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What wrecked the game?
tornsage
Member Posts: 26
After reading the threads, I won't join.
Why didn't the game designers see this as clearly and then WHY didn't they change it back to the initial setup of a few knights and only the elite players?
It's such a shame. Is it still worth playing at all?
Comments
Is it still worth playing at all?
No. At least not for a monthly fee. If it were free... MAYBE. But games like WoW, AoC, EVE, LotRO, CoH/CoV, and a number of other games I have tried are much better than SWG as it stands today, they come with far less bugs, and they likely won't keep changing the game structure like SOE does.
Short Answer: Don't waste your time.
Tecmo Bowl.
SOE's greed. Pure and simple.
Tbh I think some of the lead designers did see the problems. I think they wanted more time to fix the professions and other serious bugs and issues before the game initially went live. I think they also wanted to have more than two weeks to implement the entire jedi system. They didn't get that time, and the game released with a ton of serious bugs and issues. Still, a lot of people played it, because it was a StarWars MMO, it had a lot of depth, and really created a community feeling.
Players and devs were working together on correcting the most serious bugs and issues. They talked about approaching a testing phase for the fixes. Then WoW released in a highly polished state and did great--not coincidentally. SOE was operating on a release now, make it work later philosophy. Blizzard was not.
People, including former devs for SOE, have talked about SOE management feeling some anxiety about the success of WoW and the relative lack of success of SWG. People, including at least one former dev from SOE, have suggested that marketting types began suggesting radical changes to the game that would be sure to make the game a success. Many of these radical changes would copy WoW outright, others seemed to copy another successful game at the time, StarWars Battlefront.
So, instead of following through on their original vision, and implementing the bug fixes that players and devs worked on together, SOE tried to tap into WoW's audience via two rushed, bug-ridden, unwanted entire game revamps. The second revamp was arguably the worst, in that much of the players' progress up to that point was simply deleted, along with most of the game's professions.
Add to that the idea that the second revamp was a surprise, and that it invalidated much of a new expansion people just paid for two weeks earlier, and you have an MMO catastrophe.
Since all of that has happened, SOE has slowly added back some of the features that used to make the game enjoyable. They have also addressed some bugs and issues, but many still remain, and the playerbase has been put through a meat grinder.
Now there's talk of a new StarWars MMO coming out in a couple of years, and people wonder if SWG will survive.
So, I think a lot of the devs knew what needed to be done, but they weren't sitting in the big chair. In fact, some devs warned management that their strategy was going to cost them much of their current playerbase. A minority of the devs present were pitching some of the whacky ideas that ended up in the second, hated revamp, but many (probably most) were not. Some developers left SOE when they learned what was going on, and others asked for transfers to other projects.
So, what went wrong? In summary, everything I've seen suggests that with WoW's success, management hit the panic button and decided upon a poorly thought out "copy wow" strategy, instead of sticking with their original vision and making it a success. In so doing, they turned a game with some problems into a nightmare, alienated most of their players and damaged their reputation in the industry.
Is it worth playing? Well, tbh I think that's a judgement call. One that you alone can make. I've decided not to go back, in light of the history I've just described, and unfortunately experienced first-hand. Some people seem to think the game is wonderful (a few of them post here ocassionally). If you want to know why they think that, well you'd have to ask them.
I think what ruined this game is laziness and tunnel vision.
Laziness on the part of gamers who dont want to work for things and when they cant have what they want they complain. When everyone in an mmo is special, no one is.
The tunnel vision is something that SOE did. They couldnt realize that shifting the target audience focus away from the diehard fans to the short-term players who have ADD would upset the very core of the customers that were paying their bills. That is just plain ignorance.
Us gamers and soe as a whole are to blame. While there were people, myself included, who did the jedi grind, there were always people who didnt want to do the work. They must have been the people SOE telemarketed to ask how to make the game better.
As far as being fun, try it. Dont listen to disgruntled people. Do the work and install the game. Decide for yourself. You may like it, who knows.
I think it was it being a Star Wars IP, I couldn't imagine SOE doing what they did if it was their own IP but in game terms then it all started with Jedi and ended with NGE.
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Talking about SWG much?
as a huge SW fan, and SWG only being my 2nd MMO(DAoC) i was playing this game to "live in the SW universe", as it were.
