Originally posted by tillamook

LONG LIVE MICROSOFT!!!

When did Micro$oft make a mmo?

Oh wait. they didn't.

Most of Sony's MMOs was successful. Look at Everquest. theres like 938 different expansions for it. and they just ANNOUNCED another expansion. so 939? well maybe not that many. They DID end up fucking up their games in SOME way. I dont get why everyone has to bash on sony for everything.

Originally posted by Konner920 

 

Most of Sony's MMOs was successful. Look at Everquest. theres like 938 different expansions for it. and they just ANNOUNCED another expansion. so 939? well maybe not that many. They DID end up fucking up their games in SOME way. I dont get why everyone has to bash on sony for everything.

Everquest is the ONLY success they have mate. EQ is SoE's baby! That's the game that made SoE.

Matrix Online closed - SWG is closing 12 servers next week - Pirates of the Burning Sea - Vanguard...you call those "successful"???

It was not the CU that killed it.  And it MOST CERTAINLY wasn't the JTL x-pac that did it.  JTL was an awesome addition to the game.  Yes, it could have been done a little bit better, but for what it was, it was a fantastic x-pac and really helped to solidify the SW feel.  Granted several parts of the game detracted from the SW feel, JTL was not one of them.

The CU was also a good addition to the game.  It made it so all players weren't running around in diffrent colors of Composite Armor.  It also made it much more plausible to compete in PvE and PvP without having the insane Doctor's buffs.  Yes, they screwed the Armorsmiths, their inventory and should have made a much better attempt at recouping them for their losses, but all things considered, it was a needed change and a good move.

It was the NGE and SOE's discussions about it that killed the game for your 250K+ players.

Your anger and frustration is very much shared by me and many others, but I believe that you are so overwhelmed by it, you are trying to find fault where there isn't some and placing blame on things that were actually decent to good changes to the game.

Originally posted by TUX426

Originally posted by Konner920 

 

Most of Sony's MMOs was successful. Look at Everquest. theres like 938 different expansions for it. and they just ANNOUNCED another expansion. so 939? well maybe not that many. They DID end up fucking up their games in SOME way. I dont get why everyone has to bash on sony for everything.

 

Everquest is the ONLY success they have mate. EQ is SoE's baby! That's the game that made SoE.

Matrix Online closed - SWG is closing 12 servers next week - Pirates of the Burning Sea - Vanguard...you call those "successful"???

The matrix online closed because the finished the story and lack of subscribers. Pirates of the burning sea was a good game. I played it. Im actually playing SWG. I actually like it.

Originally posted by stillkillin

we have done a great job for the last 4 years

Great job of what?

None of the wailing and gnashing of teeth has gotten you your precious pre-CU/NGE game back, nor lead to the apocalyptic demise of SWG or SOE.....so I am still a little unclear as to what great deeds have been done that are or were worthy of your self congratulatory post?  

Bashing Smed and SOE in general is so frickin' common these days that it has lost any real meaning, so that can't really be considered an achievement, and other than that dude that gets his kicks from dressing like some sort of creeped out John Wayne Gacy/Cesar Romero clown/Joker, I don't really see much going on except for a lot of bitter griping and complaining about a freaking computer game.  But the way some people carry on you would think that Smed and George Lucas crept into their rooms while they were asleep and touched them in a bad place.

Originally posted by Shoju

Originally posted by stillkillin

we have done a great job for the last 4 years

Great job of what?

None of the wailing and gnashing of teeth has gotten you your precious pre-CU/NGE game back, nor lead to the apocalyptic demise of SWG or SOE.....so I am still a little unclear as to what great deeds have been done that are or were worthy of your self congratulatory post?

But, wailing and gnashing of teeth is what Fringers do best..

Woohoo hoo hoo!

Originally posted by KyngBills

Originally posted by seniorfrito

WTF?  Ok no dude, it wasn't Jump to Lightspeed that did it.  Sorry to burst your bubble.  Should SOE be trash talked?  Sure, but you did it the wrong way and about the wrong things.  Jump to Lightspeed didn't bring the action gamers.  It was the combat upgrade.  Combat plays an important role in whether players decide to play a game or not.  It was the combat upgrade that lost half the old community base and brought in new players that wanted to see the game taken in a different direction, hence the NGE not but maybe a year later? (Been so long I can't remember)

I want to preface this by saying this is nothing more than My opinion and My observations...Not saying I know it all just saying I was there and this is what I think happened...

