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John Smedley Answers Your Questions
from the senator-smed dept.
You've recently announced that you plan to give Jump To Lightspeed to previous subscribers who had not purchased it for Free, since it is required for the new intro Tutorial. This is similar to the decision to release the "Total Experience" pack for $30 that included the original game, JTL, and the second expansion "Rage of the Wookies", with an additional item (The Barc Speeder). Do you feel you have any obligation to reimburse the veteran players who payed the premium prices ($30) for each of these expansions when they were first announced (many times before they were even released)? Either monetarily or through in-game items?
John Smedley:
It's common in the game industry to release new versions of games that incorporate older content. In this case, SWG really is much better with both the ground and space games as one package, which is why we're offering them together. We are giving rewards to our veteran players in general, but not specifically in this instance.
OS X client? by Dark Paladin (116525)
I realize that this is a long shot, but with the rise of Mac sales and
the upcoming change of Macs from PPC to X86, is there a chance if an OS
X client? One of the reasons I believe that Blizzards WoW has done so
well is because it allows both major desktop OS's to play together,
rather than trying to partition on group on a separate server (or
pretending they don't even exist, with all of those dollars itching to
be spent).
John Smedley:
Unfortunately, no. I absolutely love Macs (I've got 2 at home myself). I wish we could do this, but it's enormously cost prohibitive if you didn't start out from the beginning with Mac development in mind.
Wouldn't it be easier to scrap the game.. by Jason1729 (561790)
...and start over completely with Star Wars Galaxies 2?
John Smedley:
No. While the scope of the new enhancements is large, it's built upon a very powerful underlying engine that gives us the ability to enhance the game in meaningful ways rather quickly.
Re:Will this update...? by kebes (861706)
Given the recent bad press surrounding some of Sony's intrusive
software, what changes, if any, are you planning for the copy-protection
and cheat-prevention aspects of the game's software. During these
change-overs, are you planning on putting in any special software that
will monitor the users, and/or software that will attempt to prevent
copying the game? Can you guarantee that such software will not "cross
the line" and do things not directly related protecting the game itself?
John Smedley:
No. We are a subscription-based service, and therefore this isn't necessary.
Why wasn't NGE announced on 11/1? by WCMI92 (592436) NGE was dropped on us on 11/2, the day AFTER we were charged for the Trials of Obiwan expansion. Why did you deliberately withold this announcement until it was too late for veteran players to cancel their pre-orders so they could play on Test Center to see if they liked the changes?
John Smedley:
Simply put: We made a mistake in the way we communicated everything happening within the game to our current players, and we apologize for it. We're offering refunds to all players who purchased the Expansion pack before 11/3 (when we announced the NGE). But we feel very, very strongly that our current players are going to enjoy the enhancements to the game. The content in Trials of Obi Wan is even more fun with the new game experience.
Re:Another important question from a player by TychoCelchuuu (835690)
Why have you chosen to answer questions here on Slashdot instead of on
the Star Wars: Galaxies forums? Many players are already fed up with the
lack of communication, especially with these sweeping changes being
announced the day after many of us bought Trials of Obi-Wan. Don't you
have more of a responsibility to paying customers than you do to
promoting the game?
John Smedley:
There are long threads that I've started myself on our forums, but we have community representatives that are answering questions diligently on our forums already, and I'm very involved in what's being said. I'm trying to get the word out in other venues and we know that Slashdot has a wide reach into the online gamer audience in general and the SWG community. Btw, I try to personally answer all of the emails from our players that are written to me and I get a fair number of them each day from our players.
Non-Combat Classes? by by Alpha_Traveller (685367)
Commando, Entertainer, Jedi, Medic, Officer, Smuggler, Spy and Trader.
What if my daughter wanted to be a diplomat? Something tells me that's not the same as Officer. You mentioned each class would show up as a familiar Icon, and I wouldn't call Princess Leia any of the things above. Only three out of the nine are even remotely "non-agressive" in nature. That doesn't speak well for a game that was once geared to be more of a world to explore than just a massive wargame.
[editor: How would you respond to this reader, concerned about the overwhelming shift in emphasis from sandbox-style world to combat-heavy 'game'?]
John Smedley:
This is a really good question, and I think goes to the heart of why we made these changes. The name "Star Wars" carries with it a lot of expectations, and from the research we've done, we weren't delivering enough of the core Star Wars experience to people. Remember, SWG takes place right in the middle of the Galactic Civil War! We felt like we needed to focus on the core iconic professions rather than 34 different professions that weren't unique enough. It just made the game too hard for us to add content to and to balance properly. We finally saw the forest from the trees on this and made the right move.
We still offer professions for non-combat oriented online players who are more interested in the social aspects of the game. We still have the Entertainer position (which is about as non-combat as you can get), as well as the trader class, which encompasses all aspects of crafting and item creation within the game. Additionally, we have made it so that non-combat professions do not agro within the game, so that players who do not choose to fight will be able to move about the game world without worrying about aggressive mobs.
