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Lucas Arts Attitude
kain-iii
Member Posts: 146
Lucas arts released a comment on the unproffessionalism of the gaming industry.
Lucas arts wants reform and for the gaming industry to be more honest about what they can do and keep deadlines.
I agree with that. However I don't agree with lucas arts making their customers suffer as a result.
If a product is not complete on time LA should let the company finish and not consider doing business with them again not make the customers suffer.
LA would u like it if u were the customer??
Say if for example if u went to a architect and selected plans to build a house. Then having the architect contracting the job out to the lowest bidder. The contractor tells the architect we can't get it done in time and the architect then says get the job done on time I don't care what it takes. This leaving u the customer with a bad house and very unhappy.
A smart architect would take the loss and provide a quality product and not do business with that contractor again.
Lucas Arts why do u make ur customers suffer and rip them off?
Lucas arts wants reform and for the gaming industry to be more honest about what they can do and keep deadlines.
I agree with that. However I don't agree with lucas arts making their customers suffer as a result.
If a product is not complete on time LA should let the company finish and not consider doing business with them again not make the customers suffer.
LA would u like it if u were the customer??
Say if for example if u went to a architect and selected plans to build a house. Then having the architect contracting the job out to the lowest bidder. The contractor tells the architect we can't get it done in time and the architect then says get the job done on time I don't care what it takes. This leaving u the customer with a bad house and very unhappy.
A smart architect would take the loss and provide a quality product and not do business with that contractor again.
Lucas Arts why do u make ur customers suffer and rip them off?
Comments
Why couldn't they have been happy with SWG as a niche game that makes lots of money (250K subs is nothing to sneeze at) that appealed to a hardcore mass of their fanbase and having a good name for themselves rather than trashing and destroying that game twice in less than a year chasing a client base that doesn't exist and getting one of the worst reputations in the industry?
/Agree
They released SWG unfinished and bug ridden and promised a finished polished game. People paid for years, many gave up and left. Finally those that stayed after paying and waiting for SOE/LA to keep thier promise tell their most loyal fans to go F*** themsevles.
Then u have idiots saying a game changes encouraging SOE/LA to hide under EULA.
NGE is not a changed game but a new game. Hence NEW GAME EXPERIENCE.
Just because u are playing with a deck of cards does not make euchre and go fish the same game.
How would u like it if u payed to play in euchre tournament and in the middle they changed it to go fish???
Another analogy is buying a house and it isn't finished on time so the builders say go ahead move in. We will have it finished and polished before u know it. Years later the house is still not finished and they begin to change and remove things saying that it was to difficult.
Bull**** if they put the time in effort that they did into CU and NGE into pre -cu it would of been amazing.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
LA speaking out against unprofessionalism in the gaming industry, considering what they've done with SWG, is like Saddam Hussein speaking out against evil tyrannical dictatorships. LA USED to be a reputable company with very good product. Since SWG, though, my own opinion of them has switched 180 degrees.
And SOE is certainly to blame, Macklieboo, but LA determines just as much of the direction of the game, and determines all of the Star Wars content within. Pre-CU definitely needed more of a Star Wars feel, but in regards to the NGE, LA has said they are just as responsible for it as SOE is, like it or hate it. Personally I hate it, and am very surprised people didn't lose their jobs over this, but that's just me.
There's a sucker born every minute. - P.T. Barnum
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
But by the time SWG actually launched, the industry started to change. Competition arrived, SOE got torn between marketing their own competing products (EQ2, and that was in time when people still called SWG as EQ in space), and slowly competing products outside started to show.
During all this time SWG was fueled by the movie marketing hype, and was a completely stable and risk-free investment (SOE didn't move a finger during pre-cu to do anything at all). It wasn't till the movie streak exhausted itself with ep3, that LA and SOE had to start planning way forward.
The future (heavily influenced by WoW) is online. And that shook all publishers, most likely LA and SOE as well. Without any clear plans for SWG successor, the console wars, the explosion and saturation of MMO market and all the competing ideas, they had to act.
Unfortunately, the foundation on which they built has rotted away by that time, both on SOE side, as well on the side of players. And the result is NGE.
The ammount of effort SOE seems to be putting into what I'd considered signed-off project is unusual, but it simply cannot change the fact that years of neglect have left a mark. In the end, both LA and SOE milked SWG dry, but realized that the competition has gotten so fierce, not only are the markets 10x larger than they estimated, but also it's no longer possible to push out just anything, stamp it with SW license and make profit. At least not in gaming world.
