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Star Wars Galaxies: Interview with Casey Keefe
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Casey Keefe, the Community and Press Relations Manager at LucasArts, recently spoke to MMORPG.com about the past, present and future of Star Wars Galaxies. Here is what he had to say:
;) MMORPG.com: What message do you have to those players who quit Star Wars Galaxies after the NGE update?
Casey Keefe: After hearing the reasons why players left, we have gathered that feedback and used it in deciding future elements of the game. Even though we arent rolling back the game, we hope to re-introduce some of the older elements that players enjoyed in the context of the new direction of the game, such as what we are aiming to do with the specialization elements. Our hope is that reintroduction of these elements will draw said players back to the game. |
You can read the entire Q&A here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
AHAHHAAHAH TOO FUNNY
hmmm...... I wonder why the SWG devs right now dont post there subscriber numbers. The devs at Eve online do because their not ashamed of there subscriber numbers. The relationship between MMO players and devs of MMO companies need to be transparent for an MMOG to succeed.
Not telling the press what kind of subscriptions numbers you have doesnt make sence to me if the said game is popular. Maybe thats because SWG isn't popular anymore.
I've never played SWG but I still watch SWG forums like a 30+ year old housewife that watches soaps. I CANT GET ENOUGH OF THIS SOAP OPERA ITS FACINATING
Greedy MMO corp trying to snatch the quick buck. (GREED)
Real people getting EXTREMELY upset at watching there favorite game go buy buy. (TRAGEDY)
Reading SOE devs so called RESPONSES (BLUNDERS)
....Its all ABSOLUTELY hilarious. I'll continue waste my time following this SOE-OPERA because its funnier than commedy central to read all the flaming and whining.
It seems to me that there will be people in this thread that will think im laughing at other peoples grief over SWG. For the SWG vets out there im sorry... really i am........ its just soooo funny watching these SOE people put so much spin on a game that they promote. Funny that they'll tell you about how cool the game is but not tell you there subscriber numbers ahaahhhahahaaa I HOPE THIS GAME BURNS AND SOE GOES BANKRUPT FOR THEY WILL NEVER GET A CENT OF MY MONEY EVER.
P.S. the caps in this post were USED FOR EMPHASIS and is not for yelling ty for reading
Is there an MMO that out there that isn't affected by Xao Ping Wang and their money grubbing macro bots?
http://wow.stratics.com/content/features/editorials/mf/
Just say no to ingame money/mob farming.... the site says it all
AHAHHAAHAH TOO FUNNY
hmmm...... I wonder why the SWG devs right now dont post there subscriber numbers. The devs at Eve online do because their not ashamed of there subscriber numbers. The relationship between MMO players and devs of MMO companies need to be transparent for an MMOG to succeed.
Not telling the press what kind of subscriptions numbers you have doesnt make sence to me if the said game is popular. Maybe thats because SWG isn't popular anymore.
I've never played SWG but I still watch SWG forums like a 30+ year old housewife that watches soaps. I CANT GET ENOUGH OF THIS SOAP OPERA ITS FACINATING
Greedy MMO corp trying to snatch the quick buck. (GREED)
Real people getting EXTREMELY upset at watching there favorite game go buy buy. (TRAGEDY)
Reading SOE devs so called RESPONSES (BLUNDERS)
....Its all ABSOLUTELY hilarious. I'll continue waste my time following this SOE-OPERA because its funnier than commedy central to read all the flaming and whining.
It seems to me that there will be people in this thread that will think im laughing at other peoples grief over SWG. For the SWG vets out there im sorry... really i am........ its just soooo funny watching these SOE people put so much spin on a game that they promote. Funny that they'll tell you about how cool the game is but not tell you there subscriber numbers ahaahhhahahaaa I HOPE THIS GAME BURNS AND SOE GOES BANKRUPT FOR THEY WILL NEVER GET A CENT OF MY MONEY EVER.
P.S. the caps in this post were USED FOR EMPHASIS and is not for yelling ty for reading
Is there an MMO that out there that isn't affected by Xao Ping Wang and their money grubbing macro bots?
http://wow.stratics.com/content/features/editorials/mf/
Just say no to ingame money/mob farming.... the site says it all
Lol.
What an unfortunate waste of the interviewers time......
SOE talk much but say very little
Nice to see them still shoveling the same old BS that they have been, and I really loved the "No comment" answer, simply classic!