Returning players? by Minupla
With the complete revamp of the game will there be a returning player
incentive program? Something so that those of us who left earlier can
come back with a minimum of pain and check out the rework and see if
it's something that is compatible with our particular playstyles?
John Smedley:
Absolutely! We're going to be offering free trials for download (or at retail stores) in addition to the all-new Starter Pack.
Why not fix the game? by Zonk
Overwhelmingly, the jist of many questions we recieved was "Why do this
instead of fix bugs and expand existing content?" What led to the
decision to make such a drastic change in the game's playstyle, given
that there was still a large population of players who were very happy
playing Galaxies as it existed two weeks ago?
John Smedley:
We didn't feel that we could "fix" the existing game without making these changes to the number of professions. Trying to add content and balance a game with 34 different professions was just proving too difficult. We would spend weeks working on content specifically for one or two professions, but that would come at the cost of neglecting the other 30+. I think when we made the game we went too far into the direction of a "sandbox" style of gameplay, when what we needed to do was balance that out with awesome Star Wars gameplay that gives the player the feeling of being heroic.
We also had the very basic business problem of needing to appeal to a wider audience of players in order to keep the game growing rather than seeing the audience dwindle down over time. At the end of the day, our decision came down to wanting to make Star Wars Galaxies the most incredible Star Wars experience ever. Even though we know these changes will be upsetting some of our players initially, we feel that once they see how awesome we can make the Galactic Civil War, and how cool the new Star Wars content is they'll feel like we made the right decision at the end of the day.
All I can say is: try it before you pass judgement. If you are a current player, log in and check out the game. If you are a player who has tried the game and left because it was not delivering the experience, come back. If you're a gamer who has been on the fence because of what you've heard about the game previously, grab the free trial and jump in. We have a free 10 day trail available on the website (http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/), which can be converted to the full version of the game at the end of the trial period. I feel that the enhancements we've made to the game have made Star Wars Galaxies the game it was always meant to be.
See you on Tatooine!
Erm.... No. (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.dylanbrams.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday September 01, @01:42PM)
In the seven months I played there were two major game updates, both of which were reviled by the majority of the player base and touted as something wonderful by SOE. However, from commentary from both Lucasarts and SOE, it was highly apparent that the people in charge of this game were staring at WoW and thinking, "Star Wars is cooler than Warcraft, why aren't we rich?"
Then they started to make it a clone of the Blizzard game. No matter how loud their player base screamed.
The game is buggy, system-resource intensive, and the only reason I thought it was awesome was because of 1) the open 'jobs' style system, and 2) the incredible crafting system. Both of these things have been dumbed down in the NGE, from what I hear.
Smedley's answers are all PR boilerplate and have nothing to do with the real reasons they are changing the game drastically. There are some incredibly cool things in the game still, (I once met a guy who had been playing since beta and loved that he could crawl through the grass and spy on people) but I consider the game fatally flawed by the people who run it not caring one bit about play experience- even as a means to the end of getting more subscribers. The entire design of the game is now based on, "This works for Blizzard, how can we copy it?" They don't seem to understand that you need a happy playerbase willing to bring their RL friends in, instead of an angry one that is embarassed about having gotten sucked into a huge marketing ploy and unable to desert their ingame friends.
I would recommend to any of my friends that they run the other way from any SOE game. Period.
Mothmar Friedsquid, former Ahazi Guru / Master Crafter.
Re:Erm.... No. (Score:4, Funny)
I get the impression that's been the general thought process behind every Star Wars game ever made.
Re:Erm.... No. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/~karzz1)
You have got to be kidding me. If it works so well, how come there are 55 pages of comments in the "issues" thread alone??? -- check it out [sony.com].
You must be some kind of SOE apologist. And for the record, I have 2 toons on TC (TC2 and TC5) -- I cannot tell the difference between the "live" game and testcenter.
Re:Erm.... No. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Yeah, the reason is THERE ARE NO MORE HIGHLY POPULATED AREAS. Period. Coronet - dead. Theed - dead. Dant Mining Outpost - almost dead. I'm on Intrepid which is one of the suggested started servers with what was a damn good player base and active population. I came back right before the NGE went into effect so I could test the changes live. They suck ass for a MMORPG. They're not bad for a First Person Shooter style game. Unfortunately, SWG was supposed to be a MMORPG with a complex story and background and *d'oh!* a complex game to go with it. Not a dumbed down, 8-year-old's wet dream FPS game. The overwhelming response to both the Combat Upgrade and now the NGE is negative.
SOE knows the players are leaving in droves and have been since the CU. This is the death spiral of a once cool game (pre-CU and definitely pre-NGE). Everything has been dumbed down (especially crafting) and you now have no choice in creating a "unique" character. Period. A jedi is a jedi is a jedi. A smuggler is a smuggler is a smuggler. And so on right down the line of, what was it?, "Nine iconic 'professions'". Pleaaaaaaase. Smedley and SOE need an icon up their ass for destroying the entire SWG: An Empire Divided experience.
