I've heard it said, by an SOE dev actually, that one person wasn't solely responsible for the downfall of this MMO.  I'm using downfall as a euphemism btw, the dev described the game as an "epoch grade f*ck up," that is a direct quote btw, apart from the asterisk.  For context sake, he was talking specifically about the NGE.

So what forces were at work leading two giants in the industry down this path of self-destruction? 

-Over-reliance on the StarWars IP.  There seemed to be a belief that people would play a broken game because it was the first and only StarWars MMO on the market.  When WoW came out, and worked much better than SWG, this idea quickly evaporated.  It turns out that people, even hard-core StarWars fans want to play a game that works well.

-The release before quests were complete, before the hyped jedi system was complete, and before profession skills actually worked relates to the first point and led to the subscription bleed that eventually got SOE and LEC's attention.

-The poorly designed and hurried implementation of the jedi profession grind (entire system implemented in two weeks btw according to an SOE dev), complete with holocrons that funnelled people into this flawed system was also a problem.

-People then talk about a strong focus on balancing one on one pvp to the exclusion of fixing other important issues, completing quests, and adding content.

-With subs on the decline, and WoW ascendant, someone then hit the panic button it would seem.  Plans to fix the original game (worked on by devs and player correspondents) were scrapped, and the idea that copying WoW = the key to success seemed to take hold.  Why do I think this?  Well around the time of the Combat Upgrade, marketting ramped up a "this is going to be like a whole new game, and much more like WoW" campaign.  I still have magazines that say just that.  At first glance, and I really want to emphasize that, copying WoW may have seemed like a good idea, so why wasn't it?  Well, people that liked WoW already had the game they wanted.  Why leave the original for a copy?  Secondly, the CU was done on the hurry-up offence plan.  WoW took years to create, the CU only months I'm told, and it showed.  So, why would people that liked WoW leave the original, for a copy that was rushed out in a broken and incomplete state?  Simple answer, they wouldn't and they didn't.  Not only did the CU fail to attract WoW customers, but it also alienated current players by changing or removing aspects of the game that were actually functional and enjoyable.  This is now a category 2 storm at least, but it's not the perfect storm just yet.

-LEC conducts marketting to try to fathom what's going wrong with their MMO.  Friends of mine were excluded from survey research because they were too old they tell me.  So, LEC is not taking a sample of the MMO gaming population as a whole, they're looking for a smaller sub-group.  Hmm, not really a good idea.  Then we find out that focus groups exclude all current players of the game.  So, if you're too old (whatever that means) or if you currently play the game, your feedback about the game is tossed out, completely.  Now this is a recipe for disaster, and the winds pick up speed significantly.  LEC is painfully aware that SWG is failing, and they demand action.

-Action they get, but if you look above at the marketting research, it was very, very poorly informed.  Apparently the copy WoW assumption was still rooted in SOE's corporate belief system, because now they want to copy WoW's 9 profession system, and copy specific elements of their UI.  They also want to chuck out the player economy in favour of a more WoW based kill, loot, repeat system.  Copying WoW wasn't enough though, they also apparently looked at other game successes at the time and focused their attention on StarWars Battlefront.  I believe at the time, it was the most popular StarWars game in history.  Surely putting elements of WoW and Battlefront into the game would be an instant success, and the poorly designed focus groups (see above) seemed to confirm this.  We can switch analogies now if you like, because I think I've just spotted an iceberg dead ahead. (Oh btw, for evidence of copying Battlefront, all you need to do is look at the hastily implemented fps combat, that also now included quick Battlefront like kills, and even the reloading animation from Battlefront that never had any business being in SWG, and was quickly removed.)