I was almost considering resubscribing to SWG since I loved the game so much, and miss the game it once was, but I know i'd just wind up getting angry and upset all over again seeing what those morons have done to it.
And as for huge companies like LucasArts and SOE saying it's just not technically possible to run old versions of the code, thats total crap, you can't tell me they don't have the money and programmers to get it running again, they just won't admit they screwed the game up with the NGE and will instead blindly stumble on, thinking all is well in SWG land, when they are the laughing stock of the MMO world.
And his answer pretty much confirmed those server population numbers, the game is dead, the only reason it's even still running is so SOE can have another POS game to bundle for their all access pass, it's been reduced to filler instead of a game that could stand on it's own.
Wow im glad i quit a few months ago. These idiots change the core gameplay on us, then say they wont roll back but re-introduce some minor crap from pre-nge, No deal here, i want roll back or nothing. And they can too make classic servers, these guys are a bunch of dam scum bag liars and thiefs, dont let SWG drain your money. Go play anything else. Their publish plan is to fix the crap game they have now-why in the world would you pay for that? And what other game company says no comments in a interview?? Lame lame lame. Stay away from Sony-big corps. = Trouble and Bad. Take your NGE SWG and stick it where the sun dont shine SOE. And GOOD LUCK getting more players-HA.
And BTW Props to MMORPG.com for asking the real Real questions we want to hear. Keep it up.
I played SWG from the day it started.
The game was amazing for someone who wanted to feel immersed in an online world. The diversity available made it so each player could truly feel like they were unique in the game. Players needed crafters, entertainers, scouts and doctors to be successful (giving those who wanted to play support roles a rewarding playing experience too).
That was then, this is now.
Now, a 5 year old can start as a Jedi immediately and progress through the leveling system without EVER needing anything from any of the support classes.
If you are looking for a complex, diverse gaming experience, look somewhere else.
If you are after an online first person shooter with many planets to explore, then SWG is for you.
I have been following the forum for some time and have seen the game back in the day before the changes but never played it myself until I tried it over the weekend on the 10 day trial. I wish I hadn't.
All I can say is there where these boxes for "default item image" that hovered around when the item did not have a graphic. I was "like cool a new blaster", but for some reason the graphic was a large cube and when I picked it up I was ruinng around carring a large black box around me with a red question mark on it. The first time it happened I thought, "Oh it must be rare" - but it happened again repeatedly - not all the time but enough to let me know they just did not care.
If they can't get the demo levels items right then what else is wrong. Forget about the enemies and me running through stuff and the camera issues. The "aiming" in combat and and just holding the mouse button to kill stuff. It was just about as dissapointing as it could be.
I knew it was going to be bad but I thought I could at least get some cool armor and weapons - that stuff was even buggy.
So what does it offer new players? - the name, Star Wars.
---MMO EXPERIENCE:---
WoW - 06-2006 to current
COV - 40 Corruptor - 10-2005 to 04-2006
COH - 50 Scrapper - 04-2004 to 04-2006
EQ2 - 35 Barb Berserker - 12-2004 to 04-2005
EQ1 - 55 Barb Warrior - 2000, 2001
Tried: DaoC, DDO, Auto Assault, SWG, Lineage II
Just another sterling example of how out of touch and unresponsive SOE and LucasArts are. They've completely butchered a fantastic game, but refuse to admit their mistake and fix it. Instead we go further down the path of turning this game into a Playstation game for 8 year-olds.
Neither SOE or LucasArts will be releasing any subscriber figures-if you had money to buy a game and pay a monthly subscription fee, would you invest your time in a dying game? Probably not. The sad thing is most people playing the game are real Star Wars fans. And many of these wonderful people worked 2+ years to accumulate money, elite weapons and the like in game only to have these items rendered useless by the new versions of the game.
It seems as though SOE and Sony are doing everything they can to run off the veteran players, and bring in a new younger group of subscribers. That must be it, nobody could possibly be this incompetent, could they?
Anyone ever notice, everytime SOE talks they really dont say anything?????
They destroyed the game, why not admit it and fix it! maybe some of us would come back then.
It is simply amazing that a multi million dollar company , does not have the technology available to run a "classic" server; when companies like Mythic, can Run multiple types of severs and yet keep all content patched and up to date.
It is because of these BS lies and PR stunts that SOE is sinking. and yes it is sinking , they don't know what else to do with their games, eq gets an expansion every 3 months , EQ2 has become a bad WoW clone, Matrix Online is in the same bad shape that WB left it and they killed SWG, and they are so desperate that they are making Planetside free.
