2006 MMOWTF Award Winners
Dan Foriter returns this week with his MMOWTF column. Last Week, Dan asked for your votes for the worst of 2006. This week, he gives you the winners.
Editorial By Dan Fortier on December 19, 2006
2006 MMOWTF AWARD WINNERS
Dan Fortier returns this week to hand out his own awards for the Best of the Worst.
Editor's Note: This is an edition of a weekly column by Staff Writer Dan Fortier. The column is called "MMOWTF" and will look at some of the stranger or more frustrating events in MMOs as seen by Mr. Fotier. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of MMORPG.com, its staff or management.
Welcome back to the 2006 MMOWTF Awards. Despite threats and plummeting approval ratings, I’m still your host for this weekly jaunt into forbidden territory. This week, we tally up all the votes that you placed and give out some punk cards to the losers in each category. I painstakingly counted each and every post/ballot and finished a mere couple of hours before the forums were the victim of a database failure. Each of the categories will show the game you voted for followed by my choice. Now without further ado, let’s see how you voted:
WORST GRAPHICS:
DARK AND LIGHT
With a healthy 38% of the votes, Dark and Light won by a decent margin over the runner ups Roma Victor (21%) and World of Warcraft (8%). This game met all of my requirements for truly awful graphics with its melted wax hills and mountains, horrible avatars and poorly placed structures. Congrats DnL, I hope we never see your like again.
MY PICK: ROMA VICTOR
There are so many choices here that it’s hard to select one from the bunch. Narrowing it down the games that are 3D and that look bad even on their released screen shots makes it a bit easier. I’d have to say that Roma Victor is the worst simply because it is brand new and looks equally as bad even on the highest settings. Et tu RedBedlam?
LEAST FUN:
STAR WARS GALAXIES
Star Wars has no trouble beating out the other games nominated in this field taking 37% of the votes when compared to Dark and Light (16%) and RF Online (11%). Obviously our voters are still a tad bit upset over the giant overhaul of the combat and class system last year. It is more fun than picking the fleas off a Wookie or potty-training an Ewok? Who knows, but I’m not in hurry to experience any of the three anytime soon.
MY PICK: DARK AND LIGHT
How much fun can you have in a game that crashes every ten minutes, has ridiculously poor design, and game breaking bugs? Not much, if any, I assure you. Why not hop on a Dragon and soar through the sky? Make sure to avoid looking at the ground if you enjoy getting more than 10 FPS. Take a hot air balloon ride across the massive landscape? If you do then everyone within 2 km will crash out as soon as you hop aboard only to be told they are already logged in when they try and restart! I wouldn’t recommend this ‘game’ even to a masochist.
MOST DESOLATE:
STAR WARS GALAXIES
Once again, the majority spoke and gave SWG another dubious award gaining 51% of the votes for this category. Coming in at second place was Dark and Light (23%) followed by Dark Age of Camelot (9%) at a distant third. In my introduction to the voting last week I suggested giving preference to game whose population had dropped rapidly rather than a game that never had the big numbers so I’m not too surprised at this outcome. Maybe by this time next year, everyone will be over it, or playing a new Star Wars game.
MY PICK: DARK AGE OF CAMELOT
It’s truly a sad state of affairs when even the mighty zerg army of Albion is reduced to a couple eight man groups in peak hours. While it never quite had the numbers the SWG enjoyed its demise is more significant to me because it represents the downfall of one of the best PvP games in the last ten years. All good things must come to an end though, so out with old and in with the new.
WORST USE OF A POPULAR IP OR LICENSE:
STAR WARS GALAXIES
Seeing a trend here? With 63% of the votes, Star Wars beat out Dungeons and Dragons Online (37%) and The Matrix Online (4%) for the worst of the MMOG conversions. I’m pretty sure that no permanent damage was done to the franchise, but for most of the voters SWG betrayed the original concept of the movie, much like the newest Trilogy did. DDO has fallen pretty far from last year when it won “Most Anticipated for 2006”. Shows how much you can trust award votes.
MY PICK: DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS ONLINE
This was a tough call since I was torn between DDO and Lord of the Rings. Being an old PnP gamer who still keeps 1st edition books I was appalled at the shallow gameplay and simplistic mechanics which are totally at odd with the flavor of the AD&D system. Why pay monthly for a poor mans’s Guild Wars when you can just log on to a NWN Persistent World for free and get better Modules to boot?
MOST SHAMELESS DEVELOPER:
SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT
With a staggering 77% of the votes SOE won in a blowout and the next closest was Dark and Light’s very own NP Cube (16%) and Turbine (3%). What can you say? When the gibbering hordes have spoken all you can do it stand aside and watch them play ‘Pin the Punk Card’. Keep your chin up Sony, at least the PS3 works great right?
MY PICK: NP CUBE
Sony may have their enemies, but for me I have to give the nod in this category to the guys from Reunion Island. Without comparing lies, mismanagement, and audience alienation stories, I can safely say that NP Cube has done more than anyone else to damage to the reputation of small time Devs everywhere and when you hurt the folks with little pockets it means a lot more in my book. Plan on dropping that NDA sometime guys?
MOST LIKELY TO BE CANCELLED IN 2007:
STAR WARS GALAXIES
Star Wars wins its fourth award tonight in a close fought battle of bargain-bin hopefuls taking 29% of the votes edging out it’s faithful runner up Dark and Light (17%) and Archlord (15%). The voters continued to vent their rage on their favorite meat puppet and SWG beat out other games on the chopping block with less than a tenth of their subscribers. I can only hope that by the time next year’s awards roll around we won’t have to look at any of the games that received votes here.
MY PICK: AUTO ASSAULT
How much longer can you go on with a handful of subscriptions and server merges before you call it quits? NetDevil may just choose to skate along on the razor edge of profit margin, but MMOs are only worth running if you love your own game. I don’t think any amount of extra work can turn this title into a money maker however.
BIGGEST STINKER:
STAR WARS GALAXIES
For some reason space opera games seem to win all the awards, good or bad here. Once again, Star Wars crapped its way past the competition gaining 40% of the overall votes. In a close second Dark and Light claimed 29% followed by Dungeons and Dragons Online (10%). This year the old school Pre-CU/NGE gangstas came out in ‘force’ and sent a message. Are they just Rebel scum without a cause? Will something good ever come of this franchise? Will I ever stop causing trouble by provoking die-hard fans? Difficult to answer, these questions are...uncertain the future is.
MY PICK: DARK AND LIGHT
Once again I’m in the minority here, but as far as I’m concerned this is the worst game top to bottom that I’ve ever had the displeasure to play. When this title is gone the MMO world will be a better place. When you have to hire an exorcist to uninstall something from your computer you’ll truly feel my pain.
