So, what do you think. Is it true that the NGE was the only thing SOE ever did wrong with this title, or is someone forgetting an awful lot of nastiness?
Almost nobody will ever say the NGE was the only mistake SOE ever made with swg. For most though the NGE was the final straw in a long history of mistakes and blunders that caused them to quit. Sure, they lost people all the time over SOE's many blunders over the years. But most people reached the limit of what they would put up with when the NGE came out.
The NGE was just a glaring example of the many problems with swg/soe.
1 Your character, equipment, time, effort, combat, ect ect would be screwed at some point. Sooner rather than later.
2 The game would never run smooth and be even close to problem free. It would always have problems, many of them.
3 They really and truly didnt care about the players, just the monthly sub you paid.
4 That SOE was more than willing to screw the entire current playerbase to try and entice a few new customers.
5 No warning, testing, vote or anything of the NGE, a big fat "screw you, you'll take it and like it" basically.
6 The very heavy handed approach of the NGE release and the clamping down of any dissent of it, see quote above.
Long story short, if you were still playing pre-nge you might not of been real happy with the game but you could overlook the various problems because the fun you had ingame outweighed the problems. The NGE, no matter what profession or playstyle you had, gutted the game of everything that made the game even remotely enjoyable to the majority of the playerbase. At that point there was no real reason to play anymore.
The NGE is only brought up so much because for the vast majority of the playerbase, that was the last mistake they were going to put up with. Sure the CU started the exodus but it was Smed and gang yelling "more speed!!!!"after the iceberg straight ahead had been spotted that caused those who were still left to jump ship on the SWG Titanic.
I didn't like how they handled some stuff like Jedi and bugs but it definitely didnt have a serious effect on my enjoyment of the game.
My main problem with the game aside from CU and NGE is the over powered buffs. The developers never meant for buffs to be so powerful as to negate the loss of HAM due to heavy armor and spellcasting, and when the buffs started getting too good they didn't have the balls to fix it to how it was originally intended.
The funny thing is, they didnt even use the CU or NGE as an opportunity to fix the overpowered buffs, because they were scared the players would be upset that they are no longer as powerful. They thought the players would be upset if they couldnt take down 20 rancors at once anymore, I suppose. But they didnt think we would be upset if they took away our class customizability? Its sad how they looked down on us and thought we were so simple minded and stupid.
Here's a post necro that I made over 4 years ago that listed alot of the problems with SWG. It was made after the NGE and obviously some things have changed ingame since then. Some things are not listed like pub 9, RMT, ect ect or are listed as generalities instead of specifics because there was to many to list but it's late and I don't really feel like editing it at this point. Just showing that the players were well aware of the various problems throught out SWGs history, they were still having enough fun ingame that the fun outweighed the problems. That obviously stopped being the case when the NGE launched.
Posted: 2/13/07
Most reasons SWG lost subs or had problems getting more people to join in a somewhat chronological order.
Launch
Launch continously delayed.
Launched with tons of bugs.
Launch that was missing alot of the promised mechanics.
Fast forward to the JTL expansion, after spending the time before that adding in most mechanics that where supposed to be there at launch.
JTL had plenty of bugs that were reported and ignored from beta.
Bugs from launch or early launch that were still being ignored.
Refusal to correctly balance proffs, more specifically melee stackers.
Fast forward to RoTW expansion.
Working on an expansion while blatantly ignoring pre-existing bugs in the main game.
Bugs with the expnasion that again were reported in beta, and again ignored before release.
Knowingly releasing a very bugged expansion then acting suprised there was problems.
Zoning and invisible walls in a game that really didn't have any before this.
CURB and CU, around the same time as RoTW testing was ongoing
Scrapping the highly liked CURB for the quickly and poorly done CU.
Wasting all the Dev time and effort spent on the CURB for a poorly done CU.
Again ingoring pre-existing bugs to work on other mechanics that were also bugged.
And again blatantly ignoring bugs reported from CU beta.
And again knowingly releasing very bugged content and acting suprised there was problems.
Putting in Combat Levels which almost everyone detested.
Forcing players to choose 2 Elite proffs rather than being able to mix and match skills/proffs.
Totally hosing proffs, gear, equipment, CA's AA's, resources with the CU changes.
Blatantly attempting to whore Jedi to the public for more subs while mostly ignoring the rest of the game.
Publish after publish and patch after patch devoted solely to Jedi while ignoring the rest of the game.
Nerfing proffs left and right that had a chance at defeating said Jedi.
Now fast forward to the ToOW expansion
Working on an expansion while blatantly ignoring pre-existing bugs in the main game.
Bugs with the expnasion that again were reported in beta, and again ignored before release.
Knowingly releasing a very bugged expansion then acting suprised there was problems.
More zoning and invisible walls that players detested.
Had some of the least variation of either Mobs or Terrain of any expansion but cost the most.
Contained no Space zones, but again cost the most of any exansion.
Now the NGE, remember SL and some other proffs were revamped just before this
Completely took out 20 odd proffs including the ones that were just revamped.
Knowingly wasting Dev time/ effort on proffs that were not going to exist in NGE.
Sprung on the public 1 Day after ToOW billing hit.
Obviously poorly done with little planning or thinking ahead.
Was not wanted, needed, or asked for by the players but was forced on them anyway.
Riddled like swiss cheese with bugs.
Knowingly released with these bugs.
Chock full of Lag.
More changes to combat and proffs.
Again totally hosing proffs, gear, equipment, resources with the NGE changes.
Intentionally screwing every Non Combat proff that was still remaining.
Forcing everyone into 1 single proff with no variation.
Taking out every combat special in favor of the same 4-5 repeated over and over from lvl 1-90.
Huge amounts of lag even though it now had 1/5 the players of a previous mostly lag free game.
Intentionally trying to lie and mislead the players.
Repeating these same lies and misdirection in every single interview.
Things that were common throughout the life of SWG
Constantly nerfing proffs.
Constantly changing combat, never getting it right, and not leaving it the hell alone.
Never correctly balancing proffs for either PVP or PVE.
Bugs, bugs, and yet more bugs.
Blatantly ignoring many of these bugs till game changes made them moot problems.
Very poor customer service.
Threatening and or banning players who posted valid problems, bugs, or concerns.
Knowingly releasing incomplete or bugged content, patches, and expansions.
Attempting to lie to or misdirect the players at every turn.
Very rarely ever listening to what the players liked, wanted, or saw as a problem.
Also very rarely ever admitting to mistakes or trying to fix those mistakes once made.
Wasting Dev time/effort for changes that were not wanted or asked for.
Taking weeks or months to undo these changes even though they took 1 patch to implement them.