-SOE and LEC market a new expansion for the CU version of the game, and current players are very enthusiastic.  They also market much needed profession revamps and manage to actually deliver on one.  So what's wrong with that?  Well the NGE (WoW and Battlefront copy) is being developed secretly, and it will gut the new expansion and delete all the professions that were just promised revamps.  Not only that, but this game revamp was done in between 2-3 months only, making it the most rushed, poorly tested, and broken version of the game to date.  If current players were bothered with the CU changes, they were literally outraged by the NGE.  Most if not all of their professions were gone, along with their skills and animations, ingame quest progress and all of their pets.  All core game systems were plagued with serious bugs.  As the dev quoted above said, it truly was an epoch grade f*ckup.  The new tutorial was bugged and caused people to be stuck in it, and the new "respec gift" added into the game to mollify current players was bugged and stripped them of all their levels; hard to believe, but true.

-I do believe we've hit ice.  The great ship that was SWG had a massive hull breach, and the passengers were heading for the life rafts apparently by the tens of thousands.

-In the aftermath of the disaster, steps could have been taken to try to save the ship, but they weren't.  An honest acknowledgement of serious error, and a quick rollback may (though this was by no means a guarantee at this point) have retained some of the players, but SOE and LEC dug their heals in.  They also began their "the game is better and the feedback is almost entirely positive" campaign of what can at this point only be seen for what it was, outright deception.  I don't know if they were deceiving themselves or just their customers, but the game was by no means in better shape, and the mass cancellations and hundreds if not thousands of letters and posts certainly should have alerted them to the fact that they just made a very serious mistake.

-Instead of admitting the reality of the situation though, SOE began a campaign of trying to make the feedback look the way they wanted it to.  Game reviews in magazines were openly critical of players, telling people not to listen to the hardcore whiners.  We were told that the NGE was more "elegant," and feedback to the contrary was being deleted from the forums almost as fast as it could be typed.  If players hadn't already left from feeling mistreated, many more left now.  In fact, Smed had just posted his open letter to the community inviting feedback.  The problem was, when you gave it, you got it deleted, and you may even have been banned, even if your post was respectful and constructive.  If it didn't match the positive marketting spin, you were about to get pushed aside.

-Attempts to mollify critics and current players have had SOE promise to fix things like collision detection (now a real problem in a game set up to work like a first person shooter), and promise to fast track server mergers.  Smed himself said this to players at face to face summits, and he was quoted as such on the forums.  But, it never happened.  Critics were certainly not silenced or mollified with positive spin, deletions, bans, and more broken promises.

The dev I quoted said that things failed on all levels: "It was a misread at an organizational level. Marketing, Production, community. You name it."  (Dan Rubenfield btw)  I have to tell you that his blog was extremely hostile to players, and very defensive, and I really disliked it for those reasons.  At the same time, there are glimmers of confession in it that certainly indicate that the damage done to SWG was indeed the result of a number of factors that, combined together, made for the perfect storm.  

 Another SOE dev (Jeff Freeman btw) said that if you want to focus on someone to hold responsible, well you should look to the CEO's of both companies.  After all, they make the final decisions.  I think this is true at the end of the day.   However, I also think it may be helpful for future MMO developers to look at all the factors that led the CEOs (or ship's captains, metaphorically) to make the bad decisions that led to the decline of this game that had so much potential.

Pure greed. They wanted a chunk of that WoW Pie.  Well we made them eat it alright. 

Great summary using the known information Arc. Thanks for taking the time to put that together for us..was a good read.

Incredible read Arch!

 You should have posted on the pub board because even if the pack of sick rabid dogs that may try to take a bite out of it , it would be tough for them bitehold on your sound logic in your well constructed post.

Arc, yet another great post.

It would be interesting to live in a universe where there is no WoW for SOE to emulate in a desperate attempt to satisfy LEC's insatiable greed.  What would SOE have done to fix the problems of SWG if they didn't have WoW to blame/copy?

Two things happened here: SWG was not living up to the expectations of LEC before WoW came along, as far as numbers...they wanted their IP to break the million barrier first.  SOE of course was challenged by Blizzard as a publisher across the board, and it was for the primary reason that Blizzard puts out games that sell; SOE sells games.  Blizzard strives to publish a finished game; SOE strives to sell units and if a finished game is the product it's a pleasant happenstance, not done so by design.