Well, there you have it. After all is said and done we still aren’t any closer to original, fun and engaging titles than we were last year. Let’s all wish upon a star that 2007 brings me a reason to stop these Awards all together. When you’re done washing out your drool cup I’ll be waiting for your comments in the Forums. Till next time.
No surpirse - The members have no love for SWG. When it first came out I had no qualms with it, as everyone else.
I had no idea it was loathed that much though..
The devs still owe me money for the month i paid without even getting into the game.
I pretty much gave up after the 6th letter i sent them..
I managed at least to cancel the subscription .
I miss early SWG too. /sniff
(warning - not all of the above is metaphorically accurate)
What was that about Lord of the Rings? This game isn't released yet, why should that end up on your list?
Thanks for insulting us and blaming us for their major mistake.
<sighs> I missed the voting.
Well, I have to agree, there's definetly a bunch of stinkers in the bunch. The two points I would offer are these though. DAoC is not and never was a bad game, the PvE was not inspiring, but it was always about the PVP which simply was the best that I've ever experienced. That said, I agree that the game is dying hard and has been for some time. Trials of Atlantis, while not nearly as bad as NGE in SWG, really did that game in and lost Mythic a lot of following. The other point is that SWG was really a good game in it's old form. The CU wasn't that bad, but the NGE was stupidity of epic proportions. The part of that stupidity that makes it worse is that the game had fans, they made changes, the game lost fans, and they, for some strange reason, seem to want to KEEP their changes, LOL. Good riddance SWG, the game deserves to die the death it's earned which really hurts those of us who would like to see a good stable and fun Sci-Fi MMO out there.
I guess I'm really happy that I never bothered with DnL, from the sound of it, I'd probably still be pissed off to this day.
2006 really has been a dark year for MMO gaming. Hopefully some of the "lack of sucess" learnings will make their way around the industry and help mold futur offerings. Hey, one can only hope for the best, right?
How did the vets/players get blamed, did I misread something?
I would think that Lucas Arts is probably the underlying "owner" for the changes anyhow, since they are the sole owner of the creative rights to anything Star Wars in nature. Maybe my perceptions are off, but that's the way it seems to me.
Nope, it was SOE. It's their game. LEC only promotes it. Do you think Lucas films deals with defective Hasbro Star Wars toys? They don't. But they do spend some of their own advertising dollars to promote the products based on their IP.
Excellent stuff...Dark and Light might be the worst game I have ever had the displeasure of logging into.
Die, DnL, die!
Great job and I really enjoyed this.
It's good to see SWG & SOE getting all the awards they deserve. You came darn close with your picks to match my runner's-up, let's just hope that next year SWG isn't around to sweep all of the awards again, although SOE will always be a leader...
ROFL!!!!
I am not shocked that SWG took home so many awards. There is a fundamental difference between a tragedy, and simple folly. A tragedy always strikes a deeper accord with people then a bungle. There will always be a plethora of games that will launch of poor quality. There is nothing uncommon about that. What is uncommon is for a game to launch successfully, have a vibrant population, and be sufficently different to be notable. Then for said game to do two massive, and radical rewrites. Bringing about a massive customer revolt, and exodus. The tragedy is that a viable product with a secure future as mmorpgs go was totally destroyed, and most likely killed. Simply due to a obscene amount of greed. A lesson in being thankful for what you got.
Were that not bad enough the product they used to replace the previous one. Not only came at the destruction of the previous one destroying virtual characters. A cardinal sin in MMORPG developement. The product was of drastically inferior quality. So inferrior infact that the developer confessed that it was at best beta quality. They of coarse expect their customers to pay for the honor to bug test their product, but refuse to take any suggestion as to design.
Just for good measure toss in the SOE propoganda machine to run smear campaigns, and toss out labels on former customers. Try to defraud people with a expansion that is stripped down three days later. Allow your developers to go to war with the world, and anyone who disagrees with them. Yeah name calling, and lieing to people really brings about positive results. A childish mentality if I have ever seen one.
Take if for what you will, but I think we will hear about SWG for years to come, and aslong as it lingers it will consume most worst of lists. You have a developer who knows not the meaning of ethics, or even simple decency. They behave in a beligerent manner at best, and at worst criminal. Their prime offense being this game will not help matters either. Star Wars is a huge franchise with dedicated fans, and worse the game mechanics were designed for hardcore MMORPG players. So they took two groups that are prone to obsession, and crucified their messiah. I think its miraculous that nobody ended up dead over this entire fiasco.
The end result is that you have alot of players with a axe to grind, and someone to vent against. Really it dosen't help matters that SOE, and SWG deserve every bit of it. Nor does it help that SOE keeps the bloody corpse out on the lawn for all to see. That only serves to stoke the resentment. Toss in the rest of SOEs misdeeds over the past couple years, and you got a recipe for prolonged hate. Being a big developer really only serves to hurt in this reguard.
SWG is a worse case than the other contenders.
Dark and Light failed from the get go (as did Matrix and Auto Assault).
Unlike those games it once had a huge following, and was even at one time the #2 most played MMO in North America, second only to EQ1.
Unlike DAoC, it underwent radical changes twice, with the second one so radical the core game was unrecognizable, and that trauma was never mitigated by classic servers.
Basically it's the tragedy of all mismanagement tragedies, because it contains every single sin:
1. Massive and well known IP
2. Multiple radical changes to core design and gameplay
3. Shameless amoral wretches for developers (SOE) who even went as far to promote features of a new expansion they were trying to sell for professions/game mechanics they KNEW they were taking out, days before they announced it.
4. Enough pissed off former players to make a respectable subscriber base for ANY MMO not named World of Warcraft.
At least SOE can say they won a lot of awards for SWG and I think they are all justified so congratulations for being the biggest "winner". I couldn't agree more. The game went from great to crap. I never even thought it was possible.
Yet still, and I don't know why, I think I am going to do the trial to see what is the current state of the game.