I've read this type of opinion before concerning the CU but I have to say...I was there during the whole thing and LONG after...In My Guild, and on My Server, I never noticed much of a difference with the CU introduction...Sure a few people quit but there was a ton coming in too...I can honestly say that I did not have one really close Friend or Guildy that quit because of the CU...And half? No way it was half...That much I can say with confidence...Again I'm aware some Folks quit...But the Game seemed, to me at least, to be REALLY hopping well after the CU was introduced...I'm not saying Folks were thrilled with everything either...But the thing is as the Years have passed the type of departure that was caused by the CU has really come to be expected in MMO's...Some Folks just get bored and move on...A small, vocal minority ALWAYS has tizzy fits...And from what I can tell the whole CU departure thing has become more urban myth than fact over time generated by a few Players who were REAL unhappy at the time...All I know is My Guild and Server seemed to be just fine up until the NGE...Then all hell broke loose...I lost 9 out of 15 Council Members in the 1st Month after the NGE...Within a Year only 3 of the 15 remained...

There were legit, needed reasons for the CU...It was not perfect but IMHO it was a HUGE step in the right direction...Had they simply continued to build off that they would have been fine...But SOE and Lucas had a collective panic, probably due to WOW's success by that time, and the NGE-idea was born...And that, not the CU was the beginning of the end...

Good observation....
 

What killed every SOE attempt to improve the gameplay experience was a top down mismanagement of development.  I've never argued that the CU or that the NGE where not necessary enhancements needed to the game.  

The CU was a long wanted combat upgrade that a lot of people wanted.  The NGE was suppose to fix things into a new better combat system.

Now anyone with 2 brain cells should have seen the way the development was being handled and fired every manager involved.  However, some marketing assbag runs that company who has zero business running a development company that makes software. 

The two systems need many more hours of testing and work.  Months worth.  Then maybe they would have had the time to develop a solid well balanced combat system. 

Instead we got poorly tested code with no resource devoted to doing it properly.  I think the NGE could have been great.  The key aspect is could have been.  2 weeks testing.  Very dumb.

John Smedley is the worst executive game developer ever.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

 

But, wailing and gnashing of teeth is what Fringers do best..

 

Woohoo hoo hoo!

Really? And here I thought it was holding our own in a debate. And as for the wailing and gnashing, I consider it a public service. Kind of like those flip flops that Walmart sold that were toxic. Walmart and its PR team tried pretty hard to avoid the conflict. Threw in a ton of money and tried to isolate the people talking about it as "vocal minority".  Sound familiar?

The truth is, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. SOE would like nothing more than for their past actions to be swept under the rug. I wouldn't mind it either if they demonstrated the fact that they have learned their lesson but simply put - they have not. So while it may seem like whining and the lot of it - I think of it as a cause and one that is fought in the public eye.

So what have we accomplished? No, there are no cash prizes or boyscout badges. I certainly haven't earned a free trip to anywhere.  But at the end of the night, when I click shut down - I know that when the world looks up SWG or SOE - they find BOTH sides of the argument. Google searches that don't paint a perfect pink world and games that have more subscribers than ever.  I can log into forums and get the good and the bad. I don't like a one sided world and my subscription money and time goes to those who earn it. The rest of my hobby time goes toward proving that vanilla with unicorn tears doesn't exist and that forum posts bashing my cause get responded to.

Kef

As for the OP's post - I would agree that there were many missteps in SWG but for the most part, I liked JTL. It was a bit rushed and should have been a bit more GCW 'ccentic. Still it almost could have stood on its own as a Space based mmo had they fleshed it out a little more. That being said, you are certainly not the first that has told me that they didn't like JTL. A good TKM buddy of mine was part of the testing on it and constantly ranted about it.

To me, the Hologrind and the divergence from the original CU concepts really started the slide downward.

