Who is to blame for the train wreck SWG became with the NGE?

Everyone! Lucas Arts, Sony Online Entertainment and the Star Wars Galaxies Players.

Lucas Arts:
LEC is to blame because when the people involved with SWG on their end changed, their core goal philosophies for the game changed with them. The original people involved understood the potential of Raph Koster's design vision and were willing to work with him to see that it came together as best as possible, technical limitations notwithstanding. But the new people, who have no clue as to why the original SWG vision worked, are only interested in the BUSINESS of game development, not the ART of it. And so, they looked at the success of games like WoW and no doubt thought: "THAT game must really be fun if it is drawing in numbers like that. Star Wars is one of the biggest IPs on the face of the planet. It should be drawing that many and more. We need to talk to SOE and see what can be done about it."

Sony Online Entertainment:
SOE is to blame because when LEC talked to them about ways to make the game more fun, and therefore, in theory, more profitable, the key people involved in the development of the new more fun system were personally more into WoW than their own product. To that end, they no doubt reasoned that "since LEC wants SWG to be as fun or more than WoW, then we need to make it work like WoW. There's no way we can do that. There's no way we SHOULD do that. But MAN, this is fun!" And the NGE was born.

The Star Wars Galaxies Players:
The SWG players are to blame because at no point in the games history have we collectively been satisfied with ANYTHING. Nothing SOE has done in any of the game's three incarnations has managed to appease the crybabies in the community who want the game THEIR way, nevermind that there are (or were) several thousand other players. The general concensus was that the Pre-CU combat system sucked. So we got the CU. Many people left and in the six months that passed, the general concensus was that the CU system sucked. So when LEC told SOE that they wanted to see the game become as fun as (or more fun than) WoW, SOE no doubt felt justified in going ahead. After all, most people hated the game anyway, so why not? A new audience might be more forgiving. But the thing is, though, the majority MMO players suffer from the "It's My Game" syndrome because they feel that apying a monthly fee entitles them to tell the developers how to do their job and expect them to toe the line. How many times have we seen it (I even threw it out a few times myself before I opened my eyes):

"SOE You need to do what we want because WE pay your salary with out subscriptions"

And yet, the truth of the matter is that we pay for a SERVICE, that is the privilage to access the content on their servers. Beyond that, what we are entitled to is very limited. And every time we have clicked that "I agree" button we are acknowledging that SOE has the right to do whatever they want with the game, with or without notice. Do we have to like it? Absolutely not! Do we have to suffer through it? No, and many of us are here because we chose not to.

And for those who subscribed for the 3, 6 or 12 month subscriptions and felt victimized when the game changed? Boo Hoo Hoo! That clause in the ToS that clearly stated that SOE reserves the right to change or discontinue services as they see fit should have thrown up all sorts of red flags and made you think, "Jeez. That means I could log in tomorrow and not be playing the same game as I am today," or, "Jeez... that meand I may not even be able to log in tomorrow or ever again."

SOE has warned us from the very beginning that they could change the game on us. We agreed that they had the right to when we subscribed, AND every time we played thereafter. We knew (or should have known) that it could happen. Yet when it did, we blamed THEM

IS SWG currently the game we originally wanted to play? For many of us, no. Was SOE within their rights to do what they did. Yes. Was LEC within their rights to expect SWG to be at least as successful as WoW? Based on the world-wide fan base of the Star Wars IP as a whole, Yes. Did what SOE designed and LEC signed off on for the NGE result in that success? Based on the bad press, empty servers and general discontent (nothing really new there) of the participants on the official forums, I would have to say, no.

Can SWG still achieve great success? Yes. But just as everyone was involved in the SWG disaster, it is going to take everyone to clean up the mess. SOE has come as close as any of us can expect of a corporation to come in apologizing for what happened. LEC has remained silent since Nancy McIntyre opened her mouth and issued her "The players to be Luke Skywalker and not Uncle Owen" statement. But then, really, they have pretty much been silent towards the player community from the start.

Now the player community has a responsibility to stop with all the "I want it, I pay for it, You better do it" demands, actually play the game and take their issues with it to the developers. The Developers have now stated that they intend to actually start listening, so they have the responsibility to listen to the issues brought to them by the players. And LEC? Well. They chose SOE to develop and host this game based on their experience in the MMO industry. LEC has the responsibility to sit back, shut up and trust SOE to do what they hired them to do. If all three groups would do these things, then yes, SWG can enjoy success once again.

/emote hops off the soap box.

Look at no point did the swg players ask for the nge, or inadvertly ask, i recall them asking for bug fixes to combat and a few other things like lag etc ,broken quest's, much of which still exsist's.

you can hardly blame the swg player's at all for the things that have gone wrong.