Refusing to take player input on changes or mechanics that they wanted.
Ever increasing lag, mainly post CU and later, even though the number of players kept decreasing.
Changes, Content, or Mechanics that were never even tested by players, just implemented.
I'm sure there's other things that some would say were missed or they would disagree on but for me and most people I knew that played those were the highlights of why we disliked the game more and more, ended up quitting, or in the case of people who hadn't played it why they wouldn't try the game.
Sure those are my opinions but that what I saw personally and what I was told from everyone else I knew who had played or heard of the game some or all of those reasons are why they quit or wouldn't try the game.
Even with all the bugs/problems SWG had, I would still love to play it pre NGE now. I would bet that if SOE made a pre NGE server, it would have more people on it than any of the NGE servers they have now.
Here's a post necro that I made over 4 years ago that listed alot of the problems with SWG. It was made after the NGE and obviously some things have changed ingame since then. Some things are not listed like pub 9, RMT, ect ect or are listed as generalities instead of specifics because there was to many to list but it's late and I don't really feel like editing it at this point. Just showing that the players were well aware of the various problems throught out SWGs history, they were still having enough fun ingame that the fun outweighed the problems. That obviously stopped being the case when the NGE launched.
Posted: 2/13/07
Most reasons SWG lost subs or had problems getting more people to join in a somewhat chronological order.
Launch
Launch continously delayed.
Launched with tons of bugs.
Launch that was missing alot of the promised mechanics.
Fast forward to the JTL expansion, after spending the time before that adding in most mechanics that where supposed to be there at launch.
JTL had plenty of bugs that were reported and ignored from beta.
Bugs from launch or early launch that were still being ignored.
Refusal to correctly balance proffs, more specifically melee stackers.
Fast forward to RoTW expansion.
Working on an expansion while blatantly ignoring pre-existing bugs in the main game.
Bugs with the expnasion that again were reported in beta, and again ignored before release.
Knowingly releasing a very bugged expansion then acting suprised there was problems.
Zoning and invisible walls in a game that really didn't have any before this.
CURB and CU, around the same time as RoTW testing was ongoing
Scrapping the highly liked CURB for the quickly and poorly done CU.
Wasting all the Dev time and effort spent on the CURB for a poorly done CU.
Again ingoring pre-existing bugs to work on other mechanics that were also bugged.
And again blatantly ignoring bugs reported from CU beta.
And again knowingly releasing very bugged content and acting suprised there was problems.
Putting in Combat Levels which almost everyone detested.
Forcing players to choose 2 Elite proffs rather than being able to mix and match skills/proffs.
Totally hosing proffs, gear, equipment, CA's AA's, resources with the CU changes.
Blatantly attempting to whore Jedi to the public for more subs while mostly ignoring the rest of the game.
Publish after publish and patch after patch devoted solely to Jedi while ignoring the rest of the game.
Nerfing proffs left and right that had a chance at defeating said Jedi.
Now fast forward to the ToOW expansion
Working on an expansion while blatantly ignoring pre-existing bugs in the main game.
Bugs with the expnasion that again were reported in beta, and again ignored before release.
Knowingly releasing a very bugged expansion then acting suprised there was problems.
More zoning and invisible walls that players detested.
Had some of the least variation of either Mobs or Terrain of any expansion but cost the most.
Contained no Space zones, but again cost the most of any exansion.
Now the NGE, remember SL and some other proffs were revamped just before this
Completely took out 20 odd proffs including the ones that were just revamped.
Knowingly wasting Dev time/ effort on proffs that were not going to exist in NGE.
Sprung on the public 1 Day after ToOW billing hit.
Obviously poorly done with little planning or thinking ahead.
Was not wanted, needed, or asked for by the players but was forced on them anyway.
Riddled like swiss cheese with bugs.
Knowingly released with these bugs.
Chock full of Lag.
More changes to combat and proffs.
Again totally hosing proffs, gear, equipment, resources with the NGE changes.
Intentionally screwing every Non Combat proff that was still remaining.
Forcing everyone into 1 single proff with no variation.
Taking out every combat special in favor of the same 4-5 repeated over and over from lvl 1-90.
Huge amounts of lag even though it now had 1/5 the players of a previous mostly lag free game.
Intentionally trying to lie and mislead the players.
Repeating these same lies and misdirection in every single interview.
Things that were common throughout the life of SWG
Constantly nerfing proffs.
Constantly changing combat, never getting it right, and not leaving it the hell alone.
Never correctly balancing proffs for either PVP or PVE.
Bugs, bugs, and yet more bugs.
Blatantly ignoring many of these bugs till game changes made them moot problems.
Very poor customer service.
Threatening and or banning players who posted valid problems, bugs, or concerns.
Knowingly releasing incomplete or bugged content, patches, and expansions.
Attempting to lie to or misdirect the players at every turn.
Very rarely ever listening to what the players liked, wanted, or saw as a problem.
Also very rarely ever admitting to mistakes or trying to fix those mistakes once made.
Wasting Dev time/effort for changes that were not wanted or asked for.
Taking weeks or months to undo these changes even though they took 1 patch to implement them.
Refusing to take player input on changes or mechanics that they wanted.
Ever increasing lag, mainly post CU and later, even though the number of players kept decreasing.
Changes, Content, or Mechanics that were never even tested by players, just implemented.
I'm sure there's other things that some would say were missed or they would disagree on but for me and most people I knew that played those were the highlights of why we disliked the game more and more, ended up quitting, or in the case of people who hadn't played it why they wouldn't try the game.
Sure those are my opinions but that what I saw personally and what I was told from everyone else I knew who had played or heard of the game some or all of those reasons are why they quit or wouldn't try the game.
i think you pretty much covered most of the points, theres more detail certainly.. but its an old old story.. and its the reason why I .. and probably the other 80 percent of the playerbase of the game, left... SOE certainly earned their reputation of mismanaging MMO's with SWG... and they havent really done anything since to change that reputation
I have followed this thread for months now. I am surprised that there are still people who would be willing to play PRE-CU even after 6 years.
I, too, would literally jump at the chance. I would reactivate my 3 accounts in a heartbeat. My recent attempt at the Flightless bird left me wanting more and I knew I shouldn't have tried the damn thing.
Since I cancelled my accounts back in 2005, I tried (long list incoming):
Glorified Kiddie Themepark list OR MMOs that should have never been made:
EQ2-->1 month sub less than a week played
Vanguard--> 1 month sub less than a day played
WoW--> trial less than 5 hours played (curious of what the hype was all about, laughed my arse off as to how much IQ has dropped on the planet for glorifying this piece of shit made for kids)
Lotro--> 1 month sub played for the full month (great story and quests kept me for a month thats about how much time a self respecting gamer should spend on this)
Warhammer--> After being literally annoyed to death by a mate for the PvP I actually threw my money away by buyng the full product and ending up playing for a couple of days.