No, I don't think they deal with defective toys, but if they decide that the Chewbaca action figure looks better in a pink dress with a red basket, it's their right to change it. The community that loves star wars so much and buys these toys for their kids would be in an outrage, Chewbaca is a wookie, a tough creature of sheer power, he doesn't belong in a dress, we won't buy this crap. LEC responds, we don't care, we like the cuter and more cuddly Chewy, he stays. Their toy sales go into the dumper, people toss out their old toys, no longer needing upgraded blasters and utility belts and Millenium Falcon toys to go with their Chewy. Sales are down, the community is mad, no one subscribes to Star Wars action figure collecting any more. This is what happened to SWG in a nut shell, I can't think that SOE would honestly make this change, take a huge hit on their game and not at least use their learnings and drift back to some semblance of the old ways. I am just saying it seems like SOE probably doesn't take as much fault as one would think. Take for example Vanguard, the agreement between Sigil and SOE is that Sigil maintains IP rights, SOE puts their label on the box and runs the servers, more or less. If Sigil makes a change, folks might be quick to dump that change on SOE, but it may in fact be Sigil that did it and due to their agreement, SOE can not "blame" the bed fellow they publish the game with. This is of course just food for thought because the fact remains that someone flew the death star over the SWG universe and blasted it. The good news is, even though a million voices cried out in pain, they were not silenced.
PS. The game as it stands now seems that it needs a title change to "Star Wars: Battlefront Online" because it sure plays like battlefront and not like any other MMO. I guess that's where my suspicions lie with the game changes.....
No, I don't think they deal with defective toys, but if they decide that the Chewbaca action figure looks better in a pink dress with a red basket, it's their right to change it. The community that loves star wars so much and buys these toys for their kids would be in an outrage, Chewbaca is a wookie, a tough creature of sheer power, he doesn't belong in a dress, we won't buy this crap. LEC responds, we don't care, we like the cuter and more cuddly Chewy, he stays. Their toy sales go into the dumper, people toss out their old toys, no longer needing upgraded blasters and utility belts and Millenium Falcon toys to go with their Chewy. Sales are down, the community is mad, no one subscribes to Star Wars action figure collecting any more. This is what happened to SWG in a nut shell, I can't think that SOE would honestly make this change, take a huge hit on their game and not at least use their learnings and drift back to some semblance of the old ways. I am just saying it seems like SOE probably doesn't take as much fault as one would think. Take for example Vanguard, the agreement between Sigil and SOE is that Sigil maintains IP rights, SOE puts their label on the box and runs the servers, more or less. If Sigil makes a change, folks might be quick to dump that change on SOE, but it may in fact be Sigil that did it and due to their agreement, SOE can not "blame" the bed fellow they publish the game with. This is of course just food for thought because the fact remains that someone flew the death star over the SWG universe and blasted it. The good news is, even though a million voices cried out in pain, they were not silenced.
PS. The game as it stands now seems that it needs a title change to "Star Wars: Battlefront Online" because it sure plays like battlefront and not like any other MMO. I guess that's where my suspicions lie with the game changes.....
Except you seem to miss one thing. Lucas put out the "special edition" original trilogy. Though the fans were displeased when the release of the dvd's happened lucas said that the SE is the new official original trilogy and that the original would never make it to dvd.
With the outrage Lucas recanted and released the original trilogy. SOE wont recant. SOE is in charge of SWG and the only thing that lucas signs off on is canon specific additions or subtractions to the entities within the game. How the game is managed and how the game is developed has always been in the hands of SOE (well before that Verant I believe). The NGE was created by the devs at SOE, shown to motard Jullio Torres, and they all danced happily about how fun it was.
With Vanguard, currently its under control of Sigil with publishing etc handled by SOE, just like SWG was when it was developed. McQuaid is as bad as Smedley ever was and within a few months of vanguard's release sony will buy out sigil. Just like they did with Verant. When the changes come to the game that make it worse (though that will be hard to do) people will bemoan Sigil when in fact it is sony.
I'll guarantee you that George Lucas couldn't even tell you what an MMO is, let alone prove any awareness of his own. He has people that have people that have people that sign off on things like video games.
LAWL
If $OE brought back from Pre-CU server, they might have a heart attack because of how many people reup there subs
Well that will never happen...
www.swgemu.com FTW
Fixing what SomeOnE broke
Way to tally up the votes little buddy!
I'm sorry for voting for SWG, I really am. I know DnL deserved many of those awards, but thankfully I avoided ever playing that POS. In fact: I barely even consider DnL to be a game, so it couldn't be voted for! hehe (Sorry to both of you who still play DnL!)
No, I don't think they deal with defective toys, but if they decide that the Chewbaca action figure looks better in a pink dress with a red basket, it's their right to change it. The community that loves star wars so much and buys these toys for their kids would be in an outrage, Chewbaca is a wookie, a tough creature of sheer power, he doesn't belong in a dress, we won't buy this crap. LEC responds, we don't care, we like the cuter and more cuddly Chewy, he stays. Their toy sales go into the dumper, people toss out their old toys, no longer needing upgraded blasters and utility belts and Millenium Falcon toys to go with their Chewy. Sales are down, the community is mad, no one subscribes to Star Wars action figure collecting any more. This is what happened to SWG in a nut shell, I can't think that SOE would honestly make this change, take a huge hit on their game and not at least use their learnings and drift back to some semblance of the old ways. I am just saying it seems like SOE probably doesn't take as much fault as one would think. Take for example Vanguard, the agreement between Sigil and SOE is that Sigil maintains IP rights, SOE puts their label on the box and runs the servers, more or less. If Sigil makes a change, folks might be quick to dump that change on SOE, but it may in fact be Sigil that did it and due to their agreement, SOE can not "blame" the bed fellow they publish the game with. This is of course just food for thought because the fact remains that someone flew the death star over the SWG universe and blasted it. The good news is, even though a million voices cried out in pain, they were not silenced.
PS. The game as it stands now seems that it needs a title change to "Star Wars: Battlefront Online" because it sure plays like battlefront and not like any other MMO. I guess that's where my suspicions lie with the game changes.....
There was a reason SOE took the chance. They were never at risk of losing the licensing for the current SWG, they were betting on getting the development licensing for the second SW MMO, now in development by another unnamed company. The NGE failed to impress the players or LEC. LEC tried to promote it on TV but it was no good, the game was still the buggy POS it always has been, even worse. LEC has now taken a step back from most of their connection with SWG by shoving people off their boards who complain about it and sending them to SOE. SOE has stated it was totally their idea many many times and that some really smart guys had an idea and took a chance. It failed and now they admit it (see the most recent dev rant) They honestly thought they could turn the game around. Sure they knew it would make some people mad but ultimately they thought people would return to play it and realize it was better than ever. They moved fast because the bids were in and the game development needed to be started very soon to launch in conjunction with the new TV series in the works by Lucas Films. Major development of the new SW MMO title started late December of last year. The game is supposed to launch Q4 of 07, 2 years in development sped up by the acquisition of a game engine that has most of the development bells and whistles built in such as billing, customer service, ect. I assume by Q2 of 07 you will hear who it is who is building it.
At face value, playing the game today without any pryor gameplay, it earned every single award.