If SOE hadn't kicked Koster out of the way (at the behest of LEC, I suspect, who didn't like his design because it wasnt Jedi Knight Online) how would the game's early release flaws been dealt with in the first year?  No doubt there would be some nerfing (lord knows that the evil CH prof was nerfed early and often even under Koster) but would the entire wholesale catering to PvP duelists in the name of "balance" have happened?

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. If they have stayed on course with the CURB, then perhaps this game would have been the success it should have been.

LEC and SOE is a match made in hell.

WHAT A BUNCH OF IDIOTS

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

I've heard it said, by an SOE dev actually, that one person wasn't solely responsible for the downfall of this MMO.  I'm using downfall as a euphemism btw, the dev described the game as an "epoch grade f*ck up," that is a direct quote btw, apart from the asterisk.  For context sake, he was talking specifically about the NGE.

So what forces were at work leading two giants in the industry down this path of self-destruction? 

-Over-reliance on the StarWars IP.  There seemed to be a belief that people would play a broken game because it was the first and only StarWars MMO on the market.  When WoW came out, and worked much better than SWG, this idea quickly evaporated.  It turns out that people, even hard-core StarWars fans want to play a game that works well.

-The release before quests were complete, before the hyped jedi system was complete, and before profession skills actually worked relates to the first point and led to the subscription bleed that eventually got SOE and LEC's attention.

-The poorly designed and hurried implementation of the jedi profession grind (entire system implemented in two weeks btw according to an SOE dev), complete with holocrons that funnelled people into this flawed system was also a problem.

-People then talk about a strong focus on balancing one on one pvp to the exclusion of fixing other important issues, completing quests, and adding content.

-With subs on the decline, and WoW ascendant, someone then hit the panic button it would seem.  Plans to fix the original game (worked on by devs and player correspondents) were scrapped, and the idea that copying WoW = the key to success seemed to take hold.  Why do I think this?  Well around the time of the Combat Upgrade, marketting ramped up a "this is going to be like a whole new game, and much more like WoW" campaign.  I still have magazines that say just that.  At first glance, and I really want to emphasize that, copying WoW may have seemed like a good idea, so why wasn't it?  Well, people that liked WoW already had the game they wanted.  Why leave the original for a copy?  Secondly, the CU was done on the hurry-up offence plan.  WoW took years to create, the CU only months I'm told, and it showed.  So, why would people that liked WoW leave the original, for a copy that was rushed out in a broken and incomplete state?  Simple answer, they wouldn't and they didn't.  Not only did the CU fail to attract WoW customers, but it also alienated current players by changing or removing aspects of the game that were actually functional and enjoyable.  This is now a category 2 storm at least, but it's not the perfect storm just yet.

-LEC conducts marketting to try to fathom what's going wrong with their MMO.  Friends of mine were excluded from survey research because they were too old they tell me.  So, LEC is not taking a sample of the MMO gaming population as a whole, they're looking for a smaller sub-group.  Hmm, not really a good idea.  Then we find out that focus groups exclude all current players of the game.  So, if you're too old (whatever that means) or if you currently play the game, your feedback about the game is tossed out, completely.  Now this is a recipe for disaster, and the winds pick up speed significantly.  LEC is painfully aware that SWG is failing, and they demand action.

-Action they get, but if you look above at the marketting research, it was very, very poorly informed.  Apparently the copy WoW assumption was still rooted in SOE's corporate belief system, because now they want to copy WoW's 9 profession system, and copy specific elements of their UI.  They also want to chuck out the player economy in favour of a more WoW based kill, loot, repeat system.  Copying WoW wasn't enough though, they also apparently looked at other game successes at the time and focused their attention on StarWars Battlefront.  I believe at the time, it was the most popular StarWars game in history.  Surely putting elements of WoW and Battlefront into the game would be an instant success, and the poorly designed focus groups (see above) seemed to confirm this.  We can switch analogies now if you like, because I think I've just spotted an iceberg dead ahead. (Oh btw, for evidence of copying Battlefront, all you need to do is look at the hastily implemented fps combat, that also now included quick Battlefront like kills, and even the reloading animation from Battlefront that never had any business being in SWG, and was quickly removed.)