During the same time, LA had hard time finding its place. From being on the forefront of inovation and presentation (Monkey Island, SW space titles, other adventure games) they lost their place. Adventure genre died shortly after LA penetrated it, the simulation genre seems forgotten as well. And most of the remaining titles in the period between have been just cheap movie gimmicks with lots of glitter, but absolutely no content.
LA has the potential and financial backing to make a comeback. How and if the do it, remains to be seen. World has changed a lot since Guybrush Threepwood roamed the earth on a single floppy disk.
This would be my assessment of how things transpired, but I might be as well completely off.
Damn byotch dat aint no friggn moon fool, dat be a friggn space station byotch.
LAE is a pile of crap. Whatshisface is pissed that they're losing subs left and right and now they're scrambling to fix the problem....by adding more problems.......that's their level of professionalism.
"I'm not a racist...I only hate stupid people..."-SinisterCB
It was the CEO of LA and here ya go:
http://www.games.net/news_frame/news_frame.cfm?global_id=&src=gamesnet&id=111501
(Sadly it isn't the whole article)
I'd like a quote from him over LA/SOE leading its consumers to believe they were going to get one product only to switch it with another. Or getting everyone to buy an expansion BEFORE you switch.
I believe the original star wars movie was late and over budget... I guess he's never heard of George Lucus or Star wars
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
Why? LA had plenty of chances to stop the NGE from happening, such as when it was going through QA (run by LA). Yet they didn't...
Often times in business the architect is also the project manager who coordinates all the contractors and time lines.
Have anyone e-mailed the author yet? I just sent in the following:
"While Lucas Arts is busy pointing fingers at EA they should be looking at the other 3 fingers pointing back at themselves at the damage their adherence to deadlines has done in their own games. Star Wars Galaxies specifically, SWG has been a hot bed of controversy in the gaming community for the bad decisions, business practices, and poor customer support on the part of Sony On-Line Entertainment and Lucas Arts. But aside from the obvious problems SWG has that has infuriated it's player base it has also had serious problems with deadlines. The problem though isn't in meeting those deadlines...they have done that abundantly well...but in pushing out buggy patches and expansions just to meet those deadlines. I have seen time and time again when serious game breaking issues were identified while in test center that still made it to the live servers instead of delaying the patch/publish/expansion until those problems were fixed. One good example came with the Combat Upgrade when all the pets in the game went to combat level 0, which was disasterous to the Creature Handler profession who relied on those pets. Then they go and push out the New Game Enhancements or NGE which by their own admission would take 6 months AFTER it went live to become a viable game. Well it has been 9 months now and critical aspects of the game such as collision detection still has not been implemented. SOE and LA have mishandled this game at every turn and adhereing to deadlines has not helped one bit...in fact it has hurt them more then helped. With the possible exception of release dates players (their customers) do not care if a company meets it's deadlines or not. Players are much more concerned with a quality product. Most times the players are not even aware what the deadlines are let alone that they exist in the first place. Mr. Ward should look after their own problems before pointing out the problems in other companies."
Tin Foil hats dont work.. its all a conspiracy
/agree
I have a horrible picture of George Lucas in my head now, I can see him now in his leathers at the Blue Oyster Bar with his handlebar moustache
/shudder
ACK!
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Not to mention Julio approved the NGE at conception, and put a nice Nov 15 deadline on it for xmas sales.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
It's spin to try to pick up their image after several bad decisions they have made lately.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
/agree
I have a horrible picture of George Lucas in my head now, I can see him now in his leathers at the Blue Oyster Bar with his handlebar moustache
/shudder
ooouuukkk hold one min while i poke out my minds eye
Tin Foil hats dont work.. its all a conspiracy
I had to use a spoon to make sure I got it all real good.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
The subject is obviously not the real world job description of the contractor, but rather, it's about
the ethics of releasing content early. The analogy was valid and clear, your attack is just a strawman distortion.
-W.
I have to disagree with this. SWG was at its most Star Warsy pre-CU. Pre-TEF changes to be exact. In that era the rules of the game did a very good job, even if not perfectly, of mimicing the Star Wars world we saw on the movies.
Just about every single change they made from the removal of the TEF changes forward, made the SWG less and less like Star Wars and more like a generic magic based MMO with some SW skins.