Re:Erm.... No. (Score:5, Informative)
However the devil is in the details and the problem was in the implementation. Sony just seemed to work as hard as they could to screw everything up. Here were the big ones for me:
1) The patching system. They would issue patch after patch fixing game bugs. After a string of these, the game was up to a pretty good state, not perfect but free of major problems. Then a new patch would come out that introduced new content and everything broke again. It was as if they were basing it off of old code or something. This cycle just repeated over and over. I got sick of things being broke all the time.
2) The removal of cool features to fix stupid problems. For example, when player-run cities came about there was the concept of a militia. The militia was appointed and could exert control over the city. Milita members could tell you to leave, and if you didn't, flag you as attackable by all milita, and they could then shoot you. It was nice, gave you direct control over your city. Ok but someone found a way to exploit it to gain experience. No big deal, experience was easy to come by, but instantly Sony removed it and it never came back while I was playing. So now jackasses would run all over your city being jerks, and there was nothing you could do. However...
3) Refusal to deal with real problems. While they were removing cool features for non-issues, they'd never crack down on real cheating. People were creating insanely powerful cheat weapons and armour. Rather than just deleting all of it and banning the offenders they took forever to straighten things out, and didn't really do anything.
The event that was one of the big ones that pushed me to quit was when the military bases in our cities were assulted by a cheater guild. We mounted a defence, and a big one (we were the largest Alliance guild on the server). However all our efforts were futile, we couldn't damage them, and they'd kill us instantly. Now amazingly enough we got a hold of a Sony CSR, he came out, observed what was happening and interviened. He told them they were cheating and their accounts had been marked, anything further, they'd be banned.
So of course you know where this goes. An hour later they were back at it again. We managed to get a hold of the same CSR and he came back. We figured great, banned cheaters. Nope, he did NOTHING. He scolded them a bit and hemmed and hawed, but no ban. So, of course, they now figured they could do as they please, no repercussions.
4) Total lack of balancing. Sony was always tweaking the class dynamics, but what it really got down to was there was no balance of combat classes. It wasn't too hard to design a tactic that was essentially unstoppable For things like taking out a military base. I never saw it get any beter in all my time there.
So, now I play WoW. I personally don't think it's as well designed a game as Galaxies. It's well designed, don't get me wrong, but not as good. However the important part is it's well implemented. The game works well, and feels balanced. That's what really matters. You can plan and plan all you like, it's implementation that ultimately matters, and THAT'S what Blizzard does right.
Personally, I don't trust Sony to be able to replicate it.
If SOE could ever figure this out... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.bigbrother.net/)
This is such a critical thing and I think SOE has failed at this in more than one of their games. I've been a loyal player of PlanetSide since it came out and I ran into this exact problem. Initially the game was so buggy I found it very hard to recommend it to anybody. Eventually some of the kinks got worked out and so I got a friend to play. He ran into a bunch of bugs, got lousy technical support, and ended up leaving the game within a week of starting.
The other problem I've run into with this game is that the hardware demands are so insane that many of my friends with older rigs just don't have what it takes to run it. I've got a P4 2.8, 6600GT, 2GB of Ram, a Raptor HD and I run it on a medium graphics settings and it's pretty playable but I still get slow downs in heavy battles. I'm running it on hardware that did not exist when the game was released and on medium setting it performs merely okay. That's tragic. So when I've got a friend with a slightly older graphics card and a sub 2Ghz system, it's rather difficult for me to recommend it to them.
I've got a lot of friends that I think would totally love the game play, but if their experience is going to be one of low framerates and crashes, I'd be rather embarassed to recommend it to them. Thus the average person hasn't even heard of PlanetSide. Whenever I describe the game to somebody they think it sounds really cool, but they never heard of it because the game got such a bad reputation at release.
So, SOE, if you want these games to have long term success, release them when they are ready, and release games that will run smoothly on average modern hardware. Sure you can have bells and whistles that will take advantage of the top of the line systems, but make it so it's playable by lower hardware. The time you spend on getting the kinks worked out and the performance issues resolve will be made up for in spades when you can get a game with a strong following for years to follow.
Thank You (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.midnightartists.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Monday September 19 2005, @07:55AM)
Re:Business Model and Gaming Model (Score:5, Informative)
I think you've misunderstood some old MUD lingo. The only use of the term "mob" in TFA is:
Additionally, we have made it so that non-combat professions do not agro within the game, so that players who do not choose to fight will be able to move about the game world without worrying about aggressive mobs.
Wikipedia's definition of this type of "Mob":
A mob is a non-player character (NPC) or monster in a computer role-playing game (especially MUDs and MMORPGs). It is widely accepted as being short for mobile object or simply mobile, stemming from its use in the earliest text-based MUDs, and is commonly written either mob or MOB (the latter more often considered an acronym of Movable Object Block, a term for any on-screen moving object, or sprite)
Long story short, they're saying Bantha's won't attack your Dancer, no matter how close you walk to them now. They weren't talking about player killers.
Not far enough (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a former long-time SWG customer (6+ months). There were many broken promises within that timeframe. I have no motivation as a former customer to seek out a free trial and attempt to become 'addicted' again.