$oe and lucas  pass the blame on who is responsible, yet players go on the forum's like there employee's from sony when there not and defend them till there typing fingers are sore, when they should really get on with criticising the game's weak points and there are too many now to be resolved, they should let soe or lucas arts take full responsability for there errors.

 sorry darth you have been reading there forums  to long, and may be corrupted by reading post's that defend the crap they made, but in time im sure you will be purged of this affliction soon.

*not using my PDA to post this time*

To blame?  Each parties 50%  LEC & SOE

Now then, since things like this are based on leadership as well:

John Smedley from SOE

Julio Torres from LEC  Both claimed this was a good idea and it would be worth it.

Both failed in that thought and concept, also thinking they could force people into being lemmings.

Now then, both parties lied or misslead (Whichever word you want to use) the entire playerbase more times then I can think of but worse... they over promised and under delivered while at the same time putting out a crappy replacment.    From the bait and switch of ToOW to the bug fixes and game being reviewed 6 months from it's NGE launch.  (Remember the "We will review it in 6 months speach?" ---  Yeah, that happend....  Bottom line -- they failed on multiple levels.

SEE:  Gamasutra comments:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10830   

At this stage they realized that they made a mistake and failed.

Pretty much refering to SWG as the Titanic.... which makes sense actually.

Now as of recent news: Mr. Smedley is making it a top issue to figure out a way to merge servers.

At this point we can say "Done and Done".... we warned them, we begged them, we advised them in the thousands...we emailed them we tried very hard at the summits and voiced it to thier faces to listen to us or this will fail.

So, you ask who is to blame?    Well it sure as freaking Hell is not me.

Most of us tried to stop this mistake on every level a consumer can.   

Originally posted by DarthOlomew

Who is to blame for the train wreck SWG became with the NGE?

Everyone! Lucas Arts, Sony Online Entertainment and the Star Wars Galaxies Players.

Lucas Arts:
LEC is to blame because when the people involved with SWG on their end changed, their core goal philosophies for the game changed with them. The original people involved understood the potential of Raph Koster's design vision and were willing to work with him to see that it came together as best as possible, technical limitations notwithstanding. But the new people, who have no clue as to why the original SWG vision worked, are only interested in the BUSINESS of game development, not the ART of it. And so, they looked at the success of games like WoW and no doubt thought: "THAT game must really be fun if it is drawing in numbers like that. Star Wars is one of the biggest IPs on the face of the planet. It should be drawing that many and more. We need to talk to SOE and see what can be done about it."

Sony Online Entertainment:
SOE is to blame because when LEC talked to them about ways to make the game more fun, and therefore, in theory, more profitable, the key people involved in the development of the new more fun system were personally more into WoW than their own product. To that end, they no doubt reasoned that "since LEC wants SWG to be as fun or more than WoW, then we need to make it work like WoW. There's no way we can do that. There's no way we SHOULD do that. But MAN, this is fun!" And the NGE was born.

The Star Wars Galaxies Players:
The SWG players are to blame because at no point in the games history have we collectively been satisfied with ANYTHING. Nothing SOE has done in any of the game's three incarnations has managed to appease the crybabies in the community who want the game THEIR way, nevermind that there are (or were) several thousand other players. The general concensus was that the Pre-CU combat system sucked. So we got the CU. Many people left and in the six months that passed, the general concensus was that the CU system sucked. So when LEC told SOE that they wanted to see the game become as fun as (or more fun than) WoW, SOE no doubt felt justified in going ahead. After all, most people hated the game anyway, so why not? A new audience might be more forgiving. But the thing is, though, the majority MMO players suffer from the "It's My Game" syndrome because they feel that apying a monthly fee entitles them to tell the developers how to do their job and expect them to toe the line. How many times have we seen it (I even threw it out a few times myself before I opened my eyes):

"SOE You need to do what we want because WE pay your salary with out subscriptions"

And yet, the truth of the matter is that we pay for a SERVICE, that is the privilage to access the content on their servers. Beyond that, what we are entitled to is very limited. And every time we have clicked that "I agree" button we are acknowledging that SOE has the right to do whatever they want with the game, with or without notice. Do we have to like it? Absolutely not! Do we have to suffer through it? No, and many of us are here because we chose not to.

And for those who subscribed for the 3, 6 or 12 month subscriptions and felt victimized when the game changed? Boo Hoo Hoo! That clause in the ToS that clearly stated that SOE reserves the right to change or discontinue services as they see fit should have thrown up all sorts of red flags and made you think, "Jeez. That means I could log in tomorrow and not be playing the same game as I am today," or, "Jeez... that meand I may not even be able to log in tomorrow or ever again."

