Star Wars Galaxies

I never liked DC comics. Last I heard, it was supposed to be Marvel vs DC as an MMORPG. Either way, most Super Hero games tend to stink not because of poor planning on the creators part but because super heroes are all unique from one another which is hard to duplicate in a game of any form.

Still I am open to the possibility that they could do something great.

I hate Sony. Everything they touch turns to moldly, semi solid turds but who knows, maybe they're finally going to learn something (and fire the right people.)

well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.

I'm glad I've always been a Marvel fan :)  I want SOE far away from anything that I enjoyed when I was a youngster.

I think when SOE sees things that connect to people's happy childhood experiences, they only see something they can exploit to turn a profit.  They seem to try to milk it from every available angle, regardless of how this affects their customers, and with very little respect for the intellectual properties.

Originally posted by Edroe

well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.

Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed.  I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company.  I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility.  It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO.  It was a real shock.  Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems. 

The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well.  Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.

Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow?  It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

Originally posted by Edroe

well I have played just about every MMORPG out and I am a huge Star Wars fan, but for ONCE I am going to have to take up for Sony. Even though I played SWG from the beginning and the NGE ruined it, you have to admit Sony has had some very big successes. Sony was a MMORPG Giant until Smedly took over. Why that man is still employed by Sony boggles my mind, but you have to give Sony credit. They have made some really great games. They just seem to not be able to keep them great. They have made some really bad choices since the prince of darkness took over. He seems to have a odd business sense. Make as much money from a game as long as you can without putting much back into it. I believe when SOE finally fires him then things will turn around. Unfortunatly it will be too late to save the majority of SOE's games.

 

Unfortunately I only know about SOE under Smed.  I can tell you this though, when I bought a game with Sony on the label I expected to deal with a reputable company.  I did not expect misleading marketting, poor development, abysmal customer service and outright hostility.  It never entered my mind that any company, let alone Sony, would ever invalidate all the accumulated progress of their entire playerbase in an MMO.  It was a real shock.  Like you, I can't imagine how Smed has kept his job after all of these problems. 

The buggy mess at release would have been his call, scrapping the CURB would have been his call, the unwanted CU would have been his call, the NGE bomb would have been his call, the refusal to do classic servers would have involved him and some head honcho at LEC, the promise of server mergers and then failing to follow through was him as well.  Now trading cards will sell people loot for real money.

Does he con his employers into thinking he's doing a good job somehow?  It really makes no sense to me, along with so many of the decisions he has made.

The division of Sony that SOE was under was Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures was a very backward company for the longest time, and Sony HQ never really questioned them or SOE because they expected losses in film/MMOs. That meant Smed could get away with sleeping on the job and not worry.

Now SOE is under Sony Games which is controlled in Japan. SCEI took over SOE after the launch of the PS3 because they wanted to use SOE for the platform. Now Smed has to deal with SCEI and wont get away with his usual antics.

Aye, the poster you qouted is basing his post off 2 games. MXO was only purchased to help secure the rights to future WB properties (DCU). Vanguard was because Sigil had a somewhat finished game that could have been good but whole mismanaged. SOE bought them out after agreeing to a publishing contract because Sigil was headed down the toilet.
 

As I said before, the only reason for the SOE hate was a few SWG players got burned and felt the need to share thier pain with everyone. When they realized no one really cared, they started in on any game that was mentioned in the same sentance with SOE.

Actually, I have to agree with him- SOE really sucks when it comes to the whole "fun" thing. Which is kind of central to the whole GAME thing in my book lol.

I only played SWG for about an hour before I gave up in shock and horror at the ham-fisted jamming of a fantasy RPG gameplay into the freewheeling, open-ended universe of Star Wars.

However, I played EQ1, EQ2 and Planetside for years and years, so I have experience with 3 of the biggest games SOE has had. IMHO, SOE just messed up each and every one in the most clueless manner possible. For most of those years, playing their games really felt like I was working another job!

It took me years to figure out why playing an SOE game feels like you're grinding your life away in a wage-slave job that fits into an overcomplicated, would-be master plan that you can only see a small piece of.

It's because of one simple, blindingly obvious reason. All SOE Developers are ipso facto wage slaves grinding away at a corporate wage slave job. Therefore, everything they do at work involves fitting  better into an overcomplicated, would-be master plan that they only see a piece of.

That's why everything they want players to do is like having a job in a corporate workgroup - "The Cleric will Heal the Warrior. The Wizard will Nuke the Opponent. The DPS will Do Melee Damage. The Warrior will Taunt the Mob to Keep its Attention. Any Others will do the Menial Labor to Support our Main Team. Go Team Fun." (For the record, I mainly play druids, paladins and enchanters- all hybrids, and therefore, all treated as the Menial Laborers in SOE's rigid little work teams. So I know whereof i speak.)

Would you go to a party where you were told you would be assigned a set little pigeonhole role and have to play it in the name of Having Fun? Not me.

But SOE devs have no options in their game design other than to have players have the same kind of rote-behavior roles in-game that the devs do at work. Then whatever happens, their suitmonkey bosses can tell THEIR bosses that Everything is Going According To The Plan. Their suitmonkey bosses do not understand what the devs are doing, nor do they care about anything but subscription numbers, which only reflect changes well after it's too late.

So players get tired of paying SOE to work an in-game job instead of having fun, subs slide, and SOE just scratches its head and says "Couldn't be OUR fault, because we're giving them the same kind of fun WE have. Must be WoW's item-centric gameplay. Let's put more items in our games to catch up!".

And that's how you screw up the (arguably) biggest science fiction, biggest fantasy, and only real FPS MMO's in the history of gaming. It's not some uber-complicated, larger-than-life reason. It's the simple, down-to-earth fact that SOE devs are assembly-line workers in a Modern Times environment, trying to sell dull, planned-encounter, rote-combat "Fun" to players who wanted the freedom to roam and discover new lands, new friends, new foes, new risks and rewards, and all the other elements that make an Adventure out of a game.

I feel very sorry for them, I really do. But I feel sorrier for all of the people I see who have been trained to expect being told where to stand, what to do, and when to do it in the name of having fun.

A DC Comic MMO by SOE? Finally something the Jestor Rodo can play with his mask on...

I wonder how long the DC game will be going before the Super Villian "Meatlump" the all mighty shows up.....

Looks like I get to save myself $50 +$15/mo.

Not giving $OE any more money.

Ever.