Sony needs to pony up and offer an economic incentive to resubscribe. Free month for former subscribers, half-price 3 month subscription, etc.
A short trial isn't enough to bring unhappy customers back.
Amazing (Score:2)
(http://haltingpoint.blogspot.com/)
Although I'm a little confused by his answer to responding to questions on the forums. If he had responded, and they had community reps who WERE diligent, why would people be complaining about it to the degree they are and in the numbers they are?
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday February 07 2007, @10:52AM)
"Whaddya talkin' about, there are TONS of neglected unhappy customers on the forum!"
Apparently Jedi mind tricks don't work reliably on SlashHutts.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
(http://gumbercules.net/)
Ugh, more "you'll like it, trust me" lipservice (Score:1)
what a steaming pile of crap (Score:1)
the new targeting system is a crack monkey's idea of a joke. read the forums and see the death of swg. i was there from launch in 03, and canceled my accounts today.
the game is dead
Levels? (Score:1)
(http://moaph.blogspot.com/)
But now that they've made these massive changes (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday June 12, @07:38PM)
What about the Flash and IE-only forums? (Score:2, Troll)
You guys at SOE allergic to HTML or something?
For another interesting experience, why do the forums at http://forums.station.sony.com/swg [sony.com] report a "server error" when you try to read them on Mozilla (with or without Javascript, with or without cookies), but work fine on IE?
Usual SOE SWG speak (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://wkrp.com/)
Simply put: We made a mistake in the way we communicated everything happening within the game to our current players, and we apologize for it.
Translation. They had the CU go into place just before Rage of the Wookies. I canceled my expansion and I'm sure others did too. Now they learned. Hold out till after the latest round of extra dough comes in. Then turn the game upside down.
I'll come back only when SOE isn't in charge of it. It's funny the rest of us can see it they just can't.
Oh by the way SOE if you hadn't released the game 6-12 months early you wouldn't be in this mess right now. Everyone else takes a step back to do it right and look what they have.
Two Years Here (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.metalmachinemusic.com/main.php)
This guy is just talking out of his ass. The only way to describe Star Wars Galaxies is perhaps through an overnight liquid culture of e.coli. It started off buggy and lacking content, then shot up exponentially over the next few months. These were times when I had the greatest amount of fun and I eventually reached that "alpha-class" of Jedi. That was fun too. But definitely not the highest point. It was much more fun to group with a bunch of buddies, go out into the middle of nowhere and discover something new. "Hey look, a cave!" and there'd be a whole area full of droids in the middle of what was a desert.
After the Jump To Lightspeed expansion, all subsequent expansions started looking more and more like money-making schemes that provided little to no content. ToOW was just to have a large renewal of subscriptions and to lock in players for the NGE. He is not sorry. He knows only the most furious customers will actually seek and attain a refund; others will be locked in from uncertainty.
I'm sorry but there just isn't an excuse for changing the game overnight aside from making it a dumbed down version to port over to consoles. After the "combat upgrade" SWG just started to follow a cookie-cutter path until the eventual complete and utter downfall: NGE. They took all the unique aspects out of the game and made it SUCK because they have no idea what they're doing and most of all they fail to listen to their unhappy customers (these changes negatively affected gameplay).
I will never recommend a game by SOE. A Christmas or two ago I would have said it was the best MMORPG I've played. Now I'm looking for a new home, possibly DnL. Good thing the NGE came, though. Now I can finish these college applications."Rage of the Wookies"? (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.animats.com)
We'll be back with "The Return of Jar-Jar" after these messages.
The population problem (ie. server merge) (Score:5, Interesting)
I went back to SWG after having played it when it came out. The cities were bustling with people. Theed was truly a hang out. I remember walking into the tavern, and there would be so many people dancing, playing instruments, giving table dances, etc, that you couldn't even find a seat.
I went back a few months ago, and saw that everywhere was a ghost town. It was flat out sad. The taverns were empty, save for a few NPC. The city streets were deserted. I stood in front of the once bustling Starport in Theed and could hear my own voice echoing across the pavement.
The problem now is that the servers need to merge. Plain and simple. The problem that Sony faces, is that the design of the game prohibits this. When a game dwindles in population, merging servers is the only way to cluster the remaining people back together so they can actually feel like they are playing an MMOG. Sony, however, cannot do this easily. With the (awesome) ability to place your own house anywhere, and create your own player-made cities, this brings to the front an entirely unique problem.
If you merge servers, what do you do about the cities that overlap? What about people's houses? Who's house takes precidence? Should we just convert everyone's property into items in their bank and have them start all over? Would this piss anyone off?
So yeah, SWG is in deperate need to merge their player base! If they can figure out a way to cut their servers by half (at least), and get people back together (and i'm not talking just together in one particular city), then I'll definitely give it another shot. As it stands now, it's just a sad place to run around in.
++Om
Impressed (Score:1, Insightful)
I can understand where some of the existing players would be upset by the changes, but you have to admit something had to be wrong with the game. Star Wars is one of the most well known IP's in the world, and just the game's player base hovers at around 250k, a fraction of the subscribers of the top online games?