CoH--> Oh my god I am still trying to forgive myself for that one.
STO--> Being an ST fan I literally forced myself to play this for a month. After that I felt I needed some form of psychiatric evaluation for doing so.
The Glorious list of digestible Mediocrity:
EvE online--> 2 months just because it is made for intelligent people. Can't stomach the "you are the ship" gameplay and no ground portion. And can't accept the fact that you can't compete at all unless you buy a character.
Fallen Earth--> 2 months just because I read somewhere it was close to SWG, not that it really is any close mind you, but interesting game.....for 2 months. You can actually play alone, solo everything but 5% of the content and unsub. Great stuff indeed lol.
Ryzom--> I can't actually pinpoint why I played this for a week before unsubbing. It felt like it was worth it but I just couldn't relate somehow. Weird.
AoC--> Lots of fun for the FULL month I played this. Hack, slash decapitate and brutalise for a month kind of fun, but very shallow in almost EVERY other aspect of it. Not my cup of tea.
The cursed list of recent failure to learn from the past OR more shit I wasted money on:
Xsyon: Not gonna say anything here but that I consider the 40$ as a donation. Heck I donated more than that for the flightless bird anyway. Still money washed along with jeans kind of stupidity.
DarkFall: Money-fall to the trash excitement. God I enjoyed it more when I pressed the uninstall button.
Looking back at the above list I'd say I should give up on trying to find anything that would satisfy my niche demands as there will never, EVER be any other game that would remotely compare to SWG Pre-CU.
That bug ridden game had more soul and meat than ALL other games that have been released since 2003. Not because it was perfect, it was far from being perfect to be honest but it had potential, something that NONE of the above titles have or ever aspire to. What made it great was that it offered the means, the game mechanics to truly experience an authentic MMO experience. It forced community interaction, but did so without alienating the player.
What SOE did with the NGE was criminal. Not for me or for the game's vets, but business-wise. At some point in the future, all those low-IQ lemmings that pay good money to play Disneyland Online will get bored or even realise that title A and title B is the same crap wrapped up in different shinnies and they are paying for it. And then SOE would have missed their chance to offer something different and profit from it.
I just hope there is a company out there to realise that the only game that will stir the pot a little will be a game that offers a combination of the sandbox experience of SWG with Disneyland online thrown in for good measure. But I am not hopeful. The industry has shown that it is hell bent on pursuing the WoW-killer quest line, which guarantees more shit title in the future starting with ToR. I truly hope I am wrong. But you know I am not.
SOE never realised that there are 250k people out there that have kids running around the house and the spending power to support 4 accounts each indefinately that were having an absolute blast playing Owen and Beru in a living, breathing SW virtual world. They never did the math 250x4= 1 mil subs.
As the topic says, it only depends on who you ask. Some would say publish 9 was also a wrong doing by SOE- if SOE kept Jedi the way it was but took away the ability to wear armor and gave them innate armor (maybe 50% resist to all via lightsaber) with skillbox decay on death, I would've been fine with it. After publish 9 I could take my Jedi out anywhere without fear, I once reached -10 million xp and reground it when I wanted to change skills (thanks to Ryyat Trail glitches). The early 2004 era (Jan-June) was THE BEST TIME in SWG, plenty of non-Jedi pvp everywhere and fast growing player cities and community held events (or events coordinator operated, like Pax). The combat upgrade was nothing like the devs said it would be when we chat with them about it before publish 9- they specifically said "Jedi in publish 9 will be balanced for the combat upgrade", and they revamped Jedi all over again in the combat upgrade anyways so publish 9 meant nothing.
The NGE indeed was the worst thing SOE did, the combat upgrade towards the end of Octobor 2005 was almost perfect and that's when Smedley outright lied with "the CU is here to stay" then 2 weeks later the NGE gets announced. Smedley 2 years later then apologizes- not for releasing the NGE but releasing it at a bad time, meaning he still intended to release it regardless.
Jedi should have never been in the game, period. During this time of Star Wars history, there were no Jedi anyways. So not only was it a balance issue, but it was also a lore issue as well. SOE was making the coffin to SWG all along, the NGE was just the final nail of it.
Originally posted by thecipher Having only played Galaxies post-NGE, I don't have any personal experience with what the game was like before that - A lot of other (ex) players do though, including some of my RL friends. As far as I've been able to learn, the basic rundown of the game went something like this:
Pre-CU had many broken elements, including combat, but also had a lot of promise. Jedis were extremely rare. A wide range of Jedi related "fixes" start being introduced, each one skewing the game more than the last one. This is a continuing theme throughout the years. The Combat Upgrade comes, but rather than having listened to player feedback and making the changes neccessary to fix the existing system, SOE goes in a completely different direction, which pretty much everyone hates. SOE loses a good chunk of subscribers due to this. The NGE comes, and completely changes the main draw of the game, which was the mix-n-match nature of skills, and instead introduces classes, including jedi, to the game. Even more people hate this than the Combat Upgrade and as a result, SOE loses a crapton of subscribers. "RMT", in a sense, is introduced to the game via the Star Wars digital TCG that has loot cards that are vastly better than anything craftable, or lootable, in-game. More fan outrage.
For me, even as a post-NGE player, Star Wars Galaxies will always be remembered as one of the "could have been great" games. I've no doubt that the game had PLENTY of problems pre-CU, and that the veterans are glossing over that fact because in their mind, the CU and NGE were much worse. For me though, it feels like I came into the game too late. I could see glimmers of greatness there - I loved the resource gathering, crafting, housing and space aspects of the game - But it was ultimately too little, too late for me.
The market was broken - it was difficult to impossible to sell any crafted goods that weren't maxed out, and it was impossible to max out without maxed out gear.. which again required the best available, ie. loot cards from the TCG. Now, most of those loot cards could be traded in-game, but at ridiculous prices which only veterans could afford. So as a new player, it was practically impossible to break into the crafting market. Also, with the dwindling subscriber numbers, and especially lack of new subscribers, there isn't much of a market left.
I don't even know what the hell could be done to "fix" this game, as pre-CU was, to the best of my understanding, far from perfect as well. I think the shift in focus (from sandboxy "be a joe schmoe in the SW universe" to faux-themepark "be a super-duper jedi hero") was a big mistake, and that if SOE has stuck with their original vision, SWG would still be going strong with an obviously dedicated core of gamers. Me, I probably won't go back to the game, but I know that I'll keep getting the urge to do so.