As for taking a stand, the line was drawn here a while back - you will note this is one of the few sections that has its own disgruntled vet forum. It may get pushed, sometimes erased and most certainly ridiculed but the line is still here. Though like some of the other posters said - the best first step is voting with your wallet. The next step after that is telling your friends.

Originally posted by kefkah

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

 

But, wailing and gnashing of teeth is what Fringers do best..

 

Woohoo hoo hoo!

 

Really? And here I thought it was holding our own in a debate. And as for the wailing and gnashing, I consider it a public service. Kind of like those flip flops that Walmart sold that were toxic. Walmart and its PR team tried pretty hard to avoid the conflict. Threw in a ton of money and tried to isolate the people talking about it as "vocal minority".  Sound familiar?

The truth is, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. SOE would like nothing more than for their past actions to be swept under the rug. I wouldn't mind it either if they demonstrated the fact that they have learned their lesson but simply put - they have not. So while it may seem like whining and the lot of it - I think of it as a cause and one that is fought in the public eye.

So what have we accomplished? No, there are no cash prizes or boyscout badges. I certainly haven't earned a free trip to anywhere.  But at the end of the night, when I click shut down - I know that when the world looks up SWG or SOE - they find BOTH sides of the argument. Google searches that don't paint a perfect pink world and games that have more subscribers than ever.  I can log into forums and get the good and the bad. I don't like a one sided world and my subscription money and time goes to those who earn it. The rest of my hobby time goes toward proving that vanilla with unicorn tears doesn't exist and that forum posts bashing my cause get responded to.

Kef

Oh please, you guys have not contributed a thing to "both sides of the argument". You are through and through anti-SOE no matter what they do and paint a picture of "evil" in every announcement they make whether its related to SWG or not. The fact that you hold this much hate and venom over video game change that occured almost 6 years ago is at the least bizarre if not down right concerning. You can bash all day long on here and your other little site. Good discussions can  and have been had there but at the end of the day, no one cares anymore.  Rant, rage and troll post every website you find telling the mythical "evils" of SOE if that makes you feel better, but don't think you are on any kind of morale high ground over SOE. If anything you are worse.

You've essentially become a hate group for a company. Getting anything fair or unbiased out of Fringers would stand just as good of chance as someone walking into a Klan rally for an unbiased opinion on minority issues.

Whole lot of "you, you, you" there. That and a great deal of generalization and group profiling. What amazes me about this is that it takes various posts and posters and clumps them all together in one neat and tiny package. Easy to handle and use for any purpose. I see no individual references listed in your argument. So I am to assume everyone there is biased fanatical and akin as you would have it to the KKK. Like everyone in Florida must be old, cuban and dealing drugs?

And perhaps I worded it wrong as my intention was that we (myself included) present the opposite side of the argument . There have even been cases of proSOE statements though much of what passes through the Fringe is on the soapbox. Still, if what SOE does is an issue - I expect nothing less than to take them to task about it. Seems they have a pretty lengthy history of that and so there is much that has been covered.

As for your 6 year argument, we differ on opinions there. I would buy the whole "its a game" debate were it not a monthly time and money investment. As with many hobbies, you sink time and money into it with the assumption that it will be there when you check on it the next day. So when you invest a few years into something, having your main profession being removed could be a little disturbing. So I return the favor with this. Concerning? Please, making assumptions about my actions, motives and choice of dealing with an issue is purely a layman's opinion on your part at best and at worst, a quick fix to end an argument by painting the opposite party as irrelevant via mental illness. Old hat and hardly worthy of someone with you post history and total.

No one cares anymore? Again, assumptive and a generalization. Rephrase it to "I don't care anymore nor do I see why you do" and you would be spot on. If no one cared anymore, areas like this, the Fringe and the myraid of other places vets haunt would not exist.

Finally, as for being as bad if not as worse as SOE? I see no one here or the Fringe that has made national news for their actions. I see no one here whose actions have actually become a term for screwing one's own playerbase. Still looking for a listing of every possible failure of customer support on people who post here. And while I have never entrusted anyone here or there with my money - only SOE holds that failure. If we are worse in your eyes - then perhaps I have an entirely different view of right and wrong let alone what is acceptable.

