Originally posted by Elikal

I do question however the entire myth behind the NGE, as I said. NGE had some fatal flaws. But the direction was correct. Most vets already had dwindled out of the game. If you could perhaps support this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Be honest here. How many of you REALLY suddenly left when NGE came, and had played regularly until one day before NGE? I have seen it, the constant drop in players. Most of you already were on the move out of the game, and NGE was only like a final nail on the coffin to finally leave. I can only speak for myself and the players and friends that I have spoken with, but I can honestly say that we, as Star Wars fans, were willing to stick through almost anything. We stayed when a buggy, unfinished game was released with little-to-no warning for the Beta testers. We stayed when the "Monthly Story Arcs" ended after 2 months. We stayed after the JtL expansion had been pushed back from 6 months, to 12 months, and finally 15 months post launch. We stayed when Smugglers could never smuggle, and when the word "pokemon" was included in the forums's profanity filter (Because the game had, for a time, become nothing but pet-weilding pokemon masters).

We stayed through the nerfs, the bugs, the lag, the rubberbanding, the poor CSR's, the mythical "Combat Revamp", the broken/bugged quests and quest rewards from the Rage of the Wookies expansion, the "Rangers Revamp" that was promised right up until the NGE, which came just one day after the Trials of Obi-Wan was released, and they tried to say, "Sorry, No refunds!", even though the expansion advertised Profession-specific items that would immediately become useless, once their profession was taken away in just a matter of days.

So, yup... I am one of those many that "suddenly left when the NGE came", especially after the NGE went to test server, with less then 2 weeks before going live, and it was blatantly unfinished, and buggy as all-get-out. Call me crazy, but I refuse to hand over money to beta test their product. Julio Torres admitted they lost more players than they expected, and they had expected to lose a few. And of course, John Smedly was just quoted on the 17th, when talking about Vanguard, "We're not going to go in and make some broad-sweeping changes. We tried that with Star Wars Galaxies, we screwed it up, and we're not going to do it again."

But instead of leave quiet and leave it to a new generation you had to start a war. SWG even today is SO much better than 90% of all the current MMOs out there. Cutting the endless sea of possibilites did hurt, me included. But I dont let my personal loss overshadow my judgement to realize the necessity and reason behind it. They overdid many simplifications, no doubt here. But there was just no choice as the situation was. SWG would not be a single bit in better shape now without the NGE today. I lost my professions, which sucked. But so what? It was a game. Combat was different now, so what? I understand we all have our preferences, but I dont understand ppl who view a game as it were their personal religion. A lot of complains surely were understandable, some justified, but the entire emotional frenzy was and is FAR beyond anything justified and reasonable. Well put... However, I would have to say that our "unjustified and unreasonable" response is simply the predictable,  the inevitable, opposite and equal reaction to their "unjustified and unreasonable" actions.

In the sage words of Will Smith, "Don't start none, won't be none."