The nge not only destroyed the playerbase, but the game that SWG is now is unfun, bug ridden and empty. If the NGE was thought of as a good idea at $OE.. I'd hate to see what they think are bad ones.
Luh-mow!
Seriously, I really miss the old SWG. Even after the CU I adapted and learned to play with the changes, because I loved the world. After the NGE though I couldn't even recognize the fun game I used to play as it was then outfitted with a shiny layer of crap.
It's like a guy who mows lawns for a living. He cuts all the lawns in the neighborhood, and has a really booming business. He's really great at mowing and trimming. Then one day, he starts to cut designs in your yard, kinda funky, like a basball field or something, and you think "hey, that's different, but I can live with it". Then a week later, he dumps gravel all over your front yard and tells you "it's the new rage in landscaping!" You say, "Piss off, I'm not paying for this crap", but he continues to pour gravel on your neighbor's house, because they bought into the "gravel is the new grass" fad.
Sadly, I'd be willing to bet that SOE feels that they're somehow being "revolutionary" in their design and continues to perpetuate it to be different and unique in a marketplace full of many games that provide what we as consumers want to play. Well, we vote with our wallets, and there's only so many lawns they can continue to dump gravel on before they run out of the green stuff to continue to pay their employees and maintain their servers. IMHO, the sooner the better.
Here's hoping that a new Bioware Star Wars MMO is in the making soon.
The difference between SWG and all the other sorry games that were mentioned, is simply the massive scale of the screw-up. Yes DnL sucked, yes DDO did a horrible job with the IP, but none of them even approached the magnitude of failure that SOE wrought down on the gameplaying public and the single biggest IP of all time.
It has been a disastrous year for MMO's, and I agree with Dan that with any luck none of those stinkers will be around next year...
The truth shall set you free!1 SWG is awful, how many more articles, polls and what not will you need to see before you agree? Or do you just plug your ears and go LALALALALALALA!
Some of us have just as much if not more experience in MMOs and SWG than you. Most of played the NGE in all its various stages. The results I felt are accurate. Even developers from other companies agree, hell even SOE and Smed agree. Do your own poll here on MMORPG.com if you feel the results are skewed but I’m sure you will come up with the same results.
Dark and Light (DnL) is a disaster from top to bottom. DnL IS NOT A GAME, IT IS A FINANCIAL SCAM DISGUISED AS A GAME. It would have won the vote totals if more people had fallen for the scam. Luckily for everyone, the scam only hit several hundred people. Hence, on it's own, it should have won every category. Anyone who actually bought the "game" (er, scam) understands just how truly horrible the experience is. Words simply fail at describing the disaster that is DnL. Earning the lowest official review rating of all time is one sign just how bad it is, but even then the 4.0 rating was too generous. The scam operators work out of a small island in the Indian Ocean to avoid jail time and scam victims coming to thier offices to beat the crap out of them.
SWG, on the other hand, had far more subscribers and hence the changes by SOE impacted more players, hence more votes. Thus, from a magnitude of impact on the MMO community, SWG wins hands down on most categories. I avoid SOE games because of their bad reputation, and hence avoided SWG just on that advice. Looks like I made the right choice. Going forward, I think SOE needs to focus on helping other developers manage the technical aspects of launching a game, but avoid direct management and development of a game. Any game where the development decisions are handled by SOE, I simply will not play.
Finally, a personal thanks to Dan Fortier for bringing the publicity to these disasters. I hope that the developers of other games start taking notice that they will have a lot of bad publicity if they continue to mistreat the gaming community by making tremendous changes in existing games or release games that are broken (or are an outright scam like DnL). Perhaps creating a top 10 list of things NOT to do as a game developer might help, and thus anytime a game developer violates those magic rules, we can bash them over the head heard on future columns.
There was a reason SOE took the chance. They were never at risk of losing the licensing for the current SWG, they were betting on getting the development licensing for the second SW MMO, now in development by another unnamed company. The NGE failed to impress the players or LEC. LEC tried to promote it on TV but it was no good, the game was still the buggy POS it always has been, even worse. LEC has now taken a step back from most of their connection with SWG by shoving people off their boards who complain about it and sending them to SOE. SOE has stated it was totally their idea many many times and that some really smart guys had an idea and took a chance. It failed and now they admit it (see the most recent dev rant) They honestly thought they could turn the game around. Sure they knew it would make some people mad but ultimately they thought people would return to play it and realize it was better than ever. They moved fast because the bids were in and the game development needed to be started very soon to launch in conjunction with the new TV series in the works by Lucas Films. Major development of the new SW MMO title started late December of last year. The game is supposed to launch Q4 of 07, 2 years in development sped up by the acquisition of a game engine that has most of the development bells and whistles built in such as billing, customer service, ect. I assume by Q2 of 07 you will hear who it is who is building it.
The only thing I have seen them admit was that they released it in a purely craptastic fashion, and given the opportunity to do it over again they would still go ahead with the NGE but with more notice and less underhanded tactics. Now, this was months and months ago that I read that, where is the dev rant that they admit the NGE is a failure? I am by no means a fan of the NGE nor am I trolling you, I would just like to see the dev rant so as to add a quote to my sig on the SOE forums :) Thanks in advance
Worst graphics: SWG&DDO were popular responses....did these games really look worse than DnL or Carpe Diem? WoW was also a big contender here....Can someone explain to me why people think cartoony graphics=bad graphics....that's just silly
Worst use of a franchise: SWG & DDO again...but did these games really suck more than MxO???? I think not. As I posted before SWG was once a great MMO, MxO has great and unique MMO potential but the game launched as a failure and never recovered.
These are just a couple of examples...more proof of my point can be found in the game ratings...
"I'm giving this game a 3...because the screenshots look bad."....if the screenies are all you have to judge on you shouldn't post a rating.
"This game gets a 1, because I couldn't even install it."....so because of your shitty comp, or your inability to follow instructions-the game sucks???
"1. This game sucks." ....based on what?
These are generalizations, but I'm sure you guys have seen stuff like this.
For a real example one rater actually posted this...."I haven't played this, but I give it a 1"....If you haven't played don't post a rating.
I see this stuff all the time and quite frankly its what keeps this site from being the best. Maybe I'm the only one who has seen this or the only one it bothers.
I should post this as a new thread and see what kinda responses I get I wanna hear from you guys.