SOE has warned us from the very beginning that they could change the game on us. We agreed that they had the right to when we subscribed, AND every time we played thereafter. We knew (or should have known) that it could happen. Yet when it did, we blamed THEM

IS SWG currently the game we originally wanted to play? For many of us, no. Was SOE within their rights to do what they did. Yes. Was LEC within their rights to expect SWG to be at least as successful as WoW? Based on the world-wide fan base of the Star Wars IP as a whole, Yes. Did what SOE designed and LEC signed off on for the NGE result in that success? Based on the bad press, empty servers and general discontent (nothing really new there) of the participants on the official forums, I would have to say, no.

Can SWG still achieve great success? Yes. But just as everyone was involved in the SWG disaster, it is going to take everyone to clean up the mess. SOE has come as close as any of us can expect of a corporation to come in apologizing for what happened. LEC has remained silent since Nancy McIntyre opened her mouth and issued her "The players to be Luke Skywalker and not Uncle Owen" statement. But then, really, they have pretty much been silent towards the player community from the start.

Now the player community has a responsibility to stop with all the "I want it, I pay for it, You better do it" demands, actually play the game and take their issues with it to the developers. The Developers have now stated that they intend to actually start listening, so they have the responsibility to listen to the issues brought to them by the players. And LEC? Well. They chose SOE to develop and host this game based on their experience in the MMO industry. LEC has the responsibility to sit back, shut up and trust SOE to do what they hired them to do. If all three groups would do these things, then yes, SWG can enjoy success once again.

/emote hops off the soap box.

 

 

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DarthOlomew hops off the soap box.

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You are clueless as to what some of this is about.

If you think that the NGE can be saved and make the game better then you sir need to wake up and take a look around as they are now working on ways to merge whats left of the community onto a few servers.

Oh yeah... saved...lol  saved from being in to much debt because they are operating in the red right now Im sure.

For another one of your clueless comments such as "The devs have actually now said they will listen" I dare say to you - "Are you freaking high?  Are you that clueless as to how many times this was said?  Do you have any idea that Mr. Smedley himself even said they were over 2 years ago?  Do you even think that SOE can "ALL OF A SUDDEN NOW FIX THIS??"  Are you that clueless as to what has happend????   Do you even know what the phrase "Track record" means?

I see this and I see a NGEr that is blind to the reality of what has happend and what is going on.

Soon you will post that the server mergers are because the game is soooo full and doing well that they want to focus all thier money on just a few servers.. or some crap.

I sometimes wonder how some of you people see what you do... or better yet try to make it sound good to some of us... that is just amazing.

To suvroc

Sadly its too late to correct it now,  even if soe or lucas had someone with the balls to do what needs to be done, the game has bled so many players the funds to rewrite the game back to pre cu or cu, would kill it, unless soe and lucas threw some serious money back at it.  shame countless thousands told them don't do it. yet they went ahead anyway. crappy nge .

Here is a good point, if SOE would have "NOT" Listened to the crybabies and people whom found Pre-CU too complex and stuck with the loyal 300k+ subs that enjoyed the game and placed polls on the launch pad so when you started the game, people could have voted then and there, they would have got the true votes from players whom enjoyed the game, not whiny kids whom are now playing the NGE.

SOE and LA are to blame, but in no way are the players, sure the game had bugs and issues but if SOE would have stopped at publish 12, would not have introduced the village or the CU and simply stop after the JTL expansion and work solely on bugs and issues and host 1 to 2 GCW Events a month then everyone would have been happy.  What I would have done diffrently is add the tutorial spacestation like what the NGE has , that would have given players a chance to learn the game and none of the "Soon to be NGE" kids would have cried on how the game was simply  "Too Hard".   Pre-CU again, was not perfect but compared to the NGE it's godsent.  So whom's really at fault? SOE for sure, LA for not truly listening to their real playerbase and the "Soon to be NGE'er" whom found the game too hard. 

If you think SOE listens to anyone, heres something on the very day the NGE was on TC, I with alot of others tested the game, willing to give it a chance, when we found it was truly horrible, but great for 10 year olds, we posted on forums, sent e-mails to SOE, PM'ed Devs, sent letters to SOE and LA to change the game back, an overwhelming negative response was being posted but SOE didnt listen then and they wont listen now.  SOE like any company is looking to make more money at anyone's expense.  Right now the NGE'ers have their very simple game.....Tommorrow SOE might decide to look for a diffrent playerbase and redo the NGE to something diffrent maybe the UGE (Ultimate Gaming Experiance) and say screw you NGE'ers , we want a more profitable playerbase!! So never say never,..What goes around ...comes around..