-SOE and LEC market a new expansion for the CU version of the game, and current players are very enthusiastic.  They also market much needed profession revamps and manage to actually deliver on one.  So what's wrong with that?  Well the NGE (WoW and Battlefront copy) is being developed secretly, and it will gut the new expansion and delete all the professions that were just promised revamps.  Not only that, but this game revamp was done in between 2-3 months only, making it the most rushed, poorly tested, and broken version of the game to date.  If current players were bothered with the CU changes, they were literally outraged by the NGE.  Most if not all of their professions were gone, along with their skills and animations, ingame quest progress and all of their pets.  All core game systems were plagued with serious bugs.  As the dev quoted above said, it truly was an epoch grade f*ckup.  The new tutorial was bugged and caused people to be stuck in it, and the new "respec gift" added into the game to mollify current players was bugged and stripped them of all their levels; hard to believe, but true.

-I do believe we've hit ice.  The great ship that was SWG had a massive hull breach, and the passengers were heading for the life rafts apparently by the tens of thousands.

-In the aftermath of the disaster, steps could have been taken to try to save the ship, but they weren't.  An honest acknowledgement of serious error, and a quick rollback may (though this was by no means a guarantee at this point) have retained some of the players, but SOE and LEC dug their heals in.  They also began their "the game is better and the feedback is almost entirely positive" campaign of what can at this point only be seen for what it was, outright deception.  I don't know if they were deceiving themselves or just their customers, but the game was by no means in better shape, and the mass cancellations and hundreds if not thousands of letters and posts certainly should have alerted them to the fact that they just made a very serious mistake.

-Instead of admitting the reality of the situation though, SOE began a campaign of trying to make the feedback look the way they wanted it to.  Game reviews in magazines were openly critical of players, telling people not to listen to the hardcore whiners.  We were told that the NGE was more "elegant," and feedback to the contrary was being deleted from the forums almost as fast as it could be typed.  If players hadn't already left from feeling mistreated, many more left now.  In fact, Smed had just posted his open letter to the community inviting feedback.  The problem was, when you gave it, you got it deleted, and you may even have been banned, even if your post was respectful and constructive.  If it didn't match the positive marketting spin, you were about to get pushed aside.

-Attempts to mollify critics and current players have had SOE promise to fix things like collision detection (now a real problem in a game set up to work like a first person shooter), and promise to fast track server mergers.  Smed himself said this to players at face to face summits, and he was quoted as such on the forums.  But, it never happened.  Critics were certainly not silenced or mollified with positive spin, deletions, bans, and more broken promises.

The dev I quoted said that things failed on all levels: "It was a misread at an organizational level. Marketing, Production, community. You name it."  (Dan Rubenfield btw)  I have to tell you that his blog was extremely hostile to players, and very defensive, and I really disliked it for those reasons.  At the same time, there are glimmers of confession in it that certainly indicate that the damage done to SWG was indeed the result of a number of factors that, combined together, made for the perfect storm.  

 Another SOE dev (Jeff Freeman btw) said that if you want to focus on someone to hold responsible, well you should look to the CEO's of both companies.  After all, they make the final decisions.  I think this is true at the end of the day.   However, I also think it may be helpful for future MMO developers to look at all the factors that led the CEOs (or ship's captains, metaphorically) to make the bad decisions that led to the decline of this game that had so much potential.

 

Then there's the rest of the story.

After the NGE, the "ship" is taking on water, listing to 1 side, life boats are being maned, and SOE/LA  wonders at the sight of the unsinkable SWG.  Almost 2 years go by with some patches placed on the smaller of the hull breaches.  Meanwhile, the winds and the waves continue to beat at the badly listing hull.  A few attempts are made to save the badly sinking ship.  (C1 - 5) Some of them prolong the agony with a few additions to the player base.  (At the launch of C6, Smed released info they had 100K subs)

A new Captain is flown in and thrown from a slow moving aircraft into the turbid waters, now rank with oil and hydralic fluids.  A new 1st mate is quickly promoted from the ranks, who cut his teeth on the maiden voyage and gained his legs from the course CHANGES of before on this ill fated voyage.  Deadmeat and Blixtev are now at the helm with a new plan to upright the ship.  A long term plan is made (a 1 year development plan), and quickly put into play not realizing the CHANGES of cource, in the dark, previously discussed were what caused the direct hit on the iceburg.   The engines were repaired to a limping state, fired up and the ship slowly starts moving.  Instead of a direct reverse of course, and relative safety, the plan is made to turn somewhat to the right, heading further North.  Speed, about 2 knots but moving again, still badly listing to starboard.

