the total SIMS in Space theme....while everyone else was looking for a SW "game" with meat. They saw no reason a game should be focused around entertainers...the original SW trilogy sure wasnt.
Even ole Jar Jar would of said to Koster..."Whasa yousa tinkin?". Why didnt he give us fans a game? We got a SIM ,that was so fudged, they couldnt make time to add content.
I think the NGE would of gone a lot better had they not introed the FPS part...but alas they did. The classes could of been made up for in specialty trees.
Gave the game a shot twice....Pre-NGE and NGE.
All I can say is NO THANKS...if I want the sims or Bennie Hill, I will look to purchase the originals. Not some cheap imitation.
32 Professions are not that bad to keep up with there are many games with similar choices. Now SWG Pre-Cu had 32 professions not all of them were just Combat so the idea that it was too much to look after is Absurd.
Second paragraph? More like second sentence. I'm pretty sure no one agreed swg was complete....and in fact was quite lacking in many areas (most notably plenty of broken professions...not unbalanced but broken...)
Exactly, very well said.
To the OP. Here were some common complaints about the original game: this quest is broken, please fix it; my target keeps spawning in an object, please fix this; I'm trapped in my house by a randomly spawning object, please fix this; mind wounds really can't be defended against, please address this; you can't really go to most planets without waiting in line and shelling out cash for a doc buff, please address this. Regarding jedi, I'm aware that people were trying to find out how to unlock one, when they may not have even been coded into the game. Can't blame players for that one. Once they were unlockable, some players thought that mastering an ever increasing number of professions wasn't really very entertaining. I wouldn't blame them for that either really. Even the dev who created the initial jedi system said it wasn't what he wanted it to be. He said it sucked because he only had 2 weeks to code it, "after" release.
The dev team was working along with player correspondents to address these issues, and then WoW was released. It was a fantasitc success, arguably because it worked a whole lot better than SWG and was therefore much more enjoyable. I was on Ventrilo with my guild mates when they switched to WoW for these very reasons.
Instead of following through on their work to fix the original game, SOE and LEC execs started thinking of ways to copy WoW. The copies were rushed, however, and very poorly done. The marketting of the Combat Upgrade even made specific reference to the game now being more like WoW. The NGE took this WoW trend even further and seemed to throw in some Battlefront fps (done very poorly though) for good measure. Again, this total game revamp was horribly rushed, and produced the results you might expect.
Both the CU and the NGE were top down management decisions. In fact the focus groups for the NGE included ZERO actual players of the game, according to Jeff Freeman.
Not only that, but players and even some SOE staff told their managers that the NGE would cost them their playerbase. So, if you are really aware of the facts, you'd know that the CU and NGE were top-town management decisions that had very little to do with players' actual concerns. Blaming players doesn't really seem like an evidence based conclusion. Were you aware of the things I've mentioned here?
Second paragraph? More like second sentence. I'm pretty sure no one agreed swg was complete....and in fact was quite lacking in many areas (most notably plenty of broken professions...not unbalanced but broken...)
I want to take this opportunity to agree with you 100% on this one
That is exactly what i said or meant to say[don't feel like reading my post over again],yes i know it was not brought about in NGE.That was the whole point,many players were pissed at the longevity and hassle of unlocking JEDI,that is why SOE chose to start pleasing a lot of the whiners or the ones who wanted things easier.
Unlocking jedi via quests was the first step after the initial one whereby many were still not happy.They wanted it the easy route and SOE must have decided those players were of a majority more so than the others.Even so the ones that spent a lot of hard work unlocking JEDi,shouldn't be whining because like i also said it was a ploy to keep the casual players happy.The hardcore already had there jedi and now the others can have it too,i would say that was a no brainer for SOE.
I am sorry but the player base is exactly why they made the changes ,i have seen this also in other games ...Vanguard/EQ1/2 to witch i played them all.To say they don't care about there playerbase,ya that's why they are offering free 2 months game play?lol your just shooting off typical SOE hate.SOE has made TONS and i mean TONS of changes in there games and it was all about the player base.Players need to get off there hi horse and maybe pay attention to the chat channels where you will see easily the amount of players that ask for changes.If a player base starts to dwindle,then you can also bet the developer be it SOE or ANYONE,will contemplate making changes,that is my friends again a no brainer.No developer on earth is going to sit passive and allow there player base to dwindle without doing something,even if it means pissing off some of its subs.