Oh and feel free to add to this discussion with any smiley you choose.
 

Originally posted by haxxjoo

What killed every SOE attempt to improve the gameplay experience was a top down mismanagement of development.  I've never argued that the CU or that the NGE where not necessary enhancements needed to the game.  

The CU was a long wanted combat upgrade that a lot of people wanted.  The NGE was suppose to fix things into a new better combat system.

Now anyone with 2 brain cells should have seen the way the development was being handled and fired every manager involved.  However, some marketing assbag runs that company who has zero business running a development company that makes software. 

The two systems need many more hours of testing and work.  Months worth.  Then maybe they would have had the time to develop a solid well balanced combat system.

The CU was not the combat upgrade we wanted, the CURB was.  That was a system that already had months of development work, and we started to see previews of the coming changes from late Nov'04 to early Jan'05 on the Friday Features (long since wiped to preserve the fiction that the CU was what they planned all along).  I wasn't terribly enthused about everything I saw coming, but I was willing to take to good with the bad.

Then in mid-late Jan'05, someone decided to change course.  Friday Features about the coming changes abruptly stopped, and when they resumed in (I think) March, they were describing a whole different game.  The changes of CU varied from good to indifferent to bad, but one single item was catastrophic: levels.  SWG's unique style of individualized mobs was dumped to conform with the level-based system used by every other MMO.  I'm sure that whoever made that decision thought it was such a small and simple thing, but it touched d@mn-near everything.  Suddenly EVERYTHING in combat and in the wild depended on a comparison of levels.  The Mask Scent skill became worthless as any creatures 2-3 levels higher than you ALWAYS broke it.  Anything a few levels below was easy meat; anything a few levels up could 3-shot you.  Weapon crafting was dumbed down to the point that any half-compentent weaponsmith with average resources could "cap" a weapon (a concept that didn't even exist before), and a "good low-level gun" became an oxymoron.  Entertainers had to be revamped to different functions when Mind wounds and Battle Fatigue vanished.  And on and on... all because someone with no understanding of the game's dynamics decided that SWG needed to conform to the "industry standard" approach.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Originally posted by kefkah

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

 

But, wailing and gnashing of teeth is what Fringers do best..

 

Woohoo hoo hoo!

 

Really? And here I thought it was holding our own in a debate. And as for the wailing and gnashing, I consider it a public service. Kind of like those flip flops that Walmart sold that were toxic. Walmart and its PR team tried pretty hard to avoid the conflict. Threw in a ton of money and tried to isolate the people talking about it as "vocal minority".  Sound familiar?

The truth is, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. SOE would like nothing more than for their past actions to be swept under the rug. I wouldn't mind it either if they demonstrated the fact that they have learned their lesson but simply put - they have not. So while it may seem like whining and the lot of it - I think of it as a cause and one that is fought in the public eye.

So what have we accomplished? No, there are no cash prizes or boyscout badges. I certainly haven't earned a free trip to anywhere.  But at the end of the night, when I click shut down - I know that when the world looks up SWG or SOE - they find BOTH sides of the argument. Google searches that don't paint a perfect pink world and games that have more subscribers than ever.  I can log into forums and get the good and the bad. I don't like a one sided world and my subscription money and time goes to those who earn it. The rest of my hobby time goes toward proving that vanilla with unicorn tears doesn't exist and that forum posts bashing my cause get responded to.

Kef

 

Oh please, you guys have not contributed a thing to "both sides of the argument". You are through and through anti-SOE no matter what they do and paint a picture of "evil" in every announcement they make whether its related to SWG or not. The fact that you hold this much hate and venom over video game change that occured almost 6 years ago is at the least bizarre if not down right concerning. You can bash all day long on here and your other little site. Good discussions can  and have been had there but at the end of the day, no one cares anymore.  Rant, rage and troll post every website you find telling the mythical "evils" of SOE if that makes you feel better, but don't think you are on any kind of morale high ground over SOE. If anything you are worse.