Players complain, it's a fact of life.

It's the companies responsibility to sift the complaints for the truely game improving suggestions and not to give people what they ask for because it's easier than having an idea of their own.

So in my opinion it's the companies fault for giving in.

Would it really matter if you had someone to blame?  Would you suddenly resub?

Would it really matter if precu servers were available?  Would you suddenly forget your SOE / LA hate (or $OE as the more creative nutjobs have used) and resub up to play?

Would you really say "Its ok, SOE, we understand" if they came out and said "We're sorry" and go back to playing?

Would it ever really matter?  It's the same 50 people complaining about the same things, over and over again.

"$OE only did it for the money!!!!!!1111!! reeeeee!!!!"
Of course they did it for the money, that's what businesses DO:  They make money.

"$OE wants SWG to fail!!11!!!!! reeee!!!!!!!"
Yup, thats it.  They WANT to LOSE money.  They WANT egg on their faces for a failed MMORPG.  They WANT tons of negative publicity.  They WANT to be beaten severely by countless bloggers and news outlets everywhere. 

"$OE wants SWG to be like WoW!!!11!!!!!11!!! reeee!!!1!!!!!!1"
Yup thats it.  Because WoW has so much fps-ish / twitch-ish combat.  And of course, WoW is the ONLY game to have quests, and quest directed content.  NO other game has that!!!!  There were NEVER any OTHER games before WoW.  WoW is the ONLY MMO out there!!!  /slapself on the forehead.  AO, COH/COV, D&D, DAOC, EQ/EQ2, GW, MxO, UO....Nope, they never had quests.  They never had levels.  They never had directed content.  Only WoW.  Just WoW.  Those other games, man, they don't even exist! 

Do you wackos really believe all this?  That there was some big internal SOE conspiracy to cause arguably THE most recognizable IP to crash and burn?

You want to know what is to blame?

Unreal expectations in a fledgeling genre/medium for such a huge IP. 
The game would and will never be good enough.  Someone, somewhere will find fault.  And that someone will think that SOE is taking a directed swipe at THEM, personally. 

SWG was doomed to failure the minute the contact was signed.

Originally posted by Ransom73

Would it really matter if you had someone to blame?  Would you suddenly resub?

Would it really matter if precu servers were available?  Would you suddenly forget your SOE / LA hate (or $OE as the more creative nutjobs have used) and resub up to play?

Would you really say "Its ok, SOE, we understand" if they came out and said "We're sorry" and go back to playing?

Would it ever really matter?  It's the same 50 people complaining about the same things, over and over again.

"$OE only did it for the money!!!!!!1111!! reeeeee!!!!"
Of course they did it for the money, that's what businesses DO:  They make money.

"$OE wants SWG to fail!!11!!!!! reeee!!!!!!!"
Yup, thats it.  They WANT to LOSE money.  They WANT egg on their faces for a failed MMORPG.  They WANT tons of negative publicity.  They WANT to be beaten severely by countless bloggers and news outlets everywhere. 

"$OE wants SWG to be like WoW!!!11!!!!!11!!! reeee!!!1!!!!!!1"
Yup thats it.  Because WoW has so much fps-ish / twitch-ish combat.  And of course, WoW is the ONLY game to have quests, and quest directed content.  NO other game has that!!!!  There were NEVER any OTHER games before WoW.  WoW is the ONLY MMO out there!!!  /slapself on the forehead.  AO, COH/COV, D&D, DAOC, EQ/EQ2, GW, MxO, UO....Nope, they never had quests.  They never had levels.  They never had directed content.  Only WoW.  Just WoW.  Those other games, man, they don't even exist! 

Do you wackos really believe all this?  That there was some big internal SOE conspiracy to cause arguably THE most recognizable IP to crash and burn?

 

You want to know what is to blame?

Unreal expectations in a fledgeling genre/medium for such a huge IP. 
The game would and will never be good enough.  Someone, somewhere will find fault.  And that someone will think that SOE is taking a directed swipe at THEM, personally. 

SWG was doomed to failure the minute the contact was signed.

Well, when you have petitions with 10,000 people and all the niose we were making them telling them this would fail and everything that has hppened was pretty much told was going to happen, so please dont do this..and they do it anyway..kinda make ya think they wanted it to fail. And as far as WOW goes..it was the SOE developers and management spewing out WOW comments and praise every other word.  They brought WOW into this not us.

Not saying this is correct, but the reasons for people thinking things like this are understandable.