If you want the truth (Score:2, Interesting)
There are long threads that I've started myself on our forums, but we have community representatives that are answering questions diligently on our forums already, and I'm very involved in what's being said. I'm trying to get the word out in other venues and we know that Slashdot has a wide reach into the online gamer audience in general and the SWG community. Btw, I try to personally answer all of the emails from our players that are written to me and I get a fair number of them each day from our players.
Where? I have not seen long threads that he has started. What I see are long threads begging SoE to do things differently from their paying player base that go unheeded.
John Smedley:
This is a really good question, and I think goes to the heart of why we made these changes. The name "Star Wars" carries with it a lot of expectations, and from the research we've done, we weren't delivering enough of the core Star Wars experience to people.
Show us the research if you have done any. Well we definately are not getting our expectations now.
John Smedley:
Remember, SWG takes place right in the middle of the Galactic Civil War! We felt like we needed to focus on the core iconic professions rather than 34 different professions that weren't unique enough. It just made the game too hard for us to add content to and to balance properly. We finally saw the forest from the trees on this and made the right move.
Weren't unique enough?? You could put together nearly any combination you wanted to. How does 9 based on Star Wars Characters make them any more unique? You went from a system where a player could mix and match as much as they liked to a system where EVERY character of any one chosen profession is EXACTLY alike.
You have also said that in the 'coming months" a second character slot would be added. It seems I remember a comment which amounted to the same thing.. that was the revamp for Rangers and Smugglers and that promise was made 2 years ago. I will believe it when I see it.
As for making the right move, I do not think you would know the right move if it walked up and bit you in the ass.
IF you want the real truth about what is going on with SWG I suggest you go to sites who have reviewed SWG post NGE, or better yet come and visit the Official SWG forums. There you will find out how much we "love" the NGE. Sure there are the usual SoE fanboys but I think you will find the comments overwhelingly negative. Hey, I have an idea maybe SoE and Mr. Smedley should conduct some research.....from thier own player base, that would definately be something new and exciting. Something needs to be new and exciting because what has been done to SWG surely is not.
GG SOE (Score:1)
SWG is dead. This is a new game for PS3. (Score:1)
(http://toreador.kindred.com/)
The Rise and Fall of Star Wars Galaxies (Score:5, Insightful)
Then the changes started happening. The biggest change was that they rushed the Jedi making experience out into the world. When we all first started, there was no guide on how to make your character into a Jedi. Sure there were tons of theories, but none were proven true. Then finally, one person came forth and had ascended into being a Jedi. While I'd like to think that it's just coincidence, I doubt that the whole Jedi path was being independently explored at the same time and finished within days of each other on other servers. Soon enough, word was out that if you mastered 5 (I think it was 5 at the time) of the professions that were randomly determined for you at character creation, you could become a Jedi as well. Thus, the grind began. The numbers of players never seemed higher, but the number of people truly "playing" dropped incredibly. People were taking advantage of the macro system to master the social classes in hours. Cantinas were filled with AFK dancers and musicians spamming their specials. Crafters were flooding the Bazaars (think auction houses in data terminal style) with goods that they were making in mass quantities to fly through a profession. Harvesters were everywhere, houses went up for storage more than anything else. This led to an economic collapse, driving most of the "true" crafters to close up shop and leave since the market was flooded with cheap mass produced goods that kept prices low.
Instead of trying to slow this influx of people trying to become Jedi, SOE decided to help everyone by revealing that Holocrons (rare drops in game) could be used to tell you the next profession you need to master. So holocron prices jumped into the millions of credits and "Holo-grinding" was born. To make matters worse, for Christmas, everyone received at LEAST 2 holocrons, some somehow managed to get 4 (single character per server, so no alts sharing holos). There were crafty people though that would use an alt on another server to trade to someone to get their alt's holos on their main server. Everything focused on the holos and the quest to be a jedi.
Well, if you don't know already, it worked, Jedi started popping up everywhere. While most people thought that a Jedi should be a hermit and secretive, you'd see them walk into crowded cantinas and pull out their lightsaber to the "Oooo's" and "Aaah's" of the crowd. Most people pushed for massive experience loss on Jedi Death, or even Permadeath (i.e. start your jedi from padawan). What did the Jedi's get punished with? Item decay like the rest of us in the long run, and with this new patch, nothing.
Now that Jedi are covered, lets talk about PvP. Galaxies always felt like it needed PvP, Imperials vs. Rebels is the perfect backdrop when racial and class differences are the same on either side of the fence. The problem was that classes weren't balanced at all. A Teras Kasi Artist (Think Monk from EQ) could go into a den of Rancors and emerge unscathed carrying a full pack of Rancor teeth and hide. My lowly Creature Handler/Pistoleer/Medic template let me take on one at a time, but I'd be ripped a new
Wrath of the MMORPG nerds! (Score:1, Insightful)
Been playing since October of 2003 and... (Score:1)
What bullshit answers (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Tuesday June 26, @08:41AM)
I too am an ex-junkie (Score:1)
(http://www.caffeinatedonline.com/)
Still, there was the call of the 'jedi' that kept me playing. At first, no one knew how to unlock the vaunted jedi slot. Sony was mum on the subject, and the rumors and speculations were enough to keep a browser window open to the forums, if only for the entertainment value.
