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Originally posted by Dundee

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Me personally i have never feelt this betrayed, iv personally taken the stand that i will never buy another product in my life that is just alittle affiliated with sony (not just Sony Online Entertainment), no matter if its a CD-R, og a game.

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I hope some day you'll reconsider, as you're punishing so many thousands and thousands of people for the actions of a relative few.

You guys should really know something about simple marketing,

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Personally, I cost Sony about $30K worth of plasma screens and DVD players alone when my company was looking to roll out a videoconferencing setup. I took Sony out of the bid spec for the screens and the DVD players we bought (they were originally there). We bought another brand (RCA).

The moral of the story: Don't piss off the geeks. We wield a LOT more power than you suits believe.

I can understand not having a marketing department, but clearly SOE is greatly lacking in public relations/customer relations. All you have are some glorified forum mods called community managers. That's not good enough, there should be a senior position up in management in every suit meeting who represents customer relations.

That is how the veteran player base wasn't considered. There was no one in the NGE decision meetings who ever came into contact with players (or even those who do).

Still, I don't buy that theroy anyway, either the managers who made the NGE decision deliberately decided to throw away the customer base for a new, larger one, or they were incompetent. Or both. I vote both.

The moral of the story: Don't piss off the geeks. We wield a LOT more power than you suits believe.

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Originally posted by tfwarlord

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The moral of the story: Don't piss off the geeks. We wield a LOT more power than you suits believe.

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So very true.
Even the Illuminati dont hold a candle to the almighty "THA GEEKS".
Obay us, or be destroyed
(Humorous statement, not to be taken very seriously)

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Yep, what suit is going to risk being on the hook for overriding a "technical" recommendation by the network engineer? Especially when it's as trivial as what brand of X is bought (and the RCA plasmas were cheaper).

Also, my company doesn't buy any Sony media (CDR's, DVDR's), nor do we buy any other Sony hardware at all, such as DVD recorders, memory sticks, or anything else.

How do I achieve that? Simple: I am the one who comes up with what we need to do what the end user/department wants done. I write the specs. And the word Sony will never appear on it until there are pre-NGE servers.

I estimate I cost Sony $40K in retail sales last year alone. I get a lot of personal satisfaction over that. Just yesterday one of our salespeople wanted to replace their personal notebook. He brought me an ad for a Sony Vaio. He ordered HP :)

When you consider what a high percentage of SWG players worked in IT, I seriously doubt that I am the only one out there doing this...

As for taking it out on "innocents" at Sony... A corporation, like a fish, rots from the head.

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Personally, I cost Sony about $30K worth of plasma screens and DVD players alone when my company was looking to roll out a videoconferencing setup. I took Sony out of the bid spec for the screens and the DVD players we bought (they were originally there). We bought another brand (RCA).

The moral of the story: Don't piss off the geeks. We wield a LOT more power than you suits believe.

I can understand not having a marketing department, but clearly SOE is greatly lacking in public relations/customer relations. All you have are some glorified forum mods called community managers. That's not good enough, there should be a senior position up in management in every suit meeting who represents customer relations.

That is how the veteran player base wasn't considered. There was no one in the NGE decision meetings who ever came into contact with players (or even those who do).

Still, I don't buy that theroy anyway, either the managers who made the NGE decision deliberately decided to throw away the customer base for a new, larger one, or they were incompetent. Or both. I vote both.

Originally posted by Wildcat84

Actually I disliked the clicky combat system almost as bad as the rest of the NGE.

It was way too fast, and too uncomfortable to play in long sessions. This is why I don't think a MMOFPS will ever be more than a niche.

On the one hand, I'm glad you're directing your anger toward the company, rather than a handful of the employees working on some part of the project at the time,  or soon after.

Originally posted by tfwarlord

On the one hand, I'm glad you're directing your anger toward the company, rather than a handful of the employees working on some part of the project at the time,  or soon after.

Ofcause i dont think anyone is really pissed at the CSRs, or the DEVs, its only the company and the bosses we are angry at..

There was also a discussion from that blog....not that it maters but here it is.

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 6 Comments:

I hope you ain't yelling at me man.