Thank you. You managed to put into words what I tried and failed at in the past. I play to fly some and experience a Star Wars MMO. For me SWG is the only legal option, so here I play knowing that I will never catch up to the Vets.
I too am a post NGE player. I too see this game's glory days long gone. I do sub to it and play SWG right now, but it's hard to play a MMO that only the Vets with Billions of credits can play and enjoy... and then realize they don't enjoy it cause they already have everything, so all they do is play the TCG and hope to get lucky.
What a mess, at least to me it feels like a mess. I'm just here for the droids to be honest. At least they still work and I can put my house where I want to... IF I can find a place to put it that is (Starsider).
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!" ............... "I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. " __Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__ ...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I still try to play cause I love Star Wars, but it's not the same feeling of being a person in the Star Wars Galaxy! It's more like a solo Star Wars Game where you play someone elses story!
According to your signiture, you logged 46 hours this week alone, which is more hours than most people work in a week...how much harder could you "try to play"?
I always thought SWG started on the downhill run when they introduced Holo grinding. I was perfectly happy to accept I would never be a Jedi and only a few lucky people would unlock a force sensitive character slot. I thought it was a good idea to keep Jedi numbers very low, and that they could be killed off permanently.
Once the holo grind set in it destroyed the crafted goods market. A lot of very good crafters disappeared over night as they went in search of the elusive combo of professions to unlock a jedi slot and decent armour and weapons were suddenly not being made any more. All downhill from that point.
Yes, I would re-seb if they brought out a pre CU server but I'd also want no holo grinding and ultra rare Jedi characters.
I always thought SWG started on the downhill run when they introduced Holo grinding.
So true. Up to this point I had never seen 1 patch cause so much harm to an mmo as this one did. The hologrind was at such a complete opposite of the game design that it caused players to abandon core gameplay in order to grind through content they had no interest or intention of playing just to drop it and repeat the process all over again.
SWG was in pretty rough shape at that point. What content that existed was buggy beyond belief and there were major holes in content everywhere else. The hologrind was little more than a bandaid attempt to fix a gaping wound. Soe sold the future of the game short to address an immediate issue, but this seems to be a consistent trend with how soe manages their games.
After seeing the hologrind I could no longer deny that soe had no concept of how to fix, let alone manage the game.
I still try to play cause I love Star Wars, but it's not the same feeling of being a person in the Star Wars Galaxy! It's more like a solo Star Wars Game where you play someone elses story!
According to your signiture, you logged 46 hours this week alone, which is more hours than most people work in a week...how much harder could you "try to play"?
The question should be how many of those 46 hours were spent AFK to avoid the mind-numbing grind that much of SWG is?
The game clearly wasn't as perfect as players say it was pre-NGE, considering it was already slowly bleeding subs.
Stop putting words ("perfect") in our mouths; that's pretty near pure strawman.
Exactly!
It was an MMO and like ALL MMO's, it had growing pains and needed to fix/tweak some stuff. Overall though, I will say that the original game was near perfect in terms of mixing casual, hardcore, PvE, PvP, and social gamers.
saying it was just the NGE is like saying it was just a nuclear explosion. apart from all that SOE showed the world how easy it is to ass pound your entire paying player base and not care.
I think that even though soe screwed everyone over and made them very angry, I still think that the experience they did create for us was amazing. Even though soe caused problems for us and helped ruin the game ultimately they still gave me what i have had from star wars galaxies. For me ive had a great experience with soe even better than other mmos. Everquest 2 was amazing, star wars galaxies was amazing and planetside was amazing.
I still think soe are capable if only they would listen about how they could improve. With swg for example they should reopen a pre cu server and im sure they would be pleasently surprised. I will always remember for the rest of my days the experience i had with swg because even though there was horrendous consequences for me at least in the end when the shit hit the fan, I have had my best experience ever in a mmo with swg for about a year and a half. I will never forget how i spent the first month i think it was on talus grinding those tweeety birds and fynocks in that amzing coloured land scape. Just walking about dearic seeing creature handlers with giant pets was just so much entertainment. The image of swg will stick with me for the rest of my days and ultimately it is soe who gave me this experience. So they should get some credit ?
I know everyone got angry while playing the game, for me it ended when I came back to my player city after a couple of weeks or so grinding buff packs to help the citizens out, and i found that people had turned on me, I was having such an amazing time with the city building and the 50 or so people that lived in the city and i tried as much as possible to make our regualr hunts and city life fun.When i decided to make 1000 buff packs so i could use my time on hunts with the citizens and pvp, i was addicted to the crafting of them for about 2-3 weeks. I was going to make these buff packs ! That was my mistake as when i came back I got abuse and shouted at angrily over something that was happening at the time with the guild leader. I was so stressed out from all the work id put in and couldnt cope with this attack so i blew up the city and left the game ! This was the start of the end for me even before the pre cu. Anyway that was what upset me about the game was when my citizens turned on me and my guild leader buddy who id known from day one launched an angry attack on me and i lost it
I tried to go back to swg several times after that but couldnt get into the game. When all this was going on it was around the time of the pre cu and there was complaints about teras kasi being too uber should i say. In those last days people were solo grinding stuff too tto make money on planets that were paying high cash for missions.
Anywaty thats my bad experience with swg. One thing i did notice about the game and please be patient while i say this, I was a doctor/pistoleer/politician as my main and what i found was thatthe pistoleer was not as good as say rifleman. some people call it class balancing when everyones weapons are the same as each other. For swg the weapons were not balanced but i found this a good point ! Heres why even though i was a not so good pisdtoleer i knew that i only needed one rifleman or teras kasi to come with me when i pvp so i do get a chance to kill things. So what if i need to organize to be with a group to be good at pvp, it was part of the game for the weapons to be unbalanced ! The idea was to make use of what you got and improvise . Hardly anyone has saw this with regards to balancing classes is concerned. If i was a teras kasi , so what if i kicked ass, it just takes two pistoleer players to take that one uber teras kasi ! The idea was to make use of the unbalanced-ness as i saw it .I improvised with my pistoleer. i was a doctor and i went in close on the front lines of battle healing players with just my pistol but i knew that no matter how uber the teras kasi was or jedi etc , i could heal myslef and do more damage with my pistol. If i wasnt doctor i could find someone in the guild to be a side kick to help me outr in pvp by adding more power with another player. I like unbalanced professions because it forces you to think of using someone else alongside you to make you motre powerful than the uber opponent. This is mmo gameplay at its best. I was not one of these people who wanted teras kasi to be nerfed or jedi to be nerfed etc. I was not looking for a combat upgrade as i was happy with the unbalanced state of play.