C6CD was launched, along with Beast Master.  They thought they had the plates against the inside of the hull looking for the player base that left for the preceeding CHANGES.  Again the existing passengers baulked, making over 2000 posts for the captain and 1st mate to reverse cource.  Threads were deleted as fast as they could be put on the gameplay section of the forums.  SOE had complete experience with this now and yet another order to silence the masses came from corporate headquarters.  Free vets trials were launched, 1 after another but most of the people who abandoned ship refused to board again.  A good percentage of the small amount of passengers that "braved" the weather, ran directly to the life boats during the next years cource CHANGES.  Leaving the ship's waterline even further in the drink.

At the end of this year of further course CHANGES, the Captain is promoted, rescued via a coast guard helicopter and given command of the Navy.  (DM promoted to oversee all of SOE Austin).  The 1st mate (Blixtev) grabs the helm and quickly makes another direct turn north, going side swell against the wind.  (GU-whatever), the ship founders, exudes the sounds of breaking steel, the broken engines finally go quiet and most of who is left are now going over the side.  Some of the passengers refuse to leave whats left of the ship for the cold, cold waters.  The bow begins to sink faster and faster until the ship now stands directly on end and hovers there for what seems like an eternity.

And that's about where it is today.  Frozen in time, waiting for the plunge.  Another 2% of the GCW numbers bit the dust this week compared to where it was before the last free vet trial month.

Speaks volumes on how a good sized or larger company can view its customers.

SOE was willing to forsake the CURRENT PAYING playerbase it had to go for a different, hopefully larger set of players.

They knew the changes would drive off many then-current players.  They still went ahead and did it.

Originally posted by Esquire1980

 (At the launch of C6, Smed released info they had 100K subs)

That was "active subscriptions".  Those include everyone who ever tried SWG and still had an existing Station Pass account, along with anyone who had an active 14 day new player trial, and any former player who had free gameplay at the time.

Originally posted by Obee

Originally posted by Esquire1980

 (At the launch of C6, Smed released info they had 100K subs)

 

That was "active subscriptions".  Those include everyone who ever tried SWG and still had an existing Station Pass account, along with anyone who had an active 14 day new player trial, and any former player who had free gameplay at the time.

 

 

Yeah.  They did pick up a few subs, mostly new players, around C5.  C5 was also the most on the "new" forums logging in at once also.  A little over 15K, I think the record was.  People pointed out that the fallen forum number was around 2K with the outrage over C6CD.  Then SOE started playing with those numbers  (2000 logged on and 49000 guests) to make the record that stands today.

I think they did pick up "a few" at C5 to make the 100K spin number.  Now, with a thread over there trying to estimate the numbers, the consensus seemed to be somewhere between 10K to 30K active players.  No where near even the 100K "Spin" number that Smed tryed to put out there.

I gave em the benefit of the doubt.

Thank you for the great read.

The NGE fiasco should serve as a case study example for present and future companies so that this utter mismanagement and complete disregard for customers does not take place again.

I would add in two items for the original post:

- The WoW Factor is Not an Exception:  (Though mentioned in the post and in some others in this thread, it hasn't been really made into its bullet.)  The WoW Factor is a MMO having millions of subscribers, something which was believe to not be possible.  Rather than treating WoW as an Exception, the duplication of WoW's success has been considered the Goal.  Unfortunately, just as with Movies and TV shows, clones of the original success do not perform well; usually only the first clone does well with others getting the axe. 