John Smedley

Julio Torres

Jim Ward

Nancy "Reading is Bad" McIntyre

Lord Pall (whom Freeman is throwing under the bus as the true NGE architect, though everyone recalls he himself taking the credit back when he and the rest were full of it thinking NGE ws the greatest thing ever)

Jeff Freeman

The Dork Lord Heliass (true, he was just the moronic stooge who was thrown in to take the spears by the rest)

Grant McDaniel

None of those persons should ever work in gaming, nor should anyone ever buy any game produced that has one of them in the credits.

Originally posted by Wildcat84

John Smedley

Julio Torres

Jim Ward

Nancy "Reading is Bad" McIntyre

Lord Pall (whom Freeman is throwing under the bus as the true NGE architect, though everyone recalls he himself taking the credit back when he and the rest were full of it thinking NGE ws the greatest thing ever)

Jeff Freeman

The Dork Lord Heliass (true, he was just the moronic stooge who was thrown in to take the spears by the rest

Grant McDaniel

None of those persons should ever work in gaming, nor should anyone ever buy any game produced that has one of them in the credits.

Originally posted by DarthOlomew

The Star Wars Galaxies Players:
The SWG players are to blame because at no point in the games history have we collectively been satisfied with ANYTHING.

---

Originally posted by Dundee

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Originally posted by Wildcat84

John Smedley
Julio Torres
Jim Ward
Nancy "Reading is Bad" McIntyre
Lord Pall (whom Freeman is throwing under the bus as the true NGE architect, though everyone recalls he himself taking the credit back when he and the rest were full of it thinking NGE ws the greatest thing ever)
Jeff Freeman
The Dork Lord Heliass (true, he was just the moronic stooge who was thrown in to take the spears by the rest
Grant McDaniel

None of those persons should ever work in gaming, nor should anyone ever buy any game produced that has one of them in the credits.

---

The conviction with which you express your assumptions leads me to think this reply is pointless... but awell. I've been surprised, before.

I have never said Lord Pall was "the NGE" architect. "The NGE" is a lot of changes. I never "took credit" for any of them. I was quite explicit about that.

I've explained as best I could what has lead to the above misunderstanding. I believe you can "list all post by..." and find it, if you want to.

The conviction with which you express your assumptions leads me to think this reply is pointless... but awell. I've been surprised, before.

Players have so much the higher ground in this situation, I don't know why some of you ever feel it necessary to exaggerate to the point of deceit.

---

Every one of those people are to blame because any one of them could have and none of them did, stand up and say "uh, this is a BAD idea guys, if it doesn't go over, we lose almost ALL the players, perhaps something less extreme would be better, and shouldn't we make our customers PARTNERS (not victims) in this?"

Not one of the people on this list showed leadership, despite all being IN positions of leadership.

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE on the forums was screaming "DONT DO THIS" when the NGE was announced. You guys knew then how it was going to go over. Or you should have known.

Which brings me to my point, the reason why I will NEVER buy anything that any of those people are associated with is because they had every opportunity to avoid the NGE disaster, but not one of them bothered to look outside their own groupthink.

Did the game need something at the time the NGE came out? YES.. It certainly did. Even back then people were STILL clamoring for Pre-CU. THAT is what you should have done, taken the CU game and moved it back in a Pre-CU direction.

Instead of listening to the customers you did have you only thought of the customers you didn't have but wanted. And you got what happens every time a service business goes out of it's way to shit on those who only give you money: Disaster and the worst name in the industry. Deservedly so.

Every person I named deserves scorn and disgrace. And they are all getting it.

Deservedly so.

Also, Freeman, if you are still reading this... You guys had PLENTY of evidence to go on as to what the reaction to the NGE would be, just a couple months prior to the NGE when you decided to crush group XP.

In Pub 22, a change was stealthed in, without adequate explanation, which changed grouping for XP from being a benefit, to being a negative.

After less than 24 hours on live, it was retracted after server meldowns, mass cancellations and riots in game and in forum.

The same XP scheme, btw, was put BACK in force with the NGE, btw.

With that kind of reaction to a change in a single game mechanic, you guys had all the evidence in the world that your customers would NOT tolerate the NGE.

You guys should have counted yourselves lucky that you survived the CU and still kept most of your player base intact. Doing the NGE made no logical sense whatsoever if any of the ample evidence of how your players would react was considered.

It wasn't. Simply put, the NGE was designed to replace us with new players from WoW. You figured that by making Jedi free, that and that alone would get you enough subs to make up for the mass exodus. It didn't. Only after you guys figured out that new players were NOT going to be coming did you even BEGIN to offer lip service to your existing players.

To this day the vast majority of the diminished NGE player base are Pre-CU veterans, not post NGE new subscribers.