Many players remember the release of the holocrons, the first real hint as to how to unlock the jedi. After chasing hermits around the desert, collecting badges based on the oh-so-rare spawn of a certian encounter, this was it? Become a master so-and-so? All this hype, the entire star wars universe at your hands to come up with a method of unlocking the best class in the game, and all Sony could come up with was a grind? Not only a lame method, but 6+ months into the game before the files for the jedi were even introduced to the client? Many people, including me, took this as Sony's way of releasing the game without the jedi content, and quickly coming up with something when the player population really started demanding some answers.
I stuck with it, and after more mouse clicks building walls, doing dance moves, customizing droids, and changing hair styles, I finally saw on my screen the words "You have become force sensitive". OMG... Looking back on it now, it must have been comical for my wife as I screamed in joy, jumping around the room, dancing in extacy.
Once I set up my jedi account, and made my first light saber, I remember the envious comments of my friends and guildmates as I showed them the glowing purple stick. Finally, I had made it to the end game!!
Then I actually started to play with the jedi character. It was the worst experience I have ever had in a MMORPG. Mind you, I bought and tried to play Anarchy Online the first day it came out. The system was horrible, the amount of experience you needed was absurd, and half of the jedi powers were bugged. Not only that, but to make a lightsaber, which wore down at an alarming rate, you needed either a rare drop from a Krayt dragon, or a rare drop crystal. And even if you found a crystal, you were never assured that it was a good crystal, as more then half caused stat loss.
Jedi was a disappointment. What was touted as the ultimate character on the game, ended up as the worst. My wife got pregnant, I got responsibilities, and some guy in France got my jedi off e-bay for $1600.
Why I quit SWG, and why I might return to it. (Score:1)
I started playing SWG. I built up my character from 0 to master smuggler. Then as it turned out, master smuggler sucked, so I went master commando. To get to master, it required weeks of killing NPCs. Player vs. player combat didn't get you anywhere. I quickly found out that the jedi in the game were so powerful it took a team of bounty hunters to take them down, and they all had the maturity of 13 year olds, which I'm sure they were. Jedi sucked. Then I tried the galactic civil war, I joined the rebels. I quickly found out that having a flamethrower, rocket launcher, composite armor, and grenades were no match for a wooden stick with a poison tip that does "damage over time" In fact, such weapons were all looted, and could sell for hundreds on ebay. So here I am fighting a stormtrooper who kills me with a wooden stick. And I had armor. It was rediculous. The problem is they built an RPG with a dungeons and dragons mentality instead of a star wars game.
They could have set the time period in the prequels to have the jedi thing make sense. They could have made the galactic civil war make sense. It was a good RPG, but it wasn't "star wars" It reminded me of a quake 3 star wars skin. It looked like it, but it wasn't. I was even starting to wonder what other RPG they took the source code from, because from the ground up, it did not have the feel of star wars.
Jump to lightspeed wasn't even as much fun as the 5 year old "x-wing alliance" title, which was great, and the graphics weren't much better. The ground game had no connection to the space game.
So I quit. Now that the game has changed, I'll probably try it out again. It sounds like it might finally be fixed. Of course, the players that were lucky enough to own a poison stick are going to be very upset, but frankly, if every one of them left, and all the 13 year old jedi, the game will be much more fun.
By the way, I'm not sure if the revamps will even put an end to the poison stick thing, but I'm willing to have a look.
More Lies - More BS (Score:1)
You don't know what players want. I do not know a single player that ever said "i think there are too many confusing professions." I defy you to EVER find such an example. These changes have little to do with the what the player wants. They are because you didn't make the TIME to work on the bugs in the game, because you neglected to build on a foundation that you were not worthy of. Because the devs and programmers didn't think things through, glaring bugs and huge windows for griefing were allowed into the live servers time and again. You did not listen to your beta testers. Not in beta, not at the cu, and certainly not at the nge.
How is 9 professions more "unique" than 34 various ones we could mix and match to suit our styles and whims? There is nothing mroe unique in this system. This game, when it debuted in 2003, was a beautiful wonderful innovative thing. The fact that it has decomposed into it's current state rests solely on the shoulders of soe/la. We as a playerbase would have done ANYTHING to help this game succeed. It is Star Wars, man. It is EPIC. How can you fail at making a successful Star Wars game!?
The amount of content you could have made with the resources available (comics, movies, eu, novels, mini movies) is mind boggling. This game had so much potential. It was so exciting and wonderful and new. You squandered it all. This game is now a mockery of it's once innovative and expansive self. You should be ashamed.