I could deal with the bugs, glitches, missing or broken content and whatever because I was having a great time with what was there.
with the help of ingame GM's I set up a few ingame events and had a pretty active guild(2nd guild on server to have a pa hall, 3rd city on server)
I had also set up my own little faction war in a remote area of tattoine. 2 bases of each faction right across from each other. was great to sit back and watch the npcs engaged in a constant battle.
I guess what ruined the game for me was there being 100's of jedi per server during a time in the SW universe where there arent supposed to be more than a handfull at most.
at first I was able to deal. there were maybe 10 or so jedi on the whole server. but when that number swelled to 50+ it made the game less and less enjoyable.
then one day the members of one guild decided they didnt like my faction farm and destroyed all 4 bases. they had around 25 jedi with them and they easily dispatched the 40-50 non jedi and 5 or so jedi who came to defend it.
that was the final straw for me. i had worked hweeks top get it up and running and then a bunch of jedi, jedi who shouldnt even be in the damn game, came and destroyed it in less than 1 hour.
I tried the game about a year ago and at first I enjoyed it. I never played the game before the NGE so I didn't have any animosity per se. I am a huge Star Wars fan and obviously the IP is the main reason I checked the game out. While I enjoyed the game at first a few things started to bother me. While I actually like the combat system and the overall atmosphere of the game. The planets are huge. It's actually one of the biggest games I have come across. The game just doesn't feel right. They have gutted the game twice and there is all this old code floating around. So what you have is the new game built right on top of the old game. So a lot of things just don't quite work right. Another thing is the game is not very friendly to the new player. The tutorial station gives you a good idea about the game but you get no real help in starting a pilot career, building ships, crafting, or the beast master system. No real class or faction specific quests. You just have the stupid Legacy Quest which is fine until you start your 4th or 5th alt and have to do the same damn thing. The only other way to level up is to grind and that takes foooooreeeever.
The game is ok but i felt that I could not in good conscience pay any more for it. I play EQ2 and City of Heroes. i am not an SOE hater and i don't have a problem with EQ2. I just wish they would push and advertise it more because it is a pretty good game.
One last note. I am damn near insulted over the addition of the voice chat. Of all the damn things that could be done to improve this game they put in a damn voice chat?!? Maybe back before the servers were dead but this is just useless. I refuse to give this game any more time. It's broken and they don't want to fix it.
I could really go on with how the game was wrecked.
* Longstanding, Unresolved Bugs / Issues: Stuff that NEVER has been fixed with the game. I also lump in the lack of updates / fixing / revamps of some professions that really, really needed it: Ranger, Squad Leader, Commando, etc.
* Increasing disregard for Star Wars Canon / Lore: Jedi implementation is a major factor here, but I'll get into that later. When the last Prequels were being released, the devs made a HUGE push in promoting anything related to the Old Republic / Clone Wars. Example: It would have been fine to throw in gear from the older eras in. But to make them dominate the game was insane. The disregard for canon only grew as time progressed.
The canon / lore of any IP is always important, IMO. That background, that theme... is what makes that property what it is, be it Star Wars, Middle Earth, Star Trek, Babylon 5, etc.
* Jedi: In the early, early days of SWG, there wasn't really a problem with them. Developed ones were powerful, but they all had to worry about visibility, and of course, Permadeath. This kept the Jedi population humble, hidden, and... revered. There was a point in SWG's history where Jedi were held in awe. Seeing one in action was a game-stopping moment to behold. This compromise in gameplay with Star Wars lore was fitting.
But things changed ever since Publish 9. Jedi no longer worried about Permadeath. They began to parade around in the open, in front of the Empire. You saw more and more of them. It got to a point where there were so many Jedi that they absolutely dominated the game, especially the GCW. If you were a "normal" character, you were a liability. There finally emerged a point where you could have more Jedi onscreen than Stormtroopers. You could have more Lightsabers swinging than blaster fire exchanges.
Then there was the eventual Publish / Patching dedication towards Jedi. Jedi received tremendous attention from the devs Publish after Publish. All while many other Professions have not received a single pass for fixes.
All this led to a point where Jedi were now *despised* Amazing how SOE did that, turning something from Star Wars that was widely revered into something hated.