I feel bad that I might have forced you to explain this or something.

Yer my favorite dev, but I only give you credit for what I know you've done, which isn't much with SWG, but I don't really want to know more about that anyways, that's just distracting and awkward.

And I was actually trying to promote him a little on Halloween 'cause I felt like he slipped off the face of the earth, which means he's prolly working on something interesting.

Seriously I figgered pointing people to him would make them smarter, even if they feel like arguing with him or something.

And Halloweed was two days before I heard about the new SWG stuff.

If you ain't yelling at me, then I'm sorry for blabbering and maybe making things worse or something, please delete.

And if I did something horrible let me know more specifically so I can do something better about it than this.

I don't make fun of people I don't like, it ain't funny when I don't like someone.

And I give Raph credit for way the heck more in games than I give you, actually, if that makes you feel better.

By Ole Bald Angus the Monk, at 10:04 PM

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 Heh. Nope, I aint yellin' at you.

By Jeff, at 2:39 AM

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 I dont think its anything personal about Raph, but people like a figurehead to blame when things go wrong. You have to admit things went *very* wrong where SWG was concerned.

Players saw a game launched 18 months before it was ready. Who could they blame?

Players saw a SW game with such iconic professions as fencer, swordsman, pikeman, combat medic etc. The majority of the skill trees were poorly constructed or 90% useless (smuggler anyone?) Who could they blame?

Players saw a SW game with a complicated Health bar system which made no logical sense whatsoever. They saw a skill tree system that let them effectively boost their health by over 200 times by walking around with 3 Rancors. They had a world devoid of content. A game where getting buffs and travelling anywhere could take an hour etc etc.

Raphs world failed and im sorry he has to shoulder some of the blame. Obviously lots of other people deserve blame also, its just Raph is the most visible target.

You cannot make an argument that SWG was successful. It didnt come close to meeting its projected subscription targets. Not a failure on the size of Sims Online I admit, but a failure still. Thats basically the reason for these changes isnt it? Seems to me it was this or switching off the lights...

I really do hope this new version is a success, but after how badly SWG subscribers were treated, how bad the word of mouth is, how many of those 900,000 accounts are going to come back?

By Anonymous, at 6:10 AM

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 Well, I'm one of those he is yelling to ;p

I've read your point of view and I don't have much to argue or criticize, but at the same time my own opinion didn't change, mostly because I wasn't really ranting, just expressing my perplexity.

On the other side I still believe that Raph should never have left the game, mostly because I believe in authorship and I wanted him to take the responsibility of the game and remain committed to it. I wanted and still want to see him discussing specific games instead of just dabbing on the high level theory. And I believe it's fair to admit that the game would be *nowhere* where it is right now if he was still at the lead. Good or bad.

Ubiq wrote:

"New blood coming onto a project bring their own ideas and ideologies."

This is undeniable. It's not "wrong" but it's a trait that cannot be dismissed. This is why I believe that Raph's SWG would be *very* different from today's SWG. And this also means that the scope and aim undoubtedly changed. The game had a rather high churn rate of developers and I'm sure it suffered because of this. It's the consequence of this.

What I believe is that after Raph left, he and the game splitted directions. It's a fact that most of the changes to the CU, professions, mechanics, PvP and this new last remodel are attempts to drag the game somewhere else. I'm not judging if better or worse, but undeniably different. I was the first to strongly criticize his ideas like I did on the thread on Grimwell and the following discussions so it's not like I'm trying to side with him. But I recognize this difference of opinions.

It's true that many elements of Raph's design remain, but what is also true is that the game didn't really try to build and improve them. We can say that some important ideas are still there, but many other were actually progressively eroded. Not expanded or made stronger. The game didn't move to bet even more on those points that made it unique, instead it was changed to move away from those positions and acquire more traditional elements (levels, simpler classes, more traditional combat etc..). Again this process was also excused because that design was being strongly criticized as "not fun". Hence the endless tries to simplify and streamline those parts that were perceived as too clunky and problematic.

It's not my intention to criticize this approach. It's like the father with the son. He taught you things, what you will do will be always influenced by what he did as also many others will feel that influence, me included. But this also fuels another personal point of view that is your own and must impose itself at some point.