SWG to me was THE proper mmo experience, there was so much MMO going on it was unreal. Initially for the first year everyone asked each other for help in chat for example because everyone helped out when others had issues. There was so much stuff going on in the chat too. Nowadays you dont get much in chat in games and the wow-clone games are just not what SWG people are after. I though have been playing RIFT and ive liked it so much it has rekindled my liking for mmos. Even if it is a wwo clone im enjoying it again and not suffering from burn out.
Anyway enough said. I think soe isnt all bad but what i can say is with soe not only will you get a unique gaming experience , expect to get a lot of anger and doing things like destroying your game disks when they do something wrong. They still gave us the expierence everyone holds dear to there hearts. That was soe that did that
A little known wrong that SOE did was to the Ranger community. Buggy traps, broken abilities and all - we were a pretty decent lot of players commited to our profession. Then one day, a dev approached our Rep telling us that they wanted to gather our ranger ideas together because they were gearing up for a Ranger Revamp.
So on our little section of the board, Calc and the lot of us gathered our ideas together. Spent time haggling out the points. If you look far enough into my post history here, you will find me arguing proSOE against a few members here based upon the fact that I believed SOE was actually listening.
To make a long story short, those ideas were given and then some used as part of the basis for Spy. We never got the revamp, they took the ideas for spy and then told us that our profession was being removed. Actually, they didn't tell us. A poster shows up on a forum and warns us all of the NGE. He gets laughed at. Put down. Called a crack pot. A short while later, Rangers were removed.
A little known wrong that SOE did was to the Ranger community. Buggy traps, broken abilities and all - we were a pretty decent lot of players commited to our profession. Then one day, a dev approached our Rep telling us that they wanted to gather our ranger ideas together because they were gearing up for a Ranger Revamp.
So on our little section of the board, Calc and the lot of us gathered our ideas together. Spent time haggling out the points. If you look far enough into my post history here, you will find me arguing proSOE against a few members here based upon the fact that I believed SOE was actually listening.
To make a long story short, those ideas were given and then some used as part of the basis for Spy. We never got the revamp, they took the ideas for spy and then told us that our profession was being removed. Actually, they didn't tell us. A poster shows up on a forum and warns us all of the NGE. He gets laughed at. Put down. Called a crack pot. A short while later, Rangers were removed.
True story, ask any Ranger.
Yup. I was a Master Ranger. I liked Spy on its own, but it was nothing like Ranger.
I remember the build-up towards the Ranger Revamp. I remember arguing that the role of the Ranger was an advanced outdoorsman and not some super-soldier (think Army Rangers or Antarian Rangers) that some were pushing for.
It wasn't just that they got rid of Ranger, but they also removed any usefulness for a dedicated resource gatherer. When decay was removed it also reduced the need for resources. Then they let every new class have the ability to harvest. It was horribly depressing.
I used to enjoy filling out orders that crafters needed. Though your skills didn't really factor into your killing ability, and had zero effect in PVP, I enjoyed feeling like a useful part of the 'crafting circle' and participating in the economy.
For me, I can sum up what how NGE affected me as a player, very simply and succinctly, with 'milk'.
Pre-NGE: As a bio-engineer, it was difficult to continue advancing in a sub-tree because of the lack of 'milk' in the game. I absolutely loved the class, but 'milk' was a necessity to the way the class progressed. There were promises of creating designer monsters for Creature Handlers and other interesting things to do with the class. It was a support-junkies dream come true, and I was full of hope of what the class would eventually become if only we had 'milk'. We were continually promised that 'Milk' would be coming soon.
Post-NGE: 'Milk' was added to the game, but the bio-engineer class had been removed, completely, with nothing even remotely resembling it available to replace it. We were then told that the every mechanic that the class had offered would never be returning. Period.
So, what exactly is surprising about my disappointment with NGE?
A little known wrong that SOE did was to the Ranger community. Buggy traps, broken abilities and all - we were a pretty decent lot of players commited to our profession. Then one day, a dev approached our Rep telling us that they wanted to gather our ranger ideas together because they were gearing up for a Ranger Revamp.
So on our little section of the board, Calc and the lot of us gathered our ideas together. Spent time haggling out the points. If you look far enough into my post history here, you will find me arguing proSOE against a few members here based upon the fact that I believed SOE was actually listening.
To make a long story short, those ideas were given and then some used as part of the basis for Spy. We never got the revamp, they took the ideas for spy and then told us that our profession was being removed. Actually, they didn't tell us. A poster shows up on a forum and warns us all of the NGE. He gets laughed at. Put down. Called a crack pot. A short while later, Rangers were removed.
True story, ask any Ranger.
True story.
That Poster that was laughed at...was a now Perma Banned Intrepid player I knew.
Comments
Almost nobody will ever say the NGE was the only mistake SOE ever made with swg. For most though the NGE was the final straw in a long history of mistakes and blunders that caused them to quit. Sure, they lost people all the time over SOE's many blunders over the years. But most people reached the limit of what they would put up with when the NGE came out.
The NGE was just a glaring example of the many problems with swg/soe.
1 Your character, equipment, time, effort, combat, ect ect would be screwed at some point. Sooner rather than later.
2 The game would never run smooth and be even close to problem free. It would always have problems, many of them.
3 They really and truly didnt care about the players, just the monthly sub you paid.
4 That SOE was more than willing to screw the entire current playerbase to try and entice a few new customers.
5 No warning, testing, vote or anything of the NGE, a big fat "screw you, you'll take it and like it" basically.
6 The very heavy handed approach of the NGE release and the clamping down of any dissent of it, see quote above.
Long story short, if you were still playing pre-nge you might not of been real happy with the game but you could overlook the various problems because the fun you had ingame outweighed the problems. The NGE, no matter what profession or playstyle you had, gutted the game of everything that made the game even remotely enjoyable to the majority of the playerbase. At that point there was no real reason to play anymore.
The NGE is only brought up so much because for the vast majority of the playerbase, that was the last mistake they were going to put up with. Sure the CU started the exodus but it was Smed and gang yelling "more speed!!!!" after the iceberg straight ahead had been spotted that caused those who were still left to jump ship on the SWG Titanic.
I didn't like how they handled some stuff like Jedi and bugs but it definitely didnt have a serious effect on my enjoyment of the game.
My main problem with the game aside from CU and NGE is the over powered buffs. The developers never meant for buffs to be so powerful as to negate the loss of HAM due to heavy armor and spellcasting, and when the buffs started getting too good they didn't have the balls to fix it to how it was originally intended.