There was a reason SOE took the chance. They were never at risk of losing the licensing for the current SWG, they were betting on getting the development licensing for the second SW MMO, now in development by another unnamed company. The NGE failed to impress the players or LEC. LEC tried to promote it on TV but it was no good, the game was still the buggy POS it always has been, even worse. LEC has now taken a step back from most of their connection with SWG by shoving people off their boards who complain about it and sending them to SOE. SOE has stated it was totally their idea many many times and that some really smart guys had an idea and took a chance. It failed and now they admit it (see the most recent dev rant) They honestly thought they could turn the game around. Sure they knew it would make some people mad but ultimately they thought people would return to play it and realize it was better than ever. They moved fast because the bids were in and the game development needed to be started very soon to launch in conjunction with the new TV series in the works by Lucas Films. Major development of the new SW MMO title started late December of last year. The game is supposed to launch Q4 of 07, 2 years in development sped up by the acquisition of a game engine that has most of the development bells and whistles built in such as billing, customer service, ect. I assume by Q2 of 07 you will hear who it is who is building it.
The only thing I have seen them admit was that they released it in a purely craptastic fashion, and given the opportunity to do it over again they would still go ahead with the NGE but with more notice and less underhanded tactics. Now, this was months and months ago that I read that, where is the dev rant that they admit the NGE is a failure? I am by no means a fan of the NGE nor am I trolling you, I would just like to see the dev rant so as to add a quote to my sig on the SOE forums :) Thanks in advance
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10830 "Don't make our mistakes."
*flamesuit... internets suit instead*
Actually, I log onto DnL once a month. I dl all the patches, I laugh at the forums regulary. Join me, it's fun. Oh and I got a refund from that stupid thing about getting charged money last month, so haha to all who didn't. Bah humbug.
I LUVS DARK ANDS LOIGHTORS.
I think they should give a special mention to the DEV that thought up the CU and NGE; what was his name?
Good results as far as I can tell. Will have to agree with another poster that stated its good to see DNL get the award it deserves.
I agree fully with Dans personal picks. Voted all DNL except for IP. Since I never played SWG (yes! due to the publicity) I cannot say anything about it. The hate is overwhelming for that game -- almost as much as mine for DNL.
Lets all hope however that these awards will make the next batch of "screw you players" type of devs will think twice.
There was a reason SOE took the chance. They were never at risk of losing the licensing for the current SWG, they were betting on getting the development licensing for the second SW MMO, now in development by another unnamed company. The NGE failed to impress the players or LEC. LEC tried to promote it on TV but it was no good, the game was still the buggy POS it always has been, even worse. LEC has now taken a step back from most of their connection with SWG by shoving people off their boards who complain about it and sending them to SOE. SOE has stated it was totally their idea many many times and that some really smart guys had an idea and took a chance. It failed and now they admit it (see the most recent dev rant) They honestly thought they could turn the game around. Sure they knew it would make some people mad but ultimately they thought people would return to play it and realize it was better than ever. They moved fast because the bids were in and the game development needed to be started very soon to launch in conjunction with the new TV series in the works by Lucas Films. Major development of the new SW MMO title started late December of last year. The game is supposed to launch Q4 of 07, 2 years in development sped up by the acquisition of a game engine that has most of the development bells and whistles built in such as billing, customer service, ect. I assume by Q2 of 07 you will hear who it is who is building it.
Any link to this latest dev post/rant?
I find it interesting that the Dark and Light graphics are said to be crap, yet there is still a stickied post in the mmorpg.com forums showing these shots:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/thread/21867
Either those shots are fake, or the article is wrong on that point. Not having played the game, someone tell me which is it?
I love the MMOWTF Awards this is the best topic ever written by an editor, excellent job.
I knew SWG's demise would one day happen but I had no clue it would take this long. I beta tested the original SWG and played for 2 to 3 months after release when I realized SOE was ruining this title faster than Rosie O'Donnell can eat a hamburger.
I just simply didn't think it would take people so long to figure this out. I quit for good when I left then and as I see that the majority hates SOE and their Frankenstein creation known as SWG here, my question would be why is SWG still going?
DnL I never tried but followed the news on it for a while until I figured out that game wasn't even worth trying.
Anyways great topic look forward to more MMOWTF Awards and I hope some of these companies, (i.e. SOE), have read the awards list and responses.
Ah, so it's baggage that it deserved to win all those awards in realtime by a VAST majority of those who have played it this year. To bad they wasn't a Fanboi Cat...
Since it's personal experience that caused us to feel this way, I'd say it's more important then what a Spinning Fanboi thinks...
No I'm not a fanboy. But man o man I'm tired of seeing the SWG crap. Ok it was really bad. Let it go. Move on. go play your favorite MMOG already. If you can't let it go and the number of you are legion then get together, use former subscription dollars and do what everyone else does in America. Sue em. If not launch an ad campaign and maybe the bad publicity will make 'em notice and change things.
And if you're still playing SWG and you're still ranting then you deserve whatever crap they dish out at you. You're paying for it after all!
I am a SoE defender even if I like to tease them a lot; especially if raid-related, and by no mean a SWG hater...
However I see a problematic with your suggestion...favorite MMOG? I have a less bad MMO ATM, but saddly no favorite that I can play. I suppose to peoples who where enjoying SWG, if they don't like Saga of Ryzom, then there is nothing else for them atm...gameplay-wise.
The lack of gameplay variations in the MMO genre is astonishing, especially that they usually use all the same gameplays and twist them in a similar fashion...as if they had found what the human race want as a whole...hehe, they have MUCH room for improvement. See, let's take BioWare (I am a Bio-fan), they just pick a few neglicted gameplays and they focus on these aspects. They are not even original about it (from the little info we got), yet, it will prolly rock us all, as the best MMO ever.
To ask them to let's it go, you have to see that they can let's it go for something else...and even if I am by no mean a SWG fan/hater, I just don't see what they could take to replace this MMO...beside maybe SoR, yet SoR isn't for everyone. SWG was always casual friendly, and SoR is extremely hardcore...soooo, not easy on these players.
Hate itself is better than indiference and is rather close to love. SoE staff should stop feel crippled by the online community and afraid of it, just ignore it a little and take this hate with pride and try to change it into love, because hate can be changed into love, it just need the proper rework.
I am happy to see the author kept his own pick because like stated those votes for SWG were purely at heart votes rather then the reality of things.
Like most deolate.SWG has not got the population it had but its far from been most deolate.I also do not agree with DAoC .I think DnL and RV are certainly more empty.
yep, every single MMO game that came out this year. 2006 was a very bad year in MMO history!
I beg to disagree, nothing sucks more than DnL imo. DnL sucks more ass than an all-you-can-eat butt buffet
I guess that the problem with voting on this kind of award is that most of us don't even see the really horrendous games, which is why I didn't vote. I suspect that DnL is awful, but I didn't waste my money on it.