* Piss-Poor Actions by SOE: This is my catch-all for all the BS SOE did to its playerbase. Everything from implementing the CU and NGE, and the insults thrown at its own PAYING playerbase when they were up for interviews and such. When they developed the NGE, they KNEW alot of us would leave once they released it. They still went through it despite widespread protest by their paying customers. They were expecting us to leave so that we would be replaced by a rampaging horde of brand new players. Well, that hilariously didn't turn out the way SOE wanted.
F**k SOE.
"You go to hell... you go to hell and you DIE!"
"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)
Honestly? We'll never know.
I can only give you my impressions after watching the confusing, tangled mess that resulted on this side and the biggest catchall complaint is simply: they didn't listen to their players.
Yes - the game needed tweeking. All games do. But when most SWG players said this what they really meant was "I want my flamethrower to effect Nightsisters", "TK should be toned down a bit", "Bounty Hunters should be able to hunt other players" and stuff like this.
This is what most people meant. But what the powers that be heard is "We want EQ2" (which gave us the CU) and later "We want WOW" (which gave us the NGE.)
A lot of people were shocked when they saw the CU. There were complaints on all the boards. There were email campaigns to SOE and LA. There were entire websites set up to discuss how much the CU was hated. (The same thing would happen only a larger scale when the NGE was released.)
Sony responded that the CU/NGE was the greatest thing since sliced bread and only a "vocal minority" didn't like the changes. I believe this is a lie for two reasons: #1) Sony refused to release the numbers for SWG. If what they were saying was true and the numbers were that high SOE would have been bragging everywhere. And #2) SOE sent out a massive damage control team. They hired a bunch of people to go out and talk up SWG on the boards and in other media. We know they were doing this. We'll never be sure HOW MUCH they were doing this, but they did get caught doing this more than once.
Anyway - the point is, Sony knew how a *majority* felt about their game.
What came next was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in the history of a megacorp: not only did SOE not listen to their players, they began openly mocking and belittling their unhappy base. It was like something you'd see in a crappy comedy movie on late night TV where the characters are intentionally trying to fail. In fact, I couldn't help but wonder after the NGE was released if Sony was actually trying to do something like that (their contract with LA expired about six months after the NGE was released.)
I was completely stunned when LA gave them the contract again.
Anyway, the next few months I began hearing rumors flying around that the NGE wasn't even tested by people who played SWG. This lines up with the fact that I didn't know anyone who had played it. Furthermore, right after the NGE came out a bunch of devs and other employees left.
None of these things add up in my mind. None of it. Does SOE really hate it player base? From where I'm sitting, it sure seems so. Was there a bunch of office politics and wars going on at SOE? From where I'm sitting it sure seems so. Are they so completely arrogant that they would rather take millions of dollars in losses and angering so many people rather than admit making a mistake? From where I'm sitting, the answer is yes. Would someone that completely arrogant have the old lines of code stored somewhere? From where I'm sitting yes. Sony has a long history of lying to its players.
So when you add all of this together, you get a giant bucket of worm infested NGE.
Every business study done shows that people will willingly and happily pay more for good customer service. It would not surprise me to learn that the first thing Sony did to save money was fire their entire customer service department.
Change after Change after Change after Change. To combat systems, professions, expertise systems, etc, etc, etc, etc. You name it, it was CHANGED.
Player acomplishments whiped out in a patch, MANY times. Professions gone. Nerfs to what was left.
SOE was, and still is, after a player base they don't have but they are willing to sacrifice the entire playerbase they do have to go after the other one.
I played SWG for about two years. At times it was great! I had a tight group of friends that I played with and we had some great times, some of the best times I have ever had playing a MMO were on SWG.
Other than the Empire campaign and the Jabba Campaign the game didn't make me feel like I was in the Star Wars Universe. And then when the big switch came my character class was pretty much wiped out. Yeah I got to switch my points over to a new career, but they narrowed the careers down so much that it took the uniqueness away from the game, and everyone was just about the same, You could walk down the street and pretty much see your own character six different times. Where before you had so many different choices to customize your career path that it was just awesome.
I put over a year into my character and they just switch things up out of nowhere, I was not happy.
I played on for a few months after the switch but it just wasn’t the same. Everyone was a Jedi, and I just didn't want to go down that path. Before the switch you very rarely saw a Jedi, and when you did come across one it felt like you were seeing something amazing, and you could appreciate it. They dummied the game down so much that it just wasn’t fun anymore. Part of the fun for me in the game was the complexity in it, and they totally took that away after the switch. I quit playing the game shortly after the switch and uninstalled it never to be played again. I still have the game and every once in a while I look at that CD case and I get the slightest of urges to reinstall it and fire up my character again, but I am quickly reminded of the pain that the game put me threw and I place the CD case in an area where I wont be reminded of the game.