The funny thing is, they didnt even use the CU or NGE as an opportunity to fix the overpowered buffs, because they were scared the players would be upset that they are no longer as powerful. They thought the players would be upset if they couldnt take down 20 rancors at once anymore, I suppose. But they didnt think we would be upset if they took away our class customizability? Its sad how they looked down on us and thought we were so simple minded and stupid.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Here's a post necro that I made over 4 years ago that listed alot of the problems with SWG. It was made after the NGE and obviously some things have changed ingame since then. Some things are not listed like pub 9, RMT, ect ect or are listed as generalities instead of specifics because there was to many to list but it's late and I don't really feel like editing it at this point. Just showing that the players were well aware of the various problems throught out SWGs history, they were still having enough fun ingame that the fun outweighed the problems. That obviously stopped being the case when the NGE launched.
Posted: 2/13/07
Most reasons SWG lost subs or had problems getting more people to join in a somewhat chronological order.
Launch
Launch continously delayed.
Launched with tons of bugs.
Launch that was missing alot of the promised mechanics.
Fast forward to the JTL expansion, after spending the time before that adding in most mechanics that where supposed to be there at launch.
JTL had plenty of bugs that were reported and ignored from beta.
Bugs from launch or early launch that were still being ignored.
Refusal to correctly balance proffs, more specifically melee stackers.
Fast forward to RoTW expansion.
Working on an expansion while blatantly ignoring pre-existing bugs in the main game.
Bugs with the expnasion that again were reported in beta, and again ignored before release.
Knowingly releasing a very bugged expansion then acting suprised there was problems.
Zoning and invisible walls in a game that really didn't have any before this.
CURB and CU, around the same time as RoTW testing was ongoing
Scrapping the highly liked CURB for the quickly and poorly done CU.
Wasting all the Dev time and effort spent on the CURB for a poorly done CU.
Again ingoring pre-existing bugs to work on other mechanics that were also bugged.
And again blatantly ignoring bugs reported from CU beta.
And again knowingly releasing very bugged content and acting suprised there was problems.
Putting in Combat Levels which almost everyone detested.
Forcing players to choose 2 Elite proffs rather than being able to mix and match skills/proffs.
Totally hosing proffs, gear, equipment, CA's AA's, resources with the CU changes.
Blatantly attempting to whore Jedi to the public for more subs while mostly ignoring the rest of the game.
Publish after publish and patch after patch devoted solely to Jedi while ignoring the rest of the game.
Nerfing proffs left and right that had a chance at defeating said Jedi.
Now fast forward to the ToOW expansion
Working on an expansion while blatantly ignoring pre-existing bugs in the main game.
Bugs with the expnasion that again were reported in beta, and again ignored before release.
Knowingly releasing a very bugged expansion then acting suprised there was problems.
More zoning and invisible walls that players detested.
Had some of the least variation of either Mobs or Terrain of any expansion but cost the most.
Contained no Space zones, but again cost the most of any exansion.
Now the NGE, remember SL and some other proffs were revamped just before this
Completely took out 20 odd proffs including the ones that were just revamped.
Knowingly wasting Dev time/ effort on proffs that were not going to exist in NGE.
Sprung on the public 1 Day after ToOW billing hit.
Obviously poorly done with little planning or thinking ahead.
Was not wanted, needed, or asked for by the players but was forced on them anyway.
Riddled like swiss cheese with bugs.
Knowingly released with these bugs.
Chock full of Lag.
More changes to combat and proffs.
Again totally hosing proffs, gear, equipment, resources with the NGE changes.
Intentionally screwing every Non Combat proff that was still remaining.
Forcing everyone into 1 single proff with no variation.
Taking out every combat special in favor of the same 4-5 repeated over and over from lvl 1-90.
Huge amounts of lag even though it now had 1/5 the players of a previous mostly lag free game.
Intentionally trying to lie and mislead the players.
Repeating these same lies and misdirection in every single interview.
Things that were common throughout the life of SWG
Constantly nerfing proffs.
Constantly changing combat, never getting it right, and not leaving it the hell alone.
Never correctly balancing proffs for either PVP or PVE.
Bugs, bugs, and yet more bugs.
Blatantly ignoring many of these bugs till game changes made them moot problems.
Very poor customer service.
Threatening and or banning players who posted valid problems, bugs, or concerns.
Knowingly releasing incomplete or bugged content, patches, and expansions.
Attempting to lie to or misdirect the players at every turn.
Very rarely ever listening to what the players liked, wanted, or saw as a problem.
Also very rarely ever admitting to mistakes or trying to fix those mistakes once made.
Wasting Dev time/effort for changes that were not wanted or asked for.
Taking weeks or months to undo these changes even though they took 1 patch to implement them.
Refusing to take player input on changes or mechanics that they wanted.
Ever increasing lag, mainly post CU and later, even though the number of players kept decreasing.
Changes, Content, or Mechanics that were never even tested by players, just implemented.
I'm sure there's other things that some would say were missed or they would disagree on but for me and most people I knew that played those were the highlights of why we disliked the game more and more, ended up quitting, or in the case of people who hadn't played it why they wouldn't try the game.
Sure those are my opinions but that what I saw personally and what I was told from everyone else I knew who had played or heard of the game some or all of those reasons are why they quit or wouldn't try the game.
Even with all the bugs/problems SWG had, I would still love to play it pre NGE now. I would bet that if SOE made a pre NGE server, it would have more people on it than any of the NGE servers they have now.
i think you pretty much covered most of the points, theres more detail certainly.. but its an old old story.. and its the reason why I .. and probably the other 80 percent of the playerbase of the game, left... SOE certainly earned their reputation of mismanaging MMO's with SWG... and they havent really done anything since to change that reputation
I have followed this thread for months now. I am surprised that there are still people who would be willing to play PRE-CU even after 6 years.
I, too, would literally jump at the chance. I would reactivate my 3 accounts in a heartbeat. My recent attempt at the Flightless bird left me wanting more and I knew I shouldn't have tried the damn thing.
Since I cancelled my accounts back in 2005, I tried (long list incoming):
Glorified Kiddie Themepark list OR MMOs that should have never been made:
EQ2-->1 month sub less than a week played
Vanguard--> 1 month sub less than a day played
WoW--> trial less than 5 hours played (curious of what the hype was all about, laughed my arse off as to how much IQ has dropped on the planet for glorifying this piece of shit made for kids)
Lotro--> 1 month sub played for the full month (great story and quests kept me for a month thats about how much time a self respecting gamer should spend on this)
Warhammer--> After being literally annoyed to death by a mate for the PvP I actually threw my money away by buyng the full product and ending up playing for a couple of days.
CoH--> Oh my god I am still trying to forgive myself for that one.
STO--> Being an ST fan I literally forced myself to play this for a month. After that I felt I needed some form of psychiatric evaluation for doing so.