Like i also said,it is quite possible there decision was the right one.It was the constant hate and forum flaming,bashing that didn't allow the changes to have a FAIR chance at regaining subs.Instead the flamers chose to whine,criticize and cancel there subs,in the meantime also trying there best to make sure others don't enjoy the game or create new subscriptions.This was what i gathered from the whole fiascal,that some of the player base ruined the whole game atmosphere for all,they didn't care if some of the players enjoyed the changes,they were thinking ONLY of themselves.
I play EQ2 now i can honestly say a lot of the changes i don't agree with,actually pretty much everyone of them,but i enjoy the core of the game.Heck even the EQ2 community is as bad as WOW's now ,i mean /2 channel chat is 10 year old syndrome all over again,but i get past all of that and pick out the positives and try to enjoy.I saw the ranger class and samurai class get totally nerfed in FFXI,but instead of stomping around like a little kid and crying about it,i again picked out the positives of the game and tried to enjoy it,others need to follow the same route and they won't get so pissed off the next time a change is made in a game.
You keep saying they listened to their playerbase to come up with all these CHANGES and history just does NOT bear you out..
There might have been forum trolls asking for a boat load of things, BUT................., I'm told that when NGE finally made it to test there were thread after thread of "we do NOT want this".
The fact is, they still continue in NGE mode. I WAS there for the Chapter 6 Combat Downgrade which had 2 threads, in the development section, of over 2000 posts pleading with them not to do it as soon as it was announced. COUNTLESS ( more thousands of posts) other threads were deleted as fast as the player base could put them on in the Gameplay section. Sure enough, that 1 cost them a bunch of subs also. That's when the threads of "we need server merges" came to be. Smedley announced at that point in time, SWG had 100K subs. They got that much now? uhhhhhhh, NO! Not even half.
Even if you actually think SOE "listened" to the few forum trolls asking for everything under the sun, why then, NOT listen to the MASSES when they tell them, to the MAX, that no-1, except a few flaming forum trolls, DO NOT want these CHANGES?
You can't have it both ways. Either they listen or they don't. And blameing even the forum trolls, does NOT make any sence if the MASS player base tells them different BEFORE the patch hits live.
After C6CD, (about this time last year) I installed WoW and downloaded the patches. THEY were up to 2.something on patches. They downloaded in minutes. SOE's SWG patches take LONGER than the GAME to download. Which 1 has more patches (CHANGES)? Which 1 HAS the 10 million subs? Coincidence? While I personally could not get thru the 30 days that came with the box, WoW has been reasonably stable and ADDS expansions, new levels, new content, new areas. THAT is the reason WoW is sucessful. If they NGE'd WoW, it would be NO different than SWG. Even Rubinfield admitted that you "can't CHANGE a game after launch".
I had a chat with the creative director of SGW, in another forum and the subject of SOE's SWG CHANGES came up. He stated;
"I agree that a product that radiclly CHANGES after launch was badly designed or managed by people who tend to panic"
And this was from a guy that was defending CHANGES in MMOs.
Next? If SOE is so-called "listening" to the player base, Where the hell are the classic servers? There were SEVERAL threads on the SOE boards, EVEN this weekend asking for those servers or asking for things that were included in those servers. Mods promptly got those too on SOE's long standing order of "we don't talk about classic servers". Thousands and THOUSANDS of posts in the last 3 years pleading with SOE to make this happen. Where is the "listening" there? How did EQ get a quasi "classic server" and NOT SWG?
A blog someone just posted about on the SOE boards had Raph Koster's comments regarding the NGE.
"Just like it is not a good idea for a Government to make radical legal CHANGES, without a period of public comment, it is often not wise for an operator of an online world to do the same".
This was FROM the DESIGNER who was there.
I think you need to go look at the "un-named" NGE dev's blog again. He made it QUITE clear that the existing player base was AND IS EXPENDABLE. The existing player base, OR what they have to say, has NEVER mattered to SOE. They are ALWAYS after that "other" playerbase and they are not afraid to LOSE ALL the playerbase they have to go get them.
TRY again.
Well it seems like they wanted to slim down the proffesion count as well.
32 combinations makes for a lot of thing to look after(balance/exploits/etc).
The thing that stands out to me is that the folks who did enjoy SWG seemed to like the total SIMS in Space theme....while everyone else was looking for a SW "game" with meat. They saw no reason a game should be focused around entertainers...the original SW trilogy sure wasnt.