SWG was fun for me for a while. Try it you might like it. If you can pick up the game for cheap, give it a shot, it still has some different things in it that not very many other MMO's have. But with the MMO's that are out there now and that are going to be coming out in the near future (Warhammer!!!) You just might want to pass on it.
Who knows why they didn't change it back after they lost thousands of players... maybe stubborness? I don't know... Something that pissed me off though was that I had my skill points maxed and had a profession currently mastered and then when they brought in combat levels, I was like level 70 or something, pretty damn stupid. My original server is now dead though and my original char just sits there and rots, but I've started up a new char on a more populated server and I'm having a decently good time, but the game will never be the same, and will always be a stepchild of it's former self. One thing that's for certain... I'll be out the second the speculated KotOR MMO is released, but atm I just like Star Wars too much too not be playing SWG, and I can live with it faults. There's not a MMO on the market without faults, some may have more than others though.
Things seem pretty stable now... doubtfull there will be anything else NGE like to totally change the game again, so I'll be playing it 'til I get bored of it or the KotOR MMO comes out.
Befor They switched all the Class, somthing happened.
A major Bug
Billions Of Credits were Duped withought them knowing.
Thats when the game died to me.
I sent them a bug report about somthing happening with all the percentage in the game.
They Ignored me.
For 4 months players were sending money to themself Via /Tip
On 1 million you should have been charged 5% as a service fee
Well the bug was giving you 5% on top of your 1 million.
All city Tax was not working.
Everything that had to do with % in the game was buged and they din't notice
until 4 months after.
By the time they noticed All the duped money was hard to trace.
This dupe helped create and fund many Miniral vendors and helped many to unlock Jedi
But it was all fake money.
Some people say it was the Recource vendors that killed the game.
I remember Having 1/7 th of Rori Full of Pumpers with myself as admin to them.
And I had a hard time keeping up with demands.
And then all the money stoped coming in. (they fixed the bug)
Then they made it harder to make money to try and get some this extra fake money out of the system.
Well that made things hard on the Economie.
That was the bigining of the end for SWG
It was all down hill from there.
Man, don't listen to these guys, play a game based on your opinion, not others opinion. There's a free trial anyway.
The community is filled with wonderful and nice people (at least on the 5 servers I've been on and tried), and the game is still great. People whining about what they want in a game should never put your opinion down.
I've played SWG since beta -- and yes -- the NGE was stupid at the time, we've known that by whiners on this forum sucking their thumbs for over 3 years, but I grew to live with it, and by the time I realized that the only thing I lost was a stupid combat rework and time/"effort" sitting on my butt playing to be Master Jedi, I really began to love the game again. Could I live without a nifty title, two buffs that have Yoda's face on them, and a Jedi Robe that was made in Mister Rogers Neighborhood and still be happy?
Of course I could, what kind of person wouldn't?
SWG is a Star Wars MMO. That does it for me right there personally. I don't give a hamster's butt about the combat system if everything else is in perfect check, which what people don't realize, it is.
Star Wars Galaxies has many things that many MMOs lack to have. For instance, a perfect community on all the servers I've played on, a practically limitless Star Wars universe -- meaning both land AND space content, unique skills and paths for everybody (such as combat entertainer/entertaining entertainer), HOUSING & CITIES (and player vendors/shops -- that's big for me), a cool "storytelling system", an incredible way of styling PvP bases (player/NPC) zones and factions, a very neat trading system...it goes on.
You have freedom in that game -- lots of it -- and not much people who used to play Pre-CU realize that. Those of them who do have come back already or coming back. Beyond all of this, it's a well done Sci-Fi that has absolutely nothing to do with Earth getting destroyed or taken over. That you cannot beat.
SOE has been positively recovering from the big NGE "oopsie!", and seeing great feedback from the players is overpacked after every Game or Chapter Update.
If you were to ignore everything you've HEARD about this game and decided to go by what actual PLAYERS (not "vets") said about it, your opinion will become a fact.
I hope you can try it sometime!!
could you pass me a bit of what you have been smoking since BETA?