Their latest gimmick is the Station bundle , you will get all SOE games for 40 bucks come march. and with all expansions it seems.
I am personally done with SOE products; and i will not be another victim of their "Bait & Switch " tactics.
I'm not gona pick apart the interview, the bottom line is the whole SWG team is in full on sales mode and they know good and well the veteran accounts are gone.
The games time line is not represented in their last 2 expansions, they can't even sell their own story and they dump on veteran players at whim, credibility at this point is what's killing this game.
To L.A. P.R. Casey,
For how much longer do you and SOE expect veterans that quit to still browse the SWG forums? This game will be forgotten soon if there aren't more specific answeers. I am one of them, a former MCH (that stands for Master Creature Handler) that lost her profession. Did you expect me to respec to Jedi? Think there are enough already, that's why my weapon suport profession was MBH (this stands for Master Bounty Hunter, i'm pretty sure you are not familiar with these terms). Thing is I don't think hunting NPCs (this stands for Non Player Characters) would be enough, and like I said was just a suport profession, like Pikeman before that, or Carbineer when i first started on launch...
The publish plans untill far in the future don't have any reference to the missing professions, things like fighting with bladed weapons or with the help of droids or high level animals. That is something we want to know about, to keep browsing this from time to time, or else interest will drop slowly as new games come out, and you will not recover all the lost veterans. Think back on the success of KOTOR, it had bladed weapons, that never realy bothered anyone, stealing that from dedicated SWG players does. And bring back MCH like it was, not like a descartable tame new mounts option. We want Rancors and the like, that is Iconic.
This game sounds cool, when's it coming out of beta?
They say plenty in the interview. It was said there will be "no rollback" blah blah blah
The best I have to say is I randomly will log onto Starsider. I do this when I'm really bored because I do have a station access account for EQ2. My girl friend will look over and just kinda gag and put headphones on or something.
When she comments what she says is:
"you know I remember when that city was full of people. We were setting up to be a merchant city and we had about 75 people putting harvesters down. Then about two days before the CU they logged on test center. This game used to have a thriving community..."
This you understand is from someone that never logged in again two days after the CU let alone the NGE. Yet had played from Beta 3 till that point.
There is NEVER anyone on our friends list. I can hit every major city and player city and see... half the number total of what was in Theed or Coronet alone. You won't in all those cities combined see as many people as hung out in our player city alone.
I'm sorry I don't care how "complicated" the game used to be. I know how many people I saw until they started to seriously change it. Ya they may have lost some subscriber pre-cu... But they sure as heck lost a ton between CU and NGE.
They messed up and won't admit or fix it. Sorry to say re applying a few old elements will never bring my other accounts back. I doubt the people I knew would come back anyway.
Where do I see SWG a year from now...
Consolidated servers at best... definitely not thriving or bringing in this "huge" fan base. Oh that's based on their current "no rollback" theory as well.
Typical short non-informative answers from a typical PR guy. Move along, folks. There's nothing to see here. Typical PR BS. We've seen it a million times.
RIP SWG.
perhaps it is just me, but that is one of the worst interviews I have ever read, with some of the worst and most damaging responses that a worker of a game could give.
I miss you old old SWG. So much potential...
There is a bright side to all this, you know.
Any Psychology majors have a ton of resources to pull from regarding compulsive lying, denial and delusion by reading any communication from that dev team to the public.
To the interviewer: I'm sorry you had to conduct this one. Those moments of your life you'll never get back and that's a shame.
To SOE and LA: It doesn't take a smart man (and I know cause I ain't one) to see what you have done to yourselves. It's one thing if you do it in one game. It's a whole different bag of beans if you consistently do it over ALL the stud horses in your stable. I'm sure you know not to even attempt to put out another major MMORPG. If you haven't gotten that clue, consider this your wake-up call.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Anyone else notice how mechanical and cold Keefe's answers were? Someone's not having much fun over at SOE these days. To think that all those devs over there were probably ideallists at one time, with grand visions of the potential of the MMO space. Now they seem beaten and reduced to 'going to work.'
Sad really.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
I have been going by the SOE forums hoping I would see SOMETHING that would give me hope that the game I loved would be resurrected from the ashes.
Now I know it's time to let it die.......
DAMN YOU SOE/LEC
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard drive?"
From the Classic Tag Lines collection.