Since WoW was a fantasy title, surely Star Wars, the largest Sci-Fi franchise could do the same or at least break the one million barrier.  And so the plan was set in motion to re-vision SWG to bring millions of new customers, even if it meant loosing the existing couple of hundred thousands.  Unfortunately for them, the gamble failed as has happened to other MMO's seeking to do the same as WoW's performance.

- Focus Groups are groups we made, of people telling us what we want to hear:  Focus Groups will provide feedback that may very well go against the plan, even purpose killing it.  However, the feedback of Focus Groups can be manipulated, with questions worded in a certain manner (biasing) or the survey being very specific without room for comments.  Essentially the groups become controlled, and the answer made favorable to the initiator of the project.

(Personally I would like to know who were the people in the original focus groups who wanted bare handed martial artists.  WTH is a Teras Kasi?  Never heard of 'em except for a failed playstation game title).

Originally posted by JestorRodo

Incredible read Arch!

 You should have posted on the pub board because even if the pack of sick rabid dogs that may try to take a bite out of it , it would be tough for them bitehold on your sound logic in your well constructed post.

Well not nearly as entertaining as your productions lol, but I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Thx for the feedback all.  I could also add as an important factor the talent bleed from SOE.  As the game struggled and management began to employ questionable recovery strategies, they lost some good people.  We know that some key staff left SOE, and at least one was transferred off of the game by request because of ethical concerns regarding the NGE.  Without key staff with expertise in the field, and with the SWG code specifically, it would be that much harder to keep the service viable. 

I could also add in the ongoing hostility shown to current and former players of the game that stand up for themselves and say simple things like, "please provide us with the service you advertised," or "please fix the problems you said you would fix."  Even now there is a new thread with posts from SOE defenders accusing such players of thinking they are god, and making unreasonable demands of poor SOE.  Such hostility and defensiveness have been common throughout this game's history, and they don't make for an appealing online community experience.  

On the other hand, I just spent time online and in rl today shooting the breeze with friends that play WoW and CoH.  No hostility, no defensiveness, no insults, no stress.  Just talking about online adventures and the good friends we've met through our virtual experiences.  There is life after SWG, and there are other MMOs that most definitely follow a different philosophy regarding how to treat their customers.

Originally posted by Esquire1980

Originally posted by ArcAngel3

I've heard it said, by an SOE dev actually, that one person wasn't solely responsible for the downfall of this MMO.  I'm using downfall as a euphemism btw, the dev described the game as an "epoch grade f*ck up," that is a direct quote btw, apart from the asterisk.  For context sake, he was talking specifically about the NGE.

So what forces were at work leading two giants in the industry down this path of self-destruction? 

-Over-reliance on the StarWars IP.  There seemed to be a belief that people would play a broken game because it was the first and only StarWars MMO on the market.  When WoW came out, and worked much better than SWG, this idea quickly evaporated.  It turns out that people, even hard-core StarWars fans want to play a game that works well.

-The release before quests were complete, before the hyped jedi system was complete, and before profession skills actually worked relates to the first point and led to the subscription bleed that eventually got SOE and LEC's attention.

-The poorly designed and hurried implementation of the jedi profession grind (entire system implemented in two weeks btw according to an SOE dev), complete with holocrons that funnelled people into this flawed system was also a problem.

-People then talk about a strong focus on balancing one on one pvp to the exclusion of fixing other important issues, completing quests, and adding content.

-With subs on the decline, and WoW ascendant, someone then hit the panic button it would seem.  Plans to fix the original game (worked on by devs and player correspondents) were scrapped, and the idea that copying WoW = the key to success seemed to take hold.  Why do I think this?  Well around the time of the Combat Upgrade, marketting ramped up a "this is going to be like a whole new game, and much more like WoW" campaign.  I still have magazines that say just that.  At first glance, and I really want to emphasize that, copying WoW may have seemed like a good idea, so why wasn't it?  Well, people that liked WoW already had the game they wanted.  Why leave the original for a copy?  Secondly, the CU was done on the hurry-up offence plan.  WoW took years to create, the CU only months I'm told, and it showed.  So, why would people that liked WoW leave the original, for a copy that was rushed out in a broken and incomplete state?  Simple answer, they wouldn't and they didn't.  Not only did the CU fail to attract WoW customers, but it also alienated current players by changing or removing aspects of the game that were actually functional and enjoyable.  This is now a category 2 storm at least, but it's not the perfect storm just yet.