Wonderful people?????
the only thing you lost was a stupid combat rework and time/"effort" sitting on my butt playing to be Master Jedi ?????
Dont make me laugh.
SOE/LA have huge egos and wont admit it when they messed up..
yeah there were some crazy bugs pre-cu, the credit dupe one i think was do to the fact you could call yer droid 10 times and make yer own group and get the highest paying missions solo and keep all thwe money, stuff like this was happening all over pre-cu, if you were in pvp and went into the water you were untouchable ....and the list goes on, i dont think there was any other way to fix the broken old swg except to wipe it clean and start over.
playing eq2 and two worlds
What wrecked the game?
Envy and Greed.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
Remember what I was saying about Sony's damage control teams?
Seriously though: what do you think of a dev team that won't play the game they're working on?
Its ..... o.k but that's it.There are much better games out there now and SWG will likely be replaced with something up to date and hopefully much better.
It feels like a single player game even when running the destiny quests , I've never had to group up to lvl 45 ish so far....the people are great when you get a bunch together but that does not happen much , which is a great shame.
There are WAY too many Jedi in the game which ruins the immersion and annoyed me quite quickly.
Play a trial , see what you think but imo there are better games to spend your time on.
Blizzard's IP was kicking the ass of George Lucas, and the game was kicking the ass of John Smedley.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
All of those things you meantioned are in the game but they are not very accessible. What class specific quests? How did you level besides doing the legacy quest? Are there full quest lines for smugglers or bounty hunters? Last time I checked.....NO. What unique paths are you talking about because when I played you got the legacy quest and that was it.
Also. The story line takes place during the GCW. There should be no Jedi. They are gone. There are plenty of force sensitive people but no Jedi. Sorry I can't feel like I'm immersed in the war between the Rebellion and the Empire when you have a bunch of Jedi running around. Like I said above, I didn't even play before the NGE. I'm offering an objective perspective and the fact is that the game is broken in a lot of parts, they alienated their dedicated player which SOE loves to do for some reason, and instead of fixing problems and giving some good content we get stuck with voice chat and perhaps the stupidest game update title in the history of gaming: The Return of the Meatlump King" OY veh.
Look what SOE did with the Living Legacy promo. They give 2-3 months of game time plus access to all the expansions to disloyal players that have left the game. The dedicated players got two things: Jack and Shit, and Jack left town. People playing the game for a while and supporting it should get some recognition. This is just another example of SOE not caring about their customers. There is no need for blind defense. I call it like I see it.
Apart from the combat system, "Everything else is in perfect check." Targets still spawning in objects? Probably. Collsion detection in an fps type game still brokent? Yup, despite SOE's promise to fix it back in Nov. 2005. Group waypoint arrows still broken, showing the wrong distance and direction to team members? Probably. People still falling through the map on Kashyyk and getting trapped under the actual game? Very likely. People still having trouble with specials not firing? How bout teams getting dismantled by some of the instances? Did they keep their promise to fast track server mergers yet?
If any of those examples of serious bugs and issues are still in the game, then the statement "everything else is in perfect check", is simply a lie, nothing more, nothing less. Of course you could sign up for the game to meet all of the "perfect" people in the "perfect community" that exists in this wonderful game. What is this guy recruiting for, an MMO or a cult?
In addition to lying to the reader, this post also then goes on to insult the players that were burned by SOE's complete surprise revamp of the game.
Let me see now, utter falsehoods and attempts to insult long time players and discredit their valid concerns. Where have I heard that before...
Envy and greed?
That doesn't make sense. They had a strong player base, about 250k, but wanted some of WoW's.
They changed the game and it tanked.
If SOE is greedy, why not change it back? Maybe get back that 250k playerbase and make money.
They obviously aren't getting the numbers they expected from the change. So why not go back to what they had?
Arrogance and ego.
How can they sit there and say "you players just don't know what you want." That's basiclly what they are saying to us. Players want merges so they have folks to play with. Smed agrees, it would seem, then no mergers.
But why? Why continue like this?
Why alienate your player base? Why not see the error in judgement and fix it?
SOE gets more bad press and general negative word of mouth than any other company (there is Funcom though) because of SWG NGE.
Yet they sit there and do nothing to fix their game or reputation.
It just boggles the mind.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
No one ever accused them of being smart...bruised egos make stubborn people stupid.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor