Originally posted by saay

Originally posted by Thunderous

 

Originally posted by pepcfreak

Why so many vets sit in here day in and day out saying SOE sucks this and sucks that. You also have sigs that say pull the plug on SWG and this and that.

If you want the game to die then stop talking about it. Dont forget free publicity is good publicity be it bad or good. Look at holywood stars... they get more attention when they hit cars get drunk do drugs and suicide then they do by donating millions to orphans.

The really sad thing is all you who complain and all who constantly bitch will jump right back into SWG if there were to make a so called classic server. Frankly there is nothing wrong with this version. Get over it games change everything has to change and evolve.

Let the flames begin lol.

PS my interface, controls and play is identicle to the way it was set up before NGE meaning that the controls and crap most cry about can be changed, then you say i shouldnt have to change it well to bad do it lol. Did you know that u dont need to use the cross hair.... Press t and its like back to normal.

 

No need to flame you but I will respond to your post...

It's really more complicated than your simplistic point of view dicates.

1.)  This was a virtual world in which people invested their time and their emotion. 

2.)  SOE/LA acted in a borderline illegal manner with the expansions hitting JUST before the NGE, which was developed in TOTAL secret from the playerbase.

There is no question that SOE/LA acted 100% unethically, but it also stands to reason they broke the law.  The term "the Law" is thrown around but SOE rightly could have been sued (and I honestly am surprised they weren't) for the fact that SWG, as an MMO, is traded from State to State within the USA.  Now SOE is dealing with Federal Law, not just each individual state.

The ONLY reason SOE wasn't immediately hit with a class action suit is because MMO gaming is still fairly new and internet laws haven't even scratched the surface of what they will someday involve.

The SWG Pre-CU playerbase bought a game, invested millions of hours into a virtual world that was unexpectedly taken from them and replaced by something they DID NOT purchase nor invest time into.

Someday this will most likely be a violation of "the Law" itself.  However, for the purposes of 2005 SOE got off the hook.  Still, they did break the law when they performed a "bait-and-switch" tactic on their customers.

SWG Veterans are smart gamers and for the most part I have seen, smart people.  Their efforts to avenge the way they were treated has been successful.  Most of the gamers on this planet don't trust SOE, they won't play SWG, and they will have reservations about playing an SOE game again.

 

While i understand your view completely, and believe me i would have, and did, say the same thing when the NGE hit - the reason why they werent sued, nor will games be sued for this, is that it is there right - they didnt take anything from you, (well apart from those who subscribed on a yearly basis, but that was their risk) although we all invested time in the game, in the end it wasnt really investing it, it was simply using the time to enjoy the entertainment an MMO provides - as soon as you stop paying (due to the NGE), you havent, in the law's and in the MMO companies' eyes, lost anything. Now although there actions may have been unethical in many's views, they didnt break the law, and if laws prohibiting this were enforced, the MMO industry, i believe, would be badly hit, because it would take control out of investor's hands (companies), which they wont like, and consequently there will be less investment. Unfortunately, they are and, i suspect, will be allowed to keep anything they have planned a total secret if they want. (the whole "CU is here to stay" issue is a bit more debatable, and is, i suppose, potentially in some ways illegal)

Then why were refunds given?  They specifically promoted things in the game that they knew they were taking away, and had been developing for 6 months the removal of these things.  That is about as textbook a case as "bait and switch" as you get.  Had they not had given out a refund, they very well probably would've been sued, or at least the BBB would've launched a nice investigation on them.

Originally posted by Kesran

 

Originally posted by Thunderous

 

Originally posted by Kesran

 

Originally posted by Thunderous

 

 

SWG Veterans are smart gamers and for the most part I have seen, smart people.  Their efforts to avenge the way they were treated has been successful.  Most of the gamers on this planet don't trust SOE, they won't play SWG, and they will have reservations about playing an SOE game again.