How dare you say that this new nge is how the game should have been, Smedly. How do you have the NERVE to come here and blatantly lie. I have supported three accounts in SWG. I have been a loyal customer, I have loved it so so much. I have devoted countless hours and hundreds of dollars to this game, because it was different - because it was Star Wars - because I always had the hope it would be better. But it never got better. It just kept getting worse. This is, to me, a tragedy. How you can say these things with a straight face, is beyond me - oh wait it, isn't. I guess you will be getting more money this way, at least in the short term. But if you think the console gamers will support 3 accounts for 2+ years like I and other vets have, you are sadly mistaken. It is too bad that I am not ICONIC enough for you. And hey, whatever happened to "Experience the greatest Star Wars Saga ever told: YOUR OWN!
This new nge is so bug ridden and unattractive, it is shocking to me that you could label it as ready for live. By the devs own admission, the quests past lvl 30 are not completed. The UI is not completed. The art for several screens is not completed. How can you release this mess to your paying customers?
- The targeting system: it is SO fundamentally flawed I cannot even begine to wrap my mind around it. Who ever thought that it was a good idea for you to target every single thing you moused over was insane. For pvp, all you need to do is toss in a bunch of coverts and hey, no one can fight. The targeting makes the nalargon and omnibox nearly unplayable (but hey i guess you dont care about those pesky entertainers.) It is immediately obvious to me how this system can be exploited and used as a tool for grieving, and just plain annoying in day to day actions.
- The movement. Uhm yeah - I'm not here to play an fps. I don't use fps style of movement in my gaming. There has always been the option to have whatever ui style you wanted and 6 or so different default maps to chose from. That was wonderful. a customizable UI and control system is friendly and comfortable. T
Not an SOE fan!! (Score:1)
LIAR (Score:1)
After hearing the same answers... (Score:1)
The skill system allowed anyone to train any skill and create hybrid professions. While this is a great idea, I can imagine how difficult it is to balance, especially when trying to expand the game. Clearly defining roles allows the developers to code for specific levels. This is the way most RPGs do things and it's a proven method. SOE tried to reach for the stars and fell short, so they decided to go with what works rather than keep tweaking.
It seems like many of the changes are geared toward this idea. "We tried our best and failed, so now we're changing things to what works...EverQuest in the Star Wars theme, but without the rigid continuity stuff to drag us down."
Sheesh (Score:1)
The EQ perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Smedley has been like this since he appeared as a giant gnome. He always talks straight but nothing happens as fast as you think it will and somethings never happen.
2) Anything that is "awesome" is going to get nerfed.
3) They rarely ban anyone.
4) GM's have no real authority.
5) What do you expect for $13 a month...
6) Someday the servers -will- shut down (It sucked in Earth & Beyond (EA game- first mmorg I know of shut down- I won't buy an EA game again since we had about 8k players ($80k a month) and they wouldn't even leave a frozen copy up and running.
7) EQ -never ever- did things until it started losing players- then it mimiced like crazy. I argued with Brad on the old petition board for things that never happened- including the current trade interface. Then when DAoC came out with it and EQ numbers dropped, they moved on it fast.
Bottom line...
They think the players are delusional, self-centered and/or idiots. They will quickly mimic proven success.
If they do with SW what they did with EQ1, it will eventually be fun to play again with most of the rough edges worn off so quit paying but don't delete your characters.
But it is an ENTERTAINMENT not a life. Don't give up your job, spouse, children, etc. just because it's fun because it is 100% certain to abandon you (by being shut down) within the next 5-10 years max- probably sooner.
Memo to SOE (Score:3, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday February 27 2006, @09:54PM)
The problem with making an MMORPG is that most people only play one. Companies that are incapable of making an outstanding game -- like SOE -- can rest easy making regular PC or console titles, since truly awesome games are rare and they just have to compete with other mediocre companies on a marketing basis in an attempt to get a place in a larger shopping cart.
With MMORPGs things are different. One good one can come out and completely ruin the market for five years by locking up your potential audience. If these people have time for another MMORPG, they just play more of the one they already have.
Thus, if you really want to be successful in the MMORPG space, you need to make amazing, genre-defining games that are either so much better than the competition that people are willing to give up weeks/months/years building characters to switch, or that bring in players to the MMORPG space who wouldn't have played otherwise.
SOE, your best days in this market are behind you. You had the lead, with EQ, and you blew it. EQ2 is awful, SWG was (and probably still is, I'm reserving judgement to be fair) awful, Planetside didn't really make anything of itself, and you've got nothing better coming down the pipe. Get out, let Blizzard play the 800lb gorilla (which is what they are now, not you), and let smaller companies with better reputations and the ability to innovate try to topple them.
You guys... just get jobs you're actually good at.
Love,
A concerned citizen
These responses seem reasonable... (Score:2)
(http://www.victors.ca/)
As for Smedley's vaunted threads - no one was able to find any posts by him beyond the first one he made introducing himself. Unless he has been posting under some Alias - probably to try to make positive statements - I see no evidence to support his claim to have started any threads at all.