You've essentially become a hate group for a company. Getting anything fair or unbiased out of Fringers would stand just as good of chance as someone walking into a Klan rally for an unbiased opinion on minority issues.

generalisations are both tempting and dangerous.

it wont take much of your time and effort to find posts where fringers suggest people to try out the game for what it is, and more often than not elaborate their responses with facts on any swg debate.

and according to raph koster people who suggest that its just a video game are missing the point.

Perhaps if SOE actually made some improvement on how they treat their customers and manage their products the reactions they receive would improve as well.  It isn't like the view of soe being selfish pricks who ruin games is limited to fringers.  Go in any game and ask what people think about SOE in general chat. Pick any non-soe game and see the results you get.

Why is it that there is a new some new controversy or flat out scandal with SOE everytime you turn around?  It isn't the players forcing soe to do these things.  It isn't ex-players creating this drama.  It is a company that has shown they will do whatever they want regardless of the effect it has on their customers. 

So you think soe has changed and the only complaints are from 6 years ago (6 years ago?), then hop on over to the EQ2 forums and read the discussion about how the virtual card game will not be limited to just fluff items.

See what SOE is doing with loot cards now

Keep in mind the comments here are from SOE subscribers and they pretty much match up with what is being said here. 

It would be easy for soe to silence those who do not like their business practices.  All they have to do is change and it would defang all the detractors that you are complaining about. 

When the general opinion of your customer base is "What else would you expect from SOE" and the typical public relations threads readily admit the company is yet again taking their game in a direction they KNOW their players will not like, what kind of response do you expect?  Who exactly do you think is creating the people who have little positive to say about the company?

Trying to make the discussion a topic about the people posting doesn't change the nature of what the company has done. 

It seems to be a company policy with soe to make changes to their GAMES that they know players will not like, but they think will make them more money. 

Originally posted by stillkillin

my friends $OE has shown me something

they have shown me that them along with micro$oft and ea are more then willing to rip players off to lie to players and to treat us like we are the worst thing ever and i am sick of it i am sick of mico$oft stealing money from people i am sick of ea coming out with bad games and telling people how they want to play it and most of all i am sick of $OE lying and stealing from we the players who make there game.

raph koster once said it is us the players that make the game it is we players who made swg one of the most beloved mmos of all time before it was stolen from us. and yes it was stolen from us my friends it was stolen from us and turned into that pos nge cuz $OE wanted to make the wow players and the action gamers who came into our game happy.

this is why i said years ago jump to lightspeed was going to be the worst move $OE could make for our game. i told people that all that would bring in are the action gamers who will start making demands and ruin our game. and they got it with the nge and look at what $OE did.

250k players gone over night

everyone losing almost everything that they have worked years for

and now look at the game all $OE does is lie to the player base and say everything is fine as bioware makes the nge 2.0 and $OE sells lame card packs that idiots hope will have the new uber loot that will help them win in pvp.

no more my friends.

this site and this board is where we need to come united and say no more to those ruining our games. we have done a great job for the last 4 years but now we have to go out and show the world that we the players want our game back and for our game to stay the way it is.

say it whenever you can in any game you play we want pre-cu swg

Wow dude, no one is stealing from you/us - we pay these companies that you speak of. We are not forced to pay, we are not forced to play.

We take a stand simply by not playing or quitting their games.... SWG sucked from the get go - the slow pace of the game killed it for me - then when jedi's were opened up to everyone - that made it a sure bet that I don't even consider playing this trash game.

I was hoping for more - and look forward to the old republic...

Originally posted by kilun

JTL killed the game?  JTL is awesome, I've resubscribed just to get my old xwing-tie fighter itch in a newer game done.

CU was the start of the downfall.  I quit with that horrible partical effect remove of the queue trash.  I resubbed a month before the NGE and tried to have fun, but after being an Armorsmith since launch and having all my resources now utter trash since they switched up the entire recipes(thankfully between WS and AS you could get semi decent stuff) it was a bore.

I'm sorry but once SOE back is against the wall and they lose a lot of subscribers once SWTOR is released., it would not surprise me that they open a pre-cu server to try to keep the game alive, or even after one of the emulators go live and they see hard data on how many people are playing.  This clone wars free realms type could be a nice addition, if they incorporate some of the basic advanced crafting and lots/harvesters I can see it becoming a swg2, or it could be a pile if its just a cheap action game. 