Even ole Jar Jar would of said to Koster..."Whasa yousa tinkin?". Why didnt he give us fans a game? We got a SIM ,that was so fudged, they couldnt make time to add content.
I think the NGE would of gone a lot better had they not introed the FPS part...but alas they did. The classes could of been made up for in specialty trees.
Gave the game a shot twice....Pre-NGE and NGE.
All I can say is NO THANKS...if I want the sims or Bennie Hill, I will look to purchase the originals. Not some cheap imitation.
32 Professions are not that bad to keep up with there are many games with similar choices. Now SWG Pre-Cu had 32 professions not all of them were just Combat so the idea that it was too much to look after is Absurd.
Really? Where are they?
WoW/EQ/EQ2/LoTRO/CoH/Vanguard ,just to name a few, remained below 20. Tradeskills were a secondary function.
Unsure how many DAoC had with the 3 realms...but bits/pieces of the "unique" classes were basically the same thing IIRC.
There should of been about 10 combat classes at launch, a few trades, and NO basing the game around entertainers. Sure it creates interaction(provided the ents arent macroed...which a lot were)...but it is also forced linear progression to the max.
For being a 'sand-box', you sure were forced to go thru the lines...instead of just being able to pick up and do what ya wanted to.
Not all folks who played pre-nge think it was a good game...myself included. SOE snagged 30 bucks from me I wouldnt mind having back. Heck the flaming pile known as MxO was better AFAIAC.
Spare me the kool-aid thx.
Ralph made a simulation...not a game the masses would enjoy. That is why SWG never surpassed EQ in subscription numbers. Had Ralph made it EQ in space, SWG would of had at least double the subs as EQ IMO.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
More research required
Fungerer som det skal
i stopped reading at the "the NGE was 90% of the player's fault". The game was Not complete pre-cu, we didnt make the changes(NGE), and the game was Not an FPS pre-cu. Looks like your homework was fed to you by some fanboi or SOE themselves.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
To the OP, you undermine your own post...I don't understand how you say SOE 'gave the whiners what they want'...yet the result was mass exodus after the NGE. Hmm so IF the whiners got what they wanted wouldn't they have stayed? Furthermore, IF infact the NGE wasn't a huge pile of garbage that completely changed the game so much that it wasn't even the original game other than the environment and title then everyone would have praised it and stayed and still be playing....but the FACT is the game was broken...they attempted to fix it and destroyed it. Period, please do more research.
Also, if you think the 'problem' the whiners had with the game was with the Jedi...you obviously have no clue as to what the majority of the playerbase was whining about. Period, please do more research.
Now, let's just pretend for sake of arguement that the changes were made because of the playerbase 'whining'. You claim that they got what they asked for. Really? So you believe that the devs. completely listened to the 'whiners' and only put in the game what the 'whiners' wanted? Wow really can't do much with that claim, other than repeat what I've already said. The FACT is the devs didn't listen way back in beta and didn't listen during pre-cu or for NGE..they just used it as an excuse to explain the changes...this can be documented...Period, please do more research.
Now for my final point, Fiascal? I have no idea what this is...my guess is you meant fiasco...which by definition means: a complete failure. Please do more research.
Now given that definition then yes the NGE was a fiasco, as was your origianl post.
If you are having fun playing SWG, I truly am glad I can't take away that experience you are having...so in turn please don't try and explain my experience I had in SWG pre-cu/NGE you have no idea what went on. Even if you do the research and get your facts straight you still will never understand what truly happened.
Claji Kiher- Ahazi server
Lets say in your home city the populace has been asking for a professional football field to be constructed and a team formed. Your city says Okay , we will need donations and it might happen. Populace pays the dividend , Construction begins on a dome. Opening day comes and just about every citizen heads out to the stadium to watch the first game . On arrival everything looks normal outside of a few oddities in plain view. However upon entering the stadium they realize they were given a futball field , Not a football field.
NGE was a game , It just wasn't the game we paid or asked for.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Anyone who blames the NGE on the actual players who were playing SWG at the time should be shot.
I believe it is a bottled beverage that when opened a little hand pops out and slaps you a much needed one.If one isn't enough it comes in 6/12 and now they got specials when buying a case of 24.enjoy,open as many bottles as you need.
Sounds as If your a frequent buyer.