The problem that SWG has is entirely based upon the fact that it had a large userbase that was systematically and repeatedly burned. I knew that it would win in categories where it clearly was not the worst, just because the voters weren't aware of the real turkeys (how many people saw the mess that is Roma Victor?).
SWG deserves a separate lifetime underachievement award and then retired from future consideration.
The head spinning turn around is what did it in for SWG. Very unique skill system, very unique character creation, unique combat system and faction system, killer game turned into absolute junk almost overnight. I just want the code. Take the same "pre-cu "game re-skin it to not be tethered to the Star Wars franchise and work out the bugd and fixes "THE PLAYER BASE WANTED".YOu'd have a successfully popular game.
SWG? no surprise..
SOE goes for a new target audience but are forgetting they already had a great community. Now most of the community they had is gone and it seems that hardly anyone of the new target people are coming to play the game.
the game is probably balancing between life and death. Im curious how long it will last until they will pull the plug.
If so..let someone else make SWG2. Im personally thinking of blizzard lol since they seem to know what they are doing
one of the best PvP games of all time, till people started crying about it and the devs nerfed TEF. There were some balance issues but they were minor. They didn't need to turn the game upside down twice.
When I said 'let it go' I was addressing to those former players who are consumed by their anger and hate at SOE/SWG and to move on. Whiile venting is good for stress relief, holding on to the anger isn't. Better to channel it into making a change rather that griping to no end.
As for favorite MMOG, you can substiute that for favorite game, pastime, what have you. Since money is the deciding factors in these games, paying to play something you're unhappy with only enables it to continue. Don't bitch about how lousy the game is but keep giving them money. They don't learn their lesson that way and it makes the player look desperate and stupid. If you can't find something to do with your time & money but play a game that lost its appeal, then you got problems.
The bottom line is the almighty dollar and that is something any MMOG producer/developer can't ignore. The other being bad press. Take those two elements and use it get the game you want.
Try reading :) I said "valuable to me", not valuable as broad statement ;) Ie. My own experience in the game will dictate what I think about the game, not the opinions of a bunch of people that think they know what they want in a game.
Try reading, I wasn't. It's Established FACT. The VAST majority of people who have played SWG this last year have overwhelmingly said it bites, so it's a FACT that it won these awards fair & square.
There are a samll amount of people that insist the world is flat, and it's thier right to think what they like, but that's doesn't mean they're right. Obi, don't worry about sailing off the edge...
SWG is trash, at least now it is. I just don't understand how any old vets can still play that game. As usual when u ask them why they always give that BULLSHIT excuse, "I play for the community." Rofl what community? you mean the other 30 or some people playing online at the same time as you? By still playing SWG you are supporting a unethical company who feeds its playerbase lies even to the point they commited consumer fraud. You guys ever wonder why SOE offered the refund for the mustufar expansion? Yes they committed consumer fraud. I'm not going to explain the reasons, but do some research and you will find this true. Even if the veterans still playing at this point don't care about supporting a company like SoE or continually going to Walgreens to by lube, what is there to do (that hasn't yet been removed from the game) in galaxies you have not done 100 times already?
aha that was pretty funny actualy and dark and light won (well some of them not as many as it truly deserved though) which made me laugh even harder its good satire that hope to see more in the coming years
good for a giggle or 10
DnL did that and then some you shoulda seen their most recent stunt they charged us for subscribing even though we had left the game and cancelled. They switched all the members to their paid subscription plan on the sly after some kind of offer (which i never got because I had unsubscribed from the emails etc) and then charged me 9.99 for continuing my subscription after the fact. Needless to say myself and everyone else was pulled back after a very long and uneventful time playing other games to clean up that mess.
They truly deserved the least fun category I never got to play for more then 2 mintues at the time and was running at or below 10 fps for most of the time. One of the few games I didn't last more then maybe an entire hour or possibly 2 tops combined gaming time over the space of a few months. Lord that game was bad .. stil is too and right now its running on fumes i think (not sure what is keeping it running actually it can't have more then 20 players max if that on its servers who are active)
SWG rightfully earned the awards. I had the displeasure of trying games like DnL and DDO, but it didn't take much time at all to realize I had no interest in those games (for obviously stated reasons) and moved on. I was out some $$$$, but that is the gamble when trying new games. What really hurt was the time invested in SWG....for many others too, months of devloping a toon, gathering resources, acquiring special enhancements, and weapons just to have all our work uncerimoniously 'dismissed' with disastrous and unwanted game overhauls. This is not even mentioning some of the other 'stunts' pulled by $OE.
There has been very little to fall back onto as far as available MMORPGs at this time. I have to agree - 2006 has been most unkind in that regard.
My brother and I used to play SWG and no the graphics were never stellar but it was a fun game. Preordered Mustafar and then here comes the NGE. We dropped it like a rock, but have recently come back. How and why after we got burned?. We have to play it with a mod so that it looks and plays like it did back in the day. We're actually have fun again but looking back I have to ask myself why would Sony completely change the game to crap without notice? I think it was too close to the code of WoW and they knew a lawsuit was coming. Also you have something that works, why put it in the crapper? I think SOE is just tired of SWG and star wars fans like myself. SWG has become a thorn in SOE's side and I think they want to see it die. I love star wars and they vast worlds SWG has and the people who still play. I hate SOE and the "we won't admit mistakes" attitude.
Try reading, I wasn't. It's Established FACT. The VAST majority of people who have played SWG this last year have overwhelmingly said it bites, so it's a FACT that it won these awards fair & square.
There are a samll amount of people that insist the world is flat, and it's thier right to think what they like, but that's doesn't mean they're right. Obi, don't worry about sailing off the edge...
People's opinions of something make it a FACT?
Goddamn... you are retarded.
SWG is still very much alive and kicking. It's sad individuals like you who quit over a year ago who still whine and complain about a game they aren't even current with. The term "ignorant" comes to mind.
As for the graphics in SWG... if you actually have a nice rig (and you know how to maximize your graphics settings, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering) the graphics engine is beautiful to look at especially considering it's age. Looks way better than any other MMO I've ever tried by far.
Goddamn... you are retarded.
SWG is still very much alive and kicking. It's sad individuals like you who quit over a year ago who still whine and complain about a game they aren't even current with. The term "ignorant" comes to mind.
As for the graphics in SWG... if you actually have a nice rig (and you know how to maximize your graphics settings, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering) the graphics engine is beautiful to look at especially considering it's age. Looks way better than any other MMO I've ever tried by far.
