figured this is best forum for it----copied from swg thread in game play disussion

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 Oh I hear bells , ITs the Good Rumor Man. 

 Nice Post Fikus. Your bug on the wall view of what is happening with SWG:NGE is what I have envisioned this passed week.  Bad enough that this year had me game banned for forum misuse (SOE they say). But the faithful SWG players have their game changed to this kiddie kar version , and SOE thinking that the Vets would just go along with it?   Sad.

 SOE has a sad grasp on customer expectations and now it appears that they are paying royally and dearly for that oversight.  This is a threat to SOE's business  but like all the problems they have there, it was brought on upon themselves. I only hope that in 2006 , LA will provide a year of promise for SWG.

Well that certainly gives a possible explanation for Tigg's rapid booting from the company.

Also its rather ironic that all SOE had to do was leave the basic game alone to retain their customers, instead of constantly changing it and thus alienating them. Now it seems another company is looking to buy the pre-publish 9 version of the game to run. Which bearing in mind the huge number of players who have been constantly clamouring for a return to the pre-cu era, it could turn in to a major money spinner for that company.

Frankly the Dev's of SWG should have been drowned at birth. It makes you wonder if they really are gamers at heart or just soul-less programmers, (bad coders as well at that,) who don't really care about anything but their over inflated pay checks. I would find it funny if they did get fired and applied to Blizzard. Blizzard would laugh at them for having worked on SWG and would likely thank them for sending them even more customers. As thats where all of the SWG players have gone. WoW.

Thankfully though a lot of the server communities are staying together through independant websites regardless of the games they are moving to. Mine included. A great bunch of guys and girls that I value dearly as friends and Im glad to know and have known.

SWG had huge potential and enormous potential staying power simply because of its pre-cu system and the fact that it was a Star Wars product. Sadly SOE didn't realise this and did everything in their power to alienate the clients.

I really really really hope this is all true

 My expectations of SOE have not changed that much since 2000 when I needed my primary  character restored after some bug stripped it of all its items and coinage ( plats at that time) . It took 3 days to restore my avatar and NO time restoration was made .

  Do you think that Blizzad would have handle it the same way nor would you think that Turbine would do the same?  - Hell no. SOE was number 1 and forgot how to stay number 1 - suffer they have and suffer they shall!

Im wondering perhaps if SOE's actions is down to their Japanese parent company. Everyone thinks of Japan as being an honourable place where people never lie, and everyone is respectful towards one another. The reality as I know from years of anime interest and friends who live in Japan is quite different. Lying for example is considered to be perfectly acceptable if a) you won't get caught, or b) you can basically shout your way out of it. (Not argue, but shout.) Japanese companies are more like insect hives than western companies. This is not a bigoted comment, just the best way to describe the ease with which we can understand and explain western companies, and the sheer bizarre and alien going's on in Japanese companies.

Its why Sony has been in and out of the news for years because of its business dealings. Their treatment of George Michael was a great example. As they often consider artists signed to them as being their property rather than the way western companies consider their clients.

Im guessing that Sony HQ gave the orders to SOE and Smedley jumped like the lapdog he is. Basically Japan crapped on Smedley, he crapped on the SWG Producers, the Producers crapped on the dev's, and the dev's crapped on us. All the while Sony in Japan are sitting comfortable knowing that they will have money come in and they can smell flowers all day, without a wiff of crap.

SOE isn't the only company that I've seen treat their customers badly and constantly change things. In fact every company I've seen do that has been a Japanese company or really bad at hiring personnel.

ya in light of the thousands that are dissapointed with losing their game....something like this sounds reasonable, if not likely.  firstly you know you have a winning game in the pre cu starwars, so why wouldn't a company buy it and re release it.  it would be tough for sony to do so as they have lost their customers confidence. 

i'd love to see a company get the pre cu code, take some time to think about some of the problems the pre cu DID have (ie number of jedi was never meant to be as high, and obviously no point to repeat same problem) and release it as a new starwars online title.  watch the players come in droves.....

Any further info from the insider ?

Last thing I heard was that the insider's friend had posted to the SWG official Forums saying that the servers were likely to be shutdown in March, and that a load of the Dev team had been 'let go' (i.e. fired.)

The post stayed up for all of 2 minutes before Garva deleted it, but it was long enough for plenty of people to read it and pass the message on.

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Originally posted by ech0witch
Any further info from the insider ?

Last thing I heard was that the insider's friend had posted to the SWG official Forums saying that the servers were likely to be shutdown in March, and that a load of the Dev team had been 'let go' (i.e. fired.)

The post stayed up for all of 2 minutes before Garva deleted it, but it was long enough for plenty of people to read it and pass the message on.

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There is no insider, the entire thing is BS.