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Trusting Gameplay
Dakkide
Member Posts: 18
Part of playing an MMO is logging into the game and trusting that when you log into your account
all of your gameplay information is intact. You have spent 2+ years creating and tuning your alter
ego, your get away from real life even for just a short time persona. You don't have alot of game
time because of school, work, children, bills, life, or all of the above. So that little bit of time
in game means alot to you. Not in a spooky, addicted kind of way, but just a, kids are asleep, wife
is reading, homework is done kind of fun.
One day, a few years into playing your chosen MMO, you log in to find that all of your hard work
is missing. Your chosen class, profession of 2+ years has been wiped and you must choose another that
you really dont like. Items you have collected since beta are made useless. Whole banks or houses
full of crafted materials are now worthless. Pets, that you have collected and trained ar no longer
callable and have forgotten everything you have ever trained them. The game you spent your free time
playing has become something completely different. You have read that little blurb when the game
starts up for 3 years, telling you that "Gameplay may change" but you never realized just what that
meant. Well suddenly it all becomes clear exactly what it meant.
Gameplay for you is no longer the gameplay you have paid for every month for 3+ years. You try
very hard to adapt, learn your new class/profession, start a new character, collect new items and
crafted goods, but in the back of your mind there is always that voice telling you that "Gameplay May
Change". It becomes harder and harder to develop your character the way you would have in the past.
You try other games, jump from one to another but you just can't seem to get that feeling back, the
feeling that your creating something from nothing giving him/her life, something that will not go
away. Do you ever really trust that the keeper of your free time will not do it again, make all of
your time, story creating, and collections worthless. How do you ever trust another MMO developer
again?
We all now know what "Gameplay may change" truly means now. Question is, can you ever trust any MMO Developer again? Will you forever be jaded and unable to feel comfortable in that special world again? That all of your hard work will be there when you log on tommorow, or the next day? All of the MMO publishers need to take heed of lessons learned by the players of Star Wars Galaxies, or we will forever be moving from one game to another, never calling one special game HOME again.
Have a great Game Day
Dakk
Comments
This issue is a big one for me. Its why I won't play any game that SOE is even remotely involved with.
Furthermore, if there is even the slightest reason to doubt the developer, even if SOE is not involved, I am unwilling to take the risk of the massive amount of time being wasted.
Good post.
Jaded with MMORPGs is exactly how I feel now. heh I look at all the "exciting" upcoming MMORPGs and just can't help but say one thing: meh. As a developer I can begin to imagine the pain of trying to balance a skill based system like SWG started out as, but I don't care. I can't help hating every game that comes out with "warrior, rogue, mage, healer..." as all you can choose from.
Right after the NGE hit, it took me a couple weeks to realise this was my biggest fear. How things had changed so much in the CU, and then how things changed so much in the NGE. Stuff I was thrilled to have accomplished and made and bought, had been suddenly rendered useless. And so for a couple weeks in the aftermath of the NGE, I would log in and just sit there in a daze, afraid that whatever I did would be rendered useless, once again.
SWG was my first MMO, I had no desire to be a Jedi, but I wanted to try everything eventually. Out of my group of 8 people we had 12 accounts total. After the NGE, it was just me. I hated to quit, but then I hated to do anything because in the back of my mind was this fear that it would all be worth nothing come the next publish.
SOE took and took and took and took stuff away without giving nothing in return. When you accomplish something in these games you feel like you've done something. I don't care if it's 'just a game', it was still an accomplishment.
In my young CH days I was at a level where I could finally attempt to teach a Mottled Wrix. So I find a lair, and a baby Wrix. I put on my mask scent and stand in the middle of 3 adult Wrix while I attempted to tame the baby. After several failed attempts and almost just plain giving up, it finally said 'you have tamed the baby Mottled Wrix' I was soooooo thrilled. I spoke of it ad nauseam to my fellow group mates, but it was something I'll never forget, that feeling of accomplishment. It was little stuff like that, that got me hooked, I'd never found that thrill before in a game. I was CH/Ranger the two most gimped professions after the CU, but I loved it, because at least I could still go out and explore and just hunt if I wanted to.