You my friend are the one thats wrong, i have a nice rig and the graphics are choppy. You are also wrong in where your stating that SWG is alive and kicking, the only thing thats alive is the NGE, and thats b/c SOE wont kill it. The game is dead, ive seen it first hand by logging in. Your server may have a good amount of people on it, and it may seem like its alive and kicking, but its far from that.
Pretty soon your server is going to die, and you will have nobody to play with, when that happens you can go thank SOE yourself.
And dont worry, i wont say i told you so either. Just a friendly reminder, make sure you have some vasoline around, so when SOE screws you over, it wont hurt as much as it did us.
It's really sad what happend to SWG. If they would only work on the bugs, adding new stuff and buffing the game along the way... I'm sure it would only gain more subs. All those new MMO players that staretd with WoW... 50% of them is boared and they want something deeper. And right now it's eather EVE or... Damn. Just EVE I guess. And if you are not sucker for spaceships, well boohoo!
SOE will burn in hell... Oh yes. They will
Goddamn... you are retarded.
SWG is still very much alive and kicking. It's sad individuals like you who quit over a year ago who still whine and complain about a game they aren't even current with. The term "ignorant" comes to mind.
As for the graphics in SWG... if you actually have a nice rig (and you know how to maximize your graphics settings, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering) the graphics engine is beautiful to look at especially considering it's age. Looks way better than any other MMO I've ever tried by far.
How ignorant are you?
I've played this year several times, but you make up things trying to be an all-knowing JA. Well, congratulations! You've proved your ignorance!!! GOOD FOR YOU!!!
Let's see, first off it's not opinion when the President of the company agrees people have voted with thier feet and they hope to IMPROVE the game to win them back. That makes it an established FACT that most players & THE PRESIDENT of SOE agree the game bites now, and deserves it's inclusion in these awards.
Since you're obviously ignorant yourself, here's the definition:
ig·no·rant
/??g
n?r
?nt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ig-ner-uh
nt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
I'll have to find my spot in the crowd against SOE and fully agree to all the hate and approve the MMOWTF-awards they "won".
I'm an old preCU gamer from Bloodfin myself and had never ever spent as much time and money on a game before i fell in love with SWG. The difference with SWG and the other mentioned games in this MMOWTF poll is that SWG was a great game that got ruined and the other kinda.. sucked right from the start. Couldnt help but wonder why the author of this poll didnt mention SWG in any of his personal votes himself.. being a MMORPG expert and all..... anyways!
A few questions still remains to this obvious poll, to most of the participating here it was no news that SOE/SWG would win, but what will happen next?
Will SOE get an official award?
Will MMORPG just hide this in their news forum and call it at that? If so then this poll/award is kinda worthless... cuz then it will be no different from any poll allready made like 100 times in any SWG related forum. Well except for the official SWG forums cuz there any little hint of negativity against SWG/SOE will be deleted right away. Even longtime faithfull players saying goodbye-posts are deleted.
I see all the whiners about us still crying our bleeding heart out for old SWG but to you, I can only say that its only cuz u didnt expirience what we did. Or else you would be right here with us. SWG was by far the greatest mmorpg ever made so far. We settle with WoW (or CoH/CoV or even Ryzom) for the lack of better. But they are all these years later still not even close to the vastness of SWG preCU. No community isnt close to what we saw in SWG. It was a 110% virtual life across borders, across nations. Sitting on Teamspeak with players from Singapore, Australia, US, Europe, while buffing up for a PvP raid preparing to head out and fight the evil empire...well you get the point. We lived the saga!
Yet "it's just a game"......*sigh*
Wumi Space - Bloodfin preCU
A couple points.
The almost condesending attitude about your own customers voting star wars galaxies to suck is a dangerous game you are playing with your business. I didn't appreciate this site trying to imply those who voted swg did so because of any other reason then the game deserves the awards because even unbiast opinion of swg is that NGE is a very poor game. I saw a lot of people vote in that award who are not regular posters in the swg area yet you choose to lump all the posters together.
Why did you include your winners vs. the actual winners? This makes no sense to me as a reader of this site. Are you saying your readership is to ignorant or biast to vote and select the appropriate winner? If the purpose of the award was to post this sites editorial choice for MMOWTF I could understand having your winners in the article but I thought this was a subscribers choice award. This made the results very confusing.
I'd just like to dispute your having done actual harm to the franchise with swg. Normally, prior to the NGE I still was buying star wars dvd's and probably would have bought Star Wars battlegrounds rts. I personally cannot stomach anything star wars right now. I cringe at the content on the shelves and have very high doubts that its worth my dollar anymore. I haven't picked up the orginal movies which I would have. I own 3 box set vcr's of star wars and dont have the dvds or a vcr. I own EP 1 and 2 on dvd. Notice how I never bought EP 3? I am permanently damaged as a star wars consumer. My video game consumer identity was totally saved by the very fun guild wars games but star wars needs to do something for me to because alot of the genre recently has been nothing but money grabs and I am personally sick of it. I don't think I am the only star wars fan feeling fairly po'd about star wars as a whole lately and star wars galaxies NGE fiasco was the last straw for me.
NP Cube as worst developer? I dont even know who NP Cube is so how could they have such an impact on small developers when alot of people dont even know who the hell they are or what titles they own?
It's my opinion this sites editorial staff is becoming very defensive about SOE. I don't know why and I have my suspicions its monatery in nature but I see alot of defending or excusing of SOE going on. I dont understand why you'd defend these goons and hacks.
Finally "It is more fun then picking flees off of a Wookie or potty-training an ewok?" Please take out "IT" or change it from a question to a statement. I am by no means perfect in my posting grammer or punctionation so I don't get all high and mighty about it but this needs to be corrected because it is confusing and could cause a reader to view it as a statement.
Otherwise it was a good article and brings a very valid discussion up.
They were a small team that promised the moon and delivered us a landfill. Of all the aspects they had been touting for years 5% of the game was there and even that didn't work. Some people were unable to even log in for months. Those of us who did log in crashed so many times that it screwed peoples computers. Then the company said that the problems were our fault or even used the ambigious excuse that "hackers" had invaded their site. For every 100 support tickets that went in, maybe 1 was answered and that was usually something easy.
The biggest thing was when thousands cancelled in Dec 05-Jan 06. Those people haven't played for a year and almost all of them just last month were out of the blue charged (some for the entire game) a monthly subscription fee through a third party Payment system.
The reason that the writer also put in his own choices (Dark and Light) was that he had to test that crap and was affected by the same things we most likely were. I can certaintly tell you that if I had been in his place I would have done exactly the same thing. It is a testament to how really bad that game is that it was even mentioned because the following was relatively small.
I never felt that he was covering for SOE and I can tell you I abhore swg as much as anyone here. I even sold my Sony TV (and bought a DLP) to get rid of all Sony products.