The original SWG was an extremely ambitious project. I am not at all suprised it encountered constant problems, and I can buy the notion that balancing 34 professions was proving difficult and a programming nightmare. A reduction in total professions might have been in order and certainly some were made redundant by the recent Combat Upgrade they did a few months ago - but this is carrying things to far in the other direction. I think a lot more people would have been more accepting of the NGE if a few things had happened:
* If SOE had bothered to mention they were working on this for the past year. Instead it was kept completely secret and thrust on us out of the blue, after only 2 weeks of laughable beta testing during which nothing was changed despite thousands of player messages suggesting improvements and changes.
* If SOE had mentioned prior to selling the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion, based in part on content for professions like Creature Handler, that they would be deleting that profession from the game 2 days after the expansion came out. Instead they sold it to us blithely, padding their bank account and no doubt making the quarterly sales figures more acceptable to the board of directors, THEN announced a revamp of the game that renders much of that expansion pointless or irrelevant. The result: they are forced to offer refunds after many players threaten a lawsuit against them. I imagine the folks in the Corporate Weasel Department^H^H^H Legal Department told them there were sufficient grounds for a problem that they had their hand forced.
* If SOE had seemingly had the slightest clue in designing the New Game Enhancement (or as it has been referred to by players on the boards the "Negative Game Experience"). The new UI is completely counter-intuitive, inconsistent, and utterly inelegant. Its an incomplete rewrite of an otherwise well evolved interface for no more apparent reason than some programming or marketing dweeb thought cramming a new system down their customer's throats without any options to retain and use the old system was a good idea. Its completly unfriendly to disabled players, many of whom are now unable to play something they paid for an enjoyed previously (as a key feature of the new system the mouse-friendly interface has been replaced with an almost mandatory keyboard-mouse combination being required).
* If SOE had paid any attention to the plight of those players who played Crafters/Entertainers in the old system. Under the NGE everyone is given a respec but its geared to your "combat level". For a crafter that is CL1. Thus any former combat oriented character can easily respec to any of the new combat classes and be whatever combat level they were prior to the NGE, OR they can respec to a full Trader (the new crafting class) or Entertainer with all abilities. By contrast, a former Crafter or Entertainer profession character can respec to the Trader or Entertainer class and be a Master (ie top) level character in those classes, but if they choose combat they are reduced to CL1 and lose all of their experience. If they then return to Trader in a subsequent respec they lose all of their gained experience. This was reported in "beta" and queried repeatedly so it is apparently working as intended. Many crafters are appalled at this obvious bias and lack of concern for their situation.
* The new classes offer new special items of kit that in some cases are requi
I cant bring myself to beleive anything from SOE. (Score:1)
Their customer service BLOWS! (Score:1)
What a load of shit (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
He never posts anything to the message boards other than a once-in-a-while long marketspeak bullshit.
Why was my question not put forth? (Score:1)
(http://www.ablabla.org/)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=167896&cid=13
SOE Incompetence (Score:1)
EQ2.. shut down
SWG... Still suffering badly after 2 years
MxO after moving... every patch seems to cause more problems than before, moving was awful, seems everytime they took down the servers it took 50% longer than what they thought to get it back up, with or without the patch, and the Live Events team doesn't exist, its mearly the Dev's doing double shifts.
Lets face it, SOE don't know what they are doing and have helped me realise WoW isn't the greatest, but simply very well done. Thanks for helping me find enlightenment with the Horde!
SOE deserves some credit (Score:2)
(http://www.mmogchart.com/)
I think SOE deserves some applause for doing this. If my research has told me anything, it's that it's very difficult for a MMOG to vastly grow their userbase after they've reached the "maturity" and gotten their initial core audience. Yes, churn keeps new people coming in, but people are also going out, and as time goes on, those numbers eventually start to dwindle. I don't think any MMOG, no matter how much you update it, can stay popular "forever".
But if you really want to extend its life and grow your playerbase, then you have to take drastic steps. And SOE has some cajones to do this with SWG, and we should applaud them for at least being willing to try to change things. Trying to fix the current system to the satisfaction of a small subset of existing players is ultimately a losing proposition. This type of overhaul, combined with a new marketing campaign, just MIGHT bring in some new players to the game.
Sadly, I have to be honest when I say I doubt I'll be one of them. I gave SWG its chance. I was in beta. I was ready to "move in" at release. But everyone was telling SOE the game wasn't ready, and they released anyway. Now, after all those revamps later, was it worth it? I suspect that extra revenue and extra cost got eaten up by the endless revamps that have been going on since the day after release. Later, when other people who worked on the game said there needed to be drastic changes and they weren't listened to, you guys missed another opportunity. And now, there are too many other products competing for my attention, so I can't go back to SWG. It's too late for a jaded gamer like me.
But I do think you're right in doing SOMETHING, although it may turn out what you're doing wasn't exactly the right way to go. In any case, I do wish SWG success, if only to see what the new numbers look like on my MMOG charts.
Bruce
MMOG Analyst
SWG-NGE total waste of computer space. (Score:1)
Liar! (Score:1)
SOE in General (Score:1)
Back to Anarchy Online, since I will NEVER buy another Sony product, of any kind, ever again.
Pally powah!
Re:For those looking to switch (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://toreador.kindred.com/)
Re:I can't believe he said that (Score:1)
(http://www.soe.sony.com/)