I finally found a game that while not SWG I was finally able to cancel my accounts and move forward. At least with this new game, I'm not in fear of it changing over night. I'll admit I was at first, and still am to a certain extent. But when I started playing Ryzom, I couldn't wait to cancel my accounts because in my eyes SOE no longer deserved my patronage. Ryzom isn't perfect, but thank goodness it was enough for me to finally be able to get rid of my SWG accounts.
It's funny because a few weeks before the NGE was announced our group was talking and we were all willing to spend the next years in SWG because it had become a way of life. It was our 'pub', we got together nightly, we hunted, we had some good laughs and camaraderie. It was great.
Anyway, a big thank you to the OP. I think that is the biggest issue of all, you were able to put it a lot more eloquently then I ever could. Kudos
Well said sums my feelings up well also
After CU had a day or 2 of the daze bit but got on with it and it wernt bad not quite Pre-CU but not awful, NGE hit and omfg dazed for days cancelled account , returned few motnh ago to try it out and see if improved at all but alas no you log in and just think why bother then watch a Pre-CU video and you just cant understand SOE's thinking one bit to go from that video to that turd you logged into is unreal.
Needless to say subscription ended 7th Sept never to return unless classic servers come about.
I have more respect for a 36 profession game with some bugs because of all that variety, than a 5 profession game that is utterly bug free, but had to get that way by restricting my choices so much that my character is a carbon copy of 20% of the server.
C
I remember the same feeling going out and taming my first Rancor. My character had been a CH for a while and had some much better already-tamed high-level BEed pets (from a fellow CH who retired and passed them on to me). But this was the first really powerful creature that I went out into the wilds of Dathomir and tamed myself. I drove my guild nuts getting them to help me look for baby Rancors (and then had a really hard time taming them). Then early one Sat A.M., I logged in alone on Dath and just went out looking, and I blundered into a lair with a baby gnarled. And like you after many botched attempts, I finally tamed one. I named it "Grumpy" because well, that seemed appropriate for a Rancor.
I kept Grumpy from that day until after the CU. When the CU made it so "you cannot call that creature" (because it was "too high a level") I almost cancelled my account right there. But they said they would fix it. They didn't though... my choices were to leave Grumpy with his old stats, but un-call-able, or to call him and have his stats reduced to be nothing special. I couldn't do that to Grumpy. He was like an old pal at that point. A fictional character in a game, yes... a collection of pixels and numbers... but he was my character's first serious CH pet, and I couldn't bring myself to "neutering" him. So I left him in the datapad till I finally gave up on CH a few months after the CU, and cancelled the account. For all I know, if I re-upped (which I will never do) he'd probably still be there (and un-call-able).
It's that kind of thing that made me leave SWG, ultimately. Grumpy was NOT an uber creature. He was the weakest Rancor sub-species (Gnarled), at least pre-CU. He was so big he was hard to use in combat since my character was a TK, and he would block my view. Mostly I took him out for guild parties or for "show and tell", or just had him follow me around town because I thought it was funny to watch. I liked Grumpy, the fictional pet, and I will never forgive SOE for destroying him -- not because he was uber and they nerfed him, but because he was my character's pet, and they neutered him.
C
Some of us even had cities, guilds, customers.. all earned over time gone in the blink of a NGE... Some NGErs assume that you can just "Get new friends" or "do somthing else" or say "Well the game is just like it was before" --- Well no it's not or you would not have to defend the fact that it IS not.
Sometimes I wonder if the NGE fans actually convience themselves this is all working well and going just fine so that they sleep better, play without worry or just want to think this never happend and they are now playing this new game called the "NGE".... But that's just me, I wonder some odd crap at times.
As a old dog, I can only be kicked so many times before I bite back... but thats me.
At least you rest knowing that the producers and company president now condemn this as a "Mistake" and "Wish they never did this"... Not that it fixes anything, but at least you know you were right when you said, "Please DON'T DO THIS!" ---- Many of us said that, looks like they should have listened to us.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
you know , its amazing how people accept what is not true. "Gameplay may change" applies to the ESRB not the game. The game changes because you accept it and as long as people pay for this treatment it will happen.
long story short you rewared them to do this to you if you kept playing.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.