I believe that SOE/SWG deserves all of these awards(excluding graphics, cause after NGE lag was less of a problem and i could run my game higher with my 7800 without risk of the studder walk.) This game has crashed so fast after NGE it was amazing. Questing was the game, no longer going out hunting with a group. I canceled my account after the BH/Jedi enhancments, not wanting to pay for a incomplet game. This is why SOE/SWG deserves these awards. They made a huge mistake that hurt there numbers. Most of my guild that i was in left SWG after NGE hit, and we where a guild of 40-50 accounts strong. Now if you want to argue with me, please reply to this, and give me good pointers, not NGE ROCKS AND YOU SUCKZOR. If you think NGE was a improvement please tell me why? and if you did not play pre-NGE, im sorry, you missed a great game.
I never played DnL or SWG.... sort of wish I had just so I could slam them.... ah well...maybe not.
But I did (and currently do) play DAOC and wanted to take one issue with it being rated here. While its true that most of the servers have become ghosts of their former selves, Mythic did what SOE continues not to do... they created Classic Servers which don't include the hated TOA changes.
I play on Classic now, and I can't tell the difference from the old days.... the cluster is full and the pvp is as good (ok, its actually better) as it ever has been. So DAOC should have at least gotten props for trying to shore the game up. I'm sure they'll continue to cluster more servers to help players out (perhaps they could accelerate this process) and we'll always have some people to fight.
(at least until WH comes out)
Ahh, well do not ever go into politics or try to sell somthing... because you need a customer base that you do NOT shit on or sell or push a broken product onto after promising a working one.
You just can't handle the truth of the matter.... others can. The sad part is that your far from the majority in this case.
SOE deserves this, they earned it... this was (more) proof that the product was a failure as the NGE... plain and simple.
I'm sorry that your in it Obriak, in alot of ways I feel sorry for whom is left playing and paying for SWG actually. SOE should be paying you guys, not the other way around.
It's been known for quite awhile that the screenshots were photoshopped by Blacsac and Farlan. Read through the DnL forums and you'll find it eventually.
Time out--
I was cool with this until I read that flat out lie.
Listen, the term "Alive and kicking is utter bullshit".... do not try that here. People are just not this stupid. I mean really man, at least say somthing more personal... like "I like the game because I like to be alone in a MMO" vs "alive and kicking" .... SWG has 1/10 of the people it did if that... not only that most cities and planets are ghost towns... it's sad... NOE then, SOE has sent me personally TWICE since November two trials of 21 days at a time. Guess what? Yep my 500 man, and 250 man friends lists are still empty and the server is nothing or even close to what it was before.
SWG graphics are not bad... BUT looks only last a few seconds... and then are now overshadowed byt the "CLUNK" noise I hear when trying to get on the Bike or any vehicle.
Complaining about a PRODUCT that was a failure is not somthing "ignorant" what is though is someone that allows themselves to pay for a product that is known as a failure and mistake.
If SOE was a car company we all would have been dead by now....
But that alive and kicking line... Oh boy -- that was a good one....lol
Obraik, do you get paid everytime you defend $OE? I mean really...what colour is the sky in your world?
I loved SWG in beta and played all the way until NGE (well with a 1 year break in between) and even if they brought back pre-CU servers I don't think you could bring the game back to life. $OE has such a bad rep with respect to how they treat their customer base. Remember the great customer service team?
$OE take SWG off life support.
When someone rates something as badly as DnL got, of course I want to try it out so I can also rip into it. So I downloaded the 1.3gig client, waited for the extra 300mb patch (really guys, why not pre-patch the client?), and was greeted by prompt after prompt of missing dll's and fatal pointer exceptions and so on. So no go right off the bat. Then I tried to post my errors on the DnL forum - first the support forum, and then ANY forum on the DnL site, but lo and behold, they've disabled starting new threads on their support site. Oops.
Uninstall... I'm just sad I never got to try the game and complain bitterly about how poor it is.
I'm confused. These items mean exactly what when we discuss intentionally alienating hundreds of thousands of paying customers to satisfy the ego of Smeds golden boy Lead? If a tenth of the effort that went into rewriting SWG every two weeks went into expanding what was good and worked about the game it would have given WoW a run. But, changing the game into another clone of EQ just worked so well and proved SOE's expertise at understanding the most basic inclusionary functions of human society by morally debasing their entire user community.
Fivo
Wait my friends. This all awards are granted to the NGE. SWG, game i loved in spite all bugs she hawe is dead from ower a year, it was greater joy and fun to play it, to discover all the places i know from movies and books, to meet greatest community and friends mmo world ever hawe.
R.I.P SWG. you will be always in my heart, and you will be not forgotten
Just goes to show you that MMORPG.com is as out of step with what the community see's as bad as what they think is good....
Just kidding! The article is pretty funny, though I agree that Turbine's offerings should have done worse...
MMOWTF? WTF?
No beef with the author of the article, but there is something noticably off with the results. Of the six times SWG/SOE was mentioned, none were in fact the author's pick. I'm assuming this is because either the author played SWG to find out for himself where it ranked, or did some research asking the folks that currently play. The vote itself was likely the result of a concerted effort by the resident dissidents in the SWG Veteran's Refuge here at MMORPG.com, individuals that no longer play the game since the NGE occured 2 years ago.
I would ask that some disclaimer or notice to the effect that this was obviously a concerted effort by those individuals be posted in conjunction with the article. It isn't very difficult to sway the outcome of public opinion polls, especially ones taken with a simple CGI script. They are often misleading and only indicative of the motivated biased. This can be very easily demonstrated for the unbelieving. For every one person who voted SWG as the worst in each category, you can find a crowd of happily gaming subscribers enjoying the latest improvements and features SWG has added in the time since the NGE. Those that have returned and given SWG another chance have found that it is in fact doing well, and that much has changed.
Every time I post here at MMORPG.com, I like to reach a hand out to those cynical dissidents, still filled with rage and still feeling betrayed from the events of two years past and invite them to come back and give it a second chance. In fact, if you try logging into your old inactive accounts, you'll find that you've got 21 days free automatically, just to check it out again. (It'll go automatically inactive again at the end of the 21 days, so no worries about fiddling with billing). Give it a shot and come on home. You might be surprised.
Pure speculation.
I see many people on the official forums that are not happy with the direction SWG has gone. Many people are "putting up" with it but obviously wanting more of what the game was.
Ask your player base. Put a poll up and simply ask them.
And, sometime a cigar is just a cigar. Maybe, just maybe, the results of this poll were "earned" by SWG, and not a collusion of ex-players.