And I really do hope this will go well, because if it doesn't we'll see the developers find yet another excuse to leave these game stagnate while all the work and resources are spent on stupid sequels. I wish they would keep the discussions and the development alive and vibrant, maybe without the need to change type of game and discard most of the work that was already being done...

By Abalieno, at 8:07 AM

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 I usually try to restrain myself when I come here because I am not an insider or even someone like Abal that is really so seriously into this. Design review is just another small piece of entertainment I can drag out of the money I'm already spending.

That said, I can absolutely see the producers point of view on this. The game would never have really made any headway gaining ground without something radical. Skewing towards the core demographic makes perfect sense. I just wish that the emphasis wasn't pushed up in our face quite so much.

Finally to you personally, I don't understand how you guys do it. This like the third crunch this year? I appreciate your efforts.

Here's hoping you get time for a Thanksgiving dinner with your family.

By Nyght, at 10:16 AM

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  I'll say that I'm not into the new changes at all. I liked the complexity that SWG provided.. it was (emphasis on was) a game like no other.

I'm ok with the idea of change however. There are a multitude of reasons that I'm not privy to that a game like SWG does change.

As a programmer of 13 years, I am disghusted with the lack of BA/QA and CMM that SWG exibits. In over a year of playing, my interest in the game has slowly declined due to a few things. Mainly, bug reports from TC being ignored, faulty QA allowing one patch to break other game mechanics, etc...

My hope with this NGE is that the players who test (for free I might add) on TC be listened to, and that this is not just another hurried to production release.

That being said, my opinions are probably fairly useless at this point, as I'm more interested in stable games.

I wish you the best in your endeavors.

By jeff, at 4:48 PM

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Originally posted by Wildcat84

Actually I disliked the clicky combat system almost as bad as the rest of the NGE.

It was way too fast, and too uncomfortable to play in long sessions. This is why I don't think a MMOFPS will ever be more than a niche.

The SWG NGE system IS NOT a FPS. AT ALL, its still a cue based system just like the rest, the user inputs to trigger are just...different.

Other than that, i get the point mr freeman is getting at, and im not sure i would do any different given the situation... Sometimes, because of life, it can’t be about "The art" of it all.

But, i would have added to the "yes, we can do that, it is possible, but I don’t think people will like it, all they want is some content, here are some ideas".

About the FPSesq combat and the classes removing the Ralph, yeah, it totally did... When classes are introduced, it totally removes options from the hands of players, the main problem was, players had grown to love the options, everything about SWG was options.. Nothing was really imposable... Classes did remove that.

And that was SWG. (and, in this fans mind, Star wars, no one in the movies had a different skill set, they were ALL mash up of differen things)

And, IMO, people are tired of classes. (for the most part), AA lines are Options (a form of Bracketed skill system, much like the origianl skill system),  SWG just gave you that choice at the beginning of the game.

Originally posted by Dundee

Originally posted by batgirl

PS . What are you working on now jeff? i can only imagine this whole experience has taught you alot , be nice to see what you have learned put into practice .

I'm working on an unannounced project at Spacetime Studios.

If you remember GreenMarine, he's my boss, now.

No shitt? lol, that's awesome.

Him, you , Ralph... and the firefly IP...*dreams*

This Geek recomends Dell, laptops over Sonys, HP workstations, bascally anything with Sony on it does not get approved around here about 10 of us played the game we no the true Sony. NEC monitors no Sony, etc etc.

You guys cost Sony millions of dollars in other areas, My kids no better than to by Sony also.

Ajax

Originally posted by tillamook
Ah well who gives a shit who did what now. What's done is done and Smed and LEC won't change it back so F" It. Those days are gone. I'm pretty sure most everyone in the industry gets the picture, "Don't F with you players" well everyone except a few guys over at  BioWare. I also pretty sure that no mater what game you play there is someone on the team who worked for SOE at some point and most likely worked on SWG  as well. SOE seems to be the place where a lot of Devs get their start. Don't know why. All I know is it's time to move on.  I doubt anyone would think twice about pulling an NGE ever again in any game, mainly Jeff Freeman. Lets give this Spactime studios a fair shot and see what they can produce.