-LEC conducts marketting to try to fathom what's going wrong with their MMO.  Friends of mine were excluded from survey research because they were too old they tell me.  So, LEC is not taking a sample of the MMO gaming population as a whole, they're looking for a smaller sub-group.  Hmm, not really a good idea.  Then we find out that focus groups exclude all current players of the game.  So, if you're too old (whatever that means) or if you currently play the game, your feedback about the game is tossed out, completely.  Now this is a recipe for disaster, and the winds pick up speed significantly.  LEC is painfully aware that SWG is failing, and they demand action.

-Action they get, but if you look above at the marketting research, it was very, very poorly informed.  Apparently the copy WoW assumption was still rooted in SOE's corporate belief system, because now they want to copy WoW's 9 profession system, and copy specific elements of their UI.  They also want to chuck out the player economy in favour of a more WoW based kill, loot, repeat system.  Copying WoW wasn't enough though, they also apparently looked at other game successes at the time and focused their attention on StarWars Battlefront.  I believe at the time, it was the most popular StarWars game in history.  Surely putting elements of WoW and Battlefront into the game would be an instant success, and the poorly designed focus groups (see above) seemed to confirm this.  We can switch analogies now if you like, because I think I've just spotted an iceberg dead ahead. (Oh btw, for evidence of copying Battlefront, all you need to do is look at the hastily implemented fps combat, that also now included quick Battlefront like kills, and even the reloading animation from Battlefront that never had any business being in SWG, and was quickly removed.)

-SOE and LEC market a new expansion for the CU version of the game, and current players are very enthusiastic.  They also market much needed profession revamps and manage to actually deliver on one.  So what's wrong with that?  Well the NGE (WoW and Battlefront copy) is being developed secretly, and it will gut the new expansion and delete all the professions that were just promised revamps.  Not only that, but this game revamp was done in between 2-3 months only, making it the most rushed, poorly tested, and broken version of the game to date.  If current players were bothered with the CU changes, they were literally outraged by the NGE.  Most if not all of their professions were gone, along with their skills and animations, ingame quest progress and all of their pets.  All core game systems were plagued with serious bugs.  As the dev quoted above said, it truly was an epoch grade f*ckup.  The new tutorial was bugged and caused people to be stuck in it, and the new "respec gift" added into the game to mollify current players was bugged and stripped them of all their levels; hard to believe, but true.

-I do believe we've hit ice.  The great ship that was SWG had a massive hull breach, and the passengers were heading for the life rafts apparently by the tens of thousands.

-In the aftermath of the disaster, steps could have been taken to try to save the ship, but they weren't.  An honest acknowledgement of serious error, and a quick rollback may (though this was by no means a guarantee at this point) have retained some of the players, but SOE and LEC dug their heals in.  They also began their "the game is better and the feedback is almost entirely positive" campaign of what can at this point only be seen for what it was, outright deception.  I don't know if they were deceiving themselves or just their customers, but the game was by no means in better shape, and the mass cancellations and hundreds if not thousands of letters and posts certainly should have alerted them to the fact that they just made a very serious mistake.

-Instead of admitting the reality of the situation though, SOE began a campaign of trying to make the feedback look the way they wanted it to.  Game reviews in magazines were openly critical of players, telling people not to listen to the hardcore whiners.  We were told that the NGE was more "elegant," and feedback to the contrary was being deleted from the forums almost as fast as it could be typed.  If players hadn't already left from feeling mistreated, many more left now.  In fact, Smed had just posted his open letter to the community inviting feedback.  The problem was, when you gave it, you got it deleted, and you may even have been banned, even if your post was respectful and constructive.  If it didn't match the positive marketting spin, you were about to get pushed aside.