Yeah, but heres the kicker.... many of us that would have gone back about a year or so ago wouldnt any more if they opened up a pre cu server... why?

Well its quite simple: "Rolling back to the pre cu is out of the question, we don't even have that old code" <--- stated by smed at some point.

So if they did that they would have admitted lying to us in a very big way. And many of us would just give them a big middle finger and tell them where to shove it.

That is... not that we arent already telling them that :p

Originally posted by ferndip

Ugh really, how is this constructive?

Originally posted by ArcheusCross

Originally posted by ferndip

 

Ugh really, how is this constructive?

it is not

they do not understand that we are the ones who have driven $OE into the ground and we will do that again if we are ever ripped off in the sameway. not only that fanbois and fanbots can never understand how wonderful the pre-cu was

Yes it's beating the dead horse, but we have the right to do so.

I'm growing more annoyed due to the fact that every new game are catering to noobness and the challenge factor are disappearing. The Call of Duty * series for example, CoD4 and World at War are such nub games it isn't even funny and Modern Warfare 2 will be just as bad (they sold out on pre-orders of the $200 prestige limited edition!), Gears of War 2, Halo *, etc. Not only that, but companies are taking advantage of paid DLC, just like MMO RMT/microtransactions. IMO Team Fortress 2 is one of the last good FPS games out there right now.

I just wish that greedy companies would realize that money isn't easy to earn these days and $15/mo x(number of subscribers) should be plenty enough, the kind of extra money they get are from addicted customers that buys TCG packs and whatnot.

For me, Publish 9 was a huge step towards the wrong direction.

It is there where you see once and for all where the focus of development was heading towards (Jedi) at the expense of everything else.

It is from there where publish after publish was catered towards Jedi, receiving many passes.  When the NGE finally hit the fan, some of the regular professions had not received any passes / revamps.

It is there where the Jedi population skyrocketed and nothing would keep them in check ever again.  Not even the BHs.

I'd concur the first horrible sign of a downward spiral was the Holocrons.

Second would be Publish 9.

Third would be the CU.

The 3 signs of the pending apocalypse that was the NGE, which caught practically everyone offguard, like a knife in the back while sleeping.

Originally posted by sookster54

Yes it's beating the dead horse, but we have the right to do so.

I'm growing more annoyed due to the fact that every new game are catering to noobness and the challenge factor are disappearing. The Call of Duty * series for example, CoD4 and World at War are such nub games it isn't even funny and Modern Warfare 2 will be just as bad (they sold out on pre-orders of the $200 prestige limited edition!), Gears of War 2, Halo *, etc. Not only that, but companies are taking advantage of paid DLC, just like MMO RMT/microtransactions. IMO Team Fortress 2 is one of the last good FPS games out there right now.

I just wish that greedy companies would realize that money isn't easy to earn these days and $15/mo x(number of subscribers) should be plenty enough, the kind of extra money they get are from addicted customers that buys TCG packs and whatnot.

As far as FPS goes, I've gone back to BF2 with the 1.5 patch.  Still fun.

But personally, I've always been a fan of realistic stuff.  Looking forward to try Operation Flashpoint 2.  Nubs hate realism.

And no, having a beautiful game model of a heavily accessorized M4 equal Realism.

Speaking of greed, have you heard about the price gouging for Modern Warfare 2?  Wasn't planning on buying the game, but it's hilarious to watch people b**ch and moan about it, but you know will go out and buy it.  Even better considering the CEO of Activision openly said that's what's going to happen, lots of unhappy people about the high price ($60 US for a STANDARD PC version) yet they'll buy it like obedient choad boys.

Alot of dudes will be slurping it up for Activision Score another one for corporate greed!

It is funny seeing people complain about a company so call stealing there money and ripping them off but yet it isent like thay got a gun to there heads forcing them, So my point is if you dont like it dont buy it in 1st place.

Originally posted by greed0104

Lol? So now it's JTL fault? Wow dude, you're full of surprises everytime you post.

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