The combat did need changed in SWG tho , be it balanced or reworked , thats not what killed the game tho i feel . and just a new combat system added , fleshed out content and we would all still be playing it today .

it wasnt just combat changed tho, it was the style of the game itself , world of wookies was a clone ,looted items rather than looted components , and with it and the CU came the death of crafters . that removed 1/2 of the game right there and started a knock on effect .

a new combat system coulda been fun yeah , and it could have been dropped into the game with not to much uproar .

 thing is , SWG had nailed everything but combat and content (big parts i know , but geo caves were good, and a fleshing out of the POI's would have been just like the game was intended) , while trying to get that sorted , a big eye should have been kept on what was keeping the vets interested ,  pvp , crafting and the economy , player towns and housing , component and res farming , socialising . and doing everything possible to keep them intact . SWG was all about crafting and my shop for me , we didnt even get given a thought .

i still say it was the change in loot system and player crafted items that killed the game .game design was  chasing wow .

Well, big props to you, Jeff for coming here and being honest.  Many people have said that SWG will be a case study in many areas in the future.

I have a question for you that NDA's may or may not prevent you from answering.  IP fees for licensing aside, was SWG a huge (meaning much more so than other games) startup cost?  (Again, not including IP fees)

Because SWG aimed so high in areas, and still is the top of the line in many areas.  I have never seen better in these areas:

1.)  The avatar customization engine.

2.)  The player housing (including ability to decorate) and player cities.

3.)  The intricacy of the crafting system (rotating resources across multiple planets with the quality of resources affecting the outcome, being able to experiment on different traits of the product, etc.  It's still awesome now, just the decision was made to put the final product well below loot.  Shame.)

4.)  Pets, Bio-Engineers, etc.

I am sure there are other areas that are slipping my mind, but my question is this.  SWG had sandbox play but should have had more content in the game also...  Still, I feel that the original iteration of SWG was one of the most intellectual games out there, but it was VERY complex.

Is a game with so much customization available to players and so complex just too pricey to develop again in the current market?  (Again, assuming no IP licensing fees.)

Dundee,

I sincerely am not happy over the whole NGE incident, but I don't hold it against the employee's not responsible or against the company itself. Nor do I carry a grudge against the people who were responsible. But if I had one question to ask you guys, it would be this. Why on earth can you not have a Pre-NGE server along with your NGE servers? Mythic did it with DAoC.

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Originally posted by Dundee

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Originally posted by tfwarlord

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On the one hand, I'm glad you're directing your anger toward the company, rather than a handful of the employees working on some part of the project at the time, or soon after.

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Ofcause i dont think anyone is really pissed at the CSRs, or the DEVs, its only the company and the bosses we are angry at..

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Oh, no... there are some people really pissed at me.

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You say this as if there is no reason for it.

Let's not forget who the victims are in all this and who the perps are.

Do I hate you? Of course not. I try not to hate anyone. Do I blame you for the NGE? Yes, you and everyone else who willingly took part in developing it and concealing it from us.

Everyone from the guy who replaced my combat UI with crosshairs (you) to the managers who decided to NGE to the blind artist who thought that the chrome frilly UI skin was a good idea deserve their share of the blame. All of you, no exceptions.

Will names associated with the NGE affect my purchasing decisions?

Damn straight.

Don't think that we will go away when SWG does (I still think it's likely to happen sooner rather than later). Not as long as we are still game buyers and you guys still intend to be game makers.

I do have a serious question for you though:

Do you think the NGE was, in retrospect, a mistake (which you seem to be saying) because:

A. It killed the game because it shafted long time players who loved a completely different game.

B. It sucked on it's own merits, wasn't fun, and was years away from being a legitimate, release quality product

You see, I still think you are equivocating, just like Smed and company who still cling to thinking that the NGE wasn't a mistake, it was the badly handled PR that was the mistake.

What you seem to be saying is that the NGE was a mistake, but only because it was done to an already established game, that had it been SWG to begin with, it'd have worked and been a great idea.