 

 

 

While I have a lot of sympathy for your viewpoint and won't go back to SWG myself, I still must point out that this last paragraph is hard to quantify. Sucessful how? I don't doubt SOE are still making cash, EQ2  is still doing well and they will still be making money of SWG's new players. Plus, I seriously doubt that 'most gamers on this planet' ever even visit these forums :)

No - SWG Vets may have blown off steam and given vent to their anger here (no bad thing) and made many good cases for classic servers and the like (and yes, I would probably resub to play on them) but don't kid yourself that any meaningful revenge has been enacted upon SOE, or (to be blunt) that the majority of non-SWG players give a rats ass one way or the other.....

 

 

I respectfully disagree with some of what you said.

I DO agree that most people don't care about SWG at all.  However, the drastic backlash that SOE suffered on the internet from SWG Veterans has been substantial, to say the least.

Vets have been vocal.  Blog after blog has reached thousands of readers and the outlook as whole, on SWG, has been biased by the reaction of these Vets.  Don't sell their voice short.  They have had success.

SOE isn't making that much money off of SWG, if any.

 

 

Thanks for the polite response - I don't mean to sell the vet's short, for sure. I admire that people are passionate enough about a game to be so vocal. I'll even agree that SWG has probably suffered as a direct result of the ire of the vets...

 

I guess I just don't think that SOE overall are going to be noticably troubled by the anger of the Vets, as they do have other games to rely on - games that are generally doign OK - even if SWG disappears off the radar. And I also think that, as time goes by, people simply aren't going to be put of future SOE games because of the Vet's anger at SOE, however justifiable that anger is. SWG is pretty much (as far as I can tell) already regarded (perhaps due to the vocal activity of the Vets, arguably) as a dated game; great in it's day but already fading from gaming conciousness. And as it fades the relevance of the Vet's anger, to other gamers at least, fades also....

 

My opinion, of course, and I do respect your right to disagree. I wish you well.

 

I would simply say look at the uproar caused over Pirates of the Burning Sea, when FLS struck a partnership simply in publishing with SOE.  Simply having their name mentioned in the same sentence was enough to scare off thousands of customers.

Refunds were given for TOOW because the lawyers told Smed and Ward that they might face "conjugal" visits with Bubba in a Federal "pound me in the ass" prison for corporate fraud if they didn't.

No other reason.

The way the expansion was marketed with the NGE happening under cover was the clearest cut open and shut case for interstate and international fraud ever in the history of gaming.

Considering that they were marketing stuff for professions that were going to be deleted just weeks prior to the NGE, and that they waited UNTIL THE DAY AFTER we were charged for the expansion to announce this deletion, they knew that the expansion was a fraud.

Their only defense possible to that charge would have been if the NGE literally was designed, approved, and announced in a day.  Sorta plausible given how horridly designed and buggy it was and still is... 

Thunderous wrote: 

I guess I just don't think that SOE overall are going to be noticably troubled by the anger of the Vets, as they do have other games to rely on - games that are generally doign OK - even if SWG disappears off the radar.

The reason the Vets are so justifiably (imo) angry is that there are no other games out there like SWG today.  I can't think of a single one.  EvE online is extremely monotonous, and strictly space-based.  All the popular MMOs are based on the same ubiquitous linear leveling system.  SWG was unique in this regard.  It was unique in many regards, and all of those unique points were removed by SOE in one massive decapitation, with no request for feedback from the players.  SOE then went public and stated opinions that completely did not reflect those of the playerbase.  I could get into so many other ways SWG was unique, but that will simply anger me, and I don't wish this to turn into a borderline-flame. 

I'm just trying to offer a viewpoint in answer to this.

Originally posted by hgavin9

Hi I too played SWG up till NGE and completely agree with a lot of the arguments put forward.

 

I would be interested to know whether SOE are protected by stating "Game Experience May Change DUring Online Play" on the game case

I always thought this was connected to the rating system as in "because we can not completely control what people do, the content of the game as created by the company may be rated 'T' but, upon going online, player may be exposed to 'AO' material."  Also figured it covered changes made by others: player cities come and go, new buildings get placed, the vendor you spent so much time last play session hunting down may now be gone, the group you played with last time may not be online this time, etc. (changes that would not occur during most solo games because the game saves as it was last played except in some games like "Animal Crossing" where some changes do occur between playing due to a "real time" type of system but even in games like these the change is not as major as it is in an online game).