The Glorious list of digestible Mediocrity:
EvE online--> 2 months just because it is made for intelligent people. Can't stomach the "you are the ship" gameplay and no ground portion. And can't accept the fact that you can't compete at all unless you buy a character.
Fallen Earth--> 2 months just because I read somewhere it was close to SWG, not that it really is any close mind you, but interesting game.....for 2 months. You can actually play alone, solo everything but 5% of the content and unsub. Great stuff indeed lol.
Ryzom--> I can't actually pinpoint why I played this for a week before unsubbing. It felt like it was worth it but I just couldn't relate somehow. Weird.
AoC--> Lots of fun for the FULL month I played this. Hack, slash decapitate and brutalise for a month kind of fun, but very shallow in almost EVERY other aspect of it. Not my cup of tea.
The cursed list of recent failure to learn from the past OR more shit I wasted money on:
Xsyon: Not gonna say anything here but that I consider the 40$ as a donation. Heck I donated more than that for the flightless bird anyway. Still money washed along with jeans kind of stupidity.
DarkFall: Money-fall to the trash excitement. God I enjoyed it more when I pressed the uninstall button.
Looking back at the above list I'd say I should give up on trying to find anything that would satisfy my niche demands as there will never, EVER be any other game that would remotely compare to SWG Pre-CU.
That bug ridden game had more soul and meat than ALL other games that have been released since 2003. Not because it was perfect, it was far from being perfect to be honest but it had potential, something that NONE of the above titles have or ever aspire to. What made it great was that it offered the means, the game mechanics to truly experience an authentic MMO experience. It forced community interaction, but did so without alienating the player.
What SOE did with the NGE was criminal. Not for me or for the game's vets, but business-wise. At some point in the future, all those low-IQ lemmings that pay good money to play Disneyland Online will get bored or even realise that title A and title B is the same crap wrapped up in different shinnies and they are paying for it. And then SOE would have missed their chance to offer something different and profit from it.
I just hope there is a company out there to realise that the only game that will stir the pot a little will be a game that offers a combination of the sandbox experience of SWG with Disneyland online thrown in for good measure. But I am not hopeful. The industry has shown that it is hell bent on pursuing the WoW-killer quest line, which guarantees more shit title in the future starting with ToR. I truly hope I am wrong. But you know I am not.
SOE never realised that there are 250k people out there that have kids running around the house and the spending power to support 4 accounts each indefinately that were having an absolute blast playing Owen and Beru in a living, breathing SW virtual world. They never did the math 250x4= 1 mil subs.
As the topic says, it only depends on who you ask. Some would say publish 9 was also a wrong doing by SOE- if SOE kept Jedi the way it was but took away the ability to wear armor and gave them innate armor (maybe 50% resist to all via lightsaber) with skillbox decay on death, I would've been fine with it. After publish 9 I could take my Jedi out anywhere without fear, I once reached -10 million xp and reground it when I wanted to change skills (thanks to Ryyat Trail glitches). The early 2004 era (Jan-June) was THE BEST TIME in SWG, plenty of non-Jedi pvp everywhere and fast growing player cities and community held events (or events coordinator operated, like Pax). The combat upgrade was nothing like the devs said it would be when we chat with them about it before publish 9- they specifically said "Jedi in publish 9 will be balanced for the combat upgrade", and they revamped Jedi all over again in the combat upgrade anyways so publish 9 meant nothing.
The NGE indeed was the worst thing SOE did, the combat upgrade towards the end of Octobor 2005 was almost perfect and that's when Smedley outright lied with "the CU is here to stay" then 2 weeks later the NGE gets announced. Smedley 2 years later then apologizes- not for releasing the NGE but releasing it at a bad time, meaning he still intended to release it regardless.
Jedi should have never been in the game, period. During this time of Star Wars history, there were no Jedi anyways. So not only was it a balance issue, but it was also a lore issue as well. SOE was making the coffin to SWG all along, the NGE was just the final nail of it.
Thank you. You managed to put into words what I tried and failed at in the past. I play to fly some and experience a Star Wars MMO. For me SWG is the only legal option, so here I play knowing that I will never catch up to the Vets.
I too am a post NGE player. I too see this game's glory days long gone. I do sub to it and play SWG right now, but it's hard to play a MMO that only the Vets with Billions of credits can play and enjoy... and then realize they don't enjoy it cause they already have everything, so all they do is play the TCG and hope to get lucky.
What a mess, at least to me it feels like a mess. I'm just here for the droids to be honest. At least they still work and I can put my house where I want to... IF I can find a place to put it that is (Starsider).
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
According to your signiture, you logged 46 hours this week alone, which is more hours than most people work in a week...how much harder could you "try to play"?
I always thought SWG started on the downhill run when they introduced Holo grinding. I was perfectly happy to accept I would never be a Jedi and only a few lucky people would unlock a force sensitive character slot. I thought it was a good idea to keep Jedi numbers very low, and that they could be killed off permanently.
Once the holo grind set in it destroyed the crafted goods market. A lot of very good crafters disappeared over night as they went in search of the elusive combo of professions to unlock a jedi slot and decent armour and weapons were suddenly not being made any more. All downhill from that point.
Yes, I would re-seb if they brought out a pre CU server but I'd also want no holo grinding and ultra rare Jedi characters.
So true. Up to this point I had never seen 1 patch cause so much harm to an mmo as this one did. The hologrind was at such a complete opposite of the game design that it caused players to abandon core gameplay in order to grind through content they had no interest or intention of playing just to drop it and repeat the process all over again.
SWG was in pretty rough shape at that point. What content that existed was buggy beyond belief and there were major holes in content everywhere else. The hologrind was little more than a bandaid attempt to fix a gaping wound. Soe sold the future of the game short to address an immediate issue, but this seems to be a consistent trend with how soe manages their games.
After seeing the hologrind I could no longer deny that soe had no concept of how to fix, let alone manage the game.
The question should be how many of those 46 hours were spent AFK to avoid the mind-numbing grind that much of SWG is?
The game clearly wasn't as perfect as players say it was pre-NGE, considering it was already slowly bleeding subs.
Stop putting words ("perfect") in our mouths; that's pretty near pure strawman.
Exactly!
It was an MMO and like ALL MMO's, it had growing pains and needed to fix/tweak some stuff. Overall though, I will say that the original game was near perfect in terms of mixing casual, hardcore, PvE, PvP, and social gamers.
saying it was just the NGE is like saying it was just a nuclear explosion. apart from all that SOE showed the world how easy it is to ass pound your entire paying player base and not care.