-Attempts to mollify critics and current players have had SOE promise to fix things like collision detection (now a real problem in a game set up to work like a first person shooter), and promise to fast track server mergers.  Smed himself said this to players at face to face summits, and he was quoted as such on the forums.  But, it never happened.  Critics were certainly not silenced or mollified with positive spin, deletions, bans, and more broken promises.

The dev I quoted said that things failed on all levels: "It was a misread at an organizational level. Marketing, Production, community. You name it."  (Dan Rubenfield btw)  I have to tell you that his blog was extremely hostile to players, and very defensive, and I really disliked it for those reasons.  At the same time, there are glimmers of confession in it that certainly indicate that the damage done to SWG was indeed the result of a number of factors that, combined together, made for the perfect storm.  

 Another SOE dev (Jeff Freeman btw) said that if you want to focus on someone to hold responsible, well you should look to the CEO's of both companies.  After all, they make the final decisions.  I think this is true at the end of the day.   However, I also think it may be helpful for future MMO developers to look at all the factors that led the CEOs (or ship's captains, metaphorically) to make the bad decisions that led to the decline of this game that had so much potential.

 

 

Then there's the rest of the story.

After the NGE, the "ship" is taking on water, listing to 1 side, life boats are being maned, and SOE/LA  wonders at the sight of the unsinkable SWG.  Almost 2 years go by with some patches placed on the smaller of the hull breaches.  Meanwhile, the winds and the waves continue to beat at the badly listing hull.  A few attempts are made to save the badly sinking ship.  (C1 - 5) Some of them prolong the agony with a few additions to the player base.  (At the launch of C6, Smed released info they had 100K subs)

A new Captain is flown in and thrown from a slow moving aircraft into the turbid waters, now rank with oil and hydralic fluids.  A new 1st mate is quickly promoted from the ranks, who cut his teeth on the maiden voyage and gained his legs from the course CHANGES of before on this ill fated voyage.  Deadmeat and Blixtev are now at the helm with a new plan to upright the ship.  A long term plan is made (a 1 year development plan), and quickly put into play not realizing the CHANGES of cource, in the dark, previously discussed were what caused the direct hit on the iceburg.   The engines were repaired to a limping state, fired up and the ship slowly starts moving.  Instead of a direct reverse of course, and relative safety, the plan is made to turn somewhat to the right, heading further North.  Speed, about 2 knots but moving again, still badly listing to starboard.

C6CD was launched, along with Beast Master.  They thought they had the plates against the inside of the hull looking for the player base that left for the preceeding CHANGES.  Again the existing passengers baulked, making over 2000 posts for the captain and 1st mate to reverse cource.  Threads were deleted as fast as they could be put on the gameplay section of the forums.  SOE had complete experience with this now and yet another order to silence the masses came from corporate headquarters.  Free vets trials were launched, 1 after another but most of the people who abandoned ship refused to board again.  A good percentage of the small amount of passengers that "braved" the weather, ran directly to the life boats during the next years cource CHANGES.  Leaving the ship's waterline even further in the drink.

At the end of this year of further course CHANGES, the Captain is promoted, rescued via a coast guard helicopter and given command of the Navy.  (DM promoted to oversee all of SOE Austin).  The 1st mate (Blixtev) grabs the helm and quickly makes another direct turn north, going side swell against the wind.  (GU-whatever), the ship founders, exudes the sounds of breaking steel, the broken engines finally go quiet and most of who is left are now going over the side.  Some of the passengers refuse to leave whats left of the ship for the cold, cold waters.  The bow begins to sink faster and faster until the ship now stands directly on end and hovers there for what seems like an eternity.

And that's about where it is today.  Frozen in time, waiting for the plunge.  Another 2% of the GCW numbers bit the dust this week compared to where it was before the last free vet trial month.

 

Nice read, gentlemen! Linked!  http://fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/09/perfect-storm-factors-leading-to.html

lol, Thanks Fisher

Originally posted by Esquire1980

lol, Thanks Fisher

Gotta keep the fires burning!