I think that even though soe screwed everyone over and made them very angry, I still think that the experience they did create for us was amazing. Even though soe caused problems for us and helped ruin the game ultimately they still gave me what i have had from star wars galaxies. For me ive had a great experience with soe even better than other mmos. Everquest 2 was amazing, star wars galaxies was amazing and planetside was amazing.
I still think soe are capable if only they would listen about how they could improve. With swg for example they should reopen a pre cu server and im sure they would be pleasently surprised. I will always remember for the rest of my days the experience i had with swg because even though there was horrendous consequences for me at least in the end when the shit hit the fan, I have had my best experience ever in a mmo with swg for about a year and a half. I will never forget how i spent the first month i think it was on talus grinding those tweeety birds and fynocks in that amzing coloured land scape. Just walking about dearic seeing creature handlers with giant pets was just so much entertainment. The image of swg will stick with me for the rest of my days and ultimately it is soe who gave me this experience. So they should get some credit ?
I know everyone got angry while playing the game, for me it ended when I came back to my player city after a couple of weeks or so grinding buff packs to help the citizens out, and i found that people had turned on me, I was having such an amazing time with the city building and the 50 or so people that lived in the city and i tried as much as possible to make our regualr hunts and city life fun.When i decided to make 1000 buff packs so i could use my time on hunts with the citizens and pvp, i was addicted to the crafting of them for about 2-3 weeks. I was going to make these buff packs ! That was my mistake as when i came back I got abuse and shouted at angrily over something that was happening at the time with the guild leader. I was so stressed out from all the work id put in and couldnt cope with this attack so i blew up the city and left the game ! This was the start of the end for me even before the pre cu. Anyway that was what upset me about the game was when my citizens turned on me and my guild leader buddy who id known from day one launched an angry attack on me and i lost it
I tried to go back to swg several times after that but couldnt get into the game. When all this was going on it was around the time of the pre cu and there was complaints about teras kasi being too uber should i say. In those last days people were solo grinding stuff too tto make money on planets that were paying high cash for missions.
Anywaty thats my bad experience with swg. One thing i did notice about the game and please be patient while i say this, I was a doctor/pistoleer/politician as my main and what i found was thatthe pistoleer was not as good as say rifleman. some people call it class balancing when everyones weapons are the same as each other. For swg the weapons were not balanced but i found this a good point ! Heres why even though i was a not so good pisdtoleer i knew that i only needed one rifleman or teras kasi to come with me when i pvp so i do get a chance to kill things. So what if i need to organize to be with a group to be good at pvp, it was part of the game for the weapons to be unbalanced ! The idea was to make use of what you got and improvise . Hardly anyone has saw this with regards to balancing classes is concerned. If i was a teras kasi , so what if i kicked ass, it just takes two pistoleer players to take that one uber teras kasi ! The idea was to make use of the unbalanced-ness as i saw it .I improvised with my pistoleer. i was a doctor and i went in close on the front lines of battle healing players with just my pistol but i knew that no matter how uber the teras kasi was or jedi etc , i could heal myslef and do more damage with my pistol. If i wasnt doctor i could find someone in the guild to be a side kick to help me outr in pvp by adding more power with another player. I like unbalanced professions because it forces you to think of using someone else alongside you to make you motre powerful than the uber opponent. This is mmo gameplay at its best. I was not one of these people who wanted teras kasi to be nerfed or jedi to be nerfed etc. I was not looking for a combat upgrade as i was happy with the unbalanced state of play.
SWG to me was THE proper mmo experience, there was so much MMO going on it was unreal. Initially for the first year everyone asked each other for help in chat for example because everyone helped out when others had issues. There was so much stuff going on in the chat too. Nowadays you dont get much in chat in games and the wow-clone games are just not what SWG people are after. I though have been playing RIFT and ive liked it so much it has rekindled my liking for mmos. Even if it is a wwo clone im enjoying it again and not suffering from burn out.
Anyway enough said. I think soe isnt all bad but what i can say is with soe not only will you get a unique gaming experience , expect to get a lot of anger and doing things like destroying your game disks when they do something wrong. They still gave us the expierence everyone holds dear to there hearts. That was soe that did that
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1651869499.png
A little known wrong that SOE did was to the Ranger community. Buggy traps, broken abilities and all - we were a pretty decent lot of players commited to our profession. Then one day, a dev approached our Rep telling us that they wanted to gather our ranger ideas together because they were gearing up for a Ranger Revamp.
So on our little section of the board, Calc and the lot of us gathered our ideas together. Spent time haggling out the points. If you look far enough into my post history here, you will find me arguing proSOE against a few members here based upon the fact that I believed SOE was actually listening.
To make a long story short, those ideas were given and then some used as part of the basis for Spy. We never got the revamp, they took the ideas for spy and then told us that our profession was being removed. Actually, they didn't tell us. A poster shows up on a forum and warns us all of the NGE. He gets laughed at. Put down. Called a crack pot. A short while later, Rangers were removed.
True story, ask any Ranger.
Yup. I was a Master Ranger. I liked Spy on its own, but it was nothing like Ranger.
I remember the build-up towards the Ranger Revamp. I remember arguing that the role of the Ranger was an advanced outdoorsman and not some super-soldier (think Army Rangers or Antarian Rangers) that some were pushing for.
It wasn't just that they got rid of Ranger, but they also removed any usefulness for a dedicated resource gatherer. When decay was removed it also reduced the need for resources. Then they let every new class have the ability to harvest. It was horribly depressing.
I used to enjoy filling out orders that crafters needed. Though your skills didn't really factor into your killing ability, and had zero effect in PVP, I enjoyed feeling like a useful part of the 'crafting circle' and participating in the economy.
The game used to be a puzzle everyone played their part. SOE just nerfed and threw everything at people.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
For me, I can sum up what how NGE affected me as a player, very simply and succinctly, with 'milk'.
Pre-NGE: As a bio-engineer, it was difficult to continue advancing in a sub-tree because of the lack of 'milk' in the game. I absolutely loved the class, but 'milk' was a necessity to the way the class progressed. There were promises of creating designer monsters for Creature Handlers and other interesting things to do with the class. It was a support-junkies dream come true, and I was full of hope of what the class would eventually become if only we had 'milk'. We were continually promised that 'Milk' would be coming soon.
Post-NGE: 'Milk' was added to the game, but the bio-engineer class had been removed, completely, with nothing even remotely resembling it available to replace it. We were then told that the every mechanic that the class had offered would never be returning. Period.
So, what exactly is surprising about my disappointment with NGE?
Online Content May Change over Time.
Thats the Legal Loop hole.
MMO History: 2528 days in SW:G
True story.
That Poster that was laughed at...was a now Perma Banned Intrepid player I knew.
MMO History: 2528 days in SW:G
